Cheating, Birthing Songs, Alien Movies, and Spock Psychology

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Berto emails, what do you say, Let's do it. This
is the Psychology in Seattle podcast. I am your loyal host,
doctor Kirkanda, I'm a therapist, professor and podcaster. Who are you,
Umberto Costaga.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
My name is, as you said, Umberto, and I comb
amiba flagellum.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
So the first email from Wes Burdett, who is a
press officer at Pizza like in the Hunger Games. Uh
Pizza meaning the organization that protects animals, he says, Hi,
Doctor Kirk and Alberto, we caught your recent episode. We

(00:42):
meaning I'm guessing Pita. We caught your recent episode and
wanted to thank you for your thoughtful discussion about the
ethical dilemma of eating animals. Berto, do you remember this episode? Yeah?
And you were right on the money about those humane
and free range labels being misleading. They fail to prevent
animal suffering and are essentially designed to dupe well meeting

(01:04):
consumers into paying more for the same old cruelties. Burto.
Apparently PETA has this on their radar.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, yeah, I like it well for one thing, no
offense to PETA, but I was team the other guy.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
You have to be more familiar with the Hunger games
to make a joke about.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Okay, fair enough, Okay, so here's the deal. Yeah, yeah,
I think I said in that episode. I knew very little,
very little about food production. I never grew up on
a farm or any of that stuff. I did know
about the Jungle the Upton Sinclaire book, but that was like,
I don't know. In high school, I was like, oh
my gosh, this is horrible. This happened in the twenties

(01:47):
or something. My first exposure to it was when the
mad cow disease started happening in the late nineties in England.
And then I was like, wait, wait, they're feeding the
cow's sheep. Brain, wait, what why are they feeding the cow?
And that was kind of like a little small window
into wait, are they not doing things ethically everywhere?

Speaker 1 (02:07):
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
And then much much later, when I, for non ethical reasons,
first started going more vegetarian and vegan, I then started
learning a lot more and unfortunately saw a lot of
movies and videos and things, and then my eyes were.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, I'd open, uh, but you're not vegan or vegetarian anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
I am mostly mostly veggie.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
I wasn't saying that as an accusation.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I mean I The only times where I eat poultry, uh,
like chicken, meat or pork are when I was in
Columbia because my grandma. Whatever they make in my grandma's house,
I'll just like eat it. Or if you know, if
if I'm at someone's house and like, you know, they
made a dinner and that's what we're eating, right, But
at home, I don't, you know, I don't cook any

(02:55):
of those. And if if I had my choice, I
don't like chicken or beef.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
You know. Uh.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
The only one that I still miss every now and
then is like a broad worst, you know, do like
a good broad worst. But anyways, But but yeah, so
I I realized that, wow, even when you're doing things
like quote ethically, like, there's a lot of problems with it.
So that said, it's it's a problem if you I
think it's a problem if you go hardcore across any decision,

(03:26):
you know and say, well, okay, no one can eat
any animal products ever. Again, you know, how do you
how would you even do that?

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Right?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
So, I think that there are ways to improve the
treatment of animals that are not all or nothing. Unfortunately,
you know, a lot of people don't care. You know,
a lot of people don't care where they're where their
food comes from. They just put it in their mouth.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Well, they would care if they knew, or they weren't
in denial, could be.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I mean, I've talked to not everyone, but I've talked
to some even friends I have, where they're like, I
don't care.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
It tastes good, I don't care. So the problem is
is that if you're a regular person in our society, yeah,
and you're just trying to survive every day, sure, then
you're caught between a rock and a hard place where
even if you start to recognize the massive cruelty that's
happening to a lot of animals, what can you do

(04:19):
about it, particularly if you're living paycheck to paycheck. So
typical to our society, we blame individuals for things like
the environment or recycling or the animal cruelty, when it
should be the fucking government that should ramp up. You know,
there already are protections, but they should massively increase their protections.

(04:41):
That way all of us can enjoy. You know, you
would still have meat and chicken and fish, but it
would be within reason regarding the non cruelty of it. Right.
Just unfortunately, most of us are.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Most people don't vote for the people that would do
such changes, so we don't end up with people that
could make those changes in the government.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
People don't People don't vote for that, So even Democrats
don't vote for that, in the same way that Democrats
also don't vote for climate change. Because we had a
presidential candidate on the primary five years ago who that
was their primary focus. He had one issue that was
climate change, and he was like, you know, tenth out

(05:30):
of twelve anonymous listener, She says, Hi, Kirker Embardo, which
iban As base? Do you own? Berto?

Speaker 2 (05:40):
No, I don't own them. Might have been a misstatement
or a mismistake. I don't know an iban As base.
I own several bases. I own a Warwick five string base,
the German built kind, which is definitely better, would better construction.
I own a State Ray, a music Man Sting Ray

(06:01):
red beautiful cherry red four string base that I really
like as well. I own a four string Fender p
based the Iron Maiden style.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
And Iron Maiden style.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, Like, if you look at at his bass, it's
like that that version and I had I had a
rolland synth bass.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Why do they call that the Iron Maiden style. It's
just a regular p bass.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, but he you know how everyone makes some small
modifications and and it's got the right blue and it's
got you know that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
I had also. Yeah, so I had this roll in
pea bass that Roland V base like.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
It was like the kind where you plug into a
big pedal and it made synth synth sounds.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Remember that, I don't. I actually, in fact, we had
photos with that bass. Yea. I honestly don't know what
happened to it.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah, I don't know because I don't remember selling it,
but I don't have it anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
You must have given it because it wouldn't be something
that would fall off of a moving trunk.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
I know, I just I can't remember, but I don't
have it anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
So anonymous patriots, She says, do you still have a cat?
I know you had too, this doking to me, I
guess I know you had two cats and then just one,
but curious of your current feline situation, just chiming in, No,
I don't currently have a cat, although we are babysitting
a cat at this moment, so, and we often will

(07:31):
be babysitting this cat, so I enjoy you have a
virtual cat. Her name is Azula, or we call her Zuzu,
or I call her meal Pops. Because there was this
viral video that was going around like four or five
years ago, and it's like a Russian serial commercial and
it's for a serial called meal Pops. And in the

(07:53):
in this song it goes, uh, meal pops, Zuzuzu, zuzuzu
and for and I would be seeing that song to
the cat and eventually I called their meal pops anyway,
you know how you have those.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yea, yeah, and they come about Wait, wasn't there wasn't
there a girl in Vancouver named Azul that we knew.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Oh okay, oh yeah, you're right, yeah, because that would
always go like.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
She she was one of those adults who had braces. Yeah. Uh.
Did Brito ever find his missing kitty? It's funny that
you never gave like an update on that.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
No, we never did. It's been over a year. I
don't We don't know what happened.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
It's really sad.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
The weirdest thing, though, is the same day where the
cat went missing, That same day, animal control had showed
up at a nearby house. Very nearby house to get
a whole bunch of cats because they have too many.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
And I I was warned.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
By us someone that was doing yard work, like, hey,
you better be careful with your cat because those people
are there.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
And I wouldn't talk to them, but your cat, your
cat would have had a tag. Well I had a chip, right, yeah,
and you would think.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
And I went and I showed them a picture and
I said, hey, make sure you don't and then and.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
If you pick a cat, you would check the tag.
And they said yes.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
But it's just a very odd coincidence that the day
the cat went missing, well happened to be that day.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
But there's also coyotes and yeah, no I know, raccoons.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
That's very possible what happened. It's just it was weird.
It was a weird thing.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
That like having an outdoor cat, you're rolling the dice
every time. You know, I'm not blaming you, but no, no,
I know. I'm just saying, you know, because some cats,
as you know, are just hell bent on going Outsideah.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Both Tiger are the one you wrote a song about,
this one. They couldn't be happy inside, whereas our in
between cat, Tarra couldn't be like was terrified of the outdoor.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Right, that's what you want. You want a cat that's
been inside all the time. Going on, does Bob have
a cat? I'll answer for Bob. No, he has a dog.
They have a new dog, kind of a puppy, mid size,
kind of pitbull looking but not also kind of like
a classic spot if you know, like a classic quintessential dog.

(10:19):
Going on, thank you for answering my questions. I will
still like you all even if you don't have a kiddie.
If you do, even better. End of email. All right,
take a break, we get back more emails. Let's do
it all right. Back from the break. We're clearing the
docket of emails to you, borh. This email is about cheating.

(10:43):
We have two emails about cheating. Annual long term middle
tier middle tier the Urban Durer patron and YouTube member
Rachel She says, I was wondering about your thoughts on
the line between being good friends versus having an emotional
affair the internet usually, so I cut to the chase.

(11:04):
I think she has a lot of guy friends, and
she's also married, right, so, and she's close to these
guy friends, but she's not cheating. She says, the Internet
usually says, if you have to ask, you're probably crossing
the lines just chiming in here. What do you think
of that so far?

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, first of all, I wouldn't put stocking with the
Internet usually says, But my thing is more to do
with what is your arrangement or agreement with your significant
other or with your significant others if you have multiple
partners or whatever, so you know, that's I think more important.

(11:40):
So for example, if you are finding that you're hiding
your you know, let's say you go out to a
movie or something with this friend and you really aren't
like kissing or anything, but you're having to hide it
from your partner because either you think or they might
think that it's not okay. Then I think there's an
imbalance in the four. It's something that you need to address.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
But what if you have a partner or a husband
who's being unreasonably.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
And that's fair, but you might still need to address
that rather than, in my opinion, rather than hiding around
just because you know, like I feel like.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
She's not talking about hiding No, I know.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
What I'm trying to say is that if the situation,
it's not their situation hopefully apparently. But if the situation
is such that you are doing things in a way
that either you feel or your partner makes you feel
that you need to hide and lie and deceive, then
I think that could be a problem and that line

(12:37):
could be different for different relationships.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
And that's not what she's asking, and I appreciate that's,
you know, that's one way to well.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
But she wants a definitive and I'm saying there isn't
a definitive answer. It varies by relationships. Like my line
with my relations might be different. I have female friends
that I do stuff with and I don't hide that,
and there's no you know, that's not an issue. But
other relationships might feel different about that, and so you know,

(13:05):
I wouldn't say, like, oh, yeah, definitely, if you do
the following activities with a member of the opposite sex
or whatever sex do you like, or whatever, that constitutes
cheating like that that is not something that exists.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, going out with the email. I have been in
controlling relationships in the past, and sometimes the boundaries are
unclear to me. My husband was previously a chronic cheater
for many, many years. He has gotten a lot of
leftover paranoia and he is working on it in therapy.
It's a slow progress and I often have to deal

(13:38):
with him asking who is that? Does he like you?
You know, referring to these guy friends. So it makes
an I love you to a friend different? Oh so
what makes saying I love you to a friend different
from saying I love you to an emotional affair person.
I don't want to sleep with any of my friends,
but I do love them and miss them and want

(13:59):
to spend time with them without feeling guilty and of email. Yeah.
So yeah, you know, this is the dilemma, and the
foundation is is your partner was a husband. Let's see
my husband. Yeah. So the often people will focus on

(14:21):
rules and tradition and culture as like, well, you're not
supposed to do this, and it's okay to do this
and that kind of stuff. But the fundamental of this
is that your husband wants to be assured that you're
not going to leave him and that you're not being
with anyone else. So when you are saying I love
you to a guy friend, or you're spending time with

(14:43):
or you even just have a guy friend, he's not
He might be consciously focused on is it okay if
she go to dinner with a guy friend without me,
or that guy seems a little into you, or that
guy's more attractive than I am, or something. So what
he's consciously focusing on, but what's fundamentally happening is he's

(15:03):
terrified he's going to lose you. So if there's no
chance that he's going to lose you, then you have
to target that as best you can. It might not work,
but what often happens in these kinds of conflicts is
that it'll be a debate about these rules and traditions,
and you'll get different opinions on the internet. You'll get

(15:25):
different opinions from family, you know, like the husband's parents
might say like, I can't believe she says I love
you too. These guys, you know, because if you paint
it in a certain way, it can sound horrible, whereas
your friends might support you and stuff. When it's totally
okay for the husband, given his past or his attachment
issues to you know, have a concern it's not okay

(15:48):
that he control or not try to have everyone get
their needs met. I think for Rachel, she has a
need for friendship and gender doesn't play a role necessarily,
which is normal regarding who you want to be friends with,
and that's sort of people that come your way that

(16:11):
are a good match for you as a friend. So,
you know, we're all just trying to not be lonely
in this world, and we're all trying to have connection
and support and close relationships, loving relationships. And if it
happens to be someone that your partner might be a
little concerned about, you know, I think you got to
try to hold on to that friend while reassuring your partner.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, Like, for example, the okay, so there are things
that I wouldn't consider doing with a friend female or otherwise,
like it could be you, because I know that it's
special with my wife and like mawife and like it
would be weird.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
For example, a new season of It's Always Sunny is
out has been out for a bit, and ma wife
and I love watching them together.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Right, So if I come home.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
One day and she's like, oh, where were you, and
I'm like, oh, I was, you know, with my friend
name whomever, Yeah, and I watched the season of it
would be devastating.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
The same would the same would be for I mean,
we don't you and I don't really have firm things
like this. But if you got together with a bunch
of people and went to like episode ten Star Wars
exactly and you didn't even tell me, right, then it's
the same thing. Right, of course, that's not cheating. That's
just like I'll give you a real example.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Like, you know, my good friend Eric years ago, many
years ago, wanted to go to Columbia, and for years
I told him, no, no, it's two dangers, you shouldn't go.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
You shouldn't go, And I'm like.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Okay, And then one year you showed up or you
went to Columbia, and so then honestly, Eric was hurt.
You know, he was like what And you know, it
hasn't ended our relationship, but it was. It was a
source of hurt. And it doesn't mean you know. So
it's stuff like that that if you don't take things
like that into account in any friendship, let alone a
committed life, long term romantic relationship, that's going to cause pain.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I would just say that's a universal relationship thing
of being considerate and having things that are special to the.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Two of you.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
But yeah, but I think Rachel might be getting at
an interesting question because she has these guy friends that
she says, I love you too, And it probably isn't
just kind of like, hey, I love you man, you know,
it might be kind of deep yeah, which is fine. Yeah,

(18:35):
but there's no plan or sexual tension or anything. And
is that an emotional affair, because you know, you could
have a lot of intimacy and a friendship. You can
have eye contact, and you can have a lot of
self disclosure, you can have a lot of need to

(18:58):
talk to that person. You know. One of the things
that we will sometimes use as a gauge is to
who our heart is connected to. Is when something bad
or good happens to you, who do you think of
texting or calling first? And that's not always necessarily an indication,
but it can be. So if for her, she gets

(19:20):
a promotion at work and the first person she thinks
of calling or texting is her friend as opposed to
her husband, does that say and I don't know, you know,
it's a question. You can have a very very close
friend who's a guy and also be totally in love
with your husband. That the thing that I would really
focus on, Rachel, is your husband's recovery from his past,

(19:45):
which he was the cheater, by the way, but also
that usually stems from attachment disruption himself. And there's a
future world and I'm guessing you are heading in this
direction and striving for this, and it sounds like your
husband is actually trying to do this too, because if

(20:05):
he wasn't, he would have left you or tried to
control that. A future world in which your husband is
reasonably reassured that these very very very close relationships with
these guy friends, these friends and they just happen to
be guys are completely not a threat. It's hard, though,
especially for men, because with our indoctrination and the toxic

(20:29):
masculinity of which all of us have been indoctrinated into
pretty heavily, it is a major challenge for a guy
to have his wife being very close and very friendly
with a straight CIS guy. It's a threat. It's hard,
and there's no way around it other than reassurance, love connection.

(20:54):
The deeper once connection, the more asshureds and reassurance. When
he says, you know, Rachel, you're saying that he will
ask who is that? Does he like you just put
your hand on his lap or on his shoulder, kiss him,
or you know, have some warmth and turn to him
and say, there's nothing going on between me and this guy,

(21:16):
and I love you and I don't want to leave
you at all, and I'm not attracted to them. That's
just a really really good friend of mine. But I
would never sacrifice our relationship for anything else, because you're
my top priority. If you said that, he'd be like,
oh okay.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
He's like, wait, I just asked which movie you were
going to see.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Now I'm worried. Next email, on a similar topic, an
anonymous listener from Canada, She says, longtime listener here, first
time writer, thank you for everything that you do. I've
been holding on to a lot of guilt over the
years for being the other woman in my friend's relationship.
The other woman in my friend's relationship. Oh so friends

(21:55):
with benefits and the friend is cheating. Oh okay, okay.
But having grown up and learned about grooming and predatory behavior,
I'm now wondering if I should be holding on to
this guilt because I was a teenager when we met
and he was twenty three. Oh well, teenager is a
wide swath of you. Sure, So if she's nineteen and

(22:17):
he was twenty three, that's different than she was thirteen
and he was twenty. So I'm going to take a
guess and say that she was seventeen, probably just give
benefit of the doubt. Well, the way that she's writing it,
because if she were fourteen, I think she would have
written it differently. So I'm guessing she was like seventeen

(22:38):
and he was twenty three and they were friends and
then friends with benefits and he was in a committed
relationship and they were cheating on the side. Yeah, Berto,
what do you think? Yeah, I mean so.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
But at the same time, so I sort of want
to agree with you because I don't want the other reality.
At the same time, the way that they're framing it
makes me think maybe that was the case, Maybe there
was more.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Well let's go with seventeen. Yeah, you know, because you
know that that could be considered a power differential enough
for one to consider it grooming.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
The other thing that I wasn't clear on is is
it still happening or is this all in the past.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Sounds like it's in the past.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
The past, Yeah, hanging on to be guilty.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
But holding on to a lot of guilts over the years.
But now I'm wondering if I actually should not be guilty,
not feel guilty, but actually should feel victimized.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, that's but that's a fair question. I guess one
thing would be to inquire with oneself, maybe with one therapist,
about the question of is the feeling of wanting to
pivot to a feeling victimized a way to escape the

(23:51):
guilt or no, Is it that there was legitimately a
reason for having felt victimized?

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Right?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Because I you know, I've I've certainly in my life
played many mental gymnastics with myself to try to justify things.
And if one is not one does not pause and
really take time to consider what's really going on in
one's head. It's easy to justify almost anything. So in
this case, I would say, you know, who knows what's right,

(24:19):
but the only person that can make that determination is them,
maybe with the.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Help of a therapist.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
That said, it does seem like there's some unresolved issue
at the very least with the friend who was twenty
three at the time or whatever, and it sounds like
maybe that relationship is still going between the friend and
their maybe wife now who knows. So then another question
is like, what does this person want out of that

(24:47):
do they feel like they owe an apology, or do
they feel they need to work through the issues in
the friendship because they feel they were so all of
these are questions that, of course we can't answer, but
it's the kind of thing that I would want to
work through. Like, you know, if I was going through
a similar thing, I would ask myself like, oh, yeah,
well is where is.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
This feeling coming from?

Speaker 2 (25:08):
And I would want to work that through with a
therapist and say, you know, to see what it is
that I want to do about it, Because one option
is to do nothing. Just I mean, you could even
feel the guilt and then keep going right, or you
could feel the guilt and then apologize, or you could
feel that you were victimized and do nothing, or feel
the victimized and then do a confrontation, or just separate

(25:28):
or like don't relate to those people anymore. There's a
lot of options, but the only way to do it
is to work through it.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, there's probably a lot to sift through. Yeah, well,
without knowing more details. Anonymous listener in Canada, it's hard
to know what to say, but I will say that
in general, a lot of victims of grooming and predatory behavior.
A lot of victims will blame themselves and feel guilty,

(25:55):
and sometimes groomers will frame it as an affair because
it gives a legitimacy to it and will give motivation
to keep it quiet. Right, So I'll say that, I
don't know if that's applicable here. The other thing is
that even if you were twenty three as well, to

(26:19):
hold on to a lot of guilt. I understand that
a lot of people feel guilty in situations like this,
but I don't understand it. We often will blame the
other woman when we should be blaming the guy, you know.
I mean, if you're the other person, you do have
a moral responsibility to some extent, because especially if you

(26:44):
know the person, then it's really an atrocity if it's
like your friend, right, But if you have no idea
who this the wife was, then I I think you
have a general moral responsibility not to engage in arm
of another human being knowingly when there are other options

(27:04):
out there. Right, there's other dudes out there that you
could date. And now I wouldn't say that's a high crime.
The way that would make someone hold on to a
lot of guilt over years later, because you know, you're young,
you're trying to date, and you meet so I'm sure
you didn't. I'm guessing you didn't know they were involved,

(27:25):
or if you did, you figured that he would have
left her. And you know, it's a slow transition into
that kind of thing, and once you're attached, it's hard.
He is the major transgressor here.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, it's also another question I have is how old
was the other person, because imagine the dynamic if the
other person was also twenty three or twenty two, and
so the two of them are, like, let's say in
college or whatever, they start dating whatever, and the twenty
three goes and finds this high schooler and starts having
an affair with them. Like that's a lot more predatory
as well, you know, like I don't understand what well well,

(27:59):
because the other possibility is that the other person was
also under age and also their age, in which case
maybe there was a double case of abuse happening, right yeah, yeah,
oh okay, yeah, and they might have and so they
might have even been friends or something, but who knows, right, right, All.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Right, break another email that is I think kind of interesting.
Let's do it, all right, or back from the break.
Not that the previous emails weren't interesting, but this one's
kind of a weird interesting one, but I like it.
Annual highest tier patron, good old Joscelyn g Oh. She

(28:39):
writes in it, says, Hi, Kirk Conberto, I am creating
a birth plan like a plan for I sent you
this year. Yes, I'm creating a plan for birthing my child.
One of the considerations is whether I want music in
the background while I deliver. So obviously I want to
know what two mask dudes would put in their labor playlist,

(29:02):
specifically stage two labor. Right. Picture this, your womb completely
opens and your cervix is fully dilated. The baby's giant
head now enters your pelvic girdle. Oh, your uterine contractions
are more intense and longer in duration. Your baby starts
to negotiate the bony and soft tissues in your lower

(29:24):
body and slowly descends for anywhere between one to three hours.
So what songs do you want to hear during that time?
End of email?

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Dead Okay, So, first off, though, I will say, if
this is their first uh.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Birth, I will give a caveat.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Be ready to throw all your plans out the window
at the last second if things don't go according to plant.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
We had these very detailed.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Plans and had gone through a lot of training and
breathing exercises and yoga and all these things to plan
for our first birth, and we were gonna do it naturally.
And it was all like, we're gonna do you.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Know, why were you going to do it naturally? Not
naturally like at home.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
I just mean like we didn't want we wanted to
avoid the drugs, the potosin. We wanted to avoid doing
a sea section. We wanted to just do you know,
birth canal as natural as it possible, fuse drugs as possible,
just to give the baby.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Every chance possible. Blah blah. Okay, everything did not go
according to Plant.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
It was it was twenty three hours on potosin, lots
of pain, eventually emergency sea section.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
So, and it was fine, you know, it was okay,
modern medicine, Thank thank you, modern medicine.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
You know your your wife is a small, petite yeah lady,
yeah so.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
And the baby was nine and a half pounds because
it was two weeks late. All right, if I was
gonna put together a playlist. The cartoon version of me
would in fact pick some like let's that Pillonaire or
some rage or some you know, things to like emphasize
the epic nature of what's happening.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
But in reality I would probably go with.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Something that's actually more soothing, you know, more uh maybe
more focusing, almost mantrick.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well that's what I thought. I at first, I thought, well, yeah,
it should be something like Enya or Ura and no
go flow do do do do? Do you remember Enya?
Oh of course I remember right now, sailor Away, you know,
you think something more soothing. But then but then I
also wondered, well, you're pushing, so you want kind of

(31:36):
workout music, you know.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah, well that's why I was going Da da
Da Da da d or But you know, it could
also be something like since I'm a Beatles fan, I
would pick Tomorrow and Never Knows in the rotation, right,
because it's got that kind of mantra going dun dun
da da da dad dad, and it kind of like
gets me in a groove. And but it's not too

(32:00):
over the top, you know, it's not gonna there. We're
not screaming obscenities or anything like that. It's so I
would I would put something like that. Also, if you're
an electronic music fan, there are a lot of great
options that are going to have a driving beat, that
are that is going to get you to to kind
of also get sort of into a trance like state.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
But what would you want is the question.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
So what I'm saying is like, I would put Tomorrow
Never Knows would be one of my choices. I would
also have here Comes the Sun right because like you know,
that's a positive vibe and all these things, and then
I would I would actually, yeah, I would put let
me think about this. Uh no, no, you know what,
I would go Pink Floyd. I would go Pink Floyd.

(32:41):
And I would put stuff like.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
What's the one delayed Base.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Animals, whatever, because I would have a mix of these
things that are songs that I love for bands that
I love, but that have more of that kind of driving.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Aspect to it.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
But you know, I wouldn't pick Metallica. You know, I
wouldn't pick like Master of Puppets or something.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
It's too much, it's too aggressive, it's too stressful for
that moment in my opinion. Well, what I thought as
a way of answering the question is Joscelyn g. If
you're truly a fan of this podcast, then one thing
that you should put on your playlist is the top
five songs that were popular when Birdo was born.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Ooh, do you know what songs they were in the
US nineteen seventy five? When I was born January nineteen
seventy five?

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Is it? Magic came later? No? Your birthday's January nineteen.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
January twenty eight, nineteen seventy five.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, yeah, Okay, what do we got? Apparently on my calendar,
I have it on January twenty seventh, so it reminds
me a day earlier, January twenty Okay, so I'm guessing
the top would be the same the Carpenters with Please
mister Postman.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Oh, I mean, that's side it is. I just don't
say I love the covers, but okay, it's a.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
It's a good cover though it's it's it's covery in
that it's very Carpenters.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
But if I was gonna pick Carpenters, I would. And
it's the birth situation, absolutely top of the world.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Okay, Okay, Fire by Ohio Players. I don't remember that.
I don't remember that one either. Stevie, What that fire
me Berning got me? Boogie on Reggae Woman. That's a
great song. Okay, Boogie Mandy by Barry Manilo, Okay, Morning

(34:42):
Side of the Mountain by Donnie and Marie Osmond. I
don't recognize any of these other songs. Let's see Best
of My Love by Eagles. Oh. I do love that song.
Freebird by Leonard Skinner.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Okay, Now that is an epic delivery song, you know,
because then you start in.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Fact, that's that's it, that's all you gotta do. Just
go with free Bird.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
It starts like nice if I see him, and then
by the end it's like and like you're going at
bake and you're giving.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Birth and yeah. Plus I think the song is one
to three hours long, exactly. Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell,
the live version, that's a great song, although I don't
I'm not familiar with the live version. Some kind of
Wonderful by Grand funk Line and gun Well that's like
after birth, you know, and Changes by David.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Boy Changes the face is strange. I love that one too.
That one's a good birth Canal song.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Uh, Never Gonna Say Goodbye by Gloria Gaynor and another
cover uh Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by Elton Yeah. Okay,
but if you're truly a fan of the podcast, you
would you would do the songs that were number you know,
that were top of the pops when I was born. Okay, okay, okay,

(35:59):
what do we got Jackson five, I'll be there. Yeah,
that's a great song, Smoking the Robinson Smoking Smoking Robinson
and the Miracles Tears of a Clown, great song. Yeah,
that is a good catchy song, super Bad by James
Brown and Green Eyed Lady by sugar Loaf, which is

(36:22):
one of my favorite songs. Seems like you have a
lot of good choices to pick. I like it. I
like this approach. If it's No Fire by Ohio Players.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
I guess if I were to add one last one
into the mix, because again, you want something that's that
right balance of like pump you up but also you know,
not drive you insane? Is I might go with uh
with a queen song, you know, like, maybe pick your
favorite queen. Like in my case, I would probably not

(36:53):
Bohemian because Bohemian is a little too too much death,
too much chaos. I would actually go with Somebody to
love maybe or or something like that. Oh, but what
am I talking about?

Speaker 1 (37:06):
You could also do survive her greatest hits.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
You know, I have the Tiger and like Bernie Hart,
like all these are good birth giving songs.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
The last thing I'll say is I have it on
good authority that it'll be so chaotic and up and
down and perhaps painful, maybe even drugged up, that you're
not going to notice any music that's on. Any plans
go out the window. Okay, we have another fun set
of emails at the end of this episode. I'm putting

(37:40):
this at the end because they're not very rigorously psychological. Okay,
although we'll get into two emails from annual long term
middle tier patron Natasha from California, who we met you
remember Meteor, She wrote in and says, hey, kirkan embardon
after listening to you and Berto about your alien franchise qualms.

(38:03):
Oh yes, because we were responding to her email before,
I felt the need to clarify that I too take
issue with the more recent films lol, with Prometheus and Covenant.
So if you remember, Prometheus is the first one of
the the first recent movie, Covenant the second. With those

(38:25):
two movies, I decided to not let the dumb little
decisions outweigh the things I like about both movies.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
And by the way, there was a lot of stuff
about Prometheus that I did like.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yeah, when I first saw in the theaters, I was
pretty jazz. The more I thought about it, I was thinking, wait,
what what's going on with that big guy?

Speaker 2 (38:44):
And you also don't want the thing where there's a
rolling a huge rolling thing that can squash you.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
And then you like, I don't know, but people like
that's a huge meme, but people do that in real life,
by the way, you know what I mean, Like you're
just trying to And plus it's not like she was
turning around looking, you know, She's just like run away.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
You know.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
So I just think it's that's like a little silly
to get up in arms about. I'm more up in
arms just how Two things about Prometheus that I didn't like.
One was the premise does not seem to even be there.
It seems like it's just a bunch of Harry Potter mysteries.
Like when they had the head and they put it
under that thing and it came alive, like there was

(39:27):
no explanation. It was a weird thing. It happened in
the movie.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
But yeah, although my understanding is because the cut we signed,
the theater cut.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
A ton of stuff, well then you fucked up. I
get it.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
It's no excuse, But I'm saying that there was there
was a method to the madness behind me.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
I don't think so. I've watched I've watched like ten
times more hours of analysis of these movies than I've
watched of the movies, and and I'm I'm quite sure
that either the explanation wasn't there or it's so stupid
and complicated that it's not entertaining.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, maybe, I mean, yeah, can.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
You tell me?

Speaker 2 (40:08):
I mean, I mean, the dudes came to different planets
and they seeded life, and they would seem to sacrifice
themselves in the process. And then at some point one
of the things they encountered were these parasite beings that
could take over bodies, and they recognized that this was
sort of.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Like a threat to life. And then.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
You know, they had the big ship with the Big
Jockey was one of these creator dudes. But these weren't like,
you know, necessarily benign beings. They were just trying to
seed life.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
That was it.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
But at some point, the aliens started taking over, and
they started trying to like exterminate life as a result.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
I think, I think you have that all wrong. I mean,
no offense. I mean maybe I have it wrong too, but.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
I mean that's what Prometheus was trying to show, right,
I think.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
What it was. I think what it was. I don't
think it did a good job showing this. I said
that really funny. I don't think you have it all wrong.
I think that here's what I think I should just
said that. Here's what my memory. Sometimes you start a
sentence and then later down the line you just want
to rewind and start. Here's what I thought was the

(41:26):
lore of those movies is that there were the creators
who did seed life, perhaps on Earth and other places.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
I mean, they showed them here, you know, they showed
him putting the seed into Earth.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Well, we don't know if they're on Earth. Earth, they
were on a planet that didn't have life. I mean
that's a lame implication. Well yeah, but yeah, we'll go.
And so I thought the story was that they didn't
like humans and other people that were on other planets
that they had seeded, and so they created this monster

(41:58):
kind of thing, this virus, and they were going to
send the virus to Earth, but then the virus got
out of control and killed them all on that planet
before they could wipe out humans on Earth. And that
and you know, remember that scene when they're replaying the
VCR if you will, and they're they're running from the
aliens and they all die because you know, they they

(42:20):
arrive at that station witnessing a thousand year old, you know,
massacre that happened because the aliens killed all those people.
But they created those aliens because they were going to
send them to Earth to kill all the humans. Okay,
I'm pretty sure that's true. But that's a stupid ass thing,
and they didn't explain it at all, like pretty much
in any of the movies.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
But but okay, maybe maybe you're right I just because
I don't, I guess that wasn't shown in the movie enough,
because it wasn't shown at all, because what I what
I thought, why did the in the first Alien the
implication was that that ship that had crash landed in
the alien atmosphere where the aliens were, that that it

(43:04):
was attacked by those aliens, But it wasn't, like I
guess what was the implication that the seeds got out
of the spaceship or something.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Right, Well, I think the ship that they come upon,
because they come on that horseshoe kind of ship in
the first Alien movie, and it had the virus being.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
And the docu already had like a burst chest right.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Right, Yeah, And so they had come upon a scene
in which they had discovered the creators created this virus
to kill other planets, but it had gotten out.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Of its and they don't know how to contain the
virus thing something like that.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Okay, fair enough, But I agree with Natasha in that
if I just like, there's a lot of really cool
scenes and action. I think in Prometheus in particular, because
you know the David thing and and the medical pod
thing that when she has like it cut out of

(44:04):
her body. I mean, that's an intense fucking scene. Yeah,
and there are a lot of aspects that I really enjoyed. Yeah,
So I didn't. I didn't like the Harry Potter mystery
Box JJ Abrams kind of part of it. I also
didn't like that the crew was just incredibly childish and incompetent,
you know what I mean? It was just right because,

(44:25):
like I felt and we discussed this.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
In the first Alien movie, it felt I don't know,
it felt as realistic as one could want it to feel.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
Right, So I recently rewatched I probably rewatch Alien every
I don't know, two or three years. And it's a
classic case in which the creator himself, Ridley Scott, took
away the wrong lesson.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
It's a Luca's situation. Yeah, it's he's like, oh, I'm
a genius. I wrote and directed Alien. Yeah, I'll just
do more of It's it's similar with Peter Jackson. But
you know, in the first Fellowship of the Ring you
have Legalis, who I can't remember what he does in
that movie. That is like fantastic.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
He shoots two arrows quickly and we're all like, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah. But but in sort of the cartoon version of
his feats, he gets on the troll's head I think,
and shoots him in the head or is that a
different anyway, But then you fast forward to two Towers,
well two towers, and he does the surfing down the stairs.
Isn't that in the third one? No, that's in the
second one, And that's a stupid ass scene. But it's like,

(45:29):
not horrible. Wait the surf and the third one is
he's surfing on the trunk of an oliphun. Yeah, I
remember that one, and and so Peter Jackson. But I
thought the surfing on the stairs was the Hobbit. No,
that's the two towers. They're at the there At Helps
there At Helms Deep. Uh. And then in the Hobbit
and the Hobbit is a ninja's Jedi assass. They all are,
even the Dwarfs. I mean that the scene when they're

(45:49):
going down the river is one of the dumbest things
that's ever been put to the silver screen, that that
river thing that's scaling.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
The power scaling problem is always an issue for these franchises.
Superhero franchises everything right because they showed something cool, and
then the next movie they're like, well, we.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Got to go bigger because idiot, you know, you say, oh, well,
the creators are idiots. No, the audience is an idiot.
Because I'll hear people go like, well that movie wasn't
very uh you know, it didn't lacked gravity or I
don't know what they would say, but they'll say things
like I remember in the first one, it was like
an epic experience you know, like people. People just have

(46:27):
simple tastes, you know, saying.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
What is so amazing about the Star Wars two Empire
strikes back? In Star Wars you have a sword fight
that lasts like maybe I don't know, three minutes, where
essentially it's like a couple of Perry's followed by a
seeming surrender and a decapitation. That's it, right, And so
an empire, what do you do? Do you have a

(46:50):
jumping Yoda Ninja? No, you have another exchange where one
guy is clearly outclassed and struggles till his hand gets
chopped off and nearly.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
To his death.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Right, it's awesome, It's like, it's it's the proper progression.
It shows the difficulty of these battles. And yet if
you had a less if it were actually probably if
it would have been just Lucas, the second movie would
have had Ninja's falling from the rafters all over the place.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Well, no, I mean, in return, the fight between Luke
and Vader is still pretty and actually it yeah, so,
but by the time you get to episode whatever, I
think I think the delineation is because CGI didn't exist
very much in nineteen eighty three. He couldn't make a
flippy flippy as.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Possible, but even just the yeah, certainly the tools constrained
things saws.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
And as soon as he got his hands on CGI,
he started fucking up the movies. That's fair.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
That said, though, even the style of the battles, you
could tell that they were originally grounded in like a
Samurai duel, right, and he had clearly done on some
research that in a Samurai duel, you're not going like
class class, class dodge what right? Which they could have
They could have choreographed more. Maybe they couldn't because they
couldn't draw the lightsabers enough. Maybe that's the challenge. But no,

(48:12):
it was like very Samurai and like every slash is meaningful.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
And I think it was.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
I think it was all.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
I think it was both and that it was creative
genius that just kind of you know, struck lightning, but
also doodle limitations, which you'll hear about behind the scenes,
particularly for episode four, they couldn't do much more because
those lightsabers, you know, there were two different versions that

(48:38):
they did for the effect, and one of them you
had a giant battery that was powering this spinny thing
that was spinning you know, and it was like reflecting
light back to the camera and you had to stay
very still with it otherwise it would like break and
so it is a combination. You're right.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
But another example is that in the first movie they
have a death star with one big thing that shoots
from it. You could have imagined an empire. It's a
bigger with seven lasers that shoot all I want.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah. Well, and then episode seven it's a planet starkular baser.
Something so stupid going on with Natasa's email, so to me,
she's saying that there's good and bad, you know, and
I like the good stuff. What I really take issue
with with Prometheus and Covenant is the lack of development

(49:31):
of a lot of the characters to the point where
I don't really feel much when they die. Yep. Also
the exhaustive use of the airlock get another ending. Yeah yeah,
although I didn't really take issue with that because I mean,
it's a tool, a good you know, a good airlock scene.
I can appreciate. Going on. I recently rewatched all of

(49:55):
the movies, and I definitely rate all of the newer
ones lower than I had originally, especially Romulus because it
was way too fan servicey just chiming in. Yeah. Same.
When I saw Prometheus, I probably gave it a seven
or eight, but after rewatching it, I probably gave it
a five or six.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Well, but Alien four? Where are we ranking Alien four?
Because that's a bad movie.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Oh you know what I mean? Well, yeah, but I
think what she's talking the newer one. She's talking about
the newer ones.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
I know, but she said she recently rewatched all of them,
and she ranks the newer ones lower and Alien four
with Winona Ryder is.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
A terrible movie. Yeah, I don't even know if I've
seen that one. Yeah, I liked three more than other
people liked three. I know you liked it. I need
to rewatch it.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
I didn't hate it, though I didn't hate it.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
I just didn't like it. But I haven't seen Rohymulus,
the new one. I thought it came out just like No,
I guess a few months. Is.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Are there three new ones? Yeah, the Prometheus, the second
one I also saw. I didn't see the last one.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Romulus is to form, Okay, I would say and and
and it's right Natasha is saying it's fan servicey. It is,
but it also really breaks away from the attempt. I
will say that Ridley Scott had in Prometheus and Covenant
to make it have more philosophical foundations, you know it

(51:21):
It just is It's very similar to Alien in that
you have a crew on a ship and they're not incompetent,
you know, they're they're pretty good and they're not annoying
characters really, and the an alien gets out and is
uh and starts to kill people and she asks to
survive and da da da da. I will say though

(51:43):
that the first half of the movie, or maybe first
three fifths of the movie, I was like, Okay, you know,
it's no Alien, but they're returning to form and it's
a variation and it's I didn't think of it as
to fan service. Y it definitely had fans service, but
it felt new and different and fresh, and I'm very

(52:05):
much appreciated, especially after watching Covenant. It's just how like
up its own ass that movie was. But the second
half of the movie went on and on like an Alien.
For you know, you have Sigourney Reaver Ripley. She if
you actually bullet point the final scenes, it moves pretty quick.

(52:30):
It has a second ending, right because she gets a
thing you think it's over and then it's right. But
prior to that, it moves pretty quick. You know. It's
a pretty standard I'm guessing ninety minute or one hundred
minute movie or something, and the final battle, if you Will,
is not overly drawn out. Today, I feel like movies,

(52:53):
they feel like they have to make the ending epic,
and all they're doing is putting me to sleep. Literally,
Sometimes I'll be falling and I think I fell asleep.
I watched it at home, but you know, I was
pretty into the first half, and then toward the end,
I'm just like, oh, I just get on with it,
you know. And each one of the battles at the end,

(53:14):
if you Will, I thought, we're okay. There's this one
where the gravity is turned off and the because they
have to deal with the acid blood and it's it
actually presents kind of an interesting question. You know. It's like,
if if the acid is really that strong and you're
in a ship in space, how do you kill the

(53:34):
aliens and not kill yourself? Right? And they you know,
I thought it was okay. It was a little goofy,
but it was it was okay. But that was just
one of the battles at the end and it just
went on and on.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
That's such an interesting phenomenon where you are watching what
technically should be exciting, a lot of exciting action happening
on the screen, right like, stuff's happening. Aliens are dying,
guns are being shot, and it paradoxically you feel nothing. Yeah,
And I think it probably goes back to what Natasha
is saying, which is, if you're not following the characters

(54:10):
and their decisions and that's not what you're pinning it on,
then it's just pixels, right.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, And it feels that way. And you know, I
kind of cared about the character, but there was something about,
you know, Ripley, the way that that character was. Now,
I will say that there was a pretty shameless fan service.
I had heard with Romulus the New Alien movie that
they had cgied ian the robot, the robot, the actor,

(54:43):
the guy who plays the you know that robot. Ian.
I can't remember saying, yeah, but they cgied his face
and I heard that, and I thought that's pretty stupid,
And I in my mind thought that it was a
short scene. No, he's essentially the supporting actor, if you will,

(55:06):
of the second half of the movie.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
And so you have to look at it though.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
It's it's often and it and it just feels like,
can you just make another movie? Sure? Don't involve things
from these other don't you know the member Barry has
no one watched south Park? Oh remember that episode of
south Park? Because Member Barry's are a fucking thing, you

(55:32):
know what I mean? And you didn't need it, you know,
because if a movie like Alien Romulus is good on
its face as it was, I think in the first half,
you don't need Member Barris to keep people watching.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
It's it's the difference between one couple of scenes at
the end of Rogue One that get you that emotional
connection versus a whole series of three movies where you
have to stick the two droids that everyone loved as kids,
and even though it makes no sense in the story
and you can't justify it because of Memorer bars.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Well, and you know you mentioned Rogue one, and to
put a fine point on it, you have to have
Princess Leia to something you could have maybe the back
of her head, because that's the whole point. Yeah, connection,
The whole reason why we're watching is a plot point.
It isn't just oh what if we know you have to, right, yeah, yeah.
Going on with Natasha's email, I recently rewatched all the

(56:29):
movies and think that Romys was two fancers. I keep
thinking about the critique I heard recently that the franchise
could have been taken in a much less predictable direction
if not for the introduction of the queen in Aliens.
What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Oh, was it as early as Aliens that there was
a queen?

Speaker 1 (56:48):
I think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Well, first of all, so I got to say a
couple of controversial things. I'm not a huge fan of Aliens.
I know, it's a very awesome action movie and there's
a lot of great fun quotes.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
But I actually, oh, just a my point of that.
In Romulus, one of the characters says one of Ripley's
famous lines, and it's so fan service bullshitty, you know,
But it happens toward towards you know what I'm saying,
the second half.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
So what what I mean is this, I think Aliens
unfortunately did a set it up in a troubling way
for the future. Because Alien was this great horror movie.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
And well, let me let me guess, because I didn't
know this because Natasha Filson. Something here. James Cameron chose
to turn a seemingly intelligent creature from the first film
into a drone, Morrikin to Morrikin to a wasp.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
And and the thing about the first movie is every
alien was this lethal, perfect force of nature to kill everything.
Right by the second movie, you have this power scaling problem.
I have like dozens and dozens of aliens and everyone
like shooting gallery, Like wait, what happened to the brutality
of a single alien?

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Right? And it became a fun action thing. Look. I
enjoyed it as a kid.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
I loved Aliens, But just in retrospect, I feel like
that started heading in the wrong direction.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah. The other thing I'll say is it could be
argued that, especially if this is one's criticism of Aliens,
it could be argued that they never should have attempted
a sequel to Alien because what are you going to do?
Just have another another? Because that's essentially what Romulus isactly.
It's just another person on a ship with the crew

(58:41):
dying and she has to survive.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
It's like, you know, why would you make a sequel
to Jaws? Oh wait, but that's the point, Like, what
are you going to do in the second one. Oh yeah,
the shark comes out, I know, a different chark, but
it's bigger this time and it attacks more people.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Well that's why I appreciate White Lotus the TV show,
even though I'm not a fan of the second and
third seasons because they'd go into a different but but
I do absolutely respect the fact that they didn't. Just
although they did bring back that one, I haven't seen
from it from season season one to season two, but
it's it's kind of a noticeable.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
It's orthogonal. Like what you're saying, is that the Yeah,
and I like that about do you remember The Wire?
Oh yeah, yeah, like they were. They're like you, you
could take each season as its own thing.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Yeah they can. Yeah, they completely just you know, threw
away the entire premise and the characters, even though the
characters do show up again. But they did that, and
it's such a risk and it actually I think cost
them a lot of viewers because for people like you
and me and other people that you know love The Wire.
We love it, but it never took off like Game

(59:49):
of Thrones or something like that. Even though it had
that quality or sopranos, it was kind of like the
next Sopranos. I want McNaulty, what happened to McNaulty, I
want more Mcnauughty's right, and I will say that the
second season is not as interesting because they're focusing on
the docks, you know, but it uh, you know, but

(01:00:10):
it could have been really silly to just rehash the multi.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Things more of a lethal weapon type of situation.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Yeah, right, Like I'm too old for this shit. So
I respect that. Or I respect movies that just don't
even have a sequel, even though they're wildly popular, you know, like,
can we think of an example of a movie the
one well and then they haven't Like American Psycho. They
did it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
They did it, but that was not fair because they
had a horror movie and they decided to slap Lionskate
was like, just a look, we own the license, so
just let's make this an American Psycho too, So we'll
add a scene at the beginning and a scene at
the end to connect the movies.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
I'm going to look up my top ratings and see,
I mean there's movies like well, I guess Fargo did
have kind of a sequel because it had a TV
show right, But let's see here top rated on my IMDb.
I mean, we'll see he got Gladiator two, which is terrible,

(01:01:15):
but but some of those like was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
It also Ridley's like is Ridley Scott and the same people?

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Uh huh oh okay, yeah, so that's your thing about
Ridley Scott. So I'm gonna actually, I'm gonna go to
my list. I mean, I recently made a weird decision.
So I don't think there is a movie creator that
has such a disparity between his good movies and his
bad ones. So at the top of the list, so
these are all the movies that I've seen. I've seen

(01:01:42):
most of his movies, or at least the kind of
main ones. At the top of the list, you have Alien,
Blade Runner, Thelma Louise, Wow, The Black Hawk Down, American Gangster.
I never saw that one. That was Denzel Yeah, yeah,
I never did see that. Yeah, that's the one about
the guys the employer of P Diddy's dad. That's right,

(01:02:04):
but I never did see that one. Okay, there's another
movie called The Counselor, which is pretty good. The Martian,
Oh yeah, that's a good movie. I like The Last Duel.
Some people didn't Gladiator. Yeah, now we get into kind
of the mid zone on my list. Anyway, we have Exodus,
God and King, Gods and Kings, which is about Ramsey's

(01:02:25):
and Moses. Okay, people hated it. I thought it was
I thought it was okay. You probably didn't Legend the
nineteen eighty five movie Legend right with Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise.
I gave it a six. You know, that's fine. Kingdom
of Heaven is a really interesting movie that I've watched
many many times, and I've I've seen the you know,

(01:02:46):
the theatrical version and the the director's cut, which is
like twice as long, and the director's cut is way better.
What is it about? It's about the crusade, and it's
it's it's interesting, and it has some fatal flaws. But
and then Prometheus, Alien Covenant, Match stick Men with Nicholas Yeah,

(01:03:13):
and and what's his face?

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I was Sam Sam Sam Rockwell. But then at the
bottom of the list. So so a lot of those
movies are kind of fives, which is like, yeah, four
to five. But then there are movies at the bottom
one out of ten, White Squall from ninety six, which
I thought was so stupid Robin Hood with Prince No

(01:03:41):
Robin Hood with You probably saw it in the theater,
but you forget it. It's with Russell Crowe as Robin Hood.
Oh my gosh, I forgot. That was not good. Kate Blanchette,
Oh my Napoleon, which came out right stupid. I mean,

(01:04:02):
especially if you know anything about Napoleon's life, you mention
very and you know, people say, oh, Kirk, you're being
sexist and misogynistic because it focuses on his relationship with
this swomen no that I appreciated actually including his personal life,
and they were actually going off of factual information. They

(01:04:24):
have letters going back and forth between Napoleon and this
woman I can't remember her name, but the depiction of
Napoleon and they tried to encapsulate essentially the majority of
his life, which is too big of a chunk. And
the way that he directed Joaquin Phoenix to play Napoleon
was laughable, like it's it's an inadvertently comedian comedian. How

(01:04:48):
stupid the way Joaquin plays this character. And then by
far the worst movie that I saw in the theaters
in nineteen ninety two, which is fourteen ninety two Quest
of Pair. I forgot about that movie. This is about
Christopher Klein, No I remember, so, you know, in relation
to what we were talking about in the deep dive

(01:05:09):
on immigration.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
So let me tell you by the way, you would
think that an epic movie by Ridley Scott about Columbus
would be a memorable thing, and.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
I had totally erased them from my memory. But it
was a blockbuster at the time, was it. It was
a huge movie. I saw it. I saw it in
the theater. Yeah, so I saw in the theater. I
would have been twenty one, and I went with a
bunch of my frat brothers, college guys, and it was
a pack theater. It must have been opening weekend. And
in the front row, just as the movie starts, this
this native American guy stands up and starts to shout

(01:05:39):
in this you know, calm way, but he's shouting that
this movie is an abomination and it is Does it
glorified I don't remember. Oh my god, does it glorified Columbus?
Oh my god. It completely makes Christopher Columbus into a saint.
Oh my goodness. And he you know, as we talked

(01:06:00):
about in the immigration episode, Christopher Columbus and this is
again not just some liberal uh made up ship. All
you have to do is go off the written account
of people who were on the ground, who were actually
his compatriots. You know they were They were like Catholic
uh uh uh minis minister Catholic? Uh yeah, what do

(01:06:20):
you call it? The just with the priests? The what
do you call it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
When minsters?

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
A no, it's on the tip of my tongue. When
you go to another place. Missionaries missionaries, Well we see man,
you literally yeah, So we have these missionaries who were
writing about what Christopher Columbus was doing, and you you

(01:06:47):
can't even.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Imagine, speaking of which because you have an epic, epic,
epic movie like The Mission that actually shows the horror
and like some people accused us like the White Savior cinema,
but come on, like it's like that was that was
the best you could hope for in that situation. And
that's a that's a great movie. And then you have
something where it's glorifying the other.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Oh my god, played by Gerald Death.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Yeah, I remember, I mean I remember that movie coming out,
I remember going to see it. I clearly blocked it
from my mind because that's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Yeah, I recently watched a takedown of this movie. There's
a YouTube channel that reviews history, you know, movies that
to pick history and will analyze them. And I'm trying
to remember history buffs I think they're called, and they
do a really good job of telling us just how
horrible this movie is. So and on top of that,

(01:07:38):
it's just a bad movie. Yeah, it's not interesting. So
you know, you have someone that did Napoleon, Robin Hood
and fourteen ninety two and the same guy made Alien
Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Blackhawk Down. Yeah, very inconsistent,
Like what is going on there? That's a big swing anyway,

(01:07:59):
So I was and on a mission to find a
good movie that did not have a sequel and inception
though inception okay a lot of the Christopher Nolan movies
don't have Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, that would be
really weird. That'd be really weird to have a let's
see well Conan had recently watched Conan, Let's see Rocky

(01:08:23):
the Bourne movies.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Kind they all have the back and the problemse is
if if it was successful, most often they're going to
force people to make a sequel.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Oh, I was looking at the bottom of my list
for some reason, I did the wrong sorting. Okay, now
I'm on the top.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Well, a primer didn't have a sequel, It kind of did,
actually did it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
Do you remember? It was like the Blue Flower or something.
Maybe maybe that wasn't a sequel. Don't quote me on that.
Uh yeah, well the Godfather that Departed, that didn't have
that didn't have a sequel.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
I guess you could say that about a lot of
Scorsese movies.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, right, pull fiction, No Country for Old Men, Fight Club,
fight Club, The Fight Club could have easily had. In fact,
I think I've mentioned this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
They have a graphic novel sequel that Chuck Palinik did,
and it broke my heart, dude, because essentially it is
I don't know if he did it like ironically, because
that's obviously the last thing in the world that Fight
Club would have is a sequel. So I don't know
if it was ironic. But there's this graphic novel that's
not entertaining that is a sequel to Fight Club.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
The Northman. We saw that in the theaters. Yeah, I mean,
it hasn't been enough time Shinler's list. That doesn't happen
My God, Forrest Gump, you know, you could have had.
In fact, there was a sequel to the book. There
was a second Force Let's see Prisoners, which would be
weird to have a secret Fletch have a sequel. There
were two Fletch books. Oh, there were there were first sequels.

(01:09:54):
I'm ninety percent sure the Matrix, Hey, Groundhoug they didn't
have a sequel, right, Goodfellas well, we don't know if
Groundhog they didn't have, but Goodfellas could have. Well, but
that because that's a true story. So you can't have
Big Lebowski. City of God. There will be Blood Zodiac now,

(01:10:16):
Poleon Dynamite, Napoleon Dynamite, Children of Men, you could have
had a sequel that Children of That. Yeah, any of
those sci fi things. You could Eternal Sunshine. That'd be
stupid to have a rival. These are all my top movies. Yeah,
the Holland Drive, Guardians there was a sequel, which I
actually like The Guardians. That's actually you know, I feel

(01:10:37):
like people need to talk about the Guardians of the
Galaxy trilogy more because those three movies. You know, the
second one is definitely kind of a dip, but but
it's one of.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
The better Marvel movies. It's just nowhere near as good
as the first Guard.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Yeah, and I actually really like the second one. It's
a lot of fun. It's a very fun movie. It's
just the first and the little weird because you're kind
of you're dealing with like a god, right, you know.
But the first and the third are so great. And
the third, I mean god, I was crying and crying.
I mean they really they really found a way to

(01:11:14):
drive all the way to the heart uh, Princess Bride,
saving Private Ryan, spirited away reservoir dogs. You could have
seen a sequel the I mean someone someone could argue
that Quentin universe is really but not really. Yeah, Raiders
had sequels, which you know they were okay, Terminator had sequels, well,

(01:11:37):
hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Raiders had one great sequel which was three everything else
Raiders two. As a kid, I loved, but it's it's
not a very good movie. In fact, it's very heartbreaking.
I tried to show Raider Raiders Indiana Jones two to
uh my kids, and they were bored. They we couldn't
watch all of it, which I guess a different time,
different place.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Yeah, the third one is really great. Third with with
with Sean Connery so good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
And then as far as I'm concerned, I stopped there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Spinal Tap is having a sequel this year? Really did
you know that? I did? Yeah, what let's see is
it gonna go to twelve? Irreversible? That doesn't have a
Oh my god, dude, it's got a prequel fifth element.
You could have seen it. That could have been a
whole series of movies unforgiven. You could have seen a

(01:12:25):
secret to that. The thing there's a remake. Wait, yeah,
that's true. Remake Edge of Tomorrow would have been up.
That's repeat, I repeat whatever. That's actually impressive because you
could that that movie was eleven years ago. You could
absolutely see them the aliens are back or you have

(01:12:48):
to go to the other planet, you know what I mean? Like,
that's the restraint. Because I watch Edge. I watch Edge
of Tomorrow like once a year. It is like it
it's a perfect movie. I had no business being that good.
No one expected, no one had. The characters are good,
the writing is good, the premise is good, the acting
is good. Tom Cruise is amazing. I mean, what about

(01:13:11):
James Bond that one doesn't know? I watched this YouTube
channel Patrick, I can't remember his name, but he recently
did a whole James Bond James Bond retrospective that was
really interesting. Puts it all in kind of perspective because
he he also breaks down the Daniel Craig you know

(01:13:34):
movies and puts it in perspective for me, because I,
you know, when I watched the more recent Bond movies,
I felt like some of them, the more recent ones,
I would walk out of a theater and say, was
I just not paying attention? Because no, they were not good,
because because it was har yeah, convoluted. But what he

(01:13:55):
points out is that the movies are often reacting to
the reaction to the last movie. Sure, you know, like,
oh it's too convoluted. Okay, now we're going to get
down to basics. Oh it was too basic. We got
to like get we got to make it more complicated.
And but he also said that they've always been that way. Yeah,
that's fair.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Like Moonraker was a reaction of what people thought they
liked about Spy Love Me, so like let's let's do
eleven well.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Also, Moonraker was a reaction to Star Wars, which had
come out a couple years exactly. Yeah, but there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
You know, I think for each era there are a
couple of movies that I think are well. Almost for
each era there's there's one or two movies that I
think are great, But each one of the.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
Bonds has a lot of bad ones too. Yeah. Yeah,
So going on here, I keep thinking about the critique
I heard recently that the franchise could have been taken
in a much less predictable direction if not for the
introduction of the Queen and Aliens, you know, I make Yeah,
it's an interesting thing to think, like what would have
been if they kept the alien. It was never really

(01:15:00):
fully explained what was going on in the mind of
the alien in the first movie, right, But I think
most people walked away from the first movie they would
have said that the alien was intelligent, right, wouldn't they
have thought that? Yeah? Because it acted intelligence.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
Yeah, well, of course, like there was no question about it.
It had it had an understanding of how to trick
people tricking and what it you know, absolutely no question
but it was.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
But like I said, it would be really hard to
make a sequel regardless, And so I think actually that
is kind of the genius of Aliens. If you're just
trying to make another movie based in this world that
is entertaining. I think that's one of the ways you
can go with Aliens was very successful in that regard,
no question, and the good characters, you know what I mean,
like you, and it develops Ripley even more and da
da da.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
It's just that what I thought was so great in
that first no, I mean, I loved everything about it.
But one of the things that they point out in
that first movie is they go like, this is the
affect species. It's like evolved to perfection to be like
the ultimate predator. Right, So I thought that that could
have been explored a little further. I mean, don't get

(01:16:11):
me wrong, I'm kind of with you. I didn't need
a sequel ultimately, like, let's leave Alien as it's awesomeness
as it was. But if you were gonna go with
a sequel, I would have loved to see them lean
more in that direction. They sort of went the other direction,
which is, all right, let's just make a lot of
these things and make them slightly less powerful, and you know, and.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
It kind of puts Alien three in perspective too, because
if the foundation was let's not just rehash the past
movie let's actually swing for the fences while keeping it
within world and three is if you see it in
a certain way, it is that right. It's a complete departure.
But I think what I think Alien three suffers from

(01:16:54):
what Jackie Brown suffered from after Pulp Fiction, in that
people saw pull Fiction and a bunch of idiots walked
away from that movie going, wasn't it cool when he
stabbed that girl in the chest with the adrenaline? That
was the best part of the movie. But wasn't it
awesome when when like so and so like shot that
person and stuff, and it's just like you took away

(01:17:16):
the wrong thing. You know, Jackie Brown is arguably a
more subtle movie, but it has all the Quentin Tarantino.
It's an amazing movie, and it's why, it's the reason
why it's arguably my favorite Quentin Tarantina movie. And I
rewatched that one all the time. And so when people
watched Aliens Alien Tue there they walked away going, wasn't

(01:17:37):
it awesome when they shut all those people want and
you see Alien three and it's nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
What I agree with you on that what I think
I would have done with Alien three is not have
Sigourney Weaver for one, because that's part of the issue.
It's like, well, we gotta have Sigourney because she's the star. Like, well, okay, fine,
but then what you're doing is you're rehashing. You're rehashing.
But you're right that Alien three tried and maybe didn't

(01:18:03):
quite succeed, but it did try to be different, yeah,
than in that and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
I think it suffered from production conflict, you know, David Fincher,
Oh right, right, right, But I also think that from
my understanding, like the producers in the studio were fighting
about the script, and you know, whenever those kind of
things happened in bad things.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
I remember being so excited when I found out Fincher
was making it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Really yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
I don't know if I was aware of Fincher because
he had already done seven, right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
Oh I wasn't, I'm not. I mean seven was fine. Oh,
I loved seven.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
Seven was like I had never seen a movie like
it before that right where it was. It's it was
so threatening to watch seven in the theater.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
I literally felt fear for my life. Yeah. I gave
it a seven out of ten anyways, but yeah, so
I was kind of excited to see what you would do.
You know what's interesting about this rating is that I
gave it this rating back then. Yeah, so this wasn't
like right because I had an Excel spreadsheet that I because.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
It is insane that you have that system going back
so far, because.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
I've only seen this movie once. So when I saw
it in nineteen ninety five, I gave it a seven
out of ten, and I know that today. Yeah, that's
kind of weird. That's incredible. Let's take a break, we
get back, let's nerd out on Star Trek because Natasha
has a question about that. Let's do it all right,

(01:19:30):
we're back from the break. So Natasha wrote in another
email about Star Trek and says, I finally caved in
and decided to watch the original Star Trek after years
of hearing about it being such the original TV show,
The Star Trek. Yeah, okay, I'm five episodes into the
first season and I'm enjoying it, but I keep wishing

(01:19:51):
the discussion around Spock's assessment of emotions was a little
less black and white. Just shaming in here. I'm surprised
that you like it, Natasha, although this is really a
testament to how nerdy you are, Natasha, because I've gone back,
and you know, I loved it as a kill, love
it because it was basically the only thing aside from

(01:20:13):
Battlestar Galactica that you could watch or Space nineteen ninety nine.
But I loved it. But upon rewatching it as an adult,
I'm just like, Okay, this is you know, it's a
TV show that's made in nineteen sixty six. It is
very limited in what it can do. But as a kid,
it was mind bending.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
It was Twilight Zone. It was Black Mirror. It was
Space because it wasn't and at.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
That point it is black Mirror right back then. Yeah,
it had that threat to it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
It wasn't just you know, Star Wars felt of course,
you felt threatened by Darth Vader, but mostly it felt
hopeful I could be a Jedi, I could have the forest,
right Star Trek was like, oh, this Space is kind
of spooky and dangerous.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
It felt adult, you know, going on in your opinion,
does that conversation about Spock's emotions get more nuanced in
the franchise over time? So Natasha is like, I know,
there's a lot more show and a lot more shows
and a lot of movies does it get more nuanced
the conversation around Spock's suppression or lack of emotion burto

(01:21:20):
what do you think? I don't remember well enough.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
All I remember is that they kept that character as
far as I remember, pretty steady throughout the show. I
do think in the movies they when he the whole
you know, search for Spock, and then after that and stuff.
I think he got a little more nuanced. Maybe, but
I don't know. You tell me, you probably know it better.
I do know this as a kid. I did find

(01:21:46):
it fascinating the thought that there could be because it's
interesting these It wasn't a robot, because you know, the
idea of like, well, robot has no emotions, that was
kind of tried and done. But this was like, you know,
it's another sentient species that operates differently and they just
like just perfectly logical. I always found that super fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Yeah, so I've talked about this before, that Spock, Data,
other characters like this. You know, Sherlock Holmes are the
male ideal in our society in that they are ultracompetent.
In the case of Spock and Data, they're ultra strong, right,

(01:22:28):
they are, you know, they have a lot of stamina.
Elves are also legalists. You could argue, not in the books,
but in the movies.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
They're stoic, strong, very wise, but also emotionless.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Right, they're fearless, right, Yeah, Yeah, they have complete control
over their emotions. They don't cry, they don't get angry.
They are stoic, you know, ultra stock, and this is
the male ideal. Japanese art has a different flavor of this,
but it's in the same thing. I mean, the the

(01:23:01):
stoic ronan samurai that arrives from out of town and
is quiet and has his hat over his eyes, and
calmly and coolly deals with the bully, but then when
pushed into a corner, with one slash of his sword
like cuts him down. You know, every samurai, every anime,

(01:23:22):
every now it's stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Though, it's so fucked I will say this, there's also
a common threat to all of them, including Spock and Data.
There's always a little golden heart hiding under that surface.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
Yeah, because I would argue that Data and Spock have
always had emotions. Yeah, it just deeply they just don't
have feminine emotions. They don't they don't have classic emotions. Yeah,
but they well, but you can say they care about
their you know, if they were emotionless, they would be
like a calculator. But they clearly care about the people

(01:23:56):
around them. They have relationships, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
I'm saying, like, even if you kept it to the
male thing, because they also don't sit there and go like,
well then this will be your demise or we'll make
sure you die.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
You know, they don't say stuff, right. Well, I guess
there's two versions of the toxic masculine ideal. One is
Spock and the other one is Kirk. Captain Kirk is
like that a lust rage monster who is even more
competent and rewarded for all of his emotions.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
But actually that's an interesting thing, right because he is
the main one. So ultimately it's like, we want both,
but we'll take the rage one.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Right, right, So, Natasha, the answer that I'll say is
that it's complicated. Spock is complicated. Even within the original series.
It's you know, and there's been a lot written about
this actually that the you know, what's really going on
with Spock and what's really going on with the Wulcans
and of course the writers over the years, of which

(01:24:55):
there have been dozens upon dozens of writers who have
contributed to the lore of Vulcans and Spock and Data
for that matter, because there have been other Vulcans on
other shows, right, and Spock is only half Vulcan, half human,
and so there's been numerous writers that have come at
it from different angles. But I would say, on average,

(01:25:16):
for especially when you think about a character that's been
written over the span of like five or six decades,
the character has stayed pretty consistent. Yeah, However, like I
will say, aside from the Pilot, because if you see
the pilot is different, he's really he's very odd. You
just have to the way he was directed was very strange.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
But wouldn't you say, like the in the Wrath of
con because it is in the whole thing of him
sacrificing himself, Like that's kinda I mean, it depends obviously
with nu ones you'd say, like, so that's consistent because
he's logically analyzed the situation and blah blah blah, right,
which is I think how they try.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
The needs of the many outweigh the few or the one.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
And at the same time, well, at the very least
you could say that they're that they do play with
the edges of that question, like because you could you
could ask, okay, well, but that that is assuming he's
calculated all the paramutations and that that's the one blabb blah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
So they are playing with the question right well, and
they play with it, I think in this now that
I think about it in this really good way, in
that you get the sense that Spock does care about
Kirk and he is half human. Yeah, and that, by
the way, Oh that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
He is half human, so you could get a little
plausible deniability.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
But his front facing self is vulcan. He is trying
to suppress this humanity and and he does so effectively.
But the contrast that they wrote into the script, people
will say that episode three, you know, the Search for
Spock is not good. It's not as good as two
or four. I look, my two favorite maybe original star

(01:27:00):
Trek things is Rathacon and The Undiscovered Country. Yeah, the
one with the whales. Yeah, I rewatched that movie and
it's so good. It's interesting, it's funny as fuck. I mean,
it has so many good jokes in it, and and
it's so eighties, you know, And I remember seeing in

(01:27:21):
the theater when I was a kid. Uh in fact,
when the first movie came out, you know my birthday.
It must have come out that December, and I asked
to see that movie with my friends. And so, at
the age of like nine years old, we saw the
first Star Trek Star Trek movie, and it is it's

(01:27:41):
the most boring thing. It's it's trying to be two
thousand and one, and it has long drawn out sequences
and it's very philosophical. And they learned from their mistake,
and then they made rathacn which is very action oriented
and anyway, But so.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
Rathla Khan is the one where they're in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Right, No, that's four. No, it's I'm sure it's two. Yeah,
so with three because Spock dies in two. Right, But
do you know what I was referencing. It's it's from
the on Cinema. At the cinema.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
They have this long running argument where Greg Turkington claims
that that that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
Starts I find Eric what's his face or Tim or
Tim Tim Hideker's h later products to be so meta
that it's come around to boring again. Like I love
Tim and Eric show. I even liked their movie, but

(01:28:41):
the stuff that he's done more recently, I find it's
like it's just boring. Now, well, you mean, like the
what's the parody of the movie the movie the movie
review one and no, I won't go with you there.
I love the trial the trial thing. Yeah, that part
is that was so boring and and and not funny. Yeah,

(01:29:01):
but he's got so many seasons.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
I mean, it's like, but give me a Tim and
Eric episode. You know, it's just but you know, like
that season like twelve or something on cinema, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
Anyway, So with three, Spock is resurrected, essentially because they
jettisoned his his dead body onto a planet that they terraformed,
and it's you know, it's kind of interesting. It's like
a believable premise that he would come back. I mean,
it's stretching, you know, a lot, but if there was

(01:29:34):
some way to bring him back, which I think, so
it's actually kind of interesting. So I actually had Leonard
Nimoy's son on the podcast. Did you know that? Uh? No,
I don't think I knew that. You don't listen to
this podcast, I do. I just forgot that one. But
from my understanding, Leonardemoy had a pretty conflictual relationship with

(01:29:54):
Star Trek, for you know, because he didn't like being
type cast in this way, and I think he wanted
to be killed maybe I don't know, but they managed
to bring it back anyway. Point is is that when
he comes back, he is kind of like a baby,
but he's also more vulcan and is he isn't really himself.

(01:30:17):
So they contrast what he might be like if he
hadn't had all the experiences with Kirk and the others,
in that he is more logical and not attached. And
so you have that sharp contrast, you know, between Ratha
Kahan and three. And he's still kind of suffering from

(01:30:39):
that in four. Actually, when they go to San Francisco,
he's still a little aduled in his head. But what
they're telling us in this interesting, you know, several decades
long storyline about Spock is that even his vulcan side
has a human emotional side to it that is good

(01:31:00):
that he can accept. Now. I will say, in the sixties,
the Freudian view of the psyche was the only thing
in town because we just didn't really have anything else
in popular culture anyway, And I think in a good way,
they actually leaned into that in the show, and Spock

(01:31:22):
was like, you could argue, like the super ego and
sometimes Kirk's more the ID. But but and sometimes I
say McCoy is more of the ego. But I think
that elevates McCoy more than what was actually true because McCoy,
although often is like the trio that we think of,
McCoy wasn't a core character very often he was around,

(01:31:46):
but it was much more Kirk and Spock, you know
what I mean. And I would say that Kirk is
the ID and the ego.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
But I would agree with that because like if otherwise,
you would think that there's always or most often a
scene where it's McCoy that really brings Kirk crown, right,
But that's not It happens, but it's not like a
key thing exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
Yeah. Yeah, So they had a Freudian view and that
there's a scary underbelly of our psyche that wants to
kill and have sex with our mom, and you know,
it kind of had that feeling to it where when
Spock would occasionally have his feelings come through. There's a
famous episode actually that Natasha referenced in her longer email

(01:32:32):
that's that right away. They wrestle with Spock's emotions episode four,
season one, where he's crying and he's ashamed of himself
and why was this happening. There's a virus that essentially
makes everyone drunk. Oh, and he can't restrain his emotions anymore,
and the emotions that come out are really exaggerated, horrible emotions.

(01:32:57):
So that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
So I didn't I didn't remember this that the brain
of the vulcan actually has all the normal stuff, except
it's being suppressed actively.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
Well, so here's what I think is that originally they
wanted Vulcans to not have emotion, but they wanted Spock,
and so originally this is just my speculation. I'm sure
there's been a lot written about it, but I what
I would imagine is that Gene Roddenberry had Spock as

(01:33:26):
kind of a secondary character, and in the pilot you
can kind of see that he's just one of the crew.
But I think from my memory of reading you know, accounts,
is that Spock was a fan favorite, and so they
started leaning into it a little bit, so I think
they wanted to give This is all just me making
shit up, So I have no idea but I think

(01:33:46):
they wanted to give Spock a little bit more humanity,
so Gene Roddenberry retcondit so that Spock was half human
half Vulcan. Then later, even later, they said, well, Vulcans,
you know, they because eventually they had to flesh out
the Vulcan history. And I think this is off the
top of my head, that in ancient history, Vulcans were

(01:34:08):
very warlike, you know, because the Vulcans and the Romulans
were actually the same right right right off, And the
Vulcans decided to change their society by changing the mind
of all the Vulcans so that they wouldn't kill each other.
And what they had to do was shut down all emotions,
and so it became this active practice of like meditation,

(01:34:31):
religion and sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
Now we're the I kept trying to remember, So were
the Romulans and the Klingons at war with each other?

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
They didn't like each other, they didn't like Yeah, I'm
trying to remember the very beginning war, but I think
it was it was Romulans and the Klingons were at war,
and the Federation was at war with both of them too.

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
I don't know it's funny because like the Vulcans were
like the mentats of the of the Star Trek universe,
you know that, Yeah, because I think I think maybe
initially it was supposed to be more like, yeah, like
just like human caul or not a human, an alien
calculator type character. But then it offers a lot more
possibilities for storytelling if there's more nuance to that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:14):
Yeah. Yeah, And you know, to all the massive trekky
nerds out there, for whatever I bastardized, I apologize. I'll
also mention that there are other important Vulcan characters that
the creators had greater forethought about how to shape these characters,
like Tuvak from Voyager. This kind of thing where you know,

(01:35:39):
they could sort of start from scratch knowing that they
were heading in a direction, and have a story arc
for Tuvak, And you could argue that Data is just
kind of like a spock ish character, you know, fulfills
a certain role and the whole nugent.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
Did the next generation have a Vulcan in addition, No,
they didn't have Vulcan.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
No, there were Vulcans that would join them sometimes, but
they didn't have them on because I think it would
interfere too much with data. But you know, there's there's
a hole, and there's so many episodes back then to
those shows, and these shows were less action oriented and
more character oriented. So there's a lot that can be
said about all of these characters. But I will say

(01:36:19):
that Spock's character, now that I think about it, was
held pretty well together. And by the time we see
him show up in the jj Abrams reboot movie, you know,
which I actually liked that first one, that by the
time we see him show up in a you know,
not only in a time you know, when Leonard Nimoy

(01:36:41):
shows up in a time travel, but we also see
what's his face playing a younger Spock, the guy who
played Silas on I thought that that character was was
pretty good, although I will say that the character was
was more emotional in the jj Abrams chirs, but they

(01:37:01):
kind of had an explanation that anyway, there were I'm
meandering well, Natasha hopefully, and good old Joscelyn G. I
would say about half the emails we get are from
the two of you. So this episode your rambling responses
and Joscelyns G good luck with your labor oh yeah,

(01:37:23):
just yeah. I think it's obvious what should be playing
during labor. It's this podcast, absolutely and and this podcast
while I am singing a song about labor. Go into
the world, give birth through your cannet.

Speaker 2 (01:37:39):
You can do it.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
Push it out one, two, three for five, Wait, involve more,
canal talk.

Speaker 3 (01:37:48):
You know you got a lot of cannounce Some give birth,
some don't, But I want you to focus on the
ones that do, because otherwise they'll be problem.

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
Pooh, you just said pooh, Pooh was right there. It
was just there for the taking because there is pooh.
There is pooh. I mean usually right when that pooh.
And that does it for that episode of psychology in Seattle.
If you're still listening, then you're either a total nerd
throwing your phone at the wall because of all the

(01:38:21):
bullshit that I got wrong, or you're asleep because you
listen to this episode when you're sleep, And either way,
take care of yourself because you deserve it.

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