Talking Pondo: The Last Starfighter and Night of the Comet

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the film The Last Starfighter to watch and Clif gives Marty Night of the Comet to watch.

Night of the Comet

The Last Starfighter

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Making Pondo and Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where we pick out two movies each week and talk about them in detail. Making Pondo is a podcast where we talk to people we've made films with and we discuss all their experiences on set.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Alright, here we are, Marty. First episode. Yeah, hello. Inaugural episode. Talking Pondo.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Talking Pondo here with uh Marty and Cliff. I'm Marty.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

I'm Cliff. And uh this is the show where we force each other to watch different movies and then we talk about it. And uh I feel like this episode we kind of took it easy on each other to start with. I didn't want to jump into the fire just yet. Yeah. Threw each other a couple of easy softballs. Um so I picked for you Knight of the Comet, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yes. Yeah. And my pick was uh the last Starfighter.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Which is one, I mean both they're two of my favorite movies from the 80s, so that was easy. That was an easy one.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

It is weird because they uh they do uh share several things in common, but you know what the thing that I I and this might happen every every week, you know, I might find some kind of overlapping theme, you know. Oh, I'm I I'm betting it will. Knowing you, I'm betting it will be with the strange things we could pair with each other, but uh both movies have that character who's obsessed with the video game. All right, because Knight of the Comet, she's so irritated that somebody's taken her spot on the Tempest game, the game that I have an obsession with myself. I love that game. So I remember seeing that movie the first time being like, oh yeah, I love that fucking game. But then, of course, the whole plot of The Last Starfighter is he's you know well, and you get the opposite of it in Last Starfighter, which is when can I play that fucking game?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And the answer is never.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, the game that never was.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Oh, I I I I I mean, I think this is at last Starfighter is 84. If I'm yeah, 80 84, so I'm 11. And I and video games are everything at that point, you know. So yeah, I was dying to play that thing. And I was sure it would come out. I mean, they made one for Tron. Yeah. Surely they'd make one for Last Star Fighter. It looked awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Well, it was the great video game crash, is my guess. Varying all those ET cartridges.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

I read that I what I read is that the you know, you know, Atari created those um Star Wars consoles, the the Star Wars arcade games. You remember the the one where you star run and you shot the TIE Fighters? So they were going to do a vector-based graphics game of Last Starfighter, and they were about three-quarters of the way through it, and they just they they just terminated the project and threw it away. Terrible. Yeah, that's a great that's that's a loss, America. You you lost out there. We lost out.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Well, the thing that I noticed right before we got on that I wasn't sure, and of course, obviously, most of the audience listening, this doesn't necessarily pertain to them, but uh I didn't know until just now because I don't know a whole bunch of Trek stuff, but Robert Beltran is a Star Trek Voyager guy. Yeah, he's uh Chicote, I think, is his name. I think he's been at a con that I went to before. Oh man. I think he was at Phoenix one year. I could be wrong, but I mean if he's Star Trek Voyager, then that gives the chance of him showing up at a convention even more. Uh we're hoping since Night of the Comets hitting one of its anniversaries next year is gonna be turn uh 39, right? Because it's like 95 that we were wondering, well, who from the cast could possibly show up at a convention? And we were thinking, oh yeah, that's and I thought, oh yeah, possibility, but I didn't know it's like, oh, if you're Star Trek, well, you're born to do conventions at that point. So that's half that's half the bonus of being it on Star Trek is and another weird thing that'll come up from time to time is this sort of Kevin Bacon game where people are in other movies with other movies, because just the nature of the discussion. And uh a movie that I've been to enough conventions that I've met like a dozen people from is The Devil's Rejects. And so I'm sitting there watching uh Night of the Comet again for the first time in geez, probably 15 years or so. And I'm realizing, oh, both Jeffrey Lewis and Mary Waranoff are in this, they're both in the Devil's Rejects.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

So well, and Jeffrey Lewis, he did a lot. I mean, he's a character actor from way back. He was in uh he was in uh almost any which way but loose movies with Clint East with the with the orangutan monkey.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

It took me a while to place him in the movie and a couple of scenes in because it had been so long I forgot about the second part of the movie. As a kid, I gravitated to the first like 20 minutes of that movie, and then being like 10, 11, I would always kind of still watch it, but it was on the TV and I'm off doing other shit and stuff, and so it was like I forgot about the the people show up in the helicopter, and so I'm like getting invested like I hadn't seen it before, so that was kind of neat for having forgot the what was gonna happen, and then of course it gets gets to the end, and I'm like, oh, I remember all this now. Well, okay, yeah, but but it took me a minute, took me a hot minute to recognize Jeffrey Lewis as uh one of the scientists or whoever they were.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah. Well, and that that plot line kind of I even remember as a kid thinking, wow, that kind of comes out of nowhere. Like, you know, there's really no you're watching this movie about two girls who have survived some sort of apocalypse, you know, cut comp comet apocalypse, and then suddenly you cut away to some bunker somewhere, and you're like, what is this and what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

You know, yeah, it's like a different movie starts up almost. Yeah, well, they shifted the narrative to another character that's not one of the two girls, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna and then you it becomes obvious they're gonna run these two rails right next to each other and then crash them into each other, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

And it works because it it it needed to do something, and then when you put it in the context of back then, 1985, well, it's like, well, this is actually kind of novel for the time, and I remember it being kind of exciting. Yeah, of course you can look at a 40-year-old movie now and be like, oh yeah, they don't do them like that anymore. But at the time for the the uh low budget movie that it was, yeah, I was like, yeah, I was getting that not so much nostalgia feel, but that movie is, and I can see why you like it so much, because it's a genuine snapshot of the vibe of 1985. I look at that and it's like instant time machine. I remember exactly where I was at the old house, you know, watching it on table. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Well, and I'd I'd I'd say that about Last Starfighter. That one too has the vibe. That one that one has that vibe, it has that '84 vibe. Like, I mean, the the kids in the truck and and going to the lake, and you know, the the the rundown kind of mobile home. And but yeah, you know, and then but yet the futuristic car looking type technology, you know, the 80s was where everything was kind of changing and starting to get futuristic and Walkman's and all this go, oh my god, a Walkman, that's amazing, you know. And uh so it it it feels very, very 80s too. That one um kind of has the same problem in my opinion, where they attack on they they tack on this like story about the beta unit and the assassin, and I don't think you really, really need it. Like I don't you know I I I get it you need to kind of give Katherine Mary Stewart something to do while she's on the planet, right, to help Alex. But and and it really seems like that was the drive for that movie, you know, was to um and maybe we should, you know, maybe we should just start at the beginning because we're kind of jumping into the middle, and maybe anybody who hasn't seen these movies might not understand what we're talking about or the plots of them, so um so yeah, so I'll back up. Uh so The Last Star Fighter, 84, is about a kid uh who lives in a trailer park with his mom and his little brother and um he's try he's got a girlfriend who also lives there, and he's trying to better himself. He's trying to get in to go to a nice college instead of city college, um, so he can get out of the kind of the town that he's in and get away from the life and be better. And he has a plan with this girl, his girlfriend Maggie, um, to uh do that. So he finds out that's not gonna happen, and uh he goes to play a video game that's in the trailer park that he happens to be pretty good at. And uh he ends up breaking the high score, and the entire trailer park community shows up to watch him break, kind of like you know, I guess what, this last level of Donkey Kong or something, right? Well, yeah, we got a kill screen coming up, kill screen coming up, yeah. Like, yeah, from King Kong, exactly. So, you know, and then he uh uh is kind of depressed because he's like, well, that was the big thing, okay. What you know, I'm still not going to college or whatever. And this strange gentleman shows up and offers him uh, I guess, you know, kind of what suckers him into getting into his car, and then before he knows it, he takes off into space and and he's on his own.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

It's uh little DeLorean-esque before back to the future, I thought.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah, yeah. It's based on a DeLorean. Yeah, that car's based on a DeLorean, yeah. And so Alex is whisked away to uh uh another another uh galaxy where he meets aliens and and realizes that the game that he's playing called Starfighter is uh actually a test to find Starfighter pilots across the galaxy and bring them to fight this war against this against Zur and the Codon Armada, as the as the game says. Um and he gets there and he realizes he's basically been brought and he's like cattle, he's been paid for. He watches the guy that brought him get paid, and he's put into a uniform and sat down and explained that you know he's about to go into battle and it's gonna be victory or death. And uh he demands to go home immediately. Like he's saying, first what? He's like, I'm not a starfighter pilot, I play a video, I played a video game. Um so he goes home and and what he um they dropped off a beta unit, which is uh an android that looks like him to take his place and nobody would know he was gone. Uh the beta unit's been causing him problems with his girlfriend and and around the thing. He so he calls he he finds the beta unit and he calls this guy back to come get the beta unit, while an assassin shows up to try and kill him and shoots the beta unit instead, if I'm not mistaken. And ends up shooting the guy that comes back to get him before they kill him. And uh he agrees to go back to this what last starfighter place, right? And in the meantime, the base where all the starfighters' things has been bombarded and killed by you know that whole plot line with Zur and the Code on Romana. So we're gonna feel like I feel like I'm going on and on and on. But um so that's summarizing, yeah. Yeah, so Centauri, the the uh guy who's been who he's met, is flying him back and he's wounded and and uh dies, you know, when when the thing lands. The kid gets into the suit and uh gets into the and then meets his kind, I guess like his next Merlin, right? Like he gets two Merlins, right? He gets Centauri, his first Merlin, who entered who brings him to the new world, and then he gets Greb.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Uh the the next guy played by Dan O'Hurley. And um, and that guy, and that's his name, right? You know, Greg. Sorry, Grig. Greg, yeah. Grig, yeah. And so that's Daniel Hurlihy, and Grig kind of is like, oh, well, get in the Starfighter, I'll run you through your novice training course, you know, here you go. And teaches him, you know, how to how to the difference between the game and the reality of sitting in the chair of a gun star and all that type of stuff, which is the ship, so that's the name of the ship. And then from there, um what big epic battle basically? Um they defeat the cordon armada, you know, they go out, it's a it's a kind of a back and forth. Um at one point he gives up. Of course, there's the the hero always kind of has that moment of doubt, but he overcomes it, uh, beats it, and then comes back to to Earth to get Maggie, and they go off to live in the galaxy, being him being the last starfighter. And of course, Centauri is revived due to special alien medicine. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

So he does is it's something like I didn't get to rewatch the last half hour of it. So it's like a spin trick, right? Or something that he does at the end.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yeah, it's yeah, that's a good point. I that's a good thing. So Grig, of course, has uh who is the he's the navigator of the gun star. He's also the kind of the engineer and the mechanic. He's got a new It's like top gun. It's a prototype, yeah. It's like a prototype special weapon that only his gun star has. And the reason that his gun star wasn't blown up was because it was being fitted in a different hangar with this with this thing, and so it was wasn't really at the base when the base was blown up. Um and so yeah, it's called Death Blossom, and it basically you know what it the the idea is that it opens up all these panels on the ships, there's tons of missiles uh and some extra lasers, and then as all the enemy gets close, it does a giant spitting maneuver and shoots everything in a uh in a one kind of a one-shot salvo.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Because, you know, watching it again for also this one for the first time in quite a while, and like an old song that you haven't heard for years, it's like, oh yeah, all the beats are still there and it still hits, but that's a whole other conversation altogether. But uh watching it again, uh give me a second here. This is this is the beauty of editing. If I uh lose my plane of thought for a half a second here. Okay, so we were talking about that, that, that. Oh yeah. So this movie came out in 1984. Yeah, and so we had Return of the Jedi the year before. And so I'm watching it now, and I'm sure even as a kid I saw this stuff, and uh it just seems so Star Wars influenced in so many ways, more so than some other movies, like we're gonna pick up the mantle where Return of the Jedi left off, and we're gonna try to do some new sci-fi thing. And there were some ships that I don't ever want to say that one thing influenced another, I'm just saying somebody got there first. Like I was seeing like these oddly triangular, almost Naboo type ships landing, and it's like, oh, we get that later in the spin trick. Remember, spinning's a good trick, and the family's a good trick, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

So it's well, but spinning's a good trick comes years later, though.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they came from it and then it pulls back from it again, or it just seems that way, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Well, and this is this is also early in where with computer generated graphics. So, you know, all almost all of that, well, not almost all that flying stuff, all that space stuff is all computer generated. All those ships are computer generated, and you know, other than Tron and maybe one or two other things, there just hadn't been a lot of that that that looked really good on the big screen. And that actually that one that was very successful. Yeah, I remember seeing that at the theater.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

That was uh and it looked good. And as a kid, I forgave all the because you do as a kid sometimes. You I all the weird subplots you were talking about, like, oh I I enjoyed it, I liked all that stuff. I had the comic adaptation, so I'd read the story over and over, and the the creature with its weird, like look like something out of the cantina bar that's trying to shoot them at the end of the day. Yeah, the hammer the hammerhead looking, yeah, one of the issues, and so that that character always seemed like iconic to the movie for me, you know. This one of those things like they made a toy out of it, I probably would have bought it at age 11 or something. Same.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah. Well, that's and again, not you know, jumping back on that, like that that where was that arcade game? What a what a terrible, what a what a huge marketing miss. I never saw any last Starfighter toys either.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Oh, yeah, it's just there were none. There's too many good movies in 1984. And this one came out, and I remember it having a little bit of an advertising campaign, but it did get swallowed up. Back in the days, you you could wait a couple of months and then go see the movie. True, true, true. We did that, me and my dad, and it was not even at the dollar theaters yet, and it had been playing all summer because that's just how you know you can get around to it, not like now where it's just gone.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

But well, and the film the film system was different. They didn't make as many prints, they didn't make as many prints back then as they do now. You know, and prints would ship around from theater to theater. That's what being something being held over was all about.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

They just held the print over because it was doing so much business and they weren't like, screw you, Suby, making way too much money to let this print go. You know, you're insane.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

So it kind of became like a sleeper hit, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And then I know once it hit Well, once it hit cable, especially, it was very and and I think cable was the reason, like, you know, cable for those type of movies was what DVD was to Kevin Smith and those type of guys, you know, later in the 90s was like this whole new avenue to be able to like market your you could make Last Starfighter and say, well, you know, it's not gonna be Star Wars and have these massive, magnificent effects, and it probably won't do that business, but it'll do well in the theater, and then it'll go to cable and just, you know, and and then of course VHS.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

And then you cut the years later on the Clerks Animated series, and they do a last Starfighter parody where Rambo's good at that video game, right? And they basically get sucked into the real life Temple of Doom. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

That's hilarious. Um, but yeah, it was it like I it's so funny you say you hadn't seen Knight of the Comet in years. I I you know I watched that one once a year, probably, but The Last Starfighter I literally seen it from yeah, I had literally seen it Flicks Brew House on a on a on a one of their specials nights probably a month ago. So I'd I've just seen it on a really big screen. It was like, bam. You know, and the theater was packed. It was packed with people like me, a bunch of nerds in their 40s who wanted to you know re-watch a movie from their childhood. It was really good.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Another bizarre observation I made about The Last Starfighter is you know how with Halloween 3 they were like, we're gonna make an anthology series now. We're gonna have a different story every year, it's not gonna be Michael Myers. Right, right, right. I'm thinking, well, this easily could have been Halloween four. And why do I say this? Because it's directed by Nick Castle, who was Michael Myers, starring Lance Guest from Halloween 2, and Daniel Harley, who was the bad guy in part three. Which is so weird to see the guy from Silver Shamrock under this lizard makeup. But they must have all known each other and wanted to work together again, I'm guessing, and made the sci-fi thing. But I'm like, that could have fit into the anthology. Yeah, that could have been in some multiverse that Last Star Fighter is Halloween four.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Um yeah, overall, I'd say, you know, if we were using a five-star rating system, I'd say that movie is a s probably a solid, for me, a solid four. Oh yeah. I I I I think I think I don't know, maybe the nostalgia is part of it, but I still think it's a movie that a kid might you know that age would watch and really get into. Um and I think it's a solid movie. It's got my it's also got my I mean uh my 80s girlfriend in it with Katherine Mary Stewart, like you know, when you're you watch anything she was in at that age. She was she was like awesome. Um she's in Knight of the Comet, yeah, which is you know, um I love her, she's great. Um but yeah, I mean it I think it holds up. Like I like I said, I saw it on the big screen not long ago, and it was still really good. It it it's it's it drags a bit with the back and forth from Earth to space, like when he re when he demands to go home and and the and the um the you know the beta unit type of thing, but I think it kind of needs that to slow the plot down a little bit, and otherwise it's just uh you know, I hey I beat the video game, I'm going to space to kill everything. Yay, I win.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Well, makes me wonder if it's some sort of subconscious influence on us for uh marijuanos where it's drive to Missy's house, now drive back, now drive back again, because that's kind of what they're doing to kill time, you know. Weird, weird.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah. Um, but I mean, other than that, I'd say it's like a probably a solid four.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

It's definitely one I'd watch over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

I did watch over and over again. Watching both of them again. Uh I don't think there's anything in Knight of the Comet that they wouldn't put in a movie now, but probably for uh Last Starfighter, the kid in his Playboy collection might be. I was kind of holding that one in my back pocket. Yeah. I was like, oh yeah, that's yeah, that's you know, you always watch these older movies and go, yeah, that's a sign of uh Yeah, watching the kid, yeah, watching the kid flip through his porn stack for a certain issue is a little like a lot of time. Where's June? Where's June? out and going, oh diarrhea. And it's like Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Exactly. Make up your mind, kid. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

That was a little that was the one, but you know, that was that was the time also.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

But at the time I thought it was hilarious. Because my my dad had a my dad was a mechanic and then one part of his like he had like a garage with like a uh area for his tools and stuff and he had a topless calendar there and you know he'd be like don't look at that you know cover it when I come out to the garage and stuff. I guess that's why I thought it was funny. I don't know. Well the humor was different then and now we uh yeah look at things differently yeah well things yeah I mean society changes around stuff that's why that's why films are slices of the times that they're in right like if you can watch a movie in the 40s and the 50s it's very different and people are very different.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

60s are different. That's also why I'm in favor of uh that's what art does is it reflects society. Yeah not going back and I mean obviously you're not going to change the original version but you know I'm glad they've never gone back and redone the special effects and last star fight or anything it's it's been left alone. And because and then that way it's actually it's real time capsule that way. You know it's not like a movie that's also from 2023 not to go down the Star Wars rabbit hole that who knows maybe one day we might actually be like yeah I just watch a new hope this week but you know maybe we'll see like that you know that that that movie's that movie's in my blood I'm not sure I need to watch it again.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah I just I I yeah and so it's refreshing to see in both of these movies their original effects I mean Starfighter more so but Night of the Comet now that you know as filmmakers we we break things down on even more minutia now and I'm just looking at that one going yep they just had a few locations a a a a smaller cast uh and it just m it probably made the low budget you know of it doable yeah the trickiest part to me is getting the getting those empty city shots yeah you know once you get that yeah once you get that stuff you know I mean I I imagine that they probably even you know got some permits from the city to maybe shut down a couple streets or block them off for a few hours you know you get that you catch that light at the right time call it a day and then you move to your locations and you start shooting your locations and then you're you're pretty good at that point. To me I would want to I would want to tackle all that stuff first but that's yeah I mean no I mean I was I was about to say that's all second unit stuff but thinking about it it isn't all second unit there's there's actors and that stuff so I would want to capture all that stuff first and get it out of the way and make sure I nabbed it and then you know then go nice to a comfy location and just sit there and shoot shoot shoot.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

And you you've probably noticed it but in one of the very first shots of the city it's where it's supposed to be empty some motherfucker walks into the shop and you can see him and I'm like well maybe he's a zombie yeah that's it I'm just going oh and it's the pain of you know extra wandering in and staring at the camera and remembering all that and just oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Well and part of me makes it makes me wonder like you know was that if if you went to the theater would that have been matted out via the projector you know to where you know because you're getting a little bit more of a yeah you may you may be getting a bit of an overscan on the video right and like when you go to a theater you get that that edge kind of goes away due to the the mat plate so so we're seeing beyond the safety I think maybe just a little bit yeah maybe possibly just a little bit beyond the safety. I could be wrong about that maybe it's just always been there.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

It was interesting because we have that 1080p copy of it right and it's such a soft movie still even with the high def like you could see some of the neon stuff was popping a lot but a lot of it was like is this not just this is just a DVD and it's like no no this is HD but that's just the nature of the uh you could tell they were scraping by kind of to I'm I'm really hoping for a a 2k restore yeah Blu-ray I'm really hoping for one I think it deserves it like a like an arrow you know I'd love to see arrow pick it up yeah and do a really good restore right from the negative and it's like a genuine indie picture for its time right it that thing was not financed by a studio I think somebody picked it up for for distribution you'd think I'd do some research on this stuff but from what I remember I don't remember like an opening logo where I was like oh this is Paramount or something you know uh I can't remember who who the opener was um I know Eberhart writes and directs um yeah it had that scrappy feel to it yeah yeah it really did um oh Atlantic Atlantic so it's uh I think they're Canadian right yeah Atlantic releasing company yeah Atlantic 9000 yeah they only put out a handful of movies from what I can remember I think I could be wrong but I think Cherry 2000 is theirs. I think I bet you I bet you you're right and I'm pretty sure the Garbage Pail Kid movie is theirs also and then I think they became at line alliance Atlantis which is the Canadian distributor for I can't remember the I knew all this stuff at one time back in the 20 year ago DVD era. Yeah knowledge has splintered over this over the time so a quick you know just just cheating a quick Wikipedia search here gives me quite a few films and they they stopped in 86 um but um looking through it here let's see I don't really see a lot that I recognize right off the bat Valley Girl 83 okay there that's where it starts to get wall it's across Texas 82 um okay talk to me 84 yeah alphabet city 84 vamping 84 1984 84 city limits city limits wow so they did 1984 Roger Deacon's first movie as DP and then City Limits and then City Limits I was just talking about cub movies like Kevin Bacon City Limits is one of those movies you can tie almost everybody back to within seven degrees easy oh we'll get into that one much later right on He-Man and She-Ra The Secret of the Sword Teen Wolf um Wow the He-Man Sheera movie with cartooned movies of from TV shows based on toys would actually go to the theaters yeah that's that's about it though man um the fringe dwellers the men's club uh nomads nutcracker the motion picture step king's world of horror and and then stooge mania when then they were out oh I remember stooge mania it's basically a if I recall correctly a bunch of three stooges clips together with people who are like obsessed with the Stooges or something that's probably a pretty hard to get a hold of movie in the case oh no here we go here we go here they did no my apologies they got a little bit more up to 1989 so uh Steel Justice Summer Heat Richville Kids movie Team Wolf 2 Cop with James Woods I remember that yeah um yeah World Apart Summer Story Patty Hearst just a few other things in there out the door's tale is the last thing yeah ace a summer story yeah a summer story from the mid-90s uh 1988 I don't recognize it it's um Pierce Haggard John Galsby's 1916 short story the apple tree oh okay I thought for a second it was one of those Christmas story sequels no no no no no no that's it interesting very interesting the things you'll learn on this podcast folks the things you'll find out that's what you'll get here is us us basically doing a deep dive and tying a bunch of weird stuff together and saying oh look it means nothing but there it is two movies every week random dissection see where it goes I think I think what I loved about Night of the Comet most was um as a kid the idea that all the adults are gone and you know well what are you gonna do you go shopping you go to the video arcade it's probably one of the reasons why I like Dawn of the Dead so much you know it's like oh what a brilliant idea if all the zombies are gone go to the mall you know it's uh it's all there you got a food court you got clothes you got you know different stuff you need right depending on what depending on what mall it is launching it now it seemed so much bleaker having forgotten most of the plot and then when any of the dramatic moments happen where people start to realize just exactly what went down and they start to freak out it's like oh yeah and then they go okay I'm acting like nothing's happening again let's go shopping because I'm in shock kind of yes yeah they killed her oh my god that's so bleak I'm like I guess that is what happened like I forgot you know she's in the trunk and shit and but yeah yeah and then it's like oh no we gotta have our 80s ending where it's like this was just an excuse to wrap it all up you know you gotta go out with a bow here but it was just like damn that was getting kind of dark there for a minute like almost 70s filmmaking both of these movies still kind of have that almost 70s ish more than they have the 90ish touch to it I feel I I I feel like they're both unique.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

You know I I don't I don't see another movie like the last starfighter I ready player one is kind of an a like a oh yeah 2.2.0 well it's it's about a kid who who uses a video game to you know sort of oh I guess that's why you're saying Tron is not only true effects but similar in that respect. Yeah Tron's kind of like that but there aren't a lot of movies like the Last Starfighter um Right in the Comet yeah there are movies like it but it does a thing it does it in its own way in its own thing where it's very singular.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Do you remember a movie called Nightmares from 83 was anthology story because trying to be like these rip-off creep shows I guess and one of them was a story about Emilio Esteves who was obsessed with playing a video game and then he breaks into the mall to play the game to get to that super level that was another weird one. Yes I do remember that holy crap I haven't seen that now I gotta find that one yeah that's that was like the most memorable story in that movie I recall yeah he's never been to that level and I'm he's like I'm gonna get to it you know yeah brings to mind one of the short stories that William Gibson wrote so that's just slightly before last Starfighter and then there's war games but I guess that I guess you could say it's in the genre kind of but not really I mean it's it's yeah I guess it's kind of computers and teenagers and that type of thing yeah computers and teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Computers and teenagers now look where we are stop with all the download see what y'all did um so yeah so we should do the maybe we should also do the uh plot of Night of the Comet.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Oh Night of the Comet uh you do that one okay well it's I I like that it was fairly simple story right you know it doesn't waste any time getting going you know it's and it's a Christmas movie. I want to say that first off you know everybody goes off on Die Hard being Christ and it is you know diehard set on Christmas that's fine there's trees and everything but guess what this movie has guy in Santa's suit it's got Christmas trees multiple references to Christmas I think there's a reference to Christmas in Last Starfighter also if I if I recall somebody says Christmas at one point Lethal Weapon is a Christmas movie. Finding unrelated things but yes it is a Christmas film. So you can pop it on this December 25th for for a little bit of a change of pace. You don't have to watch you know the Charlie Brown thing for the millionth time. So the movie starts off and there's going to be this comet that hasn't been around for so long nobody has any record of it or something like that. Like a like a Haley's comet yeah like a Haley's comet oh yeah so it is kind of a playoff of that because that's true we can add some context here. Around 1986 right that's when Haley's Comet was coming back around and it was kind of a big deal in the news right yeah I don't I don't remember if that's the exact um so maybe this movie is a reflection on it's probably you know we're gonna make a movie no you no you nailed it 1986 it comes back in 2061 so yeah you nailed it so I remember that vividly I never got to see the damn thing because apparently it was too far out and or some shit from where we were at but I remember being at age 12 and starting to get really into uh astronomy and stuff a bit and and being obsessed with that one but yeah that's right now I think about it again it's like we're gonna all gonna watch the comets a big fucking party and shit and Night of the comet comes out in 84 so it's just a couple years before so yeah they're capitalizing on that for sure. Yeah that makes sense huh at the time I'm sure I probably realized that but all these years later that's what happens the old movies the movies still exist but all the context that we don't know the new stories and stuff that's why I said it's funny it's a slice of time that's what very bizarre art reflects art reflects the life around it that's good what's going on that's how it is itself painted into the very fabric of it the comet goes past Earth and basically cremates well everybody's everybody's partying right everybody's like cool it's a comet let's have a comet party this is gonna be awesome and they just turn into little pile of red ash and the clothes are still there and everything and you're just gone but uh they're having they have a discussion about Superman earlier in the movie a couple of the characters about like he he can see through steel which is this projection booth place that we're sealed in but he can't see through lead that's the thing you're thinking but it turns out in this movie the powers of the comet can't go through steel right if you're perfectly encased in steel so that's why they uh wake up the uh two people in the projection booth uh one of which gets dispatched by one of these zombies pretty quickly uh these zombies are like the people who got kind of exposed so they're slowly disintegrating I'm guessing so uh so what happens from there uh she she leaves so yeah so Sam Sam is the main character and she she sleeps with her boyfriend basically in the and her boyfriend's a projectionist in the movie theater that's the steel box yeah rather than go out and watch the comic rather rather than go out and watch the comic because she thinks it's stupid and her her sister doesn't like her stepmother and gets mad at her stepmother at the comet party and then she goes and sleeps she goes and sleeps in the in the steel shed in the back and that's why she's safe which I've never which I always even as a kid I was like steel shed those are not normally aluminum yeah but okay we'll let it we'll let it slide we'll let it slide so so yeah so she so she leaves with him and he gets fucking dispatched pretty quickly by the zombies and she leaves and goes home and as she's driving she's starting to realize that everything's like oh that something's weird and something's wrong and she pulls up yeah and then sister's acting like everything's fine and she's like snap out of it and or whatever yeah and like everybody at the party is like dead they're just piles they're just clothes and piles of s of red sand and she's like they all went home what you know they know big you know I saw her making out with this dude and dad's gonna be so mad it's like dad's dead you know they're all dead you know this is you know she's pouring out the shoe yeah she's like where it's she's like it's Saturday morning where are all the goddamn kids yeah right and that's kind of like the realization and so they go off what are you gonna do? Well you're gonna drive to the radio station because there's voices on the air you know they hear voice yeah so they hear the radios going and they're like there we go and they drive to the radio station and what happens they find out it's a it's just a tape it's like a the classic Star Trek trope where it was just a computer controlling the civil station the whole time yeah so yeah it's just uh but but that's where they meet Robert Beltran.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Mm-hmm who is Hector Hector and I'm like wow she's mildly uh got a little um got a little bit of racism going on there that's that that's that casual 80s racism that would just kind of fly out um but yeah so he he survived because he slept in the cab of his semi he's a semi truck driver and he slept in the back oh yeah so that means all the net roofers are probably alive yeah exactly yeah which is hey there you go or thank god we're saved um and so they all just decide I can't remember oh uh that he decides he has to go to San Diego suddenly is that what happens right yeah because he's got family down there and he wants to check on them right yeah because I remember they split up and then that's when they decide to go shopping oh yeah because what else are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yeah you're gonna go shop and they go so they go to the mall and they're trying stuff on and that's where all the people who are hiding out in that mall a lot at Dawn of the Dead are you know they're all but they're all zombified. Yeah they're all half zombified yeah so they come in and try to off them and that's when well we didn't even mention that at some point the movie cuts to these fucking team of scientists I feel like it's like what is going on we're suddenly over here and they're talking about like basically what are trying to they tried to do they were thought they were sealed off but they weren't that's why they're slowly getting sick because somebody made a dumb mistake and left the fucking grates on so the air could get in and I guess they're trying to make a serum from the healthy blood of survivors so yeah and they've got and they've got two they've got two kids that they're testing basically and using these kids that come out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Yeah these two little kids it's a little boy and a little girl that they're I guess they're drawing their blood and testing them but they're trying to get other subjects and that's when they they show up at this mall and they I guess they've been tracking or founding somehow.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Oh oh that's oh that's because wait but that and there's a there's a big plot kick there that's because the younger sister Kelly Moroni played by Kelly Moroney while she's at the radio station she gets on the radio oh that's right yeah and she starts talking and telling people about it and all that stuff and so uh yeah then they go to the mall meet the zombies get saved so I guess it is a little more natural that way then right because she got on there than they heard that's why she she alerted everybody to where they yeah exactly and then they show up at the nick of time and kill the zombie fight people at the mall that are trying to attack them as they were doing their shopping spree and their submachine gun thing locks up because daddy would have got us oozy's you know or daddy would have got us yeah yeah that's that just reeks of the 80s right there so good it was a perfect value curl moment. And so then it's like they're gonna take them back to the compound because they need right but the movie gives us that little twist where we think one thing is happening but in reality she's not euthanizing. Right. Right. I mean if you're listening to this hopefully you have seen the movie already it's probably a good idea for the show to have watched the movies ahead of time but if you don't care about spoilers it's too late already by now but so she you you think that because uh Kelly Moroni's character has that rash that she talks about she gets when she's anxious that it's like oh you're done for so you're a zombie I'm just gonna save you from you know disintegrating or whatever and I'm gonna shoot you with this stuff and then but it turns out she was keeping her from being harvested for her healthy blood.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Right right right right right which leads to the great breakout and everybody you know right and then Hector shows back up all of a sudden perfect timing with perfect timing shows back up.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Well he gets the book from uh Mary Waranov's character that explains everything because her memory is gone at that point right from right right yes yes and then they uh and then what they do a breakout there's a big shootout with all the rest of the zombies basically and then and then a happy ending yeah basically they blow themselves up in the car of the zombies you know and yeah yeah and then Beltran and uh Catherine Mary Stewart get are obviously gonna get together at the end. It almost looked like some kind of wedding had happened almost yeah yeah well it's like well it's like they immediately assume like a family role right where she's like I'm gonna be the mom to these two kids and you're the husband Hector you know and don't cross the street because we are the we are civilization now and of course she does and this other car just the perfect timing.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

But yeah which Which is which gives which gives Kelly Moroni's character the the happy ending because it's of course it's a it's a brainless good-looking doll that she can ride around with.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

So let's go into the rules of Knight of the Comet a little bit. I don't have a whole lot to mention, but at the end there he's throwing the machine guns into the trash can, right? And doesn't somebody say there's still a few zombies around? Yeah, I think so. Now I was under the impression that they had all disintegrated by now, that they were just gonna break down, but they don't really make it perfectly clear because I figured once everything washed away that it's not like it's walking dead and they're gonna occasionally run into somebody who's still half disintegrated after all this time. I guess I'm thinking into it a little bit much there, but I thought that was because I'm thinking, oh yeah, all the zombies are disintegrated. And they said, There's still some zombies around, you know. And I'm like, what are they hiding in the steel fucking hole? Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Yeah, maybe. I mean it's possible.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

But I'm glad they never made a sequel to that one because it's one of the few movies that was left alone. The nice thing of it kind of falling through the cracks in a way and becoming the cult movie is nobody did a reboot yet, and nobody's uh done a sequel to it.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

It's it's also one of the early the girl power movies. Yes. Like, I mean, the the lead character is a woman who kicks a lot of ass in that film. She she she saves her sister, she she pushes the main male character around. She's not taking any shit off that guy at all. Yeah, and she's she's a very strong female lead, and uh, you know, which is a very different character than she plays in Last Starfighter, where she's kind of a passive kind of girlfriend, where she's very like, what's gonna happen, Ellen? I mean, I gotta stay here with grandma, and you know, she really she's very much a uh I don't know if it's a Marianne or a ginger or whatever the hell, but she just she seems much more trope-like in that movie. But in in Knight of the Comet, she really gets to play the lead, and she plays it really well. You know, she comes off very not tough, but I want to say tough, but I I I worry tough implies some sort of negative connotation to her. She comes off confident, strong and in charge of in knowing what she wants, you know, and that's refreshing. That's early for female characters like that.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

It's a year before Sigorney Weaver and Aliens, which would be kind of that defining tough strong will be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Yeah, well then you get yeah, because and then later on you get Linda Hamilton and Terminator 2. Oh, yeah, and then they step, see it's Cameron stepping it up again. Stepping it up again, yeah. Crazy. But I mean, I I felt like that's that's one of the I think not not to parallel into a different movie, but uh you know, uh my other 80s girlfriend Deborah Foreman, she did my chauffeur. And my chauffeur, she's very much she's not a strong character, but she's very much the lead and she's very much driving the picture. Oh, yeah. And uh in a way that's very different.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Yeah, like a she's like a Bill Murray or something. Yeah, she's the one driving everything. All the other characters have to work off of her.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

And that's that's how I and that's that's kind of how I felt Night of the Comet was a lot of the time. But yeah, there's that wacky st substory about the scientists and stuff, but even that still comes to evolve around Sam and that that character.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

It does make more sense when you reminded me that oh, yeah, she gets on the radio and it because it does seem like they come out of nowhere, but they're supposed to come out of nowhere. So right. That's why that's why it's important to, and uh obviously I've seen these movies so many times, but if if you're gonna write a review or talk about a film after you've seen it, wait about 24 hours after you've seen the movie and then let it really sit in your head because the impression you get when you leave the theater or turn the TV off might be a little different than once it's marinated in your head, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Yeah. No, I in you know, yeah, I mean I I like to make notes as I'm watching the movie, and then I just walk away from it for a while and kind of let it sit. You know, I uh Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a good example of that. I I the first time I watched that, I thought, man, that's a just a mess. That movie is a mess. It's a mess. It's a it's a mess of great scenes and terrible scenes. And then about 48 hours later, I was like, ah you couldn't stop thinking. I think I kind of like that movie. I'm gonna have to watch that again. And I watched it again and I started to see a lot of brilliance in it. You know, probably I you know me, I'm not a huge DiCaprio fan. It's just no, he's just not, he just doesn't do it for me much. But he was fantastic in that where he threatens to kill himself. He looks at himself and threatens to kill himself in the mirror. It's it's freaking anyway, just but you know, and anyway, it I I started to realize that movie's probably his from in my opinion, it's probably one of his best movies. Pulp fiction is his best movie, obviously, but that's top three for him. Really, really a fantastic movie. And it's like you said, it I think if I just rushed out to review it based off my first glance, my first reaction, I'd have been, what a mess! Tarantino's ninth movie is terrant, you know. Uh it isn't, it's just it's it's it's like La La Land, it kind of has to sit with you.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

Yeah, most of your popcorn movies are designed to hit you right away. And then it's actually kind of a bold move for anybody or any studio to make a movie that you it demands you take the time to sit through it a couple times and really think about it. But you see, that's what we used to do back when the two movies today we're talking about were new. You'd kind of live with the movie, like you'd live with an album or something back then. And so you'd run a movie, you'd rent it for what, two or three days, you would watch the thing probably five or six times. Even if you didn't like it, you'd watch it over and over again because there were three channels. This is just what there was. These move the the movie wasn't on cable yet, and so you start to get very familiar with the movie. So back then that kind of logic didn't seem weird, and now it's almost out of place where everything wants to hit you immediately.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Yeah, it has to. Yeah, you will and you know, they that that's the windows, right? You had the you had those windows to look through, right? Where you had, okay, I saw it in theater. Here comes three months later on BHS, I'm gonna watch it again. Oh, it was good, I'm gonna watch it again. Oh, it's good, I'll watch it again. And then three months later it's on cable, and you watch it ten more times because there's nothing else on, and you're and you're sitting there looking for something to watch, and you've seen everything else 50 times, but you haven't seen the only seen this one ten times, so you'll watch this one, you know.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

Cables where we would just watch the same movies over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

And cable saves so many movies. I mean, there are so many just just you know uh small movies that found their home on cable, found found their audience out there, you know. And and you've still got that now. I mean, just with with the amount of streaming that's out. I mean, hell, we found our home, it's Tubi. Yeah, you know, and our next two films we're hoping to get up there as soon as possible. You know, I think that that's great. I love Tubi. I think it's amazing. I think free ad-supported television is the way to go. I'll sit through a couple ads if I can watch, you know, John Wick or some independent film that I've been told about or something like that. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Yeah, it's no different than watching something on TV back when or even now. So what would you score Night of Comet for out of five stars? I I'd probably say it's about the a four, just the same as the the other film, The Last Starfighter, because I mean both of them are not without their, you know, four shortcomings, but they have such moments that you know Yeah, they're they're sort of and they're sort of 80s iconic.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

They're they're very look, I mean, the stories are are derivative, but they're very singular in their execution. You know what I mean? It's like you don't s I don't see another movie like Night of the Comet. I don't see another movie doing that, and I don't see another movie doing what Last Starfighter did, not in that way, other than maybe, like I said, Ready Player One or something. Maybe the story's a bit different.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

Yeah, I really liked Last Starfighter as a kid, so my rating probably would have been higher if you'd asked me when I was like 12 or whatever. Yeah. Same for same for Knight of the Comet as well. And so now it's like, well, if I'm looking through the 2023 and then applying any kind of filmmaker logic to it, you go, well, there's this and this and this, but I still admire the movies a lot, and I'll watch both of them again easily. I'm telling you, that's a good Christmas weird one. Have you ever watched Night of the Comet on Christmas? No, but I'm going to. Yeah, I think that's just kind of perfect. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I think I definitely will do that. I mean, that's brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

He shows up in the Santa suit, and don't they like fight around a Christmas tree and stuff? There's plenty of elements in there.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Wow, how did I not catch all that when I watched it?

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Almost like the freaking Christmas movie.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

And it's all red and everything, like Christmas colors, you know. Well, so Gremlin is Gremlin's Christmas? Gremlin's is Christmas. Oh yeah. It's all set in the snow, and Phoebe Cates tells that story about her dad getting stuck in the chimney, dressed as Santa Claus.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Yeah, yeah. So there you go, folks. You can watch Gremlins, Night of the Comet, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Christmas story. Yeah. And uh, of course, uh Christmas Vacation.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you don't have to watch It's a Wonderful Life again, unless you want to.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

No, don't do that. What's always surprised me is how much of a uh just this may not may or may not make the podcast, but what's always surprised me about holiday movies is how strong of a movie my cousin Vinny is for holidays. Every holiday when I go to visit my family, it's on cable, and it's one of the movies that you can put on nobody complains about. Oh, okay. Nobody complains about it. Everybody finds it funny, everybody likes it. It's the it's just I'm like, wow, really? A Joe Pesci movie? Okay, I guess. You know, it it's sure. Oh, they hit that perfect uh perfect sweet spot, yeah. Well, um what do we pick? Okay, so I guess this is the last part where we surprise each other with what we're picking for next week.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Yeah, I haven't considered. I I think this is good, we'll have to spring it on each other.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

I know. I I had ideas, but I wasn't sure what what I wanted to go with just yet.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Yeah, see, I figured we'd hit we're almost at fifty-five minutes there.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

A few little trims and a few little trims here and there, I think. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna pick a brand new one this time for you. Let me know when you're ready. Oh, go for it, yeah. Okay, I'm gonna give you. This will be fun. Dungeons and Dragons Honors Among Thieves. Honor Among Thieves. Nice. So you're already. If you haven't seen it, yeah. I think you'll enjoy it and it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Yeah. You're already uh giving me an excuse to actually sit down and watch movies I've been meaning to watch. It's another nice side effect of this film.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Yeah, I thought that I thought, you know, I I uh yeah, I I'm interested to see what you think about it. We played Dungeons and Dragons a lot as kids. So I think you'll really dig it, and it's an easy one to find. So what you got for me?

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Yes, it is. Okay. So wow, I'm gonna have to consider that for a second here.

SPEAKER_02 56:09

Anticipation is crazy. I don't want to make anything too bizarre because I want them to they don't necessarily have to compliment each other, but if I No, they don't have to compliment each other at all. But I'll have something that kind of goes along with that.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

I mean, we did we did have a very nice um we did have a very nice crossover of Mary Stewart this episode, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

Okay, I I've discovered what my pick is gonna be. Okay. Yeah. What is it? My pick for the next episode is 1993's Judgment Night. Really? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

I haven't seen that since I worked the theater and it came out. Will it hold up?

SPEAKER_02 56:49

I don't know, but it's also people on a weird adventure.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

That is that's kind of cool. It's two, it's two groups on a weird adventure. That's a good one. Maybe that's how we'll do the uh the summary description. You know, this this week's theme is you know, this because this week's theme is obviously Castro Mary Stewart. Next week's theme is groups on an adventure. I love it. Nice. I love it. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed us uh talking about these movies. Um I we highly recommend both of them. Um every now and then you'll probably hear us where we say this is a terrible movie, stay as far away from it as possible. Um keep tuning in. Yes. Yeah, keep tuning in. Eventually, one of us is gonna accidentally inflict something terrible on the other.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Uh it's inevitable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Yeah, you're you're listening to two guys who are very passionate about what they like about movies and what they don't, so it should be pretty interesting. All right, buddy. We'll see you next week. Cool. Later in.