#15: Moonfall review at ALMA
TRANSCRIPT
Corinne Caputo
Welcome to pale blue pod the astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but want to be its friend.
Moiya McTier
That's like us, Hi, I'm Dr. Moiya McTier. I'm an astrophysicist and folklorist and I sometimes get overwhelmed by the universe, but I almost always feel like I am its friend.
Corinne Caputo
I love that. And I'm Corinne Caputo, writer, comedian, and friend of the universe, although today's topic tested me.
Moiya McTier
Today's topic was actually you know, I kind of enjoyed it, but I know that there are a lot of people out there who have strong feelings about today's topic. We'll get into that in a second. But first we have to tell you where we're recording this episode.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah, Moiya, where are we right now? Explain this to me.
Moiya McTier
So we if you recall, we ended the last episode, we recorded the last episode in the projector room of a movie theater. And we ended recording right before a movie started. So that should give you a hint as to what this episode is about. We're going to be talking about the movie we watched but we're not talking about it in the theater. We moved.
Corinne Caputo
We moved.
Moiya McTier
We needed time to collect our thoughts figure out what we what our opinion of this movie was. And in that time, we also traveled from the movie theater to the Atacama Desert in Chile.
Corinne Caputo
Quick hop and a skip.
Moiya McTier
It's actually so quick. I have been in this location before, we are recording from the control room at the ALMA observatory, which is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimetre array. It's one of the most powerful telescope arrays that we have on Earth, and we are sitting in the chairs that the telescope operators sit in.
Corinne Caputo
Wow, how lucky. What a lucky get.
Moiya McTier
This is my second time in this room. For for people who subscribe to our Patreon I will show you pictures that I took. When I visited Alma the first time I made a snow angel up at the top of a mountain on top of a third of the entire Earth's atmosphere. It was really high up that's really high up. I know. Okay, so that's where we are. We're in the ALMA control center. And today we are talking about Moon fall
Corinne Caputo
Moon fall, the famous movie Moon fall,
Moiya McTier
famous movie from maybe infamous,
Corinne Caputo
I think absolutely infamous. Yes, there was a kid when I was in middle school whose screen name was like infamous, you know, Joe, or whatever his name was. And at that time, I didn't know what infamous ment and I was just like, This person is really smart. And it's just the word infamous, like I am.
Moiya McTier
I There are some words that like, oh, what's the word like regardless or irregardless? Or, like, extraordinary where if you if you put a little a little suffix in front of it, it totally changes the meaning of the word, but sometimes the meaning stays the same. Yeah, like regardless of irregardless mean the same thing I think is irregardless not a word. Technically no, but it's been accepted people.
Corinne Caputo
I think it should be accepted because I love when language changes, like because people use it. That is really fun for me, but I know that a lot of a lot of other people can be a little more purist about it, but I'm always like, this is amazing how the internet's changing our birds. I
Moiya McTier
agree. 100% with you, Corinne. Okay. Infamous. Yeah, that was a that was a weird word. I didn't realize it meant the opposite of famous or like, famous in a bad way.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah, exactly. I thought he just meant like, not faint or unknown. And I was like, that's funny. I think this kid might be fun.
Moiya McTier
No, no, not funny. Just had a slightly larger vocabulary.
Corinne Caputo
Exactly, exactly. But we watched Moon fall, which for any listeners out there, there will be spoilers. So if you want to watch Moon fall, please. Pause the pod and go watch it. It is on HBO. What's the genre here? Drama sci fi. Yeah, it's
Moiya McTier
a sci fi drama.
Corinne Caputo
There are maybe some attempts at comedy here. It to me in that sweet spot of a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. Like I think 30 to 40 on Rotten Tomatoes is my sweet spot for a movie because we It makes me feel smarter than the movie, which I love. And it's not such a good movie that I'm like, wow, I should be writing stuff that good. You know, it's that sweet spot where you're watching it and you're like, This is funny to me.
Moiya McTier
Okay, I appreciate that. Like that intermediate zone. Because I definitely know the feeling of watching a movie or reading a book where it's so good that I just feel shitty about myself, because I know I'll never make anything that good.
Corinne Caputo
Exactly. And then you're like, why am I even trying to make art? Yeah, but this is this is the sweet spot the sweet spot. And it's not so bad that it's insufferable. It's like kind of a fun wrong.
Moiya McTier
Exactly.
Corinne Caputo
But this is a 2022 sci fi disaster movie, which was written directed and produced by Roland Emmerich.
Moiya McTier
I've never heard of that person.
Corinne Caputo
He also did a movie with Will Smith that I forget. He did it with Will Smith because I had just watched like a like a Vanity Fair like clip with him to see how his name was pronounced. And they use like clips of his other movies. But it's a fun big budget movie about the moon falling to the earth.
Moiya McTier
What a ridiculous premise
Corinne Caputo
There is the title Moon fall and I have so many questions Moiya but I'll start with just like a quick summary of what the movie is. So the the fast logline is that it's like a mysterious force has hit the moon off course. And now the moon is kind of hurtling towards Earth. And the deeper dive summary is that there's this astronaut named Brian that played by Patrick Wilson and he has this CO astronaut named Joe clay by Halle Berry, and they did a mission like 10 years ago together, and there was a third astronaut on that trip but while they were doing like some routine repair, this astronaut died and he died because some bizarre, metallic Scorpion type monster shapeless I don't really know.
Moiya McTier
A hive mind of little electronic things.
Corinne Caputo
Exactly. And it's like, it has like snake like energy but also clearly made up of many smaller parts. And it's squiggles around it takes this one astronaut or like, you know, kind of breaks his cable and they are separated. But Patrick Wilson's character, Brian successfully gets back in the space shuttle and drives and flies him and Halle Berry home. And this is like a kind of Sully level achievement. Pilot, the pilot. I never saw the sully movie, but the trailer was like, Sully, we all know Sully landed the plane. But like, what if he didn't? And it was like No, he did like we all know he did.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, why would they make did in the movie? Does he not land the plane? Oh,
Corinne Caputo
I think he definitely does in the movie, but like, I'm pretty sure that movie inner cuts between some trial and like him actually landing the plane interested. They're just trying to create drama, weird movies or trailers are especially wierd
Moiya McTier
the one interesting tidbit about this hive mind thing that killed that third astronaut. I thought it was just a debris cloud. I thought it was just normal space junk at first. But here is here's a tip friends. Here's a pro tip. If you watch non comedy movies with the subtitles on, you get some extra context. So the subtitles when when the hive mind was moving towards the space shuttle, said digital rumbling, which is how I knew it wasn't just regular old space debris.
Corinne Caputo
I didn't catch that. That's awesome. Okay, digital. So there's this digital beast that's rumbling and it goes away. like it, they don't have to keep fighting it or anything. But Brian and Joe go back to planet earth. They land the space shuttle and the space shuttle. We did retire in 2012. So this is historically accurate so far. We he lands the shuttle, but then it cuts to him basically in some kind of like job trial where they're like, What are you talking about? That kind of tech is impossible. That never happened. You lost a man out there that's so tragic, and you lost your job to and Halle Berry doesn't come to his defense and say that, no, we witnessed something crazy because she had been knocked unconscious when it happened. So now 10 years later, Brian is out of NASA work at least. And Joe is working for NASA still. And Brian is kind of he's now divorced. He has an older kid who seems to be getting in and out of trouble. His life is rough. His life is rough now. And it's all because nobody believed him. So we see that he is kind of supposed to do some museum style astronaut talk. And he shows up late, but before he gets there is conspiracy theorist named KC. And he believes that the moon is an artificial, mega structure. And you're gonna hear us use this word a lot, I think the mega structure.
Moiya McTier
a real term that was that astronomers use and sci fi writers use but yeah, it is it does sound kind of
Corinne Caputo
it sounds completely made up. And I was like, I gotta get Moiya in on this, like, what's going on?
Moiya McTier
He's a megastructurist. And
Corinne Caputo
he's spent his life It seems dedicated to proving that the moon is a mega structure. And he lives on like the fringes of YouTube society and conspiracy theories. He tries to get in touch with Brian to prove that look, I just printed out these numbers. The moon's orbit is off. And he does a few like sneaky, unethical things before this.
Moiya McTier
Yes he downloads data from Alma, which is why we're here.
Corinne Caputo
That was so he breaks into almost by posing as janitor, and then breaks
Moiya McTier
into the into a university that can connect to the ALMA servers. Oh, and that's not intimate.
Corinne Caputo
Yes, that's the phone call. He gets where he's like, send me this to that other email address I included
Moiya McTier
I'm totally the professor that you think you're talking to.
Corinne Caputo
And then he goes to work at like an Arby's kind of restaurant and then runs out a job because he's like, wait, the moon is not on its course. And then he called, he makes one of the funniest phone calls I've ever seen, which is he just calls a number, and is like, put me in touch with NASA, I need to tell them that there's an emergency happening. And the woman on the other line, works at the NASA gift shop. And it seems like it's the middle of the night in the gift shop because it's pitch black. There's nobody in there. But her working the desk for some reason.
Moiya McTier
Didn't you know NASA gift shops are open 24/7. It's like, oh,
Corinne Caputo
that's that's an amazing feature that we that NASA
Moiya McTier
does. I don't think that's true.
Corinne Caputo
But he doesn't get there to NASA. And he tries this other way where he meets up with Brian at this museum. He gets escorted out because Brian is like, I don't know this guy. This guy's being so strange. And this is after he tells a group of children that the moon's mega structure and he just like kind of vomits his conspiracy onto them. And the kids are just listening nicely.
Moiya McTier
That's not what they do. That's a no well, also, there
Corinne Caputo
are so many moments that the kids that I was like, I've done this part. I've done talking to kids about spaceport and I know they're not like this. Basically turns out Halle Berry simultaneously is at NASA finding out the moon is off orbit. Oh, no. What are we going to do? Ooh. So she gets promoted, in a way really a glass Cliff kind of way we can talk about later, where the director of NASA immediately steps down and it's like, you've always wanted my job, you can have it. And she starts. She does a really noble push towards like, we're gonna stop this. She gets Brian in on it. And Brian is like, I'm only going if I can bring KC, because he realizes that KC's right, the moon is coming to earth. And they find this out in a hilarious way. Where they see the moon from their house. Suddenly, the moon is as big as the Earth at sea. Right?
Moiya McTier
Right. That happens when it gets closer.
Corinne Caputo
Mass flooding is happening. People are like, evacuating from where they are. And he has to get to KC to to align and say, Hey, that thing you were talking about the other day? I think you're right. And KC he's like, Oh my god, this is amazing. It's my dream come true. So the moon's falling closer and closer to Earth. And then they start. This is where the timeline and how much time is passing stuff stops making sense to me.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, yeah, the timeline was a little bit confusing.
Corinne Caputo
There are times they reference hours have passed, where I'm like, Do we have that to spend? And then there are times where we a week or so has passed? And I'm like, wouldn't there be mass disaster if we wait a week? I'll bet I'll bet we'll never get to the bottom of this. So basically, what's exciting is to jump ahead a bit, because it is a very long movie, like too long.
Moiya McTier
A lot happenes and they spent a lot of time on stuff that isn't necessary.
Corinne Caputo
100% agree. So what's exciting is that they Halle Berry gets this idea from her young son that they should break the space shuttle out of the museum and take it back up to space. So there's a hilarious scene where they're towing it through the streets. And Brian, Joe, and KC organized, they're the three that are gonna go on this mission to stop the moon from falling to Earth. So the army simultaneously has a plan, which is to blow up the moon.
Moiya McTier
With nukes.
Corinne Caputo
with nukes, and they thought was the stupidest idea. Also, this is the number one, like one of the things we tell the kids at the Space Center a lot, which is like, well, you're not gonna, if this comet was really falling to Earth, in this scenario, you don't want to blow it up. Because you might create many more comets that are then or you know, comet, like, so then they're up in space. They see the thing again, well, they've sent other astronauts before this, those astronauts did not make it because they saw the digital noise machine monster, that monster did take their lives
Moiya McTier
aggressively.
Corinne Caputo
Aggressivley in a scary way. And I think NASA is always conscious of astronaut safety. And it's like, well, maybe it's not the best idea to like, keep sending people up here to do this. But they persevered. And now we've got, I'm jumping ahead, and I'm not including the B plot at all, because I found it boring. Now, we've got our three main characters up in space. And guess what they see the digital monster come out of the moon. And they're like, What is that and you know, there's a whole nother round of like, understanding of this is happening. And then they have to smash KC's phone because they realize that's what draws the monster in. That's on my piece. When there is technology and organic matter in the same place, then the monster comes out. They smashed the phone, the machine, the space shuttle is basically off, I guess. So they're secretly, you know, landing on the moon now. And they go inside of the moon
Moiya McTier
Inside the moon, they go with one of the best lines. They're like actively going into the center of the moon and someone I think Casey says, Are we dead? And then Brian says, No, we're just inside the moon.
Corinne Caputo
The line that I remember from that part is when they go, we can breathe. And I was like, No, you can't be right. So it turns out the moon the inside of the moon is hollow
Moiya McTier
naturally.
Corinne Caputo
And inside is something I cannot explain. But it seems like an intelligent thing has created
Moiya McTier
this they interact with this intelligence thing. That's like there are two aliens here. There's the bad one that's trying to take over the moon. And there's the good one that it turns out built the the moon mega structure to begin with, and they they have contact with the good alien that gives them the ability to defeat the bad aliens.
Corinne Caputo
Yes And that's why whenever the bad alien kind of temporarily leaves the moon, the moon tries to put itself back on its orbit, which was another hilarious fact. So in the end, KC decides to sacrifice himself in a way so that Joe and Brian can make it back safely to Earth. They both have kids and love their families. And I think KC sees that the hero's journey, he's always wanted is to like play this major role and he takes it on. And Brian and Joe gets safely back to Earth. The world is saved. And guess what? KC? Not dead.
Moiya McTier
Well not his consciousness.
Corinne Caputo
Well, not its consciousness, his body has gone by so he's now alive in the moon. Part of the moon is part of the moon now and his cat is there. And we'll get to that. So, highly recommend watching this movie. And-
Moiya McTier
I mean, well, we are going to score this movie at the end of the episode and based on our score and based on other things we talked about, you can decide if you want to watch it, but really, if you care about spoilers, you should have watched it already. When we told you to pause at the beginning of the episode, but now thank you for that summary. Corinne Oh, wow, that was such a long movie. So much stuff happened. Now we are going to share our peeves and thieves which is something I A I came up with to evaluate different forms of media. And it's our pet peeves, things we didn't like, and the thieves of our hearts, but things that we really liked about the movie. So now we'll start with Peeves so that we can be as mean as possible. And then we'll do thieves so that people forget the mean things we said.
Corinne Caputo
And I do want to say, This movie looks amazing. Like the CGI, like, the effects the sound, it's all like there was hard work put into this movie. But I do as a writer can say a few things about this story that that is perhaps lacking.
Moiya McTier
Perhaps. So yeah, let's let's go into peeves. Corinne, you want to tell me your first peeve.
Corinne Caputo
Okay. My first peeve was well, when he's late to the group that he's supposed to teach at the museum,
Moiya McTier
Brian?
Corinne Caputo
Brian. And KC shows up early waiting for Brian as well. And all of the kids think KC is Brian. So they turn around and they're like you're late. My teacher says you're a washed up no show. And I was like, That is extremely rude.
Moiya McTier
Very rude.
Corinne Caputo
I've never had a kid come to the space center. And immediately kids were always like, Are you a real astronaut? Like they worship like, being taught about space and the fact that they might be near a real astronaut is kind of mind blowing. So I was like, That is not healthy kids would be hmm, they might be like You look different than I thought what the hell like they would be like you're a washed up no show you idiot.
Moiya McTier
Fair. That's a good peeve. My my Peeves are roughly chronological and also roughly in order from smallest to biggest. So my my first small peeve is that all the banter that they're doing at the beginning of the movie, when the three astronauts Joe Bryan, and that other guy who died when they're working on the space shuttle, they talk about Toto's Africa.
Corinne Caputo
Yes.
Moiya McTier
And Brian gets the words wrong, which pisses me off, because it's one of it's a very well known song, but I'm also annoyed that they use that song because toto has an amazing and deep catalogue. I'm talking hold the line. I'll supply the love, Rosanna which I listened to on repeat during my first research internship and I nicknamed the Galaxy I studied Rosie because that's that annoyed me.
Corinne Caputo
Okay, I have an annoying thing about that scene as well. Halle Berry goes she corrects him is like, that's not the words. These are the words. And she goes I should know I karaoke did at my wedding. And I was like, explain this wedding to me. Did was there a karaoke element at the wedding? Because that's so fun.
Moiya McTier
Yeah.
Corinne Caputo
I just got very hung up on what was that wedding? Like? Yeah. And maybe because I'm so coming off my own wedding of like, really shaping an event. But I was like, I got to know more about that.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, absolutely. And then the wedding that she's talking about, I realized later was to the army-
Corinne Caputo
Yeah,
Moiya McTier
-or the military guy.
Corinne Caputo
Why did they not reveal that until 40 minutes left in the movie?
Moiya McTier
Because this movie is not the best constructed movies ever.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah, a little out of order. Okay, my next peeve, let's see is how lonely it must be to be a conspiracy theorist. Because KC, this like he holds like a mini event where he's like, everyone, we're meeting at our usual spot. And I'm going to go over again, the moon is a megastructure and there's going to be free bagels or something. Yeah, I was just like, this must be such a manic life. If you've really bought into all of these things are like being held secret from you. That's a really overwhelming feeling. And I did not like it. I was picking up on the bad energy of that.
Moiya McTier
Yeah. Although good for them for for being able to capture that energy.
Corinne Caputo
That's true. They have a little community.
Moiya McTier
Yeah.
Corinne Caputo
And they captured it on the screen.
Moiya McTier
But that is annoying. My next peeve is that they did not need the ALMA data to determine that the moon was getting closer to us, almost greatly powerful telescope, it's being used to study planet formation around distant stars and like galaxy evolution, it does sometimes Observe the Moon because the moon passes over it. And then like we study the temperature of the moon with it. But really, it would it would be like amateur astronomers who spend all of their nights looking at the moon and other things in the sky. Who would have noticed that it's moving faster that it's getting slightly bigger when they would have known that?
Corinne Caputo
Yeah, that's a really good point. I did not I just assumed that there's no way it would be held secret that the moon or like somebody would just completely miss that the moon is moving closer to us.
Moiya McTier
Anyone who pays attention would have been able to tell.
Corinne Caputo
And was it communicate? Like, I imagined the moon has started moving closer to us since they first encountered this alien 10 years ago?
Moiya McTier
So I think what happened was that it took like 10 years for it to get to the core.
Corinne Caputo
Oh, right. Yes, they did say that.
Moiya McTier
Like it had drilled in the surface. Yeah. And then it was able to maneuver the moon.
Corinne Caputo
Gosh,that must be exhausting. I have a lot of keep going, I want to hear him because you probably have more than me.
Moiya McTier
Well you do yours. And then when you run out, I'll just say them all.
Corinne Caputo
Okay, next moment that I really hated had like a visceral reaction to was When KC goes, I love Elon. They are referencing that Space X can help them like get to the moon. And it's like a throwaway line that did not need to be in the movie, where he's like, and thanks to our friends at SpaceX, we have you know, a machine.
Moiya McTier
Do you think they sponsored it? Do you think that was product placement?
Corinne Caputo
No, I have a theory have a conspiracy theory about this. Oh, my theory is that this movie went through many rounds of revision. And there was a revised round where they were like, well, who's our audience for this movie? It's probably other like Elon Musk fans, conspiracy theorists, people who are like pro Space X in like an anti democratic kind of way, like people can kind of get lumped into that group. And I think they did a round of like edits, where it was catering exclusively to that audience.
Moiya McTier
Oh, my God, I believe that.
Corinne Caputo
That's my conspiracy. Maybe I picked up on like, what it's like to think and like, this global conspiracy way from this movie. But yeah, that's what my gut says.
Moiya McTier
Yeah. This is not this is not an Elon Musk fan podcast.
Corinne Caputo
No, no.
Moiya McTier
it's not absolutely not like the opposite. The opposite of that. My next peeve is that they say that the moon is hollow. We would know, we like I think a lot of people don't realize what type of information we have on the moon. We can see it so we know its physical size, we can see how quickly it orbits around the Earth. So we know its mass because we know like the how gravity works. And when the Apollo 11 astronauts went to the moon, they placed a seismometer on it that would measure like seismic activity like Moon quakes, and we on Earth and and other bodies in the solar system like Mars, we use seismic activity to essentially look inside the interior of a body. Because the seismic activity is pret it's waves. It's like pressure waves moving through a body. And you can kind of reverse engineer the pressure waves that you receive to figure out what the structure is inside. So we would know that there was
Corinne Caputo
a giant alien coring its way to the center, you probably would have picked up on that.
Moiya McTier
But so much of this movie is based on a faulty premise of the stuff that we in reality know to be true about the moon actually isn't real. And people have been keeping a secret for a long time, which is which this is actually my next piece of it. Right in. We astronomers are so bad at keeping secrets, the idea that for 50 years, astronomers, engineers, astronauts, janitorial staff that would have been walking through the NASA center that day, like the idea that for 50 years that many people could keep that big of a secret under wraps is absurd to me,
Corinne Caputo
that's so funny. That's a great point. Everyone is more of a gossip, then we're acting like. I love that. Okay, my next peeve is Halle Berry's promotion. I think a lot about like the glass cliff, which is it's like a glass ceiling, which is like a glass ceiling. It's like the invisible barrier that will prevent you from getting promoted. A glass cliff is when you do get promoted, except they've promoted you at a time of like, dire circumstances. So they've set you up, essentially, to fail. Or they're like not maybe not intentionally for you to fail, but you've been given this job where the odds are against ya, so I remember listening to it, I think on like, a episode of death, sex and money like years ago, so I'm always like, as soon as that happened, where her the real director of NASA or the first director of NASA when the movie starts is like, you've always wanted my job. You can have it. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. We're not premoting probably our first woman of color NASA director. Oh, absolutely. Right now we're gonna do that. It was really frustrating. But in the end, it worked out because she, as the Acting Director of NASA, she did save the world.
Moiya McTier
She did. That's true. And it worked out. And it's a movie so like, we knew that that was gonna happen.
Corinne Caputo
True. I wasn't sure if she would make it. I wasn't sure who was going to live.
Moiya McTier
I feel like I would, I knew that she would make it because I am very confident that the community I'm a part of on Twitter would have told me if Halle Berry died in the movie.
Corinne Caputo
So true. I thought Brian would die for a long time because they explicitly say he's still torn up about what happened 10 years ago, and losing, I think Marcus was the other astronaut's name. And instead of, there's nothing that's like, under the surface in this movie, it's all explicitly stated.
Moiya McTier
There's there's no like sense of poetic justice here. No, they're not trying to create that much of a, an artistic masterpiece.
Corinne Caputo
No way.
Moiya McTier
Okay, this is this is maybe, no, I've had a few sciency pet peeves. But this is a this was a big one, I took notes. And this was the first time that I wrote in all caps in the notes, and there's a line when they realize when NASA realizes that the moon is falling in towards the earth, when they say, and I quote, "The Moon has entered an elliptical orbit, it will circle the Earth three times" before it before it like collides with us or whatever. But the moon is already on an elliptical orbit. An ellipse is just like a like an imperfect circle. You can have stable elliptical orbits. All of the orbits in our solar system are elliptical. What they meant to say was that the moon has entered an unstable orbit or like maybe even I mean, hyperbolic orbit isn't right either, because a hyperbolic orbit is one where the the orbiting body gets flung out of the system. But they could have said it's entered an in spiral orbit, it's uncertain unstable orbit, it's entered a decaying orbit, they could have said so many other things. Instead of the thing they did say, which is just it's an elliptical orbit. Yeah. But which is just describing how the moon has always been.
Corinne Caputo
Okay, well, another thing for the list. I hated the moment when they're finally launching this rocket with Joe Bryan and KC. And the ocean is now taller than it's ever been. And they're desperately trying to launch the rocket before the ocean swallows them. And they do good underwater for a moment. Yeah, they do. And then the rocket pulls through, and shoots up into the moon. And I'm so confident that can't happen.
Moiya McTier
I was okay with that.
Corinne Caputo
Maybe I actually watched so many space shuttle launch videos when I was at the Space Center, where I'm like, this never happened.
Moiya McTier
That's true. It has never happened at a launch before. But one day, but one day when the moon is falling to Earth, and it's so close that it seems to literally graze the surface of Earth as it orbits like that's how it looks at the end of the movie, the Earth and the Moon are basically touching and rolling around each other. But when when the moon gets that close, the gravity is going to be weird. And the the gravitational pull between the rocket and the moon is going to be greater than the pull between the water and the moon because the rocket has more mass.
Corinne Caputo
Interesting. Okay, because I was wondering of all the water depicted in in this what was going to happen or like what could happen if this real I imagined it would be a lot worse than it was on that movie.
Moiya McTier
The scene where you the water is rushing on the land, California and like KC and Brian, they're in that building.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah.
Moiya McTier
They all should have been dead. I think I'm pretty sure water moves faster than that was with that much force.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah.
Moiya McTier
KC gets knocked over He should be dead. But I do think that all of the like the numbers and the magnitude of these outcomes probably aren't right. But I think the concept behind these effects.
Corinne Caputo
Sure.
Moiya McTier
I think that is right sure.
Corinne Caputo
Like the tide is way higher than ever
Moiya McTier
right? The tides gonna be higher you're gonna get increased tectonic activity. Gravity will be funky. The the gravity of earth will be offset by the gravity of the moon and light things will be able to temporarily overcome Earth's gravity and move towards the moon especially very light things like water droplets.
Corinne Caputo
Scary
Moiya McTier
Sorry to pick apart your peeve.
Corinne Caputo
No, that's true. It's good to know.
Moiya McTier
Yeah. Okay, this this is my second biggest pet peeve. Keep in mind, we are halfway through the list of mine. And I wrote in all caps, where does the extra mass of the moon come from?
Corinne Caputo
Yeah.
Moiya McTier
Because they don't explain it.
Corinne Caputo
The bad alien maybe I mean, I'm sure they did not have a reason for this. But
Moiya McTier
But I mean I guess it could have been the bad alien. That is that is the that is the best explanation. Yeah. Why does the moon have more mass now than it has for billions of years? And if the if the this alien is the reason for the extra mass, it's been there for 10 years. Why haven't we noticed Just a deviation in the moon's orbit before, because the orbit is determined by the mass of these two bodies. The moon's current gravity even without the added mass that they don't, they don't say where it comes from the moon's current gravity is enough to affect seismic activity on Earth. So they have a line where KC's, like we're dealing with mega structures, you're your rules don't apply here. And yeah, and I'm like, Nah, bitch, they do the the rules of gravity, they still apply. And we know based on the rules of gravity, that it is the moon is massive enough to affect seismic activity. There are studies out of research groups in Japan that have shown that big earthquakes and like they're there in the Pacific rim there are a lot of earthquakes and seismic activity over there, that big earthquakes are more likely to happen when there's a new or full moon meaning when the the moon, and its effect on our tides is
Corinne Caputo
biggest Sure. Yeah, I hated that moment.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, I was really excited that they got this seismic activity thing, right. And then one of the NASA people was like, Oh, well, the moon isn't isn't massive enough to do that. And then KC had to be like, Well, you're not counting for the extra mass. So all of that together was just bad for me. I hated
Corinne Caputo
I hated when he said your rules don't apply here anymore because it made it feel so like other ring where it's like I the conspiracy theorist, em right and have always been right. And the rules you made up which are not made up their science.
Moiya McTier
At that moment, yeah, that was a bad one.
Corinne Caputo
There's a moment where KC says that eclipses aren't real.
Moiya McTier
Oh, I totally missed that. What the hell,
Corinne Caputo
it's when he explains how the moon is actually a mega structure to the kids at the museum. I'm really hung up on this kid seeing clearly right? He says like, that's why Eclipse when eclipses happen. I honestly blacked out in the sentence. I was just like, No, no. There's a moment where he implies that because the moon is a mega structure, and was created by something else. eclipses are like an illusion. And it felt very flat, earthy in a way. Oh, I was not here for it.
Moiya McTier
It's not an illusion. If it's physically real, it might not be organic, but it's still not an illusion. There is a physical moon shaped structure, passing in front of the sun from our point of view.
Corinne Caputo
If I have to hear the word megastructure. Again, I will listen through this podcast but once we're done recording, I never want to hear that again. Okay,
Moiya McTier
so we will not be doing an episode on Dyson Okay, cool.
Corinne Caputo
I do want to do that. He didn't mention that in the movie. And I was like, like the vacuum?
Moiya McTier
Totally different Dyson. They are not related.
Corinne Caputo
I've said this before. I think we've had this exact conversation on this podcast
Moiya McTier
What's up, it's Moiya. Here to shout out our amazing patrons who are supporting pale blue pod with their financial resources every single month. Thank you so much to our latest pre main sequence star Michael Yancey. I hope you're not getting too cold in your condensing gas cloud out there. I also really want to thank as always our sunlight stars Sharn Llewellyn Finn, Ian Williams, and our latest solar type star Meghan moon. Absolutely perfect name. Thank you so much for your support, it really makes a huge difference over here. You too can support us and join this stellar crew, hear your name on the show and make it to our patrons star chart. All by supporting us on Patreon. You can find the star chart and Patreon info at our website pale blue pod.com. Or just go right to the source head to patreon.com/pale blue pod. And for just about $1. For every episode, you'll get access to research notes where I kind of fact check and give extra reading material on stuff we cover in the show. You also get to be on our star chart which I wrote a code to produce and I would like to use it more often. So again, head on over to patreon.com/pale blue pod. Thank you. Thank you so much. We love you.
Corinne Caputo
Okay, wow. Am I excited to tell you about this? Tell me about it is a new madcap Game Show podcast about proving that the things you like are actually interesting. Hosted by Adal Rifai from a riddle riddle and hello from the magic tavern along with multitudes own Eric silver. Atul plays an eccentric billionaire who has wrangled his audio Butler Eric to prove that the single most interesting and cool thing ever is the movie musical Grease, which I'm pretty sure I do agree with. In every episode, a guest comes on to share and defend their favorite thing through a series of absurd games and challenges. The trailer for Tell me about it is out now. And the first two episodes dropped February 23 New episodes after that are every Thursday and I know you're gonna love it, so go check out tell me about it now.
Moiya McTier
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Corinne Caputo
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Moiya McTier
Speaking of megastructures, I was really annoyed that the once you get to the end of the movie and you see the internal structure of the moon, you see the mega structure inside. I was so mad that it pretty much perfectly matched the artist depictions of mega structures that they showed at the megastructures meeting. I'm like you're telling me that human conspiracy theorists perfectly estimated or perfectly predicted what it looks like aliens would build
Corinne Caputo
exactly what this guy thinks about himself. He's like, Yeah, I was always right and have always been right.
Moiya McTier
When he was just proved proven in too strong of a way, you know, uh huh. Nothing is ever that accurate. This is
Corinne Caputo
probably my last Peeve because it's a pretty broad strokes one, which is that the B plot and the C plot and the D plot. Every the challenge of the movie like this is the stakes are so high to start that there's very little relationship storyline that will have an impact on me. Where I'm like, I actually this doesn't matter because the stakes are so high, where it's kind of like Designated Survivor if you watch the pilot of that, where the whole government blows up and then the Secretary of Transportation is now the president. And there's a B plot that his son is maybe dealing drugs at school
Moiya McTier
Oh
Corinne Caputo
And it's like...I actually don't give a shit. Because actually everyone important was just exploded so that I kind of felt in this movie where it's his Brian son is dealing with like prison time because he stole a car. And he's just like this mini story of him and his son reuniting and I think I could have felt it a lot more had like some of the scenes been tweaked of course, but it was really hard for me to prioritize like the emotions of that when the moon is falling to the earth.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, like the the secondary storyline in this movie is that both Brian and Joe's kids need to get to safety, but like their safety truly does not matter if the moon falls to the earth like it's exactly
Corinne Caputo
and they kept saying I want to say they said this maybe four times in the movie, you got to get to Colorado. And I was like,
Moiya McTier
what are the mountains where you're closer to the moon?
Corinne Caputo
And I was like, they must have some like gorgeous house and Aspen. And they're like, Wouldn't it be nice to die there, which I respect,
Moiya McTier
but that's not what they're saying is not.
Corinne Caputo
So that was really hard for me to get every time we cut back to whatever drama was happening with these kids on their mission to get to Colorado. I was like, I was immediately bored. And they were high stakes scenes like there are people with gun relatively. Yeah, but relatively know exactly.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, this movie was two hours long. And it could have been a more appropriate length. If they had not shown us what was happening on Earth. Like, I don't need to know what's happening with these kids. I think they were trying to give both Joe and Brian like a personal stake in their mission. They already have a personal stake in their mission, because if they don't succeed, they and literally everyone else is going to die like it's not because of their kids.
Corinne Caputo
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And you could really see the moments where again, this is me conspiracy theorizing how this movie was written. But I think they went in and added that kid storyline and it was not the original intention. But I'm this is allegedly allegedly.
Moiya McTier
Supposedly people are saying okay, yeah. Why the fuck did they let KC take his phone on this mission that required no electronics?
Corinne Caputo
Yes. He's just snapping pictures.
Moiya McTier
Pictures that he's not gonna get to take home because he sacrificed himself. But like, if I were Joe, the moment I saw him take out that phone, I would have broken it. Or I would have hunted on the rocket like they're there.
Corinne Caputo
He turns and he's like, it's on airplane mode.
Moiya McTier
That doesn't do that. Does that doesn't make it non electronic. They have to they have to use an old space shuttle that doesn't have electronics to maneuver. They like break out a special space shuttle from a museum for this mission. But he thinks he can bring his like 2022 iPhone on what the hell
Corinne Caputo
actually so curious if your phone would actually work in that environment? I
Moiya McTier
mean, it wouldn't be able to send he couldn't be sending anything. Right? No. Pictures. Yeah. Yeah, the phone is still it's just it's like a phone that doesn't have service. Yeah. Still electronic.
Corinne Caputo
I wouldn't want to bring that with me.
Moiya McTier
I would Oh, I would I see why he did it. But I'm now mad at Joe and Brian for letter letting it
Corinne Caputo
go. Yeah, nobody got a pat down before this at all. Yeah, my last pet peeve is a little bit about KC too. But it's when there we briefly meet a character who we don't see again, who is another conspiracy theorist. And he's like, kind of shown to be a little more radical than KC. But radical in a way where he's like, they've kind of created this, this ranking of conspiracy theorists of this character, where it's like, yes, some of us are completely insane like that guy. But I KC and the smart one, and I'm correct. And what this other guy was saying was that there was produce on the moon, it's all produce all its produce. Do there are so and I did not understand. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, there are not some conspiracy theorists who are right, and some who are insane. And if anything, we should welcome the conspiracy theorists who say there are potatoes on the moon. And we should be thinking in the moon. Yes, of course they are potatoes come from the moon. I think he said like, how did the Incas get potatoes or something? And you're like, I'm sure it wasn't from the moon.
Moiya McTier
The aliens who built the moon, they meticulously dug up the potatoes from the core, brought them to the surface and then just chuck them down. Just chuck them down at Earth.
Corinne Caputo
And like famously, if we're going to talk cannon cannon, though, the lore of this podcast is that the moon if anything is made of cheese, so like it's not potato. But my problem wasn't exactly that. He said that it was that we decided to be like, well, that guy's crazy. But I'm not. And I was like, no, no, no, you're both insane.
Moiya McTier
There's not like a spectrum here. You're all just wrong. Exactly. But then it turns out here is that right? And there there are big fields in the moon. Probably not potatoes. Okay, I have four, four left. My first is that so the aliens who built this lunar mega structure? It turns out that they are our genetic ancestors, and that they are this race of aliens that have propagated themselves through the through the galaxy and seeded Earth with their genetic material. This is very common in sci fi, and I think it's unnecessary in this movie. I think it's used to make The storyline more complicated like and more contrived. It's also lazy. Stargate does this and they are the only people that I'll give a pass. I love Stargate so much with the ancients who are this this race of aliens who did exactly this, they seeded the galaxy with their DNA and they set up the Stargate system. The aliens here, seated Earth and other planets are tried to with their DNA and set up these mega structures that would do that. So that that was unnecessary and lazy storytelling that I did not appreciate. I agree. But my next one another unnecessary moment. The stepdad. And this is from the secondary story. The stepdad. Okay, so at the end of the movie, when the when the moon is close enough, the water is experiencing this weird gravity. So it's floating up towards the moon, the atmosphere, the gases in our atmosphere are doing the same thing. And this This is this is what would happen. atmospheric gases are escaping from Earth all the time anyway. So if you have another strong gravitational field, like the moon much closer to us, it would it would rip stuff away, not just the oxygen, though. They're talking about how the oxygen is leaving the atmosphere, because they went to Colorado, which is closer to the moon, because they're idiots. But I did appreciate how they explored the concept of atmospheric loss in this movie. But the thing that made me mad was the stepdad character who took off his mask and gave it to his daughter so she could get to safety. First of all, why are they trying to hide in a tunnel under a mountain when there are rocks impacting the Earth and causing earthquakes? That was dumb, but it was really dumb for him to take off his mask and give it to his daughter and just lay there and die?
Corinne Caputo
Yep,
Moiya McTier
As opposed to walking with his daughter and sharing the mess back and forth didn't
Corinne Caputo
have to be an all or nothing thing. No,
Moiya McTier
he just sacrificed himself for no reason.
Corinne Caputo
That was really frustrating and hard to watch. Because you're just like, what,
Moiya McTier
why? Why am I doing this? Why?
Corinne Caputo
I can't believe you've done this.
Moiya McTier
Okay, so at the end, Brian and Joe are able to make it back to Earth, even though they don't have a like a shuttle. Really, they have the tiny little crew ship type thing. Yes. But their shuttle got this destroyed the rocket that they use to get from Earth to the Moon. But at the end, they basically just fall out of the moon. And because the moon is like grazing the surface of the earth, they just fall, they just fall off at the surface of the earth and they're fine. But apparently, they land in New York City. And they know that they're in New York City because they see the top of the Chrysler building that's like fallen over, except, except behind the Chrysler Building. You also see these apparently new mountain ridges covered in snow.
Corinne Caputo
Yup.
Moiya McTier
And I just want to know, what happened that there are now new mountain bridges in New York City that formed from all of this tectonic activity, but the Chrysler Building like remained and
Corinne Caputo
survives, survives at all.
Moiya McTier
What?
Corinne Caputo
I completely agree with you. And I think by that part of the movie, I was so frustrated, like I was, I kept snagging on other things during the storyline that when we finally got to that I had nothing left to snag, like, no, there was nothing more going on in my head. I completely agree. That was horrible.
Moiya McTier
It was really bad. And then that brings us to my final pet peeve, which is the biggest pet peeve that I have. Okay, so they say that this mega structure is powered by a core inside. And there's the scene where KC Joe and Brian are flying into the core of the moon. And they see it they see the glowing bright object. And KC says like, it's white dwarf, you know, like he realizes that this thing he's believed for so long is actually true. But here's the thing, Corinne, the Moon is about a quarter of the size of the Earth. We know this we have we have observed this. And they didn't say in the movie that the moon is a different size. It's only its mass has changed. So the moon is a quarter of the size of the Earth, the typical white dwarf is the size of the Earth.
Corinne Caputo
Yep,
Moiya McTier
you cannot fit something the size of the Earth inside something that is a quarter of the size of the Earth. So that just doesn't work. It would have made slightly more sense if they had said that the thing in the center of this mega structure was a neutron star, which are much smaller than Earth. They they can have diameters of like 20 miles, you know, a neutron star is the size of a city here on Earth, but they are the mass of the Sun. So even if they did get the size right and say it was a neutron star, then the mass would be all off. And so it just, it's, it's all wrong, no matter how generous you try to be with This this thing that's powering the mega structure. It's wrong.
Corinne Caputo
I think that that was where they were really tripping over themselves because they could have created a much simpler justification for this. That would have given us the exact same scenes that we had. Except it wouldn't have been this complicated, because I did write down a quote, a captured white dwarf being harnessed for energy. Question mark, question mark, question mark. And it made it seem like these aliens are hunting white dwarfs and capturing them in these
Moiya McTier
Yeah, with their lassos Yeah, they got there. They got their stellar last night.
Corinne Caputo
I was like they've created an entirely different tone and like, adventure, and I want to see that
Moiya McTier
they made Space Cowboys.
Corinne Caputo
That's what I want to see. Show me the Space Cowboys were capturing the stars.
Moiya McTier
I don't care about the astronauts, kids just show me exactly these cowboys who made this leader. I do not
Corinne Caputo
care that Sam or whatever the son's name is still a car. Show me the Cowboys,
Moiya McTier
cowboys. That's our that's our P IDs. That's RP ze so that we don't just tear this movie to shreds. We've
Corinne Caputo
got thieves thieves have our heart they steal our hearts. And I will say that my list of thieves is shorter. But love is greater than hate. So it doesn't matter how few is are on this list because they add up. The mass is greater.
Moiya McTier
The thieves are denser than the peeves.
Corinne Caputo
They're way denser. My first thieve is just Halle Berry. I haven't seen her in a while. My own fault. And she's really good at what she does. Because I did write down that I'm glad I'm not an actor because I could never do these lines is wrote and she really, I really bought everything she was feeling. Yeah.
Moiya McTier
Do you have a favorite line? By her?
Corinne Caputo
Um, oh, yeah, the karaoke line. Where she's like, I karaoke that at my wedding. As one does, as one does.
Moiya McTier
This movie should have shown us her wedding. Yes, inside the moon, and the alien cowboys.
Corinne Caputo
Those are the if they ever think of doing a prequel and they kind of did set themselves up for a sequel at the end of this. That's what I hope to see.
Moiya McTier
All right from from our mouths to Hollywood's ears. My first thief, the first thing that stole my heart was at the beginning of the movie, I loved that they muted the sound when we weren't inside the spacecraft.
Corinne Caputo
That's a really good thief.
Moiya McTier
Because so many so much sci fi makes space loud. But space is a vacuum meaning there is very, very little pressure, almost no pressure in space and sound travels over pressure waves you need a medium for sound to travel through. So I liked that with the music and with the screaming and with all of the like electronic beeping that was happening in the space shuttle. We didn't hear that from the outside.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah, for sure. Okay, my next thief is a small moment in the B pot, which I know I said I hated where there's a character who is caring for Joe's son who seems to be an exchange student. Yeah, although at first I thought she was Halle Berry's wife.
Moiya McTier
Same, but I was like lesbian.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah. And I was like, Oh, fun. No, not true. She is like a kind of caregiver figure for the son and she makes a joke to Brian's son when Brian shows off this like kind of impulsive tattoo he got once that is I think she's Chinese and the tattoo is Chinese lettering. And she makes a joke that it says the Jonas Brothers and he's like, I didn't want to do this. I thought that was so funny.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, a good a good moment of levity in this movie. My next thief is and I wrote it. I wrote this in all caps, and I circled it a bunch. It's fuzz Aldrin case oh my god is named Fuzz Aldrin, which is, which is the best name
Corinne Caputo
that you could name and it makes it even better that the cat like consciousness lives on the moon.
Moiya McTier
The moon knows about fuzz Aldrin and that makes me so happy. Yeah,
Corinne Caputo
the moon should. Okay, my next tip is that I really liked that they showed me an alien that did not look like an alien. I typically see
Moiya McTier
Well, they didn't they didn't show it. Show it but the snake
Corinne Caputo
thing that's traveling in this kind of mercury like texture. I was like, I don't usually see stuff like that. And I liked it.
Moiya McTier
That's a good point. There aren't a lot of swarm aliens.
Corinne Caputo
There aren't a lot of like faceless things. I think a lot of alien stuff. It is disorienting, like when an alien has a human like body but something's off. But it was really fun that it was like a pure monster.
Moiya McTier
Usually in science fiction, my biggest pet peeve Is that they made the alien look to humanoid. So I liked that. I didn't have to list that as a piece here. Yeah, yeah. My next piece is that I appreciated that the moon fell because of external influences and not some natural cause. Before I started this movie, I was really worried that they were they were going to say, No, the moon's orbit just naturally started to decay. That would have made me extremely angry. But because it was from like an alien trying to influence our system. Okay, fine. Yeah, I'll buy it. Sure.
Corinne Caputo
I love the moment when Ryan sun in the beginning. This is like the youngest, we see the son in the movie. Yells I hate New Jersey.
Moiya McTier
This is your New Yorker side coming.
Corinne Caputo
This is me. And you know, I'm someone who has always liked going to New Jersey because it meant like, Oh, we're gonna go to a mall. And I love malls. Um, but I just thought it was so funny that they just gave this kid the line. Hate New Jersey. And there's a really funny line in Love Actually a movie I do love, which I actually love. I do love it. And I think it's because I saw it at an age when it was just great to love. There's a there's a line where like one of the kids gals, I hate uncle Jamie which me and my husband would say a lot. And now it's like, I hate New Jersey.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, someone on this writing staff or production team is is a New Yorker. Like many, many people power for this movie. Yeah, it must be. I've been talking about this this entire episode. But I love that Alma was included in this movie, even though it wasn't necessary at all. I also really appreciated how they showed that astronomy research on these big telescopes is often done remotely. That made me happy. I love when you can see glimpses into the real life of a researching astronomer.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah, I really liked that too. I like when that kind of worldwide you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Not interest, but like exploration can feel small. Like I felt that way a lot when I was reading about like how the COVID vaccine was getting made. And they were saying like, yeah, we're literally on zoom with doctors in Europe or something. And I was like, Well,
Moiya McTier
I mean, that's one of my favorite things about astronomy that we can study stuff so far away billions of light years away from this one tiny little rock that we can't leave. Yeah, I think that's so beautiful.
Corinne Caputo
I have one more thief, which is there's a character who means nothing to the story. But she was important to me. Because she she goes up she drives up to the drive thru window at KC's like day job and orders a pastrami sandwich. And she asks him what kind of sauces they offer with the pastrami sandwich and I loved her because I want to be an old woman who takes myself out for a saucy pastrami
Moiya McTier
sandwich. This is you in the future.
Corinne Caputo
It sounds so good. I'm so hungry. Now. I want a pastrami sandwich. He's like you can add that with ranch which is not a sauce that you typically get with that pastrami sandwich but I'm like, I would eat that
Moiya McTier
he did not answer her question fully. Nope,
Corinne Caputo
nope. And then she goes distracted he gets distracted because he gets a text that the moon is falling to the earth and he has to he has to go take his 15 minute break he's already late for work has to get written up now. He's not an amazing employee. No, but But again, the stakes are so high it does not matter it really doesn't.
Moiya McTier
My my final thief is all the gravity affects the way that they showed how bodies with with gravity interacting can mess up the way that we go about the world. I really appreciated that. And I they didn't do a lot of math for it. They were just showing the concept but I don't like doing math either. I like showing things with concepts so that that tickles my fancy. I think that maybe this is a hot take but I think that the movie is worth it for those scenes of the ocean rising up. Oh, I
Corinne Caputo
love that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was a big rocket scene that you have a stretch. It's just especially
Moiya McTier
because they waited. They waited too long. They could have watched earlier. getting me started. Things always take too long. There's a
Corinne Caputo
moment when Halle Berry releases everybody where she's just like you all do great work. Go be with your families. Why it was like what were just given up.
Moiya McTier
They don't have time to go reach their families. No one's gonna get the Colorado now. No, just you might as well have everyone stay here and let's just try it one more time. Yeah, that was annoying. I love how we we went back to the peeves. We had to land on it. Well now, we will end on a rubric. We have decided that there are five different areas we want to score this movie in from one to three moons. So in total This movie can get a score of 15 moods, we will see how it actually does. The categories here our story scenery, which we are saying is a combination of the writing and the production of this movie. Like what did the scenes do? So
Corinne Caputo
one side could be really bad, but the other side is so good. I do think
Moiya McTier
that that's gonna happen in this movie.
Corinne Caputo
I do think that's gonna happen.
Moiya McTier
The production was terrible. But hey,
that's not up to us a rubric?
Yeah, exactly. We didn't make the rules. The third category have to have this with with movies is sex appeal. Yep. 100%. It's one of the things that sells, of course, the fourth category, really important for this show scientific accuracy. And fifth, also really important for the show. How soothing is it? Does it make us feel better or worse about the universe?
Corinne Caputo
Am I any closer to being the universe's friend? Yes,
Moiya McTier
exactly. What the universe wants to be friends with this movie this movie? No, thanks. So for story, you said, Corinne that you have thoughts about this story? I
Corinne Caputo
think the story was really lacking. I think it needed a lot of I think that I think most of the parts were there. And they were kind of shown to me in the wrong order. Like some of like Halle Berry's husband coming out late, like I want I could have been invested in like, how she had a totally different life than Brian because she got to stay at NASA. And he didn't or like, I think my brain is filling in a lot of the gaps for what I wanted. But the actual story to me perfectly mediocre. Yeah, it wasn't so bad. And it wasn't good.
Moiya McTier
It wasn't anything special. They they're clearly trying to do some sort of hero's journey with KC's character who starts off as this like Outcast conspiracy theorist, and then ends up saving the day. That's cute. That's a cute arc. But I feel like the other characters, Brian and Joe, they didn't have good arcs. I feel like there's a lot of extra stuff in this movie that didn't have to be there. Like we both agree the B and C plots aren't necessary. And
Corinne Caputo
you know, I think one of the things that gives that away or like shows how kind of messy this was, was because when I was pulling together, like, Oh, let me grab the logline for this movie for the recording. There are so many of them floating around. And they all sent her a different character as the hero. And I think that's what the movie suffered from if like, we didn't really have one hero. We had these it's doing too much even
Moiya McTier
not just with the characters, but with with the plot, like the fact that they they made this mega structures origin so much more complicated. Yeah, it needed to be in order to force their story to work. Like they they needed the alien to be like the ancients from Stargate so that they would like us like they, they needed there to be some sort of kinship between humans and the Ancient Aliens who built the mega structure so that there could be a bad alien and a good alien. Like they were they they tried. So there was our lot.
Corinne Caputo
Yeah. And then there are moments there pitting the army against NASA. It's just like, who's the enemy?
Moiya McTier
We didn't we didn't, we didn't really talk about the military. But it's a military thread.
Corinne Caputo
You got to see the movie, they get
Moiya McTier
points off, in my opinion, for wanting to nuke the moon and not caring about any sort of radiative fallout. Yeah, that
Corinne Caputo
was a really silly choice.
Moiya McTier
Okay, so how many moons would you give the story?
Corinne Caputo
Could it be one and a half moons?
Moiya McTier
Yeah, you can give it one and a half.
Corinne Caputo
I'm gonna give it one and a half.
Moiya McTier
Okay, I'll agree with that. On to scenery, which is writing and production. This looked beautiful, because it looks so beautiful. It really did. Like they clearly spent a lot of money on those effects. They
Corinne Caputo
really communicated what was happening visually. Like I understood,
Moiya McTier
if I had to watch this movie without dialogue, I think I'd understand pretty well what was happening. Yes, yes. 100%. But there are some lines in this movie that aren't good, aren't good. Like, there's there's a moment where Joe says, after they realized that the moon is, is inspiring. Everything we know about the nature of the universe has gone out the window. Yes. Excuse me. No, it hasn't. And I'm kind of concerned that you think that's the case. And you're about to be the acting director of NASA.
Corinne Caputo
You're so right. I'm gonna say that. There is some lines in this movie that I never would have thought to write. There's no combination, or no length of time where I would have put those words together. So I guess that's impressive. But to me, it was really just weird.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, just weird.
Corinne Caputo
I'm so good.
Moiya McTier
I'm gonna I would like to give it a two. Yeah. Right in the middle. Yeah,
Corinne Caputo
right in the middle. I agree with that. Two moons. too Okay, sex
Moiya McTier
appeal. The only sex appeal that you could I could find in this movie if I was searching would be Halle Berry. Exactly. That's exactly. There's nothing there are no other characters. There are no other plot points. There's no Kenny this movie Yeah. Nothing about this movie made me feel sexy or made me feel or any romance No. Wasted, which is fine. I actually I do admire that. I think that too many movies try to shoehorn romance and when it's not necessary, but you can have sex appeal without having romance movie to me had neither.
Corinne Caputo
It had none. And even like you expect a character like Brian to be the hot astronaut who steps up and is ready to save the world. And there was nothing attractive about what ended up happening. It was it was largely just like, oh, no, we're gonna die for me. That's what I was feeling.
Moiya McTier
This is not a movie you want to watch for Netflix and chill. And not just because it's not on Netflix. I want to give it like zero. Yeah, I think this might be a zero for me easier. Yes. Zero sex appeal moons. Sorry. It's okay. It's okay. Moon fall. You don't have any sexy? No, not to be hot all the time. We are saying You look pretty. So there's that true. Okay, on to scientific accuracy. In terms of concepts, okay. Yeah, because they said the moon was changing due to an external factor better. Yeah. And because they got all of the gravitational effects like all the tidal effects, conceptually, right. I like that. Yeah. I really do not like the fact that there's a white dwarf in the center of something that's a quarter of the size of the Earth. And I really don't like that. Apparently, we've just never accurately measured the the mass or size or density of the moon. That's it.
Corinne Caputo
I completely agree with you. There was a part where I was briefly frustrated that they were going to take a space shuttle to the moon, which specialists only went to the ISS. But the moon is so close now that I was like, Well, maybe you could take the shuttle there. Okay. But that's what a lot of this movie is, is like, well, that's not right. But maybe it's okay.
Moiya McTier
Right. The fact that we have to put on our very generous glasses to watch this movie means that it definitely doesn't get three moons. I don't think it should get two moons. I would maybe give it one moon.
Corinne Caputo
I think it's a one moon. Okay. It's a it's a one mooner
Moiya McTier
It's a it's a Yuna moon. It's a mono mono moon. And the soothing factor.
Corinne Caputo
Okay, bad not good. For me, right? Not seeing that all this
Moiya McTier
movie makes people think that at any moment, the moon could just start in spiraling towards the earth because they could
Corinne Caputo
have been soothed by the end had they not done that final scene where I'm supposed to think that things are still living in the moon. Like the good. The good aliens good aliens. I thought I'm unsettled by just aliens, period. Well,
Moiya McTier
I mean, it's a mega structure.
Corinne Caputo
Just accept that fact. There's always gonna be an alien in the moon as long as it's a mega structure. But I wasn't suit I was not more eager to learn. I was mostly like, That can't happen, right?
Moiya McTier
Yeah. Do you think that this actively makes people uncomfortable about space? I don't know if it makes people actively uncomfortable. Okay, so we don't have to give it negative moon.
Corinne Caputo
It's not gonna be a negative moon. But I am worried that it's going to empower the wrong people. I don't want any flat earthers to be empowered by a conspiracy coming true. Yeah,
Moiya McTier
yeah. Okay. I agree with that point. Half a moon. I
Corinne Caputo
think it's a half moon.
Moiya McTier
It's not a phone. Wow. Y'all this movie did not do well on today really does get five out of 15
Corinne Caputo
Moon I'm doing we've said we don't like math. And we're running the numbers. It's true.
Moiya McTier
It's true. It's this. Okay. Well, you have it here folks. Moon fall. The 2022 box office flop. Got guy on our official pale blue pod movie rubric. Got a five out of 15
Corinne Caputo
That's a third for all you fraction freaks. A third
Moiya McTier
that is very close to the 36% got on Rotten Tomatoes.
Corinne Caputo
Oh my God. You're so right. Maybe the rubric is actually a really good good at predicting the Rotten Tomatoes score.
Moiya McTier
Yeah, we may have stumbled upon this amazing system. Okay, so you can decide whether or not you want to see this movie. But we we need to actually leave the control room. Observation scheduled. Okay, here we go. But please remember no matter what telescope you're trying to control remotely or what movie you may be watching, you're still space.
Corinne Caputo
You are, bye!!
Moiya McTier
pale blue pod was created by Moiya McTier and Corrine Caputo with help from the multitude productions team. Our theme music is by Evan Johnston and our cover art is by Shea McMullen. Our audio editing is handled by the incomparable Misha Stanton.
Corinne Caputo
Stay in touch with us and the universe by following at pale blue pod on Twitter and Instagram or check on our website pale blue pod.com were a member of multitude and independent podcast collective and production studio. If you like pale blue pod you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude dot productions.
Moiya McTier
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Corinne Caputo
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