Contact (1997) with Christopher Bell

Speaker: 00:00:17

Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host Evan,

Speaker: 00:00:21

Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.

Speaker: 00:00:24

Track 1: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com. Many of you may remember Carl Sagan.

Speaker: 00:00:30

Track 1: He devoted his life to astronomy, planets, and had numerous contributions to

Speaker: 00:00:34

Track 1: what we know about places like Venus.

Speaker: 00:00:37

Track 1: And lastly, most relevant for today's episode, the potential of the existence

Speaker: 00:00:41

Track 1: of life on other planets.

Speaker: 00:00:43

Track 1: In 1985, he penned the book Contact, which was made into the film Up for Discussion

Speaker: 00:00:48

Track 1: Today, 12 Years Later, by the same name, directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Speaker: 00:00:53

Track 1: It stars Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, and Angela Bassett.

Speaker: 00:00:58

Track 1: With me to explore the unknown this week, I have Christopher Bell,

Speaker: 00:01:01

Track 1: filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, director, and you may know him from several

Speaker: 00:01:04

Track 1: shows on Means TV, The Winds That

Speaker: 00:01:07

Track 1: Scatter, and Miss Me Yet. Thank you for joining me today, Christopher.

Speaker: 00:01:10

Track 2: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Speaker: 00:01:12

Track 1: Of course. And I mentioned a couple of those shows, I guess,

Speaker: 00:01:15

Track 1: before we dive in, I want to maybe maybe people who don't even know about those

Speaker: 00:01:20

Track 1: shows or or other things or if you have any other projects that you might want

Speaker: 00:01:24

Track 1: to to plug here at the top.

Speaker: 00:01:26

Track 2: Okay yeah um you have a few things

Speaker: 00:01:28

Track 2: on means tv i have a uh series called

Speaker: 00:01:31

Track 2: miss me yet which is an archival documentary following um

Speaker: 00:01:35

Track 2: the george w bush admin during and

Speaker: 00:01:38

Track 2: after and um i also have a

Speaker: 00:01:41

Track 2: short archival doc that i did with abby martin

Speaker: 00:01:44

Track 2: called attention shoppers which is

Speaker: 00:01:47

Track 2: kind of a video essay about um things like

Speaker: 00:01:50

Track 2: operation gladio and um the

Speaker: 00:01:53

Track 2: like basically um strategy of

Speaker: 00:01:56

Track 2: tension against the left parties in uh europe and elsewhere um and that's about

Speaker: 00:02:03

Track 2: it you can find me on vimeo i have a link tree and you can see all my films

Speaker: 00:02:07

Track 2: that way and i do recommend becoming a member of means tv we're a leftist streaming koa and um,

Speaker: 00:02:14

Track 2: Every one of your dollars that you put in with your subscription, we put back in.

Speaker: 00:02:20

Track 2: We produce material, different shows, movies, short documentaries,

Speaker: 00:02:26

Track 2: animations, what have you.

Speaker: 00:02:29

Track 2: So we don't do ads. We are subscriber supported.

Speaker: 00:02:35

Track 2: And use subscriber code Chris Bell and you'll get a little percentage off.

Speaker: 00:02:40

Track 2: Chris Bell, all caps, one word, I believe.

Speaker: 00:02:42

Track 1: Yeah, I'll throw the link tree, your link tree, and maybe a link to Means TV

Speaker: 00:02:46

Track 1: to subscribe for anyone out there who isn't a subscriber.

Speaker: 00:02:50

Track 1: But as I mentioned before, we are discussing the film Contact.

Speaker: 00:02:55

Track 1: And, you know, usually when I have someone on, I will send a list of,

Speaker: 00:02:59

Track 1: you know, my undone films that I haven't done yet on the show.

Speaker: 00:03:02

Track 1: And you picked a couple but the one that we landed on was contact and i'm curious

Speaker: 00:03:07

Track 1: why you chose it and you know after watching it you know i guess just your overall impressions.

Speaker: 00:03:14

Track 2: The only reason i chose it uh from the list was because of the what i think

Speaker: 00:03:20

Track 2: is famous uh mirror shot the one take uh jenna malone running up the steps facing

Speaker: 00:03:27

Track 2: the camera and then her hand dips in But all of a sudden,

Speaker: 00:03:31

Track 2: it's a mirror. So you see her opening.

Speaker: 00:03:33

Track 2: It's like this crazy trick shot that I saw a number of years ago, was really blown away.

Speaker: 00:03:42

Track 2: And then it took me forever. And I saw it on the list. I was like,

Speaker: 00:03:44

Track 2: oh, this is a good excuse to see it. I've shown various people this shot.

Speaker: 00:03:49

Track 2: I've shown my wife, and she was freaking out.

Speaker: 00:03:51

Track 2: We're trying to write something about that involves mirrors.

Speaker: 00:03:55

Track 2: So this was like a thing like oh my god you've never seen this like you should see this.

Speaker: 00:04:00

Track 2: And then i saw it on the list and that was like an excuse to

Speaker: 00:04:03

Track 2: finally watch it growing up the only

Speaker: 00:04:06

Track 2: the cover looked kind of boring it didn't seem

Speaker: 00:04:09

Track 2: like anything that was interest me and

Speaker: 00:04:12

Track 2: i honestly think i only found out kind of kind

Speaker: 00:04:15

Track 2: of recently that it was um robert damekis it was

Speaker: 00:04:18

Track 2: really just the mirror shot it was something that popped up

Speaker: 00:04:21

Track 2: on uh probably twitter and that's

Speaker: 00:04:25

Track 2: how i first saw it so yeah it was just an excuse to

Speaker: 00:04:28

Track 2: watch it and i did like it

Speaker: 00:04:31

Track 2: at the end you know i did uh enjoy

Speaker: 00:04:35

Track 2: the movie as a whole i didn't love it i think a

Speaker: 00:04:38

Track 2: lot of people that i've read reviews

Speaker: 00:04:41

Track 2: from or i talked to friends about it they seem a lot more into it

Speaker: 00:04:44

Track 2: than i was but i liked it it's a weird thing because I was it's a long movie

Speaker: 00:04:50

Track 2: and I was pretty engaged during it you know there's nothing boring it kind of

Speaker: 00:04:55

Track 2: it sounds like it could be boring but there's something to it that keeps it

Speaker: 00:04:59

Track 2: kind of moving along very well and,

Speaker: 00:05:03

Track 2: um i do have a lot of things that i can pick and be like oh yeah that part was

Speaker: 00:05:08

Track 2: kind of cool that part was kind of interesting which is more than i could say

Speaker: 00:05:11

Track 2: for most movies you know so i would say i liked it i didn't i didn't love it

Speaker: 00:05:16

Track 2: that could change as we talk that's kind of how these things happen yeah.

Speaker: 00:05:20

Track 1: No that's that's definitely true and as uh as like a backdrop it's funny you

Speaker: 00:05:25

Track 1: mentioned the poster being kind of boring i remember i actually saw this in

Speaker: 00:05:31

Track 1: the theater when i was i don't know, like 13 or 14, something like that.

Speaker: 00:05:35

Track 1: And I remember also feeling like it was really long, but I was also never bored,

Speaker: 00:05:42

Track 1: which could easily have happened given, you know, my age and kind of the,

Speaker: 00:05:45

Track 1: it is a little bit slow moving.

Speaker: 00:05:47

Track 1: It's kind of, I don't want to call it a slow burn, but sort of like it,

Speaker: 00:05:50

Track 1: like it has a really good payoff.

Speaker: 00:05:51

Track 1: And so I think I have that like memory, memory hole, this movie as a movie that I really enjoy.

Speaker: 00:05:57

Track 1: So maybe I like it more than, you know than uh

Speaker: 00:06:00

Track 1: than i should like it somehow in a weird way but it

Speaker: 00:06:03

Track 1: was it wasn't even like it did pretty well in the box house i

Speaker: 00:06:06

Track 1: didn't mention it was the budget was 90 million which is fairly hefty for a

Speaker: 00:06:10

Track 1: film you know late 90s and it made 171 million which you know it did almost

Speaker: 00:06:15

Track 1: double its money so that's not bad but i don't think it was necessarily the

Speaker: 00:06:18

Track 1: hit that they were hoping for especially given zemeckis's history of like having

Speaker: 00:06:22

Track 1: forrest gump a couple years before this and of course,

Speaker: 00:06:25

Track 1: you know, the Back to the Future franchise, but I think overall, I'm a fan of the movie.

Speaker: 00:06:32

Track 1: I feel like I didn't maybe, you know, part of it is like a nostalgia thing, which I

Speaker: 00:06:37

Track 1: I think I do want to mention too, as I don't know what other,

Speaker: 00:06:40

Track 1: you know, Zemeckis films you've seen, is he really is into like that whole nostalgia

Speaker: 00:06:46

Track 1: concept in a lot of his movies, especially Back to the Future,

Speaker: 00:06:49

Track 1: Forrest Gump, some other ones.

Speaker: 00:06:52

Track 1: And this film doesn't really have that. Well, maybe I should ask you,

Speaker: 00:06:55

Track 1: like, do you think this film like uses the idea of nostalgia?

Speaker: 00:06:58

Track 1: So the opening sort of beginning of this film is, you know, Dr.

Speaker: 00:07:04

Track 1: Ellie Arroway played by Jodie Foster, and then you kind of have her go back

Speaker: 00:07:08

Track 1: in time to as a child, you know, how she kind of got and there's some shots

Speaker: 00:07:12

Track 1: back and forth throughout it.

Speaker: 00:07:13

Track 1: So do you think it like hits the nostalgia button in this or no?

Speaker: 00:07:19

Track 2: No, not really. No. I think that there are things that are tied to her past, such as her parents.

Speaker: 00:07:28

Track 2: And then we see her as a kid doing the like a ham radio and being like,

Speaker: 00:07:34

Track 2: oh, I reached, you know, this state or whatever.

Speaker: 00:07:38

Track 2: But that's all kind of tied

Speaker: 00:07:41

Track 2: to just her curious nature so there's not

Speaker: 00:07:44

Track 2: really a lot going on with you know

Speaker: 00:07:47

Track 2: they're not really i can't remember if they're in

Speaker: 00:07:51

Track 2: a suburban area or if they're more rural

Speaker: 00:07:54

Track 2: but there's not really a lot of nostalgia for childhood specifically it's mostly

Speaker: 00:08:00

Track 2: connecting her to being like oh she always had this like childlike wonder i

Speaker: 00:08:05

Track 2: guess and she carried that over into her adulthood profession but she.

Speaker: 00:08:12

Track 2: I kind of don't think so. I don't think it deals with nostalgia.

Speaker: 00:08:15

Track 2: But in a way, it has, you know, maybe the way you can look at him doing it is

Speaker: 00:08:21

Track 2: that he has a kind of maybe naive

Speaker: 00:08:23

Track 2: or pure, however you want to look at his perspective some of the time.

Speaker: 00:08:28

Track 2: And maybe that leads into

Speaker: 00:08:31

Track 2: this movie of being like the curiousness and the wonder and the determination

Speaker: 00:08:38

Track 2: that we should keep exploring and try to grasp onto things that are not easily attainable,

Speaker: 00:08:50

Track 2: such as life on other planets.

Speaker: 00:08:52

Track 2: It's however little, whatever little trickle you can get, like,

Speaker: 00:08:55

Track 2: oh, I'm going to tap into that and we're going to take forever.

Speaker: 00:08:58

Track 2: And it might lead to something about it might not.

Speaker: 00:09:00

Track 2: And maybe that's wrapped up in his same perspective that he uses throughout,

Speaker: 00:09:06

Track 2: which I don't know, again, might be naive or naivete or something like that.

Speaker: 00:09:11

Track 1: Yeah, I wrote in my notes as I was watching the beginning part with her going

Speaker: 00:09:14

Track 1: back, I wrote, you used the word wonder. I wrote just like kind of a child,

Speaker: 00:09:17

Track 1: like a child sense of wonder.

Speaker: 00:09:20

Track 1: And it just kind of stayed with her for her whole life where she always had

Speaker: 00:09:23

Track 1: this kind of ambition to just, you know, first it was someplace that was in Florida.

Speaker: 00:09:28

Track 1: And then obviously looking for extraterrestrials on, you know,

Speaker: 00:09:31

Track 1: light years away is, you know, quite the difference as far as looking for something

Speaker: 00:09:35

Track 1: further away. But I also didn't think it really hit any kind of nostalgia.

Speaker: 00:09:41

Track 1: I just saw it as, you know, she took what she knew as a child and is just kind

Speaker: 00:09:45

Track 1: of taking it to the next kind of, well, out of the most logical step.

Speaker: 00:09:50

Track 1: I mean, not necessarily every kid who plays with a ham radio then works for

Speaker: 00:09:53

Track 1: like the SETI, you know, and is looking for extraterrestrial life.

Speaker: 00:09:57

Track 1: But that was kind of her trajectory. and um

Speaker: 00:10:00

Track 1: one thing i did want to mention before we get even

Speaker: 00:10:03

Track 1: further into the film is i did at the top said this

Speaker: 00:10:05

Track 1: is based on a book by carl sagan and there's just like a few so i posted online

Speaker: 00:10:11

Track 1: the other day like what people like people's memories of the film and a few

Speaker: 00:10:15

Track 1: people said that they didn't like it because the book was a lot better and i

Speaker: 00:10:19

Track 1: in full disclosure have not read the book but i wanted to just point out a few

Speaker: 00:10:22

Track 1: differences in the book versus the film that.

Speaker: 00:10:26

Track 1: Maybe may or not be relevant i think when we were talking beforehand he

Speaker: 00:10:29

Track 1: thought that the book some of those plot points sounded like pretty interesting and

Speaker: 00:10:33

Track 1: i think the one that's the two that stick out to me one is that in the film

Speaker: 00:10:37

Track 1: it's only jody foster that later you know takes this potential journey to uh

Speaker: 00:10:42

Track 1: you know another uh another galaxy or another planet and in the in the book

Speaker: 00:10:48

Track 1: there's actually five different scientists from different,

Speaker: 00:10:51

Track 1: countries and cultures, which kind of makes it not just about a single person.

Speaker: 00:10:55

Track 1: I can understand why, you know,

Speaker: 00:10:57

Track 1: they made that choice to just have Jodie Foster, the American who goes.

Speaker: 00:11:00

Track 1: And then the second one, which is interesting, is that it took place during

Speaker: 00:11:03

Track 1: the Cold War because it was written in 1985.

Speaker: 00:11:07

Track 1: And because of that, there was this kind of pact between the United States and

Speaker: 00:11:11

Track 1: the Soviet Union to actually work together as opposed to, you know,

Speaker: 00:11:15

Track 1: having this, you know, this Cold War and nuclear arms race and all that.

Speaker: 00:11:20

Track 1: So they kind of completely put that aside and were able to work together.

Speaker: 00:11:23

Track 1: And it made sense, again, not to include that because the film came out six

Speaker: 00:11:27

Track 1: years after the Cold War had officially ended, the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Speaker: 00:11:32

Track 1: So those two things would have been super interesting. I mean,

Speaker: 00:11:36

Track 1: they could have certainly written the movie as if it took place in the 80s, but I don't know.

Speaker: 00:11:41

Track 1: I'm curious what that film would have looked like.

Speaker: 00:11:44

Track 2: Yeah, it kind of, I don't know. It kind of sounds like the book is cooler,

Speaker: 00:11:47

Track 2: but um i've never read any of his stuff

Speaker: 00:11:50

Track 2: i don't know what prose is like so maybe like it's

Speaker: 00:11:52

Track 2: probably not i was gonna say it's like oh it could be dog

Speaker: 00:11:55

Track 2: shit it's probably not like he's probably like uh famously like

Speaker: 00:11:59

Track 2: a probably a decent writer i'd say um but i kind of i'll say this i like that

Speaker: 00:12:04

Track 2: they're different enough to both exist you know yeah it's like they sound different

Speaker: 00:12:09

Track 2: enough and what i could say is like the changes sound more movie like for better

Speaker: 00:12:15

Track 2: or worse where It's like, oh, we're going to cram it all into one character,

Speaker: 00:12:18

Track 2: you know, like strip stuff away and then just, you know, keeping it more contemporary

Speaker: 00:12:23

Track 2: versus dealing with the Soviet Union.

Speaker: 00:12:26

Track 2: They don't really shy away from politics necessarily.

Speaker: 00:12:31

Track 2: But in terms of international politics, they don't really get too deep into that.

Speaker: 00:12:37

Track 1: Yeah, they yeah, we will get to probably some of those things in not too long.

Speaker: 00:12:42

Track 1: In fact, I think some of the, you know, early political kind of components are

Speaker: 00:12:47

Track 1: pretty early in the film.

Speaker: 00:12:49

Track 1: But the, you know, the big one, like the big kind of theme that I noticed,

Speaker: 00:12:54

Track 1: especially early on in the film, is sort of like the idea that science is this public good.

Speaker: 00:13:00

Track 1: You know, probably as most people know, many, you know, big inventions and breakthroughs

Speaker: 00:13:07

Track 1: were funded through, you know, government spending, you know, in real life.

Speaker: 00:13:10

Track 1: And many of those then become owned by corporations to use them as profit.

Speaker: 00:13:16

Track 1: And one of the early moments in this film is that Jodie Foster's character is

Speaker: 00:13:21

Track 1: in Puerto Rico. She's been funded to utilize a large, you know,

Speaker: 00:13:26

Track 1: satellite there to communicate with, not satellite, uh, yeah, um,

Speaker: 00:13:31

Track 1: not satellite um what word am i looking for is.

Speaker: 00:13:35

Track 2: It not a satellite.

Speaker: 00:13:35

Track 1: I guess it is a satellite right yeah okay i don't know why i have

Speaker: 00:13:38

Track 1: for some reason had a had like am i am i saying i

Speaker: 00:13:40

Track 1: don't know what it would be yeah satellite right so uh so i guess it's just

Speaker: 00:13:44

Track 1: not a satellite doesn't orbit just uh yeah so they see good there she's in puerto

Speaker: 00:13:47

Track 1: rico she's using this satellite with her team to sort of scan different regions

Speaker: 00:13:52

Track 1: of deep space to you know look for extraterrestrials and she has her her boss

Speaker: 00:13:57

Track 1: kind of comes down, who's sort of the one funding this project.

Speaker: 00:14:00

Track 1: And in a very early scene, they sort of have this sort of argument amongst,

Speaker: 00:14:04

Track 1: you know, several other people, including Jodie Foster, is that he believes

Speaker: 00:14:08

Track 1: that it's better to use, you know,

Speaker: 00:14:11

Track 1: these funding for these kind of projects should, you know, yield results and

Speaker: 00:14:15

Track 1: sort of profit, you know, where the people, the taxpayer are spending all this

Speaker: 00:14:18

Track 1: money, they should, you know, get something from them.

Speaker: 00:14:21

Track 1: And, you know, the idea that we should only pursue scientific endeavors,

Speaker: 00:14:24

Track 1: you know, when it's profitable.

Speaker: 00:14:26

Track 1: And I think it's, I would imagine that this would probably be something that

Speaker: 00:14:30

Track 1: would be on Carl Sagan's mind as, you know, as a scientist and a,

Speaker: 00:14:33

Track 1: you know, person probably having to deal with funding for all kinds of things.

Speaker: 00:14:37

Track 1: But to me, it was a pretty, you know, in your face kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:14:42

Track 1: And Zemeckis politics can kind of lean a little bit more liberal,

Speaker: 00:14:46

Track 1: even sometimes conservative in some other films so this was like a you know

Speaker: 00:14:51

Track 1: pretty overtly saying i would hope that people watching this would think like

Speaker: 00:14:55

Track 1: i agree with jodie foster here and not her uh her boss.

Speaker: 00:14:59

Track 2: Yeah i think it's pretty explicit especially because he ends up being like um

Speaker: 00:15:04

Track 2: you know not a terrible guy like kind of a good guy but a um like a clout chaser

Speaker: 00:15:10

Track 2: or a ladder climber kind of thing um which i think goes hand in hand with,

Speaker: 00:15:17

Track 2: him wanting to turn a profit or whatever.

Speaker: 00:15:20

Track 2: It's like that individualist motivation.

Speaker: 00:15:23

Track 2: One thing that I'm kind of curious about is that this part is the first time we see,

Speaker: 00:15:31

Track 2: the character as an adult judy foster and then

Speaker: 00:15:34

Track 2: there's like another time jump why do we have the the time jumps like why is

Speaker: 00:15:40

Track 2: this not i was kind of confused about this like she gets she loses the job and

Speaker: 00:15:45

Track 2: then has to find another job so then there's a little time jump like a few years

Speaker: 00:15:49

Track 2: later like why did we need that that was kind of strange why have.

Speaker: 00:15:54

Track 1: The like poor like the scene you know the portions in Puerto Rico and then jumping

Speaker: 00:15:59

Track 1: where she's then kind of hunting for, I guess the next thing is she's hunting for, you know,

Speaker: 00:16:05

Track 1: uh, funding from people all around the, you know, the country and the world.

Speaker: 00:16:10

Track 1: Is that what you mean? Like why skip between those two?

Speaker: 00:16:12

Track 2: Yeah. Like, so she ends up having a job that is at a private company.

Speaker: 00:16:16

Track 2: Like, is that the next time jump is now she has a new job and it's like at a private company.

Speaker: 00:16:21

Track 1: Yeah. So the, yeah, so I think,

Speaker: 00:16:24

Track 1: so the guy, the the person i was referring to the kind of is kind of

Speaker: 00:16:27

Track 1: in that profit motive his character is played by tom

Speaker: 00:16:30

Track 1: scarrett his um the uh his david drumlin is the character's name and he's like

Speaker: 00:16:36

Track 1: i guess either funding or like the leader of the the company that she's working

Speaker: 00:16:41

Track 1: for and then i mean i guess the only thing i can think of is but in that time

Speaker: 00:16:46

Track 1: period when she's in puerto rico is when she,

Speaker: 00:16:49

Track 1: meets big Matthew McConaughey and I guess they like they

Speaker: 00:16:52

Track 1: sleep together and he seems like really into her

Speaker: 00:16:54

Track 1: but she's sort of like you know I you know

Speaker: 00:16:57

Track 1: doesn't seem to want to be tied down and then they jump ahead

Speaker: 00:17:00

Track 1: to where she's looking at I guess the only thing I could think of is I

Speaker: 00:17:03

Track 1: don't know needing to be like this period when she's sort

Speaker: 00:17:06

Track 1: of well I'm trying to think about this I mean

Speaker: 00:17:09

Track 1: I guess the I guess to like connect the two is she's she

Speaker: 00:17:13

Track 1: loses her funding from this from the original um you

Speaker: 00:17:16

Track 1: know drumlin and then has to kind of beg in a sense from different other funders

Speaker: 00:17:23

Track 1: i guess it's kind of like immediately saying that the only way to fund science

Speaker: 00:17:28

Track 1: is looking at like the billionaires and these corporate groups is that the government

Speaker: 00:17:32

Track 1: or whatever isn't really interested in funding these kind of endeavors yeah.

Speaker: 00:17:36

Track 2: That's what i kind of keep coming to you You know, when I'm thinking about this,

Speaker: 00:17:42

Track 2: like from the lefty angle, but then also I'm just like, well, is that not true?

Speaker: 00:17:48

Track 2: Like in the world we live in, you know, if you need money to do it,

Speaker: 00:17:53

Track 2: like, would you then be trying to convince the really rich people with such

Speaker: 00:17:58

Track 2: hubris to fund these things, you know?

Speaker: 00:18:02

Track 2: So I get kind of caught up in that and just being like, is it saying that private

Speaker: 00:18:06

Track 2: enterprise is the way to go or is it being very, very realist about it?

Speaker: 00:18:10

Track 1: Yeah, no, that's interesting. I actually could, you could probably make the

Speaker: 00:18:14

Track 1: argument that it's saying the only real way to fund what I guess they would consider, like,

Speaker: 00:18:21

Track 1: fringe scientific exploration is through private funding, and that, you know,

Speaker: 00:18:28

Track 1: obviously we know what happens later in the film is that they do discover something,

Speaker: 00:18:32

Track 1: you know, from far away, and that leads us into sort of the second half of the film.

Speaker: 00:18:36

Track 1: But I don't know, just given like sort of what I know about Roger Zemeckis,

Speaker: 00:18:40

Track 1: I don't know how it was depicted in the book.

Speaker: 00:18:42

Track 1: It might have been slightly different, but it does lead me to think that he's

Speaker: 00:18:46

Track 1: saying that the only way to really fund science is through billionaires and

Speaker: 00:18:51

Track 1: that's the right way to do it.

Speaker: 00:18:53

Track 2: Yeah, it's tricky. It's very tricky.

Speaker: 00:19:23

Track 1: We see him on a plane, and then later we see him on a space station.

Speaker: 00:19:29

Track 1: And he gives her the money, and they're able to go to the very large array,

Speaker: 00:19:33

Track 1: which people may know of in New Mexico, which I think is something like,

Speaker: 00:19:36

Track 1: I don't know how many satellites they have there, but it's a lot of them.

Speaker: 00:19:40

Track 1: And she's able to continue her research and start to look at furthering her

Speaker: 00:19:47

Track 1: sciences. And I don't know.

Speaker: 00:19:51

Track 1: Yeah, I'm now a little bit stuck on it. I think I think it's saying that that's the way to do it.

Speaker: 00:19:55

Track 1: And like he's and what's interesting is I think the government owns these these this very large array.

Speaker: 00:20:01

Track 1: And so they're essentially leasing them from the government when the government

Speaker: 00:20:04

Track 1: could simply just give them the time.

Speaker: 00:20:08

Track 1: Why need to why is why should the you know, they have to pay to use this public good in a sense.

Speaker: 00:20:14

Track 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't like making declarations like this, but I kind of think

Speaker: 00:20:21

Track 2: we're thinking you and I are thinking. more into it than they did.

Speaker: 00:20:23

Track 1: Oh yeah certainly just.

Speaker: 00:20:26

Track 2: In the way that like oh okay so it's incoherent uh you know of course you know

Speaker: 00:20:31

Track 2: that's uh par for the course with um stuff like this.

Speaker: 00:20:35

Track 1: Yeah that's uh for yeah for listeners of the show

Speaker: 00:20:37

Track 1: we certainly are you know looking deeper into the

Speaker: 00:20:41

Track 1: political you know aspects of

Speaker: 00:20:44

Track 1: films that probably you know i don't know how deeply robert zemeckis was you

Speaker: 00:20:48

Track 1: know considering these things but i mean i think in some sense i like to say

Speaker: 00:20:51

Track 1: a lot on the show is that like just the personal politics and the climate of

Speaker: 00:20:55

Track 1: the time in the 90s you know when he's making the film whether he intended to

Speaker: 00:20:59

Track 1: or not like has implications for you know what he's,

Speaker: 00:21:04

Track 1: saying in it even if he didn't mean to or wasn't

Speaker: 00:21:07

Track 1: you know would never admit to saying them but this

Speaker: 00:21:10

Track 1: is where we end up you know this is where i feel like the the film

Speaker: 00:21:13

Track 1: like it's a it's a little bit slow in the beginning kind of the back and

Speaker: 00:21:15

Track 1: forth and then this is sort of where it gets going where

Speaker: 00:21:19

Track 1: they now have discovered a signal containing prime numbers from a star vega

Speaker: 00:21:24

Track 1: which i think was 12 light years away somewhere i wrote how very far from from

Speaker: 00:21:30

Track 1: earth and part of what makes this part really cool i think is the the uh the

Speaker: 00:21:35

Track 1: score and the you know the composition of like the,

Speaker: 00:21:39

Track 1: sound of what it sounded like to hear the the

Speaker: 00:21:42

Track 1: signal from far away it's sort of like this i don't know

Speaker: 00:21:45

Track 1: how to describe like the synthy effect of it just kind of is like constantly

Speaker: 00:21:50

Track 1: playing i think probably for the next 30 minutes on and off of the film and

Speaker: 00:21:54

Track 1: it just kind of gets you really hooked or if you were already kind of hooked

Speaker: 00:21:58

Track 1: in that first 30 40 minutes i don't know maybe i'm bringing too much into that no.

Speaker: 00:22:04

Track 2: That was really cool i mean i really appreciate it to

Speaker: 00:22:06

Track 2: the um the way they slowly built that

Speaker: 00:22:10

Track 2: up it's like oh you hear it and then they're able to uncover like

Speaker: 00:22:13

Track 2: another thing there's like these little moments of

Speaker: 00:22:16

Track 2: problem solving where they like inch closer and closer to

Speaker: 00:22:20

Track 2: you know deciphering what

Speaker: 00:22:22

Track 2: this thing is and that was a lot of fun and I'm

Speaker: 00:22:25

Track 2: actually curious how long that process is and how much that helped along the

Speaker: 00:22:32

Track 2: movie being as long as it is feeling like there's crazy momentum when it's like

Speaker: 00:22:38

Track 2: they're able to kind of have this longish sequence of just.

Speaker: 00:22:44

Track 2: Minute problem solving where someone's like oh pull it

Speaker: 00:22:46

Track 2: up on here like pull it up in here and i'm like oh we're deciphering

Speaker: 00:22:50

Track 2: like we got another layer like here's another layer it's very i don't know that's

Speaker: 00:22:54

Track 2: not something movies really kind of spend a lot of time on it's very subtle

Speaker: 00:22:58

Track 2: in a way where they're being like let's look at the sound wave now let's look

Speaker: 00:23:03

Track 2: at the sound wave that's below it and like what it reveals and it's like oh

Speaker: 00:23:06

Track 2: it's actually a picture let's look at the picture it's quite interesting yeah.

Speaker: 00:23:09

Track 1: I i think honestly i don't mean i didn't clock it when it was on but from the

Speaker: 00:23:13

Track 1: moment where she's sort of sitting on her truck,

Speaker: 00:23:16

Track 1: hearing the signal for the first time into when the government swoops in to

Speaker: 00:23:20

Track 1: have these national security fears and James Wood's character comes in as the

Speaker: 00:23:26

Track 1: head of national security and all of that.

Speaker: 00:23:29

Track 1: I mean, that had to have been at least 20 to 30 minutes and it almost kind of goes by in like a blip.

Speaker: 00:23:35

Track 1: I feel like that's one of the few, one of the several very exciting parts,

Speaker: 00:23:40

Track 1: but of very, as you said, like very simple, tiny, monotonous, like minute things.

Speaker: 00:23:46

Track 1: Like you're saying, all these like analog, you know, this is the late nineties,

Speaker: 00:23:49

Track 1: you know, we don't have all these digital fancy gadgets and,

Speaker: 00:23:53

Track 1: you know, they're connecting TVs using like RCA cables and, you know,

Speaker: 00:23:57

Track 1: these things that, you know, people probably don't even,

Speaker: 00:23:59

Track 1: you know, think of anymore now where you could just,

Speaker: 00:24:01

Track 1: you know, connect it to some streaming something and you could then,

Speaker: 00:24:05

Track 1: you know, easily connect it,

Speaker: 00:24:06

Track 1: but they're connect, you know, talking with radios and the whole thing.

Speaker: 00:24:09

Track 1: Like I found that also very, you know it's very compelling that part like i

Speaker: 00:24:13

Track 1: think one of the which we'll get to later when they you know actually build

Speaker: 00:24:17

Track 1: the machine is like one of the most uh exciting parts.

Speaker: 00:24:21

Track 2: Yeah it's funny too how much how all of those little developments propel it

Speaker: 00:24:27

Track 2: along using all of the analog equipment too it's hard to be like like i want

Speaker: 00:24:32

Track 2: to say this should not be that interesting but it is they're able to do it everyone's

Speaker: 00:24:36

Track 2: really excited you're feeling the passion and then i think james woods comes in and,

Speaker: 00:24:41

Track 2: you know, he's great at playing a dickhead for, I don't know why, but, uh,

Speaker: 00:24:46

Track 2: yeah, but, um, you really are into it because you can kind of see,

Speaker: 00:24:51

Track 2: like, you know, you're watching a movie and you get the premise you're already

Speaker: 00:24:54

Track 2: absorbed in at this point, but you can see the thing where it's like,

Speaker: 00:24:58

Track 2: okay, so she hears this little noise. What's the big deal?

Speaker: 00:25:01

Track 2: But you really get caught up in the passion and the way that they're trying

Speaker: 00:25:06

Track 2: to figure this thing out and then how it keeps kind of escalating.

Speaker: 00:25:10

Track 2: Again, like there's no there's no threat of death or anything.

Speaker: 00:25:13

Track 2: It's not really an easy thing to make super compelling, but they managed to really well.

Speaker: 00:25:19

Track 1: It is true. Like I feel, I think when I was watching it, I'm,

Speaker: 00:25:22

Track 1: did I write this note down? I was trying to figure out,

Speaker: 00:25:26

Track 1: about how long the film is before, you know, I think it's a good hour,

Speaker: 00:25:32

Track 1: hour and 20 minutes, or even longer, I think, before they actually built,

Speaker: 00:25:37

Track 1: you know, really, you like really know what's going on.

Speaker: 00:25:39

Track 1: Because at this point, you see they've found this source, they find a video

Speaker: 00:25:43

Track 1: signal embedded in it, which turns out to be Adolf Hitler's address for the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Speaker: 00:25:51

Track 1: And like, I also kind of like the James Wood being like, oh, what is,

Speaker: 00:25:54

Track 1: like, are they fascists trying to like kill us you know all this thing he's

Speaker: 00:25:57

Track 1: like no that's actually just the very first you know thing

Speaker: 00:26:00

Track 1: that was ever broadcast live on tv and so them sending

Speaker: 00:26:03

Track 1: it back is meaningful and you know it's like these

Speaker: 00:26:06

Track 1: of course the u.s government you know defense is

Speaker: 00:26:10

Track 1: uh jumping to conclusions of like yeah they're gonna like aliens are

Speaker: 00:26:13

Track 1: gonna bomb us or something ridiculous and of course you know that's not the

Speaker: 00:26:16

Track 1: case they're just sending this signal and then they slowly peel back the onion

Speaker: 00:26:21

Track 1: and they have the you know was it 10 000 pages or you know some astronomical

Speaker: 00:26:26

Track 1: number or 63 000 pages of encoded data within it and that they have to decode.

Speaker: 00:26:32

Track 2: Yeah more um peeling of the onion uh for this like little mystery box i have to say though.

Speaker: 00:26:40

Track 2: The reveal like i

Speaker: 00:26:42

Track 2: kind of clocked it it does like look like a swastika it's

Speaker: 00:26:46

Track 2: upside down or something and super close and it's like

Speaker: 00:26:49

Track 2: that looks bad you know and

Speaker: 00:26:51

Track 2: then they'll they'll zoom out and they and they do it it's pretty chilling like

Speaker: 00:26:54

Track 2: just to be like holy shit like that's literally uh

Speaker: 00:26:58

Track 2: that's the guy and that's the symbol and that's that's the bad thing and it's

Speaker: 00:27:02

Track 2: kind of unsettling to be like okay so in the movie alien sent this image that

Speaker: 00:27:09

Track 2: is loaded to put it lightly uh true yes with a lot of bad,

Speaker: 00:27:15

Track 2: negative meaning and emotion.

Speaker: 00:27:17

Track 2: And then there's the back and forth. And it's like, why would they send this?

Speaker: 00:27:21

Track 2: And it's one of the first things to get that far, which I kind of they spent

Speaker: 00:27:27

Track 2: a little more time on just kind of dealing with, what does it mean that this

Speaker: 00:27:31

Track 2: was the thing that is the first thing that somebody saw?

Speaker: 00:27:34

Track 2: They don't know what it means, but what does it mean to us that it's our first,

Speaker: 00:27:39

Track 2: like, hello, this is the first thing nobody knows anything about us,

Speaker: 00:27:44

Track 2: but this is what they see.

Speaker: 00:27:45

Track 2: And I kind of wish that idea was...

Speaker: 00:27:48

Track 2: In an already very long movie i wish it was kind of uh

Speaker: 00:27:51

Track 2: dealt with yeah um i think there's some kind of potential there to dig in a

Speaker: 00:27:56

Track 2: little deeper but you know it's fine but cracking the code and stuff that's

Speaker: 00:28:00

Track 2: fun and it keeps us moving along but um i do wish he kind of dug into that a

Speaker: 00:28:07

Track 2: little deeper and had them kind of wrestle with that.

Speaker: 00:28:09

Track 1: Yeah one one of the things too as part of like the

Speaker: 00:28:12

Track 1: what this is like maybe like the one

Speaker: 00:28:15

Track 1: of the controversial i i say that like very

Speaker: 00:28:18

Track 1: lightly not really that deeply controversial is part of like

Speaker: 00:28:21

Track 1: the reveal and like the u.s government and you know

Speaker: 00:28:24

Track 1: announcing all of this is they have an address by bill

Speaker: 00:28:27

Track 1: clinton which is he was not in the

Speaker: 00:28:29

Track 1: movie they didn't do anything this was based on a like

Speaker: 00:28:33

Track 1: discovery of a uh meteorite in antarctica

Speaker: 00:28:36

Track 1: and they were able to clip in this address

Speaker: 00:28:39

Track 1: by bill clinton and apparently they like sent

Speaker: 00:28:42

Track 1: the white house like the script ahead of time like this is

Speaker: 00:28:45

Track 1: what we're going to do like if you have any issues with it and then after they

Speaker: 00:28:48

Track 1: released the movie the white house is like mad about it you know him being used

Speaker: 00:28:52

Track 1: in the film and they actually never did anything about it they just kind of

Speaker: 00:28:56

Track 1: i don't know maybe bill clinton saw the movie and didn't like it or something

Speaker: 00:28:58

Track 1: and he's like oh you should send a national you know a nasty letter to warner

Speaker: 00:29:03

Track 1: brothers about this but And that's like,

Speaker: 00:29:05

Track 1: in a way, it's like the trademark, I think, from a lot of, especially Forrest

Speaker: 00:29:09

Track 1: Gump, I think, is like the number one film where Zemeckis uses, you know,

Speaker: 00:29:14

Track 1: overlaying, you know, the actors with the, you know, president or something like that.

Speaker: 00:29:20

Track 1: And I actually kind of like the way they built out and sort of took it from, you know,

Speaker: 00:29:25

Track 1: she's hearing this sound on her headphones in the desert to now the president

Speaker: 00:29:30

Track 1: of the United States, an actual clip from Clinton is playing and telling everyone what's going on.

Speaker: 00:29:35

Track 1: Like they do a good job of taking it from like this.

Speaker: 00:29:39

Track 1: Like who should actually care about this little sound? Like,

Speaker: 00:29:42

Track 1: oh, what does it actually mean to the president is now addressing like the world?

Speaker: 00:29:46

Track 1: I could for world building, I guess you could say.

Speaker: 00:29:48

Track 2: Yeah, I thought that was quite interesting. And I was actually curious.

Speaker: 00:29:51

Track 2: Like I knew they didn't get him to do it.

Speaker: 00:29:53

Track 2: But I was like, what was he really talking about? Because it fits so well.

Speaker: 00:29:57

Track 2: And it's from such a long time ago. It's like you can kind of tell when they

Speaker: 00:30:01

Track 2: put like Tom Skerritt in a photo with Bill Clinton. You're like, oh, that's fake. OK.

Speaker: 00:30:05

Track 2: But this one was quite interesting. And it's tough, too.

Speaker: 00:30:09

Track 2: But again, because they're not, they don't really have political minds like

Speaker: 00:30:14

Track 2: us, but then they do stuff like this. And it's like, well, now I'm thinking about it again.

Speaker: 00:30:17

Track 2: What would the government do? Like, how would they act?

Speaker: 00:30:21

Track 2: And is this how they would act? Or is this just Zemeckis' weird,

Speaker: 00:30:25

Track 2: like, liberal perspective?

Speaker: 00:30:26

Track 2: Like, what would we do? Kind of to go back to, there's that thing with sci-fi,

Speaker: 00:30:31

Track 2: or how people talk about aliens, where everyone's thinking that if aliens came,

Speaker: 00:30:37

Track 2: they would kill us immediately.

Speaker: 00:30:38

Track 2: Or use the planet for energy it

Speaker: 00:30:41

Track 2: has to be that and then as you

Speaker: 00:30:44

Track 2: kind of get a little older you read a little

Speaker: 00:30:46

Track 2: bit you talk to more people you're like oh no that's just because

Speaker: 00:30:50

Track 2: we're american that's what we do and that's why that's the perception of aliens

Speaker: 00:30:54

Track 2: we're like um was we're projecting that onto them and um you kind of get a little

Speaker: 00:31:01

Track 2: bit of that in the movie too like politically when uh like like you said james

Speaker: 00:31:06

Track 2: woods is like oh so they're fascists they're going to kill us.

Speaker: 00:31:08

Track 2: And they kind of deal with that a little bit, which was interesting.

Speaker: 00:31:12

Track 2: And I do think that would happen.

Speaker: 00:31:14

Track 2: Of course, I think it would probably be consensus, political consensus at this

Speaker: 00:31:19

Track 2: point that they would think.

Speaker: 00:31:20

Track 2: And I'm also curious what he... So Carl Sagan wrote this in the 80s and then

Speaker: 00:31:25

Track 2: Zemeckis is writing it now.

Speaker: 00:31:26

Track 2: So what did they think about the Star Wars program and having satellites up,

Speaker: 00:31:31

Track 2: like militarized space and stuff like that? That doesn't really come up, doesn't it?

Speaker: 00:31:36

Track 1: No. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know enough about Carl Sagan's sort of,

Speaker: 00:31:42

Track 1: political beliefs in the sense of like, you know, I know, like I know a little

Speaker: 00:31:46

Track 1: bit about sort of his scientific background, but I wonder,

Speaker: 00:31:49

Track 1: I know that he has said that he doesn't really believe in God,

Speaker: 00:31:53

Track 1: which we will definitely get to for anyone who's seen contact this thing.

Speaker: 00:31:57

Track 1: Like, oh, there's like the whole God thing going on.

Speaker: 00:31:59

Track 1: We'll get to that pretty soon. I think as Matthew McConaughey comes back in.

Speaker: 00:32:03

Track 1: But I don't know. It's interesting how that plays in.

Speaker: 00:32:07

Track 1: But I definitely do agree that it's sort of a very, it's definitely a sort of

Speaker: 00:32:11

Track 1: a liberal perspective on kind of what the U.S. would actually do.

Speaker: 00:32:15

Track 1: And like just thinking in my head, like what would, if this were to actually

Speaker: 00:32:18

Track 1: happen, we were to get this signal and the U.S. were to,

Speaker: 00:32:21

Track 1: You know, I almost, by broadcasting it and making some of the information available,

Speaker: 00:32:27

Track 1: they're sort of looking to the

Speaker: 00:32:29

Track 1: scientific community and the international community for, like, support.

Speaker: 00:32:33

Track 1: Whereas I don't know if the U.S. would actually do that.

Speaker: 00:32:36

Track 1: Like, would they just keep this to themselves and try and, you know, decode it?

Speaker: 00:32:40

Track 1: Or I don't know. I just, I know too much about what the United States has done

Speaker: 00:32:45

Track 1: in their history to believe that they would do this as, like,

Speaker: 00:32:48

Track 1: the goodness of their own heart or something. I don't know.

Speaker: 00:32:50

Track 2: Yeah, that's what's really tough with a movie like this, especially when they

Speaker: 00:32:54

Track 2: start being like, yeah, we're going to use the actual president.

Speaker: 00:32:56

Track 2: So you start thinking of like the Clinton administration and how would they act?

Speaker: 00:33:00

Track 2: And you start thinking about, you know, before him, it was like H.W.

Speaker: 00:33:06

Track 2: Bush and Reagan, like, how would they act?

Speaker: 00:33:07

Track 2: You start thinking about all these things and all these things that they leave

Speaker: 00:33:10

Track 2: out, which, again, we're talking a book and we talked about the changes.

Speaker: 00:33:15

Track 2: So they made changes to the movie, which are more movie ish.

Speaker: 00:33:21

Track 2: And at the end of the day, a lot of the simplifications or the liberal naivete

Speaker: 00:33:28

Track 2: of politics could just be this has to be a movie like we're already going on so long.

Speaker: 00:33:34

Track 2: Like, how far do you want us to

Speaker: 00:33:37

Track 2: get into? You know, how much other country stuff do you want to deal with?

Speaker: 00:33:42

Track 2: How much are people going to believe that this is a thing?

Speaker: 00:33:46

Track 2: Like, it's strange that that's not a bigger part of the plot, like the people.

Speaker: 00:33:50

Track 2: It is interesting. They do have people believe in different things.

Speaker: 00:33:54

Track 2: And that'll come into play later when they actually like build the contraption

Speaker: 00:33:59

Track 2: to go visit. But for a brief period, it's very symbolic, and different groups

Speaker: 00:34:06

Track 2: are reading different things into it.

Speaker: 00:34:08

Track 1: Yeah.

Speaker: 00:34:09

Track 2: But...

Speaker: 00:34:10

Track 2: I'm not sure if, I mean, that would be my thought now, is that how many people,

Speaker: 00:34:16

Track 2: if this happened today, how many people would actually believe that it happened?

Speaker: 00:34:20

Track 1: That's a good point. Yeah, people are very untrusting of the U.S.

Speaker: 00:34:25

Track 1: Government, even people who may generally support it and whatnot. I don't know.

Speaker: 00:34:31

Track 1: I would think, yeah, I think most people would probably be pretty skeptical

Speaker: 00:34:36

Track 1: of it. Whereas we'll get to very shortly, as you said, like there's,

Speaker: 00:34:40

Track 1: well, maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just, we'll just get to that point.

Speaker: 00:34:43

Track 1: So part of the, like the discover, as we mentioned, there's these thousands

Speaker: 00:34:46

Track 1: of pages of documents and they're kind of now trying to figure out how to decipher

Speaker: 00:34:50

Track 1: them and they can't make heads or tail because none of them,

Speaker: 00:34:53

Track 1: none of the two pages sort of match another page.

Speaker: 00:34:55

Track 1: They can't really fit next to each other. And then we get this kind of weird

Speaker: 00:34:59

Track 1: scene where Jodie Foster's character is invited to this plane tarmac where the billionaire S.R.

Speaker: 00:35:10

Track 1: Haddon, again, John Hurt, invites her in to his plane.

Speaker: 00:35:13

Track 1: It's also kind of weird, but I guess he's a weird billionaire.

Speaker: 00:35:16

Track 1: It kind of makes sense. And he starts basically saying, yeah,

Speaker: 00:35:20

Track 1: I've discovered the secret.

Speaker: 00:35:22

Track 1: These are actually 3D images, and each three pages connect.

Speaker: 00:35:26

Track 1: And then there's this, the key is now uncovered, and now you can figure out what's going on.

Speaker: 00:35:31

Track 1: And immediately, like, you're basically cut to the point where now they've discovered

Speaker: 00:35:35

Track 1: that these are schematics for this gigantic machine that they now believe could

Speaker: 00:35:41

Track 1: be used to perhaps send someone to Vega in some way that they're kind of unsure of.

Speaker: 00:35:47

Track 1: And then they have, like, this sort of—they go back to—.

Speaker: 00:35:52

Track 1: Like I think there was in the White House a few times and then they have this

Speaker: 00:35:55

Track 1: gigantic sort of atmosphere that kind of looks like a music festival where there's

Speaker: 00:35:59

Track 1: just thousands of people partying

Speaker: 00:36:01

Track 1: and wearing alien paraphernalia and then fundamentalist Christians.

Speaker: 00:36:06

Track 1: And so there you finally get the people who are like, oh, this is great.

Speaker: 00:36:09

Track 1: Let's meet the aliens. And then some people that are saying like this is a hoax

Speaker: 00:36:13

Track 1: or this is anti, you know, anti-God or whatever.

Speaker: 00:36:16

Track 1: And like building, I think, a good – it's building like the second half of the

Speaker: 00:36:21

Track 1: film, I guess. if you will.

Speaker: 00:36:22

Track 2: And uh you're introduced to um was it jake bucey oh.

Speaker: 00:36:27

Track 1: Yeah you're right.

Speaker: 00:36:28

Track 2: It was jake.

Speaker: 00:36:28

Track 1: Bucey i forgot.

Speaker: 00:36:29

Track 2: Yeah kid kid bucey is um the leader of uh i guess the most important antagonist uh group in a way what.

Speaker: 00:36:38

Track 1: Are they called their religious group i feel like i wrote it down but i don't

Speaker: 00:36:43

Track 1: know what it was called but yeah you're right he's like a a preacher of some

Speaker: 00:36:46

Track 1: kind like uh you know end of days kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:36:48

Track 2: Yeah and i i remember kind of clocking that

Speaker: 00:36:51

Track 2: as being probably something i would have liked

Speaker: 00:36:54

Track 2: to had spend more time on again too but it's um all of these different groups

Speaker: 00:37:00

Track 2: seeing different things in this discovery and kind of using it to their advantage

Speaker: 00:37:05

Track 2: like finding meaning in it gathering people around their version of the idea

Speaker: 00:37:11

Track 2: which was quite interesting,

Speaker: 00:37:13

Track 2: but I think they mostly stick to the faith angle.

Speaker: 00:37:18

Track 2: I don't know, God specifically,

Speaker: 00:37:22

Track 2: Or just like faith and belief, right?

Speaker: 00:37:25

Track 1: Yeah.

Speaker: 00:37:25

Track 2: Like how much does God play into it? The specific God.

Speaker: 00:37:30

Track 1: Yeah, I guess it's not like a specific God, but in a way.

Speaker: 00:37:33

Track 1: So even like right before that, I don't know if you probably noticed,

Speaker: 00:37:36

Track 1: is that like Rob Lowe plays this like conservative, I don't know if he was a

Speaker: 00:37:42

Track 1: politician or just part of a conservative, you know, think tank or something.

Speaker: 00:37:46

Track 1: But he's involved in these conversations as they're kind of like deciding what to do.

Speaker: 00:37:51

Track 1: And that's kind of when Matthew McConaughey re-enters the film.

Speaker: 00:37:54

Track 1: And we know from the beginning when he is first introduced that he's sort of

Speaker: 00:37:58

Track 1: a pastor and has sort of written books about, you know, faith and,

Speaker: 00:38:02

Track 1: you know, technology and science and all these things.

Speaker: 00:38:05

Track 1: And I guess I immediately wrote down sort of like the idea of science versus

Speaker: 00:38:10

Track 1: God, but I guess it's, you could argue that it's just simply faith in something,

Speaker: 00:38:16

Track 1: you know, greater than us.

Speaker: 00:38:18

Track 1: I mean, you don't necessarily have to say God, you know, it's,

Speaker: 00:38:22

Track 1: I guess it's pretty clear that they're Christians and like, you know,

Speaker: 00:38:24

Track 1: there's no like a Muslim or like Jewish representation here.

Speaker: 00:38:28

Track 1: It's really just specifically Christian. And I guess with Busey,

Speaker: 00:38:33

Track 1: it's made it seem, makes it seem like it's very sort of like culty and end of

Speaker: 00:38:38

Track 1: the world, you know, technology bad, science bad.

Speaker: 00:38:41

Track 1: It's corrupting, you know, people because we're looking to, we're looking beyond

Speaker: 00:38:46

Track 1: ourselves when we should just be looking towards faith in God.

Speaker: 00:38:50

Track 1: I know i i it i'm i'm curious like

Speaker: 00:38:53

Track 1: to like parse out a little bit of the like the science versus god which i think

Speaker: 00:38:57

Track 1: is when you like look up this film and you look at even the wikipedia page like

Speaker: 00:39:00

Track 1: that is one of the sort of the main areas that's kind of brought up so i don't

Speaker: 00:39:05

Track 1: know what you made of it here and like how they kind of introduce it and yeah i don't know.

Speaker: 00:39:11

Track 2: Yeah i mean they take it they have interesting discussions that i think are pretty compelling and,

Speaker: 00:39:17

Track 2: about um like jodie foster is

Speaker: 00:39:21

Track 2: always kind of pushing back on what he says and

Speaker: 00:39:24

Track 2: you know young hot mcconaughey is um

Speaker: 00:39:27

Track 2: able to kind of he's very persuasive in

Speaker: 00:39:30

Track 2: his uh mcconaughey way but that is um very

Speaker: 00:39:34

Track 2: adult and sincere and serious conversations what's

Speaker: 00:39:38

Track 2: weird to me is that i don't i don't know if i ever really believed

Speaker: 00:39:42

Track 2: like she believes in science and i get that but the whole thing about faith

Speaker: 00:39:47

Track 2: is that not just tied to her wonder and her constant like grasping and yearning

Speaker: 00:39:52

Track 2: for this unknowable thing like she always had that right so yeah does she not

Speaker: 00:39:57

Track 2: just put that together in her head and and that's why i don't know well.

Speaker: 00:40:01

Track 1: And part of this too is like what's happening simultaneously is they're deciding

Speaker: 00:40:05

Track 1: to build the machine and they're also gonna have basically i don't want to call

Speaker: 00:40:09

Track 1: it a committee to decide who the representative is which they really only show the two people.

Speaker: 00:40:17

Track 1: It's, you know, Jodie Foster's character and Tom Skerritt's character are really

Speaker: 00:40:21

Track 1: the two competing people.

Speaker: 00:40:23

Track 1: They don't even show, like, there's no non-American person, you know,

Speaker: 00:40:27

Track 1: just these two people, two scientists.

Speaker: 00:40:30

Track 1: And as part of the committee, Matthew McConaughey is on the committee to help,

Speaker: 00:40:35

Track 1: you know, decide who's going to go or vote internally about it.

Speaker: 00:40:38

Track 1: And like the big sort of, you know, reveal before she's not selected is that

Speaker: 00:40:44

Track 1: he asked if she believes in God.

Speaker: 00:40:46

Track 1: So he is clearly like trying to inject God into it.

Speaker: 00:40:51

Track 1: And his sort of explanation as to why he does that, he says,

Speaker: 00:40:54

Track 1: you know, 90% or higher of the world believes in God. So how can we,

Speaker: 00:41:01

Track 1: you know, select someone who doesn't have that same belief?

Speaker: 00:41:05

Track 1: And it's, I don't really know what to make of it other than.

Speaker: 00:41:10

Track 1: I don't ever even really get the sense that Matthew Haneke is like a religious person.

Speaker: 00:41:16

Track 1: He kind of feels kind of like a TV evangelist in a way.

Speaker: 00:41:22

Track 1: He's like an author of sort of like popular Christian, you know, book kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:41:28

Track 1: What's the name of his book? I had it in my notes. It was called Losing Faith.

Speaker: 00:41:32

Track 1: I guess like the idea that people are losing faith and turning to science.

Speaker: 00:41:37

Track 1: It's kind of weird. I mean, I could see like Carl Sagan when he's thinking about

Speaker: 00:41:40

Track 1: this, maybe saying, you know,

Speaker: 00:41:42

Track 1: the thing that the challenge for him in looking at God,

Speaker: 00:41:46

Track 1: maybe he faced that kind of, you know, pushback in his, what he was doing as

Speaker: 00:41:50

Track 1: a scientist of saying like, oh, why would you want to like look at,

Speaker: 00:41:54

Track 1: you know, the existence of extraterrestrials when like, we don't even know how

Speaker: 00:41:58

Track 1: our universe was created.

Speaker: 00:42:00

Track 1: And we believe that God did that. I don't know. Kind of all over the place.

Speaker: 00:42:05

Track 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a little peculiar because I do remember and I remember enjoying

Speaker: 00:42:10

Track 2: their conversations together.

Speaker: 00:42:12

Track 2: They kind of go back and forth. But the more I think about it,

Speaker: 00:42:15

Track 2: the more I'm just like, she had all this stuff.

Speaker: 00:42:18

Track 2: And I guess maybe she just identified it as science and, you know,

Speaker: 00:42:23

Track 2: her quest for knowledge.

Speaker: 00:42:25

Track 2: But I didn't really see it as very different.

Speaker: 00:42:28

Track 2: And maybe that's part of it is Makane is helping her like kind of connect the two.

Speaker: 00:42:33

Track 2: Um but it's also hard to see him as anything other than just like a hippie kind

Speaker: 00:42:40

Track 2: of soulful guy but i mean right off the bat he's just like oh yeah i'm a preacher but uh i gotta have sex,

Speaker: 00:42:49

Track 2: that's what makes me different you know yeah it's like okay it's.

Speaker: 00:42:52

Track 1: Interesting i would have like i was thinking about this too is like if they

Speaker: 00:42:56

Track 1: didn't cast matthew mcconaughey and instead had i i don't I wasn't even like

Speaker: 00:43:01

Track 1: thinking about like who would be instead of him.

Speaker: 00:43:03

Track 1: But if it hadn't been him, like would he still come off as that same,

Speaker: 00:43:08

Track 1: I mean, maybe it just doesn't work without that kind of like slightly sleazy

Speaker: 00:43:13

Track 1: kind of, you know, kind of rub to him, you know, I don't know.

Speaker: 00:43:18

Track 2: Yeah. I mean, I think they're trying to make.

Speaker: 00:43:21

Track 1: Alluring you know and i think maybe.

Speaker: 00:43:24

Track 2: That works like the kind of sex appeal i mean he's not a romantic interest in the book is that correct.

Speaker: 00:43:29

Track 1: Correct there isn't one because there's all the scientists so in the book i

Speaker: 00:43:34

Track 1: think i i didn't mention this the in the film he is a preacher and not a love

Speaker: 00:43:39

Track 1: interest and he's not even like the foil if you will the villain whereas in

Speaker: 00:43:44

Track 1: this you could say he's kind of a foil.

Speaker: 00:43:46

Track 2: Yeah yeah and maybe that's partly zemeckis saying like ooh, the appeal of religion draws you in.

Speaker: 00:43:55

Track 2: But I wouldn't say he's against it. I don't think that's what the perspective is. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker: 00:44:00

Track 1: And one of the things, too, that I think that they do, they're also,

Speaker: 00:44:03

Track 1: we mentioned, like, the Clinton part.

Speaker: 00:44:05

Track 1: There's a few other points in the film, which I like this just in,

Speaker: 00:44:09

Track 1: like, especially in, like, horror movies when they use, when they sort of have

Speaker: 00:44:12

Track 1: a telecast going on in the background and they cut in and out of some of the lines.

Speaker: 00:44:16

Track 1: And he's on, like, a talk show. I think it's actually Larry King talking about his book.

Speaker: 00:44:21

Track 1: And I think he makes something how, I think one of the quotes was,

Speaker: 00:44:24

Track 1: he says, are we fundamentally happier because of science and technology?

Speaker: 00:44:29

Track 1: And I think that's actually maybe more of an interesting question than the idea

Speaker: 00:44:33

Track 1: of like the science versus God.

Speaker: 00:44:35

Track 1: And granted, this is in 1997. We don't have like Facebook and smartphones and

Speaker: 00:44:40

Track 1: TikTok and, you know, all these things that, you know, you could argue and go,

Speaker: 00:44:45

Track 1: you can have a, you know, write books.

Speaker: 00:44:47

Track 1: Some people have written books about whether these things are good for society

Speaker: 00:44:50

Track 1: or not. But it's actually like an interesting point to me of,

Speaker: 00:44:54

Track 1: you know, yes, you could say like these sciences and technologies do advance what we can do.

Speaker: 00:45:00

Track 1: But in the same time, they're also like distractions for, you know,

Speaker: 00:45:04

Track 1: the average person as well.

Speaker: 00:45:06

Track 1: Not to say they're not like good distractions or bad distractions.

Speaker: 00:45:08

Track 1: They're not here as like saying we shouldn't have, you know,

Speaker: 00:45:12

Track 1: smartphones and the Internet and all that.

Speaker: 00:45:14

Track 2: Yeah, that's an interesting line, too. And I think it's most resonant because...

Speaker: 00:45:21

Track 2: I guess part of the argument is like, why are we doing this?

Speaker: 00:45:25

Track 2: And I think fundamentally, we've all had, it's like people interact with one

Speaker: 00:45:31

Track 2: another since the beginning.

Speaker: 00:45:33

Track 2: Communities, families, friends,

Speaker: 00:45:35

Track 2: like some form of that, just love and experiencing love and leisure.

Speaker: 00:45:39

Track 2: And everything else clouds that. It's like, oh, our modern era,

Speaker: 00:45:42

Track 2: we're so advanced. And it's like, well, what do you want to do?

Speaker: 00:45:45

Track 2: You want to be with the people you love.

Speaker: 00:45:46

Track 2: That's like very common. But one thing that is just like, well,

Speaker: 00:45:50

Track 2: you need a place to protect yourself from the elements and you need food.

Speaker: 00:45:54

Track 2: And how are you going to get the food?

Speaker: 00:45:56

Track 2: Who's going to grow it? Who's going to hunt for it? Who's going to gather,

Speaker: 00:46:00

Track 2: cultivate it? Like, those are the problems.

Speaker: 00:46:02

Track 2: So when we're talking about like, oh, technology, like, does it make it make us happier?

Speaker: 00:46:07

Track 2: Those are the things it needs to cover. And going to space is not doing that.

Speaker: 00:46:12

Track 2: Right you know so that's an interesting thing

Speaker: 00:46:15

Track 2: that they kind of touch on which is a good point and

Speaker: 00:46:17

Track 2: i think to like some version of this movie

Speaker: 00:46:21

Track 2: that's not like the exact point but i sort

Speaker: 00:46:24

Track 2: of said it before is that it feels very adult in which we're here and all these

Speaker: 00:46:30

Track 2: characters are having conversations talking about big questions which this version

Speaker: 00:46:37

Track 2: of filmmaking like big hollywood filmmaking does not normally do.

Speaker: 00:46:41

Track 2: So you got to give kudos to that, even if, as I said, they're not always,

Speaker: 00:46:45

Track 2: you know, personal preference going down roads that I want.

Speaker: 00:46:49

Track 2: Like, never are they asking why are we,

Speaker: 00:46:53

Track 2: This is something I wrestle with, too, because I think space is cool.

Speaker: 00:46:55

Track 2: I think it's very interesting.

Speaker: 00:46:57

Track 2: But if we're not taking care of people on the planet, there's still a lot of poverty exploitation.

Speaker: 00:47:05

Track 2: People don't have food. People don't have health care. These things exist and

Speaker: 00:47:09

Track 2: we're not giving it to certain people. Why are we going to space? You know?

Speaker: 00:47:13

Track 1: Yeah i.

Speaker: 00:47:14

Track 2: Hate to say it but that is a thing that i wonder about and um they're not really

Speaker: 00:47:19

Track 2: asking that question fully but he does touch on that and they do highlight it

Speaker: 00:47:23

Track 2: it's in the movie so it means something you know.

Speaker: 00:47:25

Track 1: Yeah it's.

Speaker: 00:47:26

Track 2: Something that's on his mind.

Speaker: 00:47:27

Track 1: But i mean i think the way that they kind of touch on it though i mean is sort

Speaker: 00:47:31

Track 1: of like if you're watching this from the perspective of like oh yeah like you

Speaker: 00:47:35

Track 1: know we got to go to space it's so cool which you know arguably it is like cool

Speaker: 00:47:39

Track 1: the machine that they build and everything.

Speaker: 00:47:41

Track 1: But the way that they sort of look at this other side of like,

Speaker: 00:47:44

Track 1: oh, you know, science, technology, like, doesn't really make us happier and

Speaker: 00:47:48

Track 1: all that is sort of like seen, you know, in a slight way as like a negative.

Speaker: 00:47:51

Track 1: Like you're watching that almost meant to think like, oh, this,

Speaker: 00:47:55

Track 1: you know, idiot is saying we shouldn't, you know, explore and all of that.

Speaker: 00:47:59

Track 1: But what we find out later is that the machine costs nearly a trillion dollars

Speaker: 00:48:03

Track 1: or no, I think it's for both of them because they build one and then it's destroyed

Speaker: 00:48:08

Track 1: and they have to build another one. It's like almost a trillion dollars.

Speaker: 00:48:10

Track 1: For a trillion dollars, they could have solved world hunger.

Speaker: 00:48:14

Track 1: Housed every person and gotten everyone, you know, food and not just in the

Speaker: 00:48:17

Track 1: United States, like probably in many countries where poverty is even worse than

Speaker: 00:48:22

Track 1: the United States, like India, for example.

Speaker: 00:48:24

Track 1: So the priority is clearly not on people.

Speaker: 00:48:29

Track 1: It's simply, you know, exploration. But at the same time, one other thing that

Speaker: 00:48:33

Track 1: I think is worth mentioning,

Speaker: 00:48:35

Track 1: and they only kind of like slide this in is they

Speaker: 00:48:37

Track 1: talk about how the way that they were

Speaker: 00:48:40

Track 1: able to build the machine is basically using government

Speaker: 00:48:43

Track 1: contractors a lot of these like they they sell some of the

Speaker: 00:48:46

Track 1: technology i think to like the japanese and japanese contractors to then build

Speaker: 00:48:51

Track 1: it so they're they're actually profiting in some way off of the technology that's

Speaker: 00:48:56

Track 1: being built in this where in you could look at a sequel of this in the future

Speaker: 00:49:01

Track 1: of okay well now that these private companies have this technology,

Speaker: 00:49:04

Track 1: maybe they'll start building their own private machines and doing their own

Speaker: 00:49:07

Track 1: research on it, you know, for profit.

Speaker: 00:49:10

Track 1: You know, you could pay, Elon Musk could pay to drop himself into the machine. I don't know.

Speaker: 00:49:15

Track 1: I'm just thinking like they're not doing this really for the goodness of their

Speaker: 00:49:19

Track 1: own heart, even if that's kind of the, you know, the implication, I think.

Speaker: 00:49:25

Track 2: Yeah, that was, he's really interesting.

Speaker: 00:49:28

Track 2: I think we talked about this a little before, like they have a billionaire come,

Speaker: 00:49:32

Track 2: he helps solve the, he helps solve problems, deus ex machina,

Speaker: 00:49:37

Track 2: which again feels weird when we're talking about like, oh, it's not the government

Speaker: 00:49:42

Track 2: that works, it's private enterprise.

Speaker: 00:49:45

Track 2: But then again, it's like, well, yeah, you can solve problems really easily if you're rich.

Speaker: 00:49:52

Track 1: That's true. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Speaker: 00:49:54

Track 2: So can I knock you for putting that in your movie? Like, no, I guess not.

Speaker: 00:50:00

Track 2: There's definitely more interesting ways to go about it. Like,

Speaker: 00:50:02

Track 2: for instance, he solves, he's like, oh, it's three dimensional code.

Speaker: 00:50:07

Track 2: That's how it works. I mean, he must employ people under him.

Speaker: 00:50:11

Track 2: Maybe you can see that as like a collective effort.

Speaker: 00:50:13

Track 2: And you don't really see that. It's like he tells her to do it.

Speaker: 00:50:16

Track 2: And it's like, oh, yeah, cool.

Speaker: 00:50:17

Track 2: So that's how it works, you know? So there's ways to make it something along

Speaker: 00:50:22

Track 2: more of how we see the world.

Speaker: 00:50:24

Track 1: But the implication, though, is that he himself did that, right?

Speaker: 00:50:27

Track 1: Kind of like the billionaire guy was really smart, and he was able to figure

Speaker: 00:50:30

Track 1: out the code of these 63,000 documents.

Speaker: 00:50:33

Track 2: Yeah, I think implication is the right word.

Speaker: 00:50:38

Track 2: They don't really say it, but it's like it kind of does feel like that's what

Speaker: 00:50:42

Track 2: it is. Like it's not mentioned at all.

Speaker: 00:50:44

Track 2: Like he figured it out. Yeah, that's tough. It's like how much of this like

Speaker: 00:50:48

Track 2: conforms to the story structure, like the script structure, what a movie has

Speaker: 00:50:55

Track 2: to feel like, how much of this is Zemeckis' actual perspective.

Speaker: 00:50:58

Track 2: And then how much of this is just like, oh, I'm an American and I grew up and

Speaker: 00:51:02

Track 2: this is how I see things. And it's matter of fact to me, it's like ordinary.

Speaker: 00:51:05

Track 1: Yeah, I think that's a lot of it for sure. And yeah, I mean,

Speaker: 00:51:08

Track 1: like just in general too, I mean, the book sounded far less like American,

Speaker: 00:51:13

Track 1: you know, perspective Eurocentric with like a five different scientists from

Speaker: 00:51:18

Track 1: different places going.

Speaker: 00:51:19

Track 1: Whereas this again, yeah, I mean, I get it. It's a movie made by Warner Brothers,

Speaker: 00:51:22

Track 1: you know, in the United States.

Speaker: 00:51:24

Track 1: And that's, you know, how it is. uh so

Speaker: 00:51:27

Track 1: you know we have yeah so that's

Speaker: 00:51:31

Track 1: you know that's what it is and the this is kind

Speaker: 00:51:33

Track 1: of so you mentioned the uh the young the little bucey here we only kind of get

Speaker: 00:51:39

Track 1: a glimpse of a couple shots kind of like you know very kind of with his long

Speaker: 00:51:43

Track 1: white kind of blondish hair and then as they're preparing to use the machine

Speaker: 00:51:48

Track 1: in cape canaveral to you know test it you know drummond is up drummond up there,

Speaker: 00:51:53

Track 1: you know, checking it out and.

Speaker: 00:51:56

Track 1: Jody foster notices that he's there and like remembers that

Speaker: 00:51:59

Track 1: this guy is this you know christian fundamentalist type

Speaker: 00:52:02

Track 1: and then he has a bomb and he

Speaker: 00:52:05

Track 1: blows himself up destroying the machine of course killing you

Speaker: 00:52:09

Track 1: know his character um tom scarrett's character and uh you kind of at that point

Speaker: 00:52:14

Track 1: are like oh well this sucks like they're never going to actually do it you know

Speaker: 00:52:17

Track 1: what's going to happen and then of course we find out and one of also my favorite

Speaker: 00:52:22

Track 1: lines maybe from the movie is when And the eccentric billionaire says,

Speaker: 00:52:27

Track 1: like, you know, why build one when you can build two for twice the price?

Speaker: 00:52:30

Track 1: And it turns out there's like a secret second machine in, you know,

Speaker: 00:52:33

Track 1: on an island in Japan, which they make like seem like very like spooky when

Speaker: 00:52:38

Track 1: they go there on a like the rocky ship.

Speaker: 00:52:41

Track 1: Like they really make it seem like very mystical, which I guess kind of plays

Speaker: 00:52:44

Track 1: into the last, you know, half hour or so of the movie, which I do also really

Speaker: 00:52:49

Track 1: appreciate that she's on the ship.

Speaker: 00:52:50

Track 1: And everything seems mysterious and ominous that works for me.

Speaker: 00:52:58

Track 2: Yeah, that's really interesting. I just want to get to that part when she's,

Speaker: 00:53:07

Track 2: in the alien planet. That's like...

Speaker: 00:53:11

Track 1: That's basically right after this. They decide to now, they're going to send

Speaker: 00:53:14

Track 1: her and they're testing it. They're getting ready.

Speaker: 00:53:17

Track 1: She's in a little I don't know, the ball or whatever you would want to call

Speaker: 00:53:20

Track 1: it, the little piece that's dropping through the pod, I guess,

Speaker: 00:53:24

Track 1: that's dropping through.

Speaker: 00:53:26

Track 1: And as they're seeing it, like watching her do it, her headset,

Speaker: 00:53:30

Track 1: it starts like malfunction and they can't actually see anymore.

Speaker: 00:53:33

Track 1: And they're kind of going now

Speaker: 00:53:35

Track 1: kind of back and forth, which you can maybe argue is kind of like this,

Speaker: 00:53:38

Track 1: you know, what we actually know and what we don't know is she's now seeing like

Speaker: 00:53:42

Track 1: a literal portal opening up and she drops through and we get about,

Speaker: 00:53:48

Track 1: I guess it's about 20 minutes of, you know, she's going through the wormhole and ends up,

Speaker: 00:53:52

Track 1: on vega or you know in some version of of

Speaker: 00:53:55

Track 1: it in her mind anyway where she meets her father or

Speaker: 00:53:59

Track 1: she realizes like a you know construction of a memory in her brain of her father

Speaker: 00:54:03

Track 1: and pensacola which you mentioned earlier in the the start where that was one

Speaker: 00:54:07

Track 1: of the first places she reaches in the ham radio and starts talking to her her

Speaker: 00:54:13

Track 1: father asking questions and like i Like this is like the,

Speaker: 00:54:17

Track 1: you know, this is the, the apex of the, of the, of the kind of the, the film.

Speaker: 00:54:21

Track 2: Very uniquely Zemeckis. It doesn't look like it just looks slightly off, you know,

Speaker: 00:54:28

Track 2: it's, he doesn't go wild, but it has this really weird uncanny feeling,

Speaker: 00:54:34

Track 2: which is kind of funny because it, it is almost reminiscent of what he would

Speaker: 00:54:37

Track 2: end up doing for years afterwards with like Polar Express and stuff like that,

Speaker: 00:54:42

Track 2: where it's just like, people give him such a hard time.

Speaker: 00:54:45

Track 2: It's like, why are you doing this? And he kind of does it in this in a way like

Speaker: 00:54:49

Track 2: things feel slightly off, but slightly also like you do get the feel of comfort and pleasantness.

Speaker: 00:54:58

Track 2: And it just adds a little like the slightest bit of oddness to what is essentially

Speaker: 00:55:06

Track 2: a very peaceful moment where it's like, oh, I'm talking to my dad who died,

Speaker: 00:55:10

Track 2: but it's not really my dad.

Speaker: 00:55:11

Track 2: Also, this is the only thing I've ever wanted in my entire life.

Speaker: 00:55:15

Track 2: And, you know, is this real?

Speaker: 00:55:17

Track 2: Am I like, I have to believe it's real. It's a very interesting sequence and

Speaker: 00:55:23

Track 2: nothing really looks like it.

Speaker: 00:55:25

Track 2: And when I say that, it's almost indistinguishable.

Speaker: 00:55:29

Track 2: Like you can't really point out how it doesn't look crazy. There's nothing super weird about it.

Speaker: 00:55:35

Track 2: It's just weird enough, which makes it even weirder. where it's like,

Speaker: 00:55:38

Track 2: I think you just like, it's like he did a slider, like there's a slider and it's on normal.

Speaker: 00:55:42

Track 2: And he just did it like a little bit. And it's like, oh, I, I,

Speaker: 00:55:45

Track 2: feel a little off right now.

Speaker: 00:55:47

Track 1: It's kind of true though like i it somehow fits with

Speaker: 00:55:51

Track 1: like the mood of the film if it had been like too off

Speaker: 00:55:55

Track 1: the wall it would have been so different than the first at

Speaker: 00:55:58

Track 1: this point like two hours or two hours and 10 minutes that

Speaker: 00:56:01

Track 1: it's like it's it feels very like i got this weird

Speaker: 00:56:04

Track 1: i even think i'm trying to remember it seemed

Speaker: 00:56:07

Track 1: like because it was florida maybe i'm remembering wrong

Speaker: 00:56:10

Track 1: it sounded almost like the the soundtrack or like

Speaker: 00:56:13

Track 1: the sound effects in the background almost sounded just kind of

Speaker: 00:56:16

Track 1: like you know uh the ocean because

Speaker: 00:56:18

Track 1: they're right by the beach and it's like very pleasant i.

Speaker: 00:56:21

Track 1: Think maybe you said the word pleasant it just feels just

Speaker: 00:56:25

Track 1: peaceful yes it feels very it

Speaker: 00:56:27

Track 1: feels very much like that where you don't like it's weird

Speaker: 00:56:31

Track 1: but like it's sort of supposed to be weird

Speaker: 00:56:34

Track 1: and like the the the you know the alien

Speaker: 00:56:37

Track 1: or you know the this advanced civilization basically

Speaker: 00:56:41

Track 1: tells her like you know we thought this would be easier for

Speaker: 00:56:44

Track 1: you than if you saw you know

Speaker: 00:56:46

Track 1: what we actually you know look like or because

Speaker: 00:56:49

Track 1: we never really we don't know what they look like she doesn't even ask like that's

Speaker: 00:56:53

Track 1: kind of like the one thing about alien films too you said it's always like

Speaker: 00:56:55

Track 1: oh they're coming to destroy earth and take our resources

Speaker: 00:56:59

Track 1: it's always often thought of as like you know the little green man or

Speaker: 00:57:02

Track 1: you know kind of like the i guess there's

Speaker: 00:57:04

Track 1: different versions of it but that was kind of like the initial idea of

Speaker: 00:57:07

Track 1: of an alien where this they could be you know whatever it could just be sort

Speaker: 00:57:11

Track 1: of a mist it could be a you know it's kind of left up to you to just kind of

Speaker: 00:57:16

Track 1: envision it and instead it's just taken through like the human form i don't

Speaker: 00:57:22

Track 1: know i don't know what to maybe make of that maybe it's maybe i'm making too much of it no.

Speaker: 00:57:25

Track 2: I think he's leaning towards heaven i think there's like a good argument that

Speaker: 00:57:30

Track 2: that's what he's going for and because it was never going to be like alien or

Speaker: 00:57:35

Track 2: aliens or whatever there's like totally different movies like very dark and

Speaker: 00:57:38

Track 2: it's horror action obviously wasn't going to do that.

Speaker: 00:57:41

Track 1: Right but.

Speaker: 00:57:42

Track 2: He was leaning and less star trekkie people in makeup and stuff like that and

Speaker: 00:57:49

Track 2: because of the subject matter what we're dealing with in the movie it was going

Speaker: 00:57:53

Track 2: to be more like heaven and it couldn't be that's not really his thing to do.

Speaker: 00:57:57

Track 1: Yeah but it.

Speaker: 00:57:59

Track 2: Couldn't be obvious with like our

Speaker: 00:58:02

Track 2: obvious conception of heaven it's like clouds and then

Speaker: 00:58:05

Track 2: there's god he's got a long beard and wasn't going

Speaker: 00:58:08

Track 2: to do that but if you read about people experiencing the afterlife or whatever

Speaker: 00:58:16

Track 2: like what does it feel like and that's what this kind of felt like to me where

Speaker: 00:58:20

Track 2: it was we're reconstructing this so you don't so you can understand it so you don't

Speaker: 00:58:26

Track 2: feel too alarmed and it's going to look like someone you love.

Speaker: 00:58:30

Track 2: And it's going to feel, it's kind of like a dream. Like I had a dream.

Speaker: 00:58:34

Track 2: I had a dream. I had two crazy dreams last night where I met my uncle who's

Speaker: 00:58:41

Track 2: still alive, but my uncle is very, he's in his sixties and he's,

Speaker: 00:58:45

Track 2: um, non-functional autistic.

Speaker: 00:58:48

Track 2: And he was just not that industry.

Speaker: 00:58:51

Track 2: And I was talking to him and he was, and he was speaking.

Speaker: 00:58:54

Track 2: He can't speak. He's basically nonverbal, but he was speaking in my dream and

Speaker: 00:58:58

Track 2: I knew it was him. Why? How did I know? I just knew.

Speaker: 00:59:01

Track 2: And then I had another dream where I saw my old dog that I had for almost 20

Speaker: 00:59:10

Track 2: years. He's been gone for maybe 10.

Speaker: 00:59:13

Track 2: And I was aware that I was seeing him, that I had lost him.

Speaker: 00:59:18

Track 2: And I was just like, oh, thanks for visiting me. He was really good to see you.

Speaker: 00:59:22

Track 2: And I woke up, I don't know, maybe because I knew we were talking today.

Speaker: 00:59:26

Track 2: I had those dreams, but I woke up and I was like, that was so profound. That was so meaningful.

Speaker: 00:59:30

Track 2: And I think that's very much what he was going for, like a dream kind of thing

Speaker: 00:59:37

Track 2: where so many things, I know he's explaining to her, nobody explains things when I'm dreaming,

Speaker: 00:59:43

Track 2: but you know, and I think that's the closest thing where like things feel real,

Speaker: 00:59:47

Track 2: but you start to know that it's a dream.

Speaker: 00:59:49

Track 2: Things are slightly off, someone looks a little different.

Speaker: 00:59:51

Track 2: And you're like, oh, but this is very serene. This is probably what that kind

Speaker: 00:59:56

Track 2: of consciousness feels like.

Speaker: 00:59:58

Track 2: Because she also doesn't, we don't know, people don't know if she actually traveled anywhere.

Speaker: 01:00:04

Track 2: It's like, they don't think she did. So is it another plane?

Speaker: 01:00:08

Track 2: And the closest we have to experiencing that is probably dreams.

Speaker: 01:00:13

Track 2: And dreams are not this crazy, like, oh my God, acid trip.

Speaker: 01:00:17

Track 2: It's something very normal, but it's like the off and

Speaker: 01:00:20

Track 2: you go in and out of being like aware that you're

Speaker: 01:00:22

Track 2: dreaming or aware that you're like in control of your body

Speaker: 01:00:25

Track 2: like i don't know what your dreams are like but sometimes i'm able

Speaker: 01:00:29

Track 2: to fully do stuff but then sometimes it's like i'm just the pov camera and i'm

Speaker: 01:00:35

Track 2: going along like i'm on rails like a video game but then i can talk or it's

Speaker: 01:00:40

Track 2: very weird and that's what it very much i think that was i would say that was

Speaker: 01:00:44

Track 2: his inspiration for this alien world which is quite interesting.

Speaker: 01:00:47

Track 2: And that leads into the whole discussion with the religion and the faith and stuff like that.

Speaker: 01:00:52

Track 1: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I actually hadn't, I mean,

Speaker: 01:00:55

Track 1: I hadn't really connected it to the idea of a dream. I did,

Speaker: 01:01:00

Track 1: think that it could be sort of like the idea of heaven, especially as you said,

Speaker: 01:01:04

Track 1: it's the conversations earlier between like, you know, she, you know,

Speaker: 01:01:08

Track 1: she basically doesn't believe in God because she can't quantify that.

Speaker: 01:01:12

Track 1: She can't scientifically prove he exists where, you know, Matthew McConaughey

Speaker: 01:01:17

Track 1: is like, well, don't you believe it?

Speaker: 01:01:19

Track 1: You still seem to believe in this higher power that created the universe.

Speaker: 01:01:23

Track 1: Like, why can't it be, you know, just because I call it God and you call it,

Speaker: 01:01:27

Track 1: you know, science or unexplainable or whatever, like doesn't mean they're not somewhat compatible.

Speaker: 01:01:32

Track 1: And I guess this is like the manifestation. I think what's so interesting too,

Speaker: 01:01:36

Track 1: is when she comes back and they don't believe her, she's like at a hearing,

Speaker: 01:01:39

Track 1: you know, in Congress or whatever, and they're asking her, you know,

Speaker: 01:01:42

Track 1: to explain it and she can't.

Speaker: 01:01:43

Track 1: And it's like the script is completely flipped because she's telling them that

Speaker: 01:01:47

Track 1: she believes that even though her scientific brain cannot find any proof and

Speaker: 01:01:52

Track 1: give them any proof because the camera she had just static on it.

Speaker: 01:01:55

Track 1: And so it's like, it's like this very, you know, you know, this,

Speaker: 01:01:59

Track 1: it's like kind of flipping, you know, what she believed before.

Speaker: 01:02:03

Track 1: And it's almost like now she is

Speaker: 01:02:04

Track 1: now believing in God, even if she doesn't want to call it that, I guess.

Speaker: 01:02:10

Track 2: Yeah. Which I guess is the fundamental argument or is the main argument for

Speaker: 01:02:14

Track 2: the main argument of the movie and probably the book or whatever.

Speaker: 01:02:19

Track 2: It's like, it's the same thing, you know, you

Speaker: 01:02:21

Track 2: call it god and she's very and

Speaker: 01:02:25

Track 2: i guess that was kind of what i was wrestling with

Speaker: 01:02:28

Track 2: before too where i'm like but you

Speaker: 01:02:32

Track 2: basically believe all this stuff but you're saying

Speaker: 01:02:35

Track 2: like oh in your dialogue you're like i can't quantify it

Speaker: 01:02:38

Track 2: or whatever but then every moment she's not talking to

Speaker: 01:02:40

Track 2: him it's like oh but you believe like you're chasing this thing

Speaker: 01:02:43

Track 2: you don't know what it is but you think it's worth doing and then

Speaker: 01:02:46

Track 2: you later in the movie have this experience that is

Speaker: 01:02:49

Track 2: very much like heaven and you can't prove it but you

Speaker: 01:02:52

Track 2: know you experienced it and the way they

Speaker: 01:02:55

Track 2: both talk about all of these things and it's like

Speaker: 01:02:58

Track 2: it's just a different word for the same thing if this weird like consciousness

Speaker: 01:03:02

Track 2: this experience you're talking about the same thing you're calling it god you're

Speaker: 01:03:06

Track 2: calling it heaven you're calling it like an alien world or you know i was there

Speaker: 01:03:10

Track 2: but i wasn't there and it's like this is the same thing you guys are talking about the same thing um,

Speaker: 01:03:18

Track 2: And I don't know.

Speaker: 01:03:19

Track 1: The one other thing that like the, like just to tie up, like sort of the very,

Speaker: 01:03:22

Track 1: this is like basically the end of the film that I think is interesting.

Speaker: 01:03:25

Track 1: And they kind of leave it in this weird, as they're just, as she's being kind

Speaker: 01:03:29

Track 1: of grilled by, uh, James Woods about this.

Speaker: 01:03:34

Track 1: He also then kind of gives her this scenario where this was all like actually

Speaker: 01:03:40

Track 1: a hoax and that this eccentric billionaire played by John Hurt actually orchestrated

Speaker: 01:03:45

Track 1: the whole thing where he made it seem like the, the, this,

Speaker: 01:03:49

Track 1: was coming from vega and that you know he was

Speaker: 01:03:52

Track 1: the one who designed the whole thing and none of this came

Speaker: 01:03:55

Track 1: from you know outer space and they just you wanted someone to

Speaker: 01:03:58

Track 1: build this trillion dollar machine and she doesn't

Speaker: 01:04:00

Track 1: really maybe accept that at least they know she doesn't like admit

Speaker: 01:04:03

Track 1: to accepting that she still believes that she had heard this

Speaker: 01:04:07

Track 1: signal but then like sort of the very last scene

Speaker: 01:04:10

Track 1: which is with uh um uh angela

Speaker: 01:04:13

Track 1: bassett and james woods they described that

Speaker: 01:04:17

Track 1: the cassette tape or the videotape had

Speaker: 01:04:20

Track 1: 18 hours of static on it which would have been the

Speaker: 01:04:23

Track 1: exact number of seconds or hours

Speaker: 01:04:26

Track 1: versus the time difference between vega and there

Speaker: 01:04:29

Track 1: based on how far she would have had to travel and it

Speaker: 01:04:32

Track 1: was only like a second on earth would have been 18 hours there and

Speaker: 01:04:35

Track 1: so it kind of leaves it open to say like oh well maybe

Speaker: 01:04:38

Track 1: she did you know make this journey and maybe the signal

Speaker: 01:04:42

Track 1: did come from outer space and it's like left again up to you know the the viewer

Speaker: 01:04:45

Track 1: again to say like you know do you believe in you know the the science aspect

Speaker: 01:04:51

Track 1: of it this is actually a real thing or do you believe maybe in the the god aspect

Speaker: 01:04:55

Track 1: of it so it's kind of again dropping it on your lap to say we don't know and you don't either yeah.

Speaker: 01:05:01

Track 2: Yeah and that's the kind of thing too where it's you're never gonna get concrete evidence.

Speaker: 01:05:07

Track 1: Right for.

Speaker: 01:05:08

Track 2: Something like that there's always going to be like they kind of leave it in

Speaker: 01:05:12

Track 2: a loop and i i think they end up landing on I mean, you're watching the movie.

Speaker: 01:05:16

Track 2: You think it happened, right? They're not trying to convince us.

Speaker: 01:05:19

Track 2: But I think they kind of place those things in there to have it be like,

Speaker: 01:05:24

Track 2: well, there's always going to be like this many people who don't believe in it.

Speaker: 01:05:28

Track 2: And then there's going to be another thing that kind of like trickles and makes

Speaker: 01:05:34

Track 2: certain other people think about that.

Speaker: 01:05:36

Track 2: And then I think about, too, the alien dad of them just being like,

Speaker: 01:05:41

Track 2: oh, we're starting small and we're like, you have to go and we're like dropping these little.

Speaker: 01:05:46

Track 2: You know, so maybe that's it of it just being like, we're dropping little hints

Speaker: 01:05:50

Track 2: because this is how we have to do it.

Speaker: 01:05:54

Track 1: Yeah, it's too much to handle if, you know, they just showed up here,

Speaker: 01:06:01

Track 1: you know, they know the way that probably humans would react to something like that.

Speaker: 01:06:06

Track 1: But they must also at the same time, assuming that, you know,

Speaker: 01:06:09

Track 1: it is real, is they must also realize that people are not going to believe her,

Speaker: 01:06:13

Track 1: you know, right? They're not going to just believe that this person took this

Speaker: 01:06:16

Track 1: trip, even though there's no evidence of it.

Speaker: 01:06:18

Track 1: And, yeah, it's, I remember watching it for the first time.

Speaker: 01:06:22

Track 1: And this is a film I've seen, you know, not always in full, like it would be

Speaker: 01:06:26

Track 1: on TV or something or watch it.

Speaker: 01:06:28

Track 1: And I always found like that last 20 or 30 minutes also just like very compelling,

Speaker: 01:06:33

Track 1: even though all it is is like her being grilled in Congress.

Speaker: 01:06:36

Track 1: And then just kind of leaving you with that kind of cliffhanger of,

Speaker: 01:06:39

Track 1: you know, did it or didn't happen.

Speaker: 01:06:40

Track 1: And it just kind of like gives you that, I don't know, like that sort of warm

Speaker: 01:06:44

Track 1: and fuzzy in a way, at least for me, kind of at the end of just,

Speaker: 01:06:47

Track 1: oh, maybe, maybe there is something more, but, you know, you don't know yet.

Speaker: 01:06:53

Track 2: So, yeah. Yeah. And then at the end, she's kind of teaching the next generation

Speaker: 01:06:58

Track 2: to kind of continue the project further.

Speaker: 01:07:00

Track 1: Right. Right.

Speaker: 01:07:02

Track 2: Which is kind of nice.

Speaker: 01:07:03

Track 1: Yeah. I don't, I don't know if she ends up with Matthew McConaughey.

Speaker: 01:07:06

Track 1: I think they, they showed them like leaving together, like at one point,

Speaker: 01:07:08

Track 1: but I don't know if she ends up with it.

Speaker: 01:07:10

Track 1: Not that that, you know, really is integral to it, but it would sort of make

Speaker: 01:07:14

Track 1: a little bit of sense if they do, because they kind of can reconcile their kind

Speaker: 01:07:19

Track 1: of difference of faith in some way, you know, at the end, even though they have, like you said,

Speaker: 01:07:23

Track 1: he may call it God and she may call it, you know, science.

Speaker: 01:07:27

Track 1: But at the end of the day, they kind of have the same belief.

Speaker: 01:07:30

Track 2: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's implied that they're together, but I think the last

Speaker: 01:07:33

Track 2: shot is her by herself, like on the desert plains or whatever.

Speaker: 01:07:40

Track 2: And then there's the starry sky, which again reminds me, I wanted to briefly

Speaker: 01:07:45

Track 2: go back to the beginning of the film, uh, because the opening shot is a very long.

Speaker: 01:07:51

Track 1: I wrote that too. It was like three minutes and 10 seconds.

Speaker: 01:07:54

Track 2: Yeah. Uh, single take through the cosmos. And I think a full minute doesn't

Speaker: 01:08:00

Track 2: have audio. Like it's, yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker: 01:08:03

Track 1: There is a chunk of just like visually taking you through.

Speaker: 01:08:08

Track 2: Yeah. And it only starts to get audio as you get closer to earth.

Speaker: 01:08:12

Track 2: I think there's like a little bit, but the audio comes in and then you're into,

Speaker: 01:08:15

Track 2: um, you're through, uh, is it Jenna Malone or Jodie Foster?

Speaker: 01:08:20

Track 2: I don't remember who they start with. um but

Speaker: 01:08:24

Track 2: the character like you end up going through her

Speaker: 01:08:27

Track 2: eye and then you're in the movie the movie begins

Speaker: 01:08:30

Track 2: um but uh yeah

Speaker: 01:08:33

Track 2: mostly silent opening of you just of the camera just traveling through space

Speaker: 01:08:37

Track 2: incredibly audacious way to open a movie um very very impressed and i would

Speaker: 01:08:44

Track 2: say i was like pretty floored by that it reminded me of um twin peaks the return very famous,

Speaker: 01:08:52

Track 2: some atom bomb sequence where I was I remember I

Speaker: 01:08:55

Track 2: was stoned when I saw that but I remember standing up

Speaker: 01:08:59

Track 2: and moving closer to the tv and then looking back at

Speaker: 01:09:01

Track 2: my wife and I was like I can't believe they're doing this this is an insane

Speaker: 01:09:06

Track 2: thing to put on tv this is I can't believe it and I had the same feeling where

Speaker: 01:09:10

Track 2: I was like people this is a major movie and people were just like in the theater

Speaker: 01:09:14

Track 2: sitting there for three minutes 10 seconds yeah that's a long.

Speaker: 01:09:19

Track 1: It's a very long opening.

Speaker: 01:09:20

Track 2: Very crazy he.

Speaker: 01:09:22

Track 1: Had final cut on the movie which is part of the deal of him willing to direct

Speaker: 01:09:26

Track 1: the film so i wonder also too if he was like i bet if the film studio has something

Speaker: 01:09:32

Track 1: to do with it they probably would have been like no no we're not we're not opening

Speaker: 01:09:34

Track 1: the film with this long month you know not montage is the wrong word this long shot but he's like.

Speaker: 01:09:39

Track 2: Nope that's.

Speaker: 01:09:40

Track 1: You know maybe that was also part of the conversation with um i don't know,

Speaker: 01:09:45

Track 1: But yeah, I was impressed by it. It's funny you mentioned Twin Peaks.

Speaker: 01:09:49

Track 1: I'm wearing a, you probably can't see it. I'm wearing a Twin Peaks shirt.

Speaker: 01:09:52

Track 2: Oh, nice. Yeah, I think I saw it. It's the, yeah, Red Room.

Speaker: 01:09:57

Track 2: Yeah, so considering that I wanted to watch this because of the mirror trick

Speaker: 01:10:02

Track 2: shot, it was a very cool way to open the movie.

Speaker: 01:10:05

Track 2: I was like, oh, wow, this is gonna deliver.

Speaker: 01:10:10

Track 2: And it's not that the movie looks bad, but they don't really

Speaker: 01:10:13

Track 2: do anything else close to those two shots like there's some cool stuff here

Speaker: 01:10:18

Track 2: and there that i like that i think um was even a little outside the box but

Speaker: 01:10:23

Track 2: i think those are the two primary like brother uh we're going for it weird thing

Speaker: 01:10:29

Track 2: we're gonna do yeah mostly does not do stuff like that.

Speaker: 01:10:32

Track 1: Yeah the rest of the like the cinematography isn't really i would say anything,

Speaker: 01:10:38

Track 1: particularly you know special or that stuck out to me but.

Speaker: 01:10:41

Track 2: It's cool it's moving yeah there's a lot of like uh

Speaker: 01:10:45

Track 2: frames within frames like the matthew mcconaughey

Speaker: 01:10:48

Track 2: thing is interesting too because that's on

Speaker: 01:10:51

Track 2: a tv that i think her co-workers are watching so

Speaker: 01:10:54

Track 2: it's kind of pulling out and we're seeing them and he's playing

Speaker: 01:10:58

Track 2: in the background so there's a lot of interesting framing it's not

Speaker: 01:11:01

Track 2: that interesting compared to these two

Speaker: 01:11:04

Track 2: insane things to do um and

Speaker: 01:11:08

Track 2: it certainly looks better than modern studio filmmaking

Speaker: 01:11:12

Track 2: for sure there's a lot more going on but um yeah if you're if you're expecting

Speaker: 01:11:16

Track 2: a lot more stuff like the uh running up the stair to the mirror shot you're

Speaker: 01:11:21

Track 2: not going to get it um which i kind of was you know after that one shot i was

Speaker: 01:11:25

Track 2: i did the opening shot and being like oh my god is this like going to be slow

Speaker: 01:11:28

Track 2: cinema this is crazy like i never thought it could be like this i.

Speaker: 01:11:32

Track 1: Mean partly it's like almost a i don't want to say it's like setting you

Speaker: 01:11:35

Track 1: up for what is a two hour 30

Speaker: 01:11:38

Track 1: minute film which is you know it's a that's a pretty hefty film

Speaker: 01:11:42

Track 1: on kind of i don't want to call it like a i don't mean this in a

Speaker: 01:11:44

Track 1: derogatory sense like a thin plot but it's not like there's not or not a lot

Speaker: 01:11:49

Track 1: of action you know it's it's more of a you know it's a sci-fi drama i guess

Speaker: 01:11:54

Track 1: you could say you know but more on the drama but some on the sci-fi in in the

Speaker: 01:11:59

Track 1: sense there's no like yeah i don't know kind of.

Speaker: 01:12:02

Track 2: Like bookends like.

Speaker: 01:12:03

Track 1: At the beginning and the.

Speaker: 01:12:04

Track 2: End with.

Speaker: 01:12:05

Track 1: The big kind of you know the wormhole part also is pretty cool and i think there's

Speaker: 01:12:08

Track 1: a moment where she sort of like stops and she thinks she's gone through and

Speaker: 01:12:12

Track 1: she can see what seems like a civilization and thinks she stopped and then just

Speaker: 01:12:15

Track 1: keeps sending her through like that's also i thought was pretty cool.

Speaker: 01:12:18

Track 2: Yeah,

Speaker: 01:12:19

Track 2: Yeah, it's a good way to set the tone and rhythm of the movie,

Speaker: 01:12:26

Track 2: like a very long movie of just being like, okay, here's, we're settling in and

Speaker: 01:12:30

Track 2: you're going to literally experience through her eye the wonder and vastness of space.

Speaker: 01:12:37

Track 2: So it's definitely pretty effective in doing that.

Speaker: 01:12:40

Track 1: Yeah. I don't know. Was there anything that we missed or do you have any last thoughts on contact?

Speaker: 01:12:47

Track 2: Not really. I just wanted to bring up those thoughts.

Speaker: 01:12:50

Track 1: Yeah, for anyone who wants to watch it, she definitely, well,

Speaker: 01:12:53

Track 1: sometimes I don't always ask this at the end, but I think you at the top kind

Speaker: 01:12:56

Track 1: of said your, you know, what you thought of the film.

Speaker: 01:12:58

Track 1: Like, would you, if someone listened to all this and maybe hasn't seen it and

Speaker: 01:13:01

Track 1: wants to watch it, would you encourage someone you'd like recommend to watch this film?

Speaker: 01:13:06

Track 2: Yeah, I mean, I also said at the front that I liked it, but I didn't love it.

Speaker: 01:13:11

Track 2: And a lot of people that I spoke to seemed to be really into it.

Speaker: 01:13:14

Track 2: And I was like, but we're going to talk about it, right?

Speaker: 01:13:16

Track 2: So I'm probably going to warm up to it. and that did in fact happen,

Speaker: 01:13:21

Track 2: so yeah I would recommend it it's quite interesting so long as you know what

Speaker: 01:13:26

Track 2: you're getting into it's a movie from the late 90s with all that entails,

Speaker: 01:13:31

Track 2: and it is two and a half hours so make time for

Speaker: 01:13:34

Track 2: it but yeah it's good and I think it is asking questions that you don't hear

Speaker: 01:13:40

Track 2: about you don't hear dealt with in movies that of this stature kind of deal

Speaker: 01:13:48

Track 2: with you know so with all that said i would i would probably recommend it yeah for sure i.

Speaker: 01:13:53

Track 1: Definitely would as well i mean this i mean again this is also kind

Speaker: 01:13:55

Track 1: of has a you know i had seen it before and i feel like it was always a film

Speaker: 01:14:00

Track 1: but yeah sometimes those two and a half hour movies when you recommend to people

Speaker: 01:14:04

Track 1: like oh it's a little long for you know i you know i i can i can appreciate

Speaker: 01:14:08

Track 1: that you know uh but i i too would would uh encourage people to check it out.

Speaker: 01:14:13

Track 1: I mean, especially, too, if you like some of, you know, with Roger Zemeckis sort of has...

Speaker: 01:14:19

Track 1: We don't need to litigate his entire career, but he sort of has some ups and

Speaker: 01:14:23

Track 1: I guess you could say downs as far as some of his films are concerned.

Speaker: 01:14:26

Track 1: But I would say this one is near to the top as far as his catalog goes.

Speaker: 01:14:32

Track 2: Yeah i don't think you should be afraid in walking

Speaker: 01:14:35

Track 2: away from it you know i don't think it's one of those things

Speaker: 01:14:38

Track 2: that you watch some two three

Speaker: 01:14:41

Track 2: four or five hour movies and they really do compound

Speaker: 01:14:45

Track 2: and you want to see it as close to a one

Speaker: 01:14:48

Track 2: sitting as you can but considering how kind of i don't know if leisurely is

Speaker: 01:14:52

Track 2: the white is the right word um but just the way the rhythm and tempo is if you're

Speaker: 01:14:58

Track 2: just like ah i need a little break and pick it up the next day don't be afraid

Speaker: 01:15:03

Track 2: to do that yeah it's uh it's a mean it's a harmless movie yeah.

Speaker: 01:15:07

Track 1: Yeah yeah it's not yeah it's not like you're not watching like an andre tarkovsky

Speaker: 01:15:10

Track 1: film or like you want to just you know sit your phone in the other room or whatever

Speaker: 01:15:15

Track 1: and go through it or something it's you know low lower stakes perhaps in some.

Speaker: 01:15:19

Track 2: Sense yeah yeah it's not like uh yeah tarkovsky

Speaker: 01:15:23

Track 2: would be like life-changing that would be one where it's just like

Speaker: 01:15:26

Track 2: no you need to you gotta do that like you can't walk

Speaker: 01:15:29

Track 2: away but this one is like it's not gonna really ask too much of you in that

Speaker: 01:15:33

Track 2: sense it does uh it does what it does well but um if you're holding back because

Speaker: 01:15:38

Track 2: it's too long i think like you know i watched like maybe half of it and yeah

Speaker: 01:15:42

Track 2: you know there's different little segments where you're like i'm gonna pull

Speaker: 01:15:44

Track 2: out i'm gonna pull out for a little bit have dinner you know feel free definitely,

Speaker: 01:15:49

Track 2: come and go as you please christopher.

Speaker: 01:15:51

Track 1: Thank you again for uh for coming on left the projector Sure. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker: 01:15:54

Track 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker: 01:15:56

Track 1: Of course. And you can, again, check out Christopher's work in the notes for his content on Means TV.

Speaker: 01:16:03

Track 1: And we will catch you next time.