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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of Superhero Ethics. Today we're talking about

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the movie Goji Ra also known as
Godzilla, the original nineteen fifty four Japanese

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movie. We're gonna be talking about
how this movie, seen by most in

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the West is just a fun monster
movie with a guy in a rubber suit,

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is actually a stirring tale about Japanese
reactions to the World War two and

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the nuclear bombs. We're going to
talk about why is it that a movie

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has been seen so differently in America
and how we're currently trying to get a

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better understanding of that in a lot
of parts of American society. And yes,

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we are going to talk about a
guy in a rubber suit smashing nature

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buildings all that more. After a
commercial break, we have no control over

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that was a person in a suit. Welcome back. This is MATTHEWR.

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Host as you've already heard, asking
about the great work of Nakajima Haru,

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the man in the suit. That
was Paul Happy, who's joined me today?

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Paul? How are we doing?
Doing pretty good? Yeah? I

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didn't get a ton of sleep,
but just enough, just enough to give

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a note free but hopefully you know
impassioned and you know a little let's let's

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let's talk about this movie. I
liked it, no problem, No problem.

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This time, I actually had a
lot of research and let me give

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a little bit of history of kind
of how we decided to do this movie.

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First of all, you know,
with a strike going on, as

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I've said, we wanted to do
some movies they are not about things made

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by American Hollywood companies, the companies
they are currently being struck, and so

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Japanese cinema was a great thing to
take a look at, as you If

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you'd pay attention to the Star Wars
Universe podcast, you may see that Paul

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and I also did an episode about
Japanese cinema over there about The Hidden Fortress,

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a movie that's thought to have had
a big influence on George Lucas in

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creating Star Wars. But this one, for me, there was a further

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dimension in that. Right now,
there's a movie out that is talking a

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lot about the ethical decision making of
dropping the nuclear bomb and the critique that's

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been brought about it a lot.
I haven't seen it yet, but is

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that in a movie that's all about
this horrific use of the nuclear bomb.

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We don't really pay any attention to
the victims and their perspective in at all.

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And you know, I never really
knew that much about Goji ra.

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You should always think of it as
Godzilla, except that I thought it was

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a you know, fun, silly
monster movie from the fifties that had this

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veneer of Oh, by the way, and Godzilla was caused by nuclear bombs.

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Isn't that bad? And I thought, hey, you know what that's

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actually about, kind of what that
other Hollywood movie is about, but from

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the Japanese perspective, might be worth
taking a look at. Turned out that

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I was very surprised. I think
a lot of Americans are a lot of

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people who grow up with those kind
of ideas about Godzilla. To find this

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movie is actually a stirring and incredibly
powerful and in doing research, incredibly culturally

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significant moment of Japanese cinema coming to
terms, you know, the horrible events

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of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, of the
nuclear bombing and all that. That means

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that there's so much symbolism and meaning
of a movie that I think a lot

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of people miss. And it's also
just a great science fiction movie, and

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that it uses those questions uses that
situation to ask some really hard questions about

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the kind of decision making that h
the scientists discussed in the other movie might

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have gone through. So we're going
to talk about that movie. We'll give

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you a plot Summer in a second, but the details of the plot are

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really not as important, I think
is the questions it raises. But let

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me just not with Paul. So
what was he liked about this movie?

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I mean, first of all,
it's a it's a well made movie in

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you know, nineteen fifty four standards
at least, right, but like in

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terms of you know, I think
the writing's good. I think the acting

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is good. I think production value
doesn't matter that much when you have good

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writing and acting, you know,
and those are those are both things that

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when we cover the next thing we're
going to cover, I'm also going to

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kind of talk about and double back
to and like I love great production value,

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you know, Yeah, but you
know, I don't need something to

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be super fancy. It's like if
you go see a play, you know,

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it's it's not gonna have quite the
same immersive feel. A lot of

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the time. It's like going to
see a movie right where because it's like,

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you know, you're in a room
with you know, a stage,

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and you see the lights and stuff
like that, and and so here I

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feel like, you know, sometimes
it can take a little bit to kind

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of get in, get invested,
be like, all right, this isn't

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black and white. I need like
my brain, I need like something in

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my brain to click to kind of
accept black and white as that's the world

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I'm looking at right. But then
for me, usually between five and ten

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minutes, like I forget it's even
in black and white, and like I

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can think back on a movie and
be like, oh is that Yeah,

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Oh I guess that wasn't black and
white, you know. And I'll also

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just say, like I enjoy practical
effects. I would rather watch someone in

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a suit actually stomp you know,
cardboard houses or whatever than then see not

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that good CGI. I feel like
the thing with like CGI is it it

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makes a lot of things possible that
weren't really previously so possible, but it

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got really good, and then some
of it sometimes very rushed now, and

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I feel like it has more of
a you know, some some maybe the

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Uncanny Valley kind of effect, but
also just that feeling of like I don't

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know, like here, when I'm
watching this, I'm I'm not I wasn't

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thinking about the actual filmmaking about like, you know, someone in a suit

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stomping on buildings, you know,
and and some of that's also things to

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editing and lighting and stuff like that, right, And being in black and

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white can be an asset sometimes,
right when the same way using shadows can

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can be a tool that helps sort
of obfuscate the unreality of what we're seeing

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on screen. So I just I
enjoyed that. And also in terms of

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exploring things like these subjects, you
know, I'd rather not watch a biopic

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like I just personally I don't like
almost any of them. The only exceptions

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that spring to mind are like about
classical composers. Then I'm like, you

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know, the music is just so
good. Yeah, it's like, you

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know, the fact that it's a
biotic I'm like, yeah, whatever,

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but the music, you know,
is a great movie exactly. And I

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even I saw a play of Vamad
Dais two with David Suchet as as Saliery

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and and it was it was great, you know, and it was like

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but anyway, yeah, I just
I enjoyed the movie. I appreciated things

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it was talking about. It did
manage to like address something super directly in

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a way that didn't feel super contrived
and preachy to me. And maybe some

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of that's because I'm reading subtitles and
only catching a word here and there.

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That's there's always there's always a little
bit of like if I don't fully understand

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the language being used. It it's
almost like when part of the you know,

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part of the screen is in shadows, and it's like it kind of

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allows the mind to kind of fill
it in and not, you know,

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and I usually choose to fill things
in with with a way that I like

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it better, you know it compared
to when something's in English or even Spanish

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at this point and like I understand
all the words and I'm like, oh,

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that was that was kind of an
awkward way of saying that, wasn't

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that Like I don't want to be
thinking that. That's just like I can't

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help it. But so here,
I I can't think that, you know,

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I can't criticize words always like yeah, sometimes I can be like,

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oh, they use a different word
for thank you, so like I could

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be like, oh, did they
translate it correctly or they're like five different

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ways of saying you know. But
but yeah, for the most part,

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just like it's an enjoyable movie,
you know. I think it can take

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someone who isn't watching a bunch of
you know, fifties movies a minute to

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get into probably, But it's a
good movie about interesting stuff. Like what

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else do I want? Yeah,
just a couple of things I want to

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say where you said, First of
all, it's interesting to note to us

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today. I think the production values
look quite low. This was one of

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the most expensive movies ever made at
the time it came out, particularly in

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Japanese cinema, but also in generals. I believe it costs seven hundred and

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fifty thousand yen to make, or
maybe fifty thousand dollars I don't remember,

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but either way, it was an
incredible amount. Yeah, that the seven

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hundred and fifty thousand yen sounds like
about like seven gees, I think so.

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Yeah, Well, I mean also
in nineteen fifty true, of course,

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of course, forget it. Forget
I said it number. Get the

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number a lot of money. It
costs a lot of money, And you're

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right, I think I really like
the practical effects. They're a little cheesy

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at times. In the later movies
they get a lot cheesier, and I

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think they weren't leaning into that.
But I know at the time this came

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out, people ran screaming out of
the theaters like it was pretty revolutionary in

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terms of some of the things that
it was able to do. And I

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appreciate also what a lot of stuff
you brought up about language and stuff like

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that. One thing I want to
say from the beginning is I'm really interested

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in what this movie says to us
today, and I think part of understanding

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that is also understanding the context of
nineteen fifty four Japan and what it was

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saying at that time. I'm not
Japanese, Paulitian Japanese, you know,

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and I want to get very aware
of that. In terms of making this

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discussion. There is some great analysis
by Japanese authors that I will try and

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link to in the show notes.
Is definitely worth checking out, some of

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which I read translations of some of
which I looked at. I will say

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that there are a couple of Japanese
Americans who have been guests on this podcast

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before, or we've been talking about
being guests, who have reached out to

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note of which we're able to make
it for various reasons. But I stullly

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think there's a very worthy conversation to
be had by two people who aren't in

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that culture talking about what it means
to us today and also what it our

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rest understanding what it meant at the
time and the context of it, because

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I think that is really important.
So let me just start by giving a

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quick summary of the plot. We
start and there's a lot of things in

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here that are pretty significant in as
references to things, and some of them

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i'll mention now, some of mention
as we go along, But we'll start

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out with a salvage vessel in the
ocean south of Japan that is destroyed by

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what looks like a sudden light and
then is very quickly destroyed. No one

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really understands what happened. It happens
to another vessel more sent to try to

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figure it out. They're all destroyed, and now people are starting to freak

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out and wonder what's going on.
And we cut to a place called Odo

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Island, which is a fictional island, but certainly your Japan's as part of

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an archipelago. It's there's a ton
of little islands near Japan that this is

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kind of made to represent and on
them, people are talking about what's going

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on, and one kind of you
know, grumpy old man mentions that there

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used to be a belief in a
legendary monster from the sea called Gojira,

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and so eventually people are trying to
study this. The Gojira appears and does

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in terrible things on the island,
leaves behind some footprints. Scientists come to

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study it, and they find that
it is radioactive and more attacks. More

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research. The research is being led
by and we do my best with these

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names, but will not always be
perfect. A paleontologist named Kayo he Yamina,

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and he has a daughter named mko
Yamine, and he's trying to do

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research. He decides that it is
probably a dinosaur or something that kind of

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as he understands, it emerged from
a period shortly after the dinosaurs. Interestingly,

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he talks about the dinosaurs as having
lived two million years ago, which

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is, you know, it just
kind of at to know that, like,

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and we now know it's more like
sixty five million years ago, if

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not longer, But you know that
it's kind of a nice reminder that the

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science that we now know about dinosaurs
hasn't advanced quite a lot, even just

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you know, in the seventy five
years since nineteen fifty four. So anyway,

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so there's scenes of politicians discussing what
should be done, and eventually he

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this scientist concludes that it was probably
a result of the testing of the hydrogen

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bomb that has happened quite recently by
the Americans. Although the word Americans has

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never spoken. There's political discussion about
what to do about this. There's at

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least one politician who's very concerned that
if they talk about this publicly it will

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hurt their quote diplomatic relations. Again
America has never stated, but I think

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that's the very clear undercurrent. And
the military tries to mobilize, they try

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to fight against Gojira. They completely
fail, and Gojo eventually comes to Tokyo

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and just lays waste to Tokyo in
a way that is very emblematic of the

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American firebombing of Tokyo. It's shot
in a way that is really heartbreaking in

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terms of both the destruction, but
also then all the scenes of the aftermath.

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You see a mother and child about
to die, who talk about how

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they're going to be where their father
is. The implication we get their father

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died quite likely in the war,
who was only nine years ago, but

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not explicitly stated. There's a scene
of a very young child and the kind

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of doctor testing him for radiation and
finding that he's very radioactive, and again

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it's it's just it's heartbreaking. I
definitely cried watching these scenes the first time.

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So along the way, two of
the main characters who we've been seeing

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are the girl who I mengined,
mko Imiko, and the one of the

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captains of the salvage ships, one
of the people who's been involved in sort

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of learning about this from the beginning, padeto Ogata, and they are in

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love and they're trying to figure out
what to do because she has been promised

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from a very young age to Si. As I said, she's the daughter

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of the paleontologist. She's been promised
to the scientist who's a colleague of her

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father named Dice Seazala, who has
lost his eye in the war, and

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but she doesn't really love him.
She loves this other guy. They're trying

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to figure out how to tell him. Eventually, as it goes on,

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we learned that he has come up
with something called the Oxygen Destroyer, which

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is this mega weapons super weapon very
clearly a metaphor for hydrogen bombs or like

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the next thing that would come beyond
hydrogen bombs, and it could kill Gojira,

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but he doesn't want to use it
because then other governments will try to

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use it. Even if he burns
his notes, he might be coerced into

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using it, and the two of
them, the couple who love go And

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try and talk to him and convince
him not to do it, convince him

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to use the weapon. He at
first is against it, but then as

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they learn more and more about just
how much kind of all of Japan is

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preparing to just be destroyed, and
there's this prayer that's being sung all across

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the nation and symbolized by hundreds of
Japanese school girls in Tokyo singing this very

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sad prayer for peace. He decides
that the weapon should be used, but

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that he's going to burn all of
his notes and pretty well foreshadowed, but

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it's still done in a very touching
way. He goes down with Ogata to

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00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:13.600
lay down the Oxygen Destroyer device to
kill Gojira, but as part of it,

218
00:15:13.679 --> 00:15:16.840
he cuts his own lines that he
can't be pulled up. He cuts

219
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his oxygen line so that not only
are all of his notes destroyed, but

220
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he is killed as well. And
in theory the weapon can never be used,

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so Gojira is dead. But instead
of being like celebration and cheers,

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the movie ends on this very somber
note that is clearly like sadness for the

223
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doc the scientist, but also I
think sadness for Gojira himself, who has

224
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seen kind of as a you know, a helpless you know, part of

225
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nature that was caught up in all
this. And it ends with and while

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this might because you said the part
that feels a little on the notes,

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but I think actually really works the
older paleontologist Yamane saying that, you know,

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if more nuclear testing is done,
we're going to have more Goji grass.

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Yeah. I mean to me,
I was actually saying that I felt

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like it didn't feel on the nose, even though it like super was you

231
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know, yeah that kind of be
but I say that line it sounds super

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on the nose, but feel that
way. Yeah, it's And I mean

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I think a big part of that
is like just the movie success at getting

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you to buy into it's you know, it's central conceit. It's it's reality,

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you know, And and the fact
that it is, I don't know,

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like for as unreal as it is, it feels very real because it

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is so I don't know, it's
I don't know, just sometimes you could

238
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do this and it works, and
sometimes you can do it and it doesn't

239
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for me anyway, right, and
and here it works, and yeah,

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you know, I think the idea
is that there's possibly a bunch of you

241
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know, beings like this deep in
the trenches in the ocean. Right,

242
00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:56.480
And I do believe also this movie
was made. I mean, I do

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believe this movie was made. But
that you know, C exploration has progressed

244
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a lot since then, too,
right in terms of like the ocean floor

245
00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:12.440
was less mapped than it is now
or don't. I don't really know the

246
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:18.039
state of C exploration besides of like
imploding you know, Dirgibiles. But anyway,

247
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yeah, there is still a lot
we don't know. And I think

248
00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:29.079
it's worth noting the movie Pacific Rim, which is a Kaijing movie about monsters

249
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coming from the ocean. Yeah,
though that case through like a dimensional portal,

250
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it very clearly has some references to
this movie, including in in this

251
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movie, one of the things that
the military does is trying to build like

252
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a huge electrified fence. Yeah,
and God just smashes it right through it.

253
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And in Pacific Rim they try to
build a wall right that the Kaiju

254
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to smash right through. And I
think that was a very intentional reference.

255
00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:52.839
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I think that wall was before

256
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the other wall that it could have
been a reference to. But but yeah,

257
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it's you know, the idea is
that like, you know, Gojira

258
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is not the only Kaiju in the
sea kind of right, and if you

259
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if you keep dumping nuclear bombs into
the sea like that, that can cause

260
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harm. And and that's that's why
Gojira is radioactive, right, and that's

261
00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:21.119
why all those kids have radio radiation
poisoning, like and that you know,

262
00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:26.000
that's obviously a metaphor for the difference
between like conventional weaponry or whatever and you

263
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know, atomic bombs in that the
destruction isn't confined to the immediate blast,

264
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you know. And yeah, and
it's just I don't know, it's it's

265
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interesting because it really does play as
a metaphor. But then the then the

266
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weapon that Sarah Sawa comes up with, you know, is also like a

267
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metaphor for the same thing, kind
of right, and and and so I

268
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think all of that kind of ends
up being like a you know, a

269
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metaphor for the arms race and for
escalation, and you know, you can

270
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unleash one new terror, and then
if the counter to that terror is to

271
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unleash a new new terror. It's
like, where does this go? Right

272
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exactly like nowhere good. I think
it's really true. And I think in

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understanding how much this is not only
just like a like today, we're like,

274
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oh yeah, I guess I can
see how it's connected. Like it

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was a very powerful metaphor, but
especially at the time it was made.

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I want to kind of highlight a
few parts of that. First of all,

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as I said, it starts with
these two boats getting destroyed and where

278
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they see a flash of light,
you know, and they hear the sound,

279
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and then the boats suddenly erupts in
fire. And when we watch it,

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we don't see Gudzill at all.
And I think it's very easy to

281
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think like was that at first?
I remember thinking like what we were watching

282
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was the new career of blash that
awakes Goji Rock and learning later I learned

283
00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:59.599
that actually just a few months before
they started making the movie, on March

284
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for March first, nineteen fifty four, the Japanese fishing met the Japanese fishing

285
00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:12.880
vessel Diago for Fukuyada Maru, which
translates as Lucky Dragon. Number five had

286
00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:18.000
been showered with radiation from the US
atomic testing at Bikini Atoll, and one

287
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:22.359
of those sailors had died, and
so it was like very fresh in people's

288
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:26.519
memory about you know, Americans testing
more nukes and Japanese people dying, and

289
00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:32.400
these scenes of the ships were very
evocative of that. The other thing I

290
00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:37.359
think that really comes through is that
this movie is being made only two years

291
00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:42.039
after the American occupation of Japan has
ended, and so and also very recently

292
00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:48.200
after the decision has been made to
allow Japan to have a military again,

293
00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:51.359
and so the planes and the tanks
and things like that that we see,

294
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the planes and the artillery and stuff
is all very recently returned to Japan.

295
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And lastly, very much as part
of this, there had been a very

296
00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:04.240
long history like the idea of free
press, which we see a lot of

297
00:21:04.279 --> 00:21:10.359
reporters and things reporters like very bravely
on a tower that Gojira is attacking,

298
00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:12.359
and they keep talking about Gojira right
to the moment that they are killed.

299
00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:18.640
But you know, they've been censorship
of the press, first under the Japanese

300
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:22.319
government and very much under the Americans, but also censorship with everyone. And

301
00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:25.759
there weren't things you couldn't talk about. And one of the things that I

302
00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:30.599
read a lot of was William Sutu. I think I'm pronouncing that right.

303
00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:33.839
One of things that I read was
a book by I believe in appounces is

304
00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:37.960
right, William Tutui, author of
Godzilla on My Mind, Fifty Years of

305
00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.319
the King of Monsters. He's Japanese
American. He's done a lot of study

306
00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:47.400
on this, and he writes Japanese
creative artists, filmmakers, novelists and so

307
00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:51.640
forth really couldn't talk about the atomic
bombings. It was a topic that could

308
00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:55.400
not be discussed. And Japanese people
as well were very reticent about discussing this

309
00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:57.920
tragedy because it was so horrible and
because they felt a sense of guilt and

310
00:21:57.960 --> 00:22:03.519
shame about those events. But when
the Japanese had their independence back again in

311
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:07.119
the ending of the American occupations in
nineteen fifty two to two years before the

312
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:11.319
movies made, when the Japanese had
their independence, back as filmmakers were thinking

313
00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:15.839
about giant monsters, people began to
think about that connection between monstrosity and the

314
00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:19.440
atomic bombing, and so he talks
a lot in the book. He keeps

315
00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:23.079
talking about this idea that like this
was kind of one of the first attempts

316
00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:27.319
to really wrestle with what had you
know, what what did the bombing do

317
00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:30.119
to Japan? And how did people
feel about it? Because for so long

318
00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:33.759
you couldn't talk about it, both
because of cultural issues but also literally like

319
00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:37.160
the Americans were censoring what movies could
be made, what newspaper stories were written.

320
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:41.440
Yeah I had, I hadn't really. I was kind of wondering,

321
00:22:41.480 --> 00:22:49.319
like when, like when I'm not
super up on history of like wars in

322
00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:52.680
general, you know, And I
mean I know when the war ended,

323
00:22:53.960 --> 00:23:00.920
you know, I know when specific
atrocities were committed, which I will insist

324
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:07.440
and persist on calling them, and
the sort of general timeline, but like

325
00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:11.799
in terms of yeah, how how
long after you know, the end of

326
00:23:12.200 --> 00:23:18.599
the occupation was this like two years? You know? That means people were

327
00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:22.839
thinking about making it before that or
around then, right, I mean movies.

328
00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:26.000
Movies take a while to make,
although I think they were made a

329
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:33.400
lot faster back then. But yeah, being less than ten years after something

330
00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:36.319
like that, you know, I
mean you think about like it's been twenty

331
00:23:36.359 --> 00:23:38.680
two years since, like you know, September eleventh in the United States,

332
00:23:38.759 --> 00:23:44.440
and like it's still very present in
people's consciousness, I think, and in

333
00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:52.720
conversations. So for you know,
terrorist attacks that are such larger scale and

334
00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:59.000
more recent, I think, you
know, I can only imagine how how

335
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:06.240
that would people. But also I
think the point about the like the first

336
00:24:06.279 --> 00:24:08.400
boat is really interesting where you know, we're in the beginning, Like you

337
00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:14.480
don't see colgr I like for a
while, right, And in terms of

338
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:17.519
like the bombs, like you see
a flash of light, you see the

339
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:19.799
mushroom cloud, but you don't see
the bomb. Right, It's not people

340
00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:22.880
like, oh, what's that thing
falling out of the sky. It's like,

341
00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:25.440
however, I mean, unless you're
like just in the right place,

342
00:24:25.480 --> 00:24:27.039
I think, I don't you know
what, I don't really know, no,

343
00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:32.200
But that's my impression, right,
is that it's like the vast majority

344
00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:37.200
of people at least weren't like necessarily
looking in that direction, and and so

345
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:44.119
this sort of like like what even
happened, you know, sort of sense

346
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:45.240
of that. No, I think
you're right. I think that, you

347
00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:48.920
know, I know, the author
had interviewed a lot of people who were

348
00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:52.839
who were alive at the time,
and a lot of these accounts had kept

349
00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:56.160
but you know, obviously lost lost
as so many years past it. But

350
00:24:56.240 --> 00:25:00.119
I think one of things becomes really
most interesting is how this movie was in

351
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:03.559
America. And I want to talk
about that a bit because I think it

352
00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:06.200
says something also how powerful this movie
was, which is that the movie was

353
00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:11.599
released in nineteen fifty four in Japan. Two years later, an American company

354
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:15.759
bought it and wanted to release it
in America. But they not only did

355
00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:18.680
they dub it, but they reshot
large parts of it. They added in

356
00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:25.240
American character actually played by a Canadian
actor, and so that character was a

357
00:25:25.319 --> 00:25:30.079
much bigger role. But also they
cut out all references to the atomic bomb.

358
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:33.039
They cut out all the sort of
things that would kind of implicate that

359
00:25:33.079 --> 00:25:37.400
the Americans weren't fault in any way, or that any connections to the bombing.

360
00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:42.119
And this was like a big,
and then this was a big part

361
00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:45.079
of what so Americans and my guest
stansition. I'm guessing a lot of the

362
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:51.400
West knew about these movies. And
to me this is really interesting because I'll

363
00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:55.000
admit I'm one of those people as
well. I you know, after this

364
00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:57.119
movie, like I think often happens. I think Rocky is something great example,

365
00:25:57.160 --> 00:26:00.319
but you know, there's a lot
of other examples where like people will

366
00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:03.720
make a movie where there's a spectacle
but it's really about like some really hard

367
00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:08.400
hitting drama or ethical points or whatever, and then like people are like,

368
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:11.079
Okay, but those effects were really
cool. Let's just do a million sequels

369
00:26:11.079 --> 00:26:15.200
about the effects. And they've been. As I said, when the thirty

370
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:18.720
Gojira movies, a lot of which
are maybe some of which I think hast

371
00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:22.079
mentioning point. Definitely Shin Gojira,
which I think Rieky and I are going

372
00:26:22.119 --> 00:26:23.920
to talk about some point, definitely
does. But a lot of them are

373
00:26:23.960 --> 00:26:27.640
just fun guys in suits, you
know, crushing miniature buildings and having a

374
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:30.359
lot of fun with it, and
big kaiju movies and stuff like that.

375
00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:34.079
And so, as I said,
I had definitely always thought of this movie

376
00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.160
as Okay, it's a little bit
of the atomic bomb, but it's mostly

377
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:42.880
just gonna be about you know,
the effects and the coolness. And so

378
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:45.200
my point being, I'm of curious
where where you see this or like what

379
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:48.839
you know about the movie. But
to me, there's a direct connection between

380
00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:55.799
the the way the movie is reshaped
for American audiences and and that kind of

381
00:26:56.160 --> 00:27:00.440
lack of knowledge of how much this
really was about commentary on this horrible thing

382
00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:07.079
America had done. Yeah, I
mean that's American censorship for you, right

383
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:12.000
where it's not it's not state sanctioned, it's not forced. It's just the

384
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:17.359
you know, let's take everything interesting
about this movie, take it out,

385
00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:23.400
and then you know, keep the
more superficial aspects and repackage it and you

386
00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:29.759
know, not ask people to give
any thought to the actions of you know,

387
00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:33.279
their country and you know the military
of the country they live in,

388
00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:40.119
and you know, that's it's like, you can censor things without having this

389
00:27:40.279 --> 00:27:45.079
like you know, governmental censorship,
right although also like the MPAA, it's

390
00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:47.759
a censorship body, just going to
throw that out there, you know,

391
00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:55.640
But yeah, I think I don't
I don't think I like necessarily had a

392
00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:00.920
I don't think I had the same
experience as you in terms of like my

393
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:07.039
perception of this movie specifically, Like
I feel like the first time I actually

394
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:12.119
gave it any thought, like like
when the movie Godzilla came out in the

395
00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:17.039
US, and I think there's a
nineties one, right, ninety ninety eight.

396
00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:21.240
Yeah, you know, we have
a friend who was like really into

397
00:28:21.319 --> 00:28:25.640
Kaiju and and into and into film, and so like, you know,

398
00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:29.880
was like like that's when I found
out there was like Gojira, you know,

399
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:33.319
not Godzilla and kind of the basic
you know what the you know,

400
00:28:33.319 --> 00:28:36.799
because it's like, oh, the
original is the best because it does all

401
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:41.599
this stuff. You know. So
it's sometimes these these perceptions, it's like,

402
00:28:41.640 --> 00:28:42.519
well, what, you know,
where do you hear about something?

403
00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:45.559
Right? Where's the first place that
you're kind of asked to give something some

404
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:49.240
thought? So I would say I
kind of had some of that, like

405
00:28:49.359 --> 00:28:53.799
spoon fed instead of you know,
locked away in the in the liquor cabinet.

406
00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:56.680
But like, yeah, I don't
know where I'm going with this metaphor.

407
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:02.720
This is certainly an as seamless as
the film, but I can jump

408
00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:07.119
inche by saying it further about the
nineteen ninety eight movie. I saw that

409
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:11.680
when recently it's really really bad.
But among other things, one thing thought

410
00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:18.519
was really interesting was in that the
thing that causes Gojira to awaken is French

411
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:25.720
nuclear testing. And while granted,
at the time they made it nineteen ninety

412
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:27.440
eight, the most recent built gear
tests had been done by the French.

413
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:32.680
Yeah, still that felt like a
very intentional, like we're going to make

414
00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:36.319
this for American audiences. Yeah,
No, the Americans didn't do this,

415
00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:41.200
wow wow Yeah. And I mean
it's interesting because ninety eight, I would

416
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:48.880
say, was almost like sort of
a nadir in recent history of like American

417
00:29:49.839 --> 00:29:55.119
kind of gung ho World War War
kind of stuff, you know, like

418
00:29:56.319 --> 00:29:59.440
but also maybe a sort of like
let's not think about any of that,

419
00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:03.359
because you know, there was there
was the Gulf War, right, but

420
00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:07.279
then after that it was like,
I don't think that was necessarily looked at

421
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:12.920
super positively throughout the United States,
you know, and and there were no

422
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:19.720
really high profile military conflicts until after
A one, and so I think there

423
00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:23.880
was this period of maybe like,
let's not think about America and war,

424
00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:29.799
even though of course America is always
bombing somewhere or has troops on the ground

425
00:30:29.839 --> 00:30:33.000
here, there, and everywhere,
but like it's certainly less at that point

426
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:37.440
than it was, you know,
five years later. Well, and also

427
00:30:37.480 --> 00:30:40.279
important to note is that, as
I said, this movie is made shortly

428
00:30:40.319 --> 00:30:44.680
after Japan has remade a military right
again, mocket try to go too deep

429
00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:48.079
into this, but you know,
Japan was utterly devastated by World War two,

430
00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:52.640
both the American bombings. We know
about the nuclear bombings, obviously,

431
00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:55.480
if I think a lot of people
don't know that even before that there had

432
00:30:55.519 --> 00:31:00.559
been you know, carpet bombings where
something like seventy eight Japanese cities had had

433
00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:06.079
most of their downtowns and most of
their area's completely destroyed. I think we

434
00:31:06.200 --> 00:31:08.319
think of the nuclear bombs as horrific
war crimes, and I agree that they

435
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:12.640
are, and it's hard to compare
them. But like, for example,

436
00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:17.079
you know, it's estimated that about
eighty thousand people, including radiation deaths,

437
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:22.000
died in Nagasaki. One hundred thousand
people at least, probably more died in

438
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:26.319
the fire bombing of Tokyo, And
I don't think there's any way to compare

439
00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:27.440
the two or to say, like
which is worse. That's not the point

440
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.920
at all, But I think it's
it's worth I think it's easy to think

441
00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:33.640
like, oh, until those two
bombings in America, had never done this

442
00:31:33.720 --> 00:31:37.799
kind of thing. No, we
had done horrific things to city is all

443
00:31:37.839 --> 00:31:42.799
over Japan and one of the things. So I think there's you know,

444
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:45.519
there's at the time a very strong
like, you know, do we need

445
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:48.920
a military? Do we want a
military? That's a very divisive issue,

446
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:52.559
and they're like, And I thought
it's very significant that in this movie the

447
00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:57.279
original, the military is completely useless, like they are two good people.

448
00:31:57.319 --> 00:32:01.319
They're trying at the coast guard has
helped thing, but all the military attacks

449
00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:06.519
on Goji Ra completely fail and it's
only the scientist who can do it,

450
00:32:06.519 --> 00:32:10.279
whereas in the American movie, the
American military ra rab Boys is able eventually

451
00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:15.519
to destroy Gudsof. And I thought
that was another very interesting light. Yeah,

452
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:22.319
because do some more research Honda,
who was the director, the director

453
00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:27.599
of this movie, I couldn't find
if he's connected to the Honda automobile family

454
00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:31.640
at all. But he was,
among other things, a Japanese war veteran.

455
00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:35.119
He'd been a pacifist, he didn't
want to go, he got drafted,

456
00:32:35.160 --> 00:32:40.119
he hated the war. And one
thing I learned was that when the

457
00:32:40.160 --> 00:32:44.400
Americans would, like, you know, because all the Japanese troops overseas surrendered

458
00:32:44.680 --> 00:32:47.640
and so the Americans would bring them
back to Japan, they had them land

459
00:32:47.799 --> 00:32:53.920
and go through Hiroshima because they wanted
the Japanese to see like just how much

460
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:57.720
Japan had been defeated. I guess
in this attempt to sort of like you

461
00:32:57.720 --> 00:33:00.680
know, teach you like your military
should never exist again, that kind of

462
00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:06.200
kind of thing. And it was
again quoting from the book by Sotui,

463
00:33:06.599 --> 00:33:08.000
it had a lifelong impact on him. The whore is of what he saw,

464
00:33:08.079 --> 00:33:14.799
and they decided his opportunity with movie
set an important political message. Yeah,

465
00:33:14.839 --> 00:33:20.039
it's you know, this is I
mean, this kind of it sort

466
00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:25.920
of complicates what what I would say
about things in terms of like, you

467
00:33:25.960 --> 00:33:29.559
know, you look at the war
and like, you know, we covered

468
00:33:29.640 --> 00:33:34.640
it man, you know, which
is a movie that takes place in the

469
00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:44.559
context of the atrocities committed by the
Japanese military against China, and and it's

470
00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:49.480
you know, I think it's like
there's like three things here in terms of

471
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:54.920
like sort of dealing with sort of
you know, the the results of the

472
00:33:54.960 --> 00:34:00.559
war, right, there's like one
being in a country and maybe fighting for

473
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:05.920
a military that has committed its own
atrocities, like you know that that's that's

474
00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:10.320
something that you can't paper over,
you can't deny that, like horrible,

475
00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:16.599
horrible things were done by it by
the Japanese military. And then there's you

476
00:34:16.639 --> 00:34:23.440
know, the specific atrocities committed by
the American and Allied military. I don't

477
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:29.199
know how it was it just the
US military at that point. I mean,

478
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:34.000
I know the Red Army was like
actually probably ready to invade Japan soon,

479
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:38.159
but they actually declared war. This
was coincidental because Donald had promised to

480
00:34:38.199 --> 00:34:43.880
declare war three months after the surrender
of Germany. Yeah, but they declared

481
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:50.519
war in between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
bombings. And the English was certainly a

482
00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:53.480
part of some of the fightings.
Certainly English soldiers or and also Australian and

483
00:34:53.559 --> 00:34:59.760
Indian soldiers were very much part of
a lot of the fighting. And English

484
00:35:00.199 --> 00:35:05.320
Air Force was very committed to the
same strategy of carpet bombing. And I

485
00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:07.880
believe it was English bombers that had
done a similar thing to the city of

486
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:12.280
Dresden in Germany and killed you know, but I think of like fifty plus

487
00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:15.280
people or something like that one night. I don't believe any English bombers were

488
00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:20.440
actually part of these attacks on Japan, just because they were so focused on

489
00:35:20.440 --> 00:35:22.119
fighting Germany. And it was both
the Americans there, but yeah, the

490
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:25.840
other the other countries weren't involved in
the fighting to sure, right, So

491
00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:30.800
yeah, and I mean, I
think there's some question on how much it

492
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:36.079
was coincidence in terms of the timing, right, in terms of like I

493
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:43.440
think there's an argument to be made
that like Truman didn't use atomic weapons on

494
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:46.280
Japan to get a reaction out of
Japan. It was, Yeah, I

495
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:50.320
think that, Yeah, I'm more
meant that, like it's not that that

496
00:35:50.679 --> 00:35:53.480
Russia saw, Yeah, that's all
of a sudden was like, hey,

497
00:35:53.559 --> 00:35:57.880
let's attack right right right right.
No, it was like it was scheduled,

498
00:35:58.119 --> 00:36:00.559
it was on the calendar. Yeah. Yeah. But so yeah,

499
00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:05.239
there's you know, there's the atrocities
committed by the Japanese military, there's the

500
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:09.920
atrocities committed by the US military,
and we can get more specifically into that,

501
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.159
and and then there's like losing a
war, right and sort of what

502
00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:19.719
that does to a you know,
a national psyche or a also just the

503
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:27.199
conditions of of being occupied, you
know, which you know, China and

504
00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:32.719
Korea had had just experienced as on
the other end, you know, And

505
00:36:32.760 --> 00:36:37.559
so that's you know, that's a
lot of you know, kind of emotional

506
00:36:37.599 --> 00:36:43.400
baggage that I think different people are
going to carry differently, right like,

507
00:36:43.800 --> 00:36:45.519
And it could have to do with
like what was your role in the war,

508
00:36:45.800 --> 00:36:50.119
you know, what was what were
your views on war in the first

509
00:36:50.119 --> 00:36:53.480
place, you know, in general, and I mean the context for me

510
00:36:53.639 --> 00:37:01.159
of of learning about all this,
like in school. I feel like in

511
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:06.960
history class, I don't feel like
a lot of attention was paid to any

512
00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.719
of this. There's this kind of
like handwavy, Okay, this happened on

513
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:13.559
this date, This happened on this
date. You know. This many people

514
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:19.079
you know were killed in Hiroshima and
like August six, then this many were

515
00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:22.960
killed in Nagasaki and in you know, on August nine, and they don't

516
00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:28.719
even really tell you about Tokyo and
like the other Japanese cities that were firebombed

517
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:34.800
or carpet bombed or you know,
it's like mentioned, but like it's not

518
00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:38.519
just not a big discussion about it. But I will say that I'm appreciative

519
00:37:38.599 --> 00:37:43.719
that. In you know, when
I went to Bank Street School for children,

520
00:37:43.800 --> 00:37:47.039
this is like very alternative kind of
school, and I had one teacher

521
00:37:47.079 --> 00:37:52.360
who was she actually ran like a
club called like the Asia Society or something

522
00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:54.920
or like that's where I learned to
make kapamaki and what kappa means, and

523
00:37:55.079 --> 00:38:00.880
you know, and like I think
sort of, I think as a result

524
00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:04.480
of something she said, I read, you know, a short story that

525
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.960
I don't remember the name of it. I just remember it was about this

526
00:38:07.519 --> 00:38:19.840
girl who had survived one of the
bombings and had radiation poisoning, radiation sickness

527
00:38:20.039 --> 00:38:23.440
and made like a thousand paper cranes
because like you're supposed to like get a

528
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:27.280
wish, you know, and I
think she wished for peace, and then

529
00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:34.000
she died of radiation poisoning. And
this was like I think this was like

530
00:38:34.039 --> 00:38:37.880
the fourth or fifth time in my
life that I was like just like what's

531
00:38:37.920 --> 00:38:43.719
wrong with people? Like, you
know, like like you know, the

532
00:38:43.760 --> 00:38:46.599
first being like when I found out, like, you know, how humans

533
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:50.880
treat animals, I was like,
what, like, no, that's not

534
00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.000
okay, you know, and then
you know, growing up in the US,

535
00:38:53.039 --> 00:38:57.719
you learn about slavery, and you
learn about the Holocaust, and I

536
00:38:57.719 --> 00:39:00.239
feel like those are things though,
and and you know, genocide of NATed

537
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:04.960
peoples, and like, those are
things that I think if you're in the

538
00:39:05.039 --> 00:39:07.559
US, it's easy to be like, well, that was history, that's

539
00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:13.599
how this country started, and now
like we can you know, move forward

540
00:39:13.639 --> 00:39:16.199
because we've gotten over those things.
And then later you learn like yeah,

541
00:39:16.280 --> 00:39:21.519
and no, maybe maybe we haven't
like really gone all the way forward from

542
00:39:21.559 --> 00:39:28.159
there. But but the reactions and
just the the the attempts to justify just

543
00:39:28.199 --> 00:39:32.320
the murders of like hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of civilians, both in the

544
00:39:32.519 --> 00:39:37.519
you know, in the nuclear attacks
and in the ones that preceded those.

545
00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:40.719
It just I don't know. When
I hear that, I'm just like I

546
00:39:40.719 --> 00:39:45.360
feel like that was kind of the
moment that I was just like, yeah,

547
00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:49.079
I'm I'm not American, like I
was born here, but like this

548
00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:52.719
is my sort of like you know, habitual asterisk to your wei. But

549
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:55.800
like it, like I think there
are just times when you can just hear

550
00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:00.960
something and being like I I don't
want to be part of that, you

551
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:05.239
know, and like not obviously like
all these things happened like, you know,

552
00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:07.280
it was a book. You know, my mom was born, but

553
00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:10.039
my dad wasn't born yet, you
know, so it's like you know,

554
00:40:10.199 --> 00:40:13.760
in the we or not we or
whatever, it's like, yeah, sure

555
00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:16.679
of course we weren't there, right, but it's like just the the attempt

556
00:40:16.679 --> 00:40:23.840
to justify some of these things and
like not act like their atrocities and terrorism

557
00:40:23.880 --> 00:40:27.639
like that, I mean, because
that that was the plan, right,

558
00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:30.440
The plan was terrorism. I know
there were factories and small factors and this

559
00:40:30.559 --> 00:40:35.719
and that, and like, sure
there's details, you know, but for

560
00:40:35.800 --> 00:40:39.519
me, the details don't make it
actually complicated. They're just details. I

561
00:40:39.639 --> 00:40:45.519
was I recently read a book read
on audio tape, actually the way it's

562
00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:47.719
made, it's better to be.
It's called The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell.

563
00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:52.280
It was really about sort of these
two different schools of bombing in America

564
00:40:52.360 --> 00:40:57.800
and in England, one of which
was precision bombing and the other which was

565
00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:01.480
you know, this kind of carpet
bombing. And part of it was there's

566
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:06.559
been all of these great theories about
how good precision bombing could be. It

567
00:41:06.639 --> 00:41:08.599
didn't work out, and that was
part of why the move was to just

568
00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:12.880
discriminate carpet bombing like this. There's
a lot of horrible reasons for it,

569
00:41:12.920 --> 00:41:15.679
but it is well documented that they
called it were now bombing, and that

570
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:21.000
part of the idea was that like
you had to destroy the people and destroy

571
00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:29.159
their will to fight, and a
lot of that is also wrapped up when

572
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:31.400
that. I think a lot of
orientalists and kind of racist ideas about how

573
00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:35.840
old Japanese just people think differently and
like they're never going to surrender and this

574
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:40.039
kind of thing. And I think
and I think there are some there are

575
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:44.599
Japanese scholars who've written more on the
Japanese perspective on it that are they are

576
00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:46.920
worth checking out. That Again I
can't I can't comment on, but I

577
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:52.320
definitely think you're right that there is
we're giving way into a tangent here.

578
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:53.599
I guess it's not a tangent.
It's very related to the question of this.

579
00:41:53.639 --> 00:41:58.400
And and I'm okay saying the word
Oppenheimer. You know that the right,

580
00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:00.519
right, right, That was a
real person who lived and we're allowed

581
00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:06.000
to talk about. Yes, and
mentioned the movie because I don't think that

582
00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:08.440
was promoting it. Sure, I
haven't seen it. It might be great.

583
00:42:08.480 --> 00:42:10.920
I don't know, but I think
to me it was really telling that

584
00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:15.280
that movie, it's all about this
decision to use this weapon or not,

585
00:42:15.639 --> 00:42:19.519
doesn't involve the people who were used
on And that's why those movies so striking

586
00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:23.360
is because the exact opposite, well, it doesn't show a lot of cochira,

587
00:42:23.679 --> 00:42:28.639
you know, suffering at the hands
of the oxygen destroyer. But anyway,

588
00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:31.440
right, well let's that's a little
bit okay, Yeah, yeah,

589
00:42:31.440 --> 00:42:37.400
I think there's something to be said
there. Sure. What I think the

590
00:42:38.119 --> 00:42:44.840
because when I was always taught was
yes, the use of the nuclear bomb

591
00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:47.400
was terrible and horrific, but every
other option was worse, that it would

592
00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:52.800
have caused far more civilian deaths and
American soldier deaths if we hadn't invaded,

593
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:54.280
and you know, all these kind
of just ications that are used. But

594
00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:58.559
I think as we've looked at it
more and more and understood the rationality,

595
00:42:59.119 --> 00:43:04.880
kind of don't make any sense anymore. But to me, it's really interesting

596
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:07.159
seeing how the movie is really wrestling
with that, because, as you said,

597
00:43:07.239 --> 00:43:08.360
like it shows all these different perspectives. You don't think the movie is

598
00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:14.079
clearly trying to say, like it
has clear things to say about nuclear weapons.

599
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:17.280
But I think it is very ambivalent
about what should the Japanese reaction to

600
00:43:17.320 --> 00:43:21.719
this all be, and that you
know, like there's one at a lot

601
00:43:21.719 --> 00:43:23.320
of points where a lot of people
are super scared or do iying they can

602
00:43:23.360 --> 00:43:28.440
to react, there's one character who
just says, you know, evacuate again,

603
00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:31.000
I've had enough. And I think
that's a clear reference to the multiple

604
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:36.119
times people and this you know,
London in many cities that were attacked by

605
00:43:36.119 --> 00:43:37.599
the Germans and the Japanese, but
then also many cities that are attacked by

606
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:40.199
the English and the Americans and others. You know, they had just night

607
00:43:40.239 --> 00:43:43.519
after night, go to these bomb
shelters, go on the subway station,

608
00:43:43.679 --> 00:43:47.280
try and hide from the bombing.
Yeah, And I think you just hit

609
00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:52.360
on why it works for me is
that, you know, they don't give

610
00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:54.800
you an answer, they don't tell
you how to feel about it. They

611
00:43:54.880 --> 00:43:58.920
just present it, you know,
And for me that's always what's going to

612
00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:02.840
work best. And it's it's there
are characters who have viewpoints and express those

613
00:44:02.920 --> 00:44:09.079
viewpoints, and so you can see
almost like a like a buffet of reactions

614
00:44:09.119 --> 00:44:14.039
that you can either choose from or
you can empathize with and hopefully if you

615
00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:17.440
have one reaction, you can empathize
with someone else's reaction and understand, like,

616
00:44:19.719 --> 00:44:22.280
look, I don't have to feel
the way you feel about this.

617
00:44:22.480 --> 00:44:25.159
You don't have to feel the way
I feel about this, and that's okay,

618
00:44:25.199 --> 00:44:30.159
you know in terms of like and
by this, I mean like if

619
00:44:30.199 --> 00:44:35.280
you are Japanese in Japan at the
time and this has happened, right,

620
00:44:35.320 --> 00:44:38.199
and it's like you get to feel
how you feel. And I mean,

621
00:44:38.360 --> 00:44:42.159
you know, the movie is not
like trying to say that in like really

622
00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:46.239
exploicit terms, but it's letting you
do that. It's not you know,

623
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:52.800
I don't feel like at the end
there's a oh what sari Zawa did was

624
00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:57.400
like definitely the right thing to do. It was like he made that choice,

625
00:44:57.960 --> 00:45:00.800
and you know it. I mean, maybe there's a feeling that it's

626
00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:05.519
like, yeah, if you don't
do something about Cochira, like it's just

627
00:45:05.639 --> 00:45:08.239
going to keep stomping all your cities, and like maybe that's true, you

628
00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:13.239
know, but like I don't feel
like it's like this is the only way

629
00:45:13.320 --> 00:45:16.960
everybody has to agree, Like it's
like this is what we're doing, this

630
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:21.719
is what we did, you know, Dice k decided I can't survive,

631
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:24.920
or they might convince me to.
You know. It's basically like the ego

632
00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:32.199
of a scientist is such that upon
making such a discovery and then other people

633
00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:37.199
knowing about that discovery, like,
how can one resist the urge to tell

634
00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:42.880
everyone all about how brilliant they are? Basically right, and here he's like,

635
00:45:42.920 --> 00:45:47.159
no, I'm going to take that
secret to my watery grave. And

636
00:45:47.199 --> 00:45:51.320
I did think that was like super
telegraphed. I was like, as soon

637
00:45:51.360 --> 00:45:52.920
as you like, and scientists can
be convinced that I'm not all No,

638
00:45:53.119 --> 00:45:58.679
he's gonna he's gonna pull up what
was that character you're playing? I don't

639
00:45:58.679 --> 00:46:01.679
know, Uh, yeah, he
definitely was. I think that was made

640
00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:06.320
very clear. There's a couple of
things what you talked about want to say.

641
00:46:06.360 --> 00:46:08.199
First, I love what you said
about how like it doesn't really give

642
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:12.800
answers to these questions, I think, and again, especially from when I

643
00:46:12.880 --> 00:46:15.360
read about the cultural significants in the
movie in Japan, what it really did

644
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:17.679
was only they did not give answers, but it was kind of one of

645
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:22.400
the first times that it gave permission
to ask the questions and talk about it,

646
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:27.880
you know, And then started this
conversation and and again this is Beach

647
00:46:27.960 --> 00:46:30.400
going on research of others. But
I think both about like what had happened

648
00:46:30.440 --> 00:46:35.320
to them and also their role in
like, you know, what had Japan

649
00:46:35.440 --> 00:46:38.039
done. And one thing I'll say
that this is this is kind of made

650
00:46:38.079 --> 00:46:43.159
another top for another time. But
I do take a very different perspective to

651
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:46.239
being American than you do, and
that I think I am equally as horrified

652
00:46:46.280 --> 00:46:51.320
by a lot of things that the
Americans have done. I think for me,

653
00:46:51.679 --> 00:46:54.079
I'm not able to say so that's
something they did, They're not because

654
00:46:54.079 --> 00:46:58.840
I'm not an American. To me, I get all the benefits of being

655
00:46:58.840 --> 00:47:05.679
American in terms of you know all
that that means my tax dollars do you

656
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:08.360
go to support America. It is
tax dollars given under portion of violence,

657
00:47:08.400 --> 00:47:14.000
as you pointed out to me.
But because for me, the way it

658
00:47:14.039 --> 00:47:15.599
matters is the reason. It's the
same reason why I talk about, like

659
00:47:15.679 --> 00:47:20.119
I am Christian even I'm fortified by
what so many Christians do in the name

660
00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:23.079
of Christianity, because if I just
say, oh, those aren't real Christians,

661
00:47:23.079 --> 00:47:28.199
then I don't have responsibility for it. But to me, by by

662
00:47:28.239 --> 00:47:31.360
claiming myself as an American and naming
that. It's a way of saying like

663
00:47:31.400 --> 00:47:37.239
we're still here. But also it's
a way of saying like it's my responsibility

664
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:40.360
to help make my country stop doing
these things because I am part of it,

665
00:47:40.400 --> 00:47:44.679
and I can't just say I'm not
so. And then just to give

666
00:47:44.679 --> 00:47:46.519
a counterpoint, like I said,
it's sure, that's to give you your

667
00:47:46.599 --> 00:47:51.760
perspective and your own feelings, which
yeah, and and all, I'm saying

668
00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:52.679
it, but I think that's to
me. I think that's a part of

669
00:47:52.679 --> 00:47:57.159
what's happening in this movie as well. Is it's also like the commilitary really

670
00:47:57.159 --> 00:48:00.519
shocked by is that the literal sense
of shame and debate about is that about

671
00:48:00.559 --> 00:48:06.000
we're shamed for starting the war or
even if that would believe that, you

672
00:48:06.039 --> 00:48:07.599
know, who was responsible for running
the war, Shame that we lost the

673
00:48:07.599 --> 00:48:14.199
war, that Japan lost the war, surrendered, whatever it was, you

674
00:48:14.239 --> 00:48:16.119
know. And I think that there's
so much scholarship on that that I can't

675
00:48:16.159 --> 00:48:22.199
think, I can't summarize by any
means. But just the way that this

676
00:48:22.280 --> 00:48:25.639
movie was able to open all those
questions and give people in Japan and later

677
00:48:25.679 --> 00:48:28.960
in America and all of the world
the chance to would wrestle with them.

678
00:48:28.960 --> 00:48:35.159
I think it is so important.
Yeah, absolutely, let's go to it.

679
00:48:35.239 --> 00:48:36.719
I'm like, well, I think
are two of the more interesting,

680
00:48:36.760 --> 00:48:39.159
like specific ethical questions in the movie. And first, I think because he

681
00:48:39.280 --> 00:48:45.519
mentioned Gjura's own suffering at the end
of the movie, what was your take

682
00:48:45.559 --> 00:48:52.280
on Gojura as a character. I
felt like, you know, you didn't

683
00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:59.760
get any sense of like Kojia's like
motivation or like you know, and that's

684
00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:04.599
fine because like you know, doesn't
speak Japanese, so it was hard for

685
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:09.679
the characters to have a conversation,
right, But I did appreciate that,

686
00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:15.559
you know, doctor Yamane was like, no, we should. We should

687
00:49:15.639 --> 00:49:22.760
study Gojira's like ability to resist radiation. I'm not quite sure how we'd like

688
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:28.559
intended to do that, but like
the idea of like, no, you

689
00:49:28.599 --> 00:49:30.639
see something you don't understand, it
doesn't mean you just go and kill it,

690
00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:37.280
right, And it also it feels
to me like they didn't really I

691
00:49:37.280 --> 00:49:42.280
feel like, uh, there are
maybe some more creative ways of being like,

692
00:49:42.320 --> 00:49:49.119
Okay, can we draws this thing's
attention away from where you know where

693
00:49:49.119 --> 00:49:52.719
he's going, Like, can we
create some sort of power source that will

694
00:49:52.760 --> 00:49:59.840
make them like go over here back
into the ocean, like why is gojirahi?

695
00:50:00.440 --> 00:50:02.559
And like, you know, as
opposed to just like kill kill kill,

696
00:50:02.639 --> 00:50:07.360
I will say, like when it
comes to killing animals, if they

697
00:50:07.360 --> 00:50:13.840
are currently trying to kill you,
I kind of like I'll respect that as

698
00:50:13.880 --> 00:50:17.000
a carve out of like if you
can't come up with an idea of like

699
00:50:17.559 --> 00:50:22.920
how to non violently or non lethally
stop them from killing you, like sure,

700
00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:27.679
okay, self defense, you know, so you know that that's it's

701
00:50:27.679 --> 00:50:32.079
a little different than like, you
know, oh, there's you know this

702
00:50:32.119 --> 00:50:35.760
creature in the sea, We're going
to go and kill it because we're afraid

703
00:50:35.760 --> 00:50:37.159
of what it might do. It's
like, no, it right, It

704
00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:43.119
just leveled Tokyo, you know,
which was just rebuilt. You know,

705
00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:50.360
Like it's like, come on,
I think it's really telling that Guja is

706
00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:57.079
not presented as belevolent or like sadistic. This is a version that all of

707
00:50:57.119 --> 00:51:00.360
you may not get. But like
imagine the gathering terms. These different colors

708
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:07.639
represent like different ideas, and green
is the color of nature where nature doesn't

709
00:51:07.679 --> 00:51:09.920
have like it's not evil, it's
not, but it just is it's just

710
00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:15.320
it's animals, and I think Gojira
is very much presented as that that he

711
00:51:15.440 --> 00:51:17.880
is. He's an animal, and
he does present a threat, and so

712
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:22.800
there's a certain self defense aspect.
But there's a like, to me,

713
00:51:22.920 --> 00:51:25.400
the fact that the movie feels so
tragic at the end and then we get

714
00:51:25.400 --> 00:51:29.639
this last beautiful shot of like the
ocean with the light of the sun on

715
00:51:29.679 --> 00:51:32.960
it. It's very evocative of like
when Gojira firstal Verge. I at least

716
00:51:32.960 --> 00:51:37.559
got the sense that the movie was
saying, like, it is tragic that

717
00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:40.559
the scientist had to die, but
it's also really tragic that like we got

718
00:51:40.599 --> 00:51:45.119
to a place because through our human
malfeasance of nuclear weapon testing, we awakened

719
00:51:45.159 --> 00:51:50.480
Gojira. Yeah, and then he
you know, was raised and fought back

720
00:51:50.519 --> 00:51:54.519
and we had to then kill him
or kill it. It's interesting that Gojira

721
00:51:54.679 --> 00:52:01.039
is gendered as mail even in later
movies where Gojarra lay's right. Yeah,

722
00:52:01.079 --> 00:52:04.880
I was kind of wondering about that. I was like, and I don't

723
00:52:04.880 --> 00:52:07.079
like saying it or thing or whatever, but I'm also like, like,

724
00:52:07.119 --> 00:52:13.840
I don't feel like gendering Gojira because
like I'm like, I feel like if

725
00:52:13.840 --> 00:52:19.199
there was a clear biological set up
that that would be very large and on

726
00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:23.960
screen, so you know, yes, exactly exact sensorships. That was a

727
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:27.760
thing though it was probably a good
thing, right, I don't know.

728
00:52:27.840 --> 00:52:31.880
I'm sure that's a class of you
know, there's a lot of fan fiction

729
00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:35.960
that will definitely tell you that that's
all you need to know, or even

730
00:52:36.039 --> 00:52:39.000
animation. But yeah, anyway,
but yeah, I definitely got that sense

731
00:52:39.039 --> 00:52:44.159
of like, yeah, there was
a real tragedy here that Gojura had to

732
00:52:44.199 --> 00:52:50.840
die. Yeah, and you know, and it's it's like blended with sort

733
00:52:50.880 --> 00:52:58.360
of undercut sort of like with with
Sarah Tawas you know, death right,

734
00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:02.320
And but it does feel like the
whole thing is a solemn event, which

735
00:53:02.360 --> 00:53:07.440
feels, you know, more appropriate
to something like this than like people cheering.

736
00:53:07.480 --> 00:53:10.639
And maybe there are people cheering also
at some point. I'm not sure,

737
00:53:12.159 --> 00:53:15.639
but I can't. I watched the
movie one time and it was like

738
00:53:15.679 --> 00:53:19.679
a week or two ago, but
I watched again this morning. I think

739
00:53:19.679 --> 00:53:22.079
it's a cup. There's some cheering
when they think they've defeated him with the

740
00:53:22.079 --> 00:53:25.360
military, right, but again it's
all the people on the boat and then

741
00:53:25.360 --> 00:53:29.760
everyone else because it just ends with
them on the boat. Yeah. Yeah,

742
00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:31.519
they don't have a bunch of other
and then you know, and then

743
00:53:32.280 --> 00:53:39.159
Yamina says like, you know,
if if we keep if you us keeps

744
00:53:39.239 --> 00:53:45.280
you know, dropping bombs on you
know, Bikini Atoll like things, are

745
00:53:45.239 --> 00:53:47.920
you know, we're gonna We're gonna
get more of these right, like because

746
00:53:49.079 --> 00:53:53.320
it wasn't like the bomb created Gojira, like the bomb awakened Gojira and kind

747
00:53:53.320 --> 00:54:00.360
of kind of gave Gojia like superpowers
or you know, radioactivity. Yeah.

748
00:54:00.400 --> 00:54:02.599
I think it's really accurate. And
I think one of the things that is

749
00:54:02.639 --> 00:54:09.159
most interesting about Gojira is how in
later movies he becomes the savior of Japan.

750
00:54:09.920 --> 00:54:13.840
That a lot of the movies later, especially the Gojira verse, you

751
00:54:13.840 --> 00:54:19.840
know whatever other monster, Gojarra is
the one saving Japan from these big monsters,

752
00:54:19.480 --> 00:54:25.119
right and Alten stepping on some buildings
along the way. And at some

753
00:54:25.159 --> 00:54:30.239
point, I think very recently,
Gojira has been declared an official cultural Ambassador

754
00:54:30.440 --> 00:54:36.519
for the for Japan by the Japanese
government. And I think there's a I

755
00:54:36.559 --> 00:54:37.639
can get a chance to dive into
these in which I wanted to. But

756
00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:42.280
there's a lot of really interesting scholarship
on sort of how is it the Gojira

757
00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:45.280
went from this monster that attacked Japan
to becoming like a symbol of Japan.

758
00:54:45.320 --> 00:54:50.199
It's the Japanese really relates to,
and I think the both dangerousness and the

759
00:54:50.280 --> 00:54:54.079
victimhood is really kind of a part
of that. Let's go to the other

760
00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:58.719
Oh, I was just gonna ask, like, do you know whether future

761
00:54:58.760 --> 00:55:07.360
movies are sequels and there's like new
you know, gojras or like are or

762
00:55:07.639 --> 00:55:09.360
are they sort of like reboots where
it's like, Okay, how about in

763
00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:15.519
this one, you know, god
doesn't get killed and and like not sure,

764
00:55:15.639 --> 00:55:20.920
there's a whole bunch and it's probably
complicated. Is certainly an acceptable answer

765
00:55:20.960 --> 00:55:23.840
to me. That's something question that
Kaiju experts getting to a lot of debate

766
00:55:23.880 --> 00:55:28.440
about. Okay. My understanding is
that the movie is put out by the

767
00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:31.920
Toho studios, which is the studios
of movie are kind of in some way

768
00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:36.679
as the first you know, was
one of the first connected cinematic universes,

769
00:55:36.880 --> 00:55:40.639
right, and that Godzilla does appear
again later, and that I think that

770
00:55:40.760 --> 00:55:44.599
they said that like, yes,
this is supposed to be in the same

771
00:55:45.400 --> 00:55:49.960
continuity as much as that were I
mean at a time when you went to

772
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:52.519
see a movie once and then really
didn't have a way to see it again

773
00:55:52.559 --> 00:55:55.679
and again on TV or VHS or
DVD or anything like that. You know,

774
00:55:57.320 --> 00:55:59.679
the idea of continuities much because people
a thinking about, oh, yeah,

775
00:55:59.679 --> 00:56:02.480
that movie I saw ten years ago
or whatever. Yeah, but they're

776
00:56:02.559 --> 00:56:06.519
death A lot of those movies build
on each other, and I think there

777
00:56:06.559 --> 00:56:10.079
was some statements that it was a
new Gojira that are merged for later movies,

778
00:56:12.239 --> 00:56:15.239
and certainly that like, you know, there'd be a movie that introduced

779
00:56:15.320 --> 00:56:21.280
Mathra, and then Gojira and Mathra
would together fight the three headed monster from

780
00:56:21.320 --> 00:56:22.960
outer space, and you know that
there's all these sort of things, and

781
00:56:23.559 --> 00:56:28.840
eventually Gojira gets a son who I
haven't seen yet, but the animation looks

782
00:56:28.920 --> 00:56:34.719
utterly like just ridiculously ugly cute in
a way that I absolutely love. So

783
00:56:34.760 --> 00:56:37.719
I think that's gonna be a fun
thing to check out. But yeah,

784
00:56:37.760 --> 00:56:39.960
they are kind of all connected in
that way, or a lot a lot

785
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:43.880
of them are. But but I
think not in like, you don't have

786
00:56:43.920 --> 00:56:46.039
people going on the internet being like, oh but remember a minute fifty seven

787
00:56:46.039 --> 00:56:49.880
and the first Gojira movie just happened. That doesn't fit with this other thing.

788
00:56:49.920 --> 00:56:52.679
I think it's it's more kind of
like the continuity of comic books,

789
00:56:52.719 --> 00:56:54.480
like they're all kind of the same, but they're not trying to have the

790
00:56:54.480 --> 00:57:02.920
exact name stuff, right. It's
it's sort of like pre toxic canonicity to

791
00:57:04.039 --> 00:57:07.920
borrow something from a previous episode we've
done where yeah, I'm like, I

792
00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:12.679
like you said something. I'm sorry, tangent Land, but you said something

793
00:57:12.719 --> 00:57:16.679
when we appeared on Hype is My
Superpower, which I say appeared because it

794
00:57:16.760 --> 00:57:21.679
was recorded like a month or two
ago, but it's probably not been released

795
00:57:21.719 --> 00:57:24.000
yet. I don't know, but
there's gonna be an episode that we're on

796
00:57:25.480 --> 00:57:29.280
talking about something. I don't even
remember what we talked about, but I'm

797
00:57:29.280 --> 00:57:34.559
sure it was fun. But you
mentioned how like, you know, in

798
00:57:34.599 --> 00:57:38.639
the Bible, there's like two stories
that like they say one thing and then

799
00:57:38.679 --> 00:57:42.639
the next thing says something different,
and it's just like deal with it,

800
00:57:42.760 --> 00:57:45.960
you know, and like the idea
that like these are part of the same

801
00:57:45.079 --> 00:57:51.199
universe, but like they're not.
They don't have to be not everything.

802
00:57:52.199 --> 00:57:54.239
They don't have to be completely consistent, right, because that's like not the

803
00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:59.199
point of the stories, and to
me, like I kind of I wouldn't

804
00:57:59.199 --> 00:58:01.239
mind a Star Wars where like it's
not like, yeah, this is the

805
00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:04.800
one true thing that happened, you
know, it's like, yeah, no,

806
00:58:04.920 --> 00:58:07.639
this is here's a story, here's
another story. You know. They

807
00:58:07.119 --> 00:58:14.119
compliment each other, but they don't
necessarily have to correspond perfectly, and so

808
00:58:14.159 --> 00:58:16.800
I appreciate that. If that's in
these movies as well, yeah, for

809
00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:20.519
sure. So we'll talk about what
was probably the biggest ethical question in the

810
00:58:20.599 --> 00:58:24.679
movie, which is Seri Zawa the
scientist, his decision event his kids at

811
00:58:24.679 --> 00:58:29.880
first refusal to use the oxygen destroyer
machine, and then his decision to use

812
00:58:29.920 --> 00:58:32.880
it but to kill himself and strows
notes in the process. What did you

813
00:58:32.920 --> 00:58:37.960
think of that as as how we
played out at the end. Uh?

814
00:58:38.519 --> 00:58:45.519
I thought it was you know,
it's interesting because it's like I think a

815
00:58:45.519 --> 00:58:50.400
lot of people like to you know, kind of blame the scientists and be

816
00:58:50.440 --> 00:58:53.320
like, oh, if you didn't
do these things, we wouldn't have these

817
00:58:53.360 --> 00:58:58.880
weapons, right, And like that's
true in the same way like if you

818
00:58:58.920 --> 00:59:00.519
say the soldiers, well, if
you didn't fight, we wouldn't have Wars.

819
00:59:01.360 --> 00:59:05.400
It's true, but it's like it
would have to be collective action,

820
00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:10.400
you know. Yeah, And I
feel like science is eventually going to present

821
00:59:10.559 --> 00:59:17.480
all the ways of killing, because
you know, as you increase your understanding

822
00:59:17.679 --> 00:59:24.360
of reality, you know, you
find more and more ways that aspects of

823
00:59:24.360 --> 00:59:30.480
that reality can be you know,
turned into death basically. And so I

824
00:59:30.519 --> 00:59:32.320
think the idea of like, well, Okay, I'm going to use this

825
00:59:32.360 --> 00:59:37.880
thing this one time and then I'm
going to destroy my notes and myself and

826
00:59:37.920 --> 00:59:42.360
nobody's going to be able to figure
out how it worked, I think is

827
00:59:43.480 --> 00:59:49.840
naive. You know. I think
it's a it's a heroic thought to say

828
00:59:49.840 --> 00:59:54.719
I'm going to sacrifice myself so that
nobody uses this for for ill. But

829
00:59:55.519 --> 00:59:59.519
but someone's gonna someone's else is going
to figure it out. They're gonna be

830
00:59:59.559 --> 01:00:01.599
like, oh, you called it
the ox Like if if that were my

831
01:00:01.719 --> 01:00:04.880
plan, I'd be like, I'm
not telling you what this thing's called.

832
01:00:05.239 --> 01:00:07.800
I'm not telling you it's the Oxygen
Destroyer. Then you're gonna go thinking,

833
01:00:07.800 --> 01:00:12.079
oh, how can I destroy oxygen? Like I'm not even gonna mention that

834
01:00:12.119 --> 01:00:16.920
part, you know, be like
it's the Gojira Destroyer. It's proprietary and

835
01:00:17.119 --> 01:00:21.639
I'm giving you none of the details. I might kill a few fish too,

836
01:00:22.320 --> 01:00:24.639
And and you know that go Gira
was like the military target, but

837
01:00:24.679 --> 01:00:28.119
they killed a lot of fish too. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna put

838
01:00:28.119 --> 01:00:30.920
this out there, but like you
know, and that's like a metaphor that

839
01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:35.280
I think maybe only a small number
of people are really gonna feel, but

840
01:00:35.360 --> 01:00:37.639
like you know, or maybe not, maybe it was very deliberate. I'm

841
01:00:37.679 --> 01:00:40.920
not sure. I think it was. I think though a little bit from

842
01:00:40.920 --> 01:00:45.440
an animal rights perspective more so though, I think because at that time,

843
01:00:45.760 --> 01:00:50.000
you know, fish, yeah,
fish wasn't is a huge part of the

844
01:00:50.079 --> 01:00:52.679
Japanese diet, sure, and we
were coming you know, it was only

845
01:00:52.719 --> 01:00:57.719
fairly recently that there had been like
you know, huge food short food shortages

846
01:00:57.760 --> 01:01:00.639
because of the war, right,
But also I think this is less so

847
01:01:00.719 --> 01:01:02.000
the case today, but still the
case. They but struggling time. The

848
01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:06.320
movie is made a huge part of
the economy. Yeah, and they specifically

849
01:01:06.400 --> 01:01:09.639
say that like Ewen Gojara is just
killing all the fish, yeah, and

850
01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:13.119
stopping all the fishing boats. That's
hurting the economy is Yeah, I think

851
01:01:13.159 --> 01:01:15.199
if there's like one part of oh
No, the animals and one part of

852
01:01:15.239 --> 01:01:17.239
like, oh no, all of
us who depend on the ELP. Yeah,

853
01:01:17.280 --> 01:01:21.440
yeah, that makes sense. So
yeah, I mean to me,

854
01:01:21.480 --> 01:01:29.159
it seems like, uh, the
phrase stop gap is coming to mind,

855
01:01:29.159 --> 01:01:30.960
but that's not quite what I mean. But like basically, you know,

856
01:01:31.000 --> 01:01:35.760
a kicking the can down the road, being like, okay, humans,

857
01:01:35.800 --> 01:01:38.400
somebody's going to figure this out.
But it's not going to be directly because

858
01:01:38.440 --> 01:01:42.239
of me, right, it's not. They're not going to find my work.

859
01:01:42.280 --> 01:01:45.239
They're going to have to start over
from scratch. Someone else is going

860
01:01:45.320 --> 01:01:47.039
to have to have you know,
the kind of light bulb moment moment.

861
01:01:47.320 --> 01:01:51.920
And again that's why I think probably
don't mention the name, you know,

862
01:01:52.480 --> 01:01:57.719
but like, but yeah, I
mean it's it's both I think, admirable

863
01:01:57.800 --> 01:02:00.920
and naive, you know. And
and that's not to say like if we

864
01:02:00.039 --> 01:02:05.239
draw a parallel like that, you
know, the scientists who worked on the

865
01:02:05.760 --> 01:02:08.320
you know, the Manhattan Project and
then and other nuclear projects throughout the world.

866
01:02:09.480 --> 01:02:12.840
That's not to say like, oh, well, if they didn't do

867
01:02:12.920 --> 01:02:16.960
it, someone else did so,
or someone else would, so like they

868
01:02:17.000 --> 01:02:21.840
don't have any culpability. You know, I'm not saying that. I'm not

869
01:02:21.880 --> 01:02:25.119
I'm not saying it as a well
you're off the hook because someone else would

870
01:02:25.119 --> 01:02:30.800
have done it anyway. Just you
know, I think it is worth understanding,

871
01:02:30.880 --> 01:02:35.559
like, yeah, you did this. I do hold at a higher

872
01:02:35.639 --> 01:02:38.920
level of responsibility, you know,
the people who chose to, you know,

873
01:02:39.000 --> 01:02:44.119
metaphorically pull the trigger on it,
right, either I'm signing off on

874
01:02:44.159 --> 01:02:46.159
the program or saying yeah, let's
yeah, let's blow up a couple of

875
01:02:46.159 --> 01:02:50.000
cities, you know. I mean, you know, Harry S. Truman

876
01:02:50.039 --> 01:02:53.440
I think gets a little gets off
easy, you know. And and people

877
01:02:53.480 --> 01:02:57.239
who flew the bombers, although like
I don't know how much they knew about

878
01:02:57.239 --> 01:02:59.000
what was going to happen, and
they're like, yeah, we're just we're

879
01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:01.519
just talking a bomb. I don't
know, which I think actually was dangerous

880
01:03:01.559 --> 01:03:05.519
for them too, write because of
the radiation, not like oh poor them,

881
01:03:05.639 --> 01:03:07.960
but just like you know, the
specifics of it. But yeah,

882
01:03:08.039 --> 01:03:13.000
it's like, you know, it's
like, yeah, you're responsible. It's

883
01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:17.559
probably would have happened anyway eventually,
right, but you're still responsible. So

884
01:03:19.840 --> 01:03:22.400
in a lot of ways, this
is gonna be a weird connection, but

885
01:03:22.400 --> 01:03:24.800
it follow me. I think it
makes sense. It's part of why I

886
01:03:24.880 --> 01:03:31.000
think what Galen Urso does in Jogue
one, because I think he's placed in

887
01:03:31.000 --> 01:03:36.360
that similar situation where you know,
the empire thinks he's the only scientist who

888
01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:40.280
can do this. He has to
come back, right, And I think

889
01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:44.119
you can argue, well, he
should have just been willing to die.

890
01:03:44.119 --> 01:03:47.280
He should have been willing why his
family die, because otherwise he constructs this

891
01:03:47.320 --> 01:03:52.679
thing that literally destroyed an entire planet, could destroy so many more. But

892
01:03:52.800 --> 01:03:57.599
his argument is kind of the exact
reversal of the ego argument. His is

893
01:03:57.679 --> 01:04:00.360
like, no, I'm I am
really good, but if they kill me,

894
01:04:00.519 --> 01:04:03.199
they'll find someone else to do this. It's going to be made.

895
01:04:03.679 --> 01:04:09.079
I can at least make it with
this trapdoor safety thing. There's a lot

896
01:04:09.079 --> 01:04:11.599
more to that discussion. I think
we can talk about it at another time.

897
01:04:11.880 --> 01:04:15.639
Yeah, but I agree, I
think there's a little hubrist there.

898
01:04:15.679 --> 01:04:18.840
I think it's you know, like
is it in your note. Soon after

899
01:04:18.880 --> 01:04:24.280
America first dropped the first nuclear bomb, a number of other countries within ten

900
01:04:24.400 --> 01:04:29.480
years, Soviet Union first in England
and France and actually China figured out how

901
01:04:29.519 --> 01:04:30.519
to do it. And I think
part of it is they had to do

902
01:04:30.559 --> 01:04:33.440
their own research beforehand. Certainly,
but also an extent to which, once

903
01:04:33.559 --> 01:04:38.639
one person has shown that it can
be done, maybe you steal their notes.

904
01:04:38.679 --> 01:04:42.000
And that's you know, the whole
thing with all sorts of debates about

905
01:04:42.000 --> 01:04:45.719
that Soviet Union. But also just
like it's a lot easier to decide to

906
01:04:45.760 --> 01:04:50.079
put huge amounts of money into a
research project if someone's already shown that it

907
01:04:50.119 --> 01:04:53.559
works, right, you know,
And I think that's yeah, Like,

908
01:04:53.559 --> 01:04:56.960
like you said, a lot of
other places might be like, oh,

909
01:04:57.000 --> 01:05:00.039
okay, well maybe we shouldn't use
this web Maybe why would I even I

910
01:05:00.039 --> 01:05:02.760
had a research an oxygen destroyer.
That's important way it works, Yeah,

911
01:05:02.840 --> 01:05:06.880
exactly, funny into it. Yeah, it's it's proof of concept. Yeah,

912
01:05:08.199 --> 01:05:09.960
And I think I'm with you there, And I think I think the

913
01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:16.280
movie is intentionally very it is intentionally
very obtuse about how do you feel about

914
01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:21.960
this? Because and I think that
very plaintative prayer by the Japanese girls is

915
01:05:23.320 --> 01:05:29.239
very intentional that they're trying to set
up the literal existential threat that you know

916
01:05:30.079 --> 01:05:32.800
this is. You know, it's
easy, as you said, to talk

917
01:05:32.840 --> 01:05:36.320
about the like, well should we
build this weapon for a threat that might

918
01:05:36.400 --> 01:05:41.000
happen in a five years? People
are dying every day right now because of

919
01:05:41.360 --> 01:05:45.760
about the country is at risk,
the world is at risk, And tell

920
01:05:45.800 --> 01:05:47.760
me what's interesting. And I don't
know if this is just my American then

921
01:05:47.880 --> 01:05:53.679
seeing this, or if this was
intentional by the filmmaker. I feel like

922
01:05:53.719 --> 01:06:00.239
they set up the same situation that
the Americans claim as their justification, because

923
01:06:00.239 --> 01:06:01.559
that's the American claim as well,
is it was a horrible thing to do,

924
01:06:01.920 --> 01:06:04.800
but there was literally this was literally
the best way to end the war

925
01:06:05.239 --> 01:06:09.199
because any other way would have caused
so much more death and so much more

926
01:06:09.280 --> 01:06:13.119
chaos. I mean question that today, but I think that's it's interesting that

927
01:06:13.119 --> 01:06:16.239
that's a similar question that the movie
sets up of is it can we use

928
01:06:16.280 --> 01:06:24.760
this terrible weapon knowing that because I
think in the end, I think I'm

929
01:06:24.800 --> 01:06:29.960
a team you use the weapon like
you know, I hate it, and

930
01:06:30.039 --> 01:06:31.039
I agree with you. I think
it's going to lead to more terrible things.

931
01:06:31.039 --> 01:06:33.519
And that's kind of the point of
the end, is that the statement

932
01:06:33.519 --> 01:06:36.760
of that, like we have to
all decide to stop. I mean that

933
01:06:36.840 --> 01:06:40.280
used the weapon on Gorgia, rock, not use the weapon on Japan.

934
01:06:40.519 --> 01:06:43.599
Excellent clarification. Yes, thank you, I saw your face. I was

935
01:06:43.639 --> 01:06:45.840
like, yeah, very clear.
Here. I was like, I think

936
01:06:45.920 --> 01:06:47.960
that's what you mean, but like
we probably want to make sure yeah,

937
01:06:48.000 --> 01:06:54.199
good, good, good, right, because like I said, I think

938
01:06:54.199 --> 01:06:57.920
in the self defense aspect of doing
it, it has what has to be

939
01:06:57.960 --> 01:07:00.480
done. But I think that's the
statement at the end, you're saying,

940
01:07:00.519 --> 01:07:01.599
like, yes, we had to
use this weapon because of this thing that

941
01:07:01.599 --> 01:07:06.199
we're created by weapon, but even
just destroying the notes and destroying the scientist

942
01:07:06.280 --> 01:07:10.000
isn't enough. We have to all
agree to stop trying to figure the think

943
01:07:10.039 --> 01:07:13.920
that we have to all agree to
stop this their test. Yeah, I

944
01:07:13.960 --> 01:07:18.679
think I think it is a super
deliberate parallel there, you know. I

945
01:07:18.679 --> 01:07:24.360
mean it was one of the things
that felt like this really could have felt

946
01:07:24.400 --> 01:07:30.679
too on the nose, but somehow
it works, you know. And yeah,

947
01:07:30.719 --> 01:07:34.719
I do think it's interesting that this
movie and Hidden Fortress had like a

948
01:07:34.719 --> 01:07:40.039
song, because what you're describing as
a prayer is delivered in the form of

949
01:07:40.199 --> 01:07:45.000
a song, right, it's these
children singing, and that this song sways

950
01:07:45.079 --> 01:07:49.920
this character who had not agreed to
help the protagonists but then decided to help

951
01:07:49.960 --> 01:07:54.800
the protagonists, And like I'm just
like, oh, this this is interesting.

952
01:07:54.880 --> 01:07:58.440
This is like very very similar,
like just like the same point in

953
01:07:58.480 --> 01:08:01.960
the movie, and which also I
think was The Hidden Fortunes I think also

954
01:08:02.039 --> 01:08:09.000
was done by Toho Studios. But
and then is why Kurosawa went and made

955
01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:12.800
his own production company after that,
because they're like, you film too slow.

956
01:08:12.960 --> 01:08:16.199
And I know the Kursawa and Honda
were friends. They both work at

957
01:08:16.199 --> 01:08:21.960
the studio together. Yeah, and
then because Honda was drafted but Krosawa was

958
01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:26.319
not. Honda was kind of mad
that he came back from the war and

959
01:08:26.680 --> 01:08:30.520
the kurs Sawa had kind of established
himself already, right right, right right,

960
01:08:30.600 --> 01:08:33.319
yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, I mean so, so

961
01:08:33.399 --> 01:08:41.920
it's like I do think they are
deliberately you know, setting up that parallel

962
01:08:42.359 --> 01:08:46.439
and then allowing the viewer the space
to have their own feelings about it.

963
01:08:46.479 --> 01:08:49.439
And I appreciate that. I just
always appreciate that in a you know,

964
01:08:50.159 --> 01:08:54.399
it's fine for something to like mostly
have a perspective, you know, but

965
01:08:54.479 --> 01:09:00.560
I feel like I think it's way
more powerful instead of being like super preachy

966
01:09:00.720 --> 01:09:06.079
constantly to basically present something and then
just like give give the viewer space.

967
01:09:06.119 --> 01:09:13.079
I think when people are really going
to have moments where they have this realization

968
01:09:13.119 --> 01:09:16.399
of like oh this, this isn't
okay, or like this is you know

969
01:09:16.920 --> 01:09:20.520
I should be doing this, or
like oh that's how things are. I

970
01:09:20.560 --> 01:09:25.800
don't think it's usually from someone giving
a monologue. I don't think it's usually

971
01:09:25.840 --> 01:09:28.279
from a speech, right. I
think those are things to kind of like

972
01:09:28.760 --> 01:09:32.159
rally people who are already on your
side, right, like the preaching to

973
01:09:32.199 --> 01:09:36.880
the choir metaphorically. But I think
I think setting up questions. I think

974
01:09:36.920 --> 01:09:42.439
film is a great medium for that, where you know, you you give

975
01:09:42.520 --> 01:09:46.119
people some ideas, you present people
with some ideas, and then then you

976
01:09:46.520 --> 01:09:49.720
let them feel what they need to
feel and let them think what they need

977
01:09:49.760 --> 01:09:55.199
to think. And I think just
in general, you're a lot more likely

978
01:09:55.359 --> 01:10:00.720
to actually convert people to your point
of view than if you're just you know,

979
01:10:00.800 --> 01:10:04.039
malleting them over the head with something. Yeah, and I think this

980
01:10:04.119 --> 01:10:09.640
film does a great job of that. So there's one piece of listener feedback

981
01:10:09.640 --> 01:10:13.600
I want to get to, and
then in the Patreon section, we're going

982
01:10:13.680 --> 01:10:15.600
to talk about one last part of
this movie and how it plays. Another

983
01:10:15.640 --> 01:10:18.640
movie is a love Triangle, which
I know me and Paul have some thoughts

984
01:10:18.640 --> 01:10:20.720
on. But first Paul I need
to give you a chance. And the

985
01:10:20.760 --> 01:10:24.840
last thing you want to say with
this movie not so much about the movie,

986
01:10:25.359 --> 01:10:31.359
but just I don't know. I
still like I look up things about,

987
01:10:32.159 --> 01:10:38.880
you know, American opinion on things
like Hiroshima and like Nagasaki, like

988
01:10:38.920 --> 01:10:42.000
the you know, those bombings,
and I mean, it would be interesting

989
01:10:42.039 --> 01:10:45.319
to see a polling of how many
people even have any idea of you know,

990
01:10:45.359 --> 01:10:50.840
the conventional bombings that took place before
that bute and just seeing the amount

991
01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:59.279
of support that still exists, you
know, is it's it's just like deeply

992
01:10:59.319 --> 01:11:03.800
disturbing to me. And like even
just like thinking about or talking about these

993
01:11:03.800 --> 01:11:09.600
things like it like I don't know. I mean, I you know,

994
01:11:09.680 --> 01:11:13.079
didn't break down, but it was
like I found it difficult to speak earlier,

995
01:11:13.319 --> 01:11:17.560
you know, talking about like the
first time that I heard about these

996
01:11:18.439 --> 01:11:23.800
atrocities, which I just really want
to underscore, Like I feel like if

997
01:11:23.840 --> 01:11:29.880
you refuse to recognize them for the
atrocities that they were, and if you

998
01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.840
think they're like really morally ambiguous or
even justified, like I just I just

999
01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:39.880
don't think that's being realistic. Like
that's how it sold a lot of the

1000
01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:43.600
time, right, Like I just
think that's drinking the kool aid, Like

1001
01:11:43.640 --> 01:11:47.279
I think that's giant buying a giant
pile of feces that postwar America has sold

1002
01:11:47.279 --> 01:11:53.960
to you. And I just I
don't know. I think people should question

1003
01:11:54.039 --> 01:11:58.560
how they acquired such a ridiculous viewpoint
and like why they remained so attached to

1004
01:11:58.600 --> 01:12:04.000
it. And you know, it
doesn't mean like you have to like think

1005
01:12:04.039 --> 01:12:10.359
that things were necessarily simple, because
you know they weren't necessarily simple. But

1006
01:12:10.399 --> 01:12:14.000
it's like, I don't know,
you just don't do this, like it's

1007
01:12:14.039 --> 01:12:17.319
just not okay. And that's yeah, that's all I've said to me.

1008
01:12:17.439 --> 01:12:20.840
To me, there's two things there. One is I'm really glad you brought

1009
01:12:20.920 --> 01:12:27.760
the point about the censorship, because
you know, I think that what happened

1010
01:12:27.800 --> 01:12:31.600
to this movie and his story when
it got to America is really emblematic of

1011
01:12:31.640 --> 01:12:35.399
the ways we you know, don't
want to think about that. And so

1012
01:12:35.439 --> 01:12:40.399
we took this piece of media from
a country we've done these horrible things too,

1013
01:12:41.239 --> 01:12:44.039
and then just took out all the
parts about the horrible things and made

1014
01:12:44.039 --> 01:12:46.359
it just a fun movie about you
know, a guy in a rubber suit

1015
01:12:46.439 --> 01:12:49.199
smashing a lot of buildings and but
why did you point out the way I

1016
01:12:49.199 --> 01:12:55.520
mentioned the name of that the actor
before Nakajimaharu, he's wearing a two hundred

1017
01:12:55.560 --> 01:12:59.159
pounds suit. Oh wow, So
let's let's tip our hat to that prot

1018
01:12:59.159 --> 01:13:00.000
Like if you ever think like,
oh wow, he looks so stupid,

1019
01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:05.199
he's moving so bulky, he's wearing
two hundred pounds of rubber. And this

1020
01:13:05.239 --> 01:13:12.000
is before like cooling systems in special
effects stuff like that. And as someone

1021
01:13:12.039 --> 01:13:16.720
who once wore a boat, I
imagine perspective on you know, I did

1022
01:13:16.760 --> 01:13:23.479
wear a forty pound boat for a
summer job once. That will has faded

1023
01:13:23.479 --> 01:13:27.159
into memories and thank you for bringing
back that como. But yeah, but

1024
01:13:27.279 --> 01:13:30.960
I think that's really significant of you
know, because the movie, like I

1025
01:13:30.960 --> 01:13:32.960
said, we said, it's pretty
like at one point where the mentions that

1026
01:13:33.000 --> 01:13:38.560
she had just escaped Nagasaki and now
she's dreds later nine years later in danger

1027
01:13:38.600 --> 01:13:42.920
of this bomb, things like that, and I think it's really important to

1028
01:13:42.920 --> 01:13:45.279
look at that, to look at
like, why is the talk of things

1029
01:13:45.319 --> 01:13:47.920
that we are like? And this
is kind of get leads to the second

1030
01:13:47.920 --> 01:13:55.920
point. I think it's really important
the way you phrased that we acknowledge these

1031
01:13:55.960 --> 01:14:01.600
multiple truths that Japan committed atrocities in
the war, were committed atrocities the war,

1032
01:14:02.199 --> 01:14:05.479
and you don't have to say,
well, one of them is worse

1033
01:14:05.520 --> 01:14:09.159
than the other. You don't have
to say that one of them justifies the

1034
01:14:09.199 --> 01:14:15.000
other. They're both true and communic
connection there is that I had certainly learned

1035
01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:18.039
to quite a lot about the atrocities
that Japan had committed during the war,

1036
01:14:18.800 --> 01:14:24.239
but I learned about the atrocities Japan
committed to white people. The Baton Death

1037
01:14:24.279 --> 01:14:27.880
March, which has often talked about, where American prision of war and the

1038
01:14:27.920 --> 01:14:32.720
Philippines were horribly treated. Similar things
happened to British troops in Singapore, Hong

1039
01:14:32.840 --> 01:14:39.520
Kong and other places like that.
But the you know, the the just

1040
01:14:39.760 --> 01:14:44.520
utter destruction that was done to the
Chinese city of Nan King, Nan King,

1041
01:14:45.640 --> 01:14:48.239
who never was talked about now,
the horrific atrocities that are committed to

1042
01:14:48.279 --> 01:14:53.439
the Chinese people. To the Korean
people, you pointed out that actually a

1043
01:14:53.479 --> 01:14:59.760
huge number of Koreans died the bombing
of Nagasakis, Korean immigrants to Japan live

1044
01:15:00.680 --> 01:15:06.159
that just just a point of order, not immigrants conscripted laborers like slaves,

1045
01:15:06.239 --> 01:15:09.920
like oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this wasn't like people

1046
01:15:10.199 --> 01:15:13.960
who are like I'm going to move
from Korea to Japan because that seems like

1047
01:15:13.960 --> 01:15:16.600
a nice thing to do, you
know, this was it, which I

1048
01:15:16.600 --> 01:15:19.960
think makes it a lot worse even
not that it would be okay, but

1049
01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:26.560
like during times of empire, people
in like the outer colony is often moved

1050
01:15:26.600 --> 01:15:30.439
to the main area because they're to
shift of resources and jobs and that's sort

1051
01:15:30.439 --> 01:15:31.560
of horrific. You're right, and
that's what I thought it was. You're

1052
01:15:31.600 --> 01:15:36.319
right, that is a whole of
the magnitude of terrible. And yeah,

1053
01:15:36.399 --> 01:15:40.640
I think that that's what this movie
is is great for it's like not it's

1054
01:15:40.680 --> 01:15:43.800
not trying to say, oh,
one side is justified, one is not.

1055
01:15:43.880 --> 01:15:45.479
It's trying to say, look that
all of this is terrible, and

1056
01:15:45.520 --> 01:15:49.840
how do we break out of You
know, that's not like the nuclear bombs

1057
01:15:49.920 --> 01:15:55.840
are horrible and bad, but it's
not like all of warfare before the nuclear

1058
01:15:55.840 --> 01:15:59.720
bombs was great. You know that
it's all bad and in all these tens.

1059
01:16:00.720 --> 01:16:03.640
Absolutely so, all right, well, thank you for a great discussion.

1060
01:16:04.479 --> 01:16:08.600
Listeners. Of course, we note
you think have you have you seen

1061
01:16:08.640 --> 01:16:10.920
the original? Are you know?
Are interesting sing the original? Now?

1062
01:16:12.560 --> 01:16:15.760
You know? What did you think
about Gojira and the Godzilla movies and all

1063
01:16:15.840 --> 01:16:19.479
that? Love to hear from you? Whatever? Respective is definitely right in.

1064
01:16:19.560 --> 01:16:24.840
You can find all the ways contact
us on the Ethical Panda website and

1065
01:16:24.880 --> 01:16:26.840
I'll get to that more in a
second, but first I just want to

1066
01:16:26.840 --> 01:16:29.640
give us a quick picks of feedback. A lot of the feedback we've been

1067
01:16:29.640 --> 01:16:31.560
getting that I want to go through
is about stuff that Paul hasn't seen yet,

1068
01:16:31.560 --> 01:16:34.159
so I don't want to spoil Paul. But this one piece of feedback

1069
01:16:34.159 --> 01:16:36.680
is something that Paul and I talked
about that Paul hasn't seen, but he's

1070
01:16:36.680 --> 01:16:41.000
wanting to come on a podcast and
talk about it. It comes from New

1071
01:16:41.079 --> 01:16:45.359
Jersey Jedi and call you n jj
I. Hope that's okay. Just listen

1072
01:16:45.399 --> 01:16:48.359
to you talking about animal rights and
Guardians three. Great episode and it left

1073
01:16:48.359 --> 01:16:54.159
me wondering, Paul, Parenthesis and
Matthew, especially Paul, if you could

1074
01:16:54.199 --> 01:16:57.880
create a superhero movie that was about
animal rights the way others have been about

1075
01:16:57.920 --> 01:17:01.920
racism or sexism, et cetera.
What would be like? First of all,

1076
01:17:01.960 --> 01:17:09.000
it's a great question and thank you
for the question. Second of all

1077
01:17:09.079 --> 01:17:12.439
is chance would have it. I
actually watched Guardians of the Galaxy three last

1078
01:17:12.560 --> 01:17:15.680
night and have a couple of things
I want to say about that, but

1079
01:17:15.760 --> 01:17:20.000
I'll circle back to that. Yeah, it's funny, like I come up

1080
01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:25.560
with a lot of story ideas,
but I really haven't come up with any

1081
01:17:25.560 --> 01:17:31.079
story ideas in terms of like really
in terms of animal rights. You know.

1082
01:17:32.359 --> 01:17:35.119
Okay, Okay, I'm gonna I'm
gonna give you my supervillain plan.

1083
01:17:36.520 --> 01:17:42.319
So there's this I you know,
I could know the details of it,

1084
01:17:42.359 --> 01:17:47.079
but it's actually not really relevant to
my interests. There's some disease that makes

1085
01:17:47.079 --> 01:17:55.199
people allergic to eating meat. To
any people listening to this podcast from governmental

1086
01:17:55.279 --> 01:17:59.560
agencies, this is purely a hypothetical
discussion that, as TikTok would tell me

1087
01:17:59.560 --> 01:18:01.920
to say, it's for education.
No, it's for entertainment purpose, for

1088
01:18:02.159 --> 01:18:09.039
entertainment purposes only. Yeah, So
there's this thing that literally makes people allergic

1089
01:18:09.079 --> 01:18:12.840
to eating me, and I believe
it's delivered by like ticks or something,

1090
01:18:13.239 --> 01:18:15.279
which actually complicates the plan because I
don't really want to use ticks in my

1091
01:18:15.319 --> 01:18:25.840
distribution method. But if I were
to write a supervillain. I would have

1092
01:18:26.079 --> 01:18:32.560
their plan that basically they would be
an animal rights activist who was decided they

1093
01:18:32.560 --> 01:18:36.199
were going to spread this to all
of the people, and they would probably

1094
01:18:36.239 --> 01:18:41.840
be successful, and I would probably
have a hero who was trying to stop

1095
01:18:41.880 --> 01:18:47.319
them and then change their mind.
That's there's there's my story. So not

1096
01:18:47.399 --> 01:18:53.800
even the sort of black panther.
The villain has some good ideas but goes

1097
01:18:53.840 --> 01:18:58.159
too far, at least for us, you know, audiences therefore have to

1098
01:18:58.159 --> 01:19:02.039
be stopped flat out. Like the
villain wins the here we get to the

1099
01:19:02.119 --> 01:19:04.239
end with it. The villain's about
to push the button. Then the hero

1100
01:19:04.359 --> 01:19:08.920
could stop them, but the hero's
like, go ahead, go for it.

1101
01:19:09.520 --> 01:19:14.039
Yeah, have your moment. Yeah, And I mean you know the

1102
01:19:14.640 --> 01:19:18.199
details obviously, you know you need
to work out. The challenge for me

1103
01:19:18.560 --> 01:19:23.479
is is a lot of like what
we were just talking about about, you

1104
01:19:23.520 --> 01:19:29.079
know, having a message that you
want to share or something you want to

1105
01:19:29.199 --> 01:19:31.840
encourage people to think about, and
finding a way to do it that doesn't

1106
01:19:31.960 --> 01:19:38.760
feel two on the nose right,
Like that doesn't doesn't feel like you're not

1107
01:19:38.800 --> 01:19:42.560
telling a story, like you're just
telling someone what to do. You know,

1108
01:19:42.600 --> 01:19:45.720
I'm I'm I'm not I'm not big
on telling people what to do.

1109
01:19:45.920 --> 01:19:48.079
I mean, I'm happy to tell
people, Oh I think that's an awful

1110
01:19:48.119 --> 01:19:50.840
thing to do, you know,
but not like you should do this,

1111
01:19:50.960 --> 01:19:57.079
you should not do this, you
should you don't, and like, so

1112
01:19:57.159 --> 01:20:02.920
yeah, I think finding a way
to actually present at in an organic storytelling,

1113
01:20:04.399 --> 01:20:10.319
you know, telling a great story
while having stuff like that going on,

1114
01:20:10.880 --> 01:20:14.720
I think is just so much more
effective than just being like, Okay,

1115
01:20:14.720 --> 01:20:16.119
this is my message, how am
I going to distribute it? You

1116
01:20:16.159 --> 01:20:19.000
know, like and so like when
you ask the question, my first thought

1117
01:20:19.079 --> 01:20:20.239
was like, oh, I don't
even know. And I was like,

1118
01:20:20.319 --> 01:20:25.520
oh wait, I came up with
supervillain plan for a totally not me super

1119
01:20:25.600 --> 01:20:28.560
villain to do this thing. And
then like, oh, what if there's

1120
01:20:28.600 --> 01:20:30.840
a hero who's trying to stop them, and maybe they actually change their mind?

1121
01:20:30.960 --> 01:20:34.800
You know, you know, maybe
they don't, but you know,

1122
01:20:35.399 --> 01:20:39.079
you got to make the characters first
and then let the characters tell you what

1123
01:20:39.119 --> 01:20:42.680
they want to do. It's kind
of my my philosophy, but you know,

1124
01:20:42.720 --> 01:20:47.479
you make enough characters with enough interesting
perspectives, and I think yeah,

1125
01:20:47.479 --> 01:20:49.960
because the other thing is like,
I mean, am I going to have

1126
01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:55.720
a superhero who basically just goes around
and liberates animals. And then I mean,

1127
01:20:55.760 --> 01:20:59.600
because that's a thing, like people
do that and they get sent to

1128
01:20:59.640 --> 01:21:03.560
prison for like terrorism for like like
there's people doing like ten years or something

1129
01:21:03.680 --> 01:21:11.520
for like kidnapping in quotes like or
quote unquote stealing two pigs who like weren't

1130
01:21:12.159 --> 01:21:17.079
gonna even be like who are of
no financial value to the company because they've

1131
01:21:17.119 --> 01:21:20.760
they've got such powerful lobbies, you
know. I mean, like, you

1132
01:21:20.800 --> 01:21:23.760
know, what would I want to
write. I'd want to write some like

1133
01:21:23.840 --> 01:21:27.479
dexter thing where like someone just goes
around and kills all these people. But

1134
01:21:27.520 --> 01:21:30.680
it's like that's not actually going to
change anything, you know, So like

1135
01:21:30.600 --> 01:21:33.560
that's that's not what i'd write.
Probably, I don't know, it's a

1136
01:21:33.560 --> 01:21:39.279
good question, too. Beats continued, Yeah, I mean, and I

1137
01:21:39.359 --> 01:21:43.920
do like the way that you frame
it of because if that, you know,

1138
01:21:44.000 --> 01:21:49.039
allergy got to all of humanity.
Like I'm someone who eats meat.

1139
01:21:49.319 --> 01:21:54.880
I eat significantly less meat than I
used to when I eat meat from I've

1140
01:21:54.920 --> 01:21:58.520
tried to divorce myself entirely from the
factory farming system and focus on things that

1141
01:21:58.520 --> 01:22:00.920
are more ethical and more or caring
to the quality of life of the animals

1142
01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:06.399
and the life and that's entirely because
of my friendship with you and and I

1143
01:22:06.399 --> 01:22:10.600
mean and that causing me to learn
more about those things and kind of educated

1144
01:22:10.640 --> 01:22:15.680
about factory farming, industry and things
like that, and so on the one

1145
01:22:15.720 --> 01:22:17.600
hand, I can say you're good
at convincing people. You know, we've

1146
01:22:17.640 --> 01:22:21.760
also been friends for twenty five years, and I just mostly made these changes

1147
01:22:21.760 --> 01:22:25.000
about four or five years ago.
So you know, a policy if everyone

1148
01:22:25.079 --> 01:22:28.520
take twenty one years to change one
person's opinion, is not the most efficient

1149
01:22:28.520 --> 01:22:31.319
thing. When I was appreciate that
like you have never you know, we

1150
01:22:31.399 --> 01:22:34.279
have maintained a friendship while I am
engaging in something that you find, you

1151
01:22:34.319 --> 01:22:40.239
know, very against your morals.
And to me, I do agree that

1152
01:22:40.159 --> 01:22:46.319
that kind of attitude of the try
to persuade when you can. But even

1153
01:22:46.359 --> 01:22:48.680
then I'm like, because honestly,
I think there's some things where like I'm

1154
01:22:48.680 --> 01:22:51.119
not as forgiving as you are,
and I do cut people out of my

1155
01:22:51.159 --> 01:22:55.960
life with that that kind of thing. But I also understand where you're coming

1156
01:22:55.960 --> 01:22:57.880
from it. But my point being
that I think, like something like that

1157
01:22:57.920 --> 01:23:03.640
allergy thing, no one is actually
harmed, Like I enjoy meat, and

1158
01:23:03.800 --> 01:23:09.600
I couldn't enjoy that anymore. Would
that reduce my quality of life in some

1159
01:23:09.760 --> 01:23:13.119
regards? Yeah? Would it probably
improve my quality of life in terms of

1160
01:23:13.119 --> 01:23:16.439
my health? Yeah? Would I
probably within a year just get so used

1161
01:23:16.479 --> 01:23:23.000
to finding ways to enjoy plant based
food that I would stop caring about it

1162
01:23:23.119 --> 01:23:28.560
almost as surely? Yes? And
yeah. So I think it's a very

1163
01:23:28.600 --> 01:23:30.840
interesting sort of take on it,
as well as the idea of like,

1164
01:23:30.880 --> 01:23:33.359
I like that you didn't actually answer
the question of but the hero. You

1165
01:23:33.399 --> 01:23:38.600
sort of went for the villain,
you know, because I think the Harley

1166
01:23:38.680 --> 01:23:44.760
Quinn animated show, I think it's
doing something really fascinating from a similar perspective,

1167
01:23:44.760 --> 01:23:47.920
because it's really about saying, like, they're not giving believable, relatable

1168
01:23:48.000 --> 01:23:51.119
villains, but still have a hero
who eventually has to stop them. It's

1169
01:23:51.119 --> 01:23:55.920
straight up to the show about villains
and they do horrible things that killed people

1170
01:23:56.039 --> 01:24:00.000
left and right. But and sometimes
it's because they have a very righteous cause.

1171
01:24:00.079 --> 01:24:02.000
And sometimes it's because you know,
they cut in line when they're trying

1172
01:24:02.000 --> 01:24:06.159
to get a sandwich. That's a
righteous cause. And well, it depends

1173
01:24:06.199 --> 01:24:11.039
on what's in the sandwich. I
mean, but Ivy especially is very much

1174
01:24:11.359 --> 01:24:14.800
kind of where you're coming from.
She's not animal rights, she's more environmental

1175
01:24:14.880 --> 01:24:16.279
rights. Yeah, she's very much
like, yeah, I'm just gonna kill

1176
01:24:16.319 --> 01:24:20.399
all these terrible people. And she
presented as a villain but also as a

1177
01:24:20.439 --> 01:24:23.960
hero, you know, in that
I think we're supposed to be rooting for

1178
01:24:24.079 --> 01:24:27.960
her occasionally, like maybe I wouldn't
go quite as far as you're going,

1179
01:24:30.079 --> 01:24:31.880
but but yeah, so I think
it's really interesting space to explore there about

1180
01:24:31.920 --> 01:24:34.159
like what does it mean to be
a villain? And that's a whole of

1181
01:24:34.159 --> 01:24:36.479
the copic that we're gonna get in
a lot of discussions about. But yeah,

1182
01:24:36.560 --> 01:24:40.159
I really like that I answer that
question. And Yeah, first of

1183
01:24:40.159 --> 01:24:45.000
all, I really love what you
said about, you know, gradually convincing

1184
01:24:45.039 --> 01:24:51.079
and not. It's just I'm not
trying to convince you by saying you should

1185
01:24:51.079 --> 01:24:57.279
do this. It's just I do
think like if you just live your life

1186
01:24:57.399 --> 01:25:02.920
and do what you think think is
right, you know, like other people

1187
01:25:02.960 --> 01:25:06.800
see that and think about it the
same way. You can make a movie

1188
01:25:06.840 --> 01:25:11.760
that presents these questions and then people
can think about it and some people will

1189
01:25:11.840 --> 01:25:14.880
change and some people won't. Most
people won't, but some people won't.

1190
01:25:14.880 --> 01:25:16.439
We can never go on a changent
without leading to three other tangents. That's

1191
01:25:16.439 --> 01:25:19.039
just the way we are interested listening. You know that about us enjoying more

1192
01:25:19.079 --> 01:25:24.760
tangents. There's been a lot of
discussion, and especially because of what Hill

1193
01:25:24.800 --> 01:25:29.399
apparently said to his now ex girlfriend, but putting that aside, but it

1194
01:25:29.439 --> 01:25:33.199
led to larger discussions about the difference
between setting a boundary for yourself versus setting

1195
01:25:33.199 --> 01:25:36.520
a rule for someone else. And
I think you are a great example of

1196
01:25:36.560 --> 01:25:42.039
that because you've never asked me,
not even me, You've never asked me

1197
01:25:42.199 --> 01:25:45.199
to, you know, change the
way I what I do. But you

1198
01:25:45.279 --> 01:25:54.960
have said that you will not go
to a restaurant that serves date. And

1199
01:25:55.039 --> 01:25:58.239
so part of what that meant was
that when I wanted to have and you

1200
01:25:58.279 --> 01:26:00.520
were often like, yeah, look, you often even to say like,

1201
01:26:00.520 --> 01:26:01.600
I'm not even gonna hang out.
We can find ways to hang out that

1202
01:26:01.680 --> 01:26:04.680
you're over food, but just if
I invite a utube restaurant that had meat,

1203
01:26:04.800 --> 01:26:09.520
you wouldn't go. And so I
there were sometimes where I was like,

1204
01:26:09.760 --> 01:26:11.680
yeah, let's hang out after dinner, because I do you really want

1205
01:26:11.680 --> 01:26:14.000
to go to this place, and
sometimes I was like, yeah, okay,

1206
01:26:14.239 --> 01:26:15.319
let's go choose some places that are
not going to have the food that

1207
01:26:15.359 --> 01:26:17.840
I love the most, but are
start going to be good food. And

1208
01:26:18.279 --> 01:26:20.960
I went to a couple of places
that I hated what was happening in the

1209
01:26:21.000 --> 01:26:25.039
company. And then later especially you
know, I was looking at more cuisines,

1210
01:26:25.079 --> 01:26:28.560
but also it was just being in
food sciences really increased that we're now

1211
01:26:28.560 --> 01:26:30.199
at the place where we can consistently
find things that we're both happy to eat

1212
01:26:30.199 --> 01:26:32.840
at. And so I just wanted
to highlight that as a great, great

1213
01:26:32.840 --> 01:26:39.159
example of this idea of having a
boundary versus Then you have a boundary that

1214
01:26:39.279 --> 01:26:42.479
means that because I like interacting with
you, I have to I do change.

1215
01:26:42.520 --> 01:26:45.840
I choose to change my havior,
but you never made it a rule

1216
01:26:45.920 --> 01:26:48.640
for me and never like tried to
veto like what I eat. It's just

1217
01:26:48.720 --> 01:26:57.439
your boundary. Yeah cool, Yeah, and the Guardians of the Galaxy,

1218
01:26:57.920 --> 01:27:03.279
I feel like I should have a
better response to that. You could cut

1219
01:27:03.319 --> 01:27:05.199
this, you could get the whole
thing. No, No, I think

1220
01:27:05.199 --> 01:27:11.800
it was great. I just felt
my response was underwhelming. I felt a

1221
01:27:11.880 --> 01:27:16.159
tad blown off. But that's okay. No, yeah, let me let

1222
01:27:16.199 --> 01:27:20.680
me this is a bit of a
ridiculous sentence, but you know, I

1223
01:27:20.680 --> 01:27:25.319
mean I appreciate you appreciating that,
you know, and and I appreciate the

1224
01:27:25.399 --> 01:27:27.640
number of times that you've been like, yeah, I'll go to this place

1225
01:27:27.680 --> 01:27:29.800
that I don't know if I'm gonna
like it or not, you know,

1226
01:27:30.319 --> 01:27:32.439
and like sometimes you didn't and sometimes
you did, you know. I think

1227
01:27:32.479 --> 01:27:38.079
I think once we found like some
vegetarian Indian places, Indian places like that,

1228
01:27:38.079 --> 01:27:43.119
that was like a pretty good sweet
spot. I think in terms of

1229
01:27:43.159 --> 01:27:48.079
Guardians of the Galaxy three, it
like I won't get too deep into it,

1230
01:27:48.119 --> 01:27:50.800
but like my main things are like
one, if you thought that was

1231
01:27:50.800 --> 01:27:56.479
super graphic, like it, it
wasn't super graphic. It was like a

1232
01:27:56.520 --> 01:28:00.840
little bit. I mean it was
it confronted you with a lot of the

1233
01:28:00.840 --> 01:28:05.359
horrors that humans do to non human
animals, but then gave you this like

1234
01:28:05.439 --> 01:28:10.439
over the top villain that maybe you
didn't have to feel so bad, you

1235
01:28:10.479 --> 01:28:17.079
know, and then completely undercut itself
in the very last scene where Rocket and

1236
01:28:17.159 --> 01:28:20.399
company are just like, oh,
here's a bunch of animals. Oh do

1237
01:28:20.399 --> 01:28:24.199
you feel bad? No, not
really, Let's just shoot them all and

1238
01:28:24.239 --> 01:28:27.560
I was just like, and it
was fun. I was watching with Zen

1239
01:28:27.640 --> 01:28:31.399
Madwoman, and as she has said, she prefers to be called on these

1240
01:28:31.439 --> 01:28:36.399
things, and she was just like, what was that? Like why was

1241
01:28:36.439 --> 01:28:40.439
that scene there? And it was
It reminded me of you know, when

1242
01:28:40.479 --> 01:28:44.880
we were talking about Loki and like
Loki being like, oh I'm bisexual,

1243
01:28:44.960 --> 01:28:47.239
now let me kiss a woman.
So none of you have to have uncomfortable

1244
01:28:47.279 --> 01:28:54.239
feelings about this, and yeah,
so it's just like just you know,

1245
01:28:54.479 --> 01:28:57.079
I feel like that is a movie
that will make a lot of people think

1246
01:28:57.119 --> 01:29:00.399
about things that they hadn't thought about
before. And I really appreciate ate that.

1247
01:29:00.720 --> 01:29:03.000
But like, oh, do we
have to like undercut the message?

1248
01:29:03.159 --> 01:29:09.560
You know? Yeah, and I
that I would not put in. I'll

1249
01:29:09.560 --> 01:29:12.520
just I'll just put that out there. So yeah, no, I think

1250
01:29:12.520 --> 01:29:15.079
it's very fair. I think that
was I think I think we were critical

1251
01:29:15.119 --> 01:29:16.439
of that at the time. Yeah, I certainly think I was like,

1252
01:29:16.479 --> 01:29:21.560
yeah, why did this happen?
Because it was like that it's funny.

1253
01:29:21.560 --> 01:29:25.159
I'd even forgotten how corld I was
seeing. I just thought, you meant

1254
01:29:25.199 --> 01:29:28.399
when like we see them like eating
animals on sticks. Yeah, yeah that

1255
01:29:28.520 --> 01:29:31.560
too, that too. Yeah,
for sure, yeah, so yeah,

1256
01:29:31.600 --> 01:29:34.479
definitely good points. Here's the funny
part. We've gone so long that I

1257
01:29:34.520 --> 01:29:40.119
thought we were in the patrons section
already. That's why I kept saying,

1258
01:29:40.119 --> 01:29:42.399
why don't we do it next time? Because they'll be in the patronext I

1259
01:29:42.479 --> 01:29:45.159
know. It's like New Jersey Jedi. Thank you so much for asking the

1260
01:29:45.239 --> 01:29:47.720
questions. I don'tone else keep sitting
in questions. You find all the ways

1261
01:29:47.760 --> 01:29:53.560
to do so. On the ethical
handa dot com, I am still on

1262
01:29:53.560 --> 01:29:59.680
Twitter. Eventually, I'm going to
the side to get off Twitter. I

1263
01:29:59.720 --> 01:30:01.600
don't I have the energy and time, unfortunately, to create like five different

1264
01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:06.479
accounts on the five different things that
are currently trying to replace Twitter, and

1265
01:30:08.119 --> 01:30:10.159
you know, if one or two
of them emerge is kind of the real

1266
01:30:10.239 --> 01:30:13.279
dominant ones, or if you know, eventually I get kicked off Twitter because

1267
01:30:13.279 --> 01:30:15.920
I will keep calling it Twitter,
and I will keep calling people'sis gender,

1268
01:30:15.680 --> 01:30:18.880
both which I've heard and I'm becoming
bannable offenses. They're not really, but

1269
01:30:18.960 --> 01:30:21.279
you know, who knows it will
happen. We'll see, But for now,

1270
01:30:21.279 --> 01:30:26.720
you can find me on Facebook,
email, Twitter, TikTok uh.

1271
01:30:26.960 --> 01:30:29.359
You can technically find me on Instagram. I don't do much there, but

1272
01:30:29.359 --> 01:30:31.039
if you send me a message on
Instagram you can find it pretty much.

1273
01:30:31.039 --> 01:30:33.680
Search for the Ethical Panda in any
of those places, but best things just

1274
01:30:33.680 --> 01:30:38.479
go to the Ethical pnda dot com. Paul, I know you can find

1275
01:30:38.520 --> 01:30:42.720
as Zen Madman is more a work
in progress at the moment in terms,

1276
01:30:42.720 --> 01:30:45.199
but Paul has written a lot of
great books in the past and is in

1277
01:30:45.239 --> 01:30:48.800
the process of fermenting different ideas that
will eventually come true. Hopefully they will

1278
01:30:48.800 --> 01:30:53.319
be more in the writing stories,
not me trying to visit him in prison,

1279
01:30:54.000 --> 01:30:59.039
but we will see. Yeah,
of course, of course, because

1280
01:30:59.039 --> 01:31:01.680
we certainly don't have recorded record that
will be available to the public. That's

1281
01:31:01.680 --> 01:31:06.439
not what I mean by catch.
I mean physically, okay, apprehend Yeah,

1282
01:31:06.479 --> 01:31:10.760
that's true. That's true. So
yeah, so, But the point

1283
01:31:10.880 --> 01:31:13.840
is send us all the feedback.
The best way to support us as being

1284
01:31:13.840 --> 01:31:16.079
a Patreon. You get our Patreon
you can support us. I think it's

1285
01:31:16.079 --> 01:31:20.279
just like five bucks a month,
and you get access to add free uh

1286
01:31:20.640 --> 01:31:26.239
content. You get access to additional
content and our Patreon sections. And right

1287
01:31:26.239 --> 01:31:29.119
now, especially the twenty five percent
of all the money I get from Patreon

1288
01:31:29.520 --> 01:31:33.680
is going to be donated to the
Educational Fund, sorry, the Entertainer's Fund,

1289
01:31:34.000 --> 01:31:38.079
which is being used to help people
affected by the strike, both the

1290
01:31:38.159 --> 01:31:40.119
unions and also out of the unions. In terms of that, you know,

1291
01:31:40.359 --> 01:31:44.479
Paul's parents were not actors, are
directors, but like your parents would

1292
01:31:44.520 --> 01:31:45.720
probably be out of work right now, they worked in other kinds of part

1293
01:31:45.720 --> 01:31:48.960
They were in other unions. Yeah, well yeah, it could probably do

1294
01:31:49.800 --> 01:31:54.000
commercials, but anyway, yeah,
it's it affects. It affects a lot

1295
01:31:54.000 --> 01:31:57.119
of people. When you shut down
a production, it affects a lot of

1296
01:31:57.119 --> 01:32:00.560
people, the makeup people, the
caterers, the you know, and some

1297
01:32:00.640 --> 01:32:02.279
of it, some of it is
like the official movie cater or some of

1298
01:32:02.319 --> 01:32:06.279
it's probably I'm sure there's a pizza
place next to some of these lots that

1299
01:32:06.399 --> 01:32:11.119
just gets a ton of business,
or delivering pizzas to the studios. You

1300
01:32:11.159 --> 01:32:14.439
know, all those are suffering now. So yeah, twenty five percent goes

1301
01:32:14.520 --> 01:32:18.439
to that. So uh, Patreon
content about love triangles coming into a second.

1302
01:32:18.439 --> 01:32:20.760
But for everybody else, thank you
all so much for listening. We

1303
01:32:20.880 --> 01:32:24.640
have spoken what