Out of Time: Sandman, Night Sky, and Prey - Members Only Preview

Show Notes

https://youtu.be/asndvSyKN14

On today’s episode of Out of Time we’re discussing the TV shows Sandman and Night Sky, as well as the new movie, Prey.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Ferrell

Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts

Host

Sean Ferrell 🐨

Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

What is Trek In Time?

Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.

Hey, everybody, we're doing something special for this week's Trek in time, releasing an episode of our members only podcast out of time. So you can get a taste for what it's like. And this is where Sean and I talk about what we've been watching, reading, or playing. So it could be a movie TV show or video game.

And this week we're talking about Sandman on Netflix night sky and the new predator movie prey. If you like what you hear head over to Trek and time.show and. The join now button to become an Ensen and get access to the members only feed. And we're trying to release one or two of these episodes a month.

So we hope you enjoy,

Hey, everybody. Welcome to out of time, you being able to hear the sound of my voice are a cadet, because the only way to hear this sound of my voice is by being a supporter of trek in time. Thank you for being a supporter there. Thank you for taking your time to listen to us here. And as you know, this is where Matt and I talk about whatever the hell we want.

You cannot stop us. Don't even try

So. On today's episode. I think we've got two things to talk about. And one of them is something I have watched that Matthew has not. And one of them is something that Matthew has watched that I have not, I think, yeah. You don't have question. I know what Matt has watched. Yeah, I know you haven't. So, okay.

So apparently Matt is gonna talk about a home movie. He made, which he hasn hasn't shared with me. . But Matt, if it's okay with you, I'll start off. Yeah, go ahead. All right. So I, on this day, August 6th, 2002, would like to talk about a show that just premiered on Netflix yesterday on August 5th. It is the show Sandman.

Which the Sandman is based on the 1980s into the nineties comic book written by Neil Gaon. And game is one of the developers of the show along with David S gore, Alan Hedberg. It's on Netflix. It's produced by DC with Warner brothers. Interesting. They didn't put on HBO max, but maybe that's good in the long run because right now, HBO, max seems to be on the verge, burning down.

It's a mess discovery plus, but let's cut back to the show which just released. I have never been as impressed by an adaptation of a comic book as I am by this really, it is remarkable. They have managed to capture what people for years, including Neil Gaon have been saying was an unfilmable comic. it is a story that is rooted in a mythology that is so meta, that it verges on being an idea more than a thing that is seen or tangible mm-hmm and they managed to make it tangible.

I think that much like the recent movie dune and other films that we're seeing. The ability of special effects teams to be able to say, oh, you can describe anything. We can make it happen. Mm-hmm has finally reached that point where you have the ability to say, oh, we're gonna be able to do that. So you have the main character who's morphous, the Lord of dreams.

And he's played by Stu Tom stich, who is an actor that apparently was raised in the eugenics program to create the exact look of the comic book character from the 1980s. It is a remarkable resemblance. I cannot get past it. Even the shape of his nose is as if he was pulled from the pages and they managed to do some shots that are literal.

Takes from the comic book as if the comic book was the storyboard. So there are some moments where, as I'm sitting there, I am flashing back to being 19 years old and reading this comic in my dorm room in college and thinking, oh my God, this is amazing. It is philosophy. It is meta storytelling. It is. In some ways it brushes up against historical fiction.

In some ways it brushes into science fiction. That is a kind of historical science fiction. So it's got a kind of love crafting element to it. It's got a kind of magic, but it's not straight up sorcery. It is magic in the form of demonology and. it plays with all of these tropes and visuals in remarkable ways.

It is pretty to look at it is well acted. It is well directed. It is touching and challenging. It is challenging in a great way. Mm-hmm cause they're dealing with a story that is very complex while also being boiled down simply to, from the world of dreams where this main character is, Lord, the dreams and nightmares have escaped into the real world.

Okay. And he has to go back and collect. and it is a DC comic book that is, in some ways you could argue it is a meta comic book to a lot of DC and there was a point. In the comic book, it alluded to a character of the Sandman who was originally a comic book character in the 1950s as being a person who enacted during Morpheus missing years enacted what Morpheus was.

So this is a character who kind of sits above the realm of DC heroes. There's reference to characters like constant. Who are known characters that have been on TV and movies before. This is a opportunity I think for DC to really kind of create a, something that Marvel has done with the Eternals and some of the movies, which have hinted at the larger universe beyond what the heroes see.

This is something that the DC universe needed, I think, and it. Beautifully rendered is beautifully done. And I can't wait to continue the series. It is an hour long first episode, and then a 35 minute, second episode. So if you watch those two back to back, you get a nice movie and I recommend watching them like that.

Don't save the second episode for the. For a later viewing. I really do recommend taking the time to watch them back to back because while the first episode is complete, it is the second episode that makes you jump off into what will this series be about as opposed to the first episode really being about introductions.

The second episode is now, here we go. So it's worth watching all the way through. Do, is this gonna be a limited series, like it's one season done see you later? Or do you think, or is this gonna be more than one season? I've reached the point where I'm no longer guessing about stuff like that. Mm-hmm for me, could this continue in perpetuity?

I really don't know. I think there is a lot of value to the storytelling when. Go in with a finite story to tell. Yeah. And this is a character, I think that would benefit from having a finite story where they tell a story and then they leave. Yeah. And if they come back for a second season, maybe years from now, I think kind of following a more British mode of.

How British TV typically does it, which is we've got a story to tell we're done telling the story and now we leave and then we come back and we do another story. I, I think that there's a kind of exhaustion that can set in when a series tries to hard to stick around. I don't feel like this to me, this doesn't feel right out of the gate, the way that like the foundation series on apple.

Felt because the foundation series is based on a series of books. There are so many words written to tell the full foundation story that yeah, you can tell that first season and be like, I hope that they're gonna come back and continue this because clearly they left a lot of threads in the air. I don't know if this is gonna do the same thing.

It has right out of the gate, it feels like a, might be a little bit more monster of the weakish in that he's got to collect these nightmares. He's gotta collect these dreams in order to rebuild his empire. So that feels a little more finite to me, but. If it works and it is a monster of the week, then that could continue in perpetuity.

Mm-hmm you could keep UN unfolding things. It has a certain aspect to it that is scratching the supernatural itch that is missing since that series ended. And yes, I did watch all of supernatural. I did not watch it in real time. I didn't watch it over 15 year period. I, I basically watched it via streaming until I was caught up with real time.

And supernatural was not a great show by the end, but that kind of storytelling of the things that go bump in the night, the shows that are doing that for me right now are now the Sandman very clearly. And the show evil, which is on paramount. Yes. And if you weren't watching evil, you need to be watching that because it is acceptable.

It is like watching a show, a LA lost. Or supernatural, but files set in, in, in XFiles and it's set in a, in a small world of a family, a family friend, the, the relationships between these people constantly being pulled as. People are exposed to literal evil that is lurking and manipulating things behind the scene.

And it is masterfully done. Yeah. This show to me, felt like it's scratching the same itch, but in a very different way. Nice. In a totally mystical mythical meta way. And the acting, the writing, everything is just, it is right out of the. So well done partway through the first episode, almost toward the end of the first episode, my son turned to me and he said, wait a minute, are you sure this is a series?

Or is this a movie ? And after we were done watching it, I said to him, that's, what's fantastic about this. It really did feel like a movie. It's that caliber of special effects. It's that caliber to the scope of the story that they're telling where in the first episode you really do feel like, wow, this is pretty epic.

How can this be a TV show? Yeah. So really, really recommend it strong recommend I'm gonna cheat. I said I was gonna bring up one thing. I'm gonna bring up two things really quick, cuz it, what you talked about made me think of this. I just finished watching my wife and I just finished watching this yesterday.

It's star as J Simmons and sissy Spacek it's called night sky it's on Amazon prime. Mm-hmm . And to say I loved it would be an understatement. I thought it was a brilliant show and it's amazing to watch two master actors just at the top of their game. It's basically an old retired couple and you don't see that kind of couple represented.

On television or movies very often at all. And it was really cool to see them being the protagonists of this show. And it's, it's a science fiction show that revolves around them. And it is. A slow burn. So if you, if you don't enjoy slow burn movies or TV shows, you're probably not gonna like it. But if you enjoy the mystery box slowly getting opened like one little flap at a time episode, the episode, and it keeps, keeps you going.

It's really about character development. It's the primary thing. It's all about the characters and the plot is secondary. And so it's like the plot is slow over the entire season, but the character developments. Have you on the edge of your seat of like how people are relating to each other and how they're evolving and why they're doing what they're doing.

It is a really good show. I loved it. And where it ended, left me going, oh dear God, please make a season two of this. And I don't know how you're gonna do it because these two actors are probably very expensive and are probably very busy. And so I can't imagine. Them doing a season two. I really hope they do.

Uh, but the other thing I brought up wanted to bring up is special effects. You can do anything. This show has some of the best de aging I've ever seen in a movie or television show. There are moments where you can tell it's de aged, but they have flashback sequences in the show of sissy space spec and JK Simmons like 20 years earlier.

And there are moments where you. You don't even think it's special effects. It just looks like them 20 years ago. And it's, it is bananas. It is so incredible. You're. So, in, in the moment, like there was a point in the season finale. I turned to my wife and said, I can't believe that sequence right there. I couldn't tell that was special effects at all.

Cause it looked like JK Simmons, like losing his mind and grabbing an ax and running at something. And it was this. Wait, wait, wait. That looked like young veil, you know, like JMS and it was like, right. And then the next shot, you see him looking like a decrepit old man. And so it's like incredible that they can do this kind of stuff now.

And I love seeing actors like them having a vibrant career, even when they're in their seventies, still going strong. The, the thing I did wanna bring up was just yesterday, just like Sandman came out yesterday. A new predator movie came out yesterday on Hulu called. And I was looking forward to this. I'm a predator fan first predator movie Schwarzenegger.

It was one of the first rated R movies I ever saw in the theater. And it left a huge impression on me. I ain't got time to bleed all that kind of stuff. I love that movie in my opinion, that movie's kind of perfection for a action film. This Mo the predator series went down the tubes over every, every sequel got worse.

It became weird Freddie Kruger type. Yeah. And then the predator versus aliens nonsense it like it went so off the rails and just became just dumb. Mm-hmm this movie. Sean. Yeah, you gotta watch. It is basically hitting the reset button on, on the predator stuff. And it BA it really made it feel fresh and inventive and fun, and the whole concept.

And I love this and here's what I wanna bring about. I'm a huge fan of Dan Trachtenberg who directed this film. I, I first learned about dragon Trachtenberg when he was doing a podcast. 1520 years ago, there was a video podcast called totally RA show and I became a huge fan. It was just three friends, geeking out.

Don't what we're doing right now. Reviewing TV shows, movies, and video games. And I became a huge fan of him and he was trying to become a filmmaker and he had been doing, he had been directing commercials. And then the show ended because Dan Trachtenberg got his first major film directing job. And they had to basically cancel the.

Because he can no longer review movies when he's actually actively trying to make movies. So the show ended and one of his first future films that came out was 10 Cloverfield Blaine, which right. If you haven't seen it, I think terrific. Ma it's a tremendous film. Yeah. And to me it shows why, like, to me, he's like the new generation of like Spielberg.

That kind of vein. He has a very distinct visual style. He's very big on character development. He, he knows how to like set up shots that aren't just, Ooh, this shot is cool looking. It's like every shot has a purpose and that's the kind of filmmaker I like. It's very David Fincher and Spielberg and, and he knows how to set up a faint that doesn't make you feel trick.

Correct. That's one of the things about Cloverfield 10 Cloverfield is how. He manages to redirect what is happening and what you think is happening and any good storyteller gets the audience yes. To say, oh, I know where this is headed. And then when they manage to change direction, that audience doesn't feel cheated.

That's a good storyteller. And he, and he's does that in great ways with 10 Cloverfield. So, yeah, I I'm right on board with what you said about. There's there's other aspects to his filmmaking where it's like, he's not afraid to let us shot linger. like, he's definitely not in the camp of the Michael bays where I can't stand Michael bay directors like that just like are doing cuts, like every half, a second rapid cuts to make it feel like there's kinetic action when there's actually nothing happening.

I can't stand that kind of filmmaking where Dan track Berg is the opposite where it's like, If I let this shot linger for a little longer than you think it should be lingering, it's gonna create a sense of tension. That's gonna make you unnerved and it's gonna help amplify things. It's very hitch cocky, and then Spielberg kind of thing.

So he did some black mirror episodes, which I recommend watching that are really good. I didn't know he was, had directed this. And when I was, I was already interested to watch it. And then when I started watching it and it's, and his name came up, I flipped out. I was like, oh my God, I know he directed this.

And you could tell immediately it was a guy who knows how to do filmmaking. It's a, the basic premise is go back in time. And it's a predator shows up on earth to basically start hunting. And it's not, he's not here for humans. He's just here to hunt. And it's hundreds of years ago, it's setting the early 17 hundreds.

With some native Americans and it's a young native American girl that ends up going toe to toe with this predator and that on its face is like, that is a brilliant concept because it's like, how the hell can this girl who basically has an ax and a bone arrow gonna be able to stand up to this alien from another planet coming to the hunt, them for fun for sport.

My only complaint is there are some moments in the movie that have some on the nose, like. Arnold Schwartz, nagger, you know, like comments, like yeah. Uh, they actually say if it can bleed, we can kill it. Yeah. And when they said that I rolled my eyes and was like, why, why would you do that? That was so stupid and on the nose.

So there was a few moments like that in the film, but I really overall. Thought it was a blast. It was just so much fun. And I was really glad to see that there's still life left in that franchise. You just have to think outside the box and come in it from a new direction and also have really good actors.

The, the woman that plays the, uh, native American teenage girl is exceptional. She's great. I, I just, I recommend the movie. It's it's really, really good. And if you have Hulu, it's just a free watch. It's an hour and a half, not a long sit, just a good. Yeah, it seems like a really good option. I saw a trailer for it.

Uh, the other day I turned on my Roku and it was a trailer ad was right there. And I knew the movie was being made. I knew it was gonna be the first movie that was gonna be made with, are they speaking Comanche through? They did not. I wish I wish that was the one thing I was like, I wish they had had been speaking Comanche through the entire thing.

They speak Comanche at the very beginning, and then it flips into English and then they're speaking English for the rest of the movie. I thought it'd better something sub titles them. I thought it'd be really cool subtitles. I, I, I read something about the making of the film and I, I wonder if they did do a Comanche shoot through.

because there was something saying it would be the first time that Comanche was being portrayed by the leads in a film. And I thought it was gonna be the entire thing. It was gonna be in Comanche. But even with that, I watched the trailer. Yeah. And like you, I knew that they were making this movie. I was interested in this movie and I was waiting to see the trailer for the movie because my entire thing.

The predator franchise has gotten so bad. Yeah. That when I started watching the trailer, I thought, okay, this will show pretty quickly. Like, what are the special effects? Like what is the tone of this? And the trailer does a great job of saying like, look, we're being, we're serious about this, as opposed to, this is a cash grab.

This is not a aliens versus predators. This is not Freddy versus Jason. It looks like a movie that is telling a unique story, a specific story, and a story that happens to have the predator elements, but is not trying to bite off of predator four or five or whatever number they're on. There are some moments in the movie that also have a little bit of the checkoffs gun.

If you don't know what that is, it's like, yeah. When you show something in a film it's supposed to have a purpose. Yeah. So like, if you show a gun on a table, as a viewer, you can pretty much assume at some point somebody's gonna pick up the gun off the table. It's like, you don't show the gun at the table and then it's never shown again.

It's like, there are some moments in the film where some things happen that you might go, oh, I bet we're gonna come back to that. It doesn't detract from the film, in my opinion. Yeah. It's like, those are minor nitpicks, but in general, I just had a good time watching. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. It's like in a movie when you see two characters suddenly have a very awkward conversation about why Graham's knitting needles are always in the wrong room.

Why are Graham's knitting needles? Always here in the kitchen and you're like, okay, somebody's gonna get stabbed. Graham's knitting needles. Yeah. That's coming up. Yeah. So yeah, the, the checkups gun issue, uh, sometimes can be distracting, but I still think that it sounds like a movie I'll definitely wanna check.

Yep. So I think that's it for today's episode of, out of time. As I mentioned before, you're hearing the sounds of our voices because you are a supporter and we do appreciate that you really make not only this, but you make track in time, a reality, you help keep that going by supporting us directly. So we appreciate you doing that.

We appreciate you checking us out and we appreciate you spending your time with us and we will talk to you next. When we have an out of time.