# Weirdhouse Cinema: In the Dust of the Stars

An episode of [Stuff To Blow Your Mind](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/350359306), 28 Aug 2026, 1 h 23 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/6ea152c0-9e3a-45de-8672-ae2f0056b113/41f8827b-e1e5-436a-969e-b4b1010ea413/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d8936746-9e22-4dba-b762-ae2f0056b126

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1976 East German space opera “In the Dust of the Stars,” directed by Gottfried Kolditz. Half Eastern Bloc Star Trek and half Eurodisco fever dream, it’s sure to dance its way into your heart. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:13] Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
[0:16] Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick.
[0:18] Speaker 2: And in today's episode of Weird House Cinema, we're going
[0:20] Speaker 2: to dive into the world of East German science fiction
[0:24] Speaker 2: with the 1976 space opera In the Dust of the Stars,
[0:28] Speaker 2: a movie that is I think one part Eastern Bloc
[0:31] Speaker 2: Star Trek and also one part glamorous Euro disco fever dream.
[0:36] Speaker 2: I'm even tempted to compare it a little bit to
[0:39] Speaker 2: Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires in terms of its
[0:42] Speaker 2: aesthetic obsessions, though a very different sort of film, really.
[0:46] Speaker 3: I would compare it strongly to Planet of the Vampires,
[0:49] Speaker 3: though I think the main reason I'm doing that is costuming.
[0:53] Speaker 3: The leather-based space attire, that's a thing there and here.
[0:58] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[0:59] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[0:59] Speaker 2: There are no monsters, no aliens, no undead beings in
[1:04] Speaker 2: this particular film. I guess its plot is in many
[1:08] Speaker 2: ways a lot more grounded, but also very golden age
[1:11] Speaker 2: sci-fi as well.
[1:13] Speaker 3: Well, I guess maybe there are aliens, but they're all
[1:16] Speaker 3: just humans.
[1:16] Speaker 2: They're all just humans. Yeah. There's not even like an
[1:19] Speaker 2: old school Star Trek attempt to sort of, you know,
[1:22] Speaker 2: gussy them up with, you know, a few forehead wrinkles
[1:25] Speaker 2: or a slightly different ears or nose. And in a way,
[1:29] Speaker 2: you know, I think we see a lot of this
[1:30] Speaker 2: in golden era sci-fi, and it's also the kind of
[1:33] Speaker 2: thing we see in Dune, right? Where, you know, we
[1:36] Speaker 2: acknowledge that Earth is the origin of human beings, but
[1:38] Speaker 2: by the time that we're engaged in the dynamics of
[1:41] Speaker 2: the Dune universe, humans have occupied other planets, they've forgotten
[1:46] Speaker 2: other planets, and we have just separate human cultures on
[1:49] Speaker 2: different worlds engaging with each other. So I've been wanting
[1:53] Speaker 2: to cover some East German sci-fi for a while here.
[1:56] Speaker 2: And I don't remember if I first came across this
[1:59] Speaker 2: particular title on a disc that I rented from Videodrome
[2:03] Speaker 2: many years ago, or if I picked up on it
[2:07] Speaker 2: from Deaf Crocodile. We'll get back to Deaf Crocodile. Put
[2:10] Speaker 2: out the excellent Blu-ray that you can get of this film.
[2:14] Speaker 2: Or if I saw something about it on the Eternal
[2:17] Speaker 2: Family Instagram account. Eternal Family is a streaming website. that
[2:22] Speaker 2: I've been enjoying. And they have a great Instagram page
[2:25] Speaker 2: where it's worth following just if you want to learn
[2:27] Speaker 2: about strange new films with weird dynamics. And certainly a
[2:32] Speaker 2: lot of European films and East European films, fun account
[2:37] Speaker 2: to follow for sure, regardless of if you end up
[2:41] Speaker 2: actually subscribing or not. So either way, you know, we're
[2:45] Speaker 2: talking about Mercury and we're getting a little spacey in
[2:48] Speaker 2: our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. And
[2:51] Speaker 2: I think that might have been part of what put
[2:53] Speaker 2: me in the mood for some retro sci-fi, but also
[2:56] Speaker 2: some practical effects and some spacey music. So this one
[3:00] Speaker 2: ended up being the perfect pick.
[3:02] Speaker 3: Some people have compared this to space operas like Barbarella
[3:08] Speaker 3: or Star Crash. I think it is a little bit
[3:12] Speaker 3: distinct from those because it is more serious-minded than they are.
[3:16] Speaker 3: It is trying to trying to tell a philosophical story
[3:20] Speaker 3: and confront issues through the lens of science fiction, the
[3:23] Speaker 3: way like, you know, Star Trek, the original series did that.
[3:27] Speaker 3: You already compared it to Star Trek. And I think
[3:29] Speaker 3: it has a lot of that flavor. It's, uh, you know,
[3:31] Speaker 3: there are discussions of moral and ethical dilemmas in the movie. Uh,
[3:37] Speaker 3: and so, so it's got that going on, which I
[3:39] Speaker 3: don't think is really true of star, uh, star crash or,
[3:42] Speaker 3: or certainly Barbara.
[3:43] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[3:43] Speaker 3: But but but I can see the comparison in terms
[3:46] Speaker 3: of style and aesthetics, which leads into an interesting contradiction,
[3:51] Speaker 3: I think, in the nature of this film. Rob, I
[3:54] Speaker 3: wonder if you were thinking the same thing I was.
[3:57] Speaker 3: By the time you get to the end, you realize
[3:59] Speaker 3: this film has a very it's a strong moral and
[4:02] Speaker 3: political message against a kind of wealthy, oppressive decadence. And yet.
[4:09] Speaker 3: the aesthetic virtues of the film are basically all in
[4:13] Speaker 3: the expression of that decadence. Have you thought about that?
[4:16] Speaker 3: Like the movie is great mainly because of like, look
[4:21] Speaker 3: at all this terrible stuff that the, the bad guys
[4:24] Speaker 3: get to wallow in.
[4:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. The, like the discotheque scenes, um, uh, yeah,
[4:30] Speaker 2: the space decadence, uh, you know, along with the costumes, like, yeah,
[4:34] Speaker 2: these are some of the main points of the film
[4:36] Speaker 2: that are pulling us in. Um, But then, yeah, but
[4:39] Speaker 2: then the message is very, very interesting to take in
[4:41] Speaker 2: as well as we'll get into. Like one of the
[4:43] Speaker 2: things about it is that, of course, this is an
[4:47] Speaker 2: Eastern Bloc production during the Cold War. We're certainly I
[4:51] Speaker 2: think a lot of our listeners have have consumed a
[4:55] Speaker 2: lot of media that was produced on the other side
[4:58] Speaker 2: of the Cold War. And we know the sorts of
[5:01] Speaker 2: geopolitical messages that are either overtly or just sort of
[5:05] Speaker 2: subconsciously baked into those visions. And here we get to
[5:09] Speaker 2: see something from the other side, but it's also presenting
[5:13] Speaker 2: exactly the sort of scenario that could easily be presented
[5:15] Speaker 2: in the West, you know, vilifying the East. And here
[5:20] Speaker 2: it's presented in the East, vilifying the West.
[5:21] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, on either side of the Cold War, you
[5:24] Speaker 3: could say, I'm making a movie that's against the concept
[5:27] Speaker 3: of oppression. And you could say, I'm talking about the
[5:30] Speaker 3: other guys.
[5:31] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[5:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[5:31] Speaker 2: When in reality, like both sides are in on it.
[5:35] Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the things that makes
[5:37] Speaker 2: the movie work so well. It doesn't feel like you're
[5:40] Speaker 2: watching some sort of a hollow expression and regurgitation of
[5:45] Speaker 2: some sort of a state-mandated political message. It doesn't feel
[5:50] Speaker 2: like propaganda. It feels like a legitimate attempt to make
[5:54] Speaker 2: an intelligent science fiction film that is also packed with,
[5:58] Speaker 2: let's see, mystery, action, espionage. so much modern dance and
[6:05] Speaker 2: then just dancing seventies Euro disco glitz. It's just, it's
[6:08] Speaker 2: got it all.
[6:09] Speaker 3: Totally. I wasn't trying to be too critical of the
[6:12] Speaker 3: film by, by pointing out that contradiction, but I think
[6:14] Speaker 3: you do have to acknowledge that it's there. Like the,
[6:17] Speaker 3: the movie does engage deeply with the meaning of aesthetics
[6:22] Speaker 3: and fashion and the aesthetics of the, the good faction is, is,
[6:28] Speaker 3: mostly very functional with a few exceptions they do have
[6:31] Speaker 3: those weird like leather jumpsuits they go to the party
[6:33] Speaker 3: and um but mostly that's just very practical and functional
[6:37] Speaker 3: whereas the aesthetics of the villains which are an extension
[6:41] Speaker 3: of their villainous ethical qualities uh are great they're like
[6:45] Speaker 3: awesome weirdness.
[6:47] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah well this will be this will be fun
[6:49] Speaker 2: to sort of continue to toy around with as we
[6:51] Speaker 2: discuss the the characters in the plot All right. Well,
[6:54] Speaker 2: if we already have you a bit interested in the
[6:57] Speaker 2: possibility of viewing In the Dust of the Stars, well,
[7:02] Speaker 2: Def Crocodile has put this one out on a two-disc
[7:05] Speaker 2: double feature along with Signal, a space adventure. They share
[7:09] Speaker 2: the same director, as we'll get into. And this looks
[7:13] Speaker 2: like a very nice combo. I see people are very
[7:15] Speaker 2: pleased with this package. This version of it from Def
[7:18] Speaker 2: Crocodile is also streamable on the excellent Eternal Family app.
[7:22] Speaker 2: along with various other streaming applications also have it for rent.
[7:27] Speaker 2: And there are some older releases. There are some older streams.
[7:30] Speaker 2: But this one is definitely high quality. I think this
[7:33] Speaker 2: is definitely the one to seek out. The Def Crocodile
[7:37] Speaker 2: release looks absolutely great here. Now, be advised. Joe and
[7:44] Speaker 2: I had a time with this one. And this is
[7:47] Speaker 2: not the fault of the movie at all. I don't
[7:48] Speaker 2: know whose fault it is, if it's truly anybody's fault.
[7:52] Speaker 2: But in both of our streaming experiences via different sites,
[7:58] Speaker 2: we found that the English subtitles came by just really
[8:02] Speaker 2: fast and furious, especially in the latter portion of the picture,
[8:06] Speaker 2: making it at times hard to follow what people were saying.
[8:09] Speaker 2: And I myself had to keep going back sometimes to say, OK,
[8:12] Speaker 2: what did they just say? I've got to read that again.
[8:14] Speaker 3: I'd say for me, the main issue was it you're,
[8:17] Speaker 3: you're correct. They did kind of appear and disappear very quickly,
[8:20] Speaker 3: but even more than that was there was a long
[8:22] Speaker 3: delay between the character saying something on screen. And then
[8:27] Speaker 3: that text being represented in the subtitle, sometimes a delay,
[8:30] Speaker 3: it felt of like five to 10 seconds. So the
[8:33] Speaker 3: dialogue in the subtitles is like significantly lagging behind the movie.
[8:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. And then it's a very visual movie. So it's like,
[8:41] Speaker 2: If the subtitles are a little extra hard to read,
[8:43] Speaker 2: like I'm sorry, but there's also like interpretive dance happening
[8:47] Speaker 2: amid like a sculpture garden. There are people getting their
[8:49] Speaker 2: hairspray painted. There are visuals I need to take in
[8:53] Speaker 2: as well.
[8:54] Speaker 3: Yeah. So like you said, it's not the movie's fault
[8:56] Speaker 3: at all. But I don't know. Whoever has uploaded that, please,
[8:59] Speaker 3: please correct that because it's a great movie worth watching.
[9:02] Speaker 3: But that subtitle issue really did make it difficult.
[9:14] Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and get into the people
[9:16] Speaker 2: behind this film, starting at the top with Gottfried Kolditz,
[9:20] Speaker 2: director and writer, lived 1922 through 1982. German filmmaker who,
[9:26] Speaker 2: in East Germany, worked his entire career in the state-run
[9:30] Speaker 2: DEFA studio, D-E-F-A, established in Russian-occupied Germany in 1946 and
[9:36] Speaker 2: continued up until German reunification. Kolditz wrote and directed a
[9:42] Speaker 2: variety of genres, a number of films from fairy tale
[9:46] Speaker 2: films and red westerns to his notable science fiction films,
[9:51] Speaker 2: all these from 1956 through 1979.
[9:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, I was reading about at least two other sci-fi
[9:58] Speaker 3: movies he made that I was kind of interested in
[10:00] Speaker 3: checking out.
[10:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, one of them is Signals of Space Adventure. That's
[10:04] Speaker 2: the other film on the Death Crocodile two-disc set. And
[10:10] Speaker 2: that one also looks really, really cool. That one, I think,
[10:13] Speaker 2: has maybe more overt 2001 A Space Odyssey vibes to it,
[10:17] Speaker 2: but also some its own sort of funky twists as well.
[10:21] Speaker 2: And then there's at least one other non-space opera sci-fi film,
[10:26] Speaker 2: The Thing in the Castle, which was, I believe, his
[10:31] Speaker 2: final film. And this was his next-to-last film, so we're
[10:35] Speaker 2: reaching the end of his filmography with this particular picture.
[10:39] Speaker 2: As for the Red Westerns, this is not really a
[10:41] Speaker 2: subgenre I was familiar with, but these are Westerns set
[10:45] Speaker 2: in the American West, but made in the Eastern Bloc,
[10:50] Speaker 2: and typically entailing socialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist ideas. And, you know,
[10:55] Speaker 2: this makes sense. It's like, you know, Westerns from the
[10:58] Speaker 2: West were popular, you know, quality entertainment. Those were finding
[11:03] Speaker 2: their way in. And so there was an impulse and
[11:07] Speaker 2: a mandate even to produce this sort of content domestically
[11:11] Speaker 2: for the domestic audience.
[11:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, exploring the same genre tropes, but maybe with different
[11:17] Speaker 3: ideological content Yeah.
[11:19] Speaker 2: I've never seen one, but now I kind of want
[11:21] Speaker 2: to check one out. There's also, I'm reading, there's also
[11:25] Speaker 2: a distinction that is sometimes made between Red Westerns and
[11:28] Speaker 2: Austerns or Easterns. And sometimes the term is used interchangeably,
[11:33] Speaker 2: but these are generally influenced by Western styles, by Western pictures,
[11:39] Speaker 2: but set in Russia or some other Soviet state, generally during, say,
[11:43] Speaker 2: like the revolution or during the following civil war. But,
[11:46] Speaker 2: you know, very much a Western in terms of its
[11:48] Speaker 2: vibe and its style, but with a different and a
[11:52] Speaker 2: different time and place, which reminds me a little bit
[11:55] Speaker 2: of our discussions about Witchfinder General is essentially a Western.
[12:00] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, totally. Witchfinder General is a Western. I mean,
[12:03] Speaker 3: in almost every sense except the setting and, you know,
[12:06] Speaker 3: the feeling of the music, the chases on horseback, the
[12:10] Speaker 3: handheld gunplay, except it's, you know, matchlock pistols instead of
[12:13] Speaker 3: the revolvers. It's all there.
[12:14] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[12:16] Speaker 2: All right, so that's the director, and also he has
[12:19] Speaker 2: a writing credit. We also have Joachim Hellwig, who has
[12:22] Speaker 2: a dramatization credit of 1932 through 2014. German actor and director,
[12:27] Speaker 2: active from, I think, 59 through 1990. Not credited on
[12:31] Speaker 2: all the databases for this film. All right, now getting
[12:34] Speaker 2: into the cast here. Basically, I'm going to divide these up,
[12:38] Speaker 2: but we're going to get a little spoilery here. And again,
[12:41] Speaker 2: this is a film that's really, I think... rewarding to
[12:44] Speaker 2: go into cold. I went into it really not knowing
[12:46] Speaker 2: much about it other than some of what its visual
[12:49] Speaker 2: motifs were going to be. But yeah, discussing the cast here,
[12:54] Speaker 2: we're going to have some mild spoilers about what's going
[12:57] Speaker 2: to unfold in the plot. So we have a crew.
[13:02] Speaker 2: We have the crew of a spaceship. This is what,
[13:05] Speaker 2: the Sinro? Is that the name of the ship?
[13:08] Speaker 3: Quite confusingly, I think also the name of the planet
[13:12] Speaker 3: they come from.
[13:13] Speaker 2: Yeah. Confusing, but also simple. I don't have to, like,
[13:16] Speaker 2: I just have to remember one name. The Sinro crew
[13:19] Speaker 2: from Sinro.
[13:19] Speaker 3: That's right. These are the Sinro cosmonauts. Their ship is
[13:22] Speaker 3: called Sinro. I think their civilization or planet is Sinro.
[13:26] Speaker 3: Maybe the ship is called Sinro in the sense that
[13:29] Speaker 3: it's just like Sinro ship number 19. Yeah.
[13:33] Speaker 2: So starting at the top on the Sinro, we have Akala,
[13:38] Speaker 2: the commander.
[13:39] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[13:41] Speaker 2: The captain, if you will, the commander, Akala, female captain here,
[13:46] Speaker 2: played here by Jana Brekova. And she lived 1940 through 2026.
[13:50] Speaker 2: Czech film actress with a long career stretching from 1953
[13:55] Speaker 2: through 2009. We previously discussed her in our episode on
[14:00] Speaker 2: the 1978 Czech Beauty and the Beast film. I do
[14:04] Speaker 2: not remember this particular character offhand. This is the one
[14:06] Speaker 2: where the beast is essentially like a bird man. Um,
[14:10] Speaker 2: and it's very, very cool. A lot of very, um,
[14:14] Speaker 2: fetching Gothic vibes to the film, but she plays the
[14:18] Speaker 2: blonde stepsister in that.
[14:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[14:21] Speaker 2: Uh, but her filmography is full of interesting looking films,
[14:24] Speaker 2: including 1973 is Ms. Golem 1976 is I killed Einstein gentlemen.
[14:30] Speaker 2: She was also in 1957. Um, uh, let's see Stenata,
[14:34] Speaker 2: which was co-written by Milos Forman. who she was married
[14:38] Speaker 2: to from 58 through 62. Hmm.
[14:40] Speaker 3: Okay.
[14:41] Speaker 2: So, uh, a solid presence as our captain here. Um,
[14:44] Speaker 2: most of the crew is female in this. So in
[14:47] Speaker 2: many ways, the casting and the presentation here feels like very, um,
[14:52] Speaker 2: very ahead of its time, you know, certainly comparing it
[14:55] Speaker 2: to some of the other space films that were happening
[14:57] Speaker 2: at the same time.
[14:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. Um, the movie, uh, The
[15:02] Speaker 3: movie depicts our main crew of cosmonauts as generally just
[15:06] Speaker 3: like very cool about sex and gender. There's just assumed
[15:10] Speaker 3: basic gender equality and it doesn't really even seem to
[15:15] Speaker 3: be a point worth considering or talking about to them.
[15:18] Speaker 2: Yeah. The people that they encounter certainly have more of
[15:21] Speaker 2: a hedonist kind of vibe to them. Certainly the Cyrano
[15:26] Speaker 2: people seem to be very sex positive and there seems
[15:29] Speaker 2: to be a lot of gender equality there. And, but
[15:32] Speaker 2: it's not presented in a way that's like, like harped on,
[15:35] Speaker 2: you know, it's like, they don't really feel like they
[15:36] Speaker 2: need to, you know, hit it over the head too
[15:39] Speaker 2: many times.
[15:40] Speaker 3: It just feels like that is their culture. That's not
[15:42] Speaker 3: even something they think about anymore. And they're also, I
[15:45] Speaker 3: would add onto this, they're also just kind of like
[15:49] Speaker 3: casually polyamorous. Like it seems like the crew are just
[15:52] Speaker 3: having multiple relationships between each other. And this is not a,
[15:57] Speaker 3: a problem that anybody cares about. Yeah.
[15:59] Speaker 2: Or for the most part presented in a way that's
[16:01] Speaker 2: supposed to be, you know, scandalous or, or even titillating, um,
[16:04] Speaker 2: you know, outside of one sandwich we'll get to, but yeah. Um, but, uh,
[16:08] Speaker 2: but yeah, it's, it's, it's a very interesting presentation that
[16:11] Speaker 2: feels very, um, uh, grounded and, and mature and, uh,
[16:16] Speaker 2: in its own way.
[16:17] Speaker 3: Now, but I say that, I mean, that, that is
[16:20] Speaker 3: the Sinro crew within the crew that lots of like
[16:24] Speaker 3: weird uh sex and gender dynamics emerge once they interact
[16:28] Speaker 3: with the the teamian people.
[16:30] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah all right so more about the members of
[16:34] Speaker 2: the sin row here we also have the navigator zuko
[16:38] Speaker 2: and he is played by alfred struva who lived 1927
[16:42] Speaker 2: through 1998 a german actor who worked extensively on east
[16:46] Speaker 2: german tv and for uh defa he had a long
[16:51] Speaker 2: run on the east german tv series Zahn um Zahn,
[16:55] Speaker 2: or Tooth for a Tooth, which is apparently a series
[16:57] Speaker 2: about a dentist, and he plays the dentist. I was
[17:00] Speaker 2: trying to remember, is there a Western version of this?
[17:07] Speaker 2: I can't think of a single sitcom that was about
[17:09] Speaker 2: a dentist.
[17:11] Speaker 3: No, nothing's coming to mind.
[17:13] Speaker 2: We have horror movies about dentists, but I can't think
[17:15] Speaker 2: of a relatable presentation of a dentist, for the most part,
[17:20] Speaker 2: in Western or certainly American media. At any rate.
[17:25] Speaker 3: Unfortunately, when I think German dentist, I think of Marathon Man.
[17:29] Speaker 2: Exactly. That's what we're used to. Or it's like Corbin
[17:31] Speaker 2: Bernson as the dentist, right? Horror movie stuff. Or Little
[17:37] Speaker 2: Shop of Horrors, that sort of thing. So, yeah. Alfred
[17:41] Speaker 2: Struve playing Zuko here. This was his only science fiction role,
[17:45] Speaker 2: but I really loved him in this. He's great as this.
[17:48] Speaker 2: He's a calculating, skeptical navigator.
[17:50] Speaker 3: Very calm.
[17:52] Speaker 2: Very logical, but not devoid of passion either. I thought
[17:56] Speaker 2: he was a fine performance here.
[17:59] Speaker 3: Very sympathetic guy. I liked his presence a lot. He
[18:03] Speaker 3: looks in the face like a little slightly more weathered
[18:07] Speaker 3: Ray Liotta. I thought that a few times, but I
[18:10] Speaker 3: don't know. He has a calming, mature face. well-meaning energy,
[18:16] Speaker 3: despite the fact that he is the most skeptical and,
[18:20] Speaker 3: you might argue, distrustful of the crew members.
[18:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. All right, the next crew member, I'm not
[18:29] Speaker 2: sure what her actual role is on the picture, I mean,
[18:32] Speaker 2: on the ship, but..
[18:34] Speaker 3: I only know the role of the previous... Oh, no,
[18:36] Speaker 3: and the Doctor. The Doctor, yeah. The previous two and
[18:38] Speaker 3: the Doctor. What Mew, Thaub, and Rall do, I have
[18:41] Speaker 3: no idea.
[18:42] Speaker 2: Mew is played by Regina Heinste, born 1950, German actress
[18:47] Speaker 2: of stage and screen, mostly stage, though. Her TV and
[18:50] Speaker 2: film credits go from, like, 72 through 92, and this
[18:55] Speaker 2: is certainly the film that stands out, at least for,
[18:57] Speaker 2: you know, larger international audiences. Her character here, Mew, is
[19:02] Speaker 2: at times sort of a mesmerizing nymph who engages in
[19:06] Speaker 2: expressive nude modern dance numbers in immaculately lit spaceship rooms.
[19:12] Speaker 2: It'll It'll be interesting to discuss her sequences later. Other
[19:15] Speaker 2: times she's just a member of the crew, you know,
[19:18] Speaker 2: fully dressed and doing, you know, pushing buttons like they're
[19:21] Speaker 2: all doing aboard the spaceship.
[19:23] Speaker 3: I wondered if that dance number was supposed to be
[19:27] Speaker 3: a normal part of her personality or if that was
[19:30] Speaker 3: a lingering effect of the kind of disco brainwashing that
[19:34] Speaker 3: they get from the teamians.
[19:36] Speaker 2: I have some thoughts about this when we get to it,
[19:38] Speaker 2: but I think it is like a modern dance number.
[19:41] Speaker 2: sort of expression of where she is mentally at this moment.
[19:49] Speaker 2: like she's trying to express herself but she also has
[19:52] Speaker 2: this weird mental block that she can't get past yeah
[19:55] Speaker 2: um and this is she's not the only character that
[19:57] Speaker 2: will just spontaneously break out into dance in this sequence
[20:01] Speaker 2: sometimes there's dancing going on in the background but refreshingly
[20:04] Speaker 2: sometimes like main characters will just suddenly break into dance
[20:07] Speaker 2: and i love it But yes, Regina Heinze here, also
[20:10] Speaker 2: a painter, founded an independent theater company, and also directed
[20:14] Speaker 2: for the stage.
[20:15] Speaker 3: Cool.
[20:16] Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to Thob. Another great name.
[20:20] Speaker 3: Gotta love Thob. Not quite as much as Ronk, but
[20:23] Speaker 3: I mean.
[20:25] Speaker 2: Thob and Ronk, yeah. This is Thob. He's a member
[20:28] Speaker 2: of the crew here, and he is played by Leon Nemchik,
[20:33] Speaker 2: who lived 1923 through 2006 here. Polish actor with a
[20:37] Speaker 2: very long and distinguished career in Polish cinema and television
[20:40] Speaker 2: with some key international breakthrough roles, such as his lead
[20:44] Speaker 2: role in Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water from 67.
[20:48] Speaker 2: His other films include 59's Night Train, 83's She-Wolf, 85's O.B. Oba,
[20:54] Speaker 2: The End of Civilization, and David Lynch's Inland Empire in 2006,
[20:58] Speaker 2: right there at the very end.
[21:01] Speaker 3: Interesting.
[21:02] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Thob is a lot of fun because Thob
[21:05] Speaker 2: is initially, or at least in the early goings of
[21:08] Speaker 2: the film, presented like, oh, maybe he's going to be
[21:10] Speaker 2: the comic relief character. And he sort of is. He
[21:14] Speaker 2: gets a little more of the funny moments.
[21:18] Speaker 3: He gets to pull some faces when he sprays the
[21:21] Speaker 3: alien aerosol into his mouth.
[21:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He gets those moments. But he's also ultimately
[21:26] Speaker 2: presented as a balanced and serious character. There's no real
[21:29] Speaker 2: true comic relief character. There's no Droppo in this film.
[21:33] Speaker 3: He also has comedic horniness at the alien party, but he, uh,
[21:37] Speaker 3: but yeah, ultimately he, he, he's pretty useful in the end. Yeah.
[21:41] Speaker 2: Uh, let's see, we have, um, Illich, the ship's doctor
[21:44] Speaker 2: played by Sylvia Popovici, who lived 1933 through 1993, Romanian actress,
[21:51] Speaker 2: who other, her other films include 65's Forest of the
[21:54] Speaker 2: Hanged and 74's Fleeting Loves. And then we also have
[21:58] Speaker 2: the crew member Raul played by Violetta Andrea, And she
[22:03] Speaker 2: was born 1941 Romanian actress who we have previously mentioned
[22:07] Speaker 2: on the show because she was in the Romanian Soviet
[22:11] Speaker 2: French 1976 co-production rock and roll wolf. Whoa. AKA mama.
[22:17] Speaker 2: She played the swallow.
[22:19] Speaker 3: Okay. One of the more minor roles there, but yeah,
[22:21] Speaker 3: but still, yeah. Uh, Did I tell you that we're
[22:26] Speaker 3: still listening to Rock and Roll Wolf in our house? Actually,
[22:29] Speaker 3: my daughter just, there had been a long lull where
[22:31] Speaker 3: I think it kind of went out of her brain.
[22:33] Speaker 3: And about a week or two ago, she was like,
[22:36] Speaker 3: I want to listen to Rock and Roll Wolf. She
[22:38] Speaker 3: remembered it, retrieved it from the void. And we were like, okay.
[22:42] Speaker 3: And it's been like every day since then.
[22:44] Speaker 2: Audio only? Or do you like view it as well? Audio.
[22:47] Speaker 3: I mean, we're like basically streaming the whole movie, but
[22:50] Speaker 3: just listening to it on audio.
[22:52] Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. Y'all have like the number one rock and
[22:55] Speaker 2: roll wolf, um, fandom household, uh, in America. I love it.
[23:00] Speaker 3: She does love to say which characters everybody is like, uh,
[23:04] Speaker 3: your mama Rada. No, you're the donkey. No, you're no,
[23:07] Speaker 3: you're TT Suru, but nice. You ever, you ever hear this? Uh,
[23:12] Speaker 3: this is the thing that, uh, my child does. She,
[23:14] Speaker 3: she likes to say you're the villain of this movie
[23:17] Speaker 3: that I like, but nice.
[23:20] Speaker 2: Oh, that's wonderful. Does she have any thoughts about the swallow?
[23:24] Speaker 3: Swallow doesn't come up a lot.
[23:25] Speaker 2: Okay. All right. Minor character, like you said. All right.
[23:29] Speaker 2: So that's the crew of the Sin Row. That's the
[23:32] Speaker 2: full crew. And there are a lot more Temians to discuss,
[23:36] Speaker 2: but I'm just going to highlight two key Temian characters.
[23:39] Speaker 2: They're the main ones who we encounter. They're the main
[23:41] Speaker 2: antagonists of the film. The first one we encounter is Ronk.
[23:45] Speaker 2: We referenced this name already. And Ronk is played by
[23:49] Speaker 2: Milan Belli, who lived 1931 through 2019. A Serbian actor
[23:54] Speaker 2: who also appeared in some Red Westerns. He's in The
[23:57] Speaker 2: Thing in the Castle, as well as the 1973 Nazi-ploitation
[24:02] Speaker 2: film She-Devils of the SS, which I believe is like
[24:06] Speaker 2: a German production. A lot of those are like Italian
[24:09] Speaker 2: productions or Spanish productions, I think, but this one is
[24:11] Speaker 2: actually like a German production. Anyway, those are some of
[24:14] Speaker 2: the other films he was in. Ronk is a lot
[24:18] Speaker 2: of fun. I can't wait to talk about some of
[24:19] Speaker 2: these Ronk scenes.
[24:21] Speaker 3: He's a good nasty villain here. Uh, so much depends
[24:24] Speaker 3: upon a man named Ronk.
[24:27] Speaker 2: And then we also have this character that is, uh,
[24:31] Speaker 2: what the chief or the boss, um, depending on whether
[24:34] Speaker 2: you're listening or reading the subtitles. And he is, he's, he's,
[24:39] Speaker 2: he's essentially like our, um, our capitalist strong man, but
[24:43] Speaker 2: also a, a whimsical and fabulously over the top hedonist. Uh,
[24:47] Speaker 2: he's kind of like the, the, the teamian, um, the
[24:51] Speaker 2: local Temian emperor in a way.
[24:53] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[24:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[24:54] Speaker 3: We see him in a constant state of hyper stimulation
[24:59] Speaker 3: of the senses. It's like, he can't come to, he's like,
[25:02] Speaker 3: it's like the movie crank, you know, except he's just
[25:05] Speaker 3: gotta be constantly imbibing like weird art or sexual stimulation
[25:10] Speaker 3: or loud, strange music or all of the above.
[25:13] Speaker 2: Yeah. Or a synthesizer that makes people dance in the
[25:16] Speaker 2: next room for you. That sort of thing. Oh yeah.
[25:19] Speaker 2: So much weird stuff. So this character, who we're going
[25:22] Speaker 2: to have a lot of fun discussing, is played by
[25:24] Speaker 2: Eckhard Schall, who lived 1930 through 2005, German actor and
[25:31] Speaker 2: director of stage and screen, often associated with the work
[25:35] Speaker 2: of German playwright Bertolt Brecht. And he was married to
[25:40] Speaker 2: Brecht's daughter, so they actually had a family connection. His
[25:44] Speaker 2: other films include 61's Mother Courage and Her Children and
[25:47] Speaker 2: 72's Despite It All. This was his only sci-fi film.
[25:52] Speaker 2: I mean, I guess maybe there were just only so
[25:54] Speaker 2: many sci-fi films being made in the system at the time. But,
[25:59] Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like a missed opportunity. I wanted
[26:02] Speaker 2: to see this guy play other sci-fi and certainly horror
[26:06] Speaker 2: and other speculative sort of roles. But as far as
[26:08] Speaker 2: I know, this is the only one. It's mostly more
[26:11] Speaker 2: historical stuff and dramas and so forth.
[26:13] Speaker 3: I love this guy. He can really kiss a snake.
[26:16] Speaker 2: So, God, so much snake kissing. And great costumes. This
[26:20] Speaker 2: guy gets great costumes and gets to do a little
[26:23] Speaker 2: bit of his own modern interpretive dance. And speaking of
[26:27] Speaker 2: those costumes, I do want to just go ahead and
[26:29] Speaker 2: mention the name of the costume designer. I don't have
[26:32] Speaker 2: anything really deep to share about them. I think this
[26:35] Speaker 2: is also their only sci-fi or fantasy film. But it's
[26:38] Speaker 2: the sort of film where you really get the impression, man,
[26:41] Speaker 2: the costume designer got to really cut loose here. They
[26:43] Speaker 2: got to design a bunch of just... What do people
[26:47] Speaker 2: in a space opera... Where to a wild party. Imagine
[26:53] Speaker 2: getting that assignment after just doing a bunch of historical
[26:56] Speaker 2: epics and maybe some red westerns. But the costume designer,
[27:00] Speaker 2: I was going to say their name, Catherine Johnson. Again,
[27:03] Speaker 2: I think this is their only sci-fi film. And then, oh,
[27:07] Speaker 2: the composer. This is going to be fun to mention
[27:10] Speaker 2: as well. Because this film has a great score and
[27:13] Speaker 2: a great theme song that plays at the beginning and
[27:15] Speaker 2: the end. And the composer here is Karl Ernst Sasa,
[27:19] Speaker 2: who lived 1923 through 2006. German composer whose work composed
[27:24] Speaker 2: more than 500 film soundtracks for DEFA and also composed
[27:28] Speaker 2: new scores in the 60s and 70s for various silent films.
[27:34] Speaker 2: This included 1921's The Golem. His background was in traditional
[27:39] Speaker 2: orchestral arrangements, but he turned to electronic sounds in like
[27:44] Speaker 2: the 50s, 60s and 70s. Wendifa wanted their own electronic
[27:48] Speaker 2: scores to compete with the sounds that were emerging in
[27:51] Speaker 2: various avant-garde Western German films. So they're like, the enemy
[27:56] Speaker 2: is using synth technology. We must utilize our own synth technology.
[28:01] Speaker 2: And so there's actually an interesting story here because this
[28:03] Speaker 2: is exactly what ends up happening. So he ends up
[28:08] Speaker 2: using what was essentially like the Eastern Bloc answer to
[28:13] Speaker 2: some of the Western German synth technology. The Eastern Block Subchord,
[28:19] Speaker 2: I believe it is pronounced, that's S-U-B-H-A-R-C-H-O-R-D, developed in East
[28:25] Speaker 2: Germany during the 1950s. And very few of these still exist.
[28:30] Speaker 2: And I don't think very many were made at all.
[28:32] Speaker 2: I've seen something like, I've seen estimates of like seven
[28:34] Speaker 2: to nine of these were made, something like that.
[28:37] Speaker 1: Wow.
[28:38] Speaker 3: So it was like the Eastern block answer to the
[28:40] Speaker 3: mini Moog.
[28:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, essentially included a couple of images here, including one
[28:44] Speaker 2: with a human being. So you can see how big
[28:46] Speaker 2: the thing was.
[28:47] Speaker 3: Um, well maybe not so many.
[28:48] Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty big. Uh, you know, very,
[28:53] Speaker 2: it looks very space age in its own right. This
[28:55] Speaker 2: could have been included on set, uh, on the spaceship
[28:58] Speaker 2: in this movie and it would have looked perfectly fine. Um, I, uh,
[29:04] Speaker 2: So this is the instrument. This is the technology that
[29:07] Speaker 2: he used to create this score or to create portions
[29:10] Speaker 2: of this score. And one of the reasons that apparently
[29:14] Speaker 2: is that you don't find many of these left in
[29:16] Speaker 2: the world and so few were produced is I was
[29:19] Speaker 2: reading about this in an article on the website for
[29:22] Speaker 2: the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology. And they shared
[29:25] Speaker 2: that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev condemned electronic music as a
[29:30] Speaker 2: cacophony that was incompatible with socialism. And so that led
[29:35] Speaker 2: to people saying, all right, well, we can't make any
[29:37] Speaker 2: more of these. These are incompatible with social media. but
[29:41] Speaker 2: it creates a very unique soundscape for this film. And
[29:45] Speaker 2: I just continually found the musical score, just, just fascinating.
[29:51] Speaker 2: You know, sometimes it's directly involved. Like when our, our,
[29:55] Speaker 2: our strong man here, the boss, the chief is, playing
[29:59] Speaker 2: some sort of synth that makes people dance. It's made
[30:02] Speaker 2: out of Christmas lights.
[30:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[30:04] Speaker 2: And then we get some cool sort of space-age sound
[30:07] Speaker 2: effects that I'm assuming may have originated with the same technology.
[30:11] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[30:12] Speaker 2: And then we have a haunting vocal theme song as well,
[30:16] Speaker 2: but I couldn't find out much about this. I don't
[30:17] Speaker 2: know who's singing it. I'm assuming the same composer is credited, though.
[30:29] Speaker 3: Okay, are you ready to talk about the plot?
[30:32] Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's get into In the Dust of
[30:35] Speaker 2: the Stars.
[30:36] Speaker 3: So today we're not going to do as granular a
[30:40] Speaker 3: recap as we sometimes do. That makes more sense with
[30:43] Speaker 3: some movies than others. I think instead today we'll kind
[30:46] Speaker 3: of switch between summarizing and then discussing individual elements.
[30:50] Speaker 2: You think we'd get granular since it is dust.
[30:53] Speaker 3: Dust of the Stars.
[30:54] Speaker 2: Yes.
[30:54] Speaker 3: Well, you know, there are some scenes in this that
[30:57] Speaker 3: are just technobabble while they're piloting a spaceship and stuff,
[31:00] Speaker 3: so that makes less sense. But the general setup for
[31:05] Speaker 3: the story goes like this. Our heroes are a group
[31:08] Speaker 3: of cosmonauts. They're identified as the Sinro crew. Again, Sinro
[31:12] Speaker 3: is used as the name of the civilization they come from,
[31:15] Speaker 3: I guess the planet they come from, but also the
[31:16] Speaker 3: name of the ship that they're on. And then the
[31:20] Speaker 3: crew includes Akala, the commander, I would say the crew,
[31:26] Speaker 3: even though they have a commander, it does not feel
[31:28] Speaker 3: strongly hierarchical. There sometimes seems to, it feels like it
[31:33] Speaker 3: operates through democratic consensus, sort of.
[31:36] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[31:37] Speaker 3: And then there's also Zuko, the Navigator. These are the
[31:41] Speaker 3: two most important characters in the crew, I would say,
[31:43] Speaker 3: but the others are Rall, Thob, Illik, and Mew. And
[31:47] Speaker 3: I think Illik is the doctor. The other three don't
[31:50] Speaker 3: know what they do. As I mentioned earlier, the dynamics
[31:53] Speaker 3: of the crew are interesting. They treat each other basically
[31:57] Speaker 3: with professionalism, but they're also just kind of openly polyamorous
[32:01] Speaker 3: with each other. Unless I was missing something, it seemed
[32:05] Speaker 3: that at least Zuko and Akala and Mew simultaneously were
[32:12] Speaker 3: in relationships with each other. And this seemed to be
[32:14] Speaker 3: understood by everybody and not a big deal.
[32:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, or possibly another way of looking at it is, like,
[32:21] Speaker 2: Zuko and Akula seem to have a relationship, but then
[32:24] Speaker 2: there's a scene where Mew has just come out of
[32:26] Speaker 2: the shower and is, you know, prancing around in, like,
[32:30] Speaker 2: just some sort of a spaceship towel. And this is
[32:33] Speaker 2: not presented in a way that, like, she's gozering or anything. Like,
[32:36] Speaker 2: she's acting out of sorts. Like, this is just how
[32:38] Speaker 2: Mew behaves, and there's nothing scandalous about this.
[32:43] Speaker 3: And she kisses Zuko on the mouth like that's normal. Yeah. Yeah. Like, just, yeah, whatever.
[32:48] Speaker 3: It's every day. So anyway, that's our crew. At the
[32:51] Speaker 3: beginning of the film, the cosmonauts have been dispatched to
[32:53] Speaker 3: the planet Tem 4, T-E-M 4, to investigate a radio
[32:59] Speaker 3: distress call that they received. But when they arrive at
[33:03] Speaker 3: the planet, they are forced into a crash landing by
[33:06] Speaker 3: some kind of electromagnetic interference. And Akala, the commander, saves
[33:11] Speaker 3: the ship from disaster by taking manual control.
[33:14] Speaker 2: And during all these early sequences, I think Kraftwerk fans
[33:18] Speaker 2: especially will love this because we get a lot of
[33:20] Speaker 2: synth sounds and we also get a lot of counting
[33:23] Speaker 2: in German from the computer and the computer voice. And
[33:26] Speaker 2: like this alone had me hooked.
[33:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, robotic German voice saying numbers. And then also on screen,
[33:33] Speaker 3: there are these printers that are constantly printing out feeds
[33:37] Speaker 3: of paper, just a continuous stream of tear off paper
[33:40] Speaker 3: that it doesn't look like there's anything on it. It's
[33:43] Speaker 3: just like constantly rolling out. And I was like, man,
[33:46] Speaker 3: is it doing that the whole, like, six-year journey or
[33:49] Speaker 3: whatever that they're on a spaceship?
[33:51] Speaker 2: I mean, this is a movie. It's clear they did
[33:53] Speaker 2: not have all the money in the world. But I
[33:56] Speaker 2: did really like the sets, especially the spaceship set, which is,
[34:00] Speaker 2: you know, has these sort of chairs that, I don't know,
[34:03] Speaker 2: you could easily compare to, like, a dental chair, I guess,
[34:06] Speaker 2: but didn't look, I don't know, I don't know what
[34:08] Speaker 2: an East German dental chair in the 1970s looked like exactly.
[34:11] Speaker 2: So maybe this is exactly it, but it felt a
[34:14] Speaker 2: little bit different to me. So I totally bought that
[34:17] Speaker 2: these are just spaceship chairs and, you know, whatever kind
[34:20] Speaker 2: of like keyboard technology they have in front of them
[34:22] Speaker 2: also felt nice and analog. It just felt, and it
[34:25] Speaker 2: felt very comfy.
[34:27] Speaker 3: You know, I think the movie looked good. It didn't
[34:28] Speaker 3: look to me like it was done on the cheap.
[34:30] Speaker 3: It looked like a, you know, a well-realized science fiction set. Yeah.
[34:34] Speaker 2: I would say in some of the, when we get
[34:36] Speaker 2: into the teenian sets, you know, you can, you can
[34:39] Speaker 2: see the wood grain a bit and you can, you know, there's,
[34:42] Speaker 2: there's no denying like how these, sets were built. But
[34:46] Speaker 2: they're also so lovingly made. They do completely suck you
[34:50] Speaker 2: into the setting.
[34:51] Speaker 3: There was one funny thing. I know this isn't a
[34:54] Speaker 3: budget or production design issue, but there was one little
[34:57] Speaker 3: technical goof I caught. Remember when they're wheeling out the
[35:02] Speaker 3: electric chair, the brain electric chair torture scene?
[35:04] Speaker 2: Yes, the torture scene.
[35:05] Speaker 3: And so the chair, like, comes out of this thing
[35:08] Speaker 3: in the wall. But if you look, you can see somebody, like,
[35:10] Speaker 3: pushing it out with a stick and then pulling the
[35:13] Speaker 3: stick back to make it scoot. Yeah.
[35:15] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we do learn some things about how
[35:19] Speaker 2: labor works. If I was being very generous, I might say, well,
[35:23] Speaker 2: there's somebody, an enslaved person is back there pushing over
[35:28] Speaker 2: the stick.
[35:29] Speaker 3: So unbeknownst to the crew of the CINRO, when the
[35:34] Speaker 3: radio interference begins as they approach the planet, we get
[35:39] Speaker 3: to see operators working in some kind of underground control room.
[35:42] Speaker 3: And they are deliberately, we realize, sabotaging the visiting spacecraft.
[35:47] Speaker 3: They're doing this on the command of a bearded wolfish
[35:50] Speaker 3: man in a silver and blue uniform. This is going
[35:53] Speaker 3: to be Ronk.
[35:53] Speaker 2: Ronk.
[35:56] Speaker 3: So once on the ground, the cosmonauts are greeted by
[35:59] Speaker 3: the inhabitants of the planet, the Temians, who send a
[36:02] Speaker 3: vehicle and a servant to welcome them. Maybe we should
[36:05] Speaker 3: do a brief aside to talk about the vehicles. The
[36:08] Speaker 3: Sinro spacecraft is interesting. It's not very unusual in terms
[36:13] Speaker 3: of its general design. It's a long cylindrical ship tapered
[36:17] Speaker 3: to a point like a traditional rocket, but it has
[36:20] Speaker 3: a couple of elements that make it feel unusual. It's
[36:23] Speaker 3: kind of like a clockwork automaton. It has these continuously
[36:28] Speaker 3: rotating greebles whirring around its circumference. And this just gives
[36:33] Speaker 3: it a strangely pre-modern feel.
[36:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And almost at times it felt like
[36:40] Speaker 2: a church steeple, you know. Yeah. It's a cool vibe.
[36:44] Speaker 3: Also, in a minute, we're going to see a Temian
[36:48] Speaker 3: surface vehicle with wheels, which I think is just a
[36:51] Speaker 3: garbage truck or maybe a dump truck with plywood sci-fi
[36:55] Speaker 3: shell built around it. And this can be a great solution.
[36:58] Speaker 3: If you're trying to make a sci-fi vehicle, just take
[37:00] Speaker 3: a truck and build some stuff on the outside.
[37:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, and for me, and again, I am not the
[37:05] Speaker 2: intended audience, but separated somewhat via time and space, I don't,
[37:11] Speaker 2: I'm not recognizing whatever like East German or Romanian utility
[37:15] Speaker 2: vehicle is underneath, um, like the, the plywood. Uh, so
[37:21] Speaker 2: it just looks convincingly alien to me.
[37:24] Speaker 3: Yeah. So the CINRO lands, the cosmonauts disembark and they're
[37:27] Speaker 3: wearing these yellow EVA suits with bulky red helmets and
[37:31] Speaker 3: face plates. They immediately remove just like yoink that off YOLO,
[37:36] Speaker 3: some gulps of the atmosphere.
[37:37] Speaker 2: They tested it. They, they, they know it's good.
[37:39] Speaker 3: Works fine. Uh, now I wanted to also mention the
[37:43] Speaker 3: landscape used for this part of the film. It, I
[37:46] Speaker 3: like it a lot. It's this weird chaotic terrain of
[37:49] Speaker 3: hardened soil. And then these eroded dry channels looks like
[37:55] Speaker 3: a place where like a hundred streams once flowed in
[37:58] Speaker 3: parallel and now everything is dry. Uh, I'm not positive,
[38:03] Speaker 3: but based on, I was digging around, I found a
[38:04] Speaker 3: couple of blog posts talking about the movie. And based
[38:07] Speaker 3: on that, I think maybe this was shot in Romania,
[38:11] Speaker 3: possibly at the Berca Mud Volcanoes, B-E-R-C-A Mud Volcanoes. And
[38:16] Speaker 3: I looked that up and saw some shots of landscape
[38:19] Speaker 3: that looked a lot like this.
[38:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're correct on this. And I was
[38:23] Speaker 2: looking around for other films that might have taken advantage
[38:26] Speaker 2: of this location. And one of them is actually another
[38:29] Speaker 2: picture on my list of potential Weird House Cinema selections.
[38:34] Speaker 2: A full moon movie from 1994 called Dark Angel the Ascent. Oh, yeah.
[38:39] Speaker 2: It's like a fallen angel fantasy comedy. And I didn't
[38:42] Speaker 2: have time to really peek around in that picture and
[38:45] Speaker 2: see what and where they might have filmed in Berka.
[38:49] Speaker 2: But maybe they used it for some of the hell
[38:53] Speaker 2: scenes there because it is a very apocalyptic, alien-feeling landscape.
[38:58] Speaker 3: Yeah. So only one crew member stays behind on the
[39:04] Speaker 3: ship while the others go out to meet the Temians.
[39:06] Speaker 3: That's Zuko, the navigator. There's a brief conversation between Zuko
[39:10] Speaker 3: and Akala, the commander. Zuko tells, I'm sorry, I keep
[39:15] Speaker 3: saying their names differently. It's Zuko and Akala is what
[39:17] Speaker 3: I'm going to try to say. Zuko tells Akala to
[39:20] Speaker 3: be careful. And she says, what you mean is be mistrustful.
[39:25] Speaker 3: We could read this as a personality difference, but You know,
[39:29] Speaker 3: I kind of interpret it as differences in how these
[39:31] Speaker 3: characters express duty they're very job oriented you know they're
[39:35] Speaker 3: trying to do a good job i think akala feels
[39:38] Speaker 3: that it is the duty of the cosmonauts to be
[39:41] Speaker 3: diplomatic with alien peoples and that includes coming open-handed assuming
[39:45] Speaker 3: friendliness that kind of thing whereas Zuko feels a duty
[39:51] Speaker 3: to be involved in protecting the crew and keeping options open.
[39:54] Speaker 3: And he actually cites the regulation handbook to justify his
[39:58] Speaker 3: decision to remain on board the ship. Apparently one crew
[40:01] Speaker 3: member is supposed to stay behind when a party leaves
[40:04] Speaker 3: for safety. This is very Star Trek style, citing the
[40:07] Speaker 3: code like this. So all of the crew, except for Zuko,
[40:12] Speaker 3: go down to the surface to meet the teamie in
[40:14] Speaker 3: Welcome Wagon. They are greeted by a single woman alone
[40:18] Speaker 3: who seems kind of serious, even a little bit sad.
[40:21] Speaker 3: Is this the character named Chita?
[40:23] Speaker 2: I believe so. Yeah. And she's she's wearing. I know
[40:29] Speaker 2: her mode of dress feels less spacey, less space opera.
[40:33] Speaker 2: And I don't know, we're maybe supposed to already infer
[40:39] Speaker 2: this is some sort of like indigenous mode of dress. Um, she's, uh,
[40:43] Speaker 2: you know, an indigenous member of the local, of the
[40:46] Speaker 2: local planetary population.
[40:47] Speaker 3: Though at first we're not given any indication that that
[40:51] Speaker 3: would be anything other than Temian.
[40:53] Speaker 2: Right.
[40:53] Speaker 3: Like this is just the Temian planet, right? Yeah.
[40:56] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[40:56] Speaker 2: There are more revelations ahead regarding like who's Temian and
[41:00] Speaker 2: what does it mean to be Temian?
[41:01] Speaker 3: Yeah. So she leads them into the buggy and they're
[41:04] Speaker 3: taken to an underground base to meet the Temian leader,
[41:07] Speaker 3: or at least though they think this will turn out
[41:09] Speaker 3: to be the second in command. But this is the
[41:11] Speaker 3: bearded fellow named Ronk. And again, the audience is going
[41:15] Speaker 3: to recognize this was the guy commanding the sabotage of
[41:18] Speaker 3: the Sinro that caused the crash landing. But the cosmonauts
[41:21] Speaker 3: are oblivious to that. Some interesting things about the scene
[41:25] Speaker 3: where they meet. I don't know if it's supposed to
[41:28] Speaker 3: read this way. But to me, this place instantly screams
[41:32] Speaker 3: Bond villain. It's a Bond villain lair.
[41:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, big soundstage feel.
[41:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels underground, extravagant, no windows, vaulted ceilings, long
[41:42] Speaker 3: hallways with sliding doors, gold everywhere, creepy art. It reminds
[41:47] Speaker 3: me of the base in Dr.
[41:48] Speaker 2: No. Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
[41:51] Speaker 3: They come across an artistic flourish that's a little ominous.
[41:55] Speaker 3: There are decorative hanged men wearing Abstract suggestions of human
[42:01] Speaker 3: bodies carved in rock hanging from the ceiling from cords
[42:06] Speaker 3: suspended by the neck.
[42:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does give us a moment of concern here.
[42:14] Speaker 2: And I was kind of wondering at this point, it's like,
[42:17] Speaker 2: what is it? Is it just art or are these
[42:21] Speaker 2: like alien beings? We don't know yet. We just got here.
[42:24] Speaker 2: But I guess it's just art.
[42:25] Speaker 3: I mean, I think it is just art, though. Ultimately,
[42:28] Speaker 3: I think it may go to, we may understand it
[42:32] Speaker 3: differently later when we look back on it and see, oh,
[42:35] Speaker 3: it's part of an aesthetic culture here that prizes domination.
[42:41] Speaker 3: So anyway, we're about to get some emergency furniture. When
[42:45] Speaker 3: the cosmonauts arrive, a squad of uniformed Temian men salute
[42:48] Speaker 3: them hello. And then Ronk comes into the room. And
[42:51] Speaker 3: then a group of women servants wheel in a fancy
[42:55] Speaker 3: chaise longue. How do you say that? I think I'm
[43:00] Speaker 3: saying it right. They bring in the chaise longue and
[43:05] Speaker 3: he promptly spreads himself out on it like Austin Powers.
[43:10] Speaker 3: The pose is hilarious. He's propped up on one elbow like, well, hello.
[43:16] Speaker 2: I giggled both times I watched this scene.
[43:18] Speaker 3: Yeah. And then the Temian servants scoot in more furniture
[43:22] Speaker 3: and we're kind of disco chase long, long get longs. Man,
[43:28] Speaker 3: that word, that word's killing me. Disco chase longs for,
[43:31] Speaker 3: for each cosmonaut. They all sit down awkwardly. Thob keeps
[43:35] Speaker 3: like sliding all the way down the curve on his
[43:37] Speaker 3: until he was supine. Yeah.
[43:39] Speaker 2: This is the scene where you begin to suspect that
[43:41] Speaker 2: maybe Thob is just going to be here for comic relief.
[43:44] Speaker 3: And finally, they are offered mouth spray. This is a
[43:48] Speaker 3: recurring theme. It's a part of Temian hospitality and party culture.
[43:53] Speaker 3: You get these differently colored and differently flavored bottles of
[43:56] Speaker 3: aerosol spray that you squirt into your mouth. And so
[44:00] Speaker 3: Ronk hands them out and they just take them. They
[44:02] Speaker 3: just take them and go, okay, gonna give them a squirt.
[44:05] Speaker 3: Ronk explains that blue is sweet, red is a little spicy.
[44:10] Speaker 3: I honestly didn't know for sure by the end of
[44:13] Speaker 3: the movie. Is this more in the food and drink category,
[44:17] Speaker 3: or is this kind of a drug? Is this like a,
[44:19] Speaker 3: you know, comparable to a tobacco product or something? I
[44:22] Speaker 3: really couldn't tell. Yeah.
[44:24] Speaker 2: I went back and forth on this because yeah, everybody's
[44:26] Speaker 2: huffing this stuff. And at first I thought it was
[44:29] Speaker 2: at least a purely recreational thing, you know, drug or not,
[44:32] Speaker 2: you know, maybe it's like a quick flavor blast and
[44:34] Speaker 2: it's just part of their culture of meeting people like here,
[44:36] Speaker 2: have some, have some mouth sprays. Um, later we do
[44:40] Speaker 2: see more examples of actual traditional food. Um, But these
[44:45] Speaker 2: also seem equally recreational, like they're pastries, you know, and
[44:49] Speaker 2: special sweets and all. That made me think, well, maybe
[44:52] Speaker 2: these sprays are both a recreational thing and their primary
[44:57] Speaker 2: nutrient source. In the same way that you see these
[44:59] Speaker 2: various sci-fi pictures from the era, like, well, very much
[45:04] Speaker 2: like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, where the Martians have
[45:08] Speaker 2: pills for all their meals. It's like, here are your
[45:10] Speaker 2: food pills, and that's just how you eat in the future.
[45:12] Speaker 2: That's how you eat in space. So maybe the food spray,
[45:16] Speaker 2: these are food sprays. Maybe that's exactly what it is.
[45:19] Speaker 2: Sounds great.
[45:20] Speaker 3: I'd love to replace food with pills.
[45:25] Speaker 2: But yeah, our newcomers, they just kind of like, they
[45:29] Speaker 2: try them out. But after a while, they're totally on
[45:31] Speaker 2: board with the technology.
[45:34] Speaker 3: So anyway, yeah, they get down to business. I mean,
[45:36] Speaker 3: they squirt. A good bit in their mouths for a
[45:38] Speaker 3: while here. They get down to business. Akala explains why
[45:42] Speaker 3: they've come, and Ronk somewhat glibly tells them that the
[45:46] Speaker 3: distress call was just a mistake and the Temians have
[45:49] Speaker 3: no need for assistance.
[45:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he later expands on this and says, like, oh,
[45:54] Speaker 2: you know, we had just installed a new system and
[45:56] Speaker 2: we tested it out.
[45:58] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[45:59] Speaker 2: And yeah, so just disregard that. That cry for help
[46:01] Speaker 2: was just a test. Don't worry about it.
[46:03] Speaker 3: The test says, help us please. Yes. Instead of this
[46:06] Speaker 3: is a test.
[46:07] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:08] Speaker 3: Uh, so Thob responds that they they've really come a
[46:11] Speaker 3: long way for such a short answer, which prompts much
[46:14] Speaker 3: laughter from the team. He ends like, yeah, Dusty's good. Um, but, uh, anyway,
[46:21] Speaker 3: Akala seems a little annoyed, but she says in that case, okay,
[46:23] Speaker 3: they're going to leave and they do. So the cosmonauts
[46:26] Speaker 3: head back to the ship. So it seems like this
[46:27] Speaker 3: could all wrap up pretty quick.
[46:29] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[46:29] Speaker 3: Uneventful. Meanwhile, We see armed Temian soldiers watching on from
[46:35] Speaker 3: behind a drawn gate. They are dressed in these orange
[46:39] Speaker 3: jumpsuits with bizarre three lobed helmets. Look like some kind
[46:43] Speaker 3: of marine gonads or something. These weird helmets. And they're like,
[46:48] Speaker 3: why did the boss let him go? You know, shouldn't
[46:50] Speaker 3: we be vaporizing them? Well, maybe Ronk is planning to
[46:54] Speaker 3: snipe the cosmonauts on their way out. But whatever plans
[46:57] Speaker 3: he had, we never get to find out what they
[46:59] Speaker 3: were because Ronk gets his boss on the radio. And
[47:04] Speaker 3: his boss, somebody we haven't met yet, tells him there
[47:07] Speaker 3: is no violence allowed. They need to flatter the cosmonauts
[47:11] Speaker 3: into leaving. And they're going to have to invite them
[47:14] Speaker 3: to a big midnight party and show them a good time. Now, initially,
[47:18] Speaker 3: this part I did not really understand because it was like,
[47:20] Speaker 3: the cosmonauts are about to leave. They're about to leave anyway,
[47:23] Speaker 3: so why do you need to further convince them to leave?
[47:26] Speaker 3: I think maybe the party is going to be necessary
[47:29] Speaker 3: for a little ultrasound brainwashing to clean up the situation
[47:34] Speaker 3: a bit.
[47:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think they realize that Akala is suspicious.
[47:38] Speaker 2: And even though she says they're going to leave, I
[47:40] Speaker 2: think she's already mentioned, well, it's going to take us
[47:42] Speaker 2: a couple of days to get the ship ready to
[47:44] Speaker 2: take off again. And they know that there's she's going
[47:47] Speaker 2: to poke around. She's going to maybe go somewhere she
[47:49] Speaker 2: shouldn't go, see some things she shouldn't see. And therefore,
[47:52] Speaker 2: we need to do more than just tell them they
[47:55] Speaker 2: need to leave. We need to make sure that they
[47:58] Speaker 2: forget about their suspicions entirely.
[48:01] Speaker 3: Also, we later discovered that the Temians are very anxious
[48:06] Speaker 3: about the idea that the Sinro crew has been conducting
[48:10] Speaker 3: reconnaissance they're very concerned about like aerial photographs and all
[48:14] Speaker 3: that yeah uh and so like there's even an interrogation
[48:17] Speaker 3: scene about that later so they could be trying to
[48:20] Speaker 3: to preempt anything like that happening yeah Anyway, uh, so
[48:33] Speaker 3: Ronk invites the crew of the ship to return in
[48:36] Speaker 3: the evening for a Temian party where there's going to
[48:39] Speaker 3: be food and drink, drugs, dancing, debauchery. Uh, Kata comes
[48:44] Speaker 3: to their spaceship with a big key ring and each member,
[48:47] Speaker 3: each crew member gets this kind of penis shaped key
[48:49] Speaker 3: as an invitation to the party.
[48:51] Speaker 2: Or it's a T for Temian. It's just the style. Oh,
[48:54] Speaker 2: that's the other possibility.
[48:55] Speaker 3: Maybe my brain is in the gutter, but again, I
[48:57] Speaker 3: think it thematically makes sense.
[48:59] Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah.
[49:00] Speaker 3: Um, So the crew accepts the invitation and all of
[49:05] Speaker 3: them go to the party, except for, again, the navigator Zuko,
[49:09] Speaker 3: who once again stays behind on the ship. And by
[49:12] Speaker 3: the way, there was a thing that happened earlier while
[49:15] Speaker 3: the rest of the crew was away. Zuko detected evidence
[49:19] Speaker 3: that the crash location. was caused by the Temians and
[49:23] Speaker 3: that the Temians of Tem of Tem, T-E-M of Tem 4,
[49:27] Speaker 3: however you say that, the other planet, or sorry, Tem
[49:31] Speaker 3: 4 is the planet they're on right now. He figured
[49:34] Speaker 3: out that they're receiving orders from a different planet, Tem 3.
[49:39] Speaker 3: But Akula says, you know, it's going to take a
[49:41] Speaker 3: long time to get the ship ready for takeoff anyway,
[49:43] Speaker 3: so might as well go to the party. So everybody
[49:45] Speaker 3: except Zuko goes. Time to talk about this party. I
[49:49] Speaker 3: think the stylistic centerpiece of the movie, wouldn't you agree?
[49:53] Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think this occurs, like, it's really only like
[49:56] Speaker 2: 20 minutes into the film that we end up here.
[49:59] Speaker 2: And at this point, you realize, if you had any doubts,
[50:02] Speaker 2: it has been 20 minutes well spent because this party
[50:05] Speaker 2: scene is just amazing. Yes, it's every... everything you could
[50:09] Speaker 2: possibly want. This is where those Euro disco vibes really
[50:13] Speaker 2: begin to kick in strongly.
[50:15] Speaker 3: So it has dancers, lots of dancers. I mean, it's
[50:18] Speaker 3: almost like more dancers than party goers.
[50:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, they clearly brought in at least one dance troupe
[50:24] Speaker 2: to realize this sequence.
[50:25] Speaker 3: Yeah. So dancers in like faux ancient Egyptian costumes and
[50:30] Speaker 3: makeup style with jeweled metallic bikinis draped with sheer gowns.
[50:36] Speaker 3: There is like There are these gold framed suspension chairs
[50:41] Speaker 3: hanging from the ceiling and people just twirling around in
[50:44] Speaker 3: them under weird trumpet shaped paper light fixtures and other
[50:48] Speaker 3: kinds of East German deco luxe accents. Meanwhile, the cosmonauts
[50:54] Speaker 3: arrive wearing red leather jumpsuits with wide collars and bell
[50:59] Speaker 3: bottoms on the pant legs. These jumpsuits are everything. I
[51:03] Speaker 3: love them. Everybody should. National emergency. We've got to issue
[51:08] Speaker 3: a pair of these to every person in the country.
[51:10] Speaker 2: These are amazing. I love a good jumpsuit, a good
[51:14] Speaker 2: sci-fi jumpsuit in the picture. They have this dark red color.
[51:19] Speaker 2: They have these big belt buckles. The ladies look great
[51:22] Speaker 2: in these. And even Thob looks super cool in this getup.
[51:25] Speaker 3: Thob was made to wear this thing, baby.
[51:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, these look amazing. Great costumes. And certainly this is
[51:33] Speaker 2: an area where I can definitely compare it to Planet
[51:35] Speaker 2: of the Vampires. If for no other reason, because Planet
[51:38] Speaker 2: of the Vampires, they're just great costuming, like great, like
[51:41] Speaker 2: kind of like fashionable leather looking spacesuits in here. This
[51:47] Speaker 2: is evening wear. It's not spacesuits. It's just your evening
[51:50] Speaker 2: wear jumpsuit. And yeah, it looks amazing.
[51:52] Speaker 3: Now I can't verify it's real leather. These might be
[51:55] Speaker 3: like Naugahyde jumpsuits.
[51:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, I have no idea if they sourced it or
[51:59] Speaker 2: in universe what it could be made from. It could
[52:01] Speaker 2: be they just printed these out. Like it's like the, uh,
[52:04] Speaker 2: you know, replicator on the star Trek, uh, vessels where
[52:07] Speaker 2: they just like, okay, we need jumpsuits for the evening.
[52:09] Speaker 2: What color? Uh, let's go dark red belt buckle. Yes.
[52:12] Speaker 1: No.
[52:12] Speaker 2: Yes. Print them out.
[52:14] Speaker 3: Awesome. Uh, so also at the party, there's plenty of food.
[52:17] Speaker 3: There's a buffet full of pastries and cut fruit and flowers.
[52:21] Speaker 3: And the buffet line is just covered in snakes, got
[52:24] Speaker 3: giant boa constrictors coming down from the ceiling and just
[52:28] Speaker 3: crawling on the dishes. Yeah.
[52:30] Speaker 2: Like, um, Not in a Indiana Jones and the Temple
[52:33] Speaker 2: of Doom way. Like we're not, we're not, it's never
[52:36] Speaker 2: suggested that people were eating these snakes. These snakes.
[52:39] Speaker 3: This is an enhancement.
[52:40] Speaker 2: Yeah. These constrictor snakes are just hanging out. They're just
[52:43] Speaker 2: crawling over the table and it's totally fine. They're just
[52:46] Speaker 2: here for, for vibe and decor.
[52:48] Speaker 3: Oh, you've never had a pastry that's had a snake
[52:51] Speaker 3: slither over it. That's like an extra level of seasoning.
[52:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[52:57] Speaker 3: Uh, so at the party, let's see, uh, Ronk talks
[53:00] Speaker 3: to Akala about how it's foolish to just broadcast your
[53:04] Speaker 3: existence into the galaxy. Like, hello, we're here. You never
[53:07] Speaker 3: know who might show up. So he, he makes it
[53:09] Speaker 3: clear that like, you know, whatever our scientists thought we
[53:11] Speaker 3: should test our radio equipment. I didn't even think that
[53:14] Speaker 3: was a good idea. Yeah.
[53:15] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[53:16] Speaker 3: Uh, anyway, uh, Thob and the others, they play some
[53:19] Speaker 3: kind of beer pong type game where they are dropping
[53:23] Speaker 3: little ping pong balls off a table into their clothes.
[53:26] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[53:27] Speaker 3: Um, and like Bob is like dropping it into his
[53:29] Speaker 3: chest and everybody thinks that's really funny. Yeah.
[53:32] Speaker 2: He's like winning room. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm here to, uh,
[53:35] Speaker 2: to connect with the locals.
[53:37] Speaker 3: Uh, we observe Ronk and some of the other teaming
[53:41] Speaker 3: men casually abusing the servants. Uh, this is something that
[53:46] Speaker 3: just kind of happens quickly and then it moves on from,
[53:48] Speaker 3: but I think it's something that maybe our crew members,
[53:52] Speaker 3: the cosmonauts don't really see, but we, the audience do
[53:55] Speaker 3: another level of irony there. So like the woman who
[53:59] Speaker 3: first greeted them in the buggy in the desert when
[54:01] Speaker 3: they arrived, she's now serving drinks at the party. And
[54:05] Speaker 3: when she arrives at Ronk, there is no drink left
[54:08] Speaker 3: on her tray and he just slaps her in the face.
[54:10] Speaker 3: But he's smiling when he does it.
[54:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is not a playful slap or a
[54:14] Speaker 2: playful smile. He has that lupine grin like this is
[54:18] Speaker 2: a there's a casual cruelty to this that makes us
[54:21] Speaker 2: if we didn't suspect it already. we begin to realize, okay,
[54:24] Speaker 2: something is not right here. These Temians are not just
[54:28] Speaker 2: about fun, crazy good times.
[54:31] Speaker 3: No, it seems like they're actually doing a lot of
[54:34] Speaker 3: nasty stuff when the visitors aren't looking. So Thob is
[54:39] Speaker 3: taken away to a weird outdoor statue park where some
[54:43] Speaker 3: of the dancers get sexy with him. I'm not sure
[54:45] Speaker 3: how far we're supposed to understand this goes, but he's,
[54:48] Speaker 3: I don't know, he's getting up to something out there
[54:50] Speaker 3: with him. Uh, and then, uh, late, but also this
[54:54] Speaker 3: is not treated like it's any problem. It's just, again,
[54:57] Speaker 3: it's a very, uh, feels like a very sex positive
[55:00] Speaker 3: culture on both sides. And, and at least that respect.
[55:03] Speaker 2: Yeah. They're not like, there's not like a strong sense of, oh,
[55:05] Speaker 2: the sirens have got Bob. What's going to happen to Bob?
[55:08] Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know. I guess Bob can look
[55:10] Speaker 2: after himself. He knows what sort of party he's at.
[55:13] Speaker 3: Yeah. So later we get people dancing on suspended beds,
[55:18] Speaker 3: hanging from the ceiling and And trapeze artists falling into
[55:22] Speaker 3: a giant net. There's just a lot, a lot, a
[55:25] Speaker 3: lot going on. Eventually at the party, all of the
[55:29] Speaker 3: cosmonauts start to be subjected to some kind of procedure.
[55:35] Speaker 3: We see little frames of each one. They're not all
[55:38] Speaker 3: standing together. They're all in different little corners of the party.
[55:42] Speaker 3: But these different frames appear on screen side by side,
[55:45] Speaker 3: like the Brady Bunch, all standing. all together at once,
[55:49] Speaker 3: and each guest we see has a spot of concentrated
[55:53] Speaker 3: bright light shining on their forehead, and there's this eerie
[55:57] Speaker 3: rattlesnake sound that plays along with it. We see that
[56:02] Speaker 3: they are being beamed with something, something that puts them
[56:05] Speaker 3: in a trance, and that Ronk suggests will make them forget,
[56:09] Speaker 3: forget about the distress call and about everything else. I
[56:13] Speaker 3: think Thob is the last guy they're able to get.
[56:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, they had to bring him back inside from the
[56:18] Speaker 2: sculpture garden. Yeah, yeah.
[56:19] Speaker 3: So he was out there doing whatever, and they're like,
[56:22] Speaker 3: get him inside. It's time to zap his brain. So eventually,
[56:27] Speaker 3: they come back to the Sinro, to the spaceship, and
[56:29] Speaker 3: they're dancing the new dances. Yeah, they're kind of like
[56:32] Speaker 3: going like this. They're all very happy. Yeah, yeah. And
[56:34] Speaker 3: they brought spray cans with them. They're still spraying the
[56:37] Speaker 3: aerosol in their mouths. They really enjoyed this party.
[56:38] Speaker 2: Bob, I think, was the thoughtful one because he was
[56:40] Speaker 2: thinking of Zuko. And he's like, hey, I've got to
[56:42] Speaker 2: bring some of this back for Zuko. He's got to
[56:43] Speaker 2: try this. He's going to love it.
[56:45] Speaker 3: When he gets to Zuko, he's like, do you see
[56:47] Speaker 3: the holes in my uniform? They were burned by the
[56:50] Speaker 3: eyes of the beautiful Temian women. Yes.
[56:54] Speaker 2: I like that. I had not heard that before in English.
[56:57] Speaker 3: It sounds like he was suggesting that he was being
[57:00] Speaker 3: ogled by them.
[57:01] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[57:02] Speaker 3: I mean..
[57:03] Speaker 2: I mean, it's a cool jumpsuit. There's no denying it.
[57:07] Speaker 3: But anyway, so there is a problem. Zuko notices this.
[57:12] Speaker 3: The people coming back to the ship have been changed
[57:14] Speaker 3: in some way. After they get back to the ship,
[57:18] Speaker 3: still dancing and singing, it becomes clear that something has
[57:21] Speaker 3: happened to their minds. It seems like they are not
[57:25] Speaker 3: able to think about or discuss certain topics, like the crash.
[57:31] Speaker 3: or the distress call. And when these topics come up,
[57:35] Speaker 3: generally when Zuko brings them up, the people who went
[57:39] Speaker 3: to the party start suffering some kind of mental distress.
[57:43] Speaker 3: Like if Zuko brings up the crash, the other cosmonauts
[57:46] Speaker 3: just clam up and clutch their heads in pain with
[57:49] Speaker 3: this ominous music playing on the soundtrack.
[57:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we get a momentary ice cream headache,
[57:54] Speaker 2: but then just have to sort of change the topic,
[57:56] Speaker 2: like come back to something else. They can't even mentally...
[58:01] Speaker 2: you know, direct their thoughts in that direction.
[58:03] Speaker 3: Yeah. The cosmonauts who went to the party often also
[58:07] Speaker 3: repeat this line about the Temians being very fun people.
[58:11] Speaker 2: And a little bit crazy.
[58:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, and a little bit crazy. They say the line
[58:14] Speaker 3: like it's been programmed into them. So Zuko knows something
[58:19] Speaker 3: is wrong. He reveals to Akula the transmission that he
[58:22] Speaker 3: intercepted before from Tem 3, giving orders to the Temians
[58:26] Speaker 3: here on Tem 4. And he puts together a hypothesis
[58:29] Speaker 3: that the people on Tim 4 are actually colonists from
[58:33] Speaker 3: Tim 3. Akula, seemingly still operating under the influence of
[58:38] Speaker 3: the party, whatever this happened to her brain was, she's
[58:42] Speaker 3: not really interested in this. Zuko also has a conversation
[58:46] Speaker 3: with Mew about the Temians. She repeats the same line
[58:49] Speaker 3: about how there is no problem and they're very fun people.
[58:53] Speaker 3: And then we get this random musical dance sequence where
[58:57] Speaker 3: Mew dances naked in silhouette against this wall of dim
[59:02] Speaker 3: yellow light panels. It's very stylish. It's an interesting scene.
[59:06] Speaker 3: It feels like something, though, that the look of it
[59:09] Speaker 3: feels like a James Bond opening credits.
[59:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does. It's very stylized. Very sexy and
[59:17] Speaker 2: just very well executed. It's a stunning sequence.
[59:21] Speaker 3: I was wondering, do you think, so you think this
[59:23] Speaker 3: has like plot and character significance?
[59:26] Speaker 2: I mean, I think you could go either way. There's
[59:27] Speaker 2: certainly a strong argument to be made that they just
[59:30] Speaker 2: included it because it's just stylish and sexy and fun.
[59:34] Speaker 2: But you could also, because again, the other thing to
[59:37] Speaker 2: think about is it's not the only time we have,
[59:40] Speaker 2: you know, interpretive and or modern dance utilized in a
[59:43] Speaker 2: way that seems to be, you know, leaning into the
[59:46] Speaker 2: art form to do something narratively or reveal something about character.
[59:51] Speaker 2: And so my interpretation could be here that Mew is like,
[59:57] Speaker 2: she wants to address these issues that Zuko is bringing up,
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: but she has this mental block. There's some reason that
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: she can't go there. And so this brief dance number
[1:00:07] Speaker 2: is like, it's displaying her attempt to express herself and
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: being unable to. Because in the dance, we see her
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: kind of like, you know, hitting these poses, but also
[1:00:19] Speaker 2: kind of like collapsing and then getting back up again. Um,
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: so I think there might be something to that, but
[1:00:25] Speaker 2: also the interpretation that this is just here for, um,
[1:00:28] Speaker 2: aesthetic values, I think is.
[1:00:29] Speaker 3: Also pretty valid.
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: Hmm.
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: I guess I'm gonna have to think more about that.
[1:00:33] Speaker 2: Yeah. Because it's not like there is some sort of,
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: it's the sort of dance, not just like a happy
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: go lucky dance number. Like there is a certain amount
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: of like darkness to it. Uh, I mean, it is
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: of course in silhouette, uh, but yeah, there's, I don't know.
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: It seems like she's channeling some emotion here. It's, it's
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: not just like, okay, we got 10 minutes to kill.
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: Let's have one of our characters dance for you.
[1:00:56] Speaker 3: So anyway, after this, uh, Zuko also speaks with the
[1:00:59] Speaker 3: ship's doctor who is also, she's on board with, you know,
[1:01:02] Speaker 3: just leaving as soon as the ship is ready. Uh,
[1:01:05] Speaker 3: but Zuko knows something is wrong. So on his own initiative,
[1:01:09] Speaker 3: he sneaks out into the night to explore the planet
[1:01:12] Speaker 3: on his own. And here is where the movie, where
[1:01:16] Speaker 3: the plot takes a turn, I think, and becomes more serious.
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: Because out in the chaotic, muddy hills, Zuko finds a
[1:01:24] Speaker 3: little hut concealing an access hatch that descends into the earth.
[1:01:29] Speaker 3: He goes down and emerges into a vast, dark cavern.
[1:01:34] Speaker 3: I think this was shot inside an actual abandoned salt mine.
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: It's a very bleak and haunting set or location. where
[1:01:44] Speaker 3: you've got this huge open cavern under the earth. You know,
[1:01:48] Speaker 3: you can't see all the way to the ends. It
[1:01:50] Speaker 3: just vanishes into darkness. And there are these very sketchy
[1:01:55] Speaker 3: looking metal stairs descending in a zigzag down a huge
[1:01:59] Speaker 3: flat rock wall with like no posts going down below them.
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. It looked absolutely nightmare fuel here. And we
[1:02:06] Speaker 2: keep seeing, I think on a couple of occasions, we
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: see someone take a terrifying stunt fall off of these
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: with the handrails coming free. So it just feels like
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: these are not well-made. Nobody should be climbing up and
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: down these things.
[1:02:19] Speaker 3: So down at the bottom in this cavern, Zuko discovers
[1:02:24] Speaker 3: thousands of laborers working in a mine. These people are
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: smashing rocks and hefting ore into carts. They're being monitored
[1:02:33] Speaker 3: by armed guards. They're slaves. It turns out the very
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: fun Temians are are actually the ruling class on this planet,
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: not the only people on this planet. And the vast
[1:02:46] Speaker 3: majority of people on this planet, it seems, the people
[1:02:48] Speaker 3: who do the work that make Temian society possible are
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: slaves performing hard labor at gunpoint.
[1:02:57] Speaker 2: And I guess if we were to sort of try
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: and apply this and try to figure out what this
[1:03:01] Speaker 2: film is maybe saying politically, it's kind of like maybe
[1:03:05] Speaker 2: making the argument that, okay, you have the glitz and
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: the glamour and the hedonistic indulgence of Western society. But
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: underneath all of it, there is oppression, and it's all
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: built upon the bones of oppression. And I mean, like
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: we said earlier, this sort of argument can be made
[1:03:24] Speaker 2: towards any number of cultures in any number of time periods.
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of how humans work.
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think you could certainly say there's some
[1:03:33] Speaker 3: truth to this, that expressions of ostentatious wealth or they're
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: depending on somebody else doing the hard work. And maybe
[1:03:42] Speaker 3: the people doing the hard work are not getting a
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: very fair deal. In this case, getting a really unfair deal.
[1:03:49] Speaker 3: So I guess we should go ahead and summarize what
[1:03:52] Speaker 3: we find out over the rest of the story about
[1:03:55] Speaker 3: this situation. So what we discover over the next couple
[1:03:59] Speaker 3: of acts is that the enslaved people here are the
[1:04:02] Speaker 3: Turi who are the native inhabitants of this planet that
[1:04:07] Speaker 3: is now known as Tem 4. The Temians are actually
[1:04:10] Speaker 3: colonists from Tem 3 who conquered this planet, renamed it
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: Tem 4, and confined its native people to lives of
[1:04:19] Speaker 3: slavery in these mines because there is a mineral that
[1:04:23] Speaker 3: they need that makes Temian technology and society possible. The
[1:04:29] Speaker 3: Distress Beacon is that brought the cosmonauts here was not
[1:04:33] Speaker 3: a mistake. The call was actually sent by a couple
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: of Turi workers who briefly got control of the Temians'
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: radio equipment. And the Turi have been hoping that the
[1:04:44] Speaker 3: cosmonauts would bring the force of their civilization with them
[1:04:48] Speaker 3: to liberate them from bondage.
[1:04:59] Speaker 2: So at this point, we begin to really we kind
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: of it's not quite an espionage film because nobody's an
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: actual spy. But a lot of the the action in
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: the intrigue here is very much in keeping with something
[1:05:11] Speaker 2: you might see in a Cold War spy movie. Because,
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: you know, this Zuko has been looking around. He's been
[1:05:18] Speaker 2: doing reconnaissance. He's seen something he wasn't supposed to see.
[1:05:22] Speaker 2: He gets captured by the opposition. And what are they
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: going to do? They're, of course, going to interrogate him. Right.
[1:05:27] Speaker 3: So Zuko is captured by Ronk. He's tortured for information.
[1:05:31] Speaker 3: They beat him and then they place him in this
[1:05:33] Speaker 3: psychic electric chair, which causes pain in the brain. And
[1:05:38] Speaker 3: it's pretty messed up. I don't know exactly what it's
[1:05:41] Speaker 3: supposed to be doing to him, but he clearly is
[1:05:43] Speaker 3: experiencing great distress.
[1:05:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. His screams are terrifying. Just ripped straight from the soul.
[1:05:48] Speaker 2: So we easily buy into the fact that this is
[1:05:51] Speaker 2: not a chair anyone wants to sit in.
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: And then after this, they use the ultrasonic waves again
[1:05:56] Speaker 3: to wipe his memory. So briefly, he's not going to
[1:05:59] Speaker 3: remember what happened. Eventually, it's going to come back later on.
[1:06:02] Speaker 2: I want to mention, I can't remember when it first
[1:06:03] Speaker 2: shows up, but eventually in this portion of the picture,
[1:06:06] Speaker 2: Ronk is going to frequently use this thing that you
[1:06:09] Speaker 2: could maybe describe as a pistol wand. It's kind of
[1:06:12] Speaker 2: shaped like, almost looks like a vape or something, you know?
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: It's like a pen.
[1:06:16] Speaker 2: Like a pen, but when he points it, it's like
[1:06:20] Speaker 2: he's firing a pistol, and we get the pistol sound effect,
[1:06:22] Speaker 2: and people... fall dead. I thought it was a rather
[1:06:25] Speaker 2: simple way to create a sci-fi weapon, but it absolutely
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: works and absolutely feels deadly here.
[1:06:31] Speaker 3: Ronk uses it casually. He's just lounging about in his
[1:06:37] Speaker 3: cushioned chair, like, blasting things out of the air with
[1:06:40] Speaker 3: his little pen.
[1:06:41] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: It's got pretty good game, but somehow it zeroes in
[1:06:45] Speaker 2: on whatever he wants to kill.
[1:06:46] Speaker 3: So, soon after this, there's a big scene we need
[1:06:49] Speaker 3: to discuss, which is Akala's meeting with the boss. I
[1:06:52] Speaker 3: know you're... jazz to talk about this. So the big
[1:06:56] Speaker 3: boss of this colony on Tim four is finally revealed.
[1:07:00] Speaker 3: This is Ronk's boss. He, I don't think is ever
[1:07:03] Speaker 3: given a name. He's simply called the boss or chief. Right.
[1:07:06] Speaker 3: When we first meet him, he is getting his hair
[1:07:09] Speaker 3: spray painted blue. The boss seems to be in a
[1:07:14] Speaker 3: constant state of pleasure seeking and a constant need for
[1:07:20] Speaker 3: stimulation and distraction and At one point, he mentions that
[1:07:24] Speaker 3: he cannot think unless there is music playing. He's constantly
[1:07:29] Speaker 3: changing into weird costumes and altering his appearance. He changes
[1:07:34] Speaker 3: the color of his hair multiple times in the movie.
[1:07:36] Speaker 2: That's right. It's blue here. It's going to be red later.
[1:07:39] Speaker 3: He's always changing his costumes into different, weird, extravagant, shiny costumes.
[1:07:45] Speaker 3: He's playing strange music. He even seems to be getting
[1:07:48] Speaker 3: sexual gratification from this Christmas light synthesizer keyboard that is
[1:07:53] Speaker 3: sitting on his coffee table. It lights up when he
[1:07:55] Speaker 3: plays it and he's going like, and then they're like,
[1:07:58] Speaker 3: it's making people dance nearby, I think.
[1:08:01] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:08:02] Speaker 3: And he also just surrounds himself with weird stimulating stuff,
[1:08:07] Speaker 3: unusual animals and artworks. He's kissing snakes all the time.
[1:08:12] Speaker 3: He's got head boxes inside the walls with like actual
[1:08:15] Speaker 3: heads in them that swivel around.
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: Just kind of stare at you. A wonderful, like surrealistic
[1:08:21] Speaker 2: inclusion here. There's so many weird moments in this sequence.
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: His office is a hall of mirrors.
[1:08:28] Speaker 2: Yes. That's a choice.
[1:08:30] Speaker 3: He's also, I think, often seeking sexual stimulation. We actually
[1:08:34] Speaker 3: never see him engage in sex in any way, but
[1:08:38] Speaker 3: there is a general aura of sexual aggressiveness about him.
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: And he's constantly surrounding himself with beautiful, subservient women whom
[1:08:46] Speaker 3: he treats disrespectfully.
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:08:50] Speaker 2: Akala like he is he's very flamboyant and flirty yeah
[1:08:54] Speaker 2: which we get an interesting juxtaposition between that and the
[1:08:58] Speaker 2: way we see him in other scenes where he's just
[1:09:00] Speaker 2: uh berating and commanding his subordinates in which case he
[1:09:05] Speaker 2: generally doesn't have any dye applied to his hair and
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: he's more just like a like a capitalist strong man
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: um but he seems to take on more of this
[1:09:14] Speaker 2: flamboyant air when he's engaging with uh with other.
[1:09:17] Speaker 3: People Also, more mouth spray, just constant.
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: Yes, constant mouth spray. And then occasionally bursts into interpretive dance.
[1:09:25] Speaker 2: We'll get back to that later.
[1:09:27] Speaker 3: So it seems an interesting thing about this character is
[1:09:30] Speaker 3: that he cannot be quiet with his thoughts. He must
[1:09:33] Speaker 3: be constantly, sensorily bombarded at all times to be at peace. Yeah.
[1:09:40] Speaker 2: So really, for many of us, he is the most
[1:09:42] Speaker 2: relatable character. It's speaking to the 2026 audience.
[1:09:47] Speaker 3: Are we the villains of this movie?
[1:09:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we may be the bad guys.
[1:09:51] Speaker 3: So Akala and the boss face off in this little meeting.
[1:09:54] Speaker 3: He grills her about performing recon on the planet. He's like,
[1:09:57] Speaker 3: are you taking aerial photographs of my planet? And she, meanwhile,
[1:10:01] Speaker 3: just wants Zuko back. She's like, where did he go?
[1:10:04] Speaker 3: Give him back to me. Later, she says something interesting.
[1:10:08] Speaker 3: It's not in this scene, but later reflecting on it,
[1:10:10] Speaker 3: she says, when I was with the boss, I had
[1:10:13] Speaker 3: the feeling that I couldn't think what I wanted to.
[1:10:16] Speaker 3: I think that's probably supposed to be significant. So eventually
[1:10:20] Speaker 3: they do give the badly wounded Zuko back to her.
[1:10:23] Speaker 3: Akula takes him back to the ship, announcing again the
[1:10:27] Speaker 3: intention to leave soon. Meanwhile, there are some action scenes,
[1:10:31] Speaker 3: like there's this whole subplot where Wonk tries to infiltrate
[1:10:34] Speaker 3: the ship, but is foiled. Eventually, I guess moving into
[1:10:39] Speaker 3: much more zoomed out summary mode here, the whole crew
[1:10:43] Speaker 3: will become aware of the plight of the Turi, of
[1:10:46] Speaker 3: the people of the planet and their slavery here. And
[1:10:50] Speaker 3: they're going to be forced to confront questions about what
[1:10:54] Speaker 3: they should do. It's, should we aid the Turi in
[1:10:58] Speaker 3: rebellion against the Temians, which is what some of the
[1:11:00] Speaker 3: Turi representatives seem to want. They like ask them to help.
[1:11:03] Speaker 3: They say, give us weapons. But this is presented as
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: a genuinely difficult question. Like, Zuko talks about how if
[1:11:13] Speaker 3: they arm the Turi, Tim-3 will then send spaceships to
[1:11:16] Speaker 3: put down the rebellion, and that would escalate into a
[1:11:19] Speaker 3: galactic war, which seems like a reasonable concern. On the
[1:11:23] Speaker 3: other hand, they feel like they can't just abandon these
[1:11:26] Speaker 3: people whose plight they've discovered here, so they genuinely kind
[1:11:30] Speaker 3: of don't know what to do.
[1:11:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, we get a definite Cold War vibe here where
[1:11:36] Speaker 2: the idea that you have a situation occurring in the
[1:11:40] Speaker 2: friction zone between two superpowers. And any kind of direct
[1:11:46] Speaker 2: engagement is going to potentially be disastrous because we can't
[1:11:50] Speaker 2: have direct conflict between these two groups. And again, it
[1:11:57] Speaker 2: is played out in a very nuanced way. Not like
[1:11:59] Speaker 2: in And I love Star Trek, but sometimes they're like, oh,
[1:12:02] Speaker 2: we can't possibly go into the neutral zone. That would
[1:12:05] Speaker 2: be an act of war. But you know they're going
[1:12:07] Speaker 2: into the neutral zone. Come on. You know Picard's going
[1:12:11] Speaker 2: to do it because Picard's going to be the hero.
[1:12:14] Speaker 2: Here it is not presented as a foregone conclusion that
[1:12:17] Speaker 2: they are going to do the more noble but far
[1:12:21] Speaker 2: more dangerous thing. Whereas, of course, in other stories, it's
[1:12:25] Speaker 2: a foregone conclusion.
[1:12:27] Speaker 3: So in the third act, there is also a plot
[1:12:30] Speaker 3: where the Temians, Ronk, comes up with this plan after
[1:12:33] Speaker 3: being tortured by the boss, by the way. He gets
[1:12:35] Speaker 3: put in the psychic electric chair. Ronk comes up with
[1:12:39] Speaker 3: a plan to redirect a water source to flood the
[1:12:43] Speaker 3: space where the Sinrow spaceship is parked, forcing it to
[1:12:46] Speaker 3: blast off and leave. So he's trying to enact that plan. Meanwhile,
[1:12:51] Speaker 3: the crew of the Sinrow are trying to figure out
[1:12:54] Speaker 3: what they should do. They're working together now with the, uh,
[1:12:59] Speaker 3: with the, the Turi and, uh, I don't know what,
[1:13:02] Speaker 3: what are some things you want to talk about in
[1:13:04] Speaker 3: this third of the movie? You do want to mention
[1:13:06] Speaker 3: the boss's dance.
[1:13:07] Speaker 2: I'll get to the, yeah, the boss's dance is, is great.
[1:13:09] Speaker 2: I'll get to that in a second, but, but first
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: of all, yeah, Ronk's, um, plot to flood the spaceship
[1:13:14] Speaker 2: landing zone. Like this is his answer to the whole, well,
[1:13:16] Speaker 2: we can't directly attack them either because then that'll be
[1:13:20] Speaker 2: an act of war. But what if the area they're
[1:13:22] Speaker 2: in became flooded? Uh, you know, it's more of an indirect, um,
[1:13:26] Speaker 2: environmental assault. And he comes up with this idea when
[1:13:30] Speaker 2: he's about to be put into the sci-fi torture chair himself,
[1:13:34] Speaker 2: which I thought was a nice detail, just showing you
[1:13:39] Speaker 2: the cruelty of the Temian civilization, how it works. It's
[1:13:44] Speaker 2: like anybody can wind up on the wrong side of
[1:13:48] Speaker 2: the boss at any moment.
[1:13:50] Speaker 3: They don't even seem to have in-group loyalty. I mean,
[1:13:53] Speaker 3: not like that would really The movie's not really promoting
[1:13:56] Speaker 3: in-group loyalty either, but they don't even have that. They
[1:13:59] Speaker 3: have loyalty to nobody.
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's at some point after this where it
[1:14:03] Speaker 2: seems like, all right, the bad guys, the Temians have
[1:14:06] Speaker 2: a plan that will work. We get this scene with
[1:14:09] Speaker 2: the boss where he does this kind of, this is
[1:14:12] Speaker 2: kind of victory dance. He's saying victory over and over again.
[1:14:16] Speaker 2: And this is, again, this is in his inner sanctum,
[1:14:19] Speaker 2: his office with all the constrictor snakes and funhouse mirrors
[1:14:23] Speaker 2: and surrealistic art. He's wearing some sort of a toga,
[1:14:27] Speaker 2: and he starts doing this spontaneous dance that involves a
[1:14:32] Speaker 2: lot of squatting down and popping up and waving the
[1:14:36] Speaker 2: hands around. So I really enjoyed it. Again, not only
[1:14:41] Speaker 2: are ultrasound-addled space nymphs, they're not the only ones who
[1:14:45] Speaker 2: get to do spontaneous modern dance sequences. Our villains do
[1:14:49] Speaker 2: as well.
[1:14:50] Speaker 3: Now, later on, there's a final confrontation involving the boss
[1:14:54] Speaker 3: between Akala and the boss taking place in that sculpture garden. Yes.
[1:14:58] Speaker 3: Where when the boss comes out, he's dressed like the
[1:15:01] Speaker 3: master from Manos, the Hands of Fate.
[1:15:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely a Manos vibe to the cape, but
[1:15:07] Speaker 2: it also has like this super high kind of like
[1:15:10] Speaker 2: Planet of the Vampires hood.
[1:15:12] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:15:13] Speaker 2: And then, oh, his hair is dyed bright red at
[1:15:15] Speaker 2: this point. So he's just cherry red hair. Styled all
[1:15:19] Speaker 2: the way out. For some reason, again, it's in that
[1:15:21] Speaker 2: sculpture garden again. One of the constrictor snakes is now
[1:15:24] Speaker 2: on top of one of the sculptures. You know it
[1:15:28] Speaker 2: didn't get up there on its own. It had some help,
[1:15:30] Speaker 2: but I guess it looks really evocative up there.
[1:15:33] Speaker 3: In this scene in the sculpture garden, there is a
[1:15:36] Speaker 3: conversation between the boss and Akula where they talk about
[1:15:41] Speaker 3: the standoff that they're in and what should happen to
[1:15:44] Speaker 3: the Turi. And Akula, it seems that the Sinro... that
[1:15:50] Speaker 3: their society is fairly just, you know, that they are
[1:15:54] Speaker 3: idealistic in some ways and that they have a strong,
[1:15:57] Speaker 3: you know, moral legal system in a way. And she says,
[1:16:01] Speaker 3: our law says no one may oppress another. And the
[1:16:05] Speaker 3: boss replies by doing something that real oppressors do all
[1:16:08] Speaker 3: the time. He, he, he does it by saying like,
[1:16:11] Speaker 3: it doesn't really matter. He says, it's a nice thought, but,
[1:16:14] Speaker 3: but the Turi have no culture. He's like, you know,
[1:16:17] Speaker 3: it doesn't really make a difference to them. And he
[1:16:20] Speaker 3: goes on kind of like denigrating their civilizational capabilities and
[1:16:25] Speaker 3: their natural way of life. And it's like, it's not
[1:16:28] Speaker 3: really going to make a difference. You know, they're just,
[1:16:30] Speaker 3: you know, this is what they're made for. Yeah.
[1:16:33] Speaker 2: And he says that, like, after you leave, they'll probably
[1:16:36] Speaker 2: remember you as gods and they'll probably worship you. But
[1:16:38] Speaker 2: that's all it's going to amount to. They're going to
[1:16:41] Speaker 2: be the same as they've always been.
[1:16:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's a thing that happens in reality, too.
[1:16:46] Speaker 3: It's sort of denigrating people as imagining them as less
[1:16:52] Speaker 3: complex human beings in some way, as a way of
[1:16:55] Speaker 3: justifying abuse of them and denying them freedom.
[1:16:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it feels very true to form
[1:17:03] Speaker 2: that your strongman character here would be talking about the
[1:17:08] Speaker 2: local inhabitants in this way.
[1:17:10] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:17:11] Speaker 3: But I guess this brings us back to the conundrum
[1:17:13] Speaker 3: that the crew of the Sinrow face in the final
[1:17:15] Speaker 3: act of the movie. Like, what should they do given
[1:17:18] Speaker 3: that they are part of this situation now? Like, they're
[1:17:20] Speaker 3: aware of the injustice, but there are also all these
[1:17:24] Speaker 3: dangers of getting involved. Like, what course of action can
[1:17:27] Speaker 3: they take?
[1:17:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. How can they help the enslaved Turi people
[1:17:33] Speaker 2: without provoking a war between these great powers? Can they
[1:17:37] Speaker 2: even provide arms without risking this? You know, there's a
[1:17:40] Speaker 2: telling scene where boss is like are you planning to
[1:17:42] Speaker 2: give them weapons you know and um so obviously you
[1:17:45] Speaker 2: know this cold war inspired plot has uh you know
[1:17:50] Speaker 2: not only does it speak to the time in which
[1:17:51] Speaker 2: it was um it was written and um and filmed
[1:17:54] Speaker 2: but you know has direct applications to the current state
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: of things in the world as as many of us
[1:17:59] Speaker 2: consider us to now be in a second cold war
[1:18:01] Speaker 2: of sorts you know complete with proxy wars and entailing
[1:18:05] Speaker 2: more than two great powers and also engaging in various
[1:18:09] Speaker 2: other complexities unique to our time. But in the movie here,
[1:18:13] Speaker 2: I guess the answer for this particular conundrum, like who's
[1:18:17] Speaker 2: going to help the Turi people, ultimately seems to be
[1:18:21] Speaker 2: that only the Turi can free themselves. It's not like
[1:18:25] Speaker 2: they don't really beat you over the head with this idea.
[1:18:27] Speaker 2: Nobody actually says that. In the end, I guess only
[1:18:31] Speaker 2: the Turi could save the Turi. There's none of that.
[1:18:34] Speaker 3: But they do kind of spontaneously revolt.
[1:18:36] Speaker 2: They spontaneously revolt. Zuko dies and it's clear that he
[1:18:42] Speaker 2: has become a martyr. And so there is this idea
[1:18:45] Speaker 2: that like the oppressor in their cruelty will create martyrs
[1:18:49] Speaker 2: out of their enemies. And in doing so, they will
[1:18:51] Speaker 2: just fuel rebellion. Like rebellion is an inevitable consequence of
[1:18:57] Speaker 2: their oppression. And yeah, so interesting to consider because that's
[1:19:02] Speaker 2: the way things play out is like Zuko dies. He's clearly, uh,
[1:19:05] Speaker 2: you know, he's martyred, he's held up in the air,
[1:19:09] Speaker 2: carried by the people and the ship takes off again. And, uh, so,
[1:19:13] Speaker 2: you know, our, uh, the crew members of the Sinro leave,
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: but clearly, um, like it has begun on this planet
[1:19:21] Speaker 2: and like a rebellion has started. And in time, perhaps the, um,
[1:19:26] Speaker 2: the oppressors are going to be overthrown, but we don't
[1:19:28] Speaker 2: see that to be clear. We don't get a scene where, uh,
[1:19:31] Speaker 2: where the boss's chamber is overrun with rebels or anything.
[1:19:36] Speaker 2: We don't see his spaceship crashing into a mountain or
[1:19:39] Speaker 2: anything like that. It's just suggested that change may now occur.
[1:19:43] Speaker 3: You can imagine that this guy does not take the
[1:19:45] Speaker 3: shoe being on the other foot very well. No.
[1:19:50] Speaker 2: And then we end up leaving things pretty much where
[1:19:53] Speaker 2: we began them. We're going to have that haunting theme
[1:19:56] Speaker 2: song that plays. And we're going to go back to
[1:19:59] Speaker 2: this scene of what I guess is the dust of
[1:20:01] Speaker 2: the stars, this kind of like galaxy pattern that is
[1:20:06] Speaker 2: displayed on the screen, which, you know, I'm not sure
[1:20:09] Speaker 2: exactly what we're supposed to think about that. Maybe that
[1:20:14] Speaker 2: just sort of like considering this as like one little
[1:20:16] Speaker 2: conflict that's occurring, you know, across the grand scape, grand
[1:20:21] Speaker 2: star scape of human lives and human activity in this
[1:20:25] Speaker 2: I guess, far future intergalactic or at least interplanetary society. Yeah.
[1:20:32] Speaker 3: I don't know what that title means. Yeah.
[1:20:34] Speaker 2: What does it mean? In the dust of the stars.
[1:20:38] Speaker 2: Is everything in the dust of the stars? The dust
[1:20:40] Speaker 2: of the stars is just like a galaxy. Is the
[1:20:43] Speaker 2: dust of the stars the thing that was in the inhalers?
[1:20:45] Speaker 2: Is that what everybody's juicing up on? I don't know.
[1:20:48] Speaker 3: Squirting in the mouth.
[1:20:49] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:20:50] Speaker 3: What was in the dust of the stars? What's the recipe?
[1:20:54] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:20:54] Speaker 2: Alright, there you have it. I really enjoyed this one.
[1:20:57] Speaker 2: I'm really intrigued to check out that other space opera
[1:21:01] Speaker 2: by the same director, Signals, so I may have to
[1:21:04] Speaker 2: do that at some point here, but yeah, this one's
[1:21:07] Speaker 2: a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. Would love
[1:21:09] Speaker 2: to hear from anyone out there who has more viewing
[1:21:12] Speaker 2: experience with DEFA films and East German filmmaking and Eastern
[1:21:18] Speaker 2: Bloc filmmaking because there's a lot of great stuff out there.
[1:21:22] Speaker 2: I've seen a little of it, but not near enough.
[1:21:25] Speaker 2: So if there are particular titles that you think we
[1:21:28] Speaker 2: should consider, live action or animated, I know there's some
[1:21:31] Speaker 2: notable works of animation as well, write in and let
[1:21:34] Speaker 2: us know. We would love to hear from you. Just
[1:21:37] Speaker 2: a reminder that Weird House Cinema, this occurs on Fridays
[1:21:41] Speaker 2: in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. Stuff
[1:21:43] Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind, primarily a science and culture podcast,
[1:21:46] Speaker 2: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
[1:21:48] Speaker 2: just talk about a weird movie. And that's exactly what
[1:21:51] Speaker 2: we do. If you would like to follow us, well,
[1:21:54] Speaker 2: look us up on Instagram. We're stbympodcast. That's a great
[1:21:58] Speaker 2: way to just keep up with what's going on in
[1:22:00] Speaker 2: the feed. And if you want to follow Weird House
[1:22:02] Speaker 2: Cinema on its own, go to letterboxd.com. You'll find us there.
[1:22:07] Speaker 2: Our username is weirdhouse. And mostly what we have there
[1:22:10] Speaker 2: going on is just a nice list of all the
[1:22:12] Speaker 2: movies we've covered over the years and sometimes a peek
[1:22:14] Speaker 2: ahead at what's coming up next.
[1:22:16] Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Poswate.
[1:22:20] Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
[1:22:21] Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
[1:22:24] Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
[1:22:26] Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.
[1:22:36] Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
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