Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail, This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: You know, Rob, Sometimes I get tripped up on on
Speaker 1: whether we're saying I am or whether we're saying this
Speaker 1: is what what? What is the difference in that intro?
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure, but sometimes you go this is
Speaker 1: and then I go I am, and then I feel
Speaker 1: like I screwed something up. This is I am. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I never actually I never planned that part.
Speaker 1: It just kind of comes out one way or the other.
Speaker 1: And there's no telling why. This is he as you
Speaker 1: am me and we are all together, all right, Let's
Speaker 1: get right into the message. This first one is about
Speaker 1: the episode we did on the Speaking Sword, the sentient
Speaker 1: talking weapon of mythology or are you ready rob Let's
Speaker 1: do it? Okay? It comes from Ahmed. Ahmed says, hey,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. Actually Ahmed has written in before, but
Speaker 1: he clarifies some thing at the beginning. He says Ahmed
Speaker 1: again pronunciation Note it's Ahmed the Pakistani way, not Ahmed
Speaker 1: the Arab way. Though, of course you had no way
Speaker 1: of knowing that. Well, Thanks Ahmed, and yeah, as a
Speaker 1: side note, anybody who wants to write in in the future,
Speaker 1: if you've got pronunciation notes on your name or pronouns
Speaker 1: or whatever whatever would help us identify you better, but
Speaker 1: please include them. Yes, Ahmed writes, Your recent episodes about
Speaker 1: personality imbued weapons and weapons technologies made me think about
Speaker 1: the peungen arrows and Tonga device of Korean archery. These
Speaker 1: were an ingenious pair that worked together to give medieval
Speaker 1: Korean archers an advantage in firepower. The peongen was a
Speaker 1: small bolt like arrow whose sizement that for equivalent propulsion
Speaker 1: it went faster and further than a typical large arrow.
Speaker 1: But how do you use such a small arrow without
Speaker 1: having it flopping around between the drawn bowstring and the
Speaker 1: bow handle. This is where the tonga came in. Essentially
Speaker 1: a longitudinally hut bamboo tube held by the archer in
Speaker 1: the bow handle hand. This arrow guide let users support
Speaker 1: and aim their peungen at full draw before releasing, so
Speaker 1: kind of like a kind of like a a half
Speaker 1: pipe rifle barrel for an arrow. That was my editorializing.
Speaker 1: Ahmed goes on and added benefit was that in an
Speaker 1: arrow when picking up the enemy's volleys and firing them
Speaker 1: back with standard practice, rival archers without an overdraw device
Speaker 1: like the Tonga found Peongan uselessly short. Oh that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the enemy picks it up and it's like it's
Speaker 1: too puny to fit between the bow and the draw string. Continuing,
Speaker 1: I think Korean archery would make for a good topic
Speaker 1: for stuff to blow your mind. There's a ton of
Speaker 1: fascinating history and culture, and it's a subject with reverberations
Speaker 1: to the current day, as evidenced by South Korea's domination
Speaker 1: of Olympic archery. Anyways, keep up the great work, Ahmed. Huh, Well,
Speaker 1: you know that this this is all wonderful. I didn't
Speaker 1: really know anything about Korean archery, but I have thought
Speaker 1: in the past that archery in general would be a
Speaker 1: great topic for us to explore because you see all
Speaker 1: these different cultural variations on a different innovations that were
Speaker 1: often game changing innovations on the battlefield. So and then,
Speaker 1: of course we could also potentially just get into the
Speaker 1: basic physics of the activity. We did cover the addle
Speaker 1: addle on, right, we did. Yeah, so we kind of did.
Speaker 1: We kind of did the like the introductory chapter to
Speaker 1: a series that we just haven't quite got around to doing.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, but I recall some of the
Speaker 1: papers we looked at for the Addle Addle did some
Speaker 1: rough comparisons between like the the uh, the pros and
Speaker 1: cons basically of the addleaddle versus the bows that would
Speaker 1: come later or or in some cases before. But anyway, hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for the email. All right, here's another one. We
Speaker 1: heard from a lot of people regarding our Mirrors series,
Speaker 1: which which is great. We we knew this would be
Speaker 1: the case since we all have experience with mirrors, and
Speaker 1: if you happen to have not had any experience of
Speaker 1: the mirrors, then hopefully our episodes turns you onto mirrors.
Speaker 1: And you've just been really blown away by what this
Speaker 1: technology can do. You're like, I gotta try one of
Speaker 1: these things. I'm hoping we can leverage this into a
Speaker 1: sponsorship from mirror Box. It's you know, that mirror subscription service.
Speaker 1: Is this the thing? This is actually a thing, not
Speaker 1: making this? I mean it would be great, right for
Speaker 1: people who just can't stop smashing mirrors? Yeah? Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: So Samantha Rites, Hello Robin Joe, I listened with interest
Speaker 1: to your recent podcasts The Invention of the Mirror, Part four,
Speaker 1: on Joe's question of why mirrors seem to be associated
Speaker 1: with some form of local superstition. My hypothesis is that
Speaker 1: any kind of reflection of oneself, whether physical or figurative,
Speaker 1: tends to be a transcendental experience. It is odd, almost
Speaker 1: jarring when we first catch sight of ourselves, such as
Speaker 1: when a baby sees there there again, not there again,
Speaker 1: reflection on a shiny toy, or a dog barks at
Speaker 1: a glass door. The early forms of reflections, being distorted
Speaker 1: and imperfect yet recognizable, might have heightened that sense of surrealism.
Speaker 1: In truth, we never get to lay eyes on ourselves
Speaker 1: the way we lie lay eyes on every other object
Speaker 1: in the physical world. Reflections are a way of understanding
Speaker 1: what others see when they lay eyes upon us, and
Speaker 1: is essentially a not out of body, out of body experience,
Speaker 1: since we are finally inhabiting a viewpoint that cannot belong
Speaker 1: to us naturally. Similarly, when we do a figurative self reflection,
Speaker 1: we are asked to step out of ourselves, inhabiting the
Speaker 1: viewpoints of others to reflect on our own actions as
Speaker 1: a bystander. It's very interesting that in this same podcast,
Speaker 1: Rob mentions cameras and photographs in the same breath as mirrors.
Speaker 1: I didn't catch what was the exact connection drawn, but
Speaker 1: some older folk where I am do not like profiles
Speaker 1: of themselves taken. There's an old superstition about capturing someone's
Speaker 1: essence with camera on film, and I believe it stems
Speaker 1: from the same discomfort of being able to see in self,
Speaker 1: not as a reflection as in mirrors, but now in
Speaker 1: a two dimensional portable film where obstensibly like like, some
Speaker 1: part of one's likeness is preserved. If you believe that
Speaker 1: your likeness forms a part of your being, than to
Speaker 1: have your likeness preserved in another medium may lead some
Speaker 1: to believe that some part of their being has also
Speaker 1: been detached along with it. And if you believe that
Speaker 1: being is a finite quantity, then the natural conclusion is
Speaker 1: that one has somehow lost some portion of one's being
Speaker 1: with each photo taken. Mirrors reflect, and photos capture. Perhaps
Speaker 1: their associated superstitions remind us how infrequently we got to
Speaker 1: see ourselves in the past. Oh thanks Samantha. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: thoughtful email. A lot of a lot of cool stuff here. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's all all very valid and um
Speaker 1: and and again it's it's interesting how you if you
Speaker 1: you read uh boorheads, if you read his his poem
Speaker 1: on mirrors, which I know I keep mentioning, uh, but
Speaker 1: if if you read it in full, it's like he
Speaker 1: manages to encapsulate all of these various, um, you know,
Speaker 1: twisting ideas about mirrors and reflection. Uh you know what
Speaker 1: what they mean, what they seem to mean, how they
Speaker 1: how they impact our cognition and are how we envision
Speaker 1: ourselves and others. It's it's it's wonderful stuff. But but
Speaker 1: it does just come down to the fact that mirrors
Speaker 1: are inherently weird and they turn our world on end, truly,
Speaker 1: and and in that vein Okay, I'm gonna go straight
Speaker 1: into this next message from Simon. All Right, Simon says, Hi, gents,
Speaker 1: have just been listening to your series on mirrors and
Speaker 1: was wondering if you missed an interesting question. Why do
Speaker 1: mirrors only reverse the reflection on the horizontal plane relative
Speaker 1: to your head? Why is it not reversed on the
Speaker 1: vertical plane. There was a thought that it was due
Speaker 1: to your eyes being on a horizontal plane, but if
Speaker 1: you close one eye, the image is still reverse, and
Speaker 1: if you tilt your head sideways, it's still reversed on
Speaker 1: the horizontal plane relative to your head. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer, but I'd love to hear you
Speaker 1: guys discuss it. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: I love the podcast, Simon. Okay, so this is something
Speaker 1: I have definitely wondered about before, and it can be
Speaker 1: really difficult to reason your way through this. I actually
Speaker 1: already tried to answer this email once on last week's
Speaker 1: Listener Mail episode, but then I was not satisfied with
Speaker 1: how I explained it, so I cut that out and
Speaker 1: I'm trying again. This is my second run on this,
Speaker 1: and it's my best attempt to clarify the answer to
Speaker 1: this question. So, first of all, I would argue that
Speaker 1: the clearest way to understand what a mirror is doing
Speaker 1: to your image is to start by just ignoring the
Speaker 1: concept of left and right and only think about objective
Speaker 1: directions within a reference frame. So I'll try to illustrate that.
Speaker 1: I'll give you something to picture in your head. Imagine
Speaker 1: you are standing facing a mirror or that is mounted
Speaker 1: on a wall directly to the north of you. So
Speaker 1: when you look into that mirror, you are facing straight
Speaker 1: to the north. Your back is facing directly to the south. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're in this situation and you raise your left
Speaker 1: arms straight out to the side, which cardinal direction is
Speaker 1: it pointing? That would be west right. And now if
Speaker 1: you imagine looking at your reflection, which direction is your
Speaker 1: reflection pointing also to the west? Same for your other arm.
Speaker 1: If you raise it up to the to your side
Speaker 1: and you point to the east, your reflection also points
Speaker 1: to the east. Now, notice that the same thing is
Speaker 1: true on the vertical plane as well. Your head is
Speaker 1: pointing up, your feet are pointing down, and the same
Speaker 1: thing is true of your reflection. The head is up,
Speaker 1: the feet are down. But now imagine this, take a
Speaker 1: step toward the mirror, and here you can actually see
Speaker 1: the first time in this thought experiment, that the directionality
Speaker 1: of your reflected image actually does the opposite of what
Speaker 1: you did within the reference frame around you. You took
Speaker 1: a step to the north, and your reflection took a
Speaker 1: step to the south. So the real direction that is
Speaker 1: reversed in a mirror is not along the horizontal plane
Speaker 1: or the vertical plane, but it is along the z
Speaker 1: axis the plane of depth or the plane of distance
Speaker 1: from the mirror surface. A mirror inverts the order of
Speaker 1: objects moving away from its surface. So what does this
Speaker 1: mean for your reflection in a mirror. Well, the best
Speaker 1: way that I've seen this put is that maybe you
Speaker 1: should think about your reflection in a mirror not as
Speaker 1: reversed from left to right, but as inside out. That's
Speaker 1: almost quite literally what it is. The inside is the
Speaker 1: outside in terms of the depth dimension. Okay, so that
Speaker 1: gets you halfway there, because that gives you a clearer
Speaker 1: picture of what a mirror is actually doing to your image.
Speaker 1: But the question still remains of why, when we look
Speaker 1: at this inside out version of ourselves, why does it
Speaker 1: seem to be reversed horizontally but not vertically. Why is
Speaker 1: that the way our brain makes sense of what we're
Speaker 1: looking at. I think the answer to this is that
Speaker 1: the image seems to be reversed along the horizontal plane
Speaker 1: because our bodies are horizontally symmetrical, and thus we have
Speaker 1: a concept of handedness only along the horizontal plane. Uh So,
Speaker 1: to to see the difference here, try to imagine a
Speaker 1: creature that is vertically symmetrical, but not horizontally symmetrical. And
Speaker 1: for simplicity's sake, to do this, really all you have
Speaker 1: to do is imagine a human, but a human that
Speaker 1: travels everywhere by levitating in the air on their side. Okay,
Speaker 1: So they never stand upright on the ground. They float
Speaker 1: sideways in the air, so such that if they lift
Speaker 1: out their right hand, their right hand points towards the ground,
Speaker 1: and if they lift up their left hand, their left
Speaker 1: hand points towards the sky. Can you picture this, I'm picturing.
Speaker 1: It's weird, but I'm picturing, okay. So think about how
Speaker 1: this would be affected by the inside out reflection this
Speaker 1: person sees in a mirror. If this sideways levitating human
Speaker 1: looked into a mirror, their handedness would be reversed, not
Speaker 1: on the horizontal plane, but on the vertical plane. So
Speaker 1: they're floating sideways. If they reach out with their right hand,
Speaker 1: which is pointing down, their reflection would reach out with
Speaker 1: its left hand, which would be pointing down, and vice versa.
Speaker 1: So in the end, I think this is the best
Speaker 1: way to make sense of it. The fact that we
Speaker 1: perceive ourselves as horizontally reversed but not vertically reversed in
Speaker 1: a mirror is because our bodies are horizontally symmetrical on
Speaker 1: each side, and thus we have a horizontal concept of handedness.
Speaker 1: It's not really about the mirror, but about the orientations
Speaker 1: of our bodies and how our concept of handedness works.
Speaker 1: Now that I've taken two runs at that, I hope
Speaker 1: that it at least provides some clarity on the issue.
Speaker 1: That's my my best attempt. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: it works. I think it works all right. Here's another
Speaker 1: one that comes to us from Matt. Good day, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: enjoyed still and enjoying the Mirror series. Quick thought on
Speaker 1: what it's likely the most irrelevant part of the recent episodes.
Speaker 1: Don't knock the beef tea too hard? How did thee
Speaker 1: come up? Stand up for beef tea? Oh? I remember
Speaker 1: it was because we talked about UM Eustace fun lie Big,
Speaker 1: who was the inventor of the silvering process for mirrors.
Speaker 1: Because remember we talked about how UM going into the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, a lot of the mirrors that were made
Speaker 1: in these factories were made with a mercury tin amalgam
Speaker 1: that had mercury content. That was Oh, we didn't even
Speaker 1: bring this up in the episodes. So we talked about
Speaker 1: how the mercury tin amalgam was hazardous to the health
Speaker 1: of the workers and the mirror shops that made the
Speaker 1: looking glass. But also I was reading about how antique
Speaker 1: mirrors can sometimes just in somebody's house give them mercury poisoning,
Speaker 1: like if the mercury starts leaching out of the the
Speaker 1: amalgam at the back of the mirror. But anyway, von
Speaker 1: Lee Big was responsible for coming up with UM some
Speaker 1: innovations in the in the process that allowed the chemical
Speaker 1: reaction to deposit a thin layer of silver. I think
Speaker 1: now a lot of mirrors are also made with aluminum,
Speaker 1: but some are still made with this silver process. Uh,
Speaker 1: this layer of silver on the back of the glass
Speaker 1: that led to or was the precursor for the the
Speaker 1: mirror making process that is still used in some places today.
Speaker 1: But another thing that used as fondly Big did was
Speaker 1: he was really into UM. He was really into the
Speaker 1: idea of like preserving nutrition from meats and and maximizing
Speaker 1: nutrition in agriculture and things like that, and so he
Speaker 1: had he played some role in the creation of these
Speaker 1: meat extract things that I think eventually gave rise to
Speaker 1: like the Oxo beef boullion type packets that would be
Speaker 1: used in making something in the episode we called beef tea,
Speaker 1: but would probably more appetizingly be called beef broth. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so so this is what Matt is referring to.
Speaker 1: Matt can take these quote. It might be some of
Speaker 1: the stereotypical British heritage coming out here, but a little
Speaker 1: hot beef tea broth really goes pretty well with a biscuit. Also,
Speaker 1: it can be a nice change from chicken broth when
Speaker 1: sick bovril oxo packets. It's a world of options. This
Speaker 1: might seem ridiculous to many, but different strokes for different folks,
Speaker 1: you know, keep on keeping on, Matt. Oh thanks, Matt. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I didn't mean to knock beef tea. I
Speaker 1: think we were just making fun of what the words
Speaker 1: sounded like. Yeah, and certainly various broths can be quite
Speaker 1: satisfying if it's said, if it's a good meaty broth,
Speaker 1: or if you're you know, you're going with like a
Speaker 1: veggie broth or something. Um. Yeah, so so many uh so,
Speaker 1: so many options there, though, I do wonder are we
Speaker 1: talking when we're talking about a biscuit here? What specifically
Speaker 1: are we talking about something on the sweeter end or
Speaker 1: something more uh savory? Oh yeah, so if this is
Speaker 1: by the British definition, I think a biscuit would be
Speaker 1: what Americans might call a cookie or a cracker. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but certainly I can easily agree with
Speaker 1: the value of dipping a sort of savory baked good
Speaker 1: into some sort of hardy broth. Uh that that sounds delicious?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay. The next message comes to us from Diana.
Speaker 1: Diana says, Hello, Robin Joe, thank you for providing infinite
Speaker 1: questions for my kids to ask while we're driving. We
Speaker 1: all enjoy the show. But to the cats, I have
Speaker 1: three cats, and while I don't know if they recognize
Speaker 1: themselves in the mirror, they clearly know how mirrors work,
Speaker 1: just like venus. I think that might be referring to
Speaker 1: the rogueby Venus. Uh. They often scope out others in
Speaker 1: the mirror and from around corners. Then when they move
Speaker 1: to pounce, they will run around the corners and not
Speaker 1: into the mirror, so they seem to understand reflections. Also,
Speaker 1: if their prey makes eye contact through the mirror, they'll
Speaker 1: break off the attack. By prey, I mean humans, lady,
Speaker 1: the elderly dog, or each other. Maybe a sky raisin.
Speaker 1: Thanks for everything, including the car conversations. Have a great day, Diana. Diana,
Speaker 1: I did not know what a sky raisin was. I
Speaker 1: looked it up. I think that means a fly. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's maybe sort of cat speech. Yeah, that might
Speaker 1: be kind of a loll cat dialect thing. But the
Speaker 1: sky raising like it's a fly meaning a treat that
Speaker 1: comes from the air. Yeah. Yeah, this is fascinating though.
Speaker 1: Hearing more about uh, cat owners and and pet owners
Speaker 1: in general, and how they're observing their pets, engaging or
Speaker 1: not engaging with mirrors. Uh that the I love this,
Speaker 1: the little the little predators making use of the reflections. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. We have heard from more folks regarding our
Speaker 1: weird house cinema episodes. Uh this one, next, next one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Dalen. I believe I have that right, um.
Speaker 1: Dalen writes, Hello there, I was wondering how y'all would
Speaker 1: rank the Star Wars movies. Popped in my head to
Speaker 1: ask because the way you describe some Weird House Movies
Speaker 1: makes me, uh think that Episodes eight and Episodes nine
Speaker 1: fit the bill for interestingly bad movies. I hope you're
Speaker 1: doing at least pretty okay. I like how Dalin's just
Speaker 1: like needling us with this thing. Could you talk about
Speaker 1: ranking the Star Wars movies? Well, let's see, so ranking
Speaker 1: the Star Wars movies, So ranking films, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that can certainly be fun
Speaker 1: and I engage in sometimes that I tend to approach
Speaker 1: it a very subjectively, like I'm I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: to to be you know, very objective, like this is
Speaker 1: what the universe thinks of and should think of these films.
Speaker 1: It's just not how I approach films in general. And
Speaker 1: then also you you don't you don't coerce with your
Speaker 1: opinions about and the And I totally understand the movies
Speaker 1: that I like are not necessarily the movies other people like. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then the movies that I like today are not
Speaker 1: necessarily the movies I'm gonna like tomorrow. Like that's the
Speaker 1: other part of it. So if I just counting the
Speaker 1: main films, this is the order I would go in
Speaker 1: right now. Based on my current relationship with the Star
Speaker 1: Wars films, I'd go Return Revenge, Empire, Clones, Last Jedi, Uh,
Speaker 1: New Hope, Phantom, Menace, Force Awakens, uh, and then the
Speaker 1: Rise of Skywalk I respect your autonomy that some of
Speaker 1: those orderings are strange to me, but I respect it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, some of it, this is
Speaker 1: not where I would have been years ago. For instance,
Speaker 1: An Attack of the Clones was never my favorite Star
Speaker 1: Wars film. Um. In fact, when it came out, I
Speaker 1: remember being very vocal about problems I had with it.
Speaker 1: But my son loves it and has watched it multiple times,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of rubbed off on me, like I
Speaker 1: can't I can't dislike this film that he likes so much.
Speaker 1: And then I'll also have to throw in that the
Speaker 1: Clone Wars animated series builds upon those movies so much
Speaker 1: and and adds so much more to them that like
Speaker 1: you can sort of retroactively go back and find more
Speaker 1: things to enjoy those films, or at least I could. Uh.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, it's very subjective, but ultimately I love Star
Speaker 1: Wars movies. All these Star Wars movies had something for me,
Speaker 1: Like even though I put Rise of Skywalker last on
Speaker 1: the list. I think it still had some very solid
Speaker 1: elements to it as well. It has some great light
Speaker 1: saber battle, so you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I like that more than most things. Yeah, I also
Speaker 1: so much like you, Rob, I uh, I feel like
Speaker 1: I used to rank things like movies and and albums
Speaker 1: and stuff like that more in my head. I would
Speaker 1: make lists of my favorites of things, and now I
Speaker 1: find that a really almost kind of painful activity to attempt.
Speaker 1: But I want to be a good sport and play along,
Speaker 1: um so, so I'll try to do mine. Dallan. So
Speaker 1: my rankings, I think would have to split into sort
Speaker 1: of an upper compartment and a lower compartment in which
Speaker 1: completely different rules apply to the two different compartments. So
Speaker 1: I think it would probably go something like this. Also,
Speaker 1: I think my my upper level ordering and going to
Speaker 1: have a lot of surprises. You know. As much as
Speaker 1: it might pain me that this is true, I'd say
Speaker 1: it probably conforms to general critical consensus. So I'd go
Speaker 1: definitely Empire Strikes Back first, then the original Star Wars,
Speaker 1: then Return of the Jedi. Then I'd go the Last Jedi,
Speaker 1: and then after those four. At this point, the list
Speaker 1: becomes much more certain, because I think all four of
Speaker 1: the ones I just named our movies that I feel
Speaker 1: are just solidly good, and I can compare them in
Speaker 1: some way that's comprehensible. After this, it becomes unclear to
Speaker 1: me how I should compare the movies. But my initial
Speaker 1: read was to go something like Revenge of the Sith,
Speaker 1: Force Awakens, Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Rise of Skywalker.
Speaker 1: And so it's kind of hard for me to compare
Speaker 1: my feelings about like the prequels and the first and
Speaker 1: third Revival film because I think they they succeed and
Speaker 1: fail in extremely different ways, and the way I would
Speaker 1: express that is for me, the later sequels push the
Speaker 1: buttons on my brain much more effectively, like in Force
Speaker 1: Awakens and Rise of Skywalker, even though I rated them lower.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of moments in those sequels where I
Speaker 1: really get caught up in the story. I feel strong
Speaker 1: emotional reactions to the characters, um like they can really
Speaker 1: make me feel something, you know, I can. I can
Speaker 1: get close to the like tears alling up, which definitely
Speaker 1: never happens for me at all in the prequels. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I think I respect the prequels
Speaker 1: more as a kind of bold, weird realization of somebody's
Speaker 1: genuine artistic vision, however flawed. Uh. The sequels, especially like
Speaker 1: seven and nine, feel to me more like products created
Speaker 1: by a kind of impersonal machine, a machine designed to
Speaker 1: crank out highly effective blockbuster movies. So they hit the
Speaker 1: right beats, and sometimes they even affect me emotionally. I'd
Speaker 1: like some things about the characters in them, but uh,
Speaker 1: something about them also kind of taste synthetic in a
Speaker 1: way that neither the original trilogy nor the prequels do. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so there's something different. Like regarding seven through nine,
Speaker 1: each time I walked out of the theater thinking, wow,
Speaker 1: I really like that. That was super fun. But then
Speaker 1: seven and nine both from the age pretty poorly upon reflection. Uh.
Speaker 1: With the prequels, I have exactly the opposite pattern. Like,
Speaker 1: while I'm watching the prequels, in the moment, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: I cannot believe how bad this is, this is unreal,
Speaker 1: But then upon later reflection, I kind of feel fondly
Speaker 1: about them. I'm like, oh, yeah, Revenge of the Sith, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. I think one of the things
Speaker 1: about the Star Wars films that that it makes them
Speaker 1: different than other works of of of cinema is that
Speaker 1: there's so many different variations on them that come afterwards,
Speaker 1: like not only the Clone Wars stuff, but like even
Speaker 1: stuff with like physical memorabilia or say miniatures. So there's
Speaker 1: stuff like there's there's some just wonderful designs. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of wonderful artwork that goes into those films, and
Speaker 1: sometimes like those designs get to live a life of
Speaker 1: their own, kind of separate from the film, uh you know,
Speaker 1: be it in a physical form or in a video
Speaker 1: game or some or some other treatment, sometimes by a
Speaker 1: different author, being like a novelization. So uh yeah, there's
Speaker 1: so many different ways to to spin it. Oh and
Speaker 1: I just remember since you mentioned other things as well.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it since the theater, but I remember
Speaker 1: I quite liked Rogue one, apart from a few moments
Speaker 1: that I found really distasteful, like the c G I
Speaker 1: carry Fisher and stuff, oh yeah, yeah, or Peter Cushing. Remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't like either of those. Uh yeah, that one
Speaker 1: was weird for me because when I watched it the
Speaker 1: first time, I mostly really enjoyed it, And the second
Speaker 1: time I watched it, I was watching with my son
Speaker 1: and he just wasn't that interested in it, and so
Speaker 1: that kind of rubbed off of me. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this movie is just not as fun as the
Speaker 1: other Star Wars. I don't know how I feel about it.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well, like I was saying with my lower compartment,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are ways that like I can't keep
Speaker 1: them straight in my head, Like every time I think
Speaker 1: about them, I start reorganizing. So it just doesn't really work.
Speaker 1: Like Attack of the Clones I think, is in so
Speaker 1: many ways just a you know, if I were just
Speaker 1: trying to like write up a report card for it,
Speaker 1: it is pretty awful. But at the same time I
Speaker 1: think like, oh, no way, Christopher Lee, and then I
Speaker 1: get excited and then I almost kind of want to
Speaker 1: go watch it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, or you take
Speaker 1: things in isolation by saying like, well, there's a whole
Speaker 1: planet of youth social insects that are building um uh
Speaker 1: super weapons, you know, like that's that's neat. That's not
Speaker 1: in every film. So yeah, and I guess films of
Speaker 1: this nature too. It's to go beyond just the use
Speaker 1: of elements of them in other works. It's like they
Speaker 1: kind of explode in our culture, and so they're they're
Speaker 1: no longer this contained and isolated thing that can just
Speaker 1: be encountered on its own, like they're just it's all
Speaker 1: over the place. So, uh, you know, had the Star
Speaker 1: Wars films especially are I think they had they obeyed
Speaker 1: different laws compared to other franchises and and and genres
Speaker 1: that one might try and try and judge. Now, as
Speaker 1: for the second question, uh, that was in the original
Speaker 1: one was basically like, well, are these are these weird
Speaker 1: house films? Could they be weird house films? Um, that's
Speaker 1: a harder question, in part because weird our cinema has
Speaker 1: intentionally vague um parameters, so we kind of it's kind
Speaker 1: of a gut thing with us. I guess yeah, I
Speaker 1: would hesitate to do though I don't know. I would
Speaker 1: almost feel like the prequels fit more into the weird
Speaker 1: house cinema universe than the sequels do. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: the e Walk movies, we did do any Walk movie
Speaker 1: and uh, and I think that was that was the
Speaker 1: right balance. So, yeah, it's weird. It's hard to On
Speaker 1: one hand, it's hard to actually actually just you know,
Speaker 1: come up with a list of keywords and boxes that
Speaker 1: need to be checked off for what kind of films
Speaker 1: we're going to cover on Weird Out Cinema. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, you can actually turn to keywords and
Speaker 1: try and figure out what kind of films we do
Speaker 1: on Weird Old Cinema because we actually had a listener
Speaker 1: named Matt to do this on our discord. Um this
Speaker 1: is what Matt wrote. Matt says, I know it was
Speaker 1: mentioned that Deep Blue Sea was the deepest and bluest
Speaker 1: episode yet, but which episode has been the weird housiest.
Speaker 1: Across the thirty seven episodes so far, there have been
Speaker 1: two thousand, six d fifty one unique plot key words
Speaker 1: associated with the films. On IMDb, the top keywords are
Speaker 1: as follows and so um. I'm not gonna read the
Speaker 1: full list, but the number one and and again this
Speaker 1: is of a few episodes ago. The number one is murder. No,
Speaker 1: I hate murder, true, but think of like all most
Speaker 1: of the great works of of literature and film, they
Speaker 1: do have a murder in them. So if you're just
Speaker 1: going to say does this film contain murder, the answer
Speaker 1: is generally yes. Um uh The second keyword is psychotronic film,
Speaker 1: which which I found interesting. I think this is because somebody,
Speaker 1: at some point, or maybe multiple people have taken films
Speaker 1: that are covered in Michael Weldon's Psychatronic Film Guides and
Speaker 1: has then tagged all of those in IMDb. Well this
Speaker 1: makes sense, yeah, yeah, because our tastes often match up
Speaker 1: with with films that are chronicled in those books. Um uh. Though,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, there are plenty of film that
Speaker 1: are that are at least mentioned, that are chronicled in
Speaker 1: the Psychotronic film books that wouldn't really be the sorts
Speaker 1: of films we would cover, but there does seem to
Speaker 1: be significant overlap there. Sure. The third keyword independent film
Speaker 1: alright makes sense, especial if we were dealing with a
Speaker 1: lot of B movies. The fourth one is monster, which
Speaker 1: totally works. I would have thought that would be number one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The next three are blood, corpse, and violence. Uh and
Speaker 1: does makes sense. I mean, we've already we already have
Speaker 1: murder and monster in there. These these are just going
Speaker 1: to occur. Um. But then the next one is fun too.
Speaker 1: The next one is bare chested mail, but I think
Speaker 1: that's just from that keyword appearing one thousand times in
Speaker 1: the meta of Frogs referring to Sam Elliott. Yeah. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: but now I can't say, like, shortly after this, we
Speaker 1: did um Cannibal Apocalypse, and then what does John Saxon do?
Speaker 1: Whips his shirt off, just completely shirtless and several things.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, there it is. There's the bare chested
Speaker 1: mail that helps define a weird out cinema selection. You
Speaker 1: can tell he wanted to show off that he was
Speaker 1: in great shape in his fifties. Yeah he was. I
Speaker 1: think he was in his forties, his forties, Sorry, but
Speaker 1: but yeah, he was in great shape. But anyway, Matt
Speaker 1: finished this up by saying, you get yourself a psychotronic
Speaker 1: independent film with some bloody murder and a bare chested mail,
Speaker 1: and you've got yourself a winner. Well the numbers don't lie. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: isn't been so low? Uh, he's pretty bare chested in
Speaker 1: some of those later Star Wars. Coming back to our
Speaker 1: previous discussion, so what what what what this is a
Speaker 1: what are what are we coming back to? We're coming
Speaker 1: back to the Star Wars? And remember, isn't that like
Speaker 1: he's bare chested, you know at least yeah, I forget
Speaker 1: which movies, but people may like, a, really, he's wearing
Speaker 1: that weird looking cumberbun thing, or yeah, yeah he's got
Speaker 1: he's looks like he's wearing like luchador pants where they
Speaker 1: have him like cinched up above the navel. Yeah cool,
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I guess we're gonna go and close
Speaker 1: it out there, but we would we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from everybody. Um, yeah, just a reminder, it is a
Speaker 1: pretty small operation here. It is Joe and myself, we're
Speaker 1: you know, researching all of this, recording all these and
Speaker 1: then Seth is our our fabulous producer, and without him
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be able to pull this off. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we depend on all of you to write in as well.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think about the content we're
Speaker 1: putting out. Let us, you know, chime in with your suggestions,
Speaker 1: with your corrections, with your tips for the future. What
Speaker 1: what sort of episodes you'd like to hear as well
Speaker 1: as your your your professional or just daily experience with
Speaker 1: the various topics we cover In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, you can find core episodes on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow your Own podcast
Speaker 1: feed Weird House Cinnamon on Friday's, Artifact on Wednesday, and
Speaker 1: more listener mail on Monday's Big Thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, if you would like to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch and say hello, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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