THE WANDERING EARTH 2 (China, 2023) With Ian Thomas Day

Simon is joined by improviser, editor and real-life Canadian IAN THOMAS DAY to wade into sci-fi-action(ish)-adventure-drama-cgi-blockbuster THE WANDERING EARTH 2 directed and co-written by Frant Gwo, and starring Andy Lau, Wu Jing and Li Xuejian.
>>>WANDERING EARTH 2 trailer <<<

After finishing their 3-hour marathon movie they still found time to check out THE CONTINENTAL, JERICHO RIDGE, LEO, BOTTOMS & David Fincher's back catalogue...

TRAILERS:
The Fall Guy | Official Trailer
Topakk aka Triggered (2023) | @RavenBanner Trailer | Arjo Atayde | Julia Montes | Sid Lucero
Tiger 3 Trailer | Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Emraan Hashmi | Maneesh Sharma | YRF Spy Universe

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Ian is hard to find online but follow him on LETTERBOXD too

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Transcript

0:59

Lieutenant Colonel Liu Peiqiang, please head to the hibernation chamber immediately. Right, they're up in the rockets. They've got a problem on the moon. In order to survive, great efforts and sacrifices were made by men, who eventually won the victory of evolution. Got you, A-man. You can call it the art of fighting without fighting. Stick around. Some motherfuckers are always trying to pass Skadoville. Dodge this. Welcome to Dodge This! Action Movies Unleashed Season 3, Episode 4, The Wandering Earth 2. Yes, we are tackling the, admittedly, perhaps action-adjacent Chinese super blockbuster, The Wandering Earth 2, which is landing in the UK very soon, hence this timely tie-in. And I'm joined by another very special guest. This season, we're all about the guests and this episode is no different. I'm joined by a man with three names. A man from a different country. A man with an enviable Plex server. A man who is an improviser and a real life editor of film and television. His name, Ian Thomas Day. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me here. Excited to... Talk about this movie. That was a pretty big intro, wasn't it? It's huge. Well, I mean, you've got three names, so I've got to sort of space it out accordingly. Yeah, I like the three-name cadence. I went for it. It's pretty pretentious, I'll admit it. Ian, when you were in school, was the Thomas always active? No. The Thomas is very much an addition to my adulthood. When I became a man. It's latter day, if you will. Yeah. Ladder day. Day. Well done. Love that. My middle name is Jeffrey. So I just, I doesn't feel quite as Simon Jeffrey feel. It just feels like a mumble mouthful. The cadence of the syllables, like the William H. Macy, the Philip C. Moore Hoffman, E and Thomas day. That cadence is pleasant. That's lovely actually, isn't it? Yeah. That's, I feel like, I feel like you've, you've practiced that before. Yeah. For all for these exact conversations. Thank God. Leonardo, De Caprio. De Caprio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just works. It works for all of them. Now, in Thomas Day, I know you from London, which is where you currently are. In the olden days, I used to say I'm in Amsterdam and Matthew is in London. And I keep forgetting to sort of tell people where I and my guests are. I am currently still in Mumbai, very excitingly. And you, although birthed to Canada, are in London. Yes, Calgary, Canada. I'm from Calgary, Canada, but now I reside in Leytonstone in London, the neighborhood of Alfred Hitchcock. Is that true? Yeah, yeah, he was born in Leytonstone. So there's mosaics of all of his movies at the tube station. So I'm really breathing it in here, Simon. I'm really in the heart of cinema. Right, right, right. Like when you get off at Baker Street, you're like, oh, I just feel like the detective in me is coming out because they put it on the tiles at the tube station. There's got to be a murder I can solve somewhere around here. It's really kind of cool. There's like sort of an underground passageway to go like east or north or south. And on that passageway, the tiling is, you know, strangers on a train. It's a big mosaic of like a still from that movie or an art piece from that movie and a vertigo. They're all there. That's very cool. Just a movie lovers paradise. Is that what drew you to Lainstone in the first place? No, no. You know, affordability, connectivity. Pretty much needed to lock something down and start paying a mortgage, et cetera, rent. That's what got me here. But also, but also like Hitchcock. I'm sure it's something that the estate agents at Foxden's drop in all the time. Yeah, they have a little speaker. playing the Albert Hitchcock Presents theme tune. Transport links, close to the supermarket, and also a rich cultural movie heritage. So, hey, delighted to have you here. I think in terms of sort of proximity to the movie industry, you might have the biggest claim of all our guests so far, given that you are a real film and TV editor. So you sort of, I feel like you're bringing a unique perspective. Well, I mean, I have edited television. I have edited film. It's been a long time since I've dipped my toes in that world. It's mostly been advertising and branded content, but I do, your past guest, I know, right? Your past guest, Chris Gao, and I have worked on numerous films together. And I love doing that with him. But if your listeners are interested in knowing what I've edited, you can just google Legend of a Warrior at NFB doc that I did in 2012. That sounds like the sort of movie we would talk about on this show, but it's a documentary. It's a documentary about Kung Fu master and his son. I'm back on board. Yeah. You mean this Frank Lee from Edmonton by way of Hong Kong. Um, he trained, uh, numerous kickboxers. He even, there's a guy named Billy Chow who fought Jet Li in a movie. Um, so yeah, so I've met all those guys and, uh, back in 2012 when we made this movie, he's, uh, one of the most interesting human beings that I've ever come across. That is one of the best industry stories that have surfaced accidentally on this podcast. Uh, second only to me finding out this week that erstwhile cohost, Matthew Highton met Scott Adkins and Jean Claude Van Damme at an event. Just this week? Just literally this week. Wow. Both of them. They in the same place. I would not, I would, I would hover around JCBD like, uh, like a fruit fly. It would be, I would not be able to get away. I would, you would overhear so many. batshit things. Well, that's that. That is the exact vibe that we need on this podcast. People with a love for Jean-Claude Van Damme and people who've even heard of Scott Adkins fully get a pass. Now you are quite a fan of, I would say, left field off the beaten track. movies, lots of indie stuff, a lot of quirky bits and pieces. I know I've discovered a few movies through you in the past. Yeah. I mean, I just keep my eyes on Twitter or the internet and listen to what people are talking about and then immediately try to scoop those up. I saw Bottoms. Have you heard of Bottoms? I have. That is on my list. Bracketsplex. Rachel Sennott and IO Debris. And it's, it's incredible. Uh, it's good. Just it's really good. It just happens in this weird heightened reality, but like is a perfect satire of high school and, um, good send up of like, uh, like women standing up for themselves and it's, it's great. Love to hear that. What else, what else have you been scoping? Anything else on the radar? outside of Wandering Earth 2, which obviously has taken up probably most of your time over the last week. I've listened to other podcasts, I'll admit. And the Black Check podcast is going through all of David Fincher's movies. Oh yes. And he's of course got a newbie out right now, if I'm not mistaken. He's a killer. Yes. The killer is in cinemas or coming to cinemas very soon. So I'm sort of gearing myself up for that. I just watched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Immediately after I watched a bloddering earth, I felt like I needed to understand something a little bit more clearly. And so I watched that and it's just like, it's sort of reinforcing how perfect a run Fincher had from social network all the way to Gone Girl. Yeah. I mean, that is one of those, it's sort of one of those remakes where you're like, This is good, but the original is also really good. And I have seen both and I don't remember a lot about Fincher's version, but I remember it being quite sort of faithful. I mean, I know it's a book, so I guess they're both faithful to that. But yeah, I dunno. It was like, yeah, I really enjoyed this. I mean, I have already sort of seen it in a way. It's such a, I feel like that's such a dumb approach, but having seen the Swedish movie, it was like, well I will watch this because it's Fincher, but I do sort of, this whole story is not going to surprise me. I think it was, it's one of those, I didn't see the Swedish version because I just didn't really clock it when it came out. I'm very European, I don't know if you've heard. I only watch American movies. But it was... It was probably, it was definitely one of those things, you know, old boy, infertile affairs. It was like, probably at the end of that era where American directors would just remake something that somebody very talented had already made. And in this instance, it was like, well, all right, okay, this is pretty good. Yeah. I mean, in fairness came out great. You do wonder the thought process though, don't you, about sort of going, um, yeah, let's, I mean, let's just remake it. It's the exact. So at least with like the Departed, it felt like different settings. It was, you know, it hit the same beats, but it was very different. It was Boston, comps, and there was Irish mob. There was a lot of elements. I saw that a couple of times in the cinema. I would be interested to go back and it's great, but I want to see how much it holds up. I remember like some of the not so subtle. But metaphorical shots and just like there's a rat and then they show the rat was bad. The rat was a bad ending. Yeah. I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone was on board with that. Good, good name drop of Infernal Affairs as well, because that is a classic Hong Kong movie, of course, starring Andy Lau, who also appears in The Wandering Earth 2. Thanks for tying it together. Thank you. No worries. I didn't, I didn't realize. I did. I'm here to join the dots. That's all. I don't know if you've taken a look at this. I watched the first two episodes of The Continental. The right from the world of John Wick. Yeah, episodes are feature length. So the first two movies in the three TV movie series of The Continental are an hour and a half like, yeah, 190 to 100 minutes, I believe. Yeah. a big investment, isn't it? Is it good? Yeah, I'm enjoying it actually. I mean, I guess I'm two thirds of the way through. Yeah, it is. It's in the world. So, if you enjoy the four movie sort of world building that they've done, it pays homage to that. It's set in the 70s in New York, though. So, it's sort of a prequel as to how The Continental came to be run by Lovejoy, as you might not know him. Ian McShane from Deadwood, but who all British people of a certain age know as Lovejoy. It's got some fun action beats in it. It's an era specific setting, so it's very removed from the John Wick movies. I think by setting it in the 70s, they kind of already are like, well, you know, things look different, it's a different vibe, yada yada. Yeah, so far, so far enjoying it. question is, like, cause I, I found out this existed when I was on the holiday, like a month ago, I saw a big giant poster of it in Copenhagen and, and the most prominent person on this giant poster is our good friend Mel Gibson. Yeah. And, and so that's- He's back. Yeah. It's sort of like, I, I'm interested because I love the John Wick universe. I watched all the movies and I thought like- love it, but I don't want to watch the show and then my partner come in the room and see that I'm watching something with Mel Gibson in it, to be completely honest, because it's like he's not a great guy. Can we get new guys? We need new guys! That's the thing, isn't it? Every movie is Timmy Shalome. I don't remember all of the reasons that Gibson was sort of... evidently temporarily canceled. There was some antisemitism in there, right? There was a lot of it. And there was that, there was, I was just going to kill his wife. Oh, he's going to kill his wife. Cool. Yeah. We need new guys. I mean, I was going to say in his defense, not in his defense, just as a statement of fact, having recently watched Expendables 2 and then this. He is good in things. I'll still watch Lethal Weapon. I mean, I'll still watch Road Warrior. I want to remove the art from the artist, which I suppose we have to. Evidently, he's been forgiven by Hollywood. Every podcast must have this conversation at least once when discussing a movie in any regard. Well, when we move on to Mein Kampf later, I think we'll really be able to take all this. You've got to be able to separate it. Yeah. So anyway, let's move on from that. I also saw two movies of note one called Leo, which is a massive Indian cinema movie. I just did a thumbs up and because I've updated to the new iOS, every time I do a thumbs up, my webcam puts a little thumbs up in a bubble, which do you know what I bloody love? It's great. Every few pods, I have to take a minor diversion. and make this into the tech podcast that I wish I also hosted. Yeah, yeah. And that's it. That's it for now. That's it. Mac OS Sonoma. You can do fun stuff with your camera and hand gestures. Anyway, I saw the movie Leo, which is a Tamil movie from the same director as Vikram and Katie. It's technically, it's sort of an unofficial homage to... the David Cronenberg movie, A History of Violence. Oh, wow. Which caught me off guard, but literally there's a title card at the beginning from the director that says, as so many of us, I was hugely inspired by A History of Violence and this is my, you know, pay in to that. And then a man wrestles a hyena. Okay. I missed that in... Yeah. That's where you need to sort of set your... barometer going in. Yeah, I enjoyed seeing it on the big screen. It's very ridiculous in the sort of Tamil blockbuster way that often these movies can be. Won't dwell on it too much. Another one I did want to shout out though, before we get into the meat of stuff, is a movie called Jericho Ridge, which is currently doing the festival circuit, I think. a British first time director. It's shot in Kosovo and it's about a US small town sheriff's department. Wow. Already. There's a lot going on. And it's a very, it's one of those really good low budget movies that's like contained location characters, simple plot, well executed. It's your sort of baddies ganging up. on a building. It's your sort of a solo on precinct 13, a raid. Much smaller. It's an opposite raid as we just got over. Yeah, that is highly recommended. I believe it's currently sort of getting distribution and that sort of thing. So I think it'll start cropping up on places, but obviously it's already streaming on some places in the US. If you have VPNs and a run-nard, you'll be able to watch it somehow. Highly recommended anyway. It's been quite a long intro, Ian. No, I'm going to check that. I'm going to check that. I wrote everything down, Simon. Don't worry. Thank God, because we don't have any record of it. I'm not recording this. This is just a FaceTime call. I might need the spelling on that towel movie, but other than that, we're fine. Okay. It's Leo. Not even that hard. Would you like to watch some trailers? Sure. Okay. Three trailers, as is the new rule. We've got a big hitter, we've got a little kind of indie creeper, and then we've got something from India because, hey, I'm here. And there's a lot of big stuff coming out. Let's start with one of the biggest trailers that dropped in the last week. It is The Fall Guy, starring everyone's favorite. Gosling. Ryan Gosling. The gauze. And as a Canadian, I must mention. He's Canadian. So he is. You got to claim it. If it comes up, you got to claim it. Yeah. So, uh, it's a, uh, what do you call it? Re, re-imagining of the 1980s TV show, which I feel like you are probably old enough to remember, right? Uh, no, I mean, Okay. I didn't even know that it was a re-imagining of a 80s TV show. Is it? Yeah. Starring Lee Majors as, um, the titular stunt man with a very memorable theme tune. I knew about Hooper, the Berenalds stunt man. Yeah, right around there. Okay, well that probably speaks to 90% of the audience for this movie, not knowing it's based on a lot of people. I'm happy to go in. I like when I see Gosling doing comedy. I felt like this is the good... It's Gosling, he's so ripped. He's shirts off in the trailer and he's absolutely hench. He's like... that sort of crazy stupid love abs level golfing, but he's beefy. He's beefy in this. There's kind of a tease at the beginning of the trailer, like, and it's very prominent, like he zips up his little jumpsuit. I think they really emphasise the zip up because it's like at the beginning of the trailer, it's like, uh, this is all you get to see for now. Yeah. And then sure enough, later on the trailer, you're like, Oh wow, he's huge. He's huge in this. There he is. But he's doing that persona, which as you say, I'm a huge fan of. The sort of, I would call it, the nice guys, gosling. Yeah, yeah, for sure. This is Drive but fun. Yeah. Like, it's what this, because in Drive he's a stuntman and it's so brooding and dark and it's a good movie in some regards, but on this one he's just like, he's charming as hell. I don't think anyone's getting their skull stamped in. in the Fall Guy. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally stopped somebody's head and then he's like charming, gosling, like, oh my God, what did I do? You know? Right. Yeah. So this is directed by David Leitch, who has, he's, well, he co-directed John Wick, so he gets a lifetime pass for that. Atomic Blonde. Yeah, Atomic Blonde, which I like. And then some... Did the Deadpool's some of some Deadpool's too? I think Deadpool 2 always that was Tim Yeah, he did Deadpool 2 which is the one I haven't seen Yeah, I haven't seen that either and then also bullet train recently, which I thought was fine I didn't see it Unfortunately, it's just one of those movies that like it was advertised a lot and I think I was just like I, okay. Yeah. They're on a trade, I guess. But I, uh, it's one of those movies that maybe I'll watch on Netflix or if I get it, like it'd be like, I need something to watch. I'll just watch this Brad Pitt action movie. But yeah. Yeah. And it did have some good bits and it did, you know, he's connected to 87 1187 North, the sort of a stunt team that did John Wick and the atomic blonde and the the action in bullet train and it looks like there's going to be a little bit of that in this. It's tough to sort of from the trailer know where, how much is leaning in the action direction, how much is leaning in the sort of comedy department, fun romcom, you know, Gosling, Emily Blunt direction. So I think there is the potential for this to be very fun with gauze on top comedy Gosling form and some solid action. I'm ready. He got kick ass in there too. He's a pretty good comedic actor. That's true. Yes. Ted, Taylor Johnson, right? Yeah. Aaron Taylor Johnson. Also Hannah Waddingham from, um, from Ted Lasso popping up. Right. Lovely to see that. She's in everything. Well, I imagine sort of henceforth that they all will be, right? I think in the, in the UK right now, there was a lot of hubbub on Twitter slash X that I think they like two major UK corporations released their Christmas commercial. this week and she's in two of them. Oh wow. Two for two. Yeah. Fair play. That's how you know your star is burning bright when you start cropping up in those, you're those like buy me a new house, little two days work sort of vibes. You're like, yes, I've been working very hard for my entire career. Thank you. I will. This is my pension. Thank you. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Fair play. So yeah, Fall Guy. I'm, I'm hopeful for, I'm hopeful for. Let's swing the pendulum right to the other side then, to Topac. Triggered. Yes, thank you. AKA Triggered. Which, I've had this trailer on a list for a while, and then last week was the Mumbai International Film Festival. And you know me, huge fan of movies. Did I see any of them? I didn't. I did not see any of them. It's very tough. But this was one of the movies that was showing, albeit at a quite late night screening, quite a long way away from where I live. So anyway, I'm making a lot of excuses. It's from the Philippines and it looks bloody violent. Yeah, I mean, it's weird to see a person be half decapitated in a trailer. I'll just say that much. It's not even like the quote unquote red band trailer. It's just like... You guys, this is the trailer. This is what you're in for. What the hell's going on in the Philippines? This is, I mean, it's intense. There are like numerous bludgeoning, stabbing, a bone coming out of a hand. It's insane. There's a bone coming out of a hand in the trailer! They really set out the stall, I think, for what the movie is though, in this trailer. lot of blood, lot of brutality. The title is just like, you triggered? Right. Triggered by violence? Skip this one. No snowflakes allowed! Yeah. It looks like it could be a sort of breakout movie for the Philippines. I'm trying to think and I don't know if I've seen any movies from the Philippines, but I feel like every few years there's a breakout from one of the sort of East Asian... countries in the action genre that sort of floats them up into everybody's periphery. You know, the rate being the obvious one that kind of put Indonesia on everyone's map. But this feels like maybe, maybe this could be the one for the Philippines where we all go, oh, okay. Oh, you guys are not fucking around. Oh, well, I might see it if, you know, on an empty stomach, you know, really prepping myself. Yeah. I hope we get to see it on a big screen somewhere, but otherwise I'm sure this will be snapped up by a digital distributor because there's obviously an audience for this kind of thing. Also, I wrote this down because at some point during the trailer, somebody says, we're not dealing with some ordinary guy or something along those lines. I'm on board with almost every movie where that is the premise. I mean, I can't remember the last time I watched a movie about just an ordinary guy. Right? Everything with Tom Hanks? I don't know. I don't think in a Tom Hanks movie anyone's ever gone, we're not dealing with an ordinary guy. And then Tom Hanks just snaps someone's arm. Although, you'd love to see it. He needs to pay his pension too, you know? So we might see the dark side of Hanks. The breakout role, the breakout action role we've all been waiting for. All right, one more trailer. Holy smokes. We've been going too long already. This one is about to drop, I think, this weekend, which is Diwali, a big Indian festival. So a big movie is accompanying it. It is Tiger III, the sequel to Tiger II and Tiger, actually, Tiger II, I think has a Hindi name. I don't know. It's a big one. Have you seen, A, any of the Tiger movies? B, any of the movies in the YGF cinematic universe war, Pathan, or the other tigers? You gotta say no. You gotta say it. I gotta say, but this one, you know, it did, it is appealing. I need to figure out what Tiger's been up to, because the reveal of the baddie in this trailer is like, oh, this baddie is, you know, he's resurfacing. Yes. In shadows up until the end. I haven't seen Tiger II, but I did recently watch the first Tiger movie. And I was, I don't want to say pleasantly surprised, but it was not, um, quite what I thought it was going in. It's quite a fun and quite, I would say international leaning action movie. That is to say it's. It sort of has a very bombed vibe. It's shot in lots of beautiful locations. There's some really big stunty set pieces. There's not too much crazy OTT Bollywood style action. It was made in whatever year that parkour was really, really taking off. There's a big parkour sequence at the beginning. So I'm going to watch the middle one before I see this. And also War, highly recommended, Patan, also a lot of fun. Yeah, I mean, I guess I feel guilty being in the RRR. You should. Because you see, everybody saw RRR and was like, that was so much fun. And then, you know, we haven't, I haven't dove into what else might this cinematic world have to offer. Um, but that's just because like RRR was easily accessible. I'll probably seek this out. I went the other way and moved to Mumbai. So, okay. I'll, I'll look into flights. My, uh, my Netflix and Amazon prime is slightly more stacked in favor of catching up with a lot of, uh, Indian classics. Um, and you know, culturally it's quite nice to just sort of get it a bit more, isn't it? But you know, equally RRR was an incredible launch pad for my sort of enthusiasm for exploring this enormous universe of movies. Oh, it's incredible. And if for any reason I need to watch Tiger III, it is the end shot of the trailer. He's jumping from above onto a helicopter, which I don't know how that's going to go for him, but you know, cause there's, he's rotating blades and whatnot. So need to figure out. Tiger IV is not promised. That's all I know. Tiger IV could be a prequel. We don't know how this one. This one bands out. But yeah, it looks, it just looks bigger, bigger and better, more of the same. I'm excited to see this. I hope I can see it in the cinema. Anyway, Tiger 3, they literally say this time it's personal, with no hint of irony in the trailer. I love it. It's just, I mean, I mean, it's a slogan that I remember from my childhood. I'm 40. I'm, you know, yeah, it's new. It's new to you if you haven't seen it. Hey, some people don't remember the Fall Guy. So you know what? There's a first time for everything. For sure. Ian. Yeah? Can you carve out a solid three hours in your schedule for me to accompany me into my home cinema slash lounge and watch one of the highest grossing Chinese movies of all time? I'll, you know, I'll clear some things off my schedule and I'll see what I can do. Let's head into the feature presentation! And now, our feature presentation. Dodge this. Yes, we are talking about the Chinese mega smash hit blockbuster. Oh, probably. You know how strict and anal and annoying I am about this. It's it's arguably not an action film. I didn't know that going in. It's action adjacent. It's got some very big things exploding and quite a lot of peril in it. But I would say it's more of a sort of sci-fi drama thriller, CGI spectacular blockbuster. Is that too many words to describe it? No, it's all of those things. It's all of those things. It is three hours long. So there is enough time for it to be all of those things. Yeah. There are action set pieces. So I think it does fit in with the genre. I think if you were like reading the listings for something and it had the title of the movie, say you're on a plane and it had underneath it, like the genres of the movie, it definitely wouldn't say comedy. It wouldn't probably wouldn't say romance, but it could say action slash sci-fi slash drama. I don't know. There's action in. But the action was quite near the beginning and I was like, okay, all right, here we go. And then there was quite a lot after the action that wasn't as much drones and exploding and woojing kicking people. But we'll get to that. And I can argue that beginning scene, it might be unnecessary. We'll get it to it. All right. Before we do, Ian. I know you've listened to every single episode of the podcast prior to this one, so you'll know this very well. Just finished. Right before we started recording, I just finished the entire library. Thank you for that. Then you'll know that I like to shirk the responsibility of summing up the plot to whoever is the get. I mean, historically, Matthew is very good at this, but latterly, I've been foisting it upon our guests, often without priming them for this. This one especially, I think, is quite a headful, if you will. So are you up for the challenge? I'll do my best. Okay, so we are a prequel to a movie called The Wandering Earth. Good start. I've not seen The Wandering Earth, so I'm assuming the Earth is wandering around. So in this movie, we figure out how did it get there. So we have... two schools of thought of what to do while the earth is in peril, the digital life movement and the moving mountains project. I think at the beginning of the movie, we introduced that sort of conflict. But then we follow our main character Liu. He's like this hotshot pilot. We see him in the ruins of Libreville in Gabon. And then we flash back, I guess, to where the space elevator is and he's training and he meets the love of his life and there's a cute little montage of him falling in love with her in his mind. And then they go on training and the digital life movement comes and just Fs up their S. You know, they ruin everything. Keep it PG. This is all to introduce a cool computer. The cool... What was the computer's name? The something 500 C? 500 C-C. Two or five? Five? It was C. It was C. And so there is an A version. So once all that's introduced, we go to the moon, where we introduce the other thread of character. Zao Ma is the older scientist, and then Hang Yu too. Yes, played by Andy Lau. Right. And this is the guy from Infernal Affairs. Correct. Hong Kong legend. He is on the moon. They're testing out this engine and the computer is integral to this whole thing. And he's programmed his daughter into the computer because there's a large backstory of his daughter dying in a car crash and he has two minutes of her digitally. Okay. We are 20 minutes into the film. No, you're doing great. This is great so far. There's the thread of like is. Is a false reality even worth living? Cause they could, I don't know, there's just kind of a plot hole in the digital life movement that if the, because their philosophy is that you could just upload your brain to the computer and then you can just live in a computer. I think so, yeah. But then if the earth is destroyed, what happens to the computer? Oh shit. Yeah, so that's just what I thought. So tangent. Okay. It's pure plot, Ian! No opinions! So we're on the moon, and then they need to fire up the test engine on the moon to see if we can make the moon move, and then so they use the new computer. Have we even said why, what's happening to the Earth, and what they're trying to do with it? Oh, the Earth is, the sun is exploding. Or something. The sun is expanding and it's like in a hundred years, Earth's kaput. I'm sorry, I thought that was evident. So they've decided to attach engines to the planet Earth. The plan of the moving mountains is to put so many big giant engines, like engines, like around the equator, just all dotted all over the planet to move the Earth, which is a cool sort of anime sci-fi concept. I like that. Like, it's just so big that I think it's a bit, it's a lot to take in. Yeah, you have to sort of swallow it. It's a great sci-fi concept. Yeah. And so like, they're on the moon. The moon test works. And so they're like, rah rah, everything's cool. And then... And they get building engines all over the place. There's so many engines. And then, okay, so... So they've got to build engines on the Moon, because the Earth has to be moved out of the Moon's gravitational pull, right? So that it has any chance of making it far enough away from the Sun. Away from the solar system. Yeah. Right. And I mean, completely forgetting that the Moon is integral to life on Earth. But, that's fine. Yeah, again, you have to sort of swallow some things, right? Yeah, I'm willing to take that in. And then it's just sort of, I don't know, what happens then? There's a lot of countdowns and then some shit goes down on the moon, right? Then they have to reconnect the internet, because for some reason there's no internet. Peter Guy uploads his daughter to the good new W computer. After they moved the moon, they realized, okay, we've got to do a move in the mountains. Then we have a big montage and all the engines are built and we're all good and the computers get integrally better and then we're at the W series. Then our pilot guy... We have to say the word AI, I think. Oh yeah, for sure. It's all AI. It's self-improving. The AI is like building shit on the moon without us having to help. It's like exponential growth, yadda yadda. All the drones are controlled autonomously. So like people are building the engines, like drones are doing everything. And then we see the pilot having an interview to go to the space station, the ISS, and he fails his interview with the good computer. And so our guy with the daughter, he uploads his daughter to the good computer and that sort of causes the moon engine to explode. And then they all start failing, and they all blow up, and then the moon's orbit starts to reach the Roche limit. Ooh. Whatever that is, Wikipedia's bad. It's bad. So it's basically the moon is crashing down onto Earth. And the solution is, let's gather the nuclear stockpile of every nation on earth, put them all on the crater on the moon and implode the moon. And then we'll be free of it forever. And we can wander off into the solar system. That pretty much sums it up. Meanwhile, the pilot has a wife. That's the thing. The woman he meets at the beginning has a big romance for. She immediately starts dying. And so she's dying and he has a son and I think the son is a very important part of the first movie. Which I have to admit, I also have not seen. Apologies. I have not. Yeah, I haven't either. But I did watch that 10 minute sort of recap about telling stories from a Chinese perspective and it helped me sort of piece this movie together. Yes. Though it is a lot. I'll link that below. That's a very interesting YouTube video from a channel I really enjoy called Accented Cinema, which is a Chinese guy who lives in North America who makes movie commentary, you know, what do you call them? Video essays. Yes. And this happened to be one about how the wandering earth taps into sort of Chinese us coming to it from a Western perspective wouldn't be obvious on the surface level. Yeah, what I liked was the home and family being a sim concept in China so that the land that you live on is just as revered as your ancestors. So the whole concept of the thing of we're not going to abandon Earth, we're not going to go on a spaceship and go away from it because it is as important as a family member, so you take it with you. I don't like that. That's all the time we have for the podcast. I think you've done a great job there, I will say that, A, but what you have highlighted is I think that there's a lot going on in this movie. So much going on. And it is unapologetically three hours long. And I had to approach it in chunks. I tried, I thought I would do it in two halves, but that... That was nuts to me. So I did this in a solid three act structure. I did it. I did it in three pieces. And yeah, I, there's just so, so much going on. It is, yeah, I suppose it's sort of like, like all good sci-fi deals with some quite weighty issues, but it also deals with them in a... We have got a lot of money and we have got a lot of CGI to demonstrate all of these ideas kind of way. It's all there. The movie looks like a million dollars. I'll say, the CG is so good. Once you've been to a dozen Marvel movies in a row and they just get progressively worse at CG. I don't know if you saw Fast 10, you probably did. Do you know, you would think, but I haven't got to it yet because Fast 9 disappointed me so much. I mean, yeah, Fast 10 won't do you any better. There are scenes in that movie that are just two people, like, they're just on a green screen with nothing. And so when you see something like this, the CG is phenomenal. But I'll say, like, and maybe it's a cultural thing, it's presented in a way that makes it seem like a corporate video. Yeah, it's very, very clean, isn't it? When they're transversing up the arc, it's very much, or it's like anime. It's like showing you like this cool thing, but not from the character's perspective. Like it's from a god's eye wandering around it. And it's freaking cool when the space elevator like starts shooting up with rockets and then you see all of them like with drones flying around. It's cool, but it's just basically like. take a look at this cool thing. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, it's really good, really solid CG throughout, I would say. I'm sure your mileage may vary. There might be a couple of little janky bits here and there, but by and large, it looks stunning. It's got Yeah, I mean, I don't know, what was the budget on this movie? The first one was 50 million US, apparently. Five zero? Yeah. That's, that's incredible. Cause just from that video essay, just seeing some of the CG in that, it's incredible, like, seems like they're getting more for their money than an American blockbuster, like, like the latest Marvel movies that are 200, 250. Um, on IMDB, it says the estimated budget was$162 million. That's pretty good. That's a, that's a pretty big jump. That's a pretty big jump from 50. Huge jump. For the first one. It, it seemed like they had a hit with the first one. I think I do need to see the first one now because this screams to me like original series to prequel Star Wars sort of. Like, we're going to put all the ideas in the prequels to make this world set up where it's like, we didn't need to set up everything. The first one, if somebody casually mentioned the moon crisis, we don't need to see an hour of the moon crisis. You know what I mean? It's what's so interesting about this, and they really lean into it, is this sort of on-screen titles of which there are probably 20 plus in the movie. like there's a countdown to every major incident in the movie, which I guess is, well, it's sort of by design that you're like, oh, I wonder if the internet is going to explode and then on screen it'll be like 14 hours until the internet explodes or three days until the Jupiter crisis. I did write that down in my notes of just like how frequent it was like internet recovery in four hours. at nuclear explosion in three hours. And it was like, for me, it's like, cool. Then I won't worry. Like I, it really, I get that it's a prequel and they're, they're basically like, we, we know that this all turns out great, but I think you need to make your movie and the guys that like, if you write this is going to be recovered, that I'm not worried about this guy drowning at the end of the movie. That's true. Yeah. I did feel that when, when it's sort of, it's like, yeah. Couple hours, couple hours, we'll be back on track. So just enjoy this bit of people being in peril or trapped under water. Some people might die, don't worry about that. But by the end, we will work it all out. And it seemed like there was, especially with the nuclear bomb plan at the end, they're putting all the nukes on the moon. There was like a, there's a way to cut out a half hour of the movie when... They put all the nukes on the moon and then like, we can't find, we can't get the codes for them. I guess they're all encrypted or something. I think the watching audiences is going to be like, well, they can't just use all the nukes. They're all like coded to every country. And that they had to break the code for all the nukes at once. And so they're like, oh, we have to sacrifice 500 old people. But that's a way to get them into the theme of this movie. of that the older generation must sacrifice to preserve the future generations. Yes, that is sort of one of the things, isn't it? And that was also mentioned in that video essay about how we might not do it, but our kids might, or our kids' kids will do it, and eventually it'll be done. We'll win, we'll be successful, we'll live. Somebody will live happily ever after, even if it isn't for several generations. Yeah, it's very much a, you know, the human history story that, you know, despite the hardships of the past, here we are. Um, but it, I feel like if they really leaned into that storyline, that it wouldn't have just been tacked on at the end. It does. That did really just feel like, cause his relationship with the older pilot guy was the one that they were using to sell that. Like the guy that taps him on the forehead. Yes. No, the older Chinese guy. Yeah, who after the huge tragedy of the space elevator collapsing and our main character, Liu surviving despite astronomical hardship, fighting off three terrorists and meeting the love of his life while she punches out some guy with an astronaut or a spacesuit punching glove. Oh, yes. Which is cool. But he's in the hospital, sort of dejected, and his good old friend comes up and just taps him on the forehead really aggressively. Instead of maybe hugging him. Yeah. It feels like the filmmakers were like, we need a thing so that they can do it later in the movie. And it's kind of, you know, you know it's them from a long time that's passed. But yeah, you're right. It was a bit aggressive. But Simon, what did you think of this movie? Ooh, where to start? I think, and I'm sure I've said this before, but a great way of illustrating your journey through this movie is the old classic total film predicted interest curve. Are you familiar with the magazine Total Film? No, please do enlighten me. Well, it was a movie magazine that kicked off in the sort of, must've been the 90s. I was a subscriber to Empire magazine in my teens. Are you familiar with Empire magazine? Are you familiar with magazines as a concept? These are books, but more floopy. Yes. Yeah, that's sort of a face like a flatter book, I suppose. Someone's long out. Yeah. Watch watch advertisements in it. Yes. Well, if Empire magazine was the sort of watch advertisements of movie magazines. Then Total Film was the cool stuff for young, cool people. Lynx, Africa deodorant. Yeah. It was just sort of the plucky young upstart movie magazine. It was a little bit more, you know, like a little bit more edgy, you know, a bit cooler. I think they've probably both, both of them have kind of met in the middle, you know, 20 years later. Anyway. They used to have alongside each review, a little graph that plotted on the X axis, the duration of the movie and the Y axis, your interest. You would just draw this up and down curve and the points and the troughs would be labeled with fun ways of describing things that happened in the movie. I think for me with this, it started fairly high. I'm a big fan of... I like big budget. Big idea, blockbuster sci-fi, so I went in excited. They're not fucking around, they've got money, the CG looks great, love Andy Lau, I love Wu Jing. I mainly love him when he's kicking people in the face, which sadly doesn't do so much in this movie. But the big action scene that happens, probably, I want to say maybe 30 minutes in, so much stuff going on in that. There's drones on Earth. Spider pilots. But yeah, there's fire pilots fighting off the drones. Meanwhile, in space, there's terrorists. That I wasn't expecting from this. I thought it was probably just going to be people being in peril. And oh my god, we've only got a certain amount of time to do the thing before everything implodes. But there are actual baddies for one scene at least. There were baddies. So there was people for Woojing to kick a couple of them. That was pretty good. whole sequence, you know, huge, just a huge scale, big blockbuster action sequence. I think, I feel like I've said the word blockbuster too many times, but there's, it just feels like the perfect way to describe so much about this movie, you know. And then, I don't know, maybe it kind of dropped down from there, from how much I enjoyed it, like a little bit, sort of then kind of plateaued out and then just kind of trucked along. in the middle, then kind of popping up occasionally when there was some kind of fun, exciting stuff or some interesting bits. So like when the AI was kind of coming into it a bit, you're like, Ooh, and Andy Lau with his computer chip daughter, you know, you're sort of like, okay, well, at some point he's going to do, he's going to probably have to make a decision or at some point there's going to be some... of binary nightmare that can only be solved by a seven-year-old girl trapped in a machine. And so yeah, and then I think it just kind of occupied that space for the rest of the movie, really, where it went on inarguably too long. I think most people could probably agree this movie could have half an hour shaved off it. So I did. My interest waned the longer it went. I could easily cut an hour out of this. And there's things like, you were talking about the daughter and the computer quite a bit, and I thought, oh, this is so important to the Wandering Earth one. She's like a character. She makes up the computer that is part of the whole Earth. the computer's talking to our main guy, Liu, and the computer's like, call me Moss. M-O-S-S. And I was like, why didn't they just call it Yaya? And then the computer and this dead child has a symbiotic relationship, you know what I mean? I felt like there were a few bits towards the end that were very much directed at people who'd watched the first one and needed the kind of, and that's how the AI came to be a bit of a pickle, if you remember. Whereas in this one, I suppose, yeah, I feel slightly guilty having not seen the first one because then I guess maybe you're going into this one knowing that the AI is a bit naughty at times, perhaps. the first movie which happens after this. Whereas in this one, there's basically like a post-credits sequence that just sort of like rug pulls a whole bunch of stuff from the movie in a kind of like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Just in case you're, I don't think it's going to affect your enjoyment of the movie, but nice to flag it. It sort of says, oh, it turns out, but the AI was responsible for some of the disaster style stuff that happened earlier in the movie. The crisis is. Yeah. That was attributed to maybe terrorists or other people, but it was actually the pesky AI was like, I need to eradicate some people to save the earth or whatever. I don't think I watched the post credit sequence. the scene now that you mentioned it. It was quite far into the credits and I was like, should I text Ian and say, make sure you, make sure you stick around. Gonna have to watch that when we jump off and see if it clears anything up. Yeah, I don't know if it does, yeah. If you have a three and a half hour movie, do not expect me to stick around for a month's I am running to the bathroom like my life depends on it. Even though I've watched it at home and I could have paused it at any time. It's a personal challenge to me. Yeah, so that was interesting. That felt to me like, oh, if I'd seen The Wandering Earth, maybe I would have had more of a kind of revelatory or just more of a response to it. Whereas I was kind of like, what? Hang on a minute. So that was... Okay, that's a lot of information. Whereas if you know the AI is pesky, then it doesn't come as a surprise, I suppose. And you're like, well, I thought the AI was pesky. Oh, wait a minute. I feel like the tone of a lot of things that were happening in the movie were like, oh, you remember this guy? Or do you remember this thing? As a like paying service to the original. in a way that it's sort of like a language that it's picked up from Marvel, you know, the cinematic universe of, cause Marvel is ripe with that sort of thing. So it's just become ingrained and because those movies did so well in China, that maybe it's filtered its way into this. They're trying to make a wandering earth cinematic universe. Yeah, I think there's definitely a few sort of storytelling tropes that it's... that can be cribbed from those Hollywood blockbusters for sure. I think there's even, this is something I read and again, having not seen the first one, I can't keep repeating how I haven't seen the first one. Apologies. There is one of the actors from the first movie died and then he appears briefly in this movie in a kind of deep faked scene. Do you know which one? No. He plays like somebody's dad. He's an old man. Thankfully. Yeah, I don't remember thinking at any point in the movie, that guy's face looks slightly unrealistic. So again, kudos to the CG artists. It's like, yeah, it's somebody's dad, presumably. So much guesswork. Should have just watched it. I should have just watched it. I feel like such an asshole. We haven't even touched on the special relationship that China and Russia shares in this movie. Gosh, there is a... yeah. I mean, on the one hand, it's a nice parable about the world coming together to solve a planetary crisis, right? Yeah. It's like... It's a lot of flags. You know, if we all just put our differences aside, we could stop oil. Global warming. There is that sort of thing. But because this is a Chinese movie, it's Russia who plays quite a big role in being friends with them. And that is quite interesting to sort of deal with that currently, isn't it? In the current state of the world where Russia are very much the baddies to our eyes. It's interesting to see them playing such a large part. It's like, our perspective is like, oh, that's a weird relationship, but it's like, no, that's most of the people on the planet. I, you know, it's like, we are like less than like, there's way more people in China than there are in the West. So it's like, it's interesting to see things from that perspective and they had like flags represented from Brazil and France and. at a lot of different places, but there never do you see the Stars and Stripes in this movie. I think it's deliberate. I was like, not a lot of British people, not a lot of American people. There's a Canada features, briefly. Ryan Gosling pops up there for a second with his shirt off. I note that it does very well to have so many nations represented, but it does a thing that in Indian cinema where you're in India and you want someone to play a British person or an American person and there's just not really enough good British or American actors. So you just sort of get someone white and go, can you do an accent that's sort of passable? And in this movie, I feel like China perhaps has the same problem. Squid Game. Yes. Oh my God. Yes, the guy's watching Squid Game! Yeah, the level of acting by the American or British people in this movie is just... It's really, really hard to digest. And it's so over the top. It's tough. When the American guy's like, the countdown is coming! We need to think of another option! And it's like, is this an anime character? It's crazy. It is a lot, isn't it? And oddly, I just noticed the one British voice that you could sort of hear was just, it was just like some random bloke from Sheffield or something. I don't know why. I feel like movies like this always have, I am a British person and I'm wearing my bowler hats and blah, blah. But it was quite, it's all quite refreshing just to hear a bloke be like, right, they're up in the Rockets. We've got a problem on Moon. Just, it was so random. But also, I'm sure that was the same for the French accents and the sort of Brazilian. But they did a very good job at cutting to random cities around the world at different times and sort of illustrating the global nature of the problem, or the impending doom. I'll tell you, I would have liked this cinematic universe and sort of this climate change allegory a little bit more if the peril was maybe man-made. rather than just, oh, the sun's decided to die. If it was everybody sort of banding together because we really screwed up over here, guys, that might have sold it a little bit for me. Possibly two on the nose for modern storytelling. Yeah. What would you give it out of five stars? Well, my first question to you is, Ian, are you on Letterboxd? Yes, I am. But I don't use it as often as I should. Yeah. Okay. That'll, that'll chestnut. Um, out of five, this is it. I think occasionally it's a four and occasionally it's a three. So I think I probably, I would probably land on three and a half. And I actually don't think I've rated this on letterbox yet. So that's a hot scoop for the listeners that, uh, it's probably a three and a half, but maybe I'm even. If I, if I. Yeah, I mean, I was never not entertained. So three feels maybe not enough given how expansive it is, how, you know, I like Andy Lau, I sort of do prefer it when Woojin kicks people in the face. I think I've said that several times already. So, okay. That's where I'm coming down. I'm coming down on 3.5, which, which means I ask you the same question. Um, I'm a three. If I saw the first one, it might be pushed up a bit, so maybe that's unfair. But like my watching of it was definitely like, this is long. And you know, I think the last three and a half hour movie I watched was Killers of the Flower Moon. And that was too long, but it was still compelling right up until the end. I think this, like we introduced two characters. And they never really have moments together. Like they're not talking to each other. They're just going through the same things together. And then we leave them and then we introduce two more characters with, that we have to get into a lot of backstory about the guy's car crash. And so it's like there, there is a, in the end of the day, like you need compelling characters to propel you to the end of a movie. And I think this movie is stuff happening to characters. rather than characters living through stuff. Fair, yes. There is a lot of propulsion, I will say that. So much. A lot of things are being propelled. I think, and this, I think a lot of people will approach this having not seen the first one. So I think while I feel guilty as a movie fan for not having seen the first one, I think judging it as a standalone movie is sort of fair. Also worth noting that this movie is China's... submission to the Oscars next year for best international feature. So it sort of will, I guess, well, it'll drop in everyone's streaming app who has access to the Oscars voting system, for one. They might not all have seen the first one. And also it's just out on streaming in the UK as of the end of the month. And I think there is also just to... just to read the press release, there is a limited edition 4k Ultra HD Steelbook from the 11th of December. So that's just in time for the old Santa's stocking, isn't it? Boom. Now, before you go, we have only, I feel like we haven't really talked too much about the action because that is really only one big action sequence. And maybe, maybe I'm doing it a disservice because there's that whole sort of reattaching the internet. And there's flooding and they're quite far underwater. That's quite a good sequence as well. There's a robot dog. I cannot believe we are almost at the end of the podcast and we're only just mentioning the robot dog. That would sell so many people on the movie. We should have mentioned it up top. Underused, I would say, the robot dog. Yeah, give me a whole movie of the robot dog. It had emotion. I was worried that the robot dog was not going to make it. And I don't know if I can remember if you did or not. There's also those sort of robots that are just a pair of legs. They're sort of very versatile. They do all kinds of stuff. Customs checkpoint gates, which are very versatile robots. They can do so much. All right. Let's before this podcast is as long as this movie in real time, let's do an action replay moment. Ian. Yeah. I've served you a bit of a tricky one here, because I would say this is probably the least action-packed movie so far, maybe ever on the podcast, but certainly this season. So there's slim pickings on the action replay moments, but I noticed that you have written down actual notes on a piece of paper, which inspires me with confidence that you're going to come up with a doozy here. Well, the opening space elevator scene is great. For an action set piece. I am a huge sci-fi nerd. So the, just the image of the big space elevator and, and you're like, this thing's coming down because we had a previous, the scene previous is our characters at the same place, desolate wasteland. So you're like, I'm excited to see this crash to the earth. So that, that was a. I really like that. And just like the cliched, like the Russian guy flying the plane and he comes, and I think when he enters the fray, he's like, daddy's back! You know. Great line. It's like an Arnie line. From nowhere. Yeah. So, like, so you have, you have the internal pod. our leads. You have a space elevator falling to earth and you have fighter pilots fighting drones. So it's like a real return of the Jedi sort of big action set piece. Jason Vale Yeah, there's a lot going on in you got to, wherever it is, I think you're plucking it from that, right? I mean, I would have loved if you'd come with a wild card of robot dog swims underwater. In terms of it being an action replay moment, I'm not sure that technically counts. I would obviously have something from that big set piece. And while Wujing does sort of duff up a couple of people, they don't really lean into the this is a martial arts fight in this. It's more a general audience's Marvel style, if you will, action scene. Yeah, it's in zero grav. Yes, but there is a couple of bits where the gravity goes funky. Which I can't... remember the exact bit and I wish I'd written it down, but I do recall having a moment of like, oh yes, very nice, very nice. And I think that's the worst description of an action replay moment I've ever done on the podcast. Absolutely the vaguest bullet points. When she smashes through the unbreakable glass with the fire extinguisher, I think she's She smashes through and then she has the big, like, power glove. Power glove punch was satisfying. The Nintendo power glove. That is definitely an action replay moment. Alright, that's pretty solid, I would say. I think this, I would, to sum up, an enjoyable watch. But there's every chance you're going to find it drags. I think if you like these sort of enormous scope sci-fi movies, there's a lot to enjoy in this one. BOWEN Sci-fi is hard to find these days, I think. True, pure, this is a sci-fi film. If it's not couched in a Marvel Cinematic Universe, you're not going to find it. Christopher Nolan might make another one, but it's tough to find. So, this is... high concept, like big, big CG that got cool spaceships. I mean, the pods that are flying down to the moon, the moon base itself, it's cool. So I just like, I'm going through and rewatching like the original Star Trek right now, kind of slowly. But I just, I do like to see people making big epic sci-fi. So if you like that sort of thing and you watch Star Trek, You know, this is, this is going to tick some of those boxes. Yeah, yeah. And just to qualify that statement, because I think if you say, if you like Star Trek, a lot of people will immediately be like, well, this isn't for me. But I am not. I wouldn't say I'm a fan of Star Trek, but I do like, much like yourself, high concept, big budget sci-fi. Let me send you three or four episodes that will completely change your mind, man. Do you know about the tribbles? Simon, have you seen Picard at his best? I just need you to start with the original series. I'll send you seven to 26 episodes of that, then we'll do a few TNGs and that's going to give you the sort of grounding you need to approach Picard. Which really, Season 3 is next level. Honestly, I won't hear a word against it. So yeah, you've heard this all before. Actually, Matthew is a big fan, so if people want to roast me for being cliched in my view of Star Trek, that is absolutely fine. I haven't watched it for a very long time. But you know, I grew up with TNG like the most... The Inner Light. All you need, all anybody needs to watch of TNG is The Inner Light. That's the greatest episode of Star Trek that exists. And that's all I'll say. Okay. Well, on that note, Ian. People cannot find you on Letterboxd because you have a secret private OnlyFans profile evidently? I do have a Letterboxd. Let me just, I don't use it often enough, so let me just check. Let me look up my name on there. It's always, I feel like that is always the vote of confidence when people have to look up their username on any platform and then it's like, oh God, I'm not even logged in. I don't know the password. Forget it. Forget about it. How can we find you on there? E&T day, all one word. Mostly I'll be just commenting on former guests, Chris Gow's reviews and criticizing him. Perfect. And if people want to see you live in the flesh, they can come and see you and Chris at the Free Association in London doing bloody great improv a lot. Yeah. We're doing shows all the time, starting in February, every third Thursday, we're going to be doing our St. Doctors Hospital improv show. You can find me on Twitter. Uh, Chet underscore friendly. Don't ask why that's my name on Twitter. It's just something that. Existed for almost 20 years now. Um, and it follows me around to this day. We all had to pick a username and we didn't know how big Twitter was going to be. It was good. It's so important to your identity. And now you're just chat friendly for life or until Twitter crumbles. Fingers crossed. Can we find you on threads? That's I'm on threads. Also, Chet Friendly. Yep. Love to see it. In Thomas Day, it rolls off the tongue. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for giving up so much of your precious time to watch The Wandering Earth 2 for us. Listener, if you want to find myself, Simon Fielder, on the internet, I am at just, I'm at just everywhere. It's too much. I'm still on Twitter. I'm on threads. Not as much. I'm on Instagram. I'm Simon Fielder everywhere. I'm SimonFielder.com, the website. It's got links to all that stuff. If you want to follow the show on Twitter, it's dodge this pod. That's quite fun. If you want to get really nerdy on the action stuff, love some suggestions. Always. If you love the podcast so much that you would like to be a part of it financially, you can click a little button down the bottom and donate real earth cash to the cause. Otherwise. We'll see you in a couple of weeks time for more action movies unleashed. Thanks once again to Ian Thomas Day. I've been Simon Fielder. Good. Bye. Like a sort of AI robot. Start the engines.