Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson, that's Mally Rubin, and joining us today, it's Amanda Dobbins! Woo! I'm so honored to be here. Dobmob in the house, what a treat, what a thrill. We are so thrilled that you're here, I can't even tell you. We've been watching a bunch of space movies leading up to Project Hail Mary. All three of us have seen Project Hail Mary.
We're not going to talk about it in detail yet, of course. We'll talk about it on our respective shows when the time comes, but... We watched The Martian. That's right. Sure did. And is this conversation going to get a little weird about The Martian? Guess what? It is. But we have Amanda here and we're thrilled and we're excited for things to get weird. Are you excited? I'm incredibly excited.
I also I feel like it's my responsibility to make things as weird as possible. So I did.
Chapter 2: What are the main themes of 'The Martian'?
I watched The Martian. I've seen Project Hail Mary. I've got a lot of thoughts about space movies, my relationship to space movies, space, other things. But like if you don't think that I'm going to just try to drive this off the rails every chance I get. Is that not my job? We support that endeavor and that pursuit. That's the premise of the show today. It's the premise of the pod.
But I do think we should be honest with ourselves and with the bad babies. At the top of a Martian rewatch pod, if we all say out loud into the microphones, we're going to make things as weird as possible. People are going to expect to see us farming in our own shit before the pod ends. And we'll be doing that right after this. Oh, hello. It's definitely the same day. Same outfits. Absolutely.
But we're here with a very special breaking announcement. What is it, Mallory? We have our own Instagram. And TikTok. House of our pod on Instagram and TikTok. And TikTok. And we want as many followers as possible because we will be doing, what, book club content. Playing with swords. Sword play. Building Legos. I heard rumor of a tattoo, you know. Could happen.
The clips from our podcast that you already know and love. Going to be plenty of them there. Some interview tidbits.
Chapter 3: How does Amanda Dobbins view space movies?
Some behind the scenes photos. Maybe we'll do some memes. We love a meme. We love a meme. And speaking of memes, stay subscribed to the Ringerverse handle because that's not going anywhere. That's going to be the delightful place that it's always been. Plus some fun team up content. Absolutely. But more importantly, House of Our Pod. No, they're all important.
But House of Our Pod on TikTok and Instagram. Please come join us over there. We'd love to see you. All right, quick programming reminders. If you didn't see, last week we did a space draft with Chris, Ryan, and Rob Mahoney. We did the Versys with the entire Midnight Boys crew, a big crossover event. Yeah, a little time travel here. That happened. Because we haven't recorded that yet.
Look at you. I was going to say, what day this podcast runs. Real pro. Thank you so much. And then coming up, of course, we'll have our Project Hail Mary deep dive. Plus, we have Andy Weir on the pod to talk about his book and stuff like that. Really, really wonderful. That did already happen. What is time but a construct? Here we are.
Mallory, how can folks keep track of all the things that we have going on here on this feed? Here's what I would recommend. Follow the pod. Let's start there. Follow House of R or Ringerverse or Big Pic on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch full video episodes of House of R on the Spotify app. Incredible stuff. You can also follow the Ringerverse YouTube channel.
You can watch Amanda and Sean on fucking Netflix, folks. Yeah, something you might have heard of Netflix. Yeah. Let's keep it moving, okay? I'm thrilled to be back on YouTube for this episode. Yeah, 41 on YouTube. Here I am living my dream. You can also follow us on the social media platform of your choosing, and we're not going to tell you what that is. No, that's up to you.
Wherever you are, we'll be. Listen to your heart. And you can email us. That's right. HobbitsandDragons at gmail.com if you want to. The inbox is always open. Absolutely. You guys are incredibly professional. We don't do any of this on The Big Picture. Well, I would say we've been doing it uninterrupted for four years.
And some might say, do you guys need to be adding eight minutes at the top of every pod to your three-hour pause? Yes. But we're in a rhythm, goddammit. Let's go now, in a brisk fashion, to our opening snapshot. All right, so some quick fun facts about The Martian in case folks don't remember. Directed by Ridley Scott. Ever heard of him? Screenplay by Drew Goddard.
Based on the self-published book by Andy Weir. U.S. wide release October 2nd, right before my birthday, 2015. Your birthday. You're a Libra. I am a Libra. Like my younger son. That goes really well. The other examples of leavers in my life were like less auspicious. So this is reassuring. I love being a leaver, honestly.
Do you think of the first week in October primarily as your birthday week or your ringer anniversary week, which feels more notable in your life? Oh, my ringer anniversary week, of course. Let me say it into the microphone proudly. To me, it's a very memorable date. I think about it all the time. The budget for this movie was a mere $108 million, honestly. That's wild. A steal.
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Chapter 4: What insights does Amanda share about 'Project Hail Mary'?
I think. What is the global box office? Let's just fact check me. That could be very wrong. I showed up to cause chaos, and I did not show up with facts or research. Did you fact check? That's a great question. Domestic, $228 million. International, $402 million. That does make more sense. That makes way more sense.
This is when Hollywood movies still made money in China, and it's also why China is just happily going along with everything in this preposterous fictional film. We love to collaborate. That I love deeply. But...
No matter what, it is wild to me, and we talked about this with Interstellar as well, these, like, original sci-fi, even though it's based on a book, but, like, an original sci-fi property making that much money. Yeah. Even, like, you know, a big name with Matt Damon attached, stuff like that, it still just feels like a different time in cinema. It was an event.
I remember people talking about it. Like, did you see The Martian? Did you go? You gotta see it on a big screen. Bring your friends, et cetera. And it's one year after Interstellar, right, which was notable for Matt Damon, for Jessica Chastain in a big space run, but also for fans of
sci-fi at scale, you know, and space movies at scale to be able to have these like event cinematic experiences a couple years in a row. And we're talking, like, this is, I mean, 2014 and then 2015 for The Martian. Like, people were at the movies a lot for the MCU, et cetera. Like, this was a big go-see movies with your friends. And if you're a nerd, what a time to be a nerd. I know.
We were living, man. Also, like, a huge hit at the Oscars, which we'll talk about. Like, it just felt like this is just, like, a unqualified hit of a movie. And I have some theories as to why, not just, like, the fact that I think it's good. I have some, like— Big potato? Yeah. Yeah, Big Potato. Idaho. Were the Big Potato lobbyists behind it? Yeah, Idaho was behind it.
You know, they sponsor a college football bowl game. So, like, they're out there. Potatoes do? The Potato Bowl. Yeah, correct. But it's like everyone sponsors a bowl game. There's a Pop-Tart Bowl. Right, but what was the Potato Bowl formerly known as? I believe it was the Idaho Potato Bowl. Good, okay. So, they stayed local. But is it like, what potato is it? Just like potatoes. Just potatoes?
The industry of potatoes. Big Potato! Big potato. The potato lobby sponsors a bowl. That's what you're telling me. Yeah, and it's working. Because here we are talking about it on House of R. Of course, don't make sense. All right, okay, listen. Why are we doing Space Months? We've covered this a little bit, but I'm curious for you, Amanda.
You said you told us you have a lot of thoughts about space movies and space in general. What are your thoughts? Well, so it's interesting to hear you guys talk about it and the lineage of sci-fi movies, which it obviously is, and also to bring up Interstellar, which... Just going to get it out of the way. I'm not an interstellar person, okay? Love the work of Christopher Nolan. Love Inception.
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Chapter 5: What are the thoughts on Jessica Chastain's career trajectory?
I wish her well. I just want more for Jessica Chastain is the point. Yeah. And she was in such a great place when she made Interstellar, The Martian, Zero Dark Thirty, et cetera. And then I just don't know why she's not one of our bigger stars. Saw her once at our old office. The old Sunset Gower complex walking through the courtyard. Mallory Rubin. It's just astonishing.
Chapter 6: What franchise roles could Jessica Chastain take on?
Let's think about it from a House of R perspective. You're going to give Jessica Chastain a franchise of some kind. What kind of franchise do you want for her? Let's see. What are our choices? She can be in Game of Thrones. She'd be a good James Bond. I mean, like, the issues that the... We need one. I like that. The... Marvel? Superhero movie that she made was Dark Phoenix. Right. That's tough.
Oh, who was she? That's very, very tough. You know, she played Vuk. Vuk? Yeah. And then we could put her in This is hard, actually. How long do we want to tie her up for with the franchise? I mean, she seems like elfish, you know? Oh, put her in The Hunt for Gollum with Kate Winslet? That would be great. Did you see that Kate Winslet is allegedly playing Gollum's grandmother?
That that's what they're doing with Kate Winslet in The Hunt for Gollum? That is honestly sensational. Can I... I'm sorry. I'm sorry to just ask you questions about the Lord of the Rings, but like... Way of Water and Fire and Ash just back in the mocap? She was really, really, really underused in Avatar Fire and Ash, I just want to say. Kate Winslet. She was really sidelined for a while.
And then the traumatic birth scene. Yeah, that was... Listen, weren't the first three Lord of the Rings, weren't the original three about the hunt for Gollum? Well, no. They're about the one ring. Destroying the ring. Yeah. Okay. In a way, Gollum was hunting them to a certain degree. Okay.
Chapter 7: Who is considered the least believable NASA employee in 'The Martian'?
And so now... This is a prequel. Okay, so why are they hunting him if he hasn't even hunted, if he hasn't gotten the ring yet? I think the main answer here is IP. Well, sure, but like, tell me what the story is. What did Gollum do? It's from the book that like Aragorn was looking for Gollum and there, because of... Does Aragorn have like premonition?
Does he know that Gollum's... Is this like a would you go back and kill baby Hitler situation? Tell Amanda who's rumored to play young Aragorn and she will have no further questions. Leo Woodall? I'm... It's okay. It's okay. I thought you were going to say Jacob Lordy. And so then I was like, great. You know what? I mean, he'd be... He'd be great. I honestly...
Like there is a reason for the hunt for Gollum to exist other than IP. There is like some texture, but it's so slim. So whatever they're going to do, it's going to be like what they did with The Hobbit where they like just blew up a great slim children's book into three groaning movies.
They're blowing up like one concept into now we're going to know who Gollum's grandmother was and she's played by Kate Winslet. I'm in. I'm in. Sometimes taking just a few nuggets and expanding it can work beautifully. Rings of power. You want to know all about Deagle. I do, actually. I want to know all about that. Definitely.
I don't know where we should put Jessica Chastain, though, in terms of your franchise question. That's a challenge. Anywhere?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of Mark Watney's survival strategies?
What was Cate Blanchett doing in those movies? Galadriel. Galadriel. It's Galadriel. Elven Queen. I think that Jessica Chastain could be Elvin Royalty. I agree. There you go. Definitely. All right, let's put her in Lord of the Rings. Okay, so what's available? Well, it's probably too late for Rings of Power Season 3. Some Simarillion shit. Yeah. Okay. I love it. Yeah.
Yeah, let's get her in some future Rings project. That sounds great. We did it. Wonderful. We fixed her career with some Bezos-funded future Lord of the Rings project. Sounds great. Okay. Have we talked enough about Michael Pena and Kristen Wiig? Anything else we want to add that we haven't already gotten into? So who is the least believable NASA employee and why is it Kristen Wiig?
She is who I would recast. I do feel like Donald Glover's character is underdeveloped, underexplained. Overly quirked. Overly quirked. And also when he's... I had forgotten the scene where he's just sitting with his laptop plugged in to the actual supercomputer. To check the math. And is just sitting there for a while like me in the library stacks in college. And then he just gets a flash up.
You gotta check the math. Computation correct. You gotta check the math. Listen, that's cool to know how NASA and supercomputers work. Don't you wish our job was that easy where it's just like, your opinion's correct, Amanda. Hot take correct. All right. Okay, here's a question. What kind of cord are you using to plug into a supercomputer in 2015? A super cord. It's a super cord.
It's not like a lightning cable. It's probably more proprietary than that. I would think of a NASA supercomputer, but I don't know. I don't know. I think I agree that we have not tapped into Kristen Wiig's comedic genius with Annie Montross. I am standing on my corner here that Sean Beam is actually the most, that Sean Beam is most miscast as Mitch because there's like this,
It feels like he's speaking the way that Boromir or Ned, this like really kind of, I don't have to. I don't have to report to Vincent. I don't have to answer to Vincent or anyone. For me, it's in the tradition of Ed Harris, flight director of Apollo 13 with the gene and the vest and the like, if they don't sleep. We don't sleep. And it's just, like, a very, um... I... Kurt. Yeah.
Like, uh... But he's, like, operating from a position of, like, emotional integrity. I'm doing this for my guys. Yeah, right. He's like... Well, that's what Ed Harris is doing. Do you feel like he's playing, like, Coach on Survivor 50? And he wipes away that one too much honor and integrity. No. Ozzy, you can't question my honor. Honestly, kind of.
The conversation between Mitch and Teddy is not dissimilar from Coach calling out Ozzy on the mat. You're really onto something here. I love Sean Bean. He's like one of my favorites. When Teddy says, I'm going to expect your resignation at the end of this, I'm like, respectfully, you're in charge of NASA and this is a moment of crisis. This guy's ID card should not work anymore.
He's already fired. He went behind his back to secretly send a message to the Hermes crew? That's an insane act of incredibly successful results. And the whole world celebrated. They didn't test the probe. But not all bosses are correct. No, I know. I just don't believe. I'm not saying it's not the right outcome. I don't believe that Teddy wouldn't have fired him. There's no way.
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