WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Beyond the Mind’s Eye 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.640 Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.799 Rob Lamb and today you're going to hear our episode 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.720 from nine to six, twenty twenty four about Beyond the 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.919 Mind's I from nineteen ninety two. If you were a 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.159 person of a certain age, you will definitely remember the 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.040 TV advertisements for what just seemed like the future of 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.080 cinema and the future of just human experience. So we 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.640 hope you enjoy revisiting this episode. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:42.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.120 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.600 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.160 today on Weird House Cinema, we're doing something a little 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.560 bit different. Most of the time we focus on narrative 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:05.520 feed films, at least within the weird genres, but today 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.600 we are not looking at a narrative feature film. We're 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.520 going to be talking about an anthology format art film 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:18.200 from nineteen ninety two called Beyond the Mind's Eye, which 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.280 was the second part in a series of similar films 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.400 beginning in the year nineteen ninety with The Mind's Eye, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.120 a computer animation odyssey. Now, as the name implies, the 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:35.720 Mind's Eye films were showcases for computer animation, showcases for 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.479 sort of the cutting edge of computer based animation techniques 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.679 of the day, and the typical format of all these 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.759 films in the Mind's Eye series would be a sequence 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.360 of musical numbers usually I think, just by a single 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:59.160 artist throughout, accompanied by strange computer generated imagery scenes and imagery. Now, Rob, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:00.600 I don't know if you were a to get more 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.040 clarity on the source of all of these animated segments. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.480 One thing that's clear is that a lot of the 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:12.920 segments were created for other projects originally things like TV commercials, 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.560 sci fi movies, video games, demo reels, just industry stuff 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.560 and so forth, and then a lot of that was 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.960 edited together and set to music for these projects. But 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.200 I don't know if that's the case with all of 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.720 the animation or just some of it. It's possible some 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.680 segments were created specifically for the mind Sie movies, but 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:34.480 I couldn't get a clear answer on that. 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.680 Yeah, this is one of those situations where the movie 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.040 database listings for this title beyond the mind Side that 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.160 we're going to be talking about here today, scene kind 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.760 of limited. Now, I will add that the actual credits 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:54.840 for the feature itself. I mean, those credits do provide 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.000 a lot of names and a lot more of additional info, 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.400 but I feel like to really cite everything and to 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.360 source and to point to the source of everything that 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.840 we see in the picture, you're dealing with like a 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.920 true sort of multimedia archaeology, sort of an exercise that 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.880 we're we were not really all about here with Weird 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.760 House Cinema. So we're going to call out some of 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.120 the people that were involved, but we can't possibly list everyone, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.399 because again, this is an anthology of these different films, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.440 films that, especially for the time period, often involved like 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:34.560 multiple folks bringing it together from a technological and artistic standpoint. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.600 Yeah, that's right. So I wonder I bet a lot 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.600 of you out there listening remember The Mind's Eye if 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.520 you were around and watching TV, reading reading Wired magazine 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.200 in the early nineties or something. The Mind's Eye films 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.800 were apparently extremely popular on home video. I never rented 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.000 one when I was a kid, but I've had friends 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.920 mentioned them before, like, oh, remember the Mind's Eye, Like 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.120 you know, I'm maybe somebody said they rented it from 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.680 Blockbuster or something. But anyway, they were very popular on 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.880 home video, initially on VHS and on laser disc and 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.120 then later on DVD, and I can only imagine the 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.680 number of hangouts cool hangouts in the early nineties that began, like, dude, 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.200 you've got to come over and watch this tape I rented. 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.880 It's so trippy. And so that's the series. But again, 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.960 the specific film that we're going to be talking about 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.800 today is the second movie in the Mind's I series 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.160 called Beyond the Mind's Eye from nineteen ninety two, directed 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:38.719 by Michael Boydston and featuring music by Yon Hamer, who 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.560 I know on the podcast before I've probably called Jan Hammer, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.599 but it's Yon Hamer. I found out by listening to 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.039 an interview. So when I got the idea to do 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.200 one of these one of the Mind's Eye movies for 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.240 the show, I was browsing through a list of them 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.920 and I saw one was by one Head, music by 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.159 Yon Hamer, and I knew we had to pick the 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.080 hammer fest. It had to be that one. 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.040 Yeah. Yeah. Listeners to Weird House Cinema will remember that 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.600 Yonhammer scored the film I Come In Peace aka Dark Angel, 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.960 that we previously talked about on the show, and most famously, 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.760 of course, did the soundtrack for Miami Vice, including that 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.480 absurdly great track Crockets theme. But anyway, we'll come back 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.720 to Yon'hammer in a bit, and we'll talk about him 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.440 a lot, because basically this is a film where his 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:30.359 music his front and center. Really, I mean, it's the 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.360 visuals and then the music of Yon Hamer, and that's 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.400 what beyond the mind's eye consists of. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.360 Yeah, Now, whatever is going through your head right now 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.760 out there listening in the year twenty twenty four, whatever 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.440 you are thinking about the idea of a combination art 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.120 house showcase and industrial demo reel entirely made out of 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.640 CGI from the early nineties, you do need to probably 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.599 shift your thinking a little bit, like, especially if you 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.480 weren't around at the time and don't like you can't 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.400 tap into that mindset again, because people in the nineties 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:10.720 were absolutely losing their minds about how astounding, futuristic and 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.719 even beautiful all this stuff was, which is kind of 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.159 hard to reconcile with the way it looks now, not 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.560 that it looks not that I'm insulting the way it 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.880 looks now, but it's just it was a different time 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.640 and it's hard to get fully back into that brain space. 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.720 Yeah, I mean, it's very much a snapshot of the time. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.560 I mean, this is a nineteen ninety two release. This 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:38.200 is the cutting edge computer generated imagery from the early nineties, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.360 the very early nineties. And you know, I honestly can't 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.960 remember if I ever rented this from a video store. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:47.719 It's very possible that I did, but I mostly just 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.279 remember seeing the commercials for it, because there were a 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.680 lot of TV commercials for it. As I remember, I'm 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:58.279 guessing I was watching, you know, it's probably MTV, maybe 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.760 the Sci Fi Channel as well. So honestly, I can't 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.280 remember offhand when that started out. I think it may 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.640 have started in ninety two, so maybe not Sci Fi Channel, 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.840 But I feel like MTV at least was prime, prime 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.880 target area for these commercials. And it really did feel exciting. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.320 It felt like a revelation. This is the future, this 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.520 is what computer generated imagery can do for us, this 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.360 is what video games can do for us, because our 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:27.880 video games were not like this, not yet, but it 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.840 was the promise that they could be. And in general, 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.080 it's like, this is the future, and you had every 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.120 reason to be excited and Honestly, I was looking back 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:39.760 on I was thinking about the fact that, well, of 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.440 course I was a child at the time. I was 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:44.760 a kid, so of course I was excited. You know. 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.200 Did adults feel the same way, Well, obviously they did, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.960 because on one hand, these videos were highly successful. They were, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.360 you know, on the best sellers lists and all. And 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.480 I looked around and I found that Roger Ebert was 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.080 a big fan. On the Ciskel and Eba show. There's 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.280 a particular episode I was able to You can look 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.920 it up on the archives and find the full episode. 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.960 It's the one where they they review Lorenzo's Oil and 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.080 Chaplain and some other you know, kind of stuffy and 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:18.960 certainly non non futuristic movie. But at the end of it, 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.960 we have Roger Ebert's video pick of the week and 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.640 it is Beyond the Mind's Eye, and he loves it. 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.640 He's he says, quote, one day computers will be able 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.600 to create entire movies and the visual possibilities are breathtaking. 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.560 Look at where this shot takes us, and they cut 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.520 to one of the you know, the otherworldly vistas that 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.800 Beyond the Mind's Eye gives us, and he closes up 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:44.079 as saying it's quite a trip. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.199 One day computers will animate entire movies. 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.920 And they would like, Yeah. In nineteen ninety five, that's 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.640 when we got Toy Story from Pixar, the first fully 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:59.200 CGI full length motion pictures, So yeah, it was just 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.800 about to happen, basically, like they were already in production 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.440 on Toys. I think that the descript for Toy Story 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.280 was kind of like finalized in ninety three, so like, 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.679 really it was about to happen. So I feel like 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.840 Ebert was correct on all parts. On all accounts here, 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.200 this is essentially what we're going to see, and we 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.760 have seen the perfection to some extent, I think of 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:25.600 CGI animated films and the Pixar Disney DreamWorks mold. Though 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.320 of course it's worth pointing out that things like photorealistic 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:33.000 CGI has a lot more to contend with. You know, 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.600 there's a lot more uncanny valley to traverse in that realm, 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.240 and so I don't know if we've seen anything that 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:41.839 truly succeeds in that category. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.720 Now. If you go back and read what people were 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:49.440 saying about these movies at the time, one very common 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:54.120 theme is that the Mindseye films are regarded as trippy 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.200 or psychedelic. Now, that might not seem all that strange 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.680 for you know, a computer anime, music video film, but 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:06.319 that's not necessarily said about all animated films or even 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.720 all art films. So, like, what is it about this 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:15.559 CGI package film idea that specifically lends itself to descriptions 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:20.520 having to do with visionary experiences or psychedelic drugs. I 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:22.760 was thinking about this, and this is a theme I'll 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.800 come back to multiple times in the episode. I've been 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:30.280 thinking a lot about linking techniques in the like just 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.480 practical techniques of computer animation, to the effect that the 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.560 film has on us. And I was wondering if the 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:42.959 trippiness has something to do with the with the particular 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:47.280 capabilities of computer animation at the time that by algorithmically 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.240 changing dimension values across time, for like a shape or 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.760 an image on the screen, you can create these shifting 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.719 morphing forms which are all throughout the animated segments in 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.160 Beyond the Mind's Eye. I would say every single one 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.240 of them has an image, like a shape or an 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:10.320 object that morphs into something else, and these changes from 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.200 one thing to another very much mirror the form shifting 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.359 visual effects that people commonly experience on some psychedelic compounds, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:19.600 So I wonder if that's one part of it, that 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:24.040 particular capability of computer animation and its similarity to psychedelic 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.520 visual effects. Of course, having one shape morph into another 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.200 is something you can do in traditional hand drawn animation 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.280 as well, but you see it a lot in early CGI, 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.640 and I wonder if it's because it was like easier 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.320 to automate by some kind of stepwise manipulation or algorithm 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.480 of just the number variables that you use to create 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:49.120 the dimensions of an image. Another characteristic that I wonder 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:53.080 if people were picking up on in describing this movie 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.800 as psychedelic or trippy, is just that the imagery looks super, 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.960 super weird in a way that nobody would have been 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:05.079 familiar with before CGI. And again this would have to 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.240 do with the practical state of the industry, Like it 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.840 was impossible to code a realistic looking human face with 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.160 computer animation at this time, so realism is off the table. 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.800 But you also could not easily reproduce familiar hand drawn 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.560 art styles that had been around for years in traditional animation, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.520 so you would by necessity be establishing a whole new 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.560 visual language for representing forms from the real world, especially 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.880 like animals and plants and humans, and so by necessity 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.800 they look the way they're rendered is very unfamiliar to us. 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.280 It doesn't look either like reality or like any art 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:44.160 we're familiar with. 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.320 Yeah, one thing that becomes obvious as you watch Beyond 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.800 the Mind's Eye is that a convincing reproduction of the 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.599 human body was not really achievable at this point, but 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:00.600 we still tried, because that's that's human art. We always 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.480 try to capture our own form in the forms of 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.920 animals in our vicinity. And yeah, they don't quite hit 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.640 the mark, but in not hitting the mark completely, there 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.720 is this it's close enough, you know, it doesn't you know, 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:18.040 we're we're vain pattern seeking creatures. So if you get 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.120 close enough to a human form, we'll identify with it 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:26.080 and we'll work with it. Right, So it's still, you know, engrossing, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.040 even if some of the characters are still a bit 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:30.480 on the grotesque side of. 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.480 Things, which is the segment that has a human figure 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.280 but it just has leopard print flesh. 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.840 We'll have to may maybe that'll come to me as 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.520 we get into the blow by blow plot of this movie. 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.520 But but yeah, you have things like like that that occur, 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.199 and yeah you can still you can still connect with them, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.800 you know. I was reminded in all of this, like 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.720 trying to think about like how it felt to see 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.560 these things, How it felt to see these kind of representations, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.760 even if they, you know, were very by today's stare 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.360 is like crude representations of like a human body or 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:08.560 an animal and whatnot. I'm reminded a little bit of 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:13.880 some of the the AI generated images that we've seen 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:16.280 more of them. I'm thinking more of the things that 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.320 were really hitting maybe a year or two ago, you know, 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.760 during the era where it's like that you could definitely 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.640 look at the fingers and count the fingers to see 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.360 if something was computer generated or not AI generated or not. 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.680 And I think one of the things about those images 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.440 is that, like the images we're seeing and beyond the 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.920 mind's eyes when they first hit, they are not achieving 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.800 like photorealism, they're not completely convincing. You see them and 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.040 you know something is off, but also in it being off, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.880 it's something that you haven't quite seen before. You're like, 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:52.520 because I remember the first time I saw some of 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.880 those AI generated images, I was like, who is this artist, 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.720 like it's clearly the same person because they all kind 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.320 of look the same. It's a little different than anything 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.080 I've seen before, and that makes it enthralling. Then you 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.880 get then you get bored with it, and you move on. 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.200 But the technology moves on as well. The technology advances 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.120 and it's no longer capable or it's no longer creating 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.600 things like it was before, but the mood is still there, 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:18.840 you know. 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:19.440 Yeah. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:24.600 Yeah, Now, in terms of your point about like psychedelia 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.600 and the imagery that we see and beyond the mind's eye, 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.000 it is interesting to think about how there's probably a 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.320 number of nexus points between like various counterculture movements and 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.360 folks as well as some of the individuals who are 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.560 like pushing these developments. You know, I'm thinking of, you know, 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:50.040 sort of Silicon Valley types, that convergence of programming and art, 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.600 like those worlds are probably you know, inevitably bumping up 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:54.520 against each other. Here. 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.080 You can just feel the techno hippie culture dripping off 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.920 of this. It's very it's a very West Coast product. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.240 Yeah yeah. And at the same time, like think about it, 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.280 it's ninety two. A new millennium is coming and it's 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.880 coming fast, and so there are a lot of ideas 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.520 about like what is going to happen, how are we 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.720 transforming for this new millennium, How is technology going to 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.840 change us? How can we elevate ourselves through it? So 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.200 there's a you know, there's always a certain amount of anxiety, obviously, 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.160 but there is also a certain amount of technological optimism 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.160 that's very strong, especially in Beyond the Mind's Eye. 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.880 I mean, it's quite literally promising to take you to 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.280 new realms. There is even today looking back on it now, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:44.960 a genuinely infectious sense of exploration and enthusiasm for the 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:46.280 new and the weird in it. 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.160 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, you can also see 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.840 other examples of this, you know, sort of like trance 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:58.120 music culture taking up various sort of futurism ideas, you know, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.680 thinking about the blending of say, you know, music and 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.400 the writings of Terrence mckinna and so forth. So yeah, 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:06.360 I feel like Beyond the Mind's Eye seems to set 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.480 right alongside that. And also the title is just so perfect. 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:12.760 I'm always a little bit shocked to realize that it's 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.879 called Beyond the Mind's Eye because it's the second in 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.919 a series, and the first was just the mind's eye, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.280 because beyond the mind's eye is perfect because there is 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.000 this sense that like it is promising to show you 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.080 things that you cannot imagine yet, like it takes this 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.439 technological evolution in order for us to even conceive of 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.400 these ideas, you know, like, that's that's how this hit, 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.080 that's how this felt back in the nineties. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:41.119 Well, as Professor Brian Oblivion taught us, the television screen 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.960 is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, it is 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.000 part of the physical structure of the brain. And so 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.600 by showing you this movie, they are offering you a 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.439 brain upgrade. That's what it feels like. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.560 Yeah, And so hopefully, you know, we'll be able to 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.320 hold on to that as we continue discussing this film, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.280 because on one lefe, we do have to look at 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.840 it as a thing that doesn't hit the same anymore, 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.200 that is going to feel more uncanny than it did, 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.120 that is going to feel rougher around the edges than 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.440 it did back in the day. But at the same time, 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.560 I just want to be clear that nobody can discount 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.080 how impressive this felt back in the early nineties, and 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:25.960 it is a snapshot of cutting edge technological artistic achievement 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:27.520 of that time period. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.199 Well, despite the tremendous advancements in what's possible with computer 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.119 animation since then, I would kind of have a hard 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.679 time imagining someone could watch this and not sort of 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.880 love it. Now, Yeah, yeah, I mean, what is there 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.240 to not like about Beyond the Mind's Eye? 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.040 Yeah, because it's going to I think on one hand, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.240 the music, of course, still stands up. Jon Hammer's music 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:53.560 is tremendous, and so that's going to pull you in 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.760 and if nothing else, it's going to relax you. The 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.600 images are going to relax you. There's nothing here that 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.800 can hurt you. This movie is like a nice, warm hug. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.520 It spoons you for its runtime of what an hour 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.200 and some change, and yeah, you can you can giggle 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.600 a little bit at how some of the effects hold 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:17.120 up today, but it's it's still it's still impressive, all right. Now. Sadly, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.639 I could not find a rip of the TV spot 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.280 for Beyond the Mind's Eye, either to include or just 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.280 to re experience it, because I know I must have 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.080 seen this commercial hundreds of times back in the day, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:32.760 But as far as I could tell, nobody has ripped 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.280 it and uploaded it, so that's a shame. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.480 I went looking for that as well and could not 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:37.000 find it. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.480 Now fortunately you can find the film itself. There are 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:42.920 a lot of streaming options for it out on the web, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.359 and you can still buy it on DVD. That's assuming 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:48.080 you don't want to go retro and get yourself a 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:49.560 VHS or a laser disc. 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.040 I know we've talked about this before, but when are 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.200 laser discs going to come back in the same way 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.920 vinyl has? It just feels right, doesn't it, that we'd 0:19:57.960 --> 0:19:59.240 go back to laser. 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.440 It seems like there would be there probably are a 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.720 laser disc enthusiasts out there. I know for a while 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.680 they held on because there were still certain films and there. 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.960 This may still be the case where there had not 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:16.120 been a release superior to the laser disc release, so 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:27.440 I'm not sure. All right, Well, let's briefly talk about 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:28.960 some of the folks involved here. This is going to 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:30.960 be a little different than usual because we have no 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.920 human cast, but we do have there are were ultimately 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.280 a lot of humans involved in this. We're not going 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.000 to highlight all of them, but credited as the director 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.200 and as an editor on this film is Michael Boydstone. 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.119 The same year, he had also worked with musician Pete 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.280 Bardens I believe of Camel Fame on a project called Watercolors. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.600 I wasn't able to find streaming content of this, but 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:00.879 it apparently combined footage of running water from Yellowstone with 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.480 Pete Barden's music. Boydston would go on to work with 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.159 Thomas Dolby on nineteen ninety four's The Gate to the 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.160 Mind's Eye, which he also directed, and he also worked 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.720 on a project called Televoid in ninety seven, which I'm 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:16.720 not saying I think it's an unrelated project that does 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:21.719 similar things like using different different computer animated shorts and 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.399 sort of stitching them together into a cohesive full picture. 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.639 Did Boydston work on the Mindseie movie that had Kansas 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:30.840 music by Kansas? 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.280 I don't think he did. I'd have to know. There 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.200 are different people involved in these. Different people did the music, 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.639 Like Thomas Dolby again was on The Gate to the 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.879 Mind's Eye, but he Boydsten went on to work on 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.160 a number of educational programs, including at least one episode 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:50.439 of Bill Ny The Science Guy, as well as a 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.280 series called diz Kids, and he served as a cinematographer 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:57.040 on various TV and film projects, including the twenty sixteen 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:02.280 film Beta Test starring Manu Bennett. And I wasn't able 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.320 to find much else about his role in this production 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:07.840 and how it went down. So I was looking around 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.679 and I found his contact information. I reached out to 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.680 him and I was like, Hey, can we ask you 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:15.119 a few questions about Beyond the Mind's Eye? And he 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.920 said he said, sure, it feels like several lifetimes ago, 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.119 but I'd be up for that. So we sent him 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.679 some questions. As of this recording time, we have not 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.440 heard back from him, but if we hear back from 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.240 him before publication, we'll tack it on at the end 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.600 of this episode, and if he gets back to us 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.960 after the episode has published, well, then we'll include it 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.600 in a future listener mail segment. I can't wait to 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.720 know more, all right, we already mentioned John Hamer born 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:46.360 nineteen forty eight Czech American musician, composer and record producer 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.280 again best known for his tracks Miami Vice Theme and 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:54.359 Crockett's Theme, both from the nineteen eighty series Miami Vice. Again. 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.399 Crockett's theme especially is just incredible. That's when you just 0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:59.879 need a You've probably heard it before, but if you have, 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.679 go listen to it. Tremendous track. He won two Grammy 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.800 Awards for the Miami Vice theme song. His other scores 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.800 include two episodes of Tales from the Crypt, Night Rider 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.360 two thousand, nineteen ninety six is Beastmaster three, The Eye 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:16.760 of Braccus, and of course that nineteen ninety Dolph Lugran 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.320 film I Come In Pecak Dark Angel, which we previously 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:22.000 discussed on Weird House Cinema. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:26.520 Before recording this episode, we were both watching a news 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:31.000 segment where Jan Hamer was being interviewed, primarily about his 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.200 work on Beyond the Mind's Eye, and before the interview began, 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:39.640 there was just the sickest ever clip of him absolutely 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:43.679 shredding a strap on keyboard what you might be tempted 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:45.679 to call a key tar, but I don't know if 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:46.760 he called it a key tar. 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:51.119 I've seen it referred to as a signature model link keyboard, 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:54.320 and maybe our synth junkies can chime in more on that, 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:57.679 but I've read that one of the things about him 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:00.160 is the e He's very much a keyboard synth guy, 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:04.760 and he developed in augmented a way so that he 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:08.760 could jam out on a keyboard like it was a guitar, 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:11.720 like with the energy of rocking out to a guitar, 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.400 and as someone who cannot rock out on a keyboard 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:19.120 or a guitar, I can't really speak to the differences there. Joe, 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:22.119 you have guitar experience, maybe you can tell us what 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:22.960 that might entail. 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:25.520 Oh well, I mean, performing with a guitar can be 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:28.680 a kind of fun, sort of semi athletic thing because 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:30.840 you're standing up, you can run around with it, and 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:33.159 you can sort of dance while you're playing it. I 0:24:33.160 --> 0:24:35.119 guess you can sort of dance while playing a keyboard. 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:37.200 I have less experience there because I can barely play 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:40.879 the keyboard, so I don't I don't know. Yeah, you 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:43.159 can't run around with a keyboard unless you turn it 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.000 into a strap on keyboard like dress like this thing 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:47.679 that I'm tempted to call a guitar. 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:51.679 I guess, like thinking of clips, I've seen of spirited 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.720 guitar players and spirited keyboard players, because there are some 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:58.440 very spirited keyboard players, you know what I mean. There's 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:01.000 a different type of rocking that it can occur I 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:03.520 guess you can if you're like really rocking out on 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:07.320 the scnth of the keyboard, like you're still localized to 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:10.880 that machine. You can't like run the stage or anything, so. 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:13.560 Right, you can kind of headbang, I guess while you're playing, 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:17.000 But yeah, your feet need to stay roughly where they 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:18.760 are now. 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:22.840 Johonhamer's music is widely available on music streaming platforms, and 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:26.080 that includes Beyond the Mind's Eye as an album. You 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:28.520 can listen to it on you know, Apple Music, Spotify, 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:31.120 wherever you get your digital music. He has a lot 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:32.760 of other tracks. I was going through some of his 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:36.359 other albums and taking him in. There's a nineteen seventy 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:39.159 five album of his title The First Seven Days, and 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:42.919 there's a track on there titled Light Slash Sun, and 0:25:42.960 --> 0:25:45.680 I thought it was very good, all right. The producer 0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:48.639 of Beyond the Mind's Eye was Stephen Churchill born nineteen 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:52.159 fifty seven. He produced I believe all of the Mind's 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:55.320 Eye videos, beginning with nineteen nineties The Mind's Eye, followed 0:25:55.520 --> 0:25:58.200 by this film, and then ninety four is the Gate 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:00.679 to the Mind's Eye, ninety six is End of the 0:26:00.680 --> 0:26:05.200 Mind's Eye, ninety seven's Computer Animation Showcase, nineteen ninety eight's 0:26:05.240 --> 0:26:09.560 Ancient Alien and nineteen ninety eight's Computer Animation Celebration. I 0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:12.840 don't know why the t the title breakdown seems too much. 0:26:12.880 --> 0:26:15.560 At this point, we're no longer talking about the Mind's Eye. 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:19.119 He previously worked as an animator on Disney's The Black 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:22.400 Cauldron in nineteen eighty five. He was a character designer 0:26:22.440 --> 0:26:24.800 on The Great Mouse Detective in eighty six, a background 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:27.640 artist on Oliver and Company in eighty eight, and an 0:26:27.640 --> 0:26:30.680 in between artist on The Little Mermaid in nineteen eighty nine. 0:26:30.960 --> 0:26:33.080 I remember The Great Mate, he was a character designer. 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:36.440 The Great Mouse Detective had some extremely scary characters when 0:26:36.440 --> 0:26:39.480 I was little, at least I remember I rented that one, 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:42.080 and there's this bat with sharp teeth on it that 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:46.600 freaked me out. Also, it has a rat villain voiced 0:26:46.680 --> 0:26:49.280 by Vincent Price, I think, who gets very scary at 0:26:49.280 --> 0:26:49.640 the end. 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:53.280 Oh yeah, yeah, that is definitely a Vincent Price role, 0:26:53.320 --> 0:26:55.720 and he is quite good. I'm trying to remember who 0:26:56.080 --> 0:27:00.800 voiced the bat. Nobody ever heard of Candy Kendi, not 0:27:00.960 --> 0:27:03.320 a I believe he was a radio performer and voice actor, 0:27:03.359 --> 0:27:06.920 but I don't have a lot of familiarity with his work. 0:27:07.520 --> 0:27:10.800 Well, the two villainous rodents in this movie were they 0:27:10.840 --> 0:27:14.480 both freaked me out when I was young, so maybe 0:27:14.480 --> 0:27:15.240 he designed them. 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:17.760 And then bone was Sherlock Holmes in that? 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:18.680 Oh really? 0:27:18.840 --> 0:27:19.679 Yeah? 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:22.879 Oh wait, but Sherlock Holmes is just like the human 0:27:22.920 --> 0:27:25.720 who happens to live in the room above the Basle, 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:26.920 the Great mouse Detective. 0:27:27.600 --> 0:27:29.200 I think you're right. It's been a long time since 0:27:29.240 --> 0:27:29.760 I've seen it. 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:32.399 Like, it's not primarily an adventure about Sherlock Holmes. It 0:27:32.440 --> 0:27:35.480 is about his mouse equivalent to Basle though whatever. 0:27:35.880 --> 0:27:38.720 Yeah, the Black Cauldron is when I've been tempted to revisit, 0:27:39.280 --> 0:27:41.680 but I have not yet gotten around to it. It's 0:27:41.680 --> 0:27:44.400 got some great dark fantasy elements to it, but it's 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:47.879 not one that I think was well regarded at the 0:27:47.880 --> 0:27:49.800 time of its release, and I don't know if people 0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:52.840 have warmed up to it or not now. Obviously, this 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:57.640 project encompasses the computer effects work of various individuals, and 0:27:57.680 --> 0:27:59.160 again we're not going to be able to have time 0:27:59.200 --> 0:28:01.960 to really do us just to everyone, but we'll reference 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:04.560 some of them as they come up. I know that 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:08.080 in the movie databases, the flora section is credited to 0:28:09.000 --> 0:28:12.919 yo Chiro Kawaguchi, and Journey to the Fourth Dimension is 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:16.200 credited to Rick Harper and David Thornton. But of course 0:28:16.240 --> 0:28:18.520 that is just that. That's just some of the people 0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:20.159 involved in this, and there are many others. 0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:23.280 Now, as we said earlier, the movie is sort of 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:26.679 you could kind of think of it as like just 0:28:26.720 --> 0:28:30.600 a series of music videos. That's a little misleading because 0:28:30.640 --> 0:28:34.520 there they do kind of have a narrative flow in 0:28:34.560 --> 0:28:37.560 a way, but they are a it's a series of 0:28:37.640 --> 0:28:42.200 discrete musical numbers on the soundtrack that are each paired 0:28:42.320 --> 0:28:45.920 with an animation sequence that may be sort of one 0:28:46.080 --> 0:28:50.040 continuous theme throughout or might just be just a Shmorgas 0:28:50.080 --> 0:28:51.040 board of imagery. 0:28:51.560 --> 0:28:53.920 That's right. And you know, the interesting thing is, like 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:57.880 any anthology, we kind of have a host. Yeah, we 0:28:57.960 --> 0:29:00.680 have we have something or someone that is going to 0:29:00.720 --> 0:29:03.440 introduce us to the concept of beyond the mind's eye. 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:07.360 We get a floating virtual bald head with these you know, 0:29:07.480 --> 0:29:11.520 polygons on its surface. It almost looks I don't know 0:29:11.560 --> 0:29:13.280 if you caught the same thing. Maybe I'm out of 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:14.960 my mind here, but it looks almost kind of like 0:29:14.960 --> 0:29:16.720 a floating Jeff bezos Head. 0:29:18.880 --> 0:29:22.720 Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of bezos to it. Yeah, yeah, 0:29:22.800 --> 0:29:24.160 I think that's a strong comparison. 0:29:24.560 --> 0:29:28.280 Anyway, the bezos head tells us you are now entering 0:29:28.320 --> 0:29:32.560 a world inside the essence of your imagination, look within 0:29:32.640 --> 0:29:38.600 your dreams. They can take you beyond the mind's eye. 0:29:38.680 --> 0:29:41.600 And then we begin to zoom. We begin to zoom 0:29:41.680 --> 0:29:46.640 through just a tunnel of textures and colors and things 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:49.680 start to pop out at us. And it is a 0:29:49.800 --> 0:29:54.040 fairly overwhelming experience. At first. You're just like plunging down 0:29:54.080 --> 0:29:58.760 this tunnel into darkness with colors emerging from out of everywhere, 0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:00.480 and you don't even know what you're lo looking at, 0:30:00.760 --> 0:30:02.720 and you can't quite make sense of it. And by 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:06.360 the time you sort of focus on one shape and image, 0:30:06.360 --> 0:30:10.000 it's turning into something else. And I can see why 0:30:10.000 --> 0:30:13.800 they put this animated segment first, because even in retrospect, 0:30:13.880 --> 0:30:15.800 it kind of takes your breath away. And I'm sure 0:30:15.840 --> 0:30:18.880 in nineteen ninety two you'd just be like, Wow, I 0:30:19.000 --> 0:30:22.080 can't even begin to describe what I'm looking at. 0:30:22.400 --> 0:30:25.200 Yeah, because especially if you're watching this on VHS, you 0:30:25.240 --> 0:30:27.560 can't just skip to the next chapter. You'd have to 0:30:27.560 --> 0:30:30.520 fast forward through stuff, and so it really needs to 0:30:30.600 --> 0:30:33.840 hit hard immediately, and it does just lots of shifting 0:30:33.920 --> 0:30:40.440 psychedelic CGI landscapes, fractals and particles, virtual reality bodies, including 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:43.600 a pair of lovers who merge in their love making 0:30:43.680 --> 0:30:48.200 into a single extra dimensional dragonfly. And then there's a butterfly, 0:30:48.400 --> 0:30:53.680 a bird, a terasaur, a haunted castle, an electric vortex, 0:30:53.720 --> 0:30:56.280 and then finally like a reading rainbow butterfly. 0:30:56.520 --> 0:30:59.200 I love when it turns into the Haunted Castle because 0:30:59.240 --> 0:31:01.800 that has nothing to do with anything that came before. 0:31:01.840 --> 0:31:04.960 But suddenly we're in spirit Halloween and this is just 0:31:05.000 --> 0:31:08.800 an animated castle. It's a whoo and bats flying through 0:31:08.800 --> 0:31:11.600 the sky. But then when we get close to the bats, 0:31:11.640 --> 0:31:15.000 we realize they're not bats. They're terosaurs with devil tongues. 0:31:15.320 --> 0:31:19.360 And one of the terosaurs crashes into the quote camera 0:31:19.560 --> 0:31:22.120 and breaks the glass of the lens, sort of just 0:31:22.160 --> 0:31:27.360 spiderwebs of fracture across the screen, and then the does 0:31:27.360 --> 0:31:30.560 the terra stor kind of like slide down like a 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:33.560 it does like a bug smeared on a windshield. 0:31:33.720 --> 0:31:37.840 So, on one hand, this whole intro bit feels very demo, 0:31:38.160 --> 0:31:40.280 you know, it feels it feels like they're saying someone 0:31:40.360 --> 0:31:43.560 is saying, look what CGI can do for you. But 0:31:43.720 --> 0:31:48.080 on the other hand, we are definitely seeing parts of 0:31:48.120 --> 0:31:52.640 a sequence from the nineteen ninety two film The lawnmower Man. This, 0:31:52.760 --> 0:31:57.160 of course, was a science fiction horror movie directed by 0:31:57.200 --> 0:32:01.520 Brett Leonard and originally sort of kind of based on 0:32:01.560 --> 0:32:04.120 a Stephen King's story, but I believe he was able 0:32:04.120 --> 0:32:06.200 to get his name taken off of that. The original 0:32:06.280 --> 0:32:09.600 lawnmower Man short story is very creepy, but has nothing 0:32:09.640 --> 0:32:12.200 to do with virtual reality or computers. 0:32:12.440 --> 0:32:14.200 Yeah, I've looked at this up before. I think the 0:32:14.240 --> 0:32:17.880 movie has nothing to do with this story except that 0:32:17.920 --> 0:32:20.520 there is a guy who operates a lawnmower. That's it. 0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:23.719 Yeah, And so there's a scene I had to go. 0:32:24.160 --> 0:32:26.600 I was able to find this online included a link 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:28.520 for here, Jove you wanted to check it out. But 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:33.240 there's a sequence in The lawnmower Man where the character 0:32:33.440 --> 0:32:39.000 job Smith played by Jeff Fay, he invites his girlfriend 0:32:40.120 --> 0:32:43.080 Marnie Burke played by Jenny Wright, to hey, come join 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:46.280 me in the cyber realm for some of the cyber sex. 0:32:46.720 --> 0:32:49.880 And so they're in these you know, virtual reality harnesses 0:32:50.200 --> 0:32:53.200 and then we see in the virtual realm they are 0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:56.720 these two lovers that you know, embrace each other and 0:32:56.760 --> 0:32:59.560 then they sort of like merge with each other, become 0:32:59.600 --> 0:33:03.080 a drag and fly. But in the lawnmower man, this 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:06.600 sequence takes a dark turn. She like gets stuck in 0:33:06.720 --> 0:33:10.280 the like the ground or something, and then she starts 0:33:10.280 --> 0:33:13.720 freaking out and he turns into a monster and eats her. 0:33:14.360 --> 0:33:17.400 So we do not see anybody turn into a monster 0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:19.960 and beyond the mind's eye because obviously that doesn't fit 0:33:20.000 --> 0:33:22.280 the vibe here. This is not This is not about 0:33:22.400 --> 0:33:25.680 feeling anxious about technology. This isn't about being afraid that 0:33:25.760 --> 0:33:28.440 technology is going to eat you. This is about what 0:33:28.520 --> 0:33:32.840 technology can transform you into. And it's not a monster. 0:33:33.040 --> 0:33:34.600 It is you know, the eternity. 0:33:34.920 --> 0:33:38.080 Well, but we do go from the cybersex to the 0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:42.000 haunted castle. But it's I guess nothing bad appears to 0:33:42.040 --> 0:33:44.600 happen to the to the two lovers on the screen. 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:46.440 It's just like we're looking at something else now and 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:47.680 it is a haunted castle. 0:33:47.880 --> 0:33:50.440 Yeah, that haunted castle looks inviting, though it's like it's 0:33:50.440 --> 0:33:53.080 like you said, spirit Halloween can territory it's like, don't 0:33:53.080 --> 0:33:54.600 you want to go over there and meet the fun 0:33:54.680 --> 0:33:55.760 vampires that live there? 0:33:55.840 --> 0:33:58.800 Yeah, that's castle they give out the full sized candy 0:33:58.800 --> 0:33:59.920 bars exactly. 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:04.280 Now. Multiple individuals and I believe studios worked on the 0:34:04.320 --> 0:34:09.360 CGI sequences for The lawnmower Man, but they include let's see, 0:34:09.400 --> 0:34:12.160 there's a Gimmel Everett who lived nineteen fifty one through 0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:16.160 twenty eleven, who also worked on ninety five Virtuosity and 0:34:16.280 --> 0:34:18.520 nineteen eighty eight Killer Clowns from Outer Space. 0:34:19.280 --> 0:34:22.800 The Virtuosity is the movie with a virtual reality character 0:34:22.880 --> 0:34:26.240 played by Russell Crowe who is a virtual serial killer 0:34:26.520 --> 0:34:29.480 who comes into the real world. And the main thing 0:34:29.520 --> 0:34:31.480 I remember about it is that the trailer for the 0:34:31.520 --> 0:34:34.240 movie had Russell Crowe walking through a mall while playing 0:34:34.280 --> 0:34:35.000 Stay in Alive. 0:34:36.719 --> 0:34:38.839 Yeah. I think they basically they three D print him 0:34:38.880 --> 0:34:41.920 and he's a carbon based organism with blue blood or 0:34:41.920 --> 0:34:42.680 something like that. 0:34:42.880 --> 0:34:45.719 It's reverse tron that is the situation. 0:34:46.200 --> 0:34:50.200 Yeah, sounds like a great idea. I think I saw 0:34:50.239 --> 0:34:52.640 it back in the day and I remember enjoying it. 0:34:52.680 --> 0:34:56.840 But let's see, we also have Helene Plotkin, who also 0:34:56.880 --> 0:35:00.000 worked on something that she's credited for ninety ninety one 0:35:00.200 --> 0:35:02.960 Liquid Television, Liquid Television. That was a similar situation where 0:35:02.960 --> 0:35:07.360 they're bringing in different short films and other short projects. 0:35:07.800 --> 0:35:10.640 And then she also was involved in nineteen ninety nine's 0:35:10.680 --> 0:35:14.800 Toy Story two. And then there's Brett Leonard born nineteen 0:35:14.880 --> 0:35:17.960 fifty nine, who also worked on Virtuosity and Killer Clowns 0:35:17.960 --> 0:35:20.920 from Outer Space. He also directed the music video for 0:35:21.000 --> 0:35:23.839 Peter Gabriel's Kiss That Frog in two thousand and four, 0:35:24.320 --> 0:35:28.000 which I had great track, amazing album, big fan of us. 0:35:28.520 --> 0:35:31.759 The other interesting thing about Brett Leonard, who again it's 0:35:33.000 --> 0:35:35.759 some connection to this film, is that he directed the 0:35:35.840 --> 0:35:39.240 nineteen eighty nine film The Dead Pit, a horror movie 0:35:39.239 --> 0:35:42.720 that is best known to VHS fans for its box 0:35:42.880 --> 0:35:47.279 VHS box with the light up eyes. So look up 0:35:47.320 --> 0:35:49.000 an image of this. If you ever went into a 0:35:49.080 --> 0:35:52.239 VHS rental store back in the day, you inevitably saw this, 0:35:52.640 --> 0:35:55.040 and if the people running the place remember to refresh 0:35:55.080 --> 0:35:57.920 its batteries, it's the eyes on the front of the 0:35:58.000 --> 0:35:59.799 VHS box would light up. 0:36:00.080 --> 0:36:02.520 That's a really good gimmick. I you know, I feel 0:36:02.520 --> 0:36:06.400 I was a connoisseur of VHS boxes in the nineties 0:36:06.440 --> 0:36:08.480 in the video store and I don't remember. 0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:10.680 This, Yeah, I mean it's not a I don't think. 0:36:10.800 --> 0:36:12.560 I don't know anything about the film itself, and I 0:36:12.600 --> 0:36:14.880 never rented it. How could I. I was a child 0:36:14.920 --> 0:36:19.040 and this was scary, But you know it's I've seen 0:36:19.040 --> 0:36:22.960 it for sale and you know, prize by collectors. So anyway, 0:36:23.000 --> 0:36:25.640 those are just some of the folks that were connected 0:36:25.800 --> 0:36:29.239 to these sequences from the lawnmower Man, which have been 0:36:29.280 --> 0:36:32.600 repurposed here in Beyond the Mind's Eye. And this won't 0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:34.840 be the last time we see lawnmower Man footage in 0:36:34.920 --> 0:36:35.880 this this feature. 0:36:36.520 --> 0:36:39.680 Okay, well, that's just the introductory segment. We cannot speak 0:36:39.680 --> 0:36:42.120 at great length about all of the segments in the movie, 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:44.160 but we'll try to talk about at least most of 0:36:44.200 --> 0:36:46.480 them for a bit. The second one I thought was 0:36:46.520 --> 0:36:50.439 also pretty interesting. This one is called Seeds, and it's 0:36:50.480 --> 0:36:54.400 an animation on the concept of pan spermia, with like 0:36:54.560 --> 0:36:56.719 a nut or a thing that looks kind of like 0:36:56.760 --> 0:37:02.080 a pumpkin seed flying through space and then landing on Earth. 0:37:02.120 --> 0:37:03.640 I don't know why I said a pumpkin seed, because 0:37:03.640 --> 0:37:05.279 it doesn't look like a pumpkin seed. It's some other 0:37:05.360 --> 0:37:06.839 kind of seed. I don't know what seed. 0:37:06.880 --> 0:37:09.120 Would you compare it to rob It's just a big 0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:09.920 old space seed. 0:37:10.239 --> 0:37:12.600 Yeah, I don't know, caraway seed or something. It's a 0:37:12.600 --> 0:37:15.480 big old seed. It flies through space and then it 0:37:15.600 --> 0:37:19.440 plunks down on Earth, and then it gives rise to 0:37:19.560 --> 0:37:22.480 life on Earth, and we see all kinds of just 0:37:22.800 --> 0:37:25.880 kind of you know, life dancing about. We see trees 0:37:25.960 --> 0:37:30.799 as groovy shape shifting dancing machines. Like the trees to 0:37:30.920 --> 0:37:34.560 the beat of the song, they shift and transform into 0:37:34.600 --> 0:37:38.520 different kinds of trees with different arrangements of branches and leaves, 0:37:38.920 --> 0:37:41.320 which again goes back to this morphing concept that we 0:37:41.360 --> 0:37:44.879 see throughout this whole thing. So there's all these kinds 0:37:44.880 --> 0:37:48.640 of different representations of life growing and morphing and shifting 0:37:48.680 --> 0:37:51.759 and taking these different forms. And then eventually there are 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:55.239 these pods, these plants that grow as pods that end 0:37:55.320 --> 0:37:58.719 up shooting seeds back out into space. So it's as 0:37:58.800 --> 0:38:00.280 if the cycle continues. 0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:04.240 Yeah. Apparently this sequence uses imagery created by computer graphics 0:38:04.320 --> 0:38:07.680 artists and researcher Carl Simms born nineteen sixty two from 0:38:07.680 --> 0:38:12.520 his nineteen ninety short Panspermia. He incidentally served as a 0:38:12.560 --> 0:38:16.760 producer on the first minds Ie release, and this footage 0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:19.960 would later be used in the Boydsten directed music video 0:38:20.040 --> 0:38:24.560 for Pantera's cover of the Black Sabbath instrumental Planet Caravan, 0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:26.759 and you can also find this on YouTube. 0:38:26.960 --> 0:38:30.680 I love Sabbath, I like that song. I did listen 0:38:30.719 --> 0:38:34.160 and watch this, and I don't love the pinter cover. 0:38:37.360 --> 0:38:40.640 I have to say this whole Panspermia section, I felt 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:43.600 like this one felt perhaps more dated by today's standards 0:38:43.680 --> 0:38:46.520 than the intro, perhaps because a lot of it hinges 0:38:46.640 --> 0:38:51.080 on depictions of natural world organisms like actual plants, actual animals. 0:38:51.320 --> 0:38:54.680 And again, what it accomplishes for nineteen ninety or nineteen 0:38:54.760 --> 0:38:59.560 ninety two is amazing, but I don't know. On top 0:38:59.600 --> 0:39:04.160 of that, it's not my favorite Hommer track beyond the 0:39:04.160 --> 0:39:07.520 Mind's Eye. But things do pick up again when we 0:39:07.560 --> 0:39:10.640 get back into the depictions of actual alien pant sperma 0:39:10.760 --> 0:39:13.880 with the Big Seed launching cannon plants and so forth. 0:39:14.160 --> 0:39:25.320 Yeah, yeah, okay. The next segment I thought was interesting 0:39:25.440 --> 0:39:31.800 because it's called Afternoon Adventure, and this track incorporates both 0:39:32.280 --> 0:39:37.000 live action and computer animation, and it over lays one 0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:40.080 on top of the other, so we get shots at 0:39:40.200 --> 0:39:42.200 least that's what I think is going on. I don't 0:39:42.239 --> 0:39:46.680 think that's cgi. It couldn't be. No, it is. It seems. 0:39:46.800 --> 0:39:49.400 For example, we get a footage of a real forest 0:39:49.600 --> 0:39:52.799 that is overlaid with animated insects, and we see a 0:39:52.960 --> 0:39:56.440 wasp chasing a bee. And what I love is that 0:39:56.880 --> 0:39:59.959 the on Hommer track that is paired with this sound 0:40:00.320 --> 0:40:03.040 like chase music from an action film in the eighties 0:40:03.120 --> 0:40:05.840 or like from Miami Vice. It's like sick, you know, 0:40:06.160 --> 0:40:08.200 like guitar shredding kind of chase music. 0:40:08.719 --> 0:40:11.560 Yeah, yeah, like like that bee just robbed a bank 0:40:11.600 --> 0:40:12.920 and the wasp is on the case. 0:40:13.160 --> 0:40:17.680 Yeah, wasp, you're a loose cannon. But this has a 0:40:18.280 --> 0:40:21.200 kind of twist ending actually, So at the you know, 0:40:21.239 --> 0:40:22.480 we go around and we see a lot of the 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:25.719 landscape and we end up zooming out in this one, 0:40:26.000 --> 0:40:27.799 and we zoom out and out and out, and we 0:40:27.880 --> 0:40:29.840 go up in the sky and see this whole you know, 0:40:29.880 --> 0:40:32.560 the contours of the earth and the lakes and the 0:40:32.640 --> 0:40:36.560 rivers and the hills, and we keep zooming out until 0:40:36.600 --> 0:40:40.160 we go through a glass barrier and we realized the 0:40:40.280 --> 0:40:45.120 landscape where we were watching these insects interact was inside 0:40:45.160 --> 0:40:49.800 of a dome, a dome in space on the surface 0:40:49.840 --> 0:40:53.680 of a barren moon, and there are many domes like it. 0:40:54.160 --> 0:40:58.560 What this is great though, because yeah, it starts off 0:40:58.760 --> 0:41:01.560 seeming like yeah, bulge choice to feature both live action 0:41:01.680 --> 0:41:05.120 and computer generated bugs, especially since you know you really 0:41:05.120 --> 0:41:09.879 can't create a photorealistic bug at this point. But yeah, 0:41:10.000 --> 0:41:12.160 by the time you get to the domes, amazing. This 0:41:12.239 --> 0:41:15.800 is exactly what you want out of your CGI imagery 0:41:15.840 --> 0:41:18.680 at this point in time. Let us depict other worlds, 0:41:18.760 --> 0:41:22.000 let us depict you know, the future, show us give 0:41:22.080 --> 0:41:23.600 us this revelation, and it does. 0:41:24.480 --> 0:41:27.680 Now. The next segment I think, is called Brave New World. 0:41:28.000 --> 0:41:32.360 It is sort of a representation of the insides of 0:41:33.320 --> 0:41:36.920 a computer, but rendered in a in a dramatic, almost 0:41:36.920 --> 0:41:40.160 heroic fashion, And as I was watching it, it actually 0:41:40.200 --> 0:41:44.160 looked quite familiar to me, and I started thinking, wait 0:41:44.200 --> 0:41:47.479 a minute, is this footage that was created for those 0:41:47.560 --> 0:41:50.000 Intel Pennium commercials in the nineties. 0:41:50.680 --> 0:41:52.720 It might have been. I was looking around for an example, 0:41:52.760 --> 0:41:57.279 and I kept running across other Intel commercials, so I'm 0:41:57.320 --> 0:41:59.959 not sure about that. But yeah, we get dancing flow 0:42:00.040 --> 0:42:04.719 vating silver squares, and then we enter various geometric shapes 0:42:05.040 --> 0:42:09.160 a real kaleidoscope experience, and the track here from Jon 0:42:09.239 --> 0:42:11.320 Hammer is very soothing. But then it picks up the 0:42:11.400 --> 0:42:13.800 pace as we sail through the insides of a computer 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:18.000 and this is where we get into familiar process or 0:42:18.120 --> 0:42:22.960 commercial territory. Eventually, a golden titan rises from the computer 0:42:23.080 --> 0:42:25.960 realm to lift up a giant gear and oh, we 0:42:26.120 --> 0:42:28.880 realized this titan is Atlas. And I'm not sure I 0:42:28.920 --> 0:42:32.799 love the idea of computer technology as a shackled, eternally 0:42:32.880 --> 0:42:37.120 punished titan. I don't know exactly what we're trying to 0:42:37.120 --> 0:42:37.719 portray there. 0:42:38.200 --> 0:42:40.520 Yeah, whether it's the Greek themes, or it's going in 0:42:40.560 --> 0:42:42.600 a different direction with some kind of I don't know, 0:42:42.719 --> 0:42:46.279 inn Rand meditation. In any case, this one doesn't hit 0:42:46.360 --> 0:42:47.000 so great for me. 0:42:47.400 --> 0:42:50.640 Yeah, but the titan looks cool, I will say that. 0:42:51.000 --> 0:42:54.239 Yeah, let's see. After this, there's a segment called I 0:42:54.239 --> 0:42:57.560 think Transformers. This one really looks like a video game, 0:42:58.120 --> 0:43:01.520 and I think that's because in heart it is reproducing 0:43:02.080 --> 0:43:05.200 footage from the lawnmower Man of a video game they 0:43:05.239 --> 0:43:08.080 play in the lawnmower Man. And then also I think 0:43:08.080 --> 0:43:10.560 we actually just straight up see the job. A character 0:43:10.680 --> 0:43:11.680 from lawnmower Man. 0:43:11.719 --> 0:43:14.880 In this we do like the raging virtual job where he's. 0:43:14.719 --> 0:43:17.120 Like a yeah, he's mad. 0:43:17.520 --> 0:43:20.239 Yeah, and then there's I haven't seen The lawnmower Man 0:43:20.400 --> 0:43:22.080 in a while. I didn't didn't have time to watch 0:43:22.120 --> 0:43:24.480 it in full for this, but yeah, there's a sequence 0:43:24.480 --> 0:43:26.720 in lawnmower Man where they're at an arcade. They're playing 0:43:26.719 --> 0:43:29.080 some sort of like a racing game, and we see 0:43:29.200 --> 0:43:31.640 the virtual footage from that part of the film here. 0:43:31.920 --> 0:43:35.399 Yeah, okay, the racing part being it's people zoomings through 0:43:35.400 --> 0:43:38.200 a kind of corridor with these closing teeth that you 0:43:38.239 --> 0:43:40.240 have to kind of navigate through gaps in. 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:44.399 This reminds me there was there was a video game 0:43:44.480 --> 0:43:48.839 tie into The lawnmower Man and my video my video 0:43:48.960 --> 0:43:51.319 game capabilities at the time were very limited. I think 0:43:51.320 --> 0:43:53.919 I had a Sega Genesis and they put this game 0:43:53.960 --> 0:43:57.680 out on Sega Genesis, and I remember wanting it because basically, 0:43:57.719 --> 0:44:02.920 with the limited capacity of the Sega Genesis, they were 0:44:02.960 --> 0:44:07.239 able to create some sort of virtual sections, you know, 0:44:07.280 --> 0:44:09.720 where you're like flying around in a three dimensional space, 0:44:11.040 --> 0:44:13.680 something that you know, by today's standards is just old hat, 0:44:13.960 --> 0:44:17.280 but at the time, on Genesis like it was like, whoa, 0:44:17.480 --> 0:44:20.719 you can do things like that on this machine. I 0:44:20.800 --> 0:44:23.000 want in, even though I don't know how I feel 0:44:23.000 --> 0:44:26.000 about that movie. I want to play the game. And 0:44:26.040 --> 0:44:27.759 to be clear, I think other parts of the game 0:44:27.760 --> 0:44:30.879 are just typical side scrolling. But they had some sort 0:44:30.920 --> 0:44:34.440 of a gimmicked sort of virtual reality section. 0:44:35.000 --> 0:44:38.280 Okay, oh but wait a minute. This one's called Transformers 0:44:38.320 --> 0:44:40.719 and there's something like a Transformer in it. 0:44:41.040 --> 0:44:44.040 Yeah, yeah, we do get We do get some sort 0:44:44.040 --> 0:44:48.520 of a laser night that's chasing around a transformer, like 0:44:48.719 --> 0:44:51.560 a robot that changes into a race car. I don't 0:44:51.600 --> 0:44:54.400 know if this is an actual transformer or a gobot 0:44:54.880 --> 0:44:58.680 or just a general riff on the overall concept, but 0:44:59.000 --> 0:44:59.520 there it is. 0:45:00.560 --> 0:45:03.960 Man. So the next segment is one that really was 0:45:04.000 --> 0:45:07.279 a hit for me. It's probably the cheesiest segment, or 0:45:07.280 --> 0:45:09.640 one of the cheesiest in it, but I loved it, 0:45:09.800 --> 0:45:13.520 especially because of how catchy the music is. This is 0:45:13.560 --> 0:45:17.920 the one called Too Far, which has more different imagery 0:45:17.920 --> 0:45:21.520 in it than I can possibly recount here. But it's 0:45:21.560 --> 0:45:25.800 got what these sort of jazz design robots playing drums 0:45:25.840 --> 0:45:29.480 on a crumbling planet surface with desolate gray buildings. What 0:45:29.560 --> 0:45:34.040 a weird juxtaposition. So it's like a a gray post 0:45:34.080 --> 0:45:38.640 apocalyptic world with ruined buildings, but these happy robots made 0:45:38.719 --> 0:45:41.560 of these kind of jazz squiggles are all like, oh boy, 0:45:41.640 --> 0:45:43.160 I'm feeling the feeling the groove. 0:45:43.440 --> 0:45:46.280 It's like you had a monkey's paw and you wished 0:45:46.400 --> 0:45:51.680 that windows clip art became like syndient. You know, we're 0:45:51.719 --> 0:45:54.960 not clip art really. What's his name, the paper Clippy Clippy. 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:58.760 It's like Clippy and his like demonic kin were brought 0:45:58.800 --> 0:46:01.359 to life and they're here to rock out, at least 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:03.759 in theory, but you know it's gonna get violent. 0:46:04.120 --> 0:46:10.560 Clip multicolored Clippy family reunion and they're all playing hand drums. Yeah. 0:46:10.600 --> 0:46:13.760 But then it's not just that. There's also an angry 0:46:13.800 --> 0:46:17.680 looking like hamhead guy sitting watching a TV and a 0:46:17.760 --> 0:46:21.000 necktie and he keeps kind of burping and his head 0:46:21.040 --> 0:46:23.640 comes off and then it sinks down into his neck 0:46:23.719 --> 0:46:26.680 and then it pops off again, and he's watching things 0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:29.040 on TV. And we see what he's watching on the TV, 0:46:29.520 --> 0:46:33.200 which is I think robots on roller coasters. And then 0:46:33.280 --> 0:46:37.279 there's there's more TV watching themes with something that's just 0:46:37.320 --> 0:46:40.399 a straight up eyeball watching a TV but then it 0:46:40.440 --> 0:46:42.720 gets scared and it hides behind the couch. 0:46:43.280 --> 0:46:46.439 Ah. You know. The roller coaster, the virtual roller coaster thing, 0:46:46.520 --> 0:46:49.200 of course, has never gotten old like that basically spawned 0:46:49.600 --> 0:46:53.320 a whole video game franchise, and I think Regal Cinema 0:46:53.400 --> 0:46:55.680 still rolls that out at the beginning of their Seeing 0:46:55.680 --> 0:46:57.680 a picture in Regal Cinema. Right, you get to ride 0:46:57.680 --> 0:47:00.840 that virtual roller coaster a little bit. Some people like 0:47:00.880 --> 0:47:02.480 will put their hands up to get into it. 0:47:02.520 --> 0:47:04.560 You know, I'll do that. 0:47:05.480 --> 0:47:05.640 Oh. 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:10.040 And then so this musical number has some vocals in it. 0:47:10.520 --> 0:47:13.560 Vocals are not super prominent in the music throughout this 0:47:13.680 --> 0:47:15.960 but a couple of tracks have vocals. 0:47:16.640 --> 0:47:16.960 Uh. 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:20.439 And the only lyrics you get in this song, which 0:47:20.480 --> 0:47:23.120 again the segment is called too Far. We see these 0:47:23.160 --> 0:47:26.399 sort of these these three singers with big hair, all 0:47:26.440 --> 0:47:29.120 three of them. It's CGI singers. Of course. I don't 0:47:29.120 --> 0:47:31.319 know if I needed to say that, but yes, these 0:47:31.480 --> 0:47:35.600 sort of sort of CGI mannequin figures with huge hair, 0:47:36.080 --> 0:47:40.200 and they're singing too far, take it easy, It's all right? 0:47:41.840 --> 0:47:46.120 What are those three phrases? How do they interlock? Too far? 0:47:46.400 --> 0:47:47.799 Take it easy, It's all right? 0:47:48.440 --> 0:47:51.920 It's like what the stages of grief or something right, okay. 0:47:52.640 --> 0:47:55.680 Oh, and then there's like a whole eyeball family. Remember 0:47:55.719 --> 0:47:58.080 there was an eyeball earlier that was watching the TV. 0:47:58.600 --> 0:48:01.600 Uh Nick got scared. But now there's a whole family 0:48:01.640 --> 0:48:04.480 of eyeballs. It's like a mommy and daddy eyeball. And 0:48:04.480 --> 0:48:06.400 then I'm a lot of little eyeballs and they're all 0:48:06.440 --> 0:48:09.960 watching the TV and they're watching a robot on TV 0:48:10.120 --> 0:48:12.759 tell us that we've gone too far. And then my 0:48:12.880 --> 0:48:14.960 favorite part of the whole thing is we see this 0:48:15.080 --> 0:48:19.040 assembly line inside of a factory that makes terminators. They're 0:48:19.080 --> 0:48:22.680 just making terminator exoskeletons, good, pumping out T eight hundreds. 0:48:23.040 --> 0:48:28.360 And then they produce a canned beverage called Too Far Juice. 0:48:31.600 --> 0:48:35.360 Funny tie in here. I just on a lark. I 0:48:35.400 --> 0:48:37.520 don't know why it even occurred to me to do this. 0:48:37.640 --> 0:48:40.120 I was like, wonder if there's anything in reality called 0:48:40.160 --> 0:48:43.000 Too Far Juice? And I googled it and there is 0:48:43.040 --> 0:48:48.000 a brewery based in Minnesota called the Fair State Brewing 0:48:48.080 --> 0:48:51.440 Cooperative that has I've never had a beer from them, 0:48:51.440 --> 0:48:53.319 so I don't know anything about them except they have 0:48:53.400 --> 0:48:56.759 a beer called Too Far juice, and I compared it. 0:48:56.840 --> 0:49:00.000 The can design looks exactly like this can in beyond 0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:02.799 on the mind's eyes. So that is a deep reference 0:49:02.880 --> 0:49:05.120 for a brewery to make. I don't know how that happened. 0:49:05.480 --> 0:49:07.839 I think it's just because of just all the beer 0:49:07.880 --> 0:49:10.319 out there. I'm not really a beer enthusiast, but I 0:49:10.360 --> 0:49:14.439 love seeing the variety. There's so many different beers. There's 0:49:14.480 --> 0:49:18.600 so many different like cool names for beers, and you 0:49:18.920 --> 0:49:22.720 even see cool stuff like the waylan Utani beer. Aspen 0:49:22.800 --> 0:49:28.000 beer was finally brought into reality recently as a promotion 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:31.880 for Alien Romulus by Angel City Brewery. You could finally 0:49:31.920 --> 0:49:34.200 get a can of the beer that they're drinking on 0:49:34.239 --> 0:49:37.520 the Nostromo in the original nineteen seventy nine Alien film. 0:49:37.640 --> 0:49:39.040 It's very safe to drink. 0:49:40.880 --> 0:49:44.240 But yeah, this does seem like a much deeper cut. 0:49:44.480 --> 0:49:47.879 Too Far Juice seems seems that maybe a bit too far. 0:49:47.960 --> 0:49:49.680 I don't know how many people who drank it really 0:49:49.719 --> 0:49:52.359 caught the reference, but you know, tip of the hat 0:49:52.360 --> 0:49:53.279 to those that did. 0:49:53.600 --> 0:49:56.279 If I'm ever visiting Minnesota, I'm gonna have to get 0:49:56.320 --> 0:49:57.600 me a Too Far Juice. 0:49:58.000 --> 0:50:00.839 Well, this whole segment here of on the mind's eye. 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:03.759 This one really made me want my MTV. This felt very, 0:50:04.480 --> 0:50:08.719 very in line with the Dire Straits video Yes for 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:12.439 Money for Nothing. Yeah, so that's the vibe I got here. 0:50:12.760 --> 0:50:16.920 Absolutely. Yeah. Let's see now there are still more segments 0:50:17.000 --> 0:50:19.080 to talk about. There's one called Windows that's kind of 0:50:19.120 --> 0:50:21.839 a change of pace, because this one is fairly melancholy, 0:50:22.080 --> 0:50:24.640 like most of the others are I don't know, the 0:50:25.120 --> 0:50:27.040 others are jaunty here, they're you know, more of a 0:50:27.440 --> 0:50:31.680 kind of a spirit of fun or excitement. This one 0:50:31.800 --> 0:50:34.840 is a little bit down tempo and a little bit sad. 0:50:34.960 --> 0:50:38.120 And we see a room full of paintings and wine 0:50:38.160 --> 0:50:41.080 bottles and a loot, and then the loot floats off 0:50:41.120 --> 0:50:43.400 of the wall and then everything starts floating in the 0:50:43.440 --> 0:50:46.719 air and flying around, and there's a guitar solo, and 0:50:46.760 --> 0:50:50.560 it ends sort of with classic classical two D paintings 0:50:50.600 --> 0:50:55.520 like van Goff's self portrait peeling out into three dimensions. 0:50:55.280 --> 0:50:57.200 And this effect is pretty cool. I thought this held 0:50:57.239 --> 0:51:00.239 up pretty good. It doesn't feel as dated as because 0:51:00.239 --> 0:51:02.840 a lot of things inherently feel dated in this picture. 0:51:04.400 --> 0:51:06.760 And I like the music here, especially the early goings 0:51:06.760 --> 0:51:09.160 of it. Are very chill, very gentle. The gentle yng 0:51:09.239 --> 0:51:10.520 Hummer agree. 0:51:10.600 --> 0:51:14.160 Now the gentle themes continue because the next segment is 0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:17.160 quite tender. It's like a love story, and it actually 0:51:17.200 --> 0:51:20.839 has dialogue. We didn't have that since the intro. So 0:51:20.920 --> 0:51:23.600 the music here it's called nothing but Love, and it 0:51:23.600 --> 0:51:26.520 sounds kind of like soft acoustic guitar. We meet two 0:51:26.560 --> 0:51:30.920 different characters named Lata and Arturo, and we see a 0:51:31.000 --> 0:51:34.319 note on the wall that says, Lota, happy birthday, see 0:51:34.360 --> 0:51:39.000 you at seven, virtually yours Arturo. So I guess these 0:51:39.040 --> 0:51:44.360 are characters that know they are they're self consciously virtual characters, 0:51:45.080 --> 0:51:49.440 but they're both sort of red tinted CGI bodies. Arturo 0:51:49.880 --> 0:51:53.200 comes in and meets Lata, and then he offers her 0:51:53.280 --> 0:51:56.320 a magic checkered cube kind of like a Rubik's cube 0:51:56.680 --> 0:52:00.200 that turns into a flying liquid metal snake, and then 0:52:00.200 --> 0:52:04.080 a lot of turns old and looks mad, and then 0:52:04.080 --> 0:52:07.480 we get dialogue and she says, I don't want your sculptures. 0:52:07.760 --> 0:52:11.200 I love you, and then they kiss and then they 0:52:11.239 --> 0:52:14.560 twirl and then they melt together as liquid metal. 0:52:15.280 --> 0:52:18.080 That's what love in the virtual realm consists of. I 0:52:18.080 --> 0:52:19.600 guess we have kind of this is like an Adam 0:52:19.600 --> 0:52:22.080 and Eve sort of thing, right is the red sculpture 0:52:22.120 --> 0:52:25.520 and apple the snake self explanatory. 0:52:25.400 --> 0:52:29.440 Okay, I didn't think about that. The next one is great. 0:52:29.520 --> 0:52:32.400 It's called Pyramid. I loved this one. It's got some 0:52:32.560 --> 0:52:36.680 interesting kind of flute sounds. It sounds almost kind of 0:52:36.680 --> 0:52:39.560 South American or something. And then it's got like a 0:52:39.640 --> 0:52:45.040 dog chasing butterflies, these strange marionette gods dancing on top 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:47.960 of a pyramid with a yellow, flaming sky. This is 0:52:48.000 --> 0:52:51.120 the one that's got a lady with like leopard print 0:52:51.160 --> 0:52:54.080 on her flesh. At one point she says, we are 0:52:54.239 --> 0:52:55.239 of the butterfly. 0:52:56.080 --> 0:52:58.800 Yeah, I mean that's inherently trippy and cryptic. But the 0:52:59.120 --> 0:53:02.560 dancing god or statues or whatever they are, these were monstrous, 0:53:03.680 --> 0:53:07.680 but in the sense too that like they're moving in 0:53:07.920 --> 0:53:12.680 a way that maybe trying to pattern like human dance movements, 0:53:12.680 --> 0:53:15.520 but it just feels very clunky and inhuman. But I 0:53:15.560 --> 0:53:17.440 don't know that kind of works. If these are gods, 0:53:17.760 --> 0:53:20.960 why not. They're not of our world, And generally I 0:53:21.400 --> 0:53:25.759 like the other worldliness of this section. You know, strange pyramids, 0:53:26.120 --> 0:53:30.879 weird gods, talking leopard ladies, I'm all for it. 0:53:31.360 --> 0:53:33.560 You know. I've got a real beef with Beyond the 0:53:33.600 --> 0:53:36.080 Mind side, though, which is that up to this point 0:53:36.120 --> 0:53:39.960 there have been not nearly enough human bodies with horse heads. 0:53:41.280 --> 0:53:44.000 They're about to do me right here. So Theater of 0:53:44.120 --> 0:53:47.080 Magic is the next segment. It's got everything you want. 0:53:47.239 --> 0:53:50.799 It's got mirrors with masks flying around inside them. It's 0:53:50.800 --> 0:53:53.680 got a theater lobby staircase. So it's like that animation 0:53:53.760 --> 0:53:55.640 at the movie theater where you go out of the 0:53:55.760 --> 0:53:57.680 It shows you going out of the theater and out 0:53:57.719 --> 0:53:59.920 the staircase, down the staircase to the lobby to get 0:54:00.080 --> 0:54:03.279 some refreshments. Here it's the opposite. You're going up the 0:54:03.320 --> 0:54:06.920 staircase in the lobby. And then we see a marble 0:54:07.000 --> 0:54:09.960 statue of a man playing an obo at a marble 0:54:10.080 --> 0:54:13.720 lion which comes to life on an alien planet, jumps 0:54:13.760 --> 0:54:16.680 over a flaming brazier, goes into a maze, and then 0:54:16.719 --> 0:54:19.880 we see a volcano explode and this turns into a 0:54:20.080 --> 0:54:22.000 metallic woman with a horse head. 0:54:23.880 --> 0:54:26.680 Oh yeah, I love this. I love the creatures, the 0:54:26.760 --> 0:54:31.759 weird landscapes, the virtual reality zooms, the labyrinth, that volcano 0:54:31.840 --> 0:54:34.560 spewing dianetics everywhere, great stuff. 0:54:35.000 --> 0:54:38.319 Yeah. Yeah, Oh, and this is the one that's got 0:54:38.320 --> 0:54:40.799 the eyeball metronomes. At one point, we're just on a 0:54:40.840 --> 0:54:44.799 planet surface and they're metronomes ticking everywhere, and they've got 0:54:44.840 --> 0:54:48.359 eyeballs at the top of the ticker whatever you call that, 0:54:48.520 --> 0:54:51.440 the I don't know what it's called, the part that 0:54:51.480 --> 0:54:54.360 ticks on a metronome. It's like Easter Island, but with 0:54:54.440 --> 0:54:55.480 eyeball metronomes. 0:54:56.120 --> 0:54:56.239 Uh. 0:54:56.440 --> 0:55:00.439 And then we see a Golden War galley rowing into Spain. Hey. 0:55:00.440 --> 0:55:03.480 Connecting to recent episodes, this is a Was this a triream? 0:55:03.480 --> 0:55:05.360 I don't think so. It just looks like one level 0:55:05.400 --> 0:55:05.840 of oars. 0:55:05.920 --> 0:55:09.239 To me, this looked like, yeah, we have elements of 0:55:09.360 --> 0:55:13.520 sort of fantasy Viking here. We Yeah, this is take 0:55:13.560 --> 0:55:15.880 it for what it is. It's a crazy space galley 0:55:16.200 --> 0:55:17.200 and it is amazing. 0:55:17.480 --> 0:55:19.799 Yeah. And so we also in this one gets some 0:55:20.120 --> 0:55:23.719 mixing of live action shots of locations and models, like 0:55:23.760 --> 0:55:27.120 a room and a house with CGI and then a 0:55:27.239 --> 0:55:31.319 landscape with green clouds and lightning. I recall this one 0:55:31.360 --> 0:55:32.520 kind of ends abruptly. 0:55:33.520 --> 0:55:36.560 Yeah, yeah, some of them do. Like, Okay, we've said 0:55:36.560 --> 0:55:38.279 all we can say about this move on to the 0:55:38.280 --> 0:55:38.680 next one. 0:55:38.760 --> 0:55:41.960 That sort of thing. Okay, very last segment. This one 0:55:42.000 --> 0:55:45.279 starts with space imagery. It depicts a quasar, like a 0:55:45.400 --> 0:55:49.280 rotating black hole, surrounded by this big disc of orange dust, 0:55:49.680 --> 0:55:52.799 the jets coming out the poles. We see a sea 0:55:52.880 --> 0:55:56.000 scape and there is a mermaid with one of those 0:55:56.040 --> 0:55:59.760 seashell bras and she I noticed this about the mermaid. 0:55:59.800 --> 0:56:04.160 She's hinges like her tail like hinges or fishtail does, 0:56:04.480 --> 0:56:06.600 which made me think she's supposed to be not an 0:56:06.760 --> 0:56:09.640 organic mermaid but a toy come. 0:56:09.440 --> 0:56:10.880 To life, I guess, so. 0:56:11.200 --> 0:56:14.720 Yeah, But in any case, she flies into the sky 0:56:15.360 --> 0:56:18.840 and then we get a trio of naked male figures 0:56:18.880 --> 0:56:22.800 without faces, so the interior of the skull is just smooth, 0:56:23.360 --> 0:56:27.600 and they start folding upon themselves and into each other, 0:56:27.680 --> 0:56:32.600 and it becomes just this kaleidoscopic exercise of folding and 0:56:32.680 --> 0:56:36.000 mixing and blending these naked male forms altogether. 0:56:36.560 --> 0:56:39.400 Yeah, this one's pretty cool. You could imagine this playing 0:56:39.440 --> 0:56:42.120 on the big screen behind you know, your favorite prog 0:56:42.239 --> 0:56:43.200 rock band or something. 0:56:43.480 --> 0:56:45.839 Yeah, and then we go to credits, which there are 0:56:45.880 --> 0:56:46.359 a lot of. 0:56:46.600 --> 0:56:49.000 Yeah, it's like a solid ten minutes of credits. Like 0:56:49.560 --> 0:56:52.720 I was expecting at least five more minutes of computer 0:56:52.960 --> 0:56:57.080 animated mayhem, but no, just ten minutes of credits. But 0:56:57.520 --> 0:57:00.000 that also means ten more minutes of Yon Hamer music 0:57:00.480 --> 0:57:03.560 and it's pretty good. And yeah, to their credit, they 0:57:03.640 --> 0:57:07.799 do shout out seemingly everybody involved in the creation of 0:57:07.840 --> 0:57:11.000 these images. So yeah, well worth a look. 0:57:19.640 --> 0:57:22.400 All right, So we've done a basic outline of the 0:57:22.480 --> 0:57:25.360 content of Beyond the Mind's Eye. But I was so 0:57:25.400 --> 0:57:28.240 curious about why this movie feels so I don't know, 0:57:28.360 --> 0:57:32.120 potent with meaning and historical significance, and so I thought 0:57:32.120 --> 0:57:34.680 we might analyze it a little bit here or see 0:57:34.720 --> 0:57:37.520 what we can come up with at least. And one 0:57:38.520 --> 0:57:41.680 way of thinking about it that was sticking in my 0:57:41.800 --> 0:57:45.400 mind is that, you know, I'm pretty strongly persuaded by 0:57:45.520 --> 0:57:48.400 medium is the message kind of analysis. In other words, 0:57:48.680 --> 0:57:52.440 I think a lot of times the practical functional characteristics 0:57:52.640 --> 0:57:56.760 of a medium of information delivery often influence our thinking 0:57:56.840 --> 0:57:59.880 about the world more powerfully than the content of the 0:58:00.160 --> 0:58:04.440 information delivered. So a classic example of this kind of thinking, 0:58:05.160 --> 0:58:07.160 I've mentioned this on the show before is the kind 0:58:07.160 --> 0:58:11.880 of Neil Postman idea that the invention of television had 0:58:11.880 --> 0:58:15.560 a powerful influence on culture because the format of TV 0:58:16.320 --> 0:58:21.120 puts a primary emphasis on the entertainment value of information. 0:58:21.680 --> 0:58:25.400 So what's important is the ability of something to grab 0:58:25.520 --> 0:58:29.200 and hold on to your visual attention, So that when 0:58:29.360 --> 0:58:33.200 printed news shifted to TV news, you also get a 0:58:33.440 --> 0:58:36.920 shift in our fundamental concept of news worthiness that what 0:58:37.040 --> 0:58:41.800 was newsworthy became more likely to be synonymous with what's 0:58:41.880 --> 0:58:45.880 most entertaining or attention holding, et cetera. So, thinking with 0:58:45.920 --> 0:58:49.200 that kind of analysis, I started to wonder, what, if anything, 0:58:49.680 --> 0:58:53.120 are the distinct messages that are hidden in the medium 0:58:53.360 --> 0:58:57.600 of computer animation, as distinct from the medium of live 0:58:57.640 --> 0:59:01.840 action film or from traditional anima. One of the things 0:59:01.880 --> 0:59:05.320 that absolutely stood out to me about it is that 0:59:05.360 --> 0:59:10.560 there is an incredibly strong theme of absorption running throughout. 0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:14.200 It is hard to watch beyond the mind's eye and 0:59:14.280 --> 0:59:18.160 not come away thinking that your essence will somehow be 0:59:18.440 --> 0:59:23.320 absorbed and subsumed into a kind of metallic goop out 0:59:23.360 --> 0:59:26.560 of which infinite other forms will be assembled and then 0:59:26.680 --> 0:59:31.600 liquidated once again. So you are not necessarily discreet. You 0:59:31.680 --> 0:59:35.640 are a quantity of moldable material, which can be both 0:59:35.720 --> 0:59:38.440 frightening and exciting. The kind of friendly version of this 0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:43.640 idea is oneness with the universe, but the more threatening 0:59:43.760 --> 0:59:45.960 version is just that kind of like you are raw 0:59:46.040 --> 0:59:50.000 material that something or someone could turn into anything. 0:59:50.720 --> 0:59:54.120 This reminds me of stuff we've discussed in the show 0:59:54.120 --> 0:59:58.760 before concerning the ideas of Jaron Laniar that you know 0:59:58.960 --> 1:00:00.920 when it comes to social media, and that is that 1:00:00.960 --> 1:00:03.479 you are not the user. You are the product. You're 1:00:03.480 --> 1:00:07.600 a part of this grand thing, but you're not playing 1:00:07.640 --> 1:00:10.720 the role in it that you thought you were. So 1:00:12.120 --> 1:00:15.360 so yeah, it's certainly worth thinking about. But I agree 1:00:15.440 --> 1:00:19.080 there is a tangible desire that is evident in this 1:00:19.200 --> 1:00:22.640 film that, like, you want to be absorbed by a 1:00:22.680 --> 1:00:26.560 comforting digital world. You know, a strong sense of technological 1:00:26.560 --> 1:00:30.840 optimism along those lines where about where computer culture is headed, 1:00:30.960 --> 1:00:34.120 where it can take you, and it doesn't entertain the 1:00:34.160 --> 1:00:37.960 possibility that CGI technology will eat us, even though again 1:00:38.320 --> 1:00:40.760 that's definitely a part of the lawnmower Man sequences that 1:00:40.800 --> 1:00:43.800 were cut out for Beyond the Mind's Eye. 1:00:44.080 --> 1:00:46.880 Yeah, well, there's a fine line between being absorbed and 1:00:46.920 --> 1:00:51.600 being eaten. I guess. I mean the absorption themes are 1:00:51.640 --> 1:00:55.000 more they feel more wholesome and inviting. It's just kind 1:00:55.000 --> 1:00:56.520 of like, yeah, you're going to become a part of 1:00:56.560 --> 1:00:59.680 it all, and then all of that will become many 1:00:59.720 --> 1:01:00.440 other things. 1:01:00.760 --> 1:01:03.320 Well, it's interesting that like kind of ties into some 1:01:03.400 --> 1:01:05.920 aspects of the psychedelic experience, which of course, you know, 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:09.920 differs from person to person. But you know, this idea 1:01:10.040 --> 1:01:13.160 of interconnectedness, realizing that you're all part of like one people, 1:01:13.920 --> 1:01:17.640 one planet. You know that all these interpersonal connections are 1:01:17.640 --> 1:01:21.360 the most valuable things in your life. And there's this idea, Okay, 1:01:21.400 --> 1:01:23.760 well maybe the future is going to be a technological 1:01:23.840 --> 1:01:26.720 version of that, and it sort of is, but it 1:01:26.720 --> 1:01:29.640 also sort of isn't, or it can be that with 1:01:29.720 --> 1:01:33.800 a more negative air to it. You know, it's I 1:01:33.800 --> 1:01:38.200 guess the reality of something is always like maybe not, 1:01:38.480 --> 1:01:42.320 you know, a complete divorce from the initial optimism. But 1:01:42.440 --> 1:01:44.000 there are other dimensions to it as well. 1:01:44.200 --> 1:01:47.800 Yeah, I can absolutely see that. Man. One thing I 1:01:47.840 --> 1:01:50.320 really think about that stands out in all this early 1:01:50.360 --> 1:01:56.560 CGI is the strong communicated idea that the essence of 1:01:56.720 --> 1:02:01.880 all reality is essentially geometric, that the underlying structure of 1:02:01.960 --> 1:02:06.080 planets and trees and human beings and music and love 1:02:06.360 --> 1:02:12.120 and starlight is polyhedrons. And I don't know exactly, like 1:02:12.360 --> 1:02:15.400 if you sort of take on that feeling, how that 1:02:15.520 --> 1:02:18.840 cashes out into values or other beliefs about the world. 1:02:19.240 --> 1:02:21.920 But it is hard to deny that that is a 1:02:22.000 --> 1:02:26.520 feeling created by watching this stuff. Everything turns into a 1:02:26.640 --> 1:02:31.360 series of intersecting angles and lines, and that can create 1:02:31.400 --> 1:02:35.600 a very elegant feeling, a kind of mathematical beauty and 1:02:35.800 --> 1:02:39.120 a sense of symmetry in all that. Like the idea 1:02:39.240 --> 1:02:42.480 that the world is reducible to geometry can be a 1:02:42.520 --> 1:02:44.920 beautiful and romantic way to think about things. And it's 1:02:44.960 --> 1:02:48.080 also like the functional power of math kind of leads 1:02:48.080 --> 1:02:50.959 you to think that, Like I don't know, just thinking 1:02:51.000 --> 1:02:54.560 of everything as geometry and math to be manipulated means 1:02:54.640 --> 1:02:59.080 that like almost anything is possible in reality. But yeah, 1:02:59.280 --> 1:03:02.360 I'm not sure exactly where all that goes, But there's 1:03:02.480 --> 1:03:06.240 a geometric brain mindset that really gets into you from 1:03:06.320 --> 1:03:07.600 watching all of this animation. 1:03:08.320 --> 1:03:10.760 Yeah, I mean, it's like everything is coming out of 1:03:10.800 --> 1:03:13.440 an order, an order that is understood that is literally 1:03:13.480 --> 1:03:17.480 programmed by human beings, like almost like we're recreating reality, 1:03:17.520 --> 1:03:20.760 but it's a reality that makes sense and is understandable 1:03:20.840 --> 1:03:21.840 and we have. 1:03:21.880 --> 1:03:24.880 Full control over Yeah, Yeah, which. 1:03:24.680 --> 1:03:27.160 I guess that's one of the advantages of one of 1:03:27.200 --> 1:03:30.200 the attractions of various like virtual worlds, right, it is 1:03:30.280 --> 1:03:34.520 like a limited version of the real world that we 1:03:34.640 --> 1:03:37.320 have more control over and we know the limits of. 1:03:38.360 --> 1:03:42.360 Yeah, speaking of our level of control, another thing I 1:03:42.400 --> 1:03:45.840 was thinking about with Beyond the Mind's Eye and zooming 1:03:45.880 --> 1:03:49.200 out to the broader issue of CGI as a medium, 1:03:49.240 --> 1:03:52.320 what is the message of the CGI medium? I was 1:03:52.360 --> 1:03:56.560 really thinking about the idea of a moving perspective. So 1:03:57.000 --> 1:04:01.920 in live action and traditional animation, we sometimes have a 1:04:02.000 --> 1:04:05.880 camera or a perspective that moves through the space that 1:04:05.880 --> 1:04:09.120 we're looking at. But more often, i'd say, at least 1:04:09.120 --> 1:04:11.520 half the time, you have a static camera or a 1:04:11.720 --> 1:04:17.200 static perspective with moving subjects. So usually when you're watching 1:04:17.240 --> 1:04:20.680 other types of media, you are holding still and the 1:04:20.720 --> 1:04:23.600 subject of the shot is what's in motion. Again, that's changes. 1:04:23.640 --> 1:04:25.560 You know, there are dolly shots, and there are moving 1:04:25.600 --> 1:04:28.000 cameras in film and all that. It happens sometimes, but 1:04:28.160 --> 1:04:31.840 more often you're used to being in one place and 1:04:31.960 --> 1:04:36.560 watching the subject move. When I think about early computer animation, 1:04:37.600 --> 1:04:40.440 it seems to me that the quote camera, though of 1:04:40.480 --> 1:04:43.640 course there is no camera, it's just the selected viewpoint 1:04:43.680 --> 1:04:46.000 within the three D space. As the frames are rendered, 1:04:46.320 --> 1:04:50.800 it feels like that camera almost never stops moving, and 1:04:50.840 --> 1:04:54.080 in beyond the mind's eye, it's almost constantly in motion. 1:04:54.640 --> 1:04:57.640 And that motion means we are, without our say so, 1:04:58.240 --> 1:05:01.880 being just pulled into scenes and images as with a 1:05:02.000 --> 1:05:05.440 tractor beam. So the very first animated segment of this 1:05:05.520 --> 1:05:08.720 movie has the viewer plunging through a tunnel of lights. 1:05:09.280 --> 1:05:11.760 And you know, remember what the head tells you at 1:05:11.800 --> 1:05:15.480 the beginning, Actually it says you are now entering a 1:05:15.600 --> 1:05:19.800 world inside the essence of your imagination. Look within your dreams. 1:05:20.120 --> 1:05:23.480 They can take you beyond the mind's eyes. So I 1:05:23.520 --> 1:05:27.440 think it's it's not a coincidence that this early CGI 1:05:27.520 --> 1:05:30.720 showcase would use this kind of language of being literally 1:05:30.840 --> 1:05:35.320 taken somewhere. By looking, you are agreeing to be taken somewhere. 1:05:36.120 --> 1:05:38.520 Yeah, yeah, enter into the world of dream. I mean 1:05:38.560 --> 1:05:40.200 that lines up with what I was saying earlier about 1:05:40.960 --> 1:05:46.840 more recent AI generated images, that they seem like the 1:05:46.880 --> 1:05:49.240 product of dream. They seem like a dream that you 1:05:49.360 --> 1:05:52.680 have partially forgotten, and that's part of the appeal of it, 1:05:52.680 --> 1:05:54.919 And that's I feel like that's definitely the case here 1:05:55.360 --> 1:05:59.120 in the early nineties with this footage in particular. Also, 1:05:59.280 --> 1:06:01.680 again it fits with the subject matter like it's not 1:06:01.720 --> 1:06:05.800 really there's not really a narrative. It's very abstract. The 1:06:05.880 --> 1:06:11.400 meaning is entirely open to your interpretation for the most part. Yeah, 1:06:10.760 --> 1:06:14.000 it's it's a trip, as Roger Ebert. 1:06:13.760 --> 1:06:18.160 Said, Yeah, exactly. And the constant motion of the viewpoint 1:06:18.240 --> 1:06:20.720 of the perspective or the camera makes it feel like 1:06:20.760 --> 1:06:24.000 it's literally a trip. You are constantly being sucked into 1:06:24.120 --> 1:06:27.480 new places and physically made to look at new things 1:06:27.520 --> 1:06:29.760 as opposed to being where you are and having things 1:06:29.760 --> 1:06:32.200 happen in front of you. Now, what does that kind 1:06:32.200 --> 1:06:35.240 of message cash out to. I don't know, I feel 1:06:35.240 --> 1:06:38.280 like it kind of It kind of ties into another 1:06:38.640 --> 1:06:40.880 line and a song in there, the too Far Take 1:06:40.960 --> 1:06:43.640 it Easy, It's all right. It's almost like, you know, 1:06:43.840 --> 1:06:46.640 this new world of technology is going to take you 1:06:46.760 --> 1:06:51.320 places without asking you. It's going to overwhelm you and 1:06:51.480 --> 1:06:54.280 just take you there. And now you're looking at this 1:06:54.440 --> 1:06:56.680 and you might not even comprehend or be able to 1:06:56.680 --> 1:06:59.880 control what it is you're seeing now, but just relax 1:07:00.160 --> 1:07:02.600 and surrender. It'll be okay. 1:07:03.880 --> 1:07:07.760 Say yes to the lawnmower. Man. Yeah, it weirdly has 1:07:07.800 --> 1:07:11.520 me wanting to rewatch The lawnmower Man or lawnmower Man Too, 1:07:11.680 --> 1:07:14.600 Job's War or whatever other title it had. 1:07:14.920 --> 1:07:16.439 You know, I haven't seen them in a long time. 1:07:16.480 --> 1:07:18.680 I would want to watch them for the animated scenes, 1:07:18.720 --> 1:07:21.880 But what I recall is that the human plot and 1:07:21.920 --> 1:07:23.880 all that is just kind of unpleasant. 1:07:24.840 --> 1:07:28.280 Yeah, likely, so likely so, but who knows, It's been 1:07:28.320 --> 1:07:32.440 a while. Nobody eats yard clippings though, Like that was 1:07:32.680 --> 1:07:34.520 the c one of the creepiest things about the original 1:07:34.600 --> 1:07:35.160 King Store. 1:07:35.560 --> 1:07:38.120 Well, if the animator merges your form into that of 1:07:38.120 --> 1:07:41.480 a sheep, you might you know, this is liable to 1:07:41.480 --> 1:07:43.720 happen to all of us because our again, our forms 1:07:43.720 --> 1:07:47.360 are not fixed where we can morphit any moment. Oh 1:07:47.400 --> 1:07:49.520 and that sort of ties into just one last thing 1:07:49.520 --> 1:07:53.120 I wanted to mention I thought was interesting about trends 1:07:53.160 --> 1:07:56.800 in early CGI. Did you also notice a visual theme 1:07:57.000 --> 1:08:01.479 that things are the same at every gale, That there's 1:08:01.560 --> 1:08:05.400 like all this zooming in and out and going out 1:08:05.440 --> 1:08:08.480 into space and seeing planets and stars and quasars and 1:08:08.520 --> 1:08:10.480 galaxies and all that, and then you zoom in and 1:08:10.520 --> 1:08:14.840 see microscopic mechanisms and cells in a bloodstream, and circuit boards, 1:08:15.400 --> 1:08:19.479 circuit boards represented as cities with skyscrapers and stuff, and 1:08:19.560 --> 1:08:22.960 so there's this It seemed to me there's this repeated 1:08:23.040 --> 1:08:26.400 theme throughout a lot of early CGI, and it's here 1:08:26.400 --> 1:08:29.680 in this movie too, of a kind of scale agnosticism, 1:08:29.800 --> 1:08:34.880 that what exists at one level of resolution is reproduced 1:08:34.920 --> 1:08:37.439 at greater levels of resolution. So the more you zoom 1:08:37.439 --> 1:08:39.599 in or the more you zoom out, you just keep 1:08:39.640 --> 1:08:41.200 seeing the same patterns. 1:08:41.880 --> 1:08:45.160 Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, as we inevitably like 1:08:45.240 --> 1:08:50.160 zoom in and out of these imagined micro and macro worlds. 1:08:50.479 --> 1:08:52.639 The message of that is you got to put computers 1:08:52.680 --> 1:08:54.840 inside your body. It's time to be a cyborg. 1:08:56.040 --> 1:08:58.240 Yeah, I guess. I mean that's part of the that's 1:08:58.280 --> 1:09:00.960 kind of wrapped up in the optimism too. Will become machines, 1:09:01.000 --> 1:09:07.160 will become this synthesis of biology and technology, and it's 1:09:07.240 --> 1:09:11.000 just gonna make everything smoother and cooler and shinier. 1:09:11.479 --> 1:09:14.040 I can't wait to be t one thousand coup. 1:09:14.280 --> 1:09:18.439 Yeah, everything is crow all right. Well, there you have 1:09:18.520 --> 1:09:21.599 it beyond the mind's eye. I don't know if I'm 1:09:21.640 --> 1:09:25.920 gonna keep exploring the other films in this franchise, it 1:09:25.920 --> 1:09:29.080 seems like somebody should put out a big, thick, blu 1:09:29.200 --> 1:09:31.519 ray set like of all of them. Surely that's in 1:09:31.560 --> 1:09:32.000 the works. 1:09:32.400 --> 1:09:34.640 Why has nobody done that? Yeah? Absolutely? 1:09:35.120 --> 1:09:37.800 I read that some of the extras on one of 1:09:38.000 --> 1:09:41.200 the physical releases of this included a sequence where we 1:09:41.320 --> 1:09:44.439 get to see a young Hummer band in which all 1:09:44.439 --> 1:09:48.559 four members of the band are Yon Hummer. So there 1:09:48.560 --> 1:09:50.240 are some extras like that I'd like to see as well. 1:09:50.280 --> 1:09:51.839 I couldn't find a stream of that anywhere. 1:09:52.040 --> 1:09:52.840 That's beautiful. 1:09:53.200 --> 1:09:56.679 All right. As of publication time, we have not yet 1:09:56.720 --> 1:09:58.680 heard back from the director. If we do hear back 1:09:58.680 --> 1:10:01.879 from the director, please tune in to the next Listener 1:10:01.920 --> 1:10:07.240 Mail episode and we will share his answers to our questions. 1:10:07.960 --> 1:10:09.479 All Right, We're gonna go ahead and close out this 1:10:09.560 --> 1:10:12.639 episode of Weird House Cinema. This one's been fine. We'd 1:10:12.680 --> 1:10:15.439 love to hear from everyone out there. Were you too 1:10:15.680 --> 1:10:20.040 a child of the nineties, Do you remember the commercials 1:10:20.080 --> 1:10:23.759 for this on TV or in print? Did you rent 1:10:24.160 --> 1:10:27.639 or purchase Beyond the Mind's Eye? And how much did 1:10:27.680 --> 1:10:30.679 it blow your mind? We want to hear your thoughts 1:10:30.680 --> 1:10:32.600 on it and what has it been like to revisit it. 1:10:33.880 --> 1:10:35.920 What are your What are your thoughts on some of 1:10:36.120 --> 1:10:39.880 our various ideas that we presented in this episode. Let's 1:10:39.880 --> 1:10:42.840 see if you We'll just remind you here that Weird 1:10:42.840 --> 1:10:46.320 House Cinema. These are Friday in the Stuff to Blow 1:10:46.320 --> 1:10:49.320 Your Mind podcast feed we're primarily a science and culture podcast, 1:10:49.320 --> 1:10:52.559 with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays 1:10:52.560 --> 1:10:54.840 we set all that aside for the time being. If 1:10:54.840 --> 1:10:56.240 you want to see a complete list of all the 1:10:56.240 --> 1:10:58.400 films we've covered on Weird House Cinema over the years, 1:10:58.400 --> 1:11:00.160 go to letterbox dot com. It's L E T T 1:11:00.280 --> 1:11:03.160 E R B O x D dot com. Our profile 1:11:03.360 --> 1:11:06.400 is weird House and you will find the list. Sometimes 1:11:06.400 --> 1:11:09.720 there'll be a sneak peek ahead at what's coming out 1:11:09.960 --> 1:11:11.000 the following week. 1:11:11.479 --> 1:11:15.160 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. 1:11:15.520 --> 1:11:17.200 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:11:17.200 --> 1:11:19.799 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:11:19.840 --> 1:11:22.040 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:11:22.160 --> 1:11:24.760 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 1:11:24.800 --> 1:11:32.320 your Mind dot com. 1:11:32.439 --> 1:11:35.360 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:11:35.439 --> 1:11:38.240 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:11:38.400 --> 1:11:41.680 Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.