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Talking Pondo: Dark Star and The Abyss
Description
In this episode, Marty gives Clif the film Dark Star to watch and Clif gives Marty The Abyss to watch.
First up is John Carpenter's Dark Star (1974), the director's early, low-budget science-fiction oddity about four astronauts drifting through space, blowing up unstable planets and generally behaving like the universe’s least concerned employees. Marty picked it as a look at the beginning of Carpenter's career, while Clif spends much of the movie wondering when something, anything, is going to happen. Between the rough acting, bargain-basement effects, questionable comedy and a crew that seems perfectly happy to let its spaceship fall apart, there’s plenty to discuss. But there are flashes of the filmmaker Carpenter would become, including atmospheric music, a few clever ideas and a memorable showdown with a very talkative smart bomb.
Then it's down to the ocean floor for The Abyss (1989), James Cameron's ambitious underwater adventure about a team of deep-sea workers, a Navy SEAL mission gone sideways and something mysterious lurking in the depths. Clif is a big fan of this one, praising its atmosphere, practical effect and place in Cameron's filmography. Marty finds himself appreciating the movie more than he expected, even as he questions it's pacing, it's larger-than-life characters and some very 1980s storytelling choices. The discussion gets into the film's famously punishing production, the risks of shooting actors underwater, the differences between the theatrical and extended cuts and whether Cameron occasionally needs to trust his audience to figure out the message without spelling it out
Along the way: the strange career beginnings of Carpenter and Cameron, a muffin tin disguised as science-fiction technology, some questionable fashion choices in space and the kind of movie-to-movie connections that only Marty could find.
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Theme Song "The Rain" by Russ Pace
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