I don't feel like anybody in this room is focused on this thing but me.
I feel like I am the one constantly pushing the tanker through the ice.
I will auction you right out of here!
I want to be a bee!
People seem to love picking apart and half-heartedly worshiping Bee Movie,
the 2007 DreamWorks film about an anthropomorphic bee portrayed by Jerry Seinfeld
but what most people don't seem to realize is that Bee Movie has a very long and
very interesting history which explains so many of its eccentricities.
Today, we are going to discuss why this film is so strange
what caused its most bizarre of details
And why was even green-lit in the first place.
Our story begins in the early 2000s, the start of the new millennium.
Jerry Seinfeld, having recently finished work on a sitcom named after himself,
is laying low and isn't signing on to many projects.
That is until one fateful day when he was invited to have lunch at the house of Steven Spielberg.
During what I imagine must have been a very serious lull in the conversation
Jerry decided to jokingly pitch the first idea that came to his mind
"What if we made
a movie
about bees
and we called it
Bee Movie?"
Much to the surprise of Seinfeld, and soon the rest of the world, Spielberg loved the idea so much
that he allegedly immediately called DreamWorks to get the idea green-lit.
Jerry Seinfeld was now being tasked with the project of creating an entire movie
based off of a bad pun that he brought up at lunch
entirely as a joke.
I really didn't have an idea for the movie. All I had was the title.
When reading through the responses to the promotional material for this film
and even quotes from people working on it, 
one persistent theme holds clear
That being that very few were confident in the premise of this film
Instead what people held faith in was Jerry Seinfeld's ability
to create something that was funny.
And it's perhaps because of this that Seinfeld
eventually decided that he had to stay as close to the production of the film as possible.
Not only did he want to write and provide his voice for the film
He also intended to give daily feedback on the designs,
animation, and even the most small of details
The problem was that Jerry Seinfeld had a permanent residence in New York City
and thus it would be somewhat hard for him to work on the film as it was being produced in California.
The solution was to build a halo room in both locations
so that the two creative forces could constantly collaborate every single day.
Jerry would enter complex Skype-style calls for hours on end where he would discuss the material.
Making Bee Movie meant Seinfeld learning everything that there was to know
about making an animated film with no prior knowledge.
Which is one of the reasons he's often shut down the prospect of making another film like Bee Movie
To quote the man himself:
"My kids want me to do it. A lot of people want me to do it.
A lot of people that don't know what animation is want me to do it.
If you had any idea what Animation is, you'd never do it!"
And with that let us discuss how a barely conceptualized pun can evolve into an hour and a half long... thing.
So the basic idea that came out of that pitch was that Bee Movie needed to feature
absurdist bee-flick style storylines that would sort of celebrate how ridiculous they were
A healthy way to look at the film is that it's a
"what-if" representation of what beesploitation would look like.
Throughout production the plot greatly varied
But it eventually settled onto a very basic story structure
Barry B. Benson, a recent graduate from college, would briefly attempt to find work making honey in his hive
before becoming disinterested in the life of a bee, and traveling to the outside world.
There he would meet and become infatuated with Vanessa, a florist,
and he would then decide to soothe the human race after learning of its illegal use of honey.
After this a series of goofy, barely connected plot points would follow
which would eventually end with Barry in space having become an astronaut
"Beautiful out here boys.
I can almost see beyond the nebula.
I wonder what's past that"
"That's the end of the Milky Way as we know it, sir"
"I've got to find out"
That was indeed one of the original endings to Bee Movie
There are a couple other endings which are also of note
All of which attempted to answer the "will they, won't they" tension between Vanessa and the actual insect
The theme illustrated by most of these segments was that they were currently just friends
but they were destined to eventually become a real couple
One ending which might be of interest to you would have featured the two sharing a romantic
night on top of the building from earlier with a key question from earlier in the film finally being answered
"Is that jazz?"
"You like it?"
"I do"
"I thought you might"
Many of the jokes which were heavily conceptualized during the production
sort of half ended up in the movie?
For instance Seinfeld originally envisioned a running gag where character actor Ray Liotta
would serve as a sort of cartoonish foil to Barry
Basically the same gag that Margo Martindale does for BoJack Horseman
But in the end he has a cameo in the court sequence. And other than that
He's not really in the film and the joke doesn't exactly fully come across
Seinfeld was often stated that one of his proudest creations for the film
which was sadly cut, was that of the Bee Queen
The idea was that Barry would be given a trial with her following his breaking of the bee laws
and that she would merely execute him
The scene was probably cut because the characters and sets for the scene
were exclusively used just in that sequence and were extremely intricate
But it's a real shame because looking at these designs and
Looking at the animatics is probably the best scene that they worked on for the film
"Hrmm, Spanish fly"
If we're talking about the production of Bee Movie
We are inevitably going to need to discuss the Bee Movie TV juniors
These were a series of skits that Seinfeld and his fellow crew members created during the production of the film
Long before the internet, or even the general public really,
found anything funny about the existence of DreamWorks or Bee Movie
Seinfeld was proving himself ahead of the curve by openly mocking both
"Here's where we keep the numbers for our sequels.
I can't wait for Shrek 19"
"We want to get more ethnic bees in here because of the international market"
Some of the highlights of these include Seinfeld pitching a movie to DreamWorks and them accepting before he said anything
"He loves it and he'd like to do it"
"Do what?"
"Whatever it is you're about to say!"
And a running gag throughout numerous skits where animators are represented by furries
"Mr. Seinfeld, please!"
"I can draw! I can draw!"
"Cmon!"
"Alright I want the turtle-"
And with that, let us discuss the plight of some of the furries who were brought onto the film
The people in charge of creating the conceptualized designs
had a huge problem with finding consistent designs for Barry and the bees which Jerry Seinfeld would approve of
Over the course of more than 10 months, at least 11 illustrators were constantly pumping out design after design
illustrating essentially every possible way that you could draw a cartoon bee
This process lasted so long that they were plotting out scenes in the movie before a design had been chosen
so every storyboard artist used a different design for their main character
A key problem was that Jerry Seinfeld wanted his bees to have black and yellow stripes on their clothing
and it was very difficult for anyone to figure out a way to design characters with only two colors
In terms of 3D animation, Bee Movie was a landmark case in many different ways
For instance, it was allegedly the first time that a cloud had been fully rendered for an animated film
instead of just being a still image in the background
In total the film took about 23 million hours to render
the numerous hurdles for animating the film included
finding ways to realistically render honey in numerous states and appearances
and finding a way to render bee butt-fuzz
It might sound silly but a legitimate challenge for the people animating this film
was that they had scenes with thousands of bees
and the 3D programs could not handle 
that much butt-fuzz
and would simply immediately crash
Because of this, an alternate version of the butt-fuzz had to be developed for people further away from the camera
in the same way that a video game developer might have different textures and even models
for things further away from the camera, entirely to increase functionality
at the time the Bee Movie was entering production, a sadly mostly forgotten DreamWorks film called
Over the Hedge was much further along in the process and the two films ended up being released about a year apart
There is a detail in Bee Movie which can either be seen as an elaborate cinematic universe setting-up easter egg
or as a cost-cutting measure that no one was ever supposed to notice
That being that whenever you see a bear in Bee Movie
It's actually the recycled 3D model of the main villain from Over the Hedge
"So I was on my way down here to kill you, but I stopped to watch the show and I gotta say
That right there is a thing of beauty"
"Bears kill bees! "
"Okay, that's enough, take him away"
After years of work, Bee Movie was finally released to widespread chairs of ehhhhh in 2007
One of the most strange things that Jerry Seinfeld did to advertise the film was to dress up as a giant bee
and zip-line down to one of the events advertising the product.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm promoting the movie"
"Nooo"
"You know, a lot of people just go on talk shows and tell jokes"
So, how did the movie turn out?
Well, I'll put it like this: 
I like the movie a lot more than most people will
But it still has a lot of problems
Personally, I think the final product is at its strongest when it's putting these characters into absolutely ridiculous situations
and then it's just playing off of how they react to that
"And he happens to be the nicest bee I've met in a long time"
"Long time? What are you talking about!"
The best character in the movie is Ken, not only because he's played by the always hilarious Patrick Warburton
But also because he's this screaming man-baby beast
who also has the most realistic view of what's happening in the movie
He is the most cartoonish character in the entire flick
and he's also the movies straight man
That's hilarious
"Is that that same bee?"
"Yes it is!"
"I'm helping him sue the human race"
"Wha-?"
And I honestly think that sequences like the Bee Larry King interview,
the sword fight sequence,
and even the sequence of them landing the plane...
these are some of the most unique scenes I've ever seen in a modern 3D animated movie
However, the biggest problem with the movie is that funny is all it ever proves to bee
Heh bee, get it?
Making an animated movie about a hive of bees is not a bad idea
What isn't a great idea is making a children's animated DreamWorks 3D movie be almost entirely about
a long, tedious and boring trial
It's a shockingly bad idea
Kids aren't gonna like it, adults are gonna find it patronizing
No one gets anything out of this
Seinfeld's writing seems to be at its best
When he sets up a simple situation and then sees how characters react to that
That's why his show became known as a program where nothing happened
Not because the program is plotless, because it isn't.
But because it could explore situation that most couldn't
Entirely because of how entertaining these characters proved to be
But when it came to making an epic action adventure crime drama animated movie
In a lot of ways poor Jerry just didn't know what he was doing
It's a hilarious film, an incredibly hilarious film, but you can't really give it any credit other than that.
It's not well paced
It's not super interesting
It has scenes which depict moral lessons which literally make no sense and are not applicable to the real world at all
And most of the things in the movie should have been scrapped and reimagined the moment someone brought them up
I guess in the end Bee Movie is like a really huge, really ugly sculpture
It's not great
and everyone except for the artist knows that
But that was a man's life, his passions, his aspirations, his vision come fully to life
And I guess I have some sort of respect for that in the end
So then this video off I want to discuss with you guys some really weird Bee Movie merchandise that I managed to get my hands on
However, first I want to discuss with you guys how I've updated quintonreviews.com
As you guys can probably guess, this video is again sponsored by our old friends at Squarespace
Do I realize when making this video
squarespace.com is an incredible website
Everything sleek, everything's modern, and it's incredibly easy to get from point A to point B
What better sign could there possibly be that this is the best website development tool out there
If Squarespace can use their own website to become a massive celebrated brand, as they have
Then it's honestly the choice that you should use to do the same
As you guys know, last month I asked you guys to send me questions for a Q&A tab
and you guys sent plenty. Thank you so much
However, in order to plane to a joke I made in that video
I wanted to try and make this page look as dated as possible
and it was a little tricky with the template I had chosen
But with the help of the 24-hour support team, I was able to do a pretty alright job, I think
So if you go to the website you'll be able to see all the answers I gave
for those incredible questions that you guys sent me
And if you guys want to develop your online presence and grow an audience like I have and like Squarespace has
then go to squarespace.com/quinton or check out that link in the description tickets started today
that squarespace.com slash Q U I N T O N
try and remember that, there's going to be a test later
And with that, let's look at some of the very bizarre
Bee Movie merchandise that was released to coincide with the film
The idea of merchandise for animated film is that if the movie doesn't do too well
But kids still love the toys, then the production is seen is justified
and one of the things they made were these cute little stuffed animals of Barry with little unique shirts like this one, which says:
Varsity Sting Team. It's got a little stinger on the back indeed.
Then there's this cute little thing
It's a Christmas ornament. You look at that.
It's pretty terrifying, I think
You look at that, right there
They also had a series of PEZ dispens- wait, this is the Meet the Robinsons thing again
They had a series of PEZ dispensers
This one's Adam
This one's Barry
This one's Barry as a pollen jock
They had a Vanessa one, but I don't think I have the Vanessa one
Here's that guy again
I mentioned this in a previous video, but it's so preposterous. I have to bring it up again
You got Bee Movie honey, right there
And you can eat that with your Bee Movie spoon which came in cereal boxes
with little berry having a heart attack on the end of there
I've got a couple DreamWorks style Valentine's Day cards. You got Shrek, you got Madagascar
then of course, you got Bee Movie
Such romantic ones as umm "Valentine, you're the bee's knees"
They're good, they're good, they're good!
This is the official Bee Movie reference book
It gives you all of the Bee Movie lore that you need to know
For instance, if you ever wanna know about the news anchor bee
this book has got all the information you're ever gonna need to know about him
You know how every time a Star Wars movie comes out
they make a big glossy book showing all the production art that they didn't use in the movie?
Well, this is the Bee Movie version of that
Then of course, you've got your Bee Movie Happy Meal
Inside there you got your Bee Movie milk and your Bee Movie chocolate milk and your Bee Movie stickers
And of course you also have your Bee Movie Happy Meal toy
There-
There are I think about ten of these?
Some of them do things and some of them have voices.
"Hi, hello?"
"Ow!"
"That was a little weird"
Look at this shit. Look at this
It's the medication
Is he like- is he wearing like- skating? Is he skating?
Hold on, I'm trying to remember where I put the last thing down
I bought it but I've had no need for it whatsoever, so it could be anywhere
And that is this drone that is shaped like Barry Benson
Look at that, take it all in. Look at his little stubby legs
Look at that. Oh my God. Look at that. I'm gonna-
Wow
I know what you're thinking and I've tried. It doesn't work. It did come with replacement wings
So if it turns out that's the problem. We're in the clear.
All right, that's it, say goodbye Barry.
Goodbye! Goodbye, goodbye! Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!
