16: Fantastic Four: First Steps

Tola and Tim are joined by Leigh Shocki to discuss Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's Project Hail Mary. Final score: Science 77, Fiction 87, Film 88. Up next: Sorry to Bother YouSpecial Guest: Leigh Shocki.

Tola and Tim discuss (yet another Denis Villeneuve film) Blade Runner 2049. Tim struggles to make connections from Tola’s list of actors to Blade Runner and 2001. The guys discuss sequels, opening text, Vangelis, Ryan Gosling’s eyes, Dave Bautista’s tiny glasses, Princess Buttercup, Nabokov (thanks to Priscilla Page’s excellent essay for this connection The Poetry of Blade Runner 2049), miming vs feeling humanity, AI girlfriends, the Joi of Ana de Armas, Jared Leto’s Elon Musk-ian scene-chewing and monologues on slavery, the joy of an Edward James Olmos cameo, the complicated ickiness of consent in Blade Runner (thanks to El Zee’s essay The Impossibility of Consent), questions about production lines for replicants, why we choose to watch movies that recapitulate terribleness, Sorry to Bother You, Manic Pixie Dream Sexbots, Take Your AI Girlfriend To Work Day, junkyard kite harpoons, failure modes of hovercars, implanted memories, extra creepy holographic sexbots, Chekhov’s hard drive, Minneapolis’s Somali theater contingent, the emotions of a murderbot, radioactive Las Vegas and its giant statues of sex workers, Roger Deakins’ amazing cinematography, more objectification and commoditization of women, Deckard’s bees, feeding whiskey to a dog, drinks over fistfights, changes in how we interpret films over time, fighting in the sea while a car slowly goes underwater, and tears in snow. Final score: science 65%, fiction 73%, film 91%. Next up: Project Hail Mary (more Gosling!)

It's the Fantastic Four! We recorded this so long ago that we don't have a helpful description to write here. Many many thanks to Paul Zastrow for audio engineering this episode. Final score: science 50%, fiction 60%, film 80% Next up: Blade Runner 2049

Tola and Tim welcome our long time collaborator Guy Ellis, composer and performer of our theme and outro songs, to discuss "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," including being homesick, Balok's All Hour Disco and Discount Delicatessen, Guy eating his dessert before dinner, Disco Versions of Theme Songs, Bob Balaban vs Wallace Shawn, saying "Present Day" in a film, the Raiders Connection, teasing the audience visually, fearless three year olds, the director putting his finger on the scale, the great character actor Roberts Blossom, the ubiquity of the Close Encounters theme, all the people who turned down the role that defined Richard Dreyfuss' career, manifesting what you see in your artist's inner eye, Douglas Trumbull's mist machine, Guy's band Cloud Cover, the Kodály music language, the challenge of interspecies communication, solving everything w/ LLMs, the baud rate of baleen whales, the Deep Space Network, cartography's moment in the sun, the pure awesomeness of Devil's Tower National Monument, Tola forgets the name of amazing author N. Scott Momaday (who Tola heard lecture at the University of Minnesota in 1997 and who recently passed away), Tola's love for Melinda Dillon as an actress and incredulity that she didn't become a giant movie star, Kraftwerk cover bands, speculation that having a competent government would be nice, faking a plague (D'oh!), embarrassing your spouse in front of the neighbors, reminiscing about when there were only four news channels, competent investigators, Tim's grandfather and Rockwell International, Merle Haggard, sneaking the Jaws theme into the sound mix, floating oil refineries, musical communication, the refreshing lack of a sequel to this movie, capturing and bottling up pure concentrated wonder, "Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox" by Stephen Webb, debating the existence of aliens, living in the celestial equivalent of North Dakota, and seeing movies when you're young versus later in life. Final score: science 60%, fiction 87%, and film 96%. Next time on the Monte Hall Effect: the 2025 film "The Fantastic Four: First Steps."Special Guest: Guy Ellis.

In this episode the guys take on 2024's Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part Two" and ponder bitless podcast starts, sequels, the Denis Villeneuve oeuvre, telegraphing the beginning of Dune Messiah, giving a giant middle finger to Joseph Campbell (thanks to Haris Durrani's discussion of this topic on Our Opinions Are Correct), Part 2 being Chani's movie, Ellen Ripley vs Chani haters, film faithfulness to source novels, Tim points out yet again that he was able to hang out with Roger Ebert a whole bunch back in the day, Tola briefly arguing that Fight Club (book and film) glorify fascism but then letting the issue drop, the Dune novel being really long, the rise of the House of Saud, Jordanian film boosterism, critiquing desert gear, the back history of the Fremen, obscuring mythology versus prophecy, the genius of Charlotte Rampling, misuse of stillsuits, Tola and Tim waste time calculating orders of magnitude of volumes of water, Stilgar as Morpheus, true belief vs Machiavellianism, a brief glimpse of Anya Taylor-Joy, side quests, targeting the poor, sand snorkels, lasers vs shields, the ever present ghost of the David Lynch Dune film, conveying disgustingness without resorting to homophobia, rivers of blood and mountains of skulls, Paul's evolving attitude towards theocracy and genocide, riding the worm (in 1983 vs 2024), a xenobiological assessment of Arrakis ecology, Christopher Walken's thespian choices, missing the Guild navigators, the challenge of Giedi Prime tourism, optimizing your bureaucracy, Frank Herbert and his persistent obsession with magical coochies, sacrificial idiots, artistry vs goodness vs happiness, the transformative power of pragmatism, Chekhov's Nuclear Warhead, understanding partner comment context, stupid tech bros and their stupid drugs, Timothée Chalamet hitting it out of the park, cold reading, Polish Sejm as historical precursor for the Landsraad, photogenic nuclear bombs, facing giant death worms, Tola's nerd questions for Tim about women and swords, the utter no-contestedness of Sardaukar facing Fremen, becoming Harkonnen, movie Chani vs book Chani, shaking off a kidney knife puncture, confusion in the last five minutes (a la Primer), nothingburger secret reveals, Galactic population estimates, ending it all with Chani as audience proxy, Chekhov's Florence Pugh, and another shout out to the great SciFi channel Dune miniseries. Final score: Science (60%), Fiction (85%), Film (97%). Next up: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where Tola revisits his childhood!

Tola and Tim are joined by our wonderful editor, Paul, to discuss the 1984 cult classic, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension." Featuring an all-star cast including Jeff Goldblum as one of the least-weird characters, Robocop's Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd as John Bigbooté, Yakov Smirnoff, Ellen Barkin, Clancy Brown, and many more, this film was either a labor of love or made of cocaine...or all of the above! Tola and Tim address important questions like, can you drive a jet-powered car at 400 mph through a mountain, while Paul brings his musical expertise to questions like, what does a piccolo trombone sound like, and can you really play two saxophones at the same time? Final Score: Science 28%, Fiction 63%, Film 63%. Next up: Dune, Part 2!Special Guest: Paul Zastrow.

The boys talk “Call Your Boyfriend,” ABBA, The Swedish Chef, tasty pastries, the best dates to visit Minnesota, “The Rapture,” bleak (and unwatchable?) movies from Scandinavian directors, "Funny Games" (grrrrrr...), misunderstood "happy" endings, Avenue 5, Silent Spring, the cold calculus of actual human colonization, "A City on Mars" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, the genetically perfect progeny of the oligarchy, yet more orbital mechanics (Tola rants about the plane of the ecliptic), getting straight to the existential horror, spaceships and colonies likely being more cramped than we realize, space being really big, but Mars not being really all that far away, the brilliant future of AI as a copyright and/or classroom cheating enabler, ignorance of the constellation of Lyra, Tola's requisite sailing reference, Chekhov's algae, the entropic nature of complex systems, "Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson, differing access to crayons, the profundity of William Shatner, an epic AI mike drop, Jayne Cobb's workout regimen, cults, giant space orgies that are not as much fun as they sound, the relative ease of interplanetary communication, the death of hope, random sci-fi puzzle boxes, confusion versus wonder, paying horribly for carrying even a small measure of optimism, failure cascades, the false dichotomy of saving Earth vs reaching for the stars, "Children of Men," being careful about what we watch and read in the middle of the night, space trying to kill you, the Lars von Trier oeuvre (h/t Brian Kamman!) and much more – all while taking in a movie based on an epic, book-length poem from Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson. Content Warning: at several points we discuss the topic of suicide, which also factors into the plot of the film. If you are in crisis and need to talk to someone, text HOME to 741741 (in the US) for free help from a counselor. Thanks again to Paul Zastrow for sound editing this episode. Final score: Science (78%), Fiction (93%), Film (90%). Next up: "Buckaroo Banzai" as a palate cleanser! (re-posted 3/12/24)

In this episode the guys join the future Captain America, the former archangel Gabriel, the future Kim Ki-taek, the former Caligula, and the former Gene Kranz as they circumnavigate a frozen Earth in Bong Joon-Ho's 2013 Snowpiercer. They explore the mysteries of apex predators vs. reindeer, the merits of late- or post-capitalistic societies and meritocracies on a moving platform, the dangers of engineering's ability to (inadvertently) cause bigger problems than it solves, the late, lamented P.J. O'Rourke on El Salvador, cannibalism, the dangers of poor railway maintenance, the expectations of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series (if it ever came to the screen), science fiction poetry (Swedish and otherwise) and the late author Harry Martinson. Special thanks to Paul Zastrow for sound editing this episode. Final score: Science 78%, Fiction 83%, Film 95% Next up: the boys get arty and existential with 2018's Aniara.

In this episode the guys welcome a very special guest: their long time friend, Naval Aviator and retired NASA astronaut Jeff Ashby and talk about a FMECA gone wrong, the ISS, radios, ground communications, TDRS, schedule, crews, procedure vs cowboyism, creative plumbing solutions, clean vs clutter, the miracle of velcro, Jeff's Sleeping Pod Project, fire in space, oxygen candles, using standard atmosphere, Aliens Gone Bad, depicting zero gee, the Vomit Comet, doing biology in a glovebox, protocols, contaminents, fluffy space dust bunnies, computers, realism vs entertainment, hydrazine, moving the station, control moment gyros, technical advisors, Jim Lovell and Ron Howard, adding drama, inspiring future astronauts, remembering Neil Armstrong, predicting orbital debris problems twenty years ago, New York's scenic and welcoming Southern Tier, vast quantities of horribly cheap and terrible science fiction films, mediocre directors make mediocre movies, Tola's obsession with sailboats, underappreciated Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, using the ISS, NASA's Office of Planetary Protection (do we or any of our listeners know anyone who ever worked there?!?), six expendable meatbags, astronaut crosstraining, lots of parallels to Alien, Chris Hadfield's biography, we talk again about how velocities work in space, twinkling stars, catching fast things without breaking them, Reanimator, who's the boss?, designing for perfection, the fallacy of the perfect glove, designing around hazards, Chekhov's Mouse, going from monocellular to highly evolved intelligence in hours not years, films winking at their auidiences, flamethrowers in space, venting, whack-a-mole fire extinguishers, ISS not being the Nostromo, keeping people away from poisons, we talk again about how organic stuff works in a vacuum, the buddy system in space, space suit pressure, nitrogen purges, being perilous and terrifying without being toxic, Tim mentions Hadfield's biography again talking about the risking of drowning in microgravity, navigating through the hydrazine thruster system(!), understanding sensors in terms of orders of magnitude, more whack a mole, losing your grasp on reality, sacrificial canibalism, solutions that no longer make a single bit of sense, blocking a scene so you can't figure out what's happening at all, how it's hard to nudge things into the sun, yet another exciting discussion of orbital mechanics in case you haven't had your fill from earlier episodes, getting the clock ticking to amp up the suspense, Tim's totally awesome Student Nitric Oxide Explorer, NORAD, sullying the good name of Goodnight Moon, lying movie trailers and the lying liars who make them, how nobody makes lifeboats that only hold one person, real world ISS lifeboat problems, the least bad answer, Man Out Of Space Easiest (MOOSE!), The Twist!(tm), and the omniscient and emotional intelligent alien. Final score: Science 68%, Fiction 63%, and Film 70%. Next up: the boys get political with Bong Joon-ho's 2013 film "Snowpiercer"!Special Guest: Jeff Ashby.

In a very special The Monte Hall Effect, Tim and Tola's friend and colleague Shane Malone joins them as guest judge/panelist to help them unravel the vast mysteries of Roland Emmerich's 2022 box office bomb "Moonfall" and to discuss a new TMHE feature called 'Splainin' Science, the University of Minnesota vs University of Colorado, the brilliant XKCD description of the Saturn V using only the thousand most common words in the English language, the Roche Limit, rigging Twitter polls for fun and profit, bad Dungeon Masters in Dungeons and Dragons, the descent and fall of Roland Emmerich, COVID screwing up Hollywood, turning three well thought out movies into one dumpster fire, "2012" being available right now somewhere on basic cable, feeling bad for the actors in "Cats", the genius of Emmerich's 2019 WWII film "Midway", Stanley Tucci dodging a bullet, wasting Donald Sutherland, realizing the moment when you know a film is going to be a garbage fire, how NASA Mission Operations work, we once again question the effectivity of Hollywood's science consultants, how airlocks don't work, how inertia doesn't work, how Shuttle thrusters don't work, turning a hero into a villain, the amazing Captain Al Haynes from the 1989 United Airlines Flight 232 that made that famous emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa, this new thing called solar weather, showing things rather than just telling the audience that they happened, Tim trying to describe the film, blaming some of this film's stink of sad on COVID filming constraints, Emmerich's cannibalizing his film "2012", the genius of Michael Peña, NASA not being one monolithic tightly structured organization but rather 19,000 people stretched out over more than a dozen independent centers, speculating on lunar orbital mechanics, John Bradley committing as an actor and turning in a compelling performance in the middle of this silly nonsense, missing the opportunity to put your science fiction actors in red shirts, dated nerd love for Elon Musk, Federal contigency planning, Strategic Air Command, using a neuralyzer on the POTUS, Chekhov's muscle car, someone inexplicably slipping a "Shining" reference into the movie, the world's most benign tsunami, attempting to fly museum relics, Concorde G-BOAG's certificate of airworthiness at the Seattle Museum of Flight, ground support equipment and its role in getting a vehicle ready for flight, the spectularly stupid theory that the Moon was manufactured by ancient aliens that some stupid people actually believe, Dyson Spheres vs Ringworlds, the role of tides in the rise of terrestrial life, numerology, the Theia Impact theory of lunar formation, thermal implications of the Chicxulub impact, Shane gets to use a Legends of Zelda reference, first watching and then outrunning a collosal tidal wave, surfing a tidal wave in your vehicle filled with cryogens, the fragility of airplanes and spacecraft, how privacy laws prevent Americans from understanding the real world impacts of violence, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Fuzz Aldrin as a great name for a cat, how Millenials don't read paper newspapers, side quests, the impossibility of having the token Chinese character in a Chinese-government-financed film be LGBTQ, things getting magically fixed when the DM realizes they screwed up, glaring inconsistencies on the behavior of the Big Bad in the crater tunnel, an entire scene lifted from Cameron's "The Abyss", The Aliens Are Us!, all these characters (except John Bradley) being just plot devices not recognizable characters, simplistic moral tests, Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker" series, Star Trek's Cornucopia of Doom, taxonomy of solutions to Fermi's Paradox, hiding out from the xenophobes, Steven Universe, a short discussion of Earth's possible AI future, the Kaspersky Labs product placement moment, Shane recommends "Crier's War" by Nina Verela, an entire scene lifted from Peter Hyams' underrated "2010", the missed opportunity to incorporate the always awesome Buzz Aldrin, denouement-free films, Chinese piety, Saturday Afternoon Basic Cable Immortality, and blaming Marvel and DC when your latest blockbuster fizzles out at the box office. Final score: Science 19%, Fiction 36%, and Film 45%. Shane can be found at shaney_plays on Twitch and shaneyplays2839 on Youtube. Next up for Tim and Tola: Daniel Espinoza's 2017 Science Fiction Horror film "Life"!Special Guest: Shane Malone.