FH Mini 145 - Flop to the Future

Stuart Wellington

[0:00] Hey there, folks. I'm Stuart Wellington, and welcome to another Flophouse Mini, a mini

[0:09] episode of the Flophouse Podcast. And I am joined by my two co-hosts.

[0:13] Dan McCoy.

[0:14] Elliot Kalin.

[0:15] Hey, how you guys doing?

[0:18] Good.

[0:18] Well, I'm not doing good.

[0:20] Oh.

[0:20] I don't know if you guys have checked the news, but it is 2026.

[0:24] I don't think so.

Dan McCoy

[0:25] Is that what the headline of the news was?

[0:27] Every day.

[0:28] It is 2026.

Elliott Kalan

[0:29] I mean, the date is the first thing on the newspaper, so you could think that was the

[0:32] headline.

[0:32] I guess that's true.

[0:33] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[0:33] That is the headline.

[0:34] So, we are now living in the future. 2025 is in our rear view, and I thought this would

[0:40] be a good time for us.

[0:42] My butt is looking at 2025 right now.

[0:44] Uh-huh.

[0:44] It is.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] I can't get those eyes removed.

Stuart Wellington

[0:47] Yeah, he should.

[0:48] But you know what?

[0:49] The thing is, Elliot was a big fan of the movie Society, and he is-

[0:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[0:53] I saw that, and I said, why don't I have a face on my butt?

[0:56] I've got to get that.

[0:57] So, I'm slowly getting there.

Stuart Wellington

[0:58] Yeah.

[0:58] So, here at the Flophouse Minis, instead of talking about watching a bad movie and talking

[1:03] about it, we do something else.

[1:04] And in this case, we're going to be talking about, that's right, movies.

[1:07] Because while we look to the future, we are going to be using movies as our kind of our

[1:14] model for what the future may look like.

[1:16] Is it hopeful?

[1:17] Is it terrifying?

[1:18] We are going to be the judge.

[1:20] So, I'm going to go down a series of movies and list the rough year that they're supposed

[1:25] to take place in.

[1:26] Sure.

[1:27] And I want you guys to join with me and rate these movies in two categories on a scale

[1:33] of one to ten.

[1:34] The first category is, how likely this future is to occur.

[1:39] A one would be very unlikely.

[1:42] A ten would be very likely.

[1:44] Okay.

[1:45] And then the other category is, how much would you like to live in this future?

[1:50] Once again, one is very unlikely.

[1:53] Ten is very likely.

[1:54] Okay.

[1:55] Any questions on the rating system?

[1:57] What's ten again?

[1:58] Very likely.

[1:59] Okay.

[2:00] And one?

[2:01] Very unlikely.

[2:02] Okay.

[2:03] Cool.

[2:03] And ten?

[2:04] Oh, God.

[2:05] Extremely likely.

[2:06] Okay.

[2:07] Cool.

Elliott Kalan

[2:08] Okay.

[2:08] So, the first one.

[2:09] Now, this movie.

[2:10] Wait, Dan.

[2:11] Which is one?

Dan McCoy

[2:12] One is the low end of the scale.

Stuart Wellington

[2:15] The longer we fart around, the fewer movies we can talk about.

[2:18] Sorry.

[2:19] Okay.

[2:19] Never mind.

[2:20] Okay.

[2:20] So, the first one is the Mad Max universe, which technically began in 1980, the far future

[2:28] year of 1980, and then has stretched to year?

[2:32] We don't quite know.

[2:34] So, the Mad Max future, do I need to paint a word picture as to what the future of Mad

[2:38] Max is like?

Elliott Kalan

[2:39] I'm going to be a pedant.

[2:40] Do you mean the future of Mad Max or the future of Mad Max 2, aka the Road Warrior, which

[2:44] are two very different worlds?

Stuart Wellington

[2:46] Or, I mean, we're going to talk, we're talking about the, I feel like the Road Warrior has

[2:52] kind of spun into these later movies.

Elliott Kalan

[2:55] Not the first Mad Max where the nuclear war hasn't happened yet, and it's just that there's

[2:59] more crime.

[2:59] Society is getting rougher.

[3:01] It's breaking down, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[3:02] Yeah.

[3:02] So, that would be, yeah, let's start with just Mad Max.

[3:06] Let's, that one be our gauge, okay?

[3:09] So, how likely is the world of Mad Max, the original film, how likely is that one to occur?

[3:17] Ten.

[3:17] Yeah, that's a...

Elliott Kalan

[3:18] I think we're there now.

Stuart Wellington

[3:20] Put that up there.

[3:21] Ten.

Elliott Kalan

[3:22] Ten.

[3:22] Except instead of roving bands of, like, evil bikers, it is roving bands of masked

[3:27] Gestapo agents, you know?

[3:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:30] Okay, so that's very likely.

[3:32] Now, how excited are you to live in this future?

[3:36] How excited?

Dan McCoy

[3:36] Well, I'm going to grade on the curve of, like, most of these are going to be, I think, dystopias.

[3:41] Pretty low, yeah.

[3:42] Maybe.

[3:43] And so, this is kind of like, this feels like a world that is cruel but still livable.

[3:50] So, maybe I'll put it in the three or four zone.

[3:52] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[3:53] Yeah, I'm going to put it like a three or four.

[3:55] I feel like, yeah, it's cruel but there's still television.

[3:58] People still have jobs.

[3:59] You know, they still have families.

[4:01] It's like, you live in a house.

[4:03] That's all good stuff.

[4:04] That's all good stuff I would like to hold on to.

[4:06] Yeah, sort of classic stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[4:08] What role do you think you would play?

[4:12] How would you make your living in this kind of future?

Elliott Kalan

[4:14] Oh, probably outlaw barbarian biker for me.

[4:17] Does scared hermit pay?

Stuart Wellington

[4:19] I was going to say, I feel like Dan could be a scared hermit and Elliot would be like, no offense.

[4:24] I feel like you would be the, you'd be like the right-hand man of the gang leader.

Elliott Kalan

[4:30] Potentially.

[4:31] I mean, the salacious crime.

[4:32] I don't think I'd be the right-hand man but I would definitely be the, I've already assumed that if the apocalypse happened or like the civilization collapses, I am a jester.

[4:39] Like, that's what I am.

[4:40] I probably have a chain attached between my neck and the throne of whoever is the lord of this colony or whatever.

[4:47] The nuclear throne, yeah.

[4:48] The nuclear throne.

[4:49] And I am there to like entertain him and he's going to throw shit at me every now and then, you know, and I gibber and caper.

[4:55] Well, that's the thing.

Dan McCoy

[4:55] I was going to say, you're like, you could be the one guy who's like always cackling.

[5:00] Yes, very much so.

[5:00] Like, just like mostly just like has a psychotic laugh the whole time.

Stuart Wellington

[5:04] Okay, guys, let's jump to another future.

[5:07] This is also currently in the past and that is the future of Back to the Future 2, the Biff-verse.

[5:15] Again, I feel like 10.

[5:16] I feel like we are living in that right now.

[5:19] 10, okay.

Dan McCoy

[5:20] I think we're living in that one.

[5:22] Yeah, 10.

[5:22] A character that was partly, I think, inspired by the current awful person in charge.

Elliott Kalan

[5:29] Well, the Biff-verse is a different world than the hoverboard future.

Stuart Wellington

[5:32] No, yeah.

[5:32] We're not talking about the Biff-verse.

[5:34] Let's talk about the hoverboard future.

[5:36] So, the 2015 hoverboard future.

Elliott Kalan

[5:38] Yeah.

[5:38] Oh, I mean, 3D has made a big comeback.

[5:40] That's something that gets mentioned there.

Dan McCoy

[5:42] They haven't made as many JAWS as that would postulate.

[5:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:47] According to a kid that I went to elementary school with, they made hoverboards, but parents

[5:52] made them take them off the market.

[5:53] Yeah.

[5:53] So, I think it's, what's funny about that future, and I think it is possible but not

[6:01] likely, is I think that that future is an analog future in a way.

[6:05] It's a pre-internet future.

[6:07] And so, it's like, it's very much the future of right before the internet and computers become

[6:12] a part of people's lives, as seen by how they have all those fax machines in their house

[6:16] and things like that.

[6:17] You know.

[6:18] But it's, if we hadn't had…

[6:19] Microwave pizza.

[6:21] Microwave pizza happened.

[6:22] I mean, at the time, it existed too.

[6:24] I mean, it's not like a dehydrated one.

Stuart Wellington

[6:25] It's a small one that gets to a big one.

Elliott Kalan

[6:27] Like a dehydrated pizza that gets bigger.

[6:29] We don't necessarily have.

[6:31] Yeah.

[6:31] But what do you think, Dan?

[6:33] Is it likely?

Dan McCoy

[6:34] Well, it's a little…

[6:35] Scale of one to ten.

[6:36] It seems kind of utopian.

Elliott Kalan

[6:39] I will say, it's a universe that implies that Max Hedgerum was a much bigger hit than

[6:43] it was.

Dan McCoy

[6:45] Well, I mean, the idea is that they don't quite understand what the 80s were like.

[6:51] So, I think that that's all in line as far as I'm concerned.

[6:56] Like, I mean, there are plausible inventions in there.

[7:00] It's not like things have gone nutty, but I don't think that our future looks as bright

[7:06] as that.

[7:07] I'll put it at a five, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[7:08] Okay.

[7:09] I'm going to put it at a six.

[7:10] There's a innocence to this future, I think.

[7:12] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:12] But that's the thing.

[7:13] In terms of what I want to live there, sure, give me a nine.

[7:15] Why not?

Dan McCoy

[7:15] Yeah.

[7:16] I would go with a nine, too, for the second category of…

[7:19] Yeah.

[7:20] Yeah.

[7:20] Give me that.

[7:20] Give me that world of hologram Jaws's, please.

[7:25] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[7:25] The worst problem the society has is that hoverboards don't work on water, then, unless

[7:29] you have power.

[7:30] That's true.

[7:30] I can live in a world like that, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[7:32] And clothes dry themselves?

Elliott Kalan

[7:34] They clothes dry themselves, and they talk to you.

[7:36] I mean, talking clothes is something we're going to have, except the clothes are going

[7:39] to be like, hey, buddy, what are we doing today?

[7:41] Why don't you drink some battery acid?

[7:43] I'll be like, AI clothes.

[7:45] I don't want to do that.

[7:46] No, no.

[7:46] It'll be cool.

Stuart Wellington

[7:48] Guys, we're going to go to the next movie, and this one is set in the far-off future of

[7:53] 2027, Children of Men.

[7:57] Mm.

[7:58] Okay.

[7:59] It is a semi-dystopian future where humanity ceases to have children.

[8:05] Well, there's some good things and bad things about that.

Elliott Kalan

[8:08] According to the manosphere we're heading for right now, birth rates are falling because

[8:12] men are not shooting enough radiation at their junk.

[8:15] Yeah.

[8:16] I think – you know what?

[8:19] I think that some of those things are very likely and are, again, happening now, but I

[8:23] think the birthright thing is not necessarily so likely because it was like the movie kind

[8:27] of postulates that it's the product of a global malaise almost.

[8:31] There's just kind of a global lack of interest in living, lack of satisfaction in life, and I

[8:35] don't know that that's going to happen.

[8:36] There's still things that are enjoyable about life, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[8:40] But I don't think it's – it's not like they're not having children because they're

[8:44] not having sex, right?

Elliott Kalan

[8:46] No.

[8:46] They are having – but there's a – so I think that –

[8:49] Like the sperms are like, oh, I'm too bored.

[8:52] That one, I think that it's more that like the – there's a – the same way that Queen

[8:57] Amidala dies because her spirit is broken or whatever.

[9:00] She lost the will to live.

[9:01] It's kind of like that, that humanity has lost the will to continue because life has

[9:05] become so depressing and grim.

[9:07] So maybe it is pretty realistic actually.

Dan McCoy

[9:09] I mean it's been a while since I've watched this movie.

[9:12] I think since it came out in theaters honestly.

[9:15] So perhaps I'm forgetting something, but I think you're reading a lot into it.

[9:18] I just felt like it was just an unexplained global catastrophe.

Elliott Kalan

[9:23] Oh, I mean they don't explain it in the movie, but that was my read on it was that it was

[9:27] like there's something that has killed the soul of humanity.

Dan McCoy

[9:30] Well, I feel like the soul of humanity being killed is the fact that they can't have children.

[9:35] Like that –

[9:35] Chicken or egg.

[9:36] Yeah, chicken or egg.

[9:37] Now it's a real chicken or no egg situation.

[9:39] Yeah, we joined the story once – once we know that humankind is probably not going to

[9:46] continue unless something changes and I think that that's what has caused the malaise.

[9:51] So how likely?

[9:52] One to ten.

[9:53] I don't think that we're going to suddenly stop having kids.

[10:00] I mean I will.

[10:01] Two is enough.

Stuart Wellington

[10:01] I don't need any more.

Dan McCoy

[10:03] Fertility may drop, but it won't happen in this way.

[10:07] But the way that the world responds to crisis seems pretty realistic.

[10:14] That seems pretty accurate, yeah.

[10:15] I'd give it maybe a six.

Elliott Kalan

[10:17] Yeah.

[10:18] I'm going to give it a six.

[10:19] No, I'll give it a seven.

Stuart Wellington

[10:20] I'll give it a seven.

[10:21] Okay.

[10:21] How likely do you want to live in this universe?

Elliott Kalan

[10:24] Again, I feel like we kind of do to a certain extent in that it does feel like we live in

[10:29] a world without –

Stuart Wellington

[10:30] But there's a very key component.

[10:30] Except we do have children.

Elliott Kalan

[10:32] That's true.

[10:32] Yes.

[10:33] So I think I don't want to – you know what?

[10:37] I will – I do not want to live in that world.

[10:39] I think I'm going to give it a two.

[10:40] Again, they have houses and electricity and things like that.

[10:43] But I don't want to live in a world without children.

[10:45] Children are great.

Stuart Wellington

[10:47] Kind of the argument the movie makes.

Elliott Kalan

[10:48] Yeah.

[10:49] The argument makes that humanity should have children and survive.

[10:51] It's also one of those things where it's like there was one baby.

[10:54] So things are going to be fine, right?

Stuart Wellington

[10:56] It's going to take a lot more babies.

[10:58] What if that kid's a real drip?

[11:00] What if this kid sucks?

Elliott Kalan

[11:04] That would be a really funny comedy movie to do now.

[11:07] It's the Children of Men universe.

[11:09] And this is the last child to be born.

[11:11] And all of the world's hopes are resting on this child.

[11:14] And this child just sucks.

[11:15] Yeah.

[11:15] And it's just like they've grown up to be a total asshole.

[11:17] And it's like, oh, man.

[11:19] We had so much invested in you, you know?

Dan McCoy

[11:23] Leaving the kid thing aside, like this seems like a widely war-torn world.

[11:27] So I don't know.

[11:30] Again, like still kind of livable, but I'm going to give it a four.

[11:33] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[11:34] It seems like the kind of world that many people have lived in or are living through,

[11:38] a world of where there's the threat of sudden violence, but you have to get through the day.

[11:42] And resources still exist, but there's not a – it's not – you know, we kind of mixed up our Mad Maxes a little bit when we were talking about Mad Max.

[11:50] But it is, again, closer to the first movie where it's like things are not great, but it's a noticeably contemporary world as opposed to the second movie where it's like, well, you know, oil is blood now.

Stuart Wellington

[12:02] You have a precious juice.

[12:03] Drop some leather and spikes to your body.

[12:07] Go to a sporting goods store.

[12:09] Get some shoulder pads.

[12:10] More people are likely to have flamethrowers than books, you know?

[12:16] Okay.

[12:18] Let's jump forward to the year 2032.

[12:23] Demolition Man.

[12:25] Demolition Man.

Dan McCoy

[12:26] I'm going to give this a two because unlike in the 90s where it's like everyone thought that the greatest concern was too much correctness, I don't think we're going in that direction.

[12:38] I don't think we're headed there.

Elliott Kalan

[12:40] Yeah.

[12:40] I also don't think it's likely that Taco Bell will take over all restaurants.

[12:44] Wow.

[12:45] Despite their constant food innovations, Elliot?

[12:48] They serve chicken nuggets now because who says they can't, you know?

[12:52] I would say, yeah, I think likelihood I'm going to give it like a three or something like that.

[12:58] Okay.

[12:58] But would I want to live in the Demolition Man world?

[13:00] Yes.

[13:00] A hundred percent.

[13:01] Yeah.

[13:01] Number ten.

[13:02] Yeah.

[13:03] It seems, aside from the lack of, I guess the lack of physical sex, it's just a thing that they don't do anymore.

[13:10] They put on all helmets.

[13:11] Yeah.

[13:11] I'm going to give it an eight just because I also don't think, I mean like.

[13:15] But you know you get it, but then they do it anyway.

[13:17] You can get it.

[13:17] But then he still gets a surprise call, video call from a naked woman at one point.

Dan McCoy

[13:22] Sure.

[13:22] I mean, which is what we all imagine video calls were going to be like.

[13:26] That's a plus.

[13:26] And that's not actually.

[13:27] That's a plus.

Elliott Kalan

[13:27] And to be honest, the challenge of figuring out how to use the three shells, I'm up for it.

Dan McCoy

[13:30] Well, that's what I was going to say.

[13:31] The three shells, like if they tell me how to use the three shells, sure, I'll give it a nine or a ten.

[13:35] If you don't.

Elliott Kalan

[13:36] You mean I don't have to.

[13:37] It's a six.

[13:38] I don't have to clean myself with paper like an ape.

[13:42] I can do it with these magical shells.

[13:44] Ape's famously made paper.

Stuart Wellington

[13:49] Okay.

[13:50] Now this one is contentious about the year.

[13:53] We're talking about Westworld.

[13:56] Okay.

[13:56] Whether or not we're talking.

[13:57] I'm going to use.

[13:57] The movie or the show?

[13:58] That's the question.

[14:00] How we can vote on both of them, I suppose.

[14:05] Okay.

[14:07] Westworld, the movie and or show.

[14:09] How likely is this to happen?

Dan McCoy

[14:12] I'm going to give it like an eight.

[14:13] I feel like we're already moving towards like obviously AI, obviously sex robots are a thing.

Elliott Kalan

[14:23] They're just around the corner.

[14:24] I mean they've been just around the corner for a while.

[14:25] I think we're a little bit farther away from getting sex robots that the general populace will be interested in purchasing.

Dan McCoy

[14:34] But you know, if you're going to sort of a theme park.

Elliott Kalan

[14:38] No, no.

[14:38] I'm saying that the technology to make believably –

Dan McCoy

[14:41] But the likelihood that this eventually might happen, that's what I'm saying.

[14:45] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:45] I think that could happen.

[14:46] Yeah, yeah.

[14:46] I think the likelihood that it could eventually happen is pretty high.

[14:50] I don't – I feel like I don't know too much about the world outside of the park.

Stuart Wellington

[14:54] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:56] If you ask me if I want to live in a theme park, I don't want to live in a theme park nowadays, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[15:00] But would you – rather than live there, would you like to live in a world where you could go and visit that west world?

Dan McCoy

[15:07] Well, how likely is it that Yul Brynner is going to try and shoot me?

[15:11] Like is this a functional west world or is this functional?

[15:12] Based on the movie, pretty high.

Elliott Kalan

[15:15] Yeah, the movie gives it 100% chance of happening.

[15:17] Yeah, I'll give it a two in that case.

[15:20] You know what?

[15:21] He's a big star.

[15:22] I think they were – yeah, this is the king from The King and I, Dan.

[15:26] I think that –

[15:26] He's very handsome.

[15:28] Sure, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:29] Looks great in that cowboy outfit.

Elliott Kalan

[15:32] Noted anti-smoking advocate after his death, you know.

[15:35] So the – I don't know.

[15:39] It's one of those things where like – do I know as an attendee that the robots are kind of alive and hate being there and don't like what people ask them to do?

Stuart Wellington

[15:48] No, you don't know that.

Elliott Kalan

[15:49] Okay, then yeah, sure.

[15:50] I'll go to that theme park.

[15:51] That sounds great.

[15:52] Get to be a cowboy?

[15:53] Sounds wonderful, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[15:56] So what do you say?

[15:57] Tens?

Elliott Kalan

[15:57] Tens?

[15:58] I guess ten, yeah.

[15:59] I'll go there.

[16:00] Not for the sex aspect of it.

[16:01] Just to be like a gunster.

Stuart Wellington

[16:02] Yeah, I'm not going to tell you what to do.

[16:04] That's part of the whole thing about Westworld.

[16:06] You can do whatever you want.

[16:07] You can do what you want.

[16:07] It's just like –

[16:08] You can be a white hat or a black hat.

[16:09] You could just be the guy like me who would go to the bathroom, go to the outhouse and get blasted – get shot by some outlaw.

[16:17] You could go to the bathroom.

Elliott Kalan

[16:18] I could go sit in an outhouse.

[16:19] Just to go to the bathroom.

[16:21] Look, there is something about –

[16:23] I've got the best bathrooms.

Elliott Kalan

[16:23] I've got the best bathrooms.

[16:23] In the movie Westworld, there's a part where you see that he has – he gets like water to wash with in a little basin in his room with like a little pitcher.

[16:31] And there is part of me that's like, cool.

[16:32] Like those are the details of the Old West that I don't want to live that way.

[16:35] But for like a weekend to be like, yeah, it's the Old West.

[16:38] I've got to live the Old West.

[16:39] Forgive me, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[16:39] I just need to back up.

[16:41] You know, the washbasin story is great.

[16:43] But Stuart has just been the first person I've ever heard in history to advocate for the joy of using an outhouse.

Elliott Kalan

[16:54] It's like how –

Dan McCoy

[16:55] Let's research how crazy that is what he just said.

Elliott Kalan

[16:59] You've heard about Richard Branson's outside toilet, right?

[17:01] It's not that different on his island.

[17:03] It is very different.

Stuart Wellington

[17:06] Wait, does he just sit on like a fucking toilet and shit out in the open?

Elliott Kalan

[17:11] Yes, he has a toilet that was installed out in the open so that he could see the ocean while he's shitting.

[17:16] And there's no walls and he's rich.

[17:18] There's nobody around.

[17:19] So he just goes out there and takes a dump.

Stuart Wellington

[17:20] That sounds like anyone could run up and hit you.

[17:22] Magical.

Elliott Kalan

[17:23] I mean anyone could run up and hit you except there's a private island and you're paying everybody there.

[17:26] So I mean that's what Knives Out Glass Onion should have been about is that he gets hit on the head while using his outdoor toilet.

Dan McCoy

[17:31] He gets hit sitting on a wooden plank with a hole in it above the fumes of everyone else's waste products.

[17:41] You're part of a community.

[17:43] No, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[17:44] All right.

[17:44] Well, so in Westworld – so is this – is it like the – because in the movie Westworld, it's a theme park called Delos and there's three different worlds, right?

[17:52] There's Westworld, Roman world, and Medieval world.

[17:54] Do they have those in the TV show or no?

[17:56] Yeah.

[17:56] Yeah, yeah.

[17:57] I think so.

[17:57] They do?

[17:57] Okay.

[17:58] Which one would you go to?

[18:00] Yeah, which one would you go to?

[18:01] Westworld.

[18:02] But then I also – I mean I try them all.

[18:04] You know, go to – I think the thing is you go there for different things.

Stuart Wellington

[18:07] Would you go like – would you like do deep role play and like go there to argue like current politics with all these cowboys and shit?

[18:13] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[18:14] What you do is you go there and you want to see if you can be mistaken by another visitor as one of the robots.

[18:20] Oh, yeah.

[18:21] Then you know you're really doing it right.

[18:22] Yeah, that's it.

[18:22] No, that rocks.

[18:23] So because Westworld is about be a gunslinger.

[18:25] Medieval world is about be a knight.

[18:26] And Roman world is about being like – Roman world is the sex world.

[18:29] Like that's the decadent kind of like you go there to have orgies and feasts and things like that.

Stuart Wellington

[18:33] Or to be a philosopher.

[18:36] It's true.

[18:37] You can do both.

[18:38] You can do both.

[18:39] Many of them did.

[18:41] Yeah.

[18:42] Okay.

[18:43] Now let's jump to 2054.

[18:47] Oh, okay.

[18:48] Minority Report.

[18:50] Minority Report.

[18:51] Self-driving cars.

[18:53] Pre-COGs solving future crimes.

[18:56] So really the dystopian element –

Dan McCoy

[19:01] Yeah, that's the element.

Elliott Kalan

[19:02] That's the Elliot element, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[19:04] Of this is the pre-crime stuff.

[19:08] Yes.

[19:09] You know, which –

Elliott Kalan

[19:09] And you can get your eyes swapped out by a guy in his gross house.

[19:12] You know, that's pretty dystopian.

Stuart Wellington

[19:14] Oh, wow.

[19:14] We're judging the house of him now.

Dan McCoy

[19:17] I'm not pro pre-crime, you know, prosecution.

[19:23] But even in the world we are shown, it seems to work most of the time.

Elliott Kalan

[19:29] That's the official rule on it.

[19:31] How can you know for sure?

Dan McCoy

[19:33] But I'm just saying that like that seems to be the one truly dystopian part of it.

[19:39] And everything else seems kind of cool.

Elliott Kalan

[19:40] Yeah, I mean I don't love that like when you walk onto a – the fact that you're constantly – your eyes are constantly being scanned so that they can program ads and things like that just as you're walking down.

[19:51] Yeah, that's weird.

Stuart Wellington

[19:52] There's no way that would happen.

Elliott Kalan

[19:55] I mean it kind of happens now but not when you're just walking down the street with your – they don't scan your eyes, right?

[20:00] But like –

Stuart Wellington

[20:02] I mean if you talk about shit near your phone, you start getting ads for the shit you talked about.

[20:08] That's not that far off.

Elliott Kalan

[20:08] Yes, your phone is definitely listening to what you're saying and giving you ads based on the –

[20:11] Yeah, that's – so I guess in terms of how accurate, how much –

Dan McCoy

[20:17] How likely.

[20:17] I don't think we're going to suddenly discover people with –

[20:21] Psychic, precognitive powers.

[20:23] Okay, so that takes a couple points off.

[20:25] But I think the rest of it seems pretty – like I'll give it a six or a seven.

[20:31] Yeah, a seven.

[20:34] Sure, it's dutifully putting down all of our scores.

Stuart Wellington

[20:37] Now, how bad do you want to live in this sucker?

Dan McCoy

[20:41] I think as long as I'm not accused of a crime, I could do a seven for this as well, honestly.

Elliott Kalan

[20:46] I mean, again, it's like grading it on the curve.

[20:48] If we're comparing it to the Road Warrior world, then a ten.

[20:52] But if we're comparing it to – but just on its own platonically, there's nothing about it where I'm like, oh, cool.

[20:59] I want to live there.

[21:00] So it would be like a five for me.

[21:02] Like eminently livable, but it's not like I'm like going – the Back to the Future world from Back to the Future 2, not the BIF world, but the first one.

[21:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[21:08] I'm like, that looks like a fun place to live.

[21:10] Yeah.

[21:11] Whereas this minor report does not look like a fun place to live.

Stuart Wellington

[21:14] So it seems safe but not fun.

[21:17] Yes, exactly.

[21:18] Arguably.

[21:19] Arguably.

[21:19] Are you also going to give it a five?

[21:22] Dan gave it a 12.

Dan McCoy

[21:24] I am grading it on a curve, so I'm giving it a seven just because I –

[21:27] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[21:28] If I'm comparing it to the current world we live in, I would rather live in this world than the minority report world.

Stuart Wellington

[21:35] Now, guys, we're going to take a little bit of a jump for our next one.

[21:41] 21 Jump Street in the year 21.

[21:44] To the year 2293.

[21:46] Oh, that is quite a jump.

[21:47] A little place called Zardoz.

[21:50] Is it a place called Zardoz?

[21:51] In our hearts.

[21:54] I mean as –

[21:55] The world of Zardoz.

[21:57] First off, would you guys – do you guys think you would – how likely is this world to come about and would you like to live amongst the brutals?

[22:05] Or amongst the Eternals?

[22:07] Why would you want to live amongst the brutals?

[22:09] If you feed a giant stone head wheat and it shoots guns out at you, that rules.

Dan McCoy

[22:14] A two because I feel like there is a chance that we'll become so stratified that there will be –

Elliott Kalan

[22:22] Stratified is when it's stratified but we're satisfied with it.

[22:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:27] That there will be like a bored overclass and a bunch of brutals.

[22:31] But I don't think it's going to result in a giant stone head floating around yelling about penises.

Elliott Kalan

[22:35] If we're looking at the details, I would say it's a one.

[22:39] With my Zardoz TV presentation, as – during that presentation, I was saying we live in the Zardoz world in the larger sense.

[22:48] So I think it is very likely, like Dan's saying, a bored upper class that treats a lower class like at best tools and at worst play things.

[22:56] Yeah.

[22:56] And a big ugly head that yells nonsense at us and wants us all to shoot each other, which is what we have right now as president.

[23:04] And like I think – and wearable AI is the thing that I pointed out in my presentation is in there and they want us to have it so badly.

[23:11] So I think –

[23:12] You're fucking gagging for it.

[23:13] In the broader – but like immortality and running around in a red diaper on horseback I think is not going to happen.

[23:19] So I'm going to give it a six for likelihood.

Stuart Wellington

[23:23] Okay.

[23:23] And how badly would you want to live and are you guys – you guys want to be in the idyllic English countryside of the Eternals?

[23:30] This is a tough one because there is a lot of casual toplessness that I like.

[23:33] Quite a bit.

Dan McCoy

[23:34] But they also seem to have lost interest in sex and knowledge of how to do it.

Elliott Kalan

[23:38] This is one of those things where it comes up in movies where they're like, we have everything provided for us for so long that we have lost the will, the ambition to do anything and we no longer can even get it up.

[23:48] And I'm like, I don't think that's what's going to happen.

[23:52] I'm more of the Willy Wonka, did you ever hear what happened to the boy who got everything he wanted?

[23:56] He lived happily ever after form of belief about what would happen.

Dan McCoy

[24:00] Yeah, I mean as bored as they seem in certain ways, I don't know.

[24:05] Like a life of total leisure doesn't sound terrible to me.

[24:10] No, it doesn't.

Elliott Kalan

[24:10] I mean you might get bored of it after centuries, which seems to be what they're implying has happened for them.

Stuart Wellington

[24:15] But I think –

[24:16] I'd want to ride around on a horse blasting dudes and being a barbarian king.

Dan McCoy

[24:20] Yeah, I might give this one a seven as well.

[24:22] All of it sounds pretty good right now.

Elliott Kalan

[24:24] If I get to be one of the immortals, I'm going to give it an eight because really I just want time to sit around and read.

[24:29] You need to be whatever you want, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[24:30] Time enough at last.

Elliott Kalan

[24:31] I would rather not be riding – because I know, again, if I'm in the Brutals world, I'm not one of the exterminators or one of the terminators like Zedd.

[24:41] I'm going to end up being one of the Brutals who has a gun poked at – like as Dead Kennedys say, what is it?

[24:48] When you're raising rice with your gun on your back?

[24:51] Yeah.

[24:52] What is it?

[24:54] Slave for soldiers with a gun on your back for a bowl of rice a day.

[24:56] That's the position I would be in.

[24:58] I would be one of the people who is a forced laborer.

[25:01] I don't want to do that.

[25:01] You know, so.

Stuart Wellington

[25:02] Okay.

[25:03] That makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

Stuart Wellington

[25:04] Slave for soldiers until you starve, then your head is in front of the state.

Dan McCoy

[25:08] For God's sake, let's get this lyric exactly right.

[25:10] No, Dan, I need to get the lyrics of Holiday and Cambodia right in my mind.

[25:13] That's the most important thing we could do.

S4

[25:19] Say you like video games.

S5

[25:20] And who doesn't?

[25:21] I mean, some people probably don't.

S4

[25:23] Okay, but a lot of people do.

[25:24] So say you're one of those people and you feel like you don't really have anyone to talk to about the games that you like.

[25:30] Well, you should get some better friends.

[25:32] Yes, you should get some better friends, but you could also listen to Triple Click, a weekly podcast about video games hosted by me, Kirk Hamilton.

S5

[25:41] Me, Maddie Myers.

S4

[25:42] And me, Jason Schreier.

[25:44] We talk about new releases, old classics, industry news, and whatever, really.

S5

[25:49] We'll show you new things to love about games and maybe even help you find new friends to talk to you about them.

[25:54] Triple Click.

S4

[25:56] It's kind of like we're your friends.

[25:58] Find us at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan McCoy

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Dan McCoy

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Stuart Wellington

[27:41] Okay.

[27:42] So we're doing another.

[27:43] Actually, this isn't that far of a jump.

[27:45] Now, this takes place kind of between the 23rd and 24th century.

[27:49] And that is the world of Star Trek.

[27:52] The world of Star Trek.

[27:54] And by that, I mean, theoretically, you're part of the, what, Federation.

[28:00] You're not.

[28:00] We're not Romulans.

[28:01] We're not Romulans.

[28:02] You're not like regular dudes on a planet.

[28:05] You're flying around in one of the Federation spaceships.

[28:08] I think.

Elliott Kalan

[28:09] Yeah, go on.

[28:10] What do you think, Dan?

[28:10] Likely to happen?

Stuart Wellington

[28:12] A post-religion society?

[28:14] This sort of like totally.

Elliott Kalan

[28:16] Post-scarcity society.

[28:16] That's the exciting thing about it.

Dan McCoy

[28:17] Totally utopian cooperative society seems more and more unlikely to me with every passing year.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:25] So I'm going to give it a one, unfortunately.

Elliott Kalan

[28:28] I think the same.

[28:29] I'm going to give it like a two.

[28:30] If we do manage to come up with a machine that can replicate whatever, then I think maybe it'll happen.

[28:35] But how would you guys like to live in this?

[28:38] Oh, 10.

[28:38] For sure.

[28:39] For sure.

[28:40] Just exploring the universe right now.

[28:42] Sounds great.

[28:43] Yeah.

[28:43] And you get tired of it, just be in Sherlock Holmes time for a little bit.

[28:47] Yeah.

[28:47] Who cares?

[28:48] Oh, no.

[28:48] Moriarty.

[28:49] And you don't have to join Starfleet.

[28:51] You could just be a regular person and just have a great life doing whatever.

Dan McCoy

[28:55] Everyone around you is like super competent all the time.

[28:58] Yeah.

[28:58] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[28:59] Yeah.

[29:00] You got a droid with you that can sing.

[29:02] Why not?

[29:02] You know?

[29:03] Why not?

[29:04] Now we – I feel like that was a pretty easy one.

[29:06] The worst thing that happens is you go down to hang out with Whoopi Goldberg at a bar.

Dan McCoy

[29:11] We push Wesley off the ship so we don't have to deal with his ass anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[29:14] The worst – I guess the worst thing that happens is a Q comes along and just fucks up things for a little bit.

[29:18] But, you know, then he goes away.

[29:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:20] I mean he's mainly like showing up to give you puzzles to solve.

Elliott Kalan

[29:23] Yeah.

[29:23] Now I don't want to end up as part of the Borg.

[29:25] That would not be great.

[29:26] No?

[29:27] But I think that's unlikely.

[29:29] I think most people are not Borg at that point.

[29:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:32] Nine out of ten at least.

[29:33] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:34] And you can come back from that.

[29:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:36] The card did.

[29:36] He was a Borg.

[29:37] Seven of nine or whatever.

[29:39] Seven of nine is a good Borg.

[29:40] Yeah.

[29:42] You play a good Borg.

Elliott Kalan

[29:44] Or as in the –

[29:46] You play a good Borg.

[29:47] Golly.

[29:48] What?

[29:49] You play a good Borg, Borg.

[29:52] As in the Keenan and Kel movie Good Borger where they're like –

Stuart Wellington

[29:56] Yeah.

[29:56] Starring Bjorn Borg.

[30:02] One of the best Borgs.

[30:04] Yeah.

[30:04] Certainly.

[30:05] Oh, sure.

[30:06] Give me a –

[30:07] Top Borg.

[30:08] Give me one better.

[30:09] Yeah.

[30:10] Name a better Borg than that.

[30:11] Okay.

[30:11] I'll wait.

[30:12] Oh, man.

[30:13] We're flying through this, guys.

[30:14] Henri Borgsen?

[30:15] I don't think so.

[30:17] Okay.

[30:17] We return to the 24th century.

[30:19] To the world of the Hunger Games.

[30:24] Kind of the opposite of our post-scarcity society.

[30:28] Yeah.

[30:28] Will this happen?

Stuart Wellington

[30:28] Ten.

Elliott Kalan

[30:28] It will happen.

Stuart Wellington

[30:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:31] They won't call it the Hunger Games though.

[30:33] That's the issue I have with that movie and the book is they would call it like the National Pan Am Unity Games.

[30:40] They wouldn't give it a name like the Hunger Games.

Dan McCoy

[30:42] What was the bullshit that Trump wanted to do?

[30:44] The Patriot Games?

[30:46] Based, of course, on the film and Patriot Games.

Stuart Wellington

[30:49] Yeah.

[30:49] You got to figure out some spy shit and defuse the bomb.

Elliott Kalan

[30:52] But similarly to how like the Nazis weren't like, we're going to ship you to the death camps now.

[30:56] The Nazis were like, we're going to take you to the work camps.

[30:59] This is where working happens.

[31:00] A cultural re-education center.

[31:03] So there would be a better branding for the Hunger Games, but otherwise ten.

[31:06] Yeah, certainly.

[31:07] That's a road that I can see is going down.

Stuart Wellington

[31:09] Outfits all make sense.

Elliott Kalan

[31:10] The outfits make sense.

[31:11] Woody Harrelson as a former champion makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[31:14] I'm going to give it a seven just because I've never quite understood these dystopian societies where like the idea is like, and now to distract everyone, what we're going to do is have a game where like a bunch of kids kill one another.

[31:31] Like the long walk is the same thing.

[31:32] I'm like, okay, well, how did we arrive here?

[31:34] How is this helping the government rather than fomenting more?

Elliott Kalan

[31:38] So I think the difference is in the – I think maybe we'll give it a nine then.

[31:43] I think what they – I don't see them saying each send us one of your children and they're going to kill each other.

[31:47] But I could see them saying like now it's like the terrorist games.

[31:52] All these people that we arrested as terrorists who are freedom fighters or rebels, they're going to fight each other to the death and whichever one survives.

[31:59] Like if the long walk was – I mean what makes the long walk terrifying is that it's kids who have to do it.

[32:03] But if the long walk was political prisoners, I could see that.

[32:06] Yeah.

[32:06] And then it's entertainment for the masses.

Stuart Wellington

[32:08] It would start and then once it's already been established, then it would be like now it's celebrity long walk.

Elliott Kalan

[32:14] You're right.

[32:14] It would be celebrity long walk and you'd have like – who would go on celebrity long walk?

[32:18] Who would sign up for that right away?

[32:19] Anybody.

[32:20] Like Mario Lopez.

Stuart Wellington

[32:22] He would crush it.

Elliott Kalan

[32:24] It would be like Mario Lopez, Dean Cain, like a bunch of people like that would go on celebrity long walk.

Stuart Wellington

[32:29] And then after the celebrity long walk is done so well, that's when you bring the normals in.

[32:34] That's how it works.

Elliott Kalan

[32:35] Well, then it's long walk junior.

[32:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:37] Yeah.

[32:38] Yeah.

[32:38] And Gordon Ramsay yells at them until they provide delicious food.

[32:42] You call that walking?

[32:42] Yeah.

[32:44] Okay.

[32:45] So we talked about likelihood.

[32:46] How much would you like to live in the world of the Hunger Games?

[32:50] Would you get caught up in some kind of love triangle with other Hunger Games athletes?

[32:55] I mean like at what?

[32:55] At my current age?

[32:56] I mean I'm too old.

Dan McCoy

[32:57] Would you be the Woody Harrelson?

[32:59] I'd be in the games.

[33:00] So at least I've got that going for me.

[33:01] Yeah, maybe Dan, you're the Woody Harrelson.

Elliott Kalan

[33:02] You're a former Hunger Games winner.

[33:03] You kind of got to see a little bit from your trauma.

Dan McCoy

[33:05] That seems pretty sweet, honestly.

[33:07] Yeah.

[33:07] I mean aside from the trauma.

[33:09] I guess I'd still give it a four even at that point.

Elliott Kalan

[33:12] Okay.

[33:12] I'm going to give that a two.

[33:14] I don't want to be in that world.

Stuart Wellington

[33:15] I got to say Stanley Tucci fucking loves that shit.

[33:18] So I think he – it's probably pretty fun.

Elliott Kalan

[33:20] I mean if you're Stanley Tucci, you're an amoral famous TV announcer.

[33:23] Yeah.

[33:24] Yeah.

[33:24] What a great place to be.

Dan McCoy

[33:25] In the capital, you get to wear all those crazy clothes too.

Stuart Wellington

[33:28] In the capital, they call those crazy clothes normal clothes.

Elliott Kalan

[33:33] Whereas we call them clothes.

[33:35] It's like we have this restaurant here where I live called Pizza Kitchen.

[33:38] You may know it where you live as California Pizza Kitchen.

Stuart Wellington

[33:41] The straw.

[33:42] It's just called a straw.

[33:43] Okay, guys.

[33:44] We are going so far into the distant future.

[33:48] Wow.

[33:49] The year is 2505.

[33:52] Wow.

[33:52] The movie Idiocracy.

[33:55] Oh, well.

[33:56] Again, 10.

[33:58] It's become –

[33:59] Shockingly sharp.

[34:02] The only question is why –

[34:03] It's cliche to say that we are living in it.

[34:05] Why did it take so fucking long?

Elliott Kalan

[34:07] Yeah.

[34:08] Well, that was the – it's the same with – it's the opposite of 2001 A Space Odyssey

[34:11] where they're like, oh, yeah, by the year 2001, we'll have a hotel on the moon or whatever.

[34:15] Instead, it took much less time to get there.

[34:18] Although I would say the difference is – and this is the thing that if I can be honestly political for a moment,

[34:22] that heartens me is that I feel like we live in idiocracy in terms of the fact that principle – that President Camacho is in charge and if anything is crazier.

[34:31] Like President Camacho in the movie is just dumb, but he genuinely seems to want to help America.

[34:36] He's just dumb.

[34:37] I feel like the populace of our country is showing that they make bad decisions but are not stupid.

[34:43] You know, that's in the way of like we don't remember how to water plants and things like that.

[34:46] Yes.

[34:47] So I think it's unlikely that people will get so dumb that they don't remember how to farm, you know,

[34:52] that they don't remember the basics of this is how we grow food and eat food.

[34:55] So I'm going to give it a five.

[34:57] I believe politicians getting that dumb.

[34:59] But the ordinary people, the regular Americans that I talk to every day, Dan and Stuart, I see them –

Stuart Wellington

[35:05] You're pandering.

Elliott Kalan

[35:05] You're pandering.

[35:06] I see them continuing to be empathetic, generous, neighborly, clever.

[35:10] He's going to share an anecdote of a guy he met on the street.

[35:13] I mean there are a bunch of –

[35:14] I was talking to Ranch Branson.

[35:17] Ranch Branson, you know him.

[35:18] He works at the paper mill.

[35:20] And he was telling me he doesn't care about all those fussing and feuding.

[35:23] He's not into this culture wars.

[35:25] Instead, Ranch Branson, he just wants to raise his family and he wants to have other Americans raise their families in a place where they don't have to worry about violence.

[35:35] They don't have to worry that they're not going to be able to put food on the table.

[35:37] This is what Ranch Branson and all those great Americans like him want.

Stuart Wellington

[35:40] I hate to interrupt you, but there's a tweet from Ranch Branson three years ago where he said some really concerning things about Black Lives Matter.

Elliott Kalan

[35:48] Oh, boy.

[35:49] Well, this is –

[35:51] Look, I'm not here to divide.

[35:53] I'm here to unite.

Dan McCoy

[35:54] Wonderful people out there who are standing up for their communities and fellow humans every day.

[36:00] There's also a bunch of people out there who seem to have been guzzling lead for years.

[36:04] So I'm a little less.

Stuart Wellington

[36:06] So Elliot says five.

[36:08] What is your likelihood of this occurring game?

Dan McCoy

[36:11] I'm going to go six.

[36:13] Six.

Stuart Wellington

[36:13] Okay.

[36:14] How much would you like to live in the world of idiocracy?

[36:18] Well, I mean –

[36:21] I'm not loving the world we're living in at the moment.

[36:23] Yeah.

[36:24] And this feels like a slightly heightened version of the world.

Elliott Kalan

[36:26] It feels almost like a caricatured for the sake of satire version.

Stuart Wellington

[36:32] But not in a fun way.

[36:34] Not in an appealing way.

[36:35] No.

[36:35] I'm going to say like a four, you know, three or four.

Elliott Kalan

[36:39] Again, people have houses.

[36:41] People can – people have food, you know.

Dan McCoy

[36:43] On the one hand, I do hate like trying to explain something to people who want to almost seemingly be willfully ignorant about it.

[36:54] But on the other hand, idiocracy at least seems like a fun version of that.

[36:58] It's very brightly colored.

[37:00] Zany.

[37:00] I guess that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[37:01] And in idiocracy, a guy comes in and says like, hey, do it this way instead.

[37:05] And people listen to him because it seems to work.

[37:08] And I don't have faith that that would happen in this world, you know.

[37:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:11] I'm going to go right in the middle.

[37:12] I'll put it at a five, I guess.

[37:14] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[37:15] Idiocracy is another one where it's like both prescient, but it's also – it's like a pre-social media satirical view, right?

[37:21] And that's the thing that's kind of like missing from it in some ways.

[37:24] You know, it's still a mass media satire.

Stuart Wellington

[37:26] So we now jump to the year 2688.

[37:30] Wow.

[37:30] We are looking at the future in the universe of the movie Bill and Ted.

[37:37] Wow.

[37:38] A future built on the music of two rock and roll musicians.

[37:42] There's world peace.

Elliott Kalan

[37:43] It's kind of hard to tell what else is going on at all.

[37:46] It seems like it's a world made out of classrooms where they just learn about Bill and Ted.

[37:49] They hang out in like robes and stuff.

[37:51] They have robes.

[37:52] And it's a multicultural future.

[37:55] Very colorful.

Dan McCoy

[37:57] I mean I'm going to give it a two just because I have a lack of faith in the world coming together because of some metal music.

[38:07] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:07] I'm going to give it – I mean metal is an interesting description.

[38:11] I'm going to give it a one.

[38:13] I think it's a very unlikely future.

[38:15] But?

[38:16] Hair metal.

Dan McCoy

[38:17] I mean what do you want to – I mean it's a form of metal.

Elliott Kalan

[38:20] It's rock and roll.

[38:20] It's hard rock.

[38:21] It's rock.

[38:21] Yeah.

[38:21] It's hard rock I would say.

[38:22] Yeah.

[38:23] It's approaching hair metal.

Dan McCoy

[38:24] Fucking metal snobs over here, both of you.

Elliott Kalan

[38:27] I'm sorry.

[38:28] I believe that words have definitions.

[38:30] I believe that words have meanings.

[38:33] Yeah.

[38:34] I mean –

[38:34] I feel like Jubeen defending denying the insurance claims of people who lost their homes in floods.

[38:40] Oh, well, why don't we pay out to everybody and the insurance companies will fall apart.

[38:44] This is a conversation that we had behind the scenes at The Daily Show years ago.

Dan McCoy

[38:48] Yeah.

[38:48] Back when he was working as a lawyer for a bad company.

[38:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:52] It's so funny.

[38:53] And not lawyer for bad company.

[38:54] My client said that they feel like making love.

Stuart Wellington

[39:05] Making love specifically to the plaintiff.

[39:08] Yeah.

[39:09] Okay.

[39:10] So how much would – how likely are you to want to live in this rock and roll-based future?

[39:15] I'm going to go nine.

Dan McCoy

[39:16] I'm not going to go full ten because even though it seems utopian, it also seems a little boring because they're just sort of wandering around.

[39:23] You're just vibing, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:24] You know.

[39:25] Just give it a ten.

[39:26] Come on.

[39:26] I give it a ten completely.

[39:27] As someone who is too busy and has too much stress, I'm eager for the world of boredom of the future.

[39:32] You know.

[39:32] Yeah.

[39:33] So we are almost –

[39:34] Dan, I'll find something to do.

[39:36] I'll find a hobby.

[39:38] It'll be okay.

[39:38] We are in the home stretch.

[39:39] We have two left.

Stuart Wellington

[39:40] Okay.

[39:41] Okay.

[39:41] We are going so far into the future.

[39:43] We are in 2805, the world of WALL-E.

[39:48] WALL-E.

Elliott Kalan

[39:49] This is a world that – this is a year that it's almost certainly we will not live to see.

[39:53] 2805, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[39:54] I fucking hope not.

[39:59] And by the world, let's talk about the world in general.

[40:03] And then as far as would we like to live there, of course, I'm not talking about the trash planet that WALL-E exists on.

[40:09] But rather the place where the humans live, which is on the –

[40:13] Yeah.

[40:13] Well, here's –

[40:14] I thought you meant – I thought the trash world is what you were talking about and I was like, yes, all that stuff.

[40:19] Yeah, all those old movies I can watch.

Elliott Kalan

[40:21] I can watch Hello Dolly whenever I want.

Dan McCoy

[40:23] In terms of likelihood, I have a lot of faith in us turning our planet into a trash planet but less faith in us being able to create a big sky arc to escape it.

[40:33] Yeah.

[40:33] So I'm going to go –

Elliott Kalan

[40:34] And of course, Fred Willard has since passed.

[40:36] So the idea that he would be elected president seems unlikely.

[40:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:38] So because of those conflicting things, I'm going to go right down the middle and give it a five.

[40:43] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[40:45] Yeah, similarly.

[40:45] I think I'm going to give it a five.

[40:46] I think the – I'm going to give it a five because like Dan's saying, we're going to trash the world but I don't think we're going to be able to get everybody up onto that spaceship.

[40:55] But at the same time, I also don't think robots are going to be as cute as the robots in WALL-E.

[41:01] I think you're right.

[41:01] Those robots are super cute and the robots that I've seen so far that people are making, surprisingly not cute.

[41:06] Yeah.

[41:07] It's very strange to me.

[41:07] They're all fucking duds.

[41:08] Yeah.

[41:09] They look like – yeah, they're real duds.

[41:10] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:10] More fuckable robots, says Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[41:12] Yeah.

[41:12] No, not cute in that way, Dan.

[41:15] That's not what I'm saying.

[41:16] But like fuckable as in like –

[41:19] I think WALL-E and Eve are really fuckable.

[41:21] Exactly.

[41:22] When I look at WALL-E, I'm like, hold me back.

[41:24] Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[41:24] I'm like Anthony Lane watching Incredibles 2, you know?

[41:28] Wow.

[41:28] Yeah, yeah.

[41:30] Wowsers.

[41:30] Because I like –

Stuart Wellington

[41:31] Anthony Lane do his fucking cinema chair.

[41:35] Why did that popcorn just go flying into the air?

[41:38] Yeah.

[41:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:39] As his boner springs that – they had to ask Anthony Lane to leave the theater because he was making everybody so comfortable with the drooling he was doing over the Incredibles 2.

Stuart Wellington

[41:46] Yeah, his tongue had rolled out into a massive red carpet.

Elliott Kalan

[41:50] It sprang spittle everywhere.

[41:52] I still love – I think it was Michael Kupferman who did the fake excerpt from that where he talks about having to run to the bathroom to jack off in the middle of the Incredibles 2.

[42:00] And people were like, did that really happen?

[42:03] Is this really the review?

Stuart Wellington

[42:06] Oh, man.

[42:06] It was like – who was it who made that fake Red Hot Chili Peppers song that everybody's like, is that a real Red Hot Chili Peppers song?

[42:13] I don't know that one.

[42:14] It's so funny.

[42:15] Okay.

[42:16] So how likely would you like to live on a space arc in WALL-E?

[42:21] Seems pretty good.

Dan McCoy

[42:22] I mean like it's like a cruise which, you know, you get tired of after a while.

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] And also I think you would get tired of never seeing the sun or having fresh air.

[42:31] I think it's hard to overestimate how important it is to have air circulating around you that doesn't feel canned and to have actual sunlight hitting you for just human well-being.

[42:42] Yeah.

[42:43] But it would be fun to take a vacation on that spaceship.

Dan McCoy

[42:45] I mean the creature comforts feel good but like yeah, a lot of ennui would set in as we see in the film.

Stuart Wellington

[42:51] I mean ennui sets in nowadays and I'm not on a space arc.

[42:55] That's a good point.

[42:56] So what are we going to say?

[42:57] What are we going to say?

Elliott Kalan

[42:58] Would I want to live there on the space arc?

[43:00] I'm going to give that a six.

[43:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:01] A six is what I was going for too.

Elliott Kalan

[43:04] I mean to live in a place where I never have to stand up and I'm probably just eating chicken fingers all day and watching TV sounds good for a little bit.

[43:12] I think I would get bored of that eventually, you know.

[43:14] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[43:15] And our last one.

[43:17] This is a treat.

[43:19] The 31st century.

[43:21] Whoa.

[43:21] So far in the future.

[43:22] The world of Futurama.

Dan McCoy

[43:24] Oh.

[43:26] Do I get to hang out with all those guys?

[43:28] Hey, you can.

[43:30] My friends?

[43:30] My TV friends?

Stuart Wellington

[43:31] That's the second part of the question.

[43:34] First category is how likely is the world of Futurama to come about?

Dan McCoy

[43:39] Well.

[43:40] I'm going to give.

[43:40] What do you say, Dan?

[43:42] I'm sorry.

[43:43] It's just like the fact that they build new New York on top of the wreckage of old New York feels like a pretty believable way of humans reacting to disaster.

[43:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:53] And that is the main thing about Futurama.

[43:56] That is the main aspect of its future.

Dan McCoy

[43:58] That's just the thing that came to my mind.

[43:59] What were you going to say, Ellie?

[44:01] You son of a bitch.

Elliott Kalan

[44:02] I think it's very unlikely.

[44:04] If only because as much – there is nothing I want more in human history than to be alive when humanity makes contact with an alien intelligence.

[44:12] There's two things I want to experience.

[44:14] I want to see a dinosaur.

[44:15] That's never going to happen.

[44:16] It's just impossible.

[44:17] It's never going to happen.

Stuart Wellington

[44:17] And I want to –

[44:18] There's a series of very popular movies that question your statements.

Elliott Kalan

[44:24] I will put them in as exhibit B for the –

[44:26] Carnosaur?

[44:27] Carnosaur 2.

[44:28] Tammy and the T-Rex.

[44:29] Yeah.

[44:31] I think –

[44:32] And the other thing –

[44:33] But I want to see humans make alien contact.

[44:35] It would be so exciting to me, even if it was a negative experience.

[44:37] It would be –

[44:38] I mean I don't want that to happen.

[44:39] Even if it's a fucking predator that shows up and starts blasting us.

[44:42] I would be like, wow, to know that there's alien life would be amazing.

[44:44] But I think it is so unlikely because of the vast distances of the universe that that will happen in my lifetime.

[44:52] That I certainly –

[44:52] By the time of Futurama that there would be so many aliens.

[44:55] That it would be so easy to just hop around the universe.

[44:57] I think it's just not –

[44:59] Unfortunately, I think it's just not likely to happen.

[45:01] So I'm going to have to give it a very low happenability rate.

[45:05] And also –

[45:05] But do I want to live in that future?

[45:07] Yeah.

[45:08] Ten.

[45:08] A hundred percent.

[45:09] Yeah.

[45:09] For sure.

Dan McCoy

[45:10] Yeah.

[45:11] I mean just because it's so far ahead, I'm going to leave the door open.

[45:13] I'll give it a two for likelihood.

Elliott Kalan

[45:16] Yeah.

[45:17] I think it's unlikely that that far in the future everyone will be making the same pop culture references that we make now.

[45:23] They'll have their own new thousand years later pop culture references.

[45:26] But still.

Dan McCoy

[45:27] But as a world to live in, it's like this sort of retro-futuristic world that of course I'm going to love.

[45:34] There is a lot of danger in this world, but they always seem to get out of it.

Elliott Kalan

[45:39] There's a lot of danger and it's pretty grimy.

[45:41] It's pretty grimy and messy.

Dan McCoy

[45:43] Yeah.

[45:44] I'm going to give it a nine, but I will still also give it a high score.

Elliott Kalan

[45:48] Because I thought you were going to give it a higher score because there's so much casual nudity as the series goes on.

Dan McCoy

[45:51] Yeah, that's true.

[45:52] Well, certainly as soon as they got onto like streaming, they're like, oh, okay.

[45:56] We can just like have like Amy's butt in this scene.

[45:59] Let's do it.

[46:01] And like Zoidberg can be a doctor.

[46:04] That's pretty cool.

[46:05] A world where a crab can be a doctor.

Elliott Kalan

[46:08] If you're asking me if I want to live in a world where an alien crab man who sounds just like George Jessel is a doctor, yes.

[46:14] I do want to live in that world for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[46:18] Yeah.

[46:19] So that has been our look to the future.

[46:21] Listeners.

Dan McCoy

[46:23] I love that Stuart was noting down the scores for everything very carefully.

[46:28] And then there was no payoff.

Stuart Wellington

[46:30] Not at all.

[46:32] He's just making more work for himself.

[46:34] Because it matters.

[46:34] Yeah.

[46:35] But what matters to me as listeners, how close were we?

[46:40] Did we get anything incredibly wrong?

[46:42] Did we forget futuristics?

[46:44] I mean, it's about the future.

Elliott Kalan

[46:45] So I don't know if we're going to know yet.

Dan McCoy

[46:47] Well, Chris Welk could write in and he would tell us.

Elliott Kalan

[46:50] Yeah.

[46:50] We're all interested in the future.

[46:52] We'll find out about it on Flop TV.

Stuart Wellington

[46:53] And please, we'll probably post a clip of this episode on Instagram.

[47:02] If you could chime in with any futuristic movies I may have forgotten that I did not add to this list.

[47:08] If we got any information wrong, chime in and I will mention it later.

Elliott Kalan

[47:12] I kept waiting for Outland and Sean Connery to come up.

[47:13] But I guess you had only one Sean Connery movie for episode rule.

Stuart Wellington

[47:16] Yeah.

[47:18] When I was working on this mini, Conan the Barbarian was standing behind me and he gave me that rule.

[47:23] And if I broke it, he would slice my head off my shoulders.

[47:25] I'm glad you followed that.

[47:26] Wow.

[47:26] Yeah.

[47:27] That's the way writing a mini works.

[47:30] Thanks so much.

[47:31] This has been a mini episode of the Flophouse podcast.

[47:34] We are on the Maximum Fun Network.

[47:36] There's plenty of good shows on there.

Dan McCoy

[47:39] I like the implication there.

Stuart Wellington

[47:41] But there's plenty of good shows.

[47:43] You said it.

[47:43] Yeah.

[47:44] We're not one of them.

[47:46] Yeah.

[47:46] Okay.

[47:46] In contrast to us.

[47:48] This episode was, like all our episodes, it's produced by Alex Smith, who goes by Howell Doughty

[47:54] on the internet.

[47:55] He's a treat to work with and he produces a ton of great content on his own.

[47:59] Check him out on Bandcamp, Twitch, etc.

[48:03] I have been Stuart Wellington.

[48:04] I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[48:06] And I'll be Elliot Kalin in the future.

Stuart Wellington

[48:09] I see what he did.

[48:16] Maximum Fun.

S4

[48:18] A worker-owned network.

[48:19] Of artists-owned shows.

[48:21] Supported.

[48:22] Directly.

[48:22] By you.

FH Mini 145 - Flop to the Future

Transcript

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