May 15, 2025 • 59 mins
322 1990's SCI-FI!
The gang discusses the lack of films actually being made in Hollywood before diving into their picks for 1990's sci-fi flicks!
Also Discussed: Locked, Heavier Trip, The Dead Talents Society.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Sword with a sword on the cover and like leather
(00:02):
straps. No, thank you.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break yourconcentration
somewhere between science andsuperstition.
(00:22):
Ah, we have such sights to showyou.
Strange eons. Welcome tostrangeeons radio. That is Eric
over there. Hello. That isVanessa over there. Hello. I am
Kelly. Man, it's gonna be asassy episode.
(00:43):
FUCKING kidding. You guys. I wasreading this article. We talked
a little bit about Seattle, ohyeah, trying to figure out their
their film industry here, we'vebeen involved in this, and since
the beginning of us doing this,one of the problems is, I mean,
I'm not sure where you're going,but just as an overall
(01:04):
introduction to the problems ofSeattle filmmaking, oh god,
there'sthis group of people that work
together, there's this group ofpeople that work together.
There's this and sometimesthey'll cross over and they'll
intersect, but not very often.
Dude, this was exactly what Iwas gonna say, I know, Kelly,
you're probably gonna diverthere. But when I moved here from
(01:25):
the UK in one 2008I was like, Oh, I'm just hopping
from group to group, just seeingwhat everybody's up to. Like,
okay, cool. There's coolcinematographer. Here's good
director over there. There's agreat sound guy here. And I
would jump into a group and belike, Oh yeah, why don't you
guys hire so and so they'regreat at this. And they'd be
like, who? And I'm like, they'vebeen working here for like,
(01:46):
1520, years. They were back onthe Bill Nye show. I got Bill
Nye show guys, why aren't youworking with them? They're like,
I don't know. We've got ourgroup. I'm like, Are you stupid?
Are you just stupid? Just hirethis cool person. You should
talk to them. Why have you nevertalked to this other human being
before? And it was an endlessexperience that I was because I
(02:09):
don't time myself necessarily tojust one, yeah, you know, like
I'm, I'm an editor for hire, or,you know, I'm doing whatever I'm
doing, trying to find the coolpeople I need to work with. And
it was, it's weird. It's a weirdtown for that.
Well, a lot of the angle I wasgoing to talk about is the fact
that Seattle's taxbenefits gone from making a
(02:29):
movie here are non existent.
They don't, yeah, there'spointless why everybody was
going up to Vancouver,and technically they're there,
but I think it's half a millionin money and a half maybe for a
feature, and yeah, 30 to 50,000for a commercial. It's no, it's
just, so I was reading thisarticle that was talking about
(02:51):
how California is not evengetting films made there
anymore. So it says here, fromthe 80s to now, film production
has almost entirely left thestate of California by 2016 only
12 of the 100 highest grossingfilms were filmed in California.
Wow. California was fourth infilm production, the leader in
(03:13):
2016 you guys know Georgia,Georgia. Listen to this before
George's 2008 entertainmentindustry Investment Act. Their
entertainment industry wasmaking about 200 million
annually.
This is before 2008 today. Itmakes $9.5 billion a year, yep,
(03:37):
on their film industry, Yep,yeah. This could have been us.
Oh yeah. Oh, easy. It stillcould, if we got our asses in
gear. But for some reason, wedon't like money, so that's
fine. I don't know if you guysremember, there was a point
where I got really close topotentially going out to
Georgia. I went out a few timesto check out their scene. I knew
a lot of people who were onNetflix. Pieces out there
(03:58):
visited sets. I mean, everysingle town, every single
street, people like, you know,it's just, it was just broken
down, abandoned places, thingsthat were just underserved,
underutilized, whatever. Andthey like, you want to film
here, cool. You want to give usa little bit of money? Great. We
love that. And all of a sudden,you know, your entire
neighborhood becomes the set forStranger Things, you know, it
(04:22):
becomes the set for whateverelse people are getting up to.
Marvel is building there. Youknow, you've got Disney putting
up huge studios there. Everyeverybody's showing up. And that
entire city became purplebecause they had such a huge
influx of industry. Restaurantsappeared out of nowhere, housing
(04:43):
appeared out of nowhere, and itjust gave such a huge boost the
economy. And yeah, it changedthe flavor of the place a lot,
but at the same time, it feltlike what they were changing was
a bunch of streets that werecovered in kudzu, like they were
fully abandoned places. So,yeah.
Yeah, it brings a lot of moneyin. Real quick, real quick,
yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't knowwhy. Super interesting. I wish I
(05:07):
knew what our hesitation is. Iwish I knew what we were
fighting against long ago. Igotta name names because I can't
remember. But when Kelly and Iwere first looking at making
movies and we had Sleepless inSeattle, we had assassins, we
had a whole little flux of hugethings, the Washington State
version of the Washington StateFilm Board, which is completely
different now not evenassociated, instead of marketing
(05:31):
to film from top to bottom, theywent straight to top. And the
problem is, if you're going forSleepless in Seattle, you know,
Tom Hanks, Sylvester, Stallonefilms, you're needing big money
films. And those are rare. Youknow, you're lucky if your city
gets one a year. If you're a bigfilm city, but $2 million films,
(05:54):
$20 million films, you couldhave had, we could add a huge,
huge market, I don't know ifit's been strong enough to
attack what happened inVancouver, but it would have at
least been a starting point towhere we had the base. There's a
thing called, I think it'scalled crude depth, or something
to that effect, which means, ifproduction comes into a city,
(06:19):
they know, I've got six levelsof really good fill. I could
hire these crew people andthey'll be top notch. Seattle
has one, yeah, one level, yep.
And it's like,it could do more. We could do so
much better, but we just gotta,gotta figure out how to then
they're trying. There's a fewplaces that are trying to change
(06:42):
our tax thing. The other problemwith the tax thing is it's not
an incentive, it's a refund. Youhave to spend the money first,
yeah, and then you'll get itback, right, which is really
hard to fill in a lot of forms,indie Well, if you're an indie
film, to raise half a milliondollars here is
(07:05):
almost impossible. Yeah, I justget really I mean, I have a lot
of frustrations with our localscene, but I think one of the
hardest things is that we kindof hate ourselves here.
Everybody who has managed toraise even a little bit of
money, and is getting their wayand starting to scrap themselves
together. And I've been on a fewof these productions,
(07:27):
gets no support, gets a lot ofpeople,
you know, just being reallycatty towards them, talking them
down, not beingavailable together,
pure straight up jealousy. And Iremember one of the films I was
on, they were like, Yeah, we'retrying to get the help from the
(07:48):
Seattle, you know, FilmCommission, or whatever. We're
trying to get this. We're tryingthat no one's talking to us.
Blah, blah. I was like, let metell you right now, when you
guys start getting to festivals,when the film is done, when it
starts playing and is streaming,these people are going to show
up. Yeah, they're going to showup in force, and they're going
to be like, we were so proud ofyou. We were so glad. We are so
excited. They're going to bestanding next to you at Sif, and
(08:12):
they're going to be patting youon the back. And every time it
happens. That's not unique toSeattle. That's the film
industry. I don't know it's wayworse here, it's way worse here.
It's sort of like traffic.
Whatever place you live in, it'sthe worst. You may actually be
the worst, but every place,every city that has any level of
something, feels that, becausewhen you're looking at anything
(08:36):
that's got big money, there'sgoing to be people that are
going to show up when themoney's already been spent to
try to make themselves lookbetter. Yeah. I mean, I've got,
like I mentioned the lastepisode, the crypto con Seattle
film festivals Northwest block,which has started that, along
with bleeding hands doing somegreat stuff and going back as
(08:59):
starting to bring that togethera little bit more. And a lot of
cross work, like the death ofSnow White movie has people that
I don't know, and I'm not sayingthey met at cryptolon. And say,
I don't think, Hey, look at me.
But I was like, Oh, this guy whodid all these films was his DP,
yeah. And this guy who did andthis woman who did all these
(09:23):
effects works with him too, andall this, there's a great cross
pollination going on with thatfilm, yeah. So hopefully, I
mean, I feel like the horrorscene is like, somehow
different. It has a differentattitude than, like, the drama
scene, or people who get, likeviko Morton sent out for one
scene, not to name anything inparticular, but it just, there's
(09:45):
certain films where I just, youjust feel this weird underlying
vitriol and like I watch thesepeople struggle and just do
everything they can. I mean,every large moment.
I've been on here, I've made nomoney. I mean, I've made minimum
wage, but, like, close tocriminal low amounts of cash and
(10:09):
high budget in this area, that'shigh budget. What you're
getting. I'm talking about oneto $3 million films that I've
been a part of that have beenthe more successful things that
have managed to actually get on.
And those are things where,like, I was in a basement. I was
in abandoned police station. Iwas in somebody's house who
moved, you know, just like inthe corner of their kitchen,
working for months at a time,and and those have ended up
(10:32):
being the best projects, and theones that have done them the
most out of what what they had.
But, yeah, like, just, justreally heartbreaking to watch
people in the community not bandtogether and not not show up,
and also, yeah, money notshowing up for the money either.
(10:52):
Like, that's, that's prettyrough. So I don't know I I've
kind of lost faith in the scene,but I feel like maybe, if
anything, genre and horror andpeople who are outside of the
actual like industry structureof it might actually do well,
yeah. I mean, we lost faith too.
You mean, we had a we had somestrange meetings with some
strange pitch things that wentways to go and, well, we don't
(11:13):
really belong. Letme tell you, yeah, I've been to
so many meetings where I'm like,I should not be here. You sure
don't want me here. I knowyou're just patting yourself on
the back being like. I took ameeting with this young lady who
had a lot of energy, and I gotto tell her to fuck off.
Glad. I glad I drove all the wayhere, sir, and bought my own
(11:37):
meal.
Seattle. Good time.
Let's, uh, let's get into somemovies we've watched this week
because I watched two reallygood ones. The first one is
available on Netflix, andnobody's talking about this. And
I can't remember how it got onmy radar, but it is called the
(11:57):
Dead talents society, and it isa Taiwanese film, and it is a
horror comedy. Vanessa, I thinkyou would love this movie.
Eric, I know you would love thismovie. It is about
these it's set in the afterlife,and all of these ghosts, mostly
(12:20):
female, are competing as kind ofghost influencers to become like
the biggest urban legend. And sothey will, they will, you know,
they will be haunting theirplace, and you don't see that
there's just a team of peoplehelping them achieve this haunt
effect that they're doing. Andthen, wow, they show these
(12:43):
things every year at the awards,and they all vote on who's the
best urban legend to come out ofthis thing. So it's very meta in
that, you know, there's these,the throwbacks to the black
haired ghosts, you know,crawling out of a television or
twisting backwards and crabwalking and all of this shit.
And it is so fun because it'sabout a young ghost who has
(13:09):
been killed. And there's,there's a ticking time bomb here
in that one of her effects fromher family, one of her awards
that was given to her as aliving person. They accidentally
misplaced it, and that sets heron us. She's got about 30 days,
and she will disappear becausenobody will remember her
anymore. So she decides she hasto become a ghost, which are a
(13:33):
haunting ghost, which is how youare able to continue living in
the after World. And she's got ateam of people who are not the
smartest trying to help herachieve this. And it is really,
really clever. It's really funnyas really kind of heartwarming.
A lot of the same energy aswas the movie that everybody
loved, that I didn't love, onecut of the dead. A lot of that
(13:55):
same energy. Just real. Feelgood. Oh, cool. And and I just,
I ended up, you know, I wasn'tcrying or anything, but I was, I
was emotionally touched by thisfilm. I thought it was really,
really neat and unusual. Veryoriginal. Wow. So it is called
the Dead talents society, and itis on Netflix, incredible. Okay,
(14:17):
well, I'll definitely have tohunt that down. Well, I've been
going back and watching a lot ofStar Trek Next Generation. I
think I'm now in season six, soI'm getting there. There is a
special kind of joy watchingsomething you've seen 1000 times
before with somebody who is notand you see the next episode in
(14:38):
the line, and you're like, Oh,are you counting your child as
the person who has not seenthis? No, my husband, my poor
husband, could do the good thenanother option. Oh, yeah, oh no.
Once she's old enough, it'shappening. It's definitely
happening. But it's so funnybecause I'm like, oh, oh, it's
gonna be that cute episode. Oh.
(15:01):
Oh, oh, my God. It's got theflute. Oh, the flute episodes
coming out, and every Star Treknerd out there right now knows
what I'm talking about. Butyeah, so it's been, it's been
really fun. It's, it's gettingtowards silly land so near the
last couple seasons of next gen,it gets fucking weird. I don't
know why it gets weird. I don'tknow why. They take the brakes
(15:21):
off, and they're like, old longrun shows, man, oh my god.
They're like, let's turn, Ithink, Troy, into a birthday
cake and have, like, cut her up.
Like, I know that's coming upsometime soon.
It's on the horizon. I can seeit. So you say you're on episode
or season six, yeah. And it'salready starting to wind up. I
(15:42):
thought this thing went for 15seasons. No, it only went for
seven seasons. Oh, wow, yeah.
So, yeah, it's getting towardsthe end of it. I know that once
we get into Dr crusher is doingher grandma's ghost
lover, that we're near in theend. So, yeah, like maybe veer
(16:03):
off and look, we're gonna stopwatching now.
We gotta watch this whole thing.
You either love it all or youdon't. You know, did it get bad
at the end? It is weird. It getsreally weird. I wouldn't say
bad. I think there's a couplebad episodes in there, but it's
just because fucking worse. Sonis the worst. And every time you
see he's gonna be in an episode,you just wanna hang yourself
(16:24):
that actor. He never getsbetter. Same thing for fucking
DS nine every time he's in.
Doesn't matter that he's ateenager now he's still a piece
of shit. Oh my, there are okaychildren, child actors. Wesley
Crusher is not bad compared tosome of these kids. But anyway,
so it's been a lot of fun. I'vebeen I've been enjoying it.
(16:45):
Okay, so I moved into one that,shockingly, I had never seen
from the 80s barbarian movement,barbarians. Whoa, the movie with
the two weightlifting barbariantwin brothers. Yeah, they
actually went by the barbariantwins, right? Yeah, and it's as
(17:09):
good as you'd imagine,even with my appreciation of
being able to watch AndyMilligan, yeah, some of the
other stuff. Al Adamson, it's arough film. It's sometimes
hilarious and fun to watch, butwow, it is. It's Oh, weird. They
make this strange little ahnoise every once in a while that
(17:30):
is, like the emotional cue.
Sorry, spoiling the movie forthe end, where the group that is
looking for them here say, makethat weird ass noise.
That's that's not a good callthere, but it is.
(17:51):
It is occasionally a lot of funto watch. It was not as terrible
as I thought it would be, butit's not good. What are you
watching that on? It's on em. Ithink it's prime and it's
completely Remastered. Somebodygot a hold of it somewhere
because it looked fantastic.
Wow. What did Marty think ofthat? Oh, he wasn't watching
that one.
(18:14):
He is very, very limited in whathe watches. I was curious who's
in the room with you when you'rewatching some of this stuff,
like, no, just most of them isprobably me,
barbarians boy. I remember thatone. I remember the cover yes or
the poster.
I don't think I would watch thatI I could call, yeah, okay. The
(18:38):
other one I watched is brand newand rental, and it is called
locked with Bill Skarsgard andAnthony Hopkins. Oh, that's the
remake of that movie I talkedabout on here, four by four.
Yeah, and I didn't realize thatuntil the end, when it comes up
in the credits, but it's about asmall time criminal who
breaks into the wrong vehicle,and the vehicle is set up as a
(19:01):
trap. Yeah, I saw the trailerfor this. Yeah, I can't even
tell if it's that good, exceptthat Bill scars guard is
excellent, and Anthony Hopkinsis excellent, and it's very
intense. I mean, I was, I was,you know, because at one point,
different from four by four, I'mguessing, which was pretty low
budget, right? Pretty lowbudget. But very well, yeah, at
(19:23):
one point, this vehicle takeshim on a ride. No, that
happened. Oh, okay, and it's,you know, basically being remote
controlled and hitting peopleand stuff like this. Yeah, I
don't think he got thatelaborate. I seem to remember it
driving at some point. Yeah,yeah, he's terrorized.
And, you know, it's a, it's amorality tale. You know, if
(19:47):
you're a bad person, bad thingswill happen to you, kind of
thing. Anthony Hopkins turns outto not be a very good person in
this either, though.
So it's available as a rental,and I would say, you.
Give it a shot. I I liked it. Ijust was a little tired at the
end. I do want to watch it. I'mreally curious. The first one, I
thought was excellent. Okay, andwhen I think about it, it was so
(20:11):
oppressive that thinking aboutthat movie just makes me think
of being in a locked car whenit's 110 degrees outside, and it
just feels like a hot space.
It's really wild. It's, I reallydid enjoy the first one. Okay, I
want to see this. This one hassome really amazing camera
movements, because he's in thecar and the camera is winding
(20:32):
around him the entire time. Andyou realize, you know, okay,
some of these walls don't reallyexist. Oh, yeah, but it's done
beautifully, and in no way didit look like you just kind of
realized there's no way thismovie could have happened,
right? Yes, yeah. It's weird,because it feels like there's a
(20:54):
whole string of films kind of inthis nature that have come out
recently, because there was thatWilliam Defoe like he's stealing
art and gets locked in someguy's apartment movie that came
out like last year, which I didnot see, but I know that, like,
they control the apartment fromwithin. They know he's in there,
and they're like, putting up theheat or making it so he can't
(21:15):
eat anything, and doing allkinds of stuff to him too. So
that one from many years ago,phone booth was kind of a one
too. I have not seen phonebooth, but I always meant to get
aroundher locked Excellent. Well, I've
been reading quite a few comicbooks recently. I'm making use
of my local library, since theeconomy is getting weird, so
trying to save on some cash, andthere's this comic that I
(21:41):
recently read called in utero.
It's really fascinating sci ficomic that takes place after a
strange like nuclear explosion,essentially happens in the
middle of Australia, in themiddle of a city there, and two
monsters crawl out, having likea giant battle with each other.
(22:02):
And so the zone has been sort ofquarantined off, and it's, I
don't know, like 1010, yearslater or something, and there's
still, like bones and weirdthings that are growing out of
there. And there's a kid whogets dropped off at this really
cheap asssummer camp that's basically in
the zone in an abandoned Mall.
But it turns out that also inthe abandoned mall are the eggs
(22:25):
of one of the creatures. And shegets a psychic communication
from a being that's in there,and starts kind of talking to
it, and finding out that aroundthe time that her mom gave birth
to her, during this big event,at the same time, these two
creatures were having a battle,and one of them was pregnant,
(22:46):
and the other laid eggs. Andit's all about kind of birth and
and beings kind of figuring outwho they are in the aftermath of
war. And anyways, this reallycool, weird, fucking weird comic
that's a one off, anddefinitely, highly recommend.
It's got a strange art style,very dark. Just a one off, then
just a one off. Yeah, it's, butit's like, it's pretty thick,
(23:07):
okay, yeah, it's like, a nice,thick novel is a graphic novel,
is a indie graphic novel. But,bro, that sounds like that's
right up nice. I think you, Ithink you'd enjoy it a lot,
honestly. And it's a prettyquick read it. I read it in
maybe a couple hours. So, okay,cool. I watched a sequel.
A sequel, you say That's right,to a movie called heavy trip
(23:30):
from a few years ago, the movieof a Finland band that's
starting up, and they getinvited to play in a massive
festival, so they have to figureout how to get there. Okay, this
is heavier trip. Oh, which isthe same band now in prison for
what happened in the firstmovie. Oh, God, this was a, this
was not a documentary. No, no,okay, definitely not comedy
(23:54):
film. Now, kind of disappointed.
Actually,give you an idea of some of the
silly comedy level it goes to attimes they're,
I forgot why they weren't, butthey go into this one store
that's like a museum of metal,and they said, Whoa, Jimi
Hendrix, fire guitar. And itshows her guitar, and the
guitar's on fire.
(24:17):
They knock over this containerwhen the fight starts, and it's
got this little stone hedge ontop of it that falls off. It's
just full of those little kindof things.
But it's they have to, they getinvited to play at a large thing
because of their reputation fromthe all the trouble they got in.
Andthey have to escape from prison
(24:38):
and go to this festival. Andit's a lot of fun. It has the
classic storyline of the managersaying the real talent is the
singer. So, you know, he triesto separate them and do all
that. And it'sFinland. I believe it's, it's
original look.
(25:00):
Uh, country. So it's mixed. It'sgot a lot of English, but then
it also has, you know, subtitledstuff, but a lot of fun. I
really liked heavy trip. Thiscame out, um, I
think it was arrow or Severan,the heavier trip, going auto,
automatic, buying like that. Up.
Got it like, two days ago, andwatched it almost immediately
and did not disappoint. It'ssillier, it's stranger, it's
(25:23):
everything a sequel to a comedyshould be, but
really kind of a feel goodcomedy movie. What kind of music
does this band play? The kind ofstuff? Steve, Well, it's goes to
deep, heavy metal. Craig'smusic. I was wondering, when you
said Finland, if exactly there'seven one of the characters is
(25:47):
the full corpse makeup. He's theguy who's like, we will not sell
out. We only do real music.
It's, it's a lot of fun. Reallygood.
So heavier trip is brand new.
Heavy trip is available tostream, or probably it came out
like 2018quite a while ago. I think it's
(26:07):
almost all the same cast. Again,that sounds fun.
Oh, and Baby Metal has a strongpart in this movie
that familiar with Baby Metal.
No, what is Baby Metal? Japaneseschool girl heavy metal.
(26:31):
Very catchy choruses andthen give me chocolate. Oh yeah,
okay, I've seen, I've seen, Ithink, a little video that way.
Yeah, they have a prettyamusing, prominent role in this
film. Well, I gotta, I gottawatch this. Okay, guys, how
(26:51):
about we take a little break,and then when we come back,
we're gonna be talking aboutscience fiction movies from the
from the amazing 1990s love the90s.
(27:14):
Every Blockbuster Video has1000s of great movies, which
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of great gifts at great pricesfor everyone on your list.
And we have returned, Eric, thiswas your sub genre. Yes, yes, it
(27:58):
is. I fought long and hard andthought, I'll just do what Kelly
did. But 10 years later, theless than stellar decade for sci
fi movies, wow, 90s. Yeah,thanks, Eric. You're welcome.
You want to start us off then,buddy? I think I found a good
one too. Oh, wow.
(28:20):
I watched.
It really the only requirementwe have.
1998almost the end of The decade,
Dark City. I It,which I also rented on Apple,
(30:26):
but is available free on canopy,which I found out afterwards, of
course, and to rent on severalplaces directed by Alex Proyas,
who also directedlots of music videos, which of
course, led him to directing thecrow and Gods of Egypt. Oh, wow,
yeah, and a fair amount ofstuff. He's also the writer. He
(30:50):
wrote garage days, which Iconstantly have no idea what
that is, and a whole bunch ofshort also writing. Was LEM
Dobbs, who wrote Gotti thelimey, which freaking love Kafka
and the hard way so.
And David S Goyer wrote Man ofSteel, the darks, Dark Knight
(31:12):
movies, the Call of Duty gamesand so lot. He has a ton of
credits. Oh, also the blademovies, Demonic Toys and the
puppet master of 1994starring Rufus Sewell, who's in
old and Gods of Egypt, Knightstale and Hamlet, Kiefer
Sutherland,you might know from Metal Gear,
(31:34):
solid and The Simpsons, the callof duty, games and corner gas.
And Jennifer Connolly, mostrecently seen at least on the
big budget scale, and Top GunMaverick. She was also in Noah
Pollock and phenomena. Sopretty, pretty damn good career.
(31:55):
Three of these people there.
So this is second movie Iwatched in a row with a sci fi
voiceover introduction, but it'sKiefer's voice. So the voice is
awesome. His cadence is weird,but it fits the once you know
the characters no longer weird.
This is a gorgeous film. Holyshit. This is dystopian film.
(32:17):
Pick your poison, obviously,Blade Runner
and a whole lot of other films,just dark, wet,
not quite as futuristic as bladerun, not not as futuristic place
where it's actuallyolder looking stuff, like 30s,
40s, buildings kind of level,but They still look futuristic
(32:38):
and really freaking cool.
This man walks it, wakes up in abathtub with no idea who he is
or what is going on, and startsto look around to see if he can
figure out the answers to who heis and what's what's going on.
Runs into some creepy guys.
Well, he doesn't run into himright away, rerun into the
creepy guys who are known as thestrangers that are looking for
(32:59):
him, because they have somequestions about his Well,
frankly, his existence cut toJennifer Connelly singing. In
the theatrical version, theyused other singers voices, but
apparently, when it went to homevideo, the director said, you're
using Jennifer's voice, and canshe sing? Yeah, she's good. I
(33:20):
mean, not great, but it's alwaysnicer if somebody's good enough.
I think it's always nicer tohear that person's voice when
they're singingall all aside for, you know,
Streets of Fire, because that'sawesome.
So the guy that work up in thetub seems to have some kind of
strange powers, where he, whenhe gets in big trouble, this
(33:43):
weird thing comes out of hishead like a almost like comic
book esque, andattacks things, moves things,
messes with the strangers quitethoroughly. The Strangers are,
as we find out very quickly, area giant group of people. They
have,they do this choice that always
bugs me. In sci fi movies, we'dhave to have a kid. No, you
(34:06):
don't, because if the kid doessomething interesting and adds
to the story, as opposed to justbeing a kid, fine, but this kid
does not just a kid.
Every night, at midnight, theentire world goes to sleep, and
the strangers do shit not gonnago too much detail after that,
(34:29):
because this is a wonderfulfilm, and if you're a sci fi
fan, you haven't seen it, go seeit. It's got phenomenal pacing.
I'm watching this from man. Idon't think I've watched this
too long, like 10 minutes, maybe40 minutes into the movie, and
it's just breakneck, solid,easy structure. It's not like a
lot of action is going on, butthere's just it's something's
(34:51):
always going on.
The a nice part about this too,is the ending is kind of like.
Shit.
But much like the sixth sense,re watching, it is rewarding,
not discouraging, where yourealize, well, they really set
(35:11):
that shit up. Well,it's not a cheap surprise. It's
built into the story, and itreally, really works.
Let's see if I got a few thingsin here. The Matrix said they
borrowed heavily from this film,which is really obvious.
This movie has the shortestaverage shot length of any
(35:32):
modern film at the time at 1.8seconds. Wow. That means there's
a cut almost every two seconds.
Good God, which is probably whythe pacing is how it feels. Oh
the 90s, but it doesn't feelerratic. It doesn't feel messed
up, and I don't sit there going,Oh my God, my God. It it's
smooth as hell.
(35:54):
So obviously built on sets, butthis looked a lot better than
the enemy mindsets from the 80smovie.
There's a few computer effects,like little early for that. I
think you should have built thatcreature. But
the one final weird note, theAmerican heavy metal band Iced
(36:16):
Earth wrote a song titled darkcities, based directly on this
film, andI like this one. It stood up
almost better for me than thefirst time I watched it. I
haven't seen this since it cameout, and I remember liking it.
And then I think I tried towatch it maybe 15 years ago, and
(36:38):
for some reason, I didn't makeit through it. So maybe I need
to give this another try. Yeah,I think I watched it a couple
years ago, and I remember atfirst being like, Man, I got to
get my head in here. But I feellike, once you click in and
you're willing to go for theride, then it definitely works.
It's kind of like Brazil in thatway. It's like, oh, we're in a
Gilead. Okay, all right. It'sfine. It's great. It's
(37:00):
brilliant. Definitely that kindof a film where, if you go with
it, you're great. And I couldsee, if it did not catch you, it
is going to bevicious to watch. It is just
that world. Yeah, 100%did you? You said you had to
rent it? Yeah? This one was,this is a film you love. You
(37:22):
don't own this. I do storageright now. And I was under the
gun a little bit, and it waslike a two or $3 rentals, okay?
I feel, yeah, I was realdisappointed, too, because I'm
going, Oh, cool. There's a partof the reason. I thought I'm
gonna use this as an excuse tomaybe buy a new version, because
(37:42):
arrows coming out with anupdated multi box set in like
July.
Maybe I'll get it. Maybe Iwon't, but multi box set, dang
box. I'm gonna have to get that.
That sounds cool. Vanessa, youwant to go next? Sure?
Why not?
All right, so I went with 1999movie Wing Commander March 15
(38:05):
Earth year, 2454Earth defenses are threatened.
Message from Health Command,they don't believe they can
withstand a kill Rathi battlegroup without the support of the
fleet. This tactical schematicoutlines a nightmare. We need to
buy our future, and onlya team of young fighter pilots
(38:29):
stands betweenEarth and destruction.
Lieutenant JG, ChristopherBlair, reporting for duty,
sir Todd maniac, Marshall, it'syour service. Mail this hand in,
Commander Deborah, your wing.
Commander,in those kids hands now,
(38:50):
all right, ladies, let's do it.
YouIn all likelihood, you're going
to die out here. We're all goingto die out here, but none of us
(39:13):
need to be reminded of that.
Fact, thisis your own COVID fire. You
if you endanger another pilot,you're
dead. Emotion gets in the waycommander. Emotion is what
(39:34):
separates us from the correct Idon't think I can.
I don't have the faith. It's notfaith. Let's make our miracle.
We commander Whoo.
(39:59):
I.
I had not seen this. Just foryou to hold to this guys a
YouTube rental. You can't get itany other way, so I gave money
to YouTube. That was a newprocess. This had a budget of 25
to 720. 7 million. Box office,11 point 6 million. Wow, yep.
Directed and written by ChrisRoberts, who only has 13 credits
(40:21):
to his name. He's mostly aproducer, but I'll get more into
his background in a bit,starring Freddie Prinze Jr, 61
credits. Scooby Doo I Know WhatYou Did Last Summer, Star Wars,
rebels, 24 and one of the bestmovies, or at least one of the
best scenes in cinematichistory. She's all that
the poetry, hacky sax scene isone of my favorite things on
(40:44):
planet Earth. Matthew Lillard,175 credits, including screen
hackers, Scooby Doo as well, andTwin Peaks and a great guy.
Well, yeah, he's a cool guy. Hejust wasn't nice to me. Saffron
burrow, 76 credits, includingyou, Mozart in the jungle, Deep
Blue Sea and chat skirt. Cario,142 credits, bad boys, the
(41:08):
Patriot la FEM, Nikita the coreand David Suchet, 119 credits,
you would know him as Poirot.
But in 2654 a weight war ragesbetween the Terran Confederation
and the Kilrathi Empire, the catlike kalrathy seek to eradicate
the human race. A massiveKilrathi Armada attacks a
Pegasus station and captures thenav computer, which is used to
(41:32):
locate Earth. The admiral, aAdmiral, I guess, recalls the
Terran fleet to defend Earth,but it will arrive two hours too
late before the Kilrathi getthere and kill everybody. They
contact a ship out in thevicinity carrying two new pilots
on their way to a fighter shipcalled the tiger claw, and send
a message to that when theyarrive at the tiger claw, they
(41:54):
need to basically go and fight asuicidal mission to delay the
attack in order for the fleet toget there in time. The two
pilots on their way to there aretwo young guys, Blair, a pilot
with crazy navigationalabilities and a descendant from
the pilgrim race, who have aspecial ability that allows them
to out math computers, dude andTodd Marshall, a cocky, fun
(42:18):
Buddy Guy, when they arrive,they have to convince the crew
of the mission, then they haveto convince them of their worth,
then the women of theircoolness. And then eventually,
they have to fight a bunch ofthe kilrothy in various
situations and try and help keepthe human race alive. This has
some truly bad CGI, the ships,the asteroid textures, the cat
(42:40):
enemies look like ass. It isbad, and it's also,
unfortunately, even worse,mostly pretty boring. It has
some incredibly clunky acting. Ithink there's some cool ideas in
here, overall, but the executionis just poor across the board.
It's also just got thisconstant, weird, inflated drama
(43:01):
and boring, hard sci fi militarybehind it. I do think like this,
the suits and the sets are goodlooking. I think that those are
great, but it just is not enoughthat all the ideas are not
handled well. Nothing lands.
Feel free to skip this movietrivia.
(43:21):
This is one of only three filmsthat was released with the
theatrical trailer for Star WarsEpisode One, Phantom Menace in
1999 many people paid admissionto see the trailer then walked
out after good idea, guys wow inthe interview, in an interview,
Freddie Prinze Jr discussed hishatred for Wing Commander,
stating, I can't stand a WingCommander. I can't watch one
(43:44):
scene of that movie. I read thescript. I loved it. So did my
buddy Matthew Lillard. We got tothe we both got the parts. We
went to the location. They said,here's the new script, and it
was a pieceof shit. The voice of Blair's
fighters on board computerMerlin is listed as question
mark in the credits. It is MarkHamill who previously played
Blair in the computer gameseries. Chris Roberts, the
(44:06):
director. This was hisdirectorial debut. He had
created the five Wing Commandergames that had preceded it. The
film was rushed into productionas Fox wanted Wing Commander
delivered by november of 1998 sothat they could release it
before Star Wars Phantom Menacecame out in 1999 they gave Chris
Roberts only three months of preproduction, rather than the six
(44:29):
to nine months required forPrEP, especially for something
this visually VFX heavy, ChrisRoberts felt that the Original
Screenplay by Kevin droney wasrevised, which was revised by
Roberts and Larry Wilson, whilenot a masterpiece, was better
than what they ended up beingfilmed, but the changes they
were requested by the producer,Todd Moyer ultimately led to the
(44:53):
script quality worsening witheach rewrite.
That's impressive. My.
Favorite piece of trivia is thatin the DVD, insert the
page. So close, so close. In theDVD, insert the page, listing
actor, character, bios, next toChesky carriers, bio is actually
(45:15):
a picture of you're gone, perch,perched now, just a different
Russian actor. So anyway, yeah,I got him proc now. Thank you.
From in the mouth of madness,yeah,
okay, so why? Why'd you pickthis look? I had a list, and I
(45:35):
was I really wanted to do Moon44 because I have it. I bought
it not that long ago on DVD, andI could not find it. I have
everything because of our bigpipe issue and our downstairs,
everything's in piles. And I waslooking for piles, looking for
piles, and looking for piles.
And I was like, I'll dosomething else. Cool. I haven't
seen Wing Commander. It waslike, one of three on my list.
(45:56):
And then I was like, as the onlyone I can find for rental
streaming. So went with it.
Reach out to me. Sometimes, ifyou're unsure, I'll be like, Oh,
definitely water. Do week.
That'sthe problem. Usually, you guys
are pretty good at being like,Oh, really, really. And I'll be
(46:16):
like, Oh, I have chosen poorly.
Well, you so frequently are soclose.
This one was really close,because with everything going on
this week, I did not make itcloser. It was, it was too close
to really get you guys to changemy mind on it, but wow, it is a
(46:37):
stinker of a movie. Now I'veseen it though. You know what? I
don't have to have that on mylist ever in the future. No
question marks here. Yeah, butthat's that is a wonderfully
positive.
Really good costumes, guys.
Seriously, every time theypanned out and I saw the
costumes, I was like, wow, thoseare some good decisions. Are
there? I applaud y'all.
(46:59):
Okay, well, fun. Five minutes onfor myself, and I am talking
about straight in the middle ofthe decade 1995 screamers. You
(47:24):
a world overlooked and longforgotten by those who settled
it for commander Joseph AHendrickson, it is worse than
hell.
It is home. Wow.
What are they? There is a newterror in their midst. Call it a
(47:47):
screamer. Was developed for usby Alliance on Earth to
neutralize the war on the groundhere, how do you know it's dead?
They yank this brain out.
Pretty smart, maybe too smart.
This one seems to modify itself.
It was designed to protect themfrom their enemies,
until it turned in sights onthem.
(48:08):
Finally, a lie no one knows theymake themselves. Now I
heard the screaming, and then itgot very quiet.
Nothingsaid, the smell of death.
Shark, we got a new kind ofscreamer. Seems like a person.
What are they supposed to looklike? Oh, you mean, who are they
(48:30):
supposed to look like? They'resmarter. Now, that's how they
get into our bunkers. Once itgets inside, that's when the
killing starts. Now, the onlyway to tell man, he's one of
them from the sheep.
Is by the sound of their screen,things ain't what they used to
(48:55):
be.
Directed by Christian Dugway,who has 39 credits, including
the art of war right above, andscanners two and scanners three,
written by Dan O'Bannon, who youwould know from Blue thunder,
Return of the Living Dead, deadand buried life force, Invaders
(49:17):
from Mars, Total Recall, alsowritten by Miguel trajada
Flores, who should sound kind offamiliar. He wrote Revenge of
the Nerds, Fright Night Two andFrankenstein's army, and based
on a short story by Philip KDick. Of course, we wrote Blade
Runner man the High Castle andMinority Report. Those short
stories were turned into bigfilms, starting Peter Weller, of
(49:41):
unknown origin The Adventures ofBucha Ruby in the eighth
dimension, Robocop Leviathan andNaked Lunch. And also on This is
Roy Dupuy, who was in somethingcalled entangle bleeders and the
rocket.
And Jennifer Rubin, you wouldknow her from.
Ma such other episodes as thecrush
(50:05):
bad dreams. She is the hot gothchick from Nightmare on Elm
Street The Dream Warriors. Haveyou guys seen screamers? No,
this was a first time viewingfor me.
The movie starts with a shitloadof narrative exposition that
talks about how Earth hascolonized many other planets by
the year 2078 which is not thatfar away. We are on a planet
(50:28):
called Sirius 6b which is aravaged desert planet thanks to
our careless mining of itsresources and possibly a nuclear
war, unclear.
There was also a civil war onthis planet, and 1000s of
civilians died during it, andonly a handful of survivors live
there now.
So we open on a few miners whoare playing some kind of game
(50:49):
for cigarettes, and an alarm issuddenly raised because there's
someone on the surface of theplanet stumbling towards their
underground base. This isobviously a very unusual event
for them. It looks like theperson is carrying something, a
delivery of some kind. But justthen the sand underneath him
starts to move as if there weresomething burrowing towards him,
and then suddenly severalsomethings are burrowing towards
(51:11):
him, and these are screamers, AIprotector robots. We are
performed, I guess, and theywill attack anything that
doesn't have a wristband thathides their heartbeat. So they
attack this messenger and cuthis arms and legs off. Oh,
pretty fun.
Enter Captain Joe Henderson,leader of the mining base. He's
(51:33):
not sure what was so importantthat this messenger died to
bring it to them, but theyretrieved the cylinder the man
was carrying, and it turns outto have a message from Richard
Cooper, a commander of theopposing army, to Joe, asking
for peace negotiation. Andthere's also a detailed map of
the opposing army's fortress tokind of prove that this is not a
trick. I guess. I don't know.
This is a confusing movie.
(51:55):
There's also a subplot of acommercial transport sending an
emergency request to land on theplanet, even though they are
billions of miles from anycommercial transport lanes,
I'll be honest, I can't figureout what the fuck this ship was
supposed to be doing. It crashesand everyone is killed, except
for one soldier, and thescreamers show up and make off
with the dead bodies. For somereason,
(52:16):
anyway, the captain and thissoldier decided they're gonna
make the perilous trek to theenemy fortress and see if this
is legit. So they don all oftheir product protective wear,
including red cigarettes thatkeep their lungs free of
radiation and the wristbandsthat fool the screamers.
So I'm in a way, they run into asmall child with a teddy bear
that has somehow survived allthe screamers and wants to come
(52:39):
with them. He's been living inthe rooms and surviving on
scraps after his parents werekilled in the war.
That night, they are attacked bya screamer. Because the soldier,
this new soldier, didn't know hehad to actually be wearing the
bracelet to fool the screamers.
He thought he could just have itlike next to his body.
They managed to destroy theScreamer before it can kill
anyone, though, and the three ofthem continue their trek.
(53:02):
When they finally make it to theother fortress, one of the
soldiers there immediately blowsthe kid away,
and we find out he was a robot.
The screamers have evolvedsomehow, and now they are making
new screamers in the form ofkiller robotic children. And I
was like, fuck yeah. Why didn'tCyberdyne and Skynet. Think of
this. Why would you make yourTerminator look like a huge,
scary man instead of adefenseless of a child?
(53:28):
So from here, the movie dragsalong until it finally gets
halfway decent again at the end,as it becomes a story of
paranoia and wondering who youknow is actually human and who
might be one of the newscreamers. So I didn't love this
movie, but I didn't hate it. Ithad a good beginning, a decent
ending, and a real fuckingsecond act problem.
(53:51):
The screamer effects, when youfinally see them, are stop
motion, and that's very fun,even though the spaceship
effects are really garbage, CGIeffects and Peter Weller is good
a little bit of trivia in theoriginal short story by Philip K
Dick, the plot takes place onearth instead of Sirius 6b And
originally, the screamers weredeveloped by American troops
hiding in the moon to destroythe Russian army after the
(54:14):
Soviet Union had completelywiped out the United States.
This is already a moreinteresting story, and
it could have been the exactsame thing. I don't know why it
had taken place on a distantplanet. Early versions of the
screenplay were titled claw inreference to the villainous
robots, which are called clawsin the original Philip K Dick
short story, second variety.
(54:39):
At one point, Hendrickson refersto someone sarcastically as a
real perky Pat. I guess this isa reference to the short story,
the days of perky Pat, and thenovel The three stigmata of
Palmer eldritch, both of werewritten by Philip K Dick. This
is just a personal note. Thefilm takes place in 2078 which
only leaves us 50 years to notonly.
(55:00):
Colonized several other planets,but colonize them so thoroughly
that 1000s of people can bekilled in a civil war on one of
them, you gotta go. Why not justset it on Earth?
So this is probably on to be orsomething like that. I can't
remember what I gotta say.
(55:21):
The effects are quite poor. Theacting by everyone is a little
higher than it had to be, andthe second act just fucking is a
snooze fest, so, but I loved theidea of the children and
spoiler, because I don't wantanyone to watch this. But fast
forward to the end, wheresuddenly they are being attacked
(55:44):
by a horde of robot children,all carrying teddy bears.
That's extremely good. So thatwas fun. I like that.
Vanessa, so I'm not sure whatwe're doing here. We might be
doing alive show of crypto con right
now, or we might be doing yournext pick. So what is your next
(56:07):
pick? Well, my next pick, Imean, I'm gonna get real crazy
here, guys and say the earlyaughts sci fi. Yeah,
anything from 2000 to 2009I was trying to remember. I was
like, Wait, 2099 No, wait, hold,that doesn't work at all.
(56:32):
You know that the first decade2000
I have faith, I have faith it'sgonna get better, because
there's no way that the I lovesci fi for a reason. There must
be something. It can't just bethat we went from 70s to never
again. So some point,they did all right. They did all
right, all right. I like thisidea. This is fun. This is a
(56:53):
nice break from all the horror.
Yeah, yeah. 2000s sci fi. Herewe come. That means that right
now, this is the part where wesay thanks to everybody out
there who's liking and sharingall of our posts, who's reaching
out to us, either throughyoutube comments or the strange
(57:15):
hands radio talk page onFacebook or any of that stuff,
but especially if you aredonating money to the cause.
Yeah. Thank you so much forthat. Thank you. Yeah, little
bit of money put some wind inthe sails of this pirate ship,
and helps pay for all this crazyequipment, you see, and this new
little TV equipment. Oh yeah,we've got new microphones we're
(57:37):
using for our live show likecryptocon, that are just
these. Thank you. Pre serve touse those. We probably shouldn't
have said anything until weactually hear what that live
show sounds like afterwards. Youkept the receipt, right? Eric,
another way to reach out to usis how, Vanessa, you can go
ahead and give us a call or atext on the strange eons radio
(57:59):
hotline, that number is25323742662532374266,
go ahead and ping us. Call usdrunk, dial us sober. Dialysis,
sleepy, dialysis, awake.
Dialects, any kind of dialysiswe are trying to hear from you.
Text all the same style too,any, any of those states of
(58:20):
mind, just go ahead and reachout. We'd love to hear from you
guys.
Just set up a memory. I remembergetting a drunk email from an ex
girlfriend many years ago, andshe passed out in the middle of
the evening, and it was like shewas saying something. Then the G
just andthen I was like, she hits. Then
(58:42):
did she wake up to go?
I reached out to her and said,Everything okay. And the next
morning, she was like, Oh mygod.
So please, if you're out thereand you want to send us a drunk
text, we would love that. Maybegreat by all means. All right,
(59:03):
guys, that's it for this week.
We will be back in seven shortdays, and we are talking 2000s
sci fi movies till 2009 to 2000to 2000 sci fi, the title will
look much better in print.
See you next Thursday,transportation and other
considerations for strange eons,radio produced by Pan Am
(59:24):
airlines. When you think oftraveling, think of Pan Am. You
can't beat the experience.
Guests of strange eons radiostay at econo lodge Everett.
It's an easy stop on the road.
You know opening strange eonsradio is recorded live in front
of a studio audience. If youenjoyed this episode, please
consider leaving us a positivereview on your favorite podcast.
(59:44):
Sit Ubu. Sit trying to find thecool people I need to work with.
Sword with a sword on the cover and like leather
(00:02):
straps. No, thank you.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break yourconcentration
somewhere between science andsuperstition.
(00:22):
Ah, we have such sights to showyou.
Strange eons. Welcome tostrangeeons radio. That is Eric
over there. Hello. That isVanessa over there. Hello. I am
Kelly. Man, it's gonna be asassy episode.
(00:43):
FUCKING kidding. You guys. I wasreading this article. We talked
a little bit about Seattle, ohyeah, trying to figure out their
their film industry here, we'vebeen involved in this, and since
the beginning of us doing this,one of the problems is, I mean,
I'm not sure where you're going,but just as an overall
(01:04):
introduction to the problems ofSeattle filmmaking, oh god,
there'sthis group of people that work
together, there's this group ofpeople that work together.
There's this and sometimesthey'll cross over and they'll
intersect, but not very often.
Dude, this was exactly what Iwas gonna say, I know, Kelly,
you're probably gonna diverthere. But when I moved here from
(01:25):
the UK in one 2008I was like, Oh, I'm just hopping
from group to group, just seeingwhat everybody's up to. Like,
okay, cool. There's coolcinematographer. Here's good
director over there. There's agreat sound guy here. And I
would jump into a group and belike, Oh yeah, why don't you
guys hire so and so they'regreat at this. And they'd be
like, who? And I'm like, they'vebeen working here for like,
(01:46):
1520, years. They were back onthe Bill Nye show. I got Bill
Nye show guys, why aren't youworking with them? They're like,
I don't know. We've got ourgroup. I'm like, Are you stupid?
Are you just stupid? Just hirethis cool person. You should
talk to them. Why have you nevertalked to this other human being
before? And it was an endlessexperience that I was because I
(02:09):
don't time myself necessarily tojust one, yeah, you know, like
I'm, I'm an editor for hire, or,you know, I'm doing whatever I'm
doing, trying to find the coolpeople I need to work with. And
it was, it's weird. It's a weirdtown for that.
Well, a lot of the angle I wasgoing to talk about is the fact
that Seattle's taxbenefits gone from making a
(02:29):
movie here are non existent.
They don't, yeah, there'spointless why everybody was
going up to Vancouver,and technically they're there,
but I think it's half a millionin money and a half maybe for a
feature, and yeah, 30 to 50,000for a commercial. It's no, it's
just, so I was reading thisarticle that was talking about
(02:51):
how California is not evengetting films made there
anymore. So it says here, fromthe 80s to now, film production
has almost entirely left thestate of California by 2016 only
12 of the 100 highest grossingfilms were filmed in California.
Wow. California was fourth infilm production, the leader in
(03:13):
2016 you guys know Georgia,Georgia. Listen to this before
George's 2008 entertainmentindustry Investment Act. Their
entertainment industry wasmaking about 200 million
annually.
This is before 2008 today. Itmakes $9.5 billion a year, yep,
(03:37):
on their film industry, Yep,yeah. This could have been us.
Oh yeah. Oh, easy. It stillcould, if we got our asses in
gear. But for some reason, wedon't like money, so that's
fine. I don't know if you guysremember, there was a point
where I got really close topotentially going out to
Georgia. I went out a few timesto check out their scene. I knew
a lot of people who were onNetflix. Pieces out there
(03:58):
visited sets. I mean, everysingle town, every single
street, people like, you know,it's just, it was just broken
down, abandoned places, thingsthat were just underserved,
underutilized, whatever. Andthey like, you want to film
here, cool. You want to give usa little bit of money? Great. We
love that. And all of a sudden,you know, your entire
neighborhood becomes the set forStranger Things, you know, it
(04:22):
becomes the set for whateverelse people are getting up to.
Marvel is building there. Youknow, you've got Disney putting
up huge studios there. Everyeverybody's showing up. And that
entire city became purplebecause they had such a huge
influx of industry. Restaurantsappeared out of nowhere, housing
(04:43):
appeared out of nowhere, and itjust gave such a huge boost the
economy. And yeah, it changedthe flavor of the place a lot,
but at the same time, it feltlike what they were changing was
a bunch of streets that werecovered in kudzu, like they were
fully abandoned places. So,yeah.
Yeah, it brings a lot of moneyin. Real quick, real quick,
yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't knowwhy. Super interesting. I wish I
(05:07):
knew what our hesitation is. Iwish I knew what we were
fighting against long ago. Igotta name names because I can't
remember. But when Kelly and Iwere first looking at making
movies and we had Sleepless inSeattle, we had assassins, we
had a whole little flux of hugethings, the Washington State
version of the Washington StateFilm Board, which is completely
different now not evenassociated, instead of marketing
(05:31):
to film from top to bottom, theywent straight to top. And the
problem is, if you're going forSleepless in Seattle, you know,
Tom Hanks, Sylvester, Stallonefilms, you're needing big money
films. And those are rare. Youknow, you're lucky if your city
gets one a year. If you're a bigfilm city, but $2 million films,
(05:54):
$20 million films, you couldhave had, we could add a huge,
huge market, I don't know ifit's been strong enough to
attack what happened inVancouver, but it would have at
least been a starting point towhere we had the base. There's a
thing called, I think it'scalled crude depth, or something
to that effect, which means, ifproduction comes into a city,
(06:19):
they know, I've got six levelsof really good fill. I could
hire these crew people andthey'll be top notch. Seattle
has one, yeah, one level, yep.
And it's like,it could do more. We could do so
much better, but we just gotta,gotta figure out how to then
they're trying. There's a fewplaces that are trying to change
(06:42):
our tax thing. The other problemwith the tax thing is it's not
an incentive, it's a refund. Youhave to spend the money first,
yeah, and then you'll get itback, right, which is really
hard to fill in a lot of forms,indie Well, if you're an indie
film, to raise half a milliondollars here is
(07:05):
almost impossible. Yeah, I justget really I mean, I have a lot
of frustrations with our localscene, but I think one of the
hardest things is that we kindof hate ourselves here.
Everybody who has managed toraise even a little bit of
money, and is getting their wayand starting to scrap themselves
together. And I've been on a fewof these productions,
(07:27):
gets no support, gets a lot ofpeople,
you know, just being reallycatty towards them, talking them
down, not beingavailable together,
pure straight up jealousy. And Iremember one of the films I was
on, they were like, Yeah, we'retrying to get the help from the
(07:48):
Seattle, you know, FilmCommission, or whatever. We're
trying to get this. We're tryingthat no one's talking to us.
Blah, blah. I was like, let metell you right now, when you
guys start getting to festivals,when the film is done, when it
starts playing and is streaming,these people are going to show
up. Yeah, they're going to showup in force, and they're going
to be like, we were so proud ofyou. We were so glad. We are so
excited. They're going to bestanding next to you at Sif, and
(08:12):
they're going to be patting youon the back. And every time it
happens. That's not unique toSeattle. That's the film
industry. I don't know it's wayworse here, it's way worse here.
It's sort of like traffic.
Whatever place you live in, it'sthe worst. You may actually be
the worst, but every place,every city that has any level of
something, feels that, becausewhen you're looking at anything
(08:36):
that's got big money, there'sgoing to be people that are
going to show up when themoney's already been spent to
try to make themselves lookbetter. Yeah. I mean, I've got,
like I mentioned the lastepisode, the crypto con Seattle
film festivals Northwest block,which has started that, along
with bleeding hands doing somegreat stuff and going back as
(08:59):
starting to bring that togethera little bit more. And a lot of
cross work, like the death ofSnow White movie has people that
I don't know, and I'm not sayingthey met at cryptolon. And say,
I don't think, Hey, look at me.
But I was like, Oh, this guy whodid all these films was his DP,
yeah. And this guy who did andthis woman who did all these
(09:23):
effects works with him too, andall this, there's a great cross
pollination going on with thatfilm, yeah. So hopefully, I
mean, I feel like the horrorscene is like, somehow
different. It has a differentattitude than, like, the drama
scene, or people who get, likeviko Morton sent out for one
scene, not to name anything inparticular, but it just, there's
(09:45):
certain films where I just, youjust feel this weird underlying
vitriol and like I watch thesepeople struggle and just do
everything they can. I mean,every large moment.
I've been on here, I've made nomoney. I mean, I've made minimum
wage, but, like, close tocriminal low amounts of cash and
(10:09):
high budget in this area, that'shigh budget. What you're
getting. I'm talking about oneto $3 million films that I've
been a part of that have beenthe more successful things that
have managed to actually get on.
And those are things where,like, I was in a basement. I was
in abandoned police station. Iwas in somebody's house who
moved, you know, just like inthe corner of their kitchen,
working for months at a time,and and those have ended up
(10:32):
being the best projects, and theones that have done them the
most out of what what they had.
But, yeah, like, just, justreally heartbreaking to watch
people in the community not bandtogether and not not show up,
and also, yeah, money notshowing up for the money either.
(10:52):
Like, that's, that's prettyrough. So I don't know I I've
kind of lost faith in the scene,but I feel like maybe, if
anything, genre and horror andpeople who are outside of the
actual like industry structureof it might actually do well,
yeah. I mean, we lost faith too.
You mean, we had a we had somestrange meetings with some
strange pitch things that wentways to go and, well, we don't
(11:13):
really belong. Letme tell you, yeah, I've been to
so many meetings where I'm like,I should not be here. You sure
don't want me here. I knowyou're just patting yourself on
the back being like. I took ameeting with this young lady who
had a lot of energy, and I gotto tell her to fuck off.
Glad. I glad I drove all the wayhere, sir, and bought my own
(11:37):
meal.
Seattle. Good time.
Let's, uh, let's get into somemovies we've watched this week
because I watched two reallygood ones. The first one is
available on Netflix, andnobody's talking about this. And
I can't remember how it got onmy radar, but it is called the
(11:57):
Dead talents society, and it isa Taiwanese film, and it is a
horror comedy. Vanessa, I thinkyou would love this movie.
Eric, I know you would love thismovie. It is about
these it's set in the afterlife,and all of these ghosts, mostly
(12:20):
female, are competing as kind ofghost influencers to become like
the biggest urban legend. And sothey will, they will, you know,
they will be haunting theirplace, and you don't see that
there's just a team of peoplehelping them achieve this haunt
effect that they're doing. Andthen, wow, they show these
(12:43):
things every year at the awards,and they all vote on who's the
best urban legend to come out ofthis thing. So it's very meta in
that, you know, there's these,the throwbacks to the black
haired ghosts, you know,crawling out of a television or
twisting backwards and crabwalking and all of this shit.
And it is so fun because it'sabout a young ghost who has
(13:09):
been killed. And there's,there's a ticking time bomb here
in that one of her effects fromher family, one of her awards
that was given to her as aliving person. They accidentally
misplaced it, and that sets heron us. She's got about 30 days,
and she will disappear becausenobody will remember her
anymore. So she decides she hasto become a ghost, which are a
(13:33):
haunting ghost, which is how youare able to continue living in
the after World. And she's got ateam of people who are not the
smartest trying to help herachieve this. And it is really,
really clever. It's really funnyas really kind of heartwarming.
A lot of the same energy aswas the movie that everybody
loved, that I didn't love, onecut of the dead. A lot of that
(13:55):
same energy. Just real. Feelgood. Oh, cool. And and I just,
I ended up, you know, I wasn'tcrying or anything, but I was, I
was emotionally touched by thisfilm. I thought it was really,
really neat and unusual. Veryoriginal. Wow. So it is called
the Dead talents society, and itis on Netflix, incredible. Okay,
(14:17):
well, I'll definitely have tohunt that down. Well, I've been
going back and watching a lot ofStar Trek Next Generation. I
think I'm now in season six, soI'm getting there. There is a
special kind of joy watchingsomething you've seen 1000 times
before with somebody who is notand you see the next episode in
(14:38):
the line, and you're like, Oh,are you counting your child as
the person who has not seenthis? No, my husband, my poor
husband, could do the good thenanother option. Oh, yeah, oh no.
Once she's old enough, it'shappening. It's definitely
happening. But it's so funnybecause I'm like, oh, oh, it's
gonna be that cute episode. Oh.
(15:01):
Oh, oh, my God. It's got theflute. Oh, the flute episodes
coming out, and every Star Treknerd out there right now knows
what I'm talking about. Butyeah, so it's been, it's been
really fun. It's, it's gettingtowards silly land so near the
last couple seasons of next gen,it gets fucking weird. I don't
know why it gets weird. I don'tknow why. They take the brakes
(15:21):
off, and they're like, old longrun shows, man, oh my god.
They're like, let's turn, Ithink, Troy, into a birthday
cake and have, like, cut her up.
Like, I know that's coming upsometime soon.
It's on the horizon. I can seeit. So you say you're on episode
or season six, yeah. And it'salready starting to wind up. I
(15:42):
thought this thing went for 15seasons. No, it only went for
seven seasons. Oh, wow, yeah.
So, yeah, it's getting towardsthe end of it. I know that once
we get into Dr crusher is doingher grandma's ghost
lover, that we're near in theend. So, yeah, like maybe veer
(16:03):
off and look, we're gonna stopwatching now.
We gotta watch this whole thing.
You either love it all or youdon't. You know, did it get bad
at the end? It is weird. It getsreally weird. I wouldn't say
bad. I think there's a couplebad episodes in there, but it's
just because fucking worse. Sonis the worst. And every time you
see he's gonna be in an episode,you just wanna hang yourself
(16:24):
that actor. He never getsbetter. Same thing for fucking
DS nine every time he's in.
Doesn't matter that he's ateenager now he's still a piece
of shit. Oh my, there are okaychildren, child actors. Wesley
Crusher is not bad compared tosome of these kids. But anyway,
so it's been a lot of fun. I'vebeen I've been enjoying it.
(16:45):
Okay, so I moved into one that,shockingly, I had never seen
from the 80s barbarian movement,barbarians. Whoa, the movie with
the two weightlifting barbariantwin brothers. Yeah, they
actually went by the barbariantwins, right? Yeah, and it's as
(17:09):
good as you'd imagine,even with my appreciation of
being able to watch AndyMilligan, yeah, some of the
other stuff. Al Adamson, it's arough film. It's sometimes
hilarious and fun to watch, butwow, it is. It's Oh, weird. They
make this strange little ahnoise every once in a while that
(17:30):
is, like the emotional cue.
Sorry, spoiling the movie forthe end, where the group that is
looking for them here say, makethat weird ass noise.
That's that's not a good callthere, but it is.
(17:51):
It is occasionally a lot of funto watch. It was not as terrible
as I thought it would be, butit's not good. What are you
watching that on? It's on em. Ithink it's prime and it's
completely Remastered. Somebodygot a hold of it somewhere
because it looked fantastic.
Wow. What did Marty think ofthat? Oh, he wasn't watching
that one.
(18:14):
He is very, very limited in whathe watches. I was curious who's
in the room with you when you'rewatching some of this stuff,
like, no, just most of them isprobably me,
barbarians boy. I remember thatone. I remember the cover yes or
the poster.
I don't think I would watch thatI I could call, yeah, okay. The
(18:38):
other one I watched is brand newand rental, and it is called
locked with Bill Skarsgard andAnthony Hopkins. Oh, that's the
remake of that movie I talkedabout on here, four by four.
Yeah, and I didn't realize thatuntil the end, when it comes up
in the credits, but it's about asmall time criminal who
breaks into the wrong vehicle,and the vehicle is set up as a
(19:01):
trap. Yeah, I saw the trailerfor this. Yeah, I can't even
tell if it's that good, exceptthat Bill scars guard is
excellent, and Anthony Hopkinsis excellent, and it's very
intense. I mean, I was, I was,you know, because at one point,
different from four by four, I'mguessing, which was pretty low
budget, right? Pretty lowbudget. But very well, yeah, at
(19:23):
one point, this vehicle takeshim on a ride. No, that
happened. Oh, okay, and it's,you know, basically being remote
controlled and hitting peopleand stuff like this. Yeah, I
don't think he got thatelaborate. I seem to remember it
driving at some point. Yeah,yeah, he's terrorized.
And, you know, it's a, it's amorality tale. You know, if
(19:47):
you're a bad person, bad thingswill happen to you, kind of
thing. Anthony Hopkins turns outto not be a very good person in
this either, though.
So it's available as a rental,and I would say, you.
Give it a shot. I I liked it. Ijust was a little tired at the
end. I do want to watch it. I'mreally curious. The first one, I
thought was excellent. Okay, andwhen I think about it, it was so
(20:11):
oppressive that thinking aboutthat movie just makes me think
of being in a locked car whenit's 110 degrees outside, and it
just feels like a hot space.
It's really wild. It's, I reallydid enjoy the first one. Okay, I
want to see this. This one hassome really amazing camera
movements, because he's in thecar and the camera is winding
(20:32):
around him the entire time. Andyou realize, you know, okay,
some of these walls don't reallyexist. Oh, yeah, but it's done
beautifully, and in no way didit look like you just kind of
realized there's no way thismovie could have happened,
right? Yes, yeah. It's weird,because it feels like there's a
(20:54):
whole string of films kind of inthis nature that have come out
recently, because there was thatWilliam Defoe like he's stealing
art and gets locked in someguy's apartment movie that came
out like last year, which I didnot see, but I know that, like,
they control the apartment fromwithin. They know he's in there,
and they're like, putting up theheat or making it so he can't
(21:15):
eat anything, and doing allkinds of stuff to him too. So
that one from many years ago,phone booth was kind of a one
too. I have not seen phonebooth, but I always meant to get
aroundher locked Excellent. Well, I've
been reading quite a few comicbooks recently. I'm making use
of my local library, since theeconomy is getting weird, so
trying to save on some cash, andthere's this comic that I
(21:41):
recently read called in utero.
It's really fascinating sci ficomic that takes place after a
strange like nuclear explosion,essentially happens in the
middle of Australia, in themiddle of a city there, and two
monsters crawl out, having likea giant battle with each other.
(22:02):
And so the zone has been sort ofquarantined off, and it's, I
don't know, like 1010, yearslater or something, and there's
still, like bones and weirdthings that are growing out of
there. And there's a kid whogets dropped off at this really
cheap asssummer camp that's basically in
the zone in an abandoned Mall.
But it turns out that also inthe abandoned mall are the eggs
(22:25):
of one of the creatures. And shegets a psychic communication
from a being that's in there,and starts kind of talking to
it, and finding out that aroundthe time that her mom gave birth
to her, during this big event,at the same time, these two
creatures were having a battle,and one of them was pregnant,
(22:46):
and the other laid eggs. Andit's all about kind of birth and
and beings kind of figuring outwho they are in the aftermath of
war. And anyways, this reallycool, weird, fucking weird comic
that's a one off, anddefinitely, highly recommend.
It's got a strange art style,very dark. Just a one off, then
just a one off. Yeah, it's, butit's like, it's pretty thick,
(23:07):
okay, yeah, it's like, a nice,thick novel is a graphic novel,
is a indie graphic novel. But,bro, that sounds like that's
right up nice. I think you, Ithink you'd enjoy it a lot,
honestly. And it's a prettyquick read it. I read it in
maybe a couple hours. So, okay,cool. I watched a sequel.
A sequel, you say That's right,to a movie called heavy trip
(23:30):
from a few years ago, the movieof a Finland band that's
starting up, and they getinvited to play in a massive
festival, so they have to figureout how to get there. Okay, this
is heavier trip. Oh, which isthe same band now in prison for
what happened in the firstmovie. Oh, God, this was a, this
was not a documentary. No, no,okay, definitely not comedy
(23:54):
film. Now, kind of disappointed.
Actually,give you an idea of some of the
silly comedy level it goes to attimes they're,
I forgot why they weren't, butthey go into this one store
that's like a museum of metal,and they said, Whoa, Jimi
Hendrix, fire guitar. And itshows her guitar, and the
guitar's on fire.
(24:17):
They knock over this containerwhen the fight starts, and it's
got this little stone hedge ontop of it that falls off. It's
just full of those little kindof things.
But it's they have to, they getinvited to play at a large thing
because of their reputation fromthe all the trouble they got in.
Andthey have to escape from prison
(24:38):
and go to this festival. Andit's a lot of fun. It has the
classic storyline of the managersaying the real talent is the
singer. So, you know, he triesto separate them and do all
that. And it'sFinland. I believe it's, it's
original look.
(25:00):
Uh, country. So it's mixed. It'sgot a lot of English, but then
it also has, you know, subtitledstuff, but a lot of fun. I
really liked heavy trip. Thiscame out, um, I
think it was arrow or Severan,the heavier trip, going auto,
automatic, buying like that. Up.
Got it like, two days ago, andwatched it almost immediately
and did not disappoint. It'ssillier, it's stranger, it's
(25:23):
everything a sequel to a comedyshould be, but
really kind of a feel goodcomedy movie. What kind of music
does this band play? The kind ofstuff? Steve, Well, it's goes to
deep, heavy metal. Craig'smusic. I was wondering, when you
said Finland, if exactly there'seven one of the characters is
(25:47):
the full corpse makeup. He's theguy who's like, we will not sell
out. We only do real music.
It's, it's a lot of fun. Reallygood.
So heavier trip is brand new.
Heavy trip is available tostream, or probably it came out
like 2018quite a while ago. I think it's
(26:07):
almost all the same cast. Again,that sounds fun.
Oh, and Baby Metal has a strongpart in this movie
that familiar with Baby Metal.
No, what is Baby Metal? Japaneseschool girl heavy metal.
(26:31):
Very catchy choruses andthen give me chocolate. Oh yeah,
okay, I've seen, I've seen, Ithink, a little video that way.
Yeah, they have a prettyamusing, prominent role in this
film. Well, I gotta, I gottawatch this. Okay, guys, how
(26:51):
about we take a little break,and then when we come back,
we're gonna be talking aboutscience fiction movies from the
from the amazing 1990s love the90s.
(27:14):
Every Blockbuster Video has1000s of great movies, which
means every Blockbuster Videohas 1000s of great gifts, plus
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mission is to protect it. Getdown. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Terminator two, Judgment Day,rated R from Carol co home
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(27:36):
of great gifts at great pricesfor everyone on your list.
And we have returned, Eric, thiswas your sub genre. Yes, yes, it
(27:58):
is. I fought long and hard andthought, I'll just do what Kelly
did. But 10 years later, theless than stellar decade for sci
fi movies, wow, 90s. Yeah,thanks, Eric. You're welcome.
You want to start us off then,buddy? I think I found a good
one too. Oh, wow.
(28:20):
I watched.
It really the only requirementwe have.
1998almost the end of The decade,
Dark City. I It,which I also rented on Apple,
(30:26):
but is available free on canopy,which I found out afterwards, of
course, and to rent on severalplaces directed by Alex Proyas,
who also directedlots of music videos, which of
course, led him to directing thecrow and Gods of Egypt. Oh, wow,
yeah, and a fair amount ofstuff. He's also the writer. He
(30:50):
wrote garage days, which Iconstantly have no idea what
that is, and a whole bunch ofshort also writing. Was LEM
Dobbs, who wrote Gotti thelimey, which freaking love Kafka
and the hard way so.
And David S Goyer wrote Man ofSteel, the darks, Dark Knight
(31:12):
movies, the Call of Duty gamesand so lot. He has a ton of
credits. Oh, also the blademovies, Demonic Toys and the
puppet master of 1994starring Rufus Sewell, who's in
old and Gods of Egypt, Knightstale and Hamlet, Kiefer
Sutherland,you might know from Metal Gear,
(31:34):
solid and The Simpsons, the callof duty, games and corner gas.
And Jennifer Connolly, mostrecently seen at least on the
big budget scale, and Top GunMaverick. She was also in Noah
Pollock and phenomena. Sopretty, pretty damn good career.
(31:55):
Three of these people there.
So this is second movie Iwatched in a row with a sci fi
voiceover introduction, but it'sKiefer's voice. So the voice is
awesome. His cadence is weird,but it fits the once you know
the characters no longer weird.
This is a gorgeous film. Holyshit. This is dystopian film.
(32:17):
Pick your poison, obviously,Blade Runner
and a whole lot of other films,just dark, wet,
not quite as futuristic as bladerun, not not as futuristic place
where it's actuallyolder looking stuff, like 30s,
40s, buildings kind of level,but They still look futuristic
(32:38):
and really freaking cool.
This man walks it, wakes up in abathtub with no idea who he is
or what is going on, and startsto look around to see if he can
figure out the answers to who heis and what's what's going on.
Runs into some creepy guys.
Well, he doesn't run into himright away, rerun into the
creepy guys who are known as thestrangers that are looking for
(32:59):
him, because they have somequestions about his Well,
frankly, his existence cut toJennifer Connelly singing. In
the theatrical version, theyused other singers voices, but
apparently, when it went to homevideo, the director said, you're
using Jennifer's voice, and canshe sing? Yeah, she's good. I
(33:20):
mean, not great, but it's alwaysnicer if somebody's good enough.
I think it's always nicer tohear that person's voice when
they're singingall all aside for, you know,
Streets of Fire, because that'sawesome.
So the guy that work up in thetub seems to have some kind of
strange powers, where he, whenhe gets in big trouble, this
(33:43):
weird thing comes out of hishead like a almost like comic
book esque, andattacks things, moves things,
messes with the strangers quitethoroughly. The Strangers are,
as we find out very quickly, area giant group of people. They
have,they do this choice that always
bugs me. In sci fi movies, we'dhave to have a kid. No, you
(34:06):
don't, because if the kid doessomething interesting and adds
to the story, as opposed to justbeing a kid, fine, but this kid
does not just a kid.
Every night, at midnight, theentire world goes to sleep, and
the strangers do shit not gonnago too much detail after that,
(34:29):
because this is a wonderfulfilm, and if you're a sci fi
fan, you haven't seen it, go seeit. It's got phenomenal pacing.
I'm watching this from man. Idon't think I've watched this
too long, like 10 minutes, maybe40 minutes into the movie, and
it's just breakneck, solid,easy structure. It's not like a
lot of action is going on, butthere's just it's something's
(34:51):
always going on.
The a nice part about this too,is the ending is kind of like.
Shit.
But much like the sixth sense,re watching, it is rewarding,
not discouraging, where yourealize, well, they really set
(35:11):
that shit up. Well,it's not a cheap surprise. It's
built into the story, and itreally, really works.
Let's see if I got a few thingsin here. The Matrix said they
borrowed heavily from this film,which is really obvious.
This movie has the shortestaverage shot length of any
(35:32):
modern film at the time at 1.8seconds. Wow. That means there's
a cut almost every two seconds.
Good God, which is probably whythe pacing is how it feels. Oh
the 90s, but it doesn't feelerratic. It doesn't feel messed
up, and I don't sit there going,Oh my God, my God. It it's
smooth as hell.
(35:54):
So obviously built on sets, butthis looked a lot better than
the enemy mindsets from the 80smovie.
There's a few computer effects,like little early for that. I
think you should have built thatcreature. But
the one final weird note, theAmerican heavy metal band Iced
(36:16):
Earth wrote a song titled darkcities, based directly on this
film, andI like this one. It stood up
almost better for me than thefirst time I watched it. I
haven't seen this since it cameout, and I remember liking it.
And then I think I tried towatch it maybe 15 years ago, and
(36:38):
for some reason, I didn't makeit through it. So maybe I need
to give this another try. Yeah,I think I watched it a couple
years ago, and I remember atfirst being like, Man, I got to
get my head in here. But I feellike, once you click in and
you're willing to go for theride, then it definitely works.
It's kind of like Brazil in thatway. It's like, oh, we're in a
Gilead. Okay, all right. It'sfine. It's great. It's
(37:00):
brilliant. Definitely that kindof a film where, if you go with
it, you're great. And I couldsee, if it did not catch you, it
is going to bevicious to watch. It is just
that world. Yeah, 100%did you? You said you had to
rent it? Yeah? This one was,this is a film you love. You
(37:22):
don't own this. I do storageright now. And I was under the
gun a little bit, and it waslike a two or $3 rentals, okay?
I feel, yeah, I was realdisappointed, too, because I'm
going, Oh, cool. There's a partof the reason. I thought I'm
gonna use this as an excuse tomaybe buy a new version, because
(37:42):
arrows coming out with anupdated multi box set in like
July.
Maybe I'll get it. Maybe Iwon't, but multi box set, dang
box. I'm gonna have to get that.
That sounds cool. Vanessa, youwant to go next? Sure?
Why not?
All right, so I went with 1999movie Wing Commander March 15
(38:05):
Earth year, 2454Earth defenses are threatened.
Message from Health Command,they don't believe they can
withstand a kill Rathi battlegroup without the support of the
fleet. This tactical schematicoutlines a nightmare. We need to
buy our future, and onlya team of young fighter pilots
(38:29):
stands betweenEarth and destruction.
Lieutenant JG, ChristopherBlair, reporting for duty,
sir Todd maniac, Marshall, it'syour service. Mail this hand in,
Commander Deborah, your wing.
Commander,in those kids hands now,
(38:50):
all right, ladies, let's do it.
YouIn all likelihood, you're going
to die out here. We're all goingto die out here, but none of us
(39:13):
need to be reminded of that.
Fact, thisis your own COVID fire. You
if you endanger another pilot,you're
dead. Emotion gets in the waycommander. Emotion is what
(39:34):
separates us from the correct Idon't think I can.
I don't have the faith. It's notfaith. Let's make our miracle.
We commander Whoo.
(39:59):
I.
I had not seen this. Just foryou to hold to this guys a
YouTube rental. You can't get itany other way, so I gave money
to YouTube. That was a newprocess. This had a budget of 25
to 720. 7 million. Box office,11 point 6 million. Wow, yep.
Directed and written by ChrisRoberts, who only has 13 credits
(40:21):
to his name. He's mostly aproducer, but I'll get more into
his background in a bit,starring Freddie Prinze Jr, 61
credits. Scooby Doo I Know WhatYou Did Last Summer, Star Wars,
rebels, 24 and one of the bestmovies, or at least one of the
best scenes in cinematichistory. She's all that
the poetry, hacky sax scene isone of my favorite things on
(40:44):
planet Earth. Matthew Lillard,175 credits, including screen
hackers, Scooby Doo as well, andTwin Peaks and a great guy.
Well, yeah, he's a cool guy. Hejust wasn't nice to me. Saffron
burrow, 76 credits, includingyou, Mozart in the jungle, Deep
Blue Sea and chat skirt. Cario,142 credits, bad boys, the
(41:08):
Patriot la FEM, Nikita the coreand David Suchet, 119 credits,
you would know him as Poirot.
But in 2654 a weight war ragesbetween the Terran Confederation
and the Kilrathi Empire, the catlike kalrathy seek to eradicate
the human race. A massiveKilrathi Armada attacks a
Pegasus station and captures thenav computer, which is used to
(41:32):
locate Earth. The admiral, aAdmiral, I guess, recalls the
Terran fleet to defend Earth,but it will arrive two hours too
late before the Kilrathi getthere and kill everybody. They
contact a ship out in thevicinity carrying two new pilots
on their way to a fighter shipcalled the tiger claw, and send
a message to that when theyarrive at the tiger claw, they
(41:54):
need to basically go and fight asuicidal mission to delay the
attack in order for the fleet toget there in time. The two
pilots on their way to there aretwo young guys, Blair, a pilot
with crazy navigationalabilities and a descendant from
the pilgrim race, who have aspecial ability that allows them
to out math computers, dude andTodd Marshall, a cocky, fun
(42:18):
Buddy Guy, when they arrive,they have to convince the crew
of the mission, then they haveto convince them of their worth,
then the women of theircoolness. And then eventually,
they have to fight a bunch ofthe kilrothy in various
situations and try and help keepthe human race alive. This has
some truly bad CGI, the ships,the asteroid textures, the cat
(42:40):
enemies look like ass. It isbad, and it's also,
unfortunately, even worse,mostly pretty boring. It has
some incredibly clunky acting. Ithink there's some cool ideas in
here, overall, but the executionis just poor across the board.
It's also just got thisconstant, weird, inflated drama
(43:01):
and boring, hard sci fi militarybehind it. I do think like this,
the suits and the sets are goodlooking. I think that those are
great, but it just is not enoughthat all the ideas are not
handled well. Nothing lands.
Feel free to skip this movietrivia.
(43:21):
This is one of only three filmsthat was released with the
theatrical trailer for Star WarsEpisode One, Phantom Menace in
1999 many people paid admissionto see the trailer then walked
out after good idea, guys wow inthe interview, in an interview,
Freddie Prinze Jr discussed hishatred for Wing Commander,
stating, I can't stand a WingCommander. I can't watch one
(43:44):
scene of that movie. I read thescript. I loved it. So did my
buddy Matthew Lillard. We got tothe we both got the parts. We
went to the location. They said,here's the new script, and it
was a pieceof shit. The voice of Blair's
fighters on board computerMerlin is listed as question
mark in the credits. It is MarkHamill who previously played
Blair in the computer gameseries. Chris Roberts, the
(44:06):
director. This was hisdirectorial debut. He had
created the five Wing Commandergames that had preceded it. The
film was rushed into productionas Fox wanted Wing Commander
delivered by november of 1998 sothat they could release it
before Star Wars Phantom Menacecame out in 1999 they gave Chris
Roberts only three months of preproduction, rather than the six
(44:29):
to nine months required forPrEP, especially for something
this visually VFX heavy, ChrisRoberts felt that the Original
Screenplay by Kevin droney wasrevised, which was revised by
Roberts and Larry Wilson, whilenot a masterpiece, was better
than what they ended up beingfilmed, but the changes they
were requested by the producer,Todd Moyer ultimately led to the
(44:53):
script quality worsening witheach rewrite.
That's impressive. My.
Favorite piece of trivia is thatin the DVD, insert the
page. So close, so close. In theDVD, insert the page, listing
actor, character, bios, next toChesky carriers, bio is actually
(45:15):
a picture of you're gone, perch,perched now, just a different
Russian actor. So anyway, yeah,I got him proc now. Thank you.
From in the mouth of madness,yeah,
okay, so why? Why'd you pickthis look? I had a list, and I
(45:35):
was I really wanted to do Moon44 because I have it. I bought
it not that long ago on DVD, andI could not find it. I have
everything because of our bigpipe issue and our downstairs,
everything's in piles. And I waslooking for piles, looking for
piles, and looking for piles.
And I was like, I'll dosomething else. Cool. I haven't
seen Wing Commander. It waslike, one of three on my list.
(45:56):
And then I was like, as the onlyone I can find for rental
streaming. So went with it.
Reach out to me. Sometimes, ifyou're unsure, I'll be like, Oh,
definitely water. Do week.
That'sthe problem. Usually, you guys
are pretty good at being like,Oh, really, really. And I'll be
(46:16):
like, Oh, I have chosen poorly.
Well, you so frequently are soclose.
This one was really close,because with everything going on
this week, I did not make itcloser. It was, it was too close
to really get you guys to changemy mind on it, but wow, it is a
(46:37):
stinker of a movie. Now I'veseen it though. You know what? I
don't have to have that on mylist ever in the future. No
question marks here. Yeah, butthat's that is a wonderfully
positive.
Really good costumes, guys.
Seriously, every time theypanned out and I saw the
costumes, I was like, wow, thoseare some good decisions. Are
there? I applaud y'all.
(46:59):
Okay, well, fun. Five minutes onfor myself, and I am talking
about straight in the middle ofthe decade 1995 screamers. You
(47:24):
a world overlooked and longforgotten by those who settled
it for commander Joseph AHendrickson, it is worse than
hell.
It is home. Wow.
What are they? There is a newterror in their midst. Call it a
(47:47):
screamer. Was developed for usby Alliance on Earth to
neutralize the war on the groundhere, how do you know it's dead?
They yank this brain out.
Pretty smart, maybe too smart.
This one seems to modify itself.
It was designed to protect themfrom their enemies,
until it turned in sights onthem.
(48:08):
Finally, a lie no one knows theymake themselves. Now I
heard the screaming, and then itgot very quiet.
Nothingsaid, the smell of death.
Shark, we got a new kind ofscreamer. Seems like a person.
What are they supposed to looklike? Oh, you mean, who are they
(48:30):
supposed to look like? They'resmarter. Now, that's how they
get into our bunkers. Once itgets inside, that's when the
killing starts. Now, the onlyway to tell man, he's one of
them from the sheep.
Is by the sound of their screen,things ain't what they used to
(48:55):
be.
Directed by Christian Dugway,who has 39 credits, including
the art of war right above, andscanners two and scanners three,
written by Dan O'Bannon, who youwould know from Blue thunder,
Return of the Living Dead, deadand buried life force, Invaders
(49:17):
from Mars, Total Recall, alsowritten by Miguel trajada
Flores, who should sound kind offamiliar. He wrote Revenge of
the Nerds, Fright Night Two andFrankenstein's army, and based
on a short story by Philip KDick. Of course, we wrote Blade
Runner man the High Castle andMinority Report. Those short
stories were turned into bigfilms, starting Peter Weller, of
(49:41):
unknown origin The Adventures ofBucha Ruby in the eighth
dimension, Robocop Leviathan andNaked Lunch. And also on This is
Roy Dupuy, who was in somethingcalled entangle bleeders and the
rocket.
And Jennifer Rubin, you wouldknow her from.
Ma such other episodes as thecrush
(50:05):
bad dreams. She is the hot gothchick from Nightmare on Elm
Street The Dream Warriors. Haveyou guys seen screamers? No,
this was a first time viewingfor me.
The movie starts with a shitloadof narrative exposition that
talks about how Earth hascolonized many other planets by
the year 2078 which is not thatfar away. We are on a planet
(50:28):
called Sirius 6b which is aravaged desert planet thanks to
our careless mining of itsresources and possibly a nuclear
war, unclear.
There was also a civil war onthis planet, and 1000s of
civilians died during it, andonly a handful of survivors live
there now.
So we open on a few miners whoare playing some kind of game
(50:49):
for cigarettes, and an alarm issuddenly raised because there's
someone on the surface of theplanet stumbling towards their
underground base. This isobviously a very unusual event
for them. It looks like theperson is carrying something, a
delivery of some kind. But justthen the sand underneath him
starts to move as if there weresomething burrowing towards him,
and then suddenly severalsomethings are burrowing towards
(51:11):
him, and these are screamers, AIprotector robots. We are
performed, I guess, and theywill attack anything that
doesn't have a wristband thathides their heartbeat. So they
attack this messenger and cuthis arms and legs off. Oh,
pretty fun.
Enter Captain Joe Henderson,leader of the mining base. He's
(51:33):
not sure what was so importantthat this messenger died to
bring it to them, but theyretrieved the cylinder the man
was carrying, and it turns outto have a message from Richard
Cooper, a commander of theopposing army, to Joe, asking
for peace negotiation. Andthere's also a detailed map of
the opposing army's fortress tokind of prove that this is not a
trick. I guess. I don't know.
This is a confusing movie.
(51:55):
There's also a subplot of acommercial transport sending an
emergency request to land on theplanet, even though they are
billions of miles from anycommercial transport lanes,
I'll be honest, I can't figureout what the fuck this ship was
supposed to be doing. It crashesand everyone is killed, except
for one soldier, and thescreamers show up and make off
with the dead bodies. For somereason,
(52:16):
anyway, the captain and thissoldier decided they're gonna
make the perilous trek to theenemy fortress and see if this
is legit. So they don all oftheir product protective wear,
including red cigarettes thatkeep their lungs free of
radiation and the wristbandsthat fool the screamers.
So I'm in a way, they run into asmall child with a teddy bear
that has somehow survived allthe screamers and wants to come
(52:39):
with them. He's been living inthe rooms and surviving on
scraps after his parents werekilled in the war.
That night, they are attacked bya screamer. Because the soldier,
this new soldier, didn't know hehad to actually be wearing the
bracelet to fool the screamers.
He thought he could just have itlike next to his body.
They managed to destroy theScreamer before it can kill
anyone, though, and the three ofthem continue their trek.
(53:02):
When they finally make it to theother fortress, one of the
soldiers there immediately blowsthe kid away,
and we find out he was a robot.
The screamers have evolvedsomehow, and now they are making
new screamers in the form ofkiller robotic children. And I
was like, fuck yeah. Why didn'tCyberdyne and Skynet. Think of
this. Why would you make yourTerminator look like a huge,
scary man instead of adefenseless of a child?
(53:28):
So from here, the movie dragsalong until it finally gets
halfway decent again at the end,as it becomes a story of
paranoia and wondering who youknow is actually human and who
might be one of the newscreamers. So I didn't love this
movie, but I didn't hate it. Ithad a good beginning, a decent
ending, and a real fuckingsecond act problem.
(53:51):
The screamer effects, when youfinally see them, are stop
motion, and that's very fun,even though the spaceship
effects are really garbage, CGIeffects and Peter Weller is good
a little bit of trivia in theoriginal short story by Philip K
Dick, the plot takes place onearth instead of Sirius 6b And
originally, the screamers weredeveloped by American troops
hiding in the moon to destroythe Russian army after the
(54:14):
Soviet Union had completelywiped out the United States.
This is already a moreinteresting story, and
it could have been the exactsame thing. I don't know why it
had taken place on a distantplanet. Early versions of the
screenplay were titled claw inreference to the villainous
robots, which are called clawsin the original Philip K Dick
short story, second variety.
(54:39):
At one point, Hendrickson refersto someone sarcastically as a
real perky Pat. I guess this isa reference to the short story,
the days of perky Pat, and thenovel The three stigmata of
Palmer eldritch, both of werewritten by Philip K Dick. This
is just a personal note. Thefilm takes place in 2078 which
only leaves us 50 years to notonly.
(55:00):
Colonized several other planets,but colonize them so thoroughly
that 1000s of people can bekilled in a civil war on one of
them, you gotta go. Why not justset it on Earth?
So this is probably on to be orsomething like that. I can't
remember what I gotta say.
(55:21):
The effects are quite poor. Theacting by everyone is a little
higher than it had to be, andthe second act just fucking is a
snooze fest, so, but I loved theidea of the children and
spoiler, because I don't wantanyone to watch this. But fast
forward to the end, wheresuddenly they are being attacked
(55:44):
by a horde of robot children,all carrying teddy bears.
That's extremely good. So thatwas fun. I like that.
Vanessa, so I'm not sure whatwe're doing here. We might be
doing alive show of crypto con right
now, or we might be doing yournext pick. So what is your next
(56:07):
pick? Well, my next pick, Imean, I'm gonna get real crazy
here, guys and say the earlyaughts sci fi. Yeah,
anything from 2000 to 2009I was trying to remember. I was
like, Wait, 2099 No, wait, hold,that doesn't work at all.
(56:32):
You know that the first decade2000
I have faith, I have faith it'sgonna get better, because
there's no way that the I lovesci fi for a reason. There must
be something. It can't just bethat we went from 70s to never
again. So some point,they did all right. They did all
right, all right. I like thisidea. This is fun. This is a
(56:53):
nice break from all the horror.
Yeah, yeah. 2000s sci fi. Herewe come. That means that right
now, this is the part where wesay thanks to everybody out
there who's liking and sharingall of our posts, who's reaching
out to us, either throughyoutube comments or the strange
(57:15):
hands radio talk page onFacebook or any of that stuff,
but especially if you aredonating money to the cause.
Yeah. Thank you so much forthat. Thank you. Yeah, little
bit of money put some wind inthe sails of this pirate ship,
and helps pay for all this crazyequipment, you see, and this new
little TV equipment. Oh yeah,we've got new microphones we're
(57:37):
using for our live show likecryptocon, that are just
these. Thank you. Pre serve touse those. We probably shouldn't
have said anything until weactually hear what that live
show sounds like afterwards. Youkept the receipt, right? Eric,
another way to reach out to usis how, Vanessa, you can go
ahead and give us a call or atext on the strange eons radio
(57:59):
hotline, that number is25323742662532374266,
go ahead and ping us. Call usdrunk, dial us sober. Dialysis,
sleepy, dialysis, awake.
Dialects, any kind of dialysiswe are trying to hear from you.
Text all the same style too,any, any of those states of
(58:20):
mind, just go ahead and reachout. We'd love to hear from you
guys.
Just set up a memory. I remembergetting a drunk email from an ex
girlfriend many years ago, andshe passed out in the middle of
the evening, and it was like shewas saying something. Then the G
just andthen I was like, she hits. Then
(58:42):
did she wake up to go?
I reached out to her and said,Everything okay. And the next
morning, she was like, Oh mygod.
So please, if you're out thereand you want to send us a drunk
text, we would love that. Maybegreat by all means. All right,
(59:03):
guys, that's it for this week.
We will be back in seven shortdays, and we are talking 2000s
sci fi movies till 2009 to 2000to 2000 sci fi, the title will
look much better in print.
See you next Thursday,transportation and other
considerations for strange eons,radio produced by Pan Am
(59:24):
airlines. When you think oftraveling, think of Pan Am. You
can't beat the experience.
Guests of strange eons radiostay at econo lodge Everett.
It's an easy stop on the road.
You know opening strange eonsradio is recorded live in front
of a studio audience. If youenjoyed this episode, please
consider leaving us a positivereview on your favorite podcast.
(59:44):
Sit Ubu. Sit trying to find thecool people I need to work with.
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