AWTY 93 - The Moist Crunch (Ghost in the Shell with Kiff VandenHeuvel)

Hello and welcome to our weeb. There yet an exploration and education in anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I am an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime egg. Now, hold on. Hear me out. It's an egg. Because, like the title says of the episode, we're watching ghosts in the shell, and an egg has a shell, and the inside of it could have been a living creature at some point.

We didn't have to explain it as the thing because we got it.

Yeah, because, like, real stretch.

I mean, as soon as you said egg, I think everyone's mind goes like, oh, yeah, shell, we we got it. And then two paragraphs later, here we are.

Listen, I've had to justify my opening for the last 40 episodes. I figured I was just due for another one.

Yeah, the general masses don't know egg.

It's a really underground kind of hip. Egg hasn't caught on in America yet.

We'll get there soon, someday.

But helping us to get to the bottom of at least Brendan psyche, we have a guest this week.

Good luck.

You've heard him in bioshock infinite. The voice of ifc, Star Wars, the old Republic and the host of the podcast all over voiceover we have kith Vandenhuval.

What's up? What's up? Thank you so much for having me, you guys. I'm so excited to talk about this movie with you guys and just to be in the room with you. It's great to breathe your air.

Oh, yeah.

We're breathing all over each other right now. We're really soaking up each other's essence.

We're just wasting each other blatant violation of state order.

It's for art.

That's right.

It is for art is an essential business.

Performance art that no one's going to see.

Performance audio.

Exactly.

So, yeah. kiff, you chose this well, you introduced Ghost in the Shell, and we decided to go with the original movie. So what is your history with this franchise? Is this something you got in on the ground floor for or where do you stand with this show?

A little bit part of it is a combination of, like, my wife and I always referred to it as, like, the vhs revolution that happened. I mean, I'm I'm a Gen xer. I'm a little bit older than you guys. And, like, my my journey with animation, with anime specifically, is less in the in the in the series sort of structure and more about the big theatrical releases in the mid to late 90s. So the things that I value programmed on were like vampire hunter d ghost in the shell. akiro's. Even before that, I mean, that was that was the one that was just like, what is this? Like, every other animation I had ever seen was just American style, you know, whatever the stuff that we grew up on. And then and I even I kind of was just a little bit past, like, starblazers and some of those classic after school anime inspired shows. My first gen like OG is Speed racer. I'm still a massive Speed racer fan. But anyway, that love was kind of just feeling unsupported and unnertured until my local video store started carrying a little bit more anime and I caught up with the Ghost in the Shell largely because the COVID art was like, fascinating. Like, here's this pretty cybernetic cop and she's got a gun. And I was also, at this point, also a big fan of blade Runner, which is clearly a lot of overlapping themes. So when I got it, I was absolutely entranced by the music in particular. And then the visual style is really dynamic and it moves at such a strange pace. I don't know, but I caught up with it. I think probably the first time I saw it was maybe in like 96, 97. I think it came out in 96 in the Us.

I feel so baby.

Yeah, I was born in 95, so I'm in the same boat. Sorry to do this to you.

I'm excited to be able to watch husband movie with you guys. Here's a piece of animation that came out when you were born. And does this resonate? Does it have any impact for you? But then also this classic anime style and seeing how it affects contemporary action films and both like John wick and you know what I mean, like all those things. It's such a transformative film. So that's kind of my past with it. And I've always loved like, in particular, the music is just haunting and gorgeous and fascinating. And since the live action thing that they did a couple of years back with scarlett johansson and now I understand there's a new series on Netflix oh, really? Of ghost in the shell. Like reboot. I think it's I forget what it's called, but friend of mine that I want to check out as well. And I know standalone is also out there, so I don't know, that's kind of my history with it. I love cyberpunk stuff and this is super cool.

Perfect.

Yeah, you can't go wrong. So, yeah, brendan, you mentioned you've seen a couple episodes, but you and dana, have you seen any Ghost in the Shell series?

I haven't, but of course I know it because it is like this big. It's so popular.

It's very famous.

Yeah, it's definitely like put up on a pedestal. And I'm so excited to watch it because it does really seem like my kind of thing. Like the kind of movies I like now. I'm really excited.

Yeah, I knew of it growing up and then standalone complex is coming out while I was getting into anime and stuff. So I always saw it and caught it late night on like, you know, tunami or Adult Swim or something. But I think as a kid I couldn't get quite into the complexity and the police procedural elements of it when I was younger. So I was like, oh, this is a little much for me. Give me just the flashy Super saiyan power ups of Dragon Ball Z. Like, I'll take that. I don't need to think for that. So I definitely respected it. I definitely was in all of the artwork and stuff, but I was like, I can't handle this right now. So needed to wait a few years and come back to it. So I'm excited to to get into this because I loved blade Runner. blade Runner. Was it 2030, 2049? Yeah, 2049. Yeah. I love it so much. I don't remember the title.

By the way, did you see the interstitial stuff that they did that denise Villeneu shot? He had three different artists tell three stories that were in between blade Runner to 2049. And there's one chunk that's completely animated. That's fabulous.

And that's actually getting a series now.

Is it really? Yeah.

So it was originally just a small short for that, and now that's turning into a series. I don't know how much of a series, maybe like six episodes. But yeah, that's being reworked into a full series. And I'm very excited for that.

Oh, man, that's great news.

Yeah, it's so good. I'm excited.

I'm all of a sudden so excited. Too late runner right now.

Runner podcast now.

That's right.

But yeah, I am interested, Brendan, how you're going to like it, because a lot of the things that you bring to us that we shit on our police procedural anime. Yeah, I feel like this is in your ballpark.

I mean, I'm very comfortable here already because we had darker than Black has similar tones, and like, psychopaths has similar tones of, like yeah, it's a cop supernatural kind of cybernetic stuff. So I enjoy those. So I'm on board for this already. I'm looking forward to it.

Awesome.

All right, well, without further ado, shall we hop on into it?

Let's watch it.

Yes.

We're not watching episodes this week. We're watching a whole dang movie. Finally, I've collected all seven Dragon Balls. Now to make my wish shed Long, come forward.

What is your wish?

I wish that there is a podcast that combined Dragon Ball with improv comedy.

That is beyond the scope of my power.

Yeah, I figured because this podcast you seek already exists.

What?

But I'll let these two hosts explain more.

Thank you for the introduction, Shedlong. We're comedy house party. I am Aaron. I'm vince, and we are the only improv comedy Dragon Ball podcast in the universe. We go through every iteration of the Dragon Ball franchise episode by episode.

We've covered the original run of Dragon Ball and we just started Dragon Ball z. But don't worry, you don't have to start from the beginning because each week we do a 1 minute roundup where.

We summarize everything that has happened in.

Dragon Ball thus far.

New episodes come out every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcast.

A new episode just dropped. My wish has been grounded.

I think I understand this movie.

Oh, boy. That's a big statement, dude.

Yes, it's a big leap of faith, but I think I can confidently say I think I understand it.

I got a loose premise.

What makes you say that? You feel like you think you understand it, share it back. What aspects of it? Plot or theme or what's at the heart of your declaration?

Yeah, going through it, sort of, since it ties everything together at the end. For the first 75% of this movie, I was going, Boy, I hope I get a resolution because I love to understand what's going on. But, yeah, definitely. I was feeling this sort of as like a tone piece going through it because it is just very cyberpunk and has this very distinct style and the designs of the art and the city and all that. But, yeah, we'll get into the plot because there's some sort of subtext that you really need to latch on to pilot. So, yeah, let's hop right on in at the beginning. So we get a little introduction saying that we're in the future. Corporations are big and we're out in the stars and all that, but technology and computers have not gone so far to eradicate eugenics and do all that sort of bad stuff. So it's like, hey, we're in the future, but not like future future.

It's not the utopia that you would hope. There's still clans and racism. We just have data and cyborgs.

Something new to be racist against.

That's right.

So we start with a computer tracking people out in the city, and we see our main character. Oh, God, I handwriting at the top of the notes.

Major Tusan color.

Major.

Yeah, major kusanagi. I have scribbles in a place where a name should be. So she's up on a rooftop listening into a conversation in the building below her. She has a handler speaking through radio through her brain, talking about it's time to make her move. She unjacks some wires from her neck, strips down and repels off the building. As we're doing this, we see police formations pull up into this building. They're about to kick in the door. And we see that the people inside this meeting hear them and start to open fire. First, their boss is like, hey, what are you doing, you idiots?

Stop.

And they let the police come in and have a confrontation. And they're talking about, sorry.

I've seen this movie, like, 20 times. I did not really fully get the stuff regarding political asylum that is happening in that moment until this viewing. Like, it really resonated. I mean, I understood it in the moment, but it doesn't seem like it was the crux of everything. But how the issues of immigration all of a sudden, because of the country we're currently in, just the movie seems even more prescient now that it's dealing with, like, asylum and political asylum for this puppetmaster.

Yeah, they talk about different regions. There's countries and sections that have their own jurisdictions. So there's a lot of political chess going on in the background of the action that happened. So please assist me if you feel floundering.

We've all seen check off smoking refugee before. We are familiar with this.

Yes, of course.

Yeah, for sure.

So this is a political figure who is claiming asylum in this city. It's the city of Newport City, which strikes close to home. It's good to see rhode Island represent.

Takes place in the major metropolitan rhode Island area.

So he's talking with some programmers, and they're talking about how, oh, you're kidnapping, and we could bring you up for charges for smuggling these programmers into this sector and all that stuff. So he's in trouble, but before anything can happen from the window, I'm going to just write in big letters her name so I can see it and not have to look back into my notes. kusanagi.

Got it.

Okay, cool. Got it. So kusanagi opens fire and takes out this asylum seeker, this political refugee. And as the police go to return fire, she jumps off the building and cloaks herself and becomes invisible and disappears.

I mean, have you really lived unless you based off of a skyscraper and a completely new to assassinate a political figure, right?

Yeah.

It'S great. Try it.

You haven't lived.

I know.

I have a group on we can do it.

You can do it off the building downtown that has the big pepsi logo on it.

Perfect.

The cloaking is actually it's a canvas that's printed with the picture of the ground that you have to wrap yourself up in.

Perfectly aligned.

That's right.

Now, I was actually a little confused here already. Did she take out the guy who is seeking political asylum, or did she take out the guy who was offering political asylum?

Seeking I think she she takes out the diplomat who was trying to defect.

Okay.

Yes. She assassinates a diplomat from a country to stop a programmer from defecting. Yeah. So that guy is trying to get so that's why the follow up meeting that takes place with the guy who's in charge of Section Nine, the major's boss, the old man. That's why he's like, thank you for dealing with our political problems. That was really helpful. I liked how you guys handled that. It was better than the sort of diplomacy that we have to do that takes so much time.

Got you. Okay, that makes more sense.

So we go into the opening credit sequence, which is just a beautiful sequence of sort of like the cybernetic factory of these cyborgs being created as they're flowing through tubes, floating in water.

Every second of this, every second of it so incredible. I love it.

Muscle and sinew being built and attached.

To the body and the eerie music. Very reminiscent of the music in Perfect Blue and more recently, Us. George heals us.

Michael abel's scoring us is freaking incredible.

Yeah, I love it.

That minor key stuff with the tyco drums playing throughout, and it's cool.

Yeah.

So we see the scene you mentioned of Helicopter Land big Boss comes out, and they talk about how they're having some issues with the neighboring country of the Republic of gavel. There are issues over foreign aid and a colonel malice who is seeking asylum. So we can either give this country aid and kick out their asylum seeker or protect this asylum seeker and deny them aid. So it's sort of a lose lose situation that they're up against. So they're trying to figure out what they can do to resolve this diplomatic issue. And part of that was the assassination of the diplomat from the previous scene. So we are introduced to the boss of kusanagi Lost. In my notes.

God.

It's called Chief Aramaki. Aramaki. Chief. They're going into a lab where they're studying an interpreter to a minister whose brain has been hacked. So this took me a little bit to figure out. They talk a lot about ghosts and how their ghosts are hacked. I thought at this point that ghosts were part of a cybernetic thing, but is that more soul related?

I think it's more soul related. I always read it more as your soul or who you really are being. That the one thing that is. I think that's what's so terrifying about the idea of being able to hack.

That sort of the consciousness and humanity is being hacked rather than, like, it's fine if my cybernetic arm gets hacked, I can replace that, but if my soul is hacked, that's all I got.

Yeah, exactly.

Or I can't be recreated in a lab. That's right. So her sole ghost was hacked, and they're talking about how they're tracking a hacker named the puppetmaster. And they're worried that the puppetmaster is going to use this hacking to try to assassinate political diplomats in a big meeting that they're having to resolve the Republic of gavel issue. So we see that they are tracing the signal for where the hacking originated from, and we sort of get an introduction to the police team, the crew, if you will. I switched to a new notebook. I ran out of my old one, and it's a different format that I'm used to, so I'm a little thrilled. So please forgive me for my disarray.

I didn't take as many notes because I fully just got swept up into this movie. I forgot we were recording something.

That's fine. So they're in pursuit of the hacker signal. So then we see. There's some trash collectors out. One is working on at a phone terminal, has, like, a chip doing some stuff, and it looks like he's trying to hack it, but once he gets into the truck, the other driver is like, what are you doing? We're late. Come on, let's go. He's like, yeah, sorry, I got to do this stuff. My wife is divorcing me, and I can't see my kid, so I need to try to hack her so I can figure something out, get some leverage so I don't lose custody of my kid. So, yeah, we get a little subplot going on here. And as they drive away from this terminal, going on their route, the police car drives up to where they just were, and they investigate the terminal, and they're like, okay, this is definitely the source of the hacking, but I don't see anyone around who's got eyes on the situation. And luckily, a late neighbor comes out with a bag of trash, and he's like, oh, I just missed the truck, but can you take my trash?

Officer, you're not busy?

But when he mentions that he thought he had time because the trash collector was at the phone, the cops like, oh, it's the trash collector. That's who we're after. No one would suspect them because they're a lot, and they're just on a set path. So they start going back to the command and trying to track down all the trash collectors in the area, and they start to pursue.

Can I just say, by the way, your notes are incredibly thorough, and I'm.

Incredibly impressed with when I can read my handwriting. So the truck is past the next terminal. See, I immediately got lost.

I'm sorry.

I promise I won't praise you anymore, Patrick.

I'll keep that.

Thank you.

He thrives on negative critiques.

That's northeast a better motivator.

Yes.

So someone makes a call to the trash truck, letting them know that the police are on their tail, and they flee. They abandon their route, and they're just trying to get out of there. As they go to pass the next terminal, there's a man standing at it, and the man there with his beautiful cybernetic eyes can see the trash truck just mouth. They know, and the police car approaching behind. So he pulls out a machine gun and disables a truck, flips it over, and puts in some high velocity bullets and armor piercing rounds to just destroy this van. As the police jump out and hide.

Away, I'm sure he has an innocent reason for doing so.

Yeah, you're tracing. You're chasing these trash collectors. They're valuable members of society, man.

Defending them, blow up their freaking armor piercing bullets.

My God, who doesn't have those?

Yeah.

So he then cloakes himself in the same sort of camouflage thing that we seen earlier. One of the cops has an infrared scanner, thermal scanner, so he's able to see him and follow him and track him, and he chases them into a busy market, and he continues the pursuit. They exchange fire, and the perp jumps into a canal, running over boats, trying to escape. But kusanagi is there waiting and fires on them, then tracks him down, takes them out with some hand to hand combat, and then they have their quote unquote, perp and main suspect down.

I know a lot of the people in this show are either full robots or androids or cyborgs, but seeing the fight scene where she just grabs his limbs, he kicks at her, and she grabs his foot and just twists the full foot around. Oh, my God, his hand around just like oh, no.

Yeah. I think Kuzanagi is really the only one of these cops who's almost fully cybernetic, right? Like, aside from her ghost, she's almost exclusively artificial. And where her partner, batu, who has those cool coat caps for eyes, there's that great conversation. It was one of the notes I made, like that conversation when they're on their way to tracking those trash trucks where one of the partner who's driving Kuzinagi in the truck is like, mostly human, she says, and he's new to their squad. And she's like, the reason you're with us is because you are human. And even when you've got a bunch of perfect what is it? Something along the lines of, like, when you have a bunch of perfect entities, you want to have something that's imperfect. Otherwise, even a perfect system will break down if it's all the same. That idea is really poignant of, like, our diversity is our strength and the variety and the way you're going to think of things as a human versus the way I will is something that's valuable. It was just a super cool observation.

Yeah, sort of like giving value to the unpredictability of human behavior over the predictability of AI programs, of like, if you run, I will pursue. But a human may have variants that you can't predict and work against.

Exactly.

And that ties it in great with the overarching theme of the movie because it ties in great with one of the ending scenes we'll get to eventually. But I didn't even realize that. Damn, it's a good movie.

So they captured their man. We see Aramaki is tracking another political person that he suspects is involved, going into a meeting where given sort of information about this guy, but it turns out these are implanted memories and it's actually fake. This is another person that's been hacked by the puppetmaster, and he is sort of using random people to clear his tracks.

That's what's so scary is even normal people just have stuff in their brains so anybody can get into them, even the guy who's working on the police force. And they say, like, oh, you're human. He still has stuff in his brain because he can talk to kusanagi and batau. Anybody could get their soul hacked.

And when they're interrogating that garbage truck driver and telling him, you don't have because he's like, oh, my wife's going to divorce me and lose my kid. And they're looking at his photograph that he was trying to show his buddy in the trash in the trash truck, and it's like, this is you. This is your picture. You're a single man. You've lived in this place for ten years. You don't have a wife. You don't have a child. And that kind of like now that you've been hacked. And you can't lose those memories. Those impacted memories are with you forever. So the way that that hack worked, like, fuck that guy's life up forever, it's really wild.

Yeah, because he has, like, a general idea that I'm married and have a kid and we're going through a divorce. But when they're like, okay, when did you meet? When was the date of your wedding? What did you bond over and ask for the specific details? And he just can't grasp it because it's sort of just well, I don't need to challenge these memories because yes, it's an objective truth.

They're like facts that you have in a dream that when you try to unpack it, they're threads that just vanish into the ether.

Yeah, or like the Mandela effect, but ten times worse.

I felt real bad for him because he seemed, like, tearing up. If he's like, well, can I get my memories back? And they're just like, no, we don't.

Technology is great right now, but not that great.

There's, like, ways you can compartmentalize stuff, but he's like, in the end, you're never going to fully get your real memories back. You're just going to have to know which ones are fake and which ones are real. I was like, oh, that sucks. Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah. So they finish interrogating the trash truck driver, and they're saying, we get a little interstitial of the major reflecting on this and kind of deep in her thoughts on who knows what they know and what they know is actually real or not. And while she's deep in her thoughts, it cuts to her, like in a scuba suit, swimming underwater. We see her just slowly drifting up. And I thought first thing, and I thought this was in her own mind, it was supposed to be like a metaphorical scene, but I'm like, but then why would she need a scuba suit? And then she actually breaks the surface. I was like, oh, she's actually okay.

Even in my dreams, I follow proper procedure.

How can I breathe in my dreams? I'll suffocate in my dreams.

So, yeah, we see her come up above the water and swim over to a boat and climb up baitu's there. And he's kind of just like, why does a cyborg need a hobby and go out and dive in the ocean? Why is that your hobby? He's like it feels free. It's cool. It's, like, dark down there. I can let my mind wander. It's like, why not let the cyborgs have their fun? chill, relax.

Why do you collect stamps?

BA two. And we cut to them talking for a bit, and then it jump cuts to them on the boat. At night, looking out of the cityscape, having a few beers, and baitu starts asking her, it's like, do you want out of Sexy and Nine, are you done with this? Are you trying to plan your next step when you're not working here anymore? And she starts just talking. I don't know. I don't want to say, like, philosophically, but she's kind of talking about, like, how much of you is organic BA toy? Like, how much of you are a cyborg? Because, yeah, we find out later. She's almost entirely a cyborg, except for her brain, I believe. And she's like, Cyborgs are great. We can drink beer. It metabolizes almost instantly. But we don't have hangovers, we don't stutter. They get the benefits of feeling drunk, but they don't have the functional debilitatingness of being drunk and then no consequences the next day. She's like, Being a sideboard has some amazing properties, and if a few high maintenance checkups every now and then is the cost of it, that so be it. We're functionally immortal then. And she's just spouting about what it is to be a sideboard for her, but also lamenting. There's a degree of sadness in her speech where she's like, it's great, but it's not there's, like, a really interesting tone it had on the whole scene.

Because she talks about, like, since I just woke up in full existence, I don't know where my brain comes from. Was I a person before this? And they put my brain into the cyborg. I don't know my actual origin. I just woke up one day and was yeah.

Full consciousness at a moment's notice.

It's such a strange moment in the film, too, the way that sequence is very kind of like it's relaxed and you see her kind of at peace and stuff. But then the shot shifts when she has that monologue. Where the camera is, like, at a lower angle and she's backdrop by the city and she's really intense, and it just has this really different vibe where it's almost like she's cussing them out. It's an interesting choice. I mean, I'm querying online to try to find that particular speech because there's so much stuff embedded in there, like what you were talking about, about how great it is to be this, but then what you sacrifice for it, it's really something else.

Yeah, it's really intense. And she's talking about how she's been feeling confined and that's why she likes diving in the ocean, because it allows her to be, like, free. And it's kind of like it's almost like there's no clutter. At least the shot we saw of her in the water, it was just, like, vast openness, rather than, like the hustle bustle of the city and all these very condensed, packed shots we see of the city and the slums and stuff and how busy it is all the time. Yeah. And after she's done saying that, we hear so with cyborgs, they can. Talk telepathically with each other through links, and we hear the Major thoughts talking, but they both perk up, realizing that's not her, it's her thoughts, it's her voice in both of their heads, but she's not the one saying it. So it both kind of catches them off guard of like, what the hell was that just now?

I got chills. So many individual moments in this movie.

And then we cut to another kind of, like, small montage of just, like, the city scape and establishing shots of a lot of the city and really just sets the tone of like you just see some of the higher end buildings, very neat and futuristic and, like, utopian. But then you see the very compact, dirty, rusty parts. And it's a boat going through the city, like, in a river, like venice. But it's really interesting shots and sets, the environment and setting. And one of the shots we see is a woman in a cafe, like, having a drink at a table by a window. And when she turns, it's the Major. Yeah, but then when she turns, she's looking down at someone, and the camera turns around at the person she's looking at, and it's also the Major on the boat, like, going through to the city. And that's one where I was like, what happened?

She's so fast.

Because I know she's a cyborg. She did a wardrobe chains, like, off camera. Right. We saw her being made. Like, the cyborg we saw being assembled was her. So I was wondering, is that just another model of her model? Like, is that just the same brand where you would see each other in the city, or is this, like, a psyche thing where she thinks she see? Because we already established that the guy looking at the photo thought he saw his wife and daughter, but it was just a picture of him and his dog. So it's kind of just like, oh, wait, what is real now? And now we're taking it from her perspective so we can't trust it. So it makes it really tough to gauge. Thank God. It's really creepy, despite being, like, not a horror movie and, like, a pretty futuristic movie, but there's no mysticism or magic, but it's just like yeah, well.

That'S a lot of what I like about it, is that it's not necessarily supposed to be scary, but there are all of these moments where it's just so eerie.

Unsettling.

Yeah. So at, like, just peak unease.

Yeah, it's great.

You know, we're we're coming off of this whole moment where she's talking about how alone or how unique she is, and then to look up and see an identical version of herself at a cafe in some random place, calling into question her uniqueness, it's really powerful.

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, she's a great scene between those two scenes. It's just really powerful. And then we cut to a naked woman standing in the rain on a highway about to get hit by a trash truck.

Poetic. All right, your poetry.

Yeah. So we just see this woman, she's just standing on the highway, and we see a truck coming down honking at her. And right as it gets close, it cuts away. And then when we cut back, we see kind of the camera opens up again, it's kind of staticy, and it's from that woman's perspective. She's now in Section Nine in a lab on a table and kind of I don't necessarily know what this was. I think it was kind of like an autopsy almost, because then we see the Major come in and Battle and the Chief kind of give her shit for being late, and they're catching her up on it, so they're catching up on us on it as well. And it's like, yeah, this woman was hit by a truck, and they reported on it, so we went and picked her up because there was megatech is a big company that makes cyborgs and cybernetics, and they are almost strictly working with the governments. Almost everything they worked on is classified and like, nda, and like, you know, no one can talk about it. And recently they had cyborg just wake up and take off and escape. And it's this cyborg, and it's weird because there's no pre programming in it. There's no instructions in her head, so there's no reason she should be moving on her own. So they're not sure why she did it, like, why she took off and why she's here now. So they're suspecting it might be a hacker, it might be a puppet master related incident, because no one else can get through that level of security to hack into a company like Megatech to do this. So in the lab, we see the woman kind of just rigged up to a machine, like, on a slab on a table, and then her body just kind of contorts and kind of jitters a lot. And it's just like, once again, it's not hard, but it's really unsettling. The noises are like it's not bones crunching, but it's like gears, like, rattling around inside this body as we see them. And it's like, ugh. So, yeah, so they do the recap, and then it cuts back to the whole Section Nine crew in the chief's office and the doctors kind of giving them a rundown of what he saw, saying, like, yeah, she's pretty much a blank slate. But one thing that's weird is we see, like, a trail, kind of like a prior ghost was in there, and it was, like, copied over into her. But there's no sign of degradation that you would see in other copies. Every time you copy a ghost over, apparently it degrades a bit, and they're like, no, this one seems pretty clean. And it wasn't in her main brain, it was in her backup brain. So it was kind of like hidden so we're just like it's weird. This is one's weird. It's not like I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's not like, lock everything down. This is our highest priority. But it's like, this is strange, and we should look into this more. So they're starting to think, like, more and more it might be hacker related to the Puppet Master. And while they're talking to kind of give the new guy I forget his name kawasa. I just called a mullet.

He's just like, yeah, that's fine. I didn't get it either.

Is. That ishikawa ishikawa.

Oh, that's the guy with the beard that shows up a little later.

What is that?

He's like the tattoo's partner or something like that.

With the beard? Yeah, because he was in the car with Batu when they were chasing the trash truck.

Yeah. And then togasa. Is it togasa? toga.

Yes, togusa.

Togasa, that's the one.

But Mullet is a much better name for him.

Yes.

He's Miami Vice. He's got the blazer, he's got the Mullet. He's good to go. I love the style. And they're kind of telling him, like, hey, this is kind of a big deal because Megatech is actually the company where we contract stuff from because we are with the government, and that's where the Major, her body is from. There a lot of my part, like bhatti is saying a lot of my parts, my eyes and stuff are from there. And most people in Section Nine are automated to some degree besides Mullet and besides the Chief, who have almost none, almost everyone else is automated to some degree. So they're like, yeah, we kind of want to know who's hacking into stuff so we don't get hacked. It's kind of a big deal.

It just got personally.

And we see the Major get up and walk out, and she said she's going to set up like, a brain barrier maze for this woman's body to look further into it because she's definitely more invested than everyone else because so much of her body is cybernetic now and then. Oh, man. The Section Six chief arrives with someone else with them. And this is the guy who was invading the diplomatic asylum discussion earlier in the movie. So he's like the boss of section six, which is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I believe.

Yes.

So he's coming into Section Nine now, and there's kind of like, why is he here? Why is he involved with any of this? He has no reason to care about this apparent random woman that no one else should know about. And in the elevator down, we see Batu, the Major, and Mullet going down, and the Mullet is leaving. He's like, heading out for the day. He's going to his car. And the Major talks to Batu one on one about she's worried about her origins. And like we talked about before, she doesn't know where she came from. She just existed one day and doesn't have any progression before that. And what part of you what determines what a soul is? And if a ghost is in a body and it's just a machine, could it one day develop into its own soul and its own consciousness and stuff like that? It gets just real trippy. And I was just like, no, I should be sober for this conversation. She says, like, specifically talking about the woman they found earlier, especially with her having, like, a ghost tracing in her backup brain. What if that was one that was created within her and not implanted and stuff like that? And so boti is like, all right, I know there's no talking out of this. I know you're going to go look into that woman's head. Just careful. Don't get sloppy. And then it cuts to we see Mullet in the garage in his car, and he notices the two other cars, the six and six guys came in, and he noticed that there's two cars, even though there's only two guys that showed up. So he's like, that's excessive. Let me look at the security cameras. And he just logs into security cameras from his car. He has access, I guess. And he brings up footage, and he's like, yeah, no, that seems right. The door was a little slow. The door should be pretty precise with how many people are entering. So it's weird. It lagged a bit. When those two guys showed up, he said, you know what, let's bring up the sensor pad, the pressure sensor pads in the garage. And sure enough, when he looks at it, for the two guys that walked in the building, they weighed over £1000. And he's like, none of them should be fully automated, and none of them are fully cybernetic.

Even if they were, they're not like £500 each.

Yeah. He's like, this is something's wrong here? And that's when it goes back to the security footage. He's like, the door is slowing down a bit. He's like, no, someone's here. Someone's in camera, like the thermo Optic camera we saw earlier, where he's invisible. He's like and someone's falling behind him. That explains the weight and the delay on the door. So he messages the message, the Major, I think.

Yeah.

And he lets her know. He's like, hey, shit's going down. I'm loading up. We see him, like, cocking his gun and stuff. He's, like, getting ready for something to go down with Section Six. And that's when we see cut back to the chief showing off the body of the woman to the Section Six guys, the chief of Section Six, and the doctor. And when the doctor goes up to analyze the body, we see put his hands on the keyboards, and then we see his fingers just, like, kind of detach at the joints and then just explode into a bunch of different little pieces. And he starts just typing a mile a minute on the keyboard with 30 different finger tips now. Oh, Jesus.

I'm very good at the piano. Come check out my band this Saturday.

The whole time, he's the loan with the piano.

That's right.

And as he's typing away, we see the woman's eyes, like, look over at him and then look back at the two chiefs talking. So, like, she's still conscious. She's not, like, shut down fully. And the Sector Six chief or the Sector Six doctor confirms. He's like, yeah, this body was used by the Puppet Master. It's got, like, traces of him on it and stuff. So we have the common deer of this body. We're going to have to take this back with us. And the Section Six guys just, like, kind of explains that they were working with the Puppet Master. This one's like an info dump, so I might have been confused here. Stuff taking notes during it. So they were working with the Puppet Master guy, and they were going after eventually we're going after him, and they forced him to his explanation is they forced him to upload his consciousness into the body, into one of the cybernetic bodies. And when his mind was in there, they killed his real body, and now he's just kind of escaped. And they've been trying to hunt down his consciousness in all this different data and all these different bodies now. So he's like, now that we found one, we're going to take it back with us because now he's technically our prisoner, and at least that's the explanation he gives to the Section Nine Chief.

So, yeah, and that was Project 25 One, right? That's that's where the name of that comes from. It was like, Project 25 One was that initiative to try to trap the Puppet master's consciousness into something.

Yeah, that's when he drops it for the first time, he lets them know on that. So, thankfully, the Section Nine Chief kind of recaps it for me. He's like, oh, so this is what you did. I was like, oh, thank you.

I guess.

So lost there. And he's like, okay, well, if that's the case, as far as we're concerned, this is just another body for Megatech. We don't have anything really attached to the body itself, so if you guys need it, I guess it's yours. And it's about when he says that the body, like, head lifts up and starts talking, and it's the Puppet Master talking through the body, asking for political asylum, essentially saying, like, we're back.

We're back to politics.

Back to politics, digital politics now. And everyone's freaked out, like, what the hell? It was supposed to be shut down. It shouldn't be controlling itself. And the Doctor on the machine just like, yeah, it's using its own power source. I got no explanation for this. And the Pub Master is talking through the body, saying, I am a self aware, sentient life form that deserves the same rules and laws that you guys have in place for yourselves. I'm asking for political asylum and safety from Section Six, and that's why I wanted to come to Section Nine. And the whole time, the two chiefs are just like, what the hell has happened? No, you can't demand political asylum. You're just a programming. And the Pub Master goes off on this long field like, what is life but not just, like, memories? And what are memories but not just genes and humans and data and machines, and if they're the same thing, what can we really prove is life? And this whole philosophical speech where I was just like, oh, man, I'm still not ready for this.

Yeah, there's a lot just the whole when does AI just become sentient? Sort of question.

Yeah, because I think one of the Chiefs asks a specific question like, how can you prove you're alive? And then he's like, well, how can you?

And you're like, oh, no, damn, you got me there. I wasn't ready for this.

Especially now, because even the most human person we know of still has a chip in his brain, so he can talk telepathically. So it seems like no one's clean, no one's completely organic anymore. So now the question is even raised even further. And right then, we see some gunfire shoot out through all the consoles and we hear, like, a big explosion happen. We see gas fill the room and we see the pupmaster just, like, jump off the slab and, like, takes off, even though it's only half a body now. And we see the Pub master's escaping, and it cuts to just the exterior of the building, and a hole gets blown out. And we see two guys jump down and get into a getaway car. And they're using the thermo optic camo like we saw before. And because he knew of it, because he was aware what was going down, we see Mullet out in the alleyway trying to shoot out the car, but it's all armored up, so he's able to we see a trash truck come out and block the alleyway so the car can't get away. And it gives them time to put in a tractor bullet and shoot it into the license plate of the car. And then as the car gets away, we see the trash truck driver give him, like, a wave, like, hey, so I guess he's in on it. They set up a sting operation and yeah, he radiates to batu saying, I got the tracker on them. They're running this way. Looks like they're going up the highway. And then he relays that to the Major. So their whole group, the whole Section Nine gang is all in on this. And the Major starts telling everything back to the Chief. He's like, well, if you guys knew this, if you guys were planning this, why didn't you tell me? We could have done something like no, because if we told you, we might have given section Six a heads up, and we had to wait so we could implement them as well, because clearly they're not telling us everything. Like, the invisible guys came in with them, so something's happening, and they're not telling us the full truth. And, yeah, we could get that talk as the majors loading up in a helicopter and taken off. And then we cut to more city scapes as the whole city is locking down, getting ready for this big chase.

Yeah, so shit's really popped off, went hard real fast. Yeah. And the Chief contacts the Major, and he tells her that her orders are to destroy the Puppet Master. And she kind of hesitates, and he's like, Major? And she's like, yeah, I get it. But she obviously very badly wants to do this dive into the Puppet master's brain. So we see the Chief order roads to be closed down, and he wants to know who the guy that the guy with the spider fingers, he wants to know who that was. And he also wants Project 25 One to be looked into further. So we're with the Chief of Section Six, whose name nakamura, and the other guy. And it was at this point where I was like, it's hard for me to tell who's on what side, because these guys seem like bad dudes, but they also want the Puppet Master to be destroyed. But I think it's because at this point, the Puppet Master has gained consciousness, and they don't want that.

Yeah, sort of all sides just see this, like, evolution in progress, and they're like, no, we got to stop this before it gets out of hand.

Right?

Yeah. So they talk about how they don't understand why the Puppet Master wanted to come to Section Nine. Something is pushing him, but they don't really know what. And they joke that maybe it's a secret girlfriend. The one moment of comedy in this hellish dystopian.

I think we just invented jokes there.

And then we're in the helicopter with Major, and we get another one of those prolonged, transitional kind of moments just with, like, dramatic music playing on scapes of a rainy city. And then we see the whole squad there doing their stuff, and there's another helicopter with a bunch of police personnel, and they're pretty much ready for anything. And then it's at this point that Ishikawa contacts the Chief about the Ministry of Foreign Defense, and he says he's found some juicy details that he might want to know about. Hot goss juicy morsels is what he says. And he says that the guy that was with nakamura is an American doctor who was heavily involved in researching artificial intelligence. And he headed a project with the Ministry. And dita was on the team as well. And he was like, in the very beginning of the movie. And I was like, oh, my God, so much stuff has happened. I recognized the name, but I was like, who. Oh, my God.

Comes full circle.

Yeah. And what Ishikawa doesn't understand is that this project was started a year before the Puppet Master was even an issue. Even though they say it was supposed to catch him. This project had been in the works before he surfaced. So Ishikawa says that he thinks that they don't want to catch the Puppet Master, but bring him back, like, keep him contained, keep him on their side. And he says that he thinks the Puppet Master works for them, but went off the rails, and they need him back. And if that comes out, it's going to be an international controversy, and he can't gain any access to Project 25 One. But the Chief tells him to keep trying. And then we see that the target that's being tracked has gotten some backup, and they move the body of the Puppet Master from the first car to another. And the Major says, I'm going to follow the second car. Like, something in my ghost is telling me that that's what I should do.

Got a hunch?

Yeah. And then a car chase continues. And then Batu is close to the target, and we see the men inside get ready. They caulk their guns, but surprise, they've been barricaded by the police. And before anyone else can get to them, one of them explodes.

Yeah.

Insides just come out, and it is unclear what happened.

I think he was taken out because it looked like gunfire. So I think he was taken out because they show, like, police snipers waiting off to the side. But I don't know why they would have just opened fire when they're like, all right, arrest.

Yeah, they arrest the one guy, and then they just exterminate the other guy.

Yeah. Like, the damage to me, it looked like it was something inside of him coming out, but it's not clarified. So that guy's dead.

Full dead.

He's gone.

I saw his inside. I don't think he made it.

Yeah, but so that's when our mullet friend gets there, and he's like, oh, man, what a mess. And then bato is like, I'm leaving. You get back up to the Major right away. So a major in the helicopter has followed the second car to, like, an abandoned station, like a train station or, like, a ferry station kind of thing. And the guy flying the helicopter is like, should we wait for backup? And the major is like, no, I'm doing this. I'm going to go down there and do it myself. Because, again, she wants to get in those brains. So she drops into the building, and she sees the car and then is fired at by a huge, unseen enemy. And she orders the pilot of the helicopter to shoot at the ceiling. And then once it falls, a huge tank like vehicle is revealed. And she tells the pilot to leave because this is when she says, like, I'm going to do that dive, and I want it to be as least hostile as possible, even though she knows that that's what has to happen. And then Battle kind of chimes in and tells her not to do it, but she's like, bye, I'm disconnecting from you. She's off the rails a little bit.

Don't tell me what to do, Death.

There's a tank here. I think I'm going to fight it.

It's really just like she feels like this is a way for her to be connected to something else. She's like, I want to see what it's like. It's hard to explain, but, yeah, she wants to feel connected to something else. So this is what she's trying to do. And she gets the tank's attention and it fires at her. And they just kind of fire back and forth at each other until she's out of ammo in one of her guns. And then the tank just sits and waits. And then the pilot contacts her again and she's like, I thought you left. And he was like, I'm going to, but I want you to know that three other helicopters are coming. I'm leaving now. Good luck. So he's kind of on her side.

I was staying here while I was chill in the air, but now the air is getting a little crowded, so I'm out. I got a jet, I got a bounce.

Right?

So she loads another weapon and she runs for it, and the tank stops firing at her. And she says, like, I knew you'd run out. So I was like, okay. So the tank is out of ammunition now, and she takes off her uniform so she can do her cloaking stuff. And then it attacks her again as she approaches. So it wasn't out of ammunition, but she took the chance to get on top of it and she is unscathed. And this part was rough.

She's visceral.

Yeah.

She gets on top of the tank and she braces herself and tries to pull a piece of the tank up off. And it is so well put together, very strong that her arms rip off and the sounds and the visuals of it all is nauseating, but in a fun way.

But it isn't good, you know what I mean?

Artistic.

And, like, her skin ripping. It's brutal.

It is brutal.

Yeah. So she gets thrown off the top of the tank and it oh, man, it gets worse. It could get much worse. And then the tank reaches out an arm and it grabs her head and starts squeezing, and you just hear more of that nasty crunching. Yeah, it said in the subtitles on YouTube, I was watching it. I think it said moist crunching.

Yeah.

It's like, no, you can't those words don't mean the same thing. You can't put them together, right, but.

You shouldn't say it.

Dry things crunch. Wet things are moist. You can't moist crunch.

That's so true. You cannot have a moist crunch. Unless it is a cybernetic head being crushed by a giant tank.

Damn it. Cereal is a moist, crunch. Damn it. I can't eat cereal again.

It's the wet, loose skin around the tight, crunchy, dry bones, and then you mush them together.

What was the foley like for this? What was this made of?

I put a bunch of doritos in a watermelon.

Let's put it in. Hey, Director, how would that shake?

Disgusting. I love it.

They put actual ranch in there. That's right.

So it's squeezing her head. But luckily, Batsou has arrived, and he has a big gun, and he shoots the tank, and it is disabled, and he saves her. I mean, her body is done, but her consciousness is still there. And her first question is if the Puppet Master is still in the car. And he goes to check, and it is still in there, and she's like, all right, let's do this, buddy.

Check, man.

And then the helicopters are on the approach, and they say that their objective is to destroy the Puppet Master, and now Major as well. So bato sets up the dive, and he says that he's going to be monitoring her, and if she goes in too far, he's going to pull her out of it because he doesn't want her to die. So she goes in, and we have this visual of her consciousness seeping out of the body that we know and going into the body of the Puppet Master. And now the Puppet Master is in her old body, and he speaks, saying that he is involved with the government. He's employed by government intelligence to install ghosts into the brains of organizations and individuals. But once he gained intelligence himself, they labeled him as a bug, like he was defective, and they wanted to isolate him by giving him a body. And bateau asks him who's calling the shots? And then Major kind of loses signal to the outside world, so she can't speak anymore through her mouth, and she can't see like we see her vision freeze. And this gets to me a lot. This was really hard to process while also having to take notes. I was trying to interpret what he was saying into my own words, but I was just like, I can't I was pretty much just writing down what he was saying.

These are fairly standard topics, the evolution of cyborgs and all that. I don't know how you following easy.

Peasy, but so the Puppet Master tells the Major that he wanted to find her, and he wanted to stay within Section Nine, and she just wants to know, Why me? And he says, I'll explain, but I have a question for you. And then he goes into this speech. I will call it a speech rather than a spiel because, my gosh, he calls himself intelligent because he is sentient and aware of his existence, but he is incomplete. She says, you can make copies. Of yourself? And he says, well, yeah, but it would be so easy to destroy me or any of those copies. And essentially, he wants to be human. He wants to be able to reproduce as opposed to just make copies. He wants to reproduce people of intelligence that can improve. And he talks about, like, regeneration and genes. And he asks the Major why she thinks this cycle continues to be repeated, even though it's not perfect. And she says I just quoted her. She says, to survive by avoiding the weaknesses of an unchanging system. She's like, but what does that have to do with me? Why am I here? What do you want? And that's when he reveals that he wants them to merge, to create a new entity. Neither of them will lose anything, but they also won't be themselves anymore. And this is when because bateau can hear what the Puppet Master is saying, but not what the Major is saying. And he tries to end the dive, and he reaches for the machinery, but there's, like, something emanating from it that causes his hand to curl back. And then we see this shot of the major's body just, like, smiling at him menacingly. So good. And I was like, of course. Of course, he would make it impossible. The Puppet Master. He's like this.

He's perfect. You all acknowledge that he can hack your enhancements at any time.

Yeah.

What did you think would happen?

The scene is also really good because in the abandoned building they're in on the wall, there's, like, the alchemic Tree of Life behind them that got shot up during the fight.

That's right. And that top one is humanis or humorous or human, like, at the top of the Tree of Life?

Yeah. At the peak of it. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Wow. So the helicopters have arrived. We see that on the outside, but the Major wants to know what will happen to her. She says, what's the point of this? I can't have kids. We can't bear children. Am I going to die? I don't want to die. And he says that their offspring will be on the Net and that once he is finished with his purpose, he'll die, too. But that seems like that's what he wants. And the Major is like, okay, but I'm not down for that. But I'm not done here.

I didn't agree to this cult.

Yeah, I just had an epiphany. Oh, my God. Because this is, like, the difference between the two of them. He says they're the same, that they're more alike than she thinks, but he wants to be human, but with the level of intelligence and what he's seen in the Network, that's impossible for him. But for her saying that she's not done and she doesn't want to die, that is so huge. Oh, my God. I'm all over the place right now.

My brain just like galaxy brain.

Whoa.

So awesome.

I'm hot.

Hold on.

Get the sonic brain. Too much going on.

Dana'S been hacked. Yeah.

It's so cool. He says of, like, part of the essence of humanity is not only reproduction, but also mortality and ending and dying. And that's part of what he wants his journey to be. And part of humanity is about self preservation and that conflict. Oh, man.

Because I've heard in a lot of other stories, like, the drive to do stuff, the drive to make something of your life and to leave something behind for others is the mortality of humans. Because if you're immortal, why would you do anything? You have all the time in existence. But it's that small factor of time of like, I only have so much time on this Earth. I have to do this. And that gives them the get up and go.

Yeah, I've been so emotional lately, and I'm literally tearing up too much for me. He says that her identity will be altered, but he doesn't understand why that matters because things should change, but she still is. Like, why me? And this is when he says, we're more alike than you realize. We're mirror images of each other's psyche. And he also says here that he has accessed a network beyond her experience. It is I'm like, so talking about it is really doing a number on me.

It's so conceptual.

It's like something overwhelming and powerful, like someone looking into the sun. It's something you can't even comprehend. And he says that they're limited right now. They're limited, but they don't have to be. And it's at that moment the helicopters shoot both of them, and their bodies are destroyed. We see that their bodies are destroyed anyway. And the last thing, her major's head survives this blast, and the last thing she sees is bateau, like, running toward her. And then we see, like, a library kind of place, like a study, and someone sitting in a chair. And that someone is the Major, but she looks pretty different. She has her head, but it is now attached to a child's body. And then bateau comes in, and he's like, hey, you're awake? And she's like, Where did this come from? Where did this body come from? And he's like, oh, it's the only thing I could find. I don't love it, but you're alive.

It's something.

And he tells her what happened after she turned off, kind of. He says that Section Nine showed up, and they took all the remains that they could find, and they're calling it a terrorist incident. And now nakamura is being questioned, and all is accounted for except for her old body. And she's like, Is this your safe house? And he's like, yeah, you can stay here as long as you want. But she's like, no, I'm going to go.

I'm going to go right away.

Yeah. But before she leaves, he asks what their conversation was like with her and the Puppet Master because he could only hear one side of it. And he said, like, Is he in you? Like, do you feel a part of him in you? And she asks him if he remembers what she was talking about on the boat. And she says that she understands what she was saying now because it wasn't it was, like, the voice that wasn't her saying something she couldn't understand. But now she understands it something about being a child and growing up and losing your childish ways. And she says she understands it now because she's no longer the Major, nor is she the Puppet Master. She's something new. And in my mind, I'm like, well, that's kind of what the Puppet Master wanted, right?

Yeah, she's the major master or the puppet major.

This their ship name. And he tells her where the car keys are, and he's about to tell her the door code, and she's like, Is it 25?

One wink.

And she says, like, that can be, like, our password for when we meet up again. And she leaves, and she's like, well, where do I go from here? The net is vast and infinite, and I see it all.

I can do so much cool shit. Now where do I start?

Yeah, she looks out over the city, and as she does so, the sounds of the city get louder and then it's over. Absolutely, buckwalk.

It's very fitting that batsu was only able to find a child's cybernetic body after the puppetmaster saying he wanted to reproduce and die. They kind of had their kid together.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's very fitting.

Oh, my God. That was really good.

Yeah, we've just been gushing over for.

I definitely think talking it out was very helpful because I agree. Definitely appreciate it more after discussion than as soon as I stopped watching it because at that point, I was like, I think I get it. Sure, there's heady stuff I'm not fully grasping yet, but, yeah, having a film school discussion afterwards definitely helped my appreciation.

Yeah, hearing, like, everyone's kind of emotional reaction to it, too, is really fascinating in that going through it and unpacking what this film is saying about the nature of humanity. Remember reading a quote with the director about he wanted to do something about the futuristic world but how it really impacts our present day life? And you can talk about alexa and digital assistance and all the other things, but the Want, no matter how advanced it is, the want is still the same. Just to find some kind of connection and know that you're not alone.

Yeah, even with I've seen similar stuff, too, like alexa and Google homes and stuff in series, but in Japan, where it's just a small glass tube instead of, like, a disk, and it's projection, so it's like a little hologram character. And so much so that once you once you set it up, it can sync with your phone so that way it can even text you and respond to you through your phone when you're out and about.

That's crazy.

And it was promoting because there's a large we talked about before with the Japanese Society of hikikomori's and meats, of people who are kind of shut ins and are so isolated. Either from working all the time, they come home for 6 hours to sleep and then they go back to work, or they're actually just shut into their house the whole time. That this was made to promote kind of like a social stimuli without actually going out and meeting people. And it was like a way of giving people that comfort of interaction, even if it's through, like, a device. And it definitely hit that weird line of her, blade Runner, where it's like, all right, where are we drawing the line here, guys?

What point is it a tool and at what point is it just sentience?

Yeah. And is a line necessary to escape the idea of judgment about whether life is or self awareness is organic is valid or digital is valid, or either. It's interesting going back to the very first slide, identifying the fact that we still are caught up on race.

That.

Kind of stuff, that there's a debate about the validity of ascension that comes out of a non organic space. And we're the same when you break it down to its elements. Genes versus data. Yeah, exactly. And who gets to make that decision? And why do we need to make a decision? Why can't it just be, yeah.

I am so entranced by media like this. And I think it's so interesting that humans are entranced by media like this. I can think of three things, like, right now, like bicentennial man, ex machina, and quantic dreams. Short film kara that inspired Detroit become human. I much prefer cara over Detroit become human because I think it just resonated more. I think Detroit become human and cliched. But, yeah, AI scares me. Ex machina scared me, but in a cool way, the same way that this did. It just makes you look within yourself and you're like, whoa, jeez.

Gets real heavy when you're looking back at yourself through, like, a robotic mechanical mirror. Because I can think of the same things, even because I had, like, a sci-fi class in college of blade Runner, both movies and the book, because the book is a bit different. Mass Effect, which is one of my favorite game series of all time. There's a big subsplot of this race of aliens who created who created robots to help them as servants. And then progressively, the robots grew more with each upgrade and eventually developed overwatch. overwatch recently, too.

Overwatch has that, too.

Yeah.

Fallout Four also has that where the droids become real.

But I know with Mass Effect, the robots gain so much self awareness, they actually push their creators off the planet and take over and then there's a divide within that group of robots and stuff. So it's us. But yeah, it's such a common trope. Even frankenstein, you could argue, is one of the first points of sci-fi because especially at that time, that was science fiction. But it was a guy creating life through something that shouldn't be alive. And then the book is much different than all the iterations we've seen of like, fire bad and he's killing villagers and stuff. The frankenstein's monster is just like, yo, I'm lonely as shit. Can I have a girlfriend? And Dr. frankenstein's like, no. He's like, cool, I'm going to ruin your life. And it's a really interesting take because it's an intelligent being and not just this giant zombie.

It's funny. I donated a kidney to my dad 20 some odd years ago. And I remember when we went through it, one of my cousins said something to me of the effect of, boy, it's too bad they couldn't just grow a kidney on a pig and give it to your dad instead of have it come for you. And I was like, we'll do it. And I made some comments about clones. And he was like, well, clones would be fine because clones would have no souls. And I have a very religious family. And I was like, oh.

Where do.

You that's an interesting philosophical discussion to step into. And he was like, no, clones won't have souls, period. Like there was no discussion. And it was this kind of this blindness to the idea of then what is life? What is life really demarking? Who gets to based on end of life theory of major religions, who gets to go to heaven? Not dogs are sweet, but there's no dogs in heaven.

That ain't in heaven. I want to be in there.

I love that this picture. It was such a cool surprise when I rented it that it was like asking these kind of questions and exploring these ideas. And it was just something I'd never seen done in our sort of American cinema. At least I hadn't and what I had experienced anyway in a meaningful way.

Yeah, real quick, just you bringing up clones reminded me of another book from that scifi class I had of Never Let Me Go, which was turned into a movie in 2010. And for anyone looking at it, it seems just like a coming of age story.

Yeah.

But the whole premise is it's these kids that were born and raised in an orphanage, and they are clones.

Oh, wow.

And they they simply exist to be harvested for their organs. So as they get older, none of the kids get older than like 25 because by that point, they've had enough organs harvested from them, their body starts shutting down. So it's this, like, sci-fi dystopian kind of future story, but with no science in it at all. It very briefly discusses, like, hey, there are clones. It's not spoiler they discuss it, but it's not like, in your faith. It's not cyberpunk dystopian like this, but it raises that premise of, like, can we grow these life forms that have their own sentience and minds and feelings and souls and just pick them apart, like, you know, like vending machines and pick and choose and then just let them die at, you know, the ripe age of 16.

Yeah. Even looping back into the anime world of Promised neverland, of just children being raised for their meat and just, like, being produce. And that's completely devoid of like, sci-fi elements other than just like an alien monstersque race. And it's just like, there's a farm, there's a brick wall that they have to climb over and it goes from there.

Yeah, just well, given how many things that you guys have watched over the course of of doing your show, how does this piece reflect? Kind of because it's considered such a classic anime film, how do you see it influencing other things that you guys have reviewed on the show? Or how do you impact it kind of through the lens of what you guys have been doing.

I feel like this is so much different than anything we've watched. I feel like even if we watch a horror anime like Promised neverland or something more dramatic, nothing we've watched has tackled issues like this. The movies are always a little different. I think your name is something similar where it's like, heavier. Your name is my favorite movie. But yeah, I mean, I love it. Like I said before, I just love stuff like this. I would be so interested in seeing if there is any show that is remotely like this other than the series itself.

Yeah, it's continued shows. I can definitely see the influential style because it is a classic, it is iconic.

Yeah, I can see it in, like, other media, obviously.

Like, just style. I don't know who's doing this sort of like, extremely heady thing in like a twelve episode series, but there's definitely you can trace this into like every I sort of touched upon how we've watched brendan's, like, COPD drama anime, and there's definitely the similar style from those.

Oh ergo proxy. Completely forgot about Ergo proxy.

Yeah, definitely with the style. And it's so iconic, especially in futuristic or like cybernetic anime stuff. You can't find one that hasn't had a touch of ghost in the shell in there somewhere. But because it's a movie, I think it can condense and consolidate the story so precisely that every point hits so hard, like we've talked about. Because I don't know the last time we've had this in depth of discussion about the media we just watched, rather than, do we like it or not? But yeah, like Ergo proxy or like Dark in the Black, it gets to those points, but it's over the course of 6810, 1225 episodes, so the coherentness is stretched thinner between each one. So it doesn't have as much of an impact as, like, a condensed hour and a half movie does.

But I was worried here, too, that we wouldn't get something good and satisfying just because it is shorter. But.

It'S hard because it also ends on a note of, oh, just watch what I can do now. Just watch for the media that comes based on this. Just setting up that founding steps of, okay, now we can do some cool shit in this universe.

Yeah. Oh, man. Ghost in the shell, too. innocence. It's not this, but it has elements that are just equally as challenging and beautiful. And it's a fascinating piece in its own right, but it goes on a very different journey from what this film does and it's just a visual feast. I think that's what drew me to the series initially. But then just being caught up in the story and the questions this thing asks and the challenges that it makes you confront, it's just so incredibly satisfying.

Yeah. I'm very likely to continue watching the series and the other movies after this because I do love, like, blade Runner and those types of movies stories so much.

Did any of you guys see the live action with scarlett johansson?

No, did not.

I did, because I was a fan of this. I was like, well, I like her. I'm interested in it. visually. It was a trip. And there are similarities. It goes more into the identity of who Major is and who Major was and who is her ghost. And I think that especially given the backlash of the whitewashing with that particular film, what's fascinating is that's addressed in the movie, which I had no idea that that was the case. And that film also has probably one of the best performances I've ever seen from any actor in any film ever. And it's really I believe it's a Chinese actress, an older woman. It's it's like it's it's an extraordinary piece of work. And and it came out at the same time as blade Runner 2049, roughly. And there is a lot of similar touchstones of, like, you know, holographic ballerinas and giant, you know, and joy and all the other things. It's far from being a perfect film, but a lot of these characters are there. And it's an interesting watch, especially on the heels of this. And a great score, too, also by clint mancell and Lauren Balfy, who just did sorry, I'm a nerd.

How dare you be nerdy? On his Hannah podcast, sir.

Lauren belfi does really, really beautiful stuff. And clint mansell, too, did like requiem for a Dream and he did all of those Darren aronovsky pictures. His scores are just haunting his shit.

Anyway, good to hear good things about it.

Yeah, it's beautiful looking, too. I mean, really extraordinary. And it's a trip, man. I might just watch it tonight now.

That you're in the mood.

Yeah, totally.

All right, well, thank you so much for joining us and bringing this existential crisis with you.

My pleasure. This was just handed to my wife, heard me talking. I need to share it because the actress in the movie Ghost in the Shell live Action, her name is kori momi. It's spelled momoi, and she's a Japanese actress, and she plays a character in that film. If they gave, she should win everything. It's an amazing performance. Amazing, subtle, beautiful performance. So that was my footnote to what I had said earlier. Make sure to get that information correct. But, dude, thank you so much for having me in the show. It's just been a delight to be able to spend some time talking about this fantastic movie with you guys. Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, thank you so much for bringing it.

Thank you.

You bet.

So where can people find you online? What do you have coming up that you're allowed to talk about?

Let's see. Well, I can say this. I'm working on an upcoming animated series and on several new video games of titles that you guys are familiar with that are making more of them. I can't say which ones, but they'll be coming soon, and that's really exciting and fun. There's some great projects that developers have been working hard at over the past couple of years that will be coming out soon. And in the meantime, I'm on various commercials and TV shows, and I'm always on richie Rich on Netflix. If you have kids in the house who haven't had a chance to watch the show yet, listen, we didn't make it for you. We made it for little kids, for new kids. But it's stupid fun. And I played the dad on the show. I host a podcast called All Over voiceover, talking to voice actors and directors and agents and casting people. And if people are interested in getting into voiceover, in particular in anime, I talked to a couple of people who were very active in anime as well. There's some great episodes in that and just kind of demystifying it. And during this time, while people are doing a lot of self and home recording, it's good to just bone up on skills and that kind of stuff. So that's what it's there for. All over voiceover. And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at kiffv. H-K-I double fv H. Fantastic. All right.

Thank you.

Sweet. Thank you.

And if there's a show you the lister would like us to watch, you can send your recommendations to us. Are wever yet@gmail.com? Is our email. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter and Instagram. Are we there yet? On both? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick.

Dugan. You can find me on Instagram at Queen. Period weebu and on twitter at queen underscore weebu and queen underscore weebu art.

You can find me on Twitter at aBTS brendan and you know what? I'm going to give podcast a shout out. It's our hosting service that buddy of mine and I helped to create. So if you like your podcast, you got your own idea. Start one yourself.

Yeah, get to it. There's no better time to start a podcast. You're locked inside.

What else are you doing?

Thank you to camille Ruley for artwork. And thank you to Louisiana for the use of our theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

I'm going to go lay face down on the floor.

Gonna scream into the void for a while.

Thank you.