Passengers (2016): A Journey Beyond Redemption

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Beyond the Big Screen Podcast with your host
Steve Guerra. Thank you for listening to Beyond the Big
Screen Podcast, where we talk about great movies and stories
so great they should be movies. Find show notes, links
to subscribe and leave Apple podcast reviews by going to

(00:23):
our website Beyond the Big Screen dot com. And now
let's go Beyond the Big Screen.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hello, and welcome back to Beyond the Big Screen. I'm
your host, Mustache Chris, and I'm going to be joined
today by very special guests, also named Chris. On today's episode,
we're going to be covering the twenty sixteen movie Passengers. Now,
before we get into the film, why don't you introduce yourself, Chris,
and just tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Hi, I'm from Texas and I'm a pet or teacher
and just kind of all around nerd about a lot
of different things. And like I think most people, I
like movies, I like stories. I like to, you know,
tease out the detail and see what there is. So

(01:15):
this would be a great place for me to be.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, me and Chris had known each other for I
don't know forever now, years and years and years, probably
close to seven years now, I maybe even longer than that.
We've been just messaging each other back and forth on Facebook,
and we've just always had like very similar interests in
terms of you know, politics, history, religion, stuff like that,
and we're all we've always been kind of constantly shooting

(01:42):
each other messages back and forth. You know, it would
go like months maybe not say anything, and then we'll
just start chatting again out of nowhere. So I'm quite
happy to have Chris on here. He's an extremely intelligent man.
And the reason we ended up picking this movie was
I saw him do a Facebook post about it Messengers,
and I go, man, I remember watching that movie and

(02:02):
thinking like, this is a great movie if they just
changed a couple of things. And Chris was of that
opinion too, but I, as we you know, go along
in the podcast, I've actually changed my opinion about that,
and I would argue that this I'm going to argue
that this film is a flawed it's a flawed masterpiece,
but it's it's a masterpiece nonetheless just the way it is.

(02:28):
So hopefully you guys are going to find that interesting.
Do you have anything else to say, Chris before I
get into you know, the cast and crew and all that.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, I just that my perspective is similar, I'd say more.
I think I mentioned this before. Maybe you can convince
me differently throughout this that it's more of a missed
opportunity than anything. And that's kind of that was my
takeaway from it in a lot of ways, and that's well,

(02:58):
we'll get into that part of it, but that's sort
of I take away from it.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah. So, as always with Beyond the Big Screen, if
you haven't seen the movie Passengers, go watch it because
there's going to be spoilers. And I don't know why
you'd be listening to a podcast about a movie you
haven't seen yet. I've always I always find that, I
always find that so weird to say. But you know,
just in case, you know, they're just going to be

(03:21):
spoilers and we're gon we're going to ruin the movie.
I guess, right, But so shut it off, go watch,
come back, listen to us talk. Okay, guys, So I
guess for the cast and crew, we have pretty short
like it's a pretty small cast, right. Chris Pratt stars
as Jim Preston. He's a mechanical engineer. Jennifer Lawrence as

(03:44):
Laura Lane, she's a journalistener writer, Michael Sheen as a
android bartender, and Lawrence Fishburne is about a fifteen minute
cameo in this movie.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
And I believe Andy Garcia is the one at the end.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Oh yes, at the very very end. He's in there
for two seconds. He must have been. We'll get into
that when we get into the end of the movie,
because I have a couple of theories how that ended
up happening. As we usually like to do beyond the
big screen is usually when I go about writing the notes,
I try to break the movie up into its acts,

(04:22):
right like you would do with a play. And I
think when you look at the movie Passengers, there's four
big acts that you can break up. There's four segments,
and I guess the first major theme from act one
would be like isolation, solitude, and suicide. I mean, the

(04:44):
situation that Jim finds himself in waking up ninety years
earlier than he should have. Is we really in human history,
We really don't have a comparison like something like that's
never happened, Like there are stories of people being isolated
from humanity for long periods of time. I mean infamously
there was that the Jungle books based on it. I

(05:07):
believe it was. Was it not a French kid that
was he was isolated from human beings for pretty much
his entire life and was raised like a wild animal.
But even in his case, like he's around other animals,
and like even the other animals were showing him comfort

(05:27):
and compassion and they and a lot of ways, they
kind of treated him like he was one of them.
Right where Jim he doesn't even have that, he's surrounded
by inorganic material.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, that that was exactly what I was thinking, is
that's the big difference, is that it's just stuff all
by himself. Even cases where somebody is becomes isolated even
for years, well, actually the stuff isn't just stuff. It's comfort.
It's a material comfort and pleasures fun. And he finds

(06:03):
a way to get into sort of the luxury once
he realizes he's got nothing to lose, he figures out
a way to get into sort of the luxury suites
and parts of the ship. And he most people in history,
when they're isolated for a long time, in particular that
situation you mentioned, but also others, they have to minimum survive,

(06:27):
so they're trying to make it. You know, at least
that's taking their attention, it's giving them a sense of
purpose and direction with their life. Jim doesn't have that
at all. He's just aimlessly going across the ship trying
doing one thing or another.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
That's exactly it. Actually, that's a great point that you
bring up, is the fact that there is no there
is no struggle for Jim at all. It's like everything
he has is there for him, right in terms of
material materialistically speaking, right, Like he's never going to run
out of food, He's never going to run out of entertainment.
He you know, I mean really like he could just

(07:07):
booze himself every single night, right, Like, he's not going
to run out of booze. There's enough supplies on that
ship for five thousand people for however long, right, Like,
none of that's really an issue. So he's just kind
of existing.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's a good way of putting it.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
You know. It's like I'll use an example, like during
covid UH, a lot of people were just kind of
staying in their house and they didn't really have anything
to worry about per se, Right, Like people were having
Uber driver food to them, they were just in there,
they had entertainment, they were just sitting there like kind
of watching TV. And then within like like full and

(07:51):
you guys are a little bit different in Texas, but
up here in Canada was like the full long lockdown
was like maybe three months where it was like full
walk down and people lost their minds.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
I believe it.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
You imagine you find you wake yourself, you wake up,
no fault of your own, and it's ninety years you're
looking at this, you're basically your entire life. You're going
to be a complete and utter isolation. And then Jim
goes through the stages of typically what we would consider

(08:26):
the stages of grief, right where he's absolute despondency, he
doesn't want to accept what has happened. Then there's acceptance
where he's the bartender tells him to you know, live
a little tries. You know, he's you know, he's playing basketball,
he's doing the dance game. He breaks into like the

(08:47):
luxury suite and he's kind of living it up. But
then the reality of what really has happened hits him right,
and it becomes suicidal.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Right.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
He goes outside of the ship and he realizes just
how easy. It would be for him to just not
have a suit on, not have his tether on, and
all he has to do is just press that button,
and he's going to get sucked out of there, and
he's he'll die instantaneously right either through he'll just freeze instantly,
or he'll just you know, he'll die because he can't

(09:21):
breathe right and he's got his finger over the button
and he's thinking about doing it, and that's when he
he freaks out. It's like, I can't, I can't do this,
and I and reading reviews for this movie and listening
to other people comment on this movie, I'm it blows
my mind how people are so judgmental of Jim. And

(09:46):
when we get into actingoom, we discuss what he ends
up deciding to do. But just in this scenario, do
people and what planet do people think that they they
would know for sure what they would do in this situation.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
It's easy to you know, be an armchair or whatever
for anything. People do this with history all the time.
They insist looking in the past, they would be on
the moral side of history or the good guys or
whatever is in their mind, and there's a solid chance
they'd be just like every average person there for better
or worse. So it's hard to you know, a lot

(10:21):
of people do this when they look at whatever a
difficult situation someone's going through. They have that hindsight twenty
twenty all around perspective. Oh yeah, Jim, you know he's
he's this, he's making it to he's about to make
a terrible choice. He's gonna do something bad. This is awful.
Feel bad for him, but he's wrong, And it's like, well,
hang on, hang on, you're telling me you know how

(10:42):
to handle that, you know how to do what he
can do in this situation.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Exactly like you couldn't. I couldn't think of a worse
thing to put somebody through, Like you could take the
worst criminal on the face to earth. I'll I'll just
throw a name out there, say somebody like Jeffrey Epstein
and be like, this is what you're going to get.
I still wouldn't do this to this guy. I honestly
I couldn't. I couldn't do it as bad as he was.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
No.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
I know it sounds. I know that sounds like people
look at me and they go like, oh, that's like crazy.
But I mean, basically, what Jim's going through is like
the most extreme version of like cruel and unusual punishment,
do with somebody, do with do with bad people? What
you have to do with bad people? Right, But there's
no like this is straight up it would be straight

(11:30):
up torture. I wouldn't wish this on anybody. And then
for people to be so like adamant that they would
not they wouldn't wake up Aurora. Just it blows my mind,
it really does, like I can't. And then when you
watch the film, it's at no point are they is
the film trying to justify what Jim did. What they're
showing is a man that was desperate, suicidal, put in

(11:54):
an impossible situation, making a questionably bad moral decision of desperation,
you know, and he racked over that decision for months
and months and months, you know. He People say, well,
it's it's convenient that he picked like, you know, the
hottest girl in the pot or whatever Genner rewards or whatever, right,

(12:17):
But it's like if you it's like yeah, like yeah,
you need too good female, like two good you know,
attractive weeds in a movie like this, if you're going
to sell it and make money. But if you watch
what he's doing. He's he reads everything he possibly can
about her, and he's still going back and forth about
what he should do or not do, and eventually he

(12:39):
does make that decision. He's not proud of that decision
at all.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Not he And and as the movie progresses, this may
be an area where, you know, we talked about some
some you mentioned flaws where I do think they could
have spent a little more time on his apprehension afterwards.
I understand why they'd because they fall in love, of course,

(13:03):
but in that sort of haze, if you will, that
that rush, you can forget a lot of things in
a good way and in a bad way. But I
do kind of wish they, you know, they had spent
maybe ten or twelve seconds just these little moments where
he he's clearly being self reflective, and it would have

(13:26):
might have addressed it, would have made it a little
bit more realistic and kind of fleshed it out a
little more. But I can understand why at the same time,
direct that's going to get cut eventually for time.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah. Fortunately, in general, we like kind of do our
final overviews of the movie. I think this movie could
have benefited from maybe another fifteen minute run time to
just add stuff like that. Right, I will agree with
you on that, Like I would have liked a little
bit more of going through like the moral conundrum of
what he's about to do. We get it bit of

(14:00):
it where he's talking to Arthur the bartender, and but
it would have been better if I think it would
have been better if we saw more of that.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Absolutely, yeah, it and and they certainly it's not like
it could have been a money problem. As you can
see you mentioned there's a tiny cast, so it's not like, uh,
you have to pay an ensemble there, right, But that
that that first, I think that is the strongest part
of the movie though, because they do spend so much
time on that aspect, that whole how do I deal

(14:32):
with this? And you really get to know Jim and
you get to see his perspective and what he's gone
through and how he changes, and it is it is,
for better or worse the strongest part of the movie
I think.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
And it's hard to like ask somebody this, right, but
I mean if you found yourself in that situation, like
what do you think he would do? Would you have
would you have woke up?

Speaker 3 (14:54):
I would have woken someone up for sure. If anything
has a practical matter of practicality, like okay, this and
I say that, I don't mean like I'm proud or
it's a positively a positive thing to say. But at
the same time, you know you're going to have to

(15:15):
wake somebody up. And as the plot moves on, you know,
knowing what I know about, you know how it works
out with the ship breaking down, I definitely would have
started waking people up. We have a problem. We can't
get to the ship crew. We need to figure something out,
and that's that it would quickly turn into a survival
thing in a different way. So I'm pretty confident I

(15:36):
would have done something similar.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
See I see I reading reviews and listening to some
commentaries with people about this. They say a lot of
people said they would never do what Gym did, right,
So they said, oh, well, if it was my wife
right next to me, then I would have woken her up.
And I go and I go, okay, I'm like, so
I get that there's a difference in this that Jim

(16:00):
is waking up a stranger and you'd be waking up
your wife, But ultimately you're really doing the same thing.
You didn't ask your wife whether she wanted to be
woken up on an abandoned ship to die, because that's
ultimately what you would have absolutely be making that same
decision for her, the way Jim decided that he was

(16:22):
going to make that decision for aur That's ultimately what
Jim does. Is the reason it's so evil or wicked
or morally reheensible is the fact that at no point
did Aurora have a choice. He took that away from her,
you know, And it would be no different than if

(16:42):
you woke your wife up. People, well what's my wife?
Of course, of course she would want to be with me,
but you didn't ask her that, did she do you
know what I mean? Like, did you ask her that?
Like she wanted to be on a ship with you
for you know, ninety plus years and you're going to
die in the ship and this would be your entire existence.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
Steve here with a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, actually, let's get into act too, right, So Jim
wakes up a raw right. This is where this is
where Jim gets into like really messy territory in the
sense of morally. He leads her to believe that it
was a malfunction is the reason why she woke up.
I guess the main theme is from this section is

(17:29):
is love right? Like do these two do they truthfully
fall in love? And this is I think this is
the hardest I think this is the creepiest part of
the lot. I think the hardest part of the film
for people to accept is at the end. But I
think this is the part where people it is like,
like Jim's like a borderline psychopath, right, like how could

(17:50):
you not tell her what you had done? And but
for all extentsive purposes, like the interactions that you see
between them, and yeah, Jim has been studying her. People
make it sound like he's like I don't know, like
some kind of like stalker or what Like what else

(18:10):
was he I don't understand? Like what else was he
going to do? Like not read her diary and like
not reader like videograms and like not read the stuff
that she left there like for people to read, Like
what else was he going to do? But regardless, they
claim that he like manipulates her into like loving him
because like he knows everything about her and knows exactly

(18:32):
what she likes and YadA, YadA, YadA. But in the
process of them like falling in love, like that was genuine, right, Like,
I don't I don't think it was manipulated in the
now is there a bit of like Stockholm syndrome But
she doesn't know that. She doesn't know that like Jim
like woke her up at this point. She finds that

(18:52):
out at the end, but she doesn't know that.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, the it does bring up all those questions, and
I think that's, you know, just from a storytelling perspective,
that there's just so much there's there's a lot there.
There's so much you can do with that, no matter
the medium. I mean, it could be a radio cram
and you could do a lot with it. I think

(19:17):
the I definitely agree love and hate love really, but
I guess hates comes later. But love is the central
focus here and the way he studies through the way
I took that when I watched it, and you know,
it was only doing so much highbrow thinking at the time,

(19:38):
just watching it unless something really stood out to me.
But it seemed like to me he was just lonely
and this was a way to get to know somebody
on that ship. I don't think he initially was like
I'm going to wake that girl up one day, you know,
I think he went, Okay, who is that? Oh, let

(19:58):
me check this out. He had to walk himself into
that over time, in steps, and the first ones, like
most decisions for better or worse, are kind of innocuous,
they're very lighthearted. Well, who is that? Oh, she's this
famous author. What she writes, you know, and so on
and so forth, And so I didn't really see that

(20:19):
as him stalking. I actually took that as, you know,
like you were saying, what else is he supposed to do?
He could have done that with anybody, really, like she
just happened to be the hot one that was right
there when he almost killed himself. And actually I did

(20:39):
want to get into this. Is was kind of a
late realization for me. So I guess this might be
a good time to throw this in. Aurora is the
Roman goddess of the Dawn, And what's fascinating is what
they did. And the story is in Act one, when
he's going to kill himself or he attempts it in

(20:59):
the darkness of space. It's his darkest moment. He's drunk,
he's ready to do it more or less and just
end it all and then he's terrified he couldn't do it.
He steps back, and what is the first thing he sees,
essentially is this woman named Aurora the dawn after his darkness. Yeah,

(21:21):
and I think that's kind of pretty and you don't
have to take it in the worst possible way like
a lot of people do.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah. So, Okay, Eventually Arthur or whatever tells Aurora you
know what had happened that you know, Jim was the
one that woke up. And I thought the acting by
Jennifer Chris Pratt's acting is kind of I don't know,

(21:50):
I like his acting. I don't think he's going to
be winning an oscar anytime soon. Like Jennifer Lawrence in
this sequence, when she finds out what Jim had done,
especially that initial like that whole realization, the camera kind
of shakes, like it goes fuzzy a bit, and it
kind of shakes a little bit, and like the look
of absolute horror on her face is there's so much

(22:15):
going There's so much going on in that's in that
particular sequence because you imagine like the type of emotions
that she'd be going through. This dude that she fell
in love with was the one that actually woke her up.
It'd been lying this entire time, so that she's dealing
with a double whammy in the sense of am I
like am I living with a Have I been sleeping

(22:38):
with a psychopath this entire time? That just manipulated this
entire situation. Plus she's dealing with a broken heart because
like what Jim did, it's like magnitudes worse, but it'd
be almost I don't know, She's an example that the
people go through all the time. It's like when a
significant other or wife or whoever cheats, Right, it's like

(22:59):
that type of t us that was broke. Can you
can it ever be repaired? And I I'm surprised nobody
ever really picked us up. But when in watching this
film a couple of times, and if you look at
the ship and what goes on with the ship, and
we're going to get, you know, to the major problems

(23:20):
that are going on the ship in a little bit,
but that ship is like a metaphor for their their relationship,
like that initial asteroid hit. That was the lie that
Jim woke her up, right, that that's I thought that
was the way. I think that's what the director was
trying to get across and then everything from that point

(23:43):
on is them trying to fix Jim trying to fix
that initial lie.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, no, I actually I hadn't considered that. I think
that's that's fantastic, that that's a great insight. I think
the Yeah, what I thought of immediately was the impact
beginning to slowly break down the ship more for storytelling

(24:10):
purposes that it's slower, but yeah, that was the impact,
and eventually it's going to start falling apart, because when
you build on that, like any relationship, it's going to
eventually fall apart. Because that's not incidental. It's not like,
oh I never told you about my favorite color, right,
It's very important. And so I just think that's actually

(24:33):
pretty brilliant and that is a common thing in storytelling
to match up kind of synchronize things. Actually, just till
now you said that, I had not even picked up
on that. That's great.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, like we're you think about it, like the why
has it destroyed everything? No, Like things are still kind
of running to a degree. But if you're unable to
fix it, much like the ship, eventually it's all it's
going to implode, right, And I'll get into so for
the next two acts, then I think I'll get into

(25:08):
the reason why a lot of people are bothered by
this film, and almost it's this is one of these
weird films where I remember when it came in and
almost immediately I started hearing takes about well, if you
just changed this, or if we just did this differently,
and we just I'd never really seen that with I've
seen that with other movies where people were like, oh,
you know what if you know Batman didn't do this,

(25:31):
or you know what I mean, like those cheesy things, right,
But almost immediately with this film, people had all these
opinions about like how they would change it to make
it better. And initially when I first watched the film,
that was the opinion that I had, where I watched
this and I'm like, man, there's such a good movie
here if they had just changed a little bit this

(25:52):
and they made this a little bit darker. But over
the course of like watching it multiple times, like I
must have watched in preparation for this podcast, because I'll
just throw the movie at night before I go to
bed and stuff like that, and I'll watch like bits
in here and they're like full time, I must have
watched this movie like five times in preparation for the show,

(26:13):
and it was by the third time it like it.
It clicked for me, like I get it, I get
what's going on, Like this guy. It's flawed, but the
director and the writer and the people involved in this film,
they were so close to like making a masterpiece. And
then there's not much I would change about it. But

(26:34):
I know, do you have any final things to say
about Act two?

Speaker 3 (26:38):
I gu it's just a little bit the I think
in Act too. You get the if I remember the
tension as we mentioned, I agree with you on the
acting on Jennifer Lawrence's part. I think it was was great.
It was it was, and I don't unfortunately, I don't

(26:59):
for better or worse. I don't think we live in
an age of great actresses. I don't know why that is,
but I just that's the feeling. I get. You know
some names, but truly great actresses. I just don't know
of many. And that was a standout moment for me.
Chris Pratt, like you said, is just Chris Pratt. But
at the same time, I think for this role, that

(27:19):
was kind of what was needed because if you look
at their names, she's Aurora. She's this exotic, you know,
goddess like person. Especially to him. She's someone who's literally
in her goal going to live you know, a couple
of centuries, just because she has to travel between the stars.
I heard was her original goal, you know. And here's Jim.

(27:43):
He's a mechanic. So Chris Pratt sort of down to earth.
I'm not, you know, his whole I'm not. I'm just
a regular person, a funny guy. While he's not super
funny in this movie. I do think that sense of earthiness,
even if it really isn't acting, was perfectly appropriate for

(28:04):
his character. So when he reveals it and he kind
of is just awkward and just quiet and stony, I
think that's what that kind of character would do. And
I think that's partly why they wanted to cast him
for I don't think it was just Guardians of the Galaxy,
and he's a big name. That certainly was part of it.

(28:24):
But I do think he definitely was a solid contrast
to Jennifer Lawrence in the way that at least she
acted and the way they wrote it. I just I
think you believe the chemistry, well you're bang.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
On about, like Chris Patt Chris Pratt in general, right like,
he just he has a very kind of working class
feel to him. Like the best comparison I can think of.
He reminds me a lot of Kurt Russell in that sense.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay, yeah, I can see that Russell.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Like started in movies. But like if Kurt Russell was
like if you found him on an oil ring, it'd
be like it just looked like he would fit in,
you know what I mean, right like, And the same
thing with Chris Pratt, like he would be I don't know,
like if he was like helping you build a deck
or something like, it just wouldn't look out of place
because he just it's not something he could you can

(29:16):
really act, right like if that. I don't know what
his family background is or something. I don't I really don't,
but I have a sneaking suspicion that his father or
his mother were like pretty working class people. I because
he he just looks the part so well, and I
just I don't think he's that good of an actor
to be honest with you, to be able like to

(29:39):
be to pull up the to pull off that well,
to pull pull that look off so well. But that's
just I mean, maybe that's a that's kind of like
a tangent for me, but it's agreeing with what you're saying,
is the fact that Chris he plays like the working
class Joe really well.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
And I will and it does work for the script,
and I know we're going to get into this theme later,
but him being a mechanic is really important for the story.
Actually not just for the relationship, but for the the
other relationship, the relationship with the ship.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
For Act three, A tentatively called it like divine intervention,
but we can talk about that later. So sometime later,
another pod failure, failure, another pod failure awakens Gus Mancuso,
the chief deck sorry, a deck chief officer. He's basically

(30:40):
I believe, is he not? Like he's in charge of
the ship, right, Gus waking up is kind of like
it almost seems like it's this is where we start
kind of yet of getting into like the religious themes
of this movie, because Gus waking up almost seems like
it's like divine intervention.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, I think someone might criticize this, says, Oh, of course,
one of the officers whom they couldn't get to for
this whole movie, suddenly just wakes up and hands them
the keys to the ship. How convenient for the plot,
But I don't But I don't think that's what the
director was going for. I really think the theme they're
going working with is providence or fate and such. I

(31:22):
you know, this ship is breaking down, and it could
have been the captain and the captain, you know, maybe
knew some stuff, but did the captain know how to
make the ship run. The captain's a manager, basically, right,
they know stuff, but it's not the same as being
an expert in a particular area, like your chief deck officer.

(31:44):
I guess you would want them to be. So I
look at it as providence, Like you were saying, sort
of the divine intervention side of this theme, that it
was providential that a mechanic woke up, know through a
system failure, and that later someone who would work on

(32:05):
the ship with some basic know how, and then somebody
with the access to the ship later woke up. I
think that's providential because what are the other thousands of
people going to do if someone, if retail store manager
and I don't know, barista wake up.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
It's interesting that you bring that up, because, like I
touched to me. I touched on this in the notes too,
in terms of like fate, right, Like was it Jim's
fate to have or providence whatever word you'd like to use, Right,
was it his fate to have his pod malfunction? Because
once that asteroid hits, Now, I don't know how smart

(32:51):
this ship is or how much of AI capability it has,
but it knows that eventually that like it's compensating, right,
So other computers are working in overdrive to compensate for
the damage that was done to that area of the ship.
And they knew that Jim was a mechanical engineer and

(33:12):
maybe the most talented one on the ship and probably
would be the one best suited for fixing it. And
then this is where we learn that this is the
problem I think people have with this movie, in the
sense of Jim does something really terrible to Aura, and
then you know Jim is a monster, and then like

(33:33):
he's just irredeemable. From this point on, people are leaving
out the whole part of Aurora and not being happy
with her life. She's not happy, She's depressed, and if
you watch it in her videos that she watches, her
friends are telling her, It's like, I hope this makes
you happy, you know, like you could do all the
stuff that you want to do here and not leave

(33:56):
us all behind, because we're all going to be dead
by the time you get to where you're going. She's
literally deciding, like, I'm going to leave my entire life
behind everyone I knew, everything that I cared about, and
they're just all going to die. Is it a like,
was it divine providence or was it fate that Or

(34:22):
happened to be on the same ship as Jim and
that Jim was going to wake her up? Because as
we get later into the movie, they need each other
to be able to actually fix this ship. Jim couldn't
have done it by himself.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, the I agree with that one hundred percent. And
I think he needed you know, let's just say he
never woke up. It was a little bit more mentally,
had a little more mental fortitude, or some us did
something else. What do you had the motivation? Yeah, we've
had the self confidence. Would he you know, could he

(35:00):
have turned himself into such a drunk by that point
that he would have been useless?

Speaker 2 (35:04):
And that's the thing. If Jim's pod doesn't malfunction and
he waits too long to wake up Aurora. Right, Like
that guy heard this argument all the time. It's like,
well he only waited a year. I go, tom Hanks
was on that island for what was a castaway or whatever?
This is when I heard all the time tom Hanks
was on that island for five you know what I mean,

(35:26):
eating coconuts or whatever. Right and go, So what's the difference?
Like you guys are just arguing because he did it
in a year. And it's not like Tom Hanks even
had the option to be like wake somebody up, you
know what I mean? But if he waited five years,
would have wouldn't have made a difference? Like it just
it doesn't make like you know what I mean, Like

(35:48):
what difference wouldn't have made? And then, like you rightfully
pointed out, is I mean if he didn't do what
he did, would he have even had the ability or
strength to do what was necessary? Right? Would you have
even cared?

Speaker 3 (36:05):
You know?

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Because to be honest, if you the rest of these
people that are in the pods, they're just random people
that he doesn't know that are in the pods where
he has fallen in love with Aurora, and it's through
their love that maybe he's able to gain the strength
to you know, do what was do what's necessary to

(36:27):
actually fix the ship, you know. But it also gives
them a chance at redemption. You know, he made this
horrible decision before, and here's an opportunity for him to
redeem himself.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, I know, I agree with that on the whole. Yeah, absolutely.
It's it's it's like how you know, in our own lives,
we'll say, well, gosh, if this or that had never happened,
and then I couldn't have been able to do this.
But it is it is weirdly hard for reviewers to

(37:05):
put themselves in that situation or take that and then
put it in this big one that the movie presents.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Well, no, because I've had this conundrum with myself, Like
I won't get into details, but like I've had a
pretty rough life or whatever, and it takes I find
there's a lot of people that just they never can
kind of look at like the stuff that they have happened,
that rough stuff that has happened in their life, and
they had the I don't want to say, the ability

(37:36):
to kind of look at it objectively. I'm going to say,
the ability to kind of understand, well, if these things
didn't happen, then this wouldn't have happened. So and we'll
get into it when we get into our final wrap up.
But you know, Jim making that bad decision that he
made ended up saving like five thousand people's lives.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Well, it was that quote I had mentioned to you.
Is this being in particularly kind of seeming the religious
theme part of the movie, the quote from Saint Augustine
I had mentioned to you, God saw fit that rather
than eliminate suffering, that he gives suffering. Meaning I'm paraphrasing.
I know that's not the exact wording I'm paraphrasing, but

(38:24):
that's kind of what this movie is all about. You
put these people in these impossible situations. They have to
make the best of it, and they're they're there, bad
situation has to be made for some kind of good
in the long run. Yeah, person and on a larger
scale societally.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
For the final act in tentively called it redemption, And
I guess like the big theme is Jim's redemption, Aurora's
love and her decision to stay with them, and I this,
to me is the part of the film I think
people have the biggest problem with and find the most uncomfortable.
In my opinion, I.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Think that goes back to, well, what would you do
in that situation? Would you really just decide to be
by yourself for the next eighty eight or so? Anyway,
it just goes back to that for me when people
have problems with it. But I can also see it
from a storytelling perspective. Why people you know, maybe it
feels a little cheap. Oh, of course he survived, of course,

(39:28):
this and that. But I think there's some you know,
we have been talking about some entering implications behind all
of this. But what I want to first one of
the things that occurred to me was the trees. Of
course have the precursor. A tree grew when Gus woke up.
He comes in, and that was sort of this little
brief moment of comedy, like why is there a tree
in my ship? And it was a little funny because

(39:52):
it's just so out of the moment. It kind of
catches you because there's been so much tension. It's almost
like the director had a good insight. Okay, we've had
a lot of emotional Sometimes during emotional moments of emotional
tension or extended ones, we need a little humor, and
that was a good use of it in that moment,
just just small, but suddenly there's a lot of trees
at the end, and to me, you know, you you

(40:14):
brought it up first, Actually was the Garden of Eden
sort of symbolism there and the tree of course, the
small one. Then they grew into more and clearly created
some kind of whole new something in that ship. You
note that those almost ninety years all on their own,
that had the crew and others shocked. So I thought

(40:39):
that was that there was the Garden of Eden. What
did that imply about? What the director was trying to say?
That that was the you know, really interesting to me,
there was there was a lot there.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, Well to kind of play off of that, I guess, right,
because we're talking about the very end, the very end shot.
Everything has been, everything's provided for them, just like in
the Garden of Eden. They love each other in a sense,
I guess you could say they kind of overcame the
original sin, which was Jim's lie to Aurora. They worked

(41:14):
through it and she learned to understand that the reasoning
behind what Jim did, I mean, and then it like
to kind of back it up a little bit. I mean,
so when Jim is willing that he's willing to go
out there with the heat shield and you know, he's
holding back the flame or whatever to keep the door open, right,

(41:36):
and Aurora realizes there's a very good possibility that she's
going to lose Jim.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
I think it's in that moment that she realizes that
Jim wasn't a psychopath, he wasn't an evil person. An
evil person would not be doing this. It's like, I
guess you could cynically argue, well, he's saving his life too, right,
but what life? At that point, you know, he's he's

(42:03):
alone for all extensive purposes. Yeah, sure, Aurora, is there
the girl that you love that absolutely hates your guts,
thinks that ruined your wife? What would he be saving?

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Well? And he went into that thinking he was going
to die. I think most viewers thought he was going
to die. I did, so I would assume a lot
of the viewers did as well. With the way they
set it up. I was actually a little surprised he lived.
But you know, science fiction put a little fiction in
the science right there, But yeah, that nobody would put
their lives on the line where even the audiences go, yep,

(42:36):
this is the part where he dies heroically and you
know it fixes everything. He doesn't. She saves him, but
in that moment, like you said, what psycho would do that?
Not in that selfless sense, And I guess my symp
aside says, oh, that's what it took to show you, right,
that he's not crazy. But to be fair, and where

(42:57):
I do think some of the criticisms make a good
point is if you see the movie from her perspective,
it is absolutely creepy. It can be at least and
then terrifying. It could be a horror movie if you
told it from her perspective until that, and maybe even
by if you told it only from her perspective, you
could see that as a Stockholm syndrome moment, right, So

(43:21):
I can see why audiences could have taking it, taking
it in bad ways. But yeah, I can't get past
the same thing. I can't get past that that fact.
You can't get past it that a crazy person wouldn't
sacrifice himself, not just for her, but for the entire ship,
for humanity essentially in this case that goes religious themes.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
And so you brought up and I believe it has
like four million views or whatever you showed it to me,
was Passengers Rearranged or whatever, and you brought up like
seeing it from Aurora's perspective, and I never watching it,
think oh yeah, that would have been a really interesting film.
But it would have been an easier film to make,
in my opinion, because everyone wants to be this creepy psychopath.

(44:02):
Everyone like he wants they because it's easy, right, It's like,
oh yeah, he's look at what this guy did. He's evil,
blah blah blah. And they chose to not go that direction.
They chose to show Jim as this very complicated individual
that was forced to make this complicated moral decision. And
then in that moment when she realizes when Jim's about

(44:25):
to die or whatever, she thinks he's about to die
it and maybe that's what it took for her to
realize that, like, Jim isn't that person. He made a
tough decision in an impossible situation, and from that point
on he's been trying to have some kind of redemption.

(44:46):
That's why he built the tree. Even he tries to
explain to her over the PA it's like, I don't
I can't change what I did, but like I love you.
Like that's that's real. Like that's not like people say, like, ah,
he's like gaslighting her or what have you? Right, And
I would agree with that if he's not willing to.
But he's willing to go out there and risk his

(45:08):
life to try to save her life because ultimately, at
the end of the day, I know he says it's
for all the other people that are on the ship too,
and I'm sure there's a big motivation for that too,
But he wants to save her, you know, like that's
his like that's his primary motivation. And then she realizes that.
And then so when he goes out, you know, he's

(45:28):
going to die or whatever, and she, you know, she
goes outunder suit and she's about to get him right
and she just misses by a ninch, but his teether broke,
so you know, she she's able to grab onto his tether.
She brings him back and basically has to override the
doctor hibernation thing or what have you to revive him.
She gets some revived and you know, Jim being a

(45:52):
mechanical engineer, he figures out that like he can put
one person back to sleep, right back in hibernation, using
this this pod, and he gives a raw choice, and
it says, like, go back to sleep, go live the
rest of your life. I'll be fine here, I'll you know,
I'll figure it out, right, And whether that means he

(46:12):
just he's going to kill himself or I don't know eventually,
or well maybe I'm not sure what he's going to do, right,
but he gives her the choice of you can go
back to sleep or not, which is the one which
was the thing that he took away from her when
he woke her up, Right, he took away her choice
to be able to make that decision herself or not.

(46:33):
And he's giving it back to her, right, this is
his redemption. Right, I'm giving you the choice. And I
think people have what makes people really uncomfortable about this film,
whether they know it or not, and this, I think
this is the reason why everyone's like kind of trying
to change, trying to change it to make it a

(46:55):
better film or not. Is ultimately a raw Is it
able to forgive Jim for what he did? Whereas we
the audience have a difficult time forgiving Jim or seeing
that Jim deserves redemption right, and the people push that
onto Aura, saying like, well, Aurora's gaslight. You know she

(47:18):
was gaslight. She has Stockholm syndrome. She has all of this.
This is the reason why she does this. She had
the choice to go back in the dock and she
chose not to, and like, ultimately, at the end of
the day, Aura, as a free individual making a choice
of making a free will choice, decides to forgive Jim

(47:39):
and decides that she loves Jim and wants to spend
the rest of her life with Jim on this ship.
And I think that makes people extremely uncomfortable that she
did that.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
I think maybe, well, what you're touching on is that
when you see someone do something utterly selfless, especially in
context of forgiveness and having to let go of maybe
even a justified, almost righteous anger at a situation, having

(48:13):
to let go of that. When someone is doing that
and then you can't, it's kind of convicting by you,
I mean the metaphorical you. Whenever someone sees it, it's convicting,
even if you don't always realize it as such. I
think that's why some people get defensive over a situation

(48:33):
where there is some extremely difficult forgiveness taking place. Maybe
that's just a human nature thing, but it's definitely, like
you said, telling that that's what everyone has everyone, but
many viewers have trouble with and reviewers and such is like,
why would she do that? I do think honestly that
reflects some of the politics a little bit too, because

(48:54):
this movie was done in twenty sixteen, and afterwards it
just got particularly bonkers, and so you have to find something,
you know, wrong. A woman can't just forgive a man,
and a man can't just make it up to a woman,
and they can't just be okay, you know, unfortunately. So
I think that's where I suspect some of the reviews

(49:16):
were coming from was a more almost even if they
didn't know it, a more politicized angle than this movie
wasn't even at Like movies now are so overtly political.
It's weird to go watch one that's just a story. Yeah,
and that's what it was. One thing I loved about
this movie. It was something I saw and I went, oh, yeah,
I remember that, See, we need to watch that. So

(49:37):
we watched it, and it was just a good movie.
It was very pleasant, and it was just it wasn't
a superhero movie. It wasn't. Yeah it was science fiction,
but it was really but all these other things we
talked about, it wasn't really about the science or the
part of it as much, except where you need the
mcguffin here and there, right to travel through space or whatever.

(50:01):
But it just was someone really put their heart. Again,
not perfect and missed opportunities, but they put their heart
in the movie. I don't think people are putting their
hearts into Marvel movies, you know, or TV shows or
even especially the DC stuff Warner Brothers. It's so it's
nice to see that and you don't have to find

(50:22):
some indie flight to do it. It was just Hollywood
made a good, solid movie. It's very enjoyable. I kind
of missed that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, well yeah, it's that final shot. And then I'll
go into like my final thoughts in the film. But
that final shot, and you know, maybe this will kind
of take away some of my street cred admitting this
being you know, being able to lift heavy weights and
having a mustache like I do. But that final shot

(50:54):
where they Jim goes into her safe spice her whatever
word you'd like to use, her temple, right, which is
that pool that has that beautiful shot with the window
where you can see an outer space, right, because at
no point you see Jim never goes in it. He
sees he looks at her swimming, right, but he never

(51:15):
actually went into that pool with her. It was always
the place where she went to go think by herself.
And she freely lets him go into the pool and
they both like embrace each other and they're both staring
at the stars, and she just goes hell of a life,
and then Jim just kind of lasts and he goes, yeah,

(51:37):
a hell of a life. And I'd bawl my eyes out.
It gets and it's crazy. I've never really had like
a film where I've appreciated films where upon multiple viewings
I see more things and then the more research I
do into it. I've never really had a film where

(51:58):
I go the first couple of times that I watched
day go oh man, there's a couple of things that
would change, And then after like watching it like four
times and being like, no, there's nothing I would change
in this. Chris, give me your final thoughts on the film.

Speaker 4 (52:13):
Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Before I do that, I want of this couple of
details that I had just kind of forgotten to mention.
One of them that stuck out. One of the things
that stuck out to me was the name of the
ship is the Avalon. Well, Avalon, while I'm no Arthurian scholar,
has some significance in this earliest mention by Geoffrey of Monmouth,

(52:38):
this is like the eleven hundreds. The kind of translation
of it is basically it's an island of fruit trees.
So you hear you have this kind of this hidden
off place of refuge valley. It's called a valley, I

(52:58):
want to say in some of the stories, but here
they are. They're in this The Avalon has trees and
it's this kind of place of peace parad physic I'm
going to say that wrong. It's like paradise almost. It
ties back in with the Garden of Eden aspect of it.
And one of the other things I wanted to point

(53:20):
has nothing to do with the artsy side of it,
or at least that kind of artsy is during some
of the action when the ship systems are starting to
seriously fail in the false gravity starts getting wonky. She's
swimming and the water, of course starts coming out of
the pool, and then she's stuck in this giant water drop.

(53:43):
That was just really cool one. It was scientifically accurate.
That's actually what water does in space. It just sticks together,
and then she's stuck in this giant water droplet. I
was like, that is It was kind of cool. And
there was real tension there because she's drowning and she

(54:04):
can't swim because there's there's just no way to generate force.
It's not much anyway, and it was I just thought
that was kind of it was technically pulled off. It
was believable, and there was actual tension, and it was
a creative use of it was one of the more few,
in my opinion, real science parts of this. A lot

(54:26):
of it with the science fiction stuff is more tropy.
It's the drones cleaning things up, it's the base ships.
But that was that was kind of a real kind
of bit of hard science fiction for a couple of
minutes in the movie, and I kind of appreciated that
aspect of it. But anyway, final thoughts, I guess would

(54:47):
be that. I still think they should have spent some
time developed on some of the character development, especially early
the first second act, and I still think that they're
just that was more of than that was the missed
opportunity really in it. But on the whole, I agree.

(55:09):
It's really a really solid movie, great movie, and where
I just love it that it has this end, this
positive end. It's not just that the you know, the
ship saved. There's real depth, there's real uh. It presents

(55:30):
love as a solution, and love is a concrete thing,
not this abstraction. When Jim is going to go save everyone,
it's real. He has to literally save I think it's
like five thousand people. It's not I'm saving humanity, and
humanity is a stand in for your own ego. He's

(55:52):
saving somebody he loves. He has to work through a
real relationship because he loves her problem because he loves her,
and she has to work through real relationship troubles because
she loves him ultimately, and it works out, and I
just thought that was it was kind of beautiful. You
don't see that a lot in Hollywood movies in particular today,

(56:13):
but even going back, that's just not as common it
had us against the world. In this case, I guess
universe vibe at the end, but in a more romantic sense.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
I guess, yeah. I just kind of reiterate like I
was saying, Like honestly, like I said a lot of people,
I thought when I initially watched this film, I thought,
you know, there could be some changes. But the more
I watched it, I started realizing that this was It
was a It's a flawed masterpiece. And I'll get into
some of the flaws that I think is perfectly some

(56:47):
of the flaws that it does have, but I think
this movie just perfectly encapsulates the human condition, Like we
can't live in solitude. How often you hear people talk
about being lone wolves, right, it's just not we're not.
We're not lone wolves. I mean some people are more
you know, prefer their private space or whatever, more so

(57:09):
than others. But like absolute solitude, like real solitude, like
what Jim was forced to live in. Even beings just
they can't do that. They mentally break down. We know
this from solitary confinement being considered cruel and unusual punishment.
And I talked about that with in terms of like
I wouldn't even wish the worst criminal to get thrown

(57:30):
into what Jim got thrown into. We are forced to
make questionable moral decisions often, I'll often do. Like people,
they make a decision and they struggle with the moral
conundrums involved in it. You know, whether they can justify
to themselves whether they made the right decision or they

(57:50):
made the wrong decision. This is just part of the
human condition, right, if you have like a soul and empathy,
you struggle with decisions that you make constantly right, much
like Jim did. And you know, we even with these

(58:13):
questionable moral decisions that people have, people make during the
course of their life, like we have like a chance
of redemption everybody does, you know, whether that is you know,
through religion or through an actual act that you do
yourself to help somebody else. Uh, you know, it could
be you throw yourself in front of a speeding car

(58:33):
to save a child or what have you. Like, people
do have opportunities at redemption, and everyone should be granted
that opportunity to be redeemed. I mean, that's the biggest
problem with a lot of this kind of cancel culture
stuff is not to get political and stuff, but it
truly does raise like a question like can somebody be

(58:56):
have a chance at redemption? Can somebody be redeemed? And
I believe it's part of the human condition that we
do truly believe that somebody can make pentance for say,
a morally wrong decision that they had made earlier in
their life, and that love, that human beings can love
one another passionately, and that that love could indirectly save

(59:18):
many people's lives where regardless of whether we see it
at the time or not, right, because that is the
really the number one driving motivating factor for human beings.
At the end of the day. Everybody has to feel
like they feel that they feel loved, whether it's by
their significant other or by their friends or by somebody else.

(59:39):
And it's a concrete thing. It's concrete yet invisible at
the same time. Right, you can't take love and study
it in a lab, right, but you can see it
through people's actions. Right. It's invisible in the sense of
like kind of like we think of like I don't

(01:00:00):
know time is invisible in the sense right, like we
can measure time. I get that it's up on the
top of my screen right now, Right, it's eleven something
or whatever. I get that, right, But in terms of time,
it's something that is so fundamental to how the rest
of the universe runs. Yet it's something that's invisible. It's
not something you can really touch or feel or see

(01:00:22):
with your senses, right, and it changes depending on where
you are. And I think that's what this movie does
so brilliantly, where a lot of people want it like
they get bad ending in the sense like oh, Jim dies,
or a war goes into the pod, or you know,
Jim turns out to be a psychopath. What this movie

(01:00:43):
tries to do, and I think it does a very
good job of doing it. And that's a much difficult
subject matter, is how can we can encapsulate within like
a two hour time frame of a movie, the human
condition and what human beings are capable of. Right, Jim's
absolutely deplorable act of opening up Aurora's hibernation pod leading

(01:01:10):
to and eventually him getting his redemption. Aur and Jim
falling in love like having a like a love story
that is going to inspire people for hundreds of years.
I'm sure they're going to people are going to be
reading Aura's book about their love story, and they use
it for inspiration and their own relationships, and it was

(01:01:32):
their love that saved the five thousand people on the ship.
I just think that people this is the I think
that's the hardest part for people to really wrap their
mind around this film is the fact that this is
what it was set this is what it set out
to do, and it accomplished that, and I think it
made people uncomfortable in the sense of it. It does

(01:01:57):
show you the full spectrum of our existence on this planet,
for good or evil, I mean for good or for
good or bad.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Human I really like the way you put it is
the human condition. I actually really appreciate that approach. I
think some of the best movies do that, even if
only a little bit. And I honestly think one of
the things as you were talking I thought of I know,
I gave my final thoughts, but it almost felt like

(01:02:26):
a secular Christian movie, like somebody who really sympathized with,
you know, the big ideas basically, and we're really inspired
by it. But you know, almost like in a European sense.
But they weren't necessarily that wasn't really there to do
their faith, but they just maybe something they grew up

(01:02:49):
around but it just kind of soaked in and it
just kind of came out in this wonderful way. This
you know, the self sacrifice, that love being the core
of how everything runs. I don't think it's just Christian
any think other groups would agree with that, but I

(01:03:09):
did feel culturally a little bit like that, and it
just gets baked into the story in a way that's
just if you don't know what you're looking for, you
won't see it. Almost for me, the big, big, you know,
obvious point of that was just the providence, just the
right people had to wake up or this tragedy would
have happened. You don't create a story like that that

(01:03:32):
that's not on a guffin. You're you're saying something with
that story.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I think you're onto something because the writer he I
think he wrote the two scripts for Doune and then
Dune Part two, which also have like heavy religious themes
to it too. Sometimes in Hollywood, and I can't I
can't speak for the writer. I don't know him personally.
Maybe he does have beliefs, right, but it's hard to

(01:03:57):
get funding for that if you make it too explicit
in those circles. So sometimes you kind of have to
sneak it in. And I find sci fi in particular
seems to be a genre where some of these religious
themes are able to get snucked into movies. Interstellars and
another example of that. There's been a bunch of them

(01:04:20):
recently actually, and Passengers is part of this part of
this tradition too.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
I think, which of the movies were you thinking of
recent ones?

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Interstellar comes up right off the top of my head. Oh,
you're putting me on the spot here right now. Interstellar
is the pig one off the top of my head.
Anything Christopher Nolan, I find there's a deeply spiritual aspects
even his like Batman movies and stuff like that. There's

(01:04:52):
a deeply spiritual aspect to his movies. And I don't know,
I wouldn't put it past him if he's studied religion
pretty seriously.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
To my understanding, he is heavily influenced by Carl Jung. Yeah,
and I know that, and I believe it's in the
Batman movies. You see that most explicitly, but even then
you can kind of see it an inception pretty heavily too.
But yeah, I can't speak to the to his latest movie,
but I haven't seen it yet, but so yeah, those

(01:05:28):
are definitely If he's a fan of Carl Jung, then
there's definitely religious inspiration.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
That gets to kind of wrap it up and be
agile tradition with this movie with Passengers as so, Chris,
how would you make it better?

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Really?

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
What I just said, I would have spent a little
more time on his gem's guilt throughout their relationship, just moments,
because you know they're headlaw, head over heels in love
are beginning to be I think they spent they spent
so much time on Gym's you know, degrees of or

(01:06:06):
stages of grief. I wish they'd spend a little more
time on hers. And I know that was just a
running time thing. Maybe they did film those scenes, I
don't know, or just trim some and then I kind
of wish there was we got a little more at
the end, not a lot, just a little just maybe
a little hinted with the director really wanted to say.

(01:06:29):
And maybe that's why they didn't, because the director and
or writer wanted people to ask questions like we're doing.
But I do think just maybe we're talking minute and
a half to two minutes of something pivotal at the end.
I think it might have been an interesting choice. I

(01:06:51):
don't know if it would have worked if at the
end with Aurora reading a little snippet from her book,
if it been Jim in fact, because that's I don't
know that that just would have been that's an interesting
story angle. I don't know if it would have worked,

(01:07:11):
but it was the thought that occurred to me. But
definitely those other things I would say would improve the
movie for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
My biggest complaints about the film is I find some
of the hokey kind of aspects, like some of the
attempts at humor don't work really well. Like there's like
a scene where Jim's waiting at the bar and he's
like talking to Arthur and he's sitting there waiting, I
guess you know, whether a war is going to show
up the bar or not. What decisions she's going to make? Right,

(01:07:42):
because he's not He's not going to stand over her
shoulder and like crush her. It's like no, no, you're
not actually going to go to sleep, are you. You know,
He leaves her alone and likes her to make her decision,
and she she comes in with a beautiful red dress
or whatever, and he hands with a ring that he
was going to propose to her earlier, you know, and
she accepts it and then just like and they start kissing,
and like Arthur the bartender goes, oh, champagne and he's like, oh,

(01:08:05):
oh wait, And I thought it's I didn't like it.
I thought, just let that moment, like that romantic moment,
just let that be that. There's just a couple of
things like that where I don't know, this could be
just like a personal thing with me, Like I don't
like I love romantic movies, but like in like super
hoke nous or whatever, I know that sounds like, Oh,

(01:08:28):
I don't know. I just found like it took a
bit away from the film. I came up with this
whole like different version of the film. Not like it's
not even a totally different version of this film. It's
in my head. And I mean you were discussing about this, like,
so you film the movie exactly the way it's filmed, right,
but at the end you see like Jim and he's
like old and dying and he puts like a book

(01:08:50):
down like right beside Aurars hibernation tube, and you realize, oh, wait,
he never actually woke up, And and she wakes up
and she's reading this story, which is the story you
just saw, which is the story that Jim wrote. He
wrote an entire story, love story involving him an Aurora

(01:09:13):
and I And I'm sit there and I'm thinking to myself,
I'm like, that actually would have been pretty brilliant, where
that you have this guy here who, for whatever reason,
is pod malfunctioned, and he fell in love with this girl,
the girl that he never met, but just fell so deeply,
impassionately in love with this girl. He wrote an entire

(01:09:34):
book for her so that when she woke up she
would know that that he did love her and he
made the morally right decision by not waking her up.
Was that that had been the right decision? I think
that's what the audience would have walked away from, like, well,
should he should he have woken her up? Or should

(01:09:55):
he have not woken her up?

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
I think that what's your that's it. I think that
would have been brilliant, just like you said, if they
had gone that route, But what it would have been
able to give the same message? Yeah, and I don't
think I think the answer is no, unfortunately, but that
is a way to make it positive where Jim's not
a psycho and silly stuff like that. But I do

(01:10:19):
like the image. I really like that of at least
one of them setting the book down, right. You know,
maybe it could have been Aurora at the end of
our life. They're old and he could have been putting
the book down and that could have been a way

(01:10:41):
to go with to to kind of get a similar image.
And it's kind of you know, his relationship ends in
a way that it begins. But they would that have
undercut what they did at the very end where the
whole crew comes out and has to grapple with everything
they missed, And that's just I think that was really
well again, other than I think they could have used

(01:11:02):
another minute or two. But the idea behind it was great.
Because sometimes movies overshare and they feel the need to
over you know, the world build. Yeah, sometimes you don't
need a world build. Let it live in their heads,
you know, And that would have been harder to do.
I think though, if you into a Gym or Aurora.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
It's funny you say that because I got this show.
Guy was just like, you know, you read stuff and
people were saying like, oh man, I would have liked
to have seen a bit about like what happened like
after like that scene at the pool, like what did
they do on the ship? And I'm like, why do
you need to see that? It's like this like Star
Wars fix like this, I know the Star Wars like

(01:11:45):
making everything like Star Wars right, Like we're like, so, go,
do you remember that character from like the sixth movie
that was like in there for like two minutes and
be like, let's make an entire TV show. But I'm like, no,
we don't need an entire TV show about them. I
don't like I I get what happened on the ship,
Like they fell in love, they live their lives together.
I'm sure they had issues like any couple does, right,

(01:12:09):
but ultimately the love that they had for one another
was sufficient enough for them to that they wouldn't They
didn't want to be anywhere else except with each other
on this ship. That's all I need to know. I
don't need to know like who ended up being better
at the dance game or who was a better basketball player?
Who cares?

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
You know? It can almost come off as voyeuristic even
how was the rest of their life. Well, it's just
the two of them. Now, who's being a little creepy?

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Yeah, you know it's truth though, right. Anyways, guys, so
I guess we're going to wrap it up, and I
hope you guys really enjoyed this podcast. My last, my
very very last words about the film is this is
honestly a film. In my opinion, you have to watch
this multiple times to really get what they were trying
to go for work, and it's worth watching multiple times.

(01:13:04):
The set that like, the set pieces are beautiful, acting
is well done. The music is absolutely gorgeous. I love
the music in this movie. I think it's amazing. People
complained about it saying it was kind of a little
hokey or what have you. I think it works beautifully
for this film. And yeah, and I hopefully I convinced
the audience after you know, you watch the film and

(01:13:26):
listen to me that, yeah, that this is a flawed masterpiece.
Any any last words, Chris.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
Really can't add much more to that. I hope people
who haven't seen it go see it maybe if you
know they because I spoiled movies yeah for myself, so
you know, I hope folks can go enjoy it, or
if they've already seen it, can appreciate a little more
now

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