The Greatest Generation - Coffee is for Silent People Only (The Hunt for Red October)

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

When a satellite catches Red October in Polijarny inlet, Jack Ryan starts earning Sky Miles faster than he can spend them. But when he upstages the overhead projector guy in a high level briefing, he gets stuck trying to figure out exactly how the Soviet sub captain plans to ‘dump’ his crew. Why is Admiral Greer handcuffed to that creep? Will Seaman Jones find the stealth sub before his antiquated printer gives away their position? How are you supposed to pack when your mission orders are behind two layers of security? It’s a special thank you episode that could potentially save you four hundred billion quarters.We reached 1,000 members in this year's  Greatest Gen Drive - THANK YOU!If you're not already a member, support the production of The Greatest Generation today and get instant access to the entire catalogue of bonus content!Music by Adam RaguseaThe Greatest Generation is on YouTube.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz! MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Congratulations, we made it to a thousand new and upgrading supporters during Greatest Gen Drive. You know what that means. We're putting something from the bonus feed into the main feed. Why? Why would we do that? Because we want non-supporters to hear what they're missing out on, on that bonus feed. Yeah, this is that kind of first once free drug dealer shit

where we give you a little taste. This is a beloved episode from back in the day when Adam and I covered Hunt for Red October in the bonus feed. It's got an amazing Adam Ragusea original soundtrack. And yeah, this is a ton of fun. And because we just crossed the threshold of a thousand new upgrading and boosting supporters in the

MaxFunDrive we wanted to give this one away for free to everyone as a thank you. If you're feeling altruistic and you want to support we have more bonus content that we would like to drop into main feeds everywhere. So head to MaximumFun.org slash join if this is persuasive to you. But this isn't a pitch, this is a thank you. So let's get to the fun. Let's get to the episode, huh? One of the great episodes in the bonus feed about one of our favorite movies that went for Red October. Here it is. That went for red October. Here it is. What's his plan? His plan? His plan. Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan. Dump without a plan.

Dump without a plan. The average Rusky son don't take a dump without a plan. Welcome to The Greatest Generation, a Red October podcast by a couple of guys who are pretty excited to be doing a Hunt for Red October podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica. This is one of a couple of Max Fun Drive bonus episodes that we promised if the network hit the 28,000 goal. And boy, that was really exciting to see. Yeah. If you're listening to this, it means you helped us reach that goal or...

I guess it was the 25,000 goal. Or you've stolen the feed from someone. Yeah. In which case you're a bad person. Yeah. Go ahead and finish the app. You've already committed the crime. But you should just feel real lousy while you're doing it.

I hope you only achieve medium enjoyment from this. Medium enjoyment is really the most we can hope for anyone who listens to any of our episodes, I think. Yeah, but if you stole the feed, we want you to not get the two percenters and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, uh, you know, why are we doing submarine movies? Why are we doing Hunt for Red October? I think it's simple.

I think, I think the best Star Trek episodes and movies are often the ones that most resemble submarine movies. I think that's true. And I don't know why we, we constantly bring up Crimson Tide and Hunt for Red October on our show, but I'd feel like there are a million opportunities to do it and they're two very beloved films to me. And Red October is

like, has been in my top three of movies for probably 20 years. It's a real fave of mine. I would argue that in a, in a Cola wars style argument, I think there are people who ride especially hard for Crimson Tide and those who ride harder for Heffro as the kids call it, hashtag HFRO if you're listening to this ep. And I think, I think part of it is like 1990 versus, uh, I think 95 for Crimson Tide is, uh, is a very specific time to, to a film viewer's life.

And I think that's what makes Crimson Tide, the more foundational sub movie, but it made me, uh, this film was on CBS all the time in syndication. I don't know if you remember watching it this way, but I remember watching it for the first of several times, having seen it broken up by commercials. Whoa. And I think that unfortunately colored my initial feelings about the film until I was able to follow up and watch it later on a DVD. It is not a movie that is terribly well suited to a television rerun. Not at all, yeah. But yeah, I love this movie. I would say if we're going to stick with the Cola Wars metaphor,

this is the Mexican Coca-Cola in the glass bottle to the Pepsi of Crimson Tide? Oh, I think that's damning Crimson Tide with faint cola praise. I'm just saying Crimson Tide is a passable cola, but glass bottle Mexican Coke is the king of colas. It's the best in the business. I'm going to try as we review this movie not to draw too many comparisons between the two films because that's not fair. But I do think that there are comparisons to be drawn in a number of areas that may

be fun to talk about. Yeah. So do you want to get into John McTiernan's masterwork, The Hunt for Red October, based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name? God, it's just dad core all the way down, isn't it? With credits like that. What do you say we do one show only about this movie, Ben?

Well, yeah, we should. And I don't want to do that before we say a heartfelt thank you to all of the Greatest Gen viewers and just Max Funsters in general, who pay to support the shows that they love. You know, this is showing up in more feeds than just the Greatest Generation fans. And if you saw this pop up and gave it a listen,

thank you for being a supporter of anything. Yeah. Yeah. It means a lot, and it keeps us going. So thanks. We make plans, and then we take dumps. We make plans, and then we take dumps. This movie has a sequence of opening sequences that is kind of bonkers to me.

Like we get the red October going out to sea, we get the super tight shot of Connery's eyes and he just looks like a fucking sea captain. Like he is perfect in this role. I don't know how Connery has lived a life of leisure as a famous movie actor, and yet he looks as weather beaten as somebody who's lived a life as like a shrimp boat captain. Yeah, I was just gonna say he's got a face

that belongs on a box of fish sticks. Ha ha ha ha. Like you could really set up base camp in the folds under his eyes and then make for the summit the following day. Very crevassy that face. Yeah. You find pitons left by climbers in the 50s in those crevasses. This film establishes right away though, Ben, by virtue of its handling of VFX work. It really places it in its own time. I think

it's unfortunate because this is a film that is better than its effects work. It's just being made at a time that is like right on the cusp of when good effects started happening for military films especially. Yeah, indeed. This is ILM model work. And there are particles in this movie

that you see more than once. Yeah. Like whenever you're seeing the ship underwater, like you will see the same bubble go past the screen like four times. Like I don't know why it was so expensive to make believable particle effects back then, but it really was. Yeah.

And there's some, I don't know if it's matte work or what, but there's some scenes like on the conning tower where the backgrounds are either projected or the mat work is just a little off looking. There's parallaxing on some of these shots of people, like close-up shots especially on the top of the conning towers. Yeah. They just don't quite match up in your eye the way that they would in a film that came even five or ten years later. We also established that this is a Russian ship because it's Sam,

Neil and Sean Connery, but they are speaking Rusky and the dialogue in this, like as they are putting out to sea in the Polly Arnie Inlet is not great. They're just observing that it's cold and hard. What does that mean? I really love Sam Neill in this movie, like just full stop. Okay. I think fucking great. It's easy to forget a youthful Sam Neill in the year 2018.

You know, thinking about the, the films that you've seen over the course of your life, maybe even beginning with Jurassic Park, where he was like peak mid forties in that movie or, or, or forties portraying. Which I think was only three years after this. Yeah, like he is so youthful in this film in a really fun way. So I read that Harrison Ford was offered the Jack Ryan role in this movie and turned it down. And then he was offered the Sam Neill role in Jurassic Park and turned that down.

What? Yeah, like kind of amazing to think. Like, I like Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan a lot, but I like Alec Baldwin's the best of anybody that's played Jack Ryan. Sorry, Ben Affleck. I know you're a big fan. I did not dislike the Ben Affleck Jack Ryan film. That was the Sum of All Fe fears. Yeah, that was great. Set off a nuclear bomb in a sporting event. Yeah.

We get, I mean, speaking of the title character, we get a real pre-bloat Alec Baldwin in this film. Speaking of those that look especially youthful, was he ever this young? Why are you wearing a tux? It's after six, what am I, a farmer? He's so young and beautiful. It's amazing.

And like his intro is, it seems like entirely about setting up a punchline at the end of the movie. It's like him departing London kind of in the middle of the night. He says goodbye to Dr. Crusher. Jack and I didn't have a lifetime together, only a few short years. Who's also in this movie making it canonical Trek. She's in the film for like five seconds.

Like, wow. They must have left some gates on the cutting room floor, right? Yeah, yeah. How tragic. I know. And yeah, he lies to America, uh, stopping midway to tell a flight attendant that he can never sleep on airplanes because he hates turbulence.

Turbulence, solar radiation heats the earth's crust. Warm air rises, cool air descends turbulence. I don't like that. Jack Ryan's kind of an idiot here. I mean, he is a, he is a bookworm military nerd, but even Jack Ryan should know the turbulence has never downed a commercial aircraft in the history of flying. So whatever Jack Ryan. Yeah, come on. And also the one thing you don't want to do on a commercial aircraft is airplane splay in a flight

attendant. That's a bad look. The drink service is going to stop pretty quickly after that, I think. In his defense, she is being kind of pushy with the idea of him going to sleep. Yeah, that's true. I don't want to be told to go to sleep on a flight either. She's like, hey, why don't you shut your eyes

and stop reading? And he pushes back, and she doubles, telling him to go to sleep. This is a thing that happens to Jack Ryan for the entire movie. He's constantly being asked when the last time he slept was. By both strangers and friends. The idea that he could be this tired all the time is troubling given the situation he winds up having to grapple with in this film. He gets picked up at the airport and it's kind of... The implication at the airport is kind of like, oh, he's in trouble.

Did you think that the movie was kind of trying to head faint toward he's being picked up? Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, it's shot especially paranoid, isn't it? Like you're seeing, you're seeing establishing shots that show people in crisp focus that you'll never see again. Do you know, like was Jack Ryan like a hugely popular novel character at this point in history? Did people know who and what he was? Oh yeah, I think, I think if you're a dad, you're reading Tom Clancy books and if you're reading Tom Clancy books, you're reading about Jack Ryan. What's his plan?

His plan? His plan. Russians don't take a dump without a plan. Dump without a plan. Dump without a plan. The average Ruski son don't take a dump without a plan. He meets up with his buddy Admiral Greer, played by the amazing James Earl Jones, who does that thing where he knows a little bit more than he's letting on.

As Jack Ryan briefs him in the meeting, Jack Ryan is bringing photos obtained by British intelligence of a Russian submarine that we've already met and it has weird doors on it. What are these doors? Those doors, sir, are the problem. And the weird doors are a big enough deal that he's flown in the middle of the night to CIA headquarters to meet. I guess like his career like the deputy director of the CIA at this point? I think he achieves that status in future Jack Ryan films. It's not super clear what he is in this film

in terms of rank. What he is most notably is the platonic ideal of any boss one could ever have. He is on the one hand ideal of any boss one could ever have. Yeah. He is on the one hand, deserving of the respect of someone of a higher rank than you. Yeah. But he also carries himself with the aplomb and kindness of a great mentor, you know?

And also, like, they have a good enough relationship that Greer has, like like been to Alec Baldwin's like main vacation home or whatever. Yeah, they're vacation buds. Yeah, that's a, that's the kind of, that's like a real DeSoto type boss situation. Yeah. At the end of maybe his third flight in two days, and I think this is, this is part of the, one of the threads

that I have a hard time grasping is how many flights Jack Ryan takes in a 48-hour span. It's like all the flights basically. Pete Slauson This motherfucker has sky miles coming out of his ass. Jared Slauson He meets up with a classic late 80s, early 90s, that guy in Jeffrey Jones. Pete Slauson In the opinion of this educator, Faris is not taking his academic growth seriously. Principal Rooney to you and me.

Not a great real life person, TBH. A terrible real life person. Yeah, but God is seeing a lot of films in this era of Hollywood. And he plays kind of an interesting character. He's like, he's tech bud to Jack Ryan, who reviews some of these pictures of this sub. And we think we'll never see him again in the film, but then he pops up at the very end. Yeah. He gets attached to Greer's

little operation. He gets handcuffed to Greer like a Halliburton suitcase. operation. And- He gets handcuffed to Greer like a Halliburton suitcase. So the doors are what Ryan wants to show Principal Rooney. And Rooney takes one look at them and figures out that they are a caterpillar drive, which is a way to run a submarine without having the propeller noise of running a submarine. So it's a nearly silent propulsion system. They really built this. This isn't a mock-up or anything. And he has this great dramatic speech where he's got a leg injury. So he takes his fake leg and sets it up on the pulled out drawer of his desk and says,

When I was 12, I helped my daddy build a bomb shelter in our basement because some fool parked a dozen warheads 90 miles off the coast of Florida. This thing could park a couple of hundred warheads off Washington and New York and no one would know anything about it till it was all over. I love that. Like they set the stakes so high, so fast. Yeah. This film does a pretty good job of, uh, of jacking up the tension right away.

Another thing it does a great job of is introducing tons of characters. Like so many characters get so much time. And right around this point, we get to, we cut to the USS Attack Sub Dallas, and we're hanging out in the sonar room with Seaman Beaumont and Seaman Jones and the chief of the boat. And Seaman Jones is played by Courtney Vance, a great role teaching Seaman Beaumont how to listen for whales. And this is like a little moment of levity also, because it's about what a fancy lad Seaman Jones is, Jonesy. They're kind of Statler and Waldorffing around in the sonar closet, and I really like that. They are totally the odd couple in there. Is a dot matrix printer really the kind of thing you want in a sonar closet though?

Yeah, that is a, that is a loud printer. That is very disruptive. Con sonar. I'm hearing a series of clicks. And then a tearing sound. That printer's so loud, it'll alert the Russians to our presence. Classifying contact, Hewlett Packard 1. Consonar perforation rip.

This is the USS Dallas and they're an American attack sub in the neighborhood of where the Red October is putting to sea. So that's just a little intro for them, but they will become more and more important as the film goes on. Yeah, there's, I mean, when we do the cross-cutting later, we're going to go from the Dallas to the Red October and back again. And we should probably visit what's happening to the Red October at this point, which is a fairly savage neck break scene in Ramius's quarters.

What are these doors? Those doors, sir, are the problem. What are these doors? Doors. Doors. Engage. Open the doors. We take dogs, but first we make plans.

We take dogs, but first we make plans. There's a political officer stationed on the Red October who I guess is just there and his name is Ivan Putin. Relax, I got this. Putin's going to make everything okay. He's there to, I guess, just like ensure communist orthodoxy on the Navy ship. How many agents does the KGB put aboard my boat? Your boat, Captain?

Yes. This vessel belongs to the people of the Soviet Union. Ramias has a plan and Putin can't be involved. So they're hanging out in Ramias' quarters and there's this incredibly flashy camera move where the camera flies in toward Putin's mouth as he reads a passage from the book of Revelation getting really tight when he gets to the word Armageddon, which is the same word in Russian and English, and then when it pulls back out, he's speaking English and not Russian. I like this moment. Did you like it or was it too flashy? I fucking love this moment.

It is so weird. It is the only time I've ever seen it done in a film. I don't think it would work in most other films and this film, it's for some reason is perfect. So many flashy things get ripped off from films of the 90s. I'm really shocked that this isn't one of them. What would be another opportunity to even do this though? Like.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you'd need, you'd need to be pivoting out of a foreign language subtitle film. Yeah. In the way that this one needs to. Yeah. Cause you know, we want to spend time on this submarine and we're dumb Americans.

We don't want to be sitting reading subtitles the entire time. What happens here is one of the moves in Ramius's most dangerous game of Chesh. It's always a game of chess with them, isn't it? This Chesh move kills one of the pawns, I guess, or maybe this guy's the bishop. I don't know what he'd be, the bishop. I don't know what he'd be. But it kicks off a series of moves that Remius conducts that has to happen pretty fast, because you can't just keep a dead body in recorders for long. He has- It's a pretty, it's also just like a scene where it kind of sets up stakes and then completely

brushes them aside. Like, it kind of looks like he's in there getting in trouble for having a Bible with quotes from Robert Oppenheimer written into it. Yeah. And it looks like he's sympathetic to some American way of thinking or whatever, and he's like, no, that was my wife's book and she was, I keep it for sentimental reasons. It's like... This scene to me was as tense as any other scene in the film. You're so blindsided because they build that tension and it's like, it's all slight of hand.

Like they're building that tension and then when he kills the dude, it's just out of left field. You never see it coming. It's a real R-rated death too. Like he's sort of gasping on the ground before he dies. Yeah. death too. Like he's sort of gasping on the ground before he dies. So Ramia spills some tea and then, and then breaks the glass and sort of sets up a scene that he can describe later to the doctor about an accident that happened. It's a good thing the doctor is a, is Tim Curry and not like a talented forensic pathologist,

because this doesn't seem like a super believable death. Right. Like, like, I guess he's going to say like, oh yeah, this guy slipped on some tea and he died. Tim Curry sort of has resting, I don't believe what you're telling me face too, in a way that's very effective throughout the film. He's a great presence. And one of the things that he is given to do is react to Ramias explaining to the senior staff, I'm going to take the political officer's missile key.

So I'll have the two missile keys. And Tim Curry is the only person that speaks up and goes like, the point of having two keys is so that we can't just launch missiles because one person has gone crazy. This is most unnerving, Captain. You might be familiar with this a few years from now. This will factor in hugely between Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. I mean, you could even make a whole film about this moment.

But for now, this is going to be a plot point. I mean, but like, yeah, Tim Curry is shitting bricks in this scene. And he's like, well, I guess we just got to go back home. And Ramius is like, nah, dog, our urners are far too important to go home. This is just one man. We're gonna keep it going. And he's also burned the original orders and replaced them with fake orders that I

guess he, I don't know, do you think he, it's not an emergency action message. They're not breaking into a plastic card container to verify its authenticity or anything. Well, I mean, in that the original orders came from the box that they needed both keys to open. Like there is that level of double secrecy and check audit going on in order to get those out. So I think that's what he's betting on is that he's replacing them after the box has been opened. So they're believably, they seem more credible than they would be if they just arrived on the scene

without any sort of check. It's an interesting idea that they put like everybody in the boat, seal it up and send them out to sea before anybody, including the captain knows what they're going to be doing? Yeah, like it's kind of hard to pack for a trip if you don't know where you're going or for how long. Yeah, yeah, when those guys find out

that he's taking them to Havana, they should be bummed. Like, oh, man, I didn't bring my swim trunks. Right, exactly. That's the main conflict in the film. Yeah, that's what the Russian sailors are dealing with. Get that dancing off my boat. Your boat, my boat. This vessel belongs to the people of the Soviet Union.

We may die, but always have a plan. When we die, it's always with a plan. The mission that he tells his crew they're doing is we're going to, we're going to go do missile drills, like parked off the shores of New York. And then once we're done, we're going to go to Havana and bang some beautiful Cuban girls. Multiple games of chess being played here. Speaking of games of chess, uh, Greer, Greer is playing chess with. I'm not familiar with that word, Ben.

What do you keep saying? Hmm. Chesh? Right. Speaking of games of chess, the Jack Ryan Greer team, uh, head to the White House to do like a secret, secret meeting room briefing with the joint chiefs

of staff and the national security advisor and like the head of the NSA where Jack Ryan gets kind of blindsided into giving a briefing on what the red October is and who Ramious is. And Jack Ryan is actually a, like a Ramious expert. He wrote a biography on him for the CIA. I know Ramious, General. I actually met him once at an embassy dinner. Have you ever met Captain Ramious, General? It's amazing to think of a time in history where,

like, the only picture available of a guy is, like, is like a bad photocopy of Ramias standing among a bunch of other people. And, like, it's a picture that was clearly snapped by a spy of, like, a bunch of pictures scattered on a desk, because you see some other, like, the corners of other pictures in there. And it's, like like a partial face. Yeah. They're just like, uh, I guess, I guess this

is what the guy is. And the, the big revelation in this meeting is that, uh, the NSA found out that the, like political directorate of Russian submarines got a letter from Ramias that morning, blew in a call to the Kremlin, and then all of Russia's Navy went after this fucking boat.

Everything, everything Russia had to throw at hunting down the Red October was launched. I read that they had a hell of a time green lighting this film or getting it sold. And part of the challenge was briefly explaining the story. This is the scene to me that sells the movie, which is it's a chase film. Yeah. It's a submarine chase film specifically. And that is very exciting. It's a chase film that has perfect stakes because the Russians are chasing from one side, the Americans are chasing from the other side. The captain of the ship has an unknowable agenda and it is a total leap of faith that Alec Baldwin knows what he's doing here.

But any mistake at any point here could lead to nuclear holocaust, right? Matthew 18 Right. Are birds crossing in midair? Pete Yeah. The opening crawl of this film, it kind of implies that this is a true story, that the Russian and American governments denied that this ever happened, but there were people that suspected that the submarine was actually recovered. Have you ever heard about Project Azorian? No.

It was this crazy CIA mission in the 70s where a Russian nuclear sub sunk somewhere near Hawaii. And like the CIA paid Howard Hughes to build like a giant boat with another giant submersible boat inside of it so that the Russians wouldn't see that this boat existed. And then like sail it out and try and like, basically like claw game the Russian sub off the floor of the ocean. Fun.

And so like this, it had to be built with like a morgue that could, could, you know, accommodate the entire crew of the Russian sub. Had anyone who designed, who had designed this boat ever played the claw game, because I'm just going to say that, uh, no one wins the claw game. Well, yeah, and they didn't like Like, they clawed it, and it was like halfway up, and it like broke apart in the claw

and fell to the bottom of the ocean. If they had a child in that design meeting, I think that could have been a predictable outcome. Guys, I'm going to save you a bunch of quarters. Yeah, like 400 billion quarters is how much I'm going to save you a bunch of quarters. Yeah, like, like 400 billion quarters is how much I'm going to save you. Uh, there's a great episode of Stuff You Should Know about that project that is a lot of fun to listen to. And it is pretty clear to me that a lot of the DNA for this story comes

from Project Azorian. Hmm. from Project Azorian. The scene is great for its nonverbal intimacy between Greer and Ryan. Like before the meeting, Ryan is pretty terrified at the prospect of doing a presentation with one minute notice. And Greer's like, no, it's cool.

We're going to have someone run in your slides. Like the slides are already made even. It's going to be great. There's a guy with, get this, three overhead projectors. And Ryan gets in there and he's like, A, always B, B, S, silent. That's what this drive does. Always be silent. One of the joint chiefs gets up to get some coffee and he says,

coffee is for silent people only. Fuck you, that's my name. You see this watch, this watch is silent. It's a sweep hand. You wouldn't know what that's about. This watch costs more than your life. There's a great moment in the scene though, where Ryan gets a little too comfortable and Greer puts his hand on his arm. I always love that moment. It's so low key and Ryan does not get the hint that he should shut the fuck up. It's great. What he puts together is that this is all taking place on the one year anniversary of Ramius's

wife's death. And to Ryan, what that means is Ramius is not, is, is not out to get revenge. He is, he has, he has lost all ties to leave behind and he may in fact be defecting with this crazy boat that is technologically way ahead of what the United States is capable of building. And he's hand assembled a crew of people that he's familiar with or that he has either personal

or professional relationships to. Like all the officers are hand chosen. And that's especially important because like the idea of a rogue submarine captain is one thing because like the challenge like you can't just drive it yourself is the problem He needs a crew and luckily for him. He has a crew that Ostensibly would do his bidding out of loyalty. How long before Ramious could be in a position to fires missiles at us? four days could be in a position to fire missiles at us. Four days. All right. I'll brief the president. That'll be all, gentlemen.

And Pelt, the national security advisor, you know, like the NSA and the Navy brass that are also in the room are rioting for this guy has gone crazy and is going to shower the United States with the nuclear payload that his submarine has, but Pelt is willing to keep an open mind and to like hedge his bets a little bit. And also he just like opens up to Ryan like, Hey man, you're like totally expendable. Why don't you go out there and see if you can make

contact with this Ramious guy. You've got, you got three days, if you can do it, great. I love how transparent he is about, you know, no one in here knows you and those who do don't like you. So you're totally ready for this. This really starts the gag of every time Alec Baldwin gets into another mode of transportation going, Jack, you should have written a memo. Right. Yeah. And so commences his fourth flight in two days.

Yeah. My wife said, wait a minute, where did this man learn to cook? Afghanistan? Oh! Sick burn, bro! Sick burn! If you ever think we're talking without a plan, then think again. Come, come, come, come to my crazy island. Don't stop.

Back on the Red October, we get to know kind of the conspirators in this defection plan. Like, Tim Curry not involved, all the other officers on the ship definitely are. So like the chief engineer and the head sonar guy, and all the guys with epaulets are having dinner in the officer's quarters. And it's clear that the majority of the decision-making and strategizing about how this is going to go down has been left to Ramias.

And these guys are not necessarily psyched about the fact that he did a murder to make this happen. And Sam Neill really has to get in there and defend Ramias. And it's amazing. Sam Neill is a total believer. He really is. Even though Ramias's amazing, Sam Neal is a total believer. He really is.

Even though Ramius didn't tell Sam Neal what he was gonna do, he knows that Ramius knows how to do this, and even though the risks are high, he's gonna be the best person to make any of these decisions. They do a good job of obscuring these guys' reasons for wanting to be a part of this. And Sam Neal's reasons are only revealed like a

half an hour from the end, really. Like, and I think if there's one main criticism I have of the film is that I would like to see more of that. I mean, there, there are what, a dozen people in this room? Yeah. They all have to be in lockstep about defecting and no one else gets a reason to besides Sam Neill's character. Yeah. And even the Ramious character, the idea that he has nothing to live for back in Russia is basically the main thing for him. Like.

Well, it's bad in that he thinks that the red October should never have been built. Like he, his, his motivation happened when he found out that the Russian Navy was building a war starting sub. Yeah, but all boomers are war fighting subs. Like this is an opinion he could have had 20 years before this.

I guess so. I mean, like the, the idea that this submarine can nuke something with less than two minutes warning is pretty scary. Like it's very different from we can launch from Cuba or we can launch from, you know, we can launch and come over the pole and hit you. Like if there's no warning, it makes a big difference. And I think that he sees the Red October as a, you know,

a ratcheting up of the Cold War arms race that he can't in good conscience abide. There's nothing mutual about how assured the destruction is. It's too one-sided for him. Yeah. So, uh, and you know, I, maybe like the other thing that we learned in, in the Jack Ryan briefing is that he's not Russian.

He's like, he might not be like totally bought into the entire Soviet project. As a, as a project. Yeah. Back on the Dallas. Oh, you know who we haven't even talked about yet is, uh, our buddy Stellan Skarsgård, Captain Tupolev. Which is a great name.

Like they mentioned he is, uh, is sort of from an aristocratic family. Yeah. mentioned he is sort of from an aristocratic family. Yeah. Tupolev is named for the Tupolev family of products, which is like an aerospace and defense company in Russia. Oh really? Yeah. Dang.

I think he was originally who the Red October, like in the original real orders, the Red October was meant to go rendezvous with his submarine and, you know, just run through some exercises to test how good the caterpillar drive is. And, uh, he's just been sitting there twiddling his thumbs waiting for the red October and they finally, uh, you know, receive a transmission

that the red October has gone rouge and all of the Russian fleet is chasing after it. And he is like, nothing excites him more than the idea of going and killing Ramias who trained him. I love this character. Where are we going? Going to kill a friend, Jogini. He is full on upset by this deeply. And he is a little too excited about killing his mentor here.

He's like a perfect villain because he's like, he's a sociopath or something where the order comes to kill his mentor and he's like, great, best opportunity I've ever had to test whether or not I have become as good a captain as he is. That is how I took it almost exactly. but I also feel like he wanted to win the prize of being the one to get him first. Like with Ramus out of the way, you could argue that Tupolev becomes the most respected captain in the fleet. Right. Yeah. He would be a, he'd be a hero of the Soviet people or whatever.

He'd get the order of Lenin. Yeah, that's what you want. That's what you want. There's probably no order of Lenin, right? It's like just a big crowd of people and no, no one's first in line, no one's last in line. That's probably how that goes, right? I'm not sure.

That's quite how it works, Adam. I love an order of Lenin and how are the pancakes? Jump without a plan. Plan. Jump without a plan. Plan. Jump without a plan. No, no, we don't jump without a plan. Plan. Jump without a plan. Plan. Jump without a plan. Plan. Jump without a plan.

No, no, we don't jump without a plan. Back on the Dallas, we're back in the sonar closet with Jonesy. And he's trying to describe how he was able to tag the red October because the red October is almost impossible to hear. And he's like, you know, this sonar computer, it keeps thinking it's this volcanic activity because in our database, that's the closest thing that it sounds like. The SAP's software was originally written

to look for seismic events. And I think when it gets confused, it kind of runs home to Momo. I'm not following you, Josh. They initially pick up the Red October coming out of Russian waters on screws, but then it switches over to the caterpillar and they think they've lost it,

but Jonesy has now kind of cracked the code. And not only has he cracked the code, but he has like a pretty good sense of where they were going. Jones does that thing that we try to discourage people from doing to our show, which is listening at a speed faster than it was recorded. And I just can't get with that.

Like this is where Jones kind of lost me as a character. I don't like him after this. You gotta listen to that sub sound at normal time, Jones. You're just gonna miss the timing of the jokes. Like I guess it makes sense if you're listening to like a news submarine, but if you're listening to a comedy submarine, like for example, the Red October, it is a emphatically worse experience. Everyone knows that, Jones. And the one thing that you can't do is tell the captain of the

Red October that that's how you listen to their sub. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I guess like, you know, do whatever you want or whatever, but don't tell me about it. It just makes me angry. Can you imagine how angry Ramius would be if he heard that's how Jones had listened to his sub? BI rate. He'd probably break his neck in his crew quarters. Spill tea all over him. Sir, I'm sorry, listen to it at 10 times speed.

Relax, Jonase, you sold me. We start introducing more and more ships to this scene, Ben, and it's really fun. So in addition to the other Russian sub, we have introduced the Enterprise aircraft carrier where Jack Ryan has arrived. We also get to meet the captain of the Enterprise, which is a familiar Star Trek person. It's Daniel Davis. Yeah. He's the guy who played Moriarty in a bunch of TNG episodes. A great Star Trek, that guy. He, uh, almost immediately Jack Ryan arrives on the scene and starts getting

sold reverse mortgages from, uh, from Admiral Painter, who is like a, a version of Fred Thompson that is maybe peak Fred Thompson. Yeah. This is the most Fred Thompson Fred Thompson Fred Thompson ever was, including the time Fred Thompson ran for president. God. Like in which case, you know, at which point he tried to turn on all of his Fred Thompson, you know, like, like if, if Fred Thompson is an organ in a church, when he ran for president, he tried to flip every switch on that organ.

He didn't quite get there, but in this scene he fucking does. I might argue that Days of Thunder Fred Thompson is, is like Fred Thompson put into a beaker under, above a burner. And then there's like some tubes running to another beaker. Like it's utterly distilled and it's probably too powerful, that version of Fred Thompson.

Yeah. You back him off a little bit and you've got the Fred Thompson here. It's like a, like he's, he's like a balsamic reduction that just totally overwhelms the plate in that movie. He's balsamic Thompson, Ben. Yeah, yeah. This, this is, is it just a ride? It's a MacThompson band. Yeah, yeah. This is just the ride. You just want to dip a crusty bread into them and enjoy some conversation.

Yeah. He's kind of the star of the theme song of this podcast, in fact. I'm sure some of our Navy friends will reach out in response to this comment slash question, but very nicely appointed cabin for the Admiral here. A lot of leather furniture. It's real cruise ship vibes, aren't they? Is that really how it is? Because I thought that was great. Oh man. I guess wiping up messes is easy with a leather chair on your aircraft carrier. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. One of the dynamics at play in this scene is that Daniel Davis' Captain Davenport

is really salty with Jack Ryan because Jack Ryan has arrived wearing a Navy uniform. And Davenport just doesn't, doesn't truck with that. He doesn't like somebody that's not really in the Navy representing that they are. But you know, Ryan is there kind of undercover. He's, he's, they don't want people on the ship to know that a CIA guy dispatched by the national security advisor is there taking a meeting with the Admiral and the captain.

So this is Admiral Greer's idea of a low profile. by the National Security Advisors there taking a meeting with the Admiral and the captain. So, this is Admiral Greer's idea of a low profile. It's up to you, Charlie, but you might consider cutting the kid a little slack. It is pretty cool to see F-14s again in a movie. Yeah. Have we talked about the military history of the F-14 Tomcat? I don't believe we have Adam. I mean, like there's a piece of trivia about that plane

that I think is really interesting in that like, it was the main, it was like the backbone for the Navy for a long time. And then we sold, and by we, I mean, the United States of America sold F-14s to Iran. And then as soon as the uh, the U S and Iran became enemies, we were like, we're going to stop making F-14s and the parts that, that are used for servicing them. And that is how basically they destroyed the Iranian fighter jet fleet.

Wow. Like they stopped making spare parts. And so in very short order, all of the Iranian F-14s just started rusting in the desert. Wow. Weird. That is, uh, it's kind of, I mean, it's a bit like the, the cars in Cuba because like the

blockade prevented. Right. Prevented new cars from being brought there. So they just have old cars that they. Yeah. Keep maintained. It's such a cool plane. Like it's as iconic as it gets.

Yeah. I feel like that's, if I think of like Air Force fighter jet, I feel like that's what I'm thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. So a big, a big portion of the like middle of this film is this sequence about the Red October running

this series of canyons, uh, underwater because the Russians have really accurate maps of the canyons. And so they, they could like, they can run a submarine down this, you know, knowing when to turn just by like dead reckoning of their, or not by dead reckoning, by, by like looking at their compass and counting down the seconds and knowing like how fast their, their props are spinning. But Ramius has like a, an almost superhuman ability to know how far they can push it past where the turn

is supposed to have been. Right. And the only reason that we're made to believe that he's not totally insane in this moment is because he's counting while moving his lips. Yeah. He's like doing the calculations in his head. And that's like, I think that that only works because Connery sells the shit out of it. This is a great scene and a great setup to the tension between the helmsman and Ramius that, that permeates the rest of the film.

Yeah. I think this helmsman is low key a great performance. Yeah. And, and the tension between them is, I, one of the top tensions in the film. Yeah. It's Slavin, right? The guy that's most worried about this situation. And he's also the one that really took exception to the political officer being

murdered. And so, you know, he's here, uh, this defection scheme and agrees with Ramias like has, has heard Ramias expound on his reasons for doing so, but is he does not have the same confidence in Ramias that Sam Neill does. Yeah. I mean, Sam Neill is a couple of things in this film.

He's super confident in Ramius and he's got a hunger for rabbits. He wants to eat those rabbits. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. He, uh, in a private moment with Ramius, he talks about how he wants to live in Montana and marry a round wife. Yeah, get a recreational vehicle. Yeah, get a recreational vehicle. His, I mean, his fantasies are, uh, are totally achievable.

Like this seems like something that he could, that there's some viability in if he were to make it to America. What did the sea do to you, Sam Neal? Why do you want to be so far away from it? There's no such thing as a sea rabbit, I guess. Show me where the sea touched you. Show me on this doll. Yeah. This is a nice bit of exposition by him though.

It's nice. Now it's nice because we're more than an hour into the film and you aren't really sure outside of asking for an asylum and then asylum maybe being granted, like, what is the end game after the end game? And it's the Sam Neill character that is really the only one to really paint that picture. Right. Like, what the characters want needs to be chewed on

in this film for this film to work. And, you know, I think this film does a great job of that. The MacGuffin device of the Caterpillar Drive is like one of the great, like the ratio between the technology and what we see of the technology in terms of how fantastic it might be is so out of balance. Like I love the idea of them talking about in the production meeting, like, what does it look like? No, man, you don't understand. It's just doors. It's just doors. That's all we have to show. I love that.

The people at ILM were like, uh, I think we could do that. Verify our range to talk. Oh, how many pings do you want? How many pings do you want? One ping, two pings, three pings on four. One ping, two pings, are you sure? Are you really, really sure? Give me a ping, Vasily.

One ping, aye, Captain. The thing about these doors and the sounds that they make is that this information needs to be conveyed to the Dallas. And the only way that can be done is in person by Jack Ryan taking another short hop flight on really one of the worst airlines. You've got 10 minutes with the fuel. We stay here 10 more minutes. Jack Ryan has been chewing on the question of like, am I right?

Is Ramious trying to defect or is he nuts and trying to nuke the US? And what he hits on as he's preparing to fly out to the Dallas is, oh, of course he's trying to defect. And not only is he trying to defect, he's probably already figured out how to, he's not defecting with his entire crew. He's figured out how to make his crew get off the ship.

And what he's figured out is it's a nuclear submarine. If he can make everybody believe that there's like a reactor meltdown in progress, they will gladly get off the ship. So. This epiphany is shown by the use of a vignette of like him Bent over in a shared shower like for a while and then and then and then in a bathroom shaving when like the The exclamation point finally appears over his head like he's just talking out loud

I have to want to get off sure seems to me like Baldwin should have been shaving his chest during the scene over the course of like four hours. Well, you know, you shave it and then it comes back twice as thick. You don't want that. Oh, that's an old wives tail. Is it? Look at this. I mean, in Alec Baldwin's case, I think we can say with a certain degree of confidence

that he had shaved it many, many times. It's almost a character in this film. It's a, a lot of people don't realize that it's actually Robin Williams' chest, but Alec Baldwin's head. So they, they lighten up this helicopter. It's sort of a fun, fun description of how they need to get out there. They're too far away to just send a copter and feel like they can do that responsibly with the amount of fuel and the distance they need to go.

So they need to lighten up the chopper. And then there's a point of no return here where you only have a certain amount of fuel to get out there and get back. And so they're at the spot where they're supposed to meet the Dallas and they don't see the Dallas and there's a tension between the pilot and Jack Ryan about whether or not they need to go back. And this begins a countdown that's critical because when they're dangling Jack Ryan out of the chopper on top of the conning tower of the submarine, they're running out of fuel to make the trip back. And so they start to winch him back up into the chopper.

Yeah, the pilot just is like, this is going to be too hard and I don't believe that this is actually going to work. So bring him back in. And Jack fucking cuts his string and goes into what we are told is water that is so hypothermic that he'll be dead in four minutes. They got the rescue diver to grab him and pull him in underwater too. The matter of the static electricity

was really interesting to me. Yeah, is that just because it's a storm or is that something that you have to deal with generally? I wish I knew that. I don't know. They say the rotors are pushing down enough static that if you're not grounded when you grab him, it could kill you or whatever, right?

Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, and a guy gets shocked pretty badly. Yeah. I think Bonks is nagging on the side of the ship. They have a diver in the water and they get Ryan, and Ryan is so not hypothermic that he's like quippy to the captain. Pleasure to come aboard, sir. I have very few quibbles with this film, but this is a main one for me. Like I think you can portray Ryan, like you could, you could portray him as becoming

more and more bedraggled from lack of sleep and also- I mean, he doesn't look great. Hypothermia. This is definitely the worst he looks in the film. Sure, but he's always sharp and I think it would have served the story's tension better if he were having a harder time articulating his point because he is so articulate throughout in making his point because he is so articulate throughout in making the case to people who aren't inclined to believe him that if that were at some point a weakness, I think I would be rooting for Jack Ryan more,

but as it is, he's so great throughout that I feel like the film tries to make him an underdog and they don't quite accomplish that because he's so polished. Yeah, it's kind of like the, it's kind of like the problem with Ramius being impossibly good at calculating the navigation. It's like, it kind of makes our two main characters

a little bit of superheroes. Yeah. Which maybe is less interesting than if they were more flawed. Flawed hero wasn't really too much of a thing in 1990. No. This, the scene, there's also something

interesting about this scene, because we've had the, like the, uh, the scene with Pelt and the Russian ambassador and you know, the Russian ambassador says like, oh yeah, Ramious, uh, went, went bonkers bananas and intends to, intends to attack the United States with his nuclear nuclear Wessel. And, uh, and so like, you see, it's like a game of chess.

Do you mean chess? Chesh. So Baldwin is telling Bartman Cuso the theory of the situation, but it is coming immediately after Bartman Cuso received an emergency action message that seems to contradict every point of what he's saying. Can we just have a moment here to comment on the greatness of the name Bartman Cuso? I wish I was named... I would change my name to Bartman Cuso in a heartbeat.

It's one of those names that sounds overwritten. No one exists in the world named Bartman Cuso. If your name is Bartman Cuso, write in, we'll send you a natural Jaeger or something just for being great. I feel like Tom Clancy was, was auditioning names for characters, like his story outlining, he's writing character names and he's like, no one's going to believe this Bart Mancuso.

I don't know. Like I'm going to flag this one to maybe find and replace later. And he just left it. Do you think maybe he was like, uh, it's a little bit of a stretch, but then he imagined what it would sound like coming out of Fred Thompson's mouth. Excuse me, sir. What's a little bit of a stretch, but then he imagined what it would sound like coming out of Fred Thompson's mouth. Excuse me, sir, what's this sub off by yourself?

Barton and Cousels both. And he was like, no, that actually sounds great. So let's keep it. I'm only going to keep this character name if we can confirm Fred Thompson's casting choice. If we can attach Fred Thompson to, not even to the movie, to the book. Right. They parenthetically add Fred Thompson to the book, Hunt for Red October. In the Tom Clancy universe, Fred Thompson is Admiral Painter. Yeah, yeah. When you watch an Admiral Painter movie, that's the sequel that we don't get here. That would be nice, yeah. I'd be curious to see that. I would watch 90 minutes of Admiral Painter just sitting in a leather chair,

smoking cigarettes and reading whatever books he has in his Admiral's quarters. Yeah, just- What a delight. Just have some people come in and give them some, like some, some decisions to make, some issues to interact with so that he has an excuse to say stuff out loud, but, uh, some upholstery swatches that he either approves or denies. I don't think a taupe is the right thing for this room. Admiral doesn't use a paint roller without a plan.

for this room. Admiral doesn't use a paint roller without a plan. So man, QSo's got his marching orders and it is like, you know, he's the only sub that's on Deremeus, like because he has Jonesy, he's the only person in the fleet who can actually track the red October and they can go sink the red October right now. And it is up to Baldwin to, to ride for this dude is defecting and we need to give him an opportunity to do that. There's a fun, there's a fun conflict rhombus happening here, right? It's like, uh, it's like the United States military wants to take the Red October intact

if possible. The Russian military wants to destroy that materiel to prevent that from happening. But they aren't totally sure that Ramias is defecting. And so destroying the Red October could be a good consequence to, to what happens here. Right. But in doing that, they, they avoid the, the great research opportunities that the red October presents.

Right. Yeah. Like the, you know, one of the things that principal Rooney told Alec Baldwin is that the U S couldn't figure out how to build a Caterpillar drive. And like, it gets compared to Sputnik, like the idea that Russia has done something that the United States can't do, is technologically unable to do, is a thing that really terrified people during the Cold War. And that's the other,

that's the other puzzle that has been running throughout is how do you get everybody off the boat and how do you like do an inspection of this super secret piece of Russian state property without the Russians using that as a pretext to attack. Without a plan, without a plan, we don't ever talk without a plan. There's this great moment where they all stop and it's because Jack Ryan has like correctly predicted a crazy Ivan, which is when a Russian submarine turns suddenly to see if there's anybody riding in his wake. Has he made any crazy Ivans? What service does that make? Because the next one will be to starboard.

Why, because his last was to port? No, because he always goes to starboard in the bottom half of the hour. And there they are. It's the Dallas and the Red October hanging out, like pinging at each other. And they go up to periscope depth and captain to captain transmit code with each other. One ping only. Captain, I just... Give me a ping, Vasily. One ping only, please. And it is confirmed that Ramias is not there to shoot missiles. He's there for something else. What the hell is this about?

This is a pretty fun scene. It seems so dangerous for two subs to be this close also. Yeah. Like I love the, I love that scene with the Russian ambassador where, where Pelt is like, don't you see that having this many ships in close proximity is inherently dangerous? He's a little bit of a Southern lawyer about this, isn't he? Yeah. He's like, now I'm a simple man, but. Pursuant to the US Navy and Russia's proximity, here to for the North Atlantic.

to for the North Atlantic. As a country man, I just see friction as potentially causing a fire. If you will forgive the metaphor. This is the famous scene though, right? Like the one ping only. Like, I don't know why he needs to do the pings. They're doing Morse code back and forth at each other, but he signals affirmative by doing one ping only, which leads to a ton of tension in the control room on the Red October because even Sam Neill

at this point is like, why are we doing the sonar? That's going to just tell them where we are. I feel like this is production wagging the story dog a little bit because John McTiernan auditioned 500 different ping sounds for this scene. And I feel like once you get into the 200, 250 range, I think you're committed to the idea. Ben, I have a couple of these sonar ping sounds that John McTiernan auditioned for this scene and I thought I might play a couple of them for you. Oh that sounds delightful. All right here's the first one

and then here's another one that they thought about. Very interesting. Mm, very interesting. And then here's what they decided ultimately. Yeah, that's the one, you know? Yeah, I think of the three, I think that's probably the best. Like when you start your Macintosh, you want it to sound a certain way. Right. This is when the Red October, there's significant eye contact between Ramius and his chief engineer and suddenly there's a radiation alarm and they have to surface the ship and they're

And they have to surface the ship and they're like, they're like loading the Russian sailors off the, off the ship. It's very, it's very cumbersome because they have to go all the way up through the con tower and then down a ladder on the outside of it to get to the deck of the ship. And then, I guess their idea is that they're going to wait for the Russian fleet to show

up for rescue or the, the stated idea is that they're going to wait for the Russian fleet to show up for rescue or the, the stated idea is that they're going to wait for the Russian fleet to show up for rescue, but some of the officers are going to have to take shifts down below decks where it is super duper radioactive in order to like keep the ship running. They are very lucky that the US frigate is the closest to, right? Yeah, super good luck. I've got to imagine this film takes a very terrifying turn if it is instead a Russian ship on the surface that approaches. Well they say it's 20 hours later, and also it is revealed that Greer is on that frigate. So, like presumably the Dallas managed to get word to Greer, like what was going on. Yeah. I mean, Greer's no slouch in the airline miles department.

Yeah. He got upgraded to comfort plus on the way out there, which was great for him. And because he bought the ticket, principal Rooney got the upgrade also. I have dreamed about this. Right. Which is nice, you know? Yeah. You like that companion fare. That's good.

I like the show that the Americans make of, we're destroying the Red October. They go to the trouble of taking a Seahawk helicopter up off the deck of the frigate, going out to like halfway between the frigate and the red October and dropping a torpedo into the water so that the, I guess the sailors in the, in the rescue rafts can see it happening. It seems like the most expensive way to

accomplish this goal. Like they could have rolled the torpedo over the side, I think. Do frigates not have torpedo tubes? Is that like... I don't know. I don't know anything about boats. I think if you have access to the Navy support for this film, the way this production did, I think you want to use all the toys, right?

This production had access to the entire Navy, I'm pretty sure. had access to the entire Navy, I'm pretty sure. I really love that this film was like, this film will do for Submariners what Top Gun did for Naval Aviators. Yeah, like they really believed that. They set up recruiting tables in the theaters when this film came out. You know what really helped the Naval aviator cause of Top Gun is that Tom Cruise fucks.

Ha ha ha. There is no sexual component to Hunt for Red October at all. You mean, if I sign up, I can hang out with Jonesy and Seaman Beaumont? I mean, I guess there was that scene when they evacuate the crew to the Red October and then they set up the volleyball net on the deck there. That's the most jackable I've ever seen, a bunch of Russian sailors. I mean, the water may be cold, but that game is super hot. And so like this torpedo being in the water, Ramias says to the doctor like, hey, I'm going

to take all of the department heads from the boat, we're going to get into the con and we're going to scuttle the ship. And Tim Curry is like, you're a fucking baller. I, I just admire you so much. All right. Uh, I'll, I will not be joining you. And, uh, it gets in the rafts with the guys.

Ramius is like, you weren't, you weren't invited anyway, we're locking the door behind you. Like we did in the mess hall. The fuck out of here. Tell everybody in Moscow how great I am, but, uh, goodbye. He's like, uh, he's the guy who can't come to the party, but was never invited to begin with.

Oh, I'm sorry. I can't make it. Yeah, that's a shame dude. We'll definitely miss you. Kind of failed to mention Chekhov's rescue sub that was revealed at the beginning of the film. This is one of the things that principal Rooney is, is working on in his early retirement is a generic docking collar for a tiny rescue

submarine that can mate with any, any submarine and would enable like people to get off that submarine underwater. It totally is like sub non-binary. It, uh, it can attach itself to any flavor of sub or all subs at the same time. It's, it's in the sub lifestyle, Ben. Yeah. And it, uh, has in the sub lifestyle, Ben. Yeah.

And, uh, it has a flared base for safety. Sure. And, uh, yeah, the, like the brass of the Dallas and Alec Baldwin pile into this thing and they, uh, they putter over to the red October and, uh, I love that they like knock on the door with a ball peen hammer. Yeah, that's great. The leap of faith of the Russian guy who goes and opens up the hatch when he is on a submerged

submarine. Got to just hope that these Americans know what they're doing with this generic docking collar. But just in case we don't know what we're doing with this collar, better bring a hammer. So he opens the door and they all go down and there's this kind of, it's almost like a Western, the way they have this standoff. And I think it's intentional because Ramias has been concerned about running into a buckaroo the entire time. And Bart Mancuso has put a sidearm in like a

holster on his waist. So- If you're gonna have, if you're gonna cast for someone vaguely gunfighter-ish, Scott Glenn's a great choice. Yeah, he does have a little bit of a gunfighter-y vibe in him. He has those great glasses of his era, like the giant bifocal glasses. There's something, like all of the glasses in this movie are made out of real glass. Yeah. Which like don't exist anymore. Like no, I've never seen, I've not in 20 years seen glasses for sale that aren't just plastic lenses in plastic frames.

And all of these guys have metal frame glasses with real glass lenses in them. And they're beautiful to look at. Yeah, they really are. Yeah. I mean, Scott Glenn has the glasses of someone that drives a windowless van. I mean, let's be clear about that. Like that's another aspect to his choice in frames. Yeah, he's like-

I mean, I think he's red for Dahmer. I'm almost positive he has. So, the tension breaks as Ramious presents the Red October to the captain of the Dallas Bartman QSO, but they don't get to enjoy this moment of peaceful camaraderie between American and Russian for long because the sound of a torpedo whizzing by kind of breaks the silence. Torpedo! The Americans are shooting at us again. Pitch is too high. The torpedo's Russian. That's a fun sound. I feel like they spent a lot of time on the sound effects for this film, and they were rewarded for it. Like the only Academy Awards that this film received were for sound design and effects. That's fucking bullshit.

If you had to nominate one actor or supporting actor for that sort of recognition, I think it's probably Fred Thompson, right? Yeah. Great. Best supporting role. Yeah. You can, I think you can make a strong, serious

case for Courtney B. Vance. Yeah. James Earl Jones, I think every time he's in anything should get it. But I think oddly enough, like, fuck man, I don't think I nominate Baldwin for this and I don't think I nominate Connery. Like I think all of my nominations would be supporting roles. This didn't get nominated for best picture this year, but The Godfather Part 3 did. Oh, no. Yeah.

Was that like an ironic nomination? I guess we'll nominate The Godfather Part 3 or whatever. That's really the Bartman Quso name of Oscar nominations right there. Oh, man. You're not gonna let me do this, right? Kevin Costner won director over Scorsese for Goodfellas. Maybe this was just an off year for the awards. I don't think.

Is he because of Wolves? Yeah, Dances with Wolves. I get that. Have you watched Dances with Wolves lately? I haven't watched it in a long time. It only medium holds up. Like, I feel like this argument is not original to me, but I feel like a certain amount of weight to best pictures should be given towards what's the movie that you're going to watch 10 years from now and still be blown away by.

Right. I think that's hard to tell at the time though. Like, I think we all thought that that's Right. I think that's hard to tell at the time though. Like, I think we all thought that that's what American beauty was and it just seems impossibly dated and shitty now. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Well, anyways, this sets up some fun stuff because the kind of patchwork of officers that are, are here on the, on the ship now need to assemble a fighting force to pilot the Red October and figure out a way to evade Tupulov long enough for either the Americans to kill him or them to figure out a way to kill Tupulov. And that means we've got Jonesy on sonar. We've got Alec Baldwin at the helm, which he is totally, he doesn't know what any of the switches and knobs do. I'm not a naval officer, I'm with the CIA. CIA.

And we have Bart Mancuso and Captain Ramias kind of co-captaining and Mancuso really disagrees with the strategy that Ramias is employing of closing the gap between the Red October and Tupelov's Alpha. Stay right. Three, one, five. Wait a minute, that's had an end to Torpedo. I love different roles for different people, like, and the immediacy of having to just sit down in a chair once the music stops. Like they need to take positions and in an attempt to save their own lives here. And it does not matter if it is not their ship. Yeah. I thought this is a really fun idea. It's a fun idea. And like this movie starts with the tension so high and this

scene is so great at taking it higher and higher and higher. Like we're intercutting between the frigate, the Dallas, the Red October, Tupolev's boat, the sailors on the surface. And it's doctor exposition on the surface, you know, yelling like they're fighting the, they're fighting the Americans. And like, then the cook comes out and starts shooting into the, into the con. And he's clearly been like a, a Russian KGB guy or something. I mean, this is, uh, a Russian KGB guy or something. I mean, this is, uh, this is some real under siege shit.

Yeah. Like no one suspects the cook. No one suspects the cook. And, uh, so Ramias and Baldwin have to run into the missile room to, to kill that guy. And shit is tense. Like the Dallas can't shoot at Tupeloves boat because that would be an act of war. What they can do is like, is like swoop in and try and distract the torpedoes a little bit because Tupolev has taken all of the safety

rigging out of his torpedoes and it's just firing, firing shots that are dangerous, even to himself. Tupolev is smoking his cigarette like an unhinged man. Like, like I feel like that's the direction you're giving Skarsgard here is like, I know you may or may not be a smoker, but really, really take some heavy twitchy drags off of this thing as you're commanding this boat. Yeah. And uh, like Sam Neill gets killed, expresses

one dying wish to have seen Montana. Ramious takes a bullet in the shoulder. Alec Baldwin is like crawling around on the catwalks in the missile room, like doing his best Connery impression, which is a lot of fun. Some things in here don't react well to bullets. Like this scene, maybe most of all, made me think about what it would have been like if

Harrison Ford had been in this role. Like I don't think he can do his best Fred Thompson impression and his best Sean Connery impression. Like Alec Baldwin is funny as Jack Ryan. Yeah, he is. Yeah, and that's one thing you can say about the Ford, Ryan, is that he's not. No, he's just like earnest and he's a boy scout. Yeah. That final showdown with the cook where the cook has like, he's essentially going to hotwire, like he's stealing a car, he's trying to hot wire the nuclear bombs to go off and just vaporize the entire boat. And, uh, he's like got the two wires and he's like slowly bringing them together when Alec Baldwin just like wastes him.

How are you only two wires away from doing this? That seems impossible. It shouldn't be a hot wire situation. Every movie with nuclear bombs gets to make up all of the, like, security features on nuclear bombs. I think the dirty little secret of nuclear bombs is that the security is garbage and that they probably are hot wireable. Ramius admonishes Jack Ryan about, about being careful with his gunfire in this room.

Why doesn't the chef just shoot one of the missiles? If that's how easy it's going to be to light one of these things off, why fuck around with the wires? Well, maybe he doesn't want to shoot a missile and then get killed by radiation before he can actually destroy the ship or something. I don't know. He's a crazy person. Why do I have to headcanon this stuff? I, I just did.

I'm not asking you to do anything. We make plans and then we take dumps. We make plans and then we take dumps. So the Dallas comes in, they convince Tupelov's torpedo to follow them instead of the Red October. And then they go for what's called an emergency blow, which was my nickname in college incidentally. But they, like, this is like one of the most exciting scenes in the movie because they actually shot a fucking huge nuclear sub,

just like a cork popping out of the water. Emergency blow really was a last ditch effort to stop from being bullied, right, Ben? Yeah, exactly. to stop from being bullied, right, Ben? Yeah, exactly. Uh, and, uh, and they, uh, like, they like get the torpedo turned around and it, it winds up homing in on Tupolev's boat and, uh, it, it

explode underwater and, uh, the sailors, the Russian sailors and their life rafts on the surface can make no conclusion, but that the Red October was destroyed, which is perfect cover because the Americans get to keep it. They get to keep it and sail it to the East coast. Yeah. There's like one last scene with the Russian ambassador. He's like, well, thank you for helping us destroy the Red October. By the way, not a super psych to have to bring this up right now, but another one of our submarines is also missing.

Andre, you've lost another submarine? Of course, they're speaking of Tupolev's boat. Yeah. And, uh, and then we cut to like at night in a river inlet in Maine, where, at night in a river inlet in Maine where, uh, up on the con tower, Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery are kind of, kind of talking about, uh, what this all meant and how, uh, Connery wants to retire and get back to a simple life with the quiet life with Rambo. This, and this like, this definitely is like the worst effect in the movie, by the way.

Yeah. There's some rim light happening around Baldwin's face that is not working. It's also, um, like, I think that they, what they were trying to do is make it that his hair wasn't totally obscuring the background, but the way they did the mat, his hair is like half, Baldwin specifically, his hair is half opaque and half not. So you can just see the horizon right through it. It's weird. It's really weird.

It does not hold up to scrutiny. And if you were to tell me that in this film, that it would be Alec Baldwin's hair and not Sean Connery's hair piece that didn't hold up to scrutiny, that it would be Alec Baldwin's, I would have taken that bet. I noticed in the credits of this movie, a credit river sequence by the Chandler Group. a credit river sequence by the Chandler Group. So, uh. The Chandler Group subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992.

Yeah. The other problem with this scene is that the camera is racking focus back and forth between Connery and Baldwin, but the background stays tack sharp. Yeah, that is a huge problem. It's just a dead giveaway that it's, you know, two different pieces of footage.

And I don't understand why it is so hard for effects houses to remember to put a blur on the background when they're doing comps like this. I see it all the fucking time. And it's such a shame for such a great movie to have the kind of, I mean, this isn't the last image in the movie, but the image that you're left with be this bad in effect. Yeah, it's unfortunate. be this bad in effect. Yeah, it's unfortunate.

The last image obviously is Jack Ryan having no problem catching 40 winks despite being on a commercial jet back to London. I guess he, he bought a first-class airplane ticket for his bear. Maybe, I mean, sometimes the airline will make you buy a second ticket if they think you're, you know, carrying on something that exceeds the, I had to do that flying from like, I think I was flying from Dubai to Kano, Nigeria, maybe. And like the airline thought that my carry on was too heavy and I had to buy an entire second ticket. It was just total extortion. It was like, I can't not go because it's for work. I guess I will buy this entire second ticket.

They got you. Yeah. Fucking bullshit, man. Wouldn't you have ended this movie on the conning tower of the red October, especially because of how insignificant, uh, Jack Ryan's family is to this film at all. But they did so much setup about how he hates turbulence where the sun's warmth heats up the earth's crust, warm, warm air rises, cold air falls. I don't care. I don't care about any of that. warm air rises, cold air falls. I don't care.

I don't care about any of that. I didn't think that was interesting enough to keep. I, yeah, like in a, in a world, especially in like this era of Hollywood where everything is cut for time. Yeah. Why was that stuff still in there? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know either, but it's- In the television version of this film, as soon as a single frame of Alec Baldwin on the airplane next to the bear comes on screen, they do that thing- They squish it over to the side and start running. They squish it and then they fast play the credits. Yeah, promos for the next show that's coming on. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So you don't get that satisfaction, Vin, of the conclusion to the film. without a plan, without a plan, we shall never dump without a plan. Speaking of relative feelings of satisfaction, did you like this movie? I fucking love this movie. It's one of my faves of all time.

I found myself really pining to see a 35 millimeter print of this film as I was watching it. I think it's beautiful. It's not, it's like the cinematography is not that flashy, but it is gorgeous. It's shot on like beautiful anamorphic lenses and all of the sets are like totally amazing. Like the Dallas and the Red Octobers control rooms are fucking amazing and great looking and I think it's a terrific movie. It's just so much fun. It's like, it's exactly what you want from a thriller, you know? Like, if it's the movie version of a novel that you buy at the airport and read all of on a flight from LA to New York, like job accomplished.

How often do you return to this film? This is a film I have owned in every like video format that I've ever collected films in. I owned it on VHS, I owned it on DVD, and now I have it on like digital HD. I watch it at least a couple of times a year. Wow. How about that? I watched the Blu-ray version of this film and then read some Blu-ray reviews of it. And I'm with you on how good it looks. But a lot of people who are, who are

Blu-ray enthusiasts did not enjoy the transfer because John McTiernan uses a lot of grain in his films. Yeah, it's, it's a grainy film and, uh. And that's more of a style choice than it is a transfer choice. Yeah. I wonder, I mean, like, I kind of don't know as much about how 4k works as I do about HD.

But like if they, if they can and do ever tell us in a this to like 4k HDR, I feel like that problem maybe goes away a little bit because I think the problem is that it's like, you know, it's a digital file. So it's like, it's essentially making a JPEG every, for every frame or, or something similar. And that artifacting is totally confounded by

film grain. And if you, if you like take the next step up in terms of like file size and resolution. I feel like a lot of that artifact thing goes away and it, the grain appears to be what it is. Yeah. I like that about it. Like, it's another unique thing about the film that, that places it in its time. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really hope that they do, at point make a, a really high quality 4k transfer of this, because I think it deserves it. I really like the movie too.

And I hadn't seen it in a long time. I will say though, that, uh, for popcorn submarine movies, Crimson Tide is my movie. But I really, I mean, there's plenty to appreciate about Hunt for Red October. Notably, the casting of this film is fantastic and just the satisfaction of watching something in the greater Jack Ryan universe is super enjoyable to me. It's a fun time capsule in terms of a submarine film and in what Alec Baldwin used to look like. So I'm glad I had an excuse to watch it again.

I'm glad you did too, Adam. I guess that leads me to a question though. Hey, Adam. What's that Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I certainly did Ben. There is a moment in the film fairly early on as the Red October is shoving off and, uh, and Ramious is, uh, is sharing his mission orders.

He's sharing his orders with the crew and we get to do some cutarounds of the crew listening to these orders. Ramias talks about putting into port in Cuba and all the beautiful Cuban women there. And we cut to the mess hall where in the mess hall, one of the guys in the mess hall stands up

and pantomimes an hourglass figure. He's like the, he's like the virgin pretending that he's had sex before. He's like, this is what a woman is shaped like and does the thing before sitting down. A bag of sand. That guy, that guy was ridiculous. That guy was very Shimoda in that moment. They, they took that a few times and McCureden kept going, just like, no, bigger, have fun with it.

Bigger, bigger. You can not be too big for this. Yeah. Yeah. That guy is my Shimoda. What about you, Ben? Boy, uh, I had, I wrote a few options down. Did you write down Hourglass Figure Guy at any point? Uh, Hourglass Figure Guy, I didn't write down,

but definitely considered writing him down. Another guy I wrote down, but I'm not going to give my Shimoda to is the captain of the rescue sub, who like yells down the portal like, Hey, I think somebody is shooting at us out here. Yeah, that guy was great. That guy was fucking great. And also he had a great take when he was

told to uncouple his rescue sub. He's like, well, where do I, where am I supposed to go? Yeah. Like that guy like didn't have a lot to do and did everything with it. He's got the only sub with windows. I would have loved a cutaway to his perspective of the torpedoes going in the water.

Like one whizzing by him. Yeah. It would have been great. Um, but to me, like the character that is having the most fun in this movie, or I guess the actor that is having the most fun in this movie is definitely Tim Curry. Like Tim Curry as Dr. Petrov is completely terrified in every scene

and so willing to let like other people dictate his reality. Like when, when Ramius lies to him and says like, we're going to get like me and all these other guys who aren't really necessary for the project are going gonna go down into this irradiated submarine and scuttle the ship. It's like the relief that washes over Dr. Petrov in that moment is so hilarious to me. Like, like he does, like I'm not gonna question that at all. Like thank fuck, it's not me.

And I'm glad that you've given me not a plausible reality, but a reality to live in. Tim Curry always looks like he's about to cry and that is, he is well suited to this moment. He's fucking great. So for that reason, Tim Curry is my drunk Shimoda. Good call, Ben. Well, that's the end of another exciting, special donor bonus episode of The Greatest Generation. I'm a little sad to see it go because the two

submarine movies that we do the most material about are now in the canon. Yeah, it's true. But we couldn't have done it without your support and we do as ever appreciate it very much. I think as we watch and enjoy more submarine films, I think you could possibly make the case for those going into our donor feed. But I think that's one of the fun things about the donor feed is that it's sort of an experimental sandbox for us feed, but I think that's one of the fun things about the donor feed is that it's sort of an experimental sandbox for us, uh, to make weird quasi canonical

greatest gen shows for you to listen to. Yeah. And, uh, you know, like I've been thinking like deep space nine feels less like a sub than the, uh, the enterprise. So it's more of a rescue sub. Is there a rescue sub movie we could start doing bits about? Do you think, I feel like I could have used

20 minutes more movie here. Cause I wanted to see what happened to Ramious. I wanted to see what happened to the sub. I don't want to know what happens with, with Ryan and his, uh, and his teddy bear. I want to see the end game. Or if there was like a hot sex, like Baldwin McFadden sex scene? That would have been great. I would have loved to have seen that. Show me all of that.

Just like a totally gratuitous congratulations sex scene at the end of the movie. Congrats sex is some of the best sex. Yeah. I mean, I've never experienced it, but I've seen it in movies a couple of times. Now. No one's ever been happy for me, so that's why. Yeah, same. Plenty of people have been happy for you, Ben, but they've all had headaches. That's one of the many ways we are different. Well if you'd like to discuss this episode, you can use the hashtag greatestgen on Twitter where Adam is there is at cut for time.

I'm there at Benjamin R. A-H-R. We've also got a subreddit. Use the hashtag H-F-R-O for if you're talking there at Benjamin R. E-H-R. We've also got a subreddit. Use the hashtag HFRO for if you're talking about the special episode about how to redact a donor. You know, hashtag one ping only I'm sure would be appreciated. Get weird. Yeah, I think that, you know, like I think these bonus episodes, if they are worth something to you and the show is worth something to you since you are here

as a donor. I think it helps us a lot when people say how much they like the donor bonus episodes specifically because that's an encouragement for people who haven't taken the leap yet. So, you know, no obligation here. You've already done more than enough and we really appreciate it. But if you are moved to post about it and let us know what you thought of this episode, I'm sure it would help other people make the leap as well. And hey, a great big thanks to our buddy, Adam the Goose Ragusea, who made the original theme song for this one episode super special edition of the show. We'd also like to thank the Dump Without a Plan singers,

Mercer University music students, Clay Young, Peter Schultz, Joel Turning, and Cameron Rawling. What a treat to have a song like this made for this special app. And we're gonna let you listen to the whole thing as we roll out on this episode. And with that, we'll be back at you next time in the donor feed with a special movie of our choice to be determined and another great episode of The Greatest Generation about that very thing. Eventually there's gonna be that Star Trek V episode that we do with the...

with the Flophouse, the big crossover app. Yeah, maybe that'll be next! So we'll see you then! We make plans and then we take dumps We make plans and then we take dumps Watch his plan

His plan? His plan Russians don't take a dump, son Without a plan Dump without a plan Dump without a plan The average Ruski, son Don't take a dump without a plan

Dump without a plan Dump without a plan Russians don't take a dump, son Without a plan Dump without a plan Dump without a plan Dump without a plan These doors, what are these doors? Those doors sir, are the problem

What are these doors? Doors, engage the silent drive Open that door We take dogs, but first we make plans We take dogs, but first we make plans, we take dogs Friends, first we make plans You've got the best dancing on my boat You're both my boat

This vessel belongs to the people of the Soviet Union We make dogs, but always have a plan When we dog, it's always with a plan My wife said, wait a minute, where did this man learn to cook? Afghanistan? No! Sick burn, bro, sick burn! If you ever think we're talking

Without a plan, then think again Come, come, come, come to my crazy island Don't jump without a plan, and think again Jump, jump, jump, range to target. Oh, how many pings do you want? One ping. How many pings do you want? One ping. One ping. One. Two pings. One.

Three pings on four. One ping. One ping. Two pings. Are you sure? Are you really, really sure Give me a ping, Vasily. One ping, aye, Captain.

Without a plan He don't ever talk without a plan Without a plan What's the game where you play the music and then you have to sit down in a chair? Musical chairs? Please do not leave that in. Oh, am I editing this?