Alien Resurrection with Gracie Gillam

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone. Quick content warning for this episode. There is an occasional mention of rape, rape metaphors, and incest not a pervasive part of our discussion, but it is present, so we just wanted you to know. Enjoy the episode. On the Bell cast, the questions asked if movies have women in um? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start changing it with the beck Del cast earth Man, what a ship whole? Damn it's true. Where's the lie? Where's the lie? I love a movie whose last line really thinks they're doing something, but actually just serves to remind you that you know nothing about the character you've been watching for two hours. She's just like, I have no idea, I've never been here. You're like, wow, beautiful, inspiring, and it's Sigourney Weaver and went on a writer being like, wow, Earth, look how pretty it is. But it had already been established in the movie that Earth is a ship hole, So I don't understand what that's about. Well, but then they got there. They must have they landed, you know, somewhere pretty, and they gasolate themselves into thinking it doesn't suck ass here, which it does. They shot a version of the ending of the movie with the same dialogue, put them in front of green screen with a desolate Paris in the background. It just like broken Iffel Tower and like they're like, the military is going to come get us. And then the writers like, well, you could get pretty lost in a place like this, what do you want to do? And then it's the same I don't know, I'm a stranger here myself, but it's just like desert land Paris in the background. That's kind of fun, but also much like a lot of thoughts I was having do this movie, what huh? Why? And why I am so excited to talk about this movie that truly, I mean for Bechtel cast listeners, Um, there's just I feel like most of the time we have a we have a grip on at least what's sort of going on. But this is one of those fun, rare episodes where I'm like, I I'm I'm at c I don't. I'm so excited that we have a wonderful returning guest to uh to be our little Titanic lifeboat. With the movie Alien Resurrection a k A. A movie that struggled to find watertight compartments to film in because Titanic was shooting next door. Yes, okay, so really quickly, this is the Bechtel Cast. Welcome to it. I'm Caitlin Darante, I'm Jamie Loftus, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel Tests simply as a jumping off point. Jamie, remind me, please, what is it? Okay? So, the Bechtel test is a media metric invented by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. Uh. There's a lot of versions of it. Our version is get ready this We require that two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue, and that it has to be a meaningful interaction. And we can't get more specific about that. You know what when you see it? And yeah, that's basically the test this movie. I mean, the ways in this movie in which this movie passes are so Josh Weeden and I don't really mean that as a compliment, right, yes, And we have a wonderful returning guest. She's an actor. You've seen her in teen beach movie z Nation and the new movie streaming on shutter app called super Host. It's Gracie Gillum. Hello everybody, thanks for having me back. Welcome back, Welcome back. I think we should open this episode with your rendition of the Bechtel Cast theme song. Maybe we'll edit that in. I feel like that'sh the only it's the only way I recorded. I like screen recorded it when you first posted it, Um, because I'm weird, So we have it. I love that you don't know what that means to me, because every episode that I listened to, my boyfriend and I do sing along with the harmonies to the opening number, just like like we can't help but I have to sing along to the very very catchy opening and you thank you for that. That makes us so happy. Or also sometimes when we watch sexist movies, we just sing it. Of course, shouts out to our friend Mike Kaplan for writing the song, and to Catherine in a k Reeny Voskozynski first singing for doing the vocals of our songs. So shouts out to our pals. Yes we are now a song that five years ago around now was being composed for the first time, which is so wild, Caitlin, I realized that this podcast is my longest relationship relationship. Yeah, look at us same Oh my goodness, still in love after all these years. The spark will never die. What if the gift for a five year I don't know. That's actually Kaylee, we should have a weekend. Oh wait, we should finally go to magic Mike Las Vegas, like we keep saying we will. Oh my gosh, yes, wait, five year anniversary gift. The traditional five year anniversary gift is would a symbol of strong roots in an enduring relationship. Caitlin, I'm going to plant a tree and be like, stop the anniversary, baby, I'm gonna carve Alfred Molina's face out of a slab of wood, just a little butter knife. Oh god. Every time I forget the would anniversary, I feel like that's a punishment for not being in a relationship long enough. I thought it was gonna be like gold, right. It feels like the gifts must get worse and worse as your relationship goes on. Wood anniversary. I think paper even comes after that, which is just processed. Would really who made this little papers one of them, and it's this shockingly late one. I think, I like fifty years guess what paper divorce? You did it? You can get out of here. Oh my gosh. Okay, So, Gracie, you have brought us Alien Resurrection, the fourth movie and the Alien franchise that came out in Tell us about your relationship, your history with this film. Um, I brought this movie and I do not apologize Jamie for making you watch it for the first time. Thank you. I had not watched it until June. I had seen Alien, I'm sure in some sort of l A theater screening, then revisited them, I think just because they were on HBO Max or whatever, and watched the two thousand three directors cut, which I think is just wildly better. The tension in the director's cut, I think is so much better than when you like when even after watching director's cut rerot rewatching Alien is good. It's good, but the the amount of like like. Not a lot of movies I think benefit from long shots of hallways. The two thousand three directors cut of Alien very much does. And then they went through and watched more of them, um, including the first Alien versus Predator and Alien Resurrection is by are my favorite alien movie and maybe among like easily top ten or fifteen movies for me. I think this movie is doing everything that I really wanted to be doing. I know that this is not a popular opinion. No, I love it. I love Coming in Hot, Coming in Hot. Critics have Rotten Tomatoes raded this movie fresh, and the audience has disagreed with a thirty nine. And I'm going to disagree with both of those. It's at least I'm so fascinated. I'm truly so excited because I'm like, I'm at a point where I'm just confused, and so my mind is very open to being changed. I'm open to I I feel like I can be taught here. I'm curious. Did you watch Alien Cubed? The third one? I've seen it? I didn't. I knew that, Caitlin, you had It's It's honestly, it's skippable, like you know, like the first episode like people that you can skip the first episode of Star Wars, um of Star Wars movies like it's. It is pretty skippable. You don't know how. I have to know very much from it, but in terms of you watch it and the theme is just ruined and your heart is ruined, and then resurrection after that is very healing and satisfying. Oh that's like in in the order, it seems like I I did watch a bunch of franchise recap videos just to understand where exactly this is all coming from, because my history with the Alien franchise, which listening I mean basically is all contained in the feet of the show where I've seen Alien and Aliens because we've covered it on the show. This is just I this genre is so hard for me. I cannot follow. I get confused. Everyone's wearing the same outfit. This is why I can't do war movies. Also, I'm like, I don't know who that is. They're all wearing the same outfit. And when people are on spaceship the whole movie, uh, it's like you're saying, Gracie. It's it's a lot of hallways. I don't know. I'm not built for it. But it's so fren Like, do either of you have a genre or just like a vibe of a movie that it's like it's hard for me to connect with, but I want to, Like I want to and Alien Resurrection I mean, it certainly held my attention because so much is happening. The tone of this movie for me was so all over the place that I was on the edge of my seat just to see what genre the next scene was going to take place in. Where like there's like the scene where it's like, oh, it's kind of a tense scene with one of the xenomorphs, but then the scientist is like French ng the xenomorph like kiss me through the phone style. It's like, sometimes genre is this, like what is happening? So I'm just I truly like need to be carried through this movie in a little baby Bjorn. It's like true. Sometimes it's body horror. Sometimes it's a porn film. Sometimes it's space jam because they're playing basketball. Times it's a space jam team. Wait does that mean I guess that technically couldn't Sigourney like ripley eight could easily she would qualify to beyond the Monsters, would she not? She's kind of I mean, she's an alien, so yeah, she can't be on tune Squad. She's not a cartoon, so she has to be one of the monstars. Dan Hydeia is a cartoon in this movie. Ron Perlman is a cartoon in this movie, but not Ripley. No. Death is death is both very scary and also something that happens to you after you look at a part of take a part of your brain out and look at it. It is very many scene was like what movie am I watching? It? All? Like the production behind this movie. I'm I'm so excited to hear that you watched all the DVD extras Gracie, because I've I was mostly interested in, like, how did this movie get this way? Because it's such a specific way, and and I wasn't surprised to hear that there were a lot of like the the director of this movie, Oh, let's let's see how I do with this French Jean Jean Jean Pierre Jeunet, who we have covered his work before in the form of Amalie, which I can't think of a more different movie on the planet. But but I guess, I guess that he wasn't really able to communicate directly with the actors. He needed a translator to work with, and so it sounds like from an actor perspective that everyone was kind of winging it and like trying to figure out what movie they were in, and everyone seemed to land somewhere different, and Jean Pierre was kind of like, we'll figure it out whatever. Yeah, he was apparently asking just crew members, like what is like like during recording a scene, Like what is he saying like about the dialogue that is in the scene, Like I think there was a lot of French people on set. And he says in the director's commentary, which I didn't finish because it was so little about story, uh, that he spoke the least English, and like this movie is visually cohesive, but the performances are not in the same film at all, right, which it does sound like. And I'm Josh Sweden detractor even before he was revealed to be a piece of ship person. It's just I don't I don't know. I've never connected with this stuff. But he did seem to have like a some some severe grips with how this movie came out where he had that quote that was like everyone said every word of the movie wrong, like huh, Like he's like, they said all the words that I wrote down, but they said them so confusing, like, which I was like, I guess if I wrote that script, I would also be like I mean, starting with Ron Perlman being like, oh Earth, we got to go there. That's a ship hole, and then at the end when they end up on Earth, they're like, well Earth is beautiful. It's like, uh, excuse me, just the cloud part right right right, the this layer of the earth is very beautiful. Yeah, Josh Speden said, quote, it wasn't a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending, it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines mostly, but they said them all wrong, and they cast it wrong, and they designed it wrong, and they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do unquote. So he really did not like very I think it's very funny. And also he's an asshole, so it's like who gives it a ship that I was like, Wow, I've I want I'm curious of like did he and the director ever get to like talk, like, I don't know, it really doesn't seem So I was really excited for some Jos Sweden commentary on this movie when I got the big package of it and was going to go into the special features, and I watched just so many special features and there was one clip of him and in a long line of lots of people who designed props for it saying what they thought the next movie should be and how it should have this movie should have ended, And it's just him saying I feel like there's a lot of different directions that could go. And that is the only John sued and special feature that I was able to find is fully tapping out. I also read some and I have not seen Firefly before, but I read a lot of pieces written about Alien Resurrection and a lot of theories that Firefly was John Sweden's attempt to like course correct what he wanted Alien Resurrection to be. Like that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because that show is also about space pirates doing space pirate stuff, so I can see that. So I guess if you wanted to see Josh Weeden's Alien Resurrection, you should watch Firefly. Yeah for Serenity, which is a little bit more serious. Um. My relationship with the this movie and the Alien franchise in general, I am a pretty big fan of the first two movies, Alien and Aliens, and then for me, the franchise keeps getting worse and worse. I have not seen either Alien Versus Predator movie, but I have seen Alien three, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, and Alien Covenant, and it's really just the first two movies I care about. But I do. I do appreciate how many swings this movie takes, as far as just wild narrative and production design choices there is. We were Caitlin and I were talking about this right before you came on the call. Grace Weaver, like I, I find this franchise so interesting because it's like Sigourney Weaver is holding it down throughout, like I love her. You know that there's going to be great action sequences with women when she's in a movie. And then it's like you get four very different male directors with seemingly very different anxieties surrounding birth, just like letting it all out over the course of twenty years. It's just like so bizarre that it even happened. So I'm glad it happened, But what a what a thing to have happened. Why don't we take a quick break and then we'll come back and recap the movie and we are back. I figure to start us off, since this is the fourth movie in the franchise, I would just do very very quick recaps of the first three movies where Alien from nineteen seventy nine is about an alien that makes its way onto a spaceship and kills the whole crew except for Ellen Ripley and Jones and Jones the cat Yes, the fun fact is credited as Jones, which I think is very funny. Really is that Jonesy's stage name. It's like, it's just Jones. It's just please call me Jones. I want to meet Jonesy at a bar and really pick their mind. Yea. So Aliens from n Ripley is brought along to advise on this military operation because something maybe Aliens question Mark is thought to have wiped out a small population that is terror forming a distant planet. Turns out, yes, it is Aliens. There's this big mother queen Alien. She has all of these offspring and they kill everybody, almost everybody except for Ripley and this little girl Newt, who escape into space. Alien three from nine two picks up right where Aliens leaves off, where Ripley, I think, crash lands onto a planet where the population is all of these prisoners. So this is so it's sorry. So it's like the Ridley Scott one. James Cameron is Aliens, which is Mommy, and then David Fincher is the one. We're talking about Alien three. Just for for those who are not into the franchise, I feel like these all these directors have very recognizable styles and themes and it kind of like helped my brain click a little bit. Yeah. Yes, so Alien three directed by David Fincher. So she crashed lands onto this planetfull of like religious extremist prisoners. There's also sex criminal prisoners. Yes, they all have y y chromosome, so they're like extra male, extra aggressive. And it's David Fincher very early career and like was the fifth or something director attached to it, and they were writing that one as they shot it. Yikes, you can tell um. Anyway, Ripley has unknowingly brought an alien along with her to this planet and it kills a bunch of people, and then she kills the alien and also has to sacrifice herself at the end because she has been impregnated with an alien. Death by Mommy. Yeah, so then Alien Resurrection, which is what we are talking about today. We are on a military medical research spaceship that is floating through space. These scientists have cloned Ripley and we see them surgically remove an alien fetus from her chest cavity. It's worth noting that the difference between this alien being removed from a chest cavity and all of the other times we get to see that in this franchise is that this alien is not circumcised. This one definitely still has foreskin it had for Wow, I watched this movie twice and I did not get Wow. This is this movie really rewards rewatch and you're like, wait a second. Things have I'm very interested in talking about in this franchise, like later in the episode, how the idea of an alien parasite is treated differently in male characters versus female characters, where I feel like with the men, it's truly like a parasite and you're like, get it out of me, like yucky. But with the female characters, it's like, oh bird, then you're it's mommy. You would think that the parasite would behave the same regardless of who it's inside, but it just seems to know when it's inside someone with a womb and it acts a little different. And I'm like, you guys, you guys think it through. Yeah, Also because Ripley is a clone. She doesn't have the same cognition and memories as the Ripley We've Come to Know and Love and the other three movies, although she does have some of the memories, and then she develops more cognition throughout the movie. But at first she's almost kind of like a baby herself. She's just space jam she's born Sexy Yesterday, but she does know stuff. Yes, it's like a yeah, it's like a variation on the Born Sexy Yesterday. She was like born Sigourney Weaver today with some of Sigourney Weaver's memory, but this time she has a manicure important because she's an alien, that's how you know, And like Sigourney Weaver, I mean in my mind, like she can do not wrong. She's the hottest person on the face of the planet. She's amazing. But the things that she used to do in this movie, that whole like there's I would say approximately five hundred birth metaphors a minute concervatively this movie. But the one where she's like kind of hatching out of a cocoon and the movie really like lets you sit in it, and she's like uh uh, and then she like it's like, where are we France? We're in France, Space France. Okay. So the alien that they have removed from Ripley is a queen, and in the military scientists plan is to have that queen reproduced because they want to tame the alien, train them, weaponize them, et cetera. Make vaccines. Yeah, and we love vaccines, so I'm actually fine with them doing that. Um. And then Ripley warns them that if they try to do all of this stuff, everyone's gonna die. Then the crew from this like commercial freighter again basically space Pirates boards the military vessel. This crew includes Genre that's Ron Perlman, Call that's one owner, writer, other people who I don't recognize, so I'm not gonna list the actor's names, but Revere, Christie Hillard, and then their captain Elgin. They are there to bring cargo to Perez that stand Hideya. And it turns out that this cargo is a bunch of human bodies that are in some sort of like cryostasis sleep that the scientists will use these people as vessels for the face huggers that come out of the the eggs that the queen lays to impregnant so that the aliens will reproduce. Right, So thank you for that. Thank you for that. No matter how many times I hear it, I can't get that piece of information to live in my brain like a parasite. I'm just like, in ten minutes, I'll need to hear that. Totally fine. Yeah, So this the cannon that has been established and the other alien movies is that a queen lays an egg. What comes out of the egg is a face hugger. It impregnates a human, usually human host, and then an alien fetus burst out of the human hosts chest, and then it grows very very quickly into a full adult alien that goes on to kill people. However, as we will find shortly, this kind of gestation reproduction process changes in this movie. Well it's in the first movie. The cannon is that they're all like it's it's kind of a sexless reproduction, Like the set looks like they're turning. The captured crew members from the first film are turning into eggs. And I know that Ridley was really interested in that. And what I think is so cool about this monster is, you know it didn't really and I don't think anybody thought about it as a rape metaphor until they hired a woman to play the lead. But it does really work really well as one I think, and in this non gendered way, which is what's the wrong with Alien Cube, Like, let's just complicated, Like one of the metaphor was just the plot it's mother exclamation point um. But like the first movie, it feels like there's just the one kind of alien and they can do the reproduction themselves and within the can and people recognize that. But then there can also elect a mother like a b and that is more efficient. There's more eggs getting laid if that's the case. But there's not a need for there to be a mother in the first movie. And it's only once they're writing for Sigurne Weaver that anybody decides there needs to be a mother, right because the queen doesn't get introduced until Aliens, and prior to that, yeah, I think it's just assumed that these eggs appears somehow the same as the cocoons, I guess, which it's just like so it's just like, as it's so bizarre to think as as this franchise continues, it just gets like Mommy ere and Mommy are like in more ham fested ways. Okay, okay, So then we see a scene where Ripley meets this rag tag crew of space pirates. She sort of plays basketball with them, and then she also fights them. She also seems superhuman and her blood is acidic, just like the aliens blood is, so it's becoming increasingly clear that she is perhaps part alien. Then, when on a writer A. K. Call goes to try to kill Ripley, Call is trying to kind of secretly stop the military people from breeding the aliens. But then she doesn't end up killing Ripley when she realizes they've already taken the alien out of her, and then this big fight breaks out between the Space Pirates and the military where most of the military end up dead. This is also when hell just kind of generally breaks loose, where a couple aliens get loose from their enclosure and kill several people, including Dan Hydeia and the character Elgin And you get that amazing what you're saying earlier, crazy like your head gets blown out and he's like, oh my brains. And then and then Dan Hyday goes home and he's like, Wow, this is going to be such a hell areas comedy that I just shot, like he who. I enjoyed that moment a lot because I was like, yeah, you know, he really does think that this is a different genre, and I appreciate his commitment. Yes, so cartoony. We always quote Liz Lemon at that point because she's got a line on dirty rocks. I hope it's not an important part of my blearn wow. Okay. So then Ripley teams up with the Space Pirates. One of the scientists is also with them, Wren, and they have to start to figure out how to get off this military ship that is now completely infested with aliens. So they make their way to their cargo freighter called the Betty, and on the way, Ripley discovers a room with a bunch of past Ripley clones, presumably the first seven that didn't work out, because they keep calling her Ripley eight. So it turns out they were just you know, making all these like Ripley slash alien hybrids. There's all manner of body horror in the scene, and then she destroys all of them and then they move onward without like a flamethrower. It's like she couldn't destroy them any more. Yeah, it's just it's cannon for there to be a flamethrower death, and it's cannon for someone to go kill me. Which it's nice to get a return to that in sort of a full circle of it being Ripley love a good callback. Yeah. Also, so after Ripley destroys all of the failed clones, Ron Perlman's character is like, Wow, what are ways to Ammo? And then like Ripley's crying because she just had to kill all these versions of herself, and He's like, oh, most be a chick thing feminist icon. Ron Perlman, I love, I hope. I don't know anything about Ron Perlman as a person, but I really enjoy seeing him in movies and I love his beauty and the Beast CBS show that he did with Girl Boss Linda Hamilton's Belle Lawyer lived in the Sewers of New York. If you have Paramount Plus, he gotta watch it. It's so bizarre. He breaks when Sigourney Weaver for real makes the three point line, throwing the basketball over like into the basket. He immediately breaks, And I just have to imagine that Sigourney Weaver must have said nothing. Must have been so graceful about it, but must have just been so furious that he immediately ruined that shot. I was reading. I was trying to find out about that shot, because I guess that there was like a popular myth for a while that she got it on the first try. No, well, the first take, she didn't get get it in rehearsal Um. She trained really intensively with the professional basketball player right for like for like least. It a very intense two weeks, and apparently her trainer that she was supposed to not try to make it, and her trainer come up to her and was like, trying to make it, you can do it. She did it. I heard she was trained by the Monstars, and that's she was so good. I like that. That's a good headcanon. Yeah, or bugs, Bunny Bugs Bunny came over. He's like, you've got this. She's spinning. She's spinning the ball on her pointy manicure that she has because she's part Aliens, so obviously she has pointy black nails like the Aliens, which seems harder. I've never spun a basketball in my finger, and I never will, but it seems harder. To do with the curl nails. Yeah, she really makes it look convincing, like when she's that the choices made in that scene are all so funny and good, Like that scene in no way requires that she's playing basketball very well. But who was her idea? It's so good was it that? It seems like from the interviews that it was her idea because she imagined it as the character kind of getting out of prison and just trying to have a good time, which is also while she keeps playing after beating people up. Okay, I think it's it's so funny, it's well, it's the type of thing that where in a movie that I think had been more competently written for basketball skills would I'm so sorry everyone played later, would would pay off in some way, but then they don't, and so the skill of hers is just established for no reason, and then we just move on from basketball. After that, Christie's skills come back into play. But from that scene, true, Yeah, I did. I did kind of wish on the second watch, I'm like, it would have been cool if basketball came back. I don't know how it would have, but it would have been cool at least be good at throwing something would make sense, right, like pay off on that perfect shot. That's a good throws blood later it's more of a flick. It's true. I think that's I don't think it comes. But also it's the way this movie works. I'm like, you know what, if there's a dropped thread, fine, I've I'll never regret having watched the basketball scene. There's so many threads. Though, you can't complain about that many threads, It's true. Okay, So then the characters have to swims through like the flooded kitchen area. Aliens are chasing them through the water. They make it to the other side, but there's this huge nest where the queen has laid a bunch of eggs. Also in that underwater scene, the other I like to call her other woman, other lady. Yep, Hillard dies and we'll miss her so much. Just kidding. We don't know a single thing about her, and I kept forgetting she had died. Her feet gets such a closer close up than her face, even right before she dies in this movie. Yeah, I wonder give her a closer close up. She's about to die. The movie really like, the movie doesn't even seem to care that they're coming off this character to the play where I'm like, well, why did you add her if she says no words and she's in the way background of every shot, and then they're just like, oh, and also she died. He died. Yeah, there was that shot that went all the way down her body to her feet, So well there, that's why they had her there. She's also the character that I guess like she and the Captain Elgin are an item and he says something like, oh, there's nothing hotter than seeing a woman strap to a chair. That does happen? I'm like, is that why she's there? Like, there's so many different creepy reasons that I hate that this character could have been completely neglected by the plot. Yeah, poor whatever. That lady's name is Hillard, R I p that lady Hillard Hillard, Hillard Hillard. Yes, justice for Hillard and truly. So they are burst onto the other side in the middle of this nest. They're fighting their way out this kind of trap. Some people die along the way, like Winona writer, including Christie, And I don't know why. I've seen this movie very many times and I don't understand why Christie sacrifices himself like acid to the face, big deal, But I don't get the self sacrifice. Besides, he's really good and we need him to go away so that later other deaths are more surprising, like we need to lose our sharpshooter, but I don't understand why he sacrifices himself. I was also I also had questions about that as well, because they also just like there. It seems like the second the plot starts to ramp up, with the exception of like Sigourney and Winona, they're like, let's just kill off every woman and person of color we can, so we're left with the worst white guys that aren't well written characters in the movie. And then our leads like it just is like but why but why? Yeah, I mean, good question. Dr Wren's death is kind of fun. Yeah, yes, we do get left. Yeah right, Okay, So Christie dies, call a k Nona writer dies, the military science dude Wren betrays them. He's the one who kills call just kidding. She's not dead because Big reveal she's a robot, and then they use her to like hack into the ship and basically set hacker dialogue here where she's just like she uses every buzzword available. She's like, yeah, I had to hack into the ship's main frame to the motherboard, and now where it's all computers, You're like totally, yes, I get it. Well, it's revealed also that she's an auto toon, and like there's a lot of like you know, reproduction anxiety as it also relates to like cloning and then making robots throughout these movies. But there's Ripley's prejudice against robots throughout, and then in this world there's at least not twentieth century racism like in Aliens, but there's lots and lots of prejudice against this new generation of robots that were created by robots, and so like it is cool, like everyone's like really grossed out and treats in a writer like I can't believe I almost fucked you, you gross robot who had thrown control over their actions another just like Ron Perlman and if you robot like okay, I was, I was like, what is huh? Yeah, there's another part where Elgin is talking to Dan Hydaya's character and he's just like, yeah, did you see the new crew member we've got isn't she so fuckable? And he's talking about one on a writer's character and yeah, and then everyone as soon as they find out she's a robot, there like you gross weird, like something that I think is like and I and I will defer to both of you for referencing if this is a trend in the entire franchise, but that, like, the misogyny of the men in this movie is so over the top that I feel like I was just like, what is that? Like it's it's maybe that's the genre thing, but it's just so much and it seems like they have to They make an effort to remind you every ten minutes, like someone says something absolutely like horrific. It's never subtle, it's always really aggressive and it doesn't ever really stop. I don't know, And it's never sci fi bigotry. It's never like this is what sexism would be in the future. And even their ship just like regular sexism. Their ship is called the Betty and has a pin up girl on it, and it's just like why why is there? Why is there this? Why is it still this? Like I like, I like there being only racism against robots, like that's a on idea, but like I feel like, come up with a new kind of prejudice and then your crechequing prejudice instead of just saying that in the year twenty which when does this one take place? Seventy nine? I mean seventy nine. Apparently we're making jokes about illegal aliens, but nine that's we still got pin up girls on ships. I mean, fortunately in twenty three seventy nine, um our species will be extinct, so it's kind of a true the non issue. But it is like this bizarre like why is there just seven misogyny here? I guess because they're like, you're in space, you can do whatever you want. But they're like, well, women suck. Yeah, let's let's make fun of the person in the wheelchair. And also like how with my new employee? Yeahipes, there's a lot of it. Thanks Josh Weeden for your amazing dialogue. Also, no no room for a wet whiskey, but like there's obviously a lot of water on the ship that can leak out everywhere. Like that seems heavy, true, very wet spaceships throughout. I did like the whiskey cube special effect, very very satisfying, also apparently still lemons and cherries, which is very optimistic about there, Like our military general is eating a lemon. I didn't even think of that. Where are the bees? Right? Um? Okay? So they hack into the ship basically call sets like a collision course to crash the big ship that the aliens have infested so that they can get to the Betty and escape in this smaller freighter. Then as they're getting is there like rushing towards the Betty, Ripley falls through the floor and into a pile of aliens. Then she cuddles with the queen, but it's but it's sexy cuddling even though it's her daughter, okay. And then the queen who thanks and a part of her and and weirdly a clony part of her. Yeah, yeah, they share jeans, not just because she's the mom, right, yes, I have so, I just have all question marks in that area to find out that like, okay, we have no answers, okay, okay, good okay. So and then the queen, who thanks to Ripley, now has a human reproductive system just described as a gift. Just a guy who has been trying to train the aliens just like her gift to her was a human reproductive system, which the movie does subvert because the alien is so obviously an agony, which I like in this movie that is so obsessed with this one woman's maternity. This movie at least is this is disgusting, like human reproduction is disgusting and supposed to the other movies that are like, oh, Egg's bad, human who human? Make baby good? You be mother and business like aliens writhing around with this little arms twitching about an agony. Yeah, you're just like, why is everything so horny and painful seeming in this one? Yeah, equal parts horny and pain Okay, So the queen has now has a human reproductive system and then gives birth to this half alien half like it has a human skull face and then also meals like a cat. And so that's Ripley's grand child. And the trainer guy after watching Ripley, I mean, if anything play the role of father in this relationship, then he says, look, he thinks you're the mother, which I think it's really funny and more of a critique of men viewing the thing rather than like actually making Ripley be the mother. Thinks you're the mother and it's like, well, no, it just Stroid. It's mother. It thinks Ripley is it's God like, it's not. It's really Ripley anyway, and maybe we're getting too into it for the plot. I love like that didn't click for me, but I was like, what what are you talking about? She's obviously not the mother. You'd watch the whole birth and sex scene like cocoon. He's really chilling in this cocoon. He's one side note, the actor's IMDb photo looks exactly like a picture of Buster Keaton. This is like in Black Boy. Come. That actor is Brad Doriff, who played worm Tongue in Lord of the Rings as well as he's a major character in One for Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So he's got range anyway. Okay, so there's all the weird like horny ancestual cuddling. I'm sorry you forgot his most important credit, Brad Dorriff is the voice of Chucky. Oh my God. Dora has appeared in a number of horror films, most notably as the voice of Chucky in the Whole Child's Play franchise. He's canon Chucky. I also think he as him like as an actor, Like, were you not just him voice acting Chucky? But I think he's also in the Chucky movies as a different character as well. But I might be completely misremembering. No, I think you're right Charles Lee Ray, who I think is like the serial killer who's trapped inside of or Charles Lee. Yeah, he's like one of the bad guys in Chucky and also the real bad guy, which is which is Chucky. I watched Chucky for the first time last year and I was like, damn, this is pretty good. I liked it. It kind of holds up. Yeah, I was like Chucky. And then I watched Aubrey Plaza Chucky and it wasn't that bad. It wasn't as good as original Chucky. But you know, maybe well I don't know if we have anything to say about Chucky on this particular show, but it was fun. Sure. So anyways, Chucky's in the movie. Chucky's in the movie. He dies. There's been all this horny ancestral cuddling. And then Ripley runs away and heads towards the Betty ship, but the weird alien follows her and gets onto the ship as well, and Ripley and such a good deal though, it's my goodness called trying to close the door, and then the alien, baby alien helps She was like, oh, baby alien, that good or bad? That scene. I when Caitlin and Ikyl and I watched this together the first time, and I was like, maybe I just haven't been paying close enough attention because I feel like this whole dramatic cutting back and forth feels very bizarre and unearned. But then I watched the second time, I'm like, no, it still feels that wait where it's like something about the editing in the scene where it just it keeps cutting back to Sigourdy Weaver for a little bit too long, where she's like and then you come back to like this terrifying like suck through a whole bad c G. I I loved it. I love that scene. It's so confusing because what's about to happen is that Ripley and Call have to deal with the alien who's gotten on board the Betty and Ripley flings her acid blood onto a window and it creates this hole and then the weird cat human alien get sucked out of the whole into space in what is one of the most disgusting like body horror things I've ever seen. It takes its time, and the movie really milks it for a long time, but not before Ripley kind of makes out with the alien a k a. Her grandchild. It's like horny nuzzling. Yeah, it's very it's very charged. Yes, And then the movie ends with Ripley and call arriving on Earth and they're like, wow, it's nice the end. So let's take another break and then we'll come back to discuss, and we're back, Uh so crazy. I kind of wanted to start with you here and sort of let you lead us through what are we missing about this movie? What are and and like, what about the popular kind of opinions surrounding this movie? Do you feel very differently about Okay, let me make my plea for Alien Resurrection, because I think that it's really kind of I really don't like that this movie becomes so obsessed with making Ripley into a mom. Obviously it was written as female. It took a long time for the writers to conceive of any of the characters not being men, and even longer for them to think, like, well, what if it was even the lead? And then the sequels like backstory was actually a mom, but we're going to take that away. Also like be a mom this whole movie, which was cool at the time because she's doing a good job at her job and being a mom, which I guess like historical context is powerful. And then the third one, she's pregnant the whole time, but within with an alien and like it's like stick like you know. And then it's obsessed with the fact that she is female bodied because she's on a planet of rapists that only rpe female body people apparently, and have a religion that women are bad and comtresses and should be kept far away, and like, to me, that ruins the metaphor of it. What I like about this monster is it's a rape metaphor where everybody has to have birth anxiety. And I think a lot of movies that include write metaphors are very very gendered, and I like that it isn't doing that. But these movies are kind of obsessed with Ripley being a mom or not being a mom, and please be a mom. And then I think Alien Resurrection has the opinion that reproduction is disgusting, and you think alien reproduction is disgusting, like human reproduction also disgusting and terrible for the mother, and aliens are gross and other and to be killed, but they are because of us. It's a xenomorph like they're the way that they are the like like, I don't know, I feel like a lot of the xenomorphus bad qualities come from us, and we see that in this movie with the alien sacrificing the other one. They kind of seem naturally high minded or even like they might have whale type intelligence and consciousness of the group, like ants or whales, but because they are partially us, they have this disgusting individualism. And then this movie kind of takes it even farther where then the reproduction becomes human, and then the baby becomes groutesquely more human like. And then like this alien baby who I just I love and I'll give all the nipples to like I love alien baby, um and the way that they light it so maybe they get sucked through a hole. Yes, I love alien baby. I feel for alien baby. They really make you watch her die. Yeah, they really make you watch that baby die. But like even when it's like even when it's attacking, you don't know whether or not it's attacking, and I feel like that's the human not like you know, the xenomorphs that were used to age very very quickly. But this is more human, and it seems a more emotionally volatile and it doesn't have like a prime directive and at one moment will be very very cute and cuddly but then also screaming and like as if it wants to attack you and sort of how is that different than the human baby? And I think what's cool and what'sever feminist about these movies is like the world is like, Rippley, you should have a baby, Like why didn't you have a baby two hundred and eighty four years ago or whatever? And Ripley always chooses to save humanity instead of like an individual family, and like, in that way is much more parental, um and heroic than like just like, let's have this character be a mother who wants to get home to see her daughter's eleventh birthday. Um. So, what I love about this movie is I feel like you really get into who is disgusting. Is it the xenomorpher is it the humanity that they have adopted genetically? And this movie is just really like like reproduction in general is disgusting. It's gross when robots to do it themselves. It's gross when we clone things. It's gross when aliens have babies, and it's also gross when humans have babies. It is terrible and traumatic and disgusting. And why is there still humanity in the year twenty three? Whatever this is? I mean, I totally like, I I thank you for like laying that out for us, because it feels like this movie has not gotten this out of like love and attention to detail. I'm so interested in that because that was like, I still have a lot of confusion honestly, and like some criticism around this movie, but I did like one thing that really hit for me in ripley eight's character in this movie was and I feel like it's I guess that they explore it kind of thoroughly. It's all over the place, but the idea that she is considered worthless after the baby has been taken out of her, and like I think Dan Hydeal literally refers to her as like she's a sack of meat to us at this point, we don't care. And I feel like that does say something about how we in today years still kind of characterized mothers, or or how people with with wombs are characterized after they've you know, quote unquote served their purpose and perpetuated the human race and all and all of that, and and how ripley eight is determined to continue to just like find purpose and meaning in whatever that means for her after it's clear that the structure in which she has been brought into has seen her as like outliving her use I feel like you can apply that to motherhood, you can apply that to just aging in general, and like she feels confident that she still has purpose and wants to keep learning more about herself after people have told her that she no longer is useful. So from from that perspective, I really like that's the part of ripley eight journey that I felt like was really effective. And then there's a bunch of other stuff also, right my my, I think there could be a parallel drawn between some of the stuff that's happening in this movie and the things that are happening in tech exist right now. As far as the abortion band and like an obsession of being control in control of the bodies of like childbearing people, where this movie I guess I was maybe oversimplifying things in my brain in terms of like this franchise does get more and more obsessed with like reproduction, especially as it pertains to wombs and birthing and motherhood, where like the first movie you just established that basically anyone can get impregnated by these face huggers and then you give birth out of your chest, and that's what we see happening to John Hurt's character. Aliens heightens this where we see that happening I think, to a few different characters, and then we see like the Queen mother laying eggs, and then like Ripley becomes a de facto mother to Newt and then it's like you said, this kind of like Cannon gets retroactively established that she was also previously a mother. I would say, Alien three, there isn't quite so much like birth thing type imagery and metaphor, but that she's saved and she's precious because she's pregnant with an alien. Yes, that's that's true. That's true. And then this movie, like we've hinted at, there's so much imagery, like every few minutes it seems like there's some birth metaphor happening, or there's some reference to wounds and reproduction, and I mean, and sometimes it's not even if it's not stated, it's visually stated, where it's like when they get out of the water thing, they have to like kind of born themselves again because there's that weird little birth shell that they got to punch through. I'm like, oh, and then they all got borned again. You take your first breath again, People keep being born. I mean, even the way that baby alien dies, it's getting sucked through a hole that could maybe even be considered like a birth metaphor. But then I was, as you were kind of laying all of that out, Gracie, I was like, oh, well, this movie is largely about this group of men who are doing all of these like experiments and cloning and obsessed with They're the ones who are obsessed with this reproduction and these creatures with wombs and birth thing and all that stuff. Much this way that like conservative lawmakers are obsessed with controlling again the bodies of child bearing people. So I wonder, I don't know how much intentional commentary there is on that in this movie, but I think there's like an interesting parallel that you can draw in terms of like Yeah, look, how obsessed these people who don't really understand quote unquote female reproduction and wombs and bodily autonomy and having choices over your own body. Like they clone Ripley without her consent. They don't know if she was already impregnated with the alien or if they impregnate her either way, Like that whole thing happens without her consent, and then all this other stuff just like they're just making choices for these people and or creatures. Yeah. Yeah, like it's wait, you're blowing our minds or alien resurrection good. Actually, well, I think you know, we've seen the military in this in this world two years before that and this, and uh, there are a lot of not a lot of them get named aloud, and um, a lot of them die pretty early, but there are men and women in the military. And I think it is intentional in the script that all of these military people who were outside of like legal jurisdiction to they're like in an area of space where like things aren't controlled. Um, but they're all male. And then also the ship is father instead of mother like in the other movies. Yeah, and like you know, like in your previous discussion about alien like there's even like should that count as the character? I think it's really problematic to make subservient robots and computers female. Like the first year that Siri came out, the number one question that she was asked it was what's your brass eyes? And we had a conversation like that in the in the her episode a couple of years ago. Now where it's like that is such a like there is a psychological human conditioning by society not by nature, that people are more comfortable telling female voice what to do, yeah, and then yelling at it when it's wrong. That's not what I asked for, Yeah, right, yeah. Um. And I I think I think it is intentional that it's father, And I think it is intentional that it's that these character like ridiculous over the top cartoon isial men think that they can possess life and control and profit off of life and they can't control the aliens and they can't control Ripley and it's the death of them all. Um. So I do think I do think it is intentionally commenting on that. Um. There is one female character who is on their side who has just builled as antithesiologist UM, and that does not follow the loftest rule of women with least hair has most power. It's true, It's true, which is unfortunate. She is the baldest woman, but she is not in charge. She's the opposite of in charge and unnamed, which I feel like a lot of these characters don't have allowed names. To give them a name. Yeah, yeah, true, Like it's I mean, I guess Hillard technically has a name, but also they forgot to write her a character. Yeah. And kind of going off of that discussion, the other thing that really worked for me in in this be was the connection that call in Ripley eight end up forming by listening to each other, because it's what I whatever call has we we learned has been you know, told and programmed by the patriarchal structure that she was made by to destroy Ripley. But in connecting with each other in a way that makes sense in story, they're not just like, oh where you know, we're the women characters, so we have to band together and be friends in a vague way. But it's like you have like two real scenes with them figuring each other out and forming uh bond and a friendship and at first honestly, going into this episode, I was like, Wow, we have like five million asshole human men and are too like the two women who are the leads of this movie. They have I think humanity in the from the story aspect, but it's like a Lien clone born Sigourney yesterday and uh robot Winona. But the more we talk about it, the less I'm fixating on that. I don't know, because I do because they're They're scenes together are very are are very I think like you understand why they band together, and you understand why Ripley eight is choosing call Over baby Yeah, And I think, you know, kind of the lock in of this movie is finding out that those two characters share a common goal, even though the scene is called going to kill her, and they do have this like like, you know, why are they keeping you alive? Like I don't know the newest thing. So I think that they are both women who are supposed to feel ashamed of their bodies by the patriarchal system in which they exist, and Ripley refuses to and embraces what is different about her clone body, and the same happens with call Um. I think it's kind of cool that like there's the there, like it's an auton in a in a clone, and yet they're like, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna be powerful and like try to find happiness on my own and Call is so ashamed of her body and learns not to be because it saves the day and then says, father's gone asshole and then it's great, right, and and like their common journey of being told what they're good for and what they're supposed to be doing and realizing that there are other ways to be and to like whatever. Like I was like, oh my god, I need to text with therapist. Shame deep programming, let's say, like d programming your own shame de programming your you know, just the idea that your quote unquote creator or your overlord or whoever it is. For them, it's like their literal creator. Um, what they ascribe as the meaning of your life isn't what Like they don't get to decide that. So in that way, wow, movie good. And I like that they have conflict again because it seems like you get them together in a scene and they realize they have the same enemy and like here it is. It's going to be Sigourney and Monona being buddies against the aliens, and then the next time we see them again, they're fighting and they have completely different points of views of how they should be doing things and who should be in charge, and I like that there's that conflict. I also, I love I love when it seems like Sigourney is going to flame throw Dr Wren and then she ends up like it's like giving the gun away and say, don't do what and then Bona just gives perfect punch to the face the Doctor Wren, which just like such a great moment, which you guys talked about the like men punching women and women punching men thing that happens in action sci fi genre and I think You're Aliens episode, yes, and there is like you know, and there's some there's some superhuman element to this. But Sigourney does get barbelled and the nose prettier, oh my gosh, yeah, and she fights right back and like she I mean, yeah, there there's there seems to be very little anxiety that this movie has about who's fighting who. It's like whoever in the scene it needs to be fighting, even if it's mid basketball game. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I didn't feel I mean, even though there's violence inflicted upon women, it didn't feel specifically gendered or as though like women were being targeted because they were women. It just felt like these are characters in an action movie, equal opportunity inflicting violence and violence being inflicted upon you regardless of gender, which I suppose is parody. Yeah, right, like and and I didn't. I was I was kind of waiting. I was like, Okay, let's see when uh, women is going to be tossed to the side in the middle of an action scene to be like, we gotta keep ships, like whatever. Mary Jane at the climax of Spider Man two, they're like, we had to trap her and very sticky web. But because what if she tried to punch someone, um someone you mean Doc? I yes, I do. What if she what if Mary Jane was like, I'm going with Doc dog that would have been smarter. I'll allow it. My head, Kennon, this is a this is a tangent, and you can cut it out. But because listening to your Aliens episode earlier today, it was brought up to both of you. But I can't like the conversation happened to Caitlin Darante, who has a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, about the fight sequence in john Wick two against Ruby Rose, and it's I guess it's important to discuss john Wick fights women. But more importantly to tell Caitlin Darante, who has a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, is that that fight happens at the moment in Act two where John Wick should like reflect upon himself and then grow and change and real. I said, he needs his need instead of his wont because it's a John Wick movie that's never going to happen. So instead of that, he has a fight sequence with Ruby Rose and an art installation of mirrors called the Reflection of the Self. Oh my god, I feel like that was Keia news idea. That sounds like a k He was like, what if he called it reflections of the self, like unspoken screenwriting joke. That is very funny. And thank you for bringing up my master's degree in screenwriting, because you know I would never like it hasn't been coming up in flavor. It hasn't been coming up because I would never bring it up, so you would, you never would. I appreciate you doing it, Gracie, thank you. Unspoken screenwriting jokes very good. I appreciate that. Yeah, Um, can we talk about the Rice character Dom Price, like we we've had this discussion many times on the show at this point, but Dom Ryce is a wheelchair bound character who is played by all accounts that I was able to find a not a disabled actor, which again is like such a nineties I mean, a very casting decision that is just like, it's so unnecessary. I feel like we're repeat it's always worth repeating that there are so many talented disabled actors that would have fucking nailed that part. Yes, so I wanted to call that out and also and also just discussed that character a little bit, yes, because the way that he is treated, especially by Ron Perlman's character John Or, is astonishingly horrible. Where I feel like this is a pretty common thing for if there is an inclusion of a marginalized character in some way, and here specifically a character with physical disability, where there is an inclusion invisibility, but it comes at the cost of that character being horribly abused, bullied aggressively. That seems to be the whole function of the Ron Perlman character in this movie in a way that doesn't really work for me, And I think that is like kind of a Josh Weeden and like nineties two thousand writer. Thing that is done is the idea of the run probing character is he we know of how because of how he's written and presented that he's wrong, but I feel like you're still encouraged to laugh along with him. So what is the point of telegraphing to the audience this guy is an asshole? But also the way he's delivering them, like their comedy lines there, I think that they're supposed to be perceived as comedy lines. And so when he's teasing and abusing the only disabled character or you know, just firing off every sexist missive he could possibly think of, then it's like, well, what it feels like having it both ways in a way that doesn't work, especially because he's one of the few characters that survives through the entire movie. He died. It would be one thing if he was an asshole to everyone and then we understood that and his lines weren't played for comic relief, and then he was killed, like punished by being killed. But that doesn't happen In fact, at the end, when Ripley and Call have killed the final baby alien by sucking it out of a hole in the window, even though the two of them seem completely fine and do don't get their guts sucked out of the window. Well, I think they bother. They're supposed to have a little bit of superhuman going on. Oh that makes sense. Yeah, I think because you know, Cal's a robot and because Ripley's part alien, they're able to hold on and be okay, and they're pretty close to that mystery. I think that. Yeah. I think that's the reason that it's like if the one what is the military guys left over to Stephano, if he was still there and hadn't been killed, I think he would have not been so okay with that. Yeah. Good, I guess I'll suspend my disbelief for that. They're also they buckle themselves into the wall, so I guess they're fine anyway. So when Ripley returns from that big climactic defeat of the alien, Ron Promin's character throws off a little quip where he's just like or he's just like, hey, Ripley, and then she's like, you remembered my name or something, and then there's like kind of like a comedic growth, like yeah, like a nice moment between them, I guess is what that's meant to be. And it's like, no, you don't get to redeem yourself after you've verbally assaulted like every person in the cast of the movie. Even this, Like I mean it is obviously a terrible bully and a terrible bigot, but even just the tiniest bits of his actions are just unforgivable. Like he gets mad at cow for wasting his homemade liquor and then throws Christie's, Like he gets upset at Ripley for wasting Ammo and then shoots a spider a spider. Why that is the funniest part of the movie. You're just the worst guy. That is comedy gold and I'm obsessed with it. Okay, that's a great moment. But he's a hypocrite. Yeah, he's awful. I will say. For getting back to Dom's character a little bit, I would also be very curious to hear what our disabled listeners who have seen this movie made of how he was characterized throughout the movie. One thing that I was I encouraged isn't the word not horrified by, I guess is that that Dom remains extremely active throughout all of the action scenes, where I feel like there is such a tendency to Sideline and Kirsten Dunston, the Spider Web characters who are disabled in action sequences specifically, but in a lot of genres um He is like those action sequences, particularly like once they're on the ladder and all this stuff, Like those scenes don't work if his character is removed from the scene. And so I did like that Dom is in the in the way that there's parody across genders in action. It seems like there was a fair amount of parody with ability as well in the action scenes, which was cool. Yeah, I felt that too, And I think it's notable that he also survives until the end and that he doesn't go I feel like a lot of movies would have killed off a disabled character specifically because of their like they wouldn't have survived because of their disability, And I think that it's actually pretty remarkable that the filmmakers let that character survive until the end. It's true, you can't say the same for how non white characters in this movie are treated. That is true. I mean I think that Christie, who, by the way, is played It took me so long into the movie. I'm like, I know this guy. I kept thinking of that the actor Gary Dordan is his name, and I was like looking at him, I was like thinking of my aunt's house. I'm like, what is the connection between this man and my aunt's house. He was on c s I for like ten years and my aunt used to love that show. So I was like, Oh, it's c s I guy, So whatever, that's a useless fact that you can know. But I would argue that he's He's Christie is the only black character who has a lot of influence on what goes on in the plot. There are other people of color, just it's just Christie and the soldier who gets frozen who are black. And then there's the two Latin X military men, including the general and then the one who makes it a long time right. But it's like even even the guy who lives a long time, I don't I don't know what his name was, or like what anything about him. In the same way that like with the other lady, we don't know anything about her. She she makes it about halfway, but like who was that no idea. I didn't know until listening to y'all's episodes that this franchise never has a woman of color character or guest character. But Vasquez is played by a white woman. What Vasquez is played by a white woman in brown face in the movie Aliens? It is? It is true, Like, I feel like there are not many popular movies with stuff that ages quite as poorly as brown face character and one of the best regarded sci fi movies of all time. It's so infuriating. And also, I mean this franchise for as much as I am like genuinely being swung to the side of like, this movie is pretty good, um, because Cracy is a worker of miracles. All I'm saying it's better than thirty nine, better than I'll give it a forty one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But but this, I mean throughout it's for a for a franchise that is really fixated on reproduction anxiety, which I do think is a topic that isn't off the table for you know, men to explore. I think that that's like, it's a it's a worthy it's a topic that affects anyone who's ever been born. So sure people are you know, entitled to explore that topic, but the fact that it's like if you go through the production, like the top level production of every single one of these movies, it's it's just guys. It's just white guys, Like it's man yeah, and it's like, we just let's get some other voices in the room here, maybe with uh, with you know, people who have been on both sides of of this uh of this thing. I'm about to say a kind of gender normative thing. But um, I think that if there was anybody in charge who was female bodied in this production, they would have shopped the close up of her manicure on a day where it wasn't so grown out like it her cocoon birth. I was like, that's a two week old manicure, Like this is the one time you were going to shoot a close up of it? Like I mean, maybe they were like, well, it'll be too unrealistic. If where did you get this manicure on a ship? We have to let it grow out so it looks I don't I believe that they just don't. They weren't looking and they're supposed to be her nails, and like it doesn't look like nails. Because it looks like a grown out acrylic manicure and it really bluts me. But there that's like a very valid point. It's like I feel like that is like almost giving the same like the ponytail moment in Birds of Prey where it's like if you know, you know um, and if you don't, people are gonna make fun of you for not attempting to know. Yeah, I don't. Yeah this this I forget what I was about to say something about birth. I feel like we've talked a lot about birth. Uh yeah. My notes for this movie were pretty sparse. It was mostly um round problem and shoots a spider the end. I have a lot of I honestly like being able to understand this movie through your perspective crazy. I feel like it's genuinely been very very helpful to me to understand because it is like there is a lot of interesting stuff going on here, and then I just feel like it doesn't quite go as far as I would like it too in other areas. And also just like, yeah, this movie is really erotic, you know, in a in a way that like I don't hate it. It's just like it's I like, that's not even a criticism I have as much as an unavoidable observation. Well, it's erotic between Ripley and her alien offspring, so I do have a problem with it in the sense that it's incestuous. I get. I mean, I can see that. I it's so cuckoo that it didn't super bother me, and like, I guess it is like the gendered way that people interact with xeno morphs is like I feel like that. That is more what stuck with me of watching back old scenes from alien and aliens and men being so freaked out by being inhabited by a parasite and then m child bearing people like inherently being like, no, I must protect the parasite, as if this is just like a universal response like I don't. Yeah, see what I love about it as a monster her babies a lot? Yeah, yeah, I really I really like that it it equalizes birth anxiety. And from a writer who thinks that men might have womb anxiety, this movie does not suggest that anybody has womb anxiety. And I think that really, I don't know, I really like that about this monster and I hate like making the fear of it gender it at all, But I do think that the relationship between Ripley and the alien baby is to me, it's supposed to be more God destroying their own creation then mother rejecting child. And I like that the prequels did not exist even as a as an idea. I don't think at this at this moment, but then like that really does resonate, and I think that gives this movie a good place in the franchise, is that these movies become less about the anxiety of acts like birthing an alien and more about what have we created as humanity and do we need to destroy it? And then there's of course this other alien species that created us and intends to destroy it, and that's where there's unit more goo comes from. Um. But yeah, it feels it feels more to me like this movie is this This is maybe just an optimistic reading of it, but it feels like this franchise is like, Ripley, you need to be a mom. Go be a mom. You're a mom. M you're a woman, you have a wound, you're gonna get raped, and you're going to be a mom. And then this movie is like, no, Ripley's a fucking god and she's going to reject her own creation and saving to save gosh well, but I feel like, like how much of it was originally sexual and how much of that is just really Scott noticing the hr guy your designs, But then even like the way that they're creating those designs the actual pieces on set, Like whose idea was it that the phace hugger is literally an oyster. It's a it's the vaginast vagina monster I've seen in a while, and that's saying something because they get pretty vagina, but it's also a penis monster. I have written on my arm from you earlier, Jamie, don't wax my flaps flapped things. But it's I think that it's it's a penis horror and it's a vulva horror, and it's the horror of birth for every body. Yeah, and then Alien three is just like what if instead of the metaphor, she was just always about to get raped all the time? Like, thanks, David, interesting idea, And I want to I want to be clear that, like we hear on the Bechtel cast and we've talked about this before, but motherhood is something we obviously fully support. Assuming a person who becomes a mother wants to be a mother. I don't want to sound like we are condemning motherhood or childbirth in any way. What we are critical of is the patriarchal expectation for anyone with a womb to give birth and to become a mother and go through that process, and the expectation that that's basically the sole purpose of a person with a womb, regardless of whether or not that person wants to be a mother and be a parent, because historically that's been what society values and expects of people with wounds. And so again, it's oppressive expectation that we take issue with. It's completely anti choice, and it's turkey, and it's get your creepy laws away from which in this world still hasn't been resolved by the twenty three hundreds, which is like just wacky enough to believe and also still smoking. I guess, yeah, well, you know, big tobacco. It's wild. Is there any other stuff? We That was all I had for? Note? What is there? Are there anything we hasn't we haven't hasn't, haven't touched on yet. I've covered everything I had. Yeah, I think we nailed it. I think we blew alien Resurrection wide open. I also just wanted to give the back tol cast a tip of the hat for how many movies we've covered that came out in the year as the production conflicts for this movie, when Janet was trying to get space to film this movie because they, I guess the other alien movies were shot in England. This was shot in Hollywood because Sigourney was a co producer and she was just like, why the international commute, which I think is like really very good use of power. But they were shooting at uh like a Hollywood lot, and they had difficulty securing studio space because of Titanic, and because of Starship Troopers, and because of the Lost World Jurassic Park. So there were just so many huge movies filming in in Hollywood studios. In the best of them, of course, being Titanic, the best movie ever made, ever made, ever made. It's a it's a fact. Um does this movie pass the Bechtel test? It actually does quite a lot. It does. Between Ripley and Call primarily, but they talk about aliens. They talk about how Call is a robot, they talk about how Ripley's part alien, They talk about Earth, they talk about a lot of stuff, religion, religion, the nature of humanity and if humans possess it, and Ripley says, I knew you couldn't be a human You're too humane. No human, no human being could be that humane, which is only the second most Josh windn't wed any line in this, I think, second to uh, I thought you were dead. I get that a lot. Feel a very good line. That's pretty funny. Um. I did have to laugh when Ripley says something like, who do I have to funk around here to get off this boat? And then Ron Perlman is like, well, I can get you off, maybe not the boat, and I was like the ship. I mean, he's an again, a despicable character, and that's a gross line coming from him, but it's a pretty funny line. Otherwise, anyway, does it pass the back to test when Ripley has to murder the terrifying body horror clone of herself with a flamethrower. I think it could. Yeah, I think so. I think. You know, it's a tense interaction, but you know, let women have tension. Yeah, she says kill me, and then Ripley and the responses. The action is the response, but is definitely a conversation. It's a conversation. Yeah, it's true. So it passes handily. Um, as far as our nipple scale goes a scale of zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares. Looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens, um, I mean power in. I'll split it. I'll give it a right down the middle two point five. I do think there is some interesting commentary being made on kind of the just a session of male authority figures, and like the fact that it's military and medical, you know, because there there's a lot to criticize about the way medical professionals, some of them harbor a lot of biases and withhold medical care from a lot of marginalized groups of people. So I think it's like interesting that it's these like military medical personnel and like all you know, these industrial complexes that are obsessed with basically using female bodies as vessels to perpetuate their own very destructive agenda. And yeah, I think there's again these interesting parallels to be drawn about what's happening currently in the world in terms of groups of men being obsessed with controlling people with uteruses and denying people access to bodily autonomy. So I think that's all an interesting thing that the movie explores. I think that as far as how effectively it does that that might be a little up for debate, but I think it's I appreciate that the movie attempts something like that. I don't like how weirdly horny Ripley gets for her children, her alien children. I do appreciate that the main relationship that emerges in the movie that we are rooting for is between two fem presenting beings. Again, they're not human women, but they are for all intents and purposes, women, I suppose, and that that's the kind of most compelling relationship between characters in the entire movie. Um. Yeah, So there's some pros and cons of this very bizarre movie that's obsessed with birth imagery. I will give it too point five nipples. Does that seem too high? No, I think I'll probably meet ei there, Okay, all right? Uh, And I will give them to the spider that gets shot to death by Ron Perlman. I'll meet you at two point five. I. I think that there are a lot of really admirable swings in this uh, in this movie, and honestly, this conversation has been so enlightening and helpful in clarifying some of those swings. Uh. And I also, I mean, I like your interpretation, Gracie, that of of Ripley as God versus Ripley as alien Grandma. Uh. And that resolves I think like a lot of the like cognitive dissonance I was experiencing. And I think that that's a more I wish that if that was the canonical intention. I wish that that was that almost they hit that a little harder because I feel like that's a really like cool journey to track in a way that is like clear and obvious. I'll piggy back on what you said, Caitlin, and I like that the central relationship is Ripley and call I think that their connection makes a lot of sense. I like their mutual rejection of what they've been told about who they like, who they've been made to be, versus choosing choose, like making a choice as an individual that's also in the interest of the collective at the same time, like it that's such a difficult line to toe. That is like the thing that I think this movie maybe does the most effectively. And then there's a bunch of stuff that's like hit and miss that we've spent the last two hours discussing, so I won't rehash. But I think that two and a half feels good and admirable, uh and admirable swing. Definitely a movie that like, uh like, If not rewards, I'm rewatching. There's definitely ship you missed. If it's been a long time since you've seen this movie, and I think it's aged in a really interesting way, and watch it with friends, don't watch it, don't watch it alone. Have have a good night with friends. So I'll do two and a half. I'll will give one to that lady that dies, I'll give one to the basketball, and I'll give the last point five to uh ripley um. I, on the other hand, think that this is a four nibble movie. I'll remind you that you both you both give four nipples to aliens, both of you. Sounds like something I would have been a couple of years ago. Yeah, um, But yeah, I recognize that maybe a lot of what I love about this movie is perhaps headcanon and is not necessarily super active in the movie. But I do think that a lot like there's a lot of male gaze going on in this movie. The direction is very very male gaze, and I agree. I mean, it's like it's she's being really sexy with the alien. But I feel like what that moment is supposed to be, and it is really sexy and Sigourney Weavers keeping her eyes still and moving her head around just because she looks like Sigourney Weaver and she's moving in a fluid way. But um, it's supposed to be her choosing between her animal side and her human side and choosing humanity. I don't think that's the script. I think it's just on set it became very sexy. Um, But I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a nipple at at least subverting the born Sexy Yesterday trope because toss it over your shoulder right into the basketball hoop because you know, and they're really surprised that that's a that's a side effect. Um, I'm gonna give, I mean a nipple to call um for all of the reasons. It just um just I don't know. It's unown a writer and Sigourney Weaver being being badasses in a movie together like that does that does get? That does a lot for me? Um, especially since part of the reason Suggourney Weaver got cast in the first place was from being very tall, and everyone who was doing casting was like, see this, I can see I can see as Ripley, Like that's Ripley walking in the room and she like credits her quote Hooker boots about it. So um as a short as a short person, I like that. There's also window and a writer being a badass UM five three. And I'm going to give a nipple to the baby alien because I love the baby alien so so much. And the lighting of the baby alien. Um, they apparently had to uh c g I off the umbilical cord when it was walking because it looked too much like a penis, which is just like a fun little I love that baby alien fact. Yeah, it was like a c g I thing that had to happen. It was the guy who c G I is that it's the weirdest um editing he had to do. Um but which this like to me relates just a tiny bit, even though John didn't have anything to do with production to Josh Weeden really wanting vision to have a penis and having to be shown what that would look like, to be told that that is incorrect. Um, but that's a sidetrack. And I'm going to give a nipple to the Josh Weedeney dialogue because uh, you know, thinking about the human being aside. I love dialogue like that and it is my lead character, my my Ripley being told I thought you were dead. I get that a lot. I'm like, that's a nipple for me. That's a nipple from me, dog nipples. Well, Gracie, thank you so much for coming back and for helping us. Yes, thank you for appreciate this movie. Yeah, I'm happy that you watched it. You can skip three. I mean Cube. The more I learned about Alien Cube, the more I'm just like, I'm I don't think I'll ever see the need to see it. No where can people follow you online? Check out your stuff? Plug away Um, I'm online on Instagram at Gracie Gillum dr A C I E G I L L A m um. And right now you can watch me in Super Host on shutter app. It is coming up on spooky season, so good time to get shutter app. And it's a good movie to watch in your home and contemplate the validity of safety in the domestic sphere. Ha ha ha ha yeah my super host on shutter hell Yeah. Check it out. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to our Patreon a k a. Matreon for five dollars a month at patreon dot com, slash specktel Cast. It gets you to bonus episodes every month, plus access to the entire back catalog of bonus episodes, which is over a hundred. Now I think, yeah, I think we did it. We've crossed into triple figures. Wow, there's so much content left to explore if you're not already a matron, and you can also grab our some merch of were public dot com slash the backtel Cast if you are so inclined. If you have a baby alien to dress, I'm pretty sure we have clothes for baby alien. Also, I meant it is a very size inclusive site. So go there, have a good time, and uh everyone, I think we just got to Earth. I mean, I know it's kind of a ship hole, but I'd rather stay with the things. Man. Fun fact like, she's apparently they're they're gonna put the ship. They're gonna send the ship to somewhere that's unpopulated and according to xenopedia dot com, that places central Africa. Okay, so that's interesting. Oh okay, well this movie is a mess. Bye bye bye