133: Now I Can't See, I Just Stare

This week we are covering the 1993 film, Alive, directed by Frank Marshall and starring Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton. A sort of apocalypse in miniature, the movie depicts the miraculous survival of sixteen members of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains in 1972. 

We talk about the film's reputation, which perhaps surpasses its dramatic merits, while also considering the choices one would be forced to consider making were one to find oneself in such a scenario, specifically, cannibalism. We make comparisons to the situation the crew members of the  famous whaling ship Essex made in a somewhat similar scenario, oddly also while en route to Chile. 

The episode opens with a conversation about another, more recent plane crash, this one seemingly caused by a test of a newly developed GPS jammer. 

This film contains spoilers for Alive.

Futurism on the New Mexico plane crash caused by a GPS jammer

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

All right, everybody, welcome back. It's the end of the world with Michael and Stu. I'm Michael. And I'm Stu, and today we are discussing one of the great masterpieces of the 1990s. That's right. It's schoolyard conversation piece movie of my sixth grade year, Alive. Alive, yes, which also made it into Seinfeld. It did. And I think there's definitely a Simpsons parody. There's a Simpsons parody as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Seinfeld is who would be eaten. Right? Like which of them?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Like George, obviously, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

And then the Kramer's Lean, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yeah. Oh. Kramer's. So maybe Kramer would be the best.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, I mean, it did it. It's interesting that you bring that up about the square because it did, like, I mean, obviously, it's a truly bonkers story. Yes. But it it is amazing how it it became uh a sort of phenomenon for the question of like, would you eat someone in this scenario?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, yeah. Uh it's a little bit like the Essex conundrum. The Essex is the famous whale ship that was attacked by a vicious whale and sunk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1820, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

And uh they had only limited rations, and there were three three boats. The crew most I think the crew all survived the initial sinking of the ship by, and this inspired Moby Dick, obviously. Uh sort of legendary incident. But um each of the cre each of the three boats chose like a different place to go. They didn't go to the closest islands because, ironically, they dreaded cannibals, right? They're like, oh, we don't want to get eaten. Then we don't want to get eaten by these cannibals.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Um crazy to be in such a bad spot and still be like inventing possible worst-case scenarios like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Well, I mean, it was it was possible that that would happen. It was unlikely, but but you know, you could you could just roll up on the wrong tribe at the wrong time and they're in a war or something. Uh but yeah, one crew actually made it real relatively easily. Uh another one had a pretty hard time, but then the one that tried to go to South America, I think they they headed for Easter Island or something like that. Yeah, yeah. They ran out of uh food. Um and yeah. They survived, but the cabin boy was devoured. Yeah, I forget if he died. There's like an ethical did they kill him or did he die? I I forget how it worked out, but at least one or two people ended up getting eaten, and they weren't never prosecuted for this, obviously, because it's like in the film we're gonna talk about, it is sort of extreme scenario. Uh so this movie we're watching uh or that we watch for today alive is about a plane crash. And just as a little way of getting us into the spirit, I thought we'd we'd discuss a news item that that came across the internet to me about this uh GPS jamming device that apparently the US military is uh has developed, but has not yet uh how shall we say has not yet perfected um shocked to hear it. Yeah, so it's hard to believe that the US military could ever err, but from time to time uh the unthinkable happens. That's right. And so there's a story in Wired. I have a little uh summary of it from from Futurism magazine, whatever that is. And whatever futurism is, I've never heard of this idea, but um so basically in May, a small medvac plane was going from Roswell, site of a famous alien incident allegedly, uh, to a small mountain village to deliver emergency medical supplies, and they were happened to be testing in as a sort of low visibility area, so they're flying on instruments, and instruments are very dependent upon GPS. So the military, perhaps unaware that this crew was en route, uh tested this kind of jammer device, and so the plane lost contact with uh air traffic control and GPS went out, and they uh slammed directly into a mountain. Jesus. Yeah, it it's and was there a cover-up or something, or like what I don't think there was a cover-up. I think it wasn't clear right away what had happened, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Like like it's just did any conspiracy theories emerge of like someone was making a run from it for it from from Roswell with some sort of like alien?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

I haven't seen that. I mean, I'm sure if you look deep enough on TikTok, you you can just you can discover that. But um, I have not encountered that as of yet. I think what's interesting about this is I feel like if Biden did this, if this happened under Biden, it would be a Benghazi like situation or something. Yeah. But I I f I feel like the energy, even with Trump being remarkably unpopular, there isn't there isn't the will to blame the government for every you know, you know what I mean? Or something because it's it's weird to me that this isn't a bigger story.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah, I mean it seems like an absolutely avoidable catastrophe.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, and I mean not that many people were killed. I think there were only two or three people on the plane. No, four.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Did do they run checks for airplanes in there in the vicinity of the jammer when they test? I mean one would imagine. You see what I'm saying? Like why did so then they just didn't see this plane or something? Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah, apparently. Um You're breaking up on me a lot. I don't know what's going on here. Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Oh really?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah, like I just lost all of what you just said. And you're like z your your image is very uh I don't know. It's not you. I think it's me. It's not you, Michael, it's me.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

It might be maybe my internet though?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

No, it could be my internet, it could be any number of things. Um I think we're we're good now. So we'll just pick up where you said uh just say like uh so they don't run do they run checks or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

So do they run checks on the airspace before they just turn the test on? Like how does that even happen?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

You would think that they would, but um apparently not in this case. The army the army is aware of the release of the NTSB's preliminary report into the crash of a civilian medical evacuation flight on May 14th in the vicinity of Ruidoso, New Mexico. As the incident remains under investigation, we cannot comment at this time.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

So we have heard about this, but we're not allowed to say until uh Yeah, always the best type of investigation are these ones that are clearly like everything is already known, but they just need to take their time until they figure out how they're actually going to explain this in a way that limits the the sort of PR damage.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, they're like, look, uh there's a lot of things we have to cover up here. So let us get back to you.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

They can end up saying something like, We cannot underestimate how vital GPS jamming is. And in many ways, the tragic deaths of these people um were were a valiant and honorable service to this country, right? Like that's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

I mean, not since since the soldiers who defended Fort Sumter has the exactly. Yeah, so you know, it seems good. It seems good that the government's uh you know, accidentally knocking civilian planes out of the air. I'm very uh happy about that.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

I mean, I guess they're like, well, I guess this thing works on, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, well, now they know, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, now they know test I mean successful it it it is sort of just like another, you know, another totally tragic example of the utter incompetence that is going on at basically every possible uh avenue of government right now. You know, they're like, oh yeah, that's right. You know, you got planes running into mountains, you got like they're recalling 12,000 pounds of bacon, you know, like it's just the whole thing is there's an entire war that has depleted our entire stash of missiles, apparently.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Right, right, right. With with no positive result uh at all, which is well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I would say that we've uh we've taught them a lesson and and won a decisive victory, but that's just me.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Indeed. All right, so let's let's talk about a live. Um yeah, as we said at the outset, this was a movie that was talked about a lot when I was a kid. Uh it there it was scandalous, the fact that it depicted cannibalism, and that was actually like almost the only thing about it that was ever discussed. And it's the only thing I feel like I had seen this, or at least part of it at some point, because but the only thing that I remembered is wait for it, the cannibalism. I didn't remember, I mean, I've read about this incident because it's you know it's a famous story of survival.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

And I mean, obviously, the survival story is incredible and and worthy of being told, but given the reaction and given the obsession with the cannibalism, you know, you almost could see a movie where it's all about the decision about whether or not to eat other people. And then like once they decide to, the movie ends with them like huddled around the the human eating, and then you get the like 60 days later they were saved, you know, etc.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Right. It's almost like a one-night uh movie discussion. Yeah, where you get a bunch of different perspectives. Although there aren't the problem with that though, is that are there really that many perspectives? It's like we do the cannibalism or we die.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, I mean, this is I think this is the whole thing that maybe maybe we'll save some of that for when we get to this point in the actual movie description. But yeah, one of we'll just say that I think one of the problems with the movie is that especially when you're coming in, having heard the the like new, like the news that this movie depicts this, that you're almost expecting more drama around it. Yeah, and more and just more mayhem in general, right? Well, I was so like from what I've read, and tell me if you uh uh heard something different, but what I read was basically that they ran out of food in like a week. Yeah. And then a couple days later, after discussing it, they had decided around day 10 to start eating beef.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

That's my understanding as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, and I guess the one thing that is kind of interesting is like let's say that they were rescued, right? Mm-hmm. Obviously, if they're rescued like on day 10 exactly, right? So this is this is they and they explain they were out of food for let's say seven days, but like a helicopter touches down and they are like going to town on some human flesh. It's like is ten days, even if you explain, like you know, because one of the things this movie does well is like you actually can't conceive of being out there like that. No, yeah, it's not it's not in our capability to be like, oh, it'd be so cold. Like the whole time I'm watching, I honestly do not still understand how they survived. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, and many of them, many of them did not survive. Of course, but like some of them did, and that is insane.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

16 16 out of like 30 something people survived.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Like at a at a level that I just I don't I don't get. Like I I think about how I've been outside of the cold.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, this is why it's known as the miracle of the Indies. Right. I mean, I thought I was gonna freeze to death when I like was at it on a ski trip and like got stuck in the snow for like 10 minutes or something. I was like, oh, this this could be this could be it. Oh no, I'm free. I'm I'm okay, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Right, and one of the problems I have with the movie, which is which is strange because it's based on a true story, and these people, it is verified that these people survived. And many of them are still alive. In fact, I'm still watching, despite that, being like, This, this is bullshit. No way.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

The author's gone too far. This is fiction. This come on, this isn't real.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, let's talk about how the movie gets there, and then we'll talk a little bit more about cannibalism. So stick around.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, so one of the things about this movie is that it is set entirely in the plane and on the mountain. There's like no setup, we don't see them training, you know. I thought flashbacks where you see like the happy moments of being. Well, there's still there's John Malkovich is the narrator for the beginning and the end, and he's like smoking a sig, and he looks great, he looks nothing like any of the actors who are the the kids. That's right. I mean, this is about a Uruguayan rugby team, and like granted, I know there are a lot of like Germanic and Italian people in Uruguay, but like there this is like of Josh Hamilton and Ethan Hawke, right? These are not like Latin flavored people at all. There are a few Latin actors as well, but it's uh it's so American.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Like they honestly, when I saw Malkovich, because you had explained to me, because you'd watched it first, the rewatch, and you'd explained to me Malkovich's role. And it was it's as though like he thought the project was cool and like asked or begged to be in it, and they were like, What's the most John Malkovich thing we could have happen here?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Oh, you're smoking and talking about this retrospectively.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Imagine if someone like Malkovich wanted to be in that movie. I'm sorry, but like it's too much to have Malkovich in this movie, like actually one of the the because he's just acting everyone off the off the mouth, yeah. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they're just like, What if we had you chain smoking and talking at the beginning and end of the movie? Malkovich is like, I can work with that, you know. Why don't we just before we get into the basic event?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I mean, the plot summary is not gonna take long. There's not that much that happens.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

No, but just briefly explain to anybody who may not actually know the what happened.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

So in 1972, this Uruguayan rugby team. Um, I think uh it's unclear to me whether they're a professional team or a club. They're like a club team. So they're like semi-pro kind of it feels semi-pro, yeah. It's like a little better than your like average Sunday league, like your like a bare bones like staff. There's like a coach, their family comes along with them. They've chartered, they have enough money to charter a plane to go to Chile for this game, right? That's right. Uh, but they're on the way, they're all having fun on the plane, and the plane loses altitude, the pilots screw up somehow. It's not entirely clear what caused the actual accident, but they crashed into the side of a mountain in the middle of the Andes, uh, between you know Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. Not close to any civilization, not near any ski resorts or anything that is in the Andes, in a very remote place. And they crashed in such a way that the plane was not very visible even from the air. Now, this happened, I think, in October, which is the end of winter in South America, right? Or it's south of the equator, uh, the southern hemisphere. Uh, so that that's something that I think of year ends up being one of the huge breaks. Right, because the good luck is that by December, when they do escape, it's summer. Uh yeah, but they're the the search for them is called off after nine days. And as we discussed already on the 10th day, they're like, well, uh, and they have a radio, so they they're aware of this, they're aware that no one's looking for them.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Uh which uh what is your take on that? Because I here's the thing it's like there you can bring supplies and food on an airplane, yeah, right. And so this feels early to call the search off. Like, given that in real life they they rationed for a week or so. Yeah, it's it's hard to imagine that if you're responsible for the search and rescue attempts, that you aren't be being like, well, probably this is the type of amount of food that they might be able to have. And if they all rationed it and maybe some people died right away.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

So But there's no trace of the plane, they have no evidence that anyone survived. They can't find you know that a plane like crashed. They know a plane did not make it that that that it did not reach its destination.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I don't know. A weakened change just found feels like a little quick to be like, nope, they're definitely all dead forever.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Well, but I mean, also there's a really adverse weather conditions which we see in the film too. Yeah, I guess it might just be that there's no actually there's no way to get up like you know, there's that scene in the film where a plane does fly over and they assume they've been seen.

unknown 18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

When when in point of fact they have not, right? And the next thing they hear is that nope plane.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

That's one of the moments where, you know, again, talking about how you can't you can't understand how your body and mind will react and what the will to survive really is, but I have to say, like after seeing that plane thinking you're you're saved, and then I might be done at that point. I might be like I might be like, look, guys, I know we haven't even talked about this yet, but how do you feel about eating me? I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

I mean, in the real story, the film doesn't depict this that specifically, but some of the people who ended up surviving did completely check out like pretty early on. And just like they didn't do anything to help, they didn't help with the injured, they they were just like trying to survive, not even trying to survive, they didn't care, they did survive because people forced them to eat or something, but they were essentially depressed.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Wow. Yeah, and I mean it's that does make a lot of sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

And it's really just a couple of men of action, if you will. Uh the aforementioned Ethan Hawk and Josh Hamilton. Not to be confused with the the baseball player, Josh Hamilton, right? Wasn't that uh yeah, that's a guy. He was a trouble, wasn't he the troubled drug, yeah. And then like sort of came back, was MVP.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Came back and had a huge year, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah, and then but had troubles again later. How odd. That never happens.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

In any case, we'll cover him in more detail on another episode.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yeah, well, the Josh Hamilton episode's gonna be gangbusters, one million downloads. But anyway, so in the film, you know, I the crash is is pretty well depicted. This was all shot on location, or not all, but a lot of it was shot on location in uh British Columbia on a glacier, right? Okay, so it stands in fairly effectively. I'm sure there's there's a bunch of matte paintings in the back, you know, composited in it at different points. Uh just the the the plane crash depiction itself, horrifying, right? They're sledding down the side of a mountain in the cylindrical tube of the fuselage. The seats become unmoored and everyone just crashes in. Several people are like badly concussed, other people's legs are just crushed. Uh, a lot of people die in the initial crash. And then some people are just sucked out after the tail section of the plane. I feel like lost the the show with the whole the tail section breaks off and lands somewhere else. Very uh think, you know, but perhaps influenced by this film. So Nando, who's played by Ethan Hawk and who is our main protagonist, is knocked out and is in fact asleep for the first uh couple days. Uh he's he's badly concussed.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

For a protagonist, it is one of the sort of interesting choices. I mean, obviously it's based on a true story, so I guess this did happen, yes. Yeah, but like he really, you know, obviously takes over the movie and carries it home. He's really not he's really out for a big chunk of the movie. Yeah. Way longer than I had remembered.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah, no, it it's um it's dramatically maybe like half an hour, 40 minutes, where it's just like half an hour, I think, yeah. And his mind. Mom dies in the initial crash, and then his sister is badly injured and dies relatively early on before they resort to cannibalism. Uh, you know, we see them making a bunch of practical choices. They they realize they can use certain things as blankets, they use covers. They use the seat covers as blankets, they block up the opening of the fuselage to keep the wind out with with the excess luggage. They find some wine, they find some some sort of chocolate and nuts. There's very little food. I mean, this is not a long flight, so they don't have any meals like that's right. Um one of all the crew died.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

They have so many cigarettes.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

They have a case, yeah, cases of cigarettes.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

It's amazing, it's a gosh all the time.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah, yeah. The only crew member to survive is this mechanic character who's uh who's insane. He plays a kind of Lears fool role where he's just kind of cackling.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

He's I think one of the most annoying parts of the movie. Yeah. Like he because, and you know, I don't want to sound rude, but he's also it just genuinely, I feel like he's not a good actor.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

There's a couple people like that that I just that really took me out of it.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

That guy got tasked to try to be like the the the the wild crazy one.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

I mean, that's the that's the Malkovich role if you're gonna have Malkovich on the right.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Like, but then he's so good that like the movie can't be anything other than crazy and the movie just suddenly becomes about the fool, and you know, Hamlet is forced off stage or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah. Uh so they they're the leader of the team is this guy, Antonio, and he's sort of the protagonist early on. In a weird way, it reminded me uh this is not really an accurate comparison, but in Moby Dick early on, Ishmael is in one of the inns before they board the ship, and he sees this guy, Bulkington, and Bulkington's like this cool sailor, he's gonna be on the Pequad, and you're like, Oh, Bulkington, that's like the real hero of the story. And in an early version of Moby Dick, I think Bulkington was the main character. But at some point, um, Melville went back and was like, no, no, no, it's about Ishmael, it's about AF, it's not about Bulkington, and wrote and wrote Bulkington basically out of the story, except you still have the chapter where you meet Bulkington. And then at the end, Ishmael's like, so remember that guy Bulkington, yeah, you're not gonna see him again, but he's there, he's in the crowd. So it's this weird like fake out where you think this guy's gonna be really important and then he disappears. That's kind of what I feel with this like team captain, because he early on is like organizing people, he's like, Am I the leader? Am I the yeah, you're the leader? No one's dead, you know. Uh, and then he gets killed in the avalanche, and it honestly goes unmentioned that he's dead. But it's very weird. You'd think it would be like a bigger deal that this previously significant figure is now just gone.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah. So and it's not really like just to be clear, if anyone hasn't seen it, it's like it's not like the rest of the time you're seeing, you know, these totally emotionless, sad people, right? It's very they are very active and very talkative, and like in many moments, like you sort of can't even conceive that anybody would be this like engaged with their reality during it, you know what I mean? But yeah, yeah, and so for them to not even like talk about that, it did it just felt like they it's like they like I was watching a version of the movie that was cut down or something.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Well, that's that's why I thought of the Bulkington thing because I'm like, is something missing here? Was some is this a subplot that just got cut on the cutting room floor where they acknowledge that Antonio is now dead? Because he's just not mentioned after a certain point, and he's and he's dead.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Uh then there's this rig up the situation like the the plane and whatever they can get, like getting water, and they make hammocks for the badly injured guys, and like that's it to get them off. This ingenuity that is like obviously gonna come face to face with its own limitation when it comes time to like we are actually just gonna starve.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Yeah, I mean, exactly. And then there's this kid Roy, who's the he ends up being the radio guy. He is the kid who I thought was just the worst actor. Like every time he speaks in it, I'm just like, oh my god, why is this person in this movie? Like the fourth wall is crumbling into my face. I'm being buried by its precious bricks. Uh so eventually, you know, Nando does wake up, learns his mother's dead, sees his sister die. Uh he's the first to suggest that we should we should eat the dead. He's like, we're gonna have to eat people. Like he he's the one who's like, this is how it's gonna have to go. Uh and one of the guys goes out, and there's a they've the bodies are nicely preserved, they're frozen in that they take them out of the plane when people die and bury them. So you know it's like a nice freezer for your steaks. Yeah. And they cut strips from the rump, shall we say, and they eat it raw, which is interesting because there is like heat.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

They have lighters and yeah, and I guess they don't have that much fuel, but again, if you haven't seen it, it is I found it like really quite jarring that they really did show the meat. They cutting the cutting and the they lay it, they lay it out on close-ups of the meat and then close-ups of people eating the meat. Like it was very I I sort of did I don't I didn't really remember that.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Like, I I guess funny, that's all I remembered is them putting it on the metal, like because they heat, they like heat it up because it's frozen.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

And then it gets even crazier because you know, it will get to the end, but eventually when they they form a party of people who are leaving, there's that scene where he they're taking huge chunks and putting them in like a bag and like a sock or something to like yeah, yeah, it's not great. So, I mean, again, like now that we're at the the dead eating part, because you know, truly not to make light of it, it did actually happen. It's so insane. Um, yeah, that this happened. But it, you know, while they do have a lot of debate about whether to do it or not, and obviously, question of God and since God would want us to survive, God has not put us in the situation, and and and I think in a way that like being that intimately connected with the possibility of your death every second of every day might actually make you more likely to entertain the fact that God might punish you for doing this, that God might have you out here for a reason, that this is exactly the test that you have to well, and we see this with some characters who do refuse for longer than others.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Uh right.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

But you know what I mean? It's like one of these weird things where if you were in a quote unquote normal situation, obviously you would never have to entertain this. But if for some reason you did have to, you you might be it might be far easier to take a rational approach, but in that type of moment where you're sort of spiraling and your mind is melting, they're like, if I'm gonna die, like I think I think someone said, but like the thought I had was like, if you're worried about that from a perspective of judgment, you're also like I I won't even have time to like repent. I mean, I'm I could die right now, you know, I could die on my way out to the to the meat or as I put it in my mouth, you know. So, like this debate of whether God would, you know, j you know, basically condemn you for doing it did actually kind of hold weight to me in terms of how I could see me myself reacting fearfully, not necessarily like having an actual problem with eating the meat. Does that make sense? Yeah, I I think I follow.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Um you're almost like, wait, is the devil putting this idea of eating the meat?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah, like how many tricks your mind must be playing with you at this point? And again, like this is one of the things that Malkovich sort of mentions at the beginning, right? About like you're so connected to God in this moment. This this isolation and solitude and danger, it's like nothing else, and you can't no one can relate to it. So, like, if that is where your mind is at, um, you kind of feel the the coming of your like final meeting with God. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Um, whereas, you know, obviously it's it's portrayed in the movie, and correctly so, that like the people who are like, no, the the people who die would want us to do this. And in fact, one of the things that makes it easier for people to eat the dead regularly is that other people who are still alive all start to pledge that they can their bodies can be used, right? Yeah, they die.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Antonio himself says that just before he dies, conveniently.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Yes, and so it kind of like you know, and I think you know, that's like a good example, like where I guess I could I could see being like this is crazy, and like these people died. I think there's no way you would have any problem eating someone who was like, please use me if I die, you know? Yeah, you think that it would be very easy for you to just be like, yeah, of course we have to do that. I mean, obviously we can't actually.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

I mean, it would be incredibly repulsive initially, but I mean if I've not eaten it really anything for 10 days and I'm on the verge of the case.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

And once you reach the point where you genuinely like the radio, they're like they've called the search off.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Right. So like if they do that to you, you're probably gonna like I think this is what I mean by like it's not as uh sensational because when you're watching it, it is kind of like, well, of course you would eat the other two.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

It's the only thing there's no choice.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah. Well, the next big disaster comes and there's an avalanche which kills eight people, including Antonio and Liliana, the one woman who's played by uh I forget her name off the top, but she's an actress who's in the Martin Scorsese Cape Fear. Uh oh, really? Yeah, she plays Nick Nolte's secretary, who De Niro as Max Cady like seduces and then like interestingly takes a bite out of her cheek. So she's in two movies that involve people eating flesh. Ileana Douglas, I think it is yes, that's her name, Ileana Douglas. And she was actually Martin Scorsese's girlfriend for most of the 90s. And she's later in Six Feet Under. She's in a bunch of stuff. I think she's she's an interesting good actress.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Um I will say I just want to jump in on the avalanche, where again, while who knows how you react and what your what your capacities are, inconceivable to me that I'm not ending it after the avalanche.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

After another eight people are just killed in a random freak of nature.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Like, come on. Are you serious? What that that part's real? Yeah. Yeah. Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Like, you have to believe that you are like, it's a little bit like it's a little bit like when Kevin Durant tore his Achilles in the finals, and then like Clay Thompson blew out his knee, like in the same game or the next levels of trauma. Just like just like one terrible thing happens, and then like something also as bad happens afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

I know we use sports analogies here, but uh perhaps not uh it's not about minimizing what actually happened to these people, it is just actually the just like unthinkable sequence of bad luck.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Right. That's right. So they dig out, they pull people, but they can't save people. Eight more people die, and the two guys who are like have like really bad open fractures who have been hanging on for like months, they've been there, they're they die after like 50 something days.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Which is insane. They have like gangrene infections, like that's like a horrible way to die. Uh eventually they decide like, look, we're gonna have to. They they try to get batteries from the tail section, that doesn't work. Like the horrible actor guy Roy is unable to hook them up to the radio. The radio doesn't work, there's no way to call for help. So Nando Tintin, who's a sort of ancillary character, and then Canessa, who's the other, is a medical student. He's been sort of trying to help people with their injuries and sicknesses and things.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

The one who looks like Messi.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

That yeah. They're um they are they decide, look, we're gonna have to make a a walk, we're gonna have to make a run for it, right? Like uh more people are dying. They sew up some sleeping bags and they set out to reach Chile, which entails climbing over several mountains. Like, like it's not just like they have to walk down the mountain they're on. It's like, no, they have to keep going further over mountains to get to civilization. And I think the film does a good job of just showing how insane it is because there's this one scene where they like they're like, there's the top. After this, it's gonna be all the way down, and they get over, and it's just like another set of multiple peaks is ahead.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

It's like that's like 50 miles or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah, I mean, it's so and this is it took them like 12 days of hiking to reach civilization from where they had crashed, which and they've been out, they leave on day 60. So they've been out there for two months, subsisting entirely on human flesh.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Sure, you've got like some human meat, but like you are still absolutely at your wit's end. I mean, to coordinate that level of effort and like ward off all the things that can fail you while doing that with barely any, with like the most rigged up equipment.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

If I were in that situation, I mean, granted, they're young and they're healthy and they're athletes, right? So, I mean, after 60 days, but you know, if I were to just try and do one third of what they did, I would die. Yeah, there's no question I would fall into it. I'd fall off the mountain, I'd get eaten by a weird mythological animal. I don't know, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

I mean, it's so it's it would have been so tough too, because you would have probably been like, you know, eight to eleven hours after having to like let me go, you know. Yeah, because I would be like, I'm out of here. And and you'd be like, hey man, so like this is tough because we're really we're good friends, and I thought we were gonna do this together, but like if you can't keep up, and then I would just keel over.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

So as they're going, Canessa kind of lose, they send Tintin back because they want to consolidate all the food, and he clearly never should have gone in the first place, but yeah. Yeah, but I mean Kanessa is having a lot of doubts, and you know, he's like, We can never make it, and then Ethan Hawke's uh Nando steps up and gives this inspiring speech where he's like, I'm proud to be a man on a day like this. Alive. If we die, we're gonna die walking, right? He has this sort of nude Rockney, like yeah, like uh sports pep.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

It's like the basically there's discussion about the weather, kind of, right? So, like if if anyone's wondering, like, so wait, as soon as they got at least as healthy as they were going to by eating humans, you know, why don't you explain a bit? Why didn't they just run for it then? Why didn't they just go for it?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Because it's still the winter, right? And there are still snowstorms, and it does get significantly warmer, and the snow becomes easier to traverse because there's slightly less of it.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

So it just becomes this exercise of hanging on and getting into the I mean the daily routine, I guess, of eating your your friends and family. How long do you think it takes to get used to that? Probably in that scenario. I mean, I don't know actually, because on the one hand, you're like, are you talking about the taste or the act of having to do it? Just everything, the whole vibe. I think the one thing that I uh didn't see in the movie, and I feel like had to have happened, is like I think that I would be having like a mental breakdown of anguish and tears every time I'm confronted with doing it again. But I think you get I think after 60 days of it, you'd be used to it. Yeah, maybe 60, but I feel like for weeks it would just be like I don't know, it's so insane. Yeah. Like and and again, it to me it's twofold. It's like not only are you doing that, you're doing it like again, it's not like as soon as we start eating these people that we knew, we'll definitely make it, right? Oh no, exactly. So, like, I don't know. I mean, again, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Right, you could die having just eaten your friends for three months or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Um, but I also think that and and I don't know if this is said in the book, I'd be interested to to know what some of the people actually like not in the movie world, but uh my guess is that you know, for all the like talk in the discourse, the debate about whether to eat these people, it's like they would want us to, right? Or people who didn't, I had pledged. I I really do think that taking such a massive step probably was not just from the nutritional value, from the mental value gave a strength almost inconceivable to hang on. Yeah, like if we are going to do it.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

We've done this, now we have to survive.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

We are going to make it. We're and like for them and all of that. And like you can sort of see a bit of that in the movie. Like there is this sort of feeling, it's not like adrenaline or whatever, but like that the the the task is clear and they owe it to everyone who sort of came before, and especially because they had to uh you know consume them. Um, I think it probably did keep a bunch of people alive, even just like like spiritually and mentally, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Absolutely, absolutely. So after this 12-day trek, they get to oh, it's it's a river. Oh, yeah, it's a nice uh it's a nice little meadow. I think what really happened in their actual rescue, we don't see this in the movie. They saw some guys, some like caballeros, some like horse riding guys across a river, and they were like, hey, hey, you know, like hey, and they and they couldn't reach them because there was this river in the way, but they threw a note over on a tied to a rock, and the guys read it and were like, Oh, oh my god, yeah. And they like threw them a loaf of bread back. Uh oh, really? Yeah, and then they went into town, which was like a 12-hour ride from where they were discovered, and help was flew up and got them there. And then they went, you know, because they had them. The other thing we don't really see is they had a map and they had figured out approximately where they were, which is how they were able to guide the helicopter back to find their friends, right? Yeah, which is very lucky. So imagine you get back and then you're like, all right, we gotta go back. Oh, was it that no that it these all mountains look the same from right? Like Andy's too, right? Where is where it's them looking alive, alive part two. Oh, right. Alive too, Colin dead.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Um I I I would just say, like, because I I thought the movie was actually like pretty average. Yeah, it's uh it's not a great movie, but yeah, it's and again, it's it's one of those things where one of the problems with the based on a true story.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, I mean, this is what actually basically more or less what happened, and it's pretty faithful.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

You do know that they make it, and so and I mean the Malkovich at the beginning alerts us to that they're gonna make it. Right, and so like it's one of these things where you know it's easier to be like not as blown away by the the cannibalism of it all, given that you know everything, you you've heard their story, you know what happened, and you know they're gonna make it in the end. But the one thing I I think I will say is that even though I didn't really love the movie, the story like, and you know, we do these sort of offshoots of the end of the world, sort of these apocalyptic scenarios or paradigm shifts or whatever, right? Yeah, and this is kind of like a micro apocalypse that happened to these right.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

I mean, it shows what people have to do in an apocalypse-like scenario, I think.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Yeah, and again, like at scale, you know, you're always gonna wonder, but it is like genuinely, even with a movie that's not great, it's like I was genuinely uplifted. It's like it's like everything from you know the idea that you know, people are so obsessed with talking about the apocalypse now and convinced that the world is you know decades or a century away from everyone dying in a fireball or you know, what have you. Yeah, that like there's gonna be this period of time where you know everyone's gonna turn against each other and it's gonna be this un like unimaginable.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

It's gonna be the the road or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, to see them start up, you know, right after this massively traumatic event. And, you know, obviously you're gonna try to survive, but beyond that, it's like, okay, how do we keep people warm? How do we keep the sick? Alive, right? So like they're not just eating people after discussing it and realizing they're gonna starve. They're like making real efforts to extend the lives of people.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Yeah, and like some of the people that were rescued did have broken bones and stuff that were not dealt with for like months.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Like we talked about the the people who made it 50 days. Like those people might not survive that long in an American hospital without health care.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Like it's too true. I shouldn't laugh. It's too it's horrible, but it's but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

And then after like, you know, the ingenuity, and then obviously the big decision, and then like the willpower and the the sort of collective energy, obviously they're and and it's not pie in the sky. There, it's not, I think there's way less fighting than there probably was in real life, of course, but like you do get the sense that people can, you know, be in these horrific scenarios and still fight or argue or debate some insane things like what do we do? Should we leave? Should we stay? Should we eat? Should we not? But there's something just fascinating about the very idea that even one person, to say nothing of like a reasonably big slice of these people, no pun intended. Yeah, 16 people survived. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the most remarkable stories that I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Yeah. No, I mean, the only comparable thing I can think of is the Essex and those those guys sailing from the middle of the Pacific Ocean to Chile. Yeah, I mean also to Chile, interestingly.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

That or the the 2019, was it 2019 Warriors? Yeah, probably yeah. I mean, I guess I guess I guess. Well the Warriors lost, though. They didn't well that's the thing. If the Warriors pull off the title without Katie and does it go ahead of the miracle of the Andes? What do you think? I I think so. But yeah, um, you know, truly, truly inspiring thing.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Yeah, just like an amazing story to know about, even if the movie is itself uh, you know, pretty mid. I mean, it's well done, it's cool looking, it's just uh some problems with some of the actors. The stars are good. There, there's a lot of good performances. They're kind of drawn, drawn down by uh, by some some poor performances as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

But before we wrap up, do you want to give just a little preview? You got a bit of news, and that's gonna lead into what we're doing next week, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:27

That's right. So I've started uh my cybernetics substack, which is something that I've been threatening to do, threatening myself to do for some time. Uh it's called Cybernetic Observations. You can find it on Substack by looking up Cybernetic Observations. I think probably looking up my name will work as well. It's just launched with a little brief welcome article uh over the weekend this past weekend. But the first article is coming out on Wednesday. It's about uh 20 pages, 20-page article about uh the singularity, which is a topic. Yeah, it's a topic we've touched on in a few episodes in the past, but I wrote this article about Ray Kurzweil in particular, who is the kind of most, well, one of the most prominent longtime advocates of the tech singularity, the idea that we need to get, not only do we need to get artificial intelligence to surpass us, but we then need to merge with that artificial intelligence in order to become uh semi-immortal superbeings. Yeah, and he he sees this as being a good thing. He sees this as being uh inevitability, right? Inevitability, the logical evolution of the human race. And uh I point out in this article some some issues with this, you know, Wes. Uh I mean I take I try and take him as seriously as I can. I talk about the ideas that he puts forth. I do compare him um to Victor Frankenstein. Uh, but then in the article I also look at uh the sort of another idea of immortality that's a little bit more humanistically grounded. Because I think, you know, one of the things we're really losing in this rush to make everything AI is a kind of an awareness of what it means to be human. I think that's uh what what the power of beauty is, like why why is beauty possible? And and what is it about automatically generated writing that, um or artificially generated writing that it is only sometimes extremely beautiful? Uh is it ever extremely beautiful? No, no, I'm joking. Well, if you're really good at prompting, then it is, I'm afraid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Uh so anyway, we'll talk about that, talking about the singularity, talking a little bit about what uh my old friend Wordsworth, who's got quite a lot to say about the apocalypse uh as well. Maybe we'll touch on that. I think that'll be interesting, hopefully. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to it. So until then, if you like the show, you can follow us on the podcatcher of your choice. If you really like the show, you can leave us a rating andor review on that podcatcher. You can also follow us on Instagram at the end of the worldwms, where we post scintillating reels from the show. Scintillating. And so next week we'll be talking singularity, and uh looking forward to that. But until then, this has been the end of the world with Michael and Stu. I'm Michael, and I'm Stu, and we can talk to you real soon.