This Week in Space 222 Transcript

Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.

Tariq Malik [00:00:00]:
Coming up on This Week in Space, the Department of War has new UFO files for us all to download. Blue Origin says it knows what blew up its New Glenn rocket back in May, so check it out and find out what that is. And if you're an alien species and you want to invade the Earth, well, you probably want to follow author Rich Edwards' 22 Dos and Don'ts that he wrote for Space.com. We're going to have him talk all about it. Check it out.

Rod Pyle [00:00:28]:
This is This Week in Space, episode number 222, recorded on August 7th, 2026. How to Invade Earth in 22 Easy Steps. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of This Week in Space, the How to Invade Earth in 22 Easy Steps edition, which is, I think, going to be one of my favorites for a while. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Ad Astra Magazine. And I'm here with the one, the only, Tariq Malik— uh, sorry, Tariq J. Malik. The J is important.

Rod Pyle [00:01:05]:
Yeah, J is silent. Who's the editor-in-chief of Space.com. How are you, buddy?

Tariq Malik [00:01:09]:
I'm doing well, Rod. I'm doing well. How are you doing on this fabulous podcast recording day?

Rod Pyle [00:01:15]:
Well, there isn't any smoke coming off of the wiring in my house, so I must be doing better than you. Today we're going to be speaking with writer Rich Edwards. He's a contributor to Space.com and other publications. He worked for years on SFX Magazine, and he's written some fun articles for Space.com. One of the more recent ones was a How to Invade Earth guidebook, which caught our eye. So we'll have him come on in a couple of minutes. But first, we have a trio of space jokes from Mark Turner, because no offense, Mark, but I felt the 3 of them kind of added up to one good one.

Tariq Malik [00:01:51]:
3? 3, mark it, 3!

Rod Pyle [00:01:53]:
Hey, Tariq.

Tariq Malik [00:01:54]:
Yes, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:01:55]:
Why couldn't Rod read all his space jokes?

Tariq Malik [00:01:58]:
Oh, I don't know why.

Rod Pyle [00:01:59]:
He had too big a pile of them.

Tariq Malik [00:02:03]:
That's a very funny joke.

Rod Pyle [00:02:05]:
Hey, Tariq.

Tariq Malik [00:02:06]:
Very, very funny. Yes, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:02:07]:
What do cats think of space?

Tariq Malik [00:02:09]:
Uh, I don't know, what?

Rod Pyle [00:02:10]:
They think it's purr-fect.

Tariq Malik [00:02:12]:
I like that too. I like cats.

Rod Pyle [00:02:14]:
Oh, you're an easy audience. Hey, Tariq.

Tariq Malik [00:02:16]:
Yes, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:02:17]:
What did the Martian name his dog?

Tariq Malik [00:02:19]:
I don't know what. Rover. John liked that one.

Rod Pyle [00:02:26]:
Now I've heard that some people want to pile us like cats on a rover. See what I did there?

Tariq Malik [00:02:30]:
3 of them. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:02:32]:
When it's joke time in this show. But you can help by sending us your best worst and most indifferent space joke, and we, we do get some of those at twistoftwit.tv. We'll be happy to credit you or blame you on the air for your contribution. And now Let's go to Tariq's favorite segment, Headline News.

Tariq Malik [00:02:53]:
Headline News. Yeah, I got it. There you go.

Rod Pyle [00:02:59]:
We'll see when this—

Tariq Malik [00:03:00]:
It's great. It's great to do this with you back, Rod. Welcome back. Welcome back.

Rod Pyle [00:03:03]:
Oh, thank you. It's good to be back. Although I have to say, we did have a very good time on the trip. It was a lovely, lovely time of year to be traveling up to Northern California and getting the heck away from L.A.

Tariq Malik [00:03:13]:
Yeah. Fabulous Stockton. That hub of tourist activity in Northern California, right?

Rod Pyle [00:03:18]:
No, we made a critical point of avoiding Stockton, actually. Went to Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Nob Hill.

Tariq Malik [00:03:25]:
Everybody, I am from Stockton. I love it. It's a nice place.

Rod Pyle [00:03:27]:
And I had been wanting to stay in the Fairmont Nob Hill since I was 12. No, 8, 8, when I first realized that the— if you've ever been in the lobby, you know, the kind of beaux-arts lobby, the huge granite or marble pillars in the lobby were actually painted to look like marble. They're just plaster. I remember when I discovered that as a young kid, I thought, I want to stay here someday. And it was, it was exactly how cool I thought it would be. All right.

Tariq Malik [00:03:54]:
That's great. So the first story, speaking of alien invasions, yes.

Rod Pyle [00:03:58]:
The Department of War, because you got to say it that way.

Tariq Malik [00:04:02]:
How do you got to say it? How do you say it? Department of War. Yeah. Yeah. I dig it. I dig it.

Rod Pyle [00:04:07]:
Is embracing some, some new ideas about how to divulge our deep and dark knowledge of UFOs.

Tariq Malik [00:04:17]:
That's right. We've got the 5th, and they call it, they call it tranche. They can't just say batch, like the batch, or group, or set of files.

Rod Pyle [00:04:27]:
Tranche is gov speak, you know.

Tariq Malik [00:04:29]:
Yeah. But this week, actually today, today, as we are recording this, the Department of War or the Defense Department has released its 5th group of alien report, UFO, UAP, uh, uh, uh, like files here. And, uh, you know, this is, this is as base— the Trump administration is really saying, you know, we're going to be as transparent as possible. Here's every Tom, Dick, and Harry's, you know, I saw something strange in the—

Rod Pyle [00:04:58]:
That one that just went by.

Tariq Malik [00:05:00]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go back, go back.

Rod Pyle [00:05:01]:
Illustration, right?

Tariq Malik [00:05:02]:
Yeah, they, they—

Rod Pyle [00:05:02]:
so, so they, they have all of these illustrations mixed in with photos and not really labeled clearly as such. And I find that a little disturbing. It's like, oh, isn't this scary? Oh, it's just a drawing.

Tariq Malik [00:05:14]:
So what I understand these to be are like people's depictions of what they've seen, so that they're, they're, they're like an illustration. A lot of them are like the streetlight, the special triangles with the lights in the sky. So, uh, so if you like this kind of stuff, this is what's out there. Like, we, we're looking at it. Is there anything interesting? Are we seeing a lot of stuff? It's a lot of it is really weird. There's a lot of files too, and that you can go through and look through. I mean, it's nice that they're like unloading all of this stuff so that we can see what people have been reporting over time. But it's a lot of stuff, and a lot of it is kind of like the chaff to go through to try to find the actual, like, really truly space oddities that might actually be something that we want to know about.

Tariq Malik [00:05:57]:
A lot of it is just a lot of, a lot of people saying that they You know, they take a, a picture of a light, a streetlight, with their cell phone, and they're like, what did I see? UFO! UFO! Right?

Rod Pyle [00:06:08]:
Or they're looking out their living room window at night, not realizing they're taking a photograph of one of their recessed can lights in their ceiling reflected in the glass. So I just— sorry, I have to say it again. We've been trotting around smartphones for 20 years. Where's the killer video and the killer 20-megabyte images? You know, I don't get it. I just don't get it.

Tariq Malik [00:06:28]:
I think that if they didn't want to be recorded, they would have some kind of technology that would prevent them from being recorded. That's what I think. Right?

Rod Pyle [00:06:35]:
They're saying they want to be seen when they want to be seen. Kardashians from space.

Tariq Malik [00:06:40]:
That's why you don't see it. It's because they don't want to be seen. So they have like a, I don't know, like a null field so that they can walk around and zoom around and no one sees them.

Rod Pyle [00:06:48]:
So, okay, Dr. Science, moving along.

Tariq Malik [00:06:52]:
Next one.

Rod Pyle [00:06:53]:
Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a plumber. Blue Origin said after wandering around the debris field from the New Glenn explosion that they've decided that an oxygen valve in a BE-4 engine, one of their main engines, appears to have been responsible for the destruction of their last attempt at a New Glenn— well, it wasn't a launch attempt, it was a test. But, you know, these valves are tricky. And I guess if I was snarky, I'd say, hey, why don't you give Boeing a call? But that would be uncharitable. Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:07:23]:
That's mean. There's no need for that, Rod. You're better than that, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:07:27]:
No, I'm really not.

Tariq Malik [00:07:28]:
Go ahead. No, this is— I'll have to tell you that ever since the explosion in, what was it, May 28th, that Blue Origin's next New Glenn rocket— it was their 4th New Glenn rocket that they're going to launch, and it had an AST Bluebird satellite on it. Yeah, I think that's what it had, like the great big internet, like direct-to-cell, uh, communication satellite on it. Uh, they hadn't loaded the satellite on this one. They were just doing a test of the first, uh, the first stage, and that's what blew up while they were working through, uh, through it on the pad. It also destroyed a lot of their, their pad structure. So what we've seen from Blue Origin in recent weeks, uh, mostly notably from, uh, CEO Dave Limp, are these announcements of how the investigation is going, a lot of photos behind the scenes about how the reconstruction is going. They've actually built the, um, like the, the hangar for the rocket again, uh, up there.

Tariq Malik [00:08:20]:
They're revising, redoing their, their launch pad designs and the doors and stuff like that. But he's also been posting these updates into their investigation to know what, like, what happened, because Blue Origin is very integral to NASA's plan to land on the Moon. They need New Glenn to launch the, uh, the Blue Moon landers, uh, for the astronauts in the future. So, uh, especially for, for Artemis III, which is supposed to launch next year. So they need this rocket to work properly. So they're being really upfront, which is very refreshing from like a reporter standpoint. And it should be refreshing to you and to everyone out there listening from a public standpoint, because your tax dollars are helping support this rocket because NASA needs it for their own needs.

Rod Pyle [00:09:00]:
And if I might add, they, they haven't historically necessarily been right upfront with their news.

Tariq Malik [00:09:06]:
And yeah, yeah, I mean, this is a company that launched their first suborbital rocket and then announced it 2 months later that they had, they had managed the success there. Uh, now they've come a long way since then because they have a lot of these, these government contracts. They have to be forthcoming, but they are still a private company, unlike SpaceX, which I did not put on the news type. But if we have time, we can talk about a little bit. Um, and so, so Dave Lipp has been very upfront about what they're finding, and they've tracked now the issue to this faulty oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines. I think there's 2. Is that right? Is there 4?

Rod Pyle [00:09:42]:
4.

Tariq Malik [00:09:42]:
I don't recall. 4. Yeah. On the first stage. And so they're going to try to figure out what made that either misfire or leak or whatever to trigger the explosion. So they know where it happened, which means that now they'll know where to look and how to fix it and how to exercise and stress test those valves going forward. And I know you were poking fun at Boeing because of the valves for SLS and all of the other things on their Starliner thruster, too. But it at least says something that they're being upfront about it, and we're seeing that they're making active recovery from the launch site too.

Tariq Malik [00:10:13]:
So I wouldn't count them out for resuming flights by the end of the year.

Rod Pyle [00:10:18]:
Uh, actually, I'm looking online. It says here there's 7 BE-4 engines.

Tariq Malik [00:10:27]:
Yeah, right. Well, there could be. Yeah, it is 7. 7 BE-4s on the first stage. You'd think that I would know that, like, off the hand. So, and they're designed to launch 25 times apiece, these these rockets. And so they're supposed to be better than what we're seeing there too. And they've, they've been able to land this.

Tariq Malik [00:10:44]:
This is a reminder that Blue Origin wants to reuse these first stages, to land them just like SpaceX does. They successfully have already done that with this, this New Glenn. So they're making steady steps towards reusability for that right now.

Rod Pyle [00:10:58]:
Well, and I think a lot of people kind of looked at this like, big deal, you retrieved the New Glenn, They would do that Falcon 9 for years. The New Glenn's significantly larger than Falcon 9, so it is—

Tariq Malik [00:11:08]:
It's much bigger. Much, much bigger. Not as big as Starship.

Rod Pyle [00:11:11]:
No.

Tariq Malik [00:11:11]:
But, but it's the biggest first stage to land so far.

Rod Pyle [00:11:14]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:11:15]:
Uh, uh, that is, that is for an orbital rocket. Now SpaceX has landed and caught, uh, Starship Super Heavies, but they haven't reached orbit yet with it.

Rod Pyle [00:11:24]:
So tick-tock, SpaceX. Okay, uh, next up. Look to the skies. I see, John, I got that in there. Total solar eclipse coming, but you can't see it.

Tariq Malik [00:11:35]:
That's— well, depends on where you are. You know, our guest Rich Edwards will be able to see this eclipse. But on August 12th, there is a total solar eclipse. It is the only total solar eclipse of the year. So that is next week as we are recording this podcast. But, you know, it will have happened. You can go and see exactly how it happened on Space.com afterward. And this will be a total solar eclipse only for parts of Spain.

Tariq Malik [00:11:59]:
And Greenland and Iceland, you know, they're going to, they're going to be in the path of totality there. But most of Europe gets some deep partial solar eclipses as well. And so we've got a lot of guides at Space.com if you're looking about how to do it. This is your last chance to get some special glasses. You want to give yourself time because they are selling out across Europe right now. And don't look at it with your unaided eye unless, unless you're in the total totality zone. That's when you can look at a solar eclipse with your glasses off.

Rod Pyle [00:12:30]:
And let me just make a suggestion here, as we always do when we're talking about this. Buy your eclipse glasses from a respected, legitimate brand. So if you're going on Amazon, which is risky, Lunt Systems, L-U-N-T, I think, is considered safe. There's a ton of—

Tariq Malik [00:12:47]:
American Paper Optics as well.

Rod Pyle [00:12:49]:
A ton of Chinese knockoffs that are not. They're just a dark piece of Mylar. So that's not going to do it for you.

Tariq Malik [00:12:54]:
Lunt makes solar telescope filters as well, so they are a very good brand. Celestron is another good one.

Rod Pyle [00:13:01]:
I was going to say go directly to the Celestron site if you really want to be safe.

Tariq Malik [00:13:04]:
And American Paper Optics, they're very dependable. Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:13:07]:
As I've discussed before, as a person who at the tender age of 52 or so had to have both his corneas replaced because of doing solar astronomy through a less than legitimate filter, Yeah, be careful and be careful with solar filters too if you're using them on a telescope, because when they get hot, they can crack. And if it cracks, you can say goodbye to that eyeball like right now.

Tariq Malik [00:13:33]:
Great. Can I add one more story on here?

Rod Pyle [00:13:35]:
Oh, if you must.

Tariq Malik [00:13:36]:
Great. Yeah, I almost completely forgot, but I really— we really should. And I'll get a link in the rundown right now. There it is right there. I will point out that this week we got our first ever deep dive glimpse into the financials of SpaceX publicly.

Rich Edwards [00:13:57]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:13:57]:
Right. SpaceX had their first, uh, public earnings call since going public last month. And, uh, and so it's their, it's their Q, their Q3 one, right, for the, the quarter ending in June. And we learned a lot there. We learned that they are still a bit underwater when it comes to revenue. They lost something like $500 million or something. Uh, or $5 million. Anyway, they— it's in the millions.

Rod Pyle [00:14:19]:
It was $500 million.

Tariq Malik [00:14:20]:
$500 million. Yeah, $500 million.

Rod Pyle [00:14:22]:
Actually, I thought it was— I thought those were the revenues over larger losses, but I'd have to look it up.

Tariq Malik [00:14:27]:
Oh yeah, I, I— and, and so, so, but we learned—

Rich Edwards [00:14:30]:
You're right.

Tariq Malik [00:14:31]:
For what Space.com like was really tracking, we learned a few things. Number one is that Elon Musk said in that call that, uh, they are looking to launch the first V3 operational Starlink satellites into orbit, into orbit on Flight 14 of Starship, and that they could launch that by the end of the month. And, uh, and so that is kind of like a key indicator that they're gonna go into orbit with Starship, like with this next flight. He also said that they're gonna try to catch the ship if nothing changes when it comes to the, the vehicle too. So that'll be very interesting to see if it in fact develops over time. They also said that they're, they're pretty much on, on track for where they want to be for the moon lander stuff. Uh, and Gwynne Shotwell was also in the call. Uh, so all, all of that, by the way, is what Elon Musk said, uh, verbatim.

Tariq Malik [00:15:25]:
And Gwynne Shotwell said that they've got a lot more milestones that they're still aiming to, to shoot for. They have to do orbital refueling, which they're hoping to try in the next year. They have to do the spacesuit stuff. They're going to be unveiling new crew suits. soon as well for Dragon. And they are committed to selling Dragon as a passenger experience beyond their, their ISS contracts for NASA. But they are looking to Starship to be the new kind of, uh, the new benchmark, the new workhorse for all of that. So there, there is a potential future where SpaceX's Dragons get retired and only Starship is flying people to and from space.

Tariq Malik [00:16:03]:
But they have to get to rapid reusability and rapid, uh, rapid, uh, uh, human spaceflight capability. And Elon Musk said that there's been a lot of talk— we talked about it on the site too, or in the podcast— about the heat shield for Starship and some criticisms from the founders of the PICA material saying that it's not the way to go if they want fast recovery because of the inspection time needed for the Space Shuttle, uh, you know, setting that, that benchmark. And Elon Musk says that they are not seeing that, that they're— they feel that they have quote-unquote Got the heat— solved the heat shield problem, and that it is no longer like a concern for them based on what they're seeing with the Starship that is still floating in the ocean. Another big mission. It's still there as of this week. It's still floating in the Indian Ocean, and they will be recovering it out of the ocean and bringing it back, I guess, to Starbase to check it out.

Rod Pyle [00:16:55]:
Hazard to navigation. All right. Well, we will be back in just a moment to discuss how to invade Earth in 22 easy steps. So stay with us. And we are back with the one, the only, Rich Edwards, who writes for Space.com among other outlets. Rich, you popped into my interest zone because of this very cool article you did called How to Invade Earth, which is a lot of fun. But can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what else you do when you're not writing articles like that?

Rich Edwards [00:17:27]:
Yeah, so I've spent most of my career at SFX Magazine, the sci-fi magazine, sci-fi and fantasy. So I spent, I think, about 12 years there. Before that, I was on a film magazine called Hot Dog, but SFX, yeah, there for many years. When I left, I was editor, which I did for a while, and I've been freelance since about 2019. So I still write a lot for them. I wrote for Total Film before it closed, a few other outlets like that, and I do a lot for Space.com, which is tremendous fun.

Tariq Malik [00:17:54]:
Oh, that's cool.

Rod Pyle [00:17:54]:
I think I wrote for SFX years ago for something about Deep Space Nine. But anyway, that's cool.

Tariq Malik [00:18:00]:
And it looks like you play the guitar? Too Rich, is that yours there?

Rich Edwards [00:18:04]:
They are both mine. Yes, they occasionally come out for no one's pleasure but my own. But yeah, no, they are there. Yeah. You know, and then the DVD collection there. So this is— the office is also where I sort of confine my— the sort of the man cave, basically.

Rod Pyle [00:18:21]:
Good to have one.

Tariq Malik [00:18:23]:
That's amazing. I'm in the process of like redoing my own place. Too, but hopefully, hopefully I can learn guitar and then I can be just as cool as Rich.

Rod Pyle [00:18:31]:
No, and just so you haven't seen me play, just so we're all on the same page, he's been in the process of converting that room since we started the podcast.

Tariq Malik [00:18:40]:
But yeah, that's true.

Rod Pyle [00:18:41]:
No harm, no foul.

Tariq Malik [00:18:41]:
This is, this is true. We'll get there though eventually. So there's a reason why everyone only sees this one little corner, uh, uh, and, and, and we, we won't discuss why. So, um, but, but Rich, one thing that I like to ask everyone is kind of how they got into space, or like in your case for science fiction overall, if this was something that grabbed you when you were a kid, or is it something that became a passion later in life, which has happened to some of our guests as well? Where did that journey start for you? Is it mostly all sci-fi or is it real space as well?

Rich Edwards [00:19:18]:
I think as many people of my age growing up in the '80s, '90s will say, it was Star Wars. I have quite vivid memories, I think, of seeing R2-D2 and C-3PO walking across sand and spaceships. I got into Star Wars figures and space even before I'd seen most of the movies. It was just the thing that was out there. I think through the '90s, even though there wasn't that much sci-fi on TV, I filled it up. Obviously, in the UK, there was Red Dwarf. It was the dark times for Doctor Who, but we watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Tariq Malik [00:19:50]:
Mm-hmm.

Rich Edwards [00:19:52]:
Yeah, and loved all of that stuff. So anything with space I was into. Also, um, I kind of was massively into astronomy, space travel. I mean, I did a physics degree, um, so I'm kind of lapsed now, but it was always a passion, and it was the astrophysics side of it that kind of got me into, into that as well. So yeah, I'm space boy.

Tariq Malik [00:20:12]:
Okay, okay. So you, you have a degree in physics is what you're saying?

Rich Edwards [00:20:15]:
I do, yes.

Tariq Malik [00:20:16]:
So that means that you passed differential equations? Is that right?

Rich Edwards [00:20:19]:
Oh God, don't test me on them now.

Rod Pyle [00:20:23]:
This is always our, our point of embarrassed admission.

Tariq Malik [00:20:26]:
Yeah, that's right. Rod and I both hit that wall and like decided to go into creative arts.

Rich Edwards [00:20:31]:
Yeah, yeah, it was the math that— it was the math that did for me as well. You know, it was love the ideas, but the math, no thanks.

Tariq Malik [00:20:37]:
So that's wonderful. Red Dwarf I found when I was a kid too, and I pleaded with my parents to donate to PBS The local cable people, because they were doing a drive that said that without support from people like me, we weren't going to be able to keep watching that show on TV. Well, wonderful.

Rod Pyle [00:20:57]:
Wonderful.

Tariq Malik [00:20:58]:
Well, yeah, as Rod said, there was an article on Space.com recently that caught his attention. Obviously, I see it all the time, so it's amazing. And I'll let Rod talk a little bit about why he found your take on alien invasions in sci-fi so compelling. Go ahead, go ahead, Rod, take it away.

Rod Pyle [00:21:17]:
Well, being the elderly person in the room, uh, I spent a lot of time as a young person watching black and white television and black and white movies because for a time that's about all there was. But, um, you know, alien invasion films at least date back to the 1950s, maybe late '40s. And there's always this kind, you know, there are these themes that sort of resonate through them over and over. Early on, it was, of course, the flying saucer scare. Uh, we did have in 1951 the benevolent alien from The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is kind of a departure. But most of them were critters were coming here to suck our brains or take our women or, you know, who knows what they wanted. Um, but I wonder, before we jump into your article, As you've looked at these things over the years, and I guess we'll just include Doctor Who, right? He is an alien, right?

Tariq Malik [00:22:12]:
Oh my gosh.

Rich Edwards [00:22:13]:
Oh yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:22:14]:
I've never watched a whole episode. Okay. Because when I was— when I first got attention to Doctor Who, it was the 1-inch videotape days and I just couldn't go there. All right.

Tariq Malik [00:22:23]:
He's a Time Lord. He's a Time Lord.

Rod Pyle [00:22:26]:
Thank you for fixing me. Um, but what are some of the common themes behind this paranoia we have about alien invasion, do you think?

Rich Edwards [00:22:36]:
I think it's the fact that if any alien that comes here is probably more powerful than we are, you know, they've traveled across the cosmos, and if they've got here, they can probably do whatever they want. You know, we are going to be on the back foot. They are the superior technological force. I think that's fundamental, the fundamental heart of all of it, you know. And there's always gonna be that big question when the aliens do come here, Are they going to be nice or are they going to be nasty? And I suppose Steven Spielberg's done the extremes of that. He's done Close Encounters and E.T., but at the same time, he's also done his own take on War of the Worlds. So I guess we're all hoping if E.T. pays us a visit, it's going to be friendly.

Rod Pyle [00:23:16]:
Well, I certainly hope he's more interesting than Disclosure was, but that's just me.

Tariq Malik [00:23:22]:
You mean Disclosure Day? Because Disclosure is a totally different movie.

Rod Pyle [00:23:26]:
Sorry.

Rich Edwards [00:23:26]:
Very different. Very different.

Rod Pyle [00:23:29]:
Here, let me see if I can— okay.

Tariq Malik [00:23:33]:
I still haven't seen that movie yet, so I guess I'll wait for it to come on streaming, I suppose.

Rod Pyle [00:23:39]:
Crawl, don't walk to your nearest theater.

Tariq Malik [00:23:43]:
Well, I tell you, my first alien invasion was War of the Worlds, right? I read that book as a kid, and then I listened to the radio play, and then I bought like an audio reading of the book on a cassette tape. that I wore out. And then we watched all the movies. George Pal.

Rod Pyle [00:23:57]:
And let's not forget, if you grew up in the UK, you had the rock opera.

Tariq Malik [00:24:02]:
Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right.

Rod Pyle [00:24:03]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:24:04]:
Well, oh, right. Are you not here? Right. The Thunder— The Thunderchild was my favorite part of that, of that, uh, yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:24:11]:
Everybody's favorite part, I think.

Rich Edwards [00:24:13]:
And Jeff Wayne's still— what is it, nearly 50 years old? He's still touring it. He's still doing new versions of it. You know, he's having sort of, uh, Richard Burton represented as a sort of floating holographic head. So yeah, it's still very much a going concern.

Tariq Malik [00:24:29]:
Well, yeah, people should look that up, by the way. War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne.

Rod Pyle [00:24:32]:
It's got amazing legs. It really does. But yeah, well played, sir.

Tariq Malik [00:24:41]:
Oh, I love it. I love it. But yeah, I guess that's, that's a great place to start because I think a lot of people start there, right? They expect that to be the thing. But like, as you mentioned, I think in in the article, that was kind of one of the plan ahead, I think, for tips that you had for alien invaders. Because I guess in the most recent modern interpretation of War of the Worlds, the one with Tom Cruise in it, the aliens, they're here the whole time. They come up out of the ground, right, with their tripod machines rather than raining down on the Earth. And And I'm curious why you feel, or if you feel, that that tale from H.G. Wells has endured for a specific reason because of its either— what's the word— its timelessness, despite the fact of when it was written, or that it can just be endlessly readapted.

Tariq Malik [00:25:40]:
Oh my gosh, I'm having trouble today.

Rich Edwards [00:25:42]:
I think it's one of those stories like, say, Dracula, Frankenstein, or Jekyll and Hyde, this fundamental story that we can just keep going back to. sort of position it to the time it's made. So, you know, you look at when Wells was writing it, there was, you know, that was a time when English colonialism, you know, he was thinking about that. Then you go through to the 1950s, it's when there's the film version, the George Pal version, it's new fears of the Cold War, fear of nuclear weapons, and, you know, the sort of apocalyptic I guess, in the end of the world from that regard. Then you sort of fast forward to the Spielberg version, which is post-9/11, and how people deal with, I guess, the aftermath. A lot of that film is about the aftermath, and it even goes as far as having the boards of the missing people, which was such an echo.

Tariq Malik [00:26:43]:
Mm-hmm.

Rich Edwards [00:26:45]:
you can just transfer it to any time period you want and take the bits that you want and retell them. I mean, even Independence Day in its way, which is essentially War of the Worlds, it's kind of— it's totally War of the Worlds for the '90s.

Rod Pyle [00:27:00]:
Yeah.

Rich Edwards [00:27:00]:
It's like, you know, let's have a big spectacle, let's have a big poster that just works. You know, you've got that image of the flying saucers above big landmarks. And actually, I think had Spielberg made War of the Worlds before Independence Day, it would have been a very different film because Spielberg couldn't go and do an Independence Day style, you know, aliens raining down destruction from above because it had been done. You know, how do you top Independence Day, which was an absolutely massive movie 30 years ago?

Tariq Malik [00:27:31]:
Independence Day 2, right? No?

Rod Pyle [00:27:33]:
Oh, God.

Rich Edwards [00:27:35]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:27:36]:
Let's have a 40-minute chase through a parking lot with a school bus.

Rich Edwards [00:27:40]:
I'm impressed you can remember that much, actually.

Rod Pyle [00:27:42]:
Oh God, it was so dull. Uh, but let's, uh, let's invade our way to a commercial. We'll be right back, so don't go anywhere, everybody. You mentioned Independence Day, which is a classic, and I think the best thing that director ever turned out. Although, you know, switching from as a young person reading War of the Worlds, seeing the 1953 movie, which You know, back then was terrifying, even though today it's probably not. But, you know, the idea of microbes attacking the Martians— yeah, the Martians are kind of stupid for letting that happen, but I get that. But, uh, you know, I loved Independence Day kind of right up until the point that they realized Windows 95 will bring down the alien spaceships. It's like, look, I know that program sucked, but come on.

Rod Pyle [00:28:25]:
But, um, that's not what's important. What's important is to get into the 22 alien dos and don'ts. which you have arranged so cleverly for us. So the first do is target major landmarks, which I think applies both to something like War of the Worlds on one end and Independence Day on the other. What's, what's the alien advantage in that?

Rich Edwards [00:28:51]:
Well, I think it's mostly shock and awe, right? I mean, I think if you want to get people watching, you know, park your mothership or alien spaceship above the Empire State Building. you are going to get an audience, people are going to know you're there. I mean, I'm not actually sure of the practicality of it from a— I don't know, an invasion point of view. I mean, you think about it, um, Empire State Building, you know, it's on Manhattan Island. Any destruction it sort of fires out is going to slow down at the Hudson, the East River, I would have thought. So I, I think that's all about spectacle. Um, so, so yeah, I, I, I think it Someone was thinking about movie posters rather than practicality, but I do love it. I do love it for that.

Rich Edwards [00:29:35]:
I think it's the most memorable image of all of them.

Tariq Malik [00:29:38]:
It requires a ground game though, because you need to know what landmarks are like the amazing— like, what if they thought that the Randy's Donuts, right, with the big donut sticking up, was like the big landmark? And they go destroy that and everyone's like, well, I guess they just don't like donuts, right? So, yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:29:59]:
Well, the other thing that always gets me with those films, and again, starting with The War of the Worlds, is we're going to land tripods/fighting machines/hovering saucers, and we're going to destroy your infrastructure building by building. Now, War of the Worlds, they did that because they wanted to use us as cattle to breed blood for them so they had something to eat. But in Independence Day, for instance, when they ask the big bad alien what he wants us to do, he says, die. So if they just want to get rid of us, I mean, the US military could have taken down an entire country a whole lot faster than they did in Independence Day. So I'm, I'm a little— it always leaves me kind of head scratching as to why they do this piecemeal sort of stepping on ants instead of just wiping us out.

Rich Edwards [00:30:44]:
Yeah. Given what their objective is, is scavenging and stuff. Yeah. It's not like they want us, is it? So, yeah, I am not convinced they are. The sharpest of aliens.

Tariq Malik [00:30:56]:
The objectives, I think, is another do that Rod's gonna come up with later on if we get that far. I have a don't that I thought was very astute, which is you have from Signs not to invade Earth if you have a severe allergic reaction to water. Which I thought was absolutely hilarious because the planet is 3/4 water. And they just didn't know what water was, maybe, until—

Rich Edwards [00:31:21]:
Yeah, it kind of snuck up on them. Oh God, we've gone for the wrong planet.

Rod Pyle [00:31:24]:
Yeah. Don't spit on me, man.

Tariq Malik [00:31:27]:
Yeah, that was an M. Night Shyamalan movie, if memory serves, right? So that's supposed to be like the big twist is the water thing, you know.

Rich Edwards [00:31:34]:
I think that was the thing, you know, and obviously it'd come after Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, which both have pretty good twists in them, you know. And I guess he was the twist guy, and everyone went into Signs thinking, oh, there's got to be something. And I think up to a point, Signs is such a good film, you know, the way that you, you only see this invasion from the point of view of Mel Gibson and his family. Um, you know, you don't— and there's a really, really creepy bit of home video footage where you see this alien, I think it's in Rio de Janeiro, just wandering around.

Tariq Malik [00:32:05]:
And it's in the driveway, he walks past the driveway.

Rich Edwards [00:32:07]:
Yeah, this is amazing. And then it kind of gets to the final act, Oh, you know, it turns out everything's been set up. Sorry for ruining the film. Everything's—

Tariq Malik [00:32:17]:
The film from like 2001?

Rich Edwards [00:32:19]:
And he's been putting glasses— or the kid's been putting glasses of water around the house to protect them. Now, I mean, imagine what would happen if it rained.

Tariq Malik [00:32:27]:
I know. Wow, that'll really put a crimp in your invasion, right?

Rod Pyle [00:32:31]:
So, well, the next step you had was dress up as evil. And for some reason, I'm not sure why, that made me think of, of They Live, which, uh, I could have done without Roddy Roddy Piper as the lead, but I thought the movie was just insanely clever commentary on the Reagan era. So dressing up as evil back in those days meant putting on a black suit and a skinny tie. But I think you mean something more like, uh, Attack from Mars Attacks or something.

Rich Edwards [00:33:02]:
Well, in this case, it was— I mean, I based it on Childhood's End really because Arthur C. Clarke has the— I can't remember what the aliens come down and they look like Satan. The idea is that we're all hardwired to feed them— to fear them, sorry. I think if you are coming, if people automatically think you are the devil, you have quite an advantage. people will think that even if it's just a coincidence, even if you're just dressed up, they're going to think, oh God, there's more to these people than meets the eye. I think there's quite a nice plot device throughout sci-fi. There's a really good Doctor Who episode or a 2-parter called The Satan Pit where there's this giant version of the devil trapped in this prison orbiting a black hole. And it's this idea that everyone has this myth of Satan that's sort of— this is the starting point.

Rich Edwards [00:34:01]:
It's like in Star Trek, the idea that we all look the same because there was a cosmic— there was a race who seeded the Klingons and the humans with their DNA.

Rod Pyle [00:34:10]:
Or because rubber suits are cheaper?

Rich Edwards [00:34:13]:
I couldn't possibly comment. Okay, maybe. But no, I just think it was really cool, you know, and when they do the big unveil in in the TV show of Childhood's End, and Charles Dance looks like Satan. It's actually really effective. It's like, oh right, now I get it.

Rod Pyle [00:34:29]:
Well, just to hinge on that for a second, did you ever see a movie called Crater Mass in the Pit?

Rich Edwards [00:34:36]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:34:38]:
I discovered that on TV when I was, I don't know, 12 or something. Very little known at that point, at least in the US. And I thought it was just remarkable. I mean, very low budget. You can, you can tell when you're watching it, but I thought the writing was brilliant and the whole idea of these aliens being the devil, basically. And, and that we had, you know, we're descendant from the Martians and we have this racial memory of extermination, all that stuff. I thought that was an incredibly intelligent film.

Tariq Malik [00:35:07]:
What's it called? I don't think I've ever seen this movie.

Rod Pyle [00:35:09]:
Well, in the US it was called 5 Million Years to Earth, I think.

Rich Edwards [00:35:14]:
Well, wait, wait.

Tariq Malik [00:35:15]:
Oh.

Rich Edwards [00:35:16]:
So Quatermass was originally a TV show, and most of the TV episodes have been lost because they were so old, they weren't recorded, and then there were film versions made, but written by a guy called Nigel Kneale, who's really— he's one of the absolute legends of British TV writing, really groundbreaking stuff. And remembering correctly, I think The Pit was— Quatermass and The Pit was the third. Basically, Quatermass is this genius scientist who solves all these problems for the, we do now know, nonexistent British space program.

Tariq Malik [00:35:52]:
There's still a UK Space Agency.

Rich Edwards [00:35:55]:
They're doing things. There is, there is, but we're not launching our own rockets.

Tariq Malik [00:35:58]:
Yet.

Rod Pyle [00:36:00]:
Yet.

Tariq Malik [00:36:00]:
You said 5 million. So is that the one where everyone freaks out because of the big menacing presence and then there's a big riot, city's on fire?

Rod Pyle [00:36:08]:
Well, there is. I mean, the initial thing is they're digging a new tunnel for the London Underground. They uncover this sort of— looks like a cricket buried inside the spaceship. And again, it was very inexpensive but very effective, I think.

Tariq Malik [00:36:24]:
I take it back. I have seen that movie and I dubbed it from the library. So I have a VHS cassette of it.

Rod Pyle [00:36:29]:
Oh dear. On to you.

Tariq Malik [00:36:31]:
Yeah. Well, the next one here, the big don't is not to get cocky. And you cited— this was interesting because you cited Superman II.

Rich Edwards [00:36:40]:
Yes.

Tariq Malik [00:36:40]:
And Zod and his Kryptonian buddies and how they just kind of came and thought that they were going to take over and everything. And that wasn't— I never would have thought that Superman II is an alien invasion movie. So, like, hubris. Like, we have to watch out for that if we're aliens.

Rich Edwards [00:37:01]:
Well, I mean, it's Zod's undoing. I mean, the thing is, The fundamental problem with Superman is that he's so powerful. And it's the same when you've got 3 other Kryptonians and they show what would happen if Superman was bad. And I suppose it's the same that we've got with Homelander in The Boys, but they can do what they like.

Tariq Malik [00:37:22]:
The Boys.

Rich Edwards [00:37:24]:
And they've become— they've installed themselves as the leaders of the world and they can do what they want. So yeah, I think that does count as an invasion really. But it is ultimately— Zod does not believe that anyone could defeat him.

Tariq Malik [00:37:38]:
The question I had here though is like, if we're going to treat like Zod as an alien invader, then can you— because this is Lex Luthor's whole shtick, right?

Rich Edwards [00:37:46]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:37:47]:
Is that it doesn't matter that Superman's nice. He's an alien. He's there. Everyone worships him. He has invaded and taken over as well. Is that not another kind of alien invasion, even though he's nice and everyone loves him? The fact that he manages to kind of have that position, he's already achieved what Zod couldn't.

Rich Edwards [00:38:06]:
But at the same time, Superman's not trying to rule. I mean, he does— he works for democratic systems of government.

Tariq Malik [00:38:13]:
Okay, okay.

Rich Edwards [00:38:14]:
Does he? Maybe. I, I don't know. I mean, am I sticking up for Superman too much? I mean, he does try and work— he does try and work within existing systems, and, uh, he's not trying to, uh, He's not making anyone kneel before him, is he?

Tariq Malik [00:38:27]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, as long as Lois Lane is okay, I suppose it'll be all right. So, yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:38:31]:
So is Superman II the movie where the 3 bad guys get captured in giant dander flakes and banished?

Tariq Malik [00:38:39]:
They were in the Phantom Zone, Rod, and then they got—

Rich Edwards [00:38:41]:
yes, they were already in the Phantom Zone from the first film, and then a nuclear explosion gets them out.

Rod Pyle [00:38:49]:
Huh. Okay. John Ashley, our, our man on the board, is shaking his head as he so often does whenever I start talking. Speaking of that, let's shake our way into a break and we'll be right back, so go nowhere. So let's, let's, uh, move on over to dumb aliens for a second.

Tariq Malik [00:39:04]:
Yes.

Rod Pyle [00:39:04]:
So one of the things you suggest to them for their— for the next invasion attempt is to plan ahead. So we've already talked about not going to water-rich worlds if you're allergic to water. We've talked a little bit about War of the Worlds, um, but you know, the, the Earth— Earth's biosphere, if you will, is pretty, pretty active and pretty amazing. And if you spend any time, for instance, in the Amazon or a tropical jungle, as I have, you were reminded of how rich that ecosystem is because 2/3 of it's trying to kill you. In certain places like Australia or some of the islands in the Pacific, um, you see these big spiders, they're about this big around, and they're red for a reason. You know, they're, they're, they're being kind. They're trying to let you know they're gonna, they're gonna kill you. Uh, but anyway, I'm getting off topic here.

Rod Pyle [00:39:53]:
So aliens really need to plan ahead In what other context do you think that might apply?

Rich Edwards [00:40:01]:
Well, I mean, I think the example I used here was War of the Worlds, which we kind of referred to the idea that they planted their ships underground years before. They knew they were going to do this. And when something's coming up from the ground, there's not really very much you can do about it. I mean, it's, it's a really smart move. I suppose you've also got the playing the long game, which I've referred to a bit later in— sorry, I've completely forgotten its name— The Three-Body Problem.

Tariq Malik [00:40:31]:
Oh, yeah.

Rich Edwards [00:40:32]:
The aliens have— because they can't get here that quickly, they're basically seeding the idea many years in advance that they're sort of preparing us and infiltrating our computers and just making sure that we are more pliant by the time they get here. But by doing that, they've given us a bit of warning to try and stop them. So that could be— if that's the only way they can invade, then it's a good idea. But at the same time, by giving us the warning, they actually made it more likely that they won't succeed.

Tariq Malik [00:41:06]:
They tipped their hand. That's where they tell us that we're all bugs, right? Is that that invasion movie, or am I getting it wrong?

Rich Edwards [00:41:14]:
That's a TV show. It's a TV show by the Game of Thrones guys based on the— not, I think I think it's Shixin Shu.

Rod Pyle [00:41:21]:
Um, yeah, Chinese novels.

Tariq Malik [00:41:23]:
Yeah. Well, the, the, the, the big don't— I mean, that, that, you know, not tipping your hand sounds like a good don't to remind. But you, you mentioned, uh, trying to avoid getting involved in, in crazy conspiracy theories, and you cite The X-Files, I guess because they had a pretty convoluted plot, right? You had these aliens that came down. I remember they had like the hitman guy that had like no face who was always really scary. Although I thought Krajcek was even scarier personally. But what's the story here? Because there might be a generation, which, like, my daughter is probably part of that, who don't even know what The X-Files are, let alone the fact that the aliens there had, like, a really kind of convoluted approach to what they were trying to do on the planet.

Rich Edwards [00:42:05]:
Well, I mean, The X-Files in the '90s was the sci-fi show. I mean, the way it crossed over to the mainstream was kind of strange. Star Trek was Star Trek, and Star Trek fans watched it, but The X-Files was a show that everybody watched, and they were interested in whether Mulder and Scully would get together as the various episodes. It starts off as a really good case-of-the-week show, where Mulder and Scully are trying to work out if these sort of weird things going on are actually caused by aliens, or monsters, or whatever. You've got Mulder, who believes everything, and Scully, who's the skeptic. But they also brought in this sort of, I guess, backstory, this sort of conspiracy plot that's always sort of playing along in the background. And it gets quite convoluted, you know, this sort of thing about—

Tariq Malik [00:42:56]:
Right.

Rich Edwards [00:42:56]:
There's aliens, and what various government agencies know about it, and who's sort of hiding what. And you get a few years into it, it's like, Do we know where this is going? And I think it's one of those things that often happens in serialized or long-running TV shows. You know, look at Lost, where they have an idea, but actually the show is doing well, let's stretch it out. And so you get to a point where you don't actually know. It's quite hard to remember what the aliens are actually after, why they're doing it. And I mean, surely by the time you get into the end of the 9th, or when it came back the 11th season, they must have been thinking, Is it worth it?

Tariq Malik [00:43:33]:
What I remember is that there were— the aliens were coming, there was nothing we could do about it. So a lot of movers and shakers in like, uh, in the shadow government were trying to make it easy for them so that they would get a good ride when the alien invaders showed up. That was what I remembered. But I don't know.

Rod Pyle [00:43:50]:
Sounds like capitalism to me.

Tariq Malik [00:43:52]:
He says— Rich writes, he says, unless you have a clear plan— this is his advice to the aliens— Unless you have a clear, easy-to-define plan, then everyone's going to get bored long before the schemes come to fruition. I think that's good advice, not just for alien invaders, but for like management in general. That's good advice there. Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:44:11]:
So you'd know more about that than me. Um, I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but one of the things I think I'm paraphrasing you here, so feel free to correct me, but, uh, if you're an alien, do find a way to spread your seed or seeds. And that made me think of uh, The Body Snatchers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where they start growing copies of us. But I think there are certainly a number of other ways. How did, how did you mean that?

Rich Edwards [00:44:36]:
Well, I was very much Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I think there's something quite brilliant about Body Snatchers, and I think if you watch the 1978 version where it opens on this sort of creepy alien planet and you just see these spores breaking away and blowing across the universe on some kind of cosmic wind— solar wind, sorry. It's really quite creepy. And then they start landing and then they sort of start integrating, sort of infiltrating plants and gradually getting bigger. And if you think about it as a way for getting around and sort of getting to a planet, it's so efficient. You don't have to go to the trouble of building a spaceship. You don't have to worry about keeping creatures alive on that spaceship for a long journey. They're obviously there's no propulsion issues.

Rich Edwards [00:45:24]:
And then when they get there, they just gradually infiltrate and, you know, like a plant, and they, they sort of attach themselves to people and then create these copies. And you can't tell— by the time you've realized they're there, it's too late. You've already reached critical mass. It's, it's really quite a brilliant way of taking over another planet.

Tariq Malik [00:45:45]:
That's that panspermia. Like in action there.

Rod Pyle [00:45:49]:
Well, panspermia gone sour. Yeah. Now one movie I never have seen is Day of the Triffids. Have you seen that, Rich?

Tariq Malik [00:45:56]:
You gotta read the book, man. You gotta read the book by Wyndham.

Rod Pyle [00:46:00]:
Are they alien invaders?

Rich Edwards [00:46:02]:
They are alien parasites.

Tariq Malik [00:46:04]:
Yeah.

Rich Edwards [00:46:04]:
So, but they're kind of more— there's less sentience to them. But the problem with them is that they can move, and then they have this sting. which can be removed to make them safe. But in the book, there's this big supernova or sort of event in space that renders most of the population blind, so they can no longer deal with these stings. So the Triffids become dangerous again, and then they kind of take over. And then there's one guy who, I guess, like in a— it's kind of recycled in 28 Days Later, the guy who's in hospital at the time having an operation, he's the one guy who can see sort of, uh, moving around the, these sort of— in the TV version of the early '80s, these very, very, very rubber plants.

Rod Pyle [00:46:52]:
This, this kind of sounds like dating in the 1980s, actually. Uh, let's, let's go ahead and—

Tariq Malik [00:46:57]:
I just wanted to mention though, just about because you mentioned the, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that that scene with Donald Sutherland pointing after he's been turned into a pod person and, you know, opening his mouth to do the Body Snatcher pod person scream was so horrifying to me as a kid watching that show when I was much too young to be watching that film.

Rich Edwards [00:47:17]:
So, oh, it's brilliant. It's what a great ending. And also a GIF before we knew about GIFs.

Tariq Malik [00:47:27]:
That's right.

Rod Pyle [00:47:28]:
I had a friend from high school who was in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In fact, the remake. In fact, I got him I got him his SAG card so that he was able to be in that film and get swallowed by one of the big Pac-Man type things. Um, let's, uh, let's jaunt over into a break and we'll be right back, so stay with us.

Tariq Malik [00:47:49]:
This next don't, Rich, that, that you, you, you mentioned kind of ties into our discussions that we had earlier about landmarks, right? Targeting landmarks, where you say not to limit your aspirations to a small town. And you were citing The World's End, but I would also caveat that there was the other one that just came out on Hulu last year where the woman welcomes the invasion.

Rod Pyle [00:48:16]:
The Pluribus?

Tariq Malik [00:48:18]:
No, no. Well, if it comes to me, I'll let you know. But the small town aspect, what is it about that that you think is something that they really need to avoid? Because, uh, uh, is it just that it's scope? I mean, obviously The World's End is a hilarious alien invasion movie. I think that outright.

Rich Edwards [00:48:38]:
I, I don't know. I think it's just they could set their ambitions a little bit bigger. It, it's like, um, the idea of some kind of politician who's like, yeah, I'm the mayor of this small town, and that's good for me. I'm a big, you know, the big fish in a small pond. And you think, we've got all this technology, you could be going a lot further. Um, I mean, the I think they do have bigger plans, but it feels very, very parochial. I think though that's why the film works, because it's just in the same way that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg made a very, very British zombie film, or—

Tariq Malik [00:49:12]:
That's right.

Rich Edwards [00:49:13]:
Or took Die Hard to an English town in Hot Fuzz. They do the same thing here. This is a very British Alien Invasion film. let's do the bureaucracy before we actually start knocking things down.

Tariq Malik [00:49:25]:
Yeah, it's No One Will Save You is the other film that I was thinking of. And this was a very different kind of alien invasion movie where rather than it being kind of like a bit of a comedy, you know, bar crawl romp, this is a woman in an isolated kind of small town. She's already been socially isolated. because of some stuff from her past. And then these aliens come, they terrorize her. She, she, you know, you know, comes up with ways to counteract them. And then in the end welcomes them to take over the entire town and just lives in that society there.

Rich Edwards [00:50:03]:
Mm-hmm.

Tariq Malik [00:50:04]:
Which I thought was a really different approach because now they have this foothold that they can, they can spread out, uh, I guess to the rest of the world, which I thought that, that seems a bit more achievable, right? We have SMART goals in my companies. So, you know, making sure that it's measurable and achievable and all of that stuff.

Rod Pyle [00:50:22]:
Wow, there's a strong tie-in.

Tariq Malik [00:50:24]:
That feels like a very good approach if you're going to try to tackle an entire planet. That's why I thought I was really struck by that, that it was like something to avoid.

Rich Edwards [00:50:33]:
I suppose that's kind of feeding into the X-Files thing a little bit, that if you're not going to sort of, I guess, beat everyone with your technological strength, if you kind of use our systems against us and and kind of play it politically, maybe that is the way to go. And you have to start small and it kind of goes out. It just depends how patient you are. And I suppose, you know, how good at filibustering you are and if you're prepared to get sucked into, you know, numerous committees.

Tariq Malik [00:51:02]:
Well, I want to make sure— A zoning committee. Can I invade here? No, no, no. That's for like landings and spaceships and stuff. You can't do anything there.

Rod Pyle [00:51:12]:
Tariq, I want to make sure we save a little bit of time to talk about aliens because he's also written about that.

Tariq Malik [00:51:18]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:51:18]:
The best science fiction movie of all time, in my humble opinion. But, um, you do mention, Rich, uh, time travel for aliens and how handy that is. And I think what came to my mind when I was reading that— it's been used as a plot device a number of times, but I thought it was used pretty brilliantly, if a little heavy-handedly, in, uh, Star Trek: First Contact, where you're looking at Earth and suddenly it turns orange and gray and you go, oh, crap, the Borg have gone back and done something naughty. But I think you had a couple of other films in mind when you wrote that.

Rich Edwards [00:51:53]:
Oh no, First Contact was the thing I was focusing on. Yeah, I think that was a brilliant example. And I mean, I think First Contact is a wonderful film. I think it's one of the best Star Trek films. Yeah. Oh, it's just, I mean, it's a zombie film, but it's got the, you know, it expands the Borg. It's got that sort of, well, for want of a better word, first contact angle, you know, the idea that you're trying to save the whole history of the humanity and meeting Seth MacFarlane. No, I think it's brilliant.

Rich Edwards [00:52:19]:
It's great.

Rod Pyle [00:52:21]:
And, you know, I, just a small aside, but I had a couple of hours long dinner evening with Jonathan Frakes years ago. And I said, you know, you directed, in my estimation, the most brilliant Star Trek movie, perhaps only rivaled by Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, which I think we also agree was one of the better ones. We won't talk about Star Trek V. But I said, you know—

Tariq Malik [00:52:44]:
Underrated, underrated. Awesome soundtrack. Underrated.

Rod Pyle [00:52:48]:
Oh Lord. Okay, enough of you. Um, but you know, one of the things that I asked him was, I said, you know, you went back to directing television, but, uh, what about another feature from you? I mean, you're so good at it. He said, I'm in feature film jail. I said, what's that mean? He said, Thunderbirds.

Rich Edwards [00:53:07]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:53:08]:
I said, oh. Really? And this was not that long ago. This is probably 5 or 6 years ago that he said he was still serving his time because of Thunderbirds, which I didn't see the live-action version. I just saw the original.

Rich Edwards [00:53:20]:
I think they were unfortunate. He was unfortunate with what they got with Thunderbirds. I think they kind of missed what it was and they tried to make it a kids' adventure film, which Thunderbirds never was. I mean, the spaceships look cool, but it wasn't the Thunderbirds that anyone had grown up on Thunderbirds or had seen it. I mean, it was repeated. in the '90s. It's such a part of— in the same way as Doctor Who is, it's so part of British culture. But I don't think the film quite got that.

Tariq Malik [00:53:45]:
Well, Jonathan Frakes, you are welcome on our show and you are not in jail, right? If he's listening.

Rich Edwards [00:53:52]:
Oh no, he's amazing. He's done some amazing Star Trek episodes.

Tariq Malik [00:53:57]:
He did Time Jumper. That was a really fun one. It was a kids movie though. I'm sorry, Rod, we're gonna break so we can talk about Aliens. What are we gonna do?

Rod Pyle [00:54:08]:
John, do we have another break or not?

Tariq Malik [00:54:09]:
I think we have one more, right?

Rod Pyle [00:54:11]:
Nope.

Tariq Malik [00:54:11]:
Oh no, we don't.

Rod Pyle [00:54:12]:
All right.

Tariq Malik [00:54:13]:
Because I want to say, you were talking, by the way, you were talking about Thunderbirds, which starred Bill Paxton, who was also in Aliens, right? There's our bridge.

Rich Edwards [00:54:24]:
Always, always planning. It just happens.

Rod Pyle [00:54:29]:
I mean, not just in Aliens, but as it turned out after years of watching and rewatching it, quite central to Aliens. I mean, what, what character was more quoted than him out of that?

Tariq Malik [00:54:39]:
Game over, man. Yeah. Well, I'll leave it to you. So you want, you want to talk about this, Rod? Let's go. Let's go.

Rod Pyle [00:54:46]:
Well, it's, you know, it's, it's hard to, to wrap yourself around Aliens in just one segment here, but I remember seeing it and feeling— this is, uh, was it '86?

Tariq Malik [00:54:58]:
I think 1986.

Rod Pyle [00:55:01]:
going in the theater, a small kind of second-run movie house in Pasadena, California, and feeling like out of nowhere I was ripped out of my chair, squished against the ceiling for 2 hours, and then dropped wet and struggling when I thought it was over. And then nope, they pick you up and squish you again and again and again with all these false endings. But, you know, just across the board, the writing, the visual design, The puppetry. Let's not forget, for people who are young listening to the show, if we have any, that this was pre-CGI. So those were all physical props, physical puppets, gallons of KY jelly being smeared all over these aliens and dripping off their noses. That's a fact, not a joke. Um, but just this amazing, uh, magnum opus to me of this brilliant director that nobody can stand to work for, but everybody— loves what he does.

Tariq Malik [00:55:58]:
Yeah, I guess the question in there, Rich Ferris—

Rod Pyle [00:56:01]:
Yes, thank you.

Tariq Malik [00:56:02]:
Who wrote the 40th anniversary retrospective for Space.com is, uh, you know, Aliens was a very different type of sci-fi film and an alien invasion film where it already happened on this colony and this small group of soldiers has to deal with it and, and figure out what's going on. You've got Ripley, and of course you've had the, the '79 film, uh, as like the backdrop for all that. But—

Rod Pyle [00:56:28]:
Which is more of a haunted house in space, really.

Tariq Malik [00:56:31]:
But 40 years later, this is a film that has been part of and then sparked its own franchise, its own legacy, its own deep lore that I think, to Rod's point, kind of sticks up there with the modern version of War of the Worlds. If people know what that is, they know what a xenomorph is. And I think what Rod's trying to ask is, what is it about— Thank you, Tariq. That film that James Cameron put together, you've got Sigourney Weaver in there reprising her role, you've got Ellen Ripley making a bad call, right? And all that, that makes it resonate this 4 decades in.

Rich Edwards [00:57:14]:
Well, I mean, for starters, I just think it's perfect. I mean, I don't think there's much you could add to it or take away from it to make it better. I mean, even the director's cut, which kind of isn't necessary, but you get these little extra bits.

Tariq Malik [00:57:27]:
Oh, yeah.

Rich Edwards [00:57:28]:
I think the first time you see it, you want the mystery of what's happened, even though you know what's happened. But then you watch it again with the extra bit at the beginning where you find out that it's Newt's parents who found the alien, found the ship and all that. That's that's great. It's great extra stuff. So yeah, and also I think the way that they came into this, Cameron came into it and didn't just try and make Alien again. You know, you've got the greatest ever sci-fi horror movie that's there, and then you spin off and you make the greatest ever sci-fi action film, and you add to the mythology, you make it bigger. You could bring in this Alien Queen, you turn— you bring in these Marines who are all, basically because of the enemy, out of their depth. The way that Cameron writes it, you know, the You spend— he gives each of the Marines, what, a line or two, and you know all of them.

Rich Edwards [00:58:16]:
So by the time they actually have their big first encounter with the aliens, which is about an hour into the film, you know, so—

Rod Pyle [00:58:22]:
Right.

Rich Edwards [00:58:22]:
It's a proper slow build. You actually care what's going to happen to them. And then he brings in Newt the kid, and she's really important because she could be so annoying and she's not. And she brings out the whole, uh, the mother side of Ripley, and we We find out in the special edition that Ripley's daughter has just died in her 60s. It's just everything. Every time I watch it, I see something new. That scene where they first meet the aliens, and you don't really know what's going on. The camera's going all over the place because they've got the shoulder cams.

Rod Pyle [00:58:55]:
Exactly, yeah.

Rich Edwards [00:58:57]:
It's just so perfectly shot. Cameron is so good at action. There's no one like him. And even when you watch the Avatar films, the later Avatar films, which are kind of okay, you just get these moments where he's actually making sure these really complicated action scenes, you know exactly what's going on. And there's so many big blockbusters where you're watching them thinking, what's going on there? Who's doing what to whom? You never get that with Cameron.

Rod Pyle [00:59:25]:
Are you hearing us, Michael Bay? Nobody can follow your edits. So I I wholeheartedly agree. And the brilliance of incorporating the shoulder cam footage into that first battle encounter, when you study it cut by cut, it's so perfect. You know, it really just squishes you. I would say one thing about Special Edition. I agree with you mostly, except cutting out the robot sentry guns to save 3 minutes of running time was a horrible mistake on the studio executives' part.

Rich Edwards [00:59:57]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:59:58]:
Because that, again, it was a wonderful tension builder with the countdowns, and you realize they're running out of ammo. Yeah, the smoke coming off the barrels, and the aliens keep coming. And then though, the one thing I never understood was, so then they hear them banging it against the doors, and the next thing you know, they're crawling over your acoustic tile ceiling. This is a space station with sealed modules, you know, separated pressure Modules. How did they get up into the ceiling? I don't understand that.

Tariq Malik [01:00:29]:
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You totally get it. So if you think about when they build these, they land the modules down, it's just an empty shell. So you have to make them habitable. So you put all the plumbing and stuff around and then you make your little shells. That's how they build a space station. You don't see all the, the shelled stuff. You just see like the rectangle walls because they covered all of that up.

Tariq Malik [01:00:46]:
It's all there in the background. The aliens could totally invade the space station.

Rod Pyle [01:00:49]:
That makes no sense whatsoever what you just said.

Tariq Malik [01:00:52]:
Okay. All right.

Rod Pyle [01:00:53]:
Okay. I want to hear Rich's take. How did the aliens get into the acoustic ceiling of that room?

Rich Edwards [01:00:58]:
I don't know. They're animals, man. They're animals.

Rod Pyle [01:01:01]:
Well played, sir.

Rich Edwards [01:01:04]:
I'm gonna go with the Tariq approach. I think that sounds reasonable. I mean, they're obviously adept at moving around because they're using the tunnels, they're using the ducts that much look like Newt would. So yeah, I think that I buy it. I think it's good. I know I'm not going to criticize anything about Aliens because I love it.

Tariq Malik [01:01:23]:
Yeah, I don't think that I could either. And I think that that can be the final word, is that we love it.

Rod Pyle [01:01:28]:
Well, so we ought to have— we should have, as a TWiT special, we should have a viewing party for Aliens. Good, because we just sit there and mouth all the quotes before they happen. Okay, Tariq, last question to you.

Tariq Malik [01:01:41]:
No, I don't have a question, man, because I think we, we pretty much nailed it all there, you know. Well, let's say— I, I, I would say We've talked a lot about alien invasion films through sci-fi history. We talked a bit at length at Aliens itself, which is a different kind of invasion film. And I guess I would just ask if, is there one trope, Rich, that you haven't seen or that you really want to see in an alien invasion film that, or that you think there needs to be more of? I think that's a good question to end on.

Rich Edwards [01:02:17]:
That's a really good question, and I'm probably not creative enough to come up with it. Yeah, I think I'd like something where there's an evenly matched element, and also where it doesn't need a contrived ending. War of the Worlds is the perfect example because when Wells wrote War of the Worlds, it's this brilliant idea, it's the microbes that kill the aliens. But now it's kind of become cliché. When you come into it in Independence Day, it's computer virus, okay, yeah, fun twist. But it's almost now like a kid writing a story and saying, oh yeah, then I woke up, it was all a dream. And it's just something— it's the Superman problem. If something's that powerful, you have to have this little contrivance.

Rich Edwards [01:03:05]:
Anything that has to be sort of thought through and is logical and doesn't rely on sort of just an act of God, the deus ex machina.

Tariq Malik [01:03:15]:
Yeah. Okay. I'd like to see a Blob remake, some sort of exciting—

Rod Pyle [01:03:20]:
There are.

Tariq Malik [01:03:21]:
Blob— no, no, like a new one.

Rod Pyle [01:03:22]:
They are. They're making— they're—

Tariq Malik [01:03:24]:
oh, they are?

Rod Pyle [01:03:25]:
The Blob?

Rich Edwards [01:03:25]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [01:03:26]:
All right, we'll go see it. We should go to Blob Festival. They have it in Pennsylvania every year. We should go down there. That'd be fun. Do a screening. And they, they, yeah, they show that— they show the movie and then that— then they get to this part in the scene where everyone runs out of the theater, everyone runs out of the theater and then goes and enjoys the rest of the festival.

Rod Pyle [01:03:42]:
Okay, well, there we go. I want to thank Rich, you and Tariq and everybody for joining us for episode 222, How to Invade Earth in 22 Easy Steps. Rich, where can we track your writing and other activities online, please?

Rich Edwards [01:04:00]:
So I am on, well, @richdedwards on various platforms is the usual place. And but, you know, a lot of stuff on space. If you like print, there's still an SFX Magazine as well. So.

Rod Pyle [01:04:13]:
Okay. And if you're daring, you can use the Space.com search engine to look up his episode— his, good Lord, his articles.

Tariq Malik [01:04:21]:
We're working on it.

Rich Edwards [01:04:22]:
That definitely works.

Rod Pyle [01:04:24]:
Save me, save me, Tariq. You're my only hope. Where can we find you defending the galaxy in your downtime, partner?

Tariq Malik [01:04:31]:
Well, you can find me at Space.com. as always, uh, on all the socials @tariqjmalik. The J is important, but apparently not important enough on my byline, as some people complain to me about. Uh, and if you like video games, you can find me playing video games at, uh, on YouTube @spacetronplays. But you will not find me on the episode here for the next couple of episodes at This Week in Space. I'm gonna be gone, uh, for 2 episodes, but I will be back with a vengeance, uh, like those aliens in In, in, in that pesky universe there.

Rod Pyle [01:05:03]:
See, by coming up with that smooth segue, you probably just guaranteed that half our viewers will drop off because they're gonna get stuck with me and whoever I bring in. Uh, and of course you can always find me, speaking of me, at pylebooks.com or at adastramagazine.com. Remember, you can always drop us a line at twis@twit.tv. We welcome your comments, ideas, suggestions, jokes— please send space jokes— and any insults you might have for Tariq, which I'm happy to pass along. New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcatcher, so make sure to like them, subscribe them, give us reviews, give us thumbs up, 16 fish, whatever it is in your denomination. Tell us you love us. And you can follow the TWiT Tech Podcast Network @TWiT on Twitter and on Facebook and twit.tv on Instagram. Thank you, Rich.

Rod Pyle [01:05:50]:
Thank you, everyone.

Tariq Malik [01:05:51]:
Thank you.

Rod Pyle [01:05:52]:
We appreciate you coming back week after week. And we will see you in 7 days. Take care. Bye-bye.