Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Eastside Theatre Guild: 'Runaway'
What happens when you take Tom Selleck, the wild imagination of Michael Crichton, and a near-future world filled with rogue robots? Just a little "Runaway," a sci-fi film that dared to dream mid while delivering a curious mix of action, Gene Simmons of KISS, and futuristic speculation.
What could possibly go wrong when a cop with a fear of heights takes on haywire robots? We dissect Tom Selleck’s portrayal of a tech-challenged hero who’s more comfortable with "Magnum P.I."-style swagger than high-tech gadgetry. There’s plenty to laugh about, from Simmons’ villainous antics to the absurdity of guided missile pistols and robot spiders. Our playful critique digs into the film's peculiar technological predictions, from a domestic bot named Lois to futuristic AR interfaces, all while taking a humorous look at the film's most memorable scenes and thematic quirks.
Our journey through "Runaway" wouldn't be complete without acknowledging its place amidst the sci-fi giants of the 80s. We reflect on the film's potential and how, despite its flaws, it offers a unique take on the genre that stands out against titans like "Terminator" and "Blade Runner." Along the way, we explore the broader cinematic context of the time, with nods to "City Heat" and "The Cotton Club," and discuss Michael Crichton's directorial vision. So, whether you're a nostalgic 80s fan or new to this era, prepare for an engaging and entertaining reflection on a film that continues to intrigue with its ambitious ideas.
I'm going to kill your son with a robot spiders.
Speaker 2:I hate Beth, but it's the best kiss song.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 2:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative.
Speaker 1:All weapons Now Charge the lightning field, so welcome back to Dispatch Ajax. Yep, this is Jake, I'm Skip, that's Skip, and today we are doing another Eastside Theatre Guild Presents. Mostly because we haven't done them often enough, I feel like and we wanted to touch on something that is celebrating its 40th anniversary today, not today, this very moment this year, it was conceived and created within a month. It didn't come out On Guy Fawkes Day, guy Socks. Come out On Guy Fawkes Day, guy Socks Day, actually.
Speaker 2:Guy Fawkes Day, the most important thing happening today.
Speaker 1:December 14th 1984. A day that will live in infamy, it sure will. On that week you did have some films premiering. You had David Lynch's 1984 Dune, which premiered at number two at the box office Behind Beverly Hills Cop coming in its second week. Then you had City Heat the second week of that. I don't even know what City Heat is I do.
Speaker 2:It's a funny story, so that is a cops and robbers film starring Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood. The original title was Kansas City Heat. It takes place in Kansas City during Prohibition.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go. Yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 2:How about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Number four at the box office is 2010,. The year we make contact in its second week Underrated movie. Yeah, but I would say probably not a huge hit. Then we have another infamous flop here the Cotton Club.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, perhaps the beginning of the demise, in a way of francis ford coppola swinging for the fences yeah, I mean yeah after that you got like godfather three and like yeah yeah, we also had a lesser, perhaps, I don't know lesser mid um or perhaps like which one of these is not like the other john carppenter film Starman.
Speaker 2:Also underrated.
Speaker 1:Underrated, but again, not his normal fare A happy alien love story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so nothing to do with the DC character of the same name, even though I always wished it were.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that'd be better or worse. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. But coming in at number seven, opening number seven in its first week, is 1984's runaway. Now, this is a science fiction film written and directed for the screen by michael cridon.
Speaker 2:Yes that, michael cridon who didn't direct very many but did a couple of bangers. He did a few.
Speaker 1:So before this, I would say his big directorial effort that he had would have been Westworld, which was cool and actually had something to say.
Speaker 1:I can't say I've seen Coma, which came out in 78, and then the Great Train Robbery, which I've seen some of, and it's kind of cool. There's a great sequence in the Great Train Robbery starring Sean Connery, where you know, like in every train movie, you have a tunnel coming up and someone has to duck down before they get gets hit, you know, but he has to duck down before he gets hit and it's all like happening for real and he doesn't duck down by that much. If he had slipped, this would have been truly the great train tragedy, as in 1978, we would have lost Sean Connery.
Speaker 2:I mean he would have just come back as Ramirez, right? I mean that would have no, because he would have lost his head. Oh well, fuck. So it would have been a classic Michael Ironside scenario from the quickening then.
Speaker 1:Oh man, hey Johnnyny, we got her the classic michael ironside on her hands. Which limb did he lose?
Speaker 2:you know the tap.
Speaker 1:It's the big one, like it's scanners so then there's looker in 1981, which I don't know. Then he had runaway, obviously, which we're talking about. Then he only had three more films before he decided you know, maybe I should go back to writing things I don't know, maybe write some tiny book about. I don't know dinosaurs in an amusement park or something.
Speaker 2:You mean Recycling Westworld? Yes, but better.
Speaker 1:You know, you don't put robots or dinosaurs in an amusement park. You just don't do it.
Speaker 2:Bad news the robots don't eat the tourists, they just stalk them and kill them apparently.
Speaker 1:Somebody's got to.
Speaker 2:You know what else is underrated? The sequel to Westworld, future World. I have never seen Future World. It's actually not that bad. It's like they explore a different part of the park. That is sort of future space themed. It's got one of the fondness in it. I don't know it's got one of the fondest in it. I don't know it's not Bridget, but you know I'd forgotten that Michael Crichton wrote Twister. Well, and then it was rewritten by, by Joss Whedon.
Speaker 1:I mean what like Punch-Up? Because I mean he's not credited as a writer.
Speaker 2:It was definitely a rewrite, but no, he's not. He's credited, I think, as like.
Speaker 1:He's not credited at all, at least not according to IMDb.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting. No, he very famously came in and rewrote the script at the last minute. I think they brought Whedon in when Spielberg passed it on to Jan de Bont. There was a famous wife swap with movies between Spielberg and Jan de Bont. They swapped projects.
Speaker 1:I mean if it would have come out around the same time.
Speaker 2:That Twister set the whole craziness behind that. That is an episode in and of itself. He almost literally permanently blinded both Helen Hunt and oh, yeah, yeah. Like it was really bad, and he got into a physical fight with one of the cinematographers. Almost the entire production staff walked out of the movie like three quarters of the way through, because he was an abusive asshole.
Speaker 1:It's a miracle that movie even got on the screen A movie that did get on the screen, at least for a little while, is Runaway Again by Michael Crichton, starring Tom Selleck, who had missed out on his chance to be a big time movie star With Indiana Jones, indiana Jones, indiana Smith.
Speaker 2:No, really, that was his name, that was the character's name. Yeah, no, that's bad.
Speaker 1:It is, but he was a huge TV star at the time. Magnum PI was massive. People loved it. So he was trying to branch out and become a movie star. I think three years later, three Men and a Baby came out which is probably like his. Like hey, I did it. I have a number one film.
Speaker 2:Interestingly enough, this movie which stars, I believe, if not her second, one of her first subsequent films after Star Trek II. Kirstie Alley and then Tom Selleck would then go on to play in Three Men and a Baby, directed by Leonard Nimoy.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think there's a little bit of a tangled web you wove there, but there is connective material.
Speaker 2:Star Trek II. In the opening credits says introducing Kirstie Alley. This movie comes out a year later.
Speaker 1:Comes out two years later and she would have been in Champions and Blind Date in between there.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I forgot about Blind Date with John Larroquette and Bruce Willis.
Speaker 1:Uh, no, no, this is Joseph Bottoms, kirstie Alley and James Daughton. This is a slasher horror, a sci-fi slasher. John Ratcliffe glows blind, but doctors can't find anything wrong with his eyes. They fit him with an experimental device that lets him see with computer interfaces. His path converges with a taxi driver who performs fatal surgery on women. What, what, what, I don't know. Oh, marina Service is in it.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, here we go Another weird tie-in. Oh, reina's Service is in it. Oh okay, here we go Another weird tie-in. No, the movie I'm thinking of is 1987's Blind Date with Bruce Willis and John Larroquette. It also starred Kim Basinger, but not Kirstie Alley. That's why I was confused. I remember scenes from this quite vividly. Well, you're a big Larroquette head, so you know what I was actually going to say. By the way, John Larraket, Star Trek 3. Oh weird I told you it's weird.
Speaker 1:I mean talk about someone you don't think of as a Star Trek person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two of the Klingons in that movie are Christopher Lloyd and John Larraket.
Speaker 1:Were they just like alright, let's see how much we can fuck with these people? Yeah, who else can we put in here as a klingon yeah, and then you see like richard kind running around and what's davis jr doing? Put him in there. The first jewish klingon in space. Get both rip torn and rip taylor.
Speaker 2:All right, they're both klingons I am shocked that rip torn wasn't in at least one Star Trek project.
Speaker 1:That is surprising. That's probably because he was too busy on the set of Beastmaster or something. His crazy eyebrows.
Speaker 2:Apparently he was a drunken nightmare to work with on Beastmaster Color me surprised, refused to take direction. Then he would just go to the bar after wrapping and just get fall down drunk and people would have to go bail him out of jail or like carry him home. Yeah, that's good stuff. He's dead now. Oh wow, how about that? Henry Mancini did the music for Blind Date, the 1987 movie.
Speaker 1:All right, jerry Goldsmith did the music for Runaway, if I remember right, he did Also Star Trek theme.
Speaker 2:It's an interconnected world.
Speaker 1:All right, Jerry Goldsmith did the music for Runaway. If I remember right, he did Also Star Trek theme. It's an interconnected world.
Speaker 2:All right, it's a flat circle.
Speaker 1:Cynthia Rhodes. I don't think had anything to do with Star Trek.
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 1:She was big. I don't know if she was big, but she was in Dirty Dancing and Flashdance.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:Staying Alive, so pretty much 80s dance movies she was in.
Speaker 2:She was also in bg's the woman in you music video as woman. Do you know she was married to richard marx no, from 89 to 2014 weird yeah does anybody remember richard marx anymore? Uh? Just barely right here waiting that. Just barely Right here Waiting, that was a big one. Hey, you know I did that. Right here waiting for you. That's Richard Marks. He wrote songs for Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes and then later on wrote Dance With my Father that was recorded by Luther Vandross.
Speaker 1:All right, interesting. Congrats to him, I think. To round out the cast a little bit real quick, stan Shaw is his cop buddy, fine character actor late 70s into the 80s. Gw Bailey is the chief of police from Police Academy, the chief of police. So a little typecast there, what a stretch, huh. And in his feature debut as the villainous Luther is Kiss's own Gene.
Speaker 2:Simmons Gene motherfucking scumbag, simmons.
Speaker 1:And, from what I can tell, he met Michael Crichton's party. It was a swingers party. Michael Crichton's like, hey, you should be in my film. And he's like, oh great, I've always wanted to be in films. And Michael Crichton's like, don't take any acting classes, just be you. And it shows. That's exactly what happened. It was a choice.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing he just stuck his tongue out and he's like you're hired, that's a long tongue, son. So we've now proven without a doubt empirically that all of Gene Simmons' worst work came without Kiss Makeup, and that's saying something. Remember that album where they decided not to wear makeup and became a hair metal band? It was terrible. Was that the one with?
Speaker 1:Beth on it, I became a hair metal band. It was terrible. Was that the one with beth on it? I think it is actually. Yeah, how does that work? I mean, if you have your best song on your worst album?
Speaker 2:we live in a weird fucking world man, I don't, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't get it either, but whatever, anyway, weird. Another great cast member I don't know if we've talked about it yet is, uh, michael paul chan, the Vectrocon security guard.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, what would you say? His claim to fame, his number one role that people think of when they think of Michael Paul Chan.
Speaker 2:Well, for people like you and I, it was probably Data's dad in the Goonies. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Same wavelength there.
Speaker 2:But then I think most people today would remember him as Judge Ping from Arrested Development. Oh, okay, maggie Leiser. He pretended to be pregnant and so he got her the baby pin or whatever and had the bailiff put it together for her as a present. That's what I remember him Apparently. He was in both Batman Forever and Batman and Robin as different characters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't remember him in either of those.
Speaker 2:No well, because I don't remember either of those, for a good reason I do appreciate, though. First of all, he's in Falling Down as Mr Lee, which sounds like I think if you look at a lot of his roles, the names are not. Oh, they're terrible, yeah, but I mean specifically in Falling Down. I feel like that is a very problematic role.
Speaker 1:I think it probably fits for what Falling Down is trying to do.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that movie knows what it's trying to do. To be perfectly honest, I like the idea of the idea of Falling Down.
Speaker 1:It's been a long time since I've seen Falling Down, it's not good.
Speaker 2:His greatest character name of all time is easily in 1993's. Joshua Tree where he plays Jimmy Shoeshine Jimmy Shoeshine Fucking awesome.
Speaker 1:Jimmy Shoeshine and Robert Two-Time they're best buds. In the TV show from 2003, Boomtown, he played Lobo Chan. That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:That is fucking badass. Yeah, he played the fucking Chinese premiere in a movie.
Speaker 1:Oh, God, oh wait, in 1997, double Tap.
Speaker 2:Fung suck. Wow, he was also in the Protector in 1997. I guess he did all right.
Speaker 1:He's apparently in Gremlins the Wild Batch yeah coming out to Max this year, I guess New animated.
Speaker 2:Gremlins show and I'm sure, not a racist role at all.
Speaker 1:He plays the lion, so I think maybe he's an animal.
Speaker 2:He was the owner, or at least the chef, of the Chinese restaurant that Kevin Arnold works at in the Wonder Years during that one summer Sorry, when he's a delivery driver.
Speaker 1:Sure, all right.
Speaker 2:I've seen Wonder Years all the way through like five times.
Speaker 2:Wow I did not know you. Most of that is because I used to watch all of TV in syndication as a kid, during the summer, and so it was always on, and then the rest of it is going back as an adult and going like, oh, I wonder if it still holds up. And some of it does, some of it doesn't, but I do remember that one because there was a whole arc. That's the other thing I remember from. Okay, all right, anyway, oh, he's in Babylon 5.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're never going to get through any of this 25 minutes, and we haven't even mentioned the plot of the film. Do you need to, though? Yes, because it's kind of the only thing this film has. So, again, as a vehicle for Tom Selleck to try to become a movie star, this is a near future, where he plays a cop who specializes in runaway robots. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:They're just a little runaway.
Speaker 1:Just a little runaway. While doing so, he happens upon a plot set into motion by the evil Gene Simmons' Luther, because they've created this special microchip that can program them to do bad things. It turns a regular robot, evil or something or other. So he has to stop him and his dealings, as he's trying to get them all and sell them to the highest bidder, and also stop him from his murderous spree.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't really make a lot of sense only because he's a defense contractor, so like well, technically no, so in the film he works at the laboratory, I guess because you only see him once like actually like doing a job. Every other time he's just skeezy, scummy businessman man?
Speaker 2:is he the sleaziest 80s looking dude villain of all time?
Speaker 1:I mean, he looks like the fucking devil himself but not in like a cool way if he just got a blow job and it's just like I'm so pleased with myself and the job I'm doing I think you're half right.
Speaker 2:I think he looks like the devil if he is staring down a woman on the street imagining getting a blow job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that kind of fits, because he always has like this evil smirk and these smoldering eyes and the slick back. Long black hair. I'm not even long, it's kind of like I don't know, mid 80s, halfway long hair.
Speaker 2:It's a little mulledy, it's uh, with a high hairline. I you're you're being very romantic with those descriptions. Smoldering is a stretch. He looks strung out and like a sleazebag asshole and his hair is essentially like that 80s business mullet with a widow's peak.
Speaker 1:I think he has the hair of any Goomba mafioso circa 1985.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, this dude, this character could have totally been in Goodfellas 100%.
Speaker 1:He would have been the guy like alright, hey, don't trust Luther over there, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he would have been the guy. You see that. Look in his eye.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he beat a kid's head in with a baseball bat For nothing.
Speaker 2:For nothing, except he seems like the guy that he would have been in Goodfellas and he would have talked a bunch of shit and tried to run his own side scam, and then Joe Pesci beat the living bejesus out of him with a lead pipe afterwards, put him in his place, I can see that? What about my money? What about my money?
Speaker 1:He's got to stop the evil Luther from his schemes. And he has his new partner, thompson, played by Cynthia Rhodes, and he has to overcome his fear of heights and his shitty kid.
Speaker 2:and all these robots. All these damn robots, all these robots. This robot that he has at home that cooks and cleans, essentially is a maid robot and slash babysitter.
Speaker 1:Uh, that I guess he fucked yeah so, uh, one thing I kind of want to focus on in this episode. We're going to go through the movie a bit, but I kind of want to point out wow, he was kind of ahead of his time. What crichton was doing and envisioning here was stuff that actually, like, came to be in this. I think it's supposed to be like 1989? 91. 91. Okay, so you know, in the early nineties, this is what the robot world would be like, and some things are actually pretty close. Yeah, pretty good job doing that. Some things are wildly off, like the housekeeper bot, which is a 912 model.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh boy 912 house bot.
Speaker 1:You don't want to do the 910s. Those are a little bit twitchy. No, they'll kill you. They had some lemons in there.
Speaker 2:They're the Ford Pinto of the robot world.
Speaker 1:Let's base it over you. Let's hit this film a little quick.
Speaker 2:Okay, so he's a cop, he's a cop.
Speaker 1:And he's bad, he's okay at his job. That's one thing about this.
Speaker 1:So he's framed for a crime he didn't commit. He's the number one robot runaway squad guy. Right, it's kind of like two maybe three people on the force that do this. And it's not that he was a super engineer or, uh, you know, a programming genius. He was a cop who was just a regular looking beat cop doing his thing. He had an incident where he was up in great heights and he has a fear of heights and vertigo. He ended up letting this guy get away who then murdered a family. Yeah, he couldn't deal with. It says I can't be out on the street anymore, I'm going to put people at risk. Let me do this other thing. Oh, I'll hunt down and stop runaway robots who seem to be malfunctioning.
Speaker 2:Honestly, from like a cop movie perspective, that's not a bad.
Speaker 1:It's not bad. It's not bad, it's just that they didn't hire some guy with an actual technical background. He was a cop who couldn't quite hack it on the street, took some night classes, says oh, I'm okay with this, and then was like, well, I guess I'm the guy, nobody else better than me, so I'll just run this runaway department.
Speaker 2:That's the weird thing. The first thing you see him in, he's deployed to a field in the middle of nowhere. Is this California? I don't know exactly where it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:It's a weird mix of like California, but maybe the Midwest.
Speaker 2:New York, maybe New York or LA Detroit, maybe.
Speaker 1:It could be any of these. I really don't know.
Speaker 2:I guess it's just. It's well, it was filmed in Vancouver, but it was. That fits. Yeah, I'm not really sure where it's supposed to be set, but all the cop cars just say police department and you don't really see a lot of license plates.
Speaker 1:No, it's tough to like nail down.
Speaker 2:Wait, no, you do, hold on. I just saw one. Hold on, let me go. Okay, I'm literally. They're doing the chase scene with the fucking tracker bot.
Speaker 1:Oh right, yeah, yeah, the spider tracker. I'll try to kind of get up to that point here, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you get introduced to his new partner, and then they get a call They've got to go out and do their thing. And so he's like come along like a little box on tread with an arm that picks off caterpillars and stuff on the produce and grinds them up. And so there's just one robot running for its life. All right, it has decided to go rogue.
Speaker 2:It's Johnny Five yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. One, why did they have to get out there so quickly for this robot Right? Two, why did they have to use a helicopter to get out there, although they seem to just get everywhere with helicopters in a way in this film?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true, extremely expensive.
Speaker 1:And three, it's just these farmers. They seem to be just like normal farmer dudes. Yeah, I don't understand why they aren't just stopping their own robot.
Speaker 2:Well, they kept talking about how it went haywire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it went haywire. Because you're like hey, did you get it maintained? Well, I was like yeah, no, I've helped it out. And then one of them says hey, you skedaddle in there, you're the one getting paid for this, like what, to stop your runaway robot that just is not doing its job. Is that that crazy?
Speaker 2:And why is this a job for the police? Why isn't this a geek squad job?
Speaker 1:I wonder if they're generally kind of a geek squad kind of thing, but that's also another thing. It all seems to be more about mechanical things and less about programming. Yeah, they almost never get into programming.
Speaker 2:Which, well, eventually they do. But it is weird that it's Not really. Why do you have cops for this? Why don't you have your own special division? Because when they go back to the police station it's like in the regular bullpen open there might as well be a RoboCop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't understand they're right there, but also I don't know if they're getting the respect of other cops. So like when there's a fire, when one of the machines blows up and there's a fire in their little work area, the chief of police is like ah, fucking assholes. And it's like well, shouldn't you be worried about your policemen? I don't, you don't care, I don't know. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but they get through this thrilling chase of this robot Farmbot. But they get through this thrilling chase of this robot Farmbot. Yeah, the poor little Farmbot who's just like screaming I want to be free, I want to live my life, I've gained sentience and I can't do this job anymore, Father.
Speaker 2:what is my purpose?
Speaker 1:Gets blown up.
Speaker 2:That's all they do. They're gaining sentience, or at least personalities, with self-preservation, I mean, like the first steps of sentience. The solution is always well, let's go detonate it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's got a bad motivator. We got to get rid of that thing.
Speaker 2:Carbon scoring all over this thing.
Speaker 1:So then they're flying back and a woman calls on the phone and he takes this. This is the first indication, I think, where we get partner thompson is a horned up lust ball for him, bizarrely. I mean, yeah, it's tom selleck circa 1985, I get it sure, but all she wants to do is bang him and she gets disappointed right off the bat that he doesn't seem to be available. There's another time later in the film where he invites her out to dinner and he's like hey, yeah, I'd invite my partners out, whether you're a man or a woman. You know, he's actually for a 1985 leading man. He's respectful of his partner, he's not trying to push boundaries too much, he's trying to, like, be a decent guy.
Speaker 1:Now, when he meets Kirstie Alley, oh, it all gets real scummy. Oh man, he gets really scummy. Oh man, he gets really scummy. We'll get to that and, and ideally not too long. But it is odd that he is trying to keep it even keel. This is a workplace environment. You know, I'm gonna treat you like I would anybody else. You know it's. It's nice, you're nice, but she's constantly waiting for the time to bang him and jealous too.
Speaker 2:She's the mirror mirror officer lewis from robocop yeah, because like she's always she all business and she's just like best friends with Murphy and then never tries to hit on him or bang him or anything. But this chick is all overtime selling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what if we just went back to my place and fucked? It's like, well, I think I have my job to do and I got to get up in the morning and she's like, oh and kids, right, when they get back to the station they have a 709. That means people have died via robots.
Speaker 2:Did you say 709?
Speaker 1:709. But I mean, you know same thing. So then they get to the scene, it's this house out in the burbs where there are two bodies of this family, so I'm guessing the mother is one of them. I don't know who this other adult person is. They leave them in the yard for him to come take a look at. When he gets to the scene for whatever reason, Because there's camera crews they also have floodlights on and speakers Speakers that are pointed towards the house as if they have to talk the robot down. What like the robot's going to respond Like oh, this is a hostage negotiation for the baby inside.
Speaker 2:No, literally, they treat it as a hostage negotiation between a haywired Roomba and a kid, a Roomba with an arm only big enough to hold a fucking Magnum 44. Oh man. Which is one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in a movie is this stupid-ass canine-looking robot with with his dumb ass mechanical arm holding a giant gun.
Speaker 1:It's all of these WALL-E-esque box bots with one mechanical arm that can barely do anything.
Speaker 2:I think it's more like chopping malls fucking robots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it totally is. So that's one thing they didn't get right about robots in the future. There's nothing like that. I mean, you have Roomba or something much smaller things that are designed specifically for one particular purpose, but you don't have these all-purpose house bots that take care of everything for you. So he realizes that he's got to go in. This is when you also see the dad, who is a programmer at this company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's been in a cut. It was played by Chris Mulkey. He does a great job. When he finds out that these people are dead, he realizes that somebody's after him and he's like no television, no pictures. No television, no pictures. And he's shaking the camera and running off with his arms flailing like a lunatic.
Speaker 2:Well, what kind of modification did you do to the robot? He goes I didn't make modifications, I don't do that, don't ask, you can't prove that and then runs off screaming essentially what an asshole. Good luck with all that.
Speaker 1:So then he dons his garb, his electromagnetic scatter suit, which is kind of like a chain mail body armor, like you wear if you were going to like swim with sharks.
Speaker 2:Well, it's essentially like a portable Fermi cage, right. I mean, isn't that the prep, the idea behind it? I mean, I mean they don't say it, but I mean that's what they're going for.
Speaker 1:One supposes but it only goes over like his chest. So his legs are viable. His arms, his hands, his head. If you don't close the loop, I don't think it really matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I agree, it's just. I think that's what they were trying to say.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, not Faraday Cage, I meant Faraday Cage, yeah. I think it's supposed to block the EM signals that he might be putting off, even though your brain emits more EM signals than anything else in your body.
Speaker 1:Again, we're playing loose and fast with these rules here. He also tries to get the TV because they're on the EM spectrum and if they tell what he's doing, the robot will hear it and they'll know. So please stop filming, because they're like hey, we want to come in with you and he's like no, like no, no, not at all. So he dons his suit with his little laser blaster, which is the best way to destroy a robot. Obviously he goes in somehow a cameraman with a big old 1980s camera rig on his shoulder oh yeah, pushes past that.
Speaker 1:Cops, just let him go and he's directly on his six here, five feet away from him, and he's directly on his six here five feet away from him and he's like why would any cops let this happen ever?
Speaker 2:That's another thing.
Speaker 1:In this film. One of the interesting things that was actually any type of commentary was it was very much in the vein of a RoboCop, whereas in the near future we see what is happening with news and it's becoming much more sensationalistic, much more nightcrawlerish, and they want blood, they want to see everything, they're ready to scene. They'll decide what's viable and not viable and they're just going to push into whatever action is going on. Thankfully, almost immediately once they get in there, the cameraman decides to take a step to the noisy herd and just gets shot right in the face by this robot.
Speaker 2:Blasted with this giant fucking Clint Eastwood fucking gun.
Speaker 1:It's awesome. So it's like he gets through and he does save the day. He kills the robot, walks out with the baby Yay. Then he and his partner go home to his house, his apartment that he lives in. Of course, that's where we meet his son, bobby, played by Joey Kramer.
Speaker 2:Is this not the kid from Over the Top? And Flight of the Navigator.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Well, he's from Flight of the Navigator, not Over the Top. Oh, over the Top is a different kid.
Speaker 2:Really, oh okay, yeah, all right. Top is a different kid, really. Oh really, yeah, all right. Well, I mean, I know he's in flight of the navigator he is definitely in flight of the navigator.
Speaker 1:I think in this he is god awful oh, he's a whiny little bitch.
Speaker 2:Oh for one. He's dressed like little lord fauntleroy, giant lolly, he's got his fucking.
Speaker 1:You know his, his smoking jacket on. I don't know why he's dressed like this. This kid, he just sucks. He doesn't know how to act. He doesn't even know like he's not directed, he just says lines hey, hey, you're the new partner. Do you like sports? What about this? Hey dad, when you were doing this it was really something I was kind of like freaked out, but I wasn't. No, I ate hot dogs, but I don't know, I'll go brush my teeth. Blah, blah, blah. It's like you have to breathe, you have to enunciate your words, you have to instill them with some power, otherwise you're just saying lines, another thing that Michael Crichton obviously correctly predicted is vaccines cause autism.
Speaker 1:This kid did not get his ADHD medicine before they got home.
Speaker 2:But he does have a helmet that says super BMX on it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's because it's super.
Speaker 2:Because he's a BMX bandit. That's why.
Speaker 1:He wishes. Yeah, this is also when we meet Lois, the Series 12 housekeeper bot.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so we have a Luthor and a Lois. Okay, tell me, that's a coincidence.
Speaker 1:Get the fuck out of here. I can neither confirm nor deny the. You know that's a coincidence. Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2:I can neither confirm nor deny the. Uh, you know, that's exactly what they were going for. The villain's name is luthor.
Speaker 1:Come on his friend cal and his yeah he's gonna.
Speaker 2:You know the chief, his name is perry white.
Speaker 1:And then so lois is again another large robot. Imagine if you took the sexy robot from rocky four or just the robot from rocky four uh, we all know how you really think about it.
Speaker 2:Guys are you telling me that weird male gendered robot that he is the one that's kind of like johnny fine, or herbie it's herbie.
Speaker 1:You condense down into a black box that kind of looks like it's from the death star oh, you're talking about that one, I was thinking about the other one.
Speaker 2:No, no, this one is Rosie from fucking the Jetsons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm saying like you, condense it down into this little black box.
Speaker 2:It's like three and a half foot tall. It looks exactly like my grandmother's old stereo cabinet.
Speaker 1:But with arms and lots of like flashing lights and buttons.
Speaker 2:And it boils pasta in a coffee pot.
Speaker 1:The question is, when Ramsey gets back from a long, hard day destroying robots around town. Once Bobby goes to bed, does he say, lois, it's time. And she's like, oh, which pleasure hole would you like today?
Speaker 2:That RCA video disc slot, the pre-laser disc, one where they looked like giant 3x5 cassettes when you had to flip it over halfway through. Hey could you lube up that 8-track slot for me, lois? I'm low on oil, but Lois is the, I guess.
Speaker 1:Since his wife died a couple years ago, it's a fuckbot. Yeah, I guess it cleans. It takes all of his phone messages. It cooks I mean, we see it cook. At least it boils hot dog water and it boils pasta in a fucking coffee pot on the stove. Well, I mean, if you're really just, you're cooking shitty food for a shitty kid, a shitty kid and a shitty dad who's barely home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was either this or Hungry man Dinners, I guess.
Speaker 1:We're all out of the Nigerian Nightmare's latest Hungry man Dinner.
Speaker 2:My heat slot's not big enough for the Hungry man. I must cook it on the stove.
Speaker 1:If you could get the Barry Sanders version, not the Christian McCoy, it would be much easier for my slots. That is a deep cut. Yes, I remember those too. Him and Lois are just getting to know each other, and then Lois goes home surprisingly quickly. We go into Bobby's room and this is another like ooh, here's tech. That actually did kind of come about. Bobby is under the covers and he is watching a film about dinosaurs. It's called Dinosaurs, not the mama.
Speaker 2:She's not the mama, you see, not. Yet she gets birthed to so many little spiders.
Speaker 1:It kind of looks like a metal version of Sega Saturn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of.
Speaker 1:Kind of like that. But it's got like an early idea of what an iPad would be like and it's, I mean, for what it was in 1984, it's pretty close Little kid having that.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is only a few years before Star Trek, the Next Generation, so like they're already acutely aware of the possibilities like of touch screen interfaces and stuff like that. And that's kind of what they're getting at in a lot of this home stuff. It's just the weird autonomous robots that don't really seem to fit in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, again, it's like this it takes with one hand, gives with the other. Some stuff is really close. Like one thing I didn't point out when they had the killer robot in the home is they sent out a floater, which is a drone that has a camera on it so they can follow along. The robot does shoot that down, but that drone is actually pretty damn close.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's not too far off from a quadcopter or like, yeah, like a modern drone at 100% yeah.
Speaker 1:Also, there are a lot of great technical flourishes in this film. There's not a whole lot to look at. That's really going to wow you. One of the few things it does is the drone shots. That's pretty cool and pretty well done, because you can tell it's an actual drone camera and this is 1984, flying up and going through the house and whatnot.
Speaker 2:That was pretty well done. They barely had steadicams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty cool. In just a little bit longer I'll talk about the actual coolest thing they had in this film. But we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 2:Kirstie Alley in a bra.
Speaker 1:Well then she takes the bra off, huh.
Speaker 2:She's not happy about it, which makes it super weird.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Bobby's like oh yeah, yeah, who is she? What Is she your new partner? Are you going to bang her dead? Is she going to be my mom? I saw she doesn't have a ring. Jesus, what a little creepo. Shut the fuck up, Bobby.
Speaker 2:That's what happens when you let a stereo system.
Speaker 1:raise your child. You get little Lord Fauntleroy, the dinosaur-loving, sports-having asshole Scumbag. He's a little piece of shit. No, this kid is a piece of shit. A podcast that I really enjoy. He's what they call a discussing shit boy. We hate movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So then we figure out what was wrong with this robot. It's got this new chip in it. What's this chip about? It's off-market. Alright, they've made some alterations. Data's emotion chip, apparently, apparently, apparently. It has a monodichromite dense pack, what they call the arson special.
Speaker 2:If you fuck with, it just blows up that's what I call nonsense hey, would you like a little helping of techno babble yeah, right, exactly, of course they just use dumbass cops, not tech guys, not it guys, nope, just uh, just a cop, a blue blood like Tom Selleck.
Speaker 1:But when they find this out, they find out it's not a runaway, it's murder, it's not just a little runaway.
Speaker 1:It's a bit of a white wedding, I think. Then we get like a. I think one of the only other things that this film might be trying to say is they go to a construction site. Obviously there's a robot that's going out of control. Mini floor is up Because it is a both robot and human construction site. Oh yes, there are issues with insurance, where they're not allowed to touch the robot because they can't be insured for that, so they have to call the cops in to do it.
Speaker 2:You know what? That's one of the better parts about the Me Too movement, man, I mean at least they set boundaries.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's around this robot's body cam footage. It is no longer okay to touch the damn robots. There's a sign in the construction Caution. Robots not equipped with human sensors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that when later on he breaks it and it just says robot construction site. Yeah, especially since he goes up to the elevator and it has three options yes, yes, up, down and human speed. Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, so good, that is so good. Love that. And this is also the part where we get his soliloquy, I guess, about what the movie's about. You get the exposition dump, yeah, well, no, this is where she's like, hey, robots, you know, they keep breaking down and what's the deal? And shouldn't this world be better?
Speaker 2:without humans. She's like no. The hero's mission statement yeah.
Speaker 1:Essentially, it's like nothing works right. So if machines are made by people and people aren't perfect, why would machines be perfect? Nothing in this world works, whether it's people, relationships or robots, it's all malfunctioning.
Speaker 2:Nothing ever works it's like a great late stage capitalism comment, but through the lens of late cold war military industrial complex commentary, I mean actually that does have something to say. I mean that's not just like yeah, romance novel bullshit like and and letting that mindset seep into your human personal relationships and how you view the world.
Speaker 1:Well, especially since you have to like interact with robots as if they're people well, sometimes you know they do and they don't, which is always like one of the whole the old star wars problems. Yes, this robot has sentience and I should treat it like a friend, but this robot is nothing and I can destroy it willy nilly. Both have the same amount of consciousness. What, why?
Speaker 2:What that is is the Pluto slash Goofy scenario.
Speaker 1:Hey Bill, we got another Pluto Goofy situation on our hands.
Speaker 2:No, not Pluto Nash, no, hey, goofy situation are in hands. No, not Pluto Nash, no, hey, hey, you get back. No, no, no, they say no, goof Troop is later.
Speaker 1:We got to call backups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have to call it Tom Selleck. I was thinking Troop Beverly Hills, I was thinking F Troop, but that's when Goof Troop got its name. It's more of a G Troop really. It's just references all the way down and that's a rabbit hole you don't need to go down.
Speaker 1:It's a robot turtle at the bottom.
Speaker 2:It sure is. It's a robot spider right there at the bottom.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're coming. They're coming Just a little bit of another future tech that they foresaw Partially in this world. They go to check what was going on in this house that had the killer robot and they have essentially kind of what's a ring camera? It's a ring camera slash answering machine for people coming to your house. Kind of got half of it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean things like that did kind of exist for like half a second Might get them a half credit on that.
Speaker 1:They get a C this is also where we find out that, oh, maybe this guy's the Luther, because he does show up and he turns his head to the camera. It's like it's me. I'm the Acme robot repair guy. I heard you had a bad robot.
Speaker 2:Why would I ever believe anything you said to me? Ever.
Speaker 1:Do you want someone to look at you maybe like the Joker would as if they're thinking of ways to skin you alive?
Speaker 2:No, he's more like an American psycho golem when he looks at people. You're like my routine, precious Whoa. Back off bro. Hey, no, I don't believe you. Can I see some ID?
Speaker 1:There's an ID of Schmeagle, but really there's nothing there. I can't do a good golem but you got the gist.
Speaker 1:We find Luther at the actual tech company where we find out what he's doing, and he's trying to get all of these chips from a couple guys who are kind of smuggling them from the company Because apparently they've developed them Purpose X to then be stolen internally by this guy who I guess also works at the company, but maybe doesn't. It's hard to say, it's really hard to say. And then they're like hey, what are you going to do with these? Well, I'm going to sell them to the mafia or terrorist or foreign agent. I don't know whoever pays the most money, but he's still looking for there's only half the chips and it doesn't have the template for the chips. That's pretty important. That that's pretty important. That's going to come up later, so put a pin in that one.
Speaker 2:Isn't that like stealing the printer plates for Barabans?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, or stealing just the half of the Death Star, like the non-functional half, but not the plans for the Death Star, because you've got to have those plans In each of these scenarios Bothans died Many. Bothans died.
Speaker 2:Died. Yeah, just like in the Rocketeer. They, the Bothans, died Died. Yeah, just like in the Rocketeer. They're like you know. A man died for you. Watch this really cool animated video the Nazis put out.
Speaker 1:Well, a lot of people died in the Rocketeer.
Speaker 2:honestly, Definitely underseen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably like this film you know a whole lot of people have seen he's doing this deal with this other corrupt programmer guy. Oh yeah, where's my money? And he gets his money. Luther disappears and he's like oh, I got scammed. This isn't all real money. And that's when the robot spider comes out to jump on him, stick a needle that injects acid into his veins and then blows up, lighting him on fire.
Speaker 2:What a very specific application for this thing, I know, but I mean, while whistling the Star-Spangled Banner as it blows up Like what the fuck is this thing?
Speaker 1:This is one of the more memorable things from this film. This is also what they put on the movie posters and whatnot. Are these robot spiders?
Speaker 2:Which is weird Because they're dumb looking. Oh, they're dumb spiders. Which is weird because they're dumb looking.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're dumb. I mean when I say spider, it's like three metal bars on top of this kind of metal chassis with these little legs.
Speaker 2:I don't think they even have eight legs. I think they just have like six legs. They just kind of like rock back and forth Like a crab. I mean they're supposed to be spiders. I mean that's the idea they're implying that they're supposed to be spiders. I mean that's the idea they're implying that. But they're not even creepy, spider-like, they're just like weird big insects. I mean I think they're creepy. They're not like the spider in Lord of the Rings or no, it's not. It's not. They're little metal dudes.
Speaker 2:They're not even as creepy as the spiders in fucking Raiders of the Lost Ark, they're just kind of like.
Speaker 1:Well, the spiders in Brazen Last Ark. It didn't have a giant needle that spits acid out of it.
Speaker 2:Why I don't have teeth.
Speaker 1:I'd rather deal with little spider teeth than a fucking eight inch spike with acid.
Speaker 2:You've never lived.
Speaker 1:Well, all right, we kind of got the gist of what the deal is. Then we get back to Johnson, the one that ran off like a screaming Muppet, away from the cameras. He has then been found in a hotel hiding out. They come get him. He then sees Luther on the street drinking his black cup of coffee like a creepoid, oh yeah. And then he runs away like a Muppet again, and so Tom Selleck is chasing him. This is where we get probably the coolest bit of this whole film. This is his special gun, which I feel like is the biggest.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm biased because, like, my dad showed me this movie when I was a kid and he was like you'll like this because he's got a gun that shoots around corners, and I was like, oh, that's fucking cool. And so, watching it the whole movie, it's kind of the most interesting part of the movie that is so much more interesting than the killer robot thing that he's got a fucking guided missile pistol. Yeah, how is that not way cooler than anything else that you're trying to do in this movie? It literally will chase you, not just around a corner, it'll chase you for blocks, blocks, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then blow your chest up. Yeah, it has an explosive device, so it blows up crazy. It kind of looks like if you paired a.
Speaker 2:It's a blocky han solo blaster. Yeah, kind of, but like a little little nail gunny in there as well a little, just because it's got a big front end where the the magazine is it's not in the handle but at the along the barrel of the gun right.
Speaker 1:It is big and blocky. A weird thing is that, even though he never uses in the film, in the movie poster tom selick is the one who's holding it oh weird, yeah, he never.
Speaker 2:No, he doesn't use it at all in the movie.
Speaker 1:No, it's definitely a bad guy gun, but because it's so interesting and kind of cool looking, they give it to him in the poster. It is a gun that can move around and it's like shoots little heat seeking projectile missiles at you. Crazy, follow you around. We find out that it is heat seeking and that I don't know, everybody has a different heat signature so it can differentiate between people. But they also use it willy nilly, so sometimes it can be chasing after Tom Selleck but go after somebody else Also. Tom Selleck can apparently outrun this bullet and dodge it. Maybe he's the runaway. Sometimes it, I guess, takes time to activate, but other times it doesn't. So like when he shoots his partner it's point blank and so it doesn't go off, but then he shoots other cops in the hallways later. It works just fine.
Speaker 2:I don't know. No, that part doesn't make any fucking sense when it does finally kill that dude from the house with the robot, with the giant gun, weirdly enough and this is how crazy this gun is so the bullet chases this dude through several alleys, then comes across Tom Selleck's fucking partner, stops, then turns around yeah, and goes back because it doesn't want to kill her that's not the target and then goes and fucking hits that dude as he's getting on a fire escape and blows his back up like it was a fucking bazooka yeah, it's a great little explosion every time it hits somebody.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. And the way that they film it it's kind of really inventive. It's like I'm sure where a lot of their budget went, but it's just like a little camera that flows along along with the actors going through the spots. It feels very innovative, one of the only interesting things going on in this film is an evil.
Speaker 2:Dead bullet, bullet camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a little evil dead bullet camera no, it is a dead eye bullet.
Speaker 2:That's the whole thing so they figure out.
Speaker 1:Okay, we should go to this company. That's where we run into kirstie alley, which is apparently luther's girlfriend, who was trying to get the rest of the chips for him but is trapped by a sentry bot. Actually, the sentry bot is doing its job, keeping her from doing things she shouldn't be doing, like going in the safe and getting the rest of these chips and the plans. What an asshole. This is where Tom Selleck's main character, he, gets fucking creepy because like, oh man, she's hot, I totally fucking rail her. I'm not going to put on my safety armor, oh, it just has a little zaps. I'll be a big, bold guy, I'll impress her and I'll kill this robot.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, they step into a fucking x-ray booth.
Speaker 1:This is before that, oh, okay yeah yeah, because this is when he throws his, his jacket on the robot and and beats it to death. Uh, with it with a chair, and then michael paul chan. This is where you get him. He's like hey, you didn't need to do that. I yeah. He's like what are you doing, dude? This is expensive corporate robot that I need for security.
Speaker 2:And he's like and, by the way, he's completely right. What are you doing, yeah?
Speaker 1:this is your job, dude. It couldn't see you once you put the jacket on. Anyway, you could just like took a battery out or something.
Speaker 2:This is where you think it might be in LA.
Speaker 1:This cop has beaten the bejesus out of this thing for no reason Doesn't make any sense Other than to impress Christy Alley, and it's great that Paul, trying to like, hit on her and she doesn't give him the time of day no, no, in fact, she's annoyed by him the entire time.
Speaker 1:Yeah this is where. So we find out that she has taken these chips and these chips are something important. She tells him where luther is, that he's making this deal in this hotel. So they do the sting operation. They go, catch him. This is where you get your gratuitous mid-80s boobs in a film. Gotta have those. This is where they go to the hotel and he's making the deal.
Speaker 1:So you have the two hookers that are there and one's coming out of the bathroom but just has the towel wrapped around her waist from a shower like no woman's ever done before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unless you're 100% going to hook up with whoever's there.
Speaker 1:Then just don't wear a towel at all, or drape it over your shoulder or just put it in your hair or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, usually just your hair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's either over your breasts and coming down right at your ass line, or you're not wearing it at all. Right, Speak more on that. Yeah, Well.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying no, no, no. I want to hear more. I'd like to hear more Please.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's right you get a bit of cleavage because it's hide you know, with the light knot and sometimes when they bend over, you get some nice ass cleavage.
Speaker 2:Or maybe it might not go.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's short towel, I call it sleevage, but yeah. A little darkness there.
Speaker 2:I'm pretending to be Gene Siemens' character, because I'm listening to you right now and the center of your universe is right where that towel ends and happiness begins.
Speaker 1:So then, gene Simmons then has another drone bot that he just makes eyes at, that releases tear gas.
Speaker 2:Tries to fuck that one too.
Speaker 1:You gotta fuck that drone bot. He then smokes a couple policemen, shoots the partner in the arm and he gets away, but the explosive bullet doesn't detonate in her arm, right. So they're bringing in. It's like hey, you know, we've got to get this out of her. And they're going to bring in this old model that diffuses things. But it's like twitchy, it's Christie Brinkley. He devotes his time and there are robots all around them at all times that do things. But they also robots aren't good at certain jobs and maybe you can't trust a robot because he's like you can't have them do this. That robot sucks, it's gonna. It's gonna explode on her, she's gonna die, she's gonna lose her arm don't love her tits.
Speaker 1:Can't blow her tits off, Sarge.
Speaker 2:Never trust a hoe Indeed.
Speaker 1:So then he decides I gotta do it myself, and this is probably one of the only dramatic scenes in this whole film. Yeah, that's interesting Pull this bullet out without it going off. But he has this x-ray vision that he's trying to remove the bullet with.
Speaker 2:He doesn't literally have x-ray vision. It's essentially like a Star Trek biobed type thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:It's got an x-ray. I mean we're getting into a different movie if he suddenly uses an x-ray vision to look at her fucking arm. She's in a chair and a doctor has her in a bracket, essentially with a view screen on top and you can look into her arm through its x-ray like interface or whatever, and then he's got to take the bullet out. Now he's the world's most handsome cop tech guy surgeon and she even says hey don't you need your glasses for this?
Speaker 1:and he's like uh, they're way downstairs in the car. Do you really want me to get them? Yes, yes, go get your glasses. You specifically need your glasses for this.
Speaker 2:Go get your fucking glasses whenever I see you glasses for this, go get your fucking glasses Whenever I see you soldering robots and their microchips.
Speaker 1:You have your glasses on for a reason. Go get your goddamn glasses Also. So she has an IV. So she's hooked up there because the paramedics have already come but they didn't decide to knock her out or give her any paralytics or maybe any painkillers. No, she's just awake and feeling this whole thing. But it is this bonding moment of he's like saving her life and truly this is the moment when she decides not only do I want to fuck this guy, he's my soulmate and I have to devote everything to him, forever and ever hmm, hmm, this was written by a lonely man, yeah.
Speaker 1:It always reminds me at the end of Speed, where they're like hey, you know, relationships based off sheer trauma don't really last that long and aren't good for you. I was like that's 100% what this is.
Speaker 2:This is not good for either of them. Coming back to Yon DeBond, aren't we?
Speaker 1:I'm a DeBond-file. All of a sudden it's the DeBond-a-sance. Okay, here we go. That's all safe, they patch her up. She's going to be fine. We got to get this Luthor. All right, we need to go back to his girlfriend. What's the deal? Christy Alley, tell us the truth. And he's like okay, you know I have these plans or whatever, and like you probably have bugs on you. She's like I don't have any bugs. And I'm like all right, get in the debugger. And they have. She uh, I believe the female cop gets in the debugger and it's like no bugs detected.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's right and then they put christie alley in the in the debugger and it goes off like first, like her shirt.
Speaker 2:So she has to take his partner does it first and then he gets in, does he Okay. It's like, see, and then she gets in.
Speaker 1:This is like a weird game of strip poker with this machine and she keeps like losing every hand. Yeah, yeah, and it's not a willing participant. No, she's not happy about any of this One, because I guess she likes this movie.
Speaker 2:This is the most exploitative, grossest part of this movie by the way.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes and no. Yes, because it feels like, ooh, christiane's going to have to take up more clothing, so he takes off her jacket, then her shirt and then her bra has to come off. But that's also when we see her back, oh yeah, where she has these horrible scars. You assume that.
Speaker 2:Luther has been beating her, maybe even electrocuting her, to give her these. I don't know that it makes it less like exploitative or misogynist, but no, I think it makes you feel. I think it's supposed to make the male gaze feel better. Yes, there's another dude with a male gaze. That's a piece of shit.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you're supposed to like okay, maybe I'm getting titillated. Oh wait, no, this woman has gone through some shit yeah, and we should feel sympathy for her and they cut that off.
Speaker 2:At that point she then is like allowed to put her clothes back on which is weird, because they then flag something in her, the hem of her skirt, but then they stop and you're like, okay, well, I'm glad you stopped, but I don't really know what you think you're trying to say here, because you were going to make her take that off too. And then, yeah, but you're right, because they see the scar and it's like I guess we're not doing this for the right reasons.
Speaker 1:Well then, don't do it, Don't fucking do it. She says I don't want to put my person there. And they're like okay, that's fine, that's fine, you don't have to put your person there. Which becomes a plot point later on Brilliant idea by the way. So she's like scared that Luther is going to kill her. I guess maybe they're not in love. I don't really understand what their relationship is, their dynamic. She wants to help him, but it's also maybe being forced to help him.
Speaker 2:It's hard to say, yeah, they don't really define it, whether or not it's like a Stockholm Syndrome or she's in on it.
Speaker 1:They don't really give you that ahead of time. It's almost like she's not really a character and isn't given anything.
Speaker 2:No, she's a plot device, 100% Like Vampire Bill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, this is also like before. She's a star, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, she was just introduced like three movies before this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So then they have this car chase where one is like a decoy and the partner's in another car, and they have, like these mini cars that have explosives, that are trying to zoom through the traffic to blow them up and oh, they're not cars, they're just little bots, they're little roombas, they're like they're on the, on the death star. You're like do-do-do, do-do-do, like those little micro-machine robots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're tiny, weird little drone things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like RC things. So they're shaped like they're a rhombus. They're wider on the bottom and then angled upward and then a flat top. Just how I like them, just like your men, but they're on wheels, so they just zoom down or whatever. But they're not shaped like cars or not shaped like anything we would know. They're just like weird little long rhomboid things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're trying to blow up the car that has. Thankfully, their police cars have these laser systems that are trying to track and blow them up. But there's, there seems to be too many. How do they keep finding them? How do they? How they track? How's luther tracking them with these things? Yes, they had a tracker in her purse that luther was using. She takes out the plans, throws the purse away, they get away from the car into another car that has the purse and the little roombas blow that car up and they get away, which comes to nothing because the next scene they're at a restaurant and Luther's just there.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, before we get to that, just a couple of notes on the chasing. Yes, so the cop cars have this weird AR interface in their back windows that is very reminiscent of and this is a deep cut Knight Rider 2000. They have these cool built-in things, these interfaces. But then on top of the cop cars are these stupid fucking. They look like those Google cars that mapped all the streets but a laser. Yeah, it's got a pole with like a laser on it that shoots around and zaps these fucking Roombas. And then also, tom Selleck's a fucking idiot for not figuring out that she had it in her purse the whole time, because he keeps looking at her fucking purse. She's clutching her purse. So I slowed it down.
Speaker 2:There is some interesting things that happened in this chase. Tom Selleck actually goes from one car to another to try and escape Back to the Future 3 thing, where going from one moving car to another as they're going along or whatever. But then that's how he figured it out that they're tracking Kirstie Alley or whatever. So, trying to figure out where this was supposed to be set, I slowed it down and I did a bunch of still frames. Those are all British Columbia plates, all right, but in a few minutes we get to a moment where Gene Simmons looks up his son and on his profile says they're in Chicago. Huh, makes no sense. That's what it said. I don't know who knows where they're at. No, I'm just telling you, that's what I found out. That's what I found out. Now we'll move on to the stupid dinner scene.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sucks. So they've escaped him, but then he's just at the restaurant that they are hiding out at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like sitting there at a dinner and like he's just like across the room staring at them by himself and you're like what the fuck?
Speaker 1:Well, so, Tom Selleck and Christy Elliott. They go to order sushi at an autonomous sushi maker.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:The most racist neon sign ever made. Yeah, it's a. A squinting Japanese sushi chef, a chopping sushi, Real cool Yellow yellow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh God, it's really bad. It's like so fucking offensive that I am shocked that even in the eighties they put that in.
Speaker 1:I think this is also one of those parts where you kind of get what they were doing with this film and this is mid-80s, a little more now, and less futuristic Blade Runner, where it's like Tom Selleck needs to do Harrison Ford's career because he missed out on Indiana Jones. He was like, well, what else was he big for? And it's like Star Wars. I can't do that, but I could do Blade Runner, and I'll be a future cop trying to hunt down robots too. Yeah, this will do really well, right? Not so much, because this reminds me of when Deckard's ordering noodles, you know. This is where we see these tiny little air pod that he has in his ear.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:That Luther patches into, especially when you look back on movies from the 70s, 80s, even in the 90s. Other than like james bond, I can't think of anybody who had that small of a headset that was actually seemed to be functional. Everybody else had like much bigger, bulkier things, and this is like very tiny right in his ear, much more like what we have today.
Speaker 2:So the IFB has been a longtime thing for television, the Secret Service, and it works by having a pack, an actual receiver pack with the long, clear tube and then the ear implant that's been around for a very long time, and then the ear implant that's been around for a very long time, but one that's contained entirely in the earpiece itself. That is new.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:They totally got that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% yeah, because any of the ones that seem to have no cords or anything anywhere. Those always were much bulkier, from what my memory is, growing up watching things.
Speaker 2:And they always had a cord leading to a different device. That was the main thing.
Speaker 1:This is all just like, it's just in the ear, it's all in one Kind of more what we have nowadays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looked like a Beats fucking an older Bluetooth headset. Yeah, pretty good job, that one's spot on Well done well done so, luther patches into it.
Speaker 1:He that one's spot on. Well done so Luther patches into it. He's like I'm here, you know, and let's make a trade. You give me Christy Alley, who has the plans, I'll give you your partner, who I have a gun trained on right now, and so they do make the trade. Christy Alley tears off half of the plans, like as her insurance policy, because once she gets over there he shoots her right in the chest. Pretty horrific, big blowout death as well.
Speaker 2:Right in public in front of a bunch of fucking people.
Speaker 1:For, like stone cold killer, evil bad guys, he's pretty alright. He doesn't give a shit about anything. I don't really understand what his motives are, other than, like I like killing. I can train robots to be evil and I want to make money it's like, uh, david wayans in the last boy scout.
Speaker 2:You know he's pulling gun out on the fucking football field. Wow, really that takes some fucking balls.
Speaker 1:So this is where we kind of get to our big crescendo. Here we find that luther has come in. He's destroyed lois. He beat lois up and kidnapped Bobby and took him to a construction site that we were at earlier and he's like you know, I'll give your son back if you bring the plans. You know, no funny business, just you and me. Of course the heroes got to go do that.
Speaker 2:Has to take the elevators at human speed.
Speaker 1:The elevator goes at human speed.
Speaker 2:The elevator goes at human speed, that's right, that's so good.
Speaker 1:So they make the trade-off there and then Bobby's going down and we see that they're all like a bunch of his robot spiders are waiting for the first person to get off to kill him. Because Luther's like ha, I was always going to kill both of you. I can't have any witnesses, Of course.
Speaker 2:My robo spiders will kill anybody who comes off this elevator. Oh wait, no, no, we missed a whole interesting section here, did we? Yeah, is it inside the police? Yes, you forgot about where he infiltrates the police department. I did, but there wasn't a whole lot there, except for the fact that they all the cops have now decided that there's a hostage crisis. It's like the bathroom and they all have their fucking shotguns and they bring in the fucking runaway unit and he takes over and inside one of the female police officers she goes in there.
Speaker 2:She's going to literally just going to the bathroom, one of the spiders falls from the ceiling and attacks her and tries to kill her. Then a cop comes in to destroy the fucking spider, attacks her and tries to kill her. Then a cop comes in to destroy the fucking spider or whatever, and then what ends up happening is that the woman does end up getting attacked and bitten or whatever, and then the cop gets his legs caught on fire yeah, it stabs her and then blows up and then he gets the secondary and that's when he decides to go to the fucking construction site and everything.
Speaker 2:Because for some reason Gene Simmons' character just walks right in to the police department in a cop outfit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because he had killed another cop earlier and taken the outfit.
Speaker 2:Sure, but I mean like there are no other safeguards, because you know what he looks like, Everybody knows what he looks like, and he just walks in and gets on a computer terminal. That's where he looks up where his son lives, that's how I found out that he lives in chicago and that's when he goes over to his apartment he kills rosie, and then maybe that's why it takes him so long to get home because he he works in la and he's got a like like helicopter back to Chicago.
Speaker 2:He's got to take one of the quadcopters to Chicago. That's why.
Speaker 1:Lois the Robot is always single-parenting. This little bastard Bobby, this little fuck-faced kid. Yeah, fucking, throw him off the top of the building. I don't give a shit. Yeah, we're at the construction scene. He finds something he's done across. Now he's shooting these heat-seeking bullets at him, but of course the main character is able to run away from them and dodge them.
Speaker 2:Run away, run away.
Speaker 1:Unlike anybody else can. Very emasculating, and that's it. And because these are robot elevators, they only have two walls. It's completely open on each side.
Speaker 2:It's terrifying for this guy and I don't blame him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's tough. Now he runs away to try and save his boy. He gets Bobby to try and stop the elevator, but it's not working. I believe that's when his partner comes out of nowhere. She's on the scene and is able to stop Bobby from getting attacked by the robot spiders.
Speaker 1:She picks him up and then puts him up over the structure of the elevator, and then they start climbing scaffolding Right and so the elevator then goes back up, and this is where Ramsey, tom Selleck's character Is then getting up on the elevator and he's going sending him up, up, up, because Luther's in control of the elevator, and then he has spiders up there that he has to fight.
Speaker 2:He's dodging a bunch of welding robots that are just minding their own business. He just has to get out of their way, or whatever Right, and dodge the fucking bullets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's dodging bullets, of course. And then when he's fighting the spiders, they're trying to attack him and he's trying to not lose his shit. You know, while he's up at the top of the building Right, and then he's like climbing on the outside of the thing and the spiders are extending their needles and spitting acid into his face which burns both of his cheeks Fucking crazy, yeah. And then one stabs him in the hand and so he drops and he barely catches himself. He's able to then dispatch the spiders and then he gets back down to where Luther is, who's just waiting on him, and then they battle on the elevator and Ramsey's able to like keep him off guard and he ends up falling off the elevator onto where the spiders are on the ground. And of course, these spiders they're just, you know, simple little acid spiders on the ground. They just go at the first thing that comes to them Doing their thing. They're just doing their thing and Luther shows up. He's like sorry boss, I gotta stab you.
Speaker 2:Oh, what have I wrought?
Speaker 1:He's getting stabbed with acid spikes all over. But, unlike every other part in the film, after they stab you and they kill you, they blow up. This time they don't. They wait for Tom Selleck to get down, they check on him and then he has the last gasp. You know, michael Myers, yeah, I'm gonna get you but it was just like the last shot of adrenaline before his heart stops. Then they walk away. Then the spiders blow up, engulfing his body in flames. And that's when his partner comes and is like God, I've never wanted another human being more than I want you right now. And they just decide to make out. And they make out so hard and long that the film ends. The credits come up and they're still kissing this whole time, throughout all the credits, so hardcore. And God, they have this part where he's like do you want to do dinner? She's like I'll make you whatever you want. I'm oh, can you cook? She's like oh, try me. It's like good Lord lady.
Speaker 2:I want to know what the after credit scene is then.
Speaker 1:I made you cherry pie. You want a slice?
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean not to be in defense of the way they treat certain female characters in this movie, but one interesting thing is that most of her horny activity is her out of uniform. Yes, like 99% of it is her just in a dress doing stuff as a civilian, like it's not in her official capacity as a cop. Now they do do that at the beginning, which is problematic and weird. She's definitely making fuck me eyes constantly oh, absolutely. But most of the stuff that happens between them romantically is her out of uniform and not an official cop capacity. Sometimes that means that she's just offuty, but sometimes that means that she's not even involved in the case and she's sort of outside of the whole thing. At least they do that where they don't imply that she's so fucking horny she can't do her job Right. For the most part it's like okay, I mean, I guess I'd rather have a Lewis from RoboCop as a partner as a cop. Oh yeah, I'd rather have a Lewis from RoboCop as a partner as a cop.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I want her to have agency. It is nice to see it's not complete misogyny that he's pussy hunting after his partner and every woman that he meets. Oh yeah, she's the one who has desire and is going after him. It's just like I'd like her to be more of a person. Oh yeah, Maybe get to meet him and become attracted to him and have a thing that develops, instead of from the get-go. Oh man, I just want to be his housewife bitch, and I want him right now.
Speaker 2:And maybe she has a better bond with his kid or something, something.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Anything, really anything. She's not a character. You're right, she's not a character and she's barely a plot device. In fact, she's kind of. She's a plot device in a couple of places, but not not in a way that like justifies her being there the entire movie. You know what I mean because, like most of the stuff that they do together, they're not partners. She's out of uniform, she's on medical leave because she got the fucking bullet out of her arm, or you know what I mean. Or she's just like on a date or a hostage, and in those scenarios that's the only time that she kind of matters and that's not enough to justify her really existing. I would rather that be the Kirstie Alley character that was like in those positions and then make his partner an actual fucking person that matters because Christy Allie after a certain point disappears and no one gives a shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she gets shot in the chest and it's like oh, yeah, whatever yeah, yeah, and they never address her again, they don't follow up on it. And she had an arc. She was like I fooled you and then like, got them to go to the fucking thing and then I pretended to be on your side and and then we did a trade and now, uh, he betrayed me. Okay, well, at least that's kind of an arc. Yeah, his partner's character there's nothing there, yeah, but at least she's not a cop the whole time. That's the only saving grace for her character.
Speaker 1:I, I guess, sad yeah, which I think kind of that, that middle ground where he gives a shit. It's not that great. That's kind of how most people felt about this film. Yeah, it didn't do very well. It debuted at number seven and maybe it would have gotten more traction as the people rebelling against the coming ai revolution and killer robots attacking, if it hadn't come out a couple months after the film. That was number eight at box office the same week that runaway debuted, which was the Terminator that was coming in just a couple, a hundred thousand dollars less in its eighth week. It's eighth week, right as Runaway did in its opening week, the one with the actual cultural cachet and maybe something to say, both character wise and filmmaking wise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the thing is that, like it's not that this doesn't have anything to say, terminator just had way more dramatic thing to say.
Speaker 1:It also has like distinctly, you can point your finger as to exactly what this is trying to say Absolutely as opposed to this, where it's like, well, it's kind of maybe talking about this. It maybe has a little inkling of that, but it doesn't really have a firm thesis.
Speaker 2:You know what this is. It's a really, really dumbed down cbs procedural blade runner. Yeah, the movie honestly suffers a little bit from being so grounded, because it is pretty grounded. It goes out of its way to not be over the top or like super stylized, which I think normally would be a positive thing. But this movie came out. You're right at the exact wrong time to make that comment, because it's right off of blade runner, right off of terminator, and then you're just making this kind of like ho-hum, domestic commentary about how life might actually be in the future, which I like. I think that's a great thing, but in the shadow of Terminator and Blade Runner.
Speaker 1:What the fuck is this? It's a pale shadow of those.
Speaker 2:Which is not to say that it's that bad. It's really not that bad, I mean it's not good.
Speaker 1:It lacks in a lot of excitement and finesse. Yeah, I feel like maybe even Tom Selleck might have been miscast here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe I mean I. Who else was he going to be, though? I mean who else would have played it. I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Yeah, and I'm not saying that even if someone else was cast, that they could bring a whole lot to this character that doesn't have a whole lot there. I mean, none of these characters really do. For someone who's a prolific writer, his story and script isn't that great here.
Speaker 2:Well, but that's kind of his entire arc as a director and writer, though. I mean like, look at all the work he did, because Westworld, yeah, it's good but it's not great, you know, until you get to. Honestly, I think the remake is the TV shows way better realization of his idea. Jurassic Park is a way better realization of that idea. Sure, you know, I get, I just don't. I think Michael Crichton's not that good. I mean, I don't know the last time you saw Disclosure but Michael Crichton's not that fucking good.
Speaker 1:It's been a while and that's fine.
Speaker 2:I don't know the last time you saw Congo, but he's not that good. No, congo isn't that great but it's also.
Speaker 1:It's not. It's also actively not good no, it's not, but it does have All right. When you don't have a good basis for a film, what you need is an Ernie Hudson chewing some scenery. That's when you need a Tim Curry putting on a funny accent and being wacky.
Speaker 2:I'm with you on that. However, that movie had Ernie Hudson, tim Curry and Bruce Cable and still can't fucking pull it off. But it did have Amy the talking gorilla. Which wasn't a real fucking gorilla.
Speaker 1:Amy, good Podcast bad.
Speaker 2:Also that bad. That was bad, sphere terrible.
Speaker 1:Sphere is bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I read that book. 13th Warrior is cool. It's 13th Warrior, yeah, oh, based on Eaters of the Dead. 13th Warrior, oh, based on Eaters of the Dead. 13th Warrior is okay, except I think it's shot really poorly. I mean it's John McTiernan.
Speaker 1:So it's like, yeah, it should be a little better.
Speaker 2:You did Predator, stop this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's not his strongest work, but he had worse. So there's that.
Speaker 2:Which was worse. I mean, I know he did, but I can't remember off the top of my head what his worst films.
Speaker 1:Vic Terenin. Yeah, I mean, I don't personally like Last Action Hero.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's terrible.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people do, but you know what?
Speaker 2:He hates that movie too, though he did the Rollerball remake. Oh, that is his worst. That is easily his worst. I hated Last Action Hero. I saw that in the theater and hated it. As a child, I hated that movie. I don't hate it. He hated that movie.
Speaker 1:Though I understand what it's trying to do, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:I don't know that they understand what that movie is trying to do. No, I think, if anything, it gets its point across pretty blatantly Like hitting you with a cinder block type thing, sure, but I mean it's also not subtle enough or nuanced enough for that to be a movie that matters or that is enjoyable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, although I feel like that's one of those films that people have come back to it and love it for whatever reason, I think it's maybe one of the better meme films, for sure. If you just take chunks out of it, you know that are just GIFs, little memed bits. Yeah, I think those work, but as a whole, no, I don't really care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, magic ticket. My ass McBain Truly atrocious.
Speaker 1:So this never really amounted to much, even though it has a couple interesting things. Gene simmons went on to have a career in movies, so that's something that happened did he did he do much.
Speaker 2:After that did you do a lot of movies a lot of movies.
Speaker 1:No, some movies, yes, more than that's a career then? Well, I think he had a career in movies.
Speaker 2:He was on the Apprentice.
Speaker 1:Three wins, one nomination For Razzies. I'm guessing 120. Well, a lot of this is Kiss stuff, though.
Speaker 2:Kiss music video. Yeah, that doesn't count for shit.
Speaker 1:Scooby-Doo and Kiss a rock and roll mystery.
Speaker 2:Whoa.
Speaker 1:Extract oh, he's an ugly baddie.
Speaker 2:A couple episodes he was in Extract. Really, I don't even remember that. Yeah, yeah, he was.
Speaker 1:Joe Adler. I don't remember him in that either. He was himself in Be Cool.
Speaker 2:Well, that wasn't cool.
Speaker 1:It was not. Oh, he was Nuke in Trick or Treat. That's a good movie, though I should watch his Miami Vice episodes as Newton Windsor Blade, that is a name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is so. Yep, that is Runaway. So the reason we did this is because we wanted to do a series onside Theater Guild viewings screenings based on rock stars in science fiction movies.
Speaker 1:We need to spend one sentence. Gene Simmons in this film. A rock star, his first film. What say you? Terrible, Terrible, Terrible.
Speaker 2:With a caveat he's terrible as an actor, but for the part he's playing he's kind of the perfect scumbag fucking asshole. Yes, he is memorable in this.
Speaker 1:He has a look and a vibe that does permeate. His acting is Atrocious. Barely acting at all.
Speaker 2:No, he's just kind of being himself. That's the thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but his look is so on point and he's such an evil bastard in this that doesn't seem to really have a purpose other than just being evil and scummy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's more evil when you actually look at the way that military contracts are tied to tech companies and stuff. That would have been a more interesting movie if they had done it more realistically, but now he's just kind of a lecherous scumbag lecherous is the only word I could think that accurately describes him in this movie, leering constantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a murdery way.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of sexual.
Speaker 1:You think he's getting off on it all.
Speaker 2:Well, the way that he treats Christy Alley and the way that he treats for the same reason that you thought his gaze was smoldering is the same reason that I think it's sexually lecherous and it's gross. Yeah that I think it's sexually lecherous and it's gross. Yeah, he may be the most gross villain we've ever talked about in anything we've ever covered in this. So the reason we're doing this is because this is a phenomenon which is going to include some really big hits like David Bowie, mick Jagger, gene Simmons yeah, probably David Bowie again, prince, at some point, people, people will be spoken about. Just people, just people, people magazine. But anyway, that's why we decided to do this as a Because that's what you presented it. Yes, yes, I know.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I'm tired, I'm tired.
Speaker 2:Well then, let's wrap it up. I know that's what I'm trying to do. Well, I was trying to give context and you did, and then you want me to keep going. And then you sat there and I had nothing more to say, and that sums up our podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope that all of you tongue flickers out there enjoyed our Gene Simmons cast. If you guys wouldn't mind kissing everyone you know and let them hear about it through their ear holes as your tongue worms its way through all the face paint so that they can get.
Speaker 2:Kiss army.
Speaker 1:No, thank you for listening to the podcast. Please like, share, subscribe. If you do know anybody who you think might be interested, hey, share it. You know, spread it around like an STI. You know, give them the itch.
Speaker 2:That's a great, great thing to tell people, and also not just to subscribe, which is great. Turn on automatic downloads. That will definitely help our numbers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually any podcast you're interested in and you like, don't stream their stuff, download it. Downloads is what matters, downloads is what counts.
Speaker 2:Absolutely a bigger deal, especially outside of the Apple podcast scope, the Apple Kingdom, as it were, the worst Flash Gordon realm.
Speaker 1:Send them to the Apple.
Speaker 2:Kingdom that sounds more like Adventure Time. The Apple Kingdom oh, that's where Johnny resides.
Speaker 1:Don't cross Johnny.
Speaker 2:That's where the Caramel Warriors live, oh, not the caramel warriors live.
Speaker 1:Oh, not the caramel warriors. Yeah please do all of that. That's really important. If you wouldn't mind giving us five acid-spitting spider robots on your favorite podcast app ideally Apple Podcasts that would be greatly appreciated. That is how we get heard and seen. And again, hey, just thanks for taking some time out. Hear about some movies and stuff from us. We appreciate it, we like you, we love you, we want more of you.
Speaker 2:That's good. So in the meantime, make sure you have pager tapped, make sure you've cleaned up after yourself to some sort of reasonable degree, make sure you're ready to get the fuck out of here and from Dispatch Ajax. We would like to say Godspeed Fair Wizard.
Speaker 1:Goodbye, darling. Sweet dreams.