This week: We talk father/son relationships in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We analyze leadership in Firefly. And we run down the week in geek, including critical reactions to Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland flick, Rachel Nichols’ upcoming non-green work in Conan, Comedy Central’s new Futurama eps (coming soon!), Guy Ritchie’s future take on Excalibur, Disney’s potentially awesome Tron animated series, and NPH’s search for blue boobies in the Smurfs movie.
uber sweet!
Chuck–sound much better man (tho I do agree with DP)
On the Book/Operative conversation (which is as far as I am now), I wonder if he possibly even trained the Operative from the movie.
If it was Star Wars I’d give this a 97% chance of being true
Funny story… Chuck was talking about leadership and motivating people; here I was on another thread http://forum.galacticwatercooler.com/showthread.php?t=10217&page=3 with a youtube link talking about the same thing
Glad you enjoyed my call.
I just wanted to make one comment regarding TRON. This movie is special to me because it was the first movie that made me realize I was different. I went to see this with my father and brother. After the movie was over, I was ecstatic. I loved it. Neither my dad or my brother did. They didn’t get it.
I did. After that movie, I knew that I wasn’t like the other guys in my family. As I grew up, I figured it out. I was the geek of the family. Luckily, we did have other things we connected on, but computers and sci-fi were never one of them. I’m curious if anyone else had moments like the above. Moments when you realized you were “different.”
Chuck also reminded me of my first computer. I had a Mattel Aquarius when I was eight. It booted straight into basic and had no memory for storage. I taught myself to program in basic from the manual it came with. I would spend hours making text-based or ASCII video games (funnily enough one of my first was a Indiana Jones game) and then write the code down in a notebook because once I turned the power off, everything was gone. If I wanted to play again, I had to type the whole damn thing back in.
On leadership. To me it comes down to trust that the person in charge will have the goal of completing the objective in such a way to harm-in-any-way the fewest allies. The style off command is irrelevant if the above is true. Be it a hardass like Mal or a father figure like Popadama.
Glad you’re feeling better, Chuck.
I’m jazzed about all the Tron stuff coming out, the first one is a geek classic.
Regarding the Cross of Coronado in the third Indy film - my assumption is that it was created by the Spaniards in the Americas using melted down Aztec gold.
“One of These Things is Not Like the Other” is from Seasame Street.
The Knight is one of the best moments in the entire series, no question. I like how understated the character was played.
No I believe the song is from ‘Electric Company’… At least that is what I was told long ago.
Long time, first time. Love the show from back in the webisode days.
Sean, I wanted to say how much I loved the tank geekery in this episode, especially the appreciation for the Pre-WW2 models.
So lots of stuff was coming to me while I was listening, so here they are!
Audra, I was also scared of Alice and Wonderland as a kid. In fact, I thought it was weird, cruel, and unkind – not my kind of thing then or now. (my friends loved it… and don’t get why it does and always has freaked me out). Even in the not Tim Burton versions of Alice, I think the phrase “trifecta of freakiness” is soooo true.
People might be interested in the poll and convo on dubbing vs. subtitles here. When I was learning Spanish I totally watched Star Wars dubbed into Spanish, hi-larious. I also am more used to Homero Simpson with his Mexican accent than the US “real” Homer voice.
Sean! Darkwing Duck! I loved the theme song. And Tailspin! Also loved it, watched it after school as a kid.
On people saying that you left when you were becoming interesting – I know a lot of people who feel that way about children… maybe it’s because I’m an academic :rolleyes:
Cross of Coronado - probably new world materials re-made into something Spanish.
Albatross’s thing about Elsa knowing the “true” grail – I didn’t notice that until I was an adult, but spouse and I agree that she totally did it on purpose. But she was also an evil, evil Nazi.
I absolutely love that at the end it’s all about faith. Loved it as a kid, and love it even more as an adult. I think it’s part of why Last Crusade is my most favorite Indiana Jones movie.
Great show. One of these days I’ll actually buy Firefly.
I’m interested in what Guy Ritchie is going to do with Excalibur. I haven’t watched Sherlock Holmes yet, but I’m a big fan of Lock, Stock and Snatch (hurr Snatch hurr.) I’m not as big of a fan of Revolver, but I still like the cinematography in the film. I guess it really matters how he plays it.
Although it does seem Star Wars and King Arthur have a lot in common. (Granted, I can’t think of King Arthur without thinking about Fate/Stay Night anymore.)
Chuck cited “A Bill Cosby show”, which puzzled the hell out of me - but thats because I’m too young to remember The Electric Company (it ended its run before I was born). I’m not sure if the song was on both programs, but the Interwebz indicate that “One of These Things” first appeared on Sesame Street in 1970 (episode 1!) and various iterations have appeared fairly regularly ever since.
I’m not sure what it says about me that I spent any time researching that. Probably nothing good. At least I wasn’t the one that compiled this page though:
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/One_of_These_Things
I think Morgan Freeman was on The Electric Company, but Bill Cosby was doing Picture Pages around the same time. Remember “Picture pages, picture pages, fill your day with picture pages…”
I really need to watch Last Crusade again. It’s been too long. And thanks, Sean, for reminding me of some of my fave afterschool cartoons: DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Tail Spin, Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers. Was Tiny Toons on at that time as well? Can’t remember.
I know what you mean, El Jefe, about being the only geek in the family. But then my sister went and married a sci-fi reading, BSG-watching gamer, and I was no longer alone. 
Morgan Freeman and Spiderman. Yeah, that does date me.
Ya know, blindly following orders isn’t leadership.
“I was only following orders.”
I believe in the military people are expected to not follow immoral or illegal orders.
re the ‘Last Crusade’, a few times it was mentioned that it turned out not to be the last crusade once Crystal Skull came along. I disagree, I always took it to be refering to the christian crusades to the holy land, which are often associated as being quests for the Grail (although they weren’t, grail lore came along later). So this was the Last Crusade for the Grail, not Indy’s last crusade (small C).
One thing that always bothered me about the otherwise excellent Last Crusade was the thing at the end where there is a hidden bridge which he needs to take a ‘step of faith’ onto. Leaving asside whether you could create such a convincing optical illusion, the camera clearly shows a reverse shot of Indy, with the illusion in place. i.e. the camera is in front of Indy looking at him and the bridge is invisible. It would be pretty much impossible to paint on an optical illusion like that which would work in both directions at the same time!
Yeah. That was a screaming at your MP3 player moment.
One thing that always bothered me about the otherwise excellent Last Crusade was the thing at the end where there is a hidden bridge which he needs to take a ‘step of faith’ onto. Leaving asside whether you could create such a convincing optical illusion, the camera clearly shows a reverse shot of Indy, with the illusion in place. i.e. the camera is in front of Indy looking at him and the bridge is invisible. It would be pretty much impossible to paint on an optical illusion like that which would work in both directions at the same time!
With God (or Steven Spielberg), all things are possible. 
Re Alice in Wonderland, anyone interested in a personal review? If so, where would be the appropriate place to post?