Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
Speaker: We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson, and I've got to be the Cybok of the show. Okay. That's not what I was expecting. No, wouldn't. But okay. no I'm charismatic.
Speaker: Okay. I'm empathetic. Sure. I'm mad with power. There we Yeah, there we go. Okay. Okay. We got there. You've got that pegged to a T.
Speaker: ah And of course, that is my co-host, Mr. Greg Bossy. Greg, you've got to be the bones. You're the bones of the show. Okay. Okay. Damn it, Jim. is he Does he say that? is that yeah i don't Yeah. Damn it, Jim.
Speaker: Not in this movie, but I think he does you just say it. Yeah. yeah Yeah, I don't think the language gets even that colorful in this film. So i'm the one I'm the one who's looking through the binoculars and like cursing. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah. But actually this one has, i think the most the color the most colorful language they've used in any ah ah classic Trek. Because, you know, Kirk was like, I'm going knock you on your goddamn ass.
Speaker: Well, but in four, obviously, Spock learned about colorful metaphors. Yeah. So you're going to have a couple of colorful metaphors up in there. That, of course, is our special guest.
Speaker: I'm going to go ahead and call him the god of the show. Kill him. It's Mr. Matt Finnegan. How are yeah Wow. Yes, i'm i'm I'm doing all right. It's really good to see you guys.
Speaker: Good to see you. we've Glad to have you back on the show. You're looking good. Well, thank you. um i i clean myself up. I literally took a shower for this. so Wow. Yeah, I like to be clean.
Speaker: Yeah, that also helps refresh the mind. Exactly. Listeners, if you don't know what movie we're talking about, let me refresh you. ha This week we're talking about Star Trek V, The Final Frontier.
Speaker: And if you haven't seen Star Trek five The Final Frontier, here's just a brief summary of the film to hold in your mind. And it is, I assume it will be brief because there's not a lot to talk about in this film. Plot-wise, plot-wise. Well, well.
Speaker: The crew of the USS Enterprise are at it again. This time they get hijacked by a religious cult who wanted to fly it, it being the USS Enterprise, towards the center of the galaxy, to the planet where God lives.
Speaker: To top it all off, the leader of the cult is Spock's long-lost half-brother?
Speaker: yeah yeah that happened. So here's the way that I would describe it. Three guys get their vacation disrupted when work says that they have to go save the universe from God.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, that does happen too. I feel like that's wrong in a lot of ways. um well mean it' Except for the vacation part. the vacation Yeah, yeah. I mean, so they' they're not like, well, God wants slay the universe from God. But I mean, that's kind of what they... That's what they end up doing, I suppose. yeah never I mean, part of the and the problem is the ambiguity of the motivations of the God creature. Is he actually is you going to take over the universe? What's going happen?
Speaker: Who are you to question God? It's not ours. Yeah, no, it's too big. Finnegan, you came back at me pretty quick with Star Trek five, the final frontier. Once I started putting the screws to you to pick a movie, why did you go with Star Trek five, the final frontier?
Speaker: oh You know, that's that's a great question. I think, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about, i think then the spirit of this show should should be movies that are close to your guests' hearts.
Speaker: Absolutely. ah And movies they've seen a lot. I don't think, I didn't want to go with a movie I've seen once or twice that I had fun with. I want to go with a movie that's close to my heart that, i you know, that's within my wheelhouse. And my wheelhouse is very much sci-fi, B-movie,
Speaker: B-movie sci-fi, bad B-movie sci-fi. Yeah, of course, your previous selections on the show, Robot Jocks, Screamers. yeah Was there another one? Yeah, there was, but that one wasn't sci-fi. but i had That one I had just seen once, so I'm okay completely... Oh, yes, Lords of Magic. There's many different types of yeah ah film that we love that is bad. yeah Like I always say, there's lots of ways to be beautiful.
Speaker: e That's true. no You do always say that, and um it's become a tagline of yours. It's true. So yeah, i so I grew up watching, just ah ah some brief background on me, I grew up watching Star Trek a lot. It's kind of the only thing I watched when I was really young.
Speaker: And I grew up especially watching the Star Trek movies, the original series movies, the Kirk Spock-McCoy movies from the 80s and late 70s. And I would watch them...
Speaker: Every day i would come home from school. There was a chunk of my life where I'd come home from school and watch one of those movies. Usually, start usually Star Trek two was the one I'd watch, but I i watched yeah them one one through six. I watched them every day.
Speaker: So I've seen it. I don't know. A lot. Hundreds, hundreds of times, possibly. i don't know. Okay. Okay. ah Rich text. Yeah. And out of all of them, why did you go for this one?
Speaker: Because this one is really bad. Yeah, that is true. Really bad. It's true. It's very bad. But I think it's bad. I think it's not enough to be a bad movie, right? um I think it has to be a bad movie that is really fun to watch.
Speaker: And I find, for me, this one is really easy to watch. I have no problem watching it. I think it's really fun because it's so stupid. But also, i think there are moments that are not stupid that I genuinely like in this movie. There's not many. Yeah.
Speaker: But like compared to the later Star Trek movies that are also bad, such as like, you know, the one with Tom Hardy, Nemesis, the last one from yeah next gen. Where he was Picard's clone. Yeah, Picard's younger clone. ah That one is just unwatchably bad. It's just if's not bad in a way that I want to watch it ah ever. yeah and a lot of A lot of bad movies fall into that category where it's like, yeah, it's bad, but i don't i don't it's not entertaining. it It's just actually bad. It's just bad. Yeah, straight up. And five, I feel like is the only truly bad one. I know a lot of people talk shit about some of the other original series movies, like they the very first Star Trek movie, which I defend.
Speaker: i i've I will defend. Okay. And Star Trek three people talk that say that one's bad, but none of them are really bad, especially compared to V. V is you very unique, and it's uniquely bad. And I think that's another good qualifier for a movie for this podcast. It should be uniquely bad.
Speaker: It's true. it It's a very odd duck. Yeah. Oh yeah. Greg, what's your background with star Trek and star Trek five in particular? So star Trek, my father liked star Trek.
Speaker: I yeah saw the second star Trek film in the theater, which means I was one or two. And, um, it, uh, I remember it had worms in it. That's all I remember.
Speaker: Um, and I don't know if I've seen it since actually. ah We watched Next Generation often, but it was something that he would watch or something that I enjoyed watching, but there was never like, it was mostly like, oh, I'm here and we're watching this and this is, this is great. I'm enjoying this, but I would never get excited for it or like purposely sit down. It was kind of just by chance.
Speaker: I'm vaguely familiar with it ah because I'm friends with Matt. I've seen more of it now. ah So I have some understanding, but I'm still very much like, even to like when this one began, I'm like, Spock is a Vulcan.
Speaker: And then Michael Dorn's character is a, is it? Are you asking? are you and a Kind of. He's a Klingon? yeah Yeah, but Michael Dorn is not in this. Just to be 100% clear.
Speaker: Right, right. But it's like, that's my, that's like my window is like Star Trek Next Generation. So it's like, I got to equate it to that to understand what's actually kind of occurring. and you remember the pointy ears? A lot of people like, what's the one with the guy with pointy ears, right? that's Yeah, so that's a Vulcan. Yeah, yeah. And then there's like Romulans, which at this point, I remember someone said Romulan in this film, and I was like oh, right.
Speaker: The third one. ah Yeah. They're out there. yeah The lady was a Romulan in this one. The really bad actor. Oh, the yeah the the ambassador?
Speaker: Yes. yeah The silver kind of outfit. Yeah. yeah The silver princess. Yeah. I was never a Star Trek guy growing up. I gotta be honest.
Speaker: Uh, I want you to be honest. Yeah, no, it it just was never for me. it was a bridge too far. I did end up watching the first four Star Trek series.
Speaker: ah Once Anna and i started living together, we just went through them streaming, you know, early on in our relationship. And I mean, that's pretty serious. it's It's pretty serious. you when You watch four of the series.
Speaker: Well, we watch a lot of, yeah, I i figured let's let's do it. We're going to watch it. Let's just watch it. And I watch a lot of fucking TV, man. So I go through a lot of stuff. Yeah, you have no problem blowing through garbage. you know Oh, yeah. I don't have to like it to watch it. its I just need something in front of me. I'm addicted.
Speaker: ah Something to stop these thoughts. Yeah, just give me something instead of this. i don't want to see i don't want to live here anymore. just Take me away. ah And yeah, I think if I had to rank the first. Oh, and I had also at some point watched the entire animated series as well.
Speaker: The original TLS. I've never done that. Okay. Well, um I'll talk a little bit more about it later. ah But yeah, I think Voyager was probably my favorite out of all of them because it was the most fun. Jeez.
Speaker: Deep Space Nine was my least favorite because it was just like a bunch of politics stuff. It was like the West Wing. was like, I don't and don't like the West Wing. And it obviously it was like groundbreaking, but it's like, I don't care.
Speaker: I don't like the ground that you're breaking. the total opposite. like i I love West Wing. It's one my favorite shows. And I think DS9 is probably the best Star Trek show. Well, TNG g is the best. Let's be really honest. but yeah but yeah You know what I kind of admire about TNG g is that every single character on the show is a huge fucking nerd. They just leaned into it. It's I play trombone. I like to play the whistle and I love archaeology. I'm into computers big time.
Speaker: Yeah. ah Which series had seven of nine in it? That was Voyager and Deep Space Nine, I think at one point. No, maybe just Voyager. Just Voyager? Okay. yeah okay Yeah. ah Boy, that's a whole complicated thing that we're not even going to talk about.
Speaker: But yeah, as far as specifically this movie, the only thing that I remember is the end. Because the ending is so incredible. yeah it's Yeah. It's very interesting. ah I should also say that I have sort of seen this film before. i know I was at Matt's house one day playing games and he put it on.
Speaker: And I think it was about halfway through that I started paying attention because I was like, I'm so yeah i'm sorry, what's happening? ah And the only things I remembered were the ending and also... um who's the mechanic is i just can't make it cool captain that's scotty you can remember because he's scottish yeah and that makes sense so it's a new scotty is like i know this i know this spaceship like the back of my hand and then he like rams his head into a support beam or something yeah because i remember that and that might have been the point at which it was on and i was like excuse me this is like what's happening
Speaker: Yeah. This is a Star Trek film. Why did the man just knock himself out? Yeah. On own ship for no reason. And we don't know. We never know. he He just did that. It's a good joke. Yeah. It's what part of the plot. It's a joke. It's a joke. is Like they don't come back to the next scene and he's like rubbing his head and he continues doing stuff like he's canonically knocked out and found. He's out. Because he walked into a door jam.
Speaker: Maybe he had something going on in his real life and it affected his shooting schedule. And they're like, all right, fuck it. Let's just knock him out for a couple days. I mean, then you have ah like ah one of the dudes club him in the back of the head with a wrench. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: You know, I feel like this. i feel like this film is taking a lot of time and straining really hard to make jokes. Oh, yeah. Which is really bizarre. oh God. And it's so it's so painful.
Speaker: It's very contrived. It felt to me very much like an episode of TOS. Like, if you had them in the original costumes on those sets, yeah this movie would be exactly like a TOS. And the budget was, you know, comparable.
Speaker: Yeah. it was The budget was obviously terrible for this movie. we see When we say TOS... ah The original series. Ah, because I was like, Star Trek is ST.
Speaker: The terms of service of Star Trek clearly read. ah Well, you've talked about the budget, Finney. well That, I think, leads us naturally into the context portion of the show. Let's do it. Fire it up.
Speaker: I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What was going on on screen? I want to hear some details.
Speaker: Gossip scandal, all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
Speaker: if you guys ever considered doing those bumpers live? Yeah, they'd be too difficult to sync up. I suppose that's true. Oh, yeah they're collaborative, yeah. Yeah, yeah it's it's more trouble than it's worth.
Speaker: Yeah. This is a good time to take a break, take a drink, rest, reset. Once you a live show. Sorry, once you do a live show. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, that's different. Once we get booked at the Bell House, we'll be doing this live.
Speaker: So Star Trek five The Final Frontier, was released June 9th, 1989. Your director, Mr. William Shatner. Woo!
Speaker: So we've got a few taglines here. Tagline number one, the greatest enterprise of all is adventure.
Speaker: Jesus, is that really a real tagline? Yeah. God. The greatest enterprise of all is adventure. Tagline number two. Adventure and imagination will meet at the final frontier.
Speaker: no as well. Yeah, I don't... doesn't really They sound like their movie is for babies. Yeah, exactly. And they really want to work in the concept of of adventure. yeah That's really all they have. Did you watch the trailer for this, by the way? to to war I know I should have. Okay, the trailer is equally vague. It doesn't mention God or anything. No, I feel like... love I feel like this is way too heavy for a general audience. I feel like this is definitely something that you had to bait and switch them up.
Speaker: Yeah, and ah and well, we can get into it, but my complaint about the movie primarily is that it doesn't go heavy at all. when it's And it should. No. do Tagline number three.
Speaker: The crew of the Starship Enterprise is taking you where no one has gone before. Really good. God's home planet. Mm-hmm. God lives. But they didn't mention and mention adventure. And it's like, is there adventure? I'm questioning. Yeah, where's the adventure?
Speaker: It's a place beyond mystery, beyond time, and until now, beyond reach. The last barrier in the universe is about to be broken. It's a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really long tagline. Well, if you thought that one was long. Oh, boy. An expedition to a remote planet. A surrender to a Vulcan renegade.
Speaker: An attack by an ancient enemy. A race towards the center of the galaxy. I mean, that one's the best. It's also really long, but it is the best, I feel like. ah Those are all things that happen in the movie, but none of them are as exciting as that sentence.
Speaker: It's also not a race to the center. It's one person going to the center and another person following that person. Yeah. Which is not technically a race. but's' I think they're racing the Klingons. They should have made it a race. It would helped. No, there are ships racing the Klingons. The Klingons are just going after him.
Speaker: That's sort of like saying a police chase is like a race. It's like, no, it's not. It's like a chase. Yeah, the Klingons aren't going after God. They're not like, we got to get to the center before they do. They're like, we got to get to the center so we can shoot them at the center.
Speaker: Yeah. they should have The Klingons should have wanted to kill God. I mean, what an honor. That would be great. well um That would be incredible. In Star Trek lore, and this is one of my favorite pieces of Star Trek lore, the Klingons in their like mythology did kill God um you know back in the day. Their greatest kind of their're Jesus figure ah killed killed the gods Okay. is It's kind of Norsey, Isn't there like a Norse like and or Greek greek thing? It's very Warhammer 40,000. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure every mythology is going to have one or two gods getting killed by some other guy, but I think this is the only one where he killed all the guys and became yeah a messiah.
Speaker: Also, I like that you say 40,000. It's distinguished. Most people say 40K. Warhammer I've definitely been like kind of like corrected on this. It's 40K. I'm not corrected. No, no, I'm saying I like it.
Speaker: No, and I appreciate that. Well, first thing you should know about Star Trek five The Final Frontier, is that there is, it was sort of the opposite of the situation I encounter a lot when I'm doing research for the show, in that there was way too much information. There's lot, yeah.
Speaker: So ah I sort of, if you want to know more or you're hoping that I'm going to say your favorite Star Trek five fact in the next 15 minutes or so, I'm sorry if that doesn't happen. ah But there's there's lots more. Everybody, everybody within your shed.
Speaker: Well, I can just say for me, you know, speaking from my own perspective, I can tell you my favorite fact. Tell me your favorite. You don't. No, no. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just saying if you if you miss out, oh we don't cover it. OK, well, you said you needed a batty award so you can just keep it in your back pocket.
Speaker: Oh, that's true. Yeah. So I'm going to assume that everyone listening to this is at least vaguely familiar with the broad concept of Star Trek. So I'm just going to give a quick big picture. Star Trek was a science fiction TV series that premiered in 1966. It ran for three years and would go on to become one of the most important and successful television shows ever made.
Speaker: Unfortunately, the cast mostly seemed to have disliked one another and especially the star William Shatner. In a cruel twist of fate, the show's long-lasting popularity meant that the cast would spend the next 50 to 60 years of their lives working with people who they hate in order to put food on their table.
Speaker: A lot of this is kind of overblown, by the way. I've i've read some books about this. and and yeah it's not I think it's fun. That kind of like mythology is fun to say they all hated each other, but it's not really true. there's definitely They definitely had some problems you know here and there, for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, they clearly but they did they were able to get over it. It wasn't like anybody... They're professionals. They're professionals. Yeah, yeah. It was not quite up to the level of ah you know Stevie Nicks. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: But um maybe two degrees lower than that. There's drama. Drama. Now, ah back in the early days when they were making the TV show, Shatner and his co-star, Leonard Nimoy, negotiated what Shatner called a favored nations clause with the producers of the show.
Speaker: Nimoy's Spock was sort of the breakout character, and both men worried that the other would get what he deserved. You know what I mean? So they they set it up. Yeah. There was that kind of drama on set, for example.
Speaker: Those two especially did not like each other. Also, when I think about them interacting, I'm thinking about them interacting with the voices they use as their characters. and Yeah, they're definitely interacting in character. In character, yeah. um i They actually were kind of lifelong friends, they but they they did have struggles, but like they they were lifelong friends. So it's not so true that they hated each other. Okay, thank you. But they they did have conflict, for sure.
Speaker: Like I said, there's too much information for me. There's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. ah But they negotiated it so that if one of them got a raise, the other one would get a raise. If one of them got to make changes to scripts, the other one got to make changes to scripts, stuff like that. That was the old set system that they had between these guys.
Speaker: Yeah. for tat it's it's like what dj assault taught us if i fuck we all gonna fuck yeah exactly yeah everybody loves dj's i guess ass and titties is the more if leonard nimoy fucks then william shatner gets to fuck exactly it has to be the same person Yeah, they have and they can only date twins.
Speaker: Yeah. So ah Leonard Nimoy got to direct Star Trek 3, The Search for Spock, and Star Trek 4, The Voyage Home. So Shatner was like, okay, now it's Shatner's turn. Shatner gets the next one. If you're bringing... Chance at Bat.
Speaker: I was going to let him go with just three, but now that you brought him back and let him do four, he would only sign in on to four if he could direct five. And four did really well. It was like a breakout, the big breakout movie that brought in normal people love that movie in the eighties. And I think Shatner was like, God damn it. All right fine. Like no, in four is the one with the whales, the whales. Yeah. is the win yeah And they time travel back to the eighties. So it's not like you're completely lost. You have the eighties to ground you. If you're not into star Trek and you get to see these guys be fish out of water and that's just, you know, a fun premise.
Speaker: Uh, <unk> good So Shatner was like, I've got a great fun premise. ah What he wanted to do was he wanted to take a pot shot at televangelists and the way that they use people's religious beliefs against them.
Speaker: So he pitched a story where the crew of the enterprise falls under the sway of a space preacher named czar with only Kirk keeping his wits about him. ah When they follow czar's instructions, they go to a planet where God lives, but it turns out that God is actually the devil and the God planet is hell.
Speaker: me So, wow. the Twists and turns. Am I right? Oh, boy. wow Who would have thought? I was in a room with Shatner and he pitched that to me, I'd be like, do you have a second pitch? Is there another one? No way. Do you have any other ideas? I love it. Let's work through them. Here's what I'm going to say. What's your second one?
Speaker: I'm going to green light this one on the condition they get to hell act one. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, didn't Ghostbusters also, weren't they supposed to go to hell as well in the original script?
Speaker: Yeah. And I think Phantasm five, he should have gone to hell. That was a missed opportunity. There's a lot of movies that should have gone to hell and this is one of them. Absolutely. Definitely.
Speaker: Now a few revisions later, we wound up with the script that we got. The production had its fair share of difficulties and Striking teamsters allegedly blew up a camera truck.
Speaker: fuck it ah Some scenes were shot in 110 degree heat in the Mojave desert. And one day a driver failed to come back and pick everyone up, stranding Shatner and a skeleton crew until they were saved by a park ranger.
Speaker: That's pretty wild. I love the idea of being a park ranger and coming across a band of stranded filmmakers. Yeah. you know One of them is Captain Kirk. Yeah. Yeah. Thank God you're here.
Speaker: And then they've got ah they didn't get their first pick of special effects companies, Industrial Light and Magic. And so they went with another company called Associates and Farron.
Speaker: Associates and Farron had done a little shop of horrors before they had done some good effects. ah But they only had. i mean, that was like the man eating plant, right? They did that. Yeah. That man eating plant puppet is incredible. It's great. Yeah. But that's pretty much all that's in that movie. Right. In terms of. No, there's some other stuff.
Speaker: I mean, that there's a several. There's a series of puppets. First of all, it's not just one. That's all i remember. I've only seen it maybe once when I was a kid. and I only remember was the giant. It's great. yeah You should watch it. I got to rewatch it. Yeah.
Speaker: ah But they associates and Farron also only had half the time that they should get. They only had three months instead of six ah due to like, I think an impending writer's strike, something like that.
Speaker: whereas like Isn't it weird that it's associates and Farron and not Farron and associates? yeah That was his hook, I think. Oh, yeah. I mean, it worked. Yeah. we're We're talking about it. Yeah, exactly. You're not going to forget it. Associates and Farron.
Speaker: ah Critics largely dismissed Star Trek 5. What? Who would have thought?
Speaker: Trekkies could only muscle it up to $63 million dollars at the box office. Half of what Star Trek 4 made. Huge drop off.
Speaker: Other sci-fi movies of 1989. o What could you go see you were young Matt Finnegan? the What's our competition? The Abyss was there, correct?
Speaker: That's all I can think of. Back to the Future Part 2. He's in the future in this one. Classic. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Another classic. Absolutely.
Speaker: Cyborg. Oh, have you guys seen that one? Not recently. Oh, man. So maybe I have. Its name is so vague that it's like, yeah, I might have. it's I need more. That's the Van one. It's Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, too?
Speaker: No, no, I've not seen Cyborg. I should revisit that because I remember last time I watched that thinking this is great. Okay, okay. Cyborg on the list. I mean, bad great.
Speaker: ah Yeah, I assumed as such. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. you Theater. Saw it in the theater. Me too. Classic kids adventure. I think Star Trek 5 was the first Star Trek movie I saw in the theater.
Speaker: then All those other movies I remember just renting a lot, including Back to the Future. this would be This would be a good one for a little kid, I feel like, other than the fact that they kill God at the end. Never mind. You didn't go the theater until you were seven?
Speaker: um No, I just think this was the first Star Trek movie I saw in the theater. I don't remember. yeah I don't think I saw any other ones before. That makes sense. ah You also got Robot Jocks this year. Check out our episode with Matt Finney and talk about Robot Jocks.
Speaker: Hell yeah. got The Blood of Heroes, the Rutger Hauer feature sports movie. Yeah, but wild movie. Classic. No, I thought you guys were kidding. I've never heard of this. No, no, we've watched it we've watched this one we together. oh it' so It's the post-apocalyptic sports. Yeah, yeah. yeah like ah Where the ball is a dog skull.
Speaker: Yeah, Salute of the Jugger. Well, this is a little known fact. All balls originally were dog skulls. Yeah, so that's the origin of balls. yeah just Look it up. You also got ah Millennium with Chris Christopherson.
Speaker: you guys remember Millennium? I remember it, and I got it confused with the show called Millennium. Different. um And so they've just been a mash in there.
Speaker: No, this is the one where ah he is a guy that investigates airplane crashes and he finds out that what's happening is that in the distant future, ah they can no longer sustain population because the world has become too polluted. So they set up time warps and planes that are about to crash and kidnap all the people.
Speaker: and then ah fill the plane with other people's bodies who have already died in the future. But the problem is this ends up causing what they call time quakes. It's a wild movie. I'm going write this down. i mean, it's a let me just yeah let me just let me go back. So in the future, there's a population problem.
Speaker: Yes. And they don't know what to do with dead bodies. Okay. No, they know what to do with dead bodies. They put them on planes. And they send them back in time. That way they can kidnap the people who are about to crash on the plane and use that to solve their population problem.
Speaker: I thought they had too many people already. No, they didn't have enough. Oh. Pollution is causing population collapse. I see. this No, it makes more sense. I'm not going to say it makes sense, but it makes more sense. It has internal logic. yeah absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker: They send back in time an agent from the future in order to collect like a piece from the wreckage that got left behind. And she ends up being her intro, his intro into this whole future world.
Speaker: wow i should i should check this movie out yeah it's not also like that i also like that it's chris christopherson yeah just yeah wrong choice for that he's greater from the future i think i'm here to investigate this plane crash i don't it's hard that's no it's uh last one arguably my favorite from the year leviathan yes i love leviathan i love leviathan yeah i may blank this from my memory It's not your type of movie. going to it's water-based, so I'm pretty sure that this is something that I've like kept away out of. yeah Yeah, it's like an alien at the bottom of the ocean, but super cheap and produced by Dino De Laurentiis.
Speaker: It's really good. Oh, actually, is that where they go like underwater into a cave eventually? i don't think so. I think they're just in the base. There was another one that was also a ripoff of... um the like There's like these abyss clones that came out. Leviathan is one, and there's a much cheaper one. I think it was something from the deep.
Speaker: Yeah, i think that's the one that I've seen. yeah Not Deep Star 6? No, Deep Star 6 is another one from the same era, which is also really good. It's a great little micro genre. I got to say. Yeah, it really is. But we have got to keep things chugging along. sure do. I'm going to move us on to Star Trek five The Plot. Woo! Woo!
Speaker: Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
Speaker: Plot bumper, plot bumper.
Speaker: You could still do these live and you could just do one person does each one. You know what I mean? It's possible. You're missing the part where it's a nice break. No, I'm...
Speaker: ah So ah we open on the planet Nimbus 3, the planet of galactic peace. And it looks like shit.
Speaker: It's terrible. Sure does.
Speaker: Riding out from the desert is Cybok, played by the latest member of the two-timer club, Lawrence Lukenbill.
Speaker: do you remember where we know Lawrence Lukenbill from, Greg? o No. I'll give you a hint. It's Mooney, not Monet.
Speaker: He's from Cocktails? He was Mr. Mooney in Cocktail. Wait, what? don't remember this. He did look vaguely familiar now that and now that you mention it. yeah one is that the Is Mr. Mooney the professor? No, Mr. Mooney's the dad. He's the father. Let me get you a check, Tom Cruise. This is how much you cost to get out of my daughter's life.
Speaker: I did. How did I not know this? iss he He must be a great character actor because I've seen Cocktail a lot. and i've seen He's a great actor. yeah Yeah, he was really good in this. yeah He really em embodies. He really embodies Cyborg. An interesting fact that you maybe you missed or or it's too much because of kind there's so much context. But it was originally meant for Sean Connery. Chattern wanted Sean Connery for that. I don't know. I think this guy did better. Yeah. Better than Sean Connery could.
Speaker: i I think Sean Connery would have made this a different movie. Obviously, agree you put Sean Connery in the movie. it's I'm sorry, James Kirk. Yeah, is no longer at all important. Yeah.
Speaker: ah But also, that's why the planet that they go to is named Shaqari. Oh, yeah. Yeah. yeah And it's really funny to imagine if Sean Connery was in the movie and was like, we're going to Sha'Carri.
Speaker: Yeah. We're going to Sha'Carri. We're going to Sha'Carri. So Cybok runs into a whole farmer who's armed with a space gun.
Speaker: And Cybok uses the powers of radical empathy and gets the whole farmer to join his cause. a really good hug. Sometimes you just need a hug. you know And he says, share your pain. Share share your pain.
Speaker: And it's that's a really... By the way, I really like that opening. I think it's a really good opening. I think it's shot really well. I think it looks really cool. I think it's interesting. Absolutely. And he's like, you oh, you're a Vulcan. And then he starts to laugh. And you're like, why is a Vulcan laughing so much? What's going on here? What's what's this all about? This is odd.
Speaker: But he does tell the the whole farmer the one thing that he needs now is a starship. And then we cut to our opening credits. We get that classic Jerry Goldsmith kick-ass theme song. yeah in You know, it's it's hard not to get psyched. And the I have to say one of my the really great things about this movie, one of the few really great things about the movie is the soundtrack. I think the music is amazing and the music is like 10 levels above what the story is giving us.
Speaker: And I think that's a credit to Derek Goldsmith to write music on this level for a story that's so kind of lame and shallow. Yeah. Yeah, he's not phoning it in at all. and this I've been collecting soundtrack albums from the movies that we cover when I can. i haven't own it looked for Star Trek V yet, but I bet I can track it down. ah But then we're off to Yosemite National Park.
Speaker: which and still exists in the future. Yeah, and we're on the National Park Planet Earth. They specify it for us, which appreciate. that one. Well, it's a galactic movie. You have to say what planet you're on. Yeah. What if I was a Vulcan watching the movie, and I was like, where is Yosemite? I know where Yosemite is because I'm smart, but my companions may not.
Speaker: Do they mean the Yosemite Park on your block? ah
Speaker: ah So... Captain Kirk is there and he's kicking ass climbing El Capitan. Coincidence?
Speaker: And you got McCoy cursing about like, damn it, Jim, you gotta not risk your life like that. You stupid son of a bitch. And I'm with him, by the way. He's free climbing. Let's be clear. He's free climbing. Absolutely. yeah No pitons. Yeah.
Speaker: No crampons. Let's also be clear. ah The stunt double does not look anything like William Shatner. No. like i not When I saw him, I was like, who's this young man? Yeah, exactly. And then it was William Shatner. was like, oh, oh. He was a – I will give it to Shatner. He he was a very ah athletic guy. um Oh, sure. For his whole life. He was like super, super into this kind of stuff. So I think he can't he could climb. I think he was a climber. But obviously not. Some of those shots, that clearly was Like you see him holding on to the built rock face that they have as the the sort of insert cut. yeah He's able to like hold himself up.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. and And by the way, that looks that rock face that when they have like dialogue, that looks terrible. It's it's all plasticky. Like it's just very clearly fake. Just classic Star Trek stuff. Once again, just bringing back that original series. original series Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker: And Spock flies up wearing rocket boots. The rocket boots gag looks especially dark shit. Oh, God. It's terrible. i don't understand. It's like it takes away all of the.
Speaker: I mean, it just completely undercuts, you know, the tension that they're trying to build. Like, anyway, let's have some fun shit with Spock. Yeah. And Spock is up there. He's do not understand why someone would climb a mountain. and Yeah, we don't have athletics on Vulcan like you talking about. What? I do not understand why people do things. Yeah.
Speaker: Why do you not sit and contemplate? What's your motivation? only But then Kirk does fall off the mountain and then Spock says him with his rocket boots. And that fall when Kirk is falling, the green screen, I don't understand why they didn't just cut the entire thing based on that. Like, if we can't, this is, it just, it looked absolutely terrible.
Speaker: I will say that the cutaway, apparently the guy that did the actual stunt fall from El Capitan, that did set a record for like longest stunt free fall. He had a rope that they cleaned out. If he had just shot that guy falling, that would have been incredible. Yeah, just stay on that shot. tell what, they didn't clean out that rope that well.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's fair. that's true i Like I looked at it was like, what are they long line digging? Oh, right. i never notice I never noticed that. Yeah, I ah really like this stuff's really indelible. mean, was like, yeah, there it is. I guess that's why they didn't use that long take then.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean. Yeah, that answers our our own question. Asked and answered. Back on Nimbus 3, we find out that it's called the Planet of Galactic Peace because it was set up to be colonized by human, Klingon, and Romulan colonists as a model for how their three civilizations can live together and in harmony.
Speaker: Unfortunately, all three of them sent their shittiest colonists and all of them started killing each other. classic and it's also a piece of shit planet like why would you send them there like go somewhere nice is there anywhere desert wasteland basically yeah i think i think chatter just wanted to do because that wasn't that long after you know mad max was pretty popular yeah in the 80s right i think he was just trying to do a mad max he's like yeah post-apocalypse and that's kind of why i trained on this movie because i thought well greg might enjoy this this dumb shit in the desert with these you know the the whole farmer's yeah the Yeah, I mean, there's certainly some aspects of that that I definitely appreciate. The whole farming is really good. And the guns that they had fashion were really nice. Like, I'm assuming they shoot rocks. Like, I think I saw, like, somebody spill rocks and come out of the gun or whatever. Like, there's some nice character or world building elements in this And some really great costumes. I was really surprised. Like, I watched this with our our mutual friend Yeah, some big beige sheets.
Speaker: Yeah. Some big... Brown sheets that are wrapped around people. They had some cool face gear. They had cool masks and face gear and kind of like accoutrement. It was really cool.
Speaker: I'll admit I did like the design on McCoy's binoculars. Yeah. I thought those were cool. And had a cool jacket on too with an ascot. He looked good. he was like at a charles Yeah, their civilian costumes were fun. Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, so, uh, the planet's a piece of shit. Uh, and then to make matters worse, Cybuck rolls up with his cult and their homemade weapons and they take the three person high council hostage.
Speaker: And it takes no effort at all. They're just like, no, it's pretty unethical. We're taking over. No, nobody would think youd anybody would want to take over this piece shit planet. Yeah. i love the And David Warner is one of the three ambassadors on this planet.
Speaker: Yeah. Waste. of a veteran Star Trek actor and a veteran actor in general. Yeah. And he he's really great in it because he just kind of project this like, I don't give a shit. This is shit. anded Yeah. Like, who cares? Take it I don't care.
Speaker: And like, that's what everyone else. mean, the whole movie is kind of like that. Even when they later take the. the enterprise it was like anyway fine take it yeah nobody puts up much of a fight and no there's very little action there's no death in this movie i don't think anyone gets killed there's no tension well like ah god gets killed yeah they do kill god huh So ah back on Earth, or just above it, Chief Engineer Scottie Doohan is shaking out the bugs on their new Starship Enterprise. Which is also piece shit.
Speaker: Oh, it's in terrible state. It's A, yeah, because in the in Star Trek 3, the ah original Enterprise gets exploded. Okay. And then in Star Trek 4, they didn't have a ship. They just went on back in time. Oh, yeah, they stole the Klingon Warbird. Yeah, they stole the Klingon ship at the end of 3, yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, now they've got the Enterprise A, and it's garbage. It's full of a bunch of new broken crap. You tell this movie was written by an old man. it was like yeah It's all complicated. They don't make them good anymore. i hate it. The radio's broken. But I think this is like exemplifies a trope I really hate when like people take over franchises or people at contribute to franchises. They try to do this kind of contradictory take on whatever the universe is. The Star Trek is about things being really good and they're like well what about this though how about this planet's shit and everyone hates it and they're like and it what if the ship is also shit what if like like what if we make it put it on its head turn it on its head and fuck it it's like the new indiana jones movie the newest one like what if indiana jones is a piece of shit now and his life is terrible uh i think it's just like really lazy shitty writing to do this kind of thing where it's
Speaker: just yeah and it's I don't care. It's the acoustic album. it's just like But just doing it because it's like, yeah, that'll be a fun diversion. it's like Yeah, we just gotta do something different. yeah yeah And I think, yeah, a big part of the appeal of Star Trek is ah like competency porn, I've heard it described as. it just be like It's so good to see people who are doing a good job and it's just like satisfying to watch it go. It's nice to watch a movie where the tension is trying to solve the problem, not people bickering with each other about how to solve the problem or just be artificial each other. Artificial drama to extend the story. It's usually really lame.
Speaker: Yeah. So anyway, the ship's a piece of shit. Uh, but then they get a red alert signal from star freak command, which I believe is going to be on earth.
Speaker: Like it should be just about right there. yeah Is that where Starfleet Command is? um Did they move it to Earth? The main hub Starfleet is in San Francisco. That's the main one. okay So I think that's where it's from.
Speaker: After we joined the Federation, they're like, Earth is great at fighting. We got to put the Starfleet Command on Earth. That makes sense. And ah I buy that story. It tracks. Yeah, it tracks.
Speaker: But it looks like Shore Leave is canceled. Uhura flies down in a shuttlecraft to pick up Jim, Bones, and Spock from their camping trip because ah the transporter is not working yet.
Speaker: Also, Sulu and the other one were there little Sulu and Chekhov were lost in the woods somewhere. They got lost, and they didn't want to admit they were lost, and so they pretended there was a blizzard, and that's why they got lost. I figured out about that. It's one of the lamest scenes, and it's like one of them blows into the- It feels very TOS to me as well.
Speaker: I feel like even TOS didn't stoop to that. What I mean is like not a good episode of TOS. Yeah. One of the ones that you don't particularly remember. Yeah. we're like Oh yeah. This one where they kill God.
Speaker: Yeah. It's a weird one. They gave Chekhov and Sulu this B plot where they're lost in the woods. They're also camping for some reason. They couldn't figure out something else for them to do.
Speaker: What's interesting about that little bit, though, to me is it feels like it's predicting the like, oh, I'm stuck in traffic. It's cutting out. yeah Kind of going into a tunnel. Yeah. Yeah. i i i ah is Yeah. yeah they They really did predict everything else.
Speaker: Definitely. Imprescient. Meanwhile, on the far side of the galaxy. Oh, before we move on, i do want to like talk about the camping. So yeah, Bones, Kirk and bones kirk and McCoy. Kirk, Spock and Bones were camping.
Speaker: And um I did, I do find them irresistible when they share the screen, even though it's lamely written and the humor is lame. I do, I can't help but really kind of love them and in those camping scenes. Yeah. The camping scenes are nice because they are do just like get a chance to breathe yeah and be in character. and like and they you can tell they just their characters are so natural to them.
Speaker: And you can just see how natural they are together. And they just they just have it down. They've been doing it for, what, 20 years or whatever. yeah love and i And I do like kind of that they try to establish some themes that the movie never doesn't pick up on later.
Speaker: But they so you know Kirk talks about how they don't have families. Other people have families, not us. um And kind of a dour moment. and Yeah, kind of sad to realize no one on the ship has gotten married or retired in the last 20 years.
Speaker: um But the three of them, he's like specifically talking about the three of them. and ah And he also kind of mentions, I know that when I die, I'll die alone, which is a very somber thing. And i I do like it. I think he there it's saying it's setting up what the movie should be, that scene.
Speaker: But the movie doesn't do anything with that. um Yeah, I think Shatner did at least have the brains to give himself like five good lines across the entire movie. yeah given they also sing row your boat which is hilarious because i think the last film to do that was troll too yeah also happened in manos the hands of yeah that's it's i feel like it's a pretty common theme for us it's like now we're gonna sing row your boat it's like i can't believe this is what you're singing yeah anna anna knows a fourth they had a count of four but i can say thought there was another one and i don't know what it was
Speaker: Yeah, I'll that. Movies where they specifically sing Row Your Boat. Row Your Boat movies. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like Control 2, like, sing that song you love. What was it? And then they sing Row Your Boat. And it's just like, boy. The one about the boat. What's the one about the boat?
Speaker: that What's that copyright-free song that you read? Yeah. The one with the rounds. Birthday? No, that one is copyrighted. ah So meanwhile, on the far side of the galaxy, some Klingons take potshots at the Voyager space probe before they receive an SOS from Nimbus 3.
Speaker: ah These Klingons are completely without presence. They're absolutely rizzless. They'll show up once a half an hour or so to try and kill Quirk. They were a waste of fucking time, these Klingons. They should have been written down to this movie. It was terrible. They were terrible. And they had no charisma from them, nothing interesting, nothing fun. Like in Star Trek 3, you had, what's his name?
Speaker: um Christopher Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd, yeah. Klingon and he had great presence and he was interesting and the characters felt like they had real motivation beyond just be like beyond just a i hate Kirk and I'm in the movies.
Speaker: And these are just and the main Klingon in this one is a hair metal. Yeah, it looks like 80s kind of hair rock star. And then his number one lady, she's like a literally a bodybuilder. So they just cast based on appearance. They're like, let's get a rock star with big hair and get a bodybuilder.
Speaker: Those are our Klingons. Yeah. Not make them interesting at all. No. It's just, oh my God. To me, the way they started off by like shooting at the Voyager, it sort of reminded me of like in a movie when you see like hillbillies shooting at beer bottles at the beginning of the movie, like let's go find some trouble. That's yeah their role in this movie. And this is they' goingnna go still, like in trouble it's also still continuing this, this lazy writing, this contradiction, contradictory writing, right? Where it's like, here's the Voyager probe.
Speaker: Like that's a symbol of kind of humanity. And the Klingons blast it because fuck it. Like this movie is not what you thought, is it? You know? Yeah. Also so it ends up being what you thought. I recently have watched Star Trek one multiple times. And in that, like, as soon as I saw this, like, Oh, is that V-Jerk?
Speaker: And then they shot it. And then I was like, oh, didn't they deal with the Voyager space probe, though, in the first movie? Like, why does it come back? and That was Voyager. shooting The one in Star Trek 1 was a non-existent Voyager probe called Voyager 6, which we never actually found in real life.
Speaker: But this one was Voyager 1, think. Okay. okay Nice. Close the loop on that one. Yeah, nice try. Yes. Well, ah didn't get past your defenses. No gold for dread.
Speaker: Shields were up. ah Fuck. So Kirk makes it to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise A and ah Starfleet Command tells him You may be unsure leave and your ship may be understaffed and not fully functional, but you're the best damn captain we've got. And I got to say on earth, on earth, you don't have another good space captain. You don't have another good ship. Somebody that could fly Kirk out there on earth where Starfleet command is.
Speaker: and Come on, brother. It's just a bad time. It's a bad time. this is Is everybody on fucking shore leave? There's a pageant. There's a pageant in Romulus 9. There's a pageant on Romulus 9 and everyone's out there.
Speaker: And Kirk's all we have. like but And of course I totally agree. And this is like a Star Trek trope where it's like we have no other ship. There's no other ship in quadrant. And if you're in deep space fight put them on fucking Risa or something. Nah.
Speaker: ah ah But like, and also the ship is like clearly really dangerous. Yeah. It doesn't work. It's really bad. It's like, we can't teleport anybody. Great. Get out there. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. But we need you, Kirk.
Speaker: Yeah. You old son of a bitch. It was a goddamn suicide mission. They wanted me to fail. They've got three ambassadors on a planet nobody cares about yeah taking hostage. three Three assholes on a piece of shit. One thing we don't want you to do, negotiate.
Speaker: Go in there, guns blazing, you 60-year-old man. Well, actually, i did I think they did want him to negotiate, right? I forget. Well, he didn't even fucking try. whatever. Yeah, who cares? He does his own thing.
Speaker: He Kirks, you know, Kirk Kirks. Yeah. So yeah, Kirk agrees to help out and they watch a ransom video and Spock recognizes Cybok. And he tells them that Cybok was considered a genius on Vulcan until he rejected their logical cultural values in favor of unmitigated emotions. And then he was cast out for thought crimes.
Speaker: And then we arrive on Nimbus 3. Kirk is going to lead a rescue squad while Chekov poses as the captain to distract Cybok. Even in the future, we still do not negotiate with terrorists.
Speaker: Kirk is able to steal some space horses from a gang of space bandits, thanks to Uhura distracting them with a fan dance. I had no idea what this was.
Speaker: Yeah. I want to talk about this. Yes, please. So Kirk's great big plan, his big plan was to just get Uhura nude and put her up on a hill. She's still got it.
Speaker: Yeah. And just have her kind of dance around. And yeah everyone goes fucking crazy. Like all the space ah weirdos. Yeah. um They're like losing their minds. They're like crawling literally crawling towards her. Yeah. Like we've never seen a nude woman.
Speaker: Not like this. Not that like this. Not in silhouette where you can't make out any of the features. It's so suggestive. I can't help i can't help myself. um also I think it's sexier when you can't see everything. Exactly. And I can't see anything. I know. this is just fucking idiotic. like I don't understand how this got past any writer.
Speaker: um Does she like do this fan dance anywhere else? No, she does this is not a thing that she's ever done. so It was a skill set she had, i read somewhere. yeah feel like She used to be a dancer. in the you know she she Acting was her second thing in the 60s. She was like a dancer and a Broadway person and stuff. and ah She is a singer, too. She was a singer, and they didn't let her sing. That wasn't actually her.
Speaker: in the middle song that It's like, why not just have her actually do sing? Because she can sing. and it's so i don't know it's I feel like I understand. At first I saw this and I was like, so there's like an alien creature that sings and flutters its feathers around.
Speaker: noon and then eventually I was like, oh no, it's Uhura. And then I was like, you know, I think I've seen a parody of this in Futurama, actually. It's very possible, yeah. And that's when I was like, oh, maybe that's Uhura. Because I think like ah this is like lurching up to my brain from Futurama. And then was like, oh, it's probably Uhura. I think she dances or something.
Speaker: And you were right. Yeah, it's really dumb. Really dumb. Jesus. So now that they've got their space horses, they ride to the capital of Nimbus 3, Paradise City.
Speaker: Once inside the gates, though, they're quickly spotted. Captain Kirk gets into a fight with a three-tittied kitty cat woman whose cat screeches are samples from the James Brown song, I Feel Good.
Speaker: Wait, are they actually? Yes. Did you guys not pick up on that when you were watching it? mean, so what it was is I heard it and I was like, that's so... familiar but like sped up right like really sped up no just like chopped off the beginning and the end so just like wow is this it's like your soundboard yeah do you have that one on your soundboard no i don't and and if i did the soundboard isn't working this week anyway well i'll get that for next it's like the enterprise also also um spock stuns a horse Yes. yeah That is apparently the largest thing he's ever used his Vulcan neck pinch on.
Speaker: Canonical. I think Yeah, I think that tracks. ah But yeah, the James Brown screeches on the three-titted cat woman was off-putting. oh You know what else is off-putting? The three-titted cat woman. Yeah.
Speaker: Yes. Also, there was a pool table in the bar and the pool table was full of water, which I really liked. was going to bring that up. It's a visual. It's a really fun visual gag. Yeah, it's a pool. I hadn't thought about it. It's so stupid.
Speaker: It sure is. But in any case, the fellows are all captured pretty quickly. yep It was like really quickly. Yeah. Yeah. It was like 30 seconds total. It's not. It's not a lot of time. Anyway, we're there.
Speaker: not Don't worry. It won't be the last time they get captured. No. That's pretty much all that they do in this movie is get captured. Yeah. Yep. ah Cyborg tells Kirk that he wants the Enterprise.
Speaker: ah So they fly back in the shuttlecraft, narrowly avoiding the Klingons before rejoining the ship. and there' and well ah we we should yeah We should talk about the the their their adventure to get back to the ship in the shuttlecraft. We should do it quickly, though.
Speaker: We'll do it quickly. ah they they they want to They can't like get onto the ship because the shields are up, and if they take the shields down, the Klingons will shoot them. And so they like go really fast and then drop the shields briefly so the shuttlecraft can get in. And then they crash into the hangar.
Speaker: Yeah, the only reason they can do it so quickly is because they don't use the tractor beam. yeah And so Sulu has to do it manually. He's never done it before. It breaks off the skis. And it's really weird that he's never done it before because it doesn't seem like that crazy of a thing that you would train for. No.
Speaker: And also he's a veteran pilot. who's like At least 20 years in the service. Yeah, it's never flown anything manually. Yeah, I don't I don't fly manually. Yeah, I i don't drive stick. I'm basically an elevator operator. yeah Yeah. And also the whole sequence is terrible and looks terrible. is not 10.
Speaker: There's no tension. I think this is the biggest problem this movie has in terms of like any action sequences. There's no tension ever. No, like Chetner's not great at it. He's not good at tension. Yeah. Well, maybe a little more tension will mount when Kirk tries to take advantage of the shuttle's rocky landing ah to get the jump on Cybok.
Speaker: ah But when Spock grabs the gun that Cybok's dropped, dropped. <unk> ah He grabs the gun and he ah can't shoot an unarmed Cybok.
Speaker: So Cybok reclaims the sausages and has his... Wait, sorry? Cyborg reclaims the hostages. He's back in charge of the situation. I thought you said reclaim the sausages. No, no, I wish. Yeah, I'd love to reclaim the sausages.
Speaker: Yeah. He has his men throw Kirk, McCoy, and Spock in the brig before turning his radical empathy powers on Sulu and Uhura. And I think this is like an extension of his like mu Vulcan mind meld abilities. Only instead of like merging knowledge, he merges emotions.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think um this is one of the my big complaints about the movie is they put no effort into any of this. Like, okay, we're all assuming that. We all assume you know he's got mental powers, right? That's how he does it. But they never spend any time showing us at showing us how he actually does brainwash people. I know he's like, show me your pain or whatever, right? But he can't do that for everyone. It'll take forever.
Speaker: ah Well, some people he just uses his regular charisma. Yeah, he's just like, hey, buddy. And that and that gets him. There's no moments of like, there's no close-ups. There's no music, right? there's no like There's no scene where we get like an a vibe of him projecting his mind into someone else or whatever. There's no never any vibe. There's never any like sequence. I think Shander wanted to keep it ambiguous as to whether or not he was doing it organically or with, you know, Vulcan powers. Yeah, um but I still think...
Speaker: that Maybe that's true. I just don't think it really worked. He didn't give us enough. It's fine to be a little, it's fine to be ambiguous, but I don't think he gave us anything. It should have been clearer by the end for sure. And I think there's also no scene. my One of my bigger biggest problems also is there's never scene where Cyborg gives a charismatic speech to people where he where you really see how charismatic he is. There's never a scene where he does that. There's the one where he says we're flying to the center of the universe to meet God.
Speaker: But that's like he that's all he says. And everyone's like, okay, great. I feel like a real cult leader. He doesn't have a lot of charisma. He doesn't display a lot of charisma. I want to be A good cult leader, if their whole point is to show, to kind of dissect what a cult leader is, what a cult personality is, get me to kind of invest. You should have at some point thought, this movie's going to end with them meeting God.
Speaker: Well, no, I just mean... i think you should have. I think you should have asked yourself that question. Maybe he's right. buy I want to buy into how charismatic he is. And i and i I think he's a great actor, for sure. I just never bought into it because he didn't have enough dialogue. he didn't have enough really anything. There was no depth to any of his dialogue. so He didn't have like hero shots, you know? yeah That either. Yeah, they didn't. there's just so much that was missing from who from what that character was supposed to be. he was supposed to be a cult leader. And so like, if you watched videos of real cult leaders, they're they're it's fucking crazy.
Speaker: But they are charismatic, you know. these And he didn't do any of that. He just like, show me your pain. And it's all. Yeah. yeah And then uses Vulcan mind powers. So down in the brig, Spock reveals that the real reason he couldn't shoot Cybok is because Cybok is his half brother.
Speaker: Kirk at least now understands, and Bones is proud of him for listening to his emotions. Up on the bridge, Saebok uses his hypno powers to bring the rest of the bridge crew on board.
Speaker: and Before he hops on the PA system, and he tells everyone that he's taken over the ship, and they're going to fly it through the impenetrable barrier at the center of the universe, so they can go to the planet where God lives, which Vulcans call Shakarid.
Speaker: And this is like, and does this with no effort whatsoever. He takes over the ship. They show yeah people on the Well, they said it was less than a skeleton crew. That's true. I didn't, I never, I forgot about that. Yeah.
Speaker: But still, you'd think there's enough people. Like all he did was take over the bridge. Listen, yeah you'd think a movie would have a plot, but here we are. yeah And you would also think this is a good opportunity as a writer to do like a siege, ah like a diehard siege thing. you know Well, they almost try and get that going because so yeah well i would I would say it's more of a Home Alone siege. People are just free to go around. like They go to the... Well, anyway. well Go ahead. go let me yeah Let me ask you this. What if John McClane just found one ladder that just took him up to the floor where he wanted to go?
Speaker: Yeah, but once he gets there... diehar you Die hard. hard. But once he gets there to the room they wanted to go to, they're just hanging out in the room. There's no tension. Well, yeah. because they okay Eventually. Anyway, Scotty hears the announcement and he freaks out and he immediately goes and busts the boys out of the break.
Speaker: Scotty's going to go back down to engineering to do whatever it is that he's supposed to do, but instead he bonks his head. And ah then the boys almost immediately get captured again.
Speaker: they They go up to the room at the very top of the Enterprise where there's just a big ship's wheel and a window. don't know what the purpose of this room is. Yeah, i don't know what this room is. Also, the lights don't work in the room. It's always dark in there.
Speaker: And this set is the same set I think is 10 forward on the next generation. the one wherere ah Whoopi gold wordwork will be Goldberg works. um And a lot of these sets, um hallways and all all this stuff are from next generation because they didn't have any money to build their own sets. yeah So that's an interesting factoid.
Speaker: Oh, in that in the the big tunnel, they're climbing a ladder and there's the whole, you know, rocket boots thing. come Yeah, the rocket boots are back. Thank God. Chekhov's rocket boots. And this is like a very famous thing that fans, fans are or dumb and fans don't understand what what makes a good movie. And their complaints about Star Trek V, the reason it's bad are all these little nitpicks, such as the number of decks as they're raising through that shaft, they as they're flying up the ladder shaft.
Speaker: It shows the deck numbers. It's like deck two, deck five, deck 10 as they're ascending. And by the time do they get to the top, it's like deck 97. And it's like there are not even close to that many decks on the on the Enterprise, you know?
Speaker: The Enterprise A is huge. it's Yeah. It's fucking crazy. and say like This is why the movie's bad. And it's like, that's not why the movie's bad. No, the movie's bad for plenty of other reasons. it's Yeah. It's because the Enterprise A is the size of New York City. Yeah, exactly. That's right. Yeah.
Speaker: ah So Cybok, he finds them in the wheel room and he tells them that his plans to find God and it came to him in a dream. And that he wants these guys on board. He thinks, obviously, I get you guys on board, the whole crew's on board. That takes a lot of tension out of this situation. Yeah, you the trifecta. You get boom, boom, boom.
Speaker: So Bones is the most spiritually inclined to the three, classically. So Cybox starts doing his share your pain bit. ah But this time we get to see a little bit of what happens to you when he does that, which is Bones starts to ah relive euthanizing his own father a week before his condition was cured.
Speaker: It's be pretty rough. yeah Also, Spock and Kirk can also see it, which I love. Yes, yeah, which is interesting. They're just like, wow, looks like he might have killed his father. and it's just like, how are you seeing this?
Speaker: Yeah, they don't explain that. How is this physically possible? I think that kind of works for some reason. I feel like buy that scene. I think it's Cyborg's sharing minds between all four them. It's a group hallucination. It's a group hallucination. And I think this is one of the scenes that I really like in this movie. As a kid, I hated this scene. But now I think this scene works. And I think the actors are really good in this scene.
Speaker: Especially in the Spock hallucination. I really buy Spock's kind of shame. it's like That is one of his character traits, is that he's ashamed of his human side. And his to see his father look at him look at him as a baby and say, oh, so human.
Speaker: And then pass him, right? He took the baby. and yeah He's like, just get this guy out here. He's too human, right? And you see Spock witness that. And you see his face. Leonard Nimoy, like, nails that. Like, you can see. yeah Classic Spock not moving a single muscle on his face.
Speaker: No, it's not true. he's You can see the emotion. and Like, I think that's what's great about Nimoy's Spock is that he does have emotions. He's just really good at. He never overplays it. Let's put it on. Yeah. Yeah, Spock is up next. Cybok shows ah him their father saying, hmm, half human baby, huh?
Speaker: And then Kirk is up next. But Kirk says, no, no, no, I'm not interested. i don't want to you do your bullshit. I need my pain. Another words great line that he wrote for himself. It is a great line. And I think this is we were talking about who's who earlier. And I think that Kirk is you, Chris, because this is OK. This to me is very you.
Speaker: I need my pain. Yeah, you need your pain. And I think this is a one of the few really great moments of the movie. No, it's good. Because i I couldn't agree with him more because it's like part of the I think part of the grift of kind of cults and fake religions and stuff is this idea that they can take away your pain. Right. and they can use they use your pain.
Speaker: to manipulate you. Like, um you know, Scientology does this, they they get you to confess all your pain and they use it against you. And this idea that pain is like so poison you can extract from human from existence, right? If we get rid of our pain, be cool everything would be great if I didn't have pain.
Speaker: but I wouldn't complain. Yeah. yeah but like But Kirk is absolutely right. like Pain is a really big part of what makes us who we are. And if you get rid your pain, you're going to be someone else. And you probably will be lesser of a person without your pain.
Speaker: And there are exceptions, of course. There's people who with horrible you know trauma and stuff like that. But like pain in general is a really important part of being a human. Absolutely. kirk Kirk is absolutely right.
Speaker: But... It doesn't matter much because they've reached the great barrier anyway. you know know and And they all they're all like they all resist. if yeah Yeah, they're all just like, fucking yeah co like yeah, like, nah, I'm still with this guy, though.
Speaker: so i Yeah, once Kirk says no, then Spock's like, nah, I'm with Kirk. And then Bones is like, well, I'm with the fellas. you know And um I think this is like one of the Shatner's... Originally Shatner, went he wanted Kirk to be the only one who resists.
Speaker: yeah And their actors were like, fuck you, no. You're going to make all of us bad guys and shitheads that like shoot at you while you run down the hallway? exactly Yeah, ah But they yeah, they reached the Great Barrier.
Speaker: And Cybok commands them through this impenetrable cosmic barrier that no one has ever gone through like it's no big deal. Yeah, it's really nothing. The very first episode Star Trek, well, the second episode,
Speaker: well the second was ah them going to the Great Barrier as well. And they they go into it. And that was more exciting than this movie, and what they did in that episode, was more tension than this movie. yeah So this Great Barrier is a pre-established part of canon. It's a pre-established part of canon. And in the original series episode, they had to turn back. It was like stuff was blowing up.
Speaker: Things weren't going all right, let's get out of here. And then that was it. Okay, so they didn't see God's planet on other didn't God's planet. It'd be funny if Kirk was like, oh I forgot we already went through the Great Barrier. there We imprisoned this giant floating shithead down there. Yeah, I forgot about that. It's that guy. Oopsie doopsie.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, so they're through the barrier. That's great. And they see the God planet and Cybox like here, Kirk, i have your shirt shipped back. All I really want to do is get to this God planet. Do you want to go down to the God planet with me? And Kirk's like, yeah, I'll go down planet. Absolutely. Let me grab, let me grab bones and Spock while head down. Yeah. Get the boys. Yeah.
Speaker: So Cybox, Spock, Kirk, and bones. They wander around the surface of shock. I re for a minute. It looks a lot like earth with a purple gel put over the lens. Yeah. ah Soon some stone pillars erupt from out of the ground in a circle and the boys step inside and then God appears in the form of a giant floating head in a swirling mass of gas and light.
Speaker: The most unimaginative portrayal of God. and He's appearing as we would want to see him. Yeah. he He shows up in a bunch of different forms initially. He rotates through several different gods. He went through like four. He's like, I've worn many faces. and it was like four faces. This Incan God. Yeah. and But now now it's me, Bible God.
Speaker: Yeah, classic Bible God. You know, God. Cybok is obviously really psyched. yeah And he's like, I knew it. I love you so much, God. What can we do for you? And God's like, actually, I'd really like to ride in your starship. I love that ship.
Speaker: it's just like It would be great. It would be so much fun. And Cyborg's like, it will be your chariot. i That's one line that always stuck with me. yeah yeah He's so amped up.
Speaker: And Kirk immediately, he clocks it. And he steps up and he says, excuse me. And he holds up his finger. What does want with a starship? And I love that Spock's like, yeah, no, he's right. What does God want with a starship? actually answered that question.
Speaker: Spock is, yeah, let him cook. Whereas McCoy's like, what are you doing? ah And God, he says, what do I want with a starship? I want to fuck your mother in it. And he starts shooting lightning bolts out of his eyes.
Speaker: This is verbatim. Yeah. ah Everybody freaks out once God starts shooting lightning bolts out of his eyes and ah sort of the jig is up. Everyone's like, I don't think God would be shooting me with lightning bolts.
Speaker: um And he's like yeah, I'm not God. I'm some shitty energy being. Well, he never really says who he is. He just says, right? He's just like, yeah I've been imprisoned here for millennia. Yeah, he's just been imprisoned. Yeah. Very Star Trek. This is very classic Star Trek where it's like a God being, right? God-esque being, but not actually God.
Speaker: And then he changes his form so he looks like Cybok and he's like, oh, Cybok, this is you. This is what you look like. You son of a bitch. Mm-hmm. Cyborg, he doesn't much con to that. So he steps into God's energy cloud and he starts doing his pain sharing stuff to him.
Speaker: i like assume I had really assumed that God gave him that power. So when he stepped in and did this, i was like, oh, he can just do that. Okay. Good for Cyborg, I guess. Yeah. Vulcans just have like, they have like some mental abilities. Sure. So I think Saibok can just develop that from, yeah you know, Vulcan shit. yeah In retrospect, that makes sense. But at the time.
Speaker: And I'm going to be, out this one is sort of for the real heads. I don't think a lot of casual, like this isn't going to be a lot of people's first Star Trek. No. Yeah. That makes sense to me. That makes sense to me.
Speaker: um Especially after they watched 4. you know after a lot of new fans came and loved 4 and they they didn't see 5 because you know this is not what this isn't what we... yeah Yeah, they're not coming back after 5 for sure.
Speaker: So God's distracted. So Kirk calls up Sulu to fire the tour point photon torpedoes on their location. So Mr. Sulu, lock photon torpedoes on God.
Speaker: fire upon God. Shoot God. Kill God. I command it. You have the command. Go fire. Fire away. Kill God. Kill God. And let's just, um, let's just, let's just, ah for a little bit, little background, a photon torpedo is imagine ah take a torpedo. e Yeah. And then just like, what if it's like made of light?
Speaker: Okay. about it You know i mean? What about that? That's it. That's it. Yeah. it's just yeah It's just crazy stuff. It's like a ball of light. It's just like flash.
Speaker: So God blows up. Cybok dying with him. The transporter is working again, but it can only take two. classic transporter situation. Crazy stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. ah So i just before we move on, I just before you continue, just want to point out. Yeah. Cyborg has to face himself. Right. God's like, what about this face? what about This is you. Right. This is your ego. This is you.
Speaker: The face to face your ego. And I think that's a really good because I think that's, you know, that's making a semi cloaked statement on what cult of personalities are. or They're just a ego. Right. They're just pure ego. Right.
Speaker: And he has to kind of fight himself. It's like, this is this is you. You did this, right? he' got There's a line somewhere in there that it's like, this yeah you made me, right? You're the one that gave me power.
Speaker: ah But that's definitely not true. No. Because he's an energy being that's been trapped in there for millennia before. No, I'm not saying he made him as the wrong... I don't mean he literally made him. I'm just saying gave him power because he believed him. By talking about him. By talking to him through his, you know, whatever bullshit. They never explain it, but yeah.
Speaker: But I don't think i don't think that happened either. I think he was just able to communicate with him because he was a Vulcan who had opened up his, ah you know, emotional ability. So he's the only person. Yeah, but I. Yeah. But like, I think his ego fueled the God being.
Speaker: I think the God being just needed the starship. I don't think he had nothing. I don't think he had any sort of parasitism on him. I didn't get that vibe, but they don't really establish the other way. So there are no. Yeah, we'll never know. There are no valid... what you will.
Speaker: There are no invalid interpretations of a film as long as they're genuine. A film that's so underwritten, you can let you go with it. yeah Yeah, it really lets you paint in the corners. ah Kirk sends Bones and Spock back up to the Enterprise, presumably because he knows that God is still lurking somewhere in the rocks. You could even you can hear like...
Speaker: i That son of a bitch is still out there. ah God then pops up and starts shooting more lightning bolts out of his eyes at Kirk. And it's so cheap. It's some of the cheapest shit I've ever seen in a movie. It's pretty bad.
Speaker: Kirk runs away and that Klingon warbird shows up and Kirk's like, oh, now I'm really stuck between a rock and a hard place. But then the warbird shoots and kills God.
Speaker: And it turns out that the Klingon ambassador from Nimbus three outranked the Klingon captain. What's his name? So he ordered him to stand down so they could rescue Kirk.
Speaker: Kirk is teleported aboard and they all have a good laugh about it before reconvening on the ship of the end enterprise, the ship of the enterprise, I call it. And where they have a nice little ah cocktail party. you have a little party Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And then we fade back to a new shore leave. ah boys are out camping again they gather around the campfire for another rousing rendition of row row row your boat yeah but they actually sing it and spock actually sings yeah he yeah he joins this time yeah he joins in so that's fun he understands that life is but a dream. And also his brother just died in a yeah wrestling match with God, but whatever. um so I think, uh, this is where I really think they dropped the bowl. I mean, they dropped the bowl a lot. They dropped it early on too, but the end i agree finale to me, I feel like they have all these setups, um,
Speaker: righted Kirk climbing the mountain. I feel like Kirk should have been a mirror of Cybok in a lot of ways in terms of his ego. right Cybok has to kind of face down his own ego and he makes the right choice at the end by sacrificing himself. Kirk talks about, i'll I know I'll die alone. He's talking about his own mortality.
Speaker: He talks about family. He talks about like a lot of stuff at the beginning you and climbing the mountain, right? That's an active ego. And I think at the end when Kirk's alone and God's shooting lightning bolts at him, Kirk should have had some kind of showdown, some kind of emotional showdown with to face his own ego or face his own, he's you know, kind of his, what Cyborg does, Kirk should have had to do as well.
Speaker: God should have turned into Kirk too and be like so now it's your turn. or winner I mean, that's wrestle me, but that's, I mean, that would, that would actually fit in the stupidity of this movie, but like, yeah, it should have been some kind of emotional climax, right? Cause all that stuff was set up climbing the mountain, the death, all the, but it was just about 30 seconds, couple of lightning bolts in the Klingons came and saved him.
Speaker: There was no like emotional climax to this movie at all. No, no. And I just don't, I don't understand what they were thinking. My only disagreement with you ah on that, Finnegan, is I don't think there should have been any more of this movie.
Speaker: Once you start shooting God with four to photon torpedoes, the movie's pretty much over. You know what I mean? yeah they should have just God should have exploded, and then it the end should have come out in the explosion. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: That would have been incredible. Originally, the ah Shatner's vision for the end originally was a yeah like more of a hellish environment. And you're go to have all these rock monsters.
Speaker: ten And they tried some costume tests. There's footage of it of like these rock monster men. And they looked really stupid. And like, right, can't do it. And they didn't have any money. They completely ran out of money the end. And so there was just it was just trash. They ended up just doing trash.
Speaker: and i think but But when i read I read about this movie and I read about their original plans for what it was going to be, um and it was like too bad we couldn't make the movie we wanted it's like but what what you wanted is also stupid like yeah if you had money it wouldn't matter like it's still a stupid idea but it would have at least looked crazy it would have been yeah it would have been more fun for sure with they had a higher budget and they could do dumb shit like rock monsters and stuff yeah which is very original series star trek oh for and final thoughts five star ratings watchability and weirdness greg where did you land
Speaker: ah So this is a hard one to rate. Fair. For watchability, simply because I don't know who it is for. it Star Trek fans. Right. Well, it seems that way, but it seems like the little that I know of Star Trek, that it seems like no Star Trek fan would be happy with this movie.
Speaker: They weren't. yeah they weren't ah And so that's the confusing part, is it feels like you need to have a lot of insular information to understand what's occurring. Because there's a lot of jokes about like, it's just like, if you didn't know what happened before, you wouldn't understand why I'm doing what I'm doing now. And it's like, I don't really get why you're doing what you're doing now. Like you have to have the context of Star Trek to understand what they're doing. But even watching it, it's like, I don't think you'd want to see it even if you understood what they were doing.
Speaker: ah But it is pretty bad and fun for the most part in that way. I'm going to say three and a half for watchability. I really think people's mileage is going to vary on this one though, just about how much they can stomach Star Trek or how much they know it. Cause it's possible you watch it and just be like, I don't really get be any of this.
Speaker: Um, and then, uh, I think it's, I think it's fairly weird. ah especially cause it's a Star Trek movie. I'm going to say two and a half. It's not like,
Speaker: bonkers or anything, but just watching it, it's just like, what were you... like It's just weird. just kind of weird. The whole thing just feels like a long story someone tells you, and afterwards you're like what was the point of that? and There was a lot of strange information in there.
Speaker: um So yeah, so that's where I'm at. its Fair enough. What was weird was not meant to be weird. ethical Exactly. Well, I'm going to give it a three stars in watchability. it It does feel like...
Speaker: watching someone take a victory lamp. The whole movie does feel very victory to me It, it, it's pleasant enough, but it doesn't quite justify its own existence. It feels mostly like a B minus C plus episode of the original series.
Speaker: Yeah. That just got made 1988.
Speaker: ah For weirdness, I gave it four stars. It's weird that they kill God at the end of this movie. ah It's weird. not But it's not God. It's not God. It's not God. It's i mean asshole just some asshole. Yeah, but who's to say that asshole wasn't God?
Speaker: we Us. Everyone. we Yeah, i think that I thought that was the whole point. It's definitely not God. It's not God. It's not God. Why not? Why does he need ship? What are you talking about? kirk does He wants one.
Speaker: Why does he need a son? Why anything? Why is there a mountain? because god can do whatever he wants God works in mysterious ways. I really think the whole point is that he's definitely not. like There's no way to interpret this. yeah They kill God at the end of the movie. That's pretty weird.
Speaker: And it's also weird that the whole movie does feel like... like what you would see while the credits are rolling. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Like this is all like CODA. Yeah.
Speaker: It's all like this. Isn't it funny what he did with his boots? We didn't put that in the main plot. Cause that would be really dumb. But like in a credits, it's sort of hilarious that Spock's got rocket boots. Am I right? blowing on Or like Armageddon, the wedding scene that was during the credits. It feels like all of that. This feels like God. I i i immediately once his credit started, I shut that off. There's no way I was going to hear that song. There's no way was going to watch any more of that film. Is that the one that the Aerosmith won? Yes, it's a classic. Actually, so I may know I did. Why? I did watch that because I just remember writing like there's more fitting in watchability and weirdness.
Speaker: Star Trek five. um I think Watchability 4. I have no problem at all watching it. ah And I've seen it a lot. so i think that's um Weirdness, yeah, I don't think it's that weird. I think it's 2.5. around where Greg was with weirdness. I wish it was i wish they delved deeper into the weirdness. It'd be cool yeah if we spent more time on Nimbus 3. That's the weird stuff to me. yeah All those weirdos down there.
Speaker: who crawl in the sand if there's a naked woman. ah Yeah. Because, yeah, pretty much and the rest of the time you were with our heroes who were imprisoned or captured. Yeah, captured but without any effort or tension or action. Yeah.
Speaker: I think, yeah, I haven't seen this one, haven't seen five in a long time, so this is, you know, maybe the first time i've seen it in a few years at least. And I think I just, if I find it to be a squandered, a series of ideas that are all squandered. i think, um it feels like they had an outline for a movie and they just shot the outline. Like, yeah, they didn't delve into any of the ideas. They just, they just had, here's the outline. Now we'll do some fun dialogue and go from point to point to point. And then we'll end the movie and not explore any of the things. the The whole point of the movie is to explore these things, to explore religion and belief and, and you know, televangelists, right? That was the whole idea. Yeah. And they didn't,
Speaker: di dive into any of it. no but But in its um i have a friend I have a friend of mine and it was it was at Citus in Spain. we I go to this film festival and we watched Star Trek the original series sorry we watched the original movie.
Speaker: Greg was there. watched Star Trek. V'ger. Yeah, the V'ger one. And I think like if you put any of these movies, even the bad ones, even five, the worst one, if you put that up against any modern like Chris Pine Star Trek movie,
Speaker: I think it just blows it out of the water because it is, even though it fails utterly to execute on on its ideas, it at least has ideas. its try It starts with those ideas.
Speaker: ah And my my friend in Spain said, yeah, like the Chris Pine Star Trek are just about a guy on a motorcycle. like they're They're not about anything. They're purely action adventure, which I think kind of spits in the face. like why Why do Star Trek if you're not going to least try and and fail at at exploring some idea? There should be some idea of the heart of it.
Speaker: well Anyway, that's that's that's my rant on Star Trek five i think it's it's ah I think it's sweet. I think it's a sweet, earnest movie without any execution. without execution And what was your weirdness?
Speaker: Oh, weirdness was like two and a half. Yeah, I don't think it was that weird. Okay. yeah You heard it from Matt and Vittigan. It's normal to shoot God in the face with a missile. Not God. It's not God.
Speaker: Well, it's time to move on to the third act of the show. It's past time. So we're going talk a little bit more about our ideas for our own Star Trek movies in a cinematic universe segment.
Speaker: Wait, I didn't come up with any. I didn't know. i Oh, no, you guys are pitching, right? Yes, so here we go what's funny is I completely forgot that we were doing this, so this is going to get interesting for Greg very quickly. if you want, I can just do mine. We are running long. he was
Speaker: That's fine. This rich setting would really work for a cinematic universe. That would be really
Speaker: A cinematic universe.
Speaker: A cinematic universe.
Speaker: A cinematic universe.
Speaker: Beautiful.
Speaker: Well, it turns out ah Greg doesn't have his cinematic universe. I so do one i can do one real fast. yeah I think the show's running long. I think we just hit mine and we keep on chugging. This is going to be two sentences, but it's all right.
Speaker: Okay, hit me with yours. Give me your two sentences. I say Channing Tatum as Kirk, Megan Fox as Uhura, and they're trying to stop a diamond theft. That's as much I've got. Okay, okay.
Speaker: So changing the race on Uhura to... Which is not exactly what I wanted to do, but realize it had to be original. so I wanted her in there. Maybe it doesn't have to be Uhura. It's some other officer. I just wanted Megan Fox and Channing Tatum in Star Trek, which I think is hilarious. And Diamond Heist. Yeah, no, that part I'm in love with. Yeah, yeah. she's not Uhura. She's some other person.
Speaker: There we It doesn't matter. The Diamond Heist, does that take place on another planet? matter. Okay, okay. doesn't matter okay okay yeah Here's my pitch. Star Trek 5.5 in my bones.
Speaker: The crew of the USS Star Trek celebrate another successful mission, having successfully brokered a new trade agreement with the Gundathor people of Laxanor seven Even though they're nine feet tall and have feet for hands, we're not so different after all, muses Captain Kirk, before asking Scott, Scotty Doohan, to telebeam them up.
Speaker: Unbeknownst to our intrepid crew, the Gundathur Vizier Barlonk hates humans because of their freedom. While the humans were laughing and smiling, he slipped a chemical into one of their milkshakes.
Speaker: That chemical was the explosion virus and the milkshake belonged to Dr. Bones McCoy. After several hours after departing Laxanore 7, McCoy starts showing symptoms, swollen fingers and vomiting up blue cubes.
Speaker: we go bones Bones recognizes the cubes easily. They're a symptom of the explosion virus, a genetically engineered bioweapon that can turn the human heart into an atomic bomb.
Speaker: The crew is obviously distressed. This man has saved all their lives countless times. Now it's their turn to return the favor. They returned to Laxonore 7 to investigate the origin of the virus while Mr. Spock and Bones tried to develop a cure.
Speaker: And while they don't have a cure, they do have a plan. They'll deposit bones in a remote part of Laxendore 7, and then they'll hose down the USS Star Trek with a shrinking goo that will reduce the ship until it's smaller than a grain of sand. It will then fly into McCoy's body and fight the virus directly.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the away team will continue their hunt for Barlonk in the hopes that he has an antivirus. And so our story unfolds. The tiny spaceship must face all the dangers of the human body, stomach acid, white blood cells, and the virus itself.
Speaker: Meanwhile, bones must survive the wilds of Laxonor 7, like slow sand and anti-gravity tigers, all while providing medical advice to the ship inside of his own body.
Speaker: The away team, composed of Sulu, Uhura, and a sensual half-Vulcan, half-Klingon ensign named Lelornu, navigate the palace intrigue at the upper echelons of Gundothorian society.
Speaker: All this comes to a head when Barlonk commits ritual suicide rather than pay for his crimes, but he takes the cure with him. Luckily, the USS Star Trek is able to clear away the virus, actively transmogrifying Bones' heart into atomic bomb at the last minute by utilizing their experimental beam, which until now had never been tested.
Speaker: Spock is like, Captain, the odds of the beam's success are a million to one. And Bones says, shoot me with the beam, Jim. It's very exciting, and it's tough for Captain Jim.
Speaker: Just as the shrinking goo begins to wear off, the USS Star Trek comes flying out of Bones' mouth. He's saved, and everyone is ready for more Adventures in the Stars. Or inside the human body. Yeah, they could go back into Bones if they needed to. There's outer space and there's inner space.
Speaker: Yeah, they can choose. I admire the effort you put into that. That was much more than I thought it was going to be. i thought it was going to be maybe a paragraph. That was a full outline. That was a full outline. And you mocked the hell out of Greg. I feel like that's wow Well, well, you flatter me. You flatter me.
Speaker: But I once I love a shrinking down and going inside the human body story. I don't think they've ever done that. They've done. a They did. They did a shrinking ship episode, but wasn't the whole ship. It was just a DS9 episode with the whatever the one ship is. the what ifs What's it called? Oh, the Avenger. yeah theyve been why can't i I've seen this. i don't know it's called, but whatever. That one.
Speaker: They shrink that down, but it's not nearly that small. It's like size of matchbox. That's fun, too, for sure. critiques would be let's drop the silly...
Speaker: my critiques would be i let's let's let's drop the silly um Silly words, you know. you know start stuff like yeah Like Bones? We should just call him McCoy? Zook Zook and the Black Blue. like it's just That's just you phoning it in for fun and you're just having a good time. You Barlonk? Yeah, the Barlonk. It's not my fault that that's his name. Let's polish it.
Speaker: yeah The story goes for once. I just have to follow the muse, Matt. I don't know what to tell you. you're You're less of a writer and more of a listener and a transcriber.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm just a vessel for Star Trek 5.5 in bones.
Speaker: But why is it 5.5? Why not just 6 or 7 or 8? Because it's between 5 and 6. Oh, I see. This is like taking place canonically between 5 and 6. Yes. This is after they've killed God, but before they ah went to space jail? They didn't didn't kill transfer didn't killed God. Didn't kill God.
Speaker: no You guys want to play a game? Yeah. Sure, sure. Let's play a little Guess the Title.
Speaker: So we, that's the end of that. We're not doing again. The show's running long, brother. Let me tell you about this brand new game. Where you guess the movie's name.
Speaker: You just tell me what the title is prove you know about showbiz. Guess the title. Whippa, whippa, whippa, whippa.
Speaker: Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. Guess the title. Come on, honey. Guess the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Ooh,
Speaker: whoa, whoa. Should've done that live. It's true. so we're going to be playing guess the title with the films of Walter Koenig famous for playing Ensign Anton Chekhov famous for his gun.
Speaker: What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a description of a film that featured Walter Koenig and I'm going give you three titles. I want you to buzz in and tell me what you think the title is. You'll buzz in by saying your own name. If you get it wrong, your opponent will have the chance to steal. Is everybody ready?
Speaker: Absolutely. I guess so. I didn't know he did any movies. He did quite a few. He was very busy. Question number one. In a madcap future era, the world's greatest secret agent struggles to rescue his young son from the clutches of his infamous former mentor.
Speaker: Is that future son? Star spies or Neil striker and the tyrant of time, Matt, Matt.
Speaker: It's Neil st striker in the tyrant of time. You're correct. Matt's on the board. Obviously. Okay. obvious
Speaker: Question number two. Gwyneth McBride moves to a small town where she can practice her Wiccan faith in peace. But when she tries to set up a homeless shelter on land that creepy corporation wants, their evil genius fixer targets her.
Speaker: Is that drawing down the moon? The hierophant? Or so mote be? Greg.
Speaker: Greg? Drawing down the moon. You're correct. Wow. We got a real game on our hands. Question number three.
Speaker: A superhuman android searches for his long lost creator in the hopes of restoring his severely damaged brain. This sounds really good. All these movies sound really good. Is that Chrome Dome?
Speaker: Random Access Memories? Or The Questor Tapes? Matt. Matt. It's The Questor Tapes and ah it's a Roddenberry production. I know that one. Yeah, that's The Questor Tapes.
Speaker: Wow. That one was a little, ah ah what is it? Easy? Poison's, what's it what's it called when it's a, it's like a ringer. That was kind of a ringer. yeah Okay. sure Tangentially related. that was ah That was a slow pitch at Clara's home plate. Yeah.
Speaker: Question number four. A Hollywood writer tries to talk a dejected actress out of suicide. Wow. This doesn't sound as nearly as good as the other ones. No, a little bit more of a downer.
Speaker: Is that something to live for? Goodbye, Raggedy Ann. Or turning back the Brooke Collier story. Greg.
Speaker: Greg? Goodbye, Raggedy Ann. Correct. You guys are on fire tonight. Not a single miss. Now there's a lot of pressure. All right. Sure is. I'm trying to jinx you.
Speaker: Question number five. Bridget and Sophie are gorgeous supermodels by day and brutal bounty hunters by night in this parody of 1960s Euro spy thrillers.
Speaker: Is that Scream of the Bikini? Naked Came the Lizard? Or The Silly Spies? Matt. Matt.
Speaker: What was the first one again? Scream of the Bikini? What was the second one again? Naked Came the Lizard? Yeah, Naked Came came the Lizard? Cain?
Speaker: Came? Came. Naked Came the Lizard. It was not Naked Came the Lizard. Greg, can you steal? it the City Spies? No, that one was Scream of the Bikini. How about that?
Speaker: they were The pressure was it was too much pressure. and to You did jinx us. Congrats. Yeah, thanks a lot. Question number six. That's your real name. Eric Norris is still grieving the death of his wife and children when he learns that he's now the host for an alien parasite.
Speaker: Then he finds out that the alien has his DNA. So it might be more accurate to say he's pregnant. Is that space baby inside of me or inalienable Greg.
Speaker: Greg. Inside of me. No, it wasn't inside of me. Matt. It has to be me. So I don't know why I'm buzzing in. I'm the only other one. ah Inalienable.
Speaker: You're correct. It is he inalienable. It's a strong second choice for me. a great title ah Question number seven. After attackers kill her sister and nephew, a female psychologist becomes a defense witness by day and an Avenger by night.
Speaker: Hmm. sounds so good. It's played by Cynthia Rothrock. I'll give you that hint. Is that my sister's keeper sworn to justice or high kicks?
Speaker: ah Greg. Greg? High kicks. a No, I'm sorry. It wasn't high kicks. I want it to be. It's got to be sworn to justice. And that's my final answer.
Speaker: It is sworn to justice. Yeah. Yeah. I had a hard time coming up with similarly generic titles. It's tough. I could tell. Question number eight. NASA finds remains of an ancient humanoid race on the moon that left behind deadly robots.
Speaker: Is that Moontrap, The Dark Side, Cyberknock? Matt. Matt? i'm I'm pretty sure I've seen this and i think it's Moontrap.
Speaker: It is Moontrap. Moontrap is good. I've seen Moontrap. I also have a comics adaptation of Moontrap. That's weird.
Speaker: Question number nine. Your last one. It's true. A woman learns she is dying of a brain disorder and descends into violence and madness. Is that crazy like a fox?
Speaker: Kiss me, kill me. Or mad cowgirl? Matt. Matt? Kiss me, kill me. No, kiss me, kill me. Greg, can you steal? What were the other two?
Speaker: Crazy like a fox or mad cowgirl? Crazy like a fox. No, that one was mad cowgirl. Nice try, Greg.
Speaker: That's why I didn't pick it. is it's That's the one I wanted to pick. Yeah. Well, congratulations to Matt. You're the big winner. woof Damn. I mean, yes. Incredible. Great.
Speaker: What a battle. Yeah, that was a showdown. It was. Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
Speaker: Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
Speaker: Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
Speaker: Congratulations to all the nominees.
Speaker: That's right. It's the Batty Awards. It's the only awards that we give out to all those little people, places, details, things, touches, all the stuff that makes a bad movie so good.
Speaker: Greg, hit us up with your Batty Award. My Batty Award is going to go to my favorite. I believe this. I think I'm saying this correctly. My favorite sartorial choice in the film. Okay.
Speaker: Which is the ah the flared pants on the uniforms of the Star Trek crew. which you don't see very much but just like you see them in silhouette and it's just like look at those big old flares on those pants they're pretty big yeah like a nice boot yeah yeah it's just like was this a thing 88 89 was that what the thing in 22 14 that's maybe that's right there
Speaker: that's maybe that' right there They had to make sure it didn't look like 1988. I do like a lot of the fashion in this movie. I think they did a really good job with the costumes. It's true.
Speaker: Including the flared pants. I'm going to give my Batty Award to ah a related episode of Star Trek The Animated Series called The Magics of Megas 2.
Speaker: There's one episode to watch. Watch The Magics of Megas 2. It's where Kirk is on trial with the devil or whatever, right? Yeah, Kirk yeah goes to a distant planet. I'm assuming Magus 2, where it turns out magic is real. And also the descendants of the Salem Witch Trials, like the Salem Witch Trials were done by aliens and they came from Magus 2 and they can use magic. And the devil also lives there. And the devil is named Lucian. And they're like we're going to arrest the devil. And Kirk is like, I don't give a damn about your mythology. Set him free. It's so good.
Speaker: Literally devil's advocate. It ends with like Kirk and the devil, like giving each other a toast with wine goblets before like going to a freeze frame. It's fantastic. And that's how this one, this movie ends too.
Speaker: Yeah. After he kills God, then he's like, I wish you go track down my buddy Lucian. No, I just mean that. I can make us too. I just mean, oh yeah. deal per Yeah. They just toast. And that's the end of the movie. Yeah.
Speaker: Finnegan, do have Batty Award? I think we watched that episode. I think you made me watch that episode. It's a great one. And it's also the plot of a classic Doctor Who episode in the Pertwee era called The Demons, which is about an alien race who are also like all mythology, all magic, came from this actually alien race, alien technology. And one of your titles in the game, the guess the title, was So Moont It Be. It's one of the ones you made up. And that's they say that a lot in that Doctor Who episode, the masters in that. And he says So Moont It Be many times. Classic master stuff. Everything's connected. chris Oh, yeah. Connected. Okay. ah My baddie award. um
Speaker: it was It's tough, but I think this time um i found I thought it was really great and hilarious when the ship, the Klingon fire torpedo at the Enterprise and Chekov is like warp speed now. And then you the ship takes off and the in and the you know goes to warp and the torpedo just barely misses them.
Speaker: um And the Klingon captain was like, he's good. ah He ran away. And I was like, what do you mean? He just pressed the button. what There were tactics. He's just like, let's get out of here.
Speaker: oh And that was the extent of their space battles in this movie. Yeah, that's the whole thing. yeah yeah Yeah, it's a good solid 90 minutes of running away and getting captured. yeah yeah And then killing God, obviously. And then at the end, yeah, you shoot God in the face with a missile. the to they should oh yeah They should have captured God. And then a machine gun. They should have they should' but just put God in jail. like you could have Well, he was already there. I mean, he is in jail. Oh, yeah that's true. He was already imprisoned.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's why the rest of the universe is so terrible. It explains everything. It's all there. It's all in the text and the subject. ah There's an episode of the of Next Generation, the one where Yar dies. It's also about a godlike creature who was imprisoned on a planet.
Speaker: um we don't That slime monster was godlike? Yeah, the slime man was pretty godlike. Did you not see the episode? yeah I mean, i saw that he I just remember that he was a big slime man. He's big slime man, and he just do whatever he wanted or whatever. It doesn't matter. just It's a slime man. you can You can't kill slime.
Speaker: no Not in any way that means anything. You think it just separate it, and it becomes two slimes. Yeah, just like slime slime. You know what I mean? Finnegan, thanks so much for joining us this week.
Speaker: Are you working on anything? Do you have anything you want to plug? um I don't think I have a goddamn thing. no Well, good for you, brother. It's good to see you. yeah It's been blast listeners. Don't forget to leave us five stars. Five stars is always free. Don't forget to tell a friend about the show. Don't forget to check out our socials. Don't forget to come back next week when we're gonna have another great movie for you. I think it's going to be Blair, which to book of shadows.
Speaker: Uh, but I haven't gotten confirmation from our guest yet, so maybe it'll be a mystery. We'll see. Uh, but we'll see you then. and And goodbye till next week. Be good. They didn't know God.
Speaker: Fire upon God! Shoot God! Shoot God in the face now! Now!
Speaker: Lock on God!
Speaker: That you would, if you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should
