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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is

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Speaker 1: Rob Lamb. Hey, we have a really fun one for

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Speaker 1: you here today. This is an episode that originally published

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Speaker 1: in January of twenty twenty two, concerning the nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: four film Phase four. Yes, this is an ANT movie,

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Speaker 1: but it also might be the trippiest mind blowing ant

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Speaker 1: movie of all time. It's a lot of fun. Really

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Speaker 1: enjoyed watching this one and then chatting with Joe about it.

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Speaker 1: So let's jump right in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today we are discussing We're not only discussing an

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Speaker 1: ant movie, which of course is a subset of killer

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Speaker 1: bug movies in general. We are discussing what my be

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Speaker 1: the ant movie, the most ambitious ANT movie in many ways,

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Speaker 1: the most perplexing and thought provoking ANT movie. I'm super

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Speaker 1: excited to talk about it. Actually just had as a

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Speaker 1: pre recording snack a couple of ants on a log

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Speaker 1: I got off the the celery and peanut butter and

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Speaker 1: the raisins It just felt appropriate.

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Speaker 3: You know, I feel like that reflects our higher ant

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Speaker 3: consciousness now, because the important thing to understand about ants

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Speaker 3: is they don't even mind if you eat a few

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Speaker 3: of them.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: That's sort of like the it's like the skin cells

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Speaker 3: that you would scrape off of somebody's hand while hugging them.

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Speaker 3: You know, it just like doesn't bother the colony as

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Speaker 3: a whole. And I would say that's actually reflective of

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Speaker 3: the movie we're talking about today overall. The movie is

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Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies sci fi ant flick Phase Four, which

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Speaker 3: we alluded to possibly doing an episode in our Core

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Speaker 3: episode about ants building traps. We talked about some biology

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Speaker 3: papers about ant behaviors, whether whether these structures ants build

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Speaker 3: should be understood as traps or not. But this movie

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Speaker 3: came up because we were talking about ant movies and

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Speaker 3: I said, you know, there's this ant movie I've been

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Speaker 3: looking at in the video store for years, just based

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Speaker 3: on the DVD cover. It's called Phase four. The cover

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Speaker 3: is like this kind of cool design, but it's got

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Speaker 3: ants crawling out of a hole in somebody's hand. Never

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Speaker 3: seen it, and we went in just based on the

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Speaker 3: DVD cover. I'd say this was a hit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, after we had we had already decided this

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Speaker 1: is the one. I actually received word from someone on

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Speaker 1: the stuff to blow your mind. Discord email us if

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Speaker 1: you want to invite to that who They were like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this one's good. You're going to want to

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Speaker 1: cover this one for a weird house. I also have,

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Speaker 1: of course, looked it up when we were talking about it.

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Speaker 1: I looked it up in Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Encyclopedia film

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Speaker 1: in which he called it quote a great science fiction

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Speaker 1: thriller starring countless real ants. Yeah, so that was a

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Speaker 1: solid endorsement, but it still was able to prepare me

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Speaker 1: for all that was to come.

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Speaker 3: Well, So, when I look at the other side of

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Speaker 3: the critical response to this movie, I think some people

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Speaker 3: have been kind of critical of it lacking in human depth.

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Speaker 3: And I'll say, okay, I'm with them there. I mean

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Speaker 3: that this is not really a humans movie, and the

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Speaker 3: human characters there are few of them, and the ones

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Speaker 3: that are there, we don't learn much about them, and

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Speaker 3: they're not super dimensional. But I think that's okay because

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Speaker 3: this is a movie that encourages you to also see

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Speaker 3: humans as sort of just sells on the whole body

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Speaker 3: of the human species.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and in very delightful ways. It is. It

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Speaker 1: is a movie almost by ants for ants. It is

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Speaker 1: a movie that is one fresh on ant rotten tomatoes.

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Speaker 1: It is. It is such an interesting film in so

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Speaker 1: many ways, like it's going to be fun to discuss everything.

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Speaker 1: I'm almost not sure where to art here.

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Speaker 3: You know, the funny thing about ant Rotten Tomatoes is

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Speaker 3: there are no in between scores. It's either one hundred

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Speaker 3: percent or zero percent every.

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Speaker 1: Time they're unified.

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Speaker 3: Well, maybe we should talk about ant movies more generally,

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Speaker 3: because this is, of course not the only one. In fact,

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Speaker 3: I had a very powerful, vivid memory that came rushing

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Speaker 3: back to me just the other day when when I

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Speaker 3: started trying to recall if I'd seen other ant movies before,

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Speaker 3: and it was a memory of being about twelve years

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Speaker 3: old and watching this terrible made for TV killer ant

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Speaker 3: movie that I think was on the Fox network or

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Speaker 3: one of those you know, it was one of those

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Speaker 3: made for TV movies that they used to advertise in

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Speaker 3: the weeks leading up to it, so they'd have a

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Speaker 3: commercial with you know, Don la Fontaine or somebody on

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Speaker 3: there saying this Sunday at eight nine Central, you will

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Speaker 3: learn the true meaning of terror ants and you'd get

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Speaker 3: a music sting and man that I don't know if

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Speaker 3: they focus group tested that or whatever, but that worked

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Speaker 3: on my twelve year old brain. That was like, I

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Speaker 3: had to make an appointment to watch a movie that

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Speaker 3: I went back and looked up and I found out

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Speaker 3: it is called Marra Bunta Colon Legion of Fire, and

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Speaker 3: I rewatched the trailer and ooh, this looks stinky. It

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Speaker 3: looks like it is no good. It has some absolutely

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Speaker 3: atrocious CGI ants, stripping a moose clean down to the

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Speaker 3: bone like piranhas on Land. It does have Mitch Poleggi

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Speaker 3: from the X Files and Shocker, and it also has

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Speaker 3: something that's common to some of these ant movies where

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Speaker 3: there are scenes of columns of army ants that are

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Speaker 3: treated like rivers of molten lava and a volcano movie.

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Speaker 3: So you get, I don't know, a kid stranded up

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Speaker 3: on top of a crate and then on all sides

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Speaker 3: of them, the ants are just flowing and they've got

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Speaker 3: to jump over them to get to safety or something.

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Speaker 1: What is it with Shocker connections? We're gonna have another

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Speaker 1: one of those coming out, that's right. So I guess

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Speaker 1: when I think of ANT movies that I saw as

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Speaker 1: a kid, I my mind probably goes to nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: four as them because this one was in I think

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Speaker 1: it was in pretty tight rotation on like the turner

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Speaker 1: stations back in the day, like there was a pretty

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Speaker 1: good chance you're going to catch part of them, you know,

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Speaker 1: especially on like a Sunday afternoon. But other notable ANT

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Speaker 1: movies include nineteen seventy seven's Empire of the Ants. There's

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Speaker 1: also nineteen seventy seven's TV movie Ants with an exclamation Point,

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Speaker 1: starring everyone's favorite work bist Robert Foxworth of what was it?

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Speaker 3: Can't you remember the name of that movie?

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Speaker 1: Death Moon or deth Moon Death Moon Fame, But that

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Speaker 1: one also starred Suzanne Summers, Brian Denahey, Anita Gillette. This

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Speaker 1: is the actor who played Liz Lemon's mom on thirty Rock,

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Speaker 1: and also Bernie Casey.

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Speaker 3: So does Foxworth play another work beast in this movie?

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Speaker 4: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing, like, yeah, maybe a laid back work beast

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Speaker 1: that has to go up against in this case. Ants.

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Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, but oh, okay, it sounds good.

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Speaker 3: A question about them though. Them is a movie not

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Speaker 3: with regular ants, but with big ants, right, It's like

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Speaker 3: an atomic age mutation movie.

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Speaker 1: Correct. Correct? And I think that leads into our next

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Speaker 1: major distinction to make here. When we're talking about ant movies,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna either deal with giant ant movies or you're

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Speaker 1: gonna deal with normal sized ants. So it's either going

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Speaker 1: to be a giant bug feature or it's going to

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Speaker 1: be a swarm feature. And what's interesting about that is

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Speaker 1: when you have the giant ant, it's going to be

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Speaker 1: more about individual ants. That's the spectacle of it, right.

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Speaker 1: This generally you're doing a lot to get one giant

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Speaker 1: ant on the screen, But when you're dealing with the swarm,

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Speaker 1: of course, you have this more accurate reflection of what

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Speaker 1: ants are. They are not the individual, they are the group.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right, and I would say broadly,

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Speaker 3: I think i'd break ant movies into three category. So

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Speaker 3: you've got your giant ant movies, in which case the

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Speaker 3: ant is not really important. It's not important that it's

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Speaker 3: an ant. It's just a giant bug, and it could

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Speaker 3: be any bug, could be a giant praying mannis giant

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Speaker 3: spider is just a giant bug that attacks. So I

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Speaker 3: think that's probably going to be my least favorite kind overall,

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Speaker 3: because that you lose the essential antiness, you know, the

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Speaker 3: form the formic aromas of the premise is just like

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Speaker 3: any giant bug will do, because they're just big and

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Speaker 3: they'll tear you apart.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, might as well go with a more interesting solitary bug,

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Speaker 1: you know, insect or rachnet, like a scorpion for example.

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Speaker 3: Sure, giant scorpion, that'd be great.

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Speaker 1: Giant spider obviously, okay, but then.

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Speaker 3: When you break it down, you keep the ants small.

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Speaker 3: I think they're basically two ways you can go. One

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Speaker 3: is the just ants as ants, like, you know, they're

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Speaker 3: kind of an environmental threat almost. This comes back to

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Speaker 3: the like they're like rivers of molten lava in a

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Speaker 3: volcano movie. You know, they're just like as the floor

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Speaker 3: is lava, except instead of lava, it's ants. But then

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Speaker 3: the other way to go is to think about ants

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Speaker 3: as a sort of organization principle and have the horror

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Speaker 3: lie there. And that's actually where Phase four goes, which

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Speaker 3: I think is interesting to think about ants not just

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Speaker 3: as something that turns the floor into lava, but something

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Speaker 3: that has has organized behaviors that can surprise you and

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Speaker 3: make you afraid.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and that's definitely the realm that we're going

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Speaker 1: to be venturing into with phase four here.

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Speaker 3: I guess the real distinction there is that, like, does

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Speaker 3: the danger of the ants lie in their in their

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Speaker 3: numbers alone or in their use sociality? And Phase four

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Speaker 3: it's in their use sociality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is we have to drive home. This

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Speaker 1: is definitely one of the more, if not the most

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Speaker 1: ambitious ant movies and intelligent ant movies, Like they really

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Speaker 1: went for it with this particular film, trying to use

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Speaker 1: ants to their full potential cinematically. So it's a rare beast.

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Speaker 3: I think it's a work beast in many ways, because

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Speaker 3: I would say this is also a highly technical film.

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Speaker 3: As we've already said, it may be lacking in some

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Speaker 3: human depth, but as a sort of visual art project,

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Speaker 3: I'd say this movie is a home run. I mean

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Speaker 3: it is a beautiful, weird celebration of geometry of like

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Speaker 3: colors and lines and angles and close up photography of ants,

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Speaker 3: and I would say very good special effects. There were

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Speaker 3: parts where the ant puppetry is so good. I sometimes

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Speaker 3: couldn't tell if I was looking at you know, microphotography

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Speaker 3: of real ants or if it was one of the puppets.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it was very difficult to tell. And I

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Speaker 1: should also throw in that not only are the visuals great,

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Speaker 1: but the sound design and music is also really noteworthy,

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Speaker 1: and we'll touch on that as we go.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now, Phase four was was something of a flop at

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Speaker 1: the time, apparently maybe it was ahead of its time,

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Speaker 1: but over the years it's been particularly influential on various

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Speaker 1: visionary filmmakers. Apparently, I know it's Michael Weldon liked it.

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Speaker 1: I've read that Panos Cosmntos was a fan of it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently inspired Beyond the Black Rainbow, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a film I have a lot of

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Speaker 1: admiration for, and certainly having seen Phase four now I

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Speaker 1: can I can definitely see where those inspiration points are.

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Speaker 1: Apparently apparently as well, this was also a film that

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Speaker 1: was riffed in the KTMA, like basically proto season of

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Speaker 1: Mystery Science Theater three thousand and that's an episode you

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Speaker 1: can actually find places, you know, uploaded on video servers

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Speaker 1: and all. I've never watched it because the KTMA episodes are.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's a different beast it was the first season.

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Speaker 1: It's not quite like watching a full blown MST three

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Speaker 1: K episode.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say in general, they're not as engaging,

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Speaker 3: not as good. And the weird thing about it is,

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Speaker 3: I recall some of the movies, so this is like

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Speaker 3: when they were a public access show in Minnesota or

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Speaker 3: wherever it was before they got syndicated became a national show.

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Speaker 3: But the weird thing about that early season is I

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Speaker 3: haven't seen a lot of them, but I know they

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Speaker 3: do some movies that are kind of seems like higher

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Speaker 3: budget maybe better movies than they do in the later seasons. Actually,

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Speaker 3: like I think they end up doing The Green Slime,

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Speaker 3: which is a movie we may come back to on

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Speaker 3: Weird House Cinema someday, especially because it's got its own

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Speaker 3: really groovy rock theme song.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I don't think they'd quite calibrated what was

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Speaker 1: an MST three K film at that point. So at

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Speaker 1: any rate, if our discussion here perks your interest and

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Speaker 1: you're not quite ready to watch it without some sort

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Speaker 1: of riffing structure in place, then I guess you could

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Speaker 1: check out that Katma episode. But for the most part.

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Speaker 1: I think this is a film that stands on its

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Speaker 1: own and is richly enjoyable on its own, and more

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Speaker 1: to the point, in high visual quality that you're not

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Speaker 1: going to get with the rip of an old public

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Speaker 1: access television broadcast.

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Speaker 3: Now, while we're talking talking about looking up this movie,

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Speaker 3: I got to say, also is a bizarre coincidence. As

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Speaker 3: weird of a name as Phase four with the Roman

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Speaker 3: numeral for ivy is for a movie, there is actually

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Speaker 3: a totally unrelated other movie called Phase four that came

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Speaker 3: out in the early two thousands. It looks like some

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Speaker 3: kind of Dean Caane conspiracy action thriller.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So word of warning, don't get into

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Speaker 1: much for a hurry when you're saying this, when you

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Speaker 1: don't want to wind up with the Brian Bosworth film.

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Speaker 1: If you watch a Brian Bosworth film, you want to

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Speaker 1: watch Stone Cold from nineteen ninety one.

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Speaker 3: So I've never seen that one, But while we were

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Speaker 3: chatting about this, you got me to look up stills

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Speaker 3: from it and Brian Bosworth and Stone Cold is fresh.

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Speaker 3: I mean, like, God, look at his hair at the sunglasses.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's ridiculous. That was and I remember it being

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Speaker 1: a fun action B movie because you have Lance Hendrickson's

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Speaker 1: in it. William Forsyth is in it, so it's yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: It's like a biker fighting movie or something. Okay, Okay,

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Speaker 3: give me the elevator pitch on phase four before we

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Speaker 3: hit the trailer audio.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So what if there was some sort of a

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Speaker 1: solar conjunction and it caused all ants to suddenly declare

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Speaker 1: a peace treaty and turn their attention on other species

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Speaker 1: on the rest of the world. So basically a nature

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Speaker 1: strikes back, but this time it strikes smart and with

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Speaker 1: you social precision.

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Speaker 3: Great premise. Let's hear some audio.

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Speaker 4: In the next few moments. We will try to give

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Speaker 4: you an impression of a new kind of film experience.

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Speaker 4: If your curiosity is aroused, you are ready for phase four.

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Speaker 4: How do you fight a force that knows what your

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Speaker 4: next move will be before you think of it?

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Speaker 1: All right, that's a solid trailer right there.

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Speaker 3: I agree. And now one of the things we've already

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Speaker 3: talked about is that, you know, I've had my theory

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Speaker 3: that really the star of this movie if it is

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Speaker 3: not ants, you could say it's ants, But if it's

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Speaker 3: not ants, it's still not humans. It is visual geometry.

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Speaker 3: It's colors and lines and shapes and design. And I

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Speaker 3: think that totally makes sense once you realize who the

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Speaker 3: director of this film was, because I think the director,

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Speaker 3: Saul Bass, this was his only movie. Am I right

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Speaker 3: about that?

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Speaker 1: This was his only feature length film. Yeah, he did

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Speaker 1: some other short films and experimental films and some you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of documentary style shorts, but this is the only

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Speaker 1: full length film he did.

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Speaker 3: And it seems to me very much a graphic designers

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Speaker 3: or art director's kind of films. It's not really an

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Speaker 3: actor's film. It's not really very script driven. It's a

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Speaker 3: movie about showing you pictures. And the style of those

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Speaker 3: pictures reads very much to me is that mid century

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Speaker 3: modern design style, the kind of thing that you see

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Speaker 3: a lot on mad Men or whatever. And I think

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Speaker 3: that makes sense because I've read that mad Men was

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Speaker 3: in many ways trying to copy the style of the

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Speaker 3: director of this film, Saul Bass.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Casaal Bass is something of a legend, certainly in

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Speaker 1: the graphic design field here. He lived nineteen twenty through

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, and he was for Starters. The title sequence,

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Speaker 1: title design guy of the day. He crafted title sequences

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Speaker 1: for major films from the mid nineteen fifties all the

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Speaker 1: way through the mid nineties. We're talking about the likes

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Speaker 1: of The Seven Year Itch, Vertico, Psycho, Spartacus, West Side, Story, Seconds,

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Speaker 1: Broadcast News, Big Good Fellas, Kate, Fear, and Case. I

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Speaker 1: should also note that, in addition to directing Phase four,

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Speaker 1: he of course did the title design. You're not gonna

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Speaker 1: You're not. If you're Saubash, You're not gonna trust that

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Speaker 1: to anybody else. This is your baby.

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Speaker 3: You're doing the titles, and the title design is great.

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Speaker 1: It is like you said. The Mad Men is often

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Speaker 1: credited as kind of an homage to his work and

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Speaker 1: some of the visual elements there. He did logos as

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Speaker 1: well for a number of big name companies throughout the sixties, seventies,

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Speaker 1: and eighties, and I was reading something too about the

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Speaker 1: longevity of his designs on that front. He also did

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Speaker 1: some pretty famous movie posters, including the aforementioned films, but

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Speaker 1: also Stanley Kubrick's The Shining Oh.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting. Did Saul Bass do the credit sequence for

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Speaker 3: Doctor No, the first James Bond movie?

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Speaker 1: That's I think he had some connection with the Bond film.

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Speaker 1: I didn't put it in my notes, but that sounds right,

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Speaker 1: if not Doctor No. One of the Bond films he

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Speaker 1: has connections to.

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Speaker 3: It seems to kind of fit into his design and Clay.

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Speaker 1: I was looking at some of the rejected poster designs

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Speaker 1: that he did for the Shining stuff, Like he had

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Speaker 1: one that heavily featured the Hedge Labyrinth the Hedge Maze,

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Speaker 1: and Kubrick had rejected that one because he didn't want

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Speaker 1: too much focus to be put on that. But I

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Speaker 1: was reading a post about this at Farout Magazine dot

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Speaker 1: co dot uk and it had images from the original

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Speaker 1: correspondence between Bass and Kubrick, and you can see that

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Speaker 1: Saul Bass has has signed like the cover letter here,

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Speaker 1: and he includes this wonderful It's either an illustration or

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Speaker 1: a stamp of himself as a fish. So it's like

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Speaker 1: his sort of mild mannered, mustached, bespeckled face here on

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Speaker 1: a fish's body. It's pretty amusing.

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Speaker 3: Is that a joke on him being a Bass?

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Speaker 1: I guess so. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: His Shining poster is worth looking up because I love

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Speaker 3: the design. It's like it's just three sort of silhouettes

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Speaker 3: heading into the opening of a maze, and part of

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Speaker 3: me wonders if did Kubrick reject this just because he

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Speaker 3: was in a bad mood and he was being difficult.

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Speaker 1: Or yeah, maybe so because it's a great poster, like

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Speaker 1: we said. Phase four was Bess's only full length film,

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Speaker 1: though he made six other short films, including Why Man

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Speaker 1: Creates from nineteen sixty eight, which won an Academy Award

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Speaker 1: for Best Documentary Short Subject. His other films include the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Robert Redford produced the Solar film promoting solar

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Speaker 1: energy over fossil fuels. He also made a very interesting

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Speaker 1: looking nineteen eighty four short titled Quest, based on the

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Speaker 1: Ray Bradbury story Frost and Fire. I look this one up.

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Speaker 1: I found like a rip of it on one of

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Speaker 1: the video streaming sites, but I didn't watch it because

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Speaker 1: part in part it looks too interesting. I feel like

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Speaker 1: I need to see this in a like a higher

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Speaker 1: visual format or something.

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Speaker 3: I wonder iful that a disc out there that collects

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Speaker 3: his smaller works or something.

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Speaker 1: I would hope, say how or perhaps there's one of

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Speaker 1: the blu rays that we allude to later on. For

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Speaker 1: this film has some extras like that. But it looks

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Speaker 1: very cool and definitely has that the sort of the

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Speaker 1: sci fi visual sensibilities that we'll discuss in relation to

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Speaker 1: this film. I also want to point out that he

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Speaker 1: often worked with his wife and creative partner, Elaine Bass

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Speaker 1: on these projects.

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Speaker 3: Right, So if you've heard us talk in the past

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Speaker 3: about rub the Fur movies, I would say this is

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Speaker 3: a really excellent example of one of those. This is

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Speaker 3: a design first movie, and the pleasure of it is

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Speaker 3: almost all about texture. It is a celebration of surfaces.

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Speaker 1: Now, it did have a writer, Mayo Simon born nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty eight. This is the screenwriter who wrote the West

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Speaker 1: World sequel Future World in seventy six. This had Peter

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Speaker 1: Fonda and Yu'll Brenner in it. Also the nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: nine film Marooned starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman. That

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Speaker 1: one won an Academy Award for Visual Effects. But Simon

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Speaker 1: went on to create the NBC TV show Man from Atlantis,

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Speaker 1: which I'd never heard of before, starring Patrick Duffy of

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Speaker 1: Dallas Fame and Belinda Montgomery, who some of you might

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Speaker 1: remember as being Doogie Howser's mom.

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Speaker 3: I do not remember.

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Speaker 1: It looks very fun in a mid like mid seventies

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Speaker 1: TV sci fi sort of way.

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Speaker 3: Now we've already said that this is not really an

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Speaker 3: actor's film. In fact, it's not even really a very

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Speaker 3: human film. But I guess we should mention some of

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Speaker 3: the cast members.

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Speaker 1: Right first and foremost, we have Nigel Davenport playing doctor

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Speaker 1: Ernest D. Hubbs now Davenport lived nineteen twenty eight through

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Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, English actor known for nineteen sixty six is

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Speaker 1: a Man for All Seasons, in which he played the

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Speaker 1: Duke of Norfolk, and nineteen eighty one's Chariots of Fire,

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Speaker 1: in which he played Lord Birkenhead. That one had. I've

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Speaker 1: only seen parts of Chariots of Fire and it was

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Speaker 1: many years ago. It's got a pretty extensive cast, so

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Speaker 1: I don't specifically remember where he fit into that, but

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Speaker 1: of course it's it's a famous movie and has a

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Speaker 1: tremendous score by evangelists.

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Speaker 3: Nigel Davenport seems like an actor you call in for gravitos.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He has a great presence and a great presence in

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Speaker 1: this where he plays the determined and at times reckless

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Speaker 1: at times later on the film he basically becomes kind

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Speaker 1: of an ant focused captain a hab in any ways.

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Speaker 3: So he has just a terrible case of mad scientist disease.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so he's perfect casting for this. I can't imagine

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Speaker 1: anyone else here. He was also in the nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: seven adaptation of H. G. Wells The Island of Doctor Moreau.

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Speaker 1: This is one I fondly remember from catching on TBS

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Speaker 1: or TNT back in the day. This one started Burt

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Speaker 1: Lancaster and Michael Yorke. He apparently plays Scrooge's dad in

424
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Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty four George C. Scott adaptation of a

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Speaker 1: Christmas Carol, and he's also in nineteen eighty four's Gray Stoke,

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Speaker 1: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, starring Christopher Lambert.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, Well who is he? And Greystoke? Is he?

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Speaker 3: Is he? Is he Tarzan's dad or something?

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Speaker 4: You know?

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Speaker 1: Gray Stoke is another one that I've only seen parts

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Speaker 1: of on TV when I was much younger. I've not

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Speaker 1: I don't think i've watched it in full. I'm I

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Speaker 1: believe he plays one of the grumpy British guys like generally.

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Speaker 3: That's Oh, I think there are a few of Thosese.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's generally you're casting for Davenport.

436
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 3: Well, all right, So basically, the two main characters of

437
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 3: this movie are the two scientists who go in to

438
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 3: investigate the ant phenomenon, and so Davenport plays one of them,

439
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 3: he plays Hubs, and then the other scientist is one

440
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 3: named LESCo, who is played by the actor Michael Murphy.

441
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: That's right. A born nineteen thirty eight American actor, best

442
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: known for his work with Robert Altman. He did seven

443
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: pictures for Altman. They include the likes of Countdown, The

444
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,719
Speaker 1: Cold Day in the Park, mash The Original film, Brewster,

445
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: McLeod McCabe, and Missus Miller Nashville Kansas City. He also

446
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: appeared in Woody Allen's Manhattan, Peter Weir's The Year of

447
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: Living Dangerously, and Oliver Stone Salvador. He also worked with

448
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 1: John Sayalis Silver City. He was in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia,

449
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,120
Speaker 1: and of course he was in He was in Tim

450
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: Burton's Batman Returns. He also mayor. Oh yeah, yeah, he's

451
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: the mayor of Gotham City. There. I guess he was

452
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: only one term, because I don't think he pops up

453
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 1: to another Batman film. But he was also in a

454
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: movie called count yorga vampire. And this is our other

455
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: Shocker connection because he was in Wes Craven Shocker.

456
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 3: He plays Peter Berg's dad in Shocker. He's like a

457
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 3: detect who's on the case trying to chase down Mitch Pelegi.

458
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:07,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Murphy, Murphy's fine in this. You know, he's

459
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: a you know, far younger than many of these other

460
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: film appearances that we noted, but yeah, he's he's he's

461
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: a numbers guy. He plays what he's a game theorist

462
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: and mathematician. Mathematician, Yeah, doesn't really know or care anything

463
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,680
Speaker 1: about ants, but it is ultimately like the younger, more

464
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,360
Speaker 1: compassionate of the duo here, right.

465
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 3: I think they do a kind of strange thing where

466
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 3: they have two scientists. One is a like entomologist who

467
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 3: cares deeply about ants, and the other is a mathematician

468
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 3: who doesn't care about ants. And so you would think

469
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 3: that the one who goes ahab and just wants to

470
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 3: destroy all of ants would be the mathematician, but no,

471
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:51,959
Speaker 3: they switch them. It's kind of counterintuitive.

472
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:56,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if if the other guy, if Davenport's hubs

473
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: is Captain a hab Then Murphy's less go is.

474
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's kind of along for the ride. Yeah he

475
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 3: decided well. In fact, he even says he was like,

476
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 3: I just wanted to get away for a few weeks.

477
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 3: That's why I took this job. So it's like he

478
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 3: wanted to go see the watery part of.

479
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: The world, all right. We ultimately have a very small

480
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: human cast in This is one thing I noticed before

481
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 1: we even watched the film, and has like five or

482
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 1: six people are credited, and the two we covered have

483
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: most of the screen time, but there is another there's

484
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: a third human character that plays a I don't want

485
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: to I guess a crucial role. It's not a great

486
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 1: part because he's kind of a damsel in distress for

487
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: a lot of it. But we have the actor Lynn

488
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: Frederick playing Kindra Eldridge. Now. Frederick lived nineteen fifty four

489
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 1: through nineteen ninety four, British actor of the seventies who

490
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 1: had a really promising career going died too young. Known

491
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: for roles in The Amazing Mister Blunden, Nicholas and Alexandria,

492
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: and The Prisoner of Zenda. She was also in the

493
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two horror film Vampire Circus.

494
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 3: I didn't realize she was in Nicholas and Alexandra. I

495
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 3: got to look that up. I see she was in.

496
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 3: That's a movie where I also very much appreciate the textures.

497
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 3: There's some really good sets and locations in it.

498
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard you talk about that one before. Basically,

499
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: she is what we'll discuss like. She's an innocent human

500
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:23,479
Speaker 1: who gets swept into this ant takeover drama. She has

501
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: a couple of grandparents that are are doomed, and we'll

502
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: discuss their doom in a bit. But the actor who

503
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: plays Grandma Grandma Eldridge in this is the actor Helen Horton,

504
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty three through two thousand and seven.

505
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: She pops up in Superman three, did a lot of

506
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: TV work. But she's also the voice of Mother from

507
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine's Alien.

508
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 3: Now, this is funny because I didn't remember Mother in Alien.

509
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 3: This is the name of the computer. Is the computer

510
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 3: that controls everything. I only remember Dallas communicating with Mother

511
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 3: through like a command line on a computer screen, though

512
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 3: maybe Mother has a voice. When there's like a self

513
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 3: destruct countdown on the ship or something.

514
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: I think that is it. Yeah, okay, where Mother's given

515
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: the countdown and Ripley is trying to get out of

516
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 1: there with.

517
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 3: A cat, right right, But I don't know. Maybe next

518
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:13,959
Speaker 3: time I watch Alien, I'll got to keep I'll keep

519
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 3: an ear out for Helen Horton, who in this movie

520
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 3: just plays like suspicious Grandma. It's Mildred is just not

521
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 3: very happy about the government telling them that they need

522
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 3: to flee the ant menace.

523
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk a little bit about the music

524
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: on this one. Normally we highlight a single individual that's involved,

525
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: but this time, like three different individuals at least are

526
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: worth noting here. So, first of all, Brian Gascoigne is

527
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: credited with the music. Born nineteen forty three, British composer

528
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: and musician who also scored the Emerald Forrest in nineteen

529
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: eighty five and worked in the music department on such

530
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: films as Godsford Park. He did piano on that, Harry

531
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: Potter and The Goblet of Fire. He did keyboards and

532
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: synthesizer on that. He did synthesizers on Cherry two thousand

533
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: and most exciting of all, at least to me, he

534
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: was also in the music department on Jim Henson's nineteen

535
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: eighty two masterpiece The Dark Crystal. I'm a huge fan

536
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: of that film, and I think the music for that

537
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: movie is tremendous. The score was composed by Trevor Jones,

538
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: but Gascoyinn provided quote synthesized electronic sounds. So I'm guessing

539
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: it was like, Okay, the crystal's doing something. We need

540
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: to get gas coin in here to start tickling the synth.

541
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 3: What is the sound of draining essence?

542
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: Now we also have Desmond brisco on this who lived

543
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty five through two thousand and six. He's credited

544
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: as Composer Additional Electronic Music, a British composer and sound engineer,

545
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: co founder of the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Now this

546
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: is the group that included pioneering electronic artist Delia Derbyshire,

547
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen thirty seven through two thousand and one.

548
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, She's the one who provided the electronic

549
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: arrangement of the original Doctor Who theme and ultimately influenced

550
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: many future big names and electronic music.

551
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 3: So I've said on the show before that I am

552
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 3: not a hoovey and I don't really know much Doctor Who,

553
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 3: but when I did very first try to watch a

554
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 3: few episodes, the main thing that actually hooked me about

555
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 3: it more than the show itself was the theme song.

556
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 3: I got briefly obsessed with the theme music and with

557
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 3: the different versions of it from over the years, and

558
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 3: ended up going on the steep dive about Delia Derbyshire

559
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 3: and like how she created it with I guess it

560
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 3: was analog tape effects at the time, right, Yeah, yeah,

561
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 3: I mean this, yeah, digital manipulation, and yeah, what a

562
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 3: great piece of classic electronic and tape effects music.

563
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: And then on one more individual I want to mention

564
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: in reference to Phase four, and that is Stomu Yamashta,

565
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: who is credited with composer Montage Music. Born nineteen forty

566
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: seven Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer known for helping to

567
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: fuse traditional Japanese percuss of music with Western prog rock.

568
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: In the sixties and seventies. He was a member of

569
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: the supergroup Go alongside such names as Steve Winwood, best

570
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: known for the track Higher Love, but also German electronic

571
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: music pioneer Klaus Schultz, of whom I'm a big fan.

572
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 3: Oh I don't know if I know him.

573
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: Oh, you would dig out. I'll have to send you

574
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: some stuff after we record, because Claus Schultz put out

575
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: some wonderful material. Now, Yamashta, on his own scored the

576
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six David Bowie sci fi film The Man

577
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: Who Fell to Earth, as well as nineteen eighty two's Tempest,

578
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: starring John Cassavetti's Susan Sarandon, Molly Ringwald, and Roald Julia.

579
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 3: Now this is a movie where I don't think there

580
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 3: was ever like a melody from the score that stuck

581
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 3: with me. But in general I loved the sound design

582
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 3: and the ambient electronic music.

583
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a film that's very concerned with computers

584
00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: and computer technology and all that computer technology is also

585
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: scene is and very much plot wise as a way

586
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: of translating the way of the ant in a way

587
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: that ants and humans might communicate. So it uses electronic

588
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: music well in providing a sense of the cosmic and

589
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: other worldly and even like the sense of the cosmic

590
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: and other worldly to be found in the mind of

591
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: the ants. There are a few places where it gets

592
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 1: a little melodic and traditional, almost as if somebody like

593
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: the producers were like, hey, what are you doing here?

594
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: Saw this is a human movie for humans, and this

595
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: scene has humans doing human stuff. Let's get some human

596
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: music in here. But otherwise, yeah, it's pretty great. Lots

597
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: of electronic touches. There are stretches without music, but those

598
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: tend to revolve around one of two soundscapes I found,

599
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: either windswept desert or the insides of their spaceship like

600
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: research station that also has a supercomputer. There, so lots

601
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: of computer noises.

602
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:58,239
Speaker 3: Oh, in fair warning, I wouldn't normally mention this, but

603
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 3: there was one part of like, if you're listening with

604
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 3: like loud headphones or something, there is one segment of

605
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 3: this movie where for like several minutes they start making

606
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 3: this excruciating high pitch noise. Yeah, I imagine. Do you

607
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 3: know the part I'm talking about?

608
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: Rob Yes, yeah, absolutely, Because I was watching it with

609
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: the sound up, part of it with the sound up

610
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: while my wife was trying to work like the next dream,

611
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: and I was a little I was like, oh, this

612
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: is getting a bit much. I have to plug in

613
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: the headphones for this.

614
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 3: Yeah. So if you go watch it yourself, just be wary,

615
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 3: keep your finger on the volume button.

616
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the plot of this baby.

617
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: We have to mention this is a movie that is

618
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: not afraid to narrate.

619
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 3: No, no, Yeah, there is plenty of voiceover narrate near

620
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 3: In fact, I wonder if there is just if you

621
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 3: go by word count, I wonder if there's more voiceover

622
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 3: narration than there is dialogue.

623
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: Probably, So you know, I have to be one. Anytime

624
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: I think about narration and film, I always go back

625
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: to like various threads I would read and arguments about

626
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 1: really Scott's Blade Runner, where people are like, get that

627
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: narration out of here, narration in a film by god,

628
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: And I was always like, I kind of like the narration.

629
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: What's wrong with the narration? Give me that?

630
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't have strong general feelings about it one

631
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 3: way or another. You know, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not.

632
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be good, it can be bad. It

633
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: can also help along a movie that maybe you know,

634
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: it just needs a little narration help and letting you

635
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: know what's supposed to be going on.

636
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,280
Speaker 3: Well. Yeah, And also in this movie, without the narration,

637
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 3: you would either need to make it way more dialogue

638
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 3: heavy and add totally different types of characters and stuff,

639
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,359
Speaker 3: or you just got to have the narration in there,

640
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 3: because they begin by explaining the whole situation. The opening

641
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 3: narration includes shots of space where you're seeing these planets

642
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 3: and stars, apparently a line that they're very vague about

643
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 3: what's going on, but in a way that I found

644
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 3: pleasing rather than frustrating. I think some people might be

645
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 3: more frustrated, but they don't say exactly what's going on.

646
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 3: But there's so some kind of weird astronomical event, and

647
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 3: this astronomical event gets scientists and mystics alike very excited,

648
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 3: but nobody knows what it means except you are told

649
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 3: that there's a researcher named Ernest Hubbs who documents that

650
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 3: right after this astronomical event, ants around the world start

651
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:25,760
Speaker 3: doing things that ants don't do. It says that they're meeting, communicating,

652
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:30,280
Speaker 3: making decisions, again being very vague about what that means,

653
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 3: but I guess we'll find out more as the movie

654
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 3: goes on. And while the narration explains the situation, we

655
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 3: get to watch this beautiful ballet of ants running around

656
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 3: in tunnels, fighting, reproducing, doing all kinds of things. And

657
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 3: I want to say, also that the effects and photography

658
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 3: in this opening ant ballet are just wonderful. There were

659
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 3: plenty of parts where I couldn't tell if I was

660
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 3: looking at real ants or at special effects. Even some

661
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 3: of the close ups that were obviously puppets look very good.

662
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 3: Of the textured surfaces, the exoskeleton, the eye, the sand grains,

663
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 3: the antennae. At this point I immediately felt like we

664
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,479
Speaker 3: were in very good hands as far as the look

665
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 3: and design of the movie was going. Absolutely but then

666
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 3: we get tons more voice over narration. I started transcribing it,

667
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 3: but I think later on I realized, like, I don't

668
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 3: need to read all of this verbatim, but essentially there

669
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 3: is a different voice coming in that we will later

670
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 3: find out as doctor Hubbs, and he's dictating some kind

671
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 3: of government memorandum. He's issuing a MIMO to like the

672
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 3: biocontrol division of some kind of agency, and he is

673
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 3: explaining alarming reports of something going on in the American Southwest.

674
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 3: He says that the traditional antagonisms between different ant species

675
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 3: have come to a dramatic halt, and he says, at

676
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 3: the same time, there has been an apparent disappearance of

677
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:58,439
Speaker 3: those insects which prey on ants, specifically mantises, beetles, millipedes,

678
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 3: and spiders. And he says that if this goes on,

679
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 3: we're going to see some real booms in ant populations.

680
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 3: And then meanwhile, we see beautiful time lapse footage of

681
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 3: ants swarming over and devouring a big tarantula, and he

682
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 3: ends up offering in this MIMO a proposal. He's like, look,

683
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 3: what we've got to do is a full scale attack

684
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 3: on the ants, otherwise they're going to represent a threat

685
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 3: to all other life forms in the area. So we

686
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 3: need to build an experiment station out near ant ground zero.

687
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 3: And he says he needs more personnel and needs another

688
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 3: researcher to join him. So the leader here is going

689
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 3: to be this ant researcher Hubs, but he also requests

690
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:44,280
Speaker 3: somebody named j. R. LESCo, who is a senior scientist

691
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 3: who is a qualified information specialist with cryptological background.

692
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we're already getting the idea that there's

693
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: going to be some sort of communication aspect to this study,

694
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: this project, which again seems to be a out understanding

695
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 1: and combating ants who have declared like an ant wide

696
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 1: peace treaty and are turning their attention to other things

697
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: in a way that makes us feel threatened. And it

698
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: seems like Hubbs has just been granted an enormous budget

699
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: for this project, but also, as we'll find out, a

700
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: very limited window in which to operate.

701
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. So they build him a geodesic dome

702
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 3: out in the desert that's full of the world's most

703
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 3: sophisticated technology, and it's got supercomputers and stuff in in

704
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four. But he's also constantly getting calls on

705
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 3: the radio that are like, they're like, can you hurry

706
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 3: this up? You know, we don't have enough budget to

707
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 3: fund you for two more days.

708
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, well maybe, I mean, maybe it's on hubs, Like,

709
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: maybe you should have scaled down on the facilities here.

710
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't need this what seems like a spaceship,

711
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: you know, it feels like it should be on the

712
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 1: surface of Mars, not in the wedd of the Arizona desert.

713
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 3: We've only got these super computers rented through Friday. After

714
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 3: that there are late fees. Well anyway, so that's the setup,

715
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 3: and then we get to the actual narrative part of

716
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 3: the film. So we see a car blasting through the desert,

717
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 3: kicking up clouds of dust from the road, and it

718
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 3: goes past signs for a golf course and a country club,

719
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,240
Speaker 3: and then a sign that says welcome to Paradise City.

720
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 3: But it's one of those comedic, ironic reveals because when

721
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 3: you peel back from all those signs, it's just a

722
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 3: cursed land of emptiness and dust.

723
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they refer to it as another desert

724
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 1: development that didn't develop.

725
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 3: Right. It's some half built houses and a grid of

726
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 3: dirt roads. But when they go down to the end

727
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 3: of the longest of the dirt roads, we see something

728
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 3: very strange. And in the middle of the nothingness there

729
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 3: is this grove of seven pillars, just pillars reaching straight

730
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 3: up out of the ground like Greek columns. And so

731
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 3: they drive up and park the car and out hop

732
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,479
Speaker 3: a couple of guys. These would be our protagonist again.

733
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 3: This is Nigel Davenport is doctor Hubbs and Michael Murphy

734
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 3: is doctor LESCo. And I immediately noticed some very interesting

735
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,439
Speaker 3: color coating. This was another thing that tipped me off

736
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 3: early how sort of visual and design oriented this movie

737
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,280
Speaker 3: would be. Because Rob, I don't know if you noticed

738
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 3: the same thing, but The color coating of the wardrobes

739
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 3: of the two actors is so starkly different. LESCo is

740
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 3: just blue, blue blue. He's blue jeans, blue shirt, blue jacket,

741
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 3: and blue hat, whereas Hubbs is all these earth tones

742
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 3: and earth energy. So he's wearing khaki pants, a brown jacket,

743
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,479
Speaker 3: he's got long hair and a dark beard, and he's

744
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 3: carrying a staff or stick of some kind. Yeah, so

745
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 3: I was immediately wondering what's going on with this? It

746
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,280
Speaker 3: again seems like a graphic designer's touch. But is LESCo

747
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 3: supposed to be the sky while Hubbs is the earth?

748
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 3: Or is it a blue wizard in ratagas the brown thing.

749
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:01,719
Speaker 1: I really noticed this as much when I was watching it,

750
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:05,280
Speaker 1: but I guess I was focusing more on the environment

751
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: they're in, which is pretty brilliant, because this is the

752
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: place where where human organization and human development has the

753
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,959
Speaker 1: wave has crashed and fallen back. It is where human

754
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,240
Speaker 1: development has failed, but it is where this new sign

755
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: of ant civilization has sprung forth right.

756
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 3: And so they walk around in these half built or

757
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,439
Speaker 3: abandoned houses, and LESCo asks if there are any dead

758
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 3: bodies out here, and Nigel Davenport says, no, the population

759
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 3: moved itself out days ago. And then they start talking

760
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 3: about their background, and we learned that LESCo has achieved

761
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 3: scientific fame by applying game theory to the language of

762
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 3: killer whales, and Hubs is very intrigued by this. He

763
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 3: wants to know, did you ever actually make contact with

764
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 3: a whale? And LESCo says, only with the emotionally disturbed ones.

765
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 3: And Hub is like, well, how did you determine that?

766
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 3: And LESCo says, well, we talked. I think he's supposed

767
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 3: to be kidding, but they never clarify this.

768
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's math nerdery. And also, this is

769
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: the point in the movie where if you don't know

770
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: anything about it, you can easily imagine we're going in

771
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: the direction of like a computer literally translates what ants

772
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: are saying in some sort of a computer voice, in

773
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: the same way that you have films where this is

774
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:28,840
Speaker 1: happening with dolphins and other creatures. But and this is

775
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: a film that is about communication or attempts at communication

776
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: between two drastically different intelligent species. But it does so

777
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,879
Speaker 1: in very clever ways that I think really like takes

778
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 1: the question seriously and takes the you know, the gulf

779
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: between different you know, possibly evolved intelligences, the gulf between them,

780
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 1: and how difficult it would be like for one side

781
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: to even realize the other side is intelligent.

782
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's something I really liked about this movie is

783
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,280
Speaker 3: that it it takes the confusing nature of cross species

784
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 3: communication seriously. Like there's a great scene I want to

785
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 3: talk about later that involves communication between humans and ants

786
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 3: and how it's hard to understand what it means. But anyway,

787
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 3: here at the beginning, it's clear that LESCo does not

788
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 3: see himself as a biologist or a zoologist or somebody

789
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 3: who cares about or understands animals. He says, I'm strictly

790
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 3: a pencil and paper guy. The two scientists approach the

791
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:40,240
Speaker 3: Seven Pillars and Rob, how would you describe these pillars?

792
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 3: I love this feature of the movie. And they won't

793
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:44,280
Speaker 3: be the last pillars we see.

794
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're pretty great because they're monolithic, but they don't

795
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: you know, they're not as perfect as say the monolith

796
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 1: from two thousand and one A Space Odyssey, though you

797
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 1: can't help but imagine some of that DNA is present there.

798
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly the this is a film that exists,

799
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: you know, in the ultimately in the very long shadow

800
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 1: of two thousand and one, a space Odyssey. But these

801
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 1: feel they feel very organic. They're reminiscent of termite mound

802
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: cooling towers. They have these little crevices towards the top

803
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: that feel like they're intended to do something with the air.

804
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that you'd think an ant

805
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,399
Speaker 1: researcher would be very interested in, but they ultimately don't

806
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: seem to investigate that much. But yeah, they feel like

807
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 1: they are at this place where where organic animal construction

808
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: and human construction meets and the distinction becomes blurred, right.

809
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 3: I mean it's the angles I think that make them unusual.

810
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:43,320
Speaker 3: I mean, if they were just sort of rounded pillars,

811
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 3: you might think, well, those are very tall and strange,

812
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 3: but they're more like termite mounds. It's the fact that

813
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 3: they have like a diamond shape with sharp angles that

814
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 3: makes it look like, oh, this shouldn't be something ants

815
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 3: are doing.

816
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks very alien and cool.

817
00:44:57,520 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 3: Oh and of course we see in close ups that

818
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 3: ants are looking looking out the scientists through crevices in

819
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 3: the pillars. So anyway, after this, they go to a

820
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 3: farm where they find some dead sheep, and there are

821
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 3: shots of them walking through the tall grass that's rippling

822
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 3: in the wind. It's very elegant. But they eventually come

823
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 3: across a crop circle with geometric designs inside it.

824
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 4: There's like a.

825
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 3: Diamond in the middle and then a ring around the outside,

826
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 3: and Hubs is talking about how there are some ant

827
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 3: species that will attack anything that threatens their food supply,

828
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:31,839
Speaker 3: and so what do these patterns in the field represent. Well,

829
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 3: it's not clear yet, and in fact, I don't know

830
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 3: if it ever becomes clear. It's just like the ants

831
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 3: make this pattern in the field for some reason, and.

832
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: I don't even think our characters perhaps realize that pattern

833
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 1: is there. This is like the privileged information that is

834
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: for the viewer. Yeah, there's no indication that they notice

835
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:53,240
Speaker 1: that they are standing in the midst of this strange

836
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:54,439
Speaker 1: crop circle. Right.

837
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 3: And I will say, by the way, I don't know

838
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 3: if this is true, but I just read briefly on

839
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 3: the internet some people alleging that this film may have

840
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 3: inspired some of the people who made crop circles, and

841
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 3: then said that they were made by aliens because apparently

842
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,759
Speaker 3: this pre date some of the big crop circle craze.

843
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: Huh, I didn't realize that. I did read somewhere that

844
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:18,320
Speaker 1: this is arguably the first appearance of a crop circle

845
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: in a film, But that would be interesting, and certainly

846
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: it would match up with what we know about about

847
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: crop circles in there. They're very human origin.

848
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently there are a few reports of things sort

849
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 3: of like crop circles that date to before the seventies,

850
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 3: but I think the real crop circle craze started sometime

851
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 3: in the mid to late seventies. That's when it really

852
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 3: took off. Well anyway. So they're going around this farm

853
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 3: that still does have a few people in it, and

854
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 3: we meet a farmer named mister Eldridge. I don't think

855
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 3: we ever learned his first name, and he's explaining a

856
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 3: fuel ditch trap for ants, Like they dig a big

857
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,280
Speaker 3: moat around the farmhouse and fill it with gasoline or something.

858
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a crazy sounding planned. They're like, yeah,

859
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 1: if they aunt get across the water, we'll just light

860
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: this troth of a fuel on fire and then that'll

861
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: do him, and then we'll just keep this troth of

862
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: fire going for the rest of our lives.

863
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the family is mister Eldridge, and then his

864
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 3: wife Mildred Eldridge, who is skeptical of these scientists who

865
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 3: have arrived to tell them they're in danger. And their

866
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 3: granddaughter Kendra Eldridge, who she kind of rides horses and waves.

867
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 3: And then there's another guy named Cleat, who I guess

868
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 3: is their aunt burning guy. It's like, oh, you got

869
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:39,359
Speaker 3: an aunt burning guy. Yeah, his name's Cleat. Yeah, I'll

870
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 3: put you in touch.

871
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. But Kindra is the main character again, this is

872
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:46,439
Speaker 1: the character played by Lynn Frederick spoiler. She's the only

873
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: one that is going to survive for any length of

874
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: time here.

875
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 3: Right, But anyway, Hubbs tells them they're going to have

876
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 3: to evacuate in a few days for their own protection.

877
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 3: Mildred is not happy about that, but strangely, mister Eldridge

878
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 3: is like, hey, listen to them, it's for our own protection.

879
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: Yeah.

880
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 3: So that was Phase one, and then we get a

881
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 3: transition where we see phase two. It's not clear what

882
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 3: has changed, but that's what we get.

883
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the interesting thing about this film, Like

884
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: the title phase four is not referring to most of

885
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: the film, Like Phase four is the place we are

886
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: going to arrive at at the end of the film.

887
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 3: Right, So the next thing we do is we go

888
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 3: to the two scientists in their self contained research facility,

889
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 3: which is a geodesic dome with an antenna tower next

890
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:33,760
Speaker 3: to it and then a bunch of little nodes coming

891
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 3: off of it, like these pipes leading out to these

892
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 3: little spheres planted out in the perimeter around the geodesic dome,

893
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:43,240
Speaker 3: which we later learned are for spraying beautiful poison.

894
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: Yes, of which they have. Do they have just two

895
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: colors or are there three colors?

896
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 3: There are only two we learn about that there may

897
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 3: be others.

898
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: There's yellow and there's blood.

899
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 3: So the scientists are inside doing experiments. There are lots

900
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 3: of machines that make beeping and worrying noises, sometimes a

901
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 3: big air pressure hiss as well. And this might sound

902
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 3: kind of hard to believe, but I believe. I think

903
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 3: there are several just extremely pleasurable shots of Michael Murphy

904
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 3: just flipping lots of switches.

905
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:16,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're not exactly sure what he's doing here necessarily,

906
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: but you have that nice computer electronic ambiance going on

907
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: in the background, and he's very chill about this. Yeah,

908
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 1: it's a nice vibe. Now, I love, love, love this

909
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 1: research facility they have here. In general, I love it

910
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: when researchers and or adventurers in a film are just

911
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 1: drastically technologically over prepared for a mission, overfunded as well,

912
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: perhaps here. I love it when it's as simple as

913
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: an antarctic research facility or an underwater station that just

914
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: happens to have a flamethrower on hand. I also love

915
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: it when it's an eight mission into the jungle and

916
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,760
Speaker 1: you bring along tripod, gun drones and your own talking

917
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: techno ape.

918
00:49:58,320 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 3: It's congo.

919
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: You have congo, And I guess that's the thing too.

920
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's very criteny, and this film

921
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: does feel very Crichtony in many respects. Well, yeah, I.

922
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 3: Don't want to say it's ripping it off, but I

923
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 3: say I think there are some very clear parallels between

924
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 3: this movie and the Andrama to Strain, Michael Crichton's first

925
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 3: big novel, which is also about a group of scientists

926
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 3: that go into a self contained facility in the American

927
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 3: Southwest in order to fight some kind of novel biological

928
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 3: menace that has been caused by an astronomical event. So

929
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little bit of inspiration.

930
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 1: Going on there that would make sense. Yeah, but again,

931
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: what we have here is a weird station that seems

932
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: like it's built for the surface of Mars, full of supercomputers,

933
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: NASA style living conditions, you know, like this wonderful scene

934
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: where they're picking out what kind of food they're going

935
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: to eat, or they're getting some coffee or something, and

936
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: it's like a spaceship, but not only a spaceship. A

937
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: spaceship that has been engineered to stand is like the

938
00:50:56,160 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: last redoubt against the ant onslaught, and yet it is

939
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent ant proof, though there seem to

940
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 1: be measures taken to try and make it so. Like

941
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,719
Speaker 1: there's essentially like a decontamination airlock that you have to

942
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: get nude for. They're the poison sprayers with two different

943
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: flavors that we mentioned.

944
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 3: It's great, and there's some drama inside about cost overruns

945
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 3: that we alluded to earlier, Like there's a guy on

946
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 3: the radio who's calling hubs and being like, hey, you

947
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 3: got to speed up your research. We're running out of

948
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 3: money here.

949
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: And I guess this is important too, to not like

950
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: one of the things that they keep driving home. I

951
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,360
Speaker 1: think with the human interaction is that ants have it

952
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:38,840
Speaker 1: all together. Not only previously they did, you know, species

953
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: to species, or a colony to colony in some cases,

954
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:45,439
Speaker 1: and super colonies. But now all ant kind is one

955
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: is on the same page. They are working in unison. Meanwhile,

956
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: none of our humans can get along completely. They all

957
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: have different ideas and different views. You know, our two

958
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: researchers are arguing with each other. They're having conflicts ultimately

959
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 1: with the other human character and with these people on

960
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 1: the phone, right.

961
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,799
Speaker 3: But the way they come up with to speed up

962
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 3: the research, by the way, is hilarious because what it

963
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 3: means is, Okay, we got to get the ants to

964
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 3: do something. So Hubbs is like, well, I guess I'll

965
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 3: go blow up these towers in the desert with a

966
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 3: handheld grenade launcher.

967
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: Yes, and yeah, we have to stress that we're talking again,

968
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: like a handheld grenade launcher like the one Arnold has

969
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,800
Speaker 1: in Terminator too. He just casually uses it to blow

970
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: up all the ant monoliths that are there, which which

971
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: which is interesting too because later on, like the voice

972
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 1: on the phone is like, you should try destroying one

973
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: of the monoliths to see if you can provoke a reaction.

974
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: He didn't. He didn't mess around. He just blows them

975
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 1: all up. Yeah.

976
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,840
Speaker 3: Well, I think he's already done it. When they suggest that,

977
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, I'll think about it, okay.

978
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, And I just again it comes back to

979
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: the fact that this grenade launcher I'm I'm assuming or

980
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,799
Speaker 1: hoping it is Slash, was illegal to actually own one

981
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: of these that fires actual grenades and not flares. So

982
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: I guess it is part of the specialized kit that

983
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: he requested and was approved for use in this research experiment.

984
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: So that means it has its like its own shelf

985
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: in the in the research station, or maybe it's in

986
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: as it's mounted behind glass with a sign that reads

987
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: break if studied. Dandelion is rapidly approaching.

988
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we just see him out there in the

989
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 3: middle of the road. He's standing there like like Mill

990
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 3: Gibson and the Road Warrior poster with the thing. He's

991
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:37,040
Speaker 3: just shooting these ant colonies.

992
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a whole ammunition box of grenades and

993
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: he's just letting it, letting the monolithts happen.

994
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:46,439
Speaker 3: But anyway, so from this they do learn some things

995
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,759
Speaker 3: because LESCo figures out that the ants are communicating by

996
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 3: sound that he's like, they're talking to each other, and

997
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:55,840
Speaker 3: he starts recording the sounds they're making and trying to

998
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 3: decode it and understand their language in anyway, so we

999
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 3: knew this was coming. Later that night, the ants apparently

1000
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,880
Speaker 3: attack the Eldridge farm. They're the only other humans left around,

1001
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 3: and the ants set upon them. So they start attacking

1002
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:12,320
Speaker 3: the horse out in the field, and then the fire

1003
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:15,240
Speaker 3: trap is triggered, and then the ants swarm the house

1004
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 3: and then the humans have to flee in a truck,

1005
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 3: and Mildred is all like they warned us, and then

1006
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,920
Speaker 3: I think ants attack the truck and attack inside the truck.

1007
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're they're They're suddenly inside they're crawling in

1008
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 1: Grandpa's hair. There's the results in a wreck, and so

1009
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 1: they're fleeing on foot at this point towards the research

1010
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:39,120
Speaker 1: facility and towards the buildings, you know, the remains of

1011
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: this housing development.

1012
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 3: They're still there, right, So they basically get to the

1013
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 3: research facility, but they're attacked by ants when they get

1014
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 3: out of the truck, and at the same time LESCo

1015
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 3: is showing off his work to Hubs on decoding the

1016
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,840
Speaker 3: ant language. And while he's doing that, ants cut the

1017
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,279
Speaker 3: power to the facility. They cut the power, man, how

1018
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 3: can they cut the power? They're animals, but they do,

1019
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 3: and the so Hubs responds by spraying the ants outside

1020
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 3: with this gorgeous yellow poison that it's like coming out

1021
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 3: of these spheres. It's weird to say it's beautiful, but

1022
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 3: it is beautiful. And they call the poison yellow. It's

1023
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 3: just called the yellow. Yes, And I think again, it

1024
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,520
Speaker 3: makes a lot of sense for this movie to call

1025
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 3: its poison, to not have a chemical name, to not

1026
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,280
Speaker 3: let it have a brand name. It's just the yellow,

1027
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 3: and that indicates like that color and lines reign supreme

1028
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 3: in the world A phase four.

1029
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, But the poison defense here it seems to work.

1030
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: In fact, it works a little too well.

1031
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:43,000
Speaker 3: Right, So it kills most of the ants, though some

1032
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:45,880
Speaker 3: ants get away, and then meanwhile they come out the

1033
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 3: next morning, and so the two scientists are in these

1034
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 3: environment suits they look like they're like, you know, like

1035
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 3: eva suits in space, and they go out to see

1036
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:59,080
Speaker 3: that they're spraying of the poison has killed the people

1037
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 3: who came from the farm. It killed Mildred and mister

1038
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:03,319
Speaker 3: Eldridge and Cleat.

1039
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:09,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, it killed grandma and grandpa. But as it turns out,

1040
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:11,280
Speaker 1: as we find out in a bit, Kindre is fine.

1041
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:14,240
Speaker 1: She was actually in the basement of one of those houses.

1042
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:15,360
Speaker 3: Right, she hid in the cellar.

1043
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:16,439
Speaker 1: Oh.

1044
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 3: But also there you start getting some hints that things

1045
00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 3: are going in a weird direction because Hubbs is trying

1046
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:26,200
Speaker 3: to figure out what the ants did to sabotage their

1047
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:29,880
Speaker 3: generator in the truck, and meanwhile less Goo's like, there

1048
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:32,600
Speaker 3: are dead people, and then Hubbs is like, oh, yes,

1049
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 3: a tragedy. But he so you're starting to get the

1050
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 3: sense that maybe he's a little disconnected from the value

1051
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,799
Speaker 3: of human life. But anyway, he says, okay, so I

1052
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 3: think the yellow should hold its potency for three or

1053
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 3: four days, which was a great phrase. I thought, Oh,

1054
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:55,800
Speaker 3: but then there's something very rare. So when they find Cleat,

1055
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:59,719
Speaker 3: remember the ant burning guy. So they find Cleat and

1056
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 3: his hand is tightly closed and they pry it open

1057
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:06,480
Speaker 3: with a metal rod, and it has three symmetrical holes

1058
00:57:06,560 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 3: in the palm of the hand like dots, and then

1059
00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 3: we see ants crawling out of the holes.

1060
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is This really gave me the willies watching this.

1061
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 1: This is how you know. The makeup effects that they

1062
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 1: did on this are are really convincing. They really feel

1063
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:24,560
Speaker 1: like they are holes in a hand, and we get

1064
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 1: close ups and usually like an extreme close up on

1065
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: an effect like this will reveal the flaws and the design,

1066
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,200
Speaker 1: but this one just makes me feel more and more

1067
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 1: like I'm looking at three holes in a human hand

1068
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 1: with an ant crawling out of it. So yeah, if

1069
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 1: you have the if you have the fear of holes,

1070
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: I would maybe make sure you're ready to fast forward

1071
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: through this scene. There's also an earlier scene where they're

1072
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 1: looking at a hole in like the neck of a sheep.

1073
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: She that also gave me the willies.

1074
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:53,440
Speaker 3: Agreed, and again the effects look great. Oh but also,

1075
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 3: like we said, they discovered that Kindra survived with the storm,

1076
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 3: so she takes refuge with the scientists inside the geodesic

1077
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 3: dome and we get a scene where Hubbs is explaining

1078
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 3: the beauty of ants. He's like, so defenseless in the individual,

1079
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 3: so powerful in the mass. But here we start getting

1080
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 3: some real conflict between LESCo and Hubbs, because LESCo quite

1081
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 3: sensibly wants to call a helicopter to evacuate Kindre to

1082
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 3: safety while they keep fighting the ant menace, and Hubbs

1083
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 3: is against it. He's like, I think the bureaucrats would

1084
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:26,880
Speaker 3: be rather unhappy to learn of our casualties.

1085
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:30,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean to to Lesco's point, two people

1086
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 1: have died. Three people have died. Two of them were

1087
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 1: killed seemingly by the experiment itself. Now they have this

1088
00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 1: poor woman who needs to be taken to safety. Yeah,

1089
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 1: but Hubbs is like, I don't know if we want

1090
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: to really mess up the experiment for this.

1091
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:47,920
Speaker 3: We don't want to ask you exactly. Yeah. So Hubbs

1092
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 3: is he's trending into mad scientist mode, and it helps

1093
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 3: that while saying all this stuff, he's in the middle

1094
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 3: of staging an experiment where he puts ants in a

1095
00:58:56,640 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 3: maze with a bunch of praying mantises, and eventually he's

1096
00:59:00,800 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 3: LESCo gets him to promise that he will call the

1097
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 3: helicopter to come collect Kindra, but he's obviously lying.

1098
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:08,920
Speaker 1: Yeah there is. There are no helicopters in this movie,

1099
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 1: never show uh.

1100
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 3: But then at some point Kendrick gets mad while staring

1101
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 3: at an ant. She's like, ants killed my horse, and

1102
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 3: she smashes a bunch of the glass lab equipment, which

1103
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 3: sends ants everywhere inside the lab. Hubbs gets bitten by

1104
00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 3: one of them before he can seal the room and

1105
00:59:26,600 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 3: gass it to kill all the ants.

1106
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:30,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is another one of those scenes. It really

1107
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 1: feels like it was. It was written and filmed by

1108
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: ants like playing you know, okay, loose understanding of how

1109
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 1: humans work in accurate.

1110
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:42,479
Speaker 3: Yes, the human motivations are Yeah. The ants are doing

1111
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 3: most of the acting here, yes.

1112
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 1: But from there we move on to some ant business.

1113
00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 1: It's back to like basically, you know, this is a game.

1114
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:00,320
Speaker 1: It is one side moves in the on the other

1115
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 1: side moves, and now it is the ant's turn.

1116
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 3: Right, So what the ants do? I'm not sure I

1117
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:07,920
Speaker 3: understood this scene right. Maybe you can correct me if

1118
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 3: you've got a different impression. What it looks like is

1119
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 3: happening is that there's this sequence of ants repeatedly trying

1120
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 3: to move a wod of some yellow white material through

1121
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:21,080
Speaker 3: the tunnels. And I think the wad is supposed to

1122
01:00:21,120 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 3: be the poison, the yellow.

1123
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and like one will die or become exhausted,

1124
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 1: probably die, pass it on to another ant, and that

1125
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 1: ant will keep journeying with the poison.

1126
01:00:31,680 --> 01:00:34,040
Speaker 3: Right, so we see this handoff. It's a relay of

1127
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 3: the poison kills one ant, the next ant takes it

1128
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:39,640
Speaker 3: along on the journey, eventually bringing it, I think, to

1129
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:43,680
Speaker 3: the queen, and then the queen like sniffs the poison

1130
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 3: and breathes heavily while examining it, and then starts to

1131
01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 3: give birth to a yellow green object like strudes. It

1132
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 3: seems to be an egg that has been infused with

1133
01:00:57,800 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 3: the spirit of the yellow.

1134
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is one of those scenes where, Yeah,

1135
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: if you're going to come in and you're going to

1136
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 1: be very critical about everything, you're going to say, is

1137
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,120
Speaker 1: this something ants can do? Is what's going on here?

1138
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, this is a movie that

1139
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: is largely takes the viewpoint of like, Look, if I

1140
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: explained it to you, I'd probably get it really wrong

1141
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 1: and it would feel kind of dumb. But if you're

1142
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 1: just viewing it, if you just kind of like breathe

1143
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: it in, take in the colors, then everything's going to

1144
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 1: be fine.

1145
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:28,680
Speaker 3: Right, So from here the arms race continues. The ants

1146
01:01:28,840 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 3: after this build a series of geometric pillars right outside

1147
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 3: the geodesic dome. And the scientists are like, what are

1148
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 3: they doing? What is this? And we discovered that they

1149
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:44,720
Speaker 3: have built solar reflectors to direct beams of sunlight at

1150
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 3: the dome and this immediately starts bringing up the temperature

1151
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 3: in the lab above the level where the computers can

1152
01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:52,080
Speaker 3: tolerate it.

1153
01:01:52,400 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. They ants did it all in

1154
01:01:54,080 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 1: one night, reflective monoliths to fry the humans and perhaps

1155
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 1: more importantly, to overheat their their delicate thinking machine. It's

1156
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:07,520
Speaker 1: the sort of heat based warfare that is actually used specifically,

1157
01:02:07,520 --> 01:02:11,280
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, by bees. Now, bees do not construct

1158
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:15,120
Speaker 1: monoliths to fry supercomputers, but they will swarm around an

1159
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:18,520
Speaker 1: invader and overheat it with their own their own body heat.

1160
01:02:18,680 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 1: So it's that alone makes this feel like a I

1161
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:29,200
Speaker 1: mean a speculative leap, certainly, but kind of a believable

1162
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:32,760
Speaker 1: tactic that you might conceivably have some sort of advanced

1163
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 1: ants us right.

1164
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:36,880
Speaker 3: Right, So that's their new offense, but also the ants

1165
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 3: of a new defense, because the researchers see that, like,

1166
01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:43,760
Speaker 3: the ants have started a new generation of workers that

1167
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:47,200
Speaker 3: are yellow like the poison and hubs says, we challenge

1168
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:51,320
Speaker 3: them with yellow chemistry, they respond with yellow creatures. So

1169
01:02:51,360 --> 01:02:53,440
Speaker 3: it seems, you know, the ants are adapting to the

1170
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,480
Speaker 3: poisons they're using, and Hub says, we can try the blue,

1171
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:59,800
Speaker 3: of course, but they'd only adapt again. Yeah yeah, so

1172
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 3: of course mad scientists progression. Hubs starts talking monologuing about

1173
01:03:05,160 --> 01:03:07,800
Speaker 3: how he believes the ants or a new type of intelligence,

1174
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 3: one that can be harnessed and educated by humans. Oh yeah,

1175
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, yeah, I didn't call the helicopter,

1176
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 3: so LESCo tries to call, but when he goes to

1177
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 3: flip the switch on the radio, it shorts out, and

1178
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 3: you know, sparks go all over the place, and we

1179
01:03:21,960 --> 01:03:25,160
Speaker 3: find that the circuit board OHO is covered in ants

1180
01:03:25,160 --> 01:03:28,600
Speaker 3: that have sacrificed their bodies to short out the electronics.

1181
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:30,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they managed to get in here.

1182
01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've penetrated the perimeter. They're sabotaging equipment, and then

1183
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:37,480
Speaker 3: there's this ensuing battle. They're fighting a war over like

1184
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:40,040
Speaker 3: the air conditioning. The ants are trying to burn out

1185
01:03:40,080 --> 01:03:42,840
Speaker 3: the lab computers and the humans are trying to keep

1186
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:45,960
Speaker 3: the environment cool. And so there's this cool great stuff,

1187
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 3: like shots of an ant crawling all the way down

1188
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 3: a spiraling copper coil inside the air conditioning units and LESCo,

1189
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:56,120
Speaker 3: on the other hand, tries to create a sonic weapon

1190
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:59,800
Speaker 3: to broadcast at the ants, accepted as excruciating to humans

1191
01:03:59,840 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 3: and cracks all the glass and the sonic weapon works.

1192
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 3: It does shatter and crumble the pillars. But then we

1193
01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 3: also get ants attacking, continuing to attack the electric wires

1194
01:04:11,200 --> 01:04:15,040
Speaker 3: inside the facility, and there's a great scene of ant revenge.

1195
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:17,760
Speaker 3: I mean, this movie really does kind of have ant characters,

1196
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:20,320
Speaker 3: Like you can see them fighting their side of the

1197
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 3: battle too, because like some of the mantises from the

1198
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:25,680
Speaker 3: experiments have gotten loose and they're trying to prey on

1199
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 3: ants as they're doing their business. But there's some ant

1200
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 3: revenge when an ant grabs a praying mantis's leg and

1201
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 3: pulls it into a circuit board and it is fried.

1202
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, how often do you see a bug

1203
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:42,320
Speaker 1: movie with two bugs battling it out like actual bugs

1204
01:04:42,800 --> 01:04:45,960
Speaker 1: in miniature in this artificial set like this must have

1205
01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:47,600
Speaker 1: been quite a challenge to put together.

1206
01:04:48,000 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 3: Now, Hubbs is not doing well because of the venomous

1207
01:04:50,880 --> 01:04:53,320
Speaker 3: ant bite on his hand, and we get some narration

1208
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 3: where he says, I'm taking one of my less painful

1209
01:04:55,560 --> 01:04:59,040
Speaker 3: moments to record these notes. Our equipment only functions for

1210
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:02,720
Speaker 3: a few hours at LESCo believes we're being allowed this

1211
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:06,280
Speaker 3: time for some purpose, a hypothesis I do not share.

1212
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:09,440
Speaker 3: If this were so, it would raise questions I had

1213
01:05:09,480 --> 01:05:13,360
Speaker 3: not considered. And here's a really cool part where LESCo

1214
01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:16,560
Speaker 3: tries sending a message to the ants. It's an audio message,

1215
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 3: but he uses it to encode because he figures out

1216
01:05:20,080 --> 01:05:22,320
Speaker 3: that the ants have a code that they communicate in

1217
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:26,280
Speaker 3: about directions, and so he can send them images. And

1218
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:29,760
Speaker 3: so he sends them an image of a square, reasoning

1219
01:05:29,960 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 3: I didn't fully make the connection here, but I think

1220
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:35,080
Speaker 3: it's something about geometry. He says, like, mathematics is the

1221
01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:39,200
Speaker 3: universal language among intelligent creatures. If there's intelligence there, I

1222
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 3: want it to know there's intelligence here. So he sends

1223
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:42,680
Speaker 3: it a square.

1224
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love this because you know it's getting to

1225
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:49,560
Speaker 1: the I buy into this idea in mathematics is going

1226
01:05:49,600 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: to be the universal language that on some level the

1227
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:55,600
Speaker 1: ants understand it, we understand it. And I really love

1228
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 1: this idea that like, the ants might not realize that

1229
01:05:59,120 --> 01:06:02,320
Speaker 1: we are intelligent two, you know, they could just be

1230
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:05,200
Speaker 1: blind to this fact. And how do we possibly communicate

1231
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:09,080
Speaker 1: with ants and let them know this, but things.

1232
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:12,400
Speaker 3: Get progressively worse inside the dome. There's a creepy scene

1233
01:06:12,520 --> 01:06:15,480
Speaker 3: where Kendra is menaced by ants while she's sleeping. She

1234
01:06:15,960 --> 01:06:19,400
Speaker 3: sees an ant on her pillow and says, go away,

1235
01:06:19,480 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 3: please go away, and then hubbs, possibly because of his

1236
01:06:23,720 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 3: venomous ant bite, or possibly from the interaction of that

1237
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:30,920
Speaker 3: bite with his pre existing mad scientist disease. He starts

1238
01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:33,640
Speaker 3: going nuts and smashing things, trying to kill ants he

1239
01:06:33,720 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 3: sees or believes he sees. He gets a really bad

1240
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 3: case of I attached a picture for you to look

1241
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:43,080
Speaker 3: at here, Rob kind of mad scientist eyes like. He

1242
01:06:43,120 --> 01:06:45,040
Speaker 3: looks like he's about to start talking about how he

1243
01:06:45,040 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 3: should have won a Nobel prize but the narrow minded

1244
01:06:47,680 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 3: academics stole it from him. And he thinks he kills

1245
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 3: an ant, but I can't tell if he actually did.

1246
01:06:54,200 --> 01:06:56,480
Speaker 3: He just sort of pulls back a bloody hand. I'm

1247
01:06:56,520 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 3: not sure he had.

1248
01:06:57,280 --> 01:06:59,800
Speaker 1: Here's some shattered glass on the floor and he manages

1249
01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:02,520
Speaker 1: his hand up. We don't see an end. Hey, then

1250
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,720
Speaker 1: his Phase three buddy, Yeah, yep, We're getting down to

1251
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:09,600
Speaker 1: the final of the This is the pinultimate phase. Yeah.

1252
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 1: Phase four is going to really blow you away. And

1253
01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:13,600
Speaker 1: this is this is where we're getting there.

1254
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 3: So we see LESCo and Hubbs in their bunks, and

1255
01:07:16,440 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 3: Lesco's wondering, why don't they kill us? You know, they

1256
01:07:18,920 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 3: roast us in here all day and then they dare

1257
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:23,360
Speaker 3: us to come out at night. Why why do they

1258
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 3: Why do they play these games? Why don't they just

1259
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:28,560
Speaker 3: kill us? Now? What do they want? And Hubbs talks

1260
01:07:28,600 --> 01:07:31,560
Speaker 3: about ant specialization. He says, you know, ants are organized

1261
01:07:31,600 --> 01:07:34,400
Speaker 3: into roles by the queen in order to keep her alive.

1262
01:07:34,520 --> 01:07:36,400
Speaker 3: He says, she's at the center. It is she who

1263
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 3: speaks if she were to die, and then they hash

1264
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:43,000
Speaker 3: out their different views about what should be done next,

1265
01:07:43,040 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 3: how to proceed. Hubbs thinks, let's locate the queen and killer.

1266
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:50,800
Speaker 3: That's our only way, and LESCo says, ants have all

1267
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 3: the cards. The only way to survive is to convince

1268
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 3: them that we're worth keeping alive.

1269
01:07:55,960 --> 01:07:59,800
Speaker 1: M It is interesting here where you know Hubbs and

1270
01:08:00,080 --> 01:08:02,280
Speaker 1: focusing more and more on the queen, and so he

1271
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:05,040
Speaker 1: ends up focusing more and more on the individual as

1272
01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:08,000
Speaker 1: opposed to the group, whereas I think LESCo still seems

1273
01:08:08,040 --> 01:08:11,479
Speaker 1: to be more of the mindset it's like a it's

1274
01:08:11,480 --> 01:08:14,360
Speaker 1: the mass we need to communicate with. So I feel

1275
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:17,040
Speaker 1: like the focus on the individual is perhaps just more

1276
01:08:17,080 --> 01:08:18,800
Speaker 1: a part of Hubbs's madness.

1277
01:08:19,120 --> 01:08:21,479
Speaker 3: Right, and oh and here's a scene I did love.

1278
01:08:21,560 --> 01:08:25,240
Speaker 3: So the ants want to communicate that LESCo transmitted the

1279
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:30,000
Speaker 3: square to them earlier. They transmit back. They make vocalizations

1280
01:08:30,040 --> 01:08:33,479
Speaker 3: that the computer can interpret and it prints what they say.

1281
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:36,240
Speaker 3: And what they say is in response to the square.

1282
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 3: They say, a circle with a dot in it. What

1283
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:39,760
Speaker 3: does that mean?

1284
01:08:40,120 --> 01:08:42,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, they start to saying, well, maybe that's here. It's

1285
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:45,240
Speaker 1: a map. They want something in here. We should look

1286
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 1: around and see if we find it. And that's pretty

1287
01:08:47,640 --> 01:08:50,600
Speaker 1: great because Kindra is suddenly like, oh, they must mean me,

1288
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:55,839
Speaker 1: because I smashed an ant in the research room earlier.

1289
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:59,960
Speaker 1: I will go out into the wild without my shoes on, rightady,

1290
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:02,040
Speaker 1: to sacrifice herself for these scientists.

1291
01:09:02,320 --> 01:09:05,680
Speaker 3: Yes, She's like, the ants want me, and if I go,

1292
01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 3: I commit aunt suicide. Then the scientists will get away,

1293
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:12,400
Speaker 3: all right, rub there's a picture I included here, not

1294
01:09:12,400 --> 01:09:15,120
Speaker 3: because anything interesting is going on. It's just Hubbs sitting

1295
01:09:15,200 --> 01:09:17,800
Speaker 3: at a desk. But I included it because I don't

1296
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,120
Speaker 3: know what these boxes are, but it looks like he

1297
01:09:20,120 --> 01:09:22,840
Speaker 3: has several sticks of butter sitting on the console in

1298
01:09:22,880 --> 01:09:23,479
Speaker 3: front of him.

1299
01:09:23,640 --> 01:09:25,400
Speaker 1: It does look like it. There's also a scene where

1300
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:27,160
Speaker 1: he because basically he's convinced, I got to go out

1301
01:09:27,160 --> 01:09:29,640
Speaker 1: and kill the queen. They I what they where? They

1302
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:31,639
Speaker 1: think the mound is where the queen can be found.

1303
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:34,160
Speaker 1: And he goes to get the grenade launcher out again,

1304
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:36,720
Speaker 1: but there are no grenades left because he used all

1305
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:38,719
Speaker 1: of them to blow up the monoliths earlier.

1306
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:41,840
Speaker 3: Why why, buddy.

1307
01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:44,280
Speaker 1: So he's gonna have to do it the old fashioned way.

1308
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:47,439
Speaker 1: He's gonna have to take a canister of the blue

1309
01:09:47,760 --> 01:09:51,280
Speaker 1: out there and poison his way across there the ant

1310
01:09:51,320 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 1: dominated waste plant and make his way to the queen

1311
01:09:56,240 --> 01:09:57,920
Speaker 1: and try and poison her there. That seems to be

1312
01:09:57,960 --> 01:09:58,519
Speaker 1: the plan.

1313
01:09:58,800 --> 01:10:02,160
Speaker 3: But Hubbs goes out to attack the queen, and so

1314
01:10:02,320 --> 01:10:05,439
Speaker 3: Kindra has already gone out to sacrifice herself to the ants,

1315
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:08,080
Speaker 3: and we see her just sort of disappear. Hubbs goes

1316
01:10:08,080 --> 01:10:11,560
Speaker 3: out and falls into a pit trap. The ants construct

1317
01:10:11,600 --> 01:10:14,720
Speaker 3: a pit trap. This is amazing connection to the core

1318
01:10:14,760 --> 01:10:15,479
Speaker 3: episode we did.

1319
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:18,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we were talking about pit traps and why

1320
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:21,760
Speaker 1: we don't like studies about why we don't see more

1321
01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:24,479
Speaker 1: pit traps in nature. You know, how about how ultimately

1322
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:27,439
Speaker 1: a pit trap is is easy to build, it doesn't

1323
01:10:27,640 --> 01:10:30,880
Speaker 1: require that much energy. And we talk about ants potentially

1324
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:33,760
Speaker 1: building traps as well. And so because of all that,

1325
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:36,439
Speaker 1: and then having sort of developed a vague interest in

1326
01:10:36,479 --> 01:10:40,240
Speaker 1: this film based on our previous episode about ants potentially

1327
01:10:40,280 --> 01:10:43,519
Speaker 1: building traps, to suddenly be hit with this scene, I

1328
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:46,439
Speaker 1: think I exclaimed aloud. It was just it's such a shock.

1329
01:10:46,479 --> 01:10:47,400
Speaker 1: It's a great sequence.

1330
01:10:47,640 --> 01:10:50,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. And of course he's immediately swarmed by ants.

1331
01:10:50,160 --> 01:10:54,479
Speaker 3: He gets landed puranaed by the ant, and so now

1332
01:10:54,479 --> 01:10:57,080
Speaker 3: it's just down to LESCo Is Michael Murphy. He's like,

1333
01:10:57,200 --> 01:11:00,400
Speaker 3: I gotta do it. So he delivers this model that's

1334
01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:02,680
Speaker 3: full of regret. He says, like, I would still like

1335
01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:04,639
Speaker 3: to believe that if we'd had more time, we could

1336
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:08,000
Speaker 3: have come to an understanding, some rational accommodation of interest,

1337
01:11:08,160 --> 01:11:10,800
Speaker 3: some agreement. But that's not the way it's going to be.

1338
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:14,400
Speaker 3: So he suits up, just starts spraying the blue everywhere,

1339
01:11:15,320 --> 01:11:17,640
Speaker 3: and finally he's come around to Hub's position. He's like,

1340
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:20,360
Speaker 3: we only have one chance. We got to assassinate the queen.

1341
01:11:21,160 --> 01:11:23,679
Speaker 3: So he goes up to the mound where the queen

1342
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:26,439
Speaker 3: is supposed to be. But then I guess there's sort

1343
01:11:26,479 --> 01:11:28,640
Speaker 3: of another pit trap because he's as he's trying to

1344
01:11:28,640 --> 01:11:30,840
Speaker 3: go in, he ends up sliding and he falls in.

1345
01:11:31,439 --> 01:11:33,680
Speaker 1: Oh but then we should mention on the way to

1346
01:11:33,880 --> 01:11:35,920
Speaker 1: the mound, like he's having all sorts of mishaps. He

1347
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:38,479
Speaker 1: starts out in his full protective suit, but oh right,

1348
01:11:38,600 --> 01:11:41,280
Speaker 1: he like falls and breaks the glass. Ants get into

1349
01:11:41,320 --> 01:11:43,439
Speaker 1: the mask and are biting his face, and so by

1350
01:11:43,479 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 1: the time he gets here he has no protective gear

1351
01:11:46,320 --> 01:11:49,599
Speaker 1: on it all, he has no shoes on it. All right,

1352
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:53,680
Speaker 1: it's and we have the narration of, you know, of

1353
01:11:53,800 --> 01:11:56,160
Speaker 1: just how worn out and on the end of things

1354
01:11:56,160 --> 01:11:56,479
Speaker 1: he is.

1355
01:11:56,920 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 3: But then here we get to the ending, and the

1356
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:03,680
Speaker 3: ending is so weird, and I love this, and there

1357
01:12:03,680 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 3: are a couple of things I think we can say

1358
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:07,720
Speaker 3: about what the ending could have been also. But in

1359
01:12:07,800 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 3: the end he goes down in to find the queen,

1360
01:12:10,400 --> 01:12:13,120
Speaker 3: and instead of finding the queen, he finds a room

1361
01:12:13,720 --> 01:12:16,800
Speaker 3: with a with a like a rectangular doorway as if

1362
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:20,360
Speaker 3: it was built for humans inside the ant mound, and

1363
01:12:20,560 --> 01:12:24,320
Speaker 3: inside this room Buried underneath the sand is Kendra, who

1364
01:12:24,360 --> 01:12:27,360
Speaker 3: appears to be maybe still alive or in some suspended

1365
01:12:27,400 --> 01:12:31,640
Speaker 3: animation state, and Michael Murphy sort of surrenders to the

1366
01:12:31,720 --> 01:12:35,680
Speaker 3: ants and he knows that the ants have won and

1367
01:12:35,720 --> 01:12:39,080
Speaker 3: they're going to keep winning, and essentially that the ants

1368
01:12:39,080 --> 01:12:41,120
Speaker 3: are going to be the new rulers of the Earth,

1369
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:44,000
Speaker 3: but they're not going to be killed. The ants have

1370
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:47,040
Speaker 3: some kind of plans for them, and he's just ready

1371
01:12:47,080 --> 01:12:47,599
Speaker 3: to obey.

1372
01:12:48,200 --> 01:12:51,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a it's a great like suddenly just

1373
01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:57,400
Speaker 1: very trippy and psychedelic sequence, you know, with images of

1374
01:12:57,920 --> 01:13:00,320
Speaker 1: a setting a rising sun. I guess ultimately it's supposed

1375
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:01,880
Speaker 1: to be rising the I feel like they might have

1376
01:13:01,920 --> 01:13:04,839
Speaker 1: filmed a setting sun and then reversed it or something.

1377
01:13:05,840 --> 01:13:12,400
Speaker 1: But very very orange, very very warming, beautiful sequence that

1378
01:13:13,080 --> 01:13:15,640
Speaker 1: again just really kicks the film into high gear, like

1379
01:13:15,640 --> 01:13:20,719
Speaker 1: suddenly we're in pure visionary filmmaking mode and we're gazing

1380
01:13:20,760 --> 01:13:23,679
Speaker 1: into the future. These two have been chosen by the ants.

1381
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:25,720
Speaker 1: They don't know what their purpose is going to be

1382
01:13:25,840 --> 01:13:27,680
Speaker 1: or what this new world is going to consist of,

1383
01:13:27,720 --> 01:13:30,719
Speaker 1: but there I guess they're going to be the profits

1384
01:13:30,720 --> 01:13:33,240
Speaker 1: of the New Age or the spokespeople of the ants

1385
01:13:33,400 --> 01:13:34,560
Speaker 1: or anabassadors.

1386
01:13:35,160 --> 01:13:37,200
Speaker 3: They're like the Yeah, I was thinking, are they going

1387
01:13:37,240 --> 01:13:39,360
Speaker 3: to be used as the ambassadors to the rest of

1388
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:42,240
Speaker 3: humanity to like explain to them that the ants are

1389
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:45,639
Speaker 3: in charge? Now, that's sort of the idea I got.

1390
01:13:46,120 --> 01:13:48,800
Speaker 3: They're the I for one, welcome our new aunt overlords.

1391
01:13:49,160 --> 01:13:52,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's also hinted like maybe they're gonna it's

1392
01:13:52,760 --> 01:13:54,720
Speaker 1: gonna be the beginning of a new species. They're like that,

1393
01:13:54,760 --> 01:13:57,519
Speaker 1: the Adam and Eve of the New Ant World.

1394
01:13:58,000 --> 01:13:59,920
Speaker 3: But so the version of the movie I saw had

1395
01:14:00,200 --> 01:14:03,200
Speaker 3: shorter ending, but there actually is an alternate ending.

1396
01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:06,400
Speaker 1: Yes, now this one. According to Michael Weldon, this one

1397
01:14:06,560 --> 01:14:10,479
Speaker 1: was cut at the request of the studio because the

1398
01:14:10,960 --> 01:14:15,520
Speaker 1: lost ending the original ending is even more nut so psychedelic.

1399
01:14:15,600 --> 01:14:19,160
Speaker 1: It reminds me a lot of how Disney's The Black

1400
01:14:19,160 --> 01:14:22,560
Speaker 1: Hole from nineteen seventy nine also originally had a far trippier,

1401
01:14:22,680 --> 01:14:27,479
Speaker 1: weirder like quasi religious ending with our characters emerging in

1402
01:14:27,520 --> 01:14:31,519
Speaker 1: the afterlife and humans and robots merging together, and then

1403
01:14:31,560 --> 01:14:33,679
Speaker 1: like the studio apparently it's like that is too weird.

1404
01:14:33,720 --> 01:14:38,680
Speaker 1: This is a mainstream motion picture. But yeah, similar thing

1405
01:14:38,720 --> 01:14:41,080
Speaker 1: going here because the Lost ending, like the actual ending

1406
01:14:41,080 --> 01:14:43,320
Speaker 1: that we get in the theatrical cut of the film,

1407
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:48,280
Speaker 1: is very satisfying, very trippy, very visual. But the Lost

1408
01:14:48,400 --> 01:14:52,080
Speaker 1: ending is just an absolute heroic dose of cinematic surrealism.

1409
01:14:52,479 --> 01:14:52,800
Speaker 3: Uh huh.

1410
01:14:53,280 --> 01:14:55,840
Speaker 1: So this ending is even longer. I think it's like

1411
01:14:56,400 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 1: seven or eight minutes total, and it gives us this

1412
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:03,559
Speaker 1: sort of muadib fever dream vision of a future world

1413
01:15:03,960 --> 01:15:07,360
Speaker 1: in which ant civilization dominates humans. And all of this

1414
01:15:07,439 --> 01:15:11,240
Speaker 1: is presented very you know, surreally and abstractly, with visual

1415
01:15:11,280 --> 01:15:16,519
Speaker 1: flashes and confuse occasionally, like confusing number tags. We see

1416
01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:20,800
Speaker 1: flashes of ant mega projects and human scampering across them

1417
01:15:21,120 --> 01:15:24,160
Speaker 1: like ants. We see visions of human beings I guess

1418
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:29,920
Speaker 1: in servitude to ants, strangers with magnifying loops on their heads,

1419
01:15:30,000 --> 01:15:32,439
Speaker 1: you know, magnification devices over their eyes, so I guess

1420
01:15:32,479 --> 01:15:36,599
Speaker 1: they can see their masters better. There's a faceless human

1421
01:15:36,720 --> 01:15:39,720
Speaker 1: that pops up, perhaps the result of some sort of

1422
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:42,759
Speaker 1: ant derived human, you know, he's like a drone or something.

1423
01:15:43,479 --> 01:15:48,600
Speaker 1: We see James and Kindred's faces becoming one. There's you know,

1424
01:15:48,840 --> 01:15:53,599
Speaker 1: some sort of erotic flashes of human bodies. There's oh,

1425
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:55,479
Speaker 1: and there's just so much going on that Like it's

1426
01:15:55,640 --> 01:15:58,360
Speaker 1: it's like a crazy music video with all sorts of

1427
01:15:58,640 --> 01:16:02,320
Speaker 1: strange surreal sek. There's a bald guy buried in the

1428
01:16:02,360 --> 01:16:04,599
Speaker 1: sand with a hole in his head and ants come

1429
01:16:04,680 --> 01:16:05,679
Speaker 1: crawling out the hole.

1430
01:16:06,640 --> 01:16:08,720
Speaker 3: It's just eleven thirty eight.

1431
01:16:08,840 --> 01:16:11,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's like it just goes into like

1432
01:16:12,080 --> 01:16:16,960
Speaker 1: just extreme visual mode. And and I think it works

1433
01:16:17,360 --> 01:16:20,240
Speaker 1: into a large extent because it is it is the

1434
01:16:20,400 --> 01:16:25,320
Speaker 1: ant future loosely translated into some sort of visual form

1435
01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:27,320
Speaker 1: that the humans can understand.

1436
01:16:27,600 --> 01:16:29,559
Speaker 3: I would say actually that I think with the long ending,

1437
01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:32,080
Speaker 3: the whole point of like that the abstract imagery and

1438
01:16:32,120 --> 01:16:35,000
Speaker 3: stuff is is to say that we can't understand it.

1439
01:16:35,120 --> 01:16:37,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, when we can, we can we can sort

1440
01:16:37,560 --> 01:16:40,160
Speaker 1: of glimpse it. Yeah, we can't fully understand like why

1441
01:16:40,200 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 1: the ants have done this, that and the other. Like

1442
01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 1: what the full vision is here?

1443
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:47,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, that the future of humans under an earth controlled

1444
01:16:47,880 --> 01:16:51,240
Speaker 3: by ants is going to be so bewildering and incomprehensible

1445
01:16:51,280 --> 01:16:53,679
Speaker 3: to us. It would be like, you know, like what

1446
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:56,519
Speaker 3: we do with an experiment like ants trying to understand

1447
01:16:56,520 --> 01:16:58,439
Speaker 3: why they're in a maze in a laboratory. It just

1448
01:16:58,520 --> 01:16:59,800
Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense to them.

1449
01:17:00,240 --> 01:17:04,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in this extended you know, ultimately rejected ending,

1450
01:17:04,640 --> 01:17:08,880
Speaker 1: I think it also it it's beautiful but also horrifying

1451
01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:12,240
Speaker 1: at times, like the dude with no face. There's another

1452
01:17:12,240 --> 01:17:14,479
Speaker 1: guy with like some sort of weird implants in his head,

1453
01:17:14,560 --> 01:17:18,320
Speaker 1: Like you get the sense that, yeah, an ant dominated

1454
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:21,679
Speaker 1: world in which humans still have a role, it's going

1455
01:17:21,720 --> 01:17:25,040
Speaker 1: to be very different. It's not going to be altogether pleasant.

1456
01:17:25,760 --> 01:17:28,800
Speaker 1: It's it's yeah, this is a strange ending. It is

1457
01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:32,880
Speaker 1: a strange message to potentially hit the viewer with. And

1458
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:36,400
Speaker 1: I have to say I understand. I understand why the

1459
01:17:36,439 --> 01:17:39,519
Speaker 1: studio probably came in and they're like, Saul, Saul, what

1460
01:17:39,560 --> 01:17:41,760
Speaker 1: are you doing? What are you doing with this? You know,

1461
01:17:41,840 --> 01:17:43,880
Speaker 1: we can't do this ending? You know.

1462
01:17:44,160 --> 01:17:46,160
Speaker 3: I like it. I like the long, weird ending. I

1463
01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:47,960
Speaker 3: like the part where the at least humans are up

1464
01:17:47,960 --> 01:17:50,320
Speaker 3: on like a zigarot. That's interesting.

1465
01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:53,760
Speaker 1: No, I love everything about the extended ending. And I

1466
01:17:53,760 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 1: think if you go out and watch this film, you

1467
01:17:56,040 --> 01:17:57,759
Speaker 1: need to make sure you get to see the extended

1468
01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:00,719
Speaker 1: ending as well, and you can choose which one you prefer.

1469
01:18:00,840 --> 01:18:04,080
Speaker 1: But I totally get why the studio was like, you

1470
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:06,800
Speaker 1: can't do this, No, No, you've got to scale back

1471
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:08,280
Speaker 1: on this. This is too weird.

1472
01:18:08,720 --> 01:18:10,800
Speaker 3: Well, I guess that's it. Phase four an ode to

1473
01:18:10,880 --> 01:18:15,240
Speaker 3: our future use social overlords. That's A. That's a. That's

1474
01:18:15,240 --> 01:18:16,519
Speaker 3: a pretty great ant movie.

1475
01:18:17,200 --> 01:18:19,000
Speaker 1: This is the best ant movie I've ever seen. This

1476
01:18:19,040 --> 01:18:21,760
Speaker 1: may be the best. I don't know if it's the

1477
01:18:21,760 --> 01:18:24,880
Speaker 1: best animal tack movies I've seen. It's certainly an animal

1478
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:28,679
Speaker 1: tack movie where the animals have the best strategy. They're

1479
01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:31,479
Speaker 1: not just swarming us, they're out thinking us. So, hey,

1480
01:18:31,600 --> 01:18:33,680
Speaker 1: you want to watch phase four as well? You want

1481
01:18:33,680 --> 01:18:36,519
Speaker 1: to reach phase four? Well, you can watch this film

1482
01:18:36,560 --> 01:18:39,800
Speaker 1: pretty much wherever you rent or purchase digital movies. All

1483
01:18:39,800 --> 01:18:41,559
Speaker 1: of Films put out of what seems like a nice

1484
01:18:41,560 --> 01:18:44,280
Speaker 1: blu ray of it in the US not too long ago.

1485
01:18:44,920 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 1: One oh one Films put out a really nice blue

1486
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:49,200
Speaker 1: ray in the UK, and I believe they also put

1487
01:18:49,200 --> 01:18:52,639
Speaker 1: one out in the US as well. I highly recommend

1488
01:18:52,680 --> 01:18:54,920
Speaker 1: you find a version that includes the original ending as

1489
01:18:54,960 --> 01:18:57,719
Speaker 1: an extra. Sometimes you might be able to find that extra,

1490
01:18:57,760 --> 01:19:01,200
Speaker 1: you know, floating around online, but that's not really and ultimately,

1491
01:19:01,240 --> 01:19:03,800
Speaker 1: you want high quality for this. So I know the

1492
01:19:03,880 --> 01:19:07,000
Speaker 1: one oh one Films Blue has the extended ending as

1493
01:19:07,040 --> 01:19:10,320
Speaker 1: an extra, and if you purchase the movie but not

1494
01:19:10,439 --> 01:19:13,599
Speaker 1: rent it on Apple TV, then you get access to

1495
01:19:13,640 --> 01:19:18,280
Speaker 1: this extra, but you do have to purchase it through there.

1496
01:19:18,280 --> 01:19:21,120
Speaker 1: Otherwise you just rent it and you get the theatrical ending.

1497
01:19:21,600 --> 01:19:25,519
Speaker 1: Oh and as for the soundtrack, Waxwork Records put out

1498
01:19:25,520 --> 01:19:30,799
Speaker 1: a really beautiful yellow vinyl of this with stunning jacket design,

1499
01:19:30,960 --> 01:19:33,880
Speaker 1: full of production art by Saul bass, stills from that

1500
01:19:33,960 --> 01:19:36,559
Speaker 1: lost ending, and expansive liner note. So this is really

1501
01:19:36,640 --> 01:19:39,439
Speaker 1: cool work looking. If you're a if you collect vinyl

1502
01:19:39,439 --> 01:19:42,080
Speaker 1: and this kind of soundtrack is your thing, you should

1503
01:19:42,120 --> 01:19:43,920
Speaker 1: check this out. I think they might have put out

1504
01:19:43,920 --> 01:19:47,400
Speaker 1: a CD release as well, but I couldn't find a

1505
01:19:47,400 --> 01:19:51,320
Speaker 1: good place to just stream the soundtrack, you know, Like,

1506
01:19:51,360 --> 01:19:53,000
Speaker 1: I don't think it's up on any of the streaming

1507
01:19:53,040 --> 01:19:55,920
Speaker 1: sites at least as of this recording. All right, well,

1508
01:19:55,960 --> 01:19:57,280
Speaker 1: we're going to go ahead and close it out then,

1509
01:19:57,439 --> 01:20:00,360
Speaker 1: but we'd love to hear from everyone out there thoughts

1510
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:03,559
Speaker 1: on phase four having seen it recently, having seen it

1511
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:05,040
Speaker 1: back in the day, did you see it? Were you

1512
01:20:05,080 --> 01:20:06,479
Speaker 1: one of the few people that apparently saw it in

1513
01:20:06,520 --> 01:20:09,800
Speaker 1: theaters back in the nineteen seventies, whatever your answer is,

1514
01:20:09,840 --> 01:20:13,479
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. As always, Weird House

1515
01:20:13,520 --> 01:20:16,960
Speaker 1: Cinema publishes every Friday. You can find it in the

1516
01:20:16,960 --> 01:20:19,120
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily a

1517
01:20:19,160 --> 01:20:22,200
Speaker 1: science podcast, but you know, we like to set most

1518
01:20:22,240 --> 01:20:24,920
Speaker 1: serious matters aside on Fridays and just discuss a strange

1519
01:20:24,920 --> 01:20:26,760
Speaker 1: film and in this case, you know, sometimes it's a

1520
01:20:26,800 --> 01:20:31,360
Speaker 1: film that ties in with recent serious episodes we've recorded.

1521
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:36,040
Speaker 1: If you want to follow Weird House Cinema on Instagram,

1522
01:20:36,080 --> 01:20:38,560
Speaker 1: I created an Instagram for it. It's Weird House Cinema.

1523
01:20:38,640 --> 01:20:40,680
Speaker 1: That's the name of the show. That's the name of

1524
01:20:40,680 --> 01:20:43,639
Speaker 1: the Instagram account. And then also I put up blog

1525
01:20:43,680 --> 01:20:48,120
Speaker 1: posts about these episodes at Simmuta music dot com. That's

1526
01:20:48,120 --> 01:20:50,160
Speaker 1: a linked on the Instagram if you want to get there.

1527
01:20:50,680 --> 01:20:54,040
Speaker 1: But whenever we refer to other pieces of media that

1528
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:57,080
Speaker 1: are related to it, other trailers, other bits of music.

1529
01:20:57,560 --> 01:20:59,760
Speaker 1: That's often where I will stash that for your easy

1530
01:20:59,800 --> 01:21:00,400
Speaker 1: case assumption.

1531
01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:04,120
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

1532
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:06,519
Speaker 3: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

1533
01:21:06,560 --> 01:21:08,720
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1534
01:21:08,840 --> 01:21:11,240
Speaker 3: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1535
01:21:11,640 --> 01:21:14,200
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

1536
01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:22,479
Speaker 3: Your Mind dot com.

1537
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:25,600
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1538
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:28,479
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1539
01:21:28,600 --> 01:21:31,360
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.