Speaker 1: Warring.
Speaker 2: Today's episode contains spoilers for the Alien franchise and some
Speaker 2: other movies that we're going to discuss, including the works
Speaker 2: of Alien Romulus director Feidi Alvarez and others.
Speaker 3: So be warned.
Speaker 1: But that's not that big a deal. It's really not
Speaker 1: that big a deal this time.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: My name is Jason Contepcion and I'm Joel Money.
Speaker 2: Whoa, and welcome back an sorry vision the podcast When
Speaker 2: We Dive Deep. It's your favorite shows, movies, comics and
Speaker 2: pop culture coming to you from IRT Podcasts. We're bringing
Speaker 2: you two episodes a week, every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 5: In today's episode, we're concluding Xenomorph week by taking a
Speaker 5: deep dive into Alien Romulus. First up, looking at the
Speaker 5: trailers and featurettes of Alien Romulus to kind of dig
Speaker 5: underneath the film and see what we can expect. Then
Speaker 5: we're doing a two part air lock. In part one,
Speaker 5: we're looking at director Fadie Alvarez's past films and possible
Speaker 5: influences for the new film Alien Romulus. And then in
Speaker 5: part two, we're gonna discuss the films that shaped the
Speaker 5: Alien franchise. And then finally, and what if, we're gonna
Speaker 5: predict some box office. But before we talk about Alien,
Speaker 5: we're gonna go to previously on with Rosie, What's in
Speaker 5: the News, Rosie and Jason, and now.
Speaker 2: Previously on and News. First up, Paramount is closing its
Speaker 2: television arm. This is a devastating hit to Paramount and
Speaker 2: to the Los Angeles economy. Paramount sent out a memo
Speaker 2: this week announcing that they want to cut five hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars in costs by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: What does this mean. This means they're.
Speaker 2: Gonna start spinning off the all of Paramounts television wearers
Speaker 2: are going to be for sale, and a lot of
Speaker 2: people are going to be out of work.
Speaker 1: That's what speeds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just absolutely wild, Like it's bad times. And this
Speaker 4: is also one of those weird things that's coming out
Speaker 4: of the monopolizing culture where like you're losing Hollywood history.
Speaker 3: They would rather just save some money than try and you.
Speaker 4: Know, work out a way to actually keep stuff on.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, let's be real.
Speaker 4: This is the company that made The Office, So I'm
Speaker 4: saying like they had the juice at one point, but yeah,
Speaker 4: we've now they've mostly been making stuff for other studios
Speaker 4: or other streaming So are we surprised, Probably not, but
Speaker 4: it is a it's I feel bad for all the
Speaker 4: people who are going to lose their jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Up next, D twenty three was this weekend.
Speaker 3: Rosie and Baygi said, we're saving the news for no
Speaker 3: nes SDCC.
Speaker 2: Heavin Weggy said, we gave you Robert Downey Junior at
Speaker 2: Comic Con and we're saving all the best bits for us.
Speaker 2: And we got new trailers from Agatha all along iron Heart.
Speaker 1: Skeleton Crew ever Born Again? Uh, and a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff you can see in leaks. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: propose that you break the.
Speaker 3: Law, but I'm just saying should go and find those leaks.
Speaker 3: But they do.
Speaker 1: Exact Internet as a wild place.
Speaker 2: So imagining that we did see the leaks, the hypothetically,
Speaker 2: if we had seen the leaks, what would we think
Speaker 2: of some of these trails?
Speaker 4: Okay, so the only the only two we would have
Speaker 4: to watch via the leaks in this hypergagical situation would
Speaker 4: be Born Again and Ironheart. So what were your thoughts, hypothetically.
Speaker 2: Hypothetically extremely stoked for Born Again? I would be hypothetically
Speaker 2: so thrilled if say the Punisher was in it, I
Speaker 2: would be so incredibly thrilled If, as one would expect,
Speaker 2: Kingpin was in it, I would be so incredibly thrilled if, say,
Speaker 2: there was a clip of Daredevil and the Punisher forming
Speaker 2: an uneasy alliance to apparently take down crime in the.
Speaker 1: City, including the Kingpin.
Speaker 2: I think that, hypothetically, if I had watched the leak,
Speaker 2: I would be pretty excited about a project that I
Speaker 2: was initially excited about, then became less excited about, and
Speaker 2: now I'm excited about again.
Speaker 1: Your thoughts, Yeah, Hypothetically, isn't that.
Speaker 4: Isn't that the Johnny of MC you found in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four? Something looks good, Yeah, something went wrong, Something
Speaker 4: looks good again. Look Kingpin dad eveling conversation. That's all
Speaker 4: I want to see. So hypothetically, I would have been
Speaker 4: very happy. I also do think it's very interesting. We
Speaker 4: had that they're going to have White Tiger is going
Speaker 4: to be in this show, which was a character that
Speaker 4: we thought was going to be in Black.
Speaker 3: Panther two, but they weren't.
Speaker 4: So very interesting. Hypothetically, what did you think of the
Speaker 4: Iron Heart?
Speaker 1: Pretty excited about it.
Speaker 2: Also, I think new costume costume, which I think is
Speaker 2: you know, part of the course for for any Stark adjacent,
Speaker 2: any any character from the Stark Coaching Tree, you got
Speaker 2: to change that costume every single time out. So I
Speaker 2: was expecting to see that. But it looks cool and
Speaker 2: I am excited to see it.
Speaker 4: In our discord big fans of the new c Yeah,
Speaker 4: I love the New ste If. They felt okay, so
Speaker 4: Gallat and crew we were able to just watch it legally.
Speaker 4: That's right, Disney released it, so obviously that was the
Speaker 4: only one we watched.
Speaker 3: I think this looks delightful. Amblin vibes. Goonies in space.
Speaker 2: Goonies and space is the perfect way to put it right.
Speaker 4: And that to me, like, I just think that looks
Speaker 4: so good. I love the baby Max Rebo car. He
Speaker 4: looks so cute, also very interested. This is my one
Speaker 4: prediction for this show is like they meet jud Law,
Speaker 4: they kind of say, oh, you must be a Jedi.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming he's not a Jedi.
Speaker 4: That's like my big prediction is he'll be some Force
Speaker 4: user and he'll help them through this situation, but he's
Speaker 4: not truly a Jedi.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: One big question about this show, Jason, what did you
Speaker 4: think about the opening kind of new introduction of this
Speaker 4: world where they're essentially living in like space suburbs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is something we've like never seen in some ways.
Speaker 2: I I'm intrigued. I'm frankly intrigued. I think this is
Speaker 2: a new aesthetic palette clearly for the show, and I
Speaker 2: think one that I'm always one for expanding the universe,
Speaker 2: showing us things we've never seen before, and so I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to see.
Speaker 3: How it fits into what we exactly.
Speaker 2: Is there like a middle class that like lives out.
Speaker 4: Gelicly, or is there like is it like some weird
Speaker 4: like covered with a bubble like little space colony that
Speaker 4: they made at some point.
Speaker 3: I'm interested.
Speaker 4: And it's John Watts who smashed it with those three
Speaker 4: Spider Man movies starring Tom Holland, so I think the
Speaker 4: vibes are good. Also, David Lowry is directing an episode.
Speaker 4: I love him so much. I love The Green Knight.
Speaker 4: I just think that movie is like a masterpiece. And
Speaker 4: the Daniels, the Daniels and Isaac Chung who just did Twisters,
Speaker 4: So really, this sounds like it should be directly targeted
Speaker 4: at me, and I can't wait.
Speaker 2: There is a Thunderbolt leak if we wanted to talk
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 4: Okay, hypothetic, sypathetically, we've seen the Thunderbolts leak. What did
Speaker 4: you think of the new more comics accurate ghost costion?
Speaker 2: Like, yes, I liked seeing our our good friend Bucky
Speaker 2: Barnes was fun moments from him.
Speaker 1: It's very Russian.
Speaker 2: It looks like a Yelena movie, looks.
Speaker 1: Film and the.
Speaker 5: Sham so good.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't you do that?
Speaker 2: And again I'm intrigued. If this is gonna be kind
Speaker 2: of like the Gray Slash Bad Avengers, then I think
Speaker 2: that's something actually the MCU needs.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's do let's do a theory on this. So
Speaker 4: they're presenting this movie even if you haven't seen a leak,
Speaker 4: you will.
Speaker 1: Like us agent us.
Speaker 3: I'm like us agent.
Speaker 4: But this this movie is called Thunderbolts with an asterisk
Speaker 4: at the end.
Speaker 3: What do you think that means?
Speaker 4: I think they might just change this to being called
Speaker 4: the Dark Avengers at this point, like that is my
Speaker 4: my thesis or some kind of maybe like Thunderbolts colon something.
Speaker 4: But I'm very interested because they the asterisk is hard
Speaker 4: to ignore.
Speaker 1: It's hard to ignore, and I have no idea what
Speaker 1: it could mean.
Speaker 2: I like your idea that it could be the Dark Avengers,
Speaker 2: although I will say, do you think this is gonna
Speaker 2: be so Dark Avengers?
Speaker 5: Was?
Speaker 1: The Dark Avengers were full.
Speaker 2: On villains, villains costplaying as heroes doing villain as ship.
Speaker 2: This seems more like anti heroes costplaying.
Speaker 1: As do the bad guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and oh that's true.
Speaker 4: I like the idea where it's basically in the yeah
Speaker 4: version of the original kind of fund Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 4: this is interesting. Super producer Aaron has just put in
Speaker 4: Apparently on some of the graphics it looks like the
Speaker 4: Thunderbolts asterisk is made of like bullets, So it might
Speaker 4: just be like a visual, little cheeky nod rather than
Speaker 4: anything big. But I'm still, you know, I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: always thinking with my tin hat on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so here's my here's I think it's gonna be
Speaker 2: an outlaw movie. I think this is gonna be. This
Speaker 2: is a team that is put together with the idea
Speaker 2: that the government needs a more controllable set of superheroes
Speaker 2: that will just.
Speaker 3: Do suicide squad for them, avel that.
Speaker 2: This movie will be about the thunderbolts, going, wait, we
Speaker 2: don't want to do that, like starting out that way
Speaker 2: and then eventually doing whatever it is the right.
Speaker 1: The right quote unquote right thing that.
Speaker 2: The rest of the MCU is going to feel like
Speaker 2: is the wrong thing, But really they did the right thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: Next, let's hit some some quick news rapid fire announcements
Speaker 2: we got and or season two behind the scenes footage
Speaker 2: was shown and it seems like people excited about it.
Speaker 1: Mandalorian and Grogu.
Speaker 2: Folks, we've been saying, many critics have been saying, Kathleen Kennedy,
Speaker 2: where is the where is.
Speaker 1: The Star Wars movie offering? Here? It is Mandalori is
Speaker 1: in theaters twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: Absolutely bonkers that it's been like almost ten years since
Speaker 4: we had at.
Speaker 1: It's truly weird.
Speaker 4: Does the time going and what it feels like it's
Speaker 4: been a long time time.
Speaker 3: Just stop marching on, please, we're getting old.
Speaker 1: Times young people. Stop doing that. Stop being young.
Speaker 4: Stop doing it, guys, stop being young. It goes very
Speaker 4: fast when you get old like us. Okay, Percy Jackson
Speaker 4: and the Olympiads bind the seas footage. If you haven't
Speaker 4: watched the first season of Percy Jackson's on Disney Plus,
Speaker 4: definitely go and watch it. I think it is actually
Speaker 4: one of the most underrated shows on Disney Plus. Really
Speaker 4: adapts the books in a beautiful way. So I think
Speaker 4: if anyone's missing a little bit of fantasy Ya in
Speaker 4: their life, go check that out.
Speaker 3: Mafassa the way It's happening.
Speaker 4: Whoa December twentieth is coming out this year, guys.
Speaker 2: Uh snow More not snow A hitting hitting theaters March
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Toy Story five here.
Speaker 4: Apparently it's like Evil buzz It's like many evil buzzes.
Speaker 1: Multi multiverses. So twenty twenty one two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, wait a minute. Frozen three and four.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm excited. I'm in.
Speaker 3: They want money, I get it. The songs are banging.
Speaker 4: Best x Men.
Speaker 2: It's not an X Men movieh my god, that's so true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Incredibles three, the Best Fantastic four.
Speaker 4: For Maana on Thanksgiving. I feel like that's really close,
Speaker 4: but sure, okay. Avatar, Look, I just got to say
Speaker 4: something here. Avatar, Fire and Ash December nineteenth, twenty eighty five.
Speaker 4: Good for all you Avatar lovers, but can I just
Speaker 4: say this man personally made sure that Avatar the Last
Speaker 4: Airbender could not just be called Avatar, and they had
Speaker 4: to add the Last Airbender and then persisted.
Speaker 3: To go on and make a movie about all the
Speaker 3: different elements.
Speaker 4: I just think, James Cameron, I'm annoyed at you for Avatar,
Speaker 4: Fire and Ash. Let's see what happens in that one
Speaker 4: December nineteen, twenty twenty five. It's gonna make a little mind.
Speaker 1: It's gonna make so much money.
Speaker 6: We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 1: And we're back.
Speaker 2: Freaky Friday sequel, Lindsay Lohan back in the with Jmie
Speaker 2: Jamie Lee Curtis in her iconic dual role.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? Incredible? Ten out of ten.
Speaker 2: I'm actually super excited about Freaky Friday, which is a
Speaker 2: wonderful Both Freaky Friday and the original Freaky f like
Speaker 2: just great movies.
Speaker 1: Pixar returning with a.
Speaker 2: Bunch of originals that we can finally because it's been
Speaker 2: too many sequels. Z Utopia two with Khie Kwon joining
Speaker 2: the cast as Gary Troy.
Speaker 1: I love, yeah, I'll do.
Speaker 2: I'll simply watch anything that he's involved of folks. Tron
Speaker 2: is Back tron Aries, starring Evan Peters Jared Leto in
Speaker 2: the role he was born to play.
Speaker 3: Jared Laugh. Let's cut him out, Evan Peters and Greley.
Speaker 3: That sounds good to me. I love also.
Speaker 4: Following the rule of tron movies having to have like
Speaker 4: soundtracks that will outlive them forever, like the soundtrack from.
Speaker 3: Doctor They're Gang. Oh. Some of the best curators.
Speaker 4: Of fantastic electronic music at this moment, treent Rezna and
Speaker 4: nine Inch Nails to score the upcoming franchise film Deranged.
Speaker 3: I love it. That's perfect.
Speaker 1: Stitch live action Stitch, he's in live action. That's right.
Speaker 2: You were a fan of Lelo and Stitch, Well, what
Speaker 2: if it was just Stitch in live action?
Speaker 1: Beloved Agent six twenty six were commonly known.
Speaker 2: As Stitch loves to Eat Little Beautiful Alien. This creature's
Speaker 2: dramatic entrance will will burst onto screens in the summer
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The funny thing is about these, like the live action remakes,
Speaker 4: is they kind of always make money. But I don't
Speaker 4: feel like there's been one yet where everyone's gone, Oh,
Speaker 4: this one needed to exist, so I'm interested to see
Speaker 4: the reaction to CG.
Speaker 3: Stitch. People were loving it, so let's see if the
Speaker 3: Lilo and Stitch remake is that one way. You're kind
Speaker 3: of like, oh, I'm.
Speaker 4: Really glad this exists, because the rest of them, especially
Speaker 4: snow White with the magical creature dwarves in comments, I
Speaker 4: think that that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 3: Don't need to see that.
Speaker 4: But Frozen the Musical is coming to Disney Plus in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: And guess what, I've seen it in the theater. It's great.
Speaker 1: What about more musicals?
Speaker 2: How about Hercules the musical premiere on London's West End
Speaker 2: next year.
Speaker 3: I love Hercules. I love the songs that sounds.
Speaker 1: And then in the what took You So Long?
Speaker 3: News wild that it took this long?
Speaker 2: It's the greatest show, The Greatest Showman will be adapted
Speaker 2: into musical form, will Wow you know, will Wolvere be
Speaker 2: allowed to take part somehow?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 3: It feels like he will at least be there. Like
Speaker 3: for the mister Jackman clan, he loves, he loves to
Speaker 3: do music.
Speaker 1: He loves to do music.
Speaker 4: O the good news for mister Jackman, Deadpool and Wolverine
Speaker 4: passes one billion dollars in box office fills.
Speaker 3: Wait, God damn, I.
Speaker 4: Did not know if it was gonna happen, but it happened.
Speaker 4: Second movie of twenty twenty four to break the one
Speaker 4: billion dollar water mark, the first being Inside Out two.
Speaker 3: Second MCU movie to break.
Speaker 4: One billion dollars since kind of crazy and they needed it.
Speaker 4: They're gonna be eating out on this billion dollar success
Speaker 4: for a long time. Get ready to see a lot
Speaker 4: of cameos. If you've ever wanted to see a cameo,
Speaker 4: you will get to see it in the coming years.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about Deadporort and Wolverine after we
Speaker 4: saw it like that?
Speaker 1: I feel the same. A super fun movie. I personally
Speaker 1: loved the all jokes, all the time format and I
Speaker 1: liked it. I liked it. I continue to like it.
Speaker 3: It was very funny to be on holiday.
Speaker 4: Like I just was on holiday with my nephew who's
Speaker 4: like ten, and he just kept telling me things that
Speaker 4: happened in the movie, and I was like, I know,
Speaker 4: and I was like, do you want to go see
Speaker 4: it then? But he doesn't want to because he's too
Speaker 4: scared because he knows it will be really violent. But
Speaker 4: because he was in America, I was like, we could
Speaker 4: go see it, you know, but he kept telling me
Speaker 4: funny things. Is it true?
Speaker 3: Spoiler A lot nice? Pool dies? Why did they kill him?
Speaker 3: My head?
Speaker 4: He's just so nice, like all these kind of hilarious
Speaker 4: Oh he loves Bye Bye Bye by n Sync now,
Speaker 4: because I guess everyone talks about how it's on Spotify
Speaker 4: Bye Bye.
Speaker 3: Bye from the Deadpool Wolverine movie.
Speaker 1: How insane?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 4: Just unbelievable? But yeah, the kids are loving it. The
Speaker 4: ten year olds love Bye Bye Bye.
Speaker 3: Apparently.
Speaker 2: Up next, a movie that we were in sh Bye
Speaker 2: but that is apparently very bad, has bombed at the
Speaker 2: box office. Borderlands has made a world wide box office
Speaker 2: figure of sixteen point five million dollars. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: it is one of I haven't checked it lately, but
Speaker 2: I do believe it is one of the worst reviewed
Speaker 2: movies in the history of the Rotten Tomatoes platform.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it debuted to zero percent and then that went
Speaker 4: up to four. So let's see where it sits now.
Speaker 4: Now it is sitting at an impressive nine percent with
Speaker 4: a fifty two percent audience score, So the audience aren't
Speaker 4: even loving it. I have to say, Jason, something I
Speaker 4: didn't know about this movie is that it's PG thirteen,
Speaker 4: which seems absolutely deranged if you've ever played a Borderlands. Yes,
Speaker 4: so I'm very interested in what happened with that.
Speaker 3: And Yeah, apparently the funniest thing is though the CEO
Speaker 3: of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, he.
Speaker 4: Was like, so, what you're saying is you love the
Speaker 4: Boordland games and you just want another game.
Speaker 3: Well, guess what.
Speaker 4: Fourth Boardland game is coming. So I like how he
Speaker 4: turned it around.
Speaker 1: Listen, I love a fast paced, a looter shooter.
Speaker 2: One little wrinkle in this the Borderlands ongoing story. Was
Speaker 2: Eli Roth the right twice for this? I think clearly
Speaker 2: no at this point. Also, I wanted to point out
Speaker 2: this is my favorite little wrinkle in this. Craig Mason
Speaker 2: screenwriter Shordnaire, Chernobyl, et cetera. It was reported like maybe
Speaker 2: a year ago that he was like the screenwriter of Borderlands,
Speaker 2: and then various reports said that either Craig fought to
Speaker 2: have his name removed yeah, or Craig has since come
Speaker 2: out and said that he'd no, that was a false report.
Speaker 2: I never had anything to do with Borderlands. Craig Mazon
Speaker 2: wants you to know very strongly.
Speaker 1: That he didn't.
Speaker 2: He was not He was not involved in that piece
Speaker 2: of ship movie at all.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty pretty nuts stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty hilarious.
Speaker 2: Next up, Craven the trailer, folks, Rosie your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Look, look okay? Does it look good? No? Will I
Speaker 3: be in line to see it?
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 3: Look? The truth is.
Speaker 4: One thing I really like about this trailer is like
Speaker 4: the action looks interestingly choreographed, like he is really killing
Speaker 4: people with bear traps. And yeah, I also like, I
Speaker 4: love Aaron Taylor Johnson, like very deeply and very I believe.
Speaker 3: It's camp Yeah, question Mark'd be great, He's he's campy.
Speaker 4: Also, I find it so funny that they cast Ariana
Speaker 4: de Bo's and they made her like she's like a suave,
Speaker 4: slinky Calipso I'm like, guys, have you ever read a comic?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Probably not, but you know what, I will be watching
Speaker 4: this movie. I love the moment where he like chopped
Speaker 4: off a guy's head with a bear trap. I also
Speaker 4: think it's so funny that they really are doing what
Speaker 4: I believe was like a meme for such a long time,
Speaker 4: which was like he's gonna be like a Craven who
Speaker 4: hunts hunters instead of hunting animals, and that is absolutely
Speaker 4: what he is doing.
Speaker 3: Is happening in this trailer. Yeah, it looks great.
Speaker 4: Looks like they kind of moved away from the supernatural
Speaker 4: of it, which I feel like was a big point
Speaker 4: and a big kind of.
Speaker 3: Of the first trailer that people were dragging on.
Speaker 2: I also love that we're in Russell Crowe's like paycheck era.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, like the end.
Speaker 2: You know, he's done multiple exorcism movies at this point.
Speaker 1: He's just out here multiple He's just out here playing.
Speaker 3: He's like, give me that check. I know what does
Speaker 3: this mean for the deep intricate lore of.
Speaker 4: The MCU or Love and Thunder That Zeus is also
Speaker 4: the dad of Craven, whose brother is the chameleon, and
Speaker 4: we see get a glimpse of him in his non
Speaker 4: chameleon form.
Speaker 3: Also, you know what I always find really funny why
Speaker 3: the movie people love Rhyany, Like, I'm not chriticized. He's
Speaker 3: a cool costume, a cool character.
Speaker 4: But like, is that just because that's the only people
Speaker 4: that the only villain they can like get? But I
Speaker 4: always think we got Paul Giamati, Rhino like, what was that?
Speaker 3: Now this rhino? Like, what is it about rhino? But
Speaker 3: I will say rhino effects.
Speaker 1: They looked pretty good. Looks pretty good.
Speaker 2: Up next new Rings of Power trailer and folks Caler
Speaker 2: Brimble is going through it having a bad time.
Speaker 3: Babe, he is going through it. It's gonna be bad
Speaker 3: for him.
Speaker 4: If you've read the book spoiler Alla, it's gonna get
Speaker 4: worse for him.
Speaker 3: Looks beautiful, looks so expensive.
Speaker 1: It looks like the whole time.
Speaker 4: You're watching it, you're like, I can feel every dollar
Speaker 4: of the billion dollars that they put on this screen.
Speaker 2: I went back and I threw on just any random
Speaker 2: scene from My Return of the King, like Ultimate Edition,
Speaker 2: Blu Ray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the show looks as good.
Speaker 2: As that, Like it's uh, it's pretty nuts. The quality
Speaker 2: bring to the screen. Yeah, it looks like a million
Speaker 2: zillion bucks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really does. It looks fantastic. I just lots
Speaker 4: of creatures. We talked about that in the last trailer.
Speaker 4: We get to see more bar Rock here.
Speaker 3: Lots of horse battles.
Speaker 4: When we were watching this earlier, Joelle's mouth was open
Speaker 4: the whole time.
Speaker 3: It was a gate.
Speaker 4: She was like, I can't believe what is going on.
Speaker 4: I can't believe what I'm seeing.
Speaker 3: A darn Nord's here. Of course, gonna get to know
Speaker 3: more about his relationship with Sour.
Speaker 4: We get Sour on with his aim and style wig
Speaker 4: that you know, they're just like straightening uh, you know,
Speaker 4: they're just straightening it up.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we will see it. Looks looks very good.
Speaker 1: Looks very very good. And that is it for news.
Speaker 5: And now that we're done with the news, we're heading
Speaker 5: to the air lock to talk Geno morphs in all
Speaker 5: and Robbie check it out.
Speaker 1: Let's jump in.
Speaker 2: Let's start with the uh the teaser trailer, the first
Speaker 2: most recent teaser trailer and then the final version of
Speaker 2: the trailer, both released you know in recent weeks. Let's say, yes,
Speaker 2: should we just watch them in real time?
Speaker 5: We can't. I'm about it, Yeah, t shir.
Speaker 1: One thing I love right away, texture in the air.
Speaker 2: One thing I missed about from Alien three and then
Speaker 2: it's Alien Resurrection is like I need steam and dust
Speaker 2: in the air.
Speaker 5: It's vital you immediately. I think in a recent episode
Speaker 5: when we were talking about Star Wars, there's that scene
Speaker 5: where they're in the jungle and there's just it's no
Speaker 5: mist there. It's all dry, and you're like, I don't
Speaker 5: feel involved in the space. This gives such like just
Speaker 5: the deep space dark shadows kind of uh oh gosh,
Speaker 5: what's the video game I'm speaking thinking of dead Space. Yes,
Speaker 5: the first time I saw the trailer, I was like,
Speaker 5: this is very dead space, and I'm absolutely here for it.
Speaker 2: I completely agree. Yea dead Space is very alien. He's
Speaker 2: super classic. You can definitely feel the horror vibes that
Speaker 2: they're going for. And then the final trailer, which gives
Speaker 2: us more of the kind of background story and context.
Speaker 2: As FEEDI has talked about, Ridley has also talked about interviews.
Speaker 2: This is a story about young colonists in a dead
Speaker 2: end space colony where your only job is like the
Speaker 2: worst version of jobs. You're either working in like a
Speaker 2: food processing plant or you're a scavenger slash minor. And
Speaker 2: in the course of doing that really shitty blue collar job,
Speaker 2: these young folks stumble upon an abandoned question Mark space
Speaker 2: installation and it apparently is full of face huggers.
Speaker 5: Listen, here's what's really interesting, And there's an interview where
Speaker 5: he was They did a twenty minute preview for press
Speaker 5: and Fienie was saying that he wanted this film to
Speaker 5: be like, I Alien two aliens, when they come to
Speaker 5: the planet, You're like, all these children were the last
Speaker 5: ones left behind. He's like, that's the film I wanted
Speaker 5: to see, is what happens when it's only the children there?
Speaker 5: And if for a franchise that's been very much about
Speaker 5: mothers making not just space for themselves, but protecting their children,
Speaker 5: it's really interesting to look at a motherless colony of
Speaker 5: children and exploring how they're gonna survive. It's a nice
Speaker 5: turn on the horror we've been experiencing to how to
Speaker 5: protect children, to just how do you protect yourselves? And
Speaker 5: also potentially for young women, like we have Rain as
Speaker 5: the main character of the film, and it seems like
Speaker 5: she might be sort of thrust into this motherly position
Speaker 5: ahead of her time, and I'm interested in that as
Speaker 5: an angle of horror.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get into this more when we talk about
Speaker 2: the thematic structure of the Alien franchise and Alien movies,
Speaker 2: but a lot of it, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: the feel of Alien of course. Notably, Ridley Scott changed
Speaker 2: the main character Ripley from a man to a woman,
Speaker 2: just kind of like on a lark.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a lot of deep thinking in his from
Speaker 2: his perspective, but it added this really rich texture of
Speaker 2: all of these conversations about a woman as coworker, woman
Speaker 2: as a leader, woman as a mother slash protector slash
Speaker 2: person who can decide what to do with their body.
Speaker 2: All of those conversations happen, and it's really fascinating. I
Speaker 2: hope we get those conversations in this film. A couple
Speaker 2: of fun easter eggs. About thirty seconds in, we see
Speaker 2: that the computer that apparently runs this installation is the
Speaker 2: Mu slash th slash you are nine thousand Mother nine
Speaker 2: thousand That was Mother is the name of the computer
Speaker 2: that ran the Nostromo in the original Alien film. And
Speaker 2: very clearly we're gonna see this is very very horror coded,
Speaker 2: maybe more explicitly horror coded than any recent Alien film,
Speaker 2: Like obviously the prequels are a different thing, more of
Speaker 2: a sci fi adventure kind of thing, and doubling down
Speaker 2: on the original like horror roots of Alien.
Speaker 5: What's really thrilling is if the first okay, so the
Speaker 5: first Alien is a hunted House horror movie and Alienyens
Speaker 5: is more like a flashback war horror story of like
Speaker 5: living in your own nightmare of war. I'm curious, like,
Speaker 5: is this uh, you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 5: adolescent horror films or horror films about like young people
Speaker 5: are like the horror of your your changing body and
Speaker 5: the horror of like, I don't know, the the just
Speaker 5: the trauma of like growing and evolving. I think the
Speaker 5: idea of this being like a dead end sort of
Speaker 5: space gives like the horror of being stuck or like,
Speaker 5: I think we're gonna see almost a regression. Allah, I'm
Speaker 5: having trouble what memes today the book where all the
Speaker 5: kids are stuck on the island.
Speaker 1: Oh, and it's the Lord of the Flies.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to get a Lord that Flies
Speaker 1: a moment.
Speaker 5: Listen, it's early and I'm kind of looking forward to that.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, we've always seen corporate guys versus
Speaker 5: the miners and really like a class or thing. But
Speaker 5: if you're all in the same class, then I'm I
Speaker 5: imagine what we're gonna see is just a denigration of
Speaker 5: like human to animal sort of thing. And that's always
Speaker 5: kind of exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I think that there are clear parallels
Speaker 2: here with what we know about Romulus. This is one
Speaker 2: thing we're going to get into. We know a lot
Speaker 2: because they've been releasing a lot, maybe too much.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That's suggest to me that the studio thinks they have
Speaker 2: a good movie on their hands, which is extremely positive.
Speaker 2: But okay, So I think it's interesting to look at
Speaker 2: Fete's breakthrough question Mark film Don't Breathe, Don't Breathe one
Speaker 2: and then Don't Breathe two, which were how I really
Speaker 2: first became aware of him, and it feels like a
Speaker 2: very similar setup, right, A group of disaffected young people
Speaker 2: with really like nothing to do in this edge of
Speaker 2: nowhere like crumbling suburb break into a mysterious house where
Speaker 2: they are eventually preyed upon by this like ex military creature,
Speaker 2: human discarded person. And it intersects really well with a
Speaker 2: lot of the themes of Alien as a franchise, which
Speaker 2: are I mean, you kind of put your finger on it,
Speaker 2: like a lot of it is about like corporate power
Speaker 2: versus worker power, and it's really about like who's expendable.
Speaker 2: Like in the first Alien, it's blue collar workers. They're
Speaker 2: expendable whatever, Like, let's just get one of them pregnant
Speaker 2: and bring them back and we can make money off
Speaker 2: of the same thing. With Alien two, it's colonists, it's grunts.
Speaker 2: You know, there's explicitly this conversation about grunts and how
Speaker 2: their whole job is just to go in and die. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And then Alien three, who's expendable prisoners, We don't care
Speaker 2: about them. Just put them out in the universe somewhere
Speaker 2: and let them run their own affairs, and we don't
Speaker 2: worry too much about it. Let's not worry about alien resurrection,
Speaker 2: but like those are, let's not have that conversation around resurrection.
Speaker 2: But when Alien is interesting, it's an exploration about who
Speaker 2: we decide from a societal perspective, we can be comfortable
Speaker 2: with dying, and I think that's going to be a
Speaker 2: part of Alien romulus. It's essentially not just like the
Speaker 2: fact that these are kids in a nowhere town working
Speaker 2: dead on jobs. It's the power structure in a class sense.
Speaker 2: Why are we okay with these kids dying? Who are
Speaker 2: we okay with just passing away? Who worked in this
Speaker 2: ship that no one cares about and no one even.
Speaker 5: Thinks gosh, I'm having such a brainstorm moment because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: is this a reoccurring theme in Feet the Because if
Speaker 5: you think about Evil Dead, like that's a film about
Speaker 5: a group of friends that came together to try to
Speaker 5: help their friend who is an addict get clean. Almost
Speaker 5: all of them have medical experience. She does not. Nobody
Speaker 5: trusts her opinion on what's happening to her point, and
Speaker 5: so she's constantly being told like, no, you need to
Speaker 5: stay here. She's like, I have to get out. Actually,
Speaker 5: it's not safe here. This is not the way for
Speaker 5: me to do this, and they're like, we're taking away
Speaker 5: all of your agency. And then if we think about Okay,
Speaker 5: I know you don't like Girls Spiders.
Speaker 2: Web, but even that it's a film, I don't think
Speaker 2: it was the best of the speak Larsen, uh, cinematic universe.
Speaker 5: That's totally fair. I was talking to s First the
Speaker 5: other day, like, how does that fit into the larger thing?
Speaker 5: Like is that the Sweetish or the Americans? Like it's
Speaker 5: definitely the Americans, but is it I don't because it's
Speaker 5: a different actress and it's a weird film. It's just
Speaker 5: out there were like we have the ip we must
Speaker 5: make it anyway. I digress. Even that film has moments
Speaker 5: of uh, here's somebody who's like, I can save everyone
Speaker 5: except this one person, and I couldn't save them because
Speaker 5: I have this hang up from being abandoned. You weren't
Speaker 5: worth saving because you hurt me, even though everybody else,
Speaker 5: no matter what they did, what was we're saving. So
Speaker 5: that's a really interesting point, And especially if we think
Speaker 5: about who's expendable. Almost always, universally, people like it's not
Speaker 5: the children who are expendable, or at least that's what
Speaker 5: we say, but it'll be interesting to see, like, you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of times we do say children are expendable,
Speaker 5: or we don't give them a space. So I hope
Speaker 5: we'll be exploring all of that here.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's something too about the original Alien
Speaker 2: films where they became. They weren't intended to become, I
Speaker 2: don't think, but because of when they came out and
Speaker 2: the structure of those films, they became, you know, this
Speaker 2: kind of like pro choice parable.
Speaker 1: A woman who refuses to.
Speaker 2: Be impregnated with an alien and fights constantly over the
Speaker 2: course of multiple films to not have that happen. And
Speaker 2: I think in this film, you know what else, if
Speaker 2: you look at what other potential dialogues might happen because
Speaker 2: of the wider culture context, certainly a choice narrative is there.
Speaker 2: But I also think with you Know's, there's a story
Speaker 2: at the front of the New York Times today about
Speaker 2: how we're entering a point, we're approaching a point where
Speaker 2: like various ecological tipping points might happen and the planet
Speaker 2: will never be the same. And I think for you
Speaker 2: know people, maybe fifty and over, that's obviously anxiety inducing,
Speaker 2: but you're also like, fuck it, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: be here for the worst part of it. And I
Speaker 2: think maybe part of like the cultural conversation that might
Speaker 2: happen around this movie that we might find yourself responding
Speaker 2: to is we say we care about the kids, but
Speaker 2: like we're not doing anything to allow them to have
Speaker 2: a world.
Speaker 1: We also let them.
Speaker 2: Die in mass shooting events and don't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: And I think that there is a larger conversation maybe
Speaker 2: that might come out of this movie, just internally in
Speaker 2: your own mind, about like, do really care about the kids?
Speaker 2: We really care about the world that young people will
Speaker 2: have I.
Speaker 5: Have chills now, and I'm really excited to be thinking
Speaker 5: about this movie on a much deeper levels because before I.
Speaker 1: Was like, or are we It's back, Like, let's go maybe.
Speaker 2: Up next, we're going to explore the oove of Alien
Speaker 2: Romul's director Pete Alvarez, and.
Speaker 1: We're back. Let's discuss Feodie Outre.
Speaker 5: So I really want to talk about Fee as a director.
Speaker 5: Alien is so shaped by whoever's in the director, see, like,
Speaker 5: you get a lot of control and power over the direction.
Speaker 1: And angle and style.
Speaker 5: I think a lot more than a lot of other
Speaker 5: franchises allow Like usually you're like you need to adhere
Speaker 5: to the brand, and Alien it's sort of like we
Speaker 5: want these interesting directors to come in and do a
Speaker 5: lot of interesting things. So Feeni was originally discovered by
Speaker 5: Sam Raimi who saw his short whose title, of course
Speaker 5: I can't recall it right now, but saw short was like, Yeah,
Speaker 5: this kid's got it. Brought him in to do Evil Dead.
Speaker 5: Evil Dead really shows that FEEDI has a lot of
Speaker 5: respect for a franchise, understands deeply how to adhere to
Speaker 5: the overall style guide while also putting his original fingerprint
Speaker 5: on it and making it feel unique and exciting and fun,
Speaker 5: and so I think all of that gives us a
Speaker 5: lot of hope for what he can do. So here
Speaker 5: we listen to a conversation between him and Release Scott,
Speaker 5: and I was wondering if we could play that clip. Guys. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So I think he's saying a lot of the same
Speaker 5: things were're saying, which is just he's got this fresh take.
Speaker 5: He's looking for young folks. And I think for I mean,
Speaker 5: Redley's had some issues with some adaptations of his in
Speaker 5: the past. I mean, there are how many cuts of
Speaker 5: Blade Runner. He's very specific, and so for him to
Speaker 5: have hope and Febie, I think, you know, it makes
Speaker 5: me feel less nervous about going to the show.
Speaker 1: Same.
Speaker 2: Let's let's dive into his filmography, starting with twenty thirteen's
Speaker 2: reimagining their quotes of the Evil Dead franchise. Evil Dead
Speaker 2: the twenty thirteen version starring Jane Levy, Sheila Fernandez, lou
Speaker 2: Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore, and it's essentially the
Speaker 2: setup if you're aware of the first Evil Dead movies.
Speaker 2: Remote cabin, evil spirits, people trapped there, fast paced, terrible.
Speaker 1: Horrific images of gore.
Speaker 2: And blood, so much blood, and a demon that must
Speaker 2: be uh, you know, expunged from this plane of reality.
Speaker 2: I would say it's a what It's a wonderful high
Speaker 2: adrenaline like close to the ground horror movie.
Speaker 1: Uh. It lacks maybe the.
Speaker 2: Tinge of Tom and Jerry comedy of the originals mostly
Speaker 2: evil did too, but.
Speaker 1: A terrific, a terrific modern horror film.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Poene said, uh, twenty seven percent less humor sixteen.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: The bodywear goes up to such an extent we were
Speaker 5: just like, oh, like I was. It was like every
Speaker 5: three minutes, TI, okay, pause, it's fine, you're here. This
Speaker 5: is all makeup, don't worry about it. Limbs are being
Speaker 5: slowly stretched and torn off bodies. There are disgusting bites
Speaker 5: from zombie children. Who was the one that really Oh
Speaker 5: the nail gun. Anytime a nail gun shows up in
Speaker 5: a movie, I'm like, why are we doing this? Do
Speaker 5: we have to? It's so much but it's delightfully scary.
Speaker 5: It's the kind of scary where you're peeking through your fingers,
Speaker 5: uses a light and shadow really well, and when he
Speaker 5: is having fun, like he's having a lot of fun.
Speaker 5: And so while I do think there's I think we
Speaker 5: mentioned before, but there's two sexual assaults within the film
Speaker 5: that I felt were sort of grotesque and unnecessary in
Speaker 5: a way that really wasn't helping plotter, adding to the
Speaker 5: horror theaters are just sort of excessive. I think he's
Speaker 5: evolved and grown a lot as a director since this film,
Speaker 5: both in his style and in taste of what he's showing,
Speaker 5: you know, slowly, surely growing, And so yeah, I think
Speaker 5: this is a really good resume for like this guy
Speaker 5: can do Alien And then of course we go on
Speaker 5: to his follow up films, which you were explaining earlier,
Speaker 5: genuinely horror.
Speaker 2: Twenty Fourteens Don't Breathe also starring Jane Livy. You know,
Speaker 2: this was this was kind of like along with it
Speaker 2: follows like a high point.
Speaker 1: Of Detroit horror. Detroit, yes, area of horror movies.
Speaker 5: And no only Lovers left alive, So it was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: Detroit horror.
Speaker 1: Barbarian.
Speaker 2: There's another one of the recent a class that three
Speaker 2: kids break into a house where they feel like there
Speaker 2: might be stuff worth stealing, but the guy there is
Speaker 2: a blind and absolutely jacked Gulf War veteran who also
Speaker 2: turns out to be a quite sinister person who has
Speaker 2: been trapping and impregnating attempting to impregnate his female prisoners.
Speaker 2: It has a lot of the hallmarks that I think
Speaker 2: were established in Evil Dead, which is claustrophobia, intense fear,
Speaker 2: the fear of being hunted.
Speaker 1: Like survival, hide and go seek, you know, yeah, and
Speaker 1: is a truly.
Speaker 2: Creepy and weird film, really weird film that is good.
Speaker 1: Is also one of those.
Speaker 2: Where, much like Evil Dead, I mean, the plot turns
Speaker 2: on a reveal of like jars of frozen sperm, is
Speaker 2: that necessarily in good taste?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: How do you personally feel about that? I was like,
Speaker 2: do I need? That? Feels like too much for me.
Speaker 2: But like another seemingly hallmark of Fete's work, particularly early work.
Speaker 1: Is like did we just go over the line? I'm
Speaker 1: not sure.
Speaker 5: He likes to tap dance on it, he like, because
Speaker 5: on the one hand, you're like, this feels very far,
Speaker 5: but on the other hand, you're like, oh, it's really
Speaker 5: cementing to me the horror here. It's and it's also
Speaker 5: visually really disgusting, And so for that element of like
Speaker 5: I'm just visually disgusted and equally horrified, like it kind
Speaker 5: of works.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 5: I like somebody who's at the very least willing to
Speaker 5: push the boundary. And he seems like the kind of
Speaker 5: director who's like not very concerned with what people think
Speaker 5: about his films, which is kind of an ideal right now,
Speaker 5: it's just what he's like, I made this film for me.
Speaker 5: I hope you like it. It's like a really interesting
Speaker 5: kind of he's very hands on, he said, I can't
Speaker 5: remember if it's in the Sam Raimi talkback or in
Speaker 5: the UH after the press screening, but he talks about
Speaker 5: how they made amatronic face huggers, and he's like, if
Speaker 5: you see a face hugger and it's submerged in water,
Speaker 5: I'm holding the camera filming that I'm actually moving and
Speaker 5: trying to get So he's like very tactile and wants
Speaker 5: to be very like involved and invested in the overall look.
Speaker 5: And he said, he's like that's how he starts to
Speaker 5: see the film. He's not like a film school guy.
Speaker 5: He's the guy who just constantly was stealing like friends
Speaker 5: parents cameras and making movies with his friend. He said,
Speaker 5: he would like edit in camera, which, if you know
Speaker 5: anything about filming, is tremendously hard because you have to
Speaker 5: like hear the length of film and then align the
Speaker 5: shot and then make sure your transitions from one shot
Speaker 5: to the other what make sense to your audience. Like
Speaker 5: it's a really delicate process. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm hoping we're seeing more of a return to because
Speaker 5: we look at franchises like Star Wars has definitely been like, Okay,
Speaker 5: we're gonna get out of the volume and away from
Speaker 5: these blue screens. Lord of the Rings with Rings of
Speaker 5: Power really tripled down on that. They're like, we're going
Speaker 5: all over the world, and so it's exciting to see
Speaker 5: franchises be like, we really want to bring back that
Speaker 5: tactile viewing experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's been so much a part of this
Speaker 2: movie's marketing, both in the behind the scenes, which again
Speaker 2: it's really notable how much stuff from this movie is
Speaker 2: out there in the world. Then you could you know,
Speaker 2: it's twenty minutes or so has already been screened.
Speaker 1: And then there's this.
Speaker 2: Quite long and extensive behind the scenes video that came
Speaker 2: out recently, and it really delves into the practical, practical effects,
Speaker 2: and it's clearly something that I think studios in general
Speaker 2: understand that fans want, particularly in the horror space, Like
Speaker 2: you want something that looks like it's there in the
Speaker 2: room with the people who are scared of it, and.
Speaker 1: That's a big part of it.
Speaker 2: It's also like there's this been this cool like VHS
Speaker 2: version of some run of the film that's been given
Speaker 2: to influencers, and there again is this clear nod to nostalgia,
Speaker 2: the old way of doing film, this kind of like gritty,
Speaker 2: lived in looking world, and the suggestion being like this
Speaker 2: is not going to be CG where you see too
Speaker 2: much of the thing, You're gonna feel like that thing
Speaker 2: is there in the shadows. The face huggers are on
Speaker 2: the ground scurrying around, and it's going to be scary.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for that part of it, and it's cool
Speaker 2: that it seems like they understand that the fans want that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wanted to ask you on the line of
Speaker 5: like marketing and we've seen a lot. Do you think
Speaker 5: we've seen too much? Have we crossed a line?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think there's too much of this movie out there.
Speaker 2: Again, I think that I take it as a positive.
Speaker 2: It tells me that they think that they have a
Speaker 2: good movie that people will want to see, and that
Speaker 2: they're excited about their movie, because you know, marketing is
Speaker 2: a limited resource and you can you There are any
Speaker 2: number of examples the recent Borderlands debacle, for instance, where
Speaker 2: you just know from the lack of stuff that you've
Speaker 2: heard about the film that the studio.
Speaker 5: Yes, nah nah, please don't come so fine.
Speaker 2: The fact that they're going this hard for this movie
Speaker 2: tells me that they like it. Now, there's just too
Speaker 2: much out there.
Speaker 1: What do you think, I mean, this is too there's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so much already out there.
Speaker 2: For weeks, there's been like huge chunks of the movie
Speaker 2: out there, I mean.
Speaker 5: Weeks, and because I mean at the top of the year,
Speaker 5: I remember hearing the actors on social media talking about
Speaker 5: we just shot the scene. It was so crazy. Someone
Speaker 5: was like finally ill from watching it was practical and
Speaker 5: you're just never gonna believe it. So for weeks I've
Speaker 5: sort of been on end of my see being like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, Alien it's coming and it's gonna be crazy,
Speaker 5: and so I'm so like I'm and especially because there's
Speaker 5: so many like new faces in here. That's always a
Speaker 5: really exciting Like if you're a person who follows marketing
Speaker 5: and PR for films, like when there's a bunch of new,
Speaker 5: very talented people coming up, like PR gets all excited.
Speaker 5: We're introducing you to all these people and it's gonna
Speaker 5: be great, and look at their relationships and they really
Speaker 5: like each other and it's so great. So I love
Speaker 5: seeing all of that. But from a film historian perspective,
Speaker 5: like if you know anything about the marketing for movie one,
Speaker 5: you're like, wait, what happened here? Because those like no
Speaker 5: one can hear you scream in space and then there's
Speaker 5: a like a maybe an egg. You're not sure what
Speaker 5: you're looking at.
Speaker 1: It's all dark and.
Speaker 5: Stars, and they're like, come see it or don't alien
Speaker 5: You're like, hell, yes, it's so exciting, And so I
Speaker 5: think I understand they're like, we gotta get it out there.
Speaker 5: You gotta know what's happening. But there's particularly Eileen wu
Speaker 5: Is one of the performers in the film, and they
Speaker 5: have this chest burster scene where they light up and
Speaker 5: you could see almost like an extra Yeah, that should
Speaker 5: not be in a trailer, and it shy be out
Speaker 5: there that should be a shock in the theater.
Speaker 1: I oh god, no.
Speaker 5: And then they're like it pounds on their chest and
Speaker 5: you can hear it cracking. I'm like, that's I don't
Speaker 5: want to know this yet. This is I'm sure I'll
Speaker 5: still love it in the theater, but yeah, I practice
Speaker 5: some restraint. I really wish the directors could be like, okay,
Speaker 5: but not these things you're in here.
Speaker 2: No, I mean the releasing the behind the scenes before
Speaker 2: the movie is out. I this is a very recent development.
Speaker 2: I don't know if Romulus is the first to do it,
Speaker 2: but it feels like something I have not seen before.
Speaker 2: And again it feels very notable to me, Like why
Speaker 2: why is it's out there?
Speaker 1: This shouldn't be out there.
Speaker 2: But I enjoy seeing it, but like it feels like
Speaker 2: too much.
Speaker 1: You're you're getting into spoiler territory now with your marketing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, hopefully it works and it brings lots of
Speaker 5: people to seats and because you know, a horror film
Speaker 5: is always better with a packed theater. So we're seeing
Speaker 5: it tonight. How are you feeling. What's your anticipation level.
Speaker 1: I'm extremely excited.
Speaker 2: I'm like super excited too, Okay, I'm next, We're gonna
Speaker 2: delve into the themes of the Alien franchise after this,
Speaker 2: and we're back. Let's talk about the Alien franchise and
Speaker 2: the things that make Alien feel like Alien. Of course,
Speaker 2: like this is a movie franchise that combines elements of horror,
Speaker 2: sci fi, haunted house and space, etcetera, all these things,
Speaker 2: but what really what are the elements, the thematic elements
Speaker 2: that make it feel that way? And I would propose
Speaker 2: that it's the following first Alien films. The really good
Speaker 2: Alien films have a exploration of real world power dynamics
Speaker 2: within them that includes gender. We talked about particularly the
Speaker 2: first two Alien movies as these explorations of women as coworker,
Speaker 2: a woman as a leader, and a mother. With this
Speaker 2: you know, other level of this dialogue about body agency
Speaker 2: and choice that's all wrapped up in this comes part
Speaker 2: and parcel with you know, when your hero is a woman.
Speaker 2: And then this other exploration of the power dynamics within
Speaker 2: society of class, working class versus corporate class. The first
Speaker 2: four movies really are put in this kind of like
Speaker 2: underclass setting of you know, blue collar mind workers. It's
Speaker 2: blue collar colonists, military grunts, and of course always the
Speaker 2: corporation is the villain, always, always, always, and within that
Speaker 2: is a conversation, as we talked about previously, but who
Speaker 2: does society consider expendable workers, grunts, prisoners, and so on.
Speaker 2: It contains elements of its fear is generated from the
Speaker 2: fear of humans, not just as prey but like yes,
Speaker 2: as prey hunted, but as reproductive vessels for aliens. And
Speaker 2: because the aliens are this completely other kind of insectoid species,
Speaker 2: there is also a feeling within the alien movies of
Speaker 2: this is really rare in even horror movies. It is
Speaker 2: absolutely okay to release your genocidal urges upon this villain.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely fine to say, wherever you find this
Speaker 2: species in the galaxy, wipe it out. And that's not
Speaker 2: a thing you can say about a lot of villains,
Speaker 2: like you know, Predator. You look at the Predator series
Speaker 2: like you would it would be fucked up to like
Speaker 2: wipe out the Predators.
Speaker 1: Not so with the xenomorphs.
Speaker 2: Wherever you find it, kill it. And that's again, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not a thing that you find in many other
Speaker 2: stories or horror stories. And then it can take is
Speaker 2: a distrust of technology, computer intelligence, and a conversation about
Speaker 2: when is computer intelligence truly dangerous? And I think what
Speaker 2: these films basically come down on is it's too dangerous
Speaker 2: when they are creative. I mean that's you see that
Speaker 2: in uh yeah and Prometheus. Uh you see that in
Speaker 2: the first Alien film. When and when is it too dangerous?
Speaker 2: It's too dangerous when it's creative, which makes it too human. Like,
Speaker 2: I hope that we get all of these elements. I
Speaker 2: think these elements are absolutely key to making Alien feel
Speaker 2: like Alien. And it certainly feels like from the copious
Speaker 2: material that's out there Joell, that we are gonna get
Speaker 2: that's gonna all of these things are going to be
Speaker 2: part of this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and some of the Kope's material we got. We
Speaker 5: learned that Rain, again, the main character for this film,
Speaker 5: has a brother who is a robot AI and she
Speaker 5: feels fiercely protective with him. So I think immediately like
Speaker 5: we're moving from helper to sibling, huge jump, And it'll
Speaker 5: be an interesting exploration in the fine line between human
Speaker 5: and technology when you bring it into like a familial
Speaker 5: space and again not a mother to child spaces. We've
Speaker 5: seen sort of explored and raised by wolves, which is
Speaker 5: more Alien stuff, but in that sibling we're sort of
Speaker 5: both on equal footing and we're both figuring our stuff
Speaker 5: out kind of way. I'm fascinated to see what they do.
Speaker 5: I can't wait. And especially are do we have time
Speaker 5: to explore some of the influences for Alien, And we
Speaker 5: kind of talked about, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, let's talk about it. Let's talk on it quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we talked about some of the films that
Speaker 2: we were gonna talk about, some of the films that
Speaker 2: influence Alien. I think we both watched them exclamation point recently,
Speaker 2: which is it's crazy to watch them now. Nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: four's Academy Award winning sci fi epic we didn't know
Speaker 2: it won an Academy one, an Academy Award for Special Effects.
Speaker 5: Okay, fair because those ants looked real good radioactive ants
Speaker 5: who are grow to monstrous sizes because of the nuclear
Speaker 5: testing that's going on in the New Mexico desert attack
Speaker 5: and all manner of highjinks happen.
Speaker 2: And if you're a fan of Aliens in particular, watch
Speaker 2: them and you will be like, holy shit, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff from Aliens in this.
Speaker 5: I don't want to call it a shot for shot remake,
Speaker 5: but I will say heavily influenced. We got a young,
Speaker 5: shell shocked girl. We have experienced scientist lady nobody trusts.
Speaker 5: We have military grunts who are slash police. It's more
Speaker 5: like a police FBI situation, but basically who are like,
Speaker 5: no one's telling us what's going on, and we need
Speaker 5: to protect ourselves. And then we also have a great
Speaker 5: disdain for the rest of human life because they refuse
Speaker 5: to tell the public what's going on.
Speaker 1: And they're just like, they're just like fuck it, and
Speaker 1: we're not gonna tell them.
Speaker 5: Go to you if you discover what's happening, because they
Speaker 5: will just lock you up in a mental institution. They're like, oh,
Speaker 5: we're just gonna keep up. A bunch of sailors on
Speaker 5: a ship they saw the ants, so they can't come ashore.
Speaker 5: How many supplies do they have, We're not sure, didn't check,
Speaker 5: but they can't come back. I was like, the disregard
Speaker 5: for human life, but it's so kind of it's a
Speaker 5: really good movie. I'm glad I watched it, and it
Speaker 5: was interesting to see sort of the ways that's all
Speaker 5: about atomic power and what is the lasting impact and
Speaker 5: effect on the human race and our planet, and so
Speaker 5: to sort of look at it from that perspective and
Speaker 5: then see what Aliens did, which is like, what is
Speaker 5: the impact of this corporation constantly sending these grunts out
Speaker 5: into space to die as cannon fodder? Essentially, I really
Speaker 5: appreciated sort of the evolution of this conversation, which again
Speaker 5: really inspires me to be like, I hope we continue
Speaker 5: to see the evolution in Romulus.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing about them too is you know, the
Speaker 2: hero is a dude, and so therefore you get this
Speaker 2: kind of more fatherly thing. But you are absolutely right
Speaker 2: to put your finger on motherhood being like such an
Speaker 2: important part of these alien films. The first film, it's
Speaker 2: you know, Ripley is the only one who gives a
Speaker 2: shit about the cat. You know, in this very motherly way,
Speaker 2: risks her life to get the cat, and that is
Speaker 2: part of why you love her. You love her for that,
Speaker 2: you understand that everyone else would just be like, fuck
Speaker 2: the cat, not Ripley. Then in Aliens, you know that's
Speaker 2: Newt is basically her child. Like that that is like
Speaker 2: overt and is not only just her child, but she's
Speaker 2: in a very real way balancing like being a mother
Speaker 2: and being this authoritative voice that hardened space marines are like, no,
Speaker 2: we're going to do what you say because you know better.
Speaker 2: So it'd be very interesting to see if that stuff
Speaker 2: is in there. Next up there is Dark Star, which
Speaker 2: has a lot of really interesting connections to the Alien franchise.
Speaker 2: First of all, was written by Dan O'Bannon wrote Alien
Speaker 2: the script, the original script for Alien movie. It was
Speaker 2: kind of like a co written by director John Carpenter.
Speaker 2: And Darkstar has a lot of First of all, that
Speaker 2: it was made for like sixty thousand dollars as a
Speaker 2: student film in nineteen seventy four at USC. It somehow
Speaker 2: got a limited film release and has a lot of
Speaker 2: the themes that you see in Alien later, including this
Speaker 2: kind of exploration of space as a place where workers
Speaker 2: are sent out into and for completely forgotten about. These
Speaker 2: These people are on like a multi year mission to
Speaker 2: basically look at different planets and you know, research whether
Speaker 2: they might be a danger to the colonial system that
Speaker 2: humans have. But also they've been doing it for like
Speaker 2: years and nobody cares anymore. Like they're just out there
Speaker 2: in space and completely forgotten about, which I think is something.
Speaker 1: We're going to see in Alien.
Speaker 2: Romulus space is a place where you send people out
Speaker 2: there and then you don't ever think about them again.
Speaker 5: Not only can nobody hear you scream, but nobody cares
Speaker 5: if you come back.
Speaker 1: Look, nobody cares if you come back.
Speaker 4: Nobody cares.
Speaker 1: Nobody was a shit, You're just out their mind.
Speaker 5: Nobody cares, get us our resources or die. Honestly, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I man, it's been really a fun week as we've
Speaker 5: done this deep dive on all of the not just
Speaker 5: impact of Alien, but sort of its place in cinematic history.
Speaker 5: I think this movie is going to be really important
Speaker 5: in the franchise because the past couple of films that
Speaker 5: have been more fiction director have been they have been
Speaker 5: as well received as earlier projects, and so I think
Speaker 5: with this new direction, a return to horror, a fresh director,
Speaker 5: a bunch of fresh new faces, and by starting young,
Speaker 5: you have this ability to potentially age into an evolve
Speaker 5: like we could potentially be Falling Rain for many movies.
Speaker 5: I think it's like a nice soft reset for the franchise,
Speaker 5: not a hard rese or not rebooting or retooling, but
Speaker 5: a return to the things we loved and an advancement
Speaker 5: in visuals that spells really good things for Alien.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think just being able to have the series as
Speaker 5: a continuation of the storyline, both being able to expand
Speaker 5: the lore, you know, coming in sort of in the
Speaker 5: middle of the timeline instead of like way far out Prometheus,
Speaker 5: like I'm not really sure what the direct connection is.
Speaker 5: It plugs you right back into that central story, but
Speaker 5: again doing something different from Ripley, which is nice. It
Speaker 5: gives us a little bit of space without alienating the
Speaker 5: things that we loved about the franchise.
Speaker 2: Why is this film important? Why is Alien important? Why
Speaker 2: is it important to you? Jo, I'll say why it's
Speaker 2: important to me. I think it's important to me because
Speaker 2: I think the Alien franchise, when it's at its best,
Speaker 2: explores the things that we talked about class power dynamics,
Speaker 2: gender dynamics in a way that is both incredibly entertaining
Speaker 2: and then really rewarding to think about the more you
Speaker 2: think about it. And so I think if that if
Speaker 2: they can capture that where it's not just like a
Speaker 2: pulse pounding horror in space action adventure gore fest, but
Speaker 2: an exploration of like the people and things that we
Speaker 2: think are expendable in our society.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I really like about Alien and the elasticity
Speaker 5: of the storytelling, right, And you can, like a lot
Speaker 5: of people hate AU three. I love Three. It's so
Speaker 5: weird and bizarre. It's in a great film, No, but
Speaker 5: it was a film that allowed itself to be weird
Speaker 5: and to try. And I think even to Prometheus again,
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of people didn't like Prometheus. I think
Speaker 5: we're seeing some people return to it and see it
Speaker 5: in a different light. It's definitely different than the rest
Speaker 5: of the Alien franchise, but I think that's something that's
Speaker 5: sort of beautiful and allows for growth and depth within.
Speaker 5: You know, if we're going to continue to see IP
Speaker 5: franchises that last decades, like that's the kind of thing
Speaker 5: need to see, is elasticity and storytelling. All these things
Speaker 5: get boring really fast. And I'll also say, like to me,
Speaker 5: to this day, we don't have enough characters that are
Speaker 5: fucking awesome as Ripley, like Ripley oh Man to be
Speaker 5: a woman in business, Like I loved her as a kid,
Speaker 5: but now watching her talk to men, she's like.
Speaker 1: I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 5: But then also like, why is the corporation right this way, Like,
Speaker 5: none of this makes sense. You guys don't care about
Speaker 5: people at all. How is that possible to see her
Speaker 5: constantly go up against these struggles and not you know
Speaker 5: typically and again, tears are fine, but we just want
Speaker 5: to see them all the time. Like, Ripley never dissolves,
Speaker 5: she never collapses in on herself. She's like a endless
Speaker 5: reservoir of power and she survives it. And she's like
Speaker 5: a final girl who's totally kick ass and awesome. She's
Speaker 5: the best final girl in my opinion.
Speaker 1: I love Ripley.
Speaker 5: And so for this franchise to keep going, to keep
Speaker 5: trying to craft dope incredible women like that, like, it
Speaker 5: means a lot to me. I value it a lot.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I'm excited for these new iterations. I think
Speaker 5: we're gonna really you see some really kick ass kids.
Speaker 5: I'm excited for them.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's end with our box office predictions. What do
Speaker 2: we think opening weekend Alien romulus? What do we think
Speaker 2: the number is going to be?
Speaker 1: Joelle?
Speaker 5: So the conservative estimate is between thirty and fifty million dollars,
Speaker 5: which seems completely reasonable, but given Twisters and it's success
Speaker 5: coming off of a franchise that not everyone was sure
Speaker 5: if people still wanted more, right, they were like, is
Speaker 5: this a thing people are actually gonna come see? It
Speaker 5: has some fresh faces, some you know, people that we know,
Speaker 5: but it's I really feel like we could be looking
Speaker 5: at a big opening weekend. So I'm gonna go a
Speaker 5: little bit outside of conservative and say, like seventy five,
Speaker 5: Twisters did eighty one point two five. Wow, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: say Alien Romulus does seventy five.
Speaker 2: I So the budget, it's hard to track on budget
Speaker 2: info about this movie. It was filmed in Hungary for cheap,
Speaker 2: but not like sub one hundred million dollar cheap. That said,
Speaker 2: I think the Twisters analogy is an interesting one. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have thought of Glenn Powell as a star, but
Speaker 2: he does have like some star power. Kaylee Spanney, you know,
Speaker 2: people know her from Civil War, from Mayor of Sound,
Speaker 2: from other stuff. But I think there is a notable
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say lack of star power, but it's
Speaker 2: not a star driven film and maybe never has been.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, ooh, I'm gonna put it at forty five,
Speaker 2: but like that's gonna be framed as a success.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna say forty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he does thirty five. People will think
Speaker 5: of this as a successful Yes, Like it's horror. Late
Speaker 5: summer August, box office can sometimes be pretty slow, so
Speaker 5: uh yeah, but I'm really hoping but they're gonna be
Speaker 5: in see It's like I was telling you before, like
Speaker 5: my dad is Alien obsessed, loves the franchise. He hasn't
Speaker 5: been to the theater since OPENHEIMWERG. To be fair, my
Speaker 5: dad built his own movie theater in his basement. So
Speaker 5: he's like, well, I want to go to the theater.
Speaker 5: I have one at home. Yeah, he's he's been a
Speaker 5: long project, but he's like, I'm gonna go see it
Speaker 5: in the theater. I want to see it with an audience.
Speaker 5: I think horror sort of demands that, and so I'm
Speaker 5: hoping that brings a lot of people to the theater
Speaker 5: this weekend.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 2: Coming up next on an X ray vision tomorrow. In fact,
Speaker 2: Rosie is sitting down with You Joel super producer Joel
Speaker 2: for deep Dive on the interview with a vampire television series,
Speaker 2: the sexiest most vamping series on television, including an interview
Speaker 2: with Starr Sam Reid and to the next week for
Speaker 2: our Alien Romulus Reaction pod. That's it for this episode,
Speaker 2: See you next time. X ray Vision is hosted by
Speaker 2: Jason Ken, Supsion and Rosie Knight and is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and
Speaker 2: Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our
Speaker 2: producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song
Speaker 2: is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 4: and Heidi on Disco Modera