Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we
Speaker 1: are discussing We're not only discussing an ANT movie, which
Speaker 1: of course is a subset of Killer Bug movies in general.
Speaker 1: We're discussing what might be the ANT movie, the most
Speaker 1: ambitious AUNT movie, um in many ways, the most perplexing
Speaker 1: and thought provoking AUNT movie. I'm super excited to talk
Speaker 1: about it. Actually just had as a as a pre
Speaker 1: recording snack a couple of ants on a log I
Speaker 1: got out there, the salary and butter and the raisins.
Speaker 1: It just felt appropriate, you know. I feel like that
Speaker 1: reflects our higher AUNT consciousness now, because the important thing
Speaker 1: to understand about ants is they don't even mind if
Speaker 1: you eat a few of them. You know. But that's
Speaker 1: sort of like the It's like the skin cells that
Speaker 1: you would scrape off of somebody's hand while hugging them,
Speaker 1: you know, it just like doesn't bother the colony as
Speaker 1: a whole. And I would say that's actually reflective of
Speaker 1: the movie we're talking about today overall. Uh, the movie
Speaker 1: is the nineteen seventies sci fi ant flick Phase Four,
Speaker 1: which we alluded to possibly doing an episode on in
Speaker 1: our In our in our Core episode about ants building traps,
Speaker 1: we talked about some biology papers about about aunt behaviors,
Speaker 1: whether and whether these structures ants build should be understood
Speaker 1: as traps or not. But this movie came up because
Speaker 1: we were talking about ant movies and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this aunt movie I've been looking at in the
Speaker 1: video store for years, just based on the DVD cover.
Speaker 1: It's called Phase four. The cover is like this kind
Speaker 1: of cool design, but it's got ants crawling out of
Speaker 1: a hole in somebody's hand. Never seen it, and we
Speaker 1: went in just based on the DVD cover and I'd
Speaker 1: say this was a hit. Yeah, yeah. After we had
Speaker 1: we had, I decided this is the one. UM. I
Speaker 1: actually received word from someone on the stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind discord emails if you want to invite to
Speaker 1: that who They were like, yeah, this is this one's good.
Speaker 1: You're gonna want to cover this one for a weird house. UM.
Speaker 1: I also have, of course looked it up when we
Speaker 1: were talking about I looked up in Michael Weldon Psychotronic
Speaker 1: Encyclopedia film in which he called it quote a great
Speaker 1: science fiction thriller starring countless real ants. So that that
Speaker 1: was a solid endorsement, but it still wasn't able to
Speaker 1: prepare me for all that was to come. Well, So
Speaker 1: when I look at the other side of the critical
Speaker 1: response to this movie, uh, I think some people have
Speaker 1: been kind of critical of it lacking in human depth.
Speaker 1: And I'll say, okay, I'm with them there. I mean
Speaker 1: that this is not really a humans movie, and the
Speaker 1: human characters there are few of them, and the ones
Speaker 1: that are there, we don't learn much about them, and
Speaker 1: they're not super dimensional. But I think that's okay, because
Speaker 1: this is a movie that encourages you to also see
Speaker 1: humans as sort of just a sells on the whole
Speaker 1: body of the human species. Yeah. Yeah, and in very
Speaker 1: delightful ways. It is a It is a movie almost
Speaker 1: by ants, four ants. It is a movie that is
Speaker 1: fresh on aunt Rotten Tomatoes. It is um it it is.
Speaker 1: It is such an interesting film in so many ways,
Speaker 1: like um, just it's it's gonna be fun to discuss everything.
Speaker 1: Um I'm almost not sure where to start here. You know,
Speaker 1: the funny thing about Aunt Rotten Tomatoes. Is there are
Speaker 1: no in between scores. It's either a dent or zero
Speaker 1: percent every time they're unified. Well, maybe we should talk
Speaker 1: about ant movies more generally, because this is, of course
Speaker 1: not the only one. In fact, I had a very
Speaker 1: uh powerful, vivid memory that came rushing back to me
Speaker 1: just the other day when when I started trying to
Speaker 1: recual if I'd seen other AUNT movies before, and it
Speaker 1: was a memory of being about twelve years old and
Speaker 1: watching this terrible for TV killer ant movie that I
Speaker 1: think was on the Fox Network or one of those
Speaker 1: you know, um, it was one of those made for
Speaker 1: TV movies that they used to advertise in the weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to it. So they have a commercial with
Speaker 1: you know, Don la Fontaine or somebody on there saying
Speaker 1: this Sunday at eight nine Central, you will learn the
Speaker 1: true meaning of terror ants and you get a music
Speaker 1: sting and and man that I don't know if they
Speaker 1: focus group tested that or whatever, but that worked on
Speaker 1: my twelve year old brain I had That was like
Speaker 1: I had to make an appointment to watch a movie
Speaker 1: that that I went back and looked up and I
Speaker 1: found out it is called Marabunta Colon Legion of Fire,
Speaker 1: and I rewatched the trailer and oh, this looks stinky.
Speaker 1: It looks like it is no good. It has some
Speaker 1: absolutely atrocious c g I ants stripping a moose clean
Speaker 1: down to the bone like piranhas on Land. Uh does
Speaker 1: have Mitch Peleggie from the X Files and Shocker. And
Speaker 1: it also has something that's common to some of these
Speaker 1: ant movies where there are scenes of columns of army
Speaker 1: ants that are treated like rivers of molten lava and
Speaker 1: a volcano movie. So you get, I don't know, a
Speaker 1: kid stranded up on top of a crate and then
Speaker 1: on all sides of them, the ants are just flowing
Speaker 1: and they've got to jump over them to get to
Speaker 1: safety or something. What is it with Shocker connections, We're
Speaker 1: gonna have another one of those coming up, that's right.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I guess when I think of of ant
Speaker 1: movies that I saw as a kid, I I my
Speaker 1: mind probably goes to nineteen fifty four is them because
Speaker 1: this one was in I think it was in pretty
Speaker 1: pretty um tight rotation on like the Turner stations back
Speaker 1: in the day, Like there's a pretty good chance you're
Speaker 1: gonna catch part of them, uh, you know, especially on
Speaker 1: like a Sunday afternoon. But but other notable AUNT movies
Speaker 1: include nineteen seventy seven's Empire of the Ants. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: also nineteen seventy seven's TV movie Ants with an exclamation point,
Speaker 1: starring everyone's favorite Brooke, Robert Foxworth of um of what
Speaker 1: was it? I can't remember the name of that movie
Speaker 1: death Moon or some Moon, Death Moon Faint, but that
Speaker 1: one also starred Suzanne Summers, Brian Dennah he uh, Anita Gillette.
Speaker 1: This is the actor who played Liz Lemon's mom on
Speaker 1: Dirty Rock, and also Bernie Casey. So does Foxworth play
Speaker 1: another work beast in this movie? Um? I don't, and
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm guessing, like, yeah, maybe a laid
Speaker 1: back work beast that has to go up against in
Speaker 1: this case ants. I haven't seen it, but okay, it
Speaker 1: sounds good. Um. Question about them though? Them is a
Speaker 1: movie not with regular ants but with big ants. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like an atomic age mutation movie. Correct? Correct? And
Speaker 1: I think that that leads into our next major distinction
Speaker 1: to make here. When we're talking about ant movies, you're
Speaker 1: gonna either deal with giant ant movies or you're gonna
Speaker 1: deal with normal sized ants. So it's either gonna be
Speaker 1: a giant bug feature or it's gonna be a swarm feature.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting about that is when you have the
Speaker 1: giant ant um, it's going to be more about individual ants.
Speaker 1: That's the spectacle of it, right. Uh this generally you're
Speaker 1: doing a lot to get one giant ant on the screen,
Speaker 1: But when you're dealing with the swarm, of course, you
Speaker 1: have this more accurate reflection of what ants are. They
Speaker 1: are not the individual, they are the group. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's right, and I would say broadly, I think
Speaker 1: i'd break ant movies into three categories. So you've got
Speaker 1: your giant ant movies, in which case the ant is
Speaker 1: not really important. It's not important that it's an ant.
Speaker 1: It's just a giant bug, and it could be any bug.
Speaker 1: Could be a giant praying manness, giant spider is just
Speaker 1: a giant bug that attacks. So I think that's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be my least favorite kind overall, because that you
Speaker 1: lose the essential anti nous, you know, the formic the
Speaker 1: formic aromas of the premise is just like any giant
Speaker 1: bugle do because they're just big and they'll tear you apart.
Speaker 1: Might as well go with a more interesting solitary um
Speaker 1: a bug, you know, in like arachnet, like a scorpion
Speaker 1: for example. Sure, giant scorpion would be great. Giant spider obviously, okay,
Speaker 1: but then when you break it down, you keep the
Speaker 1: ants small. I think they're basically two ways you can go.
Speaker 1: One is the um just ants as ants, like you know,
Speaker 1: they're kind of an environmental threat almost that this comes
Speaker 1: back to the like they're like rivers of molten lava
Speaker 1: and a volcano movie. You know, they're just like as
Speaker 1: the floor is lava, accept instead of lava, it's ants.
Speaker 1: But then the other way to go is to think
Speaker 1: about ants as a sort of organization principle and and
Speaker 1: have the horror lie there. And that's actually where Phase
Speaker 1: four goes, which I think is interesting to think about
Speaker 1: ants not just as something that turns the floor into lava,
Speaker 1: but something that has has organized behaviors that can surprise
Speaker 1: you and make you afraid. Yeah. Yeah, that And that's
Speaker 1: definitely the the realm that we're going to be venturing
Speaker 1: into with Phase four. Here. I guess the real distinction
Speaker 1: there is that like it does the danger of the
Speaker 1: ants lie in their in their numbers alone or in
Speaker 1: their youth sociality. And phase four it's in their youth sociality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is what we have to drive home. This
Speaker 1: is definitely one of the more, if not the most
Speaker 1: ambitious ANT movies and intelligent AUNT movies like there. They
Speaker 1: really went for it with this particular film, trying to
Speaker 1: to to use ants to their their full potential cinematically. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's a rare beast. I think it's a work
Speaker 1: beast in many ways, because I would say this is
Speaker 1: also a highly technical film as as we've already said,
Speaker 1: you know, it may be lacking in some human depth,
Speaker 1: but as a sort of visual art project, I'd say
Speaker 1: this movie is is a home run. I mean it
Speaker 1: is a a beautiful, weird celebration of geometry of like
Speaker 1: colors and lines and angles and close up photography of ants,
Speaker 1: and I would say very good special effects. There are
Speaker 1: parts where the puppetry is so good. I sometimes couldn't
Speaker 1: tell if I was looking at uh, you know, micro
Speaker 1: photography of real ants or if it was one of
Speaker 1: the puppets. Yeah, it was very difficult to tell. And
Speaker 1: and I should also throw in that not only are
Speaker 1: the visuals great, but the sound design and music is
Speaker 1: also really noteworthy, and we'll we'll touch on that as
Speaker 1: we go. Yeah. Now, Phase four was something of a
Speaker 1: flop at the time. Apparently maybe he was ahead of
Speaker 1: its time. Um, but over the years it's been particularly
Speaker 1: influential on various visionary filmmakers. Apparently, um, I know it's
Speaker 1: Michael Weldon liked it. I've read that um uh, Penas
Speaker 1: Cosmontos was a fan of it. Apparently inspired Beyond the
Speaker 1: Black Rainbow. Yeah, yeah, which is a film I have
Speaker 1: a lot of admiration for. Um and and certainly having
Speaker 1: seen Phase four now I can I can definitely see
Speaker 1: where those inspiration points are. Um. Apparently apparently as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: this was also a film that was riffed in the
Speaker 1: kt m A like like basically proto uh season of
Speaker 1: Mystery Science Theater three thousand and uh. And that's an
Speaker 1: episode you can actually find places, you know, uploaded on
Speaker 1: video servers and all. I've never watched it because the
Speaker 1: kt M A episodes are, um, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: different beast. It was the first season. It's it's not
Speaker 1: quite like watching a full blown MST. Three K episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say in general, they're not as engaging, not
Speaker 1: as good. And the weird thing about it is, I
Speaker 1: recall some of the movie, so this is like when
Speaker 1: they were a public access show in Minnesota or wherever
Speaker 1: it was before they got syndicated became a national show.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing about that early season is I
Speaker 1: haven't seen a lot of them, but I know they
Speaker 1: do some movies that are kind of seems like higher
Speaker 1: budget maybe better movies than they do in the later seasons. Actually,
Speaker 1: like I think they end up doing The Green Slime,
Speaker 1: which is a movie we may come back to on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema someday, especially because it's got its own
Speaker 1: really groovy rock theme song. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: they'd quite calibrated what was an in st three K
Speaker 1: film at that point. Um So at any right, if
Speaker 1: if if our discussion here perks your interest and you're
Speaker 1: not quite ready to watch it without some sort of
Speaker 1: riffing structure in place, then you know, I guess you
Speaker 1: could check out that Katie and A episode. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, I think this is a film that
Speaker 1: stands on its own and is richly enjoyable on its
Speaker 1: own and more to the point, in high visual quality
Speaker 1: that you're not going to get with the rip of
Speaker 1: an old public access television broadcast. Now, while we're talking
Speaker 1: about looking up this movie, I gotta say, also, as
Speaker 1: a bizarre coincidence, as weird of a name as Phase
Speaker 1: four with the Roman numeral for ivy is for a movie,
Speaker 1: there is actually a totally unrelated other movie called Phase
Speaker 1: four that came out in the early two thousands. It
Speaker 1: looks like some kind of Dean Cane conspiracy action thriller. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So word of warning, Uh, I don't get in too
Speaker 1: much for a hurry when you're buying and renting this
Speaker 1: when you don't want to wind up with the Brian
Speaker 1: boss Worth film. If you watch Brian Bobsworth film, you
Speaker 1: want to watch Stone Cold from So I've never seen
Speaker 1: that one, but while we were chatting about this, uh,
Speaker 1: you got me to look up stills from it and
Speaker 1: Brian Buzzworth and Stone Cold is fresh. I mean, like, God,
Speaker 1: look at his hair at the sunglasses. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Uh,
Speaker 1: that was and I remember being a fun action B
Speaker 1: movie because you have Lance Hendrickson's in it. William Forsythes
Speaker 1: is in it. So it's a yeah, it's ridiculous. It's
Speaker 1: like a biker fighting movie or something. Okay, okay, give
Speaker 1: me the elevator pitch on phase four before we hit
Speaker 1: the trailer audio. Okay, So, um, what if there was
Speaker 1: some sort of a solar conjunction and it caused all
Speaker 1: ants to suddenly declare a peace treaty and turn their
Speaker 1: attention on other species on the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So basically a nature strikes back, but this time it
Speaker 1: strikes smart and with you social precision. Great premise. Let's
Speaker 1: hear some audio in the next few moments. We will
Speaker 1: try to give you an impression of a new kind
Speaker 1: of film experience. If your curiosity is aroused, you are
Speaker 1: ready for phase four. How do you fight a horse
Speaker 1: that knows what your next move will be before you
Speaker 1: think of it? All right, that's a solid trailer right there.
Speaker 1: I agree. And now one of the things we've already
Speaker 1: talked about is that you know, I've had my theory
Speaker 1: that really the star of this movie. If it is
Speaker 1: not ants, you could say it's ants. But if it's
Speaker 1: not ants, it's still not humans. It is visual geometry.
Speaker 1: It's colors and lines and shapes and design. And I
Speaker 1: think that totally makes sense once you realize who the
Speaker 1: director of this film was, because I think the director,
Speaker 1: Saul Bass, this was his only movie. Am I right
Speaker 1: about that? This was his only feature length film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did some other short films and experimental films and
Speaker 1: some you know, sort of documentary style shorts, but this
Speaker 1: is the the only full length film he did. And
Speaker 1: it seems to me very much a graphic designers or
Speaker 1: art director's kind of film. It's it's not really an
Speaker 1: actor's film. It's not really very script driven. It's a
Speaker 1: movie about showing you pictures, and the style of those
Speaker 1: pictures reads very much to me. Is that that that
Speaker 1: mid century modern design style, the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: you see a lot on on mad Men or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I think that makes sense because I've read that
Speaker 1: mad Men was in many ways trying to copy the
Speaker 1: style of the director of this film, Saul Bass. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because Sall Bass is something of a legend um and
Speaker 1: certainly in the graphic design field here. Uh. He lived
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty through nineteen six and he was for Starters,
Speaker 1: the title sequence title design guy of the day. He
Speaker 1: crafted title sequences from for major films from the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties all the way through the mid nineties. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the likes of the Seven Year Itch, Vertico, Psycho, Spartacus,
Speaker 1: West Side, Story, Seconds, Broadcast News, Big Good Fellows, Cape, Fear,
Speaker 1: and Casino. UM. I should also note note that in
Speaker 1: addition to directing Phase four, he of course did the
Speaker 1: title design. You're not gonna You're not if you're Seal Bad,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna trust that to anybody else. This is
Speaker 1: your baby. You're doing the titles, and the title design
Speaker 1: is great. It is um. Like you said, The The
Speaker 1: Madman is often credited as kind of an homage to
Speaker 1: his work and some of the visual elements there. He
Speaker 1: did logos as well for a number of big name
Speaker 1: companies throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and I was
Speaker 1: reading something to about the longevity of his design lines
Speaker 1: on that front. He also did some pretty famous movie posters,
Speaker 1: including uh, the aforementioned films, but also Stanley Kubrick's The
Speaker 1: Shining Oh that's interesting. Did did Saul Bass do the
Speaker 1: credit sequence for Doctor No? The first James Bond movie? Uh?
Speaker 1: That's I think he had some connection with the Bond film.
Speaker 1: I didn't put it in my notes, but that sounds right,
Speaker 1: if not dr No one of the Bond films he
Speaker 1: has connections to. It seems to kind of fit into
Speaker 1: his design clade that I was looking at some of
Speaker 1: the rejected poster designs that he did for the Shining
Speaker 1: uh stuff, Like he he had one that that heavily
Speaker 1: featured the the Hedge Labyrinth, the Hedge Maze, and Kubrick
Speaker 1: had rejected that one because he didn't want too much
Speaker 1: focus to be put on that. But I was I
Speaker 1: was reading a post about this that far out magazine
Speaker 1: dot co dot uk, and it had images from the
Speaker 1: original correspondence between Bass and Kubrick, and you can see
Speaker 1: that Saul Bass has has signed like the cover letter here,
Speaker 1: and he includes this wonderful It's either an illustration or
Speaker 1: a stamp of himself as a fish. So it's like
Speaker 1: his sort of mild mannered, mustached, bespectacled uh face here
Speaker 1: on a fish's body. Uh. It's pretty amusing. Is that
Speaker 1: a joke on him being a Bass? I guess? So Yeah,
Speaker 1: his Shining poster is worth looking up because I love
Speaker 1: the design. It's like it shows just three sort of
Speaker 1: silhouettes heading into the opening of of a maze, and
Speaker 1: and part of me wonders if did Kubrick reject this
Speaker 1: just because he was in a bad mood and he
Speaker 1: was being difficult or yeah, maybe so because it's a
Speaker 1: great poster now, Like we said, Phase four was Bass
Speaker 1: is only full length film, though he made six other
Speaker 1: short films, including Why Man Creates, from which won an
Speaker 1: Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. His other films
Speaker 1: include the nineteen eighty Robert Redford produced the Solar film
Speaker 1: promoting solar energy over fossil fuels. He also made a
Speaker 1: very interesting looking nine four short titled Quest, based on
Speaker 1: the Ray Bradberry story Frost and Fire. I was like,
Speaker 1: I looked this one up. I found a like a
Speaker 1: rip of it on one of the video streaming sides,
Speaker 1: but I didn't watch it because part in part it
Speaker 1: it looks too interesting. I feel like I need to
Speaker 1: see this in a uh like a higher visual format
Speaker 1: or something I wonder discount there that collects his his
Speaker 1: smaller works, or something I would hope to say yea,
Speaker 1: or or perhaps there's one of the blue rays that
Speaker 1: we allude to later on for this film has some
Speaker 1: extras like that, but it looks very cool and definitely
Speaker 1: has that the sort of the sci fi visual sensibilities
Speaker 1: that will discuss in relation to this film. I also
Speaker 1: want to point out that he often worked with his
Speaker 1: wife and creative partner, Elaine Bass on these projects. Right, So,
Speaker 1: so if you've heard us talk in the past about
Speaker 1: Rubbed the Firm movie, I would say this is a
Speaker 1: really excellent example of one of those. This is a
Speaker 1: design first movie and the pleasure of it is almost
Speaker 1: all about texture. It is a celebration of surfaces. Now,
Speaker 1: it did have a writer, um Mayo Simon Born. This
Speaker 1: is the screenwriter who wrote the West World sequel Future
Speaker 1: World in seventy six. This had Peter Fonda and youle
Speaker 1: Brenner in it. Also the nineteen sixty nine film Maroon
Speaker 1: starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman. That one won an
Speaker 1: Academy Award for Visual Effects. But Simon went on to
Speaker 1: create the NBC TV show Man from Atlantis, which I've
Speaker 1: never heard of before, starring Patrick Duffy of Dallas Fame
Speaker 1: and Belinda Montgomery, who some of you might remember as
Speaker 1: being Doogie Howser's mom, I do not remember. It looks
Speaker 1: very fun in a mid like mid seventies TV sci
Speaker 1: fi sort of way. Now, we we've already said that
Speaker 1: this is not really an actor's film. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: not even really a very human film. But we I
Speaker 1: guess we should mention some of the cast members. Right
Speaker 1: first and foremost, we have a Nigel Davenport playing Dr
Speaker 1: Ernest D. Hubbs Um now Davenport Live, two thousand and thirteen,
Speaker 1: English actor known for nineteen sixty six is a Man
Speaker 1: for All Seasons, in which he played the Duke of Norfolk,
Speaker 1: and es Chariots of Fire, in which he played Lord Birkenhead.
Speaker 1: Um that that one had. I've only seen parts of
Speaker 1: Chariots of Fire and it was many years ago. Um.
Speaker 1: It's got a pretty extensive cast, so I I don't
Speaker 1: specifically remember where he fit into that, But of course
Speaker 1: it's a a famous movie, has a tremendous score by evangelist.
Speaker 1: Nigel Davenport seems like an actor you call in for gravitas. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has a great presence and a great presence in
Speaker 1: this where he plays the um determined and at times
Speaker 1: reckless at times later on the film he basically becomes
Speaker 1: kind of an ant focused captain ahab in anyways, so
Speaker 1: he has just a terrible case of mad scientist disease. Yes,
Speaker 1: so he's He's perfect casting for this. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: anyone else here. Uh he was. He was also in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy seven adaptation of H. G. Wells The
Speaker 1: Island of Dr Moreau. This is when I fondly remember
Speaker 1: from catching on TBS or t n T back in
Speaker 1: the day this one started Burt Lancaster and Michael york Um.
Speaker 1: He apparently plays Scrooge's dad in the nineteen eighty four
Speaker 1: George C. Scott adaptation of a Christmas Carol, And he's
Speaker 1: also in nineteen eighty four is Gray Stoke, the Legend
Speaker 1: of Tarzan, Lord of the Ape, starring Christopher Lambert. Oh wow, well,
Speaker 1: who is he in Gray Stoke? Is he? Is? He?
Speaker 1: Is he Tarzan's dad or something? Um? You know? Gray
Speaker 1: Stoke is another one that I've only seen parts of
Speaker 1: on TV when I was much younger. I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't think I've watched it in full. Uh, I'm I
Speaker 1: believe he plays one of the the grumpy British guys
Speaker 1: generally that's all. I think there're a few of those. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's generally you're casting for Davenport. Well, all right,
Speaker 1: So the basically the two main characters of this movie
Speaker 1: are the two scientists who go in to investigate the
Speaker 1: ant phenomenon, and so Davenport plays one of them, he
Speaker 1: plays Hubs and then the other scientist is one named LESCo,
Speaker 1: who was played by the actor Michael Murphy. That's right,
Speaker 1: born American actor best known for his work with Robert Altman. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did seven pictures for Altman Um. They include the
Speaker 1: likes of Countdown, The Cold Day in the Park, mash
Speaker 1: the original film, Bruster, McLeod McCabe, and Mrs Miller Nashville,
Speaker 1: Kansas City. He also appeared in Woody Allen's Manhattan, Peter
Speaker 1: Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, and Oliver Stone's Salvador.
Speaker 1: He also worked with John Saylis Silver City. He was
Speaker 1: in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnola Yea and of course he
Speaker 1: was in he was in Tim Burton's Batman returns Um.
Speaker 1: He also oh yeah, yeah, he's the mayor of Gotham City. There.
Speaker 1: I guess he was only one term because I don't
Speaker 1: think he pops something another Batman film, But he was
Speaker 1: also in a movie called count yorga vampire, and uh,
Speaker 1: this is our other Shocker connection because he was in
Speaker 1: West Craven Shocker. He plays Peter Bergh's dad in Shocker.
Speaker 1: He's like a detective who's on the case trying to
Speaker 1: chase down Mitch Pelegi. Yeah, so Murphy. Murphy's fine in this.
Speaker 1: You know, he's uh, you know, far younger than many
Speaker 1: of these other film appearances that we noted. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a he's a numbers guy. He plays
Speaker 1: um what, he's a game theorist and mathematician doesn't really
Speaker 1: know or care anything about ants. But it's ultimately like
Speaker 1: the younger, more compassionate of the duo here, right. I
Speaker 1: think they do a kind of strange thing where they
Speaker 1: have to scientists. One is a like entomologist who cares
Speaker 1: deeply about ants, and the other is a mathematician who
Speaker 1: doesn't care about ants. And so you would think that
Speaker 1: the one who goes ahab and just wants to destroy
Speaker 1: all of ants would be the mathematician, but no, they
Speaker 1: switch them. It's kind of counterintuitive. Yeah, but if if
Speaker 1: if the other guy. If Davenport's Hubs is Captain Ahab,
Speaker 1: then Murphy's LESCo is Ishmael. Yeah, he's kind of along
Speaker 1: for the ride. Yeah, he decided well. In fact, he
Speaker 1: even says he was like, I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: away for a few weeks. That's why I took this job.
Speaker 1: So it's like he wanted to go see the watery
Speaker 1: part of the world, all right. We UM. We ultimately
Speaker 1: have a very small human cast. And this is one
Speaker 1: thing I noticed before we even watched the film, and
Speaker 1: it's like like five or six people are credited UM
Speaker 1: and the two we covered have most of the screen time,
Speaker 1: but there is another there's a third human character that
Speaker 1: plays a UM I don't want to I guess a
Speaker 1: crucial role. It's not a great part because she's kind
Speaker 1: of a damsel in distress for a lot of it.
Speaker 1: But we have uh. The the actor Lynn Frederick playing
Speaker 1: Kindra Eldridge UM. Now Frederick lived ninety through British actor
Speaker 1: of the seventies who um had had a really promising
Speaker 1: career going died too young, known for roles in The
Speaker 1: Amazing Mr Blundin, Nicholas and Alexandria and the Prisoner of Zenda.
Speaker 1: She was also in the nineteen seventy two horror film
Speaker 1: Vampire Circus. I didn't realize she was in Nicholas and Alexandra.
Speaker 1: I gotta look that up and see what she was in.
Speaker 1: That's where I also very much appreciate the textures. There's
Speaker 1: some really good sets and locations in it. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard you. You talked about that one before. Basically, she
Speaker 1: is what we'll discussed like. She's a a an innocent
Speaker 1: human who gets uh swept into this aunt takeover drama.
Speaker 1: She has a has a couple of grandparents that are
Speaker 1: are doomed, and we'll discuss their doom in a bit.
Speaker 1: But the the actor who plays Emma Grandma Eldridge in
Speaker 1: this is the actor Helen Horton, who lived two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. She pops up in Superman three, did a
Speaker 1: lot of TV work. But she's also the voice of
Speaker 1: Mother from n Alien. Now this is funny because I
Speaker 1: didn't remember Mother in Alien having this. The name of
Speaker 1: the computer is the computer that controls everything. I only
Speaker 1: remember Dallas communicating with Mother through like a command line
Speaker 1: on a computer screen. Though maybe Mother has a voice
Speaker 1: when there's like a self destruct countdown on the ship
Speaker 1: or something. I think that is it. Yeah, okay, where
Speaker 1: mothers given the countdown and Ripley is trying to get
Speaker 1: out of there with a cat right right. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe next time I watch Alien, I'll gotta keep I'll
Speaker 1: keeping an ear out for Helen Horton, who in this
Speaker 1: movie just plays like a suspicious grandma. It's it's Mildred
Speaker 1: is just not very happy about the government telling them
Speaker 1: that they need to flee the ant menace. Alright, let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the music on this one.
Speaker 1: Normally we highlight a single individual that's involved, but this
Speaker 1: time like three different individuals. At least they're worth noting here.
Speaker 1: So first of all, Brian gascoign Is is credited with
Speaker 1: the music. Born three British composer and musician who also
Speaker 1: scored The Emerald Forest in and worked in the music
Speaker 1: department on such films as Godsford Park. He did piano
Speaker 1: on that, Uh, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.
Speaker 1: He did keyboards and synthesizer on that. He did synthesizers
Speaker 1: on Cherry two thousand and uh. Most exciting of all,
Speaker 1: at least to me, He was also in the music
Speaker 1: department on Jim Henson's two masterpiece, The Dark Crystal. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of that film and I think the
Speaker 1: music for that for that movie is tremendous. Um. The
Speaker 1: score was composed by Trevor Jones, but gascogn provided quote
Speaker 1: synthesized electronic sounds. So I'm guessing it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the Crystals doing something. We need to get gascoygn in
Speaker 1: here to start start tickling the synth. What is the
Speaker 1: sound of draining essence? Now we also have Desmond Briscoe
Speaker 1: on this, who lived through two thousand and six. He's
Speaker 1: credited it as composer additional electronic music, British composer and
Speaker 1: sound engineer, co founder of the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Speaker 1: Now this is the group that included pioneering electronic artist
Speaker 1: Delia Derbyshire who lived ninety seven through two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. She's the one who provided the electronic
Speaker 1: arrangement of the original Doctor Who theme and uh and
Speaker 1: ultimately influenced many future big names and electronic music. So
Speaker 1: I've said on the show before that I am not
Speaker 1: a hoovie and I don't really know much Doctor Who,
Speaker 1: But when I did very first try to watch a
Speaker 1: few episodes, the main thing that actually hooked me about
Speaker 1: it more than the show itself was the theme song.
Speaker 1: I got briefly obsessed with the theme music and with
Speaker 1: the different versions of it from over the years, and
Speaker 1: ended up going on the steep dive about Delia Derbyshire
Speaker 1: and like how she created it with I guess it
Speaker 1: was analog tape effects that time, right, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, digital manipulation. Um, And you know what a
Speaker 1: great piece of classic electronic and tape effects music. And
Speaker 1: then one one more individual I want to mention in
Speaker 1: reference to Phase four, and that is u Stomu Yamashta,
Speaker 1: who is credited with composer Montage Music. Born seven, Japanese percussionist,
Speaker 1: keyboardist and composer known for helping to fuse traditional Japanese
Speaker 1: percussive music with Western Prague rock. In the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: he was a member of the supergroup Go, alongside such
Speaker 1: names as Steve Winwood, best known for the track Higher Love,
Speaker 1: but also German electronic music pioneer Claus Schultz, of whom
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a big fan, oh I don't know if
Speaker 1: I know him. Oh you you would, you would dig.
Speaker 1: I'll have to send you some stuff after we record,
Speaker 1: because Claus Shults put out some some some wonderful material. Now,
Speaker 1: yamashta On on his own scored the nineteen seventies six
Speaker 1: David Bowie sci fi film The Man Who Fell to
Speaker 1: Earth as well as Tempest, starring John Cassavetti's Susan Sarandon,
Speaker 1: Molly Ringwald and Ralph Julia. Now this is a movie
Speaker 1: where I don't think there was ever like a melody
Speaker 1: from the score that's stuck with me. But in general
Speaker 1: I loved the sound design and the ambient electronic music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a film that's very concerned with computers and
Speaker 1: computer technology. Uh, and and all that computer technology is
Speaker 1: also seen as a very much plot wise, is a
Speaker 1: way of translating the way of the ant in a
Speaker 1: way that ants and humans might communicate. So it uses
Speaker 1: electronic music well and providing a sense of the cosmic
Speaker 1: and other worldly and even like the sense of the
Speaker 1: cosmic and other worldly to be found in the mind
Speaker 1: of of the ants. Uh. There are a few places
Speaker 1: where it gets a little uh melodic and traditional, almost
Speaker 1: as if somebody like the producers were like, hey, what
Speaker 1: are you doing here? So this is a human movie
Speaker 1: for humans, and this scene has humans doing human stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's get some human music in here. But but otherwise, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's pretty great. Lots of electronic touches their
Speaker 1: stretches without music, but those tend to revolve around one
Speaker 1: of two soundscapes I found, either wind swept desert or
Speaker 1: the insides of their spaceship like research station that also
Speaker 1: has a supercomputer there. So lots of lots of computer noises.
Speaker 1: Oh and fair warning, I wouldn't normally mention this, but
Speaker 1: there was one part of like if you're listening with
Speaker 1: like loud headphones or something, there is one segment of
Speaker 1: this movie where for like several minutes they start making
Speaker 1: this excruciating high pitch noise, which I imagine do you
Speaker 1: know what the part I'm talking about? Rob? Yes, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because I was. I was watching it with the sound
Speaker 1: up part of it with the sound up while my
Speaker 1: wife was trying to work like the next drame, and
Speaker 1: so I was a little I was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is getting a bit much. I'll have to plug in
Speaker 1: the headphones for this. Yeah. So if you go watch
Speaker 1: it yourself, just be wary, keep keep your finger on
Speaker 1: the volume button. All right, let's get into the the
Speaker 1: plot of this baby. We we have to have to
Speaker 1: mention this is a movie that is not afraid to narrate. No, no, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of voice over narrat near. In fact, I
Speaker 1: wonder if there is just if you go by word count,
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's more voiceover narration than there is dialogue.
Speaker 1: Probably so I I you know, I have to be one.
Speaker 1: Anytime I think about narration and film, I always go
Speaker 1: back to like various threads I would read and arguments
Speaker 1: about really Scott's Blade Runner, where people are like, get
Speaker 1: that narration out of here, narration in a film by god?
Speaker 1: And I was always like, always I kind of like
Speaker 1: the narration. What's what's wrong with the narration? Give me
Speaker 1: the narration? Yeah. I don't have strong general feelings about
Speaker 1: it one way or another. You know, sometimes it's good,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not. Yeah, it can be good, it can
Speaker 1: be bad. Um. It can also help along a movie
Speaker 1: that maybe, um, you know, it just needs a little
Speaker 1: narration help and letting you know what's supposed to be
Speaker 1: going on. Well, yeah. And also in this movie without
Speaker 1: the narration, you would either need to make it way
Speaker 1: more were dialogue heavy and add totally different types of
Speaker 1: characters and stuff, or you just gotta have the narration
Speaker 1: in there um because they begin by explaining the whole situation.
Speaker 1: The opening narration includes shots of space, uh, where you're
Speaker 1: seeing these planets and stars, apparently a line that they're
Speaker 1: very vague about what's going on, but in a way
Speaker 1: that I found pleasing rather than frustrating. I think some
Speaker 1: people might be more frustrated, but they don't say exactly
Speaker 1: what's going on is but there's some kind of weird
Speaker 1: astronomical event and this this astronomical event gets scientists and
Speaker 1: mystics alike very excited, but nobody knows what it means
Speaker 1: except you are told that there's a researcher named Ernest
Speaker 1: Hubbs who documents that right after this astronomical event, ants
Speaker 1: around the world start doing things that ants don't do.
Speaker 1: It says that they're meeting, communicating, making decisions, again, being
Speaker 1: very vague about what that means, but I guess we'll
Speaker 1: find out more. Is the Vivie goes on uh and
Speaker 1: while the narration explains the situation. We get to watch
Speaker 1: this beautiful ballet of ants running around in tunnels, fighting, reproducing,
Speaker 1: doing all kinds of things. And I'm want to say
Speaker 1: also that the effects and photography in this opening ant
Speaker 1: ballet are just wonderful. There were plenty of parts where
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if I was looking at real ants
Speaker 1: or at special effects. Even some of the close ups
Speaker 1: that were obviously puppets look very good. I love the
Speaker 1: the textured surfaces, the exoskeleton, the eye, the sand grains,
Speaker 1: the antennae. Uh. At this point I immediately felt like
Speaker 1: we were in very good hands as far as the
Speaker 1: look and design of the movie was going. Absolutely but
Speaker 1: then we get tons more voiceover narration. I started transcribing it,
Speaker 1: but I think later on I realized, like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to read all of this verbatim. But essentially there
Speaker 1: is a different voice coming in that we will later
Speaker 1: find out is doctor Hubbs. And he's dictating some kind
Speaker 1: of government memorandum. He's issuing a memo to like the
Speaker 1: bio Control division of some kind of agency, and he
Speaker 1: is explaining alarming reports of something going on in the
Speaker 1: American Southwest. He says that the traditional antagonisms between different
Speaker 1: ant species have come to a dramatic halt and uh.
Speaker 1: And he says, at the same time, there has been
Speaker 1: an apparent disappearance of those insects which prey on ants,
Speaker 1: specifically mantis is, beetles, millipedes, and spiders. And he says
Speaker 1: that if this goes on, we're going to see some
Speaker 1: real booms and ant populations. And then meanwhile we we
Speaker 1: see beautiful time lapse footage of ants swarming over and
Speaker 1: devouring a big tarantula. And he ends up offering in
Speaker 1: this memo a a proposal. He's like, look, what we've
Speaker 1: got to do is a full scale attack on on
Speaker 1: the ants, otherwise they're going to represent a threat to
Speaker 1: all other life forms in the area. So we need
Speaker 1: to build an experiment station out near aunt ground zero.
Speaker 1: And he says he needs more personnel and needs another
Speaker 1: researcher to join him. So the leader here is going
Speaker 1: to be this this ant researcher Hubs, but he also
Speaker 1: requests somebody named j. R. LESCo, who is a senior
Speaker 1: scientist who is a qualified information specialist with cryptological background. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we're already getting getting the idea that there's
Speaker 1: going to be some sort of communication aspect to this,
Speaker 1: this study, this this project which which again seems to
Speaker 1: be about understanding and combating ants who have declared like
Speaker 1: an aunt wide peace treaty and are turning their attention
Speaker 1: to other things in a way that makes us feel threatened. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it seems like HUBS has just been granted an
Speaker 1: enormous budget for this project, but also, as we'll find out,
Speaker 1: a very limited window in which to operate. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: So they build him a geodesic dome out in the
Speaker 1: desert that's full of the world's most sophisticated technology and
Speaker 1: it's got supercomputers and off in nineteen four. But he's
Speaker 1: also constantly getting calls on the radio that are like
Speaker 1: they're like, can you hurry this up? We you know,
Speaker 1: we don't have enough budget to fund you for two
Speaker 1: more days. Yeah. Well maybe, I mean, maybe it's on HUBS, like,
Speaker 1: maybe you should have scaled down on the facilities here.
Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't need this. Uh. This what what seems
Speaker 1: like a spaceship, you know, it feels like it should
Speaker 1: be on the surface of Mars, uh, not in the
Speaker 1: wet of the Arizona Desert. We've only got these supercomputers
Speaker 1: rented through Friday. After that there are late fees well anyway,
Speaker 1: So that's the setup and then we get to the
Speaker 1: actual narrative part of the film. So we see a
Speaker 1: car blasting through the desert, kicking up clouds of dust
Speaker 1: from the road, and it goes past signs for a
Speaker 1: golf course and a country club and then a sign
Speaker 1: that says welcome to Paradise City. But it's one of
Speaker 1: those comedic, ironic reveals because when you peel back from
Speaker 1: all those signs, it's just a cursed land of emptiness
Speaker 1: and dust. Yeah. I think they refer to it as
Speaker 1: another desert development that didn't develop. Right. It's some half
Speaker 1: built houses and a grid of dirt roads. But when
Speaker 1: they go down to the end of the longest of
Speaker 1: the dirt roads, we see something very strange and in
Speaker 1: the middle of the nothingness there is that this grove
Speaker 1: of seven pillars, just pillars reaching straight up out of
Speaker 1: the out of the ground like like Greek columns. And
Speaker 1: so they drive up and parked the car and out
Speaker 1: hoop a couple of guys. These would be our protagonists again.
Speaker 1: This is Nigel Davenport is Dr Hubbs and Michael Murphy
Speaker 1: is Dr LESCo, and I immediately noticed some very interesting
Speaker 1: color coading. This was another thing that tipped me off
Speaker 1: early how sort of visual and design oriented this movie
Speaker 1: would be. Because Rob, I don't know if you noticed
Speaker 1: the same thing, but the color coating of the wardrobes
Speaker 1: of the two actors is so starkly different. Let's Go
Speaker 1: is just blue, blue blue. He's blue jeans, blue shirt,
Speaker 1: blue jacket, and blue hat, whereas Hubs is all, uh
Speaker 1: these earth tones and earth energy. So he's wearing khaki pants,
Speaker 1: a brown jacket, he's got long hair and a dark beard,
Speaker 1: and he's carrying a staff or stick of some kind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was immediately wondering what's going on with this?
Speaker 1: So it again seems like a graphic designer's touch. But
Speaker 1: is Le's Go supposed to be the sky while Hubbs
Speaker 1: is the earth? Or is it a blue wizard and
Speaker 1: radigas the brown thing. I didn't really notice this as
Speaker 1: much when I was watching it, but I guess I
Speaker 1: was focusing more on the the environment there in, which
Speaker 1: is pretty brilliant because this is the place where where
Speaker 1: human organization and human development has has uh, the wave
Speaker 1: is crashed and fallen back right. It is where human
Speaker 1: development has has failed, but it is where this new
Speaker 1: sign of of ant civilization has has sprung forth right.
Speaker 1: And so they walk around in these half built or
Speaker 1: abandoned houses and Let's go asks if there are any
Speaker 1: dead bodies out here, and Nigel Nigel Davenport says, no,
Speaker 1: the people, the population moved itself out days ago. Um.
Speaker 1: And then they start talking about their background, and we
Speaker 1: learned that LESCo has achieved scientific fame by applying game
Speaker 1: theory to the language of killer whales, and Hubs is
Speaker 1: very intrigued by this. He wants to know, did you
Speaker 1: ever actually make contact with a whale? And LESCo says,
Speaker 1: only with the emotionally disturbed ones and uh. And Hubbs
Speaker 1: is like, well, how did you determine that? And and
Speaker 1: LESCo says, well, we talked. I think he's supposed to
Speaker 1: be kidding, but they never clarified this. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's math nursery. Uh. And and also this is the
Speaker 1: point in the movie where if you don't know anything
Speaker 1: about it, you can easily imagine we're going in the
Speaker 1: direction of of like a computer literally translates what ants
Speaker 1: are saying in some sort of computer voice, in the
Speaker 1: same way that you have films where this is happening
Speaker 1: with dolphins and other creatures. But and this is a
Speaker 1: film that is about communication, or at communication between two
Speaker 1: drastically different intelligent species. But it it does so in
Speaker 1: very clever ways that I think really like takes the
Speaker 1: question seriously and takes the uh, you know, the gulf
Speaker 1: between different you know, possibly evolved intelligences. Uh, the gulf
Speaker 1: between them, and how difficult it would be like for
Speaker 1: one side to even realize the other side is intelligent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something I really liked about this movie is that
Speaker 1: it takes the confusing nature of cross species communication seriously.
Speaker 1: Like there's a great scene I want to talk about
Speaker 1: later that involves communication between humans and ants and how
Speaker 1: it's hard to understand what it means. But anyway, here
Speaker 1: at the beginning, it's clear that LESCo does not see
Speaker 1: himself as a biologist or a zoologist or somebody who
Speaker 1: who cares about or understands animals. He says, is I'm
Speaker 1: strictly a pencil and paper guy. The two scientists approach
Speaker 1: the seven pillars, and uh, Rob, how would you describe
Speaker 1: these pillars. I love this feature of the movie, and
Speaker 1: there won't be the last pillars we see. They Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're pretty great because they're they're monolithic, but they don't
Speaker 1: you know, they're not They're not as perfect, to say,
Speaker 1: the monolith from two thousand and one A Space Odyssey. Though.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't help but imagine some of that
Speaker 1: DNA is present there. I mean, certainly the uh this
Speaker 1: is a film that um that exists, you know, in
Speaker 1: the ultimately in the very long shadow of two thousand
Speaker 1: and one A Space Odyssey. But but these feel they
Speaker 1: feel very organic. They're reminiscent of termite mound cooling towers. UM.
Speaker 1: They have these little crevices towards the top that feel
Speaker 1: like they're intended to do something with the air. Um.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that you think in ant
Speaker 1: researcher would be very interested in, but they ultimately don't
Speaker 1: seem to investigate that much. But yeah, they feel like
Speaker 1: they are at this place where where organic animal construction
Speaker 1: and human construction meets and the distinction becomes blurred, right.
Speaker 1: I mean it's the angles I think that make them unusual.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they were just sort of rounded pillars,
Speaker 1: you might think, well that those are very tall and strange,
Speaker 1: but they're more like termite mounds. It's the fact that
Speaker 1: they have like a diamond shape with sharp angles that
Speaker 1: makes it look like, oh, this shouldn't be something ants
Speaker 1: are doing. It looks very alien and cool. Oh, and
Speaker 1: of course we're see in close ups that ants are
Speaker 1: looking out at the scientists through crevices in the in
Speaker 1: the pillars. So anyway, after this, they go to a
Speaker 1: farm where they find some dead sheep, and there are
Speaker 1: shots of them walking through the tall grass that's rippling
Speaker 1: in the wind. It's very elegant. But they eventually come
Speaker 1: across a crop circle with geometric designs inside it. There's
Speaker 1: like a diamond in the middle and then a ring
Speaker 1: around the outside. Um and uh and Hubs is talking
Speaker 1: about how there are some ant species that will attack
Speaker 1: anything that threatens their food supply, and so what are
Speaker 1: these patterns in the field represent. Well, it's not clear yet,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I don't know if it ever becomes clear.
Speaker 1: It's just like the ants make this pattern in the
Speaker 1: field for some reason, and I don't even think our
Speaker 1: characters perhaps realized that pattern is there. This is like
Speaker 1: the privileged information that is, uh, that is for the viewer. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no indication that they notice that they are standing
Speaker 1: in the midst of of this strange crop circle, right,
Speaker 1: And I will say, by the I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is true, but I just read briefly on the
Speaker 1: Internet some people alleging that this film may have inspired
Speaker 1: some of the people who made crop circles, and then
Speaker 1: said that they were made by aliens because apparently this, uh,
Speaker 1: this pre date some of the big crop circle craze. Huh.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. I did read somewhere that this
Speaker 1: is this is arguably the first appearance of a crop
Speaker 1: circle in a film, but that that would be interesting
Speaker 1: and certainly it would match up with what we know
Speaker 1: about about crop circles in there they're very human origin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently there are a few reports of things sort of
Speaker 1: like crop circles that date to before the seventies, but
Speaker 1: I think the real crop circle craze started sometime in
Speaker 1: the mid to late seventies. That's when it like really
Speaker 1: took off. Well anyway, So they're going around this farm
Speaker 1: that still does have a few people in it, and
Speaker 1: we we meet a farmer named Mr. Eldridge. I don't
Speaker 1: think we ever learned his first name. And he's explaining
Speaker 1: a fuel ditch trap for ants, Like they dig a
Speaker 1: big moat around the farmhouse and fill it with gasoline
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: crazy sounding plan. They're like, yeah, for the aunt get
Speaker 1: across the water, we'll just we'll just light this trough
Speaker 1: of a fuel on fire and then that'll do him,
Speaker 1: and then we'll just keep this trough of fire going
Speaker 1: for the rest of our lives. Yeah. So the family
Speaker 1: is Mr. Eldridge and then his wife Mildred Eldridge, who
Speaker 1: is skeptical of the scientists who have arrived to tell
Speaker 1: them they're in danger. Uh. And their granddaughter Kendra Eldridge,
Speaker 1: who she she kind of rides horses and waves uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's another guy named Cleat, who I guess
Speaker 1: is their their aunt burning guy. It's like, oh, you
Speaker 1: got an aunt burning guy. Yeah, his name's Cleat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll put you in touch. Yeah. But but Kendra is
Speaker 1: the main character. Again, this is the character played by
Speaker 1: Lynn Frederick. Um spoiler, She's the only one that is
Speaker 1: going to survive for any length of time here, right,
Speaker 1: But anyway, Hubbs tells them they're gonna have to evacuate
Speaker 1: in a few days for their own protection. Mildred is
Speaker 1: not happy about that, but strangely Mr. Eldridge is like, hey,
Speaker 1: listen to them, it's for our own protection. So that
Speaker 1: was Phase one, and then we get a transition where
Speaker 1: we see phase two and it's not clear what has changed,
Speaker 1: but that's that's what we get. And that's the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about this film, Like the title phase four is
Speaker 1: not referring to to most of the film, Like phase
Speaker 1: four is the place we are going to arrive at
Speaker 1: at the end of the film, right. So the next
Speaker 1: thing we do is we go to the two scientists
Speaker 1: in their self contained research facility, which is a geodesic
Speaker 1: dome within antenna tower next to it, and then um,
Speaker 1: a bunch of little nodes coming off of it, like
Speaker 1: these pipes leading out to these little spheres planted out
Speaker 1: in the perimeter around the geodesic dome, which we later
Speaker 1: learned are for spraying beautiful poison. Yes, of which they have.
Speaker 1: Do they have just two colors or are there three colors? Um,
Speaker 1: there are only two we learn about that there may
Speaker 1: be others. There's yellow and there's blur, so the scientists
Speaker 1: are inside doing experiments. There are lots of machines that
Speaker 1: make beeping and worrying noises, sometimes a big air pressure
Speaker 1: hiss as well. And this might sound kind of hard
Speaker 1: to believe, but I believe. I think there are several
Speaker 1: just extremely pleasurable shots of Michael Murphy just flipping lots
Speaker 1: of switches. Yeah, yeah, we're not exactly sure what he's
Speaker 1: he's doing here necessarily, but you have you have that
Speaker 1: nice computer electronic ambiance going on in the background, and
Speaker 1: he's very chill about this, and yeah, it's a nice vibe. Now.
Speaker 1: I love, love, love this research facility they have here.
Speaker 1: In general, I love it when Reese matures and or
Speaker 1: adventurers in a film are just drastically technologically overprepared for
Speaker 1: a mission, overfunded as well, perhaps here. Um. I love
Speaker 1: it when it's as simple as an antarctic research facility
Speaker 1: or an underwater station that just happens to have a
Speaker 1: flamethrower on hand. I also love it when it's an
Speaker 1: eight mission into the jungle and you bring along tripod
Speaker 1: gun drones and your own talking techno ape uh congo, yeah,
Speaker 1: congo uh. And I and I guess that's the thing too.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's very crighton me, and this
Speaker 1: film does feel very crighton the in many respects. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it's ripping it off, but
Speaker 1: I say I think there are some very clear parallels
Speaker 1: between this movie and The Andromeda Strain, Michael Creighton's first
Speaker 1: big novel, which is also about a group of scientists
Speaker 1: that go into a self contained facility in the American
Speaker 1: Southwest in order to fight some kind of novel biological
Speaker 1: menace that has been caused by an astronomical event. So
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: ins ration going on there, but that would make sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but again, what we have here is a weird
Speaker 1: station that seems like it's built for the surface of Mars,
Speaker 1: full of supercomputers, NASA style living conditions, you know, like
Speaker 1: this wonderful scene where they're they're picking out what kind
Speaker 1: of food they're gonna eat, or they're getting some coffee
Speaker 1: or something, and it's it's like a spaceship, but not
Speaker 1: only a spaceship, a spaceship that has been engineered to
Speaker 1: stand is like the last redoubt against the ant on slot. Uh,
Speaker 1: and yet it is not ant proof, um, though there
Speaker 1: seemed to be measures taken to try and make it so,
Speaker 1: Like there's essentially like a decontamination airlock that you have
Speaker 1: to get nude for. Um. They're the poison sprayers with
Speaker 1: two different flavors that we mentioned. Uh, it's it's great.
Speaker 1: And there's some drama inside about cost overruns that we
Speaker 1: alluded to earlier, Like there's a guy on the radio
Speaker 1: who's calling hubs and being like, hey, you got to
Speaker 1: speed up your research. We're running out of money here.
Speaker 1: And I guess this is this is important to to know.
Speaker 1: Like one of the things that they keep driving home.
Speaker 1: I think with the human interaction is that ants have
Speaker 1: it all together, not only and previously they did, you know,
Speaker 1: species to species or colony to colony in some cases
Speaker 1: and super colonies. But now all ant kind is one
Speaker 1: is on the same page. They are working in unison. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: none of our humans can get along completely. They all
Speaker 1: have different ideas and different views. Uh. You know, our
Speaker 1: two researchers are arguing with each other. They're having conflicts
Speaker 1: ultimately with the other human character and with these people
Speaker 1: on the phone, right. But the way they come up
Speaker 1: with to speed up the research, by the way, is
Speaker 1: hilarious because what it means is, Okay, we gotta get
Speaker 1: the ants to do something. So Hubbs is like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll go blow up these towers in the
Speaker 1: desert with a handheld grenade launcher. Yes. Um, And you
Speaker 1: know we have the stress that we're talking again, like
Speaker 1: a handheld grenade launcher like the one Arnold has a
Speaker 1: terminator to. He just casually uses it to blow up
Speaker 1: all the ant monoliths that are there, which which which
Speaker 1: is interesting too because later on, like the voice on
Speaker 1: the phone is like, you should try destroying one of
Speaker 1: the monoliths to see if you can provoke a reaction.
Speaker 1: He didn't. He didn't mess around. He just blows them
Speaker 1: all up. Um. Well, I think he's already done it.
Speaker 1: When they suggest that, he's like, oh, I'll think about it, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I just again it comes back to the fact
Speaker 1: that this grenade launcher I'm I'm assuming or hoping it
Speaker 1: is slash, was illegal to actually own one of these
Speaker 1: that fires actual grenades and not flares. Um, so I
Speaker 1: guess it is part of the specialized kit that he
Speaker 1: he requested and was approved for use in this research experiment.
Speaker 1: So that means it has it's like its own shelf
Speaker 1: in the in the research station, or maybe it's in
Speaker 1: a it's it's mounted behind glass with a sign that
Speaker 1: reads break if study. Dandelion is rapidly approaching. But we
Speaker 1: just see him out there in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1: He's standing there like like Mill Gibbs sin in the
Speaker 1: Road Warrior poster with the young and he's just shooting
Speaker 1: these ant colonies. Yeah, he's got a whole ammunition box
Speaker 1: of grenade and he's just letting it, letting the monolithts
Speaker 1: have it. Um. But anyway, so from this they do
Speaker 1: learn some things because LESCo figures out that the ants
Speaker 1: are communicating by sound that he's like, they're talking to
Speaker 1: each other, and he starts recording the sounds they're making
Speaker 1: and trying to decode it and understand their language in anyway,
Speaker 1: so we knew this was coming. Later that night, the
Speaker 1: ants apparently attack the Eldridge farm. They're the only other
Speaker 1: humans left around and the ants set upon them. So
Speaker 1: they start attacking the horse out in the field, and
Speaker 1: then the fire trap is triggered and then the ants
Speaker 1: swarmed the house and then the humans have to flee
Speaker 1: in a truck, and Mildred is all like they warned us,
Speaker 1: And then I think ants attack the truck and attack
Speaker 1: inside the truck. Yeah, yeah, they're they're they're suddenly inside.
Speaker 1: They're crawling in Grandpa's hair. There's a results in a rack.
Speaker 1: And so they're fleeing on foot at this point towards
Speaker 1: the research facility, um and towards the buildings that you know,
Speaker 1: the remains of this housing development. They're still there, right,
Speaker 1: So they basically get to the research facility, but they're
Speaker 1: attacked by ants when they get out of the truck. Uh.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, LESCo is showing off his
Speaker 1: work to Hubs on decoding the ant language. And while
Speaker 1: he's doing that, ants cut the power to the facility.
Speaker 1: They cut the power. Man, how can they cut the
Speaker 1: power their animals? But they do and uh and the
Speaker 1: so Hubs responds by spraying the ants outside with this
Speaker 1: gorgeous yellow poison. It's like coming out of these spheres.
Speaker 1: It's weird to say it's beautiful, but it is beautiful.
Speaker 1: And and they call the poison yellow. It's just called
Speaker 1: the yellow and I think again, it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense for this movie to call its poison, to
Speaker 1: not have a chemical name, to not let it have
Speaker 1: a brand name. It's just the yellow and that that
Speaker 1: indicates like that that color and line reigned supreme in
Speaker 1: in the world of Phase four. Yeah. Absolutely, But the
Speaker 1: poison defense here it seems to work. In fact, it
Speaker 1: works a little too well. Right, So it kills most
Speaker 1: of the ants, though some ants get away, and then
Speaker 1: meanwhile they come out the next morning, and so the
Speaker 1: two scientists are in these environment suits they look like
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, like E v A suits in space,
Speaker 1: and they go out to see that they're spraying of
Speaker 1: the poison has killed the people who came from the farm.
Speaker 1: It killed Mildred and Mr Eldredge and and Cleat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it killed grandma and grandpa. Um. But but as it
Speaker 1: turns out, as we find out in a bit, Kindred
Speaker 1: is fine. She was actually in the basement of one
Speaker 1: of those houses, right, she hid in the cellar. Oh.
Speaker 1: But also there you start getting some hints that things
Speaker 1: are going in a weird direction because uh, Hubbs is
Speaker 1: trying to like figure out what the ants did to
Speaker 1: sabotage their generator in the truck, and meanwhile Less goes
Speaker 1: like there are dead people. And then Hubbs is like, um, yes,
Speaker 1: a tragedy. Um but he uh so, you're starting to
Speaker 1: get the sense that maybe he's a little disconnected from
Speaker 1: from from the value of human life. But anyway, he says, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I think the yellow should hold its potency for
Speaker 1: three or four days, which was a great phrase. I thought, Oh,
Speaker 1: but then there's something very weird. So when they find cleat,
Speaker 1: remember the ant burning guy. Uh So they find cleat
Speaker 1: and his hand is tightly closed and they pry it
Speaker 1: open with a metal rod, and it has three symmetrical
Speaker 1: holes in the palm of the hand like dots, and
Speaker 1: then we see ants crawling out of the holes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is um. This really gave me the willies watching this.
Speaker 1: This is how you know. The makeup effects that they
Speaker 1: did on this um are are really convincing. They really
Speaker 1: feel like they are holes in a hand, and we
Speaker 1: get close ups, and usually, like an extreme close up
Speaker 1: on an effect like this will reveal the flaws in
Speaker 1: the design, but this one just makes me feel more
Speaker 1: and more like I'm looking at three holes in a
Speaker 1: human hand with an ant crawling out of it. So, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have the if you have the fear of holes,
Speaker 1: I would maybe make sure you're ready to fast forward
Speaker 1: through this scene. Uh. There's also an earlier scene where
Speaker 1: they're looking at a hole in like the neck of
Speaker 1: a sheep. Sheep that also gave me the willies, agreed,
Speaker 1: And again the effects look great. Um. But also, like
Speaker 1: we said, they discovered that Kinder survived with a storm,
Speaker 1: so she takes refuge with the scientists inside the geodesic dome. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we get a scene where Hubs is explaining the
Speaker 1: beauty of ants. He's like, so defenseless in the individuals,
Speaker 1: so powerful in the mass. But here we start getting
Speaker 1: some real conflict between Let's go and Hubs because Let's
Speaker 1: Go quite sensibly wants to call a helicopter to evacuate
Speaker 1: Kindred to safety while they keep fighting the aunt menace,
Speaker 1: and Hubs is against it. He's like, I think the
Speaker 1: bureaucrats would be rather unhappy to learn of our casualties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean to let's goes point two people have died.
Speaker 1: Three people have died, two of them were killed seemingly
Speaker 1: by the experiment. Itself. They have uh this this poor
Speaker 1: woman who needs to be taken to safety. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: but Hubbs is like, I don't know if we want
Speaker 1: to realigness up the experiment for this, we don't want
Speaker 1: act exactly. Yeah. So Hubbs is he's trending into mad
Speaker 1: scientist mode and it helps that while saying all this stuff,
Speaker 1: he's in the middle of staging an experiment where he
Speaker 1: puts ants in a maze with a bunch of praying
Speaker 1: mantis is uh, and eventually he's let's go gets him
Speaker 1: to promise that he will call the helicopter to come
Speaker 1: collect Kindra, but he's obviously lying. Yeah, there's there's there
Speaker 1: are no helicopters in this movie. Never. But then at
Speaker 1: some point Kindrack gets mad while staring at an aunt.
Speaker 1: She's like, ants killed my horse, and she smashes a
Speaker 1: bunch of the glass lab equipment, which sends ants everywhere
Speaker 1: inside the lab. Hubbs gets bitten by one of them
Speaker 1: before he can seal the room and gas it to
Speaker 1: kill all the ants. Yeah, this is another one of
Speaker 1: those scenes. It really feels like it was it was
Speaker 1: written and filmed by ants, like displaying you know, okay,
Speaker 1: loose understanding of how humans work inaccurate. Yes, the human
Speaker 1: motivations are yeah, the ants are doing most of the
Speaker 1: acting here, yes, But from there we move on to
Speaker 1: some ant business. It's back to like basically, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a game. It is one side moves and
Speaker 1: then the other side moves, and now it is the
Speaker 1: ants turn. Right, So what the ants do? I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I understood this scene right. Maybe you can correct
Speaker 1: me if you've got a different impression. What it looks
Speaker 1: like is happening is that there's this sequence of ants
Speaker 1: repeatedly trying to move a wad of some yellow white
Speaker 1: material through the tunnels. And I think the wad is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the poison, the yellow Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: one will die or become exhausted, probably die, pass it
Speaker 1: on to another ant, and that ant will keep journeying
Speaker 1: with the poison. So we see this handoff. It's a
Speaker 1: relay of the poison kills one at the next ant
Speaker 1: takes it along on the journey, eventually bringing it, I think,
Speaker 1: to the queen. And then the queen like sniffs the
Speaker 1: poison and breathes heavily while examining it, and then starts
Speaker 1: to give birth. To a yellow green object like Strewd's.
Speaker 1: It seems to be an egg that has been like
Speaker 1: infused with the spirit of the yellow. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is one of those scenes where, Yeah, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: come in and you're gonna be very critical about everything,
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, is this something ants can do? Is
Speaker 1: this What's what's going on here? And I think you know,
Speaker 1: this is a movie that is that largely takes the
Speaker 1: viewpoint of like, look, if I explained it to you,
Speaker 1: I'd probably get it really wrong and it would feel
Speaker 1: kind of dumb. But if you're just viewing it, if
Speaker 1: you just kind of like breathe it in, taking the
Speaker 1: colors um, then everything's gonna be fine. Right, So from
Speaker 1: here the arms race continues. The ants after this build
Speaker 1: a series of g M trip pillars right outside the
Speaker 1: geodesic dome, and uh, the scientists are like, what are
Speaker 1: they doing? What is this? And we discovered that they
Speaker 1: have built solar reflectors to direct beams of sunlight at
Speaker 1: the dome and this immediately starts bringing up the temperature
Speaker 1: in the lab above the level where the computers can
Speaker 1: tolerate it. Yeah, I love it. They answered it all
Speaker 1: in one night reflective monoliths to fry the humans and
Speaker 1: perhaps more importantly, to overheat their their delicate thinking machine. Um,
Speaker 1: it's the sort of heat based warfare that is actually
Speaker 1: used specifically to my knowledge, by bees. Uh. Now, bees
Speaker 1: do not construct monoliths to fry supercomputers, but they will
Speaker 1: swarm around an invader and overheat it with their own
Speaker 1: their own body heat. So um, it's that alone makes
Speaker 1: this feel like a in I mean, a speculative leap, certainly,
Speaker 1: but but kind of a believable tactic that you might
Speaker 1: conceivably have some sort of advanced ants used, right, right,
Speaker 1: So that's their new offense, but also the ants of
Speaker 1: a new defense, because the researchers see that, like, the
Speaker 1: ants have started a new generation of workers that are
Speaker 1: yellow like the poison, and Hubbs says, we challenge them
Speaker 1: with yellow chemistry, they respond with yellow creatures. Uh. So it's,
Speaker 1: you know, the answer, adapting to the poisons they're using.
Speaker 1: And Hubs says, we can try the blue, of course,
Speaker 1: but they'd only adapt again. So of course mad scientists progression.
Speaker 1: Hubs starts talking monologueing about how he believes the ants
Speaker 1: are a new type of intelligence, one that can be
Speaker 1: harnessed and educated by humans. Oh yeah, And he's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I didn't call the helicopter. So so Lesgo
Speaker 1: tries to call, but when he goes to flip the
Speaker 1: switch on the radio, it shorts out, and you know,
Speaker 1: sparks go all over the place, and we find that
Speaker 1: the circuit board, oh no, is covered in ants that
Speaker 1: have sacrificed their bodies to short out the electronics. And
Speaker 1: they managed to get in here. Yeah, they've penetrated the
Speaker 1: perimeter their sabotaging equipment. And then there's this ensuing battle.
Speaker 1: They're they're fighting a war over like the air conditioning.
Speaker 1: The ants are trying to burn out the lab computers
Speaker 1: and the humans are trying to keep the environment cool.
Speaker 1: And so there's this cool great stuff like shots of
Speaker 1: an ant crawling all the way down a spiraling copper
Speaker 1: coil inside the air conditioning units and uh, and let's go.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, tries to create a sonic weapon
Speaker 1: to broadcast at the ants, except it as excruciating to
Speaker 1: humans and cracks all the glass. Uh. And the sonic
Speaker 1: weapon works, it does shatter the and crumble the pillars,
Speaker 1: but then we also get ants attacking continuing to attack
Speaker 1: the electric wires inside the facility, and there's a great
Speaker 1: scene of ant revenge. I mean, this movie really does
Speaker 1: kind of have ant characters, Like you can see them
Speaker 1: fighting their side of the battle too, because like some
Speaker 1: of the mantis is from the experiments have gotten loose
Speaker 1: and they're trying to prey on ants as they're doing
Speaker 1: their business. But but there's some ant revenge when an
Speaker 1: ant grabs a praying mantis is le egg and pulls
Speaker 1: it into a circuit board and it is fried. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, how often do you see a bug movie
Speaker 1: with with two bugs battling it out? Um, like actual
Speaker 1: bugs in miniature in this artificial set like this must
Speaker 1: have been quite a challenge to put together. Now, Hubs
Speaker 1: is not doing well because of the venomous ant bite
Speaker 1: on his hand, and we get some narration where he says,
Speaker 1: I'm taking one of my less painful moments to record
Speaker 1: these notes. Our equipment only functions for a few hours
Speaker 1: at night. LESCo believes we're being allowed this time for
Speaker 1: some purpose, a hypothesis I do not share. If this
Speaker 1: were so, it would it would raise questions I had
Speaker 1: not considered. And here's a really cool part where Let's
Speaker 1: Go tries sending a message to the ants. It's an
Speaker 1: audio message, but he uses it to encode because he
Speaker 1: figures out that the ants have a code that they
Speaker 1: communicate in about directions, and so he can send them images.
Speaker 1: And so he sends them an image of a square, reasoning,
Speaker 1: I didn't fully make the connection here, but I think
Speaker 1: gets something about geometry. He says, like, mathematics is the
Speaker 1: universal language among intelligent creatures. If there's intelligence there, I
Speaker 1: want it to know there's intelligence here. So he sends
Speaker 1: it a square. Yeah, I love this because you know
Speaker 1: it's getting to the I buy into this idea. And
Speaker 1: in mathematics he's going to be the universal language that
Speaker 1: on some level the ants understand it, we understand it,
Speaker 1: and and I really love this this idea that like,
Speaker 1: the ants might not realize that we are intelligent too,
Speaker 1: you know, they could just be blind to this fact.
Speaker 1: And how do we possibly communicate with ants and let
Speaker 1: them know this? But things get progressively worse inside the dome.
Speaker 1: There's a creepy scene where where Kendra is menaced by
Speaker 1: ants while she's sleeping. She she sees an uh An
Speaker 1: aunt on her pillow and says go away, please go away,
Speaker 1: and then hubs uh, possibly because of his venomous aunt
Speaker 1: bite or or possibly from the interaction of that bite
Speaker 1: with his his pre existing mad scientists disease. He starts
Speaker 1: going nuts and small sushing things, trying to kill ants
Speaker 1: he sees or believes he sees um. He gets a
Speaker 1: really bad case of I attached a picture for you
Speaker 1: to look at here, Rob kind of mad scientist eyes like.
Speaker 1: He looks like he's about to start talking about how
Speaker 1: he should have won a Nobel Prize but the narrow
Speaker 1: minded academics stole it from him. And he thinks he
Speaker 1: kills an aunt, but I can't tell if he actually did.
Speaker 1: He just sort of pulls back a bloody hand. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure he had to go some shattered glass on
Speaker 1: the floor and he managed just cut his hand up.
Speaker 1: We don't see an ant. Hey then his Phase three buddy, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're getting down to the final that this is the penultimate.
Speaker 1: Phase Phase four is going to really blow you away,
Speaker 1: and this is this is where we're getting there. So
Speaker 1: we see Less going Hubs in their bunks, and Less
Speaker 1: goes wondering, why don't they kill us? You know, they
Speaker 1: roast us in here all day and then they dare
Speaker 1: us to come out at night. Why why do they
Speaker 1: Why do they play these games? Why don't they just
Speaker 1: kill us? Now? What do they want? And Hubbs talks
Speaker 1: about aunt specialization. He says, you know, aunts are organized
Speaker 1: into roles by the queen in order to keep her alive.
Speaker 1: He says, she's at the center. It is she who
Speaker 1: speaks if she were to die. And then they hash
Speaker 1: out their different views about what should be done next,
Speaker 1: how to proceed. Hubbs thinks, uh, let's locate the queen
Speaker 1: and killer. That's our only way and lets go, says, uh,
Speaker 1: aunts have all the cards. The only way to survive
Speaker 1: is to convince them that we're worth keeping alive. It
Speaker 1: is interesting here where um, you know, Hubbs ends up
Speaker 1: focusing more and more on the queen, and so he
Speaker 1: ends up focusing more and more on the individual as
Speaker 1: opposed to the group. Whereas I think lesgo is still
Speaker 1: seems to be more of the mindset. It's like it
Speaker 1: it is h it's the mass we need to communicate with.
Speaker 1: Uh So I feel like the focus on the individual
Speaker 1: is perhaps just more a part of hubbs is madness, right,
Speaker 1: and oh, and here's a scene I did love. So
Speaker 1: the ants want to communicate that he let's go, transmitted
Speaker 1: the square to them earlier. They transmit back. They make
Speaker 1: vocalizations that the computer can interpret and it prints what
Speaker 1: they say. And what they say is in response to
Speaker 1: the square. They say, a circle with a dot in it?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Yeah, they started saying, well, maybe
Speaker 1: that's here, it's a map. They want something in here
Speaker 1: when we should look around and see if we find it.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty great because Kendras is suddenly like, oh,
Speaker 1: they must mean me, because I I I smashed an
Speaker 1: ant in the research room earlier. I will go out
Speaker 1: into the wild without my shoes on. He's like, all
Speaker 1: ready to sacrifice herself for these scientists. Yes, She's like,
Speaker 1: the ants want me, and if I go, I commit
Speaker 1: aunt suicide, then the scientists will get away, all right.
Speaker 1: Rub there's a picture I included here, not because anything
Speaker 1: interesting is going on. It's just tubs sitting at a desk.
Speaker 1: But I included it because I don't know what these
Speaker 1: boxes are. But there it looks like he has several
Speaker 1: sticks of butter sitting on the console in front of him.
Speaker 1: It does look like it. There's also a scene where
Speaker 1: because basically he's convinced, I gotta go out and kill
Speaker 1: the queen. They I what they where? They think the
Speaker 1: mound is where the queen can be found. And he
Speaker 1: goes to get the grenade launcher out again, but there
Speaker 1: are no grenades left because he used all of them
Speaker 1: to blow up the monoliths earlier. Why why buddy. So
Speaker 1: he's gonna he's gonna have to do it the old
Speaker 1: fashioned way. He's gonna have to take a canister of
Speaker 1: the blue out there and uh poison his way across
Speaker 1: the the ant dominated waste land and make his way
Speaker 1: to the queen and trying poisoner there. That seems to
Speaker 1: be the plan, but Hubbs goes outside to attack the queen,
Speaker 1: and so Kendra has already gone out to sacrifice herself
Speaker 1: to the ants and we see her just sort of disappear.
Speaker 1: Hubbs goes out and falls into a pit trap. The
Speaker 1: ants construct a pit trap. This is amazing connection to
Speaker 1: the core episode we did. Yeah, yeah, we were talking
Speaker 1: about pit traps and why we don't sit like studies
Speaker 1: about why we don't see more pit traps in nature?
Speaker 1: You know, how about how ultimately a pit trap is
Speaker 1: is easy to build, It doesn't core acquire that much energy.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about ants potentially building traps as well,
Speaker 1: and so because of all that, and then having sort
Speaker 1: of developed a vague interest in this film based on
Speaker 1: our our previous episode about aunts potentially building traps, to
Speaker 1: suddenly be hit with this scene, I think I exclaimed aloud.
Speaker 1: It was just it's it's such a shock. It's a
Speaker 1: great sequence. Yeah, it is. And of course he's immediately
Speaker 1: swarmed by ants. He gets land perauted by by the
Speaker 1: ants um and so now it's just down to LESCo
Speaker 1: Is Michael Murphy. He's like, I gotta do it. So
Speaker 1: he delivers this monologue that's full of regret. He says, like,
Speaker 1: I would still like to believe that if we've had
Speaker 1: more time, we could have come to an understanding, some
Speaker 1: rational accommodation of interest, some agreement. But that's not the
Speaker 1: way it's going to be. So he suits up, just
Speaker 1: starts spraying the blue everywhere, and finally he's come around
Speaker 1: to Hub's position. He's like, we only have one chance.
Speaker 1: We got to assassinate the queen. So he goes up
Speaker 1: to the mound where the queen is supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But then I guess there's sort of another pit trap
Speaker 1: because he's as he's trying to go in, he ends
Speaker 1: up sliding and he falls in. Oh but but oh,
Speaker 1: we should mention on the way to the mound, like
Speaker 1: he's having all sorts of mishaps. He starts out in
Speaker 1: his full protective suit, but he like falls and breaks
Speaker 1: the glass. Ants get into the mask and are biting
Speaker 1: his face, and so by the time he gets here
Speaker 1: he has no productive gear on it all, he has
Speaker 1: no shoes on it all. It's uh, and and we
Speaker 1: have the narration of, you know, of just how worn
Speaker 1: out and on the end of things he is. But
Speaker 1: then here we get to the ending, and the ending
Speaker 1: is so weird. Uh and I love this, And there
Speaker 1: are a couple of things I think we can say
Speaker 1: about what the ending could have been also. But in
Speaker 1: the end, he goes down in to find the queen,
Speaker 1: and instead of finding the queen, he finds a room
Speaker 1: with a with a like a rectangular doorway as if
Speaker 1: it was built for humans inside the ant mound. And
Speaker 1: inside this room, buried underneath the sand, is Kendra, who
Speaker 1: appears to be maybe still alive or in some suspended
Speaker 1: animation state, and Michael Murphy sort of surrenders to the
Speaker 1: ants and he knows that the ants have one and
Speaker 1: they're going to keep winning, and essentially that the ants
Speaker 1: are going to be the new rulers of the Earth,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to be killed. The ants have
Speaker 1: some kind of plans for them, and he's just ready
Speaker 1: to obey. Yeah, it is a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: great like suddenly just very trippy and psychedelic sequence. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, with with with images of a setting a
Speaker 1: rising sun. I guess ultimately it's supposed to be rising
Speaker 1: though I feel like they might have filmed a setting
Speaker 1: sun and then reversed it or something. Um, but very
Speaker 1: very orange, very very warming, beautiful um sequence that again
Speaker 1: just really kicks the film into high gear, Like suddenly
Speaker 1: we're in purer visionary filmmaking mode and we're gazing into
Speaker 1: the future. These two have been chosen by the ants.
Speaker 1: They don't know what their purpose is going to be
Speaker 1: or what this new world is going to consist of,
Speaker 1: but there I guess they're they're going to be the
Speaker 1: profits of the New Age, or the oaks people of
Speaker 1: the Ants, or anti ambassadors. They're like the Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, are they going to be used as the
Speaker 1: ambassadors to the rest of humanity to like explain to
Speaker 1: them that the answer in charge. Now that's sort of
Speaker 1: the the idea I got there, the I for one
Speaker 1: welcome our new aunt overlords. Yeah, exactly. Um, it's it's
Speaker 1: also hinted like maybe they're gonna it's gonna be the
Speaker 1: beginning of a new species there, like that the Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve of the New ant World. But so the
Speaker 1: version of the movie I saw had the shorter ending,
Speaker 1: but there actually is an alternate ending. Yes, now this one.
Speaker 1: According to Michael Weldon, this one was was cut at
Speaker 1: the request of the studio because the lost ending, the
Speaker 1: original ending is even more nuts so psychedelic it um.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a lot of how Disney's The Black
Speaker 1: Hole from nine nine also originally had a far trippier,
Speaker 1: weirder like quasi religious ending with our characters emerging in
Speaker 1: the afterlife and humans and robots merging together and then
Speaker 1: like this duty Apparently it's like that that is too weird.
Speaker 1: This is this is a mainstream motion picture. But yeah,
Speaker 1: similar thing going here because the lost ending, like the
Speaker 1: actual ending, and we get in the you know, the
Speaker 1: theatrical cut of the film is very satisfying, very trippy,
Speaker 1: very visual, but the lost ending is just an absolute
Speaker 1: heroic dose of cinematic surrealism. So this ending is even longer.
Speaker 1: I think it's like seven or eight minutes total, and
Speaker 1: it gives us this sort of mua dib fever dream
Speaker 1: vision of a future world in which ant civilization dominates humans.
Speaker 1: And all of this is presented very you know, surreally
Speaker 1: and abstractly, with visual flashes um and confused occasionally, like
Speaker 1: confusing number tags. We see flashes of ant megaprojects and
Speaker 1: humans scampering across them like ants. We see visions of
Speaker 1: human beings I guess in servitude to ants, strangers with
Speaker 1: magnifying loops uh on their heads, you know, magnification devices
Speaker 1: over there eyes, so I guess they can see their
Speaker 1: masters better. Uh. There's a faceless human that pops up,
Speaker 1: perhaps the result of some sort of ant derived human
Speaker 1: you know, he's like a drone or something. Uh. We
Speaker 1: see James and kin dress faces becoming one. Um. There's
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of erotic flashes of human bodies.
Speaker 1: There's oh and there's just so much going on that
Speaker 1: like it's it's like a crazy music video with all
Speaker 1: sorts of strange surreal sequences. There's a bald guy buried
Speaker 1: in the sand with a hole in his head and
Speaker 1: ants come crawling out the whole. It's just yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it just goes into like just extreme visual mode.
Speaker 1: And and I think it works into a large extent
Speaker 1: because it is it is the the ant future loosely
Speaker 1: translated into some sort of visual form that the humans
Speaker 1: can understand. I would say actually that I think with
Speaker 1: the long ending, the whole point of like the the
Speaker 1: abstract image are and stuff is is to say that
Speaker 1: we can't understanding. Yeah, yeah, when we can, we can.
Speaker 1: We can sort of glimpse it. Yeah, we can't fully
Speaker 1: understand like why the ants have done this, that and
Speaker 1: the other. Like what the full vision is here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that the future of humans under an earth controlled
Speaker 1: by ants is going to be so bewildering and incomprehensible
Speaker 1: to us. It would be like, you know, like what
Speaker 1: we do with an experiment like ants trying to understand
Speaker 1: why they're in a maze in a laboratory. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to them. Yeah, and in this
Speaker 1: extended um, you know, ultimately rejected ending. I think it
Speaker 1: also it Uh, it's beautiful but also horrifying at times,
Speaker 1: like the dude with no face. Um, there's another guy
Speaker 1: with like some sort of weird implants in his head,
Speaker 1: Like you get the sense that, yeah, the an ant
Speaker 1: dominated world in which humans still have a role, it's
Speaker 1: going to be very different. It's not going to be
Speaker 1: altogether pleasant. Uh, it's it's yeah, this is a strange ending.
Speaker 1: It is a strange message to potentially hit the view
Speaker 1: were with. And I have to say, I I understand.
Speaker 1: I understand why the studio probably came in and they're like, Saul, Saul,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? What are you doing with this?
Speaker 1: You know we can't do this ending? You know. I
Speaker 1: like it. I like the long, weird ending. I like
Speaker 1: the part of the at least humans are up on
Speaker 1: like a zigaratte that that's interesting. No, I I love
Speaker 1: everything about the extended ending. And I think if you
Speaker 1: go out and watch this film, you need to make
Speaker 1: sure you get to see the extended ending as well.
Speaker 1: And you can choose which one you prefer, but I
Speaker 1: totally get one of the studio was like, you can't
Speaker 1: do this, No, no, you've got a scale back on this.
Speaker 1: This is too weird. Well, I guess that's it. Phase
Speaker 1: four an ode to our our future use social overlords. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's a. That's a. That's a pretty great ant movie.
Speaker 1: This is the best AUNT movie I've ever seen. This
Speaker 1: may be the best um when I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's the best animal Tach movies I've seen. It's certainly
Speaker 1: an animal Tach movie where the animals have the best strategy.
Speaker 1: They're not just swarming us, they're out thinking us. So, hey,
Speaker 1: you to watch phase four as well? You want to
Speaker 1: reach phase four? Well, you can watch this film pretty
Speaker 1: much wherever you rent or purchase digital movies. All of
Speaker 1: Films put out of what seems like a nice blue
Speaker 1: ray of it in the US. Not too long ago.
Speaker 1: One oh one Films put out a really nice blue
Speaker 1: ray in the UK, and I believe they also put
Speaker 1: one out in the US as well. Um, I highly
Speaker 1: recommend you find a version that includes the original ending
Speaker 1: as an extra. Sometimes you might be able to find
Speaker 1: that extra, you know, floating around online, but that's not reliable,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, you want high quality for this so I
Speaker 1: know the one on one films Blue has the extended
Speaker 1: ending as an extra, and if you purchase the movie
Speaker 1: but not rent it on Apple TV, then you get
Speaker 1: access to this uh, this extra uh, but you do
Speaker 1: have to purchase it through there. Otherwise you just rent
Speaker 1: it and you get the theatrical ending. Oh and as
Speaker 1: for the soundtrack, Waxwork Records put out a really beautiful
Speaker 1: yellow vinyl of this with stunning jacket design, full of
Speaker 1: production are by Saul Baths, stills from that lost ending,
Speaker 1: and expansive liner notes. So this is really cool work looking.
Speaker 1: If you're if you, if you collect vinyl and this
Speaker 1: kind of soundtrack is your thing, uh, you should check
Speaker 1: this out. I think they might have put out a
Speaker 1: CD release as well, but I couldn't find a good
Speaker 1: place to just stream the soundtrack, you know, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's up on any of the streaming sites
Speaker 1: at least as of this recording. All right, well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go and close it out then, but we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone out there your thoughts on Phase
Speaker 1: four having seen it recently, having seen it back in
Speaker 1: the day, did you see it? Were you one of
Speaker 1: the few people that apparently saw it in theaters back
Speaker 1: in the nineties seventies. Whatever your answer is, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. UM. As always, Weird How Cinema
Speaker 1: publishes every Friday. You can find it in the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed. Were primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but you know, we like to to set most serious
Speaker 1: matters aside on Fridays and just discuss a strange film
Speaker 1: and in this case, you know, sometimes it's a film
Speaker 1: that ties in with recent serious episodes who we've recorded. Um,
Speaker 1: if you want to follow Weird House Cinema on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I created an Instagram for it. It's Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's the name of the show. That's the name of
Speaker 1: the Instagram account. Uh. And then also I put up
Speaker 1: blog posts about uh these episodes at Simuta music dot com.
Speaker 1: That's linked on the Instagram if you want to get there.
Speaker 1: But whenever we refer to other pieces of media that
Speaker 1: are related to it, other trailers, other bits of music,
Speaker 1: that's often where I will stash that for your easy consumption.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest topic for the future, just to say hello.
Speaker 1: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
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