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Speaker 1: What Are the Worlds may be the strangest franchise in

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Speaker 1: science fiction because it managed to invade in three different centuries.

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Speaker 1: It began in the nineteenth century when HG. Wells looked

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Speaker 1: at Imperial Britain. It was confident, powerful, certain of its

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Speaker 1: place in the universe, and he asked a devastating question,

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Speaker 1: what if we were not the conquerors but the natives.

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Speaker 1: What is something colder and smarter and more technologically advanced

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Speaker 1: looked at us the way we look at animals or insects,

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Speaker 1: or amiba's or just people we thought are beneath us.

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Speaker 1: That was the terror of that first book. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: just Martians, it was potential humiliation. And then in the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century Orson Wells took that Victorian nightmare and turned

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Speaker 1: it into a modern media event. Suddenly the Martians weren't

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Speaker 1: landing in England. They were landing in New Jersey, though

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Speaker 1: they were doing it through your radio speaker and in

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Speaker 1: the middle of what sounded like breaking news. And after

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Speaker 1: that came the nineteen fifty three film where Wells Invasion

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Speaker 1: became the Cold War Apocalypse in technicolor, and then science

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Speaker 1: Faith and atomic bombs and flying war machines all collided

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Speaker 1: on screen, and then in the twenty first century, it

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Speaker 1: got its turn, with Spielberg talking about nine to eleven

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Speaker 1: and terror, broken families, refugees, sirens, and that awful feeling

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Speaker 1: that the attack had already begun before anyone even understood

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Speaker 1: what was happening. Television at the same time was stretching

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Speaker 1: this into conspiracy, survival and identity crisis, and then, not

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Speaker 1: to be outdone, just last year, we somehow got a

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Speaker 1: War of the World's remake that was an Amazon age

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Speaker 1: surveillance thriller starring Ice Cube that was so badly reviewed

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Speaker 1: it became almost historic in its own right. Proof that

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Speaker 1: even when the execution collapses, the title still has enough

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Speaker 1: gravity to pull Hollywood back in. And that may be

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Speaker 1: the secret to the War of the World's. Every generation

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Speaker 1: remakes it, because every generation feels watched or judged, threatened,

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Speaker 1: maybe just a little less in control than it pretends

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Speaker 1: to be. So in that regard, it's not the Martians,

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Speaker 1: it's about us. So in this episode, which we call

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Speaker 1: the three Century franchise, we're not just asking why the

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Speaker 1: Martians keep coming, We're asking why we keep inviting them back.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, Brant, what's your take on that one.

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Speaker 2: That's a great question for me. I think it has

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Speaker 2: a lot to do with when we look up into

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Speaker 2: the sky. Mars is one of our closest neighbors. In fact,

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Speaker 2: it is our closest neighbor that could theoretically be habitable.

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Speaker 2: And so for the longest time, I think the fact

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Speaker 2: that we could see it and it appeared red, it

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Speaker 2: was cloaked in mystery.

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Speaker 1: And I think HG.

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Speaker 2: Wells may have been the first to actually contemplate that

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Speaker 2: there was life on that planet and coming to invade Earth,

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Speaker 2: but there was probably millennia of mythology and stories about

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Speaker 2: the Red Planet. I think the other thing about it

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Speaker 2: is it's popped up in the news over and over

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Speaker 2: again throughout history. The minute that they found microbial life

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Speaker 2: on Mars, suddenly it provoked, well, could there have been

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Speaker 2: actual life forms on Mars? People saw canals quote unquote

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Speaker 2: on Mars. Could there have been water on Mars? Could

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Speaker 2: there have been a whole civilization on Mars? And to

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Speaker 2: this day, we haven't been to Mars. Actually we've sent

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Speaker 2: rovers we've explored it to some degree, but we actually

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Speaker 2: don't know what the history of mars Is, and I

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Speaker 2: think that is part of what makes this three century

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Speaker 2: franchise so endearing, is that we're still waiting for answers

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Speaker 2: about what really happened on Mars.

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Speaker 1: This one was a little awesome to research, to be

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Speaker 1: quite honest with you, because the more you looked into it,

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Speaker 1: the more you go, Oh my god. How many different

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Speaker 1: versions have been made of this thing. We got books,

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Speaker 1: we got feature films, we got multiple TV series, we

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Speaker 1: have a musical which we'll get into later. It just

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Speaker 1: goes on. There's comic books, there's gains. It has been

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Speaker 1: the gift that keeps on giving. We're going to jump

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Speaker 1: into that in just a second, so stay with us.

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Speaker 1: I'm Brent Friedman.

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Speaker 2: Have you ever wondered if there's a secret connection between

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Speaker 2: Hollywood and UFOs?

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Speaker 1: I'm Bryce Abel. You're listening to sound, light and frequency.

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Speaker 2: Before we take off to Mars, or I should say,

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Speaker 2: before Mars comes to us. This is one of the

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Speaker 2: first science fiction stories that I can remember reading.

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Speaker 1: HG. Wells.

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Speaker 2: War of the World's captured my imagination when I was

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Speaker 2: just a kid, and it stuck with me for a

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Speaker 2: long time. And it's so interesting to think that in

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Speaker 2: the same way that it provoked my imagination, it's provoked

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Speaker 2: people's imaginations for three centuries.

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Speaker 1: That's a long time. Let's think about this. We called

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Speaker 1: it the three Century franchise because it starts in actually

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven, when it's a cereal it's in Pearson's

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Speaker 1: Magazine in England, but it's in Cosmopolitan here in the

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Speaker 1: United States. And you know what's so interesting, that's so

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Speaker 1: long ago. My grandmother, bless her Heart, wasn't even born then,

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Speaker 1: and she lived a very long life. It was just

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Speaker 1: around for a long time. And then a year later,

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Speaker 1: because it was a page turning catastrophe story the way

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Speaker 1: they did it as a serial was delivered installed, so

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Speaker 1: it was the equivalent of a television series today as

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Speaker 1: it first went out. Then it became the equivalent of

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Speaker 1: the feature film because the next year, less than a

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Speaker 1: year later, it became that book that everyone famously talks about.

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Speaker 1: And the book itself is published in eighteen ninety eight.

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Speaker 1: And I just think there's something that's very strange that

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Speaker 1: we should point out that you learn something new every

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Speaker 1: time you do this brand. It's fantastic. I had no idea. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it was serialized then there was a book. At the

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Speaker 1: same time the book is coming out, two American newspapers,

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Speaker 1: the New York Evening Journal and The Boston Post, both

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Speaker 1: ripped it off. I thought it took years to rip

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Speaker 1: something off, but not back then. In believe it's eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight or ninety nine. The New York Journal comes

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Speaker 1: up with something called Fighters from Mars or the War

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Speaker 1: of the World's and they moved the location to New York.

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Speaker 1: And then the Boston Post, right on the heels, not

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Speaker 1: to be outdone, comes up with Fighters from Mars or

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Speaker 1: the War of the World's in near Boston. I guess

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Speaker 1: what it proves is this is a very portable concept.

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Speaker 1: The Martians could land in Surrey, England, or in New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: and later on they'll land in Los Angeles and Boston

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Speaker 1: or even on somebody's laptop screen. The story's DNA allows

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Speaker 1: every new version to ask what if the invasion happens

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Speaker 1: here now? And to us yes.

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Speaker 2: And I think what makes it such a durable franchise

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Speaker 2: is that Aliens are probably among the best villains that

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Speaker 2: you can have in any storytelling format. They are the other,

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Speaker 2: the archetypal other, and the way at least Wells contemplated them.

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Speaker 2: They were coming here for resources. They had ruined Mars

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Speaker 2: and now they needed what we had here on Earth.

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Speaker 2: And I think that idea of something that challenges our

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Speaker 2: dominance of this planet. That is one of the great

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Speaker 2: existential fears that we have as humanity. Which part of

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Speaker 2: storytelling is you want to live those fears cathartically. It's

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Speaker 2: why horror movies are so popular. I don't really want

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Speaker 2: it to happen. I don't really want aliens to invade

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Speaker 2: this planet, but I want to see the story and

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Speaker 2: imagine how I would feel what if it would happen.

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Speaker 2: I think, as you pointed out, another thing that makes

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Speaker 2: it so durable as the global.

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Speaker 1: Nature of it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, even if they landed in New Jersey, it would

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Speaker 2: still be a threat to all of humanity. So no

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Speaker 2: matter where they land or, as later incarnations of the story,

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Speaker 2: wherever they arise from on the planet, the whole world

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Speaker 2: is threatened. And I think that's another great aspect of

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Speaker 2: the story is that it unites everyone against a common enemy,

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Speaker 2: and those are very powerful narratives.

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Speaker 1: That book, the first book that comes out. HG. Wells

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Speaker 1: writes it, he took the bold approach. Instead of having

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Speaker 1: a main character who's involved in fighting aliens or stopping

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Speaker 1: the invasion, his character is really just someone who's observing it,

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Speaker 1: observing this ongoing catastrophe. It's a lot less that book

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Speaker 1: anyway about military vicary. Then it is really human helplessness

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Speaker 1: or social collapse or biological irony. Because let's face it,

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Speaker 1: everyone knows now and this is not a spoiler. If

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Speaker 1: you don't. If you think this is a spoiler, like

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Speaker 1: like we said, you're a couple of centuries too late

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Speaker 1: for that one. The Martians are destroyed not by armies

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Speaker 1: but by microbes. And that's what made it so much

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Speaker 1: fun and so interesting. Now brnt the thing that and

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Speaker 1: we can continue to surf around that area as well.

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Speaker 1: But one of the things, in addition to finding out

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Speaker 1: that it was ripped off almost instantly, which made me

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Speaker 1: feel like, wow, some things never change, I found out

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Speaker 1: something else. Everybody believes that the first time it ever

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Speaker 1: reared itself again was in nineteen thirty eight when another Wells,

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Speaker 1: not HG. Wells, the author of the book, but orson Wells,

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Speaker 1: this young playwright with a deep voice in New York

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Speaker 1: ends up doing that sort of Halloween broadcast. That freaks

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Speaker 1: everybody out, and we're going to get to that in

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Speaker 1: a second. I was shocked, and it really enjoyed realizing

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Speaker 1: that you and I aren't the only people that have

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Speaker 1: tried to get things made in Hollywood over the years

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Speaker 1: and been stymied. And that's a modern feeling that everybody.

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Speaker 1: Everybody wants to make something, but it's so freaking hard.

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Speaker 1: Listen to this story. In nineteen twenty five, Okay, so

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Speaker 1: this is a quarter of a century after the book

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Speaker 1: comes out, Paramount actually options the book. Okay, great, who

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Speaker 1: do they option it for? Cecil b to Mill? They

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Speaker 1: optioned it forl B to Mill, who is going to

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Speaker 1: make this epic spectacle and he's coming off the success

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Speaker 1: of The Ten Commandments, so this is no small thing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he would have been making a pretty major film.

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Speaker 1: And they actually wrote a script for it, so it

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Speaker 1: was in development.

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Speaker 2: I would love to have seen that movie. But I

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Speaker 2: would love to find that script. I wonder what it's

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Speaker 2: online somewhere.

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Speaker 1: If we find it, we'll post it. One of the

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Speaker 1: things that's interesting about it, I don't have that the

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Speaker 1: detail in front of me, but I recall that they

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Speaker 1: revised the story considerably about a human alien hybrid. Sound

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Speaker 1: familiar to what's going on today. Okay, Christ, while they're

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Speaker 1: busy doing all that around comes nineteen thirty and Sergei

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Speaker 1: Eisenstein is thought that he should this master of Soviet

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Speaker 1: montage is going to make the movie for them, And

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Speaker 1: this was because Paramount briefly assigned him because he was

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Speaker 1: under contract at the studio. And it really is, if

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Speaker 1: you think about it, Brent, this is one of the

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Speaker 1: great alternate history kind of things, because imagine if Eisenstein

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Speaker 1: had made it, he would have probably emphasized the aliens

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Speaker 1: less than mass panic and crowds and all this sort

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Speaker 1: of after disclosure panic stuff and into a montage. Okay,

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Speaker 1: But just when you said, okay, that's crazy, we got

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Speaker 1: Cecil b to Mill, we got Eisenstein. What can you

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Speaker 1: do to eclipse that? Okay. In the nineteen thirties, Alfred

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Speaker 1: Hitchcock approaches HG. Wells and says, I'd like to option

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Speaker 1: your book, and HG. Wells says, you can't option my

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Speaker 1: book because Paramoun has it. And if we're talking about

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Speaker 1: alternate visions of something, imagine Hitchcock's version. I sure wish

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Speaker 1: that would have happened. His ghost version would have had

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Speaker 1: the story would have been about dread and delayed revelation

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Speaker 1: and social panic, and he probably would have had an

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Speaker 1: individual who was trapped inside this big thing. And then,

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Speaker 1: finally in the late nineteen thirties, to catch us all

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Speaker 1: up before Orson Wells comes in, you got Alexander Korda,

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Speaker 1: who is a British producer director, and he wants to

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Speaker 1: bring it to the screen. Only he wants to make

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Speaker 1: it the sort of the authentic British version, and so

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Speaker 1: he would have made it with its British roots, but

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Speaker 1: that fell through too. So that's a lot of development. Hell,

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Speaker 1: if there are any writers or budding screenwriters listening, you're

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Speaker 1: not alone and always everyone that you know in development. Hell,

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Speaker 1: but so were these guys. Which takes us to October thirtieth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, take it away.

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Speaker 2: Before we jump into that, I just want to say,

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Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating that one of the most endorsing

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Speaker 2: franchises in media took that long to get off the

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Speaker 2: launching pad. It's incredible. And one other thing you said,

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Speaker 2: which I think is interesting, is Alfred Hitchcock approaching h

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Speaker 2: G Wells about the rights to his book. One of

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Speaker 2: the reasons I would venture that it's being still remade

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Speaker 2: recently with ice Cube is that it's now in public domain,

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Speaker 2: so anyone can make something based on War of the Worlds,

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Speaker 2: whereas back in the day Alfred Hitchcock had to go

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Speaker 2: get the rights and he wasn't capable of that. So anyway, yes,

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Speaker 2: jumping into nineteen thirty eight, I find it fascinating that

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Speaker 2: Orson Wells, who was went on to make arguably one

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Speaker 2: of the great movies of all time, Citizen Kane, chose

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Speaker 2: not to make the movie of War of the World's

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Speaker 2: but a radio play. And it really I think it

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Speaker 2: was the perfect vehicle for something because it wouldn't have

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Speaker 2: looked real, but you could make the idea of an

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Speaker 2: alien invasion over the radio where people got their news.

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Speaker 1: Boy did they. This happened the day before Thanksgiving, and

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Speaker 1: at the time Orson Wells was the sort of the leader.

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Speaker 1: He's twenty three years old. Think about that, he's the

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Speaker 1: leader of the Mercury Theater of the Air and he

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Speaker 1: didn't even really want to do this. But I think,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of places, if you have to get

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Speaker 1: things done, you get a little desperate. We got to

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Speaker 1: get something out there. So with very little time, with

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Speaker 1: a script by Howard Kotch, they come up with this

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Speaker 1: idea that they're going to tell it as a breaking

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Speaker 1: news story. That was their concept. They moved the invasion

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Speaker 1: to contemporary America, and they had it start at Grover's Mill,

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Speaker 1: New Jersey, which is probably the most famous thing that

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Speaker 1: has happened in that place. They probably have statues there.

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Speaker 1: I bet they do the rap on this has been

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Speaker 1: for years that this broadcast created mass panic across America,

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Speaker 1: and that was something that everybody took as an article

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Speaker 1: of faith. Like a lot of things in history, has

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Speaker 1: gone through some reevaluation over time. Modern scholarship suggests that

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Speaker 1: the real panic occurred in pockets. But that and get this,

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Speaker 1: I find this so interesting. It was greatly exaggerated by

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Speaker 1: newspapers because they were competitive to try to portray radio

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Speaker 1: as irresponsible and dangerous, so they fanned the flames a

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Speaker 1: little bit, which I also think is powerful to consider.

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Speaker 1: And I was listening to some podcasts that had occurred

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Speaker 1: over the last couple of decades on this because it

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Speaker 1: had its eightieth anniversary less than a decade ago. And

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Speaker 1: in two years it'll have its ninetieth anniversary, So this

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Speaker 1: has been around a while. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: they said is that the Mercury Theater of the Air

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Speaker 1: was not the most popular show out there. The one

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Speaker 1: that they were up against was wildly popular, but had

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Speaker 1: a boring something going on, and a lot of people

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Speaker 1: were switching over. But they switched over after Orson Wells

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Speaker 1: had made his this is all fiction and his disclaimer

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Speaker 1: if you will. His show had about twelve million people

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Speaker 1: listening to it, which, frankly, in today's world is a

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Speaker 1: lot few. Back then, there wasn't that much competition, and

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Speaker 1: it was amilies gathered around the radio at night. And

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Speaker 1: what the podcast that I listened to said was of

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Speaker 1: those twelve million people, about ten percent might have panicked,

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Speaker 1: which gives you one point two million people right they're

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Speaker 1: panicking in the streets. So it was enough. But something

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Speaker 1: you pointed out when we were talking earlier before the

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Speaker 1: show was this became possibly the predicate for why Roswell

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Speaker 1: was treated in such a hush hush way.

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Speaker 2: And going back to those newspaper headlines, I think the

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Speaker 2: New York Times headline was radio listeners in panic taking

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Speaker 2: war drama as fact, right, which is very judgmental, like

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Speaker 2: you said, of the radio format, but that panic it

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Speaker 2: had to be something that when Roswell happened years later,

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Speaker 2: people took note of that. Yes, it was thirty eight

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Speaker 2: and Roswell was nine years later, but I think that

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Speaker 2: had such an impact on popular culture that certainly the

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Speaker 2: government took note that. Look what happened when people thought

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Speaker 2: that aliens were real and that they were coming here.

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Speaker 2: If we have actual evidence, not just for radio play,

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Speaker 2: but actual evidence that we're going to take photos of

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Speaker 2: and put on newspapers, what is that going to do

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Speaker 2: to the general population.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to note that even when Dolan and I

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Speaker 1: were writing our ad after disclosure and trying to portray

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Speaker 1: what might happen after some disclosure statement is made, which

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Speaker 1: is very relevant to today, we had to take into

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Speaker 1: account this nineteen thirty eight broadcast because the feeling it's

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Speaker 1: been cited over and over. That's why people are cautious

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Speaker 1: about disclosure. They don't want people panicking in the streets.

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Speaker 1: That was certainly a concern. Then it's a concern now,

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Speaker 1: which sort of takes us to the big Daddy that

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Speaker 1: got things really rolling. In terms of the Hollywood aspect

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Speaker 1: of this and put it portrayed, so you got Orson

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Speaker 1: Wells again, no relation to H. G. Wells, folks. It's

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Speaker 1: not a father son thing being passed on or anything.

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Speaker 1: Just happenstance. Now long comes nineteen fifty three, and as

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Speaker 1: we've talked about in an earlier episode, the fifties are

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Speaker 1: the flying saucer mania of the time, and they literally

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Speaker 1: started in nineteen fifty The first big Saucer movies are

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Speaker 1: fifty one. In fifty three, along comes The War of

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Speaker 1: the Worlds, which is a feature film, and it was

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Speaker 1: produced by George Powell, who was a pretty major producer

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Speaker 1: of the time, and it was directed by Byron Haskin.

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Speaker 1: It is, as I said earlier, in technicolor, and in

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Speaker 1: this case, they moved it to my home ground here.

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Speaker 1: They moved it to Los Angeles. It starts Jeen Berry

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Speaker 1: and a woman named Anne Robinson, who that's the name

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Speaker 1: of my college girlfriend. So I always look at that,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know why, but it gets my attention.

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Speaker 1: But they replaced the walking tripods with Manna ray like

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Speaker 1: war machines. It seemed to float on invisible legs, and

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just going to put this out

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Speaker 1: here before a voice and opinion. I saw it many

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Speaker 1: years ago that in anticipation of us doing this show,

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Speaker 1: I saw it again, okay, but before I voiced my opinion.

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Speaker 1: What is your take on the nineteen fifty three version.

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Speaker 2: I think it's a great time capsule of what type

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Speaker 2: of movie was effective at that point in history. It's

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Speaker 2: charming in a very kind of campy, strange way, and

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Speaker 2: I think in a strange way for me, the book

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Speaker 2: actually felt more real than the movie. And one of

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Speaker 2: the things I wanted to point out was that when H. G.

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Speaker 2: Wells wrote his book, the aliens themselves were like these

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Speaker 2: large brain like organisms. Sure, and everything felt like it

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Speaker 2: was all told through the filter of the fantastic, whereas

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Speaker 2: I think in the movie. In the fifty three version,

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Speaker 2: everything felt a little bit more I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: say grounded, but it felt a little bit more believable,

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Speaker 2: and there was the more integration of modern technology in

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Speaker 2: terms of the tripods and how they were represented. And

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Speaker 2: so it's one of the things we're going to see

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Speaker 2: throughout those three centuries is that the aliens keep changing,

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Speaker 2: not just what they look like, but what their motives are,

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Speaker 2: and the one thing that remains constant through all the

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Speaker 2: iterations is what kills them right. Never does the story change,

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Speaker 2: at least through some of the larger expressions of the franchise,

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Speaker 2: from that idea that it's bacteria or viruses on Earth

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Speaker 2: that take out the mighty Martians or the later versions

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Speaker 2: the aliens who come to conquer us.

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Speaker 1: I will say this before I voice any negative opinions here.

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Speaker 1: It did win an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects,

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Speaker 1: and of the time they are pretty good. It's just

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Speaker 1: that wow, the characterizations at the beginning just threw me

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Speaker 1: for a loop. But the main guy is this nuclear physicist,

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Speaker 1: doctor Clayton Forrester any spell. I don't know, man. He's

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Speaker 1: just there's a crashed saucer out there, and you know

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Speaker 1: what he does that night? Since nothing's happening around the

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Speaker 1: crash saucer, he goes to a square dance in town.

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Speaker 1: Were very popular in that, yes, they were. Also he

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Speaker 1: is not really super involved in fighting back. He is

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Speaker 1: involved again as a bit of an observer here. The

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Speaker 1: woman who he hangs out with, they, I think the

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Speaker 1: studio said, we've got to have a love story in here.

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Speaker 1: So that female character, she's I believe she's a librarian

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Speaker 1: library science, so she's not dumb, but she doesn't get

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Speaker 1: to do much in this thing. There is a religious aspect.

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Speaker 1: He goes looking for her by going to the various

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Speaker 1: houses of worship and all that. Look, it's not terrible,

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Speaker 1: but it's not as good for my money as other

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Speaker 1: things that happened. People disagree with me, though, but I

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Speaker 1: do believe it does have the Cold War nightmare in

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Speaker 1: its DNA. It has science, it has religion, it has

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. They actually use a nuclear weapon. Yes, that's amazing, right,

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Speaker 1: think about that, which is also strange because most of

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Speaker 1: these fifties movies seem to be aliens are pissed off

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Speaker 1: at us because we have nuclear weapons, right, and so

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Speaker 1: we're coming down to set you people straight, so they

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Speaker 1: use them. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think that's one of the interesting things about the

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Speaker 2: movie is that in that way, it almost feels more believable.

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Speaker 2: At that time, we had already used nuclear weapons to

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Speaker 2: settle a score and try and win a war. Why

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Speaker 2: wouldn't we use them against aliens. I'm not saying it's right,

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Speaker 2: but it makes sense that humanity would try that, and

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Speaker 2: so it really served as a cautionary tale in that regard.

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Speaker 2: As you pointed to earlier, in many ways, War of

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Speaker 2: the Worlds is about us. It's not the story of

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Speaker 2: Martians looking for a new home or looking for resources,

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Speaker 2: or whatever the new plot might be in any version

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Speaker 2: of the story. It's about how we respond to that threat.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So to recap, we've gone from serialized newspaper for articles,

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Speaker 1: to a book, to a radio broadcast to the first

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Speaker 1: feature film, and then there were some TV things covering

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty eight event, but nobody doing the drama

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Speaker 1: until I didn't even know this existed. I was alive

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Speaker 1: for it, but I didn't know they existed. That in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, they made a musical of it, a

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Speaker 1: musical version shocking.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that gets to the point where you say, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I think the franchise is dead. Now it's jumped the shark,

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Speaker 2: as it were.

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Speaker 1: That's what it feels like.

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Speaker 2: But no, there were many more expressions of the franchise

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Speaker 2: to which.

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Speaker 1: We should get to. But I'm going to take a

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Speaker 1: slight detour here. Yes, and here's the reason for the detour.

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Speaker 1: You and I are both writers at heart. We're also

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Speaker 1: producers and hosts, and we've directed things and all that,

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Speaker 1: but at our heart were writers. We value the words

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Speaker 1: and how they get put together. And the one thing

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Speaker 1: you have to say for HG. Wells is he came

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Speaker 1: up with some words that is in the open of

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Speaker 1: the book that have defined all of the genre exploitations

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Speaker 1: of it. Nobody seems to be able to make something

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Speaker 1: without getting to them. Now in the actual book itself,

425
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Speaker 1: it's three paragraphs long. But I'm just going to read,

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Speaker 1: and you've got to forgive me. I can't be some

427
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Speaker 1: of the people that have read these things, but these

428
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Speaker 1: are the words that touched people so much. He wrote.

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Speaker 1: Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to

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Speaker 1: our minds as ours are to those of the beasts

431
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Speaker 1: that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this

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Speaker 1: earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their

433
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 1: plans against us. That's powerful, drew their plans against against

434
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: us captured. It captures the fear that we all live under,

435
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:52,439
Speaker 1: and it's very relevant even today. We're on the verge

436
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 1: of some form of disclosure. So we're told in the

437
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: news and what if that disclosure is there are aliens

438
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: making plans against us. I was just going to say

439
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 1: that the words that he's chosen, vast and cool and unsympathetic,

440
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: those are just powerful, and they mean they're not exactly evil.

441
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: They're not passionate, they're not demonic. They're worse than that.

442
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: They're superior. They're detached, they're calculating. It's very scary. And

443
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: then he uses the phrase envious eyes, which is also disturbing.

444
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: They want Earth. This is not curiosity that draws them

445
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 1: to Earth. It is strategic desire. And then also that

446
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: final phrase slowly and surely drew their plans against us,

447
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,919
Speaker 1: which means this invasion has long range planning. It's not

448
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,199
Speaker 1: like an impulse. They didn't wake up one day in

449
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 1: Mars and go, you know what, these earth Wings don't

450
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: seem to have their shit together, Let's take them down. No,

451
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 1: they've been thinking about it and making plans. Okay, here's

452
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 1: what I just wanted to make clear to everybody. There's

453
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: nobody that has avoided this. In the nineteen thirty eight

454
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: radio broadcast, they did their own revision of it, and

455
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: a guy named Dan Seymour wrote it in the nineteen

456
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: fifty three film. There's Sir Frederick Hardwick. I don't know him,

457
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: but I certainly heard of the very good work. And

458
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: he does the nineteen fifty three film. And in that

459
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: musical that we've made fun of, Richard Burton. Richard Burton

460
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: does of all People, and in a film that we're

461
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: going to get to later, which is the two thousand

462
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: and five Spielberg Cruise version of it, Morgan Freeman, the

463
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 1: man who has made more money voiceovering things than probably

464
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,479
Speaker 1: any human on earth. And look, I'm not saying that

465
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: we are going to read them all, but I thought

466
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: maybe we should take our shot at a couple of them.

467
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,959
Speaker 1: We've got the Richard Burton version and the Morgan Freeman version.

468
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:49,399
Speaker 1: Take your pick, my friend.

469
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 2: I'm going Burton all the way. It's the musical, right,

470
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 2: how can I.

471
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: Not give us and that way people can sort of

472
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: judge how things evolve and get revised over time. So

473
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,479
Speaker 1: go with Burton. By the way, the movie's a musical.

474
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 2: That does not mean I will be singing this no please,

475
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 2: Although I lot of expectations from yes that would be

476
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 2: in the outtakes portions of the show. No one would

477
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 2: have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century

478
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,120
Speaker 2: that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds

479
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 2: of space. No one could have dreamed that we were

480
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 2: being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that

481
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 2: swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men

482
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 2: even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And

483
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 2: yet across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to

484
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 2: ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and

485
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 2: surely they drew their plans against us.

486
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: Wow and scene, yees see. Nice job. Many people who

487
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: are listening to us are like Richard Burton. I don't know,

488
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: but he was the bomb in the sixties. He was

489
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: married to Elizabeth Taylor. The guy had a good life.

490
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: Say no more. Yeah, okay, now I'm going to read

491
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: them Morgan Freeman part. But that's pretty bold because nobody

492
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: on Earth living today is as successful as so this

493
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: is not an impersonation in Morgan Freeman. I'm asked, thank

494
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,880
Speaker 1: you for clarifying that. Listen to the rewrite that they

495
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: did in two thousand thoughts. That's wasn't it. Yeah, that's

496
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: what Freeman is saying, So here's what he got to deliver.

497
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: No one would have believed, by the way, the reason

498
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: we're reading these is because we can't afford to use

499
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: Morgan Freeman's voice. That'll cost this fortune. We're doing this

500
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: podcast on a budget, folks. Okay, no one would have

501
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: believed in the early years of the twenty first century

502
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than

503
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: our own, That as men busied themselves about their various concerns,

504
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: they observed and studied the way a man with a

505
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in

506
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: a drop of water. With infinite complacency, men went to

507
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: and fro about the globe, confident of our empire over

508
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: this world. Yet across the gulf of space into life,

509
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our planet with envious eyes,

510
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: and slowly and surely through their plans against us.

511
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 2: Nicely done, Thank you. You know what word jumps out

512
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 2: at me? Yes, there's some little nuances in there, But

513
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 2: for me, there's a key word in there right that

514
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 2: frames how this story was being told and the point

515
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 2: of view of it, and that is complacency. Yes, it's

516
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 2: the first time that you get a sense that somehow

517
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 2: we deserved this, we let our guard down. The other

518
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 2: versions of the stories was nope, they're coming down. They

519
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 2: see our planet, they're better than us, they want it.

520
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 2: Good luck stopping them. This was in our infinite complacency.

521
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 2: And so I think that's two thousand and five. Is

522
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 2: that when the film was made. So yeah, I think

523
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 2: that it's another example of how the story has transformed

524
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 2: itself over the decades, the centuries, and now it's taking

525
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 2: on a completely new tenor where Spielberg changes some other

526
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 2: aspects of the story which I think are fascinating, But

527
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:10,239
Speaker 2: in that particular instance, there is that sense of we

528
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 2: deserve this somehow and we're going to have to redeem ourselves,

529
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 2: and that plays out a little bit in the micro

530
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 2: kind of drama of Tom Cruise and his family and

531
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 2: proving himself to be a good father and protector. So

532
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 2: it was interesting just with that one slight addition, it

533
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 2: gives the whole thing a different kind of patina, if

534
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 2: you will, I look.

535
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: At War the world's the way we look at Superman.

536
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: Every generation gets the Superman they deserve. Yes, right, and

537
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: every generation gets the War of the Worlds that they deserve.

538
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: And we have jumped to two thousand and five, but

539
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: I just wanted to backfill one thing. About a decade

540
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: after that musical came out, there was a War of

541
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: the World's TV series. This is the first time it

542
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: appeared on TV in nineteen eighty eight and it ran

543
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: for two seasons. And what was interesting about the TV

544
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: series is they did not remake the book. They took

545
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty three movie starring Jean Barry and Anne

546
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 1: Robinson and made that their starting point. They assumed that

547
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: had happened, right, that the Martians maybe didn't die, they

548
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: just kind of went into hiding, and now they're back.

549
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 1: So it became a much more normal alien invasion kind

550
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: of thing. And I want to come back to two

551
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: thousand and five, but I just want to fill the

552
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: time period a little bit because people may not appreciate

553
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: Mars has had a couple of areas of great interest

554
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: in Renaissance. Obviously, the first time Mars came to the

555
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: forefront was at the end of the Yeah the nineteen

556
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: hundreds in eighteen ninety eight, when that book was coming out.

557
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: Perceval Lowe was writing about canals on Mars that was

558
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: going down, and in the world of eufology, there were

559
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: all these airships that were being spotted, so it was

560
00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: an active paranormal but Mars kind of thing. The other

561
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 1: time when Mars really became big was in nineteen seventy six,

562
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: a couple of years before that musical version. And I

563
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: know this because this is my little coming of age story.

564
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: But in nineteen seventy six, I was a radio reporter

565
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: at a hippie radio station in Eugene, Oregon, at KSEL,

566
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: and I did the morning show, and I went in

567
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: on that day on July nineteenth, nineteen seventy six, because

568
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: at five o'clock, Viking lander was landing on Mars. And

569
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: what made this the most dramatic news event that I

570
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: experienced completely by myself, because there was nobody else other

571
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: than the disc jockey in this radio station, is that

572
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: there was a nineteen minute delay between what was going

573
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: on at Mars and what was being reported over the

574
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: AP machine that was spewing out interesting okay. So that

575
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: meant when I saw the AP stuff coming over associated

576
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: press paper coming over, it could have it was either

577
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: dead or was there the lander, and so I literally

578
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: wrote down that bulletin. It says bulletin AP, and I

579
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: want you to think about this coming over at teletype,

580
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: clicking in the paper. It's spooling slowly, one line at

581
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: a time. First line says bullet in AP. Second line Pasadena, California.

582
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: This is all caps, the unmanned Viking one lander has

583
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: and that's all it had on that line, right, And

584
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. It broke the sentence right there for

585
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: an excruciating second. I'm like, it could say has crashed?

586
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: Has what is it? And then again in all caps

587
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: it says touchdown on the planet Mars. It took nineteen

588
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: minutes for radio signals from the spacecraft to reach the

589
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, confirming the landing. Now,

590
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: the reason I bring that up is because the lander

591
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: survived in seventy six, it started doing something that really

592
00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: played into the Mars history to come in the world

593
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: the worlds because it gave us our first pictures of Mars.

594
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: Now I remember that too. It was very impactful at

595
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 2: the time.

596
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, and you have people today going, ah, Mars,

597
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 1: you've seen one Mars picture you've seen Wall. We've had

598
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 1: a lot of landers there. But when nineteen seventy six

599
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: came that first I got a picture of Mars from

600
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: NASA and I framed it in this stupid, ugly frame.

601
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: But for the next fifteen years, wherever I would move,

602
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: I would hang that up in my bedroom because I

603
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: found that to be so powerful. People have this thing

604
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 1: about Mars that the modern version starts in seventy six.

605
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: Now let's jump to two thousand and five, because again,

606
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: there are certain actors and directors that say, you know what,

607
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: I want to put my imprint on that, And boy,

608
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: you could not have a better collection than to say,

609
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg with David Kepp as the screenwriter, does that

610
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: sounds familiar? And those credits are on disclosure Day as

611
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: yes they are. And they work together on this story

612
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 1: of this adaptation of War of the Worlds, and they

613
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: hired Tom Cruise to play the guy, and you started

614
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But it seems to me very

615
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: interesting that their choice was Tom Cruise. Is this I'm

616
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:15,919
Speaker 1: not sure exactly what he does.

617
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 2: He's like a blue collar dad, right, struggling. I think

618
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 2: he and his wife are separated or that there's some

619
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 2: family drama that was never part of the earlier versions

620
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 2: of this story.

621
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: And he's not that good at being a dad. Kids.

622
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,760
Speaker 1: It's all movie kids. They don't get along with their parents,

623
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: and that's going to have to be solved by the

624
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: movie that you're going to watch. But boy, Spielberg did

625
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: a great jobs as showing aliens arriving and coming to

626
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: life and destroying shit.

627
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 2: Then there's some key differences here again that I feel

628
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,879
Speaker 2: are obviously Steven Spielberg wants to tell his version, as

629
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 2: you said, put his imprint on this work. But at

630
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 2: the same time, I feel like the audience appetite for

631
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 2: science fiction had changed. What was it acceptable in nineteen

632
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 2: fifty three in terms of representation of aliens was no

633
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:06,879
Speaker 2: longer in two thousand and five, and so this time

634
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 2: we get biomechanical creatures, right. That was some kind of

635
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 2: infusion of organic and technology that felt very cutting edge

636
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 2: and science fiction. They were instead of tripods, they were hexapods, right,

637
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 2: So everything was more sophisticated and complicated. But the big

638
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 2: difference they had was these aliens weren't from Mars.

639
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: Uh.

640
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 2: These were embedded underground that had been there like some

641
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 2: ancient evil waiting to rise up. I believe they were

642
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 2: there for at least a million years, waiting to come

643
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,959
Speaker 2: up and reclaim their planet. So that was a whole

644
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 2: new take on War of the Worlds. And yet, so

645
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 2: that's a whole new take.

646
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 1: That's Spielberg and Cap and crews probably saying, let's go

647
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 1: for it, right, let's do this. But what Spielberg did

648
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 1: was also do a throwback to the eighteen ninety eight

649
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: book Where Again, and the main character is somebody who's

650
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: observing the catastrophe. But Cruz's character, as you said, is

651
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: he's a bad dad, and he's a blue collar guy.

652
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: He's not a scientist, he's not a soldier. He's just

653
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 1: a flawed, working class guy trying to keep his kids alive.

654
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: And that becomes what the movie's about. So the fascinating

655
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: choice the director has made here is to see this

656
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 1: invasion from a guy who doesn't know shit. He doesn't

657
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: know what's going on in Japan, he doesn't know if

658
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:32,439
Speaker 1: they've invaded England, he doesn't know whether it's going good

659
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: or bad anywhere else. He just knows it ain't going

660
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: good where he is.

661
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is he is not going to

662
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 2: save Earth from these aliens. All he is asked to

663
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,439
Speaker 2: do is save his family or keep them alive long

664
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 2: enough for once again Earth's viruses and bacteria to destroy

665
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 2: the aliens. So that is again the constant that runs

666
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 2: through again the major expressions of this franchise.

667
00:37:56,200 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: At least, as with all our shows, we get to

668
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: the blaze where we go, I can just keep talking

669
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: about this for another hour and a half, but we

670
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 1: can't do that, So I'm going to jump ahead quickly.

671
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: After two thousand and five where they laid that out,

672
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: there were several sort of faux documentaries made about it,

673
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: where they were TV documentaries, fake documentaries showing the coverage.

674
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: So in other words, it's a perfect homage to the

675
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,840
Speaker 1: book and the nineteen thirty eight thing to do a

676
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: fake documentary about that kind of stuff. I'm not going

677
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: to go into all of those. There were by my

678
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: count at least three and maybe four at least four.

679
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: But what happens then, and this is all very relevant

680
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: to today. In twenty nineteen, the BBC gets in the

681
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: act and they come up with a mini series, a

682
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 1: three part mini series that I personally think is very

683
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: worth seeing because it takes place in England and it's

684
00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: got two main characters. It's a period added and it's

685
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: the first one to show us that it's Edwardian England.

686
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 1: And I just thought it was very good. It's not

687
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: full of action, it's not an American action piece, but

688
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: it feels very much like the book come to life.

689
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: So I enjoyed that. And then in twenty nineteen, Fox

690
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: and Canal Plus make a TV series that stars Gabriel

691
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: Byrne and Daisy Edgar Jones, and that one doesn't have

692
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,879
Speaker 1: anything to do really with the roots of it. This

693
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: one is just saying the Martians, I'm trying to remember

694
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: it's a mass extinction event. I guess the same, but

695
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: it's much more subtle. It's after the fact and these

696
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: guys are just trying to stay alive. It went three seasons,

697
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: so you've got these two TV series going on at

698
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: the same time. And now we get to ice Cube.

699
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: Have you got your raspberries out there, folks? Yeah? Have

700
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 1: you seen this one? By the way, did you watch No?

701
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: I remember when it came out and I thought, I

702
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: just can't go there. It would have had to have

703
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: gotten like a ninety plus on Metacritic for me to

704
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 2: eat and think about watching it.

705
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: This movie has some of the worst reviews of any

706
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,919
Speaker 1: movie ever on a quality level of Mortal Kombat Annihilation.

707
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 1: If you want to have there, you go to bring

708
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: it home. Yes, exactly, folks. We wrote Mortal Kombat Annihilation,

709
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: which is a very poorly reviewed film. So we're not

710
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: attacking people where they live. We're just commenting. I watched it.

711
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: It didn't work. Ice Cube is this guy working for

712
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security. It looks like it was

713
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: made during the pandemic. It's all on screens. None of

714
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: it makes any sense. He's one guy. He's an analyst.

715
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: He's the only guy in Homeland Security on a Sunday.

716
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: He's just an analyst. He's also tracking his kids and

717
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: invading their social media spaces. And yet the President calls

718
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: in basking what he should do about this. It's just wacky,

719
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: And so I watched it. It was hard. It was

720
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: candidly hard to get through. Who knows where it all

721
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: went wrong, but it did go wrong, and I have

722
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: to tip my hat. I think the name of the

723
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: other podcast is how did this movie get made? Or

724
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: how did this film get made? Right? It has three hosts,

725
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 1: and I was just laughing my ass off with them.

726
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: All films have problems, and that goes our work too.

727
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: Rif you start to peel it apart, you go, wait,

728
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:17,799
Speaker 1: what's the logic behind that. It's just that this particular

729
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: film version just doesn't bear any weight of logic. So

730
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: I guess what this would say, Brent, is that there

731
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: are people out there who should be aware, as you

732
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 1: pointed out, that anybody can make a war of the

733
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: world's Yes, sometimes that's bad, but maybe somebody will make

734
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: a great one next year, who knows.

735
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 2: I think one thing we can say about the franchise

736
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 2: is that it could very well be a four century

737
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 2: franchise when all is said and done, because it's a

738
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 2: very durable story. It's open to interpretation by anyone, like

739
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 2: you said, because it's in public domain. Let's see how

740
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 2: actual disclosure goes in the near future. But I think

741
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 2: that notion of living under the sort of damocles with

742
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 2: a possible alien invasion of higher intelligence, greater technology, we

743
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 2: will live in that fear, possibly forever, and as soon

744
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 2: as they start confirming that there is actual life out there,

745
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 2: that fear will only get intensified. I guarantee you. One

746
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 2: thing I do want to point out as we as

747
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 2: I try and take us off the beaten path. Now,

748
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 2: one of the things that we like to do in

749
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 2: this show is to make connections between different ideas, and

750
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 2: one of the main ideas behind War of the Worlds,

751
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 2: as we've expressed in different ways, is this notion of

752
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 2: an alien invasion and what it means to humanity and

753
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 2: what we would do and how we would respond. We've

754
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 2: talked about it in another terms of ontological shock. There's

755
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 2: an interesting conspiracy theory that's been floating out there for

756
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 2: quite some time, I believe, going back to the nineties,

757
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 2: and it's called Project Bluebeing, and you may have.

758
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: Heard of it.

759
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,399
Speaker 2: So you're taking there, all right, I'm taking you off

760
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 2: the beaten path.

761
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: That's here, okay, go yeah. Do you want your tinfoil

762
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,280
Speaker 1: hat to I may need that. Go ahead.

763
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 2: So the interesting thing about this and how it relates

764
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 2: to War of the Worlds is that in the early

765
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties there was a Canadian theorist and journalist named

766
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 2: Serge Manost I don't know if I'm saying that correctly,

767
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:22,279
Speaker 2: who published a detailed account about this Project Bluebeam that

768
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 2: was associated with NASA, and he said it was going

769
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: to happen in ninety five ninety six, but then he

770
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 2: died unexpectedly in nineteen ninety six, and then conspiracy theorists

771
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 2: took that idea of his ran with it, and they

772
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 2: just kept pushing the date forward so that it never

773
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 2: had an expiration to it. It always stayed relevant. What's

774
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 2: interesting about it is that the theory itself, conspiracy theory,

775
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 2: if we must, is based on a couple key ideas.

776
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 2: The first is that the stage one was going to

777
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,839
Speaker 2: be that there was going to be triggering of earthquakes

778
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 2: or that would unearth archaeological artifacts that might start to

779
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 2: change the way we think about our past. And that

780
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 2: also there was going to be something that comes out

781
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,720
Speaker 2: that starts to discredit or change how we think about

782
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 2: major religions. Let's take it at face value for a moment.

783
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 2: We're there right now. They're finding things underneath the Great

784
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 2: Pyramids that are going to start to apparently challenge everything

785
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 2: we know about those artifacts. We are having apparently meetings

786
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 2: between pastors who are being told to prepare their flocks

787
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 2: because religion may not be what you think. So again,

788
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,440
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory. But if you look at stage one, it's

789
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 2: already happening. Now you move on to stage two, and

790
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 2: this is where it starts to get interesting. Stage two

791
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 2: is that there's going to be potentially some sort of

792
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 2: gigantic space show. And what this means is that someone's

793
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:56,320
Speaker 2: going to be using advanced holographic projectors to start putting

794
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 2: images in the sky, and those are going to start

795
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: challenging all sorts of religious leaders. We might start to

796
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 2: see theories around the Antichrist taking form or shape in

797
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 2: the skies. The idea is that it starts to create

798
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 2: global chaos and everyone starts to look for a new

799
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 2: spiritual leader. Okay, so now we're going We're way out

800
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 2: on a limb here with regards to this. However, there's

801
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 2: so much online chatter right now about this idea that

802
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 2: somehow the powers that be are preparing us with all

803
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 2: of the stuff that's going on for Project Bluebeam, for

804
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 2: some enactment of Project Bluebeam. Now, for me, I personally

805
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 2: find the whole thing hard to swallow. However, I do

806
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:48,240
Speaker 2: think that holographic technology has advanced to a place where

807
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 2: I've seen images online and videos of things where they

808
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 2: particularly in China where they have done huge holographic displays

809
00:45:57,400 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 2: in the.

810
00:45:57,600 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 1: Sky that blew my mind.

811
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 2: Well again, a guy makes a conspiracy theory in nineteen

812
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 2: ninety five, and today in twenty six we're having pastors

813
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,279
Speaker 2: that are being told to start thinking about religion might

814
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 2: not be what it is. There is holographic technology out

815
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:17,080
Speaker 2: there that theoretically could pull off putting any type of

816
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 2: images in the sky, which makes us question and wonder

817
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 2: how many of the things that we are apparently recording,

818
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 2: whether it's drones on the East Coast or whether it's

819
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 2: UFOs anywhere in the world, might actually just be holographic technology.

820
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: Correct, I mean if I'm wrong, But isn't the essence

821
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: of Project Bluebeam that these things are going to be

822
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: brought to four to convince people that there are aliens

823
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: attacking us which will bring about one world government or

824
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: whatever the conspiracy theory is. But there aren't really aliens.

825
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: Isn't that the contents?

826
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,760
Speaker 2: Well so again, one of the interesting things about this theory,

827
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 2: this conspiracy theory, and as most do, they mutate over

828
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 2: the years. Right, what was originally positive is different than

829
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 2: what everyone believes today. Part of the idea is that.

830
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 2: Oh no, this isn't saying there are no aliens. This

831
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 2: is saying that the aliens are not hostile.

832
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: Look, Brent, I'm not a bluebeamer. I love that term.

833
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 1: I would say only this. I believe aliens are one

834
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,399
Speaker 1: hundred percent real and they're here. So I don't need

835
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: a blue beam to explain anything other than if there

836
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 1: was some rational reason for a blue beam to confuse us.

837
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: But I don't feel we know who the aliens are

838
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: very well anyway right now. So it strikes me as

839
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: odd that we need a blue beam to confuse us,

840
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: because I'm confused already, and so are most of the

841
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: people listening to this show about what's really going on

842
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:42,919
Speaker 1: in the real world. So that's my blue beam take there.

843
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 2: I completely agree. I think the more you put it

844
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 2: under scrutiny, it doesn't hold up. There's only one thing

845
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:50,919
Speaker 2: that I can't get out of my brain pan here,

846
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 2: and it goes back to the father of modern rocketry,

847
00:47:56,200 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 2: with Werner von Braun. So von Braun was part of

848
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 2: Project paper Clip. He was a Nazi scientist who was

849
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 2: brought over after World War Two to come and take

850
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: everything he had done with the V two rocket. But

851
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: to do it for the US, And so I've actually

852
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 2: been to the Space and Rocketry headquarters down in Huntsville, Alabama,

853
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,839
Speaker 2: where there's a whole part of a museum down there

854
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 2: devoted to Werner bon Braun. And we would never have

855
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 2: gone to space without this guy. So this guy was

856
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 2: a legitimate genius. It just so happens that when he

857
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:33,720
Speaker 2: was dying the last couple of years of his life,

858
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 2: he had an assistant, a woman named Carol Rosen, and

859
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 2: he insisted not once, but many times over those four

860
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 2: years to her that the whole idea of putting weapons

861
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 2: in space was something that was a control mechanism by

862
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,319
Speaker 2: the powers that be, and he did not want it

863
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,800
Speaker 2: to happen. He was wholly against this, and he said,

864
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 2: but there are plans to make it happen, and it

865
00:48:59,320 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 2: will happen this way. The first is that we will

866
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 2: make the Russians into an enemy. Then we will start

867
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 2: to shift our focus to terrorists, and then we will

868
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 2: start to see asteroids and space bodies that are coming

869
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 2: to threaten us. And the last card that will be

870
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 2: played is the alien card, and that is the one

871
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 2: where there will be an alien threat that forces the

872
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 2: world governments to align and put turn on all of

873
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 2: the space lasers to protect us. Do not believe it.

874
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 2: It will be a lie. Now, you could say this

875
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 2: was an old man who was dying. If he'd said

876
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,359
Speaker 2: it once, I'd go okay, maybe he had too much

877
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 2: to drink that night. But if you listen to Carol Rosen,

878
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 2: who by the way, is still alive, she is emphatic

879
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:49,840
Speaker 2: that this happened many times in their conversations. And so

880
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,839
Speaker 2: that's the thing when I think about, for instance, when

881
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:57,719
Speaker 2: Toby Hooper talked to us and said Steven Spielberg was

882
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:01,720
Speaker 2: given the true it's just one person's testimony against many

883
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:04,399
Speaker 2: decades of Steven Spielberg saying I don't know anything else.

884
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 2: This is just one person's testimony. But in this particular case,

885
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 2: Werner von Braun is somebody that you have to take seriously.

886
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: Major dude, that guy. And I've been aware of that story,

887
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: and it appears the fact that this story is probably

888
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:23,360
Speaker 1: true that he said these things doesn't make his conclusion true.

889
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 1: That's a separate thing. But I believe that he said

890
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:30,320
Speaker 1: that to Carol Rosen, And yeah, so Brent, we could

891
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: go out on blue Beam and Werner von Braun. But

892
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: I have a Mars oriented, Hollywood crazy story to end

893
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:43,359
Speaker 1: on that might leave a smile on everybody's face. Let's

894
00:50:43,400 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 1: go with that. It seems like that might get us out,

895
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: all right. This is a story that actually happened to me,

896
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 1: and it's very Hollywood. Okay. It's nineteen eighty six, and

897
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 1: I always wanted to go to Mars ever since I

898
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 1: saw that news Clint come over and there wasn't an Internet,

899
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: but I bought books of Mars, and I thought I'd

900
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 1: like to go to Mars. But that's probably not in

901
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: the cards given my current age. I'm not going to Mars,

902
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: but I can go to Mars in my head. I

903
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 1: was working with a fellow writer, Brad Markowitz, who is

904
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 1: one of our co producers on This Dark Sky Yeah Yeah,

905
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,280
Speaker 1: and on Dark Skys, and so we started talking about

906
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,719
Speaker 1: Mars and I showed him a book that I had,

907
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: which was called The Face. And a lot of people

908
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: know about the Face. At the time, there were images

909
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: that looked like a sphinx like face on Mars, and

910
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 1: brand I came up with a movie idea that there

911
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:36,439
Speaker 1: was a space race to go to Mars to check

912
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:38,840
Speaker 1: out the Face. On Mars. One of them was a

913
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 1: UN group that was trying to get there, and another

914
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:46,400
Speaker 1: one was run by some crazy space entrepreneur. So basically

915
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 1: we were thinking at the time like a Ted Turner,

916
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 1: but in fact I think we were actually channeling Elon Musk.

917
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: It was like Elon Musk versus the UN to get

918
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 1: there kind of thing. And I won't go into the

919
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 1: details of the story or anything, but it was success.

920
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,799
Speaker 1: We wrote this script and our agents at CAA said,

921
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 1: we really like this. We're sending it to Joel Silver. Now,

922
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: Joel Silver is probably someone you've heard of before. He's

923
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 1: a mega producer from Hollywood. At the time, he was huge.

924
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: He was the producer of Lethal Weapon and I'm trying hard,

925
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 1: die hard. He was a major guy, and he had

926
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:23,800
Speaker 1: just moved, for I believe, from Warner Brothers to twentieth

927
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 1: and so Brad and I had a meeting with him.

928
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:30,320
Speaker 1: Now we were young. We had a few Hollywood meetings,

929
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: but to go to a studio and to meet with

930
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: Joel Silver about a script that we'd written seemed like

931
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: a big deal. You have to pass through parking and

932
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: all this, you're doing all this and you're like, oh

933
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: my gosh. And we get there and his assistant says,

934
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: mister Silver is expecting you, please wait here, and they

935
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,320
Speaker 1: sit us on some kind of couch outside his office,

936
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: but his door is open, and there is Joel Silver

937
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 1: in what looks like a klftan to me, a large

938
00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:00,279
Speaker 1: flowing klftan. And this is the eighties, so he's on

939
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: a gigantic telephone, right, but it's wireless. I think he

940
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:06,359
Speaker 1: was actually talking to somebody. He could have been doing

941
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: this just for us, but he's yelling at somebody on

942
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 1: the set about how to do things. And we're like, wow,

943
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: we're watching this uber producer. This is so exciting. I

944
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: wonder how this is going to go down. And then

945
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: finally he finishes, and they escort us into his office

946
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 1: and he comes around from his desk and now he's

947
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,719
Speaker 1: sitting on his desk looking at us, and he said.

948
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 1: The first thing he says is I make movies that

949
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: make money. Do you think I should apologize for that?

950
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:35,840
Speaker 1: And this seems so odd to me, but I said, no, sir, no,

951
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: I don't think you should apologize for that. And he says,

952
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:42,280
Speaker 1: there are two things that make a movie make money.

953
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:45,320
Speaker 1: Do you know what they are? He was very emphatic,

954
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 1: and I had a little notebook with me. I actually

955
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 1: got the notebook out with my pen because I thought

956
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:52,720
Speaker 1: he's going to tell me the secret to Hollywood here,

957
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: and I need to write this down. Sound, light, and frequency.

958
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: That's three words that wouldn't worked. These were two words.

959
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:02,240
Speaker 1: He says, there's two things that make for a movie

960
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 1: that make money. Do you know what they are? I'm

961
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: prepared to write them down. And I swear to God,

962
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: this is exactly what the man said. And he was

963
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 1: a power in Hollywood. He says, boobs and guns. Wait,

964
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 1: let me write that down. I've been doing it wrong

965
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 1: all these years. I put my notebook down. Now, okay,

966
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,560
Speaker 1: there's one final piece to this story that'll crack you up.

967
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 1: So that happened. So then we get into the notes

968
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: on the script. The script begins with a bike with

969
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:32,240
Speaker 1: a spacecraft crash landing on Mars. It's full of energy

970
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: and excitement. It would have been a fantastic beginning to

971
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: a film. He goes, No, that's no good. That's not

972
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: going to work. We can't do that. He goes, you

973
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: ever heard about SETI and we had the search for

974
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:47,319
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial intelligence. He goes, here's what you gotta do. You

975
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 1: gotta do this. You got a guy, it's late at night,

976
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: he's in the SETI headquarters, he's all by himself, and

977
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:57,200
Speaker 1: he's watching porn and what comes over his screen is

978
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:01,000
Speaker 1: the face on Mars. And Brad and I like, what

979
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:04,799
Speaker 1: the f what? And so we take the meeting. We

980
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:07,359
Speaker 1: try to push back, he's not having it. We leave

981
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: and his assistant takes this acide afterwards and we're like,

982
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: this doesn't make any sense. We got this great scene.

983
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: Why would he be watching porn and why would the

984
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 1: face in Mars appear on a porn show? What is

985
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: that all about? It's a secret. And the guy says, listen,

986
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 1: if you want to stay on the project, you're going

987
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: to do the note. And our agents, when they heard

988
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: of this, said, are you crazy. Of course you're going

989
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:33,320
Speaker 1: to do the note. It's just a scene. It's porn.

990
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 1: Who cares write it? So we literally did write an

991
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 1: opening scene where a guy was watching porn at SETI

992
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 1: and saw the face on Mars. And there's more to

993
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 1: the story, but I'm not going to tell it because

994
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: that's a good place to add. All I can say

995
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:50,879
Speaker 1: is that goes to show that different brains will look

996
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 1: at different material in different ways, which to wrap it

997
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:56,959
Speaker 1: back up to the War of the World's I think

998
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,800
Speaker 1: says that's why War of the World's kind of works

999
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 1: a roar shock test. It gives you the basic infrastructure

1000
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,120
Speaker 1: of the film, but different people can see it differently.

1001
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why I say, I suspect that at

1002
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:11,880
Speaker 2: some point down the road someone is going to do

1003
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 2: a podcast about the Fourth Century franchise.

1004
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:18,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. And maybe one of the iterations

1005
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: will be boobs and guns. I don't know. Let's hope whatever,

1006
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 1: Let's get out of here, goodbye, We'll see you later.

1007
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:31,839
Speaker 1: Sound Light and Frequency is an iHeart podcast produced by

1008
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: Stellar Productions. It's executive produced by Nick Johnson and for

1009
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: Stellar Jackie's Abel. Our show's music was written by Anna

1010
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: Stumf and Hamilton Lighthouser, and Your hosts and executive producers

1011
00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 1: are Bryce Abel, That's me and Brent Friedman. Watch the

1012
00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: Skies