‘Aliens’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

The Rewatchables

Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey reunite to rewatch James Cameron's 1986 sci-fi action classic 'Aliens,' exploring its legacy, t

Key takeaways

• Cameron intended 'Aliens' as a roller coaster experience—slow buildup followed by relentless, intense action sequences.
• The film's practical effects, detailed sets, and immersive sound design (especially James Horner's iconic score) remain groundbreaking even decades later.

Main topics

• Revisiting 'Aliens' after decades
• James Cameron's vision for the film as a roller coaster narrative

Notable quotes

"If Alien could be compared to a haunted attraction, Aliens should be like a roller coaster." – Walter Hill

"It goes down hard and it then does a loop-de-loop. People are throwing up. Yeah, it's relentless." – Chris Ryan

Conclusion

The hosts celebrate 'Aliens' as a masterclass in genre filmmaking, pra

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) The Rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Where you can find the big picture with Sean Fennessey. Yes, sir. You can find the watch. Fucking A. The CR himself, Chris Ryan. Wow. Game over, man. You can find Craig Horlbeck. We finally fixed this camera. Hey, I'm not in the bunker anymore. Bring your fantasy football show. Yeah, we figured out how to not make Craig look like he's filming a hostage video. So that's good. And it is the 48th anniversary this summer. Speaker 1 (0:37) of one of the most requested rewatchables in the history of the rewatchables, Aliens, a movie CR side-eyed me on many times, just wondering when it was going to happen. Threatened to quit over. I said I would definitely quit if he did it without me, and I would quit if there were certain films that came before it, but then we blew past that with the summer of 26. Well, now it's the summer of CR. It's the year of CR, and Aliens is next. This episode of the rewatchables is presented by the movie mutiny only in theaters, August 21st, our guy, Jason Statham stars in mutiny, the new action thriller from the director of plane. I like that movie. When an international conspiracy turns deadly. Speaker 1 (1:21) That always happens. Statham goes off the grid on a one-man mission. I love one-man missions to take down those responsible. And if you're a fan of the beekeeper, the bag or the expendables guilty, this is exactly the kind of movie you want to see Statham in. You've sold me. One of the defining action stars of the last 25 years doing what he does best. I agree with that. Think Die Hard on a boat. That sounds great. Mutiny, only in theaters August 21st, rated R for strong, bloody violence in language. There you go. Aliens. Speaker 1 (2:15) Producer Walter Hill. Very fond of his work. One of your guys. Yeah. Right there. He said, James Cameron said, if alien could be compared to a haunted attraction, aliens should be like a roller coaster. That was the premise. It's also the structure of the film. Yeah. It's like literally like how it feels watching that movie where that whole first hour, it's an hour until you see an alien and it's going up, it's going up, it's going up, getting to know the guys, sitting next to them. Okay, Apone, okay, Drake, Frost, whoever. And then when it goes down, it goes down hard and it then does a loop-de-loop. Speaker 1 (2:53) And you get like one minute of like, okay, it's chill, it's chill, it's chill. And then it goes down again. And people are throwing up. Yeah, it's relentless. People are passing out. And that's just Roger Ebert. Yeah. Weirdest review I think he's ever, that I've ever read in 452 rewatchables. It sounds like he was legitimately traumatized by the movie. It really did. Yeah. He was like, that was amazing. I never want to see it again. I think about it. Do you remember having that reaction? You see it in theaters? I saw it on a date. Speaker 1 (3:22) On a date? Really? Did she express an interest in xenomorphs? It was summer. It was the movie to go see. Everybody was talking about it. And yeah, weird date movie. Not a lot happened after. You didn't get to set a base. No. It's a drop off at the front door. It is a movie about procreation and motherhood. You'd think maybe she would have some ideas about what could happen afterwards. Some over the shirt stuff maybe, yeah. I do remember where I saw it. I remember everything about it. And I remember just not being able to understand how they made a movie like this. This was like, I think, and we talked about this with other ones from the 80s, like the Terminator ahead of their time, but still felt very 80s. This is like, there's no, like, I wrote down movies they made in 86, like, this is Star Trek 4. Speaker 1 (4:16) Top Gun, Cobra, Hoosiers, Back to the Future was out the year before, but it still felt like we were in the 80s. This went into the 2000s. And I still don't understand how they made it. It still looks good. Looks incredible. Do you like the 4K transfer? Do you like when it's grainier with the old way they had it? I think he overcorrects Cameron with a lot of the upgrades that he does. And I guess he's been upscaling the stuff to make it look a little bit... Speaker 1 (4:45) too clean and too polished, but there clearly are some scenes where they're using rear screen or blue screen behind, and that stuff looks better. When I watched that stuff on VHS when I was a kid, it looked fake. Yeah, the drop ship crashing looks like Jason and the Argonauts. So that stuff looks better, but then there'll be stuff where you're watching just an individual scene of two people talking, and you're like, this looks too polished and shiny somehow. But generally speaking, the fucking sets. Speaker 1 (5:13) And tech and creatures that they built for this movie, all of which are hand-built. We had this conversation about speed. It's the same thing eight years earlier. It looks amazing. It looks so real and lived in and wet and gross. And well thought out. Yeah. It's just immaculate detail everywhere. I watched it on a streamer the first time. Not Netflix, although it is on Netflix in September. And then I watched the 4K the second time. And it was just so many things. the set was really what jumped out and just the detail it's nice about the 4k and what's nice about watching it on like a really good a really good physical media copy is that i think the sound is almost as important as the visuals in this one and the different effects like just the fact that like the way that the aliens now have like an attacking scream or you know Speaker 1 (6:05) like their banshee call when they're like attacking people is so piercing if you really tweak it up a little bit and like get it. And the little girl scream too. Yeah. Very good screamer, that little girl. Yeah. Yeah. Her one and only scream performance. And yeah, and the same for the James Horner score, which is like where he creates this kind of sonic signature that means every time you hear that sound, you know an alien is striking or coming like, and that also pops really well. That he made in 12 hours? Yeah. It's an insane story. Speaker 1 (6:37) James Horner, I feel like we just had him in another movie. Well, he's a big 80s guy for us. I mean, isn't he 48 Hours or is that Jerry Goldsmith? I think James Horner did 48 Hours. He did a bunch and I think he did Terminator? Or no? No, that's Brad Fidel. We just did one where he was one of the people. Anyway, 10 best sequels ever. Yes. Did you make the list? I did. Okay. Did you make the list? I have a list. I don't know if it's the complete list, but I want to hear what you think. Godfather 2. Terminator 2. Dark Knight. Aliens. Empire. Wick 2. Not a Wick 2 guy. No, I'm not a Wick 3 guy. My bad. Wick 2. Yeah. Lethal Weapon 2. Speaker 1 (7:22) I'm not a Lord of the Rings guy, but everybody says Twin Towers is incredible. Two Towers. Two Towers. And Twin Towers. Two Towers. That's an Oliver Stone film. Different film. Classic me, by the way. I'm not a Lord of the Rings guy, but everybody says Twin Towers is amazing. Before Sunset. And then the 10th spot, I have either Bad News Bears and Breaking Training or Taboo 2. I don't know. You guys pick. Taboo 2. Taboo 2. Considered one of the classic 80s. Speaker 1 (7:50) I have a couple of additions. The way I thought about it was best immediate sequel, which means it's the movie that comes immediately after the original. Okay, so not... So there's some urgency with the sequel. Right. But specifically I said that because I wanted to say From Russia With Love, the second Bond movie, which I think is maybe the best Bond movie. Oh, that's a good point. Nobody thinks of that as a sequel, but it's a sequel. I think that's the best one of that era. Who was the girl in that one? I can't even. Robert Shaw is the villain. A blonde lady. Robert Shaw. Hey, Bond, you fucking pussy. Daniela Bianchi? Yes, yes. The lady with the toe knife. That's right. Did you say Empire Strikes Back? Yeah. Bride of Frankenstein? Speaker 1 (8:36) which is an early one, but one I would include. You didn't say Toy Story 2, but I think most people would say Toy Story 2, one of the great sequels of all time. I didn't say Rocky 2 either, which has the greatest last 35 minutes, but then you're plotting through the first hour and a half. And it's a little tricky with comic book stuff, but both Dark Knight and Batman Returns are both great sequels that are immediate follow-ups to the previous story. Speaker 1 (9:01) What's your favorite sequel of all time? The only one that didn't get mentioned is Friday the 13th Part II, which I wouldn't say is like a cinematic masterpiece. Better than the original, I think. But it's better than the original. Best looking girl of all the girls in the Friday the 13th. Amy Steele, right? Yeah. I liked her in that one. I'd probably say, I mean, like, it's not complicated. It's Godfather Part II. It's kind of a number one draft pick. Because we assassinated you a couple weeks ago in Lake Tahoe? I wanted to talk to you guys. Speaker 1 (9:28) Have you revisited the film since we had that discussion? No, I haven't. I was saving it for my next trip. I thought it would be meta if I was watching that. Were you nervous at all during the trip? No, not at all. Not at all. Look at what my guy Craig did for me. That's true. He killed me. He assassinated me. Craig, why are you here? That wasn't me. Okay. I guess... Most of those sequels that we talked about did what most sequels do, which is that they take the premise of the movie and they just repeat the story and amp it up a little bit. This is the rare case where... Speaker 1 (10:05) it's a different kind of movie. Yeah. Like it's a different genre of movie basically than the original. That's basically what Terminator 2 did too. True. It took it and improved it. The things that Alien does so well is that when it starts and especially I can only imagine what it was like to see it flying like the first time when it came out. It's like it's not abundantly clear that Sigourney Weaver is the hero and star of that film when you're watching it. So they kind of give Cameron, a little bit of runway there, but he takes this franchise, essentially now, and makes it Ellen Ripley's story, you know, and fleshes out that character, gives her motivation to go back to this planet, like, gives her all this baggage that she doesn't have. And the first one, she's just one of six or seven people working on a mining ship. So it's just a huge, aside from the genre shift, it's a... Speaker 1 (11:01) pushing all your chips in on this one character, which the series itself, the franchise itself, has flitted back and forth between, is this Ellen Ripley's story? Is this a story about an alien species? Is this about a megacorporation that wants to use that species as a bioweapon? But Cameron was like, I know how to make people care about characters, and you need someone at the center of this movie that people are going to want to watch. How many sequels were actually... better than the original film, which was also fairly iconic. Speaker 1 (11:34) I only thought of five. Wick 2, Weapon 2, Dark Knight, Godfather 2, and Aliens. Babies on both. Because you could argue Alien is as good as Aliens just because it was original. I think we should hash that out at the end. Okay. Which we think is the superior film. Because there's an interesting case for both movies. You know, I tend to gravitate more toward originality. But this movie on its own would have been awesome. And I don't even know if it necessarily... I mean, obviously she has the baggage. Speaker 1 (12:04) But I also think it completely stands alone. Whereas like Rocky II, you need to see the first one and go through all the steps. Like normal sequels, you need the baggage of the first movie. Yeah. This to me is like an absolute testimony to craft. Yeah. Everything, all the component parts of making a movie are at such a high level. Yeah. It's not a very original movie at all. In fact, it's not just the sequel to Alien, but it's so clearly just like... Speaker 1 (12:27) a Pacific Theater World War II movie. It's using a very clear archetype from movies that were made 40 years before that and kind of just mapping it onto this sci-fi story. But that's an ingenious idea. And that idea deserves a ton of credit. But there's not, when you look at each individual character aside from Ripley, there are characters you've seen before in movies. The structure of the movie is somewhat similar. It's just there's an invention around the creature and there's an invention around the way of making this movie because Cameron is... I don't probably the single most important genre movie maker of the last 50 years, considering George Lucas hasn't really made very many movies. Um, I think you, I think you can credibly call him that. I get definitely for all my issues with them. I would give definitely give you that. Speaker 1 (13:15) I mean all your issues. The fucks he are? Well, he spent 15 years making cartoons. He spent, like, he's been directing Avatar movies. Flew too close to the sun. What'd he do? Well, I mean, like, he abandoned... He made four iconic movies. Like, I don't think he knew what to do with his life after. The three Avatar movies have made, like, $8 billion collectively. He's obviously, like, right to do it, like, financially, and lots of people like those movies. No, it's disappointing that he never just made a normal movie after. Speaker 1 (13:42) I don't know, the mid-90s. But you could say he was not making normal movies when he made like Titanic or True Lies. Like he was always pushing. I mean, True Lies to me is like a normal like Cameron movie. But just like, just make a movie where you're just directing some actors and you have some set pieces. I feel pretty confident. I would actually put money on him making a movie, his next movie being a movie that's more in the real world. I don't think he's going to make another Avatar style film next. Do you like those Avatar movies? I don't. I do. I don't. Craig, when did you see Alien and Aliens? I've seen Alien many times. One of my favorite movies of all time. I had not seen Aliens. I had been waiting to do the rewatchable. Oh, man. This is awesome. Are you a sequels guy? Speaker 1 (14:26) Sure, yeah. I mean, I liked all those movies that you guys listed out. I was happy we mentioned Dark Knight. Yeah. I mean, if it's done well, sure. There's been a lot of bad sequels, too. We didn't make that list. Of course. That's the problem with sequels is they feel like money grabs or they're just basically repeating the structure of the first movie. A lot of the third movies are just like really, really, really tough scenes. I mean, you could argue in this movie they do repeat the structure of the second half of the movie in all these different ways. Mm-hmm. They're all the same beats, right? They put Bishop in the tunnel. They hit a lot of the same notes. It's just left with her and somebody. It's the cat in the first movie. It's the little girl in the second movie. There's a countdown. James Cameron. Speaker 1 (15:10) You call him Jim or James? Jim. Jimmy? Big Jim. Big Jim. Yeah. I don't even know if he's that big. Was hired to write a story for Aliens in 83 because he had written scripts for The Terminator and Rambo First Blood Part II. My kind of guy. Does The Terminator in 84. Rips off Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies, and Titanic. The Abyss is the worst movie of those six and still was a massive success. and has a lot of Abyss fans. I think I might like it more than that. Big swing. No, I'm saying the worst of those six, it's a pretty high floor. Sure. When that's the worst one, he had no stinkers. And I would argue if he had just made Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2, and Titanic, and just made those four movies, that's as good of a four as anyone's ever made. He's in the Hall of Fame. We've been talking a lot about who you can compare Chris Nolan to. Speaker 1 (16:03) After the Odyssey and the people who were taking on these huge, big tentpole things. And I kept saying Cecil B. DeMille's name. There's a very short list of people who were like, what I do is I'm the biggest filmmaker at the biggest time in movie history. And I'm pushing the medium forward on the biggest stage. And Cameron was that guy for 25 years. I mean, for a really long period of time, he was the single most. grand stage filmmaker that we had. When you guys guest hosted my pod, you were talking about Nolan being the guy that pushes things ahead. Which is not something you necessarily thought he was going to do at the beginning of his career. Cameron was the original guy and then basically passed the torch to him. Was there anybody in between? Speaker 1 (16:50) of somebody who's just... Peter Jackson. Half a decade ahead of whoever else was. Yeah, that's a good call. Oh, Peter Jackson. That's definitely right. And similarly, I think, evolved the craft of movies and the way that CGI looked and worked in those films. Yeah, and maybe got a little lost in his toys. Yeah. And also made movies that people thought never would be made. Right. The same way when you saw Titanic, you're like, I didn't think anyone could ever pull this off. I wonder what the next iteration of that is. Speaker 1 (17:15) I don't know. I mean, the thing about... Just people punching you in the face as you watch the movie? Jackson, Nolan, Cameron, Spielberg, is that for as much as they put a dinosaur on screen or put, you know, the Lord of the Rings on screen or put, you know, an atomic weapon goes off on screen, they all have chops. You know, like, they all, to varying degrees, know, like, how someone is supposed to move across a frame of film. Speaker 1 (17:43) and how action sequences are cut and how action sequences need to build up and then release. And there's just like genuine filmmaking chops that go back to John Ford with those guys. And a lot of action directors, I think modern action directors don't understand that stuff. Like the most fascinating interviews I read about Cameron or with Cameron are when he's talking about editing action sequences by far because he's doing things that I think are on like kind of an almost... Speaker 1 (18:11) other level than anyone I've ever read when he's talking about how he like flops the footage that he's cutting so that he can retrain his eye to not anticipate when cuts are coming. I mean, it's just like that's savant stuff. I mean, like to think about how the audience is going to respond to like the tempo and the feeling of like your editing of an action sequence is remarkable. There's something cool with him too where he has the same background as all the new Hollywood guys that we revere, like Scorsese and De Palma, where he got started with Roger Corman. He worked in special effects and production design on movies like Galaxy of Terror and Battle Beyond the Stars. And so he was like a hands-on builder of movies before he was a movie director. Did he work on Escape from New York? He did work on Escape from New York. Solid movie. So he knows how every piece of... Speaker 1 (19:06) the puzzle works. Like he understands how everything fits together. And that's kind of like, kind of like Craig with podcasts. That's true. Yeah. And a producer. Yeah. Produced. He knows how, what every social. That's right. Yeah. He can do Cameron a pocket. He can do everyone's job better than they can. And that's why he is. Speaker 1 (19:27) So I think because he knows how to do all that stuff so well, Peter Jackson's not dissimilar. Like started out, you know, with a lot of like very handmade movies. So there's a reason that these movies, there's so much attention to detail. I feel this way about the Avatar movies. Even if you don't like the Avatar movies, he's doing things right now that I think we're going to look at in 25 years and be like, well, this is the person who invented this. And this thing that is much more common. And there's so many shitty versions of now. The Avatar films were. Speaker 1 (19:52) pave the way for this and that might seem like a sin but it's actually going to be the best example of that kind of work. Also, maybe the only Canadian curmudgeon we've ever had. Are there other Canadian curmudgeons? If the tariffs keep going this way, we'll probably have some more curmudgeons. Canadians are famously good-natured but maybe after about 12 beers, we're ready to throw down. He is an old-school this-is-not-a-democracy filmmaker. when it comes to like how he wants to look. I can't wait to talk about this stuff. It sounds like he's pretty collaborative in some ways, but... Not with English people. When it comes to... Yeah, he does not like... You must love that. Tea time. I've never been more down with James Cameron than doing the research of this. Speaker 1 (20:34) The crew being like, no, no, this is what... We should take a tea break in the middle of this movie. This is when we take our tea break. He's like, what? Motherfuckers get to work. The other thing I really love about, especially his early period and kind of harkens back to an earlier era of a filmmaker, although Scorsese and lots of people are like this, is he has his guys. And his guys are in his movies and he picked the right guys. That's how I would be. If I was a director, but I would just have... Speaker 1 (21:03) Who's like Michael Bean? Yeah. I want to talk about Michael Bean. Just like I'm throwing, oh, James Remar flamed out. I'll get my guy Bean. Yeah. Here he is. You do have your guys. You got Sal. You got House. You got Jacko. You got your team. You got CR. What about you? What about Sean? Sean? Yeah. Craig? Christopher Guest is like that too. He's like, I love Fred Willard. Every movie I make, he's going to be in it. True. And he was never wrong to do so. Bomb Back with Eric Stoltz. I know. Nolan has a bunch of his guys. No doubt. Yeah. But yeah, I like, who are Tarantino's guys? Sam Jackson. Who delivers? Well, Sam Jackson's too pricey now for him. No. Tim Roth, Sam Jackson. Tim Roth is a Tarantino. That's a good Tarantino guy. Yeah. I mean, Uma Thurman. Did the two Aliens movies change how we regarded outer space? Speaker 1 (21:52) This is a theme I want to throw at you guys because I'm older than you. And when I was growing up as a kid, Outer Space was Lost in Space, the TV show. It was Star Trek. It was a little scary, but not too much. It's friendly. We were in control of things out there. We landed on the moon. Maybe there's some stuff out there, but I think we're okay. And then right around here, it's like... There's some shit out there dudes. Well, but right around here. We're also getting et right that was what I was gonna say to I think he was friendly He was saying is like it we're getting close encounters like we just want to study you guys not hurt anyone I know I think that the alien franchise has this interesting relationship to Spielberg and Spielberg's conception of extra extraterrestrials because et feels a little bit like it's not a direct response to alien, but it's like a bounce off of the fear Speaker 1 (22:47) that Alien drives, stokes in the culture. It's a glass half empty E.T. And this movie is kind of like the rejection of the warm, fuzzy alien creature that comes more into the fore in movies like Explorers. There's a bunch of movies that come out in the 80s that are also post-E.T. that are friendlier alien life movies. And this movie is a rejection of that. But this movie, I also think, is so... Jurassic Park owes this movie so, so, so much because... Everything that you see in the Stan Winston creature design and the way that the world is built is and the way that the chases and the fear works like that. I had never really realized how much the kitchen sequence with the Raptors in Jurassic Park owes to the chase sequences through the lab and the tunnels in this movie. Like when. Speaker 1 (23:34) Burke traps her with the alien in the medbay. Exactly. And it's the same creature designer. It's Stan Winston who's like a genius of designing these creatures and putting them on screen. And there's this interesting thing where this franchise in particular is like one of the only things in the culture that can kind of go toe-to-toe with Spielberg over this period of time. And it almost feels like they're in this unspoken one-upmanship game that I really like. And on the other side you have like Star Trek 4. Right. Where they're like... Beam down there and we'll just shoot some aliens and beam back up. Yeah. We'll call it a day. I think there's probably also... Speaker 1 (24:10) One of the things that I think is really influential about this iteration of the alien story is like creating a real cynicism about institutions and about companies and about companies that get too big and companies that exist outside of the law. And that's been something that I think the TV series that just came out on FX, Alien Earth, is very focused on is like, why would a company want something like that and bring it back to Earth? what's the hubris it would take to think that you could control that. So I think that that also has something to do with Jurassic Park where it's like these guys who are like, I can master the thing that can't be mastered, you know? Would you compare this to how the fantasy guys did the fantasy draft order for our league this year? You know, honestly, as a shareholder in the fantasy draft, I'm thoughtless. Why were we not asked to participate? Speaker 1 (25:05) We were going to wrangle 12 people to come in and swing golf clubs? We're doing it on Friday. And you're not coming. I had signed up. Until I knew my fate was going to be relying on DK shanking it into the Pacific Ocean. He didn't know it was your ball. It's randomized. It's just literally random. It's just a fun way to pick out of a hat. Freely admitting he'd never swung a golf club. It's shameful. What a shameful act. Kelly, it was random. Hit for high fits, right? Speaker 1 (25:31) The balls were random. We didn't know which balls we were hitting. We all took four shots each. We had no idea whose ball it was. Same sin as last year. When you hit mine, there was a little bit of like Luke Skywalker put the blast shield down. I felt you in my ear. It's overconfidence in your own ideas. It's random. There was no vetting with the rest of the crew how this should work. This is Avatar. Yeah. That's right. It's a Cameron-esque move. It's random. Craig, does your generation fear outer space or like it? Speaker 1 (26:00) To speak for my entire generation? 35 and under. Outer space. To be honest with you. Glass half full or glass half empty? Well, I feel like it wasn't until Elon started talking about going to Mars that it felt relevant to us. I feel like space has been irrelevant. I was just going to say that. I was going to say, is it we don't think about you at all with space? Yeah, space has not really been a part of my childhood and my experience. Yeah, I feel like American culture just pressed pause on space in general. It felt like the 80s. There was just so much conversation about it. Yeah. Speaker 1 (26:27) What else is out there? Then the movie starts. And you just did Apollo 13. And I feel like in the 90s, there was this kind of swoon of nostalgia for astronauts. Yeah. And then that is right when it kind of started to trickle off. To me, honestly. Conspiracy culture didn't help. Yeah, that's true. I think we go at all. The fact that all of the like mega rich dudes are the ones leading whatever space race there is now. It just makes me feel like. Speaker 1 (26:50) I'm either never going to be able to afford to go there or if I do wind up there, I'm going to be mining on Mars. You know, like I'm going to be working on some like farm for like. And that's what these movies, Total Recall is about the same thing. For sure. You know, but like. Total Recall is really important for this conversation too because that's four years later. It's equally like really cool. Not as, not as detailed as Aliens, but a really awesome movie. But that's like, now we're like, okay, weird shit's out there. Speaker 1 (27:16) This could go really bad. Be careful. And all that cynicism that Chris is talking about is in that movie too where it's sort of like you're just a cog in the machine and there's bigger forces at play that are controlling you. And even if we have created a society where we can get to outer worlds and travel across the universe, it's still the same old shit as it is here on Earth. You know what's interesting though? With the books and the radio shows from like the 30s, 40s, and 50s, there's a lot of outer space stuff and like War of the Worlds. But I think part of the problem is... I'm going to note about that. Speaker 1 (27:45) We just couldn't make movies and TV shows that looked realistic for what we would have thought like going to a planet would be. So we didn't really have the technology until this movie. Speaking of Total Recall. E.T. doesn't go anywhere. It's here. Cameron had the whole cast read Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers novel, which I think was written in like the early 50s, and then was eventually made into a movie in the 90s, which is a movie that it owes like a huge debt to aliens. And that was written by the same author that wrote... Total Recall, right? You like that movie? Oh, no. Dick did Total Recall. No, you're right. You're right, Dick. Yeah, but still. Sorry, same director as Total Recall. Paul Verhoeven. Kind of speculative ideas about, like, yeah. Speaker 1 (28:20) So it's all there. It's all really. And this movie is just like insanely influential in terms of like what a sci-fi action movie can be. It is a, it's a before after movie and there's different genres for that. Like even Halloween is a before after movie. It's like they make Halloween horror movies are just different after Halloween. I think the same thing for this. There's one other interesting thing that I never really considered. until I was doing all the research for this about this movie that I just, I wasn't smart enough when I saw it in high school, but there's like a weird Vietnam parallel to this movie. This is very funny because like I was reading about, I was doing my research and Cameron's pretty heavy on this. Like he's like, this is about like a gorilla. Speaker 1 (29:03) This is an allegory for what happened. And then you read Paxton interviews. Bill Paxton's like, I don't know about that shit. But this was at the tail end of the, like we did a podcast about this, the kind of reckoning of America and Vietnam, which basically starts with movies. When are we doing Nam Month? Would you be interested in Namath? Definitely. If we get that sponsored? By who? Who would sponsor Namath? Two things. Sponsored by Michelob Ultra. I feel like this is a huge line of conversation about this movie. So, obviously, he'd just written Rambo Part 2. Yeah. First Blood Part 2. And so that's on his mind as he's writing that movie because that's what that genre of Rambo character is about. And there's three a year coming out about we gotta go back, we have guilt about what we did. Missing in action. This is 86. This is the year of Platoon. Speaker 1 (29:50) This is when this is all happening. And there's these great stories about these two guys who turned down parts in Full Metal Jacket to do Aliens. And they're kind of the same movie. I mean, they're about many of the same things. We shouldn't go back. Why are we going? What are we getting out of this? This was stupid. We're trapped here. We can't get out. Basically the same thing. Pretty interesting. I missed it for 40 years, but now I'm here. Yeah, it seems obvious, but I think it's just as simple as... Speaker 1 (30:16) launching you 100 years into the future and putting you on another planet and you get so swept up in that world that you're only viewing it about the consequences of the characters in front of you. All the coming out of the wall stuff, all the like, I was short, I was going to be out of here in four weeks. Like, you could take that dialogue and put it in a Vietnam War movie. Sigourney Weaver. One of the all-time. fearless great action movie performances by an actress linda hamilton t2 charlie's fury road umma and kill bill sigourney i think that's mount rushmore Speaker 1 (30:52) Anybody else? It's an awesome list. It's like the four that stand out above anything else you could throw. It's the movie I always wanted Angelina to make and she never made. We were talking about that with Flops where it was like she has a couple where you're like she's scratching at it but she never got there. She was but there's a six year run. Yeah. Tomb Raider like but she never had a movie like this but it's Speaker 1 (31:13) That's like once a decade, basically. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is the filmmaker. This is the only one that's ever been nominated for Best Actress. That's the other thing, is that this kind of performance doesn't get acknowledged in a wider way. It's kind of just set to the dustbin of genre. But she's in this place where she's this highly skilled actor who can work in a lot of different kinds of movies. And a couple of years later, she wins an Academy Award for Gorillas in the Mist. Speaker 1 (31:40) And she's also coming off of Ghostbusters. So like, is there a more versatile actress in all of Hollywood at this time? Marlee Matlin wins for Children of a Lesser God. Sierra and I just did this for about last night. We wondered if Demi Moore could have snuck in there. I honestly thought you were just going to say we just did Children of a Lesser God on the rewatchables and I didn't know about it. I was like, holy shit. It was Jane Fonda, Morning After, Sissy Spacek, Crimes of the Heart, Kathleen Turner, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Sigourney for Aliens. Speaker 1 (32:09) At the time, I don't think it was controversial. And I think... I think Marlee Matlin's really great in that movie. It's a tough one, but I don't know who else could have been in this movie in 1986. Yeah, it's a historic Oscar win. There was a really good documentary about Marlee Matlin that came out a couple of years ago. And when you learn about what her relationship with William Hurt was like and what she was going through, I had a lot of empathy for her life and experience, but it's an easy one to be like, no one has seen Children of a Lesser God. It's a movie that kind of disappeared from the culture. Speaker 1 (32:40) Yeah, five-year Oscars, she probably still wins, but I think if we go 40 years later Oscars. This is also a very cool story of Sigourney kind of betting on herself and being like, if you want me, you're going to have to see TC. And I have some notes about what I think the characters could do. It's like what you pulled was see our year. That's right. Well, Rich was a very effective negotiator. You're like, I need my own month for the rewatchables. Speaker 1 (33:05) I need LeBron James in a Sixers uniform. I'm just imagining. I need to do aliens. Rich on Game Over doing like a whiteboard of like, here are all the places Chris can