Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: one of my favorite smiling faces, Miss Annie Reeves. I check,
Speaker 1: it's been a minute. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1: I know, you know I was looking. I think I know.
Speaker 1: The last time you were in was with Holly for Empire.
Speaker 1: But I don't know when the last Annie solo show was.
Speaker 1: It was a while ago. It was a while ago.
Speaker 1: It couldn't have been Captain America. I think it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was. It might have been what we
Speaker 1: Do in the Shadows, but I think it's Captain America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh it was thora n u h did we do? Yes? Did?
Speaker 1: Of course? How could you forget my thoughts, my brilliant
Speaker 1: thoughts on that They were so brilliant they blew my
Speaker 1: mind and then I just didn't even think anymore about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was the last one. That was a
Speaker 1: long time ago. Any I know, I know how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm at the usual. I don't know why
Speaker 1: every time we record these, I'm at a weird intersection
Speaker 1: of very hyper and very tired, which I guess is great,
Speaker 1: But I said today, I am fully vaccinated. So that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, So two weeks out or just got your
Speaker 1: shot two weeks out? So today, when did you get?
Speaker 1: I got Maderna? You're like, I got to Johnson and Johnson's.
Speaker 1: I just wanted a double up. I got Maderna too. Mad. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Most people I know got fights there,
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, same, who knows. All I know is
Speaker 1: it is. Brought me a lot of peace of mind.
Speaker 1: Recorded yesterday with Josh and Jerry in person was really great.
Speaker 1: We're all three in a room together and boy, it
Speaker 1: was nice. I gotta tell you that is something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to the office today and I actually have
Speaker 1: something for you that I'm going to drop off at
Speaker 1: your desk, all right, because I'm gonna be there tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So that's exciting. Yes, yes, don't tell me, no, no way,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know, like it's bed bugs. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's definitely something I would do. Well, it's great to
Speaker 1: see you, Great to have you back. Um, we were
Speaker 1: talking about what movie to do. You threw out Alien
Speaker 1: among a couple of others, and it's like, what am
Speaker 1: I saving Alien for? If not? Annie let's just let's
Speaker 1: do it. I did Aliens already. Oh okay, well you're
Speaker 1: in for a wild ride. I'm going to tell you that.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, I'll go ahead and just start real
Speaker 1: quick by giving you my rundown of my history here. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a movie I remember from when I was
Speaker 1: when it came out, believe it or not, when I
Speaker 1: was eight years old. Uh, it seemed like the scariest
Speaker 1: movie ever made for an eight year old kid. When
Speaker 1: you're looking at that poster and that tagline one of
Speaker 1: the all time greats. And I was not allowed to
Speaker 1: watch it. I read the Mad Magazine spoof, and weirdly,
Speaker 1: I remember all of that so vividly, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember the first time I saw it really, which yeah,
Speaker 1: which kind of speaks to a kid's imagination. I don't
Speaker 1: remember the first time I saw it, but I just
Speaker 1: know it's always been a movie I've gone back to
Speaker 1: again and again, and then watching the anniversary four K
Speaker 1: edition last night, it's it's saying it holds up is
Speaker 1: is a cliche. It's it's just as great as ever.
Speaker 1: I can't believe this movie was made ninety nine. Every
Speaker 1: time I look at it and it's just it's one
Speaker 1: of the great all time films. Absolutely, um on over
Speaker 1: on stuff. I've never told you. You have a segment
Speaker 1: called feminist Movie Friday, and the for the movie that
Speaker 1: I was like, we have to do this segment was
Speaker 1: this one. It just years I've been like, we have
Speaker 1: to talk about alien and I when the four Anniversity,
Speaker 1: which is twenty nineteen, happened, I got to go see
Speaker 1: it in theaters and it was awesome. It was so fantastic.
Speaker 1: And I actually have a really funny story about this
Speaker 1: movie because I vividly remember the first time I saw it. Um,
Speaker 1: my older brother and I had a really adversarial relationship
Speaker 1: growing up. How much older. He's four years older than me,
Speaker 1: So this was I was nine years old and around
Speaker 1: the time it was the rosal alien autopsy thing happened
Speaker 1: and he showed it to me and it freaks me out.
Speaker 1: Check it really freaks me out. And being an older brother,
Speaker 1: he played this very epic, well done but terrible prank
Speaker 1: where he basically convinced me that our parents had been
Speaker 1: objected by aliens, that they were coming from me and
Speaker 1: like they were special effects. There were lights. I hid
Speaker 1: in my closet all night. Um, while you're in your
Speaker 1: closet again, it's a whole coupled circle. Um. But because
Speaker 1: of the success of his prank, I was terrified Aliens
Speaker 1: so scared. I couldn't watch e T I couldn't watch
Speaker 1: Independence Day like I had a legitimate if. I remember
Speaker 1: once in class in high school, one of their teachers
Speaker 1: showed I think it was Independent Day. I had to leave.
Speaker 1: I couldn't watch it. So was that your big that
Speaker 1: was that your boogeyman? Yes and so, and you know
Speaker 1: I love horror movies and it was like this thing
Speaker 1: that was just bothering me that I was missing this
Speaker 1: whole genre, this whole section of horror movies. And so
Speaker 1: I told my best friend, I'm like, this is my
Speaker 1: Mount Everest. I have got to get over it. And
Speaker 1: I was in college and we watched Alien and I cried.
Speaker 1: I cried and I was like hugging her, and but
Speaker 1: I got over the I did get over the fear,
Speaker 1: and now it's one of my favorite movies. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: Well there's something to be said for um what's it
Speaker 1: called exposure therapy? Yeah? Yeah, I watched that and Aliens
Speaker 1: and Event Horizon all on the same day, so I
Speaker 1: event Horizon was pretty good. I remember I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it in a while, but that that was pretty creepy.
Speaker 1: It's messed up, it's messed up. But yeah. My deal
Speaker 1: with Aliens is I like it a lot, but I
Speaker 1: really like seeing. I really like Alien a lot more
Speaker 1: like a lot more. I like seeing. It's much more
Speaker 1: rewarding to see the journey for Ripley in this movie.
Speaker 1: I love seeing badass Ripley all ready to go and Aliens,
Speaker 1: but seeing the transformation or in her character arc. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's just it's everything, you know. Yeah, I think they're
Speaker 1: just two very different. I feel like Aliens is much
Speaker 1: more an action movie, which is still fun and great,
Speaker 1: but this one is like, I mean, immediately with the
Speaker 1: credit sequence of how the letters come in and the
Speaker 1: kind of driving beat of the music, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm unsettled. Yeah, I mean I know that it's there's
Speaker 1: you know, it's a sci fi horror film. But even
Speaker 1: having seen it so many times last night, it hit
Speaker 1: me of how much of a horror film this is.
Speaker 1: Like this, if this were a cabin in the woods
Speaker 1: and literally you could just do everything you do and
Speaker 1: then make it a monster in the woods with the
Speaker 1: same people who maybe they're working in a coal mine
Speaker 1: or something, and they're they're having dinner at their table
Speaker 1: in the cabin, like, and they get picked off one
Speaker 1: by one and there's cat. There's a cat that's sucking
Speaker 1: things up. I mean, it's a straight up horror movie, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and it's It's funny because I managed to miss that
Speaker 1: big Twitter kerfuffle about that article that said there's no
Speaker 1: horror movies in space and people were like alien who
Speaker 1: said that. I don't remember, I missed it, but I
Speaker 1: saw like all of the fallout of people saying, here's
Speaker 1: multiple examples. Um, then Horizon was kind of a horror movie. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's horrible. We don't need eyes to see. That's I
Speaker 1: don't remember that, but I don't like that line. Sam Neil, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was great. Perfect. Um. It was zenomrph Alien Day
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago, so this is sort of timely,
Speaker 1: you know. I saw that somewhere today when I was
Speaker 1: poking around the internet about this movie. What was no? No,
Speaker 1: Maybe Nold told me, but what was um was there
Speaker 1: a reference to this date, like in The Terminator or something? Oh,
Speaker 1: I have no idea or did they just pick I mean, truly,
Speaker 1: it wasn't out of thin air right now, I it
Speaker 1: can't be out of thin air. I think it's the actually,
Speaker 1: you know what it is. It's the ship. The ship
Speaker 1: that they find is four to six. Okay, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all about the nerds claiming a day for their own.
Speaker 1: You know. In the process of being on this show, took,
Speaker 1: I've made a lot of lists. Here's my favorite horror movies,
Speaker 1: here's my favorite whatever, whatever. And I did notice like
Speaker 1: a lot of my favorite movies come from this time period,
Speaker 1: which I think is really interesting. But my dad is
Speaker 1: probably the reason I love movies, and this was like
Speaker 1: his youth and heyday. And he told me the story
Speaker 1: of taking my mom on a date to see Alien
Speaker 1: and he said it just scared the hell out of them.
Speaker 1: They couldn't even look at the poster and people, according
Speaker 1: to him, people were like screaming and somebody threw up.
Speaker 1: It's really well, I mean it's it's it's hard for
Speaker 1: the youth today, Annie, which I will still include you,
Speaker 1: uh to to understand that there was nothing like this
Speaker 1: at the time, Like there was close encounters of the
Speaker 1: third kind, and those were sort of lovable aliens in
Speaker 1: a way. Um, there was the day the Earth did
Speaker 1: still there were laser beams shooting. You know, we're the
Speaker 1: world's type aliens. But there hadn't been like once hr
Speaker 1: Geeger got on the scene and created this truly terrifying, remorseless,
Speaker 1: empathy less beast. Uh, No one knew what the funk
Speaker 1: was how to take this it was. It was truly horrifying,
Speaker 1: and like just rewrote movies and this kind of movie
Speaker 1: at least. Yeah, And I think it's really interesting because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that were happening when this
Speaker 1: came out and before it came out that really influenced it.
Speaker 1: And you know, some of the creators, like Dan Obannon
Speaker 1: in specific, said like I want this to be because
Speaker 1: Star Wars had come out and it was really successful,
Speaker 1: Like take that, make that scary, make it like Jaws
Speaker 1: and Space, make it Texas Chainsaw massacre in Space. And
Speaker 1: also at the time, which I'm going to get into this,
Speaker 1: and I think some people are like, wow, I never
Speaker 1: looked at this movie the same again, but there are
Speaker 1: things like um Row v. Wade, and you have second
Speaker 1: wave feminism and you had a lot of fears around
Speaker 1: like environmental things and chemicals and pesticides and foods, and
Speaker 1: then you had this fear around like capitalism and uh
Speaker 1: not putting employer employees first and like just not valuing them.
Speaker 1: So all of these things to talk about the bonus,
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things that does feel very kind of Star Wars to me,
Speaker 1: where they're the ship is kind of dirty. They're just
Speaker 1: like people were doing their job and they just want
Speaker 1: their bonus, and then these forces are conspiring against them
Speaker 1: and not valuing them at all, and perfect organism. Almost
Speaker 1: all of you are dead. Well. I mean it is
Speaker 1: important to remember when you see this movie to remind
Speaker 1: yourself that these aren't soldiers. These are blue collar workers
Speaker 1: of the time. Uh, on these operations where they're going
Speaker 1: to these far off places and they're they're mining for
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the serious alienards are gonna be
Speaker 1: mad because I don't know exactly what they were doing,
Speaker 1: but they were reminding for valuable things to bring back.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's why that bonusing is kind of funny,
Speaker 1: because you're right, it's like they're there to do a
Speaker 1: job and they just want to get home. They don't
Speaker 1: want to go check out that beacon at all. Um
Speaker 1: r I p offet Coto, by the way, who just
Speaker 1: recently passed. It was it was kind of sad seeing
Speaker 1: here he and Harry Dean Stanton some of those two
Speaker 1: shots because they both left us now and I thought,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, and Tom Scarrett and Tom
Speaker 1: Scaretts alive. That's the great news. He's eighties, seven years old,
Speaker 1: he's still going. I was like, oh, that's great. Because
Speaker 1: Tom Scarett is so emblematic of that time period, is
Speaker 1: like this sort of he wasn't a huge movie star,
Speaker 1: and I don't think he really top lined movies, is
Speaker 1: like the big leading man, but he was super handsome
Speaker 1: and just this rugged sort of seventies guy. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: dad kind of looks like him actually when he was
Speaker 1: during that period. Yeah. Um that's the scariest part to
Speaker 1: me because when Dallas is in the like vance and
Speaker 1: he has a flamethrower and it's like coming, oh my god. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: because you've got he employees. Really, Scott employed so many
Speaker 1: great little tricks to ratchet up the tension, Like this
Speaker 1: movie is a masterclass on tension building. In a film
Speaker 1: and and slow burn kind of filmmaking, and he uses
Speaker 1: little things like that that yes, and you just hear
Speaker 1: that sound and like I just got a little chill
Speaker 1: right now, and and and seeing that little you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen seven these era spent winning a special effect just
Speaker 1: look like a pong game, you know, just getting closer.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be fancy and and look like
Speaker 1: some you know, amazing c g I creation. That's just
Speaker 1: it's a good lesson, I think, is you just need
Speaker 1: a green dot getting closer to the other green dot
Speaker 1: at a rapid rate, and and it starts going faster
Speaker 1: and faster and you're you're terrified. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: that was something really smart that they did, and in general,
Speaker 1: I think is the best course of action in horror movies.
Speaker 1: As they knew, like if we show this alien and
Speaker 1: it's full form too long, people are gonna be like,
Speaker 1: that's a man in a suit. So you really, I
Speaker 1: think it's less than two minutes. You see the full
Speaker 1: creature in the whole film, So it's just like the
Speaker 1: Jaws effect. Yeah, exactly, exactly, And it works so well
Speaker 1: like your imagination if you're if you've done the job
Speaker 1: as creators, you're imagining the imagination of the audience is
Speaker 1: going to do a lot of that work for you, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think it's I mean, that kind of restraint
Speaker 1: is so valuable to a filmmaker and I think that's Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know about loss, but it doesn't get used
Speaker 1: as much as it should these days. But um, it's
Speaker 1: the very very end when it's blasted off from the
Speaker 1: rear of the ship is kind of the final reveal
Speaker 1: of what that whole body looks like. And I remember
Speaker 1: seeing it and going it has arms and legs, Like,
Speaker 1: I guess you knew I had arms because that great
Speaker 1: shot where it reaches out for for Tom Scarrett, But
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I even thought about it
Speaker 1: having big, long, gangly legs until I saw it outside
Speaker 1: the ship. Yeah, it feels much more because so many
Speaker 1: of the shots are kind of unfurling, Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: almost reptilian maybe or like you're not picturing that part
Speaker 1: you're so horrified. Yeah, just this unfurling effect that it's
Speaker 1: never even at least for me, it didn't really occur
Speaker 1: to me. Guess legs, Yeah, Yeah. The great Veronica Cartwright
Speaker 1: as Lambert Um, I do one impression of her, and
Speaker 1: that is this oh god, oh god, yeah, that's my Lambert.
Speaker 1: She was so good though, Uh, I just I mean,
Speaker 1: the cast in this movie is unbelievable. John Hurt uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, yeah at Koto of course, of Courney Weaver, uh,
Speaker 1: the great Ian Home, who was just like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I forget, I forgot about that end scene where he's
Speaker 1: totally skitzing out, throwing himself against the wall in like
Speaker 1: full android robot freak out mode, and I'm like, that's
Speaker 1: Ian Home doing that. Yeah. Every time I watched this movie,
Speaker 1: which is at least once a year, I'd say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get he makes me so angry, Like I I
Speaker 1: still I'm like, oh, I don't like this guy. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was brilliant casting. And the reveal of him as
Speaker 1: uh so late in the movie is and I mean,
Speaker 1: is he an android or a rope? I trusting my robot,
Speaker 1: but um Parker does. But it's so well played, uh
Speaker 1: to just hang on to that for so long, And
Speaker 1: of course once you've seen it a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: you see a couple of little hints along the way,
Speaker 1: like Dallas says early on, which I don't think I
Speaker 1: ever even known he sees something about something this man
Speaker 1: and uh Ian home kind of gives him a little look,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I ever noticed that until last night.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, there's a nice little easter egg.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of little things if you're paying attention,
Speaker 1: Like I think he never eats like you've never see
Speaker 1: him eat like. He sits on the like milk thing.
Speaker 1: But rather than that, you mean his his future sweat ross. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really nasty because it wasn't even full milk.
Speaker 1: It was watery milk. Yeah, it's like step below that
Speaker 1: scene I posted the god that seems so brutal when
Speaker 1: when Parker knocks his literally knocks his head off and
Speaker 1: uh then then uh Ripley you know, sets him up
Speaker 1: on the table with his head separated from his body.
Speaker 1: And I just had to send that picture out on
Speaker 1: my movie screen to the movie crushers. I was like,
Speaker 1: look what I'm watching for Annie, and they everybody, everyone
Speaker 1: was really excited that you were the one for this movie.
Speaker 1: Wait till I get into my quotes. Let's hear one. Okay,
Speaker 1: um so from Tom's shown at Slate. Okay, okay, Alien
Speaker 1: has issues. It has mommy issues and sex issues. It
Speaker 1: has a thing for strong women, who it also likes
Speaker 1: to oggle in their undies. It's a hot mess, a
Speaker 1: Freudian fever dream with its crabby and post coital atmosphere.
Speaker 1: It's rebirthing imagery. It's queasily gynecological production design. It's a
Speaker 1: night sweat of male anxiety. A particularly horrid fun confusion
Speaker 1: of the sexual gynecologial within the gastro intestinal and the
Speaker 1: famous John Hurt burst scene in which a razor tooth
Speaker 1: phallic monster not its way through his stomach into the light,
Speaker 1: a kind of science fiction foul stintadis Oh god, you
Speaker 1: know and true, uh Lambert Veronica Cartwright. She didn't know,
Speaker 1: like the actors didn't know during that scene. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be like the explosion. I heard that that's brilliant to
Speaker 1: do as a filmmaker. But yeah, that's really interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: it certainly did occur to me last night. Like Mother
Speaker 1: is the computer, the alien itself obviously is is a
Speaker 1: big mama who just only wants to you know, have
Speaker 1: babies and kill people. Um, so yeah, they're definitely there's
Speaker 1: a lot more going on below the surface. And it's
Speaker 1: a movie that you can I love that this is
Speaker 1: a movie you can pick apart like that. And and
Speaker 1: who knows what Ridley Scott and the writers intended, but
Speaker 1: who cares. Really, it's like it's a movie that you
Speaker 1: can interpret in a variety of ways. Well, I do know, um,
Speaker 1: Danna Vanna, who is putting the writers. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of like conflicting kind of controversy around the writing of
Speaker 1: this movie. Right, and he got credit, but Dana Bannon
Speaker 1: is largely the one that gets the credit. Um. And
Speaker 1: he said, he's quoted saying one thing that people are
Speaker 1: all disturbed about his sex. I said, that's how I'm
Speaker 1: going to attack the audience. I'm going to attack them sexually.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to go after the women in
Speaker 1: the audience. I'm going to attack the men. I'm going
Speaker 1: to put in every image I can think of to
Speaker 1: make the men and the audience cross their legs. Homosexual, oral, rape, birth,
Speaker 1: the thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I've got so many quotes, Chuck. So he
Speaker 1: that was very much intentional, then that's pretty Yes, absolutely
Speaker 1: it was intentional. Although there is the one scene with
Speaker 1: UM with the aliens tail kind of creeping up cartwrights legs, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and that's a big It's never been confirmed what happened
Speaker 1: in that. But she's not wearing when you see her again,
Speaker 1: and her body is hanging, she's not wearing pants. And
Speaker 1: I have played the game Alien Isolation, which is I
Speaker 1: think it's Ripley's daughter goes back and investigates the ship UM,
Speaker 1: and it's implied that she was raped in that. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you so much to unpack. There's a lot
Speaker 1: to unpack um non thematically speaking, just the look of
Speaker 1: the film, obvious sandwich and hr Geeger who and I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's still there. He had a bar
Speaker 1: in in Europe somewhere that was styled out like this,
Speaker 1: and a friend of mine went and I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's still there. This is many, many years ago,
Speaker 1: and I remember him telling me all about the Geeger
Speaker 1: bar and how amazing it was. But you know, you
Speaker 1: always sort of remember the dank darkness of the guts
Speaker 1: of the ship, but uh, so much of the other
Speaker 1: stuff is so cool looking, the striking eight of the
Speaker 1: quarters in the in the control room and stuff like
Speaker 1: that I think it's um. I didn't remember that stuff
Speaker 1: looking so kind of sharp, and that maybe that four
Speaker 1: K just it popped really really good. UM. But the
Speaker 1: whole design of the movie is it's just legendary. It
Speaker 1: still looks amazing absolutely UM. And there's some some things
Speaker 1: I love about. When they were coming up with this
Speaker 1: idea because he um Geeger was inspired by this German
Speaker 1: artist who did something um. It was kind of based
Speaker 1: on the Furies of the Greek Furies called Francis Bacon.
Speaker 1: If you could, you can look it up and you
Speaker 1: can see like, oh yeah, I see the inspiration. Um.
Speaker 1: But then that from that, he did a collection of
Speaker 1: pieces called Necromonica in and that's how he came on
Speaker 1: the radar of Dan O'Bannon and Ridley Scott. But he
Speaker 1: he was going for something sexual and creepy, and some
Speaker 1: of his designs were so overtly sexual. The studio was
Speaker 1: like nope, nope, which blows with mind because they're so sexual.
Speaker 1: And US Customs held Geeger after seeing his artwork for
Speaker 1: Alien and they were highly disturbed by it. And I
Speaker 1: think Ridley Scott had to go help him out. And
Speaker 1: then like the first version of the egg just had
Speaker 1: one slit in it for the opening, and Redley Scott
Speaker 1: laughed out he saw it because he's like, that looks
Speaker 1: like too much, Like can we can we have it
Speaker 1: open at four corners please? I mean, that's one of
Speaker 1: the great shots of the movie, you know, is that
Speaker 1: that slow peel away of that egg. And especially you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to kind of go back and remember when
Speaker 1: you didn't know what was coming, even though it's still
Speaker 1: I mean, I was like biting my nails last night.
Speaker 1: I know everything that happens in this movie, and it's
Speaker 1: still tends to me, but um, it is hard to
Speaker 1: go back and sort of remember the beauty of the
Speaker 1: first time you see this movie and not know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, and just how funked up the chest
Speaker 1: burster in that thing on its face, on his face,
Speaker 1: uh in the acid blood, Like there were so many
Speaker 1: little brilliant moves just giving it acid blood. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, well, now, what are you gonna do? Going
Speaker 1: to destroy your ship by like cutting this thing up?
Speaker 1: It was genius And that's why they did it, is
Speaker 1: they were like, well, what's a way we can make
Speaker 1: it logical, make it makes sense? That you wouldn't just
Speaker 1: shoot it or have these other things. Um, yeah, imagine
Speaker 1: that's what the everyone said it first is well why
Speaker 1: don't they just kill it? It's like, well it has
Speaker 1: acid blood. That does feel kind of like when you
Speaker 1: say it that way, it feels kind of childish, like
Speaker 1: like a kid said. Uh, like a kid just literally
Speaker 1: made it up. That's something Ruby would say, because I
Speaker 1: have acid blood. Dad just got me. Another thing I
Speaker 1: thought was really cool was how and I never really
Speaker 1: noticed was how. I mean, the whole movie is a
Speaker 1: slow burn, but how slowly he brings Ripley along, and
Speaker 1: how that whole first act really I think she has
Speaker 1: less screen time than anyone and barely any dialogue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would not know she is the main character for
Speaker 1: I think the first third. Yeah, and then even after that,
Speaker 1: there's like a transition period where you're not sure. Um,
Speaker 1: which that is another thing again hard to like recapture,
Speaker 1: especially for me because I saw it so late, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know, like Sigourney Weaver, Ripley the main character,
Speaker 1: so it's hard for me to kind of imagine that.
Speaker 1: But the first time I saw it, I was like, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: I thought she was the one that does all the stuff,
Speaker 1: but I was kind of confused. Yeah, I mean, let's
Speaker 1: talk about her arc. You know, she it is a
Speaker 1: slow transformation, I think. I think it happens in stages,
Speaker 1: almost like losing Dallas was was the one of the
Speaker 1: real big transitions for her. I think. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: know I've talked about Final Girls I want to hear before,
Speaker 1: but she's one of the original Final Girls. So I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting, um that she starts and she's she's
Speaker 1: just like everybody else, is this blue collar sort of
Speaker 1: worker in the background, but she is kind of the
Speaker 1: one voicing concerns or confronting Ash the android. UM, and
Speaker 1: she's the one that's like, no, we need to quarantine,
Speaker 1: this is how we do this is these are the rules.
Speaker 1: I'm in charge. And she's ignored. UM. And she never
Speaker 1: I couldn't you know, it's weird. I couldn't remember last
Speaker 1: night when she was saying, even to Dallas, her boss,
Speaker 1: like no, this isn't I'm not gonna do it. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: does she give in? And I forgot she she never does.
Speaker 1: It's Ash. Yeah, yeah, that guy gets me. I know.
Speaker 1: Never trusted in android, never trust well you know what
Speaker 1: makes me really sad about aliens? And then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: trusted trusted android. And then in the third one it's like,
Speaker 1: actually he was a trader, Like okay, right, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess the old lesson has tossed out the airlock. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but by the end, of course, Ripley is I mean,
Speaker 1: when it's down to the final three, I mean, she's
Speaker 1: fully in charge. I don't know how if there was
Speaker 1: rank because they weren't army or anything like that, or
Speaker 1: if she just just stepped up, but she has that
Speaker 1: plan together. Yeah, there's definitely rank involved. But I also
Speaker 1: feel like she even if there hadn't been at that point,
Speaker 1: she was the one that had the plan. Here's how
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it, um And I love this. Really
Speaker 1: could have gone the other way and not worked, but
Speaker 1: I love the whole sequence where she sees the alien,
Speaker 1: goes back and tries to cancel the self distrust. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like she's thinking on her feet, she's trying to find
Speaker 1: a way to survive and kind of reversing these plans,
Speaker 1: and then mother of course foils mother. And it's just
Speaker 1: Ripley more than any she's almost terminator like, and that
Speaker 1: she never ever ever gives up. Yeah, like I keep
Speaker 1: even after I've seen this movie a hundred times, I
Speaker 1: kept waiting for her to just be like fuck it,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna off myself or just succumb to this thing.
Speaker 1: And she just won't do it, and and and without
Speaker 1: any like, it doesn't even you know that, it doesn't
Speaker 1: set up some schmaltzy reason why like this husband I
Speaker 1: have to get back to, or any dumb trope that
Speaker 1: you might usually see. It's just this will and strength.
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing and certainly was not a thing in movies.
Speaker 1: In n right and famously, um that role Ripley was
Speaker 1: originally meant for a man, but then they decided let's
Speaker 1: make it that. Yeah, it was meant for a man,
Speaker 1: and then they decided let's make it gender new like
Speaker 1: anybody can audition. Um, and they were really impressed with
Speaker 1: the Corney Weaver. But I think and the dialogue was
Speaker 1: written for a man, which I think is really interesting
Speaker 1: because they didn't change any I mean, they probably changed
Speaker 1: some things, but not really so. Um So, when she
Speaker 1: says fuck you to uh Harry Dean Stanton and Parker yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that that totally makes sense now mm hmm. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: and I think that totally it worked, and I I
Speaker 1: personally believe that that is a good way to write
Speaker 1: a character where pretty much, you know, any gender could
Speaker 1: play them. Um, especially in this sense for something like this.
Speaker 1: I because there's no part of me through it, through
Speaker 1: it that was like, h this doesn't work, or like
Speaker 1: a woman can't do this. I just doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: Just so Yeah, Yeah, there's nothing unconvincing about anything Ripley does.
Speaker 1: It's so grounded for such a you know, crazy sci
Speaker 1: fi horror movie, it's still so grounded. Nothing that happens
Speaker 1: in this movie doesn't feel unrealistic or something she couldn't
Speaker 1: have really done because you know, it's not like a
Speaker 1: bunch of hand to hand combat or any weird like
Speaker 1: fight scenes. It's all just super grounded. Yeah. Um, And
Speaker 1: I think this character had a lasting legacy. And I
Speaker 1: read essays about how she um like toughened up future
Speaker 1: heroins and that whole scene where very disturbing scene where
Speaker 1: Ash tries to kill her and it's very like oral
Speaker 1: rape evocative. He's trying to shove the magazine down with
Speaker 1: her if you look behind her, there's all this like
Speaker 1: pornographic imagery. Yeah. Um, and I feel like, was this
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity Like he's pretty much spewing sperm at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like this frustration of women. I even read
Speaker 1: essays that said, like women are turning down giving birth
Speaker 1: and people men were mad about it. And so like
Speaker 1: having that scene of like this toxic basically toxic masculinity
Speaker 1: walking trying to do that to her and then definitely
Speaker 1: a weird way to kill someone. Uh you know, let
Speaker 1: me roll up a magazine and jam it in her mouth.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that would do with that
Speaker 1: just keep her from breathing. Was that was he choking her? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so. And I imagine he's got like android strength,
Speaker 1: so throwing her around. Ye. Yeah, and you're bringing the
Speaker 1: goods I didn't. Oh, I got so much, so many thoughts.
Speaker 1: It's also obvious so now that you pointed out, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. And also a lot of people, a lot
Speaker 1: of critics have written about how this is again end
Speaker 1: with grow Vywaid and second way feminism. It was like
Speaker 1: a fear that men were having around like this male pregnancy.
Speaker 1: What if I had to take care of children, but
Speaker 1: what would I do? And just what if I basically
Speaker 1: the pregnancy being like, oh my gosh, I might have
Speaker 1: to actually take care of a child. And then like
Speaker 1: the whole idea of the face hugger where it's inserting
Speaker 1: it's embryo gives your will and you can't take it
Speaker 1: off unless you'll die, And it's that whole idea of
Speaker 1: like you have to carry the child unless there's you know,
Speaker 1: even if he'll kill you. Um at the health of
Speaker 1: the mother, all of these things chuck. Uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I'm never going to look at this movie the
Speaker 1: same way again. So last night I almost texted you,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I don't think this is a
Speaker 1: work appropriate text. But I was like, please look for
Speaker 1: the sexual image. Please look for the sexual imagery in
Speaker 1: this movie. You cannot and see it. Uh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: work appropriate. I mean, this is what we do on
Speaker 1: this show. You know. Maybe I'll just wait. Well, it
Speaker 1: was very funny you talk about ten minutes after I started,
Speaker 1: just for the listeners, Anti texted me and said, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I have to watch Alien again for research
Speaker 1: for the conzillion time. I was happy to see it again, um,
Speaker 1: and it is a movie. I do come back to
Speaker 1: one of the striking visual images for me is and
Speaker 1: it was such a smart way to light the scene.
Speaker 1: But um, where those space suits with the with the
Speaker 1: light on top kind of cast the flashlight on top
Speaker 1: of the bubble helmet, kind of casting down on their faces.
Speaker 1: And it's not a great like if if you think
Speaker 1: about it realistically, it's probably not a great system to
Speaker 1: have all that light in your face, but it sure
Speaker 1: looks good on a movie screen, especially those long shots
Speaker 1: where you just see these sort of three orbs kind
Speaker 1: of moving around in that dank darkness headed towards the
Speaker 1: space jockey. The space jockey. Yeah, um, that whole that
Speaker 1: whole sequence looks amazing, Like the fog, the dark, like
Speaker 1: sharp corners of everything. It looks so good. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: not to keep hammering this home, but Veronica, she said
Speaker 1: it was basically that scene was like we were walking
Speaker 1: around penises and vaginas and it's meant to resemble like
Speaker 1: a womb like spaces the womb, and then that is
Speaker 1: a womb and they're like the colonists entering like it
Speaker 1: looks like a vulva, so they enter there like the
Speaker 1: sperm and then you know, poor John hurt falls down
Speaker 1: into this guy like yeah, yeah that you can almost
Speaker 1: feel like the atmosphere of it of being warm and sticky,
Speaker 1: and then the egg comes for him. I know, I
Speaker 1: mean it's I mean, it's all certainly there. I don't
Speaker 1: think I don't think any of this is reading anything
Speaker 1: into it. That wasn't you know, the sandbox that they
Speaker 1: were playing in. And I think that's the stuff that
Speaker 1: does make it sort of subconsciously more unsettling, you know
Speaker 1: than just your sort of standard or sci fi film. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: In my line of work sometimes I think maybe you're
Speaker 1: reading too much into this, um, But for this movie,
Speaker 1: I definitely have the quotes to back up that I
Speaker 1: am not. Well, I mean, I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: a bunch of bullshit anyway. Like I think reading too
Speaker 1: much into something is it just another way of saying,
Speaker 1: thinking really deeply about another perspective about something, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it goes nowhere sometimes, but that doesn't mean that's
Speaker 1: not doesn't have value. Yeah, especially if it's resonating for
Speaker 1: you and there's got to be some reason that you
Speaker 1: were because I mean, that's one of the beauties of
Speaker 1: entertainment in general, as you're bringing yourself to it and
Speaker 1: interacting with it in that way. Yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: also hear some asshole just saying, oh, you're reading too
Speaker 1: much into it. Just look at the surface. It's just
Speaker 1: a very Fallculey shaped alien with a Falliculey shaved tongue.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your problem is. It's all over
Speaker 1: the place. Also, they are used k y jelly for
Speaker 1: that like effect. And the skin was made of condoms.
Speaker 1: Oh was it really? When he picked up the skin, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it did look very condom like. Actually, man, it's all
Speaker 1: over the place. It is. Uh, here's the quote. I
Speaker 1: just love this and and it's such a great sort
Speaker 1: of minimalist script. But when they finally get to the
Speaker 1: space jockey and Dallas is reporting back, and I's just like,
Speaker 1: I see this. It's so simple but so effective writing.
Speaker 1: He says, alien life form looks like it's been dead
Speaker 1: a long time, fossilized, looks like it's growing out of
Speaker 1: it out of the chair. Bones are bent outward like
Speaker 1: he exploded from inside. Yeah. I mean there's not much
Speaker 1: their word count wise, but boy, is that like sort
Speaker 1: of hair raising stuff, you know, absolutely absolutely. I mean
Speaker 1: immediately right there, the back of the hairs in the
Speaker 1: back of your neck prickly because like it looks like
Speaker 1: something burst from inside his chest. And then it kind
Speaker 1: of cuts sort of quickly, like Dallas is still a
Speaker 1: little worried, and they're like, no, let's keep going, and
Speaker 1: you're like, maybe maybe you don't keep going. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the space jockey is also uh and and that's what
Speaker 1: some people call them. If you're listening and you've seen
Speaker 1: the movie and you're like, who the fund is the
Speaker 1: space jockey also known as the pilot. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's the huge uh, former pilot of this ship that's
Speaker 1: still you know, part of this chair now, and it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where like I had to
Speaker 1: actually look up online and I never thought to do
Speaker 1: it because you can never really tell what's going on there,
Speaker 1: and people have broken it down online and said like, well,
Speaker 1: this is chair, this is the thing, this part is chair,
Speaker 1: this part is his pilot, and kind of helped a
Speaker 1: little bit because I was like, what is this some
Speaker 1: kind of weird elephant. And then they've also I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've seen this, but they rendered what it may have
Speaker 1: looked like as well, because I was googling last night.
Speaker 1: Was the space jockey human? Uh? And the space jockey
Speaker 1: was not human? Ah, so you haven't seen Prometheus? Oh shit,
Speaker 1: you know what. I saw Prometheus and I was probably
Speaker 1: super high in the movie and like I got a
Speaker 1: bunch of great eye candy. But that movie, I must admit,
Speaker 1: did fly over my head. And the and the whole
Speaker 1: alien um cannon. I don't know it inside it out,
Speaker 1: So school me, what what is Did they reveal who
Speaker 1: the space jockey is? Yeah? Well was it? Is it
Speaker 1: the big white thing? Yeah? The bald white guy? Pretty sure?
Speaker 1: I mean to be fair, this is coming from a nerd. Uh,
Speaker 1: like super nerd. It's confusing, like the whole Yeah, And
Speaker 1: like I love how people have even broken down like
Speaker 1: the life cycle of a zeno morph because it's kind
Speaker 1: of weird, right, Like you have the queen that gives
Speaker 1: birth to the egg, and then that gives the face
Speaker 1: hugger on the face, and then that and plants an
Speaker 1: egg and you and then zeno morph comes out and
Speaker 1: it grows within like a day fast. Um, and then
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw this, but there was
Speaker 1: there were deleted scenes in this movie that were determined
Speaker 1: to be too disturbing, where Ripley finds Dallas and he's
Speaker 1: still alive and he's like cocoons, which is what they do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's been that part of the life cycle to
Speaker 1: It's confusing, is what I'm saying it is. And and
Speaker 1: I honestly I'd have to go back and watch Prometheus
Speaker 1: again because I don't remember how that all worked together.
Speaker 1: Oh it's weird. I mean, it's like I'm unless I'm
Speaker 1: remembering it incorrectly because it's been a long time since
Speaker 1: I've seen that one. But like the Big White New
Speaker 1: at the beginning, we're we're the space Jockey race and
Speaker 1: then they were used to create the Zeno more from
Speaker 1: that's sort of okay. Their bodies were used for that purpose,
Speaker 1: and they have that whole movie is like a search
Speaker 1: for God, so they were doing it for God, their God.
Speaker 1: That's where you lose me. I'm sorry. This movie also
Speaker 1: has one of the great again in classic horror film
Speaker 1: um fashion, the faithful mistake, like the one thing and
Speaker 1: their faithful mistake Annie, as you know, is having that
Speaker 1: goddamn last meal. What would have happened if they would
Speaker 1: have gone into cryo freeze. I mean that's as Aliens
Speaker 1: in there. Would it have burst through or would it
Speaker 1: have killed it? Like I kind of went down the
Speaker 1: alternate timeline of what would have happened. Then they kind
Speaker 1: of explored that in Aliens an Alien three and that
Speaker 1: was sort of their goal was to get it like
Speaker 1: it's safely back within the body of someone else so
Speaker 1: they could three. Uh yeah, that's how it starts, I believe. Um. Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were going to use the body of I mean
Speaker 1: it was an Aliens too, because that that do she
Speaker 1: eighties avail in like every eighties deal and is that
Speaker 1: guy was gonna get the implant Ripley Ripley and um
Speaker 1: Newt with the embryo and then freeze them and then
Speaker 1: get them back so they could get past the weapons
Speaker 1: quarantine thing. I'm glad you're here to say this because
Speaker 1: people yelling at me like choke you just you saw Aliens.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this franchise. It's just it's a franchise
Speaker 1: that have seen all of the stuff, except I didn't
Speaker 1: see any of the Alien Predator movies. Are they good? No,
Speaker 1: but they're fun. But I never dived into trying to
Speaker 1: get the full understanding, like aside, I mean I saw
Speaker 1: aliens quite a few times, but aside from Alien, um,
Speaker 1: I didn't see most of them a lot. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing I really, I'm in the same boat. I've
Speaker 1: seen alien and aliens a lot. Um. I will say
Speaker 1: that even ones that I don't necessarily like, I think
Speaker 1: most of them have some really interesting things that they
Speaker 1: tried and messaging. Um, but that I've never really considered
Speaker 1: that idea chuck of like what would have happened if
Speaker 1: they had gone to cryo? Um? Well, your movies over.
Speaker 1: I know your movie is over unless you want to
Speaker 1: get into like a really boring right. But I mean
Speaker 1: that that is one thing that I think horror movies
Speaker 1: for me at least, is that thought experiment aspect of Well, honestly,
Speaker 1: they if they had listened to Ripley, maybe this whole
Speaker 1: thing could have been avoided. But they didn't. So now
Speaker 1: as an audience, you have to decide of like, well,
Speaker 1: is it worth all of them dying just so this
Speaker 1: creature doesn't get back to Earth? Um? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's the first faithful mistake actually before the meal is
Speaker 1: they didn't listen to Ripley. Yep, that's the first one.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of them. They have a lot
Speaker 1: of mistakes, and a lot of mistakes were made, a
Speaker 1: lot of errors in judgment. Yes, yes, uh, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the the Brett Harry Dean Stanton goes for Jones scene,
Speaker 1: and again a masterclass intention building and and faults, not
Speaker 1: red herrings, but whatever you call it. Where you and
Speaker 1: there's like two or three shots where you're like, this
Speaker 1: is where he's going to get it and it's not.
Speaker 1: I for me um because again I saw this pretty late. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I of course was aware of the chest Burster scene.
Speaker 1: I've seen Spaceballs, Like I knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's still really messed up and disturbing, but I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with this. That was the first scene where
Speaker 1: I was like clutching onto my friend and feeling that
Speaker 1: like legitimate because the whole thing has been danced. But
Speaker 1: this was the part where I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: because you've got those chains moving slowly. Oh yeah, there
Speaker 1: is so great. Yeah. When he's looking up in the
Speaker 1: that's such a beautiful shot. I mean it's very Blade
Speaker 1: Runner esque with that light in the water. Just you know,
Speaker 1: it's such a welcome thing on his face. And Harry
Speaker 1: Dean Stanton is such a great actor. It's got such
Speaker 1: a great mug. It was just, I mean, the casting
Speaker 1: this movie is ridiculous. But yeah, I kept thinking even
Speaker 1: last night because it had been a minute since I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I was like, wait, when does he get it?
Speaker 1: It's still pretty because I've seen it a lot, and
Speaker 1: I think they do really a really good job with
Speaker 1: because there's a couple of scenes where the alien is there,
Speaker 1: like you can see it, but it's not until it
Speaker 1: starts moving the very end ship. Yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 1: big one. An spills out napping in there. I know.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm just gonna have had a lot. It's
Speaker 1: my first day. But that is the scene with Harry
Speaker 1: Dean Stanton is the first reveal of what it looks
Speaker 1: like since it's after it grown. Yeah, man, just dripping
Speaker 1: and amazing, mouth is twitching well, and just the design
Speaker 1: of the U the mouth opening and then the other
Speaker 1: little mouth in there. I mean, come on, that's movie history.
Speaker 1: How brilliant is that. It's like, let's take something scary.
Speaker 1: That's all you needed is that alien? Like to put
Speaker 1: that that punch mouth in there. Is it does that
Speaker 1: have a name? It probably does, It probably does. I'm
Speaker 1: sure Alien ually just called it something the penis mouth, penis,
Speaker 1: the penis dune. Yeah, I mean that it is certainly
Speaker 1: phallic um and terrifying and it and it's because it
Speaker 1: happened so fast, and I think you live after it happens,
Speaker 1: even I don't think it immediately kills. When that happens,
Speaker 1: it's pretty terrifying. Yeah, and then it kind of like
Speaker 1: drags him up and um m m. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this last night too. Of you're never really quite sure,
Speaker 1: especially since they deleted that scene with Dallas. Is the
Speaker 1: alien eating them? Is it just killing them? Because then
Speaker 1: you see the bodies of like Lambert and Parker and
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like they were eaten. Just kill Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that offers the question, then why is it
Speaker 1: killing the perfect organism? As asked says perfect killer? Right,
Speaker 1: But that I mean that is terrifying. Both their terror
Speaker 1: both options are terrifying. But if it's just killing you,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I mean maybe some it's just so much
Speaker 1: more powerful and threatening than like the humans on that ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it feels like overkill. Perhaps, Well, they don't even
Speaker 1: have weapons really, yeah, I mean they fashion these incinerators
Speaker 1: as flamethrowers. But you know, aliens is when they bring
Speaker 1: in military and weaponry and stuff like that. But I
Speaker 1: think that was one of the brilliant things about this
Speaker 1: is to make it some blue collar workers who aren't
Speaker 1: skilled fighters. I guess you know, y'all. Put photo is
Speaker 1: he's kind of the only tough guy in the movie.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, but not your typical trophy. It avoids so
Speaker 1: many tropes it does, and the I mean, every phase
Speaker 1: of that creature is terrifying. At the face Hugger is terrifying.
Speaker 1: And I have written on my list here Annie and
Speaker 1: the eggs the first seen face Hugger jumps from egg
Speaker 1: Jesus fucking Christ. That was such a terrifying moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that like it happened again. It happened so fast.
Speaker 1: And then there's that like screeching like sound that you're
Speaker 1: assuming it may like when it jumps and breaks the glass.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, poor cane. Yeah. The one kind of funny
Speaker 1: part that I laughed at every time is after the
Speaker 1: chest burst, when the alien comes out and you know,
Speaker 1: oh god, our God, that's still going on, and then
Speaker 1: it like then it rides away on a segue. It
Speaker 1: looks like she goes. It's like, all right, that's that's
Speaker 1: the only thing that kind of looks like a hand puppet.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they struggled a lot with that. That.
Speaker 1: I'm sure because that's why I didn't think it had
Speaker 1: legs later on, was because it's kind of gliding around.
Speaker 1: Maybe it didn't have legs at that point. It definitely
Speaker 1: looks like the tail is really long when you first
Speaker 1: see it, and it kind of unfurls, and the way
Speaker 1: it moves feels much more Yeah, reptilian, So that that
Speaker 1: makes sense. That makes sense to me. Uh. Speaking of tropes,
Speaker 1: I also think that if this movie had been made
Speaker 1: ten years later, this movie, in one thousand percent has
Speaker 1: a love story attached to it. Yes, Ripley and Dallas
Speaker 1: or whatever. It didn't need it, Thank god it didn't
Speaker 1: have it, but I could totally see. I don't know
Speaker 1: if Ridley scot would have done it. But let's say
Speaker 1: this thing goes into turnaround and gets in the hands
Speaker 1: of you know, some lesser filmmaker in the eighties. It's
Speaker 1: got a love story in there. Absolutely, you can't have
Speaker 1: a main female did not have the romance. It would
Speaker 1: have looked very different if it had been made in
Speaker 1: the eighties. Yeah, well when was Aliens? What year was that?
Speaker 1: It was quite a few years later, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it was like nineteen eight like late eighties. I think
Speaker 1: I could be right, but yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It has to have been the eighties because this movie
Speaker 1: came out nineteen seventy nine. But yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: it was the eighties. Six so seven years later. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about the development of that movie, but
Speaker 1: you know, I did love it. James Cameron, he took
Speaker 1: it in the direction it was going to go. I
Speaker 1: remember being really glad when Ridley Scott came back, and
Speaker 1: I remember having super high hopes for primthe US and
Speaker 1: just leaving kind of going, well, that looked awesome. And
Speaker 1: I'm kind of confused. Uh yeah, I think I left
Speaker 1: with the similar My friends are like Annie stopped talking
Speaker 1: about how that movie was about abortion, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: but it was, uh yeah, yeah, I did. I did
Speaker 1: really enjoy Aliens. But you will notice it does have
Speaker 1: a love story, does have an arc, and it does um,
Speaker 1: who's Who's the villain in this movie. I think it's Ash,
Speaker 1: but it's also what is it waylon eytany Corps. I
Speaker 1: think it's the company that it's like, yeah, you know
Speaker 1: Priority one, capture Organism, Priority too, crew is expendable, right,
Speaker 1: That's that's the big reveal. Yeah, the evil, the evil
Speaker 1: corporate overlords. I think so because Ash was, as much
Speaker 1: as I dislike him, he was an Android doing what
Speaker 1: he was programmed to do. Android's gonna Android and Alien's
Speaker 1: gonna Alien. That's true, that's true. But there were a
Speaker 1: bet a bunch of rich white guys behind that corporation
Speaker 1: making making choices. Yes, uh, I never really thought about that. Pierce,
Speaker 1: was it Pierce Brosdon played anyway? That was in the
Speaker 1: Newest One Coming It? I think was that guy being like, yes,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I even saw that, to be honest.
Speaker 1: That's fine, Alien Covenant. I'm getting this in the Terminator franchise.
Speaker 1: Confused because I think they have a similar path, including
Speaker 1: James Cameron, but um, they both sort of went really
Speaker 1: far in one direction and the back store or the
Speaker 1: interweaving of the cannon got too confusing for me. In
Speaker 1: both cases. Yeah, I would agree. I haven't seen all
Speaker 1: the Terminators. I believe I've seen all of the Alien franchise,
Speaker 1: which I did want to put in here. Uh. I
Speaker 1: think it's impressive that for a rated R movie, this
Speaker 1: movie did so well that it had like toys and comics,
Speaker 1: which was kind of mind blowing when you think about it,
Speaker 1: it really is un rated our horror movie. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess they had Freddy Krueger dolls, maybe your action figures,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's not normal, no, especially ninety nine. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: get his Zeno morphed toy into that kid's hands on Facebook, Danny,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see I'm gonna buy you an ash action
Speaker 1: figure and just so you can melt it like in
Speaker 1: the movie, melt its face. Yeah, it's Ian Holme did
Speaker 1: a great job. Is freaky, it's I know, and he's
Speaker 1: one of those guys that after you see that movie,
Speaker 1: regardless of what he's done, you're kind of like it's
Speaker 1: sort of like the Hannibal lecture effect a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's hard to go back right right, And that that
Speaker 1: reveal is so freaky too, where um Ripley is having
Speaker 1: this realization like, oh, the company's wants us dead, like
Speaker 1: they don't care if we die. And then the camera
Speaker 1: kind of moves and he's like, there's a logical explanation
Speaker 1: for this, you know, Yeah, that's a total horror movie shot. Yes,
Speaker 1: now she she knew that he was an android though,
Speaker 1: right she? And oh she didn't. Nobody knew. Nobody knew,
Speaker 1: nobody knew. See, I thought Dallas and Ripley knew. Maybe no,
Speaker 1: because she confronts Dallas and it's like, since when does
Speaker 1: the science officer get to do this? And now it
Speaker 1: is kind of like I'm tired. I just wanted like
Speaker 1: he's a little over it. Yeah, like that's not my job.
Speaker 1: I don't care. And um, she's like, I don't trust
Speaker 1: Ash And have you worked with him before? And he
Speaker 1: said no, like I had previous. This is the my
Speaker 1: first time I had a previous science officer, he was
Speaker 1: this is my first time with him. Huh, all right,
Speaker 1: I forgot about that part. Maybe I thought Dallas was
Speaker 1: in on it. No, No, I guess he would have
Speaker 1: been though if he would have been keeping that secret.
Speaker 1: Right he wasn't in on it? No, of course not.
Speaker 1: I'm reading too much into it. Yeah, check it out
Speaker 1: of your old head. That's the conspiracy theory that Dallas
Speaker 1: is behind the whole thing. Ash really did. Is the
Speaker 1: villain for a moment though, in that sort of series
Speaker 1: of sequences, Um, you forget about an alien for a minute, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I think is really impressive. I think that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's nothing about him really physically that is
Speaker 1: terrifying or scary. There's plenty of scenes throughout where you,
Speaker 1: at least for me, I was like, Okay, he needs
Speaker 1: the way he's defending this creature over and over and
Speaker 1: he's talking about how it's a perfect organism. Um. And
Speaker 1: when he says he calls the chess Burster Caine's son,
Speaker 1: which was a biblical reference to Abel and Caine and
Speaker 1: the fact that they were born outside of God's rules,
Speaker 1: so they're quite monstrous. Um. So there's like instances where
Speaker 1: he's creepy and you think he has a really intense
Speaker 1: look about him. But in that scene, yeah, you forget
Speaker 1: that there's this impending alien threat and you're just so
Speaker 1: focused on, oh my gosh, this is a new problem. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's very much the first thing's first situation. That
Speaker 1: alien doesn't matter right then, because he's he's a genuine
Speaker 1: threat and is trying to kill her dead. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then just to see him have that moment where
Speaker 1: he is like coming apart of the seating and spinning
Speaker 1: around and there's that sound. Oh my god, it's so great.
Speaker 1: And like the inside they used like caviar and mill
Speaker 1: the lights and noodles. Yeah, a lot of food products
Speaker 1: going on. I definitely thought there were some oysters involved
Speaker 1: on the underbelly of the face ugger. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I think it's like it's got to be an oyster,
Speaker 1: some sweetbreads, yes, so gross licking. I guess what my
Speaker 1: point was. I think that it is a testament to
Speaker 1: the acting and writing and shooting of that whole thing.
Speaker 1: That's someone who isn't on paper that physically threatening. It's
Speaker 1: suddenly terrifying. Yeah, little little ian home. I mean you
Speaker 1: you get the sense even before aliens Ripley that this
Speaker 1: Ripley could kind of kick his ass, and he's just
Speaker 1: he's tossing her around in that seventy nine way that
Speaker 1: it's not there's no wire work, there's no you know,
Speaker 1: Sigourney Weaver. I mean, that's a good piece of physical acting. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you kind of you know, just look at her
Speaker 1: throwing herself around obviously because he and Holmes not doing it. Um.
Speaker 1: Such a terrifying sequence though, and one of the great
Speaker 1: villains I think, and one of the great reveals. I
Speaker 1: do love how when she does have the head separated
Speaker 1: and she rewires them to try and get information or whatever.
Speaker 1: How she's she's getting piste off and then she has
Speaker 1: the power then to just say fuck you, you're you're
Speaker 1: you're unplugged again, dude, and how quickly, and you can
Speaker 1: tell the satisfaction she gets out of shutting him back down. Yo, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty great. Well, and he has that like really
Speaker 1: creeple final final smile or he's like good luck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, and that's what sends her over the top.
Speaker 1: And you know, to look at it from the feminist perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, she's she's in charge then, and she you know,
Speaker 1: she can tell that she can put a sock in
Speaker 1: that guyaphorically, you know. Yeah, And I mean just that
Speaker 1: whole like when Dallas I forgot he asked mother and
Speaker 1: he's like, what are what are my chances and she's
Speaker 1: kind of like, we're not good, bron, that was a
Speaker 1: great mother. That's good. Yeah, thank you, thank you, but
Speaker 1: for that to through line, to continue with ash and
Speaker 1: to have because you would, I sort of think he's
Speaker 1: just a malfunctioning android. But that smile makes you think,
Speaker 1: oh he's happy that of what's going to become of you,
Speaker 1: of what he thinks you have no chance to defend.
Speaker 1: And then Ripley's like, fuck you, yeah, I mean what
Speaker 1: is that because he's showing emotion there, Yeah, and delight
Speaker 1: in their demise, to light in their demise. You know.
Speaker 1: That's it's addressed briefly in Aliens, where Bishop is like,
Speaker 1: oh that model had weird They always do that, right,
Speaker 1: Oh well we forgot the Model T. Whatever the teachers
Speaker 1: are at Old Model T had a lot of issues.
Speaker 1: Um Jones, Yes, Annie, I love cats, Okay, I love dogs.
Speaker 1: I'm an animal lover and I will go out of
Speaker 1: my way to save an insect. Uh. And last night
Speaker 1: I was going, fuck that cat, get out of there, man,
Speaker 1: get out of there. Who cares about Jones? And I
Speaker 1: felt myself betrayed. I looked over my cat was like
Speaker 1: staring at me on the couch, and I felt terrible
Speaker 1: for betraying my love of animals. But it's like, just
Speaker 1: get out of there, Jones was the problem at the end.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the conspiracy theory that Jones was behind it,
Speaker 1: because Jonesy was also behind Henry Dena Stanton his demise, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. He was going to look after or look
Speaker 1: for Jones. The interesting thing about jones E because a
Speaker 1: lot of people do feel that way, especially when it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: down to the wire, the lights are going wild, You've
Speaker 1: got the ringing, the blaring of the alarm, aliens there
Speaker 1: and refective sound design. Yeah, so good. Actually, um, a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, actually way longer than that, but
Speaker 1: I was in London and they had this exhibit called
Speaker 1: movie Um and they had that set piece and you
Speaker 1: could walk through it with like the fog going, the
Speaker 1: alarm going, and the alien would come out at the end.
Speaker 1: It was awesome. Check. It was awesome, but terrifying, very terrifying.
Speaker 1: But yeah, she's like kind of keeps going back for
Speaker 1: this cat and you're what is going on? Um? Some people,
Speaker 1: I think that that is a key element to a
Speaker 1: non threatening final girl, is that there has to be
Speaker 1: something feminine and mothering about her. UM. So some people
Speaker 1: think that that was their effort to be like, yes,
Speaker 1: she's been pretty like gender neutral throughout, but she still
Speaker 1: has this really strong protective mothering instinct and she's going
Speaker 1: to save this cat um, which is a good thing, right, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: or should she be cold blooded and leaves. You can't win.
Speaker 1: That's the thing about being a lady is you can't
Speaker 1: win because either you're cold blooded. That's yeah, Like the
Speaker 1: whole quarantine thing where they're acting like, oh, being ridiculous,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you of Dallas had been like nope, they
Speaker 1: would have been like okay, yeah, absolutely, no one would
Speaker 1: have questioned Dallas. Yeah, but that whole like the in sequences,
Speaker 1: there's several markers of that of like she has to
Speaker 1: go save the cat. That final shot of her, she's
Speaker 1: like in this virginal white of you know, this mother,
Speaker 1: the mother being presented, and then when she stripped down
Speaker 1: to the T shirt. You mean now when she's in
Speaker 1: the like the final when she's in the pod. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, they're just these like little things that
Speaker 1: they were putting in, like yeah, she's still don't worry,
Speaker 1: she's still a gender conforming lady. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 1: the end when she does stripped down to the frankly
Speaker 1: the strangest underwear I've ever seen, and the uh and
Speaker 1: the and the little tank top or whatever, um it
Speaker 1: it some helps to me. Still didn't feel like this gratuitous, uh,
Speaker 1: let me sexualize this person thing. It felt very real
Speaker 1: to me that she would do that and and sort
Speaker 1: of and get in her cry o sleep attire, which
Speaker 1: is not much, but it didn't feel I feel like
Speaker 1: later on if it again, if it would have been
Speaker 1: made later by a different filmmaker, they would have highly
Speaker 1: sexualized that stuff. Yes you read, yes, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you. I think like if I
Speaker 1: had had a real rough day and I was about
Speaker 1: to go and cry, oh, that is what I would do. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think the complication is women have been sexualized
Speaker 1: so long that it's hard to take that away. Um.
Speaker 1: So even if I agree like I do, there's no
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's super sexual or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But because there is this history, especially when we're talking
Speaker 1: about film of that, it's hard to remove it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of Some people are like, did that have
Speaker 1: to be in there? And I see that criticism, but
Speaker 1: I also agree, like, yes you would in theory. That's
Speaker 1: what you would do, right, but well, and especially when
Speaker 1: you factor in how that's received by probably a lot
Speaker 1: of men. I'm sure there are, and we're plenty of
Speaker 1: dudes they were like, oh man, at the end when
Speaker 1: she gets down to her underwear, best part of the movie. Bro.
Speaker 1: Uh And I just didn't take it away. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's totally fair take. I think. Yeah, it's complicated,
Speaker 1: um for sure, but to me it does feel pretty
Speaker 1: natural of like, yeah, it's been a long day. You'd
Speaker 1: see me in a pair of me undy and my
Speaker 1: big beer gut and that'd be it again, not sexual,
Speaker 1: something sexual about that. Um, well, let's talk about that end.
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned that. We talked just for a
Speaker 1: second about that sound design, but that's another great example,
Speaker 1: along with the earlier sound design of creating this tension
Speaker 1: and that siren going off and you know the ship
Speaker 1: will self destruct and four and a half minutes and
Speaker 1: it's just like relentless and it's it's one of the
Speaker 1: best movie endings in history, I think, because there are
Speaker 1: a couple of times when you're like, she did it,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's but it ain't over yet, and
Speaker 1: when she sees that hand flop out. It's there's so
Speaker 1: many emotions going on as a viewer. Part of it
Speaker 1: is like, fuck, here we go again. Part of it
Speaker 1: is worry for her. Part of it is terror again
Speaker 1: because you see how scared she is. But she's clearly
Speaker 1: caught the Xeno morph at a resting like because it
Speaker 1: doesn't come right out and go after and uh slipping
Speaker 1: into that space suit, and like she she immediately kind
Speaker 1: of comes up with a plan. Yeah, a good quiet Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's always one step add I think, yeah, I as
Speaker 1: you know, I love horror movies, and I think this
Speaker 1: is a really good example, an early example of kind
Speaker 1: of what I call the fake out horror movie. Ending
Speaker 1: of release of tension. It's over, We've done it, and
Speaker 1: then it's not, and you do have a pretty long
Speaker 1: moment of thinking, like you're calming down, but like, why
Speaker 1: is the movie still going if fifteen minutes left? Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, wait, wait, what's happening here? But there's
Speaker 1: a pretty long beat before they reveal that yes, the
Speaker 1: alien is on here, and that shot is so great
Speaker 1: because you do think, oh, it's moving towards her, but
Speaker 1: then it's revealed that it hasn't quite become aware of
Speaker 1: her yet, but you have that worry in the back
Speaker 1: of your head of what, well, now that ship is gone,
Speaker 1: she has no other option. She's trapped in this small
Speaker 1: space with this rather large, very dangerous predator um and
Speaker 1: for her to think of that in that level of
Speaker 1: fear too and be still and just do what she
Speaker 1: has to do and succeed. But and then and then
Speaker 1: you've got it, like hanging out the airlock, I know
Speaker 1: that that one final little thing too. And then she
Speaker 1: hits the blaster. Yeah after burner, Yeah, that was pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Why does she wait so long to open the door?
Speaker 1: I know, at first I think she was waiting for
Speaker 1: it to fully unfuril and get out of that space.
Speaker 1: But it seems like she waited, and maybe the answer
Speaker 1: is just for a more badass ending for it to
Speaker 1: rush at her and her hit it. But last night,
Speaker 1: you know, after it completely got out, I was just like,
Speaker 1: hit hit the door, hit it now it now. But
Speaker 1: she waited, and I mean it's probably just all about
Speaker 1: tension building. It definitely built up the tension. I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a couple of things going on when I
Speaker 1: watch it where I think there's a part of her
Speaker 1: that's waiting for this like perfect moment, because she does
Speaker 1: shoot it with a harpoon too, to get about that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to make sure she gets it out there, because it's
Speaker 1: hanging on for a second. Yeah. Yeah. So I think
Speaker 1: it's that like waiting for the moment to do it,
Speaker 1: but also knowing like it's a really dangerous predator and
Speaker 1: like any sudden movement might trigger it to attacks. So
Speaker 1: I feel like she was maybe some of it was fear.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it was waiting for the
Speaker 1: right moment because she didn't want to suck it up.
Speaker 1: That was their only chance. And it also maybe it
Speaker 1: was all about just getting that one iconic shot with
Speaker 1: her in the space helmets looking, you know, right right
Speaker 1: beyond her field of vision there. Yeah, just send him
Speaker 1: a history, you know, it's amazing. Absolutely, I love that shot. Um.
Speaker 1: I I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure Sigourney Weaver
Speaker 1: um ad lived or improv to that song, and they
Speaker 1: liked it so much they had they kept it in,
Speaker 1: but they had to pay the royalties for that song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they found a little money in the budget.
Speaker 1: I think they were fine. I caught one and I'm
Speaker 1: meant to look this up. I'm sure it's addressed online
Speaker 1: as a goof. But when that when mother is counting down,
Speaker 1: it says twenty seven after did you notice I did
Speaker 1: not notice that it's like one seven, No, no, it
Speaker 1: goes two seven one, or it's someone it's either in
Speaker 1: between twenty one and twenty or one and twenty two.
Speaker 1: She says again. I was like what and I rewound
Speaker 1: it twice and she does. I want sure someone has
Speaker 1: has has said something about that. It can't be. This
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite things though, of like people
Speaker 1: who love movies, is is I bet yours? Well? No,
Speaker 1: I bet you there is an explanation someone's come up
Speaker 1: with of like, well, I bet you know. Mother was saying,
Speaker 1: because the ship is four to six to seven is
Speaker 1: if they can get outside the ship. You know, it
Speaker 1: is a fan explanation. And this is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things about Star Wars that gets so messy is
Speaker 1: people will be like, it's weird that Princess Leah has
Speaker 1: this accent. Why does she have this accent? And we're
Speaker 1: all like, oh, it's just you know whatever, and then
Speaker 1: Disney is like, oh, it's a core accent because she's
Speaker 1: really like, they'll come up with an explanation. I guarantee
Speaker 1: you chuck there is It was probably a mistake, but
Speaker 1: there is an explanation out there I'm gonna find and
Speaker 1: I might I might have to que it up again
Speaker 1: just to make sure that I wasn't hearing things for
Speaker 1: like a third time. But maybe she was really just
Speaker 1: fucking with Ripley. Yea, because she was so cool. She's
Speaker 1: right down to the wire and she's like mother the coole,
Speaker 1: it's back in and she's like too late. She's it's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it should have she Ripley should have said wait, yes,
Speaker 1: should have been twenty I think mother. That was all mother,
Speaker 1: just having a laugh. By the way, the geeger Bar
Speaker 1: is in Switzerland, and just google image a picture of
Speaker 1: that bar and I'll meet you there. In a couple
Speaker 1: of years. We'll figure out the movie crush Field Trip. Yes,
Speaker 1: it looks pretty amazing. I mean it's it's literally like
Speaker 1: crawling around inside the spine of a of a zeno.
Speaker 1: More get on the company dime check. Yeah, sure, guys,
Speaker 1: we want to do a special episode from the geeger Bar.
Speaker 1: Cool cost us like ten grand. Yeah, but it'll be
Speaker 1: that like one and a half hours of content killer
Speaker 1: be so good? Sign me up. Uh, well, you got
Speaker 1: anything else? Annie? I have a million quotes, but uh,
Speaker 1: if you would want, if you want to hear them,
Speaker 1: because I feel like I've made my point. We did.
Speaker 1: I did go through all of them on stuff I've
Speaker 1: never told you. Well, when was that released? Like, what
Speaker 1: was the title of that episode? People should definitely listen
Speaker 1: to that. It was released in October because it was
Speaker 1: the fortie anniversary. Um, this is the second time I've
Speaker 1: watched this movie for research, and it was called feminist
Speaker 1: movie Friday Alien with all like three exclamation points, and
Speaker 1: then the description was Annie finally lives her dream and
Speaker 1: talks about Alien while her co host patiently listens to her.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so great. I'm gonna listen to that actually
Speaker 1: too for a deeper dive. UM. I appreciate you coming
Speaker 1: on and doing this again. I hope it wasn't a
Speaker 1: retread for you. Oh no, no, no no. I loved it. Um.
Speaker 1: I was really thrilled. And that was the one you chose,
Speaker 1: and it was we went over different topics last time.
Speaker 1: I was much more talking about abortion and sex and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, so it's a little different. Well that
Speaker 1: may have scared me, so it's disturbing Annie. My mom's
Speaker 1: calling me. I gotta go upstairs now. Well, this is fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's always great to see you, and you're one of
Speaker 1: my favorite cast members for movie Crush, and uh, you
Speaker 1: know we'll do it again in a couple of months
Speaker 1: or so. Yes, I love being here every every time.
Speaker 1: And don't forget we have to return the Jedi. I'm ready. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll hit Holly up and we'll get you both back
Speaker 1: in here. I'm ready to all right, Thanks Annie, thank you.
Speaker 1: Movie Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant and
Speaker 1: Roel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and
Speaker 1: scored by Noel Brown here in our home studio at
Speaker 1: Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever listen to your favorite shows.