WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Robot Jox 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.799 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name's Rob Lamb. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.599 And I'm Joe McCormick. And I think this episode is 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.840 going to be publishing on Christmas Day, which is quite 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.520 apt because, if I'm not wrong, one of the biggest 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:31.160 toy crazes of the Christmases of yesteryear were Transformers toys, 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:36.040 and I think Transformers also probably partially inspired the movie 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:38.360 we're going to be talking about today, So it's very 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.000 much like a toy robot Christmas celebration, except imagine those 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.560 toy robots we're fighting it out for the fate of Alaska, 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.200 trading between the clutches of some like evil capitalist empire 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.120 in a harsh Soviet future state. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:56.200 That's right. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:01.160 Yeah, we're going to be talking about nineteen nineties robot which. Yeah, 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.840 I am to understand that the Transformer craze helped inspire this, 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.840 but I think you could also pretty fairly compare this 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:13.240 to the boxing robots, you know, the the Rockham soccer robots, 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.760 Rockham Sock and Rogue of Robots. Yeah, this is basically 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.200 big league rock'am sockem robots of the future. 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:21.840 Yeah, I imagine. So it's rock em soccer robots, but 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:29.160 to settle territorial disputes between post nuclear apocalyptic superpowers, and 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:31.160 they're like one hundred feet tall. 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.840 Yeah, this is It's not a Christmas movie. We thought 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:36.640 about doing a Christmas movie, but then this came up, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.040 and this was perfect. I will say that it is 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.960 rated PG, and some of the people that made it 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.400 talked about how it is for children. I did not 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:49.880 watch this with my son. I guess I could have, 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.600 but I'm ultimately glad I did not. There's just, you know, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.520 there's a little bit of language in there that you know, 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.960 I'm sure a TV cut of this stuff that could 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.280 easily be edited out, I'm sure. But still it's a 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.600 very enjoyable picture, and I'm excited to talk about it. 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:07.960 This is one of those movies that is it's I 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.880 don't think it's for children, it's for it's for adults 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.280 in whom the child inside never died. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.680 Yeah, I think so that's probably a better way of 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:19.240 looking at it. 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.000 Should we hit that trailer audio. 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.359 Let's do it. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.239 It's a new age of combat. 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.400 Human beings pltically engineered to be the best fighters in. 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:37.480 History, two champions. It isn't over until someone wins at 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:44.040 war with each other. I have already killed you, two 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:51.040 invincible men. Let's fish Alexander here now the ultimate killing machines. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.400 I'm gonna get in this thing and I've got a chick. 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:55.119 Yeah. 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.720 I really love this one. And this is one of 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:05.680 those with the I'm going to kick your explosion sound debts, 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.320 which I think has been used in various other cinematic 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.480 trailers as well, but to great effect here. 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.000 Yeah. So this was actually directed by somebody you might 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.560 not expect, by Stuart Gordon, who is mainly known for 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.919 Lovecraftian adaptations. This is not in any way connected to Lovecraft. 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:25.480 This is a giant robot fight. 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:26.440 Movie, that's right. 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.960 And again it is rated PG, which certainly some of 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:34.359 Stuart Gordon's most famous works are not. He's probably best 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.680 remembered for directing nineteen eighty five's re Animator and then 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:42.200 nineteen eighty six Is From Beyond, both just wonderfully weird 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.200 adaptations of HP Lovecraft tales that went off in their 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.520 own crazy fleshy directions. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:53.360 He also made a Lovecraft adaptation confusingly called Daygone, which 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.120 came out in the year two thousand and one, which 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.600 is the name of a Lovecraft story, but it's not 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.080 really an adaptation of that story. It's more adaptation of 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.160 The Shadow over Endsmouth, which is a different Lovecraft story. Uh. 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.760 That movie I I remember kind of liking, even though 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.240 I don't know if I would say it's good right it. 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.040 I remember at the time when I watched it, I 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.320 remember thinking, well, this is not an accurate, uh you know, 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:21.360 depiction of an Hbu Lovecraft story. But especially now, I'm 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.760 kind of like, well, good it went off in all 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:25.640 these films. It's good that they went off in their 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.640 own directions and became their own, crazy, weird thing. Like 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:30.840 I think it takes place in Spain and it's a 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.599 modern day and like sexuality exists in it, that sort 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:37.039 of thing. Yeah, I would say it's one of the 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:41.880 major contributions that Stuart Stuart Gordon's Lovecraft films, and also 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.240 you know the work of Brian Yazna, who worked with 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:51.680 often the they inject sexuality into this these these horror worlds. 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:53.960 The other rather sterile originally. 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.159 Yeah, the kind of bare and hateful landscape of the 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.880 original Lovecraft is a little bit enlivened by the by 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:03.280 the Gordon touch. Yeah, there's another thing I really like 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.440 about Dagon, though I remember thinking it's just merely a 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.359 visual touch, which is that the color palette of the 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.919 film is very like blue and green everywhere, but the 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.159 main character wears an orange sweater throughout the movie, and 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.400 I just remember thinking that was a great visual decision 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.640 and it really looks fun throughout. The whole movie had. 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.440 Some cool monsters, as I recall too, they went with 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.440 the like the double finned mermaid type creature. Yeah, all right, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.920 well let's see. So these are some of the most 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.400 I think noteworthy Stuart Gordon films. But he also did 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.320 a lot of other stuff, and I didn't mention already, 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.200 but he did pass away earlier this year. He lived 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.680 nineteen forty seven through twenty twenty, but he Yeah, he 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:46.680 directed a lot of stuff. He did science fiction, such 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:51.040 as nineteen ninety six as Space Truckers, and with Brian 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.080 Yazna and Ed Naha, he created Honey I Shrunk the 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:58.000 Kids for Disney. They were the original creators, and you 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.800 know they have scriptwriting credits on that project and any 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.320 subsequent projects. So when you see the next Honey Shrunk, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.240 the Kids reboot or what have you. You're going to 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:08.159 see their names again. 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.200 Okay, I don't think I've seen any recent Stuart Gordon stuff. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:13.240 I haven't either. 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.880 He seemed to have branched out a lot later in 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.440 his career, getting further away from some of the really 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.560 like obvious genre stuff, such as a two thousand and 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.159 five drama film titled Edmund starring William H. Macy and 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.599 written by David Mammott. So you know, he really ultimately 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.160 had a very I think, a varied career and worked 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.360 on a lot of different types of stuff. Though horror 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.160 fans I think are always going to remember him best 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:43.200 from some of those those early gory nineteen eighties Lovecraft adaptations. 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.040 Yeah. Now, one thing that must be said about Robot 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:52.839 Jocks is that it is a very zany, cliche ridden 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.720 robot slugfest that is in many ways just excellent and delightful, 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.560 but it's also I don't know, you could make many 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.200 extremely legitimate criticisms of the script, and yet it was 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.240 written by a like revered science fiction author. 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:13.120 That's right, Joe Haldeman, the author of the Hugo Award 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:18.480 winning nineteen seventy four military science fiction novel The Forever War. Now, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.200 I had not read this one before, but I picked 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.840 it up after watching Robot Jocks last week and I've 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.600 been reading it. I haven't finished it yet, but it's 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.440 a very interesting book, very much a book of its 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.280 time in many ways, especially concerning various sort of like 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:39.280 gender ideas and so forth. But it's essentially a Vietnam story, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.480 a Vietnam memoir, even written by an author who, having 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.960 just received a bachelors in physics and astronomy, was immediately 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.560 drafted in the US Army in nineteen sixty seven as 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:53.560 a combat engineer. That's Haldeman's story, and he was subsequently wounded, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.680 received a purple heart, and the Forever War it seems 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.880 to reflect all of this, except dealing with futuristic war 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.240 cast into an armed conflict and a distant star system 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.560 of a slew of different star systems against an unknown 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.560 alien enemy. And the main character in that, a gentleman 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.320 by the name of Mandela, is also a physicist who 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.680 finds himselves drafted into a war, only this time it's 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.920 against the so called Tarans, who are these aliens that 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.160 nobody really has a clear picture of or understanding of, 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:28.320 as they're starting out, So it's again very much a 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.160 product of its time, quite interesting, quite influential. It's a 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.760 solid power armor military science fiction yarn, very much in 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.360 the same in keeping with stuff like starship troopers and 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.559 so forth. But it has a focus on first of all, 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.640 the physics of other worlds and the physics of space travel, 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.440 as well as, of course the psychology of the soldiers experience, 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:53.679 and a few of the interesting things have already popped 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.800 up in it. He touches on the perils of fighting 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:01.199 around frozen hydrogen on other worlds. There's discussion of how 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.480 time dilation impacts war. So you encounter the enemy one 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:09.040 day and your technology is superior to them, but then 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.120 the next encounter you have with them, their technology is 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.960 yours ahead of yours because of time dilation and travel 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.200 at speeds approaching light, because you were a creature now 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.320 of their past and their denizens of what was your future. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.840 That's very interesting. So like every time you travel to 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.160 meet your opponent, they get a leg up on you 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.400 because they have more time to prepare than you do. 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.840 Yeah, so that's really interesting. It gets into the use 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:41.280 of hypnotic suggestion to invoke xenophobic hatred and soldiers. But 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:42.679 on top of that, he seems to spend a lot 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.559 of time focusing on what it means to be enveloped 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.200 by the war machine, how it changes your life, how 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.160 it affects your psyche, and how in the Forever War 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.079 it also co opts sexuality as well as individuality. It's 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.840 just kind of like this all consuming force on your life. 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.160 This is interesting because I feel like what you're just 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.560 talking about comes through, maybe not so much in the 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.600 original novel, but in the Paul Verehoven movie adaptation of 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:07.800 Starship Troopers. 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:08.600 Yeah. 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.240 Yeah, I understand that the Forever War is often brought 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.760 up as kind of a counterbalance to the largely pro 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.880 war narrative of the original novel Starship Troopers, which I 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.120 have also read, but I honestly don't remember much about 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.000 it other than some of the the cool power armor 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:29.760 battles that were going on in it. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:34.240 So how do Haldeman and Stuart Gordon get teamed up 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.240 to make this ridiculous robot slugfest movie? 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:38.079 All Right? 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.240 So apparently what happened is, let's say, Haldeman wrote this 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.360 book and it was a huge success and critically acclaimed 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.040 and Haldeman and Stuart ended up chatting with each other 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:51.560 and working on putting together a film adaptation of the 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.839 Forever War, and they were both really excited about it, 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:56.920 but it never came together. I think the way they 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.559 described it is like Reagan was elected and then kind 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.240 of like things changed. There was less funding for the arts, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.120 and therefore the project never came together. But it led 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.400 to this project with Haldeman working on the script that 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:14.600 would ultimately become Robot Jocks, directed by Stuart Gordon. Now, 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.000 apparently there was a fair amount of disagreement between the 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.520 two as the project rolled on, which has been summed 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:23.960 up at times as Haldeman wanting to create a movie 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.400 for adults that kids could also enjoy and Gordon wanted 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.760 to create a movie for kids that adults could. 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:34.280 Enjoy, and they ended up creating not exactly either one. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.560 Right, Yeah, it's kind of a hybrid of the two, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.760 which is again perfectly enjoyable, but it's more more of 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.880 a film that the inner child and the inner adult 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.240 can both enjoy or kind of fight over. 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:48.720 Yeah. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.960 So here's a bit from Haldeman's blog where he talked 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:56.160 about this. He said, I wanted the mechanics he's talking about. 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.199 As a title, he Stuart Gordon insisted on robojocks. He 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.800 finally wound up being robot Jocks after the people who 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.320 did RoboCop asked whether we wanted to spend a lot 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.600 of dreary time in court. I would try to change 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.160 the science into something reasonable, Stuart would change it back 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.479 to Saturday morning cartoon stuff. I tried to make believable, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.520 reasonable characters, and Stuart would insist on throwing in cliches 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.520 and caricatures. It was especially annoying because it was a 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.440 story about soldiers, and I was the only person around 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.520 who'd ever been one. In fact, he was right and 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:28.560 I was wrong. But it wasn't until we were actually 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.760 shooting the movie that that became clear. 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.439 That's interesting. I mean, you can absolutely feel this tension 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.199 in the movie when you watch it, because it will 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:41.920 alternate between moments that almost kind of actually work as 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.320 as thoughtful science fiction. There will be like moments of 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.040 dialogue that are kind of thoughtful and interesting, and then 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:53.240 it just immediately like throttles back into hilarious, absurd, cliche 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:54.120 sci fi mode. 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.520 Yeah, you can get whiplash at times from it because 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.920 you're like, oh, man, that was really beautiful, and then 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.360 something else happened and you're like, well that was goofy. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.960 But but then again, like I started, I started thinking. 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.600 I tried to sort of divide these two possible films 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.200 in my head, and I was thinking, all right, what 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.920 if what if this character was played by a different 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:13.840 actor and it was a more of a serious role, 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.320 it was more of a soldier role, like Haldeman would 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.160 have written, you know, maybe maybe you bring in someone 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.440 like Michael Ironside to play in instead of a cartoon cowboy. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.400 We'll get to that in a bed. And I was thinking, well, 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.240 that would be good. But but then again, it wouldn't 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:31.040 be Robot Jocks. Like there's the ultimate form of the picture, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.280 Like the absurdities and the contradictions are one of the 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:36.440 most notable things about it. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.880 Oh no, no, I wouldn't change a thing about Robot Jocks. 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.520 Robot Jocks is exactly the thing it should be. I 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.319 absolutely would not change it. I mean, Robot Jocks is 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.720 the kind of film for which weird house cinema exists, 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.720 something that that cannot cannot just be praised as a 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.800 normal kind of successful movie that is in some sense 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.360 absurd or a failure, but is absolutely worth talking about 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:02.280 and has things to be appreciated. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.200 Yeah, and I think just on the serious end of 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.080 the spectrum, on the Halaman end of the spectrum, even 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.760 though I think he ultimately like considered it a disappointing 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.520 child from a creative standpoint, I feel like there are 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.640 elements that totally arrange you. You get this sense of 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.080 the absurdity of war, a vast war machine, you know, 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:26.480 a military industrial complex that just sucks everything in and 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:31.800 in this film co ops reproduction. So yeah, there's lots 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:32.480 to talk about here. 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:34.720 And one more thing I will say about it is 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.680 that the ending of this film I think is a 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.520 genuine triumph in both senses in which the movie works. 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:46.320 It actually is a surprising narrative conclusion that I was 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.440 kind of like, uh, wow, it's amazing they did that. 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.440 But it's also hilarious in an unintentional way. 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:51.960 Yeah. 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.080 Absolutely, like it seems to like if it seems like 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:59.080 there are two different films competing for coexistence, at the 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.200 end of the film, those two visions come together and 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.040 fist bump each other and it works. 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.640 So maybe we should talk about the cast. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.680 All right, well, our main character in this is Achilles, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:12.760 played by Gary Graham. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:14.120 I think a lot of. 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.040 People will recognize Gary Graham ow that he's been around 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.520 for a long time. The main place I knew him 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.440 from due to all my time watching the Sci Fi 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.040 Channel back in the day, is that Graham was on 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:29.920 the Alien Nation TV series. He played Detective Matt Sykes 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:30.240 on that. 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.240 Yeah. I don't know what I recognized him from, but 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.520 he looks like a sort of combination of other existing actors, 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.960 so that kind of helps him seem very familiar to me. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.840 He was a three way if they made it of 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.960 Scott Glenn, Mick Jagger and Billy Bob Thornton. Put those 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:51.480 three in a blender, and that's him. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.080 That's him. And you know, I don't know a lot 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.480 about about him and his work, but in this particular 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.000 film he does a good job. I have no no complaint. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.080 It's about his acting. He's perfectly serviceable as the lead 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:05.080 in an action film. 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.520 I would say his name, Gary Graham is so close 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.160 to the name Garrett Graham, of who of course was 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.680 in Chopping Mall and who played Beef in Phantom of 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.080 the Paradise. And this movie could only possibly have been 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.000 improved by swapping him for Garrett Graham. 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.880 Oh, that would have been interesting. Yeah, And I feel 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:26.760 like Garrett Graham would have had to lean into like 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:31.480 a sleazier version of Achilles. Asa is a natural sleezy 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:33.920 ara and a lot of the roles that he has. 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.000 So Achilles Achilles is the hero of the movie. And 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.520 he is the titular robot jock. He is one of 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.240 these pilots who drives around these giant mech robots and 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.520 fights it out. And I guess we'll get into more 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.720 of the plot mechanics and setting when we do the 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.080 full plot breakdown, But imagine this guy we're talking about, 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.360 like sitting in the pilot's seat of a giant mech warrior. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.400 Yeah, and he is the best he is. He is 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.440 the best robot jocks jock that this particular faction has 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:03.320 at their disposal. 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.080 Right, But there are some up and coming robot jocks 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.920 who maybe could rival his greatness, and probably the most 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:15.359 promising of them is a young robot jock named Athena. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.919 Right, and she's played by Anne Marie Johnson. She was 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:21.520 in the Heat of the Night TV show that I 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.840 mainly remember as being a show that my grandfather watched 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.080 all the time, and I don't think I ever watched. 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.240 But Amory Johnson, she's been around forever. She's done a 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.719 lot of work, and I understand she's also been heavily 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.919 involved in the Screen Actors Guild. So yeah, a major name. 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.240 Especially if you're an actor, you probably are familiar with her. 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.679 Now, I think there are a couple of roles that 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.840 really make this movie by adding in a level of 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:52.880 cartoonishness that I think clashes with whatever serious thing Holdoman 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.840 may have been going for. And I would say that 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.600 the one of the two main super cartoony characters is 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.880 the villain of the film, Alexander, who is I think 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.040 supposed to be Ivan Drago from Rocky four. 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:08.840 Yeah, you get a strong sense of that. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:10.760 He is. 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.520 He is our Russian villain, our Russian superman that that fights, 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.080 I should say, in a in this giant mech that 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:21.000 has an amazing design but is interestingly less human, in 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.400 form less humanoid, compared to the mech used by our heroes. 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.439 So even though it's not I forget what the factions 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.680 are even called, but it's not called the US versus 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.119 the Soviet Union. This is supposed to all take place 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.280 after warfare or a comet or something something that's wrecked 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:36.600 the world. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.160 There was a nuclear war. Yeah, there was a nuclear 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.919 war that like wiped out huge parts of humanity. And 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.440 then after the nuclear war, your two main superpowers, which 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.399 again are just apparently basically the United States and the 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.680 Soviet Union. But the United States is called the Market 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.000 and the Soviet Union is called the Confederation or the Confed. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:56.760 That's right. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.760 Yeah, so these are the two main main factions. But yeah, 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.840 there's essentially the US future US versus future Soviet Union. 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:09.480 And this particular robot Jocks of Jack played by Paul 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.600 is played by Paul Coslow, who lived nineteen forty four 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.440 through twenty nineteen. He was a German Canadian actor who 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:18.040 was in a lot of TV back in the day, 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.919 but also some key seventies cult films. He had a 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.639 supporting role in nineteen seventy one's The Omega Man Oh Okay, 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:26.879 which is a wonderful film. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:32.679 Yeah, his Russian accent in this is so awful. Every 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.159 time he talks, I couldn't stop laughing. It's on the 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.040 level of, like, you know, he like meets up his 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.840 opponents in the bar for a drink. Why is that happening? 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:44.280 By the way, we should talk about that when we 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.600 get into the plot. But like, so he and Achilles 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.360 are drinking at the bar together and he's like, your 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.920 drink it makes me think of blood? 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:58.040 Yeah yeah, I mean again, he was German Canadian, he did, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.600 you know? And this is not his natural accent. I 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:01.840 had to look him up because he's been in some 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.840 other like key films, like The Vanishing Point from seventy one. Okay, 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:06.960 I was looking at it something that claimed to be 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.480 his reel on YouTube, and yeah, he's he seems good 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.119 in things, but he's he's never using a Russian accent 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.399 except in this film, where it comes off as a 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:22.560 like a Saturday Night Live or World Wrestling Federation level 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:23.639 of believability. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.320 Yeah. Yeah, he would be like a wrestler called the 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.639 Czar played by a guy from New Jersey. 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.600 Now that being said, he's he's very fun in this role, 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.520 but that accent is not believable. 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.880 I literally think the one I just did to make 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:38.600 fun of it was better than the one he uses 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.440 in the movie. Okay, but then we got to get 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.280 to our other main cartoon character from the movie. This 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.760 one is the character of techs Tex Conway, played by 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:49.960 an actor named Michael Aldridge. 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:55.080 Yeah. This, oh my goodness. So this character Tex Conway, 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.879 he's our heroes trainer, he's his mentor. He's a former 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.920 robot jocks champion in his own right who who won 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.639 some key battles in the past. But man, he is 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:06.879 a root and toot and text and stereotype with a 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.879 cowboy hat but a futuristic jumpsuit. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:10.520 Yeah. 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.679 So he's Buck Strickland in a in a red and 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.640 white jumpsuit talking about you can't get the lasers calibrated. 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:23.520 And he so he specifies that he was a former 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.840 like you say, he was a former robot jock himself, 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.240 like one of the greatest that ever lived, and that 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:33.879 his jock, his jocking, his robot piloting won the area 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:38.320 of Campuccia, which I guess is Cambodia for the market. 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.639 So you got to imagine, Okay, they're capitalists now and 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:42.800 it's all because of texts. 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's He also reminds me of the 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.200 Rich textan character from The Simpsons, Yes, pops up from 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.000 time to time. Yeah, so it's it is a very 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.280 cartoony role but a richly enjoyable role. 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:58.159 It's it's every time. 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:03.240 He's on the screen, it's it's wonderful. And Aldrum himself 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.680 is as an actor who was just a regular TV 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:07.960 player back in the day, Like you just you scroll 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.960 through his IMDb page and it's just everything that was 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:15.960 on television, with some notable titles to call out, like Murder, 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.720 she wrote, Dallas of course the A team. He was 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.560 on that mini series V So yeah, he was in 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:24.320 tons of stuff as well, and he's great. 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.960 In this as we as we go on, we should 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.199 also be thinking about like who should be cast in 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.639 each role for our twenty twenty one remake of Robot Jocks. 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:34.720 And I think there's a pretty obvious choice that you 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:36.720 landed on for the new casting of texts. 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.080 Oh, I think this was you, right? No, no, well 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.160 you brought up Buck Strickland, who was voiced by Stephen Root, right, 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.199 and Stephen Root would be perfect for this role because 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:48.679 you know, he's great at yucking it up but also 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.320 is superb at also having this kind of streak of 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:55.800 darkness which plays into tex Conway's characters as well. 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.400 Right, all right, let's see who else do we want 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:01.480 to talk about in the connections here. 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:06.040 Well, let's see, there's a character named doctor Matsumoto played 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.000 by Danny Kamikono, part of the He's part of This 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.680 character's part of the tech team. This is a solid 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:13.720 performer who did a lot of a lot of things, 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:16.240 most notably The Karate Kid. He was in that, but 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.320 he also appeared in nineteen ninety threes Robot Wars, directed 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:22.879 by Albert Band We'll get to him in a minute. 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:27.760 Same production company also Giant Robots, sometimes marketed as a 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.360 sequel to this film, but not directly related to Robot Jocks. 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.000 One was not enough. People needed more robot jocks. 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.840 We always do. There's a fun cameo in this. We 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:43.959 mentioned Reanimator earlier and the Beyond Well, Jeffrey Combs, the 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:47.680 lovecrafty and lothario himself, the B Movie Icon shows up 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:52.639 as just one of the robojockx Robot Jocks fans that 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:54.360 are cheering on what's happening. 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:58.399 Oh yeah. Occasionally we get some shots of the proletariat, 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.880 you know, they're just the regular society and what they 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.640 think about the ongoing They treat the robot Jocks battles. 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:08.000 It basically is a sporting event rather than a major 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:12.920 geopolitical conflict. And there is a great scene where we're 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.520 watching a couple of the proles watch the robot Jocks 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:20.040 announcements on TV, and for some reason they're wearing the 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.359 hats that members of House Frey wear. I don't know 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:25.360 where that comes from. 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.640 Yeah, that is an interesting wrinkle in the show though, 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:33.280 where it's geopolitics as pure entertainment to a large section 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:37.280 of the populace. So yeah, there again another area where 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:40.520 this show gets. This movie gets a bit meaty before 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:41.520 it gets goofy again. 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:44.000 Now, one thing we see in the credits at the 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:46.480 beginning of this movie is that it is definitely a 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:50.639 Charles Band production, and that name. If you have watched 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:53.520 a lot of trashy eighties movies, that name shows up 0:24:53.560 --> 0:24:54.040 a good bit. 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:55.240 Yeah that's right. 0:24:56.119 --> 0:24:56.320 Yeah. 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:58.399 I almost hesitant to spend too much time on them 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:00.879 here because I know we'll come back to to some 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:05.399 pictures that are actually directed by Charles Band or Albert Band. 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:09.320 But briefly, we're talking about the Band family here. Their 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.480 history begins with artist Max Band, who lived nineteen oh 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:16.000 one through nineteen seventy four. Born in Lithuania, lived in 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:19.080 France and then made the move to California. His son, 0:25:19.160 --> 0:25:21.880 Albert Band, who lived twenty four through two thousand and two, 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:24.800 became a filmmaker. He was assistant director on John Houston's 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:28.040 The Asphalt Jungle in nineteen fifty and then went on 0:25:28.080 --> 0:25:30.920 to direct a bunch of genre films, including I Bury 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:34.280 the Living from fifty eight, Dracula Dog from seventy eight, 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:37.800 and Goolies Too from in nineteen eighty seven. So he's 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:42.119 already be Cinema loyalty. But then his son is Charles Band, 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:44.639 who again we've mentioned before on the show. He's the 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:48.320 man behind first Empire International Pictures that put out Robot 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:51.520 Jocks and then Full Moon Features, and he directed some 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:54.600 really awesome eighties and nineties sci fi horror films before 0:25:54.600 --> 0:26:00.000 going increasingly in the evil Bong direction, which isn't quite 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:02.400 I thing, but you know, you can't argue with success. 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:05.720 Oh he does like demon Bong movies. 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.040 Yeah, yeah, the Evil Bong like one through however many 0:26:10.680 --> 0:26:11.639 Ginger Dead Man that. 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:12.360 Sort of thing. 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:14.680 Yeah yeah, okay, But. 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:18.520 I can't stress enough that his earlier pictures are are 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:21.880 often a lot more serious and really interesting. Will definitely 0:26:21.880 --> 0:26:24.480 come back to something Charles Band directed in the future, 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:27.560 but again evil bong direction seems to have been very 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:32.359 successful for Full Okay. Charles's brother, by the way, is 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:34.760 Richard Band, a composer who worked on a lot of 0:26:34.760 --> 0:26:38.440 Full Moon pictures, and then Charles Band's son is Alex Band, 0:26:38.520 --> 0:26:41.080 the lead singer of a band called The Calling, which 0:26:41.080 --> 0:26:43.800 I'm not that familiar with but exists. So like the 0:26:44.160 --> 0:26:46.479 Band family is still going strong. 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:48.280 They are a Schlock dynasty. 0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:52.240 And another connection to Robot Jocks is that Charles Band 0:26:52.240 --> 0:26:55.040 had a nineteen ninety film called Crash and Burn that 0:26:55.200 --> 0:26:58.080 was marketed in Europe as Robot Jocks two. But again 0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:01.080 there's another one where it's not actually related to Robot Jocks, 0:27:01.320 --> 0:27:03.680 but it does feature a cool giant robot plus Bill 0:27:03.720 --> 0:27:05.240 Moseley as a killer cyborg. 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:06.240 Oh, I'd watch that. 0:27:14.000 --> 0:27:14.240 Now. 0:27:14.359 --> 0:27:17.520 One thing I will say about this movie that I 0:27:17.520 --> 0:27:22.199 do just totally, unironically enjoy is all of the robot fights, 0:27:22.240 --> 0:27:24.960 including I think there's some stop motion animation, and I 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:29.600 think there's probably also some people in suits, some puppetry. 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:32.159 I get the feeling that both are at play at 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:35.719 different times. I could be wrong about that, but whatever 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:38.119 they were doing I really enjoyed the robot effects, Like 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:41.720 it's not like they look realistic. They don't, but they're 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:47.119 that kind of non realistic, highly stylized, great old school 0:27:47.160 --> 0:27:49.080 practical effects that I just adore. 0:27:49.640 --> 0:27:52.560 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And so it's not surprising that you 0:27:52.600 --> 0:27:54.400 have some You have at least a couple of big 0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:57.760 names in this one that stood out was this guy, 0:27:57.760 --> 0:27:59.960 Steve Berg, who was a conceptual designer. He went into 0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:03.480 work on the art department on a number of big films, 0:28:03.520 --> 0:28:09.440 big sci fi properties like Chronicles of Riddick, Alien Three, Leviathan, 0:28:09.600 --> 0:28:12.679 The Martian, Interstellar, Prometheus. 0:28:11.880 --> 0:28:16.280 Oh, Leviathan. You've seen Leviathan, right, Oh, we've talked about it. Yeah, 0:28:16.280 --> 0:28:18.000 that's right, we've talked about it on the show before. 0:28:18.280 --> 0:28:20.640 That was one of the nineteen was it eighty nine? 0:28:20.760 --> 0:28:24.320 Was that the year when like five different underwater terror 0:28:24.400 --> 0:28:25.120 movies came out? 0:28:25.160 --> 0:28:27.200 I think that was the underwater terror year. Yeah, we'll 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:29.080 have to come back to Leviathan because there's a lot 0:28:29.119 --> 0:28:30.600 of fun stuff going on in that picture. 0:28:30.720 --> 0:28:32.640 Oh, we should do a whole series of weird house 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:36.040 cinema where we just do one after another. We do Leviathan, 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:38.200 Deep Star six, Lords of the Deep. We were like 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:39.760 round up the whole crew. 0:28:40.000 --> 0:28:42.280 But it's like diving deeper into the ocean, Joe. The 0:28:42.800 --> 0:28:46.280 deeper you go on that playlist, the greater the pressure, 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:50.760 the harder it is to come out without doing harm 0:28:50.840 --> 0:28:54.440 to your body. Because, yeah, they're the underwater films that 0:28:54.440 --> 0:28:56.160 come to mind, and they are the ones you have 0:28:56.200 --> 0:28:58.360 to sort of hunt for from that same year, and 0:28:58.400 --> 0:28:59.800 they just get progressively harder. 0:29:01.240 --> 0:29:03.400 I remember the Lord's of the Deep. Really not much 0:29:03.440 --> 0:29:05.360 happens in it, Like most of the movie is just 0:29:05.400 --> 0:29:07.760 watching people sit in a chair and say like they're 0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:08.520 coming for us. 0:29:08.760 --> 0:29:08.960 Yeah. 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:11.760 Lords of the Deep is probably the point in anybody's 0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:14.000 attempt to watch all the underwater movies of eighty nine 0:29:14.000 --> 0:29:16.440 where they realized that their eyes were bigger than their stomach. 0:29:16.640 --> 0:29:18.040 Yeah. 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:21.320 But oh, one of the huge names on this picture 0:29:21.360 --> 0:29:25.440 on robot jocks that helped create these wonderful stop motion 0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:29.600 effects David Allen, who who did stop motion animation and 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:35.080 visual effects director credits on this. So this is the 0:29:35.280 --> 0:29:37.200 I think this is the real star of the movie. 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:40.560 He's an awesome name in the stop motion animation field. 0:29:40.600 --> 0:29:42.800 He sadly died in nineteen ninety nine at the age 0:29:42.840 --> 0:29:46.120 of fifty four, but he worked on the Howling on Willow, 0:29:46.440 --> 0:29:50.520 Ghostbusters Too Young, Sherlock Holmes, you know, all the all 0:29:50.520 --> 0:29:53.040 films that had some wonderful stop motion work in them, 0:29:53.320 --> 0:29:56.040 I believe, And then he did a ton of Charles 0:29:56.040 --> 0:29:59.040 Band Full Moon productions, providing the store to sort of 0:29:59.040 --> 0:30:02.000 stop motion world that really sets some of those films apart. 0:30:02.320 --> 0:30:05.200 So he's the man behind the cool animation in Laser Blast, 0:30:05.480 --> 0:30:08.960 in Q the Wing Serpent, and in various other films 0:30:09.000 --> 0:30:12.760 like where oftentimes films where there's not much else notable 0:30:12.800 --> 0:30:15.560 about it but just has some real eye catching stop 0:30:15.600 --> 0:30:17.240 motion effects. Uh. 0:30:17.320 --> 0:30:20.360 Yeah, I would say that that's probably true about laser blasts, 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:23.640 except that Laser Blast is pretty funny. Q the Wing Serpent, 0:30:23.920 --> 0:30:25.480 that's a little bit different. I mean, that's got that 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:31.600 Cohen energy, Like there's a pretty fun script underneath that 0:30:31.640 --> 0:30:33.880 one in addition to the great stop motion effects. 0:30:34.240 --> 0:30:34.960 Yeah. 0:30:35.000 --> 0:30:37.640 So when David Allen died, he was still working on 0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:41.080 a picture called The Prime Evils and it was never 0:30:41.120 --> 0:30:43.600 finished and this was going to be just like an 0:30:43.600 --> 0:30:49.080 old school stop motion animation fest. But yeah, he died 0:30:49.080 --> 0:30:51.560 before he could finish it. But around twenty seventeen, Charles 0:30:51.560 --> 0:30:54.320 Band announced that it would be completed and released in 0:30:54.360 --> 0:30:56.680 twenty nineteen, and I think that got pushed back to 0:30:56.720 --> 0:30:59.640 twenty twenty, and then, of course most things in twenty 0:30:59.680 --> 0:31:03.000 twenty were pushed back or at least in a weird fashion. 0:31:03.080 --> 0:31:05.280 So I don't think it's actually come out yet. But 0:31:05.400 --> 0:31:08.800 if you look around for information about the Prime Evils film, 0:31:08.880 --> 0:31:11.080 you'll see some clips from it, and it looks really awesome. 0:31:11.120 --> 0:31:13.440 So I do hope that finally comes to light. 0:31:14.240 --> 0:31:16.440 Well, are you ready to jump into a full breakdown 0:31:16.440 --> 0:31:18.600 of the plot and then maybe talk a little bit 0:31:18.600 --> 0:31:21.040 of weird science and the ideas in the movie. 0:31:21.360 --> 0:31:21.880 Let's do it? 0:31:22.080 --> 0:31:22.320 Okay? 0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:24.480 Well, I guess we got to start with the opening credits, 0:31:24.480 --> 0:31:28.040 which really set the scene. So at the very first thing, 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:33.000 you are panning over a snowy field of dead robots 0:31:33.040 --> 0:31:35.560 and mechanical debris. And I remember I was watching this 0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:37.760 with Rachel. She was like, is this a Christmas movie? 0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:40.920 Because it very much seems like a combination of the 0:31:41.040 --> 0:31:44.959 Terminator and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Yes, And the 0:31:45.080 --> 0:31:50.560 voiceover narration. While you get the Terminator font credits, the 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:54.160 voiceover says it has been fifty years since the nuclear 0:31:54.240 --> 0:32:01.280 holocaust almost destroyed mankind. War is now outlawed. Oh good idea, 0:32:02.720 --> 0:32:04.840 nobody ever thought of that before. Just make it illegal. 0:32:07.240 --> 0:32:10.000 And so they specify, well, with war outlawed, how do 0:32:10.000 --> 0:32:13.560 you settle disputes between these superpowers, between the Market and 0:32:13.680 --> 0:32:17.440 the Confederation. Well, they say that territorial disputes are now 0:32:17.480 --> 0:32:21.520 settled by single combat, and they go on to explain 0:32:21.800 --> 0:32:26.080 here at the Confederation playing field in Siberia, and they 0:32:26.120 --> 0:32:30.240 recount that these robots that are piloted by robot jocks 0:32:30.680 --> 0:32:34.680 fight it out and whichever robot and they're corresponding jock 0:32:34.760 --> 0:32:38.600 wins the you know, to the victor go the spoils. 0:32:38.640 --> 0:32:41.280 So like you might be fighting over who gets control 0:32:41.320 --> 0:32:45.040 of Campuccia and uh, and the winner in this case 0:32:45.080 --> 0:32:48.800 apparently was the Market with the old tex Conway piloting 0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:51.760 his mech and so they get control of the land. 0:32:52.560 --> 0:32:55.400 And then you immediately cut to the present from here, 0:32:55.880 --> 0:33:00.240 where there is like an ongoing fight between al Alex 0:33:00.280 --> 0:33:04.760 Sander who we mentioned before, the villain, the Russian robot jock, 0:33:05.280 --> 0:33:08.600 and a Market robot jock who I think is maybe 0:33:08.720 --> 0:33:11.920 named Ajax. I could be wrong, about that. But he's 0:33:11.920 --> 0:33:14.000 a guy in a red and white jumpsuit with a 0:33:14.040 --> 0:33:17.440 black guy and a bloody lip, lying in the cockpit 0:33:17.560 --> 0:33:20.680 of his robot. His robot has been destroyed, and he's 0:33:20.680 --> 0:33:23.320 trying to throw in the towel. He's like pleading for mercy. 0:33:23.400 --> 0:33:27.560 He says, Alexander, you win, Alexander, I can't move. I 0:33:27.560 --> 0:33:33.120 think my back is broken, and Alexander just coldly says, judgment. 0:33:33.560 --> 0:33:37.240 I would like judgment. It's very very much. If he dies, 0:33:37.360 --> 0:33:41.360 he dies Ivan Drego thing, and then he just stomps 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:44.760 on him. He uses his robot to stomp on Ajax 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:47.240 and kill him, and it's victory for the Confederation. 0:33:47.840 --> 0:33:50.800 Fun behind the scenes fact is that I believe that 0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:53.120 the stop motion animation we see in this altiate, this 0:33:53.240 --> 0:33:58.720 opening encounter was actually originally test footage that was used 0:33:58.760 --> 0:34:01.360 to convince Charles Band that they could make the picture. 0:34:01.600 --> 0:34:04.080 Oh that's interesting, So maybe that's why it's in a 0:34:04.080 --> 0:34:07.320 different setting than the rest of what goes on in 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:11.480 a movie. So the battle is a victory for the Confederation. 0:34:12.000 --> 0:34:14.560 I'm not sure exactly what they're fighting over in this case. 0:34:15.080 --> 0:34:18.600 And again, yeah, Ajax is like I yield Mercy and 0:34:18.760 --> 0:34:22.279 Alexander's like, too bad, and he just smashes him. And 0:34:22.280 --> 0:34:27.480 then Alexander looks into the camera and says, you're next Achilles. 0:34:28.000 --> 0:34:30.440 He's you know, he's got it out for Achilles, I 0:34:30.440 --> 0:34:33.000 guess because Achilles is the best, and he wants to 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:33.600 defeat him. 0:34:33.880 --> 0:34:34.080 Yeah. 0:34:34.160 --> 0:34:38.880 Yeah, He's all about just superiority and proving himself in battle. 0:34:39.680 --> 0:34:43.360 And so next we cut to the market robot Jocks 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:47.600 command center. It's like mission control for robot jocks, where 0:34:47.640 --> 0:34:50.760 the Allied robot Jocks and their friends watch in horror 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:54.160 as Ajax is stomped by the bot and we find 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:58.399 out that Alexander has killed nine of their guys. Now 0:34:58.560 --> 0:35:01.200 and it is and there's a imediately talk about why 0:35:01.239 --> 0:35:05.399 this is. It's because there's a spy, and I feel 0:35:05.400 --> 0:35:07.239 like this is great. You know, set this up right 0:35:07.280 --> 0:35:09.560 at the beginning, that there's a betrayer in their ranks. 0:35:09.600 --> 0:35:14.239 Somebody keeps giving the Confederation advance information about the new 0:35:14.320 --> 0:35:18.080 weapons systems that they bring online in their robots. 0:35:18.080 --> 0:35:21.520 Right, and of course you only have what five characters 0:35:21.600 --> 0:35:24.760 with names that matter, so you know, you don't have 0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:27.920 that many choices here to go on, but you easily 0:35:27.920 --> 0:35:29.680 can see one of them is a spy, and part 0:35:29.719 --> 0:35:30.799 of the fun of the film is going to be 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:32.279 trying to figure out who that spy is. 0:35:32.800 --> 0:35:37.800 Right, So they are, So there are various people hanging 0:35:37.840 --> 0:35:39.560 out and you get to meet some of the characters. 0:35:39.560 --> 0:35:42.000 One of them, of course, is tex Conway, who've talked 0:35:42.000 --> 0:35:46.120 about before. Techs is Achilles trainer, and he's, as we said, 0:35:46.239 --> 0:35:49.879 a former robot jock himself who had been very successful 0:35:49.920 --> 0:35:53.080 and ultimately victorious. Now I guess he's retired and he's 0:35:53.520 --> 0:35:59.359 he's the burgess Meredith teaching Rocky how to fight. Oh 0:35:59.400 --> 0:36:02.760 and we also find out that they are fighting over Alaska. 0:36:03.280 --> 0:36:06.719 They're fighting for control of Alaska. I'm not sure why 0:36:06.760 --> 0:36:10.560 they want it so bad, but that's what the dispute is. 0:36:10.920 --> 0:36:12.960 Right, Yeah, like maybe it's the first step and then 0:36:13.040 --> 0:36:15.720 subsequently conquering other areas that belong to the market. 0:36:16.640 --> 0:36:20.200 But I guess We find out that Achilles is the 0:36:20.239 --> 0:36:24.640 only robot jock left, that Alexander has killed all of 0:36:24.680 --> 0:36:27.919 the other market robot jocks. It seems like they should 0:36:27.960 --> 0:36:30.400 have had more, but eh, and I guess they are 0:36:30.440 --> 0:36:32.480 making more. We'll get to that in a second. So 0:36:32.880 --> 0:36:35.759 then from mission control. You cut straight to a sparring 0:36:35.880 --> 0:36:40.200 scene where they've got Achilles fighting a circle of people 0:36:40.320 --> 0:36:44.399 all around him. All these people in pads surround him 0:36:44.440 --> 0:36:46.480 and attack him one at a time so he can 0:36:47.040 --> 0:36:48.919 fight them off. It's kind of like that scene in 0:36:49.000 --> 0:36:52.320 The Chinese Connection where Bruce Lee goes to the Japanese 0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:54.560 martial arts school and is surrounded by people in the 0:36:54.600 --> 0:36:56.480 circle and they all come in one at a time 0:36:56.520 --> 0:36:59.960 and he has to fight him off. Except everybody here 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:01.760 wearing goofy looking red pads. 0:37:02.160 --> 0:37:05.120 Not only pads, though, Joe, They're also wearing jumpsuits. Because 0:37:05.480 --> 0:37:09.600 this film is a celebration of futuristic jumpsuits. They're like 0:37:09.760 --> 0:37:12.400 multiple different varieties of jumpsuits, and they seem to be 0:37:12.640 --> 0:37:15.000 whoever was in charge of jumpsuits did a good job 0:37:15.280 --> 0:37:18.279 of putting them together and making them look quality and 0:37:19.160 --> 0:37:21.799 keeping track of who should be wearing what. Which I 0:37:21.880 --> 0:37:24.920 love because I realized more and more watching this film 0:37:25.040 --> 0:37:27.480 that it's something I love about science fiction films. I 0:37:27.520 --> 0:37:31.200 love a good jumpsuit, be it a jumpsuit in something 0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:35.080 like Mystery Science Theater three thousand or any other science 0:37:35.120 --> 0:37:37.880 fiction film. Like in the future, there will be jumpsuits, 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:40.960 and you will be assigned to a jumpsuit, and so. 0:37:41.000 --> 0:37:41.879 Everybody's got one. 0:37:41.920 --> 0:37:45.280 Even Text conways wearing this big, ridiculous bright jumpsuit. 0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:48.400 Yeah, they're red and white jumpsuits. That's so the market 0:37:48.480 --> 0:37:52.440 wears red and white jumpsuits and the Confederation wears I 0:37:52.440 --> 0:37:54.440 think yellow and black jumpsuits. 0:37:55.200 --> 0:37:55.879 I think that's right. 0:37:56.320 --> 0:37:59.960 So we see Gary Graham the Achilles fighting all these people, 0:38:00.080 --> 0:38:03.040 and he does quite well, except there's one fighter who 0:38:03.120 --> 0:38:05.960 really puts up a good fight against him. And it 0:38:06.040 --> 0:38:10.160 turns out that this fighter is Athena, who at first 0:38:10.160 --> 0:38:12.960 I thought her name was Pathena the way they were 0:38:12.960 --> 0:38:15.840 saying it. But we find out that a lot of 0:38:15.880 --> 0:38:19.560 these fighters, or maybe all of them, are something. This 0:38:19.600 --> 0:38:21.600 is again something I couldn't understand what they were saying 0:38:21.600 --> 0:38:24.120 at first, but it becomes clear they are what the 0:38:24.239 --> 0:38:28.640 characters refer to as two bees. In this scene. Text 0:38:28.719 --> 0:38:31.919 makes his prejudice against multiple types of people clear. It's 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:34.840 clear that he does not like two bees, and he 0:38:34.920 --> 0:38:39.000 also states his opinion that women will never be jocks, 0:38:39.239 --> 0:38:41.520 so there will never be a woman robot jock. 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:46.040 Yes, he also doesn't seem to like Japanese people. 0:38:46.160 --> 0:38:48.319 Yes, text is just full of prejudices. 0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:49.879 Yeah, and so. 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:53.439 But then so you're wondering, what are these two bees? 0:38:53.480 --> 0:38:55.799 Why doesn't text like the two bees and what are they? 0:38:56.560 --> 0:39:00.520 Professor Laplace shows up and I love her. She is 0:39:00.719 --> 0:39:05.240 all business. She shows up. She's this this small older 0:39:05.320 --> 0:39:10.600 lady who is apparently like the market's greatest geneticist, greatest scientist, 0:39:10.719 --> 0:39:14.319 and she's there to collect DNA samples from all of 0:39:14.360 --> 0:39:17.280 the great robot jocks. So she like gives these tubes 0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:20.960 to U two Achilles and texts and is like, I 0:39:21.080 --> 0:39:25.800 need your genetic material because she's developing what she calls 0:39:25.960 --> 0:39:29.399 gen jocks, which, as far as I can tell, these 0:39:29.480 --> 0:39:35.560 are these are eugenically created perfect robot jock soldiers that 0:39:35.800 --> 0:39:40.000 are that are created through in vitro fertilization, and there 0:39:40.120 --> 0:39:43.560 is there is like there's a twob race in this movie. 0:39:43.600 --> 0:39:46.160 The people they're calling tubs are these people who are 0:39:46.320 --> 0:39:48.839 who are a product of in vitro fertilization, which they 0:39:48.840 --> 0:39:53.040 regard in the film as this like bizarre futuristic thing, 0:39:53.120 --> 0:39:54.839 even though it was it was already being done at 0:39:54.840 --> 0:39:55.919 the time the movie was made. 0:39:56.280 --> 0:39:56.920 Yeah, it's in it. 0:39:56.960 --> 0:39:58.920 So, first of all, not a lot of detail is 0:39:58.960 --> 0:40:02.560 really provided about how they're supposedly doing this, Like are 0:40:02.560 --> 0:40:06.000 they are they growing two b's at the rate one 0:40:06.040 --> 0:40:10.200 would actually create you know, you know, breed new people 0:40:10.280 --> 0:40:12.040 through a process like this, or is there some sort 0:40:12.040 --> 0:40:14.680 of sci fi speeding up of the process. 0:40:15.040 --> 0:40:15.279 You know? 0:40:15.600 --> 0:40:18.560 Yeah? Is this boys from Brazil? Or is this attack 0:40:18.560 --> 0:40:20.120 of the Clones? I can't tell. 0:40:20.080 --> 0:40:22.759 Well the way it seems like in this movie the 0:40:22.880 --> 0:40:27.920 concept of two bees is invoked because it's it sounds futuristic. 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:30.400 It's almost as if it's being written about by someone 0:40:30.400 --> 0:40:33.680 who didn't maybe didn't even know what was actually involved. 0:40:33.760 --> 0:40:36.640 I'm not sure, right, Yeah, Like I'm one hand on 0:40:36.719 --> 0:40:39.239 the Haldeman level, I think it works perfectly. Is this 0:40:39.360 --> 0:40:44.200 idea that like the military industrial complex ends up absorbing, 0:40:44.280 --> 0:40:47.359 co opting reproduction itself, you know, like that makes sense 0:40:47.400 --> 0:40:51.759 within his his seeming worldview of of of the military engine. 0:40:52.360 --> 0:40:55.839 But yeah, it also hearkens to a time when when 0:40:56.120 --> 0:40:58.160 there were a lot of headlines and certain a certain 0:40:58.160 --> 0:41:01.000 amount of fear mongering and even moral panic about the 0:41:01.000 --> 0:41:05.120 idea of test tube babies. So perhaps some of our 0:41:05.120 --> 0:41:07.879 listeners remember that hysteria because I feel like we see 0:41:08.040 --> 0:41:11.120 less of it now specifically, Yeah. 0:41:11.000 --> 0:41:15.120 Yeah, I mean, I think it's this movie is weirdly 0:41:15.200 --> 0:41:20.000 projecting into the future a kind of temporary, irrational stigma 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:22.960 that arose from culture at a particular time, like in 0:41:23.000 --> 0:41:24.720 the late eighties or early nineties. 0:41:25.120 --> 0:41:27.960 Yeah, because again, what Test two Babies refers to is 0:41:28.000 --> 0:41:31.400 in vitro fertilization, and in vitro means within the glass. 0:41:31.640 --> 0:41:34.120 But the process doesn't actually take place in a test tube, 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:37.080 but rather in a petri dish. The egg is fertilized 0:41:37.080 --> 0:41:40.279 in a petri dish, and when it is three to 0:41:40.320 --> 0:41:43.320 five days old, it's transferred to a uterus. And today 0:41:43.400 --> 0:41:48.080 this is mainstream, granted expensive, but it's a mainstream reproductive choice. 0:41:48.280 --> 0:41:51.800 The term itself, however, this is interesting. Test two Babies 0:41:52.280 --> 0:41:56.239 was coined in the nineteen thirties to refer to artificial insemination. 0:41:56.600 --> 0:41:56.799 Huh. 0:41:57.000 --> 0:41:59.760 So in both cases we can you know, just taste 0:41:59.800 --> 0:42:04.360 them oral panic regarding some sort of new reproduction trend. 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:07.880 And in both cases these are things that you know, 0:42:07.920 --> 0:42:12.319 for the most part, quickly it quickly became normalized. It 0:42:12.440 --> 0:42:15.600 is also interesting that there's like a brief gag in 0:42:15.640 --> 0:42:19.600 the film about just the idea of sperm donation as 0:42:19.640 --> 0:42:22.279 well as Oh yeah in and of itself, is this ridiculous, 0:42:22.480 --> 0:42:25.160 like yuck it up kind of scenario. 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:28.680 Yeah, text goes like, you're right, here's my DNA to 0:42:28.719 --> 0:42:29.880 make no two bees. 0:42:32.120 --> 0:42:37.759 Yeah, that's exactly how it went. So yeah, anyway, another 0:42:37.800 --> 0:42:40.200 case of science fiction doing what science fiction often does. 0:42:40.560 --> 0:42:42.560 But it certainly seems a bit silly now given the 0:42:42.600 --> 0:42:44.160 mainstream acceptance of IVF. 0:42:45.360 --> 0:42:48.839 But the two bees remain a major theme in the film. 0:42:48.920 --> 0:42:54.040 And as I said, Laplace announces to everybody that there 0:42:54.120 --> 0:42:58.560 is basically a two B race between the between the superpowers, 0:42:58.560 --> 0:43:02.279 and each one is creating their own robot jock super soldiers, 0:43:02.640 --> 0:43:06.040 and so there's like a constant escalation back and forth. 0:43:06.960 --> 0:43:09.160 Let's see. So we meet some of the tubs and 0:43:09.480 --> 0:43:11.959 if you watch this movie, they will say the word 0:43:12.000 --> 0:43:14.960 two b's until it loses all meaning. There is just 0:43:15.120 --> 0:43:18.640 so much talk about two bees in this movie. But 0:43:18.760 --> 0:43:21.480 we meet some of the young young soldiers, and of 0:43:21.520 --> 0:43:24.560 course Athena, the one we were talking about earlier, who's 0:43:24.600 --> 0:43:27.239 a major character in the film. And then we see 0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:30.600 Alexander doing a threat video for Achilles. It's kind of 0:43:30.600 --> 0:43:33.920 like those wrestling promos where the wrestler would come out 0:43:33.960 --> 0:43:36.759 and say, like next week, I'm gonna destroy you in 0:43:36.840 --> 0:43:40.359 the cage. But then after that we get a view 0:43:40.400 --> 0:43:43.200 of the populace at large, just people hanging out in 0:43:43.200 --> 0:43:47.239 the street watching on big public TV screens the ongoing 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:51.400 saga of the of the robot Jock's conflict, And so 0:43:51.480 --> 0:43:53.120 this is where we see the dudes in the house 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:56.680 fray hats. But also most people we see in this 0:43:56.760 --> 0:44:00.680 movie who are outside at any point are wearing masks, 0:44:00.760 --> 0:44:03.319 which was kind of strange to watch this year. I 0:44:03.360 --> 0:44:06.480 don't think they're wearing masks for any disease control reason. 0:44:07.000 --> 0:44:09.520 My best guess is that so it's part of the 0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:12.400 setting that the world they live in is after a 0:44:12.480 --> 0:44:15.640 nuclear war has taken place. So my guess is it's 0:44:15.680 --> 0:44:18.520 supposed to be that there are radio nuclides everywhere and 0:44:18.600 --> 0:44:21.440 that the masks are to help prevent people from inhaling 0:44:21.560 --> 0:44:24.320 radioactive particles. I don't know if that would be effective 0:44:24.360 --> 0:44:27.080 in reality, but I think that's at least the reason 0:44:27.440 --> 0:44:29.520 that they're shown wearing them. 0:44:29.640 --> 0:44:31.919 Yeah, it is interesting to watch that this year because 0:44:31.960 --> 0:44:34.399 so many films and TV shows I've watched this year, 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:37.280 I'm just constantly thinking to myself, why are they standing 0:44:37.280 --> 0:44:39.239 so close to each other? Why is no one wearing 0:44:39.239 --> 0:44:39.640 a mask? 0:44:39.800 --> 0:44:40.280 Huh? 0:44:40.320 --> 0:44:43.359 You know, as illogical as it is to expect that 0:44:43.440 --> 0:44:46.120 in a film from ten twenty years ago, right as 0:44:46.120 --> 0:44:48.239 opposed to out in the normal world, where it is 0:44:48.760 --> 0:44:50.239 perfectly reasonable to expect that. 0:44:51.520 --> 0:44:53.640 So it's coming down to the big fight, right, It's 0:44:53.680 --> 0:44:56.360 going to be Achilles versus Alexander. So we see Achilles 0:44:56.440 --> 0:44:58.560 get into his robot and it's like getting ready for 0:44:58.560 --> 0:45:01.440 a rocket launch. There's like a law platform and there's 0:45:01.520 --> 0:45:04.680 all this staff getting everything ready. He's wearing his jumpsuit 0:45:04.760 --> 0:45:08.120 and his helmet and everybody, instead of break a leg, 0:45:08.200 --> 0:45:11.280 they say crash and burn. That's the good luck saying. 0:45:11.320 --> 0:45:13.279 And in fact they specify in the movie that it 0:45:13.360 --> 0:45:15.360 is bad luck to say good luck, just like in 0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:18.160 a theater. While we were watching it, Rachel made some 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:20.560 good joke. She said something like, we call it the 0:45:20.640 --> 0:45:24.360 confed play. Might have gotten that wrong on the delivery. 0:45:24.360 --> 0:45:28.960 But anyway, Achilles gets into a giant Optimus Prime. And 0:45:29.640 --> 0:45:31.839 of course there are a bunch of kids who call 0:45:31.920 --> 0:45:34.400 Achilles on a video phone before he goes into battle. 0:45:34.440 --> 0:45:38.880 I think they're his brother's many children and or his 0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:43.560 brother in law, maybe his sister's husbands. Anyways, a bunch 0:45:43.560 --> 0:45:45.000 of people call him on a video phone and they 0:45:45.000 --> 0:45:48.280 wish him good luck, and then so he goes into battle, 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:51.160 and then we get one of the first big full 0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:55.160 stop motion animation fight scenes. We get to see what 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:58.160 the robots do when they fight, and I love the 0:45:58.200 --> 0:46:01.960 effects in this scene. You get these these they sort 0:46:01.960 --> 0:46:04.080 of like go down the list of trying out each 0:46:04.120 --> 0:46:06.319 of their weapons on each other, like they're like, try 0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:10.279 that new green laser pair. And this scene I thought 0:46:10.360 --> 0:46:12.960 is just great. Like it's not like it looks realistic, 0:46:13.040 --> 0:46:15.239 but that's not the point. It looks excellent. 0:46:15.520 --> 0:46:19.120 And I have to say the animation style that they use, 0:46:19.160 --> 0:46:21.759 the stop motion animation and the suits as well. They 0:46:21.800 --> 0:46:26.560 create a very clunky sort of movement, which I think 0:46:26.680 --> 0:46:29.040 really works well in the film because we're used to 0:46:29.080 --> 0:46:32.120 seeing some giant robot battles and more recent things like 0:46:32.160 --> 0:46:35.560 the Pacific Rim movies and so forth, and there's a 0:46:35.600 --> 0:46:39.279 lot of like fluid modern action in those films. But 0:46:39.560 --> 0:46:43.200 I feel like the clunky action in this works works 0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:47.479 really well because it does feel like colossal machines doing 0:46:47.560 --> 0:46:50.880 very specific things, and the stakes are really high, like 0:46:51.520 --> 0:46:54.799 there's no wasted movement, and we'll get into some of 0:46:55.000 --> 0:46:58.960 the physical challenges of the idea of giant machines battling 0:46:58.960 --> 0:47:01.160 each other in a bit. But but I ultimately really 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:03.640 like the kind of clunky and deliberate motions that happen 0:47:03.719 --> 0:47:04.400 in these battles. 0:47:04.560 --> 0:47:08.600 Yes, and so the battle ends with a horrific tragedy. 0:47:08.719 --> 0:47:10.680 So they sort of fight each other to a draw. 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:14.799 But then then Alexander tries to do something dirty and 0:47:15.080 --> 0:47:18.200 fire a fire a projectile weapon at a part in 0:47:18.239 --> 0:47:20.360 the match when he's not supposed to do that, and 0:47:20.440 --> 0:47:23.080 it looks like it's going to hit the stands of spectators. 0:47:23.120 --> 0:47:25.719 I don't know why there were stands of live spectators by. 0:47:25.880 --> 0:47:27.040 This is it's a power claw. 0:47:27.120 --> 0:47:29.560 It's like a power punch, Yeah, exactly, Like he launches 0:47:29.760 --> 0:47:31.760 the fist of the robot. 0:47:31.560 --> 0:47:36.399 And Achilles is like, no the people to reference Superman four. 0:47:36.680 --> 0:47:38.719 He goes no the people, and he dives in front 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:41.239 of it before it can hit the stands. But I 0:47:41.239 --> 0:47:43.279 don't know, I guess he should have anticipated this. The 0:47:43.320 --> 0:47:46.440 power claw hits him and knocks him back and he 0:47:46.600 --> 0:47:51.000 falls on the stands. Crushing tons of people and killing them, 0:47:51.040 --> 0:47:53.480 and there is I'm not sure I was trying to 0:47:53.480 --> 0:47:56.160 put my finger on what exactly is so funny about this, 0:47:56.520 --> 0:47:59.959 but the staging of the horrific mayhem that we see 0:48:00.080 --> 0:48:03.640 in the aftermath of him falling on the stands is hilarious. 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:07.480 There are all these like bloody bodies all over the place, 0:48:07.480 --> 0:48:10.120 but for some reason it looks so funny. And I 0:48:10.200 --> 0:48:13.200 think maybe it's because the bodies are all kind of 0:48:13.239 --> 0:48:17.359 like perfectly evenly spaced apart from each other. It just 0:48:17.400 --> 0:48:19.440 looks staged in a really funny way. 0:48:19.719 --> 0:48:22.440 I didn't get that as much, but I was thinking, well, like, well, 0:48:22.520 --> 0:48:24.319 I don't think the boy needed to see this, so 0:48:24.920 --> 0:48:28.040 that we didn't watch it. One kind of neat bit 0:48:28.080 --> 0:48:30.839 of trivia about that scene, though, is apparently audio from 0:48:30.920 --> 0:48:33.160 it is used in the creation was used in the 0:48:33.160 --> 0:48:35.879 creation of the Nine Inch Nails track the becoming off 0:48:35.920 --> 0:48:40.040 of the Downward Spiral huh okay, which I'd never picked 0:48:40.080 --> 0:48:43.920 up on that before. But as it turns out, like 0:48:43.960 --> 0:48:45.719 that album, as much as we might think of the 0:48:45.719 --> 0:48:49.640 Downward Spiral as just you know being this this industrial, 0:48:49.960 --> 0:48:54.919 you know, deep gothic, phallic oriented, you know, plunge into 0:48:54.920 --> 0:48:59.400 the psyche. It's ultimately a celebration of science fiction films 0:48:59.400 --> 0:49:02.960 from the because you've got samples from Robot Jocks, but 0:49:03.000 --> 0:49:09.240 also from THHX eleven thirty eight, from Leviathan, Angel Heart, Texas, Chainsaw, Massacre, Alien, 0:49:09.280 --> 0:49:13.200 the Elephant Man, and Sorcerer, The Truck movie. Yeah, the 0:49:13.440 --> 0:49:18.160 Truck movie, the remake of Wages of Fear that had 0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:21.400 the awesome, I mean just amazing Tangerine Dream soundtrack. 0:49:21.960 --> 0:49:26.200 You had me at Leviathan. So next thing in the movie, 0:49:26.280 --> 0:49:29.160 we get to see what their international Criminal Cord or 0:49:29.160 --> 0:49:31.239 whatever it is looks like, and it's just dudes in 0:49:31.280 --> 0:49:36.759 referee outfits, which like, so these these referees are now 0:49:36.800 --> 0:49:40.200 settling international disputes. Who appoints them? Where do they come from? 0:49:40.360 --> 0:49:40.839 I don't know. 0:49:41.800 --> 0:49:43.920 I assume it's supposed to be some sort of United 0:49:44.000 --> 0:49:48.560 Nations type thing. But yeah, they have this cool floating vehicle, 0:49:48.680 --> 0:49:53.640 this like hover hovering referee vehicle that they use, which 0:49:53.680 --> 0:49:54.239 is pretty cool. 0:49:54.640 --> 0:49:58.440 But they're wearing literally the black and white stripe referee outfits, 0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:02.719 and they're they're like justice. They're like judges presiding over 0:50:02.760 --> 0:50:05.880 a trial in which both sides are presenting arguments about 0:50:05.880 --> 0:50:09.040 why they technically won this match in which a bunch 0:50:09.040 --> 0:50:12.239 of people got crushed, and it turns out the referees 0:50:12.280 --> 0:50:15.040 decided is inconclusive and there will have to be a 0:50:15.120 --> 0:50:19.600 rematch in one week, and of course Alexander loves this. 0:50:19.800 --> 0:50:21.640 He cries out in the trial. 0:50:21.760 --> 0:50:24.560 He says, yes, one week, I kill you dead. 0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:28.200 And Achilles is very sad because he does not want 0:50:28.200 --> 0:50:32.120 to fight anymore. He says, I did my contract ten fights. 0:50:32.640 --> 0:50:36.600 That's it. So he's like, I won't do anymore. I retire, 0:50:37.719 --> 0:50:40.840 and Alexander calls him out. He says, coward, you lost 0:50:40.880 --> 0:50:41.440 your nerve. 0:50:42.000 --> 0:50:44.320 Well, he's also really torn up about all the people 0:50:44.360 --> 0:50:48.320 that died when his robot fell into the stand, right, yes, 0:50:48.600 --> 0:50:50.640 so I think it's understandable. Like he's like, I'm done, 0:50:50.640 --> 0:50:52.360 I don't want any more. There's let the tubbs handle it. 0:50:52.360 --> 0:50:54.279 And the two Bees, of course are like, yes, yeah, 0:50:54.320 --> 0:50:56.600 let us in there. This is all we've been raised 0:50:56.640 --> 0:50:57.120 to do. Oh. 0:50:57.160 --> 0:50:59.719 They're so excited that the two b's are loving it. 0:50:59.800 --> 0:51:01.880 One of them is going to get to fight. So 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:04.120 one of the two Bee boys says Achilles is a 0:51:04.160 --> 0:51:07.480 coward for retiring, but Pathena is not having it, She 0:51:07.560 --> 0:51:10.880 stands up for Achilles, and Athena is like, he's not 0:51:10.960 --> 0:51:14.239 a coward, and then we get an argument with the 0:51:14.680 --> 0:51:18.600 market commissioner. I guess he's like Achilles's boss. I'm not 0:51:18.640 --> 0:51:21.799 sure exactly what he's supposed to be, but he's in 0:51:21.920 --> 0:51:24.240 charge of the robot jocks for the market side, I guess. 0:51:24.239 --> 0:51:27.919 And he tries to argue. We get like squabbling over 0:51:27.960 --> 0:51:30.960 what the contract means. He's like, you haven't actually finished 0:51:30.960 --> 0:51:33.959 your contract because you didn't finish ten fights. The last 0:51:33.960 --> 0:51:37.520 one was inconclusive, and it isn't over until someone wins. 0:51:37.920 --> 0:51:41.120 And then Achilles response, I don't know what this line means. 0:51:41.280 --> 0:51:43.640 He responds by saying, you sound like one of your 0:51:43.719 --> 0:51:48.440 damn two bees. What is the meaning of that? 0:51:50.360 --> 0:51:50.759 I don't know. 0:51:50.840 --> 0:51:53.280 I guess it's just that the two bees are utterly 0:51:53.280 --> 0:51:56.319 indoctrinated into this idea of. 0:51:57.800 --> 0:51:58.320 Warfare. 0:51:58.560 --> 0:52:01.000 Okay, you like the. 0:52:00.960 --> 0:52:04.440 New generation has raised for it and knows nothing else has. 0:52:04.560 --> 0:52:07.160 And just in a way, it's kind of like they 0:52:07.200 --> 0:52:12.320 represent like youthful vigor for in almost innocence before the battle. 0:52:12.760 --> 0:52:15.080 And of course he is the veteran, he's been through it, 0:52:15.120 --> 0:52:19.000 he's come out the other end and knows that warfare 0:52:19.080 --> 0:52:20.080 is horrible. 0:52:19.840 --> 0:52:22.879 Right, So I guess the next thing that we get 0:52:22.880 --> 0:52:25.799 to is this really amazing scene. It's like there's a 0:52:25.880 --> 0:52:29.480 dance party in a bar that includes text dancing with 0:52:29.520 --> 0:52:33.200 a woman and it's hard to describe it. You just 0:52:33.360 --> 0:52:35.920 need to see this scene. It's like the scene in 0:52:36.160 --> 0:52:41.000 Message from Space where they have their cantena equivalent. It 0:52:41.120 --> 0:52:42.840 is a party that must be witnessed. 0:52:43.160 --> 0:52:44.800 Yeah, it's a fun cantena scene. 0:52:45.160 --> 0:52:46.960 And so while this dance party is going on in 0:52:47.000 --> 0:52:50.280 the background, Achilles, now depressed, is in the bar getting 0:52:50.360 --> 0:52:53.520 blackout drunk. He's doing this thing where he's drinking the alphabet. 0:52:53.600 --> 0:52:55.840 So he's going down the alphabet, drinking a drink for 0:52:55.880 --> 0:52:58.880 every letter, and I think he's made his way to 0:52:59.000 --> 0:53:01.840 J and bartender suggests a julop. 0:53:02.280 --> 0:53:02.480 Wow. 0:53:02.600 --> 0:53:04.759 Wow, this is This is an interesting concept that I 0:53:04.840 --> 0:53:10.239 kind of glossed over watching the film. Certainly not advisable 0:53:10.400 --> 0:53:12.560 for a single evening, though, but I wonder what would 0:53:12.600 --> 0:53:14.399 be the proper way to drink the alphabet. It would 0:53:14.400 --> 0:53:16.640 be kind of interesting to make that list and to 0:53:16.680 --> 0:53:19.600 pick out a particular cocktail for each one. 0:53:20.200 --> 0:53:24.920 What starts with a give me one alcohol, please. But 0:53:25.040 --> 0:53:27.640 so then he's sitting there and then all the twob's 0:53:27.719 --> 0:53:30.520 come in and they're young and full of excitement and vigor, 0:53:30.560 --> 0:53:33.040 and they try to cheer Achilles up talking about how 0:53:33.120 --> 0:53:37.200 the they this was great. The way they try to 0:53:37.280 --> 0:53:39.440 cheer him up is they talk about, Hey, the audience 0:53:39.480 --> 0:53:42.760 members in the stands signed releases. You know, they agreed 0:53:42.800 --> 0:53:44.640 to be there. They knew what the risks were. You 0:53:44.640 --> 0:53:45.640 shouldn't feel bad. 0:53:46.000 --> 0:53:49.000 Yeah, they the two b's have just bought every line 0:53:49.040 --> 0:53:50.560 that the markets has told them. 0:53:50.640 --> 0:53:52.239 Yeah, I just believe it all absolutely. 0:53:52.560 --> 0:53:55.399 They like they actually read the fine print and they 0:53:55.480 --> 0:53:58.279 love it. They're all on board with every bit of 0:53:58.320 --> 0:54:02.120 the contract. And then Alexander shows up and this is 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:04.920 one of multiple scenes in the movie where the characters 0:54:04.920 --> 0:54:08.120 are drinking in this bar that they share with the 0:54:08.120 --> 0:54:11.759 opposing side and I don't know how to So so 0:54:11.800 --> 0:54:15.560 the premise that's going on is that the Confederation is 0:54:15.600 --> 0:54:19.359 constantly winning these fights because of info security leaks on 0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:22.480 the market side, like there are spies and everybody's concerned 0:54:22.520 --> 0:54:25.280 about how people are finding out about the new weapons 0:54:25.280 --> 0:54:28.759 systems on the market robots. But then at night, the 0:54:28.800 --> 0:54:31.480 two different sides just go get drunk together in the 0:54:31.520 --> 0:54:34.440 same bar. That's that seems not secure. 0:54:34.840 --> 0:54:37.759 Yeah, absolutely, it seems like a terrible idea, but it 0:54:37.840 --> 0:54:41.120 works really well to move the plot along because it's 0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:43.280 one of those things. Anytime you have giant robot battles 0:54:43.320 --> 0:54:45.560 or giant monster suit battles or whatever, you got to 0:54:45.600 --> 0:54:47.960 have a lot of human interaction to pad out the movie. 0:54:48.320 --> 0:54:49.919 And this works well for the most part. 0:54:50.000 --> 0:54:53.840 Right, So, one of the kids, so Alexander shows up 0:54:53.880 --> 0:54:55.799 at the bar and he's just being a bully. He's 0:54:55.840 --> 0:54:58.239 just swinging his weight around, just being me and to everybody, 0:54:58.600 --> 0:55:03.520 and one of the kids, Chow lenges him, and he scoffs. 0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:07.880 He's like, I do not fight two bees. So apparently 0:55:08.160 --> 0:55:13.200 Alexander is also prejudiced against the two bees. And Alexander 0:55:13.280 --> 0:55:16.680 starts twisting this kid's fingers and then Achilles, still drunk, 0:55:16.719 --> 0:55:20.560 intervenes and that they start to fight. But then Alexander 0:55:20.600 --> 0:55:23.239 says he will not fight him. Now, he says, I 0:55:23.360 --> 0:55:26.359 do not fight for fun. What do you fight for? 0:55:27.000 --> 0:55:29.759 Which is a strange moment where the movie suddenly like 0:55:29.960 --> 0:55:32.120 asks you to be thoughtful in a way that it 0:55:32.160 --> 0:55:35.280 hasn't maybe so far or certainly not for a while, 0:55:35.880 --> 0:55:38.319 And because it appears that Achilles does not actually know, 0:55:38.480 --> 0:55:42.040 he's maybe like, huh, I've spent my life becoming a soldier, 0:55:42.080 --> 0:55:44.440 but I really don't know if there's a good reason 0:55:45.360 --> 0:55:47.040 for any of the fighting that I'm doing. 0:55:47.440 --> 0:55:50.400 It feels like an artifact of an earlier version of 0:55:50.440 --> 0:55:52.920 the script, but it's also an energy that we come 0:55:52.960 --> 0:55:53.560 back to later. 0:55:53.719 --> 0:55:59.000 Right, So, Athena carries the drunk Achilles home. She apparently 0:55:59.040 --> 0:56:01.400 she takes his clothes off, and then the next morning 0:56:01.400 --> 0:56:05.200 they have this long, like naked hangover conversation where he's 0:56:05.200 --> 0:56:09.160 like dragging his sheets around and arguing with her about 0:56:10.239 --> 0:56:13.720 arguing about what they're fighting for and who should be fighting, 0:56:13.800 --> 0:56:19.239 and Athena gets mad at him, I guess because he's retiring, 0:56:19.280 --> 0:56:21.880 and she's like, I was bred not to have fear. 0:56:22.080 --> 0:56:25.520 I was bred for a purpose. You you just happened. 0:56:26.040 --> 0:56:29.040 And so it's clear actually that the prejudice kind of 0:56:29.040 --> 0:56:32.600 goes both ways. Like the two bees apparently disdain non 0:56:32.680 --> 0:56:36.799 tubes because they exist for no particular reason. 0:56:36.840 --> 0:56:40.840 Yeah, just random existence. Yeah, so it's interesting. There's a 0:56:40.840 --> 0:56:43.440 fair amount of cool world building going on in this film. 0:56:43.520 --> 0:56:46.319 Yeah, and so she's like one of the things in 0:56:46.360 --> 0:56:48.200 the scene I think is she's trying to figure out, like, 0:56:48.239 --> 0:56:50.480 what are the secrets of how he always won his 0:56:50.520 --> 0:56:53.200 battles and he was and he's like, I don't know 0:56:53.239 --> 0:56:56.160 a lot of it's just luck. And she doesn't like 0:56:56.239 --> 0:56:58.319 this answer, so she gets really mad at him, and 0:56:58.360 --> 0:57:00.920 she says, I wanted to learn the secret the great Achilles, 0:57:01.000 --> 0:57:04.080 but you just talk about luck and fear. There's nothing 0:57:04.120 --> 0:57:08.520 you can teach me except how to lose. So there's 0:57:08.520 --> 0:57:12.160 another scene where we see like the the youngsters training, 0:57:12.280 --> 0:57:15.200 they're they're doing their their their to B exercises, and 0:57:15.400 --> 0:57:18.200 Text reiterates to Achilles. He says, for the second time, 0:57:18.280 --> 0:57:20.560 you know a woman can never be a robot jock. 0:57:21.000 --> 0:57:21.240 Yeah. 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:24.280 Yeah, he's again the old the old fashioned attitudes of 0:57:24.920 --> 0:57:25.400 texts here. 0:57:25.560 --> 0:57:28.960 Yeah, so Text is quite the sexist and he and 0:57:29.000 --> 0:57:31.880 he makes it clear over and over. But this does 0:57:31.920 --> 0:57:34.760 not this does not discourage Achilles from retiring. I think 0:57:34.800 --> 0:57:37.680 maybe he's trying to talk Achilles into staying on. He's like, look, 0:57:37.720 --> 0:57:39.400 you know, you're the only one who can do it. 0:57:39.880 --> 0:57:43.320 But Achilles retires anyway, and he becomes a civvy. So 0:57:43.360 --> 0:57:46.000 you see him just suddenly going around the city. He's 0:57:46.040 --> 0:57:49.560 not at mission control anymore. He sees a mural on 0:57:49.600 --> 0:57:52.080 a wall somewhere. I think that has his picture on it, 0:57:52.120 --> 0:57:56.120 and someone has written the word coward but misspelled it's 0:57:56.200 --> 0:57:56.919 cow erd. 0:57:57.400 --> 0:57:58.960 Now, how do you know that's not just how they 0:57:58.960 --> 0:58:00.120 spell in the future, Joe. 0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:02.920 That's true. Spelling changes over time. That's a very good point. 0:58:03.120 --> 0:58:06.160 It's just like how in the future the word jocks 0:58:06.240 --> 0:58:10.280 plural is spelled with an X instead of cks. But 0:58:10.400 --> 0:58:14.120 so now the market's got a problem. Achilles, their greatest warrior, 0:58:14.160 --> 0:58:16.040 has retired. So they've got to put one of these 0:58:16.040 --> 0:58:18.800 two b's in the robot to fight Alexander. So they 0:58:18.800 --> 0:58:22.360 go through some rapid two B training and the way 0:58:22.440 --> 0:58:26.080 this shakes out is that Athena and the other two 0:58:26.080 --> 0:58:30.080 bees have to climb the Agrocrag. There's this big, rattling 0:58:30.200 --> 0:58:33.160 jungle gym of death, and they're all fighting each other 0:58:33.240 --> 0:58:35.240 to get to the top first and climb through this 0:58:35.320 --> 0:58:38.720 hole in the ceiling. And Athena is victorious. She is 0:58:38.760 --> 0:58:40.920 the greatest of the two bes, so she's going to 0:58:40.960 --> 0:58:44.280 become the new Jocks, And as a newscaster declares, she 0:58:44.400 --> 0:58:49.440 is the first female robo jock. But Achilles, now at home, 0:58:49.600 --> 0:58:52.160 sees this on TV and he's like, no, I can't 0:58:52.240 --> 0:58:55.640 let her go into battle, so he goes back. He 0:58:55.720 --> 0:58:58.160 goes back to Jock's control and he's like, I will 0:58:58.160 --> 0:59:01.360 be the jock and he It rains with Texts, and 0:59:02.120 --> 0:59:06.040 then there's a scene where doctor Matsumoto and Text begin 0:59:06.120 --> 0:59:09.640 to argue about how to best keep the new robot 0:59:09.720 --> 0:59:14.160 system a secret from spies. Doctor Matsumoto has taken measures 0:59:14.160 --> 0:59:16.120 to keep it secret in a way that Text does 0:59:16.160 --> 0:59:19.800 not approve of. And so there's more drinking at the bar. 0:59:19.960 --> 0:59:22.400 Of course I mentioned that would come back. Alexander sits 0:59:22.440 --> 0:59:25.600 down next to Achilles and he declares that you make 0:59:25.720 --> 0:59:30.440 my drink taste like blood? Is that an expression? What 0:59:30.520 --> 0:59:33.280 does that mean? Do you know what he's getting at there? 0:59:33.480 --> 0:59:36.000 I can think of no way that that makes sense. Yeah, 0:59:36.080 --> 0:59:38.600 unless because he is he saying I can't tell he's 0:59:38.640 --> 0:59:40.880 saying it in a way where he's like, my drink 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:43.080 is better because it tastes like blood, or is it 0:59:43.120 --> 0:59:45.240 worse because it tastes like blood. It's really hard to 0:59:45.280 --> 0:59:47.840 get a read on what exactly floats Alexander's boat here. 0:59:47.960 --> 0:59:51.440 Yeah, so we're ramping up to the final confrontation between 0:59:51.480 --> 0:59:56.080 Achilles and Alexander. But then before that, there is a 0:59:56.160 --> 0:59:58.760 great scene where I think maybe we shouldn't reveal what happens, 0:59:58.800 --> 1:00:02.400 but there is a conference about who is actually the 1:00:02.520 --> 1:00:05.120 spy on the market side, who's been leaking the new 1:00:05.160 --> 1:00:08.640 technology secrets to the enemy. There's a there's a great 1:00:08.680 --> 1:00:12.240 show down there that has some some good dialogue in it, actually, 1:00:12.280 --> 1:00:15.440 well some like good dialogue that changes almost mid sentence 1:00:15.480 --> 1:00:17.240 to become hilariously cliched. 1:00:17.560 --> 1:00:22.000 Yeah, it's punctuated by hilarious cliches, but has some some 1:00:22.160 --> 1:00:23.040 nice lines in there. 1:00:23.120 --> 1:00:23.440 Yeah. 1:00:23.480 --> 1:00:25.680 So it's it's a very interesting scene. And of course 1:00:25.720 --> 1:00:26.480 the spy is. 1:00:26.480 --> 1:00:28.360 Revealed, but we won't spoil it for you. We're not 1:00:28.360 --> 1:00:31.000 going to tell you who the spy is. But then anyway, 1:00:31.360 --> 1:00:33.960 so Athena comes to achilles room the night before the 1:00:33.960 --> 1:00:36.800 big battle, and you think maybe this is going to 1:00:36.880 --> 1:00:39.360 pan out to be like a love scene, but instead 1:00:39.840 --> 1:00:42.560 she tricks him and shoots him with a sedative and 1:00:42.600 --> 1:00:46.080 locks him in his apartment because her angle is no, 1:00:46.560 --> 1:00:49.520 I will be the robot Jock, I will fight Alexander. 1:00:49.960 --> 1:00:51.600 I don't mean to harp on the film, because the 1:00:51.600 --> 1:00:53.880 film looks great and I love I love the way 1:00:53.920 --> 1:00:56.760 the sets look, I love I love the props, I 1:00:56.840 --> 1:01:01.040 love I love everything. But in this scene when she 1:01:02.160 --> 1:01:05.680 uses an injector gun on him, it's fairly obvious that 1:01:05.840 --> 1:01:10.360 in the wide shots she's using a hot glue gun, 1:01:10.600 --> 1:01:12.600 like a hot glue gun that's been painted silver, and 1:01:12.640 --> 1:01:15.919 then on close ups it's like an actual injection gun 1:01:16.000 --> 1:01:18.760 or something that looks more far more believably like an 1:01:18.760 --> 1:01:21.520 injection gun. So it's just something interesting. I noticed they 1:01:21.520 --> 1:01:23.400 didn't really take me out of the film, And again 1:01:23.440 --> 1:01:26.280 I don't want to harp on it, like this is like, yeah, 1:01:26.320 --> 1:01:29.000 you know, the cheapness of the movie, because for the 1:01:29.040 --> 1:01:30.640 most part it looks wonderful. 1:01:30.920 --> 1:01:34.280 The effects budget went mainly into the robot battles, I think. 1:01:34.680 --> 1:01:37.000 And jumpsuits too, jumpsuits and robot battles. 1:01:37.120 --> 1:01:40.200 Yes, but I think you're right. In the close ups 1:01:40.000 --> 1:01:42.720 it's a regular prop gun. So it makes me wonder 1:01:42.760 --> 1:01:44.640 why they couldn't use the regular prop gun in the 1:01:44.640 --> 1:01:46.560 wide shots too. But in the wide shots it's a 1:01:46.680 --> 1:01:48.160 thousand percent of hot glue gun. 1:01:48.320 --> 1:01:50.880 Yeah, maybe something that changed pretty late in production. 1:01:51.120 --> 1:01:55.160 Yeah. So anyway, the next morning, Athena goes in to 1:01:55.400 --> 1:01:58.400 take Achilles place inside the robot. She's got her visor 1:01:58.440 --> 1:02:00.520 down so nobody can see who she is. She pretending 1:02:00.560 --> 1:02:02.680 to be him, and she's going to go do the 1:02:02.720 --> 1:02:07.480 fight herself. Meanwhile, meanwhile, Achilles escapes his apartment and he 1:02:07.600 --> 1:02:10.680 runs to the battlefield, and we get this final showdown. 1:02:10.680 --> 1:02:12.520 And I don't know how much we should say about 1:02:12.600 --> 1:02:15.400 the final showdown or how exactly to talk about it, 1:02:15.440 --> 1:02:18.480 but it's a pretty great robot battle that involves flying 1:02:18.520 --> 1:02:24.480 into space and different interesting weapons get deployed. I don't know, 1:02:24.680 --> 1:02:25.480 it's a lot of fun. 1:02:25.720 --> 1:02:26.000 Yeah. 1:02:26.040 --> 1:02:29.040 I mean there's one I will spoil one weapon that 1:02:29.080 --> 1:02:32.800 they use that is the bolo saw, which I remember 1:02:33.160 --> 1:02:35.720 from watching part of this I think probably on Sci 1:02:35.720 --> 1:02:39.160 Fi Channel back in the day, but even in the rewatch, 1:02:39.200 --> 1:02:41.320 it was just a wonderful moment because I've never seen 1:02:41.320 --> 1:02:44.760 a sci Fi weapon quite like it. It's this device 1:02:44.800 --> 1:02:47.080 it like shoots a chain around the limb of another 1:02:47.160 --> 1:02:51.080 robot and then that boloed chain like locks into place, 1:02:51.440 --> 1:02:54.840 allowing rotary motion of the chain, so it works kind 1:02:54.880 --> 1:02:58.280 of like an inverted chainsaw then to saw off the 1:02:58.280 --> 1:03:02.400 limb of an enemy robot, and it's wonderful. It's great. 1:03:02.560 --> 1:03:05.320 I'm surprised it's not. I don't know that I've seen 1:03:05.360 --> 1:03:08.640 it ripped off in any subsequent giant robot movie or anything, 1:03:08.680 --> 1:03:11.200 but they should because it's a fabulous weapon. 1:03:11.400 --> 1:03:23.040 Yeah, totally. Maybe we should just focus on the big 1:03:23.120 --> 1:03:25.760 robots for a minute before we get to the glory 1:03:25.760 --> 1:03:26.360 of the ending. 1:03:26.680 --> 1:03:26.919 Yeah. 1:03:26.960 --> 1:03:29.280 So again, the robots look pretty awesome in this a 1:03:29.760 --> 1:03:32.520 combo of awesome old school stop motion, and I think 1:03:32.560 --> 1:03:35.880 some old school man ensued effects and the battles may 1:03:35.920 --> 1:03:38.560 not feel as dynamic as something you get nowadays or 1:03:38.600 --> 1:03:41.560 even in mech fiction of decades past, but it all 1:03:41.600 --> 1:03:43.880 has a feeling of authenticity to it, and I think 1:03:43.960 --> 1:03:46.520 one of the main reasons, and this is something that 1:03:46.560 --> 1:03:50.080 I think ties in well with you know, some elements 1:03:50.120 --> 1:03:53.320 you see in the Forever War. These are big weapons 1:03:53.640 --> 1:03:57.320 and mass and gravity. These are perpetually your greatest threat 1:03:57.600 --> 1:04:01.200 and your enemy's greatest weakness. As such, one of the 1:04:01.240 --> 1:04:04.000 worst things that could possibly happen to you in one 1:04:04.040 --> 1:04:08.040 of these robot jocks, Max is that you might fall 1:04:08.120 --> 1:04:09.320 over or be pushed over. 1:04:09.720 --> 1:04:12.760 Yeah, and this is actually, I think, really smart, Like 1:04:12.800 --> 1:04:16.160 if you're going to take the premise seriously, it's good 1:04:16.160 --> 1:04:17.880 to think about physics in this way. And I guess 1:04:17.920 --> 1:04:20.560 Haldeman did you know, he knew a lot about physics, 1:04:20.560 --> 1:04:23.360 and so he did actually have this in mind. And 1:04:23.400 --> 1:04:25.880 I think this is a great monster science connection because 1:04:25.960 --> 1:04:30.160 it's worth keeping this in mind about biology. Evolutionary design 1:04:30.320 --> 1:04:35.320 problems are not symmetrical across great differences in scale. One 1:04:35.320 --> 1:04:38.040 of the examples of this offen sided is, you know 1:04:38.080 --> 1:04:40.760 those like articles we've probably said things like this in 1:04:40.800 --> 1:04:43.240 the past, being you know, being kind of loose when 1:04:43.280 --> 1:04:45.520 we talked about it, where you say, like, if a 1:04:45.560 --> 1:04:48.760 flea were the size of a car, it could jump 1:04:48.800 --> 1:04:51.320 the height of the Empire, state building or something like that. 1:04:51.720 --> 1:04:54.880 Except the problem is, in a way, that could be 1:04:54.960 --> 1:04:58.000 true just as a matter of you know, scaling up 1:04:58.040 --> 1:05:00.760 the distance of a fleas jump, but it's also not 1:05:00.920 --> 1:05:03.320 literally true, because if a flea were the size of 1:05:03.320 --> 1:05:05.640 a car, it wouldn't be able to do that anymore. 1:05:05.680 --> 1:05:09.920 It's like athleticism would not scale up proportionately. It's because 1:05:10.040 --> 1:05:12.520 it's the size it is that it can make that 1:05:12.640 --> 1:05:16.680 jump proportional to its body length. So depending on the 1:05:16.680 --> 1:05:21.280 size of your body, you actually face vastly different threats 1:05:21.320 --> 1:05:25.040 and different constraints from the physical world. And one of 1:05:25.040 --> 1:05:28.400 my favorite examples, which I think people rarely think about, 1:05:28.640 --> 1:05:32.440 is the amazing difference that body size makes when you're 1:05:32.480 --> 1:05:36.680 thinking about the dangers posed to you by water. So 1:05:36.680 --> 1:05:40.560 there's a classic article by the great scientist JBS Haldane, 1:05:40.600 --> 1:05:45.040 who was behind a number of extremely important biological concepts 1:05:45.040 --> 1:05:48.560 in the twentieth century. He wrote this article called on 1:05:48.800 --> 1:05:51.680 Being the Right Size, And this is a paragraph that 1:05:51.680 --> 1:05:53.640 I remember when I first read this, This really did 1:05:53.680 --> 1:05:58.880 blow my mind. So think about this. Haldane writes, A 1:05:58.920 --> 1:06:01.600 man coming out of the carries with him a film 1:06:01.640 --> 1:06:04.960 of water about one fiftieth of an inch in thickness. 1:06:05.400 --> 1:06:09.280 This way is roughly a pound. A wet mouse has 1:06:09.360 --> 1:06:13.280 to carry about its own weight of water. A wet 1:06:13.440 --> 1:06:17.439 fly has to lift many times its own weight. And 1:06:17.560 --> 1:06:20.920 as everyone knows, a fly, once wetted by water in 1:06:21.040 --> 1:06:24.320 any other liquid, is in a very serious position. Indeed, 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:27.400 an insect going for a drink is in as great 1:06:27.520 --> 1:06:30.840 danger as a man leaning out over a precipice in 1:06:30.880 --> 1:06:33.960 search of food, if it once falls into the grip 1:06:33.960 --> 1:06:36.600 of the surface tension of the water. That is to say, 1:06:36.680 --> 1:06:40.120 it gets wet, it is likely to remain so until 1:06:40.160 --> 1:06:44.200 it drowns. A few insects, such as water beetles, contrive 1:06:44.280 --> 1:06:47.600 to be unwettable. The majority keep well away from their 1:06:47.680 --> 1:06:51.120 drink by means of a long prebossis. So it's amazing 1:06:51.160 --> 1:06:53.720 to think about how like getting wet doesn't bother us 1:06:53.760 --> 1:06:56.080 at all, but for much smaller animals because of the 1:06:56.160 --> 1:06:58.840 difference in like the mass of your body and the 1:06:58.840 --> 1:07:01.360 strength of your muscles can compared to the surface area 1:07:01.400 --> 1:07:04.000 of your body and the properties of water at that scale, 1:07:04.400 --> 1:07:08.120 water could be like this horrifying slime that takes a 1:07:08.200 --> 1:07:11.680 grip on you and like you can't get away from. 1:07:12.160 --> 1:07:15.120 But a lot of these asymmetries, not all of them, 1:07:15.160 --> 1:07:17.720 but a lot of them are based on the force 1:07:17.800 --> 1:07:20.560 of gravity and the ratio of surface area to mass 1:07:20.600 --> 1:07:23.000 as an object gets bigger. And this brings us back 1:07:23.040 --> 1:07:25.520 to the robot jocks. So to read a section from 1:07:25.600 --> 1:07:28.600 that same JBS hal day in article, he's talking about 1:07:28.600 --> 1:07:32.120 the dangers of falling. What falling is as a threat 1:07:32.160 --> 1:07:35.600 to animals of different size. Quote to the mouse in 1:07:35.640 --> 1:07:39.160 any smaller animal, it presents practically no dangers. You can 1:07:39.280 --> 1:07:42.520 drop a mouse down a thousand yard mind shaft, and 1:07:42.680 --> 1:07:45.280 on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock 1:07:45.440 --> 1:07:48.640 and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. 1:07:49.120 --> 1:07:53.919 A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. 1:07:54.760 --> 1:07:58.080 For the resistance presented to movement by the air is 1:07:58.120 --> 1:08:01.760 proportional to the surface of the moving object, divide an 1:08:01.800 --> 1:08:05.680 animal's length, breadth, and height each by ten. Its weight 1:08:05.760 --> 1:08:08.680 is reduced to a thousandth but its surface only to 1:08:08.760 --> 1:08:11.680 one hundredth So the resistance to falling in the case 1:08:11.720 --> 1:08:14.840 of a small animal is relatively ten times greater than 1:08:14.880 --> 1:08:17.840 the driving force. And I think this would absolutely be 1:08:17.960 --> 1:08:21.040 the same kind of concern if you were considering mech battles. 1:08:21.080 --> 1:08:23.800 So if you were to have something like the autoloader 1:08:23.920 --> 1:08:28.000 and aliens, you know, like these roughly slightly bigger than 1:08:28.080 --> 1:08:33.120 human sized mechs, fighting in those things would be entirely 1:08:33.240 --> 1:08:36.760 different a proposition than fighting in these hundred foot tall 1:08:36.840 --> 1:08:39.680 or two hundred foot tall giant robots, where in the 1:08:39.720 --> 1:08:43.960 case of the larger robots, gravity itself is an immense 1:08:44.120 --> 1:08:47.719 threat to you, like just falling over will very likely 1:08:47.800 --> 1:08:48.439 destroy you. 1:08:48.840 --> 1:08:50.919 So yeah, in this film, you do get the impression 1:08:50.960 --> 1:08:53.840 that most of these robot jocks battles end when the 1:08:53.880 --> 1:08:58.559 first combatant is knocked over or made prone, Like it 1:08:58.600 --> 1:09:01.400 seems like most of the time there's getting up from that, right, 1:09:01.840 --> 1:09:04.000 And it's interesting to think about, like, like, how did 1:09:04.040 --> 1:09:05.639 they get here? How did they get to the point 1:09:05.640 --> 1:09:09.840 where they're basically each battling in a skyscraper on legs? Yes, 1:09:10.040 --> 1:09:12.760 and I'm guessing there's there would have been an arms 1:09:12.840 --> 1:09:15.680 race over time, so maybe they started smaller, like just 1:09:15.760 --> 1:09:18.880 kind of like power armor sort of a situation maximize 1:09:18.920 --> 1:09:23.040 the individual for one on one battle, but then over time, 1:09:23.680 --> 1:09:26.160 like what do you do do you start getting bigger suits, 1:09:26.200 --> 1:09:28.240 Like my suit's bigger than yours and has bigger weapons, 1:09:28.320 --> 1:09:30.640 so now you've got to get bigger too. And so 1:09:30.880 --> 1:09:34.000 now we see like the end results of that where 1:09:34.240 --> 1:09:37.640 the combatants are absolutely as large as they could possibly 1:09:37.720 --> 1:09:39.760 get and are you know, and they have all of 1:09:39.800 --> 1:09:43.840 these weaknesses based on that size, but there's just no 1:09:43.960 --> 1:09:45.200 scaling back at this point. 1:09:45.280 --> 1:09:48.000 Yeah, that's interesting. It's almost one of those like prisoner's 1:09:48.040 --> 1:09:52.120 dilemma type problems where like the incentives for the individual 1:09:52.320 --> 1:09:55.439 are different than the incentives for like both parties when 1:09:55.520 --> 1:09:57.360 they look at things together and if you could just 1:09:57.400 --> 1:10:00.000 get them agreed to both agree to scale back down, 1:10:00.479 --> 1:10:03.000 that would be better for both. But they but you 1:10:03.040 --> 1:10:04.800 can't get them to agree to that, so they just 1:10:04.880 --> 1:10:08.479 keep getting bigger. And that also brings me to another 1:10:08.560 --> 1:10:11.960 interesting question. This movie raises some things about it that 1:10:12.360 --> 1:10:14.479 you wonder if they would make sense in reality, and 1:10:14.479 --> 1:10:19.719 that is the very concept of symbolic warfare through single 1:10:19.800 --> 1:10:23.120 combat or champion combat. So the premise of the film 1:10:23.600 --> 1:10:26.799 is that you've got these superpowers, they are in violent 1:10:26.880 --> 1:10:29.719 conflict with one another, but they can't go to war. 1:10:29.840 --> 1:10:33.160 They don't go to war on the whole. Instead, they 1:10:33.280 --> 1:10:35.720 pick one person from each side to get in a 1:10:35.800 --> 1:10:38.679 robot fight it out, and then the winner gets whatever 1:10:38.720 --> 1:10:39.559 it is they wanted. 1:10:39.960 --> 1:10:43.439 Yeah, yeah, you know it works in this film. And 1:10:43.479 --> 1:10:46.720 of course you also see this in mythology when mythological 1:10:46.800 --> 1:10:50.639 characters are used to embody whole nations or peoples, et cetera. 1:10:52.040 --> 1:10:53.439 It does remind me a bit of something that we 1:10:53.600 --> 1:10:55.920 discussed in our stuff to Blow your Mind episodes on 1:10:56.120 --> 1:10:58.960 the ant Wars earlier in the year, where we talked 1:10:59.000 --> 1:11:02.000 about the various turner tournament battle that you see in ants, 1:11:02.000 --> 1:11:08.920 but also in certain small armed groups historically in human civilization, 1:11:09.200 --> 1:11:12.360 and the idea here being like you're if you don't 1:11:12.400 --> 1:11:16.000 have large armies that are combating each other, sometimes it 1:11:16.040 --> 1:11:19.280 makes more sense for a select few individuals to engage 1:11:19.320 --> 1:11:22.240 in sort of you know, less high stakes combat, to 1:11:22.240 --> 1:11:24.120 sort of feel each other out, to see which way 1:11:24.160 --> 1:11:27.880 the battle would go and then act accordingly. But in 1:11:27.920 --> 1:11:32.360 these cases we're still not talking about like one soldier 1:11:32.360 --> 1:11:35.040 fighting one soldier champion versus champions. 1:11:34.880 --> 1:11:37.200 Right, And this brings us back to something that we 1:11:37.240 --> 1:11:39.840 also talked about in the ant Wars episode, which are 1:11:39.960 --> 1:11:44.640 these models. Again, these these are not perfect descriptions of 1:11:44.640 --> 1:11:47.679 what actually happens in battle, but they are somewhat accurate 1:11:47.720 --> 1:11:52.440 descriptions for modeling casualties and conflict. And they're known as 1:11:52.720 --> 1:11:56.320 Lanchester's square laws and Lanchester's linear laws, and so the 1:11:56.400 --> 1:11:58.800 main idea there, it's more complicated than this, but the 1:11:58.840 --> 1:12:02.400 main idea is that as you approach a situation that 1:12:02.520 --> 1:12:05.240 is a war of all against all, so the more 1:12:05.360 --> 1:12:10.160 your battle resembles something where any soldier can engage any 1:12:10.200 --> 1:12:12.679 other at any time, so maybe like a shooting war, 1:12:13.000 --> 1:12:15.960 as it approaches that instead of the type of battle 1:12:15.960 --> 1:12:19.120 where one soldier can only fight one other soldier at 1:12:19.160 --> 1:12:22.599 a times a big series of duels, as it becomes 1:12:22.640 --> 1:12:26.960 more of a war of all against all, than the 1:12:27.040 --> 1:12:31.880 advantages provided by having superior numbers go up, not just 1:12:31.960 --> 1:12:34.519 in a linear way, but in a squared way, so 1:12:34.640 --> 1:12:38.880 that having superior numbers is much more important than having 1:12:39.160 --> 1:12:42.280 better individual fighters in a war of all against all. 1:12:42.720 --> 1:12:46.599 And that's because like the force with superior numbers can 1:12:46.680 --> 1:12:49.880 quite quickly reduce the numbers of the other forces so 1:12:49.920 --> 1:12:52.320 that they can't really put up a fight of any kind. 1:12:53.160 --> 1:12:56.479 And so anyway, in a world with technology that enables, 1:12:56.640 --> 1:12:58.640 you know, a war of all against all, like a 1:12:58.680 --> 1:13:04.840 basic shooting war scenario, the side with superior numbers is 1:13:04.960 --> 1:13:08.439 almost always at an extreme advantage. And that makes me 1:13:08.439 --> 1:13:11.799 think about how it's hard to imagine in a modern 1:13:11.880 --> 1:13:16.599 context with modern technology, that champion warfare would ever really 1:13:16.920 --> 1:13:20.679 emerge unless it were like imposed by an outside force. 1:13:21.479 --> 1:13:23.920 For champion warfare to be the way that you would 1:13:23.920 --> 1:13:30.080 settle geopolitical conflict, it would require the side more with 1:13:30.200 --> 1:13:35.800 numerical superiority to agree to the champion warfare and to say, yes, 1:13:35.840 --> 1:13:39.200 we will honor the outcome of this duel. But champion 1:13:39.240 --> 1:13:42.680 warfare necessarily improves the odds for the weaker force and 1:13:42.800 --> 1:13:45.360 hurts the odds for the stronger force. So why would 1:13:45.400 --> 1:13:46.840 the stronger force agree to it? 1:13:47.280 --> 1:13:47.519 Yeah? 1:13:47.960 --> 1:13:51.160 Now, if in this film, if the judges, if the 1:13:51.240 --> 1:13:55.920 referees were aliens representing, say a technologically advanced species that 1:13:55.960 --> 1:13:58.599 could just simply wipe out either side without thinking about it, 1:13:58.760 --> 1:14:00.479 like that would potentially make sense. 1:14:00.600 --> 1:14:02.360 Yeah, but it does well. 1:14:02.360 --> 1:14:04.160 But I was gonna in that case, though, why not 1:14:04.240 --> 1:14:06.639 just have a trial where like you argue about who 1:14:06.680 --> 1:14:09.519 actually has the correct claim to the land, rather than 1:14:09.720 --> 1:14:11.920 people just both say they want the land and you 1:14:11.960 --> 1:14:12.800 settle it with a fight. 1:14:14.479 --> 1:14:17.120 I wish I could have, you know, seen more what 1:14:17.439 --> 1:14:19.599 Haldeman had in mind for this, like what his read 1:14:19.680 --> 1:14:22.000 on it would would have been, you know, because I mean, 1:14:22.000 --> 1:14:25.000 certainly it worked, there's the symbolic level at which it works. 1:14:25.040 --> 1:14:29.519 But I wonder what the world building arguments would have been. 1:14:30.160 --> 1:14:32.799 Yeah, I mean, I think obviously it would be better 1:14:32.920 --> 1:14:35.639 for the soldiers and better for the people on both 1:14:35.720 --> 1:14:38.200 sides of a conflict if it could be settled without 1:14:38.280 --> 1:14:41.320 massive bloodshed whatever whatever that method is. I mean, even 1:14:41.320 --> 1:14:44.479 if it's single combat between robot jocks, that's better than 1:14:44.560 --> 1:14:46.719 just having an all out total war where you send 1:14:47.000 --> 1:14:50.439 people into the meat grinder. But the the you know, 1:14:50.640 --> 1:14:53.639 you hit the war pigs problem. Like leaders setting military 1:14:53.680 --> 1:14:55.719 policy are going to want to win, they're not usually 1:14:55.800 --> 1:14:58.760 the people who themselves have to die in battle. So 1:14:58.880 --> 1:15:01.679 while the weaker force may very much want to settle 1:15:01.720 --> 1:15:04.360 things with robot jocks, it just seems like the side 1:15:04.360 --> 1:15:07.719 with the numerical and weapons superiority would tend to just say, no, 1:15:07.720 --> 1:15:08.599 now we'll have a war. 1:15:09.040 --> 1:15:09.519 Yeah. 1:15:09.560 --> 1:15:11.880 But you know, ultimately this is this is not a 1:15:11.920 --> 1:15:15.919 picture that celebrates warfare. It's it has has a message 1:15:16.160 --> 1:15:19.120 of you know, an anti war message, which which I 1:15:19.200 --> 1:15:19.920 ultimately like. 1:15:19.840 --> 1:15:22.000 Well, let's talk about the ending, the very ending, which 1:15:22.120 --> 1:15:27.200 is both actually sort of transcendently excellent and hilarious. 1:15:27.520 --> 1:15:27.760 Yeah. 1:15:27.760 --> 1:15:29.880 So basically they just battle the hell out of each other. 1:15:29.960 --> 1:15:32.320 So this is this ends up being like the main 1:15:32.360 --> 1:15:36.679 event in which robots do get up after being knocked 1:15:36.760 --> 1:15:40.679 prone through the use of superior tactics, but also lots 1:15:40.680 --> 1:15:44.000 of tricky weaponry because again it all comes down to 1:15:44.000 --> 1:15:46.160 what secret weapons do you have that your enemy doesn't 1:15:46.200 --> 1:15:48.720 know about? So they engage in a lot of this 1:15:49.360 --> 1:15:51.720 and they end up going up into the stratosphere. They 1:15:51.800 --> 1:15:54.480 end up coming back down again. They end up destroying 1:15:54.520 --> 1:15:58.920 each other's suits and and there's some clever twists and 1:15:58.960 --> 1:16:00.720 turns in that battle, but it ends up with them 1:16:00.760 --> 1:16:05.839 both unsuited, both of them just on amid the rubble, 1:16:06.400 --> 1:16:09.839 trying to bash each other with like pipes and pieces 1:16:09.840 --> 1:16:14.839 of metal, like reduced to you know, almost like paleolithic battle. 1:16:14.960 --> 1:16:18.280 Yeah, yeah, literally trying to bash each other with sticks 1:16:18.280 --> 1:16:18.799 and rocks. 1:16:19.280 --> 1:16:22.040 And they reach a point where, Okay, it looks like 1:16:22.720 --> 1:16:25.559 Achilles is going to be victorious, you know, it's one 1:16:25.600 --> 1:16:28.360 of those those moments where is he going to finish 1:16:28.400 --> 1:16:32.240 off his adversary. But no, Achilles has another option that 1:16:32.280 --> 1:16:34.880 he presents and they have this wonderful little back and 1:16:34.920 --> 1:16:38.280 forth which I quite like the dialogue, you know, and 1:16:38.320 --> 1:16:41.840 the way that they ended this because Achilles says to him, 1:16:42.200 --> 1:16:45.479 you can live, and Alexander says, yes, if I kill 1:16:45.560 --> 1:16:47.559 you with this, And it's the pipey thing that he's 1:16:47.560 --> 1:16:48.439 holding or was it a rock? 1:16:48.520 --> 1:16:50.000 I thought it was a rock, but I could be wrong. 1:16:50.080 --> 1:16:52.479 Okay, and then Achilles says we can both live, and 1:16:52.479 --> 1:16:56.000 then Alexander says, we are already dead. We are robot jicks, 1:16:57.439 --> 1:17:00.320 which which I think is a line. I think it 1:17:00.360 --> 1:17:03.320 works here, but I also have to remind myself that 1:17:03.360 --> 1:17:06.519 Haldeman's original working title for this was The Mechanics. Yes, 1:17:06.960 --> 1:17:09.160 so so that would have been a more interesting line. 1:17:09.160 --> 1:17:11.720 And he's like, no, we like we're mere mechanics, you know, 1:17:11.800 --> 1:17:15.160 like we're not even really controlling these things, these things 1:17:15.200 --> 1:17:18.080 and this this military engine, We're just caring for it 1:17:18.120 --> 1:17:19.479 and making it run, right. 1:17:19.400 --> 1:17:22.880 I mean, in a weird way. It's an exchange that, 1:17:24.120 --> 1:17:26.920 with a little bit of like verbal tweaking, could have 1:17:27.000 --> 1:17:30.600 been very powerful and is in some ways powerful, but 1:17:30.760 --> 1:17:35.320 because of the phrase robot jocks, it it absolutely spills 1:17:35.360 --> 1:17:39.280 over into absurdity. You know. So like if he had 1:17:39.320 --> 1:17:42.519 said we can both live and Alexander said, no, we 1:17:42.600 --> 1:17:46.559 are already dead. We're soldiers, I think the idea would 1:17:46.560 --> 1:17:49.439 be driven home there that like, their their fates are 1:17:49.479 --> 1:17:52.599 not up to them, you know, their fates are decided 1:17:52.640 --> 1:17:56.240 for them by forces beyond their control. Uh, And that 1:17:56.280 --> 1:17:59.200 does seem to be the theme. But instead he says, 1:17:59.600 --> 1:18:02.919 you know, we can live. No, we are robot jocks. 1:18:04.000 --> 1:18:04.479 Yeah. 1:18:04.560 --> 1:18:06.719 And then but then ultimately, like this is the spoiler 1:18:06.720 --> 1:18:09.439 for the end of the film, but but he wins. 1:18:09.720 --> 1:18:13.639 Achilles is able to convince Alexander that yes, we can live, 1:18:14.000 --> 1:18:15.960 we don't have to fight, we can stop fighting, and 1:18:16.000 --> 1:18:18.880 they stop fighting and then they do that awesome fist 1:18:18.920 --> 1:18:21.559 bump at the end, and that closes the picture and 1:18:21.560 --> 1:18:23.800 you end up with this message of hope that you 1:18:23.880 --> 1:18:26.639 know that we can resist, that we can move beyond 1:18:27.320 --> 1:18:31.400 like senseless battle. And I love it. 1:18:31.040 --> 1:18:31.599 I got it. 1:18:31.600 --> 1:18:33.639 It ended perfectly, ends on a great note. 1:18:33.840 --> 1:18:36.360 It ends with the hero and the villain agreeing not 1:18:36.439 --> 1:18:37.680 to kill one another. 1:18:37.840 --> 1:18:39.799 Right, And they didn't do that thing that they often 1:18:39.840 --> 1:18:42.719 do in films where the hero appeals to the villain's 1:18:42.760 --> 1:18:46.240 humanity and the villain seems to say yes, but then 1:18:46.320 --> 1:18:49.600 goes for a double t yeah, and then you know, 1:18:49.640 --> 1:18:51.400 he shoots him dead. And then it's like, oh, well, 1:18:51.400 --> 1:18:53.559 he did kill the villain, but he tried. He gave 1:18:53.600 --> 1:18:56.360 him a chance, he gave him a chance to be good. No, 1:18:56.520 --> 1:18:59.200 instead they do something different, and I think it works that. 1:18:59.360 --> 1:19:01.880 I mean, so many movies use that. It is a 1:19:02.280 --> 1:19:05.479 plot device that I have come to absolutely despise just 1:19:05.479 --> 1:19:07.800 because of how common and how in a way, how 1:19:07.920 --> 1:19:10.920 cheap it is. Because what it's trying to show you 1:19:11.080 --> 1:19:13.840 is that it's trying to have it both ways. It's 1:19:13.840 --> 1:19:16.800 trying to have the hero show mercy and not be 1:19:16.960 --> 1:19:20.040 vindictive and cruel. So the hero gets the upper hand, 1:19:20.200 --> 1:19:22.600 gives the villain a chance to like walk away or 1:19:22.640 --> 1:19:25.080 to live or whatever, and then the villain tries to 1:19:25.120 --> 1:19:27.880 stab them in the back, and then the hero kills them. 1:19:28.160 --> 1:19:29.840 Yeah, it's trying to have it both ways. 1:19:29.840 --> 1:19:32.200 So you get to see the villain killed and punished, 1:19:32.360 --> 1:19:34.799 but you also get to see the hero have mercy. 1:19:35.120 --> 1:19:37.519 I think it's it's better to just choose one or 1:19:37.560 --> 1:19:37.840 the other. 1:19:38.320 --> 1:19:41.880 Yeah, yeah, I don't know what kind of arguments may 1:19:41.880 --> 1:19:43.920 have happened, or maybe there weren't arguments over this part, 1:19:43.960 --> 1:19:45.400 but I like the way it turned out, So I 1:19:45.400 --> 1:19:47.280 don't know if this was ultimately the way hal Theman 1:19:47.360 --> 1:19:49.439 wanted it, or if this was more of a Stuart 1:19:49.439 --> 1:19:51.840 Gordon direction, or maybe this is just you know, the 1:19:52.000 --> 1:19:53.599 way it feels is like this is where the two 1:19:53.680 --> 1:19:55.040 visions come together and they work. 1:19:55.320 --> 1:19:58.599 It is a weirdly transcendent way to conclude this utterly 1:19:58.720 --> 1:20:01.360 ridiculous film. 1:20:01.600 --> 1:20:04.000 All right, and well, speaking of concluding, it's time for 1:20:04.080 --> 1:20:06.519 us to conclude. You may be wondering, though, where can 1:20:06.560 --> 1:20:10.160 I see robot Jocks? Unfortunately this is a tough one. 1:20:10.680 --> 1:20:15.280 You can buy some at times crazy overpriced DVDs, vhs 1:20:15.280 --> 1:20:18.120 and Blu rays of Robot Jocks, But the Shout Factory 1:20:18.280 --> 1:20:20.559 edition of this from twenty fifteen is currently out of 1:20:20.600 --> 1:20:22.560 print print. I think it went out of print in 1:20:22.600 --> 1:20:26.240 October of twenty nineteen, so hopefully it'll become more widely 1:20:26.280 --> 1:20:30.320 available in the future. No one seems to be streaming it, like, 1:20:30.400 --> 1:20:33.559 not even for rent or or digital purchase right now, 1:20:33.960 --> 1:20:38.160 say for the odd unauthorized like highly unauthorized version. Joe, 1:20:38.160 --> 1:20:40.320 didn't you find this one on Facebook of all places? 1:20:40.680 --> 1:20:42.479 Well, I didn't watch it there. I ended up watching 1:20:42.520 --> 1:20:46.360 the version that you rented and lent me. But dig 1:20:46.400 --> 1:20:49.599 around for it if you desire. But yeah, you should also. 1:20:49.680 --> 1:20:52.360 I mean I would say, start a letter writing campaign 1:20:52.400 --> 1:20:54.840 to the Criterion Collection and get them to put out 1:20:54.880 --> 1:20:57.320 their own edition of Robot Jocks, which is what the 1:20:57.360 --> 1:20:58.160 world deserves. 1:20:58.479 --> 1:21:02.320 Yeah, yeah, we definitely rented it, got it from Atlanta's 1:21:02.320 --> 1:21:06.679 own Videodrome. They're still renting films at Atlanta's last video 1:21:06.760 --> 1:21:09.559 rental place, but if you're not in the Atlanta area, 1:21:09.680 --> 1:21:11.879 you can still get in on the fund with their merchandise. 1:21:11.960 --> 1:21:14.960 You can find them at videodrome dot tv in their 1:21:15.000 --> 1:21:20.280 main website is videodromeatl dot com. As for US, Weird 1:21:20.320 --> 1:21:24.200 House Cinema will continue. We're gonna do this every Friday. 1:21:24.240 --> 1:21:27.000 We're gonna celebrate some sort of a weird film. We 1:21:27.040 --> 1:21:28.920 may talk a little bit about science and culture in it, 1:21:28.960 --> 1:21:30.439 but for the most part is the celebration of the 1:21:30.439 --> 1:21:34.200 film itself. Our core science and culture episodes will continue 1:21:34.240 --> 1:21:36.760 to air on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then we have, 1:21:36.840 --> 1:21:39.719 of course some other content sprinkled around throughout the week 1:21:39.800 --> 1:21:42.000 as well. You can find all of that in the 1:21:42.040 --> 1:21:44.439 Stuff to Blow your Mind Feed and you can find 1:21:44.520 --> 1:21:47.240 that wherever you get your podcasts. We just asked that 1:21:47.280 --> 1:21:49.479 you rate, review and subscribe to help us out, and 1:21:49.520 --> 1:21:51.559 of course get in touch with us. Tell us what 1:21:51.600 --> 1:21:54.200 you thought about Robot Jocks. You have memories of seeing 1:21:54.200 --> 1:21:56.360 it back in the day, if you rewatched it recently, 1:21:56.400 --> 1:21:59.720 did you rewatch it? For this episode, we want to 1:21:59.760 --> 1:22:01.680 hear from you, and we also want to hear from 1:22:01.680 --> 1:22:03.760 you about the general direction that we've been taking the 1:22:03.760 --> 1:22:05.800 Stuff to Blow Your Mind feed Do you like what 1:22:05.840 --> 1:22:08.120 we're doing? Do you not like what we're doing? Do 1:22:08.160 --> 1:22:10.320 you have some critiques to share? Let us know we'd 1:22:10.320 --> 1:22:10.960 love to hear from you. 1:22:11.240 --> 1:22:14.040 Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth 1:22:14.120 --> 1:22:16.479 Nicholas Johnson. 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