Author Topic: EP651/EP105: Impossible Dreams (Flashback Friday)  (Read 60455 times)

Fenrix

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Reply #100 on: November 16, 2011, 08:30:03 PM
Nice to see that this one won the Hugo that year. It's worthy of all the accolades.

I have to say I expected a darker ending when it was mentioned that the US had to have a land war with Japan, that no Atomic weapons were dropped then. That has so many implications both good and bad my mind boggles.

Not dropping the bomb would have had a HUGE impact on cinema, and my mind was spinning with the possibilities while listening to the story. What would this do to the whole atomic age of horror/Sci-fi? Godzilla, Gamera, Mothra and their giant-monster ilk were born from either the fallout of the bomb, or the representation of the impact of the nuke. Wasn't one of Harryhausen's first paid jobs a giant octopus tearing apart the golden gate bridge? Where would animation be, particularly Japanese, without AKIRA? And then consider how much of anime is influenced by the Godzilla themes.

I also found myself wondering if this guys eating dog food to buy a better home theater lifestyle can continue now that he has a girl in his life.  He was already splurging on Chinese food every night.  That has to cut into the Bad Obsession budget.  It would be interesting to see how this change cascades through his life.

I think he would have to save some money on movies after she shows up, as he now has a major reason to rewatch his entire extensive library.


The one movie I'd be looking out for would be the original script of Aliens3, before they decided that having aliens invade Earth would be too expensive to film when there's a handy abandoned factory sitting over here...


Was that the one that William Gibson wrote?  I would love to see the script for that one. 

Actually, back when I was in college my screenwriting professor told a story about how three screenwriters showed up to a party in Hollywood and got to talking about what they were working on next.  (This happened before the heyday of the internet, obviously).  They were all quite shocked to find out they were working on the same script.  "No, I'm working on Alien 3."  "What?  I'm doing Alien 3!"  "No, no.  Alien 3 is all mine!"

I don't know if it's true or not, but I always found it amusing.  And a reason to be thankful for the internet.

I remember reading an Alien novel set right after the second movie. No idea who wrote it, as that was traded to the used book stores more than a decade ago. The space marines go to the alien homeworld and find that the aliens are not the dominant predator. They nuke it from orbit, as it's the only way to be sure. While destroying the alien homeworld, an alien is brought onto Earth by a slavage crew. The Company knows what it is and works on researching it. It gets loose and makes oodles more. So as the space marines are headed home, others are evacuating Earth.

I wish we got that movie. Too bad they never made anything after the second one.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


DKT

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Reply #101 on: November 16, 2011, 11:46:37 PM
Somebody needs to reboot the Alien franchise so that Sigourney Weaver wakes us and realizes 3 was just a dream. Newt and Hicks are still fine in their sleeping pods. (I like parts of 3, but killing Hicks and Newt like that was brutal and stupid.)

Also, somehow Michael Wincott would be involved.

(Yes, I realize I'm kind of asking for a reboot. I don't care.)


Unblinking

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Reply #102 on: December 09, 2011, 03:05:03 PM
(Yes, I realize I'm kind of asking for a reboot. I don't care.)

Kind of?  "Somebody needs to reboot the Alien franchise" is not a "kind of".  You are all-out asking for it, no "kind of" about it.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that)   ;D

I have actually not seen any of the "Alien" movies.  I mean to see the first one at least, the premise sounds especially cool with the enclosed space and the single alien.



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Reply #103 on: December 10, 2011, 09:57:36 AM
"Aliens" is also worthwhile, albeit as a good action movie rather than a good horror movie.  It has more of the quotable lines.



Fenrix

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Reply #104 on: December 13, 2011, 05:37:35 AM
"Aliens" is also worthwhile, albeit as a good action movie rather than a good horror movie.  It has more of the quotable lines.

It's more than just action. Tense action horror. Some drama with well developed characters.

Also infinitely quotable.

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Reply #105 on: December 16, 2012, 08:29:06 AM
quality story well written and narrated



Moritz

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Reply #106 on: November 05, 2018, 10:47:19 AM
I first listened to this story around 2012, when I was binge listening to Escape Pod's back catalogue. It's one of my favourite stories, because I love weird parallel dimension, and I'm not even that much of a movie fan. The references are hilarious though. The idea of not being able to watch all those movies would be super frustrating and reminds me a bit of all those cool RPGs, books, and and movies I've tried to snatch in my dreams and couldn't take with me to the waking world.

Alasdair: Please get out of my head - it sounds like you are talking about me! Makes me want to hug you and all of Escape Artists' team.
That's metaphorical, I'm not that keen on hugging people I've never met.  :)
« Last Edit: November 05, 2018, 10:49:32 AM by Moritz »



Kittenpox

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Reply #107 on: November 06, 2018, 10:32:26 PM
I didn't get to listen to this one when it first rolled around (not sure I'd heard of EP at the time), so I've only listened to this one as Flashback Friday EP651.
This story, well... There's a few different things I feel about this one, and I'm not sure how to coalesce them into a quick paragraph. (Thankfully, that's not necessary because forums and all. But I apologise in advance if I ramble.)

First up - I really enjoyed the story overall.
I'm a sucker for Alternate Universe fiction - Escape Pod 553 'Water Finds Its Level' was a joy to behold. I love seeing stories about what could have been, and what happens when things change - I suppose that's also why I love time travel stories too. I guess in many of us there's the desire to see what could have been.
- I wish I could see her version of Star Wars prequels, with the reveal of Darth JarJar, rather than the filmmakers succumbing to fan outrage and rewriting him as a minor character.
- I first heard 'Sgr Wr Gng Dwn' (a mashup with the music of 'Sugar We're Going Down' with the lyrics from 'Thnks Fr Th Mmrs' - there should be a copy of it on YouTube) before I ever heard Sugar We're Going Down itself - so hearing it felt, to me, like music from another world when I first listened to it as an audio file.
Unfortunately the effect is significantly diminished upon multiple listenings so maybe it was just a one-off experience, in part due to sleep deprivation. ^_^
- And alas, I live in a world where Asteroid Musical ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfTFKgXqqHY ) never ended up getting made.
So although I didn't really know the names in the story and I'd only seen a couple of the films mentioned, I really enjoyed hearing how her world differed from his. (Especially the absence of Dr Strangelove.) Not sure I'd want to live there, though. Sounds like things aren't going so great there, given her eating habits.

But at the same time, although it was fun to listen to, there's some aspects of the story I found really uncomfortable. Like, the way the main character decides it's totally okay to hit on someone while she's at work and cannot avoid him (Tip: Don't do that. It's written as sweet in movies but it's creepy in real life.) The kiss that he decides to take, rather than her making a move. The way she's a bit of a manic pixie dream girl, just showing up out of the blue all ready to make a boring guy's life interesting again.
All of it squicks me a little. Perhaps not as much as EP443 'This Is As I Wish To Be Restored', which is also a good story in it's own right, but this still made me feel kinda uncomfortable afterwards.

TL:DR - Good story, despite the off-putting main character.

PS: I may have spent at least half of it being like "TALK WITH HER ABOUT 'BRIGADOON' (1954 film starring Gene Kelly) ALREADY!" :P Though I suppose that's because I haven't watched Twilight Zone, so that reference eluded me.



Ichneumon

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Reply #108 on: November 27, 2018, 03:16:00 PM
So, was the impossible dream the alternate-dimension-movies or a girl-who-wasn't-like-the-other-girls? Pete had a pretty one-dimensional view of women: they are nice but all the same and don't like how many movies he watches.
I did enjoy the story while listening and got sucked in pretty well. I thought the interactions between him and the girl were well written; he seemed weird but non-threatening, and she was bored and lonely in the store. The sob story that others mentioned in the thread was necessary to make it plausible she would leave her world because she had nothing to lose.



CryptoMe

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Reply #109 on: January 16, 2019, 04:07:46 PM
I too enjoyed this one the second time around as much as I did the first time.

I didn't find the interaction between the MC and the shop girl as creepy. I really felt that he wanted to talk to her about movies more than hit on her. The interest for him seemed to come later, *because* of her knowledge of the other dimension's movies. It was she who interpreted his interest as hitting on her, and only because she thought he didn't seem to know much about movies (her dimension's movies, at least). So, that part didn't creep me out.

I also felt that the shop girl came off as being a fairly strong character. She took charge of her life and made the dimensional move that the MC couldn't bring himself to do. She also made it quite clear that she wasn't looking for a hand-out; she had moved out of her parents' home in her own dimension at a fairly young age and felt confident she could handle the challenge in this new dimension alone, too. I think the confusion about her character comes from the fact that this part wasn't written too well - all dumped on us in the last few minutes of the story, instead of evolving more organically.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 04:29:16 PM by CryptoMe »



jill

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Reply #110 on: January 21, 2019, 08:56:05 AM
Well, I like science fiction like this one. However, I found some episodes that i couldn't understand, but it's probably because it's always been a little more difficult for me to perceive the information in a listening mode as opposed to reading.