The Flop House - Star Trek: Section 31, with Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Wow! The first new Star Trek movie in eight years! What's that you say? Oh. TV movie? And it's less a "movie" and more a "we were going to develop a new series and that fell through so we made it a one-off, 90 minute thing?" Huh. Well, Star Trek: Section 31 may not be a "movie" in the same way we've used that word for most of its existence, but it was still a good excuse to hang out with our friends Adam and Ben from Max Fun's terrific Trek shows Greatest Gen and Greatest Trek, so every cosmic cloud has a silver lining, we guess.Wikipedia page for Star Trek: Section 31Recommended in this episode:Dan: Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)Stu: Troop Beverly Hills (1989)Elliott: Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979)Adam: Babylon (2022)Ben: Down With Love (2003)Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to www.squarespace.com/FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/FLOP today. 

Hey listeners, I won't waste much of your time. I just wanted to let you know that the response to flop TV season 2 has been so overwhelming that we're keeping the shows available through mid-march so that folks who got their tickets later in the season have a little extra time to check out the shows before they go away. And if anyone wants to go to theflophouse.simpletix.com at the last minute and squeeze in a binge watch, you can do that too. Just be sure to watch before midnight Eastern time on Sunday, March 16. Okay, now the show.

On this episode we discuss Star Trek, Section 31. The least popular Star Trek movie since Star Trek C-section. Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliott Kalin. And joining us, we have the hosts of The Greatest Generation and The Greatest Trek, two Trek podcast. Name yourselves.

I'm been Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica. That's right. It is a max fun crossover. That's right. It's time for one podcast to visit another podcast and act like it'll be like the time when Urkel turned up on step by step and it was like, what? These are happening in the same universe? Or it's like Star Trek Generations to keep it within the... It all shows up in fucking Star Trek Generations? He changes uniform halfway through the movie and it's never clear why. He's cool.

Reginald Bell Johnson is also in that movie. Now when they're on the subject of Star Trek crossovers, have you guys covered on your podcast the series of novels where the X-Men meet the characters from Star Trek or no? I didn't know that there were novels of that. I thought it was just comic books. No, there's at least two or three novels of the X-Men characters on the Enterprise.

I don't know if they're all on the Enterprise, but I assume so. That's more fun than the Star Trek characters going to a school. Do the bullies even waste their time with the kids who are holding that novel? Life is doing what we would do I have always wondered if a phaser or Cyclops is Plasma ray are is more powerful, you know, you know like good

his plasma ray is more powerful, you know? So, like could Cyclops punch through the hole? Could he vaporize a pot that is surrounding a bunch of mashed potatoes without vaporizing the mashed potatoes? Guess what, Ben? There's a series of novels that I think are gonna answer those questions for you. But also, similarly, isn't Cyclops able to sort of like,

doesn't his visor, you know, allow him to be like, I'm going to set it to stun essentially. I thought he just wore that to his style. It's just like, it's just like total blastify or no blasting? No, he can't open it wider or less wide to affect the intensity of the beam, that's true. But also he needs the power of the sun to build up his optic blasts.

So it's possible if he's on the Star Trek Enterprise that he's running out of power. There's no sunlight there that I know of, right? I feel like they gotta get Forge on this. This seems like a perfect project for a guy. No, no, no, he's got some serious work to do on the Blackbird. So this is an X-Men podcast where we talk about X-Men stuff.

Will the Blackbird fit in the shuttle bay or do they have to modify it with folding wings? Ben, I feel like there's a series of novels that are gonna answer this question. Does the Blackbird fit in the shuttle bay, or do they have to modify it with folding wings? Ben, I feel like there's a series of novels that are going to answer that. So, okay, to return to what we actually do on this podcast, which was a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

This is a movie, in quotes, in that it is movie length, and it was advertised as a movie on the Paramount Plus streaming service It doesn't look like a movie At least one movie star in it It's not straight. It does have one of the biggest movie stars in the world in it But it's not structured like a movie and it's more like an abandoned series idea

Perhaps it does. I mean it does very much feel like when, and which it is, when they would create the pilot for a new TV show and then they had no interest in actually picking it up, so they would show it on network TV as a special. You know, and those specials always ended with the promise of more adventures, which would never happen.

Yeah, like when's the rest of the adventures of the Mulholland Drive crew gonna happen? So Ben and Adam, you're Star Trek experts. Some would even say Star Trek Trek experts or sex experts. Star Trek Section 31, there's so many concepts in this movie, and I'll be doing the summary today, but there's so many concepts in the movie I was not familiar with as a very amateur Trek knowing about her.

And so for people who know it well, were you watching this in understanding it better or were you watching it in a greater sense of horror than I might, because I'm not as engaged in the series? That's such a great question. And part of why I was excited to talk about this movie in particular with the Flophouse, because as somebody who's watched all of the ancillary

material that leads up to the events of this film, it is, it's hard for me to imagine what it is like coming to this with no context. Well, I can tell you that when I saw the ads for it, I was like, huh, so there's sort of a black ops thing within the world of Star Trek and the, like, doesn't that break the idea of Star Trek, this utopian federation?

And then I learned that it is something that comes out of one of the series, although I guess they're sort of not officially part of the federation. The federation just turns a blind eye. This is all stuff that I learned after the fact by reading stuff online rather than experiencing it. I definitely had to go to Wikipedia for quite a bit of explanation,

but I was not aware that Section 31 was a thing that preexisted this movie, but the movie really takes it for granted that you know what it is. Anytime you make a movie, that's what you want, right? You want your audience to have to do a bunch of homework In order to get what you're trying to do I don't know if I've done this much homework for a mainstream piece of popular entertainment since I read

Grant Morrison's like death of Bruce Wayne miniseries or whatever it was where he's referencing all these different old Batman stories And I was like I shouldn't have to be looking up on reference materials Like to understand what's going on in a Batman comic book. And I kind of felt like that with this too. When are they gonna release the annotated Batman comic book? Yeah, I shouldn't need annotations for this. I knew Elliot was running our summary and I texted him because like,

also I feel like you need to do research to have any sympathy for like the main character who Elliot explained to me through his research has has a longer redemption arc on the series so maybe You know you're it's easier to argue the more you know about the main character the less sympathy you could ever I feel like the most sympathetic thing that they did which was smart is they cast Michelle Yeoh an amazing movie star Yes, one of the greatest movie stars in the world. I'm like, ah, she killed a bunch of people.

I'm still right at eye for her. And looking at the making of this, it feels like this movie probably would not have happened if she had not won an Academy Award between the beginning of the development and the production of this movie, basically. I think they probably would have, it was supposed to be a spin-off series starring her.

And I think they kind of, I think they were in the midst of dropping it when she won an Academy Award They were like oh Now we need to make it. Oh, is that what happened? I assumed that the idea that it was like oh we were gonna make this series Oh now we can't afford Michelle Yeoh, so I mean maybe there's a little bit of that too It can't be serious. It can be a movie. Well, yeah, let's talk about it So Michelle Yeoh, she's playing character named named Philippa Giorgio, which is, I don't know why, but I find it hilarious.

Hey! It's a weird, it's a weird. It's a smirky, smirky genocide. Amari Hardwick puts a lot of emphasis, he puts a lot of juice on that last syllable, Georgia. He's like, Georgia! Every time. And so let's, I think,

but rather than explain that character right off the bat, let's replicate the experience of me and Dan Stewart watching this movie, but not knowing what's going on. And you guys, Adam and Ben, please chime in when you, when it feels like something needs explaining, which is all the time. So we open with, so this, I will say this was basically like a tea. We're going to be the Adam Conover of this episode. They're like, well, actually. Yes, very much so, thank you.

And I'll be like, I don't know why I have an issue with what he's doing, like the things he's saying are true. So this movie, it started out as, I believe, as development for a television series, much like Moana 2 started out as a Moana television series and then became a movie instead. Also a perfect film. Did Moana also genocide a bunch of people?

There's a genocide sequence in it, yeah. Yeah, Moana murdered her parents. They had it coming. Exactly, so the movie starts with text on screen, I love it, it says, fate who makes the sword, dot dot dot, does the forging in advance, escalis. And I kinda get why this quote has to do with the rest of the movie But I don't really fully understand it, but it's okay. It doesn't matter

It's just part of Star Trek being the classy of the two space opera shows this is Star Wars You're not gonna start with an Escalus quote instead. It's gonna be like fear not Yoda, and it'll be like okay Well, that's a character from the movie. They do start with words on the screen And it'll be like okay. Well, that's a character from the movie. They do start with words on the screen Yeah, there's an episode of the fucking wire or any one of the characters from the show's quotes One of the things that I always found weird about the wire is to start with a quote from an episode Character in that episode but uh we we start where it's that it's the Terran Empire which again was a thing I did not know what it is But I guess it's some kind of alternate dimension where they're instead Federation, there's like a mean, bad empire that defeats things.

I kept imagining it in my head being like the Imperial Ratch from Anne Lackey's ancillary novels, which are a great series of novels. And maybe so wanna read those instead. So the Terran Empire. The Terran Empire in TOS terms are Spock with Goatee. So if you've ever seen Spock with Goatee. So by TOS, you mean the original Goatee. So if you've ever seen Spock with Goatee.

So by TOS you mean the original series. Right. So yeah, looking it up, I guess that's the Mirror Universe, this is the Mirror Universe episode. Okay. And everyone in it has the same job, but they're really bad.

Everyone's the same, except they're evil and sexier too, right? Yeah, they're sexy. And I'm not saying they're bad at their job, they're good at their job, which is being bad. Yeah. I don't believe that a universe full of people being bad is going to be a functioning universe.

I assume that means the bad people in our universe are good in that universe. That's my guess. But since all the Star Trek characters are always good, I guess we never see, we only see the bad versions, the alternate universe. So we're in a rural village. So Jeffrey Combs would have to play good guys all the time exactly

So makeup where's him we're in a rural village There's a blacksmith woman picking crops all the stuff that tells us this is a this is a rural place a woman shows up She's yes young woman. She's been away for two years as part of a sort of battle royale It's a hunger games. It's a young woman. She's been away for two years as part of a sort of battle royale. It's a hunger games. It's a hunger games. Except if the winner of the hunger games goes on to become the emperor, basically. And this young- Which is a remarkably like

organized succession plan for a universe as evil as the mirror universe. Except it's also a terrible idea. Cause it's like the same skills that allow you to kill other people and survive, I assume the wilderness or something, are not the same skills that are great for managing galactic bureaucracy, understanding trade and taxation. Elliot prefers his leaders to be, you know, TV hosts and billionaires.

Exactly. Someone who's run a business, Stuart. Someone who understands how a business works. Yeah, exactly. None of the partners in law firms have gotten management degrees either, Elliot. Yeah, Elliot. Let's steer away from that and let me ask, this just happens when there's like a power vacuum, right? Though they're not like every year we got a big battle. I assumed every time an emperor died, they did this.

I wasn't saying there's a vacuum. The emperor doesn't, it's not patrilineal or anything. There's like a proctor that has enough power to run this two year long competition and then like find the person. Is this what the Conclave is about? I haven't seen the Conclave. It is like Conclave, except there's more vaping in Conclave. Alright, so I don't need to see that movie if I saw this one, it sounds like. Yeah. So, so she's come back, she's won the Battle Royale, this woman, Philippa, Philippa Giorgio,

and only her and another combatant, a guy named San, they survived because they worked to get, or San, as I would say it being from New Jersey, they survived because they worked together. One of them will become the new emperor. There's just one final test, and Giorgio passes it by poisoning her family because she can have no ties if she's the emperor. And this is shot with what I would call

a lot of unnecessary style. A lot of like golden light, slow-mo. Describes the movie, Elliot. There's a lot of like spin around shots or like. Yes, a lot of spin around shots. Like is this a drone or is this a digital drone? Like what's going on here? Yeah, and as soon as she does that,

a ton of troops beam down and they're like, you succeeded where San failed, and now he has to serve you as a slave forever. And she's the emperor now, and she renounces their friendship, and she takes a sword and puts it in the coals of a hot brazier and then slaps it against his face to burn his scarred face.

Then the movie does something a little jarring, which is that as if this was a video game you were playing, it suddenly turns into a Priority message addressed to you Explaining what happened to this character between that scene and this movie and they're like priority message section 31 Emperor Georgio is from a parallel dimension. She was brought to our dimension and joined section 31. Then she disappeared She's been seen in Federation space and I'm like, this is a lot Tell me this clear anything up for you guys as as newbies to the to the franchise then she disappeared. She's been seen in Federation space. And I'm like, this is a lot. This is a lot to suddenly tell me.

Did this clear anything up for you guys as newbies to the franchise? Not really. So they're basically like, I guess they're telling us, is this her arc basically on the television show? Is like, she comes over, she was a genocidal mad woman. She's Hitler on a galactic scale, but she comes over and kind of like does her time as a spy

and that is redemption thing. What happens basically? Yeah. The, so there are, I think three seasons of the series Star Trek Discovery, where she is a character. And when we first meet her, we meet the prime universe version of her.

And she is the captain of the ship that Sonequa Martin Green's character, Michael Burnham is the first officer on. And Michael Burnham has a whole redemption arc surrounding committing mutiny against Philippa Georgiou, her beloved captain. And then they go on a bunch of adventures that land them on the wrong side of the divide between the two universes and they discover the horrifying truth that her beloved captain's doppelganger in the mirror universe is space Hitler. Spitler.

Spitler is the main character from the porn version section 31, SDX. You know? This ain't Star Trek, colon. You get it. We get it. And then she like joins them, like she goes on adventures with them, or they're trying to stop her or what?

They have to stop this other captain who is a mirror universe person that's been imitating. He's like, he's an identity thief, essentially. He's taken the identity of his prime universe counterpart. And so Philippe Georgiou is instrumental in finishing the Federation's war with the Klingon Empire and resolving it in a way that makes the Klingons ripe to be made into allies eventually, but yeah, it's a lot to go through.

Like for a series that has like 13 episodes a season, it is like so fucking convoluted. Elliot, we need to jump back a little bit when you said, and now the movie does something jarring. I thought you were gonna say, it indicates that this is going to be your hero. Woman who kills her family and then goes on to be a genocidal maniac ruler.

Well, at first you see her do horrible things in the show and then like somehow the show wants you to feel bad for her when they also do time travel and they're like, you know, you can't jump to a universe and then travel in time, that's really bad for you. So you're gonna have to travel back to your own time period at the very minimum. That's the least, that's the slap of the wrist for sure.

That's the least we can do. It does feel like, but it's, they keep trying throughout the movie about how you killed billions. Like you were a monster. And it does, but then by the end, she's just part of the gang, spoiler. And it does feel like if in the new Mission Impossible movie, they're like, you got a new recruit, Pol Pot.

And he's like, well, Pol Pot, I don't like you. But by the end of it, Pol Pot is so cool and such a great fighter and so suave that there's even like sexual tension between Pol Pot and Ethan Hunt. Like that's what this movie feels like. Pol Pot's a Burnett, apparently. I don't know if you're gonna stab me in the back or bed me down, but that's kind of what I like about you, Pol Pot. Exactly, yeah. So, section 31, I guess, is that the kind of black ops team we were talking about, and they have to find her

and also stop a terrorist, and they have 24 hours to complete this mission. And it was this moment, it felt like I was either watching, either it had turned into a video game that I was supposed to play, or I had stepped into a sequel that I didn't, I was like, was there Star Trek section through Star Trek section 30?

Like, is it, like, I've heard of info dumps, but usually they are like, either this kind of thing is at the very beginning of the movie, or it is a character like saying the thing. Admit it, you just wanted it to be scrolling at a weird angle away from the camera. I would have loved it more. If it was scrolling at a weird angle

across a field of stars, I would have been like, this is how you tell a movie. Like, this is a space opera. I watch a lot of stars, I would have been like, this is how you tell a movie. Like this is a space opera. I watch a lot of television. My wife watches, basically tries out every single new drama series, every comedy series. She tries it, like she loves it. And so I ended up watching a lot of pilots of things.

And this felt very much like a pilot in that it's like, there's so much information, so much backstory that's either implied or directly said, and they're just like, don't worry about all this, we're just gonna keep talking and throw you right into the action. So like, yeah, there is a feeling like, I don't know what the fuck is going on,

but maybe my brain has been messed over by watching all this bad television writing. Yeah, I mean, the action that they throw you into is largely theoretical is the problem too. Well, let's talk about the action that they throw you into because this is a real twisty tourney plot, guys. There's a lot of ins and outs and betrayals. So we go to a space club, a space nightclub

that Giorgio runs on the edge of Federation space. I do like the outfits. I do like the outfits and the design of this space bar. I think the design of the bar is cool. The space bar on my laptop, thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's rectangular. Do you have to get that custom, Dan? I did, I did.

It's fitted to my machine. Yeah, it looks wider than normal. Is it because you have a thumb issue or do you just like a nice wide bar? I like a girthy space bar. Let's get out of here. Yeah, Dan likes his space bars. You brought the attention, Dan. I did, no problem. Then he got embarrassed. I like I like a girthy space bar. Let's get out of here

I've never seen one ribbed like that Dan. That's my pleasure Yeah, Dan likes to tiptoe to the edge of kink and then Stuart likes to push him over So, uh, Georgios there under the name Madame Veronique du Franc and it's like it's like, it's just like, it's a cool looking space bar. And I have to assume because they implied at the end, this would be their home base, if this was a series, that they would be at this space bar. There's a, and someone wants to talk to her, a mystery man who appears to be a drug supplier

named Alok Sahar, but she identifies him right away as a section 31 agent. She's already ID'd all the agents he has with him at the bar. She does not want to help them, but he threatens to arrest her if she doesn't. And she's like, I could kill you right now, but I'll do it. Okay. Like there's, there's very, it's going for a game of like, we're forced to work together. Cat and mouse. You don't want to do this.

I don't want to do it. But everyone't wanna do it. Everyone is so easygoing. They're so laid back throughout the entirety of the movie. Well, they're very high at this point. And we don't know how long this drug takes to wear off. So it could be that they remain profoundly high for the rest of the experience that they have together. I wanna say about these characters that we meet, right? And I'm about to run down them,

but Dan, say what you're gonna say, yeah. Well, you know, they're all sort of like in disguise because they're in the bar, but all but one of them mostly look how they normally look, except like one of the women has a very different wig and makeup, and I found it extremely confusing because when you're first introducing a character, you usually don't introduce them looking vastly different

and then later on in a different scene, I'm like, wait, that's the same lady? And then at the end of the movie, when they're back in the bar, she's back in the wig and makeup. I'm like, why? Back in that disguise. Why did that happen?

If you are going to introduce a character in disguise, you should show them removing the disguise so that your brain processes. I will say, to defend that character, that's Lieutenant Rachel Garrett, who's an uptight Starfleet officer when we meet her. And I do like the idea that she's the only one who's like, I have to go all out with my disguise.

That's section 31, you know, by the book, you know. And she's played by the actress who played- Abigail Hobbs. Abigail Hobbs from Hannibal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was awesome. Oh yeah. Okay, so let's meet our team. Remember Hannibal?

That's a good show, man. What a great show. Oh man, I love that show. And you know what they didn't do? They didn't do like then a spin-off movie about like Gillian Anderson's therapist or something. I would've watched it, but it wouldn't have been very good. They were like, that series reached the perfect ending beat

and then it was just done. They said, we told our story. Anyway, let's meet the team. Let's meet Alok's team. Alok does not have much personality. He's just kind of like the- Very handsome. He's very handsome.

Omari Hardwick is very handsome. He is, but he's just the tough leader of the team. Let's meet his team. There's Mel, a sexy delton with seduction powers. Don't get attached to Mel. She's not gonna be in a lot of the movies. She gets roasted, yeah. There's Zef who has body armor all over him

and he's kind of dumb and he's like, I forget, is he in the bar in his body armor? Like he doesn't have a disguise? He just stays in his body armor? It seems like he takes some of it off sometimes. I mean, not to leap too far ahead, but when Zef died I was very, like I was sad when Mel died,

very excited when Zef died. So I'm like, you had nothing going on. You were just a guy with a robo suit. Guys, I'm saying this from somebody who has played in a lot of role playing games. There are too many accents in this movie. There are a lot of accents, yeah. Including a microbe that is inside a Vulcan robot

with an Irish accent, and I'm like, is the microbe Irish? Full of Irish idiom, too, yeah. What is going on? He's just Irish. Vulcan robot with an Irish accent and I'm like He's just Irish so there's that you're talking about fuzz he's a tiny alien which is what a nanookin or something like that He's an almost microscopic alien who is in a tiny little spaceship inside of a robot Vulcan body So he presents as Vulcan for most of the movie But every now and then they'll zoom in real close to his face inside his little micro spaceship and he'll be just like, oh, a faith in Bogora.

Oh, like, oh, me Vulcan body. And it's like- Put your hands off me Lucky Charms. And whenever you're up close to him, it always feels weird and it's always jarring. And of course- I do appreciate that they got a rubber suit together for the guy inside the thing though.

It's not just like a bad CG thing. That's true. It's a physical object. Yeah. And then there's quasi played by the great Sam Richardson, who is a shape-shifter who is also the guy. He's also the really smart guy who can't make decisions. You know, he gets overwhelmed by choices.

And of course, and I mentioned Lieutenant Rachel Garrett, uptight Starfleet officer who wants to do everything by the book. How did she even end up with this group? Well, maybe that's something we would dig into in future episodes. Guys, I've been watching a lot of episodes of Slow Horses lately because, you know, I'm getting older. It's a great show and I'm getting older.

You know, I'm morphing into a dad. I'm listening to a lot of Steely Dan. It's a good dad show. I'm an actual dad and I've been reading the books of Slow Horses. Wow, that's a real dad move. So what I'm saying is that my brain is very wired into the idea of like, like a ragtag team doing espionage shit. And so I was obviously a little bit disappointed by what ensues.

But look, there's not a lot of espionage. Just setting the stage. They want to stop a biological arms dealer with the hilarious name of Dada No, which is, or Dada No. Yes, baby. Dada No, which every time they said it, I was like, they can't be the character's name. You can't have a character named Dada No. Charlene has repeated the name multiple times

while we watched the movie. You might as well just give him a name from the movie Cats and just be like, silly name. Yep. We're after McCavity. We're after Bombalarena. Fun thing I found in my research was the writer in an interview with one of the like Trek news outlets was like, yeah, we just loved the character Dada No.

So we had all the episodes written for the series and we just were like, we got to get that guy into the movie. He's there's almost no character there. Like he's so incredibly like I wonder in the writers room, they must have had some bit about Dada No, that was really hilarious that does not translate to the to the show. So they want to stop Dada No, he's got he's gonna he's trying to pass off to a buyer some bylaw some that they think is some kind of terrorist weapon. And a lock goes over their plan in detail, and we see them acting it out. And then Philippa goes, nah, I don't like that plan.

We're gonna do something else. And I was like, oh, okay, so that was filler. What I just saw. Well, I mean, it does a very specific thing. It is that classic thing of anytime you fully explain a plan, that is not what's gonna happen. Yes, it's gonna fall apart. It also highlights what everybody's unique abilities are

and why they all have to use them. And it shows her cutting the knot, being like, no, the reason you want me on the team is I have a much easier way of doing this. I'm smarter than you guys. But it's like the Walter Subchick plan. It's like I'm gonna grab him and beat it out of him. Yeah, our plan is not intricate.

I'm gonna take advantage of the fact that I own this place to beat him up. Well, and I own this magic device, which that device I actually thought was kind of one of the few cool ideas on the show. Let's talk about that device. So instead she goes up to Dada No, as a hostess, and then she uses her phase pods.

She throws one of the weapon case on herself, and now she is out of phase. She's vibrating at a different wavelength or speed than the rest of reality. I like that a lot, that's very Lovecraft. And so- Let's go find the goof section. So if you make a little box thing out of phase

with reality, is it just gonna phase through the floor? Nope, it lands on the floor as normal. It does land on the floor like normal. The thing inside it is also affected by the phase field, so it doesn't fall out of that. It doesn't just phase the clothes on.'t just but she owns the bar so much like the bar you own you've you've fitted the floor out with yes thing is it affected by the artificial gravity in which case I guess it falls to the floor but

wouldn't fall to the center of wherever the gravity is I mean it should it should just hang in the air. To float in the air. Shouldn't be affected by that gravity. Yeah, we fixed it, we fixed it. Did they explain this in Star Trek World, guys? Is this the amusement park? Yeah. No, I think after this episode,

we're probably gonna stop talking about Star Trek in general. Oh, wow. We've shamed you out of it. I found this moment very hurtful, personally, because I had an ex-girlfriend tell me that we just didn't vibrate at the same frequency before breaking up. So that's sad. So they then a phased masked, a masked assassin who is phased at the right wavelength to steal

that that the pod or that the thing, the box comes in, they have an action fight and I didn't enjoy this, but I did think it was funny of them to do the classic 80s Tango and Cash thing of the action fight causes them to break, burst through the wall of a room where two aliens are having sex with each other, which is in Tango and Cash, every action scene just about, they bump into somebody who's having sex

in another part of the room. I mean, I'm not mad at it. No, I'm not. So fight, fight, fight. In the fight, unfortunately, Mel gets vaporized. Sorry, Mel, we hardly knew ye. There goes the character who is all about seduction. The mask fighter gets away.

I also like that they fight for a while on the stage and everybody in the bar interprets it as part of the show and they're like, yeah, this rule. Like Ninja Turtles 2. This is great. Space Vanilla Ice comes out. Phasing, phasing, rap, phasing, phasing. That's what they should have done. She's called Georgiou and she's in control. Yep. The Masked Fighter gets away with the case and Georgiou is like I thought I destroyed this thing. I'm sitting next to Vanilla Sherbet over here, and he's cooking up some rhymes. He'll be dropping on us later.

That's a reference to our Seeker of the Ooze flop TV show. Yeah, if you want the full story of Vanilla Sherbet cooking up a flop TV episode, season two, episode six. I'm sprinkling out Easter eggs for the true freaks out there. Yeah. So the true flop freaks. So flashback. Castle freaks like Giorgio.

Like Philippa Giorgio, speaking of, let's go to when she was in a castle. I bet she has ripped off plenty of ding-dongs in her day. Oh yeah. For sure. There's a scene in the TV show where she eats a guy's threat ganglia, which are like a intimate body part that only get exposed when they experience fear. So yeah, I totally believe it.

See, yeah, man, I gotta watch this show. Oh yeah, it sounds amazing. Based on this movie, so they flashback to when she was in her own castle, when she was empress, and San gives her this object, and he's like, I'm, we made that weapon you asked for, then all your engineers killed themselves because they were so ashamed. And it's like, so they couldn't kill themselves

before they made the super weapon, but okay. And he goes, you become a monster that and he gives himself the same poison and seems to die at her feet I mean the argument most likely I don't want to jump ahead, but I would imagine saying gave them the poison and killed them That's possible too, but again. He couldn't do that before they made the weapon. No he wants the weapon though Except then why did you take it then? He like fakes his own death. Why does he bother bringing it to her? Three dimensional chess guys.

I can't explain it. Yeah, but sometimes you just need to play Tic Toc Toe. You don't take Tic Toc Toe. Yeah, Tic Toc Toe is the new game that young people love. But yeah, so we got to ban it. It's been banned. And then like the Supreme Court upheld the ban, but it's still there for some reason. We live in a world without law right now. This is not a country of laws.

So this president was like, eh, I'll allow it. And of course he's king now as he stated in a truth social post. So there's nothing we can do about it. Look, every time you bring it up, it just depresses me. This is why I think we're here to provide a respite for people. Oh, right, right, right. Provide a respite. So, so Giorgio wakes up handcuffed in a safe house with a lock. Don't quite know why she's handcuffed, but okay.

She already agreed to work with them a little bit. And they taunt each other for a little bit. Let's throw away the key. All right. Tell me about it. Uh, and she's like, uh, you need to, you need to trust me. Uh, but she needs to know what you're not telling me about yourself. And a lock is like, I'm from the 20th century

I was involved in the eugenics wars. I was turned into a super soldier But I was by I was turned into an augmenter or whatever or augmented and now I'm here now And I guess he was frozen or something. I don't know. I mean I just I can I can piece it I guess It was like on yeah, but it's like you never see him do anything particularly I've read enough fucking Chris Claremont comics to know that I'm like Yeah, I'll just figure it out. It's exactly He never does anything particularly augmented as for like is really hard once or twice. He plays Hard yeah, yeah, it's really good at Pokemon go. That's true. We see that

He's like we got to catch that dot a no, but first I got to catch them all He's like, we gotta catch that dot-a-no, but first I gotta catch them all. So they leave their hidden bunker, they're on a hidden bunker safe house on the butt end of the universe. And she explains that in her universe, she built a weapon called the God's End, which can incinerate an entire quadrant worth of planets.

And it's convenient enough to fit in a box. And again, this is more evidence that she is bad and maybe is beyond redemption, that she is like, we've got to get that weapon I built. I said to destroy it, but it was still your idea to have this quadrant burning weapon. Yeah. It's like a doomsday device.

It means less, you know, it was intended less as a weapon per se, as more like, hey, if you come kill me, then this whole quadrant is like is raised, everything's blown up, you're a ruler of nothing. Yeah, it's a one quarter doomsday device. Yeah, yeah, because it's just a quadrant, exactly. I mean, usually the threat is to the whole galaxy

in these movies, so it's nice to see it just confined to one quarter of one galaxy. On a made-for-Paramount-plus budget, you can't incinerate the whole galaxy. You can only incinerate one fourth galaxy and only center eight one fourth the galaxy I don't know every single season of Star Trek discovery would beg to differ I mean Paramount Plus assure incinerated those old daily show reruns They need to save that room for new seasons of ink master and ink master all-stars

We got a Trapper on there. Dan, you have to understand. Dan, that's not even his name. That's what's so fucking crazy. He should be Jack Tracker. As Comedy Central sheds its husk and goes from being a cable network to being a free-floating spirit.

A Wisp, a Will-O-The-Wisp. Yeah, Will-O-The-Wisp. It can't hold onto a website anymore. That would be bonkers. I'm never gonna get a box full of three cent checks anymore from people clicking on those videos. I did really love going back and reliving the Bush administration via The Daily Show.

Yeah, so I have a book coming out later this year that's about joke writing, it's called Joke Farming, it's coming from University of Chicago Press. And for it, I was rewatching stuff that I had written for The Daily Show so I could use it as examples. And then I was like, well, glad I finished the book before they pulled everything I worked on off the internet and made it inaccessible to me. Thanks for that.

And it exists? Question mark, question mark, question mark? Who knows? It exists on data, on beta tapes that are slowly being demagnetized by the process of entropy over time at the MTV video library, which now exists in a dumpster. It's comforting, comforting. Yeah, all the data. It's a real data no.

We've gone the way of old BBC programs. Yeah, well, Dan, think of it this way. Eventually the sun will explode and everything humanity has created will go away. What you worked on in the Daily Show, just that happened a little early. So actually that's a good question. At this point, did they drag Dadano along with them?

Like he's Joe Pesci from the Lethal Weapons? They did exactly that. They Lethal Weapon Joe Pesci'd him. And we learned that he's an augmenter and so forth. They have the God's End. There's a conversation between our crew about is it God's End or God's Send? And it's the kind of off-brand suicide squad-esque

like the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque banter that the movie every now and then jolts into like a car being driven by a teenager who doesn't yet know how to use a stick shift. Well, yes. Drastically switching gears at the wrong time. I'm glad you brought this up because I feel like

every review I read of this was talking about how much it wants to be a Suicide Squad style team. And the thing is, I don't want to lay blame at any particular person's feet who's behind this Section 31 movie, but what it is missing is James Gunn leavens that with emotions. I mean, if anything, he ladles on the emotions extra thick to sort of make up for the fact

that everything else is quippy. And when it is quippy. Yeah, he kills a bunch of baby animals and stuff. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not my favorite, but one of those. And when it's quippy though, it is also quippy in a way that is specific to the characters, whereas everyone here

just sort of generally is like, well, we're in the middle of a quadrant killing situation, but I'm gonna make a joke at any point that I can. They don't have a dumb guy. They should have made the fucking robot suit guy just a dumb guy who says one word things. He's pretty dumb, but he's not super dumb. He's not hilariously dumb. He doesn't get enough screen time to do anything dumb enough to crystallize what his character even is, I think.

Australian? No, he's Irish. crystallize what his character even is I think. Australian? Is that? No, he's Irish. No, he's the guy, wait, which guy in a suit? The one with the mech suit. Not the little guy. I thought you were talking about the wispy guy. No, not the little guy.

His thing, but he's like a wisecracker, but then they're all wisecrackers. I think that's, yeah, but if they had made that character really dumb, then I would be like, why is he in the super secret covert spy organization? If he's in the media. The guy's got a suit.

He's like, can't we take the suit away from him? Just kill him and take the suit. If you're on the pop-up scene. Put it on a smart guy. No, the idea is that he bonded with his suit that's more powerful than he is, and so he's valuable because they need him because he's in the suit.

I wish they had done something with that. I think that's like, I just made that up. But I feel like I've read that story a million times. I buy that, I buy that. Basically like bio booster armor guyver right there. So they realized they're like, oh, Dada No must be from the mirror universe. And they're like, should we trust her?

I don't know if we should trust her. This goes on throughout the movie. They're constantly like, I don't know if I would, at any moment you might slit our throats. I don't know if we should trust you. And she on throughout the movie. They're constantly like, I don't know if I would, at any moment you might slit our throats. I don't know if we should trust you. And she's like, yeah, or maybe I will do that. But it never, it doesn't lead to anything, you know. They interrogate Dada, no, he's suddenly,

before he was not a wisecracker. Now he's a wisecracker too. She's like, I'm Empress Georgiou, the dadada of this, the president of this, the count of this. And he goes, do you get fries with that? And it's like, I guess that sounds like a joke, but it doesn't. It's like if you picked up like a piece of wax fruit

and took a bite out of it, and you'd be like, oh, well, this is not real food. Like, it's such a weird response, but it also means that in the Star Trek universe, they have restaurants that serve fries with things. So much of the fucking quips in this shit, I'm like, okay, wait, what? Wait, is this, like, do they live in the 20th century?

Are they all on social, are they all on Twitter? Like, what's going on? If there's one thing I know about Star Trek is that it's constantly referencing 20th century pop culture. They're like, oh, check that book that, you know, or that. Yeah, yeah, okay. I guess that's true, everything is momentous. I guess that's not true.

They'll just toss in one extra book and be like, and that was of course from Gryphon the Destroyer, his famous book of wisdom. And like, okay, well they added one science fiction-y one in there. Yeah, Zen and the art of, I don't know, Batleth creations. Yeah, well they're always chasing that moment about Hamlet in the original Klingon, which is a genuinely funny joke. But Adam, can you tell us our French fries canon in the universe or Star Trek? I mean, a replicator could probably make them, right?

Not that I've ever seen. I mean, it's so weird to have someone as funny as Sam Richardson in a movie deliver dialogue like this. Like, I'm glad he's wearing contacts because if you weren't, I think you'd just see his soul die standing on the soundstage. It just doesn't seem right.

That being said, I feel like he comes out of it the best. Like, he's able to modulate it. Like, he does what he can with it. He's a pro. Yeah. But it also helps that, like, we're bringing our good feelings towards him from his other work.

So like, he's definitely, if someone I had never known before was playing that part, I would not have the same affection. I mean, that's why you hire a star with a particular attachment, you know, is that a particular feel. But this is why Ben could never get on Fuzz's level because of his great hatred of Sven Neugrock. Exactly, thank you.

Thank you for mentioning that. And I'm gonna have to get into it. Anyway, so all of his work, his many credits, we're all familiar with them. So, Alok and Philippa Giorgio, they both take turns. And also, so his name is Alok. He's from the 20th century. Is Alok, is that a real name?

Because it sounds like a Star Trek name Real name is a question you could ask every episode you're watching star or of any any object or person Yeah, like what I know that like you have a character named quasi and it's like oh there that character is a shapeshifter So like I get it He's quasi and there's a character named fuzz because he's tiny and then you've got her named Rachel Garrett. Like Rachel Garrett is clearly a modern human name as opposed to Fuzz or Quasi. Also, it's not like a thing she does. She doesn't Rachel Garrett. You don't know that. Maybe she lives in a garret and she has Rachel's. Maybe in the series she's always like got concertina wire around guys' necks.

Yeah, and she can cut, but only in one style. Only one particular haircut. But that style will sweep the galaxy. Yes, of course. What I'm sure you guys don't realize is that Rachel Garrett is a character from Star Trek The Next Generation. She was the captain of the Enterprise C,

which they encountered coming through an accidental rift in time, and they had to send back to their certain doom. So she has like a very tragic end after this. But like, I guess like- This is pretty tragic. Maybe like two decades in the future of this character. Oh, I didn't know that.

So it's a little bit like any time a Spider-Man movie introduces Gwen Stacy and you're like, oh, where are you going with this character? This isn't gonna end well. I'm assuming that future Rachel Garrett, who's now the captain, has in like every once in a while will stare longingly at the mannequin head in her quarters that has that wig on it and makeup and shit.

Yeah. Her character, they try for an arc with her and it feels, we'll get to it But it feels so incredibly unearned and strange But the so they're they're taking turns beating up data noting information He goes I found that there's a passageway when there's an ion storm in this part of the galaxy It creates a passageway between our universe and the Terran Empire universe And he's and he implies that their group has a mole then there's an explosion on the ship and knocks them out the

Ship crashes on the surface the planet data. No dies. Everyone else is fine. They're totally okay I don't know how they got out of the ship, but they got a scratch on them teleported. Did they teleport is that what happened? Okay, it's called beaming down guys. Oh they've been down. Okay Sorry, they're being down you and they're like which one of us is the mole? One of us is the mole. And they've got only four hours to get the godsend before the Terran Empire shows up through that ion storm passageway. Oh no, time to split up into mission teams. One team, we're gonna go get a derelict garbage ship.

That's our new ship. The other team, we're gonna go repair the transmitting antenna so we can let the Federation know. But both of these things are missing one piece that makes them work. Oh no, it's not the hit television show, One one piece that makes them work. Oh no! It's not the hit television show One Piece that makes them work. But they're each missing one piece of technology. It was originally a popular manga, but yeah.

That's true, that's true. That's a very good point. So, and it starts to seem at first that Zeph is the mole, the guy in the armor suit, maybe he sabotaged them, he disappears. They go searching for him and along the way, Alok and Giorgio have a talk about their motives and their need for redemption. So that's good that they got that out. They find Seth dead. Oh no, he's dead on the ground. And all the evidence points to Lieutenant Garrett.

So they handcuff her, but she says, I didn't do it. I didn't do it until they tap into the video footage from his armor suit. And it shows him angrily using his own suit to kill himself. Yeah, was there any moment where you guys didn't assume from his armor suit and it shows him angrily using his own suit to kill himself. Yeah. Was there any moment, was there any moment where you guys didn't assume

it was the little guy piloting his mech suit? No, of course not. Of course not. There was no moment at which I thought it was this character, the woman, Abigail Hobbs, who did it. And then once they- Which is what Hannibal used to great effect

in the series. It's true, it's true. But then once the... Which is what Hannibal used to great effect in the series. It's true, it's true. But then once the video shows him beating himself up in the mech suit, I was so mad at the characters in the movie, taking so long to be like, how is this possible? What could have gotten inside the suit? Who on our team lives in a robot suit and pilots a robot suit in Dragon's Nest?

And Dragon earlier about being able to go into people's bodies and pilots a robot suit. And right about earlier, about being able to go into people's bodies and control their mechanical parts. There's even a lingering shot of fuzz that's like four seconds too long before this incident that should tip you right off, right? I mean, that's another way this feels like a TV show instead of a movie where I feel like in a movie, there's not always, but there's generally

a greater assumption or slightly greater assumption of intelligence on the part of the audience. Whereas a TV show, they constantly are telling you everything. They always want to tell you everything. Yeah, they know you're folding laundry at the same time. Exactly, exactly. You're looking at TikTok toe and you're not really paying attention.

Yeah. Foot kink TikTok. Yeah, it's super different than normal TikTok. Yeah, it's just like OnlyFoots, which is not that different from OnlyFans. Yeah. So they find the footage and Giorgio then, like a brilliant detective, only it would take the cunning, devious mind of Philippa Giorgio to understand this, goes through things that we heard said and saw done in the episode, flashback montage style, and realizes it was

fuzz He set his Vulcan robo body on autopilot so he could go into Zeph's suit and control it and pull off mole stuff using Zeph's body and he Takes control of Zeph's exoskeleton and attacks them so he can escape on a rocket sled going through a tunnel They follow in another rocket by the way This is this is amazing to be honest This is my favorite part of the whole movie is when they're on the rocket sleds. Just because it's like everything's moving at least.

It's not characters standing around talking about what they're gonna do, which I know is a big Star Trek thing. I'm sorry, Ben Adam, I know the main thing with Star Trek is characters having kind of conferences and ad hoc little meetings. If an episode doesn't have four or five meetings in it, I am completely disappointed.

No criticism you have of this film will hurt my feelings. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, all of those episodes centered around meetings are more interesting than this film, so. That's true. Yeah, I mean, again, like, Conclave is a movie that's like all meetings, and it's super awesome. My Dinner with Andre is a movie about one meeting. The sled scene in Conclave is fucking great.

So exciting. Have you guys ever seen the movie Hunger? The McQueen movie about the hunger strikes in Ireland. And there's one scene where two characters are sitting at a table talking to each other just in one shot in the dark for like 20 minutes. And it's amazing. It's such a tense, great dramatic scene. Because the acting and the writing. And this movie is full of action, but it's all, you's such a tense, great dramatic scene because the acting and the writing and this movie is full of action,

but it's all sound of fury signifying nothing. It's very boring. So rocket sled fight, laser fight, there Garrett frees herself, fight, fight, fight, fight. Anyway, Alloc gets knocked off the shed, Quasi saves him by transforming into a big goopy web, which maybe is his real form. I kinda like that, I kinda like that bit.

And Philippa and Fuzz, they end up on a sled hovering high above the planet Philippa stabs his robot body and he saggers for it as if he's gonna die which I thought was very funny because it's like A robotic body like it's not stab it all you want. He's a little guy who's right inside of it Stab the wrong part. There's a part of me that would have loved if it was if like she was like, yeah I can you might be really small, but I know how to stab you. Yeah. And Fuzz reveals that San is alive, he faked his death, and he's gonna take the godsend to the Terran Empire,

and Fuzz beams out in his full Robo body. The second non-thrilling reveal of the film. You mean, oh, that character that otherwise would have no reason that we keep talking about him? And he's still alive? Great. The character who only exists in flashbacks, but we're supposed to have invested real emotion

into their relationship at this point. On Sans' ship, now he has Fuzz and the godsend. He's counting down to when the ion storm will allow the Terrans to come through and use the godsend to invade Federation space. Oh no, this isn't just one quadrant that's in trouble. It's the entire Federation. And it's only up to our ragtag team of,

not spies exactly, like ragtag team of ruffians, I guess. It's getting smaller all the time. It's getting raggier and taggier, this team, yeah. There's a few of them. I gotta say, like, is this around, this is around 20 minutes from the end, right? Where we're at, right? Yes. I remember very specifically, Tag because right about this time I'm like, okay, well things are finally just like gearing up, like things are kicking into, and I pause it, I'm like, there's 20 minutes left,

so they're right before the climax and then it's gonna be out. But again, it feels like we are watching the pilot of a TV show, you know, in which case, okay, let's rush to an inconclusive ending and then we'll continue the adventures, but it's not a pilot of a TV show, it's a movie, so they've gotta wrap it all up, and it's,

there's, they really are- They still leave it pretty open. They do, but the San story, like I could see a version of this where at the end of the pilot, they have not gotten the, the pilot ends with the reveal that this guy San is still alive. And then the next episode is reinvesting us

in that character and they're on, they're chasing after him or whatever. I don't know how serialized the start-up shows are. And then there's like a bottle episode where San is like. I don't know how serialized the start of the show is. And then there's like a bottle episode where San is like, I don't know, in school or working in a diner and that's the whole episode. And you're like, what does this even matter?

Or Fuzz is inside a bottle. And that's the start of an actual bottle episode. And the start of season two is just a montage of things that happened in the previous season. And then at the end you're like, well, I guess that was beautiful, but what the fuck did I just watch? It was a good episode dude. That is a good video installation piece. It is not a good episode of television.

It's a good episode of television dude. Maybe just a different type of television than you're used to Elliot. Yeah, one that's not about story. I mean, it takes, no there's something very impressive about taking the previously on that usually runs before a TV show and stretching it out for the entirety of the

Conceptually it works pretty well when you consider that we're talking about a restaurant that went from like a local Hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon and turned it into this like fine dining spot So they're just taking all that and repackaging it into something that you don't quite want But isn't that the job of the recap podcasts of the world? Like, why is the TV show itself taking that from us? That's a good point. Once again, big Hollywood moving in and taking away the podcasters whole raison de tres. But you can see why an episode like that isn't quite outstanding comedy of the year.

The same way the previous hilarious season sort of... It was funnier, yeah. The comedy category, that's a whole nother conversation. It is a half hour long date. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, we're talking about Le Bear, the television show about a chef who... It started out seeming that the show was going to be about a chef who realizes he needs to

leave the world of fine dining in order to recapture his soul. But by season two decided, actually, we love hanging out with famous chefs. So it is about fine dining and how great it is. And that's where the soul of food is not in your hole in the wall places run by families. No, no, no, no, in fine dining. Anyway, so a lot reveals to the others that he was the one who took the pieces of the old derelict ship and the transmitter antenna because he didn't want the mole to escape or transmit or whatever.

So, they take off, they replace the parts, they take off after saying in a garbage ship, it's only weapon is a tractor beam. What are they going to do? Oh, no, Stan starts shooting proton torpedoes at them. Their shields are down. Every Star Trek thing I've ever seen, the shields are always at critical percentages at a certain point, and I can't wait till they finally make those better shields.

It seems like they really need them. That's how the ships come off the lot, just how they are. Look, I'd love to give you the better shield, but that's just how they make them. We gotta get Forge on that. I think the thing is- Do you think Forge is a Star Trek character?

Well, apparently they've met each other. Yeah, because there's Jordy LaForge, who is the Star Trek character, but he's not like an adventurer. Borg and Jordy LaForge get together. What a team up. It should turn out that Jordy LaForge is a descendant of Forge, of the X-Men.

A Borg and Phillipa Georgio. Borg, Georgio, LaForge, I mean, that's the team up that we want, right? Borg and Phillipa Georgio, and joining the forges fudge. That's the shop together. That sounds delicious. That sounds great. So ion storms attacking them, it's hurting the ships, lots of ships bumping around explosions,

explosions, people pretending that they're being rocked as the camera shakes. Philippa talks to Garrett and she goes, you need to stay calm, you love chaos. Chaos is your favorite thing. I can see inside you're really a chaos dirty girl, you love it. And that unlocks something in Garrett, where for the rest of the movie,

she's just going, chaos, I love it, chaos, chaos, chaos. And it's like, I wanted to believe that she had somehow used some sort of genocidal mind trick persuasion to break Garrett's mind and make her this way. But I think it is supposed to be that she had somehow used some sort of genocidal mind trick persuasion to break her Garrett's mind and make her this way But I think it is supposed to be that they've like Uncovered the the bad girl underneath her book, you know her by the book facade Yeah, she's dedicated herself to the ruinous powers of chaos But she's just bonking around yelling chaos this kind of sub like the worst version of Harley Quinn, you know way of doing

Yes, she is the kind of character that just says what her characteristics are out loud. Like when you first meet her, she's like, I like being orderly and nice. And they're like, that's all gonna change because characters change in this kind of thing. You need an arc. So speaking of arcs.

It also doesn't make sense that there's like a part of the ship where they keep garbage because they explain that the ship Just drags the garbage around outside of itself in space. So why would you also have a hold full of garbage? Yeah, maybe that's maybe the first you owned it. You found the just one wrong part of this Why don't we beam over to the goofs Yeah, this is a flawless movie other than that. That misunderstanding of how a tractor beam garbage scowl works. And so there's Philippa and Alok, they beam onto Sans' ship.

Everybody's fucking beaming. They're all beaming. Willie Beeman from Any Given Sunday. Willie Beeman? Yes, he will. And Willie Lohman, unfortunately, he is a Lohman. Yeah, it's true. See?

It always works. Yeah, we're seeing the hidden rules of the galaxy right now. Yeah, Willie Shakespeare, there is some spear shaking in some of those plays. Yeah, the history ones mostly. So, not as much in the romances. Or as futuristic stories. That's true. The Shakespeare stories set in the Star Trek universe, they don't usually have spheres.

Section 31. I mean, in that respect, Willie Wheaton? I don't know. You know, like, is that like some kind of cultivation? It depends. It's a situation. I like it, I like it. Is he grinding it to make bread?

We don't know. What else are you going to do with it? Yeah. Is he grinding it to make bread? What else are you going to do with it? So there's fighting, they pair off to fight, the godsend gets triggered. Oh no, Fuzz flies out his Vulcan body in his tiny little ship to kill the others. And I guess he like cuts off the tractor beam or something. To be honest, I didn't care that much about the machinations here. Fight, fight, fight, lots of fighting. And Phillipa's like,

San, you can be good, you can do it. But that doesn't hold any weight with him. Meanwhile, in the garbage, and this is why they need garbage on this scow, Garrett finds a talking doll toy that runs on terenium, a very dangerous fuel source. It's explosive. And now she can turn it into a bomb

that very ironically is talking about let's be friends and all that stuff Which again is kind of sub kind of suicide squad type Guardians the galaxy suicide squad so yeah, I didn't see Megan is this a Megan this little thing Yeah, it's a little it's a Megan. Yeah, it's a Megan II. Yeah, it is kind of Megan II Terenium is that a thing that comes up in other Star Trek stuff or they just make that never heard of it. Yeah, it is kind of Megan II its uranium is that a thing that comes up in other Star Trek stuff Or they just make that ever heard of it. Yeah, okay Well, it's outlawed in the galaxy for in the Federation for a reason. I never heard of it. I guess yeah, no trinium No Megan's both bad. I

Mean data is kind of a big Megan. He kind of is Megan have you seen him dance? terrible Spiner dance, but I've you seen him dance? Terrible. I've seen Brent Spiner dance, but I've never seen Data dance. There's a whole episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where the doctor character teaches Data to dance and it's terrifying.

The way Megan's dancing is also terrifying. Also been terrifying because you're like, that looks awesome, I wish I could dance like that. Yeah. Yeah. So they're all fighting, Quasi, he has trouble making decisions. We know that he has to choose between two buttons. One of them will open the cargo bay

and one of them will self-destruct the garbage ship. Might self-destruct the garbage ship. And Garrett helps him just make a choice. Thankfully he picks the right button. Alok defeats the autopilot Fuzzbot, but then he gets, and Fuzzbot escapes, Fuzz has escaped, but he gets blown up in his ship by this toy weapon doll that flies into him.

San is about to kill Philippa, and she kills him instead, but she feels bad about it, and they reconcile a little, and they declare their love for each other. And you guys were really moved by this moment when you were watching it, right? I found it baffling that the show slash movie thought that we would be invested in this romance between two murderers who have not shared the screen together in this form until this

moment. I do kind of like that he dies because she like kicks his sword and it accidentally cuts his throat. I think that's kind of funny. I mean, it's it's the closest thing I feel like to the kind of thing you would have seen in an old-fashioned Michelle Yeoh movie, like a Yes, Madam or something like that. There's lots of clever fight choreography and stuff like that. And so the bad guys are all dead. Wonderful.

And I'm always amazed how I should say there are other movies that in this same general runtime can really make you feel for the characters and feel their relationships and feel what they feel for each other. But this one just doesn't, it just can't pull it off in the same way. And that's the magic of the movies that I guess some movies can pull off and some can't.

Anyway, long story short, they fly Sans' ship into the Ion Gateway and then set off the godsend. Take that, Terran Empire. You're the ones whose quadrant got vaporized. What a bunch of heroes. They beam to the garbage ship at the godsend. Take that, Terran Empire. You're the ones whose quadrant got vaporized. What a bunch of heroes. They beam to the garbage ship at the last moment. The passageway collapses.

The Federation space is safe. And three weeks later, Philippa is back at her club and she has accepted the offer to join them in section 31. And they've got a new- She's wearing a different cool outfit, which I'm happy about. Different great outfit. And Fuzz's wife, Wisp, joins them.

That's right, they have a different person inside the Vulcan robot body, because they had a duplicate, I guess, and they get a call from their boss, Control, who has another mission for them, and their boss is Jamie Lee Curtis. Speaking of the bear and cameos, it's Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reuniting. Speaking of movies that Michelle cameos, it's Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reuniting. Speaking of movies that Michelle Yeoh won Oscars for and movies that she is about to win Oscars for. Oh no, I guess this probably isn't eligible because it didn't screen in theaters at all. No, this is not eligible for an Oscar also for quality reasons, yeah. Oh yeah, sure. So wait a minute, Jamie Lee Curtis was in Yes, Madam and won an Academy Award for fight choreography? Yeah, exactly. She was in the... Madam and won a Academy Award for fight choreography. Yeah, she was in she was in the the which trio what's the

trio? Why am I forgetting the name? Heroic Trio? The Heroic Trio. Thank you. Yeah, she's in the Heroic Trio. She's in Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars. And so the and so they're off on their next mission and the entire space nightclub flies off. Which I thought was pretty cool. But I love the idea of it's like, look, we're spies, remember?

So let's take our huge nightclub with us as we go on this espionage mission. I also love the idea that they're like, I'm going to go out for a drink or two after work to this cool space nightclub. And then after a couple of drinks, you're like, where the fuck am I? We're in a completely different sector of space. But that's, and we, so it's set up. It's now future adventures for section 31 in the Star Trek universe. So Ben, Adam, what else can we expect to see

from these characters in their section 31 adventures and misadventures? The next planet that they're going to is a horrible place. Like it has a reputation in the Star Trek universe that is not good. It's not and it's not fun or funny so it's you know it's just more of the same like hey like these genocidal maniacs are just going to go have a romp in another nightmare place and then and we're all going to love it.

I think the thing that that doesn't quite come through in the summary is just how often they remind you that Michelle Yeoh's character is a genocidal monster. And they seem to think it makes her seem like a badass, like that she's a tough badass wild card you can't trust, but it just makes her seem like a villain. And so it's very, it's just a very, it's like if- Even her genocides aren't by the rules.

It's like if in every Superman movie after Man of Steel, they kept going, remember all those people you killed when you were fighting Zod? Like to build up Superman and make him more heroic. I guess they kind of do in some ways, because they kill people. You know, Superman kills people in those movies, right? Just, there's that scene in Batman v Superman

where Superman is waiting behind a guy at the bank in line and he just reaches over and snaps his neck so that He's not waiting more and walks out to the teller. Yeah They brought him in for one day, yeah Do some punch-up? So let's uh, let's do our final judgments whether this is a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie You kind of liked I'm just gonna quickly start by saying good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kinda liked.

I'm just gonna quickly start by saying, when I saw the promos for this, I was like, oh man, like, you know, it's a Michelle Yeoh-centric Star Trek thing with Sam Richardson in it. I like all of those things. I'm gonna, you know, I can't imagine I won't have at least a baseline of fun watching this.

And the movie showed me the error of my ways. Cause this is bad that I had a really good time talking about it with you guys. You didn't have that good a time talking about it with. It feels like, I said this on Letterboxd actually, it feels like it's made up of spare parts from other science fiction things But weirdly none of those things are Star Trek like it both is Just sort of generic and it doesn't feel like part of the universe

It's an even if it makes reference to various Star Trek things throughout As as kind of an as a Star Trek outsider I feel like that's been one of the criticisms that's been levied at Star Trek for the last few years, with obviously some exceptions, but is that there's like an identity problem and that they are trying to be something that they're not. They're trying to be Star Wars

or trying to be something else. And, or in this case, like Guardians of the Galaxy and yeah it doesn't quite work and the Camera movements are really disorienting and I do not care for them And yeah, it's all the dialogue is the most like written by AI Quippy bullshit like the sort of thing that it felt like somebody was like they fed in a bunch of episodes of fucking Buffy to Like a chat GPT and they're like, okay, give us some zingers Why you had to insult Buffy in the course?

I'm just saying that if like I feel like Joss Whedon is the like grandfather of this type of like Yes, and him specifically I'm not gonna defend as a person I don't know Off mic you had a lot of good things to say about him But that series was a Buffy is out for a drink the other day, you were... You had a lot of good things to say about him. But that series was... Buffy is responsible for a vampire genocide, right? Yeah. What happened?

What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened? I think that you start to wade into... So bad bad, I'm saying bad bad. Yeah, you start to wade into difficult waters

any time you take a fantasy or science fiction thing that is against an entire race of creature, and you start to really think about what that means when you give personalities to characters and things like that. But I'm also gonna say unsurprisingly, Bad, Bad, it's just a really boring movie. It's just very boring.

And I'm not super well versed in a lot of Star Trek stuff. It's a franchise that I've always wanted to be into more than I'm actually into it for its own reasons. But I would have loved for this to have been, for me to have trouble with it for those reasons rather than the trouble I did have with it, which was for it being kind of boring and kind of uninspired. And I like some of the costumes.

I mean, I will say, like, whoever did like the production work on it, it looks really good, especially for what's essentially a TV movie. It does look like money was put into it, the costumes are really cool. I don't feel like any of the performances are necessarily bad performances. They're just kind of not given much to do, you know?

But it does feel wrongheaded in some way. If it's gonna fail, it should fail on Star Trek's terms rather than on... I mean, while watching it, if you had said, oh, actually, that's kind of like a Star Wars Disney Plus movie that they accidentally put Star Trek words into, I'd be like, yeah, I still, while watching it, if you had said, oh, actually, that's kind of like a Star Wars, Disney plus movie that they accidentally put Star Trek words into, I'd be like, yeah, I still don't like it, but it feels more like that.

Yeah, yeah. But what do you guys think? Now, I'm ready for your full-throated defense of Star Trek, section three one. That's what we came here to do. I, well, Ben and I reviewed this film on our hit new Star Trek show, Greatest Trek, about a month ago.

And I typically like when I know I'm going to guest on another show, I will like do the work of watching the thing once or twice because I watch the thing once or twice when I do my own show. And it's so bad, bad, I couldn't watch the movie again before doing Flophouse with you guys. My body rejected it, so I didn't. And like Dan read his letterbox review, here's mine.

Paramount CBS, I have this amazing ingredient that everyone loves, but I need to use it before it expires. And then marinates it in battery acid and cooks it for five years. Why aren't you eating? Why doesn't anyone like it? This is how they've wasted Michelle Yeoh. So my review is in script form. And now Ben, having heard all three of us rag on it, I'm ready again for your full-throated defense of Star Trek Section 31.

This movie is solid as Sears, gentlemen, and let me tell you why. No, I mean, I think that what everyone has said summarizes it really well. Like, I think that, like, from a production standpoint, it looks, like, great for a TV movie. At one point it looks like great for a TV movie. The costumes, Gersha Phillips is the costume designer on Star Trek Discovery as well and is just like an incredible talent who's done, I mean like her other thing this year so far

is the new Captain America movie. Like she's like a megawatt talent that Star Trek is incredibly lucky to have. As is Michelle Yeoh. How are the costumes in that Dan? I haven't seen I can't say that I really noticed them, but they didn't they didn't look bad Red Hulk costume looks good. Is that mostly just pants?

Cool Section 31 look healthy and nourished. So catering probably did a great job healthy and nourished, so catering probably did a great job. Catering was solid. Yeah, yeah. They're happy to have the catering company. Thank you, Crafty. Everyone's in the movie. They didn't get lost.

So all the PAs that were walking from the parking lot to the set, they did great. The go-karts that they depended on, great go-kart company. Oh, they didn't have go-karts for this one. Maybe for Michelle Yeoh. Nobody else got go-karts, yeah. I did rewatch the movie today to prepare. Cool. Somebody's got time to kill.

So this is the third time I've seen Section 31. I think I may have seen Section 31 more than anyone on planet Earth. He's going to get an email from Paramount Plus. They're like, sir, are you sick? Are you sharing your accounts with other people? Is there something wrong with your app? You know you can watch other things. Section 31 swag.

The only technical services support department that will reach out to you proactively. The watching of Star Trek Section 31 multiple times, it triggers our is Jigsaw keeping you prisoner protocol? Please just blink three times. We'll see you through the TV camera. If you guys saw the recent M. Night Shyamalan film Trap, I'm the guy in the basement that he keeps looking at. Video stream on his phone.

Oh, the butcher. One thing I thought about this time that hadn't occurred to me yet was... Was the fleeting nature of life. The lady that played young George did an amazing job doing Michelle Yeoh's accent. And I was like, wow, like she like is doing a really like a really solid Michelle Yeoh without it being like an impression of Michelle Yeoh. Like I believe that this person grew up to be that person. And like that is such a small little thing for me to like have my fingernails on

and like, oh, like that's a good thing about this. But I love this kindness, Ben, because I feel like we normally don't wanna be too mean here even as we're laughing about bad movies and I like that you're highlighting the sweet inside the ocean of sour. Ben is the hang in there poster of bad movie watching. I wish this was good bad.

I think that that's the thing that Star Trek and all other franchises fuck up is like if you have all of the ingredients, but you don't have a great idea, go for good, bad. Don't go for good with no idea. Like make it corny and silly and fun. Like Star Trek being corny is the fucking Briar patch. We love that. That's like, that's part of the brand.

Embrace it. is the fucking Briar Patch. We love that. That's like, that's part of the brand. Embrace it, you know? Yeah. Uh, like hire actual comedy writers to come in and, and, and write bits for Sam Richardson to do. Like don't leave it to a, a writer that does like kind of overcooked dramatic sci-fi series and has never written a movie before. And that's not to like dick on the writers specifically. I think that like the writer

is one of the many places where this movie fails. But yeah, it's so heartbreaking to see so many great ingredients get cooked in battery acid. so many great ingredients get cooked in battery acid. Yeah. It's always too bad when something that is, that has lasted for a very long time for a specific reason. They're like, this has to be cool now. And I feel like one of the really great decisions in the Marvel movies, for instance,

was not being like, Captain America has to be cool now, but instead being like, let's have him be the character that he is and we'll just find the things about that that are impressive rather than, okay, well guess what? He's kind of a badass. You know, like he's not really about America.

He's about partying. The last audible line in this movie is we like fade away and watch all the ships go to warp is a yo mama joke. And it's just like, Oh, that's right. That is so like, that like is the crux of warp is a yo mama joke. And it's just like, that is so like, that like is the crux of what is wrong with this movie,

I think. Cause in the utopian world of Star Trek, people respect their mothers and respect other goodness mothers. Gene Roddenberry would never have stood for this going under the Star Trek banner. They don't. They don't.

They don't. They don't. They don't. They don't. Walking about is the podcast about walking. trick. Walking About is the podcast about walking. It's a walkumentary series where I, Alan McLeod, and a fun friendly guest go for a walkabout. You'll learn about interesting people and places and have the kind of conversations you can only have on foot. We've got guests like Lauren Lapkus. I figured something out about this map, like

how to read it. Betsy Sodaro. I had no clue that's awesome and nuts. John Gabras. This is like great first date for Beef and Dairy Network Podcast. Hello, hello, please, you have to help me. I was kidnapped and bundled into the back of a van. I was taken to the docks and beaten with chains and tied up inside a shipping container, and then I was forced to listen to episode after episode of a podcast called Beef and Dairy Network, and I absolutely loved every second of it. Please, you have to tell me where I can listen to more episodes! The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is a multi-award-winning comedy podcast,

and you can find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Dan recording a little after the fact recording alone. So you know, this ad read might get a little weird. That's the way it happens sometimes. I'm warning you. I'm warning you. Also this episode is supported in in part, by Squarespace.

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Go to rocketmoney.com slash flop today. That's rocketmoney.com slash flop. Rocketmoney.com slash flop. And before I return you to the belly of our Star Trek show, I do have a Jumbotron. Jumbotron? Jesus. Jumbotron. J-J-J-Jumbotron.

This message is for Joe Mello. Last name not withheld. It's from Katie. And it says, and for this I will change my weirdly aggressive tone of voice to something more appropriate for this very sweet message. Katie says to Joe, happy birthday to a wonderful husband and father.

Thank you for working so hard for us. Thanks for helping us all through this rough patch. And thanks for introducing me to the Flophouse. I'm your loving wife, Katie. That is very, very sweet. Thank you to both of you for listening, thank you for doing this message. Keep on keepin' on, even though this ad break

will stop keepin it on right now Hey, let's uh, let's move on to letters from listeners Why not this first letters from Patrick last name without who writes Patrick Dempsey step-by-step? That's not that's Patrick. What's the Patrick from step-by-step? I do not know Yeah, let's spend time on it from step by step. I do not know. Let's spend time on it. Patrick Dunhey, is that you?

Patrick Dunhey, yeah. Patrick Dunhey. The man from Atlantis. Yes, Dan, from Man from, you're right. You wouldn't remember him from the sitcom he was on for years. You remember him from Man from Atlantis. Yeah, exactly.

Well, the sitcom was sort of like the most bland fuzz of a sitcom, whereas Man from Atlantis is a weird show. Yeah, it's true, it's from Atlantis. Anyway. A man, a plan, a drowned society, Atlantis is a weird show. Yeah, it's straight from Atlantis. A man, a plan, a drowned society, Atlantis. Is that anything? It works. It's a palindrome.

It's both ways. Don't check out the, don't check it out. Patrick Lastnamewithheld writes, You may have seen wonderful quotes from Michael Rooker about the poor state of audience's attention spans after the underperformance of Kevin Costner's magnum opus, Horizon Part 1, Chapter 1 based on the novel Pushed by Sapphire or whatever it's called. His old man yells at Cloud, approaches, silly, but I kind of admire his defense of the project even if that defense is the same short attention span argument I've been hearing since MTV or since DW Griffith called widescreen only good for funerals and snakes but imagine if

you're making a movie called snake funeral though oh boy we've gotta get these motherfucking snakes out this motherfucking grave you need a really widescreen but it needs to be kind of short too. Do you listen to the Snake Funeral album? Snake Funeral is my favorite fucking favorite album of the year. That does sound like something you love. I imagine Samuel Jackson is giving the eulogy and he goes, I'm tired of not having these motherfucking snakes in my motherfucking life. And then he bursts into tears.

When you go to a snake mortuary, it's just a bunch of tube mailers of different construction. Peewee Herman is there holding them at arm's length. Put them in a pneumatic tube to send them over to the graveyard. Anyway, Patrick writes, but as all of us head into our mid or late 40s, I'm sure we all find ourselves trending towards the grumpy old man

when it comes to modern media digestion. So my question is this, when was the first time you remember having a grumpy old man opinion about a movie? And I was thinking that I really jumped on the grumpy old man early because- It was about the movie Grumpy Old Man, right? Yeah. It was a similar year.

It was the sequel and he was like, they're not grumpier. They're the same amount of grumpy as the first time. You promised an increased amount of grumpiness. With inflation I paid more to see less grumpiness. My grumpy dollar is bringing me less now. Let me explain basic economics. Dan needs to be so fucking cool, right? What happened to that, Dan? He's like the teenage ticket taker at the theater. Let me explain basic economics to you, young man.

No, I, Space Jam. When Space Jam came out, I was like, these are not the loony tunes I know and love. Yeah, that's pretty cool. This is a cynical way Way to you know put basketball star Michael Jordan with some Cartoon characters and have them act totally off model, you know again So what happened to the pure the pure bugs looney tunes movies of yesteryear like quack busters and Fantastic Island

Island fucking rocks I wonder how similar all of our answers are gonna be to something like that. Like the thing I grew up with is no longer the thing that I'm seeing because my my example was gonna be the Transformers movie, Michael Bay's movie from 2007. I came away from that feeling very grandpa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, yeah, the real ones masturbated to the the hot cartoon robot Transformer guys. Exactly. They didn't need a Megan Fox. No, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I felt like when they cast girls as ghostbusters, it was a problem for me. No, no, no, no, no, no. I have a slightly different one, which is I'm sure I've had that same reaction before and I've tried to let go of it of like, this isn't the way I did things

But I think the one where I felt it the most strong was when I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy Speaking of movies that really want to be Guardians of the Galaxy when I went to see the first Galaxy movie And My reaction to so much of it was like why all the swearing? Why do they have to keep swearing that That's actually pretty old man of yours. That is a very old man. I found myself legitimately offended in a way I didn't expect when at the end Star-Lord goes,

we're the Guardians of the Galaxy, bitch. I was like, I don't like it. Like I kind of shivered and shuddered. And I was like, I don't like that. I don't like it. So I think that was the moment for me. He seems like such a nice boy. And I think it's because by that point,

it's just like, show some respect to other people. You know, I think it was by that point that I was a moment for me. He seems like such a nice boy. And I think it's because by that point, it's just like, show some respect to other people, you know? I think it was by that point that I was a dad. And so I was like, oh, at some point, I know kids are seeing this movie and at some point kids are gonna see it. And whereas in the past, I might've been like, yeah, who cares if kids are gonna see it? Like they need to grow up.

It's fine. I was like, I don't know. And then I remember not long after that, walking by a toy store, in the window, they had the Guardians toys. And all the- And then said, the long after that, walking by a toy store, in the window, they had the Guardians toys. And all the- And then said, the Guardians of the Galaxy are here, bitch. It was the talking doll that just says,

bitch, bitch, bitch. But seeing that all the accessories that they came with were just guns. And it was another one of those moments where I'm like, oh, I don't like this. I don't like that. When I was a kid, I loved toy guns. But like the idea that, oh,

I don't want my kids playing with something, it's just guns. So I think that's when I felt like an old man, a grand old man. To talk about what you said though before, I've gotten to a point, I think, mostly where I'm not like, oh, this isn't the way that I liked it, because why are you gonna do something

if you don't have a spin on it? We already have the old thing. But I do find it easier to feel that way when we've had a good movie version of something. We didn't have a good movie version of Looney Tunes. I'm like, what the fuck is this? Whereas with my beloved Sherlock Holmes, there's been so many Sherlock Holmes things,

I'm like, yeah, do whatever the fuck you want with that property. Like, make it crazy. That's kinda like how I can't be offended by a wrong-headed Shakespeare production. Because it's like, don't worry, you're going to see thousands more of this play. Whereas if there's a bad production of like Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures, I'm like, I may never see this again.

When are they going to revive this show? That's sort of, I mean, like in our Star Trek corner of the media scape, like that's kind of how it feels like now where there are specific versions of Star Trek that are very close to my heart. And I think over the years I have learned to like not get that bent out of shape about it when they do one that doesn't quite fit what I love about the thing I love,

because it's like, I mean, like there are 17 different TV shows that are called Star Trek now and, you know, 25 movies. And it's like, okay, some of them are going to be like perfect for me and others aren't. And who gives a shit when they aren't? You know, I don't like own the Paramount Corporation. I don't get to call the shots. But if you did. Yeah, but if you did.

Hold on. This is interesting. Then you'd probably put something other than Section 31 on the app to watch over and over again, yeah. Okay, let's move on to the next letter so we can. There's another letter? This is from Teresa Lasting with Held, who writes, subject, live action cartoon characters,

high floppers. I wait a minute Read the letter Dan cuz what that phrase doesn't make any sense to me Hi floppers, I mean Jim Carrey's kind of a live-action cartoon Stewart, you know, some people don't have the bravery to say to say shit like that. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. I had a strange dream that involved Elliot disclosing that he had been cast to voice the character of Tweety Bird in a Looney Tunes live-action movie.

I'll do it. Miscasting, but I'll do it. Yeah. Chris Pratt was not part of this ensemble for once. Ooh. Okay, I'm listening. It made me wonder two things. So Garfield's not one of the fucking Looney Tunes, apparently?

Stuart, I hate to break it to you. Mario isn't one of the Looney Tunes now? Again, Stuart, I hate to break it to you. In my America? It made me wonder two things. One, would Elliot even make a good Tweety Bird? I say yes. No, I don't think so.

And two, what cartoon characters would Dan Stewart and Elliot appropriately voice in their live action adaptations, Teresa Last Name with Hell? And I have to say that, you know, not originally a cartoon, but probably best known as a cartoon, of course Eeyore. Of course for me, Eeyore would be what I would choose. Yeah, you're totally an Eeyore.

Yeah, I can see that. Wait, are we doing like any cartoon character forever all the time? Yeah, it was not, Looney Tunes was the door into a beautiful... Fuck, Captain Caveman. I'm Captain Caveman then, guys. Yeah. You know, this is... I'm a little hairy guy with a club surrounded by babes. Yep, that's me.

Yep, that's you, all right. And the club is technological, like you can open it up and there's high-tech stuff inside of it? I don't understand that shit. I'm just a caveman, dude. Hahaha, good point. I am a captain though, so respect my rank, please. I guess, okay. Thank you for your service on the seas.

You can perform weddings, I guess, when we're on your boat. That's okay. Or ship, I'm sorry, sir, ship, ship. Yeah, you've never seen that in the show, but it was a deleted episode. Most of the episodes are about Captain Caveman performing wedding ceremonies. It's the happy privilege of cavemen everywhere. Yeah. This is a...

I think I'm going to pick one that might be a little out of the ordinary because I feel like I don't have a voice in my head for it already, but for pre-existing. But I'm going to say Felix the Cat. I think I could do a real good Felix the Cat if he was like, like he was in the old, old cartoons where he's just, he's just a, you know, he's just stirring up shit, just doing wacky stuff. He's real annoying. I think that's what I could be.

For a second I thought he was talking about Fritz the Cat. I'm like, I don't think that's appropriate for Elliot. So also, yeah, I'll be Fritz the Cat, because you know me, I'm all about that, like, that kind of, like, the scummier side of the alternative 60s, 70s lifestyle. Does Felix talk, though? Like, I feel like in word balloons in the alternative 60s, 70s lifestyle. Does Felix talk though? Like I feel like in word balloons

in the really old cartoons maybe. I think they did some later ones where he talked, but yeah. And this of course, our guests are welcome to jump in if you guys have. Also, wait, I'm gonna do one more. Also Popeye's nephews or children? I don't remember how they were related, but those three Popeye kids

from the like kind of 50s Popeye cartoons. I could do that. That'd be amazing. Yeah. So yeah, what do you guys think? What cartoon characters should we be, Ben and Adam? Oh man, we get to choose two? Yeah, join the fun.

Fuck. Jump in the pool. I was just sitting here enjoying listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Flop House, not thinking about what my answer would be. I'm going to participate in the hot seat, baby. I'm going to participate in the show we're guesting on and say my favorite cartoon growing up was The Real Ghostbusters. I think I would want to be one of the voices to like Venkman or something.

Sure. I could pull that off, right? Do we have to be animal cartoons? Is that? They just said cartoon characters, right? No. Catching caveman. Well, I guess he said cartoon characters, right? Yeah. Caveman. Well, I guess he's the link between man and animal.

Metaphorically. That's going to be my answer. Okay. Do you remember the television cartoon Exo Squad? Did anybody catch this cartoon? I remember the name, but I can't say I've ever watched it. I really liked the toys because they were like it was like little robot suits that you get like little GIGO you stick him in his robot suit and then he's you know can shoot you know spring-loaded missiles and things and

I think the show was about how they had to build these robot suits to defend them Against their genetically engineered slave race that had risen up It really ages well medically engineered slave race that had risen up to a... Yeah, I think you're right. Oh, wow. Love this. Okay. It really ages well. Yeah. Concepts that wasn't interrogated that much. Did every episode conclude with like a diary entry being read and like XOXO squad?

Yeah. These were squad goals to me back in the day, but mostly because I wanted a cool robot suit. So maybe I'll, maybe we'll do kind of like a, you know, a re-examination of the concept through Reboot. So it'll be an exo squad where it's like, man, like are we the baddies is kind of the premise. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I get to have a robot suit. Yeah, you'll be the one who doesn't care when he realizes he may be a baddie because, you know, the price of eggs is lower for him if he kills all the slavery. Exactly. Or higher, I don't really give a shit. As long as I got this suit. Let's tie everything up with our final segment, Let's tie everything up with our final segment, recommendations of movies.

You might have a better time watching than section 31. Impossible. I'm going to pull an Elliot. I'm going to recommend a movie from the 30s. Hey, hands off, I'm married. He could do it. He's pretty charming. Yeah, that's true. He could pull me. You know, Dan, you could pull me anytime.

Thanks. Thanks. Wow. What a turnaround. Yeah, it really didn't seem like you needed much convincing. This is a movie that's on- It's a woman's prerogative to change your mind, Daniel. This is on Criterion right now.

I've enjoyed a few movies in the Claudette Colbert collection. There's one directed by Ernst Lubitsch called Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. And what struck me about this is how many old comedies are at heart very kinky. Like they're, it's barely, barely under the surface. Like the main sort of plot

of this is that Claudette Colbert marries this very wealthy man and learns that she's to be his eighth wife and she doesn't want to be divorced like all of the other wives and she goes about sort of insinuating herself deeper into his heart by, I mean, it is heavily implied essentially by like not fucking him at all and then making him feel like he is being cuckolded.

And so she's bradding her way into his heart and loins. And it's very funny though, and light as 30s comedies are, and it's 85 minutes, a wonderful length for a film to be. Perfect. Less than a Section 31. Yeah, so I enjoyed it quite a bit. Stewart? Okay, I'm gonna recommend,

I'm also gonna dip deep into the archives of old-timey movies. I'm gonna recommend a movie from 1989. Wow. I know, careful. Get on your readers, grandpas. I'm recommending Troop Beverly Hills, starring Shelley Long.

A movie that I remember seeing the theater and being like, I loved this movie when I was a child. And I had not seen it since. And then I watched it recently and you know what guys like, I love this movie when I was a child and I had not seen it since. And then I watched it recently and you know what guys, I still love this movie. It was probably one of the only comedies out there that is a snobs versus slobs comedy and you are rooting for the snobs.

It's about a group of effectively girl scouts in Beverly Hills who are mistreated because they are rich and like kooky. Whereas the other Girl Scouts who are from other parts of LA, you know, actually like know how to do wilderness stuff. Shelly Long plays the, Shelly Long plays a woman who is going through the process of divorcing

Craig T. Nelson, which has gotta be a challenge because I mean, he was coach. And Shelly Long is so fucking funny and hot, and her outfits are great. The costumes in this movie are incredible, and the way that they use the costumes to tell the story is so funny, and it has so many famous LA people from the time.

You got your Robin Leach and whatnot. Yeah, it's great. Two thumbs up, Troop Beverly Hills, just as good as it was back then. Yeah, check it out. I think you'll find Stuart, that it's a Carla Gugino movie.

It is, it has a very young Carla Gugino in it, which is pretty fun. All right, Elliot? Sure, I'll go next. I would like to recommend a movie that it's kind of like, it's kind of like Troop Beverly Hills, it's called Chilly Scenes of Winter. Anyway, it's from 1979.

This is a, it's listed as a romantic comedy, but it's more of a romantic drama with funny moments. It's written and directed by Joan Micklin Silver, who also made like Crossing Delancey and Hester Street. And I've just been on a tear of hers lately. And stars John Heard and Mary Beth Hurt. And it's about John Heard is a guy who has just ended or had an affair end on him.

He was having an affair with a married woman. He fell in love with her and she ended it. And he cannot shake her from his head. And it starts out seeming like it's going to be like a kind of wry romantic comedy about this guy who like, maybe has to find someone new to get over her, or maybe he's gonna win her back. And it, as the movie, pretty, fairly early on,

but especially as it keeps going, the movie makes it clear he has a not fully, sane or stable obsession with her. And I would describe the character as like high functioning Travis Bickle. Like he's going into madness, but nobody is noticing, opposed to Travis Bickle where it's obvious to everybody and I really liked a lot. It felt like one of these movies that um was kind of Not going as far as it could potentially but was diving into emotional territory that I'm not used to seeing in a movie

And I thought it was really really good. It's and I And I just like Joan Micklin Silver's movies a lot. So I would recommend it. I would say find, there's the version that I also saw on Criterion Collection, it's called Chili Scenes of Winter. It was originally released with a happy ending as Head Over Heels. And so if you find a version of it

that's called Head Over Heels, that is not exactly the same movie. Find the one that's called Chili Scenes of Winter. And also I'll point out, there's a John Hurd's character's mother who is a kind of aging woman who's kind of losing her grip on reality is played by Hollywood noir, great Gloria Graham.

And there's something exciting about seeing Gloria Graham at this kind of different stage in her career, but still playing a character who is like an intensely wounded woman who's trying for a glamour that she can't quite attain because of that wounding. So it was nice the way that this movie played into the rest of her filmography. So that's chilly scenes of winter. Dan?

I'm just gonna go around the Zoom as I see it and say, Adam, do you have something to recommend? I do. I've been on kind of a Damien Chazelle kick lately. And one of the films that I missed was Babylon, and I watched that for the first time very recently. And let me just say that if you watch- I may have to interrupt this recommendation.

I'm not sure. Anyway, continue talking, man. It's fine, it's fine. If you watch one film that begins with 500 gallons of elephant shit dumping onto a character in the first two minutes of the film. Make it Babylon. I was... That's weird. Ellie didn't like that movie.

I was surprised by this film throughout. And I thought the chances of being truly surprised by a modern film were like, that wasn't going to happen. But I loved the movie. I loved the experience watching it. at three hours and ten minutes It felt shorter than section 31 to me Wow. It just absolutely Zoomed I thought it was a delight. I know it's not for everyone, but I enjoyed it quite a bit Ben jump in so Ellie it doesn't start jumping in time at how one of those not for everyone's is me So I'm gonna start jumping into how one of those not for everyone's is me. Yeah, I don't know if my recommendation is for everyone, but I just was on the Criterion app last weekend and randomly watched a movie called Down with Love, which is a 2003 romcom

starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. And that makes it sound incredibly basic in a way that it just isn't. It's like a weird pastiche of a much older kind of film, like a Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall film specifically, and has a lot of fun celebrating the aesthetics of that while kind of roasting it at the same time and, you know, like, the thing I love about the rom-coms of that era are that the characters are on such even footing in terms of their, like, power on the screen.

Like the women are just as capable and fast talking and interesting as the men. And this definitely has that, but kind of fucks with your expectations of like what they're going to want and when and for what reasons all the way through. And so it's like a little bit of a mess, but you know, like I popped like a two and a half milligram jazz gummy and ate my dinner and drank a glass of wine and just enjoyed the hell out of it. It's so fun and it's candy colored and Peyton Reed,

you know, he made that and he made, bring it on back in the day and like this guy's, you know, going places and then, you know, Marvel snapped him up years later to for the Ant-Man series Yeah, yeah So yeah strong recommendation. It's on the criterion channel app right now. That's that's five very classy recommendations Equally classy Adam and Ben before we let you go, what would you like to plug?

Oh, you know, if you like hearing people talk about good Star Trek things, we do it all the time on our two podcasts right here on the Maximum Fund Network, the greatest generation and greatest Trek. And yeah, that's, I think that's all we've got to plug really. And yeah, I think that's all we've got to plug really. Nice and easy. Speaking of the Maximum Fund network, go over to MaximumFun.org, check out all the great podcasts over there. As this drops, we're gearing up for the Max Fund Drive.

We got a bunch of stuff in store for that and some fun surprises and pictures to make to you. I know we're not gonna make surprises to you, that doesn't make sense, but anyway, you know what I'm trying to say. So look at- Not really. Say look at the Max Fun Network.

Makes surprises? If you like good podcasts and a- Stuart, we gotta talk about putting Dan in a home. Lovely network. Thank you to producer Alex Smith, who we're going to be sending five different audio tracks to to slam together. And who knows how many surprises that we've made. Yeah, I'm going to be like Jared Leto during the Joker.

Oh. The Joker movie. It was the Suicide Squad movie. Yeah, yeah. He was playing the Joker. Again, Stuart, all the signs are here. We've got movie. Suicide Squad. Yeah. Yeah. He was playing the Joker. Again, Stuart, all the signs are here. We've got to take the keys away from them.

Okay. Well, before I drive us further authorized, drive off the rails? Is that a thing that happened? I mean, they drive off the train rails in Groundhog Day in one scene. So I'll pretend you're talking about that, but I'll know that really it's time to, you know, again, to move you out. I'll just say. He was calling me his brother John,

I'm just here to correct him. Thank you, thank you for listening. I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm a very concerned Elliot Kalin, and we've been joined by Adam Pranica. Thank you for being here.

Bye. Mwah, mwah, mwah. Bye. Peace. Thank you for being here. Bye On this episode we discuss Star Trek section 31 The idea that exists you want to try one more time? I'll have a dumb joke that's the obvious joke. On this episode we discuss Star Trek Section 31. Dan, I haven't seen Star Trek Section, Star Trek Section 2 or any of the movies through

Star Trek Section 30. Sorry. My mouth was so horrified at the hacky joke I was doing that it tried to stop it from happening. Okay. That would be great for the end of the episode. Yep. Maximum fun.

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