WEBVTT - The Fly: Into the Plasma Pool 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.800 I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:15.720 to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.480 I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna do another one 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.000 of our movie episodes. We're trying to do one of 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.239 these roughly every month or so. Sometimes we skip a month, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.520 and of course when Halloween comes around, there's liable to 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.240 be a little bit more movie centric conversation as we 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.320 use fictional properties as a way to sort of springboard 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.159 onto scientific discussions, to discuss topics we've discussed in the 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.599 past in a slightly different light, or to explore topics 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.159 that you know, we might not otherwise get into in 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.159 a full blown episode. I noticed you just said discussed. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:52.480 And today's episode will involve a different spelling of disgust. Yes, yes, 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:58.440 because we're going to be talking about David Cronenberg's remake 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.040 of The Fly. Now, this this is a movie I 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:03.800 I re watched it a couple of years ago, as 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.720 I recall, and you rewatched it last night, and I 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.040 think it's fitting that we're we're doing this. We're recording 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.720 this shortly before Valentine's Day, and it is coming out 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.800 in the week following Valentine's Day. Here you go, everybody, 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.680 This is essentially our Valentine's episode for the year. The 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.679 worst State movie of all time. Yeah, it is not. 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.680 It has romance in it, I guess some splashes of romance, 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:32.760 but it is ultimately a tragic film. Uh, an ikey film, 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:35.960 a monstrous film. Uh. It is a film that is 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.520 not about making you feel good about yourself per se. 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:41.920 It's a thorough I mean, I love the movie too. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.000 It's a it's a great horror movie, but it is 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:48.720 just a deeply grimy experience at every level. It has 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:54.440 like it has like like physical textural sliminess, but it 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:59.760 also has really slimy behavior by certain characters. It is 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.280 a thorough going exploration of slime. It's like, you know, 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.720 both hands into the slime bucket up to the elbows, 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.200 just rooting around in there. Yeah. This film and other 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.720 films from David Cronenberg are often referred to very loosely 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.919 as body horror, and I tend to sort of recoil 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.440 from things that are labeled body hard because sometimes, at 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.680 least in my experience, uh, that label is sometimes given 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.120 to work that is maybe a little a little bit 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.200 more crude for crude's sake, or it's all about more focus, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:31.400 you know, or it's about shock value, or you know, 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.960 it's very um melt movies. Yeah, I then, you know, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.240 I like a good melt movie. But but I do 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.919 have to say, like this, this film, and I think 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.400 that the other films of Cronenberg that fall under this, 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.840 uh this categorization, they tend to be films that are 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.520 not just about like the visual exploit of of body 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.880 and horror, but they get into the metaphorical domain of 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.000 body horror. Yeah. A lot of Cronenberg's work, whereas most 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.160 horror would be about uh, you know, threats to your life, 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.760 like something wants to harm you and it's chasing you 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.280 and you have to get away from it, most of 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.360 his horror is about the threat of having your identity corrupted. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.600 It's the threat of being transformed into something that is 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.640 no longer you. Yeah, and of course this film has 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.520 it in spades. So before we we jump into further discussion, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:22.519 let's uh, well, first of all, let's go ahead and 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.200 say yes, we will be talking about this film with spoilers. 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.000 So if you have not seen David Cronenberg film The Fly, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.320 and you would like to do so unspoiled. Now is 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.800 a good time to pass the podcast and go out 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.320 and do that. But for the rest of you, yes, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.680 we will be discussing full spoilers for this film, so 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.160 let's take a quick break to hear just a taste 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.200 from the original trailer. There is a limit even to 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:52.960 the imagination human teleportation, molecular decimation, breakdown and reformation is 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:59.920 inherently perching where our greatest creations met and deep as 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:07.120 fears when you went through something went wrong, you are 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:14.920 about to go beyond that limit. You know. There's another 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.320 original and remake pair that I often think about, alongside 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.280 the nineteen fifties Fly with Vincent Price and then the 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.120 has it been Surprised? Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, and the 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.760 and and the Cronenberg remake is the Thing. Yes, you know, 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.480 it's a very similar thing like Howard hawks the Thing 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.920 in the nineteen fifties. It has one kind of vibe 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.480 and it is substantially reimagined by the time Carpenter does 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.000 it in nineteen eighty or whatever it was. And in 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.080 both cases you see the remake reimagining it to the 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.359 degree that the remakes become like the the the The 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.560 the standing examples of the work. But they're they're both 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:55.440 stories about transformation, though the in both cases, the later 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:01.120 versions made the transformation much more disgusting. Yes, so so 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.359 let's yeah, let's let's back up a little bit about 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.360 just the origin and the Fly, because it also parallels 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.600 the Thing in that, just as the Thing, the original 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.200 motion picture was based on a pre existing uh work 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.080 of fiction. The same is true of The Fly. The 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.760 night film The Fly, which was directed by Kurt Newman 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.320 with a screenplay by future best selling author James Clavell 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.239 of Showgun Fame. This was based on a short story 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.560 by George Langoln George Langeliers, Yeah Boy, if you Like, 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.919 which was published in a June seven issue of Playboy magazine, 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:35.800 and I had to look it up. I was curious, like, what, like, 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:40.279 what is the presentation like in the original issue of 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.159 Playboy magazine? And it indeed, it's pretty impressive because you 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.479 have on on one side, on one page, you have 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.000 just the text of the Fly, no illustrations, and then 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.200 on the other page it's all white except for it 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.640 just like a blank page, except in the top left 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.359 hand corner there's a single fly on the page, like 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.320 to scale, a real size lie. Yeah, where whereas you know, 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.480 when you look at a picture revenue, you could easily 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.960 assume that there's just a fly on that particular Playboy magazine. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.480 It's a nice touch. Now, as you mentioned, the film 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.479 starred Vincent Price as the inventor of a matter transporter 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:19.160 device called the disintegrator integrator, which is not as catchy 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.400 as telepod. H So, but and so he's you know, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.760 he's working on this device, and of course he tested out. 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.720 Things go horribly wrong when a fly ventures into the 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.000 transporter with him, and he emerges with as two different creatures, 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.120 a human with the head and arm of a fly 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.839 and a fly with the head and arm of a human. Now, 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.440 in the original movie, I'd say the most iconic scene 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.760 is when the smaller version, the fly sized body with 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.600 the tiny Vincent Price head on it, gets stuck in 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.920 the spider's web and started screaming, help me, help me. 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.040 But I remember thinking when I saw this original movie, like, okay, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.560 so he's got a human head, but like it's to scale, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.400 it's a fly size human head. That wouldn't possibly work. 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.839 He wouldn't be able to fiddle the like human neurons 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.400 into the brain of that size, his brain wouldn't work anymore. Well, 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.960 as we'll continue to discuss with Cronenberg's version, the computer 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.880 that is power and teleportation is really advanced. This is 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.800 a godlike machine and it likes to roll the dice. 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.480 So anyway, in the original, much like the remake, UM, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.840 the creature has to struggle to maintain its humanity, ultimately 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:30.280 fails and then their tragic results. Now, this David Cronenberg's 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.360 remake is going to be the main thing we're talking 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.200 about here his treatment of it. Cronenberg was of course 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.600 coming off of success with Videodrome and also an adaptation 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.560 of Stephen King of the Dead Zone Scanners to write, uh, well, 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.840 scanners have been before that, but these two had come 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:50.000 out the same year, a couple of years prior. But yeah, 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.840 scanners what was out. By that point, he had established 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.040 himself as this Um, this new and signature voice in horror, 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:02.040 the King of Bad Feelings. The screenplay was by Cronenberg 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.480 and an individual by the name of Charles Edward Pogue. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.679 It famously stars Jeff gold Bloom as Dr Seth Brundle, 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:14.040 a tour de force. So yes, like maximum gold blooming 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.720 in this, but also gold blooming to just a perfect degree, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.680 like he plays to all his strengths as a performer. Also, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.920 Gina Davis stars in it as Veronica Quaif and then 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.240 John Gets places character named Status Bronze, who is the 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.840 ultimate sleeves bag in a film full of people that 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.559 are that are oftentimes, if not exclusively, sleezy, the sleeves 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:38.840 on him in this movie is so thick. I remember 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:40.800 after this was like the first movie I saw with 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:42.760 John Gets in it, and when I saw like Blood 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.000 Simple in other movies he was in after this, like 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.720 the stank wouldn't come off of him, like it's stuck 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.800 on the actor. Oh yeah, I often forget that he 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.280 was in Blood Simple. Which which character did you play 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.120 in that he's like the main dude in it? Oh yeah, okay, 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.280 often about him he kind of like Francis mcdorman's boyfriend. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:00.880 There you go. Okay, I do need to watch Blood 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:02.880 Simple again. That is a great film. I know it's 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.080 not fair. I should not hold this this character's flaws 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.600 against the actor and John Guess is great, but that's 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.760 that's the sign of a great performance. When you you 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.400 just kind of dislike the the actor as well because 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.280 of what their their their character did or how their 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.000 character came off. So the basic plot in the eight 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.840 six re make is the same. Um. Uh. This time 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:28.440 it's Dr Seth Brundle. He's working on these telepods and uh, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.160 he of course ends up experimenting with it. He had 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.040 decides to just screw it. I'm gonna get in the pod. 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.480 I'm going to perform a little self experimentation here, and 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:42.600 a fly ventures into the pod with him. Biology is scrambled. Uh, humanity, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.680 humanity has lost. Things end up tragically for monsters and 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.000 men alike. But then there are a lot of key 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.920 differences in this adaptation. We've touched on some of them already, 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.520 like the idea that it's it's less about the monster 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.880 you become, but the journey towards monstrosity, the change the 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.360 monstrous change as opposed to the monster its destination. Well, yeah, 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.520 and the film spends a decent amount of time stuck 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:08.120 in the middle, with Jeff Goblum's character gradually becoming more 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:12.280 and more less human and more fly uh and and 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.040 being able to like having metacognition on this like realizing 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.679 what is happening to him and being able to react 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.040 to it still as partially the man he once was. Right. 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.960 And then of course, when he first emerges from the telepod, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.960 not only does he feel whole and intact, but he 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:32.360 feels improved. He feels, you know, more alive than he 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.440 did previously, starts doing gymnastics and stuff. But he also 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.760 becomes a jerk, like when he gets out of the 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:40.840 thing that I can't get out of my head is 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:43.760 when he gets out of the telepod, he's like somebody 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.240 on cocaine, you know, Like he's like, I'm a god, 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.760 I'm amazing. Yeah, and and hey, you've got to try 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.400 this too. Let's try it right now together. Let's do this. Yeah. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:54.440 And I think that's one of the great things about 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.920 the transformation in this film is that you can you 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:01.239 can apply it to so many other real life changes, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.880 Like you can easily take this model and compare it to, say, uh, 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.880 the impact of drug addiction, like like we just mentioned later, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:14.280 as he begins to transform physically, you could compare that 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.160 to various the ravages of various diseases. Um uh, you 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.480 could even compare to just the you know, the wear 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.920 and tear of age. There there's so many different things 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.720 you could compare it to, uh, and it it opens 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.360 itself up to those comparisons. I'm not saying it's meant 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.599 as a direct allegory, but you know, I think I 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.880 think drugs are very good comparison because, like, because it 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.640 starts off with this euphoria and this sense that things 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:38.719 have never been better. I'm better than I've ever been, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.240 life is better than it's ever been, and then there's 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.000 the decline. It catches up with him. There's a denial 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.040 about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So, like you said, there's 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.360 a lot of psychological change, a lot of meta analysis 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.319 of like what's going on in him trying to understand 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.400 what's happening to himself because at first he has no 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.240 idea that that a fly has been merged with his 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.640 his being at like the most basic level. And then 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.840 another another I think one of the most horrifying changes 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.679 in a film that is full of horrors. They're not 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.880 even touching on some of the minor things they're thrown in, 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.319 like inside out baboons and whatnot. But towards the end, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.320 as he's almost completely monster, he relates to Veronica that 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.640 he has a solution in mind, and that is that 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.480 she and her unborn child and and and him the 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.000 bundle fly, should climb into the telepods together and then 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.600 merge themselves into a single perfect being. Right, he decides, Oh, 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.960 I'm I'm wasting away because there's too much fly in me. 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.040 Like I went in just me and fly, and now 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.080 I'm gonna be fifty fifty when this process finishes. And 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.439 he's like, if I get some more humans and then 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.439 merge me with them, then I can be something like, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.199 you know, sevent human and that's just enough fly. Right, 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.560 And of course this is the predominantly fly brain thinking. 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.200 This is the you know he talks about like the 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.960 absence of politics and in insect culture and so forth. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.360 But it's it's such a horrifying solution because it makes sense. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.280 He's making sense, but you it's it's just unspeakable horror 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.600 to imagine what this final form would be if he's 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.000 able to carry this out. And unlike the case with 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.680 him merging with the fly, this would be presumably merging 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.080 too conscious sentient people. I don't know what is what 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.960 is being assumed about, Like if you tried to like 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.559 fuse two humans together, what the resulting brain or mind 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.920 state would be like, Well, it's it's one of these 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.000 things that it depending on how you would look at 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.280 that basic concept. It's either horrifying and it's the it's 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.160 the destruction of self, it's the invasion of self. But 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.440 it also you could look at it as beautiful, right, 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.640 because this is what we often talk about love in 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.920 this case, right, two people becoming one. Yes, he tries 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.360 to talk about it in those terms, and obviously Geina 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.800 Davis does not see it that way quite understandable reasons. 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:55.800 But of course she hasn't been through the through the 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.000 plasma pool, so she doesn't she how could she understand? Right? 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:00.960 I know this is one of your favorite things about 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.280 the movie. Is this the plasma pool rant? Right? It's 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.119 in one of the cocaine style scenes where Jeff Goldblum 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.160 is It's it's in the early days after he's been 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.160 through the pod. He thinks, he thinks I'm not wasting away. 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.840 He thinks I'm a god, I'm amazing, I can do anything. 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:17.959 And he's lashing out at anybody who doesn't want to 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.000 get in the pod and try it for themselves. Yeah, 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.680 he gets very vindictive about it, especially with with Veronica. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.440 Like one of the quotes from that that lengthy diatribe 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:29.720 is you're afraid to dive into the plasma pool, aren't 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:34.000 You're afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren't you, which 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.600 again ties into this the whole theme of the film, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.800 this idea of transformation is it is something we all 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:43.359 want but but at the same time of the reality 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.960 of it can be can be horrifying, can be scary, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.760 it can be frightening or horrifying. Alright, on that note, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:50.120 we're going to take a quick break, but when we 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.800 come back, we will start we'll start throwing a little 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:59.120 bit of science at this thing. Thank alright, we're back now. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.440 I would say the ultimate, uh, the premise of the movie. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.160 This is not hard sci fi. This is not something 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.280 that uh, you know, maybe plausible. We just don't have 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.080 the technology yet. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Right. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.680 And as we as we talk about this aspect of 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.160 the film and sort of like nitpick the you know, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.520 the various aspects of teleportation, please understand that we were 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.400 not criticizing the film. We are we are using the 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.880 film to to explore some topics and we thank the 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.080 film for being able to uh uh you know, to 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.080 inspire us. So sure, it's a horror science fantasy, it's there. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.000 It's there to uh, to to raise certain ideas about humankind, 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:42.080 not to critique the specific capabilities of real technology. Right. Uh, 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.640 you know, it's not really apparable about teleportation. Right. Of course. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.440 The big mishap that occurs in all this is that 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.520 the fly managers to zip into the telepod with Brundle, 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:56.280 and the computer, not anticipating an additional organism, incorporates that 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.400 organism into Brundle at the molecular genetic level. That's what 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.920 it says. Yeah, he's he says, uh, he's like, in 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.600 my rush to create a telepod, I accidentally created a 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:09.560 gene splicer as well. A very good one, it is. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.360 It's it's extremely good. Again. Just the computer powering this 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.840 thing is as incredible as it is inept Even in 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.960 its ineptitude, it manages to achieve, you know, really godlike effects. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.000 But one of the funny things that I remember thinking 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.920 watching this movie is wait a minute, okay, so it's 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.640 saying human goes in, fly goes in, thing comes out 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.720 that will be fifty fifty human and fly. If you're 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.240 gonna work on that basis, if you're just like comparing, well, 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.680 what kind of genomes are in here, there's a bunch 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.280 of other stuff in there that's not human either. I mean, 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.680 did he sterilize the inside of the telepod before he 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.040 went in? I should hope so, because of a baboon 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.200 exploded in it. Right, Yeah, So of course there's gonna 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.640 be stuff on the you know, walls inside the time. 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.920 I mean, there's life everywhere. But then more than that, 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.880 there's also going to be stuff that he can't sterilize 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.120 because it's gonna be in him and on him. That's right. 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.399 And this should come as no surprise to regular listeners 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.520 at the show because we've discussed the microbiome quite a bit. 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.600 Because there's a there were there would have been a 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.760 lot more than two life forms in there um because 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.960 none of us are human, not by a long shot, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.520 because we contain vast populations of bacteria, are, chia, and 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.480 fungi that are collectively known as the microbiome. In fact, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:33.119 the average human has roughly thirty trillion micro organisms living 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.199 on and within them, enough to wagh and this is 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.560 this is amazing to think about roughly a half pound 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.320 of non human life. So just just imagine this scenario. 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.640 If you were to step into telepod A and then 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.080 telepod and then then you were gonna you know, zip 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.280 into telepod B and C with human emerging from C, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.919 and then all your microbiome just left in a pile 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.879 in Pod B. That would be a half pound of stuff. Yeah, 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.600 I mean roughly yes, but yeah, and what like it 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.880 just by cell count it's gonna be we don't know exactly, 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.760 but the estimate is something like equal numbers of cells 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.600 or maybe a two to one or something. Yeah, it's 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.280 staggering when you look at some some of these numbers. Um. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.320 These numbers that I'm reading here, by the way, come 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.800 from a January uh Simon's Foundation article titled You're Not 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:27.640 All Human The Wonder of Gut Microbes. They also point 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.080 out that we're talking an average of a hundred and 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.080 fifty different species of bacteria alone within the average person, 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.560 and that's out of six thousand possible species worldwide. The 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:43.320 human genome contains twenty thousand genes, while your microbiome contains 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:49.159 three million genes. So I got another wrinkled Okay, So 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.159 wouldn't just be your microbiome and the fly, but it 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.960 would also be the flies microbiome. Yeah, I mean we didn't. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.879 I didn't even get figures for that. They're also there 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.440 are parasites that live on in pray on flies. Yeah, 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.440 you've got those as well. That's assuming that Brundle himself 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.560 does not have some sort of parasite. And we don't 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:07.840 know what he had for dinner. He might have had 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.639 a bad uh you know, pork sandwich or something. Oh no, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:12.960 you go in there with trick gnosis and then it 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.480 fuses you with the worms. Yeah, because I mean he's 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.080 I mean, he's certainly living a bit foul up in 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.080 that that loft later on, but it's not exactly pristine either. 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.239 It's like the work abode of, you know, of an 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.399 obsessed scientist. Right. Sorry, I was just looking up the 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.520 names of some fly parasites. There's some great ones. One 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.480 that I was seeing referenced in a lot of research 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:40.600 is called Spellingia CAMEROONI Perkins, Perkins, Perkins, the Perkins parasite. 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:42.840 So you get a bit of that in there too. 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.840 All right, So you have all this stuff, but potentially 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.120 in the telepod with brundle with this even this fly 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.600 thrown in the mix as well. And the computer that 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:56.840 is managing this this transport of of the individual and 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.720 the individuals across the room to the other telepod or 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.480 the other telepods. Uh, you know, it's having to handle 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:04.959 all of this information on top of just like the 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.800 basic atom, something like a trillion trillion atoms or more. Yeah, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:11.840 this is another thing that I mean, if we want 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.640 to get serious about teleportation for a second, I would 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:18.360 argue that it is essentially impossible. Right. First of all, 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.040 the amount of energy that it would take to disassemble 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.160 your body and then reassemble it in another place is 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:30.640 just unfathomable. Um. But also like how would the information 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.000 be managed? It's too much information to sample and keep 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.080 track of. I think teleportation, I'm sorry to say, it's 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.880 just not a technologically feasible proposition, even in the distant future. Right. 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:44.000 Of course, if you watch enough science fiction about it, 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:49.520 you probably feel pretty okay about that, because because teleporter mishaps, uh, 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.639 they kind of compose one of my favorite like subgenres 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.760 or subsub genres of science fiction. Like I'm a big 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.840 fan of Stephen King's The Jaunt, which is a different 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.280 and maybe in some ways more possible. I don't know, 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.480 it's a different take on it. For sure that we 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.320 would require a different episode to break down the science off. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:11.359 We shouldn't spoil that one, but that that is a 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.439 great horrifying short story. Yeah. Uh. The other one I 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.560 think of is in Spaceballs, when the guy gets his 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.840 his butt on his front, it gets the bottom half 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.200 of his body backwards. Oh man, I haven't seen Spaceballs 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:26.080 in a very long time, so I forgot all about that. 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.760 But yeah, there you find example Star Trek. Of course 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:34.399 you had had regular use of teleportation technology and occasionally 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:38.000 would explore mishaps in interesting ways. But even if it's 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.880 not malfunctioning, I mean, I think something that is at 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.480 some point explored on Star Trek. I don't I've heard 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:45.840 they get there at some point of people contemplating the 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.679 fact that what's really happening every time you are teleported 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.320 is that you die and a new version of you 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.439 is created. So it's like your consciousness does not survive 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.840 the process. You are disintegrated, and then there's just a 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.600 copy of you, and that that copy if you goes 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.760 on with your business. Yeah, if I remember correctly, there's 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.560 an episode of the like nineties reboot of The Outer 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.679