The Monte Hall Effect: Recent Episodes
Tim Lloyd, Tola Marts
Tim Lloyd and Tola Marts are two leaders in the Seattle aerospace community with over forty years of experience between them dealing with aerospace and high tech issues. They're also avid film buffs, and in each podcast they'll take a different science fiction film and discuss three key facets: Science: How well do the scientific ideas in the film reflect real science. Fiction: Do the film's plot and characterization take the viewer on a fun or intriguing journey? And… *Film: Does the movie make the most of cinematography, so that it works better in conveying its ideas than it would in a book, or graphic novel, or play? At the end of each podcast they’ll give the film a percentage ratings for each of those facets. NOTE: there will be spoilers for the film being discussed, but they will try to keep spoilers for other films to a minimum. The podcast theme music- intro and outro- is written and performed by Guy Ellis, and more of his music can be found at https://soundcloud.com/gu42 and https://www.facebook.com/cloudcoverband/.
Tola and Tim take on Tola's favorite film of all time- not just his favorite SF film, but literally the film he says "changed his life"- Steven Soderbergh's 2002 adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's classic science fiction novel "Solaris." They discuss the challenges of talking about your favorite film, bad film marketing, Tim uses the word "titular", Smoldering Clooney, the genius of Cliff Martinez, the You're the Only One Who Can Help Us movie trope, a world full of Unreliable Narrators, ye olde thyme Plasma screen saver, things that are fundamentally unknowable, Jeremy Davies at his most Jeremy Davies, Viola Davis before she became the acting juggernaut that she is today, smoldering on the train, Dylan Thomas, speculating on the tidal forces of an orbiting centrifuge, technobabble, a mis-explanation of the Higgs Field (physicists, please do not write in to correct us), all we know about people is what we see about them and maybe not even all of that, mental snapshots, after eight episodes Tola finally gets to break out a Winston Churchill reference and talks about Clementine Churchill's ALLEGED affair, confirmation bias, the fundamental unknowability of an alien intelligence (vs the Roddenberry model), everything wrong with the depiction of liquid oxygen including why drinking it is a classically bad idea, another bad idea: bringing an unknown alien intelligence to Earth, smoldering versus drugged out, Chekhov's Blood, the fundamental unknowability of artificial intelligence, conservation of mass or the lack thereof, Tim provides more evidence that Clooney's character is a creep, Tola says his favorite quote from his favorite movie, Tim quotes Samuel R. Delany's "Dhalgren", moments that are simultaneously touching and creepy, Frank Bowman, planet sized fundamentally unknowable mood rings, how this movie changed Tola's life, a mangling of the Brad Meltzer quote "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about," Stanislaw Lem hating the movie, how one piece of art relates to another, Tola's Mom's great definition of "what is art?", a brief "Accidental Tourist" digression, Potterverse film/book synergy, and Tola speculating on why he suspects he'll be thinking of Miyazaki on his deathbed (many decades from now!) Final score: Science (75%), Fiction (98%), Film (91%). Next podcast: shooting fish in a barrel with Roland Emmerich's "Moonfall."
Tola and Tim got together with our families this summer to watch Forbidden Planet. Join us as we discuss Leslie Nielsen vs George Pappard, the archetypes of Star Trek, robot gender, philology, Born Sexy Yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thpEyEwi80), creepy creepers being creepy, Powers of Ten (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0), bourbon-generating robots, murderous tree sloths, the Wizard of Id, Dark Phoenix, The Lady and the Tiger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOtUpSpZgkU), and how thrilled we are to be working together again on the future of human spaceflight. Final score: Science: 70%, Fiction: 80%, Film: 88% Next up - Soderbergh's Solaris (2002, Tola's favorite film of all time)
Tim and Tola return to the Denis Villeneuve ouevre to discuss his 2021 film "Dune" as well as the days when you could make a TV miniseries for $28, getting past the things that the 12 year old you thought were perfect, concubines vs spouses, swordfighting, spaceships rolling coal, reactionless propulsion, how Stellan Skarsgård will make your movie better, Harkonnens as Hashemites, Villeneuve and Cameron as worldbuilders, Syd Meade and Weta, Cinematic maximalism, waterjets, heat sinks, ambiguously magical saviors, Magical Pixie Fremen Elves, charismatic macrofauna, one fault op systems, Zendaya as Chekhov's gun, Spaniards not being equivalent to Arabs, agents of carnage, being almost saved but not quite, famous made up Fremen double entendres, sandworm breath, the only good Imperial person is a dead Imperial person, canon vs non-canon, more Grinspoon xenobiology, surprise two-parters, embracing genocide, cheap shots at Elon, Dead Can Dance and Hans Zimmer, and the intersection of gender and futurism. Final score: Science (75%), Fiction (85%), Film (94%). Next podcast: Forbidden Planet!
005 - Interstellar After a long sabbatical, Tim and Tola discuss the 2014 Christopher Nolan film "Interstellar" as well as historical dramas, cocaine and hookers, the dreaded 2021 heat wave (we actually recorded this conversation quite some time ago), the awesomeness of LEGO Batman, building your movie around your cinematography, Dylan Thomas, watching dystopia movies in 2021, small-c conservatism, retconning your own characters, fleeing your problems instead of solving them, giant awesome bookshelves, Dr. Mann The Best Of Us, Christopher Nolan not understanding how science works, speculative vs observed science, how to leave a planet, looking over the wing of the spacecraft again and again and again, little kids and rollercoasters, kilocals, Dylan Thomas, lithium-thorazine cocktails, film scientific consultants, Larry Niven, cinematic debt to "2001", Dreamchaser, Surface Tension, primordial New Orleans, wonderful images vs scientific nonsense, chivalry getting you killed, The Great Man of Science, why design reviews are important, a lie told by an Englishman, the Deep Space Network, Dr. Mann The Best Of Us, more weird tracking shots, James Cameron's worldbuilding, Jim Emerson's analysis of a Dark Knight fight scene (https://vimeo.com/28792404), speculative xenobiology, David Grinspoon's analysis of the film (https://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/11/interstellar-movie-science-david-grinspoon-inquiring-minds/), Dr. Mann The No Longer Best Of Us, saying stuff to stay stuff, expensive and delicate NASA hardware which is to say all NASA hardware, space vehicle structural design, orbital decay time as a function of altitude, Tim's space piloting, artificial urgency, anemic accretion disks, the loving caress of relativistic impacts, Christopher Nolan not understanding how rockets work, event horizons (not Event Horizon), letting the fifth dimensional beings be your copilot, communicating the grand unifying theory connecting general relativity to quantum mechanics using morse code, Ann Hathaway's Boyfriend's Planet, the passage of time changing how you view a scene, and sending information vs sending matter. Final score: Science (60%), Fiction (73%), Film (83%). Next podcast: Dune!
Tim and Tola discuss the 2016 Denis Villeneuve film "Arrival", as well as SETI, car insurance, THE IMPORTANCE OF WATCHING THIS PARTICULAR FILM BEFORE LISTENING TO THIS PARTICULAR PODCAST, J.R.R. Tolkien, Icelandic composers, Broadchurch, remembering 9/11, professorial salaries, security clearances, Speak'n'Spells, training and executive decision making, Close Encounter's Dark Side of the Moon, dumb politicians, scissor lifts, basing things on 12 because the bible, great Hong Kong actor Tzi Ma, conspiracy theories, UFO reports and your government, linguistic relativity a.k.a. the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Pioneer/Voyager golden records, alien abduction pulsar map tattoos, infinite depth of field imaging, rotoscoping and Ralph Bakshi, Primer's mad crescendo, how predeterminism might work, kids in peril in film, a Childhood's End type scenario, non-zero sum games, Leto's golden path, and parenthood and risk.
Final score: Science (93%), Fiction (93%), Film (95%)
Seriously, we know some of you like to listen to the podcast before watching the film. We really, really, realy recommend you don't do this with "Arrival," and watch the film before listing to the podcast. For reals.
Next podcast: "Interstellar"!
Note: We're asking our fans to help us pick a 1950's science fiction film to review in an upcoming show. The choices are: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), When Worlds Collide (1951), War of the Worlds (1953), This Island Earth (1955), and Forbidden Planet (1956). Email us at themontehalleffect@gmail.com and let us know which movie we should review!
Tim and Tola discuss the 2018 Alex Garland film “Annihilation,” as well as how midwesterners argue, how things fall to Earth, how high Jennifer Jason Leigh appears in this film, locating your scientific headquarters, the fact that lighthouses are invariably sited on the coast, getting tickled by giant crocodile sharks, how chemo is like being stabbed by a morgul blade, biocontainment 101, NASA Planetary Protection Officers, the does and don'ts of dealing with a malevolent entity, the power of refraction, Hox genes, explaining stuff to your teammates in a timely manner, watching movies on ’shrooms, ambiguity as a science fiction scriptwriting crutch, Hiroshima shadows, H.R. Giger, giant space vaginas and their associated glam-wombs, Chekhov's phosphorus grenade, and the fundamental unknowability of alien intelligence. As always, there are spoilers for the film reviewed, and in this case we have to say there are a fair number of spoilers for Steven Soderbergh's 2002 film "Solaris" as well, since many comparisons are made between the two films. We agreed to disagree on our overall assessment of "Annihilation".
Final score: Science 55%, Fiction 55%, Film 85%.
Next podcast: "Arrival"!
Tim and Tola discuss the 2019 film "Ad Astra." Director James Gray said that this was going to be the most accurate portrayal of spaceflight ever put in a movie. Did he succeed? No. No he did not. Yet we found this film's scientific failures were actually overshadowed by its artistic failures. But along the way we had a lot of fun discussing the fetishization of human spaceflight, historical spacesuits and visual motifs, HALO jumps, what would really happen if we were ever hit by a gamma ray burst, the durability of modern aircraft, how gravity and acceleration work, why there are basically two kinds of rockets, and how we're hoping "exploding the monkey" becomes the new "nuking the fridge." Along the way we share a number of hard-learned aerospace truths, such as: a flame trench turns out to be a trench for flame, hot stuff comes out of the end of a rocket, and you try to keep the poison on the outside of the crew capsule. As usual, there are lots of spoilers for the film being discussed, but we try to stay away from spoilers for other films.
Final score: Science 30%, Fiction 25%, Film 78%.
Tim and Tola talk about the 2007 Danny Boyle film "Sunshine." A bunch of people travel to the Sun with a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan. What could possibly go wrong? Some of the things we talk about: engineers vs scientists, risk analysis, what happens if you suddenly find yourself in outer space (tl;dr: you don't explode), why you shouldn't cut holes in your heat shield, purposely dabbling with opium when you're part of an Arctic expedition (tl;dr: bad idea), the limits of realism, and the tradeoffs you have to make as a filmmaker between scientific accuracy and dramatic necessity. Tola tells a Polish space joke (it's OK, he's Polish.)
Final score: Science 78%, Fiction 80%, Film 93%.