Another Pass at Lucy - with Renaldy Smith
What if a movie about unlocking the full potential of the human brain also unlocked the full potential of being completely ridiculous? Case and Sam are joined by Renaldy Smith to revisit Lucy, the Scarlett Johansson action-thriller/complete misunderstanding of how the human brain works.
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Another Pass Full Episode Originally aired: August 24, 2026
Music by Vin Macri and Matt Brogan
Podcast Edited by Sophia Ricciardi
Certain Point Of View is a podcast network brining you all sorts of nerdy goodness! From Star Wars role playing, to Disney day dreaming, to video game love, we've got the show for you! Learn more on our website: https://www.certainpov.com
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⏱️ Chapters
00:19 Welcome and Guest Intro
03:05 Initial Thoughts on Lucy
06:16 What Works and What Doesn’t
11:26 The Plot of Lucy
12:55 The Movie’s Worldbuilding Problems
14:38 The 10% Brain Myth
17:00 Lucy Loses Her Humanity
19:06 Lucy’s Transformation
22:49 Time Travel and Visual Effects
24:53 Lucy Becomes Too Powerful
27:24 The Movie Takes Itself Too Seriously
30:47 Lucy’s Roommate
34:44 The Bechdel Test
36:42 The Movie’s Three-Part Structure
38:02 Limitless Comparison
39:39 Superman and Power Levels
42:02 IV Bags and Drug Logic
43:46 The Drug Dealer Problem
46:42 What Does the Drug Actually Do?
50:55 Giving Lucy a Rival
52:50 The Missing Bigger Villain
54:41 The Horror of the Drug
58:23 The Matrix Comparison
01:02:04 The Cab Driver
01:07:04 What Does Lucy Leave Behind?
01:11:38 Bookstore That Burn Promo
01:12:38 Another Pass Begins
01:14:27 Renaldy’s Another Pass
01:18:52 Character Work and Pacing
01:20:28 Choi as a Horror Villain
01:24:52 Sam’s Another Pass
01:36:09 Making the Action More Dynamic
01:40:59 Fixing the Final Standoff
01:43:32 Clarifying the Villains
01:50:58 Case’s Another Pass
01:55:17 Letting Lucy Discover Her Powers
02:01:06 Final Thoughts
02:01:50 Sam’s Chores Rating
02:03:23 Renaldy’s Plugs
02:04:52 Sam and Case’s Plugs
02:06:46 Patreon Shout-Outs
02:07:55 Next Time: Highlander II
02:08:06 Credits
Transcription
00:00
Sam
Oh, my God. This is so much like, this is like, you know, and like, then you have a moment to actually create comedy because the driver, who's already kind of afraid of her, can be like, are you okay? Like, like, it's just like, drive on. I'm having a bad night. Just stick with me, you know? And you're like, oh, okay, all right.
00:19
Case Aiken
Yeah, she's like tripping balls. But like, moments of lucidity. Lucidity. Welcome to certain POV's, another past podcast with Case and Sam where we take another look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. Let's see how we could have fixed them. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Another Pass podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alicea. Hi, Sam. How much of your brain have you unlocked?
01:01
Sam
1%, Which is why I did not understand this movie. Clearly you need to have unlocked a lot more to really get it.
01:10
Case Aiken
Or arguably, if you have 2%, it's probably too much to truly appreciate this movie.
01:15
Sam
Yeah, maybe.
01:16
Case Aiken
Because today we are talking about Lucy, the Scarlett Johansson Luc Besson film from about a decade ago. And to have that conversation, we are joined by Renaldy Smith. Hey, how you doing, Renaldy? It is so great to get you on the podcast. You and I have been friends for a long ass time. It's been what, like 15 years now since we first met. Although that said, it's probably been about 10 years since we saw each other regularly.
01:42
Renaldy
Yeah, no, I think.
01:44
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:44
Renaldy
Because I keep thinking that it's like 2000, so. Yes, it is 2025. And I believe we met around. No, it can't be 2010 because that.
01:52
Case Aiken
Was one of the. Yeah, because we're ESPN buddies. Oh, yeah.
01:55
Sam
Ye.
01:56
Renaldy
Exactly. Yeah. That closed down in. In 2010. Was it 2010 or 20? It doesn't matter. Yeah, around that time. Yeah, yeah.
02:03
Case Aiken
So now it's more like 17 years. Jesus. Because I started there in 2008.
02:08
Renaldy
Yeah, yeah. And I started there 2007, I think. Or six. It was a fun time. It's definitely a fun time to be around a lot of good people and, you know, make a lot of money and watch sports. That was really the only reason I worked there because I was like, I get to enjoy as much sports as I can. Great, awesome time. Yeah, yeah.
02:28
Case Aiken
Which makes it even crazier that I enjoyed working there as much as I did because I am not a sports person at all.
02:34
Renaldy
I think I remember that.
02:35
Case Aiken
Yeah, I. I never at any point looked at the screens, aside from like, oh, that's a cool commercial.
02:43
Renaldy
Yeah. There's so many. I think I remember. It's like, oh, and on top of that, you can after work, go upstairs and play games, which I regularly did to try to, I guess, ask time to before going out with everyone else, you know, wherever we're going to go. Which I think at that time was Jimmy's Corner.
02:59
Case Aiken
Jimmy's Corner was the big spot for us.
03:01
Renaldy
Yeah.
03:03
Case Aiken
So, yeah, anyway.
03:05
Renaldy
Yeah.
03:05
Case Aiken
So rather than just wax nostalgic, let's actually talk about the subject of today's episode. So we are talking about Lucy, which is a 2014 Sci Fi ish. It's firmly sci fi action movie by Luc Besson starring Scarlett Johansson with Morgan Freeman being Morgan Freeman in this movie. And I don't like it. I didn't like it. I saw this movie in theaters.
03:33
Renaldy
Me too.
03:34
Case Aiken
For those that know the lore of Case, back when I was doing Friday morning movies with Justin Liebergen as part. Yeah, Justin Liebergen as part of the YouTube series Justin and Vash, or Vash and Justin, whichever way that went, we would go see movies and then we would do videos about them. Yeah. So I saw this movie with them and I was so mad when I saw it. And. And then you suggested that we talk about it for, for this show. And I was like, yeah, I'm sure we can talk about it. And you know, we'll. We'll have some notes. Because I remember being really mad when I saw it. And that's at least, at the very least fascinating. And our ethos is we're talking about movies that are fascinating but flawed and on re watching it, still don't like it.
04:18
Case Aiken
Just gonna be up front on that one before anyone listens to this episode and is like, oh, man, Case didn't like this movie.
04:27
Renaldy
Yeah, I totally agree. I saw in theaters as well. I was excited because for me, I really like Luc Besson's films, or generally speaking, a few of them. My favorite one of all time is Leon the Professional and the Fifth Element. So I had going into their expectations. On top of that, I think this is when Scarlett Johansson was really at, you know, starting to kind of get into her prime of being known. And. And then you have Morgan Freeman. So overall, I just thought, okay, this is going to be great. And I walked out going like, I actually didn't even walk out thinking, like, literally, I think maybe 20, 30 minutes into it, I was like, wow, this is okay. I'm going to have to dress through this. And I did. And I. Yeah, I did not like it.
05:09
Renaldy
And I try to rewatch it with an open mind, even knowing what I knew.
05:14
Case Aiken
And.
05:16
Renaldy
I started becoming very critical the first minute.
05:21
Case Aiken
Sam, how about you? What's your experience with this movie today?
05:25
Sam
Amazon. I actually avoided this film because it was something that I had considered watching. But when everyone I knew was like, no, I was like, oh, okay. Dodged a bullet. Not gonna spend money on that. And I was correct. I had not seen that film. And today I did. And I was fine with commercial breaks. They gave me time to decompress from just a movie that was more fiction than science, pretending that it was science fiction for sure. But I did get some laughs, so that's not the intended thing, but I did giggle. I did giggle during this movie a couple of times, heartily.
06:16
Case Aiken
Yeah. And I don't want it, like, I know I'm saying that I don't like this movie up front, but I don't want to be, like, so hard that it's not irredeemable in terms of things that are going on in it. I think that there are some cool effects. There's some decent visuals in it. Does it translate into great action sequences? But you know what? We've talked about Luc Besson before on this show because we talked about Valerian, the City of a Thousand Planets, which I think is a more interesting movie than this in just about every way. And that is a low bar, but also faint praise.
06:53
Renaldy
Well, I'll say that I looked up to see, because I was trying to compare the film itself to maybe something that I can ground myself towards. And I remember. I think I remember because it's been some time, but Limitless came out prior to. So the idea of, like, being able to unlock some kind of power within your mind, I was. I found. I remember finding, very fascinating. I also loved the. I guess you could say the independent film aspect of it, because I really gravitate towards those types of film. Whereas, like, you had a movie push with Chris Evans, which I really.
07:26
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah.
07:27
Renaldy
So, like, those kinds of things, that. That kind of world, I really, you know, give a try and say, okay, like, I want to sit down. I not only want to enjoy this film, but I also want it to be really well directed, good pacing, all that. All those kinds of things. And I think that, you know, originally, I remember thinking, again, you had this good cast, this, you know, writer, director, who has put out really good product prior to and is within that timeline, at least in my Life where I enjoyed those kinds of films and it just. It just didn't. It just wasn't working. And there's a, you know, there's a lot of reasonings behind it, but overall I just. I really wanted to really like it, but I didn't. So.
08:11
Case Aiken
Yeah, I like you. You mentioned Fifth Element. That's one of my favorite movies of all time. Oh, it's amazing. Like, like there. There's plenty to like in Luc Besson's filmography. We should note Luc Besson had some rape charges against him, which apparently were cleared. But, like, is the, like the Wikipedia article on, like, how he was like, found, like, in like, what's the wording on this one? Definitive clearing by the. Or definitive clearing by the courts. Feels very like trying to overemphasize a, like, we technically got off the hook situation here. So I don't like, I'm not gonna like, try to like, smear him, but at the same time, like, yeah, I don't know necessarily, like, how much I want to champion him either in this conversation. I guess is. Is where we sort at that point.
09:07
Case Aiken
But suffice it to say, his early career has some real bangers that are fantastic. And I wanted this to be great. I wanted Valerian to be great, but it's not.
09:22
Renaldy
Fun fact. I actually went to school. Well, just lost his name, the lead guy for Valerian. We went to school together, so I went there to support him as well. Dane Dahan. Yeah, Danny was two years under me. Really great guy. He went actually in the high school program of the school I went to and then went to the college program and then he just blew up. And I was going there not only for Luc Besson, but also to support him. And. And I definitely enjoyed that movie a lot more than I did with Lucy, but partly, I think, you know, I don't know what. Where we want to get into of like, what didn't work, what. What did work. But like, overall, I believed Valerian more than I believed in the World of Blue Sea.
10:08
Sam
Yeah, I feel like this movie takes some. Some big swings and like, sometimes. Sometimes that works out for people. And I always kind of like, feel type of admiration for people who are willing to take those bits, big swings knowing that they might fail. So I will give the movie this. There's something that it's aspiring to, like, it does not land its message, like, at like, at all. But I will say the performances are good and there is something that it's trying to say, you're not sure. By the end, what that was, but I. I will give the movie that. That there is, like, it is. It is a fascinating study in a film where there's a lot of ideas happening, but they don't necessarily always connect. And definitely by the end of it, you're like, I know.
11:07
Sam
I don't know what that was supposed to actually like. The journey I went on, I feel like I'm high. Not bad. Not that there's real resolution. And I feel like, yeah, it's. It's not the worst thing I've seen.
11:25
Case Aiken
No, it's. It's not the worst.
11:26
Renaldy
It.
11:26
Case Aiken
There are some egregious things that are going on in it. Let's. Let's break this down for anyone who hasn't actually seen this movie here. So the basic premise is that this character, Lucy, who's played by Scarlett Johansson, is turned into a drug mule because of shoddy dealings with, like, her. The dude she's dating while she is carrying this designer drug that she's supposed to smuggle into somewhere else. The. The people who are responsible for. For moving her decide to kick her in the stomach a bunch of times, which is where they, like, carved her open and inserted the. The drugs into her stomach. Because this is this, like, really crazy, like, drug that they say is supposed to be something secreted by mothers into babies or something like that. It explodes within her, literally. The.
12:10
Case Aiken
The bag bursts inside of her, and she gets, like, this crazy dosage of this drug that supposedly unlocks the higher amount of the human brain's consciousness. And then as a result, she starts developing superpowers and goes through this movie slowly, developing more and more super abilities while the. The gang that tried. That tried to use her as a drug mule tries to track her down. And at the same time, she is trying to first figure out if. If she can survive and then sort of decide what to do with the limited time she has once she realizes that she's, like, absorbed so much of this drug that she's definitely going to die. And then action ensues is sort of the big thing there.
12:55
Renaldy
Right? And there's. There's not. I didn't think there was enough time to set up the world. The characters in which I just.
13:04
Case Aiken
That.
13:05
Renaldy
That I wanted to care because at the, you know, at the end of it all, you want to go along this journey and at least either want to or want them to succeed or not. And I didn't feel that at all. And I, you know, I was thinking about the casting of Morgan Freeman, and I Felt that Morgan Freeman was. Was kind of there to, you know, at that point. I feel like Morgan Freeman, if you heard him, you listened to him, he can tell you things, and you're like, yeah, I believe it. And I think that's why he was the scientist. And I'm. You know, I could be incorrect, but it felt like, to me that he used. He was a device to try and sell the science and.
13:41
Case Aiken
Wait, wait, we need more square.
13:42
Renaldy
We meet.
13:43
Case Aiken
We need more quotes around the word science. When you say that. Well.
13:49
Renaldy
And, yeah, I just. I don't know if. If he could have written it in a way that. That helped to establish the science around the world of the. Of the. The world of the film. That's where it just, you know, automatically I. It lost me.
14:07
Sam
Where. Where.
14:08
Renaldy
I don't know. There's a lot I could say that really can pinpoint the fact that the movie loses you in the first few moments where, you know, again, you don't really. I didn't really care about Scarlett Johansson's character when she was being pushed to do this thing, you know, and it was cool rewatching. I was like, oh, that guy.
14:25
Sam
That.
14:26
Renaldy
That's the guy from Game of Thrones and this new the Show Foundation. So I was like, okay. So I. I was kind of more interested in that at that moment because I was, like, looking at my phone trying to figure out what. What all this movie. What his movie biography is.
14:38
Case Aiken
But, yeah, like, I'm a superhero fan. I'm okay with, like, bad science in a thing. I'm not okay with, like, hinging everything on the bad science. And this movie is, like, aggressively into this whole, like, what if we unlocked more of our brain thing. And it opens with, I mean, not literally the first scene, but the second scene is Morgan Freeman trying to be like, only dolphins have exceeded the 10%.
15:01
Renaldy
Of the brain, right?
15:04
Case Aiken
And, like, the explanation of it doesn't make any goddamn sense. Because he's trying to, like, say at the beginning is like, well, once you have two neurons, you can move. And it's like, isn't that using 100% of the brain at that scenario? Because they only have two fucking neurons? And then. And then, like, beyond just a bad scene, the movie keeps coming back to it. It keeps coming back to talking about, like, how much of her brain's unlocked. And then they start doing the fucking subtitles where, like. Or, like, not subtitles, the title cards, where the screen goes black, and then it just shows a percentage of how much of her brain has been unlocked.
15:39
Renaldy
But but remember, he doesn't, he, this is all hypothetical, past the 10%. Because all he knows actually is we use only 10%. Everything beyond that is just hypothetical. And he says it even to a point where when someone asks him like, you know, what happens after you unlock, you know, past 40%, he's like, we don't know. And it's like, okay, but you when, when near the end and you know, she brings in all the scientists to do that. Whatever she was doing to create the supercomputer. There was no like further questioning from them. It was just like wide open. Yes, she is almost at 100%, you know, and again, I didn't have enough time to really digest what was happening. Even from the get go of the, like the drugs.
16:31
Renaldy
That was never really explained or even, you know, you have the antagonist, he was a drug dealer or drug lord or chasing after her. But like there was no rhyme or reason except for he just wanted to get his product back and will do whatever it takes to the point where he's gonna fight with the police. And you know, again, it's just like this world was so extravagant and I didn't believe it. So.
17:00
Sam
Yeah, yeah. Also, Lucy is not, she's not cool. Like, you know, she shoots a patient on a table because she's like, oh, he was gonna die anyway. It's like, bro, you're not like, it's so hard to kind. And I get it. Like, oh, she's now for some reason now she's using more of her brain. She's losing her humanity. She feels everything but nothing. Like, like I, whatever. But like that was like that didn't work for me at all because I was just like, she's a jerk. Everyone like gets shot, everyone dies. Like, she doesn't care about the cost of human life at all. Like it is just. There's no one that's truly sympathetic in this movie. Like everyone is just kind of there, right? Everyone's kind of there. So. I can't believe that cab driver stayed. I wouldn't have waited for her.
18:00
Sam
Like that was obviously out of all the most unrealistic things in this film, that is the most unrealistic thing. A half beaten up woman who's bleeding out of her chest gets in your car with a bag of guns that tells you to wait for her after you dropped her off to the hospital. I'm sorry, I'm leaving. How the fuck is she going to find me again? She's not okay. I'm gone. I'm not waiting around to take her to the next spot. I'm sorry. That's not happening. That was ridiculous.
18:32
Case Aiken
Yeah, that. That's the thing. That was ridiculous in this movie.
18:36
Sam
That was the main ridiculous thing, Case.
18:40
Case Aiken
You're absolutely right. No, you're. You're absolutely right. This. This movie is loaded with, like, these. These weird details of it, not the least of which is, like, the crazy psychic powers that she gets to at various points throughout this whole thing. Right.
18:54
Sam
Because her brain is so connected to the drug and everything, she can just control all matter and time. Duh. Science, Case. Science.
19:06
Renaldy
Science. Well, you know, I'll say this. I was watching it and re. Watching it, and I was like, okay. I wasn't afraid that she was going to get hurt in the beginning, which I always find interesting. Whenever they put, like, a, you know, possibly a very famous actor in a position where it's like, oh, are they going to live or die? I just didn't. I didn't care, and I didn't think that it would. She was going to die. So I was like, okay. And then once she. The transformation I thought was. Was fascinating in the fact that. Because thinking about it now, I think at that point when the bag broke in her stomach, she was at 10%, correct? Or. Or.
19:44
Case Aiken
Or.
19:44
Renaldy
Okay, so at 10%, she was able to start floating up a wall, all the way up to the ceiling, as this thing is, like, transforming her ins, Changing her to whatever she becomes. At that point, you're like, wait, because in my head, how is she. How is she on the ceiling? Like, there's like, she hasn't turned yet, but this thing is turning her. So it's like, I guess this thing is. Is. Is anti gravity, anti. Whatever it is, where she gets to be this new thing. And again, like I said, I think at that point, I think I paused the film to be like, oh, where are we? I believe it was only like 10 or 15 minutes into it, and I was like, oh. And I knew what was going to happen, and I was just like, okay, let me start.
20:31
Renaldy
Try to give it some more awareness of when does she start to really, like, okay, she's gonna start questioning herself, right? And she doesn't. She just. All of a sudden she goes from this, like, you know, oh, my gosh, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. You know? And then, like, she got cut open and then the. The bag was put in her, and she's still, you know, like this character of like, you Know, very scared. And then she was in this CE still very scared. And then the thing pops open. She's transformed all a. She's like a machine. She has no. Like she. She knows where things and it's like wait, we're at 10%. And she's like an. She's like an elite assassin. She's able to like shoot people without having to like miss.
21:10
Renaldy
And then on top of the fact like when she goes after the cab driver, she's so her mission was very clear that. And I'm like wait, how is this happening at 10%? And then I don't even know what percentage it was. It was when she was able to look at.
21:24
Case Aiken
They're.
21:25
Renaldy
It's based in. In. In China, correct? Or because I know that the Koreans were after her.
21:29
Sam
They. They were in Taiwan.
21:31
Renaldy
Taiwan. Taiwan. And she was able to use the words in front of her and somehow scramble it to make sense that in. In whatever way. And again, I'm just kind of like wait, she didn't have. There's no self learning, there's no curve. She just automatically was. And she's only at 15. And that's where again I just. I. And I kept on going because I was like maybe I can, you know, see certain things. My favorite part of the film honestly is whenever she's going back through time, which I, I told my wife, I'm like, you know, before watching this movie I, I had this idea of like. Because I love walking around and kind of trying to figure out like.
22:09
Sam
So I.
22:09
Renaldy
When were in Manhattan before the film, I was like this is cool. Like this was all forests and trees and you know, and like indigenous people are. Are roaming this land. And I'm like trying to figure out where maybe someone walked here that you know, was very famous. I like to try and do that. So I really enjoyed that. That scene where she's going through time and the effects that was going through it. But it was also kind of weird because like you could tell watching it now it's not as cool as it was back then. The effects of it. But yeah, I mean she went through a lot in a short period of time and I just didn't feel like I was be able to accept it. I guess you could say.
22:49
Case Aiken
The signs. Yeah, I, I agree that I like the. So while you know, I don't want to like bash effects for not holding up when this is only a 40 million dollar budget. Like this isn't like a huge. Well, but only in the perspective of Like a big blockbuster. Especially like of the last, you know, decade or so. Probably. Probably a lot of that went to Scarlett Johansson herself in terms of. In the budget and Morgan Freeman.
23:13
Renaldy
Yeah, yeah.
23:14
Case Aiken
So like in terms of the effects, like I think that there's a lot of like cool looking effects and creative shots that are in this movie. And I, I really like the time travel bit where she like does the like the Michelangelo like touching when she touches the. The Lucy like the which I, you know, like this like progenitor for humanity. I think that like that's a nice moment there where she sort of like is the spark of creation for humanity in that moment like is kind of cool. And I'm all for like the sort of timey wimey a person's expanded their consciousness so much so that they're outside of time and can interact and might be the cause of a thing that they are the effect of.
23:56
Case Aiken
Like I think that can all be very cool and I think that those parts of this movie are fine the fucking time or like cards just like being like 10%, 20%, 30%, 40. Like just emphasizing this goddamn bullshit science when all we needed. She's shot up with a fuck ton of drugs and is making her have psychic powers.
24:17
Renaldy
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
24:19
Case Aiken
Like having like the fact that you had to stop and be like oh it's only at 10%. Like no, she's just been shot up with a shit ton of drugs that give her psychic powers. And like she has to do like she has to re up it later in the movie anyway. So might as well just like say like oh, it was starting to wear off and it's causing her body to break down. Like, like just lean into the. Just being like oh man, these drugs are making your brain do weird things. Like you don't even need to like and sorry spoiler for my pitch which is just remove this entire pseudoscience.
24:53
Case Aiken
Like that's the thing that's frustrating because like her emerging and being able to do like all these like point blank shots, like that's a cool thing and that like I, I like I, I like the idea of that and I, I think that they probably go too fast into the psychic powers thing and it kind of defangs some of the action sequences but they're cool set piece moments when like all the guns fly up and all the knives fly up into the ceiling.
25:19
Renaldy
Yeah.
25:20
Case Aiken
Like and everyone tries to attack her and they just like fly up into the air. And like, that's like, cool kind of stuff. Like, do I wish she was a little lower powered earlier in the movie? Yeah. Like, take a little bit longer and have some points where we could have some convincing action sequences. Because she's so unstoppable throughout this movie. Once, once she's up and run, it's like we never have her really on the back foot.
25:46
Renaldy
Yeah.
25:47
Case Aiken
And as a result, like, the stakes of this movie, like, there's the time limit of like, how long before her body breaks down. But that's the only, like, real thing that we're worried about her for. Like, once the drugs kick in, you know, like, prior to the drugs, we're worried that she's going to be abused. We're worried about all these things. Like, you know, there's a little bit of like, protect your white ladies going on at the beginning of the movie. Like, where. Where it's like, oh, I'm in a foreign country and they're going to use me for like, they're going to like, human traffic me kind of thing, which is like, you know, fine as a promise for a movie.
26:22
Sam
Yeah.
26:23
Case Aiken
And like. And like, legitimately would be a problem, but also feels very like, stereotypical for. For the kind of presentation that we're doing and not actually consistent with, like, the way human trafficking actually works in all of its horrific ways. Yeah. Like, after that point, you know, she's. She's this juggernaut that cannot be stopped in any way, shape or form. There's no, like, rival who also takes the drugs or something at the end of the movie. Not that I want that, like, you know, like. Like, I think that doing a movie that is just about the one character having their consciousness expanded is cool. It just. They lean so heavily on science that they justify Morgan Freeman being there in the name of explaining bullshit science.
27:07
Renaldy
Right.
27:08
Case Aiken
When he doesn't actually do anything in the fucking movie.
27:12
Renaldy
Yeah, he really doesn't.
27:14
Sam
He takes a USB stick at the end case. Wow, that's so much. And also exposition. Duh.
27:24
Renaldy
You gotta have the Morgan Freeman voice in there and listen, you know? But yeah. And, you know, I would even further say I feel like they. They present this film as a way to. I think they take themselves way too seriously. That's what I'm gonna say. Because if they made it more campy, I think you would have more fun with it. Like, you know, part of what I felt like fulfillment, how the fifth element worked, was that there was a lot of fun moments where it wasn't like, you know, yeah, the earth is gonna end or whatever. But like, they had a good time with it. There was a lot of good, you know, Chris in Fifth Element. I forgot his name. Anyway, there's a lot of characters in there in Fifth Element.
28:11
Case Aiken
Which character are we talking about in Fifth Element?
28:12
Renaldy
The guy who, he's in. Chris Tucker.
28:15
Sam
Chris Tucker.
28:16
Case Aiken
Thank you. Yeah,.
28:20
Renaldy
He was a good, fun character to kind of create this fun part of the world where you're like, okay, we're not taking this too seriously. And there's none of that in Lucy where, you know, you start off with in the beginning, you have these shots of like this animal kingdom, you know, and you're seeing the prey going, the predator going after the prey. And it's like, okay, you're making me feel a certain way. You're wanting my emotions to go a certain way as this film is going through. And like, you know, with her, the setup of her, I guess, having to deliver this, these drugs, it just, you wanted to have a sense of understanding what's really at stake. And like you said. And I, I, I, I didn't because I'm like, well, you know, she gets shot at.
29:05
Renaldy
She's so powerful that she can just like. And everyone's gone, you know, and you don't have a chance to see her like, again when she shoots, it's not about, like, her not being able to be this elite assassin she can just shoot at, on target, kill first shot, not having to worry about a second shot, but, like, her at least being able to comprehend or me seeing the fact that she, you know, she's like, a little surprised by how she is because she, again, she goes from this, she lost her humanity really quick.
29:36
Sam
Yeah.
29:36
Renaldy
There was no way for her to really, like, when the, I think the moment that Luc Besson, who I believe also wrote this.
29:44
Case Aiken
You did? Yeah.
29:45
Renaldy
Yeah. Because he writes and directs all. He, you know, he puts the moment where she's talking to her mother and, you know, it was supposed to be, I feel like a moment where you're like, oh, my gosh, she's like, alone in this country now and she's going through this, you know, thing, and then she gets to the weird point of talking about how she can remember sucking on her mom's teeth and tasting the milk, and I'm like, okay, that's this weird. But like, okay, I'm going with it. And, and then he, she, you know, oh, I can't hear you. Loses it. And then that's like really the only moment she has of her humanity during the trance after the transformation. Whereas. And the rest, it just becomes like even when she, the, the cop was like, you know, why do you need me?
30:32
Renaldy
And she's like, to remember. And she does like that weird held, you know, head tilt. She does a really great job and kisses him and you're like, wait, what? That's the only reason she's, you know, I thought she needed him more than that.
30:47
Sam
Yeah, yeah, it's really weird. Also like I would have loved to see her have, keep the humanity while seeing her roommate, you know, like, because, you know, like that scene, like when she comes in, she's just very, she's already kind of feeling this, right? So you've had this awful night. You've had this terrible night. You've just said goodbye to your mom because you're pretty sure that now that you know how much drugs are in you and because you have so much of your brain power, you know that you're on borrowed time and you go back to your apartment to pack up because you're going to head out and you need to use a computer, figure what you're going to do next. And you see your roommate and like, albeit her roommate just doesn't even really seem to also check in with her.
31:38
Sam
It's like a lot of like chit chat kind of things that. And I'm like, you know, again, getting into pitch territory a little bit here. But it just feels so weird to have these two women who are living together in a foreign country, chasing their dreams or studying in this foreign country because it seems like the roommate is a model and we never know what exactly. Like we know that Scarlett Johansson's character, we know that Lucy has a test coming up, so we don't know like where, what she's studying or how she's going to school or what her expertise is because we don't really know a lot about her other than she dated a guy for a week and he screwed her over.
32:18
Sam
Which to keis point, I at least felt a little bit better about the fact that the guy who screwed her over was white. Like even though she was being hunted down by the Koreans, at least the initial guy was white. I was like, I guess caveat, sort of. In any case, I feel like at the end of the day, right, look, with everything that is happening, that was not the moment for her to lose her humanity. She should have had one more moment of saying goodbye. And this was another chance to have that in. In the script, you know, like, have her friend not just be, like, this pretty, vapid person that's like, oh, my God, where were you? Blah, blah, blah. Let me talk about me, me, me. Right? Instead of like, my roommate didn't come home last night.
33:07
Sam
She's got some blood on her. She looks like she got beat up because her lip is also busted. Why wouldn't I notice that? And so, like, that's kind of weird because in this movie, there's really only two women in it. And the fact that there is no real bond between the two of them, and it's just odd. It was. It was kind of like this missed moment. And I think it would have been better. And, like, again, this is another moment to have Lucy's power, right? She touches her friend. She feels everything. And she's like, take this prescription. She doesn't even tell her where to take it, but it's in Chinese. She tells her to take the prescription, take the medicine, and, like, live her life better. And it's like. It's so weird. Like, do you care? Do you not care?
33:53
Sam
This is just something you would do for anyone. It feels really weird. Like, even when she says, like, oh, how's your boyfriend? I forgot his name. It doesn't matter. He's shot in, like, the first 10 minutes, and she's just like, he's dead. And she's like, oh, you're so funny, and just walks away. And I'm sorry. Who responds like that? What is this? So I. I just feel like. I think if she had just had it in that moment. Give us a little more. Have her kind of, like, tying up all of her loose ends and kind of giving her friend one last good hug. You could still do the weird. Like, your liver is having an issue, drink less, love you know, kind of moment. But it just felt kind of strange overall.
34:44
Case Aiken
Yeah, it felt like that scene was there, just. So this movie passed the Bechdel test.
34:50
Sam
They still talked about guys.
34:53
Case Aiken
Well. But they do pass it because they have an extended conversation about a variety. The Bechdel Test is a. It started off as a test from. Well, by Alison Bechdel. It was a comic str. Or comic writer who did this comic strip where she explains in. In the. In her comic strip, the Bechdel Test, which is. If a movie features more than one female character, if they have a conversation with each other, and it isn't about Men.
35:20
Renaldy
Oh.
35:21
Case Aiken
And that's considered like the lowest bar of low bars to clear in terms of like base feminism.
35:28
Renaldy
Okay, got it.
35:29
Case Aiken
And you can apply that with the same criteria, but to any sort of like minority group in terms of films in general. And it's not to say that a movie is automatically feminist if it passes, nor is a movie automatically not feminist if it doesn't. But it is like a shockingly low bar that a lot of movies don't pass. Famously at the time when the comic strip came out, Aliens was the only movie that passed the Bechdel test. That was like out in theaters at the time.
35:56
Renaldy
Oh, interesting.
35:57
Sam
Okay, really low bar.
35:59
Case Aiken
Yeah, really low bar. And so that scene kind of acts to successfully clear that bar. Thank Christ. Because the rest of the movie doesn't. The rest of the movie doesn't at all. And it sets up some more of her like weird, crazy advancements in terms of her abilities. Like, I think that a lot of the like cool super brain stuff that she gets at low levels being like, I'm just super smart and super accurate and able to like pick up any knowledge and so forth. Like the phenomenon stuff, the John Travolta movie kind of thing where your brain's just expanding in cool ways before the psychic powers kick in. Like I wish there was more of that, like just taking a bit longer before the full on psychic abilities get kick in.
36:42
Case Aiken
Supposedly when writing this movie, it was with an intent of being like Leon in the first third, like Inception in the second third and like 2001 A Space Odyssey in the third. And you can see where that is supposed to fit together in this one. Like all the weird, trippy fight stuff is in the middle third of the movie. And then like everything's getting real weird in the final third that fits. And we get the human trafficking stuff in the first third.
37:11
Sam
Right.
37:11
Case Aiken
So the like mission accomplished in terms of like getting those vibes. Yeah, the I, I, I would have enjoyed more of like this is what a human operating at a crazy high potential could be actually doing sequences like Ronaldo, you brought up Limitless as a movie that came before this, that was also like a mind expanding thing. And so I wouldn't mind more of that for a chunk of the movie before we get into the full on psychic ability stuff. Because once the psychic ability stuff manifests, the fact that we don't have a rival character who has similar psychic abilities means that she is virtually unstoppable. Like Nothing can compare with her once she's that way. And it's only when she's distracted. Is there any threat in play? That's the whole. Like, she's expanding into this weird blood computer in.
38:01
Case Aiken
In the last third of the movie.
38:02
Renaldy
Can I expand on the Limitless stuff?
38:04
Case Aiken
Because as you're talking.
38:06
Renaldy
Because. Because I really enjoyed that film. I actually watched it a few times, and I still really enjoy it. And I want to enjoy the TV show, which actually I. I got to audition for. Didn't get in. But the. The idea of Limitless was. You just said there's no one in. In Lucy. That was like a rival, right? And I was like, yeah. I was like, okay, well, then I'm thinking of myself. Well, why does lim. But, like, because there was a rival and he died or he was dying in the. I think in the. In the second. Near the second act, near the middle of. Of the film of Limitless, you have the guy who, you know, was a whiz of Wall street or whatever that was rivaling Robert De Niro's character, but he was going to die.
38:51
Case Aiken
So that showed.
38:52
Renaldy
Again, the.
38:52
Case Aiken
The.
38:53
Renaldy
The. If you do it incorrectly using this substance, that it could potentially kill you. You didn't have that with Lucy. You never had where. A point where outside of her going really weird and crazy inside the airplane and, you know, having to weirdly eat this blue stuff, that was the only moment that you felt like, oh, okay, is she gonna actually have some kind of, like, breakdown or she's gonna not make it through, like, and she's gonna turn into something weird. That was the only moment I felt like, okay, cool, that. That's something different. But. But overall, again, once she turned, she became so powerful, no one can stop her. And I often think about, like, you know, you're huge into superheroes, and I believe you're a big Superman fan.
39:39
Case Aiken
Oh, yes. My. My Superman podcast is probably a tip.
39:42
Renaldy
Off on that one. And so, like, that's always. I feel like a good conversation with. With Superman is like, you know, a lot of people think he's just too powerful, but he's not. When you have that humanity that he's having a face to.
39:55
Sam
To.
39:56
Renaldy
To. To be right or whatever. And, you know, there's a physical aspect where he fights certain, you know, Superman way more than I do. But, like, in terms of other characters, you didn't have that with Lucy. So you never had a point where you felt like, even with the villain, he was not. You knew he was not going to be able to get her. Even when he goes in the end and he's like putting the gun right to the back of her head. In my head I'm like, oh, she's about to like swallow you with whatever this black going up. And then she disappears. And they're like, wait, what? And he shoots and he goes crazy.
40:30
Renaldy
And like again, this guy, you know, when you want to set up a villain, you want to set up someone that you kind of understand where they're coming from. And I didn't not only not understand what he was saying because I don't speak Korean, but like, I don't also understand why he was going to the lengths of you. I laughed whenever he brought all of his gangs or you know, whatever his group of, of henchmen to the, to the. Was it the laboratory or the science, wherever she was meeting up with Morgan.
41:02
Sam
Freeman, the other side, it was a university. University, yes, university.
41:05
Renaldy
And I laughed because he's out there and he's like, okay, let's get it all together. He's getting everyone with the guns. And then in the background you have all this police cars driving by and I'm like, these guys are pulling out these AK 40s, whatever, all these machinery, machine guns and ready to go into this building. And you have the police in the background. They all get out of the car, they go inside, they don't see all like, again, they didn't create this world where I was like, oh, like, watch out, you have all these guns. And, and obviously they didn't care because they're, you know, so powerful and they're with all the people that they have. But I knew from the get go, especially when she was driving through traffic the way she did, there was no way anyone can stop her.
41:47
Renaldy
And that's, that was a big miss on the writing front, the directing front. But again, really cool effects. Really cool, you know, moments where people are flying around or whatever.
41:59
Sam
So.
42:00
Renaldy
So yeah.
42:02
Sam
Oh, can I bring up another weird fact that's just like so small and insignificant amongst all the other problems of this. Ivy bags do not go that fast. Like, no matter how much you dilute. And I know this because I used to take care of my grandfather and I had to hook him up to an IV bag with medication every week, like every night and stuff like that. So I know exactly how long an IV bag filled with fluids would go. Definitely not as fast as they went for her, I don't care how much you dilute that medicine. Even regular saline, flush, not that Fast. So let me just say that took me really out of it. And I know I was already facing so much, but at that point, I was like, wow. I have suspended so much disbelief.
42:48
Sam
But in this moment, at this very end, when the guys are right outside and the police that you come here to secure the door, even though they could have stopped the guys coming in from the outside and did not. But this. This is the moment. Because this would not enter her system that quickly. It would at least take 45 minutes for that to enter her system. System relatively as quickly as possible. And also, like, they were not porting it to, like, actual, like, oh, my God. There was just, like, not enough veins on her arms. Guys. I just. There's just so much. And this was so inconsequential, but it really bugged me as a person who regularly set up an IV of fluids for someone else. Yeah.
43:38
Case Aiken
Shockingly, not enough attention to how drugs work. This movie, everyone knows you take something, you got a few minutes before it hits you.
43:46
Sam
Can we talk about these drugs? Because let me tell you, okay? I just want to know. I know that this is not important because the plot doesn't care about it, but, okay, so they're planning to sell this stuff, okay. And they test it out on the guy, and he giggles a little bit, and then they kill him. I don't know how marketable this drug truly is. Like, I don't know if they know what this drug actually does. Like, these are the worst drug dealers. Like, if every time you give a drug to someone, you either kill them or they die. This is not a good product to sell if your clients die after taking it immediately. This is not a good drug. Stick with the old drugs. You want the person to be an addict before they die.
44:37
Sam
This is a really bad business plan. Okay? Now, if you were telling me that they're developing this, again, pitch territory for, like, I don't know, rich people who want to stay young forever or, like, there's some sort of collagen effect or, like, because this is rebuilding cells, right? And, like, that kind of thing. Maybe, maybe. But this drug is a bad drug for the market that maybe they're selling it to. Like, I just. Guys, these are. These are. These are bad businessmen. Like, overall, they're bad businessmen. Interpola collects their mules and they go in with guns without covering their face into an area with cameras. These guys are terrible drug dealers at that point. Just let it go. Make new drugs. That's what normal drug dealers do.
45:37
Case Aiken
That's super valid. I. I will say in this movie's defense, I. I did, like, when there was, like, a guy in police protection that they, like, were able to just, like, go in and kill, indicating how much power that they have. It kind of made me think of, like, the scene in, like, Boondock Saints where they're just, like, allowed to walk in with guns because the police are on their side kind of thing. That. That part I appreciated in this movie because it was like, trying to set up just how powerful criminal organization they were as the only way that. That we could establish any kind of rivalry to. To match Lucy, where it's like, oh, well, but he's got so many men under his control, including all the police and. Except for a few good cops kind of thing.
46:17
Case Aiken
But I agree with you. The. The plans don't make any sense. You. You would think they would start local in terms of, like, seeding out this kind of drug, especially since apparently just in, like, in Taipei, they just have access to shitloads of Americans everywhere. Seeing as how, like, the first several characters that we actually meet are all, like, white Americans in this Asian setting.
46:39
Sam
Yeah.
46:39
Renaldy
I think if they had a moment to really enjoy or not enjoy.
46:42
Case Aiken
Sorry.
46:43
Renaldy
They're able to actually see. Because I was thinking, as you're talking, Sam, about the one guy who snorted that. I think just a piece.
46:52
Sam
Yeah.
46:53
Renaldy
It would be cool to see, like, what, actually, because. Was he just starting to laugh hysterically because he was starting to turn or, like, was he able to. Then was he getting about 0.5% of his brain capacity, like, bringing. To go up to. You know, to be able to control. I don't know, like, it would be cool to see something weird about this drug.
47:17
Case Aiken
That.
47:18
Renaldy
That. Then you kind of go, okay, like, you didn't get that. That at no point did you get. Did you understand that this drug would create some kind of superpower within a human outside of her? And it was. I guess maybe it's the way she took it because it was in. It was direct to her bloodstream. But I don't know, that little piece.
47:37
Case Aiken
To go into his brain.
47:38
Renaldy
I think that would have been an interesting caveat before everything started to happen.
47:44
Sam
Yeah. I think also, like, at least if he didn't look like he was craving what they were about to give him, like, I think that was, like, the thing that really bugged me out. Right. Like, so he's just like this addict that they're keeping around, testing things on. I. Have they been testing him on this? Are they shooting him with everything else? Like, you don't know. Like, he looks rough. He looks like he's been experimented on for a while. But the item that they got, we're not even sure if they've had before. Also the boyfriend getting her to take the case in because he was too afraid to deliver it to himself. Like, things are never really quite clear as to why he has the drug and why he was either returning it or dropping it off or who asked him to.
48:32
Sam
Like, there's no. It's. He's just like a mode to get her upstairs. Like, it's just a jerk guy who she met a week ago who like tricks her into this criminal world and kind of screws her over. But like there's like. Because clearly later on the. The Korean guys know exactly who is sending people out because when she meets the other drug mules, they're all brought by other people. And there's a guy with a new accent, an English guy who's like basically like telling them. And there's four other pouches, right? That's not even the pouch that she had. So like, you know what I mean? Like, like why? Why does her boyfriend have it? Like, we don't know. There are so many questions in this film that are never actually answered and are just there for a point of convenience.
49:29
Sam
And I, it's just like, okay, so who sent the drugs? Why are we sending it out? Why is it a great idea to send it out? He opened one of the things that things in the case. So I assume that's not one that went into all the other bodies. What happened to that drug? Like, that's not as important as the other stuff. But the point is there is a bigger problem than just the science. And the problem is that the bad guys motivations are unclear other than they're bad and they have drugs. And then this drug is a crazy ass drug that opens your brain up. There's no real explanation other than they're gonna sell it as to why they want to sell it. And this is a bad business plan. And guys, I can't get over that. Like, I cannot get over that.
50:25
Sam
This is. These are bad drug dealers. Like not bad in the way that, I mean, they're terrible people. They're murdering people left and right. Which by the way, kudos to hiring the band from old boy because he is terrifying. That's not the point. The point is there's no point to the drug. The drug is just a convenient thing to make her have psychic powers later. Like, that's just it. Like it's.
50:55
Renaldy
Well, you know, it'd been cool if that. Well, two things as you're talking through this. I'm like, okay, how can they at least use. Utilize drugs to help the movie along? And it would have been interesting if they didn't shoot that guy and he comes back maybe in the third act, because they're like, oh, we need to get this guy whatever, right? And there's maybe a fight, a cool fight scene, maybe this cliche, I don't know. But to me that seems more interesting. Or the very cliche thing to do is to get, you know, Choi the ultimate villain, if he sees that she's able to do all of these things after being. After the fact that she took, you know, those blades and severed his hands. Well, not severed, stabbed him. And, and he sees that he.
51:41
Renaldy
And you know, you just said, where did those drugs go from that first guy if he then ingested those. And there was some type of battle where you see that she's. She has somewhat of an equal. Maybe she wins ultimately because that's how it should end, maybe. Or. Or not. I'm actually a fan sometimes when the protagonist actually, she doesn't win, but somehow wins in another way. That would have been a more interesting choice because at least, again, you have someone to be able to go against her and have some type of way to hurt her, you know, in some capacity. But. But it doesn't happen. And, and yes, because they're really bad businessmen. They're also really bad at being. Being able to see, hey, this can enable me to fight her.
52:27
Renaldy
I guess you could say fire with fire so that, you know, we have some chance to get our product back that then we would sell to get other superhuman people to be superhuman. Which is another weird thing because you'd think that, okay, maybe we should take it ourselves and then we can conquer the world with this drug or at.
52:45
Case Aiken
Least pick out the people who you're going to subject the drug to, as opposed to being like, we're going to sell it on the open market.
52:50
Sam
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Also, I just am sad that we never. I feel like, you know, when we get to the scene with the. I think he's British, the British guy explaining like that they're all going to go to their home countries, I thought, oh, oh. So Choi is working for this guy because he seemed to be calling the shots, right? But he never comes back in, like, he never comes back in as like some shadowy figure behind it all. Like, I really had this Like Headcanon while I was watching it, that somehow he would come but to collect her, like, as a prize because, like, she had survived the drug, like, to do tests on her, and that never happened. That's not what happened at all. Because I just thought, oh, okay, so this is like his product.
53:47
Sam
And he hired these guys to, like, kind of take care of his dirty work. They're the cleanup crew. And so, like, I get it. Choi's much more intimidating. And so if you want someone to go in with a gun battle, that's who you want. But it just kind of felt like were missing that, you know, I don't know, that snarky villain feeling that you get with a man who lets everyone else do the murdering for him and just walks in to collect the prizes. And I kind of missed that because I thought that were gonna get that. I thought, I don't know, I thought we're gonna be like, you know, some applause or like, no, don't do it. She's marvelous. Hand it over to me. Something like that. I don't know. But we didn't get that.
54:36
Sam
Because this movie doesn't like to tie any ends at all.
54:41
Case Aiken
Nope. It doesn't even like to like, sit in the potential horror that it could establish like the movie. They hand wave this very quickly as being a synthetic drug. Specifically it is CPH4, which they say, like, is produced in small quantities by pregnant women. And then they're like, man, they must have developed a synthetic one. You know, how. What would be even more horrifying is if they were harvesting pregnant women.
55:06
Sam
Yes.
55:08
Case Aiken
Which would explain why this drug is.
55:09
Sam
So valuable and why you want to go to find your mules and cut them open and bring it back. Because, because the thing is, I thought, well, if it's synthetic, like, okay, so here's the thing. Yes, it probably costs a lot to make, even if it's synthetic, but as a criminal, you're not going to expose yourself to Interpol. Like, it's just like the cost of doing business, like, once it's in there somewhere. Like, maybe if you can get someone to steal it from like an evidence locker later, that would make more sense, right? Like, it doesn't make sense to go in guns blazing, show your face, have to clean up all of that stuff. I, I watch enough murder documentaries to know that's just not worth it. Okay.
55:53
Sam
And so I just think that, like, but, but if you were harvesting from actual humans that you had to traffic, well, that's different. That's a horse of a different color and way more horrific.
56:14
Case Aiken
Yeah, like that. It's just this movie. One of you said that these were scenes of convenience. I forget specifically.
56:23
Sam
Yeah, I think it was me.
56:24
Case Aiken
Yeah, that was you. That these. And I think that's true. I think this movie was. I have this idea of different cool scenes that I want to put in a movie. What is the connective tissue that will get us to those cool scenes? And. And that this movie isn't really doing a lot to. To justify those scenes besides just saying, like, look how cool these scenes are. But I don't think the movie is actually that cool. Like, I think it's, like, fine. I think, like, there's like, cool visuals in it, but I don't think it's like, that cool that you're like, oh, this. Just watch this movie.
56:59
Sam
I think.
57:00
Renaldy
I think Luke probably heard this, you know, 10% of the brain, which I did a quick, like, search to figure out where that originally came from, because I always thought it was interesting. And it was from the book how to. How to Influence People. And what is it called? From back in the day when Friends.
57:18
Case Aiken
And Influence People only.
57:20
Renaldy
Yes. And I was like, okay, like, there's a. Supposedly a. There's a Ford. And the writing says. Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average man develops only 10% of his Latin mental ability. Which I was like, you know, as. As one who. Who've always wanted to try to write something interesting and cool, I'll find these little things. And I'm like, oh, 10. I'm sure he was like, what can.
57:42
Case Aiken
I do with that?
57:43
Renaldy
Can I. Can I make it a philosophical film, but yet also action, you know, thriller and. And with. Because he likes to be really cool with effects and stuff like that. At least from I remember on. I guess not all his films. I don't think there was a purpose. I think that's. You said it would go 40%, 50, 60%. He really stuck to that because part of it is like, we want us. He was wanting to see the evolution of this human turning into. And then what does she. Yeah, what does she ultimately become? A supercomputer.
58:14
Case Aiken
But, like, she becomes energy. She's everywhere she's able to interact with.
58:19
Renaldy
Right.
58:19
Case Aiken
She becomes outside of space time effectively.
58:22
Sam
And.
58:23
Renaldy
And I think about, like, one of my favorite films because I think about, you know, the philosophy of this film. And action. I love the Matrix. Really, really worked because, I don't know. It's really cool.
58:38
Case Aiken
Well, no, thank you for mentioning the Matrix because I've been actually sitting on a Matrix comparison this whole time, which is that I think that movie does a lot of the sort of like expanding your mind kind of things that this movie is trying to do, but they do it too fast.
58:54
Sam
Yes.
58:54
Renaldy
Pacing is way too fast. You don't, and you don't care. You care about Neo, you care about Mr. Anderson before he becomes Neo. Lucy, you don't.
59:04
Case Aiken
Well, well, just like the fact that she gets these like crazy powers so early relative to everything else, like it defangs the stakes of the situation. Right. It's just excuses for these over the top like effects pieces. But they're not even like that complicated. Like the things like where the guns like fly up to this, to the air and then like the people in turn like float up like tho. Those are cool moments in there. But like they should have happened later in the movie as her powers develop like further along. Like we should have had more times of her being like peak human before she becomes post human.
59:42
Renaldy
Well, yes. And talking about the Matrix, when he stopped the bullets, it was such a good moment because you were like waiting for that moment where he becomes the One, you know, and then he gets to see the Matrix. That was all. And I can't think of the word. I don't know why I'm not thinking of words tonight. But it was all built up to a point and then you were able to go and say, wow. Yes, that's it.
01:00:09
Case Aiken
It was cathartic.
01:00:10
Renaldy
Yes, yes. And, and you did not get that with her in any part of the film. You did not. You didn't, you didn't care about her. Which I think is a disservice to Scarlett Johansson because I think she's a fantastic actress. And you didn't get the, you didn't get it in terms of the film itself, which did disservice in terms of the writing because you did not care about. At least I didn't care about anyone. And I'm trying to think, is there anyone in that movie, if something were to happen I would care about? I kind of, in a way the cop. I was like sad whenever she's like, you're here because I want to remember. And he, and she kisses him. So I was like, oh. And like you could see after that moment he was like, oh, this is kind of cool.
01:00:56
Renaldy
And then he goes in like he literally sacrifices his life almost because he gets shot in the neck, you know. And I'm like, oh, no. Like he's gonna die. Like, I kind of care about him, if anything, I kind of care about the villain in a certain way because I want him to. Not in a way because of him being a villain, but, like, I'm just trying to justify who I can care about. And yet the one person I should care about is Lucy and. Or Morgan Freeman's character. For him to be able to understand this, what's happening and rationalize it, because he just did this whole speech in the beginning of the film teaching people of how the brain could get to 100. And like, I never felt like he was able to really get what he wanted.
01:01:38
Renaldy
So, yeah, to compare it to the Matrix, when he. When Neo finally stopped the bullet and then he jumps into Agent Smith and at the end when he's like, you know, it calls and he flies up. That was like an awesome moment. I remember walking out of theater being like, wow, can't wait for the next one. You know, this one once she becomes a supercomputer and she was everywhere. I think it was supposed to have that effect, but I walked out of the movie going like, whoa. I mean, sure. Cool. Okay, yeah. Now to the next film.
01:02:04
Sam
Yeah, for me, it was the cab driver. He's the one person I would have been really sad if something happened to. He just didn't seem to really be, you know, he was just an innocent bystander, you know, And I felt really bad for him. Other than that, I was just like, I don't know, guys. Like, I. I think in the very beginning, you know, with Lucy, it was just when she's freaking out, you know, about being sent up to this room and in the crazy predicament that she's in, like, I did, I was like, oh, shit, that would. That would really fucking suck. Right? And so I did have this thing.
01:02:41
Sam
But then, you know, once she loses her humanity, I'm sorry, like, it is kind of hard to sympathize with her when she walks into an operating room, looks at like, what's going on, decides for the doctors and for everyone there, this guy's not going to make it. Shoots him, pushes him off the table and gets on. It's just a very callous thing to do. And at that point, like, for me, the sympathy I had built up for Lucy and even the camaraderie as like, a woman who's like, yeah, foreign country and a man screwing you over. And now you're in this fucked up situation and the guy who was guarding you wanted to rape you. And that's so fucked up. And you're so traumatized at this moment, or you should be. But she's so cold.
01:03:28
Sam
Like, she has no empathy for that person that the doctors are working on. She makes a cold, hard judgment that we are supposed to trust. She knows better because she's now on this drug and she just pushes that person over, gets her stuff done, calls her mom, makes the weird milk comment, although she does thank them for thousands of kisses on her forehead, which she still remembers feeling, which is very nice. Kind of makes up for it. Not really. And then walks away. And at that point I was just like, oh, I don't know. I don't. I don't know. I don't know if I actually care. Like, I don't. I don't know if I care for this character. You know, I didn't hate her, but I was just like, oh, you are very. You are no longer kind of living in this human world.
01:04:17
Sam
You are more digital. Like, she even sees the, you know, the energy in the trees and things like that. But it doesn't make her more empathetic or like one with the Earth. No, no, no. It makes her colder and more robotic and. Yeah. Just more like less sympathetic to the molecules around her. Which I thought was a weird way to go. Right. Because with Neo, and I think this is the thing about the Matrix. With the Matrix, it's about unplugging, right? It's about finding human connection again. With Lucy, she's losing her human connection. She's absolutely becoming less human. She doesn't worry about the people she's endangering with her driving. She just knows that she's super capable of driving really well. She doesn't care about the people who are being shot at outside.
01:05:12
Sam
She tells the police officer to guard the door because she's going to be distracted. But she doesn't give him any knowledge other than the guys are coming. She doesn't tell him how many people. She doesn't give him, like, account. Like, she's not a superhero. She's got superpowers. But Lucy's not a hero in any way, shape or form. And Neo is, right. Like, Neo is a hero. Like, he is. Yeah, he is definitely taking into account what his actions might do to others. Like, and in all ways, like, he actually questions if it's actually noble to disconnect people if they're happy living in the Matrix. Is that, is that being connected to the Matrix and that ignorance actually better because the world that he's living in now. The freedom that he has, it's harsher, like, but it is freedom.
01:06:13
Sam
And so, like, he even, like, weighs that, you know, Lucy does not care. Lucy. Lucy doesn't even care about the cop. She just wants him around for her own selfish reasons. She wants him around to remind herself that one time, once upon a time, she used to like to screw guys. Like, she doesn't. She didn't seem like that attached. She just wants to remember that she'd like touch another human. Like, that's it.
01:06:41
Case Aiken
You know, I will say, at least to its credit, it does feel like a gender reversal of how this would normally go.
01:06:48
Sam
Fair enough. Yes.
01:06:49
Case Aiken
Like, and so I'm kind of okay with him being a tag along, like his Girl Friday kind of character.
01:06:56
Sam
Yeah, yeah. I'm good with that. He like him being in the passenger seat. Perfect. Perfect. But still,.
01:07:04
Renaldy
I, I do. As you're going through this film of trying to see, you know, if she cares and she doesn't, I question like, okay, so that microchip that she finally gives is to teach mankind, correct?
01:07:24
Sam
Yes, because that's because of Morgan Freeman. Right? Because Morgan Freeman, she asks him what she should do. Right? Because she doesn't understand what she's going to do with the last 24 to 48. He keeps changing the time. 48, 72 Hours of her life.
01:07:41
Case Aiken
It's Dragon Ball Z rules the next five minutes. The planet's going to blow up. Exactly six episodes later.
01:07:47
Sam
Even though it like this, this movie tells us the only measurement in this world is not math and not letters, but just time. Which time is math but not the point. The point is she decides because Morgan Freeman tells her that she should do what any other cell does and pass on the information.
01:08:14
Case Aiken
Oh, thank you for bringing that up. That just reminded me of another science rant where it's just like, in an environment where it's not hospitable, they'll become immortal. And in environments where it is hospitable, they will just breed like Jesus Christ. Like, the science is so bad in this movie. It made me angry and took me out of the movie every time I've watched it.
01:08:34
Sam
Yeah, but what information?
01:08:36
Renaldy
Sorry, go ahead.
01:08:37
Sam
We don't know. That's the thing.
01:08:39
Case Aiken
Brain.
01:08:39
Sam
She goes there. She goes there to basically give him the supercomputer, which is her brain. Right? Like, that's how I took it. She's basically becoming part of everything and giving him herself the supercomputer. And then I guess mankind can just ask Lucy what's gonna happen, and she can time travel. This. The movie doesn't know. The movie doesn't actually know, but that is the inference. The inference is that Lucy will be everywhere in time and space. And now, in the Doctor's hand, which is the most capable hand, the only hand she trusts, a person who quests for knowledge, he'll have that. He'll have access to Lucy, and she'll pass along the information, even though she told him that the only information, the only measurement is time, which this movie does not adhere to because there is no adherence to actual time.
01:09:43
Renaldy
But she also only goes back in time and I don't know, does she have the capability to go forward in time? And I, you know, I would be. I would really be interested if. If Luke decided to write a film that is set in this world where after Lucy becomes everywhere, what happens like that, you know, like, is the world now a better place because she's everywhere? Are there other people that's going to take advantage of her being everywhere and try? Like, I think that would be fascinating. But again, the information that was given, I would love to know what that is, because at least there's something for me to be like, oh, okay, good. At least that happened. Whereas nothing throughout the whole film to me made sense.
01:10:33
Renaldy
And, and when you said that she said, you know, time only matters, I totally forgot about that because I was so caught up on all the other things that, like, okay, cool. Like, time only matters. So that means that, like, we are a speck of dust in this, you know, multiverse of madness. And, and for us to. To. To be able to live and enjoy every second.
01:10:54
Sam
Cool.
01:10:55
Renaldy
But, you know, and you. You also said, like, you know, losing her humanity, it was way too fast, that I don't think there's a point where I could say she. She slowly lose her humanity.
01:11:08
Case Aiken
I think once loss pretty much says,.
01:11:10
Renaldy
Yeah, yeah, it was like, boom. I guess, in a way, you can say once you hit past 10, you're not.
01:11:17
Sam
You.
01:11:18
Renaldy
You are no longer human.
01:11:19
Case Aiken
No. You're a dolphin.
01:11:22
Renaldy
Well, dolphins still have. They love people.
01:11:26
Case Aiken
They love people too much.
01:11:27
Sam
Too much.
01:11:28
Renaldy
Too much at times. Too much. Yes, yes.
01:11:30
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:11:30
Sam
They are criminals, those dolphins. Many, many times.
01:11:35
Case Aiken
Look, I think we're kind of dancing around pitch territory here.
01:11:38
Sam
Yeah.
01:11:39
Case Aiken
So I think we should take a pause, shout out one of the shows on our network, and when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation and kind of get into what we would have done to sort of make this a stronger movie.
01:11:50
Sam
Yes, I agree.
01:11:52
Renaldy
Okay.
01:11:53
Case Aiken
All right, so we'll be back in a sec. When we do, we're going to have some pitches.
01:12:04
Sam
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to bookstore that Burn the Fortnightly book review podcast focusing on fictional depictions of trauma. We assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, itunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:12:38
Case Aiken
And we're back. All right, so Rinaldi, here's the deal. Deal. We have one hard rule on the show, which is that I am not allowed to go before Sam in this conversation here. This can be a collaborative process or it could be like suggesting full pitches, but I just can't go before Sam because one time I brought a three page outline for a movie that she was not. It was like our third time recording. She, she was not ready for case. Going full case on a movie. I'm not saying I'm going to go full case on this movie. This is one where I have a lot of venting and not necessarily a lot of fixes necessarily for it. But that's the hard rule of the show.
01:13:18
Case Aiken
And then the general ethos of the show is that we are trying to be realistic for the time of production. So this was the ascendancy of Morgan Freeman in his career. His star faded a little bit over time just because you can only be so on top of everything for so long. Scarlett Johansson is coming off of big wins with the Avengers right here. She's a super huge star right here. So like having a conversation about like, well, maybe it was supposed to be Angelina Jolie in this role, like, isn't going to really like mean anything for like practical considerations. Like the movie got made because they had the people attached to it that they had attached to it. But we can still speculate on what could have been done that would have been smarter in this thing.
01:14:02
Case Aiken
And I think because we've got a writer director who was basically given $40 million to make a movie without it really mattering what the movie was, I think there's some ground for us to chat about all this. So Rinaldi, would you like to take the first swing at just like suggesting fixes or would you like Sam to take the first swing? In the event that Sam goes first, I am able to follow up and you're able to go last. I'm just not able to go first in this situation.
01:14:27
Renaldy
Got it. I can try and take a swing at seeing some thoughts on how they can. How I would have written and possibly directed the film myself, the Rinaldi version. And that's to say, you know, the. The largest issue I had was I. I didn't care about the characters, and I would. And part of that is honestly because of how the pacing of the film was where you did not see her lose her humanity. So I would have it where, as she has, maybe she gets these broad strokes of powers intermittently and she's able to use them. But as she uses them, certain things maybe happen where she shoots someone and she sees, like, okay, that affects her. How does it affect her?
01:15:16
Renaldy
So I would work on her character to be able to really try to deal with the fact that she has these powers and the consequences of these powers. Because with great power comes great responsibility that you. That she's able to really. She's trying to stop herself. But it's about survival. And, you know, rather than seeing. Because I feel like the whole film you're seeing this 10, 20, 40%.
01:15:46
Case Aiken
I think you.
01:15:47
Renaldy
And it's about time, right? I think you delve more into the time effect of it and really say, okay, she has only so much time to survive, and she really needs to be able to. We really want her to accomplish that 100. But how we get there is going to be something that will need, I think, is more fascinating to see if she were to have to fight certain villains that are, you know, like the. They. They chose a great character in Choi, sorry, actor and Choi. And the opening scene of his introduction was awesome coming out of the bathroom. But outside of that and him rinsing his hands and blood, you know, he's got, like, typical, I guess you could say, villain aspects, that character work could have been better. And maybe he's just not the ultimate villain.
01:16:37
Renaldy
And the ultimate villain is herself fighting herself, trying to be. Trying to keep her humanity as well as accomplishing this 100% goal. Because if she stays human, she's gonna die. If she reaches 100, she'll at least survive. And, you know, then we'll see where we go from there. I feel like that's a big aspect of it. So character work, the pacing of it, and really seeing her evolve in a way where I care about her and the people around her. And when you are perfect, a perfect being, essentially, and she's not even. And that's. That's even a weird thing to think about. She's not 100%, but she's perfect enough to know how to weave through traffic without dying. But she's killing other people.
01:17:26
Renaldy
For her to be able to see that and stop and pause at some moments and try to understand, because, you know, the only time she says to remember is when she kisses the. The cop. It's not strong enough. There's not a strong enough stake for her to really want to remember. She's not. She's just. Just continually bulldozing throughout the whole process just to get 100. So I feel that those mechanisms could have been well defined, really taking more effort to showcase the humanity of it all with all aspects. Her, the villain, the doctor, the cop, to a certain degree, the cab driver. Maybe the cab driver needs to be around a little bit more in the beginning, because that would have been interesting.
01:18:13
Renaldy
And really being able to delve more into the character work and less on the action and the payoff, which is the word I was trying to think of earlier. I think the payoff, all of it all is the action in the end. And you'll just have intermittent actions throughout. But, you know, once you. Once she turns, it's all action. There's nothing else. There's, you know, the plot points were just kind of like 30 of them in a way, just to get us to get to 100%. So I feel that would better the film. But, you know, that's just my opinion.
01:18:52
Case Aiken
No, I think you make really strong points there. Like, the character work in this is lacking. Even actors who are typically very strong in their pieces just aren't. Aren't very compelling in this. Like Scarlett Johansson, I don't think is a very compelling character for the majority of the movie. Like, we. We get a little bit with her being, like, very scared at the beginning, but, like, once she's got the drugs in her system, she's so wooden in a way that isn't like a Spock kind of charming wooden. You know, it's not stoicism for the sake of. Of being interesting. It's. It's just there. And like, I'm not saying it's her fault necessarily, but it. It certainly just. Just comes across very stiff and like Morgan Freeman, who is. You know, it. It's Morgan Freeman.
01:19:39
Case Aiken
This is the words when I bumped into him by accident on. On the street in New York, my first Year living in New York, and I. I was like, oh, my God. I was on the phone and. And I, like, literally, like, I didn't literally bump into him. I, like, walked right by him as he was, like, leaving a show. And I'm on the phone and it's like, what was that? It's Market Freeman. It's Morgan Freeman. Like, he's, of course, you know, a treasure as an actor, but he's not providing much, and none of the characters are providing a whole lot. Like, even the villain in Choi is, like, he's so over the top when he comes in that everything after that is just sort of like, not an escalation of how bad he is.
01:20:20
Case Aiken
Like, there's no additional horror to this man because the first time we see him, he's just, like, bathed in blood.
01:20:25
Renaldy
Blood, right.
01:20:26
Sam
Yeah, right, for sure.
01:20:28
Renaldy
And. And I would even say, you know, being able to see, like, I. I think about. There's. There's. There's. You know, I think you even said horror a few times. I'm like, wow, this would have been an interesting horror film, if anything else. Because I think about. There's a. There's a. There's a film passenger. Someone had rewritten the idea or had the idea of, like, what if that film was actually a horror film where you don't see it from her. His perspective, you see it from her perspective, and it's just like, oh, that's interesting. And, like, for this, maybe we don't really follow even, you know, Lucy is. Is the main. The character, the. The titular line. Maybe we follow it from the choice perspective. Because I just think that was the most interesting, honestly, part of the film.
01:21:15
Renaldy
I mean, the action's cool and all, but his introduction was so fascinating, so strong, you know, not only because of the. The actor, but I think because of the. The writing. And that's that part that maybe we follow through his point of view where he's seeing all these things. And then, you know, that could be another maybe, avenue where maybe we see it from two perspectives, maybe his perspective and the doctor's perspective. And you barely see Lucy outside of the weird, you know, cool things that happen. And then you. Because. Because I don't know if there's anything you can do for her, because the movie would have to be. Because I was looking at my notes and I looked at the. I had written down the time in which I was like, oh, wow. She realized what. Hold on, my notes are.
01:22:04
Renaldy
Where are you? Something about when I was like, how long has this movie Been. I'm trying to look through my notes. It was at 45 minutes. I remember where I looked and said, oh, it's it. We're halfway through the film. And yet I felt like it was so, oh, okay. Again, I didn't realize that 45 minutes in. 45 Minutes in is when she confesses she doesn't feel human.
01:22:29
Case Aiken
And I was like thinking to myself,.
01:22:30
Renaldy
It's been 45 minutes, which is a pretty long part for a film. But like in, But I still at no point thought to myself, I thought 45 minutes. If I were to actually. If you're like, hey, don't look at the time. How long do you think the movie has been? I would have been like, oh, it's been five minutes because the pacing is so fast. So maybe a way to change up the perspective of it all is that you're not watching it through her angle, but more so his and maybe the doctor. And maybe the payoff is when you finally see her in the third act or something, then you get all of it there because maybe she becomes. Maybe the point of it is she's not human when she ingests all of it. Maybe that's another way. Sorry.
01:23:18
Case Aiken
No, no, sorry. That's. That, like these are good notes about the characters. Yeah, no, I, like I said, I, I think that you really highlighted like a lot of the flaws of this film beyond just the bad science. Like it is breakneck pace and doesn't give you a chance to really absorb the status quo shifts that occur in this movie.
01:23:44
Renaldy
Right. Yeah. Because like, I, I think when it comes down to science of the world to make it believable, there's a lot of times where, you know, you have established, like we talk about Marvel and how, you know, people can fly and you're like, oh, okay, cool. Because that's been established for years. Right. And I think of other films where you have the Matrix. When it first came out there was not a film like the Matrix in which both action and philosophically speaking. And I believed it because they were able to establish everything in a good pace and they focused on the right things. And I don't think they really focused on the science. And this is very science, quote unquote, science driven film because of the whole 10 myth and how do they build upon that?
01:24:31
Renaldy
So it would be interesting to see if they could just do something if they were to remake this to do tried, you know, where you're, you're looking more towards character than the plot of the 10%.
01:24:43
Case Aiken
Yes. 100%. Yes. But I'm Tish. Sam, what are your thoughts? Since I'm not able to go before me.
01:24:52
Sam
Yeah, so similar thoughts. I actually think that I want to spend a little more time and I want to give Scarlett Johansson, who is a good actress, a little more time to be Lucy the person. And so I'm okay with the pace in the beginning, but I do think that when she says she can feel everything, I want to see the stage where she feels everything. Instead of shooting the guy on the hospital bed, right? Instead of walking up and being very clinical and looking at, like, his scans, I think it would be great for her to go over there and touch him. Right? Because this. This gives us the first precursor that she can actually, like, feel seen synapses and kind of things like that. And then maybe not even have her shoot him, because we have enough. Enough guns in this movie.
01:25:47
Sam
I don't know if Lucy really needs to be the person using the guns. Have her kind of just like, touch him in a way where it's like, you know, maybe even just down the face. And then the. It flatlines, and she's just like, I'm sorry. He was in so much pain. He was gonna die anyway. I really need your help. And that way, at least we can still have that plot point where she, like, desperately needs the doctors to take care of her and kind of goes into that room, but we have a little humanity left in her where, like, the person she went into is. It's kind of like a losing zero sum game for them. And she gives them a peaceful ending where she just takes them down. No more suffering, nothing. Like, she just. That's it.
01:26:33
Sam
And then I think it being, like, kind of fun to have her go through, like, these periods of, like, kind of like, okay, so, like, she's in the cab, right? And she's hearing all of the conversations from really far away. I think, like, this is such a usual trope thing. But why. Why is not hearing that many voices as you're learning Chinese not driving her fucking mad, right? Like, let her have a little more adjustment period to this drug, to the like. Like, oh, my God, this is so much. Like, this is like, you know, and, like, then you have a moment to actually create comedy because the driver, who's already kind of afraid of her, can be like, are you okay? Like. Like, it's just like, drive on. I mean, I'm having a bad night. Just stick with me, you know?
01:27:25
Sam
And you're like, oh, okay. All right.
01:27:26
Case Aiken
Yeah, she's, like, tripping balls. But, like, moments of lucidity. Lucidity,.
01:27:32
Sam
Puns. And, like, have. Let the cab driver, who is the only character I care about, let the cab driver have a little more. Have a little more in this. Because, you know, maybe. Maybe he sticks with her because he has a daughter. And he's just like. Maybe, like, not even have her, like, shoot the other driver. Maybe have her point the gun at him, threaten him. And then the other guy be like, all right, You've had a bad night. Get it. Get in my cab. Get in my cab. Let's just. Let's just go. Because he sees the state of her. Her. And have something that's already, like, sympathetic to this person who's been through, like, the worst. And then that way, at least she has, like, this ally that she didn't have before. And that explains why he stays.
01:28:15
Sam
Because the woman who shot his friend in the knee is not someone you stay for. Okay? So he stays for her because, you know, and maybe, like, you know, from his, like, rear view mirror, let's, like, maybe have a picture of him and a little girl so we know that he's a father, right? We don't have to do a lot of explaining. He doesn't have to have a conversation, but you can focus in on that to know that, like, he sees a woman in distress and he sees his daughter, and he doesn't want to, like, abandon this person. Right? So. Okay. You okay? She's like, yeah, I just need to go home. Just need to get home. When she gets home, I want her roommate to fucking care.
01:28:54
Sam
I don't want her roommate to be a person that is, like, so detached, that she's so obsessed with herself just because now this roommate will give us more about Lucy's life. We actually don't know a lot about Lucy, okay? And this is the only point other than her saying that, like, her parents gave her a thousand kisses, which, by the way, we are definitely taking out that mother's milk part, because that is disgusting and weird and. No. Okay. And honestly, that line makes me believe that the allegations are true, sir. Like, absolutely. I don't care what the court said about you. You. That's freaking weird. Okay? Wow. No one's gonna tell their mom that they remembered the taste of their milk. There's something weird and incestuous about it. It's fucking weird in any way.
01:29:42
Sam
So I remember you cradling me is something I would say to my mother. Okay? I wouldn't talk about the delicacies she fed me. Ever. So anyway, so I'm going to say that this is the moment that we learn more about her. Like, like, I told you, like, that guy was bad news. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's fine. You don't look fine. Like, I want to have these two women have, like, an actual relationship and not just two people that are living with each other in Taiwan because they both have American accents. And I want her friend to be like, you know, I want to see her giggle like. Like uncontrollably all of a sudden. And her friend get, like. Like, really freaked out because she's tripping balls. Like, she's like, this. This shit is, like, taking over.
01:30:30
Sam
She had to take more, right? She took more. She learned how much she has. She has the rest. She knows that she might need it. And, like, I want her to, like, kind of know. I want her friend to grab her bag and be like, I got this. And she's like, no, no, you don't have it. And her friend be like, what the fuck? And she's like, no, it's fine. It's fine, it's fine. And then hug her. She can still tell her about the stuff because that reinforces what happens at the hospital, right? Which I just made up. Now we've got, like, a set of her synapses and things like that. She's like, I just need to use your laptop. And the friend is like, okay, I'm gonna take a shower, but you sure you're fine? Fine. All of that can happen.
01:31:06
Sam
She can still pack her bags. She. Her friend can be like, well, where are you going? And she's like, I'm going home. Have her lie to her friend. Have her tell her friend where she's going so that you have someone who, like, humanizes this character, right? Like, this is the only person besides the horrible, convenient boyfriend that, like, that we know knew Lucy before she's kidnapped by a drug ring. So let's use this character to flesh Lucy out so that we know that who she is. She's a good student. She came. She came to Taiwan. What is she studying? All of this can happen in this test. Oh, but you have your poli sci test. You have your physics test. Have her be a physicist, which is. Makes sense because time is both mathematical and a physical manifestation.
01:31:57
Sam
And maybe she figures out there's more physical manifestation and we just use the mathematics to. To define it, because that's how our 10 brains can comprehend it. Right? And. And Lucy's about to become infinity, which is why Lucy touches the, you know, ancient Lucy, the first woman Lucy.
01:32:18
Case Aiken
Yeah, Australopithecus Lucy. Yeah.
01:32:21
Sam
Yes. And so, and so, but like, like, maybe this is why. Because people with advanced degrees go to different places to study with specific, you know, professors. So, like, maybe she's already somewhat like, familiar with. With Morgan Freeman's papers, right? Not because it's something within her particular study, like her source of study, but because it's just like something that has gone around in academics. Maybe there's even something that she remembers. Like, oh, my God, there's that. That one brain scientist dude that, like, has that theory and like, oh, yeah, I have a paper on that. She can look at that and then she can get on the laptop and start doing her crazy typing thing that she needs to do. And I think that in this way, because we need to build Lucy up in order to, like, really, like, care about her.
01:33:19
Sam
And I. And I would like her to. Because she feels everything in the beginning to just be more sympathetic and empathetic in every way. Like, this is a. This is a woman who has literally been screwed over by someone she was dating. She's been pulled in by mobsters. She's been scared by them. She was put into a holding cell till her flight was going to get. The guys tried to rape her and she was. Was stabbed. And that stabbing has now drugged her with a drug that is going to kill her. Like, in all, like, honesty, we should have so much sympathy for poor Lucy because her journey is a fricking nightmare, but because they turn her into just this femme robot, we don't really feel that throughout the film. So I. I would love for this friend to do that.
01:34:09
Sam
And I think the cab driver can humanize her too, right? Because. Because everybody needs a good like thing. In fact, he can even still be waiting for her to drive her to the airport, one last goodbye and wish her good luck and be like, you know, you were on the news. And she'll be like, oh, crap. And then she can do that weird thing where she changes her hair, which is weird. Fine. We're gonna give her that ability. She's not even. She's only a 20%. What is that? You know what? She's gonna. Gonna. She's gonna wear a wig because her friend who goes on modeling gigs has fucking wigs. And that is what we're going to do because that makes a lot more sense. And.
01:34:49
Case Aiken
And like, oh, but it's not A trailer shot, though. Like that. That hair transformation's in the trailer.
01:34:54
Sam
Oh, you're right.
01:34:55
Renaldy
Oh, was it?
01:34:56
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:34:56
Sam
Yeah. Okay. Okay, fine. We'll still go with the bad science because it's bad science. Anyway. We. We don't want to change the trailer. And it's a special effect that they spent money on. On. Fine. She'll still change her head. And the driver will get one last reaction shot of him, which will be comedy, because he'll be like, what the. And she'll just go to the airport. And it'll be great because we will infuse some of that much needed joy back into this film because this film is incredibly flat. Also, during Morgan Freeman's, like, explanation of the bad science. I need a few less clients clips. I don't need to see as many animals. Like, I get the point. Like, I just don't need to see it. And I don't need every question to go back to a picture.
01:35:42
Sam
I. I understand the artistic thought of, like, let's shuffle our brains and move quickly, and it's part of the pacing. But also, like, the audience is not dumb. We do not need a picture example for everything that he says. The science is dumb, not the audience. Like, this movie is just dumb in the science department. But I think that needs to be cut back a little bit.
01:36:06
Case Aiken
A little bit.
01:36:07
Sam
A lot of it. Fine.
01:36:09
Renaldy
I was.
01:36:10
Sam
I was being nice, case, definitely for that. I think that the cop is fine. The cop is fine. His reactions are great. Like, he did a great job. Whatever. Do I wish Lucy had thrown more punches? Maybe. Maybe because I've seen Scarlett Johansson throw punches before, and it kind of felt sad that everyone was just flying up into the air. I feel like knives fly into the air. I think maybe, like, it feels like.
01:36:35
Case Aiken
A wasted opportunity that she's, like, not. She doesn't actually do that much action in this movie.
01:36:39
Sam
Right. And so I feel like. I feel like the weapons flying up into the air A plus. Loved it. Right? Putting the guy into the mime box, especially in Paris. Hilarious. Loved it. Like, I actually giggled a little bit. Can't get past her magic barrier. But I think that the other guys, like, don't just levitate them. I mean, you can levitate one or two, but I do think that, like, there should be some punches thrown and dodged and some stuff because it just. She just. It was just so weird and easy and too leveled up and just kind of, like. I don't know, there wasn't enough of a challenge. And it was kind of boring because we already saw the knives fly up and the scene where she made all the cops fall asleep. That was way better.
01:37:28
Sam
And I kept thinking, why didn't she just do that?
01:37:30
Case Aiken
Because you already did that. She does that first and then the fly up thing happens and like that's. Yeah, it's a way more effective scene. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to use D and D rules, the sleep spell only really works in like first level creatures and Fair enough, but telekinesis is a fifth level spell.
01:37:51
Sam
True, but. But you know what I mean. Like, like in terms of like, I want to speak to you alone. And he's like, I don't think so. That she puts everyone asleep and they're talking alone. Amazing, right?
01:38:01
Renaldy
I. Yeah.
01:38:02
Sam
Also, like, even if she had just thrown the guys against the wall, I think maybe I wanted to see them knocked out. They just murdered a bunch of people. Like, you know, at least they murdered a bunch of cops and they murdered the three. The three mules to cut their stomachs open. I don't know. I think some head bashing is deserved in this moment. And so I think it would have been better if she had thrown them against walls and knocked them out. Kind of just like, out of my way. Let some. Someone throw a punch, smiled at them and flicked them with just a finger, sent them flying like, something like that. Because I think it would have made it more dynamic. And I just felt like that would. Was really boring. Like, I feel like.
01:38:44
Sam
I feel like the director thought it was like hot to watch her just walk forward like a model as they all rose in the sky with her power. But instead she. Because there were special effects. Scarlett Johansson just kind of looked wooden, like looking straight ahead at whatever ball they told her to look at while these guys flew up. And I think the direction was like, you're up unbothered, like you just can't be bothered because you're above all this. But I don't feel like it. I don't feel like it played well and I don't feel like it felt dynamic in that moment. So I think it would have been much better to have almost like the good old fashioned one kung fu strategy where the bad guys come at her one.
01:39:27
Sam
She's just kind of flicking them away and she doesn't have to actually physically fight them. But it would have been. Have been cool to see her like dodge one smile, knock them out like, you know, or make him drop to his knees and give a couple of levels for that. And you still could have had the shot where like one or two of them were like, floating in the air while the others were passed out in the cup being like, oh, shit. Because it's still an oh, shit moment. But I just feel like that scene in particular was for me, a letdown. Like, it just wasn't dynamic enough. And especially after seeing the other things she had done, I was like, I wanted more from this.
01:40:10
Sam
And I know this is not necessarily, like, she's an amazing fighting spy, but I think, like, she could have used her telekinesis more. Like magneto bends metal and just kind of sends people flying. It just would have been more. I wanted to see Heads Bastion in that moment, like, to make it really satisfying. And then sure, she gets to the thing. I don't know how I feel about the driving scene only because, like, I feel really bad that all those people died. And also I feel bad for the fruit stand, actually, you know, other than the cab driver, I feel really bad for that fruit stand and the fruit stand owner. It's fun. My cabbages is that good. You know what? I get it. People love a high, like a high speed car chase. So I'm gonna leave it alone.
01:40:59
Sam
Even though technically I'm not crazy about the amount of destruction it did or the amount of people she killed. But. But I do think that, like, we gotta fix the cop thing. Like, the standoff should be like, more outside and then them falling back against the Koreans because, like, it's just so stupid that they run in. And like, I understand that this is in France and the Louvre thing did happen recently, but I want to, like, give. Sorry, sorry, France. I had to rub it in.
01:41:33
Case Aiken
But the password was Louvre. The password was Louvre.
01:41:38
Sam
The new password is going to be Louvre123. So they will update it. Maybe, maybe some sort of symbol, you know, to keep it safe. But. But I just think that it. It's weird to have a bunch of cops run in and like, not see these guys who are blatantly getting out of their car with their guns. Like, I feel like the standoff should have started there to give the professor and Lucy more time. Also, I definitely think that the drugs should have been injected into her with needles because that doesn't take 45 minutes and I am dying on that hill because that would make a whole lot more sense. And we don't have enough time. Okay. Like, we just don't, like, not enough police forces standing in front of them.
01:42:35
Case Aiken
Yeah, you could get some real body horror of like, her being like, shot up with like, multiple, like, spots where it's like they keep having to find, like, fresh veins, like, between her fingernails or between, like, her toes or something, you know, like in the webs or feet.
01:42:49
Sam
To be that many, you know, there can be, like, fairly large syringes if you want, but, like, I think, like, four or five times would be, like, sufficient enough. Like, you know, maybe six. Go by the rules of threes just to give people the full horror of it all. And, you know, I just. I want the Englishman to come back because this movie has far too many loose ends. And I think that, like, in Taiwan, after, like, Choi, Stabbed, I think there needs to be a scene between him and his British colleague or boss that's like, you fucking idiot, boss or.
01:43:32
Case Aiken
Underling, we're not sure which.
01:43:33
Sam
We're not sure because. And that's the thing is I need a scene between the two of them to really establish their relationship, because that guy set out all the rules for these mules, and he seemed to be running it. And the only one that Choi brought a drink to was Scarlett Johansson, which to me felt like, this is the one I brought in. And I feel almost bad that I did. So I'm going to give this to her. Sorry you're dealing with this douchebag. I also think he's a douchebag. Like, he didn't hand a drink to everyone else. He only handed to her. And to me, that dynamic speaks to. He is the hired underling. He is the body man. He's the guy that you bring in to scare the people, but he's not the body boss. The boss doesn't kill people, right?
01:44:26
Sam
Like, that businessman is the boss, and he hired the men who could do the dirty work. And so I feel like there needs to be, like, a conversation about either the money that Choi owes to the British guy for these things going astray and the person he brought in giving the intel because they need to figure out that Lucy's the one. Because who else would know, right? And. And because he knows, right? She took the information right out of his brain. She said it out loud. So they know who took the information. So the. The. The British dude has to be like, you this up. You are the snitch. You need to fix this. And that's why he travels all the way to chase her. Not just for revenge.
01:45:17
Sam
I mean, yes, he wants revenge, but he also, like, wants to take her down because he's gonna owe a lot of fucking money to that British dude that he fucking hates. Give us a dynamic between the two of them, you only need to add one scene. And you can that scene without adding too much time. When we cut all of the pictures during Morgan Freeman speech. And that gives us more room for character work because we need that. We need to know what the relationship is between these villains in order for the villains to work at all. Like, yes, drug dealers and drug smugglers and people who put drugs in people's bodies. Very bad. That doesn't need to be explained. But in order for this to be a character driven, like, piece of. We have to have something about the villains.
01:46:08
Sam
We have to know more than just he likes to listen to classical music while he gets tattooed. Like, that's not a character trait, that's just a hobby. And so, like, give us a little bit to it. Because we don't know from the very scene what his relationship is with. I think Richard was her boyfriend's name. It's coming to me now. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe that's just the name I'm giving him because he doesn't matter.
01:46:33
Case Aiken
No, you're right.
01:46:34
Sam
Oh, yes, Good for me. I usually forget names, so. So, you know, we don't know what their dynamic is. We know that he's. He says we can't trust him, but he says he's been to this hotel multiple times that week and that's the reason why he can't go in. He says he can't do it because, you know, there's clearly an issue between him and Choi there. Or he finds him scary, but we don't know. And they shoot him right away. They come down and they shoot him.
01:47:05
Renaldy
That's actually what I was gonna say. I've been thinking about this the whole time too.
01:47:09
Sam
Is.
01:47:09
Renaldy
Is I didn't think about it. But who shoots him? Because they come down, they get her and they're like, oh, panic. Back into the elevator and they go back up. And we don't know or have been told about who shot the boyfriend, why, and then. And why they're not going, why we don't see them anymore, or that, you know, that whoever shot him.
01:47:31
Sam
Like, we don't know if it's a setup from Che and his guys being like, oh, that guy. I hate that guy. Because they thought that the briefcase had a bomb in it. So my question is, who does Richard work for? That would. That Che would. Would assume. Troy would assume, right. That he's getting a bomb from. From him. Right. He made Lucy open that. Which is part of the horror. He made her open that briefcase. So we need to understand, like, whether it's like, exposition between the British guy and Choi talking about Richard and, like, a rival gang, or maybe they're like, oh, I thought. I thought you sent this. No, no, no, no. You just have to bring me, you know, the per. You know, now you've brought me the girl, we're good. Or like, you know, like, what? What? Who sent that?
01:48:33
Sam
Who. Who sent him the drugs? Richard's just a messenger. He gets a thousand bucks for it. Who sent the drugs originally? If this is not choice thing, why was he in the room with the British man giving out the drugs? Why? Like, what. What is this? Is this a peace offering to this British man? Like, listen, you and I will settle our debts when I give you this girl to travel with your drugs somewhere else. Is that who Richard's working for? I don't know. The movie never answers that. And I think that. That what needs to be answered. And I'm not even going touch the end because, honestly, I just rolled my eyes and it is what it is. It's fine. She can become a supercomputer. Like, that's not the part that I hated. It's just more the last line.
01:49:26
Sam
I was just like, what? I just. I've learned nothing, Lucy. I've learned nothing about my time on earth. I've learned absolutely nothing. You saw nothing beautiful, you did nothing wonderful. You killed a lot of people in the last 48 hours of your life. You solved nothing. You didn't save any of the guys who were with you. What. What have you really taught us about the time that we need to have? This is. This is some ennui bullshit. This is some nihilistic bullshit, because all you did was destroy things. You taught me nothing. And so all that. And maybe. And you know what? Maybe what we do have is we have the narrator become Morgan Freeman, and that way he can be telling the story of Lucy. And we still have everything from Lucy's perspective.
01:50:19
Sam
So when she's doing stuff and the stuff that she's doing, that's her. But the beginning in the middle of the beginning, and the end is him. Because he once knew a girl, right? Because he also introduces us to the first Lucy. Like, and then he can basically tell us about the last Lucy as well. And so, like, that bookends it. And, you know, we can talk about time being precious, but don't tell me about what I learned during this time, because I learned nothing during this movie. Nothing has. Your turn.
01:50:58
Case Aiken
Oh, God. I Love it. Because you've covered a lot of what I would want to address. But the things that I would like to address is the horror of this drug. Like make this a rare commodity because they're harvesting it off of pregnant women. I think that if we're gonna go big in terms of just like how up things are, let's really let it like sink in just like how rare and how scary that all is. But then we talked about the Matrix. We. One movie that we didn't talk about that there are definite vibes of is a Kira. Like Tetsuo's like transformation into a psychic being is very much similar to the Path of Lucy in this movie.
01:51:38
Case Aiken
And I, I just think that like the Matrix, we just need a little bit more time of low power before we get into high power stuff that would really, you know, like walking on walls doing crazy shit would all be great for this whole Inception style second act. But instead she's just a bit too powerful throughout this whole thing. And then the third act, yeah, sure can be all over the top crazy psychic powers. Like I, I think that, that's all fine, but man, the science is terrible and it's aggressively bad. Like it makes you mad the first time they bring it up and it doesn't get better throughout. The fact that they keep on emphasizing it really makes me frustrated. The fact that the drug scheme is so bad makes me so frustrated.
01:52:21
Case Aiken
Like, like, let's have a more logical like drug smuggling operation going on here. Like who's the buyer? Like where. Why are these getting sent to like other countries as opposed to being sold into their local market? You know, maybe that's a scenario where we can create like a, like if Choi, whose character name is Jang in this movie, like if he's the dragon and then like the British guy is the ultimate villain. Maybe it's the British guy who meets them on the other side of the world and is like dealing with that whole situation or vice versa. It doesn't fucking matter. Like, set up a scenario where the really big bad is the one that they're coming to meet on the far side of the world.
01:53:05
Case Aiken
As opposed to, it's like, well, we're just going to travel, track you down because we want to find our drugs. Like what's the plan? Like I've tried writing drug smuggling plans into movie scripts before and like, it does take more work than you think. You actually have to like try to go through all the logistics of like, well, why didn't they do it this way? Why didn't they do it this way? And I don't think this movie did that at all. They just are. Are writing scenes for the sake of being like, no, yeah, it's a drug smuggler. That's why we're gonna like head to France. Because like, Luc wants to film in France and shoot stuff there. But yeah, Lucy's power curve is a big part of where this movie breaks. And the science is a big part of where this movie breaks.
01:53:46
Case Aiken
And those are my big concerns when talking about it. I don't know how it clearly fixed this movie because it's just one that I'm kind of mad about. But Sam, I think you hit a lot of the notes and Rinaldi, I think he had a lot of the notes there. And I'm. I'm really happy with a lot of these ideas that we're kind of floating around with. You know, stronger characterization would be great. Like, you know, the roommate, especially the cat, the taxi driver. You know, all these supporting characters having like bigger roles. Having Morgan Freeman not dealing with pseudoscience for the entirety of the movie would be fine. You know, just make the drug being like, oh man, it's unlocking crazy portions of her brain that has never been dreamed before.
01:54:27
Case Aiken
And you don't need to like spend the whole time being like, we're only at 25% now. Jesus Christ.
01:54:34
Sam
Honestly, with less of those countdowns, you could add more character driven scenes.
01:54:39
Case Aiken
Yeah, exactly. And this movie is super tight. It's a tight 90 minutes. Like, you can't get that mad at a movie for being that tight. Except it is just frustratingly bad. Like it's just rubbing your face in just how bad the science is. And that's a bummer. The fact that Lucy is such a juggernaut throughout this whole movie is also kind of a bummer. It would be fun if we got some action sequences where she is starting to manifest her abilities, but it's not just straight up. She just wins every single time. Would, you know, would make the middle third be more impactful and give better trailer moments than what we got even.
01:55:17
Sam
I think it'd also be great if we just had a couple of like, laughs and like one where she like kind of flicks her hand or does something and realizes that like, she's the one who like pinned someone on something. Like, oh, I can do that. Like, I don't know, I just feel like we need more discovery. Like, she knows Too much, too soon about her situation and herself.
01:55:46
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:55:47
Sam
I think, like, she knows by the time she's talking to Morgan Freeman that she's already dying. Like, she knows that she is, like, just a little bit of time. There's no desperation for her. Right. Or. Or at least it doesn't read as desperation. And I think, like, if you had been through. Like, if you're a person and you had been through what Lucy had been through earlier that day, like, presumably your whole world has just changed, you know, you went from being an exchange student in another country to kidnapped by a criminal organization and set to be a drug mule given a drug that is now in your bloodstream that has you tripping balls and knowing things that you didn't know before and making you feel crazy and. And understanding a language you did not know, writing in that language you did not know.
01:56:46
Sam
I feel like, you know, even if she read through all of his stuff, I don't think she'd be as calm as this movie the script wanted her to be. I think that there should be more. Like, I need to come see you because I need to know what your theory is about the rest of my brain and what's going to happen if this drug keeps doing what it seems to be doing, you know, And. And. And because we don't. Because, like you said, Case, she levels up too quickly, and the knowing is part of leveling up too quickly. I think that there should have been a moment, you know, in the. In the airport where maybe someone looks at her funny and she, like, panics and maybe she does something and she knocks them down and she's like, oh, shit.
01:57:39
Sam
Like, that was stronger than I thought it was supposed to be. Because superheroes, right. When you get powers, like, that's not what you want. And so, like, maybe. Maybe she, like, the guy's looking at her really funny, she gets nervous, and she looks at him and she does, like, a fast glance and it sends him flying into a garbage can. And she puts her sunglasses back on and keeps walking while everyone's like, oh, my God, are you okay? What happened? Right, like. Because, like, that would give you the idea that, like, she's not completely in control of everything. Like, she's kind of. Because that in itself is a kind of struggle. You can still be, like, Akira level, but if you don't know how to control, like, your Dragon Ball powers. Yes, let's bring all of the superheroes into this.
01:58:27
Sam
If you don't know how to control your power, then you're not just a danger to other people, you're a danger to yourself. And so like a lot of times, like in even fantasy and sci fi, like when you get superpowered, part of what is interesting on the hero's journey, if the hero is not specifically leveling up, then they're learning how to harness the incredible powers that they've been given. And I think Lucy needs that she needs, she needs some harnessing scenes. She needs some like, oh, I that up and she needs like a couple like, oh, finally got the hang of it. Like, like kind of like, oh, good job, brain. We are, we are now operating at 40%. No, maybe she could even say it. Oh, good, now at 40%, I can control that fine.
01:59:18
Sam
We can keep his stupid percentages in just without the black cards and just have her say it. She can even tell people and people can be like, how you doing now? You know, sweat coming down. Like, I'm at 50%. I'm at 50%. By the way, there's rice in your beard. Like, I don't know, I just needed a little more hyper focus ridiculousness coming from her and a hero's journey of some sort, which could be learning how to level up, learning your powers or leveling up.
01:59:48
Renaldy
Yeah, yeah, I agree with all. Yeah, I feel like it's, there's a, maybe a conversation to be had where maybe this is either a, a three part film, you know, where you are able to slowly see and then there's that final, you know, third film where you're whatever being able to see all of her powers and have a villain that has the capability maybe to fight with her on her level of some sorts or a TV show. But like I also kind of go back to like, again, there's a limitless. Came out like three or four months prior to it and it worked. So how can we get this film to do that? And there's just a lot of, I think development that just was thrown out for the sake of maybe the action part of it.
02:00:40
Renaldy
And, and like you said, Case, you know, Scarlett Johansson was just coming off of, you know, being in a lot of good big blockbuster films. Maybe they're trying to use that power. So this is like, you know, pushing for that and being able more so to. It's not really a film that, you know, the philosophical part of it was kind of thrown on the wayside and they're just trying to enjoy a good fight or not even fight action film and just they failed on that one. As well.
02:01:06
Case Aiken
So, yeah, it's frustrating because this movie just makes me mad when I watch it, even. Even though there's, like, good things in it. But, yeah, I think we've hit the nail on the head for several of the details of this movie that are frustrating about it. And you know what? We honestly got a better conversation out of it than I expected based on my frustration going into this one. So, Rinaldi, thank you for bringing this movie.
02:01:33
Renaldy
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. And I loved trying to figure out how to make this movie better.
02:01:40
Case Aiken
No, this was a really fun conversation. So before we get into, like, where we can find everyone, Sam, what are your thoughts on this movie in terms of your chores scale?
02:01:50
Sam
Okay, I want you guys to hear this because this is, like, so important. This movie is not good for any chores, and I will tell you why it's not. Because it doesn't have good scenes. Okay? It's fine. Like the. Like the. There. There are actually some, like, great scenes in it. But here's the thing. If you take your eyes off this film, when you look back, you're going to go, what did I miss? This is so confusing. And you're going to rewind, and then you're going to realize that it had nothing to do with you, like going to another room to sweep something or folding your laundry. This movie takes leave leaps and bounds that sometimes you go, wait, why is she made of sand? What is this? The mummy? Why is she disappearing? I don't understand.
02:02:48
Sam
And then you're gonna go, sam, should I sit down and watch this fully? And I would say, no. So don't watch this because you will end up watching it fully. You will rewind over and over again. You will get no chores done. This is a one on the chorus scale. Do not watch this movie. You will learn nothing, and it will distract you, and he will feel like you were crazy every time you pop back in. This is not a tourist movie.
02:03:14
Case Aiken
All right, well, there you have it. Well, there you have it on that one. Rinaldi, thank you again for coming on.
02:03:23
Sam
Thank you.
02:03:24
Case Aiken
Where can people find you and follow you? What have you got going on? Like, if people enjoyed this episode, where. Where can they find you?
02:03:31
Renaldy
Oh, well, I guess as of right now, I'm. I'm more so doing photography so they can follow me at Rinaldi Smith Photography on Instagram currently. And outside of that, I've actually, I haven't really been doing a lot of. This is the first in. In quite some time in terms of being Able to really work on doing some kind of film discussions or art discussions. So that's really where I'm at right now. Or you can follow me. My personal account. That actor Smith on ig. I post some fun little stories here and there currently. I will becoming a father soon. So that's gonna be my life for the next nine months.
02:04:07
Case Aiken
Yeah.
02:04:08
Renaldy
Yeah.
02:04:08
Case Aiken
Woo. Paternity. No, but that's awesome. People should check out your Instagram. It's fun seeing what you're. What you're taking still lives of and presenting out there and yeah, no, like you're a cool guy and I'm glad that were able to reconnect after.
02:04:28
Sam
After.
02:04:28
Case Aiken
It's been a few years since last time we really chatted.
02:04:30
Renaldy
Thanks guys.
02:04:32
Case Aiken
So thank you for coming on, man.
02:04:34
Renaldy
Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. And, and yeah, definitely a lot more depth in terms of conversation for this movie. Lucy. Yeah, you know, it'd be fun. It would be to take some of the ideas and maybe rewrite it and then. But then I'm like, well, Luc Besson's like, no, that's not the movie and whatever. But it would be interesting. Interesting.
02:04:52
Case Aiken
Totally. Now Sam, where can people find you and follow you?
02:04:55
Sam
They can find me here. And also I do lurk on our Discord. So you know, you might want to go over there to, you know, Seren point of views. Discord. I may not comment, but I'm definitely reading what you say. And I'm not judging though. But if you are judging me about anything I said, especially if you're French and very hurt Christ. That I mentioned, you can find Case at and give all of your complaints to him.
02:05:24
Case Aiken
Oh well, bring all the complaints to me. You can find me on most social media platforms at Case Aiken, except for Instagram where I'm holding on 4 dear life to my aim screen name from high school, which is quetzalcoatl5q u e t Z A L C o a T L5 because I was pretentious in high school and I remain that way. But frankly, the Discord is pretty probably the best way to get in touch. It's a great community. If you go to our website certainpov.com you can find a link to the Discord. If you look in the show notes for this episode, you can find a link to the Discord. We are having tons of great conversations about movies, about video games, about tabletop RPGs, about music, about sports. Sports. I'm not participating in those conversations that much.
02:06:07
Case Aiken
But they are happening on our discord. You can check that out. And I should note that if you would like to check out the things that we are working on, you can find us on all kinds of platforms where you get your podcast or at certain POV media on YouTube where we are doing all of these podcasts there as well as all kinds of videos that I just happen to want to put up. So go to certain POV media on YouTube and check out that statistically you're actually probably watching this on YouTube based on our subscribers subscriber counts. So the YouTube is a great place for all of this. And yeah, if you want to support the show, if you enjoyed what we're doing, we have a Patreon going.
02:06:46
Case Aiken
So the patreon is@patreon.com certainpovmedia and we've got a bunch of people to thank because in addition to the essays that I write every week at the free tier and the shout out or rather the sneak peeks that we give for everyone at the paid tiers, for those who joined at the executive producer level, they get shout outs at the end of every podcast and that includes Micah McCaw, Carter Hallett, Sean Muir, Lee Greger, Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Lettinen. These are the awesome people who joined at the executive producer level. If you want to be like them, you can join our Patreon and contribute at those levels and it would be awesome because you know, it helps keep the lights on.
02:07:28
Case Aiken
But otherwise come join at the free tier because like I said, I'm doing two essays a week, one on a nerdy topic and one on a D and D topic, which is a nerdy topic but of a specific subset. And you can come and check those out. I do two essays a week. It's a lot of fun and it's really great for me just to be able to vent my thoughts about the world. So check that out and then circle back for the next episode of this show. Sam, what are we talking about next time?
02:07:55
Sam
Next time we'll be talking about Highlander 2 the Quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.
02:08:06
Renaldy
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of.
02:08:08
Case Aiken
View's Another Pass podcast. Don't miss an episode, just subscribe and review the show on itunes.
02:08:15
Sam
Just go to certainpov.com Netherpass is a certain POV production. Our hosts are Sam Alicea and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sophia Richardi Our logo and episode art is by Case Aiken, our intro theme is by Vin Macri, and our outro theme is by Matt Brogan,.
02:08:36
Case Aiken
CPOV certainpov.com.