The Best Nolan Movie... — Intentionally Blank EP. 258

Brandon brings on the lovely Emily Sanderson to give a review of Apple's adaption of Martha Wells "Murderbot". Wow that was a lot of proper nouns. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Emily. Hi. You're so much prettier than Dan.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Oh, thank you. I think.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Dan is on, is it his honeymoon cruise? His like anniversary. Yeah, not honeymoon anniversary. It's a mix of like four different things. But he is away. And so while he's gone, we're gonna chat because we actually watched a show that he hasn't watched. This is true. We watched it.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Has he watched any of it? Has he said anything?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

He did. He said he hadn't seen it when I said, let's talk Murderbot. He's like, I haven't watched it. So we're gonna talk about Murderbot. I've read all the books. She's read all the books. I've read one of the books and watched the show. I do love Martha Wells, but my reading time is so slight that I tend to do a lot of reading, the first of things.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

And so we're gonna talk about the show Murderbot. We'll do non-spoiler first kind of impressions and then we'll talk spoiler and things like that. But if you're you know listening to this one and you're like, oh, Murderbot's not as interesting, me, blah, blah, blah. Next week, Donald is going to make us play the newlywed game.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yes. It's the the not so newlywed, newlywed game.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yes. It is our 20th anniversary this year. And so he's gonna make us play the newlywed game.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

I hope we don't fail.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yeah. So we'll see. You're gonna do better than I will.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Depends on what questions I have.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Yeah. But regardless, Burderbot, what'd you think? I really liked it. Yeah? Yeah. Can you give it a rating out of 10? Out of 10?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

I would probably give it an eight.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

An eight, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah. Okay. Although I'm more complimentary than you are in ratings usually too.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

No, I've I like something I just go all in. Like Do you? Yeah. I give much higher ratings than Dan. Do you give lots of tens? I give lots of tens. Because I view things as an artist where I'm like, could they conceivably have done better? I don't know. But the piece of art feels like the piece of art they were trying to make uh and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

And so And I think my rating goes down a little bit in comparing it to the books, which you know And it's been longer for me since I read them.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, it's been a while for me too. It's a hard adaptation. It's it is very difficult. A really hard one adaptation for those who haven't read the books again, not spoilers, but they are very inside the brain of MurderBot.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Literally interior dialogue or internal dialogue. That's what it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

So the point that basically it's all about his voice and he's funny in a sort of dry, I don't understand. Yeah. It's as if data had homicidal tendencies and even was even worse at understanding humans.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

And wasn't quite as I don't know if Data uses lots of big words and very he's well spoken. Well spoken, yes. Murderbot's not as well spoken. In fact, some of the funniest parts is when he's trying to explain things or be more human and fails, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

So I think I would give it a nine. I think I would give it a nine. And I'm not docking at any points, but I also am comparing it to the books. It's possible that this is a 10 just because is there anything I can imagine that they should have done better? Yeah. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

It's hard because internal dialogue in a book works out much better than voiceover in a movie or a TV show. And I don't know that they could have done something different, but that's one of the things that was harder for me to deal with was and they did a pretty good job with the voiceovers. I just have never liked voiceovers.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah. Voiceovers are hard. Do you like the old Dune? Do you remember the old Dune?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I've never seen the Old Dune.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

You've never seen the Old Dune? Oh. Yeah. That's a movie. Oh, bad movie night? Oh, yes, for sure. Because old Dune is actually good, but it's also bad simultaneously. It exists in this state where that's the perfect thing for bad movie night. Awesome, well made, and just bizarre at the same time. And it's uh Dune, lots of voiceovers. What about Blade Runner? Have you seen Blade Runner?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

A long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

But I don't think I've ever read really bad voiceovers because they made the movie and then the studio execs watched it and said, This doesn't make any sense. It's too artsy. Bad in voiceovers. Explain everything. And then so there's these really bad voiceovers from Harrison Ford where he just is like explaining what's on the screen. Uh-huh. And then I shot the bad guy because I felt this. And yeah. And then Ridley Scott, he he's released like 17 cuts of that movie, but he did release a cut without the voiceovers. It is so much better.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Is it?

SPEAKER_02 4:42

So I like the Murderbot voiceovers, but yeah. Murderbot is a hard adaptation in the same way Pratchett is a hard adaptation in that the voice of the prose is such a selling point that it's hard to imagine the story working without it.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah. And the fact that they managed to do it at all says quite a lot.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah. It like this is such a good version of that. Like, I don't know. When it was first coming out and people are like, MurderBots good, I'm like, it's actually good.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah. I was surprised too.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

And it is actually good. Who's the maker on it? It's Apple. It is Apple. Yeah, it's actually one of the same TV execs that's on Stormlight. So I'm glad that it was good because I watched it and I'm like, oh good. I sold him this. You know. Hopefully. I didn't know which exec I was going to get. You're selling two Apple, but one of the execs on it is one of the execs on Murderbot. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

And that bodes well, I think. That bodes well. Especially because not everyone can do justice to sci fi or fantasy, you know?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Like Apple's very good at it.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

They are. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

What else can we say a non-spoiler?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

What'd you think of the casting? I thought the casting was really good. The casting in the book, that was one thing that was nice. It was nice to see the characters because it was kind of hard to differentiate them as much in the book, even though it did describe what they looked like. But you know, good books are not going to describe the person who's speaking over and over and over again. Right. Sometimes with that many characters you get lost.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Well, and as you were mentioning to me last night as we finished this up, Murderbot doesn't have a concept of gender really. And that influences Murderbot's descriptions. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

And yes, and and in some ways, Murderbot in the books is an unreliable narrator, you know? But yeah, that I liked. I thought the casting was good and I thought they did a really good job. I'm gonna keep comparing book and movie. I don't know if that's actually helpful, but I am curious. Has anyone seen it, Donald?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I have not. This is where I was even this is why I asked. Is this one of those times where you read the book first and then go watch it, or is it worth watching the show and that pitches the book better?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Honestly, I think you could go either way.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

I feel like they wouldn't ruin each other. Some things like reading the book would ruin the movie and watching the movie would ruin the book, but they kind of just enhance each other to some way, I think.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Okay. I would say that as I remember it, this is a really faithful adaptation plot-wise. Yeah. Meaning point by point in the story, it felt like it's the exact story. Murderbot, if you aren't familiar, is a series of novellas, which translate really well to about this 10-episode. They're really short episodes. That's one of the weird things. They the episodes fly by because they are so so short. But it's a novella, and as I remember like the ending and everything, it just it's the exact thing as the novella.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah. Okay. It does leave out some things. And the the whole series has novellas and one novel, and then there's a few short stories that I don't think I've read all the short stories, but I read all of the novellas and the novel and all of that. So it's been a while ago.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

So yeah, the big difference is that voice, right? The plot is going to be the same. And it actually translated really well to a show. It did. It was the sort of plot that works because it's a the novella has a small cast, there's a mystery, there's, you know, some action, but question like what's going on and whatnot. And that just translates really well to a small cast show and whatnot. Their special effects were surprisingly good. Yeah. Oh interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah, I was I was a little bit worried about that because in a book you can do so much with technology and futuristic and all that kind of thing. And and that kind of stuff is expensive in a show, but but they did a good job with it.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah, I kind of worried that it would be hokey, but it's not hokey. Only the parts that are supposed to be hokey are hokey. This is a mild spoiler, but it's not a very big one. Murderbot loves the soap opera.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

This robot who is built to destroy and kill Android, technically. There's this soap opera that's basically Star Trek, but a soap opera. Okay. But it's not Star Trek because of them, it's not science fiction, because it's happening in the present, right? And John Cho is the melodramatic, overacting space captain of the show. And the woman they have playing the android in that, she's really good. Like the guy, I've seen him before, the guy that plays like the snively little the guy with the no, not the button chop jobs guy. Is this Gurethan? What's that? Is it Gurethin? No, no, no, no, no. In the show within a show. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh. He's the one that plays like the my captain, we can't do that guy. I've seen him before, and he's hamming it up so much, and he's perfect in that role.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, very overdramatic. But and theoretically, Murderbot likes many different types of media, but this one is his favorite. And that was one of the things that was interesting because in the show they just basically talked about this one.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

But in the in the books, he has you know he has he can do a million things at once. And so he's you know watching media while he's also doing all kinds of other things.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

So and uh yeah, they use that show a lot because then they could build one set for that show and show clips of the show that is the show that he loves that is so bad.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

And that was fun to have visuals of.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Yeah, and John Cho killed it in that role.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Oh, is he the captain? Oh, perfect. Yeah, that's great. All right, do we go to spoilers?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Let's go ahead and go to spoilers. All right. So I would say that the thing that the show did that is like it's not controversial at all. But it is like to make this work for a television show, they had to fill out the cast's personalities, I felt like a lot more, and spend a lot of time on the people who weren't Murderbot. Yeah. And that's an interesting choice. Like I can't really complain about it because I ended up liking them. Yeah. But as I remember the novella, I couldn't care.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

It's from Murderbot's perspective, and he and he doesn't care about them or I mean he kind of explains things about them in a wow, humans are weird kind of way. But yeah, you don't get as much information about them because it's all from his perspective.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah. So for those who don't know, we'll we'll try to keep even the spoiler section from giving the reveals of things, but so you could totally still watch it. The story is an Android that's built for security and sec unit. Yeah, security unit. They call him sec unit, belongs to an evil corporation, and a almost exaggeratedly evil dystopian corporation in the future. Not almost completely exaggeratedly evil corporation who, you know, build these out of organic parts, but they have no rights, even though they are obviously self-aware. Yeah. And he manages to hack his governor module. Yeah. So they can't control him completely.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So they can't control him. And then he They didn't make as much of it in the show, but he has a mysterious something in his past that he's past. That he's trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

So he gains control of himself and then we jump and he's been refurbished. Yeah. He's had his memories wiped, but he still doesn't have his module. He's still in control of himself. Yeah. And he gets assigned to a bunch to protect a bunch of space hippies.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

A bunch of scientist space hippies who are all like very, very from Preservation Alliance, which is a planet that stays out of the corporation rim or whatever. And you know, and has kind of a utopian society and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

But, you know, because they're a utopian society, they're also broke. So they can't afford a good sec unit and they can't afford very much at all. They go to the corporation, the corporation sells them all the stuff to go onto a planet where they're going to do like surveys and then sell back the information to the corporation.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah, because they're they're scientists of varying types. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

So the bunch of space hippies who like have polycules and you know have like a raw-raw commune are protected by this robot that has like inclinations toward murder. He calls himself Murderbot. He really likes the idea of shooting people, and he thinks they all are completely useless. But he has to be fair, they kind of are. They kind of are just completely useless.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Except for maybe Mensa.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah. They are led by a woman who is less useless than the rest.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

And she was characterized very well in the show, I think.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

She's the one I came out of the show, like actually her and the doctor guy who was against him. Yeah, Garathan. Garathan. Those two, they did a really good job of making interesting characters. So this is the biggest change for me is like they wanted to show all these people and give them storylines. They have their own plot lines and things. And I don't think Sach Unit even cares about that in this in the novella. She's like these.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Some things just get mentioned in passing, but you don't really learn a lot about the humans or what they think or what they want, or you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

It helps. It's partially a problem because all I want to do is hear more of him because he's so funny. But it helps because the story is about him coming to be like, do I protect these hippies? Do I leave these hippies to die? Do I kill these hippies myself? He has three options. And like, what am I gonna do with all these dumb hippies? Is his his thing, us caring about the dumb hippies makes that decision relevant. Yeah. So it's a good choice, but it's a it's the biggest break.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Do you feel like it really adds to the show though? Because I look at Halo, and Halo is a terrible example because it's a terrible show, but they tried the same idea, right? Expand the cast, don't focus on Master Chief. If you expand the cast, you'll have better connections.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Yeah. I think it works here. Okay. It is controversial, but the reason it works is the reason I say there. If the space hippies were too exaggerated and we didn't care about them at all, then we don't care if he just leaves them to die. Right. I would care. There's no conflict. And instead, as we get to know, particularly several of them that they draw pretty well, as the relationships form and whatnot, we feel like we don't want him to murder them all.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Well, and we kind of get to like them as he does against his desires, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

In the first episode or two, I'm like, oh, these people are just too much. Too much. Gotcha. I don't know if I can take these people. And by the end, only really one of them is too much. Yeah. And he's supposed to be too much.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

And I think that's one of the big differences between the show and the books is the other characters, how they are portrayed, how they're drawn. And yeah, it makes sense why they did that. Now I'm curious why it didn't work in Halo, but that would bring up a big can of worms, I know. So I'll ask you later, Donald.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

You can give it the very quick version.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

The very quick version is when your your video game is about a silent protagonist, kind of, who is all about the cheesy one-liner, right? He's supposed to be the character insert of we are the big, cool, strong man. He's not silent, but what he does say are one-liners. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

I love Master Chief's one-liners.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

I need a weapon. Yeah. When you take that and decide, let's make an entire show where Master Chief is, quote unquote, this deeply complex kid war machine that is so emotionally turmoiled, and then surround him with all these rebels that are trying to help him understand what it means to be human. It just does not work. It's not Halo. They just didn't make Halo. They also didn't even bring up the Halo rings until like last episode, maybe the second to last episode. The last episode. They just show it. They do nothing. I have so many problems. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

But apparently you're not the only one, Donald.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

No, I am not. One day we'll get a good Halo adaptation.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

So we don't find out, and I don't even know, like, because they did the first novella so well. We don't know about the mysterious thing in his past. You do because you've read them, I assume. I assume they dig into it. But I expected this show to go further in that, and they didn't. They just kept in the novella, which is like, there's a mysterious thing in his past. Yeah. He might have murdered some people. He might have not. He's like, I don't know if I murdered anybody. Yeah. We can't know for certain. I have memories of murdering people, but they could have been implanted, or maybe I'm remembering it wrong. They're very vague.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Well, and the whole thing is is he really culpable if he was forced to, you know?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Was he forced to?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

What and the whole, I mean, there's a lot of stuff about the big thing is are the sec units people and the hippies think they are.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

And everyone else in the corporation is like, no, it's a piece of machinery. Why would you care?

SPEAKER_02 17:55

But they're too forceful about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Because, right, like that's part of it as well. Yeah. They are pretty over the top evil. They are over-the-top evil for sure. Gotcha. So, yeah, what else can we say? There are ten episodes, correct? Yes. Best episode. Best episode. The thing is, they blend straight into each other. Yeah. Okay. It's like there's one episode that's kind of set up, and there's one episode at the end that's very out of place with the rest of them. And that's where actual emotion happens and character climaxes come about. It is the strongest episode from just a sidelines looking in. Yeah. But it's the most unusual episode. It doesn't fit the rest of the format. And so it's hard to call it the best episode when this is the one that's not about him making funny comments and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

I'm trying to think if there's a particularly good, even if it's just a section of him making funny comments. Yeah. I think it's hard for me to even remember one different from the other.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

The middle end where they go in to explore the what happened to these other scientists. Yeah. And he gets in fights, and Mensa comes in, and then it ends with him getting back and Leboo Boo or whatever her name is and the the end of the B. Okay. The end with that. That's probably my favorite little sequence.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

I would probably agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

But gotcha. If they named a character Le Boo-Boo, that would have been a good thing. No, they named her La Bebbi, though. That's that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

That's a joke through the whole thing because Well, for the part that she's in. I don't know. Some of the stuff with the the creatures was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah. There you go. It sounds like that's the Murderbot review.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Yeah, it's the Murderbot review.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

What else have you guys been watching?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

We don't watch things very often. Yeah, we were so busy. So we watched Murderbot. What was the last thing we watched before that? Before that?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

We watched with the kids. We watched, was it Pacific Rim? No. We watched Pacific Rim with the kids. Yeah, with the kids. We watched and we watched something else with the kids. We wanted to show them. Oh, it was not Inception. It was um Interstellar.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Interstellar.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Let's talk Interstellar.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

That one was that one was fun to watch with the kids.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Had you seen Interstellar before?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah, I'd seen it before, but it's I don't remember stories as well as you do. So, you know, it was almost like I'd never seen it.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Yeah, so it's interesting. The first Nolan we show to our kids is not Batman. Yeah, it's Interstellar. That's a Interstellar. Diving right into that.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Was it Joel that wanted to watch that, or did you suggest Dallin?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Because both of them are like fascinated by science and specifically astrophysics and whatnot. This was the Joel really wanted to watch that.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah, I was just curious how it came on their radar. They must have seen something about it online or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Well, I've talked to them about it because you don't get very many hard science fiction shows that come out. Yeah. And Donald, do you think this is hard science fiction?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Interstellar? Yeah. I think it is yes, technically. It is very null in hard science fiction, right? Where you can you could say the same thing theoretically about Inception, where it's it's hard sci-fi. No, so Inception's not hard sci-fi because they have to make up all the science. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

But it's the nolen sci-fi.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

That's where I'm going with this.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

So I would say it is hard science fiction. Okay. But then as soon as they get in the black hole, yeah. It just it's all out the window. And that's where I think the people who love hard science fiction be like, this is where it stops being hard science fiction and it bugs me. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

But yeah. What's your definition of hard science fiction? Does the science have to be probable?

SPEAKER_02 21:43

So hard science fiction is the science fiction genre where people try to use real world science as best as it's understood right now to explain things. So for instance, Star Trek is not hard science fiction. Right. Star Trek is not the furthest, but it's pretty far away. Yeah. They don't use our tacky on this. The expanse is generally considered much harder science fiction. The expanse, there's no faster than light. You know, to get gravity, it's when you're slowing down or speeding up.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

But they can in hard science fiction, they can still do things that we can't do with science. But it's like it could probably happen with our scientific laws or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

As we understand science right now, this is how it is. And I think you can get a wormhole into hard science fiction. I think it counts. But a wormhole is pushing it for true hard science fiction, right? Like the the hard science fiction that people often hold up are Arthur C. Clark, where it's like, he did the math, and this is how you put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, and they do it in the book. Yeah. There were no satellites yet.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

And then we went.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

And we did it. Yeah. That's why we're like, where are flying cars? Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

There are no flying cars in hard science fiction books, usually. Like Red Mars is one of the more famous one from the 90s, which is just like with our current understanding of science, how could we terraform Mars? And so uh Scar, you're more of a science fiction guy. Would you consider interstellar hard science fiction?

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Okay. That makes sense. With that definition, I do agree. But Inception is not. Inception is completely. Inception is way, way, way off at that point.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

And so, but yeah, it's a hard science fiction that throws it out the window when you pass the event horizon. But that's okay. Our kids really liked it. They did. Really? Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, and a couple of our kids, I was curious if they would even get through it, but they did.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yep. It's odd because people talk about the attention spans of the younger generations. But then they sat through an almost three-hour movie in which the most action you get is two guys in spacesuits who can barely move, half punching each other and stumbling. Right? Yep. Not their usual our boys' usual uh entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Right. I think that I mean that says something about the movie itself, you know, like they made it the story compelling enough and the characters interesting enough that you could know little about that genre or anything, and it still brings you in.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Because this is this is also movie one in the Matt Damon gets trapped on in alien situations and has to try to get home genre, right? Yep. Which I think the trilogy is completing this summer. Is that correct? Wait, what's the what's the new one he's doing? Oh yeah, I guess that Matt Damon trapped and trying to get home from a an alien dangerous situation. The trilogy completes. I'll I'll be happy that he finally maybe gets home. Who knows? I don't know. He might not.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Odysseus does eventually get home.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, yeah. But this is Nolan. Who knows what he's gonna do? That's yeah. Did you see the new trailer? Oh, I did. It looks fantastic. I'm so excited. Yeah. He does a thing that I put into Dragonsteel, the second fantasy novel, like the second epic, second book of the Cosmere. It's not published. Yeah. But there's a point because Dragon Steel is a Bronze Age thing. And in Dragonsteel, the bunch of Bronze Age people run into full knights in armor, in plate armor. And then I put that into Stormlight, the prelude for Stormlight Archive shows people because it won't still be in Dragon Steel. I ported a bunch of stuff from Dragon Steel too. And in the the Odyssey, there's a bunch of guys in full plate armor that the Odysseus and his team run into. And I'm like, oh, they found the Rosharans. Somehow there's a bunch of guys in Shard Plate.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

No, that is a crossover.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yeah. That would be, I mean, Nolan. Well, we gotta ask, Emily, do you have a favorite Nolan film? If you can remember his catalog.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Tell me the list.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Batman, Batman, Batman. Yeah. Yep. Inception.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Inception. Wolverine does magic. What's that one? That one's the prestige.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Oh, with the prestige. I did like the prestige, actually.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yep. Wolverine does magic. Okay. Interstellar. The tenant, everything is backwards and you can't hear it, but it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Oppenheimer.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Memento. Yeah. Dunkirk.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Dunkirk. I haven't seen Memento. I saw Dunkirk.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

It's hard to say because it's they're complicated enough, and the way that I remember stories, I just enjoy it and then so I might have to I might have to remind myself. I actually remember liking Tenet, even though I know people uh have a complicated relationship with that one.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Which is so dumb. Dunkirk.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Dunkirk was was really fun, but we were in Dunkirk when we watched that.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yep. Oh, wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. We watched it at Dunkirk. No, wait, how did that happen? You just we would be there and we had never seen it. And we're like, oh, we're here for two days. Let's watch Darkest Hour in Dunkirk. And so we watched them both.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

And then went to Dunkirk and and you know did the tour. And so that made it really very impactful.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Wow. Okay, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah. Huh.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

My favorite? Boy. This is one of the hardest questions.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

I mean, Oppenheimer is the best. I think it is the best film, the best narrative structure. But is it my favorite? No. It's not my favorite. I did really like it. It's gonna be a tie between Inception and Hugh Jackman. Prestige. Prestige. Does magic. Um Hugh Jackman and Batman and Batman do magic.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

See, that's one I saw so long ago I don't remember it very well. But I remember enjoying it.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

So I'm very fond of both of those. But yeah, we ought to do it. Because I'll tell you why we're not gonna do it. If we had Dan on and we did a Nolan tier ranking, I would put them all in S. Except for the Dark Knight returns, the Dark Knight Rises. Dark Knight Rises. Which probably only gets like an A or a B. Right. And what's Dan's do you know Dan's opinion? I'd know what Dan's opinion is, but it would be un it would be unfunny because I'd be like, S. Yeah. S. Right. But if you're ranking them against each other like that.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, but do they have to put the thing?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

They're all co-equal in awesomeness except for Dark Knight Rises. And it's still a good movie.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Then maybe you don't do a traditional tier list. You have to go from what is the best Nolan to the worst Nolan.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

All Nolan. I really like the I just I like his style of filmmaking. I really enjoy it. I will admit that Batman Begins, I also think is a little weaker than a lot of his filmography, just because the performances are great and things, but like the villain's plan to vaporize the water is so dumb. But is it not true comic bookie? It is true comic bookie and it is filmed so well. It's just once I saw Dark Knight, I'm like, oh, this could be so much better.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Is that the Batman that we watched together was Dark Knight?

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Like on our second date of the state. Fifth or sixth date.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah, you don't you don't do Dark Knight on the fifth or yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was Dark Knight. So we've actually that's the first no, it's the second movie we saw together. Yes. That's a bold second movie. The first movie we saw together was Pride and Prejudice. Yes. The Mr. Darcy's Nose edition. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Mr. Darcy's Nose because we got to the theater late and the only seats available, because back in the day when you couldn't choose your seats, only seats available were on the front row, and so we joked about that. We were looking up Mr. Darcy's nose the whole time. But I was just impressed that a guy would take me to a Jane Austen movie, you know?

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, second date. And I gave you a copy of my book.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

You did.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Not I gave it.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

You made Isaac give me a copy of that book.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

But you had it on that date or something. Maybe you gave it back or something. No, I didn't give it back. I still have it. You still have it. Okay. You had it or something.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Anyway, there we are. That's our episode. We like Murderbot. We like Interstellar S tier. 10 out of 10. Just like all the others, except for Dark Knight Rises. And we will be back to do the Newlyway game.