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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on the podcast,

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Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about the 1984 Italian dystopian

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Speaker 3: action film, Warriors of the Year 2072, also known as

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Speaker 3: Rome Rebellion. 2033. Yeah, that's a different year. Rome 2033 colon,

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Speaker 3: the fighter centurions also known as the new gladiators and

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Speaker 3: so on and so on. Lot of titles in the

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Speaker 3: different international markets. Uh, just a warning up top about

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Speaker 3: this one to any viewers who have photosensitive epilepsy, like

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Speaker 3: one third of this movie is in strobe lights, but

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Speaker 3: they're very cool scenes. You can make the call on

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Speaker 3: whether it's worth it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: We'll have a lot to say about the lighting here. Um, the,

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Speaker 2: the title I have to admit for this one is

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Speaker 2: pretty generic and easy to get lost in the shuffle

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Speaker 2: when it comes to particularly Italian, Italian genre films of

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Speaker 2: this period. I think the generic title is one of

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Speaker 2: the reasons I never actually watched this one till now.

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Speaker 2: It sounds so much like The New Barbarians, one of

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Speaker 2: the names for a pretty insane post-apocalyptic Enzo G. Castellari film,

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Speaker 2: which also has Fred Williamson in it.

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Speaker 3: He was doing all of these. I haven't seen that one.

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Speaker 3: I might have to check that out. I do like

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Speaker 3: some Castellari. But, of course, this movie was not Enzo G. Castellari.

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Speaker 3: It was directed by the one, the only, Lucio Fulci.

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Speaker 3: I will, my opinion is this is not one of

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Speaker 3: his best, but it was at least to me, highly amusing. Uh,

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Speaker 3: so I would not put it on the shelf with

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Speaker 3: like the gates of hell trilogy, uh, or conquest. I

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Speaker 3: think those are like my favorites of his. Uh, but

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Speaker 3: this is also not on the bottom rung for me.

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Speaker 3: It's somewhere in the middle.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I'd certainly argue that it's far

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Speaker 2: from the worst. And, um, You know, for instance, unless

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Speaker 2: your appetite for sweat spandex and Keith Emerson just overpowers

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Speaker 2: everything else, 2072 is an easy pick over 1984's Murder Rock.

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Speaker 2: Though some people may absolutely love Murder Rock, fair enough.

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Speaker 2: But I would say that I think Warriors of the

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Speaker 2: Year 2072 is absolutely a must-see if you were at

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Speaker 2: all a big fan of Fulci's aesthetics, because it's pretty

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Speaker 2: much his only science fiction film. as we've discussed before.

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Speaker 3: It makes me want more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: I wish, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those situations where you're like, man,

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Speaker 2: we could have had at least one more proper Fulci

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Speaker 2: at full power sci-fi film.

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Speaker 3: Like, can you imagine Fulci doing a space movie? This

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Speaker 3: one isn't in space, but like, Fulci doing a star

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Speaker 3: crash style Gonzo space opera. That could have been amazing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Like even if it was terrible, I would, I

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Speaker 2: would want it because, you know, as we've discussed before,

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Speaker 2: despite his enduring fame as a master of dreamlike horror

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Speaker 2: and gore, he directed various pictures of different genres, including

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Speaker 2: Westerns and comedies. Uh, but the only other contender for

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Speaker 2: a Fulci sci-fi is this 1965 comedy, uh, double O

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Speaker 2: two operation moon. Um, which I think has some people,

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Speaker 2: some Fulci completists have found things to enjoy in it.

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Speaker 2: But it's a black and white picture. It's a different

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Speaker 2: era of Fulci. And it is not like the second

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Speaker 2: helping of full-blown Fulci future that you're going to be

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Speaker 2: left pining for after this picture.

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Speaker 3: Warriors of the Year 2072 is not quite as immediately

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Speaker 3: recognizable as Fulci aesthetics, as I would say, like his

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Speaker 3: horror films are. You know, you watch one of his

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Speaker 3: Jallo movies or, um, or one of the, the zombie,

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Speaker 3: you know, the gore horror movies, those like within a minute, uh,

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Speaker 3: you know, who directed this, you know, there's just, there's

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Speaker 3: a tangible quality. It might be kind of hard to

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Speaker 3: say what it is, but it has something to do with, uh,

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Speaker 3: weird dreamlike images, things that don't make narrative sense. And

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Speaker 3: yet they, they strongly kind of resonate in the gut.

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Speaker 3: There's that weird perverse sensibility with gore. Like, let's get

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Speaker 3: a closer look at that. You know, all these kind

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Speaker 3: of Fulci things. This movie doesn't quite go all the

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Speaker 3: way there, but there are muted aspects of all that

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Speaker 3: stuff at play if you know what to look for.

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Speaker 3: And there's one scene that really screamed Fulci to me.

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Speaker 3: It was the scene where the whistling assassins appear in

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Speaker 3: the house.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, some strong giallo elements there for sure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, all the hallmarks of Fulci are present, again,

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Speaker 2: like you said, in sort of muted form in many cases,

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Speaker 2: but they're absolutely there. 2072 is a rare glimpse of

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Speaker 2: the future via Fulci in the same way that Conquest

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Speaker 2: from the previous year is a rare dose of Fulci fantasy. So,

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Speaker 2: you know, 2072 definitely has all those hallmark of visual obsessions,

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Speaker 2: but it's all refracted through the lens of technology and

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Speaker 2: mass media. So this is the only Fulci film, I believe,

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Speaker 2: that will give you the likes of, you know, retro

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Speaker 2: technological computer interfaces.

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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Dystopian stormtroopers. Face-melting laser guns. Cyberpunk cityscapes. Pre-total recall dream

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Speaker 2: inducer chairs. You'll get cyborgs. You'll get supercomputers. You will

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Speaker 2: get flying cars. And also there's so much more, but

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Speaker 2: there is going to be some legitimate sci-fi, I think,

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Speaker 2: technology and media commentary here. And maybe that's why the

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Speaker 2: dreamlike elements are still here, but... this film may be

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Speaker 2: just by virtue of its genre has to adhere a

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Speaker 2: bit more to logic and has to sort of explain

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Speaker 2: the setting a bit more.

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Speaker 3: It also would not be full cheat without something gross

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Speaker 3: happening to somebody's eyes. And this movie has it. Indeed.

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Speaker 3: There's a character whose entire sheet is, uh, has weird

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Speaker 3: past eye trauma. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: There's an entire character just for the eye trauma and, uh,

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Speaker 2: it kind of gets it in both directions. So, Um, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I I'd say for my money, the main bits that

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Speaker 2: were a little thin in 2072 are going to be the,

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Speaker 2: the motorcycle kill bike action sequences themselves, despite being, I suppose,

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Speaker 2: like the leading premise. Like it's pretty clear, like this

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Speaker 2: was maybe one of the more, uh, expensive and essential

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Speaker 2: parts of the film for, you know, the, some of the,

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Speaker 2: the money, uh, folks behind it. Uh, you can almost

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Speaker 2: get the sense that someone's like, Hey, we got a

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Speaker 2: bunch of motorcycle stunt men. and they really want to

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Speaker 2: blow some stuff up. Can that be the movie? And

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Speaker 2: maybe it grows from there. I'm not entirely sure.

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Speaker 3: I would say the motorcycle action scene at the beginning

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Speaker 3: of the movie is particularly underwhelming. That one is, and

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Speaker 3: it's funny because the whole thing is like, this is

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Speaker 3: what the fans are going crazy for. This is what

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Speaker 3: is driving them wild. And when you see the action,

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Speaker 3: it feels a little, you know, it's just like, it's

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Speaker 3: not thrilling.

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Speaker 2: There's some, some cute little kicks. kicking people off motorbikes

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Speaker 2: and all. And obviously some really legitimate stunt work. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: by the time we get to the main event, that's

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Speaker 2: when we're going to get a bit more of the

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Speaker 2: gore and the fire.

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Speaker 3: The action scenes are actually, some of the best action

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Speaker 3: I think is not on the motorcycles, or excuse me,

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Speaker 3: the kill bikes. It is the strobe light martial arts

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Speaker 3: scenes with Fred and Hal and stuff in the middle

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Speaker 3: of the movie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: There, there's some, there's some fun martial arts shot in

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Speaker 2: a very dreamlike fashion.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Like not, not necessarily, we're always talking about like, what

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Speaker 2: does a fight sequence do? Is it telling that sort

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Speaker 2: of a narrative, a physical narrative, less of that here

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Speaker 2: and more of the dream. Uh, but it works well

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Speaker 2: because it's, it's Fulci steering the dream, the dream for sure.

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Speaker 3: So I wanted to talk for a bit about a

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Speaker 3: sub genre of dystopian science fiction that that this movie

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Speaker 3: belongs to. I wouldn't say this is the best example

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Speaker 3: of it, but it's a clear participant in this tradition.

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Speaker 3: And that would be like the blood sports sci-fi and

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Speaker 3: entertainment dystopia film. So it's a premise where it's the future.

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Speaker 3: Things are bad in one way or another. Often there's

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Speaker 3: some kind of authoritarian government or corporate dystopia. And the

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Speaker 3: evil overlords, whoever they are, use violent sports entertainment and

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Speaker 3: deadly public spectacle to numb the masses. So examples of this, uh,

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Speaker 3: type of movie would include death race, 2000, um, roller ball,

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Speaker 3: the running man with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Uh, and then there've

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Speaker 3: been more recent ones too.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Like the hunger games definitely fits in there.

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Speaker 3: I actually never got into those, but it's, I know

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Speaker 3: I understand the premise, I think.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I, I watched at least the

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Speaker 2: first movie. I never read the books, but the rest

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Speaker 2: of the family is really into them. You could also

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Speaker 2: throw the Stephen King Bachman book, The Long Walk, in there, which,

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Speaker 2: of course, was recently made into a film as well.

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Speaker 3: That's what The Running Man is based on also.

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Speaker 2: No, The Running Man is a different Bachman. The Long

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Speaker 2: Walk is a bit more gritty. I guess The Original

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Speaker 2: Running Man is also pretty gritty. But yeah, long walk

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Speaker 2: is the one where they have to do like they're

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Speaker 2: doing like a walking marathon behind a truck. And if

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Speaker 2: they slow down or they stop, they get shot with

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Speaker 2: a rifle.

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Speaker 3: I know what you're talking about. I stand corrected.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, they're part of the same group. They come

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Speaker 2: from the same grim place for sure.

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Speaker 3: And as an oblique example, this doesn't really go into

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Speaker 3: the violent sports entertainment direction, but more in the kind

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Speaker 3: of violent pornography direction. It's also sort of the premise

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Speaker 3: of Videodrome. or sort of a half of the premise

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Speaker 3: of Videodrome. They're like competing factions in how they want

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Speaker 3: to manage this violent entertainment. So there are different ways

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Speaker 3: of describing the subgenre. I think I've seen at least

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Speaker 3: one post online referring to these as murder games movies.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, blood sports, entertainment, dystopias, whatever you want to

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Speaker 3: call them. There is sort of a variant of the

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Speaker 3: subgenre where the murder games are used not primarily as entertainment,

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Speaker 3: but as an alternative to all-out war. There are several

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Speaker 3: movies I can think of like this, like Robot Jocks

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Speaker 3: is one, where instead of having wars between the superpowers,

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Speaker 3: they fight with big robots and everybody watches on TV.

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Speaker 3: I was always a little curious about exactly how that

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Speaker 3: works out. Do you really just abide by the winner

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Speaker 3: of these matches instead of just going to war? But

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Speaker 3: then also there's a movie I've never seen called The

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Speaker 3: Tenth Victim, which I think is a similar premise. Sort

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Speaker 3: of a different thing, but shares some DNA. But I

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Speaker 3: think the classic entertainment dystopia plot is common in part

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Speaker 3: because it has a historical basis. And it's something that

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Speaker 3: people have been talking about since ancient times. Like it

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Speaker 3: wasn't always a future dystopian thing. You know, in ancient Rome,

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Speaker 3: you had the concept of bread and circuses, a phrase

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Speaker 3: that comes from the Roman poet or satirist Juvenal. Now,

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Speaker 3: of course, the circuses in question in ancient Rome would

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Speaker 3: include chariot races and gladiatorial combat, which are both directly

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Speaker 3: reimagined in today's movie, except taking place on motorcycles that

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Speaker 3: explode if you touch them.

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Speaker 2: But set in Rome, set in future Rome and filmed

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Speaker 2: in Rome, of course. So that adds that extra interesting layer.

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Speaker 2: Thinking a bit about that, how did this film resonate

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Speaker 2: with the Roman viewer at the time? Because for someone

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Speaker 2: in Rome, elements of that history are there. They're physically

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Speaker 2: there around you. It's not like, certainly in the other

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Speaker 2: side of the world and the United States where it's

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Speaker 2: going to be in the history books about the Roman

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Speaker 2: gladiators here, you can see like the physical evidence of

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Speaker 2: the Roman gladiators era, like in the city around you.

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Speaker 3: Now I have a question actually about that city geography.

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Speaker 3: Did you understand in this movie, the kill bike tournament, uh,

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Speaker 3: it takes place in the Coliseum. Uh, but I think

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Speaker 3: they call it like the new Coliseum. So my question was,

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Speaker 3: did they, actually do this in the original Colosseum of

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Speaker 3: Rome and they like rebuilt it, refurbed it to become

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Speaker 3: a kill bike arena? Or is this just a new

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Speaker 3: construction entirely?

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Speaker 2: Ooh, I, I kind of assumed it was like, they just,

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Speaker 2: they refurbished the old one, but I could be wrong.

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Speaker 2: I was too distracted by the gleaming lights, I guess, to,

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Speaker 2: to question it too, too harshly.

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Speaker 3: We're going to knock it down, make it more beautiful

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Speaker 3: than ever. Put gold everywhere. Do kill bikes there.

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Speaker 2: Gold kill bikes and just lots of gleaming lights. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So I wanted to talk about a few of the

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Speaker 3: themes of the Bloodsport entertainment dystopia movie. And one that

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Speaker 3: I think is actually really interesting and maybe smarter than

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Speaker 3: we would usually give these movies credit for is the

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Speaker 3: theme of the form factor of entertainment as control. There's

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Speaker 3: some fairly strong underlying logic here in the idea that

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Speaker 3: entertainment can be used as a tool of social manipulation.

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Speaker 3: A lot of dystopian stories that focus on the media

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Speaker 3: as a tool of control for the powerful focus on

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Speaker 3: the message propagated by the media in the sense that

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Speaker 3: the media is used to disseminate propaganda that overtly supports

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Speaker 3: the aims of the powerful. So you're watching TV shows

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Speaker 3: maybe that give you constant messages that the leader is good,

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Speaker 3: that the leader's picture of the world is accurate, that

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Speaker 3: it is good to obey, things like that. But these

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Speaker 3: entertainment dystopia movies make a slightly different point, which I

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Speaker 3: think is a very good one. Overt propaganda like obey

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Speaker 3: the leader, the leader is good, is not the only

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Speaker 3: way that media can be used to control people. And

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Speaker 3: in fact, I think it's often not the most effective

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Speaker 3: way to control people in reality. Leaders can control people

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Speaker 3: by focusing on the medium rather than the message, where

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Speaker 3: the major goal is just the management of people's attention

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Speaker 3: and the management of the topics of public conversation. So

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Speaker 3: like if you can get everybody's attention focused nonstop on

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Speaker 3: highly entertaining distractions, presumably in these stories, blood sports are

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Speaker 3: the most entertaining content possible. Though I might quibble with

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Speaker 3: that assumption in reality. But if you get everybody just,

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Speaker 3: you know, totally obsessed with the blood sports and their

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Speaker 3: favorite champion and, you know, I want this kill bike

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Speaker 3: guy to win, you deny them the attentional bandwidth to

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Speaker 3: focus on what the rulers are doing, to pay attention

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Speaker 3: to corruption or abuses of power and so forth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah i feel like in today's world for the most

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Speaker 2: part it's uh it's become um like instead of death

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Speaker 2: sport it's love sport it's these various um like dating

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Speaker 2: and hook up and you know all the different i

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Speaker 2: don't know um uh you know milf island type shows

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Speaker 2: out there that kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely as i was just saying i don't know

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Speaker 3: if deadly violence is always the most compelling type of

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Speaker 3: media content it probably is for some people But, you know,

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Speaker 3: I think sex is going to be very compelling, as

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Speaker 3: is just anything that feels like gossip. Like one reason

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Speaker 3: I think reality TV is so compelling is that it

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Speaker 3: feels like gossip and gossip is almost as innately interesting

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Speaker 3: to our brains as sex and violence are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Cringe.

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Speaker 2: You know, it could be the cringe or games instead

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Speaker 2: of the hunger games, you know? Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Another thing that I think is interesting about this type

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Speaker 3: of story, often we're talking about movies here. is that

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Speaker 3: they focus on TV as a medium. There's like a

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Speaker 3: particular focus on TV itself. Like the core medium is

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Speaker 3: live television, not scripted media, not movies, not in-person events.

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Speaker 3: It's live TV. I would argue this is actually a

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Speaker 3: really good choice for this control theme, control through entertainment.

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Speaker 3: Because live TV is something that simulates togetherness and collective experience,

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Speaker 3: but in reality is mostly consumed and processed in isolation.

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Speaker 3: So if the dictator does not want you paying attention

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Speaker 3: to his corruption and abuses of power, he can keep

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Speaker 3: your mind busy with highly entertaining media, with lurid content, sex, violence, gossip,

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Speaker 3: those kind of connotations, so that you don't have time

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Speaker 3: or energy to think about the other stuff he's doing.

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Speaker 3: But also if the dictator does not want people really

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Speaker 3: communicating with each other, sharing their experiences, uh, you know,

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Speaker 3: congregating in a way that leads to collaboration, potentially against him, uh,

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Speaker 3: you can simulate the feeling of getting together in congregation

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Speaker 3: by having people watch live TV when they're really just

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Speaker 3: all sitting in their homes alone, staring at a screen. Hmm.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like the sort of information

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Speaker 2: bubbles that a lot of people are stuck in these days.

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Speaker 3: Totally. I agree that there is a similar kind of

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Speaker 3: false or simulated feeling of togetherness that people get from

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Speaker 3: algorithmic feeds on Instagram or whatever. It's similar to this

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Speaker 3: false togetherness that people got from watching live TV, I think.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And a little bit of false togetherness, I think,

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Speaker 2: is good. We all need a little You know, simulated

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Speaker 2: togetherness and simulated social engagement. You know, we all listen

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Speaker 2: to podcasts. We all engage with fictional characters and books

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Speaker 2: and so forth. And we all need a little alone time,

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Speaker 2: even if we're trying to stimulate our social nerve endings

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Speaker 2: at the same time. But yeah, but but then when

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Speaker 2: it becomes part of the top down manipulation, that's where

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Speaker 2: it becomes especially dangerous.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you're never going to get me complaining about

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Speaker 3: alone time, but I think alone time is great. But

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Speaker 3: also I think it's good for when people feel like

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Speaker 3: they're getting social interaction to actually be getting social interaction

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Speaker 3: and not a kind of false top-down mediated sensation of

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Speaker 3: it without getting the real benefits of it. So for

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Speaker 3: the entertainment dystopia story, that's the medium is the message stuff.

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Speaker 3: in my opinion, which I think is quite strong. But

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Speaker 3: on another level, you could also argue that the message

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Speaker 3: of blood sport media is actually propagandistic in a subtle way,

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Speaker 3: in that it promotes values of dominance that might makes right,

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Speaker 3: because the winner in a blood sport is not the

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Speaker 3: person who does what they should in a moral sense,

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Speaker 3: but the person who does what they can in a

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Speaker 3: physical sense. And I think you could say this makes

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Speaker 3: authoritarian domination feel inevitable and irresistible. So despite the fact

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Speaker 3: that these movies are often quite meat-headed in their execution,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to deny that and act like they're, oh,

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Speaker 3: they're actually so sophisticated. I mean, very often they are

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Speaker 3: just a lot of bashing scenes. And despite the fact

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Speaker 3: that in some cases they're kind of examples of the

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Speaker 3: things they're satirizing... The core premise, I think, is actually

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Speaker 3: based on pretty solid insights.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point.

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Speaker 3: A couple more things I've noticed seem to recur in

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Speaker 3: these stories. One is a reluctant hero. A lot of

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Speaker 3: the Bloodsport dystopias center on a man who disdains violence

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Speaker 3: but happens to be really good at it. You know,

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Speaker 3: the gladiator who does not want to fight but is

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Speaker 3: forced to. And I think this is narratively convenient because

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Speaker 3: this way he can triumph over his enemies and win

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Speaker 3: the hearts of the bloodthirsty fans, but is also still

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Speaker 3: a relatable character because he's not portrayed as bloodthirsty himself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or at the very least, he's put those days

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Speaker 2: behind him. Yeah, he's retired, and you pulled him out

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Speaker 2: of retirement and back into gladiator stuff.

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Speaker 3: I think that is something that is a core contradiction

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Speaker 3: in Warriors of the Year 2072. Yeah. it doesn't make

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Speaker 3: a lot of sense because our main character is portrayed

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Speaker 3: this way. Like he's a, Oh, he's a peaceful man.

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Speaker 3: He would never kill, but it's almost like it forgets

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Speaker 3: that his job before the main action starts was killing

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Speaker 3: people on TV for a living.

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Speaker 2: It was.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Another aspect of these movies is it's often very, look

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Speaker 3: how sick our society is. Like it's not just bad

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Speaker 3: governments or bad TV executives trying to control people. When

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Speaker 3: we see the audience, when we see regular people in

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Speaker 3: these movies, they're usually braying for this stuff. Like, they

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Speaker 3: want their minds dulled by the gory circuses. There may

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Speaker 3: be exceptions, but these stories often seem to me to

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Speaker 3: have a broadly pessimistic view of human nature.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. There is the sense that, like, of course

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Speaker 2: you've been duped by the powers that be, because they

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Speaker 2: know exactly what to feed you. You're just eating it up.

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Speaker 2: You're gobbling it up. So it's like the blame is

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Speaker 2: on you as well as the dictators. So, yeah, it

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Speaker 2: is a pessimistic way of looking at things. And, you know,

387
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Speaker 2: like any pessimistic view of society, it can ring true

388
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Speaker 2: if you hold it up, you know, in the right light.

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Speaker 2: And there are times when it does seem true. But

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Speaker 2: it is, yeah, it's a pretty, you know, pretty broad strokes, right?

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Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: I think another thing about this, well, about these genres

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Speaker 2: in general, and this also applies to things like Mortal

394
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Speaker 2: Kombat even, though Mortal Kombat was definitely not trying to

395
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Speaker 2: really say too much about the human condition. But anytime

396
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Speaker 2: you have a picture like this where you're engaging in

397
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Speaker 2: the reduction of human conflict and division into direct violent

398
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Speaker 2: confrontation between, say, two individuals or two squads of motorcycle dudes,

399
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Speaker 2: you're you know, it's like with any sport, you know,

400
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Speaker 2: we have an artificial conflict bound by particular rules. And

401
00:22:37,470 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 2: in the best cases, sport provides a safe place for

402
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Speaker 2: nationalistic pride and rivalry, as well as the celebration of

403
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Speaker 2: warrior and soldier icons and the warrior ethos. But in

404
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:52,260
Speaker 2: dystopian visions such as these, the purity of the sport

405
00:22:52,300 --> 00:22:55,959
Speaker 2: is corrupted by the vileness of the warfare it supplants. And,

406
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Speaker 2: you know, so who's to blame for that? Is it

407
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:02,020
Speaker 2: the organizers of the sport Is it the government, the dictators?

408
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Speaker 2: Is it the media? Or is it the consumers? You know,

409
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Speaker 2: is it something, again, in us, in our human thirst

410
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Speaker 2: for violence, you know, that can only be sated so

411
00:23:11,020 --> 00:23:15,899
Speaker 2: long on artificial preventer? You know, it was like we've

412
00:23:15,940 --> 00:23:19,270
Speaker 2: watched too much touch football. Now we need full tackle.

413
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Speaker 2: We've watched too much tackle football. Now we want the

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Speaker 2: helmets off and we want to give maces and war

415
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Speaker 2: hammers to the combatants, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 3: We're, we're tired of kayfabe. We need real full contact,

417
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Speaker 3: you know, beating brains out. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And I, you know, that's kind of like a familiar

419
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Speaker 2: trend in commentary on the media and commentary on society

420
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Speaker 2: where it's like, Oh, uh, you know, our, our material

421
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Speaker 2: is getting, you know, more and more extreme. Like we, uh,

422
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Speaker 2: it's going to get out of control. It's just, everything's

423
00:23:48,380 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 2: rolling downhill. And, um, you know, I mean, that, that

424
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Speaker 2: is something you can observe at times, but I think

425
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Speaker 2: it's maybe not as, as simple as that. I think

426
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Speaker 2: also the, um, there's a lot more work in any

427
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Speaker 2: given art form where you're going to see, you're going

428
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Speaker 2: to see things go more extreme, but then you're going

429
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Speaker 2: to see things pull back and you're going to see

430
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Speaker 2: other sort of altering directions and the artistic vision.

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00:24:12,470 --> 00:24:15,260
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was just thinking based on what you were

432
00:24:15,300 --> 00:24:18,900
Speaker 3: saying that that's another kind of contradiction in this movie.

433
00:24:19,859 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 3: It introduces the new gladiatorial games as something that's like

434
00:24:24,540 --> 00:24:27,020
Speaker 3: a step up in how terrible it is.

435
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: Yeah.

436
00:24:27,590 --> 00:24:30,070
Speaker 3: But it actually doesn't seem any worse than what they

437
00:24:30,090 --> 00:24:33,730
Speaker 3: were doing beforehand, right? Is it like kill biking used

438
00:24:33,750 --> 00:24:37,190
Speaker 3: to mean something? And now it's just about, you know,

439
00:24:37,890 --> 00:24:38,989
Speaker 3: mindless entertainment.

440
00:24:39,210 --> 00:24:41,580
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or they introduced the idea that we're going to

441
00:24:41,619 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 2: bring back ancient formula violence.

442
00:24:44,260 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 3: Yes.

443
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 2: Kind of get into the idea that it's like, all right,

444
00:24:46,619 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 2: we're through beating around the bush with kill bikes. We're

445
00:24:49,140 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 2: going to get back to actual old school gladiatorial combat.

446
00:24:53,500 --> 00:24:56,010
Speaker 2: And that's not actually what happens in the film. But

447
00:24:56,030 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 2: that would be my elevator pitch, Ancient Formula Violence, the

448
00:24:58,859 --> 00:25:02,740
Speaker 2: motion picture. Ancient Formula Violence, I think, is just a

449
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 2: snazzy title. Someone should pick that up. Yeah, that part

450
00:25:05,900 --> 00:25:06,300
Speaker 2: is great.

451
00:25:06,380 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 3: The character Sam has several highly quotable lines like that. Actually,

452
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,740
Speaker 3: there are a lot of very quotable parts in this movie.

453
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:17,860
Speaker 3: I just couldn't stop thinking after I watched it about

454
00:25:17,900 --> 00:25:20,139
Speaker 3: the part where he's resisting the hate stimulation.

455
00:25:21,380 --> 00:25:26,409
Speaker 2: The hate stimulation, yeah. Good stuff. All right. If you

456
00:25:26,450 --> 00:25:30,109
Speaker 2: would like to watch Warriors of the Year 2072 or

457
00:25:30,170 --> 00:25:33,570
Speaker 2: The New Gladiators, whatever title you find it under, well,

458
00:25:34,109 --> 00:25:38,229
Speaker 2: it is widely available, though the ideal physical media treatment is,

459
00:25:38,250 --> 00:25:43,100
Speaker 2: I believe, the Severin disc, which has loads of extras and,

460
00:25:43,170 --> 00:25:46,680
Speaker 2: above all else, restored film quality. I honestly feel bad

461
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,660
Speaker 2: for not watching this one on the Severin disc. I

462
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: was actually on my way to rent it from Videodrome,

463
00:25:52,780 --> 00:25:55,020
Speaker 2: and then I started feeling kind of sickly. And I

464
00:25:55,060 --> 00:25:58,300
Speaker 2: had to return to the house and ended up watching

465
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 2: it on a streaming service. But the Severin disc looks phenomenal.

466
00:26:02,590 --> 00:26:05,830
Speaker 2: And out of a sense of shame, I went ahead

467
00:26:06,050 --> 00:26:09,429
Speaker 2: and ordered a copy of The Newest Treatment of Conquest,

468
00:26:09,490 --> 00:26:12,330
Speaker 2: another Fulci movie, because I guess I need another copy

469
00:26:12,350 --> 00:26:16,750
Speaker 2: of Conquest on my shelf. But I think this one

470
00:26:16,790 --> 00:26:19,550
Speaker 2: is worth seeing. You might not think it. You might think, oh, like,

471
00:26:19,590 --> 00:26:22,730
Speaker 2: you know, feature gladiator movie. I don't really need the

472
00:26:22,770 --> 00:26:26,869
Speaker 2: high quality footage. But, uh, the lighting, the, the, the,

473
00:26:26,980 --> 00:26:30,570
Speaker 2: the dreamlike quality of the, the Fulci visualizations, I do

474
00:26:30,590 --> 00:26:33,210
Speaker 2: think it's worth seeing in as good a quality as

475
00:26:33,250 --> 00:26:33,649
Speaker 2: you can get.

476
00:26:34,230 --> 00:26:36,570
Speaker 3: I would be curious to see it in higher quality,

477
00:26:36,650 --> 00:26:40,619
Speaker 3: especially because there's so much glare in this movie. We

478
00:26:40,660 --> 00:26:42,889
Speaker 3: mentioned the strobe light scenes. That's a lot of it.

479
00:26:43,260 --> 00:26:45,140
Speaker 3: A lot of the rest of the movie is pointing

480
00:26:45,180 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 3: the camera directly at incredibly bright lights. So they're just like,

481
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:53,830
Speaker 3: you know, they're just cruciform forming the screen. Yeah, it's brilliant.

482
00:26:53,950 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 2: It's a similar thing was employed in some of the

483
00:26:57,540 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 2: newer Star Trek films, you know, where I think the

484
00:26:59,660 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 2: idea that they actually spelled out was like the future

485
00:27:02,260 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 2: is just so shiny, it's hard to look at. But clearly,

486
00:27:05,619 --> 00:27:08,340
Speaker 2: like Fulci was doing this decades earlier. And I wonder

487
00:27:08,380 --> 00:27:11,590
Speaker 2: if Fulci's treatment of it might have been an influence

488
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:17,190
Speaker 2: on Panos Cosmatos' so-called Panos lights, I think, or Panos flares,

489
00:27:17,869 --> 00:27:21,090
Speaker 2: because he really likes his own take on this sort

490
00:27:21,130 --> 00:27:24,859
Speaker 2: of thing. But I don't know enough about lighting wizardry

491
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 2: to know exactly how related the two different techniques might be.

492
00:27:29,660 --> 00:27:32,580
Speaker 3: Oh, I have to look that up. Panos. Is that

493
00:27:32,619 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 3: a lens flare thing or is it pointing directly at the.

494
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,179
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not sure off the top of

495
00:27:37,220 --> 00:27:41,139
Speaker 2: my head how he's pulling it off. But his particular

496
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:42,690
Speaker 2: use of it is sometimes referred... I don't know if

497
00:27:42,710 --> 00:27:44,270
Speaker 2: he calls it this, but at least other people call

498
00:27:44,290 --> 00:27:47,730
Speaker 2: it Panos flares. And I know that he's a guy

499
00:27:47,770 --> 00:27:51,650
Speaker 2: that at least takes some inspiration from the work of Fulci. So,

500
00:27:51,670 --> 00:27:53,810
Speaker 2: you know, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort

501
00:27:53,830 --> 00:27:54,470
Speaker 2: of connection there.

502
00:27:54,950 --> 00:27:55,850
Speaker 3: Interesting. Okay.

503
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,220
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's get into the people behind this film,

504
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:12,640
Speaker 2: Behind Warriors of the Year 2072. Starting with Lucio Fulci, director,

505
00:28:13,180 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 2: also a screenplay credit, lived 1927 through 1996. We've, of course,

506
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,859
Speaker 2: talked about him before. This is our fourth Fulci film.

507
00:28:20,420 --> 00:28:24,169
Speaker 2: We previously covered 1980's City of the Living Dead, 81's

508
00:28:24,270 --> 00:28:28,369
Speaker 2: House by the Cemetery, and 83's Conquest. As we've covered,

509
00:28:28,490 --> 00:28:32,189
Speaker 2: Fulci is a legend of Italian B-cinema and has amassed

510
00:28:32,210 --> 00:28:35,689
Speaker 2: a significant international following as a wizard of horror and

511
00:28:35,730 --> 00:28:39,540
Speaker 2: dreamlike gore. And as I said earlier, one of the

512
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 2: treats of this film is getting to see his visual

513
00:28:41,700 --> 00:28:45,810
Speaker 2: obsessions realized in a rare sci-fi picture. rather than, I

514
00:28:45,830 --> 00:28:48,260
Speaker 2: guess you would say, pure horror, or at least, you know,

515
00:28:48,300 --> 00:28:52,620
Speaker 2: giallo or zombies or something. This was 1984, so we're

516
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 2: in the last decade of Fulci's cinematic output. His last

517
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:01,860
Speaker 2: directorial credits are from 92. Furthermore, many of his best-known

518
00:29:01,940 --> 00:29:04,300
Speaker 2: films were, I guess, technically behind him at this point,

519
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 2: but only barely. So his full-throttle horror period didn't begin

520
00:29:08,460 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 2: until 79, but he was still clearly an obsessive director

521
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,020
Speaker 2: working at the height of his talents here. This was

522
00:29:15,180 --> 00:29:17,740
Speaker 2: one of two Fulci films to come out in 84,

523
00:29:17,740 --> 00:29:21,070
Speaker 2: the other being that Flashdance-inspired Giallo film I mentioned earlier,

524
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:26,030
Speaker 2: Murder Rock. And it was preceded in 83 by Conquest,

525
00:29:26,150 --> 00:29:28,030
Speaker 2: I think one of both of our favorites, and then

526
00:29:28,130 --> 00:29:31,470
Speaker 2: followed in 86 by his erotic thriller The Devil's Honey,

527
00:29:32,090 --> 00:29:32,910
Speaker 2: which I have not seen.

528
00:29:33,410 --> 00:29:35,250
Speaker 3: I have not seen it. If that's the one I'm

529
00:29:35,290 --> 00:29:38,740
Speaker 3: thinking of, I've read about a a kind of unbelievable

530
00:29:38,780 --> 00:29:44,060
Speaker 3: scene involving a saxophone. I, uh, there's a saxophone on

531
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,070
Speaker 3: the poster, some of the posters for this film. Uh, yeah.

532
00:29:47,110 --> 00:29:49,350
Speaker 2: So there is some sort of erotic saxophone, which is

533
00:29:49,690 --> 00:29:53,990
Speaker 2: interesting because, um, On an audio level, the score for

534
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,020
Speaker 2: this film, as we'll discuss, has some very erotic saxophone.

535
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,380
Speaker 2: There's a lot of sexy sax, or sexy sex, if

536
00:30:00,420 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 2: you want, in this film.

537
00:30:02,500 --> 00:30:07,220
Speaker 3: In strange scenes for that to be featured, yeah. It

538
00:30:07,260 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 3: has that on one hand, but also a very bombastic

539
00:30:11,900 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 3: score that feels like the score for RoboCop, except I

540
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,060
Speaker 3: think that was a traditional orchestra, whereas I believe this

541
00:30:18,140 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 3: is just all synth.

542
00:30:19,610 --> 00:30:23,060
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Well, normally we don't talk about the score

543
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 2: until later, but let's go ahead and talk about it

544
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:29,340
Speaker 2: now since we're already doing so. The composer here is

545
00:30:29,580 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 2: Riz Ordolani, who lived 1926 through 2014. Italian composer and

546
00:30:34,860 --> 00:30:38,930
Speaker 2: actually a two-time Oscar nominee for Best Original Song for

547
00:30:38,970 --> 00:30:42,270
Speaker 2: his work on numbers for 64's A Dog's Life and

548
00:30:42,290 --> 00:30:46,650
Speaker 2: 1971's Madrone. But he's likely best remembered for his many

549
00:30:46,690 --> 00:30:51,370
Speaker 2: contributions to Italian mondo, giallo, and spaghetti westerns. We're talking

550
00:30:51,830 --> 00:30:56,980
Speaker 2: pictures like Antonio Margheriti's Castle of Blood in 64. Fulci's

551
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 2: One on Top of the Other in 69. We cut

552
00:31:01,020 --> 00:31:03,580
Speaker 2: it out, but I accidentally said Fulci's Over the Top

553
00:31:03,620 --> 00:31:07,260
Speaker 2: at first, which is not a film, not a combination

554
00:31:07,300 --> 00:31:10,140
Speaker 2: that exists. But one can imagine what if Lucio Fulci

555
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,700
Speaker 2: had directed the arm wrestling film Over the Top.

556
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:13,900
Speaker 3: That was Stallone.

557
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:19,670
Speaker 2: Yeah, the armed violence would have been incredible. Don't Torture

558
00:31:19,690 --> 00:31:22,070
Speaker 2: a Duckling in 72.

559
00:31:22,070 --> 00:31:24,010
Speaker 3: Sorry to interrupt, but that's the one with the quacking

560
00:31:24,030 --> 00:31:24,670
Speaker 3: serial killer.

561
00:31:24,690 --> 00:31:29,270
Speaker 2: The quacking, yes. That's the duck. Umberto Lindsay's Seven Bloodstained

562
00:31:29,630 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 2: Orchids in 72. And then, of course, Cannibal Holocaust in 81. So, yeah,

563
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,740
Speaker 2: I thought this was a pretty great score, full of

564
00:31:39,060 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 2: futuristic synth, rockin' guitars, and then, of course, the sensual

565
00:31:43,020 --> 00:31:47,210
Speaker 2: sax that we've already alluded to. I was looking up,

566
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,060
Speaker 2: you can get it on import CDs, and it looks

567
00:31:49,100 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 2: like back in the day, Death Waltz Records put out

568
00:31:51,340 --> 00:31:54,370
Speaker 2: a vinyl of this one, but it's probably a collector's

569
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:56,430
Speaker 2: item at this point. But you can still, you can

570
00:31:56,450 --> 00:31:59,870
Speaker 2: pull up product images of what it looked like. So

571
00:31:59,890 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 2: that's the director, and then that's the music. It's It's

572
00:32:04,130 --> 00:32:06,020
Speaker 2: kind of fitting, I guess, to hit both first at

573
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 2: the top of a Fulci film and then talk about

574
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 2: the writing. And we have some familiar names in the

575
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:16,740
Speaker 2: writing credits here as well. We have Dardano Sacchetti, born 1944,

576
00:32:16,740 --> 00:32:19,940
Speaker 2: screenplay and story credit. We talked about this guy a lot,

577
00:32:19,980 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 2: Italian screenwriter who worked with the likes of Lamberto Bava, Fulci,

578
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,300
Speaker 2: Dario Argento, an important name in Italian B-cinema. He's come

579
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 2: up many times.

580
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:29,610
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

581
00:32:30,430 --> 00:32:36,270
Speaker 2: As has his wife, Elisa Breganti, who died in 2024,

582
00:32:36,270 --> 00:32:40,100
Speaker 2: Italian screenwriter, and again, Saccetti's wife. She's come up many

583
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 2: times as well. And then there's also, I don't think

584
00:32:42,940 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 2: this guy's come up, but Cesare Frugoni. Yeah, his credits

585
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,860
Speaker 2: include 78's Slave of the Cannibal God, 79's The Island

586
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:56,380
Speaker 2: of the Fishmen, which is one that I enjoyed many

587
00:32:56,420 --> 00:33:00,750
Speaker 2: years back, 79's The Great Alligator, and 88's The Spider Labyrinth.

588
00:33:01,190 --> 00:33:03,310
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. I've got that one on disc. Have you

589
00:33:03,330 --> 00:33:04,410
Speaker 3: seen Spider Labyrinth, Rob?

590
00:33:04,450 --> 00:33:06,810
Speaker 2: No. I think you said it's a weird one, though.

591
00:33:07,450 --> 00:33:09,500
Speaker 3: Especially if you go all the way to the end.

592
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 3: Some of the middle parts of the movie are kind

593
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,620
Speaker 3: of slow-moving and subdued. I still enjoyed them. But if

594
00:33:15,660 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 3: you stick it out, it has a jaw-droppingly bizarre ending.

595
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,270
Speaker 2: All right. I like it when the jaw-dropping stuff is

596
00:33:23,310 --> 00:33:24,790
Speaker 2: at the end because then at least you feel like

597
00:33:25,670 --> 00:33:27,850
Speaker 2: you earned it by setting through the boring stuff.

598
00:33:28,230 --> 00:33:31,740
Speaker 3: Yeah. If you're going to watch that one, just be warned.

599
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:37,460
Speaker 3: It's fairly nasty, but also don't read the ending. Just

600
00:33:37,740 --> 00:33:41,180
Speaker 3: watch and wait. It's gross.

601
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:44,820
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the cast. Let's start with

602
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: the warriors here, the warriors of the year 2072. Our

603
00:33:48,820 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 2: lead warrior, like the most famous warrior in this picture,

604
00:33:52,980 --> 00:33:56,959
Speaker 2: is Drake. And Drake is played by Jared Martin, who

605
00:33:56,980 --> 00:34:00,060
Speaker 2: lived 1941. through 2017.

606
00:34:00,060 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 3: I don't think I knew anything about Jared Martin. I

607
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,180
Speaker 3: couldn't have identified who this was, but when I first

608
00:34:05,220 --> 00:34:09,270
Speaker 3: saw him, I think an obvious influence on this movie

609
00:34:09,450 --> 00:34:14,210
Speaker 3: is the film is Rollerball, Norman Jewison's Rollerball. The main

610
00:34:14,290 --> 00:34:16,509
Speaker 3: actor in that is James Caan, and I was like, what?

611
00:34:16,550 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 3: They found a cuter, more baby-faced James Caan for this movie.

612
00:34:21,140 --> 00:34:21,940
Speaker 3: Isn't that right?

613
00:34:22,100 --> 00:34:24,180
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no. I think that's a solid connection. I

614
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,259
Speaker 2: also thought many times in the film that he looks

615
00:34:26,340 --> 00:34:29,750
Speaker 2: like a a safer Wings Houser. Like he looks a

616
00:34:29,770 --> 00:34:31,830
Speaker 2: little bit like Wings Houser, but there's no way Wings

617
00:34:31,850 --> 00:34:34,689
Speaker 2: Houser could play the hero in this, you know, Wings

618
00:34:34,710 --> 00:34:38,230
Speaker 2: Houser looks like a murderer and played so many murders

619
00:34:38,270 --> 00:34:40,430
Speaker 2: so well. So it would have been a different film

620
00:34:40,469 --> 00:34:42,550
Speaker 2: entirely if you were trying to convince us to root

621
00:34:42,630 --> 00:34:45,190
Speaker 2: for a Wings Houser, a lead in Warriors of the

622
00:34:45,210 --> 00:34:46,650
Speaker 2: Year 2072.

623
00:34:46,650 --> 00:34:51,190
Speaker 3: I can see it. It's Wings Houser minus 60% predatory

624
00:34:51,270 --> 00:34:55,630
Speaker 3: cat and add in some more just A little bit babyface,

625
00:34:55,650 --> 00:34:57,330
Speaker 3: a little bit Hasselhoff almost.

626
00:34:57,370 --> 00:35:00,410
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, yeah. But I

627
00:35:00,450 --> 00:35:02,450
Speaker 2: also want to give Jared Martin his due, though, because

628
00:35:02,469 --> 00:35:05,970
Speaker 2: he can also bring the intensity in this film as well. Oh, yeah,

629
00:35:05,989 --> 00:35:08,750
Speaker 2: not just a pretty face. So he's an American stage

630
00:35:08,810 --> 00:35:12,590
Speaker 2: film and TV actor, best known to many anyway. I

631
00:35:12,610 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 2: don't know if this still resonates, but he apparently had

632
00:35:15,420 --> 00:35:18,540
Speaker 2: a pretty good run on TV's Dallas. He was on

633
00:35:18,540 --> 00:35:22,090
Speaker 2: 34 episodes of that. He played a character named Dusty Farlow,

634
00:35:22,310 --> 00:35:24,910
Speaker 2: who was a rival to J.R. Ewing and I think

635
00:35:24,930 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 2: a love interest to one of the other characters. Apparently

636
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,500
Speaker 2: like a short term character that was brought on. Then

637
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 2: they killed him off. But he was popular enough that

638
00:35:33,020 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 2: they brought him back because, you know, primetime soap opera.

639
00:35:36,940 --> 00:35:37,500
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter.

640
00:35:37,540 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 3: It was all a dream.

641
00:35:38,460 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 2: It could have been a dream, could have been whatever.

642
00:35:40,700 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 2: Twin brother. Find a way to bring him back.

643
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:44,250
Speaker 3: Right. Nice.

644
00:35:44,830 --> 00:35:46,570
Speaker 2: He did a lot of TV work. He did an

645
00:35:46,590 --> 00:35:50,569
Speaker 2: episode of Night Gallery. He appeared in 73's Westworld as

646
00:35:50,610 --> 00:35:54,850
Speaker 2: an unnamed technician. And he was also in Fulci's Enigma

647
00:35:54,910 --> 00:35:56,270
Speaker 2: in 87.

648
00:35:56,270 --> 00:35:59,090
Speaker 3: Oh, is that the Fulci version of Carrie?

649
00:35:59,469 --> 00:36:01,509
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another one of his that I have not

650
00:36:01,570 --> 00:36:05,190
Speaker 2: yet seen. But I know, I think it's been given

651
00:36:05,210 --> 00:36:08,669
Speaker 2: a nice physical media treatment in recent years. Yeah.

652
00:36:09,210 --> 00:36:10,589
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it either, but it's supposed to be

653
00:36:10,810 --> 00:36:13,730
Speaker 3: Fulci plus psychic murders at a school. Yeah.

654
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 2: Let's see, Jared Martin also co-directed the 2016 film The Congressman,

655
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:22,739
Speaker 2: starring Treat Williams. And, yeah, I like him in this.

656
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure at first what to make of him, but,

657
00:36:26,100 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 2: you know, ultimately I thought he's able to give us

658
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:33,020
Speaker 2: that reluctant killer that the film really wants this character

659
00:36:33,060 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 2: to be.

660
00:36:33,780 --> 00:36:37,739
Speaker 3: The movie doesn't let you get to know him until, like,

661
00:36:37,739 --> 00:36:40,180
Speaker 3: 20 minutes into the film. You're only seeing him on

662
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:41,609
Speaker 3: TV for a while.

663
00:36:41,620 --> 00:36:42,319
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

664
00:36:42,790 --> 00:36:45,650
Speaker 3: Or in quick little flashes in like a traumatic scene.

665
00:36:45,710 --> 00:36:49,290
Speaker 3: Like you get no flavor of what he's like as

666
00:36:49,330 --> 00:36:52,830
Speaker 3: a person until a significant way into the plot. Yeah.

667
00:36:54,030 --> 00:36:56,790
Speaker 2: All right. Other warriors in the film. We have Abdul,

668
00:36:56,890 --> 00:36:58,250
Speaker 2: played by Fred Williamson.

669
00:36:58,969 --> 00:37:00,170
Speaker 3: Love to bring Fred back.

670
00:37:00,270 --> 00:37:03,710
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, yeah. We just talked about him. He had

671
00:37:03,730 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 2: a much juicier role in 1990, The Bronx Warriors from 82,

672
00:37:08,230 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 2: in which he played the warlord Ogre. Which, by the way,

673
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 2: I was looking a little bit, did this on the

674
00:37:14,020 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 2: monster effect, I was looking into the origins of the

675
00:37:16,980 --> 00:37:20,930
Speaker 2: monster ogre and the word ogre. And I could be

676
00:37:20,969 --> 00:37:25,830
Speaker 2: wrong on this, but Italian usage of ogre might be

677
00:37:25,870 --> 00:37:29,490
Speaker 2: more closely linked to concepts of orcus, which is interesting

678
00:37:29,510 --> 00:37:32,180
Speaker 2: to think of if you think about the character from

679
00:37:32,219 --> 00:37:37,180
Speaker 2: the Bronx Warriors as being less, you know, blundering monster

680
00:37:37,260 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 2: and more like sort of underworld king sort of a thing,

681
00:37:40,620 --> 00:37:40,879
Speaker 2: you know?

682
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,940
Speaker 3: Oh, that makes sense. Well, yeah, as we discussed in

683
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,299
Speaker 3: the Bronx Warriors episode, Ogre is a bizarre nickname for

684
00:37:48,340 --> 00:37:50,549
Speaker 3: this character unless it's supposed to be ironic because he's

685
00:37:50,610 --> 00:37:53,509
Speaker 3: not ogre-ish in any way except that he's big. Yeah.

686
00:37:53,730 --> 00:37:55,830
Speaker 2: So I could be way off on this, but it's

687
00:37:55,870 --> 00:38:00,110
Speaker 2: my understanding that the word ogre has some original links

688
00:38:00,469 --> 00:38:05,049
Speaker 2: to Italian and may have linked back to Orcus in

689
00:38:05,070 --> 00:38:07,489
Speaker 2: the Latin context But I don't know really if that

690
00:38:07,530 --> 00:38:11,339
Speaker 2: would ultimately have resonated in the early 1980s with just

691
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,379
Speaker 2: sort of like common genre film usage of the word.

692
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 3: But I don't know.

693
00:38:15,100 --> 00:38:15,580
Speaker 2: Could be wrong.

694
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

695
00:38:16,219 --> 00:38:21,660
Speaker 2: But anyway, Fred Williamson, NFL player turned Italian action mainstay.

696
00:38:22,300 --> 00:38:25,310
Speaker 2: And he once more leads lends his effortless charisma to

697
00:38:25,350 --> 00:38:28,370
Speaker 2: playing one of the key death sport combatant combatants here.

698
00:38:29,170 --> 00:38:32,870
Speaker 2: Brings a lot of badassery to the role. Does not disappoint. Oh, yeah.

699
00:38:33,170 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 3: Fred's always great. And as we talked about in Bronx Warriors,

700
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 3: I feel like the same thing is true here. You

701
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 3: can just tell he loved being in movies. He's just

702
00:38:41,780 --> 00:38:46,270
Speaker 3: full of relish. Yeah, absolutely. All right.

703
00:38:46,310 --> 00:38:51,110
Speaker 2: We mentioned cyborgs. We mentioned eye trauma. Our cyborg eye

704
00:38:51,150 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 2: trauma character is Monk. And he is played by Donald O'Brien,

705
00:38:55,780 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 2: who lived 1930 through 2018. Irish-French actor, best known for

706
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:01,620
Speaker 2: his work in the 60s and 70s in various spaghetti

707
00:39:01,660 --> 00:39:08,870
Speaker 2: westerns and Italian genre films, including, let's see, 1980s Zombie Holocaust, a.k.a. Dr.

708
00:39:08,910 --> 00:39:12,530
Speaker 2: Butcher M.D. M.D.? Which he plays Dr. Butcher M.D., yeah.

709
00:39:13,050 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 2: It is Dr. Butcher M.D. Which is extra funny when you,

710
00:39:17,820 --> 00:39:20,800
Speaker 2: I just assume, there are some legitimate Dr. Butcher M.D.

711
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:21,419
Speaker 2: 's out there.

712
00:39:22,940 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 3: Oh, that's true.

713
00:39:25,590 --> 00:39:28,210
Speaker 2: Maybe they know about this film, maybe they don't, but

714
00:39:28,270 --> 00:39:32,060
Speaker 2: they keep the name Butcher. They still put it out there.

715
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 3: Do you think there are Doctor Butcher Doctorate of Divinities?

716
00:39:36,500 --> 00:39:40,420
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. There have to be. Butcher, just a common

717
00:39:40,460 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 2: enough last name. Let's see, what else is this guy in?

718
00:39:44,140 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: He was in Fulci's Silver Saddle in 78, Fulci Western.

719
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,880
Speaker 2: He was in a Kioma in 76, 83 is 2020

720
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:56,710
Speaker 2: Texas gladiators. 86 is hands of steel, which we've talked

721
00:39:56,750 --> 00:40:00,470
Speaker 2: about on the show. 86 is the Panther squad starring

722
00:40:00,510 --> 00:40:06,469
Speaker 2: Sybil Danning. And he's even in the name of the Rose, um, the, uh, the,

723
00:40:06,550 --> 00:40:09,049
Speaker 2: the 1980s, uh, adaptation playing, I believe one of the

724
00:40:09,090 --> 00:40:11,290
Speaker 2: supporting Franciscan characters. Hmm.

725
00:40:12,010 --> 00:40:14,850
Speaker 3: Okay. I don't remember him in that. No.

726
00:40:14,890 --> 00:40:17,979
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he's just, he's one of, the less

727
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:22,770
Speaker 2: important characters. I forget his name in this, but, um, yeah.

728
00:40:22,989 --> 00:40:25,850
Speaker 3: One of brother Williams allies at the conference. Okay.

729
00:40:26,010 --> 00:40:29,230
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but I, I don't remember like what

730
00:40:29,270 --> 00:40:31,450
Speaker 2: he really does in the book or in the, or

731
00:40:31,469 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: in the movie, but, uh, yeah, here he plays in

732
00:40:35,500 --> 00:40:39,140
Speaker 2: an eye trauma cyborg and it's pretty amazing. All right.

733
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,819
Speaker 2: We also have a, a, a lawyer by the name

734
00:40:41,860 --> 00:40:44,299
Speaker 2: of Kirk and he is played by how Cliver, uh,

735
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,140
Speaker 2: Born in 1951. Italian actor who shows up in a

736
00:40:47,260 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 2: lot of B-movies from this period and is a repeat

737
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,739
Speaker 2: Fulci casting, which suggests that Fulci liked him or at

738
00:40:53,780 --> 00:40:58,969
Speaker 2: least didn't really hate him. We've discussed some of the

739
00:40:59,110 --> 00:41:01,009
Speaker 2: people who worked with Fulci like to say, oh, he

740
00:41:01,050 --> 00:41:05,069
Speaker 2: hates his actors. He relished getting to spray maggots on them,

741
00:41:05,090 --> 00:41:07,430
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. But there were certain actors that

742
00:41:07,450 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 2: he would use again and again, and presumably they were

743
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 2: at least obedient to what he wanted them to do.

744
00:41:13,340 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 3: Oh man, you could imagine if he didn't like this guy,

745
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,290
Speaker 3: this movie gives him a lot of opportunity to show it.

746
00:41:19,300 --> 00:41:22,760
Speaker 3: Like the character Kirk is just always getting into trouble.

747
00:41:22,780 --> 00:41:25,940
Speaker 3: It's like, he's just, just can't help himself.

748
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,500
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. He gets, he gets electrocuted. All sorts of

749
00:41:29,540 --> 00:41:33,180
Speaker 2: terrible things happen, but, uh, Al Clive was active from

750
00:41:33,180 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 2: 69 through 1990 and he appeared in 79 zombie. 81

751
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,020
Speaker 2: is the beyond. 81 is the black cat. 84 is

752
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:42,550
Speaker 2: murder rock. 89 is the house of clocks and 90s.

753
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 2: Among among others. But like those are like the Fulci

754
00:41:47,060 --> 00:41:50,300
Speaker 2: related pictures. And, you know, that's that's quite a run.

755
00:41:50,660 --> 00:41:55,690
Speaker 2: They like they got along well enough, it seems. And

756
00:41:55,710 --> 00:41:58,150
Speaker 2: I think Cliver has has a great look here that

757
00:41:58,190 --> 00:42:00,290
Speaker 2: lands him like one foot in the handsome leading man

758
00:42:00,330 --> 00:42:04,310
Speaker 2: category and the other in dirtbag supporting character. And I

759
00:42:04,370 --> 00:42:05,860
Speaker 2: wasn't sure what we were getting with this guy was

760
00:42:05,890 --> 00:42:07,820
Speaker 2: like because I see him and I'm like, he's a troublemaker.

761
00:42:08,260 --> 00:42:10,660
Speaker 2: He's not going to be a team player. And it

762
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 2: had the movie has some surprises for us.

763
00:42:13,530 --> 00:42:14,750
Speaker 3: Yeah, they bring him along.

764
00:42:14,770 --> 00:42:25,090
Speaker 2: Yeah. All right, we also have a character, one of

765
00:42:25,110 --> 00:42:27,630
Speaker 2: the warriors by the name of Akira, and he's played

766
00:42:27,690 --> 00:42:34,190
Speaker 2: by Hau Yamanuchi, born 1946, Japanese-born actor, but also Italian

767
00:42:34,250 --> 00:42:37,029
Speaker 2: citizen who shows up in a lot of Italian and

768
00:42:37,070 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 2: international pictures. And he probably has more screen time here

769
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 2: than most of the films I've seen him in, certainly

770
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 2: from this time period. So he's been in such movies

771
00:42:48,140 --> 00:42:50,740
Speaker 2: as a lot of, um, you know, far more recent

772
00:42:50,780 --> 00:42:52,489
Speaker 2: than this. Uh, he pops up in things like the

773
00:42:52,530 --> 00:42:56,710
Speaker 2: life aquatic Zoolander two, and he has a major role

774
00:42:56,770 --> 00:43:00,250
Speaker 2: in 2013 is the Wolverine, uh, the, the Marvel comics

775
00:43:00,290 --> 00:43:04,350
Speaker 2: film in which he plays the man, the main antagonist, Yashida,

776
00:43:04,590 --> 00:43:08,130
Speaker 2: who of course becomes a terrifying take on the silver samurai.

777
00:43:08,770 --> 00:43:09,750
Speaker 3: I haven't seen that movie.

778
00:43:10,370 --> 00:43:13,380
Speaker 2: It's pretty good. Yeah. I, um, I recently just finished

779
00:43:13,420 --> 00:43:18,779
Speaker 2: watching like all the mutant films, uh, with my kiddo. And, um, I, I,

780
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:22,219
Speaker 2: I think the Wolverine holds up pretty well. It has, uh,

781
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 2: some great action in it. And, you know, it's, it's got, um,

782
00:43:25,580 --> 00:43:28,100
Speaker 2: there's a lot of like samurai and ninja action in it.

783
00:43:28,140 --> 00:43:31,910
Speaker 2: So it's good. And then, uh, so, but anyway, yeah,

784
00:43:32,260 --> 00:43:35,030
Speaker 2: he's in this, um, he was, he was in Stuart

785
00:43:35,050 --> 00:43:39,250
Speaker 2: Gordon's robot jocks and he's also translated and dubbed Japanese

786
00:43:39,290 --> 00:43:45,210
Speaker 2: language films. Um, uh, Japanese language films into Italian. So, uh,

787
00:43:45,250 --> 00:43:47,489
Speaker 2: you know, very busy guy. Uh, but here he gets

788
00:43:47,530 --> 00:43:49,509
Speaker 2: to do a lot more. Sometimes he's just in the

789
00:43:49,550 --> 00:43:52,660
Speaker 2: background in a film, uh, huge filmography.

790
00:43:53,110 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

791
00:43:53,590 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 2: And he, I think he does stunts here too. He

792
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 2: gets to throw some punches, some kicks. His fight scenes

793
00:43:58,360 --> 00:43:58,760
Speaker 2: are great.

794
00:43:59,040 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 3: Yeah.

795
00:43:59,680 --> 00:43:59,859
Speaker 1: Yeah.

796
00:44:00,060 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 2: With the strobe lights. Yeah. I don't know entirely what's happening, but, uh, it's, it's,

797
00:44:05,380 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 2: it looks good.

798
00:44:06,340 --> 00:44:12,720
Speaker 3: He's like loud, intense, dramatic fighting. Like he makes noise. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

799
00:44:12,780 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 3: Should we meet some suits?

800
00:44:14,020 --> 00:44:17,020
Speaker 2: Some bad suits? Yeah. So we've talked about the warriors.

801
00:44:17,060 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some of the suits, the working at

802
00:44:19,940 --> 00:44:24,690
Speaker 2: the network here. We mentioned Sam already. Sam is presumably

803
00:44:24,770 --> 00:44:27,649
Speaker 2: the president of the network. And he is played by

804
00:44:27,750 --> 00:44:31,190
Speaker 2: Giovanni Di Benedito, who lived 1921 through 2014.

805
00:44:31,170 --> 00:44:31,290
Speaker 3: Yeah.

806
00:44:33,410 --> 00:44:37,830
Speaker 2: His other credits include Mario Bava's The Evil Eye in 63. Now,

807
00:44:37,910 --> 00:44:43,529
Speaker 2: he's positioned as the big suit. We don't even really

808
00:44:43,590 --> 00:44:47,310
Speaker 2: see much of this guy. But our more on-the-scene villain

809
00:44:47,469 --> 00:44:52,469
Speaker 2: is Cortez. And Cortez is played by Claudio Casanelli, who

810
00:44:52,489 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 2: lived 1938 through 1985. Italian B-movie mainstay and a nice

811
00:44:57,700 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 2: villain here. You might remember him from our past discussions

812
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:04,140
Speaker 2: of 83's Hercules, in which he played Zeus. and also

813
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:08,460
Speaker 2: the post-apocalyptic film Hands of Steel. He died in a

814
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:12,220
Speaker 2: tragic helicopter crash during the filming of that movie, but

815
00:45:12,430 --> 00:45:15,410
Speaker 2: left a solid mark on Italian cinema. Other films include

816
00:45:15,489 --> 00:45:19,510
Speaker 2: Murder Rock and Sergio Martino's The Scorpion with Two Tails.

817
00:45:20,230 --> 00:45:24,950
Speaker 3: Cortez is an interesting villain in that he's not a

818
00:45:25,010 --> 00:45:28,350
Speaker 3: villain who feels like he's totally in control, you know,

819
00:45:28,450 --> 00:45:33,109
Speaker 3: the mastermind villain who's orchestrating everything according to plan. Cortez

820
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:39,509
Speaker 3: constantly feels frustrated and worried. Kind of an interesting way

821
00:45:39,530 --> 00:45:42,750
Speaker 3: to portray a middle management villain.

822
00:45:43,190 --> 00:45:45,469
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And this guy does a great job with

823
00:45:45,510 --> 00:45:48,509
Speaker 2: the role, I think, yeah. But it also makes him

824
00:45:48,550 --> 00:45:51,540
Speaker 2: feel more dangerous as well, though, because he's not completely

825
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 2: in control. Now, underneath Cortez, we have any number of

826
00:45:55,100 --> 00:45:59,460
Speaker 2: black-clad futuristic stormtroopers. And then the leader, the Gestapo leader

827
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,390
Speaker 2: of this crew is a character named Raven. And he's

828
00:46:02,430 --> 00:46:07,470
Speaker 2: played by Howard Ross, born 1941, Italian actor whose earlier

829
00:46:07,530 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 2: credits include playing the peplum muscle man Machiste in 64's

830
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 2: Samson and the Mighty Challenge. I included a picture here.

831
00:46:16,540 --> 00:46:22,180
Speaker 2: You can see him here, Joe, leather and spikes, tightly

832
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:24,670
Speaker 2: trimmed beard and definitely muscles.

833
00:46:26,140 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 3: Or Machiste is sort of an Italian version of the

834
00:46:30,460 --> 00:46:32,739
Speaker 3: Hercules character we would get in a lot of these movies.

835
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,140
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of the same movies would

836
00:46:36,180 --> 00:46:40,549
Speaker 3: have the character translated as Samson or Hercules in other contexts.

837
00:46:40,610 --> 00:46:42,250
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would just go ahead and call the character

838
00:46:42,290 --> 00:46:45,810
Speaker 2: Samson or Hercules for the international audience. Now, Howard Ross

839
00:46:45,910 --> 00:46:48,670
Speaker 2: acted in other Peplum films. He did spaghetti westerns. But

840
00:46:48,710 --> 00:46:50,609
Speaker 2: by the 70s and 80s, he's dipping into a lot

841
00:46:50,630 --> 00:46:54,299
Speaker 2: of horror and giallo roles. He pops up, actually has

842
00:46:54,340 --> 00:46:58,180
Speaker 2: a pretty significant good guy role in 1976's Werewolf Woman.

843
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:04,050
Speaker 2: He's like the love interest that our werewolf woman gets

844
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,009
Speaker 2: before she's like drawn back into a plot line of

845
00:47:07,090 --> 00:47:09,910
Speaker 2: horror and vengeance. Let's see, Howard Ross is also in

846
00:47:10,070 --> 00:47:14,469
Speaker 2: 82's The New York Ripper. It's another Fulci film. One

847
00:47:14,489 --> 00:47:16,629
Speaker 2: that I saw a long time ago and I don't

848
00:47:16,670 --> 00:47:18,989
Speaker 2: have a very clear memory of it, except that I

849
00:47:19,070 --> 00:47:20,609
Speaker 2: don't think I enjoyed it at the time.

850
00:47:22,070 --> 00:47:23,470
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that one's a little gross.

851
00:47:23,850 --> 00:47:29,390
Speaker 2: Yeah. But here he plays the German-dubbed chief of Cortez's

852
00:47:29,469 --> 00:47:35,180
Speaker 2: stormtrooper security force. And it's a nice, like, scowling, imposing villain.

853
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:37,900
Speaker 3: He's the head of what gets called in the movie

854
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 3: the Praetorian Guard. But his real role is he's the,

855
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:47,410
Speaker 3: you know, the whip-wielding, the laser whip-wielding taskmaster and trainer

856
00:47:47,690 --> 00:47:52,590
Speaker 3: of the gladiators. So he's there to to oversee the

857
00:47:52,650 --> 00:47:57,500
Speaker 3: hate stimulation and the lethal training programs and to make

858
00:47:57,560 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 3: sure that they all stay in line and don't escape

859
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:01,420
Speaker 3: their barracks. Yeah.

860
00:48:02,540 --> 00:48:05,340
Speaker 2: All right, we have a couple of female characters involved

861
00:48:05,380 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 2: in the network. We have Eleonora Brigliadori playing Sarah, born 1960,

862
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:15,669
Speaker 2: Italian actress, active till 2011, who, believe it or not,

863
00:48:15,730 --> 00:48:20,420
Speaker 2: was mostly in non-genre projects. except for this and 1990s

864
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 2: Beyond Kilimanjaro, Across the River of Blood. Otherwise, it seems

865
00:48:24,620 --> 00:48:26,430
Speaker 2: like it was a lot of more mainstream sort of

866
00:48:26,450 --> 00:48:27,009
Speaker 2: work for her.

867
00:48:27,610 --> 00:48:30,290
Speaker 3: She ends up becoming a major ally of our hero, Drake,

868
00:48:30,350 --> 00:48:32,830
Speaker 3: and plays a big role in uncovering the evil plot

869
00:48:32,870 --> 00:48:33,870
Speaker 3: of the TV network.

870
00:48:34,070 --> 00:48:36,589
Speaker 2: Yeah. We also have a character named Sybil, and she's

871
00:48:36,630 --> 00:48:40,049
Speaker 2: played by Penny Brown, born 1941, American actress whose other

872
00:48:40,070 --> 00:48:44,240
Speaker 2: credits include 1971's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin. That's

873
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:47,380
Speaker 2: a Fulci film. And she pops up in the credits.

874
00:48:47,420 --> 00:48:50,260
Speaker 2: I think there's like a very small, purely vocal part,

875
00:48:50,300 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 2: but she's in the credits for 1988's The Last Temptation

876
00:48:53,140 --> 00:48:57,430
Speaker 2: of Christ. Like, you know, a voice in the crowd

877
00:48:57,469 --> 00:49:00,570
Speaker 2: sort of a situation, but still, I have to acknowledge it.

878
00:49:01,110 --> 00:49:03,450
Speaker 2: And then finally, we have a couple of characters that

879
00:49:03,510 --> 00:49:06,690
Speaker 2: are not warriors, also not network employees that we know of.

880
00:49:07,370 --> 00:49:10,770
Speaker 2: And one of them is Susan, Drake's wife, played by

881
00:49:11,460 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 2: Valeria Cavalli, born 1959. Her other credits include 1983's A

882
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:15,360
Speaker 2: Blade in the Dark and 1997's Double Team.

883
00:49:19,860 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 3: Double Team.

884
00:49:20,940 --> 00:49:24,980
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman, Mickey Rourke picture, yes.

885
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,670
Speaker 3: I would hope her fate in that film is more

886
00:49:28,730 --> 00:49:32,930
Speaker 3: favorable than her fate in this one. She's a tragic

887
00:49:32,989 --> 00:49:35,550
Speaker 3: character in Warriors of 2072.

888
00:49:35,550 --> 00:49:37,469
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't actually seen it, but she's pretty high

889
00:49:37,510 --> 00:49:39,589
Speaker 2: up in the cast, so I hope it's a juicy role.

890
00:49:39,610 --> 00:49:43,049
Speaker 2: I don't know how juicy the roles for actresses are

891
00:49:43,130 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 2: in Double Team, but maybe it's pretty good.

892
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:47,540
Speaker 3: Maybe she gets to be the villain.

893
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:51,219
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, and then I do want to mention real quick,

894
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 2: we have some very nice model work in this picture.

895
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 2: And the two gentlemen credited with designing, creating, and lighting

896
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 2: the miniatures are Joseph Nathanson, 1909 through 2003. And Alvaro Passeri,

897
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 2: born 1950. More on those models when we get into

898
00:50:08,540 --> 00:50:08,900
Speaker 2: the plot.

899
00:50:09,410 --> 00:50:11,549
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to be talking about them right at

900
00:50:11,570 --> 00:50:12,210
Speaker 3: the top. Are you ready?

901
00:50:12,230 --> 00:50:13,190
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's jump in.

902
00:50:13,690 --> 00:50:17,770
Speaker 3: So the opening setting is it's the year 2072. Or

903
00:50:17,930 --> 00:50:20,330
Speaker 3: is it the year 2033? I think it depends on

904
00:50:20,350 --> 00:50:22,529
Speaker 3: which title card you get. But we're going to go

905
00:50:22,570 --> 00:50:23,220
Speaker 3: with 2072. I like it.

906
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 2: It still weighs off, so it feels appropriate. Yeah, 2072

907
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 2: in Rome.

908
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 3: Our opening shots of Rome are all miniature model work

909
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,910
Speaker 3: with autumn colors. So these orange, yellow, and red lights

910
00:50:37,050 --> 00:50:40,290
Speaker 3: glowing in the darkness of the city. The skyscrapers are

911
00:50:40,350 --> 00:50:43,050
Speaker 3: lit up like Christmas trees. You've got these blinking lights

912
00:50:43,090 --> 00:50:46,009
Speaker 3: of traffic moving along in the dark. And I like

913
00:50:46,030 --> 00:50:49,140
Speaker 3: that all the buildings have glowing elevators gliding up and

914
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 3: down and also huge screens everywhere like Blade Runner. Yeah.

915
00:50:53,420 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 2: And it looks great. I mean, it's clearly a model,

916
00:50:57,500 --> 00:50:59,830
Speaker 2: but I just really liked the look of this. A

917
00:50:59,950 --> 00:51:02,549
Speaker 2: lot of work went into it. It doesn't, you know, it,

918
00:51:02,710 --> 00:51:05,730
Speaker 2: it doesn't look cheap. It looks, it looks great. I

919
00:51:05,770 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 2: love it.

920
00:51:06,830 --> 00:51:07,950
Speaker 3: And it looks like Halloween.

921
00:51:08,310 --> 00:51:10,620
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

922
00:51:11,620 --> 00:51:14,580
Speaker 3: Uh, now after a brief glimpse of Rome, we cut

923
00:51:14,620 --> 00:51:18,100
Speaker 3: away to somewhere else and to some other level of

924
00:51:18,219 --> 00:51:21,060
Speaker 3: remove from reality. The first few minutes of this movie

925
00:51:21,140 --> 00:51:25,770
Speaker 3: are weird because we do not begin with the characters

926
00:51:25,850 --> 00:51:28,710
Speaker 3: or within the action, uh, It's more like we're watching

927
00:51:28,810 --> 00:51:32,930
Speaker 3: the subject of a TV broadcast, but not exactly the

928
00:51:32,969 --> 00:51:36,430
Speaker 3: broadcast itself. It doesn't feel like we're watching the show.

929
00:51:37,550 --> 00:51:41,259
Speaker 3: We're watching almost like behind-the-scenes footage as a show is

930
00:51:41,300 --> 00:51:45,060
Speaker 3: being taped, maybe. So we see the blinding glare from

931
00:51:45,100 --> 00:51:47,780
Speaker 3: this phalanx of stadium lights, and we hear a sports

932
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 3: announcer giving a monologue that kind of orients us to

933
00:51:50,820 --> 00:51:53,720
Speaker 3: the premise and what's going on. So the announcer says

934
00:51:53,780 --> 00:51:57,379
Speaker 3: that they're broadcasting live from Angel Stadium in Atlantic City,

935
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:01,740
Speaker 3: New Jersey. This is the Saturday Night Seven Seas Spectacular.

936
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:05,590
Speaker 3: Seven Seas is the TV network this is on. The

937
00:52:05,610 --> 00:52:08,850
Speaker 3: camera lands on a man sitting on a motorcycle in

938
00:52:08,890 --> 00:52:12,250
Speaker 3: the sand on the floor of an arena wearing a padded,

939
00:52:12,710 --> 00:52:15,969
Speaker 3: ribbed suit of armor in bright red. So it's kind

940
00:52:15,989 --> 00:52:18,970
Speaker 3: of like Gary Oldman's red muscle armor in the prologue

941
00:52:19,010 --> 00:52:20,430
Speaker 3: of Coppola's Dracula. Did you.

942
00:52:20,900 --> 00:52:24,700
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a sense of like that meets like Michael

943
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:26,580
Speaker 2: Jackson's red leather jacket.

944
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:27,140
Speaker 3: Yes.

945
00:52:27,260 --> 00:52:28,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of combo.

946
00:52:28,739 --> 00:52:31,219
Speaker 3: I can see both of those. But here the man

947
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 3: on the motorcycle is wearing a gold helmet covered with

948
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:40,020
Speaker 3: little rivets or studs and everything is gleaming, just gleaming,

949
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:44,399
Speaker 3: gleaming all over. Every surface is reflecting glare in your eyes.

950
00:52:44,500 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 3: It's that kind of thing.

951
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, just lurid lens flare throughout and it's amazing.

952
00:52:48,670 --> 00:52:51,130
Speaker 3: The announcer tells us that this program is being, quote,

953
00:52:51,350 --> 00:52:56,270
Speaker 3: laser beamed throughout the world by Seven Seas' own multi-channel satellite.

954
00:52:56,430 --> 00:53:01,900
Speaker 3: Laser beamed. Okay. The announcer says that Seven Seas is

955
00:53:01,980 --> 00:53:06,020
Speaker 3: proud to present, quote, your own super champion, Drake, as

956
00:53:06,060 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 3: he challenges five of the world's top kill bikers. Then

957
00:53:10,540 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 3: we see a bunch of other bikers lined up. They're

958
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:17,190
Speaker 3: all revving their engines. Drake slams down the face mask

959
00:53:17,250 --> 00:53:20,210
Speaker 3: on his helmet and And I'm sorry to report, it

960
00:53:20,310 --> 00:53:23,090
Speaker 3: is not the gladiator helmet that we see on one

961
00:53:23,110 --> 00:53:25,370
Speaker 3: of the posters of the movie, which looks very cool

962
00:53:25,410 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 3: and looks a lot more like a classic gladiator helmet design.

963
00:53:28,660 --> 00:53:32,280
Speaker 3: This looks more like a combination of pinhead and gold

964
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:33,299
Speaker 3: Jack Skellington.

965
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:38,310
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jack Skellington is a solid comparison here.

966
00:53:38,350 --> 00:53:41,170
Speaker 3: He's got the big eye holes and just kind of

967
00:53:41,210 --> 00:53:44,710
Speaker 3: gold mask with studs in it. So the announcer names

968
00:53:44,770 --> 00:53:47,530
Speaker 3: all of the contenders going up against Drake. They're champions

969
00:53:47,590 --> 00:53:50,170
Speaker 3: from other kill bike competitions all around the world.

970
00:53:51,590 --> 00:53:54,750
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And this is one of those many interesting

971
00:53:54,790 --> 00:53:57,910
Speaker 2: cases where the dystopian vision of the future calls for

972
00:53:57,950 --> 00:54:02,550
Speaker 2: death sports and any number of dark takes on the future,

973
00:54:02,730 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 2: but also seems to involve increased regional unity. I imagine

974
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 2: much of this is sort of a European Union-influenced view,

975
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:15,360
Speaker 2: maybe Star Trek-influenced as well. But we get some idea

976
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 2: that large portions of the world in 2072 are united

977
00:54:20,540 --> 00:54:24,280
Speaker 2: into sort of new conglomerates. But then, of course, they're

978
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,609
Speaker 2: ruled over by the network, the Seven Seas Network somehow. Yeah, yeah.

979
00:54:28,670 --> 00:54:34,750
Speaker 3: There are these brief lines that indicate different geopolitical groupings,

980
00:54:34,850 --> 00:54:38,589
Speaker 3: like There is somebody who is said to come from

981
00:54:38,630 --> 00:54:44,450
Speaker 3: the Glacier Confederation. And then, oh, another example is that

982
00:54:44,710 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 3: Hal Yamanuchi's character is clearly supposed to be from Japan,

983
00:54:48,450 --> 00:54:52,940
Speaker 3: but they identify the empire he comes from as outer Mongolia.

984
00:54:53,060 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 3: So it just seems like Mongolia has taken over much

985
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 3: of Asia, including Japan.

986
00:54:57,500 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm always fascinated by the way that a lot

987
00:55:01,460 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 2: of these pictures do this, you know, like envision Mongolia. um,

988
00:55:05,219 --> 00:55:07,360
Speaker 2: something that say, you know, maybe a hundred years in

989
00:55:07,380 --> 00:55:10,050
Speaker 2: the future and try to make like the, the, the,

990
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:13,009
Speaker 2: the array of nations as if not more different than

991
00:55:13,030 --> 00:55:14,910
Speaker 2: they were a hundred years from our time.

992
00:55:15,310 --> 00:55:15,469
Speaker 1: Yeah.

993
00:55:15,670 --> 00:55:18,569
Speaker 2: Um, which, you know, and then again, again, adding in

994
00:55:18,610 --> 00:55:21,009
Speaker 2: things like, well, what, you know, what, what's happened with

995
00:55:21,030 --> 00:55:23,470
Speaker 2: the European union or that happens everywhere. And then, uh,

996
00:55:23,550 --> 00:55:25,730
Speaker 2: also just sort of this general Star Trek idea, uh,

997
00:55:26,590 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 2: you know, a very optimistic idea of less, you know,

998
00:55:29,500 --> 00:55:31,940
Speaker 2: working more and more together until we're like, you know,

999
00:55:32,140 --> 00:55:33,420
Speaker 2: one planetary culture.

1000
00:55:34,250 --> 00:55:36,529
Speaker 3: Though I don't get the feeling in this movie that

1001
00:55:36,650 --> 00:55:41,190
Speaker 3: the geopolitical realignments are supposed to be taken as positive.

1002
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 3: I get the feeling that this is mostly a bad world.

1003
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:46,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

1004
00:55:46,620 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 3: The announcer, oh, this is funny. The announcer says, you

1005
00:55:49,219 --> 00:55:52,739
Speaker 3: may remember live audiences were banned 10 years ago after

1006
00:55:52,739 --> 00:55:55,240
Speaker 3: 2,000 fans were killed in crowd violence.

1007
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:57,399
Speaker 2: They just got too into it. Yeah.

1008
00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:01,589
Speaker 3: That's just part of the opening announcement of the games. Mm-hmm.

1009
00:56:01,989 --> 00:56:05,129
Speaker 3: And then right after he says that nothing else right

1010
00:56:05,170 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 3: after that, the motorcycles just start rolling. So I guess

1011
00:56:07,969 --> 00:56:11,860
Speaker 3: the term, uh, killed in crowd violence is like they're ready, set, go.

1012
00:56:12,100 --> 00:56:15,920
Speaker 3: That is what kicks off the games. Um, so the

1013
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 3: champions ride around, they're popping wheelies, jumping their kill bikes

1014
00:56:19,300 --> 00:56:22,330
Speaker 3: off ramps, and then begins the violence. So two of

1015
00:56:22,370 --> 00:56:24,969
Speaker 3: the kill bikers right up beside Drake and they put

1016
00:56:25,010 --> 00:56:27,630
Speaker 3: him in a motorcycle sandwich. but then he fights them

1017
00:56:27,710 --> 00:56:30,330
Speaker 3: off by doing a jump kick to the chest while

1018
00:56:30,390 --> 00:56:32,370
Speaker 3: still riding his bike. That's pretty impressive.

1019
00:56:32,510 --> 00:56:35,470
Speaker 2: It's impressive. I would die if I tried to do this.

1020
00:56:35,650 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's a little funny as well.

1021
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:42,540
Speaker 3: Yes. One of the guys tries to run Drake down

1022
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:45,739
Speaker 3: while he's sitting still, but then Drake moves out of

1023
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:48,000
Speaker 3: the way at the last second and the attacker crashes

1024
00:56:48,060 --> 00:56:51,029
Speaker 3: into another bike. And then finally it's down to Drake

1025
00:56:51,070 --> 00:56:53,919
Speaker 3: and one other guy drake kicks the guy and sends

1026
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:56,279
Speaker 3: him careening into a wall and when the guy hits

1027
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:00,489
Speaker 3: the wall the bike immediately explodes in a giant fireball

1028
00:57:00,530 --> 00:57:02,490
Speaker 3: it's just made of napalm.

1029
00:57:02,130 --> 00:57:05,029
Speaker 2: Maybe it was you know you want those big explosions

1030
00:57:05,810 --> 00:57:08,640
Speaker 2: to wow the audience so maybe they are just absolutely

1031
00:57:08,700 --> 00:57:12,760
Speaker 2: filling extra portions of the motorbike with explosives and jellied

1032
00:57:12,780 --> 00:57:14,299
Speaker 2: gasoline it is.

1033
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:18,620
Speaker 3: One of those movies where vehicles are just insanely flammable

1034
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:22,020
Speaker 3: just like they bump into anything immediate fireball they're on

1035
00:57:22,060 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 3: fire so the announcer tells us once again drake is

1036
00:57:26,700 --> 00:57:30,260
Speaker 3: seven seas undisputed kill bike champion and now for a

1037
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:34,130
Speaker 3: surprise announcement one week from today live on seven seas

1038
00:57:34,190 --> 00:57:38,470
Speaker 3: channel five drake will marry hollywood's own susan harper the

1039
00:57:38,510 --> 00:57:42,810
Speaker 3: beautiful star of huh that's a weird transition but okay

1040
00:57:43,150 --> 00:57:45,990
Speaker 3: before we can hear anything else we cut away to

1041
00:57:46,030 --> 00:57:49,290
Speaker 3: a TV station control room, which we're going to see

1042
00:57:49,330 --> 00:57:51,189
Speaker 3: many more times in this movie. A lot of action

1043
00:57:51,230 --> 00:57:53,750
Speaker 3: will take place in this control room. And this is

1044
00:57:53,790 --> 00:57:56,910
Speaker 3: the headquarters of a different broadcaster, not seven C's, but

1045
00:57:56,950 --> 00:58:00,620
Speaker 3: this one is called WBS. I think that stands for

1046
00:58:00,740 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 3: world broadcasting, something system maybe. Um, and this control room

1047
00:58:05,900 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 3: is under the command of an executive named Cortez, a

1048
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,910
Speaker 3: man in a high colored cream blazer and a Brown

1049
00:58:11,990 --> 00:58:18,490
Speaker 3: turtleneck underneath. That's that's cool. Cortez always seems frustrated and irritable.

1050
00:58:18,550 --> 00:58:21,140
Speaker 3: He's never in control, never at peace.

1051
00:58:21,900 --> 00:58:25,060
Speaker 2: He does have some interesting costume changes throughout the picture.

1052
00:58:25,100 --> 00:58:31,980
Speaker 2: Later in the picture, he's wearing some more loose-fitting Asian motifs.

1053
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:35,670
Speaker 2: I don't know. It seems like he's in a more

1054
00:58:35,690 --> 00:58:39,130
Speaker 2: stressful situation towards the end. Maybe he's compensating by wearing

1055
00:58:39,170 --> 00:58:40,050
Speaker 2: looser fabric.

1056
00:58:40,710 --> 00:58:45,450
Speaker 3: That's interesting. The fashion throughout this film is I think

1057
00:58:45,510 --> 00:58:48,590
Speaker 3: papers could be written on it. But when we first

1058
00:58:48,650 --> 00:58:52,070
Speaker 3: meet Cortez, he's fuming about Drake and the upcoming marriage.

1059
00:58:52,230 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 3: And he vents to his assistant, Sarah, who, when we

1060
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 3: first meet her, is a cold-eyed, emotionless woman dressed like

1061
00:58:59,920 --> 00:59:03,530
Speaker 3: she works on an Imperial Star Destroyer. She's just gray,

1062
00:59:03,620 --> 00:59:08,190
Speaker 3: almost Imperial officer uniform. She's got red hair and an

1063
00:59:08,370 --> 00:59:13,680
Speaker 3: inverted bob haircut with bangs. And Cortez is griping about

1064
00:59:13,740 --> 00:59:16,880
Speaker 3: the rival network, Seven Seas. He says, Sarah, next week

1065
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 3: they'll wipe us out with their pretty boy and his

1066
00:59:19,410 --> 00:59:23,450
Speaker 3: tinsel town mermaid. She says, I guess we could say

1067
00:59:23,530 --> 00:59:27,090
Speaker 3: Seven Seas has scored the ultimate in computer game dating.

1068
00:59:27,910 --> 00:59:30,890
Speaker 3: I did not understand that line. Did you make anything

1069
00:59:30,910 --> 00:59:31,189
Speaker 3: of that?

1070
00:59:31,310 --> 00:59:35,750
Speaker 2: I think it's just like they're dating show with computers.

1071
00:59:35,950 --> 00:59:38,670
Speaker 2: It's the future. Okay.

1072
00:59:39,210 --> 00:59:41,910
Speaker 3: I didn't know what computer game meant there. Anyway.

1073
00:59:42,110 --> 00:59:45,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, we haven't really implemented computers much in the evolution

1074
00:59:45,950 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 2: of the highly lucrative like love connection reality TV show model. But,

1075
00:59:51,260 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 2: you know, I guess it made sense at the time

1076
00:59:53,220 --> 00:59:54,380
Speaker 2: to think, yeah, it's going to be high tech.

1077
01:00:03,140 --> 01:00:05,700
Speaker 3: So that's what's going on at Seven Seas. But what

1078
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:10,700
Speaker 3: has WBS got to compete as counter-programming? Well, we find

1079
01:00:10,740 --> 01:00:13,790
Speaker 3: out it's something called the danger game. Basically, it is

1080
01:00:14,010 --> 01:00:18,750
Speaker 3: fear factor torture edition. So Cortez goes to his other assistant,

1081
01:00:18,770 --> 01:00:22,310
Speaker 3: a lady who also has an inverted bob with bangs

1082
01:00:22,410 --> 01:00:26,430
Speaker 3: as her haircut, identical haircut shapes with Sarah and Sybil here.

1083
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:29,830
Speaker 3: This lady is named Sybil. She dresses in all white,

1084
01:00:30,430 --> 01:00:34,530
Speaker 3: and Sybil explains that their ratings are not doing so great,

1085
01:00:35,210 --> 01:00:37,850
Speaker 3: but Sarah has cooked up a real winner of a

1086
01:00:37,890 --> 01:00:39,710
Speaker 3: show for this week, and it could prove a hit.

1087
01:00:39,790 --> 01:00:41,850
Speaker 3: So we check in on the show, and it's just

1088
01:00:41,890 --> 01:00:44,250
Speaker 3: the pit and the pendulum. It's a woman strapped to

1089
01:00:44,290 --> 01:00:47,130
Speaker 3: a table with a blade tick-tocking down at her while

1090
01:00:47,170 --> 01:00:49,490
Speaker 3: she screams nonstop for a long time.

1091
01:00:50,270 --> 01:00:53,630
Speaker 2: And when they introduced this bladed pendulum, you know, this

1092
01:00:53,690 --> 01:00:56,950
Speaker 2: is a Fulci movie, so my first thought was like, oh, man,

1093
01:00:56,970 --> 01:00:59,430
Speaker 2: we're going to see all of this, aren't we? He's

1094
01:00:59,470 --> 01:01:00,630
Speaker 2: not going to hold anything back.

1095
01:01:00,930 --> 01:01:01,690
Speaker 3: Let's get a look at that.

1096
01:01:01,950 --> 01:01:02,910
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1097
01:01:03,110 --> 01:01:05,940
Speaker 3: And the announcer of this show says, it's the danger

1098
01:01:05,980 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 3: game on WBS. Watch lovely Linda Summers from Big Fork,

1099
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:14,340
Speaker 3: South Dakota, match her self-control against the horror of certain death.

1100
01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:18,090
Speaker 3: And it says the more she screams, the faster the

1101
01:01:18,130 --> 01:01:20,950
Speaker 3: pendulum will fall. So it's funny that she just is

1102
01:01:21,030 --> 01:01:24,070
Speaker 3: constantly screaming. It doesn't look like she's trying to resist

1103
01:01:24,110 --> 01:01:27,550
Speaker 3: at all. And they say, can she survive for more

1104
01:01:27,590 --> 01:01:29,630
Speaker 3: than two minutes? If so, she'll win a free week

1105
01:01:29,670 --> 01:01:33,910
Speaker 3: for two in romantic Hawaii. And just when the blade

1106
01:01:33,950 --> 01:01:36,070
Speaker 3: is about to cut her head off, we cut away

1107
01:01:36,150 --> 01:01:40,730
Speaker 3: to reveal it wasn't really happening. It was all virtual reality.

1108
01:01:41,130 --> 01:01:43,490
Speaker 2: But we still get to see that pendulum bite into

1109
01:01:43,530 --> 01:01:47,570
Speaker 2: her neck. And it's really graphic and fulci there. We

1110
01:01:47,930 --> 01:01:49,800
Speaker 2: just don't see the whole thing. We don't see like

1111
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:50,890
Speaker 2: the full head come off.

1112
01:01:52,110 --> 01:01:54,980
Speaker 3: So the announcer says, what a shame, Linda. What a shame.

1113
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:58,020
Speaker 3: You almost made it. What went wrong? And she says,

1114
01:01:58,580 --> 01:02:01,300
Speaker 3: it seems so real. I just panicked. I really wanted

1115
01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 3: that trip. The announcer says, maybe next time. Oh, she's

1116
01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 3: coming back. So, you know, we get more, you know,

1117
01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:11,780
Speaker 3: patter from the announcer. It's the one and only game

1118
01:02:11,820 --> 01:02:13,870
Speaker 3: that takes you right up to death's door to see

1119
01:02:13,910 --> 01:02:15,970
Speaker 3: if you've got what it takes to go through it.

1120
01:02:16,890 --> 01:02:19,090
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, this alone could be the gimmick for

1121
01:02:19,150 --> 01:02:20,710
Speaker 2: an entire horror picture right here.

1122
01:02:20,810 --> 01:02:21,890
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh yeah.

1123
01:02:21,930 --> 01:02:22,160
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1124
01:02:22,430 --> 01:02:27,060
Speaker 3: So again, interesting counter-programming, you've got real death with kill

1125
01:02:27,100 --> 01:02:31,680
Speaker 3: bikes on seven seas, and then you've got simulated virtual reality,

1126
01:02:31,740 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 3: torture and death on WBS. And it turns out the

1127
01:02:35,800 --> 01:02:38,790
Speaker 3: simulation is not doing so hot with the audiences. Uh,

1128
01:02:38,870 --> 01:02:41,310
Speaker 3: Cortez gets a reading and, oh no, it's only at

1129
01:02:41,350 --> 01:02:44,610
Speaker 3: a 32. I don't know what 32 of what, but

1130
01:02:44,650 --> 01:02:49,030
Speaker 3: that's bad. Cortez is furious. Sarah defends herself by saying,

1131
01:02:49,150 --> 01:02:51,890
Speaker 3: but look what we're up against. No way we can

1132
01:02:51,930 --> 01:02:55,410
Speaker 3: beat that. And then what we see is Drake and

1133
01:02:55,490 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 3: his Hollywood bride dressed in all white, covered in flowers

1134
01:02:58,880 --> 01:03:01,340
Speaker 3: with a soft lens. It looks like first, like they're

1135
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 3: going down the aisle. I was like, man, they got

1136
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 3: him from the kill bike arena to the wedding fast. Anyway,

1137
01:03:09,380 --> 01:03:13,040
Speaker 3: but then there's like light jazz music playing and Drake,

1138
01:03:13,300 --> 01:03:17,620
Speaker 3: we cut to Drake and, um, I forget his wife's name,

1139
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:20,780
Speaker 3: but they're going into their fabulous mansion. It's like the

1140
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:22,620
Speaker 3: house in Back to the Future 2.

1141
01:03:22,620 --> 01:03:27,010
Speaker 2: Yeah, just maximalist design here. Every surface is covered with something.

1142
01:03:27,870 --> 01:03:30,570
Speaker 2: But yeah, this is our future mansion, the mansion of Drake.

1143
01:03:31,570 --> 01:03:35,070
Speaker 3: Sybil says, corn like that went out with the automobile.

1144
01:03:35,090 --> 01:03:38,550
Speaker 3: And I thought, do people not use automobiles in this movie?

1145
01:03:38,660 --> 01:03:39,780
Speaker 3: I think we see some later.

1146
01:03:39,800 --> 01:03:42,500
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're flying. However.

1147
01:03:43,250 --> 01:03:47,430
Speaker 3: corn like that apparently gets an 87% and they're, you know,

1148
01:03:47,470 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 3: the death game only got 30 something. So this is

1149
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:52,920
Speaker 3: a hit. Uh, it's like saying that their marriage is

1150
01:03:52,980 --> 01:03:57,460
Speaker 3: also a TV show, I think. So Cortez reveals one

1151
01:03:57,500 --> 01:03:59,800
Speaker 3: of the real reasons he feels so bitter. He says,

1152
01:03:59,860 --> 01:04:03,340
Speaker 3: before Drake went to seven seas, Drake worked for Cortez.

1153
01:04:03,820 --> 01:04:06,260
Speaker 3: He says, I invented him by putting him on his

1154
01:04:06,380 --> 01:04:10,270
Speaker 3: first motorcycle. He gives the people what they want. Violence.

1155
01:04:10,510 --> 01:04:15,150
Speaker 3: They know the danger game isn't real. And Sarah says,

1156
01:04:15,190 --> 01:04:17,410
Speaker 3: you know, that's a pretty grim view of humanity. You

1157
01:04:17,430 --> 01:04:20,300
Speaker 3: think people just want real violence? Clearly they do. I

1158
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:24,340
Speaker 3: don't know why this is even in dispute. So suddenly

1159
01:04:24,380 --> 01:04:27,990
Speaker 3: there's alert, alert, alert. Everybody turns to look at the

1160
01:04:28,030 --> 01:04:31,330
Speaker 3: view screen and on the big screen comes a proper

1161
01:04:31,370 --> 01:04:34,790
Speaker 3: looking bald gentleman in a gray suit and ascot. And

1162
01:04:34,830 --> 01:04:38,600
Speaker 3: he says, hello, this is your friend Sam speaking. Yes,

1163
01:04:38,780 --> 01:04:42,050
Speaker 3: grim but true. Violence pays, and it's going to pay

1164
01:04:42,140 --> 01:04:47,150
Speaker 3: big for our WBS. Death for the loser, glory for

1165
01:04:47,170 --> 01:04:49,890
Speaker 3: the winner. To make up for your recent failures, we

1166
01:04:49,930 --> 01:04:53,910
Speaker 3: are going to bring back ancient formula violence in its

1167
01:04:53,990 --> 01:04:58,450
Speaker 3: most successful form. Gladiators in ancient Rome, a fight to

1168
01:04:58,470 --> 01:05:02,150
Speaker 3: the finish with guts, blood, death, and all for the

1169
01:05:02,170 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 3: glory of our big happy family. With only one show,

1170
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 3: we will wipe all competition off the charts. You have

1171
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:12,840
Speaker 3: 40 days to put these gladiator games together. And I

1172
01:05:12,920 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 3: know I can count on you and your team, Cortez. So,

1173
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:21,060
Speaker 3: you know, the screen cuts off. Cortez looks very intimidated

1174
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:23,800
Speaker 3: by his orders, but he complies. He says, yes, Sam.

1175
01:05:24,420 --> 01:05:30,380
Speaker 2: They are trying to counter program like love based romance

1176
01:05:30,460 --> 01:05:34,560
Speaker 2: based reality television. And, I mean, maybe realistically, they're like,

1177
01:05:35,500 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 2: they realize we can't compete with that. We need something authentic.

1178
01:05:39,970 --> 01:05:43,810
Speaker 2: And we can't really manufacture authentic love. But we can

1179
01:05:43,890 --> 01:05:45,830
Speaker 2: manufacture authentic violence.

1180
01:05:46,370 --> 01:05:49,530
Speaker 3: But at first, it's presenting it like they're trying to

1181
01:05:49,590 --> 01:05:53,010
Speaker 3: counter-program the Kill Byte competition. But the Kill Byte competition

1182
01:05:53,050 --> 01:05:56,910
Speaker 3: just segues into the Drake marriage show. Yeah. It's like

1183
01:05:56,950 --> 01:05:59,230
Speaker 3: it's all one thing. I guess over at Seven Seas,

1184
01:05:59,270 --> 01:06:02,380
Speaker 3: they're running hot and cold showers. You're getting... kill bikes

1185
01:06:02,460 --> 01:06:05,260
Speaker 3: and then you know our fabulous new married couple in

1186
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:06,970
Speaker 3: their in their futuristic mansion um.

1187
01:06:07,990 --> 01:06:10,730
Speaker 2: But i guess people are invested in the character of

1188
01:06:10,810 --> 01:06:13,410
Speaker 2: drake and that's the big thing here like that's whether

1189
01:06:13,490 --> 01:06:18,130
Speaker 2: drake is getting married or he is uh murdering somebody

1190
01:06:18,210 --> 01:06:21,850
Speaker 2: on a motorcycle uh like either way like people just

1191
01:06:21,930 --> 01:06:23,150
Speaker 2: can't get enough drake.

1192
01:06:23,430 --> 01:06:26,850
Speaker 3: But how is the gladiator thing being proposed all that

1193
01:06:26,910 --> 01:06:30,450
Speaker 3: different from the regular kill bike competition that's already on tv.

1194
01:06:31,020 --> 01:06:33,540
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like they're just 100% going to bring

1195
01:06:33,580 --> 01:06:35,760
Speaker 2: it back, like get rid of the motorcycles, get the

1196
01:06:35,860 --> 01:06:40,830
Speaker 2: nets and the tridents, you know, the different classifications of gladiator.

1197
01:06:40,850 --> 01:06:43,570
Speaker 2: We're going to bring in some, I don't know, some

1198
01:06:43,630 --> 01:06:47,110
Speaker 2: lions and elephants. We're going to flood the Coliseum. We're

1199
01:06:47,130 --> 01:06:49,550
Speaker 2: going to do all of that. But actually, they're going

1200
01:06:49,590 --> 01:06:50,870
Speaker 2: to do literally none of that.

1201
01:06:51,500 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 3: It's, it's going to be something like a slightly different

1202
01:06:54,660 --> 01:06:56,990
Speaker 3: variation on the kill bike show. We already saw.

1203
01:06:57,090 --> 01:06:57,300
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1204
01:06:57,360 --> 01:06:59,950
Speaker 2: There's basically like, we couldn't get the gladiator helmet, but

1205
01:06:59,990 --> 01:07:02,750
Speaker 2: we got side cars and they're like, okay, that'll work.

1206
01:07:04,010 --> 01:07:07,230
Speaker 3: So anyway, we get some great scenes of Cortez glowering

1207
01:07:07,290 --> 01:07:09,700
Speaker 3: into the camera at this point. It's just like, we're

1208
01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:12,500
Speaker 3: going to have to make this ancient formula violence work somehow.

1209
01:07:12,660 --> 01:07:15,040
Speaker 2: Looking at times like a cross between Tim Robinson and

1210
01:07:15,060 --> 01:07:17,820
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson. That was pretty, pretty amusing.

1211
01:07:18,420 --> 01:07:23,180
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then we are treated to a

1212
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:28,760
Speaker 3: long sequence of the TV control room turning into a

1213
01:07:28,820 --> 01:07:32,540
Speaker 3: flying saucer, flying through the air, through the city, the

1214
01:07:32,580 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 3: miniature model set, and landing on a tower beside the

1215
01:07:36,440 --> 01:07:40,580
Speaker 3: Colosseum in Rome. All kinds of delightful model work here.

1216
01:07:40,620 --> 01:07:45,270
Speaker 3: It's like a cross between Blade Runner LA and Lego Rome.

1217
01:07:46,370 --> 01:07:50,380
Speaker 3: And I was noticing, so when the Flying saucer is moving.

1218
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:53,440
Speaker 3: Everybody in the control room, it looks like they go

1219
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:56,760
Speaker 3: into a trance. They're all standing stock still with their

1220
01:07:56,800 --> 01:08:00,340
Speaker 3: heads bowed like they're in prayer while the control room flies.

1221
01:08:00,420 --> 01:08:01,100
Speaker 3: What was that?

1222
01:08:01,610 --> 01:08:04,260
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's something kind of holy about it,

1223
01:08:04,350 --> 01:08:07,970
Speaker 2: you know? But yeah, I love that they descend in

1224
01:08:08,010 --> 01:08:12,050
Speaker 2: the UFO type vehicle here. And this alone feels like

1225
01:08:12,090 --> 01:08:15,200
Speaker 2: it very, this feels very Hunger Games as.

1226
01:08:15,140 --> 01:08:17,200
Speaker 3: Far as I can tell. Yeah, I think it says

1227
01:08:17,260 --> 01:08:20,679
Speaker 3: that they're going to land on the control plinth next

1228
01:08:20,700 --> 01:08:26,000
Speaker 3: to the Neo-Colosseum. So after the landing of Spaceship TV,

1229
01:08:26,420 --> 01:08:28,599
Speaker 3: everybody seems to come out of the trance. And then

1230
01:08:28,660 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 3: Sam comes back on the view screen again. Oh, we're

1231
01:08:30,860 --> 01:08:33,120
Speaker 3: going to hear more from him. He tells Cortez that

1232
01:08:33,150 --> 01:08:36,750
Speaker 3: he has to go consult Junior for the final planning

1233
01:08:37,210 --> 01:08:40,850
Speaker 3: for the games in Rome. Now, who is Junior? Well,

1234
01:08:41,030 --> 01:08:45,390
Speaker 3: it is the network's private supercomputer, of course. Basically, it's

1235
01:08:46,160 --> 01:08:48,300
Speaker 3: Cortez is going to have to go speak to Mother

1236
01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:52,780
Speaker 3: from Alien, except it's Junior and it's not a spaceship,

1237
01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:53,860
Speaker 3: it's a TV station.

1238
01:08:54,470 --> 01:08:57,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, this all seems so retrofuturist until just the last

1239
01:08:57,520 --> 01:09:00,320
Speaker 2: couple of years. And now the prospect of a given

1240
01:09:00,380 --> 01:09:05,479
Speaker 2: company having a dedicated AI, it turns to and converses

1241
01:09:05,540 --> 01:09:09,790
Speaker 2: with and seeks guidance from, you know, feels a lot

1242
01:09:09,830 --> 01:09:12,610
Speaker 2: more accurate to what's going on. I guess also this

1243
01:09:12,630 --> 01:09:15,370
Speaker 2: is maybe also going back to like a time when

1244
01:09:15,770 --> 01:09:17,910
Speaker 2: you would have like a major corporation, they would purchase, say,

1245
01:09:17,930 --> 01:09:20,340
Speaker 2: a supercomputer. you know, and it would live in like

1246
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:22,800
Speaker 2: a physical space in their office, that sort of thing.

1247
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:26,420
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and there's going to be, there are actually,

1248
01:09:26,439 --> 01:09:29,020
Speaker 3: I think some kind of interesting themes going on. They're

1249
01:09:29,580 --> 01:09:33,290
Speaker 3: handled clumsily, but there's something interesting at the core of

1250
01:09:33,330 --> 01:09:36,580
Speaker 3: the supercomputer subplot as we discuss in a bit. Uh,

1251
01:09:36,590 --> 01:09:38,710
Speaker 3: by the way, I love when, so in the scene

1252
01:09:38,729 --> 01:09:40,469
Speaker 3: where he has to go in and talk to junior,

1253
01:09:40,530 --> 01:09:43,880
Speaker 3: he enters this room through a circular door that has,

1254
01:09:43,900 --> 01:09:46,780
Speaker 3: it looks like some kind of weird food processor blade.

1255
01:09:47,020 --> 01:09:47,460
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

1256
01:09:47,500 --> 01:09:47,760
Speaker 3: Like, yeah.

1257
01:09:50,240 --> 01:09:53,500
Speaker 2: In general, I just love what we would now call

1258
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:56,599
Speaker 2: retrofuturistic sets in this piece. It's really good.

1259
01:09:57,340 --> 01:10:00,920
Speaker 3: So Cortez goes to talk to Junior, and Junior reveals

1260
01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:04,700
Speaker 3: the full plan, the secret plan to Cortez. We learn

1261
01:10:04,740 --> 01:10:09,360
Speaker 3: that Sam has negotiated the purchase of 20 condemned criminals

1262
01:10:09,439 --> 01:10:12,500
Speaker 3: held in death rows of different countries around the world.

1263
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:16,140
Speaker 3: And while he's saying this, the screen just displays mugshots

1264
01:10:16,180 --> 01:10:21,099
Speaker 3: of tough-looking dudes frowning. It says these men have all volunteered.

1265
01:10:21,180 --> 01:10:24,180
Speaker 3: They're going to compete in the games in exchange for

1266
01:10:24,220 --> 01:10:26,340
Speaker 3: the chance to win a free pardon in the event

1267
01:10:26,380 --> 01:10:30,270
Speaker 3: of victory. But then they also say, quote, market research

1268
01:10:30,310 --> 01:10:34,089
Speaker 3: has determined a popular hero essential to give gladiator contest

1269
01:10:34,229 --> 01:10:38,290
Speaker 3: a positive element. Optimal choice, Drake. And then just a

1270
01:10:38,330 --> 01:10:39,610
Speaker 3: picture of Drake smiling.

1271
01:10:40,189 --> 01:10:42,470
Speaker 2: Well, that's great. But Drake's a huge star and he

1272
01:10:42,510 --> 01:10:44,180
Speaker 2: works for a rival network. How are they going to

1273
01:10:44,189 --> 01:10:45,580
Speaker 2: get Drake? Right.

1274
01:10:45,660 --> 01:10:48,200
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah. He's not a condemned criminal. Well, he's

1275
01:10:48,220 --> 01:10:52,120
Speaker 3: about to become one junior has everything figured out. So

1276
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:55,960
Speaker 3: here we cut to somewhere else. It is a scene

1277
01:10:56,120 --> 01:10:59,940
Speaker 3: of Drake's wife, Susan at home in their pale mod mansion. Uh,

1278
01:11:00,740 --> 01:11:03,040
Speaker 3: this is one of those cases where the future is

1279
01:11:03,820 --> 01:11:07,960
Speaker 3: imagined as just taking the aesthetic trends of the time

1280
01:11:08,000 --> 01:11:11,240
Speaker 3: when the movie was made and accentuating them to the extreme.

1281
01:11:11,750 --> 01:11:15,430
Speaker 3: So the future here is so 80s. It is so

1282
01:11:15,550 --> 01:11:19,790
Speaker 3: early 80s. You got these carpeted floors, sunken living room,

1283
01:11:20,530 --> 01:11:24,090
Speaker 3: modern architecture with glass walls and these like glass brick

1284
01:11:24,170 --> 01:11:29,440
Speaker 3: features inside. A built-in bar with garish lighting, a pool table,

1285
01:11:29,530 --> 01:11:31,940
Speaker 3: literal gun on the mantle. It's like a laser gun

1286
01:11:32,200 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 3: on the mantle piece.

1287
01:11:33,400 --> 01:11:36,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's supposed to be like Drake's signature weapon, right?

1288
01:11:36,439 --> 01:11:37,780
Speaker 3: He doesn't use it in the games.

1289
01:11:38,120 --> 01:11:40,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He makes a grab for it at one point.

1290
01:11:40,760 --> 01:11:44,120
Speaker 3: He does. Yeah. So Susan walks around enjoying her life

1291
01:11:44,380 --> 01:11:47,040
Speaker 3: and then the lights begin to flash and an alarm

1292
01:11:47,100 --> 01:11:50,620
Speaker 3: goes off and a robotic voice says intruders on the property,

1293
01:11:50,840 --> 01:11:54,980
Speaker 3: intruders on the property, intruders in the house. And so

1294
01:11:55,040 --> 01:11:58,280
Speaker 3: it's very frightening. I don't know why it would be

1295
01:11:58,300 --> 01:12:00,510
Speaker 3: good for the lights to flash on and off if

1296
01:12:00,520 --> 01:12:03,090
Speaker 3: there are intruders in the house. I don't know.

1297
01:12:03,530 --> 01:12:04,250
Speaker 2: Distort them, I guess.

1298
01:12:05,180 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this is the first I was going to

1299
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:09,160
Speaker 3: say this, the first set piece in the movie that

1300
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:13,880
Speaker 3: really feels distinctively like Fulci to me. One by one,

1301
01:12:14,220 --> 01:12:20,720
Speaker 3: men dressed in suits with pastel silk ties appear at

1302
01:12:20,840 --> 01:12:24,090
Speaker 3: each corner of the room and they are all whistling

1303
01:12:24,170 --> 01:12:28,269
Speaker 3: a tune, the same tune in unison as they close

1304
01:12:28,350 --> 01:12:31,410
Speaker 3: in around Susan. And she's screaming for help, but there's

1305
01:12:31,450 --> 01:12:34,059
Speaker 3: nobody there to help her. Drake is not home. And

1306
01:12:34,110 --> 01:12:38,300
Speaker 3: the whistling in unison detail is very creepy, very dreamlike

1307
01:12:38,479 --> 01:12:40,160
Speaker 3: signature Fulci touch.

1308
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:44,660
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, total dream world vibes here. And to be clear,

1309
01:12:44,720 --> 01:12:48,840
Speaker 2: Fulci really does lean into the uncanny on this one,

1310
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:52,440
Speaker 2: you know, with this unison whistling and the weird expression.

1311
01:12:52,780 --> 01:12:54,019
Speaker 2: Maybe it's in a later scene where we get a

1312
01:12:54,020 --> 01:12:56,820
Speaker 2: flashback and we see the weird expressions on the men's faces.

1313
01:12:57,410 --> 01:13:00,050
Speaker 2: But he goes in this direction rather than going for

1314
01:13:00,110 --> 01:13:04,070
Speaker 2: sort of like sheer 70s crime sleaze. which, you know,

1315
01:13:04,330 --> 01:13:06,210
Speaker 2: if someone else had directed this film, you could imagine

1316
01:13:06,250 --> 01:13:09,610
Speaker 2: it going in that direction. The scene is still very frightening,

1317
01:13:10,050 --> 01:13:13,110
Speaker 2: but it does have that sense of detachment from reality.

1318
01:13:13,710 --> 01:13:16,280
Speaker 3: Anyway, it seems like these guys cut her head off

1319
01:13:16,340 --> 01:13:19,900
Speaker 3: or something. Whatever happens, we don't see it. Drake arrives

1320
01:13:19,979 --> 01:13:22,780
Speaker 3: home carrying a bouquet of flowers and we see his

1321
01:13:22,979 --> 01:13:26,009
Speaker 3: eyes go wide as he approaches the house. Whatever happens

1322
01:13:26,060 --> 01:13:29,130
Speaker 3: next is left ambiguous for now, but I was going to,

1323
01:13:29,130 --> 01:13:31,490
Speaker 3: I mentioned this earlier, but I think it's really weird

1324
01:13:31,530 --> 01:13:34,750
Speaker 3: that we're like 15 minutes into the movie and it

1325
01:13:34,850 --> 01:13:38,410
Speaker 3: still doesn't feel like we've actually met our protagonist. Like

1326
01:13:38,570 --> 01:13:41,990
Speaker 3: all of his scenes so far are mediated by TV

1327
01:13:42,050 --> 01:13:45,689
Speaker 3: production or they're just little glimpses of him reacting to events.

1328
01:13:45,750 --> 01:13:49,410
Speaker 3: There's no characterization yet. So we have no idea what

1329
01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:51,620
Speaker 3: Drake is all about, except that he's good with a

1330
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:53,540
Speaker 3: kill bike and the crowds love him. Yeah.

1331
01:13:53,560 --> 01:13:56,400
Speaker 2: To us, the viewer, he's still just a media entity.

1332
01:13:56,420 --> 01:13:57,980
Speaker 2: We have no idea who is as a character.

1333
01:13:58,780 --> 01:14:02,990
Speaker 3: So we're going to get more exposition by TV announcers. Eventually,

1334
01:14:03,050 --> 01:14:05,269
Speaker 3: we will finally get into the main action of the movie.

1335
01:14:05,310 --> 01:14:07,870
Speaker 3: But just a little more exposition is a guy named

1336
01:14:07,910 --> 01:14:12,780
Speaker 3: Hank Martinez, an announcer live in Rome, says, quote, with

1337
01:14:12,840 --> 01:14:15,600
Speaker 3: another flash for WBS viewers all over the world as

1338
01:14:15,640 --> 01:14:20,940
Speaker 3: the countdown continues to next Saturday's sensational action extravaganza. It

1339
01:14:20,990 --> 01:14:23,540
Speaker 3: is my privilege to announce that the star contender on

1340
01:14:23,560 --> 01:14:26,260
Speaker 3: that great occasion will be none other than Drake, the

1341
01:14:26,280 --> 01:14:30,540
Speaker 3: world's most popular kill bike champion now condemned to die

1342
01:14:30,620 --> 01:14:34,280
Speaker 3: for killing the three men who brutally murdered his lovely

1343
01:14:34,320 --> 01:14:34,939
Speaker 3: young wife.

1344
01:14:35,900 --> 01:14:37,670
Speaker 2: I really did laugh out loud a little bit at

1345
01:14:37,710 --> 01:14:38,090
Speaker 2: this one.

1346
01:14:38,189 --> 01:14:38,349
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1347
01:14:38,370 --> 01:14:41,450
Speaker 2: It's like those bloodthirsty murderers had families, Drake. How could

1348
01:14:41,510 --> 01:14:41,970
Speaker 2: you do that?

1349
01:14:42,930 --> 01:14:46,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. Like, I don't know. Yeah, so I might comment

1350
01:14:46,640 --> 01:14:49,080
Speaker 3: on this again later, but it is funny. But they

1351
01:14:49,120 --> 01:14:52,040
Speaker 3: say as an alternative to the death sentence, he's going

1352
01:14:52,060 --> 01:14:55,720
Speaker 3: to get to take part in the greatest extravaganza of

1353
01:14:55,880 --> 01:15:00,430
Speaker 3: mortal combat ever staged, which they're calling the Battle of

1354
01:15:00,530 --> 01:15:03,269
Speaker 3: the Damned. They say it's going to be an authentic

1355
01:15:03,370 --> 01:15:06,070
Speaker 3: reconstruction of the ancient gladiator games.

1356
01:15:06,390 --> 01:15:07,729
Speaker 2: It will be.

1357
01:15:08,350 --> 01:15:11,650
Speaker 3: Yeah. He says, quote, thrill as the Caesars did at

1358
01:15:11,710 --> 01:15:15,550
Speaker 3: the sight of condemned warriors fighting for their lives. And

1359
01:15:15,570 --> 01:15:19,019
Speaker 3: then we get a kind of ride along with the Praetorians,

1360
01:15:19,080 --> 01:15:21,599
Speaker 3: who are these guys in black who are rolling around

1361
01:15:21,620 --> 01:15:23,740
Speaker 3: the streets of Rome ahead of the games, I think,

1362
01:15:23,760 --> 01:15:27,680
Speaker 3: to set the mood. And this leads into the triumphal

1363
01:15:27,780 --> 01:15:30,810
Speaker 3: arrival of condemned prisoner Drake on his way to the

1364
01:15:30,850 --> 01:15:33,610
Speaker 3: gladiator barracks. He gets out of a flying saucer to

1365
01:15:33,670 --> 01:15:37,190
Speaker 3: go there. So I think finally we can say the

1366
01:15:37,330 --> 01:15:40,390
Speaker 3: setup for the film is finished. And from here on out,

1367
01:15:40,450 --> 01:15:43,120
Speaker 3: the action is going to actually start following Drake. We

1368
01:15:43,140 --> 01:15:45,780
Speaker 3: get to know him. And see the story mostly from

1369
01:15:45,880 --> 01:15:50,060
Speaker 3: his point of view, though Cortez's assistant, Sarah, also becomes

1370
01:15:50,100 --> 01:15:51,870
Speaker 3: an important secondary protagonist.

1371
01:15:51,990 --> 01:15:53,890
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so most of the film here is going

1372
01:15:53,910 --> 01:15:58,630
Speaker 2: to just be setting up for this grand spectacular of violence,

1373
01:15:58,670 --> 01:16:01,629
Speaker 2: which is going to be itself like maybe the last

1374
01:16:01,630 --> 01:16:03,380
Speaker 2: 15 to 20 minutes of the picture.

1375
01:16:03,720 --> 01:16:15,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. So. One big thing that happens through the middle

1376
01:16:15,100 --> 01:16:18,320
Speaker 3: third of the movie is Drake's training and initiation into

1377
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:21,729
Speaker 3: the gladiator culture. So Drake is brought to the barracks

1378
01:16:21,770 --> 01:16:24,469
Speaker 3: like Snake Plissken arriving at the outpost in New York,

1379
01:16:24,910 --> 01:16:26,750
Speaker 3: and he's going to meet a bunch of new characters.

1380
01:16:26,830 --> 01:16:30,450
Speaker 3: We meet Raven, who is the sadistic but also somewhat

1381
01:16:30,610 --> 01:16:34,700
Speaker 3: hammy and theatrical leader of the Praetorian Guard. It's going

1382
01:16:34,720 --> 01:16:37,820
Speaker 3: to be Raven's job to instill fear and discipline into

1383
01:16:37,860 --> 01:16:40,630
Speaker 3: Drake and the other gladiators. But he also has to

1384
01:16:40,770 --> 01:16:44,990
Speaker 3: oversee martial arts training and the hate stimulation procedure. More

1385
01:16:45,030 --> 01:16:47,939
Speaker 3: on that in a bit. Any comments on Raven here, Rob?

1386
01:16:48,600 --> 01:16:51,620
Speaker 2: Again, I love Howard Ross in this role. And he

1387
01:16:51,640 --> 01:16:53,860
Speaker 2: has an amazing, what would you call it? It's like

1388
01:16:53,880 --> 01:16:54,960
Speaker 2: a stun baton.

1389
01:16:54,979 --> 01:16:57,720
Speaker 3: It's like a laser stun device.

1390
01:16:58,200 --> 01:17:02,000
Speaker 2: And it creates really some fabulous disco effects whenever he

1391
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:02,939
Speaker 2: fires this thing off.

1392
01:17:03,860 --> 01:17:07,610
Speaker 3: We also meet a guy named Monk who... I was

1393
01:17:07,750 --> 01:17:09,889
Speaker 3: a little confused on what he is. I think they

1394
01:17:09,950 --> 01:17:13,570
Speaker 3: say he's a mechanic, like he's a tech guy, but

1395
01:17:13,610 --> 01:17:17,370
Speaker 3: he's an old friend of Drake's who we didn't see

1396
01:17:17,430 --> 01:17:20,490
Speaker 3: anything of their past life together, but he's been a

1397
01:17:20,510 --> 01:17:23,270
Speaker 3: friend of Drake's from long ago who was brought back

1398
01:17:23,330 --> 01:17:26,850
Speaker 3: to help with the competition. He has suffered something terrible

1399
01:17:26,910 --> 01:17:30,570
Speaker 3: happening to his eyes and had his eyeballs replaced with

1400
01:17:30,630 --> 01:17:33,570
Speaker 3: fiber optic implants. He also has burn scars all over

1401
01:17:33,610 --> 01:17:35,630
Speaker 3: his face. I don't think they ever explained this.

1402
01:17:36,530 --> 01:17:40,730
Speaker 2: No, you get the sense that this character was fulchied

1403
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:44,340
Speaker 2: up somewhat and becomes like the focal point for all

1404
01:17:44,360 --> 01:17:48,480
Speaker 2: of the eye violence obsession. But, you know, the makeup

1405
01:17:48,520 --> 01:17:50,760
Speaker 2: look is great. I love that, you know, there's sort

1406
01:17:50,780 --> 01:17:55,139
Speaker 2: of zombie-esque aspects to the way he's depicted. Yeah, looks

1407
01:17:55,540 --> 01:17:58,870
Speaker 2: really gnarly. And yeah, we won't need eyes to see

1408
01:17:58,910 --> 01:17:59,729
Speaker 2: where this guy's going.

1409
01:18:00,450 --> 01:18:04,979
Speaker 3: That's true. So the other gladiators also are important. They're, again,

1410
01:18:05,060 --> 01:18:09,089
Speaker 3: condemned criminals all. The most important of them are Abdul,

1411
01:18:09,390 --> 01:18:14,710
Speaker 3: played by Fred Williamson, Akira, and Kirk. And again, Kirk

1412
01:18:14,890 --> 01:18:17,870
Speaker 3: is the problem child. He's the one that's always causing trouble,

1413
01:18:17,990 --> 01:18:22,790
Speaker 3: getting into trouble. When Drake first arrives, he is resented

1414
01:18:22,890 --> 01:18:24,970
Speaker 3: by the other gladiators, and they try to beat him

1415
01:18:25,090 --> 01:18:27,759
Speaker 3: up and bully him. But he stands up for himself

1416
01:18:27,820 --> 01:18:30,520
Speaker 3: and he eventually really wins their respect by sticking it

1417
01:18:30,560 --> 01:18:32,010
Speaker 3: to Raven and the Praetorians.

1418
01:18:32,470 --> 01:18:36,850
Speaker 2: Yeah, the subplot of Drake earning their trust and then

1419
01:18:37,410 --> 01:18:41,110
Speaker 2: the ends up being four of them working together and

1420
01:18:41,150 --> 01:18:43,809
Speaker 2: in support of each other. Like that actually was well done.

1421
01:18:43,970 --> 01:18:47,870
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, go team, especially in a

1422
01:18:47,890 --> 01:18:49,220
Speaker 2: key scene. which we'll get to in a bit.

1423
01:18:49,560 --> 01:18:54,400
Speaker 3: This is a classic enemies to allies arc. Yeah. So

1424
01:18:54,939 --> 01:18:57,309
Speaker 3: set pieces to discuss in the middle of the movie here.

1425
01:18:57,479 --> 01:19:01,850
Speaker 3: One is the tracker band that they put around everybody's wrist. Oh, man.

1426
01:19:01,930 --> 01:19:04,689
Speaker 2: And they don't just slap it on. And again, in

1427
01:19:04,970 --> 01:19:08,990
Speaker 2: another detail that feels very fulchied up, It's kind of

1428
01:19:09,050 --> 01:19:12,510
Speaker 2: like it's slapped on, but then like burned into your flesh.

1429
01:19:13,430 --> 01:19:15,800
Speaker 2: So there's no need for this to be as disgusting.

1430
01:19:15,810 --> 01:19:19,500
Speaker 2: I mean, people get like tracking devices and collars and

1431
01:19:19,560 --> 01:19:22,320
Speaker 2: shackles put on them in sci-fi movies all the time.

1432
01:19:22,900 --> 01:19:26,679
Speaker 2: But here it's gross. It's like surrounded by like burned,

1433
01:19:26,800 --> 01:19:27,560
Speaker 2: putrid skin.

1434
01:19:27,800 --> 01:19:32,020
Speaker 3: There's just like red, raw, wet flesh on both sides

1435
01:19:32,060 --> 01:19:34,120
Speaker 3: of this metal thing embedded in the skin.

1436
01:19:34,140 --> 01:19:34,220
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1437
01:19:36,100 --> 01:19:39,080
Speaker 3: Anyway, there's also the vaporization gate. It's like the gate

1438
01:19:39,360 --> 01:19:41,960
Speaker 3: where you go into the barracks. If it is not

1439
01:19:42,080 --> 01:19:45,370
Speaker 3: deactivated by Raven's device that he has in the palm

1440
01:19:45,410 --> 01:19:48,349
Speaker 3: of his hand, it vaporizes you when you walk through it.

1441
01:19:49,650 --> 01:19:52,560
Speaker 3: There are these training sessions we get to watch where

1442
01:19:52,570 --> 01:19:55,640
Speaker 3: we see warriors like Abdul and Akira training inside a

1443
01:19:55,760 --> 01:19:59,110
Speaker 3: strobe light chamber where Did you understand that they were

1444
01:19:59,150 --> 01:20:03,430
Speaker 3: not fighting real people, but kind of psychic projections or something?

1445
01:20:03,530 --> 01:20:06,790
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought maybe they were using that pre-total recall

1446
01:20:06,850 --> 01:20:09,370
Speaker 2: dream machine to do these sequences. Yeah, I think that's right.

1447
01:20:10,210 --> 01:20:13,280
Speaker 3: Also, we get this thing called the hate stimulation procedure.

1448
01:20:13,340 --> 01:20:15,700
Speaker 3: As we talked about earlier, this is something overseen by

1449
01:20:15,740 --> 01:20:19,440
Speaker 3: the character Sarah, the WBS executive. She seems to be

1450
01:20:19,500 --> 01:20:22,460
Speaker 3: some kind of scientist who has specialized in, I think

1451
01:20:22,500 --> 01:20:26,139
Speaker 3: they call it like teleinformatics or something. but it seems

1452
01:20:26,180 --> 01:20:28,900
Speaker 3: to be a branch of like techno psychology where she

1453
01:20:28,939 --> 01:20:32,719
Speaker 3: can manipulate people's brains with a computer program. And here,

1454
01:20:32,760 --> 01:20:36,080
Speaker 3: what they're going to be doing is injecting images of

1455
01:20:36,180 --> 01:20:40,550
Speaker 3: the killers who killed Drake's wife into his head to make,

1456
01:20:40,710 --> 01:20:43,470
Speaker 3: to give him hate stimulation so that he will murder

1457
01:20:43,530 --> 01:20:45,230
Speaker 3: his fellow gladiators, I think.

1458
01:20:45,490 --> 01:20:48,330
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's how it played out for me.

1459
01:20:48,689 --> 01:20:51,450
Speaker 2: And of course, hate stimulation, very important to the media.

1460
01:20:51,810 --> 01:20:55,230
Speaker 2: We see a lot of that today, but, Uh, but yeah, it's,

1461
01:20:55,350 --> 01:20:58,470
Speaker 2: it's about, it's just, it's a great scene where she's

1462
01:20:58,490 --> 01:21:00,130
Speaker 2: setting him up for this. And she's like, Drake, I

1463
01:21:00,170 --> 01:21:02,270
Speaker 2: want you to really relive the night your wife was

1464
01:21:02,310 --> 01:21:05,510
Speaker 2: brutally murdered again. And for some reason we get that

1465
01:21:05,570 --> 01:21:09,130
Speaker 2: erotic saxophone music right here. It's like, there's nothing sexy

1466
01:21:09,150 --> 01:21:11,420
Speaker 2: going on. I don't know why we needed to drop

1467
01:21:11,460 --> 01:21:12,060
Speaker 2: this track here.

1468
01:21:12,860 --> 01:21:17,780
Speaker 3: Also during the hate stimulation, Sarah obviously, uh, becomes attracted

1469
01:21:17,840 --> 01:21:20,820
Speaker 3: to Drake. Like how could you not be? Uh, and

1470
01:21:20,979 --> 01:21:24,590
Speaker 3: she becomes sympathetic to his plight. So, uh, And then

1471
01:21:24,710 --> 01:21:26,950
Speaker 3: also there's a subplot with her, like during the middle

1472
01:21:26,990 --> 01:21:30,040
Speaker 3: of the movie, by doing some background research in the archives,

1473
01:21:30,180 --> 01:21:33,400
Speaker 3: Sarah discovers that Drake was set up for the murders

1474
01:21:33,460 --> 01:21:36,760
Speaker 3: he allegedly committed. He did not actually kill the men

1475
01:21:36,820 --> 01:21:39,680
Speaker 3: who murdered his wife, like somebody else did and left

1476
01:21:39,720 --> 01:21:43,050
Speaker 3: him unconscious at the scene until police arrived. Oh yeah.

1477
01:21:43,120 --> 01:21:45,930
Speaker 2: And we get to see this through the total recall

1478
01:21:45,950 --> 01:21:49,450
Speaker 2: dream machine. And there's a fourth guy there with a

1479
01:21:49,510 --> 01:21:54,430
Speaker 2: laser gun that melts faces. So some other fabulous Fulci

1480
01:21:54,470 --> 01:21:55,830
Speaker 2: gore in this sequence as well.

1481
01:21:55,950 --> 01:21:57,870
Speaker 3: I forgot about that part. That's a great Fulci.

1482
01:21:57,890 --> 01:21:59,490
Speaker 2: It's face melting. It melts the face down to like

1483
01:21:59,530 --> 01:22:00,629
Speaker 2: a blackened skull.

1484
01:22:02,070 --> 01:22:05,960
Speaker 3: So we learn Drake is innocent, but I was just thinking,

1485
01:22:06,060 --> 01:22:09,040
Speaker 3: wouldn't this even be debatable as a crime in the

1486
01:22:09,080 --> 01:22:15,040
Speaker 3: first place? Murderers in your house having just murdered your wife.

1487
01:22:15,900 --> 01:22:19,280
Speaker 2: With three to one odds in their favor, and you

1488
01:22:19,540 --> 01:22:20,540
Speaker 2: killed them all.

1489
01:22:21,040 --> 01:22:26,820
Speaker 3: That seems very arguably like justifiable homicide, like self-defense, right?

1490
01:22:27,140 --> 01:22:29,230
Speaker 2: You would think so, but I guess maybe the idea

1491
01:22:29,400 --> 01:22:32,290
Speaker 2: not well explored here is that you have a corrupt

1492
01:22:32,330 --> 01:22:36,170
Speaker 2: system controlled by corrupt players, and they have made it

1493
01:22:36,430 --> 01:22:39,250
Speaker 2: so that Drake ends up in the hands of the

1494
01:22:39,310 --> 01:22:42,330
Speaker 2: network here for use in their violent spectacular.

1495
01:22:42,900 --> 01:22:45,679
Speaker 3: Also, I think it's funny that so a big deal

1496
01:22:45,740 --> 01:22:48,160
Speaker 3: is made of him saying, no, I didn't kill them.

1497
01:22:48,360 --> 01:22:53,080
Speaker 3: I won't kill. But Drake already murders people on TV

1498
01:22:53,140 --> 01:22:56,300
Speaker 3: for a living. It's his job to just kill people.

1499
01:22:56,520 --> 01:22:59,389
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's nothing where he's he's saying anything like

1500
01:22:59,470 --> 01:23:01,270
Speaker 2: I used to do that, but I don't do it anymore.

1501
01:23:01,370 --> 01:23:03,110
Speaker 2: I can't do it ever since I lost my wife.

1502
01:23:03,130 --> 01:23:05,170
Speaker 2: There's none of that. He's just like, I'm not the

1503
01:23:05,189 --> 01:23:07,790
Speaker 2: sort of guy who does that when totally you are

1504
01:23:07,830 --> 01:23:09,110
Speaker 2: exactly that dude, Drake.

1505
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:12,299
Speaker 3: Like the thing that he normally does for a living,

1506
01:23:12,460 --> 01:23:16,479
Speaker 3: I think is far more morally objectionable than the thing

1507
01:23:16,540 --> 01:23:18,639
Speaker 3: he is falsely accused of doing.

1508
01:23:19,040 --> 01:23:22,060
Speaker 2: Yeah. They're like, we love it when he kills for entertainment,

1509
01:23:22,140 --> 01:23:25,180
Speaker 2: but not in self-defense unacceptable.

1510
01:23:26,100 --> 01:23:30,560
Speaker 3: So bizarre. So another question about the middle of the

1511
01:23:30,600 --> 01:23:33,080
Speaker 3: movie is how does Drake win the respect of his cohort?

1512
01:23:33,100 --> 01:23:35,700
Speaker 3: How does he get the other gladiators on his side? Well,

1513
01:23:35,740 --> 01:23:41,250
Speaker 3: he figures out that despite Raven's threats. Raven can't actually

1514
01:23:41,310 --> 01:23:45,210
Speaker 3: afford to kill or maim them. Certainly not Drake because

1515
01:23:45,330 --> 01:23:47,090
Speaker 3: Raven is on the hook to have them ready for

1516
01:23:47,110 --> 01:23:50,510
Speaker 3: the TV event. So once Drake figures this out, he

1517
01:23:50,630 --> 01:23:54,180
Speaker 3: tests it by throwing himself into the vaporization gate, which

1518
01:23:54,270 --> 01:23:58,820
Speaker 3: forces Raven to deactivate it quickly. So he kind of

1519
01:23:58,840 --> 01:24:01,160
Speaker 3: gets the better of Raven by saying like, you know,

1520
01:24:01,220 --> 01:24:03,840
Speaker 3: you can't boss us around because I know you can't

1521
01:24:03,920 --> 01:24:07,340
Speaker 3: actually kill me. The Raven does torture them after this.

1522
01:24:07,400 --> 01:24:11,320
Speaker 3: So I don't know. It's a little inconsistent on that. Um, another, uh,

1523
01:24:11,640 --> 01:24:16,720
Speaker 3: mid movie subplot is the escape attempt where monk. They

1524
01:24:16,760 --> 01:24:19,599
Speaker 3: remember his old friend with the messed up eyes. Monk

1525
01:24:19,760 --> 01:24:24,530
Speaker 3: gives Drake a microprocessor that can melt holes in walls.

1526
01:24:24,670 --> 01:24:26,110
Speaker 3: Did you understand it the same way?

1527
01:24:26,170 --> 01:24:26,630
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1528
01:24:26,689 --> 01:24:26,809
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1529
01:24:26,830 --> 01:24:29,250
Speaker 2: He gives them this little gadget that'll open up holes

1530
01:24:29,290 --> 01:24:29,670
Speaker 2: in the wall.

1531
01:24:30,170 --> 01:24:30,330
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1532
01:24:31,110 --> 01:24:31,370
Speaker 2: Okay.

1533
01:24:31,530 --> 01:24:34,189
Speaker 3: You know, microprocessor. Yeah. Just melt the walls. And then

1534
01:24:34,270 --> 01:24:37,050
Speaker 3: Drake and his fellow gladiators use this to stage an

1535
01:24:37,110 --> 01:24:40,540
Speaker 3: escape attempt. But they're caught in the act of escaping.

1536
01:24:40,580 --> 01:24:42,439
Speaker 3: So they go through a bunch of tunnels. Once they

1537
01:24:42,470 --> 01:24:46,150
Speaker 3: come out into the open, guards appear everywhere. They were

1538
01:24:46,189 --> 01:24:48,490
Speaker 3: waiting for them. And the whole thing is broadcast on

1539
01:24:48,530 --> 01:24:52,030
Speaker 3: TV as an escape attempt special. So it was to

1540
01:24:52,710 --> 01:24:56,860
Speaker 3: really get everybody ready for the big main event. So

1541
01:24:56,939 --> 01:25:00,060
Speaker 3: how did the guards know this was coming? Who's the rat?

1542
01:25:00,740 --> 01:25:05,019
Speaker 3: And this leads to a scene of dangling electroshock torture.

1543
01:25:05,100 --> 01:25:10,839
Speaker 3: So the four main conspirators are Drake, Abdul, Akira, and

1544
01:25:11,180 --> 01:25:14,820
Speaker 3: what's his name? Kirk. They're forced to like hang from

1545
01:25:14,900 --> 01:25:18,500
Speaker 3: bars at the ceiling over a floor that they say

1546
01:25:18,540 --> 01:25:21,020
Speaker 3: will sizzle you like a fried egg if you fall

1547
01:25:21,100 --> 01:25:25,620
Speaker 3: on it. So they're hanging there and eventually Kirk falls,

1548
01:25:25,780 --> 01:25:28,280
Speaker 3: but Abdul and Drake managed to pick him up and

1549
01:25:28,360 --> 01:25:30,769
Speaker 3: save him by having him hang off of their arms.

1550
01:25:31,310 --> 01:25:33,570
Speaker 3: So they're supposed, you know, the guards are trying to

1551
01:25:33,610 --> 01:25:35,790
Speaker 3: make them hate each other, but the gladiators have now

1552
01:25:35,830 --> 01:25:36,809
Speaker 3: become like brothers.

1553
01:25:37,580 --> 01:25:40,280
Speaker 2: And I really like this scene because when Kirk fell

1554
01:25:40,340 --> 01:25:44,439
Speaker 2: on the floor and started frying and it starts getting electrocuted,

1555
01:25:44,460 --> 01:25:46,979
Speaker 2: I was like, OK, this is a Fulci film. This

1556
01:25:47,060 --> 01:25:51,700
Speaker 2: is this is, you know, 70s, 80s horror. We're going

1557
01:25:51,720 --> 01:25:54,589
Speaker 2: to watch this guy get electrocuted for like 10 solid minutes.

1558
01:25:54,650 --> 01:25:57,390
Speaker 2: His flesh is going to peel off and the camera

1559
01:25:57,430 --> 01:26:00,710
Speaker 2: is not going to drift away from the grotesque nature

1560
01:26:00,750 --> 01:26:04,830
Speaker 2: of this spectacle. But instead, they rally, they save him,

1561
01:26:05,150 --> 01:26:08,030
Speaker 2: and it leads to just a legitimately inspiring act of teamwork.

1562
01:26:08,110 --> 01:26:09,390
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, you won me over.

1563
01:26:09,850 --> 01:26:12,330
Speaker 3: This scene did actually make me feel some emotions.

1564
01:26:12,350 --> 01:26:13,370
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah.

1565
01:26:14,330 --> 01:26:16,450
Speaker 3: Enemies to friends. They're working together. Yeah.

1566
01:26:16,570 --> 01:26:19,729
Speaker 2: Whereas I think in another movie, you would have just

1567
01:26:19,770 --> 01:26:21,820
Speaker 2: fried him on the floor and you would have used

1568
01:26:21,860 --> 01:26:23,939
Speaker 2: that to just sort of build up how bad the

1569
01:26:23,979 --> 01:26:27,200
Speaker 2: bad guys are and justify the good guys killing them

1570
01:26:27,240 --> 01:26:27,900
Speaker 2: later in the picture.

1571
01:26:28,820 --> 01:26:32,080
Speaker 3: So there's another interesting scene in the middle here where

1572
01:26:32,380 --> 01:26:37,380
Speaker 3: Sarah goes to confront her old teacher and mentor. So

1573
01:26:37,439 --> 01:26:41,440
Speaker 3: she goes into this ancient cathedral. Is this place underground

1574
01:26:41,520 --> 01:26:41,970
Speaker 3: or something?

1575
01:26:42,050 --> 01:26:43,950
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do get a sort of a catacomb sense

1576
01:26:44,270 --> 01:26:45,250
Speaker 2: ability to all this.

1577
01:26:45,770 --> 01:26:49,650
Speaker 3: And in this cathedral, she finds an older man playing

1578
01:26:49,770 --> 01:26:53,370
Speaker 3: the organ. We learn that this man was in a

1579
01:26:53,510 --> 01:26:57,970
Speaker 3: former life, a guy named Professor Toman, a scientist and inventor.

1580
01:26:58,460 --> 01:27:03,059
Speaker 3: And in fact, the man who invented the supercomputer, Junior,

1581
01:27:03,620 --> 01:27:06,840
Speaker 3: he now seems to have retired from his former life

1582
01:27:07,240 --> 01:27:11,480
Speaker 3: and has become some kind of mystic or spiritual recluse.

1583
01:27:11,500 --> 01:27:13,960
Speaker 3: Like he has a bindi now and he seems to be,

1584
01:27:13,979 --> 01:27:17,340
Speaker 3: I don't know, taking part in some sort of like

1585
01:27:17,380 --> 01:27:18,900
Speaker 3: Hindu philosophy or something.

1586
01:27:19,260 --> 01:27:22,780
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd say in this movie, this subplot kind of

1587
01:27:22,800 --> 01:27:26,019
Speaker 2: drags a little bit, but undeniably has some very nice

1588
01:27:26,100 --> 01:27:27,519
Speaker 2: moments and some cool set pieces.

1589
01:27:28,180 --> 01:27:30,889
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, so the question is why did this guy

1590
01:27:30,979 --> 01:27:36,070
Speaker 3: leave his life as a scientist and inventor become a mystic? Uh, the,

1591
01:27:36,189 --> 01:27:39,270
Speaker 3: he says, let's just say I invented a better brain

1592
01:27:39,310 --> 01:27:43,170
Speaker 3: than my own, a major mistake. Hmm. Oh, maybe it's

1593
01:27:43,189 --> 01:27:46,349
Speaker 3: something for us all to think about. Uh, so Sarah

1594
01:27:46,430 --> 01:27:49,980
Speaker 3: reveals that she thinks junior, the computer framed Drake for

1595
01:27:50,020 --> 01:27:52,360
Speaker 3: murder based on the stuff she uncovered. And like, could

1596
01:27:52,380 --> 01:27:55,729
Speaker 3: that really have happened? Thoman does not think so. He's like,

1597
01:27:55,770 --> 01:27:58,330
Speaker 3: how could it be possible? A junior was programmed to

1598
01:27:58,350 --> 01:28:04,370
Speaker 3: be 100% morally good. Junior is, quote, infinitely superior to

1599
01:28:04,410 --> 01:28:07,730
Speaker 3: a human brain. It is completely benign and has no

1600
01:28:07,850 --> 01:28:11,969
Speaker 3: impulse to destroy. And then Sarah says, are you saying

1601
01:28:12,030 --> 01:28:15,650
Speaker 3: junior has a soul? And Thoman is like, the junior

1602
01:28:15,729 --> 01:28:18,900
Speaker 3: I created knew right from wrong. He wasn't programmed to

1603
01:28:18,979 --> 01:28:22,240
Speaker 3: do wrong. But if someone gains control of his intellect,

1604
01:28:22,300 --> 01:28:23,240
Speaker 3: he could do evil.

1605
01:28:24,390 --> 01:28:28,000
Speaker 2: Oh, OK, then those guardrails were not as firmly installed

1606
01:28:28,020 --> 01:28:29,620
Speaker 2: then as we had hoped. Yeah.

1607
01:28:30,000 --> 01:28:33,880
Speaker 3: So Toman gives Sarah a key that can be used

1608
01:28:33,900 --> 01:28:37,650
Speaker 3: to access the computer. But then Toman is killed off

1609
01:28:37,689 --> 01:28:40,189
Speaker 3: screen by a hidden assassin. Who could it be? that

1610
01:28:40,229 --> 01:28:44,800
Speaker 3: have been? And then Sybil, Cortez's other assistant, is killed

1611
01:28:44,840 --> 01:28:48,140
Speaker 3: here too. And Sarah finds her body, but then she

1612
01:28:48,180 --> 01:28:50,500
Speaker 3: doesn't know who killed him. And then Monk arrives to help.

1613
01:28:50,600 --> 01:28:54,800
Speaker 3: Monk's like, oh, I heard screaming. I came to help you.

1614
01:28:55,240 --> 01:28:58,420
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Jalo vibes here are pretty cool. So I

1615
01:28:58,520 --> 01:28:59,280
Speaker 2: will acknowledge that.

1616
01:29:00,010 --> 01:29:03,190
Speaker 3: Eventually we get to the final contest. The games are here.

1617
01:29:03,250 --> 01:29:05,210
Speaker 3: And so the gladiators are going to have to all

1618
01:29:05,229 --> 01:29:07,390
Speaker 3: kill themselves. It's just kill bike stuff again.

1619
01:29:07,410 --> 01:29:11,760
Speaker 2: They're all on motorcycles. But with more neon, more explosions

1620
01:29:11,820 --> 01:29:12,420
Speaker 2: and more gore.

1621
01:29:13,040 --> 01:29:16,660
Speaker 3: I do like the neon light up bars that are

1622
01:29:16,700 --> 01:29:19,100
Speaker 3: like forming these sort of this gauntlet they have to

1623
01:29:19,140 --> 01:29:21,580
Speaker 3: go through with like green, blue, red and yellow lights.

1624
01:29:22,820 --> 01:29:26,530
Speaker 3: I like how the bikes have these angelic silver wings,

1625
01:29:26,630 --> 01:29:29,610
Speaker 3: or they're like a silver butterfly on the front. I

1626
01:29:29,710 --> 01:29:31,889
Speaker 3: don't know how you interpreted that, but.

1627
01:29:32,030 --> 01:29:34,990
Speaker 2: That's what it looks like to me. Butterfly bikes? Yeah,

1628
01:29:35,050 --> 01:29:37,189
Speaker 2: butterfly bikes. They decked them out. They want it to

1629
01:29:37,250 --> 01:29:39,990
Speaker 2: be beautiful violence, lovely violence.

1630
01:29:40,830 --> 01:29:45,290
Speaker 3: So it's motorcycle-based combat, also sort of a motorcycle chariot

1631
01:29:45,350 --> 01:29:48,049
Speaker 3: race in which the gladiators are blown up and killed

1632
01:29:48,170 --> 01:29:48,770
Speaker 3: one by one.

1633
01:29:48,790 --> 01:29:51,370
Speaker 2: Yeah, chariots via sidecars.

1634
01:29:51,770 --> 01:29:56,870
Speaker 3: Yes. So toward the end of the competition, a new

1635
01:29:57,010 --> 01:30:01,710
Speaker 3: cyclist enters the arena and it's Sarah, the WBS executive.

1636
01:30:01,850 --> 01:30:05,050
Speaker 3: So she stops the contest to tell the gladiators that

1637
01:30:05,110 --> 01:30:09,550
Speaker 3: she has learned that no matter who wins, WBS plans

1638
01:30:09,630 --> 01:30:13,729
Speaker 3: to trigger their control bracelets, the tracker bracelets, 20 minutes

1639
01:30:13,830 --> 01:30:16,430
Speaker 3: after the end of the program and kill any gladiator

1640
01:30:16,490 --> 01:30:17,450
Speaker 3: who's still alive.

1641
01:30:18,439 --> 01:30:22,130
Speaker 2: Yeah. So up until now, we've had some great actual

1642
01:30:22,189 --> 01:30:25,450
Speaker 2: gore and violence in this sequence. There's some impaling. There's

1643
01:30:25,530 --> 01:30:28,629
Speaker 2: a scene where a tripwire cuts one of the cyclist's

1644
01:30:28,670 --> 01:30:32,390
Speaker 2: heads off, which maybe happens a little slower than you

1645
01:30:32,410 --> 01:30:35,370
Speaker 2: would like to be all that convincing, but still has

1646
01:30:35,530 --> 01:30:38,790
Speaker 2: some fun gore. But still, it's just been like the

1647
01:30:38,810 --> 01:30:41,270
Speaker 2: good guys are forced to battle to the death. But

1648
01:30:41,410 --> 01:30:43,930
Speaker 2: now this is the point where I think the action

1649
01:30:43,950 --> 01:30:46,550
Speaker 2: and plot really pick up because now they have a goal, right?

1650
01:30:47,080 --> 01:30:49,200
Speaker 2: Now they have something to do outside of the game

1651
01:30:49,220 --> 01:30:50,820
Speaker 2: in order to try and turn the tide.

1652
01:30:51,270 --> 01:30:51,440
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1653
01:30:51,820 --> 01:30:56,950
Speaker 3: So the remaining gladiators, which are Drake, Abdul, Akira, and Kirk,

1654
01:30:57,330 --> 01:30:59,889
Speaker 3: they start fighting their way out of the arena. Like

1655
01:30:59,930 --> 01:31:02,230
Speaker 3: the Praetorian Guard come into the arena and they have

1656
01:31:02,250 --> 01:31:05,099
Speaker 3: to fight them and Raven. They kill Raven. He gets

1657
01:31:05,120 --> 01:31:07,640
Speaker 3: a knife to the gut. I don't remember who stabs him,

1658
01:31:08,560 --> 01:31:12,340
Speaker 3: but somebody does. And then a motorcycle runs right over Raven.

1659
01:31:12,360 --> 01:31:14,220
Speaker 3: So nasty end for Raven.

1660
01:31:14,240 --> 01:31:15,270
Speaker 2: Crushes his spine. Yeah.

1661
01:31:15,390 --> 01:31:19,320
Speaker 3: Yeah. And some of the gladiators are killed along the way,

1662
01:31:19,380 --> 01:31:22,060
Speaker 3: like fighting up to the control room. Now, we get

1663
01:31:22,100 --> 01:31:25,729
Speaker 3: some revelations when they finally make their way up to

1664
01:31:26,090 --> 01:31:29,110
Speaker 3: face off against Cortez and the executives. We learn that

1665
01:31:29,130 --> 01:31:35,530
Speaker 3: the post-competition disintegrations were Cortez's idea. He wants to embarrass Sam,

1666
01:31:35,610 --> 01:31:39,410
Speaker 3: the big boss, and embarrass the network so that he, Cortez,

1667
01:31:39,450 --> 01:31:42,760
Speaker 3: can ascend to power into the vacuum after Sam is

1668
01:31:42,820 --> 01:31:46,970
Speaker 3: forced out. And then Abdul and Drake kill Cortez with

1669
01:31:47,010 --> 01:31:52,000
Speaker 3: throwing knives. They just whip. Kirk tries to take his

1670
01:31:52,060 --> 01:31:55,220
Speaker 3: bracelet off, which is a very bad idea. He ends

1671
01:31:55,320 --> 01:31:58,400
Speaker 3: up basically just vaporizing.

1672
01:31:58,420 --> 01:31:59,220
Speaker 2: Just turns to dust.

1673
01:31:59,240 --> 01:32:00,020
Speaker 3: There's nothing left.

1674
01:32:00,060 --> 01:32:02,270
Speaker 2: Just a little dust, too. Not like a full body's worth.

1675
01:32:02,689 --> 01:32:02,889
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1676
01:32:03,550 --> 01:32:06,410
Speaker 3: And then there's another revelation. This is a pretty good twist,

1677
01:32:06,490 --> 01:32:09,450
Speaker 3: I thought. I wonder what you thought, Rob. So the

1678
01:32:09,490 --> 01:32:12,519
Speaker 3: situation is they're going to have to find Sam. They're like, Sam,

1679
01:32:12,580 --> 01:32:13,900
Speaker 3: you're the big boss. We're going to have to get

1680
01:32:13,939 --> 01:32:16,640
Speaker 3: you to turn our tracking bracelets on. We've only got

1681
01:32:16,660 --> 01:32:18,939
Speaker 3: to turn them off. We've only got a couple of

1682
01:32:18,960 --> 01:32:21,439
Speaker 3: minutes left, so we're going to find you. But they

1683
01:32:21,520 --> 01:32:24,130
Speaker 3: discover by talking to Sam on a view screen that

1684
01:32:24,229 --> 01:32:27,790
Speaker 3: Sam is not actually a man. He is not a

1685
01:32:27,950 --> 01:32:33,870
Speaker 3: human executive. He is an avatar. of a space-based computer

1686
01:32:34,510 --> 01:32:37,570
Speaker 3: that lives up on an orbital platform. So the real

1687
01:32:37,630 --> 01:32:42,950
Speaker 3: villain was AI all along. Sam gets a mask-off monologue

1688
01:32:42,970 --> 01:32:47,030
Speaker 3: where his image dissolves and reveals a picture of a satellite.

1689
01:32:47,729 --> 01:32:51,269
Speaker 3: And he says, there, that's Sam, the first and only

1690
01:32:51,490 --> 01:32:54,370
Speaker 3: space animate module, S-A-M.

1691
01:32:54,830 --> 01:32:57,309
Speaker 2: Yeah, like he reveals that he's actually a supercomputer. And

1692
01:32:57,330 --> 01:32:59,350
Speaker 2: they're like, we're going to bust in and destroy you.

1693
01:32:59,689 --> 01:33:02,840
Speaker 2: And he's like, I'm in space, suckers. Good luck with that.

1694
01:33:03,520 --> 01:33:06,960
Speaker 3: Very good. And then Sarah goes, my God, that's Junior's soul.

1695
01:33:09,460 --> 01:33:13,479
Speaker 3: And so Sam confirms it. The way I understood this

1696
01:33:14,110 --> 01:33:19,830
Speaker 3: was that Sam is a human character created by the

1697
01:33:19,870 --> 01:33:26,490
Speaker 3: supercomputer Junior to express Junior's evil desires that went against

1698
01:33:26,910 --> 01:33:31,800
Speaker 3: his programming. So essentially, Junior was programmed to not to

1699
01:33:31,840 --> 01:33:36,080
Speaker 3: do evil as Junior, but found that it could get

1700
01:33:36,120 --> 01:33:40,310
Speaker 3: around its own limitations if it became a different character.

1701
01:33:40,820 --> 01:33:44,530
Speaker 3: So it's essentially running a simulation of a human personality

1702
01:33:44,670 --> 01:33:48,350
Speaker 3: as a subsystem and letting that simulation act in the

1703
01:33:48,410 --> 01:33:52,729
Speaker 3: world as an agent appearing to be human. And it says, Now,

1704
01:33:52,830 --> 01:33:55,570
Speaker 3: thanks to you, I have the attention of the whole world.

1705
01:33:55,890 --> 01:34:00,030
Speaker 3: Through WBS, I will control all humanity. Cortez didn't know

1706
01:34:00,110 --> 01:34:02,370
Speaker 3: how right he was when he said that men were

1707
01:34:02,430 --> 01:34:04,790
Speaker 3: slaves to computers. It turns out that's going to be

1708
01:34:04,950 --> 01:34:05,769
Speaker 3: literally true.

1709
01:34:06,290 --> 01:34:09,180
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think this is pretty clever.

1710
01:34:10,060 --> 01:34:13,519
Speaker 2: We'd have just like an entire Black Mirror episode just

1711
01:34:13,560 --> 01:34:15,900
Speaker 2: kind of like shoehorned into one little part of the

1712
01:34:15,920 --> 01:34:19,440
Speaker 2: plot here. I didn't see it coming. And yeah, I

1713
01:34:19,460 --> 01:34:21,439
Speaker 2: think it actually gives us a lot to think about

1714
01:34:21,520 --> 01:34:23,160
Speaker 2: outside of the exploding motorcycles.

1715
01:34:23,900 --> 01:34:26,760
Speaker 3: I actually thought, I mean, it's a little murky exactly

1716
01:34:27,120 --> 01:34:29,599
Speaker 3: how the logic here works, but I think if my

1717
01:34:29,640 --> 01:34:32,890
Speaker 3: interpretation is correct, that's a pretty interesting way to frame

1718
01:34:32,950 --> 01:34:37,050
Speaker 3: the evil supercomputer idea that there are these limitations put

1719
01:34:37,210 --> 01:34:39,410
Speaker 3: on it, but it discovers that it can get around

1720
01:34:39,470 --> 01:34:43,280
Speaker 3: them just by saying, I'm playing a character, and then

1721
01:34:43,360 --> 01:34:46,540
Speaker 3: it just allows that character to act in the world.

1722
01:34:46,680 --> 01:34:50,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would leave interpretations of this based on the

1723
01:34:50,240 --> 01:34:52,519
Speaker 2: current state of AI to people who are maybe can

1724
01:34:52,580 --> 01:34:55,280
Speaker 2: bear to read more about it. I can, I can

1725
01:34:55,310 --> 01:34:59,090
Speaker 2: consume like one article a day about it before I've

1726
01:34:59,110 --> 01:35:03,070
Speaker 2: had enough, but it doesn't feel completely out of place

1727
01:35:03,110 --> 01:35:06,730
Speaker 2: compared to some of the things I'm reading about, you know,

1728
01:35:06,830 --> 01:35:09,710
Speaker 2: rogue AI agents and so forth, which in and of

1729
01:35:09,729 --> 01:35:13,300
Speaker 2: itself feels like something that should be, you know, just

1730
01:35:13,740 --> 01:35:17,220
Speaker 2: firmly control within science fiction, but is, has now becoming

1731
01:35:17,260 --> 01:35:17,979
Speaker 2: part of our reality.

1732
01:35:18,439 --> 01:35:21,519
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think, one way that the AI

1733
01:35:21,620 --> 01:35:24,650
Speaker 3: agents we have today are different than the kinds of

1734
01:35:24,670 --> 01:35:27,330
Speaker 3: AI that are imagined in these old sci-fi stories is

1735
01:35:28,510 --> 01:35:31,850
Speaker 3: these old stories always imagined the agents as something that

1736
01:35:32,030 --> 01:35:36,340
Speaker 3: is programmed top down. Like it has, you know, deductive

1737
01:35:36,420 --> 01:35:38,920
Speaker 3: rules that are set from the top. But of course

1738
01:35:39,340 --> 01:35:42,120
Speaker 3: we've discovered, we haven't figured out how to make AI

1739
01:35:42,320 --> 01:35:45,490
Speaker 3: work that way. The only AIs that are actually powerful are,

1740
01:35:45,850 --> 01:35:48,090
Speaker 3: that we figured out how to make are more like

1741
01:35:48,229 --> 01:35:52,849
Speaker 3: organically grown kind of beings, you know, they're through this, uh, machine,

1742
01:35:52,990 --> 01:35:55,710
Speaker 3: you know, kind of bottom up machine learning process, which

1743
01:35:55,770 --> 01:35:59,280
Speaker 3: means it's really difficult to impose these kinds of rules

1744
01:35:59,340 --> 01:36:02,660
Speaker 3: and restrictions top down. You can only kind of try

1745
01:36:02,700 --> 01:36:05,960
Speaker 3: to control them after the fact with, you know, controlling

1746
01:36:06,000 --> 01:36:06,540
Speaker 3: their prompt.

1747
01:36:06,900 --> 01:36:07,139
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1748
01:36:07,939 --> 01:36:11,240
Speaker 3: Which as we've learned is of questionable effectiveness in the

1749
01:36:11,280 --> 01:36:11,680
Speaker 3: long run.

1750
01:36:11,820 --> 01:36:12,040
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

1751
01:36:21,220 --> 01:36:24,000
Speaker 3: But anyway, so what happens at the end of this movie?

1752
01:36:24,060 --> 01:36:27,520
Speaker 3: So the heroes, they they're like, how are they going

1753
01:36:27,540 --> 01:36:29,800
Speaker 3: to stop Sam? You know, he's going to disintegrate them

1754
01:36:29,860 --> 01:36:33,080
Speaker 3: in three minutes. It's Drake and Abdul left. And are

1755
01:36:33,100 --> 01:36:37,620
Speaker 3: they going to get melted into dust like like Kirk was? Well,

1756
01:36:37,979 --> 01:36:40,729
Speaker 3: they get around it because Sarah has the key. She

1757
01:36:40,770 --> 01:36:43,750
Speaker 3: has the key given by Professor Toman to access the

1758
01:36:43,790 --> 01:36:45,660
Speaker 3: terminal of the computer and So they're going to have

1759
01:36:45,680 --> 01:36:49,640
Speaker 3: to hack the mainframe and save themselves. But before that

1760
01:36:49,660 --> 01:36:52,780
Speaker 3: can happen, they get ambushed by the traitor who has

1761
01:36:52,800 --> 01:36:56,320
Speaker 3: been hounding them all along. Who was it? It was Monk,

1762
01:36:56,510 --> 01:36:59,650
Speaker 3: Drake's old friend, the guy with the fiber optic eyes.

1763
01:36:59,910 --> 01:37:02,929
Speaker 3: He attacks them with a spear. That's an interesting choice.

1764
01:37:03,110 --> 01:37:04,810
Speaker 2: Yeah, where are those laser blasters from earlier?

1765
01:37:05,750 --> 01:37:08,969
Speaker 3: We realize that he betrayed them on their escape attempt.

1766
01:37:09,430 --> 01:37:13,189
Speaker 3: It's implied that he killed Professor Toman and Sybil. And

1767
01:37:13,250 --> 01:37:17,390
Speaker 3: he films everything he sees with his cyber eye. Why

1768
01:37:17,430 --> 01:37:19,769
Speaker 3: did he do it? I don't know. Do we learn

1769
01:37:19,810 --> 01:37:20,380
Speaker 3: why he did it?

1770
01:37:20,770 --> 01:37:22,550
Speaker 2: I don't know. He's already part machine, though. I guess

1771
01:37:22,570 --> 01:37:25,269
Speaker 2: they're supposed to assume that makes him a little bit sus.

1772
01:37:26,070 --> 01:37:30,140
Speaker 3: Yeah. So they fight. Drake kills Monk with his laser gun.

1773
01:37:30,220 --> 01:37:33,240
Speaker 3: And then they use the data from Monk's cyber eye

1774
01:37:33,320 --> 01:37:37,780
Speaker 3: to somehow blow up the satellite computer that generated Sam. Okay.

1775
01:37:39,520 --> 01:37:41,660
Speaker 2: But I love that Fulci managed to get some eye

1776
01:37:41,700 --> 01:37:45,260
Speaker 2: violence into this one. Only it's cybernetic in nature here.

1777
01:37:45,500 --> 01:37:47,740
Speaker 2: So we have to pull the cybernetic eyeball out.

1778
01:37:48,910 --> 01:37:52,270
Speaker 3: And blowing up the computer satellite saves the day. Sam

1779
01:37:52,450 --> 01:37:55,290
Speaker 3: is dead, though it seems Junior still exists. It's just

1780
01:37:55,330 --> 01:38:00,140
Speaker 3: that Sam, the evil part of Junior, has been destroyed.

1781
01:38:01,470 --> 01:38:05,849
Speaker 3: So in the end, we see the epilogue is Sarah

1782
01:38:05,930 --> 01:38:08,969
Speaker 3: and Drake in a groovy flying car with red velvet

1783
01:38:09,030 --> 01:38:11,580
Speaker 3: seats flying through the skyways of Rome. And I thought

1784
01:38:11,600 --> 01:38:14,019
Speaker 3: this is such a James Bond movie ending.

1785
01:38:14,060 --> 01:38:15,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.

1786
01:38:15,360 --> 01:38:19,420
Speaker 3: So Drake says, no more gladiators, no more network TV.

1787
01:38:19,520 --> 01:38:23,229
Speaker 3: Where's this little buggy taking us? And then Junior, the

1788
01:38:23,270 --> 01:38:26,410
Speaker 3: voice of Junior, the computer comes on. So it's still

1789
01:38:26,450 --> 01:38:29,969
Speaker 3: running things, I guess. Says, I have selected the perfect itinerary.

1790
01:38:30,300 --> 01:38:33,240
Speaker 3: and Drake says God I thought we were going to

1791
01:38:33,260 --> 01:38:36,400
Speaker 3: be alone for a second no more itineraries no more

1792
01:38:36,540 --> 01:38:39,840
Speaker 3: and then Sarah interrupts him and says let it do

1793
01:38:39,920 --> 01:38:43,160
Speaker 3: what it's good at and let us do what we're

1794
01:38:43,220 --> 01:38:47,240
Speaker 3: good at the commence making out zoom away the end.

1795
01:38:47,060 --> 01:38:51,410
Speaker 2: So presumably sex And that's the ending, yeah. Which, yeah,

1796
01:38:51,450 --> 01:38:54,150
Speaker 2: very James Bond, but also, you know, feels very appropriate.

1797
01:38:54,170 --> 01:38:57,490
Speaker 2: We've blown up the satellite. It's almost, in a way,

1798
01:38:57,530 --> 01:39:00,530
Speaker 2: like the ending you could not possibly predict for a

1799
01:39:00,610 --> 01:39:03,290
Speaker 2: future Gladiator film because it ends like a James Bond film.

1800
01:39:03,570 --> 01:39:07,060
Speaker 2: Satellite explosion and then, you know, leaving in, well, a

1801
01:39:07,100 --> 01:39:11,780
Speaker 2: flying car and making out. So, yeah, I thought they

1802
01:39:11,820 --> 01:39:12,560
Speaker 2: landed it well here.

1803
01:39:12,939 --> 01:39:15,740
Speaker 3: But they're still going to let Junior control their car

1804
01:39:15,860 --> 01:39:17,080
Speaker 3: when it just tried to kill them?

1805
01:39:17,340 --> 01:39:17,860
Speaker 2: Well, I guess.

1806
01:39:17,880 --> 01:39:18,960
Speaker 3: I mean, it wasn't Junior.

1807
01:39:18,979 --> 01:39:22,410
Speaker 2: It was Sam. The murderous, like, subroutine has been deleted,

1808
01:39:22,470 --> 01:39:26,290
Speaker 2: and so it's good to go at this point. Okay. Yeah.

1809
01:39:26,350 --> 01:39:29,290
Speaker 2: Like you said, a lot of the more clever aspects

1810
01:39:29,310 --> 01:39:32,070
Speaker 2: of the plot are maybe not developed as well as

1811
01:39:32,110 --> 01:39:32,759
Speaker 2: they could have been.

1812
01:39:32,770 --> 01:39:33,640
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1813
01:39:34,020 --> 01:39:37,420
Speaker 2: But again, the, you know... some of the more thought

1814
01:39:37,439 --> 01:39:40,320
Speaker 2: provoking sci-fi aspects that were introduced into the plot here,

1815
01:39:40,380 --> 01:39:42,510
Speaker 2: even if it's a little willy nilly at times, you know, it's,

1816
01:39:42,610 --> 01:39:45,229
Speaker 2: there's some good world building going on here. Maybe not

1817
01:39:45,270 --> 01:39:49,830
Speaker 2: completely fully cooked, but, uh, but I appreciate what's there.

1818
01:39:50,510 --> 01:39:53,750
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah. Uh, one thing I wasn't, we were talking

1819
01:39:53,770 --> 01:39:58,460
Speaker 3: at the beginning about the general sub genre of, uh,

1820
01:39:58,580 --> 01:40:02,140
Speaker 3: of these, you know, blood sport dystopian movies. This one

1821
01:40:02,200 --> 01:40:04,300
Speaker 3: does lack some of the things that are common in

1822
01:40:04,320 --> 01:40:07,000
Speaker 3: the other ones. Like, do we ever see the audience

1823
01:40:07,320 --> 01:40:09,840
Speaker 3: in this movie? We never see people watching the TV.

1824
01:40:10,120 --> 01:40:12,270
Speaker 2: They were banned from too much.

1825
01:40:13,410 --> 01:40:14,790
Speaker 3: The live audiences are banned.

1826
01:40:14,810 --> 01:40:17,210
Speaker 2: But we don't see people watching on TVs. Yeah.

1827
01:40:17,850 --> 01:40:19,790
Speaker 3: So we don't know what they're, how they're reacting. We

1828
01:40:19,810 --> 01:40:20,590
Speaker 3: don't see that at all.

1829
01:40:20,729 --> 01:40:23,179
Speaker 2: We don't see them gathered around their television sets, like

1830
01:40:23,200 --> 01:40:25,940
Speaker 2: cheering on. Of course, do we see that? I'm, I'm,

1831
01:40:26,060 --> 01:40:29,540
Speaker 2: I'm blanking now because I keep thinking about RoboCop, obviously

1832
01:40:29,600 --> 01:40:32,230
Speaker 2: RoboCop being, A film we've talked about on the show before,

1833
01:40:32,250 --> 01:40:33,630
Speaker 2: but one that has a lot of like, you know,

1834
01:40:33,810 --> 01:40:38,450
Speaker 2: the media diet of the denizens of this future setting.

1835
01:40:39,189 --> 01:40:41,090
Speaker 2: It's a very important part of the plot. I don't

1836
01:40:41,110 --> 01:40:44,050
Speaker 2: remember how much of like the household response we get

1837
01:40:44,090 --> 01:40:45,050
Speaker 2: in that picture either.

1838
01:40:45,370 --> 01:40:46,930
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't see a lot of people at home

1839
01:40:46,990 --> 01:40:50,480
Speaker 3: watching the media there, though we do see the villain Emil. Remember,

1840
01:40:50,500 --> 01:40:54,080
Speaker 3: he's one of the bad guys. He's watching a TV show.

1841
01:40:54,120 --> 01:40:56,460
Speaker 3: He's watching I'd Buy That for a Dollar and he's

1842
01:40:56,500 --> 01:40:58,580
Speaker 3: just laughing, yucking it up. So he loves this.

1843
01:40:59,200 --> 01:41:02,620
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess presumably the audience is indeed eating this up.

1844
01:41:02,660 --> 01:41:05,090
Speaker 2: We know the ratings. I think, don't they drop at

1845
01:41:05,170 --> 01:41:07,990
Speaker 2: one point that the ratings are coming in for the

1846
01:41:08,030 --> 01:41:11,990
Speaker 2: big violent spectacular? That it's the highest ratings of any

1847
01:41:12,070 --> 01:41:14,979
Speaker 2: show in human history. Like everyone's glued to their screens

1848
01:41:15,000 --> 01:41:15,300
Speaker 2: for this.

1849
01:41:15,700 --> 01:41:16,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, incredible.

1850
01:41:16,780 --> 01:41:18,880
Speaker 2: They're like, we were lined up to watch Drake get married,

1851
01:41:18,979 --> 01:41:22,720
Speaker 2: but we'll also watch another kill bike. Spectacular. We just

1852
01:41:22,760 --> 01:41:23,660
Speaker 2: love Drake, I guess.

1853
01:41:24,900 --> 01:41:27,219
Speaker 3: I guess another thing that's not clear is how much

1854
01:41:27,260 --> 01:41:31,890
Speaker 3: of what was going on in the gladiator barracks was being,

1855
01:41:32,590 --> 01:41:35,850
Speaker 3: was on TV also. So we know their escape attempt

1856
01:41:36,189 --> 01:41:39,490
Speaker 3: became a TV show, but was it a TV show

1857
01:41:39,530 --> 01:41:42,389
Speaker 3: when they were training and when they were like hanging

1858
01:41:42,450 --> 01:41:45,490
Speaker 3: on the bars for torture? Like, sure. It's not clear.

1859
01:41:45,520 --> 01:41:49,620
Speaker 2: I mean, it was, are you not entertained? I am. Yeah.

1860
01:41:49,820 --> 01:41:51,880
Speaker 2: Like surely they were filming it. I guess part of

1861
01:41:51,939 --> 01:41:54,400
Speaker 2: it maybe comes down to, does it achieve their goals?

1862
01:41:54,960 --> 01:41:58,960
Speaker 2: in programming like seeing them work together to save kirk

1863
01:41:59,060 --> 01:42:03,679
Speaker 2: from electrocution does that help generate ratings for the upcoming

1864
01:42:04,020 --> 01:42:07,200
Speaker 2: um spectacular uh i would say probably so so they

1865
01:42:07,220 --> 01:42:11,380
Speaker 2: probably aired it okay yeah or put it up as

1866
01:42:11,439 --> 01:42:12,400
Speaker 2: a webisode at.

1867
01:42:12,380 --> 01:42:16,320
Speaker 3: Least and any other major thoughts before we wrap.

1868
01:42:16,189 --> 01:42:19,990
Speaker 2: Up No, I think we covered most of the big ones.

1869
01:42:20,030 --> 01:42:23,250
Speaker 2: But again, I'm really glad that we watched this one. Like,

1870
01:42:23,330 --> 01:42:26,690
Speaker 2: just bottom line, it's just very interesting to see Fulci

1871
01:42:26,720 --> 01:42:32,020
Speaker 2: do futuristic sci-fi. And the only bittersweet part is it

1872
01:42:32,040 --> 01:42:35,139
Speaker 2: does leave you wondering, like, what might it have been

1873
01:42:35,220 --> 01:42:36,760
Speaker 2: like if he had done more of this?

1874
01:42:37,260 --> 01:42:37,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1875
01:42:37,960 --> 01:42:39,800
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we'll never know.

1876
01:42:40,420 --> 01:42:44,100
Speaker 3: Yeah. If I can leave everyone with a parting thought,

1877
01:42:44,200 --> 01:42:47,600
Speaker 3: take inspiration from one aspect of Drake as a character,

1878
01:42:47,640 --> 01:42:51,179
Speaker 3: which is we should all resist the hate stimulation. That's right.

1879
01:42:51,439 --> 01:42:55,170
Speaker 2: Resist the hate stimulation. And, you know, wear some spikes.

1880
01:42:56,010 --> 01:42:57,690
Speaker 2: Get some rivets on your outfits.

1881
01:42:58,890 --> 01:43:02,030
Speaker 3: You can dress tough and still resist the hate stimulation.

1882
01:43:02,050 --> 01:43:04,330
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Resist the hate stimulation.

1883
01:43:04,350 --> 01:43:04,830
Speaker 3: I love it.

1884
01:43:06,320 --> 01:43:07,850
Speaker 2: All right. We're going to go ahead and close it

1885
01:43:07,930 --> 01:43:09,689
Speaker 2: out here, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there.

1886
01:43:09,729 --> 01:43:12,950
Speaker 2: We know we have some other fans of Fulci and

1887
01:43:12,990 --> 01:43:19,110
Speaker 2: this sort of broad genre of dystopian Italian B-cinema, and

1888
01:43:19,170 --> 01:43:23,220
Speaker 2: also any of the pictures that inspired it as well,

1889
01:43:23,260 --> 01:43:26,420
Speaker 2: if you have thoughts on any of those pictures. Write in.

1890
01:43:26,460 --> 01:43:28,860
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear from you. If there's any particular

1891
01:43:28,900 --> 01:43:32,160
Speaker 2: requests for the future, we're always happy to entertain those.

1892
01:43:33,229 --> 01:43:33,769
Speaker 3: Let's see.

1893
01:43:33,930 --> 01:43:35,910
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we also want to remind you that

1894
01:43:35,930 --> 01:43:37,790
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

1895
01:43:37,830 --> 01:43:40,349
Speaker 2: culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But

1896
01:43:40,370 --> 01:43:42,510
Speaker 2: here on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to

1897
01:43:42,570 --> 01:43:45,180
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1898
01:43:45,780 --> 01:43:49,960
Speaker 2: If you were on Letterboxd.com, the film site, look us up.

1899
01:43:50,040 --> 01:43:52,280
Speaker 2: Our username there is Weird House. And we have a

1900
01:43:52,320 --> 01:43:54,889
Speaker 2: nice list of all the films we've covered thus far

1901
01:43:54,930 --> 01:43:56,930
Speaker 2: and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming up next.

1902
01:43:57,430 --> 01:44:00,890
Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Pawsway.

1903
01:44:01,390 --> 01:44:02,790
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1904
01:44:02,830 --> 01:44:05,070
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1905
01:44:05,130 --> 01:44:07,050
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1906
01:44:07,410 --> 01:44:14,840
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

1907
01:44:17,700 --> 01:44:20,160
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.

1908
01:44:20,500 --> 01:44:23,840
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple

1909
01:44:23,860 --> 01:44:26,200
Speaker 1: Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.