Episode 704- The Legacy of Forbidden Planet: A Sci-Fi Milestone

0:06 Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready. Old bobs and worms, stories that'll twist and turn. Baltar, scimitar, death of Tasha Yar. Flash, Gordon, Buck Rogers, stormtroopers and clone wars. James, Walton, Twiggy, John Koenig and Ziggy. We talk about the series.

0:46 You can join us live by picking up your phone now. We talk about the series. We'll come in tune with one. Of your dream services now. We talk about the series. Comics, books, and games, we go beyond the show now. We talk about the series. Come and join us as. We sit and chat and we. Go on and on. Well, good evening, Trekkies and Trekkers around the globe. It's Thursday, October 5th, 2026. Welcome to episode 704 of Trek Talking and Beyond. I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. And before we go too far, I would like to go around the room and introduce my awesome My incredible, my titulating treks first.

1:41 Let's start out in Portland with Eric. How are you doing tonight, Eric? I'm doing pretty good, Jim. I didn't think you were going to start with me, and then you said the word titulating, and all I could think about was that line where Robbie the Robot is like, I'm giving myself an oil job. I'm here to party, man. Let's do it. Excellent. Like it's 1999? Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I guess. Something like that. Those parties feel kind of lame at this point. Like, you know, we're into 21st century parties these days. This is true. This is very, very true. And we're going to stick with our Portland theme. We're going to swing over and see how Paul is doing tonight. How you doing, Paul? Paul is muted. So that nobody can... God, blight our technology. Let me just prove my own point, okay? My point was, and I hate to break it to you, but in the 60s and 70s, we partied way harder than we do in the 21st century. Right now, we're very safe and we're very inhibited. So let me tell you, as someone who's a live living witness, this is a lot crazier.

2:39 Then than it is now. It is now. Yeah, but who knows? We could get crazy on this very show tonight. The ingredients are here. And it just could suddenly, you know, this could be water in this glass or it could be Stoli. I don't know. Let's find out. Okay. Fair is fair. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's some hydrogen in there, but there might be something else. So we'll find out. And sticking with Portland, we're going to say hello to David. How are you doing tonight, David? Good. I'm doing pretty good. I think Paul's drinking Sprite. But yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I can't wait to talk about this interesting movie I found very fascinating. And we're going to. That's exactly what we're going to do. And not out in Portland, but out in Las Vegas. We have Charles.

3:26 How are you doing tonight, Charles? I'm doing good. I'm stuck in Studio A today because it's windy outside. But fall is here and I'm happy. I'm even so happy I got to even saw my first viewing of The Great Pumpkin. I watched that last night myself, actually. Yeah. You can support Trek Talking in one of two ways. I got to start this off at the top of every show. I'm sorry. You can go to Trek Talking and Beyond on Facebook and subscribe for only 99 cents a month, which allows you to see all of these awesome faces. If you're listening to us right now, believe me, we do have faces for video as well as voices. Or if you can't do that, the next best way to help us out is to like and share our posts because that helps our algorithm grow on Facebook. So with that out of the way, tonight we have a special show for you guys. There's no Star Trek for the next 43 weeks.

4:24 We have to go beyond. And tonight we're going way beyond. Tonight we're going to be talking about Forbidden Planet. And we're going to have a lot of fun with that one. So if you have not seen Forbidden Planet, you want to hang around. We also have our fan shout outs. And that's where we thank fans just like you around the globe for supporting our podcast. And you can also find out what actor you share a birthday with on our Sci-Fi Birthdays. And of course, Uncle Jim's Movie Pick of the Week. And last but not least, we have our Star Trek news. What's going on around the Star Trek universe? We do have some news on Starfleet Academy Season 2. And Brian Volkweis, our friend and buddy who loves our theme song, was at New York City Comic Con on Saturday. And Paul is going to tell you what happened. he had to tell us and share some really cool pictures. That's what's going on tonight's show. And V is here.

5:25 There she is. And we're going to swing out to Virginia. We're going to welcome V back to the show. Yes, I'm having technical difficulties. I need one of those little things that they used to have on TV, the little weird signal thingy. So yeah. All right. So V is with us now. So now we can progress with our normally scheduled program. And we're going to start off with our fan shout-outs. That, we're going to start off with Eric. Yeah, we're spinning that globe. And first, we're headed to Barcelona, Spain, in that beautiful province of Catalonia. And we're saying hello to Rafael Sainz Alvarez, who's hailing from that region. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. and for saying hello to us. I was just talking to a friend last night about Barcelona, my one time that I've been there, and just how much fun I had and different areas that we explored. So thank you so much for saying hello to us. Hello right back to you.

6:29 Also saying hello this week to Michael Kouirakis, who hails from Athens, Greece, where I just was about a year ago or so. They say resistance is futile. I will agree, Michael. I cannot resist your country. It is too beautiful, especially those little tiny towns and those really big hills with all the really, really beautiful vistas. Yeah, I would live there in a second, just drinking wine all day long. Thank you so much for saying hello to us from the cradle of Western civilization, some would say. Hello as well this week to Ana Maria Bevilacqua, who hails from Italia.

7:10 Roma specifically, although also slashing that with Milan, Milano. And unfortunately, Transporter doesn't work. So perhaps they have to drive between those two destinations on a regular basis. That's what I'm guessing. Ana Maria, thank you so much for saying hello to us from that most beautiful of countries, which I know both Paul and I have an affinity for. And last but not least, thank you so much to John Vandenbroek, who is saying hello to us this week from Torquay, England. Live long and prosper, everyone, they say, with a big live long and prosper hand sticking up there representing John. Thanks for saying hello. Hello right back to you and all of our friends in the UK. V, who would you like to say hello to this week?

7:57 All right, cool. All right, so my first hello goes out to Karen Teams from Atlanta, Georgia. Next, Robert Barker, who is our neighbor to the north from Trent Hills, Ontario, Canada, about two hours northeast of Toronto. Then there's a hello coming from Donnie Brady, West Virginia, USA. And then last but certainly not least, hello. From Nancy Leary in Missouri. All right. The flaming megaphone. There she goes again. I know. I've got to be consistent, right?

8:41 You just flail at her arms. Flaming megaphone. Okay. It goes over to Charles. Let's keep the megaphone nice and steady. And start out with a welcome to Travis K. Martin. who currently lives in Wenatchee, Washington, but originally from Arizona. Welcome to Linda Stanley-Owen from Newport Beach, California. Welcome, Linda. Hope you are safe and recovering from Rachel. Welcome, Michael Dunney from Waco, Texas. Welcome, Michael. And last on my list is Luann McGowan from Kokomo, Indiana. Welcome, the four of you. passing this nice, steady megaphone over to Paul.

9:30 Thank you, Charles. Very kind of you, sir. So let's spin the globe a little bit and see folks outside of the continental United States. Let's go over to a country I'm very fond of, Inverness, Scotland, and our pal Robert Urquhart is saying hello from up in Inverness. I hope you are keeping your head tucked down low, Robert. They've been giving tremendous support Gale force winds in the north and west of Scotland this week. I've heard the island of sky is actually impassable you can't even get on it everyone's stuck on the island the bridge washed out or something crazy so pretty wild over there you live in one of the greatest places on the planet uh great to hear from our friends in scotland Just down the road, so to speak, from that lovely burg comes the city that gave us chief engineer Miles Edward O'Brien.

10:20 That's right, friends. From Dublin, Ireland, it's Michael West chiming in. Great to hear from you, Michael. That is going to be a spot I hit up next on one of my travels. I can't wait to go see what Ireland is like. Moving into more Nordic realms, we're going to say hello to Markku Herd from Turku, Finland, the great Finnish flag. flying in the wind proudly there. Wonderful spot of the planet to reside in Finland. And next door, neighbor-wise in Denmark, we have Henrik Heselholt is saying hello again. A lot of proud flags flying from our friends in the north. They're from Finland, from Denmark, from Wenatchee, Washington, wherever you hang your hat. It's great to see that we all have science fiction and a little Star Trek enthusiasm in common. But there's more folks to say hello to, courtesy of Uncle Jim.

11:11 Thank you. I'll take the flaming megaphone now. So first on my list, we want to say hello and thank you to Mike Moukakis, who's listening to us in the Bronx, New York, but says he's originally from Sparta, Greece, and sends us two hearts. Thank you so much, Mike. Live long and prosper. We also want to say hello and thank you to Joseph Jones, who's listening to us right now in Pennsylvania. Hey, Joe, I'd like to say I'm sorry about that. We also want to say hello to Joe Welch, who's listening to us in Delaware. And last on my list, we want to say hello and thank you to Anthony Kevin Johnson, who's listening to us in Illinois right now. That is our fan shout-out list.

11:57 If you would like to be featured on a fan shout-out, it's very simple. Head over to our Facebook page, Trek Talking and Beyond. You'll see the Live Long and Prosper pin on the page. Tell us where you're from. Leave some emojis. It gets my attention. If you see a heart next to your name from yours. Truly, Uncle Jim, you will be featured on a future fan shout-out. You can also send us your fan pictures. There's me and my family with uh there's me and a friend of mine you can send us your pictures and david will get them right up there on the screen so the whole world will know that you're not only a star trek fan but you're a fan of trek talking the best sci-fi podcast around did i just say that but at any rate all right guys while you're on our facebook page though I like to throw out questions and polls and all kinds of fun stuff because without you guys, the fans, what would be the point?

12:50 Poland, Poland, Poland, you know we like knowing what you thought about the show and we try. To share your opinions with all of our minions out there because they listen worldwide. So tell us just what you think. And together we will all drink. Kadar and Romulan ale tonight. All right. So I threw a poll up on our page last week.

13:30 And David, what was that poll? There we have it. The best science officer. That's right. And Eric, what did our Facebook fans have to say? And I'm going to tell you, I'm not shocked at all with what they had to say. No surprise. Yeah, I think perhaps this was a better fit than one of the other polls that we had for the ship, but we'll recap that as well. This week we are saying, as captain of the USS Shaakiri, who would you choose as your science officer? In eighth place, we get... Good old Harry Kim, Ensign Harry Kim, got 1% of the vote.

14:11 Now, let me preface this. A lot of fans bitched and moaned and complained. And I'm going to tell you guys, it is tough because the bridge stations changed from show to show and series to series. So I had to kind of answer all the science-y stuff on Voyager. So I had to pick who I thought fit that role the best. I understand that he was in ops. I get it. but he's as close to a science officer as we had on Voyager as is Data. He was as close to a science officer as I could find. So let me say that up front and so you guys understand that. Well, thank you, Jim, for defending your position. I completely agree with it. I do think that Harry Kim solved an awful lot of problems on the Voyager, in particular in tandem with the Doctor, but he also did a bunch on his own and with Tom Paris, of course.

15:03 So He got 1% of the vote here. I can only assume that's one vote out of 100, unless we have 1,000 people answering our things. I'm not really sure. But in eighth place, we have a newer introduction into our Star Trek family. We have Sam Kirk. Yeah, that's right. From Strange New World, Sam Kirk got, what, does that say 1.3? Yeah, they were. Really, really close. So he got, like, He got like one and two sevenths of a vote. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, there you go. Sam Kirk down there with Harry Kim. In sixth place, we have Saru, who was he? Did he make our first officer poll? I didn't remember if he.

15:53 Did or not. He was there, but he didn't win. He didn't. He didn't do very well. Well, he did about the same here. He got 2% of the vote, so a couple people thought Saru could solve the problems, the sciency problems, better than anybody else. But slightly more than that, in fact, double of that, but 2% to 4%, from Starfleet Academy, we've got Sam. That's right, Sirius Acclamation Mill is fifth in our poll, which I think is pleasantly surprising over some of our more established characters. I think that's cool. In fourth place, we have T'Pol from Enterprise, who garnered only 4.4% of the vote. And then there's a big jump, and the top two are really in tandem with one another, and then the winner, of course, blasted them all out of the water. In third place, we have Dax, specifically Deep Space Nine, non-Esri Dax. who got 19% of the vote, which I think is pretty cool. She's pretty smart, man, and she's also got lifetimes of knowledge there, so I wouldn't mind having her on my team. In second place, we have Data, who, as Jim was saying, was not officially a science officer, but definitely solved plenty of science-y things, got 21% of your vote for science officer, leaving, of course, almost 50% of you saying that Spock was your favorite science officer, which of course is the correct answer. And

17:26 so Spock has become the science officer of the USS Shaakiri. And we have now been doing this for six weeks, folks. That's right, we're filling out our bridge staff of the fictional ship, the USS Shaakiri, Jim's dream vessel. I think that what we should do after we fill it out with crew... is we should have a show specifically dedicated to the ship itself, the class of the ship, what you guys are doing. We're going to make this into a whole pseudo-D&D campaign. I can see it happening right now. But so far, as our XO, we have William Riker, which of course was also the correct answer. For our CMO, we have Bone. Our chief engineer is Scotty. Our science officer is now Spock. Our chief of security is Odo from Deep Space Nine. And at the helm, we have Lieutenant Tom Paris. And there you have it. The USS Shockery is getting filled out.

18:27 And you can go to our Facebook page right now and vote on who you would like to see as ship's counselor. This was another tricky one. You mean because there's one to choose from? Well, I had to try to, well, there's actually more than one. No, I know. I'm kidding. Of course. I had to dig pretty deep to try to come up with some choices for you guys. So I think David and I did a pretty good job of it. So head over to our Facebook page, Trek Talking and Beyond, and tell us who you would like to see as a ship's counselor on the USS Shaqari if you were the captain. So you don't have to bombard me with technical.

19:08 I don't care. Those are the choices I had that I came up with. And so please go there, have some fun and pick your doctor, your psychiatrist, your counselor. I'm sorry, your counselor. All right, guys. Well, that wraps up our polling section for tonight. And that gets us into our main event. That's right, our main event. We're going to be talking about Rebidden Planet. But before we do that, I have to turn this flaming microphone. Everything is flaming. I hope so. This ice cold microphone over to Paul. And Paul's going to tell us a little recap about The Bidden Planet.

19:53 And then we're going to dive right in and talk about it. So, Paul, the stage is yours, buddy. Oh, thanks, Uncle Jim. Thank you. I'm a big fan of classic science fiction and classic cinema. And this hits both those boxes like a massive hit. photon torpedo if you will 1956 this is 70 years ago friends and one of the reasons we want to talk about this movie is well twofold for one thing it has tremendous dna connected to star trek to the point that when you go through and watch forbidden planet it's a safe bet that probably star trek wouldn't have even really come to be in the form that it was unless forbidden planet had like put its flag in the ground first and kind of set the template for what audiences were willing to accept. So pretty amazing, groundbreaking stuff. And this is a huge motion picture from MGM. It was shot in CinemaScope. It was designed to be a huge big screen experience. And we'll talk a little bit more about that later on. But as Junko Jim said, let's do a quick recap and see if this evokes any Star Trek feelings when you hear the plot. It is very loosely...

21:07 adapted from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. And in Forbidden Planet, it's set in the 23rd century. The speed of light has been easily vanquished. And now we're in a place where there is deep space exploration out into the cosmos, the colonization of space. And on this particular mission, zoom in on the United Planets Starship C-57D, commanded by Commander John Adams, J.J. Adams. And they're heading to the distant planet of Altair IV to find out what happened to a ship called the Bellerophon, a scientific expedition that went silent 20 years ago. And what happened to the Bellerophon? So that's kind of the setup of the mission. The ship lands after initially being asked not to visit, and they find two human survivors, Dr. Morbius, played by the great Walter Pidgeon. He's a brilliant specialist in languages, a philologist. And he's from the original expedition, and he now has a daughter, Altera, who was born on the planet. And they live in a very comfortable, high-tech home that's tended to by the lovable Robbie the Robot, their mechanical servant. So you've got to have this robot that they've never seen the likes of before. Absolutely amazing.

22:23 great iconic robots of all motion pictures cast a huge shadow. Initially, though, before they land, Morbius warns the crew that it's too dangerous to stay, and he refuses to go back with them to Earth as they would like to do. Eventually, though, they kind of break bread and find some common ground a little bit, and Morbius says, all right, you can stay. Now you've scene that I do have a daughter. And he eventually shows Commander Adams and the ship's doctor the colossal subterranean machine complex built by an alien race called the Krell. Absolutely ancient, beyond measure advanced alien race that they've built these incredible machines. The Krell have unlocked the power to project matter and energy through pure thought alone.

23:09 And they were on the verge of achieving the state of existence that would not depend on physicality or physical devices in any way. But somehow, mysteriously, the Krell civilization vanished overnight. What happened to the Krell? Meanwhile, the thing that Morbius warned the crew about, this invisible destructive force that supposedly destroyed you know, did away with a lot of the original crew from the Bellerophon, it now sets its eyes on the attacking the crew and the C-57D and kills several members of the crew, which is a big deal, a big thing. And we end up finding out that Morbius has been subconsciously using the Krell's vast machinery to amplify his own inner mind and his own mental abilities, which is how he was able to build this incredible robot, right? And that the killer monster that we're afraid of is actually the subconscious beast. It's the monster from the id. It is a physical manifestation of Morbius's own suppressed primitive aggression and jealousy to the point that I think Freud would have a field day with this guy. When the same psychic feedback loop that had wiped out the Krell millennia ago, when their own dark impulses were accidentally given physical form, are now something that Morbius is having to reckon with, right? The monster looks to attack their shelter in Morbius's home, and he finally has to accept the truth and disown his own dark impulses.

24:40 He's mortally wounded by this blowback from the encounter, and as he is about to just surrender his life, he warns or asks Adams to go ahead and activate the planet's core self-destruct so that no one, because it's power that no one can ever really be allowed to have. And so at the end of the story, J.J. Adams leaves the planet with Morbius's daughter, Altera, and the robot, and the surviving crew escapes deep into space just as Altera IV detonates in a blinding explosion. This crew of the 57, C-57D, ready to embark on more adventures to come out in the cosmos. So pretty amazing stuff. I think one of the things I like to point out is, you know, I saw this movie when I was a kid for the first time, probably right around the same time that I started watching Star Trek. And they were kind of almost fused together in some ways because there are so many similarities. The idea of, you know, this is the first real science fiction movie that wasn't just like, oh, aliens are monsters and we have to shoot them and flying saucers are terrible, right? This was really... The first one, there is no Earth. We don't see Earth at all.

25:46 We only hear it referred to. This is all takes place in deep exploration. And like Star Trek, there's a mystery that has to be solved. There is a mystery of a missing ship. They clearly represent an organized spacefaring future. The United Planets Cruiser, very similar to the United Federation of Planets. And it's a more psychological, literary type of storytelling in terms of the influences here, incorporating the Tempest. You see that same naval structure of the captain and the various crewman roles on the ship. camaraderie between the doctor and the captain the captain has a way with the ladies that may sound familiar to fans of star trek and uh and there's a lot of other similarities too but that's just kind of the setup and the summary i think it's a amazing movie and for anyone who gets intrigued by forbidden planet the good folks in arrow video just did an incredible restoration job and just within the last couple weeks released this brand new 4k and blue blu-ray edition of forbidden planet It has never looked better since its original release back 70 years ago.

26:45 So it's a real great piece of film history to have. That's my setup for it. I'm sure my friend will be back later to say more to you as he's able to. But in the meantime, I don't know how we'd like to do the structure of the show tonight, Jim. We want to just go around and hear people's thoughts. I'm hoping everyone watched the movie in the last few days. Well, before we do that, though, speaking of the 4K release, roll the tape for anyone that's watching us that hasn't seen it. Spaceship, identify yourself. United Planets Cruiser C-57D, J.J. Adams commanding. Who are you? Morbius of the Bellerophon. 20 years ago, the spacecraft Bellerophon landed here.

27:30 The prospecting party of scientists. Our mission is to search for survivors. The Lord sure makes some beautiful worlds. Welcome to Altair Hoare, gentlemen. In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty and noble race of beings, which called themselves the Krell. Ethically, as well as technologically, they were a million years ahead of humankind. But then, Seemingly on the threshold of some supreme accomplishment, this all but divine race perished in a single night.

28:14 Before the first year was out, they had. All, every man and woman, succumbed to a dark, terrible, incomprehensible force. I didn't recognize me. I warned you. I beg you not to land on this planet. I have come to the unalterable conclusion that man is unfit as yet to receive such limitless power. There you have it. That's the 4K restored version. What do you think? It's so clear. It's like, it really does look amazing.

28:56 Wow. It looks totally different from the one that I watched, which was on Tubi for free. Yeah, it wasn't very different. Yeah. Cinema scope, man. I mean, they're able to really, it's a bigger, you know, camera image, a bigger piece of film. I mean, the clarity and the color and just the vibrancy is just amazing. So it's a treat that this movie has been restored to so the future generations can be able to appreciate it. It's just a love letter to science fiction. Yeah, I was pedaling along on my bicycle today at my rehab, and the guy next to me just moved out here from California, from Burbank. And I was telling him that we're going to be talking about Forbidden Planet, and he was telling.

29:39 Me all about it. it. He went to see it when it was at the movies and he loved it. And yeah, he really liked it. So that was cool. And he told me something I wasn't aware of. The woman who stars in this movie is the mother of Veronica Cartwright and Angela Cartwright from Alien and Lost. In Space Fangs. which I thought was pretty cool. I also didn't put two and two together. The captain of the Starship is Leslie Nielsen. We all know him as the dorky funny guy from Naked Gun and Airplane and all those movies, but in this one, he's a serious actor, so I never saw him that way. I didn't put two and two together when I first saw that. Yes.

30:23 Oh, I lost you guys for a second there. So I wasn't, who wants to jump in here? How about ladies first, V? You want to, you want to go first? Yeah. The flaming microphone is yours. Thank you. Well, wow. What a movie for, was it 1956? Just absolutely incredible. I'm going to have to get that restored version. Because, yeah, I want to see it all in its original glory. One of the things that I was thinking of, because I seem to make connections with, you know, sci-fi and history and everything. So, you know, there's the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Well, now there's the Six Degrees of Sci-Fi and History. So since that is based on The Tempest, The Tempest was based on... An event that happened, I'm reading my notes here, in July of 1609, the flagship SeaVenture, which was part of the Virginia company resupply fleet that was heading to Jamestown, which is just down the road from here, went through a terrible hurricane and ran aground on what was an uninhabited island. island of Bermuda.

31:41 150 plus passengers and crew survived. They lived on the island for months. Then they finally built two more ships from the wreckage and sailed onto Jamestown. But what Shakespeare did was he read the reports of the miraculous survival and everything, used details of the storm, the castaways, and the mysterious island, though he set his play in the Mediterranean rather than the Atlantic. So Jamestown being the first permanent successful English settlement in the New World. And there's my sci-fi slash history connection. But with Leslie Nielsen, it's really bizarre to see him looking so different than what we're used to seeing him and also being serious about.

32:29 So it's like, yeah, don't call me Shirley and all that. But this is, I don't know, just a, I don't know what, I know you all will say, have more to say about it, but just fantastic movie. And I mean, if there was no Forbidden Planet, would we be here today talking about Star Trek? That is the question. So that was a good question. Yeah. Yeah. Just, and I was, I was being silly and I say, Before there was Star Trek, before there was Star Wars, before there was Battlestar Galactica, there was Forbidden Planet. Planet, planet, planet. I agree with you, V. I actually never seen this movie either until Paul pointed it out to me, which is odd because I usually like these type of cheesy 50s things like Day of the Trippids and Creature of the Black Lagoon and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

33:22 I don't know how I missed Forbidden Planet, but I did. So I watched it while I was home rehabbing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought the story was, was really well, well done. It kept moved at a really good pace, kept me interested. And yeah, seeing Leslie Nielsen as the captain was just so strange for me. And I was waiting for him to crack into some jokes, you know, don't call me Shirley type of stuff, but you know, he was, he was really good as the captain. And yeah, I'm going to say this backwards, but I saw an awful lot of Star Trek in Forbidden Planet. Or I should say correctly, I saw a lot of Forbidden Planet in Star Trek. I immediately thought of the Telosians, the ancient civilization that wiped themselves out and... Veena, the sexy woman left on the planet type of thing.

34:14 And Dr. Mobius reminded me, I was immediately thinking of Maximilian, Dr. Reinhardt from The Black Hole popped in my brain where he made a robot. wiped out his crew, and I just saw a lot of familiar science fiction tropes in this movie that all owe themselves to Forbidden Planet, which was really, really cool. I thought the effects were decent. I really liked the UFO. I thought that was clever, and it looked really good. It looked better in the 4K restoration version that David just showed us than the grainy version that I got on VHS, like Eric was saying. I enjoyed it. I really did. And I also, as old as I.

34:57 Am, you would think that this wouldn't have shocked me. But I grew up watching Gremlins, which came out in 1984. Robbie the Robot is in Gremlins. And every time I've seen the movie, I never put it together. But the lines that he says in the movie when Peltzer is at the collectors, the inventors convention, were right out of this movie. Verbatim. 60 gallons suffice? I mean, the same lines that he said in Forbidden Planet were in Gremlins. And all these years, I never knew it. So that was something that I learned, that Gremlins owes a little bit to Forbidden Planet as well. So thank you, Paul, for that. And overall, I really, really enjoyed the movie.

35:46 Really good story. Really good acting. The effects were not as cheesy as you might think they would have been. They were acceptable. The robot was really good. I was really impressed with Robbie the robot. I was waiting for him to flail as long as I was. Danger, Will Robinson, danger. But that's another conversation. So, yeah, if you have not watched this movie, if you haven't seen this movie, what are you waiting for? Go watch it. I guarantee if you're watching this podcast right now, you should see Forbidden Planet because you won't be disappointed. It's a really good part of science fiction history that I think every sci-fi fan should be required to watch. It's that good. Moves at a good pace, very enjoyable. I just, I can't find, well, I did have a question though.

36:33 There's one, maybe my truck spurts can answer this for me because I was baffled. Where, so when Veena, or what was her name? When the girl- Altera. Altera, when she went for a swim and she says to Leslie Nielsen's character, I'm going to go visit my friends. And all of a sudden these deer come running out from behind a rock. And then a tiger comes running out from behind the rock. Where, where were these animals? Where were they coming from? I mean, how did they get, what was the deal with it? They never explained. And I think that's, that's kind of one of the fun things that I think it really worked for it. They don't tell you, right. They could have easily been like offspring or, or, you know, eggs that were brought from earth to, you know, populate the planet with like native life forms.

37:22 Right. And they could have grown them from like, incubation or something like that or they could just be you know you know indigenous to the planet and i like the fact that they don't tell us that and they just sort of leave but she's got this menagerie that are you know because she's never had peers right and her peers are like animals right and i think it's cool that they don't answer that question so yeah. They're just they're they just come out from behind this rock and i thought i missed something uh but apparently not I think a lot of it. Is just having those animals because it's very much trying to create this fairytale motif for her, right? I think she's very much isolated and living almost like a fairytale princess in her tower, right? And her father has styled himself as her protector, has dubious motives. You know, it's all very weird. So I think it's just, she seems more like Cinderella almost, right? Because her only friends are like the animals.

38:13 I have one other question. When they were on the bridge of the ship, when they got to the planet, Were they in the green beam that they were in? Was that some type of transporter beam or something or stasis? That was a really cool science fiction concept that I had never seen in a movie before. And I've never seen in a movie since. It's been in a couple of different books in different ways. But the way that I read that, Paul, correct me if I'm wrong. That was like the way that they could actually survive deceleration from light from over light speed was they had to go into this kind of like stasis thing to be able to because when they come out, they're like, all right, we're down to point three eight. light speed now.

38:57 Yeah exactly right exactly right but the idea is that they're going many many times faster than the speed of light to get from one place to another right but when they decelerate the idea would be that it would be too much upheaval for the human body to take so they're actually from what i've read about forbidden planet those tubes are meant to basically they're sort of temporarily put in more energized form where they become more energy than matter so they can make an adjustment to the the difference in speed that happens The closest thing I've seen any other science fiction picture or show do is in The Expanse. Yeah. In the first couple of episodes, they dealt with the deceleration. You had to have like injections of things to put your body processing, yeah, the juice, right? So, but really cool. And it almost looks like the, like the transporter when you see them all lined up like that or like the tubes, the hibernation tubes in Lost in Space. They like ripped it right out of Forbidden Planet, right?

39:46 Where they're all in a line of tubes all together. I mean, you know, kind of, So it's just super influential. I don't know if you noticed, but when you look at the Krell doorway, because they have these unusual kind of like five-sided doorways to kind of show these weren't like normal, you know, your doors kind of were like the shape of the people who use them, right? But look at the Krell doorway, right? And then go back and look at the cage a la the Menagerie on Talos IV, and the doorways they show for, they're exactly the same. I mean, they are the exact same shape as the Krell. So it's amazing what a long shadow of influence the picture carries. No shade at Star Trek, man.

40:28 Not at all. That's not what I'm saying whatsoever. I mean, I think Gene probably wasn't really conscious of how much it was an influence on him. I mean, 10 years had passed, and he certainly had a much more specific vision of what he was trying to show, right? Yeah, there's a naval structure to the ship. But but he brought so much more diversity to it. Right. It's not a forbidden planet. It's all a bunch of white guys. Right. And, you know, there's a cook who like uses pots and pans for dinner. You know, it's just it's very much in the tradition of like, you know, it's like a 50s Navy movie. Right. But, you know, but it's a 50s submarine picture. Right. Is what I think he was trying to do. But it was translated into like outer space, which I think for the time. was a tremendous idea. This movie came like a couple years on the heels of Disney's success with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which was another big, exciting, widescreen, you know, exploration movie. And so I think they were really like, Disney did really well with them. I think they were really trying to do something similar. And the first real deep space movie ever about exploring the unknown.

41:34 So really wonderful. If I could just, I forgot to... Yeah, I forgot to mention, I did a double take when they mentioned the captain. They said J.J. Adams. Did anybody else's brain go to J.J. Abrams? Yes, I did. I did go there. Yeah, I thought, wait, wait. I know that was just coincidental, but that's immediately where my brain went. I'm like, how could they know about J.J. Abrams? Wow. J.J. Abrams wasn't even like an itch in his daddy's pants when this movie was made, okay? I mean, he was not even... Oh, what? He hadn't even ordered the first round of drinks, friends. I mean, this is like, you know, way pre-date and old J.J.

42:19 There. Sorry. But anyways anyone that's watching or listening go and check out the 4k. Restoration you won't be disappointed. And uh then there it is right there paul's got it in his hand you saw the trailer check it out it's really a fun watch. Charles he just won't shut up he won't stop talking i don't know he's just very i think he's got a bit of an ego you know. He just might. Charles, did you get a chance to watch it? And what did you think? Yes, I did. Actually, I went over to IMDB because I was curious about some of the details in this movie. One of the things I think is funny is Paul can show that picture. The famous poster for the film, a menacing robot carrying a struggling pretty young lady. a staple of monster movie posters from the 1950s. In fact, no such scene occurred in the movie itself, and the robot portrayed in the poster is probably likely a likable Robbie the Robot. This is the first mainstream movie to have music performed entirely by electronic instruments. And one of the things, as you mentioned, Disney. Paul, did you notice who's credited for the animation in this movie? It is Walt Disney.

43:34 Yeah, Disney animators, yeah. Joshua Mentor from Disney Studios came in and did 29 different... About three different effects in this, including all the laser effects and a lot of that, that he came in. MGM had a big... MGM at one time had a big animation effects studio, but by 1956... Most of it had been dismantled and taken apart. And that they brought somebody in from Disney who had done work with things like Alice in Wonderland to come in and do the effects. I thought it interesting when I saw that in the script. Walt Disney Studios had some effect in this movie? And yeah, that was from doing all the animation effects. As we just lost.

44:22 This is the second film Leslie Nielsen had ever done after a long appearance in television. This is the only second time they ever appeared in a movie. And definitely the dramatic actor at that time. And I love this quote. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry has been quoted as saying that this film was a major inspiration for this series. 1701, which is the serial number of the Star Trek Enterprise, allegedly came from the clock mark 1701. 01 when C-57D enters orbit around Altair 4. In fact, Altair 4 is mentioned in DS9. I forgot the exact reference, but it actually is mentioned in Star Trek lore. Also, a few things that were mentioned about the fact that the young crew with a very young commander, the round ship, the captain gets the girl on other planets, wireless communicators, handheld electronic weapons, and strict space travel rules. This is the price, people.

45:26 Think about 1956. Robbie the Robot cost approximately $ 125, 000 and at the time was the most expensive prop for a movie. According to the follow-up, The Invisible Boy, 1957, C-57D spacecraft returned to Earth on March 26, 2389 A.D. in Chicago Spaceport. Okay, Paul, do you know what other famous movie was filmed on that same studio? Well, you know, it's MGM, man, so probably a lot of the great pictures, my guess would be like Wizard of Oz or Gone to the Wind.

46:06 This is the same studio. Right? This is the same stage that Wizard of Oz was filmed 17 years earlier. I'll find you a picture of this, Charles. It's really amazing. When they land on the planet. Right, and you see that, you know, the Lord sure makes some beautiful worlds, right? You see this big, you know, vast landscape with the sky. So MGM, they used to do this for all their old pictures, right? They would do these huge cycloramas. Right. It would be like a big painting that was on canvas that was like, I don't know, 300 feet wide. And then they would hang that up and shoot in front of that stuff. Right. And so it still exists. They still have it hung and preserved on the MGM lot. I'll find a picture for you. It's really easy to see.

46:49 It's unbelievable. It's mind-blowing that artists would have gone to the detail to do this crazy painting. I mean, it's the biggest painting you can imagine. And it's just so cool. So, yeah, all those MGM days, it's the... What a great era for movies, Charles. Amazing. Well, the Munchk, the garden that they went through, is the Munchkin Village set, reused from Wizard of Oz. But that's just some of the. We can save a few bucks by using the Munchkin. Yeah. But what I'm saying is, I just looked up details. There were like, for trivia, there were like a hundred different posts on there, on different things. It's just interesting how much of a, how much, how much of a movie really impression did, how much this movie did. It actually made it to the, I can't remember the term, the film vault. where they go when each year they'll put specific films into the vault to preserve. And this has actually been put in the vault. It was actually nominated and awarded as one of the movies that got to the vault. It's a very interesting piece of work.

47:56 I thought it interesting when I saw it. It's like, okay, we used a flying saucer. But then I think back to the era of the 50s, which includes Ray Bradbury's original writings. This reminds me, yeah, this is his era of spaceflight. The same type of things that Ray Bradbury would be written back in R's for Rocket, S's for Space, back in the 50s. So it was definitely an interesting era. And you know, Charles, they actually asked Ray to do a pass on the screenplay, and he turned him down, interestingly, because he'd done a lot of stuff in Amazing Stories. He was a big name. He was really coming up. And he said it just wasn't what he wanted to do.

48:37 He was doing his own thing. And he'd had some pretty crazy Hollywood adventures himself. Yeah, but this just reminded me so much of that era. I love those two books, and this just so reminded me of that era of science fiction. So this definitely is an interesting view of space and flight back from the night. And the fact that this movie, most movies include visits from Earth, leaving the planet and going to an alien planet. This one entirely is the fact that the ship is in space. and visiting an alien planet. That is it. They did not actually involve Earth at all on this one, which makes it unique for that era, for that specific era. type movie. So definitely, I'd say yes, it is worth seeing.

49:25 Maybe somebody else will have mentioned this too, but one of the things that sticks with me from this is, yeah, there's a scary monster, right? There was a really scary monster. I remember running... behind the couch as a kid when the invisible footprints came, right? But the thing that's great about this is the monsters, the extraterrestrials are not the monsters sent to destroy us, right? It's not the aliens who are looking to kill us. The monsters are the things that were hidden inside our own minds, right? The dark things we're afraid to admit that we feel, right? And I think that's a real step forward. That's the kind of storytelling that Gene Roddenberry said that's the kind of way to tell science fiction stories, not just like Oh, the aliens are here to kill us, right? Like with War of the Worlds, right? But I feel like I'm talking too much. I'm sorry. Who wants to jump in?

50:11 You're not talking too much. I'm back. I think the conversation's great. Well, how about David? He's got his treble and he's got his hat and he's been pretty quiet. Yeah. First, I want to say thank you, Paul, for introducing us to this movie. I really enjoyed it. I actually wanted to go over a few things of the things that I actually didn't like about this show. And I can't think of any, to be honest. This show is actually top notch. It was actually really well done. It was a little predictable, but at the same time, surprising. I did like the robot. That robot really reminded me of that little guy from Lost in Space, I want to say it was. In fact, I think the actual, the newest Lost in Space actually copied that robot, I think, in my suspicions. So, but yeah, let's see, what else?

51:00 A lot of fun stuff. I like the fact that I didn't realize the main character, Captain Adams, was Nielsen, I think his name was. Leslie Nielsen, yeah. Yes. My wife actually pointed it out. He's like, oh, it's this guy. I'm like, no. So we actually had to look it up and it was just like, It was so weird to see him so young. But other than that, a lot of the storytelling, there's one thing I did remember that really hit my head when I saw the, when Morbius was doing the tour for the captain and the doctor about what the Crow were like and everything.

51:42 And so they went down deep into the planet. The first thing I thought of was like, whoa, this really reminds me a little bit of that planet in Babylon 5. Babylon 5 had the exact same concept of a giant planet that was all mechanized and everything. And it was just like somebody had to live inside that planet and able to keep it running or something like that. And so they actually got hooked up to the planet or something. I can't remember. But yeah, so a lot of the science fiction that I've seen in my short life There was a lot of concept from this particular... I mean, I would almost say that this movie probably would have been the grandfather of all science fiction, to be honest.

52:23 In my opinion, I don't know if that's true or not. No, sorry. Sorry, you gotta go back another, like, 40 years, but, you know, you're close. Oh, okay. Cinematically, sure. There's a lot of science fiction writing that happened that really influenced this, just as this influenced Star Trek. This was a movie that I think that took its– from all of the legions of writers who started out writing in astounding and amazing stories back in the pulp age of science fiction. That's where a lot of these stories came from. And they over there look back to like Jules Verne. right, to go way back. I'm sure everyone will probably, some of them, I bet Eric's chomping at the bit to talk about these influences too.

53:03 But the one thing that you reminded me of, David, that is, for me, sat weirdly, is the crew, when they get a look at Altera, it's a little uncomfortable now, right? I mean, they're like a Cornell fraternity, practically. Dude, you're taking every one of my talking points. Oh, my God. Am I? I'm sorry. I'll shut up. Every one of them. Just shut me up. I'm just like, check, check, check, check. All right. We're going to pass it over to Derek. I'm sorry. I'm like, you know. I really enjoyed it. It was actually really fun to watch. And I actually encourage people to check it out on like different sites. Like YouTube, I believe, has it. Tubi definitely has it. And I believe Pluto TV as well.

53:43 That's in 4K version. So if you guys really want to watch it, just go check out those websites and you can actually see it. It's really well done. I recommend it. Go ahead, Eric. No, I'm just like, Paul and I think so much alike. It's really funny when it's like, it's hard for us not to be like, yeah, dude, I totally saw this. Like if we were in a room together, we would just be riffing back and forth and be like, yeah, I totally, and you, and yeah, and I did too. Yeah, anyway. Okay, well, I mean, I'm not going to disagree with anything anybody has said. Amazing movie, right? So the context for me for this movie is that throughout my childhood and like probably early adulthood, I probably fell asleep to this movie like three or four times because it was always like one of those late night movies that was on at like two o'clock in the morning. And I would start to watch it. And it wasn't that it was boring. It was just that I was really tired.

54:32 And so the first time that I ever saw it all the way through was just this last week. And of course, I'm immediately drawn in by everything you guys have already talked about in terms of the connections to Star Trek, the first time being out in deep space. I didn't realize that this was kind of the first like on-screen thing where people had gone out into deep space until I did the sort of like internet research afterward. But I thought that that was really cool. It really, from the very beginning, reminded me of the Next Generation episode, The Survivors, which is that one where they find the planet that's totally barren. And then there's like this little patch of grass. And there's this one guy and his wife that are living on the planet. It just, it kind of had that feel to me right from the beginning.

55:15 So I was just, I was emotionally connected to it. And so everything that I'm saying right now, I think is like, seen through the eyes of somebody who is a huge Star Trek fan that's seeing Forbidden Planet for the first time. So I don't want to pretend like the horse actually came before the cart. It was the other way for me. But things that I noticed that were kind of different, I guess, since we've talked a lot about the similarities, things that were different for me for Forbidden Planet, number one, noticed right away, that the dialogue and the things that they're referencing here and there are rooted in Christianity, which is completely not a Star Trek thing, right? Like Roddenberry was like the secular humanist.

55:59 And so his whole thing was like, I mean, I think he actually said a couple of times that maybe, you know, people in the future didn't need religion. But I like that Star Trek has adopted more of an attitude of like, you know, religion is part of the human experience and you can do it or you can not do it. And either way, it's totally cool. This is definitely rooting Christianity. There's that line about, you know, God's planet or whatever. There's the line at the very end, which is actually a really cool line where the captain says... something like, we're all monsters in our subconscious, and that's why we have laws and religion. That blew my mind, man.

56:39 I was just like, yeah, totally. That is why we set up rules for ourselves as a society, right? Because if we have no rules, we're animals, right? And I think that this movie explores that a little bit. I love that whole idea of the id becoming a conscious projection of what's going on with the doctor. You know, of course, that whole concept of like id, ego, super ego is very Freudian and a little bit dated at this point. But this movie was like an awesome manifestation of that, of like the current day thinking, taking a really cool psychological concept and translating it into a what if scenario with science fiction. That seems to me to be a kind of a unique thing that this movie was doing. By the way, I had no idea until I really watched it that it was going to be in color. I was like, 1956, it's going to be a black and white movie. And then it was in color.

57:33 And I was like, whoa, oh, this looks really amazing. And even though I saw it on Tubi, which was kind of crappy, it still looked really good. So I appreciated that. I really appreciated all the technobabble that was going on. There was some real science in what they were talking about. It was a little less technobabble-y than Star Trek is. It was a little slightly bit more rooted in real science a la... what Charles was talking about with Ray Bradbury and kind of the hard sci-fi guys of that day and what people were interested in, you know, how they consumed their science fiction back then. I think we consume our science fiction in a very different way these days. I think there's a lot more fantasy influence. There's a lot less hard sci-fi influence than there used to be back in the 50s. So this very much like plays into what were people in the 50s wanting to do with their sci-fi. I thought the special effects were fantastic. Honestly, I know that like it was 1956, but like the whole way they did the lasers and the perspective and kind of shooting into the like rock thing when the invisible monster was like, that just looked amazing. And some of the wide shots where they were in these amazingly cavernous spaces really made me think of Star Wars, right? Where you get these like massive scale buildings and with little tiny people walking across a bridge that has no railings and would never be legal in today's society. Yeah, so anyway, just really appreciated a lot of the science fiction, the special effects. Robbie

59:03 the Robot, as Charles was saying, you know, 125, 130 grand, somewhere in the like five to 10% range. of the entire movie budget wise and that's why they kind of kept reusing him over the years right so somebody was saying well like he he looks kind of familiar well that's because he shows up all over the place he's What is he not in? He's in like all these different movies. Jim mentioned Gremlins. The things that I remember him from are things like The Twilight Zone or that one episode of Lost in Space. I think he was in an episode of The Addams Family, if I remember. It would not surprise me. Yeah, he was like, you know, he's a prop that kept working. So they kept using him, right?

59:43 So I love that he was like so expensive, but they were just like, you know what? We got this badass robot. Let's just keep using him. I think I might have seen him on Gilligan's Island too, I think. I'm sure, you know, so I love that about Robbie. I love that he's kind of one of those. I love that version of him that you have, Paul. I feel like I need to get one of those for my collection. Yeah. Lastly, on the science fiction or on the science, I keep saying science fiction on the special effects part of it. At the very end of the movie, there's this scene where he like closes the a door and it's a triple closing iris door. It like closes from one direction and then closes from another and then has like a drop down thing that comes. And I'm telling you that that is the most badass door that I think I have ever seen. Like you got the cool rolling, like deep space nine doors. You got your regular like, like kind of thing in most of your like constitution and you know, other class chip. But that one is like, ain't nothing getting through that door is triple protected.

1:00:41 So I'm just really, The sound effect for it, too, is awesome. Yeah, I love that door. Alta felt very tropey to me. It's too bad that she was kind of in the movie. She's a great character. I love her. They treat her in a totally misogynistic way. There's the one scene where the guy is like, why don't you put some clothes on? Because I can't help myself because my hormones are hot for you. That's disappointing at this point. I understand it was 1956, so it's kind of like a product of the times, right? But, well, we wouldn't do that now. I will say that the animals related to her, they do actually explain that, I think, Paul.

1:01:21 They say that the Krell actually brought animals to the planet. It's like this one little line, and I only remember it because I was like, where the hell did the animals come from? And they give you like a little They throw you a little line that tells you what that was. Moving on, soundtrack. There were times when the science fiction-y soundtrack was totally distracting for me. It runs throughout most of the movie. There are a few scenes where there's not like background kind of science-y sounds going on. So at times I thought it was really cool and it really set the mood for the scene. And then at times I was just like, oh my God, it's all I can hear right now. So maybe that's just me.

1:02:03 But last but not least, as I said, awesome monster and overall like thematically there were some things that i just really liked about this movie so they're talking about like technology and enlightenment and intelligence and like alien stuff like if we had this thing that was alien and it can make us twice as smart should we use it and if we do use it what are the things that we create as a result like those are all really cool like deep science fiction concepts that i feel like modern science fiction sometimes misses uh but also there's a lot of really good modern science fiction. I kept thinking for whatever reason of Spock as I was watching this, it just, it felt like there was a lot of kind of like Spock's personality that comes out of this movie with like this exploration of knowledge and, and that kind of stuff. So yeah, I, I love this movie. I thought it was great. I love the kind of like, if you watch it with a mind that it was the fifties and there was all this like cold war anxiety and that kind of stuff going on, you know, you, you kind of like get a, a sense of like why it explores some of the themes it does. It was just fantastic. So thank you, Paul, for suggesting. And I'm glad that I stayed awake this time.

1:03:13 Yay. It's good. You know, a couple other real quick Star Trek connections I thought were mentioning on here that are fun. I was reminded watching this again, right? I can't remember what season it was in, but an original series episode called Requiem for Methuselah, right? They go to this planet, look for a cure, and there's this old guy named Flint, who's like an immortal, right? But basically he's like this dignified recluse living in splendor with this sheltered ward who doesn't seem to have any experience with anything, right? I mean, that was very much, you know, kind of with the Morbius and Altera thing, just sort of, you know. Then she's attracted to the space-faring captain, right? Which, you know, the old guy's kind of intimidated by because he's jealous, right?

1:04:00 And then I thought the Krell brain boost was a lot like the the device in Spock's brain. I mean, really when McCoy hooks himself up to that, it really reminded me. Of that a lot. And then a couple of things just real quick. The casting wise, the doctor on this doc Ostro, right? He's the one who's like the Lord sure makes some beautiful worlds, right? That guy, he was in Star Trek. really one of my favorite episodes actually by any other name he was one of the he led the invading aliens from andromeda they were the ones who basically turned people into like styrofoam and crushed them if you know to store them and then they were undone by their own emotions like scotty's getting the one you know uh kelvin to drink right to drink scotch in that episode right but but warren stevens was a road jam you're the the leader of all of those guys and then I got to just point out that Chief Quinn, who's like the radio man, right?

1:04:50 That was Richard Anderson, who would go on to play like Oscar Goldman on The Six Million Dollar Man. So another great, you know, it's just like, you know, wonderful to see these actors like Earl Holliman and Leslie Nielsen before they became famous household name when they were all just working as, you know, day players, you know, for MGM. It's just wild. So a great piece of motion picture history, friend. I think, you know, Absolutely. Star Trek owes a bit of a debt to this movie, but it takes nothing away from the splendor and uniqueness that is Star Trek. And that's what I love about it is it's just, you know, you can be a creator and do something really original, even though you're inspired by something that came before. And I think that's art, I think, at its acme, right?

1:05:35 When you're really able to, you know, have reverent appreciation for something that someone else did and then Go your own way with it, right? Which is what Gene Roddenberry did. So I just think everybody should see this. And now that it's available on physical media, finally in a decent form. I had the good experience of like last, sometime early last summer, our science museum here has a science fiction film festival. And they have a huge screen, like IMAX size screen. I got to see this in a theater this last year. It was mind blowing to see it on a gigantic, gigantic screen. So if you, any theaters where you all live, get Forbidden Planet. Skip Tubi. Physical media, go to the theater, you know, see it the way that folks did.

1:06:16 Back in 56. It's amazing. So it's really fun to be able to talk about this with you all. Yeah, I kind of wanted to add something that Paul mentioned about, like, having people, you know, do art and stuff for the stuff that has happened before. So I don't think it actually technically has... a lot of ties to Star Trek. There's a lot of other science fiction shows out there also copy from this as well. And I forgot to mention that just hearing the name Quill has no relations to the alien race from the Orville. But yeah, when they said. Which is also a beautiful homage to an amazing science fiction show. As Paul was talking about Star Trek homaging Forbidden Planet, I was thinking about the Orville and... Just what a great job they did with that.

1:07:05 Yeah, so that's something that came to my mind when they mentioned Quail. But yeah, overall, great movie. I recommend it to people who haven't seen it yet. So I think it's unanimous. The Trexperts recommend Forbidden Planet. Go and check it out. You won't be disappointed. And with that, that wraps up our discussion on Forbidden Planet. Now it's time for some sci-fi birthdays. That was not a Klingon song. Okay, Grumpy Wharf, we understand.

1:07:55 Off our sci-fi birthdays by sadly enough remembering those members of our sci-fi film who are no longer with us and for that we turn to eric. Jim this week we start our remembrances with actress barbara march the stage film and television actress best known for playing the klingon lursa in the next generation episodes redemption redemption part two and first born and also the deep space nine first season episode past prologue and of course the movie generations as David is showing us here. In 1998, she provided her voice for Lursa in the video game Star Trek The Next Generation Klingon Honor Guard as well.

1:08:35 She's a very, or she was a very well-known stage actress in Canada, touring several theaters in the 1980s, playing roles such as Desmonda in Othello, Jenny in Neil Simon's Chapter Two, Ruth in The Homecoming, And Joanna in Present Laughter. Plenty of other stage credits to her name. You should really look them up. She's quite the stage actress. She also had small parts in a number of other television shows, but I think really stage is where she shined. And of course, Lursa, I think one of the best female Klingons we've ever seen in television. So happy birthday to Barbara March, lost back in 2019 at the age of 65 years old. Happy birthday as well to Janos Prohaska, the Hungarian stuntman, actor, and animal imitator? Yes, that's right.

1:09:30 Several of the Star Trek The Original Series monsters and aliens were performed by Prohaska himself. He was brought into the first pilot, The Cage, by assistant director Robert H. Justman, who already had worked with him on The Outer Limits television show. He was impressed by his ability to imbue the monster costumes he wore with a magical sense of animation that was a quote straight from a Star Trek magazine of the time. Most notable TOS appearances include as the Mother Horda, as we see right here in Devil in the Dark, one of my personal favorites of all time. He was also the Mugatu in A Private Little War.

1:10:11 and Yarnack in the Savage Carton. Yeah, I'm sure you're just picturing every single one of those monsters. David is showing us amazing pictures of them as well. Originally, his scene with the humanoid bird for the cage was to have been far more extended, but Prohaska's performance proved to be too weird for director Robert Butler, who recalled, I remember that there was some chicken, some killer fowl, being locked in some cell somewhere. And I'm talking to this stuntman. It's crazy. Me talking to this Janos Prohaska, who was Hungarian or something, saying, Janos. Okay, it's too big. It's too good. That's good, baby.

1:10:52 Now try this. And there's this big chicken, this killer chicken or some equivalent. I mean, it was nuts. Yeah, that sounds crazy. Anyway, lots of drama there. Very talented actor. You recognize him there. You recognize his monsters. Happy birthday to Janos Prohaska, who was lost all the way back in 1974 at a very young age, 54 years old. Happy birthday as well to Paul Kent, the actor who played Beach in Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan. Commander Beach was, of course, that 23rd century Starfleet officer who was on the USS Reliant. Kent also appeared in the movie Helter Skelter from 1976, made guest appearances on plenty of television shows from the 80s and 90s, You know, things like Three's Company and Barney Miller and Night Court and that sort of stuff.

1:11:40 He appeared in a couple of movies along the way. Probably the one that would titulate Jim the most was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors. He also appeared in the new Helter Skelter from 2004, which I didn't see. So happy birthday to Paul Kent, who we lost back in 2011 at the age of 80 years old. Happy birthday to a non-Star Trek birthday person. We are going beyond and saying happy birthday to Sir Robert George Moore. Yeah, Roger Moore, that Roger Moore. Born in 1927, we lost him back in 2017. I feel like it was yesterday. He, of course, was the English actor best known for his suave and witty demeanor. I mean, just look at that guy.

1:12:22 It's like you could barely resist him. He was known for portraying two quintessential action heroes, Silent Templar in the television series The Saint from 1962 to 1969. And of course, he was Sean Connery's successor as James Bond in the phenomenally successful film series from 1973 to 1985. I will admit, I think Moonraker was one of the first James Bond movies I ever saw. And I went back and saw a lot of other ones that were much better. But I just remember him right off the bat as being the James Bond that I sort of was like, oh, that's James Bond. He also served as UNICEF ambassador for a long time, I believe from 1991 until pretty close to when we lost him back in 2017. So very talented actor, very chiseled looks here. I mean, just look at him, as I said. Happy birthday and lots of love going out to Sir Robert George Moore. And last but not least, we are celebrating one of the greats of Star Trek, Mr. Mark Leonard was an American actor best known for his role as Sarek in the original series' second season episode, Journey to Babel. He was also in Star Trek III, The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country, The Best of Them, and Star Trek The Next Generation, third and fifth seasons episodes, Sarek and Unification I. He also voiced the role in the animated series' first season episode, Yesteryear.

1:13:53 probably the best of the animated series. But before he was cast as Sarek, Leonard played the first major Romulan character seen on Star Trek, the Romulan commander, in the first season episode Balance of Terror. Everybody remembers that guy. I mean, what a freaking towering performance. I'm sorry. I don't know if we've ever talked about Balance of Terror. If we haven't, we should probably have a show about that. Because, wow. Wow. As such, Leonard is often credited as being the first ever Romulan to appear in Star Trek. However, by strict order of screen appearance, of course that falls to Lawrence Montaigne as Decius. Who gets just a couple of frames before him, I'm sorry. Leonard was at one point considered as a replacement for Spock had Leonard Nimoy not returned for the second season of Star Trek, the original series.

1:14:43 There were a few people who were considered for that role. You can go and Google that if you'd like to. He was also the first choice to portray Spock Abraham Lincoln, in that famous episode, The Savage Curtain Book, was unavailable due to a regular role on the series Here Comes the Brides. Here Comes the Brides? Yeah, I don't know that one. Yeah, there we go. He also, finally and foremost, as Jim will be excited to hear, became the first actor to play a Klingon with forehead ridges and actually speak the Klingon language when he appeared as the Klingon captain of the IKS Amar. in the motion picture. Leonard had actually requested to reprise his role as Sarek for this film, but when his request was declined, he was offered the role of the Klingon captain instead. So I love that this awesome Klingon that we see for the first time with Hedridges and hear Klingon was the consolation prize for not being able to play Sarek. How amazing is that? Yeah, I just would have loved to have met this man I love everything about every single character he plays that I've ever seen. I will at one point see Buck Rogers. I have not yet seen that, although I know he was in that as well.

1:15:58 So I don't know. Would anybody else like to say anything about it? Do you have any Mark Leonard stories, Jim? Of course. I feel like you do. You know that I do. So the first Star Trek convention that I went to, In 1983, Mark Leonard was there. He was the guest. I went to see him, and I thought he was awesome. He was an incredible guy. So flash forward to 1991, sitting around with my wife, and I'm like, well, let's do a Star Trek convention. Who should we have? Mark Leonard. So I reached out to Mark Leonard, and he was the guest at my very first Star Trek convention in upstate New York. My wife and I went to pick him up at the airport. Nicest, friendliest guys like talking to your grandpa.

1:16:41 And. We get back to the hotel room and we bring him up and we're sitting down in his room just chatting with him. And I was really nervous. I didn't know what, you know, what do you say to Mark Leonard, you know? And we just started talking and he says, you seem nervous. I said, yeah, I am. This is our first convention and blah, blah, blah. He leaned over and mind-melded me. He laid his hands upon my head and said, everything was going to be okay. And that was all it took for me. I was like, Oh my God, Sarek mind melded me. I've lived. I have lived. And yeah, great guy and memory. I'll never forget. So yeah, Mark Leonard.

1:17:24 What an amazing story. I love that story, Jim. I've, I've probably heard it a dozen times or more and I still love hearing it every single time. It's a bit, Like, can you imagine Mark Leonard mind-melding you? Sorry. It's just one of my favorites right here. He came down to the dance party, and I actually have a picture of him with my parents. He came over and took a picture with my parents. My parents had no idea who he was. But I have a picture of Mark Leonard with my parents. I love that. Whole idea of your parents are like, there's some guy here. Yeah, sure. You can take my picture with him, whatever. Well, you know, the kid is like, this is the most important thing that's ever happened.

1:18:07 Well, it's funny because when Carl Stryker showed up at my wedding, they had no idea who he was either. So, you know, they just put up with my Star Trek ism, you know, but, but Mark Leonard was an incredible, phenomenal person. And I'll never forget meeting him. So that's my Mark Leonard story. Well, we honor him today. We lost him all the way back in 1996. So if you do the math, unfortunately, he's already been gone for 30 years. So happy birthday to Mark Leonard. And I'm going to pass the thing where the flame started, which is with the birthday candle over to v oh my god he's not here who's okay well should i take v's birthday oh yes v Oh my God, this could be perfect timing.

1:19:03 Oh, she's back. There she is. V, I. Just introduced you for your birthdays. Go for it. Yay. All right, so I'll get through them really quickly. But the first one, oh my God, I had the biggest crush on him. Scott Bakula. He, of course, portrayed Captain Jonathan Archer on Enterprise. And I think we all, a lot of us watched him, knew him as Dr. Sam Beckett. On Quantum Leap and I don't know about anybody else, but I would have secondhand embarrassment when he had to be a woman. When he leaped into a female and had to wear the, you know, dress and high heels and stuff.

1:19:45 It was like Tootsie. Hmm. It was like Tootsie. Yeah. Well, except not so much. Yeah. Which that's one of my favorite movies, by the way. Anyway. So he got four Emmy Award nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. And he got a Golden Globe for the role. He directed three episodes of the series. His co-star in the series, Dean Stockwell, went on to appear alongside Beckett once again in the Enterprise. Episode, Detained. He received four Emmy Award nominations. Not again. As outstanding lead actor in a drama series. He also won the Golden Globe for that role. He directed three episodes of Quantum Leap, and his co-star in the series, Dean Stockwell, went on to appear, of course, alongside Bakula once again in the Enterprise episode, Detained. Do we have a picture of that one on here? We don't, but we have a picture of him in Quantum Leap right there.

1:20:50 So happy birthday. To Scott Bakula, who has gotten some recent press because people are very hot for the idea of a beginning of the Federation type thing with him as the first president in the year 2161. So we'll see. Maybe it'll happen. Happy birthday as well this week to Ben Vereen, the actor, dancer, and singer who played Commander Edward M. LaForge. Sound familiar? In the TNG seven season episode Interface. He also. appeared in the acclaimed groundbreaking 1977 miniseries Roots, where he portrayed Chicken, also known, of course, as George Moore. Lots of cool pictures of him here, and what a talented actor, and what a cool idea that he got to play a family member of a person who he'd already acted with in Roots. That's pretty cool. Happy birthday to Ben Vereen.

1:21:48 And last, oh, V's back! Yeah, for the moment, for the moment. You get the last sexy birthday. Yes, all right. So let's see if I can get through this without, you know. Anyway, Hugh Jackman, Australian actor, singer, and producer. Breakthrough role came as Wolverine, having portrayed him across the X-Men film franchise and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from X-Men to Deadpool and Wolverine. As a leading man, he found further success with roles in films such as Kate and Leopold and Helsing, The Prestige, Song Sung Blue, and The Sheep Detectives. Okay.

1:22:28 Dude, that movie is so good, V. You would love it so much. You have to see that movie. Okay. Is that the, like the, that's not from like Wallace and Gromit people, is it? Sort of. No, it's not. No, it is. It is. It's like a realistically animated type movie. And I won't tell you anything about the role that he plays, but you have to see the movie. You would love it. And then see, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor as Jean Valjean in the musical Les Miserables. And won a Golden Globe for Best Actor. He was also in The Showman, I believe, which. Was the greatest showman.

1:23:09 The greatest, yeah. This is the greatest show! Sorry. All right, I'll let Eric do that. Sorry. Tremendously talented man. I mean, he's got it all. He's a triple threat. He's a singer, an actor, and a dancer. And hot as heck, so all righty. So on to the flaming birthday candle, flinging it to Paul. I wonder why that got played. Wow. Subtlety. Thy name is Trek talking, but anyhow, let's go on.

1:23:52 We have birthdays to talk about friends and a big one coming up here right now for me. Cause this dude, one of my all time faves, the legendary Brian blessed. Okay. Phenomenal, just incredibly robust and hail English actor, uh, born in 1936. Uh, He's known for having this incredibly exuberant personality, this loud, booming voice. He's an explorer. He's traveled the world. He's climbed mountains. He's got this prolific beard. He's just absolutely amazing. And he is in, like, everything from, like, the 70s through the 80s that in any way involves science fiction. He's just been in all kinds of things.

1:24:38 And as that music cue might have given you a clue, He's, of course, beloved for playing feathered Prince Voltan, the leader of the Hawkmen in the 1980 classic science fiction film Flash Gordon, with the various luminaries that you see there, including Max Fonsito. But it's great. Gordon's alive? That's Brian Blessed, right? Who could take any line of dialogue and make it thunderingly dramatic. But he also... It has been like everything. Tons of work for Gerry Anderson films. If you like British science fiction, you should know who Gerry Anderson is.

1:25:20 But memorably, he had two huge roles on Space 1999. Season one is Dr. Cabot Rowland in this really tremendously cool episode where they're marooned on an ice planet. And then he ended up in second season, he played Maya's father, mentor in the second season pilot the metamorph and you'll hear him as the frog like leader of the gungans boss nast in george lucas's episode one the phantom menace as well so he's in everything and if you hear that voice you'll never forget it he's just a wonderful performer and still out there doing things doing projects and he's got an incredible voice a wonderful spirit absolutely amazing Check him out in a very smallish role in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, which is one of the– we were talking about Shakespeare earlier because of the tempo. Go check out Henry V, the version Branagh directed and starred in.

1:26:21 If you've never seen it, it's one of the great Shakespeare movies of all time. So good. So good. But Brian Blessed is like– he plays like the Duke of Gloucester. Yeah, he does. This armor-bearing just force of nature, right? He looks like he could kill you if he looked at your arm. And then he continued to work with Branagh in Branagh's Hamlet, where he played the legendary part of Hamlet's father, the ghost of Hamlet's father. So, I mean, this is a serious stage actor who really has a lot of fun when he comes to work in a science fiction picture. I mean, fun is Brian Blessed's middle name. So a real wonder to be able to wish him well. And continued long life, sir. A huge admirer of yours and yours.

1:27:04 Hail Spirit. Moving on to the Among the Living, we must say hello to Australian actress Claudia Black, best known for her portrayal of Arian Sun in Farscape, that terrific Jim Henson-aligned series that a lot of people have still yet to discover. I find people did not check out Star... I can't even talk anymore. I'm losing my mind. Farscape! I think it was during the heyday of the SyFy channel, so a lot of folks might have missed it, but it's definitely worth checking out. Very, very interesting out there show. I really think it's great. She also played Valimal Duran in Stargate SG-1, another popular show there. And she was in the original Pitch Black with Vin Diesel, which was great.

1:27:48 And if you're a Star Wars fan, you might have seen her last couple years and didn't even know it because she was one of the The Nightsister Witches, who are aligned with Grand Admiral Thrawn on Ahsoka. They were covered in crazy makeup, wearing red, the Dathomir witches. So definitely check her out in that as well. Really, really cool stuff. She does a lot of work, all kinds of different things. Really cool performer. Wonderful to be able to wish Claudia Black a happy birthday as well. Happy birthday all goes out to Richard Chavez. Okay. Absolutely great. Cool dude. Actor who played an earth sky spirit chief in the Voyager second season episode tattoo. But some of us of a certain particular age may remember him as Poncho from the first and best Predator movie from John McTiernan with Arnold Schwarzenegger. So go back and check him out in Predator there. He's really great. In the War of the Worlds series he played Lieutenant Colonel Iron Horse as well. So definitely dominating in those Native American roles that are there. A really dynamic actor, though. Very, very cool.

1:29:05 And then it's wonderful to be able to wish a happy birthday to the luminous, delightful Lori Petty, actress who played, of course, Nos in Voyager's fifth season episode, Gravity, but really exploded during the 80s with her role in Point Break, which is a terrific picture, I guess. I hope everyone's seen Point Break. It's so much fun, and it's just dynamite stuff. She also had a really great role opposite Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own, where she played Kit Keller. I want to say she was nominated for that, but I didn't have time to look it up. But I think she might have even been nominated. It's a great role. She really did a terrific job in that picture. I really, really recommend it.

1:29:51 And a little scene, but really... Exciting cult picture based on a comic book series called Tank Girl. Tank Girl is really interesting. It's really funny and cool. Nobody gives Tank Girl the time of day it deserves, I think. So if you've never seen that, check it out. Check out her work in Voyager, in Gravity. She's still out there doing her thing. So absolutely great. Raising a glass to you, Lori Petty. Somewhere I have one. There we go. There we go. All of us robots and aliens love you. Hope that you're doing well. But there's more to come. So let's pass this. Everything is on fire on Trek Talking. Flaming this and flaming that. I'm going to take a phosphorescent birthday candle and pass it over and we'll see what Uncle Jim's got stewing in his crock pot this week.

1:30:41 What you got going on, Uncle Jim? Well, I'm going to take the lightsaber of destiny and we're going to do Uncle Jim's movie pick of the week. We're going to start off with a movie. It's inconceivable that you have never seen this movie, but that was me until Eric and Charles pointed it out to me, and I actually watched it not too long ago. But The Princess Bride was released on October 9, 1987. It follows a humble farmhand whose quest to rescue his beloved from a scheming prince leads through perilous landscapes, eccentric alleys, and a comedic twist. Its blend of romance, fantasy, and adventure, along with charming performances and dialogue, has earned it an acclaimed film. Though modest at release, it became a cult classic, praised for its humor, heart, and timeless appeal. As I said, I missed it. Eric and Charles recommended it. I watched it. Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. And the fact that Grand Nagazek is in it, saying inconceivable about 50 million times in the movie...

1:31:51 That's what I remember from it. And every time I see him on Star Trek, I want him to say inconceivable, which he never does. But the Princess Bride. Next on our list of movies released this week was Barbarella. Released on October 10, 1968, it follows a glamorous space adventurer sent to find missing scientists whose deadly invention could endanger the galaxy. Her quest takes her through bizarre worlds, eccentric allies, and perilous encounters, blending psychotic visuals with playful eroticism. Notable for Jane Fonda's iconic performance and inventive 1960s design, Its value today is a cult classic, though often seen more stylish and campy than narratively strong Barbarella. Next on our list.

1:32:42 is Silver Bullet, another Stephen King movie. It was released on October 11, 1985. It follows a young paraplegic boy in a small town plagued by brutal killings who suspects is a werewolf behind the terror. With his sister and eccentric uncle, he searches for the truth before the creature strikes again. Worth watching for for a suspenseful Stephen King adaptation with strong performances by Corey Hamm and Gary Busey and its atmospheric tension. Really, really good movie. Next on my list is a movie, First Man. This isn't actually a science fiction movie, but I thought it fit in with our theme. First Man was released on October 12, 2018, based on a 2005 biography, First Man, The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R.

1:33:36 Hansen. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong. It follows an intense, deeply personal years leading up to the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. And of course, Halloween is right around the corner, so what would a movie list be without... a Halloween movie. Halloween 5, The Revenge of Michael Myers, was released on October 13, 1989. It's an American slasher film starring Donald Pleasence, Daniel Harris, and Ellie Cornell. It is the sequel to Halloween IV, The Return of Michael Myers. The story follows serial killer Michael Myers, who again returns to the town of Haddonfield to murder his traumatized niece, Jamie Lloyd, with whom he now shares a telepathic connection.

1:34:25 Dun, dun, dun. And of course, if we're going to have a Michael Myers movie on the list and we have a Stephen King movie on the list, What would a Halloween list be without a Wes Craven movie, right? Wes Craven's A New Nightmare, known simply as The New Nightmare, was released on October 14, 1994. Supernatural horror film written and directed by Wes Craven. It's a meta-sequel to Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare, and the seventh installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world and haunts the cast and crew involved in making the film about him. In the film, Freddy is depicted as closer to what Craven originally intended, being much more menacing and much less comical, with an updated attire and appearance. What's Craven's new nightmare?

1:35:18 Next on the list, sticking with horror movies, We have The Evil Dead. It was released on October 15, 1981, an independent supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi in its feature directorial debut and the first installment in the Evil Dead franchise. The film stars Bruce Campbell, Betsy Baker, and Teresa Tilly as college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in the woods where they find an audio tape that, when played, releases a legion of demonic entities. Most of the group suffer from demonic possessions, forcing its sole survivor, Ash Williams, played by Campbell, to survive an onslaught of increasingly gory mayhem. And let me tell you, we've got some great movies on this list. It was really hard for me to pick one.

1:36:12 But I did, and David, roll the tape. I got to talk to you. You won't let go of it, will you? I saw what I saw. Psychotics are more active when the moon is full. And this guy's a psycho. When they catch him, you're going to find out he's just as human as you and me. You have got to get this idea out of your head.

1:36:52 There are no such things as werewolves. The Bible. Tells us to fear the terror of the beast. I am scared to death. What are we going to do? I think I know what to do. I want you to turn this into a silver bullet. The tech you're gonna shoot a. 44 bullet at anyway ain't out of silver. The moon is full. You better watch it. I think he's going to come after me.

1:37:34 Are you ready? You see how all things serve the will and the mind of God. You see! You meddling little. Help me! Please! There you have it, guys. Jim's movie pick of the week. Why did I pick this movie? First of all, it's a Stephen King movie. Second of all, it has a werewolf in it. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it for you, but it's not your typical werewolf. He's doing the bidding of God. He thinks he's a good guy. He thinks he's helping people by tearing them apart. apart and eating them you'll have to watch the movie to find out why but more importantly what really gets me about this movie is it's the first time that I've seen a movie that I can think of where the hero is in a wheelchair and I think that that representation is awesome and I think that Corey played a great part and A lot of fun, a lot of suspense. Just a fun movie. So I recommend that you go out and watch Silver Bullet in honor of Halloween. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

1:39:01 A lot of fun. Anybody else seen this movie? No, but is it me or does Jim have a fascination with were-stuff? A lot of werewolves. Nothing bad about it. I just thought it was interesting. Werewolves of London. What's up? I think it's because werewolves are so iconic, man. Come on. I mean, there's a lot of great werewolf pictures out there, and it's Halloween month, so you've got to love it, right? I even watched. American Werewolves in London a couple weeks ago again. Okay. Knockout. Knockout. There's some great pictures out there like The Howling. Oh, baby. Yeah. I haven't seen this one in a long time, Jim. I have to check it out again.

1:39:42 I don't think I've seen it since it came out. Yeah, it's often overlooked because It doesn't have that traditional werewolf transforming scene like American Werewolf in London does. It doesn't have a lot of the werewolf ripping people apart with a lot of the gore. It's a lot more suspenseful and creepy and stylistic, I think, than classic horror movies. And that's why it gets overlooked a lot of the times. But with Halloween around the corner, put this one on your list. I was going to say, and you also have Gary Busey before he... Sort of went south with his, you know, how he went. His interesting journey through Hollywood.

1:40:23 Yes, thank you. That's a great way to put it. But I attribute that because he was never the same after he had had his terrible accident where he wasn't wearing a helmet and his head connected with the curb or something like that. So he had a terrible head injury, so. Anyway. You're going to notice that Uncle Jim's movies of the week are going to be a lot of horror movies, and that's only because the time of year that we're in. So we will. Have some sci-fi movies coming up soon, but just bear with the horror movies. I try to pick ones that I think that you guys are going to enjoy. So that's Uncle Jim's movie pick of the week, and now it's time for Star Trek news. Okay, Eric, we don't have a Shatner says what? But we do have a story that I think you're going to enjoy telling us.

1:41:31 Yes, I will, because we're talking about Starfleet Academy Season 2's release date and guest stars. We have a release date for the second and final season of Star Trek Starfleet Academy. The sophomore season will premiere in March of 2027. This was announced on Saturday during the Star Trek Universe panel at New York Comic Con. It also was revealed that Bill Nye and Rosemarie DeWitt will guest star in the upcoming season. Nye will play Nala's estranged father, Nyk Ake, and DeWitt will play Tarima's mother, Lathia Sadal, the First Lady of Beta Zed. Second, or excuse me, season two follows our cadets into their second year aboard the USS Athena. There, their ideals of leadership, friendship, romance, and morality are put to the test as they navigate budding rivalries, shaky diplomatic negotiations, a fiercely competitive school-wide tournament, and the arrival of a mysterious new cadet whose existence raises questions that could have consequences far beyond the classroom. That sounds pretty interesting. Quote, we're incredibly proud of the ambition, passion, and creativity that went into bringing Star Trek Starfleet Academy to life, CBS Studio and Paramount Plus said in a statement. Quote, the

1:43:02 series introduced audiences to a bold new group of characters, welcomed familiar faces, and expanded the Star Trek universe in exciting ways. We're grateful to Alex Kurtzman, Naga Landau, Gaia Viola, and the entire cast and crew who pushed storytelling boundaries in the spirit of Gene Roddenberry's vision. We look forward to sharing the upcoming second and final season with everyone and continuing to celebrate the cast, crew, and all that was accomplished with this series. As we just said, a new cadet is joining us for this final season, as was announced on Saturday. Rudard? Sorry. Ruarid, sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name, Ruarid Aldington, I will practice that, will play the series' regular role of Keats, a young alien our cadets encounter on an away mission who possesses a mysterious backstory. When the cadets make the risky decision to bring him back to the Starfleet Academy, they realize he's a wanted man and his life is in danger. The upcoming second season of Starfleet Academy will be the show's final season, as we just said. What is next for the Star Trek universe is still mostly unknown, apart from a new movie seemingly now being in production. Regardless, Academy Season 2 looks like another interesting adventure into the Star Trek franchise's 32nd century setting, first introduced in Star Trek Discovery. We still have the fifth and final season

1:44:34 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds also coming this sometime in 2027. As far as we know, that's it. But we are hopeful that we will see more. So I think this is a pretty cool announcement. It gives us a couple of teasers about the upcoming season. I think the bulk of us on the podcast here really dug Starfleet Academy. So I think we'll all enjoy this second season. It's kind of hard going into a second season knowing that it's the end. I don't know. We've had so much time to think about it. What a weird. way to kill a series, like a year before the second season even comes out. I don't know. I don't know what y'all are up to there at Paramount, but bad way to crash and burn a series, bad Paramount. Okay, that's it.

1:45:23 Well, with that, we're going to pass the lightsaber of destiny over to Paul, the toy guy, and he's going to have some fun with this one. Okay, okay. I know the article's down, what's going on at New York Comic Con, because there's a lot of good stuff going on there. And we have some highlights about Nacelle Company's Star Trek reveal highlights, including legendary Lucille Ball. Because the Nacelle Company panel always delivers at New York Comic Con, because Brian Volk-Weiss, who was a recent guest of this show, and we got to have a wonderful chat with, he is as much a fan of being a sci-fi nerd as anybody else in that room. Nacelle's Wave 1 Star Trek figures are in their fifth production wave, from what I understand. And Volkweis is saying that he thinks they're the best-selling Star Trek figures since the 90s, back when Playmates was doing their deal. So pretty exciting.

1:46:17 Pre-sale for Wave 3 figures, which are going to be heavily original series, from what I understand, are going to begin in just about a month from now, on November 20th, which is pretty exciting. Can't wait for those. Now, wave two, if you've done some pre-ordering there, and man, there's some hitters in there. Amazing. They're going to hopefully ship sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And if we actually have those by the end of the year, I will be thrilled. But this is a guy who prioritizes quality over speed. So, you know, timing can be variable. But, you know, you know that when you get them, they're going to be worth it. Wave two, we have Captain Kirk, who can sit on his horse from generations. That's pretty cool. And he goes, if we're late, 20% of why we're late is that damn horse. So in figures for 2027, he's hoping to do two more waves and two exclusives for a total of 22 figures coming in 2027, which would be absolutely amazing. As you're seeing on our screen, patrons, the panel revealed wave three renders of both Hikaru Sulu and a special two-pack featuring Lucille Ball and Gene Roddenberry. and showcases the level of detail that Nacelle is known for, because, of course, these are the folks who gave birth to Star Trek, those two, through Desilu. Sulu's accessories include the ill-fated Alpha-177 canine from The Enemy Within, that crazy puppy with a pipe cleaner antenna,

1:47:47 a tricorder communicator phaser, and a feisty carnivorous plant, Gertrude. Anyone can do Gertrude. You just have to have four fingers in with it. As seen in The Man Trap. If you're asking why there's no sword, Volkweis seemed to tease, ask me again in nine months. Interesting. So it sounds like there's going to be more Sulu, another accessory down the road. Gene Roddenberry's accessories include a gold captain's chair, a typewriter, the original Star Trek script, all hands in a Vulcan salute and a USS Enterprise model similar to the one now on display at the MIT. Museum through March 2027, that wayward shooting model that got a lot of attention this last year. Lucille Ball comes to their own original Star Trek script, a dissolute checkbook, because she's writing the checks, and a pen. Though not pictured, Brian Wilk Weiss also expects her to come with a director's chair emblazoned with Ball on the back, so pretty cool.

1:48:41 Brian Volkweis also brought a section of the bridge's set, Spock's bridge station, that is expected to go on presale next year because the complete bridge is going to consist of 12 sections, lights and sounds and whatnot, priced at $ 60 each, and once assembled will measure about 3.5 feet wide. That's a pretty good deal these days and age for that kind of a setup there, Brian. I think you obviously have priced this stuff as low as you can get away with and still make a profit. But that's impressive. I have found that these things do tend to sell out. So when pre-orders go up, my advice is next. And you can get them directly from the sales site, which is what I would recommend doing. So you can guarantee that you're going to get good shipping and quality product.

1:49:29 So that's pretty exciting. I think that's all I've got for this one thing. The only other thing I would mention is Jim got us all in the. Stephen King kick. I don't know if anyone else is watching the new iteration of Carrie as a series that came out a few episodes, like eight episode series. I'm not done yet, but what I'm seeing so far, very cool, very new interpretation of Carrie. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how it ends yet. So no spoilers, please, but man, I'll tell you, uh, I like what I'm seeing so far in particular, the lead actress who plays Carrie and her mom, those two are just, chewing it up it's amazing so if you're looking for some good scary stuff for Halloween go straight to Carrie I really recommend.

1:50:16 It Carrie was outstanding I just watched the first episode of Crystal Lake the Jason Voorhees story so I'm only one episode in but so far I'm digging it so we'll see what happens well that wraps up yet another show Next week, we're going to be talking about, well, speaking of, Paul did a summer movies extravaganza. And one of the movies that we talked about in Paul's extravaganza was The End of Oak Street. We're going to talk about that movie next week. So go and watch it and then tune into the podcast to see what we all thought about End of Oak Street.

1:50:59 Oh, God, I got some watching to do. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, it's out there on video on demand. You can catch it. And we're going to talk about that next week. So I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim. And I want to say thank you to David for joining us and putting together these awesome videos. Thank you, David. Yeah, it's been really fun. Can't wait to see Oak Street. I'm actually kind of curious about that. So we'll see. New take on Jurassic Park. Totally new take. And thank you so much to Eric for joining us as well. Thank you, Eric. You bet. Great to see you guys. And Charles, thanks for joining us as well. Thank you, Charles. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing Oak Street because I wanted to see it in the theater and didn't get to it.

1:51:40 A lot of fun. I enjoyed it. Thank you, V, for joining us, even though you had some problems with your internet connection. Thank you. I'm here now. You got the computer problem solved, but now it's just the internet problem. Oh, well. And, of course, thank you so much to Paul for joining us and for turning us all on to Forbidden Planet. Thank you, Paul. It was my pleasure, and Robbie's too. I'd love to be able to dip into the classic catalog a bit of influential science fiction. And that's why we added Beyond, the name of the podcast.

1:52:22 So there you have it. We went beyond, and we're going to go beyond next week as well. As I said, I'm your most excellent host, Uncle Jim, saying everybody please live long and prosper, stay safe, and be good to each other. Good night, everybody. Good night. Live long and prosper. Humans. 98 million point six. We're clear now. What an astrogator. A genuine privilege, Commander. Activate main view plate. Aye, aye, Skipper.

1:53:08 That's Altair IV, the bright speck below the star. 15 seconds. Yes, Altair, your father, my shipmates, all the stored knowledge of the crown. Five seconds, four, three, two, one. Altai. About a million years from now, the human race will have crawled up to where the Krells stood in their great moment of triumph and tragedy.