Predestination

[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film is Lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple. Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. Here you are at the beginning of your new life. It can be overwhelming knowing the future you're about to create, knowing the purpose of that life. It's predestination. And this film is lit. Hello, and welcome back to. This film is like the pockets. We're talking about movies that are based on books. I'm gonna warn everybody here right at the top, right ahead of time. We're both sick. [00:01:12] Speaker B: This is the house of plague. [00:01:15] Speaker A: I am on the back end of it, but the. The chest congestion is lingering. And according to a friend of mine who had a similar thing, his lasted for weeks. So I'm very excited to see how this is gonna go. Katie is now on the front end. [00:01:30] Speaker B: I really, I thought a way I. I had gotten away scot free because I made it through like all the entire week that I was you and I felt fine. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So my warning is that if you. I'm gonna do my damnedest to. To cut and edit every little sound of sickness out. But if that's like, you know, a trigger for you, if you have misophonia, it's maybe an episode to listen to with caution. I will do my very best. But anyways, yeah, also it's a short episode because we're going to keep it as tight as we can. Because of that, we won't ramble as much. If we start talking too much, I start coughing a ton. So we're going to try to keep this nice and succinct. All right, Brian from the future here, jumping in again to explain why this episode is so late and what's going on here. So you just heard me say, you know, that we're sick and we're going to do our best to edit that owl out. We're still a little sick. Or Katie is more sick than I am. I'm pretty much over it at this point, but we had to. We started recording that episode previously. Got about 15 to 20 minutes in and then I just couldn't do it. I was coughing way too much and it was going to be too much of a disaster. So we paused and then Katie was getting sick and so I was going out of town on a work shoot. Whole lot going on. So now we are finally coming back to finish up the episode. So yes, hopefully from the point where we pick up about 18 minutes into the episode, you will, it'll. You'll hear a difference, at least in my voice from the previous one to now. And then for the rest of the episode, I should at least sound better and Katie sounds a little bit better than she did because you were just starting to get sick. [00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, but I probably sound worse than I did. [00:03:14] Speaker A: I don't know if you do. [00:03:16] Speaker B: I don't remember. [00:03:17] Speaker A: They sound pretty similar. [00:03:18] Speaker B: But anyways, also, deepest apologies if we retread the same material. Cause I don't remember what all we talked about. [00:03:28] Speaker A: We didn't talk about that much. We hadn't got into that much stuff yet. We had just kind of hit some of the beginning parts of. Was that in the book. We'll get into it, but you'll catch back up with us here in just a minute. But for now, jump back in and enjoy previously sicker versions of At Least Myself for the next about like 10, 15 minutes and then you will rejoin us. This is kind of fitting for this episode that it's all wonky and out of order and different versions of ourself are jumping into different parts of the episode. So it's very meta. If you have not read or watched Predestination, we're to give you a little summary of the film right now. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. In 1975, a time traveling agent whose face is not seen suffers severe burns while trying and failing to disarm a bomb in a public building's basement. An unseen person helps him activate his time travel device called a field kit, allowing him to escape to his agency's headquarters. In 1992, he receives reconstructive surgery for his burns, but is told that he will now look and sound different. He is further warned about the risk of mental instability from his long career. Once he recovers, the agent is sent on his final mission before retirement and goes undercover as a bartender in 1970, New York City, where he meets John, a bitter columnist who writes under the pen name the Unmarried Mother. When pressed on how he writes confession stories so well, John begins telling his life story. A transgender man, John was Found on the steps of a Cleveland Orphanage in 1945, where he was taken in and given the name Jane. Jane excelled both physically and academically in high school, and upon graduation was recruited by Agent Robertson to join the space program as a concubine, but was disqualified after a medical examination. In college, Jane fell in love with a mysterious man, but was abandoned shortly into the relationship. Jane went back to Robertson to try to join the space program, but Robertson admitted that he was using the space program as a front to recruit Jane for an elite covert agency that recruits people with no past and no certain future. Jane joined the agency, but was forced to drop out when he discovered he was pregnant. Jane gave birth to a baby girl at a hospital, telling the baby, you are the best thing that's ever happened to me. But during the delivery, the doctors discovered that he was intersex. Complications during delivery rendered the female organs unviable, and the physical physicians began the process of a gender reassignment surgery. Jane spent almost a year undergoing further treatment to become male, during which time the baby was kidnapped from the hospital by an older man. After being rejected from the space program again, Jane renamed herself John and relocated to New York City, eventually becoming a columnist and still harboring resentment toward the man who impregnated and abandoned him. When John finishes his story, the agent reveals that he works for the Temporal Bureau, in which Robertson is either a high ranking officer or the head. He offers John the chance to kill his mysterious lover, who the agent thinks may be the Fizzle Bomber, in exchange for John joining the Bureau as an agent. Together, they go back to 1963, where John encounters and falls in love with Jane, his past self. Realizing that he was his past self's lover all along, John, determined to change the past, goes ahead with the relationship and vows not to abandon himself. Meanwhile, the agent illegally returns to 1975 and helps his wounded past self, which Robertson allows as long as the agent kidnaps Jane's baby and delivers it to the Cleveland Orphanage in 1945, completing the predestination Paradox that makes John both of his own own parents. Returning to 1963, the agent compels John to leave Jane and join the agency in 1985, as their troubled past is what will make them so effective at saving lives. They travel to headquarters, where John passes out and is hospitalized, Informed his field kit will decommission. After one final jump, the agent retires to New York City in 1975. Although the kit fails to decommission with information left for him by Robertson, he finds the bomber only. Only in his horror to discover that it is his future self. The bomber says that all his bombings were designed to prevent much greater disasters. And the field kit was still working as evidence that he was predestined to become the bomber. The bomber gives the agent a chance not to kill him and break the cycle. But the agent shoots him. The agent records a message to be delivered to John at headquarters when he wakes up in 1985, repeating the line, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. That Jane told her baby. He then takes off his robe to reveal scars from gender reassignment surgery. Surgery confirming that he is an older John. An orchestrated paradox created by Robertson. The end created by Robertson. I don't know if that's implied in the movie. [00:07:54] Speaker B: I guess they mean because Robertson has him take the baby back. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I guess he did kind of guide it. But created by Robinson implies that Robinson could have made that choice. Whereas my reading of the movie is that. Hence the title of the film Predestination. It's kind of a close circle. That was always going to happen anyways. So. Yeah. Before we get into. Was that in the book? I have another note here that I want to add. I'm actually going to add two notes here. One, Katie is out of it. So we're going to do our best. I can tell already that she is going to struggle through this episode. I'm going to hack my way through it. But the cold medicine and whatnot and the lack of sleep is making you a little loopy. So we're going to do our best. But other than that, the other main thing is that we're also going to do our best with the pronouns in this. But the nature of a time traveling trans person creates some complexity when using pronouns. So we'll do our best, but it's going to be tough and we're probably going to bounce around a lot between calling Jane and John. He and him, given the different timeline, like the different nature of events. But we'll do our best. I'm trying to think what would be the best way to do it. I guess to say him all the time. Let's just do that. Right? [00:09:14] Speaker B: I don't think I did that in my notes. Okay, I'll try. [00:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe not. I don't know. It's also complicated by the nature of even the story where it's. But yeah. Okay, I have a bunch of questions. Let's get into them. And was that in the book? [00:09:27] Speaker B: Gaston, May I have my book, please? [00:09:29] Speaker A: How can you read this? [00:09:30] Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination. [00:09:34] Speaker A: The film opens up on an agent who is attempting to stop a bomber. And we know that this we'll find out later. This is the Fizzle Bomber. And there's this bomb in a building. And we don't really know any of the specifics. This movie operates kind of entirely on not giving you all the information because that's kind of how the whole story works, is revealing select parts of the information as it goes. And we open up on this bomb being planted and then this person who we do not see the face of attempting to seemingly, like, quarantine the bomb so that it doesn't kill a bunch of people when it goes off. And they almost succeed. They're kind of briefly interrupted by, we assume, the Fizzle Bomber, like, shooting at them. They get it into this container thing that they have, but it does go off and they get horribly burned. And then they are able to teleport, like, use their time travel machine to get back to their, like, headquarters, where they are then given a brand new face and a new voice through reconstructive surgery. But they still have to do one more mission. And I wanted to know if any of this open came from the book because it is an interesting hook. It's definitely a I don't know what's going on yet hook, but it is. It's compelling. [00:10:45] Speaker B: So the Fizzle Bomber is not from the book at all. It is inspired by something from the book. It's extrapolated from a single world building line about the Fizzle War of 1963. Okay, I have mixed feelings about this. The short story is only like 10 pages long. [00:11:07] Speaker A: It's a very short story. [00:11:09] Speaker B: Obviously the film was going to have to expand on or add some things. I think that the intertwining plot about stopping the Fizzle Bomber works fine for the most part. I'm not sure that the end worked 100% for me, though. [00:11:24] Speaker A: I thought, okay, interesting. I guess we can talk about that more later. But you mean where the agent ends up being the bomber? [00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay, so is there any bomber plot at all? [00:11:35] Speaker B: No. [00:11:35] Speaker A: So it's more. So just the other stuff about Jane and John and like. [00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the bulk of the ten pages. This line in the book, everybody knows why the fizzle war of 1963 fizzled. The bomb with New York's number on it didn't go off. 100 other things didn't go as planned, all arranged by the likes of me. [00:12:01] Speaker A: So yeah, it kind of does imply that he's the agent was doing stuff to stop future of some sort. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Some sort. [00:12:10] Speaker A: And the name is clearly taken from that. Okay, interesting. We'll talk more about the ending at the end. So then we jump. He gets sent out on his final mission, which he goes undercover as a bartender in New York City. And as he's working at this bar, a man walks in who we're introduced to. Eventually we'll find out his name is John. We don't know that for a long time, but he sits down at the bar and they kind of start chit chatting. And John reveals that he writes confession, confession stories. Stories in like, magazines, like women's magazines. And he says that he has. And the bartender, Ethan Hawke's character is like, well, you know, why are you writing like. And the article is called. Or the column is called the Unmarried Wife. [00:13:02] Speaker B: That's the pen name. He writes on marriage. Sorry, is the Unmarried Mother. [00:13:05] Speaker A: Unmarried Mother. And he's like, well, it's kind of interesting that you're writing like, from the perspective of a woman or whatever and like telling, you know, taught writing for women. And John says, well, I should have an in on the woman's angle. And Ethan Hawke responds like, what, are you married? You got a sister? And Jon replies, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. [00:13:28] Speaker B: This exchange is from the book. It's not exactly word for word, but it's pretty close. [00:13:33] Speaker A: Okay, yeah. Just kind of teasing the reveal that's gonna happen here. And then the thing that I thought was interesting is they start talking about the Fizzle Bomber because it's on the news and Fizzle Bombers on the loose has been blowing up all kinds of stuff. And this John says, like, I don't like the name Fizzle Bomber, and then starts saying other stuff like, you know, some people just gotta go. And then like, everything he says, like, strongly implies that he is the Fizzle Bomber. Yeah, I was like, oh. Like, it's this. It's like, obviously has to be a red herring. I guess it's not ultimately, but it is kind of. [00:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:14:13] Speaker A: It's like both not and is a red herring, like, because John is not the Fizzle Bomber. Right. But also in this moment, but ultimately [00:14:20] Speaker B: does become the Fizzle Bomber. [00:14:22] Speaker A: The Fizzle Bomber. Yeah. So it is interesting in that way. But then we get to the story where they bet a bottle of whiskey that, like, John's story will be the craziest or wildest thing that Ethan Hawke's character has ever heard. And he starts telling his story and immediately drops that he was born a girl. He goes back when I was a little girl. And Ethan Hawke's character is like, what? Excuse me? And then explains that they were orphaned. And I wanted to know if that was how the story started or if this comes from the book, because it's a heck of an opening line. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah. That exchange is also straight out of the book. [00:15:01] Speaker A: Okay. Obviously, we will talk more about, you know, the trans narrative in this is a huge element of, like, what is going on in the movie. And we will talk more about that in Lost in Adaptation. So we won't touch a ton on that kind of stuff here, but we do. Don't worry. We will discuss it more in a little bit. So then, as we're getting the backstory of Jon as Jane when he was a woman and growing up as a woman in this orphanage, he kind of outlines his childhood. And he was picked on a lot, but he was very intelligent. And he also talks about how he was physically stronger than all the girls, but also physically stronger than a lot of the guys and got in fights and stuff and says things that he always knew he was different. I think literally, at one point says that he was. And I might have a line. Oh, yeah, I'll get to that later. But always knew that he was different. And talks about how he found sex. Kind of gets exposed to sex at a young age and finds it kind of confusing and interesting. Strange. And I wanted to know if any of that backstory came from the book. [00:16:06] Speaker B: So he does. I can't really explain it. He does have an I always knew I was different kind of a vibe. [00:16:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:14] Speaker B: But I don't think he ever says that specifically in the book. I also don't think he ever says anything about sex being confusing, but he does say that he learned about it early in the orphanage. There's also nothing about getting into fights. [00:16:30] Speaker A: Okay. Because this was some of the kind of strange. And again, we'll talk more about this later. But is some of the kind of gender essentialism that is baked into the trans narrative of this film in a way that is not amazing, but I don't know, it's complicated. This movie I found fascinating in the way it approaches and which is easy for me to say as a CIS straight dude, like, to ponder at it and find it fascinating. I'm sure other people might not find it that way, but, like, I thought it was a compelling mixture of its depiction of trans people, but we will get to. Or this specific. I say trans people. This specific trans person because it is the only. Only the one person in the movie. And they have a very specific situation going on that is very unique. So, okay, so picking back up where we left off, this is now. You've now caught back up to the current timeline. So my next question is, does John get recruited into Space Corps, which appears to be. And now you have more notes on this. It was hard to tell in the movie for me what this was. It sure kind of felt like a. A weird version of, like, lady astronauts. Cause that's what my question is. Does John get recruited into Space Corps to become a lady astronaut after high school? But anyways, that's my question. And then we'll discuss what the heck Space Corps is. [00:17:58] Speaker B: I wouldn't say recruited. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:02] Speaker B: So John says that he had decided to join something called Wenches. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Incredible. [00:18:11] Speaker B: Incredible, yes. Name. [00:18:13] Speaker A: I'd say better in the movie to change that to Space Corps. A little less, like, you know, a little more believable. [00:18:20] Speaker B: But. So Wenches is an acronym and it stands for Women's Emergency, National Corps Hospitality and Entertainment Section. Okay. And it's basically Handmaidens in space. [00:18:36] Speaker A: So that was my next question was, do the little handmade and astronaut outfits that they wear come from the book? [00:18:42] Speaker B: So none of the, like, training is described. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Are the outfits at all? [00:18:45] Speaker B: No, the outfits are not described because [00:18:47] Speaker A: they wear these outfits that are very retro futurism. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:18:51] Speaker A: Although, to be fair, this takes place in the 70s, so it's. Right. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:54] Speaker A: Like. Yeah, so it's not really retro futurism, but. And they wear these outfits that are very reminiscent of, like, a handmaiden thing. It is all pitched to the applicants as, like, they're training to be, like, astronauts. But I think there's some like. But also they kind of mention the idea of them being, like, paired up with men. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:16] Speaker A: And so I couldn't tell exactly what the purpose of this program was. I think ultimately I've come to the conclusion that it's essentially, we're sending astronauts to space. They need wives. You're going to be an astronaut wife. Is that. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:30] Speaker A: Like, who can go to space? [00:19:32] Speaker B: Kind of the idea. [00:19:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:34] Speaker B: There is a line, and I. I believe I did catch it in the movie at this point. It's been so long since we watched this movie. [00:19:41] Speaker A: I want to apologize for that, too. That's the other thing. We watched this movie over a week ago now, and we're coming back to it. I still think I have a pretty good MEM for most of it, but there's definitely details we're gonna have forgotten. [00:19:51] Speaker B: I'm 99.9% sure that I caught this line in the movie, but there is a line in the book when. When Jon is explaining what this is, that they were. They're like, at this point in this alternate history that Heinlein has come up with. Well, history. He was writing from the future. Right, whatever. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:20:18] Speaker B: But now we know alternate universe. Yeah. Where they're, like, far enough along in the space program that they've realized that they can't just send astronauts into space for years without companionship and release. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Right. So they're essentially concubines. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Yes. There's space concubines. [00:20:43] Speaker A: Okay. And you could kind of gather that from the movie, but you have to really pay attention because they do. And which is intentional is that on the surface, it appears to be like a much more. Maybe. I don't know if respectable is the right term. But you don't get the idea initially that they're, like, preparing them to essentially be space prostitutes or concubines or whatever. It feels on the surface like they're preparing them to be astronauts, just like women astronauts. [00:21:11] Speaker B: I mean, they do still go into space. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Yes. And so they still do do all that stuff, but their main purpose is as companions to the male astronauts. Not as. You're a woman astronaut. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:22] Speaker A: It is. You're there to. Okay. [00:21:24] Speaker B: You're there to service the male astronauts. [00:21:26] Speaker A: Okay. That all makes sense. And. Yeah. And so it is fitting that they wear these kind of. The handmaiden reminiscent of, like, the handmaiden. Like. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:34] Speaker A: Outfits in the. In the film. So. Okay, interesting. Speaking of John slash Jane at the time, their identity issues, we do get the exact line in the movie where I believe it's while recounting a story. John says that essentially he felt like he was trapped in the wrong body while describing himself as. While existing as a woman going through all of this. He does say that he felt like he was trapped in the wrong body. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because that's obviously a pretty classic kind of, like, trans experience line. That is. [00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:13] Speaker A: Not. Not maybe the most perfect encapsulation of the trans experience, but it is something that, you know, trans people, I think, identify with generally. [00:22:21] Speaker B: I don't recall that a line like that ever appears in the text. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. That I wondered because that felt like a. Maybe a more modern. [00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:31] Speaker A: Kind of insert to. Because this is, you know, so much about a person living A trans experience, again, albeit a very unique trans experience to themselves. And so it did. I did wonder if maybe there was a little bit of modern insert, you know, kind of. And that. Go ahead. [00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. [00:22:50] Speaker A: It's also one of the things like that kind of line and stuff and some of the other elements which we will get to does make me think that there was at least a tiny bit of like, research or like reaching out to somebody who's trans or something. Some sort of, you know what I mean? To like get some sort of input on how to depict. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:13] Speaker A: This whole thing other than apart from just two CIS straight guys writing this script. You know what I mean? Like. [00:23:19] Speaker B: No, yeah, I know what you mean. There's a God, there's a name, there's a term for that. And I can't think of what it is. [00:23:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm blanking. Yeah. When you go get somebody to. [00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:30] Speaker A: To come and work on your script, they are a. I don't know, I can't find them. I can't think of the term. But yeah. Yes. We'll get into that more later because in Lost adaptation, I have more about the specific. The whole trans meta narrative of everything we then get. It is relayed. We find out that Jane was kicked out of Space Corps ostensibly for fighting. She gets in a fight with one of the other astronaut ladies. We see them like brawling in the Commonwealth. [00:23:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they form a circle in there. [00:23:59] Speaker A: Yeah, they all form a circle, like, fighting. And they. They say that this is the reason that Jane is kicked out at the time. But then we find out later from whatever the guy's. Well, now I'm blanking on his name. The guy was Robert Roberts. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. The guy who, like, runs this. This organization and who ultimately we find out is part of the time travel, the Time Bureau or whatever. That actually the reason was for kind of like a secret medical reason and which we will ultimately go on to figure out that. That probably what he was referring to was the fact that she's intersex. [00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:33] Speaker A: That Jane John is intersex. And that was because they have some test results and they're like, oh. And that. And that's actually why she gets kicked out. Not because of the fighting thing, but they just use that as an excuse. Anyway, so she gets kicked out and then we get this very brief mention of that. She meets some mystery man who she has a whirlwind romance with who then disappears right after getting her pregnant. And I wanted to know if any of that came from the book so [00:25:04] Speaker B: it's a little vague in the book whether or not she actually joins this program. Okay. When he's relaying his story as the bar patron, it's again, this, the short story is 10 pages long. So it's a very, like, short, short version. The movie expands on it a lot. He says that he decided to join, then he got pregnant, and then he ended up in the charity ward as like a pregnant woman. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Okay, but do we ever. Do we get the same kind of recounting of that story of like, meeting that mystery man and then. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:49] Speaker A: And it's set up similarly. Like we don't know who it is or like. Yeah, okay. Because that obviously will be the guy [00:25:55] Speaker B: who ruined my life. But we don't know who it is. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Okay, we will get to that shortly. So she, Jane gives birth to the baby. But during the. This is all explained by the doctor. After Jane gives birth, they, While they were doing. They had to do a C section. And while doing the C section, they say they had to remove her ovaries and uterus. And while they were in there, they discovered that, like I said, that she was intersex and also had male sex organs inside. And so they basically performed a gender, like a non consensual gender reassignment surgery on Jane. [00:26:35] Speaker B: Yes. [00:26:36] Speaker A: While she was under. While she. During the cesarean that was occurring. And I wanted to know if that's what happened in the book, because that's wild. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that is basically what happens in. I mean, I say basically, that is exactly what happens in the book. This is the doctor speaking. Take it easy. When I opened you, I found a mess. I sent for the chief of surgery while I got the baby out. Then we held a consultation with you on the table and worked for hours to salvage what we could. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but the female set well enough developed that you had a baby. [00:27:12] Speaker A: That dialogue is identical to the movie. Like, I, I am hearing that from the film. That's word for word. [00:27:18] Speaker B: They could never be any use to you again. So we took them out and rearranged things so that you can develop properly as a man. [00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yeah. There you go. [00:27:28] Speaker B: Which is. I, I don't know. I. I read that part and then my next, like, note that I wrote in my reading notes was all caps. Lawsuit. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. [00:27:38] Speaker B: Because. Woof. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Although in the 70s, probably not. I don't know how much merit that would have today. Sure. Definitely. [00:27:46] Speaker B: And like, I don't. I don't know. I'm not. I'M not a medical. I don't know that if an intersex person were to get pregnant, is there a scenario in which where this is feasible, where you would have to take out all of the female? I don't know. [00:28:02] Speaker A: It strikes me as particularly convenient for the purpose of the story, which we will get to later. Again, I have some more to talk about this in Lost adaptation and stuff, but that's what this whole story is. Feels like to me, is it's so clearly just a. It's a. It's a. It's a writing exercise. Like. [00:28:22] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. [00:28:23] Speaker A: Once we get to the reveal at the end of everything that's going on, it is a story constructed solely around the, like, what if? Idea of, like, the twist, essentially. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:28:36] Speaker A: And everything else is just. Is just mangled into shape to make it work. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Where you're just like, punching science until it gets into the right place, feeding [00:28:46] Speaker A: it into submission to make it fit for this in a way that's, like, kind of believable if you don't think about it, and maybe even is technically somewhat feasible. I don't know. But it definitely feels like. Yeah, the whole point is. Yeah, it's a writing exercise. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Which we'll get to that later. That's kind of my take on the whole thing as a film, is that the whole thing just very clearly feels built around the twist and, like, the premise in a way that makes the rest of the movie a little less enjoyable to me. We'll get to it. We'll talk more about it. But so because of that, we've revealed now that. And again, it was reeled early on but that Jane became Jon and was a woman and had this gender reassignment surgery during childbirth and is now John and then has more surgeries after that. John recounts that he had a. When it continued to go back to this clinic to finish doing the gender reassignment and taking hormones and stuff like that to complete their transition, ultimately, John becomes a confession column writer who is known as the Unmarried Mother. And the reason for this is because they have the experience, as have this lived experience, having lived the first 20 something years of their life as a woman. They have kind of an insight into the female experience that maybe other people wouldn't. And so they use this to become. To write as if they're like a woman, essentially. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, the whole confession column thing. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. [00:30:21] Speaker A: Okay. Is the time machine device shaped like a violin case? Because I thought that was kind of fun. [00:30:27] Speaker B: It is not. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Duh. [00:30:28] Speaker B: The text says that it's shaped to pass as a suitcase. [00:30:32] Speaker A: Suitcase instead of. Yeah, I think that's a good change to make it a violin. It's a little more distinct than just a generic suitcase, you know, and that, [00:30:40] Speaker B: like, opening scene where it's just, like, a person whose face we haven't seen yet. [00:30:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:45] Speaker B: Who's so, like, painfully. Clearly some kind of agent. [00:30:48] Speaker A: Yes. [00:30:49] Speaker B: With, like, leather gloves and a hat and a long coat. I. I was like, is it supposed to be like a Tommy gun? Like. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that is a pretty classic, like, gangster movie. Yeah. Is to hide, like, a machine gun or a gun in, like, a violin case or whatever. So I think it's definitely an illusion to that. It's just kind of a classic noir thing, but it's also just more distinct than a suitcase. Yeah. So one thing that they reveal in the movie is that they can only time travel 53 years on either side of 1981, which is when time travel was invented. They can go 53 years before 1981 and 53 years after 1981. And I don't think they ever explain why. [00:31:31] Speaker B: It feels really like a very limiting form of time travel. [00:31:35] Speaker A: It is. Which is maybe realistic. Maybe I say realistic. It's not the sort of. Time travel is not realistic, but, you know, like, maybe adding some sort of rules like that. I think if nothing else, it lends an air of, like, realism to it, that it's. It's not completely open to just do whatever you want. There are some sort of limits and restrictions on it makes it maybe feel more real than if you could just, like, oh, we could time travel wherever we want, whenever we want. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:01] Speaker A: And I wanted to know if that rule or, like, that limitation came from the book. No. [00:32:05] Speaker B: The text actually states pretty early on that the bartender is wearing a ring that a fellow operative fetched from pre Christian Crete. [00:32:17] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:32:18] Speaker B: So, yeah, so we can go back pretty far. Pretty far in the text. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah. We're talking over a thousand years at that point. So then we get the big reveal. And I wanted to know if the reveal was similar in the book, because what happens here is that Ethan Hawke gives John, the bar patron, a gun and is like, hey, that man who ruined your life, the guy who got you pregnant, what if I could put him in front of you? I know where he's gonna be and when. And you can kill him. You can get your revenge for him ruining your life. And since they go back in time together to, you know, years previously, when this event took place and says, hey, he's going to be at this place at this time. Go there and you can intercept him and. And get your revenge. [00:33:06] Speaker B: And then I guess cease to exist. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Well, no, when you say that, what do you mean? [00:33:15] Speaker B: So if that had worked. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:18] Speaker B: If it had been some other guy. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:20] Speaker B: And John had then like killed that guy and stopped his previous self from getting pregnant. [00:33:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. [00:33:28] Speaker B: Then Jon, at least as we know, would cease to exist. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I thought you meant in a sense, because it's complicated. Because you were. I was like, yes, but they wouldn't know that yet. But also, yes. Yeah, because so. Cause that's what I was getting to is that this is the big reveal is that. And which I had initially thought, like, oh, maybe it's Ethan Hawke's character. Because we never see that character early on in the movie. I'm like, oh, I bet it's Ethan Hawke's character. Which spoilers. It is. Because they're all the same character. Spoilers, obviously. But it was like, oh, it's Ethan Haas character. But no, they go there and then it is revealed, oh, surprise. You're the man. John is the man who met Jane in that moment and so there's no one to kill. [00:34:14] Speaker B: You are your own worst enemy. [00:34:15] Speaker A: Yes. You are the per. Which is so close to being interesting. This movie gets so close with that idea. And especially all of this stuff between John and Jane. If this movie were remade but and rewritten by like an actual trans person to explore. Actually like genuinely use this as like a. An avenue to explore like self identity and stuff like that. Like this movie gets close to it at times. [00:34:42] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:43] Speaker A: And in this moment. But like actually exploring like that idea of like, oh, like, you know, you're like, you said you're your own worst enemy. You're the person. And we'll get to it here in a second. This specific line, like we. What I'm asking is, does a book reveal it, like, similarly that. Oh, and does John realize I'm the. I'm the guy? And then added on to that. The specific line that I thought was really interesting in the movie that I really liked and that kind of gets close to being like almost approaching something interesting in regards to like the. The whole trans thing kind of, although maybe problematic and I don't know is that when John meets Jane, he sees Jane and says, you're beautiful. Someone should have told you that. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book. And again, mainly just broadly that whole reveal of how it works in the movie of like, oh, surprise, John is the mystery man. [00:35:42] Speaker B: So the text of the book doesn't actually show us these two meeting or interacting. [00:35:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:49] Speaker B: So we don't see like any of that scene. We don't get that specific line about, you're beautiful. Someone should have told you that. What happens is that the bartender, the time traveler, drops John off and says, go, go do this. [00:36:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:09] Speaker B: And then he goes and gets the baby, which we also see him doing that gets the baby and drops it off at the orphanage. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:20] Speaker B: And then comes back and picks John up and is like, what did we learn? And then. Which is. Then we find out that Jon has slept with Jane. And there's a line in the book. It's a shock to have it proved to you that you can't resist seducing yourself. So I actually prefer the movie's version of this. I think that framing it as John realizing that he was always worthy of love is nice. Especially held up one to one to what the book gives us, which is really nothing. [00:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah, nothing at all. And that's where I was saying that's where it gets the closest, I think, to like. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah, to something that's like, interesting, so. [00:37:12] Speaker A: To something that is interesting within the meta narrative about like identity and stuff and self worth and. And like kind of evaluating. And again, that idea of like. Because that's the thing that I think is really fascinating. That idea of like kind of how we're really bad at self perception and like judging our own. Our own selves of like what we're like or what. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to perceive yourself and fairly accurately judge or assess yourself. And so that idea of being able to do it from the future from a completely different perspective outside of yourself. And yes, like you said, realizing that he was always worthy of love, I think is really compelling. It's just like the only time in the movie where anything like that happens. [00:38:01] Speaker B: It's not explored by the movie, not particularly, but it's still so much more compelling than what's in the book. [00:38:08] Speaker A: It's still something. It is still something. And it's when the movie is at its most interesting to me because it's the few times in the. One of the few times in the movie where the movie cares more about character and less about plot. Because so much of the movie is plot motivated. Because it is such a twisty turny, like, you know. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Yes, it is, as you said, it's motivated by the twist reveal the Twist, [00:38:33] Speaker A: reveal and all of that. So it spends so much of its screen time and real estate getting all of the pieces into place and moving them around where they need to be and playing with the, you know, all of the levers of the. Of this, this twisty, turny, wibbly, wobbly, timey wimey stuff. And so it doesn't have as much time to really spend with the characters. And so this, this moment, like I said, is. And their conversation after I think is. Is probably like my favorite part of the movie because it is where we get to slow down and spend time with like that idea of self reflection and self examination that I think is really compelling. And where. I think where this film remade and rewritten, but I think could be what you would like focus the movie on more potentially. But all right. During that time, as you mentioned, Ethan Hawke then goes back, gets the baby, drops it off at the orphanage, but then also goes back to the beginning of where the movie started and helps his past self escape back to the future. The opening scene in the movie where the bomb went off and scarred him and he had to get his facial reconstruction surgery to look like Ethan Hawke. We find out that the person who helped him get back in time or back to the future was Ethan Hawke from the future. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. [00:40:00] Speaker B: Nothing like that happens in the book. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Okay. I thought that was just another little wrinkle in the time travel. That's again, it's fun. I like the way all the pieces, the Jigsaw pieces fit together in the movie. It's fascinating to watch from that regard and kind of interesting. But it is not particularly emotionally captivating, shall we say. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:22] Speaker A: One of the things I realized more and more I've thought about this movie since we watched it is that this is a movie I would have thought was incredible if I saw it when it came out. When it came out, like 2013, 2014. Yeah. When I was like in college, post college around that time, I would have thought this movie would have blown my mind and I would have thought it was the coolest fucking thing in terms of like just the way. Because it is very clever and that I would have been a sucker for all of that. And we're now watching it. [00:40:48] Speaker B: It. [00:40:49] Speaker A: I can still appreciate that. But as a whole, the movie just does a lot less for me because I'm a lot less interested in the magic trick of it and a lot more interested in like the character. [00:40:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:59] Speaker A: Of like what it. [00:41:00] Speaker B: You know, because it is kind of just that magic trick. [00:41:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Which again, is not bad. It's a fun magic trick. And I think it's fine for a movie to do that, but I do. It's. It's. It's just. I think the frustration is what I said earlier. It's just. You can tell there's. When we get the moments of like, oh, this is compelling. There. There's something here where you could really deep dive into the. And the movie does it at times. It's not like it doesn't. It's just I. It just doesn't focus on it as much as I wish it would. So then we cut back to John and Jane having a. They're on a date together after they met. And I thought this was a fun little moment where Jon tells Jane that he can read minds. Like they're flirting. And it's very classic bad movie flirting dialogue. But he tells Jane that he can read minds and she's like, prove it. And then he does, because obviously he has already lived this experience of his life and so thus knows what he was thinking in this moment, which I thought was fun. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. [00:42:03] Speaker B: No, we don't see any of that in the book. [00:42:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:42:07] Speaker B: But I also enjoyed the I can read minds line as they were at a date at a restaurant, because I was like, okay, Edward Cullen. And this came out after Twilight. So that could be a reference. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It could be. We talked about this. But it is revealed in the book that Ethan Hawke is the one that stole the baby. [00:42:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:42:26] Speaker A: Or the bartender, shall we say, is the one that stole the baby. And that the baby is Jane. [00:42:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:42:31] Speaker A: And so we find out that Jane and John gave birth to themself. [00:42:35] Speaker B: Yes. Okay. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Which again. And then ultimately Ethan Hawke is also John. So it's. Yeah. The magic trick is all the characters are one character. That's the. [00:42:45] Speaker B: Everyone is the same character. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Everyone is the same character. [00:42:47] Speaker B: Except for Robert. [00:42:48] Speaker A: Except for Robert. [00:42:49] Speaker B: That we know of. [00:42:50] Speaker A: And then the other random people. But. Yeah, and I called this one pretty early in the movie, but it is revealed that Ethan. Is it revealed in the book that Ethan Hawke's character. Oh, well, I just answered this. Yeah. Is also Jim. But. So the Fizzle Bomber is not in the book. [00:43:05] Speaker B: No, the Fizzle Bomber's not in the book. [00:43:06] Speaker A: So there's no. Cause that's the big reveal at the end of the movie is that on top of Jane and John being the same person and being their own parent, they are also Ethan Hawke. Is also that character. And they are also the Fizzle Bomber just way in the future down their timeline or whatever. Yeah. So every main character in the story is the same character. Right. Okay. And then so my next question was, is it revealed that the Fizzle Bomber was saving lives in the future by killing people that would have killed a bunch more people, which I thought was interesting. And so I assume none of that's from the book. [00:43:42] Speaker B: No, none of that is from the book. [00:43:44] Speaker A: Yeah, because that's the big reveal at the end is once we get to the part where Ethan Hawke finds the Fizzle Bomber and it is himself. The Fizzle Bomber explains why he was doing all of this, which is that he realizes that if he. There's an event that happens or that all of the people he is killing with bombs are people that would have. [00:44:07] Speaker B: That like, would have gone on. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Gone on even more people to kill even more people. And so he's essentially like. He's doing like, trolley problem kind of deal here of like, well, actually, I'm helping. [00:44:19] Speaker B: Actually, I've saved. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Yes. Despite the fact that he's also killing innocent people with his bomb. Like, it's one of those things that's particularly funny. It's like, well, if you wanted to do that, you have a gun, you couldn't. You just. [00:44:29] Speaker B: You could just kill that. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Kill that person and not blow up like an entire city block where that person lives or whatever. But like. Okay, but I. So obviously that doesn't come from the book. And then my final question here is that I felt crazy, is that the movie gets us this big, like, aha moment where Ethan Hawke stands up and revealed. And it's revealed that his character also has the surgery scars. [00:44:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:53] Speaker A: And this. And there's like a big music sting. And it's like, see? Aha. Ethan Hawke's character is also John, but it's just way in the future. More. And is the Fizzle Bomber. But I was like, when that moment happens in the movie, I thought it had already been so blatantly spelled out by the movie that that was the case that I was. I was confused. I was like, yeah, I'm aware. And so I does the book. I guess there would be a reveal in the book that the bartender is Jon. How is that revealed in the book? It's not in relation to the Fizzle Bomber, obviously, but like, there must be some sort of reveal that Ethan Hawke. That the bartender character is also Jon, just from the future. So. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Okay, so there is a line at the end, like at the very end of the short story where he mentions having a scar from the C section and then he refers to himself as Jane. Yeah, I wouldn't say that it's a dramatic reveal the same way that the movie is, but I had also figured it out by that point in reading. Although I don't remember what it was now that like, made me figure out. [00:46:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't remember in the film exactly what it was, but I had parsed that like, way, like there was lots of clues at that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like that. Yeah. [00:46:12] Speaker B: So like, by the time I got to the end of the short story, it was just kind of extra confirmation of like, oh, okay, I was right. I will pat myself on the back for figuring that out. [00:46:22] Speaker A: Well, one of the things that was very obvious to me was that despite the movie, in the very opening scene, trying to hide the identity of the person who was diffusing the bomb. [00:46:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:33] Speaker A: I could tell from the few shots we saw of like their profile from behind in the shadow that that was Sarah Snook's character dressed as a man or not. You know, like it was Jon. I could tell that it was Jon. Yeah, like once we met Jon later, I was like, oh, that's essentially that person kind of. And like you can even hear it in the voice like that. It's a little bit different. And so I think that. And there was a handful of other things where I was just like. Like I had like, well and long figured out that that Ethan Hawke's character was also John. And then the movie was like, haha, surprise, he's also John. I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it's fine, whatever. All right, those are all my questions. We're gonna get into the really important stuff here in Lost, in Adaptation. Just show me the way to get [00:47:21] Speaker B: out of here and I'll be on my way. [00:47:25] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:47:26] Speaker B: And I want to get unlust as soon as possible. [00:47:29] Speaker A: So I mentioned this earlier, but I would be fascinated to hear a trans critique of this because it was a fascinating experience for me watching the movie of. We talked about how this came out in 2013, written and directed by a couple cis straight guys, as far as I know, some German Australian twins that on their Wikipedia page there was nothing about them even being queer of any flavor, let alone trans of it, that I could find. And again, from the time period this film was made, I could kind of imagine watching and this is my very, very open to other. Other opinions on this. I could kind of imagine watching this movie at that time period and it feeling like an oasis in a desert. By just having anything representing the struggle of a trans person in a humanizing way. Yeah, it's depiction in the film. Again, it's very problematic in lots of ways. It's very specific and unique in a way that is not particularly generalizable. Again, this person is kind of forced into being a trans person because of [00:48:31] Speaker B: the fact that, yeah, there's no real discussion of like, if that's something they would have chosen had they been presented with the choice. [00:48:41] Speaker A: And it seems like maybe not maybe like the way they deal with it, but at the same time the movie does, I think, kind of try to address that a little bit. This is where I talk about like, I think, like they at least, least talked to somebody and got some sort of feedback on their script. Because there it does at least like again, some of the little stuff early on about them, like feeling like maybe I'm not in the right body and all that sort of stuff at least [00:49:06] Speaker B: messing like, oh my God, a sensitivity reader. Oh, that's what it's called. [00:49:10] Speaker A: That's not what I was saying. [00:49:11] Speaker B: At least that's what it's called in like publishing. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Consultant, I think was the word I was thinking. But yeah. Yes. Yeah. And so it feels like they got at least some sort of feedback because again, they add some little sprinkles of like, setup for this character becoming like a trans man later by having them like again, in maybe a little bit gender essentialist way of like, well, they like to fight and they're strong or whatever like that. It's kind of whatever. But there is at least some at least idea of like, it doesn't just. It isn't like a person who's perfectly happy and like perfectly comfortable being a woman and then is like forced to become a man and like. And it's completely dissonant for them then. But the other thing is that during the one thing, like the movie is sympathetic to this character, it's one of our protagonists, or it is our sole protagonist and antagonist. They're everything but it is sympathetic to this character. And also in particular some of the stuff during the scenes where they're talking about going through the transition and dealing with voice training. And so some of those little details to me felt, again, not that it's portrayed particularly like perfectly or anything like that, but it at least it at least tries to represent some of the things that a trans person goes through in a non judgmental way, necessarily. Yeah, in a way that I could at least understand a trans person Watching this, being like, oh, man, it's nice to see at least something about the experience that I had, you know what I mean? I don't know. So I have more on this here later. You have a little bit here. [00:50:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I had some other notes just going off of like some stuff from the book. So there are two women mentioned in the text and I believe their name dropped in the movie as well, at least. [00:51:05] Speaker A: Christine Jorgensen, definitely. [00:51:06] Speaker B: Yes. Christine Jorgensen and Roberta Cowell, who were trans women who were some of the first to receive gender affirming surgery in the early 1950s. [00:51:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Now Heinlein wrote this story in 1958 and I genuinely can't deception. If he, like, heard about these women and was like, whoa, weird, I'm gonna use that in a story. Or if for him it was just like a convenient plot point to make the paradox happen. [00:51:35] Speaker A: It's both. I think, I think he heard like, ooh, I have this idea. I can do this. There's like a plausible explanation for how [00:51:43] Speaker B: this could happen, for how I could [00:51:44] Speaker A: do this thing where all of the characters are the same person. [00:51:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Either way, I would honestly say that the short story is fairly neutral. There is like a little bit of baked in gender essentialism, honestly, maybe even less than there is in the movie. [00:51:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:00] Speaker B: Just by virtue of the story being so short. I, I, the short story is not doing trans commentary at all. [00:52:08] Speaker A: I could believe that. [00:52:08] Speaker B: But the movie kind of has to. [00:52:10] Speaker A: It kind of has to. Yeah. And again, it to me overall feels fairly sympathetic, if not problematic in its portrayal. And again, deeply specific in a way that is probably not applicable to most trans people's experience. [00:52:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:27] Speaker A: It's such a specific because again, it's like it's an intersex person. [00:52:31] Speaker B: Right. Who is forcibly not actually making that choice to transition. That autonomy is removed from them. And that is a very different thing from someone choosing to transition, obviously. [00:52:42] Speaker A: Obviously. [00:52:42] Speaker B: So that adds kind of another messy [00:52:44] Speaker A: layer on top, that other messy layer. But John does become seemingly kind of like happy as a man. Ethan Hawke, like, jokingly says, like, welcome to the brother. Like, there is like, some, for some it's not perfect, but there's at least some form of like, acceptance of the, of John as a man by the, the movie is like, yes, you're a man. You know what I mean? Like, in a way that is it at least somewhat sympathetic and, and to a trans person's experience, I feel like, like I'm gonna incorporate this comment from Reddit that I found. So I went looking because I was like, I gotta find some. And I couldn't find much on at a first glance. I didn't look for a ton of time because I was. We were on a deadline. But I did find this one comment from one of the trans subreddits that was. I. I like went looking like predestination trans critique or something like that, and I found this. And so I'm just gonna read it. This is from a person on a subreddit. Somebody asked like, hey, what's the trans opinion on this movie? Or whatever. And this person said, on the one hand, it's a sympathetic portrayal of a trans and intersex man as a main character, which pretty much never happens in mainstream movies, which is kind of what I was getting at. On the other hand, the character is very obviously constructed specifically to meet the needs of the convoluted story rather than to reflect trans experiences in any meaningful way. Disclaimer. I'm trans, but not intersex. So the things I picked up on in the movie tended to be related more to the trans aspect aspects and less to the intersex aspects. I can definitely see how the movie could be read differently than I read it. It's also been a while since I watched it, but now I kind of want to re watch it. My read on the forced operation was that the writers didn't have any idea how trans healthcare works has historically worked and just made some up. The doctor's behavior doesn't align with real life, the trans character's behavior doesn't align with real life, and the whole thing is just messily thrown together to put the character in a medically transitioned state. State without having to deal with any of the feelings that lead actual trans people to transition. Again, the movie kind of, I think, hints at some of those things, but doesn't go the full thing because you also need it to be a forced thing. [00:54:48] Speaker B: Yeah, kind. [00:54:49] Speaker A: Like again, it's. Yes, I completely agree with everything said here. And that's what I mean about the character being constructed to fit the needs of the story. It's a realistic trans narrative. In a. In a realistic trans narrative, transition comes from internal motivation. Here, transition comes because the story needs a transition. Transition. The character isn't fleshed out enough to have internal motivations, and the story is too bizarre to be driven by those internal motivations, even if they did exist. So we end up with a narrative that railroads the character along through a sequence of events that exist simply because they're intellectually intriguing and not because they make any sense on a character development level. I, I, I'm, I read this after I had it was so funny that I felt this is like the one comment I found. And it was like, exactly in line with like, my feelings on the movie. I was like, okay, I promise. I didn't pick this because it reflects my exact feelings on the movie. It just happens too, that the one I found, the main comment I found that was like most upvoted also reflected my feelings on the film. This is a common problem with hard sci fi. The writer has a cool idea, and the characters exist solely to make the cool idea work and have no real depth in and of themselves. I don't think that's off. That's necessarily a problem with hard sci fi. It does. They're saying it's a common problem with hard sci fi. It definitely can be, because if the people writing it are more concerned about the clever idea than the people involved. But the best hard sci fi also has interesting characters, in my opinion. I won't go into it because it's really a full discussion in itself, but I will note that trans people tend to have pretty negative feelings about CIS people playing trans characters. And this movie has two CIS people playing the same trans character, which is a little. Eh. I didn't expect either of them to have much interest to say about the movie, and from what I've turned up briefly by Googling, they don't. I can't find much from Snook about the movie that amounts to more than playing a transgender character was a fun challenge. For what it's worth, Snook seems to approach the character with the idea that he is in fact trans and maybe wants to transition, but also is forced to transition. Okay, I'm not convinced she understands the distinction between being trans and being intersex. And then they link to an interview with Sarah Snook from that time period. On the movie's Wikipedia page, I found this link to a Guardian article that says, this is Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke particularly likes the fact that although the lead character is transgender, the film is not explicitly about transgender issues. It's about all of us. There's something about predestination that actually does get an identity for me, he says. And then in another interview, Hawke says, in a weird way, at its core, the movie's actually about how we all have this kind of masculine and feminine inside of us and learning to balance that and learning to accept yourself. But it's also about a lot of things. And the genius of Heinlein is to place Those really, really sophisticated, almost spiritual ideas in the framework of a science fiction tale. Yeah, yeah. In other words, being trans is a metaphor for everyone's identity. This is now back to the right. This is the. Sorry. This is back to the writer now responding to those quotes. In other words, being trans is a metaphor for everyone's identity issues, which is. Is very, I don't know, armchair philosopher and reinforces my suspicion that the writers just made some stuff up because they didn't care whether the movie reflected anything realistic about trans or intersex identity. So my final takeaway is that the movie makes no distinction between trans and intersex or between choosing transition and forced transition, because the movie doesn't care at all about those things. The fact that the movie even has a trans intersex character in the first place is entirely inconsequential beyond the movie's need for a character who can self impregnate and create a time paradox. It's trans representation, but it ain't very good. Trans representation was their final line. And yeah, I broadly agree with that. Generally, I do think the only place I would push back a little bit is that I think the movie cares a little bit about trying to represent. Because if they didn't care at all, the movie would be way more problematic, I think, than it is. Not to say that it's not problematic in ways, but I think it would be way worse than it is if they didn't care at all. You know what I mean? Like, I think there's at least some lip service paid to kind of. And again, I think they're at least sympathetic. I guess the way I'd word is that I don't think they're making. Maybe it is fair to say they don't care, but they're not making it from a place of malice for trans people. [00:58:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good kind of breakdown. [00:58:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:00] Speaker B: And I do agree, I think it's definitely true that the writers didn't really care about making things. I mean, I think the movie writers may have cared a little bit more. I think there was, like, at least marginally, and a mar. Yeah, a marginal attempt to make things a little bit better. [00:59:16] Speaker A: There's nothing else to be, like, polite and sympathetic, if not like, to truly understand and depict a genuine. I don't think that. I think that's the distinction. I think they were trying to be nice or at least, like, not super problematic in this depiction, but didn't particularly care to, like, make sure it was genuine and accurate and truthful and like. [00:59:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And like the particularly, like the, like the medical aspect of it that came directly from the book. And I don't. I don't think Robert Heinlein gave a fly and flip. [00:59:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. Again, it is. [00:59:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It was a writing exercise. And he needed, like this person said, a character who can self impregnate and create a time paradox. [00:59:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yes, it is. They are trans for the sake of the twist and not because it's about. Which is, again, why I think this movie would be incredible. Has incredible potential to be remade and written from the trans perspective and actually examine all of those things through this very specific. And now maybe it's just not worth it. Maybe there's better way. You know what I mean? [01:00:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:22] Speaker A: Maybe that, like, whole idea of, like, well, like the whole premise of this is, you know, you got to go back and meet yourself and then impregnate yourself. Like, maybe that just gets too messy in the metaphor. Like, if you were going to make this, like, an actual exploration of, like, the trans experience and identity and all of that sort of stuff, maybe the actual nuts and bolts of the plot make that way too difficult to do where it's like, well, we'll just do a different movie and do that. You know what I mean? I could believe that, but I also think there maybe could be. While watching the movie, I was like, man, it feels like this could be done in a way that was really interesting. Really interesting, and does actually kind of compellingly explore identity and the trans experience and stuff. But it's definitely not this movie. And maybe it's not any movie. Maybe this is not, you know, maybe that movie is I saw the TV glow or whatever. But yeah, all right. That was all I had for Lost. An adaptation. Let's go ahead and see what Katie thought was better in the book. You like to read? [01:01:22] Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read. [01:01:25] Speaker A: What do you like to read? [01:01:28] Speaker B: Everything. Okay. I only have a handful of things here. There's a line early on in the short story, vocabulary shift is the worst hurdle in time jumps. And I thought that was a really interesting, like, observation. [01:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that. [01:01:45] Speaker B: That would be a difficult thing to deal with. [01:01:47] Speaker A: We talked about that when we were watching in Discovery of Witches and when they go back in time, like, how is she understanding any of these people finish 1500? [01:01:54] Speaker B: Well, luckily she was a. [01:01:56] Speaker A: Yes. [01:01:57] Speaker B: Professor. [01:01:57] Speaker A: Academic or whatever. [01:01:59] Speaker B: Antiquities or whatever. [01:02:00] Speaker A: I guess that makes sense. [01:02:02] Speaker B: So, like. Sure. But I still think it would be harder than how they're portrayed. [01:02:05] Speaker A: I don't know how she's talking. Because, like, reading it and understanding it's one thing, but speaking in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:02:13] Speaker B: I. The part where. In the movie where Baby Jane punches the guy's head, like, I. I thought was weird. It felt like a wacky comedy beat, and I didn't. I didn't feel like it fit. So when she's, like, a kid at the orphanage and she looks through the fence and, like, sees the mom buying her kid ice cream, and then she, like, walks. She's, like, walking, goes through the fence and is, like, walking across the street. And then a guy in a car almost hits her. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:42] Speaker B: And she turns around and just, like, punches his headlight. [01:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I guess I missed the punching part. [01:02:47] Speaker B: And I think I. I'm. I guess it was supposed to show us that she was, like, aggressive. Aggressive. [01:02:52] Speaker A: She's got that male aggressive. Yeah. [01:02:56] Speaker B: But it. I. It was just so weird, and I didn't feel like it fit there at all. I was kind of iffy on the intersex. And also the time travel agency plot lines being teased during Jane's backstory. [01:03:14] Speaker A: See, this? I would have to remember exactly what you're talking. I don't remember the way it teases it during her backstory. [01:03:20] Speaker B: So the. The. When the director's talking to the doctor and they're like, oh, we found something unusual in her medical exam, but they don't tell us what it is yet. Oh, yeah, that part. And then I don't remember how they teased the time travel thing, but there is a tease for it. I know there was because I wrote it down. [01:03:38] Speaker A: Was it the. Was it the head. The headset things? The VR headsets? I thought that was a space thing because they wear, like, VR headsets to test their, like, motion. [01:03:46] Speaker B: No, it was something specific. It just, like, I. I understood it. I got what the movie was doing, but it also felt a little like hand holdy to me. I don't know. [01:03:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:58] Speaker B: I don't remember the context of this line. [01:04:00] Speaker A: I do. So this next one, I'll say it's in context. It's when John looks at himself in the mirror after transitioning. He says, every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I was reminded of the bastard who ruined my life. [01:04:14] Speaker B: Okay. [01:04:14] Speaker A: That's what. At least I. Yeah. Because I know that's when that line is in reference to. [01:04:18] Speaker B: But I don't remember now why I didn't like that. But I wrote down that I didn't like it. [01:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's. It's one of those There's a lot of these in the movie where the lines. If you. Once you know the twist, there's a lot of linking, nodding, like lines that are like. There's the whole thing in the bar where the. The jukebox is playing the song I Am My Own Grandpa or whatever, and, like, the guy's singing I Am My Own Grandpa. And there's the part where at one point Jon calls the bartender a son of a bitch and he says, like, his reaction in that moment is weird. He's like. He, like, reacts strangely because he knows. [01:04:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:57] Speaker A: But obviously Jon doesn't in that moment. And. And so I thought that was. There's like, a lot of that. And this is one of those where the idea of, like, when Jon looks at himself in the mirror, he's like, I'm reminded of the bastard who ruined my life. And the idea being seeing a man in the mirror reminds him of this man, but actually. [01:05:18] Speaker B: But actually literally reminds, literally. [01:05:21] Speaker A: Yeah. The exact bastard who ruined his life. Yeah. [01:05:27] Speaker B: I just had to move this up from better in the movie because I had it in the wrong spot. The book teases. So I talked about how the Fizzle Bomber was taken from, like, a little, like, single line lore drop about the fizzle bomb, the fizzle war, or something like that. Another single line lore drop in this book is something that they refer to as the mistake of 1972, which I love. [01:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good. Does it explain what it is? [01:06:03] Speaker B: No. No, it's the mistake of 1972. [01:06:07] Speaker A: Fair. [01:06:07] Speaker B: Fair. [01:06:08] Speaker A: All right, let's go ahead and see what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies. [01:06:20] Speaker B: I wrote this down early on, assuming this all turns out the same way. Total reconstructive surgery is a fun way to make sure John doesn't recogn. Recognize himself. [01:06:29] Speaker A: Yeah. When. When he's the bartender. The bartender. [01:06:32] Speaker B: There's also a little line like when he. When they take the bandages off and Ethan Hawke looks at himself in the mirror, he says, like, my own mother wouldn't recognize me. [01:06:41] Speaker A: Yes, that's another. [01:06:42] Speaker B: But he is his own mother. [01:06:44] Speaker A: Let's say there's a lot of those lines early on that I. I started to remember and be like, okay. Yeah. [01:06:52] Speaker B: And we talked a lot about the movie kind of trying to improve and we. The trans narrative. And we talked about it more from like a. Like an emotional, like, representation kind of perspective. But a couple things that the movie specifically mentions that the book doesn't is that he takes testosterone. That's not mentioned in the book at all. And I don't know if that's like an updated science thing or if Heinlein just didn't. Didn't know that and didn't care. And the movie also specifically has John say that, like, oh, I. I'm fertile now, or something like that. [01:07:34] Speaker A: Like, after enough time with the. Yeah. That he becomes fertile so that he can get himself pregnant. Yeah. Yep. All right, let's go ahead and talk about a few things that the movie nailed. [01:07:49] Speaker B: As I expected, practically perfect in every way. Okay. A handful of little details that we haven't already talked about. Early in the movie, we see some, like, signs on the wall, and those are some of the bylaws of time that are listed in the book. They're like, kooky rules that the agency has. Yeah. The bar is called Pop's Place. [01:08:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:12] Speaker B: The line. A man with a face. Shaped face. The line, I was no longer a woman, but I didn't know how to be a man. [01:08:20] Speaker A: Okay, okay, okay. [01:08:21] Speaker B: You mentioned I'm my own grandpa playing on the jukebox. That is from the book. The line, now you know who he is, and if you think it over, you'll know who you are. And if you think hard enough, you'll figure out who the baby is and who I am. Yeah, that's also from the book. Also, you're about to start the best job a man ever held, and you'll do well. I know. [01:08:45] Speaker A: See, I think that was that line specifically. Not that one, but the one before that was one of the moments where I'm like, well, why are we then treating the reveal of the bartender as John as this big thing he literally basically just explicitly said? Yeah, like that line implies. Like, think about it hard enough, you'll realize who you are and who the baby is and who I am. It's not like it's very obvious at that point. You know what I mean? I don't know. Anyways, [01:09:15] Speaker B: the book does have a reference to the snake that eats its own tail forever and ever. And they left in the all you zombies title drop. [01:09:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:26] Speaker B: The snake that eats its own tail forever and ever. I know where I come from, but where did all you zombies come from? [01:09:34] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right, we got a couple odds and ends before the final verdict. [01:09:49] Speaker B: I was kind of laughing, like, early in the. In the movie when Sarah Snook comes into the bar and says, like, what do I look like? I don't remember in Reference to what? But she says when she's. [01:10:03] Speaker A: You mean as John? [01:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, like, as John. And he's like, what do I look like? And I was like, I kind of look like David Bowie, actually. [01:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, a little bit. [01:10:13] Speaker B: Jane is also the not like Other Girls final boss. [01:10:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That whole. The setup of her backstory is just. Yeah, yeah. Beat after beat of all the ways she's not like Other Girls, which, again, in this instance is. [01:10:26] Speaker B: I guess she wasn't. [01:10:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it's different. But, yeah. [01:10:29] Speaker B: I had this thought both while reading and while watching the confession magazines. Now, there's the thing that the Internet [01:10:37] Speaker A: killed, I mean, along with all magazines, but. [01:10:39] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [01:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I mentioned it earlier, but this really. This movie really, really felt like the epitome of writing for the plot because it is just the most contrived narrative imaginable. [01:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:55] Speaker A: And again, it works. It's interesting. It's a fun magic trick, but it [01:10:59] Speaker B: is kind of just. [01:11:01] Speaker A: Kind of just a magic trick and not much else. [01:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Literally, the final thing I wrote down in my reading notes. Notes was it's interesting. Not really sure what, if anything, Heinlein was intending to say. It seems like he just wanted to write a fun little paradox where every character ends up being the same person. [01:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah. The movie definitely tries to hit on a few things to say in terms of, like, the. Like. Because a big part of it, and it's why the movie's called Predestination, is kind of this idea of, like, the time is a flat circle, the inescapability of fate, the idea that. That trying to stop events from happening actually lead those events to happen. And it's, like, kind of about the Butterfly Effect a little bit in that kind of regard. And, like, ultimately, that idea at the end, like, where he confronts. Where. Where Ethan Hawke, as John, confronts the Fizzle Bomber himself from the future, and they kind of had that whole conversation, and basically John, the Fizzle Bomber tells him, like, the only way you can escape this is by, like, not killing me. [01:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:07] Speaker A: Like, is. That's the only way you stop this from happening. Like, this future that I'm me is if you don't kill me. And he still kills him because, again, it's. Yeah. Like, there's this kind of, like, idea of, like, a little bit of, like, determinism or, like, predestination. This idea that. Yeah, no matter what, you're kind of stuck in the cyclical. Not cyclical, but the. Yeah, it's there. There are some. Again, it's not super Interesting though because. Because it's all based around an impossible time travel like narrative. So like, I don't know, it's. And then the movie also, like I said, does try to touch a little bit on the ideas of like, identity [01:12:51] Speaker B: and like, yeah, the movie tries to put some themes into this thing. [01:12:56] Speaker A: It just, again, it's. The biggest issue is that it has so much else to do that it just can't spend that much time because there's so much work to do with the actual plot that you can't spend that much time worrying about all the themes. And yeah, as a result just ends up not being particularly compelling from that regard. But it is a fun magic trick to watch one time. So before we get to the Final Verge, we want to remind you, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, Instagram, any of those places. Boy, did that completely out of order. Any of those places interact, you have like exactly one day to get your feedback in on this movie. We're, we're recording the prequel literally tomorrow because we're so. We're our schedules behind from everything that was going on, so we got to catch back up quickly. So if you want to hear what or if you want to get your feedback in for the next episode, get it in immediately. You can also do us a favor by heading over to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you review our show or listen to our show. Write us a nice little review, drop us a five star reading. We would appreciate that. That and you can Support [email protected] ThisFilmIsLit if you support us at the $15 a month level, you get access to priority recommendations. And this in fact, was a recommendation from Mathilde Mathild. Thank you, Mathilde. Katie, it's time for the final verdict. [01:14:12] Speaker B: Sentence fast. [01:14:14] Speaker A: Verdict after. [01:14:16] Speaker B: That's stupid. I'm gonna be honest. I don't have strong feelings about either of these. The short story is an interesting idea and it has some good lines, but I'm not sure there's much more to it. Like I said, I don't know what, if anything, Heinlein was intending to say. It seemed like he had the idea for a time travel paradox where someone impregnates themself and then gives birth to themself and just rolled with it 100%. The movie isn't perfect. Personally, I didn't love the Fizzle Bomber plotline, even though I understand why it's there. I do think that the movie made the correct choice to expand Jane, John's backstory. Even though it wasn't perfect, I think it ended up being a more nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of a trans intersex character. And while the ultimate conclusion of John went back in time and impregnated himself a woman who was also his daughter is undeniably kind of strange, I think that the overall message of their scenes together, with John realizing that he was always worthy of love, is a good message. And that doesn't exist in the book. So for that, I am going to give this one to the movie. [01:15:30] Speaker A: Fair enough. Again, it was a fun watch. I enjoyed watching it one time. It's just. Yeah, it was. Again, it's like watching a magic trick. I've seen it once. I got it. I'm good. But yeah. Although maybe there's more. Maybe we're missing something. And Mathilde is a very insightful patron. Hopefully they have some feedback on this. I would love to hear why they recommended this and why they want us to talk about it, because I have to imagine they have some feelings on it. So please get that feedback in. Katie, what's next? [01:16:00] Speaker B: Up next, we just finished up our 2026 March Madness polls. We were doing some Snow White adaptations. I do know which one we're going to be talking about, but we will be announcing that on our social media on Wednesday. [01:16:20] Speaker A: Well, we can tell you this. It's either the original, I mean, because it was. We were on the final one as the time of recording. So it's either the original or not the original, but the Snow white. Disney. Yeah, 1936 or whatever. Disney. Snow White or [01:16:37] Speaker B: Snow White and the Huntsman. [01:16:39] Speaker A: One of those two. And then the other one will be our bonus episode from March. So one of those two will be the winner. So check back here in the next day to see that announcement on social media and then come back in one. Not even one week's time. Come back in like two or three days. We will be previewing whichever Snow White movie won before we get to that in our next episode. Until that time, guys, gals, not binary pals. And everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome.