Last Looks: xXx & The Legend of Billie Jean

How Did This Get Made?

In this special supersized episode of How Did This Get Made? Last Looks, Paul Scheer addresses fan corrections and omissions regarding the films 'xXx' and 'The

Key takeaways

• Xander Cage's catchphrase 'Welcome to the Xander Zone' is delivered in complete isolation, highlighting the film's self-aware absurdity.

Main topics

• xXx (2002) plot holes and absurdity
• The Legend of Billie Jean continuity issues

Notable quotes

"Welcome to the Xander Zone!" – delivered with no audience, no camera, and no purpose.

Conclusion

Paul Scheer wraps up the episode with a humorous yet heartfelt look at ho

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Pat Benatar clarifies. Xander's coat up for sale. And who the hell is La Mer? All this and more on today's How Did This Get Made? Last Looks. Hit the theme! Speaker 1 (0:41) Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to How Did This Get Made? Last Looks. I am your host, Paul Scheer. And you know what? Fair is fair. And that is why today we are giving you this special, supersized edition of How Did This Get Made? Last Looks. That's right. We took a Last Looks hiatus while we were on summer vacation. And on this episode, I will address your corrections and omissions on both... Triple X and the Legend of Billie Jean. And I'll even be sharing some bonus deleted scenes from both episodes as well. Jason will join me in just a bit to chat about some of the amazing things that we are watching from documentaries to books. We got a ton of things to recommend to you. That's what I'm telling you, people. We are giving you the entire thing today. We are your Peter Coyote and we are going to bring justice. to how did this get made? And as always at the end of the show, I will reveal the movie that we'll be covering on next week's episode. But before I go any further, can I give a shout out to our pal Rob from Long Island for that amazing brand new opening theme song, Rob, you're killing it. You always are killing it. A legend here on the show. Now remember, if you have a short theme song, if you think I can do better than Rob, you know what? It's a tall order. Don't think about doing better. Just think about doing different. All right. If you could do different than Rob from Long Island, then why don't you submit your song to us? You just have to go to HDTGM.com and there's a little section right there on the page that says submit a song. Now, I want to let you all know that Sabrina, who sang the second opinion song in our Legend of Billie Jean episode, helped us design two T-shirts for the movie. One says Pat Benatar was wrong and the other simply says. Billie Jean. And it looks great. Not just Billie Jean, like in a plain font. It's in the cool Billie Jean font. We saw her shirt and we're like, we need to make this. And we said, why don't you just make it yourself? And so when you buy that shirt, guess who gets all the money? Sabrina. So you're helping out a How Did This Get Made fan. Thank you, Sabrina. I hope a lot of people buy that shirt. And I want you to know that if you want to play with... Jason, June, and I, you can. That sounds dirty, but hear me out. We have made an official, how did this get made, mini movie league in this year's Vulture Movies Fantasy League. Now, if you've never played this before, it's like fantasy sports, but you draft movies instead of athletes. And I got to tell you, I always think this is the year I'm going to kill this, and I do terribly. I do terribly. But anyway, if you want to join our mini league, just go to vulture.com slash HDTGM or click on the link in this episode's show notes. Now, you may not know this, but June and I are doing a brand new multicam that's in front of a live studio audience sitcom for Amazon created by Marta Kaufman, the person who created Friends and Grace and Frankie. It is a improvised multicam where June and I play. Dinks. The show is called Dinks. Dual income, no kids. It will have John Gabrus in it. And we are putting together right now an amazing guest star cast, and we want you to be in the audience. Now, here's the thing. This show. is taping in October. We're taping on the 2nd, the 7th, the 10th, the 16th, the 21st, and the 24th. And we want you to be in the crowd. And all you have to do is RSVP with your preferred dates. You can go to one, you can go to all, whatever you want. It's all for you. Just hit us up at dinksrsvp at gmail.com. Now, it does take place in Los Angeles in a very convenient, awesome spot that we can't... yet announced, but you'll love it. DinksRSVP at gmail.com. It will be a blast. Every show is not only improvised, but uses your suggestions. It's really, really fun. I hope. I'm excited about this one. I'm excited about anything that I'm in, that I'm passionate about, but this is going to be fun where we're figuring it out, which is a part of the equation that I haven't had to do in a very long time. What else do you need to know? You like improv? I love improv. You want to go see Dinks? That's one thing. But you can also come see me at Largo on 9-11. That's right. 9-11 at Largo. John Gabrus joins us to sit in this month. Oh, it's going to be fun. Daniel Schneider will be there. Corinne Wells will be there. Rob Riggle will be there. Rob Hubel will be there. It's going to be an absolute blast. So check that out. All right. Now, let's get into it. Last week, we talked at length about XXX and the legend of Billie Jean. We had questions, and we might have even missed a few things. Here is your chance to set us straight. It is now time for Corrections and Omissions. Speaker 1 (6:04) Thank you, Rob from Long Island, for that amazing theme song. Up first, we'll be talking about Triple X, a film that Discord user YouBraceYourself thinks should have had the tagline, Triple X, despite all his rage, he's still just a Xander Cage. Oh, I love it. YouBraceYourself, that was great. All right, let's go to the Discord. Speaker 1 (6:29) 4671 writes, I am surprised that nobody on the pod mentioned this because it genuinely broke my brain in a way that no other bad movie line had done before. During the movie's climax, Xander stops diffusing the bomb so he can say his catchphrase, welcome to the Xander zone, to no one. There is no camera filming him and not a soul to hear him. And then he finishes diffusing the bomb and immediately... face plants into water at 60 miles per hour. Now, it is a pretty amazing clip. I want to just play him doing it for you just so you can get it in your head. Speaker 4 (7:10) Welcome to Speaker 1 (7:11) the Xander Zone! Speaker 1 (7:16) And here's my theory on this. He's so used to doing stunts for his not YouTube, YouTube, I don't know, whatever it was, his DVDs that are being sent out to people that he can't do a cool act without saying his catchphrase. It's like, it's like a, like a tick, like he's just got to do it. Right. So. I don't think that he was saying it to anyone. I think he was like, yeah, there's always cameras on me because I'm only doing this because I am an extreme whatever-er. He's not a spy. He's an extreme whatever-er. So I think it's like he didn't even realize there were no cameras there. That's my thought. Fun Facts 47 writes, Anarchy 99's plan was to have a sub that will circumnavigate the globe and kill millions. So why did they launch it in the landlocked country of the Czech Republic? The perfect plan. All those rivers, right? The rivers will allow it to go out and, you know, be quiet. Isn't that the most kind of anarchy way to deal with things? We don't need the water, man. We'll go to Czech Republic. Also, what's the point of having a flamethrower attached to a car's hood? Xander only wants to drive fast in the physics of the flames while the car is moving. would immediately make it blow back into the windshield. Unless you're in like a James Bond situation where I think it was in the first movie where he's surrounded. Maybe it was the last movie. I don't remember. But he's surrounded. And if the car is in park, a flamethrower is great. Don't touch my car. Or it's security. Like someone checks to see if the door is unlocked. Flamethrower. Just done. Flamethrower. Oh, wow. A lot of Anarchy99 questions. Then you come to me. No, this isn't like ask Paul to explain the plot device of the movie. It's that you have seen something and you are explaining it to me. I've already done my explaining. That's the show. This part is you. Explain it to me. But anyway, I will continue. You brace yourself, writes, are we ever told why Anarchy 99 has Prague as a home base when they're all Russian? Also, their castle fortress is supposedly at the base of a mountain, but the closest mountain range to Prague is 67 miles northeast. So are they really driving an hour and a half each way just to go clubbing? Well, okay, first of all, let me say this. It's always worth a 90-minute drive to get to the better club. People don't tell you that, but you got to drive to the best club. Secondly, I thought that the castle is where they're doing their work. They probably live in, they probably have a flat in the city. And Russia, why is it their home base? Because they're expats. All this movie makes sense, you brace yourself. You know, you came in and... You know, I was on your side, but now I'm like, no, you missed all the amazing subtlety. But thank you for researching how far that mountain was. That's the kind of stuff I need here. All right, let's go to the phones. Pete, the S-man, what do you got? Hey, Paul, it's Speaker 6 (10:39) Pete, the S-man here. Quick question. Why did Anarchy 99 use a water-based vehicle to deliver a chemical agent when water, in fact, neutralizes it? I mean, it was solar powered, so wouldn't something aerial based be better suited? You know, imagine the scene where, you know, Xander is on the rocket and he's trying to dismantle it. And then he does and has to figure out how to free fall the safety. You know, we'd have to remove the egregious American flag parachute. But just thinking that. Love to get your thoughts. And you can't say, oh, it's just because Speaker 1 (11:17) they're anarchists. Well, Pete. I won't use anarchy to answer you, but I will say a couple things. And I think we've already talked about this. Speaker 1 (11:28) Water, okay, is a stealth vector, okay? It allows the villains to bypass airspace, which is monitored, and radar, and ground border checkpoints. It's a quiet, unimpeded path straight into the heart of Europe. Plus, the weapon isn't going to be detonated inside the water. I mean, this would have worked unless... You know, the only reason why this doesn't work is because of one man, Xander Cage, right? They couldn't have predicted Xander. And it's a mobile launch pad, right? So it's not going to like, I mean, yes, I guess it could fall off in, but it's also safely sealed inside, you know? And they, yes. So arrogance would be part of it too, because they believed that the drone was unstoppable. But you know what? You never expected, like I said, Xander Cage. Thank you, Pete. Next up, Clarissa from Boston. Speaker 5 (12:29) Hi, Jason, June, and Paul. I recently saw a purse that Estelle Getty used as Sophia on the Golden Girls sold at auction under a lot called Ladies of the 80s. And I thought, well, they stole that title from Jason. I was curious to see what else they had at that auction house. And lo and behold, Vin Diesel's coat from XXX was also there. late last year. It was listed under Xander Cage, Vin Diesel for coat, which just gives more support to June calling it a coat. Also in the XXX episode, Rob said that he thinks Vin has the coat and is wearing it around his house. The coat was estimated at $1,000 to $2,000 and sold for close to $9,000. Did Vin pay way more for the coat so that no one else could have it? Maybe. Anyway, love the show. Thanks for supporting libraries and your local indie bookstores. Bye. All Speaker 1 (13:19) right, Cluster. You know what? Yes, good theory that Zander, or sorry, Vin bought his own coat, but here's my theory. There's like three dupes of that coat. You know they're in dupes. You know, it's like they got to make a couple of them because, you know, what if like at lunch, then, you know, put some like mustard relish on that jacket because he's eating a big old hot dog. They got to have another one. So I'm going to say that Vince kept one and we sold the doubles. They have stunt doubles one. We sold it. The fuck double because Vin does not do his own fucking. All right, next one up, Sean McBee. Oh, I love Sean. All right, here we go. What do we got, Sean? Hey, Paul. Sean McBee, longtime Speaker 8 (13:59) discorder, first-time caller. I wanted to talk about the scene where Yergi traps the people in the room so that he can test his deadly gas, right? So Yergi and his top henchmen lock themselves behind these clear doors and release the gas. And when everyone in the room is panicking, a bunch of the guys have machine guns and they decide to use those machine guns to try to effect an escape to save their own lives. But they don't shoot at those clear doors that have people mocking them right on the other side. No, no. They shoot the giant steel vault door. And none of the scientists in the room go, try that over there. That looks like it's probably bulletproof, right? It at least is a more likely source of escape than the giant steel door. We can agree on that, right? And there's people like actively mocking them on the other side. So at least a little bit of like last minute catharsis to shoot them directly in their faces. Just a thought. Anyway, come to Atlanta. Like we're good enough for the World Cup and not for you. What Speaker 1 (15:11) the fuck, guys? Sean, again, you're asking me here a question that I don't know the answer to, but my immediate thought when I saw it was, well, that's