The Rewatchables - ‘Aliens’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

Bill, Chris, and Sean wake up from a 57-year sleep to revisit James Cameron’s 1986 action thriller, ‘Aliens,’ starring Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton, and Michael Biehn. Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Matt Pevic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where you can find the big picture with Sean Fennacy. Yes, sir. You can find the watch. Fogne. Farr himself, Chris Ryan. Wow. Game over, man.

You could find Craig Horlebeck. We finally fixed this camera. Hey, not in the bugger anymore. Bringer Fancy Football Show. Yeah, we figured out how to not make Craig look like he's filming a hostage video. So that's good. And it is the 48th. anniversary, the summer

of one of the most requested rewatchables in the history of the rewatchables. Aliens. A movie CR side-eyed me on many times. Just wondering when it was going to happen. Threatened to quit over. I said, I would definitely quit if he did it without me and I would quit

if there were certain films that came before it, but then we blew past that with the summer of 26. Well, now it's the summer of CR. It's the year of CR. And aliens is next. This episode of The Rwatchables is presented by the movie Mutiny, only in theaters, August 21st. Our guy, Jason Statham, stars in Mutiny, the new action thriller from the director of Plain.

I like that movie. When an international conspiracy turns deadly, that always happens. Statham goes off the grid on a one-man mission. I love one-man missions to take down those responsible. And if you're a fan of the beekeeper, the bag, or the expendable. Guilty. This is exactly the kind of movie you want to see,

Stathamon. You've sold me. One of the defining action stars of the last 25 years doing what he does best. I agree with that. Think die hard on a boat. That sounds great.

Mutiny, only in theaters, August 21st, rated R for strong, bloody violence and language. There you go. Producer Walter Hill,

very fond of his work. One of your guys. Yeah. Right there. He said, James Cameron said, if alien could be compared to a haunted attraction, aliens should be like a roller coaster. That was the premise.

It's also the structure of the film. It's like literally like how it feels watching that movie where that whole first hour, it's an hour until you see an alien. And it's going up, it's going up, it's going up, it's going up, getting to know the guys, sitting next to him. Okay, Apone, okay, Drake, Frost, whoever. And then when it goes down, it goes down hard.

And it then does a loop-de-loop. And you get like one minute of like, okay, it's chill, it's chill, it's chill. And then it goes down again. And it's- People are throwing up. Yeah, it's relentless. People are passing out. And that's just Roger Ebert.

Yeah. Weirdest review, I think, that I've ever read in 452 rewatchable. It sounds like he was legitimately traumatized by the movie. It really did. Yeah. He was like, that was amazing. I never want to see it again. Think about it.

Do you remember having that reaction? Do you see it in theaters? I saw it on a date, which is weird. On a date, really? Did she express an interest in xenomorphs going into it? It was summer. It was the movie to go see. Everybody was talking about it. And yeah, weird date movie.

Not a lot happened after. You didn't get to second base. No. You know, ironically, it's a jump off at the front door. It is a movie about procreation and motherhood. I know. You'd think maybe she would have to have. some ideas about what could happen afterwards.

Some over the shirt stuff, maybe, yeah. I do remember, I do remember where I saw it. I remember everything about it. And I remember just not being able to understand how they made a movie like this. This was like, I think we, and we talked about this with other ones from the 80s, like the Terminator ahead of their time,

but still fell very 80s. This is like, there's no, like, I wrote down movies they made in 86, like this is Star Trek 4. Top Gun. Cobra, Hoosiers, Back to the Future was out the year before, but it still felt like we were in the 80s.

This went into like the 2000s. And I still don't understand how they made it. It still looks good. Looks incredible. Do you like the 4K transfer? Do you like when it's grainyer with the old way they had it? I think he overcorrects Cameron with a lot of the upgrades that he does. And I guess he's been upscaling the stuff to make it look a little bit too clean

and too polished. But there clearly are some scenes where like they're using rear screen or blue screen behind. And that stuff looks better. Like when you saw when I watched that stuff on VHS when I was a kid, it looked fake. Yeah, the drop ship crashing looks like Jason and Argonaut. So that stuff looks better. But then there'll be stuff where you're watching just an individual scene of two people talking. And you're like, this looks too polished and shiny somehow.

Right. Generally speaking, like the fucking sets and tech and creatures. that they built for this movie, all of which are hand-built. We had this conversation about speed. It's the same thing. Eight years earlier, it looks amazing.

It looks so real and lived in and wet and gross. And well thought out. Yeah, it's just... Like immaculate detail everywhere. I watched it on a streamer the first time, not Netflix, although it is on Netflix in September. And then I watched the 4K the second time,

and it was just so many things. The set was really what jumped out and just the detail. It's nice about the 4K. and what's nice about watching it on like a really good a really good physical media copy is that I think the sound is almost as important as the visuals in this one

and the different effects like just the fact that like the aliens now have like an attacking scream or you know like their their banshee call when they're like attacking people is so piercing if you really tweak it up a little bit and like get it and the little girl scream too yeah very good screamer that little girl

yeah Yeah, her one and only screen performance. And yeah, and the same for the James Horner score, which is like where he creates this kind of sonic signature that means every time you hear that sound, you know an alien is striking or coming, and that also pops really well. That he made in 12 hours?

Yeah. It's an insane story. James Horner, I felt like we just had him in another movie. Well, he's a big 80s guy for us. I mean, isn't he 48 hours or is that Jerry Goldsmith? I think James Horner did 48 hours. Like he did a bunch and I think he did Terminator? No, that's Brian Fidel.

We just did one where he was one of the people. Anyway, 10 best sequels ever. Yes. Did you make the list? I did. Did you make the list? I have a list. I don't know if it's the complete list, but I want to hear what you think.

Godfather 2. Terminator 2. Dark Night. Aliens. Empire. Wick 2. Not a Wick 2 guy. No, I'm not a Wick three guy.

My bad. Like two. Lethal weapon, too. I'm not a Lord of the Rings guy, but everybody says Twin Towers is incredible. Two towers. Two towers. Two towers. And Twin Towers. Two Towers.

That's an Oliver Stone film. Different films. Classic me, by the way. I'm not a Lord of the Ring guy, but everybody says Twin Towers is amazing before sunset. Uh-huh. And then the 10th spot, I have either bad news bears and breaking training or taboo too. I don't know. Taboo too.

Taboo too. Considered one of the classic 80s. I have a couple of additions. The way I thought about it was best immediate sequel, which means it's the movie that comes immediately after the original. Okay, so not... So there's some urgency with the sequel. Right.

And so, but specifically I said that because I wanted to say from Russia with Love, the second Bond movie, which I think is maybe the best bond movie. That's a good point. Nobody thinks of that as a sequel, but it's a sequel. I think that's the best one of that. era. Who was the girl on that one? Robert Shaw is the villain. A blonde lady.

Robert Shaw. Hey Bond, you fucking pussy. Daniela Bianchi? Yes, yes. They had the lady with the toe knife. That's right. That's right. Did you say Empire Strikes Back? Yeah. Bride of Frankenstein,

which is an early one, but one I would include. You didn't say Toy Story 2, but I think most people would say Toy Story 2. One of the great sequels of all time. I didn't say Rocky 2 either which has the greatest last 35 minutes but then you're plotting through the first hour and a half and it's a little tricky with comic book stuff

but both Dark Night and Batman returns are both great sequels that are immediate follow-ups to the previous story What's your favorite sequel of all times? The only one that didn't get mentioned is Friday the 13th part two which I wouldn't say is like a cinematic masterpiece. Better than the original I think.

Better than the original. Best looking girl of all the girls in the Friday 13th. Amy Steele, right? Yeah, but I like to turn that one. I'd probably say, I mean, like, it's not, it's not complicated. It's Godfather part two. It's, yeah, it's kind of a number one draft pick there.

Because we assassinated you a couple of weeks ago in Lake Tahoe. I wanted to, I wanted to talk to you guys. Have you revisited the film since we had that discussion? No, I haven't. I was saving it for my next link trip. I thought it would be meta if I was watching that when Craig put a board. Were you nervous at all during the trip? No, not at all.

Not at all. Look at what my guy Craig did for me. You know? That's true. He killed me. be assassinated. Craig, where are you here? That wasn't me.

Okay. I guess most of those sequels that we talked about did what most sequels do which is that they take the premise of the movie and they just like repeat the story and amp it up a little bit.

This is the rare case where it's a different kind of movie. Yeah. Like it's a different genre of movie basically than the original. I was basically what Terminator 2 did too. True.

It took it and improved it. The things that Alien does so well is that when it starts, and especially I can only imagine what it was like to see it whined, like the first time when it came out, it's not abundantly clear that Sigourney Weaver is the hero and star of that film when you're watching it. So they kind of give Cameron a little bit of runway there, but he takes this franchise essentially now

and makes it Ellen Ripley's story, you know, and fleshes out that character, gives her motivation to go back to this planet, gives her all this baggage that she doesn't have. And the first one, she's just one of six or seven people working on a mining ship. So it's just a huge,

aside from the genre shift, it's pushing all your chips in on this one character, which the series itself, the franchise itself, has flitted back and forth between, is this Ellen Ripley's story? Is this a story about an alien species? Is this about a mega corporation that wants to use that species as a bio weapon?

But Cameron was like, I know how to make people care about characters, and you need someone at the center of this movie that people are going to want to watch. How many sequels were actually better than the original film, which was also fairly iconic? I only thought of five. Wick 2, Weapon 2, Dark Night, Godfather 2, and aliens, babies on both. because you could argue alien is as good as aliens just because it was original.

I think we should hash that out at the end, which we think is the superior film because there's an interesting case for both movies. You know, I tend to gravitate more toward originality. But this movie on its own would have been awesome, and I don't even know if it necessarily... I mean, obviously she has the baggage, but I also think it completely stands alone.

Whereas, like, Rocky 2, you need to see the first one and go through all the steps. Like, normal sequels, you need the back. of the first movie. Yeah. This to me is like an absolute testimony to craft. Yeah. Everything, all the component parts of making a movie are at such a high level.

Yeah. It's not a very original movie at all. In fact, it's not just the sequel to Alien, but it's so clearly just like a Pacific Theater World War II movie. Yeah. Like that's, it's using a very clear archetype from movies that were made 40 years before that and kind of just mapping it onto this sci-fi story. But that's an ingenious idea.

And like that idea deserves a ton of credit. But there's not, when you look at each individual character aside from Ripley, there are characters you've seen before in movies. The structure of the movie is somewhat similar. It's just there's an invention around the creature and there's an invention around the way of making this movie because Cameron is probably the single most important genre movie maker of the last 50 years, considering George Lucas hasn't really made very many movies. I think you could credibly call him that. definitely for all my issues of them I would definitely give you that you mean all your issues

the fucks he are 15 years making cartoons he spent like he's been directing avatar movies flew too close to the sun what do you do well I mean like he abandoned iconic movies like I don't think he knew what to do with his life after the clearly it was like

avatar movies have made like eight billion dollars collectively he's obviously like right to do it like financially and and lots of people like pointing that he never just made a normal movie after, I don't know, the mid-90s. But you could say he was not making normal movies when he made, like, Titanic or True Lies. Like, he was always pushing him. I mean, true lies to me is like a normal, like Cameron movie, but just like, just make a movie where you're just directing some actors and you have some set pieces.

I feel pretty confident. I would actually put money on him making a movie, his next movie being a movie that's more in the real world. I don't think he's going to make another avatar style film next. You like those Avatar movies? I don't. I do. I don't. Craig, when did you see the Alien and Aliens? I've seen Alien many times, one of my favorite movies all time.

I had not seen aliens. I had been waiting to do the rewatchable. Oh, man. This is awesome. Are you a sequels guy? Sure, yeah. I mean, I liked all those movies that you guys listed out. I was happy we mentioned Dark Night.

Yeah. I mean, if it's done well, sure. There's been a lot of bad sequels, too. We didn't make that list. That's the problem with sequels, is they feel like money grabs or they're just basically repeating the structure of the first movie. A lot of the third movies are just like really, really, really tough scenes. I mean, you could argue in this movie they do repeat the structure of the second half of the movie in all these different ways.

There are the same beats, right? They put Bishop in the tunnel. Like, they hit a lot of the same. It's just left with her and somebody. It's the cat in the first movie. It's a little girl in the second movie. There's a countdown. down.

James Cameron? You call him Jim or James? Jim. Big Jim. Big Jim. Big Jim? Yeah. I don't even know if he's that big. Was hired to write a story for aliens in 83 because he had written scripts for the Terminator and Rambo First Blood Part 2. My kind of guy. Does the Terminator in 84, rips off Terminator, aliens, the Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lives, and Titanic. The Abyss is the worst movie of those six and still was a massive success.

and has a lot of a piss fans. Yeah. I think I might like it more than that. Big swing. No, I'm saying the worst of those six, it's a pretty high floor. Sure. When that's the worst one,

he had no stinkers. And I would argue if he just made Terminator, aliens, Terminator 2, and Titanic, and just made those four movies, that's as good of a four as anyone's ever made. He's in the Hall of Fame. We've been talking a lot about who you can compare Chris Nolan to after The Odyssey and the people who are taking on,

like these huge big tent pole things. And I kept saying Cecil B. DeMille's name. There's a very short list of people who are like, what I do is I'm the biggest filmmaker at the biggest time in movie history, and I'm pushing the medium forward on the biggest stage. And Cameron was that guy for 25 years. I mean, for a really long period of time,

he was the single most grand stage filmmaker that we had. When you guys guest hosted by pod, you were talking about non-term. being the guy that pushes things ahead. Which is not something you necessarily thought he was going to do

at the beginning of his career. Right. So Cameron was the original guy and then basically passed the torch to him. Was there anybody in between? Of somebody who's just... Peter Jackson.

Half a decade ahead of wherever one else was. Oh, Peter Jackson. That's definitely right. And similarly, I think, evolved like the craft of movies and the way that, like, CGI looked and worked in those films. And maybe got a little lost in his toys.

Yeah. And also made movies that people thought never would be made. Right. You know, the same way when you saw Titanic, you're like, I didn't think anyone could ever pull this off. I wonder what the next iteration of that is. I don't know.

I mean, the thing about... Just people punching you in the face as you watch the movie. Jackson, Nolan, Cameron Spielberg, is that for as much as they put a dinosaur on screen or put, you know, the Lord of the Rings on screen or put, you know, an atomic weapon goes off on screen, they all have chops. you know, like they all, to varying degrees, know, like, how someone is supposed to move across

a frame of film and how action sequences are cut and how action sequences need to build up and then release. And there's just, like, genuine filmmaking chops that go back to John Ford with those guys. Yeah. And a lot of action directors, I think modern action directors, don't understand that stuff. Like, the most fascinating interviews I read about Cameron or with Cameron. or when he's talking about editing action sequences by far, because he's doing things that I think are on, like,

kind of an almost other level than anyone I've ever read when he's talking about how he, like, flops the footage that he's cutting so that he can retrain his eye to not anticipate when cuts are coming. I mean, it's just, like, that's savant stuff. I mean, like, to think about how the audience is going to respond to, like, the tempo and the feeling of, like, your editing of an action sequence.

is remarkable. There's something cool with him, too, where he has the same background as all the new Hollywood guys that we revere, like, Scorsese and De Palma, where, like, he got started with Roger Corman. He worked in special effects and production design on movies

like Galaxy of Terror and Battle Beyond the Stars. And so he was, like, a hands-on builder of movies before he was a movie director. Did he work on a escape from New York? He did work on a escape from New York. And... Solid movie.

So he knows... how every piece of the puzzle works. He understands how everything fits together and that's... Kind of like Craig with podcasts. That's true. A host and a producer. He knows how what every department head is doing.

That's right. Yeah. He can do... He can do everyone's job better than they can. And he can nuke of three wood. So I think because he knows how to do all that stuff so well, Peter Jackson is not dissimilar. Like started out with a lot of like very handmade movies.

So there's a reason that these movies that there's so much attention to detail. I feel this way about the Avatar movies. Even if you don't like the Avatar movies, he's doing things right now that I think we're going to look at in 25 years and be like, well, this is the person who invented this and this thing that is much more common.

And there's so many shitty versions of now, the Avatar films were paved the way for this and that might seem like a sin, but it's actually going to be the best example of that kind of work. Also, maybe the only Canadian curmudgeon we've ever had. Are there other Canadian curmudges? If the tariffs keep going this way

we'll probably have some more commudgence. Canadians are like famously good nature but maybe after about 12 beers we're ready to throw down. He is an old school this is not a democracy filmmaker. When it comes to like how he wants to talk about the stuff from the movie.

It sounds like he's pretty collaborative in some ways but. Not with English people. When it comes to, yeah, he does not like You must love that. Tea time. I've never been more down with James Cameron and then doing the research of this.

The crew being like, we should take a tea break in the middle of this movie? This is what we take our tea break? He's like, what? Motherfuckers get to work. The other thing I really love about, especially his early period and kind of harkens back to an earlier era

of a filmmaker, although Scorsese and lots of people are like this, so he has his guys. And his guys are in his movies, and he picked the right guys. That's how I would be. If I was a director, but I would just have,

Like, who's like Michael Bean? Yeah, I want to talk about Michael Bean. Just like I'm throwing, oh, James Remar flamed out, I'll get my guy Bean. Yeah, yeah. Here he is. You do have your guys. You got Sal, you got House. You got Jacko.

You got your team. You got CR. What about you? Chris got me. Yeah. Craig? Christopher Guest is like that too. He's like, I love Fred Willard.

Every movie I make, he's going to be in it. True. And he was never wrong to do so. Bomb back with Eric Stoltz. I know. He should bring him back. A bunch of his guys. No doubt.

Yeah. But yeah, I like, who are Tarantino's guys? Sam Jackson. Who delivers? Well, Sam Jackson's too pricey down for him. No. He's more like... Tim Roth, Sam Jackson. Tim Roth is a Tarantino. That's a good Tarantino guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Uma Thurman.

Did the two aliens movies change how we regarded outer space? This is a theme I want to throw out you guys because I'm older than you. And when I was growing up as a kid, Outer Space was lost in space, the TV show. It was Star Trek. It was a little scary, but not too much. It's friendly. We were in control of things out there. We landed on the moon. Maybe there's some stuff out there, but I think we're okay. And then right around here, it's like, there's some shit out there, dudes. Well, but right around here, we're also getting ET, right? That was what I was going to say, too. But ET was friendly. He wanted to help us. We're getting close encounters. Like, we just want to

study you guys, not hurt anyone. I know. I think that the alien franchise has this interesting relationship to Spielberg and Spielberg's conception of extraterrestrials. Because E.T. feels a little bit like, it's not a direct response to alien, but it's like a bounce off of the fear that alien stokes in the culture. It's a glass half empty. Yes. E.T. And this movie is kind of like the rejection of the warm, fuzzy alien creature that comes more into the foreign movies like explorers. And there's a bunch of movies that come out in the 80s that are also post-E-T. And, and, either like friendlier alien life movies. Yes.

And this movie is a rejection of that. But this movie, I also think, is so, Jurassic Park owes this movie so, so, so much. Because everything that you see in the Stan Winston creature design and the way that the world is built is, and the way that the chases and the fear works, like I had never really realized how much the kitchen sequence with the Raptors in Jurassic Park owes to the chase.

sequences through the lab and the tunnels in this movie. Like when Burke's traps her with the alien in the medbed. Exactly. And it's the same creature designer. It's Stan Winston who's like a genius of designing these creatures and putting them on screen. And there's this interesting thing where this franchise in particular is like one of the only things in the culture that can kind of go toe to toe with Spielberg over this period of time. And it almost feels like they're in this unspoken like one-upmanship game that I really like. And on the other side you have like Star Trek for.

They're like, beam down there and we'll just shoot the aliens and beam back up. Yeah. We'll call it a dead. I think there's probably also one of the things I think is really influential about this iteration of the alien story is creating a real cynicism about institutions

and about companies and about companies that get too big and companies that exist outside of the law. And that's been something that I think the TV series that just came out on FX, Alien Earth is very focused on is like, why would a company want something like that and bring it back to Earth? What's the hubris? It would take to think that you could control that.

So I think that that also has something to do with Jurassic Park, where it's like these guys who are like, I can master the thing that can't be mastered, you know? Would you compare this to have the fantasy guys did the fantasy draft order for our league this year? You know, honestly, as a shareholder in the fantasy draft? Thoughtless. The hubris. Why were we not asked to participate?

We were going to wrangle 12 people to come in and swing golf clubs? We're doing it on Friday. And you're not coming. I had signed up. Until I knew my fate was going to be relying on D.K. shanking it into the Pacific Ocean. He didn't know it was your ball. It's randomized.

It's just literally random. It's just a fun way to pick out of a hat. Freely admitting he'd never swing a golf club. It's tough. Shameful. What a shameful act. Kelly, it was random. Hit for.

high fits, right? The balls were random. We didn't know which balls we were hitting. We all took four shots each. We had no idea whose ball it was. It's the same sin as last year. When you hit mine, there was a little bit of like Luke Skywalker put the Blasheel down. I felt you in my ear. It's overconfidence in your own ideas.

There was no, there was no vetting with the rest of the crew, how this should work. This is Avatar. Yeah. That's right. It's a Cameron-esque move. It's random. Craig, does your generation fear outer space or like it?

To speak for my entire generation. Yeah, 35 and under. Outer space. To be honest with you? Glass half full or glass half empty? Well, I feel like it wasn't until Elon started talking about going to Mars that it felt relevant to us. I was just going to say that. I was going to say, is it we don't think about you at all with space?

Yeah. Space has not really been a part of my childhood and my experience. Yeah, I feel like American culture just pressed pause on space in general. It felt like the 80s. There was just so much conversation about it. Yeah. What else is out there? Then the movie starts. And you just did Apollo 13, and I feel like in the 90s,

there was this kind of swoon of nostalgia for astronauts. Yeah. And then that is right when it kind of started to trickle off. To me, honestly... Conspiracy culture didn't help. Yeah, that's true. I think we go at all. The fact that all of the, like, mega-rich dudes

are the ones leading whatever space race there is now, it just makes me feel like, I'm either never going to be able to afford to go there or if I do wind up there, I'm going to be mining on Mars. You know, like, I'm going to be working on some, like, some like farm for like... And that's what these movies... Total recalls about the same thing. For sure. You know?

But like... Total recall is really important for this conversation too because that's four years later. It's equally like really cool. Not as detailed as aliens, but a really awesome movie. Yeah. Yeah. But that's like, now we're like, okay, weird shit's out there. This could go really bad. And all that cynicism that Chris is talking about is in that movie too,

where it's sort of like you're just a cog in the machine and there's bigger forces at play that are controlling you. And even if we have created a society where we can get to outer worlds and travel across the universe, it's still the same old shit as it is here on Earth. You know what's interesting, though, with the books and the radio shows from like the 30s, 40s and 50s, there's a lot of outer space stuff and like war of the world. Sure. But I think part of the problem is we just couldn't make movies and TV shows that looked realistic for what we would have thought like going to a plane it would be. So we didn't really have the technology until this movie. Speaking of total recall. ET doesn't go anywhere. It's here.

Cameron had the whole cast read Robert Heinland's Starship Troopers novel, which I think was written in like the early 50s, and then was eventually made into a movie in the 90s, which is a movie that it owes like a huge debt to aliens, and that was written by the same author that wrote Total Recall. You like that movie? Oh, no. Dick did. No, you're right, you're right, Dick.

Yeah, but still. Sorry, same director is totally. Kind of speculative ideas about like, yeah. So it's all there, it's all related. And this movie is just like insanely influential in terms of like what a, sci-fi action movie can be. It's a before-after movie, and there's different genres for that.

Like, even Halloween is a before-after movie. It's like they make Halloween. Horror movies are just different after Halloween. I think the same thing for this. There's one other interesting thing that I never really considered until it was doing all the research for this about this movie that I just,

I wasn't smart enough when I saw it in high school, but there's like a weird Vietnam parallel to this movie. This is very funny, because, like, I was reading about, I was doing my research, and Cameron's pretty heavy on this. Like, he's like, this is about like a guerrilla force. This is an allegory for what happened. And then if you read Paxton interviews, Bill Pax's like, I don't know about that shit.

But this was at the tail end of the, like we did a podcast about this, the kind of reckoning of America and Vietnam, which basically starts with movies. When are we doing non-month? Would you be interested in nom month? Definitely. Could we get that sponsored? By who? Who was sponsored? Two things.

Sponsored by Mickelow Ultra. I feel like this is a huge line of conversation about this movie. So, obviously, he'd just written Rambo Part 2. Yeah. First Blood Part 2. And so that's on his mind as he's writing that movie, because that's what that genre is about. And there's three a year coming out about,

we got to go back, we have guilt about what we did. Missing an action. This is 86. This is the year of platoon. This is like, this is when this is all happening. And there's these great stories about these two guys who turned down parts in full metal jacket. to do aliens.

Yeah. And they're kind of the same movie. I mean, they're about many of the same things. We shouldn't go back. Why are we going? What are we getting out of this? This was stupid. We're trapped here.

We can't get out. It's basically the same thing. Yeah. Pretty interesting. I missed it for 40 years, but now I'm here. Yeah. It seems obvious, but I think it's just as simple as launching you 100 years into the future and putting you on another planet and you get so swept up in that world

that you're only viewing it about the consequences of the characters are in front of you. All the coming out of the wall, stuff, although like I was short, I was going to be out of here in four weeks. Like you could take that dialogue and put it in a Vietnam War movie. Sigourney Weaver, one of the all-time,

fearless, great action movie performances by an actress. Linda Hamilton, T2, Charlize Fury Road, Uma and Kill Bill, Sigourney. I think that's Mount Rushmore. Anybody else?

Awesome list. It's like the four that stand out above anything else you could throw. It's the movie I always wanted Angelina to make and she never made. We were talking about that with flops, where it was like she has a couple where you're like, she's scratching at it, but she never got there. She was, but there's a six-year run.

Yeah, Tomb Raider, like, but she never had a movie like this, but it's, that's like once a decade, basically. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is the filmmaker. This is the only one that's ever been nominated for Best Actress. That's the other thing is that this kind of performance doesn't get acknowledged in a wider way. It's just kind of just like set to the dust.

spin of genre, but she, you know, she's in this place where she's this highly skilled actor who can work in a lot of different kinds of movies. And a couple of years later, she wins an Academy Award for Gorillas in the Mist. And she's also coming off of Ghostbusters. So like, like, is there a more versatile actress in all of Hollywood at this time? Marley Matlin wins for Children on Lesser God. Sierra and I just did this for about last night. We wondered if Demi Moore could have snuck in there. I honestly thought you were just going to say, we just did children of a lesser god on their watchables and I didn't know about it. I was like, holy shit.

It was Jane Fonda morning after, Sissy Spacec, Crimes of the Heart, Kathleen Turner, Peggy Sue got married and Sigourney for aliens. At the time, I don't think it was controversial and I think I think Marley Matlin's really great that movie. It's a tough one, but it's, I don't know who else could have been in this movie in 1986. Yeah, it's a historic Oscar win. There was a really good documentary about Marley Matlin that came out a couple of years ago.

And like, when you learn about what her relationship with William Hurt was like and what she was going through. like, you know, it's, I have a lot of empathy for her life and experience, but it's an easy one to be like, no one has seen children of lesser God. Like, it's a movie that kind of disappeared from the culture. Yeah, five-year Oscars, she probably still wins, but I think if we go 40 years later Oscars. This is also a very cool story of Sigourney kind of betting on herself and being like, if you want me, you're going to have to see TC. And I have some notes about what I think the characters could do. It's like what you pulled was CR year.

That's right. Well, Rich was a very effective negotiator. You're like, I need my own month for the rewatchables. I need LeBron James in a Sixers uniform. I'm just imagining. I need to do aliens. Rich on Game Over, doing like a whiteboard of like, here are all the places Chris can go.

Also, the name of his show is Game Over, man. Max is like, so you're dealing with a talent like Chris Ryan. How much are you talking to him every week? Oh, you buy. Listen out, you're Kellerman. Yeah. Is it something where you go back and forth with Bill Simmons and then you talk to Chris Ryan? How do you handle that?

Can I give you Sigourney's 79? When you blind call Max Kellerman? I bring back later for the director's commentary. Alien Ghostbusters, aliens, and working girl were her four best in like an 11-year span. But she also had eyewitness, you're living dangerously, deal with a century, girls in the miss Ghostbusters, too. You could only deal of the century as bad. All those other movies are good. And eyewitness is like just a 10 out of 10 to be movie.

See it on 2B. Just press play. So at my birthday party that you were at the other couple of weeks ago, a friend came and he pulled the, I'm trying to get you some physical media that you don't own. And he gave me three discs. And one of them was a copy of eyewitness, which is very rare. And I didn't own it. He nailed it.

Was it Elon Musk? Well, it was not. He was not invited to my birthday party. So I didn't prep you for this. I didn't prep you for this, and it's going to make you mad that I didn't. Okay, great. You can make a case that Sigourney won the 80s as for actresses. I'm going to go through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. I think it's Merrill.

Well, here we go. For the 80s? Yeah, because we just did this on the big picture. Hold on. 70s. It's Fay Donovan and Jane Fonda in the finals. Yes. Diane Keaton's not in there?

I don't think so. Diane Keaton's in the Godfather and Annie Hall. I don't think she's as big as either of those. He doesn't get Diane Keaton. I do get Diane Keaton. I just don't think she was as big as Jane Fonda. Can we slip Annie Hall into Vietnam? Jane Fonda was leading major movies for 10 years

and getting Oscar nominations and winning Oscars. Yeah. All true for Diane Keaton as well. I would say second half of the 70s for Diane Keaton all the way through for Jane Fonda. Maybe. Continue your list. Same for Faye Dunaway. Yeah.

I think all three. them are in a healthy conversation. I have Diane third for that one. 80s, Sigourney versus Merrill Streep in the finals. Sigourney, more movies that would be on this podcast.

Marrow with the hardware. Sigourney is in better films at that time, but having just watched, like, cry in the dark for the first time, I'd never seen that. Merrill Street's performance in that movie is astonishing. It is like, there's a reason that she is who she is.

And so as a... Dingo Ate My Baby? Yeah. And I'd never seen that movie. And... I mean, Silkwood... I was randomly watching... Sophie's Choices in the 80s.

I was watching Heartburn on Pluto this week. Great movie. She's fucking awesome in that movie. Yeah. I don't know what Jack Nicholson's doing in that movie, but it's enjoyable. I don't know what he's going for. He's playing Carl Bernstein. We might have to do that on rewatchables.

It's a really good race. It's a great race. 90s get interesting because there's no like dominant, awesome actress unless you want to go back with Merrill, but you basically, it's down to Julie. Meg Ryan and Renee Russo, who I think actually you could make a case wins the 90s because she's in the most fun movies.

In the line of fire, lethal weapon three. She's in Tin Cup. Yeah. Thomas Crown Fair. Like she's got bangers year after year after year. I think even, I can't remember if Major League was 90 or not, but she's just all the way through. She's in everything.

The zero zeros is I think it's Winslet or Angelina. And it's probably Kate Winslet wins. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, at what point Tough for one for actions? At what point does Kate Blanchett get into this conversation, too? Maybe third place.

And then the tens, I think Emma Stone wins the tens. Yeah. Jay Law's in there, but not totally. It probably could have been better. But anyway, the point is Sigourney's in the finals in the 80s.

Wow. I knew this would blowshunds. I know, I'm sorry. Lots to take part there. I thought of it this morning, so it's having coffee. No argument for me. I mean, it's an incredible run.

It's really an incredible run. I like what you said, too. I mean, she's, well, one, she still works with Cameron. She's in all the Avatar movies. Yeah. And she's still active. She's in a, she was in like three movies last year. She's in her 70s. And she can do any kind of part. She can still, she's such a unique looking person. There's no one who looks like Sigourney Weaver. She's in the frigging, right? Yeah, she was. Very tall,

very physical, very, but not like muscular per se, but just like imposing, but also very sensitive, can be really deep. There's just great stuff with, uh, with a little girl in this movie that is like, you know, that sequence where the little girl asked her about, did you have a daughter? And and she says she's gone. You know, like that scene is really, that's like a powerful scene. She gets to be a much different person in aliens than she was an alien. I mean, not just because of the 57-year nap, but because of like- See, are you every day to anyone as tall as Sigourney?

I only dated one girl taller than me. It was awkward. It was awkward. How'd that go? Awkward. Yeah. Say more. How tall?

Like three inches, I think. I thought you're going to say like six eight. Six-eight baller. He had the climber. Three inches. I think so. Do you feel like you had to wear like thicker sneakers on the bottom? No, but it was just like it was awkward in the way you would imagine.

Craig, what's the shortest girl you ever dated? Maybe five, four. Okay. That's the shortest girl you ever dated? Because Craig's like a sneaky six two and a half. Have you ever dated somebody? You couldn't. Like you'd have to date.

My girlfriend in college was six feet. No kidding. No shit. Tall, tall skinny Irish lady. Wow. Lady? Yeah, she was great. Was she an athlete?

No. Just tall. Yeah. All skinny Irish lady. You still in touch? No. Okay. Not in touch with anyone.

This wasn't the aliens girl, though. No, it was that. Let's take a break and we'll talk about the one and only Bill Paxton. I'm going to look right to the camera for the break for this. Bill Paxton, from weird science to this. I just wrote down, immediately goaded. His perception of this character was that it would be a person that the audience couldn't wait to see die. And I've never heard someone lack perspective on their own performance like this in my life.

Yeah. One of the greatest crimes ever committed against America's cultural inheritance and legacy is that Hudson doesn't get in an escape pod and go off and have other adventures that we can have 10 movies just with Private Hudson traveling together. Galaxy. Yeah, we have that category, right? Could this movie The Proof of Life David Caruso category? Yeah. Should we have, should this character have been spun off? Is there any movie that Private Hudson crash landing into and going, what the fuck man? Like, wouldn't that make every movie better? Rom-coms, thrillers. Boogie Nights. There's a case that this movie has more

potential winners of that category than in any movie that we've done. Yeah. Because there's so many people who you'd want to see on intergalactic adventures. It makes it the reason this movie works is because you care about 80% of the people who get God. You're just like, oh, no, not this guy.

I was trying to think about... Not where's Bouske. I was trying to think of a little when he died, but I was trying to think of a non-A-lister who had a higher approval rating. I was just thinking about this. It's a classic, like, what person...

Well, Dolly Parton was an A-Lister, though. Oh, non-A-lister. Yeah, he got close because he was in so many big movies. He was in fucking tight. Titanics, you know? Yeah, yeah. He did Twister, Titanic.

He was real close. Because I never feel like he was like a Hank's Costner Cruz level, but he's like an A-Minus Lister. But like all the way up to, was Edge of Tomorrow his last movie? I can't remember what his last movie was. But, you know, same thing, seeing him in that movie. I was like, this is going to be a good movie. Oh, it's fun to just see him?

Yeah. They're like, oh, Bill Paxton's in this. I was wondering, there's definitely a new rewatchables category for him just from this movie. We danced around this for over 400. 50 movies. Craig suggested it a couple times. It's better than a Dian Waiters because he's in the movie

too much. So it can't really be a Dean Waiters. So it's almost like I wrote down the Private Hudson Game Over Man category for kind of a full movie, Deon Waiters. Yeah, it's like... It's almost like Belushi in about last night. It's like the sneaky star of the movie.

Chris and I just talked about Tony on the pod. And Leah Woodall is in Tony, and he he's like the third lead of Tony. And the way I think about it is the guy who picks up the movie and walks away with it. Yeah, yeah. The person who doesn't net, like, if it's not the right actor, then you wouldn't think as much about their character. But when you're watching Tony for 20 minutes, you're like, this guy's the start of this movie. And there's times when you're like, Hudson is the most entertaining person on screen.

And he's on screen with the woman who'll be nominated for an Academy Award and Michael Bean, who's like one of the coolest action stars in the 1980s. So who's the basketball version of that? It's almost like Porzingis in the 24 playoffs for the Celtics. I couldn't care. about that. I mean, it was O.G. Ananoby for the Knicks this year. Yeah, that's a really good one.

He wasn't an A-lister, but there was a moment in the playoffs where he took over and he was everyone's favorite Nick and he was the one who was deciding games. Yes. Yes, that's a perfect example. I don't want to name a rewatchable's category after a Nick. So we'll give it to the, 2024 Chris Stapp's. Maybe not either. I'll figure out a good one for this, but it might just be the Private Hudson Game Over, man.

Yeah. for like it's like a full it's like a Dan Waiter's 2.0 yes he's playing like 35 minutes he's doing all kinds of shit also does he have all of the most memorable lines from the movie

I have for my flex 90% of them okay there you go yeah we'll come back to him later we also have Michael Bean as Dwayne Hicks most unlikely Dwayne in a while and the first kind of a Reggie Cleveland

James Reimar is not a Dwaymore Dwayne Hicks is like the Browns took Dwayne Hicks. He's going to be a great defensive end. He went to the University of Miami. Instead, Michael Bean is Dwayne Hicks. Paul Riser is Burke. In genius. We're in prime Paul Riser territory here because he's between two cops.

This is his first act, his first movie performance. Well, he was in Cop 1, wasn't he? Oh, you're right. He was in Cop 1. Very briefly. Cop 2, very important. Yes. And then eventually I'm mad about you. A show was mocked for years and years by people of age.

Not bad. Very sappy. Sure. Lance Henrickson as Bishop, the Android. Can't wait to talk about him. Carrie Hen as Newt? Mm-hmm. I think this was it for her.

For one and only. Yeah. And then Mark Ralston and Drake. Yeah, Mark Ralston. I could be a friend to you. Anybody come at you yet? Oh, sweetie. He played Boggs in Shawshank.

Nope. The head of the sisters, the rapist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. One of your favorite film characters. We'll know you're really, you're going when I come in and Ralston's just like... Bogg's. Just like glamour headshot.

Last that I heard, he was eating his food through a straw. So he's in this. And then, I don't know if you have any William Hope as Gorman thoughts. I mean, he was the other guy who was trying to decide between doing full metal jacket and this. Never really fully happened for William Hope. He popped up. He's definitely like a worker. And then finally, Jeanette Goldstein. Yes.

As Vasquez. A casting that just would not happen. Our greatest Mexican, yes. Truly a cinematic icon. I think one of the most exciting, life-changing characters of the 1980s for many men and women. Yeah. And also a wildly politically incorrect choice.

I got to say, I didn't know for 20 years. that she wasn't Latina. You were like, I wonder who Jeanette Goldstein played in this movie. I just thought like her mom was Mexican or something. I didn't know.

No. I knew a lot of Jeanette Goldstein's on Long Island. I can tell you that. Were you attracted to Vasquez, Greg? I'd probably pick, Ripley. Okay.

Lean Ripley. You like him taller. Sure. I was attracted to Vasquez in case you were curious. I love Vasquez. How could you not love Vasquez? A couple of categories.

for her later. Just quickly, I don't want to go through all the details of how hard it was to make this movie, but we had, they're going to make a sequel,

Alan Ladd Jr's president of Fox, he leaves. Replacement doesn't want to make it, thinks it's too expensive. The two producers from the first movie, Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll, starts suing Fox for

unpaid profits from aliens. So now the movie's dead. Cameron writes a treatment anyway. Studio, eh, they try to sell it. The sequel to My God, guys, Mara Kassar and Andrew J. Vajna, Andrew G. Bajna. Well, I still don't think we're real people. I think they were fronts for an Iranian

movie company. They made some of your favorite movies ever, right? Just two of the goats. Lawrence Gordon takes over Fox. He's like, what are we doing? Let's do this. He's like, I would have had Alien 2 up and running two years ago. Cameron's like, I can't do it yet because Schwarzenegger was making Conan the destroyer, which he was contractually forced to make. delays Terminator for nine months. So now they're just on hold.

And that gives Cameron more time to basically develop the whole story. So it turns out to be the best thing for the movie. He's got nine months to basically work on this. He wants to direct. They're like, who the fuck are you? You've made piranha too. That's not happening. Terminator comes out.

They're like, you'd love to direct. That sounds great. He's married to his producer, Galian Hurd. They're married. They're not yet married. They're about to get married. They want a budget. Fox low bosom.

They quit. So now it's dead again. And then resuscitated. They want Sigourney Weaver. Fox is like she's going to want too much money. Can't do it. They quit again. Comes back.

They get married. Movie gets greenlit. There's one really great wrinkle of the Sigourney negotiations that gets reported a bunch, which is that they're going back and forth about her salary and whether she's going to do it. And it seems like she's not. And they're hitting some sort of deadline. and Cameron calls Schwarzenegger's agent and is like, well, we're going to quit

because it sounds like she's not going to do it or she's taking too long. And it leaks back to Sigourney's agent. And so Sigourney then is pushed to... Was it that or was that they were inquiring about Schwarzenegger's availability? No, I think it was because the threat he used... The threat he used was that, like,

Newt would be older and would be the star of the movie. Oh, I see. And that they would get a different person and basically transpose a lot of Ripley stuff on the Newton. Rich, before CR, the year of CR, you made it clear to Barstool that CR might be interested in potentially leaving. How did you play that out with the ringer and Barstool?

If you went to Barstool, would it be, it's the Chris Ryan show with Chris Ryan? Or would you, like, how would you, would you, like, seek your own kind of micro empire? Like, how would you want to do it? Would you be Barstall, CR, are, Barstall-Christ. I would just go to be Dave's Andy Richter.

I think that would be, I think, the Lord of the Feet of the Masters. You're on the side when he's eating pizza? Like when he's doing emergency press conferences, molding the key light. Great one, El-Pres. Love that. Yeah.

Well, they make the movie, and it goes terribly during the movie. And people are quit. He fires his AD. shoot. I rarely in the rewatchables research does somebody fire their AD and their cinematographer. We could just say, he shot this at Pinewood

in England. The deal with Pinewood back then, I don't know if it still is, but back then, you shoot at Pinewood, you use Pinewood people. Like the crews there that are there, a lot of the artisans that are there. And they're used to doing it their way. And so Cameron would show up and

Dick Bush, a great name, shot Sorcerer, was the cinematographer. And he was like, cool, like, I'm going to light this. Like, you can have your ideas, but we light things in a certain way, and I'm going to... And Cameron was like, what the fuck are you doing in my movie? And finally got rid of him, brought in Adrian Biddle,

who's Riddle, who's really Scott cinematographer at the time. He's not yet. He's not. He's only on commercials. It's a great story about Adrian Biddle coming in, because Biddle was the focus puller on Alien. And so he's working... He was only the camera guy.

He was only the camera guy. He tries to hire the cinematographer from Alien, and he's not available. So he hires this guy. Adrian Biddle, who was like a professional swimmer in the 60s, and an underwater underwater photographer noticed his skills and hired him to work on her majesty's secret service to take photographs. And then he gets involved in photographs, filmmaking, he starts working for Ridley.

He's the cinematographer on the 1984 Apple commercial. No way. That blows up. And then his first movie that he gets is aliens on Ridley's recommendation. and then he goes on to shoot Princess Bride, Bellman Louise, Event Horizon. He goes on to make all these great movies. So it's this amazing, like, sliding doors thing

where also Ripley and Cameron have this, like, they respect each other. But it's a little chilly. Yeah. But he does give him Adrian Biddle. It's like he's making aliens, too. You're kind of rooting against it if you're really sky. It is kind of weird.

It's like we don't really see this a lot. I guess maybe the Star Wars sequels had a little bit of this, but we don't really see franchises that go up for grabs. Like, usually someone's like, I fucking own this. Like, Chris Nolan's like, I run this Dark Night trilogy. Like, this turned into, like,

Ridley had been interested in making another one. He gives, like, a 1984 interview where he essentially broadly sketches out, Alien 2 would be basically what Prometheus winds up being. It's like the origins of the alien species and all the mythology behind it. And, well, I disagree with you there. But the point being...

I think that should have been alien too. But then, like, Cameron coming in, well, I'll save this for later. But Cameron coming in, like, changes who's the author of the franchise. The truth is, is that the real authors, not authors, but the real controllers are Giler and Walter Hill. Yes. Those producers, those are the guys who have been allowing this to kind of continue to roll out over the years. And there's been a lot of, you know, Daniel Bannon is a figure in this, too, in terms of, like, who really owns the ideas of alien. Pretty big fuck up by Ridley Scott.

I'm not letting go of the alien franchise. And he's not letting go of it now. Like, he keeps coming back to it now because it's such a big. And like multiple guys like let go from the sequels. Today it was announced that he's developing another alien movie around David, the Michael Fastbender character from Prometheus. So this movie took so long to finish that it barely got done. They barely scored it in time.

They didn't even have time to test it, et cetera, et cetera. Doing a category before we even get to Roger Ebert, the Steven Segal shitting on himself award for most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot. filming concludes at Pinewood. Cameron tells the crew, quote, this has been a long and difficult shoot fraught by many problems. But the one thing that kept me going through it all was a certain knowledge that one day I would drive out the gate of Pinewood

and never come back and that you sorry bastards would still be here. That's how I close to shoot. BS is last day at Spotify. Cameron. I mean, that really should have been my last day at ESPN. That's how Sean quit the way. to Bristol said that left. Why didn't I think of that?

Could have flown into Bristol? Guys meeting? Amazing stuff. Alien universe, two more sequels. Three in resurrection. Alien Romulus. TV series, Alien Earth. Prometheus.

Covenant. And then Covenant. Just keeps going. Covenant? Have you seen Covenant? Do I need to? I think you would like it. It's very scary.

Yeah. And it's actually the one that is pretty close to this, just in terms of its, like, insane violence. How many years ago? Intensity. It's 2017, I think. 18.5 million dollar budget made allegedly $183 million. I have to think I've made more than that.

It's probably some... Just a shaky accounting. It's printed money since it's had like 15 different releases over the years. That's the thing. You have what you allegedly made from the movie, but if you spawn 10 sequels, I feel like that's got it. I think I've accidentally bought this movie like eight times. Is this movie rated R?

Yeah. I can't remember. If it is, it's got to be one of the highest degrees of I snuck into this movie. I think it was rated Ritter. Ebert, three and a half stars. I've never seen a movie that maintains such a pitch of intensity for so long. It's like being on some kind of hair-raising carnival ride that never stops. The movie made me feel bad.

It filled me with feelings of unease of disquiet and anxiety. I walked outside. I didn't want to talk to anyone. But then he said it is a superb example of filmmaking craft. Raj, tough summer for Raj on the rewatchables. He's really been all over the map. It's interesting to read accounts from back then of this movie because Gayle Ann Hurd has a story of like going into a screening of it somewhere

and like a couple's on a date and the woman's gripping like the chair so hard that she breaks the armrest. And I'm like, I think this movie's really intense. I find Alien in some ways more. like terrifying, you know, and more like difficult to deal with. I think the scene when, uh, the scene at the breakfast table when it comes out. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's scary than I think in this movie.

But this movie is very scary. Yeah, it's an interesting question. I mean, it's not really trying to be scary except for a couple of key moments. There's the moment of the dream when she, the chestburster, it hits her at the beginning of the film. That's our first rewatchable scene. Um. And then there's the first moment when they're sort of, they appear, the xenomorphs. And they, but like, I guess when they're crawling through the ceiling a little bit.

But generally speaking, like, it is really more of a war movie. The scariest moment is when the little girl's in the water. Yes, that is the number one. And then the monster comes up on there. Classic old school hormones. Yes, that's a horror movie. Most of watchable scenes quickly. Ripley's nightmare getting in, proven that cats are evil.

See how the cat act in that? Cats. Cats. Cats suck. I do. Next one, we meet the crew. We get some Vasquez push-ups. Pull-ups, I mean?

Meet the Marines. Incredible scene. Did anyone ever mistake you for a man? She flips it on the guy. We get the knife trick with Bishop. And then Ripley finds out Bishop was an android, not happy. We also got the Apone giving the wake-up speech. We was like, all right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for, breakfast and bed?

That a glorious day in the core. That was like a mildly racist. 80s trope of the black troop leader crossed with the black police sergeant that would just get mad at whoever hero was. Yeah. But remember Bernie Hamilton was in like five police movies? He's like, fantasy!

Get in here! You think this is Inspector Todd in space? Yeah, yeah, basically. Memorably parodied in Last Action Hero, right? He's got, Jack Slater's got one of those guys. Ripley just did not like that Bishop was an android. Not a fan. No. Unhappy. The next one, crew

finds the facehuggers. and realizes the little girls on board. Pretty good scene. You have one before that? I mean, I have a bunch. This is kind of a brigade's potential of like you could go through each scene. And here's why this one's rewatchable. Next one I have is we've got a live one when they find the woman in the cocoon.

Kill me. Alien comes out of her stomach. There's about a 25 minute stretch here. Yeah. I don't even know what to do with this point of scenes. Ripley's making the deja vu face. And she's watching from the monitor. It's the ambush.

I would also say that this ambush scene... Something's moving, but it ain't us. Trying to remember what... Because I didn't know this at the time, but now when I was watching it, I was like, is this the first found footage horror movie since Cannibal Holocaust and really the second ever? Oh, interesting.

It's a great call. Seeing it from that perspective. You're watching it all through. You only get... There's a couple of cutaways, but you mostly get it through their cameras. They're all around this, man. Coming out of the walls, man.

Gorman, I wrote down, he melts down like Deeran Fox in the finals. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Just repeatedly driving at Carl Anthony Towns. Thank you for your service, Deerran. Yeah. And then Ripley takes control of the Tesla S.EB.

First Tesla SUV. It is. It does look like a cyber truck. And then Boggs dies. Boggs does die. Yes. Among others. Sprayed with acid.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, where Zabowski, Frost. They all go down. Yeah, man. That whole scene is, this is when the movie's like, oh my God. Bishop volunteers to go back to the transmitter. This is just, Paxon's just cooking.

Maybe you aren't up on current events, but we just got our ass kicked, pal. You can just count me out. And he goes, yeah, man, Bishop should go, good idea. Yeah, great idea. Bishop should go. He's so fucking funny in this movie. The, uh-oh, here come the alien scene when they have that little meter thing.

What's that thing called? The trackers. 25, 24, 23. That's inside the room. Yeah. And they look over the ceiling. This movie has great simple tech. Yeah.

Like the century scene, which I'm sure is coming up where you can see how many bullets are left where it's just like, our dumb brains are just like, we'll go into zero. It's not good. The century scene is only in director's cut?

Or is that in the idea? I think so, yeah. And I watch the director's cut. for this, which I think is the way to see the movie now. Interesting. It's two hours and 36 minutes, but I think it is so much better. It's really interesting. I completely disagree, but that's fascinating.

I'm a traditionalist. I like the original movie. I think there are actually cuts. There's so many things in it that we can talk about things I like in it. We did a director cut to this. I should have been like, oh, man, we should have done five more Rich Paul minutes. I'm going to go back and re-ed it. It's not too late.

Ripley realized the aliens are above it in that part where 15 meters, 12 meters, 10 meters. There's just no better gimmick than that. You read it wrong. Burke just goes full asshole. We're like, oh, my God, this guy. I love when the bad guy who is now revealed as the bad guy does the thing like where he locks everybody else out. But you know at some point it's going to backfire now.

Hudson has the best death scene ever. I mean, you want to litigate this now? He's finally a hero. He's finally brave, right? It's nice and quick. He's been the scarty cat, and he's been the one that's just like, this is fucking bullshit I want out of here. And then when he finally gets confronted by these things, he's like, let's fucking go.

Burke dies, and then Gorman blows up himself in Vasquez. And this all happens in six minutes. That's also a great death scene. I mean, the Vasquez and Gorman together, wouldn't she say you always wore an asshole? Or Gorman, yeah. This has to be, at least for me, most rewatchable scene. The trackers in the dots is the best to me. The cut when...

Craig, were you holding on for dear life during this part? Yeah, I watched his last night at 1 a.m. on my laptop. She's having a real time. When Michael Bean pops his head into the vents and looks and very quickly, you see them coming out of the shadows, it's like, ah, fuck. Especially for 1986. That's Gordo. So good.

Yeah, seeing his eyes peek above. Yeah, so good. With the sound. Quicky mentioned Newt dropping into the water. And you're like, just get back in the water. We're going to come get you. And you're just like, oh, man. That was what I had written down for Gordo was the creature rising from the water.

Great scene. This is 1986. Like, the fucking creature work in this movie is insane. It's so far beyond anything that was happening in movies at this time. Ripley goes back to Save Newt. And she realizes she's in alien egg airwine, basically. Alien egg airworn. Oh, my God.

The Haley Bieber egg zone. Yeah. He goes full Rambo. Bishop shows up just in time. Punch you Bishop. And then the whole ending with Bishop getting disemboweled. Yeah. Have some thoughts on that.

It's like a lobster claw. Get away from where you bitch. The holding on while you might get sucked out of space. A classic. The airlock. Always where Total Recall had the same thing. A lot of movies have done this gimmick. I feel like every time you're getting sucked out,

I don't think you're just like, oh, I'm going to hold out of the ladder. Like, it's got to be... And since 2001, there's a version of it in Project Hail Mary. Yeah, it's good. Gravity hasn't. And then Bishop saves the day

with one of the great ideas in the history of any of these movies. The disembowed guy. Grabbing the arm, Android, I should say. What do you got for most? The tracker scene, all the red light,

they're coming through. I would see that or the ambush, but I think it's the tracker scene. John? To me, it's the... The ambush, the penetrating the alien hive, and the genuine fear on the faces of these guys and women who were presented as the meanest motherfuckers

in the galaxy. Especially after they're told they can't use their guns. Yes. It's a very Vietnam-esque, Vietnam movie as seen. Yeah, it's more on unknown terrain. We don't understand the enemy or where we are. C.R., what are your top five movie disembellments? The Hitcher?

This is a big year for embalaments. There's not one that jumps to mind. I'm sure like listeners. It's got to be this one, right? It's a great one. I mean, to me, he gets like twisted in half. It's not even... My gondoli was actually the sound that Bishop makes

when he's torn apart, which is like between a pop and a thwip. Like, I've never really heard that sound in a movie before, but it's so burned into my mind. Also, the fact that, like, Android anatomy is basically like a bunch of milk with squid. It's disgusting. It's like a bunch of chowdered.

comes out of the guy. It's so good. It's such a holy shit moment. Most 86 thing about this movie, I was going to say the Vietnam overtones for me. And then the fact that a female lead action character

being a badass was considered to be this novel, amazing concept for a movie. Now it's like... I had Michael Bean replacing James Ramar that's a great one. In a major role in a movie. Because James

Rehmer had an incredible co-kewarm had an incredible cocaine meltdown. Was he arrested? He was arrested for drug possession, but they said it was for family reasons. 86 was really the peak for terrible cocaine stories, good, bad people surviving, people not surviving. Those are two guys too where you're just like,

James Cameron handed it to you, like, you know. Yeah, really tough. What do you have, Sean? Burke's styling, the way that Burke dresses, which is like technically this is supposed to be, what is it, 2133 or something? it's years in the future, but it looks like he just walked off

the set of Beverly Hills Cop with his weird blazer. Metroid? Did you play Metroid as a kid? It didn't. I loved Metroid. One of the very first NES games I ever got, and one of the amazing reveals was that Samus, I think Samis, the lead character for Metroid who was like an astronaut who wore a helmet,

if you won the game, it was revealed, or if you got to a certain level in the game, that Samus was a woman. and that that character in the video game was directly inspired by Ripley. That's not something that you would have seen in a video game before that that the character could be a woman.

And I think that game came out in 86 or 87. And Samus was a big Super Smash Brothers character and then you could change and play here as a woman or the person inside the suit. There you go. The Gundali butter on my ass, so I pops in my mouth the word. What do you have here?

Soldiers getting ready. Oh. All the like outstanding shit. Like when they're all like locking and loading and getting ready to go in. It's just, it's never not cool. I have people waking up from pods in movies like this. Because I always think about what's realistic and what's not.

Like, I just have trouble waking up at a normal morning, but if you'd been sleeping for 57 years, I don't know. What's your morning breath like? Well, your eyesight might have gotten better in the interviewing time. Yeah, true. Would my eyesight get better? It's a good version of this incumbent, the wake-up scene. Yeah.

Everyone comes out. They always make them dress weird in these things. But I always think that's like a good scene. I had this in picky nits, but I can't believe they don't let these guys shower after a 57-year nap. Or however long they've been asleep. She was asleep for 57 years. I was thinking about the Borat-Saganov Rancid Body Order or Word. A couple of these people got a little gaming, I think.

The breath would have been an issue. Yeah, the breath. Honestly, Ripley's apartment probably smells worse than anything we can possibly conceive of. It's an airtight one-bedroom place in a space station with a cat and a chronics and a chain smoker. Yeah. Oh, I didn't think, yeah, the chain smoker. It's gray gardens in there. It's out of control.

Truly. Never see her actually puff from the cigarette. She holds it like she's just always holding it, though. I wasn't impressed. Not just an absence of cigarette-related category. Not like our guy behind Sean. Sunny. That's how you do it.

Todd Parker Ward for Best Character Adrens for Vasquez. comes right out of the pod just fucking doing poems talking shit it's like who's this love it all right what stage is the best

what do you got I talked about this before but just the the roller coaster structure and the idea that you don't see a xenomore for a full hour

like you get the hint of it when they show like her nightmare you see it in the in the medical cage or in the medical you know test tube but the first action

it takes an hour to get to that. You would never get away with that now. It's a good point. Probably what you'd have now is you'd have a five-minute segment from the middle of the movie that is pushed into the front. Any streamer

were flashing forward to when they're descending on the aliens and then we go backwards. Or to your point about the director's cut, they would have had the colonists discovering the hive first. You know what I mean? And getting attacked or something.

Which I think is such an interesting and useful scene in the movie. But anyway, I have a bunch of these. I mean, one timeless war film, like hostile armed forces entering unnavigable terrain against an enemy they don't understand.

That's every foreign conflict the U.S. has been in for the last hundred years. The physical production of the movie, which he talked about, you know, the miniatures and the sets. The tagline of this movie is incredible. It was just this time, it's war.

Which, like, put that on a poster, that's fucking awesome. Yeah, pretty great. The other one is casting a comedian as the villain. which I couldn't think of an example of this before this. But then, you know, you've got Robin Williams and Insomnia in one-hour photo.

You got Jim Carrey and the cable guy, Dennis Lerian Judgment Night, Dan Aykroyd and Gross Point Blank, Monique in Precious. You've got Steve Carell and Foxcatcher. Did you say Jim Carrey and Batman? Jim Carrey and Batman as a riddler. Like, this is something that happens. Dan DiVito and Batman Returns.

That's a good one. Yeah, I can't think of another one. It's such an inspired idea. Like Richard Pryor never played a villain. He did. He did. Well, not, in Harlem Night's a little. a little bit.

A little bit. That's the end of his career. Yeah, like Don Rickles really missed it. He could have been Burke and a different thing. Those are good ones. I had a couple. I thought, you know, we have when we do these sequels, when we move into the second movie,

how they tie the first movie in, like Rocky 2, they're just basically like, we're just going to play the end of Rocky 1 again. Karate Kid 2 did that. Most sequels either do that or they try to do something. This one is so hard. organic. They find her skipping out across the galaxy. It really

makes, it feels like a continuation of the first movie, which I think is like the single hardest thing to do. Godfather 2 actually is good with this too. Where we just started the big wedding like we did with the first one, but everybody's older. And Connie's dating some schmuck and Fredo's

wife is being a dick and you can see Michael's got, but it feels like a continuation. I think that's so hard. This has always been one of my biggest frustrations about Alien 3. is that, you know, the Alien 3 opens with basically the information that Newt and Hicks are dead.

Yeah. And that Bishop isn't there. And that was what I wanted it to be. Like, I didn't want them to be dead. Like, Alien 3 is an interesting movie and a very flawed movie. We can do this now. I mean, the vision for Alien 3

was to be part of Alien 3 and 4 at one point, where Hicks was going to be the star of 3, working with, like, space communists to fend off an alien invasion, and then Ripley was going to come back big time in four. Michael Bien, but more so James Cameron, were fucking livid when I watched Bain's podcast that Cameron went on about three.

They were just like, you motherfuckers, like we did two and a half hours of like showing why these three people mattered, showing why what they do for each other gets them to the end of the rainbow, and you fucking wipe out all of that equity we built up with like a title card in the next movie.

It's just such a mistake. And it sets the tone for just how like for as much as like there's tons to admire an Alien 3. It is such a toxic, like, angry movie. I only saw it once. I don't remember what happens.

It's a fascinating development story just because so many different people took a shot at writing the script. So like William Gibson wrote, the guy wrote Neuromancer wrote like a whole like screenplay you can read online about Hicks. for Alien 3.

They just, they had something special with those three people, and I concur with Michael Bean. Ripley FaceTime's Burke in the beginning. I think that invented FaceTime. I was wondering about that, too. I thought it was total recall,

but I forgot it was aliens. 2001 has a version of that, the video call. True. Remember when he calls his daughter? Yeah, we did talk about that. They got holograms and Star Wars. I mean, people were... This feels like a straight FaceTime.

Do they have this in Blade Runner 2? Isn't there video phones? Like phone booths? I think so. Every time I see Michael Bean in any movie, I want him to go, I came across time for you, Sarah. It's great to see him. I think I'm having him on the pot on Friday

because he's in this new movie that Chris and I saw called Onslaught, which is very connected to these James Cameron 80s movies. And his career is so freaking fascinating to me. He just never got over like that Hank's Costner hump. Yeah. He's like right underneath. He's in... I mean, he goes up to Tombstone, basically.

Yeah, and then Tombstone, and he plays an amazing villain. You wouldn't call him Michael. He's Michael Bean. He's Michael Bean. That's his whole name. That's right. That's right. But like, Lords of Discipline, Terminator, aliens, Rampage, 7th Sign, Abyss, Navy Seals, K2, Deadfall, Tombstone. 10 years. All big Hollywood movies. Some good, some not so good. But some all-timers.

And then, like, nothing. Yeah. Let's take a break. We'll do more. What's age the best. One more, what's age the best for me? This could be another Hudson Award. The Hudson from aliens.

Are you a good guy or a bad guy? Because I'm still not sure award. He's right dead center in the middle. And he's neither. And I don't know how I pulled it off. I was trying to think about other characters who did that. I was, I mean, just this last time I was thinking about whether or not this is the most, like, electrifying pairing of guys, the Hudson and Hicks pairing of like,

pure courage under fire and sensitivity and leadership with like chaotic fear and energy and comedy and it's like a really like electrifying like combination of a guy of guys. It's funny that it's in the same year as the phone Berenger and Platoon where like obviously neither of those guys are very funny but they are like alpha and omega figures. Yeah. You're going to do some quotes later right? Yes. Okay.

Movie wasn't shot in sequence which I was like for what stage is the best and they saved that first scene when they're all hanging out for the last scene in the film because they all knew each other. I was like when they do that.

This is just from for my MDB trivia. Jet Goldstein a little more buxom than the character had to strap her assets down and to have that not overpower her scenes

and eventually went on to fund a clothing company that made giant bras for particularly bucks and people. It's ironic because one of my big takeaways when I saw this movie as a teenager was

she's got a great rack. Her guns are loaded. It's not surprising. Her guns were even more loaded. There was more ammo in the closet, apparently. How do you think that conversation? Do you think Gayle Ann Hurd took that conversation on? Or do you think Cameron went direct to the source?

Probably not a Cameron. Probably that was a Gayle Ann Hurd. Like, hey. Yeah. Here's some electrical tape we'd like you to look into. And the 15-minute countdown at the end is exactly 15 minutes. I always enjoyed when they do that too. Yeah.

Great Jack Gordo. What do you have, Sean? Either the alien emerging behind Newton in the water, or I do think when Ripley emerges in the power loader at the end, it's a thrilling movie moment. I love being obviously going through the ceiling panel and the aliens coming at him. There is a shot in a really random scene in this movie, where they've got Burke dead to rights.

They've got Burke sitting. And all of the Marines and Ripley are like basically circled around him standing. And there is one shot where it's like, you see three of the Marines and Ripley's like telling them what Burke did to them and how he was going to try and get embryos into them. And then Paxton just leans into the frame

and he goes, fuck, he's dog me. You're dead. But it is like so much better than it needs to be where it's like this master shot of all them living characters. And then he's just like, he's dog me. This is his best performance, right? Because it's a pretty loaded list.

He's so funny and true lies. Yeah. I really like him in one false move as like a different kind of performance. But yeah, this is fucking awesome. Because we did true lies. Were you on that one? That wasn't.

Sorry. It's okay. He's so funny in that movie. The scene when he pisses himself. is unbelievable. Great Shot Gordo Award. We did that. We did not do the Sean Fantasy Word

for stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria orgasm. I have like at least five. Should we get to bring Spielberg again? I'll try to keep it super tight. One, the knife game that Bishop plays

is also played in Darkstar, which is John Carpenter's first movie. Oh, yeah. And that movie was written by Dan O'Bannon, who also wrote, A. Was that a conscious homage?

I think so. I think so. The second thing is, in the extended edition, when we are learning about the colonists, there is a little kid riding a big wheel that is a very conscious homage to the shining, where the kid rides on the big wheel

right past the Wayland Utani sign. Very much so. Which, funnily enough, because Kubrick's shooting full metal jacket in England at the same time. That was minus one. on Fando for what you're going to pick. Okay.

Keep going. You have three more. There's a probe at the very beginning of the film when they enter Ripley's little escape pod that is a very conscious mimic of the probe that we see at the top of the alien spaceship in 1953's War of the Worlds. The one that has a kind of almost like liquid gas going across them. Okay. There is a very overt structural Sanzibuajima nod where you've got the tough sergeant,

the leatherneck persona, the mission structure, all of those specific beads are pulled directly from that movie. I already did my Adrian Biddlebit. And then just the First Blood Part 2 and this movie being written simultaneously together are the perfect match of Vietnam War storytelling. Got one more. Murdoch.

One more fantasy criteria orgasm is the dissolve from Ripley in her sleeping pod to the planet doing 2001, Baby in Space. fantastic. Wow. It's multi-orgasmic film for you. Many orgasms.

It's more like the Sean Fennessee jizz room in the Criterion Classic. Can't bring you and Caitlin Wilson. Chess Rockwell

Brocklanders were best character name. I have Apone. One of my unanswerable questions is it is it A-Pone or a Pone? A-Pone.

But when Hicks is like when he's down, Hicks is like, Oppone, a Pone! And I guess Gorman, is he Canadian? like, is he a Canadian actor or an English actor? I don't know.

Okay. Well, I like a... I thought Bishop was good name for... Bishop, good Android name. What about Spunk Meyer? A dog name. Spunk Meyer? Spunk Meyer is incredible. Baskett's is good too, except for the completely politically and correct part that we're going to a second.

Was there a better title for this movie? Obviously, no way. Cameron really pushed for it. Can I pitch you a couple of ideas? Yeah. Motherfucker? The asteris? Or alien colon, motherfucker?

Yeah. Or aliens with the money sign. Like Cameron Drew on the whiteboard, yeah. Yeah, he would do the dollar signs on the S to make it clear that had to be thing. What do you got for a flexier? I have the Jesse Eisenberg. That's good. You should be proud of that right there.

Don't worry if you don't make it any further award for the best line reading, which goes multiple times to Bill Paxton as Private Hudson. Yeah, right, man. Bishop should go. Fuck. He's dead. your dog meat, pal. What do you mean?

They cut the power. How could they cut the power, man? 17 days? Hey, man, I don't want to rain on your parade, but we're not going to last 17 hours. Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses kick, pal. We're on an express elevator to hell going down.

That's my favorite. And then in the director's commentary, when they use the sentry guns, he's like, maybe we got him demoralized. But obviously the greatest one is all the game over, man. Drop ship crashes and all the... How has Hudson not been in the director's commentary category? I know. This whole time. What are we doing?

Do you think that all the mans and pals that he puts at the end of every line were in the script or is he adding that? No, I think he was cooking. Pure Paxton. Cooking. Butch's girlfriend award Weak Link in the film. Let's talk about this. So mine is Burke's plan to smuggle a xenomorph back to... Oh, you think that's a bad?

That's the weakling? I just think it's one of the worst plans in the history of movies. I had that in picking up. What could go wrong? Let's bring this alien back who has been proven to inhabit other people and destroy colonies. We'll bring them back our way. You could argue that's like the criticism of the brain-dead corporate state is that they would think. that their emissary would think this is a good idea?

Big thing for this is at what point did he come up at this point? Was this always the plan? Because he knows, we know from that scene and also from the director's cut that they know that this is happening up there. So was he like sent up there on purpose to put embryos in whatever he could get into and then bring it all back?

Or was that... All of it's insane. Was that an audible he called at the line when things started going on? What are they going to study? The thing's just going to turn into an alien and fuck everybody up. Well, they're going to, they want bio-weapons. They want to train it to make it a weapon.

But they can't control it. Terrible plan. What was yours? This is in the director's cut, but Newt's parents, like, going to examine the crashed spaceship site, but they bring their kids with them? Yeah. What the fuck is that? If there's, like, a loud noise at my house, I'm not like, Alice, wake up, we got to go explore this. What the fuck are they doing?

Heard something outside. This will be a character-building experience. Maybe they didn't have child care that night. Clearly they didn't, but one of them should stay home. I think the idea is that if they find it, they get like a piece of the discovery. Why do their kids have to be there? Look, I would say, how do you guys feel about new? Oh, shit.

We're doing this now? What is this? Where would it go otherwise? First of all, what Little Cave gives themselves a nickname? Oh, yeah, you're not supposed to do that. I've seen it happen. I've seen it. I'm not in my family, but I've seen it happen. I'm just going my real name if you find me in an alien colony hiding from the aliens.

I'm Bill Simmons. Call me BS though. Yeah, my name's sports guy. I don't know. Yeah. This movie's a little new heavy. Call me the Isle of Dr. Simbo. Right.

What birdmester is this on LV 247? Yeah. There's a scene missing. Well, there might be in the director's cut, What scene do you think is missing? Ripley goes from zero to 100 with I am now the mom for nude. Yeah, but in the director's cut, you find out she had a daughter who died.

Right. Yes. Which I think is so important to the fucking movie. I don't know why they cut that out. So maybe that is, maybe that is what the director puts forth. It's the primary theme of the movie. Does that change the movie for you?

I still bought her motherly instincts with the daughter with Newt, but that would certainly help. Yeah, of course. I think when Newk gets taken down by the own, I'm like, Bishop, we're getting out of here. It was good to know No Noot, but I'm out. She's no nude for like two days. If you don't know that she's lost a daughter

and that she's driven by that loss and that bonding with this little kid is replacing something that is essential to her being, then the movie doesn't... That's why I think the director's cut is the only way to go. But much like the colonists who bring nude along was Ripley going on an off-world mining trip really the best use of her parenting time at that moment,

an Alien One? No, of course not, but she had to make money. That's the thing is she had to, that character, that informs that whole idea of the movie, which is like these are these grunts, these workers who have to earn. Yeah. So you're saying Ripley's backstory,

it's like if you don't know that CR lost Ben Simmons, that's right. Leading to how happy he was for Jalen Brown and LeBron James. Without that backstory, he just seems like a happy basketball player. Exactly right. He doesn't, you don't get the backstory of Ben Simmons melting down in 21.

Isn't it cool when LeBron comes to your team? Setting aside AI taking, the Sixers to the finals. Is your favorite Sixers team of the Century, the Iguodala team, that went to like the second round of the playoffs? No, it's the first iteration of young Sixers, Young Process

Sixers that was like... Oh, the late 2010. Michael Carter Williams? No, the Simmons and B, Covington, JJ. Oh, I see. Okay. Oh, I see. Okay. What's age the worst? Vasquez, which was Jeanette Goldstein's first feature film role.

She gained 10 pounds of muscle. She also wore dark contact lenses. She also underwent an hour of makeup every day to darken her white skin to portray a Chicano character. She also studied Mexican-American gang interviews to develop her demeanor and accent. Cameron has recently acknowledged the controversy and said, we would get crucified if we did this today. Yeah. A long and story history of this happening throughout Hollywood.

history. All of the 80s is like Italian guys playing Cubans. You know what I mean? Like it's pretty frequent. Yeah, I'm not getting a whole other than that about it. It's just a funny outcome that Jeanette Goldstein played Vasquez. I was trying to think like what would have been the worst movie for this to happen

and it's clearly the first Fast and Furious. Oh, they would have had to make tan with Michelle Rodriguez, but it was Jeanette Goldstein. Yeah. And by the 6-1, people are like, what the fuck? Like, how do you not have? And they're like, ah. The other thing is it's so evident in Terminator 2 when she comes back, right, as the foster mom. Yeah.

And it's like, oh, well, that's Jeanette Goldstein. That's what Jeanette Goldstein looks like. Which she takes a liquid sword to the head. What's your other, some of your other favorite Jeanette Goldstein performances? I only know of two. No, she's in a lot of stuff. She's in the Presidio? No, the Bigelow vampire movie near dark.

Near Dark. Yeah. Yeah, she's in, her IMDB is extensive. for a wood stage the worst you mentioned the backstory with Ripley I think that is a what stage is the worst that that seems pretty critical that that's never mentioned

and that's why she likes new and then James Horner not having to write the score this is a good one in the shooting script there's a co-ed shower scene with the troops getting ready to kind of show

that they're all equals and a couple of the actresses were like hey can we cut this but then they use it for Robocop I think it's taken from Robert Heinland and they do it in Starship Troopers as well. I think a co-ed shower

scene when I was on a date in 1986 I don't know how that would have played. Well, I mean, your date would have gotten a look at Michael Bean. She would have seen all of a opponent. I think I would have killed over. Any other words, age the worst? I mean, killing Hicks and Newt for Alien 3. I just wrote all action movies since.

Right? I mean, so few movies can hold a candle to this movie. Ruffalo Hannah Ribneck Partridge Overacting Award. Do we just put Vasquez in here now? I wrote Paxton makes overacting an art form. Yes. Because he's the only one who's really doing it. How about Vasquez with the gun?

Yeah, it's gestural. You say that now. What is she doing? When we were watching it then, I was like, this is incredible. I will say that she's really going for it in every, Every minute she's in this movie. The shot early on when she and Boggs are getting ready and she turns the gun up and the camera is like lovingly photographing her guns, all of her guns.

I think it's worth it. Camera was really into her, obviously. What do you have for a flex? Well, I had a couple. I had the Sasha Jenkins Award for Actor, who you can't believe didn't become a bigger star for Michael Bean. But also the David Crusoe Award that we talked about, stuff of legends for character who definitely should have been spun off into their own sequel.

also would watch a Vasquez immediate prequel. Like, what was Vasquez doing? Vasquez and Boggs? Yeah. Yes. Bogs and Vasquez. That just sounds like an ABC show from me. It is Boggs and Vasquez.

Just bouncing from planet to planet, you know, terminating bugs? Isn't that what the video game is, basically, the Colonial Marines video game? Do you ever play that? Never mind. Sierra thinks Luke Wilson could have been in Harris, I'll go last because my takes. might take an inferno. Aliens might be the best alien movie,

but it was bad for the alien franchise. Ooh. Like that. The first film was a horror movie. It's like a slasher action film, but the aliens were of inexplicable origin, and there was all this ambiguity and mystery around them, and it's like, yes, like you basically leave that movie,

and you're like, that was a great, you know, like horror experience, but you were also like, what the fuck was that and why did it have a spaceship and what was it doing in that chair and all the stuff about it. And Cameron just basically makes it a Ripley franchise for what winds up being three films going forward, which is totally cool. But I think what should have happened is Ridley should have made his movies and then there should have been like Ripley movies. But there there should have been like Ridley Scott's 1986 Alien 2 would have been incredible. I think.

It's interesting because it's sort of similar to Star Wars where they can't get away from the Skywalker saga, even though there's this huge world that they're creating and they're presenting, but people get so attached to those characters that everything kind of feels stuck. Like even Alien Romulus, which was a pretty cool kind of reboot,

I think takes place between alien and aliens. They can't get too far away from that period of time. My hottest take, and I'm not sure if I believe this, but I'll share it here that this is a better Vietnam movie than Full Metal Jacket. Whoa. now it may not be a better movie than full metal jacket you got the

it's a good had to take Phil just did the Alonzo warning gift because full metal jacket is one of the great training to be in the military movies and then the second half of the film which is excellent but is not as good as of a Vietnam movie experience and is obviously shot in England yeah similarly

to this movie it's a pretty good one get away from are you bitch terrible line delivery, one of the worst parts of the movie. Wow. And it became super famous and iconic.

That's why you're you. That's why he's him. I think they need another take and there's reasons they didn't have another take because of how they're filming it. Yeah. I think it cost her the Oscar. Get away from her, you bitch.

It's just bad. But it's become an iconic line. Sure. But I think she needed a second take. I think there's a reason Kubrick, Fincher, some of these guys, like, let's run that.

back, Sigourney one more time, you didn't quite get it. I think it should have been way more down, more like get away from her, you bitch. Like, lower. She's just, it's bad. I think Sigourney said that Cameron wanted bitch to be low-key,

not to be up, because the delivery is get away from her, you bitch, and he wanted it to be down. It's just bad. It's tacky. I like it. Thumbs down. Do you like the whole fight with her and the loader? Yeah. Yeah. Craig, I think from going forward, you have to be on hottest takes since you're the king of the hottest take.

Okay. I think you just have to be ready for this category from now on. Okay. Good to know. Do you have any hot takes? No. I don't think so for this. Craig's like, he's like Chang.

He needs to cook. He's there all day. He needs a sous chef. Yeah, it's got a marinade. Yeah. He needs a soup. Hans Gruber scale villain ranking. Riser, like a six and a half?

I think he's pretty high. I think he's eight and a half. Where do you put the mother in? alien though. Well, she's just doing what biology wanted her to do. Not a villain. Just laying eggs and protecting the hive. I'm sympathetic to the mother alien. Casting what ifs, you mentioned Weaver

wanting a million bucks, which was a lot of money back then, gets it. Bill Paxton lined up to be in Police Academy 2. Then got this movie. The role of Zed from Police Academy 2

goes to Bobcat Goldplate. What a fucking sliding doors that is. Truly. James Remar, my guy. Right there. Gans in 48 hours, Ajax and the Warriors.

I love James Reimar. Lives in my neighborhood, have seen him in Larchmont I don't know, 20 times. Do you think you would ever go up to him and be like, what's the alien story?

No, I think this is going to happen. I think now that I know this aliens thing, this will prompt me to be... You've never approached him before? No. I don't like bothering celebrities. Same.

He's having a moment. Oppenheimer and the Odyssey. He's Theresius. I'm aware. Yeah, that's, he's back. Riemar's back. Remar has never left. There are shots in the movie

that you apparently can see his back, but yeah. So apparently had a severe cocaine problem. Was arrested for drug possession during the filming. Is there any other kind? Well, so they're filming this in... I have a recreational... They're filming this in London. on some weird set, right?

How do you get arrested? Like, what kind of cocaine level was he at? It's probably, like, party in the streets. Buying cocaine from somebody he shouldn't. Yeah, out in the open. Yeah. An undercover bobby. Yeah.

Being available showed up within a few days. And then, it was like Friday, and he was, like, on the set on Monday. And it's so clear. Bean is perfect for this part. And I don't think Remar would have made as much sense. Remar is, there's something kind of hard and tough and, like, not vulnerable about James Remar. And Bean has got, he, he is, he's courageous, but he's not the leader.

Like, Ripley is ultimately the leader in the movie. So I think it's worked out for the best. This is a borderline cast to one-off, but Al Pacino is filming Revolution in the studio next door and came and visited the set. I had coffee with McCauley half an hour ago. Only he would say Ripley. Can you do Pacino as Hudson? Can they fit Al Pacino in this movie?

You don't meet, Pat. You're dead. You don't me, pal. Ripley, you know what you signed up for, baby. Yeah, Al Pacino is Burke. This species has a lot of financial value to the company. I think they could have made it work. Yeah, that would have been great.

Revolution, that's a film. Al need to sell out more in movies like this. I wish we had gotten Al as like the bad guy in Con Air. You know? Yeah. That's why I love devil's advocate. Yeah. That's where he's really going for it.

You know why you care about Ripley? Because she's got a great ass. And you got your head all the way up it. Fesquez! That should have been the special edition. What are you doing with that teats? Now we're just yelling. What if he was A-Pone?

Oh, yeah, that would be good. You know? Hey, listen, he could have been in every part. Joey pants-aware, best that guy. Mark Rawlston. were the Boggs. I do like Paul Maxwell as Van Lewin. The guy from the company.

We didn't really talk about Whelan Yutani and they're, I guess they can come up in questions. Mark Ralston, Hall of Fame, that guy. You just say him, like, that's Boggs. Dionne Waiter's Award, I think, I don't know what to do with this. Al Matthews is A-Pone. And also because we went to an aliens screening

at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, like before COVID, like 2018, 19, something like that? It was Granlan era. Oh, early days. And, like, all the Marines showed up to, like, hang out to introduce the movie, and it was so awesome. Stereical screening. Chris and I went with Eileen and Phoebe, and I'm almost, Chris and I were, like, sat up, like, stock still, like, perfect posture watching the movie on the ground at Hollywood Forever. And I'm pretty sure both Eileen and Phoebe fell asleep within 15 minutes.

I mean, because we had been waiting for, like, four hours. Yeah. Yeah. But also, I mean, you've been on it. But also, like, at Hollywood Forever, you just, like, drink wine while you. watching the movie. So they were just getting hammered. And we were like, A-Pone! You're like,

You're like, Jeanette Goldstein's not Mexican. Recast the couch director, city. Boston. Where would the Queen be laying her eggs in Boston? Southie. Yeah. Not combat zone? South they are over the hill in Charlestown. What if Kubrick and Cameron switched jobs?

Oh, Sean. Well, first of all, they'd still be shooting aliens. Yeah, they never finish aliens. But Kubrick's aliens and Cameron's full metal jacket is an interesting. It's really good. We all like Michael Bean. We're all fans. Can I offer you young Kevin Costner or his Hicks?

Yeah, it's pretty good. Perfect time for him, right? Year before, no way out. Hasn't really broken through yet. Doesn't have the Terminator baggage? Did he ever play a soldier? Like a proper soldier? You would have felt like he might take a...

Yeah, I guess that was it. Would have felt like he might take a crack at Ripley at any point during the movie because he's Kevin Costner? Uh-huh. Then they wouldn't have fucking killed him an Alien 3. And I think they keep them for Alien 3

if it's Kevin Costner. I'll do you one better. Drew Barrymore is Newt. Oh, that's great. Firestarter era, Drew Barrymore? Similar age. Yeah. Good one.

Craig, Flex. I got a couple. With their own camera now. First Flex is the day. I know. I kind of wanted to invent a new one for Bishop, which is the William Defoe, this creepy-looking guy turned out to be nice story.

Really good. That's a really good fun. Really good. I didn't trust it the whole time. Yeah, the second I saw him, I was like, no shot. And then, yeah, I was like, wow, what a pleasant surprise. That's like the guy in Silence of the Lambs who's like the butterfly expert, you know, or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good one. Is that yours? Yeah. I thought you had two. Well, the other one, I wonder, this is, I get why they did it. but it's a mini Marion Cabretti Pizza Cutting Award. Why did they stop this on set?

So 57 years later, Ripley's still just wearing like wife beaters in little underwear. 57 years later, she's the same look. There's... She got personal style. I get that they want her to... Maybe it's swung back. I guess if they wanted to look like that in the movie for like, you know, just because... One of my unanswerable questions is what's up with lung cancer in this future?

Because they're all smoking. Yeah. They're smoking indoors. Kind of what's happening now in 2026. Cigarettes are back. Exactly the same. But are we supposed to imagine that they've cured it and now everybody's back doing darts?

Yeah, they cured it. AI. They figured out. Figured out lung cancer. I really hope that happens. That'd be great. Half Esther Internet Research. We've mentioned a bunch of this stuff.

If you and I are doing rewatchables in 2035 and AI's cured lung cancer and we're just smoking. Oh, yeah. That would be like Frost Nixon. There's just a fun. Full ashtray right there. Leading over. Smoking to look like with these 4K cameras.

The T situation, the T-breaks, the British film industry tradition. I just can't get over this. Very good. It was my favorite half-ass internet research in a while. Another good one was they made a cast dummy of Newt because Sigourney Weaver had some back issues and couldn't carry Newt because Newt was, you know,

10-year-old girl or how old she was at that point. So they made a light dummy. And you can actually see it. I look for it the second time. There's some scenes where it's like she's, it's like naked gun.

Remember at the end of naked gun when he's going down the stairs with Priscilla Presley and he's just swinging this manikin. It's a little like that. I really liked the note about how Carrie Han, who played Newt,

kept biffing takes on purpose when she's supposed to slide down. Right, because she loved going down the slide. And so finally, Cameron's like, if you just please bathe yourself, you can ride down all the rest of the day. There's, I mean, this could be 20 minutes and it's not going to be, but if you want

to know about how they built the set, how they used the replica, the miniature stuff, like, it's all, it's a pretty good deep dive. I'm not going to do it here. There's a four-hour documentary called, is it, aliens expanded that you can watch with many, many interviews of many, many of the people who worked on the movie, including camera and all the stars.

really good. One of the things we talk about, sometimes when we do these movies from the 80s and 90s is before CGI, which Cameron talks about. If I had CGI, I would have done this, this, and this, and this movie. But they just kind of had to figure out shit. Yeah. So they're doing the alien and it's 14 puppeteers, like moving the alien pieces around. And now it would just be a button. Yeah, they said it was the largest Marionette ever created for a film production. The guns, wait 65 to 70% percent. pounds, which you can really feel like when they're trying to, and it's like, man, have any of these people held a gun?

But it's because they were crazy heavy. And then, oh, Lance Henriksen caught food poisoning from the milk, yogurt, and cream thing, he had to spew up because the set was hot and the stuff, like, their bacteria got in and he got like super sick. And then the alien nest set kept intact. used in Batman. It's the Axis Chemicals set. And then,

a lot of stuff about Cameron and the H.J. And then there's a whole thing about, they had this whole reel. The movie's like three plus hours. There's a whole reel of a backstory with Newt and her colony and all that. And they couldn't figure out how to cut the movie down.

And then Gayla Ann Hurd's like, just cut that part. And he did the thing where he took it out and watched the movie. And it was like, oh, that makes so much more sense. So it's just gone. But it's worth noting

that Sean's, pointed out that the Ripley stuff in terms of her backstory with her daughter, there's a little bit more stuff with Burke in the beginning, all that stuff got cut out. Weaver was really pissed about that. Yeah. She thought she did great work or like that was really important for the character. And then Karen was like when I watched Alien 3, a lot of the stuff that she had been asking for is in Alien 3. So she obviously was able to be like, if you want me to come back, Ironclad, I have to do X, Y, and Z. Alien 3, including die. Right.

The film takes place in 2179, but then they've kind of retroactively changed that and made it 21, 22, 57 years before aliens. So there's some for the aliens nerds, there's some timeline stuff that does not fit.

Related to that too, there's a video game that takes place between alien and aliens that stars Amanda Ripley, which is Helen Ripley's daughter and she, they get word that there's like information like a log from her vessel so she

goes out looking for her mom and that's the premise of the whole game. That to me is like that also could have been a movie. For sure. It still could be a movie. Yeah. Apex Mountain Sigourney two years after Ghostbusters this. I'm going to say yes. Working girls the next year.

She parlayes it into Working Girl and Gorillazes in the same year and wins the Oscar for Grilles in the midst. I think this is a yes. Cameron, no. No. Bean? Yeah. Bean, probably, yes.

Terminator than this. I think so. If you're doing like big picture exists 40 years ago and you're doing biggest male movie stars. We joke about the Luke Wilson thing. Like he did have Harrison Ford juice to him for a minute there. Yeah, I wonder what, you got to ask him if you have another thing. I am, yeah.

Paxton, no. Is that what you would say? Yeah, he's in. Twister, Titanic. Alien movies? Of the alien franchise? Alien movies where we go outer space. No.

E.T. is still best. Alien franchise, yes. No. So hard. I think I'm back on Alien. I think I was like... Oh, wow. I think for the most of my life it was aliens.

Actually, made me feel guilty that we hadn't done aliens forever. Now you're back on Alien. The second best alien movie is still a lot better than about last night. You know, like, unbelievable. No, I'm just saying, you know how like, as you go over in the course of your life, you just are like, sometimes you're a godfather, sometimes you're a godfather too.

We do hunt from Red October. He's like, I don't know, I still like K-19, The Widowmaker, a little more. I would go alien as well. Jeanette Goldstein? Yes. Asset strapping? Um.

There's some other examples of this. I'm trying to think. Some good ones. I mean. Didn't John Hamm have to holster it in a couple things? You think he taped it to the thigh there? A nut sling? I've heard some things.

He had a cock sling? Yeah. Wow. She's... Athletics like tamed that thing up a little bit, man. Got to remember who the star of this movie is. Just one of the guys, Joyce Heiser. She does.

Yeah, she's got to strap him down. I mean, we literally watch Brandon Tina do it and Boys Don't Cry. That's like a whole scene in that movie. Paul Reiser, no. It's coming, though. Not Paul Riser's The Apex Mountain. It's mad about you? It's mad about you.

That show is being watched by 25 million people a week. It's a massive, massive hit. But you don't like it. I never liked it. I was used to make fun of anyone I knew who liked it. Wow. Thought it was the lame show. Yeah.

Out on Pankow. I was younger. I was, you know, it was the Zag was to not like that show. I always liked Helen Hunt, though, on that show. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was like it. And a bad Woody Allen movie stretched out to 900 episodes.

But, like, I kind of like bad Woody Allen movies. Do you know that they did, like, a reunion series that was, like, on spectrum? Yeah. Like, it was, like, direct TV. They got Pan Cowell back. Yeah. Matt about you had one of the best crossfire annihilations ever. Really?

When George got whipped on Seinfeld by his girlfriend at the end. Mm-hmm. And realized he made a mistake. Him and Jerry decided they were both going to get married. but then Jerry backed out and then George stayed with his whatever and he's just in some room bummed out and she's like, George, mad about you starting?

And he's just like, and then he kind of slump sober, right? Yes, Susan. Yeah. But I always thought that was like unnecessary crossfire because that was an NBC show. That is tough. But that was the sentiment of mad about you. It was like you're basically your significant other

made you watch it. Do you think, will you take the money for the 20 years from now spectrum-funded reunion of the rewatchables cast where everybody who hasn't seen each other in a long time it's just like

Oh, Van Lathen, Kyle Brandt Craig, you're all growns up. You'll do it. It'd be great. I'm never letting you guys go, so it won't be a reunion. What if you can't make my rate at that point?

By who? What if you just can't make my rate at that point? You can't hit my number. Rich Paul shows up on your behalf. Rich, when you realize Bill Simmons couldn't meet C.R.'s rate

anymore. Is that a per episode rate? Yeah, okay. Cruiser, Hanks. I had Cruz as Burke. Whoa. I have Cruz as Hicks and Hanks's Hudson. Hanks as Hudson.

80s Hanks. That's pretty good. But if you could only have one, who do you have? I think Cruz is Hicks. What do you have? You're kind of like Hanks in this movie more. I like Hanks as Hudson. Hanks' Hudson's fun.

Good backup. They both would be good. I just think cruise going, this is clearly an important species. You know? Are you working on your cruise? Yeah, that's good. 1994, Dimit Moore, 2003, Angelina, 2014-14-Charliez or 2026 Zendaya for Ripley. I had 14 Charlies.

I had as well. I had Angelina, and it made me think, you made that great point about how this becomes Ripley's franchise. And I wonder if there was a way to pivot. at this after she dies after three because they try to give you like Winona Ryder and Resurrection. You know, Romulus is giving you Kaylee Spaney. They never quite

found Catherine Waterston. Catherine Watersden, yeah. Kind of like Zendaya. Charlises and Prometheus. Like, you never quite get the real inheritor of Ripley's throne. Zendaya has the secret height. Physicality. It's just like 5'8. Oh, I think she's taller than that. 5.9?

Depends on what the part is. Just a lot of her with the gun going. Making the Zendaya face. Yeah. Ruined space. The rude face. Has Rue face replaced Shamed face?

The Rick Chichetti? Who is it? Rick Chiquetti? This is your category. Yeah, but yes. But a reader sent it in. I forget what movie was. The Guard beat award for Most Memorable Death by a Security Guard or Other Bystander.

When you start doing this, but you're like, who is it Derek? Derek Gray? Derek Black, Derek White. Right? Like, when you lose this song. We'll have to have an intervention. Okay. Whatever, however pronounce that name, it goes to the helicopter crash.

Spunkmire and Farrow. Can I also say, Pharaoh? Just going to save some people, all of a sudden, there's an alien ripping through my heart. Drop ship pilot, Pharaoh? Yeah. Throw my life away for her. Wow. Aviator sunglasses, get out of it.

She's in Bonneton Wheeler and Nicholson catalog. Yeah. It's a good stretch for CR here. If Pharaoh wants to fly me to the moon, let's go. Yeah. Pickin Nets. I mean, obviously the first one is This is just the classic

And it's a sequel device But nobody's listening to Ripley on this Yeah She's more experience and knowledge Than all of you combined And they're like, I don't know It's like don't go back there The colony and they laid eggs

And it's really bad And they're like, yeah, whatever It's one of the great gaslighting scenes In movie history That when she has to testify in the inquest And she's giving them all this information And there's the woman Is like

You suddenly drop Yeah, yeah, where like the woman repeats the thing We're just like, so you're telling me that there's a species That ingests, you know, like that whole thing is so As the viewer, you're so on Ripley side Our guy there, our guy McLean That was like the next four diehards, right? Each time they're like, oh, what do you know, John McLean?

Yeah, we have a spoiled five terrorists We have a Washington, D.C. airport to run here. Speaking of that scene, the sort of, I guess, deposition scene or whatever she's doing with the board members. and that woman is like nothing has been documented like what you're describing

in however many hundreds of worlds that we've surveyed. But then when those guys, the Marines, are in the mess hall in the beginning of the movie, they're talking about having sex with aliens. So which one is it?

Is it that there are aliens but they're nice and they have sex with you or that's like a little bit of a mistake? More questions than answers. Yeah, I'd say so. Arcturian pussy. That's what he's talking about.

didn't they have to scale back one of the things because it looked a little vulvay one of the alien things? They did not scale back. It looks like... I mean, the plunge against the glass. Yeah. Would Ripley really get back to work

after a 57-year hiatus or would she maybe think of some other stuff through professionally? They've really job to her. I think that's in the director's cut is like they're basically like you're not financially liable, but we've suspended all of your money-making ability and you have no money.

I'll just say one more time if you're going to re-watch this movie. I encourage you to watch the directors' cut. How did the little girl survive by herself on the alien spaceship? Just kind of make and do? I mean, that point is made by the characters at a certain point.

It's like if she was able to do it, then we can do it. Put her in charge. Yeah, yeah. Why did Ripley blow up the eggs when they were blowing up the whole spaceship anyway? Or the whole thing anyway? I thought that that was... Just get the fuck out of there and then blow it up.

Ripley tried hanging on the rim at the end of the game there. And I honestly, like, I just feel like that was a... You have plenty of time here to get out of there. So it was a breakaway and she tried to do the 360 dunk instead of just laying it in? I read that differently. I read that as like she has this primal expression of revenge. Sure. That she's like...

Mom versus Mom. Yeah. Like, I have to take out this force that is responsible for destroying my life. She... Sophie Cunningham pointed out. She did. She did with a... Blame throwers.

Yeah. Walking around. That whole moment in the movie, which we probably didn't talk about enough. But the way that the sound and score goes quiet as we watch the eggs get laid, and then it's revealed the shape and size of the mother alien. And the tube?

Yeah, it is fuck. And they built all that stuff. It's really cool. It's so cool. It looks great on the 4K, too. I think for picking it, Ripley loses. is the last fight with her dumb contraption that she's in, which she's exposed all over the place.

Like, alien tentacles can come flying in five different areas. One thing I do like about her fight style, though, this is pure Pacquiao. It's all anticipatory jabs. Like, everything is like she's getting ready to clock the alien before the alien can even recover from the shot. Yeah. You know, where she's like, you can feel her rearing back

so that as soon as it recovers, she can go in again. What do you think about this? The giant, what is it called? The fight strategy. The mother alien. Oh, the power loader? Yeah. Kind of Avatar-esque, also from Cameron.

There's a lot of... Visual... Yeah, very similar. A little rock'em-sock and robots is. Sort of a slow-mo, Pacino and cruising dance. Twice in one week for that. My only other nitpick was that everyone gets sucked out at the end. The airlock.

The airlock. That airlock is just... I can't even imagine the gravity. I wish there was just one more beat to get this across. but when Ripley doesn't let them fucking execute Burke when it's been kind of discovered that he's the one... Yeah, just shoot him in the head. Yeah, like, Hudson or Hicks wastes that dude.

And she's like, no, we have to bring him back to Earth so that he can be accountable for his crimes against humanity and Whalen Utani can be brought down. But I think they needed a little bit more explanation of that. And I also think Marines would have been like, fuck, fuck that. This guy's getting smoked. Yeah. Especially he was taking insurance claims.

And he was supposed to only report 3%. Yeah, that's right. He was reporting 40. Whalen Yutani bought the Dodgers. Letting Magic Johnson by one of his funds. Loans against future xenomorphs. Yeah. I feel like he really played it out.

He was playing the long game. Whalen Yutani cost us the 2027 baseball season. It's fucked up. Any other nipicks? We hit almost all of them. I always found that for as much as it's my favorite scene in the movie and for as iconic as it is, it's pretty stupid that they don't think about the ceiling

in the tracker scene. We're like, where could they be coming from? It's like just, it's, it doesn't even look like it's a ceiling. It's just like, like, poster board up there. It's all drop ceiling everywhere, yeah. Any nipicks from you? I think I was just slightly underwhelmed by the skill of this Marine crew. I didn't feel like they were that different from the guys from Alien One, which were not Marines.

I felt like it was a very similar kind of strategy. I think that's part of why it's a very good Vietnam critique, because, you know, going into Vietnam, there's a lot of confidence about the power of our military. it was quickly revealed that they were not well suited to that fight, given the circumstances. And so I feel like that's baked in that no matter how badass Vasquez is, she doesn't really stand a chance. Do you feel the same way about the guys who run the Ringer Fantasy Football League? Yeah, yeah, I think they're a little over their skis with all their rules and declarations and certitude about how things should be played. I don't, you know.

How about running past some more experienced men, you know? We can't get anybody to respond to our texts in the group chat. Should call this. Shal her first five today. Burke should have said that. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast, untouchable.

They basically did four of these. Because they've done everything else. Yeah, they've done every other version. Seven sequels to this movie. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Flores, Zainlow, Robert Evans, Dr. Charles Nichols,

Ted Levine, or someone else. Ripley, you've been asleep for 57 years. You lost a daughter. You've been held liable for the detonation of a spaceship. Stop looking me in the eye. And now you've refraff. You've returned to LV426. But I think what's at the front of everybody's minds is,

who is this Ellen Ripley who we meet now? What kind of music is she making? He did a... That's really... He should pivot to that, this kind of interview style. Interviewing Ellen Ripley? Yeah. Well, just like getting figures on that have done this kind of work.

I think it's for you. I think you should get a much more comfortable chair in the big picture room, and you should start getting like, like, Hannah, I'm buying to... And just adopt his accent? Yeah. Okay. Or my accent of his accent. You've been talking about wanting to revise this category a little bit.

What was the other one I had? Well, was Barney from The Vanishing. I think we could bring Hudson into this. Bernie. Ford Vanishing. Hello, Ripley. I'm who you're looking for. I'm Bonnie.

That's very good. Yeah, I think we could refresh this. I think we have a couple of guys. Maybe some, maybe the, uh, could send some suggestions. Because we've done some invitations over the years that we just forget about. We've never done it before,

but I always love Frank Hackett and Network, the Robert Duval part where he's like, I've got a big fat, big-tinted hit! And Ronnie can't tell me anything anymore! Like Duval going ape shit is my favorite. Yeah. Yeah, we probably have to work Duval in at some point. Yeah, we got to revise the category.

We've kind of, although Fergie the Flores still has some... Bergey has some juice. I think it's always nice to get Zane in there, Dr. Charles Nichols. I think we've put Wayne into like waiting for Bernthal zone, you know? Well, now we have the Odysseus. Oh, yeah.

Echamemnon. Yeah. Menaeus. Melaleas. We can use him. What would be the best movie to do with Bernthal? Is it a Bernthal movie? Definitely.

I would say a military movie. Gorilla's in the mist. But like, Could you do platoon? You've got mailed. I don't know. I think it's some military thing where he gets to talk about

the training and how the grip and how hard it is to do the shooting scene. He's somebody who I think would be good to talk to about movies he's been in. I know that people are sometimes

reticent to do that, but I bet if he did Sicario or if he did, I don't know, he would be good. Fury. Shot caller. Wolf Wall Street. Wolf Wall Street.

Just want to ask her. Who gets it for you guys? Cameron. Big Jim. Big Jim for director? For director. This is an astonishing active direction. No shot, Oliver Stone.

Got to see who else was nominated. This movie won two Oscars, right? For special effects and sound editing? Best director. Stone wins. David Lynch, Blue Velvet, Woody Allen, Hannah, and her sisters. Roland Jaffe, The Mission, James Ivory, Room of the View. All great movies.

Yeah. That's a great line of. When are we going to do the mission on rewatchables? I haven't seen it in forever. Is that? Beautiful movie. or somewhere better. It's a little quiet.

It is gorgeous score, though. Great. And Morricone. Unanswerable questions. Yeah. Watch this movie on a streamer. Sigourney's teeth look yellow because it's like classic 80s,

like the oppressed white strips of smoke or all that stuff. Then in the 4K transfer, sparkling white. That's Big Jim. You think Big Jim? Probably. Him and Fincher. I googled it and looked for it,

and they were like, they did not, he did not do stuff like. that, I think he did. They deploy AI to make some of these decisions, though, too. The teeth are like... Encourage color grading in certain sequences, so... Because I think in general, the movies from the 70s, 80s, like, the coffee cigarette teeth is really bad.

And I think they definitely mess with that. Hypernation pods. Can we just talk about this? Yeah. What's going on here? Do you want them or do you think that they're... Like, if you could go into hypersleep and wake up in the future, would you want to experiment Let's really talk about the mechanics here.

57 years, so no bathroom. Yep. Never wake up. You're just out. Then you wake up. Do you immediately have to go to the bathroom? I think that this is an incredible point. Because it would be one thing if she woke up and she had crazy amounts of tubes in her where it's like a catheter or oxygen to you had to pee an hour ago.

Yeah. So is she like, oh, hibernator. Oh my God. I have to pee so bad. To me, I thought about hunger. It's like, do you just need a fucking hoagy as soon as you get out of there? So you come out of the hibernation pad. What's the first thing you're doing?

Taking a shower? I think I'd be on my phone just trying to figure out who won the last 57 NBA titles. Oh my God. And then I'm going to pee. What I would like to do... Oh, my God, 2004? The Clippers? They did it?

At the aspiration dome, no less. Everybody seems so unfazed. they wake up and 57 years have passed? No, I don't think they're asleep for 57 years. She was asleep for 57 years because she was like spinning out there. I think they went to sleep for like a year or something to get out there. Yeah, but she did 57 at the start and wakes up and she's like, is my apartment still there? Oh, I have my stuff.

In my version of aliens where I'm Ripley, I wake up and I look at the sports results over the last 57 years. And I realized that the Jets did in fact win the title. they won the Super Bowl. Be so mad. But then I realize it's a nightmare and a chestburster breaks through and then I wake up and then I check again

and the jet still everyone. No Super Bowls. I would like to be the guy who basically didn't go to sleep and was like watching the ship for the time that everybody was asleep so that like I could get good at really good at one thing.

And when you guys woke up, I would be like, oh yeah, I can draw a golf ball now. I'm actually a plus five. Let's go to the range. I want to show you something. Yeah, my short game is basically like airtight You can make a movie about somebody just waking up from the hibernation pot in their next 90 minutes

Isn't that comedy about that Rocket Man? Isn't that what the premise of that movie is? I think you're right. I like that as a kid. Harlan Williams movie, yeah. That was funny movie. I don't know if I know that movie. Yeah, the guy who's like six squirrels sitting on a nut.

The guy from there is something about Mary. Worst ways to go in a movie being cocooned? I wouldn't want that to happen. Would you rather get cocooned or torn in half? Torn and a half because you die immediately. Yeah, unless you're an android. Coon is like, that's... I feel like it's being implanted.

Oh, and having the alien pop out? That's even worse to me. Because it's happening to you and observing it and then you have to bleed out. The cocoon is a slow death though. Yeah. I mean, that could be like 11 days. Do we know that for a fact? That is actually...

I don't know. I don't know if it's in the director's cup, but it is a deleted scene where Burke... Ripley comes across. us Burke and he's been cocooned. But they were like, we can't do that. I don't think that's in the director's guy. Yeah, there was like a whole reason why they were like timeline wise,

he would not be cocooned at this point. I think the worst way anyone's ever died in a movie is the guy from seven who got starved. Yeah. And then they went, they thought the guy was dead, but he, like, he breathed and they got,

that guy had the worst death of any movie. That's when John McGinley's like, Dix! That's my favorite line reading in that whole movie. my only other in answer bro was what do Bishop's next few years look like? He's

just basically a torso and a head Well they can use his arms rebuilt and then at the end of Alien 3 Bishop's creator who looks just like Bishop shows up Oh so they they save them No it's just like he's like David where it's like they're made in the image

of like the person who made the the Android kind of You don't think they'd just wheeled them around for the next couple years? It'd be fun, yeah. Put, like, a little, like, burlap bag around his intestine so they didn't leak. Bishop, could you still do the knife trick?

I mean, it's, like, just like C3PO in the Star Wars movies, too. Yeah, like he gets, like torn apart and then put back together. Memorability you'd most want from the movie? One of the armored plate vests that they have. I had Vasquez's headband. Nice.

Oh, that's really good. Not Vasquez's tape? Well, I'd take that, too. I think one of the guns would be pretty cool. Yeah. A fire gun? What would you want, Craig? A gun is a 60-pound gun, just like up here in the studio.

Put it right next to Gabe Kaplan. Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi, where a best worst life lesson. Don't go back to your personal hell. Mm-hmm. Seems wise. Sometimes you just got to nuke the site from orbit just to be sure. I think I'm just out on cryosleep.

That's a takeaway. Just maybe don't participate in that. Because you just never know when you're going to wait for. I don't want 57 years to go by. Yeah. Best double feature choice. Alien. I have Alien.

I have Alien as well, but also Platoon. Really? I like the Vietnam bit today. Nice work by you. Thanks. Who won the movie? I think Sigourney Weaver.

My gut is Cameron because he elevates to the highest class with this. I mean, is there a more blank, checky movie than the Abyss? It's like a crazy weird premise idea and like he gets getting to do. And, you know, it's like,

it doesn't totally work, but it allows him to go on on and on. So I feel like it's drowning his actors. I feel like it's Cameron. My argument for it is that Ripley becomes like

a much more iconic character after aliens than she did after alien. And that like I think Sigourney Weaver is associated with this giant blockbuster franchise for most of its existence

until Ridley comes back. So we have one Cameron vote. I want, one Weaver vote. What do you think? I vote Cameron. I think Weaver's short-term Cameron long-term.

I mean, on a personal level and on a like every time I rewatch I get excited it's Paxton but but I I think argue like objectively I think it's either camera camera number Paxton was the late 80s

Zag take like when people thought the replacements were better than RAM same thing settled just saying this has been a very friendly cordial entertaining podcast it's like Paxon won aliens

is like cool yeah he's getting a little afraid that we're going to leave him I know so he's going to keep put a little poke the pod We'll poke. Where are you guys going?

It's not going anywhere. Spectrum has made a really good offer. What's happening? Tiebreaker vote? In the movie itself, I like Weaver. And now it's 2-2. Do you ever put who won the movie to like a public vote? It would be an interesting, in instances like this

where it's like you've got two clear icons coming out of this movie. We used to do polls in the past, but sometimes it was like an easy answer so we wouldn't put it up. but when it's a true split, we should do it. This is a cool one. It's a good debate. I'd like to know. Also, same for alien or aliens. I'm just going to say the same thing.

It would be funny if we do this, and then it turns out, like, with the WMBA, when people parachute in because they can criticize it. You think Ennis Cantor is going to weigh in on this? Ennis Cantor's like, we've got to protect James Cameron. He's won the movie. But all the MAGA people are, like, protecting Jeanette Goldstein's right to portray Vasquez. Canter identifies us as Zanter identifies. xenomorph.

Craig, you'd never seen this movie. No, I've been waiting a long time. I loved it. I love that. I love that they feel separate, alien and aliens, and you don't have to choose because they're such different movies. It's a little bit of like Dune and Dune 2 to me, like the quiet opening story and then like the full-fledged action movie and the sequel. I think I lean Alien.

I think Alien is like perfect. Can I ask you, do you think it had anything? Did you watch Alien also on a laptop? I've seen Alien multiple times on my TV. last night I was trapped for time I couldn't blast aliens at like 1 a.m. in my apartment, so I had to watch it on my laptops. Maybe that hurt it.

We fucked up because they just ran aliens on 70 at the village theater, I want to say, all the way on the west side. And Cameron went to it, right? And Cameron introduced the movie. And then he sat down in like the third row and watched it with everybody.

That's the kind of shit I would do if I was a famous movie director. Just show up at your own screenings. It's like, what better feeling could you have? You can still do that. You can come do a Sixers game and watch Jalen Brown. You know what's crazy by this movie? I was looking at the budget being $18 million.

Yeah. It's like, sure, it's the 80s. If you adjust that to now, that's only 54. Yeah. I'm like, a sequel to a movie like Alien now, like if you were to, it would have cost $200 million. I can't believe that even in 1986, after a follow-up to a hit,

they only spent $18 million on this movie, and it looked as good as it did. Yeah. Speed was 31 and they blew up like five parts of LA. But at least speed was original. And so like you didn't know if it was... I mean, the fact that this is aliens coming off the director who made The Terminator, and it's only $18 million to me is just crazy the scale, like how much it's jumped.

I think some of it had to do with cast. Like, it's... They're not using $20 million a movie actors. Like Sigourney Weaver has to fight to get a million dollars in some box office participation on this one. Michael Bion and Bill Paxton and, you know, Jeanette Goldstein are not major movie stars. Paul Reisers.

It's a sci-fi horror movie, which there's just not a track record of big movie, right? Like, people knew. Well, you said at the beginning, it was one of the biggest movies of the summer, one of the biggest movies of the year. But it was not, there was not no expectation that it would be a franchise because it has such a, it's kind of a bummer of a movie in the original alien, you know? It's a very kind of sad, contemplative. Pretty early for sequels, just in general. This is only like a 10-year run of us wrapping our head around. You can keep making this.

A sequel might actually be good. Well, it's also that classic thing of like you mentioned Alan Ladd going out at the studio and the guy coming in and the guy who came in just didn't get it. He didn't, he wasn't a part of alien the first time around. He didn't have any vested interest. Yeah, exactly. And that's like, but you know, Cameron's big thing was, I can't remember who told him this. I think it was Julia Phillips. But it was like, you shouldn't do aliens because if anything goes right with it, people would be like, well, Ridley Scott, that's all Ridley Scott's.

and if anything goes wrong with it, you'll get blamed. So it is like a real risk for him to do this. Like Chris Connolly. Spicey, I like that. Indeed. Can you think of another example of a franchise where the first and second movies are arguably as good as each other

and they're made by different directors? No. Because usually what you get is, it's basically impossible. You get Batman Begins in Dark Night or Batman and Batman Returns. But you never want that. Toy Story, Toy Story 2.

Godfather, Godfather 2. Yeah. Sometimes it would help. Like, I think Escape from L.A. would have been better with a different director. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I mean.

And I love John Carpard. I really like Die Hard 2, but in no way is it close to Die Hard 2. Yeah, yeah. Like, that's a new... I mean, you know, the Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back is... They're different filmmakers,

but it's all from Lucas. I guess Taboo 2 had two different directors. Interesting. From Taboo 1. That's true. Top Gun Maverick? Oh Yeah

Albeit it Yeah Quite a long time after top of it I mean I prefer Maverick to the original I've been Cranking it Cranking it Cranking it too Top Gun Maverick

It's on a lot Yeah It's on what The four Showtime channels You I can't believe you're still doing this I love the guide I love jumping into movies You still do this

I have it But do you do you like go What's on the movie channels Right? No I did for a while And then I think like The amount of DVDs and also just like

just work watching. You guys are missing out. Showtime is basically just showing both Godfathers and Top Gun Maverick and they're just on all the time. And it's amazing. What does that tell you about what people want from them? Yeah, they know. Yeah. They know what's going on. They know the drill. And then HBO3 is now just doing marathons.

Of their shows, right? They're just like, we're running the wire this week. We're running the Sopranos. I saw Thrones was on for a while. We're doing curb. We're running the whole. I like what's happening. Cable guides are back. Pluto's back. Tobey. Like, the whole, like, let's jump in and I get to, you're picking the stuff for me. When is the CR and Joanna Sopranos pot happening? What's that? Oh, because we haven't watched Sopranos? Yeah, start to finish. It's unforgivable. I've seen the Sopranos. I just didn't

watch it contemporaneously and I haven't seen every episode. You dropped a Vito reference on the pod this week and you were like, you guys haven't seen Sopranos. Like, we can't let it die. I've seen Sopranos. Hife, it hasn't seen Sopranos. Or he watched it out of order. Hypatts just did his 40-year-old virgin smile when I brought up. Next week on the rewatchables, I'm off. Craig is Captain Phillipsing it. But not with Captain Phillips.

For Captain Phillips? No, he's the fantasy guys. They're doing Talladega nights next week. Oh, nice. Yeah, get us ready for football season. Yeah. I'm sure the mouse to fuck that up, too, just like they fucked up the draft. You're entitled to feel how you want to feel.

And then we'll be back. We have some good ones. Good ones. We have a kind of planning a horror movie month right now for October that I think is going to be pretty spectacular. Exciting. In Red October, we're going to do that? Listen, what else do you want from this year? Well, Rich comes calling again.

If we don't get Red October, we're going to have big problems over here. We did Sicario. We did aliens. What else do you want? About last night? What's left? The names are coming off the board now, though. I know.

Like, it's getting whittled down. All the long time requests. Yes. I still have my list, but yes. After Hunt for Red October, is there anything? Apocalypse, no. Somebody asked me on a pod. We have some good ones.

Scarface is left, too. Somebody asked me this week, if I could do any movie, what would I want to do? And I said, I want to do The Master, but just me and you. The Master? Yeah. Wow. Anyway. C.R. Thank you.

Fentanyi, thank you. Craig, thank you. Thanks to Gahau as well. And we'll be back next week with Talladee. Good night.