Navigated to Earth vs Soup Ep 283 - Mission Mars (1968) - Transcript

Earth vs Soup Ep 283 - Mission Mars (1968)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?

Speaker 2

What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing a big girl.

Speaker 1

I have other ways of securing your cooperation.

Sorry, miss I was giving myself an oil job.

Speaker 3

When was it just azumbly as we've seen attitude to it since we gave to a few low cabbages an intellectual carrot.

Speaker 2

That mind boggles you see you see your stupid lives.

Stupid, stupid, I said Santa Claus.

Speaker 3

Long enough, we will bring him to Mars.

I've been afraid a lot of times in my life, but I didn't know the real meaning of fear until until I kiss peck me.

Speaker 1

One thing will be clear.

It's not from man to interfere in the ways of God's life.

Speaker 3

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Earth versus Soup Episode two eighty three.

I'm Aaron Pollier and I'm Darlene.

We had to get away from Abbitt Costello after last time's episode, so we decided that we were going to go back to our roots and do an outer space adventure movie from the nineteen sixties, and we chose rightly or wrongly, mission Mars from nineteen sixty eight.

Any information on this, Darlene, I did not look it up.

Okay, good job, all right.

It is about eighty minutes.

It's available on YouTube, it is in color.

It is not good.

It's not good.

No, I mean, we'll get into why, but it's it's it's better.

It's better than the Abbitt Costello movie that we watched last night, much better.

So, even though it wasn't good, it was like a lightbeam from like living if you can say that, yeah, yeah, say I won't.

Speaker 1

The first thing that I ever noticed was after the credits there was stock footage in and stay insane flashing.

Speaker 3

Of stock foot Yeah, this is I guess.

The only trigger thing that we should really mention.

Speaker 1

Is is I turned to you after it and I'm like, is this supposed to be her dream?

But that isn't what dialogue she had of a dream.

Speaker 3

Well, okay, so we should say that they're like, if you have photosensitivity, this movie is not for you because there is flashing in this quite a bit strobing.

So being a monster.

Before we get to the plot, darling, who is in this?

Come on, who's in this?

Darren McGavin is our main character, playing Colonel Mike Blaiswick.

You might know him as the father from a Christmas story who has a major reward of a leg lamp.

That that's the same actor.

Okay, okay, the the other act.

Speaker 1

I'm gonna run out and get his autograph.

Speaker 3

You know I would for that.

Hell yeah, I would.

Speaker 1

For the leg I got this one.

Speaker 3

I'd buy.

I would buy a leg lamp and have him autograph it.

And you you would like it, darn it.

No, you wouldn't.

I know you wouldn't.

You'd be very upset that I got that.

But anyway, the other person in this movie is Nick Adams, who plays a character named Nick Grant.

You may know him from uh Invasion of the Astro Monster I think is the movie.

It's where they go to Jupiter.

It's the Kadzula movie where they go to Jupiter to like the weird planet that they discover that no one's ever seen before, that it's too dark, but yet it's not dark when they get there.

He's the American astronaut in that movie.

I think it's Invasion of the Astro Monster.

He actually died before this movie was released.

We talked about how he died young.

So this is one of his last movies.

That's the only other person that you might really recognize in this.

With that said, I think we can go on to the blot like you.

Like you said, there's like strobing flashing, there's rocket launch stuff.

Speaker 1

It's stock footage.

Speaker 3

It is stock footage, but it's good stock footage.

Like I totally understand when movies have to use stock footage because they don't have the budget to like build a rocket that looks good large.

Speaker 1

I don't have a problem with that.

It was just the insanity of it.

Speaker 3

Yeah, And it's like this woman is dreaming.

Speaker 1

I still question whether that was her dream because she goes, uh, what was the thing that she said she was dreaming.

Speaker 3

That she that he was gone or something like that.

Maybe it's it was a disconnected nightmare.

It was clearly her because she was the one that was sweat and freaking out.

But anyway, we learned that this her name is Edith.

She is the wife to Colonel Mike Bliswick, who is our main character.

She's afraid that he is going to not come back from his mission, and he says, I have to leave soon.

Speaker 1

Honey, and then goes on a beach.

Speaker 3

Then goes onto a beach, dancing with her down.

Speaker 1

The run and make club, even though he had to leave early that morning, and it was probably around if leaving about ten o'clock is leaving early in the morning.

Speaker 3

You know this movie doesn't want that job.

Well, well, I don't know.

Time is very weird in this movie.

I can't tell you if it was sunrise sunset, if he stayed late or whatever to dance and make love down the beach.

Speaker 1

And he wasn't the one that was late because that was Nick.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

So they kiss on the beach, they chase, they play chase, they flirt, they kiss, and she says I want your baby, and I go, oh, oh shit, is this it?

Is it going to be that sappy?

I didn't think it was going to be like filthy.

I didn't think it was a filthy movie, and it wasn't.

It wasn't.

But is it gonna be really overly sappy relationship kind of telenovella stuff?

Speaker 1

Is she the one that was really pregnant?

Speaker 3

Yeah?

But later that's why she she got pregnant from the scene.

Speaker 1

Okay, at least they they were correct on that one, they said, because the I thought it was the other person.

Speaker 3

That was no no, no, no, no, it's it's Edith that gets immediately pregnant from this I want, I want you.

Speaker 1

But then there's Nick and her his lover or wife.

Is it like it's his wife.

Speaker 3

By yeah, Alice, it's Nick and Alice.

And Alice is played by Shirley Parker.

And the only the only way I really kind of remembered who they were when they were on screen was Edith had long, kind of dirty blonde hair and Alice was a redhead.

Speaker 1

Well, Alice was over the top drama emotion about him.

Speaker 3

Leaving and this is yeah, and it made it.

Speaker 1

You uncomfortable because you your understanding of how the astronaut wives bonded together and would have been anytime there was a launch, they would be together.

Speaker 3

With mutual support network.

Speaker 1

Emtual support network, and you had to, for everybody's sake, put on that face.

Yes, you could not do what she Alice did.

Speaker 3

Well, what what what upside me with her stating I don't want you to go?

I think I think you're you're you shouldn't go.

I hate that you're doing this.

What upset me is is that you married him knowing he was an astronaut.

Now you're complaining at him right before he has to leave on the greatest journey mankind has ever taken.

Speaker 1

And the other inconsiderate thing that was here was he's going to be gone for eighteen months, yes, on a nine month thing, which is correct.

Speaker 3

Well, okay, they're going to go to Mars.

Yeah, they're going to Mars.

Nine months there, nine months back it actually, which makes sense.

It's fine, it's fine.

Speaker 1

The thing is is that he promises her that this will be his last adventure.

Yeah, which would be the case because that much.

Speaker 3

That's what I brought I brought up to you, that much radiation would make it what would make him grounded?

It would be this.

The thing would be is it's yes, you would be grounded for safety and health.

It also likely would mean that at least if it was today and you were going on that journey, you'd probably keep sperm or egg back on Earth frozen just because of the radiation.

Because of the radiation, you might I mean, even if you have good shielding on your ship, which you should have, you know, just shield it.

Read the whole out exterior vihorship with like water between the hull or something like that.

It cuts down the radiation a lot.

The thing is is that outside of a magnetic field like Earth has in generally you're going to get more rats.

So at the end of this journey, yes, don't worry about this is the last.

Speaker 1

But what does one of the people in dialogue.

Speaker 3

That was on, oh later on, later on, one of the guys is like, no, he's gonna have to take other crews out to Mars and back.

And I'm like, oh, man, I don't know.

I don't know.

Now that being said, I can see certain people if you are older.

If you're older, your likelihood of developing cancer is lower because your general lifespan is lower.

So I mean that's that's the that's the general like argument for older crew going on these long duration missions because in general, your if your likelihood is going to be increased of getting cancer in forty years, but your life is only going to on average last another twenty In general, that's not a big deal, right.

Speaker 1

And the rocket, by the way, is very spacious.

Speaker 3

Well space e it is.

Well, we'll get to it.

We'll get to it.

Oh space sious.

Okay, so we'll get to this so we get all this is what's confusing, Like it goes back and forth, and we see like countdowns happening in rockets launching, and we think, are they gone.

Well, it is all it's all good stock footage, Vallas rockets, it's all good.

But we think that they're launching, but they're not because then we go back to see Nick and his wife, and his wife bitching at him about I don't like that you're doing this and that made me uncomfortable.

And then we get introduced to the third member of their crew, Doug Duncan.

Speaker 1

He's the bachelor because we meet him in the.

Speaker 3

In the white room.

Technically, well it's where they're getting it is a locker room in this movie, but it's supposed to be the white room.

Yeah.

He just says, I don't know, it's really easy for a bachelor like me to get ready for an eighteen month mission.

I just pay the rent eighteen months ahead and locked the door and I'm ready.

And I'm like, okay, you dick.

You know, because both of these guys have wives that they're leaving behind and that they clearly both actually love.

Speaker 1

Though, what I gotta say for that line is just like a lot of the lines in this movie.

Yeah, it's bad dialogue.

Speaker 3

So they actually mention at this point that they mentioned that the Soviets have launched a mission to Mars as well already, and they're like a month ahead or so.

Now no because of launch windows, right, a couple months ahead, I should say no because of launch windows, and in general, if you're doing these low delta V journeys to Mars that are taking x amount of time that many months, those launch windows are going to be very strict in general.

So no.

But it seems as though the Soviet cosmonauts immediately lost contact with Earth and everyone's like, I don't know if that's if that's a good sign or not, you know for us, and like the mission controller says, well, it means nothing to us because it's not like the Soviets would be broadcasting any information unless it was perfect, Like everything was you know, everything was a okay, Because they're talking about like Soviet information control, and I'm like, you know what, that's not really dissing the Soviets.

That's just being very honest about how the Soviets clammed up about anything even if it was like fine, things were fine, unless it was perfect.

You said nothing until you had proof of X, Y or Z so I I assumed that at this point in the movie that the Soviets were on the way to Mars just fine, and that they would make an announcement when they landed.

Speaker 1

I was expecting them to meet the astronauts, the cosmonauts in space.

Speaker 3

Okay, so uh, they watch, uh, they they get into the rocket and I actually think there's some really cool stuff inside this rocket.

So they actually have these like cots that they lay down in, which is pretty standard for nineteen fifties and sixties sci fi movies with rockets.

But they do the really cool detail of having the having the crew looking at the computers that are on the walls with mirrors because they're lying on their backs.

I'm like, wow, you guys actually thought about that.

Good job.

Speaker 1

Okay, But because there's three of them sitting with their heads together with a space of about two and a half feet by two and a half feet in the middle.

Speaker 3

Of it, it's a.

Speaker 1

Lot of space there.

I would have expected them to be more.

Speaker 3

Bunk bed.

Speaker 1

Or kind of what I would rather think that it should be.

They were strapped in, which I give them kudos about that one.

Speaker 3

Yeah yah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

But I think that it would be more like a padded room that you'd have for your you're what i'd expect you to have if you're going that far, is a padded like coffin bed bag.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean maybe maybe, like so you had a little bit of privacy just to get away from everybody.

That makes sense.

Speaker 1

And it has rollers so you can roll into it.

Speaker 3

So they launch and we actually get some really good uh space dialogue here, which actually is legit stuff.

But here's the thing they start talking about, like max Q, which is like maximum aerodynamic pressure against the launch vehicle.

You can tell, I like space stuff.

Uh.

And they mentioned that and I think, oh, they actually kind of know what they're talking about, because it would be about this point in the launch that they would get max Q.

But they refer to it like it's max g's Like all the people are strugg in their you know, like, no, it's actually maximum you know, acceleration is usually after max Q.

But we get what's his name?

Now?

Ye say, what's his name?

Speaker 1

Nick?

Speaker 3

Nick starts bleeding out his mouth out of his mouth, so he must like bit his tongue or something.

Speaker 1

That's what it looked like after he took the helmet off.

Speaker 3

And you know, what that's fair.

Now people think, well, you know, these kinds of launches aren't a big deal.

Well for gravity, for acceleration, I mean they they are.

People are generally used to like launches that you see today where it's like it's a two three gs for a little bit, that's fine.

But like back in the day, you get these kick in the pants kind of launches where it could be six seven g's like for at least ten, ten, twelve seconds something like that, you'd get way heavier burn.

And if it's a rough ride up, I can totally see somebody, you know, snapping, snapping their head to the side or something like that and cutting their lip or biting their tongue or something like that as they're being rattled around.

Okay, so I bought it.

I thought, Okay, that's a neat little detail that they put it.

Speaker 1

Didn't they put mouth gears into some of the ass?

Speaker 3

I don't.

I can't tell you offhand, I don't think so.

Okay.

Speaker 1

One of the things I gotta say at this point is the background noise in any and then it gets it gets.

Speaker 3

Worse, so they achieve them.

Speaker 1

If you have a problem with noise like you do noise, like I do.

This is not a movie for you.

Speaker 3

So they get into orbit and then we actually get booster engine.

Jennison like booster engine cut off.

It was cool, really cool effect.

And then we're told that they have to renovou with their supply ship and orbit in five hours.

And I'm like, okay, good detail.

They're going to toe the supply ship with them to to Mars.

You can't launch everything well at once.

This makes sense.

Somebody thought some of these steps through.

Is it perfectly scientifically accurate all this movie?

Of course not, but it's more well thought through than a lot of the things that we've seen.

Okay, So they rendezvous, they dock.

It's a little rough, and they use inappropriate stock footage for this because they reverse the ines that well, the stage separation thing, they just reverse it because one does not fire your main rockets right next to the thing that you're docking with, because but.

Speaker 1

They probably couldn't find any stock footage, and that's what they're using.

Speaker 3

Is yeage.

Yeah, but it's because your booster firing is going to push whatever you're docking with back away from you with the way they were showing it, and maybe even burn it.

Melt it, damage it, et cetera, et cetera.

So when you're docking with something like doing like a you know, when Apollo is going to the move, how they undocked the command module and then rotate, well, rotated it around to dock with the lunar module and then pulled it out of the stage the fairing.

You're using rcs, you're using cold gas.

Speaker 1

Jets usually water No, well, I mean.

Speaker 3

You can use water, but usually it's it's just whatever.

You can use argon gas.

You can use steam.

Yeah, there's steam puffs, but in general, compressed gas is way more efficient to use than water.

You don't want to use water, it's it's ar gone something like that.

Argon is probably your best shot for a lot of things.

Not that that's the only thing, because you can use like hydrozene and things.

Anyway, Anyway, anyway, we have they rendezvous.

Speaker 1

They going again.

Speaker 3

Well, we get to see them eat their first meal in space, and I go, oh, so they have pills, And I thought, okay, are they eating pills the entire way to Mars.

I'm gonna be pissed off.

But they don't.

Speaker 1

Comes up with something that made you tickle.

Speaker 3

Yeah, okay, it made me laugh because of the legendary pistrami sandwich.

He actually smuggled a pastrami sandwich on board for his first.

Speaker 1

And this is a hats.

Speaker 3

Off to that.

That's a good detail.

That's a hats off too to the writer.

No, I mean, just just no, just people look up the famous sandwich that got smuggled onto an early flight and it pissed a lot of people off.

Pissed a lot of people off because it was like an unknown weight.

And you think a sandwich, sandwich is not a big deal in those early days, A sandwich is a big goddamn deal.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they yell at them from Eminem's.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, they get well because Eminem's get everywhere.

But like, think about how much money it took to launch that sandwich in orbit.

Yes, it takes I mean it takes.

Speaker 1

A lot of Having change in your pocket would be bad.

Speaker 3

Yeah, And it's like I've always thought, you know, if I could get into orbit, what would I take?

And it would have to be something incredibly light, right like, because anything like even even a freaking memory stick is going to be worth like a one thousand, two thousand, three thousand dollars worth of energy to get into orbit.

So I don't know.

The pastrami sandwich made me laugh because everyone was looking at him like completely aghast, like how why did you do that?

Speaker 1

Yes, they took but what Aaron was making.

Speaker 3

The pills the pills.

Speaker 1

There was pills and then he they.

Speaker 3

Scored a little bit of water into a pan and then.

Speaker 1

It steams it and they've got eggs.

Speaker 3

They have eggs, so it's basically getting reconstituted.

And I'm I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with that.

So they had their first meal.

They're on their way back on Earth.

We have the mission control guy meeting with Edith and Alice, and Edith is having pregnancy cravings, and it just eating.

Speaker 1

The typical thing, the ice cream, the pickles, the things that everybody makes a joke that females do during pregnancy.

Speaker 3

It's not a joke.

Speaker 1

I mean it's a joke.

I hope it's a joke.

Speaker 3

Women have cravings.

Speaker 1

I know we have that women have cravings during their men during their pregnancy pregnancy, because we have it during menstrel too.

Speaker 3

But the.

Speaker 1

The typical line is ice cream with pickles and something else, and she had all three of those.

Speaker 3

Okay, well, I don't know.

I think it's Alice is.

This is where Alice is like, I want Nick back, and he's never going to go on another mission again.

And he's and this is where the mission controller says, Alice, He's got to go on tons of missions.

This is the most important journey that anyone's ever taken, and his experience is worth you know, untold amounts of importance.

You know, it's incredibly.

Speaker 1

Important, except that they've probably use them for the training of the net.

Speaker 3

Sure, but going into orbit and things like that, helping prepare people, like Low Earth orbit is a pretty important place for training in this kind of thing.

If you're setting up a large space infrastructure, you need to have people in lower Earth orbit.

Anyway, they're halfway through their journey and they end up seeing two cosmonauts buried in space that they pass floating in space, buried in space, And this is where I go, h Okay, it just so happens that they're in the exact proper place in the vastest of space to see two cosmonauts.

It also means that they're on the same orbital path somehow as what the cosmonauts took, even though they launched it a completely different point in Earth's or and Mars' orbit.

It also, it does not make sense because even if they were on the same path, they were buried with the same orbital velocity that these guys would have on their journey.

Therefore, you would never catch up to them.

They would just be continuing on like a return trajectory or something like going to Mars and then sling shouting out from Mars.

So how they caught up to them, and it's okay, their their their relative velocity is slow enough.

It's it's low enough that they see them just kind of tumbling by slowly, and it's like, none of that makes sense.

Speaker 1

Folks in chairs.

Speaker 3

No, it's just that they were seated when they were put out into space, or maybe they went into like a fetal position or that was.

Speaker 1

The way they feel like.

They came with the chair.

Speaker 3

No, there was no chair.

They were just like that.

Speaker 1

A doll that had the chair with it.

Speaker 3

So they repeat the sighting back to Earth and the mission controller says, you know, thank you very much, will report that sighting to the Soviet embassy because they're worried about their crew.

Okay, so that makes sense now that like Ross, Cosmos or whatever has contacted the as contacted NASA or whoever that is in this movie and said we've lost contact.

Can you look while you're there?

Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 1

Then the next thing that happens is the thing that happens in.

Speaker 3

Every Okay, look, I was hoping it wouldn't happen.

Speaker 1

It did.

Speaker 3

It did.

Meteor storm.

Every single damn movie that we watched that has like a journey from Earth to the Moon or Mars meteor storm every goddamn time.

Speaker 1

It scares me about the meteor storm, but on the way to Moon because that means well, I mean, the Earth is being bombarded.

Speaker 3

The Earth is being bombarded all the time.

The point is that it's like this.

It's always this dense swarm of meteors or you know, I should say, like asteroids or just space rock, space debris that is coming in and it might damage things.

Speaker 1

They have to I could understand if it was the cosmonauts vehicle that they.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, like the like, if they if.

Speaker 1

They shot, if they weren't two months behind, but they were only say.

Speaker 3

A day behind or some day behind, and they encountered a very diffuse ball of gas and you know, dust and you know whatever.

Speaker 1

And the debris of a blown up Yeah that.

Speaker 3

Like there was enough of a force to eject debris backwards along its path as well.

Like okay, okay, okay, No, this is just a random dense meteor swarm that comes in.

Does it do anything to the ship?

Speaker 1

Nope, rocks, it makes the people, gives it a shaking, gives everybody a good shaking.

Speaker 3

But usually I will say this, usually in these movies, when you have a meteor storm, there's damage to the ship that they have to repair and they have to go outside, and there's this whole thing.

No, no, that doesn't happen.

And all throughout this movie where I'm giving it credit for doing things, like they think this through.

They forget about light lag all the way through this movie.

So there's instantaneous communication back to Earth all the time.

And let's see here.

So they they figure that they're descent towards Mars is to steep, so they have to separate their supply their supply capsule at a different point in which they were going to have to do it previously, and so they're gonna have to go and look for it.

Okay, So they jettison it.

They land successfully, Okay.

Speaker 1

Land on Mars, and they're Mars one.

Speaker 3

Mars one, so they go out under the surface.

They have unsealed helmets at the bottom, so they're exposed to the Martian temperatures and atmosphere just fine.

Speaker 1

And they even mentioned this because later uh Nick is the geography.

Speaker 3

Geologist, geologist because he wants to bring rocks.

Speaker 1

He's dealing with rocks.

And they've even made the mention in dialogue that you can only have so much.

Speaker 3

Yeah, because of the return trip has fuel limitations as well, so you can't have too much mass like a strong sandwich.

Speaker 1

Could well he can add and out of the rock a little rock for that one.

Speaker 3

One less rock because of all the fuel that it took to get that.

Speaker 1

Well, the other two go off and they're lighting up, blow their their well.

Speaker 3

Hold hold on, hold on, we're not there yet.

We're not there yet.

We have a couple of little interesting points of detail here.

Colonel Mike refers to the canals on Mars and how no one knows what that is.

They also say that there are no signs of life.

It's like the Arizona Desert.

There's or do they say Sonora desert or something like that.

I don't know if you've ever been to the Sonora or the Arizona Desert.

We have there's life there.

Speaker 1

To Death Valley.

Speaker 3

We've even been to the like really harsh parts of Death Valley.

There's life there, very easily seen flowers.

Yeah, there's cactus and lizards everywhere, like you know, yeah, come on, guys, come on.

Speaker 1

Because even in our big desert tomorrow.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, there's life.

It would have been a better analogy because then you think it is kind of bleak, but there is still life there.

It would be a much better analogy.

Speaker 1

Dung bails.

Speaker 3

Well, there's lots of things in this Sahara.

But but the point is is, like he says, like it's the Sonora, it's like lifeless, like the Sonora Dessert.

You've never been there, have you?

Speaker 1

That's what I've thought about the person that wrote the dialogue.

Speaker 3

Yeah, okay.

So then they go out on the surface and they start launching balloons, and I thought, okay, interesting, And it's because they're using them as nav beacons basically, so they're having to like wander really far from their rocket, so they're losing sight of the rocket and they keep putting up these balloons up into the air so they can see them from a distance and see their path.

That makes a lot of sense.

Mars doesn't really have a strong magnetic field, can't use a compass, They don't have a GPS network in orbit, right, No, they don't.

You could probably take a map that was kind of blurry of Mars's surface that wasn't very detailed and try to like draw out what you're doing.

But this is actually a pretty good way of doing a very basic form of navigation.

Okay, I'm cool with that it.

Speaker 1

Was, except that it would have cost a lot of weight to do this, to do this, to.

Speaker 3

Have, yes, it were that many, it would have been much less mass intensive and easier to just do like kind of a radio beacon navigation where your rocket is like the base point before, yeah, and you get radio direction.

But you could also put out like a couple different repeaters at site distances from the rocket, so you can get like a line and then go, Okay, I can triangulate in anyway or.

Speaker 1

Take pictures as you go to land.

Speaker 3

But the point is is that the balloon's kind of makes sense in a weird way.

They do make.

Speaker 1

Sense, but Nick is picking up rocks and as they're doing.

Speaker 3

This, Yes, so Nick is picking up rocks and then finds a flash frozen cosmonaut on the surface, and I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1

Here, here's where the open face.

Speaker 3

Where it suddenly makes no sense at all.

Yes, because they're like, the guy has like no face plate on his helmet, so you must have just frozen immediately, like immediately.

So anyway, the point is is that, Okay, the first thing that came into my mind was you're not Mars one.

The Soviets landed first.

Clearly, there's a flash frozen Soviet here.

You need to signal Earth to say your mission landed before us.

They clearly did so successfully and then died afterwards.

None of this is said.

No, this is that they do communicate later on about the cosmonaut though, so let's let's be fair about that.

So they say that all of his heat heating elements must have failed and his face plate was open, so he just died instantly and froze solid instantly.

Speaker 1

And I'm like, uhh yeah, but Nick Nick screamed like a little girl.

Speaker 3

Well, sure, Mike finds the supply unit and it's been broken into like burned into a hole in it.

Yeah, there's a big hole.

So they're like, well, something or somebody got into this.

That means we're not alone here.

Let's go back to the rocket.

Let's grab what we can and go back to the rocket and report this.

Then all the smart that's actually a smart move.

But then all the balloons are gone for some reason, and then we get into like both the coolest aspect of this movie and the most baffling, because then it suddenly becomes like a weird LSD trip.

Am I right in saying that it's very very strange.

Speaker 1

The stock footage in the beginning was bad.

Speaker 3

So they end up all the balloons are gone and they start to receive a very strange signal.

There's a weird light that appears and disappears.

Speaker 1

And an alien that appears and disappears.

Speaker 3

Well, it's an alien, but we really don't know it's an alien at first, because this is this is what's cool.

It looks like a very strange abstract sculpture in a way that it slowly moves, it fades in and out, and it flashes lights.

It has like this weird flashing red central eye.

It's clearly just a little miniature that they're moving around in like stop motion or whatever.

But it actually is it looks like.

Speaker 1

A machine almost.

Speaker 3

It's cool.

It's actually cool.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting.

It looked alien in a way that a lot of nineteen fifties and sixties science fiction just doesn't do.

Speaker 1

Now it doesn't.

They don't tell you whether this is supposed to be a Martian or not.

But we assumed it is.

Speaker 3

A it's a non Martian.

It's just an alien alien alien.

Speaker 1

We assume that we're assuming that it's an alien alien.

Speaker 3

It assaults the team.

Okay, so here here's where, here's where I actually kind of got angry.

So this thing is like moving around, it's making weird noises and it and I use this in my in my notes, a air quote, it air quotes assaults the team by dancing.

It's like dancing to me, I'm watching this, I'm going it's trying to communicate.

Only you did think that is it was it directly hurting anybody?

Speaker 1

The noise was directly hurting me.

Speaker 3

That's why you're not on a first contact team, darling, because you don't know how they talk, right, But like, it's not doing anything offensive to them.

It's not hurting.

Speaker 1

Them until it burns.

Speaker 3

But what no, yeah, until what when is that after darling?

Because you're jumping ahead.

What happens is is it's dancing.

Mike decides to shoot it in its central eye.

It dies and fades away.

Now everything that it does afterwards is completely justified because Mike first contact Blaizewick, shoots first and asks questions later.

Okay, do you see what I'm saying?

Like, yeah, the thing later that the aliens later on full on attack, but it.

Speaker 1

Was already probably gonna attack because it already attacked the the Soviets.

Speaker 3

No it didn't.

Speaker 1

Then why are the one Soviet frozen there and the others are floating out in space?

Speaker 3

Because it was a three cosmonaut team and two had died on the way and were buried in space.

He was the last guy left and couldn't leave and died on the surface.

Effectively, it wasn't the aliens that did it.

Speaker 1

Well, I was not getting that.

Speaker 3

No, humans are the villains in this, and they're still played as though they are the heroes.

Well anyway, yeah, yeah, anyway, So at this point mission control they tell mission control what's going on, and mission control says, you know what those creatures might be, might just be hostile.

And I'm like, no shit, Sherlock.

You killed one of them unprovoked.

Of course they're going to be a yeah, they're going to be hostile and uh.

And they're there.

They say, we're scrubbing the mission, so launch immediately.

So they all get in the rocket, and outside the rocket, a huge goloing ball just sort of appears.

They try to launch, but there are problems and the rock don't turn on.

And it turns out that like the big glowing ball has turned on a like magnetic field of sorts, and it's not it's making the rocket unable to leave.

So Nick is going to use his quote unquote electronic ear to listen to the glowing ball, and they go up to examine it and there's unknown metal.

They call it an unknown metal with a leather like texture.

There's enough radiation there to basically make somebody melt like they're looking into the exposed core of Chernobyl post meltdown.

But they're okay with that.

And then the alien comes out and attacks and Doug is like burned, his eyes are burned out, like lasers go into his skull and burn straight through his helmet and like parts of his body are on fire.

I was actually really taken aback by that.

It went from zero to holy shit, this dude just got his skull hollowed out real fast.

So Doug is like Doug's body is dragged into this ball and inside the rocket.

They all run back in and inside the rocket.

Nick is very shocked to see the Soviet cosmonaut is actually moving around and is alive.

And they go, well, he must have been frozen so fast that he didn't it didn't kill his cells, and now that he's being thought out, he's okay.

Speaker 1

I didn't understand what was going on there.

I thought this by this time, I thought everything was a dream or something.

Speaker 3

Well, I thought, I think.

I think.

Mission control says there might be brain damage or something like that because he's been dead for like weeks or months or whatever.

Speaker 1

So now he's having a hard time hearing anything because of the noise that they had in the background.

Speaker 3

So mission control thinks that the aliens are powered by solar power and are using like these weird plates on their hands on the of their arm like structures to reflect or focus infrared radiation is heat, so wait until night deal with the aliens when they don't have solar radiation powering them, and you might be able to launch.

So Mike talks to the aliens and they end up like they He ends up going out and like just screaming into the open ball, like what do you want?

We're from Earth, and they sort of repeat his words for a little bit until they figure out how to communicate, and they're like, we want one of you alive to understand you.

You took one of us.

Actually, I think at this point they've killed two of them.

Now there's only three three aliens.

No, no, they've killed two aliens.

Speaker 1

Oh, two aliens.

Speaker 3

And they're like, no, we want one of you because you killed two of us and we want to understand you, and we're not going to let you go until you do.

All right, Well fine, Nick decides at this point that he's gonna sack fight himself for the alien, so they'll let Mike go and the cosmonauts.

So the cosmonaut totally cool, no brain damage, has been sucking vacuum, well not technical vacuum.

This Mars is very atmosphere for however long.

Totally okay.

They launched to get back to Earth.

Edith gets on the radio as they're on their journey back and she says she has a surprise for Colonel Mike when she when he gets back, and it's clearly the baby the end.

So this movie does have like ups and down.

Speaker 1

By the time he's hit Mars, the baby's born.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, that's that's absolutely right.

Baby's gonna be nine months old by the time he gets back minimum and then he's gonna be on quarantine, quarantine for a damn long time after that mission because you directly had a you know, exposure to uh, alien life forms.

You're probably not coming back to the Earth's surface for a little while.

You're gonna have doctors coming up and putting you in like a separate isolation capsule or something like that for tests.

Speaker 1

Are you sure it's not gonna be some maybe.

Speaker 3

No, No, you're not gonna let you don't want them back down on the surface, because that's just an unacceptable risk at this point.

Like I truly assume in real life when we go to Mars and come back, there will be some sort of quarantine in orbit before on moon or on moon something like that, before you come back down to Earth.

And our biosphere, like until we know for sure, right Like anyway, anyway, this movie has ups and downs.

It has things that do work and don't work.

Darlene, I always start with you, what worked well?

Speaker 1

I think you said that the science was halfway decent, halfway decent.

Speaker 3

There's some stuff that just kind of really bothered me in it.

But yeah, the the science and some of some of the technical stuff that they used pretty good.

Speaker 1

You liked the alien.

Speaker 3

The alien I thought was really cool.

Yeah, absolutely agreed.

What else?

The sound effects are are so good.

No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

I actually thought the stock footage of the Alice launches were pretty good.

I thought the miniature work while it actually sort of showed a proper spacecraft.

You know, it's not really fancy looking.

It's a capsule, you know, it's rocket like rocket fairings and things like that.

It was pretty good.

But I can't say much more than that truly worked.

But there isn't a ton of stuff that didn't work either.

Speaker 1

Their use of stock footage, yes, is is really good, except for when they went into that insane flashing.

Speaker 3

Well that's right at the beginning in that dream.

But What doesn't work.

Speaker 1

The noise.

Speaker 3

Yeah, the sound effects in general don't the dialogue.

The dialogue is very stilted and AI feeling not that there was AI at the time to write these things.

But it doesn't sound.

It doesn't sound right.

It doesn't sound sound very human.

Speaker 1

I don't know whether I can say if you can dive out the plot, then you it's got a plot.

Speaker 3

It doesn't a plot.

It it's weak, but there's a plot.

I can't say that it falls into the it does not work category.

The plot's there, it's fine.

It's not fine, but it worked.

I mean, it doesn't work, but it's there.

It functions.

It doesn't rise up into like the it's great kind of thing.

Speaker 1

The other thing that doesn't work is how much they're doing nothing.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it seems like on this journey.

While there would be a lot of downtime in general on a nine month journey there, in a nine month journey back, we don't see them actually doing any kind of scientific work.

They're all just kind of playing chess or scring around or reading or I don't know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the first thing you'd be doing is every time you turn around.

Speaker 3

You'd be doing vitals system checks.

Speaker 1

System checks, vital checks on yourself to see how you are reacting to being in space that long.

Yeah, the gravity doesn't work.

Speaker 3

Light lag, they don't.

They totally forget about light lag totally.

What else?

I don't know.

Everything else is kind of to me at least, it is very average.

That's to me.

Speaker 1

But it also puts it very below average.

Speaker 3

There's a lot of parts that are forgettable about it, and that's that's the problem.

Like, there are things in this movie that I truly think I will remember, like the alien design, freaking Doug getting his eyes burned out.

I mean those are I was shocked by the eyes thing.

But the alien design, I thought it was pretty cool.

That's gonna stick with me.

That being said, I can't because we should rate this now.

Actually we should start by saying if we recommend it or not, I don't, Okay, you don't in general?

Why what's your top reason for not recommending it?

Speaker 1

The noise and the nothingness.

Speaker 3

That a lot of a lot of the movie kind of feels empty.

Speaker 1

It feels empty, And I what when they did have things?

The noise was I couldn't hear the dialogue.

When I did hear the dialogue, it was like, wow.

Speaker 3

So I'm not going to recommend it.

But my top reason is a thing that I feel does not work that I have not mentioned, and I felt that I should mention it here.

The pacing is awful, and it's because there are whole scenes where it just nothing happens.

Not that that not that those scenes are very long, but it's like, okay, we don't need we don't need to see this now on once they get to Mars, I think every scene actually is there for a reason, but like on the on the way to to to like the rendezvous with the supply craft and Earth orbit and things like that, there's little scenes there that just okay, you're you're trying to go Okay, I see what you're trying to do.

I appreciate that, but start moving.

So I felt that there was enough scenes in this where I didn't have to pause the movie to take notes.

And this is like an hour and twenty minute movie where my notes are a page, so that says something where where normally on these kinds of lengths of movies, I have two pages of notes, this was a page of notes, so that means a lot didn't happen.

So I'm not recommending it.

Darlene, what's you're out of ten?

And I think we have different You have three, okay and I and that's just because it was kind of annoying with the sound and all that.

I'm giving it a three and a half because, like my my, my minimum standard for a movie that I would I would watch again just to try to understand, is like a four.

This is when I'm not really going to ever want to watch again, even though I think there were parts of it that were cool, like on Mars.

Speaker 1

To me, this is a torture movie.

Speaker 3

Oh see, this is not a torture movie to me.

Speaker 1

To me, this is it tortured me because you've.

Speaker 3

Got tendonitis tons.

Speaker 1

I don't.

And that noise was just ring.

Speaker 3

I hear that all the time.

Yeah, yeah, I hear that all the time.

Now this so, no, there's movies I totally understand.

I totally understand where you're coming from.

I I typically think that there are movies that are worse for that.

And I didn't really truly feel tortured while watching this, And as I said, I actually appreciated some of the things that did well.

So that's it.

I think we should just leave it there.

Even though we didn't recommend this, I'm kind of happy we watched this because it just feels refreshing after Abbut and Costello Meet the Mummy, which really I.

Speaker 1

Didn't have to watch ridiculous comedy that is the same thing.

Speaker 3

Well, it wasn't just ridiculous comedy.

It was the repetitive comedy comedy that drove us crazy.

So I'm glad we came back to this.

I don't know what we'll do next, but I'm hoping that it's another little ray of sunshine into our hearts.

Speaker 1

So I'm Aaron, I'm darling, and good evening.

Speaker 3

We keep watching the Skies.

At no point in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.

Speaker 2

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Speaker 3

We would be honored if you would join us.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Good Night,

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