Flashback Friday: Trancers (w/ Shawn, Jaime & Pax)

What's up, dudes? I've got Shawn, Jaime, and Pax from the Cult Film Club with me here to dive into the 1984 sci-fi flick "Trancers"! We really get into it because this one's got it all! 

The evil killer psychic Whistler has a unique power: he can turn the weak-willed into zombie-like creatures called trancers! When he travels to the past to murder the ancestors of the council, hard boiled neo-noir Trooper Jack Deth subsequently follows him. It seems that anyone could be entranced! Jack fights off a mall Santa, a tanning salon owner, and even a possessed police detective in his pursuit of Justice. He also gets help from his own ancestor, and visits a punk rock club. Oh yeah, and he even manages to save the day! Spoiler alert: beware of former ball players throwing trash on roofs!

Zombies? Check. Psychics? Yep. Time Travel? Definitely. Falling in love with your own great-great-grandma? Of course!  So put some grease in your hair, equip your long second watch, and head to a punk rock club to dig this episode!

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Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com! Later, dudes!

Transcript

SPEAKER_14 0:00

What is the point of those? It was 1984. This is Spinal Tap was released. The Boston Beer Company, makers of Samuel Adams beer, was founded. The doomsday clock hit three minutes to midnight. And police trooper Jack Death and Baby Helen Hunt track down a psychic murderer at Christmas time. I'm your host, Jerry D, with another episode of Totally Rad Christmas, the podcast that talks all things Christmas in the 80s. Toys, movies, specials, music, and fads. If it was gnarly during Christmas in the 80s, we got it covered. Now joining me is a Totally Rad Christmas All-Star and a couple of brand new guests from the Cult Film Club podcast. It's Jamie, Sean, and Pax. Guys, how's it going?

SPEAKER_08 1:19

Hey Jerry, good to be here.

SPEAKER_13 1:20

Definitely doing good tonight.

SPEAKER_08 1:22

And what is super excited to talk about the awesomeness that is this movie?

SPEAKER_14 1:27

Yeah, this one was uh, and I remember seeing this like way back in the day, but I had completely forgotten about it until I happened upon like an obscure, you know, are they Christmas movies list? And all of a sudden I saw it and I was like, Yes, I gotta cover this. And my first thought was Sean, just because of your show, it was it was you guys. So I was like, you guys gotta come and talk about this movie because it's just so rad.

SPEAKER_13 1:52

It is definitely we we haven't hit on any of the Empire Picture stuff or full moon stuff on our show, so I'm glad to finally be talking about some of the stuff. I like took a deep dive this year into specifically into transvers. Like I I was familiar with the first movie, but like I went through and watched all six. There's like six, yeah. Still alive.

SPEAKER_16 2:11

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_08 2:12

And I don't know if you guys know this, but on Cop Film Club, I usually have blue streaks in my hair, but for this podcast, they changed it to red streaks.

SPEAKER_13 2:21

No one's gonna know. No one's gonna know who you are. And I and I got rid of my T-bird, so oh, that's a shame.

SPEAKER_16 2:29

I slick back my hair because dry hair is for squibs.

SPEAKER_14 2:33

So, yeah, this movie, uh well, first of all, Tim Thomerson as like a starring role, like that just kind of blew my mind because I actually knew him as like the uh the cheating tennis instructor or aerobics instructor from Who's Harry Crumb? That was like how I remembered Tim Thomson. So when I saw him as as like the leading man, I was like, what is going on here?

SPEAKER_13 3:26

Yeah. I'm very familiar with Tim Thomerson as like the like the other guy or the sort of comic relief in movies that are kind of similar to this. So like movies like Cherry 2000 and uh Near Dark.

SPEAKER_14 3:40

He was the uh the desert guy, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 3:45

Uh bee bites or the bee stings all over his face. But yeah, no, he's he's great in movies like Near Dark and The Wrong Guys and uh Fade to Black. We just covered Fade to Black with uh Tim Thomas. So if you ever want to see him do a harmonica solo.

SPEAKER_16 4:01

Oh so amazingly awesome in the and uh you're right. He he always plays like the the very charismatic other guy. Absolutely, exactly.

SPEAKER_08 4:11

And my my connotation go ahead.

SPEAKER_16 4:14

I was just saying you were mentioning your connotation, my connotation for him. The first time I ever saw him was Jekyll and Hyde together again, where he had a small part as one of the doctors, and it's a movie I've circled for CFC for a long time. So like I love this guy.

SPEAKER_08 4:28

I was just gonna say Tim Thomerson sounds made up.

SPEAKER_16 4:32

He really does, yeah. As much as Jack Depp does, if it sounds as made up.

SPEAKER_14 4:36

Well, and I like how they actually call it out. He's like Jack Depp. What kind of name is Jack Depp?

SPEAKER_08 4:42

Multiple times. I love Jack Depp.

SPEAKER_14 4:45

It's classic.

SPEAKER_08 4:46

Yeah, and it comes from an amazing script. Thank you.

SPEAKER_14 4:51

Yeah, this this movie was like fantastic. I've been doing this thing lately, uh, this year or this season, where I kind of take like, even if it's just remotely Christmas, I I'm covering it for my show here. And uh this one I think has more Christmas than a lot of some of the other ones I've done.

SPEAKER_08 5:09

I was surprised at how much Christmas was in this movie. For real, the kind of movie it was.

SPEAKER_13 5:15

When we started listing the things, I was like, oh, I'm so glad there was a punk song where they yeah.

SPEAKER_16 5:21

Punk rock jingle bells totally.

SPEAKER_13 5:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:55

Come on, look down. Are you kidding? It looks like a room full of transfers. Come on!

SPEAKER_14 5:59

Yeah, I think it was uh the butt heads that did that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. That's that's like the perfect punk rock name.

SPEAKER_13 6:07

It's funny too, because it like none of it works into the plot whatsoever. No. Um, unless you consider Helen Hunt giving Tim Thomerson like a little robot toy part of the plot, but it's weird that they put the set dressing in there unless they were just really like they had the costuming or something. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 6:24

Yeah, like why set it to Christmas? Like you're right, like it kind of doesn't seem like it has a point. I don't know. Anytime I mean it was fun to see zombie Santa get the crappies.

SPEAKER_16 6:36

Well, and anytime you can get Mall Santa's and Mall Santa's getting into a fight, that is worth making your movie a Christmas movie. Well spent right there.

SPEAKER_13 6:46

That's probably like the I would guess that was probably the germ, right? They were like, I don't know, maybe they were writing it during Christmas time or something, and they saw Mall Santa and was like, wouldn't it be cool if he was like a zombie?

SPEAKER_14 6:56

That's where it started. Yes, yeah. Well, that see now Malsantos are like really good, you know. But like back when we were growing up, I mean I remember they're very scared. They quite looked just like his uh transfer forms.

SPEAKER_13 7:08

Yeah, totally, totally. So instead of the the white furry cuffs on the arms and stuff, it was like that yellowed yeah, yeah, off color, it was like an off-white.

SPEAKER_14 7:18

Yeah, no thanks. Yeah, but like I covered that. The I covered uh Knight of the Comet was another one, which is fantastic. Invasion USA, you know, another I was on this like like action movie, you know, action horror sci-fi, you know, quasi Christmas movie, question mark, you know, kind of bit. So I was like, this is the perfect one to add to that list. Yeah, but so this movie came out in 1984. I remember a lot of things from 84. I don't think I ever saw this movie until the 90s, but I do recall it being shown quite a bit on like I don't know if it was HBO or Cinemax or one of those, but I just remember them playing it a lot. Yeah, so much so that for when I was growing up, I remember having lots of it memorized. And then just all of a sudden I went to college and forgot about it, you know? And it was one of those things where you just life happens and then it was like, Oh yeah, that movie. And so I was like just super glad to come back to it because this movie, I mean, if you want to nutshell it essentially, it's like trooper goes back in time to hunt a telepathic killer. I mean, I guess that would be like the you know, the elevator pitch version of it. Basically, yeah, but there's so much more, yeah. So much more, so many levels.

SPEAKER_13 8:36

This this is one of those movies that you can definitely tell they were like, Well, okay, there's this other movie that did really well, you know, like they had like Blade Runner kind of sitting out there in Terminator, and they were like, Okay, we want to do something like that, but different, you know, like make it ours.

SPEAKER_14 8:53

Well, the the beginning totally felt like Blade Runner for sure.

SPEAKER_13 8:57

I mean, they even got the uh the the production designer that did like the Blade Runner cars, like he did Jack Death's car for the the opening sequence. They definitely had that somewhere in their minds. Um, but it has like the Terminator font and the Terminator kind of music at the the first opening bit.

SPEAKER_14 9:12

And oh man, that soundtrack is awesome.

SPEAKER_08 9:16

It's got like the synth wave outrun vibe. I was all in from the beginning.

SPEAKER_14 9:20

Same here, totally. You know, it's got the little ostinato that was like super popular during that time. So you have like the synth pads, you know, with with swells where they kind of crescendo and the decrescendo, and then all of a sudden, you know, you had that you know, that bum bum bum bum bum, you know, whatever it was, something like that going throughout. I mean, it's just I got all like the 80s feels from this, and and it was awesome just because of the score. A lot of it was just because of the score, because I think without that score, it would have been a lot worse. Yeah, yeah, a good score, it wouldn't, yeah, it definitely would have been harder to art.

SPEAKER_08 9:51

So absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 9:53

Oh, yeah, yeah. Looking at you, Jerry Goldsmith, but anyway. But like, uh, so so what's your guys' like history, or like what do you remember about this? Like before we get into the plot.

SPEAKER_08 10:05

I'll go first since I have no memory of it because I never saw it. So this was my first time, and definitely as rad as you guys say. So I'm here to tell you guys watch this movie.

unknown 10:17

Nice.

SPEAKER_14 10:18

Oh man, what about you guys?

SPEAKER_16 10:20

Yeah, I'll go just because I'm similar to Jamie. Like, I've never seen this. This was my first watch, but I was very aware of the franchise being a Fangoria reader because they advertised it a lot. And they I think they even had a couple of articles, but I remember seeing over the years this movie with Tim Thomerson, who I knew from Jeklyn Hyde. I was like, the guy from Jekyll and Hyde together again, and I was like, He's in this series, I need to see it. And I just it was one of those franchises that I was so aware of, but I just never watched it. And I guess my main thing I remember I don't remember the first ones, but I remember Trancers Five poster advertisement in Fangoria because it's him on a horse.

SPEAKER_14 10:58

Yes, it is because they go back to like medieval times, don't they?

SPEAKER_13 11:01

Yeah, yeah, they pulled they pulled an army of darkness with uh with trances towards the end.

SPEAKER_16 11:06

I'm like, I I've got to watch this franchise just for that one ad right there, him on a horse, and then like the doctor's the warrior in the front. And I was just like, Yes, I need to see this.

SPEAKER_08 11:18

Yeah, I was disappointed. I was telling Sean, I was disappointed that like he's not wearing the cool outfit in the poster in the movie. I'm like a little deceived because I'm like, where is that guy?

SPEAKER_14 11:28

It's like it's like runaway, you know. Uh when Tom Selleck on the poster, he has like that cool gun and he's got the armor on, and he never uses that ever.

SPEAKER_13 11:37

Yeah, that's that's the same kind of vibe. I love that though, because like I I think like nine times out of ten, they they paint the poster and then try to sell the movie off of the poster.

SPEAKER_14 11:45

Yeah, well, I mean, that's uh Canon films right there. That's like the history of Canon Films. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 11:54

I I I was aware of this one in in the late 80s, but I didn't see it until the early 90s. Um, I caught it on video. There was a I went through like a horror phase, like when I turned like 10 to 13, where I just kind of went from A to Z in the video store. Um, my parents let me just they like when I turned 10, they were just like, screw it, just watch whatever you want to watch. So I OD'd on horror for a while.

SPEAKER_16 12:15

The shackles are off.

SPEAKER_13 12:16

Yep. And then I kind of like pivoted at some point, like in 9091 or whatever, and started like digging into sci-fi. And this was one of the ones that if you walked into the sci-fi section, like Tim Thomerson stuff was all over the place, especially with these Empire movies and stuff like that, with like Zone Troopers and some of the other crazy ones he did with them. So I remember that was one of the first ones that I picked up, and I think it's because there was like six of them. I was like, Oh my god, this is like the Friday the 13th franchise for sci-fi.

SPEAKER_14 12:44

That's that's like the best comparison I think I've ever heard ever.

SPEAKER_13 12:48

It honestly feels like that when you're watching through them too. It's like there's there's definitely the uh well, this is Baghead Jason era, and this is when he becomes zombie Jason era, definitely.

SPEAKER_14 12:58

This would have been the 3D one. Oh, totally. This is where he's brought back to life.

SPEAKER_13 13:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 13:04

Oh man, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 13:05

I was gonna say the 3D one is actually part two because that's more of like a three-way thing because he's got he's got two lives in that one.

SPEAKER_16 13:11

Yeah, his dead. I was looking at the back, yeah. I was looking at the cast list after I watched the movie. I'm like, I need to see the second one, Who All Returns?

SPEAKER_14 13:20

Yeah, I've never seen any of the others, although there's even like short little what 20-minute that they call like Trancers One and a Half, essentially. I saw that, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 13:30

So there's there's an unproductive an unreleased film, an unreleased Empire Pictures movie, and I think it's uh what's it called? Pulse Pounders, I think. And great name. It is a great name. But basically, what it is is they had like three or four films that they they hadn't made sequels yet to, or they were going to make sequels or whatever, but they just didn't have the the budget or the funding or whatever. So what they decided to do was make small vignettes that were kind of pseudo-sequels to all the movies, and they put them together in in an anthology movie, and that never got released. But there was a trancers part, and um, if you've ever seen the movie The Dungeon Master with Richard Mall, oh yeah, right, right, crazy. That has a sequel that's a that's a mini-movie in that that chunk, and so yeah, there's it's a whole thing, but yeah, City of I think it's called City of Angels or City of Lost Angels or something like that.

SPEAKER_14 14:20

I don't know, but this like this concept sounds amazing. Like, I I think more people need to do that because that's just awesome to me, you know. Like movies that are just not gonna get like a full sequel, but you know, hey, we want to know what else happens, or we want to see another adventure. I mean, that's like that. I mean, that just sounds cool. Like, I'm all in on that.

SPEAKER_13 14:39

Yeah, I'm surprised. I'm surprised the Marvel Universe hasn't started doing that. MCU films with some of the ones that are like, uh do we try to with those they tried to with those.

SPEAKER_14 14:48

They did a few of the one shots, yeah. Yeah, they had them for a bit, but then like some of them were just odd and didn't really do any have anything to do with anything. It was kind of weird. I uh although I guess it is like a one-shot in the comic, so I mean that makes a lot of sense. So but yeah, I mean, I guess we can just go ahead and jump into it. I mean, this it I don't even know where to begin because this this is just a crazy, crazy premise, but it kind of starts off where immediately we're introduced to Jack Death and like what a trancer is because he's at a he goes to like a diner and you know the waitress ends up attacking him.

SPEAKER_13 15:24

She just goes like crazy zombie lady with a meat cleaver, it's awesome. Yeah, that was the part where Jamie was like, I'm all in.

unknown 15:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 15:33

You had me at hello.

SPEAKER_16 15:34

Yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_08 15:36

I thought it was clever, just taught just, you know, I know it's probably not a very high budget film, but just the fact that it is a futuristic sci-fi movie, but the majority of the movie actually takes place in the 80s, so it's okay that the world looks mostly normal while you're in it. So you only get kind of a taste of the future. So I thought it was a good use of like the budget, I guess, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_14 15:56

It's it's very uh time cop, you know, it starts off in the future and then you go back to 1990, whatever it was, or like the ones had in uh France.

SPEAKER_08 16:04

This movie is called Future Cop. According to some posters I've been looking at.

SPEAKER_14 16:10

Future cop. I mean, I guess that's accurate. Yeah, it's very literal, yes.

SPEAKER_13 16:15

It's it's very literal, yeah. I I also love how like in the 80s, the 50s was you know, like the nostalgia thing was for the 50s, like that was kind of the thing. So I love how their version of the future, which is supposed to be what, like 2247 or something like that, right, is very 50s influenced, which is weird. I mean, this is even before like what this is like a year before Back to the Future, right? So they're not even like just playing with like jokey things like that with time travel or whatever, but it's it's like there's there's that crazy diner, and like the car he's driving is futuristic, but it's also kind of like an old T Bird kind of looking car.

SPEAKER_14 16:48

Right.

SPEAKER_13 16:49

It's it's weird how they kind of mix the future in the past.

SPEAKER_16 16:53

Yeah, it felt to it felt it's weird because I agree. If I loved it, but it felt to me like an episode of Star Trek where like they come into a civilization, you know, like that episode in the gangster civilization. Well, this is the hard-boiled detective civilization where all they have are like Dashell Hammett novels or something. So it's like he comes in and he's talking, he's talking that like all that noory kind of language, like I'm tired, real tired. And I was just like, I loved that setup. I thought that was great.

SPEAKER_13 17:22

Give me a coffee with real milk, not that soy crap.

SPEAKER_14 17:27

It it's it kind of reminded me of like the 89 Batman franchise, you know, and where they they tried to make it in the 80s, but it was also like a lot of the vehicles or uniforms of the police officers, just very yeah, 40s, you know, gangster-ish, yeah, same thing. And so it's like they try to make it timeless, but at the same time, you're just you have no idea where or when you're supposed to be. Exactly.

SPEAKER_13 17:50

It's it's it's timeless, but it's also like specifically that. Yeah, Tim Burton tries to do it, but no, no, that's Tim Burton. Like, I can feel it.

SPEAKER_14 17:57

Yeah, and I got I got that same vibe from this as well. It's like, okay, so I guess they're trying to make it in the future, but but yeah, I mean, that whole scene, I mean, yeah, and you can tell when uh when the stunt woman is is in there because it's I mean you can just tell. I won't I won't say why, but it's just one of those I I kind of love that you know, that whole thing. It reminded me of I'm gonna get you sucker. And you know, with when when that whole the stunt man takes over and he's got he's like a you know a short little Hispanic guy with like a mustache and something takes over for the girl and that or or lady balls, exactly. Yeah, you idiots! These are not them. You've captured the stunt doubles! Yeah, it's like totally from their playbook there. But I love how the the the other like patron at the diner like sees the Jack Death's about to like shoot the waitress and he he like tries to defend her. He's like, like, you're gonna hurt this poor old lady. It's like she just tried to kill me.

SPEAKER_13 18:58

Yeah, right. Uh you know, I kind of love the world building in that because on the one hand, there's like trancers are a problem enough so that the entire police force is out trying to track down all of right, all the trancers and and and oh, what do they call? I've just watched this movie twice in a row. Singe them, sorry.

SPEAKER_14 19:16

Singe, singe.

SPEAKER_13 19:17

So yeah, you know, they're trying to singe all the transcers or whatever, but at the same time, like I feel like there was like this thing where some of the like most normal people maybe haven't ever run into a trancer, so it's like they kind of believe but don't believe, and they're like, I don't know. I just kind of got this vibe where like I don't know if I'm giving it more credit than it's due, but it feels like they put a lot of thought into that. Yeah, yeah, but like also with like the switcheroo with like you think that other patron is definitely the transcer because he looks like that guy's gonna get in a fight.

SPEAKER_16 19:46

Yeah, well, and they must have they do that too with the the when he kills the mall Santa, where it's like people are mad at him for killing the Mall Santa, even though he very clearly was trying to kill Jack. People seem to ignore that, but but yeah, I was trying to figure out like obviously trancers are big enough that the cops know about them, but right Jack's the only one trying to track him down because he got in trouble for it, right? And he got yeah, he quit the force because he was getting in trouble. So they thought they killed the leader, so but he's still renegating it out, trying to go after them. But you're right, it does seem like normals normies uh have not have not encountered trancers because they clearly don't know what they are.

SPEAKER_08 20:26

I was just gonna say I was I was very confused by the powers of the trancers because they're normal unless you look at them funny, yeah. They just go crazy, and then it's like they don't know how to control themselves, but like you would think that like they're they're obviously living out normal lives, they're employed, and all santos are getting tired, you know.

SPEAKER_14 20:50

So I'm just picturing the mall the mall santilla getting up, you know, brushing his teeth, going to work, you know, and just for grunting and I get this feeling that they're like they're kind of like a ticking time bomb where yeah, again, it's only because I've seen this movie three times this year where where the stuff is starting to get you know to come into focus.

SPEAKER_13 21:10

But it's this thing where like I think they are kind of like normal people, like they get taken, they get hypnotized or whatever, and he does his whistler, the main villain does his trancer thing on them, and you're kind of like put back into society in like a time bomb waiting to go off until I guess he orders them to or someone does thing that he can test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like sometimes he just looks at them and they think that that's what I'm saying is like I think like sometimes they they they hit their own fuse or whatever, where they're like, Okay, that's it, going full trance are gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_16 21:40

I was wondering, I was wondering if it was Jack that was setting him off, but then the tanning guy held off for a little while before he turned. So I was like, Is it are they yeah, that was my question exactly, Jamie was like, are they doing it?

SPEAKER_14 21:52

Yeah, like even again or is that they're under Whistler's control, right? So presumably he like can see through their eyes, maybe and and well, he totally.

SPEAKER_13 22:00

Can because like with the Malsanta, when he's dying after Jack shoots him, the Malsanta speaks in the voice of Whistler and says, Yeah, welcome to the 20th century. Oh, that's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_08 22:08

He's like controlling them, speaking through them. Okay, I didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_13 22:12

There's little things again, just because I've seen this movie three times this year, little things you start to pick up that like they don't address, and jumping forward here a little bit, but like when they go to the tanning salon and he's going after the the one descendant, the descendant, yeah. Yeah, and like he goes full transfer and he knocks Jack out, and then he puts him in the tanning booth or whatever. And then the next shot you have is of like like Helen Hunt coming in to save him, and that transcer's dead, and he's lying on the floor, and there's a bullet wound to his head, he's like bleeding out from the head, and there's a gun there. Like, I think Whistler ordered him to kill himself after he turned into the full-on transfer, but they don't address it, talk about it, nothing.

SPEAKER_14 22:49

Well, I mean, Whistler's whole goal is to wipe out the descendants of you know the the council, whatever. Totally, yeah. And so I mean, I that it makes sense. I mean, you want him dead, just have him shoot himself, you know.

SPEAKER_13 22:59

Sure, and but but again, it's it's one of those things where it's like you know, not really talked about, but it it's kind of cool that it if you if you watch it enough times you realize that I think he really does have control of all these people that he's tranced.

SPEAKER_14 23:09

And I mean the movie is like very short, it's only like like what 76 minutes or so, yeah, which I mean, as much as I love there's like tons of movies that I love that are that length, but I mean come on, if your movie's not 90 minutes, shame on you. Um you know, but I mean I wonder like if there was more that was just cut out. Like, is there I doubt there is, but is there like a novelization of this? Because I would love to read the novelization, you know, just to see.

SPEAKER_13 23:36

Novelization would be amazing. Yeah, I don't think uh I don't think Empire had that in the budget.

SPEAKER_16 23:41

Yeah, that'd be that'd be probably that'd be too fancy for Empire, man.

SPEAKER_13 23:44

Yeah, they could pay for I don't think they have the 20 grand or whatever up front to pay a an author to novelize this. I would novelize them for them now, but no real, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 23:53

I totally would too. I'd be like, let me pay you. I just want to do this, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_13 23:58

Yeah, yeah, whistler's confusing too, because like you only get to see his body in the future. Yeah, like he's kind of weird with like tattoos on his face, but you just kind of barely see him before he, you know, Jack destroys his body.

SPEAKER_08 24:12

If they were gonna fill this movie with more content, it needs to be more whistler. Yeah, but I would say I need I need to understand him a little bit better and like what he's all about.

SPEAKER_13 24:21

But you get that one weird transmission that they play. Greetings to the comps.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

As you may have gathered, I have survived the pathetic trap set by trooper death for Mekon 7. For twelve long years you have hunted my disciples like dogs. Now my day of vengeance is at hand. I've synthesized your time drink, and in a moment shall retreat down the dark corridors of history. Know that it is I who am solely responsible for your demise. One by one your ancestors shall be murdered, and you, their progeny, shall cease to exist. Then shall I return, join my legion, and claim the seat of power for my own.

SPEAKER_13 25:16

Where the where he like explains his like his whole motivation. Yeah, exactly, where he does the whole bond villain thing.

SPEAKER_08 25:21

Do we ever actually see him transing somebody? We all we see people who are already trans. We see him trying to maybe attempt it for a split second with Helen Hunt.

SPEAKER_13 25:30

That's it, that's what you get to see. Yeah, but that's it.

SPEAKER_08 25:32

Like, there's no I was expecting some like amazing tran entrancing process or something. Never never really got that.

SPEAKER_15 25:39

And there you go, there's your 14 minutes right there, the trancing process.

SPEAKER_13 25:43

This this is the beauty of the stuff. That's how long it takes 14 minutes. It takes exactly 14 minutes. There's a joke there I'm not gonna go to, but there's there's so that that's the beauty of the sequels is that later on, like every single movie changes what a transfer is. Like this one is literally people that are hypnotized, and the next one, it's like aren't they clothed? Well, they're like people in an insane asylum and they grow these weird plants and then they like process the plants to get some kind of weird serum that they inject into them to make them transcers. And then like the third one, it's it's like a it's almost like the super serum from Captain America, where they've developed some kind of weird super soldier program, and they they take these injections to become super soldiers, but eventually they become trancers. And the when they went full army of darkness, it's just like mysticism and witchcraft that makes trancers.

SPEAKER_14 26:36

So it's like it's so maybe a trancer is just like a generic term that means like anybody kind of possessed, that's it's vague, yeah, zombie-like, you know.

SPEAKER_13 26:45

My my favorites are the first one because the whole zombie aesthetic and when they kind of turn and get all creepy.

SPEAKER_14 26:50

That's well, and it again it kind of reminded me of of Knight of the Comet, like as far as uh makeup goes, you know, it's not they're not like full zombie, but at the same time, they're definitely not like just you know regular human. So I I really dug it. I kind of like that that weird mix, you know, it's like that in-between, it's just so vague.

SPEAKER_13 27:09

Yep, yeah. This was a good time for zombies because there wasn't like you know, like there was a couple years or like four, six, six, so years, whatever, between the two Romero, dawn and day. There wasn't like this huge zombie, like like nowadays there's like there's like hard and fast rules, and if you break them, some part of the phantom is gonna get pissed off if they run too fast, if they run too slow, whatever. This was a great period where it's like they could kind of be whatever. Yeah, you know, it's just like go nuts.

SPEAKER_16 27:36

Yeah, it's however you define it.

SPEAKER_14 27:38

Well, and isn't like the original definition of zombie, you know, like like from the the Haitian culture, isn't it really just like someone that was kind of possessed or something? Yeah, yeah. So I mean it kind of makes sense, I guess.

SPEAKER_13 27:48

It does, yeah. It kind of does kind of feel like it's more in line with that.

SPEAKER_14 27:51

I don't know, but all I know is uh when that mall Santa attacked, that was a fun fight.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

And what would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas this year?

SPEAKER_09 28:00

Mr. Potato Head, hungry, hungry hippo it's John Doe the Mandroid.

SPEAKER_05 28:05

Leave, I need to talk to you.

SPEAKER_09 28:07

Not now, okay?

SPEAKER_05 28:08

Listen, I'm not crazy. I need your help.

SPEAKER_09 28:10

A transformer that is Septagon and John Doe the Mandroid, and a new slot car because my stupid sister busted my old money. Hey Samu, are you listening?

SPEAKER_06 28:25

What's wrong with Rory?

SPEAKER_05 28:29

He's a transfer.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

We've got trouble at the North Pole.

SPEAKER_14 28:59

Oh yeah. He tried to impale it with some reindeer antlers. Oh, totally. And the Santa Village with the fake snow tone.

SPEAKER_08 29:09

I don't know. You notice that. Yeah, like the two breaths.

SPEAKER_14 29:11

The two yeah, they're like watching, yeah. Just like, whoa. Love, love.

SPEAKER_08 29:16

I pointed out to Sean too, the dude that was the kid that was sitting on Santa's lap. I think I'm pretty sure he's like the same kid that was in the younger brother in the great outdoors, and then also girls just want to have fun. Who Helen Hunt would also be a co-star of that movie? So I thought that was a fun little connection.

SPEAKER_14 29:32

I I recognized him and I was like, I gotta look him up, and I never did, which I'm kind of ashamed now because I as soon as I saw him, I was like, Man, this kid looks so familiar. What is he from? And and I think you're right.

SPEAKER_13 29:43

He's definitely Marshall's in the 80s. I can tell you about it.

SPEAKER_08 29:45

I love I love the slow motion like nutcracker falling on Jack.

SPEAKER_14 29:52

Yeah, yeah. Crazy thing is, like you know, because I work at a Christmas store, we have nutcrackers like that size, and they are heavy. So yeah, he was good, he was smart to roll out of the way there. I think totally would have messed him up.

SPEAKER_08 30:06

I think you should come up with like a trancer's ornament or or something and like hang it at some part of your store and see if anyone notices or you know, they they want a special prize if they if they come and try to buy the transcers ornament, like the Christmas pickle or something.

SPEAKER_14 30:19

See if you can find the the transfer. Christmas trancer or the trancer on the tray. I hey, I'm in, let's do it.

SPEAKER_08 30:30

Just take like a normal dance ornament and make him look like a transfer penis eyes a little bit.

SPEAKER_14 30:35

That's right. That's like the perfect uh like like I'm surprised I didn't make that joke, you know, like like Dasher Dancer Trancer, you know, Prancer, whatever.

SPEAKER_13 30:46

Yeah, I love Empire, but they didn't have the budget for the tagline guy either. Welcome to the 20th century jack death.

SPEAKER_14 30:55

I gotcha. I although I did think it was like a really creative way to go back in time, like being you know, possessing your ancestors. Like, I I don't recall that from seeing that anywhere else.

SPEAKER_13 31:05

Yeah, the closest thing is like quantum leap, but even leap was not, yeah. That's just you're like, you know, but you're stuck within your lifetime of experience or whatever. But yeah, no, that that is a really fun way.

SPEAKER_16 31:15

Oh, it's even weirder because they inject you with something, and that sends you back to your ancestor, and then you take an antidote for that thing and return. I was like, that is I mean, I'll give it to them. That is very unique. I've never seen anything like that.

SPEAKER_14 31:32

Well, like uh, like you said earlier, cocaine, man. Yeah, I think George Lucas with Howard the Duck kind of proved that cocaine can do just about anything. Yeah, as soon as it can.

SPEAKER_13 31:44

George Lucas and Stephen King with it. That's right, yeah, exactly. That's where all the good movies come from.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

The original idea of Trancers was a time travel piece that Charlie had in his head about a time traveling cop.

SPEAKER_11 31:58

We took the script and we read it and then we put it aside and we created our own uh version of Trancers. I think the only thing that we kept was the idea that he was a cop from the future who came back to the past and was chasing a. It was. The ancest the time travel through an ancestor was in there. Okay, I think that was in the original. We liked that idea, we kept that because we thought that was pretty cool, and we played obviously with that a lot.

SPEAKER_05 32:28

You'll be in charge of my bones when I'm gone.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Don't worry, Jake. I don't hold a grudge.

SPEAKER_10 32:32

I still think it's one of the most credible uh time travel uh uh sort of inventions, you know. I mean, people getting into a machine and traveling back in time, and we've seen that forever. But the idea of someone being able to inhabit the consciousness of a of an ancestor is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_14 32:50

Yeah, it was it was definitely original, although it was also pretty creepy, you know, when you think about it, because you're you're in your ancestor, and he ends up like getting married to Lena, you know, to Helen Hunt, right?

SPEAKER_08 33:01

So that's like one minute you're having relations with your boyfriend at the time, and the next some dude from the future.

SPEAKER_13 33:10

It raises those same questions that Wonder Woman were. Yes, I was wondering if you were gonna bring it up. Yeah, which is like is this rape? Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_16 33:22

Well, even in the middle of the movie, he gets sent back to the future, and then she's left with the the body and has sex with them, and then Jack comes back and it's done. I'm like, whoa, well he missed all the good well he missed he missed the good part earlier, too.

SPEAKER_14 33:37

You know, he did, yeah. It was like the morning afterwards.

SPEAKER_16 33:41

So it's like Phil came back for a second and realized, well, hey, I'm in the middle of having sex, and then he goes back to where and then there's the dude that came back as the little girl, which was awesome to me.

SPEAKER_08 33:53

McNulty, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 33:54

That's yeah, McNulty. That's great names, you know, Jack Deck, no, McNulty, Lena, but then you get like Whistler, and that just kind of it kind of throws it all off, you know. Which which by the way leads to like the the best or the worst, depending on how you look at it, joke in the whole movie, which uh when they're talking about the painting of Whistler's mother, and he's like, I didn't know he had a mother, you know. I didn't know it.

SPEAKER_16 34:17

Oh man, it's like I totally thought what he made, I totally thought I was gonna read more, I read a lot more into that because he dropped that line and I was like, Oh, that painting's gonna tie into the plot somehow, and he's gonna figure something out. No, it just it didn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_13 34:34

Giving him too much credit. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_16 34:37

I was thinking too far ahead on that one.

SPEAKER_08 34:39

So we haven't talked about just speaking of like some creative ideas, but like the uh the watch that slows down time.

SPEAKER_14 34:45

I thought that was pretty much I got an old watch.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Not like this one. If you depress this knob, you'll gain a long second. What? One second, stretch to ten for the person holding the device. Now, while you will have complete freedom of movement, the rest of the world will appear to have stopped.

SPEAKER_05 35:08

Let's give it a try.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

No, it has a single-use generator. When the long second runs down, the watch will dissolve, so don't waste it.

SPEAKER_14 35:16

Which was a really long second. That was a good one. That was the longest ten seconds none to man.

SPEAKER_08 35:21

I love how he spends like half of his ten seconds like being amazed at what he's doing.

SPEAKER_13 35:27

Staring at Whistler, kind of like walking past him, but refusing to not turn his head where he's not staring at him. What I what I love too is the the the the irony of the irony of the whole thing because when you think about it, he's supposed to be moving at the speed of light and everyone else is supposed to be frozen, but they show you the reverse where everything is moving slow, including him.

SPEAKER_14 35:53

Including him, yeah, that's true. You know, that he uh they they inspired Jack S uh Zach Snyder. I mean I don't know. Oh no, there you go. Okay, all right. That's my that's my dig at uh at Justice League well deserved. Oh man, yeah, but there, yeah, it was one of those where they're like there was a lot of cool ideas and it just kind of came together in like that perfectly 80s way, you know, like the 80s was just that time where you could just like throw a bunch of stuff in a blender and you know kind of mix it up and I mean the pinnacle is the tanning salon for me.

SPEAKER_08 36:29

Like this is an 80s movie.

SPEAKER_14 36:31

So good tanning, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 36:32

And as someone who used to work in an actual tanning salon, I'll tell you the stand-up units, they will melt your face off. They are serious business.

SPEAKER_14 36:40

Oh man.

SPEAKER_13 36:42

No joke.

SPEAKER_14 36:43

Well, then I'm glad Alina saved him because yikes that would be a terrible way to go. I mean, uh unless you know you get trash thrown at you and you fall off a building, but I mean, I guess expertly thrown by an ex-ball player, thrown by a former ball player, yeah. Yeah, well, of course, you know, you gotta have the the credentials to throw it. Yep, and he kept up those skills. You saw him keeping up the skills, and they were playing liquor bottle baseball. Did anybody else get like a planet of the apes type vibe when he was like out swimming, you know, with the snorkel on the beach?

SPEAKER_13 37:24

Yeah, I love that there's one good line that kind of gets lost later in the movie when they're doing their motorcycle chase away from the from Whistler and the police and everything. And because before the whole thing is like he doesn't know where anything is, right? Kwanga Boulevard or all this stuff, he he can't find his way around, right? But then later when they're doing the chase and he's like, We gotta split up, it's the only way we're gonna survive. And she's like, But you don't know where anything is, and he's like, Yeah, but I used to swim here. It's such a throwaway line that, like, if you're not paying attention, there was that was diving.

SPEAKER_08 37:54

No, everything's underwater.

SPEAKER_13 37:55

But remember he used to dive underwater looking for street signs and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_08 38:00

LA I've watched this movie.

SPEAKER_13 38:03

It is, it is well, it's like he basically snorkeled like all of LA.

SPEAKER_16 38:08

I mean, he had his own wetsuit and everything, so he was like, At the very least, at the very least, he definitely swam down Hollywood Boulevard because he talked about finding the Chinese theater, yeah, which I thought was a great line. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, LA's underwater? Like, what?

SPEAKER_14 38:23

Well, and you know, there was that big uh in the 80s, there was like that huge thing about you know, what no one knew when the big one was gonna hit. No, I know one way or another.

SPEAKER_13 38:30

There's a superman movie with it, there's sooner or later, LA's gonna fall in the water.

SPEAKER_14 38:36

L is, you know, it's just a matter of time, so why not why not in 2247 or whatever whenever it was, somewhere around there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I used to swim here. Yeah, this is uh so Whistler, I guess, is is he also in one of his descendants, right? Yeah, because it because it had to be a descendant, right?

SPEAKER_13 38:54

So he had a slightly different name, but but yeah, he wasn't a cop that was a descendant.

SPEAKER_08 38:58

Pretty much the same.

SPEAKER_13 38:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 38:59

Oh, yeah, again, pretty much nobody else like really looked on.

SPEAKER_13 39:03

No, yeah, but like Whistler looked like I I think I think it was actually the same actor with that one, knowing that he was gonna only be. I mean, it was the same actor with Tim Timerson. What am I saying? Jesus.

unknown 39:13

Sorry.

SPEAKER_13 39:14

It was, yeah, yeah. Just like, but he had dark hair, and then he had he had cool hair, then he just like his hair back. Yeah, dry hairs for squids.

SPEAKER_14 39:22

Did he have like a prosthetics on when he was in the future?

SPEAKER_13 39:25

Uh he had the one scar over the one side of his eye.

SPEAKER_14 39:28

Yeah, there was something on it. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 39:30

And again, he they they they had the you know, he had the Jess for Menon.

SPEAKER_16 39:35

He definitely had like the black hair, the motor oil in his hair.

SPEAKER_13 39:40

Yeah, yeah. But that was another thing I was gonna say that's kind of like a throwaway thing in that last sequence is when when Whistler has Helen Hunt and he basically tells Jack Death about his future is like Phil and her, like the the guy that Jack Death is in, his descendant, get married and have kids, and eventually that leads to Jack Death. So he's actually co-opting his like great-great-great-grandmother. Oh man, which is really weird and creepy. Yeah, it is so weird.

SPEAKER_16 40:10

Super creepy. Yeah, I thought about that too.

SPEAKER_13 40:13

But fun and you know, fun at the same time. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_14 40:16

So fun. You know, I mean, if you get a chance to to go to a punk rock club with your great-great-great grandma, yeah. I mean, go for it, you know.

SPEAKER_16 40:26

Who who wears a denim jacket with a rebel flag on the back? I don't know if anyone noticed that.

SPEAKER_13 40:31

We really decided that.

SPEAKER_15 40:33

Oh man.

SPEAKER_16 40:34

Well, she's a rebel, she is total, total rebel.

SPEAKER_13 40:37

I also love this. This this is a this is an aesthetic of uh 80s movies where when they go to a crazy club, it's always a punk club. Yeah, I just watched Cyclone uh with uh Heather Thomas and uh oh yeah, yeah, um, what's his name from reanimator Jeffrey Coombs? And same thing, they go to a club and it's a punk club, and the woman that like is so into going to that club is always the one that looks nothing like a punk, yeah. Right. So I guess I'll give her that credit for Helen Hunt.

SPEAKER_15 41:03

But um she went, she went part of the way there.

SPEAKER_14 41:05

Yeah, yeah. She's a poser.

SPEAKER_08 41:08

I mean, how old do you guys think he is or he's supposed to be Tim Thomerson?

SPEAKER_13 41:12

Yeah, in this movie as his character, yeah, as his character in his 30s, right? That's true. She's supposed to be like 18, 19. Barely 20, maybe. I don't know. She wasn't old enough to know the 63 baseball card. That was that was before her time. Right.

SPEAKER_08 41:29

He's gotta be like barely 20.

SPEAKER_16 41:30

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Well, yeah, because Jerry the Punk's the only one to call it out. They're like, what are you doing with the old guy?

SPEAKER_13 41:37

Well, is that true? There's that, but there's also he calls himself out because when he when he when he first zaps back into the to fill or whatever, and he like gets out of the gets out of the bathroom and he goes over where she's getting dressed to get ready for work or whatever, and he looks in the top drawer of the bureau, and there's a whole bunch of pictures of like young women and leotards, and he's like, This guy's a shark.

SPEAKER_15 41:54

This guy's a shark, that's right. He did say that. He does say that.

SPEAKER_13 41:59

So he's got a type. Well, his ancestor had a type, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_14 42:02

Yeah. Well, we don't know exactly how old his ancestor is. I mean, he could be age appropriate. I don't know. He could be.

SPEAKER_08 42:09

But wait a minute, but he ends up marrying Helen Hunt, so apparently she's the one though. Yeah, she's the one that made him change his ways.

SPEAKER_13 42:15

When you find Helen Hunt, you keep Helen Hunt.

SPEAKER_15 42:17

Yeah, yeah, it's true. Yeah, true. You no longer hunt after Helen Hunt.

SPEAKER_14 42:24

He'll be here all week, folks. Um, yeah, for real. I mean, I I I learned that from Paul Riser, you know, just but just pack it up. We've we repeat comedy. I think we're allowed to make dad jokes. We're dads, right? Yeah, I mean it it's kind of weird, and then in part two, his dead ex-wife comes back, and so then it's like a whole love triangle. And I was really bummed to learn that in part three they they end up getting divorced or something. She's like remarried, right?

SPEAKER_13 42:58

They do, and the oh my god, the future of Helen Hunt in these movies is amazing. So, like in the eight.

SPEAKER_16 43:03

Which ones are she in? Yeah, so she's in the first three.

SPEAKER_13 43:06

Yeah, okay, wow, and there's there's a bit of a gap between one and two. So one is 84, two is 91. So they finally found the budget. I think at that point they were full moon pictures, not Empire at that point. But what what's crazy is just when you think of the Helen Hunt timeline, right? So you've got early 80s, Helen Hunt is like girls just want to have fun, right? And Project X. Project X, and you know, a couple of things where she's not you know a huge actress. Eventually she kind of did Next of Kin. But like by 1991, she was either filming or done with the first season before it aired of Mad About You, like which is gonna air like that next year. So, like, she's already like, I'm the Helen Hunt that's gonna become Oscar winning Helen Hunt in a few years, and a few years after that. So, was she just like contractually obliged to do it? Or I think it was more of like Tim Thomerson got her the job on this first one, like he suggested her. And so I think at that Point, like he was definitely falling in terms of his career, and I think she was more like, Oh, okay, I'll do the second one. Sure, I'll come back and throw you a bone and we'll we'll do that. And by the time I got to the third one, it's like they had already grandfathered in the story from the second one, where it's like she kind of needed to make an appearance, and she does for like five seconds, yeah, just to come and like serve him divorce papers. Um, but yeah, it's just it's just kind of crazy when you think about it. It's like that the fact that they could still get Helen Hunt at that point when I'm sure her agents were like, No, no, no, no, no. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_07 44:31

What are you doing?

SPEAKER_14 44:33

She needs not the movie, it's direct to video, what yeah, which is all the sequels were, weren't they?

SPEAKER_13 44:41

Mm-hmm. Wow. Back in the 80s, you could make a movie like this and put it out in theaters regionally, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't that much of a big deal. But by the 90s, it's like, no, no, no, you're you were fighting against Terminator 2s and Jurassic Parks and stuff. It's like there's no way you're gonna get theater screen time without a big budget.

SPEAKER_14 44:56

Yeah. Well, it's like, what did I just do with the 1984 made-for-tv movie A Christmas Carol? And yet it was shown in in the UK, it was like in released in theaters.

SPEAKER_13 45:05

Released in theaters, yeah. Yeah, again, that that that early 80s is such a great time for that because it's like there's so many things that we tend to forget about theaters. Like, there used to be a point where like only certain theater chains would show certain movies, like you couldn't go see you know, like Terminator at every theater, everywhere at every chain. It's like it was only at like Cineplex Odeon or something like that. They had the right to show it, and so like that started changing in the 90s or whatever. So that's what it was so easy to get your films into theaters in the 80s, is because like the theater chains were hungry for content, like the Trancers were like, please take our movie, anybody, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 45:41

They were like, sure, we'll throw that up in a bat now, and that's why we got Miami Connection, exactly. Things like that happen. Yep, which you know, thank god we did because that movie's also awesome.

SPEAKER_13 45:52

Totally. And just throwing this out there, if anyone hasn't seen New York Ninja, if you like Miami Connection, New York Ninja just got released by Vinegar Syndrome, and it is in the same vein, it's very nice, and writing that down, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 46:08

No, that's cool. Um, yeah, I I think this was just like that perfect mix of of camp and sci-fi, and you know, just nonsense that it just made it a fun watch, you know. Yeah, some of the jokes were a little cringy, but at the same time, I mean it was just fun. And the score, you know, we talked about the score, it it really it drives, it's it's got a lot of that sense that was super popular.

SPEAKER_13 46:33

I mean, you know, and it's like a it's like the guy that did the score also has an awesome name. It's like Mark Ryder, but like R-Y-D-E-R. It's like it feels like, yes, you write out run scores.

SPEAKER_14 46:46

Well, you know, I mean, you gotta make your name somehow. So totally why not doing crazy synth scores for you know low budget sci-fi movies.

SPEAKER_08 46:56

I love about this is I love that Helen Hunt just, I'm sorry, what's her name? Lena Lena just knows how to hot wire motorcycles.

SPEAKER_13 47:03

Oh, she had a boyfriend, she had a boyfriend, yeah, which was the one that he punched out in that bar. Yeah, the punk guy. Yeah, he came out and he saw his trash motorcycle and he was like, who?

SPEAKER_08 47:14

I thought it was cute too, how she's all worried, like, oh, could you just not be a cop for a few minutes? Like, he doesn't give a crap.

SPEAKER_14 47:21

He doesn't care. His whole mission is just to hunt whistler. That's all he's I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_13 47:24

He he would shoot a hobo in a second just for the just for the heck of it.

SPEAKER_14 47:29

I can't believe that they thought they were gonna get Betty Davis like in this movie. Oh yeah, they I think they had her, I think they did have her, yeah. Yeah, and then she was scheduled. Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_13 47:40

That would have been crazy.

SPEAKER_14 47:42

That yeah, I mean, can you imagine Betty Davis being in your in this movie? Right.

SPEAKER_13 47:47

It's it's like when they got Orson Wells and Transformers in the movie.

SPEAKER_14 47:51

Yeah, it was totally that was brilliance right there.

SPEAKER_13 47:54

Oh, it's broke, don't get me wrong. I yeah, couldn't imagine if my childhood was out there. Totally.

SPEAKER_14 48:01

Which uh sorry to derail this again, but like uh they were you know they re-released Transformers back in September, and I just I couldn't get off work, it was awful. I was I was so bummed. I wanted to see it so bad.

SPEAKER_13 48:14

And uh I did too, but I'm I'm very thankful that I got to see it in the original run. They just re-released Rad too. Oh, did they? Nice, yeah. That's another great that's another one that I I got a chance to watch. So it's like I know that if I went to the theater, it would just be a digital projection of the Blu-ray, right? Uh so it's like it you know wouldn't be the the full thing or whatever, but yeah, no, it just to see it on the big screen.

SPEAKER_14 48:36

Yeah. Well, which uh by the way, Rad also has a like fantastic soundtrack. Oh god is it does John Farnum? John Farnum, yeah. Yeah. Uh but you know, it does make me kind of wonder like, what would you guys say would be your like half half happiest memory or moment of this film?

SPEAKER_16 49:12

I mean, there were a couple in here I loved, but the one that I I don't know, probably enjoyed the most and really got me into it was the mall Santa fight. Yeah, like just this this little Santa village with the fake snow, and then all of a sudden he gets into a I love seeing movies where like the main characters get in a fight with these like mall characters, and like this was one of those, and it was great and I loved it. And the antlers and everything, I loved it. Yeah, yeah, that was a great scene.

SPEAKER_08 49:39

I think I'd be hard pressed not to pick that scene, but because you you still lit chut packs, I think I'm gonna go ahead and do the um the actual the what whatever we're calling it, the stopwatch that slows down the gun. Like that came out of nowhere. I was like, whoa, like because I guess I missed it when she explained like when she did the whole bond that you were along again. I guess I wasn't fully paying attention. So, like when they were surrounded with the guns, I was like, Oh god, how are they gonna get out of this? So I thought it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_13 50:08

It's the slowest, most visually striking way possible is the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_14 50:12

Well, the they only had so much in the budget, you know. That's true, that's true.

SPEAKER_13 50:17

I think I think for me, geez, that's it's it's hard with all the stuff in here. I'm just gonna go with when he when he first comes back, gets zapped back, and he's sort of like acclimating himself. There's just something about some of the dialogue there, and like there's the just I have find this, and this will actually lead into my your your next segment, but I I love I love a line he says when when he when he's basically trying to acclimate himself, and she's like, Well, what about last night? You know, you said some stuff last night. What exactly did I say? There's some there's some good dialogue there, and so I just absolutely I just I just love that.

SPEAKER_14 50:53

Which by the way, I mean, come on, like, doesn't she know that's a line? That's gotta be a line, right?

SPEAKER_13 50:58

That's the liniest line I've ever heard. That's how she marries him. Exactly.

SPEAKER_08 51:02

That's the way that's that is the moment that she's like, You're the one for life.

SPEAKER_13 51:06

Yeah, the one second line, right? Or the second hookup line. Ensure the second hookup.

SPEAKER_14 51:13

Although I I did like when they get to, you know, after they're they're driving and he's like explaining all the you know the craziness. I didn't like how you know she's like, Did I give you my number? And he says no. She's like, Good. Thank God, yeah. Thank God, yeah. Yeah, I I think for me, yeah, the Mall Santa fight was was amazing, but I don't want to same thing, I don't want to steal it. So I think I really just liked uh all the stuff in the future where he like kills the he destroys his body and kind of leaves him just stranded, you know, in the ether. I just thought that was kind of cool because again, it's like the whole concept was just something different and new, and so there's just nobody for him to come back to now. So sucks to be him, I guess.

SPEAKER_13 51:57

But yeah, I kind of like that, and I kind of like how they don't explain it if I remember correctly. I think it works into the sequel, but I it's it's been like six months of raising two kids, so I don't know. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_14 52:10

I get it, I get it, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 52:11

I like the the romance too that blooms between them, and I always just actually re-watching the scene with um, you know, where basically trying to explain in so many words that he's in love with her, but he doesn't actually say it. Just like you love me. He's like, Isn't that what I just said?

unknown 52:25

I don't know.

SPEAKER_13 52:25

I just said I didn't want you to get shot, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 52:28

Despite the the craziness and the creepiness that surrounds the relationship, I actually do think these actors have good chemistry and I really enjoyed watching it on the screen.

SPEAKER_13 52:38

So this is what I love about, especially like I Tim Thomerson has got charisma out the wazoo, but like this is one of the things I had to keep getting reminded of because I'm I'm not a mad about you fan or whatever, and I like some of her later 90s movies, but like I keep forgetting how awesome Helen Hunt was in the 80s. Yeah, just just this one-two punch of this and girls want to have fun is like holy crap! Yeah, um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_16 53:01

I'll I'll I want to mention this made me happy because I didn't find out until at like actually when I started the movie, it's written by Bilson and DeMayo, who did the Rocketeer, but then more importantly, they did the Flash 1990. And like I totally got vibes of Flash 1990. No, that's what I'm saying. I mean, even yeah, even Hap Ashby is played by Officer Murphy from Flash 1990, right? And so, like that, I love that. I love that these guys did that because it totally feels like them. And and like I've just last a couple months ago, I watched that whole series again, and it was just I loved I love those guys.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

Didn't you get to play in the snow when you were a kid? I like that, that's good. Yeah, I knew you wouldn't turn down my little invitation. I'm only here long enough to see that you're put back in jail where you belong. Oh, really? Then why don't you just come and get me? What's the matter? Oh, don't tell me you're afraid of little eyes.

SPEAKER_14 54:03

The cap the Captain Cold and Muromaster and Trickster episodes are like my favorite of that whole series. Yeah. Yeah, which again, that's another one that is kind of that same thing. It's like that weird quasi 80s, 40s noir, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 54:16

They were they were definitely trying to vibe off of the the battery thing.

SPEAKER_14 54:19

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you so much so that Danny Elfman wrote the theme, you know. So yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_16 54:25

And and Thomerson played Barry's brother in that one, actually. He did, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 54:29

In the first repel it, right? Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_13 54:33

Those guys definitely like Thomerson too, because he's he's like one of the main guys in The Wrong Guys, that late 80s comedy with a bunch of like uh Richard Belzer and Richard, uh the guy that's always depressed comedian, anyways, a bunch of comedians. Louis Anderson, Tim Thomerson. Oh, the Stephen Wright, Stephen Wright, uh not Steven Wright, Richard uh your enthusiasm. Richard Richard Lewis, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, okay. Took me a long time to get there. Richard David. I'm like, what? I know like that's their that's one of their movies too, again with Tim Thomerson.

SPEAKER_14 55:09

Yeah, yeah, they got a guy. I mean, nowadays every it seems like everybody's got a guy, you know. They like the people they love to work with. So I mean, I get it. But before we get into my next section, I did want to bring up that uh I like in the sequel, Richard Lynch is like the main villain. I mean, he's like like you think 80s villain, you know, especially in like these types of movies. I mean, like oh totally, totally doesn't Richard Lynch come out, you know?

SPEAKER_13 55:33

Yep, and it's it's it's so like like he was a good looking guy too. He's the guy that got burnt, right?

SPEAKER_14 55:39

Yeah, yeah, he's all burned.

SPEAKER_13 55:40

Yeah, yeah, he was a guy that was like a really good looking like soap opera actor guy that got you know, like his whole face burnt. And it's just he's got such a he plays such a good villain after that, which is such a horrible thing to say, but it's true.

SPEAKER_14 55:52

Yeah. I remember, do you remember uh what is it, uh the sword and the sorcerer? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, he was great in that. Damn. But anyway, now we come to my favorite part of the show, which is a little segment I like to call Gag Me with the Spoon. So this is where we do our best impression of our least favorite part of the of the movie here. So as a guest, I'll let you all go first. Just kind of set up the scene for us and we'll go from there. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_16 56:19

Like, I I had trouble coming out. So the one that I came up with, he doesn't the problem is he doesn't say anything, and it's in the very beginning, it's in the very beginning, and when when he just shows up in 1985, and like he's walking around the apartment, and Helen Hunt is trying to get him to take her to work, and she keeps talking to him and asking questions, and he just does not talk to her the whole time. Like he like pretends she's not there, and he's like, She's like, I'm gonna be late. Like, I need to get to work, I need to be late. She says that like three times, and he just kind of he goes to the desk and he goes to the dresser and picks up stuff, and then he goes and puts that jacket on. She's like, You're not gonna wear that, are you? He's like, I like it, and like that that part, I was like having trouble understanding. I was like, What like I went from the beginning where I loved him, and this part I was just like, What's going on? I wasn't totally feeling it, and then that's when he puts the stuff in his hair, and he's just like, uh, wet the dry hairs for squid, which I love that line. But but that that was the part where that's the only part I could think of in the movie where I was just like, I don't know if I'm feeling what's going on here, but then it just then it gets better from there. But uh that was that that part was like I was like, what is going on here?

SPEAKER_08 57:25

Well, you know where I'm gonna go because I'm gonna play off of what just what you just did, and uh, I'm gonna ask you, Pax. Uh, don't you remember what you said to me last night?

SPEAKER_16 57:35

I I I'm surprised I didn't write that line down.

SPEAKER_08 57:40

He said that making love to me was the ethereal union of two lost souls.

SPEAKER_16 57:46

That was amazing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 57:50

That's uh good one, Jamie. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_13 57:54

Uh what about you, Sean? My wife just stole my line, so I'm gonna go with her. I'll just go with uh the the whole thing. So toward the end, and just so I can talk about this a little bit, the Whistler's and his descendant, or whatever, Jack Death is there, and Jack is supposed to have the two antidotes, one for himself and one for Whistler to get them back to the future so he can get he can get justice or whatever. But since he's already destroyed his body, he has nowhere to go to. And in the scuffle, one of his things got destroyed, so he only has one antidote. And this whole idea of Whistler like overestimating what Jack would do or whatever, he's like, he knows that the body he's in is actually an innocent man with a family and everything, right? So he's like, if you've only got one antidote, of course you're gonna use it on yourself, you're not gonna kill an innocent man. And he didn't even think that Jack would jab him with the the little antidote thing to send him back into nothingness, which I love. But I just love that you know, you wouldn't kill an innocent man, but I think he actually could have if he needed to. Like if a problem is, I think he would just do it. Yeah, I think he just I'd have no problem whatsoever.

SPEAKER_14 59:03

He's like, eh, you know, it happens another day, another dollar.

SPEAKER_13 59:08

Yeah, but but I also love the conundrum of like so Jack is now stranded in the 80s or whatever, so they can like live out his life. And they they worked this into the sequel a little bit, but like you know, they pretty easily pulled him back when they you know they sent Art La Flores uh back to to shoot him or whatever.

SPEAKER_16 59:25

Send boxes of guns and stuff to him. They did yeah, they did it a couple times.

SPEAKER_08 59:29

I thought that's so I just thought of something you guys, so he always gets yanked out right right before he's ready to experience some pleasure or whatever.

SPEAKER_07 59:36

No punishment, sorry.

SPEAKER_08 59:38

But I was just thinking about that. Remember, it's the woman in the beginning is like controlling that, and they've got some kind of history, and she's like, I don't hold a grudge, so she's probably doing that on purpose too. That's how she is punishing however he scorned her. You know what?

SPEAKER_14 59:52

Good for her, good for her, right?

SPEAKER_13 59:56

They did they did make that joke too that he wishes he could have had that watch on his last date with her or whatever. And it's like I started to think about that too, and it's like, but wait a second, if you're moving at the speed of light, she's not moving, and I don't think this is working out the way you think it's working out.

SPEAKER_14 1:00:11

Yeah, it should be like the opposite, right?

SPEAKER_13 1:00:13

Yeah, it should be like how you see it on the screen where it's everything slow. Okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_14 1:00:19

Well, those are all good. I actually picked another line, and it's when they're they're in the car and he's like trying to explain to her, you know, and and and he's like, you know, I'm from another time, another world. I don't even know what you people eat. Okay, that's right. Yeah, whatever. That's true. And there's jokes around that too. It's like, what like food, man? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_13 1:00:39

Well, I but there's that thing at the very beginning where yeah, he comes in and they're talking that the one dude orders uh kelp steak. And deep fried pods, and deep fried pods, whatever those are, and then later he's like, You bought Chinese food with beef, with real beef?

SPEAKER_14 1:00:53

Oh, yeah, like from a cow? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah, but yeah, those are all those are all amazing, you know. But I I have to ask now, I mean, G.I. Joe, they taught us that knowing is half the battle. What do you guys think is the other half?

SPEAKER_15 1:01:09

Wet hair.

SPEAKER_14 1:01:12

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_16 1:01:14

All right. What would Jack say?

SPEAKER_13 1:01:18

You know what Jack would say at a time like this? Sorry, I'm quoting the wrong movie.

SPEAKER_14 1:01:25

Yes, sorry, the check is in the mail.

SPEAKER_13 1:01:29

Well, what I know is that you can't have an imposing figure without a nice pair of shoulder pads in your trench coat. I think that's the other half of the battle, is picking out the right size and uh girth of your shoulder pads.

SPEAKER_16 1:01:43

Yeah, the other the other half is knowing that trancers can have jobs too.

SPEAKER_14 1:01:49

Isn't it like like a scary thought? Like like you you get up, you go to work, you don't even know you're trancer, and then all of a sudden you just like lose it. Explode. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:59

Yeah, I guess the other half is accidentally having intercourse with your ancestors.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:06

Knowing when to and when not to.

unknown 1:02:08

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:10

Which is the book that Jack wrote in the period between part one and part two.

SPEAKER_14 1:02:16

Oh man, well, those are all better than mine. I said if no one's half to battle, the other half is making sure that you have more than two vials of time drugs hidden in your pistol. There you go. Yes, that's definitely guys. This has been so much fun talking this fantastic 80s movie with you. But you know, what do you guys got going on? Tell me about your show and anything else.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:36

I mean, Cult Foam Club is the main show that we're on. Obviously, that's that's why we're all here. We've got hopefully a new episode coming out in uh December.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:44

Ninja 3, the domination. Yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:46

So talking about being possessed. Yeah, I'm talking about the V8 by evil stuff.

SPEAKER_11 1:02:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:52

Yep. But we also uh recently launched a uh sub show called Crestwood House, which is uh horror themed. It's a seasonal show, and we just finished our first season talking about the classic era of horror movies. Uh, me and Pax do that with our friend Michael May.

SPEAKER_10 1:03:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:07

Um, so that's that's fun. Uh Pax, is there any of the stuff that you want to Yeah?

SPEAKER_16 1:03:12

Well, another show will be coming on to the CFC feed. We're kind of trying to consolidate some of our stuff. And I have my movie novelization show, I read movies, and it it's on its own right now, but in February, it will be joining this the Colt Film Club feed, so it will be along the lines with our show.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:29

So uh transfers had a novel, the trans transfers, transfers had a transfers, yeah.

SPEAKER_16 1:03:34

I would 100% do that if I may write it so I could do it on the show. There you go.

SPEAKER_14 1:03:41

All right, I'll start a Google Doc tonight. I don't know, let's do it.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:44

Your show, Pat's is pretty unique. I don't know of any other podcast like it. So I think it's awesome that you go so in-depth to novelizations, and people who don't want to take the time to read them can actually get sort of bonus content, if you will, about their favorite films. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_14 1:03:59

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:00

Definitely enjoying this episode.

SPEAKER_14 1:04:03

Oh, yeah. Well, novelizations are just in general, are just fascinating. Yes, you know, you know, it's it's sometimes they're written from first drafts, sometimes the author has just a lot of leeway to add whatever. I mean, I don't know, you know, when to believe what, but at the same time, it's like usually uh a lot of that's in my own head canon, you know, for the for these films.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:24

Yeah, it's already there.

SPEAKER_13 1:04:25

Yeah, some of the best novelizations are when they hit that groove where they're like answering the questions that you have when you're watching the movie, and they're like, I have these questions too. Let's play with those.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:04:36

Unless it's the Goonies novelization, and then it goes into places you never wanted ever.

SPEAKER_16 1:04:41

Yeah. And ask questions like, I didn't think about that. Why would you think about that?

SPEAKER_13 1:04:50

Oh if anyone hasn't ever read the Goonies novelization, pick it up and get disturbed.

SPEAKER_14 1:04:57

Totally read Christmas does not endorse the uh Goonies novelization, but uh and and you can find that anywhere you like all those shows, just anywhere you find podcasts and oh yeah, anywhere you find podcasts or cultfilm club.com.

SPEAKER_13 1:05:11

There's also uh uh libsen.ireadmovies.com right now until it gets folded into cult film club, I do, I believe. Do you have the the URL for iRead Movies packs? I don't know why we're talking about it. I've got one.

SPEAKER_16 1:05:23

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Like there's not there's I I have iReadMovies.com, yes, but I'm not using it for I just want to make sure people can find it in the interim. Yeah, right now I've just been doing the Libsin Aurora.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:35

So here's the cool thing there's this thing called Google, and you literally type iReadMovies podcast into it and it will come up.

SPEAKER_13 1:05:42

You can people that are my age just type in the you the web address.

SPEAKER_14 1:05:50

That is true. Yeah, Google is a thing, I guess, but all good stuff. Yes, I I I love all your posts. I I probably Like way more than I should, you know. So this is like we appreciate it.

SPEAKER_13 1:06:05

Thank you. Thank you for having us on.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:06

Yeah, that was super fun. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_14 1:06:08

Thanks for having me. Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. I I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Great times. Great times. But on that note, I'm gonna end it by saying security, we've got trouble on the North Pole. So check us out on our social media pages, Facebook and Instagram at TotallyRed Christmas and Twitter at Red Christmas. And if you're feeling like Jack falling in love with his great, great, great, great, great, great grandma, leave us a review on iTunes. Not only does it help us reach more people, but you also get a free sticker. Don't forget to check out our merch shop on tpublic.com and our brand new website, totallyradchristmas.com, courtesy of Tis the Podcast Elf Tom Crow. Later, dudes.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:42

I'm Jack Death. I'm a trooper in the 23rd century. Jack Death, Angel City PG massier stats. What did I do? Under section seven of the penal code, the council authorized me to administer you a transcer suspect examination.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

You can't give me a TSC without a warrant.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:58

I got your warrant right here, pal. Okay, okay, okay. I don't want you trouble. Hold out your job is hunting transcers. I got nothing to hide. Finding them, singing them. What sometimes they find me first. Then it's a little more complicated.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

How do you know Whisper's location? We monitored a line disruption in Los Angeles, December 1985. And Zant, Ash, and I all had ancestors in the city there. If you think I'm bringing that scum up the line, you got the wrong trooper. Unless you stop Whisper. Everything the council has accomplished for the last 40 years will count for nothing.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:51

Okay, let's say I believed it. You're a cop from the future, and you're chasing this guy Piper.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:56

Whistler.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:57

Why doesn't he just turn you into one of these zombies? Or me?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:00

Trancing only works on squids, people with weak minds, easily controlled. Lena, I'm from another time, another world. I don't even know what you people eat for lunch.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:11

Okay, I got fried rice, egg rolls, beef chow me.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:14

Beef? Mealing from a cow? I thought it was rough in the 23rd century. I didn't know how hot it could get.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:30

Jack.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:34

How's my tan? No, it's getting hotter all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Jack.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:39

I guess I just attract a certain element no matter what century I'm in. I gotta run now.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

I want to ride with the lady.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:53

Over here, XP.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

I kept my cock goats. And he's never even been here before. Trancers.