Why We Love Competence Porn | Project Hail Mary, Sherlock Holmes & Smart Heroes | Original Geek | S1E30

Why are stories about highly capable, hyper-competent characters so satisfying to watch?

In this episode of Original Geek, Steve and Jeff explore the oddly perfect geek culture concept of “competence porn” — the movies, shows, and characters we love because they’re simply really, really good at what they do.

Using Project Hail Mary as the centerpiece, they unpack why audiences are drawn to stories built around intelligence, strategy, problem-solving, and mastery instead of brute force and chaos.

Along the way, they also dive into:

Sherlock Holmes as the original blueprint
why characters like Monk, The Mentalist, Tony Stark, MacGyver, and Chris Knight from Real Genius still resonate
how Project Hail Mary nails first contact, practical effects, and problem-solving tension
and why this kind of smart, competence-driven storytelling still matters

It’s funny, a little ridiculous, very geeky, and somehow one of the most accurate conversations you’ll ever hear about why smart heroes hit so hard.

If you love science fiction, smart protagonists, Andy Weir, Sherlock Holmes, space survival stories, and geek culture with a sarcastic Gen X edge — this episode is for you.

🎙️ Original Geek — Gen X geek culture from people who lived it.
Hosted by Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw.

🔔 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube
🌐 originalgeekpodcast.com
📬 originalgeekpodcast@gmail.com
📱 @OriginalGeekPodcast on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook

Transcript

Steve Scarfo (00:00)
hold back.

Jeff (00:00)
All

right. So we want to debate who is the best competency porn star? The John Holmes or Mia Khalifa or Jenna Jameson, depending on what era of porn you know. Not that I know any of them. I've just heard these names before.

Steve Scarfo (00:18)
Don't leave Ron Jeremy out

We chat GPT these answers.

Jeff (00:24)
Yeah, I had to look it up. So

who is the Mia Khalifa of Confidcy Ward? Okay.

Steve Scarfo (00:41)
All right, welcome to Original Geek. This is the all-fandom podcast for sci-fi, fantasy, comics, and every pop culture obsession that built us. And whether you're Gen X, millennial, or just geek curious, welcome to the basement. Hi, I'm Steve Scarfo.

Jeff (00:55)
And I'm Jeff Shaw and we'll be your amaze, amaze, amaze for today's pure scientific wonder because we're doing a dive into Project Hail Mary and Chicka Bow Wow competency porn.

Steve Scarfo (01:12)
Yeah, special competency porn music. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, we're gonna, we dig it. ⁓ So let's jump into our newest topic,

Jeff (01:14)
yeah.

You got the smots.

Yeah, baby.

getting into your briefs, Steve.

Steve Scarfo (01:35)
Yeah.

So let's start with this, Jeff, because I think we talked about it before we started for the eighth time for those. This is a little behind the scenes fun. This has been an interesting record for us, but I had never heard the term competency porn. I'd heard like murder porn and horror porn. I'd heard those terms for movies. I'd never heard competency porn.

Jeff (02:01)
Yeah, I also was ⁓ a virgin when it came to porn. I had not explored it yet, or I hadn't thought I had, but actually I've been a competency porn head for years, decades, because it's when the pleasure of the story comes from watching highly skilled people be really, really good.

Steve Scarfo (02:07)
He

You

We've

Jeff (02:30)
at what they do where it's the intellect, not the action, not the charisma, but the smats. When you play smat, Steve.

Steve Scarfo (02:37)
Yeah. Dismissed. if...

Which is a joke for like four people, but I love it. ⁓ Yeah, if you guys weren't ready for an innuendo-filled episode before, you need to be now. Because while this has nothing to do with actual porn, you will think it does by the end.

Jeff (02:45)
you

Yeah, so this came about because I was looking for a good theme for Project Hail Mary. And the one that left to mind was yet one more world ending film. And we've already explored that in a couple of different ways on the podcast in the past few months. So we needed a different topic. And Google Jeb and I suggested competency porn.

Steve Scarfo (03:15)
Yes.

Jeff (03:26)
And it works.

Steve Scarfo (03:26)
So that just tells me that

the AI models are a little bit dirty and I like it. I'm a fan. ⁓

Jeff (03:33)
Yeah, but

it isn't really, like it is a thing. It's out there, but it's not widely known. So I think a lot of you may be also in for a new ride into this land of competency for.

Steve Scarfo (03:41)
Ahem.

I think people should

buckle up and hold on tight, because it's gonna be a bumpy ride. But here's the best part of this. Everybody listening already knows this topic. They don't know it maybe with this phrasing and this framing. They know this topic. And I think when we start digging in a little deeper, it'll be a little more obvious. I hope most of the folks who are with us right now,

Jeff (03:55)
Yeah.

⁓ okay, it's the phrasing.

Steve Scarfo (04:19)
have already figured out what we're doing. But if you haven't, we're gonna get there. We're gonna lather up and slide our way right into the topic. Mm-hmm. Sailing. I don't know why I made that voice, but I did. I feel like it's appropriate for this topic. ⁓ So this is one of stories, really, it's not about power or fantasy. It's about skill and smarts. And it's about handling a

Jeff (04:28)
Hmm, smooth.

Steve Scarfo (04:48)
problem, ⁓ not by blowing up the asteroid or by flying around the earth backwards to make time go back because you have special powers. It's about using the one thing that we all have is a brain and ⁓ your ability to use it in tough situations. ⁓

I don't how much further we wanna dig into the topic itself, because I think we might start jumping around. We don't wanna, we're gonna go up right into. So here we're gonna jump into our random review for Project Hail Mary.

Jeff (05:16)
Yeah, no, we're ready. We're ready to move on, buddy.

Steve Scarfo (05:32)
All right, welcome to the original Geek Random Review. We set the topic, the dice set the direction. We know what we're reviewing, we just don't know how.

Jeff (05:39)
Absolutely, yeah, and we're doing Project Hail Mary today. So we're looking forward to rolling the dice and exploring this great film because the bottom line is no matter what comes out of this random review, we both give it two thumbs down.

Steve Scarfo (06:00)
Yes, which if you've seen the movie, you know, it's a really good vote. Or if you've read the book, it is a base. I wanted to hear you say that like nine more times. I almost restarted this this particular version just to get you to say it again. I you knew your better memory of me than me at this which am I rolling for you first you roll for me.

Jeff (06:03)
It's a maze, a maze, a maze.

Actually, I believe it's my turn to roll for you. So you have an 11. The successful perception check, the spin gravity sets, the use of a real rotating centrifuge rig. This makes it the film visually grounded using practical rotating sets rather than pure CGI.

allowed Ryan Gosling to move with a realistic disorienting weight. It gave the ship a claustrophobic, tactile feel that CGI simply can't replicate. So.

Steve Scarfo (07:04)
I actually,

I really like this topic because it's more than just the sets. ⁓ I mean, obviously in a movie like this, for those of you who don't know the premise, again, a world ending situation and he's the guy that has to go save the world and he has to go, ⁓ he ends up alone and it's in space. So you would expect the way things are today would be mostly.

You know, I mean, even TV shows like Mandalorian, they use the volume where even though it's all virtual to us, it looks great. They could have gone that way, but they chose to build most of the ship. Most of the scenes, I believe that they have filmed. I saw the centrifuge set. I saw a couple other with Rocky ⁓ that they're all practical set pieces. Rocky is a practical. It's not a CGI character. It's a practical character. It's a puppet. It's a puppet.

⁓ so beyond just the spin gravity set, I think the, the use of the practical effects was it made it feel almost more like an old school eighties and nineties movie because it wasn't too shiny. ⁓ those that fit the range that Jeff and I are in, if my Gen X friends out there, you'll remember movies like the original Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire.

And they had the animated Spider-Man, like he looked horrible. He looked like a rubber doll, right? It was bad. And this went back to the practical effect of it looks like they're really sitting there, because he is, he's really in there. And I agree with the statement of the claustrophobic ⁓ setting and the disorientation. I believe they actually had it on a rotation. They put it on an axis so the whole set would move. he wasn't just...

doing the old Star Trek, throw yourself on the ground. He was literally fighting the set as it was moving. ⁓ Yeah, I think it was fantastic. There's a lot about this that I love, but yeah, that's definitely one of the things.

Jeff (09:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, practical effects. It's interesting that you pointed out Spider-Man, because I just saw someone that they mentioned in the new Spider-Man, they actually have, you know, it's not Tom Holland, it's stunt actor doing some swinging. And they did that as much as possible. And, you know, apparently the feedback was there. know, CGI is good, but it doesn't quite look

right. And so, you know, and I think, you know, they were so right to do this. Oh, it's Lorde and oh, man, what's the the two the two filmmakers here? Anyway, they made a great choice by going with practical effects. It makes a difference. It feels real. This movie, you know, it feels real because they're only using CGI when they have to and when they had to.

and hopefully I'm not ruining anything from one of these other roles, is the, is the, some of the effects of what they're, they see that alien planet and when they're in that field of astrophage, that's obviously CGI and it looks amazing. So it's not like they, like, we're not crapping on CGI, but what I do like is when a filmmaker chooses to do a practical effect when they can.

Steve Scarfo (10:40)
Yeah, obviously we use AI and technology all the time, but yeah, the use of practical effects really does ground it. I don't want it to sound cheesy because that's the way the question worded it, but it really does ground what the performance looks like. I feel like his performance was better because he truly had to react to a situation.

Jeff (11:02)
yeah, true too.

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (11:07)
Again, and they're professionals, and I'm sure if he did it on a volume, Ryan Gosling would have made it look real as much as he could have, but there's that extra layer that you can feel that, oh, he really fell. This isn't like him goofing, he just slipped and he fell. A little side quest note, I just saw a video today, apparently Tom Holland was doing some of his own stunts. They switched to a stunt man because he got a concussion and he had to stop filming for a month.

Jeff (11:32)
Nice.

Steve Scarfo (11:37)
So

he was really doing his own stunts there too. So, but anyway, just happened to watch it like a couple hours ago. All right. We're going to use our special Galaxy Quest obtained dice for Jeff. And if you don't know what that means, go back and watch the last episode. Oh, a 19, a successful Karazma. Oh, look at this Rocky the puppet, the mix of practical puppetry and VFX. I will roll again if you don't want to talk about this. on.

Jeff (11:39)
Okay.

All right.

Hmm?

Yeah, how dare you.

Alright.

Steve Scarfo (12:07)
So the real star of the show by using a physical puppet, I didn't even know this was here, performed by James Ortiz on set, Gosling had something real to interact with, Rocky being the most lovable non-human character since ET, sparking a massive wave of amaze, amaze, amaze memes. So A, I think you should definitely say something, but we just talked about this, so if you want another role, we could do another.

Jeff (12:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, because we wrapped this up with the practical effects, because I agree, like they could have CGI'd Rocky and they didn't, they used a puppet and it feels more real and more grounded. So I feel like it's kind of the same topic. ⁓ And you did literally mention that Rocky was a puppet. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (12:48)
So again,

if you're watching one of these, if this is your first random review with us, the list is generated by AI. We don't look at it on purpose so that we don't know what we're doing. The whole point of this is to be fresh and off the cuff. We watched the movie, actually went and saw it together. So I did not know that that was an option. So this is the first time we've actually had a crossover. We had to roll a second roll. All right, hold on. Let me see what I got for you this time. Oh, I rolled another 19. We're not going to do that.

Jeff (13:09)
Yes, I agree.

Steve Scarfo (13:16)
I can't roll this good. Now I rolled a 20. Oh, that's a different one. For the record, I never rolled this good in actual D &D. Usually ones and twos. Okay, critical hit, first contact sequence. Also our first 20, I think. The airlock meeting between Grace and Rocky. Pure cinematic magic. The moment the two ships dock and the two species see each other for the first time was cited as.

Jeff (13:24)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (13:42)
the scene of the year. It balanced tension, wonder, and humor in a way that defined Lord and Miller style. So there's the other guy, Miller.

Jeff (13:50)
Yeah,

there's our filmmaker names. so, because they made ⁓ the Lego movie. ⁓ They did Deadpool. ⁓ They're great. So they do a great job of mixing kind of humor and drama. They can really make it work and it works here. I'm very glad.

Steve Scarfo (13:57)
Did they actually make the Martian? No.

Jeff (14:18)
that I didn't listen to the audio book prior to seeing the movie. So I agree with that magic of the first meeting and I hadn't seen, you know, too many spoilers. I mean, just watch the trailer. So I didn't know really what to expect. And as he comes up in the airlock and in the wall of different materials is showing there and one that has that clear panel.

and he's able to look through it, interact with Rocky, I had no idea. I had no idea, I didn't know Rocky was gonna hold up a Xenonite ⁓ crafted, like a 3D printed version of Grace that's ⁓ Ryan Gosling's character, or he does these 3D printings and he does one of the ship, and I didn't know he was gonna do all that stuff. It was...

Steve Scarfo (15:12)
Yeah.

Jeff (15:14)
I hadn't, like, so for me it was brand new. ⁓ I imagine it was just as magical for those who had read the book or listened to the audiobook, but yeah, I agree. It was very well.

Steve Scarfo (15:26)
I'll say I didn't make, oddly didn't make the connection in the parallel before hearing one of the earlier ones we talked about with the connection to like an ET. ⁓ It does remind me a little bit of the scene where Elliot meets ET. And not in the mechanics of it, because it's obviously far different. There are no rese species in space.

Jeff (15:56)
Does

Rocky turn on his heart light?

Steve Scarfo (15:58)
He does turn on his heart light. But in the tone of it, they approach it in the same way, tonally in the movie, where, you know, Elliot is very innocently trying to lure out whatever this is, because he doesn't know what he's luring out. He just knows something threw the ball back at him when he threw it in. And it had this sense of wonder. It was exploration. was discovery for him. And I think this was the same

kind of scene where, you know, he knew what he was getting into. know, Grace knew that it was an alien ship. There's no unknown in terms of what he's facing, but the tone of that scene reminded me of that initial meeting, that first contact. And when movies do it right, and I think this one did, I agree, think it was a lot of fun to watch.

And I'm going to go, I think I'm going even say it's a lot of fun to kind of experience it.

Jeff (16:57)
Yeah, and one thing, and they might have explained this in the movie and I just forgot, but the reason that initially it wasn't all clear is Rocky doesn't use, can't see with light, he sees with sound. And so he didn't need a clear panel, but he didn't know what a human was and he didn't know what a human might need. And so he made all these different panels, some clear.

the one clear and the rest were different levels of opacity and type and texture. He had no idea. when, right, and I don't think they explain it in the movie, they explain it very well in the book. And the reason when he goes back and it's all clear is because Rocky sensed that the human interacted through that single clear panel and didn't know why.

Steve Scarfo (17:33)
funny I didn't I didn't pick up on that

Jeff (17:54)
doesn't even know what looking at light is. Doesn't know what the speed of light is. Doesn't know any of that. And doesn't really know what light is actually. Has to be explained to him. So it's wild. And I love that we often, know, bemoan that when we watch like Star Trek or these other things that everything's humanoid. All these aliens are

Steve Scarfo (17:59)
Alright.

Jeff (18:23)
They're just different versions of a human. And so what I love about this, Andy Weir who wrote it and then Lorde and Miller for making it come to life is having an alien species that's truly alien. It's just amazing.

Steve Scarfo (18:25)
Yes.

But, they, and I assume it's the same way in the book. I have not read or listened to the book yet. So I will assume that the mechanics of it are the same, but they, in the movie did a great job of, they show you how they, the translation from human to Rocky, right? Because again, if you haven't seen it, you haven't read the book, Rocky talks and speaks in tonal.

He's a tonal language, it's a musical language. And there's no phonemes, there's no sounds that are words, but ⁓ through a little trial and error, through a little trial and error, ⁓ Grace builds a program to translate back and forth for them so that when he speaks, Rocky hears the tones, and then vice versa, and they show that for a few interactions, and then they sort of let it drop. And the understanding, of course, is,

Jeff (19:07)
Yeah

Steve Scarfo (19:36)
He always has the pack with him with the computer that's running this program and they have the microphones and speakers so they're always speaking through it, but.

Jeff (19:45)
He, in the book, he gradually doesn't

need it. He understands the tones, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (19:49)
Well, and I think they show that at the

end of the movie, they're talking to each other and there's no equipment. ⁓ So spoiler, sorry. ⁓ But yeah, I think the way they, if you've watched one of our random reviews, you know we're horrible with spoilers. You might just put it like, there are spoilers, just suck it up. ⁓ You'll get over it. ⁓ But it's a great. ⁓

Jeff (19:55)
Yeah, yeah.

You

Steve Scarfo (20:16)
is just a great use of that connection. And they do a great job of showing it. And you explain it. They don't explain some other stuff we'll talk about later. but ⁓ they explained it and then kind of let it fall away, which is cool.

Jeff (20:30)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (20:32)
All right, so listen, ⁓ these are standalone segments. So you might hear this as part of the larger episode, but if you're just watching the random review, thanks for being with us for the review. Please check out the whole episode. If you're with us for the whole episode, ⁓ like it, know, like, subscribe, ⁓ share it with your friends, tell them how silly and stupid we can be and have fun. But right now, we're gonna go back time.

Jeff (20:48)
subscribe!

All right. Competency porn back in the day. Yeah, I I liked when... Sorry, I don't want to keep going.

Steve Scarfo (21:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's okay, you can keep

doing it. The phrase that I have that I got while we were doing the research for this is the original Kings of Competency porn, which is like the original Kings of Comedy and I love it. ⁓ So yeah, I was gonna say, so the original, the real original King, and I wanted to make sure we looked it up because we both thought it probably was the first character that,

Jeff (21:33)
Yes. Do you want to go first?

Steve Scarfo (21:45)
really epitomize this style, that smarts is the importance, right? That it's not about, this isn't Rocky where you punch your way out of a situation, which is a great movie, very inspiring, right? But that's one type of hero. Competency porn, the smarter the person, the better. And the first one of those is Sherlock Holmes. ⁓ You know, it seems obvious.

He was first created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887. He has been and will probably remain my favorite literary character of all time. So I think for me, the idea that you don't have to have anything special about you physically, I guess, other than your brain and your ability to pay attention.

I know there's a whole list we're gonna go through, but yeah.

Jeff (22:41)
Yeah, I agree that Sherlock Holmes definitely would have been one of my first ⁓ characters that I was aware of that it was the intellect. was being the smartest guy in the room and figuring things out. But for my flashback, I wanna talk about one of my favorite movies of the 80s and also happens to be competency porn and that is Real Genius starring Val Kilmer. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (23:08)
Yeah.

Jeff (23:12)
that for those of who are not familiar with it, Val Kilmer plays this genius student at, I think it's Caltech, and he doesn't know it, but he's working on a laser experiment that's going to be used in military satellites as an assassination weapon. And you find that out like right in the first segment of the movie. So.

Steve Scarfo (23:20)
That's it.

It's also from the 80s,

Jeff (23:39)
Yeah, okay, so that we could spoil okay, okay So he so in his character

Steve Scarfo (23:40)
if you haven't, if we can spoil a movie that's 40 years old. Val Kilmer sadly no longer with us. Your timer has expired.

Jeff (23:48)
is Chris Knight brilliant brilliant senior at Caltech and This new freshman who's only 14 years old and even smarter than Chris Knight is Mitch Taylor and he is

you know, going to be the one that helps deliver this laser because Chris Knight is just being a goofball. So what I love about this, one of the things I love about this movie is Val Kilmer is just a brilliant comedic actor and we really got to see him showcase his stuff here. And he's also so brilliant. He's the, well, in Caltech, a bunch of geniuses. All right, so he's the second smartest guy in the room.

Steve Scarfo (24:31)
Seconds, Marlis.

Jeff (24:36)
but he's the funniest and he doesn't care what people think and he just wants to have a good time and he doesn't care about this laser. And that's of course why Mitch gets brought in and recruited by Caltech at 14. But it stands the test of time. I rewatched it. It's not streaming for free anywhere so I had to buy it for like five bucks. But it was...

⁓ It was it stands the test of time. I wasn't sure if it would not all These 80 movies that I love do and this one does so highly recommend real genius of your Val Kilmer fan You and you haven't seen this or it's been a while. It's worth a rewatch. It's so good and it's funny because at the time we didn't know about neurodivergent characters Like that wasn't how we would say someone was odd, right?

Steve Scarfo (25:13)
Nah, we talked about-

Jeff (25:33)
So Jordan, who's the female love interest of Mitch, ⁓ is this brilliantly played ⁓ character by Michelle Mayrank, who's also in the Red Drench of the Nerds. And so she plays female nerds. It was like her pigeon-holed role. Her character is also brilliant. So, well, very well done.

Steve Scarfo (25:53)
You

Yeah,

think the thing they did really well in Real Genius is they blended cool with smart. Because Val Kilmer as an actor at the time too was always, I he was Iceman in the original Top Gun, right? He played these really kind of slick, suave, cool characters. so they layered, Doc Holliday, my God, that was such a great portrayal in that movie. I don't remember now if that was Tombstone or Earp.

Jeff (26:13)
Yeah.

is Doc Holiday.

Steve Scarfo (26:28)
Was it Tombstone? we talked about this too. They always said two of them. There were two that came out at the same time. ⁓ But yeah, they made it fun and funny and cool to be smart. You ⁓ mentioned Revenge of the Nerds. That was going to be another one that I talked about. I love that movie too because they are put upon, they are made fun of at college by the jocks and at the end they...

Jeff (26:32)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (26:54)
they emerge victorious, they do get their revenge because they're smarter than everybody else. Now it's played very goofily in that movie, but yeah.

Jeff (27:04)
Yeah, and that's, know, out of the two, because, you know, Revenge of the Nerds came out a year before, you know, I think that one doesn't stand the test of time for number of reasons. And I think the reason this one does is because they, Revenge of the Nerds, the nerds win in the end, but there are various stereotypes. whereas I, like, I wanted to be Chris Knight. There was no nerd in Revenge of the Nerds I wanted to be.

Steve Scarfo (27:16)
yeah.

Yeah, no, it's definitely not ⁓

Well, that's what I'm saying. they took, they took the, took, he was the, he was the unicorn in Caltech because the rest of the people in the movie, Lazlo and ⁓ Jordan and even Mitch, they are the stereotypical nerds. And even the guy who's the, he's the, Kent, my God, he's like the guy you want to punch. he's.

Jeff (27:34)
Chris Knight

hint.

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (28:00)
Those

are all fairly stereotypical characters. The only one who really breaks the stereotype is ⁓ Chris Knight. And so even ⁓ the guy who plays the professor, he was known for playing, you know, was the, ⁓ God, he was in ⁓ Ghostbusters 2 as the prosecutor.

Jeff (28:07)
is Chris, yeah.

William Atherton. Yeah. yeah, and he was the reporter

that got punched and diehard.

Steve Scarfo (28:25)
Yes, like

he was at the time also known for playing like just dickhead kind of characters. So great, great pull with Real Genius. I mean, there's so many of them. I do have one quick story. I think I told you I had it. And I know you probably know this, but so ⁓ this is for our friend Bill Ponder's if he's actually a listener. I hope he is. ⁓ I have one bad memory of Sherlock Holmes and that's because

There was a time in high school that all I wanted to read was the Holmes novels, the stories. And I literally picked up a copy of Hound of the Baskervilles, which I still haven't completely read. I was sitting in class between classes and Bill wanted to talk to me and I'd started to read. And in the first few pages, Holmes is visited by a guy who has a wolf's head ⁓ cane and they describe it in detail.

And I'm only like five pages into this book and Bill's just pissed off because I don't want to talk. And he goes, what are you reading? How did the Baskervilles? Oh, the guy with the weird cane did it. And he literally screwed the whole book for me and to talk about something I don't even remember what the hell it was to talk about. So I love Sherlock Holmes and Bill Ponters can kiss my butt for, for ruining it for me. I love you, Bill, but that was just mean.

There's so many good versions of this style. ⁓ I guess I'll save, we'll go to court first and then we'll come back for the evolution.

All right. So I won't let you explain this one because for you, for those of you who've seen the show or listened to our show, we, this is probably one of the hardest segments. You would think it would be the easiest, but we like a lot of stuff. So we try to find interesting takes on how to talk about this in a competitive sort of adversarial way. ⁓ And Jeff came up with an awesome, we do.

Jeff (30:08)
Right.

Yes, because we agree on so much. So it's a little hard

Steve Scarfo (30:38)
So yeah, and we don't want

Jeff (30:38)
and we sometimes we have to manufacture it. But in this case.

Steve Scarfo (30:42)
it to be actually manufactured. So we find a different way to do it. So Jeff found a new way or kind of new way for us to do this. So ⁓ I say lay it on thick too. Don't hold back.

Jeff (30:51)
All right. All

right. So we want to debate who is the best competency porn star? The John Holmes or Mia Khalifa or Jenna Jameson, depending on what era of porn you know. Not that I know any of them. I've just heard these names before.

Steve Scarfo (31:13)
Don't leave Ron Jeremy out

We chat GPT these answers.

Jeff (31:19)
Yeah, I had to look it up. So

who is the Mia Khalifa of Confidcy Ward? Okay. And you

know, like if the shit really hits the fan, who do you want fixing it while you rub one out in fascination of the big pulsing brain at work?

Steve Scarfo (31:43)
my god, the video on this alone, my head is gonna glow.

Jeff (31:44)
That's what we're debating. Who do you

want? All right, so.

Steve Scarfo (31:51)
Who do you want to help you release this tension?

Jeff (31:55)
Yeah, who's like, yes, you know,

who is it? Who do you want by, you know, solving the problem? Steve, I don't know if you want to take this first.

Steve Scarfo (32:05)
All right,

I'll go first and I'm gonna give you two answers, because I already gave you one of them and I think it'll be pretty obvious. I think Sherlock Holmes is at the top of this list, but Jesse, because I wanna make it a little more interesting and I'm gonna change eras on us, I'm gonna go with Monk. ⁓ He was quirky, he was odd, but that man never missed anything. ⁓ If there was a detail to be had, to be found,

Jeff (32:12)
Okay.

Steve Scarfo (32:35)
if there was something that was necessary. And I guess he's very much like a modern day ⁓ Sherlock Holmes. ⁓ But I'm gonna say Monk tops that scale. There's no one I would rather have defending me in a situation where the tension was too taught and difficult that I had to release myself from it.

Jeff (33:02)
All right, kind of going in a similar way. So I really wanted to stick with Chris Knight because I love the humor and the intellect. And having fun, I feel like Chris Knight would be a great hang, plus he'd fix the problems. But it might be in a very kind of narrow field of science, I'm not sure. So I decided to go with the mentalist.

Steve Scarfo (33:29)
⁓

Jeff (33:29)
⁓

Simon Baker is the actor, Patrick Jane is the character. And ⁓ really I could have gone with Psych and I almost did. But I feel like Patrick Jane, because, and I may be wrong, if I really do have an issue and a problem, I someone who can be serious. And you know Psych better than I do. But I feel like Patrick Jane can.

Steve Scarfo (33:34)
Yes.

yeah.

Jeff (33:58)
like really, you know, get down to the problem and take things seriously, but also have fun and be a great conversationalist and irreverent. ⁓ I know I'm describing the side character as well. They're very similar. It's hard to like describe in this moment how that would change, but I just, I'm putting my ⁓ vote on Patrick Jane for who is.

Steve Scarfo (34:13)
I'm like...

Have a good one.

Jeff (34:28)
the number one competency porn star.

Steve Scarfo (34:32)
will say, it's funny that you say psych too, because I do love that show and I almost said Sean Spencer ⁓ and I love the dynamic between him and Gus. It's very much a Holmes and Watson situation. They have that, they're always together, they're always, you know, it's funny too because in the, you know, ⁓ Sherlock Holmes was just the detective and Watson was a doctor who would help him and ⁓ Gus was a pharmaceutical rep so he had a medical job.

Jeff (34:46)
yeah, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (35:02)
⁓ So I do feel that there's a lot of parallels there and I just love the show because those actors work so well together. There's definitely a chemistry thing that went on with them. I've seen the whole show at least three different times ⁓ because I will go back and just watch entire seasons of Psych. ⁓

Jeff (35:13)
Yeah, in-

And another

name that came about in kind of a similar vein is Robert Downey Jr.'s version of Tony Stark. But like technically Iron Man is really action oriented, not just using his intellect. I...

Steve Scarfo (35:34)
Iron Man's a lot like

Chris Knight. It's the cool factor with the intelligence factor.

Jeff (35:39)
Yeah, so I do. Yeah, so there's a lot of great competency porn stars out there. It's hard to choose one.

Steve Scarfo (35:47)
You know, it's good to have a variety of competency porn because you want to keep things fresh. You want to make sure that you're always finding the best version of your competency porn that you want to keep it exciting as time goes on. So there are different eras of competency porn to look at. you're a Spock and Data kind of guy, if you're Egon from the

Jeff (36:02)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (36:11)
from the Ghostbusters, know, MacGyver we talked about before we started recording. ⁓ Lots of ways to go. So you guys tell us, this is our challenge. Who's your favorite competency porn star? And be graphic, you know what mean? If we're gonna play this angle, let's have fun with it. That's all I'm saying. ⁓ All right, so we're gonna evolve.

Jeff (36:37)
Let's evolve.

Steve Scarfo (36:40)
We're not going to evolve. We're going to be the same 12 year olds we've been for the last 40 years, but we're going to hit it.

So the bumper floppy disks. Yeah.

Jeff (36:53)
Well, mean, you talked about the original already.

You covered it. The very beginning, Sherlock Holmes.

Steve Scarfo (37:01)
I think it's interesting ⁓ because we just mentioned a couple other shows too that very much parallel. So yes, the show, the style of this type of hero has evolved, right? The ⁓ grace in ⁓ Project Hail Mary, a far different character than like a Sherlock Holmes style character, still someone who uses intellect to solve the problems. So the-

stylistic choice of intelligence over brawn that carries through but the way they do it changes but I it's funny because I feel like some of this is not I I feel like we found something in Sherlock Holmes that we love so much that there are different permutations I mean psych the mentalist ⁓

Jesus, they had Elementary, they had Sherlock in England. I was just talking about there's a new prime show called Young Sherlock, ⁓ which I just started watching, but is a really good version ⁓ of the same story. So I think the idea of that smart person who figures out what's going on, the Glass Onion series that's, ⁓ I think it's been on Netflix, ⁓

Jeff (38:18)
yeah, ⁓ Benoit,

Benoit Blank or something like that. Daniel Craig's character, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (38:22)
with, yeah, Daniel Craig.

And they've done like three or four of them now. And it's very much the same style. ⁓ There's just something really cool about watching someone dismantle a puzzle that seems impossible. The old locked room.

Jeff (38:28)
Yeah, 100%.

And what I love

is that we have brilliant writers who can keep doing this because that's, you know, that is such a challenge because you've got to, you've got to find a new way of telling the same. Cause if Sherlock Holmes is the original competency porn star and everyone else that's come after him is very similar.

Steve Scarfo (39:00)
Hmm

Yeah

Jeff (39:05)
then you've got to find new ways and yet they do. Because my wife and I, love watching a lot of Brit ⁓ box mystery shows. Death in Paradise ⁓ is a great show and they've had, I think, four or five different detectives, each with their own little quirk. But the bottom line is they're brilliant and they're able to solve these crimes.

because they notice things no one else does and their brains work differently in a, I would say a superior way for figuring things out.

Steve Scarfo (39:41)
Yeah, and it's ⁓ the really cool thing. ⁓ I always ask for these lists when we're doing these topics, right? Like, give me a list of this from this time and ⁓ something interesting happened this time when I did it, right? So I wanted to make sure I had some. And it's funny because when we talked about this originally, we said at the beginning of the episode, we're like, hi, what would fit? And then all of a sudden, all of this stuff that we've been talking about in a hundred.

I'll tell you exactly, at least 136 more titles of TV shows and movies popped up of situations where this is about smarts more than anything else. Well, we're talking about some of the obvious ones with especially the detective shows. Those are the easiest. ⁓ But there are ⁓ like there's a great one on Peacock called ⁓ Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne. ⁓

not the same at all, but she's so good at this one thing she can tell when people are lying. It's not smarts per se like a Sherlock Holmes smarts, but she's got a skill and that skill serves her. ⁓

Jeff (40:50)
Yeah,

and then High Potential with Caitlin Olson is that type of character more in the Sherlock Holmes vein, with a very ⁓ more like psych where she's a reverend, she works with the police, but she's not a cop, and she's able to ⁓ flout authority in a different way, but because no one else can think like her. So she's able to solve crimes no one else can.

Steve Scarfo (40:55)
Yes.

Jeff (41:20)
because they're just not observant or they don't have that encyclopedia brain that just remembers everything. So.

Steve Scarfo (41:27)
right?

Yeah, they the the the chat GPT machine came up with, I think it's nine different topics. So nine genres. So there's the detective one. That's what we've talked a lot about strategy heist planning movies like Ocean's Eleven and Sneakers. ⁓ The Italian job TV shows like Leverage and White Collar. I forgot about White Collar. White Collar is a great show. That was sort of a catch me if you can on TV. Right. I know if you ever watched White Collar.

⁓ But he was a master thief that ended up helping the FBI. ⁓ It was always about a con in the leverage, the leverage TV show. ⁓ Legal political suits. Suits is another great example of a kid whose memory was the only, know, he was so smart because he couldn't forget anything. Not couldn't forget it, but. But then there's medical procedural dramas, workplace craft.

Jeff (41:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (42:23)
I don't wanna just list stuff out, but there was so many different genres that this, it just was surprising to me how many of the things that I grew up watching really do fall into this. Because if you think about it, especially the way things have been in the last probably 20 years, the dominant storytelling is the other kind of geeky stuff we love. It's superheroes and it's big spectacle type movies.

Jeff (42:27)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (42:52)
But really there's been so many of these things that are about intelligence first. Even Tony Stark who I guess crosses over. It's just really cool to see this list take shape and go, wow, I guess I never thought about that.

Jeff (43:08)
I know, it's refreshing actually. There's so much competency poured out there. Get into it, baby!

Steve Scarfo (43:15)
I mean, yeah, there's just so much. I was gonna go to a different direction. I'm not gonna go, but. So listen, we're gonna drop into this, because we usually do anyway. Hold on, let's get this bumper out

Yeah, we know. ⁓ We want you to know. this type of movie a lot of times is overrated, not overrated, sorry, ⁓ overlooked, underrated. ⁓ So don't diss on Project Hail Mary because, it's just a guy in a spaceship with an, like, it seems like it's a small movie and it's not.

Right, there's drama, there's tension, there's humor. There's a lot that goes on. Just because, you know, Robert Downey Jr.'s not flying around in his new Doctor Doom outfit, don't discount these kind of movies, right? I think it's been doing really well in the box office. didn't, so I...

Jeff (44:17)
no, it has, Yeah, that's what,

sorry, that's what I love about this, that we talked in an earlier episode about us becoming an idiocracy too fast, too soon. It was supposed to be hundreds of years from now. How dare we accelerate that timeline? And then to see this movie do so well, it fills me with hope because we should, it's the person who,

Steve Scarfo (44:35)
Right.

Jeff (44:46)
is striving to solve our problems through intellect, through making the amazing choices, being the smartest person in the room, and wanting that person to be our leader, wanting those people and supporting those people. And we're supporting them right now with our dollar by going to see this movie and people have, and I love that. this is this thank you, new generation, for continuing to support.

⁓ competency porn, because we need it.

Steve Scarfo (45:20)
Yes, I'm sure Ryan Gosling didn't hurt anything as the lead. ⁓ So I will say in this one instant, not in this one instance, but because we so often shit on Hollywood, ⁓ I will say that I think the machine did the right thing because yes, he's a pretty boy, but he's also a very good actor. And this was very much a

Jeff (45:27)
True, true.

Steve Scarfo (45:47)
a Tom Hanks Wilson moment, right? This is a kind of a castaway style movie. ⁓ There are scenes with other people, but the majority of this movie is one man alone in a box with essentially an inanimate object. It's not really because he's an alien, but ⁓ I think they did it well. They didn't try to.

zhuzh it up and make it goofy. They could have tried to make it a slapstick comedy. You know what mean? They could have done all sorts of bad things to this and we've bitched about that before too. And in this case, and I don't know how close it matches the book, so you'll have to fill me in on that, but I think what they produced was great. So I'm happy, so my message is thank you Hollywood for getting one good. You do a lot of good, let's be honest, but this one was really, really good.

Jeff (46:37)
Yes

Steve Scarfo (46:46)
Hit it.

Jeff (46:46)
All right,

so actually my hit and fail is related to Project Hail Mary and to the book film comparison. So first a hit ⁓ that yes, it was pretty true to the book and ⁓ you know what? my God, I did have a different message. this is, okay, so sorry. I'm gonna continue my message along with making it a hit. Thank you all of those who love the book.

first saw the movie still gave it two thumbs down because you because there were changes in some substantial changes and most of them I think were hits and to make it work because the book at least the art book is 16 hours long and we're not going to sit through a 16 hour movie I'm sorry so got to tighten things up okay yeah to break it up ⁓

Steve Scarfo (47:27)
you

Unless it's Lord of the Rings. I'm gonna be fine.

you

Jeff (47:44)
But one thing I particularly liked in this film that is not in the book is there's a section of the ship where it's an immersive movie experience. And it makes sense because it's done so that the humans don't go insane because it's essentially solitary confinement. Like Steve said in the last segment that he's a man in a box and you're going to go insane in that. So having this kind of immersive like their

you know, tech version of a holodeck from Star Trek. It's there to help you not go mad. And so it keeps him, you know, you know, looking at things in an interesting way. And I think, so that's my critical hit is that where they did most of the time, where they made a change, it actually worked really well.

Steve Scarfo (48:35)
I think my hit is more for the genre. ⁓ I talked a little bit about it in the last segment, but my hit really is how much of this is successful. Because there are times when, especially as a teenage boy who liked Sherlock Holmes, we talked about the geekiness of being in the high school in the ⁓ 80s, to see smart characters and good

people who are good at what they do, ⁓ even when we build these characters with ⁓ multiple levels, like could be like a Sherlock Holmes who's very, you know, business-like. ⁓ It can be ⁓ not Mitch, but, ⁓ I lost his name, Val Kilmer in Real Genius, right, who's more fun. It can be Tony Stark, but at the end of the day, the...

the integration of intelligence is the most important thing. Humor and all the other stuff is great. It makes it more fun to watch sometimes. ⁓ So I think the hit is that this is an enduring style that ⁓ honestly, until we really started talking about this episode, I've never thought about as competence porn as a real genre. You know, I know people don't wanna call it that sometimes because just because of the word porn, but.

I mean, I've heard people refer to books as murder porn. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's really just that excessive enjoyment that you get out of a specific type of activity. And, you know, whether you do it clothed or unclothed is up to you. But this is a situation where we're not, and we're not competent shaming. And I think my hit is that I'm,

Jeff (50:16)
We're not King Shaming.

Steve Scarfo (50:23)
I'm very excited to look at this in a new way and say, this really is, this is his own genre. And it's odd that at 56, I never thought about it that

Jeff (50:31)
Yeah, and then...

Yeah, and if you're like, sounds like you're watching porn. Yeah, competency porn. That's the only that's the only thing that floats my boat.

Steve Scarfo (50:39)
Yes, don't let them, that's only kind I watch.

I might have to do a disclaimer from my family because someone's gonna clip the wrong part of this and put it online. I don't think I have a fail ⁓ specific to a movie ⁓ or a TV show. So I don't think I have anything that in terms of the movie itself, ⁓

Yeah, I didn't. There was nothing about the movie I thought. Well, there was one thing, but I think you're going to talk about it, so I don't want to steal your thunder.

Jeff (51:18)
Yeah, so the one fail I have is a difference that they made because I feel like it ⁓ would have made more sense. this is like, it's a huge spoiler, so I'm actually not going to fully share why I feel like they needed to keep this part. But what's not a spoiler really is that

There are three people that go up in the ship, because you find this out in the first minutes of the film, and the pilot and ⁓ the engineer perish ⁓ because they're put in a three-year-long coma. And humans aren't designed to do that, to survive a coma like that. So ⁓ the reason that Rylan Gray survives

Steve Scarfo (51:50)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (52:13)
He has this gene that allowed that humans that have survived long comas have and So did the other two that just didn't make it. It's not a guarantee But It would have taken not much time because I know it's a long movie. It's two and a half hours It would have taken another few minutes just to explain the reason you're on this ship Breitling grace because he

You see it in the trailers. Like I put the knot, an astronaut. I'm not going up there. I'm not doing it. They could like, yeah, he's brilliant, but there's a lot of brilliant people. Why didn't they grab someone else and shove them in that spaceship? Or ask for a different volunteer? Like it would have taken not much time. It would have explained why he's on that ship.

when he doesn't want to be, because he's one of the few people in the entire world who's both a scientist and able and has the gene and is able to make that journey. yeah, that's my epic fail is I feel like it would have helped for those of us who are watching that movie and not putting our brains on hold. Some people do that like, I'm not gonna think, I'm just gonna enjoy. But I tend to think.

And I'm thinking, why did he, why did they force him on? There had to be another scientist who could have been trained to do this. And I know there was a backup, but there's a reason they didn't make it. But still, out of three people, that's all they had was three people. Why just three? So.

Steve Scarfo (53:53)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, it's funny, so I'll add into your fail ⁓ in a more generic sense, because we've had this conversation many times about movies where Hollywood is very much about cutting stuff if it cuts time. ⁓ it's funny, just saw, so for instance, this is a weird one. Again, I was watching some videos. This is all kind of social media stuff, but it was.

In the original Iron Man, when Iron Man leaves LA and a few minutes later is in Afghanistan to fight the bad guys, that's a 22 hour flight. But in our movie viewing, it's four seconds. ⁓ And I guess you all, that willing suspension of disbelief is what you were talking about before. There's only so much you can dis, you can suspend. And I will say in this case, I never thought about it, but this video pointed out how long this flight was. No way he makes it there that quick.

Well, there was a whole scene they cut where he lands in Dubai and there's a whole pretense of a party that because he's still trying to pretend to be just the playboy and then there's a party with fireworks and he flies out during the fireworks so that no one knows he's flying out. So that's a pretty important piece of information to cut out of how did he make a 22 hour flight in four seconds. And the same thing in this case, right? I hate when they cut so much.

Jeff (55:11)
Huh?

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (55:31)
that they leave story gaps. And it's not the first or last time, I'm sure we'll see it, but there are plenty of times when people are like, know, we've said it, we said it about this. All they gotta do is one line, say this. And when he does the the scene, I'm a not, no, you are, you're not a not because of this. And this is the reason why you're not. Four seconds, one or two lines of dialogue, and then the whole thing becomes so much more.

Jeff (55:55)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (55:59)
because there is a moment in the movie where you're like, well, why is it him?

Jeff (56:03)
And in

a similar vein, why he has amnesia. It actually is explained in the book too.

Steve Scarfo (56:09)
God, so that is never explained in the movie. I don't think they ever mentioned. Yeah, but apparently not. So, all right, you're gonna have to read the book. I'll make Jeff tell me after we're done. But ⁓ so listen, ⁓ go out there and get yourself a good dose of competency porn. And while you're doing it, ⁓ but like, subscribe, follow us, watch our shorts and our longs.

Jeff (56:13)
We assume it's the result of the coma.

and just say, abaze, abaze, abaze.

And Steve's got a new shirt on today. So get some merch

Steve Scarfo (56:38)
And, I do.

Yeah, so this ⁓ is from, I just stood up for the five of you that are watching. This is, it says, if the lights flicker, roll for initiative. It's a big D20. It is very much inspired by Stranger Things. There's actually a waffle and a phone and a demo Gorgon on here and some kids on bikes. So, ⁓ Jeff's wearing his Bunker Geek, ⁓ our homage to, ⁓

Jeff (57:01)
Go to the website, get some cool t-shirts and other stuff on there. Love it.

Steve Scarfo (57:08)
to the post-apocalyptic worlds. yeah, so what do you say, Jeff? Two thumbs down.

Jeff (57:16)
Two thumbs down.