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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is

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Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and I'm very

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Speaker 1: thrilled to announce today's episode. Today we are going to

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Speaker 1: be talking about the nineteen fifty three love lorn alien

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Speaker 1: guerrilla borg attack movie Robot Monster, a film that absolutely

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Speaker 1: proves beyond any doubt that a movie does not have

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Speaker 1: to be good to be unforgettable. Robot Monster is about

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Speaker 1: sixty two minutes long. It was made on a microscopic budget.

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Speaker 1: It makes very close to zero since whatsoever, and ever

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Speaker 1: since I first saw this movie about twenty years ago,

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Speaker 1: now I have probably thought of it at least once

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Speaker 1: every week of my life. It is a fascinating film

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Speaker 1: and I want to throw up. This is this is crazy.

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Speaker 1: We were not aware of this fact until later on

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Speaker 1: in the day, but we both watched this on our

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Speaker 1: each on our own on January thirty one. January thirty one,

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Speaker 1: as it turns out, is a guerrilla suit day, like

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Speaker 1: national or international. I'm not sure. Maybe there's a different

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Speaker 1: international Guerilla Suit Day. I Either way, uh perfect that

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Speaker 1: we should have watched this film because it does feature

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Speaker 1: most of a guerrilla suit. Uh. And is and it's ultimately,

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Speaker 1: I think an important page in the history of guerilla

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Speaker 1: suits in cinema. Who establishes that day, is that like

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Speaker 1: the National or the International Guerilla Suit Consortium or something

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Speaker 1: or yeah, yeah, I can imagine their board meetings where everyone,

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Speaker 1: of course is wearing a guerrilla costume. Are you ready

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Speaker 1: to go A four Robot Monster? I think you are,

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Speaker 1: because everybody is, because everybody should be. Yeah. It's Um,

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Speaker 1: it's a nine film, and it's not just a bad

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Speaker 1: B movie. It's a it's legendary slice of American schlock cinema.

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Speaker 1: The titular monster is essentially an icon of BT cinema.

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Speaker 1: And I mean that in the fully religious sense of

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Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, it is a It's an image that

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Speaker 1: may be venerated, that you may use an act of devotion. Um.

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Speaker 1: All this is to say, this is a film so

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Speaker 1: slapped together and yet unique that it transcends the original picture.

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Speaker 1: And and say what you will about the the Roman Monster,

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Speaker 1: the robot Monster of the movie. It's never boring, uh,

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Speaker 1: and it certainly leaves an impression. Yes, Robot Monster is schlock,

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Speaker 1: but it is not hack, which I think is a

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Speaker 1: very important distinction, one that this movie really forced me

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Speaker 1: to meditate on. Uh. And, if you'll allow me to elaborate,

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Speaker 1: I would like to explain. Let's have it okay. So,

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Speaker 1: schlock is a term we've used on the show before,

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Speaker 1: but we've never really defined it. I guess it's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of hard to define. It's a slang term that

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Speaker 1: just discovered is derived from a couple of Yiddish root words.

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Speaker 1: Apparently that has to do with the Yiddish words meaning

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Speaker 1: like a stroke or meaning a person who is sort

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Speaker 1: of unkempt. But it's often used to describe a certain

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Speaker 1: kind of B movie. I think more broadly, you could

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Speaker 1: use schlock to refer to cultural products in general, like

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Speaker 1: you could have a schlock comic book, or maybe even

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Speaker 1: a schlock novel or a schlock sculpture. Uh. And, as

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Speaker 1: I said, the definition is a little fuzzy, but you

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Speaker 1: can kind of build a word cloud around it, like

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Speaker 1: what are the associations? And in that word cloud, I

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Speaker 1: would say you would find terms like cheap, messy, or clumsy,

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Speaker 1: weird and unsophisticated. So the exact opposite of a schlock

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Speaker 1: movie or cultural product would be one that is expensive

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Speaker 1: or high budget, very skillful, skillfully made down to earth

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Speaker 1: and refined or tasteful sounds dreadful. Meanwhile, Hack, in its

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Speaker 1: usage for cultural products like movies, refers more to things

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Speaker 1: that are executed with a certain baseline of professionalism or

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Speaker 1: no how but are boring, unoriginal, uninspired, and forgettable. And

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Speaker 1: the annals of monster movie dum especially of the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: are full of both kinds of movies, and sometimes these

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Speaker 1: things can overlap. But I think Robot Monster is special

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Speaker 1: because it is all one and none of the other.

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Speaker 1: This movie is a solid ten point oh on the

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Speaker 1: Schlock scale and a zero point zero on the Hack scale,

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Speaker 1: which makes it, in a strange way, kind of a masterpiece.

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Speaker 1: I would put the Edwood movies like Plan nine from

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Speaker 1: Outer Space in the same category. It is a bumbling, awkward, nonsensical,

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Speaker 1: almost improvisational hour of of guerrilla suit mayhem, and it's

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Speaker 1: never leaving my brain. This is the opposite of the boring, unoriginal, uninspired,

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Speaker 1: forgettable schlock monster movies that that came out around the

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Speaker 1: same time. I feel like if one day they upload

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Speaker 1: my consciousness into a computer, and like my memories are

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Speaker 1: lost in the transfer. Robot Monster is going to be

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Speaker 1: one of the few that survives wherever I go, whatever happens,

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Speaker 1: I am taking Roman with me. Yeah. Now, let me

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Speaker 1: describe Roman for anyone who still doesn't know who we're

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Speaker 1: talking about here, um, and you probably just need to

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Speaker 1: be reminded, because again, this is a famous figure from

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Speaker 1: B movie history. It is essentially a gorilla, like a

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Speaker 1: guerrilla costume and uh, kind of chunky looking and in

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Speaker 1: appropriately long arms. But instead of a guerrilla's head, there's

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Speaker 1: this kind of looks like a robot head, kind of

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Speaker 1: looks like a space helmet with very long, broad antennae

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Speaker 1: on top. And there's this murky face plate through which

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Speaker 1: you can see something like a featureless face or some

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Speaker 1: sort of amorphous mass, or if you're looking at it

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Speaker 1: in just the right way, you might think you see

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Speaker 1: something like a skull. We'll get into the into the

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Speaker 1: different interpretations of it later, but this is the Roman.

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Speaker 1: This is the Robot Monster, and it it's easy to

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Speaker 1: just look at it. And I've seen, you know, I've

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Speaker 1: heard lots of jokes about how this is really thrown together.

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Speaker 1: Look at that they just they couldn't afford a monster,

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Speaker 1: so they got a guerrilla suit and they just put

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Speaker 1: a robot um head on top of it. Yes, yes

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Speaker 1: that's true, but it also you just can't dismiss how

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Speaker 1: well this works on screen, Like, this creature is interesting.

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Speaker 1: Throughout the film, there's sometimes where there is I think

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Speaker 1: a legitimate feeling of menace to the creature, and it works.

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Speaker 1: There are plenty of scenes in which it it does

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Speaker 1: feel goofy, but I don't know it, Uh, it works

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Speaker 1: in a weird way. Well, it's so odd. It's such

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Speaker 1: a perverse combination, like the space helmet with the with

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Speaker 1: the Google head inside, with the thick guerrilla body with

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Speaker 1: like it's shaggy butt, but also the way that the

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Speaker 1: person has to walk inside the gorilla suit, because like

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Speaker 1: the suit is obviously much bigger than the person. So

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Speaker 1: when you see them walking there, it's this big, thick

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Speaker 1: guerrilla body taking these very dainty looking footsteps up the

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Speaker 1: mountain pathways. It's you've never seen anything like it. It's

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Speaker 1: just perfect. Yeah, and it and and I do also

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Speaker 1: need to drive home, Like there's so many worse looking

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Speaker 1: monsters in monster movie history, Like you can't even begin

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Speaker 1: to list the monsters that look dumber or look more

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Speaker 1: thrown together on the screen. And yet there is something

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Speaker 1: unique about the way this came together, Like there's just,

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Speaker 1: like you said, there's something kind of perverse about it.

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Speaker 1: You can't believe this is what the monster is. And

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Speaker 1: it's on screen for most of the movie. They're not

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Speaker 1: like obscuring it behind fog or in the dark or something.

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Speaker 1: It's just center frame. Half of the movie is the

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Speaker 1: roman doing zoom calls with another romance are just walking

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Speaker 1: around probably open broad daylight. Yeah. So another thing that

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Speaker 1: I started thinking about with this movie is it's interesting

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Speaker 1: how early it comes in the the fifties uh space

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Speaker 1: invasion movie arc. I would have assumed it came out.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, if you'd asked me, I would have

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Speaker 1: assumed Robot Monster was nineteen fifties seven, you know, same

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Speaker 1: year as uh like Attack of the Crab Monsters or

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Speaker 1: something or move was that fifty seven or fifty eight

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Speaker 1: and I know somewhere in there. But instead it was

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Speaker 1: sort of an early runner in this arc. So to

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Speaker 1: situate it within the history of sci fi movies, alien

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Speaker 1: invasion movies or alien attack movies, I think really hit

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Speaker 1: their peak in the in the like mid to late

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. Before that, if you look at the sci

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Speaker 1: fi movies of the thirties and forties, there are actually

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Speaker 1: very few alien invasion films. There are a few, but

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Speaker 1: not not many. The most common theme of earlier science

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Speaker 1: fiction films seems to be mad scientists. Like many of

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Speaker 1: the sci fi movies from this period that we've covered

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Speaker 1: on the show fit into that category. So we talked

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Speaker 1: about Doctor X that's the one with synthetic flesh, mad

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Speaker 1: science movie. There's Doctor Cyclops that's the guy who shrinks

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Speaker 1: people and then menaces them with various animals and stuff.

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Speaker 1: There's Mad Love that's about a hand transplant gone horribly wrong.

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Speaker 1: There is Things to Come, which addresses all kinds of

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Speaker 1: general scientific progress for good and for ill. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we haven't actually covered Things to Come yet properly on

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Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, but I believe we talked about it,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Time after Time episode, because it's the

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Speaker 1: only H. G. Wells adaptation that Wells actually wrote a

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Speaker 1: screenplay for. Uh. And in fact, you can even think

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Speaker 1: about the big universal monster movies that included science fiction

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Speaker 1: elements from the thirties and forties. You've got Frankenstein, Bride

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Speaker 1: of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and so forth. They're all

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Speaker 1: mad scientist movies. Pretty much all of them involve a

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Speaker 1: scientist breaking the boundaries of nature. You're in ordinary life

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Speaker 1: with some kind of experiment or maybe experimental procedure or

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Speaker 1: surgery or something. Everything goes horribly wrong and it leads

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Speaker 1: to murder. And those kind of movies don't go away.

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Speaker 1: Like the mad science breaks nature theme continues in the fifties,

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Speaker 1: but almost always with atomic themes. Now, so you you know,

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Speaker 1: somebody creates giant bugs with atomic radiation for obvious reasons,

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Speaker 1: And there are a lot of hack movies in this category.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's in the early nineteen fifties that

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Speaker 1: a new type of science fiction movie takes over, and

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Speaker 1: that is the alien invasion or alien intervention film. Now,

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Speaker 1: this type of story had already existed for many decades.

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Speaker 1: I'd say probably the first big alien invasion story was H. G.

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Speaker 1: Wells War The World's in eight. Yeah, Yeah, that's definitely

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Speaker 1: the big one, and it's it That novel is sort

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Speaker 1: of the prototype for most of the alien invasion stories

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Speaker 1: that followed, of which there were many in written fiction

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Speaker 1: throughout the early twentieth century, but it wasn't until the

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Speaker 1: early fifties that this became such a common plot structure

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Speaker 1: for sci fi movies. And I think there were some

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Speaker 1: big early and influential examples. One would be The Thing

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Speaker 1: from Another World, which we have an episode on. Another

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Speaker 1: would be The Day the Earth Stood Still, both of

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Speaker 1: those movies from nineteen fifty one. Though The Day the

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Speaker 1: Earth Stood Still is more of an alien intervention than invasion.

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Speaker 1: That's the one where the alien shut up and they say,

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Speaker 1: now you're you're doing war. You need to stop that

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Speaker 1: or we're going to endue all. There was, of course,

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Speaker 1: a nineteen fifty three film adaptation of War the World's

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Speaker 1: the famous Mercury Theater radio broadcast. I wasn't sure when

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Speaker 1: that was. I looked it up the orson Wells one

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Speaker 1: and that was in nineteen thirty eight, but that was

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Speaker 1: on the radio. Uh. And there would of course go

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Speaker 1: on to be a million more alien invasion movies throughout

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Speaker 1: the decade where aliens, you know, they come to either

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Speaker 1: one destroy us and take our planet for themselves, to

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Speaker 1: threaten to destroy us if we don't stop doing something,

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Speaker 1: usually war or some times nuclear experiments or something like that.

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Speaker 1: And then I'd say the third big category is they

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Speaker 1: come here to infiltrate us and indoctrinate us in some way,

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Speaker 1: maybe to serve them. So examples there would be invasion

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Speaker 1: of the Body Snatchers that was in fifty six. It

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Speaker 1: conquered the world on the lower budget side, also fifty six.

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Speaker 1: And so the thing is Robot Monster actually comes earlier

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Speaker 1: in the decade than I would have guessed. Nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: three is a little ahead of the curve here, And

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Speaker 1: I wonder Rob where you think it fits into this

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Speaker 1: broader arc. I think the basic idea is that the

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Speaker 1: Romans want to destroy all humans and take Earth for themselves.

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Speaker 1: But there's also a little bit of that Day the

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Speaker 1: Earth Stood Still playing nine from Outer Space kind of

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Speaker 1: preachiness about how like the oh the Earthlings, you are

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Speaker 1: stupid and you are destroying yourselves. Yeah, yeah, I agree

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Speaker 1: this the Roman, the Roman, if you will here, the

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Speaker 1: Roman civilization has essentially wiped out all of humanity. And

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Speaker 1: then they explain that they have done this because we're

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Speaker 1: basically we're getting too technologically advanced, too much of the

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Speaker 1: threat to them, and and so we see category one

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Speaker 1: and two. Their Category three is not really in play,

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Speaker 1: but it does have some connections to this film, as

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Speaker 1: we'll discuss, because so much of this infiltration and indoctrinization

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Speaker 1: UH fiction of this era, the invasion of the Body Snatchers,

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Speaker 1: it conquered the world. A lot of this route lines

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Speaker 1: up with UM the UH the Hollywood black List with

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Speaker 1: McCarthy is UM and the fear of communism in the

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Speaker 1: United States, which I do not detect really as a

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Speaker 1: theme in in Robot Monster at all. But no, no,

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. But it does have connections to

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Speaker 1: several of the individuals involved in the making of the picture. Yeah, Now,

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Speaker 1: before we get into the film a bit more here,

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Speaker 1: I want to stress that this is a film that

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Speaker 1: I've been seeing clips of since I was a child.

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Speaker 1: I I I had at least some version of it

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Speaker 1: came from Hollywood on a VHS tape, and I would

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Speaker 1: see all these clips of monster movies, and they of

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Speaker 1: course poked fun of it in that I'd watched the

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Speaker 1: season one MST three K episode before, probably more than once,

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Speaker 1: but this was the first time that I'd really sat

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Speaker 1: down and gave this film a proper viewing, and I

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Speaker 1: have to say it's kind of a challenge to make

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Speaker 1: sense of everything. Kind of it's like a puzzle box. Um,

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Speaker 1: It's like you have to concentrate. It's like in Dungeons

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Speaker 1: and Dragons, it's like some sort of concentration spell that

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Speaker 1: if someone were to bump into you, you would just

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Speaker 1: lose everything and the spell would collapse. Your understanding of

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Speaker 1: the film will completely collapse if you're not paying attention

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Speaker 1: to it um at all times. And and it can

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Speaker 1: also be difficult to because the tone of the movie

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Speaker 1: will just turn on a dime. The dialogue is often absurd,

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Speaker 1: and the plot at once feels awesomely inspired by you know,

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Speaker 1: classic sci fi pulp but also just goofy is all

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Speaker 1: get out. Yes, it's a wonderful combination of Like the

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Speaker 1: dialogue is for the most part hilarious, but also it

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Speaker 1: has a harder edge than a lot of the sci

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Speaker 1: fi movies of the time. Like just the kind of

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Speaker 1: unforgivingness of the romance plan for Earth and their cruelty

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Speaker 1: is is somewhat shocking. Yeah, there's there's something gloriously miscalculated

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Speaker 1: and miscalibrated about so much of the film. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a mess, but I was thinking it's a lovable mess,

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Speaker 1: Like you can't help but feel protective of it. You

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Speaker 1: want to wrap a blanket around it and take it

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Speaker 1: home with you. Yes, So, um elevator pitch for this film,

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Speaker 1: I just had to invoke mad love and say Roman

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Speaker 1: has conquered earth, why can't he conquered love? That's it,

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Speaker 1: that's it. He and he basically asked that question at

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Speaker 1: the end. He's like, why can't the Roman have what

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Speaker 1: the human has? Love, feelings, emotions. Yeah, though this kind

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Speaker 1: of like this this plot element pokes its head. What

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Speaker 1: maybe um, halfway through the film, maybe in the last

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Speaker 1: third of the film, and it kind of comes out

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Speaker 1: of nowhere as a complication. Yes, when it shows up,

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Speaker 1: it is mighty unexpected and uh and a very welcome

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Speaker 1: turn because it happens right when the movie starts getting

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Speaker 1: kind of repetitive with like these calls back and forth

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Speaker 1: with Roman where he just keeps threatening the human's But

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Speaker 1: then suddenly he looks on the view screen and he

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Speaker 1: just sees Alice, the the young lady in the movie,

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Speaker 1: and he's like, Oh, I am in love. What is

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Speaker 1: this feeling for a Roman. Yeah, because up to that

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Speaker 1: point they've been considering negotiating with with the Roman. They

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Speaker 1: have tried and like the most they can get is

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Speaker 1: like he's He's like, if you surrender, um, you'll get

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Speaker 1: a quick death, and if you don't, unimaginable death. Like

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Speaker 1: there's no. It doesn't seem to be all out of

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Speaker 1: wiggle room with him, until suddenly he becomes smitten with

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Speaker 1: Alice and he's like, wait, I should negotiate with her. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he wants to do the face to face with her.

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Speaker 1: All right, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's go

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Speaker 1: ahead and listen to some trailer audio. Here, with the

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Speaker 1: swiftness of a deadly cosmic ray, the Earth is invaded

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Speaker 1: by indestructible moon monsters, their ghastly mission death for all humans.

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Speaker 1: What astounding technical developments are being made to protect mankind?

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Speaker 1: Robot Monster brings you an actual preview of the devastating

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Speaker 1: forces of our future, unsuspected revelations of incredible horrors that

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Speaker 1: will terrify you with their brutal reality. There is no

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Speaker 1: escape from me, oh, humans, there is nor escape all right. Now,

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Speaker 1: you might be wondering at this point, where can you

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Speaker 1: watch Robot Monster, if you want to go ahead and

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Speaker 1: pause the episode, watch the movie and come back, or

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Speaker 1: you're inspired after you listen to the full episode to

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Speaker 1: watch it again. Well, fortunately it is widely available. We

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Speaker 1: should note, however, that um Bob Fermanac, a three D

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Speaker 1: film archivist, has been heading up a restoration for a

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Speaker 1: three D Blu Ray release, so re release of Robot Monster,

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Speaker 1: though as of this recording, I don't think they have

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Speaker 1: a distributor or a date yet. I could be wrong

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Speaker 1: on that, but I don't. I don't think anything's lined

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Speaker 1: up officially, but it's still pretty exciting for romance fans

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Speaker 1: out there. All that being said, the available film quality

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Speaker 1: as of this recording is still very watchable, so I

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Speaker 1: don't think you should You shouldn't put off watching Robot Monster.

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Speaker 1: Who knows what tomorrow will bring. But once this gets released,

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Speaker 1: I think this will be worth checking out because it

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Speaker 1: will be in three D uh for those of you

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Speaker 1: with the ability to to power up the three D

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Speaker 1: and it was originally a three D picture. Gorgeous And

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Speaker 1: this makes me realize what the automatic billion bubble machine

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Speaker 1: must have been in the movie for, because otherwise I

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Speaker 1: was unclear on why Romance cave, his Cave of Slaughter

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Speaker 1: has just a bubble machine in it. But that's got

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Speaker 1: to give some three D texture, right, I guess. I mean,

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Speaker 1: otherwise you've got to wonder, Well, maybe this technology in

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Speaker 1: Earth's atmosphere just generates soap bubbles as a byproduct of

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Speaker 1: its functionality, or bubbles are key, like somehow it's those

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Speaker 1: bubbles all contain nuggets of information then then float up

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Speaker 1: through the atmosphere to some sort of Roman satellite. And no,

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Speaker 1: it's probably just there because it looks neat, because otherwise

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Speaker 1: it's just like, Okay, so Roman just has a fad

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Speaker 1: toy of the nineteen fifties in his cave, Like does

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Speaker 1: he also have a Mr. Potato Head or a Lincoln

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Speaker 1: Logs or something? Yeah? All right, Well let's get into

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Speaker 1: the people involved here. Starting at the top, we have

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Speaker 1: Phil Tucker, the director of Robot Monster of n Through.

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Speaker 1: Now I think right at the top, I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: to say I heard some rumors that about this about

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Speaker 1: Phil Tucker, that like he the critics savage to this movie,

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Speaker 1: and Phil Tucker was so upset by that that it

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Speaker 1: destroyed him. But it sounds like you found out maybe

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Speaker 1: that's not really true, correct. Yeah, there's an excellent book

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Speaker 1: out there titled I Cannot Yet I Must. Let's quote

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Speaker 1: from the film The True Story of the Best Bad

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Speaker 1: Monster Movie of All Time, Robot Monster, by Anders Runstadt,

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Speaker 1: which you can get as a digital book or or

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Speaker 1: physical book. And it's a really great, well cited, um

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Speaker 1: but very readable and entertaining exploration of this entire film,

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Speaker 1: like what it comes out of, who was involved in it,

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Speaker 1: its legacy, has a lot of clips from interviews with

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Speaker 1: various people involved in the bios of all the people involved.

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Speaker 1: So if you leave this episode wanting a much deeper

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Speaker 1: dive into uh, into into what Robot Monster is in

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Speaker 1: the world it emerged from, highly recommend that book. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: Runstad does a great job of of sort of dispelling

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Speaker 1: some of the urban legends surrounding this film, because yeah,

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Speaker 1: for I think I had heard this as well, but

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Speaker 1: like this idea that this was a film that the

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Speaker 1: creator held up as a masterpiece and then was just

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Speaker 1: broken when he, uh he found out the critics didn't

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Speaker 1: like it. So yeah, I'm gonna incorporate some of what

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Speaker 1: Romstad has to say, uh into this brief bio of

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Speaker 1: Tucker Okay, so American director, former marine, former radio and

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Speaker 1: TV guy who had two films out in nine Robot

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Speaker 1: Monster obviously, but also a film called Dance Hall Racket,

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Speaker 1: a crime movie starring and written by legendary stand up

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Speaker 1: comedian Lenny Bruce. What yes, Okay, I I did not

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Speaker 1: know this existed. Wow, that's an interesting crossover. Yeah. Bruce's

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Speaker 1: wife at the time, dancer Honey Harlow, also acted in it.

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Speaker 1: I've not seen it. I have no reason to believe

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Speaker 1: it's any good or even worth checking out unless year,

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Speaker 1: I guess, like a Lenny Bruce completest. But um but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I came out with the same year Robot Monster on

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Speaker 1: the and of course would come to define him. And

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Speaker 1: uh yeah, the stories you'll find out there are mixed.

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Speaker 1: But it does seem like there were issues with the

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Speaker 1: studio and he battled depression a bit over all of that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And also he didn't really work anywhere near mainstream Hollywood

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Speaker 1: for a long time. Uh. He did a string of

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Speaker 1: low budget um l a bur less comedies during the

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Speaker 1: mid nineteen fifties, followed by Broadway Jungle about how slimy

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Speaker 1: Hollywood uh is from the viewpoint of a young director,

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Speaker 1: and then a TV movie, The Cape Caniveral Monsters in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty which is a bad alien invasion film but

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Speaker 1: apparently without the lovable um aspects of Robot Monster. And

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Speaker 1: that was his last directing credit. But he worked as

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Speaker 1: a post production manager on n six is King Kong,

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Speaker 1: seven Orca and five episodes of Night The Next Step

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Speaker 1: Beyond TV series. He also worked as an editor on

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Speaker 1: several episodes of Wonder to Wonder Woman TV series and

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Speaker 1: nine eighties The Nude Bomb, which was a Maxwell Smart movie.

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Speaker 1: Now in that book, I cannot yet I must by

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Speaker 1: Runstad Yeah he he, He points out yet the the

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Speaker 1: urban legend of Tucker as a director, we saw himself

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Speaker 1: as a genius uh in this film as a master work.

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Speaker 1: That that is for the most part false and that

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Speaker 1: more or less he was he was shooting for pure

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Speaker 1: entertainment on this one. He did not think he was

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Speaker 1: creating a masterpiece, but mission accomplished. Yeah, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: highly entertaining. Um. Also worth noting public reception to the

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Speaker 1: work did not seem to be a big factor on

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Speaker 1: his mental health, that he did seem to have some

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Speaker 1: struggles and later in life he had some I think

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Speaker 1: some some memory related struggles as well. But uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you want to go all in on this, uh,

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Speaker 1: I highly recommend picking up that book. Uh's so many

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Speaker 1: interesting tidbits from his life that runs stud Explorers. One

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Speaker 1: of which I found pretty interesting is that very late

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Speaker 1: in the life and career of Peter Laurie, Tucker was

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Speaker 1: involved in the nineteen sixty one pitch for the Peter

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Speaker 1: Laurie Playhouse. Uh. This was gonna be like a Twilight

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Speaker 1: Zone or Boris Karloff's thriller style anthology show, and the

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Speaker 1: host was gonna be Peter Lorii. I can't believe that

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Speaker 1: didn't happen. At the sacrilege criminality that this did not happen.

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Speaker 1: I haven't seen any footage from Apparently they shot a

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Speaker 1: pilot and Laurie was the host of it, and they

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Speaker 1: had him like in a bowler hat at a desk

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Speaker 1: in front of a spider web. Okay, not to be

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Speaker 1: confused with the radio drama of the nineteen forties titled

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Speaker 1: Mystery Playhouse that Peter Lorii hosted. Okay, I'm thinking of

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Speaker 1: a crossover. I guess we need a time machine to

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Speaker 1: make this happen, but crossover of the never realized Peter

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Speaker 1: Laurie Playhouse with the Shelley Duval Fairytale Theater. Huh how

426
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,680
Speaker 1: about it? Yeah? Yeah, oh man, Shelley Duval Fat Fairytale

427
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: Theater just looks marvelous every time I look at it again.

428
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: I did not have the uh, the privilege of getting

429
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: to watch this show when it ran. But I was

430
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 1: talking to some friends and they were like, oh, yeah,

431
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's interesting anyway. So that's Tucker. But onto

432
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: the writing credit for this picture. Wyatt or Dung, who

433
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty two through two thousand and five American

434
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,439
Speaker 1: actor and writer. Born in Shanghai, China, and served in

435
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: the U. S Army during World War Two. His father

436
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: was a career US military man and his mother a

437
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 1: Russian immigrant. Runstad writes that or Dung, while not himself Asian,

438
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: learned to speak Chinese in China in addition to English

439
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: and Russian, which was his mother's native tongue. And he

440
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 1: also had a broad appreciation for Asian culture from a

441
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: young age. So uh, he was influenced by that, and

442
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: this shows up in some of his his his later

443
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: screenplay work. But He was also influenced by his mother's

444
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: interest in spiritualism and the occult, so he was He

445
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: was known to be kind of an odd character in

446
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: these sort of l a Hollywood scene of the day.

447
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: I don't detect any supernaturalism in Robot Monster. I would

448
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: say Robot Monster is hard science fiction. Yeah yeah, um

449
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: that you or dong was? It said that there were

450
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: stories about how he would um. He was always discussing

451
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: the paranormal, proclaiming that he had a great fear of

452
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: predatory or scavenging birds due to a previous life experience.

453
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: Who um And anyway, after the war, he attended an

454
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: acting school in l A. On the g I. Bill

455
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: Tucker met him on the set of some lost or

456
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,719
Speaker 1: unknown TV or exploit exploitation project that he was involved in,

457
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: and perhaps because they both had a military background, uh,

458
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: they kind of hit it off. And then basically Tucker

459
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: came to and said, Hey, I've got this sci fi

460
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: comedy I want to write about the last few people

461
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: on Earth. It's going to be called Googy Eyes, and

462
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: I want you to write it. I'm glad they didn't

463
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: call it Googy Eye is yeah. Um so so a

464
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: lot of space in the in the in the Room

465
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: stat book explores exactly how this seemed to come together.

466
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: And it's kind of confusing because later interviews with or

467
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,360
Speaker 1: Dong and Tucker both had kind of different stories about everything.

468
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 1: And uh and then and he also spent some time

469
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: talking about how weird it is that, Okay, this idea

470
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 1: that he wanted to make um a comedy. It seems

471
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: kind of early in the fifties monster movie craze for

472
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 1: there to be an intentional parody. We talked about how

473
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: kind of ahead of its time this is, so the

474
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: idea that it would have been a comedy seems kind

475
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: of strange. Yeah, I gotta say, while I love it

476
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: and it is very funny, uh, and I don't want

477
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: to be insulting, but it it doesn't read to me

478
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: like intentional comedy. That's not how the movie comes across it.

479
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: It does have a, I would say, and uh, a

480
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: sense of intentional absurdity like that the uh, the director

481
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: and writer were being I don't know, over the top

482
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,719
Speaker 1: in a playful way, But it doesn't strike me as

483
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: like that every line that rings funny to us was

484
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: necessarily supposed to be funny, if that makes any sense. Yeah, Yeah,

485
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: I mean I think there are Yeah, there are definite

486
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: lines in the film that are supposed to be funny,

487
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: especially some of the lines said by the children, um

488
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: are played for laughs. But yeah, it seems like whatever

489
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: the original intention was, they ended up leaning more towards

490
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: uh trauma, sci fi and and a little bit of

491
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 1: horror um and uh. And you have this idea that

492
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: he might have pitched it as a comedy. It might,

493
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: according to run Stat, have had something to do with

494
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: just his knowledge of their limitations, like knowing that they

495
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: were going to have to make this film for basically nothing,

496
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: and therefore they weren't going to be able to pull

497
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 1: off some sort of amazing special effect. It might end

498
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: up being some sort of googly eyed uh like cost

499
00:29:57,480 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: him effect that they were going to have to use

500
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: on the monster. I will say, the more that I

501
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: think about it, I don't know. It's causing me to

502
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: think of like what actually counts as intentional comedy. There's

503
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in it that I don't know

504
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: if it was written as a joke, but it comes

505
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: across as funny, and it doesn't feel like there was

506
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: any attempt on the director's part to avoid that if

507
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 1: that makes sense, Like the guerrilla suit looks funny when

508
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,959
Speaker 1: Roman is walking through the desert and he's just showing

509
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: you like they're they're not. They didn't go like, oh

510
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: that looks funny, better cut that out and obscure it. Yeah, um, well,

511
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: or necessarily that looks funny, let's have more of that.

512
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah now. Runstad also reveals that Tucker, in later

513
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: uh interviews, claimed that Ordung only typed the script and

514
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: that it was otherwise all his idea, all his his material,

515
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: and that he repaid or done with like a writing

516
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: credit and the prospect of more money. But it also

517
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: seems like Tucker seems to have maybe bent the truth

518
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: about a number of things and or had some problems

519
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: with recall later in life, because apparently like at one

520
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: point he claimed that he had been successful writing science

521
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: fiction under a pen name, but nobody knows what his

522
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: pen name was uh so uh For instance, it's it's possible,

523
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: according to run Stad, that he might have just merely

524
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: um submitted some material and never got published or or something,

525
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: because it seems strange that he would not have wanted

526
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: his actual name out there on science fiction. Um. But anyway,

527
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: run Side says that, Okay, the two men disagreed on

528
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: a lot of the history regarding this script, but three

529
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: things seemed to be agreeable in both of their accounts. One,

530
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: the story was Tuckers and Tuckers alone, uh to Tucker

531
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: wanted a movie about life in the aftermath of nuclear devastation.

532
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 1: And also three both state that the finished film differed

533
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: from the original script, though they both had different stories

534
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: about who actually wrote the original script. Okay and Rudenstad

535
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: also mentions that blacklisted comedy screenwriter Frederick I. Ronaldo may

536
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,479
Speaker 1: have contributed to the script as well. Um, I'm not

537
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: sure what to really make of that, but that could

538
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: I guess possibly the um account for some of these

539
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: moments of comedy that occur. Maybe they're the they're they're

540
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: evidence of some sort of like punch up um edit

541
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: that happened with the script, or some earlier version of

542
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: the script that had a lot of jokes in it. Anyway,

543
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:30,959
Speaker 1: or Dong's previous acting experience included roles on TVs Dick

544
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: Tracy and some other fifties TV shows you know, small parts,

545
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: as well as an uncredited role in the nineteen one

546
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: film Fixed Bayonets He went on to play small roles

547
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: in n Dragon's Goal nineteen fifty fours, Monster from the

548
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: Ocean Floor in nineteen fifty six is Walk on the

549
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: Dark Street. He followed up his writing credit on Robot

550
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: Monster with writing credits on fifty threes Combat Squad, fifty

551
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: fours Target Earth fifty six is Walk on the Dark Street,

552
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty nine First Man into Space. All right,

553
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: let's get into the cast a bit more here. Uh.

554
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: We we have only a handful of human survivors that

555
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: are that are left to contend with the Roman threat.

556
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: The leading man is clearly Roy, played by George Nader.

557
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: This is once again your classic fifties movie rectangle. Yeah

558
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: he is there, he's got a jaw, he's got some hair,

559
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: and he'll say the lines yep, yep. Now. This is

560
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: pretty early in Nader's career, following a fair amount of

561
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: uncredited work and small parts, but he did a lot

562
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: of TV in some films following this movie. This was

563
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: his first starring role. Uh. Some of his bigger subsequent

564
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,479
Speaker 1: pictures included Sins of Jezebel from three, Carnival Story from

565
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: fifty four, The Million Nis of Sumaru from sixty seven

566
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: and nineteen seventy three is Beyond Atlantis. George Nader has

567
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: some excellent scenes where he has to uh flirt with

568
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: his love interest Alice, uh while they're like both soldering

569
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: and electronics board, and it's all in voice over. It's

570
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: very funny. Yeah, it's an extended secret. Yeah. Now, speaking

571
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: of Alice, the love interest of both Roy and ultimately

572
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: the Roman. This character is played by Claudia Barrett. You

573
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: know what, I love Claudia Barrett in Robot Monster. I'm

574
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 1: not gonna say like she shows great acting skill in

575
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: this film, but man, she's given it her all, and

576
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 1: there there are parts where you just gotta hand it

577
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: to her, like the monologue about after Roman expresses interest

578
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: in her. Yeah, yeah, where she's like, you know what,

579
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: I'm gonna date Romance. I know you don't want me to,

580
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: but look where are other approaches. I've got us nowhere.

581
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna date the Horrible Monster and we'll just see

582
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: what what happened. Right. It is for the sake of

583
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: future humanity. I will be bride of Roman. Yeah, it's

584
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: a it's definitely like you said. The performance itself is

585
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: not amazing, but it's you can see the talent shining

586
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: through it with the limitations of this role. So Barrett

587
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: was an actor of TV and screen whose first movie

588
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: appearance was nineteen forty nine White Heat, followed by a

589
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: role in nineteen fifties The Happy Years, which starred Dean

590
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: Stockwell and Leo G. Carroll. She did a lot of

591
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 1: TV and film work up through I think nineteen sixty four,

592
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: but White Heat and Robot Monster probably the best remembered

593
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: of the bunch. She gives it her all, she holds

594
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: nothing back, and she also has some great scenes where

595
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: she like has to emotionally turn on the dime because

596
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: it's what the script demands. So she goes from like

597
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: weeping about the fact that, uh that Roy is apparently

598
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: dead to uh just being like, oh, Roy, you're so bossy, alright,

599
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,240
Speaker 1: So that we have our leading man, are leading lady,

600
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: we have to have our older brains of the operation.

601
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: This is, of course, the Professor, played by John Milong,

602
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: who lived through nine. Once again, I'm not gonna try

603
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 1: to say John Milong is like great in this role,

604
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: but I like John Milong. I just get if this

605
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: makes any sense, Like I get the vibe that I

606
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: would like to hang out with him. I do think

607
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: he's one of the actors in the film that you

608
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: can catch adding in free pathos for various scenes. Like

609
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 1: the director didn't ask for it, the script didn't demand it,

610
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: but by god, he's a professional and he's going to

611
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: make it as real as possible. Yeah so uh. John

612
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: Milong was born Adolf Heinrich mootz Uh, an Austrian actor

613
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 1: of Ukrainian Jewish heritage, who, like many other actors and

614
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 1: filmmakers and many that we've discussed on the show before

615
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: from pictures of this period, fled the rise of the

616
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 1: Nazis in Europe. He became a U. S citizen in

617
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,479
Speaker 1: nineteen eight. He was a much bigger name actor during

618
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties in Austria, but then it found solid

619
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: work in the States as well once he relocated. He

620
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: acted in such films as nineteen fifty four is Magnificent Obsession,

621
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: nineteen forty Three's For Whom the Bell Tolls, nineteen fifty

622
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: ones His Kind of Woman, and nineteen forty four is

623
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: The Mask of Demetrios, which has been on my radar

624
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: before because it also features Peter Lori. He was also

625
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixty two underwater adventure film titled Mermaids

626
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: of Tiburon. I like what you say about him adding

627
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 1: in free pathos. Yeah, now that you mentioned that, I'm

628
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: thinking back on lines where you know, they didn't really

629
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: ask him to to to struggle while he's delivering, but

630
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 1: he does. Yeah. Yeah, And I would say there's more

631
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: free pathos from uh Selena Royal who plays mother in

632
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: this it's her only name, she's mother, yeah, professor mother Gilligan. Yeah,

633
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 1: I mean in the in the post apocalyptic healthscape of Earth,

634
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,359
Speaker 1: what else do you need? You're the only mother on

635
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: the planet. You're just mother, I guess. Yeah. There there's

636
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: a scene where uh John Milong gets on a zoom

637
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: call with Roman and he's like, let me show you

638
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 1: the members of my family. Surely you won't want to

639
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: destroy them. And he puts up a picture of of

640
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,959
Speaker 1: Selena Royal here and he's like, look, how how could

641
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: you want to hurt my wife here? And Romance is like, oh,

642
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: the mother brings more generations of the human race. She

643
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: must be stopped. Oh, and You're like boo, you just

644
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 1: want to boo Roman most of the time. So anyway,

645
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:18,800
Speaker 1: Selena Royal Here American actress of stage, radio, television, and film.

646
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: She was daughter of a Broadway playwright, so unsurprisingly she

647
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: started out as a stage actor. She also did radio

648
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: work and just a little bit of film work in

649
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: the thirties. During the forties she became more active in film,

650
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: mostly with maternal supporting roles, but some notable stuff. She

651
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: played Joan of ARC's mother in Victor Flemings Joan of

652
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: Arc film starring Ingrid Bergmann and um Jose Ferreir. Oh,

653
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: I've never seen that one. Yeah, I haven't either, but

654
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's it's one of the classics.

655
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: Her screen and TV career, however, came to on the

656
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: end not long after Robot Monster, with her last credits

657
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: in the mid fifties. But then she became a writer,

658
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: often covering cooking and culture in Guadalajara. She apparently moved

659
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 1: to Mexico with her husband after she became blacklisted in

660
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: Hollywood during the McCarthy era. The FBI had her classified

661
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 1: as a quote unquote concealed Communist, even though it's from

662
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: what I was reading, it seems like there was little

663
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: to no evidence that she was anything of the Sword

664
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: she was I think involved in some progressive and humanitarian causes,

665
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: and she remained involved in humanitarian work in Guadalajara until

666
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 1: her death. Oh yeah, I think that's often how it went. Yeah.

667
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: Now they're children in this as well. There's Johnny and

668
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:39,240
Speaker 1: there's Carla. Johnny was played by Gregory Moffat, borne various

669
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 1: fifties TV and film appearances in his filmography, including one

670
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: episode of the Adventures of Superman. I gotta say, I

671
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: don't want to be mean to a child actor, but

672
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:52,720
Speaker 1: I have to say it. Johnny has bully vibes. Johnny

673
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: seems like the kid who would come on the playground

674
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 1: and like, I don't know, tell you, like he'd say,

675
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: like your dad's poor or something really vicious. M Well,

676
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: you know, Johnny's been through a lot, so maybe we

677
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: have to cut him a little bit of slack. But um,

678
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,320
Speaker 1: Carla is played by Pamela Paulson. This is her only

679
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: actual film credit, I think, um, as far as I know,

680
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: she was not blacklisted for being a suspected communist. Hey, hey, wait, okay,

681
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: so we we enjoy all the human actors here, but

682
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: the real star of the show, in my book, is

683
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 1: the voice of Roman. Oh okay, yeah, the voice of Roman. Uh.

684
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: That is John Brown, who have nineteen or fourth through

685
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:33,239
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven is a British actor who appeared in

686
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: such films as Alfred Hitchcock's one movie Strangers on a Train.

687
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 1: And he was also a victim of the Hollywood Blacklist,

688
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: so his his credits definitely dry up and vanish and

689
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: the mid fifties. Well that's a bummer because I love

690
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,720
Speaker 1: his monotone delivery that the I cannot yet I must.

691
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: It's it's it's what gives the movie the soul it has,

692
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: of course, in addition to the physical performance of Roman,

693
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: which is also wonderful. Oh yes, and this is George

694
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: Barrows who have nineteen fourteen through nineteen um, So this

695
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: is our guerrilla suit guy. I always love focusing on

696
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: guerrilla suit guys, even though I don't know that we've

697
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: watched a lot of like true guerrilla movies, but uh yeah,

698
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,399
Speaker 1: George Barrows certainly played a lot of guerrillas in his time.

699
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: He played some human roles as well. He had to

700
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 1: kind of look up pictures of me. Had kind of

701
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: a meaty, beefy face that's perfect for like that bit

702
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: part cop or or heavy that shows up in a

703
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: in a picture. But he became a a leading guerrilla man, uh,

704
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: playing guerrillas in such films as nineteen sixties six is

705
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: the Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, nineteen sixty seven Hillbillies

706
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: in a Haunted House. I think I've seen that one,

707
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty four is Guerilla at Large. I've seen

708
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: ghost in the Invisible Bikini. It's not what you would

709
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,120
Speaker 1: think it is. Yeah, but there is a guerrilla I

710
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,439
Speaker 1: think so, yeah, okay. Uh. He was also a TV

711
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: guerrilla on such shows as The Adams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies,

712
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: The Incredible Hulk, and The Night Gallery episode Hatred unto Death,

713
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: which I do not remember but definitely has a gorilla

714
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 1: in it now. Root Stude notes that Barrows was a

715
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: serious guerrilla man. I think it's it's easy to think

716
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: about a gorilla suit man in a movie like this

717
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:23,759
Speaker 1: and think like, all right, they found a guy that

718
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: paid him. He put on the guerrilla suit and they said, okay,

719
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: let's shoot the picture. But no, no, no no, this is

720
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: a guy who took his role very seriously. He made

721
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: his own suit. He studied guerrillas at the zoo and

722
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: was said to be one of the last like real

723
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: Hollywood guerilla men of his era, like someone who actually

724
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: tried to act like a gorilla in the suit. Now

725
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,359
Speaker 1: that being said, we've as we've already pointed out, this

726
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: is not a true guerrilla role because it's most of

727
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: a gorilla costume. But then with the space helmet, and

728
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: also the Roman is not moving around like a gorilla.

729
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: He's moving more less like a human. But like they're

730
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: definite characteristics to the suit that are undeniable, like the

731
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: their arm extensions to simulate the proportions of an actual guerrilla.

732
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: It's made with yak here, so it looks like some

733
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: sort of a beast um. According to ruin Stad, this

734
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: reportedly cost him a good four hundred dollars to make,

735
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: and even that the mask of his guerrilla suit, which

736
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: again is not in this picture, was made using a

737
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,360
Speaker 1: plaster cast of his own face. If you can show

738
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: me a more lovingly made extraterrestrial ape board costume, I

739
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: would like I would like to see it. Um. He

740
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: also points out that, according to classic horror memorabilia collector

741
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 1: Rob Burns, Barrows was second only to the legendary Charlie

742
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: Gomera when it came to guerrilla suit men. Now we

743
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: haven't watched a proper Charlie Goamura guerrilla picture, but I

744
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: believe he came up in our episode on Dr Cyclops

745
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: because he did make up on that picture. But he

746
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: played a lot of guerrillas in his time, so he

747
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: took his job seriously. Barrows did, uh, but not so

748
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: seriously that he wouldn't appear in a movie like this.

749
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: He apparently had a very sort of blue collar approach, like,

750
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: if you want a guerilla man, uh, there's a set

751
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,359
Speaker 1: cost and and he'll show up. He'll be your guerilla man.

752
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:23,880
Speaker 1: Here's my price sheet. Yeah, yeah, finally, real quick. We

753
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: keep mentioning that, of course, this is not a pure

754
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 1: guerrilla creature. It has the head of a spaceman, a

755
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 1: space helmet, routes. That also explores this whole decision quite

756
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: a bit. Apparently they knew a guerrilla suit was doable,

757
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: that this is something they could do. There was a

758
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: guy they could hire, and they initially thought about making

759
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: an alien via some horns or something, but then came

760
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: back around to the space helmet idea. But at earlier

761
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:49,919
Speaker 1: points in the creation of the script. They were also

762
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: talking about the idea of a robot gorilla, So there

763
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: seems to be a lot of back and forth here. Here,

764
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 1: maybe we should address a question, very important question. Is

765
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: Roman a robot? Ah, this is a tough one. I've

766
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in the last twenty four

767
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 1: hours thinking about this, and and on and off I've

768
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: thought of it over the years. I was lying awake

769
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 1: all night just thinking about the body of Romance, like,

770
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 1: is that guerrilla body his body? Is it some sort

771
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,919
Speaker 1: of an organic BioSuit that this alien has grown and

772
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: or or like strapped on like some sort of a

773
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: biomech to use. And then of course what's going on

774
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: with the helmet, right, is that the what's that that

775
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: murky face we see inside? Is that like some sort

776
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 1: of featurealist flesh mass um or we're just not supposed

777
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: to see anything. Is it indeed a skull? Because the

778
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:48,360
Speaker 1: poster art for the for the film is pretty great

779
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: as well, and it definitely goes the extra step of

780
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: making the head inside the space mask as a skull,

781
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 1: which just adds to this ambiguity about what this creature

782
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: really is, and apparently it's it's unsure where this idea

783
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:04,439
Speaker 1: came from. It might have been the producer saying, hey,

784
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:06,359
Speaker 1: play up the skull thing, or it might have been

785
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: the poster artist deciding to embellish it with this kind

786
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,240
Speaker 1: of skull motif as well. I perceived the head inside

787
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: the space helmet as more like a it's sort of

788
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 1: covered in a kind of amorphous putty, kind of like

789
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: when a person's head becomes covered in the blob in

790
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: the blob. Alright, alright, so it's possible that the Roman

791
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: is just a blob piloting there's a weird flesh and

792
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: metal suit. Maybe I don't know, a furry creature who

793
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: they've been wearing space on it so long that they've

794
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 1: evolved to have like a fleshless putty head. Or maybe

795
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: they just have a fleshless head in general, because there

796
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,280
Speaker 1: was some sort of scavenging creature and their evolutionary history

797
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: and therefore lost here on their head. I don't know

798
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: that you're can go crazy thinking about this. This is

799
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: probably an overly specific reference, but I just realized that

800
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: Roman in a way, especially the helmet, reminds me of

801
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: one of the final enemies that you face in the

802
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:08,319
Speaker 1: the horror video games. Soma, which is one of the

803
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: last ones is in this base down at the bottom

804
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: of the ocean. It's the one in like the diving

805
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: suit that's got sort of the goop coming out of

806
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: the pressure helmet. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. They definitely

807
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: had a goop consistency to that that game, some sort

808
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: of like healing goop that went crazy or something. Mm hmm.

809
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:28,319
Speaker 1: The fabulous thing about the romance here is that all

810
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 1: interpretations are valid. There's no there's no definitive answer, just

811
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: maddening ambiguity. Alright. Finally, a note on the music. Um So,

812
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that that I love the music in

813
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 1: this film. It's it's interesting. It has some some neat piano,

814
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: I guess, some perhaps overly whimsical moments for the kids,

815
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: and of course some some pretty fabulous nineteen fifties monster brass.

816
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: You know, the monsters coming at you. You're gonna hear

817
00:47:54,560 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: that brass blaring. Dun't dunt dunt dunt dunt Uh. Yeah, exactly.

818
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. The score for this film is

819
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: by a pretty legendary individual, Elmer Bernstein, who lived through

820
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Uh, highly prolific, highly influential film

821
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,399
Speaker 1: composer and conductor. Something like a hundred and fifty film

822
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: scores during his career, and they cover a fair amount

823
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: of range. So Robot Monster was I think only his

824
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: fourth score, but he went on to compose the scores

825
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: for such films as The Ten Commandments and fifty six,

826
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a mocking Bird, The Great Escape,

827
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 1: and then on into the seventies and eighties stuff like

828
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 1: Animal House, Airplane, Heavy Metal, Trading Places, Ghostbusters, and then

829
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,960
Speaker 1: once you get into the nineties, wild Wild West, as

830
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 1: in we're going straight to yeah. Yeah. Uh. He received

831
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: an Academy Award for a thoroughly modern Millie and Sixties

832
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:54,720
Speaker 1: seven that was a musical romantic comedy that starred Julie Andrews,

833
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 1: Mary Tyler Moore, and Carol Channing, directed by George roy

834
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: Hill and um Rensta notes that while he wasn't blacklisted,

835
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: he did have leftist associations that were quotes stalling his

836
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: career at the time. Okay, so at this point in

837
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: the Robot Monster casting crew, how many blacklisted or almost

838
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 1: blacklisted figures are we at It's several, Yeah, and it's

839
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 1: possible there's sort of two interpretations of this. Apparently, according

840
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: to Rinsta, there's it's on one level, people who are

841
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,919
Speaker 1: having trouble with the with the with being blacklisted, where

842
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 1: they were just having harder time getting work, and so

843
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 1: there therefore they might have just been more available to

844
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,959
Speaker 1: a project of this caliber. But then it's also thought

845
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: that the producer might have been sympathetic as well, and

846
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: that could have been a potential in as well, like

847
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,399
Speaker 1: sympathetic to these individuals who were suddenly having a real

848
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 1: hard time finding any work to sustain themselves. All Right.

849
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: The final thing, I want a rare location note on

850
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,760
Speaker 1: this film because this is another Bronson Canyon film. Wait

851
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 1: a minute, did ronson Canyon feature in another movie? We didn't? Oh,

852
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: maybe it was Attack of the Crab Monsters I'm thinking of. Well,

853
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:09,800
Speaker 1: it is definitely a location that was used for Attack

854
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:11,799
Speaker 1: of the Crab Monsters, but it was also used in

855
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:15,240
Speaker 1: the Return from nineteen eighty, which we covered on the show. Okay,

856
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: but this is basically this is a section of Griffith

857
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 1: Park in Los Angeles that it's just been used tons

858
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: of time, including but not limited to White Zombie from

859
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,479
Speaker 1: thirty two, Invasion of the Body Snatchers from fifty six.

860
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 1: He Conquered the World from fifty six as well, that

861
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: pretty famously includes perhaps the exact same cave that we

862
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: see in this picture. Uh, that's where he learned, only

863
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: too late that man is a feeling creature the very one.

864
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 1: Um also teenage cave Man from fifty eight. Um, just

865
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,840
Speaker 1: a ton of films. Friday the Thirteenth, Part six, Jason

866
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: Lives Um Star Trek, the Undiscovered Country, Army of Darkness,

867
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:57,360
Speaker 1: Scorpion King, Hail Caesar. Um. That one probably is a

868
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:00,440
Speaker 1: nod to this location's importance and in Holly with But yeah,

869
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 1: if you're filming in l A and you need some

870
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 1: sort of a desert E canyon, eh cave sort of environment,

871
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 1: like this is where you went, this is where you

872
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: filmed your scenes. That makes a lot of sense because

873
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:13,399
Speaker 1: there are scenes at the very beginning where it looks

874
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,720
Speaker 1: like it's about two children playing unsupervised in the middle

875
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 1: of the Mojave desert. Yeah, Okay, you're ready to talk plot. Yes, Yes,

876
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,719
Speaker 1: let's do it. Wait wait, hold on. Before we get

877
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:26,760
Speaker 1: into the plot, we have to talk about the credit sequence.

878
00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 1: Because we just did a series of core episodes about

879
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,879
Speaker 1: the idea of horror vakawi, which in art is often

880
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:37,280
Speaker 1: used to describe an impulse to overly clutter your design,

881
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: to fill it in with too much detail, not leave

882
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: enough blank space. And the credit sequence here, it's got

883
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: a background, so like the credits are appearing as text

884
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: on a background that's a bunch of it looks like

885
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: comic book covers that themselves have text on them, And

886
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare. Yeah, and now I guess that one

887
00:51:57,840 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: level we need to remind ourselves this was a three

888
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: D picture or so I'm guessing these these letters were

889
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 1: jumping out at us off the screen. But still, yes,

890
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:07,920
Speaker 1: very busy looking. Also, when they showed the Tide I

891
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: don't know if this is something about the transferre to

892
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: home video, but when they showed the title of the movie,

893
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: Robot Monster is not even remotely centered in frame, I'd

894
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: say it's a good thirty percent off. Oh yeah, I

895
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 1: hadn't noticed that, but I noticed that, like you basically

896
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 1: have this pile of comic books in the background, like

897
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 1: old tiny sci fi comic books, and the wording on

898
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: the comic book covers actually like kind of messes with

899
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,359
Speaker 1: the way you're perceiving the names of the characters because

900
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: they start doing stuff like starring George Nader as Roy.

901
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 1: But it looks like starting George Nader as Fee Roy

902
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: because there's as it's superimposed over the word fear on

903
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 1: one of these comic books. Yes, so it's f e

904
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: a and then the name Roy, so it's Fi Roy.

905
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,879
Speaker 1: We get to see Claudia Barrett as Pie Alice. And

906
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: oh and when they introduced these actors, they show like

907
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: they give you a face, so the show you Roy

908
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,239
Speaker 1: and he's that rectangle. He looks like he's sort of

909
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 1: looking disapprovingly at some neighbors tacky Christmas decorations. But when

910
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:14,800
Speaker 1: you get to Claudia Barrett, oh, she has this dangerous smirk.

911
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:17,319
Speaker 1: She looks like she is in possession of your most

912
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: terrible secret and she's just watching you beg her not

913
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:25,240
Speaker 1: to tell everyone. It's great. But anyway, that's the Alice

914
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: we get. We get fee mother. Selena were recalling her

915
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 1: royal or royal earlier. I thought it was royal, but

916
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,839
Speaker 1: it could be royal. I'm not whichever it is. She's

917
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 1: fee mother. Yeah, this is what this is where I

918
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: didn't notice that until just now as we were going

919
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: through the notes. But yeah, she's Selena Royal r O

920
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: y l e um or at least that's the way

921
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 1: I was pronouncing in my head. But her name in

922
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 1: the opening credits is Selena Royal r O y A

923
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:56,439
Speaker 1: l E. So they misspelled it. They misspelled it um

924
00:53:56,760 --> 00:54:00,040
Speaker 1: unless Yeah, I mean, maybe this was a this have

925
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 1: been another name she used as well. I mean to

926
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: I'll give it the benefit of a doubt and say,

927
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: maybe she was sometimes credited as this, But it's not

928
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 1: uncommon for pictures of this caliber to sometimes you use

929
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 1: somebody's name with a inventive spelling. It's true. And I

930
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: love how the credit sequence also gives a credit for

931
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:20,959
Speaker 1: the automatic billion bubble machine. Oh yeah, well, you gotta

932
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:23,360
Speaker 1: give credit where credits due. It's an amazing bubble machine.

933
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 1: So the film opens. The action opens on a bloodthirsty

934
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: alien cyboard clambering over a hilltop in the desert. He's

935
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 1: wearing a bubbletop helmet affixed with atmosphere hoses, and he's

936
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,319
Speaker 1: got a pistol grip death ray and he's got that

937
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:41,360
Speaker 1: raised up in one hand. And wait a minute, that

938
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:43,800
Speaker 1: is not an alien. It is just a child wearing

939
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:46,319
Speaker 1: a suit he's playing with toys and he's pointing the

940
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: ray gun at his sister, and as he comes up,

941
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 1: there is Nana Nana Boo boo music playing. It's the

942
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 1: same song that plays in uh in the Mexican Santa

943
00:54:57,320 --> 00:55:01,879
Speaker 1: clause when the when pitch the demon is doing his antics. Yeah,

944
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 1: it's an annoying song. And thank god, most of the

945
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: score for this film it does not revolve around this

946
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:11,279
Speaker 1: little ditty here. Yeah, but so what are the what

947
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,720
Speaker 1: are the opening lines? We get? Oh? Yeah, so Carla

948
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 1: asked her brother. She says, am I dead? And Johnny says,

949
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: you're disintegrated. I love how morbid. Johnny is, uh, well,

950
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 1: but anyway, she goes, good, does that mean we can

951
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 1: play house now? You promised? But Johnny only wants to

952
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: play House of alien slaughter? Uh. And so he's he's

953
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:38,880
Speaker 1: blowing bubbles and they go around the corner again. It

954
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: looks like they're in the middle of the desert, but

955
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: they end up finding a couple of adults, these two

956
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:46,680
Speaker 1: men who are standing in a cave under these desert cliffs,

957
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,640
Speaker 1: and the kids come up to them and Johnny says,

958
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 1: you must die, and the professor, the older guy there's

959
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 1: an older guy, younger guy, the younger guys, Roy, the

960
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 1: older guys, the professor, and uh, professor says, wouldn't it

961
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:03,359
Speaker 1: be nicer if we could live in peace with each other? Uh?

962
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 1: And uh, So Johnny kind of he seems disappointed by this,

963
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:08,279
Speaker 1: but he accepts, but he says he still has to

964
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: know who they are and what they're doing there. And

965
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:15,320
Speaker 1: a bizarre conversation follows. So the older man in the cave,

966
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: this is John Milong is the professor. He has an

967
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:20,560
Speaker 1: Austrian accent, and he sits the boy on his lap,

968
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: and he explains that he and Roy are archaeologists, and

969
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:26,439
Speaker 1: he says they try to find out what men were

970
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: like back before they could read or write. He says, quote,

971
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 1: the only way to pass on what they knew were

972
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: through pictures like this one. And I guess they're referring

973
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:37,360
Speaker 1: to cave paintings, but you can't really see any in

974
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,760
Speaker 1: the movie. Yeah, there's just some looks like they painted

975
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 1: some of the rocks in there, right, And so Roy says, Uh,

976
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: Roy's the younger guy. He's in the leather jacket, and

977
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,240
Speaker 1: he says, our job is to chip it out carefully

978
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,800
Speaker 1: and take it to a museum, and then Johnny says, gee,

979
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:56,479
Speaker 1: are you scientists? And uh, the Roy's like even better

980
00:56:56,520 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 1: than being cowboys a professor, but so john he asks

981
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 1: if the cave painting was a spaceman, and the professor says,

982
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:07,359
Speaker 1: as far as we know, there were no spacemen at

983
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: those times, and no robots either. So they're having fun.

984
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:15,120
Speaker 1: But then the fund's over. Here comes Johnny's family. Johnny says,

985
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 1: here come my mother and my sister, and then he

986
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: turns to Roy and he says, I bet you'd like her,

987
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: I guess, referring to his older sister Alice. Who Uh Alice,

988
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 1: she comes up and Roy says, no doubt. Uh. So

989
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:30,840
Speaker 1: Johnny is immediately trying to set his older sister up

990
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: with Roy the archaeologist. But the situation is that Johnny

991
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 1: and Carla have to go back and take a nap

992
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: after lunch because their family is out here on a picnic.

993
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 1: And then we see where they have been set up

994
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 1: for a picnic, and I laughed out loud when I

995
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: saw this. They've got a blanket spread out on the

996
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 1: like surrounded by jagged rocks, and Johnny says, if we

997
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 1: ever get a new dad. I hope he's a big

998
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 1: scientist that makes rocket chips and things like that. Uh.

999
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 1: And then they I guess, they settled down for a nap,

1000
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:04,040
Speaker 1: which literally means they just lay down on the ground

1001
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: around this blanket, surrounded by jagged rocks. And at this

1002
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:09,560
Speaker 1: point in the film you think, all right, I'm following this.

1003
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: I know what's going on. And then this film hits

1004
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 1: you with this first major swerve. They're like, yes, the

1005
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: action is too clear. Let's let's start getting confusing. So

1006
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:23,040
Speaker 1: Johnny wakes up from the nap, he jogs off. He

1007
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:25,040
Speaker 1: returns to the cave, I guess to hang out with

1008
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 1: his archaeologist buddies, but they're not there, and he is

1009
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 1: knocked over by the shaking of the earth. And then

1010
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: we get a cataclysm montage. We see lightning, we see

1011
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 1: balls of fire in the sky burning the atmosphere away.

1012
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 1: Then we see lizards with fins and other things glued

1013
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 1: to them fighting. Uh. To be clear, I'm not positive,

1014
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 1: but it looks like some animals may have been harmed

1015
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:52,160
Speaker 1: in the making of this film. Well, I think these

1016
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:55,640
Speaker 1: these films are this is this is footage from previous films.

1017
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: There are a couple of a couple of these are acts,

1018
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 1: so I think they're just reusing something from the films.

1019
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: I forget which ones, but they're sided in like Michael

1020
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 1: Welton's book. Okay, well, anyway, there's something that looks like

1021
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: two lizards fighting. I can't tell if they're alive or

1022
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 1: if they're like stuffed lizards or whatever, but they've got

1023
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:15,520
Speaker 1: stuff taped to them to make them look like dinosaurs,

1024
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 1: Like one has a dimetridn style finback. Yeah, why are

1025
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:22,400
Speaker 1: there dinosaurs fighting? I still don't know, and I saw

1026
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: all right, So Johnny after that wakes up. I don't

1027
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: know if he was supposed to have witnessed the dinosaurs

1028
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 1: fighting or something, and he doesn't comment on it. He

1029
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,560
Speaker 1: wakes up seemingly from his fall after the Earth's shack,

1030
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:46,480
Speaker 1: and he's still in front of the cave. But now

1031
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: things are a little different. We've got a side table

1032
00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:51,200
Speaker 1: with some random technology on it. There's like a real

1033
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 1: to real player and something with some antennae coming up

1034
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:59,040
Speaker 1: off of it, and then a bubble machine just blowing bubbles. Also,

1035
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:01,800
Speaker 1: Johnny is dressed differently. Did you notice this? He's wearing

1036
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 1: shorts now, I did not notice the change in vance.

1037
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:08,120
Speaker 1: So Johnny comes to, he looks around, then he hides

1038
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 1: behind a rock, and here comes our Roman reveal. Out

1039
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 1: of the cave comes this thick, awesome, hulking guerrilla suit

1040
01:00:17,880 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 1: man with a with a space helmet on, and he

1041
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:24,640
Speaker 1: comes out. He looks around, and before we really even

1042
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: get a chance to take this in, he's getting onto

1043
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: the viewscreen to make a call. So this will be

1044
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:32,160
Speaker 1: our first view screen interface scene, and there are tons

1045
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:34,680
Speaker 1: of them in the movie. Basically, they are zoom calls

1046
01:00:34,720 --> 01:00:39,000
Speaker 1: in a bathroom mirror between Roman and his boss, who

1047
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,960
Speaker 1: is referred to as the Great One or Great Guidance

1048
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 1: or Guidance Roman, and they will they will recur throughout

1049
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:48,600
Speaker 1: the movie. About half of the run time is Roman

1050
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:51,720
Speaker 1: getting chewed out by his boss for failing to exterminate

1051
01:00:51,800 --> 01:00:54,960
Speaker 1: all of the humans. And clearly these scenes were you know,

1052
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:57,640
Speaker 1: they're they were filmed without the voiceover, So there's a

1053
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:02,640
Speaker 1: lot of gesticulating of rilla suits with with space helmets on,

1054
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: shaking of hands with fingers outstretched, but it's obvious that

1055
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:11,160
Speaker 1: the hand is not in that hand part of the suit. Yeah, yeah,

1056
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 1: because they're again they're extended to give the the original

1057
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: costume guerrilla like proportions, so just rubber fingers waggling as

1058
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 1: the handshakes. But the viewscreen comes on, we see some

1059
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 1: chicken nuggets flying around through space. I think they're supposed

1060
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:28,000
Speaker 1: to be asteroids. And then here comes a guy in

1061
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 1: the exact same costume as Roman on the other side.

1062
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: So it's just Roman talking to Roman, and it is

1063
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:38,040
Speaker 1: hard to communicate without just playing back a sample. How

1064
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: funny the cadence of the Roman on Roman dialogue is

1065
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: so like Roman checks in, he says extension Roman x

1066
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 1: J two, reporting to guidance Roman, I salute you and

1067
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: the other guy you know, you're late fourteen minutes. Uh,

1068
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 1: they're they're just always. Um. I was trying to think

1069
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 1: of how to describe this, and I did come up

1070
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: with a comparison. They have a similar kind of loud,

1071
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:09,840
Speaker 1: stabby but monotonous line delivery to the cone heads. M

1072
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 1: M yeah, yeah, yeah, which I guess, I guess we

1073
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 1: can sort of, I mean, undoubtedly, um Dan Ackroyd was

1074
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: familiar with Robot Monster. Yes, maybe it was a direct

1075
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 1: reference there. So we get some backstory about what's going

1076
01:02:23,080 --> 01:02:27,280
Speaker 1: on here. We discovered that the guidance Roman, he divulges

1077
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 1: that no life has been discovered on other planets. I

1078
01:02:30,120 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 1: guess they were looking. So he says Earth is their

1079
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:36,880
Speaker 1: only rival, and then Romance says the human knew of

1080
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:41,280
Speaker 1: atomic energy, but had not mastered the cosmic ray. So

1081
01:02:41,560 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 1: Roman explains that he used something called the Calcinator ray

1082
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:50,000
Speaker 1: to attack Earth, and then the Earth nations thought the

1083
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 1: attack came from other Earth nations, so they retaliated against

1084
01:02:54,760 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 1: each other and they all destroyed each other with nuclear weapons.

1085
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: And then Romance says after that they tried to band

1086
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: together against him. He says, quote, their resistance pattern showed

1087
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:10,360
Speaker 1: some intelligence, but all are gone now. So at this

1088
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 1: point I was Rachel and I were watching this and

1089
01:03:13,320 --> 01:03:17,439
Speaker 1: we're like, what what? How much time has elapsed here?

1090
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: It just looks like Johnny falls over. Then he gets up,

1091
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 1: and now here's Roman talking about what sounds like something

1092
01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:27,640
Speaker 1: you know would have taken months of intervening time. Yeah.

1093
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 1: I I had to just quickly abandon the earlier portion

1094
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: of the film and be like, this is the reality

1095
01:03:32,680 --> 01:03:35,000
Speaker 1: we're in now. I can't I've got enough to contend with.

1096
01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:36,959
Speaker 1: I can't try and figure out how the first part

1097
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 1: factors into where we are now. But yeah, because suddenly

1098
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:46,040
Speaker 1: we are in this post apocalyptic hellscape and it's this

1099
01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 1: is something that Ringstad discusses a little bit, like this

1100
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:50,880
Speaker 1: is really early for I mean, this isn't the first

1101
01:03:50,920 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 1: time that in the wake of the close of World

1102
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: War two that you had fiction or film dealing with

1103
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 1: like a post apocalypt it setting. But it's pretty early,

1104
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:06,080
Speaker 1: like this is this is not long after the first

1105
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:09,920
Speaker 1: use of nuclear weaponry on Earth. Yeah, and already at

1106
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:11,840
Speaker 1: this point in the movie, all the Earth things are

1107
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:15,080
Speaker 1: gone as far as we know, except for Johnny. Oh yeah,

1108
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 1: I mean we get it. We hear from the Roman

1109
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:20,160
Speaker 1: himself who's like there are eight survivors or there's some

1110
01:04:20,200 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 1: disagreement on how many survivors, but it seems to be

1111
01:04:22,920 --> 01:04:26,919
Speaker 1: agreed upon that we're not talking about more than eight humans. Yeah.

1112
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:29,960
Speaker 1: First Romance says that he's eliminated all the humans, and

1113
01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:34,520
Speaker 1: then the guidance Romance says, I want facts, not words. Yeah,

1114
01:04:34,560 --> 01:04:37,840
Speaker 1: and they're really they're just they're main spirited and severe

1115
01:04:38,040 --> 01:04:41,560
Speaker 1: on everything. Like at this point the human species is

1116
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:44,680
Speaker 1: effectively extinct. I mean, there's no coming back from this.

1117
01:04:44,760 --> 01:04:47,320
Speaker 1: But they're like no, we must destroy them, all right.

1118
01:04:47,760 --> 01:04:50,720
Speaker 1: Roman tries to defend himself. He's like, my scans indicate

1119
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:55,400
Speaker 1: no life life forms above lepidoptera level exists, And I

1120
01:04:55,520 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 1: was like, what lepidoptera moths and butterflies? Oh man, we

1121
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:03,000
Speaker 1: don't say. I don't remember seeing a mouth or a

1122
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:05,200
Speaker 1: better flying the film, though it's other regions. I guess

1123
01:05:05,400 --> 01:05:07,360
Speaker 1: I don't know how he's ranking them though, what is

1124
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 1: above and below leopid optera? Anyway, the boss Roman is like, uh, okay,

1125
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:18,640
Speaker 1: find and destroy the eight remaining humans and then report back.

1126
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:22,920
Speaker 1: So we see Roman, uh, you know, he'd uh, he's

1127
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: gonna get to work, and so he sets his bubble

1128
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:28,640
Speaker 1: machine going full blast, and then Johnny runs off to

1129
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:34,240
Speaker 1: somewhere to somewhere, back home, presumably to his family, and

1130
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 1: then just more commenced intense brain pain, Rob, can you

1131
01:05:40,400 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: try to describe what a baffling puzzle box begins to

1132
01:05:44,040 --> 01:05:48,280
Speaker 1: emerge in the next scene about like what what the

1133
01:05:48,360 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 1: time frame of the movie is, What are the family

1134
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: relationships the living arrangements? Like yeah, because they're just living

1135
01:05:55,400 --> 01:06:01,080
Speaker 1: in straight ruins here, just like direct sunlight ruins. There

1136
01:06:01,080 --> 01:06:04,640
Speaker 1: are no roofs that I remember seeing and everything is

1137
01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:10,440
Speaker 1: protected by this kind of electromagnetic field or slash VNS

1138
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:14,000
Speaker 1: that the professor has installed, and they're just clearly really

1139
01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:18,240
Speaker 1: scraping by. And several times in the film the performances

1140
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 1: really speak to this like they're supposed to be a

1141
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 1: feeling of of desperation here, that this is humanity in

1142
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:28,560
Speaker 1: its final days for real. But there's also stuff that

1143
01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 1: doesn't comport with that at all, like Roy and Alice

1144
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:38,480
Speaker 1: having this laugh inducing romance. Uh. But the other thing

1145
01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 1: about the family relationships, So the mother and the professor

1146
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:47,120
Speaker 1: are now Ma and pa, and I think maybe we're

1147
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 1: to understand that such time has passed that the two

1148
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:56,040
Speaker 1: archaeologists have been incorporated into Johnny and Carlos family. So

1149
01:06:56,160 --> 01:07:00,360
Speaker 1: mother and the professor are now married, and now the

1150
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:05,479
Speaker 1: professor is just Johnny's paw. I guess, yeah, okay, I think, yeah,

1151
01:07:05,600 --> 01:07:10,120
Speaker 1: that's what. But they don't explain that any time has passed.

1152
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:13,160
Speaker 1: It's just like that now. So there's that. But then

1153
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:18,440
Speaker 1: also we are told about all of this technology expertise,

1154
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 1: Like we find out from the professor that uh that

1155
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 1: they think the Roman hasn't been able to locate them

1156
01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:28,919
Speaker 1: because the professor and Alice were able to rig up

1157
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:32,920
Speaker 1: these deflector beams that are like these electrical wires that

1158
01:07:33,040 --> 01:07:38,600
Speaker 1: surround their shelter which protect them from romance scanning rays.

1159
01:07:39,720 --> 01:07:43,840
Speaker 1: And wasn't the professor an archaeologist, Yeah, that's what we

1160
01:07:43,840 --> 01:07:47,720
Speaker 1: were told earlier. But he's also apparently a like a

1161
01:07:47,800 --> 01:07:50,640
Speaker 1: nuclear engineer or whatever. Yeah, I mean maybe he's just

1162
01:07:50,680 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 1: a quick study and he he got some books. Uh,

1163
01:07:52,920 --> 01:07:55,800
Speaker 1: and I had some time to to bone up on

1164
01:07:55,840 --> 01:07:59,480
Speaker 1: everything in the days immediately following the apocalypse. So this

1165
01:07:59,560 --> 01:08:01,840
Speaker 1: is the thing you were calling a puzzle box. It's

1166
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:04,440
Speaker 1: just like so much is coming out so fast, and

1167
01:08:04,520 --> 01:08:07,040
Speaker 1: it's like not what it was in the scene just before,

1168
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: with no explanation for why it's different. Yeah, and you

1169
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:13,120
Speaker 1: just have to, like moment to moment in this film

1170
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:16,920
Speaker 1: except the change and roll with it or to whatever

1171
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:19,519
Speaker 1: degree is possible, try and stitch together in your mind.

1172
01:08:19,600 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 1: So again, you either have to be all in on

1173
01:08:22,240 --> 01:08:26,559
Speaker 1: following the the meandering plot of this film, or you

1174
01:08:26,600 --> 01:08:29,080
Speaker 1: have to just shut off half your brain and take

1175
01:08:29,120 --> 01:08:32,759
Speaker 1: it at like drive in value. Yeah. So Johnny reports

1176
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:35,400
Speaker 1: to his family the proximity of Roman. They're like, oh,

1177
01:08:35,479 --> 01:08:37,400
Speaker 1: he's just over in the cave. He's really close to

1178
01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:41,639
Speaker 1: our house and that's obviously distressing to everyone. And Johnny suggests,

1179
01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:45,639
Speaker 1: let's kill him, let's kill Romance. And the Professor says,

1180
01:08:45,680 --> 01:08:48,680
Speaker 1: we can't do that. He's impervious to our weapons. And

1181
01:08:48,720 --> 01:08:52,519
Speaker 1: then Alice says, unless we find his weak spot. Good thinking,

1182
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:57,080
Speaker 1: they've never had this conversation before. Exactly, Yeah, apparently they've

1183
01:08:57,120 --> 01:08:59,600
Speaker 1: been part of a like resistance on Earth that was

1184
01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:02,560
Speaker 1: fighting against Roman and they're all but defeated. They're the

1185
01:09:02,600 --> 01:09:04,880
Speaker 1: only ones left, and now Alice has the idea, what

1186
01:09:04,920 --> 01:09:07,640
Speaker 1: if we try to find his weak spot. We eventually

1187
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: learned that, oh, it's not that fence that that they've

1188
01:09:11,280 --> 01:09:14,599
Speaker 1: rigged up. There's protecting them. It's because the Professor develops

1189
01:09:14,600 --> 01:09:18,040
Speaker 1: some sort of antibiotic to keep them all from catching

1190
01:09:18,040 --> 01:09:21,719
Speaker 1: any diseases, and that is protecting them from the Romance

1191
01:09:21,760 --> 01:09:26,480
Speaker 1: super weapons. Yes, the professor has developed an antibiotics serum.

1192
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:30,640
Speaker 1: I think the professor and Roy together, so two archaeologists

1193
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:37,200
Speaker 1: can do bioengineering. They can't antibiotics serum that protects them

1194
01:09:37,240 --> 01:09:41,080
Speaker 1: against all diseases. Johnny explains that they can take capsules

1195
01:09:41,080 --> 01:09:44,280
Speaker 1: that have quote a lot of bad bugs in them

1196
01:09:44,360 --> 01:09:46,479
Speaker 1: and then they never get sick. So there you go.

1197
01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:49,799
Speaker 1: But it just happens to turn out that this serum

1198
01:09:50,160 --> 01:09:56,439
Speaker 1: for some reason protects them against romance scanning devices and weapons. Yeah,

1199
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:59,080
Speaker 1: and so they eventually put this together and then we

1200
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:02,640
Speaker 1: get this wonderful setup that that they roll out here

1201
01:10:02,640 --> 01:10:04,679
Speaker 1: in the film that that I I really loved and

1202
01:10:04,680 --> 01:10:07,280
Speaker 1: I got really invested in for the brief period that

1203
01:10:07,320 --> 01:10:10,360
Speaker 1: it was explored in the movie. They share that there

1204
01:10:10,479 --> 01:10:14,160
Speaker 1: is a battalion of human space marines on an orbiting

1205
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:18,519
Speaker 1: spaceship that survived the all out attack on Earth and

1206
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:21,960
Speaker 1: the you know, the subsequent wars. Uh. We later find

1207
01:10:21,960 --> 01:10:25,080
Speaker 1: out that the Romance basically left them alone because they

1208
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:26,680
Speaker 1: were like, well, this could be useful when we come

1209
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:28,720
Speaker 1: to colonize the planet. We'll just leave that up there.

1210
01:10:28,760 --> 01:10:30,880
Speaker 1: They're not doing any harm for some reason. They're they're

1211
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 1: forgiving of this, but they can't let eight remaining humans

1212
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:37,599
Speaker 1: die out on the Earth, uh whatever. Fair enough. But

1213
01:10:38,320 --> 01:10:41,479
Speaker 1: once our human survivors realize that it's the serum that's

1214
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:44,439
Speaker 1: protecting them, they're like, well, let's let's let's get us.

1215
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 1: Let's get one of these rocket ships is still laying around.

1216
01:10:47,360 --> 01:10:49,439
Speaker 1: Let's Let's have a couple of folks hop on a

1217
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:51,680
Speaker 1: V two with this serum, take it up to the

1218
01:10:51,720 --> 01:10:55,400
Speaker 1: space Marines. Then they'll be protected and bam, we can

1219
01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:59,840
Speaker 1: begin this rebellion in earnest. Okay, good plan, right, Yes,

1220
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:01,920
Speaker 1: it's like that. Let's do that for the next half

1221
01:11:01,920 --> 01:11:04,559
Speaker 1: of this film. But then oh, we get a call

1222
01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: from the Roman overlord here, the Viceroy of Earth, and

1223
01:11:08,600 --> 01:11:11,080
Speaker 1: he's like, I figured out your plot. Watch what I'm

1224
01:11:11,080 --> 01:11:12,880
Speaker 1: about to do. What does he do, of course, blows

1225
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:15,640
Speaker 1: up the V two rocket ship on its way to

1226
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:18,719
Speaker 1: the to the satellite, and we see what is supposed

1227
01:11:18,760 --> 01:11:21,479
Speaker 1: to be like the space station satellite spinning out of

1228
01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:26,200
Speaker 1: control and becoming devastated, and it's devastated as well, and

1229
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:29,080
Speaker 1: so and so he's just like, your your brilliant plan

1230
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:32,040
Speaker 1: is nothing, and everybody's really shaken up about it. And

1231
01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:35,200
Speaker 1: I was a little shaken up to again trying to

1232
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:38,559
Speaker 1: become as invested as possible and Robot Monster and I

1233
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:40,640
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I really thought they had

1234
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:42,320
Speaker 1: a they had a shot there. This seems like a

1235
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 1: really good plan. And Roman is just completely destroyed all

1236
01:11:45,960 --> 01:11:48,640
Speaker 1: their hope and they seem utterly hopeless. Now it's a

1237
01:11:48,640 --> 01:11:51,439
Speaker 1: tragic setback. But during the scene where we watched the

1238
01:11:51,479 --> 01:11:54,120
Speaker 1: space platform being destroyed, you can see somebody with a

1239
01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:57,040
Speaker 1: gloved hand holding up the model as they move it around.

1240
01:11:58,439 --> 01:12:01,640
Speaker 1: Oh man, oh I love that. But wait, Rob, you

1241
01:12:01,680 --> 01:12:03,840
Speaker 1: actually skipped ahead a little bit because there are a

1242
01:12:03,880 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 1: lot of zoom calls in this movie. Yes, Roman calls

1243
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:09,920
Speaker 1: them once before that call where he shows them that

1244
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:13,120
Speaker 1: he's blowing up the space station. Uh. He first calls

1245
01:12:13,160 --> 01:12:15,400
Speaker 1: the family on their view screen, which appears to be

1246
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:18,320
Speaker 1: the only piece of furniture in their home, which, as

1247
01:12:18,320 --> 01:12:21,120
Speaker 1: you said, is otherwise just a three wall concrete bunker

1248
01:12:21,160 --> 01:12:24,760
Speaker 1: with no roof, exposed to the desert sun. And Romance says,

1249
01:12:24,880 --> 01:12:28,600
Speaker 1: humans listen to me. Due to an error in calculation,

1250
01:12:28,720 --> 01:12:32,280
Speaker 1: there are still a few of you left. Uh. And

1251
01:12:32,320 --> 01:12:35,080
Speaker 1: so he's explaining how he's going to destroy them, and

1252
01:12:35,120 --> 01:12:38,080
Speaker 1: he wants them to come surrender themselves to him and

1253
01:12:38,120 --> 01:12:41,920
Speaker 1: he'll promise them a quick, painless death. But during this

1254
01:12:42,000 --> 01:12:47,200
Speaker 1: conversation there is a bizarre side conversation, just like while

1255
01:12:47,320 --> 01:12:49,960
Speaker 1: they're still on the phone with Roman, Romans just standing

1256
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:52,920
Speaker 1: there on the zoom screen, and they start talking about

1257
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:56,439
Speaker 1: how because of the number of humans left alive that

1258
01:12:56,600 --> 01:13:00,479
Speaker 1: Roman sites. They assume Roy must be dead because he's

1259
01:13:00,479 --> 01:13:03,400
Speaker 1: not there with them, and uh. The professors like, I

1260
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: never would have invented the serum without him, so I

1261
01:13:05,720 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: guess he used his archaeology to help invent the serum

1262
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:14,000
Speaker 1: and uh. And Alice is like, oh, he you know,

1263
01:13:14,120 --> 01:13:16,600
Speaker 1: we always struggled because he would never admit I was

1264
01:13:16,640 --> 01:13:21,120
Speaker 1: good in my field, which is apparently like electrical engineering. Um.

1265
01:13:21,160 --> 01:13:24,679
Speaker 1: But but he you know, now she kind of misses him.

1266
01:13:24,720 --> 01:13:27,400
Speaker 1: But in the middle of that, Roman interrupts them to say,

1267
01:13:27,400 --> 01:13:30,479
Speaker 1: do you wonder what happened to all your fellows east time?

1268
01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:33,639
Speaker 1: At other humans my calcinator beam and then he shows

1269
01:13:33,640 --> 01:13:36,960
Speaker 1: stock footage of bombs. Uh. And then he tells them

1270
01:13:37,000 --> 01:13:40,800
Speaker 1: their deaths will be indescribable and he logs off. And

1271
01:13:40,960 --> 01:13:43,800
Speaker 1: after that there's a great conversation where the mother is like, well,

1272
01:13:43,800 --> 01:13:47,880
Speaker 1: maybe we should try to negotiate with Roman, but the

1273
01:13:47,920 --> 01:13:51,920
Speaker 1: professor says, if he wants us, he should calculate us.

1274
01:13:52,360 --> 01:13:54,200
Speaker 1: Rob what do you make of the fact that the

1275
01:13:54,200 --> 01:14:00,200
Speaker 1: word calculate is used roughly five hundred times in this movie?

1276
01:14:01,160 --> 01:14:05,200
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I mean, it's used correctly in

1277
01:14:05,240 --> 01:14:07,959
Speaker 1: some places, but here I'm not sure what the professor

1278
01:14:08,120 --> 01:14:12,040
Speaker 1: is saying, Like, wait, like he should negotiate with us. Well, yeah,

1279
01:14:12,439 --> 01:14:15,519
Speaker 1: negotiations seems like the way to go. He should calculate us,

1280
01:14:15,560 --> 01:14:19,240
Speaker 1: like what I count us? I think that means find us.

1281
01:14:19,280 --> 01:14:25,000
Speaker 1: In this context, it almost is used to refer to

1282
01:14:25,160 --> 01:14:29,599
Speaker 1: any kind of cognitive labor or activity of any kind.

1283
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:33,400
Speaker 1: So they used calculate to mean like think, and they

1284
01:14:33,479 --> 01:14:38,160
Speaker 1: use calculate later, I think to mean outsmart so, and

1285
01:14:38,439 --> 01:14:41,720
Speaker 1: we're getting a very broad usage of calculate, not not

1286
01:14:41,880 --> 01:14:52,920
Speaker 1: usually in the way you would see it. All right,

1287
01:14:52,960 --> 01:14:54,760
Speaker 1: but let's check back in with Roy. What's Roy been

1288
01:14:54,840 --> 01:14:57,679
Speaker 1: up to? Oh? Roy, turns out he's spying on Romance.

1289
01:14:57,680 --> 01:15:00,040
Speaker 1: So you go back to Romance cave and Roy is

1290
01:15:00,320 --> 01:15:03,040
Speaker 1: behind a rock watching Roman do his thing. And Roy

1291
01:15:03,200 --> 01:15:05,679
Speaker 1: he's got a T shirt on, tucked in T shirt

1292
01:15:06,040 --> 01:15:07,960
Speaker 1: with a couple of big holes ripped in it, one

1293
01:15:08,000 --> 01:15:11,479
Speaker 1: big nipple hole, one shoulder hole. And he's watching Roman

1294
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:14,360
Speaker 1: and his boss do another zoom call and it's more

1295
01:15:14,479 --> 01:15:17,280
Speaker 1: the same stuff that like, the boss is chewing Roman out.

1296
01:15:17,560 --> 01:15:20,200
Speaker 1: Roman says, I need guidance, great one. For the first

1297
01:15:20,240 --> 01:15:22,680
Speaker 1: time in my life, I am not sure, and the

1298
01:15:22,720 --> 01:15:25,759
Speaker 1: great one says, you sound like a human, not a Roman,

1299
01:15:26,600 --> 01:15:29,200
Speaker 1: and uh, so Roy he watches all this and he

1300
01:15:29,200 --> 01:15:31,760
Speaker 1: he comes back to the family alive, and well, uh

1301
01:15:31,800 --> 01:15:33,679
Speaker 1: they're happy to see him, and he spills the beans

1302
01:15:33,680 --> 01:15:36,639
Speaker 1: about Roman. He's like, Roman does not know where we are.

1303
01:15:36,720 --> 01:15:38,880
Speaker 1: So this is the part where as you were talking about,

1304
01:15:39,120 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 1: they planned to coordinate with the Space Platform, but in

1305
01:15:42,560 --> 01:15:45,840
Speaker 1: order to do so, they have to rewire their view

1306
01:15:45,960 --> 01:15:49,920
Speaker 1: screen the zoom call thing to contact the Space Platform.

1307
01:15:50,000 --> 01:15:52,400
Speaker 1: And so Alice is an expert at this, but she

1308
01:15:52,439 --> 01:15:56,360
Speaker 1: needs Roy to be her assistant, and this is fraught.

1309
01:15:56,400 --> 01:15:59,120
Speaker 1: And this is tricky because whenever Roy needs to be

1310
01:15:59,200 --> 01:16:02,320
Speaker 1: her assistant with electronics, he gets bossy. He tries to

1311
01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:04,840
Speaker 1: be the boss and she tells him this and then

1312
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:08,160
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm bossy, and then this line throws for

1313
01:16:08,160 --> 01:16:10,640
Speaker 1: a loop. He says, you're so bossy you ought to

1314
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:14,320
Speaker 1: be milked before you come home at night. Yeah, I

1315
01:16:15,439 --> 01:16:18,519
Speaker 1: and I did not understand that. So we stopped and

1316
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:22,720
Speaker 1: looked this up. Apparently some people call their cows or

1317
01:16:22,800 --> 01:16:27,680
Speaker 1: call their lead cow bossy. M m hmmm, I don't know.

1318
01:16:28,120 --> 01:16:34,479
Speaker 1: Yeah who that's perplexing whatever. I'm not familiar with this whatever,

1319
01:16:34,600 --> 01:16:38,800
Speaker 1: but okay, hey, yeah farmers in the audience ship. There

1320
01:16:38,800 --> 01:16:40,960
Speaker 1: were a lot of Westerns at this time, so maybe

1321
01:16:41,040 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 1: this is something you would know if you've watched a

1322
01:16:43,120 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: lot of Westerns, which were extremely popular in the forties

1323
01:16:46,280 --> 01:16:50,679
Speaker 1: and fifties. Right, So, Roy and Alice they get together

1324
01:16:50,720 --> 01:16:54,840
Speaker 1: for some sassy, flirty electronics repair montages where we're just

1325
01:16:54,880 --> 01:16:58,280
Speaker 1: watching like an electronics board and some hands doing things

1326
01:16:58,400 --> 01:17:01,960
Speaker 1: on it, and they're doing voice over like, oh, solder,

1327
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:04,839
Speaker 1: my vacuum tube, You're too beautiful to be so smart.

1328
01:17:05,240 --> 01:17:08,960
Speaker 1: One wonders if this this section was about stretching out

1329
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:12,080
Speaker 1: the runtime of the film to over an hour. Yeah.

1330
01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:14,320
Speaker 1: But then finally they get it working, they get they

1331
01:17:14,320 --> 01:17:16,760
Speaker 1: get tuned in, but unfortunately, this is the scene you

1332
01:17:16,800 --> 01:17:19,439
Speaker 1: were talking about the Roman attack on the rocket ship

1333
01:17:19,520 --> 01:17:23,080
Speaker 1: killing the other humans, and Romance shows them the attack

1334
01:17:23,160 --> 01:17:26,680
Speaker 1: on their viewscreen, and Roman ends it by saying, calculate

1335
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:33,200
Speaker 1: your chances negative, negative, negative, absolutely heartbreaking, and then he

1336
01:17:33,240 --> 01:17:36,240
Speaker 1: says again that he's like several times now threatened that

1337
01:17:36,280 --> 01:17:38,680
Speaker 1: he will destroy them imminently. He says it again, He's like,

1338
01:17:38,720 --> 01:17:41,200
Speaker 1: in one hour, I will destroy you all, and the

1339
01:17:41,280 --> 01:17:45,679
Speaker 1: kid Carlos says, Mommy, why doesn't he like people? Uh?

1340
01:17:45,880 --> 01:17:48,640
Speaker 1: Then we get let's see we get more flirty electronics

1341
01:17:48,680 --> 01:17:51,600
Speaker 1: work after this because Alis and Roy have to rewire

1342
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:54,800
Speaker 1: the view screen again so they can call Roman directly.

1343
01:17:56,040 --> 01:17:58,880
Speaker 1: This is the scene where the Professor is like, Okay,

1344
01:17:58,960 --> 01:18:01,200
Speaker 1: let me show you my fan Emily. Roman, how could

1345
01:18:01,200 --> 01:18:04,920
Speaker 1: you want to destroy them? And then Roman like gives

1346
01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,759
Speaker 1: a reason for destroying each family member. They show mother

1347
01:18:08,240 --> 01:18:10,840
Speaker 1: and he's like, the mother is the bringer of human life.

1348
01:18:11,320 --> 01:18:14,479
Speaker 1: And then they show the child Carla, and he's like,

1349
01:18:14,520 --> 01:18:17,360
Speaker 1: I am programmed to have no emotions. And then they

1350
01:18:17,400 --> 01:18:20,800
Speaker 1: show Johnny the boy and Johnny sticks out his tongue

1351
01:18:20,840 --> 01:18:25,120
Speaker 1: and Roman just says, the boy is impertinent. Fair Fair,

1352
01:18:25,400 --> 01:18:28,519
Speaker 1: He's kind of a Bart Simpsons, this kid. But this

1353
01:18:28,560 --> 01:18:31,680
Speaker 1: scene is a turning point in the movie because when

1354
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:36,800
Speaker 1: the Professor shows Roman Alice, something clicks for Roman. Romance

1355
01:18:36,960 --> 01:18:41,160
Speaker 1: hard exterior shell breaks and something kind of melts inside.

1356
01:18:41,240 --> 01:18:44,920
Speaker 1: He sees Alice and he's like, hubba, hubba. He says,

1357
01:18:44,960 --> 01:18:47,800
Speaker 1: there is something I do not understand. I want to

1358
01:18:47,840 --> 01:18:51,519
Speaker 1: see the girl Alice again, and it's love at first sight.

1359
01:18:51,640 --> 01:18:54,679
Speaker 1: He's immediately saying like, oh, well, wait a minute, Actually,

1360
01:18:54,720 --> 01:18:57,360
Speaker 1: I don't have to destroy you. Let me negotiate with

1361
01:18:57,400 --> 01:19:00,639
Speaker 1: the girl. Now. To be clear, Alice is very cute,

1362
01:19:00,960 --> 01:19:05,200
Speaker 1: but is she really cute to an alien robots sideboard

1363
01:19:05,320 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 1: gorilla man um? I'm just I'm not sure about that.

1364
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:12,599
Speaker 1: And also I have to question the Roman viceroy here,

1365
01:19:12,840 --> 01:19:15,280
Speaker 1: like where does he think this relationship could possibly go?

1366
01:19:15,600 --> 01:19:17,800
Speaker 1: Maybe he's not thinking a long term Yeah, but the

1367
01:19:17,920 --> 01:19:21,880
Speaker 1: weird thing, like she's weirdly all for it. She's Carlos says,

1368
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:24,160
Speaker 1: is Alice going to go on a date with Roman?

1369
01:19:24,800 --> 01:19:29,280
Speaker 1: And Alice's yeah, I must go. She gives this passionate

1370
01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:32,799
Speaker 1: monologue about how like humans crawled up from the slime

1371
01:19:32,880 --> 01:19:36,160
Speaker 1: of the ocean and evolved to tame the atom and

1372
01:19:36,240 --> 01:19:38,840
Speaker 1: it cannot end just because she did not want to

1373
01:19:38,880 --> 01:19:41,960
Speaker 1: become bride of Roman. So she she's gonna, She's gonna

1374
01:19:41,960 --> 01:19:44,360
Speaker 1: do it. I love this because this this is a

1375
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:47,519
Speaker 1: moment in the film that feels very unexpected, because any

1376
01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:51,320
Speaker 1: other film that had this kind of plot, uh, would

1377
01:19:51,360 --> 01:19:53,439
Speaker 1: not go in this direction. It would just be like, oh,

1378
01:19:54,040 --> 01:19:56,200
Speaker 1: save me from the Roman. I do not want to

1379
01:19:56,240 --> 01:19:59,160
Speaker 1: marry the Roman. But no, she goes this movie goes

1380
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:02,400
Speaker 1: in the opposite direct and it and it makes it interesting. However,

1381
01:20:02,520 --> 01:20:04,439
Speaker 1: the family, the rest of the family do not agree,

1382
01:20:04,439 --> 01:20:07,800
Speaker 1: and they end up restraining Alice to prevent her from

1383
01:20:07,840 --> 01:20:12,280
Speaker 1: going to this this Roman rendezvous. But meanwhile, little Johnny

1384
01:20:12,360 --> 01:20:15,160
Speaker 1: runs off to meet Roman instead. Uh. And here's where

1385
01:20:15,160 --> 01:20:18,160
Speaker 1: we get the first of lots of scenes of Roman

1386
01:20:18,320 --> 01:20:22,439
Speaker 1: walking up a hill. Uh. I don't know why they

1387
01:20:22,520 --> 01:20:25,040
Speaker 1: chose to include this much footage, if like they were

1388
01:20:25,080 --> 01:20:28,040
Speaker 1: embracing how funny it looked, or it's hard for me

1389
01:20:28,080 --> 01:20:30,200
Speaker 1: to believe they watched it and did not think it

1390
01:20:30,240 --> 01:20:31,920
Speaker 1: was funny. So this is one of those things that

1391
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:34,040
Speaker 1: makes me think, well, yeah, maybe they were sort of

1392
01:20:34,560 --> 01:20:38,559
Speaker 1: leaning into the absurd comic aspect of this, but there's

1393
01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:43,719
Speaker 1: a lot of it, and we could not stop laughing. Yeah. Again,

1394
01:20:44,000 --> 01:20:48,600
Speaker 1: anytime Roman is on the screen, you're entertained. There's not

1395
01:20:48,720 --> 01:20:50,439
Speaker 1: a dull moment, as long as you can say there's

1396
01:20:50,479 --> 01:20:52,320
Speaker 1: not a dull moment in the movie. But he is.

1397
01:20:52,600 --> 01:20:55,680
Speaker 1: He's just such an interesting specimen to look at. So

1398
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:58,400
Speaker 1: Johnny and Roman meet up and Johnny's like, hey, you know,

1399
01:20:58,439 --> 01:21:00,840
Speaker 1: what do you have against us? And Roman and explains, well,

1400
01:21:00,880 --> 01:21:04,240
Speaker 1: you are human and your people were getting too intelligent.

1401
01:21:04,360 --> 01:21:06,320
Speaker 1: We could not wait until you were strong enough to

1402
01:21:06,360 --> 01:21:10,840
Speaker 1: attack us. We had to attack you first. And then

1403
01:21:10,880 --> 01:21:14,559
Speaker 1: there's an amazing exchange. Johnny says, I think you're just

1404
01:21:14,640 --> 01:21:17,479
Speaker 1: a big bully picking on those smaller than you are,

1405
01:21:17,880 --> 01:21:23,000
Speaker 1: and Romance says, now, I will kill you. So he

1406
01:21:23,040 --> 01:21:25,720
Speaker 1: tries to do use the Calcinator death ray, but it

1407
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:30,439
Speaker 1: doesn't work. Johnny's immune. But this encounter, let's slip the

1408
01:21:30,880 --> 01:21:33,759
Speaker 1: fact about the sea rum that keeps them safe from Roman,

1409
01:21:33,840 --> 01:21:36,639
Speaker 1: and Roman figures out that he can now calculate how

1410
01:21:36,680 --> 01:21:39,439
Speaker 1: to destroy them. Oh and meanwhile, in the same part,

1411
01:21:39,600 --> 01:21:43,040
Speaker 1: Romance wandering around and Alice and Roy are oft in

1412
01:21:43,040 --> 01:21:46,880
Speaker 1: the the desert together and they're hiding from Roman, and

1413
01:21:46,920 --> 01:21:49,080
Speaker 1: they like lay down on a bunch of cactuses and

1414
01:21:49,120 --> 01:21:52,320
Speaker 1: start kissing. And then they run home after this and

1415
01:21:52,360 --> 01:21:53,920
Speaker 1: say that they want to get married, and they have

1416
01:21:53,960 --> 01:21:57,280
Speaker 1: a wedding ceremony. Oh my god. So this this is

1417
01:21:57,320 --> 01:22:00,439
Speaker 1: probably the dumbest part of the very dumb film. Um.

1418
01:22:00,680 --> 01:22:03,559
Speaker 1: I loved every moment of it because, Okay, first of all,

1419
01:22:03,600 --> 01:22:06,160
Speaker 1: you mentioned how Roy came back from spying on Roman

1420
01:22:06,280 --> 01:22:09,160
Speaker 1: or whatever and his shirt was torn. He quickly became

1421
01:22:09,200 --> 01:22:12,360
Speaker 1: obvious that this is the only like medium adult T

1422
01:22:12,520 --> 01:22:15,040
Speaker 1: shirt left on the planet because he doesn't get a

1423
01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:17,120
Speaker 1: new and he just sticks with this ragged old thing.

1424
01:22:17,720 --> 01:22:20,680
Speaker 1: Um a couple of times during the making out and

1425
01:22:20,720 --> 01:22:23,640
Speaker 1: the wooing of Alice, um, that shirt comes all the

1426
01:22:23,640 --> 01:22:26,639
Speaker 1: way off. And then when they get married, And granted

1427
01:22:26,680 --> 01:22:29,000
Speaker 1: it's not a fancy ceremony, it's kind of thrown together

1428
01:22:29,080 --> 01:22:31,320
Speaker 1: last minute. There aren't a lot of people to invite

1429
01:22:31,320 --> 01:22:33,640
Speaker 1: to it because most of the world is dead and

1430
01:22:33,680 --> 01:22:38,240
Speaker 1: it's a dead world. Uh, but Roy is married shirtless.

1431
01:22:38,600 --> 01:22:41,360
Speaker 1: This is a shirtless wedding, And I had to I

1432
01:22:41,439 --> 01:22:44,280
Speaker 1: had actually did a quick searching around. I'm like, is

1433
01:22:44,320 --> 01:22:48,280
Speaker 1: this a thing? Has even the most ridiculous of celebrities

1434
01:22:48,479 --> 01:22:52,000
Speaker 1: had a wedding ceremony in which they are completely shirtless,

1435
01:22:52,360 --> 01:22:54,760
Speaker 1: And I could find no evidence that this is the case.

1436
01:22:54,800 --> 01:22:57,439
Speaker 1: I think you have had some examples of of you know,

1437
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:02,120
Speaker 1: particularly particularly buff dude maybe getting married with just a

1438
01:23:02,240 --> 01:23:07,360
Speaker 1: jacket over their buffness. But I think Roy, I correct

1439
01:23:07,400 --> 01:23:09,960
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, listeners, but I think Roy was

1440
01:23:10,680 --> 01:23:13,800
Speaker 1: maybe in a in a category all his own here,

1441
01:23:13,920 --> 01:23:17,200
Speaker 1: just the shirtless wedding to Alice when they say they're

1442
01:23:17,200 --> 01:23:20,440
Speaker 1: getting married and they asked the professor to perform the ceremony.

1443
01:23:20,479 --> 01:23:23,080
Speaker 1: The professors like, it will be the biggest social event

1444
01:23:23,120 --> 01:23:27,759
Speaker 1: of the year and depending on how much time has passed.

1445
01:23:27,800 --> 01:23:29,320
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very good case to be

1446
01:23:29,360 --> 01:23:32,200
Speaker 1: made for that. So they get married and it's just well,

1447
01:23:32,320 --> 01:23:35,200
Speaker 1: it's it's heartwarming. Uh. But he does put the shore

1448
01:23:35,240 --> 01:23:38,920
Speaker 1: back on though, Oh I forgot about that. Yeah, He's like,

1449
01:23:38,960 --> 01:23:40,599
Speaker 1: all right, right, you know, I didn't want to wear

1450
01:23:40,600 --> 01:23:42,639
Speaker 1: this awful thing to the wedding, but I will put

1451
01:23:42,680 --> 01:23:45,320
Speaker 1: it back on now. Now. After this, we get to

1452
01:23:45,320 --> 01:23:48,639
Speaker 1: the part where I started to figure out spoiler spoiler

1453
01:23:48,680 --> 01:23:53,240
Speaker 1: for the ending of the film. Uh. I started to realize, Oh,

1454
01:23:53,360 --> 01:23:56,280
Speaker 1: this is gonna all be a dream because Romance starts

1455
01:23:56,360 --> 01:23:59,959
Speaker 1: killing people. It starts killing the characters, including like the children,

1456
01:24:00,000 --> 01:24:02,680
Speaker 1: and oh yeah, and kills the little girl. Yeah, he

1457
01:24:02,720 --> 01:24:06,160
Speaker 1: strangles the little girl. And I was like what And

1458
01:24:06,200 --> 01:24:10,160
Speaker 1: then I realized, Oh, they would not release this movie

1459
01:24:10,240 --> 01:24:13,439
Speaker 1: if that actually just happened. So I just didn't be

1460
01:24:13,560 --> 01:24:16,599
Speaker 1: at that moment of clarity. I was like, well, she's dead. Now,

1461
01:24:16,800 --> 01:24:20,040
Speaker 1: that's just how totally inconsistent this movie is. Yeah, he

1462
01:24:20,080 --> 01:24:22,240
Speaker 1: starts killing all the human characters, and I think he

1463
01:24:22,280 --> 01:24:26,360
Speaker 1: basically kills all of them. Uh he kills Roy. Uh

1464
01:24:26,520 --> 01:24:30,080
Speaker 1: does he killed both the kids? Oh? I will say

1465
01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:34,959
Speaker 1: he does carry Alice around, as depicted on the poster. Finally,

1466
01:24:35,320 --> 01:24:38,040
Speaker 1: a movie where the poster is true to life. The

1467
01:24:38,120 --> 01:24:40,519
Speaker 1: monster just carries the hell out of a woman, just

1468
01:24:40,560 --> 01:24:42,920
Speaker 1: carries her around. We see lots of shots of Roman

1469
01:24:43,360 --> 01:24:48,400
Speaker 1: carrying Alice's struggling body across the countryside. Here she's just

1470
01:24:48,479 --> 01:24:51,080
Speaker 1: kind of kicking her feet back and forth. He's carrying

1471
01:24:51,080 --> 01:24:54,320
Speaker 1: her around. She doesn't actually it doesn't look like she's

1472
01:24:54,320 --> 01:24:57,280
Speaker 1: really trying to sell being distressed in these scenes. She's

1473
01:24:57,320 --> 01:24:59,920
Speaker 1: just she just looks like this is funny. Yeah. I mean,

1474
01:25:00,320 --> 01:25:03,160
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that he couldn't really see out of that

1475
01:25:03,200 --> 01:25:06,639
Speaker 1: cost him all that well. So these scenes where he's

1476
01:25:06,920 --> 01:25:08,559
Speaker 1: some of those scenes, you can kind of you kind

1477
01:25:08,560 --> 01:25:11,040
Speaker 1: of get the sense that he's walking gingerly with the

1478
01:25:11,120 --> 01:25:14,160
Speaker 1: kind of gorilla arms outstretched in case he falls. So

1479
01:25:14,600 --> 01:25:16,680
Speaker 1: perhaps that was part of it. Here, don't kick too

1480
01:25:16,760 --> 01:25:20,720
Speaker 1: much or there's gonna be a tumble. But ultimately we

1481
01:25:20,760 --> 01:25:23,000
Speaker 1: get some we get some real conflict in the Roman

1482
01:25:23,120 --> 01:25:26,160
Speaker 1: character because he kidnaps Alice. He takes her back to

1483
01:25:26,360 --> 01:25:29,599
Speaker 1: his cave. Um, I think the professor and mother are

1484
01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:32,679
Speaker 1: trying to come rescue her. But he calls into his boss,

1485
01:25:32,680 --> 01:25:35,040
Speaker 1: and his boss is like, Okay, you gotta you've gotta

1486
01:25:35,080 --> 01:25:37,800
Speaker 1: destroy all the humans, and he's and he's like, no,

1487
01:25:37,960 --> 01:25:41,599
Speaker 1: I cannot destroy this human because I love her, And

1488
01:25:41,720 --> 01:25:43,720
Speaker 1: his boss is really mad at him. He says, you

1489
01:25:43,760 --> 01:25:46,960
Speaker 1: are not like a Roman, You're like a human. Destroy

1490
01:25:47,040 --> 01:25:50,160
Speaker 1: them all or I will destroy you. And so Roman

1491
01:25:50,320 --> 01:25:53,320
Speaker 1: he gets his final soliloquy. He says, I cannot yet

1492
01:25:53,360 --> 01:25:56,599
Speaker 1: I must. Oh, actually I should read this quote directly.

1493
01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:00,800
Speaker 1: He says, I cannot, yet I must. How do you

1494
01:26:00,920 --> 01:26:04,200
Speaker 1: calculate that at what point on the graph you must

1495
01:26:04,280 --> 01:26:08,479
Speaker 1: and cannot meet? Yet? I must, but I cannot pure

1496
01:26:08,600 --> 01:26:13,280
Speaker 1: Shakespeare right now anyway, So we get that conflict. He

1497
01:26:13,280 --> 01:26:15,879
Speaker 1: he doesn't want, he can't bring himself to kill Alice.

1498
01:26:15,960 --> 01:26:19,160
Speaker 1: So then the Great Guidance says, you wish to be

1499
01:26:19,200 --> 01:26:22,360
Speaker 1: a human, good, you can die like a human, and

1500
01:26:22,400 --> 01:26:25,360
Speaker 1: then he kills He like sends a cosmic ray to

1501
01:26:25,560 --> 01:26:29,120
Speaker 1: kill to kill the Roman, and then he again He

1502
01:26:29,200 --> 01:26:33,559
Speaker 1: basically he sends dinosaurs to fight again to do the

1503
01:26:33,600 --> 01:26:37,840
Speaker 1: same stock footage they did earlier. Yeah, I think so. Again,

1504
01:26:37,880 --> 01:26:41,719
Speaker 1: it gets very confusing, and that's gonna destroy the world

1505
01:26:41,880 --> 01:26:44,679
Speaker 1: until Johnny wakes up. Johnny wakes up from his dream,

1506
01:26:44,760 --> 01:26:46,679
Speaker 1: and of course it was all a dream. Of course

1507
01:26:46,680 --> 01:26:50,840
Speaker 1: it was the moment Romance started killing the children. I

1508
01:26:50,960 --> 01:26:54,280
Speaker 1: knew that this was gonna happen. I I did not.

1509
01:26:54,600 --> 01:26:57,280
Speaker 1: I found it really gut punchy when they did the

1510
01:26:57,280 --> 01:26:59,360
Speaker 1: whole It was all a dream thing. And again, I've

1511
01:26:59,360 --> 01:27:01,360
Speaker 1: seen this movie for but I guess I forgot about that.

1512
01:27:01,520 --> 01:27:04,880
Speaker 1: Maybe my mind rejected it, and I rejected now as well,

1513
01:27:04,920 --> 01:27:08,479
Speaker 1: because my my I had to do so so many

1514
01:27:08,560 --> 01:27:12,160
Speaker 1: mental gymnastics to try and make sense of the plot

1515
01:27:12,320 --> 01:27:15,200
Speaker 1: and and not even able to stitch everything together. And

1516
01:27:15,200 --> 01:27:17,040
Speaker 1: then when you get to that, oh, but it was

1517
01:27:17,080 --> 01:27:18,960
Speaker 1: all a dream, Like what am I supposed to do

1518
01:27:19,000 --> 01:27:21,599
Speaker 1: with that? Right? I mean, then it nothing matters, because

1519
01:27:21,640 --> 01:27:23,519
Speaker 1: then it was just it was just all the the

1520
01:27:23,600 --> 01:27:26,559
Speaker 1: dreams of a young child. And and that's not interesting.

1521
01:27:26,600 --> 01:27:29,400
Speaker 1: What's what's that's supposed to me? Agree, Phil Tucker? That

1522
01:27:29,479 --> 01:27:32,559
Speaker 1: was cheap, That was that was that was a fake out.

1523
01:27:33,439 --> 01:27:36,200
Speaker 1: You should not have done it. You should have structured

1524
01:27:36,240 --> 01:27:37,960
Speaker 1: it in such a way that you could commit to

1525
01:27:38,000 --> 01:27:40,519
Speaker 1: your ending and let it be the reality of the

1526
01:27:40,560 --> 01:27:44,240
Speaker 1: world you've created. Yeah, yeah, or you know, it's not

1527
01:27:44,280 --> 01:27:48,080
Speaker 1: that it was all a dream is always a terrible choice.

1528
01:27:48,080 --> 01:27:50,720
Speaker 1: It's often a great choice, especially in films that are

1529
01:27:51,320 --> 01:27:54,479
Speaker 1: surreal and fantastic anyway or some sort of you know,

1530
01:27:54,479 --> 01:27:56,679
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of obviously Wizard of Oz being a great

1531
01:27:56,720 --> 01:27:59,240
Speaker 1: example of this, the fact that it was all a

1532
01:27:59,360 --> 01:28:03,280
Speaker 1: dream or was maybe a dream. It's a little ambiguous. Uh,

1533
01:28:03,400 --> 01:28:06,479
Speaker 1: that just adds to the the fun of the picture,

1534
01:28:06,520 --> 01:28:09,080
Speaker 1: and and that's just part of it. But here it's

1535
01:28:09,120 --> 01:28:11,720
Speaker 1: just it just feels very cut, punchy. I'm gonna say

1536
01:28:11,760 --> 01:28:15,080
Speaker 1: it's writers out there, I would not advise you to

1537
01:28:15,160 --> 01:28:18,240
Speaker 1: try it was all a dream. It It works in

1538
01:28:18,280 --> 01:28:20,040
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz. But I'd say that kind of

1539
01:28:20,080 --> 01:28:22,840
Speaker 1: outcome is rare. Most of the time. Audiences are going

1540
01:28:22,880 --> 01:28:26,160
Speaker 1: to feel cheated. Yeah, but at least this isn't just

1541
01:28:26,280 --> 01:28:28,519
Speaker 1: it was all a dream. This is it was all

1542
01:28:28,600 --> 01:28:32,559
Speaker 1: a dream? Or was it? Because when our human characters

1543
01:28:32,600 --> 01:28:35,719
Speaker 1: walk away from the cave, outcomes out of the cave

1544
01:28:35,800 --> 01:28:38,400
Speaker 1: comes walking the Roman, reaching out towards the view, or

1545
01:28:38,400 --> 01:28:41,360
Speaker 1: in fact, they do it like three times, just to

1546
01:28:41,479 --> 01:28:45,280
Speaker 1: drive home the uh, the the horror of the picture.

1547
01:28:45,280 --> 01:28:47,240
Speaker 1: And I guess also get just a little more juice

1548
01:28:47,280 --> 01:28:49,400
Speaker 1: out of the three D because it's like he's coming

1549
01:28:49,400 --> 01:28:52,360
Speaker 1: out of the screen at you. People were running screaming

1550
01:28:52,360 --> 01:28:58,240
Speaker 1: out of the theaters. I'm sure. But Robot Monster, I

1551
01:28:58,280 --> 01:29:02,080
Speaker 1: love you, Robot Monster. What what a film? Yeah, I'm

1552
01:29:02,160 --> 01:29:05,519
Speaker 1: just noticing that the great one, uh, the Roman Boss. Uh.

1553
01:29:05,640 --> 01:29:09,440
Speaker 1: In one of his final lines, he says, next, psychotronic

1554
01:29:09,520 --> 01:29:12,400
Speaker 1: vibrations will smash the planet Earth out of the universe.

1555
01:29:12,720 --> 01:29:16,599
Speaker 1: That's pretty great because the psychotronic vibrations, all of this film,

1556
01:29:16,720 --> 01:29:19,879
Speaker 1: the psychotronic film, Uh, you can pretty much just smash

1557
01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:22,200
Speaker 1: the planet out of the universe. It certainly smashes the

1558
01:29:22,280 --> 01:29:24,599
Speaker 1: viewer out of the universe, at least for a little

1559
01:29:24,640 --> 01:29:30,320
Speaker 1: over an hour, about sixty two minutes. Those were the days,

1560
01:29:30,760 --> 01:29:33,080
Speaker 1: all right, I am, I am worn out. We've got

1561
01:29:33,080 --> 01:29:35,200
Speaker 1: to stop it there. Yeah, yeah, we've been going longer

1562
01:29:35,240 --> 01:29:38,719
Speaker 1: than the film for sure. But yeah, suffice to say,

1563
01:29:39,640 --> 01:29:42,400
Speaker 1: there's a lot in the sixty two minutes of runtime

1564
01:29:42,439 --> 01:29:44,640
Speaker 1: that's worth worth watching. Yeah that don't go watch a

1565
01:29:44,680 --> 01:29:47,320
Speaker 1: three hour picture. Watch Robot Monster three times. In a

1566
01:29:47,400 --> 01:29:51,280
Speaker 1: row because there's just so much there. Again, the book

1567
01:29:51,439 --> 01:29:54,920
Speaker 1: I cannot yet I must buy Ander's Runstad is definitely

1568
01:29:54,960 --> 01:29:56,840
Speaker 1: worth picking up if you want a deeper dive into

1569
01:29:56,880 --> 01:30:00,960
Speaker 1: this picture. But yeah, I highly recommend Robot Monster. If

1570
01:30:01,000 --> 01:30:03,040
Speaker 1: this is your type of film, this is definitely the

1571
01:30:03,080 --> 01:30:07,760
Speaker 1: film for you. Roman commands it all right, We're gonna

1572
01:30:07,760 --> 01:30:09,240
Speaker 1: go ahead and close it out here, but we'd love

1573
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:11,040
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts

1574
01:30:11,040 --> 01:30:14,680
Speaker 1: on Robot Monster where it fits into your appreciation of

1575
01:30:14,800 --> 01:30:18,040
Speaker 1: film and your movie going history. Right in we'd love

1576
01:30:18,080 --> 01:30:20,559
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Just a reminder that if you

1577
01:30:20,600 --> 01:30:22,880
Speaker 1: want to look at all the films that we've consider,

1578
01:30:22,920 --> 01:30:24,679
Speaker 1: all the films that we've covered on Weird House Cinema,

1579
01:30:24,840 --> 01:30:27,200
Speaker 1: go to letterbox dot com. It's l E T T

1580
01:30:27,320 --> 01:30:29,599
Speaker 1: E R b o x d uh. It's a great

1581
01:30:29,760 --> 01:30:34,400
Speaker 1: website for charting your own, uh film favorites and films

1582
01:30:34,400 --> 01:30:36,320
Speaker 1: you want to see and that sort of thing. But

1583
01:30:36,360 --> 01:30:38,680
Speaker 1: we have a user account there. Our user name is

1584
01:30:38,720 --> 01:30:41,120
Speaker 1: weird House, and we have a list there of everything

1585
01:30:41,160 --> 01:30:43,400
Speaker 1: we've covered and sometimes just a sneak peak of what

1586
01:30:43,479 --> 01:30:47,559
Speaker 1: we're covering in the next week. We're primarily a science podcast.

1587
01:30:47,560 --> 01:30:50,040
Speaker 1: Here it' Stuff to Blow Your Mind but every Friday

1588
01:30:50,080 --> 01:30:52,000
Speaker 1: and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We

1589
01:30:52,080 --> 01:30:54,439
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a

1590
01:30:54,439 --> 01:30:58,400
Speaker 1: weird film. Huge thanks to our audio producer J. J. Pauseway.

1591
01:30:58,439 --> 01:31:00,160
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1592
01:31:00,200 --> 01:31:03,160
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1593
01:31:03,160 --> 01:31:05,400
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1594
01:31:05,720 --> 01:31:08,559
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1595
01:31:08,600 --> 01:31:17,960
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1596
01:31:18,000 --> 01:31:20,680
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my

1597
01:31:20,720 --> 01:31:23,680
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1598
01:31:23,720 --> 01:31:25,519
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.