Demon Snake and Shared Universe

Who would win in a fight to the death? Anaconda versus snakes, but they're on a plane. Oh, no. Keep in mind, these snakes have a plane. Anaconda's big, but it doesn't have a plane. So who would win? Is Samuel L. Jackson on the plane? Yes. That's the other thing. But he doesn't like these mother effing snakes. I kind of think that they would just team up, right? The Anaconda would team up with Samuel L. Jackson to take down the plane full of snakes because you're describing like the greatest movie ever.

I think the Anaconda would win. I mean, after seeing it, it just tears apart that boat, man. It could just tear apart an airplane. You're right. Assuming that was actually an Anaconda tearing apart that boat and not like just the wrath of God. It's true. The anaconda itself may be the wrath of God or the devil. Oh, well, that leads right into my theory. What? You have a theory? Hello, and welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real. I'm Leif Eric. I'm here with my brother, Torvald. And hey, today we're talking about, if you haven't guessed yet, the movie Anaconda. And surprise, we're also talking about a movie called Holes, which I'm sure many people remember fondly. what do these two movies have in common? Well, we're going to get into that. Anaconda is a 1997 film directed by Luis Llosa, written by Hans Bauer, Jack Epps Jr., and Jim Cash. Now, Holes is a 2003 film directed by Andrew Davis, who also directed The Fugitive and Chain Reaction.

So I just want to be clear. You're talking about Anaconda, the PG-13 horror movie. And Holes, the 2003 Disney, I would call it basically a masterpiece, I think it's amazing, based on a book, a novel by Lewis Sacker. Yes, greatest film adaptation ever made, probably. Right. So what's the theory that ties these two things together? Well, we're actually going to be talking about two different theories, but they're somewhat related. So my theory just for Anaconda is that the snake in Anaconda is not a normal snake. It is actually an evil demon spirit. And Saron knows how to summon it and Saron may also kind of worship it. I mean, that one I can easily buy. It's so clear. I think obviously that that is the case. Anyone who's seen this movie I think would come out of it thinking that's just the plot. To be clear, I love Anaconda. It's a great movie. It's a really fun movie. Very fun. My other theory that ties this into the Holes universe is that Saron from Anaconda.

Played by John Voight. Is actually not from South America, which should be obvious. And his real name is Marion Savillo. After he survives the movie Anaconda, he moved back to the U.S. and shortens his name from Saron to Sir, just going by Mr. Sir and acting as the law enforcement at Camp Green Lake in Holes. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So just to be clear, you think Saron, the main bad guy of Anaconda, who died at the end of Anaconda, came back to life to become the kind of secondary villain of Holes, a children's book that became a movie. That is exactly what I believe. Okay, well, this is quite interesting. It sounds like this theory has the most to do with Anaconda. You might be disappointed if you came here for the beloved movie Holes, because that's going to come a little later. No, we're going to talk about holes, but I think it would be relevant for our viewers to, you know, kind of go through Anaconda.

Like, what's it about? Why don't you talk us through it? Anaconda is a movie about a documentary film crew looking for the Shirishama people, or is that what they're called? They're looking for an indigenous lost tribe, and they're going to go and film them, and they meet a complete and utter psychopath who wants to sacrifice them to summon. an evil snake god okay no no this isn't the plot i just don't see any other way they meet this guy named uh paul serone who has a plot to use them to lure the anaconda out he wants to catch it and catch it and sell it for millions of dollars yeah and uh the the crew of the boat kind of gets you know killed off one by one until the end when they manage to break free and they kill the anaconda and they kill sarone and the three survivors get out of life so we actually had the very cool opportunity to do an email interview with hans bauer who wrote the original spec script

for anaconda he sold the original spec script to sony in 1994 this is what he says the script was originally going to be in the dead of a chicago winter a 20-something middle grade biology teacher Andy Easter, and six young colleagues hatch a plan to spend their summer in Brazil, hoping to reverse their meager fortunes by joining a modern-day gold rush on a tributary of the mighty Amazon. Disoriented and increasingly isolated, the treasure hunters stray into the remote domain of three colossal snakes, daughter, mother, and grandmother. One by one, under terrifying circumstances, the teachers fall victim to the devastating effects of gold fever and the relentless brutality of the primeval South American jungle. Andy Easter must discover her inner Amazon to avoid becoming prey for the mother of all snakes. You'll notice that a lot of things changed. If you're interested in reading more about the original story for Anaconda, there's

actually a novelization called Anaconda, the Writer's Cut, written by Hans Bauer. Now, we also had the opportunity to meet with amazing screenwriter Jack Epps Jr., who rewrote Anaconda with his writing partner Jim Cash into the film we know today. So throughout our conversation, you're going to hear parts of our interview that we did with Jack Epps Jr., amazing screenwriter who has written such great films as Top Gun, Turner and Hooch, Anaconda, Dick Tracy. We are joined today by Jack Epps Jr. Hi, it's nice to be here. I'm looking forward to talking to you about my movies and any questions you have. So many of the movies you wrote, I love them. I love Top Gun. I love Dick Tracy. I love Anaconda. Thank you, because, you know, part of the fun in terms of writing is writing for the audience and want to really have people have a good time, enjoy the movies. I mean, so thank you for saying that, because that's really the reason Jim and I, you know, wrote these stories.

Now, I don't know if you know too much about our podcast, but what we like to do is do a lot of research to get into the fan theories behind the movies. We kind of try to get into the alternate readings of the movies and then maybe get the writers or the directors' point of view on whether or not these things could be possible or not. So we have some questions about Anaconda. I don't know necessarily how it was received when it released, but I know that we were, of course, kids at the time. I think I was in elementary school, and all the kids loved it. And it was because it was PG-13, because all the horror movies were rated R. We couldn't see Jaws. We couldn't see any of those movies. anaconda was pg-13 and so we all saw it and we all loved it like it was just such a cool movie and for you know months even years after kids would always be talking about anaconda i just uh wanted to first start with a general question just ask about uh how you became involved in the

project of of anaconda the original script was written by hans bauer and i want to give hans credit for basically coming up with the idea coming up with the basic journey hans broke the ground he he created you know the concept in this idea and i've gotten to know hans so it came to us as a production rewrite which we were known as screenwriters as production you know okay you got a production rewrite and we're guys to go to you going to production secretized success production rewrite we literally that was they had michael fox they had to start on june we handed the script like in the end of may they shot it and then you know that was just done production rewrite on a Sister Act, we were uncredited, but we did the production, we were on that. Die Hard with Vengeance, production, rewrite, uncredited. The fun thing about doing that is they're shooting the movie. And don't forget, we had six unproduced screenplays, so that's not fun.

So Anaconda was, they were going to shoot the movie and they needed somebody to do another draft of it. So there's a humorous fan theory that the snake in this movie, as it's just huge, larger than life, it can break trees and boats. It's a monster. Yeah. There's a theory that it might actually be some sort of demon god with supernatural abilities. Yeah, like it's supernatural. And it's theorized that Saron, who is very religious in this movie, the character Saron, may have actually worshipped this snake himself, like the Shirishama people who he seems to know. This kind of gives another reason for his devotion to the snake and why he wants to find it and catch it. What is your reaction to that theory? I love that idea. I wish I'd thought of it. I'd love to take credit for it. it's better than what we have in there let's say sure awesome a lot of that stuff was added on set and so we get an actor like john voyd you know he comes and he brings things to it and so a lot of

that was added with the director on set and so the cross of uh the first guy in the first boat in the very beginning who gets um danny trejo which i love the fact that danny trio is one of oh yeah it's so cool i didn't notice in years later i looked at it yes wait that's game i know i almost didn't recognize him at first but you know he crawls up and there's this cross and so there the cross is is chronically featured there are a lot of people wearing crosses on that so it's it's it's very interesting he's crossing himself at times you know and so does he worship the anaconda i think he does on location when they're into it i think that is the subtext of the movie i think there's i think so too did he create the demon i don't think he created it but i think he's i think he he understands i think he thinks like it in in another lifetime he may have been one he's coming back to get it and take it with him now so they can be one together

let me just drop some facts on you here okay in case you didn't know anacondas are among the most ferocious and enormous creatures on earth growing in certain cases as long as 40 feet unique among snakes they are not satisfied after eating a victim they will regurgitate their prey in order to kill and eat again yeah to kill and eat it again this fact is so important that it is the opening shot of the movie it's this fact in plain text yeah just letting us know sometimes snakes after eating you will bring you back to life to kill you again the implication of they regurgitate their prey in order to kill and eat it again implies that they killed it once already they brought it back to life i don't know why is that in this movie why is i don't know first of all it's not true it doesn't even happen i mean it there's that one point in this movie you could say it happens but it doesn't seem like they do it to kill it doesn't happen and this is one of my

my my evidence is clearly they knew sarone doesn't die really at the end and they're like well how are we going to explain that well what if we have it regurgitated okay so you're saying that they thought the movie was going to be real successful and they'd bring him back as the villain in the next movie yeah maybe or bring him back like five four years later and i will say that anacondas will regurgitate their prey but it is not to just sadistically kill and eat it again if threatened they can't move very fast if they're full of like a giant like elk or antelope or something so they regurgitate it and then they can run away right but in this case you have to keep the context of the movie in mind and this specific anaconda is evil and does just want to kill again i mean this anaconda is like malevolent it's not like there aren't a lot of people for it to kill and eat or that it has any trouble doing that no and it's quite good at that utterly

insatiable like like a normal anaconda will eat one thing and be good for like a month or something like that this thing can eat like five people and want more which i think is good evidence for the fact that it's it's not a normal snake this is some sort of insatiable demon god who requires the lives of humans i mean as long as we're talking about this insatiable demon god snake um anaconda has like hands down like the best opening of any movie ever like what a scene like You've got Danny Trejo just like trembling, like his boots shaking in fear as some unseen force rips his entire boat apart and shakes the floor underneath him. They're just like shooting nails out of the ground. Yeah. I don't even know how that snake is doing that. And, you know, of course, the scene ends with young Danny Trejo doing what Danny Trejo does best and getting killed. Yeah. That's his role. He shoots himself in the head. Terry Flores, played by Jennifer Lopez, is going to direct a documentary about an indigenous tribe. She's joined by her boyfriend, who you probably don't know as her boyfriend at this point.

Dude, it's Marty McFly. Dr. Stephen Cale, played by Eric Stoltz, who was going to be Marty McFly at one point, yes. And to me, Dr. Cale, he looks like a younger version of William Atherton, who's like that guy from Ghostbusters and Real Genius and Die Hard, who plays like these total a-hole characters, which is why when he walks in, I think this guy is going to be a bad guy. Like, he's going to turn out to be a pompous loser who dies. He does not remind me of that actor, But something about him implies to me that he's going to be the bad guy. And he's like a huge douchebag. And despite the fact that he proves himself so many times to be the only good person on that ship, you keep thinking he's going to be a bad guy. They also have Danny Rich. I don't know what his job is on the crew, but he is played by Ice Cube. They have Warren Westridge, who is like their Sir Richard Attenborough narration guy.

He's played by Jonathan Hyde. And then they have Gary Dixon, played by Owen Wilson. He's the sound guy. The last person is Denise Kohlberg, played by Carrie Wuher. She is the production manager. And then there's Mateo, the boat captain. Of the entire crew, who among them do you think is the most sociopathic, psychopathic, crazy person? As we'll find out, everyone who sets foot upon this boat turns into an insane person. They're crazy, dude. All of them, except, I mean, I guess maybe... Dr. Kale and Terry are fairly normal-ish. Ice Cube and then the other guy, Warren Westridge, they just straight up threaten to murder each other. And Owen Wilson. Oh, Gary's the worst. Owen Wilson flies off the rails. He's crazier than Cerrone. Denise isn't that crazy, but she goes a little loopy there toward the end. Also, at this point in the movie at the beginning, you have no idea that Terry and Dr. Kale are dating.

You also have no idea that Gary and Denise are dating. It kind of seems like Gary is just being a total creep toward her and hitting on her at work. I certainly got that impression. And you kind of expect that because it's like a monster movie, like, oh, he's going to die, you know? And then later on, they're clearly dating, and for some reason it just was not clear. And around this time is when Westridge says that he could have Ice Cube killed, and it would probably cost $50 to hire someone to do it. This is where I realized that Saron isn't the biggest psychopath on this boat, like, by a long shot. Like, these two people who were totally amicable up to this point are suddenly like, I'm going to hire someone to kill you because you're playing music. And the other guy is like, I'm going to slit your throat because you're turning off my music. Neither of these are normal responses to what's going on.

I mean, to be fair, I don't know what Ice Cube's job is on the crew, but Westridge is like an actor. I mean, so you're saying this is like if you're working on the next Avengers movie and Robert Downey Jr. gets pissed off at you and he's like, I will hire somebody to murder you. No, not Robert Downey Jr. Because like he's rich and he could. This is like Sir Richard Attenborough. Yeah, Richard Attenborough. It's like this old narrator guy being like, I'm going to hire someone to kill you in a British accent. I mean, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Okay, so they set sail. They're trying to make their documentary. And pretty much immediately, they run into like a hitchhiking person in the middle of a river, which is pretty cool. So I'll give you a little backstory. So when we came out to the movie, it wasn't this story. It was the anaconda. There were all the things. we just we felt there was no villain in the piece one of the crew members sort of went crazy and it

just it just didn't add up uh and their their mission was they were going gold hunting and we we felt it just didn't have the drive it needed so i pitched to the studio i said one is let's do it a film production crew they're shooting a documentary because it gives them purpose it gives them something to do they're on the river the amazon and they do what we tell our kids never to do don't pick up a stranger on the amazon in the rain and they shot it that way too on the amazon in the rain it's great to see it like that it's great we wanted to create a dedicated antagonist a guy who has he needs the boat see there was no reason why is he the boat because he's a he's a he's an anaconda hunter so he's gonna have to steal this boat and trick this now i just want to take a second to appreciate john voight as an actor and as a person i think michael minor put it best when we were talking to him that uh john voight is a man

who smiles with his eyes and frowns with his mouth it was the best description of john voight i've ever heard he's john voight knocks it out of the park he is so creepy and so evil and that you know the way he just looks and snarls and all that stuff it's it's just is he gonna is he gonna is it cannibal too is he gonna eat all these people you don't know i would have been surprised if he was having a leg bone there and he's chewing on it i would have been in character and i kind of split the lunch can you you got to take it all come on share some of it yeah since we're going in that direction i did have some questions on just paul serone's backstory i don't know necessarily how fleshed out his backstory was, but we know from the movie he's a former priest turned snake hunter. Which, by the way, great backstory. That's amazing. He gets offended when Restridge implies he's a failed priest. He's like,

whoever said I failed? And he also says he's from Paraguay. Is he even telling the truth when he's talking to them? Was he from Paraguay? Was he actually a priest? If he thinks he's not failed, is he still practicing his religion? Is he still worshiping that snake? Well, I mean, again, I have to I have to say that I wish I had done that stuff. But a lot of those things were added later. You know, when you get actually like Jon Voight, you know, you bring more things to the role. And for us as production rewriters, we did our draft, we handed in, we get hired, we move off to the next show. So, you know, those people who came in and added a little little layers and stuff like that, especially with that that main main character. I say, yes, he was a priest. Yes, he did go through the priesthood. You know, there's evil in the world, and he realizes he is evil, so he's on the other side. I mean, that's just how I see it, you know.

But I think it's good work because it gives him more depth. He was more, in our story, a guy looking to make a buck, and this added another layer to it, which I liked. Yeah. It makes him so overtly sinister because it's not every day you're introduced to a bad guy who's clearly the bad guy. He's clearly the villain, and he introduces himself as a priest. I love it. I love it so much. He's also blessing people at times and doing all that crazy stuff. Yeah, he's doing all kinds of stuff. So Saron tells them that the Sirishama people worship the giant snakes as gods. And then he tells them of a legend they passed down, of a journey to a sacred lake. Now, I just want to say that according to my theory, Saron, after all this happens, takes a journey to a sacred lake. He goes to Camp Green Lake, which is a lake that is, like, blessed and cursed and known to, like, break curses and stuff like that.

I gotcha, I gotcha. You're saying Saron is some kind of, like, mystic who worships this demon snake and can, like, summon it with a small ritual. He does help them. He does save Owen Wilson's life. Gary and Denise go out to, like, they leave the boat and they're going to listen to jungle sounds. right um they're they're just gonna record recording b-roll stuff right and they decided this is a good chance to make out which it kind of is because they're finally away from all the psychopaths on the boat never a good time to make out in the middle of the amazon jungle at night oh yeah and in a horror movie but um they're gonna make out and then you see like something's watching them and you know it starts to get all tense and you know a jump scare is coming and then the jump scare comes and it's just a pig that jumps out but i do have to say about the boar When I was in, I think, high school, they had an actual National Geographic photographer come and talk to us.

And this guy had some, like, insane stories. He's the photographer who I think photographed that famous National Geographic picture of the macaws flying by. Wow. That's pretty cool. He had some just, like, really insane stories. But one had to do with boars. And he said, like, the most dangerous thing in the Amazon is not a jaguar, it's boars. And when I was out there, my guides were saying like, yeah, it doesn't, who cares about jaguars? Like if we hear boars coming, we are just going to get you up a tree and then we just wait until they're gone. And he said that he met a, one of his guides was like basically missing his buttocks because a stampede of boars had gone by through the jungle and he had climbed up a tree, but not high enough. And I guess they just ripped off his bum. But he survived. That's something. And then he said that one time it did happen and they got him up a tree and a stampede of boars was going by below him.

And he looked over in the neighboring tree and there was a jaguar just like holding on for dear life, looking back at him. And then he said the jaguar lost its grip and fell down into the stampede like Mufasa. And he's like, and I never saw that jaguar again. Like it was just gone. Did he snap some photos? Because that sounds like a great photo op. probably hanging on for dear life anyway so those those stories were pretty crazy but i do have a question about this boar attack for you so you think sarone is behind all this and if that's what you think then you must believe that sarone like basically planned to turn owen wilson uh gary on them from the start yeah do you think he planned this boar attack do you think he trained that boar to attack them so he could gain their trust yes that's that but this isn't even part of my theory that's just actually what the movie is saying right when when gary and denise

leave to go shoot wild sounds serone is sleeping in a hammock and he opens his eyes when they leave so he's planning something and then when they get attacked by a boar he's ready to shoot it he's not sleeping that one shot that kills the boar seems to be what impresses gary so much that he will follow Saron to the bitter end right like he is on Saron's side after that um well it's pretty hard to get that board be at that same place no I mean it was just it was just them going out you know create suspense uh Saron then that's another trust thing he saved their life they're owed owed to him you know and then he starts to you know Gary who who gets pulled in by this this this the power of this man you know who the power Gary's attracted to it like like a moth to a flame you know yeah don't go don't go too close and you've got to love owen wilson in the movie don't you i mean it's yeah man what i know he did a great job and everybody that was no you've got

like my favorite part of the movie ice cube danny trejo like uh it's got such a good cast such good cast ice cube crushes it boy ice cube really oh yeah i mean you know and they also got one of his he claims his music in there too which is great too yeah that's true dr kale goes swimming basically the boat got stuck and he's trying to dislodge the uh the propeller and then he gets a wasp down his throat which incapacitates him for the rest of the movie now they imply very overtly that sarone did it yeah he somehow put this wasp in that straight up admits it underwater yes no i I mean, he says that he did it. How did he do it? But also, why did he do it? What's going on? Okay, so, yeah, and again, this isn't even part of my theory. This is just actually the movie. So what he did was he somehow put this wasp inside of the face mask part on the scuba gear that goes in your mouth. He must have put it in, like, the tube.

Right, in the tube. This wasp is freaking huge. It's gigantic. It's big. Which also means that Saron must have dropped that rope down to tangle up their motor. Yeah, no, it was his plan. Now, to Saron's credit, he does save this guy's life, so he didn't want to kill him, I guess. Or at least he didn't want to kill him yet. His plan was to trach this guy so that he can breathe through his neck and then say, now we have to go back where we came from to get him to a hospital, but we have to take the route that I wanted to originally that Dr. Kale wouldn't take. And so that's his whole plan. And like, this is just a crazy scheme, man. It's just crazy the number of insane things that Saron does for his weird plot. It's like watching it, it was giving me flashbacks to our Brothers Grimm episode. Like, this is a theory we would come up with. Everything that Saron does to do his con, to get this documentary film crew into the right place,

To have them eaten by, or at least have them lure out a snake he can catch, right? Like, it's just such a crazy scheme. Oh, and also, his plan is to knock all but one of their fuel barrels off during the, like, the... Yeah, that's also his plan. That happens a little later. So, like, when they're going back, the next thing that they encounter when they're going on Saron's route is there is a wall in the middle of a river. Now, what do you think about this wall? Do you think Saron put it there? The implication by the movie is that the native tribe built that wall to keep the snake in, right? Like, they know the snake is so dangerous that it can't be, like, unleashed on the world. So they built this wall to keep it from getting out. And that could kind of go with Saron's thing. Like, he, as the priest of this snake, needs to release it, right? Like, it's been sealed away and he's breaking the seal.

Terry Flores seems to suspect that Cerrone is actually the one who put this wall there to like stop them. Which one of them was correct? Did Cerrone put the wall there or was it the tribe? It was a tribe trying to cut off, cut off their sacred lands and all that sort of stuff. The desecration of the tribe. Okay, cool. Let me tell you one of the fun things for us as writers is that when we were brought on board as a production rewrite, it was already started CGI in the movie. So they're already doing the computer graphics on the snake scenes. So we changed, we threw all the characters out, threw the motive out, but we had to write the script to hit each one of those marks in the original script because they already started doing the work. So we had to put all new characters in a new story, but weave it around the existing action sequences, which was a very fun challenge. But we had to hit the mark and figure out, okay, who's going to do it?

And we used some of the, you know, all these Hans Bauer's original ideas to, you know, weave into these. Yeah, that's actually really similar to a story you tell in your book about John Woo. He had storyboards for Mission Impossible 2, but didn't actually have like a script and just needed someone to write a story to go along with the storyboards. It comes to you in all different ways. And that's what you sort of learn to do is how do you write to what they need? Especially in production, we write because it's like, OK, the clock is ticking and everyone's budget. And usually they want something for actors to play. The very next thing that they find past that wall is Danny Trejo's boat. Here's where I want to get into the relationship between Danny Trejo and Sarone and Mateo. So on Danny Trejo's boat, they find a photo of Danny Trejo, Mateo, and Sarone. So these three were working together?

So the newspaper clipping has a picture of all of them holding a snake. The article below does say something about these people catching an anaconda and that it was very dangerous. My Portuguese isn't really that great, so I'm not quite sure what it's saying. But anyway, I think the implication by the movie itself is that they were all working together and Danny Trejo was out there alone trying to catch the snake or possibly if it's a demon god snake, sacrifice himself to summon it to that part of the river. And then Mateo was like the person who they needed to use to bring in more either sacrifices or if you're just doing the normal interpretation, bait to lure the snake out. It's a plan. That was it. Mateo was the boat captain. They needed a boat. And so he was going to take him, make sure, go right to the place Saron gets on. We'll trick the people and think that he's just got a boat out.

And then we'll pull them in. I think Mateo, the actor, is just looking mean and just a little angry at times. But I think he's also trying to cover up the fact that they're in cahoots. Was there a reason that Saron needed to get them to Danny Trejo's boat? He grabs that like chest from it, right? But I think it had a gun and like a med kit. It was like a bug out box. Well, it also has the snake skin in it that he rolls out. So do you think that he led them there just to get that? In which case it does actually add credence to your theory because maybe that snake skin is like a religious item and he's like, the other priest died. I have to recover this artifact. Yeah, I mean, that could be it. But at this point, Mateo gets eaten by the snake or at the very least it breaks his neck so mateo danny trejo and sarone i'm presuming all three of them were like priests of this malevolent snake yeah i think so why did mateo fall off of danny

trejo's boat like he just suddenly like whoa falls backwards into the water the only reason i can come up with for this is if they needed to bring the anaconda out and he as the priest sacrificed himself to do it like to get the anaconda there right then but that could be that perhaps he is that dedicated they have discovered a real religion but they are actually trying to utilize that religion and the sacrifices to get a million dollars yeah to actually catch god as explained in the following scene so he rolls out the snake skin yeah this is where j-lo says snakes don't eat people and this was in the trailer john voight or sarone says oh they don't then points to like a scar that you can barely see on his face i'm like what does that have to do with snakes did a snake bite your face like and also when i was watching the trailer and and i saw this scene on vhs it's not high enough definition you can't see the scar you just

pointing at his face you can't see the scar exactly i actually thought as a kid that he was just being like you think so i'm living proof that they do like not even pointing to just pointing at himself like i was like well i guess that proves it yeah i guess when sarone describes how snakes kill you i just want to say it's like a very affectionate description he's like they wrap you in a warm embrace and you get the privilege of hearing your bones break before the power causes your veins to explode which two things about that yeah i'm thinking like you know it's because he's like he's kind of become a follower of this religion sort of and it's like you know his god so he kind of worships it to him it's kind of like uh a spiritual experience so you're thinking that uh mateo just kind of finally gave in to the call of the void and decided to feel the snake's warm embrace that he's been longing for. He's like, I just want to hear my blood

vessels rupture. I want to hear my bones break. And that brings me to my next point. This is not how constrictors kill, right? Like how constrictors kill, I mean, not that they're not strong or very powerful, but as with most predators, they want to conserve energy and use the least amount of power possible to kill the prey and so what they do is they do wrap it with enough strength that their prey can't escape but then because everything has to breathe whenever it breathes out it will just constrict slightly using very little strength and then the creature can't breathe in more right and then eventually that creature will suffocate and then it will just eat them after they have suffocated and they can't run away anymore right they don't just like snap your neck and squeeze you so tight your blood vessels rupture unless it's a demon snake right okay i'm not sure why sarone is so sure that this anaconda is worth a million dollars or subsequently why gary is so

sure of that but gary really really wants to catch this anaconda right i just have to ask you why on earth does Owen Wilson, why on earth does Gary even want to catch a snake with this absolute psychopath? He seems to have the reasoning like, well, we're not going to find the tribe because we got to go back to this hospital to get Dr. Kale to safety. So we might as well film Saron catching an anaconda because that would be frigging cool. Just like when he shot that boar, man, that was cool right yeah okay so that boar incident like it put him on a huge pedestal in gary's mind like he thinks sarone is just the biggest badass he's like oh i just want to see him kill again he seems to be thinking like now i'm not going to get any money for this or something which maybe you might think if you were the director because like oh if we can't make it i won't get residuals right but he's the sound guy he gets below the line he gets paid no matter

what he's not he's he has no horse in this race he's he might as well just bring his friend back to the hospital instead of yeah i mean if your friend dies you might not get paid but like if the movie doesn't get made you're still gonna get paid man so long as your employer is alive do you think maybe gary and sarone talked like off camera like maybe when he saved them from the bore well no they they did talk off camera like denise is is gonna go to bed with gary she's like i'm tired and gary's like uh just hang on or you go alone denise i gotta go talk to i gotta go talk to sarone for a minute and then they talk he he deeply respects sarone he's like i just want some more of this man's time right i actually believe that he has been pulled into the cult at this point he is now a believer like oh okay so he was converted yeah and i think that that makes sense right like like i see that it's the only explanation for gary certainly makes his actions

his insanity is that he is now like a zealot he is committed 100 to this new religion that he discovered you know okay sarone kills a monkey he's going to use this as like a small sacrifice just to see if that works gary says let's film sarone catching a big snake terry says have you lost your mind good question gary says no i haven't lost my mind i'm completely lucid i think it's you guys who need to open up your eyes he's so crazy like i think this is pretty good evidence for he's been converted to the cult of the snake he's like you guys you know you guys don't see it talking like i see it you guys just gotta open your mind i'm completely lucid now like now that i've been converted i can see everything he speaks as if he's had a religious experience like he speaks as if he's had some sort of awakening so i can buy it completely right after that he says we don't know anything but i know who does this guy and then points at this prophet

of the snake yeah uh-huh and then this is when sarone kind of like he actually takes the crew hostage because ice cube isn't going to go along with it and he pulls out a gun and shoots at ice cube but he doesn't kill ice cube do you think the snake needs live bait because it didn't come for the dead monkey right well it did it eats the monkey and it gets hooked but i think that it's mad at them because this was an improper sacrifice it was just a dead monkey and it wants like a living live humans and this is when sarone realizes he needs to offer human sacrifices which he had been trying to avoid up to this point so he's hijacking this ship full of people and taking them to the anaconda was he planning to use them as like sacrifices to summon this snake so he could catch it or do whatever he wants to do i don't think he minded when they you know they sort of but um i mean his plan at that point was to take the boat now they're hostages you know and he was

let me get this thing and i think you know using the monkey as bait was was more of what he was looking for but then as he became more desperate you know baby bird falls in the water it just brings the Anaconda forward, you know. So, I mean, he'll use anything. He has no morals or ethics, that's for sure. As a priest, he is a moral. Totally. And then it eats Gary, the new zealot. You know, it got Mateo, and now Gary gets his baptism by warm embrace. And after Gary dies, Saron pays him respect, right? He throws flowers in the river, and he says, May the souls of the faithful depart through the mercies of God. Rest in peace. Amen. You know, like this, no matter what, this is a religious thing that happened, right? Like they're relating his death to something religious. I think that's, you know, another point for the snake god theory. Now, I think that Denise, because she was close with Gary, is starting to realize a little bit about the religious cult of the snake.

Is she getting converted? I don't think she's getting converted. I just think she senses what had happened to Gary. And she kind of senses that this snake is supernatural in nature because she says to Saron, it was you who brought that snake. You brought the devil.

She doesn't say you lured it here or you caught the snake, which is what he did. She says you brought it, almost like he summoned it, you know. OK. So then he's holding them hostage and Terry tries to seduce Saron. The one thing that you're going to have trouble overcoming, in my opinion, is the fact that Mr. Sir in Holes is canonically transgender. He used to be a woman. And so Rowan says to J-Lo at this point, it's been a long time since I had a woman. And what do you think? Did he mean to say since I was a woman? That is what I think. Okay. he's you know he's touching terry's body just remembering you know back in the day oh yeah he's like i used to have these he is transgender as we'll find out later in holes now that isn't necessarily 100 confirmed but like yeah it is he's using a fake accent he he purposefully uses bad grammar throughout this movie to go along with his fake accent and his you know fake name that

he created. Because as we know, his real name is Marion Savio. Since I had a woman, since I was a woman, that's part of that, you know, part of his persona, just using the wrong words, bad grammar, bad accent. So you think it's just an unfinished sentence? Yeah. It's been a long time since I had a woman's body. Yeah. He just, he didn't finish the sentence because, you know, maybe he doesn't want to reveal that, you know? It's his own private matter. He doesn't need to tell them if he doesn't want to. At this point, Ice Cube attacks him and then Westridge just takes him out. So then Ceron is tied up. And this is where we get the scene where J-Lo says, this was all one big setup. Mateo, you stranded your route to the hospital. And then Ceron says, how could you forget about the wasp? I love that he reveals it. Like she didn't even know. But he's also acting like a villain, like in regards to events that he had nothing to do with. Like when he's talking

to j-lo he absolutely didn't kill mateo but he's certainly acting like he did like i thought maybe there was like an alternate script where he did kill mateo and some remnants of it are there i don't know this is good i like this okay more money for me isn't it so you know i i think it's just money you know at this point he doesn't need mateo anymore mateo is just going to take another piece of the action okay okay i get it you'll go with grace go with god very good uh sarone impression what a movie man at this point denise walks up to sarone while he's tied up and she's the only one left on the boat she's holding a knife she says aren't you gonna pray and then sarone kills or at least renders unconscious Denise using only his legs. Right. He just cut off the oxygen, right? Like if you can block the blood flow to the brain for, you know, even just like a minute, then a person will fall unconscious

because your brain needs oxygen, right? As he has his legs around her neck and he's kind of slamming her up and down, if you listen to him, he's like, he's speaking in tongues. Like he says some sort of strange incantation, like some sort of weird prayer. And I listened to it several times and couldn't quite pick out what he was saying. But at the very end, it ends with Santos, Santos, Santos, which of course means holy, holy, holy. And I was wondering, was this in the script? Like, do you know what he was actually saying there? Or was this just something that like John Voight kind of threw in? I think it was one of those on the set things. I wish I had done that kill with him tied to the pole and jumping in the air. You know, that's great. I always catch it in the end of the movie. Oh, shit. You know, what happens is when you're making the movie, you're there, you're on set, you've got your stunt coordinators, you know, the director, how can it visualize this better?

How can we make this move? And, you know, so a lot of a lot of changes happen on set. They don't want to pay for the writer to be there. Frankly, I don't want to be on set because you're watching people do setups. And unless you're the director, the cinematographer, the actor, you're sort of sitting around a lot. It's fun to go and see things. But usually it's a little better to be working on another project. So there's things you go see the movie, you go, oh, okay, that's different. I like it or, oh, no. But usually I like it more because, once again, I'm a fan of the actors. I'm a big fan of actors. They get a bad rap. They bring so much to a movie. They're so creative. And what they impart in the roles, they make them come alive. And my experience with actors has always been positive in terms of just what they bring to it and how they want that character to come out of them. And I've been fortunate to work with a lot of great actors.

One of my favorite actors, Bruce Willis, Die Hard with Vengeance. Yeah, big Bruce Willis fan and a great guy, really easy to get along with. Just it was fun to work with him on Die Hard with a Vengeance. Just, you know, he knows what he wanted to do. We were doing something else with the character. And he said, no, it's not the, it's this character. And he was right. You know what I mean? He knew the character. He knows John McClane. He does. He knows it. And it's like, okay, when he speaks, you know, you're going to listen. Well, she's going to get his way anyway, so. Of course, yeah. He's Bruce Willis. Man, you've worked with some really cool people. Bruce Willis, Jennifer Lopez, John Voight, Tom Cruise. Yeah, I'll tell you who's a wonderful guy is Tom Hanks on Turner and Hooch. Oh, yeah. Yeah, what was great on Turner and Hooch, and this never happens, is that we were brought on to the production rewrite.

Tom didn't have anything to play, and so we were there to create his character. And Tom came into the meetings with the director, who was the director at that time. And the three of us would work on the script. and tom was great he drawed lines i'll write that down he's a funny guy and he was just really really great to work with so tom is who you think he is wow that's awesome well at that point where he says santos santos santos i think he's consecrating denise to be a true sacrifice like the monkey didn't work that was a bad sacrifice and it made the the the anaconda mad he consecrates denise And then he dumps her in the water and the anaconda shows up immediately. He summons it. So you're saying the snake is only satisfied if it has either a willing believer sacrifice or an unwilling but consecrated sacrifice. Yes, absolutely. Because it didn't mind Mateo and Gary. And the methods of consecration do vary a little bit, but I think right here it's pretty apparent that he's sanctifying her.

So it eats Denise, it shows up, they fight it for a while. It kills Westridge. Not only does it kill him, it straight up breaks a giant tree while killing him. Like it just snaps that tree in half. That's insane. Then Kale shows up like a total badass and tranquilizes Saron and Saron falls in the river. Yeah. But he's like fine. Like he just shows up again later. Yeah, he's okay. He's unconscious in a river, but whatever. That doesn't affect him. I mean, it certainly affected Denise. Right. Well, I think that the snake doesn't eat him because he just appeased it with a proper sacrifice with Denise. Yeah. Maybe because of that sacrifice, like it gives him a boon, a blessing, and that's why he survives because of the snake. The snake saves him. Okay. So you think the snake gave him a ride, like it picked him up and took him to safety, like he rode that snake to paradise. Possibly. No, the snake's dead at this point.

When J-Lo shoots his snake in the face, he turns on her and shouts, You killed my warrior snake! Why does he call it a warrior snake? And does it have anything to do with how he believes he's going to get a million dollars for it? Or is it something about the snake being a reincarnated warrior spirit or something? I'm going with the latter. I think it's closer to the connection he has with the snakes. He feels at one with them. And he really identifies with their killer instinct and how well they kill. Because when he does that whole speech about, you know, they hug you closer than your lover. You know, so he's actually respecting the snake at that point and respecting their power. And I think he's somewhat envious of it. Wow. I think Voight brings it there. You know what I mean? He hands it up, but he pulls it off. No, that's great. That's how I always saw it. i'm so glad to hear that that's that you agree with it at least one thing that's very exciting

as a screenwriter is to see actors play the part yeah you know we visualize in our mind but then you see tom cruise take a role and turn into maverick you see yeah john voight suddenly demonize this character and take it to this really evil place but also have fun with it tongue-in-cheek at the same time he's you know you can laugh at it you know i mean i sometimes when i see the movie i feel bad for the snake at the end i go oh you know he's just trying to feed his kids you know we were wondering is there one or two anacondas in this movie because yeah i've always wondered this it seems like terry kills the anaconda and then it comes back and i think the anaconda that comes back is maybe a slightly different color like it has red spots instead of yellow were there two anacondas or was it just one that was you know like unkillable and kept coming back this was the land of the anacondas there are many anacondas oh okay watch where you walk because

they're under they're watching you all the time so no there was different anacondas so as i went to a new place there was that and that was that anaconda's home especially at the uh the factory the defunct factory uh there's the babies there and that's the mother is hiding the babies that's the nest so they end up in an anaconda nest i said that's a mother protecting her young i gotta ask about this place so they get to an abandoned ruined deserted like settlement there's just broken buildings and guns weapons scattered everywhere i think terry flores even says i don't even want to know what happened here when she gets there did serone do this did he show up here and just storm this place kill everybody like send them running for their lives with leaving their weapons behind possibly he showed up there and summoned his warrior snake and then that was all because of the snake i don't know that's the impression i got watching it was that

he came here with his snake and just just massacred them because uh i mean he certainly seems to be acting like this is his place now and it's full of like evidence of resistance yeah so who did it who attacked this place well my take on it is that they were picked off one by one by the anacondas okay in a brutal massacre so it's like alien yeah exactly there's a lot of aliens in this movie a lot of jaws in this movie in terms of view and things like that i mean you go to jaws definitely you know steven set that up it was part of the original script and same thing with the tower and again they were doing the cgi we just had to okay get these characters tuned there you know and again you know ice cube just crushes it man i i think he's been given more leading parts with action movies i don't know why he's not a big marvel star i actually had a question about ice cube he plays a character who you think is going to die right

Like, it's not necessarily the main character, but he always survives. We emailed Hans Bauer, the original writer, and he said that Ice Cube's character originally died. And we were wondering, was this something that had to be rewritten? Like, does Ice Cube, is he always like, I have to survive, right? Because I'm Ice Cube kind of thing. You know, it's a good question. I can't really recall. It's better if he survives. Of course, yes. I feel better with both of them surviving than losing him at long. It's like, that's one too many. and i think right you know that's an emotional thing understanding your audience and you know you want you want the survivor and those are the two that you want to survive yeah unless he's too tough he's too tough he's as tough as he is yeah it's come on bring it on that's all you got you know he's that sort of guy he acts as the anaconda in the head but i do like you know i do like a

westeridge with the golf club coming through the window and man what a cast seriously well we didn't know the cast and that was a surprise i mean literally you know we you know we did this thing we moved on and um then we go to the premiere and you see all these people in the movie and it's like and j-lo was an unknown at that point i mean relatively uh she was great you know so it was it was it was amazing casting it was like amazing casting casting director oh yeah and they really don't get the credit for the work they do and finding those actors at the right time in their careers and putting them in those roles and they really elevate the movie they fight the snake for a while and then it ends up eating sarone i just want to say that pov shot of the snakes like from the point of view of the snake's gullet while it swallowed sarone was like an absolute masterpiece yeah no that shot was it was it was transcendent actually oh my gosh watching it it was almost like

a religious experience and I was like wow I want to be baptized in the gullet of a snake well and he was baptized because he came back yeah no because he gave it proper sacrifices unlike everyone else right he two people doused in monkey blood plus Denise um and the snake does wrap him up and give him that warm embrace that he and his followers all want um uh-huh and you hear his bones crack just like he described a little bit but he's also clearly not dead from this like something pops out in his like his jaw he did die but it brings him back to life this is stated clearly in the opening of the movie like that the snake did exactly what it said in the opening text it kills him eats him vomits him out and brings him back to life just like it said it would so it's in keeping with the actual movie says that it will kill him it does it to kill him again, which it does not do. Well, maybe it was planning to kill him again,

but he's all right. Or I mean, I don't know. You're the one who's going to tell me how he got away. I'll just focus on the fact that it vomits him out right in front of Terry and he winks at her. He's clearly still alive. Like he smiles and winks. This isn't some like twitch. He's alive and he's loving life. No, yeah, he was just baptized by his God. This is what he wanted. he collapses on the floor and he's he's done you know he's gonna get up he'll he'll start a new life right you know he's been baptized the old life is gone he's gonna start a new life yep oh my god you know again i wish i'd written the script and he get regurgitates and he blinks his eye you know i mean to me it's just john boy having fun it's taking it and he's just you know and i think it just blew the roof off and in editing they went oh my god we got to put that And I remember sitting in the theater and seeing it for the first time.

The whole place just screaming, me too. Like, oh my God. It's so, it's so out of there, but it's totally, it just caps the character. I would give credit to Jon Voight on that. I just think he's just playing with that role, having fun. What's the weirdest thing you could do at that moment? But I do think it is, you know, I'll see you in another lifetime. That sort of thing. I'm not done with you. Well, speaking of I'll see you in another lifetime, There's one last really silly fan theory about Anaconda. This one's real wacky. And it has to do with the amazing Disney film Holes based on the novel by Louis Sacker. Because Don Voight's in that movie and he plays a character who is really into hunting like reptiles and snakes. And his name in that movie is Mr. Sir, which sounds a lot like Sirone. And we had a theory that maybe this character, Paul Sirone, survived, moved back to the States, changed his name to Mr. Sir.

And started, you know, hunting down reptiles at this Camp Green Lake in the movie Holes. Do you think there's any chance you could have survived? You realize you're going to have to leave the country now. The CIA will be hunting you down because you revealed the secret. I think it's great. I love this stuff. It's fun. It's fun. You know what I mean? Yeah. Of course. Well, thank you so much for talking to us and, you know, entertaining our silly theories and telling us the backstory of the movies you've written. So we have some time now that we can talk about your book, which I read, and I think it's great. The book is Screenwriting is Rewriting by Jack Epps Jr. I graduated from the American Film Institute. I have a master's in screenwriting. So at first it kind of seemed like stuff I'd read before. But then as I got into it, like you have some very interesting tactics and stuff for rewriting

that I really loved that I hadn't necessarily heard before. And I like how the book is structured in a very unique way with just these passes. And I think that's very important to do a story in passes. When I write, and of course, I'm also an illustrator. So when I draw, like, you can't draw an amazing picture without drawing a bad picture first, and then sketching over it again and again. and like trying to write an amazing screenplay is just daunting and overwhelming the idea to do it in passes is the only thing that makes it doable saying i'll write it a bad one first then a slightly better one then another then another then another um so i really liked that well it came out of the of my professional experience working with jim cash um and i i attribute our careers together and the movie's getting made of our our ability and willingness to rewrite and dig in that you can't you know as you said you you write your first draft because i call it discovery draft

you're just trying to figure out what the story is and who the characters are and what's going on and from a creative point of view you've got to let yourself play and explore and i think what we do as creative people is we put a lot of pressure and be perfect get it out of the box everything's gonna be perfect and i think that what i want to do is say no just get down what it is and what you're feeling and then step back and then take a look at what you have and try to and also get notes you've got to find people to talk to who are going to give you some perspective because when we're when we're inside our scripts we have no perspective you know our perspective is it sucks so we need to find out what works super important and then we need to find out okay what doesn't work so you know as a as a professional writer going to studio i get lots of what doesn't work you know yeah this doesn't work this doesn't work they don't tend to tell you what works

and you start to learn that oh what they don't mention works so i always say if you're gonna get notes from somebody get notes on what works first because they'll everybody will give you criticism going to 7-eleven he'll tell you about why your screenplay sucks but if you can find out why it works then you protect those things and that's your building blocks yeah so i think part of it is if jim and i did works in passes that's just how we did it we'd work on the bigger things we'd work on character character comes first because whose movie is it what's it about get your character you know the character's story what's your character arc because you have to then design your plot uh and your scenes and your acts to to tell that character's story i mean it's maverick story i i know and if i don't know maverick story is how can i write a plot i'm just got a bunch of stuff happening and i'm going to shoehorn the character but we knew what maverick's

arc was now we have to design the story so that it pressures his arc and forces him to act um and then you know scene construction and theme and all these elements by doing series of passes you layer your script and over time it will it will be closer to your intention and that's what I'm trying to say is, you have to know your intention. What do you want to do with this? Because notes make you crazy. So you have to know your intention and stay to that intention. It gets lost. It's easy to get a bunch of notes. And next thing you're off here down an alleyway, you don't know where you are. And then you can't get back. I mean, you talk a lot about notes. And that was one very unique and interesting thing I found about this book was that in each chapter, you include examples of common notes that you might get based on whatever the topic of the chapter is whether it's relationships or or conflict or whatever um and i thought that was

really cool like i i had never seen that before well what i want to do is sort of try to also you know work young writers to say look these notes apply to different areas so you just there's a tendency to throw the baby out of the bathwater redo the whole thing but the note is saying something specific so if you're getting this note look in this area because that might be the place to solve the note um and that's again from a lot of work you know as a professional writer you don't want to change things because you're on the clock they need it quickly so i want to make sure if i'm going to change stuff i'm going to change the right things so it's going to address the notes but not throw the baby out and now they you know hand it they go what the hell is this we'd like you know so it's a guide to help you look to the areas that you should be working on, as opposed to just trying to figure it out. And that's the hardest thing, figure out

the note behind the note, because notes are not clear. People don't really know how to speak to writers. They think they do. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Thanks for talking to us about all your movies. It's been definitely a blast. And thanks for writing all your movies. They're all really, really fun to watch. Thank you so much for giving us so much of your time and thanks for going along with all of our kooky theories and crazy questions i hope we didn't dig too deep into your movies no it's fun i enjoyed it i really enjoyed it i thought i thought it was fun to hear the fan theories i think they're fun um it's just digging deeper and haven't taken to a level you know i mean it's sort of like you know it's like fan fiction where people write stories after work i think i think it's great it just keeps it alive and and i'm glad you enjoyed them the point is we wrote them it's for people to enjoy that's the

point we're so grateful to jack epps jr for coming on the show we're going to say goodbye to him now and we're going to move on to talking about holes i think holes is an amazing movie i love holes i think it's also an amazing book apparently holes when they were going to adapt it into a film the first screenplay was written by richard kelly uh-huh who wrote and directed donnie darko oh no it greatly departed from the source material and it was going to be a very dark violent adaptation that was set in a post-apocalyptic world. What? A post-apocalyptic world? And as much as I believe Lewis Sacker was obviously the best choice and created a modern masterpiece with holes, I would have liked to see Richard Kelly. Yeah, I kind of want to see the Donnie Darko version. That's crazy. I'm glad they didn't do that because that would be like the thing Hollywood always does, right? Where they like buy an IP and then use the name

and then just it's a completely different story. This is the one time when they did it right. And apparently they were going to do it wrong to begin with. And then they were just like, let's just get the original author because he knows the story. He knows what's important. He knows what to keep in and what to cut out. And hey, guess what? He did. You actually mentioned this to me. I'm not sure if I knew this before, but Lewis Sacker actually wrote the screenplay. Right. Not just the novel, but he wrote the screenplay for Holes, which is incredible. That's amazing. Isn't it natural to assume a well-established and highly regarded novelist can write a screenplay? Yes. Well, I think it's really old-fashioned Hollywood thinking, as is most Hollywood thinking, because back in the day, which is, of course, where most of the older executives making decisions were born, screenwriting was a very different art than novel writing.

But in the modern day, any writer is a writer. If you want to get a job, you have to diversify. Like every writer has written a screenplay and a novel and a comic book and just everything, right? Like writers are writers now. And people, for some reason, Hollywood doesn't quite get that. They kind of think that, oh, if you bring in the author, he's going to be kind of a diva, right? He's not going to want to change things. Of course he doesn't want to change things. It's his book and he shouldn't change things. If you're making it to a movie, you're doing it for a reason, right? Yeah, the reason is just to cash in on the IP. They're not doing it for any other reason than money. And unfortunately, they haven't figured out that you get more money when you make a good movie. I don't know. So I'm going to give a quick recap of holes, if you don't mind. I read it like as a kid. It's a great book.

It's a great movie. I love it. Basically, the plot of this movie is that a boy, Stanley Yelnats, is accidentally charged with theft of some famous shoes. He's sent to Camp Greenlake, which is kind of like a place for troubled boys to get reformed. All they do there every day is force every single kid to dig a giant five foot by five foot hole in the hot blistering sun in a dry parched desert. It's not designed to help these kids. It's in fact designed to find a treasure hidden in that desert. With a lot of flashbacks and a lot of story, we find out about this treasure. Stanley and his best friend Zero find the treasure. And in the end, Stanley's acquitted. He gets to go home. They keep the treasure and they live happily ever after. Basically, what you're saying is that holes exist in a universe where there is magic and curses and where people have like really weird, crazy schemes, like forcing kids to dig holes

until they find treasure. Oh, definitely. I think kind of the cool thing about this movie and about the book and also the weird thing about it is that it has a bunch of stories in it. We've got the story of Madam Zeroni and his great-great Dirty Rotten Pigsteel and great-grandfather. We've got the story of Kissing Kate Barlow. And then we have the grandpa's story of trying to survive in the desert and going to God's thumb. We have the shoe robbery. Like, that's a flashback. The trial. That's a flashback. The warden. I'm tired of this, grandpa. That's a flashback. Like, this movie is nonstop flashbacks. All from different, like, sometimes the same event from different perspectives, right? But somehow it works. Like, I've never seen a movie that can do this and work. It manages to weave together, like, five or six different stories seamlessly. And I think that just goes to show how well Lewis Sacker knew his story.

The dude's a master. He's so good at writing. Back to my theory, though. The first thing we see in this movie is a snake. I think that's telling us something right there. I mean. Yeah, totally. When Stanley gets to Camp Greenlake, the first shot we see of Mr. Sir is of his hand and arm reaching into a bowl of sunflower seeds. He has a visible snake tattoo on his forearm. He sure does. And I think that's because, like, he was part of the cult of the snake. You know, he didn't have necessarily that tattoo back when he, you know, he was in Anaconda, but he got it later to remind himself. He branded himself after his baptism. Yeah. Lerone died in Anaconda. You might say that he came back, right? Like he kind of got regurgitated and was alive when he got regurgitated. But either way, he wasn't in good condition, right? Like he broke some bones. And how did he come back good as new as Mr. Sir?

Yeah, well, I think that he went back to the States and he got a lot of good plastic surgery. He doesn't have that scar on the side of his face anymore. He probably was in the hospital for a long time. It probably emotionally scarred him. I think one of the biggest evidences of this theory is the fact that he barely changed his pseudonym. Cerrone, what, Paul Cerrone? He just shortened it to Mr. Cer. Cer, Cerrone, right? He just shortened it slightly, you know? He wasn't even very creative there. I can totally get down with that. Then I want to ask you, Mr. Cer eats sunflower seeds constantly because he gave up smoking. Did he smoke an anaconda? I don't remember him smoking even once. Unfortunately not. I really wish he had. I wish he had too. I was looking through it like, oh, perfect. No, no. But you know what? He probably started smoking. It's been years. Right. It's been several years.

He probably started smoking after that extremely stressful experience. And we know that he does start smoking after extremely stressful experiences. Because at the end of this movie, if you look in the background, Mr. Sir, while they're waiting for the police to pick him up, he takes out a cigarette and lights it up. Right. That's because he was a smoker before. Dude, yeah. Totally confirmed. Well, no, but what we're saying is that he just laid out evidence from movies. What we're saying is that like he's an addict, right? Like he's addicted to smoking and they often fluctuate from one end to the other. During Anaconda, he was off. He was off cigarettes. He went back on after a traumatic experience. One of the first things they establish about him is that he is not worried about rattlesnakes. He is worried about yellow spotted lizards. Seems like with his history in Anaconda, he might be more worried about snakes than other.

Yeah, well, let's talk about that scene. So he comes out. He's kind of showing Stanley around the yard. He says about rattlesnakes, you don't need to worry about them. You don't bother them. They won't bother you usually. And then he says, being bit by a rattler ain't the worst thing that can happen to you. You won't die usually. Not like an anaconda. Right. Well, and I think what he's saying here is like, usually you worship a snake, it leaves you alone. But that snake did attack him and it was very traumatic, right? And also he did get bit from it and he didn't die from it, right? This is why he's not necessarily worried about snakes. He's kind of given up his life of snake hunting right now, right? But he still has the urge to hunt. And man, is this guy crazy about hunting things, right? But back when we first see him, where we see his hand going into sunflower seeds, he actually has more than one tattoo on his forefinger and his middle finger.

He has two giant rings, but on his ring finger and his pinky finger, he has the letters V and E tattooed on his ring finger and his pinky finger. Well, I think that he has the letters L and O tattooed on his first and second finger, but we can't see those letters because he's wearing rings over them. Basically what I'm saying is I think he has the word love tattooed on one hand. And the reason I think that is because there is a very famous reference that filmmakers just love and it actually gets used a lot um a movie called night of the hunter there is a character played by robert mitchum who in that film has the letters love and hate tattooed on his fingers of both of his hands yeah and he is also a reverend and a religious fanatic who is a serial killer okay this is a very well-known reference because spike lee famous director, also used this reference in his film Do the Right Thing, where he gave one character

these name rings that spell out the words love and hate on his fingers. And I think that this is the filmmakers knowing, hey, we know that this is a cool reference. We're going to leave in this tiny little reference that, hey, this guy has love and hate tattooed on his fingers because he is also a religious fanatic like Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter, who is a serial killer. Could you sum that one up for me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a famous movie reference where someone has the word love and hate tattooed on his fingers. And he is a religious fanatic serial killer. In this movie, John Boyd, Mr. Sir, has at least the word love tattooed on one hand. And that is clearly a reference to the fact that he is a religious fanatic serial killer. Okay. All right. I guess it's true. No, I mean, I like the attention to detail. I didn't notice the finger tattoos. As we were talking about when he says you don't have to worry about rattlesnakes.

So like Stanley is looking at his gun and he says, oh, don't worry. This gun is for lizards only, meaning he doesn't shoot snakes. Just like in Anaconda, he wouldn't shoot a snake. He wouldn't even let other people shoot a snake. I get that. So you're supposed to think he's saying, I won't shoot you, Stanley. Really, he's saying, I wouldn't shoot a snake. Are you crazy? I love snakes. Because right after that is when he talks about rattlesnakes. He's like, you don't bother them, they won't bother you. That's true. You're right. My favorite character was always Zigzag. Like, I think he is so cool. Yeah, he's crazy. And the actor is just so good at just being a total psycho. Like, the very first thing is like, no, he killed the man before taking his shoes. Didn't you? He just left that part out. And then later on when they see Mr. Sir shooting one of the lizards, he goes up to Caveman and asks, what color was its blood?

Like, I just love everything. Every line Zigzag says, like, I feel like it's just amazing. And the actor just does it so well. Like, I think if you gave it to another actor, like, it might sound like a normal line. But with this guy saying it, he just sounds like such a crazy guy. Well, and I can definitely confirm for you that all of the kids at the camp are exactly the same as they were in the book. Like, they give the exact same vibe in the book. And when I watched the movie, I was like, it's like the book came to life. Like, they couldn't have cast them better. Everyone looks exactly how I imagined them, except for maybe Stanley could be a bit bigger. But, I mean, I can't complain because Shia LaBeouf was the perfect actor to play him. Right, right. I think it's that night when, after they come back, it's really late. Stanley is cleaning himself up and everyone else is, like, already in bed.

And a yellow lizard charges him. Like, this thing's going for blood. Like, it wants to kill Stanley. Mr. Sir pops out and saves Stanley's life, much in the same way that he saved Gary from that boar. Yeah, man. Do you think Mr. Sir put that yellow-spotted lizard there to gain Stanley's trust? Maybe suck him into some cult? Maybe. Could be. I think at this point in his life, Mr. Sir is kind of more or less done with that cult. But, you know, I wouldn't put it past him to use similar techniques to keep people in line and doing what he wants, you know. You scare them, and then you show them that you're your boss and you can kill the bad things. After Caveman finds something and the warden actually, like he finds a little lipstick tube and the warden actually comes out. She says, fill their water. And Pandansky is like, I already did. And then she like gets, she gets like up in his face. I love that scene.

It's so good. Sigourney Weaver is obviously amazing. And so is everyone else in the movie. But she gets right up in his face. She's like, excuse me, did I ask you when you last filled them? And I just want to point this out that, like, the warden is a total badass, but also she knows that she's working with two people, Pandansky and Mr. Sir, who she knows are former criminals. And she knows she cannot let them feel like they have power over anything. Absolutely, yes. So she does, every chance she gets, she throws it in their face and keeps them in line. Of course, that's true, regardless of how you interpret it. No, that's completely true. But I'm saying, like, that's what she's doing. Saron is an absolute psychopath and the warden knows his history and she knows she's got to keep him in line and keep him afraid of her. And same with Pandansky. Okay. Around this point, it's revealed she knows all of their nicknames and refers to them by their nicknames, which is pretty impressive.

Like, because she's never interacted with them. It's just great details. And how the kids are like, she has cameras everywhere in the showers. Which she must. And Christine wanted me to point out that I always thought it was weird that Caveman is showering with shorts on him. And Christine was like, it's because this is right after. Yeah, he knows the warden watches them in the shower. No, exactly. And I wanted to point out that I actually do think she has cameras in the showers. Because he looks up and examines the spigot, like the nozzle where the water comes out. And there's a bunch of wires up above it with a big box, right? Like there's no reason for wires to be up there where the water comes out. I mean, I guess you might say maybe that's like the shutoff mechanism because it does shut off after a certain amount of time. It wouldn't be wired to the nozzle. Yeah. And, you know, it does seem kind of crazy that she would do this in a place that seems to be so low tech.

I think that this is actually a little evidence for my theory because if you were employing someone like Mr. Cerrone, wouldn't you want to keep an eye on him all the time? Do you think the warden knows his history as Mr. Saron? I absolutely do think the warden knows his history. All right. We're not going to talk much about the amazing love story Sam and Kate that gets flashed back to. Christine really loves it. It's her favorite love story in any movie. She thinks it's the most romantic thing ever. It's a good love story. I guess in the book she says, Sam, my heart is breaking. And he says, I can fix that. She never liked it that in the movie she actually doesn't say anything. She's just crying and he walks up to her and says, I can fix that. Yeah. I think everyone's favorite line in the movie and the book was when Mr. Sir, they're all hoping that the cloud will come closer and he's refilling their water bottles.

And then he like sits them all down. He's like, all right, all right, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a magical place where it never rained. The end. Yeah. And then in the background, you can hear someone muttering, I never get anything he says. This is a really good, good for my theory, too, because, hey, let's take a look at Mr. Sir, Cerrone. Cerrone had a very traumatic event in a rainforest where it always rains. Yeah, you got to get out of rain. So he decided to reinvent his life. In a magical place. He went to a magical place where it never rains. Where it never rains. The end. Wow, I love it. I can totally buy it. You're not reaching at all. so then he gets stanley in trouble he thinks stanley stole the sunflower seeds he drives stanley back to the warden's house and stupidly is like guess what stanley found in his hole yeah he's getting her hopes up she uh paints her nails with rattlesnake nail polish and scratches

him in the face and i assume that this will have something to do with your theory because from then on he's got giant rattlesnake inflicted scratches on his face so yeah i think that he kind of is powerless at this point he used to be mr sir you know schemer cool guy now he's been completely humbled totally powerless he just wants to show off to the warden wants her approval and when he goes in there he's just talking to her he says i don't miss much as you well know punishment reward every time they see me coming a little shiver goes up their spine and then he calls them a snakey little bunch for a guy who used to hunt snakes hmm ah of course they think they're one step ahead of me but i'm miles ahead of them well this this clearly has to do with a guy who's scheming who who thinks he's miles ahead of everyone else when his schemes are actually kind of you know not that smart after she scratches him he's like all i give you is

respect and affection why'd you do that i think he's having flashbacks here to the time that he He was attacked by his god, you know? Whoa. Like, he kind of worships the warden. Like, she's his replacement warrior snake. Yes, he's his new snake. And I think the warden knows his history. She's doing this specifically to hurt and punish him in the worst way possible. She knows he was traumatized by snakes. And now she is hurting him with snake venom. This is the worst thing that could happen to Mr. Sir. And it's the most effective way of her communicating to him, I am the one in charge. And don't bring some kid here getting my hopes up telling me he found something when you're just mad about your stupid sunflower seeds. Wow. Mr. Sir, he had to have a lot of facial reconstructive surgery after what happened to him inside of that snake. So he's very sensitive about his face. And then he's got this big scar on his face and the kids are like, you know, like noticing it.

And he pushes them and he's getting all mad, saying, something wrong with my face. I think I'm kind of purdy, don't you? And I think that this is, you know, further evidence that, like, he cares a lot about his face because he got rid of all his scars once. And now he's scarred again by a snake. Yes, he's back. You should hear it back to him. No, I consider my mind blown.

It's perfect. I love it.

So I think at the end of this movie is where maybe some of your strongest evidence will come from. This is when the police show up and Mr. Sir is like overtly hiding from them, like very obviously hiding from them. They arrest him. They say his name is Marion Sevillo and it's been a long time since El Paso, Marion. They say he's in violation of parole for carrying a weapon and that he's under arrest. And then one of the kids says, I didn't know Marion was a man's name. And he says, it isn't. Right. Which is a little weird because Marion totally is a man's name. Yeah, I know. Like famous cowboy actor, John Wayne, that wasn't his real name. His real name was Marion. Marion. By saying it ain't, obviously that's what everyone takes to be the confirmation that, you know, Mr. Sir was actually, you know, transgender, actually a woman at one point and as overcompensating by renaming himself Mr. Sir.

And I think this cop knows him from like a long time back, like before he even got to the Amazon. And he worked his way down there, I think. Like he changed his name. He's probably already a criminal. Changed his name to something Hispanic after going to El Paso because he's like, I know the language now. I can pretend, you know, if I pretend that I'm from one of these countries like Paraguay or something, you know, as he's working his way down south, then no one will ever find me kind of thing. But then, you know, after that traumatic experience with the snake, he had to come back to the States. How long do you think his parole period was? It's a really long dude. Okay. How long does parole last? In most cases, the parole, the length of parole depends upon the crime that was committed and the behavior of the criminal. Typically, parole will not last longer than five years. However, parole can last for the rest of a prisoner's life.

And he's really bad. Saron is really bad. He's pretty crazy. Well, I think that it's an interesting theory. I think it's most interesting because it involves a couple of movies that I really like. I love Anaconda and I love Holes. And I first read and saw them at around the same point in my life. So it kind of tripped down memory lane for me. Now, I think the theory that the Anaconda is some sort of demonic entity is like all but proven. Like that's like the movie, right? Like it might as well have been like definitely there's, there's, there's no way around the fact that that anaconda is not your average anaconda. Something, something, uh, supernatural is happening there. So I can buy that one. I think your theory that, um, Mr. Sir is actually Saron from anaconda. I think it's interesting and I think it has enough evidence to make you stop and think i don't know if it's confirmed um i don't i i think there's still some spots where

you can dig a little deeper and say maybe it wasn't him or probably for sure it's definitely fun to watch both movies and think that they're the same characters because they certainly could be i mean his accent was obviously fake like this guy likes doing fake accent he switched from one fake accent to another like you know cowboy fake accent it's a it's a fun theory and i like it i give it 25 000 worth of at&t stock bought in 1905 whoa music for this episode was provided by christine always remember subscribe and leave reviews would be awesome for our podcast leave a review if you liked it because it will help other people to find the podcast you can also follow us on twitter at popcorn isn't real and we're gonna let jack epps jr play us out the popcorn isn't real but it sort of is real so i don't know i'm sort of confused about that but i think it's a good title all right everybody take care of yourself be well

and if you're a writer just stay with it believe in yourself it's going to work out