Mickey 17

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The Film Board gathers. The Gang of Thugs has come together to talk about a film currently in theaters, and this week we take on the great bun. June Hose return to sci fi with his own stamp on multiplicity. It's Mickey seventeen. Hi, Mickey, are you.

Experiencing any vertigo?

I guess I am feeling a little dizzy. Oh wow, did you see that?

I wouldn't be surprised if you were thinking at this point, what have I done? Oh? Doctor is your one? God? Nothing was working out and I wanted to get off of her. You're planning to be inexpendable.

Yeah, you read through the whole application.

Is that a kick in there? I should have read through it. Once you die would print a new version of your body.

They made me work my ass off on one mission after another.

Every time you die, we learned something new that humanity moves forward. Oh, it's life is fine, My life, Biggie it's not looking very good for you. Yeah no, I'm sure you're used to it by now, But what's itf you like to die? Even on my seventeenth go around?

I hate dying?

Why aren't you dead? With multiples? Shine up this friendic case of this month, we're staring down direct our Bong June host follow up to Parasite with Mickey seventeen film that esks what if your job literally killed you? Who still couldn't quiet quit? We follow an expendable space colonists played by the Roberts Pattinson, who die repeatedly on dangerous missions, only to be reprinted and reprogrammed with his own memories. Looked for it coming soon in your corporate wellness program.

Hello gents, Hello, hello you, And it's so exciting to have Andy Nelson back.

Yeah, here on bord it's a little weird. I need to be a call. There was like a cold wind blew through arm microp.

Well, last time I was here, I think it was Megan. So I'm only coming for them movies.

Now, Oh, outstanding. At least I know what the what the fuss is If it's an f movie, Andy is summoned.

Yeah, we'll see that. Maybe it's also has to be someone's name.

This is a fascinating movie because I saw JJ for real in real life yesterday and we both had a little kibbutz about how much we did actually enjoy this movie, and we both said the same thing, Gosh, when we were watching this movie, we sure were thinking about Andy. And I think as we go into one of the things that I've learned that that is Sackri saying to

I think it's funny that that I was in both of your thoughts. It's like, I'm You're both Timo and I'm I'm the Mickey, and you're both trying to figure out how can we how can we best exploit him?

Yes, what does it feel like to die?

Yeah? Right?

You know this is it's a it's a frustrating film for me because I generally am.

Just starting with the acts, just going too you know, but.

It's it's frustrating. It's like I enjoyed Bong June Hoe when he's telling films that that are done with I don't want to say just like a serious a more serious tone, but there's something about when he has a much more comedic style in his films that I really struggle with his his comedy stylings. And so this was a hard one for me. And there's a lot of really interesting ideas in the film, but on the whole, I just had a hard time getting through this film.

It was just a rough watch.

And it didn't help that I was in an audience that largely completely silent through it, like Narry Alas it was not, and it was it was like i'd say, maybe third full auditorium, and so it is pretty quiet, and so it just you know, it just didn't make for a great watching experience.

Okay, well that's a huge bummer, and you've really harshed our buzz. So let's see it's gonna pile on.

Well, the word that I was going to use, and I'm not kidding because I have it in my notes right here, is frustrating. It is a movie where I like and agree with so many of the ideas. There's a lot of really great parts in it. I just and I feel bad saying this. I wish it wasn't so much movie. It took on nine different topics and kind of lowly or shallowly talked about all of them, and I would have really liked to deep dive into

Detailed.

Well, now, I'm fine with voiceover as long as it's not just sort of meandering, and this film is wall to wall voiceover, to the point that it makes me wonder how much of it was added later on, because entire scenes are just voiceover when you're seeing people have conversations and we can't hear it. So I like a lot of it. I'm glad to have seen it. Overall, I really felt it's running time and it just felt way too.

Spread out, sort of sharp act, says JJ Rebuttal.

Yeah, well, I don't think it is a complete Rebuttal because I definitely agree with the amount of time there, I think. So I have many questions for all of you, but in particular Andy, like this thing about and Pete actually the thing that he warned me about or told me about in regards to your feelings about Bong jun Ho.

Is war about in particular the entire and I did.

Actually find this movie very funny. I do think that my theater was more silent than I would like to, not like me laughing at Marvin getting his head shot off in pulp fiction and nobody else in the theater joining me kind of, but it was closer to that, right, But so I get that, But I really would like to hear sort of more on your feelings about that when we get to it, especially because the reason why I thought of you so much is because this movie

For me, I super enjoyed those first parts.

It took me by surprise a lot in that I thought it was going to be kind of strictly multiplicity kind of movie, strictly about cloning and duality, and there ended up to be applications of that concept. That felt really kind of prime Bong Juneo to me in that like thinking of these futuristic things and then translating it to things that may have to do with politics and these, you know, all of these things that I thought was great. It did the acts to grind for me is a

So that was so ideologically focused there. Well, and this is.

Where we get into these different ideologies, right, like and I really love how the story told us the backstory of why multiples are a terrible thing, but they didn't evolve to see how they could also be a positive thing. And that was a really interesting thing for me to consider in the film. So yeah, So I loved the movie and I was surprised by it. And I think one of the interesting things about the political aspect of it is I wonder how we would feel about it

Definitely some points to discuss. Yeah, I hope somebody was taking notes.

So I.

Realized immediately that Andy wasn't going to like this movie. Oh and it's because Andy didn't like The Host, which is one of my favorite long you know movies. I just love, love, love it. And so the fact that this movie sort of reclaims a little bit of that territory. For me, it lands strictly in Armando Yanucci territory, Like I'm a huge Armando Nucci fan. I absolutely adore the Death of Stalin. I loved Viep. I love just the

What just happened.

You've been talking for while.

When I said in the loop when you were talking about Armando and no one ignored that, I said, yes, I like what you're saying about. I forgot how much I was enjoying it, and then how crazy I felt at the end when both mickeys are being surrounded by all of these shrieking cgi blobs.

I was like, wait, how did we get here? Again?

Like I feel crazy because that movie was a lot of and then it decided to be about everything, which was yeah, everything.

It really did, and it didn't feel at that point like I was in capable hands. That's my biggest acts was that this is the second half of the movie practically isn't a Bong June home movie for me. And the first half I think retained much of what I feel like I expected from his previous comedic work, which I genuinely like. I think what I wanted was more

Yeah, let's start there, because honestly, like that's the comedy thing, Like, I just want to learn more Andy from you about Like the reason why I thought Brazil immediately is because there were these things that were definitely intense and intense as an audience member to take in in a futuristic sort of way, but they were definitely played for laughs.

And you know, that's a tricky thing to just answer simply, I suppose, because I feel like so much of that also is just how the script is written, in how the director is shaping the film, and I think Gilliam and Bong have very different kind of ways that they're approaching stuff. I think that and yeah, I mean there's definitely a lot of that kind of absurdist comedy throughout Gilliam's films, and Brazil certainly has a lot of it.

Well, and there is a it is a subtle line, but it's an important line, and it's it's not easy to define. So I like the way that you started the answer and saying that it might not be simple to figure out. I think so for me in particular, thinking about Mark Ruffalo here, like, this movie harkened to me for the movie that was my favorite of last year, which was Poor Things, And it's the kind of thing of.

Like exactly what I thought of with him.

Yeah, yeah, So there's so much here where he's you know, he's such a cad in Poor Things, and he's strangely diabolical and over the top here too. You know, I loved Poor Things, And I think I could argue, based on the criticisms you guys have, which I actually think are really valuable, that like I was really pulling for this movie because I wanted it to be as good as some of these other things, and I felt like that first half really had the opportunity to be that way.

Sure, yeah, and I agree with that too.

Sure, I mean, what are some of those concepts that you really wanted them to go deeper on.

The idea of what is individuality, the idea of the fact that he's getting the same brain dump, but that Mickey seventeen and Mickey eighteen were so different that like explorations of like if we have all of these different types within us just naturally, how do certain things bubble up? And when how can we really talk about someone being expendable? Where does any kind of value of life matter? I mean, we saw a zillion Mickeys. We saw a lot of

To make expendable. That's interesting. I like that.

But when you're doing that, and then imperialism and colonialism and the rich versus poor, like you know, like Pete brought up snow Piercer, and I love that comparison because snow Piercer, Nope, it's not supposed to be a joke, but really was more of a straight line of like class distinction, class warfare, and this one is about nine things all at once.

I just wanted more.

I wanted more time to spend with the idea of individuality and what does it mean to make a copy of yourself and those kind of things.

Like Tony, you brought up that point. Sorry, JJ, you brought up that point about that individuality. And one of the things that they talk about with that is that initial person who had they actually had multiple versions of him that had killed those other people. And they talked about like the the court cases about well does one person serve do each of the three serve a third of the sentence? Do they each serve the same sentence?

Yeah right, how yeah, exactly?

Fact is that's the stuff that I found so interesting and yeah, like it was exciting, and then but the movie kind of got bored with that. It was sort of like isn't this funny?

And I was like, oh no, that's the movie for me, right, well, that was the point.

The moment in the film when I said this is a five star movie. Again reflecting on the first half, is when Mickey seventeen is chasing up the stairs to follow Nasha and Mickey eighteen and I'm like, oh, we're going to get that interaction. We're going to challenge that concept of multiples, and like, that's really good to me. This is what I want to do. And again it

I think that's a great point, jj that the fact that by the end of the movie they want me to celebrate something that I didn't know I should be looking forward to, right right. And I think part of that is that we never got to know any of the other Mickeys before seventeen eighteen, and so having this sort of individual identity versus continuity of consciousness argument becomes something that is frail because it makes Mickey eighteen the abnormal one, when in fact, what we probably would have

Isn't it art imitating life? I mean, yes, it does, but it's that's that's real. Yeah right, I mean that's what we're dealing with right now. Yeah, Like, I think I think it's a good It's an apt reflection of what it takes to buy into a movement, whether it happens to be a business or a spirituality. Or a political leaning, and that's so much of that. It feels muddy because we're being faced with people who are actively messaging that muddy message to us every day right now.

Yeah, yeah, I think it came back to something you were you posed in your opening thoughts, which was I think around Ruffalo and talking about the current state of our politics in the United States. But this being the norm, the muddiness of the political state, I mean, every one of the major themes of this movie are quite literally

So I don't know, is that I mean, I brought that up with the vo Yeah, that the voiceover seems to be plugging leaks or something like that.

Well, I'm guessing none of us have read the original story, right Yeah, Yeah, I'm wondering. I mean, but it sounds like that they had other people come on boards to help add really flesh the whole thing out, So I'm guessing that they I'm just curious, like what's in the original story that they expanded upon, because it feels like they went in a lot of different directions just to get to this result.

There is okay, I don't know which lane this is now, but I feel like we've got to talk about the sauce and the act of making a sauce out of the indigenous creatures and offering them up on fingertips for this seating.

It's another lane, and I think it just goes into like I was, like, I kind of lose track of all the different things that they're potentially speaking to, but the idea of like it it goes to like, are we now talking about the plight of the pangolins and the fact that people are you know, driving this animal to extinction because they can grind down their scales and

Yeah, that's a good point, especially when we get the dinner sequence and we have him actually eating what was that thing that he was eating it's a steak.

It was like bio engineered steak.

Raw.

Yeah, it was revolting that Okay, so that is the scene though, Like aspects of that scene is what reminds me of Brazil, right, where we get these sort of layers in that, like he's been invited to this dinner, but really the dinner is just another experiment, and then all of the doctors come in and they're like, oh, that's this is amazing. Like that's where really I got into the sort of Brazil aspect of it. But yeah, that was disgusting, really hard to deal with for sure.

But legitimately funny when the doctors are hiding behind a hidden panel, a hidden door, and the president's dining room, Like I thought that was that.

I laughed at that, like yew that there were a lot of funny moments with that one. The food itself is funny and how disgusting it is. Yeah, he starts vomiting, and just how they resolve the vomiting uh, and and the chaos of do we care about the fact that he's vomiting or should we just shoot him? Like that gets back to the utility of this character and what purpose he serves and how complacent everyone around him is

Is like really like how can we use people to feed us or to you know, fuel us? And and I shouldn't say people because she's talking about these beings, but it's like all of that felt like it was something that was just kind of riding beneath what's going on because she was so obsessed with calories and eating. Like that's the vibe that I got from the concept of the sauce there too well, And so is bang jun Ho.

He's a session with the things we put in our mouths, and it's you know, it's snow piercer, it's oakcha, it's like you name it. He's been talking about how we handle food for years. Right.

All I could think about was the was the uh that commercial or psa that Taikawa TD did where he was like the animated rabbit talking about like the torture that that rabbits went through in these perfume factories to you know, like to test, you know, the putting the stuff in their eyes to see how they reacted and all this stuff like that's that's like, that's where my brain went when that was anything with that with the sauce.

Yeah, I think bang jun Ho will look at our conversation when when Bong jun Ho looks at our conversation, like the shell as a success, it's like a wild success of like, oh my gosh, all of these things are now in that planted seeds in your psyche. So even though we had trouble or we have these like I feel like this as an artist, this is what

Or for worse, even parasite. Right, it is about sort of gluttony versus stolen nutrition. Right, there is a whole of how food is acquired and film fascinating things that worked really well. I want to talk about production of the film because for me, I never once questioned the multiple Pattinson's, never did a question two Pattinson's on screen at the same.

Time, at the same time. That was incredibly well done. And I think that's where all the CGI or whatever money went.

Yeah, yea, yeah, well yeah, I think digital stitching obviously, but they did the old tricks, right, body doubling, motion control, multiple takes, like, they did all the tricks to do it, and really favored practical when they could. And I think it just plays so so very well.

Incredibly well.

Yeah, and I think he Pattinson in particular did a great job of getting us into that. I mean, he he his performance was part of that all. I mean we're talking about the technological aspects of it, but he did a fantastic job of helping us buy into what he was experiencing as a character.

Yeah, we really I never doubted that there were two different versions of him, both personality wise and just on screen. In my field of sight, it always felt real, and that was really impressive that they that they pulled off, and that he just delivered such great, uh kind of subtle nuances in those two versions of himself.

Yeah, I thought he did. He played both of them so consistently. I personally wish that our main Mickey wasn't such a boy a boy kind of a guy. That little of that goes kind of a long way with me. But that's just a personal feeling of like sort of a sad sack. I didn't read all the paper stuff. I don't know about this. This cake looks weird. I don't know, like, I don't like I don't like following around kind of dumb dumbs, even if they're sweet.

Is like because of all the narration though, or do you think that it would have been the same problem if you?

If you, I think the air reagion is a huge part of it because the voice he picked was so wa wah wah kind of a thing that it's you can't because then every once in a while when it's not voiceover, he's like super charming and cute, Like you see him as I'm sorry, Nasha. Yeah, yeah, as Nasha sees him, because at first you're like, why would anyone

That's not a good comparison. I will say.

The scene where explaining their relationship, where they go into somewhat of ret conning or rewriting for the audience to understand their bond because you don't write the way that they sell it to you early is very is very superficial. But the scene where she I'm going to get emotionally you're talking about it, but when she climbs into the chamber to sit with him and if he dies, it was like so.

Powerful for me.

And that's and I want to just highlight for me, that's in the second half of the movie. So even though we're going crazy at this point, I was like, oh my gosh, this is this is the human relationship part that this is the story that I want to go deep on right like about identity and about the connection and all this stuff.

So I love that would have been great to go deeper on all that because it's such an interesting aspect to her story. But again, I wanted a little bit more of her backstory, Like was she initially interested in him because she was kind of fascinated by the idea of him being inexpendable, like what drew her to him? And like that moment right there is a perfect example of somebody who like, you know, wants to save you know, Nepal or whatever.

Right it's it's like I've.

Got my my thing that I'm going to champion and this is it?

Like is that it?

But then she falls for him? I don't know, And that's I guess my problem with the relationship is because I never like Tommy as It's like it's hard to connect with that character because he's is kind of a sad sack, dumb dumb.

And JJ I loved that part too, and I thought that was which, hey, come on, I'm doing my best. That part I also loved JJ, But I remember thinking why now, why didn't we have this before? Right, I've been told to believe this company and this stunning, stunning woman was all power and this sad sack week guy that were just like over and over again. I don't know, like why. It's almost like the movie was like, oh, they're not. But I like to think of like the making.

I know that's not.

That's just like give us the foundation.

Really, the way that they gave us the bond was purely through It seemed like sexual contact, right. There was also her sticking up for him, but I mean they made it a physical bonding. Yeah, and I just didn't quite understand it.

What wait, what part didn't you understand about the physical bonding that she would be attracted to sad sack dumb dumb, No, that.

That more more of the emotional connection and the reason that she liked versus I mean, they just immediately start their sexcapade, and I.

Was just sort of wondering, why, Well, I do think we should we should talk a little. Let's let's make this a film sex podcast just for a segment, because I think that they have already set the table for sex being foreboten while on the ship. Because they're counting calories, and immediately they go into a sexual relationship, which to me felt like a bit of a too tidy a transition to well, we're you know, we can't help it.

So I love I understand that perspective, but my take on it is a little bit opposite in this regard because of exactly what we experience experience together, is this that it's verboten? But my favorite Black Mirror episode of all time is Hang the DJ, And the concept in Hang the DJ is that it is an algorithm that is designed to figure out which pairing is most likely to break the rules, and that is the evidence of

Pulling for it as well, So but were you?

I guess one other element with that is like are we thinking are we supposed to think that they're the only couple that's.

Actually doing this?

Well, I think because you're right, but we were never shown that. And that's the thing, like when that edict comes down that no sex, no sex until we have this big sex party day whatever the thing is, it's like, so I don't know. My assumption was like everybody's probably secretly having sex. It's like what you're going to do.

Yeah, I mean even the the two women, one of them is crushed by ice, the survivor, like they even had were written and blocked and had emotional connection that indicated these are these two people are in a physical relationship and they are not counting calories when they do it, and I think that's the like, I think that's to

And again, like again, as a apologist for this movie, what a great commentary on the repression of sex and society. But go ahead, go ahead, go wherever you want with your interpretation.

But I'm into JJ wants the full eight hour cut that actually has full stories of all of these things where everything's wrapped up.

Yes, imssion, give me the gates. I want it all.

Yeah, Okay, there's a guy in a pigeon suit. Sidebar. If there's a guy in a pigeon suit, what we make of the pigeon suit guy anything?

All I could say is I have seen him so many times in the trailer for that other movie that's coming out soon, the whatever, the Something Island where it's the two singers who are invited to that island, Something Wallace Island. Anyway, I have seen that trailer before so many movies in the last two months that as soon as he came up. That's the only thing I could think of. It's like, oh, it's a guy from the movie that I've seen the whole movie in the trailer like fifty times.

That is the Ballad of Wallace Island, and I never even heard of it either.

Watch the trailer, you'll see him, and you'll go to just.

Showing you the trailer directly, an algorithm has decided I am the one person who I'm still somehow getting the Speak No Evil trailer even though they left.

Okay, so we don't have an answer on Pigeon man anybody. I mean, I'll take the thinnest of reasons to have a pigeon guy.

It's just idiocracy, right, I Mean, there's so much of the film that that is talking about that of the ridiculousness of ways to anesthetize fear, and it just really feels like another one of those aspects of what they're trying to do.

And the portrayal of fervent followers, fervant blind followers of a particular politician. Like that's really where my head went with them.

Oh I like that. I like both of those things. I'll take it.

I want to JJ mentioned earlier well, I'm thinking of things that JJ brought up. He also brought up the idea of destroying the machine, and I wanted to chat a little bit about that because that was another interesting element that I thought they could have done so much more with, because I actually like the idea of destroying the machine. But the thing is that it speaks to the nature of humans trying to find the easy way to do stuff, and you see it all through any

So the interesting thing is that my question for that, it's really a philosophical question in like what could be more ethically responsible than someone consenting to doing this and improving humanity. Let's just say, like, like let's make it huge through this process. Nothing about the process in and of itself seems irresponsible or contrary to it doesn't feel bad. For example, the idea that you brought up of like pouring waste into rivers, Like clearly, all of a sudden

Ethics are a little fuzzy in that statement.

I think, well.

Completely, But I mean it's whether mickeys are different set in different mickeys. I don't, but.

It's all the same. But you're saying, as long as he ethically signed up for it, then it's fine. But like that's the thing, Like the ethical responsibility is like not allowing people to sign up or something like that, because that like that's the line. I think that, Well, you're across the other line and saying it's ethical because he signed up, but.

He signed up under duress, Like he signed up because he was running away from something else.

There's nothing ethical about that, and he didn't know what he was signing up for very true.

Yeah, yeah, but because again aside the fact that this is here, the fact that this system is in place saying hey, we've got the paperwork here, as long as they're signing up for it, it's totally okay. Like, I just think that the fact that that paperwork exists is the ethical problem, not the fact that somebody actually signed it.

Totally iet.

It's ninety pages long, right, Like, this is an end user license agreement. Nobody reads.

What I would challenge in this, I agree with what you're saying, but what I would challenge with you is that Mickey is the brick. Mickey is not the Clones, right, So what he actually signed up to be was a superhero and potentially the great savior of civilization. So the only stakes that Mickey truly has for going through all the suffering is the elimination of the brit Everything else allows him to experience these things in a way that

Because if they're if they think in a lazy way, if they start going, well, now we're cutting ourselves off from that. We have to now think smarter and do it the hard way. But we can still get there.

But I mean it goes back to on a mission like this, Let's say we're thinking completely authentically about survival when gestation of nine months is, you know, a questionable thing for reproducing and growing the population, being able to clone, you know, mortally wounded representatives to keep to stabilize the population seems like an ethical thing to do. That seems actually pretty cool. Yeah, I'd sign up for being a break. That's really what I've come to as this conversation.

I mean, it boils down to just ethics of cloning period. I mean, the whole thing really is just, you know, a Dolly the Sheep sort of situation that we're going to be circling here. I don't know if there's really a clean way to to, you know, figure out the actual what's right and what's wrong in this sort of situation, but it is very I mean, it's it's very tricky, and you know, they they again they start touching on these things, like we're seeing differences in character between seventeen

It's development by the way, like there's not a argument there, like right exactly this way, and he talks about how NASA had said version I don't know three or something was really cranky or something like.

There were clearly other differences in some of the other iterations as well. So it just speaks to the fact that there is this sense of individual identities within these characters. Sure, and so it and I don't know, maybe it's just the fact that we're seeing it in a situation where that happened to be two at a time out in the world that makes it suddenly seem a lot more gray. But again, then we we spend half the movie with the bugs, and well.

That's yeah, and that's the that's the central criticism of the film is that it touches on so many things that are fascinating and could make for a really interesting movie, and doesn't commit to the bit to the bits, any of the bits I don't know, And I think that destroying the printer at the end is tying a knot on one of the weaker bits that the movie could have actually explored. That I think is a frustrating piece.

You other than motivation for setting him on this expendable journey. I feel like you can take that entire plotline out of the movie and the movie still works. And I feel like the script even knows that because he's not really written that great, Like he's fine, but he's also just sort of like talking because there's not a lot of depth to his character.

He sort of.

Has no empathy. He sort of is just a scrounger, but it doesn't lean anywhere too far. He's just sort of a plot development, and so I didn't if we're talking about simplifying things, I didn't need really any of that.

That it makes or that makes complete sense. And I agree with that when I look at it objectively, we could make the case that his experience going on this journey shows us that Mickey didn't have to do what he did. That he could have lied, or he could have done these other things too. So potentially the presence of this other character and his life through this is becoming a drug dealer. All this nonsense is more put in the story to show us the stakes of Mickey's through line.

Okay, well the stakes of Mickey's through line, but also the difference between seventeen and eighteen right, because Mickey the first one was more of a seventeen Right. He's kind of a dufist, dumb dumb, and he was being taken advantage of, right, Sadzak dumb dumb. He was being taken advantage of as a non clone, right, and that is

Their relationship reminded me of Pillboy and Jason from The Good Place.

Yeah, who's pill Boy?

It's his buddy back home that like leads him down all these crazy ideas.

Okay, yeah, got it.

Didn't he end up being his dad anyway something like that. Yeah, yeah, it's very confusing. But but that's a really good point. But I don't think I think that the relationship between characters like that. I don't know that Stephen really captured the depth of that what that relationship could have been. And I found myself a little bit heartbroken for it.

Even later, it's just brought back up again that these people are trying to kill him. It's like that was that's like the only thing that we keep getting with him is like, now they're going to kill me, you got to help me, and it's like we're back in the same story that we had with him before. It was just it was, yeah, frustrating character that I wish that they had done more with.

Right well, and a frustrated character that like it's not like I wanted Requiem for a Dream, but like, I do feel like there's a little bit of room to explore this whole drug situation. If you're going to put the drug situation in play, you got to tell me a little bit more about it. And again, that's just a lane that they that they put in here and just did not pave. That metaphor is really Maank dividends.

She liked the actress that played Nasha, and I liked the character of Nasha. I don't like being said, And then she decided to run against the government.

And she just won. Like do people like her? Does she have any agency? What is she? I know what she does?

She was an enforcer, but like all of a sudden, she's wearing the robes and is talking and she's in charge of everything, and we're just told that. We're just keep being told things. This is what happened next, and it's because she remember when she got in that tube.

I forgot to tell you that the first time, but then later I told you she got the due that, so therefore we should elect her.

I don't know that poor things. I mean, that's the thing where it's like, oh, there's just some wild developments that have happened. So now rejoining our broadcast, we're now in France, you know, like this kind of thing. So that's what reminded me of that, and so it can bother me. But I understand why it would.

I wonder if the book had the was I don't know, just some'm curious now, like was it first person? Is

I agree with that. I want to read the book now. If it's not the book that I want it to be, I feel like I need to write it. Holy cow, you're right eight.

I think he could just eliminate the narration and it might be even a more interesting movie.

What's so fascinating about that? About Naomi's character, Naomi Aki, Nasha's character at the end becoming the robed one, I didn't. I never felt like she was set up to become the power politician. And yet they did have a character that was sort of set up to become the politician, which was Dorothy, the science person who kept rescuing and like she kept taking tiny actions that add up to activism, and I felt like that would have been more believable that.

She becomes she and Mickey people in the whole place one.

Hundred percent, And I feel like that's just a whiff. It's a missed opportunity.

Or even the like operatives that were on the science team, right, like the Asian doctor that was behind the science team, like leading the resistance, Like there were potentially better characters to choose for that development.

And would have supported the metaphor better right that that science becomes, you know, lauded as leadership versus essentially a military a member of the military.

Well, maybe that's the point, even with science making this huge stand that military or strength is still the leadership as we move forward.

Yeah, you're exactly right, they're right. I don't like that.

I don't want to be ready.

I don't like it either, Right, give me something.

That's a great point, though, And I would like to have seen them like do something with that.

Yeah, yeah, I would like that have been surprised, all right, there were no creepers.

Really, what would they have done instead?

The creepers took so much time and effort that later, when it's like six months later or whatever, that they seem more set up and Nache is in charge, they're still just outside on this big snow field.

Like I don't get the feeling of like are they still just living on the ship, Like it just wasn't that clear.

I think there was like a now in development sign behind her or something. There's more to do.

For me, the creepers were just a physical manifestation of fear in general, right, Like we fear what we don't know about these places that we are going, and so they created that. I don't disagree with you, Tommy. I think I think potentially you could have done a more artful way of manifesting fear that didn't have to do with these these things, but this was This made it tangible and probably made it a little bit more simple to be able to say, Okay, I'm afraid of this thing.

I'm going to kill this thing. Yeah. So interesting though, when you look at the rest of the lanes leftover, I think the movie it ends up being sort of an avatar unobtainingum kind of a story, And what it could have been is a, Hey, we're leaving the civilization as we know it to create something new. But actually all we're doing is bringing with us all of the

I love it.

I'd watched that movie. I'd watch the hell.

I'd watched that movie too. Yeah, it becomes any of these science fiction movies where we are a defending species on Earth because some invading alien has come to take over our planet because they've destroyed all of their own planets and so they're coming to take all of our resources. That's exactly the story. But now we're that alien coming in to destroy the planet.

Yeastically, any love for Jung Jail's score or of course Darius Kanji behind the camera.

I really enjoyed the camera again focusing on the first half of the movie when we were and this maybe is a positive towards the narration, so I don't know how much I want to lean into it, but when we were experiencing the world as Mickey was, the camera did a great job of shifting and making us feel

Pretty late in the film, it's when they're all in their little individual prison boxes and she tells Mickey, wait, the aliens they were helping you. They were kicking you out of their cave. The movie treated that like a really big revelation. That was not a revelation. No, like did the movie think that we were all like, oh no, we were all like, you idiot, they're helping you? Because he was like, Herry, Jerks, what does my meet smell bad?

Joke was over. Should have been over.

Yeah, But then that was like a real I always get nervous when you're ahead of movies like that. Yeah yeah, right, right right, So that was just another extra grind apparently.

A nothing.

I just want to shout out the production design and costume design because I will say, while there was a lot that was frustrating. I really enjoyed the look of you know, Nifflheim itself wasn't great, but the ship, the earth, everything like I enjoyed, like the the queue that they had in that building that spiraled down when they were

It seems a little unfair because we didn't actually like them to completely dismiss the creatures. So I do want to say, if we take the creatures out of this movie but put them in another movie, there are some cool things about the creature design. Like I actually thought the creatures were cool creatures, and I really enjoyed the way their behavior was portrayed, that sort of we grow from puppy to wooly mammoth kind of energy and their defensive mechanism of swirling on top of the big one.

Sure, Yeah, I loved the creatures, like everything about them, the way that they their tongue would like they'd ulate when they were howling, and everything like. There was some pretty fantastic designs with the creatures in the film, even if they like you said, all.

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Well?

I did start coming to the show today with the four and a half stars because of everything that I talked about from the first half of this movie. And I think I realized really in talking to you guys, that a lot of that is about potential, and that much of the weirdness that ensued after into the second half of the film is it requires some analysis as well. So I went back down to four stars. I still think conceptually and I keep bringing it back to four things.

Awesome.

Thomas me, Yeah, I think probably if I were to quantify it.

And I didn't realize it at the time until this conversation, but I think I really loved half of this movie.

Yeah overall, And so I'm going to give it right down the middle three stars but a heart because I'm really glad that it exists.

I like swings like this.

I'll always be more interested in new stuff versus IP and so I am really happy for it. I'm glad that Robert Pattinson continues to make such interesting choices of which directors to work with. And so yeah, I'll give it right down the middle, three but a heart. So it's like three plus.

All right, Andy, there's a lot of good will in the room. What are you gonna do?

Well, Unlike Tommy, I'm literally gonna go right down the middle and do two and a half.

Oh oh, that sucks. I'm going to keep it with a three, but I'm giving myself two point five. I you know, everything Tommy said is where I am like. It was so frustrating of a watch. It was, it was too long, but I loved the ideas that they were playing with. I just wish that they actually landed

So I struggled with a lot, but I do still I I enjoy watching bongh june Hoe and what he's doing, and so I'll still give it a heart. So two and a half, but with a heart.

That is more enthusiasm than I expected. I'm really pleased to hear that, Andy, I am right in there with with Tommy. I am three stars and a heart. I really I love yeah right in the middle, right smack in the middle and three stars and a heart. I feel like there there are too many allusions to so much of my other favorite kind of satire and and this this fits too well in the Terry Gilliam in the Luke Bason in the Armando Nucci for me not to at least, you know, give it, give it the

You like blues music, you like old tiny cabins, you like vampires.

It's like from us till done, but.

You already know the twist, like like Ryan Coogler.

Does that count?

Yes? Okay, good? Yeah?

I actually the trailer seems like Black Snake Moon with vampires. I love it a lot of trailer.

So I'm excited for you. Me too, very excited for it. So that'll be our April film and we're excited to do that. Thank you uh Andy for coming back after this.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next m titled movie.

And of course, JJ Tommy has always great to podcast with peoples. Thank you, dear listener, for your time and attention. Whether you agreed, disagreed, or just came here to shout at your phones, we appreciate you. If you had fun, don't forget to join the conversation on our discord at true story dot fm, slash Discord, and you know, as you heard from that old timey mystery guy. If you really love what we do, become a supporting member at true story dot fm, slash Join for all those exclusive