Imbibe Cinema
Imbibe Cinema swaps stuffy movie reviews for genuine film appreciation with themed libations. Hosts Jonathan C. Legat and Tricia Legat — along with a variety of special guests — pick a particular film they love for each episode and break down why it’s noteworthy while enjoying a drink specially selected to complement the movie. Listeners are encouraged to watch the subject of discussion, grab a delicious libation, and imbibe great cinema with us!
Imbibe Cinema
Interstellar
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At face value, "Interstellar" looks like a typical space epic until you look closer and realize it’s built entirely on real science. Hosts Jonathan C. Legat and Tricia Legat are joined by returning guest Pete Guither to talk about why Christopher Nolan’s film still hits so hard. We dig into Kip Thorne’s behind the scenes impact and how the movie visualizes black holes, wormholes, and spacetime with unusual respect right.
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Looking for more episode content? Read the Episode Recap, including links to episode references and the ingredients for this episode's featured cocktails.
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Featuring Music by Soldier Story: "Bring Down the Money (Freedom)"
Time Travel Banter And Introductions
SPEAKER_01Ooh, it is the time.
SPEAKER_00Actually, the my clock's a little fast, so I was gonna say it's like three minutes fast. So we're in the future.
SPEAKER_01We were actually on your time.
SPEAKER_00It is time travel.
SPEAKER_03Greetings and our salutations and welcome to the Imbibe Cinema. The Imbibe Cinema podcast is brought to you by the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival, otherwise known as Bwiff. I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, along with my co-host Trisha Leggett, as well as our producer, Michael Noens.
SPEAKER_01I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna edit that. John's trying to keep me on my toes.
SPEAKER_05I think you should just like after this make him do multiple takes of it, and then just kind of lead in with every take, and then he'll finish the sentence in the end. So it'll be like a big, like suspenseful.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I'm I'm I'm true to form uh on my second drink, but apparently this one's hitting a little harder than Robert.
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna help you a little, I'm gonna help you a little with the math, sweetheart. They were both doubles.
SPEAKER_03They were both doubles.
SPEAKER_05So that's not one.
SPEAKER_03But I'm not I'm not farther through the You're two drinks in.
SPEAKER_05They were in one drink.
SPEAKER_03We'll get into the science before we get this. Nobody was looking to this podcast to hear me say anything intelligent about science.
SPEAKER_05Well, there goes a bunch of our demographics.
SPEAKER_03Oh boy. All right. We are also pleased to welcome back our esteemed guest, Pete Geither. Yes. Uh Pete requested after we had done uh predestination that this be one of the next films that we did, and we are so uh super excited to be discussing tonight's 2014 Epic Adventure Interstellar.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, it's from 2014.
SPEAKER_03Same year as Predestination. Holy crud.
SPEAKER_05It doesn't feel as that it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't feel BC.
SPEAKER_03Before children? Yes. It it was a thousand percent was B C because otherwise we wouldn't have gone to the theater.
SPEAKER_05No, we couldn't have seen it.
SPEAKER_03Correct.
The Cooper Corn Cocktail Recipe
SPEAKER_05You're right.
SPEAKER_03Uh Pete also found the cocktail uh for us. And uh Pete, if you if you would like to take the honors uh of why this cocktail needed to be uh and what is in the ingredients.
SPEAKER_00Well, in in the movie in Interstellar, um, we of course have lost all almost all the crops uh due to the blight, and Earth is facing potential starvation, and about all that still can grow is corn. Uh the okra has died out, which would be bad if we had to make an okra drink. But uh uh so with corn being the main thing, it it seemed right to have a corn-based uh cocktail. And uh bourbon has to be at least 51% corn. And some of the bourbons, like redemption or uh which is what I'm having, uh makers are like at 70 plus.
SPEAKER_05This is why John's so corny.
SPEAKER_00And then there's this wonderful Mexican elote liqueur called Nixta. Uh and so the drink is a shot of bourbon, a shot of Nixta, and four or five splashes of chocolate bitters. And it is really tasty.
SPEAKER_03Yes, it is dangerously tasty. I might not make it through the intro, dangerously tasty.
SPEAKER_01Give him, give this man a water.
SPEAKER_00But it seemed it seemed right to have a corn-based drink. So yeah, yeah. I I sort of cobbled it together from a number of uh drink recipes out there.
SPEAKER_05Well, okay, so this is a Pete Geither original.
SPEAKER_00Kinda, kinda. It's it's an adaptation. We'll call it that.
SPEAKER_05Okay, and what's what's it called?
SPEAKER_00The Cooper.
SPEAKER_03Ah I like it. So uh look for this episode's recap link uh in our show notes, where you'll also find a written summary of our discussion along with the picture and the ingredients to make your own The Cooper uh at home. All right, now now uh uh Pete again, this this uh I will state this cast, uh I use cast as podcast uh not cast of lingo. No, not not the cast of the movie. Right. Yeah um but uh this this one was was pretty much your brainchild uh uh from from start. Uh what is it about this film uh that immediately grabs you and makes you want to discuss and and help uh those viewers uh uh appreciate this
Why Interstellar Feels Like Hard Sci-Fi
SPEAKER_03film more?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think in part it goes back to when I was growing up, I was a huge fan of hard science fiction. Yeah. I read Isaac Asimov, who was not only a science fiction writer, but a scientist. So the key thing was that in the science fiction, there were things that were posited that we didn't weren't able to do yet. Yeah. You know, faster than light travel or whatever. But then within that framework, everything else would be scientifically accurate. Uh, and that was sort of the basis of hard science fiction. And it's something that I've always loved. I mean, I like fantasy too, but I really get into the whole hard science fiction aspect. And uh on a podcast earlier this uh season for Hail Mary, Project Hail Mary, you also talked about how the science informed that. Uh and Andy Weir has been very big on science in terms of what he's doing. So um, but this is like on steroids. Uh it goes, it goes incredibly beyond. Um, and part of it is because of a guy named Kip Thorne. If you look at the listings in the movie, he's listed as executive producer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But he was actually one of the first two people involved in this film. Yeah. Okay. He was uh he was dating producer Linda Obst, who also did Contact. Okay. And she came up with the idea that they should work on creating a movie that deals with gravity and black holes, because that was his specialty.
SPEAKER_04Ooh.
SPEAKER_00Uh, Kip Thorne, he specializes in black holes, gravity, and related areas, and won a Nobel for his work with gravitational waves. So the whole idea was let's write a movie that deals with those scientific aspects of gravity waves, of black holes, and all of that. And they spent years working on it. They brought on uh Jonathan Nolan, uh, Christopher's brother, uh, as a writer. And he worked on writing it with them. And then um the the studio that they shopped it to got Steven Spielberg on it.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00And so Spielberg was attached to it uh until Paramount couldn't work out a deal with him. So it went back into obscurity for a few years. And then Christopher came on board and got Paramount and Warner to work together to come up with a contract so that he could do it. So basically, you have a movie that started out entirely written by a scientist.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I mean, not writing part of it, but but the creation of it. Yeah. Uh through that. And then even when Christopher came on board, Christopher would come to him about every aspect. Yeah. Uh, you know, how would this work? You know, what and and the science even changed during the process of the years that Kip Thorne was working on this, so that he was able to even make some uh adjustments and improvement. There's uh I read he he wrote a book, The Science of Innerstone, which is an entire book about the science behind this movie.
SPEAKER_01And that is the book that I am meant to bring with me because I have it. What?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you it's awesome. I I I read it. It is it is awesome. It is there are parts of it where I'm just going, okay, that's totally over my head. Yes, no idea. And and and but but the great thing was he every step in the book, he would identify the thing that he's talking about as either true, an educated guess, or speculation. Right. Okay. So but but none of it was going to be untrue. So everything was either true or speculative because they just don't know yet.
SPEAKER_05Well, and black holes themselves were theorized a long time before like the math proved it. And then we didn't actually see one, we just knew that they could exist because the math. And then I don't think they actually had a the first picture of one is 2019.
SPEAKER_00And wormholes are also proven by the math. Okay. Right, right. Uh, and the kinds of wormholes. So that was all part of it.
SPEAKER_05So my goodness, all these packages linky together. Yeah. Math.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now it even got to the point where during the filming, the cinematographer would get together with uh Kip Thorne to find out what the wormhole would actually look like. So they would get the visuals correct. Oh my.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my understanding of that is they based all of the visual effects of the wormhole off of mathematic equations. Oh my. So basically, Kip Thorne was like, Scientifically, this is how it should work. And they were like, All right, let's make a visual representation of that.
unknownGood great.
SPEAKER_05And then wait, and a wormhole is also referred to as the Einstein Rosen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Einstein Rosenbridge, yes. Yes. Uh and yeah, because we we get into a whole bunch of stuff with Einstein being involved because now we get into dimensions. Yes. Um, which becomes a huge part of this story as well. Yep. Um, and it it really gets in. This is this is where Jonathan's head's gonna start exploding. So I just need to to to prep you for that.
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm um
Flatland Spacetime And Higher Dimensions
SPEAKER_03well well lubricated for it.
SPEAKER_00Are are you familiar with the uh book Flatland?
SPEAKER_03No, I am not.
SPEAKER_00It was um it was a little thin book published in 1884. I fell in love with it when I was a kid. You're not that old, Pete. It is, yeah. I well, it had already been out for a while.
SPEAKER_03The Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And it is a book about creatures who live on a two-dimensional plane. And so we try to understand a two-dimensional plane, and that helps us understand the difference between a three-dimensional and a two-dimensional. So, a two-dimensional plane, you got a square, a circle, all living on this flat piece of paper.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And how would you be able to interact with them? Because you're a three-dimensional being, you know, your voice waves would not be two-dimensional, yeah. So that wouldn't work. You might be able to jiggle the paper or something like that that would affect them, but you wouldn't be able to interact with them as a three-dimensional being. Now you take us as a three-dimensional world universe, then you have to add the fourth dimension, which is time.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00And because of Einstein, we realize that time is not a separate dimension. But time is linked to our spatial dimensions in space-time.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Because of the fact that that mass and gravity actually affect time. So they they can't they they can't be separated, they are all part of it. So now if you imagine that our three-dimensional wor universe plus time is that flat piece of paper that we were imagining the two-dimensional beings living on, okay, just for the purpose because we can't look outside of ourselves, we don't have the ability.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00Well, if we are that flat piece of paper at a three-dimensional level, four-dimensional level, then that space outside of us is basically the bulk, is what they call it, which they refer to that in the film.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's the scientific term for it, which is fifth dimension or the dimension outside of our universe. Yes. And that is where gravity and black holes and uh and all of that interact with the bulk. So the idea being is that fifth-dimensional creatures, if they existed in the bulk, they wouldn't know how to look at us or talk to us or anything any more than we could know how to talk to a two-dimensional character. But in this particular conceit in the movie, they could create this four-dimensional tesseract library box. And the one way that they can interact with our universe only in one way, and that is through gravity waves.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00So actually, there's no people traveling in time in this movie. There is time dilation, but all that can affect early Murph is gravitational waves. Yes. And that is what he is doing in the library. So that's the whole science thing.
SPEAKER_05The library is like you said, it's like all it's all one location, but it isn't. It's it isn't because if you make the coordinates, uh, you have to have time be part of those coordinates. So it's really several places because the time is different.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Earth is well, Earth is spinning, Earth is also moving through orbit. I mean, yes, there is the the the coordinate, but like at least what what Cooper is is explaining is is all the the they couldn't create ways to communicate in all these different locations. All it is is one room throughout time, and that that is how he is able to the you know jump back to a certain point in that room's time and do Gravity X and then jump to a different time in that same line.
SPEAKER_00He's not actually jumping to that other time. He is able to see it the same way that we can see a star that existed millions of years ago through the light that is coming to us. And so we can see the past, but the past cannot see him. The only thing that can cross the barrier is gravity, and that's what he's using in that space through the way he's hitting that to make books fall or to make the the watch change or to make the dust come down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I the fact that he ends up programming an entire equation into a watch. Uh I mean, don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_05It's all the way.
SPEAKER_03He has help, but at the same time, like it it's it's gonna take her like you know, twenty something odd years to to decode ones and zeros from
Gravity Messages Love And The Watch
SPEAKER_03a watch. No, because find out where the starting point is.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and to the point, like the thing that kind of I mean, this is maybe going away from science a little bit for a moment, but uh the whole running theme of love and how that transcends time is a very interesting thing.
SPEAKER_05Transcends space and time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. The the thing that they keep coming back to, uh even in that like one line where Tarz is like, how do you know she's gonna come back for this watch? Like you're putting everything in this watch. Like, how do you know? Because I gave it to her, and that's just yeah, that's just he's he's gambling the whole thing on his love for his daughter and his daughter's love for him. It's the power of love.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if we didn't write off love as curious, um as a you know, a selfish motivation, like it uh uh that is un uh whether consciously or unconsciously biasing you uh in in a way that's not looking at the greater picture, which is how they treat Anne Hathaway when she says, I I I there's something greater pulling me there. I know we have to go there. And imagine if they had gone there, would would the other would the scientist be alive?
SPEAKER_03Yes, he would have. Because they wouldn't have taken 30 something well, they definitely wouldn't have lost all the uh the equipment.
SPEAKER_05Or or two of their guys. Like two of the team.
SPEAKER_03No uh they were already going to the water where they lost one of their team because he sat there staring at things for way.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, it's not his fault. It I mean, uh yeah. But um what I'm saying is it is a total human reaction, it is not unbelievable to freeze. I mean, you can uh I anybody uh can freeze in a moment of panic. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no matter how much you're trained for it, like you never know.
SPEAKER_00They could also have believed her earlier and not even gone to the water planet. True.
SPEAKER_03Probably not, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That and it was the closest one, but it was also the one with the colour. There was also the whole discussion about the fact that that it was going to be a time suck, and it was going to hurt their ability to and hurt his ability to get home.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01And as Brandt says, like we should consider time a resource like we would with fuel and anything else.
SPEAKER_00But if they had made that decision, then humanity might have been doomed. Yeah. That's true. Because nobody would have been able to send the signal back to the library for Murph to discover how to solve the problem of getting the the people off Earth and become eventually the fifth dimension residents.
SPEAKER_05Oh, but do they become the fifth dimension residents or does Brand's new population doctor No, they don't become well the there's a whole group, like she has a whole like nursery.
SPEAKER_00Cooper thinks Cooper thinks it's it's them.
SPEAKER_05Well, yeah, but which them?
SPEAKER_03Pete from a bootstrap.
SPEAKER_00Oh. Now we get this. It happened, so it happened.
SPEAKER_03So it happened because it happened. See?
SPEAKER_05No, and you're right, and uh, we we all agree, and uh that is an obvious statement in this film to make, and we're so glad that you're not scared.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Despite the fact that there is no actual time travel, it is a closed loop. It is a closed loop, so yeah. It is, it's like a closed loop, but it's it's only a closed loop because the fifth dimensional beings can see it all at once.
SPEAKER_05Yes, but let's which ones are the fifth dimensional beings? Is it the people in our universe that managed to get off of Earth? Or is it the people we grew in the new planet? It's that like or do they like that's a future, but that was my question.
SPEAKER_00Well, Cooper thinks it's Burf's group that becomes the fifth dimension, but I don't think anybody knows. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily or if in fact it is humans that did it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It could have been other beings.
SPEAKER_05Yes, other beings are probably nicer than we are.
SPEAKER_00The one reason to think that it might have been is because it was necessary for humanity to survive.
SPEAKER_05That's applying our sense of emotion and moral like it it's like the different planes. Like who knows how uh anybody else in the universe would behave. We can't say that they would uh have the same set of values or whatnot that we do. But then also in reality, how many people would be like for the future of the species? And how many people would be like, no, for for the people I love? Like it's very hard to find somebody who I think I mean, especially in our current world, it it really does feel like people who think about the future of the species, um, if we had more people who did that,
Corrected Textbooks Plan A Plan B
SPEAKER_05then we wouldn't have the problems with the climate we currently do.
SPEAKER_03The one thing that you guys had mentioned before we we started rolling um was corrected textbooks. And then I I gave every single one of you a confused look. Um, because what is a corrected textbook?
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. So, yeah, in the beginning of the movie. Such a big moment. Yeah, in the beginning of the movie, um, he has a parent teacher conference that he goes to.
SPEAKER_03Yes, the moon ending space. Okay, that corrected textbook for the corrected.
SPEAKER_01She is using his textbook.
SPEAKER_03Yes, where it talks about instead of the corrected textbooks. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01And what's fascinating to me is that when I saw this movie in theaters in 2014, that seemed like absurd and wow, a throwaway. Perfect word. And re watching the movie earlier today, I was like, what the actual fuck? Oh, I was so differently.
SPEAKER_03Yes, it did hit differently with the Department of Education.
SPEAKER_00I felt just like Cooper. I I was like, Yeah, yeah, get go blow up about this, you know. This is this is so horribly wrong.
SPEAKER_03I got you suspended.
SPEAKER_01I love uh this is a little bit into the performance here, but I love how fuming he gets and how it he he does. Cooper is not a loud, angry person. When he gets angry, he gets real quiet. Oh yeah. And it's like you can feel the the steam coming off of him. And I thought that that was just such a a great choice as an actor. Um and I mean to the to the point where you know he he was like uh where he says, you know, he's talking about his wife, um, and how she would be sitting here instead of me because she was always what does he say, the cooler one, the more patient one, the calm headed one, and you're like, oh shit.
SPEAKER_00I also really love the so what are you gonna do about it? Well, you know, she's been kind of interested in baseball recently, and uh there's a baseball game coming up, and I might get her some ice cream.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to reward her for being smart enough to read past the bullshit.
SPEAKER_05And uh I there's something to be said about the corrected textbook, and yeah, it's horrifying, but then also that whole situation what do you do when you know the planet is dying and you know, like the the educated few know that there is no hope, but we have this illusion we have to well, if the world is ending, would do you let the public know? Or well, no, because mass hysteria, right?
SPEAKER_03And the Michael Caine dilemma. Don't look up. He knows that without the data that you would get from the actual black hole, you can't there is no escaping their future. That he he's already done the equation, and the equation cannot be completed officially until there is that that X data. And so he knows that he is sending these guys to the detriment of those on Earth for the betterment of humanity.
SPEAKER_00He knows it has to be plan B.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It was never going to be plan A.
SPEAKER_00Because they they can't solve the equation. And it's and yet he knows that he has to make them believe that they can, right?
SPEAKER_05Because why would it's such a hard call to make, it's such a difficult decision to make. And to like it, he kind of comes across almost like uh the villain in some ways, but at the same time, it's like that you sac you you sacrifice yourself, so nobody else has to live with this, nobody else has to make that call. He's taking that burden away from everybody else, and he's he's offering them hope, which means they can live their lives as best they can until which is a gift in itself, but it's such a really tragic character and and such a like uh a great moment when you find out it was all lie, yeah. And you find it out in two different locations. Like you find it out when he confesses to Murph, and you find it out when they find out Murph tells them with Matt Damon.
SPEAKER_03Oh man Matt Damon.
SPEAKER_05Matt Damon.
SPEAKER_00Oh, what he was the greatest character, man.
SPEAKER_03Tell you what, we're gonna take a few moments to fill our glasses and get ready to embed more after this.
Listener Voicemails And Ways To Connect
SPEAKER_01Hey Michael, I got some cool news. You got some cool news? I love cool news. What's the news? Our listeners can actually send us a voicemail now, and I'm thinking that maybe this will work better than text.
SPEAKER_02You think you think that the reason was because they had to actually like type things where now they can actually speak to us.
SPEAKER_01Right. The cool thing is now they can actually leave us a voicemail and then we can play that voicemail on the show. And then answer that voicemail. In real time. In real time. So almost real time. Yes. Well subtract. Sub real time. Sub real time. In our real time. Yes. Not their real time.
SPEAKER_02Not their real time.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, so they can leave us a voicemail with their film suggestions or what they think that we should cover on the show that we haven't yet.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01I think that would be pretty cool. Or they could even like just say, hey, you know, you talked about this movie and you didn't talk about this, and I think you should be talking about this.
SPEAKER_02That's more than fair.
SPEAKER_01And but then we can address that. So yeah, they should totally do that.
SPEAKER_02It's audience interaction. All right, so so uh, yeah. Not only can you leave us a text, but you can also leave us uh uh a full voicemail, and we will be able to uh hear and respond to either your text or your voicemails.
unknownPerfect.
SPEAKER_03I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, and I am here along with Trisha Leggett and Michael Noins. And our special guest, Pete Geither. And we are discussing Interstellar. Enjoying this podcast, please subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast providers to get our new episodes as soon as we release them. Rate and leave us a review to help the show reach that larger audience. Uh, you can also uh follow Imbibe Cinema on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Letterboxd.
TARS CASE Dr Mann And Human Nature
SPEAKER_03All right. So uh I know that uh even before we we had started waxing poetics, uh, we were already starting to talk about the production of this film. Uh but I do want to actually take a quick step back um uh on the sense that uh there there was an interesting thing about this film, and I think one was AI, uh Tars and Case. Um in the in the sense that I I think the first time I watched it, my brain didn't quite compute what they were. Um that they were not only AI, but like the the joke essentially that they are is they are a military weapon that we had created. The way that this film uh addresses time that we have not yet lived is very casual, uh in the sense that it's like okay, everything that has come between the point that you're watching this movie in 2020 something or 2016 something, and where it is where the only uh things we have left are okra and corn. Um we've had a war. We've had a war that was machines, AI uh military machines waging that war to the point that Cooper is is not quite trusting of these two uh beings.
SPEAKER_01Even NASA. Even NASA NASA was asked to drop bombs on on starving people. Correct. To ease the the food the mouths uh food.
SPEAKER_00We're at least 15 years away from that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Are there any other things that jump out to you?
SPEAKER_05I love the the idea of the uh AI in this uh situation. There are they are AI you want to hang out with, they are smart and funny, 75% humor.
SPEAKER_00The adjustable part. I mean, I need to be able to adjust, Alexa, you know, in particular the honesty level that it knows not to be 100% honest honest with humans um because of emotion and whatnot.
SPEAKER_01And already and explains in a very comprehensive, almost scientific way. Yeah, like it's just you can't do this with humans.
SPEAKER_00People can't handle 100% honesty, so yeah. So I love that anything more than 90%, people are gonna get pissed off.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. And then it continuously calls back to I mean, Coop and uh Brand say that over and over. Honesty level.
SPEAKER_0190%.
SPEAKER_05Yep, yes, self-destruct in yeah, all right, right after I blow you out the airlock, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, but it understands 2001 space odyssey.
SPEAKER_00As long as we're talking about characters, I do have to make a plug for Mackenzie Foy, young Murph. Oh, yes, yes, yes, fantastic. I was so engaged whenever she was on the screen.
SPEAKER_01Aside from the fact that they look similarly, I do love I love whenever you have a young actor and an older actor that are playing the same character, and they both, at least on this viewing, I don't really feel like one was trying to be the other. They were literally complimenting one another. That's right. To try to be like, we're going to be the same person. They kind of borrowed a little bit from each other, I felt, having seen a number of Jessica Chestain films. I feel like she wasn't just you know, like like Tom Hanks is usually Tom Hanks in a movie. Nicholas Cage is always Nicholas Cage. Right. And so like I feel like there was there, there was like a little bit of a study between the two of them. Yeah, that was very believable. And in a way, I think, between um not as clear, but uh between uh Timothy Chalamet and Casey Affleck.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um I very much believed that they were the exact same person.
SPEAKER_00It was it was heartbreaking when Jessica Chastain Smurf was doing the Did You Know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, that hurt. Yeah. That just that just hurt so bad.
SPEAKER_05Well, and I I I love the um the montage of uh videos that you get when he comes back from the water planet where it's Miller's, yeah. Yeah, it's all of the time that's missed on all this whole life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And and just snippets.
SPEAKER_0330 something odd years.
SPEAKER_05And it's heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_01And I saw an interview I remember at some point with Matthew McConaughey, where he was talking about how there was like a rehearsal period, like there was something where they wanted to go through this, and he was very much uh about no, I need you need to roll the camera on this because the first time that I experience all of this, you are going to get very raw. And then I'm gonna be trying to replicate that every time. Yeah. And because it was the first time that he would hear all of this, yes, and he really wanted to be in the moment, and so um, yeah, and they ended up rolling it, and he was like, and they used that very first take. We did multiple takes, but they used that first take because it was the most raw, which makes the most sense because he was really in the moment, he was present, and yeah, and and it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking just to uh anything, it's clear in the way that they held on him for so much of it because he he was showing you both sides just in his reaction. Yeah, it was emotional, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Because even though, like, much like Matt Damon's character, you can know the reality of a thing, accepting it and actually like living it is different than just knowing it.
SPEAKER_03Matt Damon is such a good bad guy. Yes, he is such a good bad guy.
SPEAKER_01He's such a good coward, such a good weasel. He did that very well. How do you feel about his character being man? Like his name being man.
SPEAKER_05I do, I I uh I appreciate that. I haven't thought of it. He was the best of us, and it did it took him years before he broke down. And I feel like it it encompasses an arrange of humanity in that way, because he was the best of us and the worst of us, all wrapped in one. And uh as man.
SPEAKER_00And it also really kind of focuses in on the um that that foible of self-preservation. I mean, going back to our discussion in predestination, which people can watch, uh the idea of would you be willing to kill yourself in order to prevent the future from happening? And that is a little bit of what he is faced with here, right? Uh see, John, you're doing it to other people now.
SPEAKER_05They all want to. I'm taking that. He's he's now now he's gonna say uh he says watch. Like you can watch with your ears.
SPEAKER_03Yes, our our listeners should watch these movies.
SPEAKER_05Oh, good. Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, watch the movie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes, very good. Now, I I I do have one one science
Gravity Clues Drone Combines Sound Design
SPEAKER_00flashback for you. Why did the um uh the Indian satellite come down? Yeah, good. You know, the uh the the the rock. Yeah, the one that they chased it come down, the one that they chased down through the cornfields and uh and got so he could use the almost driver cleaning.
SPEAKER_03It was a drone. Okay, the drone, yes. Why did the drone was it a weather drone?
SPEAKER_00So yeah it it was it was uh Well he talked about how it maybe this it fried the circuits fried, like just being up there so he also talked about how it was almost like it was seeking a signal of some kind.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because of those fifth dimensional people.
SPEAKER_00Think about the fact that all of the combines suddenly went haywire when they plugged into that, lost track of their magnetic connection in terms of what direction it was, and that is because of gravity. Both of those things were because the house had been affected by gravity from the fifth dimension from the Tesseract when Cooper was there, a gravity effect into our three-dimensional world that affected the gravitational pull around that house, which affected both that drone and the combines. Yeah. That is so cool.
SPEAKER_05And you know, I didn't I I I don't think I ever because there's so much in this movie. I think that's one thing I never really thought too much about after.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That is so cool.
SPEAKER_00It's it's a big film. There's so much going on in it. I mean, even even down to the the the world at the end with the baseball field in the the circular uh almost a Dyson sphere, almost like uh that that it that it's in.
SPEAKER_03So excited it broke those those poor people's windows. Probably happens all the time. Happens all the time. So excited though.
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, but the fact that um the it it it is such an epic and that it's almost two stories, everything on earth versus everything after. Um and then the editing on how they put everything together is is just really well done.
SPEAKER_00I think it worked, and just like I think that Project Hail Mary's editing worked as far as that aspect of it, even though some may disagree.
SPEAKER_01The the thing that really grabs me every single time for this movie, there's a particular moment, and it's not, you know, uh a typical Christopher Nolan booming so loud on top of dialogue that you can't understand. Um which I'm not it's not a dig at him.
SPEAKER_04It is pretty common, though.
SPEAKER_01I actually enjoy that about him. It's it's weird, but I like it. Um uh I know a lot of other people don't. But um it's the thunderstorm in space. That's something that I I don't know what it is about it, but since the first moment that I saw it, when you have the the it's when they come out of their their nap, their long nap, and they're approaching Saturn. Oh the sound of the earth and a thunderstorm, and then it cuts to and the crickets, yeah. And it cuts to the uh the endurance moving past a planet, and you just hear uh a thunderstorm. And I I just thought it was just I don't know, there was just something very beautiful about it um that was very contradictory to one another. The silence of space and the noise of position. There you go. Um, but yeah, something about that really just I don't know why, but it hooked its claws in me. And it's one of the things that I remember when I think about this movie, I think about that, which is weird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's fascinating because of the fact that there is no sound in space, and yet, you know, you want to have a sound that's going to bring the audience into the moment. Yep. And so you have to, as a director, find ways to make sound work in the emptiness of space without the Star Wars just your new explosions that you wouldn't actually know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Or just John Williams in general. To which this film really honors it really like in multiple ways, you do not hear sound in space. When they are docking, you do not hear anything. Right. And it builds suspense. Oh, God, whatever. When when they after they they uh they dock with endurance and they're they're floating through the ship, and it's currently venting out into space, you're hearing nothing until all of a sudden they close the door and then you hear the alarms. Yeah, and then you hear all the because it's now enclosed and there's an atmosphere. Oh god. Um it's it's very it's quite beautiful.
SPEAKER_03Matt Damon's final words are the only thing you hear.
SPEAKER_00Explosion silence. Very cool stuff. It's yeah, it just it's taking that actual reality. Again, it goes back to the science. It's the realness of it rather than going for the oh, we're gonna make explosions in space. Yeah, no, it's it's about the actual realness of it and making the silence work and then contrasting it with sound when you're inside. Yeah. Christopher Nolan just knows how to to push those buttons. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And he's he's not afraid to make dialogue versus the environment really compete with one another.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and I I get the the complaint that people have where they're like, I don't understand what they're saying because the environment is so loud. But that is done by design. And the more that you watch the film, I think you get why it's done that way.
SPEAKER_05Well, I mean, I would think uh just without a specific example, I would think that it's meant to make you feel uneasy, it's meant to make you feel anxious, it's meant to make you feel like like lean in, it's meant to get a reaction out of you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um that's more immersive to the film.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is a really good drink. It really is. Very good.
SPEAKER_05It's gonna make editing so much fun for Michael.
SPEAKER_00Dangerously good. Yes, it is.
Guest Updates And Closing Cheers
SPEAKER_03Pete, is there anything else that that you have going on uh coming up?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, I just want to let you know that I just had a wonderful, amazing exhibit of my photography up in Chicago uh recently, um uh along with the performance, and that is all leading to a uh comprehensive Living Canvas book that will be released sometime, hopefully in 2027. All right. I'm working on that now. Uh, and I'm using the uh the feedback from the exhibit that I just had, and um, there will be an entire hardcover book with photography and history and stories and interviews and all sorts of stuff about Living Canvas, which is my art form. So uh yeah, keep an eye on that and uh uh keep in touch with me, and I'll let you know when that's coming out.
SPEAKER_03Wonderful! Yay! Well, um, I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, and thanks for imbibing with us. Cheers.
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