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Speaker 2: The Film Board gathers. The Gang of Thugs has come
Speaker 2: together to talk about a film currently in theaters, and
Speaker 2: this week we take on the great bun. June Hose
Speaker 2: return to sci fi with his own stamp on multiplicity.
Speaker 2: It's Mickey seventeen. Hi, Mickey, are you.
Speaker 3: Experiencing any vertigo?
Speaker 1: I guess I am feeling a little dizzy. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: did you see that?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised if you were thinking at this point,
Speaker 2: what have I done? Oh? Doctor is your one? God?
Speaker 2: Nothing was working out and I wanted to get off
Speaker 2: of her. You're planning to be inexpendable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you read through the whole application.
Speaker 2: Is that a kick in there? I should have read
Speaker 2: through it. Once you die would print a new version
Speaker 2: of your body.
Speaker 1: They made me work my ass off on one mission
Speaker 1: after another.
Speaker 2: Every time you die, we learned something new that humanity
Speaker 2: moves forward. Oh, it's life is fine, My life, Biggie
Speaker 2: it's not looking very good for you. Yeah no, I'm
Speaker 2: sure you're used to it by now, But what's itf
Speaker 2: you like to die? Even on my seventeenth go around?
Speaker 1: I hate dying?
Speaker 2: Why aren't you dead? With multiples? Shine up this friendic
Speaker 2: case of this month, we're staring down direct our Bong
Speaker 2: June host follow up to Parasite with Mickey seventeen film
Speaker 2: that esks what if your job literally killed you? Who
Speaker 2: still couldn't quiet quit? We follow an expendable space colonists
Speaker 2: played by the Roberts Pattinson, who die repeatedly on dangerous missions,
Speaker 2: only to be reprinted and reprogrammed with his own memories.
Speaker 2: Looked for it coming soon in your corporate wellness program.
Speaker 2: Joining me for this existential nightmare are three film fans who,
Speaker 2: unlike Mickey, cannot be replaced despite what we put them through.
Speaker 2: Justin Yeger, Tommy Meds the Third and Andy Nelson, our
Speaker 2: very own Mickey's eight twelve and fifteen joined me to
Speaker 2: explore a film about a man who literally cannot escape
Speaker 2: his job even through dad.
Speaker 3: Hello gents, Hello, hello you, And it's so exciting to
Speaker 3: have Andy Nelson back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here on bord it's a little weird. I need
Speaker 2: to be a call. There was like a cold wind
Speaker 2: blew through arm microp.
Speaker 1: Well, last time I was here, I think it was Megan.
Speaker 1: So I'm only coming for them movies.
Speaker 2: Now, Oh, outstanding. At least I know what the what
Speaker 2: the fuss is If it's an f movie, Andy is summoned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see that. Maybe it's also has to be
Speaker 1: someone's name.
Speaker 2: This is a fascinating movie because I saw JJ for
Speaker 2: real in real life yesterday and we both had a
Speaker 2: little kibbutz about how much we did actually enjoy this movie,
Speaker 2: and we both said the same thing, Gosh, when we
Speaker 2: were watching this movie, we sure were thinking about Andy.
Speaker 2: And I think as we go into one of the
Speaker 2: things that I've learned that that is Sackri saying to
Speaker 2: the show is dark opening thoughts segment. So I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get rid of opening thoughts, but I am
Speaker 2: going to ask Andy to go first on his opening thoughts,
Speaker 2: and I will add to this something that we bring
Speaker 2: in from sitting in the dark, access to grind opening
Speaker 2: thoughts and access to grind on this film, Andy, what
Speaker 2: do you think.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny that that I was in both
Speaker 1: of your thoughts. It's like, I'm You're both Timo and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the Mickey, and you're both trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how can we how can we best exploit him?
Speaker 4: Yes, what does it feel like to die?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1: You know this is it's a it's a frustrating film
Speaker 1: for me because I generally am.
Speaker 4: Just starting with the acts, just going too you know, but.
Speaker 1: It's it's frustrating. It's like I enjoyed Bong June Hoe
Speaker 1: when he's telling films that that are done with I
Speaker 1: don't want to say just like a serious a more
Speaker 1: serious tone, but there's something about when he has a
Speaker 1: much more comedic style in his films that I really
Speaker 1: struggle with his his comedy stylings. And so this was
Speaker 1: a hard one for me. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: really interesting ideas in the film, but on the whole,
Speaker 1: I just had a hard time getting through this film.
Speaker 2: It was just a rough watch.
Speaker 1: And it didn't help that I was in an audience
Speaker 1: that largely completely silent through it, like Narry Alas it
Speaker 1: was not, and it was it was like i'd say,
Speaker 1: maybe third full auditorium, and so it is pretty quiet,
Speaker 1: and so it just you know, it just didn't make
Speaker 1: for a great watching experience.
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's a huge bummer, and you've really harshed
Speaker 2: our buzz. So let's see it's gonna pile on.
Speaker 3: Well, the word that I was going to use, and
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding because I have it in my notes
Speaker 3: right here, is frustrating. It is a movie where I
Speaker 3: like and agree with so many of the ideas. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of really great parts in it. I just
Speaker 3: and I feel bad saying this. I wish it wasn't
Speaker 3: so much movie. It took on nine different topics and
Speaker 3: kind of lowly or shallowly talked about all of them,
Speaker 3: and I would have really liked to deep dive into
Speaker 3: one or two. Also, the fact I don't know when
Speaker 3: they made this, but the fact who we have in
Speaker 3: office as the president makes Mark Ruffalo, who I love
Speaker 3: that kind of character, kind of a tough watch right now.
Speaker 3: It's not fun. It's hard to just sort of poke
Speaker 3: fun and laugh at it. And one of my biggest
Speaker 3: things is I like voiceover to be extremely.
Speaker 2: Detailed.
Speaker 3: Well, now, I'm fine with voiceover as long as it's
Speaker 3: not just sort of meandering, and this film is wall
Speaker 3: to wall voiceover, to the point that it makes me
Speaker 3: wonder how much of it was added later on, because
Speaker 3: entire scenes are just voiceover when you're seeing people have
Speaker 3: conversations and we can't hear it. So I like a
Speaker 3: lot of it. I'm glad to have seen it. Overall,
Speaker 3: I really felt it's running time and it just felt
Speaker 3: way too.
Speaker 2: Spread out, sort of sharp act, says JJ Rebuttal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I don't think it is a complete Rebuttal
Speaker 4: because I definitely agree with the amount of time there,
Speaker 4: I think. So I have many questions for all of you,
Speaker 4: but in particular Andy, like this thing about and Pete
Speaker 4: actually the thing that he warned me about or told
Speaker 4: me about in regards to your feelings about Bong jun Ho.
Speaker 2: Is war about in particular the entire and I did.
Speaker 4: Actually find this movie very funny. I do think that
Speaker 4: my theater was more silent than I would like to,
Speaker 4: not like me laughing at Marvin getting his head shot
Speaker 4: off in pulp fiction and nobody else in the theater
Speaker 4: joining me kind of, but it was closer to that, right,
Speaker 4: But so I get that, But I really would like
Speaker 4: to hear sort of more on your feelings about that
Speaker 4: when we get to it, especially because the reason why
Speaker 4: I thought of you so much is because this movie
Speaker 4: the first half of the movie, which I really liked.
Speaker 4: I really really enjoyed the first half of the setup
Speaker 4: and the sort of and I don't want to call
Speaker 4: it shorthand, but the quick pace in world building, in
Speaker 4: explaining the story and the way that they did it.
Speaker 4: I really enjoyed that. There was a point in the
Speaker 4: early parts of this movie, in the first half where
Speaker 4: I was like, this is a five star movie for me.
Speaker 4: It definitely started falling off as we continued into things forward,
Speaker 4: but I was laughing, and those early pieces really made
Speaker 4: me think of Brazil a lot, and that's why I
Speaker 4: was thinking of you, Eddie. I was like, Oh, Andy's
Speaker 4: really gonna like this because it's this dystopian future thing
Speaker 4: that has the sort of lighthearted thing to it. So
Speaker 4: I totally want to hear more about your piece there.
Speaker 4: And Tommy, my question for you would be to I
Speaker 4: would really like to hear the multiple things that you
Speaker 4: would like to go further on in this movie, because
Speaker 4: I agree with that I think it does get a
Speaker 4: little long in the tooth for lack of a better word,
Speaker 4: and the pieces that you are interested in going deep
Speaker 4: on I would really like to hear.
Speaker 2: For me, I super enjoyed those first parts.
Speaker 4: It took me by surprise a lot in that I
Speaker 4: thought it was going to be kind of strictly multiplicity
Speaker 4: kind of movie, strictly about cloning and duality, and there
Speaker 4: ended up to be applications of that concept. That felt
Speaker 4: really kind of prime Bong Juneo to me in that
Speaker 4: like thinking of these futuristic things and then translating it
Speaker 4: to things that may have to do with politics and these,
Speaker 4: you know, all of these things that I thought was great.
Speaker 4: It did the acts to grind for me is a
Speaker 4: very specific thing about story. So I don't know how
Speaker 4: much you want me to go here, but the big like,
Speaker 4: this is all ultimately in spoiler territory. But the fact
Speaker 4: that they choose to destroy the printing machine makes absolutely
Speaker 4: no sense because the only reason why they could have
Speaker 4: survived is because of the printing machine. So they chose
Speaker 4: to vilify the single thing that made it possible for
Speaker 4: them to survive, which doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: So that was so ideologically focused there. Well, and this is.
Speaker 4: Where we get into these different ideologies, right, like and
Speaker 4: I really love how the story told us the backstory
Speaker 4: of why multiples are a terrible thing, but they didn't
Speaker 4: evolve to see how they could also be a positive thing.
Speaker 4: And that was a really interesting thing for me to
Speaker 4: consider in the film. So yeah, So I loved the
Speaker 4: movie and I was surprised by it. And I think
Speaker 4: one of the interesting things about the political aspect of
Speaker 4: it is I wonder how we would feel about it
Speaker 4: because it was definitely being made before the election. If
Speaker 4: the election had gone the other way, how would we
Speaker 4: feel about the statements of this movie. And I just
Speaker 4: want to put that out there to maybe talk about
Speaker 4: it at some point too. So those are all my first impressions,
Speaker 4: and I was just really excited to talk to you
Speaker 4: guys about it because I think your opinions are going
Speaker 4: to be super awesome.
Speaker 1: Definitely some points to discuss. Yeah, I hope somebody was
Speaker 1: taking notes.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 2: Realized immediately that Andy wasn't going to like this movie.
Speaker 2: Oh and it's because Andy didn't like The Host, which
Speaker 2: is one of my favorite long you know movies. I
Speaker 2: just love, love, love it. And so the fact that
Speaker 2: this movie sort of reclaims a little bit of that territory.
Speaker 2: For me, it lands strictly in Armando Yanucci territory, Like
Speaker 2: I'm a huge Armando Nucci fan. I absolutely adore the
Speaker 2: Death of Stalin. I loved Viep. I love just the
Speaker 2: personal history of David Copperfield. Extraordinary Avenue five is the
Speaker 2: cruise ship in space series he did for HBO, and
Speaker 2: that's this movie. It has kind of a good premise,
Speaker 2: but it's it goes so far into this other territory
Speaker 2: in the second half that I think it completely loses
Speaker 2: its thread. So I think it's safe to say this
Speaker 2: movie was a five star film for me for a
Speaker 2: good half of it and falls apart in the second
Speaker 2: half with just straight up predictability. It is like the
Speaker 2: oldest tale that he could possibly choose to tell, and
Speaker 2: he told it with the alien Roly Polleys, and I
Speaker 2: thought that was I just lost interest. I knew so
Speaker 2: I knew so far in advance, how far this movie
Speaker 2: had called it shot, and how they were gonna make
Speaker 2: which characters diabolical and the standout, like I feel like
Speaker 2: I could have written it at that point, and I
Speaker 2: was really frustrated. It's also kind of a Luke Best
Speaker 2: Song movie, right like it is visually stunning, and then
Speaker 2: it becomes lucy and I don't I don't need to relitigate. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: I hear, you heard heard.
Speaker 4: What just happened.
Speaker 1: You've been talking for while.
Speaker 3: When I said in the loop when you were talking
Speaker 3: about Armando and no one ignored that, I said, yes,
Speaker 3: I like what you're saying about. I forgot how much
Speaker 3: I was enjoying it, and then how crazy I felt
Speaker 3: at the end when both mickeys are being surrounded by
Speaker 3: all of these shrieking cgi blobs.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, how did we get here? Again?
Speaker 3: Like I feel crazy because that movie was a lot
Speaker 3: of and then it decided to be about everything, which
Speaker 3: was yeah, everything.
Speaker 2: It really did, and it didn't feel at that point
Speaker 2: like I was in capable hands. That's my biggest acts
Speaker 2: was that this is the second half of the movie
Speaker 2: practically isn't a Bong June home movie for me. And
Speaker 2: the first half I think retained much of what I
Speaker 2: feel like I expected from his previous comedic work, which
Speaker 2: I genuinely like. I think what I wanted was more
Speaker 2: snow piercer, and I didn't. I didn't get that. I
Speaker 2: started to get that and then I didn't get that
Speaker 2: at the end, and I was very very frustrated by that.
Speaker 2: So let's go down some of those points, j J.
Speaker 2: They're really really good points. We don't need to go.
Speaker 2: So where do you want to start with? I think
Speaker 2: you had addressed the first to Andy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's start there, because honestly, like that's the comedy thing, Like,
Speaker 4: I just want to learn more Andy from you about
Speaker 4: Like the reason why I thought Brazil immediately is because
Speaker 4: there were these things that were definitely intense and intense
Speaker 4: as an audience member to take in in a futuristic
Speaker 4: sort of way, but they were definitely played for laughs.
Speaker 4: And so I want to hear more about your distinction
Speaker 4: between your love for a film like Brazil and then
Speaker 4: this where it fails you in terms of Bank jun
Speaker 4: Ho's version of humor.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's a tricky thing to just answer simply,
Speaker 1: I suppose, because I feel like so much of that
Speaker 1: also is just how the script is written, in how
Speaker 1: the director is shaping the film, and I think Gilliam
Speaker 1: and Bong have very different kind of ways that they're
Speaker 1: approaching stuff. I think that and yeah, I mean there's
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of that kind of absurdist comedy throughout
Speaker 1: Gilliam's films, and Brazil certainly has a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I think the line is there's it still feels maybe
Speaker 1: like there's a like a serious thread going on, and
Speaker 1: there are times here where like Mark Ruffalo and just
Speaker 1: so many of the actors are just like so over
Speaker 1: the top and so like big and bombastic that it's
Speaker 1: just like it's just so far down this comical direction
Speaker 1: that is I don't feel like there's anything serious to
Speaker 1: be played there, you know, Like I had a really
Speaker 1: hard time buying anything that Mark Ruffalo did. It was
Speaker 1: just so it was so big. Same thing with Tony
Speaker 1: Collette as his wife, like the two of them, I
Speaker 1: had a hard time with. I think that the comedy,
Speaker 1: I think for me that that works so well in
Speaker 1: something like Brazil is like comedy and a lot of
Speaker 1: the moments and things like that, And there were there
Speaker 1: were moments that I found genuinely funny in this film.
Speaker 1: It's more of those moments about like the reactions like
Speaker 1: when maybe an example is like when another version of
Speaker 1: him is printing out and they've all completely forgotten to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the fact that he's printing and the
Speaker 1: woman has to come running over and she's trying to
Speaker 1: hold up his body as the guy's trying to or
Speaker 1: the second time where he just falls to the floor
Speaker 1: and nobody even notices love it, Like those those are
Speaker 1: the moments that I think worked better for me in
Speaker 1: the comedy of just kind of like the absurdity of
Speaker 1: this society as it's been created, and the ways that
Speaker 1: things are happening in this society because people just don't care,
Speaker 1: Like they don't care about the fact that this person
Speaker 1: is an actual person. They're just like, you know, he's
Speaker 1: he's inexpendable. If if he dies, so be it. You know,
Speaker 1: Like those those are the moments that worked better for
Speaker 1: me in the comedy elements. It's it's when we get
Speaker 1: those characters that just are so and it's it's a
Speaker 1: funny thing because I was thinking about this in relation
Speaker 1: to snow Piercer. Tilda Swinton was pretty big and over
Speaker 1: the top and that one too, but there was something
Speaker 1: about her there that I could buy into a little more.
Speaker 1: And I'm not exactly sure where that line is, but
Speaker 1: there's just something about the way that these characters were
Speaker 1: that I just I couldn't I couldn't buy into these
Speaker 1: characters in the way that they were being portrayed.
Speaker 4: Well, and there is a it is a subtle line,
Speaker 4: but it's an important line, and it's it's not easy
Speaker 4: to define. So I like the way that you started
Speaker 4: the answer and saying that it might not be simple
Speaker 4: to figure out. I think so for me in particular,
Speaker 4: thinking about Mark Ruffalo here, like, this movie harkened to
Speaker 4: me for the movie that was my favorite of last year,
Speaker 4: which was Poor Things, And it's the kind of thing of.
Speaker 2: Like exactly what I thought of with him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So there's so much here where he's you know,
Speaker 4: he's such a cad in Poor Things, and he's strangely
Speaker 4: diabolical and over the top here too. You know, I
Speaker 4: loved Poor Things, And I think I could argue, based
Speaker 4: on the criticisms you guys have, which I actually think
Speaker 4: are really valuable, that like I was really pulling for
Speaker 4: this movie because I wanted it to be as good
Speaker 4: as some of these other things, and I felt like
Speaker 4: that first half really had the opportunity to be that way.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, and I agree with that too.
Speaker 4: Sure, I mean, what are some of those concepts that
Speaker 4: you really wanted them to go deeper on.
Speaker 3: The idea of what is individuality, the idea of the
Speaker 3: fact that he's getting the same brain dump, but that
Speaker 3: Mickey seventeen and Mickey eighteen were so different that like
Speaker 3: explorations of like if we have all of these different
Speaker 3: types within us just naturally, how do certain things bubble up?
Speaker 3: And when how can we really talk about someone being expendable?
Speaker 3: Where does any kind of value of life matter? I mean,
Speaker 3: we saw a zillion Mickeys. We saw a lot of
Speaker 3: Mickeys throughout the movie. We only got to know two
Speaker 3: of them, but like during the nerve gas and stuff,
Speaker 3: those were Mickeys that were dying, dying, dying, and so
Speaker 3: I would have wanted to spend more time about that.
Speaker 3: And I like the idea while the alien stuff got
Speaker 3: way too encompassing or over rock for the film. I
Speaker 3: like the idea that the one guy that everyone thinks
Speaker 3: is expendable is the only one that is able to
Speaker 3: contact this alien being that we also now are about.
Speaker 1: To make expendable. That's interesting. I like that.
Speaker 3: But when you're doing that, and then imperialism and colonialism
Speaker 3: and the rich versus poor, like you know, like Pete
Speaker 3: brought up snow Piercer, and I love that comparison because
Speaker 3: snow Piercer, Nope, it's not supposed to be a joke,
Speaker 3: but really was more of a straight line of like
Speaker 3: class distinction, class warfare, and this one is about nine
Speaker 3: things all at once.
Speaker 1: I just wanted more.
Speaker 3: I wanted more time to spend with the idea of
Speaker 3: individuality and what does it mean to make a copy
Speaker 3: of yourself and those kind of things.
Speaker 1: Like Tony, you brought up that point. Sorry, JJ, you
Speaker 1: brought up that point about that individuality. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that they talk about with that is that
Speaker 1: initial person who had they actually had multiple versions of
Speaker 1: him that had killed those other people. And they talked
Speaker 1: about like the the court cases about well does one
Speaker 1: person serve do each of the three serve a third
Speaker 1: of the sentence? Do they each serve the same sentence?
Speaker 1: Like that sort of stuff. I'm like, this, this is
Speaker 1: what one person's food?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, how yeah, exactly?
Speaker 1: Fact is that's the stuff that I found so interesting
Speaker 1: and yeah, like it was exciting, and then but the
Speaker 1: movie kind of got bored with that. It was sort
Speaker 1: of like isn't this funny?
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh no, that's the movie for me, right, well,
Speaker 3: that was the point.
Speaker 4: The moment in the film when I said this is
Speaker 4: a five star movie. Again reflecting on the first half,
Speaker 4: is when Mickey seventeen is chasing up the stairs to
Speaker 4: follow Nasha and Mickey eighteen and I'm like, oh, we're
Speaker 4: going to get that interaction. We're going to challenge that
Speaker 4: concept of multiples, and like, that's really good to me.
Speaker 4: This is what I want to do. And again it
Speaker 4: went crazy in the second end. The thing that I
Speaker 4: really like that you said to Tommy is this concept
Speaker 4: of identity or this individuality is I think what you said.
Speaker 4: It's clear that Bong Juneo or some other people in
Speaker 4: the filmmaker community with this movie believed that the identity
Speaker 4: of Mickey Barnes was something to celebrate, which I think
Speaker 4: potentially the movie isn't actually that story. But when you
Speaker 4: see that the flip from instead of moving to numbers,
Speaker 4: like all of a sudden, he has a name, It's like, oh,
Speaker 4: but again this goes to again back to my axe
Speaker 4: to gride, Like that's not the story here. The story
Speaker 4: is about like so much more than that about having
Speaker 4: an individual identity. There's much more to go deep on
Speaker 4: than that, and that's why I think it kind of
Speaker 4: contributes to my acts as well.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point, jj that the fact
Speaker 2: that by the end of the movie they want me
Speaker 2: to celebrate something that I didn't know I should be
Speaker 2: looking forward to, right right. And I think part of
Speaker 2: that is that we never got to know any of
Speaker 2: the other Mickeys before seventeen eighteen, and so having this
Speaker 2: sort of individual identity versus continuity of consciousness argument becomes
Speaker 2: something that is frail because it makes Mickey eighteen the
Speaker 2: abnormal one, when in fact, what we probably would have
Speaker 2: expected is the first sixteen actually had individual consciousnesses. Two.
Speaker 2: And then the movie kind of falls apart, right if
Speaker 2: you're if you're now only discussing this with Mickey's one
Speaker 2: and two and the setup to Andy's point, like the
Speaker 2: setup was it was a bunch of guys who were
Speaker 2: all in on the murdering gambit, right, they were all
Speaker 2: a part of it, and uh, and I thought that
Speaker 2: that sort of that just fell apart too fast to
Speaker 2: the to the the one of the I think you
Speaker 2: and I lost our five stars at the same point
Speaker 2: when they finally bring the three of them together, the
Speaker 2: two Mickeys and Nasha, it becomes a sex joke and
Speaker 2: nothing more. Right, It's like you missed the point. You
Speaker 2: missed the point, and we brought him oxy. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: what what was that you brought it off? This drug
Speaker 2: that is I mean this drug that is shortened to
Speaker 2: it's yeah. Yeah, pick three of your nineteen lanes, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were, There were an awful lot of lanes. I
Speaker 2: think one of the higher one of the higher lanes
Speaker 2: is is potentially corporate utility versus human dignity. But I
Speaker 2: struggled with corporate utility because this is a church. Does
Speaker 2: that muddy the story for even the parts of the
Speaker 2: story that we liked, knowing that there are actses flying
Speaker 2: all over the place for this movie. Does the fact
Speaker 2: that we are munging the church and and corporate utility
Speaker 2: muddy the story for you guys?
Speaker 4: Isn't it art imitating life? I mean, yes, it does,
Speaker 4: but it's that's that's real. Yeah right, I mean that's
Speaker 4: what we're dealing with right now. Yeah, Like, I think
Speaker 4: I think it's a good It's an apt reflection of
Speaker 4: what it takes to buy into a movement, whether it
Speaker 4: happens to be a business or a spirituality. Or a
Speaker 4: political leaning, and that's so much of that. It feels
Speaker 4: muddy because we're being faced with people who are actively
Speaker 4: messaging that muddy message to us every day right now.
Speaker 4: I love how ok, yeah, and I love how you
Speaker 4: brought it up. I hadn't even thought of the aspect
Speaker 4: of the job that you mentioned in the intro. I
Speaker 4: think that's such a great thing to talk about about,
Speaker 4: how literally dying on the job like this, there is
Speaker 4: an aspect of the worker here, which is just another
Speaker 4: one of the ones that you know that could be
Speaker 4: listed on Tommy's list of things that they could talk
Speaker 4: about if they chose to focus on. Yeah, that is
Speaker 4: a great thing to look at. Here is what's the
Speaker 4: commentary of working here and what you're doing for your
Speaker 4: job too. I don't know, there's a lot to it,
Speaker 4: but I think it is muddy. I agree, And that
Speaker 4: could be a criticism, but it might be on purpose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it came back to something you
Speaker 2: were you posed in your opening thoughts, which was I
Speaker 2: think around Ruffalo and talking about the current state of
Speaker 2: our politics in the United States. But this being the norm,
Speaker 2: the muddiness of the political state, I mean, every one
Speaker 2: of the major themes of this movie are quite literally
Speaker 2: playing out in real life. Right, it is art imitating
Speaker 2: life imitating art maybe, so chapter and verse that that's
Speaker 2: the problem that I may have with the second half
Speaker 2: of this movie, and it may be the problem that
Speaker 2: the second half of the movie has with the first half.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, we leaned into hard, let's talk about
Speaker 2: the creatures. Now, we're afraid of answering all of these
Speaker 2: questions because this is terrible. We've set ourselves up. And
Speaker 2: the word is like, there was a lot of fusing
Speaker 2: with this movie to make up finished movies.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, is that I mean, I brought
Speaker 3: that up with the vo Yeah, that the voiceover seems
Speaker 3: to be plugging leaks or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm guessing none of us have read the original story,
Speaker 1: right Yeah, Yeah, I'm wondering. I mean, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like that they had other people come on boards to
Speaker 1: help add really flesh the whole thing out, So I'm
Speaker 1: guessing that they I'm just curious, like what's in the
Speaker 1: original story that they expanded upon, because it feels like
Speaker 1: they went in a lot of different directions just to
Speaker 1: get to this result.
Speaker 2: There is okay, I don't know which lane this is now,
Speaker 2: but I feel like we've got to talk about the
Speaker 2: sauce and the act of making a sauce out of
Speaker 2: the indigenous creatures and offering them up on fingertips for
Speaker 2: this seating.
Speaker 1: It's another lane, and I think it just goes into
Speaker 1: like I was, like, I kind of lose track of
Speaker 1: all the different things that they're potentially speaking to, but
Speaker 1: the idea of like it it goes to like, are
Speaker 1: we now talking about the plight of the pangolins and
Speaker 1: the fact that people are you know, driving this animal
Speaker 1: to extinction because they can grind down their scales and
Speaker 1: use it for some health cure or something like that. Like,
Speaker 1: we just keep going down these different different lanes, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I'm why are we now into this
Speaker 1: particular story here? I mean, I feel like Bong jun
Speaker 1: Ho took every possible thing that he's interested in as
Speaker 1: far as what he wants to change with the world,
Speaker 1: and shoved it into this movie because that was exactly
Speaker 1: where he was going with this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point, especially when we get the
Speaker 2: dinner sequence and we have him actually eating what was
Speaker 2: that thing that he was eating it's a steak.
Speaker 1: It was like bio engineered steak.
Speaker 2: Raw.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was revolting that Okay, so that is the
Speaker 4: scene though, Like aspects of that scene is what reminds
Speaker 4: me of Brazil, right, where we get these sort of
Speaker 4: layers in that, like he's been invited to this dinner,
Speaker 4: but really the dinner is just another experiment, and then
Speaker 4: all of the doctors come in and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's this is amazing. Like that's where really I got
Speaker 4: into the sort of Brazil aspect of it. But yeah,
Speaker 4: that was disgusting, really hard to deal with for sure.
Speaker 2: But legitimately funny when the doctors are hiding behind a
Speaker 2: hidden panel, a hidden door, and the president's dining room,
Speaker 2: Like I thought that was that.
Speaker 1: I laughed at that, like yew that there were a
Speaker 1: lot of funny moments with that one. The food itself
Speaker 1: is funny and how disgusting it is. Yeah, he starts vomiting,
Speaker 1: and just how they resolve the vomiting uh, and and
Speaker 1: the chaos of do we care about the fact that
Speaker 1: he's vomiting or should we just shoot him? Like that
Speaker 1: gets back to the utility of this character and what
Speaker 1: purpose he serves and how complacent everyone around him is
Speaker 1: because they'll just reprint him. The rug was the rug
Speaker 1: was more important exactly exciting the concept of the sauce
Speaker 1: reminds me of again Yogo s Lanthromos in that I
Speaker 1: think about the rabbits in the Favorite and it feels
Speaker 1: like this sort of like it's not behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: but it's like an under an undercurrent of what we're
Speaker 1: thinking about in terms of imperialism and all these things.
Speaker 4: Is like really like how can we use people to
Speaker 4: feed us or to you know, fuel us? And and
Speaker 4: I shouldn't say people because she's talking about these beings,
Speaker 4: but it's like all of that felt like it was
Speaker 4: something that was just kind of riding beneath what's going
Speaker 4: on because she was so obsessed with calories and eating.
Speaker 4: Like that's the vibe that I got from the concept
Speaker 4: of the sauce there too well, And so is bang
Speaker 4: jun Ho.
Speaker 2: He's a session with the things we put in our mouths,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, it's snow piercer, it's oakcha, it's
Speaker 2: like you name it. He's been talking about how we
Speaker 2: handle food for years. Right.
Speaker 1: All I could think about was the was the uh
Speaker 1: that commercial or psa that Taikawa TD did where he
Speaker 1: was like the animated rabbit talking about like the torture
Speaker 1: that that rabbits went through in these perfume factories to
Speaker 1: you know, like to test, you know, the putting the
Speaker 1: stuff in their eyes to see how they reacted and
Speaker 1: all this stuff like that's that's like, that's where my
Speaker 1: brain went when that was anything with that with the sauce.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think bang jun Ho will look at our
Speaker 4: conversation when when Bong jun Ho looks at our conversation,
Speaker 4: like the shell as a success, it's like a wild
Speaker 4: success of like, oh my gosh, all of these things
Speaker 4: are now in that planted seeds in your psyche. So
Speaker 4: even though we had trouble or we have these like
Speaker 4: I feel like this as an artist, this is what
Speaker 4: he is setting out to do. And you could argue
Speaker 4: that the other films that he's done, you know, not
Speaker 4: necessarily snow Piercer, but Parasite and all these are are
Speaker 4: this sort of thing to sort of open up the
Speaker 4: discourse about all the different things that he wants us
Speaker 4: to be talking about and thinking about and all this stuff.
Speaker 4: And yeah, they signify loose ends here, but I think
Speaker 4: this is his art for better.
Speaker 2: Or for worse, even parasite. Right, it is about sort
Speaker 2: of gluttony versus stolen nutrition. Right, there is a whole
Speaker 2: of how food is acquired and film fascinating things that
Speaker 2: worked really well. I want to talk about production of
Speaker 2: the film because for me, I never once questioned the
Speaker 2: multiple Pattinson's, never did a question two Pattinson's on screen
Speaker 2: at the same.
Speaker 3: Time, at the same time. That was incredibly well done.
Speaker 3: And I think that's where all the CGI or whatever
Speaker 3: money went.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yea, yeah, well yeah, I think digital stitching obviously,
Speaker 2: but they did the old tricks, right, body doubling, motion control,
Speaker 2: multiple takes, like, they did all the tricks to do it,
Speaker 2: and really favored practical when they could. And I think
Speaker 2: it just plays so so very well.
Speaker 1: Incredibly well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think he Pattinson in particular did a
Speaker 4: great job of getting us into that. I mean, he
Speaker 4: he his performance was part of that all. I mean
Speaker 4: we're talking about the technological aspects of it, but he
Speaker 4: did a fantastic job of helping us buy into what
Speaker 4: he was experiencing as a character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really I never doubted that there were two
Speaker 1: different versions of him, both personality wise and just on screen.
Speaker 1: In my field of sight, it always felt real, and
Speaker 1: that was really impressive that they that they pulled off,
Speaker 1: and that he just delivered such great, uh kind of
Speaker 1: subtle nuances in those two versions of himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought he did. He played both of them
Speaker 3: so consistently. I personally wish that our main Mickey wasn't
Speaker 3: such a boy a boy kind of a guy. That
Speaker 3: little of that goes kind of a long way with me.
Speaker 3: But that's just a personal feeling of like sort of
Speaker 3: a sad sack. I didn't read all the paper stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't know about this. This cake looks weird. I
Speaker 3: don't know, like, I don't like I don't like following
Speaker 3: around kind of dumb dumbs, even if they're sweet.
Speaker 1: Is like because of all the narration though, or do
Speaker 1: you think that it would have been the same problem
Speaker 1: if you?
Speaker 3: If you, I think the air reagion is a huge
Speaker 3: part of it because the voice he picked was so
Speaker 3: wa wah wah kind of a thing that it's you
Speaker 3: can't because then every once in a while when it's
Speaker 3: not voiceover, he's like super charming and cute, Like you
Speaker 3: see him as I'm sorry, Nasha. Yeah, yeah, as Nasha
Speaker 3: sees him, because at first you're like, why would anyone
Speaker 3: ever pick this goofball? And he's cute and kind of
Speaker 3: like messy haired and ever like this, But then his
Speaker 3: voiceover makes more like, I don't know, like a big
Speaker 3: Lebowski kind of a loser.
Speaker 2: That's not a good comparison. I will say.
Speaker 4: The scene where explaining their relationship, where they go into
Speaker 4: somewhat of ret conning or rewriting for the audience to
Speaker 4: understand their bond because you don't write the way that
Speaker 4: they sell it to you early is very is very superficial.
Speaker 4: But the scene where she I'm going to get emotionally
Speaker 4: you're talking about it, but when she climbs into the
Speaker 4: chamber to sit with him and if he dies, it
Speaker 4: was like so.
Speaker 2: Powerful for me.
Speaker 4: And that's and I want to just highlight for me,
Speaker 4: that's in the second half of the movie. So even
Speaker 4: though we're going crazy at this point, I was like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, this is this is the human relationship
Speaker 4: part that this is the story that I want to
Speaker 4: go deep on right like about identity and about the
Speaker 4: connection and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So I love that would have been great to go
Speaker 1: deeper on all that because it's such an interesting aspect
Speaker 1: to her story. But again, I wanted a little bit
Speaker 1: more of her backstory, Like was she initially interested in
Speaker 1: him because she was kind of fascinated by the idea
Speaker 1: of him being inexpendable, like what drew her to him?
Speaker 1: And like that moment right there is a perfect example
Speaker 1: of somebody who like, you know, wants to save you know,
Speaker 1: Nepal or whatever.
Speaker 2: Right it's it's like I've.
Speaker 1: Got my my thing that I'm going to champion and
Speaker 1: this is it?
Speaker 2: Like is that it?
Speaker 1: But then she falls for him? I don't know, And
Speaker 1: that's I guess my problem with the relationship is because
Speaker 1: I never like Tommy as It's like it's hard to
Speaker 1: connect with that character because he's is kind of a
Speaker 1: sad sack, dumb dumb.
Speaker 3: And JJ I loved that part too, and I thought
Speaker 3: that was which, hey, come on, I'm doing my best.
Speaker 3: That part I also loved JJ, But I remember thinking
Speaker 3: why now, why didn't we have this before? Right, I've
Speaker 3: been told to believe this company and this stunning, stunning
Speaker 3: woman was all power and this sad sack week guy
Speaker 3: that were just like over and over again. I don't know,
Speaker 3: like why. It's almost like the movie was like, oh,
Speaker 3: they're not. But I like to think of like the making.
Speaker 3: Everything is made chronologically, and so they're like making it,
Speaker 3: making it, make it Like I don't think they're buying
Speaker 3: the couple, boss, And he's like, Okay, say earlier she
Speaker 3: got in the container.
Speaker 1: I know that's not.
Speaker 2: That's just like give us the foundation.
Speaker 3: Really, the way that they gave us the bond was
Speaker 3: purely through It seemed like sexual contact, right. There was
Speaker 3: also her sticking up for him, but I mean they
Speaker 3: made it a physical bonding. Yeah, and I just didn't
Speaker 3: quite understand it.
Speaker 2: What wait, what part didn't you understand about the physical
Speaker 2: bonding that she would be attracted to sad sack dumb dumb, No, that.
Speaker 3: That more more of the emotional connection and the reason
Speaker 3: that she liked versus I mean, they just immediately start
Speaker 3: their sexcapade, and I.
Speaker 2: Was just sort of wondering, why, Well, I do think
Speaker 2: we should we should talk a little. Let's let's make
Speaker 2: this a film sex podcast just for a segment, because
Speaker 2: I think that they have already set the table for
Speaker 2: sex being foreboten while on the ship. Because they're counting calories,
Speaker 2: and immediately they go into a sexual relationship, which to
Speaker 2: me felt like a bit of a too tidy a
Speaker 2: transition to well, we're you know, we can't help it.
Speaker 2: We're human organisms and we copulate, and that's going to
Speaker 2: be the what we do now to start rebelling against
Speaker 2: the authoritative hand.
Speaker 4: So I love I understand that perspective, but my take
Speaker 4: on it is a little bit opposite in this regard
Speaker 4: because of exactly what we experience experience together, is this
Speaker 4: that it's verboten? But my favorite Black Mirror episode of
Speaker 4: all time is Hang the DJ, And the concept in
Speaker 4: Hang the DJ is that it is an algorithm that
Speaker 4: is designed to figure out which pairing is most likely
Speaker 4: to break the rules, and that is the evidence of
Speaker 4: true love. And so like, when I get this in
Speaker 4: this movie, I'm like, oh, of course they're told they cannot,
Speaker 4: but they love each other so greatly that they do it. Now,
Speaker 4: it's thin, you know, It's it's a leap that you
Speaker 4: have to take as an audience member, and it's thin.
Speaker 4: I will agree, but and you could easily have the
Speaker 4: interpretation that you just mentioned. But for me, especially then,
Speaker 4: of course, when we ret con with these additional emotional things.
Speaker 4: Later on, I'm like, oh, okay, great, and I bought it,
Speaker 4: so but again, like I said, I was.
Speaker 2: Pulling for it as well, So but were you?
Speaker 1: I guess one other element with that is like are
Speaker 1: we thinking are we supposed to think that they're the
Speaker 1: only couple that's.
Speaker 2: Actually doing this?
Speaker 1: Well, I think because you're right, but we were never
Speaker 1: shown that. And that's the thing, like when that edict
Speaker 1: comes down that no sex, no sex until we have
Speaker 1: this big sex party day whatever the thing is, it's like,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. My assumption was like everybody's probably
Speaker 1: secretly having sex. It's like what you're going to do.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know the way the humans operate and so,
Speaker 1: but we're only ever shown them, and so it just
Speaker 1: makes it harder to figure out like are they doing
Speaker 1: this just because of that or is there like you
Speaker 1: just don't really know, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even the the two women, one of
Speaker 2: them is crushed by ice, the survivor, like they even
Speaker 2: had were written and blocked and had emotional connection that
Speaker 2: indicated these are these two people are in a physical
Speaker 2: relationship and they are not counting calories when they do it,
Speaker 2: and I think that's the like, I think that's to
Speaker 2: your point. Everybody's doing it, and we get a few hints,
Speaker 2: but really the only one that we get to see
Speaker 2: is all is both of the Mickeys at some point
Speaker 2: or another doing drugs and having sex and wanting threesomes.
Speaker 4: And again, like again, as a apologist for this movie,
Speaker 4: what a great commentary on the repression of sex and society.
Speaker 4: But go ahead, go ahead, go wherever you want with
Speaker 4: your interpretation.
Speaker 1: But I'm into JJ wants the full eight hour cut
Speaker 1: that actually has full stories of all of these things
Speaker 1: where everything's wrapped up.
Speaker 4: Yes, imssion, give me the gates. I want it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, there's a guy in a pigeon suit. Sidebar.
Speaker 2: If there's a guy in a pigeon suit, what we
Speaker 2: make of the pigeon suit guy anything?
Speaker 1: All I could say is I have seen him so
Speaker 1: many times in the trailer for that other movie that's
Speaker 1: coming out soon, the whatever, the Something Island where it's
Speaker 1: the two singers who are invited to that island, Something
Speaker 1: Wallace Island. Anyway, I have seen that trailer before so
Speaker 1: many movies in the last two months that as soon
Speaker 1: as he came up. That's the only thing I could
Speaker 1: think of. It's like, oh, it's a guy from the
Speaker 1: movie that I've seen the whole movie in the trailer
Speaker 1: like fifty times.
Speaker 2: That is the Ballad of Wallace Island, and I never
Speaker 2: even heard of it either.
Speaker 1: Watch the trailer, you'll see him, and you'll go to just.
Speaker 3: Showing you the trailer directly, an algorithm has decided I
Speaker 3: am the one person who I'm still somehow getting the
Speaker 3: Speak No Evil trailer even though they left.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we don't have an answer on Pigeon man anybody.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll take the thinnest of reasons to have
Speaker 2: a pigeon guy.
Speaker 4: It's just idiocracy, right, I Mean, there's so much of
Speaker 4: the film that that is talking about that of the
Speaker 4: ridiculousness of ways to anesthetize fear, and it just really
Speaker 4: feels like another one of those aspects of what they're
Speaker 4: trying to do.
Speaker 1: And the portrayal of fervent followers, fervant blind followers of
Speaker 1: a particular politician. Like that's really where my head went
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: Oh I like that. I like both of those things.
Speaker 2: I'll take it.
Speaker 1: I want to JJ mentioned earlier well, I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: things that JJ brought up. He also brought up the
Speaker 1: idea of destroying the machine, and I wanted to chat
Speaker 1: a little bit about that because that was another interesting
Speaker 1: element that I thought they could have done so much
Speaker 1: more with, because I actually like the idea of destroying
Speaker 1: the machine. But the thing is that it speaks to
Speaker 1: the nature of humans trying to find the easy way
Speaker 1: to do stuff, and you see it all through any
Speaker 1: industry that we have. It's like, hey, it's so much
Speaker 1: easier if we just dump all of our waste into
Speaker 1: this river that's right next to us. Let's just do that,
Speaker 1: And so they'll do the easy thing, and then someone's like, Eh,
Speaker 1: well we really shouldn't do that. We're killing everything, and
Speaker 1: you know, the rivers are on fire, and they put
Speaker 1: policies in place that keep us from actually doing the
Speaker 1: things that are wrong but that are easy. And what
Speaker 1: I like about the idea here is like, yeah, there
Speaker 1: is perhaps a side of looking at destroying the machine
Speaker 1: as it's not right. We shouldn't be doing this, But
Speaker 1: that's because it's representative of us being lazy when they
Speaker 1: could be doing all of the same stuff. They could
Speaker 1: be you know, figuring out the toxin in the air
Speaker 1: on Niffelheim and all of that through a yeah, it
Speaker 1: might be harder, it might take longer, but through things
Speaker 1: that are a little more ethically responsible in how they
Speaker 1: actually do it, rather than this process. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know that was my response to you as far
Speaker 1: as like my reasoning as to like buying into the
Speaker 1: fact that they're destroying it, like that's what they were saying,
Speaker 1: is like, we still need to think ethically and responsibly
Speaker 1: and find better ways, because there's probably a way we
Speaker 1: can do it without killing these clones off.
Speaker 4: So the interesting thing is that my question for that,
Speaker 4: it's really a philosophical question in like what could be
Speaker 4: more ethically responsible than someone consenting to doing this and
Speaker 4: improving humanity. Let's just say, like, like let's make it
Speaker 4: huge through this process. Nothing about the process in and
Speaker 4: of itself seems irresponsible or contrary to it doesn't feel bad.
Speaker 4: For example, the idea that you brought up of like
Speaker 4: pouring waste into rivers, Like clearly, all of a sudden
Speaker 4: we have and all these things. But like for Mickey's experience,
Speaker 4: there wasn't anything bad about his thing in that he
Speaker 4: did exactly what he signed up for. He became immortal,
Speaker 4: like as as a testing hamster for the human race,
Speaker 4: as we explored, potentially his consent and this what we
Speaker 4: go on. If we don't separate his individuality or identity
Speaker 4: in the eighteen mickeys that we meet, and we consider
Speaker 4: his consciousness as complete throughout, this could be the best
Speaker 4: way for us to do this because there really isn't
Speaker 4: anything unethical about that if we think of it that way.
Speaker 4: So that's the that's the hard part, I guess, as.
Speaker 1: Ethics are a little fuzzy in that statement.
Speaker 2: I think, well.
Speaker 4: Completely, But I mean it's whether mickeys are different set
Speaker 4: in different mickeys. I don't, but.
Speaker 1: It's all the same. But you're saying, as long as
Speaker 1: he ethically signed up for it, then it's fine. But
Speaker 1: like that's the thing, Like the ethical responsibility is like
Speaker 1: not allowing people to sign up or something like that,
Speaker 1: because that like that's the line. I think that, Well,
Speaker 1: you're across the other line and saying it's ethical because
Speaker 1: he signed up, but.
Speaker 2: He signed up under duress, Like he signed up because
Speaker 2: he was running away from something else.
Speaker 3: There's nothing ethical about that, and he didn't know what
Speaker 3: he was signing up for very true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but because again aside the fact that this
Speaker 1: is here, the fact that this system is in place
Speaker 1: saying hey, we've got the paperwork here, as long as
Speaker 1: they're signing up for it, it's totally okay. Like, I
Speaker 1: just think that the fact that that paperwork exists is
Speaker 1: the ethical problem, not the fact that somebody actually signed it.
Speaker 4: Totally iet.
Speaker 2: It's ninety pages long, right, Like, this is an end
Speaker 2: user license agreement. Nobody reads.
Speaker 4: What I would challenge in this, I agree with what
Speaker 4: you're saying, but what I would challenge with you is
Speaker 4: that Mickey is the brick. Mickey is not the Clones, right,
Speaker 4: So what he actually signed up to be was a
Speaker 4: superhero and potentially the great savior of civilization. So the
Speaker 4: only stakes that Mickey truly has for going through all
Speaker 4: the suffering is the elimination of the brit Everything else
Speaker 4: allows him to experience these things in a way that
Speaker 4: furthers creation and furthers are development as a species. So
Speaker 4: my point, yes, these things are ethically flexible, But potentially
Speaker 4: the point that I'm making about the breaking of the
Speaker 4: machine is that very very close mindedly, they chose to
Speaker 4: focus on Mickey seventeen as the real Mickey, and are
Speaker 4: denying all of the great things that happened to them
Speaker 4: that allowed them to do the things that they do
Speaker 4: because they had Mickey's I don't want to say consent,
Speaker 4: because I agree with your point. They had Mickey's buy
Speaker 4: in to this as the way to do it. He
Speaker 4: was the great savior of this civilization. And them killing
Speaker 4: the machine could be possibly limiting their chance to grow
Speaker 4: firm there and become more.
Speaker 1: Because if they're if they think in a lazy way,
Speaker 1: if they start going, well, now we're cutting ourselves off
Speaker 1: from that. We have to now think smarter and do
Speaker 1: it the hard way. But we can still get there.
Speaker 2: But I mean it goes back to on a mission
Speaker 2: like this, Let's say we're thinking completely authentically about survival
Speaker 2: when gestation of nine months is, you know, a questionable
Speaker 2: thing for reproducing and growing the population, being able to clone,
Speaker 2: you know, mortally wounded representatives to keep to stabilize the
Speaker 2: population seems like an ethical thing to do. That seems
Speaker 2: actually pretty cool. Yeah, I'd sign up for being a break.
Speaker 2: That's really what I've come to as this conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean, it boils down to just ethics of cloning period.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing really is just, you know,
Speaker 1: a Dolly the Sheep sort of situation that we're going
Speaker 1: to be circling here. I don't know if there's really
Speaker 1: a clean way to to, you know, figure out the
Speaker 1: actual what's right and what's wrong in this sort of situation,
Speaker 1: but it is very I mean, it's it's very tricky,
Speaker 1: and you know, they they again they start touching on
Speaker 1: these things, like we're seeing differences in character between seventeen
Speaker 1: and eighteen. He talks about how.
Speaker 4: It's development by the way, like there's not a argument there,
Speaker 4: like right exactly this way, and he talks about how
Speaker 4: NASA had said version I don't know three or something
Speaker 4: was really cranky or something like.
Speaker 1: There were clearly other differences in some of the other
Speaker 1: iterations as well. So it just speaks to the fact
Speaker 1: that there is this sense of individual identities within these characters. Sure,
Speaker 1: and so it and I don't know, maybe it's just
Speaker 1: the fact that we're seeing it in a situation where
Speaker 1: that happened to be two at a time out in
Speaker 1: the world that makes it suddenly seem a lot more gray.
Speaker 1: But again, then we we spend half the movie with
Speaker 1: the bugs, and well.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, and that's the that's the central criticism of
Speaker 2: the film is that it touches on so many things
Speaker 2: that are fascinating and could make for a really interesting movie,
Speaker 2: and doesn't commit to the bit to the bits, any
Speaker 2: of the bits I don't know, And I think that
Speaker 2: destroying the printer at the end is tying a knot
Speaker 2: on one of the weaker bits that the movie could
Speaker 2: have actually explored. That I think is a frustrating piece.
Speaker 2: It's frustrating piece. We haven't mentioned Stephen Yun as Timo
Speaker 2: apart from joking, what do you think of Stephen's performance here?
Speaker 2: Was how useful was the character for.
Speaker 3: You other than motivation for setting him on this expendable journey.
Speaker 3: I feel like you can take that entire plotline out
Speaker 3: of the movie and the movie still works. And I
Speaker 3: feel like the script even knows that because he's not
Speaker 3: really written that great, Like he's fine, but he's also
Speaker 3: just sort of like talking because there's not a lot
Speaker 3: of depth to his character.
Speaker 2: He sort of.
Speaker 3: Has no empathy. He sort of is just a scrounger,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't lean anywhere too far. He's just sort
Speaker 3: of a plot development, and so I didn't if we're
Speaker 3: talking about simplifying things, I didn't need really any of that.
Speaker 4: That it makes or that makes complete sense. And I
Speaker 4: agree with that when I look at it objectively, we
Speaker 4: could make the case that his experience going on this
Speaker 4: journey shows us that Mickey didn't have to do what
Speaker 4: he did. That he could have lied, or he could
Speaker 4: have done these other things too. So potentially the presence
Speaker 4: of this other character and his life through this is
Speaker 4: becoming a drug dealer. All this nonsense is more put
Speaker 4: in the story to show us the stakes of Mickey's
Speaker 4: through line.
Speaker 2: Okay, well the stakes of Mickey's through line, but also
Speaker 2: the difference between seventeen and eighteen right, because Mickey the
Speaker 2: first one was more of a seventeen Right. He's kind
Speaker 2: of a dufist, dumb dumb, and he was being taken
Speaker 2: advantage of, right, Sadzak dumb dumb. He was being taken
Speaker 2: advantage of as a non clone, right, and that is
Speaker 2: that's ultimately what happened. Look at this, Look at this
Speaker 2: class argument, where you have this guy who's just a
Speaker 2: little bit sharper and was able to manipulate his way
Speaker 2: into becoming a pilot and not a great one, while
Speaker 2: Mickey had no choice and ended up, you know, essentially
Speaker 2: in stowage.
Speaker 4: Their relationship reminded me of Pillboy and Jason from The
Speaker 4: Good Place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who's pill Boy?
Speaker 4: It's his buddy back home that like leads him down
Speaker 4: all these crazy ideas.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, got it.
Speaker 2: Didn't he end up being his dad anyway something like that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very confusing. But but that's a really good point.
Speaker 2: But I don't think I think that the relationship between
Speaker 2: characters like that. I don't know that Stephen really captured
Speaker 2: the depth of that what that relationship could have been.
Speaker 2: And I found myself a little bit heartbroken for it.
Speaker 2: I thought that they were giving us that prologue as
Speaker 2: a way to set up how these buddies, you know,
Speaker 2: grow together and and you know, hell they their relationship
Speaker 2: falls apart. Fine, but there was just no substance to
Speaker 2: the character of Timouh in the story. And I think
Speaker 2: you're right, I could I could have tossed.
Speaker 1: Even later, it's just brought back up again that these
Speaker 1: people are trying to kill him. It's like that was
Speaker 1: that's like the only thing that we keep getting with
Speaker 1: him is like, now they're going to kill me, you
Speaker 1: got to help me, and it's like we're back in
Speaker 1: the same story that we had with him before. It
Speaker 1: was just it was, yeah, frustrating character that I wish
Speaker 1: that they had done more with.
Speaker 2: Right well, and a frustrated character that like it's not
Speaker 2: like I wanted Requiem for a Dream, but like, I
Speaker 2: do feel like there's a little bit of room to
Speaker 2: explore this whole drug situation. If you're going to put
Speaker 2: the drug situation in play, you got to tell me
Speaker 2: a little bit more about it. And again, that's just
Speaker 2: a lane that they that they put in here and
Speaker 2: just did not pave. That metaphor is really Maank dividends.
Speaker 3: She liked the actress that played Nasha, and I liked
Speaker 3: the character of Nasha. I don't like being said, And
Speaker 3: then she decided to run against the government.
Speaker 1: And she just won. Like do people like her? Does
Speaker 1: she have any agency? What is she? I know what
Speaker 1: she does?
Speaker 3: She was an enforcer, but like all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: she's wearing the robes and is talking and she's in
Speaker 3: charge of everything, and we're just told that. We're just
Speaker 3: keep being told things. This is what happened next, and
Speaker 3: it's because she remember when she got in that tube.
Speaker 1: I forgot to tell you that the first time, but
Speaker 1: then later I told you she got the due that,
Speaker 1: so therefore we should elect her.
Speaker 4: I don't know that poor things. I mean, that's the
Speaker 4: thing where it's like, oh, there's just some wild developments
Speaker 4: that have happened. So now rejoining our broadcast, we're now
Speaker 4: in France, you know, like this kind of thing. So
Speaker 4: that's what reminded me of that, and so it can
Speaker 4: bother me. But I understand why it would.
Speaker 1: I wonder if the book had the was I don't know,
Speaker 1: just some'm curious now, like was it first person? Is
Speaker 1: that why this story needed such narration in it? Because
Speaker 1: I can't help but feel like they could have been
Speaker 1: found a way to tell the story without narrating it
Speaker 1: from beginning to end, where we could have had those
Speaker 1: character moments that would have actually given us some more information,
Speaker 1: like finding more out about Nasha and her her fact
Speaker 1: that people really liked her so much that you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, things that could have really helped the story out.
Speaker 2: I agree with that. I want to read the book now.
Speaker 2: If it's not the book that I want it to be,
Speaker 2: I feel like I need to write it. Holy cow,
Speaker 2: you're right eight.
Speaker 4: I think he could just eliminate the narration and it
Speaker 4: might be even a more interesting movie.
Speaker 2: What's so fascinating about that? About Naomi's character, Naomi Aki,
Speaker 2: Nasha's character at the end becoming the robed one, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I never felt like she was set up to become
Speaker 2: the power politician. And yet they did have a character
Speaker 2: that was sort of set up to become the politician,
Speaker 2: which was Dorothy, the science person who kept rescuing and
Speaker 2: like she kept taking tiny actions that add up to activism,
Speaker 2: and I felt like that would have been more believable that.
Speaker 1: She becomes she and Mickey people in the whole place one.
Speaker 2: Hundred percent, And I feel like that's just a whiff.
Speaker 2: It's a missed opportunity.
Speaker 4: Or even the like operatives that were on the science team, right,
Speaker 4: like the Asian doctor that was behind the science team,
Speaker 4: like leading the resistance, Like there were potentially better characters
Speaker 4: to choose for that development.
Speaker 2: And would have supported the metaphor better right that that
Speaker 2: science becomes, you know, lauded as leadership versus essentially a
Speaker 2: military a member of the military.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe that's the point, even with science making this
Speaker 4: huge stand that military or strength is still the leadership
Speaker 4: as we move forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're exactly right, they're right. I don't like that.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be ready.
Speaker 2: I don't like it either, Right, give me something.
Speaker 1: That's a great point, though, And I would like to
Speaker 1: have seen them like do something with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would like that have been surprised, all right,
Speaker 2: there were no creepers.
Speaker 4: Really, what would they have done instead?
Speaker 1: The creepers took so much time and effort that later,
Speaker 1: when it's like six months later or whatever, that they
Speaker 1: seem more set up and Nache is in charge, they're
Speaker 1: still just outside on this big snow field.
Speaker 3: Like I don't get the feeling of like are they
Speaker 3: still just living on the ship, Like it just wasn't
Speaker 3: that clear.
Speaker 1: I think there was like a now in development sign
Speaker 1: behind her or something. There's more to do.
Speaker 4: For me, the creepers were just a physical manifestation of
Speaker 4: fear in general, right, Like we fear what we don't
Speaker 4: know about these places that we are going, and so
Speaker 4: they created that. I don't disagree with you, Tommy. I
Speaker 4: think I think potentially you could have done a more
Speaker 4: artful way of manifesting fear that didn't have to do
Speaker 4: with these these things, but this was This made it
Speaker 4: tangible and probably made it a little bit more simple
Speaker 4: to be able to say, Okay, I'm afraid of this thing.
Speaker 2: I'm going to kill this thing. Yeah. So interesting though,
Speaker 2: when you look at the rest of the lanes leftover,
Speaker 2: I think the movie it ends up being sort of
Speaker 2: an avatar unobtainingum kind of a story, And what it
Speaker 2: could have been is a, Hey, we're leaving the civilization
Speaker 2: as we know it to create something new. But actually
Speaker 2: all we're doing is bringing with us all of the
Speaker 2: problems that we had because those things are inescapable. And
Speaker 2: that's the that's like the cycle of despair that the
Speaker 2: movie gets to explore is look, oh there's drugs, and
Speaker 2: there's sex, and there's betrayal, and there's rebellion and all
Speaker 2: the stuff we can't get away from. Whether you're a
Speaker 2: church or or you know, or a military government, whatever,
Speaker 2: you can't get away from it. And how do we
Speaker 2: move forward? That's the central question that I think might
Speaker 2: have been answered in a movie with no creepers.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: I'd watched that movie. I'd watch the hell.
Speaker 1: I'd watched that movie too. Yeah, it becomes any of
Speaker 1: these science fiction movies where we are a defending species
Speaker 1: on Earth because some invading alien has come to take
Speaker 1: over our planet because they've destroyed all of their own
Speaker 1: planets and so they're coming to take all of our resources.
Speaker 1: That's exactly the story. But now we're that alien coming
Speaker 1: in to destroy the planet.
Speaker 2: Yeastically, any love for Jung Jail's score or of course
Speaker 2: Darius Kanji behind the camera.
Speaker 4: I really enjoyed the camera again focusing on the first
Speaker 4: half of the movie when we were and this maybe
Speaker 4: is a positive towards the narration, so I don't know
Speaker 4: how much I want to lean into it, but when
Speaker 4: we were experiencing the world as Mickey was, the camera
Speaker 4: did a great job of shifting and making us feel
Speaker 4: sort of isolated. What I'm thinking about, in particular is
Speaker 4: when he's in the ice cave and he's looking around
Speaker 4: and trying to understand what has happened to him and
Speaker 4: what is about to happen, and the camera is what
Speaker 4: leads us that way. So it's this sort of first
Speaker 4: person perspective that's done in a very interesting way that
Speaker 4: I really liked. And I'm not usually a first person
Speaker 4: perspective kind of advocate, but in this movie, I think
Speaker 4: it worked really well because of how little we knew
Speaker 4: at that point in the story, and they were very
Speaker 4: creative and interesting choices. So I'll just say that about
Speaker 4: the camera.
Speaker 3: Pretty late in the film, it's when they're all in
Speaker 3: their little individual prison boxes and she tells Mickey, wait,
Speaker 3: the aliens they were helping you. They were kicking you
Speaker 3: out of their cave. The movie treated that like a
Speaker 3: really big revelation. That was not a revelation. No, like
Speaker 3: did the movie think that we were all like, oh no,
Speaker 3: we were all like, you idiot, they're helping you? Because
Speaker 3: he was like, Herry, Jerks, what does my meet smell bad?
Speaker 3: I thought the joke was he's so dumb he doesn't
Speaker 3: know that they're helping him, and the.
Speaker 2: Joke was over. Should have been over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But then that was like a real I always
Speaker 3: get nervous when you're ahead of movies like that. Yeah yeah, right,
Speaker 3: right right, So that was just another extra grind apparently.
Speaker 2: A nothing.
Speaker 1: I just want to shout out the production design and
Speaker 1: costume design because I will say, while there was a
Speaker 1: lot that was frustrating. I really enjoyed the look of
Speaker 1: you know, Nifflheim itself wasn't great, but the ship, the earth,
Speaker 1: everything like I enjoyed, like the the queue that they
Speaker 1: had in that building that spiraled down when they were
Speaker 1: waiting in line, like some great moments like that. I
Speaker 1: loved the printer, like how it it would put them
Speaker 1: out and then kind of like to like in a
Speaker 1: little bit, is like old school printing, Like I just
Speaker 1: I loved so many of those little elements and touches
Speaker 1: that really were kind of throughout it. So I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of really interesting things that that
Speaker 1: made this world feel real to me. I bought into
Speaker 1: the space, even if it was one that I found frustrating.
Speaker 2: It seems a little unfair because we didn't actually like
Speaker 2: them to completely dismiss the creatures. So I do want
Speaker 2: to say, if we take the creatures out of this
Speaker 2: movie but put them in another movie, there are some
Speaker 2: cool things about the creature design. Like I actually thought
Speaker 2: the creatures were cool creatures, and I really enjoyed the
Speaker 2: way their behavior was portrayed, that sort of we grow
Speaker 2: from puppy to wooly mammoth kind of energy and their
Speaker 2: defensive mechanism of swirling on top of the big one.
Speaker 2: I thought that was just generally very cool. So insofar
Speaker 2: as I don't think they should have even been in
Speaker 2: the movie since they are, they looked good.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, I loved the creatures, like everything about them,
Speaker 1: the way that they their tongue would like they'd ulate
Speaker 1: when they were howling, and everything like. There was some
Speaker 1: pretty fantastic designs with the creatures in the film, even
Speaker 1: if they like you said, all.
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Speaker 2: slash join. Okay, it's time we need to abortion our
Speaker 2: stars and hearts, and I'm very excited to see this
Speaker 2: letterbox dot com slash the next reel. That's where we
Speaker 2: put our reviews and share our love of movies. What
Speaker 2: or where are you going to take your stars and
Speaker 2: put them? For this movie? JJ as the possibly the
Speaker 2: most enthusiastic of us, Why don't you kick us off?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I did start coming to the show today with the
Speaker 4: four and a half stars because of everything that I
Speaker 4: talked about from the first half of this movie. And
Speaker 4: I think I realized really in talking to you guys,
Speaker 4: that a lot of that is about potential, and that
Speaker 4: much of the weirdness that ensued after into the second
Speaker 4: half of the film is it requires some analysis as well.
Speaker 4: So I went back down to four stars. I still
Speaker 4: think conceptually and I keep bringing it back to four things.
Speaker 4: I love snow Piercer, I love the things that ban
Speaker 4: Jinhoe is doing. I love the Yorgus Lanthemos, the fact
Speaker 4: that this harkened to that to me, it's in that
Speaker 4: category of movies that I really like. So I want
Speaker 4: to still give it four stars, and I do give
Speaker 4: it a heart as well, because I enjoyed so much
Speaker 4: of the creativity and the approach.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 3: Thomas me, Yeah, I think probably if I were to
Speaker 3: quantify it.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize it at the time until this conversation,
Speaker 1: but I think I really loved half of this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah overall, And so I'm going to give it right
Speaker 3: down the middle three stars but a heart because I'm
Speaker 3: really glad that it exists.
Speaker 1: I like swings like this.
Speaker 3: I'll always be more interested in new stuff versus IP
Speaker 3: and so I am really happy for it. I'm glad
Speaker 3: that Robert Pattinson continues to make such interesting choices of
Speaker 3: which directors to work with. And so yeah, I'll give
Speaker 3: it right down the middle, three but a heart. So
Speaker 3: it's like three plus.
Speaker 2: All right, Andy, there's a lot of good will in
Speaker 2: the room. What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Well, Unlike Tommy, I'm literally gonna go right down the
Speaker 1: middle and do two and a half.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, that sucks. I'm going to keep it with
Speaker 3: a three, but I'm giving myself two point five. I
Speaker 3: you know, everything Tommy said is where I am like.
Speaker 3: It was so frustrating of a watch. It was, it
Speaker 3: was too long, but I loved the ideas that they
Speaker 3: were playing with. I just wish that they actually landed
Speaker 3: with any of them. And I just don't feel like
Speaker 3: they did, as it was a very frustrating watch for me,
Speaker 3: like you know, like oak Jaw and you know for
Speaker 3: me snow Piercer I think probably works the best of
Speaker 3: the of the Bong June Ho of the English language
Speaker 3: films that he's done. I don't think even with Tilda
Speaker 3: Swinton's character, I don't think it ever felt as silly
Speaker 3: as this one did.
Speaker 1: So I struggled with a lot, but I do still
Speaker 1: I I enjoy watching bongh june Hoe and what he's doing,
Speaker 1: and so I'll still give it a heart. So two
Speaker 1: and a half, but with a heart.
Speaker 2: That is more enthusiasm than I expected. I'm really pleased
Speaker 2: to hear that, Andy, I am right in there with
Speaker 2: with Tommy. I am three stars and a heart. I
Speaker 2: really I love yeah right in the middle, right smack
Speaker 2: in the middle and three stars and a heart. I
Speaker 2: feel like there there are too many allusions to so
Speaker 2: much of my other favorite kind of satire and and
Speaker 2: this this fits too well in the Terry Gilliam in
Speaker 2: the Luke Bason in the Armando Nucci for me not
Speaker 2: to at least, you know, give it, give it the
Speaker 2: credit that it's due for. Again, that swing, I think
Speaker 2: it's it's taking a big swing and I think it's fun.
Speaker 2: So that's it. We made a podcast about a movie
Speaker 2: that we marginally liked and are glad that it exists.
Speaker 2: Thank you everybody for hanging out with us. What are
Speaker 2: we gonna do next month? I we just decided it
Speaker 2: and I've already forgotten. So someone else has the sinners.
Speaker 3: You like blues music, you like old tiny cabins, you
Speaker 3: like vampires.
Speaker 1: It's like from us till done, but.
Speaker 2: You already know the twist, like like Ryan Coogler.
Speaker 4: Does that count?
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, good? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I actually the trailer seems like Black Snake Moon with vampires.
Speaker 1: I love it a lot of trailer.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited for you. Me too, very excited for it.
Speaker 2: So that'll be our April film and we're excited to
Speaker 2: do that. Thank you uh Andy for coming back after this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next m titled movie.
Speaker 2: And of course, JJ Tommy has always great to podcast
Speaker 2: with peoples. Thank you, dear listener, for your time and attention.
Speaker 2: Whether you agreed, disagreed, or just came here to shout
Speaker 2: at your phones, we appreciate you. If you had fun,
Speaker 2: don't forget to join the conversation on our discord at
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Speaker 2: perks whatever you do. Now, watch more movies, don't let
Speaker 2: them get you angry, and remember just because it has
Speaker 2: a post credit scene doesn't mean it's any good. Meeting
Speaker 2: a jerk