Past Hits & Future Flicks

Join Greg and Tom for a lively discussion on our podcast, where we dive into movies from the past and exciting upcoming films. In this episode, we explore potential cinematic adaptations of beloved sci-fi books like Andy Weir's "Artemis." From classic hits to future favorites, join us as we share our thoughts on the latest movies and TV shows that have us buzzing with excitement.


Podcast music:
Intro music Kamihamiha! - Alien Warfare Stems by Kamihamiha (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Kamihamiha/60882

Movie Reviews and Serious Nonsense is a King Dyro Production ©2024

Transcript

Dyro Burka Podcast S003 EP05

Welcome to Movie Reviews and Serious Nonsense. With your hosts Greg Dyro and Tom Berka. Sit back and get your earpods installed. Wiggle them in just right, and hang in there for an awe inspiring talk about the best of today's movies in streaming television. What the hell is this In the near future, there's Hullabaloo?

There's a lot of hullabaloo about Ryan Gosling Oh doing Hail Mary? The Fall Guy is what I was thinking about. What's Hail Mary? Ha! It's It's an Andy Weir story the one that did The Martian. Oh, you're kidding! He's doing Hail Mary? Yeah. Oh, wow. That's his third book, I believe.

Yeah. I think it's actually a second. I think it's just the book he wrote after the Martian But anyway they're supposedly doing that because it was what? It was Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner, right? In 2024, right? [00:01:00] Yes. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Or whatever it was. That was Blade Runner that Ryan was in.

Yes. He's apparently, they're talking, he's going to do Hail Mary. I don't know if you've read it. I've read all of Mr. Weir's books. Read the Martian because it was a side reading to my son for something in high school. And he said, I think you'd like this book. And he was right. The second book that he wrote was Artemis actually.

Oh Artemis was, I have not read Artemis yet. It's fantastic. And actually I I think that the audio book is one of the best audio books I've ever read. And the audio book is read by a wonderful actress who everybody will know their name. But I have to look it up. Yes that's the Rosario Dawson.

And, look, reading an audio book is actually an art unto itself. [00:02:00] She masterfully reads this book and it's an exciting sci fi novel. But anyway, so Hail Mary, Project Hail Mary is about a guy who wakes up in a spaceship and doesn't know what he's doing there. He just can't remember anything about how he came to be in the spaceship and what the hell is going on.

And in fact, he doesn't even know that he's in a spaceship when he first wakes up. You read it, right? Yeah. He thinks he's just in a a hospital room. And the thing is yes, that's right. Because he's tethered to yeah, he's like in a hospital bed and there's like a hospital row buddy kind of thing.

That's, this is the first chapter of the book that they were not, this is the. The opening premise for the entire story. So it's not like we're giving you a big spoiler. You haven't spoiled it. Yeah. No, you haven't spoiled anything knowing that. It's no but in typical Andy Weir is what we would call a hard science fiction, [00:03:00] right?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. In other words, there's real science. There's real science. Yeah. He uses real science. He doesn't have anything happen in his books that cannot be that does not conform to science, which is not the case with Andy Weir. Many science fiction writers, I think we would all agree that phasers, for instance, are a soft science fiction invention.

The same thing with teleportation, because we do not have any mechanisms that actually allow us to do that. And we don't know the science that would allow us to do, we have theories about how it should work. But we don't have science for how this would actually be done. But in this first chapter, this guy who doesn't even know whether he's a scientist or a teacher or anything, he doesn't know, but he starts to, he makes observations that lead him to conclude that he is in a spaceship [00:04:00] or a vehicle traveling.

And I can't recall exactly what he observes. Dropped some stuff. Oh, yeah. And it was he was calculating the gravity because of the speed of the drop or whatever, and the gravity was wrong for being earth. So he must be under acceleration or something or on a different planet. Yeah very hard science. So it's for our listeners who have not read it, it's essentially a solitary, mostly solitary story. So it's a, not, I'm not gonna say it's it's not like Castaway, but, and in a way it's like Castaway where Tom, Tom Hanks is the prime actor through the entire it will be pretty much, you know him, yeah. Do you know how many basketballs they auditioned for that movie? I think there were at least three. There was, there was a small company that makes sporting equipment that was really trying to get, the promos there, but I think Wilson won out over, Spalding [00:05:00] and I, there was even a Titleist kind of a throw in there because it was like a midget kind of one.

It was more of a golf ball. Instead of a but Titleist was not able to convince them. Yeah. Yeah. You can call the basketball Wilson, or you can call it Spalding, but you couldn't possibly have a companion on your Island called Titleist. And the size of a golf ball pocket companion, a pocket companion, right?

You couldn't put a face on it that anybody could see. But with a pocket companion like that, he could have three balls.

I'm sorry. That was pretty bad, but I don't know. I liked it because I'm still waking up. But you got me. I don't know. I can't, I was watching something last night and I can't remember what the hell the context was, but somebody made a testicle joke, which is always [00:06:00] appreciated. Andy, we're, the Martian is a solitary book. I'd say far more so than in the movie.

When they actually spend a fair amount of time, they don't really in the book, they don't really show the spaceship. There, there aren't many scenes that take place on the spaceship that he was left behind from that lifted off from the surface of Mars because what he was Presumed lost and dead, presumed dead in a storm, right?

And they had a very small window in which they could take off. So they couldn't, they just for life support and that kind of thing they had to leave them behind, make a judgment call. And the movie, they do spend more time showing. The life of the astronauts on that ship and also their their concerns like, Oh, damn it.

We left him behind. He was alive. That kind of thing. So you'll find this, you'll find this interesting. The directors slated here [00:07:00] for Hail Mary are Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. And I know them because they. They were the ones that were canned on the solo film, I believe.

Oh, wait a second. That's right. Yes they, their pace of shooting apparently on solo. What's the full name of that? Movie it's the Han Solo movie anyway. Yeah. The Han Solo movie. Yeah. I don't remember. But they're more known, I think, for the Lego movie, and 21 Jump Street, and Spider Man Spider Verse, and stuff like that.

And Han Solo was finished by what, Ron Howard? Yeah, I really wonder cuz I did not like the Han Solo movie that I really wonder what their version would really have been. Yeah, I don't think the problem I'm sure for the studio Really [00:08:00] slow shooting which would cost them Much more than was projected to be, you know budgeted for the production of the movie The serious problem, but I thought that the biggest problem with Solo was the script the story while it touched on big key moments in Han Solo's early life.

Like how did he become a scoundrel? When did he meet, Chewbacca, all that stuff. It covered that, but I just found the story kind of started falling apart despite the fact that there was. I thought the visuals were great. I thought the acting was amazing. I thought they did a great job of casting.

The replacements for let me see here, so in my senior moments here, yeah I don't know, is it because I haven't had enough coffee? Do you think why can't I? Why can't I remember names? I don't know, maybe it's because, there's ghosts in the [00:09:00] system, oh my god. Yeah. Alden Emmer, Aaron, how do you, Aaron Wright. I thought he was a perfect casting for Han Solo. Oh yeah, I thought he, yeah, I thought he was, I thought it was good. I, it was just, I agree with you on the script. I wasn't thrilled with the overall story, and anybody who saw Oppenheimer in which Aaron Reich played a Senate aide who spent a lot of time with Robert Downey Jr.

During the, particular Senate hearings. He's very good. And, he really. He really hit in not our brother. We're on that's a different movie. But hail Caesar. He played a he played a, one of those cowboy actors who used to make these Westerns where he did all kinds of trick rope tricks and, jumped up and down off of trees onto his horse and all that stuff.

He was amazing in that role. And so I was very excited to hear that he was doing solo, right? [00:10:00] But it was a letdown. Donald Glover, though, I thought was Oh, he was great. Al Rizzi and he very Billy Dee Williams. I don't know. What did you think? Did. Did he live up to what you would have expected as Lando Calrissian as a young?

Yeah, no, I definitely think so. I agree that he felt very Lando, very young Lando. Excellent. And I thought the interactions of the two of them, I thought were very good. I was happy with all of that. They threw in the love interest, which I'm like, everybody wants to throw in this love interest.

But I, I had no, I didn't care about the Han Solo love interest thing at all. It was like, and then Yeah, they had the little speeder race there at the beginning and stuff, but I'm like, I don't associate Han Solo with that kind of racing, that that is more, Luke, what's his name?

Luke. And it wasn't Han. It was, he was a [00:11:00] pilot and that wasn't being a pilot. And I, so I didn't think that was, That was his character at all. The, whatever Luke shot. Oh, yeah, they were much smaller. They were much smaller than that exhaust port that I'm going to launch the thing into.

So I, so I the, whatever the heist the railroad heist, it was like a railroad heist with That, that group of I don't know, mercenary, what would you call them? Yeah, or whatever. Basically they were thieves. And right. Why is it that there's always a railroad heist in these science fiction things, specifically of firefly and serenity where they had shot a pilot.

Which was too long and too, it, it gave too much history. And so instead they shot an alternative first episode, which was called the trade [00:12:00] heist, so they did all their exposition through that. Apparently hold on a second. Let's see. We're holding on a minute.

Sorry. Sorry. At that time, I'd like somebody taking a shower. I know it's too, it's the cricket thing, but I don't quite like it. I didn't hear any crickets. Yeah, it was too the, this one is more of a 60 minutes a I'll bet you can't tell me who played Chewbacca in Solo, a Star Wars story.

No, I do not know who played Chewbacca. That's ridiculous. It was Junis Wattamo. Oh, I should have known that. Yeah, I don't know. I actually, I guess I'm not much of a Star Wars fan and if I can't name who originally played Chewbacca and I can't. I have it. The name of my tip of my tongue.

Big guy. Tall guy. Big [00:13:00] tall guy. I think that was his actual name. Yeah. I'll do one of those ones where all of a sudden, Greg, after the show, I looked it's up and it was actually played by no I don't know. Come on. It's actually I am DBD Star Wars and there are so many titles, none of which I see are the actual original story.

Peter Mayhew. Peter Mayhew, I knew that played. Yeah. Two. And C3 was by Anthony, somebody Daniels. Anthony Daniels, right? And nobody talks about the guys who managed to play R2 D2 when R2 D2 was not being a robot. That was Kenny Baker, wasn't it? I think it was Kenny Baker. I don't know.

There are certain, I think it was Kenny Baker that played him. There you go. God, I think I was in a million [00:14:00] movies. Cause, they had like our favorite silent running had the little wasn't Kenny Baker. I don't think it was somebody else that played those Huey, Louie and Dewey, the little robot characters.

Exactly. If for our listeners who maybe aren't familiar with silent running, it was an epic and kind of amazing science fiction movie. About a guy who is on a spaceship that is traveling to Jupiter. I think it is, it's like way out there and it's manned by three real people and they have as their assistants, these small robots called which, which who are, they're not originally named Huey, Louie and Dewey, but that's what he calls them.

Yeah, a very and these, this spaceship has the last forests on earth have been preserved in these domes, right? Yes. Yeah. And But there's no explanation [00:15:00] as to why we're not preserving the forests on earth in domes, but we've got to blast them into outer space to, to preserve them.

Yeah, no, there's no real explanation to that, but we can assume that things on earth are really not amenable to keeping the forest alive. Although, You'd think that since they have a kind of giant dome with the trees and plants underneath it that they've shot into space That they could have done that On the surface of the earth at the very least but it's cool But it's cool and the station will the doom spaceships are cool And if you're really an aficionado of silent running you will know that In Battlestar Galactica, they use the models of the silent running spaceships as part of the whole that group of spaceship, the fleet, it was in the fleet in the armada of the fleet that the the name of the, what's the name of the Battlestar Galactica, that Galactica was escorting you'll see the silent [00:16:00] running ships with the domes.

So a little side, you haven't, if you're a science fiction fan and you haven't seen silent running I think it's a, an important classic of the genre. Bruce Dern play as a guy who he just loves these forests and everything. And he's a loner. He doesn't mind being out in space for long periods of time.

Really hates society and because most people are crass. I think is the And the other guys on the ship are a little crass to him or whatever, oh, they're awful people. They established that really early on just in, just from the way they make fun of Bruce Dern , it's important that you watch it, number one, to see the robots, Huey, Louie, and Dewey. And the this is before when was this made? This was made before Star Wars. Oh yes, this was made before Star Wars. So you'll see the technique of using little people using the proper term, not [00:17:00] midgets, but little people in these we already mechanical kind of contraptions to, to manipulate them rather than do them.

It's like a form of puppetry. If you think about it, it's yeah, that's a big bird. Big bird is just somebody in a suit, and they become a big bird. The. These guys were all placed in these really mechanical metal robot suits. Yeah. And they had, they all had little arms.

They could extend to do things limited and these are early R2 D2s yeah, this is an early retracted them and they, threw them out there and, somebody had to be on the inside manipulating those things. It was 1972 that Sonic went running. Yeah. Yeah, and it's a, it is a sad movie, I have to say.

Yeah basically, Bruce Dern over here, as well, he knows they get the order to bring the ship back and the other crew members are [00:18:00] so excited, they're like, let's get the fuck off of this, they're bored out of their minds probably missing companionship of Some partners and that kind of thing.

But they're, and they're ordered to jettison the forests. And these guys don't care about it. Brewster and does this is a spoiler alert a little bit, but come on, this is the premise of the movie. This is how it starts off. So he kills them. He kills the other guys to, so that they keep the forest and then it's just him and these three robots, Huey, Louie and Dewey, he has no companionship and they take on personalities of their own.

And I have to say I was very, it's a moving movie and you get emotional about the robots in their lives. Here's something that I didn't realize that one of the writers, one of the writers is Michael Cimino from, Deer Hunter. Wow, I didn't know that.

And Steve Bochco, who [00:19:00] is of who famously did Hill Street Blues, right? I was thinking it was, there was something important about the music of the, what's her name? Saying some song. I was thinking it was not, that was Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell had a song about the earth this is really, it was 1972, but this is really an early 70s, 60s movie.

Yeah. The song partakes of, kind of the folk movement in the sense that, it celebrates it, it celebrates the basic, love of earth, of planet Earth and what it stands for. This was straight out of the days when they created Earth Day. Where they prophetically said, we're really going to be screwed if we don't take care of these greenhouse gasses, the weather is going to get all crazy and, the planet's gonna, overheat and, and everybody thought that it was just a lot of nonsense.

They [00:20:00] should have listened. They should have. And anyway, so if you haven't added it to your, it's you need to watch Casablanca at some point. It's you need to add, if you're like if you're a science fiction person, you need to have seen it to know it or important science fiction movies made in the past a hundred years.

And I might add the soundtrack was by Peter Shickley and Peter Shickley was a professor of music. Had an alter ego named PDQ Bach, who is supposed to be the lesser cousin of the acclaimed Bach and he would use this mechanism to write the most ridiculous parodies of classical music and managed to actually he had concerts, I remember, I totally remember PDQ Bach and it being, back in the days when I was listening to that and listening to the Rutles and listening to early Brian Eno and a lot of a lot of wacky some other, Oh, that was when I used to always listen to [00:21:00] the Dr.

Demento show. Early, early wackiness. So shape, shape the the the serious nonsense in myself. Serious nonsense. Hey, isn't that the name of our podcast? Amazingly it is. It's the name of our podcast. Do you have applause on there?

No I didn't like the applauses. What? Sorry. No. I think, it's what else did I do? Oh yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Playing with sound effects. Okay. Me and that sounded like, I know that was an electric zap, but it also sounded like somebody was getting on. A trim. Oh yeah. Cause it's got the slight buzz, the hum buzz.

There you go. Yeah. It's the buzz we all [00:22:00] know, it's like hello. It's like, when I hear that or the other one, the European version, I always think of dark side of the moon and pink Floyd, so well, let me ask you, it's funny last week. We talked about fantastic voyage and here we've drifted into a discussion of silent running.

What would you, aside from Star Wars, which is an obvious choice what are your most iconic? Science fiction movies in your little pantheon, what would be the tops? Yeah. Right in there, I've got obviously 2001. Yes, which still holds up very well, I think.

My. I really loved alien and I loved Blade Runner. Really, I saw Blade Runner when it, first run at the theater. And it still sticks with me. Yes, I believe I got a case of the giggles when I was watching Blade Runner because it was produced by Sir Run Shaw. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And so in [00:23:00] the opening titles. It's said produced by sir run Sean. That just struck me so funny that my friends almost made me leave the theater, stop giggling and, it's not appropriate for that movie at all. Yeah, that's right. And I would add to it. The Andromeda strain for me.

Oh, yes. Was it? Yes. Yeah. If there's something. The, yeah, go on. No. I agree with you. For something to, to really cause you to think about a lot of stuff and it's a science fiction film that doesn't take its place in space really It's just in a lab and I like it. It's a slow pace though It's a slower pace.

It's a top secret lab, yeah top secret lab. Oh, that's true We take the elevator down in the middle of the desert type thing exactly. I just, I, the thing which captured my imagination about this. And I actually was reading the Andromeda strain in 1969. And I remember that I was reading it then because I was [00:24:00] reading I was on vacation with my father at the beach and it was the summer.

And I was reading Sherlock Holmes and he was reading The Andromeda Strain and I glanced at his book and basically I stole it from him. I ended up reading it. He didn't get a chance to finish it until I'd finished reading it. But I was taken by the scene where these scientists who are on a list that the government has and they're just not even aware of it.

They've totally forgotten that they are involved with this project. They get hustled up and they get, they drive out in the middle of the desert where there's a little shed with hoes and stuff in it. And they say that it's a, an agricultural project and they drive in. And one of the scientists is really surprised because it turns out they're in an elevator that's taking them way down to this very cool, secret [00:25:00] science fictiony space, futuristic lab with these different levels.

I think as you go down in level in the labs that increases the degree of Secure or how secure it is or something. It's not just security. It's also they are they're less and less bacteria until they're entirely sterile on the lowest level, right? Because after all, this was a lab, which was designed to test for and isolate bio weapons.

That were allegedly deployed in case they would be deployed against the United States. That was the whole idea. But anyway I just, how do you pronounce the writer's name? Michael Crichton. I pronounce it Michael Crichton. I have heard other people call him Michael Crichton. And no, I think it's great.

I think it's Crichton. Is it? I think it is. And, one of the things that's notable about [00:26:00] this the Andromeda Strain was a giant number one bestseller and nobody knew who Michael Crichton was at the time. And of course he went on to write many science fiction books which were made into movies all of his stuff was very adaptable.

And so he famously did Jurassic Park. Yeah in which apparently his secretary, while he was writing, his secretary poked her head in to the office to give him a message and saw him turning his head to the left and darting it out and taking a big bite. And what he was trying to do is figure out how a velociraptor would move.

Yeah, he thought he was going nuts. Yeah. No they made a bunch of, they made his movie the terminal man, which I think is his story. They made them do a movie, which didn't do that. No, I think the terminal man, everybody was waiting for the next novel by this guy. And I think it was his second book.

It was about a man [00:27:00] who had a he had all kinds of seizures. And so the, What is now an actual technique, but at the time was totally theoretical is that they put a pacemaker into the brain of this guy suffering from these seizures. And so whenever a seizure was coming on, it would emit an electrical pulse that would arrest the seizure and stop it from going on.

But unfortunately there, As is true of all of Michael Crichton's books about technology. They're really about how technology when deployed has some terrible secondary effects that nobody's conceived of. So along those lines that I had forgotten, I guess is Westworld is Westworld.

And I didn't realize that he was one of the creators of the TV show ER. The original er, that's right. He was, that I don't know so much about. And that was later on in his career. [00:28:00] He really had a medical, he was a medical doctor or something. It was a medical, I think, no, he was a med student.

He famously. Yeah. Actually not famously because most people don't know this. I think he has a book. Which is based on his, it's a memoir of his experiences as a medical student. It's called Four Patients. And I would recommend that to anybody who likes that kind of thing. If you like ER, if you like The Resident, those kind of shows, pick that book up.

Because he, he's a very smart guy. And he had a great deal of insight about The whole process that he talks about in that book, but also famously why am I saying famously? Nobody knows this. He wrote about the fact that wherever he was rotated, whatever rotation he had, he started to acquire symptoms of some of the sicknesses in the particular [00:29:00] department that he'd been assigned to a psychological.

Yes. He actually thought he was coming down with MS at one point. And he had all the symptoms like he, his arms would go numb and all kinds of stuff. And when he was rotated out of the unit, all those symptoms just disappeared. Amazing. Let's see some other ones. Congo was was his novel.

Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't count. I would say that the film adaptation of Congo is, does not live up to the book, number one, and the book itself is not one of his greatest creations. Since we're drifting into talk about Michael Crichton movies though, what about, what are your thoughts about sphere?

Sure. I thought it was, I remember seeing it way back at the at the time. I thought it was interesting. I don't, it doesn't resonate [00:30:00] into me like, Oh my God, this is like the best ever. But I wasn't sure. Are you like, just, I, it is strangely, it's like Arthur C.

Clarke rendezvous with Rama where they discovered this. Alien spaceship hurtling through space. And there's no clue about who created it or there, there's no suggestion. There are no inhabitants apparently on the spaceship. And so they send a team to investigate and in the same way and sphere, they discover basically a spaceship on the ocean floor in which in this spaceship, there's this.

Golden giant.

A lot and nobody can get into it or make it react or do anything. And so they send a bunch of scientists down to the ocean floor to investigate and figure out what's going on [00:31:00] with this. And the movie starred Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel Jackson. Daniel Jackson, right? And, there are some things about it that were quite silly, but at the same time snakes on a sphere.

No. You know what? That's actually, I think an almost accurate evocation of kind of the atmosphere of this movie. But for some reason, this movie sticks with me. And the book itself sticks with me. I'm trying to think of any other science fiction stories that involve this kind of, we've discovered this artifact of alien technology and we can't figure it out.

Although 2001, you've got the monolith, right? They do, they really do that in a long form series and In the science fiction series, the expanse where there's obviously alien, in this case, it's [00:32:00] organic, stuff that, that takes, what I started watching the expanse, but I really never got into.

I think I stopped watching in the middle of the 2nd episode, not because it was bad or anything. It's just, I forgot about it. I got caught up in something else. But it is, I don't know how many seasons of The Expanse are there? Six, at least six or more. Yeah it's done quite well. And this was a show which was created entirely by the Sci Fi Network, right?

Yep, and it's a It's a hard science fiction show. It follows real science, when the spaceships are going, they take a while to get someplace, they have to turn around and slow down. There's, I have to say, something that we do on this podcast that is implied is that, Greg and I, both of us grew up as science fiction nerds.

We were fascinated by science. We were fascinated by [00:33:00] Apollo, the Apollo spacecraft missions, like the very idea that we could go into space. And we were big followers of Isaac Asimov, right? Would you say? Yes. And all of these science fiction authors and stories both in film and in, books played huge roles in our life.

Would you agree with that? Yes, I would agree with that for sure. I I was that's first when I first read. Frank Herbert Dunes, when I first read Foundation, actually when I first read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are around the same time that I knew Tom. Exactly. That's probably one of the reasons we became fast friends is because we shared this perspective and love of science and science fiction.

You had to be a big science fan. We believe that it was very exciting and that science was going to unlock the key to better living better living through science. Yes. Better [00:34:00] living through science. Yes. Yeah. It's becoming me. I have to say, I was remarking to a friend of mine the other day that when star Wars came out, I was crazy about it.

And. The Lord of the Rings, how many times did you ring read the Lord of the Rings trilogy? I'm sure more than once. Oh, yeah. A number of times. Actually, I reread the trilogy about three or four years ago. It's the most recent. Yeah, it was, it was like the Holy Grail of science fiction fantasy fans.

There was just nothing like it, but now there's so much Lord of the Rings. That I feel like I'm completely inundated with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. I actually have a dampened enthusiasm for them because of. All the hullabaloo and merch and nonsense and spinoffs. I've never, have you ever watched the extended versions of the movie?

Yes, I've watched the extended versions of the movies and I understand why the regular version was [00:35:00] made. because I think the extended versions in places drags on too long in scenes. And so I'm looking at it going, yeah, I get why this was edited out or edited down because it's too long. Yeah, you delve into some issues where Galadriel is giving, every the, what's his name?

The hobbits each their little gift that she gave them. And I'm like, I don't care. It's it's dragged out too long and so on. So in my mind, I don't, in my mind, I don't like the extended cuts. I think the extended cuts are, they're too long and laborious and in places. What it reminds me of is, when you have DVDs or laser discs or anything with deleted scenes of movies and you get to see them for the most part.

All those deleted scenes you go, Oh yeah, I see why they didn't keep that in. Huh. Totally. Yeah. And sometimes it's just because while the scene is great, it slows down the story, the rhythm of the storytelling to a degree [00:36:00] that. Yeah. Really harms the movie. And sometimes they're just superfluous and unnecessary scenes that you know.

That the director loved somehow. I think the director loved it. And couldn't figure out how to make it work. And now, Oh, I'll put it back in the extended cut. And, it's also a marketing ploy to, sell the movie again in some respects, but. Yeah. And then there's those, there's the whole Zack Snyder issue of, completely, yeah.

Making a longer, bigger version of it. And it, he goes over the top. It's not like he's adding, sometimes it's almost a different movie. I think when Zach's, I don't know, yeah. I'm told by people, the justice league, When it was released in theaters it wasn't greeted with open arms.

People had mixed reviews of the movie. And people tell me, cause I still haven't watched the director's [00:37:00] cut of it, but that the director's cut, which is much longer, just makes a lot more sense. It is a far better movie. I haven't seen it.

So in the annals of, jumping around I'll ask you, I'll tell you what I like, but I'll ask you, what would you like to be shot as a film? That's a novel or an idea. We talked obviously about Hail Mary, becoming, but I wanted to bring up a book by Dan Simmons called Hyperion.

Oh, my gosh I would love to see a Hyperion, film or, limited series. I think it it's a book that still resonates for me in my, science fiction kind of novel kind of thing. Can you give us a, a little. Thumbnail sketch of the premise. Yeah, it does. The story essentially weaves interlocking tales of a group of travelers.[00:38:00] 

They're on a pilgrimage to a thing called the time tombs on a planet called Hyperion. They're being sent by the government and there's a church group. So there's this Crazy kind of thing called the, I call it the shriek, shrike. I don't, I'm not quite sure that right pronunciation which is like this creature that, that comes and there's a little bit of, it's really a.

What is this? What's the old story of the on the road story to the it's like a pilgrimage and it's told from each perspective of each person on this pilgrimage. They're going, somebody got very much like the Canterbury tales. Yeah. Like the Canterbury tale is essentially a retelling of the Canterbury tales in a science fiction setting.

And it's a really big story. It's a really big thing. And I Get a little bit why how it could be a difficult to adapt into a film But I think it could be [00:39:00] adapted into a series Very well. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you could too. I think one of the reasons is probably I mean I read it a long time ago, but my recollection is that there's some incredible religious violence.

Yes. That is a thematic an important part of, isn't the Shrike worshiped? Yes. Yes. Yes. It's a whole, there's all Catholic church thing going on. There's a whole there's an old thing with this crucifix this creature thing that they find that can, you can, you could be revived or brought back to life.

It's a complex, like only after you've been impaled or something crazy. Like it's a complex series of novels. There's more than one Hyperion, the fall of Iberian endymion, the rise of endymion. There's a number of stories and these are all from the early nineties into the mid.

Okay. I, you, I, you throw out [00:40:00] Hyperion. I can think of a couple of things I'd like to see. But what about ring world? I would most definitely like to see ring world made. I think ring world is totally possible to make. It's it's a great, all this, there's things about it.

I think that need to be updated technologically, in, in the novel, it was, this was written, I think in the seventies or whatever. Some technological, but that ring world. And the one that you mentioned before R3C Clark and rendezvous with Rama, I think could be Larry Niven who wrote Ringworld was a name known to any science fiction nerd.

When we were, yeah, a very hard science fiction writer and stuff and very I would make that, I don't know who has the rights, who has the film rights to It's a ring world, it was a thematic, not thematically, but visually ripped off by by what's the game?

 Game world halo. What's the halo is if Yeah, because halo's basically [00:41:00] on a ring world right in it. That's exactly right. It's like they're take, they're taking, Larry Nevins creation, which was a creation, a ring world. A giant strip in a, that's in a circle and the inner surface of it, which is, miles wide is livable planet, essentially, right of, it's manufactured, but it's a variation on a, it's a variation on a Dyson sphere.

If you know what a Dyson sphere is, instead of I forget. A Dyson sphere is a technological civilization that would build a structure that would completely surround a star to capture all of its energy. And Ring world is essentially the idea of let's not encapsulate the star in a giant sphere out to the orbit of the earth.

Let's build just this ring, this orbiting ring that is orbiting around the star and also wasn't the ring itself. Turning to create centripetal force that created gravity on [00:42:00] the inside. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yep. It's rotating. This is the kind of stuff that Greg and I nerded out about.

Hey, they're using centripetal force. Yeah. Yeah. And the primary antagonist is a fellow by the name of Louis Wu, who's actually very old. It's I think, it could various people have talked about making it. I think, I don't know that it's ever gone beyond, I don't know if there's any scripts.

I'm sure there are. I'm I'll bet on it, just like to quickly throw out the names of two novels that I think should be adapted. And one is Snow Crash by Neil Gaiman. Not by Neil Gaiman, Neil Stevenson, excuse me. Yeah. And which is a wonderful book. And also very tongue in cheek, hilarious.

And it's really a book that has the metaverse in it. An early depiction of the metaverse. The star of the [00:43:00] book is a guy named HIRO, who is a pizza delivery guy, but he also has created the Metaverse. And then the other book would be neuro answer which I think they're talking about making that into neuro film.

No, they are finally making it. Yes, they are making it. And it's been a long time coming and. After all, isn't Neuromancer the the book which is credited with creating the phrase cyberspace? Yes. Yes, William Gibson. Yeah, William Gibson is who coined that term. That became the whole term for the cyber.

And that's a beautifully written book. William Gibson is really a his command of pros is really interesting and cool. I don't know I, can you think of anything else off the top of your head? There's one other, one other novel that I would love to see. It's a novel called Eon.

I've never read those. Okay. Eon. Let's give you, it's written by Greg bear [00:44:00] and it's about 220 pages. I don't know how many pages it is, but it's from 1985 or so, but anyway, it's about the earth and the NATO Soviet union, United States on the verge of a nuclear war. And then all of a sudden this like asteroid spaceship shows up in the solar system.

Basically come into the earth and they dub the world, the stone. And the Soviets call it the potato. Cause it looks like a potato. And I think the translation in, in, in Russian, works better. But anyway it turns out this. This is a spaceship that is a asteroid that's been turned into a spaceship, but inside of the asteroid it's turns out as people, maybe from the future, but maybe from an alternate future in this from the earth.

Yeah, from the earth. But inside of the spaceship, they [00:45:00] have created a tubular universe. Imagine, think of the the TARDIS, how it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Oh yeah, sure, and Snoopy's doghouse. Yeah, in the seventh chamber of this thing, they've created a technology where they've created another universe, and it's essentially in this tubular form, and it's almost infinite, and they've moved from this little asteroid down this tubular universe they've created, Anyway, it's a complex kind of novel and it the concepts are really high and it's how these earth people what happened after the big nuclear war that happened and how the, they got separated into two groups the Naderites, I think in the Geshels or something, a right and left, right wing yeah, more we're into real, specific things that take place. And the other ones are [00:46:00] more into a religious view of, practical versus technological, I should say. So some of them disdain the tech industry. Technological things that you can do to enhance your brain power and memory and stuff and changes and the other half kind of embrace all of that.

Anyway, it's about that and, but it's mostly this really cool concept of creating a new universe that's outside of our universe. Anyway, it's, and travel. Stay on good reads. that one person has described it as sense of wonder sci fi. Which is interesting. I like that phrase. So I'd love to see that made into a film or a series.

But a lot of visuals going on and and it's a little, it's a little date, not dated because it's really about in the conflict between the United States or [00:47:00] slash NATO and Russia and a threat of a cold war. Since you mentioned that the Russians called the stone, the potato it brings to mind what I will try it out as a closing moment for this episode.

When the Pope visited Florida many years ago somebody printed all of these t shirts that they sold or distributed to all these people who were gonna who were gonna see the Pope, greet him. A sea of an audience of, thousands of people, and they're all wearing these t shirts that said il papa.

The problem with this is that the translation of Il Papa is not the Pope. It's the potato. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Is it? No, the Pope looked out on the sea of people and just saw everybody wearing t shirts saying the potato. Yeah. I'd love that. That would be good. If you had a, like a potato with one of the [00:48:00] Pope hats, on, on the t shirt that can work, potato, Mr.

Potato head with a, Oh, Mr. Potato head with a Pope hat. Now that on a t shirt that could sell at target. Not going to offend anybody. It might offend somebody, but Mr. Potato head with a Pope hat, in the Pope mobile. That's pretty cool. I'm sorry, but that's I like that. I like that. I, I don't know, this may have been, this may be an apocryphal story, but I love it so much.

Excuse me. Pardon me. That's, that. Are we tell, are we saying that's our rumble for the day? I think we should, because this has been about an hour. Yeah, that's a good timing. And I want to say we'll throw it right out there. We were, we're expecting John Stenacy.

We're expecting expecting him on the podcast where we're actually publishing this fact that he's coming on the podcast. Yeah, I know he can't get out of this now because [00:49:00] we've said it. Yes, but he was on the podcast where we discussed Maverick. The Tom Cruise movie, and I thought his analysis of the movie was really quite smart and terrific.

And here's a number of things that he wants to talk about with us. For all mankind is the series on Apple TV and also Lawrence of Arabia and its influence on American cinema. Yes we touched upon that at the beginning, but it's a We did. We've come full circle. We've come full circle and actually, I don't think we were recording that Greg.

No, we were not. Maybe we weren't. I had crowd noises, so it seemed like we were talking about the Lawrence of Arabia. Sorry. There you go. Well done. Might have to work work on our little soundbites. So thanks everybody for listening. If you've made it all the way to [00:50:00] the end send us postcard and we'll send you an original signed photograph of Tom and Craig.

They're available on our website for only 9. 95 a copy. I'm talking an official signed photograph. No, 9. 95. Shipping included. If you actually send us a postcard. Yeah. Easy come, easy go. Yes. And we could probably name at least this episode of the podcast after an area of New York's central park.

The ramble and the ramble is oh, is that where it's like very natural and doesn't, isn't, yes, it's an area of park where there are many trees and paths that go up and down. And it's, there's so many trees that it's dark there. It's like a little maze. It's not quite Mirkwood, but it's it's the ramble.

Yeah it's New York's version of Mirkwood. Yes. Ah, okay. Okay. [00:51:00] Excellent. Thank you, Tom. Thank as always. And we'll hopefully next week or the week after. Sounds good. Okay. We're out of here. Bye bye. You've been listening to Movie Reviews and Serious Nonsense. A podcast with Greg Dyro and Tom Berka.

This podcast is copyright 2024 by King Dyro Productions.