Jake Roper

I mean, it worked out well because, yes, my job is to watch movies and then explore them scientifically.

That's his job.

The easiest movie to survive?

If we're talking physically, I would say... Of what genre?

Alien movies.

Yeah.

Like any... Oh, an alien film.

An alien film.

The easiest one to survive.

It'd be E.T.

Well, so here's the thing.

I would say E.T.

That's really immediately popped in my head.

But then you do have that whole segment where like, oh, we need to quarantine them because who knows what bacteria or viruses.

And that is kind of the interesting thing.

You have this foreign creature here on Earth.

We don't know.

We have no idea.

We don't know what it is susceptible to or what we're susceptible to from it.

Exactly.

And they were like, we can't make a sequel because all the kids have horrible tumors.

In defense against.

All right, so just to clarify, they're asking if the weapon that the War of the Worlds aliens use could be possible.

Well, actually, this is funny because if we just – spoilers for everyone that hasn't seen the movie yet.

I'm going to give you a second.

Okay.

The movie's 14 years old.

Forget them.

They haven't seen a movie yet.

I don't care.

Go.

Well, hopefully they just heard the original War of the Worlds from back in the day when you were a kid, Neil.

Anyway.

Exactly.

So the way that they destroy the aliens or defeat them is by –

Like a virus, a human virus gets them ill and they all just die.

So this kind of goes back to the ET conversation where we actually are this contaminant that kills them.

We're the weapon.

Anywho, yeah, we are the weapon, just us existing.

And that's kind of the par for the course for humans anyway.

So, I mean, I would say it is possible.

You can't, I mean, harness light?

Is that what they're harnessing?

We don't really know.

You could generate enough energy where you could just completely eviscerate a person.

I mean, that's possible.

True.

So that's what I'm thinking right now.

And in that regard, I mean, it would have to be whatever this beam is, let's say this energy beam, it would have to encompass the entirety of the person's body.

for all of them to instantaneously turn to ash.

If it was just focused here, well then, boop, it would just pop a hole right through you, the same way that a bullet, when it impacts, it doesn't blow apart your whole entire external body, it'll just boop.

So I guess it would be so, if we just go by heat, so hot that it would immediately vaporize all of the moisture in your body.

It will just completely dry you out to such a degree that you are just dust afterwards.

I mean, I think that that sounds fair because they do have those specific things.

They have the microwave weapons that you're talking about.

I mean, I remember reading an article years ago about how in the UK to stop teens from loitering in stores, stores could play this frequency.

that only teenagers could hear because they still had those hairs in their ear, right?

That's right.

You can still hear the frequency.

I forgot about that.

It would be annoying to them.

What's your... I would say yes.

Really?

I mean, I don't really have... I mean, everything right now is just hypothetical, but I would assume that yes, they would create an organization.

Would it be as

cool and sexy as men in black?

Probably not.

I mean, I think this is a tough one because we are hunting for life out there in the universe.

That's what we're actively doing when we go to Mars, when we just are trying to go to Europa, all these different missions.

That is kind of the point.

But that is a different kind of life than I think what most people assume life to be.

We think of life as sentient human beings that can walk around, move around, have conversations, think for themselves, not microorganisms.

So when it comes to that level of, I assume an alien is this living, breathing thing that can move around and shake my hand, that I would kind of assume that the government, if it did change,

If it were happening now, they would hide from us.

Because it kind of is a disruptive thought or disruptive information to know.

To a degree, not as cool as MIB.

I don't think they have, like, fancy alien weapons and, like, cool cars and, you know, they're going on all these action – giving birth to aliens on the, like, long expressway or whatever.

Right.

But, like, I do think if aliens –

Well, okay.

Aliens exist, I think.

Well, wait, just a quick thing.

He was made of bugs.

If we're just throwing it through, it's like I have a strong theory that if we go to the deep ocean, that all to me is aliens.

It looks so foreign from what we experience here in our world of On Land that it is so different.

Like, that could be aliens for all we know.

It's a totally different environment.

Yeah.

No, Chuck, you go first on this one.

So I can think.

So you can think.

I'm really amazed.

Like, that was great.

That was a good monologue.

I mean, okay, so Alien is fantastic.

I'm wearing an Alien hat.

Nostromo the ship from the first one.

I do love Alien.

But actually, in a similar vein to Alien, because...

I think, I like to think of the alien as a parasite, right?

The whole entire way that it gestates and bursts out, it is this parasitic relationship.

So with that in mind, the thing is my favorite alien.

The thing?

They were ants.

Them is ants.

They is something entirely different.

Okay.

All right, so back on track, Chuck.

Come on.

Okay, sorry.

So The Thing is a... Well, the remake, which is the one that's most popular, is this 1980s movie with Kurt Russell, directed by John Carpenter.

And The Thing is this organism...

Yep.

Yeah, okay, I forgot I saw that movie.

It can take any form.

And the thing that scared me about it is, one, it really is a parasite, but an intergalactic parasite.

And it just takes upon, like you have things like the jewel wasp here on Earth, right?

Which is more similar to the xenomorph, an alien, where it impregnates the cockroach, basically, and then the larvae bursts out and it becomes a full-on wasp, flies away.

But the thing I love, because it brings up this conundrum where does the person who it took the body of, the form of, is it aware that it's not human?

Or does it think that it's human?

But it has something else controlling its mind.

And I think that's a really nice conundrum.

Right.

And you have no idea, potentially, the people around you have no idea that you are no longer you.

Right.

Right.

That's pretty cool.

And I think that's pretty spooky.

Whereas with like traditional aliens or an alien, you know it's an alien.

Like, okay, you're terrifying.

You're not friendly.

But if it was just Neil, we're like, oh, Neil, how you doing?

And for all this time, he's been this parasitic alien.

I am fine.

So that's a great question.

There isn't much.

Okay.

It is similar.

It was also redone in the 80s.

Yes, they're both these alien creatures that take over humans.

I think in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, its motivation is much more clear.

It's there to take over the planet.

And the thing, they just find this crass spaceship from thousands of years ago.

And there's no reason as to why it's there or what the purpose of this alien is.

The alien never expresses its intent.

Right.

It's just this vicious force.

Okay, that's a good one.

I'm sorry.

Well, I just showed my girlfriend the blob because she'd never seen it, so we just watched it the other week.

I feel like that.

This actually brings up, I love your thoughts on this.

I always like to think that if we were to see an alien, that we wouldn't really be able to comprehend it, which is why I always think that the old school look of like the gray alien, you know, big head, big black eyes, because we only understand things in the shapes that we can currently comprehend.

But if something were not bound by our understanding of,

of the world, could it look entirely different in a form that we just don't understand and have to put it into a form that we do understand?

That is really creative.

Cool.

Sorry, just back to the blob real quick.

I know we got more questions.

But that's, to your point, what makes the blob so great

is that it isn't this traditional flesh and blood, looks like a, has legs and arms kind of character.

It's this blob, this shapeless form that just moves around and go through objects or things that we can't physically, or that a physical being couldn't.

I mean, I think, but that was also a very specific thing where they chose a linguist because they knew there was some kind of communication happening.

And they needed someone there to help decipher it.

But wouldn't you send... Go ahead.

But if we're starting from that point, then I think that can make... A particle physicist doesn't seem...

Like, wouldn't you want some sort of biologist to be there?

My opinion is that the aliens are very considerate.

So they were like, we're going to make it easy for you guys.

We traveled all this distance.

We are smart enough to know that we're going to flip it for you.

We're going to draw backwards.

I will tell you this.

First thing I would do is probably just relax, you know?

What could I do to

Help stave it off.

I'm just going to chill.

Turn on some StarTalk radio.

Pour a nice Merlot.

Is that a wine?

I think that's a wine.

Correct?

Well, if they're attacking, like, I'm sorry.

So I guess my assumption was that it's the ship that's attacking us.

If they sent ground troops.

and we're going like house by house, door to door, then yeah, I'd probably fight back.

But if there's just a giant mothership blasting earth, similar to Independence Day, then I'd just hang out and hope that it all clears.

Because what am I supposed to do?

You can't let people know that.

Yeah, man.

I don't think Neil was lying when he said that he would, you know, check on me.

And then when he did leave, though, yes, he would go to his bunker.

No, I'll be right back.

No, no, of course, I'll be right back.

The bunker.

Exactly.

Hanging out, smoking cigars, living his best life.

I mean, the first thing that pops my head, I think, would be Arrival.

I think the way that they handled it, the way that they interacted with the aliens, the way that the aliens interacted with us.

Because I think, no, the issue that I have with most, not an issue because I do enjoy them, but with most alien invasion films when they come to Earth is why do they always want to destroy us?

Why is that their immediate instinct is like, let's just kill everybody.

So that's why I think that we write it that way.

Because that's what we would do.

So we put our own self in those scripts when we write Aliens.

But if they were smart enough, if they could traverse these incredible distances, would their first action be aggression?

Yeah.

There was like, it's resource gathering.

They do a lot of that.

But I feel like Arrival had a pretty, in my mind, good depiction where obviously it took liberties with some of the science, but it felt still in this world of science realism, or at least they were trying to obtain that.

And I really appreciated that.

What about The Day the Earth Stood Still?

If aliens visited us, they were clearly more intelligent.

Yeah.

That's what I'm trying to, because I guess, again, we're assuming aliens are these life form style creatures.

And we're not finding them to your point, Neil.

They're like coming to find us.

So yeah, I guess they just intrinsically would be more intelligent.

But then I guess, sorry, now I'm just being pedantic, but like, what is intelligence?

They'll know more than us about certain things, but I'm sure there'll be different verticals of information that we are much well-versed in than they are.

But are they going to know about delicious tacos and nachos, Neil?

Will they know that?

True.

Sorry, the last thing I want to say about Really Smart Aliens.

I will go back to E.T., though, as a consideration where E.T.

was able to get to Earth, yet didn't even know what Reese's Pieces were.

What an idiot.

What an idiot.

What a dumb alien.

I mean, you know what?

I never even thought about this question before.

Oh, we stumped Jake.

Wow.

Jake.

Well, because I always assumed, because you have the light cone, right?

Which we don't have to go into any detail, but...

Information, unless we can figure out tachyons and all these other things, there's a speed limit to how fast information can travel.

Far enough away to send us a message.

By the time we were able to send anything back, whoever sent it is probably long gone.

So I've never really thought about the idea of what would we say?

There has to be a protocol.

Interesting.

No, I'd send like, I'd send Paul Rudd.

Everyone likes Paul Rudd.

I mean, this brings up what Chuck mentioned earlier, that it does seem more reasonable that if we were to get a first contact moment, it would be with some sort of machine, some sort of non or inorganic built thing.

And then also, when it comes to replicating it, this is the whole idea about the singularity that I always love, or just advanced AI, where if you were able to create an AI, like a machine that is so advanced, it no longer needs you to create it.

It can create itself now.

So I do think that could be a very real possibility because, I mean, I'm still stuck on that brilliant idea that Chuck had because Chuck is a brilliant, attractive, smart, humble person, which is that it would be.

some sort of robotic creature would probably be the first contact.

Okay.

That's a great way to think about it.

Actually, you know what?

I shouldn't say too many.

That sounds negative.

Not enough.