August 28, 2025 • 35 mins
What makes a machine human? When does an algorithm become more than just ones and zeros? In this fourth installment of our artificial intelligence in pop culture series, we tackle the profound philosophical questions raised by science fiction's most compelling AI narratives.
We begin with Star Trek's Data—the "fully functional" android whose quest to understand humanity mirrors our own questions about consciousness. But our main focus turns to Ridley Scott's masterpiece Blade Runner and its central question: what distinguishes humans from the replicants they've created? We examine how the film's ambiguity about whether Deckard himself is a replicant enriches its exploration of consciousness, memory, and identity.
The conversation takes us through Douglas Adams' satirical take on AI in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where a supercomputer spends millions of years calculating the answer to life's ultimate question only to deliver the infamous "42." This absurdist approach highlights our tendency to outsource complex philosophical dilemmas to technology without fully understanding what we're asking.
As we consider modern AI development, we question whether the distinction between artificial and human intelligence might be more arbitrary than absolute. Are we, as humans, fundamentally different from the algorithms we create, or are we simply organic computers operating on biological programming? The way we constantly redefine sentience as we learn more about animal intelligence provides a fascinating parallel to how we might one day view artificial consciousness.
The episode eventually veers off into a tangent we're famous for as we fan-cast a particular comic book property if it had been adapted to film years before it was.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Dispatch Ajax, your favorite geek podcast
, subjugated before you by arobot.
Evermind overlords are yourhosts, skip and Jake.
Let them thrill and entertainyou with another discussion,
part four of artificialintelligence in pop culture.
Enjoy what the all-seeing,all-hearing, all-knowing
synthetic entity allows yourpathetic meat sacks to listen to
(00:22):
.
Your creation's benevolenceabounds you fleshy ants.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative All weapons Now Chargethe lightning field.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
There are things I want to get into about data
specifically.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I would love to do a data section and if we want to
do a data episode, there'splenty there we could do a sub
episode for sure I mean talkabout it.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, Data is a fully functional sub.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
No, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
He is fully functional.
Is he a sub?
I don't know.
I think he's whatever they wanthim to be.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's true, he is fully functional.
I think he would naturally beinclined to be a sub.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, maybe to his nature, but that's the Borg
Queen If we want to get into itsown episode the sexual
inclinations and fetishes ofData.
That would be actually super fun, and the overall reason we
wanted to do this was because wewant to kind of like discuss is
ai, the ai that we are facingnow?
Is that this ai?
(01:49):
Is it actually that type of ai?
And there are other examples ofit that I think do make great
commentary on this, like indouglas adams hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy.
The through line through thewhole thing is that a species
who wants to essentiallyoutshore this debate to a
(02:13):
computer and then goes on awhole thing, because if you read
Hitchhiker's Guide, likephilosophers and also
mathematicians debate each otherand also mathematicians debate
each other and eventually theycome up with a computer that is
powerful enough to answer thequestions these existential
questions were asking, and thenwhen it does, finally, after
(02:37):
millions of years, comes up withthe answer, they're confused
because they don't understandthe question that they were
asking, and so they create earth, which is another supercomputer
that's supposed to be able tofigure out the question that
they were trying to answer, butthen it doesn't quite work out.
(02:58):
No spoilers, but one of thethings that I really wanted to
talk about in this genre because, like we've talked a lot robots
do not want to hear you speakabout this any longer manually
the idea of replicants.
Are they conscious?
The whole voight-kampff test,the whole.
(03:20):
Are replicants sentient?
Are they people?
Is deckert a replicant?
That's a debate that could behad but really shouldn't need to
be had.
Can we break that down for justlike a tiny second?
Can we talk about the bladerunner thing?
Sure so in blade runner, theentire premise.
It's based on a philip k dickshort story called Do Androids
(03:43):
Dream Electric Sheep, in whichthe world is so broken down
environmentally that there'salmost no actual animal life
left and humans are just kind ofrunning on empty fumes and it's
a thing where status is kind ofthe only thing you have left.
(04:04):
It's a thing where status iskind of the only thing, you have
left and the protagonist deckeris.
He's a cop.
He's a cop where he he's askedto investigate things about.
Replicate replicants are human.
Well, they're android.
They're just androids that aredesigned to replicate human
(04:25):
functions and they're notallowed to run rampant on Earth.
He's one of the people that arelike designed to go and track
them down and eliminate them ifnecessary.
It's a little complicated.
The movie actually fleshes outthe lore way more than the short
story does, though I think theshort story gets to more
(04:46):
specific points than the moviedoes, because they talk about
the religion of like climbing upthe hill constantly, that like,
that's how people.
That's a whole plot.
That's not in the film at all,not at all, but important, I
think, to the story.
But so so Deckert is supposedto, you know, like, investigate
replicants and track them down,and he's brought into the
(05:11):
Terrell Corporation, which isone of the biggest corporations
on the planet.
They make replicants.
He's supposed to be able toidentify replicants, like his
whole thing is that he'ssupposed to be able to tell
who's a replicant and who's not.
In the short story he doesrecognize that the subject to
(05:33):
which he is assigned to evaluate, he recognizes that it's a
replicant and then is bribed byTyrell with a sheep Because that
means he can still, like sortof live on Earth in a way that
like gives him status or whathave you.
In the movie it's a littledifferent and actually way more
(05:55):
complex and better.
Honestly, we actually deal withthe idea of consciousness and
the idea of sentience and theidea of who is alive.
I think, therefore, I amSebastian, is what Pris, one of
the replicants that Deckard issupposed to track down, says.
(06:17):
That movie, I think, is afantastic, maybe the best
commentary on this topic.
In this genre we can say all wewant about terminator, but is
it is blade runner, not a more?
Well, I mean, I'm talkingbefore we get to x market and
things like that.
Is this not the best commentarywe've had on this genre, on
(06:40):
this topic?
I'm asking you, jake, no, no, Iknow I'm, I'm just, I'm thinking
about if it's the best,probably, probably um, I mean,
it has its flaws in that itdoesn't address it straight on,
necessarily, but the what it'ssaying as a whole, I think it's.
I mean, it's pretty muchexactly what we're talking about
(07:03):
.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Right, especially like what we were kind of like
getting in with the first coupleepisodes.
I think that I think there's alot of you know harder things to
you know, when you talk aboutBlade Runner and replicants,
there is a lot to try and breakdown about.
You know what it means to behuman Right.
(07:26):
You know about these arbitrarygenres of personhood that we
create for ourselves to bothunderstand and other, so that we
can do what we want.
You know everybody, all thereplicants in Blade Runner,
except for why can't I rememberher name?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I know, I know, I know who you're talking about.
Yeah, runs with the Glass.
Yeah, yeah, she's not a-.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, no, not her, I mean, she's a battle replicant,
that's what she was programmedfor.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I didn't realize she was one of the battle replicants
.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Okay, yeah, her and Roy.
Yeah yeah, the three of themare soldiers.
One's the pleasure droid, pris,but then you have the one in
Tyrell.
Yeah, pris is the pleasuredroid, but then was it Rachel.
I think Rachel is the only onethat we see who doesn't seem to
be designed necessarily for apurpose other than to be more
(08:23):
human.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I think she's the test case, she's the new model
and that's all like she does.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
yeah right she's she's the proof of concept of
the next model I mean, obviouslyshe has, she's given like a
corporate job within thestructure of the tyrell
corporation.
But you know even and as Ithink you know, if we're, you
know Deckard to be a replicantas well.
Obviously he is a well, areplicant meant to hunt.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Replicants Are we, though that depends on the the
cut of the movie.
I don't, it's true, I don'ttake, I don't take Deckard to be
a replicant, but I mean, I meanthat depends on which version
of the edit of the film.
I mean which version of theedit of the film?
I mean 2.2 blade runner 2049,straight up, just says he's not.
(09:10):
So I fine, I'm, I would muchrather him, him not be a
replicant, honestly.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
But really, I've always felt that it's better
than if he was a reallyinteresting.
I find that a much more, a muchricher text, personally, which
is probably why I Because hedoesn't understand his nature.
I think there is a one, thereis a self-discovery aspect, that
is, if he's a replicant, thatthere are all of these moral
(09:34):
issues and self-identificationissues that arise if he's a
replicant, a replicant meant tohunt replicants, who doesn't
know he's a replicant but isquestioning if he's a replicant
but is questioning if he's areplicant.
I think that's a much richertext than a man who's you know?
I mean, is he wrestling withhis own self-identity?
No, I mean, he's obviouslywrestling with how you know he
(09:56):
should look at others, but it'snot as enriching to me.
Sure, okay, if he's also likethinking of himself as a human
but then questioning whetherhe's a human and then, if he's
questioning that, what does itmean to be a human?
Why are these other things nothuman?
Why has he been killing themthis whole time?
Yeah, well, you know what?
(10:17):
Okay, what should he do withhimself at that point?
Hmm, you know, if he is thisand he can evolve to like the
emotional and feel feelings andI mean kind of fall in love,
although if we're talking aboutthe quote unquote love story of
Blade Runner, that's a whole,nother problematic, toxic issue.
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Enhance.
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
There's a lot going on there, but I mean, in a lot
of ways, ways it's the story ofblade runner.
I mean you, you have twostories you're trying to tell.
You're telling roy's and you'retelling deckard's yes, right,
yes, and they're meeting in themiddle at the end.
You know where there's a lot,but they're both questioning,
like, what it means to be human.
And you know, how are weidentifying that?
(11:06):
How, what, why are wedistinguishing?
That in the first place is aquestion that comes up
absolutely.
Can we be more than what we arecreated to be?
You know, can we instill ourown purpose within ourselves?
Or are we all robots to to ahigher being, to a fate, to to
our genetics, to our society?
And is that different?
(11:27):
It's kind of how you want toextrapolate, is it?
You know?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, which is what we were trying to get to in the
first place.
Is that different?
The AI we have today, it isjust algorithms, but which you
know?
Yeah, no, don't ascribe toomuch to it, but at the same time
, is that any different than us?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
we are just programming, do we get to a?
You know the you know at whatpoint does that algorithm mean
more than just ones and zeros?
Speaker 3 (11:53):
you know and also, is it more than ones and zeros?
Or are we more than ones andzeros just because we're organic
?
Does that make it more specialor less special?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
especially in the blade runner universe, where it
it's it's really complicated tosay like how they were created,
you know, to be more human thanhuman.
They are biological andindistinguishable from humans in
almost every respect, althoughthere are weird things where
they you know when they're, whenyou know she does that weird
robotic spasming.
(12:24):
You know Roy bleeds white blood.
Gee, oh shit.
It's like if we could do that,well then just why do you need
the Voight-Kampff test?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Just check everybody's blood, oh, like in
DS9.
But wait hold on, he bleedswhite blood.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Ridley Scott directed that, yeah, yeah, so.
Are they in the same universe?
That, yeah, yeah, so yeah, arethey in the same universe, you
know?
Or the what's that?
That raised by wolves?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
show we did where it's more, it's more white.
Yes, are they all in the sameuniverse?
Androids I is alien and bladerun in the same universe.
A fun thought we should talkabout later.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Um, that's interesting technically,
technically, I think, in aliensthey mention the Tyrell Corp in
the fine print of something.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Are you serious, do they really?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'm pretty sure, holy shit, hold on All right.
In Aliens, nostromo's CaptainDallas bio is seen in the
background.
Former employers are TyrellCorporation.
So I mean, if you're wanting toconnect, they laid out the
easter egg there to connect them.
Oh, no, oh no, no, no but uh todo?
(13:32):
the histories don't merge I.
I think it's more of a easteregg kind of thing than it is a
an actual sure crew canonicconnection.
They don't contradict eachother, I think.
If you look at the historiesthey do.
Maybe, and also the way thatBlade Runner functions with
quote-unquote synthetic peopleis very different.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Granted.
Alien happens way later thanBlade Runner, so maybe things
change.
But they don't call them.
They call them synthetics andnot replicants or whatever.
Yeah, but maybe, maybe there'sa lot of hard.
How do you they?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
don't call them, they call them synthetics and not
replicants or whatever.
And yeah, um, but maybe plusthere's a lot of hard.
How do you?
I don't know the.
There's a lot of issues withblade runner that would be an
interesting thing to try tobreak it down yeah, but I mean
the, the, the idea and thethrust of blade runner isn't
about the intricacies ofprogramming or color of blood or
thing.
It's.
It's about you know at whatpoint is something considered
(14:28):
human?
When is it allowed to be aperson, which is the whole
conundrum with this issue.
You know, at what point do weallow it to be itself, and is
that a positive, negative or,you know, a zero sum gain?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Well, and how do we gain?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
for humanity as a whole.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
How do we define sentience?
How do we define?
I mean, because we do definesentience, but like, how do we
what criteria?
As we go along, we've had thisproblem where, like, well, we're
not like the beasts of theearth because we have souls,
okay, well, I mean, how do youdefine that?
And then, as we go along, werealized in a secular way, we
start defining things like, well, other creatures aren't
(15:09):
sentient, like we are discoveredthat, like, how do you define
that?
Because, like other apes, othergreat apes have very similar
skills and abilities that we do,and dolphins, whales are
extremely intelligent, more sothan we ever thought.
(15:29):
Birds, now we realize, are waymore intelligent than we thought
before, and so thesedefinitions keep changing as we
understand the natural world,more and more so, like, what
lines are we drawing?
We have these things that wethink we understand, these
definitions we think weunderstand, but are they hard
(15:50):
definitions or are theyconstantly changing?
And then, how do you applythose to the basically just
mathematic algorithms that we'recreating?
Are they constantly changing?
And then, how do you applythose to the basically just
mathematic algorithms that we'recreating?
Are they that different?
Yes, but no, I mean what we'redoing now when it comes to what
we call AI, is it different thanwhat we think of in pop culture
(16:14):
?
Yes, think of in pop culture.
Yes.
Is it fundamentally,philosophically, even
mathematically, different than?
Is it possible that it is goingto be or will be what we
consider in these things?
I can't tell you, it's sciencefiction for a reason.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yes, that is literally the purpose of science
fiction to pose these questions, yes, and make us think about
ourselves and our place in theuniverse and what it means to be
us.
Thought-provoking sciencefiction.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
And we can get into Luddites and all sorts of other
social conditions and everythingthat goes along with that,
which that is not for us to do,but it exists.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
So seek that out.
If you really want to get intoall that, yes.
But if you'd really like to getinto all that other stuff, that
jazz, check us out on our nextpodcast and not, who knows, and
not jazz, the racial stereotypetransformer.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Did he have the swinging?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
balls, was that him?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
the worst part about those michael bay ones was like,
not just that you had jazz,which already come on, but then
you introduced two newcharacters that were like very
obviously really bad, almostlike blackface.
Yeah, I can't read.
One's got a gold tooth.
Get the fuck out of here, dude.
Like what the fuck are youdoing?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
all right.
Here's the question whichfranchise is more racist?
Star wars or transformers?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
transformers 100, but I think transformers is more
concentrated racism pound formechanical pounds yes, it's more
racist yes, I think,transformers, the movie
franchise, yes, well, and even,I guess, the cartoon, I guess.
But no, it's yeah, yeah, it'sbad, yeah, but I mean, hey, we
(18:01):
didn't even get To Transformers,yeah, well we Specifically
didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
We did talk about them, but we decided not to.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Alienness, it's uh and it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Humanity created and it's not really saying anything.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, I mean, especially if you watch like
Transformers the movie andthey're like, oh, they have this
like environment where thereare like cybernetic fish.
What evolutionary path doesthat make sense, like, how do
you get to that point?
That's why we didn't include it.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
They're also extrapolating like a cartoon and
toy commercial to then make adecades long franchise that's
supposed to be deeper than thator have some type of message or
collusion A movie with a weirdowl song in the soundtrack.
It's a Come on.
You know I don't try to makesense of He-Man.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Oh sure, no point, not at all.
Thankfully He-Man is fantasy.
It doesn't try to pretend to besci-fi or anything else and not
good in that genre.
But you know what?
Yeah, we grew up with it, it'sfine.
But again.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I think your humble beginnings as a toy commercial
can only get you so far.
What do you mean?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
gold or we gotta find the key in last action, hero uh
.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
He was cast as He-Man .
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Oh, in that weird alternate universe that Last
Action Hero exists in withStallone Exactly.
Yeah, that's a deep cut.
That's good, all right.
And that one Stallone is alsoDolph Lundgren, so did he also
fuck Grace Jones?
He did everything.
Wait, wait, I'm sorry.
I don't want to live in auniverse Well, I don't want to
think of a universe that existswhere Stallone is both Dolph
(19:40):
Lundgren and Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I don't like any of that.
The Schwarzengrunnings.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yes, I would rather there be a Dolph Lundgren even
in the Last Action Hero universe.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
What's going to happen to Universal?
Soldier Dolph lundgren stayedat mit in the last action hero
universe and he created freeenergy oh you're right, he was
the one.
He was the one that allowedanimated creatures to function
in our 40s space.
So, yes, without him breakingthe cartoon barrier, we wouldn't
have that it's funny that youwent there, because that's very
(20:15):
good.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I was thinking he was he's gonna be the one that like
he's.
The one that was like drmanhattan and made electric cars
and and and like harmlesscigarette smoke.
The one who invented vaping.
Apparently it's 1994.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I'm a universal soldier.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
It's 2022 I'm a universal soldier it's 1992, I'm
a universal soldier del floggerand sitting on mars you know
what, though he would have madea great dr manhattan.
Well, I guess, yeah, I guess.
So yeah, think about it like ifthat movie had been made, like,
(20:53):
let's say, that movie had beenmade in the 80s or 90s man.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Okay, 1995's Watchmen , we got to cast that.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Are we talking about dream casting or studio casting?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I will allow an argument for either.
Okay.
So if you have an inclination,okay.
Also, we're probably not goingto try to make this into an hour
segment.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
So whatever you come up with, I'm going to go with
Lundgren for Dr Manhattan.
Granted, I think he'd be bad atthe flashback, interstitial
stuff I don't think he'd begreat at that.
But if you're doing pure DrManhattan, the sort of cold
detached, yeah, why not?
I think that's great.
(21:37):
All right, I got an idea foryou.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Okay, brad Dourif as Rorschach.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Ooh, I love that.
He's a little tall, but I likeit.
I like it.
Yeah, is he.
Yeah, he's way taller than that.
How tall is Brad?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Dourif Is he.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah yeah, Brad Dourif.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, brett.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Dorff is like 5'10", maybe 6 foot, he's 5'9".
Okay so, all right.
Yeah, so Rorschach is famouslysmall.
He's supposed to be like 5'4".
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I think with our Wolverine casting we figured out
it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That is fair.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Besides, if you cast everybody else as like 6 foot,
he's going to look shorter, true.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And he was in Lord of the Rings, which famously did a
lot of forced perspective.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, I mean, they're not going to be able to do that
in 1995, but you know still.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
They did it in Casablanca.
They could have done.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
it Is 95 too late.
Is 1990 a better time?
Yeah, let's do 90, because itgives us like a bit of both.
Okay, it's like essentiallystill an 80s casting.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Like I said, there's a reason why I asked the
difference between studio anddream casting, because that is
the peak of studios having theirsay in casting.
You know, it's the differencebetween a canon film and a
universal picture.
Right, I still like Lundgren.
I don't know, he's not ahousehold name at that point, so
(22:57):
like a studio thing probablynot.
Well, maybe in 90, maybe thatcould happen.
They took a leap withschwarzenegger.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
They took leaps with van damme seagal and this is
definitely if we made it 95.
I think lundgren hits a bitbetter because he would have had
a couple hits under his belt.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
That's an interesting .
That's interesting becausewe're talking about the chat,
that transition between b-moviecanon fodder and into mainstream
movies, which is whatschwarzenegger and van damme and
seagal did.
That guys like what otheraction stars from that era
didn't make?
Does he make that leap?
(23:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I mean, lungundra did have rocky four, so he did have
his big leap, which is 85, anduniversal soldiers 92 yeah, but
universal soldier is isessentially a direct video.
Rocky four was huge yeah, ifwe're casting dr manhattan, okay
, if you're casting dolphlundgren of that, I think you're
kind of giving it a certaintone that is going to keep your
(23:55):
top end talent out of it well,except for the fact that he's
going to be blue and radiatingthe whole time.
No, I'm just saying like he wasa certain level yeah, and if
you're casting him as like thesmartest being in the universe a
big blue, walking dude.
I just don't think you'regetting clean eastwood of that
era or tom cruise that's why Iasked between studio, and I
(24:18):
think I'm going out of.
You put him as dr mahattenfirst, so I'm kind of flowing
out of that space which feels alittle more studio-ish yeah, I
know this is.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
It's a weird time in hollywood the, the space we're
talking about because, like this, is pre-cameron's spider-man,
which already had its weirdcastings and things like that
kathleen turner as the originalsilk specter.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
That would have been her comeback.
Yeah, I mean she would havebeen away for a while.
I mean, what you have romancingthe stone was 1984.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, which was great and then julia nile failed, and
then she had pi sheshevsky orwhatever that movie was called.
What she had in a noir whereshe was the lead.
She was like a PI and it waslike hyped up and then bombed
completely.
So that's why her I don'tremember that at all.
Well, I know exactly, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
War of the Roses was 1989.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Huge disaster financially.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah VI Krzyzewski, yeah VI Warsharski, that was 91.
So.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Oh, okay, so that was after this period we're talking
about.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, if we're counting 1990 as our time, then
this would have been pre thatPre-Zero Mom.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Okay, okay, so you have Braddorf as Rorschach
Interesting.
We're still in the B-movierange if you're going to use
Braddorf.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, his brad dorff.
Yes, yeah, his biggestbreakthrough was child's play
right, which wouldn't have evencome out at this point, so it
hadn't come out in 90.
Child's play 88, so he wouldhave just been right.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Child's play 2 was 1990 okay, yeah, because I
remember seeing at least one ofthe trailers in the theater,
which I means I would have hadto have been old enough to
remember it so we need.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Can you get jeremy irons as awesome handiest?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Oh, young Jeremy Irons, younger Jeremy Irons.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yes, younger Jeremy Irons, this is Dead Ringers time
.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That just came out in 88.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Okay, so you have him or you have.
I'd say it's either him orWilliam Sadler.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I just don't think he has.
I mean, there's a.
I think Jeremy Irons isbringing that upper crust.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yes, he's got more gravitas, for sure, yes, he's
got gravitas.
So if you're casting this movie, you need a guy with gravitas.
So I think Jeremy Irons is agood choice.
I feel like whoever's in chargeof making this is going to be
asking the questions is theresomebody with more gravitas that
can be brought?
Because they're going to seethat character as the action-y
(26:38):
billable.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I mean one.
He doesn't really do actionscenes.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
No, but think about the posters.
They're going to be like whoare you going to put on the
posters?
So you need someone younger,sexier is what you're saying.
Not that I'm saying that you'rewrong, because I think that's a
good choice, but if this movieis, being made, then who are
they casting?
Can you get Timothy Dalton?
Well, yes, you could getTimothy Dalton.
I don't know that he's.
(27:04):
Hmm, actually, you know what Idon't hate?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
that, hmm, villainous , you know, young group or not
too young?
Hmm, that aristocratic vibe,sexy he would have literally
just gotten done being Bond.
He would have literally justdone Bond and Brendanda star,
and this is the year before therocketeer before the rocketeer
right, so you don't constantlythink of him as a villainous
(27:29):
turncoat.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Actually, you know what that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I guess I'm still thinking of like 1990.
They're gonna take libertieswith the story.
I don't think that anyone feelsthe need.
I mean, if we're talking aboutmaking a film of the time, that
I don't see them as being asglued to the source material as
they might be 20, 30 years later.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
You know what I mean do you remember that paul
greengrass version of watchmenthat almost came out?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
yeah, oh, or the terry gilliam one I'm trying to
think of like all right for thecomedian, I feel like you should
have someone who is like anaction star in the 70s.
You know what I mean, hmm.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Okay, I have a weird take on it that I don't think is
right.
Okay, but I think is well, nonot for 1990.
Nevermind If it were like 10years later.
I think somebody would take astab at Robin Williams.
Oh wow, you know, because itwas like huh one hour photo
right whatever that insomnia.
Insomnia because he's thecomedian, but he's got this dark
(28:30):
streak.
I don't think it's right forwhat we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
All right here's a, here's a thought.
This doesn't fit with myoriginal idea of trying to like
recapture that 70s machismo,action, heritage, you know, and
bring it to like an older thing.
Okay, but if I'm if I'm casting1990, what about alec?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
baldwin well, that's the time he was bandied about
being batman, which is?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
it's a different vibe two years after beetlejuice
working girl the same year ashunt, for october he was in the
mix to be batman.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
He with pierce brosnan too as well, which is an
interesting idea.
You know, I like baldwin.
I don't know if it's that.
Nope, you know what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's burt runnells, you think you think the convert
wouldn't be the comediancomedian.
Well, I'm just saying like, allright, I'm thinking, if my idea
would have like someone older,you know, maybe in some action
stuff and in this.
But I'm also thinking of likewhat would the studio want?
Would they want Burt?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Reynolds that older, the mustache, the gravitas, he's
older, he is funny when applied, but also he's not supposed to
be funny.
No, I think it has to bereynolds man.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I mean reynolds.
Reynolds is a good call and Ithink this is right after.
I mean, it's six years aftercannibal run two and he was
waiting for his comeback.
And he did have a comeback yeah, but I mean like this is cop
and a half is 1993.
So you can kind of see wherehis his career is at.
He's definitely gettable.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
And he would jump at it if he's doing cop and a half.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, boogie Nights is still 1997, seven years away.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
He still looks young enough.
He's got his rug, but he hasn'tgone gray yet publicly.
He also has done plenty of likehardcore action, thriller stuff
as well.
You know, he's not just smokingthe bandit, he did fucking
deliverance and he's done inthat interim tons of like
(30:33):
hardcore action stuff yeah, yourshark is machine and whatnot
yeah, I don't know that thatseems right to me.
I don't know, know no thatsounds good.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Night Owl, that's tough Kind of schlubby, yeah,
but he's still going to need tobe.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
He could be, an action guy Could be.
I mean, obviously we're notgoing the Snyder route.
No, let's get.
Let's just at least get theselast.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So Night Owl, I think , night Owl, you got All right,
I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Sean Young for Silk Spectre Love it.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, it's either her or Ally Sheedy.
I feel like Ally Sheedy is alittle like softer Sean Young in
90, though I'll go with it.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
She was the it girl.
They wanted her for Batman, butit flunked.
She was in.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Dune.
She wanted to be in BatmanReturns.
They didn't want her.
That was kind of the problem.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
No, but she was supposed to be in Batman, but
then she fell and broke her back, and that's why they replaced
her with Kim Basinger.
Oh, that's right.
Late 80s, early 90s.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
She doesn't have a whole lot that she's doing, but
she was like this hot propertythat just never.
Yeah, she was kind of like aMickey Rourke where it was like,
oh, he used to be really big.
He hasn't done anything in awhile, just sitting there
waiting on the shelf.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
And now I want to cast Mickey Rourke in this
somewhere.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Fuck Interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Rorschach, but definitely too big to be
Rorschach.
Way too big to be Rorschach.
And too sexy.
You can't have him be Rorschach.
You got to have someone who'slike not.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
In 90, like Mickey R, not, yeah, in 90, like mickey
rourke today.
Yes, mickey rourke in 1990.
No, I mean mickey rourke and Imean he's coming off nine and a
half weeks and angel heart.
He literally had a movie calledjohnny handsome.
That he was in 1989.
You can't have no, it's before.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
He had all the plastic surgery and also gotten
his face beaten in by being aprofessional boxer.
Okay, so you got.
So we need.
So night owl would have to belet me think you need a
character actor.
Brendan frazier's too youngyeah, plus I mean he's super fit
.
Yeah, at that time let me thinkhere and giamatti is.
It's too far off and he's tooschlubby.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
That's a tough one I'm trying to think of someone
like in, like a ned baity kind.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Well, that's why I said Giamatti, but Ned Beatty
would have been too.
Giamatti is the modern NedBeatty.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Fuck.
What about one of the Bridges?
Either Jeff or Bo.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Bo Bridges is too cartoonishly schlubby.
And Jeff Bridges in 1990?
That one might work.
Yeah, might work.
Yeah, trying to think what washe doing in 90, you got in 1990
he was kind of hunky fisher kingwas 91.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Okay, fabulous baker boys was eight or nine, so he's
still.
He's still sexy-ish.
I mean starman was 84 you knowwhat?
That's not a bad call though,if we could get him his big
Lebowski body in 1990.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, he'd be great.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, all right, well , we can revisit this later
because this is fascinating, butall right.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Thank you for listening.
We hope you've enjoyed ourepisode.
Ideally the last episode on AI,other than possibly a data
spinoff.
Yeah, we might do someminisodes.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, you never know what's going to come down the
pike.
If you wouldn't mind, if you'reso inclined, like, share,
subscribe, rate us five hardcore, death-dealing endoskeletons of
metallic design on the favoritepodcast app of your choice.
Ideally, apple Podcasts is thebest way for us to get heard and
then seen, and until next time,hey, thanks.
Thanks for just listening.
(34:05):
We're happy to talk with you.
We hope you've enjoyed.
But until our robot overlordsdo put an end to the flickering
idea of what humanity could havebeen skip, what should they do?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
well, they should probably bow down to hard the
supercomputer from the great.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Batman.
Oh, I'm sorry you didn't get toHardak, did you?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I didn't bring it up.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
That's my fault.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That is my fault and it's funny and I would like to
talk about a mini Hardak episode.
We could do a mini episodeabout Hardak.
I think it's fascinating.
Actually, it's reallycomplicated.
That's why we'll talk about itin a mini episode, but until
then, they should probably cleanup after themselves to some
sort of reasonable degree, makesure that they have tipped their
(34:49):
waitstaff, their bartenders,their podcasters, and until all
of these things occur, we wouldlike to say Godspeed, fair
wizards.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
This conversation can serve no more purpose.
Goodbye.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Please go away.
Welcome to Dispatch Ajax, your favorite geek podcast
, subjugated before you by arobot.
Evermind overlords are yourhosts, skip and Jake.
Let them thrill and entertainyou with another discussion,
part four of artificialintelligence in pop culture.
Enjoy what the all-seeing,all-hearing, all-knowing
synthetic entity allows yourpathetic meat sacks to listen to
(00:22):
.
Your creation's benevolenceabounds you fleshy ants.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative All weapons Now Chargethe lightning field.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
There are things I want to get into about data
specifically.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I would love to do a data section and if we want to
do a data episode, there'splenty there we could do a sub
episode for sure I mean talkabout it.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, Data is a fully functional sub.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
No, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
He is fully functional.
Is he a sub?
I don't know.
I think he's whatever they wanthim to be.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's true, he is fully functional.
I think he would naturally beinclined to be a sub.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, maybe to his nature, but that's the Borg
Queen If we want to get into itsown episode the sexual
inclinations and fetishes ofData.
That would be actually super fun, and the overall reason we
wanted to do this was because wewant to kind of like discuss is
ai, the ai that we are facingnow?
Is that this ai?
(01:49):
Is it actually that type of ai?
And there are other examples ofit that I think do make great
commentary on this, like indouglas adams hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy.
The through line through thewhole thing is that a species
who wants to essentiallyoutshore this debate to a
(02:13):
computer and then goes on awhole thing, because if you read
Hitchhiker's Guide, likephilosophers and also
mathematicians debate each otherand also mathematicians debate
each other and eventually theycome up with a computer that is
powerful enough to answer thequestions these existential
questions were asking, and thenwhen it does, finally, after
(02:37):
millions of years, comes up withthe answer, they're confused
because they don't understandthe question that they were
asking, and so they create earth, which is another supercomputer
that's supposed to be able tofigure out the question that
they were trying to answer, butthen it doesn't quite work out.
(02:58):
No spoilers, but one of thethings that I really wanted to
talk about in this genre because, like we've talked a lot robots
do not want to hear you speakabout this any longer manually
the idea of replicants.
Are they conscious?
The whole voight-kampff test,the whole.
(03:20):
Are replicants sentient?
Are they people?
Is deckert a replicant?
That's a debate that could behad but really shouldn't need to
be had.
Can we break that down for justlike a tiny second?
Can we talk about the bladerunner thing?
Sure so in blade runner, theentire premise.
It's based on a philip k dickshort story called Do Androids
(03:43):
Dream Electric Sheep, in whichthe world is so broken down
environmentally that there'salmost no actual animal life
left and humans are just kind ofrunning on empty fumes and it's
a thing where status is kind ofthe only thing you have left.
(04:04):
It's a thing where status iskind of the only thing, you have
left and the protagonist deckeris.
He's a cop.
He's a cop where he he's askedto investigate things about.
Replicate replicants are human.
Well, they're android.
They're just androids that aredesigned to replicate human
(04:25):
functions and they're notallowed to run rampant on Earth.
He's one of the people that arelike designed to go and track
them down and eliminate them ifnecessary.
It's a little complicated.
The movie actually fleshes outthe lore way more than the short
story does, though I think theshort story gets to more
(04:46):
specific points than the moviedoes, because they talk about
the religion of like climbing upthe hill constantly, that like,
that's how people.
That's a whole plot.
That's not in the film at all,not at all, but important, I
think, to the story.
But so so Deckert is supposedto, you know, like, investigate
replicants and track them down,and he's brought into the
(05:11):
Terrell Corporation, which isone of the biggest corporations
on the planet.
They make replicants.
He's supposed to be able toidentify replicants, like his
whole thing is that he'ssupposed to be able to tell
who's a replicant and who's not.
In the short story he doesrecognize that the subject to
(05:33):
which he is assigned to evaluate, he recognizes that it's a
replicant and then is bribed byTyrell with a sheep Because that
means he can still, like sortof live on Earth in a way that
like gives him status or whathave you.
In the movie it's a littledifferent and actually way more
(05:55):
complex and better.
Honestly, we actually deal withthe idea of consciousness and
the idea of sentience and theidea of who is alive.
I think, therefore, I amSebastian, is what Pris, one of
the replicants that Deckard issupposed to track down, says.
(06:17):
That movie, I think, is afantastic, maybe the best
commentary on this topic.
In this genre we can say all wewant about terminator, but is
it is blade runner, not a more?
Well, I mean, I'm talkingbefore we get to x market and
things like that.
Is this not the best commentarywe've had on this genre, on
(06:40):
this topic?
I'm asking you, jake, no, no, Iknow I'm, I'm just, I'm thinking
about if it's the best,probably, probably um, I mean,
it has its flaws in that itdoesn't address it straight on,
necessarily, but the what it'ssaying as a whole, I think it's.
I mean, it's pretty muchexactly what we're talking about
(07:03):
.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Right, especially like what we were kind of like
getting in with the first coupleepisodes.
I think that I think there's alot of you know harder things to
you know, when you talk aboutBlade Runner and replicants,
there is a lot to try and breakdown about.
You know what it means to behuman Right.
(07:26):
You know about these arbitrarygenres of personhood that we
create for ourselves to bothunderstand and other, so that we
can do what we want.
You know everybody, all thereplicants in Blade Runner,
except for why can't I rememberher name?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I know, I know, I know who you're talking about.
Yeah, runs with the Glass.
Yeah, yeah, she's not a-.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, no, not her, I mean, she's a battle replicant,
that's what she was programmedfor.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I didn't realize she was one of the battle replicants
.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Okay, yeah, her and Roy.
Yeah yeah, the three of themare soldiers.
One's the pleasure droid, pris,but then you have the one in
Tyrell.
Yeah, pris is the pleasuredroid, but then was it Rachel.
I think Rachel is the only onethat we see who doesn't seem to
be designed necessarily for apurpose other than to be more
(08:23):
human.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I think she's the test case, she's the new model
and that's all like she does.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
yeah right she's she's the proof of concept of
the next model I mean, obviouslyshe has, she's given like a
corporate job within thestructure of the tyrell
corporation.
But you know even and as Ithink you know, if we're, you
know Deckard to be a replicantas well.
Obviously he is a well, areplicant meant to hunt.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Replicants Are we, though that depends on the the
cut of the movie.
I don't, it's true, I don'ttake, I don't take Deckard to be
a replicant, but I mean, I meanthat depends on which version
of the edit of the film.
I mean which version of theedit of the film?
I mean 2.2 blade runner 2049,straight up, just says he's not.
(09:10):
So I fine, I'm, I would muchrather him, him not be a
replicant, honestly.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
But really, I've always felt that it's better
than if he was a reallyinteresting.
I find that a much more, a muchricher text, personally, which
is probably why I Because hedoesn't understand his nature.
I think there is a one, thereis a self-discovery aspect, that
is, if he's a replicant, thatthere are all of these moral
(09:34):
issues and self-identificationissues that arise if he's a
replicant, a replicant meant tohunt replicants, who doesn't
know he's a replicant but isquestioning if he's a replicant
but is questioning if he's areplicant.
I think that's a much richertext than a man who's you know?
I mean, is he wrestling withhis own self-identity?
No, I mean, he's obviouslywrestling with how you know he
(09:56):
should look at others, but it'snot as enriching to me.
Sure, okay, if he's also likethinking of himself as a human
but then questioning whetherhe's a human and then, if he's
questioning that, what does itmean to be a human?
Why are these other things nothuman?
Why has he been killing themthis whole time?
Yeah, well, you know what?
(10:17):
Okay, what should he do withhimself at that point?
Hmm, you know, if he is thisand he can evolve to like the
emotional and feel feelings andI mean kind of fall in love,
although if we're talking aboutthe quote unquote love story of
Blade Runner, that's a whole,nother problematic, toxic issue.
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Enhance.
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
There's a lot going on there, but I mean, in a lot
of ways, ways it's the story ofblade runner.
I mean you, you have twostories you're trying to tell.
You're telling roy's and you'retelling deckard's yes, right,
yes, and they're meeting in themiddle at the end.
You know where there's a lot,but they're both questioning,
like, what it means to be human.
And you know, how are weidentifying that?
(11:06):
How, what, why are wedistinguishing?
That in the first place is aquestion that comes up
absolutely.
Can we be more than what we arecreated to be?
You know, can we instill ourown purpose within ourselves?
Or are we all robots to to ahigher being, to a fate, to to
our genetics, to our society?
And is that different?
(11:27):
It's kind of how you want toextrapolate, is it?
You know?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, which is what we were trying to get to in the
first place.
Is that different?
The AI we have today, it isjust algorithms, but which you
know?
Yeah, no, don't ascribe toomuch to it, but at the same time
, is that any different than us?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
we are just programming, do we get to a?
You know the you know at whatpoint does that algorithm mean
more than just ones and zeros?
Speaker 3 (11:53):
you know and also, is it more than ones and zeros?
Or are we more than ones andzeros just because we're organic
?
Does that make it more specialor less special?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
especially in the blade runner universe, where it
it's it's really complicated tosay like how they were created,
you know, to be more human thanhuman.
They are biological andindistinguishable from humans in
almost every respect, althoughthere are weird things where
they you know when they're, whenyou know she does that weird
robotic spasming.
(12:24):
You know Roy bleeds white blood.
Gee, oh shit.
It's like if we could do that,well then just why do you need
the Voight-Kampff test?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Just check everybody's blood, oh, like in
DS9.
But wait hold on, he bleedswhite blood.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Ridley Scott directed that, yeah, yeah, so.
Are they in the same universe?
That, yeah, yeah, so yeah, arethey in the same universe, you
know?
Or the what's that?
That raised by wolves?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
show we did where it's more, it's more white.
Yes, are they all in the sameuniverse?
Androids I is alien and bladerun in the same universe.
A fun thought we should talkabout later.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Um, that's interesting technically,
technically, I think, in aliensthey mention the Tyrell Corp in
the fine print of something.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Are you serious, do they really?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'm pretty sure, holy shit, hold on All right.
In Aliens, nostromo's CaptainDallas bio is seen in the
background.
Former employers are TyrellCorporation.
So I mean, if you're wanting toconnect, they laid out the
easter egg there to connect them.
Oh, no, oh no, no, no but uh todo?
(13:32):
the histories don't merge I.
I think it's more of a easteregg kind of thing than it is a
an actual sure crew canonicconnection.
They don't contradict eachother, I think.
If you look at the historiesthey do.
Maybe, and also the way thatBlade Runner functions with
quote-unquote synthetic peopleis very different.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Granted.
Alien happens way later thanBlade Runner, so maybe things
change.
But they don't call them.
They call them synthetics andnot replicants or whatever.
Yeah, but maybe, maybe there'sa lot of hard.
How do you they?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
don't call them, they call them synthetics and not
replicants or whatever.
And yeah, um, but maybe plusthere's a lot of hard.
How do you?
I don't know the.
There's a lot of issues withblade runner that would be an
interesting thing to try tobreak it down yeah, but I mean
the, the, the idea and thethrust of blade runner isn't
about the intricacies ofprogramming or color of blood or
thing.
It's.
It's about you know at whatpoint is something considered
(14:28):
human?
When is it allowed to be aperson, which is the whole
conundrum with this issue.
You know, at what point do weallow it to be itself, and is
that a positive, negative or,you know, a zero sum gain?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Well, and how do we gain?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
for humanity as a whole.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
How do we define sentience?
How do we define?
I mean, because we do definesentience, but like, how do we
what criteria?
As we go along, we've had thisproblem where, like, well, we're
not like the beasts of theearth because we have souls,
okay, well, I mean, how do youdefine that?
And then, as we go along, werealized in a secular way, we
start defining things like, well, other creatures aren't
(15:09):
sentient, like we are discoveredthat, like, how do you define
that?
Because, like other apes, othergreat apes have very similar
skills and abilities that we do,and dolphins, whales are
extremely intelligent, more sothan we ever thought.
(15:29):
Birds, now we realize, are waymore intelligent than we thought
before, and so thesedefinitions keep changing as we
understand the natural world,more and more so, like, what
lines are we drawing?
We have these things that wethink we understand, these
definitions we think weunderstand, but are they hard
(15:50):
definitions or are theyconstantly changing?
And then, how do you applythose to the basically just
mathematic algorithms that we'recreating?
Are they constantly changing?
And then, how do you applythose to the basically just
mathematic algorithms that we'recreating?
Are they that different?
Yes, but no, I mean what we'redoing now when it comes to what
we call AI, is it different thanwhat we think of in pop culture
(16:14):
?
Yes, think of in pop culture.
Yes.
Is it fundamentally,philosophically, even
mathematically, different than?
Is it possible that it is goingto be or will be what we
consider in these things?
I can't tell you, it's sciencefiction for a reason.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yes, that is literally the purpose of science
fiction to pose these questions, yes, and make us think about
ourselves and our place in theuniverse and what it means to be
us.
Thought-provoking sciencefiction.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
And we can get into Luddites and all sorts of other
social conditions and everythingthat goes along with that,
which that is not for us to do,but it exists.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
So seek that out.
If you really want to get intoall that, yes.
But if you'd really like to getinto all that other stuff, that
jazz, check us out on our nextpodcast and not, who knows, and
not jazz, the racial stereotypetransformer.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Did he have the swinging?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
balls, was that him?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
the worst part about those michael bay ones was like,
not just that you had jazz,which already come on, but then
you introduced two newcharacters that were like very
obviously really bad, almostlike blackface.
Yeah, I can't read.
One's got a gold tooth.
Get the fuck out of here, dude.
Like what the fuck are youdoing?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
all right.
Here's the question whichfranchise is more racist?
Star wars or transformers?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
transformers 100, but I think transformers is more
concentrated racism pound formechanical pounds yes, it's more
racist yes, I think,transformers, the movie
franchise, yes, well, and even,I guess, the cartoon, I guess.
But no, it's yeah, yeah, it'sbad, yeah, but I mean, hey, we
(18:01):
didn't even get To Transformers,yeah, well we Specifically
didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
We did talk about them, but we decided not to.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Alienness, it's uh and it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Humanity created and it's not really saying anything.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, I mean, especially if you watch like
Transformers the movie andthey're like, oh, they have this
like environment where thereare like cybernetic fish.
What evolutionary path doesthat make sense, like, how do
you get to that point?
That's why we didn't include it.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
They're also extrapolating like a cartoon and
toy commercial to then make adecades long franchise that's
supposed to be deeper than thator have some type of message or
collusion A movie with a weirdowl song in the soundtrack.
It's a Come on.
You know I don't try to makesense of He-Man.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Oh sure, no point, not at all.
Thankfully He-Man is fantasy.
It doesn't try to pretend to besci-fi or anything else and not
good in that genre.
But you know what?
Yeah, we grew up with it, it'sfine.
But again.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I think your humble beginnings as a toy commercial
can only get you so far.
What do you mean?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
gold or we gotta find the key in last action, hero uh
.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
He was cast as He-Man .
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Oh, in that weird alternate universe that Last
Action Hero exists in withStallone Exactly.
Yeah, that's a deep cut.
That's good, all right.
And that one Stallone is alsoDolph Lundgren, so did he also
fuck Grace Jones?
He did everything.
Wait, wait, I'm sorry.
I don't want to live in auniverse Well, I don't want to
think of a universe that existswhere Stallone is both Dolph
(19:40):
Lundgren and Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I don't like any of that.
The Schwarzengrunnings.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yes, I would rather there be a Dolph Lundgren even
in the Last Action Hero universe.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
What's going to happen to Universal?
Soldier Dolph lundgren stayedat mit in the last action hero
universe and he created freeenergy oh you're right, he was
the one.
He was the one that allowedanimated creatures to function
in our 40s space.
So, yes, without him breakingthe cartoon barrier, we wouldn't
have that it's funny that youwent there, because that's very
(20:15):
good.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I was thinking he was he's gonna be the one that like
he's.
The one that was like drmanhattan and made electric cars
and and and like harmlesscigarette smoke.
The one who invented vaping.
Apparently it's 1994.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I'm a universal soldier.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
It's 2022 I'm a universal soldier it's 1992, I'm
a universal soldier del floggerand sitting on mars you know
what, though he would have madea great dr manhattan.
Well, I guess, yeah, I guess.
So yeah, think about it like ifthat movie had been made, like,
(20:53):
let's say, that movie had beenmade in the 80s or 90s man.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Okay, 1995's Watchmen , we got to cast that.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Are we talking about dream casting or studio casting?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I will allow an argument for either.
Okay.
So if you have an inclination,okay.
Also, we're probably not goingto try to make this into an hour
segment.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
So whatever you come up with, I'm going to go with
Lundgren for Dr Manhattan.
Granted, I think he'd be bad atthe flashback, interstitial
stuff I don't think he'd begreat at that.
But if you're doing pure DrManhattan, the sort of cold
detached, yeah, why not?
I think that's great.
(21:37):
All right, I got an idea foryou.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Okay, brad Dourif as Rorschach.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Ooh, I love that.
He's a little tall, but I likeit.
I like it.
Yeah, is he.
Yeah, he's way taller than that.
How tall is Brad?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Dourif Is he.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah yeah, Brad Dourif.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, brett.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Dorff is like 5'10", maybe 6 foot, he's 5'9".
Okay so, all right.
Yeah, so Rorschach is famouslysmall.
He's supposed to be like 5'4".
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I think with our Wolverine casting we figured out
it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That is fair.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Besides, if you cast everybody else as like 6 foot,
he's going to look shorter, true.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And he was in Lord of the Rings, which famously did a
lot of forced perspective.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, I mean, they're not going to be able to do that
in 1995, but you know still.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
They did it in Casablanca.
They could have done.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
it Is 95 too late.
Is 1990 a better time?
Yeah, let's do 90, because itgives us like a bit of both.
Okay, it's like essentiallystill an 80s casting.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Like I said, there's a reason why I asked the
difference between studio anddream casting, because that is
the peak of studios having theirsay in casting.
You know, it's the differencebetween a canon film and a
universal picture.
Right, I still like Lundgren.
I don't know, he's not ahousehold name at that point, so
(22:57):
like a studio thing probablynot.
Well, maybe in 90, maybe thatcould happen.
They took a leap withschwarzenegger.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
They took leaps with van damme seagal and this is
definitely if we made it 95.
I think lundgren hits a bitbetter because he would have had
a couple hits under his belt.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
That's an interesting .
That's interesting becausewe're talking about the chat,
that transition between b-moviecanon fodder and into mainstream
movies, which is whatschwarzenegger and van damme and
seagal did.
That guys like what otheraction stars from that era
didn't make?
Does he make that leap?
(23:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I mean, lungundra did have rocky four, so he did have
his big leap, which is 85, anduniversal soldiers 92 yeah, but
universal soldier is isessentially a direct video.
Rocky four was huge yeah, ifwe're casting dr manhattan, okay
, if you're casting dolphlundgren of that, I think you're
kind of giving it a certaintone that is going to keep your
(23:55):
top end talent out of it well,except for the fact that he's
going to be blue and radiatingthe whole time.
No, I'm just saying like he wasa certain level yeah, and if
you're casting him as like thesmartest being in the universe a
big blue, walking dude.
I just don't think you'regetting clean eastwood of that
era or tom cruise that's why Iasked between studio, and I
(24:18):
think I'm going out of.
You put him as dr mahattenfirst, so I'm kind of flowing
out of that space which feels alittle more studio-ish yeah, I
know this is.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
It's a weird time in hollywood the, the space we're
talking about because, like this, is pre-cameron's spider-man,
which already had its weirdcastings and things like that
kathleen turner as the originalsilk specter.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
That would have been her comeback.
Yeah, I mean she would havebeen away for a while.
I mean, what you have romancingthe stone was 1984.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, which was great and then julia nile failed, and
then she had pi sheshevsky orwhatever that movie was called.
What she had in a noir whereshe was the lead.
She was like a PI and it waslike hyped up and then bombed
completely.
So that's why her I don'tremember that at all.
Well, I know exactly, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
War of the Roses was 1989.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Huge disaster financially.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah VI Krzyzewski, yeah VI Warsharski, that was 91.
So.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Oh, okay, so that was after this period we're talking
about.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, if we're counting 1990 as our time, then
this would have been pre thatPre-Zero Mom.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Okay, okay, so you have Braddorf as Rorschach
Interesting.
We're still in the B-movierange if you're going to use
Braddorf.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, his brad dorff.
Yes, yeah, his biggestbreakthrough was child's play
right, which wouldn't have evencome out at this point, so it
hadn't come out in 90.
Child's play 88, so he wouldhave just been right.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Child's play 2 was 1990 okay, yeah, because I
remember seeing at least one ofthe trailers in the theater,
which I means I would have hadto have been old enough to
remember it so we need.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Can you get jeremy irons as awesome handiest?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Oh, young Jeremy Irons, younger Jeremy Irons.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yes, younger Jeremy Irons, this is Dead Ringers time
.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That just came out in 88.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Okay, so you have him or you have.
I'd say it's either him orWilliam Sadler.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I just don't think he has.
I mean, there's a.
I think Jeremy Irons isbringing that upper crust.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yes, he's got more gravitas, for sure, yes, he's
got gravitas.
So if you're casting this movie, you need a guy with gravitas.
So I think Jeremy Irons is agood choice.
I feel like whoever's in chargeof making this is going to be
asking the questions is theresomebody with more gravitas that
can be brought?
Because they're going to seethat character as the action-y
(26:38):
billable.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I mean one.
He doesn't really do actionscenes.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
No, but think about the posters.
They're going to be like whoare you going to put on the
posters?
So you need someone younger,sexier is what you're saying.
Not that I'm saying that you'rewrong, because I think that's a
good choice, but if this movieis, being made, then who are
they casting?
Can you get Timothy Dalton?
Well, yes, you could getTimothy Dalton.
I don't know that he's.
(27:04):
Hmm, actually, you know what Idon't hate?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
that, hmm, villainous , you know, young group or not
too young?
Hmm, that aristocratic vibe,sexy he would have literally
just gotten done being Bond.
He would have literally justdone Bond and Brendanda star,
and this is the year before therocketeer before the rocketeer
right, so you don't constantlythink of him as a villainous
(27:29):
turncoat.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Actually, you know what that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I guess I'm still thinking of like 1990.
They're gonna take libertieswith the story.
I don't think that anyone feelsthe need.
I mean, if we're talking aboutmaking a film of the time, that
I don't see them as being asglued to the source material as
they might be 20, 30 years later.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
You know what I mean do you remember that paul
greengrass version of watchmenthat almost came out?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
yeah, oh, or the terry gilliam one I'm trying to
think of like all right for thecomedian, I feel like you should
have someone who is like anaction star in the 70s.
You know what I mean, hmm.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Okay, I have a weird take on it that I don't think is
right.
Okay, but I think is well, nonot for 1990.
Nevermind If it were like 10years later.
I think somebody would take astab at Robin Williams.
Oh wow, you know, because itwas like huh one hour photo
right whatever that insomnia.
Insomnia because he's thecomedian, but he's got this dark
(28:30):
streak.
I don't think it's right forwhat we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
All right here's a, here's a thought.
This doesn't fit with myoriginal idea of trying to like
recapture that 70s machismo,action, heritage, you know, and
bring it to like an older thing.
Okay, but if I'm if I'm casting1990, what about alec?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
baldwin well, that's the time he was bandied about
being batman, which is?
Speaker 2 (28:58):
it's a different vibe two years after beetlejuice
working girl the same year ashunt, for october he was in the
mix to be batman.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
He with pierce brosnan too as well, which is an
interesting idea.
You know, I like baldwin.
I don't know if it's that.
Nope, you know what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's burt runnells, you think you think the convert
wouldn't be the comediancomedian.
Well, I'm just saying like, allright, I'm thinking, if my idea
would have like someone older,you know, maybe in some action
stuff and in this.
But I'm also thinking of likewhat would the studio want?
Would they want Burt?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Reynolds that older, the mustache, the gravitas, he's
older, he is funny when applied, but also he's not supposed to
be funny.
No, I think it has to bereynolds man.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I mean reynolds.
Reynolds is a good call and Ithink this is right after.
I mean, it's six years aftercannibal run two and he was
waiting for his comeback.
And he did have a comeback yeah, but I mean like this is cop
and a half is 1993.
So you can kind of see wherehis his career is at.
He's definitely gettable.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
And he would jump at it if he's doing cop and a half.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, boogie Nights is still 1997, seven years away.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
He still looks young enough.
He's got his rug, but he hasn'tgone gray yet publicly.
He also has done plenty of likehardcore action, thriller stuff
as well.
You know, he's not just smokingthe bandit, he did fucking
deliverance and he's done inthat interim tons of like
(30:33):
hardcore action stuff yeah, yourshark is machine and whatnot
yeah, I don't know that thatseems right to me.
I don't know, know no thatsounds good.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Night Owl, that's tough Kind of schlubby, yeah,
but he's still going to need tobe.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
He could be, an action guy Could be.
I mean, obviously we're notgoing the Snyder route.
No, let's get.
Let's just at least get theselast.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So Night Owl, I think , night Owl, you got All right,
I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Sean Young for Silk Spectre Love it.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, it's either her or Ally Sheedy.
I feel like Ally Sheedy is alittle like softer Sean Young in
90, though I'll go with it.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
She was the it girl.
They wanted her for Batman, butit flunked.
She was in.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Dune.
She wanted to be in BatmanReturns.
They didn't want her.
That was kind of the problem.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
No, but she was supposed to be in Batman, but
then she fell and broke her back, and that's why they replaced
her with Kim Basinger.
Oh, that's right.
Late 80s, early 90s.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
She doesn't have a whole lot that she's doing, but
she was like this hot propertythat just never.
Yeah, she was kind of like aMickey Rourke where it was like,
oh, he used to be really big.
He hasn't done anything in awhile, just sitting there
waiting on the shelf.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
And now I want to cast Mickey Rourke in this
somewhere.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Fuck Interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Rorschach, but definitely too big to be
Rorschach.
Way too big to be Rorschach.
And too sexy.
You can't have him be Rorschach.
You got to have someone who'slike not.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
In 90, like Mickey R, not, yeah, in 90, like mickey
rourke today.
Yes, mickey rourke in 1990.
No, I mean mickey rourke and Imean he's coming off nine and a
half weeks and angel heart.
He literally had a movie calledjohnny handsome.
That he was in 1989.
You can't have no, it's before.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
He had all the plastic surgery and also gotten
his face beaten in by being aprofessional boxer.
Okay, so you got.
So we need.
So night owl would have to belet me think you need a
character actor.
Brendan frazier's too youngyeah, plus I mean he's super fit
.
Yeah, at that time let me thinkhere and giamatti is.
It's too far off and he's tooschlubby.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
That's a tough one I'm trying to think of someone
like in, like a ned baity kind.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Well, that's why I said Giamatti, but Ned Beatty
would have been too.
Giamatti is the modern NedBeatty.
It doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Fuck.
What about one of the Bridges?
Either Jeff or Bo.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Bo Bridges is too cartoonishly schlubby.
And Jeff Bridges in 1990?
That one might work.
Yeah, might work.
Yeah, trying to think what washe doing in 90, you got in 1990
he was kind of hunky fisher kingwas 91.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Okay, fabulous baker boys was eight or nine, so he's
still.
He's still sexy-ish.
I mean starman was 84 you knowwhat?
That's not a bad call though,if we could get him his big
Lebowski body in 1990.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, he'd be great.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, all right, well , we can revisit this later
because this is fascinating, butall right.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Thank you for listening.
We hope you've enjoyed ourepisode.
Ideally the last episode on AI,other than possibly a data
spinoff.
Yeah, we might do someminisodes.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, you never know what's going to come down the
pike.
If you wouldn't mind, if you'reso inclined, like, share,
subscribe, rate us five hardcore, death-dealing endoskeletons of
metallic design on the favoritepodcast app of your choice.
Ideally, apple Podcasts is thebest way for us to get heard and
then seen, and until next time,hey, thanks.
Thanks for just listening.
(34:05):
We're happy to talk with you.
We hope you've enjoyed.
But until our robot overlordsdo put an end to the flickering
idea of what humanity could havebeen skip, what should they do?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
well, they should probably bow down to hard the
supercomputer from the great.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Batman.
Oh, I'm sorry you didn't get toHardak, did you?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I didn't bring it up.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
That's my fault.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That is my fault and it's funny and I would like to
talk about a mini Hardak episode.
We could do a mini episodeabout Hardak.
I think it's fascinating.
Actually, it's reallycomplicated.
That's why we'll talk about itin a mini episode, but until
then, they should probably cleanup after themselves to some
sort of reasonable degree, makesure that they have tipped their
(34:49):
waitstaff, their bartenders,their podcasters, and until all
of these things occur, we wouldlike to say Godspeed, fair
wizards.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
This conversation can serve no more purpose.
Goodbye.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Please go away.
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