WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Phase IV 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.880 Rob Lamb. Hey, we have a really fun one for 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.360 you here today. This is an episode that originally published 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.960 in January of twenty twenty two, concerning the nineteen seventy 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.960 four film Phase four. Yes, this is an ANT movie, 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.119 but it also might be the trippiest mind blowing ant 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:26.800 movie of all time. It's a lot of fun. Really 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.120 enjoyed watching this one and then chatting with Joe about it. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:31.560 So let's jump right in. 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:40.600 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:46.520 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.120 This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.920 And today we are discussing We're not only discussing an 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.920 ant movie, which of course is a subset of killer 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.280 bug movies in general. We are discussing what my be 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.720 the ant movie, the most ambitious ANT movie in many ways, 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.520 the most perplexing and thought provoking ANT movie. I'm super 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.120 excited to talk about it. Actually just had as a 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.679 pre recording snack a couple of ants on a log 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.039 I got off the the celery and peanut butter and 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:20.760 the raisins It just felt appropriate. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.640 You know, I feel like that reflects our higher ant 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.160 consciousness now, because the important thing to understand about ants 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.320 is they don't even mind if you eat a few 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:29.720 of them. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:30.200 You know. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.120 That's sort of like the it's like the skin cells 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.000 that you would scrape off of somebody's hand while hugging them. 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.000 You know, it just like doesn't bother the colony as 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.560 a whole. And I would say that's actually reflective of 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.680 the movie we're talking about today overall. The movie is 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:51.680 the nineteen seventies sci fi ant flick Phase Four, which 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:56.960 we alluded to possibly doing an episode in our Core 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.600 episode about ants building traps. We talked about some biology 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.760 papers about ant behaviors, whether whether these structures ants build 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:08.360 should be understood as traps or not. But this movie 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.240 came up because we were talking about ant movies and 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.520 I said, you know, there's this ant movie I've been 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.560 looking at in the video store for years, just based 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.959 on the DVD cover. It's called Phase four. The cover 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.639 is like this kind of cool design, but it's got 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.639 ants crawling out of a hole in somebody's hand. Never 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.239 seen it, and we went in just based on the 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.480 DVD cover. I'd say this was a hit. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.760 Yeah, yeah, after we had we had already decided this 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.800 is the one. I actually received word from someone on 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.000 the stuff to blow your mind. Discord email us if 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.880 you want to invite to that who They were like, yeah, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:42.239 this is this one's good. You're going to want to 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.440 cover this one for a weird house. I also have, 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.519 of course, looked it up when we were talking about it. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.680 I looked it up in Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Encyclopedia film 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.040 in which he called it quote a great science fiction 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.280 thriller starring countless real ants. Yeah, so that was a 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.320 solid endorsement, but it still was able to prepare me 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:02.600 for all that was to come. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.400 Well, So, when I look at the other side of 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.160 the critical response to this movie, I think some people 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.200 have been kind of critical of it lacking in human depth. 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.520 And I'll say, okay, I'm with them there. I mean 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.320 that this is not really a humans movie, and the 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.520 human characters there are few of them, and the ones 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.720 that are there, we don't learn much about them, and 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.919 they're not super dimensional. But I think that's okay because 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.600 this is a movie that encourages you to also see 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.480 humans as sort of just sells on the whole body 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:34.560 of the human species. 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:40.120 Yeah, yeah, and in very delightful ways. It is. It 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.320 is a movie almost by ants for ants. It is 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.839 a movie that is one fresh on ant rotten tomatoes. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.560 It is. It is such an interesting film in so 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.920 many ways, like it's going to be fun to discuss everything. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.480 I'm almost not sure where to art here. 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.360 You know, the funny thing about ant Rotten Tomatoes is 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.120 there are no in between scores. It's either one hundred 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:07.640 percent or zero percent every. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.000 Time they're unified. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.080 Well, maybe we should talk about ant movies more generally, 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.440 because this is, of course not the only one. In fact, 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.960 I had a very powerful, vivid memory that came rushing 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.880 back to me just the other day when when I 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.840 started trying to recall if I'd seen other ant movies before, 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.400 and it was a memory of being about twelve years 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:33.359 old and watching this terrible made for TV killer ant 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.640 movie that I think was on the Fox network or 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.680 one of those you know, it was one of those 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.440 made for TV movies that they used to advertise in 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.279 the weeks leading up to it, so they'd have a 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.800 commercial with you know, Don la Fontaine or somebody on 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.880 there saying this Sunday at eight nine Central, you will 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.720 learn the true meaning of terror ants and you'd get 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.360 a music sting and man that I don't know if 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.960 they focus group tested that or whatever, but that worked 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.880 on my twelve year old brain. That was like, I 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.120 had to make an appointment to watch a movie that 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.080 I went back and looked up and I found out 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:13.000 it is called Marra Bunta Colon Legion of Fire, and 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.440 I rewatched the trailer and ooh, this looks stinky. It 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.240 looks like it is no good. It has some absolutely 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.839 atrocious CGI ants, stripping a moose clean down to the 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.800 bone like piranhas on Land. It does have Mitch Poleggi 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.479 from the X Files and Shocker, and it also has 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:34.920 something that's common to some of these ant movies where 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.520 there are scenes of columns of army ants that are 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.839 treated like rivers of molten lava and a volcano movie. 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:43.800 So you get, I don't know, a kid stranded up 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:45.839 on top of a crate and then on all sides 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:47.920 of them, the ants are just flowing and they've got 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.040 to jump over them to get to safety or something. 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:53.839 What is it with Shocker connections? We're gonna have another 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.560 one of those coming out, that's right. So I guess 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.520 when I think of ANT movies that I saw as 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.200 a kid, I my mind probably goes to nineteen fifty 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.880 four as them because this one was in I think 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.520 it was in pretty tight rotation on like the turner 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.400 stations back in the day, like there was a pretty 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.320 good chance you're going to catch part of them, you know, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.919 especially on like a Sunday afternoon. But other notable ANT 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.440 movies include nineteen seventy seven's Empire of the Ants. There's 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.320 also nineteen seventy seven's TV movie Ants with an exclamation Point, 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:37.320 starring everyone's favorite work bist Robert Foxworth of what was it? 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.200 Can't you remember the name of that movie? 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.640 Death Moon or deth Moon Death Moon Fame, But that 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:48.159 one also starred Suzanne Summers, Brian Denahey, Anita Gillette. This 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:50.800 is the actor who played Liz Lemon's mom on thirty Rock, 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:52.080 and also Bernie Casey. 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.360 So does Foxworth play another work beast in this movie? 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:57.120 I don't know. 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.480 I'm guessing, like, yeah, maybe a laid back work beast 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.640 that has to go up against in this case. Ants. 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.680 I haven't seen it, but oh, okay, it sounds good. 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.880 A question about them though. Them is a movie not 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.880 with regular ants, but with big ants, right, It's like 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:14.880 an atomic age mutation movie. 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.160 Correct. Correct? And I think that leads into our next 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.440 major distinction to make here. When we're talking about ant movies, 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.040 you're gonna either deal with giant ant movies or you're 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.120 gonna deal with normal sized ants. So it's either going 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.400 to be a giant bug feature or it's going to 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.840 be a swarm feature. And what's interesting about that is 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.760 when you have the giant ant, it's going to be 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.240 more about individual ants. That's the spectacle of it, right. 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.480 This generally you're doing a lot to get one giant 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:47.760 ant on the screen, But when you're dealing with the swarm, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.160 of course, you have this more accurate reflection of what 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.840 ants are. They are not the individual, they are the group. 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.880 Yeah, I think that's right, and I would say broadly, 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.600 I think i'd break ant movies into three category. So 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.920 you've got your giant ant movies, in which case the 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.760 ant is not really important. It's not important that it's 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:07.640 an ant. It's just a giant bug, and it could 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.840 be any bug, could be a giant praying mannis giant 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.960 spider is just a giant bug that attacks. So I 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.720 think that's probably going to be my least favorite kind overall, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.000 because that you lose the essential antiness, you know, the 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.760 form the formic aromas of the premise is just like 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.080 any giant bug will do, because they're just big and 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:26.840 they'll tear you apart. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:31.160 Yeah, might as well go with a more interesting solitary bug, 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.040 you know, insect or rachnet, like a scorpion for example. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:35.680 Sure, giant scorpion, that'd be great. 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:37.920 Giant spider obviously, okay, but then. 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.160 When you break it down, you keep the ants small. 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.640 I think they're basically two ways you can go. One 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:48.320 is the just ants as ants, like, you know, they're 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.920 kind of an environmental threat almost. This comes back to 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.040 the like they're like rivers of molten lava in a 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.480 volcano movie. You know, they're just like as the floor 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.480 is lava, except instead of lava, it's ants. But then 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.079 the other way to go is to think about ants 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.120 as a sort of organization principle and have the horror 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.640 lie there. And that's actually where Phase four goes, which 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.880 I think is interesting to think about ants not just 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.920 as something that turns the floor into lava, but something 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:20.599 that has has organized behaviors that can surprise you and 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:21.640 make you afraid. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.520 Yeah. Yeah, and that's definitely the realm that we're going 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.960 to be venturing into with phase four here. 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.120 I guess the real distinction there is that, like, does 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.800 the danger of the ants lie in their in their 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.800 numbers alone or in their use sociality? And Phase four 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:40.520 it's in their use sociality. 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.880 Yeah, And this is we have to drive home. This 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.840 is definitely one of the more, if not the most 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:51.960 ambitious ant movies and intelligent ant movies, Like they really 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:56.440 went for it with this particular film, trying to use 0:09:56.520 --> 0:10:02.240 ants to their full potential cinematically. So it's a rare beast. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:04.680 I think it's a work beast in many ways, because 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.439 I would say this is also a highly technical film. 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.920 As we've already said, it may be lacking in some 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.119 human depth, but as a sort of visual art project, 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.600 I'd say this movie is a home run. I mean 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:22.800 it is a beautiful, weird celebration of geometry of like 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.560 colors and lines and angles and close up photography of ants, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.960 and I would say very good special effects. There were 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:34.199 parts where the ant puppetry is so good. I sometimes 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:38.040 couldn't tell if I was looking at you know, microphotography 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.719 of real ants or if it was one of the puppets. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.120 Yeah. Yeah, it was very difficult to tell. And I 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.800 should also throw in that not only are the visuals great, 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.160 but the sound design and music is also really noteworthy, 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.000 and we'll touch on that as we go. 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:51.840 Yeah. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.600 Now, Phase four was was something of a flop at 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.080 the time, apparently maybe it was ahead of its time, 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.800 but over the years it's been particularly influential on various 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:07.240 visionary filmmakers. Apparently, I know it's Michael Weldon liked it. 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.640 I've read that Panos Cosmntos was a fan of it. 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.680 Yeah, apparently inspired Beyond the Black Rainbow, Yeah. 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.480 Yeah, which is a film I have a lot of 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:21.240 admiration for, and certainly having seen Phase four now I 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.079 can I can definitely see where those inspiration points are. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.480 Apparently apparently as well, this was also a film that 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:35.920 was riffed in the KTMA, like basically proto season of 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.480 Mystery Science Theater three thousand and that's an episode you 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.360 can actually find places, you know, uploaded on video servers 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.120 and all. I've never watched it because the KTMA episodes are. 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:48.880 You know, it's a different beast it was the first season. 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.560 It's not quite like watching a full blown MST three 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:52.280 K episode. 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.400 Yeah, I would say in general, they're not as engaging, 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.719 not as good. And the weird thing about it is, 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.360 I recall some of the movies, so this is like 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.439 when they were a public access show in Minnesota or 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:07.000 wherever it was before they got syndicated became a national show. 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.320 But the weird thing about that early season is I 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:10.800 haven't seen a lot of them, but I know they 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.280 do some movies that are kind of seems like higher 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.439 budget maybe better movies than they do in the later seasons. Actually, 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.720 like I think they end up doing The Green Slime, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:22.520 which is a movie we may come back to on 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.480 Weird House Cinema someday, especially because it's got its own 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:27.200 really groovy rock theme song. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.520 Yeah. Yeah, I don't think they'd quite calibrated what was 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.679 an MST three K film at that point. So at 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.600 any rate, if our discussion here perks your interest and 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.680 you're not quite ready to watch it without some sort 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.320 of riffing structure in place, then I guess you could 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.120 check out that Katma episode. But for the most part. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:48.520 I think this is a film that stands on its 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.480 own and is richly enjoyable on its own, and more 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.000 to the point, in high visual quality that you're not 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.160 going to get with the rip of an old public 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.040 access television broadcast. 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.240 Now, while we're talking talking about looking up this movie, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.000 I got to say, also is a bizarre coincidence. As 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.600 weird of a name as Phase four with the Roman 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.360 numeral for ivy is for a movie, there is actually 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.240 a totally unrelated other movie called Phase four that came 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.160 out in the early two thousands. It looks like some 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.120 kind of Dean Caane conspiracy action thriller. 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah, So word of warning, don't get into 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.120 much for a hurry when you're saying this, when you 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.760 don't want to wind up with the Brian Bosworth film. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.480 If you watch a Brian Bosworth film, you want to 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.000 watch Stone Cold from nineteen ninety one. 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.000 So I've never seen that one, But while we were 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.520 chatting about this, you got me to look up stills 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:46.319 from it and Brian Bosworth and Stone Cold is fresh. 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.400 I mean, like, God, look at his hair at the sunglasses. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.719 Yeah, it's ridiculous. That was and I remember it being 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.559 a fun action B movie because you have Lance Hendrickson's 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.960 in it. William Forsyth is in it, so it's yeah, yeah, 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:00.120 it's ridiculous. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.720 It's like a biker fighting movie or something. Okay, Okay, 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.040 give me the elevator pitch on phase four before we 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:08.040 hit the trailer audio. 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.880 Okay, So what if there was some sort of a 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:17.200 solar conjunction and it caused all ants to suddenly declare 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.680 a peace treaty and turn their attention on other species 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.880 on the rest of the world. So basically a nature 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.160 strikes back, but this time it strikes smart and with 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:28.720 you social precision. 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:30.960 Great premise. Let's hear some audio. 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:40.720 In the next few moments. We will try to give 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.680 you an impression of a new kind of film experience. 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:50.200 If your curiosity is aroused, you are ready for phase four. 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.400 How do you fight a force that knows what your 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.760 next move will be before you think of it? 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.480 All right, that's a solid trailer right there. 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.000 I agree. And now one of the things we've already 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:17.960 talked about is that, you know, I've had my theory 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.440 that really the star of this movie if it is 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.720 not ants, you could say it's ants, But if it's 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.640 not ants, it's still not humans. It is visual geometry. 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:31.400 It's colors and lines and shapes and design. And I 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.120 think that totally makes sense once you realize who the 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.160 director of this film was, because I think the director, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.800 Saul Bass, this was his only movie. Am I right 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:40.160 about that? 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.960 This was his only feature length film. Yeah, he did 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:47.360 some other short films and experimental films and some you know, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.640 sort of documentary style shorts, but this is the only 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:52.760 full length film he did. 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.440 And it seems to me very much a graphic designers 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:01.000 or art director's kind of films. It's not really an 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.720 actor's film. It's not really very script driven. It's a 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.320 movie about showing you pictures. And the style of those 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:12.080 pictures reads very much to me is that mid century 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.520 modern design style, the kind of thing that you see 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.200 a lot on mad Men or whatever. And I think 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.960 that makes sense because I've read that mad Men was 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.160 in many ways trying to copy the style of the 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.240 director of this film, Saul Bass. 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:31.440 Yeah. Casaal Bass is something of a legend, certainly in 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.440 the graphic design field here. He lived nineteen twenty through 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:40.440 nineteen ninety six, and he was for Starters. The title sequence, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.840 title design guy of the day. He crafted title sequences 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.200 for major films from the mid nineteen fifties all the 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.600 way through the mid nineties. We're talking about the likes 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:56.360 of The Seven Year Itch, Vertico, Psycho, Spartacus, West Side, Story, Seconds, 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:01.440 Broadcast News, Big Good Fellas, Kate, Fear, and Case. I 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.720 should also note that, in addition to directing Phase four, 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.399 he of course did the title design. You're not gonna 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:09.240 You're not. If you're Saubash, You're not gonna trust that 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:10.760 to anybody else. This is your baby. 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.280 You're doing the titles, and the title design is great. 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:19.920 It is like you said. The Mad Men is often 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.280 credited as kind of an homage to his work and 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.199 some of the visual elements there. He did logos as 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.280 well for a number of big name companies throughout the sixties, seventies, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.560 and eighties, and I was reading something too about the 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.439 longevity of his designs on that front. He also did 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.439 some pretty famous movie posters, including the aforementioned films, but 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.280 also Stanley Kubrick's The Shining Oh. 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.560 That's interesting. Did Saul Bass do the credit sequence for 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.080 Doctor No, the first James Bond movie? 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.480 That's I think he had some connection with the Bond film. 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.440 I didn't put it in my notes, but that sounds right, 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.119 if not Doctor No. One of the Bond films he 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:57.879 has connections to. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.520 It seems to kind of fit into his design and Clay. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.440 I was looking at some of the rejected poster designs 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.280 that he did for the Shining stuff, Like he had 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:12.040 one that heavily featured the Hedge Labyrinth the Hedge Maze, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.520 and Kubrick had rejected that one because he didn't want 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.159 too much focus to be put on that. But I 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.400 was reading a post about this at Farout Magazine dot 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.840 co dot uk and it had images from the original 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.160 correspondence between Bass and Kubrick, and you can see that 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.480 Saul Bass has has signed like the cover letter here, 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:36.440 and he includes this wonderful It's either an illustration or 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.439 a stamp of himself as a fish. So it's like 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:48.040 his sort of mild mannered, mustached, bespeckled face here on 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.480 a fish's body. It's pretty amusing. 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.800 Is that a joke on him being a Bass? 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.520 I guess so. Yeah. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.040 His Shining poster is worth looking up because I love 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.320 the design. It's like it's just three sort of silhouettes 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.800 heading into the opening of a maze, and part of 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.359 me wonders if did Kubrick reject this just because he 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.879 was in a bad mood and he was being difficult. 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:16.000 Or yeah, maybe so because it's a great poster, like 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.160 we said. Phase four was Bess's only full length film, 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.240 though he made six other short films, including Why Man 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.639 Creates from nineteen sixty eight, which won an Academy Award 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:29.720 for Best Documentary Short Subject. His other films include the 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:33.840 nineteen eighty Robert Redford produced the Solar film promoting solar 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.040 energy over fossil fuels. He also made a very interesting 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.680 looking nineteen eighty four short titled Quest, based on the 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.080 Ray Bradbury story Frost and Fire. I look this one up. 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.480 I found like a rip of it on one of 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.199 the video streaming sites, but I didn't watch it because 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.000 part in part it looks too interesting. I feel like 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.879 I need to see this in a like a higher 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:00.840 visual format or something. 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.160 I wonder iful that a disc out there that collects 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:04.879 his smaller works or something. 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.680 I would hope, say how or perhaps there's one of 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.280 the blu rays that we allude to later on. For 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:14.119 this film has some extras like that. But it looks 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.879 very cool and definitely has that the sort of the 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.919 sci fi visual sensibilities that we'll discuss in relation to 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.720 this film. I also want to point out that he 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.040 often worked with his wife and creative partner, Elaine Bass 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:27.200 on these projects. 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.280 Right, So if you've heard us talk in the past 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.800 about rub the Fur movies, I would say this is 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.520 a really excellent example of one of those. This is 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.960 a design first movie, and the pleasure of it is 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:44.399 almost all about texture. It is a celebration of surfaces. 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:50.600 Now, it did have a writer, Mayo Simon born nineteen 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.840 twenty eight. This is the screenwriter who wrote the West 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:57.560 World sequel Future World in seventy six. This had Peter 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.600 Fonda and Yu'll Brenner in it. Also the nineteen sixty 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.320 nine film Marooned starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman. That 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.760 one won an Academy Award for Visual Effects. But Simon 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.720 went on to create the NBC TV show Man from Atlantis, 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.639 which I'd never heard of before, starring Patrick Duffy of 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.160 Dallas Fame and Belinda Montgomery, who some of you might 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:20.080 remember as being Doogie Howser's mom. 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:21.520 I do not remember. 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.480 It looks very fun in a mid like mid seventies 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:34.000 TV sci fi sort of way. 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.080 Now we've already said that this is not really an 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.720 actor's film. In fact, it's not even really a very 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.840 human film. But I guess we should mention some of 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:44.720 the cast members. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:50.080 Right first and foremost, we have Nigel Davenport playing doctor 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.800 Ernest D. Hubbs now Davenport lived nineteen twenty eight through 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.760 twenty thirteen, English actor known for nineteen sixty six is 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.399 a Man for All Seasons, in which he played the 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.000 Duke of Norfolk, and nineteen eighty one's Chariots of Fire, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:10.760 in which he played Lord Birkenhead. That one had. I've 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.679 only seen parts of Chariots of Fire and it was 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.119 many years ago. It's got a pretty extensive cast, so 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.879 I don't specifically remember where he fit into that, but 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:21.720 of course it's it's a famous movie and has a 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.600 tremendous score by evangelists. 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:27.160 Nigel Davenport seems like an actor you call in for gravitos. 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:27.920 Yeah. 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:28.280 Yeah. 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.320 He has a great presence and a great presence in 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:36.000 this where he plays the determined and at times reckless 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.360 at times later on the film he basically becomes kind 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:44.800 of an ant focused captain a hab in any ways. 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.600 So he has just a terrible case of mad scientist disease. 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.200 Yes, so he's perfect casting for this. I can't imagine 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.879 anyone else here. He was also in the nineteen seventy 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:59.479 seven adaptation of H. G. Wells The Island of Doctor Moreau. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.360 This is one I fondly remember from catching on TBS 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:05.280 or TNT back in the day. This one started Burt 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:10.000 Lancaster and Michael Yorke. He apparently plays Scrooge's dad in 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.040 the nineteen eighty four George C. Scott adaptation of a 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:17.160 Christmas Carol, and he's also in nineteen eighty four's Gray Stoke, 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:21.200 The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, starring Christopher Lambert. 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.919 Oh wow, Well who is he? And Greystoke? Is he? 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:27.359 Is he? Is he Tarzan's dad or something? 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:28.480 You know? 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:31.440 Gray Stoke is another one that I've only seen parts 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:33.960 of on TV when I was much younger. I've not 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:36.479 I don't think i've watched it in full. I'm I 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:40.719 believe he plays one of the grumpy British guys like generally. 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:42.280 That's Oh, I think there are a few of Thosese. 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:45.320 Yeah, yeah, that's generally you're casting for Davenport. 0:23:45.440 --> 0:23:48.399 Well, all right, So basically, the two main characters of 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:50.680 this movie are the two scientists who go in to 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:55.120 investigate the ant phenomenon, and so Davenport plays one of them, 0:23:55.160 --> 0:23:57.600 he plays Hubs, and then the other scientist is one 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.560 named LESCo, who is played by the actor Michael Murphy. 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:03.720 That's right. A born nineteen thirty eight American actor, best 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:06.720 known for his work with Robert Altman. He did seven 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:11.520 pictures for Altman. They include the likes of Countdown, The 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:15.719 Cold Day in the Park, mash The Original film, Brewster, 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:20.200 McLeod McCabe, and Missus Miller Nashville Kansas City. He also 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.280 appeared in Woody Allen's Manhattan, Peter Weir's The Year of 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:27.520 Living Dangerously, and Oliver Stone Salvador. He also worked with 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:32.080 John Sayalis Silver City. He was in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:35.120 and of course he was in He was in Tim 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:40.040 Burton's Batman Returns. He also mayor. Oh yeah, yeah, he's 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:42.879 the mayor of Gotham City. There. I guess he was 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:44.760 only one term, because I don't think he pops up 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:48.639 to another Batman film. But he was also in a 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:53.240 movie called count yorga vampire. And this is our other 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:55.879 Shocker connection because he was in Wes Craven Shocker. 0:24:56.119 --> 0:24:59.639 He plays Peter Berg's dad in Shocker. He's like a 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:03.000 detect who's on the case trying to chase down Mitch Pelegi. 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:07.120 Yeah, so Murphy, Murphy's fine in this. You know, he's 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:10.600 a you know, far younger than many of these other 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:16.760 film appearances that we noted, but yeah, he's he's he's 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:21.480 a numbers guy. He plays what he's a game theorist 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:25.240 and mathematician. Mathematician, Yeah, doesn't really know or care anything 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:28.680 about ants, but it is ultimately like the younger, more 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:31.360 compassionate of the duo here, right. 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:33.600 I think they do a kind of strange thing where 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:38.120 they have two scientists. One is a like entomologist who 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.480 cares deeply about ants, and the other is a mathematician 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:44.360 who doesn't care about ants. And so you would think 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:46.720 that the one who goes ahab and just wants to 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.560 destroy all of ants would be the mathematician, but no, 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:51.959 they switch them. It's kind of counterintuitive. 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:56.680 Yeah, but if if the other guy, if Davenport's hubs 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:59.840 is Captain a hab Then Murphy's less go is. 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:03.240 Yeah, he's kind of along for the ride. Yeah he 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:06.000 decided well. In fact, he even says he was like, 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:07.920 I just wanted to get away for a few weeks. 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:09.520 That's why I took this job. So it's like he 0:26:09.560 --> 0:26:11.200 wanted to go see the watery part of. 0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:15.320 The world, all right. We ultimately have a very small 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:17.360 human cast in This is one thing I noticed before 0:26:17.359 --> 0:26:19.480 we even watched the film, and has like five or 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:23.159 six people are credited, and the two we covered have 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:25.600 most of the screen time, but there is another there's 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:29.160 a third human character that plays a I don't want 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:31.280 to I guess a crucial role. It's not a great 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:34.399 part because he's kind of a damsel in distress for 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.280 a lot of it. But we have the actor Lynn 0:26:37.320 --> 0:26:43.040 Frederick playing Kindra Eldridge. Now. Frederick lived nineteen fifty four 0:26:43.080 --> 0:26:46.400 through nineteen ninety four, British actor of the seventies who 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:50.640 had a really promising career going died too young. Known 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:54.560 for roles in The Amazing Mister Blunden, Nicholas and Alexandria, 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:57.200 and The Prisoner of Zenda. She was also in the 0:26:57.280 --> 0:27:00.000 nineteen seventy two horror film Vampire Circus. 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:02.560 I didn't realize she was in Nicholas and Alexandra. I 0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:04.320 got to look that up. I see she was in. 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:07.480 That's a movie where I also very much appreciate the textures. 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:09.680 There's some really good sets and locations in it. 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:13.119 Yeah, I've heard you talk about that one before. Basically, 0:27:13.200 --> 0:27:17.080 she is what we'll discuss like. She's an innocent human 0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:23.479 who gets swept into this ant takeover drama. She has 0:27:23.960 --> 0:27:27.960 a couple of grandparents that are are doomed, and we'll 0:27:28.000 --> 0:27:31.280 discuss their doom in a bit. But the actor who 0:27:31.320 --> 0:27:35.320 plays Grandma Grandma Eldridge in this is the actor Helen Horton, 0:27:35.359 --> 0:27:37.600 who lived nineteen twenty three through two thousand and seven. 0:27:38.400 --> 0:27:40.560 She pops up in Superman three, did a lot of 0:27:40.600 --> 0:27:43.120 TV work. But she's also the voice of Mother from 0:27:43.200 --> 0:27:44.840 nineteen seventy nine's Alien. 0:27:45.359 --> 0:27:48.880 Now, this is funny because I didn't remember Mother in Alien. 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:51.560 This is the name of the computer. Is the computer 0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:55.800 that controls everything. I only remember Dallas communicating with Mother 0:27:55.920 --> 0:27:58.800 through like a command line on a computer screen, though 0:27:58.800 --> 0:28:01.240 maybe Mother has a voice. When there's like a self 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:03.320 destruct countdown on the ship or something. 0:28:03.560 --> 0:28:06.320 I think that is it. Yeah, okay, where Mother's given 0:28:06.359 --> 0:28:09.040 the countdown and Ripley is trying to get out of 0:28:09.040 --> 0:28:09.400 there with. 0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:11.880 A cat, right right, But I don't know. Maybe next 0:28:11.920 --> 0:28:13.959 time I watch Alien, I'll got to keep I'll keep 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:17.679 an ear out for Helen Horton, who in this movie 0:28:17.760 --> 0:28:22.320 just plays like suspicious Grandma. It's Mildred is just not 0:28:22.520 --> 0:28:24.920 very happy about the government telling them that they need 0:28:24.920 --> 0:28:26.119 to flee the ant menace. 0:28:26.640 --> 0:28:28.560 All right, let's talk a little bit about the music 0:28:28.640 --> 0:28:33.080 on this one. Normally we highlight a single individual that's involved, 0:28:33.119 --> 0:28:36.000 but this time, like three different individuals at least are 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:40.280 worth noting here. So, first of all, Brian Gascoigne is 0:28:40.760 --> 0:28:44.080 credited with the music. Born nineteen forty three, British composer 0:28:44.120 --> 0:28:47.760 and musician who also scored the Emerald Forrest in nineteen 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:50.920 eighty five and worked in the music department on such 0:28:50.920 --> 0:28:54.680 films as Godsford Park. He did piano on that, Harry 0:28:54.760 --> 0:28:57.200 Potter and The Goblet of Fire. He did keyboards and 0:28:57.240 --> 0:29:01.360 synthesizer on that. He did synthesizers on Cherry two thousand 0:29:02.040 --> 0:29:05.520 and most exciting of all, at least to me, he 0:29:05.640 --> 0:29:08.120 was also in the music department on Jim Henson's nineteen 0:29:08.120 --> 0:29:11.400 eighty two masterpiece The Dark Crystal. I'm a huge fan 0:29:11.440 --> 0:29:13.640 of that film, and I think the music for that 0:29:13.760 --> 0:29:17.920 movie is tremendous. The score was composed by Trevor Jones, 0:29:17.920 --> 0:29:24.000 but Gascoyinn provided quote synthesized electronic sounds. So I'm guessing 0:29:24.040 --> 0:29:26.440 it was like, Okay, the crystal's doing something. We need 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:30.480 to get gas coin in here to start tickling the synth. 0:29:30.880 --> 0:29:32.880 What is the sound of draining essence? 0:29:33.320 --> 0:29:36.400 Now we also have Desmond brisco on this who lived 0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:39.640 nineteen twenty five through two thousand and six. He's credited 0:29:39.760 --> 0:29:44.560 as Composer Additional Electronic Music, a British composer and sound engineer, 0:29:44.720 --> 0:29:49.280 co founder of the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Now this 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:54.040 is the group that included pioneering electronic artist Delia Derbyshire, 0:29:54.080 --> 0:29:56.480 who lived nineteen thirty seven through two thousand and one. 0:29:56.680 --> 0:29:59.760 Oh yeah, yeah, She's the one who provided the electronic 0:30:00.040 --> 0:30:04.880 arrangement of the original Doctor Who theme and ultimately influenced 0:30:04.880 --> 0:30:07.320 many future big names and electronic music. 0:30:07.800 --> 0:30:09.720 So I've said on the show before that I am 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:12.280 not a hoovey and I don't really know much Doctor Who, 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:14.480 but when I did very first try to watch a 0:30:14.480 --> 0:30:17.280 few episodes, the main thing that actually hooked me about 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:19.920 it more than the show itself was the theme song. 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:23.440 I got briefly obsessed with the theme music and with 0:30:23.520 --> 0:30:25.560 the different versions of it from over the years, and 0:30:25.640 --> 0:30:28.240 ended up going on the steep dive about Delia Derbyshire 0:30:28.680 --> 0:30:30.560 and like how she created it with I guess it 0:30:30.600 --> 0:30:33.640 was analog tape effects at the time, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:30:33.760 --> 0:30:38.640 I mean this, yeah, digital manipulation, and yeah, what a 0:30:38.680 --> 0:30:41.760 great piece of classic electronic and tape effects music. 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:44.800 And then on one more individual I want to mention 0:30:44.960 --> 0:30:48.920 in reference to Phase four, and that is Stomu Yamashta, 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:53.960 who is credited with composer Montage Music. Born nineteen forty 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:58.040 seven Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer known for helping to 0:30:58.080 --> 0:31:02.600 fuse traditional Japanese percuss of music with Western prog rock. 0:31:02.640 --> 0:31:05.040 In the sixties and seventies. He was a member of 0:31:05.040 --> 0:31:09.240 the supergroup Go alongside such names as Steve Winwood, best 0:31:09.240 --> 0:31:13.120 known for the track Higher Love, but also German electronic 0:31:13.200 --> 0:31:16.440 music pioneer Klaus Schultz, of whom I'm a big fan. 0:31:16.800 --> 0:31:18.160 Oh I don't know if I know him. 0:31:18.280 --> 0:31:21.400 Oh, you would dig out. I'll have to send you 0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:24.360 some stuff after we record, because Claus Schultz put out 0:31:24.840 --> 0:31:29.080 some wonderful material. Now, Yamashta, on his own scored the 0:31:29.160 --> 0:31:32.080 nineteen seventy six David Bowie sci fi film The Man 0:31:32.120 --> 0:31:35.800 Who Fell to Earth, as well as nineteen eighty two's Tempest, 0:31:35.920 --> 0:31:40.680 starring John Cassavetti's Susan Sarandon, Molly Ringwald, and Roald Julia. 0:31:41.160 --> 0:31:43.040 Now this is a movie where I don't think there 0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:45.880 was ever like a melody from the score that stuck 0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:49.040 with me. But in general I loved the sound design 0:31:49.120 --> 0:31:52.360 and the ambient electronic music. 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:55.840 Yeah, this is a film that's very concerned with computers 0:31:55.840 --> 0:32:00.000 and computer technology and all that computer technology is also 0:32:00.080 --> 0:32:02.400 scene is and very much plot wise as a way 0:32:02.440 --> 0:32:05.040 of translating the way of the ant in a way 0:32:05.080 --> 0:32:08.960 that ants and humans might communicate. So it uses electronic 0:32:09.040 --> 0:32:11.680 music well in providing a sense of the cosmic and 0:32:11.720 --> 0:32:14.800 other worldly and even like the sense of the cosmic 0:32:14.840 --> 0:32:18.160 and other worldly to be found in the mind of 0:32:18.600 --> 0:32:21.320 the ants. There are a few places where it gets 0:32:21.320 --> 0:32:25.280 a little melodic and traditional, almost as if somebody like 0:32:25.320 --> 0:32:27.600 the producers were like, hey, what are you doing here? 0:32:27.680 --> 0:32:30.040 Saw this is a human movie for humans, and this 0:32:30.120 --> 0:32:32.560 scene has humans doing human stuff. Let's get some human 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:37.200 music in here. But otherwise, yeah, it's pretty great. Lots 0:32:37.200 --> 0:32:40.840 of electronic touches. There are stretches without music, but those 0:32:40.880 --> 0:32:44.720 tend to revolve around one of two soundscapes I found, 0:32:44.760 --> 0:32:50.200 either windswept desert or the insides of their spaceship like 0:32:50.320 --> 0:32:53.920 research station that also has a supercomputer. There, so lots 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:55.080 of computer noises. 0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:58.239 Oh, in fair warning, I wouldn't normally mention this, but 0:32:58.440 --> 0:33:00.600 there was one part of like, if you're listening with 0:33:00.680 --> 0:33:03.880 like loud headphones or something, there is one segment of 0:33:03.920 --> 0:33:06.760 this movie where for like several minutes they start making 0:33:06.800 --> 0:33:10.960 this excruciating high pitch noise. Yeah, I imagine. Do you 0:33:11.000 --> 0:33:12.040 know the part I'm talking about? 0:33:12.120 --> 0:33:15.600 Rob Yes, yeah, absolutely, Because I was watching it with 0:33:15.600 --> 0:33:17.600 the sound up, part of it with the sound up 0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:20.840 while my wife was trying to work like the next dream, 0:33:21.280 --> 0:33:22.880 and I was a little I was like, oh, this 0:33:22.920 --> 0:33:24.320 is getting a bit much. I have to plug in 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:25.080 the headphones for this. 0:33:25.560 --> 0:33:27.760 Yeah. So if you go watch it yourself, just be wary, 0:33:28.760 --> 0:33:30.200 keep your finger on the volume button. 0:33:30.720 --> 0:33:33.000 All right, let's get into the plot of this baby. 0:33:33.520 --> 0:33:36.520 We have to mention this is a movie that is 0:33:36.560 --> 0:33:37.760 not afraid to narrate. 0:33:38.320 --> 0:33:41.200 No, no, Yeah, there is plenty of voiceover narrate near 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:44.040 In fact, I wonder if there is just if you 0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:46.920 go by word count, I wonder if there's more voiceover 0:33:47.040 --> 0:33:48.920 narration than there is dialogue. 0:33:49.160 --> 0:33:52.160 Probably, So you know, I have to be one. Anytime 0:33:52.600 --> 0:33:55.040 I think about narration and film, I always go back 0:33:55.080 --> 0:33:57.720 to like various threads I would read and arguments about 0:33:58.040 --> 0:34:00.680 really Scott's Blade Runner, where people are like, get that 0:34:00.800 --> 0:34:03.720 narration out of here, narration in a film by god, 0:34:04.360 --> 0:34:06.600 And I was always like, I kind of like the narration. 0:34:06.760 --> 0:34:09.880 What's wrong with the narration? Give me that? 0:34:10.880 --> 0:34:13.600 Yeah. I don't have strong general feelings about it one 0:34:13.600 --> 0:34:15.880 way or another. You know, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. 0:34:16.239 --> 0:34:18.319 Yeah, it can be good, it can be bad. It 0:34:18.360 --> 0:34:22.520 can also help along a movie that maybe you know, 0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:25.040 it just needs a little narration help and letting you 0:34:25.080 --> 0:34:26.239 know what's supposed to be going on. 0:34:26.520 --> 0:34:29.280 Well. Yeah, And also in this movie, without the narration, 0:34:29.880 --> 0:34:32.480 you would either need to make it way more dialogue 0:34:32.520 --> 0:34:36.280 heavy and add totally different types of characters and stuff, 0:34:36.560 --> 0:34:38.359 or you just got to have the narration in there, 0:34:39.040 --> 0:34:42.600 because they begin by explaining the whole situation. The opening 0:34:42.680 --> 0:34:47.880 narration includes shots of space where you're seeing these planets 0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:51.439 and stars, apparently a line that they're very vague about 0:34:51.440 --> 0:34:53.320 what's going on, but in a way that I found 0:34:53.320 --> 0:34:56.080 pleasing rather than frustrating. I think some people might be 0:34:56.120 --> 0:34:59.000 more frustrated, but they don't say exactly what's going on. 0:34:59.480 --> 0:35:03.279 But there's so some kind of weird astronomical event, and 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:08.520 this astronomical event gets scientists and mystics alike very excited, 0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:12.040 but nobody knows what it means except you are told 0:35:12.080 --> 0:35:15.560 that there's a researcher named Ernest Hubbs who documents that 0:35:15.800 --> 0:35:20.440 right after this astronomical event, ants around the world start 0:35:20.480 --> 0:35:25.760 doing things that ants don't do. It says that they're meeting, communicating, 0:35:25.880 --> 0:35:30.280 making decisions, again being very vague about what that means, 0:35:30.280 --> 0:35:32.040 but I guess we'll find out more as the movie 0:35:32.080 --> 0:35:36.400 goes on. And while the narration explains the situation, we 0:35:36.440 --> 0:35:40.400 get to watch this beautiful ballet of ants running around 0:35:40.440 --> 0:35:45.200 in tunnels, fighting, reproducing, doing all kinds of things. And 0:35:45.640 --> 0:35:48.480 I want to say, also that the effects and photography 0:35:48.600 --> 0:35:51.560 in this opening ant ballet are just wonderful. There were 0:35:51.680 --> 0:35:53.600 plenty of parts where I couldn't tell if I was 0:35:53.640 --> 0:35:56.560 looking at real ants or at special effects. Even some 0:35:56.600 --> 0:35:59.719 of the close ups that were obviously puppets look very good. 0:36:00.120 --> 0:36:05.480 Of the textured surfaces, the exoskeleton, the eye, the sand grains, 0:36:05.560 --> 0:36:09.440 the antennae. At this point I immediately felt like we 0:36:09.440 --> 0:36:11.479 were in very good hands as far as the look 0:36:11.520 --> 0:36:14.640 and design of the movie was going. Absolutely but then 0:36:14.680 --> 0:36:18.920 we get tons more voice over narration. I started transcribing it, 0:36:19.000 --> 0:36:21.040 but I think later on I realized, like, I don't 0:36:21.040 --> 0:36:23.759 need to read all of this verbatim, but essentially there 0:36:23.800 --> 0:36:26.359 is a different voice coming in that we will later 0:36:26.440 --> 0:36:30.560 find out as doctor Hubbs, and he's dictating some kind 0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:33.640 of government memorandum. He's issuing a MIMO to like the 0:36:33.640 --> 0:36:37.279 biocontrol division of some kind of agency, and he is 0:36:37.320 --> 0:36:42.200 explaining alarming reports of something going on in the American Southwest. 0:36:42.280 --> 0:36:46.839 He says that the traditional antagonisms between different ant species 0:36:46.920 --> 0:36:50.600 have come to a dramatic halt, and he says, at 0:36:50.640 --> 0:36:53.279 the same time, there has been an apparent disappearance of 0:36:53.320 --> 0:36:58.439 those insects which prey on ants, specifically mantises, beetles, millipedes, 0:36:58.440 --> 0:37:01.360 and spiders. And he says that if this goes on, 0:37:01.600 --> 0:37:04.440 we're going to see some real booms in ant populations. 0:37:04.920 --> 0:37:08.400 And then meanwhile, we see beautiful time lapse footage of 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:12.160 ants swarming over and devouring a big tarantula, and he 0:37:12.280 --> 0:37:16.320 ends up offering in this MIMO a proposal. He's like, look, 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:18.960 what we've got to do is a full scale attack 0:37:19.480 --> 0:37:23.520 on the ants, otherwise they're going to represent a threat 0:37:23.600 --> 0:37:26.400 to all other life forms in the area. So we 0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:29.400 need to build an experiment station out near ant ground zero. 0:37:29.600 --> 0:37:32.320 And he says he needs more personnel and needs another 0:37:32.360 --> 0:37:35.399 researcher to join him. So the leader here is going 0:37:35.440 --> 0:37:39.040 to be this ant researcher Hubs, but he also requests 0:37:39.080 --> 0:37:44.280 somebody named j. R. LESCo, who is a senior scientist 0:37:44.360 --> 0:37:49.080 who is a qualified information specialist with cryptological background. 0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:52.239 Yeah, and so we're already getting the idea that there's 0:37:52.239 --> 0:37:56.640 going to be some sort of communication aspect to this study, 0:37:56.960 --> 0:38:02.000 this project, which again seems to be a out understanding 0:38:02.080 --> 0:38:06.840 and combating ants who have declared like an ant wide 0:38:07.480 --> 0:38:10.399 peace treaty and are turning their attention to other things 0:38:10.440 --> 0:38:12.640 in a way that makes us feel threatened. And it 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:17.120 seems like Hubbs has just been granted an enormous budget 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:20.520 for this project, but also, as we'll find out, a 0:38:20.640 --> 0:38:22.600 very limited window in which to operate. 0:38:23.040 --> 0:38:26.120 Yeah, it's funny. So they build him a geodesic dome 0:38:26.560 --> 0:38:29.000 out in the desert that's full of the world's most 0:38:29.000 --> 0:38:32.200 sophisticated technology, and it's got supercomputers and stuff in in 0:38:32.280 --> 0:38:36.400 nineteen seventy four. But he's also constantly getting calls on 0:38:36.440 --> 0:38:39.160 the radio that are like, they're like, can you hurry 0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:41.320 this up? You know, we don't have enough budget to 0:38:41.360 --> 0:38:42.640 fund you for two more days. 0:38:43.080 --> 0:38:45.840 Yeah, well maybe, I mean, maybe it's on hubs, Like, 0:38:45.840 --> 0:38:48.799 maybe you should have scaled down on the facilities here. 0:38:49.560 --> 0:38:54.080 Maybe you didn't need this what seems like a spaceship, 0:38:54.080 --> 0:38:55.400 you know, it feels like it should be on the 0:38:55.400 --> 0:38:58.800 surface of Mars, not in the wedd of the Arizona desert. 0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:02.040 We've only got these super computers rented through Friday. After 0:39:02.080 --> 0:39:06.040 that there are late fees. Well anyway, so that's the setup, 0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:07.840 and then we get to the actual narrative part of 0:39:07.840 --> 0:39:11.000 the film. So we see a car blasting through the desert, 0:39:11.080 --> 0:39:13.759 kicking up clouds of dust from the road, and it 0:39:13.880 --> 0:39:17.640 goes past signs for a golf course and a country club, 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:20.240 and then a sign that says welcome to Paradise City. 0:39:20.800 --> 0:39:24.040 But it's one of those comedic, ironic reveals because when 0:39:24.040 --> 0:39:26.759 you peel back from all those signs, it's just a 0:39:26.840 --> 0:39:28.960 cursed land of emptiness and dust. 0:39:29.560 --> 0:39:33.040 Yeah. I think they refer to it as another desert 0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:34.400 development that didn't develop. 0:39:34.960 --> 0:39:37.680 Right. It's some half built houses and a grid of 0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:40.920 dirt roads. But when they go down to the end 0:39:41.040 --> 0:39:44.360 of the longest of the dirt roads, we see something 0:39:44.520 --> 0:39:47.160 very strange. And in the middle of the nothingness there 0:39:47.280 --> 0:39:51.680 is this grove of seven pillars, just pillars reaching straight 0:39:51.760 --> 0:39:56.600 up out of the ground like Greek columns. And so 0:39:56.640 --> 0:39:58.680 they drive up and park the car and out hop 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:01.479 a couple of guys. These would be our protagonist again. 0:40:01.560 --> 0:40:04.880 This is Nigel Davenport is doctor Hubbs and Michael Murphy 0:40:05.000 --> 0:40:08.960 is doctor LESCo. And I immediately noticed some very interesting 0:40:09.040 --> 0:40:11.439 color coating. This was another thing that tipped me off 0:40:11.480 --> 0:40:15.880 early how sort of visual and design oriented this movie 0:40:15.880 --> 0:40:18.280 would be. Because Rob, I don't know if you noticed 0:40:18.320 --> 0:40:21.800 the same thing, but The color coating of the wardrobes 0:40:21.840 --> 0:40:26.440 of the two actors is so starkly different. LESCo is 0:40:26.520 --> 0:40:30.840 just blue, blue blue. He's blue jeans, blue shirt, blue jacket, 0:40:30.880 --> 0:40:35.680 and blue hat, whereas Hubbs is all these earth tones 0:40:35.760 --> 0:40:39.600 and earth energy. So he's wearing khaki pants, a brown jacket, 0:40:39.640 --> 0:40:42.479 he's got long hair and a dark beard, and he's 0:40:42.480 --> 0:40:46.200 carrying a staff or stick of some kind. Yeah, so 0:40:46.280 --> 0:40:48.960 I was immediately wondering what's going on with this? It 0:40:49.160 --> 0:40:52.280 again seems like a graphic designer's touch. But is LESCo 0:40:52.400 --> 0:40:55.360 supposed to be the sky while Hubbs is the earth? 0:40:55.920 --> 0:40:59.160 Or is it a blue wizard in ratagas the brown thing. 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:01.719 I really noticed this as much when I was watching it, 0:41:01.800 --> 0:41:05.280 but I guess I was focusing more on the environment 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:07.400 they're in, which is pretty brilliant, because this is the 0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:13.520 place where where human organization and human development has the 0:41:13.520 --> 0:41:16.959 wave has crashed and fallen back. It is where human 0:41:17.000 --> 0:41:21.240 development has failed, but it is where this new sign 0:41:21.280 --> 0:41:25.560 of ant civilization has sprung forth right. 0:41:25.640 --> 0:41:28.000 And so they walk around in these half built or 0:41:28.000 --> 0:41:31.439 abandoned houses, and LESCo asks if there are any dead 0:41:31.440 --> 0:41:36.360 bodies out here, and Nigel Davenport says, no, the population 0:41:36.480 --> 0:41:40.080 moved itself out days ago. And then they start talking 0:41:40.080 --> 0:41:43.360 about their background, and we learned that LESCo has achieved 0:41:43.400 --> 0:41:47.200 scientific fame by applying game theory to the language of 0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:50.440 killer whales, and Hubs is very intrigued by this. He 0:41:50.480 --> 0:41:53.440 wants to know, did you ever actually make contact with 0:41:53.440 --> 0:41:57.520 a whale? And LESCo says, only with the emotionally disturbed ones. 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:01.759 And Hub is like, well, how did you determine that? 0:42:01.920 --> 0:42:05.440 And LESCo says, well, we talked. I think he's supposed 0:42:05.480 --> 0:42:07.560 to be kidding, but they never clarify this. 0:42:07.960 --> 0:42:12.080 Yeah, I think it's math nerdery. And also, this is 0:42:12.120 --> 0:42:13.560 the point in the movie where if you don't know 0:42:13.600 --> 0:42:16.040 anything about it, you can easily imagine we're going in 0:42:16.040 --> 0:42:21.040 the direction of like a computer literally translates what ants 0:42:21.080 --> 0:42:23.520 are saying in some sort of a computer voice, in 0:42:23.560 --> 0:42:25.080 the same way that you have films where this is 0:42:25.080 --> 0:42:28.840 happening with dolphins and other creatures. But and this is 0:42:28.880 --> 0:42:32.719 a film that is about communication or attempts at communication 0:42:32.840 --> 0:42:38.000 between two drastically different intelligent species. But it does so 0:42:38.120 --> 0:42:40.879 in very clever ways that I think really like takes 0:42:40.880 --> 0:42:44.720 the question seriously and takes the you know, the gulf 0:42:44.960 --> 0:42:51.520 between different you know, possibly evolved intelligences, the gulf between them, 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:54.359 and how difficult it would be like for one side 0:42:54.400 --> 0:42:56.440 to even realize the other side is intelligent. 0:42:57.000 --> 0:42:59.239 Yeah, that's something I really liked about this movie is 0:42:59.239 --> 0:43:03.280 that it it takes the confusing nature of cross species 0:43:03.280 --> 0:43:06.920 communication seriously. Like there's a great scene I want to 0:43:06.960 --> 0:43:10.960 talk about later that involves communication between humans and ants 0:43:11.000 --> 0:43:22.800 and how it's hard to understand what it means. But anyway, 0:43:22.840 --> 0:43:24.960 here at the beginning, it's clear that LESCo does not 0:43:25.160 --> 0:43:29.000 see himself as a biologist or a zoologist or somebody 0:43:29.400 --> 0:43:32.520 who cares about or understands animals. He says, I'm strictly 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:36.200 a pencil and paper guy. The two scientists approach the 0:43:36.239 --> 0:43:40.240 Seven Pillars and Rob, how would you describe these pillars? 0:43:40.880 --> 0:43:42.640 I love this feature of the movie. And they won't 0:43:42.640 --> 0:43:44.280 be the last pillars we see. 0:43:44.920 --> 0:43:48.200 Yeah, they're pretty great because they're monolithic, but they don't 0:43:48.320 --> 0:43:53.200 you know, they're not as perfect as say the monolith 0:43:53.200 --> 0:43:55.840 from two thousand and one A Space Odyssey, though you 0:43:56.280 --> 0:43:58.799 can't help but imagine some of that DNA is present there. 0:43:58.800 --> 0:44:03.080 I mean, certainly the this is a film that exists, 0:44:03.480 --> 0:44:06.080 you know, in the ultimately in the very long shadow 0:44:06.200 --> 0:44:09.319 of two thousand and one, a space Odyssey. But these 0:44:09.360 --> 0:44:13.800 feel they feel very organic. They're reminiscent of termite mound 0:44:13.840 --> 0:44:18.279 cooling towers. They have these little crevices towards the top 0:44:18.320 --> 0:44:20.640 that feel like they're intended to do something with the air. 0:44:21.520 --> 0:44:22.879 It's the kind of thing that you'd think an ant 0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:26.399 researcher would be very interested in, but they ultimately don't 0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:28.840 seem to investigate that much. But yeah, they feel like 0:44:28.880 --> 0:44:32.880 they are at this place where where organic animal construction 0:44:33.239 --> 0:44:38.239 and human construction meets and the distinction becomes blurred, right. 0:44:38.320 --> 0:44:41.080 I mean it's the angles I think that make them unusual. 0:44:41.120 --> 0:44:43.320 I mean, if they were just sort of rounded pillars, 0:44:43.320 --> 0:44:45.960 you might think, well, those are very tall and strange, 0:44:45.960 --> 0:44:48.600 but they're more like termite mounds. It's the fact that 0:44:48.640 --> 0:44:51.680 they have like a diamond shape with sharp angles that 0:44:51.760 --> 0:44:54.040 makes it look like, oh, this shouldn't be something ants 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:54.520 are doing. 0:44:54.920 --> 0:44:57.240 Yeah, it looks very alien and cool. 0:44:57.520 --> 0:44:59.160 Oh and of course we see in close ups that 0:44:59.280 --> 0:45:02.480 ants are looking looking out the scientists through crevices in 0:45:03.000 --> 0:45:05.719 the pillars. So anyway, after this, they go to a 0:45:05.760 --> 0:45:07.640 farm where they find some dead sheep, and there are 0:45:07.640 --> 0:45:10.560 shots of them walking through the tall grass that's rippling 0:45:10.560 --> 0:45:13.000 in the wind. It's very elegant. But they eventually come 0:45:13.040 --> 0:45:16.600 across a crop circle with geometric designs inside it. 0:45:16.600 --> 0:45:17.080 There's like a. 0:45:17.040 --> 0:45:21.400 Diamond in the middle and then a ring around the outside, 0:45:21.760 --> 0:45:24.759 and Hubs is talking about how there are some ant 0:45:24.760 --> 0:45:28.040 species that will attack anything that threatens their food supply, 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:31.839 and so what do these patterns in the field represent. Well, 0:45:32.160 --> 0:45:34.120 it's not clear yet, and in fact, I don't know 0:45:34.160 --> 0:45:36.880 if it ever becomes clear. It's just like the ants 0:45:37.000 --> 0:45:39.640 make this pattern in the field for some reason, and. 0:45:39.880 --> 0:45:42.920 I don't even think our characters perhaps realize that pattern 0:45:43.000 --> 0:45:47.880 is there. This is like the privileged information that is 0:45:47.920 --> 0:45:51.040 for the viewer. Yeah, there's no indication that they notice 0:45:51.080 --> 0:45:53.240 that they are standing in the midst of this strange 0:45:53.239 --> 0:45:54.439 crop circle. Right. 0:45:54.800 --> 0:45:56.080 And I will say, by the way, I don't know 0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:58.160 if this is true, but I just read briefly on 0:45:58.200 --> 0:46:00.960 the internet some people alleging that this film may have 0:46:01.080 --> 0:46:04.360 inspired some of the people who made crop circles, and 0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:06.920 then said that they were made by aliens because apparently 0:46:07.040 --> 0:46:10.759 this pre date some of the big crop circle craze. 0:46:11.280 --> 0:46:14.680 Huh, I didn't realize that. I did read somewhere that 0:46:13.920 --> 0:46:18.320 this is arguably the first appearance of a crop circle 0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:21.480 in a film, But that would be interesting, and certainly 0:46:21.520 --> 0:46:23.920 it would match up with what we know about about 0:46:23.920 --> 0:46:26.160 crop circles in there. They're very human origin. 0:46:26.480 --> 0:46:30.000 Yeah, apparently there are a few reports of things sort 0:46:30.040 --> 0:46:33.040 of like crop circles that date to before the seventies, 0:46:33.040 --> 0:46:36.520 but I think the real crop circle craze started sometime 0:46:36.560 --> 0:46:39.000 in the mid to late seventies. That's when it really 0:46:39.000 --> 0:46:41.600 took off. Well anyway. So they're going around this farm 0:46:41.680 --> 0:46:43.719 that still does have a few people in it, and 0:46:44.320 --> 0:46:46.799 we meet a farmer named mister Eldridge. I don't think 0:46:46.800 --> 0:46:49.640 we ever learned his first name, and he's explaining a 0:46:50.320 --> 0:46:53.080 fuel ditch trap for ants, Like they dig a big 0:46:53.120 --> 0:46:56.280 moat around the farmhouse and fill it with gasoline or something. 0:46:57.040 --> 0:47:01.799 Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a crazy sounding planned. They're like, yeah, 0:47:01.840 --> 0:47:05.359 if they aunt get across the water, we'll just light 0:47:05.480 --> 0:47:09.120 this troth of a fuel on fire and then that'll 0:47:09.120 --> 0:47:11.680 do him, and then we'll just keep this troth of 0:47:11.719 --> 0:47:14.680 fire going for the rest of our lives. 0:47:15.239 --> 0:47:19.399 Yeah. So the family is mister Eldridge, and then his 0:47:19.440 --> 0:47:23.680 wife Mildred Eldridge, who is skeptical of these scientists who 0:47:23.719 --> 0:47:26.839 have arrived to tell them they're in danger. And their 0:47:26.920 --> 0:47:31.120 granddaughter Kendra Eldridge, who she kind of rides horses and waves. 0:47:31.840 --> 0:47:33.920 And then there's another guy named Cleat, who I guess 0:47:33.960 --> 0:47:37.200 is their aunt burning guy. It's like, oh, you got 0:47:37.200 --> 0:47:39.359 an aunt burning guy. Yeah, his name's Cleat. Yeah, I'll 0:47:39.360 --> 0:47:40.040 put you in touch. 0:47:40.800 --> 0:47:42.960 Yeah. But Kindra is the main character again, this is 0:47:42.960 --> 0:47:46.439 the character played by Lynn Frederick spoiler. She's the only 0:47:46.440 --> 0:47:48.520 one that is going to survive for any length of 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:49.200 time here. 0:47:49.480 --> 0:47:52.000 Right, But anyway, Hubbs tells them they're going to have 0:47:52.040 --> 0:47:54.360 to evacuate in a few days for their own protection. 0:47:54.600 --> 0:47:57.960 Mildred is not happy about that, but strangely, mister Eldridge 0:47:58.040 --> 0:48:00.360 is like, hey, listen to them, it's for our own protection. 0:48:00.960 --> 0:48:01.200 Yeah. 0:48:01.640 --> 0:48:03.239 So that was Phase one, and then we get a 0:48:03.320 --> 0:48:06.719 transition where we see phase two. It's not clear what 0:48:06.800 --> 0:48:09.080 has changed, but that's what we get. 0:48:09.320 --> 0:48:11.239 Yeah, And that's the interesting thing about this film, Like 0:48:11.280 --> 0:48:15.600 the title phase four is not referring to most of 0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:17.600 the film, Like Phase four is the place we are 0:48:17.640 --> 0:48:21.040 going to arrive at at the end of the film. 0:48:20.840 --> 0:48:23.360 Right, So the next thing we do is we go 0:48:23.440 --> 0:48:26.520 to the two scientists in their self contained research facility, 0:48:26.520 --> 0:48:29.960 which is a geodesic dome with an antenna tower next 0:48:30.000 --> 0:48:33.760 to it and then a bunch of little nodes coming 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:35.799 off of it, like these pipes leading out to these 0:48:35.840 --> 0:48:40.160 little spheres planted out in the perimeter around the geodesic dome, 0:48:40.400 --> 0:48:43.240 which we later learned are for spraying beautiful poison. 0:48:43.719 --> 0:48:46.600 Yes, of which they have. Do they have just two 0:48:46.680 --> 0:48:48.160 colors or are there three colors? 0:48:49.200 --> 0:48:51.120 There are only two we learn about that there may 0:48:51.160 --> 0:48:51.680 be others. 0:48:51.800 --> 0:48:53.120 There's yellow and there's blood. 0:48:53.800 --> 0:48:56.600 So the scientists are inside doing experiments. There are lots 0:48:56.640 --> 0:48:59.799 of machines that make beeping and worrying noises, sometimes a 0:48:59.800 --> 0:49:03.120 big air pressure hiss as well. And this might sound 0:49:03.200 --> 0:49:05.200 kind of hard to believe, but I believe. I think 0:49:05.239 --> 0:49:09.360 there are several just extremely pleasurable shots of Michael Murphy 0:49:09.520 --> 0:49:11.080 just flipping lots of switches. 0:49:13.600 --> 0:49:16.920 Yeah, yeah, we're not exactly sure what he's doing here necessarily, 0:49:16.960 --> 0:49:20.200 but you have that nice computer electronic ambiance going on 0:49:20.239 --> 0:49:23.680 in the background, and he's very chill about this. Yeah, 0:49:23.680 --> 0:49:27.799 it's a nice vibe. Now, I love, love, love this 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:31.239 research facility they have here. In general, I love it 0:49:31.280 --> 0:49:34.560 when researchers and or adventurers in a film are just 0:49:34.680 --> 0:49:39.120 drastically technologically over prepared for a mission, overfunded as well, 0:49:39.160 --> 0:49:42.960 perhaps here. I love it when it's as simple as 0:49:43.280 --> 0:49:47.600 an antarctic research facility or an underwater station that just 0:49:47.680 --> 0:49:51.560 happens to have a flamethrower on hand. I also love 0:49:51.600 --> 0:49:53.680 it when it's an eight mission into the jungle and 0:49:53.719 --> 0:49:56.760 you bring along tripod, gun drones and your own talking 0:49:56.800 --> 0:49:57.560 techno ape. 0:49:58.320 --> 0:49:58.920 It's congo. 0:49:59.239 --> 0:50:02.120 You have congo, And I guess that's the thing too. 0:50:02.160 --> 0:50:04.200 It's like, you know, it's very criteny, and this film 0:50:04.239 --> 0:50:08.200 does feel very Crichtony in many respects. Well, yeah, I. 0:50:08.160 --> 0:50:09.920 Don't want to say it's ripping it off, but I 0:50:10.000 --> 0:50:13.320 say I think there are some very clear parallels between 0:50:13.400 --> 0:50:16.080 this movie and the Andrama to Strain, Michael Crichton's first 0:50:16.080 --> 0:50:19.800 big novel, which is also about a group of scientists 0:50:19.840 --> 0:50:22.920 that go into a self contained facility in the American 0:50:23.000 --> 0:50:27.040 Southwest in order to fight some kind of novel biological 0:50:27.080 --> 0:50:29.640 menace that has been caused by an astronomical event. So 0:50:29.800 --> 0:50:32.600 I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little bit of inspiration. 0:50:32.239 --> 0:50:34.719 Going on there that would make sense. Yeah, but again, 0:50:34.760 --> 0:50:38.920 what we have here is a weird station that seems 0:50:38.960 --> 0:50:41.640 like it's built for the surface of Mars, full of supercomputers, 0:50:42.000 --> 0:50:45.000 NASA style living conditions, you know, like this wonderful scene 0:50:45.040 --> 0:50:47.239 where they're picking out what kind of food they're going 0:50:47.320 --> 0:50:49.680 to eat, or they're getting some coffee or something, and 0:50:49.719 --> 0:50:52.799 it's like a spaceship, but not only a spaceship. A 0:50:52.840 --> 0:50:56.080 spaceship that has been engineered to stand is like the 0:50:56.160 --> 0:51:00.600 last redoubt against the ant onslaught, and yet it is 0:51:00.640 --> 0:51:03.279 not one hundred percent ant proof, though there seem to 0:51:03.360 --> 0:51:05.360 be measures taken to try and make it so. Like 0:51:05.400 --> 0:51:08.719 there's essentially like a decontamination airlock that you have to 0:51:08.719 --> 0:51:13.200 get nude for. They're the poison sprayers with two different 0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:14.520 flavors that we mentioned. 0:51:14.880 --> 0:51:19.600 It's great, and there's some drama inside about cost overruns 0:51:19.600 --> 0:51:21.560 that we alluded to earlier, Like there's a guy on 0:51:21.600 --> 0:51:24.239 the radio who's calling hubs and being like, hey, you 0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:26.160 got to speed up your research. We're running out of 0:51:26.160 --> 0:51:26.840 money here. 0:51:27.560 --> 0:51:29.799 And I guess this is important too, to not like 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:32.000 one of the things that they keep driving home. I 0:51:32.040 --> 0:51:35.360 think with the human interaction is that ants have it 0:51:35.400 --> 0:51:38.840 all together. Not only previously they did, you know, species 0:51:38.880 --> 0:51:41.640 to species, or a colony to colony in some cases, 0:51:41.800 --> 0:51:45.439 and super colonies. But now all ant kind is one 0:51:46.200 --> 0:51:49.480 is on the same page. They are working in unison. Meanwhile, 0:51:50.200 --> 0:51:52.560 none of our humans can get along completely. They all 0:51:52.600 --> 0:51:56.319 have different ideas and different views. You know, our two 0:51:56.400 --> 0:51:59.560 researchers are arguing with each other. They're having conflicts ultimately 0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:02.120 with the other human character and with these people on 0:52:02.160 --> 0:52:03.319 the phone, right. 0:52:03.760 --> 0:52:06.799 But the way they come up with to speed up 0:52:06.840 --> 0:52:10.279 the research, by the way, is hilarious because what it 0:52:10.400 --> 0:52:12.600 means is, Okay, we got to get the ants to 0:52:12.640 --> 0:52:14.799 do something. So Hubbs is like, well, I guess I'll 0:52:14.840 --> 0:52:17.080 go blow up these towers in the desert with a 0:52:17.120 --> 0:52:18.480 handheld grenade launcher. 0:52:18.840 --> 0:52:23.680 Yes, and yeah, we have to stress that we're talking again, 0:52:23.760 --> 0:52:27.000 like a handheld grenade launcher like the one Arnold has 0:52:27.040 --> 0:52:30.800 in Terminator too. He just casually uses it to blow 0:52:30.920 --> 0:52:36.520 up all the ant monoliths that are there, which which 0:52:36.520 --> 0:52:39.080 which is interesting too because later on, like the voice 0:52:39.080 --> 0:52:41.200 on the phone is like, you should try destroying one 0:52:41.200 --> 0:52:44.000 of the monoliths to see if you can provoke a reaction. 0:52:44.080 --> 0:52:46.120 He didn't. He didn't mess around. He just blows them 0:52:46.120 --> 0:52:47.600 all up. Yeah. 0:52:47.640 --> 0:52:49.840 Well, I think he's already done it. When they suggest that, 0:52:50.120 --> 0:52:52.080 he's like, oh, I'll think about it, okay. 0:52:52.320 --> 0:52:56.360 Uh yeah, And I just again it comes back to 0:52:56.360 --> 0:52:59.560 the fact that this grenade launcher I'm I'm assuming or 0:52:59.600 --> 0:53:02.799 hoping it is Slash, was illegal to actually own one 0:53:02.840 --> 0:53:06.880 of these that fires actual grenades and not flares. So 0:53:07.160 --> 0:53:09.680 I guess it is part of the specialized kit that 0:53:09.719 --> 0:53:14.239 he requested and was approved for use in this research experiment. 0:53:14.320 --> 0:53:16.920 So that means it has its like its own shelf 0:53:17.040 --> 0:53:19.120 in the in the research station, or maybe it's in 0:53:19.160 --> 0:53:22.560 as it's mounted behind glass with a sign that reads 0:53:22.600 --> 0:53:25.080 break if studied. Dandelion is rapidly approaching. 0:53:25.480 --> 0:53:29.120 Yeah, but we just see him out there in the 0:53:29.160 --> 0:53:31.520 middle of the road. He's standing there like like Mill 0:53:31.600 --> 0:53:35.200 Gibson and the Road Warrior poster with the thing. He's 0:53:35.239 --> 0:53:37.040 just shooting these ant colonies. 0:53:37.640 --> 0:53:39.960 Yeah, he's got a whole ammunition box of grenades and 0:53:39.960 --> 0:53:42.680 he's just letting it, letting the monolithts happen. 0:53:43.480 --> 0:53:46.439 But anyway, so from this they do learn some things 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:49.759 because LESCo figures out that the ants are communicating by 0:53:49.840 --> 0:53:52.040 sound that he's like, they're talking to each other, and 0:53:52.080 --> 0:53:55.840 he starts recording the sounds they're making and trying to 0:53:55.920 --> 0:53:59.719 decode it and understand their language in anyway, so we 0:53:59.800 --> 0:54:03.000 knew this was coming. Later that night, the ants apparently 0:54:03.040 --> 0:54:06.880 attack the Eldridge farm. They're the only other humans left around, 0:54:06.920 --> 0:54:09.680 and the ants set upon them. So they start attacking 0:54:09.719 --> 0:54:12.320 the horse out in the field, and then the fire 0:54:12.360 --> 0:54:15.240 trap is triggered, and then the ants swarm the house 0:54:15.320 --> 0:54:17.520 and then the humans have to flee in a truck, 0:54:18.239 --> 0:54:21.640 and Mildred is all like they warned us, and then 0:54:21.680 --> 0:54:24.920 I think ants attack the truck and attack inside the truck. 0:54:25.440 --> 0:54:28.920 Yeah, yeah, they're they're They're suddenly inside they're crawling in 0:54:28.920 --> 0:54:32.520 Grandpa's hair. There's the results in a wreck, and so 0:54:32.600 --> 0:54:35.560 they're fleeing on foot at this point towards the research 0:54:35.600 --> 0:54:39.120 facility and towards the buildings, you know, the remains of 0:54:39.120 --> 0:54:40.160 this housing development. 0:54:40.200 --> 0:54:44.080 They're still there, right, So they basically get to the 0:54:44.120 --> 0:54:46.759 research facility, but they're attacked by ants when they get 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:50.160 out of the truck, and at the same time LESCo 0:54:50.360 --> 0:54:53.960 is showing off his work to Hubs on decoding the 0:54:54.000 --> 0:54:57.840 ant language. And while he's doing that, ants cut the 0:54:57.880 --> 0:55:00.279 power to the facility. They cut the power, man, how 0:55:00.280 --> 0:55:02.319 can they cut the power? They're animals, but they do, 0:55:03.040 --> 0:55:08.000 and the so Hubs responds by spraying the ants outside 0:55:08.040 --> 0:55:11.480 with this gorgeous yellow poison that it's like coming out 0:55:11.480 --> 0:55:14.319 of these spheres. It's weird to say it's beautiful, but 0:55:14.360 --> 0:55:17.480 it is beautiful. And they call the poison yellow. It's 0:55:17.560 --> 0:55:20.560 just called the yellow. Yes, And I think again, it 0:55:20.600 --> 0:55:22.520 makes a lot of sense for this movie to call 0:55:22.560 --> 0:55:25.520 its poison, to not have a chemical name, to not 0:55:25.760 --> 0:55:28.280 let it have a brand name. It's just the yellow, 0:55:28.400 --> 0:55:32.880 and that indicates like that color and lines reign supreme 0:55:33.000 --> 0:55:34.520 in the world A phase four. 0:55:34.920 --> 0:55:38.480 Yeah, absolutely, But the poison defense here it seems to work. 0:55:38.520 --> 0:55:40.440 In fact, it works a little too well. 0:55:40.800 --> 0:55:43.000 Right, So it kills most of the ants, though some 0:55:43.040 --> 0:55:45.880 ants get away, and then meanwhile they come out the 0:55:45.920 --> 0:55:48.480 next morning, and so the two scientists are in these 0:55:48.600 --> 0:55:51.799 environment suits they look like they're like, you know, like 0:55:52.080 --> 0:55:55.600 eva suits in space, and they go out to see 0:55:55.640 --> 0:55:59.080 that they're spraying of the poison has killed the people 0:55:59.120 --> 0:56:01.640 who came from the farm. It killed Mildred and mister 0:56:01.719 --> 0:56:03.319 Eldridge and Cleat. 0:56:03.440 --> 0:56:09.279 Yeah, it killed grandma and grandpa. But as it turns out, 0:56:09.320 --> 0:56:11.280 as we find out in a bit, Kindre is fine. 0:56:11.320 --> 0:56:14.240 She was actually in the basement of one of those houses. 0:56:14.120 --> 0:56:15.360 Right, she hid in the cellar. 0:56:16.239 --> 0:56:16.439 Oh. 0:56:16.480 --> 0:56:19.560 But also there you start getting some hints that things 0:56:19.600 --> 0:56:23.520 are going in a weird direction because Hubbs is trying 0:56:23.560 --> 0:56:26.200 to figure out what the ants did to sabotage their 0:56:26.239 --> 0:56:29.880 generator in the truck, and meanwhile less Goo's like, there 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:32.600 are dead people, and then Hubbs is like, oh, yes, 0:56:32.840 --> 0:56:40.120 a tragedy. But he so you're starting to get the 0:56:40.120 --> 0:56:43.880 sense that maybe he's a little disconnected from the value 0:56:43.880 --> 0:56:46.799 of human life. But anyway, he says, okay, so I 0:56:46.800 --> 0:56:49.600 think the yellow should hold its potency for three or 0:56:49.600 --> 0:56:53.640 four days, which was a great phrase. I thought, Oh, 0:56:53.640 --> 0:56:55.800 but then there's something very rare. So when they find Cleat, 0:56:56.000 --> 0:56:59.719 remember the ant burning guy. So they find Cleat and 0:56:59.760 --> 0:57:02.279 his hand is tightly closed and they pry it open 0:57:02.320 --> 0:57:06.480 with a metal rod, and it has three symmetrical holes 0:57:06.560 --> 0:57:09.200 in the palm of the hand like dots, and then 0:57:09.239 --> 0:57:11.200 we see ants crawling out of the holes. 0:57:12.080 --> 0:57:15.680 Yeah, this is This really gave me the willies watching this. 0:57:15.680 --> 0:57:18.400 This is how you know. The makeup effects that they 0:57:18.400 --> 0:57:22.600 did on this are are really convincing. They really feel 0:57:22.640 --> 0:57:24.560 like they are holes in a hand, and we get 0:57:24.600 --> 0:57:27.520 close ups and usually like an extreme close up on 0:57:27.560 --> 0:57:31.000 an effect like this will reveal the flaws and the design, 0:57:31.320 --> 0:57:33.200 but this one just makes me feel more and more 0:57:33.240 --> 0:57:35.200 like I'm looking at three holes in a human hand 0:57:35.240 --> 0:57:38.760 with an ant crawling out of it. So yeah, if 0:57:38.800 --> 0:57:40.920 you have the if you have the fear of holes, 0:57:41.120 --> 0:57:43.080 I would maybe make sure you're ready to fast forward 0:57:43.080 --> 0:57:45.880 through this scene. There's also an earlier scene where they're 0:57:45.880 --> 0:57:47.880 looking at a hole in like the neck of a sheep. 0:57:48.120 --> 0:57:49.720 She that also gave me the willies. 0:57:49.960 --> 0:57:53.440 Agreed, and again the effects look great. Oh but also, 0:57:53.640 --> 0:57:56.160 like we said, they discovered that Kindra survived with the storm, 0:57:56.560 --> 0:57:59.600 so she takes refuge with the scientists inside the geodesic 0:57:59.640 --> 0:58:03.080 dome and we get a scene where Hubbs is explaining 0:58:03.120 --> 0:58:06.640 the beauty of ants. He's like, so defenseless in the individual, 0:58:06.800 --> 0:58:10.840 so powerful in the mass. But here we start getting 0:58:10.880 --> 0:58:14.520 some real conflict between LESCo and Hubbs, because LESCo quite 0:58:14.520 --> 0:58:17.920 sensibly wants to call a helicopter to evacuate Kindre to 0:58:17.960 --> 0:58:21.120 safety while they keep fighting the ant menace, and Hubbs 0:58:21.160 --> 0:58:23.560 is against it. He's like, I think the bureaucrats would 0:58:23.560 --> 0:58:26.880 be rather unhappy to learn of our casualties. 0:58:27.480 --> 0:58:30.960 Yeah, because I mean to to Lesco's point, two people 0:58:31.000 --> 0:58:33.520 have died. Three people have died. Two of them were 0:58:33.600 --> 0:58:38.120 killed seemingly by the experiment itself. Now they have this 0:58:38.640 --> 0:58:42.360 poor woman who needs to be taken to safety. Yeah, 0:58:42.360 --> 0:58:44.360 but Hubbs is like, I don't know if we want 0:58:44.360 --> 0:58:45.880 to really mess up the experiment for this. 0:58:45.920 --> 0:58:47.920 We don't want to ask you exactly. Yeah. So Hubbs 0:58:47.960 --> 0:58:51.800 is he's trending into mad scientist mode, and it helps 0:58:51.800 --> 0:58:54.360 that while saying all this stuff, he's in the middle 0:58:54.400 --> 0:58:56.560 of staging an experiment where he puts ants in a 0:58:56.640 --> 0:59:00.520 maze with a bunch of praying mantises, and eventually he's 0:59:00.800 --> 0:59:02.920 LESCo gets him to promise that he will call the 0:59:02.920 --> 0:59:06.400 helicopter to come collect Kindra, but he's obviously lying. 0:59:06.440 --> 0:59:08.920 Yeah there is. There are no helicopters in this movie, 0:59:09.440 --> 0:59:10.880 never show uh. 0:59:10.920 --> 0:59:14.440 But then at some point Kendrick gets mad while staring 0:59:14.480 --> 0:59:17.240 at an ant. She's like, ants killed my horse, and 0:59:17.280 --> 0:59:20.600 she smashes a bunch of the glass lab equipment, which 0:59:20.640 --> 0:59:24.480 sends ants everywhere inside the lab. Hubbs gets bitten by 0:59:24.520 --> 0:59:26.520 one of them before he can seal the room and 0:59:26.600 --> 0:59:28.160 gass it to kill all the ants. 0:59:28.440 --> 0:59:30.240 Yeah, this is another one of those scenes. It really 0:59:30.280 --> 0:59:32.560 feels like it was. It was written and filmed by 0:59:32.640 --> 0:59:36.000 ants like playing you know, okay, loose understanding of how 0:59:36.080 --> 0:59:37.360 humans work in accurate. 0:59:37.560 --> 0:59:42.479 Yes, the human motivations are Yeah. The ants are doing 0:59:42.520 --> 0:59:44.200 most of the acting here, yes. 0:59:52.840 --> 0:59:55.520 But from there we move on to some ant business. 0:59:55.840 --> 0:59:58.320 It's back to like basically, you know, this is a game. 0:59:58.360 --> 1:00:00.320 It is one side moves in the on the other 1:00:00.360 --> 1:00:02.240 side moves, and now it is the ant's turn. 1:00:02.440 --> 1:00:05.320 Right, So what the ants do? I'm not sure I 1:00:05.400 --> 1:00:07.920 understood this scene right. Maybe you can correct me if 1:00:07.920 --> 1:00:10.000 you've got a different impression. What it looks like is 1:00:10.040 --> 1:00:15.240 happening is that there's this sequence of ants repeatedly trying 1:00:15.280 --> 1:00:18.840 to move a wod of some yellow white material through 1:00:18.840 --> 1:00:21.080 the tunnels. And I think the wad is supposed to 1:00:21.120 --> 1:00:22.720 be the poison, the yellow. 1:00:22.480 --> 1:00:25.960 Yeah, yeah, and like one will die or become exhausted, 1:00:26.320 --> 1:00:29.280 probably die, pass it on to another ant, and that 1:00:29.360 --> 1:00:31.280 ant will keep journeying with the poison. 1:00:31.680 --> 1:00:34.040 Right, so we see this handoff. It's a relay of 1:00:34.120 --> 1:00:36.520 the poison kills one ant, the next ant takes it 1:00:37.160 --> 1:00:39.640 along on the journey, eventually bringing it, I think, to 1:00:39.760 --> 1:00:43.680 the queen, and then the queen like sniffs the poison 1:00:43.800 --> 1:00:47.760 and breathes heavily while examining it, and then starts to 1:00:47.920 --> 1:00:52.000 give birth to a yellow green object like strudes. It 1:00:52.000 --> 1:00:57.560 seems to be an egg that has been infused with 1:00:57.800 --> 1:00:59.840 the spirit of the yellow. 1:01:00.120 --> 1:01:01.840 Yeah, and this is one of those scenes where, Yeah, 1:01:01.840 --> 1:01:03.040 if you're going to come in and you're going to 1:01:03.080 --> 1:01:06.280 be very critical about everything, you're going to say, is 1:01:06.320 --> 1:01:09.120 this something ants can do? Is what's going on here? 1:01:09.480 --> 1:01:11.040 And I think, you know, this is a movie that 1:01:11.120 --> 1:01:13.680 is largely takes the viewpoint of like, Look, if I 1:01:13.720 --> 1:01:16.200 explained it to you, I'd probably get it really wrong 1:01:16.440 --> 1:01:18.880 and it would feel kind of dumb. But if you're 1:01:18.920 --> 1:01:20.880 just viewing it, if you just kind of like breathe 1:01:20.880 --> 1:01:24.160 it in, take in the colors, then everything's going to 1:01:24.200 --> 1:01:24.600 be fine. 1:01:25.200 --> 1:01:28.680 Right, So from here the arms race continues. The ants 1:01:28.840 --> 1:01:33.560 after this build a series of geometric pillars right outside 1:01:33.640 --> 1:01:37.720 the geodesic dome. And the scientists are like, what are 1:01:37.760 --> 1:01:39.840 they doing? What is this? And we discovered that they 1:01:39.840 --> 1:01:44.720 have built solar reflectors to direct beams of sunlight at 1:01:44.760 --> 1:01:48.400 the dome and this immediately starts bringing up the temperature 1:01:48.440 --> 1:01:51.360 in the lab above the level where the computers can 1:01:51.400 --> 1:01:52.080 tolerate it. 1:01:52.400 --> 1:01:54.040 Yeah, I love it. They ants did it all in 1:01:54.080 --> 1:01:58.000 one night, reflective monoliths to fry the humans and perhaps 1:01:58.040 --> 1:02:03.120 more importantly, to overheat their their delicate thinking machine. It's 1:02:03.160 --> 1:02:07.520 the sort of heat based warfare that is actually used specifically, 1:02:07.520 --> 1:02:11.280 to my knowledge, by bees. Now, bees do not construct 1:02:11.360 --> 1:02:15.120 monoliths to fry supercomputers, but they will swarm around an 1:02:15.120 --> 1:02:18.520 invader and overheat it with their own their own body heat. 1:02:18.680 --> 1:02:24.680 So it's that alone makes this feel like a I 1:02:24.720 --> 1:02:29.200 mean a speculative leap, certainly, but kind of a believable 1:02:29.280 --> 1:02:32.760 tactic that you might conceivably have some sort of advanced 1:02:32.800 --> 1:02:33.880 ants us right. 1:02:34.120 --> 1:02:36.880 Right, So that's their new offense, but also the ants 1:02:36.920 --> 1:02:40.800 of a new defense, because the researchers see that, like, 1:02:40.920 --> 1:02:43.760 the ants have started a new generation of workers that 1:02:43.800 --> 1:02:47.200 are yellow like the poison and hubs says, we challenge 1:02:47.240 --> 1:02:51.320 them with yellow chemistry, they respond with yellow creatures. So 1:02:51.360 --> 1:02:53.440 it seems, you know, the ants are adapting to the 1:02:53.800 --> 1:02:56.480 poisons they're using, and Hub says, we can try the blue, 1:02:56.480 --> 1:02:59.800 of course, but they'd only adapt again. Yeah yeah, so 1:03:00.360 --> 1:03:05.160 of course mad scientists progression. Hubs starts talking monologuing about 1:03:05.160 --> 1:03:07.800 how he believes the ants or a new type of intelligence, 1:03:07.880 --> 1:03:11.680 one that can be harnessed and educated by humans. Oh yeah, 1:03:11.680 --> 1:03:13.600 and he's like, oh, yeah, I didn't call the helicopter, 1:03:13.920 --> 1:03:17.160 so LESCo tries to call, but when he goes to 1:03:17.160 --> 1:03:19.360 flip the switch on the radio, it shorts out, and 1:03:19.600 --> 1:03:21.880 you know, sparks go all over the place, and we 1:03:21.960 --> 1:03:25.160 find that the circuit board OHO is covered in ants 1:03:25.160 --> 1:03:28.600 that have sacrificed their bodies to short out the electronics. 1:03:28.960 --> 1:03:30.320 Yeah, and they managed to get in here. 1:03:30.440 --> 1:03:34.360 Yeah, they've penetrated the perimeter. They're sabotaging equipment, and then 1:03:34.400 --> 1:03:37.480 there's this ensuing battle. They're fighting a war over like 1:03:37.520 --> 1:03:40.040 the air conditioning. The ants are trying to burn out 1:03:40.080 --> 1:03:42.840 the lab computers and the humans are trying to keep 1:03:42.880 --> 1:03:45.960 the environment cool. And so there's this cool great stuff, 1:03:45.960 --> 1:03:48.280 like shots of an ant crawling all the way down 1:03:48.280 --> 1:03:53.800 a spiraling copper coil inside the air conditioning units and LESCo, 1:03:53.920 --> 1:03:56.120 on the other hand, tries to create a sonic weapon 1:03:56.200 --> 1:03:59.800 to broadcast at the ants, accepted as excruciating to humans 1:03:59.840 --> 1:04:03.720 and cracks all the glass and the sonic weapon works. 1:04:03.760 --> 1:04:07.160 It does shatter and crumble the pillars. But then we 1:04:07.200 --> 1:04:11.120 also get ants attacking, continuing to attack the electric wires 1:04:11.200 --> 1:04:15.040 inside the facility, and there's a great scene of ant revenge. 1:04:15.160 --> 1:04:17.760 I mean, this movie really does kind of have ant characters, 1:04:17.840 --> 1:04:20.320 Like you can see them fighting their side of the 1:04:20.320 --> 1:04:23.320 battle too, because like some of the mantises from the 1:04:23.360 --> 1:04:25.680 experiments have gotten loose and they're trying to prey on 1:04:25.800 --> 1:04:28.840 ants as they're doing their business. But there's some ant 1:04:28.920 --> 1:04:32.120 revenge when an ant grabs a praying mantis's leg and 1:04:32.160 --> 1:04:34.640 pulls it into a circuit board and it is fried. 1:04:35.400 --> 1:04:37.280 Yeah. I mean, how often do you see a bug 1:04:37.320 --> 1:04:42.320 movie with two bugs battling it out like actual bugs 1:04:42.800 --> 1:04:45.960 in miniature in this artificial set like this must have 1:04:46.000 --> 1:04:47.600 been quite a challenge to put together. 1:04:48.000 --> 1:04:50.840 Now, Hubbs is not doing well because of the venomous 1:04:50.880 --> 1:04:53.320 ant bite on his hand, and we get some narration 1:04:53.400 --> 1:04:55.560 where he says, I'm taking one of my less painful 1:04:55.560 --> 1:04:59.040 moments to record these notes. Our equipment only functions for 1:04:59.080 --> 1:05:02.720 a few hours at LESCo believes we're being allowed this 1:05:02.880 --> 1:05:06.280 time for some purpose, a hypothesis I do not share. 1:05:06.440 --> 1:05:09.440 If this were so, it would raise questions I had 1:05:09.480 --> 1:05:13.360 not considered. And here's a really cool part where LESCo 1:05:13.440 --> 1:05:16.560 tries sending a message to the ants. It's an audio message, 1:05:16.600 --> 1:05:20.040 but he uses it to encode because he figures out 1:05:20.080 --> 1:05:22.320 that the ants have a code that they communicate in 1:05:22.360 --> 1:05:26.280 about directions, and so he can send them images. And 1:05:26.320 --> 1:05:29.760 so he sends them an image of a square, reasoning 1:05:29.960 --> 1:05:31.840 I didn't fully make the connection here, but I think 1:05:31.840 --> 1:05:35.080 it's something about geometry. He says, like, mathematics is the 1:05:35.200 --> 1:05:39.200 universal language among intelligent creatures. If there's intelligence there, I 1:05:39.280 --> 1:05:42.080 want it to know there's intelligence here. So he sends 1:05:42.080 --> 1:05:42.680 it a square. 1:05:43.160 --> 1:05:44.920 Yeah. I love this because you know it's getting to 1:05:44.960 --> 1:05:49.560 the I buy into this idea in mathematics is going 1:05:49.600 --> 1:05:51.640 to be the universal language that on some level the 1:05:51.680 --> 1:05:55.600 ants understand it, we understand it. And I really love 1:05:55.640 --> 1:05:59.040 this idea that like, the ants might not realize that 1:05:59.120 --> 1:06:02.320 we are intelligent two, you know, they could just be 1:06:02.360 --> 1:06:05.200 blind to this fact. And how do we possibly communicate 1:06:05.920 --> 1:06:09.080 with ants and let them know this, but things. 1:06:08.800 --> 1:06:12.400 Get progressively worse inside the dome. There's a creepy scene 1:06:12.520 --> 1:06:15.480 where Kendra is menaced by ants while she's sleeping. She 1:06:15.960 --> 1:06:19.400 sees an ant on her pillow and says, go away, 1:06:19.480 --> 1:06:23.640 please go away, and then hubbs, possibly because of his 1:06:23.720 --> 1:06:26.920 venomous ant bite, or possibly from the interaction of that 1:06:26.960 --> 1:06:30.920 bite with his pre existing mad scientist disease. He starts 1:06:30.920 --> 1:06:33.640 going nuts and smashing things, trying to kill ants he 1:06:33.720 --> 1:06:37.840 sees or believes he sees. He gets a really bad 1:06:37.880 --> 1:06:40.200 case of I attached a picture for you to look 1:06:40.240 --> 1:06:43.080 at here, Rob kind of mad scientist eyes like. He 1:06:43.120 --> 1:06:45.040 looks like he's about to start talking about how he 1:06:45.040 --> 1:06:47.680 should have won a Nobel prize but the narrow minded 1:06:47.680 --> 1:06:51.400 academics stole it from him. And he thinks he kills 1:06:51.480 --> 1:06:53.760 an ant, but I can't tell if he actually did. 1:06:54.200 --> 1:06:56.480 He just sort of pulls back a bloody hand. I'm 1:06:56.520 --> 1:06:57.240 not sure he had. 1:06:57.280 --> 1:06:59.800 Here's some shattered glass on the floor and he manages 1:07:00.200 --> 1:07:02.520 his hand up. We don't see an end. Hey, then 1:07:02.560 --> 1:07:05.720 his Phase three buddy, Yeah, yep, We're getting down to 1:07:05.760 --> 1:07:09.600 the final of the This is the pinultimate phase. Yeah. 1:07:09.760 --> 1:07:12.040 Phase four is going to really blow you away. And 1:07:12.080 --> 1:07:13.600 this is this is where we're getting there. 1:07:13.800 --> 1:07:16.320 So we see LESCo and Hubbs in their bunks, and 1:07:16.440 --> 1:07:18.800 Lesco's wondering, why don't they kill us? You know, they 1:07:18.920 --> 1:07:21.280 roast us in here all day and then they dare 1:07:21.360 --> 1:07:23.360 us to come out at night. Why why do they 1:07:23.800 --> 1:07:25.760 Why do they play these games? Why don't they just 1:07:25.840 --> 1:07:28.560 kill us? Now? What do they want? And Hubbs talks 1:07:28.600 --> 1:07:31.560 about ant specialization. He says, you know, ants are organized 1:07:31.600 --> 1:07:34.400 into roles by the queen in order to keep her alive. 1:07:34.520 --> 1:07:36.400 He says, she's at the center. It is she who 1:07:36.480 --> 1:07:40.320 speaks if she were to die, and then they hash 1:07:40.360 --> 1:07:43.000 out their different views about what should be done next, 1:07:43.040 --> 1:07:47.320 how to proceed. Hubbs thinks, let's locate the queen and killer. 1:07:47.440 --> 1:07:50.800 That's our only way, and LESCo says, ants have all 1:07:50.840 --> 1:07:53.320 the cards. The only way to survive is to convince 1:07:53.400 --> 1:07:55.320 them that we're worth keeping alive. 1:07:55.960 --> 1:07:59.800 M It is interesting here where you know Hubbs and 1:08:00.080 --> 1:08:02.280 focusing more and more on the queen, and so he 1:08:02.360 --> 1:08:05.040 ends up focusing more and more on the individual as 1:08:05.080 --> 1:08:08.000 opposed to the group, whereas I think LESCo still seems 1:08:08.040 --> 1:08:11.479 to be more of the mindset it's like a it's 1:08:11.480 --> 1:08:14.360 the mass we need to communicate with. So I feel 1:08:14.360 --> 1:08:17.040 like the focus on the individual is perhaps just more 1:08:17.080 --> 1:08:18.800 a part of Hubbs's madness. 1:08:19.120 --> 1:08:21.479 Right, and oh and here's a scene I did love. 1:08:21.560 --> 1:08:25.240 So the ants want to communicate that LESCo transmitted the 1:08:25.240 --> 1:08:30.000 square to them earlier. They transmit back. They make vocalizations 1:08:30.040 --> 1:08:33.479 that the computer can interpret and it prints what they say. 1:08:33.520 --> 1:08:36.240 And what they say is in response to the square. 1:08:36.439 --> 1:08:39.040 They say, a circle with a dot in it. What 1:08:39.080 --> 1:08:39.760 does that mean? 1:08:40.120 --> 1:08:42.720 Yeah, they start to saying, well, maybe that's here. It's 1:08:42.720 --> 1:08:45.240 a map. They want something in here. We should look 1:08:45.240 --> 1:08:47.639 around and see if we find it. And that's pretty 1:08:47.640 --> 1:08:50.600 great because Kindra is suddenly like, oh, they must mean me, 1:08:50.880 --> 1:08:55.839 because I smashed an ant in the research room earlier. 1:08:56.360 --> 1:08:59.960 I will go out into the wild without my shoes on, rightady, 1:09:00.080 --> 1:09:02.040 to sacrifice herself for these scientists. 1:09:02.320 --> 1:09:05.680 Yes, She's like, the ants want me, and if I go, 1:09:06.000 --> 1:09:08.840 I commit aunt suicide. Then the scientists will get away, 1:09:08.880 --> 1:09:12.400 all right, rub there's a picture I included here, not 1:09:12.400 --> 1:09:15.120 because anything interesting is going on. It's just Hubbs sitting 1:09:15.200 --> 1:09:17.800 at a desk. But I included it because I don't 1:09:17.840 --> 1:09:20.120 know what these boxes are, but it looks like he 1:09:20.120 --> 1:09:22.840 has several sticks of butter sitting on the console in 1:09:22.880 --> 1:09:23.479 front of him. 1:09:23.640 --> 1:09:25.400 It does look like it. There's also a scene where 1:09:25.439 --> 1:09:27.160 he because basically he's convinced, I got to go out 1:09:27.160 --> 1:09:29.640 and kill the queen. They I what they where? They 1:09:29.640 --> 1:09:31.639 think the mound is where the queen can be found. 1:09:32.080 --> 1:09:34.160 And he goes to get the grenade launcher out again, 1:09:34.600 --> 1:09:36.720 but there are no grenades left because he used all 1:09:36.760 --> 1:09:38.719 of them to blow up the monoliths earlier. 1:09:38.920 --> 1:09:41.840 Why why, buddy. 1:09:42.040 --> 1:09:44.280 So he's gonna have to do it the old fashioned way. 1:09:44.320 --> 1:09:47.439 He's gonna have to take a canister of the blue 1:09:47.760 --> 1:09:51.280 out there and poison his way across there the ant 1:09:51.320 --> 1:09:56.160 dominated waste plant and make his way to the queen 1:09:56.240 --> 1:09:57.920 and try and poison her there. That seems to be 1:09:57.960 --> 1:09:58.519 the plan. 1:09:58.800 --> 1:10:02.160 But Hubbs goes out to attack the queen, and so 1:10:02.320 --> 1:10:05.439 Kindra has already gone out to sacrifice herself to the ants, 1:10:05.479 --> 1:10:08.080 and we see her just sort of disappear. Hubbs goes 1:10:08.080 --> 1:10:11.560 out and falls into a pit trap. The ants construct 1:10:11.600 --> 1:10:14.720 a pit trap. This is amazing connection to the core 1:10:14.760 --> 1:10:15.479 episode we did. 1:10:15.800 --> 1:10:18.120 Yeah, yeah, we were talking about pit traps and why 1:10:18.160 --> 1:10:21.760 we don't like studies about why we don't see more 1:10:21.800 --> 1:10:24.479 pit traps in nature. You know, how about how ultimately 1:10:24.479 --> 1:10:27.439 a pit trap is is easy to build, it doesn't 1:10:27.640 --> 1:10:30.880 require that much energy. And we talk about ants potentially 1:10:30.920 --> 1:10:33.760 building traps as well. And so because of all that, 1:10:34.080 --> 1:10:36.439 and then having sort of developed a vague interest in 1:10:36.479 --> 1:10:40.240 this film based on our previous episode about ants potentially 1:10:40.280 --> 1:10:43.519 building traps, to suddenly be hit with this scene, I 1:10:43.560 --> 1:10:46.439 think I exclaimed aloud. It was just it's such a shock. 1:10:46.479 --> 1:10:47.400 It's a great sequence. 1:10:47.640 --> 1:10:50.120 Yeah, it is. And of course he's immediately swarmed by ants. 1:10:50.160 --> 1:10:54.479 He gets landed puranaed by the ant, and so now 1:10:54.479 --> 1:10:57.080 it's just down to LESCo Is Michael Murphy. He's like, 1:10:57.200 --> 1:11:00.400 I gotta do it. So he delivers this model that's 1:11:00.400 --> 1:11:02.680 full of regret. He says, like, I would still like 1:11:02.720 --> 1:11:04.639 to believe that if we'd had more time, we could 1:11:04.640 --> 1:11:08.000 have come to an understanding, some rational accommodation of interest, 1:11:08.160 --> 1:11:10.800 some agreement. But that's not the way it's going to be. 1:11:11.360 --> 1:11:14.400 So he suits up, just starts spraying the blue everywhere, 1:11:15.320 --> 1:11:17.640 and finally he's come around to Hub's position. He's like, 1:11:17.680 --> 1:11:20.360 we only have one chance. We got to assassinate the queen. 1:11:21.160 --> 1:11:23.679 So he goes up to the mound where the queen 1:11:23.800 --> 1:11:26.439 is supposed to be. But then I guess there's sort 1:11:26.479 --> 1:11:28.640 of another pit trap because he's as he's trying to 1:11:28.640 --> 1:11:30.840 go in, he ends up sliding and he falls in. 1:11:31.439 --> 1:11:33.680 Oh but then we should mention on the way to 1:11:33.880 --> 1:11:35.920 the mound, like he's having all sorts of mishaps. He 1:11:35.920 --> 1:11:38.479 starts out in his full protective suit, but oh right, 1:11:38.600 --> 1:11:41.280 he like falls and breaks the glass. Ants get into 1:11:41.320 --> 1:11:43.439 the mask and are biting his face, and so by 1:11:43.479 --> 1:11:46.320 the time he gets here he has no protective gear 1:11:46.320 --> 1:11:49.599 on it all, he has no shoes on it. All right, 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:53.680 it's and we have the narration of, you know, of 1:11:53.800 --> 1:11:56.160 just how worn out and on the end of things 1:11:56.160 --> 1:11:56.479 he is. 1:11:56.920 --> 1:11:58.800 But then here we get to the ending, and the 1:11:58.960 --> 1:12:03.680 ending is so weird, and I love this, and there 1:12:03.680 --> 1:12:05.000 are a couple of things I think we can say 1:12:05.000 --> 1:12:07.720 about what the ending could have been also. But in 1:12:07.800 --> 1:12:10.280 the end he goes down in to find the queen, 1:12:10.400 --> 1:12:13.120 and instead of finding the queen, he finds a room 1:12:13.720 --> 1:12:16.800 with a with a like a rectangular doorway as if 1:12:16.840 --> 1:12:20.360 it was built for humans inside the ant mound, and 1:12:20.560 --> 1:12:24.320 inside this room Buried underneath the sand is Kendra, who 1:12:24.360 --> 1:12:27.360 appears to be maybe still alive or in some suspended 1:12:27.400 --> 1:12:31.640 animation state, and Michael Murphy sort of surrenders to the 1:12:31.720 --> 1:12:35.680 ants and he knows that the ants have won and 1:12:35.720 --> 1:12:39.080 they're going to keep winning, and essentially that the ants 1:12:39.080 --> 1:12:41.120 are going to be the new rulers of the Earth, 1:12:41.520 --> 1:12:44.000 but they're not going to be killed. The ants have 1:12:44.120 --> 1:12:47.040 some kind of plans for them, and he's just ready 1:12:47.080 --> 1:12:47.599 to obey. 1:12:48.200 --> 1:12:51.080 Yeah, it is a it's a great like suddenly just 1:12:51.439 --> 1:12:57.400 very trippy and psychedelic sequence, you know, with images of 1:12:57.920 --> 1:13:00.320 a setting a rising sun. I guess ultimately it's supposed 1:13:00.320 --> 1:13:01.880 to be rising the I feel like they might have 1:13:01.920 --> 1:13:04.839 filmed a setting sun and then reversed it or something. 1:13:05.840 --> 1:13:12.400 But very very orange, very very warming, beautiful sequence that 1:13:13.080 --> 1:13:15.640 again just really kicks the film into high gear, like 1:13:15.640 --> 1:13:20.719 suddenly we're in pure visionary filmmaking mode and we're gazing 1:13:20.760 --> 1:13:23.679 into the future. These two have been chosen by the ants. 1:13:23.840 --> 1:13:25.720 They don't know what their purpose is going to be 1:13:25.840 --> 1:13:27.680 or what this new world is going to consist of, 1:13:27.720 --> 1:13:30.719 but there I guess they're going to be the profits 1:13:30.720 --> 1:13:33.240 of the New Age or the spokespeople of the ants 1:13:33.400 --> 1:13:34.560 or anabassadors. 1:13:35.160 --> 1:13:37.200 They're like the Yeah, I was thinking, are they going 1:13:37.240 --> 1:13:39.360 to be used as the ambassadors to the rest of 1:13:39.439 --> 1:13:42.240 humanity to like explain to them that the ants are 1:13:42.240 --> 1:13:45.639 in charge? Now, that's sort of the idea I got. 1:13:46.120 --> 1:13:48.800 They're the I for one, welcome our new aunt overlords. 1:13:49.160 --> 1:13:52.760 Yeah, exactly. It's also hinted like maybe they're gonna it's 1:13:52.760 --> 1:13:54.720 gonna be the beginning of a new species. They're like that, 1:13:54.760 --> 1:13:57.519 the Adam and Eve of the New Ant World. 1:13:58.000 --> 1:13:59.920 But so the version of the movie I saw had 1:14:00.200 --> 1:14:03.200 shorter ending, but there actually is an alternate ending. 1:14:04.000 --> 1:14:06.400 Yes, now this one. According to Michael Weldon, this one 1:14:06.560 --> 1:14:10.479 was cut at the request of the studio because the 1:14:10.960 --> 1:14:15.520 lost ending the original ending is even more nut so psychedelic. 1:14:15.600 --> 1:14:19.160 It reminds me a lot of how Disney's The Black 1:14:19.160 --> 1:14:22.560 Hole from nineteen seventy nine also originally had a far trippier, 1:14:22.680 --> 1:14:27.479 weirder like quasi religious ending with our characters emerging in 1:14:27.520 --> 1:14:31.519 the afterlife and humans and robots merging together, and then 1:14:31.560 --> 1:14:33.679 like the studio apparently it's like that is too weird. 1:14:33.720 --> 1:14:38.680 This is a mainstream motion picture. But yeah, similar thing 1:14:38.720 --> 1:14:41.080 going here because the Lost ending, like the actual ending 1:14:41.080 --> 1:14:43.320 that we get in the theatrical cut of the film, 1:14:43.680 --> 1:14:48.280 is very satisfying, very trippy, very visual. But the Lost 1:14:48.400 --> 1:14:52.080 ending is just an absolute heroic dose of cinematic surrealism. 1:14:52.479 --> 1:14:52.800 Uh huh. 1:14:53.280 --> 1:14:55.840 So this ending is even longer. I think it's like 1:14:56.400 --> 1:14:59.880 seven or eight minutes total, and it gives us this 1:15:00.040 --> 1:15:03.559 sort of muadib fever dream vision of a future world 1:15:03.960 --> 1:15:07.360 in which ant civilization dominates humans. And all of this 1:15:07.439 --> 1:15:11.240 is presented very you know, surreally and abstractly, with visual 1:15:11.280 --> 1:15:16.519 flashes and confuse occasionally, like confusing number tags. We see 1:15:16.760 --> 1:15:20.800 flashes of ant mega projects and human scampering across them 1:15:21.120 --> 1:15:24.160 like ants. We see visions of human beings I guess 1:15:24.760 --> 1:15:29.920 in servitude to ants, strangers with magnifying loops on their heads, 1:15:30.000 --> 1:15:32.439 you know, magnification devices over their eyes, so I guess 1:15:32.479 --> 1:15:36.599 they can see their masters better. There's a faceless human 1:15:36.720 --> 1:15:39.720 that pops up, perhaps the result of some sort of 1:15:39.840 --> 1:15:42.759 ant derived human, you know, he's like a drone or something. 1:15:43.479 --> 1:15:48.600 We see James and Kindred's faces becoming one. There's you know, 1:15:48.840 --> 1:15:53.599 some sort of erotic flashes of human bodies. There's oh, 1:15:53.640 --> 1:15:55.479 and there's just so much going on that Like it's 1:15:55.640 --> 1:15:58.360 it's like a crazy music video with all sorts of 1:15:58.640 --> 1:16:02.320 strange surreal sek. There's a bald guy buried in the 1:16:02.360 --> 1:16:04.599 sand with a hole in his head and ants come 1:16:04.680 --> 1:16:05.679 crawling out the hole. 1:16:06.640 --> 1:16:08.720 It's just eleven thirty eight. 1:16:08.840 --> 1:16:11.680 Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's like it just goes into like 1:16:12.080 --> 1:16:16.960 just extreme visual mode. And and I think it works 1:16:17.360 --> 1:16:20.240 into a large extent because it is it is the 1:16:20.400 --> 1:16:25.320 ant future loosely translated into some sort of visual form 1:16:25.360 --> 1:16:27.320 that the humans can understand. 1:16:27.600 --> 1:16:29.559 I would say actually that I think with the long ending, 1:16:29.600 --> 1:16:32.080 the whole point of like that the abstract imagery and 1:16:32.120 --> 1:16:35.000 stuff is is to say that we can't understand it. 1:16:35.120 --> 1:16:37.519 Yeah, yeah, when we can, we can we can sort 1:16:37.560 --> 1:16:40.160 of glimpse it. Yeah, we can't fully understand like why 1:16:40.200 --> 1:16:42.040 the ants have done this, that and the other. Like 1:16:42.080 --> 1:16:43.559 what the full vision is here? 1:16:44.000 --> 1:16:47.839 Yeah, that the future of humans under an earth controlled 1:16:47.880 --> 1:16:51.240 by ants is going to be so bewildering and incomprehensible 1:16:51.280 --> 1:16:53.679 to us. It would be like, you know, like what 1:16:53.800 --> 1:16:56.519 we do with an experiment like ants trying to understand 1:16:56.520 --> 1:16:58.439 why they're in a maze in a laboratory. It just 1:16:58.520 --> 1:16:59.800 doesn't make any sense to them. 1:17:00.240 --> 1:17:04.479 Yeah, and in this extended you know, ultimately rejected ending, 1:17:04.640 --> 1:17:08.880 I think it also it it's beautiful but also horrifying 1:17:08.920 --> 1:17:12.240 at times, like the dude with no face. There's another 1:17:12.240 --> 1:17:14.479 guy with like some sort of weird implants in his head, 1:17:14.560 --> 1:17:18.320 Like you get the sense that, yeah, an ant dominated 1:17:18.640 --> 1:17:21.679 world in which humans still have a role, it's going 1:17:21.720 --> 1:17:25.040 to be very different. It's not going to be altogether pleasant. 1:17:25.760 --> 1:17:28.800 It's it's yeah, this is a strange ending. It is 1:17:28.840 --> 1:17:32.880 a strange message to potentially hit the viewer with. And 1:17:33.120 --> 1:17:36.400 I have to say I understand. I understand why the 1:17:36.439 --> 1:17:39.519 studio probably came in and they're like, Saul, Saul, what 1:17:39.560 --> 1:17:41.760 are you doing? What are you doing with this? You know, 1:17:41.840 --> 1:17:43.880 we can't do this ending? You know. 1:17:44.160 --> 1:17:46.160 I like it. I like the long, weird ending. I 1:17:46.200 --> 1:17:47.960 like the part where the at least humans are up 1:17:47.960 --> 1:17:50.320 on like a zigarot. That's interesting. 1:17:50.800 --> 1:17:53.760 No, I love everything about the extended ending. And I 1:17:53.760 --> 1:17:55.920 think if you go out and watch this film, you 1:17:56.040 --> 1:17:57.759 need to make sure you get to see the extended 1:17:57.880 --> 1:18:00.719 ending as well, and you can choose which one you prefer. 1:18:00.840 --> 1:18:04.080 But I totally get why the studio was like, you 1:18:04.160 --> 1:18:06.800 can't do this, No, No, you've got to scale back 1:18:06.800 --> 1:18:08.280 on this. This is too weird. 1:18:08.720 --> 1:18:10.800 Well, I guess that's it. Phase four an ode to 1:18:10.880 --> 1:18:15.240 our future use social overlords. That's A. That's a. That's 1:18:15.240 --> 1:18:16.519 a pretty great ant movie. 1:18:17.200 --> 1:18:19.000 This is the best ant movie I've ever seen. This 1:18:19.040 --> 1:18:21.760 may be the best. I don't know if it's the 1:18:21.760 --> 1:18:24.880 best animal tack movies I've seen. It's certainly an animal 1:18:25.000 --> 1:18:28.679 tack movie where the animals have the best strategy. They're 1:18:28.680 --> 1:18:31.479 not just swarming us, they're out thinking us. So, hey, 1:18:31.600 --> 1:18:33.680 you want to watch phase four as well? You want 1:18:33.680 --> 1:18:36.519 to reach phase four? Well, you can watch this film 1:18:36.560 --> 1:18:39.800 pretty much wherever you rent or purchase digital movies. All 1:18:39.800 --> 1:18:41.559 of Films put out of what seems like a nice 1:18:41.560 --> 1:18:44.280 blu ray of it in the US not too long ago. 1:18:44.920 --> 1:18:47.240 One oh one Films put out a really nice blue 1:18:47.280 --> 1:18:49.200 ray in the UK, and I believe they also put 1:18:49.200 --> 1:18:52.639 one out in the US as well. I highly recommend 1:18:52.680 --> 1:18:54.920 you find a version that includes the original ending as 1:18:54.960 --> 1:18:57.719 an extra. Sometimes you might be able to find that extra, 1:18:57.760 --> 1:19:01.200 you know, floating around online, but that's not really and ultimately, 1:19:01.240 --> 1:19:03.800 you want high quality for this. So I know the 1:19:03.880 --> 1:19:07.000 one oh one Films Blue has the extended ending as 1:19:07.040 --> 1:19:10.320 an extra, and if you purchase the movie but not 1:19:10.439 --> 1:19:13.599 rent it on Apple TV, then you get access to 1:19:13.640 --> 1:19:18.280 this extra, but you do have to purchase it through there. 1:19:18.280 --> 1:19:21.120 Otherwise you just rent it and you get the theatrical ending. 1:19:21.600 --> 1:19:25.519 Oh and as for the soundtrack, Waxwork Records put out 1:19:25.520 --> 1:19:30.799 a really beautiful yellow vinyl of this with stunning jacket design, 1:19:30.960 --> 1:19:33.880 full of production art by Saul bass, stills from that 1:19:33.960 --> 1:19:36.559 lost ending, and expansive liner note. So this is really 1:19:36.640 --> 1:19:39.439 cool work looking. If you're a if you collect vinyl 1:19:39.439 --> 1:19:42.080 and this kind of soundtrack is your thing, you should 1:19:42.120 --> 1:19:43.920 check this out. I think they might have put out 1:19:43.920 --> 1:19:47.400 a CD release as well, but I couldn't find a 1:19:47.400 --> 1:19:51.320 good place to just stream the soundtrack, you know, Like, 1:19:51.360 --> 1:19:53.000 I don't think it's up on any of the streaming 1:19:53.040 --> 1:19:55.920 sites at least as of this recording. All right, well, 1:19:55.960 --> 1:19:57.280 we're going to go ahead and close it out then, 1:19:57.439 --> 1:20:00.360 but we'd love to hear from everyone out there thoughts 1:20:00.360 --> 1:20:03.559 on phase four having seen it recently, having seen it 1:20:03.600 --> 1:20:05.040 back in the day, did you see it? Were you 1:20:05.080 --> 1:20:06.479 one of the few people that apparently saw it in 1:20:06.520 --> 1:20:09.800 theaters back in the nineteen seventies, whatever your answer is, 1:20:09.840 --> 1:20:13.479 we'd love to hear from you. As always, Weird House 1:20:13.520 --> 1:20:16.960 Cinema publishes every Friday. You can find it in the 1:20:16.960 --> 1:20:19.120 Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily a 1:20:19.160 --> 1:20:22.200 science podcast, but you know, we like to set most 1:20:22.240 --> 1:20:24.920 serious matters aside on Fridays and just discuss a strange 1:20:24.920 --> 1:20:26.760 film and in this case, you know, sometimes it's a 1:20:26.800 --> 1:20:31.360 film that ties in with recent serious episodes we've recorded. 1:20:32.560 --> 1:20:36.040 If you want to follow Weird House Cinema on Instagram, 1:20:36.080 --> 1:20:38.560 I created an Instagram for it. It's Weird House Cinema. 1:20:38.640 --> 1:20:40.680 That's the name of the show. That's the name of 1:20:40.680 --> 1:20:43.639 the Instagram account. And then also I put up blog 1:20:43.680 --> 1:20:48.120 posts about these episodes at Simmuta music dot com. That's 1:20:48.120 --> 1:20:50.160 a linked on the Instagram if you want to get there. 1:20:50.680 --> 1:20:54.040 But whenever we refer to other pieces of media that 1:20:54.080 --> 1:20:57.080 are related to it, other trailers, other bits of music. 1:20:57.560 --> 1:20:59.760 That's often where I will stash that for your easy 1:20:59.800 --> 1:21:00.400 case assumption. 1:21:00.960 --> 1:21:04.120 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth 1:21:04.200 --> 1:21:06.519 Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch 1:21:06.560 --> 1:21:08.720 with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 1:21:08.840 --> 1:21:11.240 to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:21:11.640 --> 1:21:14.200 you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow 1:21:14.280 --> 1:21:22.479 Your Mind dot com. 1:21:22.640 --> 1:21:25.600 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. 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