Imaginary Worlds - De-Aging Well

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

There’s an old saying that everyone wants to live long, but no one wants to get old. The same can be applied to our favorite sci-fi fantasy franchises. As familiar faces return to Star Wars, Star Trek, and other movies and shows, some franchises have embraced stories about aging and mortality, while others have used digital technology to erase those issues with mixed results. In a roundtable discussion, I talk with Christina Valeo of Eastern Washington University, Shawn Taylor of San Francisco State University and podcaster and pastor JR Forasteros about who is aging well, or de-aging poorly. Spoiler alert, we discuss the Picard series and older Star Trek movies, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Black Mirror, and Upload. This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile, Podboard and Squarespace. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Q is a godlike being who likes to play games with humanity, especially Jean-Luc Picard. And in the posters and billboards for season two, the actor who plays Q, John Delancey, looks his current age. And given that Q doesn't age like a human being, a lot of fans are wondering, how are they going to explain that? It was very clever. lot of fans are wondering how are they going to explain that it was very clever and spoiler alert in the first episode of the season when Q appears he is digitally de-aged Don DeLancey looks just like he did 30 years ago he sees Picard and says oh dear you're a bit older than I imagined let me catch up Q snaps his fingers with a flash, he's 30 years older. There. Now we're even. Q.

God damn, Q! Aging is an issue that I've been thinking about a lot. I mean, I think about it every time I look in the mirror, but also I've been thinking about it a lot with my parents. And so much pop culture right now is playing to Generation X nostalgia, bringing back cast members from the original Star Wars trilogy or Star Trek The Next Generation or the movie Ghostbusters Afterlife. But whenever they bring back those middle-aged or elderly actors,

our yearning for the things we loved when we were young immediately comes up against the hard fact that none of us is de-aging in real life. So I decided to convene a council of wise elders to discuss how these different franchises are dealing with aging. Actually, they're all guests that are the same age as me, and I've enjoyed talking to them on the show before. Our roundtable discussion begins with Picard, and we do give away more spoilers for the series, and also some spoilers for Marvel and Star Wars, and we often say spoiler alert,

but if you want a heads up right now, I put a list of everything we talk about in the show notes. The first voice you'll hear is Sean Taylor, who teaches at San Francisco State University. After that, you'll hear Christina Vallejo, who teaches at Eastern Washington University. And the third person you'll hear is J.R. Forasteros, who is a pastor and a podcaster in Dallas. And they all quickly bonded over being Star Trek fans. For me, Star Trek has always felt youthful, but not young, where Star Wars has always felt young in a way. Because you look at the original series, everybody's middle-aged for the most part,

or looks middle-aged for the most part. And then next generation, you're like, wow, there's a bald guy who's a sex symbol and a leader, and he's considerably older than those who are around him. And for me, that was revolutionary. I mean, I have been 45 since I've been 18. I've never felt like a young person. And so seeing science fiction, things that I love, seeing people who I could grow into as opposed to regress back and you know like Spider-Man I'm like I gotta like shave off 30 years to be Spider-Man but I don't have to shave off any years to be um Sisko and so being able to see Star Trek tackle this you know something fundamental as death and dying

and age but in this incredibly high-tech world has been such a joy to experience especially with you know well I have my quibbles with Picard. That part of it is something I can't really, I have no problems with. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I have some issues with the plot choices on Picard too, but the way they've handled aging has been really interesting. I was thinking even in Wrath of Khan, like a lot of people may not remember, but like the whole first act was Kirk having this kind of midlife crisis around getting towards the end of his career to some extent. And then, of course, the next movie after that, Search for Spock, is all about like death and rebirth through incredible science fiction means. And when you can when you can ditch death, right, when you can step out of death as characters do so many.

I mean, Picard's already died in this series. He almost died again this season, but I'm trying to figure out what the heck they're doing, whether they're saying aging is. And Picard's been asking us this, right? I wasn't living, I was waiting to die. He's really tuned into this late stage of his life. And they can move, you know, Q looks like Q at first, right? And then he looks like the real John Delancey. They're messing with the whole concept of what it is to age. I love the way Chris put it, right? Where we have people at different ages, but then because we live in this, you know, sort of magical future, though, I think we've seen Star Trek's cultural baggage of old bodies are scary bodies. We are afraid of aging in our culture.

We tend to hide our aged away in special housing. Like I'm thinking about a lot of other cultures around the world who the elderly are the center of the culture. And it's so important to revere and honor your elders. Whereas for us, we prize youth and we prize youthfulness and we modify our bodies to look youthful and we adopt slang to appear youthful. And we idolize youthfulness to a point that the old body is something to be afraid of. And I think you can see that probably mostly accidentally in a lot of Star Trek. Yeah. And also to what you were saying, JR, makes me think about Data. And like at the end of season one of Picard, Data, who actually in the movies, like 20

years ago, he died in the movies. But then we discover that he's actually living as this virtual consciousness. And of course, his character always wanted to experience what it's like to be human. So like death is kind of the final frontier for that. But, you know, they de-aged Brent Spiner to play Data. And luckily he's an android, so you have to worry about him looking like he's stuck in the Uncanny Valley. It's kind of where he's supposed to be. But they've also kept up this Star Trek tradition of Brent Spiner playing the different members of the Soong family, the scientists that created Data in their image. And then he doesn't need to be de-aged at all.

But what do you think of the contrast he's been giving in these performances as Data, but then also as the men of the Soong? Like the Soong character that he's playing in this season is a guy that is not at peace with aging or dying at all. I mean, for me, there's always been something really sinister about Brent Spiner. But there's this, like, the way, like, the hunger for immortality that he usually portrays, it's terrifying.

And it's not just, I want to overcome disease. It's like, I want it erratic. I want this to last forever. This genetic defect means the smallest speck of dust will ruin my daughter's respiratory system. UV light from the sun turns her blood to poison. She's confined to a room. She has no life. Adam, breaking the sentient convention has serious consequences. To make this for our children. We have no choice but to revoke your license and your funding.

For him to play like this gentle data character and let me go peacefully into the night to this, let me rail against the dying of the light character. I mean, I think what he's doing is showing, I think, the war that's in all of us. Right. I think a lot of us don't want to sit in a young, nearly pedophilic space of just, you know, youthful objectification constantly. But we also don't want all of our functions to fade away. Like, you know, switching to Delancey, when he did the snap and it didn't work and the heartbreak in his face, like something about me is failing. That's unexpected and most unfortunate. Seeing those two things in the same episode together was pretty heart-wrenching. Data teaches Picard how to die, which is phenomenal. His request is so peaceful and so clear, and he's thought about it so carefully and, and, and Picard doesn't miss a beat in complying with that request. And we get that lovely line from the Tempest, you know, the wizard

speaking and over, over data's fading form and he becomes a nebula. It's interesting to see Spiner be more human in his, in his data face than he is in his human face. Wow. That's really true. And I love him. So I'm a fan. Mortality gives meaning to human life, Captain. Peace, love, friendship. These are precious because we know they cannot endure.

Very often when a lot of these stories pick up later on with certain characters and they bring back actors many years later, there's been some kinds, sometimes they choose that they want to have the character become more cynical that they've lost their way they're they're not heroes anymore i mean most infamously or famously luke in the last jedi however people feel about that there is a version of sarah connor and a recent terminator have lost track of all the reboots and even picard at the beginning of this series a little bit outs on the outs with his fed with the federation but do you think that's an interesting way to go because i've heard a lot of fans complain like oh why oh, why do they have to lose their weight? Like, why do we have to like, like it's sort of they find it kind of dispiriting. And yet it's such a tempting storyline to do when you're talking about growth and aging. I think there's something about as you get older, you just a lot of that idealism of youth that, hey, we're going to change

the world. We're going to be different from our parents. We're going to do all the right things. You see people either give up on that dream or sell out and join the establishment or whatever. And I think by the time you get to a certain age, you just start to wonder, did anything I did make any difference? And I really felt that with Picard in those first few episodes, you know, when he's seen who the Federation is and he's recognizing that he is being forgotten even within his own lifetime, like his name still is something, but the content of that name is already vanishing. They don't recognize him at the Academy and everything that he stood for the Federation is against.

And so the same institution that will champion Admiral Picard, who was one of our all time best is making decisions that Jean-Luc Picard would never sign off on. And he's still alive to see all of this happen. I think Sarah Connor, the same thing. How many terminators does she have to kill before she saves the future? The answer seems to be always just one more, apparently. And I don't know, I can see like a weariness to that and a cynicism to that

and a wondering what was the point of it all even. So I don't know, I felt it. I felt it really deeply. It really, really made a lot of sense to me. That's so interesting. Because I was gonna ask you, the fan bases are aging too, you know, and not just Star Trek, Star Wars. I mean, how is the storylines that they're doing with aging? How do they reflect where the fan,

the older fan base is? Because obviously they want to continue to keep their franchises alive. They have to bring in new generations and, you know, with new casts and new stories. I think there's always a misstep between character aging and audience. Cause it seems like there's always a point in every series where they're like, we have to capture the young demographic. And then they do a really horrible story to try to capture these young people. And I think one thing that's a little bit disturbing to me is like, why does the chosen one have to be young?

Why can't 55-year-old auntie be the chosen one? Like, why are we always, you know, I mean, part of it is the poisoning of Kimbellian mythology that's in our, you know, looking at myth, the lens of Campbell, which is a mistake. But, I mean, I think that there's something for me that that's why i always found solace in trek is because they may you know they were smart enough to get rid of wesley crusher and let they were smart enough to do certain things where we're like okay so we can actually grow with these characters as opposed to to rebooting them as younger people that's kind of why like why are we going back to that when we already have these decades of people maturing and becoming admirals and all these things? Why do we keep going back to the young universe when we should keep going forward?

That's why I think I'm very excited for Strange New Worlds. But I'm like, do we really have to go back to the young stuff again? Like, what is it about allowing people to go old and mature and being OK with that? Because otherwise it shows that if it's is getting older is is is wrong this season of picard takes a different approach to the hero's journey q has messed up time picard and his younger crew go to the 21st century to trace back the damage and they discover that picard had an ancestor named Rene, who was important to the space program.

Q pushed her away from her destiny, and Picard tries to correct it. I don't mean any offense, but you seem a little up in years to be a security guard. True. But I am the wisest of the morn. Bet you're thinking they let anyone be an astronaut these days. Sometimes those who shine the brightest feel the sting of fear and melancholy in ways that others can never understand. But I have to say, as someone who has the privilege of being a college professor, Renee Picard was perfect. She was absolutely right. She is brilliant. She is stunning.

And she is a mess. She is an anxious, like for all of her capabilities, for all of her accomplishments at age 24. And I just thought she looked exactly like my 20 something students. I thought she was right on in her, in her unbelievable capacity and in her, and in her crippling levels of anxiety, um, in the world she's trying to navigate. I I navigate. I'm 52, not 24, but she looked like what they look like to me. That's interesting. So that character, from your perspective, looked like a 24-year-old. But if you had been 24 when that storyline, you know, happened, let's say, you know, whatever, messing around with time, you would not have had that perspective. Well, I don't know.

I hope I would have. I hope I would have looked at her and thought, okay, yeah, that's what a superstar 20-something looks like. She says a lot of things that the 20-somethings in my life say. I hope she resonates with them. She resonates for me as them, but I hope she also resonates with them.

After the break, we'll look at how Star Wars is dealing with aging or not. How do stop losses work on Kraken? Let's say I have a birthday party on Wednesday night, but an important meeting Thursday morning. So sensible me pre-books a taxi

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Wait, what's that? Mmm, vanilla and shea. That's Old Spice Total Body deodorant. 24-7 freshness from pits to privates with daily use. It's so gentle. We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body deodorant now. Now, I'm about to give away a spoiler for the Star Wars shows on Disney+, although what I'm about to talk about has been pretty widely publicized in the media. The new shows, like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett,

take place after the events of Return of the media. The new shows, like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, take place after the events of Return of the Jedi. So the second Death Star has been destroyed, the Empire is on the run, and Luke Skywalker is out there somewhere starting a new Jedi school. And a lot of fans, including myself, figured, well, there's no way we're going to actually see Luke Skywalker in these shows, right? Well, he shows up, and more than once. And they didn't just de-age Mark Hamill, they completely synthesized his voice. They put all of his dialogue from the original trilogy into a program and created text-to-speech software so that it could have young Mark Hamill deliver these new lines. And for me, his voice was more in the uncanny valley than his face. Look, the wide world exists in balance. Feel the force all around you.

I asked the group how they think Star Wars has been dealing with aging. Should they have just recast Luke Skywalker with a new actor instead of de-aging him or not tell any more stories about Luke? I mean, it's been rough. I think we got young Leia in Rogue One. Isn't that right? And also they brought Tarkin back, though that actor had died, I think. But it doesn't seem as though Star Wars has the Star Wars machine has any intention of stopping. It seems like they're just going to keep fine tuning until they get it right. And then they'll release a special edition of Rogue One that has all of the CGI remastered. And then we'll have, you know, purists and new people.

And, you know, it seems like the same argument we've been having in the Star Wars universe. Honest, I still flinch when they go to Mos Eisley now. What the heck is all of that? I cannot do it. Eric, I think the question you raised, why aren't they just telling different stories is a better one. And I would prefer that they give new actors, new opportunities and new stories and give another generation a new Luke Skywalker. No, it's just weird that they just can't let it die. You know, the people like like why? I mean, the High Republic transmedia event thing that they're doing is seems to be better Star Wars than any of the last six movies.

Like the stuff that they're doing in the novels and the comic books are phenomenal. And I'm like, why aren't you mining this because this is where you will get new audiences to tell completely numerous two stories and you have how many thousands of planets and you keep going to some dry ass places like what is happening you know and it is but it's because it forces you to remember tatooine but in a wrong way. And I think the de-aging for me, it just feels so jarring and it feels as if the story doesn't end. And there was an interesting, I think it's Douglas Rischkoff is the guy's name. And he talks this about a digifrenia or whatever, when everything happens now and there's no end to it.

There's always an anticipation, like not having an end to something always puts us in a state of minor anxiety. What's next? What's next? What's next? Let it end. Let the Skywalker saga end. Well, it's interesting because the Obi-Wan Kenobi special miniseries is coming out soon where you have Ewan McGregor now slightly older than he

was in the prequels playing the slightly younger version of Alec Guinness, even though everyone's pointing out the ages still do not match up. There's no way in 10 years Ewan McGregor is going to look anything like Alec Guinness did in the prequels, playing the slightly younger version of Alec Guinness, even though everyone's pointing out the ages still do not match up. There's no way in 10 years Ewan McGregor is going to look anything like Alec Guinness did in the original trilogy. But, you know, I assume that's going to deal with aging as well. And I think that they said the original pitch for that story was how do we connect the dots between the prequel Obi-Wan and the original trilogy Obi-Wan?

How can we turn that into a character arc? Are you looking forward to that at all? There's an interesting, you know, there's a Bible verse that says you know, young men for war, old men for counsel. And I think it's going to be interesting to kind of see the young Jedi Knight

go into the mentor role, which I don't think we see. We never see how people become mentors. We see them as mentors. They're already fully formed helping younger people. But to watch that journey, that journey of maturation, and when you become a mentor, you give some things away. You know, you have to acknowledge, you have to put some things away, like whether it's your youthfulness, whether it's your swashbuckly attitude or whatever it is, you have to get rid of some of that.

And so for me, that's one of the reasons why I'm pretty excited about the obi-wan series is because we're actually going to see a character who we really don't know that much about and see how he became the person who set luke on his journey and so that to me is going to be interesting to watch that to see him kind of kind of it's like it's like gen x ben kenobi is he not empir though, the worst mentor in the world? Worse than Tony Stark and Peter Parker? Yeah. But he's like a Dumbledore, right? It's sheer manipulation.

He's completely playing this kid, both of these kids. He is totally playing both of these kids. And, you know, Anakin's a disaster. And Luke is salvaged by Luke's romanticism, not by the work and his romanticism of Obi-Wan, not actually by what Obi-Wan does in men. I mean, so that will be interesting. Like, I think. Is he the worst mentor or the Jedi just trash? Oh, Eric, how much more time do we have? I don't know how you come back from your mentor or your mentee become invader.

You know, I guess you move to the desert and try again with this kid. So, Chris, are you not looking forward to the Kenobi? Oh, I am. I would watch you and drink you and McGregor drink water. But I but I but I do think like let's not redeem him. Like, you know, let's not change who Obi-Wan fundamentally was and wasn't. Right. Let's not. We don't need to. You know, Qui-Gon gets to die before he messes up. change who Obi-Wan fundamentally was and wasn't. Qui-Gon gets to die before he messes up. Obi-Wan's interesting because he's a mess, not because he's not.

Now you're channeling the Dark Knight, right? You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain? Yeah. I was about to do that. I was literally about to quote Harvey Dent. Speaking of DC, I want to ask you guys about Marvel because Marvel's done a lot of de-aging. quote, I'll retent. Speaking of DC, I want to ask you guys about Marvel because, I mean, Marvel has done a lot of de-aging. And the last Spider-Man movie, for anyone who hasn't seen it, I mean, this is a spoiler alert, but this has also been pretty widely publicized. The new movie has Tom Holland facing the villains that were in Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's movies. So they de-aged the villains because they have to look like they did when we last saw them. And the de-aging is actually really good, but then they interestingly did

not de-age Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield. And the thing that I thought was really interesting is like Tobey Maguire's in his mid-40s, you know, and so it's like, I don't know, I found it kind of heartening to see him like he's still out there fighting the good fight despite having back problems.

Aren't we all? What were your thoughts on that? Well, are we going to get middle-aged women, though? We're not going to get Natasha, right? We're going to get a younger sister. That seems very gendered to me. Spider-Man coming back. I'm all for Tobey and Andrew.

Super happy. Their agents are probably delighted. But, you know, is gwyneth going to get that call or is it going to be their daughter yeah that's a good point and there's also the challenge too of like how do you tell new stories beyond you know whether you de-age the actors like there's the question of how willing are the fans to accept stories about middle-aged or elderly characters or do the fans want to see them come back but do the same things they did when they were younger? So is nostalgia kind of like a double-edged sword?

So I just finished Jennifer Egan's new book, The Candy House, which is her sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad. And she talks about nostalgia. And she says, nostalgia and she says nostalgia is the gateway to get people into a new experience. People will show up for nostalgia. I mean, that's why Broadway exists. Right. Broadway's a nostalgia font. Right. And so the question is, I think if you're going to use nostalgia, you just said it.

It's a double-edged sword. Are you going to tell an interesting story that's going to surprise people and leave them, you know, happy and moved and maybe dare we even imagine transformed? Or are you just going to cash in, you know, and those don't have to be mutually exclusive, but I think we've all sat through a story that was nostalgia porn, you know, for lack of a better word, just nostalgia for nostalgia sake. And we left feeling kind of icky afterwards. Well, that was the beauty of Eric's question, right? Like that's Eric's question got at the bait and switch elements of nostalgia. Like you don't actually, nostalgia is not real, right?

It's, it's the craving for the, the manufactured past, not the actual past. It's always a slip. Are you saying I didn't actually like The Amazing Spider-Man 2? No, no, no. I'm saying you didn't like it for the reasons you thought you liked it, right? Like you bought your ticket knowing what you thought you wanted. But if it had, in fact, I think what Eric's question is smartly pointing to is if it had given you only what you thought you wanted, you thought you wanted you would have gotten that sicky i ate too many m&ms feeling that you've just alluded to jr it was that it's

that bait and switch right like you came for this but we're gonna slide you a little of that that that makes it the right ticket yeah i love that i mean given that like we all clearly relate to this personally uh have any of you were there ever any moments in any of the shows or movies that we've talked about that actually spoke to you on a personal level, given the age that we're all at? When Picard says to Q, I'm too old for your bullshit? Um, I think, I think a moment that is probably going to stick with me for a long time is when Picard is snapped into the alternate fascist present. And he walks into his trophy room and he sees that there is somehow a way that he could have been this kind of a monster. Just thinking about the fact that like, you know, the little things matter, like the little choices matter. You know, I heard someone say, we all love the stories of time travelers going back in time and doing that one little thing that makes the future a better place. But like, okay, so fine, go do one little thing that makes the future a better place, right?

I guess for me, it was in, I want to say it was first caught was it first contact no the planet where everybody is perpetually young that's insurrection insurrection insurrection so with that part where the woman he's talking to and they kind of like make time freeze for that moment and the absolute look of of picard like he's so uncomfortable even though he's attracted to this woman and looks great. But you see something across his face where there's a level of him being uncomfortable. And for me, I was like, yeah, like why would you want to be perpetually young? Like what's really the purpose of it? What's really the payoff?

What's the value add of being young forever? And then they kind of go back to what they're doing. But there was something in it that crossed his face. And I felt that intently. Like, yeah, there's really no – I can't see a value add of staying young forever, And then they kind of go back to what they're doing. But there was something in it that crossed his face. And I felt that intently, like, yeah, there's really no, I can't see a value out of staying young forever, like for me. So we've been talking a lot about Star Trek. I brought up Star Wars, Marvel. I'm bringing up the big franchises and stuff. Are there any other franchises that you think we should be talking about? You know, Black Mirror, San Junipero is one of the best aging stories in sci-fi I've ever witnessed.

And it was beautiful. It was scary. It was touching. It was anxiety-provoking. To see people, older people, in love, it's not something that we see all the time. And especially older women and especially queer folks. We do not see that. And so it hit on so many different levels for me. And it's like,

for me, I think Santa Ana Pedro is probably one of the best, one of my favorite episodes of television of any series ever. As I was thinking about this episode, I was even, I just finished season two of Upload on Amazon Prime, which is the same kind of a thing, right? Where like now, instead of death, you can have your consciousness zapped up into a computer and live in this virtual space. So then what is existence? What is consciousness? What is what does it mean to be old at this point? Right.

Do I start counting from my birth age at some point if I've lived as a virtual consciousness for a thousand years? You know, it just it brings up all these questions about personhood that I think sci-fi is uniquely primed to ask. My other my other area of fantasy, Eric, is romance, not sci-fi. So there are other places where people are aging in more human-like ways that I think are pretty neat. But it sounds like, Crystal, you're still just disappointed, especially when it comes to the big franchises, the sci-fi fantasy franchises. I mean, we're bringing up a lot of male characters

because that's who's been explored the most and that's who's getting the most attention. Yeah, I'm totally caught up in our material culture right now too, Eric, because I didn't spring for the deluxe Paramount, so I'm watching the damn ads. And it's so funny, the algorithms and the ads telling me, you know, you need to take this medication

and you need to take that medication, you need to take the other medication, right? And just being super aware of who's going to get the call to come back. And it's Andrew Garfield. Right. But it's I don't know. I'm afraid my I'm afraid the places where women age for me run right up against reality. The realities of that, of the business and of the material culture run right up against our desire to sort of do the fantasy, either in romance or in sci-fi to escape. I think there's more room in fantasy for older, powerful women than there is in sci-fi. Oh, that's interesting. I'm just glad we're talking about these questions because we're closer than ever in our culture to

a real possibility of like transhuman existence. And I think there are so many questions surrounding that ethically, morally, when it comes to how different religions will engage that, who's going to own that. I mean, I think one of the best slash worst things about Upload is that it's all corporations that own the digital afterlives. So just like watching how terrible they become as everything is commoditized. Anyway, all of that to say, yeah, I think there's just a lot of really important questions. And it's really lovely that SyFy is asking them. Eric, I like that your question, the topic, right, that we're all going to get older. But part of what, circling back around just to the Picard stuff we started with, right,

is that the getting older is inevitable. But what that means is totally open to interpretation. And Deanna says to him at one point, I'm not as brave as I used to be. And he said, then you're getting wiser. And so I think this notion of we are going to age, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to get old or that we're not going to get something else. So I love the openness, the invitation to make meaning of what it is to be older. I'm in the Jeunesse conundrum where you're raising children and

taking care of older people. And there's just something about being this age now where I've never felt more youthful, but I don't feel young at all. I feel like a grownup, but I'm still, yeah, I just bought the DB5 James Bond Lego set and I just built it this weekend. Yes, I did. Because it was fun. Because I'm being able to have fun without having to question fun. And you can afford it now. That's one nice thing about being older. You can afford it now, but you also don't have to fall into the crooked footsteps of historical play. You can find what brings you joy in a way.

I don't have guilty pleasures at this age. I like what I like and kiss my behind if you don't like it. I don't care. I'm having a ball. And there's something about that I think is so absolutely liberating. I think that's what Trek shows. Like when you see, you know, Riker horribly playing the saxophone. You know, he's enjoying it.

He doesn't care. He doesn't care, but he's playing it because that is what brings him pleasure. And that, to me, I think is one of the greatest lessons of Star Trek is that the arts and the sciences are equally valid. the greatest lessons of Star Trek is that the arts and the sciences are equally valid, and it's equally valid how you approach them, either through a lens of maturity or through a lens of youthful vigor. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Sean Taylor, Christina Vallejo, and J.R. Forasteros. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. There are so many other examples we didn't have time to discuss. Let me know what are some of your favorite moments about

aging in these different sci-fi fantasy franchises. You can comment on the show's Facebook or Instagram pages, and I tweet at emolinski and Imagine World's pod. By the way, I started an Imaginary World's newsletter. It'll let you know when a new episode is dropped, and there'll be notes about things I discovered while recording each episode, plus recommendations of what I'm watching or reading, and a sneak peek at the next episode. You can sign up for the show's website, imaginaryworldspodcast.org. If you really like the show, please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts,

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