October 9, 2025 • 57 mins
Aaron and Darlene watch some classic sci-fi from the 1950s and '60s, good and bad. They talk about what makes these films memorable and fun, and if you should take a trip back in time and enjoy these films as well.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing
a big girl. I have other ways of securing your cooperation. Sorry,
miss I was giving myself an oil job.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
When was it just a zumb as? We've seen attitude
to it since we gave to a few low cabbages.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
An intellectual carrot.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
That mind boggles you see you see your stupid lives.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Stupid, stupid, said Santa Claus. Long enough, we will bring
him to Mars. I've been afraid a lot of times
in my life, but I didn't know the real meaning
of fear until until I kiss peck me. One thing
will be clear. It's not from man to interfere in
the ways of God's life.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Earth Versus Soup episode
two seventy seven. I'm Aaron Poliak, I'm Darlene. We went
back to a classic kind of Earth Versus Soup episode.
Here we decided that we were going to watch darn It,
a science fiction film from the nineteen fifties. We found one, Oh,
we found one Flight to Mars from nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
It is the same as one hundred.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Different other movies that we have seen on Earth versus soup.
It is okay. Look, before we get into the plot,
there are things it does very well, and I will
actually say it definitely falls into this it works category.
There are things that it does poorly, and there are
things that one hundred other films have done. And I
(01:56):
don't really even need to write notes about it because
they're so I can write nineteen fifties space travel movie
and know exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
Some of the things they do a little wrong.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So there are This is based on a book called
Alita from Alexei Tolstoy, Russian, so you know, Russian writer.
But this has some notable people in it. I'll say
Our male's lead is Cameron Mitchell of Red Letter Media's
(02:33):
Hall of Fame, Fame of Best of the Worst if
you have ever if you have not watched Red Letter
Media's Best of the Worst series, Cameron Mitchell often appears
in these films. Cameron Mitchell is Cameron Mitchell in this movie.
He is Cameron Mitchell. He does a very good job
playing Cameron Mitchell. He does with a ding dong with
(02:57):
a ding dong I don't know. No, that's a completely
different movie and character. There are two there are two
minutes older. Sure, fine, there are two women in this movie. Actually,
there's technically three women in this movie, two of which
get fairly high billing. In fact, a woman actually has
(03:19):
top billing in this that I would argue should not
have top billing by any way, shape or form. Yes,
and that's Marguerite Chapman, who does a very good job,
don't get me wrong, but she is not the lead character.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
She's in there for about twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Right, Yeah, And then we have Virginia Hudson, who is
not the lead actress or lead actor in this movie,
who arguably should be much higher than Marguerite Chapman's character, Alita.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
Who would you say is the lead?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Oh, camer Mitchell, Camra Mitchell. It's either camer Mitchell or
doctor Jim, one of the two. But yeah, this is
this is nineteen fifties science fiction rocket travel to a
different world as a plot. Let's get into it. And
for a movie that's only seventy two minutes, by the way,
(04:13):
in the color.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Is very good, except that it looks blue and everything looks.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Blue purposely and that's fine unless they're on Mars.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
There is one thing I do need to state, and
this is one of those things I'd really like a
lot of people to watch and actually laugh about. But
also it's wrong. One of the sexist things that they
used to do is make women wear skirts.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Now, yes, at one point we'll talk about it in
that city, can I Okay, yeah, we can't. Can't. We can't.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
They put them in skirts, and they're supposed to walk
through these doors that are able to be sealed, which
means in this case, it was a small.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Hole, their bulkhead hole. Bulkhead doors.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
Yes, and that's not a something you'd be tripping over.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
The female carri that. Yeah, the female lead in this
technically who I would say, the female played by Virginia Hustin.
She would not have been able to make it through
those bulkhead doors. But since we're talking about something that
we haven't even gotten to in the plot, our listeners
might not actually even understand what we're talking about here.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Okay, but I'm talking about would you really want to
be on a ship? Let's just go with a ship
that isn't a cruise ship, that's a military ship that
you've got to walk and pick up your legs a
good foot foot and a half and be in.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
A long skirt. There's short of skirts that you could
say are okay for that, but then again, be flashing
everybody all the time. Streets are not acceptable for that.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Then she's got also ladders. Yeah, and that doesn't make
it accept nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
It's nineteen fifty one, and they wanted the skimpy skirts
on other women. So that's that's.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Just the worst. Oh, they got skimpy skirts.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So let's talk about the actual plot so people can
actually understand what you're trying to talk about. We get
a non almost a non sequitur opening almost, but it
is LENGTHD. We see two men looking through a telescope
at Mars and they talk about how there's a mission
leading for Mars tomorrow and what they and they expect
(06:37):
to find life. Now, Okay, are these two astronomers that
are looking through the telescope a part of the movie. No,
they're not. All they're doing is looking at Mars and
having this conversation as an info drop. It's it's nothing more,
nothing less, And I would have rather had it from
(07:00):
the characters that are actually in the rest of the
movie talking about what they're going to find on Mars,
and it would it would give us more time with characters.
So we then go to the Pentagon, Washington, DC. And
I think my complaints almost immediately start in this.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
But we'll get the Pentagon.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So final preparations have been completed for this mission, and
an Air Force general questions the head of this expedition.
His name is doctor Lane. I believe, yes, doctor Lane.
So doctor Lane, uh is? The general starts going okay,
(07:47):
well you think the rocket is going to work? And
the doc doctor Lane's like yeah, physics says that we
should be able to get to Mars. Well, how are
you gonna get back from Mars? I don't know. We'll
figure that out when we get there. Pause the movie.
I paused the movie and I went, what the hell
is this? Already We're literally like a minute and a
(08:09):
half into the film. Two minutes into the film. Already
the head of this expedition doesn't know how they're going
to get back. They're just gonna go for some reason. Well,
they go because of it's human nature to explore, et cetera,
et cetera. But if one is investing a tremendous amount
(08:29):
of resources into a journey to Mars. One is going
to plan on how to return everyone from Mars No
one knows. And then doctor Lane we learned that Doctor
Lane is the lead. And then we also are introduced
(08:53):
to a journalist that's going Steve Abbott played by Cameron Mitchell.
The General then wonders how a journalist is going to
pose stories to Earth from Mars. Again, I had to
pause the movie and I go. The General is unaware
of the top secret invention called radio radio. This is
(09:16):
how you post information from one place to another when
you do not have copper wire? Is this how they
post stories back to Earth?
Speaker 5 (09:29):
God?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Damn it.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Oh, I'm getting ahead of my.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I know, no, no, but that God It's people are okay, Look,
this is not an idiot plot, but it is in
a weird way, like there are certain characters that are.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
You keep going on about idiot plots. You need to
stop that.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I probably do. The General seems to be a complete moron.
The head of the expert addition who has also designed
this era, this rocket ship, along with the chief engineer
who we meet in a little bit, Doctor Jim Barker,
is an idiot.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
Or sky both okay, an idiot and snarky.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Because they designed the rocket in such a way as
to be both super super advanced. We'll get into this
super advanced.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
To the air at the same time.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Well, the ball ter is actually one of the coolest
damp things of all time. Oh.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
I also filmed it in the Death Valley the.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Marsh Did it matter? Did you see Death Valley? No?
Maybe for like two seconds. Well, all right, so anyway,
well we'll get into why this rocket is so hyper advanced.
But anyway, we have, boy, we have. We're introduced to Carol.
(10:55):
Carol Stafford played by Virginia Hudson. She is dating doctor
Jim Barker.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
I don't know if they're dating.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
They're very clearly dating. She even says that she says,
I'm here for a date. Oh you said we are
going out to dinner, Okay, And then we're we're told
in very you know, very very clear terms that Carol
is qualified to go on this trip. And believe it
or not, I buy it.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
She's a spaceship engineering.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
She is an actual engineer that is specialized in designing rockets, okay, spacecraft,
and I will then therefore blame much of the problems
with this spacecraft on her, and much of the innovation
on the spacecraft on her.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
I will, but I do have to say one thing.
When they're in the cockpit or whatever you call she's
the only one that sounds like she's competent.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yes, yes, and then everybody else kind of just well.
She describes herself, and Jim Barker describes her as the
first assistant to the pilot of the rocket ship. So
I guess, like Jim, doctor Jim Barker is the pilot
of the rocket ship, but I don't know. We have
(12:19):
a guy named doctor Jackson who shows up, or Professor.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Jackson, William Jackson.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
He talks to Steve and it turns out that there's
been like a media blackout on this mission because it
is top secret. They have not wanted to have the
public know anything about this mission until the day.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Before, except that we got a reporter going.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Okay, But the reporter was going to have limited access
to everybody and only be able he would be the
only person to report, So there was like a single
voice talking about the about the project, so okay. One
how many would it have been possible to at all
(13:03):
keep the Apollo program secret. No, how did you keep
this project which would have required lots of money, in
incredible amounts of money because this rocketship is very advanced
we learn, so that would require thousands of engineers and
(13:23):
scientists working tirelessly for years on all of this. So
even if you had and then they build it, you.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Had funding that was not government.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But all is government.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Just follow me on this one. Stop interrupting.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
You would still have people knowing about it because you
have to have people building it. You can't just have
a secret. Is only secret if you keep it yourself.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And this would have been as large as the Apollo
program or larger.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
The only reason they kept the the bomb.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Secret was they basically had everybody.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
They had everybody locked down in a place that.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Was well, yeah, they had uh you know, locked private cities.
You know, you had people that were highly compartmentalized. But
the thing is with at the very least with like
the Apollo program, so much of it was large scale,
and it would have had to have been knowledge that
(14:34):
there was some sort of space program happening, because remember
we're not told that this is like the nth space program,
like uh, you know, space mission, like there's been tons
of missions to the Moon. No, the Moon has not
even been visited. We're just going to go to Mars first.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
This is beyond Oh and that one you need to
come up.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
We'll get it. We'll get to it.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
That one just wow.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Wow. So doctor Jackson, as I was saying, is talking
to Steve, and Steve's pissed that doctor Jackson has been
talking to the press today and I was supposed to
be the only person to give information to the public.
So there was a clear narrative on what we were doing.
And I'm like, Okay, this is kind of interesting. But
(15:21):
then Jackson says, I'm broke. My family is broke. We
need money for food. I was promised three thousand dollars
for these interviews I'm giving them. And Steve's like, okay,
that's fine, but let me tell you what to say
to them. Now we're moving on. Is this whole like
his family is broke, he is wanting to get money
(15:43):
for his family or uh, doctor Jackson. Is Doctor Jackson's
breach of all the security addressed later on at all?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Is he even in anything? Afterwards?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yes, he's on the crew.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Oh, he's on the crew.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
He's the guy that's on the crew. He's the he's
the astrophysicist that's on the crew.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Hmmm, so the long nosed guy.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
We we wow. We go to the rocket. We're gonna
board the rocket, and we learned that the rocket is
actually from It's actually from rocket Ship XM. It's the
same set as like rocket Ship XM. We later on
(16:33):
get reused costumes from Destination Moon, which I actually think
both both of these things, the costumes and the set
are very good. They're reused, so I can't really give
the movie credit for this, but I'm saying that's a
really good set. You can see pictures of it online.
You can easily find pictures of it from.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
This movie from other movies.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Just go with it. Okay. We learned that the entire
interior is mounted on gyro's so if you are accelerating
in horizontal flight, the whole interior rotates completely, ignoring the
fact that if you're accelerating a rocket down is towards
the back end of the rocket, and you wouldn't have
to rotate the rocket from the interior of the rocket
(17:17):
from where it was while it's sitting on the ground.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Okay, So they all lay down on beds for takeoff.
The launch goes without a hitch. We learned that they
also then have a magnetic field stabilizer to manipulate the
gravitational field so they don't have to pretend like there
is no gravity. None of this makes sense, none of it. Now,
(17:48):
they passed the moon, but they weren't planning on passing
the moon. They have to make a massive course correction
because of the moon.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
Okay, you forgot about the cots.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I already said they all lay down for the launch.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Yes, but they're all in cots that.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Look like military cots.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
Military like they're in the submarines or.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Uh, they're more like army cots, not subcots. But they're
mounted above each other like bunk beds. So they have
to make an emergency course correction because of the moon.
I pause the movie and I go, why in the
hell would you launch.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
Without calculating this already?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
This is stupid.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
I know where the moon is.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Why wouldn't you use it as a gravitational slingshot of anything?
But if you know where the moon is, why didn't
you calculate this in the first place? Who's in charge
of this? I know that I'm already sounding frustrated, but
there are frustrating things in this movie. Yeah, the gravitational
(18:55):
meter shows an unexpected shift. In course, it's the moon,
and I have like three or four angry lines written
in my notes. And then we get interaction between the
crew where we learn that Steve Abbott played by Camer Mitchell,
is arguably the most unprofessional asshole possible to be put
(19:17):
onto a crew of a spaceship with a woman on board.
Carol is dating doctor Jim Barker, who's on the crew.
They have had a strained relationship because doctor Jim has
been married to this project. They are not married, Okay,
like Carol and Jim are not married, but Jim has
(19:38):
been spending all of his waking moments working on this rocket. Okay,
Carol has been spending all of her time working on
this rocket. Okay, Carol blames Jim for not being married.
It takes two to tango, lady. You're both working on
this project night and day. And then Steve decide to
(20:00):
come in and openly flirt with Carol in front of
Jim repeatedly throughout this movie, trying to like tear her
away from Jim succeeds at the end, and succeeds at
the end because we also learned that Jim as an
asshole too.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
But well, I just felt tacky at the end.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
There are good characters in this movie. Well, I should
say there's good people in this movie. They're barely characters,
but there are people that are like good people. The cast,
the main crew of people, the humans are not good people.
Maybe maybe maybe doctor Lane. I don't think I can
really blame doctor Lane for anything. Not really. He's the
(20:45):
head of the freaking expedition. He didn't really He's not
an asshole. Everybody else is. Anyway, back to this, so
they see a group of meteors moving towards Earth and
I looked over to you and we said, meteors. This
is a trope in every single nineteen fifties science fiction
movie that deals with trips to another world. There's gonna
(21:09):
be meteors. And you know what, I was like, are
they subverting my expectation. They're looking at this group of
meteors heading towards Earth, but they're not impacting them. It
happens later on, Yeah, I called it.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
What oh red dots?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Okay, So we go back to Earth, the general is
confused by this, this top secret invention called radio in
that the rocket has lost radio contact for the past
forty eight hours. No one's really concerned for some reason.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Yeah, they never even.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Okay, look this setup. There are ideas in this movie
that are actually pretty good. They are not they are
not they are not set up well, they are not
portrayed well, they are not concluded well.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
But they're They're all the same dumb mistakes that the
other ones did. So this is just a rehashing of
other movies.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
No, no, no, there's there are unique ideas in this. We'll
get to it and I'll even underline it for our listeners.
We get a ship's log sort of thing written down,
and this is where we learn that it took nine
days to get to Mars.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Okay, at this time that he's writing this, Carol is
calculating something kudos to her on a slide ruler, but
she's not at a desk. He's writing a log on
a desk.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
She's having to stand working. Okay, so we have nine
days to get to Mars, which, believe it or not,
judging by what is said later on the movie, makes sense.
We learned that the rocket is actually atomic powered, and
they've been accelerating the whole way and accelerating back now
because they have a magnetic field. That's that's making a
(23:02):
gravity well around the ship. They have effectively artificial gravity.
So why do they need to rotate the interior of
the ship. They don't, But it also means that they
could actually be accelerating at like four or five g's
for all we know, and having indicated by this magnetic field,
according to their own explanation. Now it's all scientific bullshit,
but in the logic, inside the logic of the movie,
(23:27):
them getting to Mars in nine days makes sense. Okay, Anyway,
we have Steve kissing Carol and then insulting.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Her after grabbing her butt, grabbing.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Her button, then insults her for a ladies scientist, you
aren't very objective.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
And this is where her skirt really is noticeable because
she's it's long and she has to go through a hole.
That is what about it's a bulkhead, It's just it's round.
It's not a bulkhead like you haven't submarines or anything.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's a small They launch because communicating with radio is
far too complex for a man of of means such
as Steve Abbot, they have to use communication rockets because
they at this point they don't know that there's no
radio problems. Okay, Steve fires off return rockets to Earth
(24:30):
that carry notes and like the piece of paper that
things like that. Yeah, it was wow, And it's actually
a cool prop that they use. It's like a rocket.
They put it into a tube and there's like this
plunger thing that they have and then the rocket like
it just all kinds well, No, the main rocket like
(24:53):
shakes and they're like, oh, there's something wrong.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
It shows out to be the storm with the red dots, not.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yet, but they have to change course and they lose
all their primary power at this point. And yeah, there
is damage from the red dots, but they're like having
to change course primary powers out. Doctor Jackson goes back.
This is the guy that like just decided to make
interviews without telling anybody and breaking security just to make
(25:23):
three thousand dollars at the time, which would have been
a lot of money. He finds damage to the landing
gear and the radio batteries inside a B seventeen's ball
to it. And I didn't have to even look it up.
I looked it up afterwards and that sure as hell
was a B seventeen's belly baalter it. I recognized that immediately,
(25:44):
even though they had painted it like a high visibility orange.
It was clear as day to me that that was
a blter.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
It from be Why would something in the middle of
the rocket be It's just.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
A prop that they used. I just thought it was
very was a some team.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
I know you thought it was cool. I just was
like the whole time that I was seeing him pull
out this thing, like, Okay, I can see that you
need to reconnect that, but how are you noticing that
the wouldn't it be sensors or something that would be
showing you, like on an aircraft, it would show you
that you're landing.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Is like there's a fault in the control circuit or
something like that. They did not build this rocket as
normal human beings would build a rocket or a spacecraft
to go from Earth to Mars. Trust me, I mean no,
they haven't. They haven't. Anyway, they all think they're going
to now crash because they have no landing gear. Even
though we see the rocket not use landing gear. It
(26:44):
actually lands on its fins. But that's Okay, that's okay.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
It took off on its fins, took off on its fins.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
It can land on them, but they don't want to
because it might use too much fuel. Oh wait a second,
you didn't know how you're gonna get back, so why
are you worried about fuel? Now they see there there
suddenly becomes this swirling toilet bowl of logic in this
movie that slowly circles anyway, they decide that they're going
(27:16):
to go to push on because it's the human condition
to see what's on the other side of that mountain.
And if we're gonna crash, we'll crash. We'll just do
it the best way we can. They do like complete assholes.
So they all get into that they should all be dead.
They all should be dead. But they get into their
cold weather gear, which pretty good, pretty good. They don't
(27:37):
put on any oxygen masks, do they?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
They do when they go out, they.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Do, but they come in without breaking, without any kind
of like retro fire. They come in at interplanetary speeds
and slam into the side of a Martian mountain at
full speed. It looks well, I mean, it looks like
a model hitting a set, but they are they augur
(28:05):
that rocket in.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Let's just put it this way, the calculation of that
speed at that that thing, they.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Would have been vapor vapor vapor.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Especially maybe we would have a tell fins.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Somewhere because we know also how much like nuclear materials
on board for the engines, which they say is tons.
The I was impact that would have likely caused everything
to like crumple in And what I.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Wasn't talking about that. I was just talking about the
accelerated velocity and hitting something that is not moving.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Oh, you know, like I said, vapor. So if if
the movie would have like cut to black immediately there
and said the end as soon as they augured it,
I'd been like, huh, yep, okay, that makes sense. At
least the movie has a has an ending that makes sense.
It might not be very good, but it makes it.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Wasn't it not read MythBusters that had that car that vaporized?
Oh that would have been it.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, that would have been the where they rammed the
brick wall into the car using a Jano at nearly
the speed of sound and the car just vaporizes. But anyway,
this is they're okay. If they're okay, folks, No one
is injured at all.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
No, they're not even injured totally.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Okay, And I have to have this down to their
magnetic field that provides a gravity field so effectively like
a structural integrity field from like Star Trek or an
inertial dampener. The thing is is that if they have that,
holy crap, there's some pieces of technology that humans have
that seem like it's damn near magic, but it's still
(29:50):
nineteen fifties vacuum tubes.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Go ahead, and I have to say at this point,
with their their their outfits that they have. There are
some with some nice dog gone.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Bomb bomber jackets.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Bomber jackets and pants, and others that are just wearing
thicker like winter gear for the flight crew.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Now they go outside after dotting like oxygen masks. This
is where Carol's actually wearing pants. Yes, I'll give them
credit for giving her pants. Finally, is this the last
time that she's in pants for the rest of the movie. Yes, okay, so.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
No, I wouldn't. I don't know what to call the
outfit she was in. It's not pants, it's not pants.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Okay. So they go outside and I said, oh, look,
there's a really cool matte painting in a set and
it looks like there's big chimneys, and suddenly people come
out in the destination Moon, brightly colored spacesuits, going hail,
human travelers. We are Martians and we have expected you
since monitoring the transmissions about you launch from Earth and okay, awesome.
(31:06):
We also learned that they have never been able to
make contact with Earth because they have built they have
built the strange machine called radio, and they can monitor
radio broadcasts, but they can't transmit. I'm baffled at this
point because they don't. They not only have an advanced
(31:27):
society with like flying cars, automated replemat like replicator type things.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
They have food that is made.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
It's replicated effectively, it's like it's grown. It's grown. Yeah,
but it's like auto automatically produced stuff that's all like
robots and and whatnot. They also have like this super
high tech energy source that's called that that's called like quorium.
(31:59):
But they can't build a radio transmitter.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
Yeah, and you laughed because you said the quorum is
something that can't they they said it, how did they
say that? Water?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And oh, they have all the power. They need by
Koreum makes oxygen and hydrogen, and it allows us to
have all the power that we need. And I'm like,
so Koreum is water. It's water what Okay? But anyway,
(32:33):
Kuoreum is uh. And I'm gonna sum up a shit
ton of scenes because my notes at this point are
basic nineteen fifties science fiction movie plot like point two.
But Koreum is going to run out in ten years.
Kuoreum is the thing that has been powering Martian society
and has kept them alive as their planet has died.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Now they haven't figured out nuclear.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Somehow they have not figured out so they have not
figured out anything except using korium. Okay, I'm actually okay
with that. The radio thing really bothers me.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
We did forget when they were they landed, they were
all looking out the window that the snow was falling.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Snow falling. That was an avalanche from the side of
the mountain. That was dirt and snow.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
But nobody was looking out the other wind and I.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Saw it's the chimneys. Yeah, the chimney. Carol is the
one that sees it going Look at that, Oh my god.
So anyway, they go underground to the city. They believe
in science, but they have no knowledge of rocketry or
atomic power. They called the kitchen the food laboratory, and
the crew says their technological abilities here are incredible. But
(33:49):
what does Carol think The coolest thing is that women
don't have to cook here.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
And she proceeds to play put the food. You know
what if, for all the guys, if I had a degree,
I would not be.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
You know no, no, no, no, no, no no, this is
not how it works. Okay, look, I believe that Steve
Abbott could be a bit of a sexist, being that
he's not really like a part of this core group
of scientists, and he does come off as a complete asshole.
But Carol Jim and doctor Lane and doctor Jackson, these
are people that clearly understand that Carol is clearly qualified, intelligent,
(34:33):
deserves respect, but she just generally acts like the housewife.
And to me, this shows poor writing. Correct, yes, this
is poor writing. It made me mad because because one
of the things when we first started Earth Versus Soup
Episode one, we said, one of the common misconceptions about
(34:55):
nineteen fifties movies is that they're generally sexist towards women.
And is this true? There are movies that are this
is it?
Speaker 5 (35:04):
But I mean, does it half the time, like there's
a different It almost feels like a different director because
and she does that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, because she's very competent at times. There are female
characters in this that are highly competent and intelligent. But
then there's other times where Carol cries for an hour
and a half according to characters, and no one gives
a shit, or she just decides that she's her most
you know, the most fascinating thing to her aren't the
flying cars or the quorum or anything like that, or
(35:35):
any of the engineering feats. It's that she's happy.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
That she don't have to do dishes and cook.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
She doesn't have to do dishes and cook, And I'm like,
come on, like I would I would have thought Steve
could have probably said that like, oh, I bet you're
happy that you don't have to cook or clean dishes here,
because that's his.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Kind of would have been his type.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And she would have been like f you or something
like that, like I'm more interested in X, Y or Z.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
Right, Yes, that's what should have came.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
But it does come across as just being sexist.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Now, I could see her going, Uh, Professor Johnson, do
you want to help me put out the Jackson? Why
these these other two do something?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Do the thing that they need to do. What I'm
trying to say is there should have been like a
lot more like shared that meal. Thing should have been
shared between everybody, them coming together, all sitting at the
same table and talking about what's.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Happened, and setting the dishes and all that, and talking together,
talking together equals and figuring this out, not putting two characters.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
And I don't know whichcause it was Carol and doctor Jackson.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
It was doctor Jackson.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
I'm pretty sure it was doctor Jackson. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
They always film him on profile, like you're always looking
at him on the side of his face.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
So the rock is wrecked and they have to salvage
essential materials such as the atomic heads from the engine,
and they hope that all of the atomics stuff wasn't damaged,
but we actually do learn that it has been, and
they will tell.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
They ask the Mars government for help, maybe even using
korium to power the rockets so they can return and
bring back news of Martian life and another civilization that
somehow doesn't know how to build a radio can build
the receivers just fine.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
But anyway, and they're dressed like they're just they're just
dressed like they're like in navy with a navy suit.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
With lightning bolts on it. It's very merciless, flash cordon
and a cape. Yeah. So they we also now learned
that they plan on attacking Earth and taking it for
themselves because Mars is a dying world and humans clearly
don't deserve their beautiful planet. Hahaha. Mustache turl mustache TRPs.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
Well, there's two different main characters of Mars is a disagreement.
There is the the main guy who they they're head
of government, their head of government wants to take Earth over.
And then there's the other one that is very much
a diplomat.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Is that Icron? Yeah, I think it might be Kron,
but okay, so it's Alita and her father. Her father's
like one of these ministers and he they actually seemingly
do actually have a democracy. They vote on policies and
there are disagreements, and it's not just Alita's father that disagrees,
but they're the people that don't want to invade Earth
(38:47):
and want to rely on diplomacy. Are clearly in the minority,
and the people that are like the rationalists, let's say,
are always in the minority. So it's basically that the
Martian are xenophobic, fascist kind of people. The people that
are in charge that just want to use force to
solve all their problems. They look down at humans as
(39:11):
being less than them, even though at least Earthlings can
build radios, rockets, rockets, god fah damn it. So anyway,
they're gonna use Martian choreum and it seems to power
their entire society, everything about it. And then we have
(39:32):
a couple other women. We have like Terris, who is
Copper Lady. Yeah, she's always in a copper.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
Dress, and she's the snitch.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
She's the snitch that's always spying on the humans. We
have Alita, who is the main female lead in this
that's technically the Martian. She's I mean, she is a Martian.
She has dark hair, she was a nineteen forties pin
up girl, and she's actually a very good actress.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
The only thing that I always see about her with
those shoes.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
So at this point, at this point we learned that well,
Alita basically tells them that look the government's going to
take the rocket and use it to invade Earth, and
they need to take the rocket because they don't know
how to build rockets themselves, because we're all idiots and okay,
(40:26):
so they decide, the humans decide to basically fake an
accident with the help of Alita that so it makes
it look like the rocket won't be ready on their
initial launch date, that it has to be an extra
month worth of repairs. Okay, so they fake it. There's
some double crossing that happens, some more spying, and basically
(40:50):
Alita and her father are dragged into.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Well, Alita is the one that tells them.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah, that's that's what I said. But what is interesting
here is, and this is different from a lot of
these movies, Alita's father is not like, you need to
take Alida with you to leave Mars and take her
back to Earth, which does happen, but he's like, I'll
come with because when I leave, I'm not the only
(41:19):
member of the government that believes what the head of
the government is doing is wrong. And when I make
it to Earth, I will be the de facto representative
of Mars. And if I make a deal with your government,
trading our quoreum technology, even though it's being it's gonna
run out in ten years for your atomic energy that
(41:44):
we can share technology. There's clearly things that the Martians
actually have that are kind of high tech, like this
automated hydroponic food and food preparation stuff. This this kind
of automation stuff. They're clearly advanced in that if we
trade this, it doesn't matter what ass back here is
wanting to do, because he can't build rockets. He's an idiot.
We're all idiots. We can't build rockets. We can't build
(42:06):
a radio. So when you come back with a whole
bunch more rockets filled with uranium and stuff for us
at that point, in order for him to save face,
he's going to have to welcome you guys with open
arms no matter what, because what is he going to
be able to do. We don't have any weapons to
destroy you, and if we suddenly attack. I mean they
(42:28):
do have weapons, they have like guns and things like that,
but the point is they don't have atomic weapons. They
don't have any rocket ships, they have no ray guns. Really, right,
all you're going to have is a fleet of human
chips there with nuclear weapons on board and what is
he going to do. He's gonna have to go welcome
ourth things. Are you here to save us? And that's
like actually the plan. I thought, wait a second, that's
(42:51):
actually that's.
Speaker 5 (42:52):
Smart, a smart plan to subfrigate somebody that is actually
ruling by fear, because you see it in the the
think that's what uh terrrius the copper girl. Yeah, she's
pandering to that fear, that fear monger.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah. And I actually thought at that point I did
pause the movie again, and I looked over to you, Darling,
and I said, this has gone from like your incredibly
generic nineteen fifty space travel movie to Mars or the
Moon or whatever, to something that has a little bit
of like difference. There's some some some uniqueness here.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
Yeah, but Alita is supposed to be a physicist.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
She's an engineer too.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
And that's why she was given as an assistant to
doctor Jim, doctor Jim uh Baker so Baker Baker Baker Barker.
I'm sorry, Marker, but like Alita and Jim fall in
love and this and Steve, which is is sitting there
(44:01):
Carol the whole time, with that whole relationship.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
They're there for like a month, and Steve is the
biggest jackass there possibly is. And then when like.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Playing solitaire as she cries for an hour and a half.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Well, okay, because Carol finds out that like Jim and
Alita have like kind of fallen in love and he
and Jim tells Carol in a really kind of like
I don't know it came across as he didn't give
a shit about being gentle about it. So like Carol's
(44:37):
crying and Steve yeah, plays solitaire mocking her while she
does are you gonna Love me? Baby?
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And sex?
Speaker 5 (44:45):
She was horribly acting at this point.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
You know what, I don't I don't blame her, and.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
And and this Steve was Cameron Mitchell was just being
a smug ass.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
You know, honestly, Cameron Mitchell is a good actor. The
thing is is that if you don't give him anything,
you just this is this is the character. This is
what Cameron Mitchell does.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
So uh or looks up at airplanes going above.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
The goddamn airplane. Shut the goddamn door. Anyway, That's lots
of different camera Mitchell movies. So Alita and her father
are taken in for questioning, but Jim stomps in as
they all vote to seize the rocket, like Theverment sees
the rock and Jim goes, uh, you know, you guys
aren't gonna seize my rock. And they say what are
you gonna do? And then like Jim just starts punching everybody,
(45:38):
and what do the martians do? They take it and
fall over like just what the hell's going on? Oh
my god, they don't know what the hell's happening. Jim
just waylays into him like and he's not like he's
a martial artist or anything. He's just haymakering everybody. And
it's terrible.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
On the costumes are very flash Gordon girls are wearing
this pointed stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And what well they run back to the rocket right,
very short skirts, very short skirts. They run back to
the rocket. They all jump in, seal the door, they
launch the end. That's it.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
Yep, that's a very very the end.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
The end. So okay, look, there are things that this
movie did right. There are things that this movie did right.
Darren Lane, start with what worked in this movie, Because
there are things that worked in this movie. This is
not a bad film. It's not a good film. It's
not a bad.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Film they had where you had a society that was
about to fail, and you had two different.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Political yeah, political groups. Basically they had very different visions
of how to handle this. One was all about basically
just being assholes and taking rather than diplomacy and like growing.
And you know, okay, wait, your society's dying, your planet's dying,
(47:11):
you don't have a large population. What are you going
to do with that one rocket? What are you gonna do? Well,
they said, well, we can maybe build more rockets based
on that. Sure, but it's all gonna be powered by quorum,
and you don't have enough quorum to build rockets without
deeppowering the life support systems that are keeping what little
(47:35):
of your society is left. So basically, like you have
the fascist assholes are really thinking in a very very
short sighted way, in a way that will not work
in the end. It will basically just render very few
Martians being left alive. Okay, then you have the group
that actually wants diplomacy and negotiating with the humans that
(47:57):
even argue, maybe if we negotiate with the humans with
our technology to give them, they'll give us some area
on Earth that they aren't using. Again, that's not a
bad idea. That's really not a bad idea. And being that, hey,
look you can be out in the middle of the
desert because you're used to it at this point, and
(48:17):
it would be much more habitable than the than the
surface of Mars. Right, you could breathe the.
Speaker 5 (48:23):
Air Sierra, the Sahara, the Sahara desert, geez.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
The middle of nowhere, Nevada, like you want to settle there,
go ahead, man, like there now we have all this
quoreum technology or whatever, this automation stuff that made sense,
that little touchdown to Antarctic. But look this little this
little nugget, I agree with you, this little nugget of
(48:53):
plot where suddenly you have like these two factions of
Martians and one is actually being fairly reason.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
But this is very short duration of the movie. There
is more of the stupid.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Love No triangle, it's not.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Really a triangle. It's with four.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Okay, what else works? What else works? Let's what works?
Speaker 5 (49:21):
Okay, what else works?
Speaker 3 (49:23):
I will make I'll make a controversial choice here, at
least the controversial choice to you. I like the women's costumes,
even though they are short skirts, they are clearly sexist
at least they have an interesting design.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
I like the design, but I don't like how short
it was.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
I agree, I will agree with you. I'm just saying
the designs.
Speaker 5 (49:47):
I could not Alita. I would not know her except
for those shoes.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Her shoes, well, okay, Alita's played like I said, Marguerite Chapman,
she was a pin up girl in the nineteen forties.
She has very long legs, and she was wearing these
high heels with these open front shoes.
Speaker 5 (50:06):
It was like boots because they can't the back part
came up past.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
And they had a transparent strap to keep them on.
Otherwise they looked like they would just fall off of her.
But it looked very good. And then I would say,
since we saw one that actually was pretty high definition
version of this movie, the women's costumes looked far more
revealing than they actually were because we could see with
(50:33):
our eyes with the high definition that they.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Were wearing like a strap that was flesh toned underneath.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
They had like an undershirt that was flesh tone underneath,
so it looked like the front of their costumes always
had these very low cut v's going down to their
like belly button. But it wasn't.
Speaker 5 (50:50):
But those v's don't work unless you have something like that.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I understand they fall off. I understand that.
Speaker 5 (50:58):
But having a bloomer on.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
They had, they had those off.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
Yes, they had bloomers on, because that's one of the
things I had. Most of the female clothing was tacky fabric,
like fake satin, fake yes, fake satin, and it wasn't
(51:23):
son well right, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
I didn't notice that. I just noticed. I really liked
the patterning of it and how it basically.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
The diamond point shoulders.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
The diamond point shoulders are the weird shoes or how
effectively all the women's costumes made it look like they
were barely wearing anything. But they really were like full
length stockings that were just flush colored, but you could
tell that they were actually stockings. The low cut V
(51:59):
but it was actually there's a undershirt that allows no
cleavage to be shown.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
It was yeah, but it looked good. All I'm saying
is I think that the women's costumes, while they were skimpy,
were thought out. Well does that make sense?
Speaker 5 (52:14):
But very flash Gordon like, oh yes, for sure, and
so was And then they took the men's uniform they
put the the the electrical symbol on and then they
had these romanesque shoulder cape. There wasn't capes because it
(52:37):
didn't go all the way on the back.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
It was like half capes. There were half capes.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
There was like two like like Roman sheets.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah. So I'll say the other thing about this that worked.
While I can't say that the rocket ship set worked
because it's a reused set, it still was good. It's
the map were very good. I will also say the
pacing of the movie was good. It worked because you
(53:07):
weren't bored.
Speaker 5 (53:08):
I was bored in the beginning. It just seemed like
it was just up.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Until they launched. Yeah, up until they launched. Once they launched,
it was pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. But overall,
I'd say I would say that it fits into the
it worked category. Now, what didn't work was all the cliches.
And it might be just.
Speaker 5 (53:31):
The glove square, the glove.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Square of sorts. No, it's the whole thing that goes
between like doctor Jim, Alita, Steve and Carrol. Yes, just
tacked on. It's totally it's.
Speaker 5 (53:44):
Not tacked on. It's just tacky.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
The science clearly does not work in the movie. It
clearly does not work beyond that, like it's it's honestly,
the plot is fine.
Speaker 5 (53:58):
It would have kind of worked if they were the
science would have worked if it was more like tongue
in cheek like Flash Gordon does. They were trying to
trying to actually get trying to make things sound.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
You know what, I have one other thing I can
put into it does not work, Just one other thing.
The acting overall, the acting overall that did not work.
It was not good acting any of it.
Speaker 5 (54:24):
An there was charming bits, but there was what eighty
percent of it some of it didn't work.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
Eighty percent of it was me feeling either uncomfortable with
the way Steve was acting towards Carol, how unprofessional he
was in an enclosed environment, Like, Hey, we're having there's
no there's like two rooms here on this spacecraft. We're
on it for nine days. You're acting like a sexist
asshole the entire time. Then when we land on Mars
(54:55):
in a survival situation, you're acting like a sexist asshole
to Carol all the time, and yet you hook up
with her. Yeah, anyway, would you recommend it?
Speaker 5 (55:10):
No?
Speaker 3 (55:11):
I don't recommend it either.
Speaker 5 (55:13):
I don't because there's other ones that are better. That
seems with the whole same plot.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
It's it's not a complete waste of time though it's not.
Speaker 5 (55:23):
It wasn't a complete waste of time.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
It was not out of ten though. I think I
would give it a solid four, a solid if we
go Yeah, it's I'm not recommending it, but it's on
the low end of average. There are better films. I
think there's a couple of things in here that kind
of stand out, like the weird Martian politics and that's
(55:47):
about it, Like the pacing, it's it's it's bored.
Speaker 5 (55:51):
Oh that was the other thing about the male costumes.
If they weren't the counselors, they were in this stuff
that almost looked like it belonged in a No.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
No, it was like leather fetish thing because they had
those weird like leather jacket type things.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
Well, the all the guys that were from Earth got
put in leather jackets that have a rocket on it.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Yeah, because that's supposed to represent them.
Speaker 5 (56:20):
Be and wearing jack boots.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Yeah, they were all wearing jack boots. Yeah, all right,
so maybe we'll leave it there. We'll leave it there,
so we don't waste any more of your time out there.
I'm glad that everyone's listening still. I'm Aaron, I'm Darlene.
Speaker 5 (56:35):
Good evening, keep.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Watching the skies. At no point in your rambling, incoherent
response were you even close to anything that could be
considered a rational thought.
Speaker 4 (56:47):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website. If this Week
in Geek dot Net you can subscribe to the podcast,
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send us an email at Feedback at this weekendgeek dot Net.
Tune in next time, and remember, lower your shields and
(57:07):
surrender your listenership.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
We would be honored if you would join us. Thank
you for your cooperation. Good night,
But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing
a big girl. I have other ways of securing your cooperation. Sorry,
miss I was giving myself an oil job.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
When was it just a zumb as? We've seen attitude
to it since we gave to a few low cabbages.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
An intellectual carrot.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
That mind boggles you see you see your stupid lives.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Stupid, stupid, said Santa Claus. Long enough, we will bring
him to Mars. I've been afraid a lot of times
in my life, but I didn't know the real meaning
of fear until until I kiss peck me. One thing
will be clear. It's not from man to interfere in
the ways of God's life.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Earth Versus Soup episode
two seventy seven. I'm Aaron Poliak, I'm Darlene. We went
back to a classic kind of Earth Versus Soup episode.
Here we decided that we were going to watch darn It,
a science fiction film from the nineteen fifties. We found one, Oh,
we found one Flight to Mars from nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
It is the same as one hundred.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Different other movies that we have seen on Earth versus soup.
It is okay. Look, before we get into the plot,
there are things it does very well, and I will
actually say it definitely falls into this it works category.
There are things that it does poorly, and there are
things that one hundred other films have done. And I
(01:56):
don't really even need to write notes about it because
they're so I can write nineteen fifties space travel movie
and know exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
Some of the things they do a little wrong.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So there are This is based on a book called
Alita from Alexei Tolstoy, Russian, so you know, Russian writer.
But this has some notable people in it. I'll say
Our male's lead is Cameron Mitchell of Red Letter Media's
(02:33):
Hall of Fame, Fame of Best of the Worst if
you have ever if you have not watched Red Letter
Media's Best of the Worst series, Cameron Mitchell often appears
in these films. Cameron Mitchell is Cameron Mitchell in this movie.
He is Cameron Mitchell. He does a very good job
playing Cameron Mitchell. He does with a ding dong with
(02:57):
a ding dong I don't know. No, that's a completely
different movie and character. There are two there are two
minutes older. Sure, fine, there are two women in this movie. Actually,
there's technically three women in this movie, two of which
get fairly high billing. In fact, a woman actually has
(03:19):
top billing in this that I would argue should not
have top billing by any way, shape or form. Yes,
and that's Marguerite Chapman, who does a very good job,
don't get me wrong, but she is not the lead character.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
She's in there for about twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Right, Yeah, And then we have Virginia Hudson, who is
not the lead actress or lead actor in this movie,
who arguably should be much higher than Marguerite Chapman's character, Alita.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
Who would you say is the lead?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Oh, camer Mitchell, Camra Mitchell. It's either camer Mitchell or
doctor Jim, one of the two. But yeah, this is
this is nineteen fifties science fiction rocket travel to a
different world as a plot. Let's get into it. And
for a movie that's only seventy two minutes, by the way,
(04:13):
in the color.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Is very good, except that it looks blue and everything looks.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Blue purposely and that's fine unless they're on Mars.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
There is one thing I do need to state, and
this is one of those things I'd really like a
lot of people to watch and actually laugh about. But
also it's wrong. One of the sexist things that they
used to do is make women wear skirts.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Now, yes, at one point we'll talk about it in
that city, can I Okay, yeah, we can't. Can't. We can't.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
They put them in skirts, and they're supposed to walk
through these doors that are able to be sealed, which
means in this case, it was a small.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Hole, their bulkhead hole. Bulkhead doors.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
Yes, and that's not a something you'd be tripping over.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
The female carri that. Yeah, the female lead in this
technically who I would say, the female played by Virginia Hustin.
She would not have been able to make it through
those bulkhead doors. But since we're talking about something that
we haven't even gotten to in the plot, our listeners
might not actually even understand what we're talking about here.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Okay, but I'm talking about would you really want to
be on a ship? Let's just go with a ship
that isn't a cruise ship, that's a military ship that
you've got to walk and pick up your legs a
good foot foot and a half and be in.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
A long skirt. There's short of skirts that you could
say are okay for that, but then again, be flashing
everybody all the time. Streets are not acceptable for that.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
Then she's got also ladders. Yeah, and that doesn't make
it accept nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
It's nineteen fifty one, and they wanted the skimpy skirts
on other women. So that's that's.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Just the worst. Oh, they got skimpy skirts.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So let's talk about the actual plot so people can
actually understand what you're trying to talk about. We get
a non almost a non sequitur opening almost, but it
is LENGTHD. We see two men looking through a telescope
at Mars and they talk about how there's a mission
leading for Mars tomorrow and what they and they expect
(06:37):
to find life. Now, Okay, are these two astronomers that
are looking through the telescope a part of the movie. No,
they're not. All they're doing is looking at Mars and
having this conversation as an info drop. It's it's nothing more,
nothing less, And I would have rather had it from
(07:00):
the characters that are actually in the rest of the
movie talking about what they're going to find on Mars,
and it would it would give us more time with characters.
So we then go to the Pentagon, Washington, DC. And
I think my complaints almost immediately start in this.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
But we'll get the Pentagon.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So final preparations have been completed for this mission, and
an Air Force general questions the head of this expedition.
His name is doctor Lane. I believe, yes, doctor Lane.
So doctor Lane, uh is? The general starts going okay,
(07:47):
well you think the rocket is going to work? And
the doc doctor Lane's like yeah, physics says that we
should be able to get to Mars. Well, how are
you gonna get back from Mars? I don't know. We'll
figure that out when we get there. Pause the movie.
I paused the movie and I went, what the hell
is this? Already We're literally like a minute and a
(08:09):
half into the film. Two minutes into the film. Already
the head of this expedition doesn't know how they're going
to get back. They're just gonna go for some reason. Well,
they go because of it's human nature to explore, et cetera,
et cetera. But if one is investing a tremendous amount
(08:29):
of resources into a journey to Mars. One is going
to plan on how to return everyone from Mars No
one knows. And then doctor Lane we learned that Doctor
Lane is the lead. And then we also are introduced
(08:53):
to a journalist that's going Steve Abbott played by Cameron Mitchell.
The General then wonders how a journalist is going to
pose stories to Earth from Mars. Again, I had to
pause the movie and I go. The General is unaware
of the top secret invention called radio radio. This is
(09:16):
how you post information from one place to another when
you do not have copper wire? Is this how they
post stories back to Earth?
Speaker 5 (09:29):
God?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Damn it.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Oh, I'm getting ahead of my.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I know, no, no, but that God It's people are okay, Look,
this is not an idiot plot, but it is in
a weird way, like there are certain characters that are.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
You keep going on about idiot plots. You need to
stop that.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I probably do. The General seems to be a complete moron.
The head of the expert addition who has also designed
this era, this rocket ship, along with the chief engineer
who we meet in a little bit, Doctor Jim Barker,
is an idiot.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
Or sky both okay, an idiot and snarky.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Because they designed the rocket in such a way as
to be both super super advanced. We'll get into this
super advanced.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
To the air at the same time.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Well, the ball ter is actually one of the coolest
damp things of all time. Oh.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
I also filmed it in the Death Valley the.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Marsh Did it matter? Did you see Death Valley? No?
Maybe for like two seconds. Well, all right, so anyway,
well we'll get into why this rocket is so hyper advanced.
But anyway, we have, boy, we have. We're introduced to Carol.
(10:55):
Carol Stafford played by Virginia Hudson. She is dating doctor
Jim Barker.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
I don't know if they're dating.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
They're very clearly dating. She even says that she says,
I'm here for a date. Oh you said we are
going out to dinner, Okay, And then we're we're told
in very you know, very very clear terms that Carol
is qualified to go on this trip. And believe it
or not, I buy it.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
She's a spaceship engineering.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
She is an actual engineer that is specialized in designing rockets, okay, spacecraft,
and I will then therefore blame much of the problems
with this spacecraft on her, and much of the innovation
on the spacecraft on her.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
I will, but I do have to say one thing.
When they're in the cockpit or whatever you call she's
the only one that sounds like she's competent.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yes, yes, and then everybody else kind of just well.
She describes herself, and Jim Barker describes her as the
first assistant to the pilot of the rocket ship. So
I guess, like Jim, doctor Jim Barker is the pilot
of the rocket ship, but I don't know. We have
(12:19):
a guy named doctor Jackson who shows up, or Professor.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Jackson, William Jackson.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
He talks to Steve and it turns out that there's
been like a media blackout on this mission because it
is top secret. They have not wanted to have the
public know anything about this mission until the day.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Before, except that we got a reporter going.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Okay, But the reporter was going to have limited access
to everybody and only be able he would be the
only person to report, So there was like a single
voice talking about the about the project, so okay. One
how many would it have been possible to at all
(13:03):
keep the Apollo program secret. No, how did you keep
this project which would have required lots of money, in
incredible amounts of money because this rocketship is very advanced
we learn, so that would require thousands of engineers and
(13:23):
scientists working tirelessly for years on all of this. So
even if you had and then they build it, you.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Had funding that was not government.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But all is government.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Just follow me on this one. Stop interrupting.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
You would still have people knowing about it because you
have to have people building it. You can't just have
a secret. Is only secret if you keep it yourself.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And this would have been as large as the Apollo
program or larger.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
The only reason they kept the the bomb.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Secret was they basically had everybody.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
They had everybody locked down in a place that.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Was well, yeah, they had uh you know, locked private cities.
You know, you had people that were highly compartmentalized. But
the thing is with at the very least with like
the Apollo program, so much of it was large scale,
and it would have had to have been knowledge that
(14:34):
there was some sort of space program happening, because remember
we're not told that this is like the nth space program,
like uh, you know, space mission, like there's been tons
of missions to the Moon. No, the Moon has not
even been visited. We're just going to go to Mars first.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
This is beyond Oh and that one you need to
come up.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
We'll get it. We'll get to it.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
That one just wow.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Wow. So doctor Jackson, as I was saying, is talking
to Steve, and Steve's pissed that doctor Jackson has been
talking to the press today and I was supposed to
be the only person to give information to the public.
So there was a clear narrative on what we were doing.
And I'm like, Okay, this is kind of interesting. But
(15:21):
then Jackson says, I'm broke. My family is broke. We
need money for food. I was promised three thousand dollars
for these interviews I'm giving them. And Steve's like, okay,
that's fine, but let me tell you what to say
to them. Now we're moving on. Is this whole like
his family is broke, he is wanting to get money
(15:43):
for his family or uh, doctor Jackson. Is Doctor Jackson's
breach of all the security addressed later on at all?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Is he even in anything? Afterwards?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yes, he's on the crew.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Oh, he's on the crew.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
He's the guy that's on the crew. He's the he's
the astrophysicist that's on the crew.
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Hmmm, so the long nosed guy.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
We we wow. We go to the rocket. We're gonna
board the rocket, and we learned that the rocket is
actually from It's actually from rocket Ship XM. It's the
same set as like rocket Ship XM. We later on
(16:33):
get reused costumes from Destination Moon, which I actually think
both both of these things, the costumes and the set
are very good. They're reused, so I can't really give
the movie credit for this, but I'm saying that's a
really good set. You can see pictures of it online.
You can easily find pictures of it from.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
This movie from other movies.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Just go with it. Okay. We learned that the entire
interior is mounted on gyro's so if you are accelerating
in horizontal flight, the whole interior rotates completely, ignoring the
fact that if you're accelerating a rocket down is towards
the back end of the rocket, and you wouldn't have
to rotate the rocket from the interior of the rocket
(17:17):
from where it was while it's sitting on the ground.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Okay, So they all lay down on beds for takeoff.
The launch goes without a hitch. We learned that they
also then have a magnetic field stabilizer to manipulate the
gravitational field so they don't have to pretend like there
is no gravity. None of this makes sense, none of it. Now,
(17:48):
they passed the moon, but they weren't planning on passing
the moon. They have to make a massive course correction
because of the moon.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
Okay, you forgot about the cots.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
I already said they all lay down for the launch.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Yes, but they're all in cots that.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Look like military cots.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
Military like they're in the submarines or.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Uh, they're more like army cots, not subcots. But they're
mounted above each other like bunk beds. So they have
to make an emergency course correction because of the moon.
I pause the movie and I go, why in the
hell would you launch.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
Without calculating this already?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
This is stupid.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
I know where the moon is.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Why wouldn't you use it as a gravitational slingshot of anything?
But if you know where the moon is, why didn't
you calculate this in the first place? Who's in charge
of this? I know that I'm already sounding frustrated, but
there are frustrating things in this movie. Yeah, the gravitational
(18:55):
meter shows an unexpected shift. In course, it's the moon,
and I have like three or four angry lines written
in my notes. And then we get interaction between the
crew where we learn that Steve Abbott played by Camer Mitchell,
is arguably the most unprofessional asshole possible to be put
(19:17):
onto a crew of a spaceship with a woman on board.
Carol is dating doctor Jim Barker, who's on the crew.
They have had a strained relationship because doctor Jim has
been married to this project. They are not married, Okay,
like Carol and Jim are not married, but Jim has
(19:38):
been spending all of his waking moments working on this rocket. Okay,
Carol has been spending all of her time working on
this rocket. Okay, Carol blames Jim for not being married.
It takes two to tango, lady. You're both working on
this project night and day. And then Steve decide to
(20:00):
come in and openly flirt with Carol in front of
Jim repeatedly throughout this movie, trying to like tear her
away from Jim succeeds at the end, and succeeds at
the end because we also learned that Jim as an
asshole too.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
But well, I just felt tacky at the end.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
There are good characters in this movie. Well, I should
say there's good people in this movie. They're barely characters,
but there are people that are like good people. The cast,
the main crew of people, the humans are not good people.
Maybe maybe maybe doctor Lane. I don't think I can
really blame doctor Lane for anything. Not really. He's the
(20:45):
head of the freaking expedition. He didn't really He's not
an asshole. Everybody else is. Anyway, back to this, so
they see a group of meteors moving towards Earth and
I looked over to you and we said, meteors. This
is a trope in every single nineteen fifties science fiction
movie that deals with trips to another world. There's gonna
(21:09):
be meteors. And you know what, I was like, are
they subverting my expectation. They're looking at this group of
meteors heading towards Earth, but they're not impacting them. It
happens later on, Yeah, I called it.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
What oh red dots?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Okay, So we go back to Earth, the general is
confused by this, this top secret invention called radio in
that the rocket has lost radio contact for the past
forty eight hours. No one's really concerned for some reason.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Yeah, they never even.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Okay, look this setup. There are ideas in this movie
that are actually pretty good. They are not they are
not they are not set up well, they are not
portrayed well, they are not concluded well.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
But they're They're all the same dumb mistakes that the
other ones did. So this is just a rehashing of
other movies.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
No, no, no, there's there are unique ideas in this. We'll
get to it and I'll even underline it for our listeners.
We get a ship's log sort of thing written down,
and this is where we learn that it took nine
days to get to Mars.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
Okay, at this time that he's writing this, Carol is
calculating something kudos to her on a slide ruler, but
she's not at a desk. He's writing a log on
a desk.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
She's having to stand working. Okay, so we have nine
days to get to Mars, which, believe it or not,
judging by what is said later on the movie, makes sense.
We learned that the rocket is actually atomic powered, and
they've been accelerating the whole way and accelerating back now
because they have a magnetic field. That's that's making a
(23:02):
gravity well around the ship. They have effectively artificial gravity.
So why do they need to rotate the interior of
the ship. They don't, But it also means that they
could actually be accelerating at like four or five g's
for all we know, and having indicated by this magnetic field,
according to their own explanation. Now it's all scientific bullshit,
but in the logic, inside the logic of the movie,
(23:27):
them getting to Mars in nine days makes sense. Okay, Anyway,
we have Steve kissing Carol and then insulting.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Her after grabbing her butt, grabbing.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Her button, then insults her for a ladies scientist, you
aren't very objective.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
And this is where her skirt really is noticeable because
she's it's long and she has to go through a hole.
That is what about it's a bulkhead, It's just it's round.
It's not a bulkhead like you haven't submarines or anything.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's a small They launch because communicating with radio is
far too complex for a man of of means such
as Steve Abbot, they have to use communication rockets because
they at this point they don't know that there's no
radio problems. Okay, Steve fires off return rockets to Earth
(24:30):
that carry notes and like the piece of paper that
things like that. Yeah, it was wow, And it's actually
a cool prop that they use. It's like a rocket.
They put it into a tube and there's like this
plunger thing that they have and then the rocket like
it just all kinds well, No, the main rocket like
(24:53):
shakes and they're like, oh, there's something wrong.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
It shows out to be the storm with the red dots, not.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yet, but they have to change course and they lose
all their primary power at this point. And yeah, there
is damage from the red dots, but they're like having
to change course primary powers out. Doctor Jackson goes back.
This is the guy that like just decided to make
interviews without telling anybody and breaking security just to make
(25:23):
three thousand dollars at the time, which would have been
a lot of money. He finds damage to the landing
gear and the radio batteries inside a B seventeen's ball
to it. And I didn't have to even look it up.
I looked it up afterwards and that sure as hell
was a B seventeen's belly baalter it. I recognized that immediately,
(25:44):
even though they had painted it like a high visibility orange.
It was clear as day to me that that was
a blter.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
It from be Why would something in the middle of
the rocket be It's just.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
A prop that they used. I just thought it was
very was a some team.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
I know you thought it was cool. I just was
like the whole time that I was seeing him pull
out this thing, like, Okay, I can see that you
need to reconnect that, but how are you noticing that
the wouldn't it be sensors or something that would be
showing you, like on an aircraft, it would show you
that you're landing.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Is like there's a fault in the control circuit or
something like that. They did not build this rocket as
normal human beings would build a rocket or a spacecraft
to go from Earth to Mars. Trust me, I mean no,
they haven't. They haven't. Anyway, they all think they're going
to now crash because they have no landing gear. Even
though we see the rocket not use landing gear. It
(26:44):
actually lands on its fins. But that's Okay, that's okay.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
It took off on its fins, took off on its fins.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
It can land on them, but they don't want to
because it might use too much fuel. Oh wait a second,
you didn't know how you're gonna get back, so why
are you worried about fuel? Now they see there there
suddenly becomes this swirling toilet bowl of logic in this
movie that slowly circles anyway, they decide that they're going
(27:16):
to go to push on because it's the human condition
to see what's on the other side of that mountain.
And if we're gonna crash, we'll crash. We'll just do
it the best way we can. They do like complete assholes.
So they all get into that they should all be dead.
They all should be dead. But they get into their
cold weather gear, which pretty good, pretty good. They don't
(27:37):
put on any oxygen masks, do they?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
They do when they go out, they.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Do, but they come in without breaking, without any kind
of like retro fire. They come in at interplanetary speeds
and slam into the side of a Martian mountain at
full speed. It looks well, I mean, it looks like
a model hitting a set, but they are they augur
(28:05):
that rocket in.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Let's just put it this way, the calculation of that
speed at that that thing, they.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Would have been vapor vapor vapor.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Especially maybe we would have a tell fins.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Somewhere because we know also how much like nuclear materials
on board for the engines, which they say is tons.
The I was impact that would have likely caused everything
to like crumple in And what I.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Wasn't talking about that. I was just talking about the
accelerated velocity and hitting something that is not moving.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Oh, you know, like I said, vapor. So if if
the movie would have like cut to black immediately there
and said the end as soon as they augured it,
I'd been like, huh, yep, okay, that makes sense. At
least the movie has a has an ending that makes sense.
It might not be very good, but it makes it.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Wasn't it not read MythBusters that had that car that vaporized?
Oh that would have been it.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, that would have been the where they rammed the
brick wall into the car using a Jano at nearly
the speed of sound and the car just vaporizes. But anyway,
this is they're okay. If they're okay, folks, No one
is injured at all.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
No, they're not even injured totally.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Okay, And I have to have this down to their
magnetic field that provides a gravity field so effectively like
a structural integrity field from like Star Trek or an
inertial dampener. The thing is is that if they have that,
holy crap, there's some pieces of technology that humans have
that seem like it's damn near magic, but it's still
(29:50):
nineteen fifties vacuum tubes.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Go ahead, and I have to say at this point,
with their their their outfits that they have. There are
some with some nice dog gone.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Bomb bomber jackets.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Bomber jackets and pants, and others that are just wearing
thicker like winter gear for the flight crew.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Now they go outside after dotting like oxygen masks. This
is where Carol's actually wearing pants. Yes, I'll give them
credit for giving her pants. Finally, is this the last
time that she's in pants for the rest of the movie. Yes, okay, so.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
No, I wouldn't. I don't know what to call the
outfit she was in. It's not pants, it's not pants.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Okay. So they go outside and I said, oh, look,
there's a really cool matte painting in a set and
it looks like there's big chimneys, and suddenly people come
out in the destination Moon, brightly colored spacesuits, going hail,
human travelers. We are Martians and we have expected you
since monitoring the transmissions about you launch from Earth and okay, awesome.
(31:06):
We also learned that they have never been able to
make contact with Earth because they have built they have
built the strange machine called radio, and they can monitor
radio broadcasts, but they can't transmit. I'm baffled at this
point because they don't. They not only have an advanced
(31:27):
society with like flying cars, automated replemat like replicator type things.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
They have food that is made.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
It's replicated effectively, it's like it's grown. It's grown. Yeah,
but it's like auto automatically produced stuff that's all like
robots and and whatnot. They also have like this super
high tech energy source that's called that that's called like quorium.
(31:59):
But they can't build a radio transmitter.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
Yeah, and you laughed because you said the quorum is
something that can't they they said it, how did they
say that? Water?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And oh, they have all the power. They need by
Koreum makes oxygen and hydrogen, and it allows us to
have all the power that we need. And I'm like,
so Koreum is water. It's water what Okay? But anyway,
(32:33):
Kuoreum is uh. And I'm gonna sum up a shit
ton of scenes because my notes at this point are
basic nineteen fifties science fiction movie plot like point two.
But Koreum is going to run out in ten years.
Kuoreum is the thing that has been powering Martian society
and has kept them alive as their planet has died.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Now they haven't figured out nuclear.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Somehow they have not figured out so they have not
figured out anything except using korium. Okay, I'm actually okay
with that. The radio thing really bothers me.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
We did forget when they were they landed, they were
all looking out the window that the snow was falling.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Snow falling. That was an avalanche from the side of
the mountain. That was dirt and snow.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
But nobody was looking out the other wind and I.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Saw it's the chimneys. Yeah, the chimney. Carol is the
one that sees it going Look at that, Oh my god.
So anyway, they go underground to the city. They believe
in science, but they have no knowledge of rocketry or
atomic power. They called the kitchen the food laboratory, and
the crew says their technological abilities here are incredible. But
(33:49):
what does Carol think The coolest thing is that women
don't have to cook here.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
And she proceeds to play put the food. You know
what if, for all the guys, if I had a degree,
I would not be.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
You know no, no, no, no, no, no no, this is
not how it works. Okay, look, I believe that Steve
Abbott could be a bit of a sexist, being that
he's not really like a part of this core group
of scientists, and he does come off as a complete asshole.
But Carol Jim and doctor Lane and doctor Jackson, these
are people that clearly understand that Carol is clearly qualified, intelligent,
(34:33):
deserves respect, but she just generally acts like the housewife.
And to me, this shows poor writing. Correct, yes, this
is poor writing. It made me mad because because one
of the things when we first started Earth Versus Soup
Episode one, we said, one of the common misconceptions about
(34:55):
nineteen fifties movies is that they're generally sexist towards women.
And is this true? There are movies that are this
is it?
Speaker 5 (35:04):
But I mean, does it half the time, like there's
a different It almost feels like a different director because
and she does that.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, because she's very competent at times. There are female
characters in this that are highly competent and intelligent. But
then there's other times where Carol cries for an hour
and a half according to characters, and no one gives
a shit, or she just decides that she's her most
you know, the most fascinating thing to her aren't the
flying cars or the quorum or anything like that, or
(35:35):
any of the engineering feats. It's that she's happy.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
That she don't have to do dishes and cook.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
She doesn't have to do dishes and cook, And I'm like,
come on, like I would I would have thought Steve
could have probably said that like, oh, I bet you're
happy that you don't have to cook or clean dishes here,
because that's his.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Kind of would have been his type.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
And she would have been like f you or something
like that, like I'm more interested in X, Y or Z.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
Right, Yes, that's what should have came.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
But it does come across as just being sexist.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Now, I could see her going, Uh, Professor Johnson, do
you want to help me put out the Jackson? Why
these these other two do something?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Do the thing that they need to do. What I'm
trying to say is there should have been like a
lot more like shared that meal. Thing should have been
shared between everybody, them coming together, all sitting at the
same table and talking about what's.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Happened, and setting the dishes and all that, and talking together,
talking together equals and figuring this out, not putting two characters.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
And I don't know whichcause it was Carol and doctor Jackson.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
It was doctor Jackson.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
I'm pretty sure it was doctor Jackson. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
They always film him on profile, like you're always looking
at him on the side of his face.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
So the rock is wrecked and they have to salvage
essential materials such as the atomic heads from the engine,
and they hope that all of the atomics stuff wasn't damaged,
but we actually do learn that it has been, and
they will tell.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
They ask the Mars government for help, maybe even using
korium to power the rockets so they can return and
bring back news of Martian life and another civilization that
somehow doesn't know how to build a radio can build
the receivers just fine.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
But anyway, and they're dressed like they're just they're just
dressed like they're like in navy with a navy suit.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
With lightning bolts on it. It's very merciless, flash cordon
and a cape. Yeah. So they we also now learned
that they plan on attacking Earth and taking it for
themselves because Mars is a dying world and humans clearly
don't deserve their beautiful planet. Hahaha. Mustache turl mustache TRPs.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
Well, there's two different main characters of Mars is a disagreement.
There is the the main guy who they they're head
of government, their head of government wants to take Earth over.
And then there's the other one that is very much
a diplomat.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Is that Icron? Yeah, I think it might be Kron,
but okay, so it's Alita and her father. Her father's
like one of these ministers and he they actually seemingly
do actually have a democracy. They vote on policies and
there are disagreements, and it's not just Alita's father that disagrees,
but they're the people that don't want to invade Earth
(38:47):
and want to rely on diplomacy. Are clearly in the minority,
and the people that are like the rationalists, let's say,
are always in the minority. So it's basically that the
Martian are xenophobic, fascist kind of people. The people that
are in charge that just want to use force to
solve all their problems. They look down at humans as
(39:11):
being less than them, even though at least Earthlings can
build radios, rockets, rockets, god fah damn it. So anyway,
they're gonna use Martian choreum and it seems to power
their entire society, everything about it. And then we have
(39:32):
a couple other women. We have like Terris, who is
Copper Lady. Yeah, she's always in a copper.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
Dress, and she's the snitch.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
She's the snitch that's always spying on the humans. We
have Alita, who is the main female lead in this
that's technically the Martian. She's I mean, she is a Martian.
She has dark hair, she was a nineteen forties pin
up girl, and she's actually a very good actress.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
The only thing that I always see about her with
those shoes.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
So at this point, at this point we learned that well,
Alita basically tells them that look the government's going to
take the rocket and use it to invade Earth, and
they need to take the rocket because they don't know
how to build rockets themselves, because we're all idiots and okay,
(40:26):
so they decide, the humans decide to basically fake an
accident with the help of Alita that so it makes
it look like the rocket won't be ready on their
initial launch date, that it has to be an extra
month worth of repairs. Okay, so they fake it. There's
some double crossing that happens, some more spying, and basically
(40:50):
Alita and her father are dragged into.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Well, Alita is the one that tells them.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah, that's that's what I said. But what is interesting
here is, and this is different from a lot of
these movies, Alita's father is not like, you need to
take Alida with you to leave Mars and take her
back to Earth, which does happen, but he's like, I'll
come with because when I leave, I'm not the only
(41:19):
member of the government that believes what the head of
the government is doing is wrong. And when I make
it to Earth, I will be the de facto representative
of Mars. And if I make a deal with your government,
trading our quoreum technology, even though it's being it's gonna
run out in ten years for your atomic energy that
(41:44):
we can share technology. There's clearly things that the Martians
actually have that are kind of high tech, like this
automated hydroponic food and food preparation stuff. This this kind
of automation stuff. They're clearly advanced in that if we
trade this, it doesn't matter what ass back here is
wanting to do, because he can't build rockets. He's an idiot.
We're all idiots. We can't build rockets. We can't build
(42:06):
a radio. So when you come back with a whole
bunch more rockets filled with uranium and stuff for us
at that point, in order for him to save face,
he's going to have to welcome you guys with open
arms no matter what, because what is he going to
be able to do. We don't have any weapons to
destroy you, and if we suddenly attack. I mean they
(42:28):
do have weapons, they have like guns and things like that,
but the point is they don't have atomic weapons. They
don't have any rocket ships, they have no ray guns. Really, right,
all you're going to have is a fleet of human
chips there with nuclear weapons on board and what is
he going to do. He's gonna have to go welcome
ourth things. Are you here to save us? And that's
like actually the plan. I thought, wait a second, that's
(42:51):
actually that's.
Speaker 5 (42:52):
Smart, a smart plan to subfrigate somebody that is actually
ruling by fear, because you see it in the the
think that's what uh terrrius the copper girl. Yeah, she's
pandering to that fear, that fear monger.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah. And I actually thought at that point I did
pause the movie again, and I looked over to you, Darling,
and I said, this has gone from like your incredibly
generic nineteen fifty space travel movie to Mars or the
Moon or whatever, to something that has a little bit
of like difference. There's some some some uniqueness here.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
Yeah, but Alita is supposed to be a physicist.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
She's an engineer too.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
And that's why she was given as an assistant to
doctor Jim, doctor Jim uh Baker so Baker Baker Baker Barker.
I'm sorry, Marker, but like Alita and Jim fall in
love and this and Steve, which is is sitting there
(44:01):
Carol the whole time, with that whole relationship.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
They're there for like a month, and Steve is the
biggest jackass there possibly is. And then when like.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Playing solitaire as she cries for an hour and a half.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Well, okay, because Carol finds out that like Jim and
Alita have like kind of fallen in love and he
and Jim tells Carol in a really kind of like
I don't know it came across as he didn't give
a shit about being gentle about it. So like Carol's
(44:37):
crying and Steve yeah, plays solitaire mocking her while she
does are you gonna Love me? Baby?
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And sex?
Speaker 5 (44:45):
She was horribly acting at this point.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
You know what, I don't I don't blame her, and.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
And and this Steve was Cameron Mitchell was just being
a smug ass.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
You know, honestly, Cameron Mitchell is a good actor. The
thing is is that if you don't give him anything,
you just this is this is the character. This is
what Cameron Mitchell does.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
So uh or looks up at airplanes going above.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
The goddamn airplane. Shut the goddamn door. Anyway, That's lots
of different camera Mitchell movies. So Alita and her father
are taken in for questioning, but Jim stomps in as
they all vote to seize the rocket, like Theverment sees
the rock and Jim goes, uh, you know, you guys
aren't gonna seize my rock. And they say what are
you gonna do? And then like Jim just starts punching everybody,
(45:38):
and what do the martians do? They take it and
fall over like just what the hell's going on? Oh
my god, they don't know what the hell's happening. Jim
just waylays into him like and he's not like he's
a martial artist or anything. He's just haymakering everybody. And
it's terrible.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
On the costumes are very flash Gordon girls are wearing
this pointed stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And what well they run back to the rocket right,
very short skirts, very short skirts. They run back to
the rocket. They all jump in, seal the door, they
launch the end. That's it.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
Yep, that's a very very the end.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
The end. So okay, look, there are things that this
movie did right. There are things that this movie did right.
Darren Lane, start with what worked in this movie, Because
there are things that worked in this movie. This is
not a bad film. It's not a good film. It's
not a bad.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Film they had where you had a society that was
about to fail, and you had two different.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Political yeah, political groups. Basically they had very different visions
of how to handle this. One was all about basically
just being assholes and taking rather than diplomacy and like growing.
And you know, okay, wait, your society's dying, your planet's dying,
(47:11):
you don't have a large population. What are you going
to do with that one rocket? What are you gonna do? Well,
they said, well, we can maybe build more rockets based
on that. Sure, but it's all gonna be powered by quorum,
and you don't have enough quorum to build rockets without
deeppowering the life support systems that are keeping what little
(47:35):
of your society is left. So basically, like you have
the fascist assholes are really thinking in a very very
short sighted way, in a way that will not work
in the end. It will basically just render very few
Martians being left alive. Okay, then you have the group
that actually wants diplomacy and negotiating with the humans that
(47:57):
even argue, maybe if we negotiate with the humans with
our technology to give them, they'll give us some area
on Earth that they aren't using. Again, that's not a
bad idea. That's really not a bad idea. And being that, hey,
look you can be out in the middle of the
desert because you're used to it at this point, and
(48:17):
it would be much more habitable than the than the
surface of Mars. Right, you could breathe the.
Speaker 5 (48:23):
Air Sierra, the Sahara, the Sahara desert, geez.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
The middle of nowhere, Nevada, like you want to settle there,
go ahead, man, like there now we have all this
quoreum technology or whatever, this automation stuff that made sense,
that little touchdown to Antarctic. But look this little this
little nugget, I agree with you, this little nugget of
(48:53):
plot where suddenly you have like these two factions of
Martians and one is actually being fairly reason.
Speaker 5 (49:01):
But this is very short duration of the movie. There
is more of the stupid.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Love No triangle, it's not.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
Really a triangle. It's with four.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Okay, what else works? What else works? Let's what works?
Speaker 5 (49:21):
Okay, what else works?
Speaker 3 (49:23):
I will make I'll make a controversial choice here, at
least the controversial choice to you. I like the women's costumes,
even though they are short skirts, they are clearly sexist
at least they have an interesting design.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
I like the design, but I don't like how short
it was.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
I agree, I will agree with you. I'm just saying
the designs.
Speaker 5 (49:47):
I could not Alita. I would not know her except
for those shoes.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Her shoes, well, okay, Alita's played like I said, Marguerite Chapman,
she was a pin up girl in the nineteen forties.
She has very long legs, and she was wearing these
high heels with these open front shoes.
Speaker 5 (50:06):
It was like boots because they can't the back part
came up past.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
And they had a transparent strap to keep them on.
Otherwise they looked like they would just fall off of her.
But it looked very good. And then I would say,
since we saw one that actually was pretty high definition
version of this movie, the women's costumes looked far more
revealing than they actually were because we could see with
(50:33):
our eyes with the high definition that they.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Were wearing like a strap that was flesh toned underneath.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
They had like an undershirt that was flesh tone underneath,
so it looked like the front of their costumes always
had these very low cut v's going down to their
like belly button. But it wasn't.
Speaker 5 (50:50):
But those v's don't work unless you have something like that.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
I understand they fall off. I understand that.
Speaker 5 (50:58):
But having a bloomer on.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
They had, they had those off.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
Yes, they had bloomers on, because that's one of the
things I had. Most of the female clothing was tacky fabric,
like fake satin, fake yes, fake satin, and it wasn't
(51:23):
son well right, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
I didn't notice that. I just noticed. I really liked
the patterning of it and how it basically.
Speaker 5 (51:34):
The diamond point shoulders.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
The diamond point shoulders are the weird shoes or how
effectively all the women's costumes made it look like they
were barely wearing anything. But they really were like full
length stockings that were just flush colored, but you could
tell that they were actually stockings. The low cut V
(51:59):
but it was actually there's a undershirt that allows no
cleavage to be shown.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
It was yeah, but it looked good. All I'm saying
is I think that the women's costumes, while they were skimpy,
were thought out. Well does that make sense?
Speaker 5 (52:14):
But very flash Gordon like, oh yes, for sure, and
so was And then they took the men's uniform they
put the the the electrical symbol on and then they
had these romanesque shoulder cape. There wasn't capes because it
(52:37):
didn't go all the way on the back.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
It was like half capes. There were half capes.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
There was like two like like Roman sheets.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah. So I'll say the other thing about this that worked.
While I can't say that the rocket ship set worked
because it's a reused set, it still was good. It's
the map were very good. I will also say the
pacing of the movie was good. It worked because you
(53:07):
weren't bored.
Speaker 5 (53:08):
I was bored in the beginning. It just seemed like
it was just up.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Until they launched. Yeah, up until they launched. Once they launched,
it was pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. But overall,
I'd say I would say that it fits into the
it worked category. Now, what didn't work was all the cliches.
And it might be just.
Speaker 5 (53:31):
The glove square, the glove.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Square of sorts. No, it's the whole thing that goes
between like doctor Jim, Alita, Steve and Carrol. Yes, just
tacked on. It's totally it's.
Speaker 5 (53:44):
Not tacked on. It's just tacky.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
The science clearly does not work in the movie. It
clearly does not work beyond that, like it's it's honestly,
the plot is fine.
Speaker 5 (53:58):
It would have kind of worked if they were the
science would have worked if it was more like tongue
in cheek like Flash Gordon does. They were trying to
trying to actually get trying to make things sound.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
You know what, I have one other thing I can
put into it does not work, Just one other thing.
The acting overall, the acting overall that did not work.
It was not good acting any of it.
Speaker 5 (54:24):
An there was charming bits, but there was what eighty
percent of it some of it didn't work.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
Eighty percent of it was me feeling either uncomfortable with
the way Steve was acting towards Carol, how unprofessional he
was in an enclosed environment, Like, Hey, we're having there's
no there's like two rooms here on this spacecraft. We're
on it for nine days. You're acting like a sexist
asshole the entire time. Then when we land on Mars
(54:55):
in a survival situation, you're acting like a sexist asshole
to Carol all the time, and yet you hook up
with her. Yeah, anyway, would you recommend it?
Speaker 5 (55:10):
No?
Speaker 3 (55:11):
I don't recommend it either.
Speaker 5 (55:13):
I don't because there's other ones that are better. That
seems with the whole same plot.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
It's it's not a complete waste of time though it's not.
Speaker 5 (55:23):
It wasn't a complete waste of time.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
It was not out of ten though. I think I
would give it a solid four, a solid if we
go Yeah, it's I'm not recommending it, but it's on
the low end of average. There are better films. I
think there's a couple of things in here that kind
of stand out, like the weird Martian politics and that's
(55:47):
about it, Like the pacing, it's it's it's bored.
Speaker 5 (55:51):
Oh that was the other thing about the male costumes.
If they weren't the counselors, they were in this stuff
that almost looked like it belonged in a No.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
No, it was like leather fetish thing because they had
those weird like leather jacket type things.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
Well, the all the guys that were from Earth got
put in leather jackets that have a rocket on it.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Yeah, because that's supposed to represent them.
Speaker 5 (56:20):
Be and wearing jack boots.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
Yeah, they were all wearing jack boots. Yeah, all right,
so maybe we'll leave it there. We'll leave it there,
so we don't waste any more of your time out there.
I'm glad that everyone's listening still. I'm Aaron, I'm Darlene.
Speaker 5 (56:35):
Good evening, keep.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Watching the skies. At no point in your rambling, incoherent
response were you even close to anything that could be
considered a rational thought.
Speaker 4 (56:47):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website. If this Week
in Geek dot Net you can subscribe to the podcast,
browse our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on
today's topics. If you'd like to give us some feedback,
send us an email at Feedback at this weekendgeek dot Net.
Tune in next time, and remember, lower your shields and
(57:07):
surrender your listenership.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
We would be honored if you would join us. Thank
you for your cooperation. Good night,
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