Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this
is the leadership lessons from the great books podcast, episode
number 124.
With our book today well, actually, we're not gonna have a
book today. It's gonna be one of those sort of jog off into the,
into the hinterlands or maybe just we're gonna take a left turn. And it
kinda goes along with our general theme this month
of science fiction authors and the leadership
lessons you can learn from science fiction authors.
Today, instead of talking about the book we were going to talk about,
well, which was by Philip k Dick, a collection of short
stories by him. I have the book that I have here. I'm gonna show it
here on the video, and you can check that out if you wanna see that
on the YouTube. It's a counterfeit, unrealities.
It's a collection of about 4 Philip k Dick
short stories, including, I don't know, actually, the
4 that are in here are the 3 stigmata of Palmer Ed Eldrick,
do Andrew's dream of electric sheep.
Let's see. Ubiq and a scanner darkly. Those
are the 4 that are in this collection. These stories were
incredibly difficult for me to find because weirdly enough, you
can't find Philip k Dick stories in the
library as easily as you can find Heinlein or Asimov
or Ray Bradbury. And we already covered Fahrenheit 451,
in a previous episode. And, of course, we've already covered Dune by Frank Herbert.
And so today, we were going to cover Philip k Dick's short stories,
and I'll tell the story of how I eventually ran across his short stories here
in just a moment, but it was a little bit too late for the, for
the show. So instead, we're going to talk
with our special guest today, our regular guest house,
Tom Libby. I shouldn't say special because now he's regular. So he's not special. He's
just Tom. He's Tom. We're gonna talk with Tom today about what
are the leadership lessons we can learn from our top five. We're
gonna sort of pull a, we're gonna pull a a
movie kind of idea here. What are our top 5 science
fiction films? So I'd like to
welcome Tom Libby back to the show. How are you doing, Tom?
As, as as I've recently started saying to people, I'm living
my best life. I I used to
when people said how I was doing, I I used to say, I'm living the
dream, and then wait for them to say something positive and then remind and then
say, let me just remind you that nightmares are dreams too. But that I've been
using it for so long that it just got old. So now I gotta figure
out something else to say when somebody says, how you doing? So that's my that's
my new that's my new one. Living with the best. Living their living people stopped
living their best life about 10 years ago. They stopped saying that. So you're I
mean, you're about on you're about on you're about on trend. Yeah. You're good. Right
right there on track with my my my life
expectancy.
It's okay. It's, it's fine. Well, we are,
like I said, we're gonna cover the short stories of the writer
Philip k. Deck who was very not a
and of all the science fiction writers of the mid 20th century,
Philip k Dick, along with Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ray
Bradbury sort of sit on the Mount Rushmore of
science fiction mid with mid 20th century science fiction,
writers. Bella Kjek's stories have been turned into
films. A Scanner Darkly was a film back in the 19
nineties with, I believe, Keanu Reeves was in A Scanner Darkly.
Let's see what else. Do Andrew's dream of electric
sheep was turned into the movie or was adapted into the film blade
runner, which we're gonna talk a little bit about, today.
The man in the high castle was turned into an Amazon
show. If you have never watched that, that one is
really, really intense and really, really interesting. My wife didn't even make it through, like,
the first season of that show. It's about
well, the story is about, an alternative
historical future where the Nazis win World War
2. It's just about as horrible as you think it would possibly
be. Philip k Deck was born in 1928. He died
in 1982, and he was wildly,
imaginative. He graduated no. He
didn't graduate. He went to and I I love this because I I kinda got
this at the beginning of the, the beginning of the book,
or the collection that I picked up. He,
he, he
went to the University of Sacramento, I think it was,
or University of California. Ah, here it is. Yes. He was born in Chicago in
1928 and lived most of his life in, in California.
He briefly attended the University of California, but he dropped out before
completing any classes. In 1952,
he began writing professionally and proceeded to write 36 novels and 5
short story collections. He won the Hugo award for the best novel in
1962 for the man in the high castle and the John w Campbell
Memorial award for best novel of the year in 1974 for
and I love the titles by the way of his books. Blow my tears, the
policeman said. Bill k Dick died of heart
failure following a stroke on March 2, 1982 in
Santa Ana, California. Just like Ray Bradbury,
who didn't go to college either, he just went to the
library. Philip k Dick just started writing, and
he never stopped. So this book
that I got this collection of his short stories, counterfeit unrealities,
which has do androids dream of electric sheep.
I picked up actually not
yesterday, but a couple days ago at a antique
book sale, where I was, I was on an anniversary trip with
my wife. We were celebrating our wedding anniversary. I'm walking around, and
all of a sudden, I see Philip k Dick, and I go, what's in
there? And so I pull it. I open up
the, I open up the book, and Duane George's dream of electric sheep is in
there. And I said to my wife, I've been looking for this book at the
library, and I can't find it in my local library.
And I didn't wanna order it off of Amazon. And guess what? For this
hardcover edition of counterfeit unrealities with
the 3 shorts or 4 short stories in it, by Philip k Dick, all of
which, by the way, come in novella form. Okay? So they're they're fairly long.
They're fairly substantial, but they are still not exactly novel length.
But they're a little bit longer than a short story. I
paid 35¢.
That's better that's better than my story. I I got a first edition
hard copy of bury my heart at would it be for a dollar?
You know, I think Philip would love that, actually. I think he was he was
a very cranky guy. He would actually probably have not like,
he'd be like, yeah. That's about right. That's that seems about right. That seems
accurate for all my efforts.
Yeah. And so I started reading, I have
started reading, do Android's dream of electric sheep. Cause I went right to that one.
Okay. But I'm only, like, 2 chapters in. So, yeah,
we're not gonna cover that today. Instead, like I said, we're gonna talk about
the top 5 sci fi films and what we can learn from them. I have
my top five list. I challenged Tom a few hours ago before we press
press record on this podcast to come up with his top five list.
And he is, he said he struggled.
So do you want me to start or do you wanna start? Let well, let
me just explain why I struggled because here's the thing. When you're thinking of movie
genres, right? You think of I mean, you have comedy.
Mhmm. You're expecting it to be funny. You have drama. You're expecting it
to be either serious or sad or whatever. You have very few,
like, variations of what drama is. If you look at if you
fi is one of the very, very, very few that
can be you you can call it sci fi, but still be
funny or dramatic or horror even.
Like, it it sci fi runs the gamut of what these films
are designed to be. So when you're thinking of, like, the top
5, like like I had said to Hae san before we came on, I was
like, it depends on the moon I'm in that day. Like, Well, okay.
You see this with a lot of science fiction films. Like, let's talk about science
because we one of the things we've been talking about this month is the genre
in the shorts episodes, the genre of science fiction. Right? And it is
one of those genres that for a long time because
of Jules Verne when Jules Verne is the original NHG Wells.
Those 2 guys, they they set up sort of what sci fi was going to
be. You can make an argument that Edgar Allan Poe
maybe, you know, took some some shots at that. But he
wasn't able to you don't get a full understanding of
science fiction without industrialization. And Jules Verne and
HG Wells were writers, who were right on the edge of industrialization.
Not on the edge, but they were right in the middle of industrialization. Like, the
the the world was turning over from agriculture to industrialization.
And so you get the idea that you can go to the moon from, I
think it was from Jules Verne. Or no. That was HG Wells. And then, like,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that's Jules Verne. You know, you get you get these
kind of ideas where, like, now these g wiz technologies are showing
up. We can do all this fantastical stuff. Right? Okay.
But for so long, an entire genre was mired in just being
kids stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Like, for the early part of 20th
century, nobody took science fiction seriously, arguably
until Ray Bradbury. Like, Ray Bradbury elevated science fiction,
and Isaac Asimov actually elevated science fiction to this level of,
like, high literature where, like, moms could read it in Reader's Digest
and not feel like they were, you know, reading comic
books. And that's the other thing. Like, sci fi and comic books also, like, which
I wanna talk about this for a little bit, but they all sort of crossed
over. Right? Yeah. Because That's what I'm saying. Like, you think of think of Mary
Shelley. Right? Like so we think of Frankenstein as a horror movie
Right. Or a horror genre, but it's essentially
sci fi. Think about, like It is. How the whole monster comes together. It's
like it's to your point, the industrialization of the of the of
the, inner spirit, so to speak, that the horror was trying to invoke in the
in the the monster and and but I don't know. Well, I
I Again, it it's one of the few genres that cover a lot. It runs
a very wide berth of what the what your expectation of the
movie. The emotion that the movie invokes is very wide
wide spectrum versus every other genre. You know what you're getting
into. It's a comedy. It's supposed to be make you funny. If it's a, you
know, a documentary, it's supposed to be educational. Like, there's just like you have expectation
very clear expectations of most other genres. Sci fi,
you don't. Like Right. You have no idea what you're getting into. No idea what
you're getting into. And and and the reference I made earlier, it was, like,
you got something like Spaceballs and Starship
Troopers and Galaxy Quest, and then you got
Terminator and Aliens and Prometheus. Like, it's a doll
struggled I did struggle to not put Starship Troopers on my list for top 5.
I do love that movie because it's it's bay one will based off of a
Heinlein book. Yeah. It is so
bitterly cynical. Like, the movie toned down so many things. Like, the part of
her home and directed film turn tone down so many things in that story, but
it's so bitterly cynical about just, like,
everything. Like, high but Highland was known for that. He was known for just sort
of having a problem, let's
say. Let me be kind. Already. Yeah. With well, yes, with
everyone. Yeah.
Like he even had a problem with, I mean, it's not a problem. He
had challenges with how other science fiction writers were
writing science fiction. You know, like how Edgar Allen Poe would write letter would
remember when we were reading, fall of the house of Usher, and I was reading
some of the background on Poe, and he would, like, write he would rip on,
like, Melville or whoever. You know, like, this guy sucks.
I only was that kind of guy. Yeah.
Oh, okay. So top 5 films.
Alright. So my personal top 5, and I, again, I struggled with
this because I do like just like you, I like so many we like we
both like films. We both like so many films. So many things can go into
to your point, can go into that science fiction box.
But if you're gonna for me, if I'm gonna suss out 5
films, my number 5 film is gonna be the day the earth stood
still from 1951. I like that one.
And the reason I picked that number 5 and not something
else is because not not like Godzilla or something.
It's because well, because it goes along with all of
that whole, like, 19 post 19 fifties paranoia or post World War 2
paranoia, not only about,
the communists and the red scare and all that stuff is obvious in the
film, but it also has the underpinnings of
all the paranoia about nuclear weapons. Like, we don't we didn't really know what we
had unleashed in the west, and we sort of just went.
Okay. We'll we'll sort of see how this works. Kinda like Figure it out. Feel
like yeah. Kinda like we're doing with AI right now. We'll just what the hell?
Just let it out of the box. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. We'll see
where it goes. Yeah. Let's see how it goes. We'll be we're gonna beta test
this. That's that's the worst thing that can happen. We let, you know, our 5
year olds today's 5 year olds will figure it out 20 years from now. Whatever.
Yeah. It'll be fine. They'll be blaming us, but, we'll be dead, so it won't
matter. Exactly.
And the other thing, the day that you're interested still really does, I think, well
as a film, is that it crosses over
genre wise from radio, which war of the world, by the
way. H I mean, please, crosses over from
radio to, like, movies, and it and
it's one of those films that it and this is interesting
back in the 19 fifties and the 19 19 forties, 19 fifties, you had the
height of of gold the golden age of radio. Basically, radio shows that were
just, like, movie productions. Like, people forget
that. Like, how much effort went into radio shows. Like, we think that,
like, true crime podcasts, like, a lot of effort goes into that.
Uh-uh. No. No. No. No. No. Like, they had sound guys.
They had audiences. They had special effects. They had the whole thing. They
were they were audio film. Entire orchestras?
Right. Like, I I love old time radio shows. And The Day of the Earth
Stood Still is one of those movies
that sort of chunks over into,
into that other spot. So that was my number 5.
That's a good choice. I actually like that choice. I I think that that's a
that's actually a really good one. I I have a I have a hard time.
If you see, I I so go back to my original problem with this
whole thing is because if you're thinking of I think sci
fi in the fifties sixties was just night and day
different. Right? Like, it was just the the way that the way that the
film, directors and and the those the
I mean, for crying out loud, Godzilla was a man in a suit stomping on
models. Like and then you watch Godzilla
versus Khan today or something like that. And you're talking about middle earth. They're
creating entire universes underneath in between the mantle of the earth and the
crust. Like, it's like I watched that the other day with my wife. I was
laying in bed in in a hotel, and I was watching it. And my wife
walks in and she goes or walks back. She goes, what the hell are you
watching? What is this nonsense? Why are you watching
Godzilla? This is ridiculous. And then she sat down and watched it for 45
minutes with me. You know, like, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Because because it's not ridiculous.
Godzilla is fantastic. And and Godzilla versus King Kong.
And the fact that Godzilla wins that battle, I mean, I don't are we gonna
talk about the movies at all? Because Oh, yeah. We can talk about the movies.
Yeah. Go on. There is no way Godzilla wins that. I know Godzilla is supposed
to be a little bit bigger and, you know, physic. The
mental capacity of the gorilla is supposed to be more powerful
than the physical capacity of the lizard. Look. Look. Look. Look. Look. Look. Look. Look.
Look. Look. Look. Wins that fight. The lizard's mouth
opens and blue light comes out.
The blue light is the equalizer. I don't know what's in that blue light. I
had no idea by the time I showed up in the movie. Like, that had
already started. King Kong was, like, flopping
around in right the middle of the Earth. I'm like, what the hell? He's
in the center of the Earth, and there's mountains coming. What is happening here?
It was very psychedelic. It was very trippy.
No. But I think I think I don't know. It's it's
reptiles okay. Look. We live in a post Jurassic Park
world now. Yes. The monkeys eat the primates.
Or not the monkeys. Sorry. The the good the the lizards eat the
primates. That's what they do. Well, in Jurassic
Park, the lizards are a 100 times the size of the primates, so I get
it. But King Kong, anyway. The tyrannosaur okay. Look. If you blew up
Chris Pratt in Jurassic World to the size of the tyrannosaurus
rex, he would win that fight. I don't think so. I think the geneticist rex
would eat him. I'm taking I'm taking the t rex all day and twice a
few minutes on that. He's got sharp teeth. Like, when he
bites his his bite pressure alone. It's just forget
it. The primate's done. The primate's soft and squishy. I think he's
there. Maybe he's muscular maybe or whatever. But Maybe.
I think know maybe. Think about think about it this way.
A gorilla in real life now real life, a gorilla supposedly
is approximately 10 times stronger than a human than the average human
man. Oh, yeah. Mhmm. So now you take a 300 foot
gorilla. I don't know. I'm thinking Have you
ever have you ever have you ever seen 2 jujitsu white
belts fight over anything? Yes.
That was what it was. Okay. I I get it. I get
it. So so brute strength beats intelligence when you don't have
enough intelligence to I get it. Alright. Fine. Fine. We can
move on. I'm just
saying I'm just saying the reptile has a blue light that goes out of his
mouth, and he's got sharp teeth. That's an equalizer. That's all I'm saying.
The the second one was better. I I thought I actually like the one did
you see the most recent one where, the Godzilla and King
Kong team up to beat this, like, other species of
gorilla that, I guess, Kong, you gotta see the newest one. You gotta see
Well, I gotta see this? Wait. Wait. Wait. There's more monkeys? Where do they come
from? There's a lot more there's a lot more monkeys. They actually look more,
chimpanzee like than gorilla. Like, Godzilla looks clearly gorilla.
They look more chimpanzee like, in in the in the film. So
Oh, dude. Wait till I get wait till I get to my number 2 movie.
We're gonna talk about apes. Yes. We are. Oh, you're not gonna talk about planet
of the apes. Right? The the the please tell me you're talking
about the original and not the new rise of the apes
garbage.
Alright. What's number 4? Let's let's see. What's your number 5? What's your
5th what's your 5th what's your yeah. Top 5 films, what would be
number 5? I I again, I I think I
think for me, I I I bounce around a lot. Like, I I I will
as much as I was joking about it, I actually do really, really
love the old school Godzilla movies. I I like the old real the
older ones, the, you know, the dubbed English and, like, you know, and
With the Japanese people screaming. Yeah. And and, like and and when
you watch it as a kid, it's like every other film is Godzilla being a
good guy and then a bad guy and then a good guy and then a
bad guy. Like, he's either here he's here to save the human race in one
film, and he's here to destroy and and just live his best life in another
film. Like, it's and then, like so, you know, and then you got
you have all these, like you know, the it was like the original I look
at it as like the original version of Pokemon. Right? Like, so,
Godzilla, I choose you. You're gonna go, you know, fight
King King Ghidorah. You know, like King King Ghidorah or you know? And
Mothra was Godzilla's love interest, which don't even get me
started. That was just very great. Can. Even But I don't know what's happening.
If I take that collection of films, that would probably be my number 5. I
don't think I could pick just 1, but the Godzilla of
the 60 like, fifties sixties Mhmm. I think I just think it was
amazing. And as a child now when I watch it today, I'm
like, this kind this is kind of a joke. Like, this is really This is
not a joke. But as a kid, not knowing that that was
a man in a suit stomping on models Right.
It fascinated me. I don't I I can't I don't even know how to I
don't even know how else to say it. It was just like
I'm envisioning, like, oh my god. I'm never killing another lizard ever in
my life because that could be Godzilla next time. So wait. Wait. Wait. You were
probably a really big fan of, like, the Ray Harryhausen,
like, little models, like, the way he did the stop motion models in the Ray
the Ray Harryhausen movies, like, back in the day? Yes. Yes. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Like, Jason and the Argonauts, which is not
necessarily sci fi, but Right. The technology
that he used to put all that together, that guy was brilliant, by the way.
He knew Ray Bradbury, by the way. They were they were good friends.
They they met each other when like Ray Bradbury was a kid or something like
that anyway. But you were probably a good, a big fan of that
stop motion, that stop motion photography kind of. Yes.
Okay. All right. All right. I like the I don't know
what leadership lessons you can get from King Kong, though, other than, like, get the
hell out of the way of the month. Well, I mean, I okay. So you
bigger than you. Yeah. I mean, you know, like I said I mean, the original
if you look at the original King Kong, I mean, that was, you know, was
that Faye Dunaway or something like that that was that was up there in the
building with him and then Faye Dunaway. Faye Dunaway. Thank you. Thank you.
Like Faye Dunaway. Yeah. Dunaway was different than that's, like, Nate said, that's
network. She would have never stooped to be
Oh, love. Next to a monkey. It wouldn't happen. To our
standards. Yeah. I mean, the original like, even the original King Kong,
so if you if you like, it it took a long time for King Kong
and Godzilla to be in the same movie. Like, if you remember, like, you know,
Godzilla was around for a lot longer, and and they and and and
King Kong was, like, in essence, it
was an Americanized version of Godzilla. Right? Because America
looked at what what the success over in Japan was with this
Godzilla thing. And and by the way, a lot of the the story lines and
and essence of Godzilla came from, like, be ready, you
know, prepare yourself for this people, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Like Yeah. The idea that radiation
was distorting animals and making animals look a little
that's what, like, people kinda came up with this idea. Now
the the folklore behind a Godzilla
like thing is much older than that. I agree with that. So don't don't beat
me up on the comments here if there's comments on the show about Godzilla being
much older than 1942 or 44 rather. But,
but the idea of Godzilla shooting fire, you know, radiation breath
and all that stuff, that came that did come after after World War 2. But
the so America saw all this and we're like, oh, we can do this.
Let's let's what's a more noble animal that we can
use instead of, like, a chameleon or or or,
you know, or iguana or whatever whatever they thought Godzilla was? I don't even
know. I don't even know what he was supposed to have morphed from, but but
America was like, oh, well, gorillas are probably one of the more intelligent animals
on the planet. Let's use that. And let let's let's blow up a gorilla and
see what happens. Let's see what we can do with that. And then some brilliant
person said, let's put them in the same movie.
Well, King Kong's okay. The first King Kong came out in, like, I think the
thirties, if I remember correctly. Yeah. The twenties or
thirties. And it was, you know, a one off
whatever. It was a one off sort of phenomenon. Right? Right. Right.
And then you're right. You get World War 2. A whole bunch of other things
happen, and some genius goes, hey. We should put these together. We should put and
then by the way, that person should be should have been, like, I don't know,
given control of, like, a studio or something. Like, that person was was
brilliant. To your
point about Godzilla
not as much as King Kong, but Godzilla representing the anxiety
of or the anxieties of, you
know, nuclear destruction, particularly
nuclear destruction as it happened to the Japanese. Right?
I agree with that. I think that we've got
well, the the the height of, like, managerial
scientist scientism, you know, being able to,
like, build something at mass is destructive. The height of that was the atomic bomb.
Like, that was the height of that. The height of being able to build somebody
that was positive was the probably the Apollo the Apollo
moon mission, right, or the moon missions.
And then after that, it's just been long decline, which is why, by the way,
most of those movies in the early part of 21st century
have become so stylized, and yet the plots
are mostly just like, there's no tension underneath
the plot. You're just there for the monkey and the monkey and the lizard fighting.
Like, that's literally all you're there for. Same same thing with transformers. The same
thing. You will. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Well, Michael Bay would like to
enter the chat. Michael Bay can enter the chat all he
wants. I'd I'd I'd fight him on it. Yeah. Optimus Prime
is nothing but is nothing but a more intelligent Godzilla.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He's a mecca. You get it right, Tom.
Mecha. That's right. Alright. Okay. Well,
my number 4 film is a little bit more of an intellectual,
science fiction film. And it is one
from the, the director Stanley Kubrick, who is a
director I have long since struggled with long time struggle with
with him, and I'll get into why in a minute here. But doctor Strangelove.
Oh, I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
Peter Sellers is in this movie. He plays 5 different roles,
including, the role of doctor Strangelove, the ex
Nazi who's in the wheelchair who keeps doing the sick high. Oh, and, like,
put his arm down. George
c Scott was in the movie, as a crazy,
you know, what do you call it? American
general, you know, in the war room. You know, the Russians
are gonna launch the nukes. Oh, by the way, Peterson was also pleased the president
of the United States. It's sometimes in the same
scenes. It's it's kind of it's kind of ridiculous.
I can't remember who the guy is who plays the general. I can't remember his
name. I'll I'll look it up here in a minute. But you got the general
who goes on and on about fluoride and, like, the water,
And then he's got the British, general working with him, also played by
Peter Sellers, trying to stop the bomb from being dropped.
And it's it's so absurd
as a science fiction movie. Oh, by the way,
the great James Earl Jones is in
recently deceased. James Earl Jones is in doctor Strangelove
as a as the, he's a not
c 130, the b 17, the b 17 pilot
who's piloting the the plane that drops the bombs on,
Russia to start the nuclear war in order to
begin again the with the World War 3 nuclear destruction.
It's satire to Tom's point. It is it's science fiction. It
operates as satire. It operates as
a screed against the military industrial complex.
It was released in 1964, which was
the the year after Kennedy got shot. And so people are
still traumatized by the death of hope,
and you can feel, like, the entire zeitgeist, like, sort of
shifting over civil rights, which before
was really just sort of a 10 year long sort of slow brewing thing is
about to really kick off. Tensions with the Russians are
up because, you know, Nikita Khrushchev had just a couple
years before, you know, he'll pulled off his shoe at the UN
and banged banged on the podium and said, we will bury
you. And you might not have been wrong. You know,
and put his shoe back on. You'd had the Cuban missile crisis, and
Kennedy had sort of fumbled his way through that. I'm not willing to give that
to Kennedy as a win. And by the way, you people can come for me
on that. I'm not willing to give that to Kennedy as a win. I think
I think there were a lot of other smarter older people who surrounded him who
were like, dude, just don't. Here's what you do. And he had the wisdom by
the way, even at his young age in his thirties to actually listen to
people who were older than him. And doctor
Strangelove came out at a time when geopolitically, no one had
yet heard to the degree they were going to hear in
subsequent years. No one had heard of Vietnam. No
one. We had soldiers in Vietnam. We were fighting a war in Vietnam, but no
one had heard of Vietnam in 64.
No one. No one knew people were dying there. You know? And people
have been dying there since 57. No
one knew. And so
all those dynamics come together in doctor Strangelove. And to
me, what makes it a great science fiction film is
the technological elements. So the, the
B 17, the interior of the B 17 was so accurately
created that apparently the defense department wanted to have
a chat with Stanley Kubrick about how he got all that information about the Elvis
and everything.
So I'm a big fan of doctor Strangelove or the subtitle,
how I learned how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
So what what you know, one thing we didn't talk about in the last two
films of well, the the last segment of the conversation we're talking about
is the lessons that we're supposed to learn from are we supposed to talk about
lessons about these films too, or are we just gonna talk about the films? Yeah.
We can talk about lessons for these films. So I can tell you the lesson
that I learned from doctor Strange
I could I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. Yes. They do. And yes. They do. Okay.
Somebody's texting me about something. Anyway, I love being a landlord now.
I'm a landlord, by the way. I'm a landed man.
Oh, man. I'm land. Anyway,
yes. We're supposed to talk about the lesson. So King Kong, the lesson we can
learn from King Kong and Godzilla or the day the earth stood still is when
things are bigger than you, may wanna question them.
You may wanna run and hide. Sometimes that's a
good move. Sometimes that's the move. Run and hide. Run
screaming ahead of them. It's fine. From
doctor Strangelove, I my god. Like, the lessons are incredible.
I mean, don't let crazy people take
over your entire military industrial complex.
I mean, when people oh, this one's real popular in our
time. When people say the adults are in charge
like, hey. So let's let's actually make sure they're actually adults. Yeah.
Right? Because when there's a great scene in
doctor Strangelove where they're actually fighting in the war room,
And I can't remember which character it is, but basically someone's I think it's Peter
Sellers as the president. He goes, gentlemen, gentlemen, there should be no fighting in the
war room.
The irony. Right. And it is it's one of those
films that has become so
among certain people, it has become so
popular, I guess, is the term, right?
That you don't, you don't
consider that. Kubrick
was really angry when he put together that movie.
He was angry at the idea of thermonuclear destruction.
He was angry that the United States,
he from his perspective as a as a, what we would call these days, a
progressive liberal, was not, you
know, sort of progressing towards not necessarily
communism, but progressing towards world peace, which is what he
wanted. And, you know, he was part of
the movement that said nuclear disarmament movement that
basically said, you know, if we disarm the Russians, we'll disarm.
And we were moving towards very much a position of
what's called MAD, which everybody forgets about that term. But
MAD was an acronym that stood for mutually
assured destruction. Yeah. You know, where
the United States had a certain number of nukes and the Russians had a certain
number of nukes. And as long as there was no third party like China,
that has a certain number of nukes, we were fine. And
that all kind of fell apart in the 19 seventies with with a whole with
with China getting, with China's long cultural revolution and
then Mao really agitating to get nuclear weapons from the
Soviets, and they gave them to him. And then the United States
pursued detente, and the United States was bogged down in Vietnam, which by the way,
China was involved in some of the aspects of Vietnam, which everybody forgets about that
too. And so internationally,
at a leadership level, there seemed to be
the time of doctor Strangelove in 1964 when this movie was released because it was
shot in 62. It probably edited in 63,
and they released in 64, which means Kubrick came up with the
idea probably in the late 19 fifties, early 19 sixties,
right on the end of the day the earth stood still, that sort of period
of sort of red scare kind of stuff. I
think Kubrick wanted everybody to just sort of be shaken out of their
NUE. I don't know. It's
it's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I don't know what your
thoughts are on it. I don't know if you've ever seen it. But No.
Actually, that one I have not seen. I I've heard of it. I've heard of
I've heard lots of it, but I've never I've never watched the film. Yeah.
I'm gonna I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna pull it up on IMDB.
Yeah. Here. So my so it's funny. My numb my number 4 would probably be
and I you're you're probably gonna, like
idiocracy. Like, I mean,
how could you not how could you not watch that movie and and feel
like, we talk we talk so much about
about society in general, kids coming up these days,
lack of intelligence, lack of emotional intelligence really more more so.
You know, there's there's and then you watch that movie, you go, oh, so
that's where we're headed. Like, it's like, this is all
starting to make sense to me now. Like, the
idea behind, you know, of course, it
wasn't like, Luke Wilson goes to sleep and he wakes up, like, it's like was,
like, a 100 years later or a 1000 years later or something? I forget the
number, but, yes, he wakes up, whatever number years later, and he's literally the
smartest person on the planet. So it's like the entire plot of of
Futurama. Remember that cartoon? Yes. Exactly.
But life with no robots or whatever. Okay. No cool. No Bender. And
there's no Bender in this movie. But There's no Bender. But, like,
you you know, the idea the the thing that I that I found
fascinating about the movie was that this average
intelligence person now being the most the, like, the smartest person on
the planet, like, IQ level wise. And if you watch the
movie, you figure out real quickly that even like,
he still tries to learn from the people around him. So you go back
to the lessons that you're even if you are the smartest
person in the room, that does not mean that you can't learn from the people
around you. Just because they're not as smart as you are, they don't have as
big of IQ, they don't have the subject matter matter expertise that you
have, That doesn't mean you can't learn something from them. That's what that movie tells
me. Now if you actually go watch the movie, it is there's a lot more
to it than it's just ridiculousness. I'm just telling
you. I'm preparing you for when you watch this movie that you are going
to feel like you've lost a couple of brain cells watching this
movie. But I will I will be honest. Just like you've never seen doctor Strangelove,
I have never seen Adiocracy. I I think I think you
would you would appreciate where I'm coming from with this movie if you see it.
You're you're probably the probably the 7th raised
person in my life that has said to me, you need to go see this
movie, Hasan. You need to you need to have how have you not watched this
movie? And then I I you know, I don't I don't know how I haven't
watched a movie. I just I don't know. Maybe I need to just knuckle under
and, you know, order it on HBO Max or Amazon or
whatever and just watch it one day. I wonder if part of it is the
fact that you already have this preconceived notion by what people are telling you that
the movie is utterly ridiculous. So you're you're you're not
looking at it from a from a value
from a value add standpoint of I'm gonna spend I'm gonna spend
an hour and a half watching this movie. You're thinking I'm gonna waste an hour
and a half watching this movie.
Totally different mindset when you when you look at it that way.
And the thing is you'd be right. No. No.
No. I I think like, I I know what the plot is. Right? So
the guy guy falls asleep. He wakes up, and the the whole I think they
they put him in some cryogenic thing or something like that. I don't think he
I don't think he literally falls asleep. I think there's, like, a mechanism that puts
him like, I I think the there's it's like this thing where everyone in the
world is supposed to go this cryo jet. Like, the world's I I
forget the the very beginning of the movie. I remember the whole like,
the the gist of it, and I remember, like, all the there's some really
some really idiotic things that happened in the middle. But but the,
the beginning of the movie I can't remember if it's like, if it's like the
whole like, something's detriment to the earth that's happening that in order
to save the race, they put every they they're supposed
to put everybody in these cryo chambers or something like that, but he ends up
being the only one that does it. And that thing that
happens didn't destroy humanity. It basically changes humanity into a bunch
of idiots. And then he wakes up he wakes up as the most
intelligent person on the planet. So I think I confused doctor or not
doctor. Sorry. Idiocracy with
the with judge dread, weirdly enough. The scene in
judge dread where, like Those are very different. The Are you thinking about
demolition man too? Or maybe maybe just demolition man. Right?
Demolition man where Wesley Snipes and and, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And,
Sylvester Stallone going to cryogenics. And then when they come back out, the world is
basically wussified. Right. And there's been, like, there's been, like, fast
food wars. That's what I associate idiotic with. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. The Taco Bell won the fast food wars. What? Yeah. Yeah. I think you're
I think you're confusing them. No. Idiocracy is
idiocracy is, supposed to be a lot, there's a lot more
comedy in it than that than Okay. Demolition, man, there was no comedy in that.
That was action that was action sci fi. Not Okay.
Not comedy sci fi, you know, as opposed to horror sci
fi or dramatic sci fi. I don't know. Here's we
go. Idiocracy. Okay. Oh, it
was directed by Mike Judge who directed Office Space. I should
be all over this. Okay.
Oh, that makes a lot of sense, actually. I didn't realize it was the same
director. I didn't I didn't I didn't make that connection. But, yes, that
makes total sense now. I really do like office space. I really do like that
movie. So Same kind same kind of comedy. Same kind of comedy? Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Alright. But yeah. So that's my number 4. I
I and, again, I don't I have a hard I told you already. I have
a hard time picking these lists in, like, numeric
order because I don't know. I could probably think of
3 other movies that are equivalent to Idiocracy in 2
phases. Number 1, the the fact that they're labeled as sci fi.
Number 2, they have a comet a comedic undertone. And number 3, they're
just utterly ridiculous. So, like, Idiocracy and Galaxy Quest
and, like, those all those movies are in the same that's they're all number
4 to me. That's all the same movie. Evolution with David Duchovny back in
the day. Exactly. Exactly. Everyone forgets about that movie that he
did. Everyone forgets that he was smack in the middle of him doing X Files.
Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And then he was like,
let's not remember that. And then he went back to X Files.
And I liked Galaxy Quest. I did like that movie, a lot of
action. I was pleasantly surprised with that movie. I actually liked it more than I
thought it was going to. I was I felt like I wasn't supposed to
like it, but I did. Right. It it is definitely one of those
movies that came along in it. Well, it's kinda like Orville right now,
the television show that Seth MacFarlane has. Right? It's
it's sort of one of those, like, once in
a generation, I poke I poke in the eye to star
Trek kind of films. And you can kind of get away with it
because star Trek sort of beloved and is part of the zeitgeist and whatever.
But it also doesn't make galaxy quest does not make,
assertions that it's high art or anything like that. Like, they're not they're not
doing that. Tim Allen, you're not hiring Tim Allen for high art. You know what
I mean? For god's sake, this guy was Santa Claus. Like, let's be real here.
I mean, Galaxy Quest was to Star Trek is what Spaceballs
was to Star Wars. Yeah. Here they go. Essentially. It's really
true. K. Alright. Well, speaking
of okay. Speaking of serious science fiction, my number 3
film is, blade runner. I like blade
runner. So I'm going to I'm gonna pull up
Blade Runner here on IMDB because there's something, I
always try to point out here with Blade Runner, and I always miss
it. By the way, this is the
Blade Runner from 1982. This is the original well, the original.
The Blade Runner with, Rutger Hauer and Harrison
Ford, and, I
love the I love the tears in the rain speech
that Rucker Howard gives, at the end as the, as
the Android, the replicant that's basically, you know, getting ready to be,
killed. And I was just looking at it the other
day. So I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on
fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched sea beams glitter in the dark near
the 10 Hauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time,
like tears in the rain, time to die. And
apparently that entire
last speech before he gets, you know, eliminated
was totally ad libbed. So like Harrison Ford's reaction to him was,
like, that was genuine. He's like, what? That wasn't the script. What the hell are
you talking about? Which is, like, the greatest
thing ever. But then, of course, I modify that. Like and and, you
know, I modify it, like, for my kids because my kids have never seen Blade
Runner. Too young. But, like, my younger kids are.
My older ones probably have seen it. Well, my oldest son's seen it. He's not
impressed, but, I always modify it by saying I've paid taxes
for things you people wouldn't believe.
And then you just go down the wall. Tax money and my tax money disappears
like tears in the rain. Tears in the rain.
But Blade Runner is one of those movies that,
I do reference a lot in 2024 because I
fundamentally believe and this is where I wanna talk a little about dystopia and utopias
in science fiction. So
I reference this movie because in 2024, I believe we fundamentally
are living the Blade Runner reality. We're living the Philip k Dick Blade
Runner reality. The only thing we're missing is
the acid rain from the nuclear fallout. That's it. That's the only
thing we're missing. That's it. We we have everything else. In in
the death game. Right? Like We can call that
football. We've we've got everything else. Let's assume we've got everything else.
Okay. Sure. We've got we've
got mass advertising. That's stupid. We've
got surveillance. We've got genetic manipulation.
We've got people who are trying to biologically change themselves. We've
got AI now. Right? You could make an argument that we didn't
have the AI, but we've got the AI now pretty soon. And it and
this is gonna be, oh, oh, we've got the Internet. So we've got the the
instant communications off planet, off planet, on planet, whatever.
We've already cloned sheep. We did that in the nineties.
And there are people who will say we never stopped cloning animals. We just stopped
talking about it. Right. Yeah. Because it wasn't
popular. Like, what are we, what are we missing? Oh, and by the way, we
have the dystopia. We have an incompetent government that
has no solutions for how to solve problems other than to get rid of
people, and we'll give you pleasure and desire
and, distraction in exchange for actually solving problems. What am
I missing? I mean, when you say it like
that Like
Hell, I son. Like, I mean I mean, I think
Philip k. Dick nailed it. I think they're here. This is the future.
We we got the Blade Runner future we were looking for in 1982.
You know, that that I I I remember, what was it? Somebody told
me something in, in the book 1984,
something like 70 something percent. They they did the math.
I I don't know how the math plays out. But, I mean,
1984 was written, what, in the thirties? 4
twenties, thirties? Forties. Yeah. In the forties. And they
said by the by by the actual year 1984,
about 2 thirds of what was in that or or 3 fourths of what was
in that book actually came to fruition. So what you're
talking about from 1982 until now sounds about right. It's about sounds
about the same. Sounds about the same math. Yeah.
So 1984 was published at June 8, 1949.
49. Okay. So, yeah, so
35 years. Yeah. Like I said, the math works here. Yeah. So so what
you're saying from 1982. I mean, we're a little we're a little we're a
little late. We're a little behind on the AI part at least, but, you know,
the rest of it, we're right on track. Okay. So this and this gets
us to this idea of dystopia. So a good friend of mine makes this
point, and I think it is a is a dynamically interesting point that I
never really thought of it until he mentioned it. And this was years ago.
I was ranting about something. It might have been Blade Runner. And he goes,
it might have been. And he goes, listen. All
dystopias are written from the perspective
of the person and the time that they are in.
Yeah. Because no one knows the future. So it's just projecting
future anxieties onto a society
that are really current anxieties. So if you go back and look at Phil, okay.
Deck, you look at the short story, do androids dream of electric sheep.
That short story was written. Let me pull up the date
here. Let's see. It
was written in
1968. Okay? What was what was
going on in 1968? Well, again, it's kind of the
same things that around that that doctor Strangelove sort of predicted. Right? You see, you
had the communism, you had Vietnam, you
had the threat of nuclear war, you had the
promise of vacations to the moon. We're the
Jetsons was on TV. We're all gonna have vacations to the moon and robots. Right?
And so what's the dark side of all? And Philip k Dick being Philip k
Dick. What's the dark side of all this? And so he's gonna, of course, gonna
go in the dark side direction. He's not gonna be like Isaac Asimov. He's gonna
be like, oh, there's 3 rules to dealing with robots. Like, he's not gonna
or Ray Bradbury, right, where the robots are gonna be kind of hinted
at in the background, but you're not really gonna sort of bring them to front
because you don't really need to because there's all different kinds of ways to do
that. He wasn't that kind of writer. He was the writer who went right for,
this is the horrible dystopia that I have anxiety about.
And so all dystopias, this is the point that my buddy
made from the blade runner all the way to the hunger games
and divergent and all these others. They're all
about the now. They're all about the things that people are
anxious about now. They're actual projections of the future.
And that was his entire point. He's like, this is why he and he doesn't
like he doesn't like science fiction dystopias. He hates all of them. Because he's like,
just just make a regular movie about the things going on now that you're all
anxious about. Just make that movie. I mean, we can all go
home. I don't need I don't need the technological clothing sheep thing. I don't need
that. This is boring.
Just just give me the thing you're anxious about. Oh, climate change. Fine.
Make a movie about climate change, which we did actually. What
was the name of that ice that movie where the water came in? 2012
was the one's. Yeah. Oh, 2012 was one day after tomorrow was
another one. Day after tomorrow. There you go. Tomorrow. That was a
fantastic I liked that movie a lot, actually. Yeah. Well, because it was
it wasn't it wasn't projecting the day after tomorrow to
be, like, a 100 years from now. Right. With, like, a bunch of
replicants running around. I was like, no. It's gonna be, like, I don't know, a
month from now. And and there wasn't there wasn't, it
it showed you it showed you most
movies like like that like this like, they they show you what the dystopia
is. Right? Like and then they have to explain how they got there. In The
Day After Tomorrow, it showed you what the disaster was,
not what the actual Day After Tomorrow looked like. That was left up to your
imagination. Right. That that's part of the that's why I like
that movie so much. It actually shows you how we get there, why we got
there, and why the world is so different or why the world was going to
be so different, but it never showed you the the the actual
outcome. There was a brief thing at the very end. I don't know I don't
know if you've seen this movie, right, with Dennis Quaid? Been a while. Yeah. So
and, Jake Gyllenhaal. They they show you at the very end of the movie when
they zoom out from the world, like, that that that that, polar ice
cap now goes from the top of the world all the way down through
3 quarters of the United States. Like and it's not
livable. Like, you can't live in, basically so now all the
US citizens have Have to immigrate to Mexico. That's right. I
remember that. Yeah. These people we all have we we asked Mexico
permission to go live there. That's right.
But yeah. But that movie like, that's one of the reasons exactly to what your
friend is talking about, that's one of the reasons I I absolutely
love that movie is because it it actually gives you everything up
front of what's going like, all the what happens and what goes
wrong. And all these other movies, like, to your point, blade even blade
runner, it's after the fact, and they have to explain to you how they got
there. Oh, we had a nuclear war, so now we have acid rain and all
this other stuff, and this is why this happened. But there's details
behind the back, in the in the storyline of the movie that you have to
figure out and, like, how society ended up getting where they are. In that movie,
in in Day After Tomorrow, which now that you say it, I that might be
my number 1 or 2, by the way. I'm not sure yet, but I'm just
thinking, like, now that I'm saying it out loud, because I didn't really put them
in sci fi, but it definitely is. It there's no doubt that it's sci fi.
Okay. Well, my my number my number 3 would have
been the the the I I'm not gonna pick one of
them because I think there are several in the series that are really good.
Some better than some better than others, of course. But it it was
also before its time was Alien.
1979. 1979, Alien came out with Sigourney
Weaver. Ridley Scott. Yes. Ridley Scott's
Alien. I watched that so in in 1979, it came out. I
didn't watch it until probably 10 years after because I thought the second one,
aliens, was actually better than the first one. Yeah. The second one
came out, like, 6 or 8 years later or something like that. It took a
long time to get that second movie. Now there's I don't know. There's 15 of
them in the series, whatever. I I I don't care how many of them are.
It's a mess. It's a mess over there. It's a terrible thing. Well, because
because they they're doing all this BS with the the aliens
universe. Right? So now you you have to have 15 movies to have your own
universe in the in the movie genres, like the MCU universe, and
it's it's ridiculous. Right? The even even even Godzilla, by the
way. We're talking about Godzilla a few minutes ago. Now they talk about the the,
the Monarch universe, which Monarch was the Monarch
was the, the US or or the worldwide equivalent of
of some sort of secret agency that was monitoring these
these giant monsters or whatever. Like so Monarch and
there's actually a series. I forget if it's on Apple TV or
Hulu or something. But there's a on one of the streaming services, there's actually a
series called Monarch Okay. That that that is
actually an extension of the Godzilla movies. But, again so
now everyone has this, like, you can't just make a movie and walk away
anymore. You have to make a movie and then have a a universe for the
movie to exist in. That's so anyway but the point is
Alien 1979 started this whole thing
with alien, aliens, alien versus predator.
Prometheus was a part of the aliens universe. Like, a lot of these movies.
So I think number 3 for me was the I'm just gonna pick
that universe. Universe. Yeah. I do think
aliens, which was the second one, was probably one of
my all time favorites. It might have something to do with when I watched it
because I the first time I ever watched that was a kid. And I've
since watched it a few times since. But I I just remember
thinking, I wonder if alien races are really like this. Like,
we're in trouble. We're in a lot of trouble if these are what what aliens
are really like. Well, he so one of the things,
that
hold on. Oh, I'm dealing with a dishwasher.
Okay. I'm sorry. I'm dealing with a dishwasher. Okay.
I got a dishwasher repairman.
It's not exactly reliable. Anyway,
it's just there's a little bit of the inside baseball of Pesan's life there
for the show. No. To your point about alien.
Okay. So I watched alien. I
watched the first movie, the Ridley Scott movie from the 19 seventies when I was
probably about 15 years old.
And, originally,
it landed in my head as a
combination of
remember 2001, A Space Odyssey? Yes. So, like, all of
the worst parts of 2,001, a Space Odyssey that I didn't like, because I was
on a anti Kubrick kick, whatever. But all of the parts of that
combined without Dave, the computer, take Dave, the computer out,
Or or you well, actually, you put Dave, the computer, inside the Android. Right? I
was just I was just gonna say that, but yeah. Go ahead. Right. And then
and then you throw in this monster
movie aspect from the alien creature.
And I thought
and, yeah, I mean, you got the jump scares with the thing coming out of
the belly and whatever and the acidic, whatever. And then
I thought, you know what?
Do I care enough? Do I have an opinion about this movie?
And I decided I didn't. Okay. Fine. So I went away. Many years later
came back, watched Aliens with Sigourney
Weaver, which by the way, much more of an action film because it was directed
by James Cameron. Right. Right. Which is it
totally like, no one ever talks about this, but James Cameron was
the b director of Ridley Scott. Like,
that's weird. Right? Like Yeah. And then and then the subsequent
movies, James Cameron's never been invited back to direct another
aliens film. Which is weird because that that one
was better than I think that one was better. I think I thought I thought
the second one, aliens, was a better movie. And in
that film, you get Sigourney Weaver. You get her, you
know, female I'm gonna say this, female
badass with the, you know, running around, and it's woman versus woman and
woman versus nature. And so you're trying to make all these, these illusions. Right?
And Newt is in there and it spawned a whole bunch of comic books, dark
horse comics, basically their entire company existed because of the aliens and
quite frankly, predator. Who's another even no one ever talks about, which I like predator
better, but that's a whole other different kind of thing.
But I thought to your point about
if if we run into something like this, we're in trouble. I
thought and and it came out so it was good because I watched Prometheus. Right?
Mhmm. And I got so mad in the middle of that movie.
That's so great. I was like, I'm done. I'm out. I'm out. And
I sat there in anger for the last 45 minutes of that movie, deceiving.
Because to your point about the universe,
part of developing a a a cinematic universe is you have to
retcon other films that
existed before you decided to make the cinematic universe to make it fit into
the narrative, and it never works. Yeah.
Because we already have that other narrative in our head. So now I'm annoyed. So
now you're showing me, like, alien eggs and babies and
alien space men. I thought Prometheus was an I thought Prometheus was an awkward
left turn. Right? Like, it was just it it it it it
No. The funny part was I I I liked
the movie up until that part. I was like, oh, this is kinda cool. Like,
I get it. You know, whatever. And then once it started showing the and I'm
like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. And they did the same thing with
Predator, by the way. So I I do agree. I actually like Predator
a lot. It was one of I was, again, a kid growing up
watching military people overcome that that, you know,
it it you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Buenaventura, Carl Weathers. Mhmm. I
mean, had action heroes in there, and I was like, yes. Like, these all
these guys are I think I wanna be with them. If the world's coming to
an end, I wanna be with them too. Like, I was that girl that was
like, don't leave me here. I'm coming with you. Like, I you know? I can't
I can't tell the guy. I'm going I'm going with Carl Weathers. Right. You know,
you got Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and with a
with a whole bunch of guns. Right. You're gonna say, no. Leave me
here? Hell no. I'm going with you guys if the world's coming. If the if
the feces is hitting the fan, I'm going with you.
Like well, anyway but then you then you even
did like, even the 2nd Predator movie and the 3rd like, when they the the
predator gets dropped in the middle of Colorado. Mhmm. Fine. I had no
problem with that. Like, okay. Sure. So it didn't work in the jungle. Put
him in a city or the suburbs or whatever. Fine. But I felt
the same way. Like, you're talking about Prometheus, when when they started doing the whole
alien versus predator kinda dynamic. And I don't know if you remember this one, but
there was one where they had to excavate, like, some sort of
pyramid in the Arctic. Oh. And they got Yeah. When they
got down there, they realized, oh, wait a minute. So
these predators that's why they're called predators because they prey
on these other alien these aliens prey on these aliens in order for you to
your your coming of age is to go kill one of them. Like,
that cool thing was and I'm like, what are we doing? Like, what
are we doing here? Like, it's just it just seems very weird. Like,
so to your point with the whole view now you just have to you're basically
you're taking bits and pieces from all these other movies, and you're trying to force
feed a universe down our throat. Right. Exactly. And I don't I don't I don't
need that. I don't I don't need that. Yeah. And then to your point about
aliens and is this actually what alien life would be? Here's the thing.
Neil deGrasse Tyson would tell us
if he were here right now. I can't wait. Tell me tell me what he
would say. Here's here's what he would say. Here's what he would say. That's all
fantasy, and it doesn't matter because there is no intelligent life in the universe
other than us. There's there's none. And and even if there
is intelligent life, it's so far away from us, we can never get
there. We just can't. We can't cross the distances. We can never get there.
And if they can cross the distances to get here, they're
probably so super intelligent that why the hell would they bother with us.
And so we would be to them as ants are to us,
and no one's crossing the street to deal with an anthill. We just drive past
it. I mean, we we don't care. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know what's going
on over there. And the ants the ants aren't building rockets to come talk to
us. There's they're hanging around the anthill. Like, they're doing ant
stuff in an anthill. That's what Neil DeGrasse Tyson would say.
Now with that being said, I do think
that the idea of and I've often struggled with this just
even in my religious, you know, sort of wiring. Not
sort of my religious wiring. I don't know why you would
why a creator would build a gigantic universe like this that we're aware of,
by the way. Like, it's not like it's like there's a
great scene at the end of, the first men in black, right, where the
aliens are playing marbles. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The
When I saw that scene was actually eye opening for me be I was I
actually thought I watched that and went, goddamn it. That could actually like, how
would we know if that was really happening? Like, we wouldn't even know. Well, now
we would have no idea.
We would have no idea. Well, I'm not Damn it Will Smith.
Well, and that's part of the idea that, like, all of and and
this is Elon Musk pushes this idea that all of reality is a
simulation, and we're all just trapped inside some test tube on some kid's
desk in Cleveland. So so Elon Musk is basically saying we are
actually in the matrix. We Right. But it's but it's a
matrix that's being run inside of to to the point about
the end of Men in Black, inside of another set of matrices
inside of another set of matrices that are all
that. At a certain point, we're getting out of control. We gotta quit. Yeah. We
we we we can see the universe. We we
are smart enough to build technology that can perceive where we
are at in the universe, and it is vast
and up to this point, anyway, empty of intelligence
other than us. That's it. That's
all we know for sure. So because that's all we know for sure,
what the hell? Let's backfill it with aliens. Let's backfill it with
predators. Let's backfill it with Vulcans and Klingons
and Star Wars things. Sure. Let's backfill the entire freaking thing.
Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because whatever it is we find
like, I am convinced in the next 100 to a
150 years, we will
do some kind of at some technological level, we will lose
some kind of foothold. We will. We will get some kind of foothold as a
globe on Mars. We will get some kind I think Elon's right on that. We
will get some kind of foothold on Mars. 100, 150 years out, I think.
I think we have to go through I think I think we have to have
a close run on a war or a major war to sort of click us
over into that, but I think I think that's gonna happen. If it doesn't happen
this time around, there's gonna be another time around where the tensions will rise and
we'll get there. Anyway, and that's about a 150 years. I
mean, the average the average human succulent cycle
is 80 years. 2 80 year cycles is a 160 years. There
you go. So in a 160 years, we will we will wind up on Mars.
We for sure. I believe that absolutely for sure. After
that, who the hell knows? I mean, like, the moons of
Jupiter are kind of interesting. The moons of Saturn are kind
of interesting. I do fundamentally believe that there are
wild things out there that we're not prepared for.
Are those wild things what we would conventionally assume is life?
No. And I don't know that we're ready to see any of
that. So could we run into some egg laying
alien thing, hell yeah. Yeah. We can run into that. Sure. Why not?
But I'm not gonna worry about it right now. I'm gonna be kind of annoyed
because I'm living now. I'm living in 2024 right now. And I'm not I'm not
going to Mars. I'm not gonna make it. My generation, we're not gonna make it.
Tom's of the same generation. We're not going to Mars.
All I'm saying is in my original statement in starting this whole
spiral Yeah. Was that I felt like aliens was ahead of its
time. If you think about, like, the other movies in the seventies eighties, I
I really did think aliens because if you think about aliens, the
what the alien looked like and what the all the it
looked relatively the same throughout the whole course of the the alien
universe. Yeah. But, like, they didn't make a lot of changes to it. Whereas,
again, if you go back to Godzilla, Godzilla 1960 was vastly
different than the last Godzilla movie. You know, like, it it's
not even the same. They they made a lot of changes to it. CGI
helped out with a lot of that, whatever. Right? So Yeah. That's all I was
getting at. I liked I liked the the idea. Like, when I was a
kid, that movie was way better to me than some of the most of the
other sci fi movies that were around. I mean, think about Total
Recall. Come on. Come
on. Innerspace. You wanna talk about a comedic
one? Innerspace with, Martin,
Steve, the small dude. What's his
name? Rick Moranis. Rick Moranis. Yeah.
Moranis. Yeah. Rick Moranis. Innerspace, that was kinda
funny. But, again, the technology was very choppy, very weird looking.
There's some weird stuff that happened there. Well, to talk
about anxiety and Weird science. And weird science,
my my second greatest of my top
five greatest science fiction films. My 2nd greatest science fiction film I wanna go on
record for Hazon, the 2nd greatest science fiction film
of all time is the
1968 version of the Pierre Boulay novel written
by the guy who wrote Twilight Zone, Rod Serling,
Planet of the Apes. Thank you.
Oh, I don't know what's going on with the modern ones. I haven't watched any
of those. I don't care about any of those. I watched the first I I
watched the very first one. I couldn't do the rest. I just couldn't do it.
It's okay. I think it's suckered in. And I couldn't and and Mark Wahlberg thing,
that hideous Tim Burton, Mark Wahlberg thing back in the nineties. I did watch that,
and I and I promised myself never again after that, and I've never been sucked
back in again. Exactly. Yeah. It was bad.
You can't beat you can't beat Rod Serling's writing. You
just can't. That was the great great
movie. It was the first movie I ever watched
where, like, it sucked me in so much
that when Charlton Heston finally realized where he was at with the Statue of
Liberty scene on the beach,
it's iconic. That was iconic. That scene. My
stomach dropped out of my my like, my gut dropped.
Yeah. I was like, it got me. It got me. And
I'm watching this movie in, like, the mid 19 nineties. It
got me. I had heard about the ending, and I knew about the ending,
and it still suckered me in. It still got me.
Well, the other thing too is if you think about the like, so some something
that I wanna make sure everybody listening here clearly
understands. Like, Charlton Heston was in that movie.
Right. Moses. Like, yeah. Like, this is not
Mark Wahlberg, people. This is, like, Academy
Award winning. Like, this this guy was, like, legit, one of the best
actors of all time. Moses, the
omega man. Exactly. Like
this you know, I I I gotta admit. I
mean, I I I I would find it hard press for me to pick a
different number too. I'm just saying. I I I was It
it when
Charles Heston says, get your paws off me, you damn dirty ape, Like, that's
and the and the apes respond, and they're like, you know?
I think it's the level of
seriousness that Charlton Heston brought
to that material and elevated Serling's
material with.
And then the whole entire and by the way, the whole
entire plot of the movie, end of the book, but of
the movie could have been camp. It really could have gone
into camp. And Heston just by showing up, me and
Charlton Heston just didn't allow it. He's like, no. We're just we're not gonna be
camp. We're just not gonna do that. Whereas I've seen a couple of the
trailers for the thing that Matt Reeves is doing now. And I'm just
like, it's not camp, but it
would be better if it were. Honestly, he would be a little bit
more palatable if it were because here's the thing. And this gets back
to the whole idea of King Kong. Honestly, this is why I wanted to bring
up pain in the apes, but we have such a ever
since ever since Darwin's theory of evolution, we have had
such a weird
we're we're we're stunned by the fact that the apes
haven't evolved to where we are. We are we are quite frankly stunned by
that. Like, we're quite frankly so that there's a gap. Like, why
aren't there 2 dominant human species on the planet? Like, we don't we
don't we don't understand that. Like, I'm fascinated by Neanderthals, quite frankly. I
am. I'm fascinated by the entire thing. I read up on Neanderthals. I did a
whole bunch of research on them a couple years ago. I read everything I can
get my hands on about Neanderthals. And,
basically, modern humans, which are technically speaking Cro
Magnons, whatever that may mean, we basically
ethnically cleansed the Neanderthals.
It's we just we destroyed another species on the planet that was also
humans. And we're fine with it. Yeah. We're
fine with it. I don't know then. We're like, oh, that's that's fine. Like, we
we outbred them. Some of them interbred with Cro Magnons,
which is why people look a certain way or maybe even have certain IQs that
they have. Maybe people think that. No. People do think that.
There's also, we also hunted them, maybe even for
food because there was a whole lot of cannibalism that has gone on in all
throughout all of human history, across all races, ethnic groups, geographies,
doesn't matter. Religious observations, doesn't matter. Cannibalism apparently is very
popular. I'm not gonna get into that.
Maybe one day, we'll do an episode top 5. He's on top 5 cannibal
movies, and I do have top 5 cannibal movies. I do.
Well, anyway, I won't get into all that. My wife would be like, you can't
talk about any of that on air. That's terrible. That's for
Bodum. No one will listen after that. Anyway
You will lose listeners, Haysan. You will lose listeners You'll lose listeners.
Start talking about the hills have eyes.
So I'm sorry. I had I had to.
Ravenous is actually a really good movie. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Point is, that is something that
Cro Magnons what was it, like, 16000 years ago or
whatever? Like, we just we just eliminated another human species. And
so we've taken all of that anxiety, and we just put it on
the monkeys. The thing about the monkeys is
they seem to just insist on just continuing to be monkeys. Like, they're fine with
that. They're they're like, yeah. We're I don't know. We're gorillas. We're gorillas and chimpanzees
and orangutans. We're we're cool. We're just hanging out here. And so I am
convinced, number 1, I think that that is the strongest argument
actually against evolution is the fact that the monkeys are still monkeys. I think that's
one of the stronger arguments against evolution. Didn't didn't Paul Giamatti
didn't Paul Giamatti play an orangutan? He did.
Sorry. I just thought I know it's good. It's so good.
Yeah. But then but then the second strongest argument is
that we had 2 human species, and we destroyed
1. So that's the second good argument against evolution.
And then the third good argument is anything you see implanted in the apes, where
where we can give the apes intelligence, and then they just kill us all.
They just they just destroy us. There's a war, whatever, and Matt Reeves insists on
going back, speaking to your point about universes. Oh, and now we gotta go retcon
and how we all want because this is the thing. Everybody in the new
planet of the apes movies is waiting for the movie where Charlton Heston shows up.
That's what we're all waiting on. Just bring us Charlton Heston already.
Or Mark Wahlberg. Bring Marky Mark and the funky bunch, whoever the hell you bring.
Just bring bring the white guy on the ship in Who
would be who would be today's version of Charlton Heston, though? Like, who would we
get Jon Hamm, maybe? Like, who would we get to play that role? Jon Hamm.
Get the hell out of town. He's got the jawline. That was a joke. That
was a total joke. It's not the jawline, but not much
else. No. I mean, who do we get? Who do we no.
No. Well, see okay. In our time, we can't it can't be a
white guy. So it has to be like Kevin Hart
or The Rock or something. Okay. The the Rock's at least
okay. Maybe. Maybe The Rock.
I Kevin Hart, though? Will Smith even.
Come on. Kevin Hart? He's not he's not Samuel Jackson. It'll
be Sam Jackson. It'll be Sam Jackson that steps out of the spaceship. No.
Actually, no. You know who would be really cool? I don't know. I don't know
why I like him so much, but Laurence Fishburne. I think Laurence Fishburne. You go.
Stepping out of the stepping out of that spaceship, that would be cool for me.
He's a poor man. He's a poor man's Denzel Washington. Yeah. We'll go with
him. I'd I'd I'd rather him over Denzel.
Maybe
that just shows that I grew up poor. I don't know. That's fine. I
don't care. I'll tell the world. I'm not ashamed of that.
Well, I grew up wealthy, and I'll take Denzel. Exactly.
No. No. No. I think I think it has to be one of those guys
in our time, or or or it's gotta be
some female actress. Like, I don't know. To pick a female actress
here. Cause it can't, it can't be a white guy. We can't have Charlton Heston.
We're not allowed. So we're going to have a woman. It's going to be a
woman. So it would be some woman. I don't know. Some female. Oh,
the the girl I'm sorry. Girl. The woman who was just the the
female lead in twisters. I just saw that movie. Oh, no.
I no. It'll it'll probably be, like, Anna or something like
that. Yeah. There you go. From from from from from from from from. There you
go. Yeah. I mean, she just won an Emmy. Why not? Let's give her the
the let's give her another role. She's 5 for £305. Of course, she could
find a freaking freaking gorilla. You're so funny. 5 foot 305
£500, and she's a samurai. She'll kick some ass. Is that No. No. No. No.
I'm fine. She's a little sword. That's what technology will
allow on the ship.
Oh god. Alright. So where where are we on this thing now? We're at number
2. Right? We are number 2. We're at number 2. We're number 2. Okay. So
what's your my number 2 was Planet of the Ages. What's your number
2? See, I I kinda go back and forth. I actually think
a 1,000, 2,001 Space Odyssey from 1968, or
I go back and forth between that and the fly. Like, I thought the fly
was was really the I I actually did. I thought it
was I thought it was well done, and and it wasn't supposed to be in
the horror genre. It was supposed to be sci fi, but it scared the crap
out of a lot of people. So which way really did. Which version of The
Fly? The one with Jeff Goldblum, where he's, like, in the thing? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Okay. Because there's another version from, like, back in the day.
Okay. Okay. Okay. So wow. The fly or
I wouldn't go there, Dave. So okay.
Alright. So tell me why 2,001? Because I
was frustrated with that movie, unbelievably frustrated with that movie. But I'm
frustrated with Kubrick in general as a director. Like, he drives me crazy.
I have to watch Kubrick directed films like 2,001
or doctor Strangelove. Full metal jacket, I got right off the bat.
Like, I understood what he was doing right off the bat, but eyes wide shot.
Like, any of those kinds of films that he directed, I have to walk that
one that he did about the French, not the French revolution, the the
guy who was running around during during the American revolution or the French
revolution, and it was Ryan whatever. And he's
got the, like, the wig. I can't remember the name of the freaking movie.
Oh, the one A Clockwork Orange.
Oh, yeah. I'll tell my clock I'll tell I'll tell my Clockwork Orange story very
quickly. I watched A Clockwork Orange 4
times on VHS and one time on DVD. And
I did not understand what the hell was going on in that movie. And
then, for time in my life, I worked as a projectionist.
By the way, kids, for those of you who are listening or below a certain
age, a projectionist was a person who actually put together physical film.
You got film in cans, and you got a lot of noise.
That's when the film runs out. The film runs out. I was responsible
for that. And you used to
have celluloid, which was highly stable and then
silver nitrate, which would fall apart. Right. And, I worked
at an old movie house in, in Detroit that
showed classic movies. And so I watched a lot of classic films that
way, but we got a silver nitrite
copy of a clockwork orange. And when you were a projectionist,
you had to, put the movie together. And then because sometimes
you didn't know where the cuts were correctly because the projectionist is sort of Scorsese
Martin Scorsese has said this in some other directors. But a projectionist is kinda like
the final editor, which is why most directors are glad that George
Lucas sort of eliminated all of us, and now it's all digital. Anyway, because they
don't want us touching their stuff. And so we would cut and
paste the films together, cut and tape the films together. So I knew how to
do I only knew how to do all that back in the day. I still
do. So all those skills. Anyway, so I would have to watch the movie
to make sure that I didn't, they didn't, you know, tape in a
real upside down or something, which by the way, sometimes you could do
that. Anyhow, so I put together a silver nitripe
version of Clockwork Orange, and it was original
version from whenever that movie came out. And I watched it,
and I was, like, in in the theater. And I went,
got it. I understand it now. It took me, like, 8 times to watch A
Clockwork Orange and actually understand what's going on in that movie. That's my problem with
Kubrick. Like, you're you're inscrutable as a director. I have no and by
the way, the actors don't matter. The story doesn't matter because he was sort of
all over the place with his genres and what he did. The thing that United
did is it's it's Stanley Kubrick's vision of
what he wants to put forth for for reality. So it's my Clockwork Orange story.
Anyway, 2001 a space odyssey. Why did you like this? I'm
always fascinated by other people. Why did what struck you about that movie versus the
flock? Let's let's let's let's back up for a
second because I'm not suggesting that I loved the movie itself. Right?
Like, I'm just thinking, when you had sent this to me and I started thinking
about movies, I was thinking more of, like, iconic movies that,
like, that that should be on the list, I
guess. I like like, probably movies that I wouldn't have to
defend all that much. Like you know what I mean? Like so
that's really what like, I like I said, I kinda went back and forth. If
I'm thinking of, like, if I'm thinking of, like, the best or
what would be considered the best films of, you know, of all time
in the genre. So it's not that I personally have an attachment to
it like that, like like you're asking. That being said, I
really I I I did think the depiction
of AI in that in that was way beyond its time.
Right? Okay. That that's that's probably the thing that stood out to me the
most when I was like and and by the way, the oh shit
factor today. Right? Like, we were talking about, you know, when
when 1984 was written in the in 1949, and
then the year of 1984 came, and you look at that book and how many
of that book actually how many of things that that book actually came to fruition,
like, it was very high numbers. Seventies it's, like, 77% of
all the things that he wrote in that book at 84 in
1984 came true. At 2001 Space Aussie, we're pretty darn close to saying
that that movie is real. Same thing that you were just talking about
the whole Blade Runner thing. Mhmm. Think about we're now by the
way, people, we're talking to our homes. Like, we're
walking around our house. We are. Hey. What was that what was that joke
I heard the other day about the rabbit in the hat? Like, in the series
gonna go, what does a rat you know, like, where the the
so that that's kind of why I'm why I'm thinking of some of that stuff.
Like, when I'm Why will the tech companies then call the AI Dave?
They call the AI they call you Dave. See did you see did I ask
you this before? Did you see the movie Jixie? Mm-mm. No.
What is that? Oh, what is that? What is
wrong? What is wrong with you, my friend? I'm watch I'm I'm
writing it down. You know, I gotta be honest with you. That one
even before Idiocracy. Okay. Alright. The premise of this
movie is this the
phone takes over this dude's life. Like, the phone
takes him over. Like, you
know, he pisses the phone off. Like, Jexy is essentially Siri.
Right? Mhmm. Yeah. So he he he pisses it off somehow, and
and he's like, you know, Jexy, set my alarm for work for 7, you know,
7:20 AM. 7:20 AM comes. The alarm doesn't go
off. He wakes up late for work. He's like, Jack c, what happened to that
alarm? She's like, that'll teach you next time to piss me off or whatever. Like,
2019. Okay. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I
found it. Go ahead. The kid that's in it is not a huge
star, but he's been in a couple of movies. He's been in, you know, pitch,
pitch perfect, I think, with Anna Kendrick, and then he was also
in, was it Dave and, something
Dave find or need wedding dates or something like I forget what it is. But
Yeah. He's been he's been in a couple movies, and he always plays a a
a comedic, role. So but
Jexi, that movie was hilarious. I was
dying half of that movie. I was like, if this ever happens for real, we're
in big trouble. Like Oh, Ron Ron Funkus is in it, the comedian.
Wanda Sykes is in it. Oh, oh, and Rose Byrne. She's, oh, Rose Byrne
plays Jack c. She's either okay. Rose Byrne plays Jack c's voice.
Yeah. And she's she's hilarious. That the whole movie is funny. I
it's great. Anyway okay. So back back to my point about 2,001. So
the idea here is, like like, I was thinking of it more like that. Like,
you know, the book 1984. Come 1984, we get all this stuff
happening. The same thing, like, I thought about, like like, Star
Trek, the series Star Trek. Like, when we think about all the stuff that
we now have today that was somebody watched that show
as a kid and said, I'm gonna invent that someday. That's kinda
what my mindset was with Space Odyssey. The fly was just creepy as hell.
Like, that like I said, that that movie, I don't
think, was supposed to be labeled as sci fi. I think it was supposed to
be the in the horror genre. Yeah. But but it was it is sci
fi. If you think about how, like, the teleportation thing, blah blah, like, all this
the the it was like it was definitely science in there. And so
I'm not sure which one I would put, you know, number 2, but
I I I I do think both of those 2 are very iconic, sci fi
movies. So let's see. So okay. So we've got Godzilla and King
Kong universe for for Tom. We got idiocracy. We got the alien
universe, and then we've got a tie between 2,001, Space
Odyssey, and the Fly. Those are your top 4.
Okay. I'm so far. I mean, again That's so so far. Man. You know? So
far. He he had trouble going on the list. Okay. It's good. And then let's
talk about too many of them. My problem is I love this genre of movies.
That's my biggest problem. I'm just letting you know. I'm gonna well, don't worry. Next
February, we're gonna do the top 5 romantic films. We're gonna do that. You're
gonna top 5 romances. Okay. So, I've got the day the
earth stood still, doctor Strangelove, blade runner, and planet of the
apes. Okay. Speaking of Star Trek,
my number one sci fi film of all time is a movie that I
actually just watched when I was in the hotel traveling, interestingly enough, to Boston,
a couple weeks ago. Tell me it's wrath of Khan.
Of course. Please. Star Trek 2, the wrath of
con. That has gotta be the best sci fi movie ever
made. Ever. Come on. All time. My god. Come on. I like that.
This this is a great movie. It's got everything. It's got it's
got Shatner being old and retired
and angry. It's got bones wanting you to just stay
home and not be bothered. It's got, you know,
sparky and spark. Ricardo Matawan.
Oh, and that dude was awesome in that great chest, you
know, which was his, by the way. That wasn't prosthetic. That
was Ricardo Matawan. Like, he was and then and then
here's the thing. And I didn't find this out until recently. You know? So this
last year, we covered the book Moby Dick. Right? I'm reading Moby
Dick and all this and and whatever. And there's lines in Moby Dick, and I'm
like, wait. I've heard the I've read these before. I've heard these before somewhere.
And so I go back and I'm, like, rapping my brain. Right? My fertile
mind. I'm, like, the hard track. And so I went back and did a
little research. It turns out the guy who wrote
Wrath of Khan based it off of Moby Dick.
Based the entire subplot of Ricardo Montalban chasing around
William Shatner or yeah. Yeah. Too strong. We use that. The white the white whale.
Yeah. The white whale. And so we put the lines
from captain Ahab in Ricardo Montalban's mouth. I'm like, this
is brilliant. This is an example of somebody reading classic literature and
then applying it in a pop culture context so that the literature can
expand. Then you've got the ship. Oh, oh,
oh, the Kobayashi Maru test. Like Yeah.
Like, all of that's there. And it is it's so well
balanced. It's so well done. Yes. Well acted.
Well acted. Yes. Spock dies at the end, but it doesn't
matter. But you don't know that because it still has emotional punch. It still
has emotional punch. You don't know there's a star Trek 3 coming. You don't
you don't know that. And it's even so good. It
has entered the lexicon of comedy. So I remember an episode of Seinfeld. I can't
remember which episode it was, but Jerry was talking about how
star Trek star Trek 2, him him and George were talking about the coffee shop,
I think. And they were like, star Trek 2 wrath of con. It's the greatest
thing ever. Blah, blah, blah. And
Kramer goes, Kramer or Jerry says, Kramer
doesn't believe the star check 2. The wrath of Khan is, like, the best the
best star check movie ever. He likes star check 3. He likes search for Spock.
He's he's a weird elf.
I'm just like, that's brilliant. That's genius.
It is a movie that almost didn't get made because after Star
Trek the motion picture, the returns were so bad on that movie.
Everybody's like, oh, we'll never gonna I mean, Star Trek's dead. We're done.
And it literally singularly resurrected Star Trek movies
for another, like, 30 years. That movie just by itself.
I've had my kids watch Wrath of Khan. My kids love it. Gen
zers. They are gen zers. They're hardcore gen zers, and they
loved wrath of con. Yeah. Yeah. So I
I I agree with you. I I don't I think rather you know, I started
wracking my brain again, again, this genre is probably my favorite. Yeah.
Be be because of the flexibility in the genre. I just wanna
be clear. Because you got things like ET
and Contact with Jodie Foster. Mhmm. And, like and
then, of course, don't even I mean, you're not we're not even talking about any
of the modern movies, the avatars of the world that, like, you know, that
people can love them or hate them, but they're they're they are
they they're they're they're going to be
iconic at some point. Right? Like, some of these movies are just massive
buildouts of of story line and movies. So, like
and and and undertones. Like, the whole idea, the the
original Avatar, movie, with
the and I I've said this to people before. Let me get this
straight. You've never heard this story before? A race of people
finds something of value that's already inhabited
by a race of people or or at least, you know, a race a
race, and they go and they destroy them to get it. You haven't heard the
story at all? I mean, like so
but, anyway, but the the the point I'm making is just like Ferngully just in
real life. Yeah. Ferngully. Exactly. Exactly. Love
that movie, by the way. Robin Williams
plot. Robin Williams was incredible in that movie. If anybody
has not seen Ferngully, watch it with your kids. Like, that's great. But, like, but,
again, the the like, there's a lot of the the Matrix was another one. Right?
Like Mhmm. The Matrix to your well, we talked we talked about the Matrix a
little bit. Like but but it when you're talking about, like,
iconic sci fi, The Day
the Earth Stood Still, the the the Space Odyssey, like,
these are these are, like, these are, like, above and beyond.
Like, my my biggest thing, and I try to explain this to my kids all
the time. When you watch a movie like Back to the Future or
or ET or what whatever, any one of the
the acting is better Yes. Most most
times because they're not real they're not reliant on special effects and CGI.
Right. So, like, Avatar is a great movie. I love them. I
actually really like that movie. There was a lot of for those of you who
have listened to this podcast several times, and I'm not gonna go into super detail
why. You've probably can already see this coming. I know he's on can. Mhmm.
But there are parts of that that touched inside of me that some movies just
don't. Right? And I watched this movie, and I was just like, what
is going on right now, and why are we okay with this? Like, I really
like, I I could get emotionally wrapped up in that movie because of
the underlying story, like, the the undertones of the story.
Whereas you like, in most of these movies that we're
talking about today, these are movies where the the the CGI was nonexistent
or very early stage and it's choppy and it wasn't very good. And
the special effects were very manual and it was there
were, you know, it was just weird. Some they came
people watching people watching today's movies and then they go back and watch
some of these the movies that we're talking about, they're they're not gonna like my
kids don't really like a lot of the old movies. They don't get it. They
don't get it. They don't get the fact that these these to your point a
couple of times, like, these stories are based on how people were feeling at the
time. Can you get the underlying tones that are in these movies based on the
actors and actresses that are that are portraying the characters? Charlton
Heston in in the in Planet of the Apes was was the best one. Like,
that one of the best ones I can think of. Like Yep. So we're
and we're talking about the we we did I think we if we chop the
we could probably chop this episode of of your of this podcast up into,
like, 3 different versions because I think that there's something to
be said about today's sci fi versus yesterday's sci fi
versus the original sci fi. Right? Like, I think if we could
probably pick the top 5 movies in that way
and or we could separate it into sci fi comedy, sci fi
drama, sci fi sci fi, you know, sci
fi horror. I think you yeah. I think you've got a point there. I mean,
you've
The the so when I when I look at my top five list and by
the way, I I came totally completely honest. I came with
this top five list in, like, 10 minutes.
Yeah. Because I'm that guy. Right?
It didn't take me long. But you're right. Like, my top five list,
even even your top five list, driven by
writing. And this is the thing. Like, we're a literature
podcast. Right? What are the leadership lessons people can learn from great
writing? People get caught up in movies in
the visuals as well they should. Right? The visual because it's a
visual medium. Right? But when you
go so far over and you see this with the Marvel movies. Right?
This is why everyone's burned out on superhero movies now and no one cares anymore.
The reason people are burned out on that is because the visuals are
so amazing that they are
thought to be enough to carry the story,
and it's just not. Like, maybe for certain things, like Godzilla versus
Mothra versus King Kong. Okay. We all know what we're here for. We're not being
fooled. Even with something like,
probably one of the better written Marvel movies was Guardians of the Galaxy. Right?
Oh, for sure. Yes. You know, with with the special effects. That that was a
place where the writing and the special effects actually came together and actually worked. It's
one of the few I actually watched. Right. Then for every
time I just I just refused for a long time. I'm like, I'm not watching
these movies. I'm sorry. But then for for every one of those
though, you have a doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness, which
was just trash. My daughter went and saw that, and she was like, this is
I don't know what we're doing here. Right? And it's because the writing
isn't supporting it isn't it is the the the structure the
infrastructure of writing isn't there in the story. Wrath of Khan is my number
one film on my list, and it didn't even I started with that
one. Yeah. Because of the writing. The writing is
good. The iconic lines are good. But we but the
and this is one of my views with Hollywood for a long time, and it's
not just in science fiction. It's in a lot of other different genres too. This
is everywhere. When you're writing when you're making
movies and writing writing for movies based on what your
Twitter feed looks like or
who's gonna give you claps on social media. You're
writing sincerely from your friends, so you would have no experience to write
from. Like, the guys who wrote Wrath of Khan, they had life experience. Just like,
quite frankly, the guys who wrote to go into a totally different genre and totally
different place. The people who wrote French Connection
or the or Serpico or even I'll go a step
further. A movie that's very stylized, very classical,
but everybody quotes from it, Godfather.
Number 2. 2nd one.
Well, we'll leave that aside for just a minute. We'll just say Godfather and leave
it at that. Okay. The writing except for Godfather 3. The
writing is strong. The writing is strong. The writing is what
carries it. But you see a you see a definite you do. You see a
definite fall off in writing after I think about 2010.
And I don't know if that's because writers shifted television or television offered
more opportunities in streaming or whatever, but I just
know that the writing that we've gotten over the last 15 years or
so hasn't been
good. Even the matrix was a little bit of a mess. And
I liked the matrix back in the nineties. But even there, there was,
like, you're trying to do too many things. You're trying to be too cute by
half. Like, just just write a good solid story, and I think
we've forgotten that. And as a literature podcast, I support, I support good
writing. So there we go.
I support good writing. I'm with you. And and, again, I I I
like I said, I I would again, I'm gonna pick on Avatar a little
bit, but the the second one Mhmm.
Not good. It it it just it was not as good. Like, we waited
years for this movie to come out. We had such high expectations of it, and
it just did not it wasn't written as good. It
it wasn't written as well. Okay. It just wasn't I watched
the first Avatar movie. I did. I watched it in the theater,
and I was like, okay. This is fine. This is I mean, I
know the story. It's fine. It's cool. I
don't know anybody who saw the second movie. Other
than you, you're like the first person that I've met. Literally, you are. You're the
first person I've met who's who watched that movie.
I don't know how this movie made, like what is it, 500
bajillion dollars that it made? Yeah. I don't know either because it was
not very good. It was like, the writing on it was not very good,
honestly. I don't know what we
waited for. That that's I kinda might and and by the way, that happens
a lot. Even, like, even with the deterioration of the writing
quality, it it gets worse as they go.
It almost naturally. Right? Like so even The Matrix, I thought
the first one was way better than the second. I thought the second one was
really not very good. By the time they got to the third one I watched
the third one. I went, what are we doing here, people? Like, you know what
I mean? So, like, the right and that happens in just about every I mean,
with one exception, I think because you made a
statement a few minutes ago, like, with the Godzilla movie. Right? Like, with the Godzilla,
it we we're not as worried about the writing because we know what we're in
for. Right? Like, we know what we're here. I feel that way about John Wick.
Like, I thought Yeah. We know what that movie is. The
story isn't the writing is not the most important part. We just know we're
gonna see, like,
insane amounts of gunfight, insanes amount of, like,
fighting in general. Like, it it's it like, we know what we're in for there.
Like and if there's a little bit of a storyline that we could follow, then
what makes us happy. Right. And we are surprised into joy
when it's actually well written. When the when the narrative hangs
together. Like, part of the narrative hanging together has to be
that in the 3rd act, things that are proposed
in the first act are resolved. That's a basic of, like, the
story structure. This is a basic idea of story structure. Like, in the
1st 3rd of your book, you're gonna introduce an idea. In the 2nd 3rd of
your book, you're gonna have conflict. And then the 3rd, 3rd of your book, you're
gonna resolve everything. This is this is basic story structure. This is the the freight
what's called freight tax triangle, basically, is what that is. Right?
And I'm seeing all over the map
freight tax triangle being violated left and right. Now I'll
forgive that if I like the director
and if the director's strong enough to, to wrangle the material.
So for instance, the dark night trilogy,
right? Gotta be honest, Christopher
Nolan had no idea what to do in the third Dark Knight
movie because Heath Ledger kicked it.
Yeah. He had no idea what to do. Now his entire plan was to bring
back the Joker and do something else and close that
loop. And then Right. And then Heath Ledger Heath Ledger died. Okay.
So how do you how do you write yourself out of that situation? That's a
massive problem. And he solved it the best way he
knew how. But he was only able to solve propose
that solution because he'd been writing with his brother,
Jonathan, writing really challenging stuff,
from Memento all the way through inception, all of
which are movies, even the prestige and that one
that he did with, with, what's his name,
in Alaska. I can't remember. I can't remember the name of that movie.
But, he's he he did solid writing all the way
through and thus earned the stripe of being able to sort of
write his way out of out of the back end of a terrible situation
where the main actor that you wanted to use was irreplaceable.
That's writing. And that's the director writing, you know, with
his brother who's the writer. You know? And so the vision there is
clear. But for a lot of these movies, man,
we we we know the writing's not hanging together. We know you're trying to wow
us with special effects. And this is my problem with Avatar. I mean, it just
is. Like, at a certain point and this is my problem, the first Avatar, really.
Like, I know you it it I know
why it touches it touches you. It it works for you. But I'll be honest.
Like, I got 2 thirds through that movie, and I got a headache. I was
like, okay. Like, the story is not enough. Like and the visuals are
killing me here. Like, I gotta get out of here. You know? It was too
much. And I'm and by the way, I've never felt compelled to go back and
revisit it, which is a sign of for me, a sign
of, is the writing there or is it not?
Yeah. So Right. Again, I
I that's I was I was picking on the second one as well. I the
first one, I I liked. The second one, I Yeah. It just wasn't as
strong. Like, it just didn't it was it didn't hit the same way. It didn't
hit the same nerve. It didn't hit, like to your to your point, it was
kinda it kinda lost a little bit of his lackluster. Right? Like, it even for
me, like, the somebody who really liked the first one. But I think that
happens I think that happens a a lot in these movies that they're trying to,
you know, continue on. Now I do think I do think it gets
interesting when you think of we talked a little bit about the the
aliens universe and the alien and predator universe. I do
think it gets interesting when you have a series of 15 you
know, 10, 12, 15 movies that are all interconnected some way,
somehow. Mhmm. And that some of them are good and some of them are not.
And some of them, like, some of them you can watch multiple times and
others you just ignore. Mhmm. I mean, like, I just think, you
know, I think I think that's I think it go like, there's a, like, there's
a there's a there's a hump there. Right? Like Right. You get to a point
where you you get, like, f it. I'm just gonna make so many movies that
people just can't ignore me anymore. Like, that's just essential.
It's essentially what they did. And that's what they're doing with John Wick too. Like,
they're like Yeah. You know, we're just gonna make enough movies that nobody's gonna be
able to ignore us. We're just gonna keep we're just gonna keep giving Keanu Reeves
money. Well, in John I'm not paying I like Keanu Reeves, so it's not like
I have a problem with him. I'm just saying. Well, John and John Wick will
ultimately hang on sort of how how
how much more punishment can Keanu Reeves take.
Exactly. And he's in, what, his early fifties now? Something like that?
I think he might be, like, 54, 55. I think he's some but he's getting
up there a little bit. Getting a little long in the tooth there,
Keanu. Especially if you're doing your own stunts there,
kid. And we can call you kid. We're
contemporaries. We can call you kid. Oh my god. No. Wait. You know, he's
60. He was he just he just turned 60 in this
this month, September. What? I'm looking at it right now.
I'm so pissed. No. Okay. You're not a contemporary. Sorry. No.
15 years? No. That's too big a hub. No. Dude, you gotta stop.
Exactly. What are you doing? What are you doing? Well, I
mean, there's no who's someone just came out with another, action
movie recent Liam Neeson. Liam Neeson just came out with another action movie recently,
and I'm going same thing. I'm going, what are we doing here, people? Like, what?
Well well, Liam Liam Neeson just gave He did one he did one a couple
years ago that where he was some sort of assassin that had Alzheimer's. Yeah.
That that had a little bit of an interesting twist to it. I was like,
oh, this one, I I might I actually watched it, and I was like, okay.
That wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen. But I'm just thinking now he's coming
into another one. I'm going, what are we doing? What like, why why is
Liam Neeson can get away with it. Number 1, he's not high kicking, high flipping.
He's not doing jiu jitsu. He's not trying to choke anybody out. Though, interestingly enough,
have you have you seen switch to TV for just a second. Have you seen
the show on FX, which I don't have anymore because I canceled
Hulu. But have you seen the show on FX old man with, Jeff
Bridges? Jeff Bridges and, Jonathan Withko. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I do
like that, particularly the first couple of episodes of that because he did jujitsu in
that. I I gotta bring up just at least once on this podcast every episode.
It's fine. But I like it because he was like he's like
choking out this young guy, and I'm like, oh, yeah. That's exactly how it would
go. That's precisely it. That he's not kicking anybody. He's not picking his
he's like, no. No. Please. I'm gonna shoot you. And if I can't shoot you,
I'm gonna choke you. Yeah. So I I I actually do watch that show,
and I thought the 1st season was excellent. The 2nd season started just
recently, about 3 episodes into the 2nd season, and the 2nd
season is falling off a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. Okay.
I I think it's hard for these older I think it's
hard for older Oh, by the way, Jeff Bridges, the main character
in it, 75, 76. 76. 75 or
76. I don't remember, but he's either 75 or 76, and Jonathan Lithgow
is 79. Good lord. Yeah. It's like
my parents' age. Lord.
Alright. Well, I mean, I guess, you know, here's what I
do ultimately. I mean, not everybody could be Tony Tony gel. Right? Like, that's the
thing. Well, it's something I'll have to have something to
aspire to. No. I I I take I take
heart in that. If you
find what you love to do, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You
never work a day in your life. Okay. Now if you find what you love
to do, you can work until you're dead. That's that's the statement.
That's that's That's a way better way of saying it because it's
true. And so I'm glad these
guys have found work that they love. I'm glad that they found work that they're
good at, and I hope that they work until they decide that they wanna stop.
Alright. I think that's it. I think we've wrapped up our top 5
sci fi films. I don't know that we got any leadership lessons out of that,
but it was a it was an engaging and invigorating conversation
as always with Tom Libby. My name is Haysan
Sorels and you've been listening to the leadership lessons from the great books
podcast. And with that, well, we are
out.