Fire, weird, weird missile.

Now.

Fuscae diff d'arere.

You know, they had to put the enemy pilot screaming, you know, like, he wasn't really built up as that kind of villain, but they still had to have him go, ah, I was like, you know, he actually was kind of a decent dude, right, Paul?

I mean, don't even get me started on the missed opportunity of that undeveloped Russian antagonist, enemy pilot, flying ace.

But I think there's something we need to take from this clip from, by the way, the film Firefox, which is what we'll be talking about today, which is that you must think in Russian.

And Obi-Wan must tell you, yes.

That's right. It kind of is like use the force, Luke, let go, Luke, right? Except think in, what would have been funny if during the trench battle in Star Wars, that's Obi-Wan going, Luke, you must think in Russian.

Think in Huttese. I'm Paul Alvarado-Dykstra.

And I'm Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

And this is Multiplex Overthruster: Summer of '82.

So Paul. We are, today we're talking about a movie that I love. Yes. And that movie is Firefox. And there's very little reason to love this film, but I love it nonetheless. There's actually quite a few reasons to love this film. But you know, we really should tell our audience kind of what the movie's about so they get some context for our conversation. Do you wanna recap the plot of Firefox? Oh wait, but before you do that, let me put it to you this way. Firefox, the most devastating killing machine ever built. His job, steal it.

Yeah, that's basically it.

That's what's on the poster.

And it's such a great poster, a poster of geek dreams. So Firefox is this really kind of weird collision of genres where Clint Eastwood is a hotshot fighter pilot struggling with what we will later come to know as PTSD from being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. And he is drafted back into service to steal a top secret stealth Russian fighter that is a threat to the entirety of Western civilization. And that's basically all you need to know.

And then he steals it and then he steals it. And that's kind of the plot of the movie, isn't it? Like he sneaks around, he sneaks around Russia, he sneaks around Russia. They almost get him, they don't, they almost get him, they don't, they almost get him, they don't. Then he steals the plane, they almost get him, they don't. And then he steals the plane.

Yeah. Yeah, this movie takes some interesting turns because- For a stretch, it feels like, well, I guess we need to do the bell though. We haven't done the bell.

Producer Brad, we're gonna start talking about this movie because there's just so much to say. Can you?

Because yeah, I have so much love but also so much frustration with this film.

It's a weird movie, isn't it?

It's so weird.

The thing that struck me most about this movie, but like I was just talking in the big picture, right, is how this is a movie in which every character is basically propping up a very unprepared and kind of incompetent hero.

Yes.

And it's sort of amazing how Clint Eastwood let his character be so kind of lost at sea for most of the movie. Like he's really struggling with this spy mission to go steal this plane, isn't he?

Yeah, also it is a character, the lead character of very few words surrounded and supported by a whole lot of characters who talk a lot.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

And a lot of exposition everywhere. It is also wall-to-wall white guys. Like in this whole movie, there are no people of color. There's one woman scientist character who shows up late, kind of, but has very little to say or do other than look worried. That is very striking in this day and age, but also it feels like a movie that suffers from just not being made quite at the right time. It kind of feels too late to be a where eagles dare or Three Days of the Condor kind of pulpy thriller thing. It's also too early to be a Michael Crichton, or Hunt for Red October is a great example of that kind of a techno-military thriller. It's sort of in this weird limbo between those two periods and doesn't quite nail either one of them. But it feels like a transitional film between those kind of phases.

I always looked at this movie as being sort of the living incarnation, and it is based on a techno-thriller from the 70s. To me, it's sort of the living incarnation of the kinds of books that my father's head was always buried in when we would go on vacation. You know, it's like, this is Clive Cussler, this is Robert Ludlum, you know, this is those guys. And it literally is like one of those 700 page books that your dad just took to the beach and like, or if you want to get into like the sexy, violent version, Shaboomy by Trevanian, you know. Yes, yes. Like this is very much out of that genre, you know.

I completely agree. And as someone who read a lot of Clive Cussler in my teen youth, so yeah, these sort of techno, you know, thriller, military, sort of adjacent dramas in the Cold War setting, it's really kind of juicy stuff. But this movie is kind of coming off of the Vietnam era, so it has some ties to that in terms of his character.

Like people who fought in Vietnam were still young when this movie was made. Like they could still go on missions and shit, you know? Like Rambo, you know? You realize, oh my God, this was like made in 1980, 1981. So it's like Clint could play that character and not be the age he is today.

Yeah, exactly. And I find myself watching this film and it's like it's early 80s, but we're heading into a phase and a stretch where I'm looking at him and I'm seeing Frank Miller's Dark Knight. Like that's like, ooh, that's like Frank Miller's Bruce Wayne, who's the spider pilot. And he's struggling with PTSD, which is not yet commonly known or called that. That was a very new thing when this film was made and so not yet used. And its portrayal of it is so kind of clumsy.

Yes.

It's inelegant.

Here's the thing that you literally just hit on everything. The word for this film is inelegant. It is literally a movie that starts happening, and then it keeps happening, and then it happens, and then it stops happening. The thing I love about it though, but it's almost like they were like, Clint, the character's got PTSD. We have to do some sort of stylized sequences. And he's like, ah, yes, we can do that. Stylized. I think he just wants to put the camera on sticks, film it and call it a day. But he's like, everything in this film feels so grudging.

I know, I know. And it's so frustrating because the pieces, you feel like the pieces of the puzzle are kind of there for a great movie. Like you could make a great Firefox, but this movie keeps kind of missing and dropping, like letting it slip through its fingers. So the set up dramatically about, oh, he has these sort of PTSD episodes and that is planting the seed of foreshadowing and suspense of, is he gonna be able to wrestle with that to get through, but it's so clumsy in its execution and handling it. And then similarly, as we get, learn in a secondary briefing, there are all these briefings.

So everybody's getting briefed in this movie.

Over and over again. But as we find out late in the film, it's like, oh, it's not enough that it is a stealth fighter, which in 1982 was the stuff of science fiction, like really a big deal. There's this hat on a hat kind of about, oh, it also has this breakthrough mind control, cybernetic interface.

The Elon Musk, you can think of it.

Yeah, a neural link where it's controlled by your thoughts and they don't do anything really with it because they doesn't actually control the plane. It controls the weapon systems. It's like, well, why is that the case?

If a plane were controlled by my thoughts, that plane would spend a lot of time eating and having sex. That's all I have to say about it.

The other thing is that, wait a minute, if the Russians have come up with a mind computer interface technology, that has so much bigger value and impact other than being used in a fighter jet to control the weapon system. Like that just is stupid. It makes no sense. That's like, oh, we've got this incredible breakthrough technology. That's the most valuable thing, not the fighter jet.

Well, I mean, they do say though that the plane is supposed to reach Mach 6, and that all of the American planes begin to melt at Mach 2.6. No, I mean, literally, thought control would be really, and whatever technology you need to have thought control, the applications of that, considering how much brainwashing and telekinesis and all that shit the Russians were allegedly into.

That's one thing that I'm just like, God, you should have picked one. Just cut that out or really use it.

Well, I mean, it is the climax. Weirdly, the climax of the movie is that he gets a PTSD attack when he's supposed to use it. And it's like.

Yeah, but the problem is, is that there's been no setup or suspense of him. So conveniently Gantt, Clint Eastwood's character, one of the reasons he's recruited.

Fighter pilot Mitchell Gantt.

Yes, is that he is the ace fighter pilot of all fighter pilots, but his mother was Russian. So he also speaks Russian. And he happens to be the exact same size and build of the Russian test pilot. So he will fit in the cockpit and in the flight suit. So we're just going to take all this coincidental convenience at face value and just go with it. That's fine. But he also can plausibly pass Mission Impossible style as a heroin dealer smuggler in Russia that they're going to first send him to Russia to replace and take his identity. And then there's this murder. So the first act of this movie is this mess of briefings and then espionage.

By the way, talking about the first act, it's like the first 80 minutes of this movie. The thing that I do love about this movie, and I got to say, like, anything negative I'm going to say about this movie is completely under the umbrella of just undying love for this movie. This movie, first of all, it's a great movie to, like, you leave the room, you make a sandwich, you come back, it's still happening, you miss nothing, you're good, right? And I love that about it. But also, it's a movie that is entirely about what it is about. This movie, this is a movie that is utterly devoid of theme, subtext, nuance, or subtlety. It is literally, here's what the movie's about, here's the movie, that was the movie, thank you, good night. Today, movies have, like, you know, like, a big opening title and then the movie ends and then there's, like, a five-minute music video, you know, that makes you feel good about having spent money seeing this movie, you know? And then there's credits, no, then there's a mid-credit scene and then there's credits and then there's, this movie's, like, literally just starts, it's the word Firefox appears on the screen, boom, you know? And that's it. And then the movie just starts and, like, literally no scene in this movie has subtext. It's entirely about...

Yeah, there is a stark sterility to the proceedings. It is unadorned in so many ways. And the only quite thing I might challenge you on is that there are little spasms of theme that try to emerge in small moments with some of the supporting cast. And there's a pretty great supporting cast.

Oh, we'll get into that in a second, absolutely.

And there are little moments and little scenes where they get to shine and reveal a little bit of their inner life and their struggle and their heart. And you're like, oh, there's a little glimmer of something meaningful. But then it's like, nope, don't want to have time moving on.

But it's also without subtext. It's not like somebody talks about this great meal they had and they're really talking about their wife. It's like, no, this happened to my wife. That's it. It's like, Paul, because you and I are both old school nerds and I know you are. Let's just do a little roll call of the Pinewood Studios players roster from Lucas Films, Spielberg Films and most films of the 80s, right? The first one, I think you're going to go for the right same one that I am. Go ahead.

I mean, first we get a briefing and it's through for Howitt.

Through for Howitt. Well, I mean, Freddie Jones is for me, like he's the weirdest actor ever and his delivery is always so strange, but he's so good in this because all of his deliveries like, well, then we will do this and we will do that. And then, and then he smiles and says, you will die. It's like, producer Brad, can you play the KGB monologue soundbite from Freddie Jones?

Remember, we are playing on that only real weakness because of its very size. The KGB is sometimes slow to awaken. It is like a monster. If you can walk by carefully enough, it may just lift an eyelid and sniff at you.

But if you awaken it? I mean, it's like every cliche of British people, but not. He's like weirdly queeny, but he's not. He's stentorian, but he's not. He's wearing tweed. He's wearing tweed.

Yes, so much tweed.

So much tweed. He's like tweed punk.

I have a theory and I don't know. I haven't researched this or done any homework, and I should have, and I apologize. But here's the thing. There's this enormous plot inefficiency in this film because we start in the US., in Alaska, and the Air Force guy comes in and has to recruit, get Clint, and then he has this episode, and they're like talking, whatever. Get him into a briefing. It's like, oh, we've got this intel. Suddenly we're going to London, and then we get this briefing with the British. And it's like, there's no reason why you need that extra layer of the British, except, I believe, to have an excuse to cast Freddie Jones and have him regale us as the intel chief.

Yeah, I got to say, whenever Freddie Jones is on screen, this movie is awesome. He is a strange, strange actor, but he's wonderful. And he is making great choices with this character. Let's just start talking about the movie. So here's the deal. And then we'll get to the character, the character actors and all that.

Hold on. I think you should finish your list of Pinewood actors.

Okay, so Kenneth Colley, who is the lead Russian military officer in this film, was also Captain Piet from The Empire Strikes Back, who later became, thanks to one of Darth Vader's That world, yes. Thanks to one of Darth Vader's famous field promotions, he became Admiral Piet.

Yes, arguably the greatest field promotion in all of Star Wars history. One of the greatest in all cinematic history. I was just like, when he pops up, I'm just so elated. And he's so deliciously perfect at playing bureaucratic frustration.

Yes, but here's the thing, in this movie, and I love this, is that you get to see if Admiral Piet is actually allowed to do his job, he's actually not terrible at it. If Darth Vader weren't killing these people left and right, they might actually be good at their jobs.

Yeah.

It's a big part of this movie, it's also like, this movie intercuts between the Russians and the Americans. And I actually root for the Russians because they're literally just all pretty competent men who are being yelled at by stupid people, you know?

Yes. Well, they're dealing with stupid people above and below them.

Yes, yes.

But yeah, I really enjoy that stretch of the interplay and the cat and mouse game of espionage and of seeing, I'm just going to call him Admiral Piet.

Admiral Piet.

I'm seeing him starting to connect the dots.

Yes.

And it's so satisfying. It's really enjoyable.

You almost want to see the version of Return of the Jedi with this version of Admiral Piet rather than the feckless one from...

Yes.

But I want to throw another couple of... Warren Clark, who played one of Alex's droogs in A Clockwork Orange is our lead Russian contact.

Yeah.

Or Pavel. Sometimes they call him Pavel because nobody pronounces Russian consistently in this film at all.

No, no, no. But he's so, so good.

He's so good.

And I was going to say, like, he has this wonderful monologue in the middle of the film where we get to know him and he talks about how his wife has been imprisoned. And it's lovely. He's so good.

Wonderful actor. Ronald Lacey, who famously played Arnold Tote. In Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes.

Yes.

Who weirdly seems a lot younger in this movie, even though this is after Raiders. So, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I thought so, too.

Wolf Collar, who weirdly, weirdly plays Yuri Andropov, who's a real life head of the KGB, and eventually became premier of the Soviet Union. The only character in this movie who's actually a real person.

I was so puzzled and dismayed by that.

Why were you dismayed by that? That's a strong emotion.

Well, because the movie takes vast liberties in terms of fiction. And then like out of a hat, like it decides, you know what, we're going to draw one random real life person. And then psychically, they pick the guy who's going to end up being a very short lived, because I think he died in office.

He was there for about six months. Yeah, he was like six months.

As the Soviet premier. And who would have thunk it? But it's just, it's crazy. It's a crazy Nostradamus moment this movie has.

It might stem from the book, because he was a character in the book. He was head of state security when the book was written. So maybe the book's attempt to be realistic.

Yeah, I gather it's like a Tom Clancy sort of realism thing, yeah. Nigel Hawthorne, a wonderful British state actor, who actually, he was the king in The Madness of King George, but he was also the head architect of the Utopian Society and Demolition Man.

Right, yeah, yeah, he's a great, really underrated actor. But yeah, Madness of King George is his masterpiece performance.

The final one that I recognize, well, there's two actually, because John Ratzenberger shows up at the end.

Yeah, yeah.

Because him and, I think him and William Hootkins, who played Porkins in Star Wars and who played one of the bureaucrats in Raiders, were like the only two Americans living in London at the time, so they're in every Pinewood movie ever made.

Yeah, yeah.

And there's a guy named Thomas Hill. He's the obligatory, coarse, unbelieving American colonel at the beginning of the movie and the briefing, though.

Right, yeah.

And not only do I recognize him, he's not a Pinewood guy. He's actually, he was in the V miniseries as the priest, you know, who tries to convince the aliens. But then I looked him up and he was the voice of Uncle Owen in the Star Wars radio dramas, so there you go.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You put me to shame with that deep dive.

I must think in Russian, huh?

So, yeah, I'm just on the think in Russian thing. I know we got to get to it, but it's like that is established and introduced so late in the movie. Yes. It's like, why isn't that introduced sooner? And then why isn't that like something that he has to actually surmount and challenge? Because wouldn't it have been better if, oh, it turns out his Russian is really rusty. And we see him struggling with his Russian instead of just automatically going into it. And then also struggling with the interface at all until the one moment when he does have to, but of course then he figures it out. So it's so anticlimactic and like undramatic.

To the extent that his ability to speak in Russian is in any way used in the film, because in the movie, everybody speaks English anyway, and they all speak English to him. So like, even when he faces Admiral Piet at the end of the movie, pretending to be a Russian captain, they speak in English.

Which is a great scene.

It's very weird though, isn't it?

Again, it's sort of the example of the inelegance, because we now in retrospect have been spoiled with things, devices and solutions like The Hunt for Red October, which just solves this problem so elegantly. Right off the bat and slips from Russian to English, and then you don't turn back. In this movie, it can't quite make up its mind in terms of how to deal with it. So we have moments where Clint is speaking Russian, and even to a non-Russian speaker, it seems pretty clear that someone should raise an eyebrow at his accent and pronunciation. But he gets away with it. But then also like, yeah, it doesn't commit in terms of the Russians staying in English or not. And I guess they were like, well, audiences are not gonna sit through subtitles, but they're also for dramatic purposes in some moments they want it in Russian, but then they want it has to be, it's very frustrating.

It's so frustrating. And that's the thing is that like, I get the sense that Clint Eastwood as a director, he just wants to get it over with, you know? Like that's the sense I get from a lot of it. Like I think Clint has like his A movies and his B movies. You know, he's got Unforgiven, obviously, you know, that other one that everyone likes. I don't know what it is. But like then there's a bunch of movies like Blood Work or like the movies that he made in the seventies with the orangutan, you know, that are just like Clint showed up on set and he did some stuff and he put the camera up and people were like, Clint, should they speak in Russian? He's like, who cares? You know, they just sort of.

It does feel like there's a potential for complexity in this film that Clint as a filmmaker does not have the interest or patience for. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because he's directed at this point, several films at some, you know, Outlaw Jersey Will, some really, some really good films. But, and this is quite a departure genre wise from anything that he's directed before, but it does go back to, you know, has some glimpses of things of like where he goes there.

You kind of wish this movie had been directed by like Martin Campbell, you know, like somebody like that, you know, who like who directed Casino Royale. He probably was not working, but anyway, because you just wish this movie were just like-

Or John McTiernan.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh my God, if this had been John McTiernan movie.

Tony Scott. Yeah, Tony Scott.

But instead it's this very sort of laconic Clint Eastwood style, which does not in any way match the science fictional techno thriller spy tone of the movie. It's sort of like one of those BBC TV movies from the seventies that just sort of sits there.

Right.

At the same time, it's so delightful though, because it's just-

I know, and you want it to be good. And that's the thing. It's like, I'm rooting for this movie because there's so much cool stuff in it, inherently, even as we're subjected to all these expository briefings in the US and then in London. Then we're run around Moscow, and there's this really great, unsubtle, weird projection shot of him walking by Red Square. Clearly, he's not in Red Square. And then he's in the Moscow Dill, and they just cheat Moscow and Russia. So there's some cool stuff like that, but then it's the convoluted nature of them just overly complicating.

But Paul, I think what you're talking about is the magic of this movie. It is that this movie is overcomplicated, and yet it is completely not complicated in any way whatsoever. It feels very tangled, except it's not. It feels really thrilling, except it's not. It feels well-written, except it's not. It feels entertaining, except it's not. By the way, really simple story, directed by Clint Eastwood. Still two and a half hours long.

It's way too long. It's way too long. There are too many briefings. There are too many identity switches. So like the first thing is he gets into Moscow, and then he goes on this white, weird night walk. And I have to take a moment here, as he goes on this leisurely stroll with this cigar.

For approximately 38 hours. This scene goes on for fucking ever, yeah.

And this is the first moment where I become very consciously aware of what the hell is this weird score.

Yes.

By the great Maurice Jarre.

Right.

Of Dr. Shavago and Lawrence of Arabia.

And Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

And Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and some other great, like thrillers and other movies that he would go on to do great scores in. I think this score is a complete misfire.

Oh, totally.

It doesn't fit at all.

Nope.

It is so weird and distracting. And I think that the-

It's none of the major dramatic moments with any kind of efficacy. No, no.

And this movie could be 50% better, at least.

Yeah.

With a good score. And again, we're spoiled in retrospect with Basil Polidorus' Bernard October score and Hans Zimmer and Crimson Tide and like all these other things. Like imagine if it had had a great Cold War thriller score.

Imagine if it had been scored by Basil Polidorus who was active at the time he scored Conan, right? Can I tell you a Basil Polidorus side story?

Please, please.

Basil Polidorus famously scored the Hotshots movies. Remember Hotshots and Hotshots Parts Due, right? No, I think only Part Due actually, cause that was the one that was a Rambo themed over. And I met his agent at a party and I said, dude, that score is funny. Like it's really hard to make funny music, but that score is actually hilarious cause it's such a perfect parody of action movies. And I didn't know Basil Polidorus had that kind of humor in him. And the agent says to me, well, we just didn't tell him it was a comedy.

Wow.

But if this movie with a Basil Polidorus score, like the score from Robocop or the Starship Troopers score, come on.

Yes. It would have been insane. It would have also composer of the theme to Misfits of Science.

Basil Polidorus?

Yes.

You have shamed me with your geek crit, I am.

I love it. One of my favorite themes and title sequences of any TV show.

So where we're in the movie right now. So basically there have been five major briefings now, the intercut between them getting him out of retirement, which is intercut with Aubrey giving the briefing that explains the airplane. Then he goes into training and they have a brief, another briefing about the airplane, right? Then they put him in a spy disguise to get him his cover and brief him about the stakes of the mission.

And then for a moment, it feels like Mission Impossible.

Yes. Like they put him in the skies.

Yeah, and then he's got to get through another kind of lame scene of getting through customs in Moscow and it's like, oh, it's supposed to be tense and it's just flat.

There's just some dude looking through his underwear and he finds the transistor radio, it's really a homing beacon. Right. And the guy for no reason decides, nah, you can go ahead. I don't care about this radio. It's weird.

It's so unmotivated and flat. Yeah, it's so frustrating.

Now, okay, so Clint Eastwood has entered Russia disguised as Leon Sprague, engine parts salesman and heroin smuggler, right?

They keep saying Sprague.

Well, some of them say Sprague, others say Sprogue. It's really weird. Because I think Clint calls him Sprogue. The Americans call him Sprague, but Clint Eastwood is an American, it's weird. Just like Pavel, you know? Sometimes he's Pavel, sometimes he's Pavel, right? So then, but it turns out Leon Sprague is already in Russia, the real guy. And then for no reason, Warren Clark's character, who is supposed to be Clint Eastwood's handler, they take 25 minutes to get to this bridge. He meets Warren Clark and the real Sprague and another Shemp, and then they murder Sprague, even though, why not just not have Sprague be in Russia at all? I don't understand anything that's happening at this point.

It's very confusing because they get Gantt in somehow, I believe so, and then they kill Sprague so that he can take his place.

Except he's already has, because he's come into Russia as Sprague.

And then they find him, but then not long thereafter, they need to replace Eastwood's or Gantt's identity yet again.

Like two minutes later, literally the same night, he goes into the subway station and he's another guy. Right, he's in the subway, and then there's the fight with the KGB guy, and then it's like, so they get him in a Sprague, then they kill the real Sprague, and right after they murder Sprague, they give him a new passport, his name's Michael Lewis now, right? Now we gotta go on the subway. So they go on the subway, and the subway gets shut down because the cops find the body of Sprague or something like that. So then Clint Eastwood has a PTSD flashback, or rather a, what were they calling it? A delayed stress syndrome flashback, which he has periodically during the film to make you understand that he's a deeply flawed character, even though he is completely inept as a spy. It's weird, he's kind of ignorant and inept, and it's the part I find so interesting that Clint let himself play that guy, but I think Clint likes kind of messing with the hero archetype a little bit. So then he gets in a fight, so then Arnold Tote from Raiders shows up, tells him his papers are not in order, he reaches into his pocket to get something, and Clint and him get in a fight, and here's the thing about this fight that I like. I have two comps for this fight, the fight between the two Terminators and Terminator 3 in the bathroom, and then the fight in Mission Impossible, not Roam Nation, the one in Fallout, right? But you know what, I actually kind of like this fight a lot more, because it's almost like, these are just two A-holes fighting. It's not Henry Cavill, who literally looks like he was fed steroids from birth, and Tom Cruise, who looks like he sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber, and then some guy they've cast, it's like literally just two A-holes hitting each other. It's kind of tense to me, because they're just dudes. Is that weird?

I do think that there is, again, a primitive inelegance and simplicity to this encounter, but it also feels not quite dialed in for its dramatic and suspenseful potential. Like so many of these scenes, you just feel like you're leaving stuff on the table that could have been mine and made this more engaging. Once they're fighting, it's like, okay, it's a pretty good fight, but it also is like this KGB guy goes in alone and it's just, there's all these things that are just kind of convenient. And then there's a suspense afterwards about we're waiting for the body to be discovered and will he make it through the checkpoint?

They're in the subway station for about 45 minutes of screen time, right?

It feels like it. They spend a lot of time in there. Also, it just seems comical to the volume or the ratio of KGB to civilian population in Moscow. It feels so ridiculously out of whack. It's like everywhere you turn, you can throw a rock and you're gonna hit KGB checkpoint and people checking papers. That's just really, I don't know. I just felt a little overly contrived and convenient. And less would have been more. It just felt like there was repetitive beats and they weren't mined for their full potential. And if they had been, this film could be distilled more cleanly and also more richly. And I don't know. So like a lot of frustrations with the script.

This is a movie that doesn't understand that its third act is a fait accompli. People are going to see this movie to watch Clint Eastwood fly Firefox, right?

Yes.

And that's about the last 45 minutes of the movie, which is pretty great. I really enjoy that, right? But then the first 90 minutes of the movie are, you're just going like, I know he's gonna get there. Like why is every scene, some dude stops him, checks his papers, has his papers, are they either in order or not in order? And that's supposed to be suspenseful. I'm like, I know he's going there. You know what you do to make this part interesting? Character. Oh, nevermind. Yes.

No, I mean, it takes like an hour and 14 minutes before we see Firefox.

Yes.

And before he sees it. And that feels like twice as long as it should.

But there are two things that happen. So while he's on the road to Firefox, first of all, he changes identities again. He becomes like Blutarski or something. That's, sorry, that's John Belushi in Animal House. It's not Blutarski. He's got some-

Senator John Blutarski.

Senator John Blutarski, that's right. Thank you, producer Brad. But so the nice thing is here's where that monologue with Warren Clark happens, right? And what you learn, so there's a line, so they get out of the subway station, he gets his covers, Blutarski, who's a truck driver, and him and Warren Clark are in a truck for approximately nine hours of screen time. And Clint Eastwood's character, this stopped me dead in my tracks because they're talking about Russian Jews, right? Warren Clark is talking about how the scientists who are gonna let Clint Eastwood into the hanger for Firefox are Soviet dissidents. They're Jewish dissidents who are being forced to work, right?

Yes.

And Clint Eastwood says, what is it with you Jews? Don't you get tired of fighting city hall?

What? What?

Again, it's sort of like this guy, like Clint Eastwood is not playing a particularly, I don't know if this is supposed to be like a heroic American white guy or if Clint is deliberately making his character a little bit sort of weirdly anti-Semitic and ignorant so that he can actually learn something about how bad shit is in the Soviet Union. I mean, Paul, what do you think? What am I looking at here?

Well, layers of complexity here. And so many thoughts.

I think there are layers of lack of complexity, Paul.

Yes, there you go, there you go. I think in this exchange, I can only hope, and maybe this is me being too idealistic or sentimental, that what he's expressing is coming from a place of admiration and respect as hand-handed as it is. There's a great punchline where Pavel then has his response and then reveals like, oh, he's actually not Jewish, which is kind of funny. But this gets us to a point where I'm watching the movie and I'm thinking what's within, not necessarily reach of the movie, but within sight in terms of theme, potential theme that I think would be meaningful. There are these Jewish scientists who've been conscripted to work on this project that they know is going to be used for bad purposes and shift the balance of power against the West and potentially change the world order and give rise to unfettered Soviet domination. So there's an existential threat. It is not as clearly or compellingly communicated or conveyed or reinforced in that way. And that they have created a human chain or bridge rather that they are putting themselves on the line in order to convey this American pilot into that cockpit at the sacrifice of all of their lives.

Everybody who works with Clinton, this movie gets fragged. They all die.

And they all say, and Pavel says the first to really express it, they're all willing to die to move him across this human bridge to get that plane and save Western civilization from the Soviet communist threat. That's a compelling theme. And this film misses it. It does not grab it and make it breathe and live. And it's so frustrating.

And yet with its complete lack of subtlety and its complete lack of nuance and its complete abundance of theme, while at the same time having a complete lack of theme, characters are constantly saying this theme to Clint Eastwood. You know, Clint Eastwood is going, don't you hate that they're sending you to die? And they're like, no, we die because we must save freedom. And at one point Nigel Hawthorne goes like, you are American, you don't know what you are free. You don't know what it's like to not be free. And it's like, they keep saying it.

Would you like to hear him?

Yes, please. Yeah.

Supposing I get the lift off and everything works well, what happens to you? What do you mean, it doesn't matter? I don't understand why you're all so willing to die. I don't expect you to understand. Don't you resent those people in London ordering your deaths like this? Mr. Gant, you are an American. You're a free man. I'm not.

Now, here's the thing. Clint Eastwood is a military man. I mean, he's a colonel in the Air Force, right? Who speaks Russian. And he seems to be so ignorant about the stakes of the Cold War and of espionage. And again, it's like, I'm trying to figure out, is he just sort of playing an American air, like a Joe Sixpack who gets thrown into this, or is he really supposed to be a professional? Because he seems so not attuned to the world into which he lives and operates, right? I mean, is that weird?

Yeah, no, again, two kind of missed opportunities in terms of character development that I find so striking. One is early on, there's an observation by the intel community that are really driving the train for this mission versus the military and the fact that, well, Clint is a grunt, he's a pilot, he's not an intelligence officer or operative. And it's like, ooh, I want to see that movie. Like, that's really interesting about that conflict and that collision and about how is he going to be able to conform to those demands and to draw and express and show us the contrast between those different cultures, professional cultures? Like, that's kind of geeky and kind of cool. We get very little of that. The other thing is his identity, is that he's a guy who is part Russian and has Russian heritage, but that's never touched on. We have told it, but it's not a part of his character or his exploration or conflict or drama at all. And it's such a missed opportunity. That said, there are some nice, sort of dissatisfying, bluntness moments, because another theme that I like, that I wanted more of, is that not only are all these people putting themselves on the line and willing to sacrifice their life, it's inherently an unfulfilled story about faith. They are all doing it on faith. For this guy, they don't know, and they don't know if he can do it. And at one point, one of them asks, Gant, can you fly that plane, really fly it?

Yeah, I can fly it.

I'm the best there is.

So I have a question about this scene, Paul, because this is a really interesting scene, because within the scope of this movie's capacity to generate interest, I must say.

Yes.

So, producer Brad and I actually had a conversation about this before the podcast, because for producer Brad, he felt that this was sort of Mitchell Gantt coming into his own, right, and finally sort of adopting the mission and really taking it, right? And I was thinking, this is Mitchell Gantt knowing that he's not up to the challenge, but trying to reassure this man, because he's finally realized what the stakes of the mission are. The scene doesn't really, it doesn't do a particularly good job of letting us know what's going on. So what do you think?

I think that it should carry the weight of such meaning.

Either one you mean or both or neither?

I am inclined toward wanting the latter, because I think it's more interesting. But at the same time, we've already been asked to swallow so many pills, just in terms of why he's agreed to do this in the first place. And why they've turned an eye to his issues and like all these things. And he gets like this sort of short trip training. And they're all kind of rolling these really big dice that just seem kind of irrational to get to this point. And then meanwhile, on the other side, we're meeting these guys on the ground, like Pavel and everybody.

Pavel.

Who are...

Sorry.

But it just, it doesn't all come together. Like it's not a cohesive...

Well, it's like, because the character of Mitchell Gant is played by Clint Eastwood. He just doesn't want to play on an arc. Yeah. It should be a movie out there about a guy who's completely and out of his depth and finally has to fake it till he makes it, right?

Imagine the John McTiernan or Ridley Scott or Tony Scott or whoever we're thinking of version with a Basil Polidoro score and it's Harrison Ford.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's a guy who is like hung it up. He's like struggling, he's broken, questions whether he can do it. He's persuaded of the stakes and the importance and is wrestling with guilt or the fact that he is the guy who they're all counting on and he doesn't know if he can deliver. That's a movie.

That's a fucking movie.

That's a great movie. I want to see that movie.

You and I have seen that movie. It's called Skyfall, you know, which is, which, you know, it's like, it's like a lot of that movie is about how James Bond, he's wounded, he's older, he's lost a step or 20. Just imagine if they had actually leaned into the premise of the film, you know, rather than making him this completely sort of contrarian every man who kind of doesn't want to go on the mission, but kind of does, but kind of doesn't. What really pains me about this particular scene in the movie is that Warren Clark gives that great speech where he talks about how his Jewish, he says, I'm not Jewish.

It's a payoff to that setup. Yeah, yeah.

But my wife is, and she's been in prison for 12 years and I've spent those 12 years trying to make myself worthy of her. And you realize like this dude, the reason this dude is such a hard ass and he's probably one of the, him and Freddie Jones are like the two best performances in the film hands down, right? Freddie Jones is because he's so odd, but so lovable and so, and carries such authority in his weirdness.

And just gets to choose scenery every time.

Oh yeah, no craft services for Freddie. He's gonna dine on the scenery tonight, yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, and Warren Clark, you know, who like gives this very touching speech about why he has been such a hardened, he's not an emotional guy, he's unsentimental, he has no compunction about killing people and all that. And Clint just doesn't play the role that that should be playing in his character's arc at all.

No, no.

As a director, as an actor, he's like, what I don't understand is how does Clint as a director direct Warren Clark to give that performance and then not give himself the reciprocal arc? How does that happen?

I know, it is so fascinating because I mean, first of all, that scene, and it's also beautifully shot on location outdoors and it's just, it's gorgeous. And Warren is, you know, when Warren got to that scene in the script, that's why he wanted to play this part. Like it is a delicious monologue. It is so meaningful. And it is the moment of the greatest emotional depth in the whole movie. But it also, like you said, it draws this stark contrast in the utter lacking of emotional depth that our lead character has.

Well, cause it's like almost if you take an Air Force Colonel, right? And you can buy the idea that he's actually quite ignorant about the Soviet Union and doesn't understand the plight of the Soviet people, right? Then the arc of the movie is an ignorant American goes to Russia on this mission that he doesn't entirely think he's good for or buys into. And slowly over meeting a bunch of people who help him realizes, oh my God, I need to step up.

Yes.

Right.

And also, I mean, the flashback, which we've skipped over, that it keeps recurring for Gantt, for Clint Eastwood's character, is that he was shot down over Vietnam. He was taken as a POW. The way it's portrayed initially, it seems like almost immediately after he was captured, he was rescued, which is weird. I don't know that that's the intent. But in that rescue, he sees a Vietnamese girl who is firebombed and killed horribly. And this is this haunting, nightmarish image that he keeps wrestling with. And you look at that and you're thinking, okay, if there were, like you were pointing to, a dramatic angle of him wrestling with survivor's guilt and also thinking that there are people I could have saved on the other side of this war who were innocent, and here I am being helped by other people or people on the other side of this Cold War who are innocent, these Russian Jews, and who are being exploited, and this is a second chance for me to do the right thing and help, none of that is in the movie.

Nope, not at all.

And it's right there. It is right there for the taking and would have been so meaningful and it is just ignored. And it's just stuff like this right and left in this movie frustrates the hell out of me.

And yet, and I wanna make this very clear, I am thoroughly entertained by this movie.

Why?

I don't understand, Paul.

There's a lot of just techno thriller geekery that's irresistible. But I'm thinking about like the mention of like even a movie like Stargate in terms of what it does with Kurt Russell's character, The Curl, who's wrestling and dealing with grief of loss of family. And then how he has an arc and that that carries some emotional depth through this sci-fi extravaganza. And that is like as silly and shallow a movie as that is, that has more depth than this with that character. You know, I do feel really good for Warren Clark to get this role just as then I also feel really good for Kenneth Coley to have such a richer role than he has in The Empire on Board of Star Destroyer. One thing I do want to point out that I just thought was really weird and funny in the first briefing when we meet him earlier on.

Well, that's right, because the Russians have their own briefing. That's right.

Yeah, yeah. And so we're kind of having these mirroring, like dueling briefings. It is this ornate Russian boardroom or everything. And there are these ornate candle stick holders with no candles. Yeah. And I'm just like, it's so conspicuous. I'm thinking, is that supposed to symbolize something? Is that a choice from an art direction? But it just, it was one thing that struck out that struck to me because I'm looking for something interesting as I'm being like struggling through all this exposition.

I actually think the movie did a reasonably good job of capturing the shabbiness of Soviet Russia in the seventies, you know? But then again, like the problem is if you make Soviet Russia look too shabby, which it was, right? It's that now that we know what Soviet Russia was really like, it's a little harder to buy the movie anyway because-

Right, that they could be a generation ahead.

Exactly, yeah.

In terms of the jet, I mean, multiple generations ahead in terms of the interface, that's the sci-fi.

Just an aside is that the reason the Americans got to stealth technology first, and I don't know if you know the story, there's a Russian mathematician named Ufimsev, right? And he basically having no money and no funding to do any research that was actually had a real world application, this guy went off to like a room with a pencil and did this paper on planar geometry, right?

Yeah.

That paper leaked through the Soviet science journals, da-da-da, wound up in America, and somebody read it and went, hey, we can use this shit to make airplanes.

Yeah.

So it's not that they didn't have the brains for it, but they certainly didn't have the technical, the manpower, any of that stuff. But all that said, I gotta say, I think one of the things I really like about this movie is that the villains all seem very competent. Even though they're being yelled at by bureaucrats, and we'll get to that with the first secretary and all that.

Yeah, some of them. Because by now, the key ones, the main ones, yes, yes.

After Warren Clark gives his monologue, we get to Nigel Hawthorne and his wife, whom I'm just going to call his wife, because they don't bother to give her a name or a character. And they sort of brief.

Natalia.

Natalia, there you go.

Right, right. That's true.

Thank God, producer Brad, because I certainly wouldn't have gotten that from the movie. Or from her many, many monologues and scenes of dramatic import.

Yeah, and this is after Tote, like, shoves him in the trunk to make it past a checkpoint. And so, yeah, there's all, again, all these subterfuge things about moving him across the country and to the lab. And some of them are pretty good. Like, the whole Pavel Gantt road trip part of the movie, I actually kind of like.

It's Pavel.

Depends who you ask. But then, finally, he, you know, he gets handed off in a beat that almost, I think, feels extraneous, but I guess it doesn't because he's being tailed and has to... So there's a moment where Clint Eastwood has to jump out of the car on the turn and all this. But it's like, do we care? Like, do we need this? No, it's no, it's... And then we have the bit with the get in the trunk and then, oh, are we supposed to feel suspense about are they going to check the trunk? And it's, we're sort of hand-waved about why they don't, even though they really should and would have. Then we get to the scientists and then compounding my frustration in terms of the fact that this movie is indulging in plot convolutions and briefing, you know, expository excess at the expense of character depth and development. About halfway through the movie, it decides, oh, it's not enough for him to steal this breakthrough stealth fighter, which is plenty. It's like all you need as motive and plot. Nigel Hawthorne says, But this is very important, Mr. Gant.

You must think in Russian. You cannot think in English and transpose. You must think in Russian.

So now, okay, but that's not the only other piece of sudden stakes-racing information, because then there's also-

You have not been told this, but there is a second prototype in the hangar, identical to the one you will fly. It is not to be used in the trials. It's not armed. It is, however, fully fueled, and in a state of preparedness at all times. It could be weaponed and sent up in perhaps an hour. But it couldn't overtake me. No, but it could be refueled in the air where you cannot.

Okay, so now we have the thought interface that's suddenly been brought in, and also there's a second Firefox.

Yeah, the plot thickens and thickens and thickens.

Yeah, the plot actually, the plot kind of thins, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, because it's too many things. It's like the not enough butter spread on too much bread or whatever the Tolkien quote is. It's not enough that, oh, by the way, you can only control the weapon system with your mind, oh, by the way, you're gonna have to think in Russian to do it. And oh, by the way, there's also a second prototype that of course then is gonna be launched and to chase you.

I mean, I know a little bit about Soviet aviation and they'd never had two prototypes of the same place that you could fly. The way Hisoka says, it can be ready to fly within an hour. You're like, uh-huh, sure, okay. Well, like the third act isn't gonna hinge on character, we know that now.

And again, like, how hard is it? How did this not come up in a meeting where someone said, you know what might be better is to just say, there are rumors, there's a second prototype, but we don't know how far along it is.

Yeah.

Or something like that.

Anything to make that a surprise that has been planted and properly paid off, you know, that would be good.

Yeah, yeah. But then the other thing is that we've established there is one Russian pilot that he has to go take out and impersonate and replace to take off and steal Firefox. For some reason, we're just gonna just go with the fact that I guess there's no backup pilots.

Nope. There's only one suit.

There's no other pilots. There's only one suit. There's only one pilot. And yet there's a second prototype. And we've been told that second prototype is a threat. I know I'm jumping ahead, but this just bugs the shit out. And then we should just wait until we get to it.

We're pretty much at it because let's just say we got to the hangar. Nigel Hawthorne and his wife, Natalia, lead us to the hangar. They have a diversion, which is that they're going to destroy the second prototype, right? Which by the way, would have been a hell of a lot more satisfying if we'd known that earlier. Admiral Piette recognizes Mitchell Gantt as the diversion is going on and he's getting into the cockpit. And then he flies the plane out of the Russian hangar.

We're skipping so many things though that I want to touch on. So he gets finally his last briefing with the Russian scientists.

Yes, the climactic briefing there I say, yes.

Yeah, who are the spies and who are like putting their lives on the line and all this and willing to die, not subtle foreshadowing at all.

Not at all.

Then he is given a Russian uniform that they have somehow procured as a captain. And so he goes onto the base ahead of them in the wee hours because the flight test is scheduled and the first premier is going to come to watch this flight test. So that is all the table is set, the first secretary. So he goes and has to make his way in impersonating this Russian officer onto the base, get to the hangar. We do have this one moment of glory that we've been waiting for where we and he finally see Firefox for the first time. And it's awesome. And I will say this was a formative moment.

Really?

In my wanting to go pursue a career and a degree in aerospace engineering.

Really?

It directly contributed to that trajectory on my life. When I saw that plane, I was like, oh, I was such an aerospace geek and becoming more of one. And this helped fuel that.

I love the MiG-31 as much as the next guy, but I gotta tell you this. I think Eastwood botched the reveal of the plane. He starts by going from the front of the plane to the back, I think. The actual shots of the plane are really underwhelming. I don't feel like he did nearly enough to make us see the scope and awesomeness that you're supposed to get from this plane. It looks kind of rickety, actually.

And it probably was, in terms of the actual physical problem. But I think it was. I think those wings were pretty... But the first shot of the reveal, I like, and it's this tracking shot where we've been following Clint, navigating him way through, getting past the guards and the dogs and talking his way through and clearly bad Russian to the hangar. And it's this great tracking shot as he's walking, approaching the hangar, and then we reveal Firefox. But then everything after that is very clunky. Yeah, I think it's a missed opportunity. We're not getting the Enterprise and dry dock in the motion picture. We're not getting like any full blown majestic awe and wonder that we should.

Yeah, it's like everything else in this movie, like so many things are just tossed off and they feel so perfunctory and so just under thought and under this entire movie feels like it's first thought theater. Like it feels like they're shooting the first draft, they're keeping the first take. Everything about this movie just feels like it's that first thing they came up with and that's just what they did, you know?

Yeah, and then he is studying the plane. And at this point, something we have not touched on is that, so there's this great cat and mouse game happening remotely between the American and British side, I'll just say the NATO side, and Admiral Pierre, who is trying to figure out and connect the dots. Right. And he has an underling who is actually very competent, who then connects the dots about all these gants, switching the identities and figuring out who he is, and at first they think, oh, maybe the Americans have sent a spy to come study the plane, which is a great misdirect, and I'm like, oh, that's really cool, but then they finally connect the dots and figure out, holy shit, they've sent a pilot, and then it's like, would they be so brazen to actually try to steal it? But Admiral Pierre is like, he knows, he's like, get me there, and he's like, he goes right there. And now it's like, oh, the game is afoot, and it feels like, oh, there's this really great build of an antagonist, this worthy opponent, who is this intellectual, who has gotten ahead of them. He now has finally caught up and now has a leg up on our heroes, and there's a threat. And then there's this great scene as Gantt is surveying the plane, very stoically. We're not, of course, registering on Wonder or any emotion on Clint Eastwood.

No way he's going to be impressed. So many people have died so he can steal it. No, he's just sort of looking at it.

There's a really great cut to then all of a sudden, holy shit, Gantt is face to face with Admiral Pia. I've just got to call him that.

They have this piece of business where Clint Eastwood tells Admiral Pia, well, you know, I thought there might be some folks outside and I've called some extra dogs to survey the perimeter and Pia's like, good work, boy, thank you. He basically got Warren Clark killed. Because Warren Clark is laying on the ground waiting for the plane to take off. He's wounded, right? And he could get away, but he hears the dogs, right? And shoots himself in the head. So basically, Clint killed.

Well, he hasn't killed himself in the head yet. We have to wait for the most dramatic moment and opportunity in the movie and most kind of hackneyed. But yeah, we did scope for the fact that in order to help Gantt get to not even the safe house, but to the Russian scientist's house and ditch him to then be picked up by one of the scientists, then he takes it on himself to run the KGB tail off the road, which he does spectacularly. Like there's a gets the truck to blow up in pursuit, but has taken fire and stumbles into the forest wounded. And then we leave him. And then as like we intercut to him being then chased and being hunted as Clint was making it onto the base, he as a for whatever reason to kind of demonstrate the fact that he is actually this Russian captain.

Functionary.

Throws an order around to a functionary that yes, then ends up presumably leading to Pavel's demise.

Pavel's demise even.

Pavel, someday I will.

We'll figure this out.

I will concede to the to the pronunciation. It's Pavel Chekov. So I'm like, I'm not going to I'm not going to move off of Pavel. Chekov outranks this Pavel. But it's this great moment of these two adversaries who don't even know the other exists until very recently that Piet finally knows Ohu.

Because Piet doesn't get the dossier on Mitchell Gantt until after he has seen him.

Exactly. Exactly. He doesn't know what he looks like, but he knows that he exists.

And then when the briefing, not the briefing, I'm sorry. See, everything just comes back. But then when the distraction happens and Gantt finally gets on the cockpit, there's this great moment where Piet looks up at him, points and says, it's Mitchell Gantt fucking close the doors. Yes. If we have to distill what it is that I like about this movie is, you know, my favorite thing about the Bourne movies, right, is how much tension Greengrass and Doug Liman before him could get out of people in rooms with a bunch of boxy computers yelling at each other and bossing each other around, you know?

Yeah.

And the idea, you just totally touched on it. The fun in this movie to me is like there's a Russian room and a NATO room. And they're all kind of trying to put the pieces together. And it's really about Aubrey versus Admiral Piet, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. And imagine if Tony Gilroy had written it.

Oh, my God. Yeah. But yeah.

But the other thing we just skipped over is that he has this encounter with Piet and his functionaries, talks his way out of it.

Right.

And he heads towards the lockers and the shower. And he's been told to basically wait until the Russian ace fighter pilot, test pilot shows up. Yes. And he's been told to kill him and take his place in the flight suit so that then he can get in and take Firefox.

That only he fits into.

That only he fits into. And so he's waiting and then goes in and takes a shower and he has a PTSD episode and he's almost caught, whatever. The Russian pilot shows up who is not built up enough.

Nope.

This should be Ivan Drago as far as like the antithesis, his mirror image, his nemesis in the air, the Red Baron. That's who this guy should be built up. This guy kind of sauters in. He goes in, whatever, blah, blah. Gant gets the drop on him, but then decides not to kill him. Inexplicably. I'm just going to tie him up and he's like, you're okay. He says, you didn't do anything wrong.

Hell, you didn't do nothing. Well, here's the interesting thing is that in a weird way, this is almost like his entire character of Mitchell Gant is that he is a weary war veteran who got tired of the slaughter and who's constantly saying, don't you resent that you're being sent to die? Don't you resent that you have to die? People have to die to do this. Doesn't that bother you? He gets the chance to kill somebody, he does not, which should be a huge character moment for him, and it should in some way inform. I mean, obviously, this pilot is going to get on the second Firefox and hunt him down, they're going to have a duel at the end of it, but that moment, if the movie is going to be about Mitchell Gantt sort of being war warrior, all that stuff, like maybe, but he just goes, ah, you didn't do nothing, and they just let him go.

It's unearned. It's bizarre. Dramatically. Like so many things in this movie, they're unearned, dramatic beats. So they're hollow, they don't carry the weight and the meaning that they should.

The movie is almost a collection of espionage tropes thrown together, you know, or put together in the correct order, but without any of the correct meaning, you know?

Yeah.

Until Gant steals Firefox, right? Yeah.

And this sequence is pretty cool. Well, so we've also established, you know, Nigel Hawthorne and Natalia, and I apologize, I'm blanking on the actor's name, and Tote, who are all these Russian scientists who are working on this.

Let's just call all of them Tote. They're all Tote.

Yes. They're all in league and are waiting and in suspense, and then they finally have their moment. The Dias cast, they start the diversion. Tote gets shot in cold blood, murdered right off the bat.

Mm-hmm.

So it's like shit is going down. Then Piet figures out that, oh, shit, there's this conspiracy going down. We got to, like, shut everything down. Like, and then he's, like, basically killing this, like, grounding up all the scientists.

Speaking of Tony Gilroy in a scene very similar, and obviously Rogue One was 30 years later, but to when Orson Krennic kills all of Galen Erso's people in Rogue One, by the way. Yeah. I think somebody, never mind anyway, go on.

Another thing that bugs me is that these are all scientists. No, they're engineers. Okay. They should be engineers. Some scientists, to be sure, but primarily they're engineers. But they're all white lab coat, like stereotypical. They're called scientists because filmmakers don't know the difference between science and engineers.

No, this is science. We're going to science the science.

Yeah, science and science. Of course, then Nigel Hawthorne tries to like, grab the gun, futilely, irrationally, is going to take out one soldier. Like, that's going to do any good because there's all soldiers with guns who then, who'd mow them all down, which also seems incredibly self-defeating. Like, you kind of need these engineers to build your airplanes that are going to take over the world. For the program. Like, you're just killing all the brains of your program. And presumably not all of them were spies.

But where does the cool part that you mentioned come in? Because I'm waiting.

But then we get, and it's so hackneyed, but it's delicious. He sees Natalia. He's gotten her killed. Yes. Is the love of his life, presumably.

So sad.

Vastly undeveloped. But we just are filling that in.

Right.

And as he's gazing on her, he looks past her. And coming out of the hallway from the back of the hanger is Clint Eastwood in the clad in all black and helmeted in the flight suit.

With the visor down so you can't see his face.

With the visor down so no one will see his face. But Nigel Hawthorne's faith is fulfilled and he dies, much like Khan.

Thinking he won.

Knowing with the satisfaction that he won. That it was worth it and he is getting his revenge. And justice is going to be needed out by the instrument of his conspiracy.

And only an actor like Nigel Hawthorne could play that scene and make you get all of that with the script that we had.

But then he just suddenly dies. Although he's looking and then all of a sudden he's dead. There's a way better version of it, but just in terms of structure and the beat, I'm like, okay, that's a good beat.

Okay, Clint gets in the plane, Admiral Piaz says, close the gate, right? And then you have the obligatory, you're cutting to the gate closing, Firefox moving forward, you cut to the gate closing. They never show Firefox clear the gate.

We don't see it. We don't see it. It's like, oh, you set up this amazing escape sequence. And again, in retrospect, we have seen this sequence in Star Trek III when they steal the Enterprise and are trying to close the door, but inexplicably we're missing the shots and the footage of it making it, just making it through the closing doors.

You didn't get that shot. How weird is that?

I'm speechless at that.

But then another bizarro thing happens. Now, one of the plots in the movie is that the First Secretary for Soviet Aviation is going to come see this test, right? So the First Secretary shows up, and then suddenly Admiral Piet, who has been the villain the entire film, vanishes.

Oh my God.

And is replaced by another equally competent Soviet general, who then is the guy who's trying to figure out where Firefox went, and the First Secretary just yells at him all the time, even though he's right.

But we have no investment. I hate this so much. I hate this so much. Right. It's so infuriating. So the one thing this film has done really well, well, two, it has given us Pavel.

Yes.

Thank you.

I am touched by this turn of our podcast. It's very good.

It's my tip of the hat.

This moment in our podcast is more meaningful to me and dramatically relevant than anything in Firefox.

I was saving it.

The third act begins.

It's the third act twist. It has also given us Piette, who has been, again, everything's relative, but relative to the standard of this film, Piette has been developed deliciously. Into this antagonist and playing this chess game and has caught up and then, God damn it, the first secretary is ahead of schedule and showing up and then he's got to explain to him and that Firefox has escaped and the American has taken him. It just barely slipped out of his grasp. And the scene and the look on his face as he recognizes Gant in the cockpit and then is like, close the door. He is, Collie is selling this. He is like the hardest working actor in the film. And you are rooting for him, even though he's the bad guy because he's good at his job. He's good at his job, he's smart, he's earned our respect. Then the first secretary shows up, it would be one thing if in the reality of the Soviet Union, this Emperor Palpatine first secretary showed up and is like, how could you let this happen?

Right.

And orders Piotr executed on the spot. I would be okay with that. I'd be like, whoa, that's...

But instead...

But I would buy it. Instead, Piotr is inexplicably disappeared from the rest of the third act in the film.

And the movie.

The other thing, too, like the score in the sequence ruins it all.

Oh, yeah.

Like, all the escape, like, there's the... It's just, it's so painfully bad. The other big thing that happens, the other big moment, after Piotr, you know, the close of the doors, the takeoff, we've seen Nigel Hawthorne die and in his dying moments, he sees that Gantt is going to steal the Firefox.

Yep. Oh, yeah.

We missed the shot of him getting through the doors, but we see Gantt take off in Firefox. Then we cut to the countryside on the hill... .of the wounded Pavel...

Right...

.with the hounds and the guards closing in on his scent.

The hounds that Clint Eastwood sent after him personally.

Yes. And he looks up to the sky and he sees Firefox darting across the heavens. And he lifts his little Walther, whatever it is, pistol to his head in this plaintive, overwrought, weird music. And then we cut before we see him shoot his brains out. And then immediately then we get crazy, weird, happy, flying music.

It's a smash cut to the back of Firefox going away from the camera.

Yeah. It's so inappropriate. It's wrong. And the music is so cheesy and bad.

It's almost like the director didn't show up for the scoring, for the spotting sessions on the score. Like, I don't know if Clint was shooting any, which way you can or every which way, but lose or he was hanging out with it with Clyde the orangutan. But he like phoned this one in real hard, didn't he?

And it's like Murray's Char. Like, what is going on? I just I don't I don't understand the choices at all. Yeah, then we're back in to our respective war rooms.

I want to comment on something because this movie is from 1982. It is a movie that was made with analog digital effects. The most sophisticated thing they had a computer to was motion control. Yeah, which for those of you who don't know, it's basically a system that allows the camera to move in the exact same way several times over and over again so they can get many passes on an object. The VFX in this movie were done by John Dykstra, who famously was the mastermind behind Star Wars. What's really interesting about it is this movie is actually an incredibly difficult VFX challenge because you're compositing a black object against a white background and the one rule of compositing, even in Empire Strikes Back where the speeders in the original cut of the film are transparent because the compositing doesn't work, is you never ever ever composite against white. God damn it, Dykstra did it and the shots in this movie, I think they hold up to this day. I mean, they don't look entirely real, obviously, and they're not photorealistic the way CGI effects are, but it's a beautiful sequence. The last 45 minutes of this movie where the plane is flying is wonderful.

Yeah, let's talk about all this. So, you know, hats off to John Dykstra. I know that I've mixed feelings about these. I do think that the degree of difficulty ratchets up in terms of filmmaking and the ambition of the film through this sequence. You also kind of feel a sense of constraints a little bit. Apparently, there was also some creative tension. John Dykstra has spoken about this, about trying on the one hand to be Star Wars, to do an engaging visual cinematic battle versus trying to be realistic.

Versus Clint wanting to go home in time.

And that, and budget and schedule, and all those kinds of things. But there's a quote, and I'm trying to remember if it was in the ILM documentary somewhere else where I saw it, where Dykstra talks about, like in retrospect, he second guesses some of the approaches or the choice in terms of some of the staging of the aerial sequences, especially the duel and the combat in terms of how close or far they would realistically need to be and the balance between realism and fantasy and making it cinematic and engaging. I feel like in large part a lot of the shots and sequences are pulled off really well, especially for the period. There's mat lines and stuff that you have to go with because of the limitations of the technology in the period, but the sense of speed, especially when it's over ground and then creating the wakes behind it, there's some really cool things that show off the badassness of Firefox, which I think is really cool. I think that the staging, the aerial staging is a little, sometimes a little more lifeless than it should be. I felt like it was not quite as dynamic as it really could have been, but we've been spoiled by everything since.

Isn't that the entirety of this film?

Yes, that is the entirety of this film. I will say one cool thing, though, that we do get in the sequence, so there is a cat and mouse game that I kind of felt like this should have come sooner in the movie. He should have stolen the Firefox sooner. There's a cat and mouse game in terms of him trying to misdirect the Russians in terms of which way he's going.

To go south or north, yeah.

Yeah, and then make sure you're spotted. It would have been so much more engaging if we'd stuck with Pierre and if he had been the antagonist through the rest of the third act and continued to be connecting the dots and solving this puzzle.

I get it that he's not an Air Force guy and he's not the guy who's going to be sitting over there, but it's like I would have bought that far better than that suddenly this guy disappears from the movie. But two of the best line readings in this movie happen now. One of them is where the First Secretary has his In the Line of Fire phone conversation if we're to evoke a much better Clint Eastwood movie.

Yes.

This is the First Secretary. I am speaking to the individual who has stolen the property of the USSR.

Can you hear me, Mr. Gant?

I am speaking to the individual who has stolen the property of the USSR. His Russian accent is... He's from a different Russia than the others. But I love the guy. I love this actor. But the other one is... Gant is supposed to... He's fooling them to go south. He goes north. Part of how he fools them into thinking he's going south is that he somehow runs afoul of a cruiser and they shoot missiles at him, and he appears to be killed. The American CIA guy who's working with Freddie Jones somehow is deeply invested in Mitchell Gant being killed because they have a shouting match, and it leads to Freddie Jones delivering this line, which I absolutely love.

We don't know...

It's just the volume, the drama, man.

I know, but there should be more drama than there is in terms of the is he alive or not, and there's more investment in all of those dynamics. Absolutely. And it's so frustrating.

But this movie is entirely about denying you those dramatic pain, like on some perverse way, I'm starting to think that this is by design, that the movie is like, hey, the audience is going to want this.

Don't do it.

There is a really cool, not necessarily a twist, but a reveal that has been teased that I love. It's very cinematic. But before we get to that, we do have the moment where because Gant could not bring himself or just couldn't be bothered to kill his nemesis, his nemesis appears in a spare flight suit that's orange. Yeah. But I'm like, oh, I want that white suit.

It's the head in the closet, man. It was like, oh, you know.

And a white helmet, like it doesn't match at all. Like, whatever. So we can tell them apart. And then we have his Ivan Drago moment.

The American is a dead man, First Secretary. Good.

What drama. What high drama. How foreboding that is. Well, the American is dead. What is that?

They didn't bother to build this guy up. We don't know who he is. The actor is just kind of like, they launch him in. They get the second prototype ready. Of course, it is within an hour. It escaped the explosionary diversion. And they have a chance to catch up with Gantt because Gantt took the time to do a zigzagging misdirect to try to throw them off his trail by heading south, being sighted by a commercial airliner, and then going north, but then getting spotted by a battle cruiser that fires on him and everything. So that kind of ruined it and wasted that whole thing, and then is going to have to refuel. And so one of the things that is teased a little bit, not maybe as much as it should have been for clarity, is that the Firefox does not have enough fuel to make it back to the good guys.

Right.

So at some point, it is going to need to stop and be refueled by something called Mother One.

Which is planted in the movie. They do talk about Mother One before, so weirdly.

Well, we don't know what it is. And that kind of should be more of a tantalizing question than it is made to be, if or nothing else, for Gant. And it is kind of puzzling that it's left out of his briefing. He's just told, like, follow the transponder. And he has apparently been lugging this clunky fake transistor radio that is this transponder that magically interfaces with the Firefox radar that then he activates and waits for this homing sequence to know where he's going to land or how he's going to refuel.

This is actually a pretty cool sequence because Mother One turns out to be a nuclear submarine that's under the Arctic ice. They surface kind of like K-19 The Widowmaker, which is pretty cool. John Ratzenberger is in it, right?

Yes.

Mitchell Gantt lands on the ice flow and he barely makes it to like the end of the ice flow in a scene that should have been thrilling, but is instead really prosaic and kind of flat.

I love Sue movies. I'm like, as soon as I see this, I want to hear Michelle LeGrand's Ice Station zebra score kick in instead of this horrible Marie Jarre mutation, whatever it is. It is a really cool, just creative solution and cinematic device and reveal. But yeah, it's limited in terms of how they stage it. I meant to make a note of the actor who plays the captain of the submarine. He's great. He's just sort of this affable, very casual, tosses his lines off and is just like seeing everything, done everything, and he's unfazed by this crazy thing that they're pulling off and doing. Yeah, basically, they turn the submarine into a gas station on an ice floe to refuel Firefox, but then the clock starts ticking.

And then to fool the Russians, who then show up in helicopters on the same cruiser that shot at Mitchell-Gantt, they pretend to be a weather station after Gantt has taken off, which is lovely.

Yeah, a scientific expedition. They turn into like a Star Trek science mission thing.

They break out a tent, they've got balloons, they've got a little weather windsock. It's phenomenal.

I love the cleverness of that. And I kind of wanted more of that.

And also, there's a piece of dialogue in that scene where the captain says, hey, we got some new missiles for you. We got them from some of our Libyan friends from the MiG-25. And I'm like, wow, all of a sudden, this movie sounds like somebody wrote it who knows real tradecraft. None of the espionage in the movie reads in any way as competent or good or tradecrafty. It's like, I want to be in the movie with this guy. Whoever wrote this scene for Clint, that's who I want. That's this movie I want to see. But because this is Firefox, we are denied the entirety of all dramatic payoffs. And then we let's talk about that duel, man. Let's do it.

Oh, my God.

I kind of love it. But then again, I love everything in this film in spite of my understanding of it.

So you know, it's such a mixed bag because on the one hand, everything in the movie should have been building to this. It's like it's not enough for him to steal it. He's got an escape. He's got to give her fuel to go whatever. And then it's like, oh, this nemesis and he didn't kill this guy. He out of an act of mercy. He's now being punished for it. But none of that's really played at all. There is this kind of extended cat and mouse and like aerial sequence and chase, and it's it has varying degrees of plausibility. There are moments of it that are like, oh, this is really cool. And the other thing just for me that I can't get past is it's missing a great score. We've seen just the other week, Star Trek 2, duel between the Enterprise, the Realign, the Mutant Nebula. And that's slow in Submarines, and this is fast X-wing fighters, but we're not getting a thrilling, engaging score. And it's not staged with the cinematic aplomb of those things that we have seen as audiences at this point, because that's just not that's not in the whatever.

It's almost like this entire sequence is done with the same amount of lack of interest that Clint shows for most of this film. And it's performance and it's directing and everything. But I think that, like, you know, because you're watching these two fantastical airplanes against each other, I think there is something that is cool about this, that even with Firefox being kind of rickety when you see it in person with people around it, as opposed to the model, even with the Russian wearing this weird orange suit and the white helmet, and it's like a weird because the good guy's wearing black, but the bad guy's wearing white.

Yeah.

And the second Firefox not looking kind of nearly as menacing as the first Firefox. But by the way, also the interior Firefox being so totally on it's like Red October, that submarine in Red October looks advanced technology that we do not have Firefox looks like, oh, we got that shit.

Yeah, it's like off the shelf cockpit. There's nothing particularly exciting about it. So here's the thing. Why aren't we getting the fact that, oh, Gantt does not yet know how to fly this Firefox. He's still learning how to fly it. We aren't getting that at all. Like, there's a dramatic opportunity for him to be still figuring out the plane, what it can do, how things work. Not just because it's in Russian, but it's because it's a prototype, an advanced futuristic stealth fighter he's never seen and he's sitting in for the first time. And we don't have Intel on even what that cockpit looks like. Right. So there's a missed opportunity to have him struggling with trying to figure this out, having trial and error, hitting buttons and like, oh crap, no. Like, there's all these things you could do that makes it more interesting. And reciprocally, there's an opportunity for the Russian fighter pilot to be dealing with a prototype that is not finished and that has limitations. And so then you could build this scene of drama where you have these two top fighter pilots, one who is trained on the Firefox, but in a incomplete prototype of it. But the other, our hero, being an out of practice pilot who is flying a plane he's never flown before, none of that is touched on at all in this duel.

Paul, are you suggesting that the Russian pilot should have had the Starfleet access codes like Kirk and Star Trek 2?

Another thing is we've established that the Russians can make radio communication with Gantt in the Firefox.

How cool would it have been if they hack into Firefox and he's got to rip off the main computer and then fight without the main computer? Come on.

And go analog instead of going with the cyber interface thing? Or have a conversation between these two nemeses and between the pilot that Gantt let live, but now has to respect him as a peer, has professional respect and admiration, but has to take him down. And does like, oh!

But the way you do that is that, because I'm not sure I like your idea of Gantt not being entirely competent flying the plane, which is weird because I love this movie and he's incompetent the entire film, so why shouldn't he just keep being incompetent? But wouldn't it be cool, okay, if he's flying this prototype plane, doesn't entirely know how to fly, right? And the other pilot does something cool that actually fucks Mitchell Gantt up, right? And then Gantt can't fucking do the computer, he's trying to figure it out, he can't think in Russian, it's really bad, and then opens the channel and starts baiting the other guy.

Yes.

Because he knows as a character, not as a prop in a movie, right, that fighter test pilots have egos and that is the only way he can buy time to fix Firefox or figure out what to do and it works.

Yes.

That's a movie I want to see.

Javi, I think the life lesson of this episode is that we need to remake Firefox.

This movie is literally one month of honest rewriting away from being a real movie.

Yeah.

And it's one director, it's one bad choice of a director away from being a real movie and it's one choice of a composer away from being a real movie. Yeah.

And then I guess the great insult to me in this.

Yes.

I mean, there are a few, but of course he has this PTSD flashback at the wrong, at the bad time. He goes into this death spiral.

It's the only plant in this movie that pays off with any kind of like.

But then we get this, the only time he's ever struggled with the Interfacer at all or somehow forgotten Russian. He has this momentary struggle about and has to be reminded by Obi-Wan.

Yes.

Goes to think in Russian to fire the missile.

Right.

And then take out the Russian enemy pilot who we have no investment in, who's never been developed as a character.

We don't know him at all. Yep.

And then the movie just stops.

Yes.

It's just over.

Like he literally kills. He kills the Russian pilot. He finally shoots in Russian. Right. Can we hear the clip we opened with again? Because you know what? It's more exciting than anything in the movie. Go ahead. Fire rearward missile. Come on, damn it.

How about those missiles sound like laser blasts from Star Wars?

They do have kind of a futuristic-y, not futuristic-y, like space wizard fantasy qualities, don't they? So Paul, so yeah, this is the weirdest thing. So that happens, and then basically Clint Eastwood punches some buttons on the plane, and he says, now here's the thing, and for the longest time, because I saw this movie on cable five billion times, okay?

Yeah, yeah.

At one point, Clint Eastwood says, ice up a cold one. So you think, okay, that's what he's doing. And when the movie ends, I always thought that he says, ice up a cold one, I'm coming home. And then for this viewing, I watched it with the subtitles on, and what he really says is, putting in the new coordinates, I'm going home. And I'm like, this movie does not miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Well, and we totally missed, so it's worth mentioning that he has been instructed, in case he is shot down and fails, that he needs to keep a running commentary for in the flight recorder of Intel about the plane and how it works and everything so that they can retrieve it if need be, if he's cracked. And so that gives him an excuse to then talk to us, the audience, through the whole sequence after he's stolen the Firefox, which is like, okay, that's a plot contrivance and it's kind of fun. But also like, there's more fun that could have been had with it. In terms of like speaking from beyond the grave to these people who are going to recover the fly recorder later and kind of having fun with it and his frustrations, like there's just so many, oh, just missed opportunities.

The fruit is there.

Yeah.

You don't need to be, you know, hell, you don't need to be Ian Fleming to make this movie good. You know, you just need to like fucking try. You know?

And on top of that, like it just stops, it ends, it goes off and then again, we're subjected to the score of a score.

If you told me that a French composer wrote a score to make fun of American triumphalist March-like music that appears in American cinema, right? As a parody, I would sort of believe he wrote this, you know, because it's like, if you listen to it, you're like, are you making fun of us? What are you doing?

That might be the explanation. I think maybe you finally solved the puzzle of what was Maurice Jarre thinking, he was thinking, I'm going to take their money and I'm going to make a mockery of their American imperialist ego Reagan bullshit.

I have an even more obscure theory than that about why Jarre's scores went to shit around this time. Producer Brad is going to laugh because I forced him to listen to so much Jean-Michel Jarre.

I'm activating light games.

You're activating the laser harp. Famously, Maurice Jarre is Jean-Michel Jarre's father and Jean-Michel Jarre is sort of the father of electronica. He did a bunch of like sort of symphonic synth records that are very conceptual in the 70s.

Whose oeuvre you harbored no affection for whatsoever.

Oh no, I don't like him at all. But I honestly have a theory that that that and they were not apparently didn't have a good relationship. They only meant like five times whatever, but I have a feeling that Mauricio heard his son's music and saw its success because it was very successful in the 70s and basically started making music and since to try to like because this is all a synth score. Yeah, there's a lot of electronic and all of that. And it's like you feel like like Mauricio sort of abandoned orchestral scores for a period of a few years to write these weird synth scores and none of it works. It's terrible.

It's so weird. It's so weird. I mean, it make more sense if Clint Eastwood decided to make it a jazz score. I mean, just it's so wrong.

Can you imagine the planes are flying here?

It's like, yeah, let's do that. If you're going to do something so wrong, go totally wrong. I just go.

Here's the thing that I mean, Paul and it is the riddle of Clint Eastwood and it will always be the riddle of Clint Eastwood. The guy who directed Unforgiven, who directed Bird, who directed The Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I know that I'm missing, who directed Million Dollar Baby, right? The Oscar winning Million Dollar Baby, right? Like how is it that Clint Eastwood's good movies are so great and his bad movies are so perfunctory and tossed off and completely like careless? It is so bizarre.

It is one of the great mysteries of our time.

I have not seen any of Clint Eastwood's latest films. I skipped out on, well, all of them. On the Red Ballad of Richard Duell, Cry Macho, I'm good. I'm done with Clint Eastwood. He's fine. He's given me enough. I don't need more. But I got to say like as bad as this movie is, and this is again the contradiction, much as the contradiction of Clint Eastwood, as bad as this film is, I love it.

I know. I can't help but have just enormous geeky adoration of the cool parts of it that work and hint at what could be and should be a great Cold War action thriller.

This movie actually suffers from, you know, it's sort of like the same thing as The Phantom Menace does for me, which is that like, I don't like The Phantom Menace. I've seen it a billion times because I keep thinking about how I would rewrite it, you know, and I can never stop challenging myself to figure out how to make this cockamamie plot work. And in a weird way, Firefox, I love it, partially because it's about a bunch of people talking in rooms with weird accents, but also because you're always thinking about how you can make it better. You know, but it's fun.

Yes.

Hey, producer Brad, how did Firefox do in its opening weekend? Let's get to the nitty gritty of this.

It did pretty well. It opened number two behind ET. It opened at $12 million, but ET was bringing in $23. It was number 15 for the year.

Oh, wow. Yeah, word of mouth was not great.

But more importantly, all time box office is number 2000 and Tightrope, Clint Eastwood movie a few years later, is number 1900.

Wow.

Here's the thing. This movie does not deserve to be in this company and yet it is the number two film surrounded by ET., Rocky III, Wrath of Khan and Poltergeist. I mean, that's where this movie does not merit that kind of rarefied air, but I think it's a tribute to Clint Eastwood's star power that it got there, you know?

Yeah. And I will say, having not seen earlier Clint Eastwood movies in a while, it was striking to see Clint, 1982 Clint Eastwood.

Yeah.

Who definitely you're looking at him and it's he's a star.

Yeah.

And he has such gravitas also, I just want to say, plays to a key light like nobody's business. There's so many great shots of him with a key light across his like grizzled brow, but he's still youthful. But yet in this fulcrum between youth and age and experience and grizzled, but still has this vitality, he's really fascinating to watch in this film.

Ultimately, this movie and a lot of his other movies that did well, but aren't good movies, and there's a whole lot of them, just really speak to how big a star and how big and regardless of his politics, whatever, you know, like his movies, like whatever. I mean, this guy, I think he's the only movie star that I think could rival Tom Cruise in terms of being the greatest movie star of all time, you know, like the amount of success, the amount of visibility for Tom Cruise, like I genuinely believe he's the greatest movie star of all time. Clint Eastwood might have the edge on him just for having become a great director as well. But this guy's an American icon and he stands for America. And it's like, I understand why the audience would show up even for something like this, you know.

This movie premiered the week before in DC as a fundraiser for the USO, hosted by the wives of Edwin Meese and Casper Weinberger.

Yeah, the 80s. Speaking of the 1980s, producer Brad, what is coming to the multiplex next weekend?

Next week's a big week. We have three films to choose from. Next week is June 25, 1982. Have you guys peeked ahead at all?

No. The NR. News hasn't shown up yet. I don't know what's playing at Briarwood.

Christopher Potter hasn't given you a heads up?

He has not.

That's our old reviewer from the NR.

Yeah, the film critic from the NR. News.

First, we have the Hal Needham film, Megaforce.

Oh, Megaforce. Oh my God.

The tagline for the movie.

Starring Purses Combata from Star Trek The Motion Picture and Barry Boswick of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The tagline on the poster is, there has never been a superhero like Ace Hunter! Exclamation point.

Wow. No, there never has been a superhero like Ace Hunter. That is in fact true.

That statement is verifiably true.

And supposedly, I say supposedly, I haven't seen it in 40 years, is a peaceful country seeks the help of Megaforce to defend against an invading country.

Yeah, that's about right. Yeah, exactly.

That's option one. Option two. Blade Runner, Ridley Scott.

I heard that movie's fine.

I mean, I won't recap it, but the poster is, man has made his match. Now it's his problem.

Uh oh. Wait, it's man's problem or the match's problem? And is the match male? If man has made his match and now it's his problem, doesn't that imply that it's the problem of the match and not of the man and not of man?

When you diagrammed the sentence, come back to me.

Semantically, we've got some real issues here. I don't want to watch this movie. What's the third one?

The third one is The Thing by John Carpenter.

Oh, fuck me.

The Ultimate in Alien Terror.

Paul, I think we're going to go to the, I think we're going to have to get our parents to give us twice the allowance so we can end two extra rides so we can go see all three of those movies. Producer Brad, I mean, you're the show runner. Do we pick one? I mean, it's like, what do we do?

I'm going to venture a secret weapon that I have up my sleeve just for this particular weekend. Go on. It is my birthday weekend. Oh, so mom and dad have to like, yeah, I'm going to get to see all three this weekend.

It's done.

And for your birthday, you're going to pick the first one.

Oh, God.

Our last two movies have been, well, we did ET, but you know, we did, I think we should do an objectively good film. I think if we're going to do movies that aren't great, let's let's alternate between objectively good films and objectively bad films so that we don't bore the audience so much. So let's go ahead and do Megaforce.

I appreciate you preempting my devious inclination to do the contrary. But I think as we've learned from Star Trek 2, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the fewer the one.

They're not my needs, Paul, they're the audience. They're our audience.

They're the audience needs. But I also still feel I owe you and everyone listening recompense for the trauma that was Grease 2.

Oh, I'm watching Megaforce. I am not watching Megaforce. Yeah, we're going to get there.

We're going to get there. But I think we got to refill our tanks. I think we got to start with Blade Runner.

Done. And by the way, two of these movies are R rated, so we're really going to have to lie to our parents about what we're going to go see.

Yeah, I was going to say, at the time, I don't know that I got away with getting to see the thing.

I didn't see any of these movies in the theater.

I saw it later. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Well, Paul, we have an epic, epic weekend ahead of us, so I will just wrap it up. I will say.

This may be. I have not looked ahead, but I think this might be our only triple feature.

It is to multiplex overthruster what the perfect storm was to Boston Fishermen.

I believe this will be the fulcrum of this season of multiplex overthruster is the triple feature.

Perhaps our finest hour, dare I say.

Maybe.

Our finest nine hours.

Until then, we will see you at the multiplex.