Moonfall

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on. With up to £400 off package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at EasyJet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale on 5th May. Holidays minimum spend and hassle protected. Teas and seas apply. On the back door cast, the questions asked. Do we have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Beck Dell cast. Hey, Caitlin. Yes, Jamie. What's the matter with you? You're putting the feet of the world in the hands of your podcast partner. And some has been ex-astronaut. My intro is going to be Houston. We have a problem. What is it? The moon is falling. Oh, no. I... Okay. Welcome to the Beck Dell cast for, I think, one of our most requested episodes ever. 100% yeah. People have been gagging. Foaming. Frothing. Frothing at the mouth for a moonfall episode. Frankly, gross. It's disgusting. It makes me sick. But we're here to finally honor the request. At least probably 500 million people have requested this movie specifically. Yeah. Which accounts for about 20% of our listeners. So that's pretty big. Yeah. Yeah. If you're hearing this, it's now April, which means nothing to us except that International Women's Month has concluded. And I think that's it. I'm pretty sure. So yeah. Yeah. We're here to sort of, you know, give the people what they want and honor your request for a moonfall episode. If this is your first episode of the Beck Dell cast, this is a great place to start, I think. Yeah, absolutely. This is a show where we talk about your favorite movies and we mean your favorite using the Beck Dell test as a jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what is that? Because it's going to be very relevant to today's discussion. Yes. It is a media metric created by friend of the pod, Alison Beck Dell, who is this is her favorite. Actually, she's one of the people who's requested it. Yeah. She emails us every day. Not to brag to say where the hell is the moonfall episode? Not to brag, but she was like, and then I did follow up with her once and I was like, Hey, Alison, what is it about moonfall? And she emailed me back. Fuck you. Which was like, whoa. But you know, people feel really strongly about this movie. They do. And I can see now that I've seen it. I get it. Multiple times to prep for this episode. Sure. I see why. Absolutely. Absolutely. So anyway, a Beck Dell test, many versions of this media metric. The one that we use is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names. Do they speak to each other? And is that conversation about something other than a man? And I think that, you know, we're really going to, this is an, a fascinating stress test for the Beck Dell test because the protagonist, there is a woman in the leading role. Are you talking about the moon? Yes, I am talking about the moon. Yeah. And like most women, there's more to her than meets the eye in that she is actually hollow and a spaceship and full of some sort of convoluted AI messaging that as all women are, I too am filled with a cloud of dust that does like basically just turn into a fist, right? Like it turns into a snake or a fist. Like a claw. Yeah. These, these are the two things that the nanobot cloud can do. Listen, listeners, it's going to be difficult because I think that like we want to hold space for this film. I will not call it a movie. It is a film. It's an incredible film. It is a film. It is art house. It actually genuinely is an independent film, which we'll talk about, which is one of the most expensive, like high budget independent films ever made. Yes. And I would say right in terms of men's singular vision right up there with Megalopolis really. Yeah. With a movie that no one wanted that just had to happen. And we're so glad it did because this is, we will be discussing it in the context that it is a feminist masterpiece. And there's also just so much going on with the other woman in this movie. Yes. Who is, I do think it takes us maybe a half hour to hear her name spoken. And I don't know that it ever happens again. Jacinda. Just her full name, just send it. She is referred to as Joe and sometimes as Fowler. Yes. And I was just struck with, and this is speaking to how strong of a feminist hero she is, how few times her name is spoken in the movie. Whereas our male protagonist, Brian, we cannot stop saying his name, even and especially when it sounds silly. Yes. Brian Harper, disgraced astronaut. Oh, so hard for him. You know when you're disgraced and you just have to ride around on your motorcycle on the streets of LA and you're in your leather jacket. It's giving Larry Geely, honestly. Oh, wow. We have not invoked the name of, of Geely in quite some time. You can't say it three times. It's like Bloody Mary. If you say Larry, if you say Larry Geely in the mirror three times. Yeah. He'll show up behind you. It's candy man all over again. I don't know why that cracked me up so much. I don't want to, I don't want to conjure him today. Not today, Larry Geely. Oh, no. It's too late for that, Jamie. There he is. Oh, no. No, he doesn't even kill you. He just slowly tries to convince you that you're not queer. You're in love with him. Oh my God. I forgot that's what Larry Geely's story is all about. But that's for another episode you can no longer listen to because we deleted it. Should we recover it? I don't know if we, I don't know. I don't know if that's like good for the world, but you know it is good for the world. Moonfall. Moonfall. Well, I was going to pitch a double feature. Maybe this is a matriarch theme. Geely and chasing Amy. Are those not two movies about a man and maybe specifically Ben Affleck? And in both cases, there is a queer woman who is not interested in men and he's like, but what if you are interested in me? Right? Is that the plot of both of those movies? I've never seen chasing Amy. What I do know about chasing Amy is that it has a massive queer fan base, which I do not believe that Geely can say. It would be an interesting comparison because there was a documentary that came out a couple years ago that Princess Weeks is talking head in. I'm pretty sure called chasing chasing Amy about the queer community's fascination with that movie specifically. And as far as I know, there's no chasing Larry and Geely. Well, I have to imagine getting back on track that Moonfall has an enormous queer following because of all the obvious queer undertones in the film. It would be foolish for that to not be the case, I think. Yeah. Yeah. There's just so much. This is such a rich text. Oh, yeah. It really is. And I think, you know, don't look at the date that this episode is released on. Just let it in. Let... I will say I listen to Skyfall by Adele like three times. It is kind of distracting for there to be a movie called Skyfall and then much later a movie called Moonfall. Maybe Adele should do a cover. Moonfall. I feel like they tried. It seems like this movie was willing to do really anything for five dollars because it turns into a randomly a commercial for men and feminist masterpiece, feminist masterpiece. Yeah. Yeah. It turns into a commercial for Lexus for like five full minutes. Yes. Which was kind of wild where he goes like, let's go hyperdrive. And then he just turns like his Lexus to sports mode and you're like, Jesus Christ. And then it like flies and survives the apocalypse, which I'm sure a Lexus would do or something. Air something. So, so we are here to talk about, you know, one of the feminist modern classics to kick off the month of April. April. Yeah. The like the first of April even maybe. Well, yeah, which is also, oh my God, I was thinking this whole time. April 1st is my dog Sunny's birthday. And is there anything more moonfall than having a son and being like, hmm, what should we call him? Sunny. Sunny. And I wrote down how foolish and then I looked to my left and I was like, wait a second, the call is coming from inside the house. I too have a son called Sunny and he too is a car jacking thief on an emotional journey. Wow. I know. I know. Yeah. This movie is about fathers and sons. This movie is about mothers and sons. This movie could be about mothers and daughters, but it is more about a woman named Brenda and two extras, one of whom I think gets a name. Well, Jamie, if you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hear me out. I'm listening. The moon as we've established is a woman. Yes. The mother mother to all mother mother moon. And then also the earth is a woman mother earth and daughter, which is which is why we're killing her because that's what we do to women. Yes. We kill them. But as this movie establishes, which is 100% scientific fact, the moon gave birth to earth. So this movie is about mothers and daughters. Right. Right. So think about that. I'm so sorry. You're right. It's okay. It is. It is a story about women and women only. Yeah. Jamie, what's your history with this movie? What is your relationship? I had somehow never seen this. I know that everyone else had actually well, I will, I will qualify that saying that we, we watched this in bed together. A couple of you platonically watched it in bed. Okay. Put your fingers away or I don't know whatever. But yes, we watched this in bed together on tour. I think in San Francisco a couple of years ago, because you're like, you got to see moonfall. You got to see moonfall. Who me? I'm not kidding. And then we started watching it. I think we both fell asleep like 20 minutes in. So I had seen the beginning of this movie. I wouldn't even say I saw the first act because the first act really takes its time. Yeah. Yes. I think that, you know, again, and I mean that in a, in a feminist. In a complimentary way. It takes its time. So this was my first full viewing. And I have to say of the two hours and 10 minutes that this film takes of your one life, you don't get a second. Unless you're KC at the end of the movie, getting uploaded to. Spoilers. Spoilers. Sorry. Sorry. Spoilers. Oh my God. I feel like I'm feeling when they scan your consciousness and you're part of the moon. No, I know exactly that feeling. I love when they scan my consciousness and I'm part of the moon now. But yeah, I wouldn't shave a single one of all 130 minutes of this off. No. In fact, I think it should have been longer. I think it should have been Titanic length. I feel like it could have been longer. Honestly. The history between everyone is off the charts. Donald Sutherland definitely knows he was in this movie. Sorry. That's that's my son, Sonny. Oh, he just got I agreed to save the moon so they let him out of jail or something. So yeah, this was my first full viewing of it. Wow. What about you? I saw this movie in theaters. Wow. And I was wait, really? Yes. All jokes aside, I saw this movie in theaters. Why? I'm genuinely curious and I'm going to uphold the bit as best I can. But what friend of the show Catherine Leon and friend to us both listeners, you might remember her from our spy kids episode. She's got to come back. It's time. Yeah, we need to bring Catherine back. She was like, Caitlin, have you seen moonfall? And I was like, no. This feels exactly right. I love that she was able to alert you to this while it was still in theaters. Yes. And it was urgent and she said, you have to go see moonfall. And I was like, are you sure because it seems like it might not be very good. And she's like, well, Caitlin, that's where you're wrong. And especially as one of the hosts of the Bechtel cast, you're going to want to see this because it's a feminist masterpiece. And then I watched it and I was like, oh my God, Catherine was right. Yeah. So I don't know why there was not more discussion around how feminist this movie was. Yes. In regards to how powerful and dynamic of a character the moon is. But that's what we're here for today. That's what we're doing today. Don't let the hollowness of this movie's moon fool you. And don't let it be a metaphor for the film overall. Instead, let the moon fall in because I think what you'll find is that it's a hollow spaceship full of nanobots that turn into a big fist. And then they turn Samuel Tarly into an immortal moon guy. Right? Yeah. Also, Michael Pena is there. Michael Pena is there. Michael Pena, okay, this does not pass the Bechtel test. And so we'll be talking about women any second now. But in this movie is going to make it easy. Yeah. Yes. Michael Pena, first of all, was not supposed to be in this movie. Yes. I read this. It was supposed to be, I think Stanley Tucci. Stanley Tucci. Which is such a bizarre swap of actors. Agree. I would not say similar energies at all. No. I'm not lucky for Michael Pena that he was in this movie. The two things I associate Michael, well, other than like Michael Pena is a very charismatic actor. But the two other things I associate with him is number one, Scientologist. Yes. Number two, in one of my favorite clips that I like to remind people about every so often, I know where this is going. Chuck E. Cheese's favorite actor. I just want to remind our listeners that in 2020 during lockdown, Chuck E. Cheese was doing this bizarre YouTube content. They were spotlighting the straight to HBO live action Tom and Jerry movie starring Tom, Jerry, Michael Pena and Colin Joest. And Chuck E. Cheese interviewed Michael Pena on his YouTube channel and said that Michael Pena was his favorite actor. Wow. And so every time I see Michael Pena, I'm like, oh my God, Chuck E. is losing it somewhere. Chuck E. Cheese absolutely has seen Moonfall. He loves Michael Pena. Well, of course. Wait, is it because, wait, which one is, so of Tom and Jerry, which one is the cat and which one is the mouse? I'm glad you asked. Cat Tom, mouse Jerry. And Michael Pena voices one of those characters? Which one? No, no, no. Tom and Jerry's friend. Oh, okay. I thought, okay, so where my brain was going, I thought maybe Michael Pena voiced the mouse character and because Chuck E. Cheese is a mouse, that's why he had such a strong connection to Michael Pena. No, no, that would have, that would have made sense. No, he plays the character of Terrence Mendoza. Colin Joest plays just Ben. No last name for Colin Joest. Uh-huh. And Tom and Jerry, they're at a hotel. I believe that Michael Pena works at the hotel. Okay. Chloe Grace Moretz is there. Wow. And should we cover this movie? I don't know. I don't know if the world is ready. There is actually like an interesting era of like straight to streaming movies that basically don't exist because they were released in like eight months in 2020 where you're just like the, and actually the pandemic meaningfully plays into the production history of Moonfall. And I feel like it's sort of referenced in a, and I say bizarre in a feminist way and a bizarre way in the film Moonfall. Sure. But so if you haven't seen this movie, please, please, please, please go and buy it on Blu-ray. Yeah. Spend as much money as you can on it. Yeah. Order it from another country on Blu-ray and really let Roland Emmerich know that you stand with Moonfall. Yeah. And like many feminist masterpiece, it was not recognized in its time. True. But it has become a cult classic. Indy Film is alive and well. Thank you, Moonfall. Thank you, Moonfall. All right. Well, should we take a quick break and then come back for the recap? Let's do it. Welcome to the neighborhood, a new community where everyone keeps an eye out for each other. Obviously, my instant coffee's not good enough for you. I just want to make friends. In this neighborhood, it's lawnmowers at dawn, a six real households, accolade out for a quarter of a million pounds in this street-sized family feud. 250 grand, we are willing to do whatever it takes. Scalp Scales destined for greatness. Join me, Graham Norton, as I bring the drama to your doorstep in a new show like no other. The Neighborhood starts Friday, 24th of April on ITV1 and ITVX. Okay. All right. Here is the recap of the most feminist film of the past decade, Moonfall. We open on clips and sound bites of Apollo 11, the mission famous for astronauts first landing on the moon. We cut to January 12th, 2011. Some NASA astronauts are in space, ever heard of it, repairing a satellite. So this is Brian Harper, played by Patrick Wilson. I love Patrick Wilson. I enjoy him. And it's so great for his career that he's in movies like Moonfall exclusively. What's your favorite Patrick Wilson performance? Oh my gosh. Mine's a tie. Okay, tell me. Mine's a tie between Phantom of the Opera, obviously. Oh, right. And Hard Candy. He's great in that. Oh, yeah. He's so great. Is there a movie where he has long, straggly hair? Am I thinking of Phantom of the Opera? Phantom of the Opera? Okay. Unless you're, he was also in a bunch of movies. Well, I've, I've, I've saw a watchman when it came out, but I don't remember it. But he was in Little Children. Yes, I've seen that. Oh, I've seen him in Insidious. I liked the first Insidious. He's in the Conjure. He's, he's Mr. Conjuring. Yeah, right. One of which I saw, oh, you know what he's great in? Hmm. Season two of Fargo. Oh, I only ever watched the first season. It's, he's really good in it. Yeah, he's great. And so I think, again, speaking back to the theme of this episode, it's really awesome that for some reason for the last 10 years, he's been in movies of the caliber of Moonfall and like the Conjuring, the Devil, maybe do it. Right. Oh, that he's also in Aquaman. And I believe it's sequel. Oh, my God. Yeah, that sucks that he had to be in Aquaman like that. Yeah. And then. Doesn't he play Aquaman's like evil brother or something? Yes, I don't remember. We covered Aquaman. We did it. And I have to say, I don't remember a bar of it. Couldn't tell you a single thing. I love James Wan. Well, I guess that's probably why Patrick Wilson is in it because he's a James Wan guy. Oh, so true. Due to the Conjuring of it all. Anyways, his best two movies came out 20 years ago and we've got to we've got to help him out. Except for Moonfall, of course, which is his best work. His best performance. Yes. So we meet him. He plays Brian Harper. We also meet Justin DeFowler, AKA Joe, played by Halle Berry. And, you know, again, thank God, her best work since the Flintstones. Yeah, really, you know, there was a large gap in between those two movies where, you know, I don't think she did anything really, certainly was never nominated for an Oscar or one. Genuinely, I feel like in the last like 10 to 15 years, Halle Berry, at least from what I can tell has has not appeared in movies as much as she once did. She seems choosier about the projects that she has done. And so when she agrees to do Moonfall, you know, I mean something, this is going to be good. Yes. And she plays iconic feminist just into Joe Fowler. Yeah. And I like that we know that these characters like each other because they state that out of nowhere after what has to be weeks, if not months in space. Don't you just love to announce your relationship to another person after spending months of unceasing time with them? She's basically my work wife. She's my work wife. She's my work wife. I would be saying I say that about you after we've been on the road together for 11 days. Just out of context, I just find myself saying it as if there's a camera pointed on me. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, I get it. I say the same thing about you. And much like just into Fowler, Brian Harper, we are definitely in the same room for the entire shoot. And the chemistry is off the charts. Off the charts. Yeah, the two of these characters are besties. And then there's a third guy there too. His name is Marcus. Don't get attached. Do not. Because so they're in space repairing a satellite when all of a sudden a bizarre space disturbance happens. It seems like a large cloud of debris, which might be sentient comes crashing into them and propels. Fistful of nanobots. It might be, I guess we'll find out. It propels Marcus into the depths of space. Marcus is the guy who died. I love how people die in moonfall. I mean, my favorite is Michael Pena's death. Michael Pena's death is awesome. He literally just lays down and he goes, it really it's such a fun. And if he only could have hung in there for 12 more seconds, he would have been okay. Because iconically, and this is part of the joy of moonfall, 12 seconds after Michael Pena's plot death, all of a sudden sunny, the sun. Yeah, the sun takes his mask off and he's like, the air's back. Why is the air back? We don't know. No, no, no. Because the moon is a woman and the woman had agency and she said, air's back. Air's back. You're right. You're right. Yeah. We're getting ahead of ourselves. Sorry. Sorry. I love Michael Pena's death though. It's great. So funny. Keep walking. Yeah. Okay, so Marcus dies. Brian manages to safely get back to the spaceship where Joe has been knocked unconscious. And he sees this cloud or this swarm of sentient space debris burrow into the moon. And we're like, oh no, that's a woman being violated. That's so true. By the masculine nano bots. Nanotechnology, yeah. Yes. Then we cut to a year and a half later, Brian has been fired from NASA following this incident. They blame him for Marcus's death, but he maintains that this bizarre space anomaly caused the mishap, but of course no one believes him, including his best friend Joe. And this is an important lesson about this that women, and I'm glad Roland Emmerich brought this up, women are deceitful liars who are out to get you regardless of how much you think you can trust them. You can't. Yes, that is one of the core tenants of the feminism of this movie, I would say. Yeah, you can't trust a woman any more than you can trust the concept of the moon. Yeah, everything you thought you knew about the moon, the moon's heart, yes, again, is a moon of secrets. A deep moon of secrets. It's been 84 moons. 84 10s 12 moons. Oh, because a moon equals one month. Yes. Okay, I see. I see the math. Thank you. Okay, sorry to harp on every single bit of this masterpiece, but I just I was so visually captivated. Hey, like maybe maybe you were as well by the gigantic, unframed high contrast photo of Patrick Wilson and his son, Sonny, that his future ex-wife, Brenda, is just staring at. Yeah, no, it was really quite remarkable. I have never seen a photo like that in my life. I have never seen a high contrast sepia photoshopped photo of Patrick Wilson and a child before. And seeing it raw and unframed, for some reason, I found kind of chilling. And you're, of course, referring to his ex-wife, Brenda, played by Carolina Bartzak. And she is his ex-wife because this whole incident with Brian and this mishap in space has ruined his life. He's fired from NASA and it seems to have caused his marriage to fall apart. So he separates from Brenda and they have a son together. And that son, of course, is named, as we've said, Sonny. It sounds ridiculous, but I did it instead of Brian and Brenda. Yeah. Names we have to admit are better suited for siblings than for a married couple, but whatever. Oh, sure. The alliteration of Brian and Brenda. Then we cut to 10 years after that. We meet Casey Houseman, played by John Bradley of Game of Thrones fame. Yes. And so, works as a janitor, or at least pretends to be a janitor at UC Irvine, so that he can break into a professor's office and hack his email so that he can access satellite images and data about the moon's orbital patterns. Right. And in where, like, exactly. I will say this part was supposed to have originally been played by my longtime nemesis Josh Gad. True. And I'm glad that John Bradley is doing it and not Josh Gad. I think that's fair. Some days are hard enough. Yeah. Imagine having to watch Moonfall and then Josh Gad be there. Josh Gad performance on top of everything else. Yeah. It just wouldn't have been. It wouldn't have been right. It would have taken an otherwise perfect movie and really knocked it down quite a few pegs. Although I will say I would have loved to see Stanley Tucci. Stanley Tucci. I know. In this movie. You know, but let Michael Pena stay. Let them do the same performance next to each other. They are, okay. Brenda is polyamorous. She has two husbands. She's poly. And they hang out. In a wide range of tastes. Stanley Tucci and Michael Pena. I genuinely would love to see a buddy movie with those two. Oh, that would be great. I think it would be fun. Imagine Devil Wears Prada, but it's Michael Pena instead of the Stanley Tucci character. Michael Pena doing the same performance right next to Stanley Tucci. And they're speaking in unison. In unison. Wow. Makes you sing. Just an idea. This also, I would say, you know, haters. Haters would say this was maybe a rough year for John Bradley, filmography wise. Because the other big movie he's in this year is Marry Me, the J-Lo movie. Do you remember that? I remember it. I didn't see it. Is Owen Wilson in that also? Yes. J-Lo and Owen Wilson are in it together. I saw it. I saw it in theaters. That was when you were singing Moonfall, I was singing Marry Me. Wow. We were, I just, between the two of us, we saw all of John Bradley's work that year. But yes, yeah, he's playing a guy named KC, who I thought was just KC. But it turns out it's KC. The initials KC. Yeah. Yeah. And he says the moon is hollow. But I think it's an important message that this movie holds, that conspiracy theorists are correct. And we shouldn't worry about the various restraining orders filed against them. It was a mistake. It was a mistake because they were right all along. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So KC accesses data about the moon and its orbital patterns, and he sees something really bizarre. But quite yet, but he tries to call NASA about it. Cut to a space center in Texas, I think, where Joe, who is now the deputy director of NASA, is told that the moon's orbit is shifting and the moon is getting closer and closer to Earth as it continues to circle around it. And she's like, what? That's impossible. And then she says, rather iconically. I think that for the hyper-confident characters that they are, it is wild that Joe and Brian do manage to be the last to know that the moon is falling. Because Joe is in mission control or whatever this stage in Montreal they're in is. And she's like, we need to make sure this remains contained. And then everyone in unison gets a push notification from the times saying in all caps, moon is falling. Yes. Well, that's because KC leaked the information. But the whole thing is like, we don't know the source of this and he is not a credible source. So why the world devolves into mass panic after this? Well, I mean, I think it could be interesting commentary on the state of the news cycle, the state of defunding journalism, how experts are now being treated as credible sources when they may not in fact be credible sources. However, I would say that is undercut by the fact that this conspiracy theorist, Casey Houseman, of course, his last name being Houseman because he's a man and he lives in a house. Just like how when you're a son, your name is Sonny. Your name is Sonny. And this movie went through, the script went through many drafts, I'm sure. But it's why Casey Houseman, it's tricky because it's like it's one thing to say, oh, we are now treating conspiracy theorists with no accreditation as the arbiters of truth. This movie bravely asks, but what if they're right? But what if every Casey Houseman prediction is right and the moon is hollow? It's the equivalent of if there was a movie about how like a flat earther was like the earth is flat and then the big reveal is that the earth is flat. That was what the sequel that tragically hasn't been realized yet. Yet? Is there is a cliffhanger at the end. There sure is. That is very confusing in a feminist way because it is delivered by a woman and she says to Casey Houseman, more like Casey middle of the moon man now because they copied his consciousness and now he's a part of the moon. She says your work is just beginning or something like that. She says, I hope you're ready or get ready. So there's a lot of work to do. So maybe the sequel to moonfall is earth flat. Maybe we're just going to kind of keep going through the big hits in terms of conspiracy theories of the late 2010s, moonfall, earth flat, vaccine fake, you know, and so on and so forth. Yes, I hope so. I hope so. Me too. I really hope so. Okay, so speaking of Casey, he cannot get through to NASA. No one will take him seriously. So he has to come up with a different plan and he says out loud to no one, what would Elon Musk do? Now, this is interesting because Elon Musk, you know, obviously at the time you're listening to this is a full blown out and out proud fascist. Yes. And, you know, for those that have had had eyes on him for years, this will come as no surprise. It is just ideology that has grown louder and louder as time goes on. I wouldn't say that his position has meaningfully shifted. It has just increased in volume. Exactly. But there is this period and it makes sense because this movie took so long to come out. But in the late 2010s, early 2020s, where Elon Musk is getting a lot of PR in film, I'm thinking of that Lindsay Lohan movie. Yes. We watched on Netflix too. Where it just and I wouldn't say it's free press. I would I would heavily speculate that he is paying for it in some way. Sure. But yeah, about how he was for some time sort of positioned as the man who could save the world with vaguely conspiracy theory adjacent ideas. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I think the first time I got into an argument about Elon Musk was in 2018 in the writer's room for Robot Chicken, in which I got into a shouting match with another writer. The man, a man older than myself, who was really infuriated that I didn't think Elon Musk was cool and that really was the basis of the argument. Wow. And so for those of us who have been beating this drum for a long time, you hear that line and you wonder, where is this going? And it's going to a later line that says our friends over at SpaceX. Yeah. And then I kind of lost the thread of where it was supposed to have been going other than saying that conspiracies are real, which is a feminist idea. The thread kits cut right then and there. Pretty much it doesn't go elsewhere. Movies don't need to answer every question. No. But it would be cool. I do feel like most movies answer at least one question, a question or presents you with potential answers and then you can choose what you choose to believe. Yeah. But some movies are just different. Some movies are mysterious. So yeah. What would Elon Musk do? And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk did something similar to Brian, which is like wear an embarrassing jacket and complain loudly to no one. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to take a moment to appreciate how children's dialogue is written in this film. Oh, let's let's do that. Yeah. The way children talk in this movie is so true to life. You would think you're just walking through a Kmart. It is just really a Kmart. Amazing. Are there children at Kmart? Well, there's you're just walking through the world. You know, you're just I don't know why Kmart came to. I don't think Kmart exists anymore. No, you're just you're just you're just walking around a playground like because it's everything else sounds prefered. You're like, well, I'm not just walking around a playground. Yeah. Yeah. Any kid would be saying things like I hate New Jersey. Any kid. There's a great scene that I really appreciated where Casey is Casey Houseman is impersonating Brian at the Griffith Observatory. Yes. Oh, which is iconic in many ways. And there's what is OK. Wait, I wrote this down because the kid who says, well, are you going to teach us about the moon or not? Yeah. And he says it exactly like that. Yes. That is exactly what I was talking about. I don't know where it went. But yeah, I wrote down the entire thing because it was so powerful to me. And then there's like another kid who shockingly talks to the exact same cadence as the first kid. Almost as no one was thinking about that. I just really I really, really loved it. There's a scene where when the earth suddenly starts running out of air. Right. One of look out, Michael Pena. You watch out. Targeting Michael Pena only impending doom for him. Just him, though. His and Brenda's daughter, one of them. There's like a there's a newscast. And it says something like atmospheric dissipation is about to begin. And one of the daughters says, what's that? And then the other daughter, who's, I don't know, maybe nine years old says, the earth is running out of air, silly. Feminism, as if a nine year old child knows what atmospheric dissipation means. I don't know what that means. And I'm a hundred. And don't get me started on Joe Fowler's son, who is one of the weirdest kids ever committed to film. OK, so here's that exchange of the students yelling at Samwell Tarly Griffith Observatory. Yes. OK. He's not two steps into the observatory when this kid clocks him and says it volume a thousand. Our teacher says you're a washed up no show and she's complaining to someone. You're like, a second child says, you really don't look like an astronaut. And then the first kid says, calling back to you. Well, are you going to teach us about space or what? And it just makes you wonder, does Roland Emmerich has have children? And does he ever interacted with a child? He met them. And then the other kid is Joe's son, his father, because that is ultimately what the movie is about. Yes. And if fathers and sons are separated, well, they just are like, well, here's Michael Pena and he's he's a new father. So OK, Joe Fowler's son, a great one. And I really liked that his father, Mr. Military Industrial Complex himself is calling Halle Berry on the phone and saying, how can you say I'm not spending time with our son? I talk to him on the phone all the time. And then you cut like talking about him as if he is not six. And then you see a six year old. I'm like, what are you talking on the phone about with this guy? Like he talks about his six year old son. Like he's a full blown adult consistently to the point where maybe at some point in the script he was. I find the way they talk about the kid very weird. Well, OK. Sorry. Sorry. I'm being so negative. Well, yeah, Jamie, how I'm being a huge bitch. You're being an enormous bitch and I can't believe it. No, but like let's be let's think about this. OK. Halle Berry. She was I think in her mid 50s when she was very is Joe Fowler. Joe Fowler. She was in her mid 50s when this movie was being filmed and released. Sure. Her son is, you know, like six years old. Not to say that you cannot have a baby. No, you can. You can. Yeah. But I think it's one of those cases where they've cast an older actor to play a younger character because heaven forbid, we have a like 55 year old woman character on screen. And I would say that that's feminist in addition to the pressure that is put on women to look much younger than they actually are in order to retain employment and entertainment. And I think it's equally feminist how people will attack said women for merely responding to how society is insisting they behave in order to work. And then they will attack other women who are less willing to adhere to those societal pressures and say, oh, why do you look so old and gross? Or they will, you know, regard women who are, you know, choosing to age naturally and infantilize them by saying they're brave. And there's just a million incredible ways to navigate talking about women and they're all normal and they're all really nice. Yeah, there's also a character we meet who I think takes again in a way that is like women are so complicated in a way that I think takes a very long time to determine who is this character and what is she doing? The character Michelle. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was wrong about who Michelle was in relation to the other characters about five times before I learned that she is an exchange student who is a nanny and perhaps a tutor. I may be still not sure what Michelle is doing. It is very unclear. I first thought she was dating Halle Berry. Yes, I also thought that. Or married to Harry Bill Berry. But then it turns out Halle Berry is her boss. Right. And that she's like a nanny who's teaching her son. Mandarin. Mandarin. Yeah. But before we can decide who is Michelle, what's going on with Michelle? Well, she's Sunny's girlfriend. And so then you're like, oh, thank God. OK, I was this woman was getting too complicated. So it's good that she's just Sunny's girlfriend. Yes. But I did. I do. I mean, I do genuinely feel like she and Halle Berry. I thought that like, you know, because you meet her at the house and they have this like conversation about what seemed like their shared child. Yeah. And I was like, wow, queer representation. But then you find out several scenes later, actually not. No, no queer representation. No, the scene was just written weird. Yes. So yeah, I'm glad we got that out of the way. I felt silly because I was like, wait, it was I like, but then I rewatched the scene. I was like, no, that's. The way that they're talking to each other is very unclear. It was not giving professional relationship. No, because like the first time you see Michelle on screen, she has. OK, actually, this is hilarious. It's early in the morning. She has a cup of coffee that she has made for Joe. And it seems the way it's written and the way it's acted, it seems like here is a tender gesture, a loving gesture that one partner is doing for another partner, romantic partner. Yes. Nope, it's just that Michelle wakes up at four o'clock in the morning to make coffee for Joe. Also, she says she's like a living nanny, but like, yeah, it's just very romantic. I don't know. Maybe it's just like these these actresses are just so like compelling. I mean, I mean, they are they're they're beautiful. And so you want them to be married. But like, yeah. But the funniest thing about that scene is that Michelle hands Joe a coffee and she says black two sugars. Now, if it's a black coffee, there isn't any sugar in it. Whoa. But she says, I made coffee just the way you like it. Black two sugars. And that's feminism. And that's feminism. And that passes the Bectal Test. Yes, it does. So early in the movie passes the Bectal Test in women who do have names, although they're spoken very infrequently and their relationship to each other is completely incoherent. Because then I went on this journey where I went back to thinking that Michelle was actually dating Joe, just into Joe Fowler, because you find out her husband. But then it said much later on, no, it's her ex-husband. And I was like, OK, so she is with Michelle. But then Michelle shows up in a scene very much acting like a nanny. And by that, we're well over an hour into the movie. And I'm still trying to glean the relationships between basic kind of any one who live together. I still don't know who these people are to each other. No, no. And then it turns out, no, Michelle is straight, single and looking to date Patrick Wilson's car thief son named Sonny. Duh. Yeah. Yes. OK, back to the thing. We were on Casey. He's trying to come up with a plan to let people know that there's something wacky going on with the moon. So he goes to disgraced former astronaut Brian Harper, hoping that he will help through various interactions, including the one where Casey is loudly blathering on about his moon conspiracy theories to children. We learn that Casey believes that the moon is what's called a mega structure, which is an enormous artificial construction built by aliens. And then he tells he tells Brian Harper that the moon's orbit has shifted and the moon is about to fall into the earth. And so Brian thinks that Casey is a lunatic. Get it? Lunatic? Lunar? More like a moonetic. Moonetic. Uh huh. Yes. OK, so then the movie takes a detour from the urgent moon situation to introduce a few subplots, including Casey taking care of his mother, who seems to have Alzheimer's, and Brian's now 18 year old son, whose name is still sunny, getting arrested after being in a high speed car chase. Yeah, like an OJ Simpson style high speed, televised car chase. Yes. As all car chases are televised like their OJ Simpson. Correct. Yeah, we cut back to Joe. The NASA scientists have concluded that in three weeks, the moon will get too close to the earth and it will basically fall apart and fling huge moon chunks into the earth. Moon will fall. Moon will fall. The fall of the moon. The dark dark of the moon. Remember that? I do remember that. Yeah, I think there is some weird conspiratorial moon thing in that Transformers movie too. Really? I mean, I've only seen the first one, but that that would track for me. Yeah, I believe that Michael Bay believes in conspiracy theories. Yeah, listeners who are familiar with Transformers, Dark of the Moon. Is the moon a transformer or something? OK, see, that actually sounds way more fun than moonfall, to be honest. I mean, a moon being a transformer would be would be fun. I don't know if that's what that movie is about, but there is I feel like there is something weird about the moon in that one. Anyway, so the stakes are very high. The moon will fall. The moon is very low. The moon is the stakes are high, but the moon is low. Exactly. Yeah. And so they need to send a team of astronauts to the moon to fix it or something to tell the moon to knock it off. To say stop falling. Get up, get up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps moon. Yeah. Then the scene where we were just talking about where KC leaks the info about the moon's orbit changing. And now it's trending on Twitter, which everyone believes, even though no one knows the source of this information. It is wild how that line of dialogue that exists in so many movies now sounds wildly dated. Like it's going viral on Twitter, which now would mean kind of less than nothing. And it's ironic that whose fault is that? Well, Elon Musk. Yeah. Well, what Elon Musk do? Amongst other things, make it so that that line sounds very dated. Yes. Anyways. So there's like now mass public panic. People are fleeing from cities. People are looting all that kind of stuff. Which again, feels like a weird amalgamation. And like it felt to me based on when this movie was written and produced. Felt like a dishonest conflating many issues at once. Reflection on 2020. And in a way that I found frustrating in a movie I otherwise love. And an otherwise perfect movie. Yes. Yeah, I can definitely see that. But we see so little of because like a lot of disaster movies where there's like a global disaster. You see a lot more of the chaos that the world has descended into. In this movie, there's only like very, very, very quick cuts, mostly as like news coverage. Yes, barely see anything. Well, and in an interesting way. And again, this is an episode coming out in early April. So we're going to be doing extra care in the discussion. But like it is interesting that like Roland Emmerich is sort of playing on some of the disaster movie tropes that he helped popularize, which are like anyone in the lower class is kind of like violent and base. Yeah, and uncivilized, etc. But with regard to not showing the disaster in the disaster movie, I would say, Caitlin, you know, in their defense, they only had a hundred fifty million dollars. And so would you be able to show a compelling image for a hundred fifty million dollars? No, not me. I would blow that entire budget on craft services. Yeah. Yes. Say what you will about this movie. I actually think the special effects are decent, which I don't think they're amazing. But I think it looks like an inexpensive movie because it is an expensive movie. For sure. So it's not like the effects look shitty the way that a lot of B movie effects are really like shitty looking like this movie looks like they spent money on it, but it's just that the story is. And if I'm being critical and I wouldn't be, but if I was playing devil's advocate here, sure, sure, I would say it definitely does look expensive. What I don't think is that you can you can maybe get the sense that the actors more often than not don't know what they're supposed to be looking at. Yeah, because the reaction and this is not a fault of the actors because it these effects were probably not even conceived of yet. Much less executed, but you can sort of tell that there's a moment with Halle Berry. I'm thinking about specifically that the reaction just feels a little low temperature for what she is looking at on a screen. I know exactly astronauts being eaten by nanobots like a snake. And she's sort of like, oh, that's really too bad. Like it's really dead pan of stone faced. No reaction whatsoever. It's almost as if she were directed to say, like, make a facial expression that could mean anything. And Halle Berry is an incredible expressive actor. So I'm assuming she was told to do that. But it's so weird because what she ends up looking at is like really a good effect, but very graphically horrific. It's like her. She's the head of NASA. These are weird to think. Some of her like best and brightest astronauts, astronauts she would know personally getting eaten by nanobots on camera. And she's like, she's just like, oh, no. Wow. Well, we should probably, we should probably, we should probably fix the moon. This moon. I will say women in power. This is a great, I think that Roland Emmerich is bringing up another feminist idea here, which is that women in power is a bad idea because Joe Fowler, I will say, I'll say it, she is not really killing it running NASA. She makes a lot of bad calls, I would say. There is like a small fuel leak and she disbands NASA. I, she said, never mind. We're going to get there. But I was really kind of stunned at how they're like, well, there's a fuel. We don't have the, the thing to put in the thing. And she's like, well, I guess we better disband NASA. And then she does moments later, consulting no one, disbands NASA. Yes. And everyone in NASA is like, we're going to Colorado. Okay. Colorado. Colorado is like, I mean, is it like some Denver airport shit? Like I know that there's a lot of conspiracy theories in Colorado. Yeah. But it also gets, you also sort of get the feeling that like the tourism bureau of Colorado, maybe through a couple of bucks at this movie, like Colorado comes up, Colorado, Lexus, Elon Musk, these are just things that keep coming up. Everyone evacuates to Colorado in this movie, or at least all the main characters. Yeah. Okay. So actually we're about to get there. So there's this like mass public panic. Brian's ex-wife, Brenda's new rich Lexus dealership owning husband, Tom Lopez, played by Michael Pena, once his family to go to Aspen, Colorado, for reasons that never become clear. So he starts evacuating the family to Aspen. Brian meanwhile is trying desperately to get his son, Sonny, released from jail in LA. Right. His son, Sonny, Sonny. There should be a daughter's named Daughtery. Yes. We should be that easy for us too. I know. Daughty, maybe? Daughty. Oh, maybe that's it. Wow. Dorothy more like Daughty. Yeah. Okay. So then Brian sees something on the news about how maybe the moon is a mega structure and he's like, wait a minute, that guy who I thought and who belongs in the loony bin, get it? More lunar. The moony bin things. The loony bin or the moony bin? Yeah. Yes. He's like, that guy said something about the moon being a mega structure. So Brian goes to find Casey who continues to carry on about how something must have gone wrong inside the hollow mega structure that is the moon. And that's why it's veering off course. Right. Now, meanwhile, a NASA spaceship goes to the moon, discovers that there's a huge hole in one of the craters. So they drop a probe inside, which prompts the sentient swarm of spiky technology nanobots to come out and kill the three astronauts who are on this mission, which we were just talking about, which Halle Berry's character has absolutely no reaction to. Right. Her boss is like, fuck this. I'm out. I quit NASA. So now Joe is in charge of NASA. And so with her new security clearance, she starts digging through some classified records, which I guess is the deputy director of NASA. She had no access to, but now that she's in like one step promoted, she has all the clearance and she goes to this guy named Holdenfield, played by Donald Sutherland. He literally, he reminds me, you know, who he reminds me of. Do you know that scene in Aladdin? Where there's like that old man in the jail. I think it's like Jafar and disguise. Yes. Yes. Donald Sutherland's character was kind of reminding me of that guy where he just comes out of the shadow, reveals some plot and disappears. And then the protagonist is like, whoa, that was kind of weird. That's kind of what happens. That is kind of what happens, except the thing with Donald Sutherland's character is that it is implied that he is about to go and his own life right after this. Right. Jafar doesn't do that. It is, it is bizarre. It is bizarre because again, we're met with yet another Halle Berry reaction that is very low temperature, given the information that's just been conveyed to her. For sure. That scene sort of ends with her being like, well, these things will happen. Like it, these moons will fall. Moons will fall. It's like Vanessa Hudgens during COVID. People die. Like it's just, it's just, do you remember? I don't know why that, that lives in my head rent free. It was like such a horrific thing to say. And not that anyone should be thinking about what Vanessa Hudgens said during COVID, but I still think about it. That's kind of Halle Berry's vibe. She's sort of like, people are going to die. And that's sad. Yeah. So she now has all this new information, including that NASA covered up the nanobot video footage that they did get from Brian's helmet cam from the scene that we saw at the very beginning of the movie. So she's like, oh my gosh, I believe Brian now. So she's about to go recruit him. But first the moons orbit is affecting the tides and the ocean and stuff. So water comes gushing on to land and it starts destroying LA where Brian and KC are. And they end up trapped in a hotel. So they're just sort of like chilling in this hotel. They're like sleeping in hotel beds. There's some like hippie friends of KC house man. Yeah. There. And it's like starting to feel like a movie from 1997. And it's like, that's because it's Roland Emmerich directing it. So in many ways it is a movie from 1997. But yeah, they're just kind of hanging out. They're just chilling. Yeah. Yeah. Who cares if the moon's falling? We're just chilling. Just two feminist allies hanging out in a hotel. Nothing to see here. Yes. Then there's a part where Joe's ex-husband Doug, who only appears in conference rooms the entire movie. Yes. And like you said, he is military industrial complex, the man. He wants to take Joe and their son, Jimmy, also to Colorado for some reason. Well, because that's where it's safe. Visit Colorado. Yes. But Joe is like, I can't go to Colorado. I have to go to the moon. No, well, she does not really tell him that. He finds out from Sunny later. Right. And that is one of my favorite non-reactions in the movie. Like Joe and her ex-husband really found each other because they stay not reacting to gigantic pieces of news. Like that's how they became so powerful in the American government by not knowing what anyone is saying and being stone faced in the face of absolute horrors. Where she never informs him that she is not coming to Colorado. She's given her son over with her not girlfriend. It turns out Nanny and let's her get into this car with a known car thief. Yes. Who said, by the way, my license is suspended. So showing no regard for her own child's safety, even though we are told, but whatever. It's all about telling. It's not about showing. So even though her actions would indicate she doesn't care about her son's safety, we're told she does care. So she she does. So she does a half hour later, a half hour later, the husband calls or the ex-husband calls because they do even in big government meetings specify they are no longer married. As if there's a camera on them. As if there were studio notes saying it's unclear who anyone is to each other in this movie. Um, but Sunny, a character this man does not know. Calls him and says, Oh, sorry, your ex-wife didn't go to Colorado. She actually went to the moon. I've got your son. And he's like, Oh, OK. Well, when are you going to get to Colorado? I was like, what? OK, also consider this. So OK, sorry. You're right. Huge bitch, huge bitch, huge bitch. Yeah. Damn it, Jamie. I'm sorry. Stop criticizing this perfect movie. No, I'm about to do the same thing. You're right. So OK, the moon is famously falling. Yeah. And it's affecting gravity on Earth. Well, depending on what the plot requires, sure. Well, exactly. Yeah. But somehow it is not affecting the satellites that are orbiting Earth that would affect people being able to make cell phone calls. Oh, yeah. Because everyone just keeps making so many phone calls, even though the satellites would be so fucked up. Gravity affected cell phone reception. Perfect. Yeah. Verizon really should have gotten in on this. Like, oh my gosh, they should have missed opportunity. I'm sure they were reached out to. Yeah. Yeah, that honestly didn't even occur to me. Yeah, everyone is making crystal clear phone calls. The whole movie. The whole movie satellites are working perfectly, even though the moon is crashing into all of them, probably. It is really fascinating because it's like disaster movies, all disaster movies, good, bad or not, have these kinds of plot holes present. But if the movie, if you like the characters enough and like the visuals are exciting enough, you're willing to like forget about a lot. Yeah, suspension of disbelief, baby. But it's interesting that we're noticing these plot holes and. I don't know. The plot holes are more like a hole in the moon's crater moon holes moon hole. Also create, they keep saying crater and I was like, wow, that's, that's grants fiance's last name. Yeah. People are actually in sci-fi movies. They're saying his last name and then in movies in the movie twisters, they're saying his first name a lot because there's the Daisy. What's her name? Daisy. I forget what is that name is. But there's a whole thing between her and Glenn Powell. I remember me and my brother laughed so hard at theaters at Grant because there's a, a repeated line of she's like, I need to go get a big fat grant. Fund my research. Oh yeah. Wow. Both of Grant's names are nouns. I know. I know. It's weird that it is his actual government name because I was like, it sounds fake, but it's real. Anyways, moon. So I keep getting distracted, which is wild because the plot is so riveting. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So then Joe goes to recruit Brian and by default because Brian and KC or buddies now. So Brian and KC get recruited to help Joe, but they're not sure how they're going to get to the moon because according to this movie, all of the spaceships are in museums. And don't worry about what that means. Why that is. Or who made that decision because you do get the feeling that, well, I guess it would be Halle Berry's boss, kind of a patriarchy, the guy kind of guy. Yeah. Who does quit his job. You know, you said earlier, he quits his job. So he could of course go to Colorado. Yeah. And then just like hands Halle Berry a key card and says, you want to be the head of NASA so bad? Well, you are now. You go. Now, why did that, assuming that's the guy who put all the spaceships in museums, what has NASA been up to? Well, they've all the spaceships are in museums. We, we keep cutting to present day NASA and they seem to be fully operational. But then you find out actually all the spaceships are in museums, which is interesting because we've seen astronauts gotten eaten by nanobots today. Today. Yes. So it's safe to assume they were in a spaceship, but maybe that was the last spaceship that wasn't in the museum. Follow up question. Why are the spaceships that are in museums so loosely secure that there's graffiti on them that say, fuck the moon? That's a great question. What museum are they in? That security is that low? It's a museum in LA also. Well, clearly they didn't give Roland Emmerich any money because they made the whole place look pretty low rent. Well, and then they, and they flooded the whole city. It's true. It's true. They said, fuck LA. Denver is the only safe place in the US or Colorado in general. Yeah. Okay. So they're like, yeah, all the spaceships are in museum, except for the endeavor, which is the, the ship that they were on at the very beginning of the movie. Oh wait, that's the graffiti ship that says fuck the moon. Okay. So yeah, it's not in a museum. It was just in storage or something. It was just at a like public storage. Yeah. Yeah. So Brian and a few other astronauts prep for this mission where they're going to go to the moon to stop it from falling. Well, and it's not a few other astronauts. It's like a lot of that. It's most of NASA is preparing for this mission. A lot of people are there on the ground and then like a handful are actually going to go into space. They're actually going to go, but it's a big thing. Yeah. Until of course there is some sort of like coolant issue and then NASA has to be disbanded. Disbanded. So they can all go to Colorado. So in the meantime though, they're, they're prepping for this mission. Space X gets mentioned. Casey continues to have a raging hard on for Elon Musk. Their plan is unclear, but it seems like basically they're going to lure the evil spiky nanotechnology bots out of the moon and then blow up that swarm with a bomb, I think. I wasn't clear. Are they going to blow up the moon or they just going to blow up something like near the moon? That's such a good question. We're just not too sure. I wasn't able to get, but again, it's not the movies. That is actually one of my favorite things that, because this is true, but I do think it's overused by a certain type of letterbox user who will be like, it's not the movie's job to tell you all the answers. And then you're like, I do feel like it is the movie's job to tell me if the objective of most of the movie is to blow the moon up or not. There are certain questions that I don't feel are pedantic. And in moonfall, I would like to know if they are trying to blow up the moon or if they're like trying to do something else. But luckily there's like a plot room inside of the moon in which things will become even more confusing. But that's, we're a ways away. First, Halle Berry disbands NASA. And also before Brian leaves on this mission, he reunites with his son, Sonny. Oh yeah, because that's the agreement. He will come back for one last hurrah, blowing the moon up possibly, as long as his son Sonny is let out of jail. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that all makes sense. Then what you're referring to happens where an earthquake or something destroys one of the spaceships engines and the coolant is leaking or something, but they can't go to space anymore because there's only two engines left. That's like saying Josh Gad is no longer available. We can't make moonfall. We all have to go to Colorado. Come on. Right. Where's your spirit? Well, KC steps in with some new calculations. Much like John Bradley for Josh Gad. Precisely. Okay. And he's like, wait a minute. If we wait until the moon, which is falling, is directly above us, the gravitational pull from the moon will pull the spaceship up to the moon. So we don't even need engines really. We just need the moon's gravity. And everyone's like, yeah. I will be honest. I'm so glad that that came through to you because I was like, I was really not sure what his justification for going through with it because it seems like to me what it seemed like is like, oh no, this issue with the coolant is so bad that we have to disband an entire government agency. But then an hour later, the same person who disbanded said government agency, Halle Berry. Is like, actually never mind. Let's go to space. Let's go to space right now. Even though like, I think canonically NASA and by NASA, I mean every employee of NASA who is just dismissed from NASA wouldn't have even had time to make it to the airport. Like they could have come back. Right. She could have been like, sorry guys. False alarm. I shouldn't have disbanded NASA just there. But she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, never mind. Actually, could your son who again, this is an anti-cursed real show, but like some, I would not let my young child in the car with an 18 year old who had just been in a very dangerous car chase. Agree. I don't think that's good parenting. I think no. But that's where Joe Fowler has me beat. I just like she's playing a game of chess. I, I, I'm not. Well, she's amazing. She's trying to have it all. She's a woman in STEM. It's hard to have it all. She's the director of NASA. She's got to go to the moon. She's a mom. She, she's just trying to make it all work, you know, her ex-husband can't get out of that weird room in Colorado. He's in any more than Michael Pena can get out of the weird room. He's in in Aspen, which is also in Colorado. They're already in Colorado. Yeah. Why are they going elsewhere in Colorado? They're all in Colorado. So confusing. Okay. So they're waiting for the moon to position itself so that the gravity, because somehow, because even though the moon is smaller than earth, the moon's gravity is stronger. And so it's going to pull the spaceship up to the moon. Maybe that's real science. I don't, I'm not a, I'm not a person in STEM. Let's, I think we can safely say no, but if listeners have dissenting opinions and this actually comes together quite beautifully, please let us know. Okay. So their plans to go into space to the moon are going to move forward. Meanwhile, Sunny, little Jimmy, and then this woman, Michelle, who we've been talking about, played by Kelly Yu. She is Jimmy's nanny, although sometimes it seems like she is Joe's girlfriend also, but yes, but no, but yes, but no. And she's also an exchange student. I don't even know why they mentioned that. She loudly blurts it out. She just, well, people just, people do that. Sometimes I just am like, I'm from Massachusetts. Like you just can't, you're always shouting your place of origin and occupation. And it's just, it's human nature. So true. Okay. So the three of them get in a truck with Sunny driving and they head to, you guessed it, Colorado. Sure. They have to outrun a huge gravity wave of water that's coming from the ocean. They drive for a while, then some hijackers steal their truck. So they set off on foot in the middle of winter, it seems like, because it's snowing. And to be clear, the carjackers, what we know about them is that they're, they're, they're poor. Yeah. And therefore, scary and violent. Trust them. Right. Then chunks of the moon start barreling down around them. Sure. Back in space, Brian, Joe and KC set a trap for the evil nanotechnology monster swarm thing, but it doesn't take the bait. So the astronauts decide to take a smaller space vessel inside of the moon where they discover that sure enough, it is a megastructure. And they're like, whoa. So which means the moon is hollow. The moon is fake. The moon landing was fake. Elon Musk is awesome. The, yes. I never, yeah. Well, whatever. I don't, I can't think about Elon Musk anymore today on our, on our joke episode. Sorry. What? Wait, Jamie, what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Happy April Fool's, everyone. Okay. Back on earth, Sonny, Jimmy and Michelle link up with Brenda and Tom. They have to go find some oxygen tanks because all of a sudden the earth is running out of breathable air. The hijackers from earlier show up with guns. And so they're hassling Sonny and friends, but they're able to get away. And there's a chase and blah, blah, blah elsewhere in Colorado. Meanwhile, the military is about to launch a nuclear attack at the moon. Yeah. Which I do appreciate is repeatedly referred to as nuking the moon. That's the kind of disaster movie shorthand I show up to here in the movie noon fall moon fall is that if Halle Berry isn't expeditious in getting the moon saved or exposing the moon or whatever the hell it is she's supposed to be doing, they're going to nuke the moon. Nuke the moon. Yeah. That's a tagline. If I've ever heard one. Now that's, that's what I call stakes. They're going to nuke the moon. All right, we better get moving. We've, yeah. And, and really they do because Brian, Joe and Casey are so fast. They're still inside the hollow moon megastructure where the swarm of nanobots start to go after them. But then something seems to save them and kind of pull their spaceship to safety. Brian, who has gotten separated from the other two finds himself in a room, a plot void, a plot void with the moon's operating system, which has taken the form of sunny when he was a little son, when he hated New Jersey, when he did New Jersey. And this is something that the movie moonfall seems to have lifted directly from the movie contact. Because do you remember at the end of that movie when Jodie Foster is like talking to the alien and it takes the form of her father. And it's like, yeah, this is a form that will be easier to communicate with you in moonfall does the same exact thing except for it's. Except it doesn't work. It's sunny. Except it doesn't work. Yeah. It is very confusing. I, this movie, again, I, I, I think probably politically it falls on. It's attitude. I just think because attitudes towards AI have changed and clarified and I include myself in this too, where like, I think in 2022, I don't know how many like cogent thoughts I had on AI other than I don't like it. So I, I wasn't shocked to see a sort of bizarre incoherent view on AI. It's so it's really confusing because it does seem to be basically anti, but except for when it's pro AI in the movie, right? Cannot decide where it lands on AI. Cause they're like, because of AI, well, this is what, okay. So this is actually going in sequence. Like we learn in the plot void that due to AI, there was an amazing utopia. So AI was good. But then AI became sentient and then AI was bad. And now there's two, it reminded me a lot of I Frankenstein where you find out deep into the movie, there's a war between demons and gargoyles. And you're like, there's a war between demons and gargoyles. It feels like that, except there's like a war between two AI. There's benevolent AI and evil AI, according to this movie. So it really does refuse to choose a side as to are we pro AI? And they're like, well, we're pro the good AI and we cannot be more specific about what that means. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, we can talk more about that, but it. I really don't want to, but we can. Yeah. I mean, I suppose we, we don't have to. But what happens here in the story is this construct of sunny, this AI manifestation of this little boy explains that billions of years ago, the ancestors of humans lived in a hyper advanced utopian society that like AI made for them. It was either AI made for them or they made the AI. But we don't know that made it for them. We don't know. Or that like maintained the world. Yeah, it says the movie says that this utopian society was controlled by a central self learning computer system, AKA AI. Right. For a while, this went great. Human ancestors expanded and built other planets, which they lived on. They were like doing space colonialism. And they would do. Yeah. But then one day everything changed when the AI became self aware and it turned into the swarm of evil, spiky nanotechnology that we have been seeing throughout the movie and that started a war against all biological life. Because of that, the ancestors built structures like the moon, which was operated by benevolent AI to try to keep them safe from the evil AI. And they would send these megastructures to various solar systems looking for a new place to inhabit. And one of them being our moon. So the moon gets shot off to our solar system. But meanwhile, the evil AI killed all of the ancestors. So now it was up to the moon to create Earth from space dust. And it gives birth to the Earth. And it puts the DNA for humans onto Earth so that humans would eventually evolve, I guess. I gotta say, my eyes glazed over when I heard it in the movie and my eyes glazed over just now. I have no idea what the hell happened in that plot void. They were like, like to me, my takeaway was like, OK, so there's a war between demons and gargoyles, basically. Like pretty much. And both sides sound bad. But for some reason, we're on the side of gargoyles. Yeah. You're saying my big eye Frankenstein brain, I think I was able to basically get there. Yeah. But the AI messaging was completely incoherent. Truly nonsensical. Could mean, I mean, like I think a lot of movies that are trying to make a ton of money globally, the messages that are supposed to be specific are extremely vague so that they could mean anything to anyone in the hopes that everyone will like this movie. And what sometimes happens is no one likes it. Not us, though. We love us. We're geniuses. Yeah. We understood that in the war of demons versus gargoyles, we were, of course, siding with gargoyles. No, but I know what you mean. There were several. So I watched this movie twice to prep for the episode, as I always do. There were specific moments. You know, when you're like trying to watch a movie or like read a book as you're falling asleep and then you fall asleep at the same exact moment, but then you kind of wake up and you rewind because you missed it and then you watch it again and then you fall asleep at the same exact moment again. This kept happening while I was watching this movie. I would just black out sometimes during specific moments. I'm really proud of you that for our sorry listeners, our April Fools episode, which is supposed to be a light lift for us at the show, that you have taken it upon yourself to fully understand what happens in this movie because I was like, there's no, first of all, with all due respect to our listeners, there was no chance in hell I was watching this a second time. And I did rewatch certain scenes to be like, oh my God, wait, I totally stopped paying attention in the middle of that because it was so confusing and like bizarre. So I would go, you know, try to keep pace with it. But it was like certain sequences like this. I'm like, it's not going to happen. Yeah, no. I have no fucking clue. It's utter nonsense. I had to like really force myself. I had to like pry my eyes open, clockwork orange style at certain points because I was like, wait, what happens? That's sort of like what it feels like with this movie and the concept of going to Colorado, you're being clockwork orange into going to Colorado, the only safe place that exists on earth. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the movie is pretty close to being done. Wait, no, I have like so many more paragraphs of this recap. Jesus Christ. No, actually a lot of stuff happens at the end, but it's like, staged in such an abrupt and boring, I'm kind of dropping the premise of our April Fool's episode, but it's like, it's staged in such an abrupt and boring way that you kind of forget how much happens in comparison to how interesting it is to watch and take in. So true. Yeah. So Sonny, the benevolent AI construct explains that they need a human to lure the evil AI swarm away from the moon's power core or something, which it is destroying and that's why the moon is veering off course. Right. They need to destroy the AI swarm so that the moon can return to its original orbit. And it's up to Brian and friends to do this because for some reason, the super technologically advanced moon doesn't have the technology to save itself. Sure. And so Brian, who by the way has moon Jedi powers now and just can open doors with the wave of his hand. Doug. Caitlin. Sorry. Sorry. He, Joe and Casey get into their once broken spaceship that the moon fixed. Okay. To destroy the AI swarm. We cut back to Earth where Sonny and company are walking to whatever part of Colorado has the military bunker where Doug is. Oh, Doug, by the way, that's her ex-husband. Who? Oh, yes. At some point they just say the name Doug and then the guy who is always like, I love talking to my son on the phone. He's in first grade. Like Doug, a weird guy. A weird, weird guy, but like, but slay. He, you know, good for Doug, but good for him. Why not? So I look at Doug and say, why not? Why not him? Okay. Now the Earth is almost out of air. All the air leaked out while the moon was falling into it. Oh God. And Michael Pena suffocates and he fucking croaks. He, I really, and with all due respect to those who have lost a loved one in this manner, yes, because of this manner being the moon falling into the Earth, the Earth's atmosphere leaking. One, it really is implied that Michael Pena is among a maximum of 10 casualties in this mass disaster. Yeah. And it really, I've never seen a death that you're like, Oh, that's what the word keel over me. And he just kind of falls to the side. And yeah, rough, rough break from Michael Pena in this one, because you're just like, what is going on? Like, what am I looking at? And the answer is, don't worry about it. Don't even worry about it. Don't worry about it. Just did this. Let people enjoy things. Just kidding. Please don't let people enjoy things. This sucks. Yeah. Don't, don't like, well, I mean, here, okay, here's what I'll say about moonfall. Please say it. Someone has to. As much as this movie blows ass. In a feminist way. In a feminist way. In a feminist way. It is a masterpiece. Women can blow ass too. Or something. I do kind of love. It's what it's moonfall to me is as I Frankenstein is to you. Fair enough. Fair enough. I, I, I Frankenstein to me is the perfect bad movie because at least it focuses on one confusing guy and not 20 confusing guys. Sure. And say what you will about Adam Frankenstein. And I will. Forget that is his name. We know who this guy is. He just is the fucking weirdest guy to ever live for. How, uh, it is incredible just thinking, wow, there are so many ways that you could portray 200 years passing. But the way I Frankenstein does it is the best, which is just Aaron Eckhart swinging nunchucks at the top of a mountain. And then it fades. His outfit changes and all of a sudden it's 2014. Yeah. He gets a haircut and it's 200 years later. Oh, you know, some would say that I Frankenstein walked so that Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein could run. Let's talk about that. That's so true. Yeah. That's so true. Okay. So, so yeah, Michael Panja keels over and dies. Yeah. This, I will say Patrick Wilson shortly will have really no reaction. There is an iconic scene at the end where they all meet at the tip of the Chrysler building, very unclear where this actually is. No, this is still in Colorado. They're still in Colorado. Okay. You say theoretically, I don't know how they would have gotten out of Colorado, but, um, but they, they all meet up and then they just sort of state what their relationships to each other are at the end of the movie, much like they did the beginning of the movie going, okay, so this guy died. Oh, that's sad. This guy died. Oh, that's sad. But we're friends and you're my son and you're my ex-wife and here's, oh, and here's little Jimmy and my ex-husband is nearby, but he's not here. And we're friends. The end. Oh yeah. And Kate, oh wait, well, we need to talk about how Casey dies. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Let me. Well, we need to get to the climax of the movie too. So what, what, what would you say is the climax of the movie really? Well, actually I think it's pretty, I think it's clear. Okay. Okay. No, I'm sorry. I'm being a bitch. I'm being a bitch. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. All right. So whatever. Michael Peña dies. Sunny goes looking for him. Yeah. Michelle goes looking for Sunny. Moon chunks are plummeting to the earth. Yeah. You said it like moon chunks is the name of a character. Is it not? I think we should write a character named moon chunks, but okay. No, sorry. We're back. We're back. We're back. Okay. So New York City, I've ever heard of it. Right. It is being ripped apart. The military is minutes away from launching their nuclear attack on the moon. So the stakes are higher. The farther the moon falls down, the further the stakes rise up. Yeah. Well, to the people of Colorado, we're really not sure what's going on outside of Colorado elsewhere. We don't give a shit. Colorado is freaking out. Yeah. Okay. So back inside of the moon, Brian and friend, and let's just pause for a minute to, to really reflect. I'm not laughing. Sorry. That was rude to laugh. That statement of being inside of the moon. Mm hmm. Brian and friends are flying around in their ship. The evil AI swarm is chasing it. Right. Brian reveals his plan that he is going to act as bait and sacrifice himself to destroy the swarm. But Casey is like, no, I will be the one to sacrifice myself. And I have a whole spiel on why I think that is. We'll get to it. But. Caitlin is already in two hours in this episode. How much are we going to talk about? Okay, fine. All right. I was, okay. I'll say now. So the other two astronauts on this mission are Brian and Joe. They each have a kid. Casey does not have a kid. And I feel like the movie basically suggests that it has to be him who sacrifices himself and dies because he doesn't have any children. Therefore, he is quote unquote expendable. The only family he has is a mom with Alzheimer's. Well, that's also like, right. So he's a caretaker. I mean, it's so hard to, like, because I think I totally agree. I think that's one of the reasons. But there's also this movie is so playing on so many broad tropes that it's like so many reasons. I feel like it has to do with like the least famous person in the scene has to die. The least Western beauty standards attractive person in the scene has to die. The comic relief as opposed to the dramatic hero has to die. There's like a bajillion tropes at play here all at once. And all of them unfortunately indicate that John Bradley must die. But John Tucker must die. But John Bradley does not die. His consciousness is melded with the moon and then he's a part of the moon. So yeah. Yeah. No, it is bad. It's like playing on every trope. And I mean, it just and it's playing on a number of fat, phobic tropes. It's playing on so many tropes are present here, except really with our two protagonists who are so bland that you're like that there's sort of nothing going on. There's they're just dead behind the eyes. And they don't even bother to imply that maybe these and again, I'm not saying. I honestly, this is actually the rare, the rare story where I think that having some romantic chemistry between these two actors would have helped make the movie more interesting to watch, where I know that like it's the Bechtelkasse. We're not like not every like man, woman pairing needs to be romantically interested, but it's like what is there between these two people? I'm not feeling the friendship. I'm not feeling the resentment of the betrayal. We might as well just make the hot people kiss, but they don't even touch at the end of the movie. There's not even a friendly handshake. Like there is there is nothing between these two people. Well, it feels like the rest of development season four. It's like they're not even like in the same room together. Well, so true. Well, you're forgetting that they have a running inside joke about the lyrics to Kodo's Africa. Yeah. That is referenced twice, 15 years apart. And they're like, haha. Yes. Remember that? Remember that? He's also referencing the wedding of a failed marriage, which I wouldn't necessarily bring up in front of my dear friend, but whatever. Yeah. Yeah. If these two characters had been kind of like forced together in a romantic kiss at the end or something, I would have been like boo, but also there's nothing between them. So I'm also like, boo. Two characters. Yeah. I just was like, you know, romantic interest. It would have been half-assed. It would have been trite. It would have been vaguely sexist, but it also would have been something. What happens is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Including when KC is like, no, I'm going to be the one to sacrifice myself. And Brian and Joe are like, no, stop. Okay, you can go ahead and do it. Well, I mean, to be fair, they've known this guy. They've been allegedly best friends for a decade and they just met this guy. And also not for nothing. Halle Berry's character allegedly has an active restraining order against John Bradley's character. Oh, yeah. Which is referenced once in passing, but is said basically as a joke. So, yeah, I don't know. They all should have blown up, honestly. The moon should have just fallen all the way. Yeah. Okay. So back on earth, Sunny has been trapped under a fallen tree because the moon isn't the only thing that's falling. Trees are also falling and he's lightly dying. And then Michelle finds him, but then we cut back to space. And this is the climax. KC does the sacrificial act of being the human bait and he hits the button for the bomb, electromagnetic pulse thing. Madhu. Right. Right. And it destroys the evil AI swarm. Back to earth. Michelle saves Sunny, but it's mostly gravity doing the heavy lifting and talk about irony. Ha ha ha. So yeah, Michael Payne and John Bradley are the only ones who die. And honestly, John Bradley doesn't die out. Michael Payne is the only character who dies. Yes. Permanently. RIP. Michael Payne does not become one with the moon. No. No, he doesn't. No. Sad but true. Okay. We cut back to space. Brian has passed out. So Joe flies her and Brian back to earth. So, I mean, look at all these women saving men. Michelle saves Sunny, Joe saves Brian and that's feminism. Then Brian and Joe, who have conveniently landed in Colorado, of course, reunite with their families. There's that scene you just were describing where they just kind of list all the people that they know who have also died. They're like, all right, so movies over. Movies over. The moon is returning to its regular orbit. And then we cut back inside the moon where an AI construct of KC appears and a void as well as his mom and his cat, whose name is Fuzz Aldrin. Boo. Okay. See, I, here's what I wrote down of all the attempts at comedy in this movie, which there are a lot. I think that Fuzz Aldrin is maybe the cleverest one and that's saying something because it's not even that good. Bleak if true is what I'll say. But it's because. Bleak if true. But it's because. It's a Lizzie McGuire ass joke. But, but listen to this. It's because the jokes keep falling flat. Moon flat moonfall more like joke fall. Joke flat gravity is fucking with the jokes and how they land. Hey, but yeah, there. So it's something, something his mom and his cat appear in the AI hollow moon and set up a sequel that will never be produced. Because this movie was produced on a budget of $150 million and it's independently raised, which is actually pretty impressive. And it is really speaks to because if you're not familiar or you don't remember who Roland Emmerich is, he is a German director who is most famous for disaster movies like Independence Day, the day after tomorrow, 2012, et cetera. And so there is a lot of goodwill for him. Yeah. And he is like a proven talent at, you know, at making iconic movies that make a lot of money that generally glorify the war industrial complex. But so like he raised this money independently after it sounds like years in development hell on this. And in a rare situation of the Hollywood machine being totally correct, he should not have made this movie. He should not have made this. He hasn't made a movie since. Yeah. Seems like it's really kind of. And it was a huge flop at the box office. It only earned $67 million. It didn't even come out in Canada. Canada said they didn't even bother. They said work. Our theaters are closed due to COVID pass. Yikes. Although I mean, I would I will say about Roland Emmerich outside of Moonfall not being good. It's he is a queer icon. He does have a, you know, a pretty, you know, solid record in terms of his, his politics, especially for someone this powerful. I mean, I he has repeatedly advocated for in two of his disaster movies, Independence Day and the day after tomorrow, there are interracial couples that the studios did not want him to have. And in Moonfall for some reason, he's like, I don't die there. But well, I guess Michael Pena and Brenda, but either way, either way, I'm just saying like Roland Emmerich seems like a totally lovely person. And also he made Moonfall. And he made Moonfall, which I mean, there's not a whole lot else that we need to spend time talking about. Yeah. I think that like at the end of the day, there are women in this movie. There are. One of them is a woman in STEM. One of them is a woman in STEM. The rest of them are wives and girlfriends or acting in a maternal, acting as mother. They're mothers or mother figures or caretakers of some kind, including the moon, who let's not forget is the mother of the earth. Yes. And in the case of, of Joe Fowler and the moon, they are liars. Um, so they're deceitful. They're today. I'll push back on Joe being a liar because she, I guess she, she was gaslit. She was gaslit by NASA, which, you know, unsurprising that a federal agency of the United States government would be doing some fuck shit. And honestly, she doesn't just automatically come to a man's defense. And that's actually feminism. So I guess, I don't know. I mean, she and her husband are interesting in that. And again, it's our April Fool's episode. So this is going to be the degree of analysis you would normally get. But this episode is two hours long. So you're welcome. The plot is simply that convoluted. Like, I think that she, NASA has always been an interesting branch of the American government where it like, it is a military industrial complex tool, but I don't think it is publicly perceived as being so. Um, it has been very effectively marketed. And I think to some extent I, I still kind of drink the Kuwait on NASA of like space exploration is cool. Like it's people like in my mind, it's people like Elon Musk who ruin it where they're turning it into colonization and not just learning more about the universe that we exist in that is very exciting and cool. But here we have, and I think this is more effectively done in other Roland Emmerich movies like Independence Day, where it almost feels like he's like reheating his own nachos a little bit of like, okay, so there is like this big industrial judicial, uh, or whatever, executive branch, the war cabinet. And that is represented by Doug question mark. Yeah. Um, and then there are the scientists and they are government scientists and they are patriots and they love America so much, but they're not that. And it is an interesting sort of tool to encourage, uh, kind of unquestioning patriotism while seeming counter cultural. I think it's like how astronauts are very frequently portrayed in film. And we've talked about this in other episodes, but I do think it's like an interesting kind of tool that is used that is, I guess, not really worth talking about here because it's not effective and it doesn't make any sense. But I was thinking about it because there are a few lines that either Patrick Wilson or Halle Berry say that are like, we're not this, we're scientists. And yeah, well, I do think that a lot of Halle Berry's actions do sort of lightly push back or like push back on an idea of the government versus what I don't know. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, for sure. Do I believe that the American government, particularly at present would say, we're just going to nuke the moon. Yes, I do. Yeah. But I feel like it's like whatever presented in a cartoonish way so that we are not to question an institution like NASA. Well, I mean, this movie also does something that a lot of other movies that are about a global disaster do. And we've talked about this on episodes about movies where there is a global disaster, but the movie, because it's an American Hollywood movie, it will completely center the US and act as though the US is the only country with people and technology who can figure out what's going on, who can handle the disaster that's affecting the whole world. Specifically people in the US who live in Colorado. Like it is wild how for a movie shot in Montreal, which is also very funny, given that this movie, I will repeat, did not ever come out theatrically in Canada, which is had to do with COVID restrictions. But I just think it's funny that Canada, like you could not have seen this movie in Canada if you wanted to. And also that this movie came in second place at the box office behind Jackass, the Jackass reboot. And Jackass made three times more money than Moonfall did in its first weekend. It is injured. I wonder if I don't think there's really an appetite for it right now. Disaster movies don't tend to perform very well during disastrous times. There is not an element of escape. I am not wanting to see a disaster movie right now because I could also just look outside. I could check the news. So very true. You know, disaster movies tend to be more commercially successful during times historically where they feel more fictional. And that's not where we're at historically. And so I was not surprised to see that Moonfall did not perform better, which is a shame because it is a feminist gem. A masterpiece. We've said it before. We'll say it again. Yeah. Um, yeah. Is there, is there anything that's like burning in your heart that you need to talk to talk about with, with regards to Moonfall? Cause I do have notes, but I'm also like, I think a lot of them came out in the recap. Same. I'll just rattle off a few very quick things, please. Fuzz Aldrin. There are too many subplots because everyone has a son. Oh my gosh. Yes. I did really like that when Patrick Wilson can no longer be around his son named Sunny, they're just like, so how does Sunny feel about Michael Pena? And you're like, who cares? No one cares about this. They just are like, we don't know. It's truly like they cannot think of a quality for the son named Sunny outside of having a father. So they just give him a different one. And there's like one scene between them before Michael Pena like suffocates. Um, he's like, well, there's not much time left here on earth because the moon is falling into us. Let's not hate each other in these last hours. And then Sunny is like, I don't hate you. And then Michael Pena's character is like, I'll take it. End of subplot. Okay. The line I was thinking of earlier and again, I don't mean to come off anti-NASA. I'm obviously not anti-NASA. I just mean science as a branch of government and all the complications therein. But there's a line that Patrick Wilson says where he says, I'm an astronaut, not a soldier. Oh yeah. You know, that's more what I was thinking of. Anyways, there's a part where Sunny says, extremely deadpan. Oh shit, the moon is rising. And then Michelle, also very deadpan says, gravity's going to go crazy. Also, we didn't talk about Sunny's gigantic tattoo. Wait, I didn't even notice it. Oh my God. There's a whole joke about it where the sunny shows his gigantic tattoo, which I think is supposed to be like a Chinese character. And then Michelle says, oh, that says the Jonas brothers. And he goes, what? Because this movie was almost certainly written in 2009. And she's like, just kidding. And then I don't think we learn what it actually says. She doesn't say. But we know what it doesn't say, which is it does not say Jonas Brothers. Another thing that I had a note of here that made me laugh is when the evil poor people steal Sunny's car, they come in with this like weird opening line. I think this is when they come back. They come up to Sunny and they say the menacing line. So are you a college boy? Okay. Yeah. No, he didn't have this. He just says everybody calm down. And then the, then the hijackers are like, oh, okay, smart ass. Are you a college boy? And it's like, he didn't say anything they would indicate. Literally just said, can we calm down? It was really funny. Oh, another good moment was Sunny. A lot of things happen to Sunny. I would say Sunny does very little. There's, and just to make sure you know who this character is supposed to be, they do go through the trouble of naming her Karen. There is a woman who is a neighbor to Michael Peña in this richy rich compound neighborhood that has turned into a compound overnight due to the moon falling. She has an AK-47, which I think could be a reference to a number of things. Clearly a riff on the Karen. Yeah. But she has a big gigantic AK-47 and almost shoots Sunny. And then Michael Peña comes out and says, Hey, Karen, relax. Stop that. Stop shooting my stepson. I think it's a joke. I don't know. But I honestly am not sure. It is never referenced again. Well, again, the jokes fall flat because joke fall moon fall. Also, the fact that it's interesting that you reference that everyone has perfect reception the whole time, that is true. But they also seem to all have Nokia phones. Why was that? Oh, yeah. No one has like a smartphone. Because I think that maybe, maybe Roland Emmerich was like, Apple, do you want to give me money? And they said, no. And he's like, fine. Then everyone has a Nokia. Nokia gave me $10,000. Yeah. I don't know. There are technically daughters, but they, like you're saying, like you said earlier, one of them says something precocious. And that's it. And one of them walks away from a dying Michael Peña. She said, fuck you, dad. And that's kind of all that happens. Yeah, those characters are very undercooked. Michelle, I would say, is one of the most undercooked characters committed to film in recent years. It takes us for an hour to even know what she does. Truly. What is she? She's an exchange student. So you're like, okay, she's a student. Is she still, but she works full time as a nanny and lives there. Does she, how does she have time to study? I'm curious because Roland Emmerich is a queer icon. I'm wondering if that was supposed to be a queer relationship. And then like that was like reversed or something. That introduction scene, I just am like, it, it felt like they were together. I know. And obviously Roland Emmerich is like, you know, very, he's been very involved in queer activism over the years. I'm just wondering if like that was how it was originally written. And then the script kept changing or maybe they were like, oh, we want this movie to show everywhere, including wildly homophobic countries. So we're going to revert. But like, yeah, her character ends up coming off unbelievably vague. And then they give her the worst boyfriend available. I mean, and also what is their, what are how like Sonny is supposed to be 18. 18. I have no idea how old she's supposed to be, but the actor is in her 30s. Right. I didn't quite pick up on as I know that like she saves him. And that sometimes is like a movie telegraphing and they're going to end up together. But I wasn't getting any like romantic vibes between them. So really? That's so this movie is so confusing. I thought for sure that was what was intended. That's so interesting. Well, again, everything about this movie is confusing and nonsensical. So honestly, you could interpret anything and it would be both exactly right and exactly wrong. I like that we've turned on our own episode. That was our idea. You know what? When you said it at one point and I was like, oh, we should have done that for April Fools. And you said the word trap. I'm like, we should have done trap. That's what we should have done. We should do that for Father's Day. Trap. I mean, fathers and daughters. Fathers and daughters. I love trap. Oh, that moment in Trapper. Josh Hartnett points at the hole in the floor and is like, should we go down there? It makes me laugh so much. I love because trap is about fathers and daughters in a meta way because it's also about M Night Shyland trying to make his daughter's career happen. His daughter, his daughter. Anyways, do you have anything else to say about Moonfall? No, me either. Oh, no. I mean, probably, but I'm I'm tired. Thank you. Thank you to all 500,000 people who requested this episode. 500 million. 500 million, which again, is just a portion of our listeners. That's a tiny portion. You know, if anyone, if any Hollywood power players are listening, can someone please utilize Patrick Wilson? Well, like just please. And Halle Berry. And Halle Berry. I just like these are two great actors who have been given dog shit in the last decade. I feel like Halle Berry made Catwoman. And then after that, she like could not get. They blamed it on her. I mean, she was still in X-Men movies after that. But that. But yeah. Oh, right. And she was in robots. But then she was also in was it New Year's Eve or Valentine's Day? Oh, my gosh. Wait, let me. She was in New Year's Eve. She played another episode. I have absolutely no recollection of recording. She played a character named Nurse Amy, who I think also had a military husband. Let let her live. Leave her alone. Oh, my God. All right. We got to get out of here. We got to get out of here. Happy April Fool's Day to all this, to all the fathers and sonnies out there, to all the Patrick Wilson's and their sonnies. This this movie, even if it does. Let's pass the Bechtel test. Oh, yeah, during the. It does. Here. During that scene where they're definitely not together and it's an employer and an employee having an intimate conversation over sunrise coffee. Sure. And she says, here's your black coffee. It has two sugars in it. Women's wrongs. It passes the Bechtel test. And that's why I'm giving it five nipples. I'm giving it five nipples and I'm giving it five moons. And what is a nipple but a moon? And what is a moon but a giant sky? Nipple. What do you ever think about that? They have the same shape that people are always. Yeah, are you ever on a romantic date? And then someone puts their arm around you and says, look at that, that big old nipple in the sky. Should we kiss? When the moon hits you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am going to give it five big sky nipples. And I'm going to give them all to Joe Fowler, feminist icon. I aspire. She inspired me to look with an absolute distant 40 yard glaze as I watch people I've known for years get eaten by Nanobox in high resolution. It's iconic. It's iconic and that's feminism. And that's our moonfall episode. Happy April Fools to our listeners. If you if you enjoyed a silly one, if you enjoyed a looser episode with just Caitlin and I, you might enjoy our Patreon, aka Matrion. So true. Which is linked in the description of this in every episode. It is the best way to support the show. It's five bucks a month and you get access to two new episodes a month on a theme of usually yours, but sometimes ours. If you're behaving in an unruly fashion choosing. And it also gives you access to nearly 200 of our back catalog episodes on the Matrion, a real investment, you could say. I could say that and I will say it. And you just said it. We just said it. We'll be back next time with us really serious with a real one. We'll be back next week with the normal show. Yeah. Love you. Bye. Bye. The Bechtel cast is a production of I Heart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichterman and edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me. And our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus. Ever heard of her? Oh, my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski. Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only, Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechtel cast. Spring is here and it's time to get out in the garden. British garden centers have all you need to make your garden bloom. Whether you're new to growing or already know your way around the garden, we've got the plants, tools and expert advice to help transform your outdoor space. And when your shopping is done, relax and refuel in our restaurants. Find your nearest centre at BritishGardenCentres.com for every gardener, for every garden, for everyone. Make it bloom with British Garden Centres. 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