The Final Countdown

[00:00:04] Welcome to Movie Oubliette, the film review podcast for movies that most people have mercifully forgotten. I'm Dan. And I'm Conrad. And in each episode, we drag a forsaken film out of the Oubliette. Discuss it and judge it to decide whether it should be set free. Or whether it should be thrown back and consigned to oblivion forever.

[00:00:37] Movie Oubliette Because war movies are much better with time travel. Hello, Conrad. Of course.

[00:01:07] Hello, Dan. How are you doing? Good, good. So, The Shark? Was it broken? Was it fixed? Yeah. So, I just went to see the stage play The Shark is Broken today. Ah. Which was a lot of fun. It's sort of like a Waiting for Godot style single scene. Three people on the stage. Okay. And it's set during the making of Jaws where the shark kept breaking. Oh.

[00:01:34] And it's Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss just talking and getting on each other's nerves and arguing. Yeah. And it's very, very, very funny. Right. Okay. Oh. That's fun. Yeah. And the three actors who play the three of them were really, really good. But one of them had a bit of a step up because Robert Shaw was played by his son, Ian Shaw. Oh, wow.

[00:02:02] So, not surprisingly, he can do a really good impression of his dad, especially when he's got the mutton chops on. Ah. Great, great, great. So, do you see The Shark? You only see it on the screen behind them. So, it's the stage, the set is like the orca and then they've got a big LED screen behind them for the sea and the sunset and they can do different scenes back there. It's very effective. Oh, cool.

[00:02:27] And yeah, you see a shark fin go across at one stage but then there's a bang and some smoke comes out and then it's broken. Oh. That's amazing. Oh, it sounds like a good time. Yeah, it's great fun. Highly recommended if you want to see it. And you've been catching up on horror. Yeah. Well, I thought I should probably watch The Substance. So, I did. Ah. What did you make of it?

[00:02:56] Um, I don't know. Like, I might be an outlier here but I feel like it's a bit overhyped. I don't know. Like, well, maybe I had such high expectations from everyone sort of praising it so much that I expected a little bit more. I thought they were going to explore the sort of, uh, the two bodies as one, uh, sort of idea a little bit more.

[00:03:22] But it just kind of descended into just gratuitous violence or like body horror gore. Which was also great to see. But, um, I don't know. Undecided. I'm still undecided. Okay. Yeah. I absolutely loved it. The thing that I love the most about it is the movie is pissed. I mean, it is really angry. The whole film is just seething with rage and I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:52] So, I think it probably needed the ridiculous and very funny. I mean, the screening I was in was just roaring with laughter. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think it needed the ridiculousness to sort of leaven the vicious satire. I mean, it's, it is vicious. Yeah. It's really, really angry. Yeah. Yeah. So, Conrad, uh, should we move on to the mailbag? One of our listeners has been saying. Well, we've had a few comments about Somewhere in Time. Ah, yes.

[00:04:21] Dustin Rathbone, a frequent writer, said, there was a point when I was little where I would jumble up somewhere in time with 1979's Time After Time. Oh, okay. I'd start watching the film at a point where Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour are walking in the park and I'd wonder if Jack the Ripper was going to make an appearance. Oh, okay. I may or may not have also wondered what happened to the I'm My Own Grandpa ending

[00:04:50] before remembering that that's a twist from Time Rider. Oh, right, right, right. Yes. I haven't seen Time After Time. That sounds interesting. Yeah, I've never seen this movie. It's got Malcolm McDowell in it as well. Yes, and Mary Steenburgen. Ah, right. Okay. And Jack the Ripper. And Jack the Ripper. That's a character. David Warner. Yeah. Wow.

[00:05:17] Yeah, it's the film that Nicholas Meyer did before Star Trek II, I think. Oh, okay. Right. Okay. Cool. Yeah, so Dustin was confusing all of these 80s time travel shenanigans. Yes. We also heard from Holly Gofrightly, who said, Thrilled you reviewed this film. My mother loves Summer and Time and became dear friends with Richard Matheson in the 80s.

[00:05:44] She now runs a large Facebook group dedicated to the movie. Wonderful people still appreciate it after all these years. Right. Yeah. Didn't you or Melinda mention that Facebook group? I think we were thinking of the, there's like the really big international fan club that meets at the hotel every year. I'm not sure if it's the same thing. Oh, okay. Right, right, right. Okay. Has a big following though in this movie. Huge following. I can understand why. Yeah.

[00:06:14] Touched a lot of people. And finally, we heard from Serge of Cold Crash Pictures. Hello, Serge. He says, If John Carter had been the biggest box office hit of all time, I'd say y'all were nuts. But since it's the biggest box office bomb of all time, I'd say y'all are nuts. Maybe half a billion dollars in combined production and marketing costs should have brought a better film, but it's not a bad film. Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:43] You can sort of appreciate the attempt more than the execution or the parts more than the whole. Right. I'm also a sucker for Mars movies. That should probably not go unstated. Oh, yeah. I'm intrigued by Mars movies. I don't think they're all very good, but I will, yeah, I will continue to pursue them to find good ones. And I feel like, I personally feel like John Carter's a pretty good one.

[00:07:12] Yeah, I mean, it was very mixed overall. I think the scales tipped in its favour. So I think that's as it should be, I suspect. Yeah. So, yeah, thanks for writing, everyone. Please keep doing it. We love reading things. Oh, yes. Yes, we do. Ah, all right, Conrad. Let's move on to the episode for today. What are we doing? Well, let me just hop on over to that oubliette and find out. What?

[00:07:41] Oh, I appear to be on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Oh, noity. It's really loud. Lots of planes. Yeah. I think I've found the film, though. Coming back. Well, what's happening here? Who are you people? Wow. Oh, that was strange. So what do you have, Conrad? Well, we have the result of a vote by our patrons. I gave them five aquatic-themed films.

[00:08:11] And the one that came out on top was the 1980 American science fiction war film, The Final Countdown. Oh. I know. You can't help but think that. You just see big hair as soon as you hear that phrase. You hear that synth riff and it's just like, yeah. The final count. Okay. So who's in this movie?

[00:08:39] So it stars none other than Kirk Douglas, fully clothed this time. Thank goodness. Martin Sheen, Catherine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O'Neill and Charles Durning. Ah, yes. And directed by? Directed by Don Taylor, based on a screenplay by David Ambrose, Jerry Davis, Thomas Hunter and Peter Powell. Oh, okay.

[00:09:07] So what happens in the final countdown? It's inevitable, isn't it, really? Well, after departing Pearl Harbour for routine manoeuvres, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz encounters a James Bond title scene and is catapulted back in time to the 6th of December 1941, the eve of the Japanese attack on their home port.

[00:09:37] While the dutiful captain Yelland, visiting systems analyst Lasky and convenient World War II buff Commander Owens grapple with the conundrum of whether to intervene or not, Japanese fighters strafe an American yacht. The Nimitz crew come to the rescue of Senator Chapman, his beautiful assistant Laurel and her dog Charlie. Oh.

[00:10:05] Now the crew has to decide what to do with its confused guests, including a surviving Japanese fighter pilot who keeps eyeing up people's guns as the final countdown counts down. Yes. Will they maroon the guests on a random island? Will they change the course of history? Will the freak storm reappear and send them home before they have to make any decision at all? Ah. Find out after the break. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:10:49] And we're back to discuss the 1980 time-travelling war movie, The Final Countdown. Dan, had you seen this before? No, I had not seen this before, but I've known of it. I've known of the sort of premise of the movie, sending an aircraft carrier somewhere in time. I wasn't sure whether it was forward in time or back in time, so it was interesting. Yeah. Where they did send it back to Pearl Harbor. It's kind of one of those sort of what-if history scenarios.

[00:11:19] Well, science fiction history scenarios, I guess. Yeah. Where it's like, what if we sent the state-of-the-art military might of present-day America back to World War II? Yeah. What would happen? Kind of thing. It's interesting. It is interesting. How about you, Conrad? Had you seen this movie? I wasn't sure. And then I watched it and I got partway through it and thought, oh, I have seen this. Right.

[00:11:47] But I had completely forgotten it. Yes. And had no idea what happened. So I think I must have caught it on television as a kid. Ah, yes. But completely slipped my mind. It was just images from it sort of came back to me. I mean, I have to say right off the bat, there's a lot of footage of planes. Yes. Either taking off or landing or flying or helicopters.

[00:12:13] And a lot of footage of the aircraft carrier and its personnel and the crew. And there's not a huge amount of story. No. Or dialogue. No. So I can imagine just switching it on and just seeing planes and just, that's the movie. Yeah. I think that's fair. I think the New York Times, when it reviewed the film on its release, called the Nimitz

[00:12:41] the main character of the movie. Right. Yes. You do see it more than the actual actors. Yeah. It's pretty appalling. So they filmed on the Nimitz for two months. It was a film whose feasibility hung on whether the US Navy would participate or not, essentially. Right. And the Navy did on the basis that it wanted to showcase the capabilities of its newly commissioned nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Right. Boy, does it.

[00:13:09] I mean, it's basically just a recruitment video. It is. Like, you might as well just slap on, join the army or slash navy. Now, here's the phone number. Please call. Because it does, it almost does feel like a propaganda video. Like, here is the might of the US military, here is raw kind of thing. Yeah. It feels like it's very patriotic.

[00:13:39] It's very American. When they go back in time, it's obvious that they want to paint the Japanese as absolute evil villains with no humanity. You know, they're gunning down a civilian yacht, which is, you know, it's horrific. Like, a lot of war movies, there's that sort of question, like, is war good kind of thing? There's all this kind of gray area of like, oh, maybe war isn't good.

[00:14:04] In this movie, it feels like we are the heroes and war is great. We love war. Yeah. And it just, I don't know, it leaves a kind of sour taste in my mouth. Like, yeah, this is not for non-Americans, this movie. No. And it has to be said, the thing that I always remember this movie as is as like a conundrum movie. Right. Yes. Like, what if you could kill Hitler?

[00:14:31] What if you could stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which is something that Stephen King covered in his novel 11-22-63, which they turned into a series with James Franco and George Mackay, which I really liked. Right, right. They did that in season two of Umbrella Academy as well. Did they? Yes. Yes. It was like, we're back in JFK time. What if we could prevent the assassination? Yeah. I wonder if they'll ever do like a, could we prevent 9-11 time travel thing?

[00:15:01] I think they will, won't they? I think they will. I think they need to leave a few decades yet. But, you know, they did Titanic, so why not? Yeah. It's an interesting premise. But then when you watch this movie, there isn't actually that much of an argument about it. The three main characters. You've got your captain, Kirk Douglas. Yes. What's his name? Yelland. Yelland. Yeah. That's a terrible name. I know. He's not really gung-ho.

[00:15:31] He's depicted as fairly responsible. Yes. But he has absolutely no moral quandary whatsoever. His duty remains the same, whether it's the 1940s or whether it's the 1980s. He just defends America no matter what. So he does not care. He's going to intervene. Yes. There's no question. I mean, there is a bit of debate, though, because they do suggest maybe we should attack first. But then he says, no, we can't.

[00:15:59] Because if they attack first, then they're declaring war. So they can only let the Japanese attack so that they can defend and say, at least we're defending, not actually attacking. So there is a bit of debate. Like, he still doesn't want to just completely break all the rules and just, yeah, declare war on another country. Yeah, that's true. But I was expecting it to be, because it feels a bit like a Star Trek episode. It does.

[00:16:25] It feels like one of those ones where they find themselves back in time and not wanting to interfere with something. Yeah. Yeah. They argue about it. But they don't. Yeah. It felt like a Twilight Zone, almost, like on a much grander scale. Yeah. I do feel like this could have been maybe one episode or like a miniseries or something, like where they sort of discuss it a little bit more.

[00:16:50] Because I did enjoy the discussion, the dialogue in terms of like, should we prevent Pearl Harbor being attacked by the Japanese? Yeah. Well, it was a conundrum. And you have Martin Sheen's character, Lasky. Yeah. Kind of being the sane character, like the sort of more grounded humanity character, I guess. Do you think? Or do you think the other character, what's his name? I don't know. Because I was thinking that maybe it was going to be a case where the civilian systems analyst

[00:17:20] who's logical is going to call into question the gung-ho, no, we've got to defend the country no matter what. So. Sure. I don't care that it, you know, let's face it, unless Pearl Harbor happened, America wouldn't have gotten involved and Europe would be fascist. So it's a difficult question as to how it would have played out if they'd stopped it. But it's one of those cases where I was expecting the military guy and the civilian to be going at each other from opposite ends of the moral spectrum.

[00:17:48] But actually Sheen's character is just as enthusiastic about changing history. In fact, he seems more interested in it as just like a scientific possibility, like we could change history. He's just impressed. He doesn't care about what the implications could be. Nobody talks about what the consequences would be for the rest of the world, which plays into that point that you've made, which is this is so enamored of America that it doesn't actually

[00:18:16] acknowledge that the rest of the world even exists. No. I mean, it's very focused on Pearl Harbor as well. They don't really talk about like what are the implications of this for the world war that is currently happening. Yeah. Like World War II started in 1939 and this is 1941. Yeah. They don't really talk about anything. It's just very present of Pearl Harbor. I mean, I found Lasky kind of a non-character to be honest.

[00:18:45] Like he doesn't really do a terrible lot. In fact, you could have just erased his character completely and just have the other character, Owens, played by James Farantino. Like he seemed much more of an actual character than Lasky was. And the fact that when they introduced the Laurel character, there is this kind of sparks between Laurel and Owens and you're kind of like wanting to follow what that could unfold

[00:19:15] into rather than whatever Lasky is doing, which is not a lot. Like he discovers the World War II fanatic information that Owens has. Yeah. And that's it. Really? I don't know. No, you're right. All he does is just break into somebody else's room and read their homework and then tell everybody about it. Yeah. It's not really a very interesting role. No.

[00:19:40] I think generally it's thought the Owens and Laurel romance adds some sort of human drama to what's otherwise a fairly conceptual argument, even though I don't actually think there's much of an argument either. No, there isn't much of an argument. I do feel that Laurel's character does add a sense of more civilian, I guess, humanity into the whole movie. Because if you don't have Laurel and Lasky, I guess, in the movie, it's a very dry movie

[00:20:09] in terms of dialogue and general dynamics between all the characters. Because everyone's very professional. They're all military men. You know, they're all hiding their emotions. Even when the captain announces to the crew, hey, by the way, we've traveled back in time. There's not a lot of reaction to that. People aren't losing their shit or anything. They just accept this as fact.

[00:20:37] Like, okay, let's load up the missiles and attack the Japanese, I guess. Like, no one seems confused by that. Like, it's a very dry movie. And there's a lot of dialogue, which I did not understand. Because I'm assuming for people that served in the army or the military, this is a very accurate movie. Oh, yeah. In terms of how they speak to each other. Because there was a lot of dialogue I just did not understand.

[00:21:05] Like, Threadboard, Hawkeye, General Quarters confused me as well. There was just heaps and heaps of lines where I just thought, I don't know what's happening. Like, what are they sending now? What are they doing? I don't know. Yeah. So, to add to your voice, so 48 of the people performing in the movie were sailors on the Nimitz. Some of them even got speaking roles. So, what you're hearing is real dialogue.

[00:21:35] What you're seeing are real procedures. Many of the scenes of the film were shot at the right time so that they could actually capture drills or test runs of landings and things. It's very educational for me, who knows nothing about the military or army. I don't watch war movies ever. Right. I have seen the notable ones, you know, Schindler's List, Save and Private Ryan.

[00:22:04] But I just don't, it's not a genre of film that appeals to me whatsoever. And so, there were lots of scenes in this movie that were very educational. Like, I've never thought about how planes land on an aircraft carrier. I didn't know they had this kind of weird bungee rope cord that catches the plane and slows it down. Like, that was very, very interesting.

[00:22:28] And just even the range of different aircrafts and their sort of purposes was very educational to me as well. Like, the production value, I don't know whether any of it was a set. Like, it feels like every scene was on the aircraft carrier and every scene with a plane was with a real plane. It looks incredible. I mean, nothing looks like a set or a prop.

[00:22:56] No, and I think that's because it wasn't pretty much. I think all of it was shot on the Nimitz. So, you can imagine, you know, for 1980, this thing had only been at sea since 1972, I think it was launched. Right. So, this is fairly new and getting this kind of access to it is also fairly new. So, supposedly, when this debuted in theatres, this might have been just thrilling, mind-blowing

[00:23:24] to sea and captivating. But I'm not even sure whether it was back then because the reviews were not particularly happy. Right. It opened on the 1st of August, 1980 in 681 theatres. And it generated about $16 million in its domestic box office on a $12 million budget. I think internationally, it's rumoured to have gotten about $40 million in total.

[00:23:54] It puts it in 10th place for the year. Right. In a year when the number one was Empire Strikes Back with $209 million. Wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But apparently, it developed a cult following because it was a staple on cable TV. Very similar story to Somewhere in Time. Okay. Where I think there was something about the theme of inevitability, which is something we should talk about in terms of the plot. Yes.

[00:24:23] Resonated very strongly with the audience at that time. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine like a lot of teenage boys loving this movie. Like, it does feel like, I hate to say it, like a boys movie. There's lots of guns and fighter jets and missiles. There's a dog fight. You know, if I had watched this as an eight-year-old boy, I would have loved it because I used to draw planes and tanks all the time. Like, I love that stuff.

[00:24:52] And especially when they go back to World War II. Like, I loved biplanes and or like Spitfires. I used to do like model planes as a kid. Like, that was part of my childhood. So, I can see how this movie would have developed sort of a cult following in terms of like, it very accurately depicts the military of 1980. Like, it's pretty, I'm surprised that they allowed this, to be honest.

[00:25:20] The US just showing, this is what we have. This is how it works. Like, this is just in a movie? Like, wow. Yeah, you can imagine the Russians going over it frame by frame, just trying to pick up the technology. Yeah, just writing notes. You know, like, okay, so they've got this, they've got that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But it does come with a toll because I think you're right in thinking that probably it limited the dramatic possibilities. Because like, when the captain announces, by the way, we've travelled back in time, get

[00:25:49] ready everyone to attack the Japanese. You could imagine that maybe there would have been an attempt to unseat him, you know, a mutiny. Yeah, sure, sure. Or like, you know, some sort of proof to everyone. Yeah. I mean, how big is this crew? Like, it's like hundreds of people, right? Oh, I tried to think. Yeah, it must be hundreds. I mean, there's nearly 78 planes or something on there, which is just incredible that they can carry that many. Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:17] You could just imagine the script going under the Navy to look at and they're reviewing this to see whether they're going to give it the okay. They're not going to have a mutiny on there. And yet that would have been an obvious dramatic place for it to go to. Exactly, exactly. Because when you sort of break down the sort of the key parts of the movie, they go back in time. They kill two Japanese fighter pilots. A few of their men get killed. And then like three people on the yacht get killed.

[00:26:46] And then they just go back to present day. And that's it. That's like essentially what happens in the entirety of the movie, which is not a lot in terms of actual movie points. Like it's mostly just footage of planes. And there's some stock footage that they've put in there, even when they're trying to figure out like what is going on.

[00:27:12] And so they've arrived in 1941 and they try to dial into some broadcasts of anything, just contact anyone. And they keep hearing this, what they think is like some retro nostalgia broadcasts of like comedy from like the 40s. Yeah, it's Jack Benny. Yeah. And then they survey Pearl Harbor just to figure out. And they take a picture. And it happens to be identical to the picture that Owens has on file.

[00:27:41] Like actually identical. Like even all the boats are in the same place. That's not possible. Yeah. Even the grain structure of the image is the same. Yeah. It's like this is the same photo. This is not just like the same place. This is the same photo. Yeah. And yeah, there's just like, I don't know, like all the scenes where they, when they introduce Laurel and Chapman. So they're on a yacht, just, I don't know what they're doing. Just having a pleasant afternoon or something.

[00:28:10] And so she's the secretary of the senator. And he's like, it turns out he's next in line to be possibly the president. But they get gunned down by the Japanese. So when they introduce those characters, then it gets really interesting because they never mentioned that they're from the future, but they're confused because like, how is this technology even possible? And all of this sort of, sort of observations of what's going on. And that's interesting. But then it's very short lived as well. There's like not a lot of it.

[00:28:39] But yeah, what did you think in terms of the movie and its sort of structure? Yeah. I mean, it tries to have a bit of a decoy with the senator and with Laurel. The senator's interesting because, yeah, they have this whole argument about, well, this guy would have been vice president when, is it Roosevelt dies? Right. Yes, yes, yes. So because he died in office. So the vice president became president. So it would have been a different guy rather than the guy that won the war.

[00:29:08] So is that great? Because this guy should have disappeared. So we need to disappear him again. I don't know. How do we do that? So they're arguing about that. He, of course, is just desperate to get away because he thinks that he's been kidnapped by some lunatics on a futuristic boat. Yeah. I mean, he does find out because they know exactly what's about to happen because there's that skirmish with the Japanese guy.

[00:29:36] So they take one of the Japanese as a prisoner. And I think Owen's, because he's like such a World War II buff, historical buff, that he knows exactly like the password. Oh, yeah. Phrase and everything. And so, yeah, Chapman's very confused. Like, how is this possible? Yeah. So, of course, he wants to go to Pearl Harbor to contact everyone to, you know, warn them. And then, yeah, they send him to a deserted island. Yeah.

[00:30:06] Just to keep him safe. Yeah. So he hijacks the helicopter and fires a flare gun, which unfortunately is so overpowered it blows up the whole helicopter instantly. Yeah. I'm going to say it's going to be my favorite funny moment of the movie. But it's ridiculous. I mean, it comes out of nowhere. And then the entire helicopter explodes. Like, that's not, surely that's not possible, right?

[00:30:34] Flare guns are not that powerful, surely. Well, especially not at this time in the military. I'm sure they were smoking back then. Good grief. These things could have just gone up like a Roman candle. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what? I don't know. It comes out of nowhere. Yeah. But yes, I guess we should talk about the ending and the sort of the idea of inevitability. And like fate or destiny. You know, it's already happened. You can't change history, right?

[00:31:00] So they get whisked back to 1980 by the storm returning. And I like audibly groaned at that point. Because I thought, oh, we're going to have some sort of alternate history happen. But no, we get taken back. And it's just one of those movies where like nothing happens, basically. Yeah. They have a chance to change the past or the future, but nothing happens.

[00:31:27] And I know. And then one twist, because although the senator blew himself up on the helicopter, Laurel did get deserted on a desert island. But with Owens, which was not supposed to happen. Yeah. So they get left behind in the 1940s. And then when you go back to the present day and you disembark, Lasky comes across the mysterious

[00:31:54] guy who came to see him off at the beginning of the movie. But you never saw who he was because he was in this car with darkened windows. And it turns out that it's Owens. Yes. At the age of 80 or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. With Laurel as well. You see Laurel as well at a ripe old age. So this is my theory for the structure of the film is that the Nimitz isn't the main character.

[00:32:22] None of the other humans are the main character. The main character of the movie is Charlie the dog. Right. Because Charlie gets up to all kinds of hijinks. Sure. You know, he survives this Japanese strafing by standing on a plank of wood and bobbing along. That's cute. Which is great. That's very cute. He gets rescued. He travels back in time. And he goes to the future. Dog to the future. Yeah.

[00:32:52] That's true. Then he's reunited with his owner 40 years after they were separated. But it's like an instant for him. So he's just looking at Laurel thinking, Christ, what happened to you, lady? Wow. But yeah, so he's the only one that has an arc that actually ties together at the end. Oh my God, Conrad. You've cracked it. Like, I want to see a re-edit of this movie from Charlie's point of view. Yeah. Charlie's Adventures in Time. That's what this movie should be called.

[00:33:25] Wow. Oh my God. That's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing. I had a lot of emotion for Charlie. Like, when I thought he was going to be left behind when they rescued Laurel and Chapman. But they rescued Charlie as well. I was like, Charlie. Charlie. Oh yeah. They were trying everything to get you to emotionally engage in this movie in between the recruitment dads. All of the footage. Yeah.

[00:33:55] Yeah. Yes. I was also, like, talking about the planes and me being educated. There were a lot of fascinating scenes. Like, the scene where they fuel up a plane. Oh yes. Mid-flight. It was really fascinating with the hose that they had to kind of line up and then fuel up the plane while flying.

[00:34:23] It was quite, it was really fascinating. You've got the, I think it was a Hawkeye plane with the big disc. Was that some sort of like navigation plane with like radar or something? Oh no. It's a big spy radar. Yeah. You don't want to sit underneath that thing for too long. It's pretty powerful, I think. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, that was very interesting to me as well. And one of the planes that they had to set up some sort of like canopy net thing to catch it. Yeah. As well.

[00:34:53] So that was really interesting. Yeah. It's bungee catching thing had broken. So they had to go for the. Oh, is that what. The second option, which is like put up a tennis net and catch it. That's crazy to think that that's how planes land on aircraft carriers. So they're pretty much just bungeed. Yeah. Because I guess because the runway is so short, right? Because otherwise they would just fall off the edge. It's sprooshier. Yeah.

[00:35:20] I don't think you could make an aircraft carrier that's as long as a normal runway. Right. It would be like this floating bridge just getting wedged between continents occasionally. Yeah. Porting would be difficult. It would. Yeah. I also enjoyed when the Japanese planes. So the Japanese zeros kind of like spitfire looking planes.

[00:35:48] But I read that they weren't actually Japanese zeros. So they were modified 86 Texans mocked up to look like zeros. No, all of that technical stuff is really good. But again, none of it serves the narrative in any way whatsoever. Like the refueling scene. It's not for some tense reason because somebody's running out of fuel and they're on an urgent mission. It's nothing like that. It's just like, hey, we can refuel planes in midair. Watch this. You're right, actually. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:16] It didn't actually serve any narrative. No, it's just stop the film dead so you can watch this other advert for the US Navy. Look at what we can do. Yeah. Yeah. Basically like a car ad, but for planes. What did you think of the special effects? No, no. It's a no for me.

[00:36:46] I'm sorry. Like it felt like, oh, just turned into a TV movie, a cheap TV movie where you just like project a whole bunch of blue lights and some double exposure and just like scream into a microphone distortion. And hey, we've traveled back in time. It was not good. I did not enjoy that. Oh, okay. So this was the work of renowned artist Morris Binder.

[00:37:16] Okay. Who worked on the opening titles. This is how I know him. The opening titles of 16 James Bond movies. Oh, wow. So yeah, that sort of shooting a laser through smoke and creating a weird shape out of that and then double exposing that onto film. That's him.

[00:37:36] So during the time travel sequence, I was pretty much waiting for the silhouette of a naked lady to just run across or trampoline up and down or something. Because that's what it looked like to me. It's just Morris Binder up to his old tricks. Yeah. Yeah. It's rubbish. It's absolute rubbish. Yeah. I don't know. Like in terms of everything else looking so realistic and then you have like the supposed to be cinematic time travel moments.

[00:38:07] Let it down. Let the movie down a lot. Like it just, I don't know. Like I don't know how they could have done it any differently back in 1980. I guess just like green screen stuff or I'm not sure. It's a whole aircraft carrier. Yeah. So, you know, that's quite a feat. Yeah, I suppose. To somehow depict on screen without digital effects. It did look like a toy boat in a disco though, to be honest. At one point, yes.

[00:38:36] You've got the silhouette of it and it's like, yeah, that's definitely a minute. But it's a toy boat in a disco. Yeah. Yeah. Oh dear. Yeah. No, it wasn't great. Yeah. Which is a shame because as you say, the production value of everything else they have in the movie is so high. Yeah. I mean, like seeing actual planes, like the footage of the aerial sort of acrobatics, the dog fight scene. Amazing. Yeah. Incredible.

[00:39:05] Like I don't know how, I don't even know how they filmed that. It's all real, obviously. And it's, yeah, incredible stuff. Very impressive. Yeah. And it paved the way for the Navy being involved in other Hollywood productions. Of course, Top Gun being the most famous in 1986 and then Crimson Tide in 95. And then I guess they would have been heavily involved in the recent Top Gun sequel, Maverick. Yeah. Right. Right.

[00:39:33] And again, it's all a thinly veiled recruitment exercise. It's just to project power and technological superiority and tell everyone that, hey, it's cool. Yeah. Come and join us. It's exciting. And you get to play volleyball shirtless. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, I can imagine the pop culture detective Jonathan McIntosh having a lot to say about this movie. Oh, yeah.

[00:39:58] I mean, if you were going to touch on some sociological issues, I mean, one of the first things that you have to mention is that you have a meteorologist amongst the crew. And he is played by Victor Mojica. Yes. He was a Puerto Rican actor, in fact. But he often was called upon to play Native Americans in movies. He's referred to as Black Cloud. I'm not sure if that is his name, but he is referred to as Black Cloud. Right.

[00:40:28] And at one point, the captain accuses him of doing, quote, an unauthorized rain dance again. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah. There are a few lines in this movie that felt, ooh. It's 1980, everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I might mention it in the movies. But yeah, there's some dialogue that's a bit questionable. Yeah.

[00:40:52] I mean, and it also questions Laurel's experience as a woman who's trying to work in very much a male-dominated sphere in politics as well. It engages with that from the perspective of somebody from the 1940s and what she's had to deal with. Yeah, which is accurate. Yeah. Yeah. Because you, I mean, I think it depicts it in a way that's negative as well. Because you have Owen, who was very quite enamored by her sort of tenacity and drive.

[00:41:22] Yeah. He calls her a remarkable woman, which is, yeah, which is good. That's a good stance to have. It is, yeah. He admires her. Yeah. Which is not something that the men that are sharing the yacht with her do when we first meet them. No. They objectify her, which is not nice at all. It's horrible. It's horrible. Yeah. Now it's time for Random Trivia. Yeah.

[00:41:47] So, Dan, what scintillating piece of trivia did you discover on an aircraft carrier today? Oh, yes. Well, this might not be interesting for anyone not growing up in the 90s as a kid. But did you know that Martin Jean was the voice of Sly Sludge from Captain Planet and the Planeteers? What? For 12 episodes.

[00:42:16] I did not know that. He's one of the villains of the show. Sly Sludge. Just dumping pollution everywhere. Must have been a slow spot in his career. I don't know. Captain Planet was a pretty popular show in my childhood. Like, it was always on TV. All the reruns and everything. Yeah. I've never seen it. Okay.

[00:42:46] All right. That's our trivia. It is. I've realized I haven't seen Kirk Douglas in many movies. I think I've only seen him in the movies we have covered on the podcast. Really? So, Saturn 3, The Fury, and now The Final Countdown. So, I decided last night to watch an early Kirk Douglas movie.

[00:43:11] I watched The Strange Love of Martha Ivers from 1946. He's very young. Wow. And it was a very good movie, by the way. But yeah, Kirk Douglas, this character for him felt very easy. I don't know. I feel like I've seen this character. I mean, I haven't seen that many movies with Kirk Douglas. But it feels familiar. Yeah. He's one of those people who had a star persona. Sure. He was very much a star.

[00:43:39] So, I'm not sure how much acting he ever got to do other than playing that role over and over again. Sure. But maybe that's doing him a disservice. But again, I haven't seen that many movies of his either. Yeah. Especially not the ones that he's most famous for, like Spartacus. It's not really my bad. No, I haven't seen Spartacus. No, me neither. It's a Kubrick movie too. I haven't seen it. Yeah. It's terrible, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:44:07] Also Martin Sheen, very young in this movie. I think the youngest I've ever seen him in was in Apocalypse Now in 1979. So, it was only like probably the same year it was filmed. Or like very close anyway. Martin Sheen looks so young in this movie. It's crazy. Because I always see him as an old man now. Yeah. But he looks like Charlie Sheen in this movie. Yeah, he does. He looked a little bit older in The Dead Zone, which we've covered. Yeah, he does. He was 83, but he did look a bit older.

[00:44:37] He did. It's only three years later. Like he looks very young. And it's like he looks like he's in his 20s in this movie. He doesn't do a lot in this movie. And some of his performance is bad. Yeah. I thought. That's why I see it like he's not really a character. Like a very, he's not a very important character. Laurel Scott, like Catherine Ross's character, is more interesting. Oh, yeah. Than Lesky. By far.

[00:45:02] I mean, Charles Durning is the blowhard senator that demands to be treated a certain way and demands this and demands that. I mean, that's just Charles Durning. You just hire him for that kind of thing. He's great at it. Sure. Okay. Yeah. I'm just surprised that, yeah, like I felt more interest in Owens as a character than Lesky. And it's like, maybe they should have recast. Maybe they should have cast Martin Sheen as Owens.

[00:45:32] Like, I don't know. I don't know. Martin Sheen is a romantic lead. I'm not sure whether he's done that very often. Yeah. But they could have made more out of that. I mean, maybe it's just, you know, because we've done Somewhere in Time recently. It does feel like he was very much a man out of time, wasn't he? Because he was so obsessed with the 1940s. That's true. You would have thought that maybe this could have played out as how, wow, isn't it amazing he's found this woman that's perfect for him.

[00:46:00] And they're going to spend their lives back in the 1940s where he feels more at home. But there's not really any of it. Yeah. To be honest. It's not developed at all. I know. It's funny, though, because I would normally criticize a movie, like, you know, shoehorning a romance. But I kind of wanted that in this movie. Because they kind of allude to some sort of chemistry, but they don't really show anything.

[00:46:25] And there's not a lot of dialogue between Laurel and Owens to sort of develop this romance. But they could have. They could have made this movie a romantic movie. Yeah, they could have done. Instead of a propaganda movie. Training video. Yeah. Yeah. Should we talk about the music? It felt very military to me. Like, it did feel like, I hate to say it again, but it did feel like an ad.

[00:46:53] Like, we were hearing military ad music. Very orchestral. Strings, lots of brass. It felt very patriotic is what I got from it. Yeah. So, it's the work of John Scott, an English composer, oddly enough. Not an American, which you would not necessarily have guessed. At time of recording, he is still alive at the age of 94. Oh, wow.

[00:47:18] He was a classical composer first and foremost, but he has composed a lot of film scores. And, yeah, they do tend to be all quite pomp and brassy and exciting. I mean, there's a lot of that in this movie that is sort of adventurous and bombastic. Yeah. And fanfares and excited. And then it does shift occasionally, like in the dogfight.

[00:47:46] It does turn into an actual thrilling cue rather than just, hey, this is fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It was a very expected music. I don't know whether it really served that much purpose apart from depicting American military as we are great and powerful. That's pretty much the tone of the music. Yeah. That didn't inject any kind of mystery. No.

[00:48:12] Or jeopardy or heighten the drama in any way. It was just, hey, pomp and excitement. And then it was pretty much silent for the rest of the movie, I thought. There's a lot of pomp in the movie a lot of the time. It just felt patriotic to me, that's all. Well, I was just annoyed that Charlie didn't have a theme. Right. Yeah.

[00:48:36] Coming to you live from the Movie Oobly and Theatre, it's the prestigious Moobly Awards. It's the Moobly Awards. It's time to nominate our favourite aerofile part to the film in a number of time travel paradoxical categories. Best quote.

[00:48:57] My favourite quote comes from Laurel Scott, where she is talking to Owens about her experience of being a woman in a man's world in politics in America of the 1940s. And he talks about whether the way that she looks causes problems. And she says, if the way I look gets me in the door, then God help them when I get through it. Yes. Oh, I loved it. It's great, isn't it?

[00:49:27] Yeah. It's a good line. Yeah, she was a great character. I really loved her character. Yeah. Catherine Ross is great in the movie. My favourite quote comes from Lasky. So, I think Yelland and some of the crew, I think they point the finger at Lasky. Like, are you behind all this? Because they're still trying to figure out what is going on. And then he, Lasky, replies,

[00:50:01] Yes. Just hair or costume.

[00:50:26] My favourite piece of costuming is Laurel, who goes to sea in a white dress with matching white pearls. And I was just looking at her thinking, white on a boat, I hope you don't get wet. But she didn't, thank goodness. Yes. Because she changes before the strafing scene. I was terrified she was going to jump in the water in that white blouse, but she didn't. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:54] Hair and costume for me. I would choose Lasky's hair. It's very, it is very, it's the 80s. But I guess this is 1980, right? So it's kind of on the cusp. But it's kind of, it's short, but it's not that short. And it's kind of swept to the side. Kind of a big, big fringe. A lot of hairspray, I'm assuming. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Most 80s movement.

[00:51:19] I'd have to choose Lasky's character again with, at the end of the film, he wears some brown tinted aviator sunglasses. Oh, yes. That's very 80s to me. It is. Very much so. Yeah. You'd see those aviators everywhere back then. Yeah. Top Gun. Oh, all of those movies. Yeah. Well, I also spotted a little prop that caught my eye.

[00:51:45] As the most 1980s thing in this movie, it is the game Simon, which one of the crew members is playing in the mess at one point. It's just a quick thing. It's like this big plastic circular thing with a green and a red and a yellow and a blue segment. And what it did was it would flash up lights underneath these segments in a certain sequence

[00:52:12] and you had to press the big segments in the right order. Right. Yeah, I do remember that. Simon says. Yeah, sure. It was introduced by Milton Bradley or MB Games in 1978 for $25, which is the equivalent of $120 today. And it was a cultural icon, that game. Very much like The Speak and Spell. I don't know if you remember that one. I'm not sure.

[00:52:42] I do remember that game, though. I had no idea it was that old. It's similar to... Oh, what's that other... Bop It. That's right. Bop It. Bop It. It's similar to that Bop It game where it's like, twist it, Bop It. I don't know, shake it, pull it. We had to do, yeah, corresponding movements to whatever lit up. Oh, right. Okay. I did not know Bop It. Favourite scene. I feel like there are a few key scenes that are like something happens.

[00:53:11] One is the dogfight scene. I really enjoy that. It was thrilling. It was action-packed. And it was really interesting to see a modern plane against a World War II plane and seeing how do they stack up. Like, there was a little bit of peril at one point, but they annihilated the Japanese aircraft. Like, they were toast. Yeah, they were.

[00:53:39] I mean, this is visually, this is what we paid to see. It's this incongruity. It's these two different eras of technology going up against each other. It's the whole raison d'etre of the premise. But it was ridiculous to film, technically speaking, though. Right. Yeah. Because those T-6 Texans that are masquerading as Japanese Zeros, they were going full speed.

[00:54:04] And the F-14s that were chasing them were almost stalling. There is a... Wow. ...150 mile an hour speed difference between those two aircraft. Wow. Wow. That's... Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, so they had no chance. No, not at all. No. They wouldn't have even been in the same sky. It's ridiculous. Yeah. But it's great to see it.

[00:54:34] But yeah, it's not practical at all. I mean, the pilots that did it really did an amazing job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Most cliche moment. Oh, I saw an old classic of yours that... I don't know if we've seen it for a while on the podcast. Oh, yes. There's a Japanese or Asian tourist right at the beginning of the movie. Oh, that's right. There was. Yeah. And he has a camera. Yeah. Of course he does. Of course he does.

[00:55:02] I mean, it's realistic though. I mean, it happens. I do worry about cultural stereotyping, but if it's true, it's true, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My cliche, I don't know whether this is really a cliche, but it's... You can't change history, essentially. So it's one of those, like, it's happened already. It's destiny. It's fate. Like, whatever you do, you just can't change it.

[00:55:29] But it's just really frustrating as an audience member to watch something not happen because it hasn't happened already. Yeah. So it's like, oh, what was the point of that movie? Nothing happened. It changed nothing. Did you learn anything? I don't know. It did piss the audiences off back then, apparently. The reviews were scathing on that basis that it's essentially a nothing movie. Yeah. Because it goes nowhere.

[00:55:58] Best special effect. I don't have a good special effect. I have the worst special effect, which is the time tunnel that looks like a toy boat in a disco. Yeah, I would say that as well for worst. Was there a good one? Did you find a good one? I mean, some of the explosions are great. Not the helicopter explosion, but the yacht exploding was pretty impressive.

[00:56:25] So it gets gunned down by the Japanese Zero and, yeah, big fire explosion. But it looks impressive. I don't know whether it was. I'm pretty sure it's not a miniature. I think it looks real full size, but I'm not sure. Could be. They were pretty good at miniatures then. Yeah, right. Yeah. It looks very impressive. Favourite sound effect. For sound effect, I'd like to point out the storm lightning sound effects.

[00:56:55] Ah, I was going to say that too. Ah, interesting. By Alan Howarth, no less. Who was often listed in association with John Carpenter on some of his greatest film scores in the early 80s. I have to say that they do sound suspiciously similar to the sound effects Alan Howarth did when Kirk and co meet V'ger in Star Trek The Motion Picture. Ah, okay. Which was released the year before.

[00:57:25] Right. It's repurposed. Yeah. Most funniest moment. I've already mentioned it. It's Chapman's death with the flare gun because it's just ludicrously over the top. The helicopter explodes, but it's not, again, it's not like a, I don't think it's a miniature explosion. It's just like a composite over the helicopter. Oh, I don't know. It looks horrible. It's really, it comes out of nowhere.

[00:57:53] It's ridiculously over the top. And I just burst out laughing. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Who knew, though, that they line helicopters, you know, military helicopters with highly flammable substances that explode. Oh, yeah. I know. I know. Who knew? So unsafe. For you, Conrad.

[00:58:15] The funniest moment for me is something that I noticed and I howled with laughter and delight, which was during the return journey through the time warp. They are yet again deafened by distorted screaming noises on the soundtrack. Yes. And everybody's having a fit and clutching themselves and covering their ears. But on the return trip, Lasky is covering the dog Charlie's ears, not his own.

[00:58:45] I noticed that as well. Which I just thought that's so adorable that he's worried, oh, you know, the dog's got more sensitive ears. Better cover those up rather than mine. You know, he's bleeding probably and permanently deaf, but the dog's fine. And I thought there's a man whose priorities I can agree with. Right. Yeah, yeah. And that's all me, please. Yes. Yes.

[00:59:16] Hi, this is Jonathan McIntosh of Pop Culture Detective Agency. And you're listening to Movie Oubliette. Final verdicts. Should the final countdown be summoned back through a portal to the present, liberated and revered once more? Or should it be gunned down by a Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft and plummet back down into the Oubliette lost forever?

[00:59:46] Conrad, you had seen this movie before. Does it stand up in present day? Well, I had seen it before and I'd forgotten it. And I think that's because it's boring as hell. Right. I think it always stayed in the back of my head as like an intriguing idea. And so I thought, oh yeah, this is, I think this is a good movie. I remember this being a good movie. And then you watch and think, no, it's just a good idea for a movie.

[01:00:16] Yes. The movie itself is just an hour and a half of training video come propaganda machine and recruitment device. Yes. Yes. Interspersed with occasional, not very engaging drama, despite the best efforts of the cast. So it's got an intriguing premise.

[01:00:39] It doesn't really engage with it in the way that maybe Star Trek or the Twilight Zone would have done at the height of its powers in terms of characters really sort of arguing out the moral conundrum of should you engage with this or not. But it doesn't really do that. There's sort of a bit of a romance, but not really. So I think, again, the most interesting story in this is the dogs. And he doesn't get enough screen time, although he's great on a raft.

[01:01:09] Other than that, no. No, I think it's got shoddy cheap special effects. It doesn't really do a culture clash between the 40s and the 80s, except during an incredible aerial battle scene, which is the only thing that's really worth watching. So, no, I think it should also be shoved through that laser disco with Morris Binders and forgotten about as though it had never changed anything in movie history, because frankly, it didn't.

[01:01:38] Right, yes. I mean, I would have to agree. I mean, maybe this is sort of subjective as well. Like, if you love planes, this movie is for you. I mean, you will see a lot of planes and how they are fuelled and how they take off and how they land. Lots of assortment of planes. But, yeah, character-wise, there's like nothing.

[01:02:07] They might as well just take out all the dialogue. It's unnecessary because we just want to see more footage of planes. Yeah, I don't know. I think maybe I would have enjoyed this movie maybe as a kid because I did like planes as a child. But as just watching a movie, there's not much here. Like, if you take out all the footage of planes, there's like maybe about 10 minutes of actual movie.

[01:02:38] Not a lot going on. There's not a lot of friction or action or anything. And then essentially nothing happens in the movie. So, I'm sorry. And I don't want to offend anyone. I don't want to offend any Americans as well. I just did not enjoy this movie. It was, yeah, kind of pointless. I'm sorry to say.

[01:03:07] Well, we have a number of Americans amongst our international audience in the Patreon. So, let's check out what their verdict was. Hello, Gary. Hello. Can we have the patrons vote, please? Sorry. I was busy finding a cure for cancer. But I'll put that on hold while I answer your inane question. Oh, thanks. Oh. They've thrown it back. Oh, okay. Interesting.

[01:03:36] Yeah, I wasn't sure about this. Yeah. So, Film Aficionado says, The Final Countdown is a well-made movie with an intriguing premise, but it misses the mark for me in a few key areas. Most notably, it's disappointing that the movie never addresses the ethics of time travel. Mm-hmm. Once the crew of the USS Nimitz discover they've been transported back to 1941, it's just a foregone conclusion that they'll intervene in history. Yes. And yet we don't even get the payoff for that,

[01:04:06] since the crew's time travel adventure abruptly ends in a rather anticlimactic manner. Yeah. I'd advocate that The Final Countdown is a good candidate for a remake, but the movie as it exists now falls just short of a recommendation. Mm-hmm. I would agree. Yeah. Eddie Coulter says, This is a hard one to separate my nostalgia aside, to properly judge the film with it being a childhood favourite. As much as I love the film, I can't recommend releasing it from the Oubliette.

[01:04:36] Mm-hmm. My issues are pretty much the same as a film aficionado, and I 100% agree that I'd love to see a remake. Troma's Lloyd Kaufman was a producer on this film. He had such a bad experience working on it, he swore off ever working with a major studio again. Oh, wow. Oh. Yeah. And Chazilla said, The Final Countdown's a big nostalgia fest for me. I saw this in theatres and the drive-in back in the day.

[01:05:05] Oh. My 10-year-old self couldn't get enough. Every time they flew a saute, nailed the throttle, and those horns played that brass riff, I would get goosebumps. Oh. Still do. Oh. So, you see, Dad, something for everyone. Planes, planes, planes. Chazilla is thrilled. So, yeah, he let it out. Yeah. I mean, if I'd seen this as a kid, I think I would have loved this movie, but. Yeah. I guess I saw it and thought, yeah, this is great,

[01:05:36] but didn't remember anything else apart from time travel and planes. Yeah. Yeah. I also wanted to find out, did this inspire the song, The Final Countdown? And it did not. No? Okay. Yeah. So, the Swedish rock band Europe, who wrote The Final Countdown, was inspired, oddly enough, by David Bowie's song, Space Oddity. So, when you do read the lyrics to The Final Countdown,

[01:06:05] it's about space travel, going to Venus and traveling through space and stuff like that. And it's a countdown, it's in like a rocket ship flying into space. So, nothing to do with planes. And going back to Bill Havre. Yeah. Well, a few of our patrons said that if they did a remake now, it would absolutely include this song on the soundtrack somewhere. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that god-awful lyric,

[01:06:33] we're heading to Venus, Venus. Yeah. Oh, God. It's awful. So 80s. Yes, yes, yes. Ah, so yes, like the big 80s poem, this thing is headed back to the image. Oh, yes. Is this the first throwback of the year? It is, yeah. See if I can remember how to do it. Come here, you. No, you can join. I'm not there. There you go. I'm not there.

[01:07:02] All right. That was nice. Felt good. Cathartic. So, Conrad, what are we doing next episode? Well, I thought it's about time we did some horror. Ah, yes. So we will be stepping forward a few years to the 1983 American psychological slasher film, Psycho 2. Oh, this is like maybe the third time that we've done a sequel

[01:07:32] after Amityville 2 and 2010. So. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot. Psycho 1 was a pretty big movie. It was, yeah. It's pretty much akin to doing 2010, actually. Yes, that's right. He's following up a landmark of genre cinema and directed by an Australian, Richard Franklin. Ah, okay. Because, yeah, I've never seen Psycho 2

[01:08:01] and I didn't even know it existed. And there's like, what, three and four as well? Until I think, until we started the podcast and you would mention Psycho 2. So I'm very, very eager to check this out. Yes. Well, it stars Anthony Perkins reprising his role as Norman, Vera Miles reprising the role of Janet Leigh's sister. And Meg Tilly and Robert Logia are in there as well.

[01:08:30] And the cinematography is by John Carpenter regular Dean Cundey. Ooh. Ooh, can't wait, can't wait. Yeah, should be fun. Yes. And listeners, if you want to keep up to date with our episodes, you can follow us on all our platforms as Movie Oubliette and you can email us directly straight to the source at movie.oubliette at gmail.com. And if you'd like to support the show, head on over to Patreon where you can get access to extra material,

[01:08:59] vote on films we'll cover, vote on The Final Verdict. And you can even be an executive producer like Chazilla, Isaac Sutton, Dr. Doggy, Serge iconographer, Ryan A. Potter and Evan Goodchild. Yes, we've got a YouTube channel and merchandise on Redbubble. And if you haven't already, give us a rating and review, whatever you're listening to us on. And yeah, it does spread the word of the Oubliette. It does indeed.

[01:09:29] All right, Conrad, until next time. Goodbye, listeners. Bye for now. Lasky, you've been a pain in the ass, but I'm glad to have known you.