WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Quest (1984) 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.440 Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:09.640 Rob Lamb and let's see we have a fun one 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.520 to talk about here today. This one originally published three fourteen, 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.680 twenty twenty five. It's our episode on the nineteen eighty 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:20.120 four saw An The Lame Bass short film Quest. This 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.160 one is a visionary take on human mortality, written by 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.160 the Great Ray Brad Perry. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:27.160 Let's have it. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.159 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.159 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.000 Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.199 And today's episode feels like a perfect fit in a 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.920 number of ways. For starters, we've been discussing mystery cults 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.120 on our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:59.520 and where the concept of an imagistic religion has been 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.040 key to our our discussions. There infrequent high sensory rights 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.039 of passage, and I feel like today's film matches up 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:11.480 with that concept on a couple of levels. Furthermore, to understand, 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.759 we potentially have more eyes on the podcast feed this week, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.039 and it seemed proper to maybe the lean a little 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.560 more into science fiction. Plus, we've also been saving this 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.280 one for a week when we had maybe a little 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.959 less time. This is one of the shorter pictures we've 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.600 looked at on Weird House Cinema. It's only a half 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:32.520 hour long, but that's fitting given the subject matter, and 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.399 boy does it pack a lot in So what's the movie. 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.320 The movie is the nineteen eighty four short film Quest. 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.760 I note that I am going to mistakenly refer to 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.760 this film as Conquest at least once during the course 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.000 of this podcast, but not to be confused with Lucio 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.880 Fulci's Conquest. This is Quest. It is adapted for the 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.760 screen written by Ray Bradbury, and it is directed by 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:59.760 Saul and Elaine Bass. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.240 Now this is not our first Bass film. We talked 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.760 about Saul and Elaine Bass when we covered the movie 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.000 Phase four, which was about super intelligent ants. That was 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.000 a very interesting movie. But one thing I remember thinking 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.200 about it was that it felt somewhat constrained by realism 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.200 for most of its run time, except in like the 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.520 very last couple of minutes where it got super weird, 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.640 and it almost felt like, you know, that that level 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.760 of weirdness was being held back for much of the runtime. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.800 I think that is not something you could say about Quest. 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.960 Now, this film is all abstract and surreal weirdness. It 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.120 is not held back by the necessities of for the 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.240 most part, of the necessities of genre or plot or character, 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.400 or any of the conventional trappings of narrative filmmaking. It 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.720 is instead more like an initiation into a great mystery. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.400 That's right. I mean, its plot is very basic. It 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.600 is essentially a there's a premise, which we'll explain more 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.120 as we go on, but it essentially has to do 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.440 with characters whose life spans are unnaturally short. And then 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.720 from that premise there is a character who must make 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.360 a journey through a difficult sort of hero's journey in 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.240 order to cure the people of this condition of having 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:20.399 shortened life spans. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.640 Yes, yes, we have a chosen one, we have a quest, 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:26.480 and yeah it's quite an adventure. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.360 But so with the plot itself being quite simple, what 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:32.919 is left to fill in the kind of uniqueness of 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.800 the movie is the series of images that it supplies. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.880 This is a movie that is about creating weird scenes. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:47.040 And I really like the the variable tone of the 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.040 sort of settings that we get Because there were sort 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.520 of natural settings we see our hero wandering through rocky 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:59.000 landscapes and you know, mountain mountain passes and plains and 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.000 things like that. But then all as we get not 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:07.560 even artificial but almost geometric like abstract landscapes that couldn't 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.240 really exist in reality. They're they're like illustrations from an 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:12.360 mc escher drawing. 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:18.839 Yeah, yeah, they increasingly surreal landscapes and environments. You know, 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.960 you go from from some settings that have like a 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.719 very like dark fantasy sword and sandals kind of feel, 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.560 into settings that feel like they have perhaps been stripped 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:31.840 from tron somehow. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.719 Yes. Yes, it starts a tour and ends esher Yeah. 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.320 All right, my elevator pitch for this one, I just 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.360 dug up a quick Bible verse teach us to number our. 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.640 Days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:47.680 Yeah, that'll come up later. 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.919 Now. As for the trailer for this one, there's seemingly 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.560 no true trailer for this film, which isn't surprising, as 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.760 we'll get into some of the reasons here. It only 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:02.600 played in festival competitions and never received a theatrical release. 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.680 But maybe we can just have a brief audio sample 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:07.119 of JJ's choosing here. 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:17.480 Is this the one one? 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.880 Day from now, you'll be a grown boy two or three, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:34.920 young man, five, middle age seven old. In eight days. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:44.680 You'll stop and die. Listen to our hearts race. Listen 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:46.159 to your own heart race. 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.600 We are locked away in the world where our lives 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:52.480 speak through time. 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:57.240 In eight days, no time to see, to feel, to know. 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:19.440 It's time now the teaching begins. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:45.240 Listen to them, no honqutution them. 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:35.800 All right now. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.719 If you want to watch Quest from nineteen eighty four 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:43.279 before proceeding here, well, DVD and VHS releases have apparently 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.080 been available. There's some evidence I've found that you can 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.680 order some sort of a DVD of this movie, but 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.520 for the most part, I can't tell that it has 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:58.000 benefited from a high quality physical media release, at least 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.320 not yet. Hopefully there's some sort of you know, collected 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.560 short films of Saul in the Lane bass disc that'll 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.599 come out in the future, and when it does, we 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.440 will certainly promote it here on Weird House Cinema. As 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.360 of right now, you can easily find this film on YouTube. 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.280 There's at least one version that claims to be some 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.720 level of remastering. I'm never sure how that works when 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:25.440 you have a unofficial remastering of films, so I'm not 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.720 completely certain on that. I think that Eternal Family, which 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.600 you can find at Eternal TV, I believe they have 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.280 offered it in the past, but I'm not sure that 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.520 it is currently offered, But check out Eternal Family. Either way, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.640 their catalog often matches up with weird house cinema tastes. 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.640 But I'm confident that if you are interested in watching 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.320 Quest out there, you can find a stream of it somewhere, 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.440 and then hopefully down the road we'll get that high 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.000 quality release that we all clearly need. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.120 All right, should we talk about the connections. 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.120 Yeah, let's start at the top with the direct and producers. 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.080 It's Saul and Elaine Bass, husband and wife design power couple. 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.440 We discussed saw Bass previously in our episode on nineteen 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:15.600 seventy four's Phase four. That was only his slash there. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.760 I may go back and forth from referring to him 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.280 and referring to he and his wife. They work together, 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.000 I believe on most of these projects after a certain point, 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.200 but she wasn't always credited right at there at the top, 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:33.520 But on Quest they are co directors and are credited 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:38.280 as such. But yeah, Phase four was their only feature 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.199 length directorial credit, a film that, yeah, we might describe 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.199 as the two thousand and one a space odyssey of 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.920 ant movies, an increasingly weird man versus nature film that 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.959 reaches a fever pitch of an ending in its theatrical cut, 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.840 but absolutely explodes in a cinematic acid trip if you 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.640 watch the original ending, which is even weirder and stranger. 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.960 Yeah, the spoiler for this movie is that humanity is 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:10.480 sort of being, would you say, competed with by hyper 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:14.440 intelligent ants, and the ants win in the end, and 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.839 when the ants win, there's an ending where it's I recall, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.600 it's sort of implied that humans aren't all just like 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.640 killed by the ants. Like, life goes on, but life 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:29.640 is increasingly completely incomprehensible because we are unable to understand 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.880 the intelligence or desire or or what is meaningful to 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.360 the ant powers that are governing our lives. 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.480 Yeah, it's kind of unclear if it's that a downer 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.280 ending or a happy ending, because it's that surreal and 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.400 out there, like it's it's beyond your human expectations of 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:47.600 good and bad endings. 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.560 You cannot imagine an ant ruled world. You just can't 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.160 even get there now. 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.680 Saubass lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety six. Elaine Bass 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.320 was born in nineteen twenty seven and as of this 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.880 recording is still around now. We talked a bit about 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:09.720 Saul Bass on our episode regarding Phase four again. He 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.120 was the title sequence slash title design guy of his era. 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.000 A Bass title sequence is often credited as a perfect 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.680 condensation of the feel of a picture, just taking the 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.800 whole vibe of that picture and condensing it down to 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.800 just a mere couple of minutes. So you'll hear a 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.840 lot of filmmakers, even contemporary filmmakers, just talk about his 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:37.240 mastery of this. He crafted title sequences for major films 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.880 from the mid fifties all the way through the mid nineties. 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:45.640 We're talking about the likes of the Seven Year Itch, Vertigo, Psycho, Spartacus, 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.920 West Side Story, Seconds, which we covered on Weird House Cinema, 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:55.200 Broadcast News, Big Good Fellas, Kate Beer, and Casino. The 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.600 credits to Mad Men on TV. This was an homage 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.160 to his work he did for a number of big 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.200 name companies throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and he 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.040 also did some pretty famous movie posters as well, including 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.280 the aforementioned films as well as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.240 I consulted a book for a little more detail about 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.800 Saul and Elaine Bass, a book titled Saalbath's Anatomy of 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.480 Film Design by Jan Christopher Horrock, which of course has 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.559 a great deal to say about their approach to art, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.440 everything from you know, title and loco design work to 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.880 of course their cinematic output. And again, from about nineteen 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:41.560 sixty onward, Elaine was his longtime creative partner who worked 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.040 with him on pretty much most of these projects. So 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.080 she's not again she's not always credited earlier on, but 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:51.079 certainly by the time of today's film she shared official 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.000 credit with her husband. Their first short film was nineteen 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.520 sixty four. Is The Searching Eye, a contemplation of visual 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.240 awareness and the unseen world. This one was narrated by 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.200 Vic Perrin, who recently talked about the voice of the 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.600 Outer Limits and also the Gargoyle. 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.800 The narrator at the beginning of Gargoyles and dubbed in 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.120 on Bernie Casey's g Gargoyle King. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.720 Yes, The Searching Eye was followed by From Here to 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.720 There The same year, and Why Man Creates in nineteen 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:26.280 sixty eight, a meditation on creativity and nature did won 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.600 an Oscar the following year for Best Documentary Short Subjects, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.560 and this paved the way for Phase four, which we've 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.680 previously talked about. Two other short films followed, seventy eight's 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.600 Notes on the Popular Arts and nineteen eighties The Solar 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.480 Film that was an OSCAR nominated documentary produced by Robert 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.800 Redford about the perils of fossil fuels and the need 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.800 for humanity to pivot to clean solar energy. And all 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.080 of this leads up to their final film project, and 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:00.240 that is nineteen eighty four's Quest. As Horrick relates, it's 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.720 the origin story on this one is super interesting, So 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.200 bear with me here. This is a lot I was 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.880 not expecting it to be this rich. So this was 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:15.920 a Japanese funded production funded by the Church of World Messianity, 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.400 a new religious movement founded in nineteen thirty five by 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:24.439 Mokichio Kata who lived eighteen eighty two through nineteen fifty five. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:30.320 A religious movement that promotes spiritual cleansing via the Divine light. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.720 WHOA I did not expect it to take this turn. 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:34.680 Yeah. 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.280 So apparently, as I understand it based on reading Horrock's book, here, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.760 people affiliated with the church at this point. I think 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.000 the church was kind of going through like some rebranding, 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.000 a little bit redesign, like entering a new era, and 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:52.720 they were really taken by the Bass's design work. This 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.440 work had recently been featured in a nineteen seventy nine 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.120 issue of Idea, and so they approached him about creating 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.240 a visionary film to play in the church's temples and spaces. 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.000 So Saal Bass apparently wasn't really all that interested in 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.520 creating an overtly religious work, but was drawn to the 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:15.880 idea of quote a purely metaphoric vision without proselytizing for 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.320 the church and quote a positive film that doesn't view 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.240 life as a prelude to a disaster. 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.440 Okay, So the Basses and the funders here may have 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.840 had totally different visions about what made this project appealing, 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.600 but nevertheless they could both get what they wanted out 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:31.880 of it. 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.200 That does seem to be the amazing thing about it, 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:41.200 because they did reach an agreement here. So I think 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.480 basically Saul Bass had worked with some big corporations before 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.080 funding his other works and was able to keep a 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:51.880 great deal of creative freedom over. 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:52.600 The final product. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.880 And he thought, really, I mean, and it seemed like 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.720 it would be kind of almost naive to think this, 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:00.880 but he thought, well, we can do the same thing 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.600 working with a religious organization. But he was right that 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.200 it seems like it basically worked out like that. 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.200 It's like when the Baptist Church of la funded Plan 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:11.320 nine from Outer Space. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:16.920 Yeah, pretty much. So yeah, they funded this for the 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.480 tune of I believe a million dollars was the overall budget. 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.920 And again this was back in the eighties, and it 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.040 does feature strong themes of light, which line up with 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.400 some of the doctrines that I understand them of the 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:36.560 church in question here. But otherwise the plot the finished 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.040 film is detached from the church's teaching, so again kind 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:43.640 of a secularization of maybe some of their core values, 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.440 but in a way that doesn't lean too heavily into 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.760 like preaching the gospel of this particular faith. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:51.960 Kind of like if you could get a i don't know, 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.960 just some mainstream Christian church to sponsor you by creating 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.600 a story about sacrifice and redemption that didn't have any 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:05.000 overt Christian terms or ideas in it, apart from the themes. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.800 Yeah, yeah. So the film never received a theatrical release 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.120 in the United States, but it did play at plenty 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:15.120 of festivals, winning at least one award. It attracted a 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.400 number of fans, including George Lucas, which is not surprising. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.040 Lucas praised its effects, its music, and its use of 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.360 the hero's journey. Meanwhile, back in Japan, it played eight 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.920 times a day at the church's headquarters for a period 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:30.080 of four years. 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.480 Wow does that beat Rocky Horror for the longest theatrical 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.720 run just in terms of total number of plays? 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:39.520 I don't know. 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.760 I mean, that would be an interesting question to actually 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:48.120 get into, because, of course, at the Studio ghibli Museum 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:54.120 in Tokyo they play various short films of Miyazaki's exclusively there. 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.080 It's the only place you can see most of them 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.120 outside of maybe catching them at a festival or a 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.200 special showing. That being said, I don't think they're playing 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.840 the same film every day, four times a day. But 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:07.560 then again, this is only a period of four years, 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.840 so I don't know how many total viewings they were 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.119 able to chalk up during that time. There was I 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.640 read in Quors Book, though there was apparently some concern 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.080 on the Japanese side here that if the film were 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.080 commercialized too much it would cause political problems for the church, 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.600 which allegedly this allegedly stifled some of its reach, so 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.439 there might have been some tension over that fact. But 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.399 still it did play in festivals, people did get to 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.440 see it, people continue to see it, and again, hopefully 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.320 we'll get to see some sort of proper release of 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:41.080 it in the future. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.000 Wow, that's really interesting. 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.000 So they agreed to the basic terms of this film, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.600 but then they still needed somebody to write it, so 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.600 they reached out to legendary author Ray Bradbury, who lived 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.800 nineteen twenty through twenty twelve, the author of such famous 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.080 works as The Martian Chronicles in Hight four fifty one, 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.000 The Illustrated Man, The October Country, and so forth. He 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.840 was also a successful screenwriter in his own right, having 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.679 written the screenplay for the nineteen fifty six adaptation of 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.080 Moby Dick, and his work was also adapted for TV 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.119 and film going back to the nineteen fifties, including Jack Arnold. 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.720 It Came from Outer Space in fifty three, which we 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:21.600 may come back to on Weird House Cinema. 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.199 You know, this makes me think I've never seen a 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.200 film adaptation of Moby Dick, and I'd be very curious 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.240 how they do it, because that's one of my favorite 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.159 novels and it doesn't seem like it would adapt to 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.520 the screen very well. So much of it is just 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.280 in the you know, it's in the weirdness of the narrator. 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.679 It's in like the kind of essays about seatology and 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:43.600 things like that. It seems like it would be hard 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.000 to turn into a movie, But I don't know. Maybe 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:46.800 they do a good job. 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:49.560 I mean, I haven't seen it since I was a kid, 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:54.879 but I remember really enjoying Gregory Peck in the adaptation 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.320 from fifty six, and since Ray Brebery did the screenplay, 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.560 maybe we can do it on Weird House Cinema. That's enough. 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.680 It's basically sci fi, So yeah, Saul and Elaine Bass 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.800 reached out to Bradbury to script Quest, and Bradbury adapted 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.720 his own nineteen forty six story, Frost and Fire. Now, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.480 there were a number of changes made apparently here, as 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.719 Bradbury updated the structure of that old story for this 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:23.000 new project. So, first of all, Saul was wary of 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.240 overreaching with their budget, and requested that it be set 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.880 on Earth, or at least an earth like world, rather 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:33.160 than an overtly alien planet. That seems like a reasonable 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.880 budgetary request, though having seen the full film, I feel 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:38.240 like we get very unearthly. 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.960 Yeah. Yeah, at least half of it's taken place in 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.600 geometry textbook illustrations, not on any landscape I would recognize. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.960 Right, So I don't feel like they really held back 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.560 too much there. Also, while the original story is more 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.000 hard science fiction, in the original story of the characters 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:03.080 depleted lifespan are apparently due to radiation, and they're able 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.320 to depend on some sort of race memory. They have 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.240 to convey the essentials of the quest as we'll get 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.800 into to each subsequent generation, Whereas the version of the 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.720 story that we get in the Quest has a more 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.040 mythic vibe to it. It feels more like fantasy or 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.320 sword and Sandals, but then gets increasingly stranger and more surreal. 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.840 Yeah, that's funny. I seem to recall in the past 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.480 at some point Bradbury making some kind of derisive comments 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.480 about science fiction and saying that he preferred to write 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.600 fantasy because that was like I don't know he thought 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.960 it was like less bound by realism or something. Maybe 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:43.639 I'm misremembering that. 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:44.760 That way, they would kind of match up with what 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.440 we see here. Like you can well imagine Bradbury seeing 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.720 this as the opportunity to take what interests him the 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.280 most about that old story that was written, you know, 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.560 very much for the sci fi publications of the day, 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.119 taking the essence of that and updating it and making 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.480 it more mythic, freeing it from the shackles of the 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:09.120 science fiction. Perhaps because clearly caveat, I have not read 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.240 the original Bradbury story, but I get a strong hint 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.960 here that Bradbury wasn't really interested in the effects of 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:21.160 radiation human beings. It's more about issues of mortality and 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:27.840 cross generational efforts and so forth. Now, as for the 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.480 human cast of Quest, there are a bunch of people 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.720 in this and everyone is just bolk credited at the end. 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.600 They don't specify who plays who, and it leaves the 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.680 task to your humble podcasters to try and figure out 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.320 exactly who's who in this picture. We are not going 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:46.920 to single out everyone, but I do want to mention 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.600 just a few of the players here who are notable 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.880 because of their work elsewhere, and my apologies to anyone 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:54.480 that I did leave out. 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:56.920 Because of this. 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.120 Multiple actors, for instance, play are chosen one, our hero 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.280 of the tale, because he's going to start. We cover 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.000 most of his life over the course of the narrative. 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.520 He begins as a baby and will end with him 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.760 as a mature adult man. But we have different actors 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:16.760 playing him, and it's not a makeup effect. 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:18.680 That would have been a good choice though, if you 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.040 had a baby the whole time with just makeup and 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:22.280 making the older. 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.919 Yeah or win in both directions, you know, have like 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.320 a twenty five year old actor and then age him 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.840 and de age him all the way down to baby. 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:35.959 All right. One of the early characters we encounter in 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.240 this is an unnam character that I thought of as 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:44.800 the elder, some sort of a wise older individual who 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:49.480 is looking for the chosen one and finds the chosen one. 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:52.159 And this is the monklike guy who does the palm 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:53.600 reading on the baby at the beginning. 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:55.200 Yeah. 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.200 This character is played by John Abbott who lived nineteen 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.840 oh five through nineteen ninety six, an English Shakespearean actor 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.800 with very expressive eyes, known for roles and let's say 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.760 nineteen forty eight's The Woman in White. He had an 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.000 appearance on the original Star Trek, the original Lost in Space, 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:14.920 and his other credits, of which he has a lot 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.560 include nineteen forty fours The Mask of Demetrios. This is 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.480 one I've looked at before because it's a Peter Lorrie movie. 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:24.720 He's also in Cry of the were Wolf from the 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:28.600 same year, and he was the voice of Akella the 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:31.920 Wolf in Disney's The Jungle Book back in nineteen sixty seven. 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.399 All Right, again, multiple actors play the chosen one, our hero, 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.240 but at one point the hero is played by Noah 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:43.600 Hathaway born nineteen seventy one. Fittingly, this is, of course, 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:46.720 the actor who also played a Treyu in nineteen eighty four. 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:48.760 Is the never Ending Story, which we covered on a 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:51.520 previous episode of Weird House Cinema. 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:55.720 I thought he looked familiar. Yeah, is this the day too, boy? 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.000 Yeah, this is the boy that I believe begins the journey. Right, 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.399 He's passed his tests and he's then setting out on 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:03.919 the journey. 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:07.480 He graduated Harvard College jail where he got into a 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:10.080 and then he gets to go out on the journey. 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:13.480 Now, another actor that shows up in this is Bill Irwin. 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:16.920 I think he plays an old man that is encountered 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:19.800 late in the picture. That is another monk like figure. 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.720 Oh, the hooded guy at the Egyptian temple. 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:27.840 Yeah, I believe this is Bill Irwin. I could be 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.520 wrong on this. Bill Irwin lived nineteen fourteen through twenty ten, 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:34.120 an American character actor who appeared in more than two 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:37.160 hundred and fifty television and film roles, including the one 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:40.040 that earned him an Emmy nomination in nineteen ninety three. 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:44.160 Retiree Sid Fields on the sitcom Seinfeld. 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:46.600 You know, I wonder with actors like this, who are 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:50.400 they're the character actor who just always plays a cantankerous 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.480 old man. What did he do before he was old? 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:54.800 Just always old? 0:24:55.040 --> 0:25:00.240 Yeah, it's like William Hickey late in life if you 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:04.720 played contankerous old men, and also early in his career. 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:06.879 So all right. 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:09.720 The music in this film is also a real delight. 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:14.159 It's you'll have Maybe you can explain the music and 0:25:14.160 --> 0:25:16.240 the sound of this film better than I can, Joe, 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:18.920 But I just think of it as as soothing, other 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:21.720 worldly cascade of electronic bliss and intrigue. 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:27.560 Oh yeah, yeah, just whipped butter synthesizer auras of really 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:32.040 good stuff, a lot of great, you know, good contrast 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:35.480 along the dynamic range. So there's a lot of synth 0:25:35.560 --> 0:25:38.600 bass that sends to me might be like a mog 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:43.560 Taurus or something, you know, the strong pulsing bass tones, 0:25:44.200 --> 0:25:48.000 and then like synthesizer flutes that I don't know if 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:50.320 you really get that sound much anymore. It was a 0:25:50.359 --> 0:25:52.960 big thing in the eighties where you would you would 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:57.359 evoke a sense of mysticism by having a synthesizer flute 0:25:57.400 --> 0:25:59.840 that I feel like if you were composing a t 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:04.200 and you went to put in that same synth flute voicing, 0:26:04.280 --> 0:26:06.679 it would sound really tenny and hokey to you, so 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:09.800 you would use something else. But if you go back 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:13.160 to these compositions that feature it, it's actually great. 0:26:13.600 --> 0:26:15.960 Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about here, 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:19.120 and I think that the music it has this kind 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:24.560 So again, we have this purifying light that is important 0:26:24.600 --> 0:26:28.159 to the faith that funded this picture, and then also 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:30.639 there's a kind of purifying light that is key to 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:34.760 the plot of our story, and the music feels like 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:38.359 a fitting sonic incarnation of that light. 0:26:39.720 --> 0:26:42.800 I see what you're saying, yeah, the music shimmers a lot. 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:46.679 It often expands to fit. You know, It'll be very 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:49.200 quiet at first, and then as the light floods into 0:26:49.200 --> 0:26:53.359 the scene, the music floods onto the soundtrack. And yeah, 0:26:53.400 --> 0:26:55.680 it's good use of sonic textures. 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.720 So the people behind the music here, well, Elaine Bass 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:01.040 is credited on the music. She was, of note, a 0:27:01.080 --> 0:27:04.879 professional singer with some musical training prior to her design career. 0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:10.960 But then also we have credited Barrington Van Campen, who 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:13.800 I looked him up. I can find a birthdate for him, 0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:16.760 but he is apparently still active on the San Francisco 0:27:16.880 --> 0:27:19.919 music scene. If you look up, if you go to 0:27:20.960 --> 0:27:26.840 the dbduo dot com, this is the website for Van 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:30.600 Campen and Dale LeDuc. They have an acoustic act together, 0:27:30.680 --> 0:27:33.280 and there's a They also have some some some some 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:37.600 brief bio information about Van Campen. Van Campen is a 0:27:37.720 --> 0:27:43.680 multi instrumentalist. His instruments include the melotron and various synthesizers. 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:46.679 Uh and there's a lot of like session work and 0:27:46.680 --> 0:27:48.960 production work in his background as well. 0:27:49.280 --> 0:27:52.600 I just looked up Wait No l a Beatles tribute band. 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:56.040 Yeah, yeah, at one point, uh yeah, I think, I think, 0:27:56.160 --> 0:27:57.760 and I think they still do a lot of covers 0:27:57.760 --> 0:28:00.000 of Beatles songs of looking at They're still doing gig. 0:28:00.240 --> 0:28:02.520 If you're in San Francisco, you can go out and 0:28:02.600 --> 0:28:04.919 catch these guys. Tell them we sent you. 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:10.960 Please request a Beatles tune and then request the theme 0:28:11.040 --> 0:28:12.320 from Quest. 0:28:13.840 --> 0:28:14.040 Now. 0:28:14.080 --> 0:28:16.760 Prior to this film, Van Kempen had worked as a 0:28:16.840 --> 0:28:20.359 musician on the Jerry Lewis film Slapstick of Another Kind, 0:28:20.800 --> 0:28:23.199 adapted from the work of Kurt Vonnegut and also co 0:28:23.320 --> 0:28:27.400 starring John Abbott, but Quest was seemingly his first credited 0:28:27.440 --> 0:28:31.520 film or TV composition, followed in nineteen eighty eight with 0:28:31.600 --> 0:28:35.119 the score for the film In Dangerous Company. He's also 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:38.560 credited as composer on Faces of Death Volumes four and 0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:42.320 six in nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety six. I have 0:28:42.400 --> 0:28:44.880 not and we'll never see the Faces of Death. My 0:28:45.200 --> 0:28:48.000 window for having watched Faces of Death has long passed. 0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:51.200 But he did some sort of work on there, And 0:28:51.240 --> 0:28:54.200 he also did a lot of work with such clients 0:28:54.200 --> 0:28:57.160 as AT and T, various TV channels and film studios, 0:28:57.920 --> 0:28:59.840 So I know, I just think he did a lot 0:28:59.840 --> 0:29:02.160 of a lot of like mercenary sound work you know, 0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:05.560 and so I don't want to single him out for 0:29:05.720 --> 0:29:07.720 Faces of Death. Somebody had to do the music for 0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:10.040 Faces of Death might as well have been this guy. 0:29:10.600 --> 0:29:13.120 They could have also just sourced pre existing composition. 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:15.880 That's true. That's true. That's very possible. And I don't 0:29:15.880 --> 0:29:18.960 know the full story on his involvement in Faces of Death. 0:29:18.760 --> 0:29:22.000 So don't don't put any of that on him, because again, 0:29:22.080 --> 0:29:23.920 at the end of the day, the music in Quest 0:29:24.080 --> 0:29:29.200 is amazing and I loved every minute of it. 0:29:35.600 --> 0:29:38.240 Okay, you want to talk about the plot, Oh, let's 0:29:38.280 --> 0:29:41.120 experience it all right. So when we first come up 0:29:41.160 --> 0:29:44.600 and get our title sequence, the camera seems to be 0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:49.920 navigating a cave or a megalithic structure of some kind, cold, 0:29:50.200 --> 0:29:54.640 dark stone walls. We've got shadows cut by shafts of light. 0:29:55.080 --> 0:29:58.040 Everything's kind of green and gray in color. There is 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:02.880 a generally pale, cold kind of color scheme that defines 0:30:03.080 --> 0:30:07.200 most of the movie until the last couple minutes. It's greens, blues, whites, 0:30:07.240 --> 0:30:10.640 and grays. And when we first come in, also there's fog. 0:30:10.720 --> 0:30:13.080 The air is thick with fog. It's kind of swirling 0:30:13.160 --> 0:30:16.960 and suggesting, you know, a dark age in a way. 0:30:17.600 --> 0:30:20.360 And then there's a voiceover that says, before the gate 0:30:20.520 --> 0:30:23.920 was closed and the light began to fail, the ancients 0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:28.440 lived a long and fruitful life. Now our lifespan is 0:30:28.560 --> 0:30:33.880 eight days. Yes, for us, there is no time. The minutes, 0:30:34.000 --> 0:30:37.920 the hours, and the days fly away, and our lives 0:30:37.960 --> 0:30:40.800 along with them. And so all of this is being 0:30:40.800 --> 0:30:43.760 said is the camera is panning and traveling through these 0:30:43.800 --> 0:30:47.600 caverns and stone corridors. And then there's a thing that 0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:51.040 I liked that struck me as a kind of scale twist. 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:54.440 So the cameras it's going through these stone caverns, and 0:30:54.480 --> 0:30:56.840 I had been assuming the spaces we were looking at 0:30:56.880 --> 0:31:00.360 were supposed to be roughly like human hall sized the 0:31:00.400 --> 0:31:03.280 camera at normal eye level for a person. But then 0:31:03.320 --> 0:31:06.640 suddenly we zoom in on a little crevice in a 0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:10.000 stone facade that looks like it's the size of a mousehole. 0:31:10.720 --> 0:31:13.680 But then you realize there are tiny stairs leading up 0:31:13.720 --> 0:31:16.480 to the crevice, and then you see a human form 0:31:16.600 --> 0:31:20.040 standing inside the doorway, and it becomes clear we're either 0:31:20.080 --> 0:31:22.840 looking at like a two inch tall human or the 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:26.480 original reference scale you had in mind was wrong. And 0:31:26.520 --> 0:31:29.040 I think it's the latter, though there will be similar 0:31:29.080 --> 0:31:31.760 kind of scale inversions that happen later in the story 0:31:31.760 --> 0:31:32.240 as well. 0:31:33.280 --> 0:31:36.160 Yeah, yeah, to it just a certain degree. It's like 0:31:36.240 --> 0:31:39.880 this is a an artifact of how the techniques they 0:31:39.920 --> 0:31:43.080 use to shoot it. But also it feels fittingly surreal 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:44.280 in this picture as well. 0:31:44.560 --> 0:31:47.640 Yeah. So from here we move into the cavern and 0:31:47.760 --> 0:31:50.560 come upon a group of people who are dressed in 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:54.840 plain peasant clothing. There is again going along with the 0:31:54.920 --> 0:31:58.720 kind of dark age feeling. There is a since when 0:31:58.760 --> 0:32:02.520 we come to these people that are living abject lives 0:32:02.120 --> 0:32:08.160 of kind of darkness and ignorance and want. But the 0:32:08.200 --> 0:32:10.520 first thing we get to with these people is a 0:32:10.640 --> 0:32:13.920 scene of childbirth. So there are all these people in 0:32:13.960 --> 0:32:17.960 peasant clothing assisting a woman in childbirth. The baby is born, 0:32:18.280 --> 0:32:21.400 and a man in a sort of monastic beard holds 0:32:21.440 --> 0:32:24.000 the child up to this audience of elders some kind 0:32:24.000 --> 0:32:27.920 of counsel and they're asking is this the one? And 0:32:28.000 --> 0:32:31.360 a debate starts. The elders say it's too early to tell, 0:32:31.520 --> 0:32:34.240 and then another says, no, we cannot wait, we must 0:32:34.360 --> 0:32:37.880 chance it, And so they check the infant's hand. They 0:32:37.880 --> 0:32:40.000 have this monk like man. Look at the hand and 0:32:40.040 --> 0:32:43.000 the baby's palm opens and yes, we see some crinkles there, 0:32:43.320 --> 0:32:45.840 but I think they're actually doing a palm reading. The 0:32:45.880 --> 0:32:48.760 monk like man says, yes, the line is strong. I 0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:50.680 think talking about the lifeline. 0:32:51.160 --> 0:32:54.160 Now. I love the way that the plight of the 0:32:54.160 --> 0:32:56.400 people here is presented, because it's one of those things 0:32:56.400 --> 0:32:59.080 where on one level, yes, it's fantastic, but on the 0:32:59.120 --> 0:33:03.479 other it's like, yeah, that's how our subjective experience of 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:06.880 time sometimes goes. It feels like it is flowing faster 0:33:07.040 --> 0:33:10.000 than it should and we have no time, or we 0:33:10.080 --> 0:33:12.320 have far less time than we wanted. And at the 0:33:12.360 --> 0:33:14.640 same time, given the sort of again you said, like 0:33:14.680 --> 0:33:16.800 the dark age vibe we have here, this kind of 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:21.040 archaic vibe. I'm also reminded of things we've discussed on 0:33:21.040 --> 0:33:25.280 stuff to blow your mind in the past about various historian, 0:33:25.560 --> 0:33:30.600 historians and anthrop anthropologists reflecting on what life was like 0:33:30.720 --> 0:33:35.280 for our ancestors before people were able to specialize more, 0:33:35.360 --> 0:33:41.200 before various cultural and technological advancements opened up more time 0:33:41.960 --> 0:33:46.240 in people's days to allow different types of experiences and 0:33:46.280 --> 0:33:48.360 different types of knowledge to accumulate. 0:33:49.400 --> 0:33:52.720 Yeah, that is interesting, and that kind of desperation about 0:33:52.720 --> 0:33:55.040 the time. The sense of I want more life is 0:33:55.040 --> 0:33:59.680 a fantastic premise to start with, for one thing, because 0:33:59.720 --> 0:34:03.560 it's not a you know, it's it's a very relatable feeling, 0:34:03.680 --> 0:34:07.360 but accelerated for the purpose of the narrative. And it's 0:34:07.400 --> 0:34:12.000 also something it's like an unpersonified villain. It's not it's 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:14.480 not a beast you can fight, though there will be 0:34:14.520 --> 0:34:17.600 some beasts to fight in the story. It's just like 0:34:18.360 --> 0:34:22.640 we can't accept the way time flows around us, or 0:34:22.719 --> 0:34:25.960 the way our bodies flow through time. It's it's it's 0:34:26.000 --> 0:34:27.000 a terror to us. 0:34:27.400 --> 0:34:30.160 Yeah, And it's one of the things that makes it 0:34:30.200 --> 0:34:32.520 fitting that this film is thirty minutes long and not 0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:34.480 an hour or an hour and a half or two hours, 0:34:35.280 --> 0:34:38.040 and it is a film where there there is no 0:34:38.960 --> 0:34:42.319 true personified villain, if there is any. There are adversaries 0:34:42.320 --> 0:34:45.200 to overcome, but there's also a case to be made 0:34:45.239 --> 0:34:48.880 that all of those adversaries are perhaps aspects of the self, 0:34:49.120 --> 0:34:54.560 you know. So it's yeah again. The film itself has 0:34:54.600 --> 0:34:58.480 a great mythic vibe. It feels like an initiation into 0:34:58.760 --> 0:34:59.640 some great secret. 0:35:00.400 --> 0:35:02.880 So they go on to observe that the child is 0:35:02.960 --> 0:35:07.560 already seeing and hearing them, that's pretty quick, and the 0:35:07.600 --> 0:35:10.239 elders all seem to agree, Okay, the teaching must begin 0:35:10.400 --> 0:35:12.480 at once, So the child is carried out of the 0:35:12.560 --> 0:35:15.200 room where he was born. How are you going to 0:35:15.239 --> 0:35:17.399 start teaching a baby that was born two minutes ago? 0:35:17.560 --> 0:35:19.800 That I think that baby is not ready for school, 0:35:19.800 --> 0:35:23.200 but they disagree, So here we go, it says day one, 0:35:23.440 --> 0:35:26.400 and the elders move down a shadowy corridor, carrying the 0:35:26.400 --> 0:35:29.840 baby with them. The narrator says, as we watch you 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:33.400 grow and change, as you watch us, we grow old, 0:35:33.840 --> 0:35:36.920 Your life, like ours, is destined to be short. In 0:35:37.000 --> 0:35:40.280 eight days we're born, we mature, and we grow old 0:35:40.480 --> 0:35:43.080 and die. And then the monk like man and the 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:45.680 others bring the baby to what looked to me kind 0:35:45.719 --> 0:35:48.920 of like a shop counter in a fantasy game general store. 0:35:50.080 --> 0:35:52.640 But this is, I think, actually supposed to be a school. 0:35:53.360 --> 0:35:56.520 So they tell the baby one day from now, you 0:35:56.600 --> 0:36:00.600 will be a grown boy two or three, a young man, five, 0:36:00.840 --> 0:36:04.640 middle aged seven old. In eight days you will die. 0:36:05.520 --> 0:36:05.759 Oh. 0:36:05.840 --> 0:36:08.200 And then there's a strange moment where the man says, 0:36:08.320 --> 0:36:11.480 listen to our heart's race, and one of the elders 0:36:11.480 --> 0:36:15.719 holds the baby against her her chest and then they say, 0:36:15.760 --> 0:36:19.160 listen to your own heart race, and this like accelerated 0:36:19.239 --> 0:36:22.800 heart rate is a thing that comes back in the story. 0:36:22.840 --> 0:36:25.880 But it does just remind me of like, you know, 0:36:26.000 --> 0:36:29.080 putting my ear to the hearts of pets and hearing 0:36:29.200 --> 0:36:32.080 their faster little heartbeats, you know, their small bodies and 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:33.560 little metabolisms. 0:36:34.160 --> 0:36:34.399 Yeah. 0:36:34.560 --> 0:36:38.400 Yeah, and it also will have another example of this 0:36:38.520 --> 0:36:40.680 as well. But it kind of ties into this idea 0:36:40.800 --> 0:36:44.840 that there is there is a cross generational, a cross 0:36:44.840 --> 0:36:49.720 generation connection between the individuals of the in this culture 0:36:49.840 --> 0:36:55.400 of these people that is maybe a bit surreal as well, 0:36:55.440 --> 0:36:58.600 that's maybe leaning a little bit into the fantastic, and 0:36:58.640 --> 0:37:03.799 it's not entirely base on real world human teaching and 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:05.080 conveying of information. 0:37:05.640 --> 0:37:09.520 Yeah, so the old man says, we are locked away 0:37:09.560 --> 0:37:11.880 in a world where our lives speed through time in 0:37:11.960 --> 0:37:14.680 eight days, no time to see, to feel, to know, 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:17.759 And then he just says, okay, it's time, and the 0:37:18.040 --> 0:37:23.120 baby is handed across the counter to the ShopKeep. But again, 0:37:23.160 --> 0:37:26.080 this is actually some kind of school. So they take 0:37:26.080 --> 0:37:27.920 the baby away and the old man sort of calls 0:37:27.960 --> 0:37:31.800 after the baby's saying, now the teaching begins. Learn quickly 0:37:31.880 --> 0:37:36.480 little one and ooh, some kind of learning with blocks 0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:38.880 is going on. There's a lot of cool stuff in 0:37:38.920 --> 0:37:41.600 this teaching montage. I like that we start with these 0:37:41.640 --> 0:37:46.680 little stone coins and there are squares and pyramids. It 0:37:46.719 --> 0:37:48.920 looks like stuff that would be fun to handle in 0:37:48.960 --> 0:37:50.719 the same way that D and D dice are. 0:37:51.320 --> 0:37:55.239 Yeah. Yeah, it's all very tactile and yeah, I just 0:37:55.320 --> 0:37:59.400 love this montage because everything is very identifiable as teaching 0:37:59.440 --> 0:38:02.920 and principle on one level, but also feels very alien 0:38:03.600 --> 0:38:06.960 and also perhaps concerning a natural philosophy. 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:08.680 Unknown to our world. Yeah. 0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:11.680 Again, it's worth noting in the original Ray Bradbury story 0:38:11.719 --> 0:38:15.560 that the short lived humans in it have a form 0:38:15.600 --> 0:38:18.480 of race memory that they're able to depend upon to 0:38:19.400 --> 0:38:23.320 pass knowledge down from short lived generation to short lived generation. 0:38:23.560 --> 0:38:25.839 And that's not what we see here, but we might 0:38:25.880 --> 0:38:29.399 think of this along similar lines. Information is perhaps being 0:38:29.440 --> 0:38:33.360 transferred from teachers to student, yes, with physical manipulation of 0:38:33.400 --> 0:38:37.360 objects and some external learning devices, but also perhaps in 0:38:37.400 --> 0:38:40.960 a way that depends on something greater than human learning, 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:44.839 and maybe there is some sort of psychic connection. And 0:38:44.880 --> 0:38:48.920 in fact, later on, when our hero has commenced on 0:38:48.960 --> 0:38:54.000 his journey and he hears the voices of his teachers. 0:38:54.280 --> 0:38:57.239 I mean, perhaps that is like a psychic echo of 0:38:57.280 --> 0:38:58.640 what has occurred previously. 0:38:59.000 --> 0:39:02.560 Yeah, yeah, I like that too. It invites questions of like, 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:06.759 is there actual telepathy going on or the teachers currently 0:39:06.800 --> 0:39:10.080 communicating with him as he goes beyond, or is it 0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:13.000 like now part of them is in him and he 0:39:13.160 --> 0:39:14.279 just carries it with them? 0:39:14.800 --> 0:39:16.839 Yeah? Yeah, And this is a great film. And then 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:20.360 it leaves you to ask those questions and they're ultimately unanswerable. 0:39:20.360 --> 0:39:21.600 It's all up to your interpretation. 0:39:22.360 --> 0:39:25.840 So already we see the child as a toddler sorting 0:39:25.880 --> 0:39:28.480 these little shapes and blocks as the teachers look on. 0:39:29.560 --> 0:39:31.719 I love the way the blocks look. They're made of 0:39:31.719 --> 0:39:34.880 a kind of polished, polished stone with a freckled and 0:39:36.000 --> 0:39:39.480 scarred appearance, and the child is learning to line them 0:39:39.560 --> 0:39:42.120 up in a special order, as if he were spelling 0:39:42.160 --> 0:39:44.480 words with the blocks. But what does it mean? I 0:39:44.520 --> 0:39:47.960 don't know, we're not told. There's also a metal block 0:39:48.080 --> 0:39:50.520 set with a hollow cube that you balance on a 0:39:50.520 --> 0:39:53.360 prismatic pillar and then you start kind of like piecing 0:39:53.400 --> 0:39:56.479 them together like an erector set. We see the child 0:39:56.600 --> 0:40:00.120 working with these elements blindfolded. Also doing some kind of 0:40:00.200 --> 0:40:03.839 psychic paddy cake game with his hands, like the part 0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:06.320 across from his teachers where they're like moving their hands 0:40:06.320 --> 0:40:09.319 and then slapping them together. I didn't get exactly what 0:40:09.520 --> 0:40:12.160 that was, but it seemed to me it involved maybe 0:40:12.200 --> 0:40:16.120 a kind of sense of psychic powers or premonitions about 0:40:16.120 --> 0:40:19.120 where the hands were going. We also see the training 0:40:19.160 --> 0:40:23.400 getting into He's like reading patterns of grain and blocks 0:40:23.400 --> 0:40:26.759 of wood. I liked that it was strange, and then 0:40:26.800 --> 0:40:30.160 making spears out of a kind of silvery metal. So 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:33.760 the spears are modular and they snap together like tent poles, 0:40:34.120 --> 0:40:37.160 and then they have these fins and barbs that snap 0:40:37.239 --> 0:40:40.080 out from the poles, and he's throwing the spears doing 0:40:40.120 --> 0:40:44.160 target practice with them. There's another part where he unveils 0:40:44.239 --> 0:40:48.600 a shimmering steel cone from a covering which is a 0:40:48.640 --> 0:40:52.080 metal box, and the cone emits blinding light, and then 0:40:52.120 --> 0:40:54.799 he lifts up the cone and that unveils another level. 0:40:54.840 --> 0:40:58.520 It is like a blue, glowing ball of energy that's 0:40:58.560 --> 0:41:00.960 inside the cone, and the ball of energy just floats 0:41:00.960 --> 0:41:03.400 in the air. Again we're not told what that is, 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:06.719 but anyway, when the training is complete, the boy now 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:09.560 looks about ten or twelve years old, and an old 0:41:09.600 --> 0:41:11.640 man tells him it's time for you to go. 0:41:14.080 --> 0:41:16.600 It's like you know in elementary school, when you make 0:41:16.640 --> 0:41:19.400 it halfway through learning about the Civil War and then 0:41:19.400 --> 0:41:20.799 they're like, I'm sorry, now I have to send you 0:41:20.840 --> 0:41:21.400 home for summer. 0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:22.640 That's it, that's all we had time for. 0:41:23.120 --> 0:41:26.280 Yeah. I do remember that about a lot of lesson 0:41:26.360 --> 0:41:29.800 plans when I was younger. A fantastic lack of closure 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:32.960 about me things we learned. Okay, So the old man 0:41:33.040 --> 0:41:35.160 comes to the boy to tell him more about his mission. 0:41:35.239 --> 0:41:38.680 They're looking at a light pouring out from between some rocks, 0:41:39.080 --> 0:41:41.640 and the man says that light squeezes through the crack 0:41:41.680 --> 0:41:45.040 where the doors in the Great Gate join. That gate 0:41:45.320 --> 0:41:47.640 must be opened. You will open it. 0:41:48.360 --> 0:41:51.280 Yeah, And again this possibly lines up with this idea 0:41:51.560 --> 0:41:54.040 of I believe it is that the Joe rai or 0:41:54.640 --> 0:41:59.040 jewelry purifying light that factors into the teachings of Okichi 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:02.920 Okada often described as kind of like an energy healing doctrine. 0:42:03.120 --> 0:42:03.319 Hmm. 0:42:03.760 --> 0:42:07.600 Okay, And I've also read that that it sometimes involves 0:42:07.640 --> 0:42:09.839 like the use of some sort of reflective medallion, which 0:42:09.880 --> 0:42:12.080 we also see a version of in this picture. 0:42:12.280 --> 0:42:12.520 Oh. 0:42:12.600 --> 0:42:15.520 Interesting. Okay, I was wondering about that. Okay, so maybe 0:42:15.560 --> 0:42:18.040 they did get a few little like specific things in there. 0:42:18.280 --> 0:42:20.160 Yeah. 0:42:20.200 --> 0:42:22.719 Anyway, the old man says, beyond the gate is a 0:42:22.800 --> 0:42:25.919 land where life is lived for twenty thousand days and more. 0:42:26.520 --> 0:42:28.799 If the gate can be reached and opened, the light 0:42:28.880 --> 0:42:31.360 will rush out over us, and with it bring long 0:42:31.480 --> 0:42:35.840 life and peace. The boy asks why he has been chosen, 0:42:35.880 --> 0:42:38.600 and the old man explains those who were sent before 0:42:38.840 --> 0:42:41.719 left when they were too old, they left too late, 0:42:42.000 --> 0:42:44.879 and they died before they reached the gate. This time, 0:42:44.960 --> 0:42:46.880 they selected the boy to be sent when he was 0:42:47.120 --> 0:42:50.160 very young, so he would have enough time to complete 0:42:50.200 --> 0:42:53.320 his mission. And then the old man says, you've learned 0:42:53.320 --> 0:42:56.400 the You've learned your lessons quickly. You're strong and intelligent, 0:42:56.520 --> 0:42:59.520 you have curiosity. And the boy says, but have I 0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:02.760 learned augh? And the old man does not answer the question. 0:43:02.960 --> 0:43:05.600 He just says, we don't have time to teach you anymore. 0:43:05.719 --> 0:43:07.560 You'll have to learn the rest on your way. 0:43:08.520 --> 0:43:10.799 Yeah, and it really is like that. I mean that again. 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:13.440 That's one of the great things about this film. I 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:15.279 say it in Jess, but it's also like that's the 0:43:15.320 --> 0:43:18.040 way of life. And it encapsulates that perfectly. 0:43:18.360 --> 0:43:21.120 Yeah, have we ever learned enough in childhood to prepare 0:43:21.200 --> 0:43:25.640 us for adult life? Probably not, or can't really answer 0:43:25.719 --> 0:43:27.640 that question, But you don't really have a choice. No 0:43:27.719 --> 0:43:28.200 more time. 0:43:28.400 --> 0:43:36.200 Here's your silvery space spear. Go out and do your best. 0:43:41.040 --> 0:43:44.400 So the boy is outfitted with again those gleaming spears 0:43:44.400 --> 0:43:46.760 and other supplies. We see them like kind of pouring 0:43:46.800 --> 0:43:50.359 out these measures of grain and stuff for him. And 0:43:50.440 --> 0:43:52.440 before he's sent out by the elders, the old man 0:43:52.560 --> 0:43:56.600 gives him this small mirror polished metal pendant to hang 0:43:56.640 --> 0:44:00.600 around his neck, which may be connecting to that actual 0:44:01.080 --> 0:44:05.160 religious item used by the whatever, I forget what it's called, 0:44:05.160 --> 0:44:09.439 the Church of Messianity. Yeah, And then so he takes 0:44:09.440 --> 0:44:12.400 the pendant, and then he turns to his mother and 0:44:12.440 --> 0:44:15.840 they embrace, and all she says is goodbye. Then he goes. 0:44:16.719 --> 0:44:19.440 So the boy sets out into the world. And now, oh, 0:44:19.520 --> 0:44:21.160 and this is, by the way, we get a title 0:44:21.160 --> 0:44:23.279 that says day two. So day two of his life. 0:44:24.520 --> 0:44:26.760 The boy sets out into the world, and now instead 0:44:26.800 --> 0:44:30.680 of just the dark caverns, there are landscapes. First we 0:44:30.719 --> 0:44:33.600 see the boy crossing a kind of bleak tundra with 0:44:33.719 --> 0:44:37.680 these sandy hills, fields of snow, expanses of gray water, 0:44:37.920 --> 0:44:41.319 and mountains in the background. At one point we see 0:44:41.360 --> 0:44:45.040 him wandering through bad lands full of smooth, jumbled rock 0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:49.600 formations that look like giant piles of bones. And as 0:44:49.600 --> 0:44:52.200 the boy travels on through the rocks, he hears voices 0:44:52.239 --> 0:44:54.200 whispering in his head. This is what we were talking 0:44:54.239 --> 0:44:57.480 about earlier, the voices of his teachers and the elders, 0:44:57.520 --> 0:45:00.120 and they're saying things like, go on, don't hesitate, we 0:45:00.160 --> 0:45:04.000 have prepared you well, be brave, don't worry. And the 0:45:04.040 --> 0:45:07.200 boy wanders in darkness through this maze of stones, hearing 0:45:07.200 --> 0:45:09.839 the weird voices, and then suddenly hearing a kind of 0:45:09.840 --> 0:45:13.680 hooting in the distance, and he draws his spear in preparation. 0:45:14.440 --> 0:45:17.400 What is it? What's making the sound? And there's a stillness, 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:20.800 feathers fall on the rocks around him, and then a 0:45:21.000 --> 0:45:22.040 monster attacks. 0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:24.719 Yeah, and it's a pretty cool monster, I have to. 0:45:24.680 --> 0:45:27.600 Say, that's right. So the monster, whatever it is, first 0:45:27.640 --> 0:45:30.200 thrashes around in the darkness, roaring at the boy. The 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:32.760 boy holds out his spear, and then they eventually clash, 0:45:32.800 --> 0:45:36.160 and we see some elements of the monster. It appears 0:45:36.200 --> 0:45:39.759 to be a kind of giant reptilian pit bull head 0:45:39.880 --> 0:45:44.120 with a triangular or circular triangular mouth with teeth jutting 0:45:44.160 --> 0:45:47.399 in from all sides. I gotta say that the head 0:45:47.480 --> 0:45:49.439 is a little bit rancorish. 0:45:49.680 --> 0:45:52.080 Yeah, yeah, there's definitely kind of a rain Corps vibe. 0:45:52.600 --> 0:45:54.960 I also feel like it's maybe a combination of some 0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:57.880 sort of a giant sloth and a tartar grade ye, 0:45:57.920 --> 0:46:01.120 which would of course be a giant, very giant artic grade. 0:46:01.600 --> 0:46:04.719 It's actually also, in fact drawn two different return of 0:46:04.719 --> 0:46:06.799 the Jedi. It's a little bit rancor and a little 0:46:06.800 --> 0:46:09.960 bit sarlac because of the circular mouth with the teeth 0:46:09.960 --> 0:46:13.440 coming in all in all directions. Anyway, the boy fights 0:46:13.480 --> 0:46:15.640 the monster in the dark with his spear, and eventually 0:46:15.680 --> 0:46:18.520 he slays it, and as the beast lies dying on 0:46:18.600 --> 0:46:20.960 the ground, he approaches it and there's a kind of 0:46:21.000 --> 0:46:25.319 sadness in its eyes. And then the next thing. This 0:46:25.440 --> 0:46:27.160 was one of the few parts where I feel like 0:46:27.239 --> 0:46:30.799 I wasn't sure I was understanding what the film was 0:46:30.840 --> 0:46:35.000 trying to suggest. There's like, after he's already slayed the monster, 0:46:35.080 --> 0:46:38.280 there's a screeching in the night, and some other creature 0:46:38.360 --> 0:46:41.120 seems to be circling the boy and he raises a 0:46:41.200 --> 0:46:43.680 rock above his head and he shouts no, and then 0:46:43.800 --> 0:46:45.480 the threat seems to fade away. 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:51.520 Yeah, this was interesting. I guess I'm on a literal 0:46:51.520 --> 0:46:54.240 interpretation level. I was thinking, Okay, maybe he's just scaring 0:46:54.239 --> 0:46:57.279 away additional monsters. You know, there are others out there, 0:46:57.280 --> 0:47:00.319 and he's saying he's just keeping them from attacking. Or 0:47:00.440 --> 0:47:02.920 you know, perhaps it's something more, and maybe he's driving 0:47:02.960 --> 0:47:05.600 away the darkness of his defensive act, like he has 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:09.680 killed and therefore, even though he's acting in self defense, 0:47:10.080 --> 0:47:12.400 now he has to contend with like the darkness of 0:47:12.480 --> 0:47:14.920 what he has just done, and he's driving that away. 0:47:16.280 --> 0:47:18.880 Hourk in his book contends that we might think of 0:47:18.920 --> 0:47:22.640 this maybe again another example of mythic battle in the darkness, 0:47:22.640 --> 0:47:26.239 which we see in various sagas. But he asked some 0:47:26.360 --> 0:47:29.000 questions like is this monster real? Is this a projection 0:47:29.120 --> 0:47:31.680 of the hero's mind? Again, it's the sort of film 0:47:31.680 --> 0:47:35.360 where various interpretations are possible, there no right or wrong answers. 0:47:36.120 --> 0:47:39.520 So then we get to day three. The boy appears 0:47:39.520 --> 0:47:41.480 to be in his twenties now, and we see him 0:47:41.480 --> 0:47:44.040 come up over a hilltop to look out on this 0:47:44.360 --> 0:47:47.440 big sand flat with a sort of temple in the distance, 0:47:48.120 --> 0:47:52.000 and he hears the whispered voices again. One of them says, 0:47:52.040 --> 0:47:56.120 straight ahead, you must go there looking at the temple. Now, 0:47:56.400 --> 0:47:58.280 I don't know if you have thoughts about the style 0:47:58.360 --> 0:48:01.319 of this temple. Rob there's sort of a So first 0:48:01.320 --> 0:48:04.400 of all, there's a big, a big haul that we 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:07.160 just see as like a rock facade. But then out 0:48:07.239 --> 0:48:09.560 in front of it there is a rock carving of 0:48:09.600 --> 0:48:13.040 a domed head with an open mouth and these wild eyes, 0:48:13.560 --> 0:48:17.520 kind of empty wild eyes, and giant hands held in 0:48:17.560 --> 0:48:18.840 an open palm position. 0:48:20.480 --> 0:48:21.640 Yeah. 0:48:21.680 --> 0:48:25.040 The general vibe of these ruins reminding me a little 0:48:25.040 --> 0:48:26.960 bit of photos I've seen of the ancient heads of 0:48:26.960 --> 0:48:32.400 the gods in Nimroot Dog Turkey. Imagine many of you 0:48:32.400 --> 0:48:34.400 out there have seen these images before, with kind of 0:48:35.160 --> 0:48:37.520 conical looking hats on the heads. 0:48:38.120 --> 0:48:38.279 Oh. 0:48:38.600 --> 0:48:40.319 I just looked it up, and yeah, I can see 0:48:40.320 --> 0:48:43.040 the comparison. That is kind of interesting, though. It's almost 0:48:43.120 --> 0:48:46.120 like some aspects feel a little bit like this, some 0:48:46.280 --> 0:48:49.680 feel a little a little more like like Mesoamerican art. 0:48:50.480 --> 0:48:54.600 Absolutely, Yeah, so I guess it. Yeah, It fittingly feels 0:48:55.040 --> 0:49:00.920 akin to various examples of real world does traditions, but 0:49:01.000 --> 0:49:04.200 it feels also removed in its own thing. When I 0:49:04.200 --> 0:49:06.239 was looking around on letterboxed, I found a pretty great 0:49:06.440 --> 0:49:09.359 little review. Someone by the name of Roland one oh 0:49:09.400 --> 0:49:12.439 six said quote man walks through a series of prog 0:49:12.520 --> 0:49:14.799 album covers in order to save his people from their 0:49:14.800 --> 0:49:20.000 eight day lifespans, which I legitimately laughed at that, and 0:49:20.040 --> 0:49:23.680 it's kind of spot on. There are many many scenes 0:49:23.680 --> 0:49:25.879 in this picture that could easily be a prog rock 0:49:25.920 --> 0:49:26.520 album cover. 0:49:27.000 --> 0:49:29.560 Yes, yes, including the very next thing I was going 0:49:29.640 --> 0:49:31.960 to talk about, which is that as the boy is 0:49:32.160 --> 0:49:34.160 coming to or I guess he's a young man now, 0:49:34.600 --> 0:49:37.920 as the hero is coming down to cross the plain 0:49:38.080 --> 0:49:41.160 of sand to get to the temple, there's another thing 0:49:41.200 --> 0:49:44.000 he sees. At first, I was confused how this interacted 0:49:44.080 --> 0:49:47.919 with the other thing. But there's like a giant teardrop 0:49:48.120 --> 0:49:52.760 shaped rock descending slowly from the sky, and there appears 0:49:52.800 --> 0:49:54.839 to be a sort of castle or something on top 0:49:54.880 --> 0:49:55.160 of it. 0:49:56.040 --> 0:49:59.040 Yeah, this is actually mentioned in the book. This is 0:49:59.239 --> 0:50:03.680 apparently an ome homage to one of Saalbass's favorite visual works, 0:50:04.160 --> 0:50:08.719 The Castle of the Pyrenees by Belgian surrealist Renee Margrite. 0:50:09.440 --> 0:50:12.560 This is a work from nineteen fifty nine, and apparently 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:15.040 Saul loved this image and it had just been looking for 0:50:15.080 --> 0:50:19.879 an opportunity to somehow utilize it in his work. There's 0:50:19.880 --> 0:50:23.640 a Wikipedia article about this particular painting, and I included 0:50:24.000 --> 0:50:26.760 a sample of it here in our notes for you, Joe. 0:50:27.640 --> 0:50:30.799 Yeah, I mean it looks exactly the same, so clearly, yeah. 0:50:30.920 --> 0:50:34.600 I could be wrong, but I feel like something just 0:50:34.800 --> 0:50:38.040 like this also eventually pops up in Dungeons and Dragons, 0:50:38.719 --> 0:50:41.920 So some of you dn D lord nerds out there 0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:44.640 will have to remind me what I'm thinking of, because 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:47.240 I feel like I've seen an homage to this piece 0:50:47.440 --> 0:50:49.120 in Dungeons and Dragons art as well. 0:50:49.760 --> 0:50:52.000 I thought you were going to say Zardas. It's like 0:50:52.080 --> 0:50:54.560 the Zardas head, except it's not a head, it's just 0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:55.200 a big rock. 0:50:55.320 --> 0:50:58.080 But yeah, I mean I think there's some shared DNA 0:50:58.239 --> 0:50:59.959 between some of the design work here and the design 0:51:00.040 --> 0:51:01.239 and work of Zardis as well. 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:04.680 Okay, so the hero tries to cross the sand flat, 0:51:04.719 --> 0:51:07.560 but when he gets into the sand, he begins to sink, 0:51:07.760 --> 0:51:09.719 And at first I was like Oh no, it's like 0:51:09.760 --> 0:51:11.560 a quick sand trap. He's gonna have to get out, 0:51:11.600 --> 0:51:15.239 But no, it goes in a different direction. Instead. He 0:51:15.440 --> 0:51:17.840 is able to move through the sand, but it's like 0:51:17.960 --> 0:51:20.799 rising up to his chest and occasionally up to his chin, 0:51:21.280 --> 0:51:23.880 but he just wades on through like its water, and 0:51:23.920 --> 0:51:26.479 he makes his way all the way across the sand 0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:29.880 flat this way, which I thought was I don't know, 0:51:29.960 --> 0:51:33.480 the strange, unexpected, and obviously I don't think you can 0:51:33.520 --> 0:51:35.919 really do that. You can't move through sand that you're 0:51:35.920 --> 0:51:39.120 that deep, and it would just there'd be too much resistance. 0:51:39.160 --> 0:51:42.480 But it's like water, and he just passes through it. 0:51:42.520 --> 0:51:44.719 This sequence, in particular reminds me of some of the 0:51:44.760 --> 0:51:47.279 sand related imagery that we get in Phase four. 0:51:47.920 --> 0:51:51.040 Oh yeah, I agree. It also reminds me of a 0:51:51.080 --> 0:51:55.080 weird sort of sand progressing through a sand chamber scene 0:51:55.080 --> 0:52:00.359 in the Tarkowsky movie Stalker. But eventually the the hero 0:52:00.480 --> 0:52:03.200 comes out the other side to stand on the stairs 0:52:03.360 --> 0:52:06.200 of the temple. I didn't mention this earlier, but next 0:52:06.200 --> 0:52:07.960 to the human head there's kind of a big eagle 0:52:08.040 --> 0:52:11.759 head as well, and then suddenly there's an earthquake. The 0:52:11.800 --> 0:52:14.440 carvings at the entrance to the temple begin to crumble 0:52:14.480 --> 0:52:17.200 and fall all around him, and the hero has to 0:52:17.239 --> 0:52:20.480 dodge some boulders, but he survives. Now I think it's 0:52:20.520 --> 0:52:24.640 suggesting the earthquake is caused by the huge tear drop 0:52:24.840 --> 0:52:28.640 asteroid settling into the sand, like it has finally touched down, 0:52:28.760 --> 0:52:29.960 and that shakes the earth. 0:52:30.360 --> 0:52:30.840 I think so. 0:52:31.640 --> 0:52:35.200 But again, as to exactly what all this means, I mean, 0:52:35.200 --> 0:52:39.399 we're left to ponder that, like all of this, I'm 0:52:39.440 --> 0:52:42.520 assuming all of this is somehow tied to the history 0:52:42.640 --> 0:52:45.840 of these people, that these used to be their cities, 0:52:45.880 --> 0:52:51.040 that these are their temples or their tombs. We're not sure. 0:52:52.000 --> 0:52:55.839 But as to what the giant tear drop asteroid truly signifies, 0:52:55.920 --> 0:52:58.360 like is this the spaceship that brought them there? Because 0:52:58.400 --> 0:52:59.960 I know in the original Bradbury it has to do. 0:53:00.080 --> 0:53:02.680 There's like a crash spaceship that's part of the plot, 0:53:03.000 --> 0:53:06.160 and so we might see some fantastic echo of that 0:53:06.840 --> 0:53:07.640 concept here. 0:53:08.120 --> 0:53:10.279 But the voices in the hero's head they tell him 0:53:10.320 --> 0:53:12.160 to go on, so he does. He goes into the 0:53:12.200 --> 0:53:14.919 temple and then we see from inside the giant head 0:53:14.960 --> 0:53:17.880 with light pouring in through the eyes, which is very cool. 0:53:18.920 --> 0:53:21.440 And then inside the temple, there is a swarm of 0:53:21.560 --> 0:53:25.600 starlike particles suspended inside a blue light, much like the 0:53:25.640 --> 0:53:29.759 blue light that the boy uncovered in his schooling. But 0:53:29.880 --> 0:53:32.360 before he can make sense of it, the temple continues 0:53:32.360 --> 0:53:35.440 to crumble and it just rocks and blocks are falling, 0:53:35.480 --> 0:53:39.400 and he's driven away, driven on into a different place, 0:53:39.440 --> 0:53:43.680 a tube like corridor, sort of the inside of the 0:53:43.719 --> 0:53:48.040 spaceworm where the Falcon lands and Empire strikes back. Yeah, 0:53:48.160 --> 0:53:51.919 but with a raised metal boardwalk. He's saying, I'm going 0:53:51.960 --> 0:53:55.200 through the boardwalk in the swamp or something, and he 0:53:55.239 --> 0:53:59.200 moves on down the gangway and then finally we come 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:02.840 to a different landscape and it announces is day four. Baby, 0:54:02.880 --> 0:54:05.480 Here we are Day four, and he's standing in front 0:54:05.520 --> 0:54:11.600 of massive Egyptian temple architecture with rows and rows of columns. 0:54:12.200 --> 0:54:12.319 Uh. 0:54:12.640 --> 0:54:15.360 And I forget the name of the temple I have 0:54:15.400 --> 0:54:17.600 in mind, but there is an Egyptian temple I'm thinking 0:54:17.600 --> 0:54:20.920 of that looks like this, And he's passing through the 0:54:20.960 --> 0:54:26.520 courtyard and it somehow seems to lead into a different universe, 0:54:27.160 --> 0:54:29.040 like when he comes to the other end, there is 0:54:29.239 --> 0:54:33.600 another flat sandy plain, but this one is bathed in 0:54:33.719 --> 0:54:37.600 blue light, with pyramids that look like the Giza Complex 0:54:37.800 --> 0:54:42.520 in the distance, and then beyond that giant planets looming 0:54:42.640 --> 0:54:43.240 in the sky. 0:54:43.640 --> 0:54:44.080 Huge. 0:54:44.760 --> 0:54:45.040 Yeah. 0:54:45.120 --> 0:54:48.160 Yeah, So at this point I'm definitely questioning the whole 0:54:48.320 --> 0:54:51.640 Make sure you set it on Earth ray Yeah, yeah, 0:54:52.400 --> 0:54:55.040 directive here, because we really feel like we're in another 0:54:55.080 --> 0:54:56.960 world at this point. We are, at lea if we're 0:54:56.960 --> 0:54:59.440 not on another planet the whole time, then we are 0:54:59.680 --> 0:55:01.160 some where else at this point. 0:55:01.640 --> 0:55:04.759 Yes, you know, I don't mean to diminish it by 0:55:06.040 --> 0:55:08.640 this comparison, but it's hard not to feel some Star 0:55:08.680 --> 0:55:13.120 Wars influence on this. For one thing, he comes up 0:55:13.120 --> 0:55:15.720 to a hooded man resting against one of the columns. 0:55:15.760 --> 0:55:19.040 He's almost in a kind of either Obi Wan Kenobi 0:55:19.120 --> 0:55:23.160 or Jahwa outfit. The hooded figure in the desert and 0:55:23.200 --> 0:55:25.880 he comes up to the sky. No face is visible, 0:55:25.960 --> 0:55:29.080 but the hero is looking out on this blue landscape 0:55:29.080 --> 0:55:31.880 with the pyramids and the planets like passing into and 0:55:31.960 --> 0:55:34.360 out of alignment in the sky. The planets are moving 0:55:34.440 --> 0:55:37.520 super fast, and then the hooded man starts to talk. 0:55:37.600 --> 0:55:40.319 He says, so they sent another one. Let's have a 0:55:40.320 --> 0:55:43.799 look at you. Yes, you're young, much younger than I 0:55:43.880 --> 0:55:46.880 was when I got here, And the hooded man reveals 0:55:46.920 --> 0:55:49.640 that he was the last hero, but he started too late, 0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:52.400 he says, the younger man does have a chance, and 0:55:52.440 --> 0:55:56.239 he gives him advice. He says, look at that pyramid, 0:55:56.719 --> 0:55:59.600 don't go around it, you have to climb to the top. 0:56:00.160 --> 0:56:03.320 All right, some fortune cookie sort of advice there, but 0:56:04.040 --> 0:56:06.160 it feels specific to this challenge as well. 0:56:06.320 --> 0:56:08.879 Oh sure, And you know this actually made me think 0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:11.000 about one of I was going to say, one of 0:56:11.000 --> 0:56:15.560 the shadow themes of quest, and it's something that has 0:56:15.680 --> 0:56:20.080 to do with trust. So our hero, at multiple times 0:56:20.120 --> 0:56:24.879 throughout the story, we get little different ways that he 0:56:25.040 --> 0:56:29.719 just has to believe the advice given to him and 0:56:29.800 --> 0:56:35.360 follow it because he doesn't have enough time to see 0:56:35.360 --> 0:56:40.719 and investigate for himself. And so he just meets this 0:56:40.840 --> 0:56:43.600 random stranger here, and the stranger gives him advice and 0:56:43.640 --> 0:56:46.720 he just follows it, and we're sort of to understand 0:56:46.719 --> 0:56:49.080 that he doesn't really have a choice. I mean, I 0:56:49.080 --> 0:56:52.280 guess he could try to not follow it, but seems 0:56:52.320 --> 0:56:54.880 more likely that would result in him failing his mission 0:56:54.920 --> 0:56:55.279 as well. 0:56:55.719 --> 0:56:57.719 Yeah, like if he said, no, Grandpa, I need I 0:56:57.719 --> 0:56:59.560 want to do my own research. On this like, yeah, 0:56:59.719 --> 0:57:02.040 then you're going to die in the desert like this, kuy. 0:57:02.600 --> 0:57:05.680 And and it makes me think about the relationship between 0:57:06.120 --> 0:57:09.040 time and trust. You know, this is this is actually 0:57:09.120 --> 0:57:14.680 a core thing about what trust is. Trust is a 0:57:14.719 --> 0:57:19.280 thing that saves you time because if you didn't, if 0:57:19.320 --> 0:57:24.480 you had unlimited time and resources, you could investigate everything 0:57:24.560 --> 0:57:27.440 for yourself, like you could, you know, look into every 0:57:27.520 --> 0:57:31.520 you look endlessly into every question and not have to 0:57:31.640 --> 0:57:35.160 believe anything people told you. But you don't have unlimited 0:57:35.160 --> 0:57:37.840 time and resources. You're always trying to make your life 0:57:37.880 --> 0:57:40.680 more efficient, so you have to rely on trust for 0:57:40.760 --> 0:57:42.800 some things. And so a big part of what we 0:57:42.840 --> 0:57:47.840 think about in navigating life is just like where we 0:57:47.880 --> 0:57:51.160 where we decide to press the trust button to save 0:57:51.200 --> 0:57:55.680 ourselves time and this and this scenario created by the 0:57:55.680 --> 0:58:00.200 movie heightens that kind of the observation of that dynasm 0:58:00.400 --> 0:58:04.640 because time is so constricted and so he just literally 0:58:04.680 --> 0:58:06.960 does not have time to wonder whether this guy is 0:58:07.000 --> 0:58:08.920 giving him good advice or not. He just has to 0:58:08.920 --> 0:58:12.280 follow it. Yeah, And then also the guy says, not 0:58:12.400 --> 0:58:15.120 everything that frightens or hurts you as bad. Fear and 0:58:15.160 --> 0:58:20.600 pain are your teachers learn survive. So the young man 0:58:20.720 --> 0:58:24.240 hurries on through the desert. And meanwhile, also he's another 0:58:24.280 --> 0:58:26.520 thing he has to trust is he's been being given 0:58:26.560 --> 0:58:29.080 these voices in his head. They're giving him advice. They're saying, 0:58:29.120 --> 0:58:39.840 you are not alone, We travel with you. So there's 0:58:39.880 --> 0:58:42.840 a scene where the hero gets to the stairs. He 0:58:42.840 --> 0:58:44.360 has to climb. He has to climb to the top 0:58:44.360 --> 0:58:47.480 of the pyramid, and the stairs seem endless, but he 0:58:47.520 --> 0:58:49.760 goes on up and up and up, and then finally 0:58:49.760 --> 0:58:52.480 he gets to the top where he finds a table 0:58:52.720 --> 0:58:57.160 emitting a blue light. Looks almost like a game board. 0:58:57.200 --> 0:58:58.920 I was thinking that at first, and then what do 0:58:58.920 --> 0:59:00.800 you know, It does seem like it's a game board. 0:59:00.840 --> 0:59:03.280 It's covered in the shapes that the boy learned to 0:59:03.320 --> 0:59:06.480 manipulate in school. And then suddenly there is a roar, 0:59:07.080 --> 0:59:11.120 and we're like, oh, another monster sort of. There is 0:59:11.160 --> 0:59:15.920 a sasquatchlike creature, like a big furry humanoid creature that 0:59:16.000 --> 0:59:18.880 approaches him. But it's not another fight to the death 0:59:18.920 --> 0:59:22.440 with a spear. This time we're facing the chess YETI 0:59:23.960 --> 0:59:26.959 our hero has to play a board game, a game 0:59:27.040 --> 0:59:30.640 of strategy with Bigfoot, and this I think may have 0:59:30.680 --> 0:59:33.760 been my favorite creative choice in the film. 0:59:34.240 --> 0:59:37.240 Yes, I absolutely love this on one level because it 0:59:37.320 --> 0:59:40.600 is just that outrageous, Like at this point everything has 0:59:40.640 --> 0:59:45.720 already been surreal and dream like and full of WTF moments, 0:59:46.000 --> 0:59:48.960 and then we have this. But then it again is 0:59:48.960 --> 0:59:51.440 one of these moments too, where it's never fully explained. 0:59:51.480 --> 0:59:55.960 We don't know who or what this entity is, but 0:59:56.400 --> 0:59:58.840 there are so many different ways to tease it apart. 0:59:59.160 --> 1:00:02.080 Horric and his book brings up the possibility that this 1:00:02.240 --> 1:00:06.240 is sort of like the ID that his own ID 1:00:06.240 --> 1:00:08.600 that he is combating here at least they're like his 1:00:08.840 --> 1:00:12.440 this is his primal side. And I did when I 1:00:12.480 --> 1:00:15.520 was originally watching it, I did kind of notice some 1:00:15.600 --> 1:00:19.360 similarities between the face of the beast and the face 1:00:19.400 --> 1:00:21.400 of our hero. I don't know how much of that 1:00:21.480 --> 1:00:23.920 was me just you know, reading too much into it 1:00:24.720 --> 1:00:27.880 or not, but I think there are various interpretations here. 1:00:28.440 --> 1:00:30.200 But what we get at the end of the day 1:00:30.360 --> 1:00:34.960 is the game of chess or something like chess with 1:00:35.440 --> 1:00:36.840 this bestial other. 1:00:37.200 --> 1:00:39.720 That is funny. I mean, so, on one hand, I 1:00:39.720 --> 1:00:43.360 absolutely see the comparison in the way they're embodied, that 1:00:43.480 --> 1:00:47.280 this creature may be some reflection of his more savage 1:00:47.320 --> 1:00:49.880 self on the other hand, like, why would you be 1:00:50.040 --> 1:00:53.800 Why is the form of conflict a game of strategy? 1:00:53.800 --> 1:00:55.640 Why are you playing chess against your ID? 1:00:55.920 --> 1:00:56.040 Oh? 1:00:56.040 --> 1:00:57.560 Well, I mean you don't want to wrestle it. Look 1:00:57.600 --> 1:01:01.440 how strong this is? Get out smart, I guess. 1:01:01.480 --> 1:01:04.960 So. So the game itself is kind of tronish that 1:01:05.280 --> 1:01:10.960 it's like these metal shapes, these polyhedron game pieces that 1:01:11.000 --> 1:01:15.960 are zooming around and zapping each other with lasers. And then, 1:01:16.160 --> 1:01:19.560 of course, eventually the YETI loses and he doesn't like that. 1:01:20.080 --> 1:01:22.960 You know, yeti's are known to rip people's arms off 1:01:23.000 --> 1:01:26.200 and they lose. So he howls in anger, and he 1:01:26.400 --> 1:01:29.960 drools and rages very bad sport, and he seems ready 1:01:30.000 --> 1:01:34.120 to kill our hero. But suddenly it's a little unclear 1:01:34.160 --> 1:01:36.880 exactly the orientation of what's happening here, but like a 1:01:37.080 --> 1:01:42.360 walkway extends out through space toward the pyramid, leading to 1:01:42.440 --> 1:01:45.960 another structure, and then the hero leaps out onto the 1:01:46.000 --> 1:01:48.120 walkway and goes away to this other place. 1:01:49.000 --> 1:01:50.360 The challenge has been overcome. 1:01:50.600 --> 1:01:55.800 Yes, so this other place is a lattice of mcsher 1:01:55.920 --> 1:01:58.880 beams that are interlocking in impossible ways. 1:01:59.560 --> 1:02:02.320 Yes, so yeah, at this point, like where are we? Like, 1:02:02.360 --> 1:02:06.360 are we it within the confines of some great supercomputer? 1:02:07.040 --> 1:02:10.720 Are we in another dimension? I mean, it's hard to 1:02:10.720 --> 1:02:13.400 say exactly what's going on here, and that's the beauty 1:02:13.440 --> 1:02:13.680 of it. 1:02:13.920 --> 1:02:16.280 Yeah, in one of the rooms the hero goes into 1:02:16.600 --> 1:02:19.920 here seems to be inside the game he just played, 1:02:20.000 --> 1:02:23.360 like he's in shrunken form, and the game pieces are 1:02:23.400 --> 1:02:25.960 the giant shapes moving around him. He walks on the 1:02:26.000 --> 1:02:29.720 board and of course Scale is being played with once 1:02:29.760 --> 1:02:32.360 again like I mentioned at the beginning. But then at 1:02:32.360 --> 1:02:34.640 one point, the man, oh, and we're told I can't 1:02:34.640 --> 1:02:36.280 remember if I already said this, but if not, this 1:02:36.400 --> 1:02:39.480 is day five, so this is supposed to this is 1:02:39.520 --> 1:02:42.480 the time they said earlier that he would be in midlife. 1:02:43.280 --> 1:02:45.880 And at one point the man is he's sort of 1:02:46.080 --> 1:02:49.760 messing around on the game board with these pieces, and 1:02:49.760 --> 1:02:52.120 then he looks at his reflection in a metal piece 1:02:52.560 --> 1:02:54.960 and he says to himself, he realizes he is getting 1:02:55.000 --> 1:02:56.880 old and he has to hurry, he has to get 1:02:56.920 --> 1:02:58.800 to the gate. And I was like, wait a minute, 1:02:59.160 --> 1:03:02.720 is this literally a life crisis vignette? He's like, oh, maybe, 1:03:02.760 --> 1:03:06.240 so yeah, he's like messing around playing games in this 1:03:06.320 --> 1:03:09.240 confusing space, and then he looks at himself in the 1:03:09.400 --> 1:03:13.040 mirror and has a sudden reminder of his mortality, and 1:03:13.080 --> 1:03:14.560 then he really picks up the pace. 1:03:14.880 --> 1:03:17.040 Yeah, he doesn't know that he should also buy a 1:03:17.120 --> 1:03:20.479 leather jacket and look into motorcycles or something. 1:03:20.560 --> 1:03:24.920 Right, So we see him traveling through other weird landscapes, 1:03:25.000 --> 1:03:28.760 some natural, some artificial. One is like a I don't 1:03:28.760 --> 1:03:31.320 even know what you call this, like a big flat, 1:03:31.600 --> 1:03:36.760 empty rectangular space that looks out onto looks out like 1:03:36.840 --> 1:03:41.240 into the void, and there are planets beyond, so it's 1:03:41.280 --> 1:03:44.960 almost as if he's in a spaceship. There's another point 1:03:45.000 --> 1:03:50.000 where he's wandering through this huge field of just pits 1:03:50.080 --> 1:03:52.360 that are inverted step pyramids. 1:03:53.440 --> 1:03:55.480 Yeah, this must be where like maybe they cut the 1:03:55.480 --> 1:03:57.960 pyramids from earlier out of this landscape. 1:03:58.000 --> 1:03:58.360 I don't know. 1:03:58.560 --> 1:04:02.080 Yeah, a landscape just colossal works. I guess that's what 1:04:02.120 --> 1:04:03.000 we're to take from it. 1:04:03.320 --> 1:04:06.280 And I love these landscapes. The sets are amazing. But 1:04:06.320 --> 1:04:10.640 then finally, finally day seven comes, he's getting old and 1:04:10.960 --> 1:04:15.200 he makes it to the gate, the gate that was promised. 1:04:15.280 --> 1:04:18.960 So he comes upon this sort of hole in the 1:04:19.040 --> 1:04:22.680 rocks where light is spilling through and he walks up 1:04:22.720 --> 1:04:26.720 to it and realizes a giant mechanism, This big metal 1:04:26.800 --> 1:04:31.240 bar is descending toward him slowly, and when it reaches him, 1:04:31.280 --> 1:04:35.560 the mechanism has controls that have hand prints on them 1:04:35.600 --> 1:04:37.560 that he could put his hands in. It's kind of 1:04:37.600 --> 1:04:41.680 like that button that makes air on Mars in Total recall, 1:04:41.840 --> 1:04:45.000 you know, a metal thing with a handprint on it. 1:04:46.080 --> 1:04:48.240 So he's like, okay, I got to put my hands 1:04:48.240 --> 1:04:49.720 on it. So he puts his hands in the prints 1:04:50.000 --> 1:04:53.760 and it makes music. It releases this booming tone, and 1:04:53.800 --> 1:04:57.280 then the whole mechanism sinks into the floor and the 1:04:57.640 --> 1:05:01.640 gate opens and light spills over everything, not just on 1:05:01.920 --> 1:05:04.920 the man there in the place, but light seems to 1:05:04.960 --> 1:05:07.480 spill over the whole planet. So we go back to 1:05:08.120 --> 1:05:12.000 the place we came from. We see light filling in 1:05:12.080 --> 1:05:15.080 the caverns where the people from the First Day live, 1:05:15.200 --> 1:05:17.640 and there are lots of old people there, but we 1:05:17.720 --> 1:05:21.280 get to hear their heartbeats slowing down as the light 1:05:21.320 --> 1:05:24.720 pours over them. And the light is of a very 1:05:24.760 --> 1:05:29.520 different color color warmth, than the stuff we've seen before. 1:05:29.760 --> 1:05:32.560 Most of the movie has been kind of blue green gray. 1:05:33.080 --> 1:05:36.160 The light now is orange. And then we return to 1:05:36.200 --> 1:05:39.480 the hero and we find him in a land, in 1:05:39.560 --> 1:05:43.040 a natural landscape unlike anything we've seen before. Now the 1:05:43.080 --> 1:05:46.640 world is green, green, green. He's on these hills covered 1:05:46.680 --> 1:05:49.640 in green grass, not the kind of pale, gross blue 1:05:49.680 --> 1:05:52.720 green of the fog in the world before. Now it's 1:05:52.760 --> 1:05:58.040 like vibrant green, springtime, green hills covered in green grass 1:05:58.120 --> 1:06:01.880 and trees with flowers blue everywhere. And the man is 1:06:01.960 --> 1:06:03.880 just walking through it looking like Jesus. 1:06:05.120 --> 1:06:08.160 Yeah, kind of a like a seventies white Jesus, kind 1:06:08.160 --> 1:06:11.840 of like a Kenney Loggin's kind of a look here, yeah. 1:06:11.160 --> 1:06:15.320 Exactly, Yes, like hippie movie Jesus. Yeah. But he's got 1:06:15.360 --> 1:06:17.760 a magnificent beard, and you can tell he's just vibing 1:06:17.800 --> 1:06:21.120 on the nature that he's looking at. And then the 1:06:21.520 --> 1:06:23.800 boy's like looking at the plants. I don't know why 1:06:23.800 --> 1:06:25.920 I called him the boy. He's a man now, he's 1:06:25.920 --> 1:06:28.320 just mere days old, so that is true. He's like 1:06:28.320 --> 1:06:30.320 looking at the plants. And then we get some narration 1:06:31.080 --> 1:06:34.720 where it's an ending that is at once a little 1:06:34.760 --> 1:06:37.800 bit a little bit corny, but also kind of beautiful. 1:06:37.840 --> 1:06:40.720 He says, of all the twenty thousand days I have 1:06:40.920 --> 1:06:43.480 which day will be the finest, which will be the 1:06:43.480 --> 1:06:48.120 best any day, any hour, any minute, and then we 1:06:48.360 --> 1:06:51.280 end as like geese are flying across this disc of 1:06:51.320 --> 1:06:51.720 the sun. 1:06:52.520 --> 1:06:56.640 I mean, it's so upbeat and positive, and I think 1:06:56.840 --> 1:06:59.560 if you dig into it, it does get into some 1:07:00.000 --> 1:07:02.160 serious depth, you know. I mean, how do you how 1:07:02.200 --> 1:07:06.560 do you overcome the shortness of our lives and the 1:07:07.000 --> 1:07:07.840 marching of time. 1:07:08.600 --> 1:07:09.560 Well, one way. 1:07:09.640 --> 1:07:13.560 Is is by retreating into the now and focusing on 1:07:13.600 --> 1:07:16.840 the now, focusing on any day, any hour, any minute, 1:07:17.640 --> 1:07:20.000 you know, finding those little things, you know. So that's 1:07:20.120 --> 1:07:22.040 that's what came to my mind when I heard this. 1:07:22.320 --> 1:07:24.800 But on the other level, yes, it is like such 1:07:24.800 --> 1:07:28.160 an upbeat ending. I don't know. We get more used 1:07:28.160 --> 1:07:34.280 to more pessimistic endings in our films, so I don't know, 1:07:34.280 --> 1:07:37.400 it was it was refreshing that it does feel so 1:07:37.520 --> 1:07:40.120 optimistic at the end, like he succeeded in his quest, 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:45.200 he brought life to everyone, and in the revelation here 1:07:45.320 --> 1:07:47.600 is perhaps a little deeper if we dig into it. 1:07:47.880 --> 1:07:52.440 Well, in another one of those observations that is both 1:07:52.920 --> 1:07:55.840 profound and true and also can be kind of corny, 1:07:55.920 --> 1:07:57.720 But that doesn't make it any less true is the 1:07:58.040 --> 1:08:01.120 thing about you know, you can and you can overcome 1:08:01.160 --> 1:08:03.680 the kind of despair about the perspective of the shortness 1:08:03.680 --> 1:08:07.000 of your life by having purpose, by having a mission, 1:08:07.040 --> 1:08:10.080 by having a purpose that a purpose that is sort 1:08:10.120 --> 1:08:13.400 of other oriented, you know, that is driven towards not 1:08:13.480 --> 1:08:16.920 just yourself and your own gratification, but living for others. 1:08:17.400 --> 1:08:19.840 Well, you know, it reminds me of against some of 1:08:19.840 --> 1:08:23.720 what we've been discussing in our Mystery cult series. So 1:08:23.840 --> 1:08:27.200 a lot of times some of the best nuggets of 1:08:27.240 --> 1:08:30.880 wisdom are also kind of overstatements of the obvious, like 1:08:30.920 --> 1:08:32.880 you know, love is all you need, love is the 1:08:32.920 --> 1:08:36.519 fifth element, what have you? You know, But these are 1:08:36.560 --> 1:08:39.200 also things that are true, and it all comes down 1:08:39.200 --> 1:08:41.880 to presentation. And in the same way we talked about 1:08:41.880 --> 1:08:43.800 some of the initiations of the mystery cults, where there 1:08:43.840 --> 1:08:47.639 might be something that is key to the initiation, something 1:08:47.640 --> 1:08:50.040 that is revealed in a box and if you just 1:08:50.080 --> 1:08:52.600 take it out of context, if you're a critic and 1:08:52.600 --> 1:08:54.320 you're just like, look at this thing they have in 1:08:54.320 --> 1:08:55.800 the box here, how corny is that? 1:08:56.120 --> 1:08:56.320 You know? 1:08:56.360 --> 1:08:58.600 But if it's within context, if it occurs at the 1:08:58.720 --> 1:09:02.320 end of the initiation, then perhaps it is able to 1:09:02.360 --> 1:09:04.960 settle into your psyche in a more rewarding way. 1:09:05.840 --> 1:09:08.320 Yeah. So, just for example, you know, you could say, 1:09:09.479 --> 1:09:12.760 like a Demeter is reunited with her daughter, and this 1:09:12.960 --> 1:09:15.680 brings us, you know, this ear of grain, which represents 1:09:15.720 --> 1:09:18.040 the wealth, the fruits of our fields, and it's what 1:09:18.080 --> 1:09:20.599 we live by. You know, if you just like put 1:09:20.640 --> 1:09:23.120 it in those words, somebody could be like, oh, yeah, okay, 1:09:23.120 --> 1:09:25.040 that's not all that impressive. But if you watch the 1:09:25.080 --> 1:09:27.840 whole drama and you take part in the suffering and 1:09:27.880 --> 1:09:30.400 the passion and the relief of the reunion of mother 1:09:30.439 --> 1:09:33.000 and daughter and all that, it can be overwhelming. It's 1:09:33.000 --> 1:09:35.559 something that follows you every day of your life. You 1:09:35.640 --> 1:09:38.040 never never look at some flower the same way. Again. 1:09:38.360 --> 1:09:41.000 Yeah again, not everything that frightens or hurts you is bad. 1:09:41.120 --> 1:09:43.639 Fear and pain or your teachers learn survive. 1:09:44.120 --> 1:09:47.120 Yeah. Yeah. I think the real moral of the story 1:09:47.160 --> 1:09:49.759 is if you're feeling down, play chess with a yetti 1:09:49.920 --> 1:09:51.800 and make sure you win. 1:09:52.360 --> 1:09:58.880 Yes, all right, that is nineteen eighty four's quest. Again, 1:09:59.000 --> 1:10:00.720 if you wish to experience as well, you should be 1:10:00.760 --> 1:10:02.760 able to find it out there and again, hopefully in 1:10:02.760 --> 1:10:04.280 the future there will be some sort. 1:10:04.080 --> 1:10:06.240 Of proper restored release as well. 1:10:06.920 --> 1:10:09.040 Just a reminder for everyone out there that Stuff to 1:10:09.040 --> 1:10:11.400 Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast 1:10:11.479 --> 1:10:14.000 with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays 1:10:14.040 --> 1:10:16.880 we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about 1:10:16.880 --> 1:10:21.080 a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you're 1:10:21.200 --> 1:10:24.639 on letterbox dot com, you can find us. Our username 1:10:24.680 --> 1:10:26.840 is weird House and we have a nice list there 1:10:26.920 --> 1:10:29.760 of all the episodes that we have covered so far, 1:10:29.840 --> 1:10:32.320 all the movies we have covered so far. Rather, and 1:10:32.560 --> 1:10:34.599 I will remind you that at this point we're at 1:10:34.600 --> 1:10:38.280 one ninety six, so we're coming in hot on selection 1:10:38.400 --> 1:10:41.920 two hundred. We already have some recommendations for what that 1:10:42.080 --> 1:10:44.920 episode might be, what film we could possibly cover for 1:10:44.960 --> 1:10:48.000 the two hundredth Weird House Cinema selection, but continue to 1:10:48.040 --> 1:10:50.800 write in We have not made a decision as yet. 1:10:51.000 --> 1:10:52.840 It's going to be Mortal Kombat Annihilation. 1:10:55.200 --> 1:10:57.000 It could be it could be that that is the 1:10:57.040 --> 1:10:57.960 most fitting choice. 1:10:58.280 --> 1:11:01.240 Huge thanks as always to our ex still an audio producer, 1:11:01.320 --> 1:11:03.679 JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch 1:11:03.720 --> 1:11:05.880 with us with feedback on this episode or any other 1:11:05.960 --> 1:11:08.040 to suggest a topic for the future, or just to 1:11:08.080 --> 1:11:10.880 say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff 1:11:10.920 --> 1:11:18.800 to Blow your Mind dot com. 1:11:18.920 --> 1:11:21.880 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:11:21.960 --> 1:11:24.759 more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:11:24.920 --> 1:11:28.080 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.