Ladies and Gentlemen Boys and Girls! We're talking about The Terminator, where it's 40th Anniversary, here Kill By Kill. Well, greetings and salutations to all of you at the All-Pow Patrick Hamilton, coming to you once again from the future or the past. Today we're going to unpack all the gorgeous details of 1984's The Terminator, in the hopes that a Sarah J. Conner's untimely end is just the beginning of the jokes we might make of their expense.
And as always, there's only one person I trust that if it smells like I have kept a dead cat in my flea-ridden hotel room, she won't take it personal when I tell her to fuck off asshole. The only Gina Wrangler. How are you doing today Gina? It's one thing to leave a message and say I'm a techno-ar. It's another thing that when you tell the cops you're a techno-ar, you know, a guy who does not look like he should know what that is, like, yeah, I know that place. It's on Pico.
Everybody knows where techno-ar is on Pico? It's a hot spot. But why? It's got outdoor furniture. I mean, it has everything. Infectual bodyguards. It's got what appears to be a very cheap bar and an ineffectual railing system that just keeps people from rushing out of the establishment when gunfire breaks out. It's got a very futuristic name. It does have a futuristic name, but can you tell me what else is futuristic about it or noirish about it? It's a little smoky.
But that was every bar in 1984 Los Angeles. There was no. That's true. You couldn't force to go outside to smoke yet. So everything was smoky. Maybe they turned on some lights and you look like you have like old blind shadows across your face and true. That kind of lighting that makes everybody look elegant. Yeah. There's very few guys drinking boiler makers at the bar and lamenting the fact that woman and the statue of a blackbird got out of your hands. There's not a lot of noir going on.
Yeah, you can't see it, but the bathroom doors are marked. James. Those guys say, James and bras would have been the same thing with that. What would be the male equivalent to a gamer bra? Jents. Polucas. Polucas. Polucas and James. There you go. I really had to think on my feet. Yeah, that's good. That's good. That's perfect. We're talking about the terminator. Now every Halloween, is your October, let's say.
Right. I've trying to now focus on a movie or movies that were like the bigger horror tent poles of that given year. And we've kind of spread it out this year actually. We've hit more 1984's than I had previously planned. It just kind of turned out that way. But I certainly out of all those 1984 horror movies with the exception of if you included ghost busters. I think the other most influential movie, nevertheless horror tinged motion picture would be 1984's the terminator.
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, I would agree with you there. It just influences so much from from this moment going forward to the point where it's just it's one of those movies like a Halloween, like a Mad Max, that all of a sudden, all these polucas, if I might borrow a phrase.
Think to themselves, well, I can make one of those. And then no one ever does besides James Cameron. No, it's it's easier than it looks to think that you can do this. It's quite another thing to take what is ultimately a very cheap, a Toddry little action thriller and make something so anthemic out of it as this motion picture does.
Well, it was the first time you ended up seeing James Cameron's the terminator. Oh, well, I did not see this at the theater. No, did I know. But when this came to cable, it was my jam. About two years straight. Every time it was on, I'm like, oh, shit, term, he's on. And I would just sit and watch her from beginning to end. What regardless of whatever else I have to be doing at the time.
Yeah, I think younger generations than us probably are much more centered on the sequel, Terminator 2 Judgment Day, which is completely understandable. It's practically designed for teenagers and young people. So it's more appealing in many, many ways. But I like you saw this over and way more times than I've ever seen Terminator 2, not like it. I love it quite a bit.
But this, as you're saying, it's like one of those cable staples that just played on the loop because the Gore was stuff that you could kind of get away with even on an afternoon. And the violence is just shrouded in explosions of smoke and puff, you know. Right. And like the one sex scene and it's fairly tasteful as far as the sex scenes go.
Yeah. And there are very few sex scenes that really center on people's hands clasping. And it's struck me this time. How much? How hand centric this particular sex scene is. It's flea red note. Only off the top of your head that you could think of. Is this the only James Cameron movie that actually has a sex scene?
Because I feel like he's okay. There's there's a Titanic. Yeah, I was about to say Titanic's the big one, but that also has a lot of main motif being I'm getting sex so good. Look at my hand. That's how good this is going. Yeah, I feel like romance and sexuality is not something he's particularly interested in in his movies. But you know, you have to give this you have to give you know a story like this. Some character arc that makes it interesting.
Yeah, I mean, it's tied into the plot of the movie. I just don't think he has the it's not something he's interested in portraying on screen. It's not he's more of a world builder. And then he has intricate details woven into character. There's a lot of pluses than the James Cameron camp. Let's put that out. Oh, I have no problem with James Cameron and I think that it's funny that people.
The ego on the sky. My god, he's so arrogant. And it's like, if I was James Cameron, I would have I would be insufferable. Yeah. And he just asked is that's why X wives. I think he is to a certain degree. His last movie was all about him kind of being an insufferable dad. So like he's now I think aware of it to the point where he's making art about it.
I don't know that he certainly wasn't aware of it at the time that he's making this, which you can't you have to put yourself in a mindset of like where he is when he when he dreams up this idea. He's on the set of piranha to the spawning. Have you ever suffered through that monstrosity? I probably have, but if I do, I did, I don't remember anything about it. I I saw it out, you know, after because my first came in movie was aliens.
And that as I said in our aliens episode like that, I went in one person and I came out a different person from that motion picture experience. I literally changed the trajectory of my life and how I thought about film and what I thought about horror and it just it galvanized the person that I am now. So when I heard that there was a other, you know, James Cameron movies to see I instantly sought them out now. It took me a little while to get my hands, you know, or eyeballs in this case.
I'm seeing the terminator, but it took even longer to find a copy of the spawning, which I was hoping in, you know, over this James Cameron movie that barely anyone's ever seen like this has to be really, really good. And you watch it like, oh my god, this is fucking terrible. It is, it is just, it's just like a failure on all fronts like like, I mean, the movie was taken away from them. Half of it's completely shot by a different person.
So if there is a James Cameron movie in it, there is very little evidence as such. She has never gone back and go, you know, it was a misunderstood, you know, piece of film or he's just like, they took it away from me. I have no bearing on what people actually ended up seeing. I don't want to revisit it. There is no directors cut. It's just a monstrosity and a failure. And I'm glad that I was able to recover from it.
But he has this nightmare during filming when he gets sick in Italy about a metal skeleton, you know, clawing its way towards him and catching on fire. And he's like, holy shit. What a, what an idea. What an image. I got to, I got to figure out how to make this a fucking movie. And then he's like, well, how do, how do people who have little credits to their name, you know, make a mark in the movie industry these days.
It's like, I'm going to make a fucking horror movie. I'm going to John Carpenter this shit. And so he figures out this sort of plot of these two metal soldiers who come back in time and try to find the one lady who's going to give birth to the human. Savior of the future. And then he's like, one of them is going to be like an exo skeleton thing. And one guy is going to be liquid metal. And he's like, no one's going to buy that liquid metal shit.
I got to figure out a different way around this. So he comes up with the idea of having this risk character be a battle scarred human coming back to protect, you know, his best friend and mentors mom. So that is a part of the story that comes from this unkillable terminer. And, you know, you get that sort of Michael Myers Jason for his style. Unstoppable killer in the middle of modern day Los Angeles. It's sci fi. It's horror. It's action all wrapped up in one neat, gritty looking pack.
throw a little romance in, but that is clearly the part of the story. He is the least interested in. Yeah. It's just one of those things that, you know, why is this one person so dedicated to helping someone else? And at first, do you think it is duty? And then he kind of lets this other person in, he drops his guard, begins to share his past, a future that she can barely understand. And it's very hard to believe and certainly no one else does. And they're drawn to get, you know,
is it the most effective about partner? No, no, it isn't. Okay. But for a movie that from 20 minutes on, it's just like an endless fucking chase. It's a nice breather if I'm being honest with you. No, it is. I think that despite it feeling like it's not his favorite part to do, it still works pretty well. Yeah, I don't have a problem with the love story and Titanic either. I mean, people
you know, who are like, oh, you know, just cut the crap and get to the ship sinking. It's like, well, I mean, you have to have a human element to these kinds of things, you know, I mean, I mean, yeah, sure, these are, you know, you've in Titanic's case, these are, you know, made-up characters, you know, to create the sense of drama. Whereas in the Terminator, these are real people that you have right about. You know what I mean? Yes, yeah. But like, you know, you have to do that
to put somewhat of a human element in it. Otherwise, you wouldn't care when shit goes wrong. It's the thing about horror movies that I think ultimately makes them universal in a sense is that you have to have empathy for the characters at the center of that horror movie. Otherwise, you will not care
that their lives are in danger, that something scary and bad will happen to them. If they're just a-holes, as we discovered in later editions of, let's say, Friday the 13th or a nightmare in Elm Street, or you know, any one of the cheapies that we've covered since, like if they're all jerks, you don't care. You're just like, okay, that one got a football javelin to the chest. That's kind of cool.
And then you spend 10 minutes trying to figure out how you make a knife football and we never figured it out. Whereas here, the only question you have is how do Bill Paschent get a tire track on his face? I mean, he definitely has the most unique makeup of anyone and they are made up. They have put on a face. You go hang out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, you've got Bill Paschent. You've got Brian
Thompson from from Cobra and one other guy. And the guy who's like, okay, I'll give you my clothes. I just happened to be wearing XXL clothes tonight. It's good news for you. That is an interesting friend dynamic between those three guys because it seems like this is very common for that early 80s period of like punks be dangerous, but they only seem to be dangerous punks. They don't seem to have any camaraderie beyond smashing beer bottles next to one
another. Yeah, they kind of come up with their like 15 or 16, but they're actually like 25. Right. Yeah. And yeah, outside of their audacious fashion sense and they're desired to wear lots of layers in, you know, Los Angeles weather, which, you know, depends, you know, a fog can roll in. We could be in the middle of winter. This doesn't really seem, it seems like people are layering at this point, but we never really get a date of when exactly this is in 1984.
It just looks, everything looks kind of dreary. The fashion in this is just off the chain. Every part of it, the fact that Reese is able to get pants that fit off of an unhoused person in an alleyway is a miracle. Yeah, he doesn't even have to like, he's like a piece of clothesline. He doesn't have to, you know, Jeff Rowe from the Beverly Hill Billies. I have to pick a fit. I do like his methodology of finding shoes, which is just
hold them up to your feet and go. This is the time where you could, you could, you could find Nike's in a basket that you could just pull out. I don't think it's that way anymore. Yeah, I, there's a lot that's really interesting about this. That seems far flung at the time. Because like in 1984, the idea that technology would attempt to supplant us on earth was a very sci-fi idea. And now we're, we have 40 years later.
We're we're ever so green. We're here. We're so in the same. This is our every fucking day. There's absolutely a place for AI to remove redundant tasks. And I'm not the first person to say this, but it bears repeating. AI should not be designed to create art. It should be designed to take over the shit I don't want to do that gets in the way of me making art myself. Right.
But for some reason, it's not like it's not like we're we're not in immediate danger of being you supplanted or taken over or just you completely destroyed by you actual you know, three-dimensional robots. Yeah. But that doesn't be the technology. It's not actively working against us. Yes. Because ultimately it's only it's only moral codes are what's written into it by people with access to those codes. And as we have seen in the last few 40 fucking years, these people
are not to be trusted. No. They do not have our best interests at heart. It is not the place where the best of us seem to arrive and work towards the elimination of terrible tasks for humanity so that we might live in a paradise. It's like how do I fucking grift off of this? Right. How could you deal? How could I make this? So you know, so it benefits me and me alone.
In the course of the movie how we're told it all happens is that and cyberdying systems, you know, creates this artificial intelligence to watch over our defense apparatus and it immediately as it gains sentience, walks in that humanity has to be eliminated. It's just too fucking messy y'all. It is not the kind of bitch that lives with the drama, whatever you want to say. So they the this intelligence decides to launch
every nuke in the world, Anis. Those that survive have to, you know, work the let's kill humanity camps, which is interesting. Batches of them get away and start a resistance. And so the terminator hive mind decides, we've got an idea to get rid of the humans that are left. Let's create cyborgs that can blend in with humans and destroy that resistance from the inside and then executes that plan by constructing the largest Austrian man you've ever seen in your life. Just just, you know,
take a take a robot skeleton and attach several pounds of ground beef to it. The biggest mother fucker with the largest leg day thighs you've ever seen in your fucking mind. And an absolute unit. And our own Swartz and Ager is many things. But blending in is not a monk's stuff. He sticks out on the planet fucking earth. A giant squid could catch a glimpse of
Swartz and Ager and like, what the fuck is going on with that dude? Well, of course, I mean, we do, we do have to mention that you, as most people know at this point that he was not the first choice, right? To, to, to play the determinator. No, no, no, another completely normal choice was positive. What if the terminator was OJ Simpson? I believe you, when you like to read that sounds like a joke. When you, it does sound like a joke. It really does. But it really fucking happened.
They really thought about it hard. They really pushed. And the, apparently the, the reasoning that this was suggest this was not James Cameron's idea. This was suggested to the studio. What's your cast OJ? But James Cameron's reasoning was no one would believe him as a killing machine. Yeah. And, and two OJs credit. He's picked up that mantra and really run with it ever since. Like, if you could say one thing about OJ Simpson is that he's trying to project, I'm not a killing
machine as much as possible. And he failed in that particular regard. Show you who could be an, who could be a believable killing machine. You just get me the right cocktail of drugs and hatred of women and park me outside my X, Y house. And you'll see what I can do, motherfucker. And so there you go. It lives on an infinite. And I believe Lance Henrickson was also was was actually Cameron's choice.
Yeah. Well, I mean, he's a, he's a Cameron guy. And it makes sense in a certain way in that he looks like he does have the biggest amount of flesh outside of an inorganic skeleton. And I know, and I would totally buy Lance Henrickson as a killing machine. Yeah. I think that is something he can get away with. But there is also that sort of
the genius behind Swartzenaker is that he is inherently unreal. There's an unreality to his actual physical appearance that says something is happening there that just doesn't seem like it can be accomplished by a human being. And we've covered Conan the barbarian. We've covered command to leave it or not. Recent additions to kill by go. And he is such a fucking unit that he's a special effect unto himself that unreality really does seem to work. There are points
in this movie where he's wearing false eyebrows. And you're like, something seems off. And that's right. Because he's not supposed to be human in this fucking. His unreality helps when you have this completely fake robot man, you know, trying to rip out his own eyeball in a mirror. The reason it works is because it just doesn't make sense. Right. Yeah. You know, when he's, when he's, you know, you're hiding out, he doesn't need to look
human. He doesn't need to blend in as much. And I think one of the the best sort of additions that Cameron makes to the sort of unkillable slash or genre is something that almost no one picks up on. And what we have been complaining about for nine, eight years. And that is these people must stink. And finally, in this movie, someone's like, holy shit, what stinks in that room because the flesh on the outside of his unkillable skeleton is rotting away in real time because it's been shot
at over and over again. Yeah. I do think it's interesting that they evidently do not use synthetic skin. Yeah. It is apparently like whether it's generated in like a laboratory or you know, just ripped off of humans and recycled. I don't know. But he's covered evidently in real human skin. Yeah. That that rots and draws flies and smells. Yeah. And you know, that's a real thing that he has to deal with. It's an issue. And you know, as a result, you you get some, it just brings a
reality to the situation that most slashers don't end up having to worry about. And for some reason, we do, but none of the makers of those motion pictures. People would smell him coming. Which now leads me to, which now leads me to wonder what I have a love for characters and movies that show up for one scene and have maybe one line. And one of my favorites of all time is the gentleman he passes in the hallway as he says out to make his last stand in trying to capture or
kill Sarah Connor. This is after he's already removed his eye. So he's got like a one glowing red eye, the one humanized man, where sunglasses. And so he's got this giant fucking gun just slung over his shoulder. And he walks past his man who he turns around and say, God damn. What a bite. That's his only line. But it's like, is he is he exclaiming over his size? The size was gun or the stench that must be emanating from him. Or all three.
I think it's a bit of all three. He smells. He's gigantic and appears to be a zombie. And that will get a goddamn out of something. And yeah, for what? You know, I the it's explained in movie that the T600s had rubber skits, synthetic skin. And as a result, people would look at them go, well, that's not fucking him. And let's shoot the
shit out of that. Whatever that is, let's shoot it. And the T800s have, you know, a facsimile of organic material over them, which also makes it them eligible to go through the time machine because inorganic material cannot be exposed. They can't bring back guns. They can't just zap a thousand metal terminators into 1984. They have to be organic. It's a lot of, you know,
why can't you do this? Because I said so. That's why. Yeah. Well, and then Cameron starts clapping at himself like, oh my God, can you believe this plot when the the psychiatrist at the police stations like, this is the perfect story. Usually these nuts come in with these crazy stories. And there's always holes. And it doesn't make any sense. This is a closed loop. This is a great story.
He's telling the audience how good it is while they're watching it. But also he's telling it in the you know, you framed as, you know, wow, this absolute crazy person is, is, you know, telling this story that cannot be proved or disproven. There's a kind of genius to it because no matter how you look at it, he can't prove it, but it also can't be disproven. And this is one of the rare psychiatrists, you know, who are like, I could make a million dollars off this guy who later in in Terminator 2
is definitely trying to make money off of this story. He's like, all I need are more crazy elements of this story. And then I'll finally have enough for a book to make money off of this. I mean, he would take that considering that he left the police station within about, toward about 11 seconds before Schwarzenegger actually, he walks past him. Yeah, he looked
at his beepers the only reason he doesn't catch sight of Schwarzenegger. Right. And so like, you know, right before you know, Schwarzenegger drives that police car right into the station, you would think maybe he would go seek out of the line of work that he would take that as a sign from God to to maybe maybe go up, get him to Vermont and open up a take a pottery. Enjoy the time you have left on this earth before nuclear destruction. Because you can.
Right. Because you have used up about four of your lives. He's like, no, I've got so many more sweatersets to wear. Just you wait. That sequence before because we all hit, you know, in terms of pop culture, Keshe, I'll be back obviously is fantastic. But I think the reason that little sequence works is the mundane nature that happens before and after it of the guy. Yeah, like this is another night, nothing. I am behind this glass in this wood. I'm in a police station. There's
nothing that can really touch me. And unfortunately for him and everyone else in that police station with two very notable exceptions, the terminator does not give a fuck. He is not built with actual fucks to give the turns out. Yeah, he's not, he's not nervous about like, oh, what if they, what if they spot me? What if they find me? He does not care. Someone's got you, you kill him. Right. And as an escalation in terms of your Michael Myers and your Jason Voorheist,
Al Killer, there's nothing in him. There's no built in parameters for I need to lay low. I need to get away with this. I need to come out of this in one piece. That stuff is not built into his programming. It is very singular. And then is I need to shoot this one person. And if anyone gets in my way, I shoot them. And that's what he does in an endless parade of massacre.
He just shoots everybody. Well, we don't even, we haven't even mentioned the fact that, that, you know, where the creepy things is he just goes in a phone book and starts looking for Sarah Connors. Yeah. Like, like, he doesn't know where she lives. He doesn't know what she looks like until later. You know, then he just like, well, I'll just keep picking him off till I find the right one. There are three. I know she lives in town. I kill him. One, two, three. And my job is done.
I walk into the ocean. I don't know. I don't know what his plane is. Post actually accomplishing the task. Or if, you know, no one really cares. Like, would he just go sit in a chair and like, all right, we got five years to an apocalypse. I think it'll all work out. Yeah. I mean, I guess that, you know, mission accomplished. You know, wait for his engine to wind down. Yeah. Just like put himself into sleep mode until a nuclear explosion goes on.
I mean, I love, I'm watching it right now. I love like the fake out in in tech noir, where she thinks it's, I mean, Kyle Reese is looking for her. But, but she thinks he's the one that's been stalking her and killing everybody, including at this point, by this point, her roommate. And I just love you. I love how she notices him. And he's just kind of looking at her sort of so fully. All right. And I think, yeah, I think this is the point. You're like, oh, God. She's really dreamy.
Wow. Look at how feathered her hair. Because he's Michael being and he looks really good here. And I mean, this is his big, you know, what should have been his debut as a major star. And for, you know, whatever reason it didn't really happen. I mean, I mean, people know who he is, but he never really, he never really broke big. He didn't, he didn't, you know, I think there's an element to this. And it's not
uncommon as, you know, in Terminator 2, you've got a guy who ends up playing the T1000. And his career is also hampered by, you know, drug use and, you know, getting sober and trying to find a way to do this without depending on drugs and alcohol. It's not an uncommon experience, unfortunately for actors or anyone else, but it's, it's tough. But I also think there's an element that being has to be used in a very specific circumstance. And this is one of those
where it really excels. He's untrustworthy to start with. You don't know what his motivations are versus the Terminator before he explains himself. And when he does, it sounds crazy. And the only reason we know it isn't is because we have access to Arnold Schwarzenegger's T800 running around
town, punching people through the gut. It's just, we, you get a lot of interesting dichotomy here, where the things that would normally be safe for people in a slasher movie in one of these, in one of those films that this is kind of copying the formula of to a degree are not safe. You go into a public space. That's not safe. The Terminator doesn't care. You go into a police
station. That's not safe. The Terminator doesn't care. Whereas there's an element of self-preservation, or at least, you know, circumstance that keeps Michael Myers from mixing with General Pop. Jason Voorhees does not with one rare exception get into the center of town. And even then, he's like, walking and just like kicking fucking, you know, giant radios off the fucking sidewalk. Like how Jason Voorhees makes it out of New York City is a genuine question. I don't think we
ask Neuron. Well, I mean, Reese explains it. He says, you know, this is all he does. You know, I mean, this is what he is designed to do is to find specific people. And he cannot be stopped. Yeah. And the, and the, the, the, the, the cops are like, whatever. She'll be safe here. And you, we're gonna, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna get a ride to Looney Bend tomorrow. Well, people's imaginations are not big enough to conceive of the of these.
It's just funny to me how many horror movies liver die on the concept of people ignoring the warning of he's coming or it's coming or whatever, just like whatever, you know, I gotta go, I gotta go take my lunch break. You know, I mean, it's like, I mean, obviously, yeah, you know, someone
tells you a crazy story. And, and, you know, you're not gonna believe it. But, you know, sometimes there's a certain urgency in people telling you something that maybe you ought to consider and maybe they are telling you, you know, I mean, I mean, what in the white to, to, you know, lock things up or,
or, you know, put on a alert or anything like that. But you have, and we lived through this to a certain degree when, you know, Obama was president and you had all these greatest generation and boomers watching Fox News and they were told week in and week out, this guy is about to just steal all your money away from you. Take your house. You are going to have your guns taken and you will be forced at gunpoint to wear a tan suit and get gay married in front of a death panel. It's happening
next week and they tell you that for eight fucking years. And then, not of it fucking happened. But you jack people up to this point where they're just raw nerves of, oh my god, oh my god, I'm like, I gotta do something. I gotta do something. I gotta do something. Wait a second. Is that shitty game show host with a fake tan? Maybe he will save me from this fate because definitely if that black man isn't going to do that, that woman certainly is and look what happens since everybody.
Like you can tell people fantastical tales and maybe they don't believe it the first time. But if you never let up on the gas and just make the bullshit go, you can motivate people to make the worst possible fucking decisions. Well, true. Yeah. Whereas in the distant future, when a terminator sidel's up to your camp and magically start speaking in an Austrian accent and you're like, wait a second. How did you gain an Austrian accent after the nuclear war?
Why did they program you to have an accent? Why would you do that? But it's also so outrageous in some respects that it's another thing that you would ignore. Like it makes less sense in the future of the terminator than it does in 1984 Los Angeles where there are plenty of jacked up dudes with European accents running around. Like you can swing a dead can and you might not hit one today, but at a certain point in the week you will probably watching pumping iron. Like in Iowa,
it's more rare here, not so much. You know, it's the kind of thing you might think would be a problem for this film, but it's just not like you meet stinky guys waiting for the bus all the time. And I'll tell you another thing that this film absolutely nails, all right? You're just going to have to take this on faith as someone who grew up in Los Angeles. This movie is the most accurate representation of what it was to eat at a Bob's Big Boy in the 1980s.
I always wanted the Bob's Big Boy statue. Bob's Big Boy statue is the fucking best. I love Bob's Big Boy. There was a Bob's Big Boy that was on my way home from my elementary school. I love the smell of Bob's Big Boy. Is Bob's Big Boy good for me? Absolutely not. But you know, the one time a year I probably make it to Burbank and inside of Bob's Big Boy is a really happy fucking time for me. There's a lot about this movie that has a sleazy edge to it that feels like a ton of other movies
that are made at the time. And it's weird how in this year that we've been talking about movies, we've come across this a few times, but LA in the early 80s is a special effect unto itself. You could just get away with crazy ass shit. The way they drive around downtown Los Angeles in this movie is truly bonkers. Like you could you can I don't think you can do this now. Not for the fact that you couldn't pay an amount of money to do it, but it would be so extraordinarily
expensive to get away with what was cheap at the time. You simply cannot do it. Yeah, and again, it looks like you know, even though it's one of the most populated cities in the world, still it looks like nobody's out on the streets. It's just this is desolate. This is and it's the same thing that kind of happens here that ends up happening for like night of the comet, which is another 1984 movie. I don't know that we'll be able to get to it, but
it's just in downtown LA. There's not a lot of human beings at night there. They're there. They're all at their all at tech. Right. They're all at tech. They're on Biko, which is way, which is, you know, west of downtown LA and that's why the streets are absolutely empty. But you just you wash down the streets with, you know, a hose and all the sudden, it takes on an element to itself. And a guy, often women who all have the same name from the phone book, sounds
like this should be like a trauma pickup. This is not something that should have the pop culture cachet that it does if you just read the description. It's in watching the movie and how it fires your imagination with the barest glimpse of its sci-fi bottom fides that makes it into the classic it is. I mean, the amount of skeletons and particularly skulls. Why why have they collected the skulls in one place? Because it looks really cool when they get stepped on Patrick. Why do you?
Well, you're right. When you're right, you're right. What other reason do you need? You don't. You absolutely don't. The charm to the special effects here of the future. And we barely get to see it because he certainly does not have the amount of money he needs to really make that come alive. Yeah, no, it's wild to see the difference in everything in in style, in in budget, in tone between this and Terminator 2. It's wild to see the difference. Because I
think that the ultimate goals are so very, very different. And here he is trying to scare people, not in the same way that a Halloween is, but he is using that formula, the math problem here, of how to affect people is ultimately, how can I Halloween this up? How can I make it feel like this one person is so vulnerable to what is an unknowable, unstoppable force. And he just executes it in such an outlandish action-filled way that it transcends the genre it starts in
and becomes all these other things on top of it. There's just, there's no way in the middle of Halloween, you can, you know, jet into the future where someone describes a dream to you. Gina, does he describe something to her that she has a dream about? He literally inceps her with something he experienced. He just really, really good at describing things.
As a result, like when you see these flying hunter killers and these, you know, these metal exoskeletons with these laser guns and you're like, holy shit, that looks so fucking rad. It's just too good of an image for you to ever really remove from your brain. So no matter what other contrivances or this doesn't quite work for me or how does this make sense, it doesn't matter because the cumulative effect of the movie is that was so fucking thrilling.
It felt like it never stopped. I thought, there's no way Sarah Connor can outrun this killer and she manages to find at the, in the last possible second a way to do it. And it is thrilling, it is emotional, it is compelling, it is tightly directed. And the special effects were just the, the slight of hand of how they make certain elements of the T800 work when he punches through
that windshield. There's this entire wind up that's absolutely all Arnold Schwarzenegger. And then it cuts to the side and you just see his face and his shoulder and they've rigged up what looks to be his fist in his jacket, but it's actually a fist on a broom and they push it all the way through the windshield and it's fucking seamless, baby. That is old school Hollywood flim flam.
Well, what I love about it so much is, you know, between this and the alien movies, particularly the first alien is when we shifted from, you know, this is our shady future to wow, this is going to they're going to find a way to fuck this up so hard. A lot of people are going to a lot of humans are going to die at some point. Now granted, though everything that happens and I I to the terminator movies, I haven't seen all of these in the franchise, but who could
bother who has time in the day, Gina. But the first two at least everything takes place on earth. But, you know, it's still the same day where like, you know, earth is going to become uninhabitable at some point. I love the old look where we are now in 2024. You know, the best you and I can hope for is that we'll be dead by the time that happens. You know, maybe you're a grandchildren lot to be, you know, watched to Jupiter or whatever, hopefully you'll live on a, you know, on a
commune there. But, but the whole idea of, you know, somebody fucked up and, and, you know, made the earth uninhabitable and the future is bleak. You know, it's, it's, you know, you're so working these lousy jobs, but you're working them in space. You know, at some point this, you know, techn, you know, this, this company, you created a chip that will, that will, you know, turn around and, and, and betray humans.
And, you know, this, everything that you looked like it was going to improve, you know, the lives of humans turned up, you know, ended up backfiring. And I just, I love, you know, it sounds wild to say, considering, you know, we're kind of almost literally looking down the barrel of a gun at this point. But I appreciate that citizen. You just have to represent the worst possible scenarios. I think they are, in many respects, they do a good because they can scare you into action.
But I also think the fantastical elements of this can also blind people that are like, that's so wild. I don't really believe it. When I hear that the temperatures rise by small degrees and that the oceans are rising by inches, how can that possibly affect me? And then you have hundred year floods every five years. And you're like, well, I just don't get it. What? Someone explained this to me. It's not like I haven't been hearing about it consistently since the
year 2000. But okay, you know, it just, it somewhat exposes you to it. But I also think it might enoculate people in the sort of lack of imagination department. It has to be so fantastical that it's this big thing rather than the accumulation of all the small things you can actually observe with your five senses. I think that's kind of the genius of Cameron is he is such a wildly big thinker. And while certain elements of the way he gets story points across are,
they really punch you in the face. There is no worse example of this than unobtainium. Like, he named something unobtainium. Gina. It resonated with people to the tune of two plus billion dollars. Could I tell you a secret? Sure. I've not seen either the Avatar movies. Oh, you know what? Gina, they're a good time. Oh, I don't know about that. But like, it's the first one. I just, I don't remember why I think I have a chance to see it in the theater. But I didn't. And then I
thought, well, I'm going to miss a little something the translation watching on TV. I have a decent size TV. But I feel like it's, you know, you know, you need your entire eyeballs need to see nothing but screen. It is one of those things that really does benefit from 3D because he films it where he built, you know, he wants to put you in a world and he understands how 3D works. Whereas so many other people and, you know, we've experienced this a couple times over the course of this movie.
Let's look at the contemporaries of the Terminator here when we're talking Friday the 13th, 3D or Parasite with a burnt oven mitt with teeth or jaws 3D. Those films are like 3D is about the big moments where things pop out of the screen. And Cameron's like, no, no, no, no, 3D is about taking you out of the seat you're in and allowing your mind to feel like you're a part of a world. He really goes for that all-encompassing feeling. And it's one of the best elements. I won't say
it's the best, but it is one of the better elements of his avatar world. So you feel like you're a fucking a part of it. You know, I wasn't, you know, I didn't, you know, it wasn't some, you know, conscious decision to not go see it. I just didn't get a chance to, and then I figured, well, did that ship sailed? Well, you were one of the first people to come online and start talking about how the Navi
are eating our pets. So I think you need to come to grips with the things that you have done and the damage done to the, I also want to apologize to the Haitian people, the real life people in Ohio whose lives have been fucked up by people making up fucking stories about air. I was going to say making jokes. Listen, if I have to, if I have to, to make up stories to draw attention to the Navi problem that I will continue to do so.
But if you're going to make up stories, make up, make up fucking avatar, make up the fucking terminator. You just regurgitated racist tropes. It's not a story. You're not a story teller. You're fucking lying to panic people into making shitty decisions about their government. It's so cynical and so fucking wrong. I hate them so much. I did. I do too. When I read the news anymore, I get the pulsing vein in my forehead, like my glion side and scanners.
They just, in a way, we're dealing with our own, listen, I don't want to get in trouble here. I was going to say, you don't want to want our listeners to accuse of being going woke. That's the last thing. We are so politically incorrect on this show, Gina. I feel like we are the Joe Rogans of the... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you sitting there with your disturbingly protruding nipples while you're reporting this? Well, yes, and naked. And I've shaved myself.
I was going to say you shaved every hair off your head. I'm jacked up on artificial, you know, H-G-H. Constantly screaming at people about low tea. We're a couple of supplements I love to chill out in about. I just, un-fucking-ble-ble-ble-ble-ble. But they, in a certain way, Trump and this crew are unstoppable. Like, you would think certain things would get out and people would hear that and they would just go, I got across this dude off my list.
But to a certain amount of people, you know, here in this country, they just like, wow, look at what that guy gets away with. If I could get away with like a 10th, I might really fucking come up in this world. And he just inspires people to do the worst possible shit. Yeah. And he, a couple people who truck a crack at him. I was going to say he does seem alarmingly unkillable. Yes. And I want to make this very, very clear. I do not wish
that kind of harm on Donald J. Trump. I want him to live, to see defeat. I want him to feel victory, sleep, sleep, permanence grasp and really live in that moment where he knows that his shit doesn't work anymore and he cannot get away with it. And he's just condemned to slumping towards whatever grave his children, you know, put on whatever, you know, golf course,
of golf course that he's going to end up in like his first wife. They have to do that because, you know, that they actually put a grave that people can go to, they would be, you, they would have to hire someone to constantly clean the piss and shit off of it. Right. You know, because it becomes the most popular toilet in town, it's just harder to do on its golf courses. What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah, the term.
I mean, this is going to go up like a month before a election day. Yeah. I mean, it's you can't, it's gone to the point like obviously, do whatever happens. You know, we're going to keep keep it on. We're going to keep doing this, you know, ma'am, a good cry that the worst happens. The the first time we, because I remember, I remember, let me, we had our, we had just recently started this show for the 2016.
And we only really had five full months of at least the audience listening to it. Because there was, there was a, there was some fault. We, we tried a bunch of times before. We ended up releasing the first episode that we, you know, we said, okay, I think this is at least 80% of what the formula is going forward. We kind of figured it out. There, but there was a bunch of like,
let's try it. Let's try it. Let's try it. We didn't quite have all the moving parts. And I, I think, listen, if you want to start podcasting, if I'm going to give you one piece of advice, it's like, don't make the first thing you record have to be your first episode. Try it out for a little while. It's not going to hurt anyone to not release your worst effort. So, you know, figure it out before you send it out into the world. But so we had been kind of
working on it and then started sending out episodes in June. And then all that, all that time thinking, certainly this man who, who's voice, you know, he tells you, I sexually assault women because I'm a star and you can get away with it. And you think, well, that's a fucking nail in the coffin for that, dude. That seems delicious. What a crazy story. I'll have to tell my children one day about this dumb shit. And then, oh, no. If he just convinced just enough people. Oh,
shit. He convinced just enough people. And that's where we're kind of facing again. Like, it's an all hands on deck situation. I would love for an election that isn't like the most important election of our lifetime. Turns out every election is the most important election of your lifetime, folks. Yeah. I would love to have an election where I don't feel like on, on your election night that I need to take some Xanax crumble in my hand and put them on top of pizza.
It just tastes better that way though, Gina. Well, yeah, I guess a little extra little extra spice or crunch. Yeah, I would love for this to be the reverse of 2016. Oh, yeah, I want, I want it to be yo, yo, yo, still half drunk. Yeah. And like just opening the show by singing cool, the gang celebration. As opposed to crawling into my bathroom and crying when I have 50 people watching, you know, the election results come in on my big on them, my outdoor screen.
That's how everyone in my neighborhood learned that this was fucking happening. It happened in a real time in front of us. And I just, I don't know. There's as much of a nightmare as the, the, the characters in the Terminator feel like is because I know what will happen. This, it's not unknowable. The guy had four fucking years in office and look what he fucking did with it. It's a miracle we got out of it. We had to drag his ass out of office and he lost my country
fucking mile. So what are you going to do this time? You can't just say, well, I like his policies. And they, I'm going to gatekeep here name a policy name three policies. Just one, just one fucking policy. And it can't be a concept of a policy either. And I'll tell you, if you want, if he has a metal endoskeleton underneath that flesh, oh my god, what must be the condition of it? Because look at what's happening to the guy. I mean, he does seem like he's decomposing right in front of us.
So that, that, that, that gives me some pleasure. Like, I mean, it's serious question. Has anybody seen Mitch McConnell recently? He appeared to be decomposing like last year? Like his, he was getting like he's like black patches. He's happening to you. He's very elderly. Like, and that's a delicate fucking position. That is, that is not a job. I think you can really do at a super advanced age. It was what all of us were reacting to with Biden. Just kind of like, hey, man,
I think he's probably mentally all there. But that's a really hard fucking job. Like Obama aged 20 years and eight. And he didn't start at Joe's advanced age. So like that, that takes, it takes a lot out of you. And what is so exciting about having, you know, maybe not the youngest person in the world, but someone who is the appropriate fucking age to be president of the United States, who can still speak to other people like a human being. Whereas JD Vance cannot order a
fucking donut and goes on television and goes, listen, I need to lie to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be scared about this thing. I want you to be scared about. I want to make our things on on TikTok right now are the, the various, impersonations of JD Vance and his awkwardness, which, which, which ranges from, you know, kind of walkward to maybe a serial killer to Edgar from men and black. I think it's the Edgar from men and black version of him that seems most realistic to me.
And it's, you know, everybody's got the, the, you know, various iterations of the eyeliner. One guy I saw had like, he made, he looked like the, the Alice Cooper look. Yeah. One guy just had like, like pieces of black tape under his eyes. And like there's so many different ones and they're all good. Like I think my favorite one is the guy who is, he's done a couple of different versions where one he's like, at a concert with JD Vance
and he's listening to Sweet Home Alabama. And then he's like kind of like slowly bobbing his head, like not to the rhythm of the music. And then like turn to says, I love human music. And then there's one, the best one I might have sent it to you. I'll have to send it to you afterwards if not is, is he looks like he's doing a interview. And then he turns and like looks directly, like into his camera and stairs for a full minute, just, just breathing. And like he does not
change the expression that is based at all. And when I tell you, the, the, the, the, cackling and wheezing that came out of me, I will send it to you when, when, because I have a favorite one tick tock. But yeah, I mean, I appreciate that, that we are getting some truly funny material out of all this. But, but you have to laugh because otherwise you're going to be constantly screaming. Yes. That is the other thing. Like I don't need someone yelling at me. Don't
get distracted. I can chew gum and walk at the same time. I can, I absolutely need the release of making fun of these truly ridiculous, weird mother fuckers. And I also give money. And I write postcards and I make phone calls. I do all this shit because I am desperate for them not to seize any lever of power at all. They just have to be taken away from any ability to shift or manipulate
are easily shifted and manipulated system of government. It's just two fucking fragile for these complete dipshits with zero plans other than to seize power and wield it against anyone that they have the barest width of otherness about. It's just do it for your neighbors. Do it for your kids. Do it for yourself. Do it for the most vulnerable amongst us who do not have enough power to say or do anything to protect themselves. We all fucking benefit. Just I plead with you from the bottom
of my heart. And I would like to say that we probably don't appeal much to the mauga. But oddly, we probably all have family members or neighbors or people we interact with that we probably can influence in some way, shape or form. And while it is uncomfortable, I promise you that discomfort is so much more worth it than the opposite effect. Yeah. And if you vote wrong, you're going to terminators that do you want? Do you want terminators? Do you want the most
incompetent fucking terminators of all time? Because how they will be programmed will be JD Vance's running loose with automatic weapons. Yeah, exactly. And we will all have to become like Reese's. Is it crazy that Reese is able to scramble on all fours faster than I can sprint currently? I mean, he is a super soul. He has a lot of practice. But the way he gets across the floor in that rickety department store on his hands and knees is like, holy shit. Would he win a 100 yard
dash with the way he's going? It's really fucking fast. I mean, also he's like 25. I mean, you'll think you would have been able to do that when you were 25. I definitely had better needs to do it. I was probably probably be faster by two feet at 25. But as someone who has to run a couple times a week with my dog at agility class, I can tell you, my running has become weirder and dumber than I've ever seen. Like, I'll take a video of me and I'd already fallen
down once. Oh, no. And I'm just like, oh my God, please never take video of me running again. This is not I am not in Tom Cruise level of wow, that guy's moving. And I'm thinking, hey, I'm making through an entire hour of sprinting. I'm doing pretty good at my age. And then I looked at the video and like, no, you're barely surviving. I'm like, patting myself on the back. So fucking hard. And yet, that's the end result of that. It's not a movie you have to go through
the plot. Because the plot is so thread bare. It's not a plot. And honestly, I mean, I would be surprised to encounter anyone. You know, certainly the demographic that appears to listen to our show that has not seen it. Yeah. If you haven't seen it, if you said, well, you know, I've seen T2 a million times and I've never gotten to it. I cannot stress enough. How really interesting and gritty and fun and thrilling and scary this year. Yeah, it's T2 goes for more of a sci-fi action
element. Yeah. Where in the original, because as you said, he's so much like a classic, unstoppable mask murderer. You know, it comes off much more like a horror movie. And also, you just got the the tones, whereas the ending of the first one is very bleak and foreboding. And the end of the second one is more is, is it me? Yeah, it's sad that, you know, he has to lower himself and a little bit. No, but it's still a more hopeful ending. I mean, they taught a robot
epithetic. Right. That's, that's an achievement. Whereas here, it feels like the future is unknown, but it doesn't seem good. And in, in Terminator 2, it's like the future is unknown and we can make a better way for ourselves. Right. Exactly. In terms of choosing your own death venture, it's really deciding how you want to get shot. I mean, I would say that the roommate and the boyfriend just get, you know, just get thrown around a death. I mean, certainly certainly that
boyfriend just, you know, beaten up and thrown through the door. He's just probably, you know, died of shock. If you ever wanted to see the Rick Rossovich from Top Gun, get the holy shit kicked out of him. This is the movie for you. You know, you're either shot or you get beaten the hell out of in your jockey shorts. Oh, you get presumably the the desk clerk dies from in fact, from a car. Yeah, he's squished by a car. I don't want that.
Um, yeah, you can get launched into a gate. I'm assuming that Bill Paxton's, you know, punk is dead or than a door nail after getting punched that hard. Well, yes. And, you know, his compatriot get, you know, Brian Thompson gets basic gut punched to the point where Arnie has a bunch of his guts and his hands. Yeah. Before you rewatching it for this, I, I, I, I don't want to call the Mandela effects. I really grow to hate that. But, but I had remiss remembered it that he'd
actually riches hard out. Yeah. Well, I think because so many people take this moment and then extrapolate it to the mortal combat. Oh, Rip a guy's hard out. And like that has happened in a bunch of movies we've watched since this terminator came out. So I think people elevate that moment like wouldn't it be cool if? And I don't know that a bunch of them are actually as cool as this terminator. I mean, you know, Reese with he falls down flight of stairs and breaks his neck.
Yeah. I mean, you know, that's all right. I'll take that. And I got to be real fucking dreamy. Yeah. Uh, you get some cool looking shoes and some paints, you know, got got some, you know, the, the morning, morning for my desk with that's, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. I got, I got some great hand. I got, I got to have a crush on somebody off my test. Yeah. Um, and then the, I think the worst death here is getting shot without getting the, the real chance to eat that post-sex
sandwich. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, that's no good. Like she's having a full ass, baloney and ham sandwich with peanut butter celery. That's a big appetite for her. She already pregnant. That's she tried that's pregnant lady food. She's trying. That's for sure. She pill, she pulls out a dozen elements out of that refrigerator and go and houses a fucking post-sex sandwich. Like, this is like, this is like, she's like, she's like, Dagwood. I mean, if I'm going to make a
Dagwood sandwich, I would like the ability to eat it. I do not want to be shot in the back before I could enjoy it. That, that seems real mean. So what are you, what are you taking? Are you taking, are you taking falling down a flight of stairs and breaking your neck too? I'll just take execution style shot in my own home with a laser guy. Yeah. I mean, she's probably doesn't have too much time to figure out what's going on before. I mean, she looks, she looks scared,
but but she does look scared, but it's over. Like, she's kind of a confused, a comedy. So scared and deeply confused at the same time. Yeah. So, which yeah, honestly, like, like, if I open the door and there was this giant mother-fucker pointing a gun with a laser sight at me, I'd be like, oh, that's strict. Yeah. Then that thought is on the wall behind me. Exactly. And, you know, good night. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, no longer up this,
for this world. Absolutely. So that, you know, for all of you out there who aren't part of our Patreon, there's a lot of great stuff for you to listen to on their just over a hundred episodes of fun, extra material for you to check out. And if you haven't rate or review it on your pod catcher of choice, by all means do so. If you see our posts on social media, interact with it. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to, for that to reach more people. It's been a little hard
post Twitter to reach that many people. It's kind of inconsistent. So if you migrated to other places or if you want to come and be a part of the Facebook community, we would love to have you. Halls still saw all of our artwork good at Josh Halls calm and go to revenge body Memphis at bandcamp.com for this theme and all of our remixes. Gina, where do people see and hear more from you on these here? Internet. I write about movies and television pop culture at my newsletter.
You know, Gina, watch us things that substab.com. And I, you know, I would apologize for us getting so political on this episode. But I don't apologize. I'm not sorry. Like you, if you listened to us long enough, you know, like you know what we are and you know how we feel about things. And I don't believe in, you know, separating things, you know, I think it's very silly when, when, you know, people complain for horror movie is, is you know, metaphor for, you know,
something actually happening in reality. It feels a little like, you know, this doesn't, you know, this doesn't concern me. Ergo, I don't want to hear about it. And, and, you know, maybe you're, you're not an immediate risk of anything that could happen with the wrong people getting elected. And, you know, technically speaking, you know, we're, the two of us are fairly down on the list. But, you know, we actually, we have a thing that's called people we care about.
And, you know, whether we actually know these people or, you know, human beings in general, you know, there is that saying, you know, I don't know how to convince you that you should care about other people. And so when you say, oh, I don't want to hear about this. I read that as you don't care about other people. And your opinion in that regard means very moving to me. And I have to believe that the people in our audience are smart enough and capable enough.
And they've come with us this far. They're, they're probably into this kind of message. It's probably someone around them who needs to be convinced. Yeah. If any of you follow me on social media, this none of this should surprise you. Yeah. We have not really kept our socials apolitical in any way, shape or form. So that, this should not come as a surprise. But I think it's a pep talk here. We're, we're all in
this, the same boat. Unless you're, you know, we have a wide international audience as well now. And I want to assure them we take this seriously. And we would like our government to be better, to treat your government and your people better. And there's an opportunity to do that. And we're going to strive to do that in a month from now, where we will still be talking about horror movies and characters in the order in which they die. But that just about does it for now,
for myself and for Gina. Bye, everybody. Bye.