Listener Mail: Stormbringer

I guess that's still the primary way we communicate. But we do have a discord channel, um, which well, it's kind of it's kind of hard to get to. I think you have had to have been in the Facebook group for Stuff to Blow your Mind, and that's where the invite for the discord is. I don't know. I barely understand how discord works, but I had to. Don't think I was even aware of this? Really? Oh I thought you were aware. Well, anyway, there is a Stuff to Blow your Mind discord channel. I wish I could

tell you how you can access it. Um, maybe you should tell me if you want access to it, right in to our email address and I'll send you the

link or whatever. Uh, But I heard from a couple of our listeners there about our episode on the Whispering Sword about sentient weapons and mythology and legend, and of course we we primarily looked at a few different, uh, mythological and folkloric examples, and we alluded to some fictional examples, but we didn't really spend a lot of time there, and we said, hey, let us know about some of your favorite fictional sentient weapons. And so I have a

couple of good responses here. So matt on Discord shares the following quote love the cold open on whispers of the Speaking Sword episode, and honestly, the narrative readings and skits are always a highlight. Joe's comment on swords being entitled to the tribute of cleaning to keep them happy and that cleaning a sword is also important for maintaining it makes me wonder if irish myth is where the

concept of the mechanicalsts belief. He's referring to something in Warhammer forty thousand and uh in machine spirits and the need to placate them was drawn from in the Warhammer forty thou universe upkeep of technology has become ritualized to the point that a firearms spirit must be placated by annoyting it with sacred oils lest it fail in combat, with no consideration given to the physical impact that the

oil has in the weapons operation. The ritual of annointing the weapon has the desired effect, just not for the

reasons they think. You know, it's funny. I can imagine things uh happening in the real world in a in a fashion like this, though not understanding the real reason you're performing maintenance on something and turning it into it like a religious ritual would certainly make the practice less adaptable, like you wouldn't you know understand as well, like how you need to change the practice to respond to changes

in conditions. Yeah. Yeah, but but I think he may be into something here, because yeah, there's a lot in in that universe about you know, forgotten technology, technology that can no longer be replicated but can only be maintain aimed and is maybe the only half understood at best.

Fletch on Discord Shairs the following that was a great episode, but no mention of Stormbringer lric of Melnibone's bloodthirsty demonic blade Uh, this is, of course, we're referencing the books by Michael Moorecock, um, which I think I've I've actually read one of them and I enjoyed it. And then Michael Moorecock also wrote the lyrics to Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue oysterc Cult, among as many other accomplishments. I know you've had that on your mind lately. Yeah,

it's a solid jam um. Fletch continues. Also from the Odyssey quote the blade itself incites two deeds of violence um was used as the title of Joe Ambercrombie's first excellent fantasy novel, or an even better translation of the same phrase for iron by itself can draw a man to use It seems super relevant when Robert and Joe were talking about how tools can encourage you to see every problem in terms of their use. Oh yeah, of course. And you can realize this in a million different ways.

I mean, I think, for example, if I'm remembering this right, I think Emmanuel Kand wrote about the idea that a a country that has a standing army will always be tempted to find uses for the army in the same way that a person who's holding a weapon will be more tempted to think of ways that a weapon should be used in a scenario where, you know, if they didn't have the weapon on their person, they might not

think that it was so important to to to choose violence. Now, speaking of British sci fi and warfare science fiction, Fletch also shares, Oh, another one just sprang to mind. I'm not sure if it's a bit obscure, but Rogue Trooper, the genetically engineered super soldier from those two thousand a D comic strip had a rifle, helmet and backpack that had the personality chips of three of his dead comrades, Gunner Helm and Bagman or Bagman uh that would talk

to him and could operate equipment by themselves. Interesting. Okay, I'm not familiar with this comic. I'm familiar with it, but I've never read it. I've when it comes to two thousand a D. I've read a lot of Judge Dress and um, I don't think i've read any Roade Trooper. Oh, that's okay. Judge Drey is two thousand yeah, okay, but there are several like he's probably the most well known. Yeah, he's definitely the most well known two thousand character and

win world. But but there are various other settings and worlds that are popular underberneath that umbrella as well. I hear he is the law, Yes, yes, all right, So we've been getting tons of emails in response to queueing. This has got to be one of our one of our highest mail bag ratio episodes of all Definitely we've gotten the same way that probably still the most we ever got, I would guess was the one about school dreams. Those still trickle in. Yeah, yeah, those all the time.

We've got so many of those, we couldn't even scratch the surface. But we've also got a lot about queuing, so we'll try to catch up reading some of these. Sorry if you were one of the many emailers on queuing, and sorry we we can't even come close to reading all of these, but I grabbed a few here and and I guess will dip in. So uh. This first message comes to us from Max. Max says Hi, Robert, Joe Seth and Carney. Longtime listener here from Sydney, Australia.

I was talking about your episodes on queueing with my partner who lives in Singapore and has always said, Singaporeans love to cueue, and she reminded me of a cultural queuing experience that took me by surprise a few years ago Wilston, Singapore. She brought me to a reputable Michelin Star restaurant to eat chicken rice. Waiting for food was handled in an orderly manner by means of a ticketed queuing system. However, finding a table in the dedicated dining

area required self governance. This manifested as unseated patrons analyzing people who were already seated to determine who would finish eating the fastest e g. Do they have a child, are they talking a lot? How full are their plates? Et cetera. A sweet spot in the room could then be selected for standing and waiting in until a nearby customer finished their meal and yielded their table. I must emphasize the nearby in this statement, as there were many

other people doing the same thing in different areas. My partner assured me that this was common practice, yet I still felt uncomfortable with both waiting purposefully in order to encourage people to eat faster, and then later with the experience of others waiting for us queues for food court seating in general are a little bit lawless at the best of times. However, this was not a public food court. Thanks for your episodes over the years, and also for

recommendations such as Blind Site and the Rifters series. Looking forward to that future Star Trek episode, Max, Yeah, we do need to do something Star Trek related eventually. I was just thinking about that the other day. Uh. Yeah, this is really interesting because of course you're talking about like pairing the different kinds of waiting experience is one that is like just opportunistic and self governed, and the other that's an orderly, first come, first serve q uh.

And it's funny that the first come, first serve q is the first half of the experience. But then you have to find a place to sit. I've into places. In fact, there's even like a food court type place here in Atlanta that I've been several times that it

is much like this. You know, you you wait in line to get your food, but then you've got to find a table, and that's actually the really stressful part um But because at that point you've got your food like on a tray in many cases, and then where, like where are you gonna go like that's the worst. It's like, oh man, uh, I'm not gonna have to like squat and gobble this this uh this this meal somewhere. Yeah, totally.

And and then the other interesting thing about it was how it changes your mentality about queuing and ordering access when what you're trying to get access to is not like a good or service that you, you know, get done and then you can leave, but an experience, like if you're, you know, sitting down to have a meal, is you're you're paying to have a nice experience that

is going to be pleasant. And obviously if that experience is tempered by the fact that you're aware of people are like looming over your shoulder hurrying you to get up, that doesn't think that I don't know, but it sounds like, you know, for people who are used to it, and this is a common way of ordering restaurants, uh uh, you know, if you're used to it, I guess it just doesn't bother you. I guess it's like and this

I'm very much talking pre pandemic times here. It's it's like if you travel to somewhere like New York City and you realize, oh, if I go to eat at a restaurant, I'm going to be exceedingly close to everybody else in that restaurant, because that's just how dining spaces tend to work. In a city like this, like that can be shocking, Uh, if you're coming from a place where you tend to have like, uh, you know, more

of a you know, spacious dining experience. But if you if you've experienced enough, if you've been in New York City long enough, then you would grow accustomed to that sort of environment, and it just makes sense that you're this close to other people. Yeah, Rob, I wondered if you might want to read this one from Matt because I wonder if you've had a similar experience to what Matt describes here with with air travel. Okay, uh yeah,

Matt rides Hello, Robert and Joe. I love the show and really enjoy the deep ways you've think about topics. I have three thoughts about waiting in line. Firstly, at the airport gate, when they call my section to board a plane, a hundred or so people jump to their feet to make a long line, while I prefer to

stay in my seat as long as possible. Being six too tall, I don't see the point of rushing to leave my chair with plenty of leg room to squeeze into the tiny and cramped coach seat on the plane, let alone stand in line a line that doesn't help me in any way to gain a better position on the plane. Secondly, I would like to point out the disappointing feeling that occurs when you join a line and nobody else joins the line for a long time or never.

It makes the time spending the line feel like so much more of a waste when I could have done something else productive for all that time and not missed out on my place in line. And Lastly, when I was in elementary school in Australian in the nineties, kids would frequently ask for backage, being asked can I have backage? And it meant may I get in line behind you? The person would usually grant the backage if they liked you, and hence you'd only ask for backage from a friend

because it was an unofficial law amongst the kids. Although the kids trailing in line were unhappy about it, they would never complain about the injustice. Thanks for all the learning I get, Matt Rob. I could be mistaken, but I feel like what Matt describes about the airport experience sounds like a rant you've given me before. Am I wrong about that? I don't know. Possibly. I mean airports

make people rant, and I'm no exception to that rule. Um, I would say the only exception that I have to to Matt's statement here is that, yes, of all things were equal, I would prefer not to wait in line to then go get on a plane and be cramped in a seat. However, more often than not, part of wanting to get on the plane first is not so much about getting your seat, which is generally on most

flights anyway. I mean, I think there's some airlines where it is kind of first come, first served, but for the most part, yeah, your seat is guaranteed, but not necessarily space for your bag in the overhead compartment. So boy, that is that is what makes ends up making me nervous because I'm like, oh, all these people are already on the plane, am I going to have a space

to put this? Or in any cases, you get the chance to like go ahead and check your carry on, and sometimes I do that just to avoid that particular headache. So if you've ever had a checked bag lost. Then that probably makes you a lot more hesitant to uh, just like hand over your bag at the gate. It's not fun. But I don't know. I mean, I think I've been fortunately, I don't think I've had a bag

ever lost like that. But I still I guess some of these unknowns right that ultimately make one nervous, like, Okay, there's gonna be a line, how's it gonna work? What section am I in? And then is there gonna be a room for my bag? And I need to pre check the bag? Now it's I'm you know, I'm just kind of all over the place mentally. At that point, I wondered if you were going to do an Australian accent for the Australian elementary schoolers think apologize for that.

I don't. I don't think by Australia an accent was ever very good at it kind of falters and becomes a bad Irish accent later on. Alright, this next message comes from somebody who just identified themselves as the letter A. So uh that is just fine, A, says dear Robert and Joe. So many things to write about Q theory. I consider myself a good natured pedant with an appreciation

for the categorical imperative. For decades, I have gleefully and cautiously zoomed past dutiful fellow Midwesterners who start lining up single file at the first notice of a lane closure. My conscience is clear, as I'm mentally broadcast. Actually, it is better for everybody to use all the available lane capacity upon merging at a late enough entry point to

get a little bit of a thrill. I will gladly let somebody else in front of me, and at times when I'm caught waiting through the long backup, I'll still happily let in someone who is on their game and gets in at the last minute, saluting them for their good use of the road. I related something like this to my boss on the way to a job site, and he said that people who wait until the last minute to merge should be taken out of their cars

and publicly executed. Fortunately, he's hard of hearing, so he just assumed I was complaining about those who use all of the road that the public has given. He's quite reasonable, and normally we would be up for a loud discussion about a traffic study, but I let the matter rest This reminds me of the thing about I think the conclusion I came to about the late merging thing is that obviously, yes, it is clearly logical that that everybody should use all the lanes and do the late merging thing.

But the problem is not everybody knows this, and until it is widely known and everybody gets it, you still maybe like have disincentives from doing it just because like people freak out, yeah, or it's just not the cultural norm. It's kind of like, um, it's like like eating bananas. So if you were hanging out with some with some people, or you just in an environment where hey, everybody has a banana. Now everybody gets to eat a banana. Are

you going to open your banana the human way? Or you're going to open it the way that I believe primates have been observed to open it other non human primates, uh, from the bottom of the banana. Which I've heard the argument, and I don't know if this is actually the case, but I've heard the argument being made that this is the better way to open the banana. But if everyone else is doing it the other way, you're gonna feel

social pressure to uh to to follow their suit right. Well, yeah, but also I mean there is a there is more of an illusion of a competition for resources in the traffic situation. Whereas a few people would want to shoot you in the face for the way you open a banana, people actually would say they want to do that about traffic. But of course, please nobody never engage in violence over even if somebody is actually genuinely very rude in traffic, Come on, it's not worth it and let people eat

bananas how they want to eat bananas. Don't be a jerk about that either. I'm just gonna put that out there, So A goes on. I believe Q theory has some interesting applications in other dynamic road settings. When I'm on foot and need to cross street, I would much rather a multi ton vehicle keep its momentum rather than stop for me to cross and have to accelerate again. Um,

that is really admirable global energy conservation thinking. A my hat is off to you, uh goes on, particularly when there are no other cars and everyone would be on their way more quickly if I only had to wait for them to cruise past my crossing point rather than waiting for them to come to a full stop before I cross in front of their deadly vehicle. I would consider this to be a good example of a parado improvement. I will typically conceal my intention to cross in order

to facilitate this. Also, I'd much rather wait for a slug of traffic to clear the road than to make multiple cars stop just for me and mess up the flow. Where I live, people seem to fall all over themselves to stop their car for pedestrians waiting to cross. I believe this is the law, and there are obvious situations where it is the right thing to do, but it's

clear that the system is flawed. Oh. I've certainly been in situations where clearly the pedestrian has the right away and there is a crosswalk, but traffic is terrifying, and therefore I might wait for, yeah, for there to be like a slight clearance, Like I'm not gonna be the one to like. I mean, my right of way only

goes so far if a car actually hits me. Um, And sometimes I'll wait and for another person to want to cross as well, and we realize that their strength in numbers, surely they won't run over two or three of us. Or do you ever wait for a cyclist who, at least in my experience, for some reason, just seem to be more fearless. Maybe the fact that people on bicycles are just so constantly threatened and menaced by people

in cars that like they become immune to it. Uh. Yeah, I always try and be very careful around uh bicyclists. You know that they say share the road, but I feel like yield the road is a little a little more accurate. Um, And I'm fine with it. I would rather I would. Yeah. I mean it's difficult because a lot of roads in modern cities and places are just not designed with cyclists in mind. I mean it's quae if they are like bike lanes or protected bike lanes

or whatever. A lot of roads just like this is clearly this was not built to accommodate bicycles. Yeah, and um yeah, I mean I have friends who have have been in some some rough um scrape ups between their their bicycles and other cars. So I mean I always always be careful around bicyclists. A goes on. While I was visiting South Korea a while back. It was the norm for drivers to blow through red lights when no other vehicles were in sight quite rightly, in my opinion,

it makes sense to reject the one vehicle queue. Also, they definitely didn't treat pedestrians waiting to cross with the same indulgence they get over here. I'm no expert, but it seems like widespread modern traffic is maybe more recent and even a developed country like South Korea, and that perhaps a country's general approach to traffic queuing situations will

change as more generations go by widespread automobile use. I believe this was the case in the US as cars became more common, although that is obviously a bit different. Why do we wait at red lights at three am when no one else is on the road. When did we start doing this? Is this from our culture or because vehicular travel has reached a level of maturity or more abundity in our society. It seems counter to the

American ideal of individualism. I mean, I guess in my perspective on that it would depend on you would want to be really sure that you were actually able to see clearly in every direction and make sure that you weren't mistaken about the fact that somebody wasn't coming. Though I guess that's also true of just to stop sign Yeah,

our our turn signals, you know. I mean, that's always a situation where the turn signal lets people know what you're going to do, including people that you might not see,

someone who might be in your blind spot, etcetera. Finally, a truly egregious cue violation is when a car intending to travel straight through an intersection stops in order to yield to a vehicle queued up to turn left, waving them through the intersection and into the path of other cars that are still following the natural queuing order and may not be able to react to this apostasy. This mock politeness is nothing more than a thoughtless, self serving

grab for warm feelings and can be deadly. However, I do not believe it warrants public execution. Love the show A Oh yeah. I mean I encounter a version of that a lot where I'm I'm in a turn lane, or I'm trying to make a turn across traffic, and there I have to go across two lanes of oncoming traffic, and a person in one lane will suddenly stop and try and wave me on, but they can't see I can't see the other lane. They're not there. They probably

have an entirely different view of this whole scenario. And I'm not gonna venture into this this danger, but it puts you in a tough spot because one person is trying to be polite. They're just you know, they don't have all the they don't have the virtues of your perspective on the situation which in which you realize that

there's danger in following, uh, following their advice. I think the correct solution to this is that all settled areas of human habitation aations should be fully grid grid mapped in terms of road access, and left turns should all be illegal, so everywhere you get you go full right turns and nothing. But yeah, maybe so all right, we have another bit of listener male about sentient weapons here. Uh shall I read this one? Go for it? All right?

This is from camera and hello Robert and Joe. I just listened to your episode Whispers of the Speaking Sword. I wanted to point out a couple of examples of such weapons. I am familiar with. The first, perhaps unsurprisingly considering the mythological origins comes from J. R. Tolkien. Token encountered the Calavaga before his earliest Middle Earth writings were begun, and some aspects of some of the stories would become

the sill Marillion can be traced back to it. In particular, Token's tragic character Turin Tourambar from the chapter of Turin tour Rambar in the Silmarrian also and also from the longer version of the same tale has published more recently, The Children of huran Um. Anyway, they continued. This was inspired by Kolervo and even has a talking sword of

its own. Turin's sword, named Girthong, appears to speak to Turin just before Turin uses it to commit suicide after discovering the truth about his accidentally incestuous marriage to his sister. This is of course, right out of the the Kalavala here Um Anyway, they continue. In earlier versions of the sill Marillion, this same sword is prophesized to be used during the final battle Degre Degre to defeat the first

dark Lord more Goth when he returns from the void. Additionally, sentient or at least intelligent weapons also appear in um In Shin shah Uh. This is I believe literally Immortal hero Uh, the genre of Chinese fantasy literature where they are often referred to an English translation and as spiritual weapons.

These weapons often appear to have some sense of preferences or intentions, a strong spiritual connection to their users or makers, and sometimes the ability to act with some degree of autonomy. I am personally very new to this genre, but a recent example has gained popularity in the US and the live action drama The Untamed, which includes a few examples of spiritual weapons being used by its main characters. Thanks for another enjoyable episode. Camera. You know my current D

and D campaign. One of the members of our party is a cleric, and he's got a He's got a really good spiritual weapon. It's a big old ghost hammer. Oh yeah, spiritual weapon. That's a that's a good, a good cleric spell. And every time he uses it, I end up singing that Snoop Dogg song spiritual weapon. I think the radio edit is called sensual seduction, but I seek spiritual weapon. Okay, And I've say I'm not familiar

with this. Untamed TV series appears to be a two thousand nineteen Chinese television series adapted from a non full so it looks interesting, but I'm assuming this is one that has available, Uh, internationally on one service or another. So if you're interested in that, look it up. All right, Joe, do we have any weird house cinema listener mail to round things out with? Oh yeah, we got a bunch.

I guess we've only got time for a couple right here, but i'll read this first one from Stacy since it's about Deep Blue Cy. Stacy says, hello again, gentlemen. I have indeed seen Deep Bluecy at the movies when it was new. I loved it then and still do. The biggest thing being talked about in my circles of the time was how this movie mercilessly killed off almost its whole cast. Whole families were saved in Jurassic Park, not so with the Smart Sharks. Also, I always thought Michael

Rappaport's character was more of a facility engineer type. I think she's answering the fact that I said he was the scientist, so apologies about that, but she says he knew about the emergency hatch ladder. That's that's a good memory, Stacy. Best regards Stacy, and uh yeah, we're regarding your comparison to Jurassic Park, which is relatively uh very wooly, uh,

compared to the way this movie treats its characters. I wonder if this is what the Jurassic Park franchise was trying to fix by filling Jurassic World with absolutely totally inappropriate deaths by torture of characters who had done nothing wrong. Yeah, there's that whole sequence with the the lady getting scooped up by the Daranodon and then or or screaming or yeah, and then she's dropped into the tank with the Oh yeah, yeah,

it's it's it's rough. I can't remember if I've ranted on this show before about how much I hate Jurassic World, that I found that movie just repellent. Um. Yeah, I remember disliking the tone of the time I first saw, but then I watched it again with the boy with my son and uh, and he seemed alright with it,

so I'm kind of like, Okay, maybe I'm overreacting. Um. And then we watched that more recent one, which I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show before, but I found it interesting that it's it's essentially a Hannibal Lecter movie with but with dinosaurs. Was the Haunted House one? Yeah, yeah. Oh I liked that one more. Yeah, because that one was just absolutely that was goober licious. It was I don't know how else to put it. It was a Haunted House movie, but with raptors instead

of ghosts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can I can definitely see I can see the Haunted House comparisons. I I do think it does have some It's kind of like if Thomas Harris wrote a dinosaur movie as well. There's some some some areas of it that I think line up with Hannibal elector fiction. But yeah, it was pretty fun. All right, I'm gonna read one here from Dan. Dan says, hello, Mr Rob and Mr Joe. I love Brad Doris and I'm so glad you finally discussed one

of his movies. Why is Blood Next? I've never seen Spontaneous Combustion, though it sounds like something I might have watched on the Sci Fi Channel or T and T in the mid to late nineties, possibly with Joe Bob

Briggs intro. Highly possible they continue. Two movies that show Doriff's range as an actor that you did not mention or talk much about that I'd like to recommend are Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning and Werner Herzog's The Wild Blue Yonder, the former being about the FBI investigation into the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, in which Dorof plays a sheriff's deputy and KKK member involved in the killings, while the later is pure uncut doriff crazed intensity, in

which he plays the alien that's all caps or at least capitalized, who spends much of this documentary quote unquote ranting to the camera about how he came from another galaxy and how we earthlings think aliens are so powerful but in truth just suck. Um. I um. It's been a long time time since I saw Mississippi Burning. I think I'm you know, I was like in junior higher so when I saw it, So I don't remember much of of Doriff's performance. I I definitely I remember of

what's the who else? In that gene Hackman? Um. I've never seen it, obviously, dealing with the much more serious subject matter than anything we usually do in weird house cinema. Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's one of well we'll come back to. But I remembered as is being a good film. It has what's his name? Green Goblin? Oh, Willem Dafoe. William Dafoe is in it. He's he's good. Uh. And I think it has some other actors of note. Uh. And I haven't seen The Wild Blue Yonder. There's another one

I'm familiar with. I definitely know it's one of the Herzog Dorriff joints, but it's not one that I've seen anyway. Dan continues speaking of aliens. What is it about Alien Resurrection that Joe hates so much? I haven't seen it in a long time, but I don't remember it being that terrible. Was it that they brought Ripley back as a clone with Zeno morph d n A. On another note, I just want to say that I enjoy how Robert calls movies films, motion pictures or just picture. I think

it brings a lot of classiness to the show. I hope you're doing well. Love the show, Dan. I think for some reason you were saying motion picture a lot in the episode on spontaneous combustion just in the air that day. I don't know, I mean a lot of it's probably elegant variation on my part, but but now maybe I was trying to class it up a little bit too. About Alien Resurrection. It's not any particular broad plot decisions. I mean, I think most broad plot decisions

I could be okay with, if you know, if they're executed. Well, it's just something I just find the movie esthetically nauseating, just like every single frame of it and the way it looks, the way it sounds is just disgusting to me. M I have to say, I don't know much about like the making of story on that one, but it clearly has It has so many talented people involved in it. Uh the I mean, the the whole cast we we mentioned briefly, I think the last one. How how many

great names are involved in that one? Um uh, you know, bit players and the main characters, and of course the director Jean Pierre Janet, who did such films as a Malay and Delicatessen, UM, Very Long Lost Children, Yes, did City of Lost Children as well, which you know is is these are all films that really pop visually and

and and I really like. Uh. Resurrection is not a film that I'm tremendously opposed to, but it's also not a film I've I've really watched a lot and I would be curious as to what it's production history is because I know, when you're dealing with an Alien film, you're dealing with a you know, a huge corporate product. Uh. And of course they're stories, especially like Alien three, about how susceptible that product is to like produce or tinkering

and so forth. Yeah, I mean, I guess, just being a huge fan of the first two Alien movies, I have a lot of strong feelings about it too, so uh though I actually really appreciate a lot of things about Alien three. I mean, Alien three is a hard movie, uh to judge in terms of quality, because I think I've said this on the show before, but I sort of have to regard it as an unfinished film. It is a movie that has a lot of good stuff on the screen, a lot of good creative energy behind it,

some really great actors in it. Of course, Sigourney Weavers wonderful as always, Charles Stutton, you know, that's all great stuff. And I really like some of the production design on it. And and basically the premise of the movie is interesting and very gutsy in a way. But also I mean, I mean, having read about the production, I can understand why Fincher tried to disown it. The director David Fincher, I think just because like it's a movie that, uh, he was not allowed to complete in a way that

was creatively acceptable to him. And so in a way what we have is just sort of like a an unfinished film held together by duct tape and staples. Resurrection I find absolutely revolting and it literally hurts the viewer um as once you get back into the modern era. I haven't seen Prometheus again since I saw it in the theater, and I wonder what I would think of

it now. I mean, my memory of it is, uh that it was very beautiful to look at and had some really good sequences, but overall not make a lot of sense and and kind of irritated me. And then once you get into oh what was the one after that one called Covenant? Alien Covenant, once you get into that area, it's like so stupid that it can just be pure fun again. Uh So that's one of those movies. I think I've said this about a few movies recently.

It's one where almost everything I can think of to say about it as a criticism and yet I really enjoyed it I love how in the middle of the movie you have no choice, like your eyes just turned into ping pong balls. It is it? Uh is? It turns into this Island of Dr Moreau movie with with with Michael Fastbender in the in the Moreau role. I don't know. It's so weird and so dumb and makes so little sense, but it's a lot of fun. Yeah. I think Alien Covenant is essentially there three films in there,

and I love two of them. Um, but but but what about the a VP films? Joe, you just get right over him. You can't talk about dumb alien films without touching touching in on those right. Oh yeah, that's a different kind of dumb. I haven't watched those in a while. I think I remember the first one being bad, but you know, in an enjoyable kind of schlocky movie that I would definitely watched a couple of times in college. There was one that came after that. There was like

set in an American city. It was more like the you know, trying to do the thing that that the more recent Predator movie was also doing, just like unleashing these on suburbia or whatever. I remember thinking that that one was really gross and unpleasant. Yeah, I think what the world needed. I don't know if this is still a viable option, but I'm thinking underworld versus alien versus predator,

that's what the world needs. You get you get your alien, I mean, you get your aliens in there, eena more so you have your predators in there. You also have werewolves and vampires. How about and leprechron also because you gotta have brad Dora. Oh yeah, yeah, why not? Why not? How about alien versus Chucky? There you go. Alien is not gonna know what to do. This is just a stuff toy, right right? Or let a man lebra con What's he gonna do is grant a wish to a xenomorph?

But what does the xenomorph dream about? I wish for meat? Yeah, Okay, we've gone too long, alright, alright, Well we're gonna go ahead and close it up here. But we thank everybody who wrote in shared messages with us. Keep keep them coming. We don't have time to respond to all of them. We don't have time to read them all on the show, but we we do. We do read them when they

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You know how to get in touch with us, and you can find listener mail every Monday and the Stuff to Boil Your Mind feed Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday's Artifact on Wednesday, Weird House cent them on Friday. That's our time to just set most of the science aside and discuss a weird film. And on the weekends we have a rerun for you Huge Things. As always

to our excellent audio producers Seth Nicholis Johnson. If you would to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.