Heroes versus villains. The latter looking to rule the galaxy, the former looking to save it.
What happens when the leader who must save everyone is still carrying the wounds of his own trauma?
In this episode, we dive into Star Trek: First Contact as part of the seventh installment of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise must lead his crew against the Borg. This very enemy once assimilated him, while fighting through the trauma that experience left behind. The stakes couldn’t be higher: the fate of the entire galaxy and the birth of warp drive hang in the balance. Picard’s journey is one of the most compelling crucible stories in all of sci-fi cinema, and the lessons it holds for anyone leading through unresolved pain are as relevant on Earth as they are in the final frontier.
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
One of the things that Picard and the Enterprise realize is it is critical that Zefram Cochrane launched this ship called The Phoenix, go and achieve warp drive, and make contact with the Vulcans. And it's also pretty clear that the Borg don't want this to happen. They're all about defeating the Federation and really anybody in their path.
Gary Schneeberger:
Heroes versus villains, the latter looking to rule the galaxy, the former looking to save it. This week in the seventh episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema, we look at Star Trek first contact in which Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of the Starship Enterprise, must fight through the trauma of having been assimilated by the Borg, as he leads his team to a life of significance for the whole galaxy, ensuring the birth of Warp Drive.
How can understanding how Picard and his crew turn their trials with the Borg into triumph for all, on the side of the Federation, help us through our own crucibles? Stay tuned.
Welcome, friends, to another episode of Beyond the Crucible. You are dropping in toward the end now of our summer series. We do one every year, or at least we have for the last four or five years. And you've dropped into the latest episode of our summer series this year, which once again, you won't be surprised if you've been with other summer series for us. It's on movies. And the reason why it's on movies is we had so much fun when we focused our summer series on movies, Warwick and I have, over three of the last four years, that we want to do it again. Not only because it's fun, that's a big reason, but also because from movies, we can learn a lot about how to overcome, how to move beyond crucibles, and how to then to point yourself toward a life of significance.
And so, after spotlighting our first one of these series, we just did some hero movies, superhero movies, military hero movies, historical hero movies. Then we flipped to some of the best movies ever made, according to the American Film Institute. We talked about how the characters in those movies either overcame or didn't overcome their crucibles. And if you haven't heard that, go back, because in a couple cases, you can learn just as much about how to move beyond your crucible from those characters that don't do that in films.
And then, last year we did what I have called on a couple of occasions during this series, you've heard of Chock Full of Nuts Coffee. This was Chock Full of Crucibles. We did movies with lots of crucibles in them. And as those crucibles sort of barraged you, you could continue to learn from them and move on.
So Warwick, this year we're calling our series Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. And I'm going to ask you this question, just first about movies, and then I'll ask you why this particular focus on movies.
But why are we back in theaters, this time around, to examine movies again for our summer series?
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, both you, Gary, and I, we love movies and it's very different looking at movies from Beyond the Crucible perspective. Typically, when you watch a movie, you got your popcorn and you're there to have fun and enjoy. And I'm thinking, gee, what can I learn from this movie to help me lead a better life? Life is significant to life on purpose, dedicated to serving others. Typically, movies portray a protagonist who is facing significant crucibles that they're seeking to overcome.
And as you mentioned, we've covered superheroes, sports heroes, and some of the movies from the American Film Institute's top 100 movies. And it's just fascinating, when you're looking at these movies, it's really crucibles in technicolor. They're enormous challenges, challenges often of character. And how are they going to overcome these challenges and become often a better version of themselves?
So it's really rich territory to look at how do you overcome the pit of despair and get beyond it and live a life of significance? And so, really movies are often a great way to learn some powerful lessons.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And one of the things that we've said as we've been doing this, and in fact, an episode before the series started, we talked about watching movies with Beyond the Crucible goggles on, because it's a whole different experience, as you said, than just watching movies with a bucket of popcorn in front of you. It's more than just entertainment. It's also encouragement and tips and action steps you can take to get beyond crucibles. That's why we're doing it this time.
And Warwick, you're doubling down on stuff you love here on this summer series, because as I said, it's called Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. And you're particularly excited about that, because that is, science fiction movies are indeed a major love of yours. Why do you love science fiction films so much? And what about them is particularly resonant about this discussion that we're having about looking at movies through Beyond the Crucible goggles?
What happens generally in science fiction films that goes to the topic we're discussing?
Warwick Fairfax:
So since I was very young, I have always loved science fiction in books, movies, TV shows. I think one of my earliest memories was going to see one of the most influential science fiction films ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It came out in 1968. What I really loved about this movie was just the way you saw future technology. You saw space shuttles with screens on the seats in front of them where you could watch a movie, which of course you can now, not necessarily on space shuttles, I'm afraid, which they don't have anymore, but you can on planes. But it didn't exist back then. There was video conferencing.
And what they did so well is they put brand names. So at the time, AT&T was Bell. And so you had Bell Teleconferencing from whatever, I think it was a space station that the hero was in. He was just talking to his family. I think his young daughter had a birthday. So they just made it seem so real with future technology, with brands that everybody was familiar with.
And I was also a fan of a lot of science fiction shows, including the original Star Trek. And maybe we'll talk about that.
Gary Schneeberger:
Good foreshadowing as always work. Good foreshadowing.
Warwick Fairfax:
And I was also a great fan of some of the classic science fiction novels, Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov. In fact, Arthur C. Clark wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And so, what I loved a lot about science fiction is yes, it explores future technology, but at its best, great science fiction, whether books written by Arthur C. Clark or Isaac Asimov, or indeed in the Star Trek TV series, they explored deep societal issues about, what is the future of the human race and how will it interact with other forms of life? And what's the role of AI?
One of the things about the original Star Trek series, it provided a medium in which issues that were really forbidden to be discussed in the '60s could be discussed. You had a white man, Captain Kirk kissing a Black woman, Uhura, who is a communications specialist. That is not something, in '66, '67, whenever that episode came out, it was pretty controversial. A lot of parts of America, unfortunately. And you even had a classic episode in which you had a race that was on an alien planet that was half white and half black on their faces. And, the only difference between the two races was which half was white and which was black.
And so, when Captain Cook said to the leaders of one of the races, "You folks, they're so similar."
He said, "What do you mean? We're totally different? It depends on which side of the face is white or black."
It was making a mockery of racism in a very clever way. So science fiction at its best takes on issues, sometimes before we're really willing to face it. So that's some of the reasons why I love science fiction.
And science fiction, certainly you see very significant crucibles. Often we're talking about the future of the galaxy, the future of the human race. Can humans survive? Will humans, as they expand across the galaxy, be a force for good or not? Will technology get to the point where it will control humans? That is prevalent throughout a lot in science fiction, including Terminator, which we talked about earlier this summer.
So, that issue of technology, which now we have AI and people are wondering what are the ethics of AI, and will AI get too powerful? So a lot of the issues that we face are covered by science fiction.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And this week, in episode seven of the series, we're looking at a movie... It's kind of like having kids. I wouldn't dare say that this movie is your favorite among the ones we've talked about, because all of them are your favorites. You like them all. But this one, let's say this, and you'll unpack this in a bit. You understand you're truly a student of this universe. And that is the movie that we're talking about. 1996's Star Trek: First Contact.
The second big screen movie to feature the cast of the TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. That's the second TV series that came after the original Star Trek that Warwick was talking about. And here's the summary of the movie. One of my favorite parts of the show. I'm going to miss it when after next week I can't do it again for another several months.
But this is what the Hollywood film industry calls the log line of a film. It's the most concise recitation of what the plot is about. Here's the log line for Star Trek: First Contact. When the cybermetric Borg traveled back in time to 2063 to prevent Earth's first contact with an alien species, Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise must follow them to the past, fighting to save both the timeline and the future of the Federation.
Oh my goodness, there's so much stuff in here. There's time travel. There's bad guys and there's bad space guys. There's lots of good stuff in here. So let me ask you this question as we start off, Warwick. But, before we get into this movie though, you're a big fan of Star Trek as I intimated, and particularly Star Trek: The Next Generation. Talk a little bit about why that is, because I think it'll help people understand why you're going to be able to pluck so many lessons out of this for moving beyond your crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. As we've discussed, I am a big fan of science fiction, but of all the science fiction genres and series that there've been, I've always been a huge fan of Star Trek. That may be one of, if not my most favorite genre of all the different iterations that we have in science fiction.
And Star Trek, the original series, it began with the vision that Gene Roddenberry had and the series ran from 1966 to '69. Kind of fun fact is, pretty much every studio in Hollywood turned it down. But it turned out that Lucille Ball, of I Love Lucy Fame, she had a studio called Desilu Studios after, I guess, her and her husband, Desi Arnaz.
And so, every studio out there turned it down, but Lucille Ball saw something in this. And despite some of her organization saying, "I'm not really seeing it," she kept saying, "Yes, yes, yes. We are going to fund this. We're going to make it."
And so, obviously without Jude Roddenberry's vision, there wouldn't be Star Trek, but without Lucille Ball, we wouldn't have Star Trek, because nobody would provide the funding or produce it. Gene Roddenberry created this world where there was a benevolent organization called the Federation. And their mission was to explore new worlds. As they say in their opening of Star Trek, to bravely go where no one has gone before.
And so, this mission of exploration in this world, there wasn't money, there wasn't poverty. There was a sense of altruism in which people were working together to benefit all of mankind, and indeed other alien races.
Now, yes, there were malevolent cultures that really didn't have the same vision. And in various iterations of Star Trek, we had the Klingon, the Romulans, and especially the Borg, which we'll get into here. So yes, there's conflict, because their mission is to protect the Federation and all of the planets that aligned with them against evildoers that want to destroy their way of life. So yes, even benevolent organizations do have to defend themselves. The Federation obviously does.
For a science fiction fan like me, who loves thinking about future technology, but also a better world, a better society where people are honored, treasured, where excellence is rewarded, where really you can achieve your dreams with work and vision, Star Trek was certainly enticing. And just to give you an idea of what a Star Trek fan I am, other than some animated series, which I've not really watched, but all the live action series, I have pretty much watched every episode of every series dating back to when it first came out in the '60s and then reran in Australia where I'm from in the '70s.
So that means I've watched the original Star Trek, which as we mentioned, went from like 66 to 69. Star Trek: The Next Generation that went from 1987 to 1994. Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy. That's a lot of Star Trek.
And in fact, there were also six films made with the original cast and four with Star Trek: Next Generation. I've seen all of those.
Now, one of the interesting things is that, of all the Star Trek iterations, probably my favorite, I'd say definitely my favorite is Star Trek: Next Generation. And you might wonder why, because they all have the same vision. It's the Federation. It's an altruistic organization. The central meme of all of them is the same. But in Star Trek: Next Generation, you have this Shakespearean trained English actor, Patrick Stewart, playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
Now, Captain Picard is actually meant to be French, although it's played by Patrick Stewart in a very English way. He doesn't even pretend to put on a French accent.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. But you see in earlier episodes of the series that his family have a vineyard somewhere in France and all that. But what I like about Captain Picard is, in some ways, he reminds me of my father because you see in earlier parts of the series that he is an amateur archeologist, extremely well-read in history and philosophy. And he's a very intellectual, very erudite man, but also a man of action. He is very considered, he's loyal, he listens to input from his crew. Most of the time, he's a very rational, caring, thoughtful person.
And as a part of that, sort of intellectual person that he was, he was open to input and open to understanding different perspectives that reminds me of my father was also some intellectual, but loved to learn, and love to dialogue with people who had different political or even theological views than himself.
There's an element of Patrick Stewart and Captain Jean-Luc Picard that reminds me of my father. Obviously, my father wasn't a starship captain or a man of action. He was very much the philosopher type. But that being said, I've always felt some sort of a kinship with Captain Jean-Luc Picard. So all that's to say is, I'm definitely a huge fan of Star Trek, in particular Star Trek Next Generation.
Gary Schneeberger:
I've known since we've worked together, Warwick, that you are a graduate with an MBA of Harvard Business School. I did not know until right now that you also have an MSFA, a Master of Science Fiction Arts from Starfleet Academy. I did not know that till just now.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And in fact, I have that piece of paper in a frame in my office, Starfleet Academy.
Gary Schneeberger:
We'll have to catch a glimpse of that at some other time, but we have a full agenda here, because there's lots of good tips and action steps about overcoming crucibles that we can get to here in Star Trek: First Contact. So let's start out here.
One reason that this film resonates so deeply is that, beneath its action in science fiction and all those things that you talked about, right? It's really a story about people facing crucibles, trauma, loss, fear, obsession, questions about identity. And we'll touch on all of this as we get through the film, but let's start at the beginning, which is a good place to start, right? That's why it's called the start, because you begin there.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare in which he relives the assimilation of the cybernetic Borg six years earlier. What is that nightmare about Warwick, and how does it affect the captain?
Warwick Fairfax:
So as the movie opens, we see Captain Jean-Luc Picard, he's reliving a nightmare in which he was assimilated by the Borg six years earlier. And this is arguably the toughest time of Picard's life, the most searing crucible. So, in the TV series, Star Trek: Next Generation, Picard was captured by the Borg and was made into one of them. Now the Borg are this half human, half machine creature, and the Borg operates as a collective. So that means you lose all individuality.
It's sort of like a hive mind, almost like bees. And you have no self-control. You're almost like this drone in which you're all operating as one unit with one will. And he was renamed Locutis of Borg. And of all the things that could happen to you in science fiction, this is one of, if not the scariest, because not only do you have no individuality, and no control over what you did, in the case of Captain Picard, he was one of the premier Starfleet captains of Starfleet. That means his collective knowledge of the weaknesses and strengths of Starfleet was prodigious. And the Borg used all his intelligence and all his experience to great effect, meaning that Captain Picard ended up killing enormous numbers of humans on behalf of the Borg. I mean, enormous numbers and caused huge damage to the Federation and different planets.
And so, somehow there are a few worse crucibles that you can have, is losing all sense of self and being forced to do despicable things against your will. So somehow you hope others will forgive you. And then somehow you have to forgive yourself. And you could say, "Well, I had no control," but somehow that doesn't hold a whole lot of water. It's like, "Yeah, but I still did it." Surely there was a way I could have broken free, which in the case of the book, there really is not. There's nothing you can do. There's no way out.
So, just emotionally feeling that there's something I could have done. Somehow it is my fault. It was searing. He ended up being rescued by his crew, but without being rescued, he would never have escaped. Despite him being a courageous, very strong person, you can't escape the technology and what they do to you. So it was just a horrific experience that was absolutely traumatic and was searing.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's very interesting that you talked about Picard's collective knowledge of things. And you talked then, right before that, you talked about the Borg as a collective. It's interesting, they have a guy who has a lot of... They want to capture him because he's got a lot of varied information, and they want to absorb him into this place where everybody's sort of got the same kind of information. Is that a sort of a decent assessment of what's going on here?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. We'll see later that the Borg talk about, resistance is futile. You will assimilate your culture, your intelligence into our own, so that we can better achieve perfection. It's this twisted ideology that sounds almost attractive. Who's against striving for perfection? Who's against assimilating other cultures to better our own?
Now, you could do it in an altruistic sense, in the time we live in, of learning a new language, living in a different culture so that you can better improve your own culture and your own way of thinking. That's not wrong, but the way the Borg do it is, it's not voluntary. They compel people, they force people. But they believe what they're doing is right. We're just achieving perfection. And the cost of perfection is, we assimilate you. We make you a higher evolved self than you were before. We're doing you a favor by assimilating. They're this weird ideology that they actually believe in. It's just scary.
Gary Schneeberger:
Well, and that's what makes what happens next in the film scary. Picard is contacted by Starfleet, which informs him of a new Borg threat against Earth. But they don't want him to combat that threat. Starfleet does not.
Warwick, many people who've experienced a crucible struggle with how others view them afterward. What can we learn from Picard's reaction to being sidelined because of his past? Because that's really the reason why Starfleet doesn't want to send him into battle, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So given Picard's history with the Borg and having been assimilated and causing a lot of damage to Starfleet when he was one of them, in a sense, it's understandable why they didn't want to send Picard in. But it must have been very frustrating because Captain Picard is thinking, "I know the Borg better than any human. I know their weaknesses. I know their tactics. I, of all people, should be sent in and my crew of the Enterprise to combat the Borg. And the Borg are heading towards Earth. And Starfleet is sending many ships to fight the Borg. And it must have been so frustrating because the Enterprise is one of the top ships and technology and crew in all the Starfleet. How can you not send your best ship or arguably your best ship and your best crew? But Picard, while he deeply resented it and was frustrated, he did understand it.
Doesn't mean he agreed with it because Starfleet, from his perspective, did not have confidence in Picard's ability to tackle the Borg because he'd been assimilated by them, which he said introduced an unstable element that was not predictable. So he could coldly analyze and say, "I understand why. I don't agree, but I get it." But clearly he disagreed and obviously would feel put down by this, would feel like, okay, they don't have confidence in me. Surely I've proven in the six years since my ability to tackle the Borg and be a top-notch staffly captain, but it was frustrating. So I think the broader point here is sometimes we've gone through crucibles. Others may doubt our ability to face similar challenges again. I've seen what he or she has been through and I don't think they can tackle that again. I think they'd probably knockle under, they'd lose.
So I'm not going to put them in that situation again because I don't think they can hack it. And that may be right or wrong, but if you are that person where somebody in authority says, "I'm not sending you in because I don't think you can take it. I don't think you just cry uncle." You're not going to feel like, "Oh, of course I understand." You'll be thinking like, "No, no, no. I'm beyond that. Put me in, coach. Let
Me get in there. I can take this thing on. I'm not going to buckle." And when they don't listen to you, it's like, well, they don't have confidence in me. They don't trust me. I'm forever defined by my worst day because people don't have confidence in me not to fail again or buckle under again. It's humiliating, frustrating, and it certainly makes you feel put down and less than. It may be understandable, but it doesn't feel understandable to you. You feel like they don't trust me. Am I going to have to live my whole life based on that crucible? Won't anybody ever give me a chance again? To give me a break, give me a chance. That's what Captain Picard is thinking.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Well, and he gets a chance. He kind of seizes a chance because plans change when the Enterprise learns that the fleet, Starfleet, is losing the battle against the Borg. So, what do Picard and his crew then do to change what Starfleet has said they should do?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So Picard finds out that the fleet, they're not doing well, and the Borg is winning. Picard has specific instructions, don't enter the fray, don't enter the battle. But his sense of duty and obligation to fight the Borg is so paramount that, look, I can't let them win. The fleet is losing. They need the Enterprise. And he's thinking, "I know more than anybody how to fight the Borg and their weaknesses." And that proves to be, certainly in some ways, true.
So then being a smart man, a man of honor, he asks the crew whether they're willing to come with him because he's asking the crew to violate orders. That is not a small thing that could affect all of their careers. And the crew is of course united and says, "Let's go. We're with you." Which is very heartwarming. So, Picard enters the fray. He feels like Judy calls him to battle and he heads towards the Borg that are near Earth.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And then the Borg cube launches a smaller spherical ship towards Earth before being destroyed. That leads to a major crucible for the crew with major implications for the future, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So here we have the Borg cube, which is very common. The Borg ships are in this cube shape. Now, Picard, he has extensive knowledge of the Borg and their weaknesses. So he finds a way to destroy the cube. He says, "Okay, target this particular sector of the cube."
And the crew was saying, "But that seems like it's a non-essential, non-critical part of the ship."
Well, somehow Picard, obviously, because of experience, he knows their weaknesses, and it proves to be by firing at that particular spot on the cube, it destroys them and destroys the Borg cube. But as you mentioned, not before this spherical ship leaves the cube and it hurdles towards Earth, but then this spherical ship, it may And it is to create a temporal vortex, which enables time travel. You see, the Enterprise is caught in this vortex wake and it has the ability to follow, but before it enters this temporal vortex, we can see that this Borg spherical ship, it has changed time. It has changed history. And we see that the present Earth is now being assimilated and is all Borg. There are no humans on the planet, only Borg.
And so, Picard realizes what has happened. They've gone to the path to change the future, and they have changed the future. So Picard and the Enterprise followed the Borg through this temporal vortex. And they're now in the past, they end up around Earth of 2063, and their time is the 24th century. And so in 2063, as we're told, this is 10 years after the Third World War where 600 million people died on Earth and major cities were destroyed.
So, we happen to see a colony in the woods of central Montana. And Picard and the Enterprise's mission is clear that they're in the past to stop the Borg changing the future and turning Earth into a Borg colony.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And the crew does a good job at figuring out the Borg plan. What is that plan, and what critical historical figure in the Star Trek universe does it involve?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So, obviously part of the plan is to change the future and ensure that Earth is a Borg colony. But there's another part of that Borg plan, and that is to stop a man by the name of Zefram Cochrane. And he, back in 2063, is about to launch a ship called the Phoenix and achieve warp drive. Now, warp drive in the Star Trek universe is faster than the speed of light travel. So you'll hear in various iterations, you'll say, okay, let's warp seven, warp 9.9, you can't go faster than warp 10. So that means multiples of the speed of light.
So, one of the interesting things in the Star Trek universe, there's a thing called the prime directive, which means that Federation cultures and planets, and certainly Starfleet, should not interfere with civilizations that are of pre-warp technology. So they might have steam engines, they might have cars, radios. It depends on the level of progression of their culture. But if they don't have warp drive, they're not meant to interfere with their culture and they're meant to just let it evolve on its own. That's one of the hallmarks of the Starfleet belief system.
So, in history, when the ship called The Phoenix is launched by Zefram Cochrane and achieves warp drive, a species known as the Vulcans, which it is very logical culture, they're flying by in their spaceship. When they see a ship with warp drive, now it's okay for them to make contact, because now this is a post-warp culture, post-warp civilization.
And so, in history, they do make contact, and that contact with Earth back in 2063 completely changes the trajectory of Earth culture. And so, one of the things that Picard and the Enterprise realize is it is critical that Zefram Cochrane launched this ship called The Phoenix, go and achieve warp drive and make contact with the Vulcans. And it's also pretty clear that the Borg don't want this to happen. They're all about defeating the Federation and really anybody in their path.
Not only do they want to assimilate Earth, they want to make sure the Federation never exists. It's hard to believe the Federation staff would exist without Earth of 2063 making contact with the Vulcans. So it's really twin objectives from the Borg. Assimilate Earth, and making sure that Zefram Cochran's flight that achieves warp travel never happens.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it's common in time travel movies, and we saw it when we did Back to the Future. Marty McFly leaves 1985, goes back to 1955, and his mom is not the same as she was in 1985. So, when you time travel, it's not uncommon to run into people who aren't exactly who your timeline tells you they are. And the Zefram Cochrane that the crew meets is not the hero that they studied in school. Here's a clip from the film that spotlights the differences in who he really is and who they know him as. Let's take a look and listen to that clip now.
VIDEO CLIP:
Only got an hour to go, doc. How you feeling?
I got a four alarm hangover, either from the whiskey or your laser beam, or both. But I'm ready to make history.
Joint Commander Riker.
Riker here.
We're ready to open the launch door.
Go ahead.
Oh, look at that. What, you don't have a moon in the 24th century?
Sure we do. This looks a lot different. There are 50 million people living on the moon in my time. You see Tyco City, New Berlin, even a Lake Armstrong in a day like this. And you know, doctor, Zefram-
Please, don't tell me it's all thanks to me. I've heard enough about the great Zefram Cochrane. I don't know who writes your history books or where you get your information from, but you people got some pretty funny ideas about me. You all look at me as if I'm some kind of saint or visionary or something.
I don't think you're a saint, doc. If you did have a vision. And now we're sitting in it.
You want to know what my vision is? Dollar signs. Money. I didn't build this ship to usher in a new era for humanity. You think I want to go to the stars? I don't even like to fly. I take trains. I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That's Zefram Cochrane. That's his vision. This other guy you keep talking about, this historical figure, I never met him. I can't imagine I ever will.
Someone once said, "Don't try to be a great man, just be a man, and let history make its own judgments."
It's rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?
You did, 10 years from now.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Warwick, what impact does that scene have on Cochrane moving forward? Because it shakes him up a bit, and puts him on a different trajectory.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Well said. It's interesting that sometimes our heroes don't measure up to the image we have of them. If we could go back in time, sometimes we'd say, "Huh, that's not what I read about." Well, maybe it depends when you saw them.
I'm reminded of young Washington and we spoke to one of the screenwriters, Dietrich Hogestratten. And if you went back in time to a young Washington in the 1740s, 1750s, I think one of the things you would see is somebody that had character, but was really not the great man that Washington became. He'd suffered defeats, humiliation. Nobody had a whole lot of confidence in Washington, be it the British army that he was at least attached to, being in the Virginia militia, or indeed his fellow soldiers in the Virginia militia.
But by the end of the movie, he's a different person. He has achieved some success. He has courage. So it depends.
At one point we sort of go back and see and make contact with our heroes. So in the case of Zefram Cochrane, yes, in the future he was considered a hero. There's a big statue of him erected on the spot in Montana where the action takes place when we're on the planet Earth. And one of the crew members on Starfleet Enterprise mentions that his high school was Zefram Cochrane High School.
And so, this all kind of weirds out Cochrane. And in an earlier scene, we see him just run off. He just doesn't want to be any part of this hero worship. And in this clip, we see him talking to William Riker, who's the first officer of the Enterprise. And he says, he's just tired of hearing about the great Zefram Cochrane. He says, "You all think I'm the saint or visionary. You got it all wrong. I mean, it's all about money for me. It's not about humanity. I don't even like to fly. I want to get rich so I can retire on some beautiful island with a whole bunch of women." That's the vision. Okay. That's it.
And, in this last part of the clip, Riker quotes somebody and the quote says this: "Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man and let history make his judgment."
And Cochrane says, "That's rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?"
And Riker says, "You, 10 years from now. It's your words." And so, I think Zefram Cochrane is being a bit harsh with himself. He says, "Look, I'm not a visionary. It's all about money." And while there's truth to that, I bet deep down there is at least a grain of a greater man in there, a grain of somebody that does have this great vision. I mean, achieving warp drive is an amazing thing that will benefit humanity. You can explore other planets in a way that's just not possible with pre-warp power.
So, I have to believe there were some good motives, even if there were just a few. And so, sometimes we undersell ourselves and say, "I'm not that great. It's all about me. There's nothing virtuous, nothing good about me."
And maybe that could be largely true, but maybe there's a grain of humanity, a grain of a desire for life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. Sometimes we undersell ourselves, as we'll see. Sometimes it requires help from others to help us see our true selves, but sometimes we're actually better than we think we are. We're not as bad as we really think we are. So that's one of the interesting elements of looking at Zefram Cochrane here in this clip.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. One of the things about his backstory I thought is interesting in light of what you just said, is that he likes to drink a little. Oh, okay. He likes to drink a lot. And with my background of having been an alcoholic, I learned the lesson that, why do you drink? Well, it's not how much you drink that makes you an alcoholic. It's why you drink.
And one of the reasons that I drank, main reason was to change the way I felt. And I wonder if Zefram Cochrane doesn't have some of that in him too, that this sort of devil may care, drinking too much guy, is trying to make up for something that he feels is missing from him. Maybe that's bad psychoanalysis. I don't know, but it seems like it might fit.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so well said. So we see in early scenes where he's drinking, and he's got his favorite cheer on the jukebox, and sort of this basic kind of nightclub out in the woods in the wilds of Montana. And he might be trying to escape from himself thinking like, "I'm not that great," and this whole thing won't work. We lived in this post apocalypse Earth in which civilization has been largely destroyed. The cities are being destroyed. And there are factions that we hear that are all around the place attacking each other. It's not a particularly fun or pleasant place.
So, he's got to live in a world which is a shred of what it used to be where there could be factions all over the place, and his vision may come to nothing. So there are reasons why he might kind of dislike himself, dislike the world, and wants to drink to escape all of these thoughts about the dangers of the world, the destruction of much of humanity and him feeling like, "I'm just not good enough. What me? I'm a loser. I'll never amount to anything."
So yes, it's understandable in some ways why he takes to drink. It's very sad, but yes, we can guess about some of the motives behind it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. All right. Let's go back into the film. Back on the Enterprise. A group of Borg invade the ship's lower decks, assimilating some of the crew and modifying the ship. So these guys don't just assimilate and modify people. They assimilate and modify things. They're modifying the ship. What did Picard and his crew do next, and what happens to them?
Warwick Fairfax:
So, soon after the Enterprise travels back in time, they're following this Borg spherical ship. And the Enterprise destroys the Borg ship. So you think like, okay, danger over, the Borg have been defeated. We've still got to make sure that Zefram Cochrane takes off in a Phoenix and achieves warp travel, but at least one out of two parts of this mission accomplished.
Well, not so fast. So it seems that somehow the Borg had managed to sneak into the Enterprise and take over part of the crew and part of the ship. And one of the early clues to this is, when one of Picard's senior crew, Warf, tells Picard that the humidity and temperature have risen on the ship. And he quotes him exact numbers. Well, Picard is an expert on the Borg, obviously. And he knows that the humidity and the temperature that have changed on parts of the ship is exactly what the Borg like. That's what they need to flourish in.
So at that point, Picard realizes something is instantly wrong. He happened to be on Earth in the colony in Montana, because he's trying to make contact with Zefram Cochrane. So at that point, he instantly comes back to the Enterprise, and he knows that the Borg is somewhere on the ship.
So the Borg, we learn, have assimilated much of the Enterprise, including up to half the crew. And they've occupied a number of decks, including engineering. Meanwhile, the Borg is assembling a communications array on the outer hull of the ship. So Picard realizes that what they're trying to do is they're trying in the past to communicate with the Borg that then live at the time. And they're trying to summon their fellow Borg to help them conquer Earth.
Now we learned that the Borg are in the Delta Quadrant, which we know from other Star Trek series is, I don't know if it's a hundred light years away, it's a lot of light years away. Basically it would require, I don't know if it's 50, 100 years, generations to come to Earth, but the Borg, they don't really think about time the way we do. So it may take a while for the Borg in the Delta Quadrant to come, but what will happen is humanity will face the Borg hundreds of years earlier than they were ever meant to. And before they could even be remotely prepared to take on the Borg.
So clearly this is an enormous threat. And so we have Picard, Warf, and another crew member, they've done spacesuits and they're on the outer haul of the ship, and they attempt to stop the Borg assembly the communications array and then communicating with their fellow Borg all the way in the Delta quadrant.
So fortunately they do manage to destroy the communications array. And so that's one part of the mission solved. But meanwhile, we see that Commander Data, who's one of the key members of the crew, has been captured by the Borg. And somebody that we see is the Borg queen, somebody who's in charge, in one sense, of this collective. It's a bit strange because the Borg, they don't have any leader because they're a collective, but yet the Borg queen seems to be in charge. That's a bit of a hard to understand.
Gary Schneeberger:
Well, think of Russia in World War II. They were a commune, right? And they had Stalin. So I think that's not unheard of.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Well, we're all equal except when we're not.
Gary Schneeberger:
Exactly. Exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
So one of the interesting things about Data, which we know from Star Trek Next Generation series, is he's an android. He is a machine. Now he's a highly evolved machine. And in most cases, he doesn't have emotion much like Spock in the original series, Star Trek series who is Vulcan and doesn't have emotion. But Data is a machine and Data has always wanted to be human. He's always wanted to understand what it is to have emotion and empathy. And that's in his own way, he's tried to become more human.
So Data is captured by the Borg queen. So the Borg queen, she's trying to get Data to give over the encrypted computer codes of the ship, which will then allow her to have total control. And she does everything to tempt him, seduce him. I mean, she's a very clever enemy. She knows that Data wants to be human. So she kind of finds a way to graft human skin onto part of Data's arm so that he can feel like her breath over the hairs of his skin. It's just a weird thing. She's doing whatever it takes to seduce him, to control him, to get from him these computer codes. She's very evil, but she's very smart. So it's a scary, scary situation that Data finds himself in.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it starts to get scarier for everybody else too, because the Borg assimilate more decks of the Enterprise. As they do so, Warf suggests destroying the ship. And Picard angrily calls him a coward.
Picard is still rendered wobbly by his earlier encounter with the Borg, isn't he? It seems like he's triggered by his previous encounter with the Borg when the stakes for the Borg continue to get higher. And he calls out someone who's been a loyal crew member to him as a coward. Talk about that a little bit.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So here we have the Borg that keep assimilating parts of the ship, including many crew members. And, it seems that there is no way that they can stop the Borg. And so, at this point, the smart play is to abandon the ship, escape in escape pods, and destroy the ship so that the Borg can't get hold of the Enterprise because then they don't have their own ship anymore. The spherical ship has been destroyed. But if they get control of the Enterprise, then they can more easily take control of and conquer Earth. If they destroy the Enterprise, then they'll destroy the Borg. It seemed like that's a logical play, is to destroy the ship.
But Picard, he does not want to be defeated by the Borg. He sees in some sense destroying the ship as admitting defeat. And he remembers how, in a sense, they defeated him six years earlier when they assimilated him.
And so, he starts acting angrily, irrationally, and in a very mean, cruel way that's completely unlike the Captain Picard that we've known and loved throughout the movies and the TV series. And so, when he says that Warf is afraid and calls him a coward, that is a searing thing to say because those who know the original TV series, of The Next Generation, they'll know that Warf is a Klingon. And that is a warrior culture, that prides itself on courage and honor, and sacrificing yourself and your comrades. To be called a coward is the worst possible thing you can call a Klingon.
And so, when Picard calls this elite warrior a coward, it's like saying to a Navy SEAL, or some other elite warrior about times that they're a coward. Now they'll probably just laugh and think you're an idiot. A Klingon is going to kill you for that without even thinking, such is the pride they have in being a warrior.
And so what's really unfortunate to hear is Picard knows how damaging what he's saying is. And in that moment, he doesn't care. So he's thinking, "What's the most hurtful thing I can possibly say to my friend?" And he picks a good one. It was a very hurtful thing to say.
And Warf says he will kill any other man for saying this, but such is Warf's loyalty, and frankly love, of Captain Picard, that he doesn't do what he would do to any other living being. He would kill him on the spot, but not Captain Picard.
All that's to say is Picard is not acting rationally. All his senior crew know that the right decision is to destroy the ship and stop the board getting control of it. But in his rage, Picard cannot see straight. He cannot think straight. He's acting completely irrationally against the interest of his crew and against the interest of the very mission that he's there for, which is to destroy the Borg. He's acting irrationally in every possible way.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And he's also, in a very real sense, he's crossing a line from courage to obsession. And that's an interesting point to sort of broaden out to our listeners and viewers. How can people recognize when determination has become something destructive? What are the warning signs that our crucible as starting to control us instead of strengthening us? What finally snaps Picard back out of it when he finds himself in this situation?
Warwick Fairfax:
Picard is obsessed with not letting the Borg win. He can't stomach the thought of the bog getting control of his ship. And he somehow sees destroying the ship as letting the Borg win, which it's really not. Destroying the ship means the bog lose because they get destroyed, but he can't think straight. And so he just doesn't see it.
And so, his way of thinking makes no sense, but it's all fueled by rage and anger. I think what that says more broadly is, when we're filled with rage and anger. There is pretty much zero chance that we're going to make good and rational decisions. And we're also very likely to hurt those that we love and those that we work with, friends and family, everybody.
And so, we see Picard, he goes to his office just on the side of the bridge called his ready room. And someone from the colony, Lily, who happens to be on the Enterprise at this point, she enters Picard's ready room and she takes Picard on.
I mean, everybody else is just like, when Jean-Luc Picard is like this, there's no talking to him. They just realize, he's our boss, he's the captain. He's spoken. It is what it is. But not Lily.
So Lily says that everyone is saying to you that fighting the Borg is suicide. And Picard tells her of his assimilation six years ago, and says that he knows how to fight the Borg. And Lily says, "I get it. The Borg hurt you and you're going to hurt them back, almost like a kid. That guy hurt me. I'm going to hurt him back." Just this almost childish reaction that she's really calling him out on.
And Picard says in his century, they are beyond revenge. And Lily calls him on this and says, "I mean, that's rubbish." She says in effect, it's about revenge. She doesn't buy it for a second. She doesn't know Picard, but she knows somebody that's just not being honest with themselves.
And so, then she really uses an image, which she has no way of knowing is brilliant with Picard because he's a very well-read person. And she says that Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale. And Picard knows exactly what she means. This is all from the book Moby Dick. And he says, "It's not about revenge," which is of course what Captain Ahab is all about, "It's about saving the future of humanity."
And Lily yells at him and says, "Liar." She calls him out on it in the strongest possible way. You are lying to yourself, basically. And Lily tells him to blow up the ship.
This really gets to Picard and he just smashes the glass panel near him where he's got all the models of model ships. And he says, "We've made too many compromises. Not again, the line must be drawn here." He'll make them pay for what they've done.
And Lily begins to leave and says, "See you around, Ahab. Again, a very neatly timed barb, calling him Captain Ahab. And Picard begins to recite lines from Moby Dick, realizing that what Lily says is very true. And so he says that Ahab spent years hunting the white whale that crippled him, but in the end, it destroyed him and his ship. Lily said that Ahab did not know when to quit.
The message has got to Picard. He understands the image. And so Picard then goes to the bridge, and he says to his senior crew that they'll evacuate the Enterprise, and they're going to start the 15-minute order destruct sequence for the ship. And then Picard goes to Warf and apologizes, and says that Warf is the bravest man he's ever known. Clearly Picard deeply regrets what he said to Warf. And because Warf has a deep admiration, and indeed love, for Picard, he accepts the apology. Not an easy thing for Klingon to do when you've been called a cow. That's not something you kind of move on from, pretty much ever, but such is the depth of their relationship.
So I think what this shows is sometimes we can act irrationally, because we are triggered by a painful memory of a past crucible. And in those circumstances, it is not easy to think clearly and to think rationally.
And it's certainly not easy to make good decisions. Sometimes in the midst of being triggered by a past crucible, it may be impossible to make a good decision. And, you might think, "I'm a resilient, evolved human. I can pull myself out." Sometimes you may not be able to. And in the case of Picard, he's one of the strongest, most rational leaders you could ever meet. And even Captain Picard in that instance, he can't see it. If Captain Picard can't see it, I mean, that's something to think about.
So this is where a team of fellow travelers is so critical. Having an advisor, like Lily in this sense, will speak truth to power is so important. And Picard hardly knows Lily and they've just met in a sense. But she ends up being the one who goes to the mat to try to save Picard and the crew, in a sense.
And so, it's ironically not one of his longtime friends, but she goes at it. She calls him out on his lies to himself and he says, "Oh, we're beyond revenge." And she just says, "Liar." She knows exactly what it's about. It's about revenge and uses this very neat story of Captain Ahab.
So what this says is, when you go through your darkest times and you're triggered by a crucible, that is where having fellow travelers is so critical. And having a fellow traveler like Lily, who was really only just his fellow traveler, hadn't been there for very long at all, is just so critical.
Gary Schneeberger:
We talk a lot, we have talked a lot in more than 300 episodes of this show, about the importance of fellow travelers. But something else that you hit on here as you were describing what happened, is something else we talk about. I mean, there's power in fellow travelers, yes, but there's also power in apology. Fellow travelers speak truth to power, but the power sometimes needs to speak apology to those who they lead, who they may have judged wrongly. That's a big part of this as well. And it's a big part of how you move beyond a crucible sometimes, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a good point. Sometimes when we're triggered by a crucible, or maybe in the throes of a crucible itself, we can say very hurtful and damaging things to those we love, those we know, and those we work with, very often, when we're at our lowest point and feel hurt the most, our prime target for our anger is those we love. Makes no sense, but such is human psychology, unfortunately.
And so, when that happens, because it's more when than if, and we say things that are hurtful and devastating to those we love and know and work with, because we're in the midst of a crucible or being triggered by something that happened in the past, We need to go to those people and say, "What I said was uncalled-for. I should never have said that to you. I was wrong. I was so hurt. No excuse. Please forgive me."
That's what you do, because it's inevitable over the course of our lives that we'll say hurtful things to those we know and love. And it's nice to try and avoid it happening, and we should do whatever we can to stop it from happening. But when it does happen, because it's when, not if, we've got to clean up after ourselves. We've got to apologize and hope and pray that that person will forgive us. If they don't, well, that makes it tough, but we're not responsible for their actions, but we are responsible for ours, which is to apologize.
Gary Schneeberger:
Good bonus content here at Beyond the Crucible. All right, so let's get back to the movie. As Cochrane, Riker, and engineer Geordi La Forge prepared to activate the warp drive on The Phoenix, Picard discovers the plan the Borg queen has set into motion. And Data doesn't let that crucible get the better of him, does he?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So Picard, as we've mentioned, he's ordered the evacuation of the Enterprise, they're escaping their escape pods, and he's initiated the self-destruct sequence for the ship.
But he learns that Data has been captured by the Borg and in particular the Borg Queen. And Picard tells Lily, as she and the others are about to escape from the ship, that one of the crew members, Data, has been captured, and he wants to save Data. And Picard said that years earlier, six years earlier, that his crew risked everything to save him. And now, Picard is willing to risk his life to save his friend and fellow crew member Data. It's a very noble thing to do. The ship is being evacuated. The order destruct sequence is on, but Picard wants to find a way, before the ship blows up, of saving his friend Data. It's a very noble and self-sacrificial act that Picard is willing to take.
So meanwhile, Cochrane, Riker, and La Forge, they're about to activate the warp drive on the Phoenix. They're out in space. They've left the Earth atmosphere.
But the Borg queen, of course, she wants to stop this and destroy the Phoenix, because she does not want the Phoenix to achieve warp drive and then to make first contact with the Vulcans, which will of course change history for the better for the Earth, which of course is not good for the Borg, because they want to subjugate the people of the Earth and every other civilization they can get their hands on.
So, Picard confronts the Borg queen in his efforts to save Data. And he does an incredibly noble thing. He asks the Borg queen to let Data go in return for him freely offering himself to the Borg. Now remember, that trauma he went through six years earlier, it's Picard's worst nightmare. He's saying, the agony and the trauma that I went through, I will need to go through it again. It's one thing not to know what's going to happen. It's another to know exactly how much pain, and how terrible it's going to be. And you do it anyway to save the life of your friend. That is about as noble as he can possibly be.
And his Borg name is Locutis. Locutis the Borg. And he knows there's something about the Borg queen in which he has so many special gifts and knowledge that it's the Borg queen's advantage for him to willingly offer himself rather than just him being forcibly becoming a Borg. So, he says that you can have Locutis, and Locutis will be with you. Picard will be with you.
And the Borg queen says in this malevolent tone, "Welcome home, Locutis." It's this evil, evil tone. But it appears that Data is now with the Borg, and has given the Borg the encryption code. It appears that Data is now with the Borg and has given the encryption code to the computer, to the Borg queen, which means that the Borg will now be able to control the ship and do whatever they want to with the ship and the civilization of Earth.
So Data then sends quantum torpedoes to destroy the Phoenix, which is what obviously the Borg wants. And the Borg queen, because they don't want the Phoenix to achieve warp drive and get in contact with the Vulcans. But it turns out that those torpedoes, they miss the mark. And the Borg queen yells at Data because Data's an Android, doesn't make mistakes. Clearly it's on purpose. And so, Data says in a sort of a deadpan, low-key voice, resistance is futile, which is what the Borg always say to their victims as they're about to assimilate them.
And so, Data then shatters a pipe that has plasma in it. And Data knows that plasma will destroy all flesh. Remember the Borg, they're part human and part machine, but they need flesh. They need the human part to function. And so, Data knows it will destroy all the Borg, including the Borg queen.
Now, Picard understands what's happening. So he climbs up the conduit to try to get above where the plasma is, instead of this green gaseous substance that's all over engineering, where they're at. And the Borg queen is trying to save herself by grabbing at the feet of Picard. But Data pulls the Borg queen down, and she is killed along with the other Borg. The plasma is then vented, and Data then admits to Picard that he was tempted for a time by the Borg queen's offer of being with the Borg and being part of their collective.
And Picard asks, "Well, how long were you tempted?"
And Data says, "0.68 seconds." Doesn't seem like much, but Data says, "For an android, that's an eternity." So he might say to himself, "Man, I was tempered for 0.68 seconds." Maybe for us that might mean months. I don't know. But yeah, so Data will have to try and find a way to forgive himself for being tempted for such a long period of time, 0.68 seconds. So there we go.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's a lifetime. My goodness. So the Borg's now neutralized. And with the Borg neutralized, all that's up in the air, literally, is whether Cochrane completes his warp flight. How does that turn out?
Warwick Fairfax:
So back on the Phoenix, we know that those quantum torpedoes have missed their mark. So Cochrane initiates warp drive, and he's indeed detected by the Vulcan ship that happened to be passing nearby. And so the ship, having seen that this population of Earth has achieved warp drive technology, they then make first contact, hence the name of the movie. And the Vulcan ship lands at this colony in Montana, and they come out of their ship and they greet Cochrane.
And of course, the Vulcans say what they always do, "Live long and prosper." That's what Spock says in the original Star Trek series. That's just the natural greeting to each other. Live long and prosper, which yeah, not a bad greeting. And so, the Borg have now been destroyed. Cochrane and the Phoenix have achieved warp drive, and first contact with the Vulcans has happened. History is being preserved, and the future will be as it should be.
So the movie ends with the Enterprise then heading back to the 24th century, using the temporal vortex.
Gary Schneeberger:
And that lands the plane on the plot of Star Trek First Contact, but there's still a question to ask you. And that's the one that we always ask at the end of these summer series episodes, and that's this. How do the crucibles that the characters in this film go through, the folks in Star Trek First Contact, how do their crucibles and what they do to overcome them, move beyond them? How can they help us move beyond our own crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. One of the biggest lessons we learned in this movie, Star Trek: First Contact, is from Captain Jean-Luc Picard. We can see even a man as sane and balanced and caring and empathetic, and as great a leader as he is, can be affected by past trauma and crucibles. And, he was about to continue to fight the Borg on his ship when the rational, sane choice for the crew, for himself, for the future of humanity. I mean, this is not a small decision, would be to blow up the ship, and have everybody evacuate and initiate the self-destruct sequence.
But Picard was so filled with rage with what they did to him by assimilating him six years earlier and robbing him of his individuality and forcing him to kill enormous numbers of people and living beings, just throughout the galaxy, that he could not get over that. He could not obviously forgive them. And so, it just was not possible for him to think straight.
So I think what this shows, it's possible for past trauma and crucibles to affect us in the present, and stop us from making sane, rational decisions. It's easy to say, "I'm in this evolved being and I've gotten past my crucibles and I'm good." Well, with Captain Picard, as sane a leader as you ever come across, can be affected by past crucibles, it means all of us can. None of us should say, we're so evolved. We're so progressed in our psyche and self-knowledge that yes, we're bulletproof. Given a certain set of circumstances, any of us, I think, can face a situation where we're triggered by a past crucible, and it makes it hard, if not impossible, to make sane, rational decisions.
And so yes, maybe sometimes we can sap out of it by ourselves, but sometimes we can't. And that's where having fellow travelers, or an advisor like Lily, is so critical. I mean, she was willing to speak truth to power and go to the mat. And she hardly knew the guy. It's just amazing. And sometimes when somebody speaks truth to us, we did not want to hear it.
And a true advisor, a true fellow traveler, is willing to risk the relationship for the sake of getting through to us, because they care so deeply. So in that sense, that is the ultimate fellow traveler.
I think of really an example that we've talked about earlier, in Louis Howe, who was the key advisor to Franklin Roosevelt. As we described in that recent podcast, in 1921, Franklin Roosevelt got polio. He was paralyzed from the waist down. And in that time, if you got polio, it was considered a political death sentence. You were meant to stay home. And that was just the culture at the time, hard to understand. But in the world of the '20s and '30s, if not beyond, that was the culture.
Well, Louis Howe was Roosevelt's political advisor, helped in campaigns in the early '20s and 1920 presidential campaign, when Roosevelt was a Democratic candidate for vice president. And he wouldn't let Roosevelt give up. He just encouraged his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin, just not to give up. We can get you back in the political limelight. Your career's not over.
It's unclear exactly how much Roosevelt pushed back. It's clear that Louis Howe was willing to do whatever it took to help Franklin Roosevelt not give up and achieve Franklin Roosevelt's dreams, which led to, of course, him being president and also being president during World War II. So, such is the value of an advisor.
So, we also see other characters in their growth. Zefram Cochrane, he was a cynical, hard-drinking guy who claimed his vision for this warp-capable ship was purely for money so he could live a good life. It seemed like there were not too many redeeming qualities with Zefram Cochran, but in reality, there was some altruism in his vision. He just wasn't willing to admit it.
And there again, we see a fellow traveler. We see William Riker, the first officer of the Enterprise. And he quotes a future Cochrane, 10 years from then, saying that we should not try to be a great man or a great person, just a man, a human being, and let history make his judgment. He basically called out to the better angels and Zefram Cochran, and Cochrane would grow into being a better version of himself and less cynical. We see a number of examples of people willing to give their lives for their fellow crew members, their fellow humans. And they were all about living lives of significance.
Self-sacrifice is a common theme in this movie. The crew of the Enterprise is willing to go back in time to save the Earth from being a Borg colony, that they were willing to do whatever it took to stop the Borg winning.
Picard is willing to sacrifice his own life and freedom for Data. That is no small sacrifice, to be captured by the Borg again and forced to do what they want him to do, and potentially hurt other people. He's willing to do whatever it took to save his friend Data. So, one of the themes in this movie is, to move beyond our worst out crucible. We need friends, we need help from fellow travelers. There's no question that Captain Jean-Luc Picard needed help from Lily, a fellow traveler he'd only just met. We can see that Zefram Cochrane needed help from William Riker.
We need fellow travelers who are willing to help us. In a sense, Picard was also fellow traveler to Data. He was willing to do whatever it took to help Data be freed from the Borg and the Borg queen.
So, sometimes we might be where Captain Picard was and this sort of doom loop of anger and self-incrimination. And we might feel like there's no escape. And maybe we've tried everything we could, but maybe we need help. And that's where having friends and fellow travelers is absolutely critical.
Another lesson from this movie is sometimes we can spend our lives endlessly ruminating about the past, being angry at ourselves, angry at others. I can't believe I did that, like Picard. I can't believe that I hurt so many people and let the Borg capture my intelligence and my knowledge. It wasn't his fault, but it doesn't stop ourselves from endlessly beating ourselves up, or being angry at the things that we did have control over and the way we hurt other people.
We need to forgive ourselves. We need to give others. Yes, that doesn't mean condoning, but we have to move on. If we don't move on, how are we going to continue with the vision that's going to uplift ourself and others? We won't be able to, because we're in this endless doom loop of self-recrimination and self-loathing. That helps nobody. It doesn't help our friends, our family. It helps nobody. So we've got to find a way to forgive ourselves and move on, so that we can lead a life of significance, a life on purpose, dedicated to serving others.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, take a look. The house lights are coming up. The house lights are coming up. That ends the feature, as it were, on this episode of Back to a Better Future: the Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. This was week seven, folks. We've got one week left.
And I'm going to call on you, Scott, because this is going to be the last time that you'll have a chance to do what I'm about to ask you to do for, if my math is right, probably 50 weeks, right? 52 weeks in a year. And we do this for... No, wait, we do this for eight weeks. My goodness. It's going to take you like 40-some weeks. I can't do the math on the fly here. It's going to be a while, Scott. So here's what I need. I need a drum roll right now so we can talk about the last episode.
Excellent. We will be back next week, folks, with our eighth and final episode of our summer movie series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. And that is on the movie. I know the drum roll's probably still going. This is good. I'm dragging the moment out. The movie is The Martian, another sort of space flight film.
So, as you leave the theater, please take your popcorn boxes and your sodas with you, and we will see you next week. We'll save you an aisle seat.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement.
As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper, or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance.
Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
A farm boy, a princess, a smuggler, a druid, and a robot walk into a crucible. What happens next changed cinema forever.
In this episode, we dive into Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as part of the sixth and final installment of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. We unpack the crucibles faced by some of the most iconic characters in film history — Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia, and Han Solo — and examine the tragedies unleashed by Darth Vader. Each character’s journey offers a distinct and powerful lesson about what it takes to turn setbacks into significance, and what happens when we choose the dark side instead.
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. We also see Luke and he's grumbling a lot about his life. He just doesn't want to be on this planet. He wants to get off this rock. So we don't know much about Luke other than he's also not a happy camper and somehow just feels like, I don't know where my life is headed, but I sure don't want to be in this desolate, desert-ridden place.
Gary Schneeberger:
Those names, C-3PO and Luke, are familiar to anyone who's watched the Star Wars films, but maybe not from the vantage point we discussed them here. This week in the sixth episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema, we unpack the crucibles not only these two characters face in the film that kicked off the saga, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. We also look at the trials Obi-Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia and Han Solo must move beyond and the tragedies Darth Vader dishes out. How can understanding the lessons of the crucibles they overcome or caused help you turn your setbacks into significance? Stay tuned.
Welcome, friends, to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. You have joined us in the midst of our summer series, which we do every summer. And if you have not heard or seen the first several episodes, this is the sixth episode, if you haven't seen the first five, we encourage you to go to beyondthecrucible.com and look them up because there's some pretty robust conversations here. That is because we're once again focusing on the world of film. We had so much fun for the three years that we've done films. We're doing it for a fourth time this year. And after doing movies spotlighting heroes, that's sports heroes, that's historical heroes, military heroes, then we did movies that made the American Film Institute's top 100 films, so really classic films. And then last year we did just a roundup of films that really had a lot of crucibles in them.
And in each one of those series, we've just had a great time and we've brought, I hope, I pray, I think that we brought some great insights on how to manage your crucibles and move beyond them. So that's why we're doing it again this year. And this year we've decided, we've landed on something that's near and dear to the heart of our host, Warwick Fairfax, and that is science fiction films. Here's what our series is about this year. It's called Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. So, Warwick, before we get going, I'm going to ask you what I ask you every episode of this series. Why are we back in the theater talking about movies again? This is the fourth time, as I said, we've done this. And what are you hoping our listeners and viewers will take away from our discussions in this series?
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, Gary, we both love movies and we really enjoy looking at movies from a Beyond the Crucible perspective. Watching a movie for fun is different than when you're watching it from Beyond the Crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Indeed.
Warwick Fairfax:
So you're looking at what are the challenges and typically a movie portraying a protagonist that's facing significant challenges that they seek to overcome. And as you've mentioned, we've done superheroes, sports heroes, historical heroes. And as you say, we've done American Film Institute's top 100 movies last year, focus on films with significant crucibles. But yeah, it's just something that's a lot of fun to look at a movie and deconstruct it, if you will, saying, "What are the key learnings that we can have? How do the protagonist either grow in their wisdom and courage?" Or sometimes it happens, the reverse is true rather than not being defined by their worst day. They are defined by their worst day and they get an erosion of their soul and character. So movies are a lot of fun in that sense and are very helpful to us as we all learn to try to figure out how do we overcome our crucibles and live lives of significance.
Gary Schneeberger:
And you are particularly excited about the genre of film that we're talking about in this series because you are a big science fiction film fan. Science fiction everything fan, I think is fair to say. So why do you love science fiction so much? And what about science fiction films in particular make them ripe for us discussing crucibles and how we move beyond them?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I've loved science fiction since I was very young, both in movies and TV shows. And I think of that iconic movie, 2001: The Space Odyssey. It came out in 1968 and you saw future technology such as iPad-like things on the back of seats that are in front of you, which obviously didn't exist in 1968. You had talking computers that were sentient and actually caused a lot of crucibles for the folks in 2001: The Space Odyssey. You even had video conferencing.
And what 2001: Space Odyssey did so well is they put brands on them. So if you were making a video call from the Space Station back to Earth, it was a Bell Telephone, which was the former AT&T. I was also a fan of pretty much every science fiction show, including the original Star Trek, the day from 1966 to '69. And truth be told, I think I've watched pretty much every Star Trek series since. My favorite one, which we might talk about one of these days or something related to it is Star Trek: Next Generation. But I also was a big fan of great science fiction novels written by some of the classic authors, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov.
And what I love about science fiction and still do, it's not just about the future technology, which is amazing, but at its best, it explores deep societal issues that affect the human race. How will humans interact with other forms of life and technology? And it's very relevant as looking at technology as we look at AI. And a lot of folks are thinking about is AI safe? What role does that have in the future of humans? And that's something definitely is explored in science fiction. So in science fiction, we see that very significant crucibles are portrayed. Can the human race survive? Will the expansion of the human race across the galaxy be beneficial or not? And will technology get to the point where it will actually control humans? A lot of very deep issues.
Gary Schneeberger:
And here, folks, in episode six, we're looking at the 1977 film that when Warwick and I first saw it was simply called Star Wars. That was before there were several sequels and prequels made. And now it is called Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. And what's interesting about this movie, it was not only the top grossing film in 1977, the year it came out. And let's put a pin in that for a second and say the last four movies that we've talked about in this series were all the number one films in their year. Right?
This one, and we back up, it was Jurassic Park. Then we back up one more. It was Terminator 2: Judgment... It was, sorry, Back to the Future and then Terminator 2: Judgment Day. So the last four movies that we've talked about were the number one film of the year that they were released. But here's another fact about Star Wars that's really, really interesting. And that is, it is the number two motion picture in terms of total box office adjusted for inflation in movie history. Two.
I'm going to read the number so I get it right. It is made, adjusted for inflation, 1 billion, 629 million. I'm not used to these big numbers. $496,559. That's how much the first Star Wars, just the first one has made adjusted for inflation. And I told you this earlier when we were preparing, Warwick, but there's only one movie ahead of it, folks. I'm going to ask you to figure what movie could be ahead of Star Wars, all time box office adjusted for inflation. Think about that for five, four, three, two, one. It was Gone With the Wind is number one at something more than 1 billion, 600 million dollars. So pretty fascinating trivia here.
Here's another bit of fascinating. This is my second favorite part of the series. My first favorite part might be Warwick getting to say protagonist, which is just that sweet, catchy Australian accent that he has just a touch-up still, but it's the log line of the film. Here's the summary. The film industry calls this the log line. It's a short, compact version of what the film is about. And this is a good one.
A young farm boy joins forces with rebels, a mercenary and a wizard to rescue a princess and destroy an evil Empire's planet-killing space station, unlocking his destiny as a Jedi Knight. That's tight. That is a very tight summary of Star Wars. But the even more famous summary of Star Wars, Warwick, really is the first thing audiences see as the iconic opening text scrolls across the screen. The openings really become a character almost itself in the Star Wars cinematic universe. What does it say as those words scroll across and up the screen? And how does it frame the action and intrigue that we're in store for?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I think back to when we saw this movie at the theaters in 1977, and the first thing you see is space with stars and these giant letters kind of roll towards you as the iconic John Williams score plays. I mean, it was quite an epic beginning to the movie. And as we hear this music, these are the lines, the words that we see scrolling towards us. It says, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." And then it continues with the story of how that there's a civil war between the Rebel Alliance and the evil Galactic Empire.
Rebel spies have stolen the secret plans of the empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, which sounds pretty ominous. And that Death Star has enough power to destroy an entire planet. Princess Leia races home with the stolen plans that can save their people and restore freedom to the galaxy while pursued by the Empire's sinister agents. Now what's interesting here is George Lucas that created Star Wars, the whole Star Wars motif harkens back to the serials that were movie theaters in the early '30s and '40s.
You go to the Saturday movie and before the main feature would play, you'd have this half hour serial. So it could be Flash Gordon, Batman, Superman. I mean, there's all sorts of heroic adventures. And it would take maybe several weeks to see the full story. Come back next week's at the part two and Flash Gordon. Will he escape from the evil Emperor Ming? I think that's who he was from what I can remember. So it definitely starts off with that kind of mindset.
And from the beginning of the movie, we are confronted with the central crucible challenge that we'll see play out. Will the Rebel Alliance be able to stop the Death Star, which threatens to destroy the Rebel Alliance and any prospect of freedom in the galaxy? Or will the evil Empire prevail? Who will win, the forces of good or the forces of evil?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. It's interesting when you mentioned that opening crawl, right? A galaxy far, far away. Here's some inside trivia that you don't know, folks, about the title of this series, which is Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. One of the ideas we kicked around in the beginning was a crucible far, far away. And it just didn't quite measure up to Back to a Better Future. But that was one of the things in considerations.
Warwick Fairfax:
So what's interesting is two of the movies that we're covering in the summer series, one is Star Wars, the original 1977 version, and a movie that we have already covered is Back to the Future. So in that sense, Back to the Future won out over Star Wars.
Gary Schneeberger:
And hopefully, you listen to that episode on Back to the Future, because it was indeed an interesting conversation. All right. So after the crawl happens on the screen, the film does quick introductions. Lucas does a great job as director and producer and writer of this film. It does quick introductions of some of the main characters to get us going on our journey. Who do we meet in these first few scenes and how does their introduction set up the plot for Star Wars?
Warwick Fairfax:
So after the opening words that we see, we see that Princess Leia's ship is captured by this large Empire ship. And for those of us who saw that movie for the first time, when you see this massive ship that looks like some huge battleship flying through space, the technology at the time was like, "Wow." I mean, you were just floored. It's like when we were looking at Jurassic Park and for the first time you saw these dinosaurs roaming around. Also, to John Williams' music, it was that kind of a moment.
And so Princess Leia Ship, it's captured by this large Empire ship. Leia gives a droid, in other words, a robot, R2-D2, the secret plans for the Death Star. And then we meet Darth Vader of the Empire soon after. Leia is captured and Darth Vader wants the stolen plans from her. And he knows that she's part of the Rebel Alliance. So meanwhile, R2-D2, who now has the secret plans and another droid, C-3PO, they flee in an escape pod to a planet below. And so we see the unfolding of a central theme in the movie. Leia wants to get the stolen plans for the Death Star back to the Rebel Alliance.
Meanwhile, Darth Vader and the Empire will stop at nothing to get those stolen plans back. You'll see that through most of the movie. They really don't think it's going to play that much difference if the Rebel Alliance gets hold of these plans because they feel that the Death Star is impregnable. But that being said, they don't want to leave anything to chance. So they're desperate to get these stolen plans back.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And then next we see R2-D2 and C-3PO. Pin in that for a second, folks. I'm confessing to you here on the podcast that when I was 12 years old when this movie first came out, and I talked about it with my friends in school, I referred to C-3PO as C-3 Po. And people, all my classmates made fun of me. And I might have a little bit of that still stuck to me, but we see R2-D2 and C-3PO. I got it right now, old former classmates. I got it right now.
They've landed on a desolate desert planet, Tatooine. And as they make their way to where they really don't know where they're going, they're just making their way around the planet, C-3PO says something that sums up not just what the droids are going through, but how it feels for all of us when we're living under the weight of a crucible. This is one of those moments that Warwick talked about at the start where you watch it for fun, you watch it in the theater, you're just having a good time, not for Beyond the Crucible purposes, you don't notice this kind of stuff, but what C-3PO says in this scene really sums up what it feels like to be hit by a crucible, doesn't it, Warwick? And what does he say?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it does indeed. So we've got this escape pod with R2-D2 and C-3PO, and it hurdles towards this desert planet. And when it lands on this planet, I mean, it's just desert sand dunes for miles and miles. And so here's C-3PO and R2-D2 trudging through the desert. And there's an interesting interplay that will play out throughout much of the movie. C-3PO, it constantly grumbles. He's like, "Why are we here?" And he's just really a wet blanket. And while we can hear what he says with R2-D2, it just really communicates through electronic swaths. So we don't know what he's saying.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
But what happens is throughout the movies, C-3PO is, amongst other things, a translation droid, explains to us what he's saying. R2-D2 is on a mission to get the stolen battle plans back to the Rebel Alliance. And he will stop at nothing to accomplish his mission. On the other hand, C-3PO seems to blame everything that goes wrong on R2-D2. And at one point he's so disgusted with R2-D2, he blames him for everything that possibly could go wrong in life. He just goes in a separate direction. And so then C-3PO says these immortal words, "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot at life. What a desolate place this is."
So imagine that you have a fellow traveler and they act like C-3PO. It just gets to be annoying like sand on the gears. It's like anything you could possibly whine or complain about, C-3PO will. The glass is always half empty. The world's going to end. It's a gloomy day, even if there's not a cloud in the sky, and he's always going to complain. But despite the fact that R2-D2 certainly does not have an ideal fellow traveler, R2-D2 is loyal to the mission and he will not give up.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it's the glass that was half full is going to become less full because next, the pair are captured by the Jawa hunters. We aren't sure immediately what these creatures are going to be doing with the droids. But once again, C-3PO is not feeling that this crucible, as we say, is happening for him, not to him. He is really still living in the fact that it's happening to him. What does he say? And how is it something that's all too familiar again to us earthlings when we go through crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. For C-3PO, everything in life is happening to them. Every event that occurs around you is always for ill, is always going to harm you. That's just the way he looks at life. It's a pretty gloomy droid. And so yeah, here we have these small creatures, the Jawa hunters, and they've captured R2-D2 and C-3PO and they're inside this large transport with a whole bunch of other droids and what looks like a junkyard setting. And so C-3PO in classic fashion says, "Will this never end? There is no sign for hope. There is no sign for optimism. In the world of C-3PO, you're always defined by your worst day. And tomorrow can always be worse than today." That's just his negative view of life.
Gary Schneeberger:
So folks, think about it right now. B and R2-D2, not a C-3PO as you go through life and you encounter crucibles. That is learning number one, I think, from our discussion of Star Wars. The scene then shifts, Warwick. We meet the hero of the piece, the young man certainly with the greatest story arc in the film. And that's Luke Skywalker, whose uncle buys the droids to help him around the farm. He buys them from the Jawa hunters. Turns out they were just trying to make some money off the droids. Luke seems to be suffering from something else we talk about at Beyond the Crucible quite a bit. And that is this, is this all there is feeling about his life? How does that show up, Warwick, in what he says and does as we get to know him in the scenes that follow?
Warwick Fairfax:
So at first, Luke's uncle, he wants to buy C-3PO and some other droid that you see sparks going on and just starts failing. And so only then does C-3PO mention R2-D2. And of course, C-3PO grumbles about having to help R2-D2. Now notice when C-3PO is bought by Luke's uncle, he doesn't say, "Well, wait, hang on. You want an R2 unit? You absolutely need R2-D2." He only mentions that after this first R2 fails. So it's not like C-3PO is fine this moment. He's happy, at least, in the first instance, to abandon his comrade until, "Okay, fine, I guess maybe I need to help him since this other R2 unit's not working."
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Now we also see Luke, and he's grumbling a lot about his life. And he just doesn't want to be on this planet. He wants to get off this rock. So we don't know much about Luke other than he's also not a happy camper and somehow just feels like, I don't know where my life is headed, but I sure don't want to be in this desolate, desert-ridden place. Not a whole lot of reason for hope. "What kind of life am I going to have in this rock?" As he puts it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. While doing some cleanup though on R2-D2, Luke finds something that will lead him to the adventuresome life he craves. What does he find and what happens next?
Warwick Fairfax:
So while cleaning R2-D2, Luke triggers a video message from Leia. And Leia says this, "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope." And the message just plays back again and again. And so at first, Luke's not really quite sure what this is. And then R2-D2, always through C-3PO as his interpreter, says that he, R2-D2, is the private property of Obi-Wan. And that this message, the full message is a private message for him. Now Luke thinks, "I wonder if he's referring to old Ben Kenobi."
So Luke is having dinner with his aunt and uncle, and Luke asks about Obi-Wan. And his uncle says that Obi-Wan died at the same time as Luke's father, as if a long time ago. And his uncle wants Luke to focus on preparing new droids for tomorrow and to focus on working at the farm. Now, Luke says he wants to transmit his application for the academy this year and not work another year for his uncle with the harvest and the farm. And his uncle says, "Look, Luke, I need you for one more season. So forget the academy. I need you here."
Luke is disappointed and he leaves. And after he leaves, his aunt says to his uncle that Luke is not a farmer and that he's too much of his father in him. And then his uncle says these very interesting words, he says, "Well, that's what he's afraid of, that Luke is too much of his father." The scene ends as we see Luke staring out in the night sky as he reflects and looks out on the twin sons of this planet.
And clearly Luke is frustrated. He doesn't want to be there on that rock. His uncle just wants him to stay and walk on the farm. His aunt says, "Look, Luke's not a farmer, but it just feels like Luke is trapped in this life." It does seem, as we've said, a bit of a life of quiet desperation, but maybe his uncle will let him out in a year's time. Maybe next year will never come. Who knows? But it seems like for the time being, Luke's going nowhere and he's stuck in a life that he really doesn't want to live, but what alternative is there?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. So you mentioned he was looking out at the twin sons. He falls asleep. Ah, but when he wakes up, Luke discovers the first beats of his destiny. As we call it at Beyond the Crucible, the first beats of his life of significance. So what does he discover? What happens after Luke wakes up the next morning?
Warwick Fairfax:
When Luke wakes up, he discovers that R2-D2 is gone. R2-D2 was never one to flag in pursuit of his mission. And so here's this little R2 unit and he's wandering in the desert looking for Obi-Wan. So Luke and C-3PO, they head out in the desert in some kind of hovercraft vehicle that hovers over the desert. It's kind of pretty cool and-
Gary Schneeberger:
Especially in 1977, it was pretty cool.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, absolutely. And so they're wandering in the desert, Luke and C-3PO looking for R2-D2. Now they realize that R2-D2 must be looking for Obi-Wan because that's what is said. So what then happens is R2-D2, C-3PO and Luke, they're captured by these sand people, like little creatures. And fortunately, Obi-Wan comes on the scene. He sees what's happening and rescues him and brings him back to his place. Luke says that R2-D2 was looking for his former owner, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now Obi-Wan says he's not heard that name in many years. And Obi-Wan says that that is his name, even though Luke knows him by Ben Kenobi and that he's not dead yet, because remember his uncle said, "Obi-Wan's no longer with us. He's dead."
But he's not gone by that name in a long, long time, Obi-Wan Kenobi. So Luke's encounter with Obi-Wan would indeed change the direction of Luke's life. That's amazing how sometimes you meet one person and it can change the whole direction of your life. You're not maybe going to realize it at the time, but that absolutely happens when Luke meets Obi-Wan.
Gary Schneeberger:
Good, good point. Obi-Wan then gives him a special gift that cements the non-farming life that Luke is going to have and also explains the parameters of the battle of good versus evil that play out in the rest of, not just this film, but all of the films that follow in the Star Wars saga. Let's take a look and a listen of a clip that unpacks that moment really nicely.
Video:
Luke Skywalker: No, my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: That's what your uncle told you. He didn't hold with your father's ideals, thought he should have stayed here and not gotten involved.
Luke Skywalker: You fought in the Clone Wars?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Yes. I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father.
Luke Skywalker: I wish I'd known him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: He was the best star pilot in the galaxy and a cunning warrior. I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself. And he was a good friend. Which reminds me, I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn full idealistic crusade like your father did.
C-3PO: Sir, if you'll not be needing me, I'll close down for a while.
Luke Skywalker: Sure, go ahead. What is it?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon for the more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic before the dark times, before the Empire.
Luke Skywalker: How did my father die?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the force.
Luke Skywalker: The force?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Now the force is what gives the Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
Gary Schneeberger:
So, Warwick, talk about that that scene and its importance to what's to come for the rest of Star Wars.
Warwick Fairfax:
So this scene is a powerful scene. It gives you a bit of background to what's happened and it's the beginning of a call to action, a call to purpose for Luke. So it's an incredible scene. So here we see that Obi-Wan, he's fought in the Clone Wars as Luke's uncle did. Obi-Wan says that he once was a Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan just like Luke's father. And he says that Luke's father was the best fighter pilot in the galaxy, a cunning warrior. And Obi-Wan says Luke's father was a good friend of his.
So as we can see in this clip, Obi-Wan gives Luke a lightsaber, which Luke's father wanted Luke to have when he was old enough, but of course his uncle did not want him to have. And then Obi-Wan says these really interesting words. He says, "The lightsaber is the weapon of the Jedi Knight, an elegant weapon for a more civilized age." Really interesting phrases. And Obi-Wan goes on to say that for over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice of the Old Republic. That was before the dark times, before the Empire. The Empire really signaled the illumination of peace and justice and now has called forth the dark times.
So Luke asked how his father died. Obi-Wan looks sad and reflects on how a young Jedi, Darth Vader, who was a pupil of Obi-Wan until he turned to evil. And Darth Vader, as we've heard, he helped the Empire hunt down and destroy all the Jedi Knights or seemingly all. And Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Luke's father, so now the Jedi, all but extinct. So Darth Vader, he was seduced by the dark side of the force. And this is where we begin to learn what the force is. And Obi-Wan says, "The force is what gives the Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things." So Obi-Wan says, "It surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together."
So now Luke has learned about his history, about his father and how Darth Vader murdered his father and all but eliminated the Jedi Knights. This conversation with Obi-Wan is the beginning of the change of direction of Luke's life. This is a powerful struggle that is going on between the forces of good and the forces of evil. One of the interesting sidelines here that George Lucas does, and this might be familiar to students of ancient history, is the whole Star Wars struggle is modeled after ancient Roman history.
So in ancient Rome, there was a Republic and a Senate, like there was an Old Republic and a Senate in Star Wars, and there was a quasi-democracy before Julius and Augustus Caesar took over and created the empire in some ways as the empires created in Star Wars. And just like with the Empire, the Empire in Roman times was essentially a dictatorship. So it's just fascinating how George Lucas borrows these terms of the Republic and the Empire, really echoing forth the struggle between democracy and dictatorship that happened back in ancient Rome.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, I would be remiss in my duties as co-host, but I didn't point out to you what just occurred here for the first time I think in Beyond the Crucible history. You got to hear our host, the creator of Beyond the Crucible, share his love of two things that just fit together like hand in glove. Science fiction and history. He brought them both together in the same way that George Lucas did. And that's truly no jokes at all. That's a special moment in the history of the podcast right there.
In the next scene, very well placed by George Lucas, we get our first look at the power and the malevolence of Darth Vader. Up until now, he's been talked about as this kind of evil influence, but we haven't seen it play out. It happens when the Empire leaders are discussing their efforts to crush the rebel resistance. And one of them criticizes the force as not a real source of power. Certainly not as strong as the Death Star. What happens next, Warwick?
Warwick Fairfax:
So this is our first seat of Darth Vader. And here's this grim foreboding figure with this black helmet and you can't see his face and this black cloak. I mean, he's a scary figure. And so we're at a council meeting on an Empire ship where they're saying that they're vulnerable until the Death Star is completed. So we see the commander of the Death Star saying that the emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate and the last remnants of the Old Republic and then swept away.
Fear will keep people in line, fear of the Death Star. Some say that this Death Star is the ultimate technological weapon. Now, Darth Vader then joins a conversation and says that he should not be too proud of this weapon as the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force. Now, some of these folks at this council meeting are thinking, "Okay, this whole force thing that's more powerful than the ability to destroy a planet?" I mean, that makes no sense.
So one person there marks Darth Vader's sad devotion to an ancient religion, as he puts it. And that person says the force, it can't give Darth Vader clairvoyance to find the stolen plans or the rebel's hidden base. Well, Darth Vader does not take highly to being challenged. You challenge Darth Vader at your peril. And he does not like being marked or confronted. And so he uses the power of the force to basically lift this guy off the floor and he's getting choked to death.
Now this is by the force. So Darth Vader does not have his hands physically around him. He's just using the force to choke him. And he might have continued until the commander tells him to stop. So for those knowledgeable about religion, the force has familiar overturns. Some view religion as myth and legend and irrelevant in today's society. And in most religions, there are absolutely forces of good and evil that battle it out. So it echoes through the age in which we live in and some people think religion, any religion is irrelevant. Others find great solace and strength in it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Then next, R2-D2 plays Leia's full message in which she begs Obi-Wan to take the Death Star plans to the planet, Alderaan, and give them to her father, a fellow veteran for analysis. What is Luke's reaction, Warwick, to hearing the full message from Leia and the conversation he then has with Obi-Wan?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's a very interesting conversation. So after hearing the message, Obi-Wan says that Luke must learn the ways of the force if he's to accompany Obi-Wan to Alderaan. I mean, Obi-Wan doesn't ask. He just assumes, "Of course you're going to come, right? I mean, it's battle of good versus evil. What's there to think about?" But Luke says he has to go home. And Obi-Wan says that he needs Luke's help because he's getting old and that Leia also needs Luke's help.
Again, Luke says, "Can't get involved." He's got work to do. He said that he hates the empire, but he can't get involved and there's just nothing he can do. And Obi-Wan says, "That's your uncle talking." Obi-Wan urges him to learn the ways of the force. Obi-Wan says that Luke must do what he feels right, of course. It's really an interesting thing that Obi-Wan says, "Well, you must do what you think is right." It's a telling question because I'm not sure that Luke is thinking about what is right. He's just thinking about, well, what is obvious, what he needs to do, not what's right.
It's an interesting question. I don't think Luke really fully understands what Obi-Wan is saying. So at this point, Obi-Wan has laid down the challenge and the call for Luke to fight for the forces of good against evil. And at this point, Luke says, "Okay, I hear what you're saying, but no. I decline to meet the challenge. I'm just going to stay on with my life. This whole battling good and evil, that can go on, but I can't do anything. Who am I? I'm just one person, so I need to stay here." So it's not really Luke's finest moment and certainly at this point, he doesn't seem like the heroic hero in this movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
So let's break, put a pin in this just for a second out of the movie and just talk to our listeners and viewers, because what you just described is something that we all have dealt with. Right? There's advice from someone like Luke's uncle who says, "You don't want to go into that. Stay away from that calling." And then there's advice from someone like Obi-Wan who says, "No, this is your destiny. Step into it." And if we're being honest, these are things that can happen to us pretty much every day. One voice says, "Go for it." One voice says, "Stay away from it." How do we walk our way through that satisfactorily?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I think for all of us, there'll be the cries for fear and caution maybe from within. It may be from family members, friends. You can't do it. The fight is too big. It's not your fight. You don't have it. Who are you? Be cautious. Stay here. Don't follow your own destiny, your own path. I know what your destiny is. It's to be a farmer. Stay here.
Well, not everybody that grows up on a farm wants to be a farmer. Many do. Some are like, "Do I want to be a farmer?" Or it could be any profession. You don't always want to do what your father and grandfather or grandmother do. You sometimes want to follow your own path. And so you have some people that are calling for fear and caution and safety. Others are saying, "You have a destiny. You have a higher purpose. There's a battle for good against evil."
And so we have a choice to make every day and throughout our lives, are we going to listen to the voices of fear and caution? Or are we going to listen to the voices and hopefully some within ourselves that call us to courage and adventure to a higher purpose? Which voices are we going to listen to? The voices we listen to are fear and caution versus courage and destiny and purpose. It determines the course of our life and our legacy. So every day we get to make a choice. We're going to go with fear and caution or courage, destiny, and purpose. It's a choice we have to make.
Gary Schneeberger:
And Luke has to make that choice and does indeed make that choice in the next scene. He quickly changes his mind after Imperial Stormtroopers murder his family and destroy his home while searching for the droids. Warwick, how does that all develop? What happens next?
Warwick Fairfax:
So the death of Luke's aunt and uncle, it changes everything. Obi-Wan really tries to console Luke by saying that Luke couldn't have done anything to save his aunt and uncle. If he tried, if he'd been there, he would've been killed too. So Luke says he wants to come to Alderaan. He wants to become a Jedi like his father. There's nothing for him now. So this crucible has become the catalyst for a complete change in the direction of Luke's life.
We talk a lot about it didn't happen to you, it happened for you. Well, Luke maybe unknowingly is embracing that way of looking at life. Now that his aunt and uncle have been killed, he realizes, well, there's nothing for him now. And he does feel called to a higher purpose to fight for the forces of good against evil. He's not saying, who am I? Do I have the capability? It's really not relevant at the moment. It's like, what do I need to do? Who do I need to become? What's the next step? And so Luke really changes from, there's nothing I can do, to I have to become a Jedi like my father and fight for freedom and justice.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. But there are other people who will come up in the very next scene who don't have the same perspective that Luke develops. The party, the group ends up in a bar populated by, it's a very popular scene in the Star Wars universe, by several interesting creatures this bar is populated by, and one human who will prove important to Luke in Leia's mission. Warwick, talk about what happens in that bar and who they meet there.
Warwick Fairfax:
So in this bar, we see here's Luke, Obi-Wan, the two droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, and they need a ship to get to the planet of Alderaan because they want to get the secret plans of the Death Star back to the Rebel Alliance, which is at Alderaan. And so they come across Han Solo, and he is the captain of the Millennium Falcon, and Han Solo's first mate, Chewbacca. And Chewbacca is an enormous furry creature that doesn't really talk. It just groans. But a bit like C-3PO interprets for R2-D2, Han Solo seems to be able to interpret for Chewbacca.
So as we see Han Solo in the opening scenes of his presence in the movie, it seems that he's only about himself and money. That's all he cares about. So when the group led by Obi-Wan says that they need a ship to get them to Alderaan rather than, "Gee, how can I help?" His first thought is, "Well, it's all about the money." So he negotiates to get 2,000 or whatever currency they have now, and then 15,000 when they get to Alderaan.
If Obi-Wan hadn't offered a good deal, Han Solo would be like, "Forget it." If Obi-Wan had said, "But this is all about fighting the evil empire and helping the Rebel Alliance," Han Solo's attitude would've been, "So? What does that have to do with me?" We'll find out he's a smuggler. He's in it for the money. It's like the patriotic speeches of country and sacrifice. It's like, why? So yeah, he's not a particularly endearing character at this point in the movie. It's all about himself and money. That's the Han Solo that we meet.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. But he's also, like pretty much everybody else in the movie, at least on the not bad guy side of things. He's someone who's facing a crucible of his own. And this crucible that he's facing at this moment has really nothing to do with the Empire's plans to snuff out the resistance. What is that trial that Han Solo is facing as we meet him?
Warwick Fairfax:
So we find out, surprise, surprise, that Han Solo owes a lot of money to Jabba. He's a smuggler. And so he's always trying to pay people. And sometimes his adventures don't work out. And we learned that on a previous smuggling operation, I think he lost some cargo, didn't get through. And so Jabba wants to be paid. And Han Solo manages to convince Jabba to hold off and he'll give him an extra 15% based on the proceeds of his current mission with Obi-Wan and Leia and just kind of leave me alone for a moment. I promise you, I'll give you what I owe you plus 15%.
So this seems to be the life of Han Solo. It's all about the money and keeping bad guys like Jabba or these smugglers at bay, keeping the creditors at bay. It's all about one more mission, get the money and somehow hold off people like Jabba from getting on his back. And it's just a miserable existence. One mission to the next, dealing with people like Jabba. So that's the life of Han Solo at this point in the movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
But you do, as the audience get the idea that maybe what's going on with Han Solo is his character has never developed because his character's never been tested. So let's just wait for a full determination on his character until the movie plays itself out. Then, Warwick, they all go and get on the Millennial Falcon to head to Alderaan. But the Empire has obliterated the planet after Leia told them it was the home base for the resistance, even though it was not. But the journey to Alderaan does serve perhaps a better purpose for Luke and his tutelage under Obi-Wan. What starts happening between mentor and mentee on that journey?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. This is a really interesting moment in the movie. We see in a scene with Leia and Darth Vader on the Empire ship that they're asking, "Where is the rebel base? And if you tell us, we won't destroy Alderaan." Well, she tells them. Of course she doesn't tell them the truth, but they don't quite know that at the moment. And they just destroy Alderaan anyway. It has millions of people, if not more, on this planet. I mean, she is just shocked about the elimination of life.
In fact, when that happens, Obi-Wan senses something happening in the force, a disturbance in the force, and he feels like there are a million voices crying out as they're being obliterated by the Death Star. So meanwhile, on the Millennium Falcon, we see Obi-Wan is beginning to train Luke with the lightsaber. And he says that a Jedi can feel the force flowing through them.
Now, Han Solo, ever the sort of snarky pessimist, says that hooky religions are no match for a blast by your side, exactly what he expect Han Solo to say. He says he doesn't believe there is one powerful mystical force controlling everything. He says there is no mystical field that controls his destiny. It's a lot of simple tricks and nonsense. So then Obi-Wan steps up the training of Luke by putting a helmet on him where he can't see anything. It blocks his whole vision. And he tells Luke to let go of your consciousness and act on instinct. Let go of your conscious self. He says that your eyes can deceive you and not to trust them.
He tells Luke to stretch out his feelings and Luke actually does better in his training. So Luke, unlike Han Solo, he's embracing the ways of the force and his legacy. And he's training his mind, body, and spirit for the battle ahead, the battle between good and evil. That's one of the things we'll see in this movie, is not all just about Luke receiving training about how to be a fighter and use technology and all that. Nothing against that. But the focus of Obi-Wan's training of Luke is really more on the internal of the soul and the spirit and self-control, self-consciousness. That is the focus of Obi-Wan's training. As we'll find, that training will be absolutely vital in Luke's mission as the movie unfolds.
Gary Schneeberger:
You might say Obi-Wan makes sure he does the soul work. I've heard that somewhere else. Where have I heard that?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. It's so true. And so for most of us, the really bigger battle is the battle within the soul, the soul work. Are we going to lead a life for good or for evil? Is it all going to be about us and money and power? Is it going to be about helping our friends and neighbors, serving a higher purpose, whether it's in our company, a business or a nonprofit? The battle for most of us is really a battle of within. Are we going to go on a path of money and power and fame? Are we going to follow a path that leads to serving others and some higher purpose? And that's really the battle of the soul that ultimately determines the direction of our lives and our legacy. And that's what's going on here, is Obi-Wan is training Luke, really doing a lot of soul work.
Gary Schneeberger:
They're still not out of the woods yet, or out of the space travel problem yet because the ride is anything but smooth for them. The Death Star's tractor beam captures the Millennium Falcon, but Luke and his companions managed to avoid detection and infiltrate the station. But Darth Vader is on the Death Star too. We're starting to get good versus evil converging in each other's presence. And he senses Obi-Wan's presence and begins searching for him.
As Obi-Wan deactivates the tractor beam that's pulling the Millennium Falcon in, Luke persuades Han Solo and Chewbacca to help him rescue Leia, who is scheduled for execution after refusing to reveal the true location of the rebel base. And, Warwick, Luke doesn't appeal to the better angels of Han Solo's nature here, does he? Because he's just not sure that Hans got them yet.
Warwick Fairfax:
Now that is so true. I mean, altruism seems like it's not going to work with Han Solo. So with R2-D2's help, they managed to find where Leia's being held captive on the Empire ship. So of course, Han Solo, ever the non-hero says he doesn't want to help or get involved. I mean, meanwhile, the Empire Stormtroopers are looking for them on the ships. It's not like he doesn't have any role to play or not like he just sit back and do nothing, but somehow he feels like he doesn't want to get involved. Well, a bit too late for that.
But anyway, so Luke tells Han Solo that Leia is rich and powerful and that Han Solo will get a reward. That's about the only thing that's going to motivate Han Solo. So now, Han Solo is suitably motivated and is willing to help and will do what he can to free Leia. So it's like, "You want my help? What are you going to pay me?" It's like altruism doesn't seem to exist at the moment in Han Solo. It's all about the money and what's in it for him. Give him a good enough deal. Okay, I'll help you. It'll cost you something. Cost you a lot, but sure will help you in those circumstances. So it doesn't really paint a particularly rosy picture of Han Solo's character.
Gary Schneeberger:
No. He continues taking a half a step forward and 15 steps back. But hang in there, folks. It'll turn. Obi-Wan then disables the tractor beam and faces Darth Vader in battle. This is one of the most rousing scenes in the film. It's something we see and hear a lot at Beyond the Crucible two. Our past can keep pursuing us if we don't confront it. And that's what Obi-Wan does here. How does that play out, Warwick?
Warwick Fairfax:
So while Leo, Hans Solo, Luke, R2-D2, C-3PO, they're heading to the Millennium Falcon to try to get away, Obi-Wan faces Darth Vader. Now, both of them realize this is a destiny to have this epic battle. And Darth Vader, as he's in the middle of fighting, Obi-Wan said the circle is now complete. "When I left you, I was but the learner, but now I am the master," says Darth Vader. Obi-Wan says, "Only a master of evil, Darth."
As they fight, Darth Vader taunts Obi-Wan, "Your powers are weak, old man." Obi-Wan says these immortal words, "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you possibly could imagine." Now, Obi-Wan almost seemed to let Darth Vader kill him after these words. He just seems to put down his lightsaber. And so this is all happening while the rest of the group is getting on the Millennium Falcon.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. They're scadabling.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And so Obi-Wan sacrifices his life, both for Luke and for the cause of helping good prevail over evil. Somehow Obi-Wan realizes by sacrificing his life, he's actually going to help the cause of the Rebel Alliance, help the cause of good, and help the cause of the force, if you will. So as Luke flees to the Millennium Falcon, for the first time we hear Obi-Wan voice in his ear. Obi-Wan has been killed, but yet we still hear his voice, you assume through the power of the force, and Obi-Wan says to Luke, "Run, Luke. Run." And this voice in Luke's ear from his mental will continue as the movie unfolds in an extremely helpful and empowering fashion for Luke.
Gary Schneeberger:
Next up, those Death Star schematics that have been all about people chasing each other across the universe, they're examined and they reveal a weakness in a small exhaust port leading directly to the station's reactor. It's only two meters wide, two meters wide, a little hole. And a plan is hatched to drop a torpedo into it to destroy the Death Star. Warwick, this is a poetic moment in the movie from a beyond the crucible perspective. It shows that you don't always need a big effort to begin moving beyond your crucible in a big way. How does that play out in the rest of the film?
Warwick Fairfax:
So the group are now on the Millennium Falcon. Fortunately, Obi-Wan deactivated the tractor beam and they're able to escape from this empire ship. And they have the plans for the Death Star, which R2-D2 has. And at this point, you hear Han Solo say that he's in it for the money and not for revolution. And later, Leia says to Luke about Han Solo, "I wonder if he cares about anything or anybody." At this point, the answer I think would be, "Well, no."
So once they arrive at the rebel base, Luke gets equipped to be one of the fighter pilots. We hear early in the movie that he's an experienced pilot and he just has natural ability. So as Luke is about to take off, he wonders what Han Solo will do. And Han Solo says this, "You don't think that I would be fool enough to stick around here, do you?" And Han Solo actually asked Luke to come with him. He figures Luke could be helpful to him in his smuggling operation because he's a pretty handy person. So Luke says that they need a good pilot like Han Solo, and he's turning his back on them. And Han Solo says, "What good is a reward if you're not around to use it? Besides, attacking the battle station is not my idea of courage. It is more like suicide."
So Han Solo is like, "Forget it. It's not my fight. It's suicide. I'm out of here." But there is a sign of hope because as Luke walks off, Han Solo says, "May the force be with you." Now remember, this is somebody who thinks this is some kooky, ancient religion. It's irrelevant. So whether he believes in the force or not, I think at least it shows a sign of respect for Luke and for what he believes in. So Luke is understandably disappointed that Han Solo won't be fighting with them. And Leia says these words, "He, Han Solo, has to follow his own path. No one can choose it for him."
And those are very wise words. And that's true for all of us. We have to choose our own path. Nobody can choose it for us. The consequences are also, in one sense, our choice because each path we follow does have consequences. If you follow the path of, it's all about me and money and greed, that will have consequences. And they typically won't be good. You can actually make your own crucibles worse and then manufacture more of them. Or the path that leads to good and life of significance, there still might be crucibles, but there'll be a whole lot more fulfillment and satisfaction on that path.
So Luke and the other fighter pilots, they head towards the Death Star. They fly low over the Death Star to try and make the shot down that small exhaust port. It's an almost impossible shot. It's not going to be easy as the Empire's fighters are all over them, including one which is piloted by Darth Vader. Earlier on, we learned that Darth Vader is an excellent pilot, and that definitely is true. And one by one, Darth Vader shoots down the rebel fighters. If Darth Vader's on your tail, you're in trouble.
And so Luke is about to take his shot, but at this point, Darth Vader is on his tail. The chances of Darth Vader missing at this point, no matter how good Luke is as a pilot, is slim. It's one of the things you see in the movie, is there are these channels in the outside of the Death Star and a bit like going in a plane and a fighter plane down a canyon. There's no room for maneuver. You can't juke your way out of range of people pursuing you. So you're in a very tough situation.
And then out of nowhere, here comes Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon. He distracts the Empire fighters, including Darth Vader, kind of spins out of control, and Luke actually has a clear shot. So Luke has his targeting computer all set. But now we hear the voice of Obi-Wan telling Luke this, he says, "Use the force, Luke. Let go. Luke, trust me." And then Luke turns off his targeting computer. Now remember, this shot is an incredibly difficult shot. And what does he do? He turns off his targeting computer. It makes no sense. But Luke sends his torpedoes into the shaft. And while all this is happening, one of the things that George Lucas does, which is so brilliant, we constantly see the movie shift from the Death Star to the rebel fighters.
And what we understand is that this Death Star is on the other side of the orbit of a planet, and it has to get around the orbit of that planet to be in range at the rebel base, which is on a moon on the far side of this planet. So we see during this part of the movie, a countdown of when the rebel base will be in range. So at first, it's 30 minutes, then 15 minutes, then 5, and then 30 seconds. And just as Luke is about to fire these torpedoes down that narrow shaft on the Death Star, we see that the Death Star is in range at the rebel base.
They're powering up their weapon just in the process of firing. We're talking seconds away. And so Luke's torpedoes, they go down that shaft, it's a clean shot, and the Death Star explodes just before it can fire, mere seconds before it can fire. It's an incredible shot, an incredible end to this part of the movie and the Death Star.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And what follows then is a bit of a coda to the film. That is, it ends in a triumphant ceremony in which Leia awards Luke and Han Solo medals for their heroism. At the start of this movie, if you would've said Han Solo's going to get a medal for his heroism, no one would've believed you. But that's indeed what happens. And, Warwick, Luke and Han Solo really have started living lives of significance at the end of Star Wars, haven't they?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. And you're very right, Gary. At the beginning of this movie, Han Solo certainly won't get any medals other than maybe cowardice, greed, self-centeredness, an anti-medal, anti-hero.
Gary Schneeberger:
Or when he bought himself.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly right. Exactly, because nobody else would give him one. But Luke, on the other hand, he's not a bad guy, but he certainly doesn't seem this heroic figure. It's like, look, I'm living my life a quiet desperation on this planet. I'm in Tatooine. I don't know that I want to be here. Maybe I'll escape one day. But really does not seem like the hero that would save the galaxy and the Rebel Alliance from the Empire. He's not a bad guy. You just wouldn't really think about him in that context.
So we see this transition from Luke as a young man working on a farm, wants to go to the academy, but he's locked into this desolate planet with his aunt and uncle. Doesn't feel he can make any difference between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. And just like so many of us, we feel like we can't make a difference. We can't lead much of any life of significance. What does that even mean? It's meaningless for us. We're locked into a humdrum life the way he sees it.
By the end of the movie, Luke has saved the day with what Han Solo says, "It's a million to one shot with his torpedoes destroying the Death Star." Even with his targeting computer, the odds of that shot making it are a million to one. Without the targeting commuter, it probably goes up to a trillion to one. But Luke trusts the force, trusts his mentor, and makes this impossible shot. So Luke indeed learns to trust himself, trust the training of his mentor, Obi-Wan, trust in a higher power, and not just to rely on his own strength. Luke has grown tremendously in his courage, trust, and wisdom. Luke's journey shows that the key battle is the battle within. It's not just about what we do on the outside. The battle within has been won by his own courage, by the advice of his mentor Obi-Wan, and by relying on a higher power. All of those have empowered him to do the impossible.
Han Solo truly does make an amazing transformation. At the beginning of the movie, he's all about himself and money. It's all about helping number one, not about other people. He doesn't want to get involved in causes or battles. Hey, the fight pitting the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, it's not my fight. Nothing to do with me. But by the end of the movie, Han Solo is a key part of saving the day. So as Luke lines up that impossible shot to send the torpedoes down that shaft, if Han Solo hadn't been around, it's questionable as to whether Luke would've made it.
Darth Vader would've stood a very good chance of shooting Luke down. He had him right on his scope. There was nobody around to stop that shot. So Han Solo really did make the saving of Luke and the destruction of the Death Star possible. That would not have been possible without Luke. It certainly would not have been possible without Han Solo coming to help Luke save the day.
So it's really incredible. It shows you the evolution of Han Solo's character. It also shows that we should never give up on those around us, family and friends. Maybe we feel like they're going down a path of self-destruction. It could be drugs, alcohol. It could be poor choices in life. It could be just making choices of a life of quiet desperation. We know they have so much talent and ability, but they don't believe in themselves. They won't take chances. They won't take risks. And so they just take the safe route, the route that really leads to a life in which so many people would say about them what could have been. And only if they trusted themselves, trusted in a higher power, looked to others and not themselves.
Gary Schneeberger:
This whole episode, it's interesting, I said at the start, we kicked around ideas for the title of the series, and one of them was A Crucible Far, Far Away. And our discussion on this movie makes me think, we should have selected that one maybe. But it is indeed called Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema, and we're sticking with that. Warwick, how do the crucibles of the characters in Star Wars offer us insight into how to move beyond our own crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's easy to think that we can't make a difference with just some insignificant person who doesn't have the skills or the training or the pedigree to accomplish much. Maybe nobody from our family went to college. Maybe none of them left the town that we grew up in. Maybe we feel like our path on life was mapped out for us at birth. And we might feel like the battle around us is so big. How can we possibly make a difference? It's just me. I don't have the training, the skills, the courage, anything. But you look at the lives of Luke, Han Solo, Obi-Wan, Leia, R2-D2, and even C-3PO, we can see how they were willing to fight for a cause beyond themselves, to fight for good against evil. And each of them played a part and each of them were part of how good did indeed triumph over evil.
So we need to choose how we want to live our lives. Do we want to live lives of quiet desperation? Which is where we see Luke at the beginning of the movie. I can't really do much. Who am I? It's all too difficult. Do we want to live lives where it's all about money and about ourselves? Which is what we see Han Solo live his life of much of the movie. Hey, everybody's greedy. Everybody's in it for themselves. Why shouldn't I be? Why shouldn't I get a piece of the action? Nobody's going to help me. Why should I help them? That cynical, defeatist, it's all about me attitude, that could be us. Or we can make a different choice. We can decide to live lives of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.
We truly seek to make a difference in the world. Now, maybe we won't save the galaxy like Luke and Han Solo did. Maybe it's just our town, our community, our home. Maybe it's fighting for a friend of ours at school or a brother or sister. One path leads to a somewhat despondent, gloomy life, while the other leads to a life of fulfillment and purpose. So each day we get to make that choice for our lives and our legacy. Is it all going to be about me, money and greed? Is it all too difficult? Am I going to live a life of quiet desperation? Or am I going to live a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, a life of significance?
Gary Schneeberger:
Did you see that folks? Look, the house lights have come up, which indicates we have reached the end of this episode of Beyond the Crucible in our series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. Next week, we will take another look at another film. And this time, Scott, give it to me, give me the drum roll, next time we're going to talk about, this is probably Warwick's favorite on the list that we have so far, and that is Star Trek: First Contact. So don't miss that. We'll be here next week. And as always, we'll save you an aisle seat.
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Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
In this episode, we dive into Jurassic Park as part of the fifth installment of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. John Hammond had the wealth, the vision, and the technology to bring dinosaurs back to life — and he used all of it without stopping to ask whether he should. What he intended to fill with wonder, he filled with terror. His story is one of the most vivid leadership cautionary tales in cinema: the crucibles we unleash when ambition outpaces wisdom, and when the desire to do something remarkable blinds us to the responsibility that comes with it.
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. He says it didn't require any scientific discipline. Your scientists were preoccupied with whether they could and did not stop to think whether they should. Basically saying just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Wise words.
Gary Schneeberger:
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. That's the chief lesson of Jurassic Park, but it's not one the man who brought dinosaurs back to life and turned them into theme park attractions learns until it's too late. This week in the fifth episode of our special summer series, Back to A Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema, we discussed the crucibles unleashed when John Hammond uses his vast wealth to create what he thinks will fill the world with wonder but winds up filling the attraction he builds with death and terror. How can understanding where Hammond went wrong help you avoid your own crucibles or overcome them when they hit? Stay tuned.
Welcome, friends, to Beyond the Crucible. You have joined us in the midst of our summer series, which we're calling Back to A Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. We're doing this because we've had so much fun, Warwick and I have, over the last three years when we focused our summer series on the crucible lessons that we can learn from motion pictures. We're doing it again this summer. And with this, we've already done four episodes, just makes this episode five. But after doing movies that spotlighted heroes, sports heroes and superheroes and military heroes, and then doing movies that the American Film Institute ranked very high on their list of the best films of all time, and then last year doing films that really had a lot of crucibles in them, this time we're focusing on a genre that is one of Warwick's favorite types of films, and that's science fiction.
Hence, the title, as I said, Back to A Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. So, Warwick, before we dive into the movie that we're going to talk about this week, why movies? Again, this is the fourth time we've gone into the cinema for our summer series. There was a time before these last three years that we did it as well. What are you hoping our listeners and viewers get out of our discussions about the movies that we're covering?
Warwick Fairfax:
So Gary, we both love movies, and it's interesting looking at movies from the Beyond the Crucible perspective, it's very different, because typically, when you watch a movie sitting there with popcorn, you're enjoying it. But here, you're watching a movie very differently. You're actually seeing what are the crucibles the protagonist is facing and how do they deal with them. Sometimes well, other times, in The Godfather or Citizen Kane, not so well. And typically, in movies, you have the protagonists that faces significant obstacles and challenges that they seek to overcome. We've covered superheroes, sports heroes, historical heroes, American Film Institute's top 100 movies. And last year, we focused on movies that had characters with significant crucible. Movies are really a rich territory in which to explore how people face really huge challenges and how they deal with them.
Gary Schneeberger:
And you're right, watching movies just to kick back and watch a movie for the weekend, different than watching them here. But I'll tell you, it's even different. I was a film critic. I worked in Hollywood, and I had to take notes on films to give feedback to the filmmaker, and I take more notes for these episodes than I did for those pursuits. So it is a much different experience and rewarding in a much different way, and we'll talk about that as we get going. But before we get going, let me ask you this question too. You're particularly excited this year because we are exploring science fiction films. Why do you love science fiction films in particular so much? What about them is particularly resonant for discussing crucibles and how we move beyond them?
Warwick Fairfax:
I've loved science fiction since I was very small, both in books, movies, TV shows. I remember one of the earliest things I saw that had a huge impact on me was 2001, The Space Odyssey that came out in 1968. You saw future technologies, such as space shuttles with pads, screens on the seat in front of them, which obviously, didn't exist in planes in 1968. You had talking computers that were almost, I guess, were sentient, and that was a major theme of that movie with AI to the next level. You had video conferencing, other technology that wasn't around at the time. I've also been a fan of the original Star Trek series that aired between 1966 and 1969. And I read some of the great science fiction novels by Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov.
What I love about science fiction and still do is not only does it explore future technology, but it also explores deep societal issues, such as what is the future of the human race? How will humans interact with other forms of life and technology? What's the future role of AI? These are issues that are very relevant. And in science fiction, we see very significant crucibles portrayed. Can the human race survive? Will the expansion of humans across the galaxy be beneficial or not? Will technology get to a point where it will actually control humans? These are issues that we face now and it's just a very rich genre of exploring crucibles and how does mankind overcome those crucibles?
Gary Schneeberger:
And perfect setup for what we're doing, what we're talking about this week, episode five of the series. We are looking at the 1993 film that sparked a new generation, a new milestone in special effects from Hollywood, and that is the original Jurassic Park. It was the top grossing film of that year. This is the third time in a row we're discussing the top box office moneymaker of the year that the film was released. So there's something about what you're saying about, they're also very popular movies, Warwick, if they're for three years in a row or not three years in a row, but three times in a row we found what was the number one moneymaker of the year. Here's a summary of what the film is about. This is one of the highlights of every week of the series for me because it's such tight writing. This summary is called the log line, known in the film industry as the shortest, most direct summary of what a film's about, and here it is for Jurassic Park.
When a group of scientists is invited to an island theme park filled with cloned dinosaurs, they must fight to survive when the prehistoric creatures break free and wreak havoc. And it's not just havoc they wreak. This was fascinating to me. As the movie's rating card is shown on screen at the very start of the movie, before the credits even roll, before the first sounds of the musical score happened, as the movie's rating card is shown, Jurassic Park it is said, is rated PG-13 for intense science fiction terror, which is a pretty ... that's why these things are ... People who can write really well write these kind of things because that is true. There is intense science fiction terror in here and we're going to talk about all of it.
The first beats of the film actually were do set the stage for that terror. A sliver of it is shown, but a lot of it is not. Unpack that first scene and what it depicts, what it almost depicts and the effect it has on those in the audience who are in the scene who see it happen. It's pretty clear from the outset, isn't it, that major crucibles are going to happen in this movie?
Warwick Fairfax:
So well said. I think of Alfred Hitchcock and his movies and a lot of the fear and suspense was in what you didn't see. That will be true at the beginning of this movie. Steven Spielberg, who was the director here and helped engineer this whole movie, certainly got this right. In the opening scene, we see this large metal container and it's being pushed up against a seemingly secure concrete cage. It's got concrete around the sides with some heavy steel metal mesh on the top. You can see there's sort of a jungle plants in the actual cage, really can't see what's going on. And so, you see a man who seems to be in charge. His name is Robert Muldoon. He's the game warden of Jurassic Park, and he gives the order to open up the container and let whatever is in this metal container back into this concrete cage.
We don't really see much. We don't see the creatures, but we hear a lot of shrieking and we see jungle undergrowth at the top of the cage and that kind of moves a bit with the animals scurrying around there. Now, one of the creatures manages to push this metal container away from the concrete cage, so there's a gap, and it grabs one of the workers and pulls that worker in and kills it. Now, this is meant to be secure. These are heavy containers, but somehow these creatures are smart enough to figure out a way, figure out a way to create room between that metal container and the cage and get one of the workers. At this early stage of the movie, we don't quite know what's going on, but things are certainly not going to plan. Whatever these creatures are, they are not easy to control or contain. So, we definitely have a bit of forewarning of what is going to happen. Things don't start well in this movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
No. And the plot proper of Jurassic Park gets set into motion in the very next scene. What do we learn has happened and what is the park doing to keep its opening on schedule? Because that's the big thing being chased here, is keeping the park opening on schedule. And what you just described from the first scene has put that in jeopardy. How so?
Warwick Fairfax:
So, we see a lawyer and this lawyer is saying that the investors are getting nervous. In fact, it's the investors and the insurance companies. You need both for a theme park, certainly, a theme park such as this as we'll find out. This lawyer is saying that, as I mentioned, investors are getting nervous and that if two experts sign off, the insurance company and the investors will be okay, but they're not willing to proceed without these outside experts saying that things are okay because they've just heard about somebody getting killed in this opening scene. It could be a lawsuit from the guy's family. They're just a bit worried about this whole enterprise. And so, the lawyer mentions Alan Grant, who's a noted paleontologist as one of the experts that maybe they could get his input in. So at this point, we're at the stage where things are not going to proceed until two outside experts sign off, which then will give, hopefully the insurance company's investors enough comfort to sign off and keep going ahead with whatever this theme park is.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And in the next scene, we get our first really good full sunshine out in the wild look at the CEO, the founder, the creator of Jurassic Park, and that's John Hammond. John Hammond seems pretty good-natured for someone facing what he's facing as he meets with two of the experts that he wants to convince to come look at the park. This is a man who's had a hard time seeing his crucible as an obstacle, and that's not always good, is it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. We'll find out with John Hammond that ... I'm not sure that he even sees or knows what a crucible is. It's just like every crucible's a speed bump. Not even a speed bump, it's just like, "I think I felt something there, but we're pushing ahead." He's a fascinating guy. So here, we have this guy Hammond and he's landing his helicopter in the middle of an archeological dig in Montana. And in the movie you've got dust getting kicked up and going everywhere, and this is over this fragile dig site where there are dinosaur bones, which is not exactly what you want to have happen. It just could contaminate the whole site. Here, we see Alan Grant, one of the experts, paleontologist, and his fellow paleontologist, Ellie Sattler. They're looking for dinosaur bones, and ironically, they've actually found a velociraptor, which might feature in the movie at some point.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes. Maybe, maybe.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. These velociraptors, raptors, it's interesting that Grant tells this kid who happens to roll by that these are fearsome creatures. They're highly intelligent. They can run fast. They hunt in packs. These creatures, I'm sure he's probably thinking is, good job we don't have raptors anymore because those are scary creatures. So then, we have Hammond, Grant, and Sattler, they go talk in Grant's trailer. Hammond has actually been supporting Grant to the tune of a $50,000 a year donation. And Hammond says that he's leased an island off of Costa Rica, which will have attractions that will drive people out of their minds. But the investors want outside opinions from the top minds in their field, and from Hammond's perspective, those top minds are Grant and Sattler.
So Hammond wants them to sign off on the park, but Hammond won't tell them what kind of park it is, but he wants them to visit. Says, "Go visit this park. I'm not going to tell you what's in there or why you're coming along, but just come with me." Well, not surprisingly, Grant initially hesitates. He's in the middle of this important archeological dig in Montana. It's a long way from Costa Rica where this island is off of. But after Hammond says he'll fully fund their dig, not just partly, fully fund for initial three years, Grant says, "Okay." Kind of an offer you can't refuse, right?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
For people in archeology, it's not every day that somebody says they'll fund your dig for three years. It's interesting to reflect on Hammond at this point. So when faced with the setback of some creatures, we don't know quite what they are yet, killing one of his workers, Hammond almost treats this as a minor bump in the road. The investors and insurance companies want the opinion of outside experts before they'll go ahead. And Hammond's like, "Okay, let's get these experts in. Let's have them sign off and then we'll keep moving. No problem here. Just a minor setback. We've lost a worker. That's unfortunate, but okay."
There's no deep reflection about whether they're on the right course or whether they should change direction. So we'll see, unfortunately again in this movie, this sort of non-reflective, self-confident, almost arrogant approach from John Hammond, which will unfortunately have dire consequences. One of these characters we can learn a lot from, not just from what they do right, but in this case with Hammond, a lot of what they don't do right.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. One of the things that struck me about this movie back when I saw it in '93 and when I saw it a couple of days ago for our discussion, is Hammond has a favorite phrase he says all the time. "Spare no expense," he says it all ... In fact, how many times do you think he says it? There's actually a clip on YouTube which has every single time he says it. How many times do you think he says it?
Warwick Fairfax:
I don't know. Twenty? I don't know.
Gary Schneeberger:
Only five, but it feels like more.
Warwick Fairfax:
Probably feels like 20.
Gary Schneeberger:
It does. It comes in very significant parts of the movie, and he says it in good scenarios and not so good scenarios, so that's who John Hammond is. And you're right, Warwick, to say that it's going to have dire consequences. We see what can lead to some of those dire consequences in the next scene involving one of the computer programmers at the park, Dennis Nedry. Nedry has nefarious plans to get rich off of the technology of Jurassic Park, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
So Nedry, as we'll see, is not a good guy. He's off island in the mainland of Costa Rica and he's meeting with the man who works for Hammond's corporate rival. What this other man wants are viable embryos. We don't quite yet know viable embryos of what, but whatever they are, they're clearly valuable, because this other guy says to Nedry that he'll give him $1.5 million if he can get his hands on embryos from all 15 species, so kind of very much James Bond-like. He gives Nedry this fake shaving cream canister, which when you unscrew it, you have slots for little test tubes of all of the embryos. And this will keep the embryos cool for 36 hours. The plan is, Nedry is to be at the east dock at the aisle the next night at 7:00 to meet a boat to pick up the embryos.
The other folks, the other corporation will have somebody meet them a boat and take those embryos away. Nedry says there's an 18-minute window and security will be down and then this other company is going to be able to catch up on 10 years of research, so what Nedry has is very valuable to this other corporation.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. After this scene, Hammond then flies his three experts, Grant and Sattler, and chaos theory scientist Ian Malcolm to the island, Isla Nublar, where his venture is set up. When they land just to beat more than 20 minutes into the film, which is an enormous departure on Spielberg's part for how this is normally handled in movies when there's a, especially science fiction movie star that's going to show up. You don't see the apes and Planet of the Apes until an hour into the film. This is only 20 minutes into the film. Spielberg then reveals to the scientists and the audience their first live dinosaurs. Talk about that scene because it's really even 30-some years later, 33 years later, it's still a really impressive scene.
Warwick Fairfax:
It surely is. As you mentioned, Hammond takes these folks on a helicopter to this island. They get off the helipad and they're in a Jeep, and they begin to take a tour. Here they are in these open Jeeps and they're going through this sort of grassy area in the island. The Jeep stops and Grant stands up in the Jeep. He stares. He is just amazed. Sattler's talking to somebody else and Grant and Sattler are pretty close. They look like they're dating. Anyway, so Grant grabs Sattler's head and slowly turns her head around.
Gary Schneeberger:
Turns her, yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
And what we see is this huge dinosaur. It's like a plant-eating dinosaur. We'll find out it's a brachiosaurus, and they all get out of the Jeep. The scene is amplified by the soaring music of John Williams, the composer of the film score. He did the music for Superman and Raiders of the Lost Dark and some of the most brilliant film scores ever made. Now, imagine Gary and I saw this movie at the cinema in '93 and the technology, the CGI graphics to make this happen was just unparalleled. You don't know what's going to happen, and you suddenly hear this music and this massive dinosaur and you're like, "Oh, my gosh, what is happening? How do they do this? How can they make it so lifelikey?" And this is a lot of years ago. Now, we're accustomed to computer generated graphics. But back then, you'd never seen anything like this. So not only was Grant and Sattler amazed, so was Schneeberger and Fairfax amazed so to speak.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Warwick Fairfax:
Sitting in our seats in the respective cinemas. Grant and Sattler are amazed at what they're seeing in real life that they've theorized about. As I said, these dinosaurs are brachiosaurus. Grant says this dinosaur is warm-blooded. I remember reading in the papers, I think years ago, there was controversy as to whether the dinosaurs are cold-blooded, which reptiles are or are warm-blooded. And there were some theorists that said, "We actually think that they're warm-blooded because some folks speculate that dinosaurs really come from birds that are warm-blooded." So Grant and Sattler have done all this theorizing about what dinosaurs are. Well now, they're seeing the real thing that's confirming some of their theories. We see this big herbivore dinosaur eating leaves from the trees. But what's interesting is the reaction of others is quite different. You've got Grant and Sattler sort of their lifelong, not even a dream, but just because they never thought they'd ever see a dinosaur, but they're seeing what they've spent their life working on in flesh.
But you've got other reactions. You've got Ian Malcolm, who, as you mentioned, is a chaos theorist. He's not impressed at all. He says, "You did it. You crazy son of a B. You did it." So what Malcolm means by that, he is very concerned. He's a chaos theorist, and we'll find out that if something can go wrong, maybe it will. The lawyer's reaction is different also. His reaction is, "We're going to make a fortune with this place."
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Two folks, Grant and Sattler, amazed at the science. Malcolm is thinking of the chaos, consequences and the calamity that could happen. And the lawyer is just thinking, "We're going to be rich," so three very different reactions.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, for sure. Hammond then tells the story to the scientists of how the park came to be partly in conversation with them and partly in a tour of the lab where the dinosaur embryos are kept and hatched. What happens in this scene, Warwick, that leaves the scientists amazed? What do they see in the lab that blows their minds?
Warwick Fairfax:
In this scene, here they are, they're at base camp and there's a lab there. The scene starts off with almost a Disneyworld-like movie theater. It's a bit like kind of Epcot, if you will, in which you start off in the movie theater, and then your seats turn into some vehicle and it goes down a track. It's very much like that. They're in this Disneyworld-like movie theater and there's a movie playing that's really talking about the process of making dinosaurs, but it's catering to a kid level in terms of the audience. Apparently, what the Jurassic Park scientists have done is that they've found pieces of amber with mosquitoes in them. So apparently, what happened is a hundred million years before mosquitoes bit the dinosaur and they got stuck in the sap of a tree. And over time that sap becomes amber, so what the scientists have done is they've extracted dinosaur DNA from the blood that's in the mosquito that's in amber. Pretty amazing stuff.
Gary Schneeberger:
I am glad that you said they do it in a bit of a kid way as they explain it, because what you've just described in the amber, there it is. There is my little kid me, my Jurassic Park bit of whimsy that I have in my office.
Warwick Fairfax:
But folks, rest assured, Gary is not going to try to get the dinosaur DNA out of that mosquito and reconstitute dinosaurs. Gary's going to pledge that he will not make the mistake that Hammond made, so rest assured.
Gary Schneeberger:
Absolutely. I learned my lessons from others.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. So then, they go on to say that gene sequencing and supercomputers fill in the gaps in the DNA sequence, because they need the DNA sequence to create these dinosaurs. But one of the things they do to fill in the gaps is used the DNA of a frog, which we'll find out is maybe not the greatest idea in the world, but seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, we see this group, they've sort of gotten off the ride, if you will, and they're in the lab with a bunch of scientists. One of the folks they talk to is Jurassic Park's chief geneticist, Henry Wu. We see that there's some eggs, and one of those eggs begins to hatch, and there's a little dinosaur about to emerge and Hammond thinks it's very cute and tries to help it by delicately peeling back parts of the shell.
And so, Henry Wu, this chief geneticist, says that there is no uncontrolled breeding in Jurassic Park, because they've engineered them through their chromosomes and what have you to make sure that all the dinosaurs are female, and therefore, can't pre problem solved. Well, Malcolm, ever the pessimist and frankly realist-
Gary Schneeberger:
And the chaos theorist, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely.
Gary Schneeberger:
He's always expecting chaos.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yes, and he turned out to be true. Malcolm is concerned and wonders how they could all be female. And so, Wu, the geneticist, explains the process and there are ways of making sure that happens. Well, Malcolm says, "This is not possible as the history of evolution is that life will not be contained." He says, "Life expands new territories and life finds a way." Telling words, life finds a way. So then, Grant asks, "What kind of species is this baby dinosaur that's just emerged from the egg?" Well, geneticist Wu, he knows you got a bunch of scientists and paleontologists. Well, he says a bit nervously that is a velociraptor. So remember, in that early scene of the movie where you're in Montana and Grant is talking about the velociraptor and the hundred and packs and he actually has a Velociraptor claw, but it's like a souvenir.
Gary Schneeberger:
Scares a little kid. Scares a little kid with it.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And so, here they seem to be rebreeding velociraptors one of the scariest creatures in the dinosaur world. So, what could go wrong? So, we'll see.
Gary Schneeberger:
Indeed, we will. When the group stops for lunch, things really begin to change. I think this is where the tipping point of the film begins. There's a key exchange where their concerns about what Jurassic Park is doing begin to override their amazement on that has been done, what they've seen has been done. The scientists stop being, for lack of a better phrase, little kids who are like, "Oh, my gosh, they're dinosaurs," and start being scientists who are pondering, "What's happening here?" Let's take a look and a listen to a clip that really spotlights this for us.
VIDEO CLIP:
More adventurous guests, of course, can opt for our jungle river cruise or for a close-up look at our majestic ... None of these attractions are ready yet, of course, but the park will open with the basic tour you're about to take, and then other rides will come online six or 12 months after that. Absolutely spectacular designs. Spared no expense.
Yeah, and we can charge anything we want, $2,000 a day, $10,000 a day, and people will pay it. And then, there's the merchandise and I can personally advise-
Donald, Donald. This park was not built to cater only for the super rich. Everyone in the world has the right to enjoy these animals.
Sure. They will. Well, we'll have a coupon day or something.
Gee, the lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here staggers me.
Well, thank you, Dr. Malcolm, but I think things are a little bit different than you and I had feared.
Yeah, I know. They're a lot worse.
Now, wait a second, now. We haven't even seen the park yet-
No, Donald, Donald, let him talk. There's no reason, now I want to hear every viewpoint. I really do.
Don't you see the danger, John, inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun.
It's hardly appropriate to start hurling generalizations before-
If I may. I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here. It didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box and now you're selling it. You want to sell it. Well-
I don't think you're giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before.
Yeah. Yeah. But your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't start to think if they should.
Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction. If I was to-
Oh, no.
No, no. If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say.
No, hold on. This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction.
I simply don't understand this Luddite attitude, especially from a scientist. I mean, how can we stand in the light of discovery and not act?
Oh, what's so great about discovery? It's a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.
Well, the question is, how can you know anything about an extinct ecosystem? And therefore, how could you ever assume that you can control it? You have plants in this building that are poisonous. You pick them because they look good, but these are aggressive living things that have no idea what century they're in and they'll defend themselves. Violently, if necessary.
Dr. Grant, if there's one person here who could appreciate what I'm trying to do.
The world has just changed so radically and we're all running to catch up. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but look, dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?
I don't believe it. I don't believe it. You're meant to come down here and defend me against these characters and the only one I've got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer.
Thank you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, the scientists are seeing how ripe this endeavor is for unprecedented crucibles, aren't they?
Warwick Fairfax:
They really are. We have these scientists, Hammond, they're sitting around a dinner table in the base camp, and they're having this fascinating conversation. They're having a very, very nice dinner. It's interesting to see different people's reactions to really what has come about, what they've seen in the tour of the lab. And so, we've got the lawyer saying that they can charge anything they want to. It could be $10,000 a day, $12,000 a day. And then, of course, there's the merchandising on top of all of that. It's not just ticket prices.
Gary Schneeberger:
Lunch boxes, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And Hammond says, "Well, this park is not just for the super rich." He says he wants everybody in the world to enjoy it. The lawyer says somewhat smilingly and condescendingly, "Well, we'll have a coupon day. Throw crumbs to the old people." What is telling is Hammond just laughs. So here, he said, "Well, I don't want this to be for the wealthy." And then when the lawyer says, "Well, it'll be coupon day." Hammond goes, "Oh, yeah, okay," and laughs. So how much does Hammond care about taking care of regular people and not the super rich one can wander? Now, meanwhile, Malcolm says the lack of humility before nature that is displayed here in this whole complex is staggering. While the lawyer says things look okay, Malcolm says things are a lot worse than he feared. He says genetic power is the most awesome force, but you guys wield it like a kid who's found his dad's gun, a very graphic and unfortunately apt image.
He says it didn't require any scientific discipline. Your scientists were preoccupied with whether they could and did not stop to think whether they should. Basically saying, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Wise words. Malcolm says the dinosaurs had their chance and nature said they did not make it. And meanwhile, Sattler, one of the paleontologists, says that, "You can't know everything about an extinct ecosystem. And how can you assume that you can control it? These are aggressive living things that will protect themselves violently, if necessary." Grant says he doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but dinosaur and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been thrown together. How can we have the slightest idea of what to expect? So Grant also has reservations.
Now, Hammond, ever the optimist, to say the least, was taken aback by all this. He says the scientists are meant to defend him. And all three of them, Sattler, Grant and Malcolm, if not, and he says the only one that supports him is the blood-sucking lawyer. Those are his words. The scientists, Malcolm, Sattler and Grant, they're all concerned about what could go wrong, about the unanticipated crucibles that could happen. Hammond and the lawyer, they just focus on money, fame and the unprecedented impact that they will have. That's what they're thinking. It's two incredibly different reactions between the scientists and Hammond and the lawyer.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and they're going to be on a collision course, folks. Stay tuned. Hammond's grandchildren then show up. Tim is a dinosaur lover and a bit of a fanboy of Grant's and Lex is a computer whiz. Both skills will prove important later on. Then the kids and the scientists begin the automated version of the tour of the park. But Grant gets frustrated very early on when no dinosaurs are featured in the first several minutes. Everybody gets out of the car and walks around and soon they find an ill triceratops. Warwick, this is the first sign in the film that in bringing dinosaurs back to life, the parks team seems not to have given enough thought to keeping the animals safe, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed. Yeah, as you mentioned, we've got the group and they're now in a couple of Jeeps. These are automated Jeeps on a track, and they're having a tour of the park. So initially, as they approach the tyrannosaurus rex, the T-Rex paddock, they don't see anything. And so, Malcolm continues reflecting on his chaos theory, doom and gloom motif. Malcolm says, "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs." I guess Malcolm probably is not that religious, I guess. It's very much a doom and a gloom philosophy. And so, we see a goat that's being put near the fence to tempt the dinosaurs, because the people want to see some action, like a T-Rex come out from the undergrowth. But nothing happens.
So Grant says that a T-Rex does not want to be fed. It wants to hunt. Again, they're challenging the very nature of these animals. Grant says you cannot suppress 65 million years of gut instincts. And so then, we shift to this sick dinosaur, the triceratops, it's on its side, and Sattler sees that there's some West Indian lilacs nearby and that they're toxic. The implication is that the scientists and others at Jurassic Park, they haven't figured everything out. Basically, you've brought these tricerotops back to life. You put a bunch of plants and undergrowth there, but you haven't quite figured out that West Indian lilacs are poisonous, and that's why this triceratops is not doing well. They're doing things pretty fast, but clearly, there are some things that they not really thought through.
Gary Schneeberger:
We've all heard the phrase rush to judgment. What they're doing here is a rush to profit. It seems like that's the nature of ... As Hammond is sparing no expense, he is counting the money that's going to cover the expenses coming in once the park opened.
Warwick Fairfax:
And not only is it a rush to judgment, as we'll see, it's a rush to crucibles.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, very, you should be the president of a business called Beyond the Crucible. Very, very good. Next, nature, which has been manipulated quite a bit so far by Jurassic Park, shows up in the form of a severe rainstorm. The tour is stopped that the scientists are on. But as the scientists head back, Nedry, the computer programmer, who's going to sell the embryos to the competitor, sees the opportunity to steal those embryos and give them to the rival corporation. To get to the highly-protected embryo storage room, he shuts down all the park's security protocols. What happens next where it kicks off in earnest for all the characters we've met so far that science fiction terror the movie's rating promised. What happens first?
Warwick Fairfax:
So Nedry's been looking for an excuse to shut the security systems off, so that he can get the 15 dinosaur embryos off the island. So he has to, as we've mentioned, go to the east dock of the island, meet the competitor's boat, and then eventually get paid. He tells Hammond and some of the others in the control room area that they've been having trouble with the phones. Everything's tied to computers. Everything's very automated. And he says, "We're just going to shut off the minor system for about 18 to 20 minutes." Then he says, "Hey, I'm just going to get something at the snack bar. Does anybody want anything?" Like you say, he's all very nervously and he's not a calm, cool, collected spot. So Nedry shuts the systems down and gets the embryos out, because he has to shut the systems down to get the embryos out, and then runs off.
Now, what's interesting is, in an earlier scene, Nedry tells Hammond that he feels unappreciated. That's sadly for at least turncoats and people that betray companies in their country that somehow that's common tale. They feel unappreciated for whatever reason. So Hammond says that he's sorry about Nedry's financial problems. We don't know quite what that is. It's a gambling. Somehow Nedry's got himself into financial trouble. Hammond says he does not blame people for their mistakes, but he does ask that they pay for them. Now, these words will really come back to haunt Hammond, or at least they should. It sounds all very judgmental. "Hey, I understand if you make mistakes, but there are consequences if you make mistakes, you're going to pay for them. I'm not so much judging you. I'm just saying that's what happens. It's just all very matter of fact. You make a mistake. I get it, but you're going to pay for it." Those words could or should come back to haunt Hammond.
Meanwhile, back with the group near the T-Rex paddock, we see this huge T-Rex devouring the goat. At this point, the fences are failing all over the park because of the systems that Nedry has shut down. These fences are meant to be electrified. Well, they're not anymore. So, the T-Rex tears through the fence and Malcolm says that he hates being right all the time. Malcolm, I wouldn't say he's the most humble guy in the world, but he is self-confident, but he also does tend to be right pretty much always throughout this movie. Now, we see the T-Rex is right outside their Jeeps. Grant is in one Jeep and then the kids are in another. There are some other people there, Sattler and the lawyer and Malcolm.
Grant tells everybody not to move because the T-Rex detects movement. I don't know the eyesight is great with the T-Rex, but it does detect movement. So the T-Rex begins to turn over the vehicle with the kids in it. Now, Grant gets out with a flare to try to distract the T-Rex and throws the flare in the jungle. He's just trying to help the kids. Meanwhile, a lawyer has fled the scene and he's in an outside toilet because that's just the nearest structure that he can find.
Gary Schneeberger:
Fled the kids, right? Left the kids behind, fled the kids, yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yes. He doesn't turn out very well in this movie. And so, the T-Rex ends up finding the lawyer and eating him. Then, we see Grant and the kids, they escape through their fence and they find themselves on the edge of this huge concrete cliff. They cling to a cable and lower themselves down. They're just trying to find a way to get away from these T-Rex. Meanwhile, Sattler and Malcolm, they escape in another Jeep and go back to base camp. And so, as they try to flee, this T-Rex is chasing after them. They're trying to accelerate and it's getting very close. We see a side mirror with these immortal words that everybody has seen many times.
In the side mirror, there are words that say this. "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." And what do you see in this mirror? T-Rex charging at this Jeep. Very humorous words that Spielberg and the other folks behind this movie engineer. It's a classic. How can you avoid that line? "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear," it's just classic. Yeah, it's an incredible scene, and eventually, Sattler and Malcolm do find a way to escape this T-Rex.
Gary Schneeberger:
And things go south next for Nedry, as he tries to meet his contact. Let's just say he pays for his mistake. And it's not just the rain washing him off the roads, is it?
Warwick Fairfax:
No, indeed. So here's Nedry. He's nervously trying to make his way through the pouring rain. The roads are very muddy. Somehow he managed to crash into the sign that says which way the east dock is, and he has no idea now because the sign is just hanging down. He's racing to the east dock, as we've mentioned, to give the embryos to this competitive company, but Nedry crashes. His car seems to be near this waterfall. The Jeep is stuck. He gets out this [inaudible 00:46:52] winch, which is attached to the Jeep, tries to put it around a tree to then try to winch his way out from where it's stuck. Well, this dinosaur comes along. It's not that big and it sees him. Initially, Nedry's tried to give it a stick or it's like as if somehow that would help. But the dinosaur starts getting all agitated and flaring up at him. So Nedry flees back to his car, but the dinosaur follows and kills him.
Gary Schneeberger:
And Warwick, the scene that's really instructive for our purposes follows. Grant, Tim and Lex in a tree watching a brachiosaurus, what Lex has referred to as a veggiesaurus as opposed to a metosaurus, those who do not just eat plants. They're watching a brachiosaurus feed on the tree's leaves. It's a return to wonder in this movie, however shortlived. We'd all be wise in the midst of our own crucibles to look for the good among the bad, wouldn't we, as we're going through it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, such a good point. Here, we have Grant and the kids, they've got out of the vehicle. Tim is trapped at one point and they're trying to find their way down the cable, which they do to the bottom of this concrete cliff. They wander through the jungle and the undergrowth and they find this big tree, where they climb up to try to spend the night and just find a safe spot away from all the dinosaurs. What's interesting is before, it was clear that Grant feels uncomfortable with kids. After all, he made sure that he wasn't in the Jeep with the kids. I think he actually got out to get into the other one. He just does not want to be around kids. But now, we see that Grant and Lex and Tim are in this tree and the kids are hugging him and he's hugging them just to keep them safe. And then, this very large herbivore comes up and it's so big, even though they're very high up in the tree, it's looking to get some leaves from the top branches.
And as he mentioned, this is a herbivore, a plant-eating a dinosaur, a brachiosaurus. It's making some kind of noise. Its way of speaking, if you will. Grant tries to echo this noise back and the kids are huddling with Grant. Tim is trying to make some, what some would say is like a dad joke version of a dinosaur joke. It's a sweet scene that here you have Grant, the guy that does not like kids, he rescues the kids, he saves them, he's comforting them. As I think you're sort of indicating, amidst this crucible, we need to care for and have compassion for those around us, especially on our team. Sometimes we're going through a pretty challenging crucible, it's okay to stick your head up, smell the roses and just enjoy the scene in front of you. They always try to pat this massive dinosaur, which then I think sneezes on one of them or something, but it's sort of a cute scene.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. The scene then shifts back to Hammond and Sattler sitting in the dining area of the park. One of the great things Spielberg does in this movie is he divides the scientists and the kids up, so that there's like three different pairs of people who are going and doing stuff. The next one is Hammond and Sattler in the dining area of the park, and they have this conversation. What do they talk about work that's so interesting?
Warwick Fairfax:
This is a very interesting scene. So here, we have Hammond and it's with Sattler in this dining area of the base camp. It's in this huge atrium and he's eating ice cream. Basically, systems are down, there's no fridges. It's going to go to waste, and so they're just sitting there and Hammond is reflecting on the first exhibit that he had when he came down from Scotland and it was a flea circus. In this flea circus, they had a bunch of different attractions, a trapeze, seesaws, merry-go-rounds. People thought that they could cause sea fleas on these different attractions, but it was an illusion. And so Hammond says, "But with this place, Jurassic Park," he wanted to show people that something that was not an illusion, something that was real, something they could see and touch. And Hammond says they were overly reliant on automation.
I think what he's talking about is the systems that were shut down once Nedry put things on pause or they can't even phone outside because everything's tied to these computer systems. And so Hammond says, "Creation is an act of sheer will. Next time, it will be flawless." And clearly, he's not learning the lessons. He thinks the lesson is, "Okay, we won't have so much automation. We can just control creation by an act of will." That's his lesson, which is the wrong lesson. Sattler says it is still a flea circus. It's an illusion. Sattler's basically saying this whole Jurassic Park, it's a flea circus. It's an illusion. She says it calmly, but those are tough biting words. And Hammond keeps talking about having control again. And Sattler again says, "That's an illusion that we have control." She says that she did not have enough respect for this place and it is out now, meaning the dinosaurs.
She says that the only thing that matters now, caring for the people that we love, basically saving them, rescuing them, Grant, Lex and Tim. There are people out there and they're dying. Hammond still struggles to admit the mistakes he has made. He seems to believe that he can fix the problems and control things. Gee, the only mistake I made was too much automation. We can fix that. Sattler realizes that control is an illusion. Hammond has not learned the lessons of his crucible or Sattler clearly has.
Gary Schneeberger:
Couple of years ago when we did the AFI movies. There were two films that had characters that really didn't learn from their crucibles. The Godfather, Michael Corleone didn't, and Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane didn't. Hammond's in the same zip code with those folks for most of this movie. He's not learning the lessons of his ... He's much more avuncular. He's much more happy-go-lucky, but he really isn't learning as you pointed out. He's not learning while Sattler has.
Warwick Fairfax:
Hammond is certainly not as evil as Charles Foster Kane or Michael Corleone, but Sattler is arrogant and does believe that he can control everything. He's not learning any real lessons from his crucibles just to say, "Oh, it's an automation problem." That really isn't the issue. He's not, so far in this movie, learned any lessons. His decisions have had massive consequences. He's not tried to hurt anybody. In some sense, he feels like this whole Jurassic Park can be a wonderful attraction, help people understand science. So it's not like he's intrinsically evil and that all his motives are bad. He's a bit more of a relatable character in that it's easy to feel like you tried to do the right thing in life, but yet, end up not doing the right thing. You don't want to hurt anybody, but you end up hurting people, and you don't learn the lessons of your crucible, and that is certainly Hammond.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Now, we'll switch back. Now, we go back to Grant and the two kids, and they find several hatched eggs on the ground in the wild. What's the importance of this scene, Warwick? Because it's a pretty important one.
Warwick Fairfax:
It surely is. So here, Grant finds the eggshells, a number of eggshells on the ground. Well, what this says is that dinosaurs are breeding. Remember what these scientists told them, that the dinosaurs are all meant to be female. But Grant says, "Well, part of the DNA sequence was from frogs, and frogs are amphibian and that some frogs can change from one sex to another in a single sex environment. So adding that frog DNA ends up being a major mistake. Grant says that Malcolm was right. You can't control everything, life finds a way. Probably seemed like a good idea in theory. We've got some DNA sequences missing. Gee, let's use a frog. Maybe it's something in common in some sense with dinosaurs and something that maybe will work without thinking through everything in that decision.
Gary Schneeberger:
There's a scene that comes shortly after this one when Sattler goes out in the park with the park's game warden to try to reboot all the systems. Hammond says something here that shows he's not yet still, he's not yet accepting the seriousness of the crucible he and others are in.
Warwick Fairfax:
Hammond says that they're going to have to fully shut down the whole system in order to reboot it and wipe away, basically, the malware, the code that Nedry inserted in the system. And then, the systems will come back, including the phones, which they need to call for help. The y shut down the system, but there's a problem. To turn that system back on, they've got to go out to this concrete bunker, if you will, concrete shed where you'll have to turn the breakers back on. That's outside this main base area, they'll have to go out into the undergrowth to get there. So Sattler and the game warden are about to go outside to turn the breakers back on in this concrete bunker. But before they do, Hammond says, "This is all a bit like Disneyland when it opened. Nothing worked." So Malcolm says, "When the pirates of the Caribbean don't work, the guests don't get eaten."
Great phrase. Hammond still seems to think that this is all an easy fix to get Jurassic Park back up and running. We switch back to Sattler and the game warden. They're going through brush to get to this concrete building, where the breaker switches are. And the game warden, he's hunted in Africa. He's very aware of his environment and he senses there's something out there. So he tells Sattler, run to the building and go inside to re-engage the breakers while he stays outside to just see what's going on. Sattler goes down to the bowels of this concrete bunker. She has to charge up the breakers with some switch, and then she turns the breakers on. And then, once they're on, she has to re-engage all the individual circuits that are in there for each fence.
Now, meanwhile, the game warden, he sees a raptor in the brush and is about to shoot it. Instead of calmly looking at him, it's in the brush a little ways away and he's getting ready to shoot this raptor, but he pauses. It's if to say, "This doesn't feel right. This seems a bit too easy," because these are highly intelligent creatures. And just then, a raptor appears right beside him. He says, "Clever girl." Those are his last words because he does not have time to turn his gun and get the raptor. So a little bit too late he says, "Okay, now I figured out what's happening."
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. One of the most exciting, scary, dare I say, sci-fi terror scenes happens next when three velociraptors attack, first, Sattler and then the kids. Walk us through that scene, those scenes, Warwick.
Warwick Fairfax:
Grant manages to get the kids back to the base camp. Once Grant is inside, he leaves to find the others where Sattler and Hamilton, where's everybody? Tim and Lex, they sit down at the dining area and they start to eat cakes. I guess they brought everything out from the fridges and there are cakes there. We see in here a raptor that is nearby. Tim and Lex, they run to the commercial kitchen, they close the door behind them, they hide behind some equipment that's there, and we see some raptors hunting them. Now, one even figures out how to turn the handle on the door to open it. Earlier on, I think they speculated as could they really figure that out? Grant and Sattler trying to ponder that question.
Well, clearly these raptors are highly-intelligent hunters. The raptors get into this kitchen and they're hunting them. So eventually, the kids escape and they find Grant and Sattler and they run to the control room. But they can't lock the door to the control room until the locks are rebooted. And so, while the power's back on, the computers have to be rebooted. While Grant and Sattler are trying to keep the metal door closed with this raptor trying to get its way in, Lex, who we've learned earlier knows computer programming and she says it's a UNIX system. Now, not every kid knows what a UNIX system is, but she does
Gary Schneeberger:
I don't know what a UNIX system is.
Warwick Fairfax:
All I can say is I've heard the word, a UNIX coding, but that's about it. That would be all I would know. There's Lex at the computer terminal frantically trying to get the system online and reactivate every part of the program, including the door locks. So eventually, she does and the control room door lock. So now, they race out of the control room being chased by raptors and they find themselves in the atrium area of the space camp. There's two raptors have them trapped. You've got Grant trying to protect the others. At this point, things look very dire, about as dire as it has all movie for Grant and the kids and Sattler, everybody. But fortunately, the T-Rex comes to save the day about the only time in this movie when the T-Rex is the hero, but briefly.
The T-Rex comes in and starts eating one of the raptors, while the other raptor wants to try and defend its fellow raptor and jumps on the T-Rex and tries to get it. They all flee outside to a gas Jeep while all this is happening. And as Grant is getting in the car and they're about to drive away, Grant in this sort of deadpan pithy way says to Hammond, "After careful consideration, I've decided not to endorse your park." All very calmly. And Hammond, in a rare moment of self-reflection and humility says, "So have I." Hammond, for the first time in the movie, realizes there's a problem with the inherent concept of Jurassic Park. First time that's happened, all movie.
And then, in a comical bit that again, Steven Spielberg does such a good job of, as the T-Rex and the raptor attacking each other in this atrium of the base camp, we see this sign falling down. On that sign, it says, "When dinosaurs ruled the Earth," a fitting way to end that part of the movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Speaking of ends, how does the movie wrap? The final scene in the film, how does that play out?
Warwick Fairfax:
We now see them drive down in the Jeep to the helicopter pad. They get in the helicopter because they've been able to phone the mainland in Costa Rica to get help. We see Hammond in the helicopter looking at his cane. On the head of that cane is an amber head with a mosquito in it. And so, Hammond is reflecting about Jurassic Park, about getting dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes and Amber. He's just thinking about this whole thing, probably thinking, "Why did I do it? What was this all for? Where did it go wrong?" Who knows what he's thinking, but he's reflecting as he's looking at that amber head of his cane.
Meanwhile, you've got Tim and Lex, and they're in Grant's arms. Grant's like their hero, their savior. The man who does not like kids is suddenly warming up and kind of likes having the kids around him. And meanwhile, Sattler, who as we've mentioned, it does seem to indicate that she's in a relationship with Grant, she smiles at him, like, "Who is this guy? I thought this guy didn't like kids." Maybe she's thinking, "Well, maybe this bodes well for the future." Who knows what she's thinking? It's a neat scene. As the helicopter flies off into the sunset, we see birds on the side, including Pelicans. It's really a somber end to the movie with a lot of reflection of what's happened.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Warwick, you and I are not ... I'm going to date myself here, we're not Siskel and Ebert. We're not film critics. We talk about these movies not to review them. We talk about them to spotlight the crucibles the characters go through and the lessons that all of us can learn about their crucibles. How does Jurassic Park offer insight to help us move beyond our own crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. We can learn a lot from the characters in this movie, Jurassic Park. We've got some characters who are not fully aware of the gravity of their crucible, like Hammond, who until the very end believes nothing to see here. I'm not even sure he admits it's a speed bump. Maybe it's just a pebble on the road. Really, not much more than that. Everything's solvable. We've just got to figure it out. Meanwhile, the lawyer, he just sees dollar signs. Yes, he was a bit concerned when the investors, the insurance companies were concerned, but now that he has experts who he hopes will sign off on it, he's good. He's calm so long as the investors' insurance companies are okay and the money rolls in. That's really his way of looking at life.
On the other hand, you've got characters that see the gravity, the crucible, especially Malcolm, who, from the very beginning, just as horrified by what he sees from just moment one landing in Jurassic Park and seeing dinosaurs. Grant and Sattler initially overall, by what they see, but pretty soon they begin to have doubts and reservations about what will happen. What Malcolm has said is telling about chaos theory and you can't control things. Grant and Sattler, they're paleontologists, they know you can't control life evolution, you can't control what happened to the species. This movie shows us that sometimes we will gloss over the crucible that we have faced and believe it's not a big deal and nothing to see here, we can absolutely solve it.
This is really the reverse of that common saying. In this case is actually making a molehill out of a mountain. We should never underestimate not just how painful our crucibles are, but how difficult it is to move beyond them. You've got to reflect on your crucibles. You can't just say, "Okay, that was a crucible. Moving on. I'm getting back on a horse. We're moving ahead full steam ahead. Nothing's holding me back." That is also just as bad as hiding under the covers and not doing anything. You've got to really understand and analyze and reflect on what went wrong with the crucible. It's not always just, "Oh, if I did something a bit different, I can still carry on with life just the same way." Typically, with crucibles, it might mean I need to change the direction of my life, not just retool and recalibrate and slightly tweak.
Rarely do you have a crucible, and we've had so many guests in our podcast and we've learned lots from history. Rarely have I ever heard a guest saying, "Well, my big lesson with this crucible is I just need to tweak my life by 5% and keep going." I can never remember one guest ever saying that. Life's not just about a quick tweak to the crucible and everything will be rosy. Well, that seems to be Hammond's philosophy of life. This movie shows you that blind optimism and hubris can be very dangerous, and that's exactly what Hammond has. This kind of arrogance can help make crucibles worse and indeed create many new crucibles. And that's the sad testimony of John Hammond.
Hammond is not an evil person, like Michael Corleone or Charles Foster Kane. He's not a bad human being, but his arrogance and cutting corners lead to horrendous crucible. This is a character that's easy to relate to in one sense, it's easy to say nothing to see here. Keep going forward, we just need to retool a bit. No problem. Everything's solvable. That is the kind of character that could be many of us.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, you've just seen the lights come up. The feature has ended. As you gather up your popcorn boxes and your toys that came with the film, sometimes they hand it out. Maybe they handed out things like this, like the amber stone where you're watching the movie. That will put a wrap on this episode of our summer series, Back to A Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. We will be back next week with Scott, give it to me. Give it to me. Give me to me. What? Give me the drum roll. All right, there it is. Next time, we will talk about what Warwick and I first learned was just called Star Wars. Now, it is called Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. That will be the next episode of our series. So until we are together for that episode, we'll save you an aisle seat and we'll see you then.
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What if the only thing standing between you and triumph is the belief that your crucible can’t be overcome?
In this episode, we dive into Back to the Future as part of the fourth installment of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. The McFly family has a generational problem — not just Biff Tannen, but the deeper pattern of self-doubt and resignation that leaves them stuck in their trials rather than pushing through them. It takes a souped-up DeLorean, a little time travel, and one son willing to believe things can be different to break the cycle. Their story raises a question worth sitting with: what crucibles in your own life have you quietly decided can’t be overcome?
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
It seems like when setbacks happen, like Marty losing his audition, the collective response is, "Well, it's all for the best." Defeats are not motivating for this family. It's not like, "okay, when you get defeated, you get back up, you try again, you never give up." It's like, "Well, if at first you don't succeed, give up and never try again."
Gary Schneeberger:
That's hardly a recipe for overcoming the crucibles life throws at us, but it's exactly how the McFly family of Back to the Future responds when they encounter setbacks, at least until their son Marty starts doing some time traveling in a souped-up DeLorean.
This week, in the fourth episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema, we look at the challenges the McFlys faced, from being bullied by Biff Tannen across two generations to not believing in themselves enough to muster their resilience to turn their trials into triumph. How can understanding how they master these challenges help you overcome your own? Stay tuned.
Welcome, friends, to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. You have joined us during our summer series, which we are calling Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. That's right, it's another series where we focus on what movies can teach us about crucibles. And we did it because we had so much fun in the last three years that we did this, that we're doing it again this summer. And after doing movies that spotlighted heroes, all kinds of heroes, sports heroes and superheroes and historical heroes, classic movies celebrated by the American Film Institute and then movies that really featured a lot of crucibles. You've heard of the coffee brand Chock Full o'Nuts. This was Chock-Full of Crucibles. That was the series that we did last year. But this year we're doing, as I said, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema.
So Warwick, as we dive into this, let me ask you what I asked you at the beginning of all of these episodes. Why movies again? This is the fourth time now, three in a row, plus one before that, that we've gone into the cinema for our summer series. What are you hoping our listeners and viewers get from our discussion of these films that we're talking about?
Warwick Fairfax:
So we both love movies and have enjoyed looking at movies from a Beyond the Crucible perspective, which is very different than when you're watching a movie for fun and you're watching it with a Beyond the Crucible lens. I mean, just in this movie that we're about to discuss, there's so much I didn't see the first time. But movies typically portray protagonists that face significant obstacles that they seek to overcome. Sometimes they overcome them and a few times, like in Citizen Kane and in some other movies like The Godfather, they're actually defined unfortunately by the crucibles. And we've covered superheroes, sports heroes, historical movies, as you mentioned, the American Film Institute's top 100 movies and lastly, we focused on films with significant crucibles. So we love movies and seeing what we can learn from them.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And one of the things, and I've not said it yet in this year's series, I love because every week I get to hear you say the excellent Australian pronunciation of protagonist as protagonist. So I love that. Truly, that's a high point of the series for me. But I also know, Warwick, you're particularly excited about what we're doing this year because you are very much a fan of the science fiction film genre. What do you love about science fiction movies so much and what about them in particular is resonant as we talk about the subject of crucibles and how you move beyond them?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I've always loved science fiction since I was very small, books, movies, TV. I think of that classic science fiction movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey that came out in 1968 and that was an incredible movie. You'd see future technology like space shuttles and that'd have screens on the front of seats in front of you, which exists now but didn't in 1968. You'd have talking computers, almost sentient computers, which it got a little scary in that movie, video conferencing. And they did such a good job. You had video conferencing with Bell telephone, which became AT&T. And then I was also a big fan of some science fiction shows like Star Trek, [inaudible 00:04:51] from 1968 to 1969. And I read some of the classic novels written by Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, giants of the science fiction genre.
So what I loved about science fiction and still do is not only does it explore future technology, but at its best it explores deep societal issues, what's the future of the human race. How will humans interact with technology as well as other species out there in the universe? Will the human race be a force for good or not? And many of the issues that we face today such as AI really is something that comes up in science fiction. As I mentioned in 2001: A Space Odyssey, we have a computer that ends up being malevolent and puts the astronauts in great danger because it basically becomes sentient. So it's something we talk about today. So science fiction, we see significant crucibles portrayed. Can the human race survive? Will there be expansion of humans throughout the galaxy? Will technology get to a point where it controls humans? So science fiction, not only does it have crucibles, but explores some very deep societal issues.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And just hearing you talk about computers becoming sentient, I'm reminded of our last week's episode on Terminator 2: Judgment Day because Skynet did become self-aware and that sentience did turn out to be bad. So that was an actual very bad computer, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So bad things potentially happen when computers become sentient. So something we'll have to watch out for in the years to come.
Gary Schneeberger:
Indeed. So here we are in episode four and we're looking at the 1985 movie that inspired our series title. This is kind of fun. And that was Back to the Future, the top grossing film of that year, just like T2, which we talked about last week was the top grossing film of 1991. This Back to the Future was the top grossing film of 1985. Here's the summary of the movie known in the film industry as the logline. And I read these every episode that we do because I just think as a writer, I'm like, this is so perfectly compactly explained that I'm jealous. I didn't think of it, but here we go.
Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. The first piece of the film, Warwick, introduced the two main characters mentioned in the logline, Marty and Doc. And both of them, from what we glean in the film's first minutes, are no strangers to crucibles. In fact, it seems their lives are kind of a boneyard full of crucibles when we first meet them. So what setbacks and challenges are these two characters dealing with when we encounter them?
Warwick Fairfax:
So in this opening scene, we see Doc's house and there's every conceivable kind of clock ticking. I mean, everything from grandfather clocks with cookers and you name it, there's every kind of clock. And we see a framed article that Doc had to sell his family's mansion, so he's obviously suffered a setback there. And then there's this kind of hair-brained automatic breakfast machine that really doesn't seem to work too well, there's burnt toast, there's coffee that's getting poured on the ground, there's pet food that falls in a massive pile in the dog bowl, I mean, I could have sworn I saw the movie that it said cat food, maybe it wasn't, but I mean, everything seems to be going wrong with piles of dog food on the ground. So it seemed that Doc is having challenges. He's not a very successful inventor. He's lost his family home. So it's really not an auspicious beginning.
And so then we see Marty at Doc's house and his calling for Doc is not there. So Marty then turns on a very powerful amp and he plugs his guitar into this amp and starts plucking the strings and the amp basically blows up. I mean, of course, Marty being Marty turns every dial up to the max that he could possibly do. Is there a red zone on the dial? Well, what does that mean? Well, you just go way past that red zone, you just kind of dial it up, see what happens. And he's just blown backwards with his guitar. And so soon after that, there's a phone call that Marty gets at Doc's house. And Doc says, "You have to go to the local mall, Twin Pines Mall, and you got to be there at 1:15 AM." Now somehow Doc has set the clocks back, so that they're slow, 25 minutes slow. So it's like Marty looks at the clock and he's like, it's really 8:25, he's late for school. And so he dashes off.
Gary Schneeberger:
And also in that scene where he's talking to Doc, Doc says to him, "Oh yeah, you might want to watch out about the amp. Be careful because I don't think it's working right." Doc's timing is not good there on that advice.
Warwick Fairfax:
And Marty thinks, "Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Doc. I'll watch out for that," or something like that.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So two scenes then come back to back in this film that spotlight the big themes of the movie. And the first one, Warwick, involves Marty's confrontation with his principal. What does he say to Marty and how does Marty respond? And it's important to really pull this out because this will become sort of a common refrain that gets thrown at Marty throughout the movie.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so true. So here's Marty, he's sneaking into Hill Valley High School and he sees his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker. But Principal Strickland, he catches them and gives him tardies, which for Marty is four in a row. That's a very common thing.
Gary Schneeberger:
The ultimate black mark. Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh yeah, very common thing for Marty. And so Principal Strickland, he reminds Marty that Doc is his almost mentor, Marty's mentor is a nut job. And Marty is a slacker who reminds him of Marty's dad who is also a slacker. The principal notices that Marty's band is on the roster for an audition for the high school. And the principal says he does not have a chance. He, Marty has no chance because he's too much like his old man. And then he says this, the principal, "No McFly never amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley." The principal is in Marty's face, like inches away. And Marty fights back, at least verbally, and says, "Well, history is going to change."
So you see in this opening scene rather than a fellow traveler, he's one of the people that we most know, somebody that says, in not so many words, "You're nothing. Your family's nothing. They've never amounted to anything. Give it up. Why even bother trying to audition with your band? It won't work. You'll fail." I mean, that's just this negative message that Principal Strickland gives him.
Gary Schneeberger:
And he's been dropping that kind of negativity on the McFly men for 30 years because as the movie travels back later on, we find out he knows Marty's dad because he had Marty's dad in school too.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh yeah, exactly. This is his lifelong, the McFlys are hopeless, they'll never amount to anything, waste of space. So Marty auditions with his band, which are interestingly called The Pinheads. And they actually play The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News. And the teachers evaluating Marty's audition are not impressed and say that the music is too loud.
Gary Schneeberger:
And the teacher who actually tells him it's too loud, it's a cameo by Huey Lewis himself playing the teacher who is kind of very bland and he's like, "Oh no, that's way too loud." And it's his song that's playing, which is kind of a funny little Easter egg that Bob Zemeckis, the director, threw in the film.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's pretty funny. Huey Lewis doesn't like his own song, so who knew? But anyway, so Marty's crestfallen, as is Jenifer.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. But Jennifer does try to cheer him up by quoting to him something that she says Doc Brown always says. And folks, you want to listen to what Warwick's going to explain that is because it will not be the last time you hear these words. So what is it, Warwick, that Jennifer tells Marty, quoting Doc, about how he should think about this crucible that he finds himself in?
Warwick Fairfax:
So Jennifer is really the first fellow traveler that we see in the movie that is speaking into Marty. And Jennifer tells Marty that he's really good, that she likes his music and she says that he should send in his audition tape to a record company. She believes in him. And then Jennifer starts to say, "It's like Doc says," and then Marty finishes what Jennifer was about to say. And so Marty says, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." And Jenifer says, "That's good advice." So Marty says that if they say he's no good, he can't take that kind of rejection. So he's about to go down that negative line, listening to the siren songs of Principal Strickland who says McFlys can't amount to anything. But then he stops and he catches himself and says, "Hang on, I'm sounding like my old man. I'm sounding like my dad."
So he realizes this is not helpful to go down this line that McFlys can't accomplish anything and just give up. He's thinking that, he's beginning to go down that line, but he stops himself before he gets too far down there. So it's a fascinating moment.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it's a fascinating moment when taking the whole movie into context. We'll talk more about that later folks. We then meet Marty's parents and siblings. They too seem to be living in a crucible existence, especially the dad, George, who is bullied by his boss Biff. These scenes show, Warwick, that the whole family's living in crucibles, don't they?
Warwick Fairfax:
So here we see Marty at his home and Biff Tannen comes in. Now Biff has wrecked George's car, but Biff, of course, won't pay for the damages. Somehow he finds a way to say, "Well, George, it's all your fault that I crashed your car," instead of, Biff logic, and not only that, but he blames George for the fact that he spilled his drink on his lap and it stained his jacket. And so he wants George to pay for the cleaning bill for his jacket. So it's George's fault, George has to fix the car that he wasn't driving, which is George's car, and also to pay for the dry cleaning for the jacket. So then Biff asks George for the reports that George was meant to work on. Now it's clear that these are reports that Biff should be working on. It should be Biff's reports. And he says, "Look, I need a bit of time because I'm going to need to copy them so that it makes it look like it's my work."
And so when George seems a bit slow on the uptake or slow to respond, Biff grabs George by the tie and says sarcastically, "Hello, anyone home?" He then marks George again by saying to him that his shoe is untied. Of course, George looks down and Biff kind of hits him on the chin. So George laughs kind of nervously and Biff looks at Marty and Marty stares. Marty's just looking at what is happening here. Marty's just incredulous just to see the way that Biff is treating his dad and how his dad is just taking it.
Gary Schneeberger:
And to hear you talk about Biff, this just popped in my head, he's kind of like in old Western movies, the villain that twirls his mustache. And what's funny about this movie or about that is that there were three Back to the Futures made. And in the third movie, Back to the Future Part III, where they go back into the 1870s or something, I believe Biff is actually played with one of those big handlebar mustaches. So that was intentional, I guess, for the character when he's first introduced here.
Warwick Fairfax:
I'm not sure, but I can't remember, but maybe it was one of Biff's ancestors in the 1800s or something. So the genes of being obnoxious and the bully go back generations.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes, indeed they do.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So once Biff leaves, then George says he knows what Marty will say because he can tell, there's this expression on Marty that's just like, "What are you doing? What's happening here?" And so George says, "Well, Biff is his supervisor." And George says, "Well, he's just not good at confrontations." Marty says, "But Biff wrecked the car." And Marty says he needed the car. And his dad says, "Well, he's sorry." So George says, "Well, Marty is better off not playing at the dance because George hears that Marty didn't do well on the audition." And Marty's brother Dave agrees. Everybody's supporting this negative give up at the first moment of failure, at the first setback, and nobody seems to be doing that well. We've seen how George is completely under Biff's thumb. We see Dave is in a McDonald's uniform, obviously working at McDonald's. Marty's sister doesn't seem to be doing that well.
And then we see Marty's mother who's overweight and is drinking a lot. And then, we see that Lorraine throws a cake down on the table for Uncle Joey who basically says he's not going to need it because he didn't make parole again. I think there was icing on there saying, "Welcome home" or "Welcome out Uncle Joey." And yeah, Uncle Joey's still behind bars. And so then Lorraine says, "Well, we all make mistakes in life." And this looks at it very, I don't know, matter-of-factly, if you will.
So it seems like none of the family seems to be doing well, including Marty's mother who drinks too much and his brother's working at McDonald's. It seems like when setbacks happen, like Marty losing his audition, their collective response is, "Well, it's all for the best." Defeats are not motivating for this family. It's not like, "Okay, when you get defeated, you get back up, you try again, you never give up." It's like, "Well, if at first you don't succeed, give up and never try again." That seems to be the family motto, which is very destructive and very discouraging for Marty and the rest of the family.
Gary Schneeberger:
It flips on its head, what we say in Beyond the Crucible all the time. The way the McFlys are living is that their crucibles did not happen for them, their crucibles happened to them. That's how they're living their lives.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. And it's almost like you are not only defined by your worst day, you were defined by the smallest speed bump. No matter how small the speed bump is, give up, you were defined by that. I mean, it's just a crushing, depressing life that they're leading based on their choices basically.
Gary Schneeberger:
Correct. But here's the good news. The norm is about to be upset. Doc Brown shows up on the scene to reveal what he calls his greatest experiment. "The big one I've been dreaming of all my life," he says. He has Marty meet him at the local mall to show him what the experiment is. It's something that has the power to change the trajectory of Doc's life and winds up changing the trajectory of Marty's life and his whole family's life too.
Warwick, what is this invention and how does it come to be?
Warwick Fairfax:
So we see Marty with Doc at the mall and Doc opens up a truck to reveal a DeLorean car, but it's not any ordinary DeLorean, this is actually a time machine. So we see Doc has a white coat with interestingly enough, a radioactive symbol on it, which doesn't look good.
Gary Schneeberger:
No.
Warwick Fairfax:
And Doc opens the car and he puts in the dashboard the date of November 5th, 1955. And he says that was the date that Doc invented time travel. So Doc had this vision of the flux capacitor back then. This is 30 years ago and it took that length of time, 30 years and his family fortune to build it.
Gary Schneeberger:
I want to play show-and-tell for a second because you mentioned a DeLorean, right? The time machine is made out of a DeLorean. For folks who don't know about DeLoreans, look them up. You can find them on YouTube. They're very interesting-looking cars. But my watch today happens to be made with the logo of the DeLorean Motor Company. See right there? DRC. No, sorry. DMC, the DeLorean Motor Company. That's my watch today. But you also mentioned Warwick, the flux capacitor. I've got to do this.
Warwick Fairfax:
You have a flux capacitor. I
Gary Schneeberger:
I have a flux capacitor right here. It's actually a Yahtzee cup. It's Back to the Future Yahtzee. There's my show-and-tell for the day. Sorry to interrupt, but I had to show that.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, that's all good. And you don't need to show us the plutonium. I'm sure that's back in the lead line vault that you have in the basement.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes. Yes. That is not, right, handy right now.
Warwick Fairfax:
Not indeed.
So this flux capacitor, the DeLorean, it runs on plutonium and it needs 121 gigawatts of power to make it run. So Doc said obviously it needs plutonium. And he said that he took the plutonium from some Libyan terrorists who wanted him to build them a bomb. So basically, where do you find plutonium? Well, I guess these handy Libyan terrorists-
Gary Schneeberger:
Terrorists that are [inaudible 00:24:08].
Warwick Fairfax:
... who wanted him to build a bomb. And he said, "Sure, I'll build a bomb," not really intending to do that. So I think we'll see that Doc didn't quite think through this plan very well. But anyway, he says he's going 25 years into the future and he needs one flask of plutonium per trip. He was almost about to take off without another flask of plutonium, which means he would've got stuck. So just then as Doc's about to take off, we see this VW van hurtling through the mall, the tops open, and there's Libyan terrorists just shooting at them with machine guns.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
And at one point it appears that Doc is being killed, fire all over him. So then Marty jumps in the DeLorean and accelerates. And we've already learned, just before then, that the key benchmark is 88 miles per hour because once you hit 88, time travel happens. So you see the dial get close to 88 and then it happens and then the DeLorean disappears. You see these flaming tire tracks and it's disappeared. The VW van crashes and yeah, somehow Marty is gone, he's gone somewhere.
Gary Schneeberger:
He's gone somewhere ta-da-da-ta. You don't have to wait too long folks. He's gone and he shows up pretty quickly and he shows up in 1955, 30 years earlier. He hides behind the signs, some signs in town, and he walks into the town. And when he enters the town, Warwick, he sees a much different Hill Valley than the one he was living in 1985, doesn't he?
Warwick Fairfax:
He surely does. So Hill Valley in 1985, it's a dilapidated rundown town center. It has X-rated movies showing on the movie theater. But now in 1955, Hill Valley town center, it looks pristine. And there's a movie playing with Ronald Reagan in it. Now for folks, this movie was made in 1985 and in that year, Ronald Reagan was President. So the audience are going, "Whoa, what? Ronald Reagan is playing in a movie back then." And so then we see a Texaco gas station and it has a whole bunch of people helping this one car. So there's somebody filling it up. There are other people washing the car and they've all got their Texaco uniforms and something-
Gary Schneeberger:
It looks like a pit crew. It looks like a pit crew in car race, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. But that doesn't happen here, at least not in our time, nor did it in 1985, but in 1955 it did. And we also see a record shop playing the song, The Legend of Davy Crockett. And that was from a great 1950s black-and-white TV show, David Crockett. And then we see the clock tower in the main square is actually working because in 1985, and this will be important later on, it's been broken for 30 years. But in 1955, it's actually working.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And then Marty meets his dad, a 30 years younger George McFly, first person he meets when he gets back in 1955, when he gets into 1955. And he discovers that George's crucibles back then are a pattern that continued, doesn't he? In other words, the guy that he meets in 1955 has a lot in common with his father in 1985, doesn't he?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, he surely does, unfortunately. So Marty enters a diner and he's looking for a payphone to try to get a hold of Doc. He knows that Doc was around in Hill Valley back then in 1955. So he's trying to find a payphone and a phone book and find the address and number. So then a young Biff enters and he says, "Hey, McFly." And so Marty turns around, but there's another guy that turns around too at the same time. And that other guy is a young George, Marty's dad. And so Biff asked George if George has done Biff's homework. It's the same line as 1985-
Gary Schneeberger:
Exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
... when Biff says, "Hey, have you done my reports?" So in this case it's, "Have you done my homework?" And George says, "Well, it's not due till Monday." Well, Biff knocks George on the head saying, "Hello, is anybody home?" Biff says he needs basically the weekend to copy it because if he doesn't copy it in his own hand, Biff will get kicked out of school. And so it looks like nothing has changed for George. George is still getting picked on by Biff and George is also not standing up for himself and just shrinks from Biff teasing and him using him. So it seems like George has gone through a lifetime of being picked on and being used by Biff and doing nothing about it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Then, George also leads Marty to his mom, Lorraine, to Marty's mom, Lorraine. And unlike Marty's dad, who's pretty much the same as Marty knows him to be in 1985, Marty's mom, 30 years earlier in 1955, she's nothing like the woman. She's a girl at this point. She's nothing like who Marty knows to be his mom in 1985, is she? She's a different young lady.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. So George takes off on his bike and Marty follows him. So then Marty sees George in a tree and George has binoculars and he's staring across the road at a young woman in her bedroom on the second floor who's undressing.
Gary Schneeberger:
Clearly up to something really good, George.
Warwick Fairfax:
And so Marty is thinking, "My dad is a peeping Tom. I mean, what is my dad doing?" So then George falls out of the tree and falls right in front of the car that's driving by. So Marty, in an act of heroism, pushes his dad out of the way and gets hit by the car. Now George rushes off while the driver of the car gets out to see if Marty's okay. Now it turns out we'll find out the driver of this car is a young Lorraine's dad. So what ends up happening is Lorraine's dad, the driver of the car, brings George, who is unconscious, back to his house. So then Marty wakes up and at first he thinks, okay, I had this nightmare and I'm waking up and what happened? And there's a girl by there and as Marty's waking up, he says, "Mom, is that you?"
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
... and kind of, but as Marty's waking up, this girl puts an ice pack on his head and says that Marty has been asleep for nine hours. And the light goes on and it turns out the girl is his mother. Now this is a young Lorraine. She's a teenager. She looks wonderful, very different than the more overweight mother that he knows who drinks too much. This is a completely different Lorraine, a completely different person. So Lorraine keeps calling Marty Calvin because Marty wears Calvin Klein underwear. And so throughout the movie, it shifts between Lorraine calling him Calvin or Marty. It's a bit confusing because obviously she'd never heard of Calvin Klein underwear. And so Lorraine sits next to Marty and is going to touch him, like putting a hand on his knee or something and Marty falls off the bed and really doesn't want to be sort of romantic-
Gary Schneeberger:
Can't get away fast enough, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. He doesn't want to be in a romantic relationship with his mother. So Marty goes downstairs and he meets Lorraine's parents and family. And one funny scene, he sees that there's baby Joey who's in the playpen and Marty says, "You better get used to this." Because remember in 1985 when he's at his home, his mom puts down this cake for his uncle Joey who's in prison. So it's like foreshadowing of little baby Joey is behind bars. So anyway, so Lorraine in 1955 is nothing like Marty's mother in 1985. She's young and good-looking with a whole life ahead of her. So everything seems very different now in 1955.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. So Marty's perspective, his world is rocked and he tries to find something that's going to help him un-rock it. And that's when he goes looking for 1955's version of Doc Brown. He finds him, but initially has trouble convincing him that he's from the future, he, Marty, is from the future. It's only after he shares the story of how Doc was prompted to create the time machine that Doc offers to help him. Warwick, let's take a look and a listen to.
The clip that drives the action in the second act of the movie. Here it is.
Doc Brown:
It's truly amazing. A portable television studio. No wonder your President has to be an actor. He's gotta look good on television.
Marty McFly:
Whoa, this is it. This is the part coming up, Doc.
Doc Brown:
No, no, no, no. This sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electrical.
What did I just say?
The flux capacitor stores...
This sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.
Marty McFly:
1.21 gigawatts. 1.21 gigawatts.
Doc Brown:
Please stop. What the hell is a gigawatt? How could I have been so careless? 1.21 gigawatts? Tom, how am I going to generate that kind of power? It can't be done. Can it?
Marty McFly:
Doc, all we need is a little plutonium.
Doc Brown:
I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium was available in every corner drug store, but in 1955, it's a little hard to come by.
Marty, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're stuck here.
Marty McFly:
Whoa, whoa, Doc. Stuck here? I can't be stuck here. I got a wife in 1985. I got a girl.
Doc Brown:
Is she pretty?
Marty McFly:
She's beautiful. She's crazy about me. Look at this. Look what you wrote here, Doc. That says it all. Doc, my only home.
Doc Brown:
Marty, I'm sorry. But the only power source capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts of electricity is a bolt of lightning.
Marty McFly:
What'd you say?
Doc Brown:
A bolt of lightning. Unfortunately, you never know when or where it's ever going to strike.
Marty McFly:
We do now.
Doc Brown:
This is it. This is the answer. It says here that a bolt of lightning is going to strike the clock tower precisely 10:04 PM next Saturday night. If we could somehow harness this light, channel it into the flux capacitor, it just might work. Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Warwick, talk about what leads up to this clip and the importance about what's about to take place after this clip plays out.
Warwick Fairfax:
So yeah, Gary, as you mentioned, Marty has trouble convincing Doc that he's from the future in the time machine that Doc created. It seemed pretty farfetched in 1955. So Marty says that he knows how Doc got the bruise on his head, that he fell off the toilet and somehow came up with the idea for the flux capacitor. So they go off and get the DeLorean, which is hidden behind the sign outside of town, and they bring the car back to Doc's garage. So after Doc shows Marty his drawing of the flux capacitor, they open the DeLorean to see the real flux capacitor. And Doc is amazed because he's dreamt of this flux capacitor and here it is, it's actually working. And Doc is just jubilant and says, "Finally, I've invented something that works." Because as we'll see, a lot of his inventions don't work like the automated breakfast thing that doesn't work too well.
So in this clip, we see Marty showing Doc the video because he has the video camera that he was actually shooting Doc before the Libyan terrorists came on in the mall in 1985. And so he's showing Doc, an old Doc, talking about that to make this DeLorean work and to be a time machine, you need a nuclear reaction to generate 121 gigawatts and you need plutonium. Well, Doc says in one of the funnier moments of the movie, and there's a lot of funny moments, "I don't know what it's like in 1985, maybe getting plutonium is like going to the corner drugstore, the corner grocery store, but it's a little hard to get plutonium in 1955." So Doc says, as you can see in the clip, "We need a bolt of lightning to generate that kind of power."
Now, it just so happens that Marty has a flyer with him from 1985. Now, earlier in the movie when Marty and Jennifer in the town square, a woman hands him a flyer saying to try to raise money to fix the clock tower. In that flyer, it has the precise date of when a lightning bolt hit that clock tower in 1955. So at this point, Doc's like, "Well, that's it. We're going to need a bolt of lightning. Well, now I know exactly when a bolt of lightning is going to hit and where." And so then he says in that immortal line that we're going to send you back to the future, pointing his hand out. Marty now has hope that he won't be stuck in 1955 and he can get back to 1985, his family and his girlfriend, Jennifer.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And there are crucibles involving time travel. There are other crucibles involving time travel. Doc warns Marty of the catastrophe that can happen if Marty interacts with anybody he knows in 1985, now that he's in 1955.
Warwick, how does Doc convince him, this is more than a life-altering crucible, it's a life-preventing crucible possibly?
Warwick Fairfax:
When Doc asks him if he's interacted with anybody, Marty says, well, he's met his parents and Doc is horrified, "What?" And so Marty has a photo of his family with him. When Doc looks at that photo, Marty's head is gone like it's being erased. And so basically Doc says, "If we don't stop this process, your whole family will be erased." So one of the things you see in time travel movies and shows, including Star Trek, is if you go back in time and you influence yourself back then, it can alter the future timeline. That's a standard fare in science fiction. So Robert Zemeckis, the director of the movie, obviously knows this standard science fiction logic. Yeah, so that is a crucible. And really Marty's challenge is he's got to find a way to prevent this crucible of altering his family's history, which if he doesn't, not only will he have trouble perhaps getting back to the future, but he may not exist in the future.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And his parents, in the 1985 segments, his parents talk about how they fell in love. So that's what prompts Marty to go, "Wait, okay, they're in high school. I met them both. My mom now thinks I'm attractive, so that's kind of weird and also dangerous." So he comes up with the idea that he has to find a way to make his mom and dad as high schoolers meet and fall in love in 1955, so the family can exist in 1985. His efforts start with George. He discovers something about his dad he never knew.
And really, Warwick, and beyond the crucible parlance, Marty dives in to act as a fellow traveler to his father at this point, doesn't he?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so true. So we see Marty now going to high school and he sees George who's in high school getting kicked on the backside because of a sign on him saying, "Kick me." It's like a middle school thing, except for George it keeps going on, he's in high school. And so Doc and Marty look at this and Doc says, "Well, maybe you're adopted." I mean, Doc's thinking, how in the world is he going to get together with Lorraine and have kids? The sad thing is nothing much has changed with George. So now we see Principal Strickland, he was principal in 1985, well, he's principal in 1955, very long tenure, staggering.
And so then we see Principal Strickland, he comes up to George and asks him if he wants to be a slacker the rest of his life. So just like the future principal, this principal is the same kind of person. He keeps really getting in the face of McFlys and discouraging them. And Doc wonders what Marty's mother ever saw in George. I mean, there's not a lot to think of who could see anything worthwhile in George. That's really basically what Doc is thinking. And Doc and Marty realize that George and Lorraine connected because originally George was the one who was meant to be hit by Lorraine's father's car. But in this version of events, it was Marty and not George. And that's what really alters the timeline, which is a bit of a disaster for the time continuum, so to speak.
So Doc says it's the Florence Nightingale effect when nurses become attached to their patients. And that's what happened in the original timeline. Now, Lorraine only has eyes for Marty and calls him a dreamboat. Doc says that we have to get George and Lorraine to go to the Enchantment Under The Sea dance and that George has to take Lorraine to the dance. If that doesn't happen, then Marty won't exist, his siblings won't exist. So we see George is in the cafeteria writing science fiction stories and George says that he never lets anyone read his stories because what if people thought they were no good. George often says, "I don't think I could take that." And Marty finds a way of encouraging him and saying, "Well, maybe they'll get published." There's something that just by Marty's presence, I think George maybe feels like, "Well, that's probably silly." And Marty doesn't think it's silly. Anyway-
Gary Schneeberger:
And it's also for Marty, because Marty back in 1985 when he gets not in the band, he's trying out for the concert, he gets rejected. He says the same thing to Jennifer. So they oddly, interestingly, get strength from each other over the course of time I think here.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, so true, so true. So Marty says that Lorraine wants George to ask her to the dance. And George says, "Well, if she said no, he could not take that kind of rejection." And George says that Lorraine would rather go with Biff, which is amazing how clueless George is because-
Gary Schneeberger:
Correct.
Warwick Fairfax:
... that is not the case, who would want to go with Biff, he's just a bully. So George says there is nothing on the planet that will make him change his mind and ask Lorraine to the dance. Now those are auspicious, actually triggering words in a good sense of the word because then Marty gets creative and he puts on his radiation suit because to go in the DeLorean time travel machine because it's got plutonium, they have a radioactive suit. So he has this yellow radioactive suit on and he goes into George's bedroom at night and he puts these Sony Walkman headphones on George and he sort of cranks up the music and it is playing Van Halen. And George wakes up and Marty pretends to be an alien. And he says that he is Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan, which as science fiction aficionados would know, that's mixing Star Wars with Star Trek, but George doesn't know. Neither of those things existed in 1955.
So the next day, George tells Marty that he will take Lorraine out to the dance because if he doesn't, Darth Vader told him that he would melt his brain. So Darth Vader really deserves some credit in this particular movie for helping give George some courage or maybe it's the fear that prompts him to do something. So really what we see in these scenes is that Marty goes all out to help George and be a fellow traveler. He seems to encourage George in writing his science fiction stories. He encourages George to take Lorraine to the darts, albeit through this way over the top creative device of pretending to be an alien Darth Vader. Really, Marty is a kind of fellow traveler that will do whatever it takes to help George. Yes, there's some self-interest because Marty doesn't want to disappear, he wants to exist.
But I think more than that, he wants his dad George to be different. He wants to encourage his dad to follow a different path. I mean, clearly the part of it is not just a self-serving, "Hey, I want to live and exist." But part of it too is he wants his dad to be something different than the person that he's grown up with.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And then for a science fiction movie, something that happens in pretty much any dramatic movie, happens next. And that's the Biff of 1955 shows up to wreak his bullying behavior on George and to sexually harass Lorraine. The evil, right, the bad guy always shows up just as you're about to make progress in your plan. Marty unravels his own plan before he's even really started moving when he punches out Biff and Lorraine goes all lovesick on him even more than she had before. And she raises the stakes here, doesn't she, Warwick?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, absolutely. So George goes to the diner and is about to ask Lorraine to the dance. Now Marty, ever the loyal fellow traveler who never gives up, he's even basically written a script for George to say. He says, "George, this is what you say. Destiny has brought us together and you are the most beautiful girl in the world." It's not a bad, in certainly 1955, not a bad line. It should hopefully be effective.
Gary Schneeberger:
If you say it right, he says density.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, he does. He completely-
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yes. Right. I guess dense people say density, I don't know, but he doesn't get it right.
So just as George is in the middle of trying to get this out and Lorraine is looking at him saying, "Huh, what's going on here," because it's a different George, Biff comes up. Worst possible moment. Now Marty is trying to keep Biff out of it. So Marty sticks his foot out and trips Biff. And so then Biff stands up, gets in his face, and then Marty punches him out, punches Biff. Well, Marty flees while Lorraine looks at Marty, who she calls Calvin, and says it's a dream. So the plan spectacularly backfires here. And rather than helping George, it actually makes her be even more attracted to Marty. So yeah, she's getting even more infatuated with Marty and not George.
So then what happens is that Lorraine actually follows Marty to Doc's house where Marty's staying. And Lorraine wants Marty to ask her to the dance, which is the exact opposite of the plan. So Marty asks, "What about George?" Lorraine says, "Well, George is cute, but a man should be strong and stand up for himself and protect the woman he loves," key words, as we'll see later in the movie, she wants somebody that will stand up for himself and protect the woman he loves. This George in 1955 does not seem the kind of guy that would do either of those things.
Gary Schneeberger:
So it's after this scene, Warwick, that Marty truly shows his fellow traveler colors. He gives George a pep talk that echoes what Jennifer told Marty in 1985. What does he say and how does that help George?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a great point. So Marty says to Doc that we need to show Lorraine that George will stand up for himself and protect Lorraine, echoes the words that Lorraine has just mentioned to him a short while earlier. So Marty lays out this whole plan for George. Marty will take Lorraine to the dance at around 8:55 PM. Lorraine will get angry when Marty pretends to take advantage of her. George will then walk up and say, "Hey, you, get your damn hands off her." Marty tells George that George will then punch him in the stomach. And so basically Marty's trying to set this whole thing up, so that George would be the hero and Lorraine would then admire and be attracted to George.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
So while George is scared, Marty says, "Hey, there's nothing to be scared about." And then Marty mentions these words that originally came from Doc and says to George, "If you put your mind to it, you're going to accomplish anything." This is probably the first time anybody has ever told a young George that in his life and that will end up being life altering. So George has just had people that have just given up on him and don't believe in him, certainly the principal at the school. For the first time, here's somebody like Marty, just this fellow traveler that's constantly in his face, in the best sense of that word, who believes in him and tries to give him hope in the future that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it. It's just incredibly powerful words.
Gary Schneeberger:
But alas, the plan doesn't go exactly as scripted on the night of the dance, does it? How does it go south and then how does it get redirected to go the right direction again? There's some fancy footwork that has to happen here to get this turned around.
Warwick Fairfax:
So true.
While George is at the dance sort of dancing by himself awkwardly, we see Marty and Lorraine pull up in a car. Now Marty asked Lorraine if she would mind parking for a while. So instead of language from days gone by, parking, and Lorraine says, sure, but she's almost 18 years old and it's not like she's never parked before. So Marty is shocked and nervous. My mom has parked, which basically means in some sort of romantic interlude, if you will. So Lorraine has found some alcohol from her mother's liquor cabinet and has it there. So Marty tells her not to do that because she might regret it later in life when she drinks too much and then she starts smoking. And Marty is shocked. This is almost foreshadowing of direction that won't be helpful in Lorraine's life, drinking and smoking. So then Lorraine kisses Marty, but is shocked. Lorraine says, "It's sort of like kissing my brother." Obviously, she's kissing her son in some weird-
Gary Schneeberger:
Time travel way. Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly right.
Gary Schneeberger:
But then once again, I think in this movie we could say maybe seven times, but then Biff shows up and that's never a good thing. Then Biff shows up and his boorishness sets the plan back in motion. It causes a problem in the moment, but it does indeed set the plan to get Lorraine and George together back in motion, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed. So Biff holds Marty out of the car and Biff's gang ends up locking Marty in the trunk of the car of the band that's playing at the dance. So Marty's out of the picture at this point. He's locked in the trunk of the car. Now Biff gets in the car with Lorraine and starts manhandling her. George comes up on the scene and he doesn't realize that it's Biff in the car with Lorraine, he thinks it's Marty. So he thinks this is all part of the act and he leans in and says he's his lines, "Hey you, get your damn hands off," and before he could finish his sentence, he sees its Biff. So it's like, "Uh-oh, Biff." And Biff tells George that he has the wrong car and to turn around and walk away, basically George, just be a coward, leave, none of your business, go away. And Lorraine pleas with George to please help her.
Biff says to George, "Close the door and beat it." Now, George then says something that's very uncharacteristic for him. He says, "No, Biff, you leave her alone." We haven't seen any degree of courage or backbone in the whole movie until this point. So Biff gets out of the car while Lorraine is trying to help, but he pushes her back into the car and starts laughing. George gets mad and he punches Biff, knocking him out cold. I mean, incredible thing for George to do. Lorraine turns to George and looks at him in a new way, this is a George she has never seen before. George can't believe that he's done it. And Lorraine looks at George dreamily. The arc of their lives is beginning to change. It's an incredible moment. It's really a life-defining moment.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And she forgets Calvin Klein, right? Immediately, Calvin Klein, we'll be friends, Calvin, but Calvin is now out of her romantic sights.
But again, great thing about this movie, things are going well, two steps forward, one step back. It almost unravels again only to be saved by George finally embracing fully his inner strength. Right, Warwick? He finally embraces that courage, that backbone that you were talking about, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So George is dancing with Lorraine and Lorraine asks George if he's going to kiss her. So just at that point, somebody butts in and dances with Lorraine saying to George, "Scram McFly," basically get lost. Now George starts to walk away, but then he turns, he comes back. Again, this is not the same George McFly that we're used to. And George pushes the other guy away and kisses Lorraine, an incredibly bold thing to do for somebody that's so scared and meek and mild. But again, this is a new George.
So at this point, Marty's actually playing in the band. One of the band members actually got injured and Marty's image had been almost completely lost. It almost completely disappeared from the photo. And he's not doing that well. He's in the process of effectively disappearing himself. But as soon as that kiss happens between George and Lorraine, he bounces back and he feels better. All his siblings reappear on the photo because they pretty much were all gone. So it's an incredible moment when George comes back, pushes that other guy away and kisses Lorraine and the future at this point seems to be cemented.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, truly the future of the McFly clan has been secured and all that's left, right? All that's left, he says ironically, all that's left, all that's left is for Doc and Marty to head back to the future. But that's not always easy. That's not all that easy, is it Warwick? Because there's some things that happen that have to fall into place for them to get back to the future. Talk about that a little bit.
Warwick Fairfax:
While all that's happening, meanwhile in the town square, Doc is trying to set things up so that Marty can indeed get back to the future, so the DeLorean is there, set up this big long cable from the clock tower, the clock face where the lightning bolt is going to hit. He's got that connected to another wire that when the DeLorean goes past, it's got this metal hook that will then touch the horizontal wire that's near the road and it will get the whole 121 gigawatts and will go back to the future. So this is not easy. It's a stormy night. And then you can see at one point a tree falls on the cable and it's disconnected. So there's poor Doc high up in the clock tower almost about to fall off with his hands on the hands of the clock itself and he's got one hand trying to put the wire on one of the arms of the clock face, another one with the cable that's fallen onto his pant leg and he's trying to connect the two and then come down.
And meanwhile, Marty races from the dance to the car. He gets back to where he needs to go, gun it to get to 88 and of course, the car won't start. He finally gets it to start and accelerates. The cable's connected somehow by Doc to the clock face. The lightning strikes, the clock face goes right down into the DeLorean as it hits the cable and we see the fiery tire tracks and Marty has indeed gone back to the future.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And when he gets back to the future, he discovers that the McFly family still exists, but its fortunes have turned around from what they first were since we met them in 1985.
And Warwick, this is for me the most fascinating part of this movie from a Beyond the Crucible context, is that this is a very Beyond the Crucible ending, isn't it? The characters have been through setbacks and failures, they've done some things wrong but learned the lessons from those mistakes. And it sure seems that by the time the credits roll, the McFlys are living lives of significance, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It really does. So you've got Marty entering his house, the home he grew up in, and it's like it's this completely new world that's an alternate universe. It literally is an alternate universe, a better universe. So he sees his brother, he is wearing a suit, not a McDonald's outfit. And his sister's looking nice and Marty is surprised at what Dave is wearing, his brother. And his brother Dave says, "Well, that's what I always wear to the office, a suit." And so Dave has a better job than what he had before.
So his parents walk in, looking like they've just come back from some tennis match at the club and they're nicely dressed, sophisticated and looking very confident and at ease and these completely different parents than he's grown up with. Now, Marty falls off his chair in shock and says they look great. And as did his mother looks so thin. She now looks good, is healthy, is thin. And then his mother says that she really likes his girlfriend Jennifer and asks Marty if he's going to go up to the lake with Jennifer. Well, Marty says, "Well, I can't because the car's wrecked." Because remember in his timeline, Biff wrecked the car and of course blames his dad George.
So it turns out that it's actually a BMW in the driveway, which wasn't a BMW there before, it was another car, not as nice. And now we see an older Biff and he's waxing it. Now this is a very different Biff. Biff is almost, I don't want to say lost some confidence, but kind of. He's certainly not that bully anymore.
Gary Schneeberger:
No.
Warwick Fairfax:
And what's interesting is the very different George tells Biff, "Now Biff, make sure there are two coats on that car" because he knows that Biff will try to con him and get away with stuff. And George knows that and is onto him and will not let that happen. And so then in walks Biff with a box of George's new book. It is George's first novel, a science fiction novel, which is amazing because if you remember in 1955, George talked about writing a science fiction novel, but never seemed to think he was going to do it, but Marty sort of encouraged him. And so then George offers this classic line, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." And George says that, as he always says, well, obviously you heard that from Marty, you heard it from Doc, Jennifer encouraged him in sort of a line throughout the movie, but it's incredible.
So then Jennifer appears, Marty's girlfriend and asks if everything is all right. And Marty says, "Oh yeah, everything is great." I mean, everything is a whole lot better than it was before. This version of Marty's life is so much better than before. And so then Marty notices a sleek black Toyota 4x4 pickup truck. I think Biff had just been waxing it and Biff hands Marty the keys. Now, before Marty went back to 1955 earlier in the movie, we see that Marty had always dreamed of having this 4x4 Toyota pickup truck and now he hasn't, he actually owns it.
So now we see George returns in the DeLorean, he's been off to the future and he wants to tell them about the future adventures or about the next adventure that they're going to go on. So it looks like the McFlys are doing very well. George is confident and successful and is no longer bullied by Biff. In fact, Biff now works for George, which is very different than the earlier version of life. Lorraine doesn't drink too much anymore and looks great. Marty's brother is professional. Marty's sister is doing great. So George has changed the direction of his family's life. It's really Marty that changed George's life and now George is changing his whole family's life. Before, he was a timid person who would just give up at the first sign of trouble. Now, he lives by that family motto, that's become his family's motto, even though it was originally from Doc, "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."
So that motto, as he mentioned, started with Doc. Jennifer and Marty started quoting it. And now that motto is really the way of thinking, rather than giving up, anything's possible if you put your mind to it. It's transformed George's life and his family's life. It's incredible.
Gary Schneeberger:
And it's interesting, right Back to the Future at its basic level is a time travel film. But really when you get into these issues, when we come at it from this perspective, it's really a legacy building film. It talks about, it shows how to build a legacy in a family, which I think is what we try to do here at Beyond the Crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. It's such a good point. You can have a legacy of despondency, of giving up. Nothing's impossible. At the first sign of a setback or failure, give up. You're not worth it. Everybody's out to get you. When they say that you're hopeless, everybody's right. You should cower when people pick on you. Don't defend your family, just maybe commiserate with them, but yeah, McFlys are slackers and will never amount to anything, so just why bother.
And now we have a different legacy in which McFlys are a family that don't give up, that anything's possible. They defend those they love, they stand up for what's right. They don't let people like Biff take advantage of them. It's a complete 180. It's a completely different legacy, a completely different life. One is of just despondency and hopelessness and despair and the others of confidence and optimism and anything's possible. It's just two completely different legacies that we're seeing in this movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. The McFlys at the end are living a 121 gigawatt life of significance, I think.
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Warwick, let's pull out of the movie and talk to our listeners and viewers. How do the crucibles of the characters in Back to the Future offer us insight into how to move beyond our own crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
So we see in Back to the Future lives change. George McFly goes from this caring man who is continually bullied by Biff and basically gives up on life to a confident man who's in charge and as well is optimistic, is influencing his whole family with this can-do, nothing is impossible mindset. His wife, Lorraine, is also confident and healthy, which is different from the person before who is overweight and drank too much. And Marty's siblings are also transformed, they're doing better. Now, Doc also is different. He shifts from being an inventor who historically has failed at everything and he lost his family's house and fortune. Now, he's a successful inventor who has traveled to the future and back.
Now, Marty has also changed. He changed from somebody who almost believes he's a loser like his dad and can't be successful at anything, including not making the audition for the band at high school. He hears the voices of people like Principal Strickland who calls him a slacker and believes that McFlys will never amount to anything. He doesn't completely buy it, but he's certainly not confident that he, Marty can achieve anything. It requires people like Jennifer kind of believing in him, but he certainly doesn't come out of the gate as some confident person where success and confidence is assured.
So Marty changes the direction of his family's life. He is the one who encourages his father to publish science fiction novels and to pursue a relationship with Lorraine. Marty, in some sense, is responsible for giving George courage, which ends up leading George to no longer being bullied by Biff. I mean, Marty is really an incredible fellow traveler to George, to his dad. He helps him believe that he can get his book published. He helps him believe that he can have courage and stand up to people like Biff and do what's right to pursue the woman that he's attracted to.
So really what this shows is we have a choice in life. We can listen to the bullies like Biff or the naysayers like Principal Strickland that tell us we're losers and we'll never amount to much. But we can listen to people like Doc, Jennifer and Marty who believe in us. So having fellow travelers that come alongside us like this in this movie, it can have generational impact that fundamentally transforms our lives for good.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, you just saw it. The house lights are back up, curtains closed. So pick up your popcorn boxes, your hotdog wrappers, and if you brought a flux capacitor, take that with you as well. Because we are done for this week's episode of our summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. But next week, we will be back with another episode. And here we go, I'm going to tell you what it's going to be. And Scott, I'm going to need you to give me a drum roll right here. There you go, the drum roll is here and we are going to talk next week about Jurassic Park, the first Jurassic Park. Fascinating. That'll be a fascinating discussion. So until next week, folks, remember, we'll save you a seat. We'll see you then.
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In this episode, we explore Terminator 2: Judgment Day as part of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. At the heart of T2 is a remarkable idea: a robot reprogrammed not to destroy, but to protect, putting the safety of another ahead of itself at every turn. A machine living its existence on purpose, dedicated to serving others, is pursuing the very goal we all hope to reach as we move beyond our own crucibles. If a Terminator can get there, what’s stopping us?
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
So we see in the Terminator a machine that has been programmed to take care of John even at the point of its own life. It's rare to have people in our life that will care for us no matter what and will do everything they can to protect us and care for us even at the cost of their own life. I mean, that's love at a level that few of us can imagine. It's really the ultimate expression of living a life dedicated to serving others.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's the definition of a life of significance, and it comes from a surprising place in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which we discussed this week in the third episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. A machine that lives its robotic life on purpose, dedicated to serving others, is pursuing a goal we all hope to achieve as we move beyond our crucibles. How can Terminators help us arrive there? Stay tuned.
Welcome, friends, to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. You have tuned in to, 1, 2, 3, the third episode of our summer series, which we are calling Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. That means, once again, we're going into the theater to talk about what we can learn about overcoming our crucibles and moving toward a life of significance that films can teach us. We've done this now three years before this year, this is our fourth year doing so, and it's just been a lot of fun. But also, we have discovered that movies, the movies that we choose, really do provide great examples of crucibles and how to overcome them, and that's really why... It's two things. We love doing it, and two, it helps you, it helps us move beyond our crucibles.
Just to level set us all, after doing movies spotlighting heroes, classic movies celebrated by the American Film Institute, AFI, and last year, movies that featured really major crucibles, this summer, we're examining a film genre that is one of Warwick's favorites. Watch him when I say this, he just smiles. He gets very happy when I say... We are indeed doing science fiction films. That's why this is called Back to a Better Future, get it, a little pun on Back to the Future, The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. That's what this year's series is about.
Warwick, before we dive into the film that we're discussing this week in the third week of the series, why movies again? I said a little bit about why movies, but you have more in-depth kind of perspective on it. This is the fourth time we've done it. What are you hoping listeners and viewers get out of our discussions this year?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean, we both love movies and we've enjoyed looking at movies from Beyond the Crucible perspective, which we always say, "When you're watching a movie for fun, it's very different than when you're watching it from Beyond the Crucible." What's the arc of the characters? Are they growing? How do they overcome crucibles? In some cases, a couple of years or so ago with Citizen Kane and The Godfather, they really didn't learn. The kind of growth went backwards, if that's a word, so-
Gary Schneeberger:
Which is also very helpful to discuss for folks, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, exactly. You don't want to be a Citizen Kane.
Gary Schneeberger:
No.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Typically, movies portray protagonists that faces significant crucibles that they seek to overcome. Really the question is, are they going to overcome those crucibles? Are they going to become defined by their worst day or not? We've covered superheroes, sports heroes, historical heroes, as well as, you mentioned, the American Film Institute's top 100 movies. As you said last year, we focused on film with significant crucibles. This year, it's going to be a little different.
Gary Schneeberger:
It is. Good setup, and it really is. Again, watch his face, folks. He's delighted by this because...
Warwick, you're particularly excited about this series this year because it's science fiction. Just why do you love science fiction so much? And what about science fiction films in particular resonate with this idea of discussing crucibles and how we might move beyond them? These are good movies for crucibles, aren't they?
Warwick Fairfax:
They surely are. I've loved science fiction, both books, movies, and TV since I was very small. One of the most influential science fiction movies ever made was 2001: A Space Odyssey that came out in 1968. And what was amazing is you could see space shuttles, you'd see screens on the back of seats in front of you, which is commonplace in airlines today, but was not in 1968. You flew Eastern Air Lines or American or United [inaudible 00:05:22] was back then, and you would not have found a screen in front of you. You would not have found any movie screens in the plane. So it was very different back then. In this movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, you had talking computers that were almost sentient. They had a brain, a video conferencing.
And then there were other science fiction shows like Star Trek. I'm a fan of all Star Trek shows, but the original one was aired from 1966 to '69. Certainly, pathbreaking in not just its view of technology, they had machines you could talk into almost like smartphones and all sorts of interesting things, but it also really dealt with significant societal issues. And then in terms of science fiction novels, I read a bunch of them by great authors like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov.
What I loved about science fiction and still do is not just that it explores future technology, which is amazing to think of, but at its best, it explores deep societal issues. It looks at the future of the human race, how we interact with other forms of life and technology. And many of the issues that science fiction brings up today are very relevant, such as AI. I mean, you had AI in the sense of how the talking computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that ended up being a pretty scary version of AI that ends up taking control. It's something to think about, AI and technology taking control, as we talk more in this episode. Science fiction tends to explore significant crucibles, huge questions about humanity, and really gives a rich palette, if you will, to look at how we overcome crucibles and do we get defined by them. So that's some of the reasons why I love science fiction.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. You said a couple of minutes ago when you were talking about 2001: A Space Odyssey that there was a computer, and it became sentient. That's a pretty good bridge to what we're talking about, the film we're talking about this week, because this week, we are talking about 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was the top box office draw of the year that it was released, in 1991. There's a thing about computers becoming sentient in here that we're going to talk about as a crucible as we go on. But here is the summary of the movie known in the film industry as the logline, and I love these things because they're so tightly written. As a writer, I'm just jealous every time I read one. But here's the logline from Terminator 2. "A cyborg from the future, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her 10-year-old son John from an even more advanced and powerful cyborg."
And Warwick, before we dive into talking about the movie, I noted something about... So we've done three episodes, right? This is the third episode of the series, and we have another one. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but trust me when I say this, in the three films that we've talked about so far, Planet of the Apes, Alien, and now Terminator 2, these movies and the one that we're going to talk about next week, rife with sequels. I mean, all four of the first films we're talking about have sequel after sequel after sequel being made. I think you'd even be hard-pressed to find superhero movies that have as many sequels as just these first four that we're going to talk about. That speaks to something about their appeal and what you talked about there about the issues that they raise, I think, doesn't it? Because they keep coming back to the well.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it is. I mean, they've got great characters in Terminator and some of these other movies. I mean, how many Star Wars movies have there been made? There were the three original and countless other ones since Disney acquired them from... the rights to the Star Wars and Lucasfilm. But yeah, there's something about the future of, what's the world going to be like? How are we going to address issues from the environment, climate change? Is the human race going to be a kind of gentler one, or will we get into some dark future? People are fascinated about the future and what will happen or what might happen. It's just part of people's innate curiosity.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Well, in this movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, right off the bat, opening credits are unfurling, folks. We see the global crucible in which mankind finds itself enveloped, and it's a doozy. It's Judgment Day, the event so feared in the first film, which came out in the '80s, and that has occurred as this movie opens. So Warwick, let's explain first what Judgment Day is and how it happens so we can kind of get our feet under us as we begin this discussion.
Warwick Fairfax:
So in this opening scene, we see that we're in Los Angeles in the future, in 2029 AD. Can you imagine, folks? It's far, far to the future. I mean, who can imagine, 2029? It seems so far away-
Gary Schneeberger:
I know.
Warwick Fairfax:
... doesn't it?
Gary Schneeberger:
That's crazy.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, exactly. But in this version... Because as you said, the movie came out in 1991, so 2029 is a long time in the future. In this world, we see a dystopian world of burned out cars and skeletons. And we see, as the movie opens, that it says that three billion humans were killed in 1997, and the survivors of the nuclear war that caused this destruction that happened that year, they call... That year, 1997, what happened on that particular day when nuclear war occurred, they call it Judgment Day. And so the survivors of Judgment Day, now years later in 2029, they face a new nightmare. It's a war against machines. We see robots and robot aircraft, if you will, and it seems like the mission of these robots are to kill humans. There's something called Skynet that is a computer that controls all these robot killing machines.
So this dystopian world of 2029, it seems like a pretty scary place to be a human. It's just a bombed out, deserted place where you're running around just trying to survive as these killing machines and robot killing machines are trying to kill you.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And the stakes are laid out in terms of what the forces in the future, the machines and those fighting against them, have sent from the future. In the first movie, I said in the '80s, the Terminator came back to kill a woman named Sarah Connor. This time, we're told one is coming to kill her son, John. While he is a boy, because he is going to grow up to be... As we heard about in the first film, in the first Terminator, he's going to grow up to be the warrior who leads the resistance against the machines, and the resistance led by John in the future has sent a warrior to protect the Terminator's target. Warwick, we see first a Terminator we're familiar with comeback played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's a Terminator that looks exactly like the one from the first movie, which shows up in the same way that one from the first movie did.
In these early scenes, it's easy to expect the same destructive mayhem as the machine that looked like this machine wrought in the first film, isn't it? Especially given the way it arrives on the scene.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's a great point, Gary. If you watch the first Terminator movie, you expect Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator to be this killing machine. And early on, it would seem like this Terminator is like this. We see that at a truck stop where the Terminator comes out of this sort of lightning bolt... I guess for whatever reason, the Terminator, when they come out of these lightning bolt, they have nothing on. They're naked. The Terminator goes to this truck stop, and he beats up a few guys because he needs some clothes, and he needs boots, he needs a motorcycle. In fact, he even needs some sunglasses. The guy's like, "What do you want?" and it's like... At that point, they're willing to give him anything. At this point, really don't know who the good guy is. We see in this lead up that there's going to be a good guy, but it does not seem like the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a good guy. He's beating people up and taking things. So yeah, we really don't know what's going on.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and it does have some echoes to the first movie, to the Terminator. He does some similar things in the first movie. You're right. We're not exactly sure what's going on. But then, another Terminator shows up too. It's a new version, the T-1000 made of liquid metal. We'll find out a lot more about that as the movie goes on. What makes the machine's new form particularly scary, and it becomes pretty clear from early on, that it is an emotionless killing machine like the T-800 was in the original, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it really is. I mean, this second Terminator emerges from the lightning bolt, and it's also naked. Now, this second Terminator, this is sort of merciless. It kills a nearby policeman, takes his clothes and police car. It doesn't beat him up. It just kills a guy instantly without any emotion. So at this point, we're definitely confused. Both Terminators look pretty savage and brutal. Maybe there's another kind of gentler Terminator coming. I mean, neither of them look like this warm, fuzzy... here to help.
Gary Schneeberger:
Protector of the humankind, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, maybe we've missed something. I mean, the only slight clue is the fact that one kills and the other one just beats people up. Maybe that's because he didn't need to or... It's really hard to know what to make of any of that. At this point, they both seem like pretty savage machines, these two Terminators.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. So while we're sitting with that, who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? Is there a good guy? Is there a bad guy? And they're not even guys, they're machines. As we're sitting with that, we're introduced to Sarah Connor, and she's a different woman than she was in the first film by a long shot. Warwick, how have circumstances changed and how has Sarah Connor changed from the kind of young debutante sort of party girl she was in the first movie? Different Sarah Connor this time around.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, she really is. Here, we see a Sarah Connor, and she's in some kind of prison that turns out to be a psychiatric hospital. We see her working out, and she is a patient there, it says, she's 29 years old, but she is seen as a violent schizophrenic. And there's no question she's violent, but they think of her as a schizophrenic because she keeps talking about some ludicrous story about some terminator from the future that came to kill her. Well, that'll end you up in a psychiatric hospital pretty quick if you start telling people that. She's in her cell. She seems very sinister and violent. She's stabbed a doctor with a pen, and she's repeatedly tried to escape. This Sarah Connor, she's spent years in a psychiatric prison and she's violent, she's full of rage. It's a different Sarah Connor than the one in the first movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And then we meet her son John, talked about in the first film, not seen in the first film. We see pretty quickly the T-1000 is trying to track him down. We still don't know exactly why the T-1000 is tracking him down for sure, to protect him or to terminate him. That's the phrase they use, to terminate him. But after Sarah tries to fake her way out of the psychiatric hospital she's been confined to and fails, both Terminators converge on John at an LA mall. Their allegiances are quickly revealed after they fight. Warwick, what we see begin to play out here runs for the rest of the movie. The unwavering commitment of both Terminators that they have to carrying out their missions. And it gets pretty intense, doesn't it? As the T-1000 tries to kill John and the Terminator, he's the T-800, the lower model, but the Terminator that we'll come to recognize as the same face of that Terminator in the '80s movie, he tries to save him, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So here we see John and a buddy of his, they're playing video games in the Galleria, a mall in Los Angeles. And we also see the Terminator and the T-1000 are in the mall looking for John. John's buddy says that a cop gets the T-1000, as assumed. The image of a policeman is looking for John. Now, normally, you wouldn't necessarily be scared. I mean, you might be like, "What the heck's going on?" But it turns out that John is not exactly living a great life in a sense. He stole money out of an ATM machine. I mean, the guy's angry, obviously. He hasn't seen his mother in years, and he thinks his mother's crazy, locked up in some psychiatric hospital. So yeah, I mean, given that we just see earlier in a short while back in this movie that he stole money from ATM, John is naturally wary about the police. Maybe somebody saw them.
And so John runs, and the T-1000 chases him. And now, we see a scene where the Terminator comes on the scene and fires at the T-1000, and the T-1000 fires back. And these two Terminators, they get in a fight. So John then runs away while the Terminator follow. There, we see a great chase scene in which John is on a motorbike, little motorbike, kids' motorbike, and they're racing through the aqueduct in Los Angeles, and he's being chased by the T-1000 in a truck and the Terminator on the motorcycle, another motorcycle, chasing the T-1000. As any aficionado of the movies would know, there's a lot of movies in which there are chase scenes in this aqueduct in Los Angeles. It's one of the go-to places for chasings, and it's great in this movie. So the Terminator ends up rescuing John, and John begins to see that this Terminator is the good guy. John has seen that these two Terminators fight. Well, one of them actually wants to protect him from this other malevolent T-1000. So he's beginning to realize there's a good Terminator and a bad Terminator.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And John and the good Terminator stopped to talk, and John learns some things that change what he believes about his mother. So not only does he come to learn that there's a good Terminator, but in talking to that good Terminator, he learns some things that changes his view of his mother. How does that happen, Warwick?
Warwick Fairfax:
So John has heard all the stories from his mother, and he says, "You're a Terminator," and the Terminator says, "That's right." John sees the bullet holes in the Terminator's jacket, and the Terminator's obviously still living, functioning something. So John realizes, all these stories about the Terminator, it's real. It's true. And the Terminator says he's a cyber robot with living tissue over a metal skeleton. John can't believe what he's seeing. The Terminator says that his mission is to protect him, to protect John. And John asks who sent him? Well, the Terminator says basically, "Well, you did. You, John, 35 years from now, sent me." And the Terminator says that John in the future has reprogrammed him to protect John in this time in the past when John was a kid. So John asks about the other Terminator, and the Terminator says that the other machine is a T-1000, an advanced prototype. The T-1000 is made of liquid metal, which we'll see in future scenes how scary that really is being up against this T-1000. As we just said, it was made of liquid metal.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. That's a whole lot of stuff to be laid on 10-year-old John Connor. There's a lot of stuff flying at him that he just... How does he make sense of it all? And it's interesting the place that he goes to right after this. John makes sure the Terminator protecting him doesn't actually terminate anyone. How does he do that and how does he change the Terminator's mission? Because there's a lot of directions he could have gone. These are the directions he went in. How does he do it?
Warwick Fairfax:
So when he realized the Terminator is a Terminator, one of the things he realizes is that everything that his mother told him is true. John thought his mother's just crazy. Maybe he thought she needs to be in a psychiatric prison because he's just nuts talking about these future killing machines. But in this instance, he realizes it's all true. Everything his mother told him happened. The Terminator is a killing machine. And so at that point, he says to the Terminator, "Well, we've got to rescue my mother." He realizes she doesn't deserve to be in some psychiatric hospital. Well, the Terminator says no, because the T-1000 is very advanced and will probably realize what John is thinking and will try to copy her and kill her. Because one of the things we learn is this T-1000 has the ability to copy living beings and take their shape and even sound like them.
So yeah, at this point, we've seen the T-1000. He doesn't just copy and mimic people, he then kills them. So the Terminator says, "It's not a priority to rescue your mother." John finds out that the Terminator has to do what John says. This is one of the Terminator's mission parameters. So at this point, John is going to alter the Terminator's mission, and this will have profound consequences throughout the movie. When the Terminator was going to kill some guy that got in the way, John asks, "Why?" The Terminator says, almost slightly sarcastically, "Because he's a Terminator."
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Terminators terminate. The Terminator's thinking, "Well, what kind of a question is that? That's kind of what I do." And John says that the Terminator is not a Terminator anymore and must not go around killing people. Terminator doesn't understand. John basically says, "That's the way it is," and he orders the Terminator to help him rescue his mother. So now he finds that he can change the Terminator's mission parameters, he's going to do that, "No killing of people, and you've got to rescue my mother."
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. We didn't talk about this beforehand, but this kicks off when John realizes whatever he tells the Terminator to do, the Terminator has to do. There's some really cute things that play out throughout the rest of the movie where he teaches him hip '90s slang terms and those kind of things. I mean, it's important to mention this sort of kicks off what can be the comedy relief that comes up in the film. There are some comedic touches and flourishes throughout after this, after John realizes his power, quote, unquote, "over the Terminator."
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. He teaches him phrases like [foreign language 00:26:36] and all sorts of phrases that will come in handy for the Terminator later on.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, for sure, and entertain audiences for sure as well. Sarah then manages to break out of the psychiatric hospital. She overpowers the doctor that committed her back in 1985 and begins to run toward the exit when the T-1000 shows up, kills a guard, and takes his form, and pursues her. Before he can reach her, before the T-1000 can reach Sarah...
Well, let's not talk about that scene, Warwick. Let's watch it and listen to it.
MOVIE CLIP:
Orderlies: Let's go around. Come on. Move it. Come on.
Sarah Connor: No. No. No.
John Connor: Mom, wait. Mom.
Orderlies: Come back here.
Sarah Connor: No. No. No.
Orderlies: I got it.
John Connor: Help her.
Terminator: Wait here.
Orderlies: Hurry up. Hurry up.
Sarah Connor: He'll kill us all. He'll kill us all.
Speaker 7: Hold her.
Orderlies: Get her up.
Sarah Connor: He'll kill us all.
Orderlies: Get her up.
John Connor: Mom, are you okay? Mom.
Terminator: Come with me if you want to live.
John Connor: It's okay, mom. He's here to help. It's okay.
Terminator: Go.
Sarah Connor: What the fuck is it? What the fuck is going on?
Terminator: Get down.
John Connor: Mom.
Sarah Connor: Out of the car.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Warwick, that was a very interesting scene because what the Terminator says at the end of that, "Come with me if you want to live," is what was said in the first movie. And in fact, in all the other sequels, there's a line where somebody who's on the side of good says, "Come with me if you want to live." So talk a little bit about the clip and what it sets up as the film goes on.
Warwick Fairfax:
From Sarah's perspective, when she sees the Terminator, you have a reason to fear because Terminators terminate. They're there to kill you, so she's like, "Oh, my gosh." She starts running because she's just afraid for a life. And then we see John pop out from behind the corner and basically say, "Mom, it's okay." And for her to hear a Terminator say, "Come with me if you want to live," the Terminator in the first movie never said that, others might have, but not the Terminator, so it's like, "What is happening here?" She realizes this is the good Terminator or she realizes even such a thing as a good Terminator. And then they flee the prison. But it completely changes her perspective in what world are we living in now when there's actually a good Terminator. I mean, it must blow her circuits to kind of think about that. Obviously, she doesn't have too much time to think because they've got to flee for their lives from the bad Terminator, the T-1000.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, and they do indeed do that. Sarah, John, and the Terminator then go on the lam to meet up with some of her old gun running friends to get some weapons to defend themselves. It's while observing the Terminator and her son interacting here that she comes to a conclusion about the Terminator that sounds a lot like we say it Beyond the Crucible, with some sci-fi flourish added in, about living out our vision of living a life dedicated to serving others. That's sort of the warp and woof of what she talks about in this next scene, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So here, we have the Terminator, Sarah, and John. They're fleeing to the desert, and they meet up with an old friend of Sarah's, Enrique, and we see Enrique. Again, this is in the desert with his family. It's almost like a trailer area with a trailer and some different buildings. Sarah's coming to get her stuff. So they pull off this heavy metal plate off the ground, and there's this massive weapon storage with every kind of weapon you can imagine. I mean, you're there to kind of gear up for war. It's what it looks like.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
And so Sarah begins to think about this Terminator. She's still trying to get her head around the fact that this Terminator is not there to kill them. She realizes that this Terminator would never leave John, is there to protect him, would never hurt John because that's his mission, to protect John. This Terminator would never get drunk and would die to protect John. And Sarah thinks to herself that of all the would-be fathers that John could have... Because Sarah we learn has had multiple relationships with different men, and none of them have really worked out. We learn a little bit about that in this movie. That's why she thinks to herself of all the would-be fathers that John could have, that this machine is the only one who measures up. In an insane world, this was the sanest choice, to have the Terminator look after John. I mean, just a remarkable thought that Sarah is having.
And so we see in The Terminator a machine that has been programmed to take care of John even at the point of its own life. It's rare to have people in our life that will care for us no matter what and will do everything they can to protect us and care for us even at the cost of their own life. I mean, that's love at a level that few of us can imagine. It's really the ultimate expression of living a life dedicated to serving others. In relatively short order, Sarah sees this Terminator that's sort of this unemotional machine, but yet it has this mission, this programming that you can rely on. It will never deviate from its program. When she talks about wouldn't get drunk or would die to protect John, we don't quite know whether she's referring to herself or maybe guys that she's linked up with. We don't quite know, but we can imagine it might be all of the above in a sense.
So this is somebody, or a machine, if you call it, it seems like somebody in a sense, that you can trust and rely on. It will never deviate from its program. It will always try and protect her son. It's rare that you have anybody you can rely on with 100%. Some people, you would hope might have a good track record. But to rely on somebody 100% like that, Sarah realizes that John can have almost a surrogate parent, somebody that's more reliable than she is. It's just an incredible conversation, or not conversation, it's incredible moment as she's thinking these things to herself.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And this spotlights what you talked about at the beginning of this episode and every episode. We don't normally watch movies when we're just sitting around with our family having a good time. We don't normally watch movies and pull out bits of wisdom like this. I mean, the fact that we saw that when Sarah says that about the Terminator, that has an application to what we do at Beyond the Crucible, what your fellow travelers need to be like, those kinds of things. It's very interesting. And again, I've watched this movie probably a dozen times, and the first 11 times I watched it, that never occurred to me about the application that you just discussed.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. And just the other sad thing is she marveled at the Terminator and how it could protect and care for her son, but yet there's a sense where she felt less than.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
There's a sense where she probably felt like she was a failure. Now, was it her fault that she gets locked up in a psychiatric hospital? Not necessarily. I mean, obviously maybe not the smartest thing running around telling people about machines from the future, but she didn't deliberately seek to abandon her son. It just happened because she's frantic and she's mentioning it and just digs herself in deeper. But that being said, she probably thinks to herself, "I wasn't there to care for my son for years, and maybe this Terminator would be a better parent than I would be." I mean, it's a very sad revelatory moment that we have as Sarah's just really contrasting herself with this machine, the Terminator.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. But then comes a little bit of hope in the next scene. Seeing that John is safe with the Terminator, Sarah takes a few moments by herself at a picnic table on the grounds. She carves something into the tabletop, and then she falls asleep. She has a horrific dream of Judgment Day, which is August 29th, 1997. That's when the three billion people are incinerated by a nuclear bomb. We learn that what fuels the destruction is the computer system Skynet, which becomes self-aware on that date. She decides that the only way to prevent the devastation is to prevent the development of Skynet. Warwick, that belief sets Sarah off on her next mission, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. I mean, Sarah learns a lot about the future and that sets her off on her mission. So Sarah asks the Terminator, "How does Skynet get built?" Well, John asks if people are going to make it. Are they going to survive? And the Terminator says these very chilling words. He says, "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves." I mean, very sobering. So the Terminator says that Skynet came about because of this guy, Miles Bennett Dyson, and he's the director of special operations at Cyberdyne Systems operations. In a few months, the Terminator says that Dyson will create a revolutionary computer chip. In three years, Cyberdyne will be the largest supply of computer systems, of military computer systems. All stealth bombers will be upgraded with Cyberdyne Systems and become fully unmanned. After the Skynet Funding Bill is passed, the system goes online August 4th, 1997.
A short while later, in August 29th, 1997, Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate and becomes fully aware. At that point, in a panic, the US government tries to pull the plug, but Skynet fights back and it launches its missiles against targets in Russia, knowing full well that the Russians will counterattack and eliminate enemies over here in the US. So basically, Skynet realizes what to do. I mean, it's in an unemotional way. It causes the destruction of much of humanity by launching a nuclear war. So hearing all this and believing that the Terminator in a sense would make a better father than she was a mother, Sarah sets off on the mission. We don't quite know what she's going to do, but it would seem like she wants to somehow prevent this bleak, dark future.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And the hope that I talked about comes up in this next scene. After his mom quickly and mysteriously leaves, as you said, John notices the word she carved on the table. "No fate" is what she carved in the table. It's an abbreviated version of something we learn in these scenes. John's father, Kyle Reese, says John told him in the future... So let's just take a deep breath. That's a lot of moving around, right? It's something that John's father says John told him in the future. And John's father, for those of you who remember the first Terminator movie in 1985, is the protector, the human protector, who came back from the future to try to save Sarah from the Terminator who was unleashed on her in the first movie. So what are the words that are written in that table, that are carved in that table? And what does that say about us in the future and how it can relate to Beyond the Crucible?
Warwick Fairfax:
So John sees these words carved in the picnic table, "The future is not set. There is no fate except what we make for ourselves." John learns that his future self said this. I mean, mind-blowing. So it's easy in the aftermath of a crucible to feel that our fate is set. We might feel that we are irretrievably and irrevocably broken. We might feel like what we've done is unforgivable. No one should associate with us because we're just awful human beings. And it is easy to feel that we are irredeemable, but the truth is that we are redeemable and that we can change the direction of our lives.
There is always hope. We don't have to be a prisoner of our own mistakes or the misdeeds of others. We can indeed chart a better future, one of promise that does not lead to some dark, dystopian future. There is hope. The idea that the future is not set and there is no fate except what we make for ourselves, it really gives us hope. We might feel like today is our worst day. We might feel we're in the pit of despair, but we have to realize we can take charge of our life. We can shape our future, and our future doesn't have to be irredeemable, nor do we need to feel that we are broken without any hope.
Gary Schneeberger:
See, folks, that's why we do movies because out of movies come really great tidbits like that for how we navigate beyond our own crucibles.
Back to the movie. We then learn where Sarah ran off to was to kill Dyson to prevent Skynet from being built and from Judgment Day occurring. And Dyson's reaction, Warwick, to learning what the future may hold leads him to try to help prevent it from happening, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It really does. Sarah's gone out to kill Dyson. She wants to prevent the future and everything that Dyson's going to create, and she almost succeeds. She has this long rifle, and she shoots Dyson while he's at a computer working, and Dyson ducks at the last moment when his son comes in and he's playing with a toy. John realizes meanwhile that his mother's going after Dyson, and so both the Terminator and John go after Sarah. Now, the Terminator, here's this unemotional machine, says the T-1000 will also anticipate the move that Sarah's going to make. And John does not want his mother to kill Dyson, although the Terminator basically says, "Well, that's not a bad idea because killing Dyson might prevent a future war."
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, right. Logic.
Warwick Fairfax:
Terminator's looking at it very logically. You know?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
But John is like, "Yeah, but this is my mother." So John wonders why the Terminator hasn't figured out that the Terminator can't kill people. It's like, "Doesn't he get it yet?" And so the Terminator and John, they arrive at Dyson's house where Sarah is, and we see that Dyson is bleeding. Sarah's injured him. And at this point, the Terminator, he cuts his arm open to reveal that he's a machine. You see this skeletal metal arm. The Terminator explains everything to Dyson, Skynet, Judgment Day, and the history of things to come.
Now, Dyson, seeing the Terminator and this skeletal arm, he puts it all together because he's working on all this technology. He gets it. It hits him like a thunderbolt. And so Dyson says, "It's not every day that you find out that you're responsible for three billion deaths." This wasn't some evil genius. He wasn't trying to hurt anybody. And to imagine a moment where you see your future, it's really unimaginable, and somehow... You're trying to help people and working for science, and somehow you're responsible for three billion deaths. I mean, it's just staggering. And Dyson says that they were judging him on things that he hasn't done yet. He feels like, "Well, that's a little unfair," and he asks, "How are we supposed to know?" So Sarah shoots back sarcastically. "Men like you built the hydrogen bomb." She's not very charitable.
Gary Schneeberger:
No.
Warwick Fairfax:
She basically says that he doesn't know how to create life and all he knows is how to create death. She has seen the future in a sense and she does not have much sympathy for Dyson. What he's going to be doing is going to create death. Is that really fair? I don't know, but I get her perspective. Well, Dyson is willing to quit Cyberdyne. Sarah and the Terminator say, "That's not enough. No one must follow your work, and everything at the lab must be destroyed, including the computer chip from the first Terminator," and they must do this that night. So Dyson agrees, and they all charge off, Dyson, the Terminator, Sarah, and John to the lab, and they start setting explosive charges to blow everything up. And they retrieve the computer chip and a robotic arm from a safe because everything must be destroyed so that the future will not unfold as it's going to.
But unfortunately, a security guard sets off the alarm, and the building is surrounded by police, a gunfight ensues just as they're trying to set off the charges. Now, in this gunfight, Dyson is wounded, turns out mortally wounded. So Dyson stays back with the trigger for the explosives while the rest of the group flees. And it's one of those triggers where if you let go of the trigger, then everything explodes. We see that Dyson is running out of strength. And as the police surround him, they basically see that he's in trouble, and he says, "Look, I don't know how much longer I can hold the trigger." At that point, they get it, the police flee, and we see the lab exploding just as we see Dyson dies and can't hold the trigger anymore. Meanwhile, the T-1000 arrives and goes after the Terminator, Sarah, and John as they're fleeing the scene, fleeing this lab that's now just exploded.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. So it would seem at this juncture of the film, in this moment, that Judgment Day has been avoided, but there's still the matter of the T-1000. You mentioned he shows up, he starts to chase them, and it's mission to kill John, and the Terminator and its mission to protect him, and of course, lots of dazzling special effects, battles to be fought. But Warwick, there's a platinum principle in what we've discovered at Beyond the Crucible that's at work as the two Terminators do final battle. It's what we say all the time. If we learn the lessons of our crucibles and apply them moving forward, we will find a life of significance. And that happens in the end for the Terminator, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So after this chase scene, they're leaving this lab that's now destroyed. We see the T-1000, the Terminator, and Sarah, and John end up in some kind of blast furnace factory. There's this vat of molten metal. There's sort of sparks going all over the place. And the T-1000, it hasn't changed its mission. It's to kill John Connor. And they still have the computer chip and the metal arm with them. Those haven't been destroyed yet. So the Terminator is doing everything it can to protect John and eliminate the T-1000, but it's not easy. This T-1000, it's a newer model than the Terminator. It's in some ways more powerful, more capable. It has this liquid metal. It can change shapes. It can send out this metal spear to kill people or the Terminator. It's pretty scary.
So, eventually, the T-1000 falls into the vat of molten metal. This is after repeated firing bullets at it and doing everything they can. Eventually, it falls off this sort of metal ledge into this vat of molten metal, and somehow this is maybe one of the few ways this could be killed. And we see this liquid metal is being mixed with all the other molten metal, and so it's now finished. John then throws the computer chip and the robots skeletal arm into the molten metal. So at this point, we think, "Okay, it's over," but the Terminator says, "There is one more computer chip," and that's in him. Remember from the first movie, while the Terminator in the first movie was killed, the computer chip survived, and that's what was going to cause all this dystopian, terrible future. This Terminator realizes this, and he says that he can't self-terminate. It's not in his programming. So Sarah lowers the Terminator into the molten metal.
Before this happens, the Terminator says he's sorry, basically sorry because he knows, in effect, killing himself is not what John wants. It's amazing he's showing some degree of emotion. John begs him not to do this. The Terminator says he must go away and said, "It has to end here." So John hugs the Terminator, and the Terminator gives his hand to Sarah, saying goodbye. And as the Terminator dissolves in this vat of molten metal, we see an abstract hand with a thumbs up sign. John hugs his mom, and they drive off.
Gary Schneeberger:
I want to just stop you right here because something occurred to me about the way the T-1000 died and the way that you just described the Terminator died. The T-1000 dies in this roiling, horrible... All the faces of the people he took on are popping up out of this molten... It seems like in addition to being a terrible death, just because you're dying in molten metal, it's emotionally terrible. And yet what you just described about the Terminator dying, he gives the thumbs up. That says a little something about those who do good and those who do evil. It's pretty much a morality play here at that point in this movie, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a great point. When the T-1000 dies, it's obviously struggling for life. It's in agony. All of these past people that it's taken on, you see them, you just see sort of agony and screams, if you will, whereas the Terminator is at peace. It's about to die for a greater cause, and most immediately it wants to protect John. So the thumbs up, to die with the thumbs up of saying he's at peace, "I'm doing this willingly. I'm doing this because it has to be done for your sake and for the future of humanity," it's pretty amazing, as you rightly point out the contrast between the two deaths of the T-1000 and the Terminator.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. All right. So I cut you off as you were going to land the plane on the plot here. You said that John hugs his mom and they drive off. What happens after that?
Warwick Fairfax:
So the last scene in the movie is Sarah and John are driving off, and in a voiceover, we hear Sarah saying this, "The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because the machine, the Terminator, learned the value of human life, maybe we can too." I mean, just amazing. She's learning something from this machine. This machine is giving her hope. So we see that in this movie. The Terminator, it seems to grow beyond its original programming. Its original mission was to protect John. That's it. But yet, it ends up protecting Sarah, it sacrifices its life both to try to kill the T-1000 and have itself terminated so as it can protect the future of humanity. This does not seem to be typical programming. It seems to learn some degree of human emotions, a level of care for John and Sarah and the future of the human race.
Meanwhile, John grows from being a misfit kid who was angry and committing petty crimes to being somebody that wants to save his mother, who he now admires. He realizes she doesn't deserve to be in a psychiatric hospital. And he wants to protect the Terminator and save humanity. I mean, he has care for a machine, this unemotional machine. I mean, just remarkable. Sarah, meanwhile, she grows from being this angry woman who's committed to a psychiatric hospital, she wants to just hurt everybody around her, she's so angry, and now she wants to not just protect her son. She wants to or is willing to give her life to protect him and the future of humanity. So there's this tremendous growth.
We all face a choice. Are we going to follow the path of the T-1000, of destruction, of not caring about others, just merely following our programming? Maybe that was programmed at birth from bad upbringing or things that happened to us. Are we just going to follow our programming and not care for others, say, "It's all about me"? Or are we going to follow the path of the Terminator and Sarah who are willing to give their lives in service of others? Now, that's really an incredible way of living life in which it's not about us. It's about serving a greater cause, serving humanity.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Again, this is one of the things that makes this film series stuff that we do so much so enjoyable, because, again, would you have pulled that out and applied it to Beyond the Crucible if we weren't doing-
Warwick Fairfax:
No.
Gary Schneeberger:
... this series? No, I wouldn't have either.
Warwick Fairfax:
No.
Gary Schneeberger:
So you've extracted something that can really help the folks who are listening and watching. Speaking of helping the folks who are listening and watching at work, let's end here. How do the crucibles, the characters in Terminator 2, offer us insight? How do the crucibles that they face offer us insight to move beyond our own crucibles, especially in the face of challenging, dare I say, overwhelming circumstances?
Warwick Fairfax:
So what this movie shows and really the growth in the Terminator, Sarah, and John is that we all face choices in life. Are we going to be defined by our worst day, our crucible? We can be this angry person, like Sarah, who is unfairly locked away in a psychiatric hospital. We can be angry and a troublesome kid, like John, who felt abandoned by his crazy mother as he though she was and had to be in the care of foster parents. Or we can choose a different path. We may not like our past and where we're headed, but we can change our present. In fact, we can change our future to a more life-affirming path where we devote our lives to something beyond ourselves, where we are focused on caring for others. That kind of vision does indeed lead to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.
Few of us will receive almost a gift in which we see, if we keep on going along a certain path, this bleak dystopian future that John and Sarah Connor get to see. We may not always see that, but we don't have to see the future to know. If we keep going on this self-serving, destructive path, we may not know where that ends, but we know it won't end well. So we have to make a choice. Do we want to be a prison of our past, of what was done to us? Are we going to set a new course, a more life-affirming course which will be better for us, will make us happy and more fulfilled, and will also benefit others, maybe not humanity, but maybe out of the whole version or out the whole world of humanity in our town and in our state community?
Every day, we have a choice. Are we going to be defined by our worst day, or are we going to choose a different path, a more life-affirming? But every day, we get to make that choice.
Gary Schneeberger:
Including today, folks. The house lights are back on. It's time to collect your popcorn buckets and head for the exits and ponder the question that Warwick just asked until the next time we're together. When we get to Episode 4 of our summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. And next week, we will be talking about...
Here it comes. Scott, give it to me. Wait, slow. Start slow. Start a little quiet, and then blow it up. Blow it up, blow it out. There we go.
Next week, we're going to talk about.... We're going to examine Back to the Future. So until next time, folks. We'll see you next week, and we'll save you a seat.
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What happens when the person in charge fails — and someone else has to step up? In this episode, we dive into Alien as part of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. The ship’s captain in Alien represents one of cinema’s most striking examples of poor leadership under pressure — and the film makes clear that when leadership fails, the only path forward is when others on the team rise up and do what they know to be right, regardless of rank or hierarchy. It’s a lesson as relevant in the boardroom and the home as it is on a spacecraft.
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Dallas is a good example of somebody that's not a strong leader. He would rather follow orders that obviously a suspect than doing what's right. He won't do the sane and sensible thing. You've got Kane who has this organism attached to him and he's just going to let Kane back on the ship and they know nothing about this organism. They don't know if it's got some virus or if it's malevolent. I mean, they don't know what's going on, but it's like, "Oh, well, let's not worry about it."
Gary Schneeberger:
Poor leadership, it's the Achilles heel of the ship's captain in the movie Alien, which we discussed this week in the second episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. As the movie makes clear, the only way to overcome leadership that's lacking is when others on the team step up and do what they know to be right regardless of rank or hierarchy. How can understanding that help you overcome your own crucibles? Stay tuned.
Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. This is our special summer series, which we have called Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. Why do we do that? We're going to talk about why we did that. First of all, we had so much fun over the last three years that we focused, not over the last three years, over the three years, last two years, and then a couple years back. We've done three years, this is the fourth, where we focused our summer series on the lessons about overcoming crucibles that movies can teach us. And so we had so much fun doing it before we're doing it again. Guess what? We're probably going to do it next summer too.
And after we've done movies that spotlighted heroes, classic movies celebrated by the American Film Institute and last year, movies that feature really major crucible after major crucible after major crucible. In the first episode, I said you've heard of Chock Full o'Nuts coffee, that was Chock Full of Crucibles summer movie series last year. This year we're examining a film genre that's one of Warwick's favorite types of movies and that is science fiction. And the title, as I said, is Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema.
So Warwick, as we start, let me ask you this question. Why movies again? This is the fourth time, as I've said, that we've done this in our summer series. What are you hoping our listeners and viewers get from our discussions this year, these eight films that we're going through?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Gary, both you and I, we love movies and it's interesting when you look at movies from a Beyond the Crucible perspective, because most of us look at movies just to have fun and enjoy them, but it's very different than when you're looking at it, what are the crucibles? How do the characters bounce back? Do they make the right choice? And so what we love about movies from our perspective of Beyond the Crucible is that they typically portray a protagonist who is facing significant challenges that they seek to overcome. Will they be defined by their worst day? Will they overcome the crucible? Will they just do what everybody else is doing and go along? So it's a fascinating way of both looking at crucibles and learning from the characters in those movies, whether they make a good choice or a bad choice. So as you've mentioned, we've in past years looked at movies coming superheroes, sports heroes, historical heroes, significant crucibles as well as the American Film Institute's top 100 movies. So it's something we both enjoy and there's so many lessons that we can learn from looking at these movies.
Gary Schneeberger:
And it's interesting that you say, and it's true, you watch movies, we watch movies for this series much differently than we watch movies just for entertainment. And that's not to say, I think it's important to say that's not to say that this is like being at the museum of homework and vegetables. I mean, it's not drudgery to do it. It's actually quite exciting to do it, right? To be able to find those things and it shows us just how universal this concept of moving beyond your crucible is. I think that makes it more exciting even if it's different, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. There's something about movies that they're larger than life and typically the crucibles, the characters, are facing are larger than life, but that really highlights both the heroism and the poor choices occasionally that the protagonist make. So it's really a great way of highlighting some significant issues in a kind of an enjoyable way in a sense. It's a fun thing that we enjoy doing and we hope people will enjoy learning from some of these famous characters.
Gary Schneeberger:
And for you, this summer series about sci-fi cinema is particularly enjoyable because that is one of your favorite film genres. Why do you love science fiction films, not just films, but other aspects of science fiction? Why do you love them so much and what about them is particularly resonant for discussing crucibles and how we move beyond them?
Warwick Fairfax:
I've loved science fiction from a very early age, both in movies, TV shows, and indeed, books. One of the most influential science fiction films ever made was 2001: A Space Odyssey. It came out in 1968. And what I loved about that was it showed you future technologies such as space shuttles with screens on the seat in front of you, which is commonplace now in airlines, but didn't exist back in the '60s. You had talking computers, as they say, sentient computers that had intelligence. They couldn't just answer questions, they could actually almost think in a sense, and video conferencing and other technologies.
And one of these shows I was a big fan of was the original Star Trek TV series from 1966 to '69. I also read widely in science fiction novels, books by Arthur C. Clarke who wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Isaac Asimov. And so what I like about science fiction and still do is, sure, it explores future technology, which is fascinating. Like in Star Trek, it looks at warp drive, which is speeds that are faster than the speed of light, which scientists can debate whether that's possible or not, but it's fascinating to look at the technology.
But science fiction at its best explores deep societal issues like what is the future of the human race? How will it interact with other forms of life and technology? Will the human race go in a beneficial direction? And when we talk about technology, there's a lot of discussion these days about the future of AI. Is that going to be good for humanity or not? Is there a threat? Is there a danger people discuss these things? So science fiction is really a great way to look at crucibles and how do you overcome significant crucibles, whether it's existential questions like can the human race survive? Will the expansion of humans be across the galaxy and beyond will it be beneficial? Will technology get to the point where it will control humans? These are all very significant questions that science fiction explores. So it's a fun genre and is a rich ground to look at crucibles in.
Gary Schneeberger:
Which is a good one, two punch. It's enjoyable and there's crucibles, as I said at the top, right? A plenty, chock-full of crucibles for sure. And here in episode two of our summer series, we are looking at one movie that is indeed chockfull of crucibles and that is Alien, which is the 1979 movie that's been described and plays out for sure as sci-fi horror. Here's the summary of the film known in the industry as the logline.
"After a commercial space tug crew intercepts an SOS from a desolate planet, they are hunted by a terrifying parasitic alien creature that boards their ship."
I always love how loglines, it's like this expansive big two hour movie and they get it down to like a dozen or more words. Those people in Hollywood know what they're doing. And speaking to people in Hollywood, before we actually get into talking about the ins and outs of the film, in your research, you uncovered some interesting facts, interesting details about Alien. Share those with folks just to warm them up before we get talking about the movie proper.
Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed. So as we discussed, Alien came out in 1979 and this was director Ridley Scott's, one of his very first movies. Now he's done so many blockbuster movies, basically anything that the Australian actor, Russell Crowe does, Ridley Scott is the director. He did the one of Gladiator and just some other massive movies. It was also one of Sigourney Weaver's, who is the star here, plays character Ripley, it was one of her earliest movies and might be the first one when she was actually the star. And what's interesting is there was a time in maybe the late '60s, early '70s when science fiction wasn't popular, but then Star Wars came out in 1977 and then all the other studios, and I believe this movie was made by 20th Century Fox, everybody was running around saying, "We've got to make a science fiction movie." You know the way Hollywood is, you've worked there.
It's like once something comes out in as a hit, everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon. And so I think this particular studio ran around saying, "Is there anything we can make about science fiction?" And somebody said, "Well, we have this script called Alien." "Alien? Okay, great. It's ready? Let's make it." So it was sort of like, you got the script, we've got to make a movie about science fiction, let's go. So this is at the time, I think it got modest reviews, but interestingly enough, over time this has been seen as one of the top science fiction movies. So it's funny how movies when they come out, they might get so-so reviews, but later on as critics look at it in the course of examining sci-fi history and culture, they can reassess it and say, "Actually, this is a really good movie." This is one of those movies. It didn't come out with a bang, but its reputation increased over time.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And to your point about how Hollywood loves to copy each other, it's because of the success of science fiction films in Hollywood. The only time in a James Bond film that what is at the end of the movie and "Bond will return in..." whatever the name of the movie is, the only time that that was not correct because they put, I think it was For Your Eyes Only maybe up, but at the time Star Wars was out, as you said. And lo and behold, they had one that they were going to make called Moonraker, which had been written by Ian Fleming and they swapped the movies and Moonraker came out first to capitalize on the Star Wars mania. So Roger Moore got to go to space.
All right, let's get to talking about this movie Alien and let's begin as the opening credits unfurl, we're given the setup of this film. And at first it doesn't seem all that action packed, right? There's a core of seven folks on this spaceship. It's a towing vehicle called the Nostromo and on it they do refinery work that processes 20 million tons of mineral ore and they are returning to earth. That's the screen card that goes up. You're watching that movie and you're going, "Oh boy, this isn't going to be very exciting." But that initial scene is pretty run-of-the-mill, yes, it's pretty matter of fact given what is to come and there's no hint early on of the action and/or the danger that is to come. Why is that an effective opening, especially for a film that builds itself as sci-fi horror?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So you're right, Gary. Alien starts off pretty quietly and Nostromo is this commercial towing vehicle making its way back to earth. This isn't some like battleship or like battlestar in Star Wars or any of the other... Or in Star Trek. This isn't some elite crew in this state of the art top of the line spaceship that's ever been built at the time. This is just this commercial towing vehicle. It has a crew that almost seems bored. They're pretty relaxed. They certainly don't seem to be this crack, well-trained military type of crew, iron discipline, inquiring minds here to explore space and go beyond where people have ever gone before in Star Trek terms. It just seems like this is a job that pays the bills and it's not something they're really excited about. They're going after wherever they're going, finding material, refining it, bringing it back, then they go back again. It's just this boring kind of job that somebody's got to do it.
And so there's really no hint of what's going to happen, of the perseverance, ingenuity, and courage that are going to be required. So often crucibles happen to people who seem to be unprepared and don't feel like they're heroes at all, whether it's World War II or some cataclysmic event, something happens that really tests the medal of the man or woman who's in the arena, so to speak. Some will be found wanting and others will rise to the occasion, but it's amazing how ordinary people can do extraordinary things depending on the circumstances. So yes, this movie starts off in a pretty relaxed kind of manner in which you're thinking, "Okay, we've got this towing spaceship with this pretty lackluster crew, okay, and so we're watching this movie and should we walk out? I mean, what's going on here?" It doesn't start with the bang, that's for sure.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And that's common in the horror film genre. Earth-based horror films tend to be sleepy towns and everybody's like, "Oh, it's just an average everyday thing going on." And then all of a sudden the horror hits. And that's what happens here. And the ship's computer starts it all off. It's called Mother and it wakes the crew up from stasis, they're onboard sleep in pods to tell them about a signal it's received. It's a beacon and the policy of the company they work for, the seven folks on this ship is that they have to go investigate it, the crew does. So the captain, whose name is Dallas and the executive officer whose name is Kane and the navigator, Lambert, go off to investigate.
Warwick, what happens in this scene that indicates the crew of the Nostromo is about to face a terrifying crucible, right? It begins to tick up from "Not much to see here" to, "Oh, there's going to be something good to see here."
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So things are about to change with the sleepy, relaxed crew. They're not going to be that relaxed for much longer. So some of the crew take off in the shuttle from the main ship to investigate where this transmission is coming from. So they go land on this planet and three of them leave. You've got Kane, Lambert and Dallas. And as they're walking on their space suits on this planet, they see this weird spacecraft is like nothing they've ever seen before and they start climbing into it and investigating. So Kane hears something strange and starts investigating because, well, that's what you do in a horror movie. You see something weird and something scary and you go, "Look."
Gary Schneeberger:
And you run right toward it, not away from it.
Warwick Fairfax:
And of course you go and look yourself. You don't bring other people on, because why would you do that? And so he starts investigating and he goes down into this large cavernous space and he sees this murky pool with lots of eggs. And of course, what does Kane do? Well, he thinks it's a great idea to decide to walk amongst these eggs, what could go wrong. So he's doing that. So Kane decides to walk amongst these eggs and he sees something moving in one of the eggs. Something seems to be alive. Now the egg opens and an organism flies out onto Kane's helmet. So Dallas and Lambert bring Kane back to the shuttle, which then docks with the main ship, the Nostromo. So they want to bring Kane back onto the ship for medical care. Now meanwhile, Mother lets Ripley know that the transmission from the beacon is a warning and not an SOS. Now they've not deciphered the whole message. They don't quite know what that message means other than it's not an SOS. It's some kind of warning.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And this is where Ripley, right, Sigourney Weaver, who's the warrant officer, even though she's third in command, she makes a bold stand when the crew that has been investigating the beacon returns to the ship.
What does she do, Warwick, and how does the action she takes or tries to take spotlight the importance in a crucible of doing what you think is right regardless of opposition or even hierarchy because she does something very pivotal to help you through a crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's well said. So at this point, the shuttle has docked with the main ship and Dallas and Lambert, they want to bring Kane back onto the ship for medical attention, but Ripley doesn't want to let them pass the airlock. So that's an airlock and the folks in the shuttle, Dallas, Lambert and Kane, they can't get back in without somebody on the main ship opening the airlock and Ripley doesn't want to do this because she says they should follow protocol, which is 24 hours for quarantine because there's some organism that's on Kane, maybe that wouldn't be safe. And so Ripley won't open the hatch, but Dallas, that is the captain, orders that the hatch be opened and Ripley says, "No."
She understands the order, but she believes that order is wrong. And you could say if it was a military term, it's not valid, you're not following a valid order, if you will. It goes against protocol, at least for quarantine. But Ash, the science officer, he opens the hatch anyway because Ash is on the main ship. So now we see that the Kane has this organism, it's attached and wrapped around his head. It's not just on his helmet, it's just on his actual head. And so Ash and Dallas try to get it off, but they can't. And so then they make an incision into the creature and this liquid pours out and it's like acid. It just eats through the decks of the ship and they're thinking it's going to create a hole in the whole ship. And so they run around, try to stop it leaking everywhere.
And so then there's this fascinating conversation in which Ripley says to Ash that Ash let Kane and the organism in when Ripley says, "I'm the senior officer on the ship." Yes, Dallas is the captain, but he's on that shuttle, and in terms of who has to make the decision on the ship to let them in, Ripley says, "I'm the senior person." And Ripley says that Ash forgot the quarantine law, but Ash says, "Kane's only chance of survival was to bring him on the ship." And so Ripley says, "Okay, yeah, but by breaking quarantine Ash, you're risking everybody's life." And Ash says, well, that was a risk that he was prepared to take. And Ripley says, "Well, that's a pretty big risk."
Now, Ripley could have said, "Well, that wasn't your decision to make. You feel like you believe that was a risk that was worth taking but not your call, but Ash makes that decision anyway. So both Dallas, the captain, and Ash, the science officer, want to bring Kane as an organism attached back on the ship, Ripley does stand her ground against Dallas and Ash and tell them that risked the health of the crew, but she's countermanded basically. Dallas overrules her and Ash ignores what Ripley wanted to do. So this is a good example of Ripley stands up for what is right. Irrespective of the consequences on her career, or indeed how she's going to get on with her colleagues, you assume that they're going to be taking more journeys together on this towing vehicle.
What this highlights is that it's easy when those around you and who work for you are pushing the course of action just to go along. Even when you don't think it's right, it's like, look, why buck the system? This is the company line. This is what all my colleagues want to do. Let's just go along. And so you could say, look, I'm not the decision maker. It's not my responsibility, but I'm reminded of the phrase that bad things happen when good people do nothing.
So Ripley is one of those people that will stand up and do what is right irrespective of what the captain thinks or, as we'll see, what the company thinks. Ripley is somebody that will do what is right no matter what, but it would seem like she is the only one on that ship. And sadly, I think many of us will find ourselves in situations where we might think of ourselves as the only person in the company in our group, in our neighborhood that will do what is right. Sadly, it often feels like there aren't that many because most people are like, "Why fight this? We're probably going to lose. What's the point? We don't want to be the only one standing up and everybody else is going to say, 'What's your problem? Come on. Just go along. It's the easy path.'"
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And you mentioned that the other folks on the ship don't really have that same perspective, that same courage that Ripley has. And it's particularly difficult both in her case and in the cases of all of us because the actions are inactions of the guy in charge, Captain Dallas point to another critical truth about navigating a crucible, that they can get worse, much, much worse if you keep moving forward without a plan. And that's what Captain Dallas does. He allows the ship's science officer, Ash, to make a critical decision despite Ripley's growing distrust of him. How does the captain's weakness and lack of fortitude deepen the crucible they're facing? Because again, this is, as I said at the top, a lot of crucibles coming together and this one's rooted in Captain Dallas just not having the fortitude to do what's right.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so true. So after they're in the infirmary with Kane, they notice that the creature is gone and it's not on Kane's face. While they look for it, an organism falls from the ceiling and drops on Ripley. Now, fortunately it seems to be dead and as they're looking at it, kind of [inaudible 00:25:06] it, trying to figure out what it's made of. And Ash asked Dallas if they can bring the organism back, as in back to headquarters where they're going. And Dallas says that science matters are up to Ash as a science officer. So Ripley says, "That doesn't make sense." Dallas says, "Well, it's up to the company and we have to do what the company says." And Ripley says she doesn't trust Ash. So Dallas is just going on along with the company line, "Hey, it's really not my call. It's up to Ash as a science officer." And he's just avoiding responsibility.
Ripley meanwhile is standing up for what is right because she wants to ensure the safety of the crew, let alone those that might come into contact with the ship and the crew when the ship returns. Dallas, on the other hand, is just saying, "Yep, not my problem. I'm just doing what I'm told to do." Toeing the company line, whether that makes sense, whether it's right or not, not my problem. So Dallas is a good example of somebody that's not a strong leader. He would rather follow orders that obviously a suspect that doing what's right. He won't do the sane and sensible thing. You've got Kane who has this organism attached to him and he's just going to let Kane back on the ship and they know nothing about this organism. They don't know if it's got some virus or if it's malevolent. I mean, they don't know what's going on, but it's like, "Oh, well, let's not worry about it."
So sadly, there are too many leaders like Dallas who will not stand up for their superiors or company policy and they'll just acquiesce by basically saying, "Hey, it's not my problem. It's not my decision." And they just acquiesce. It's just so common. People often are willing to pass the buck.
Gary Schneeberger:
It's interesting. It just popped in my head in a movie called Alien, it's alien for everybody except Ripley to make strong decisions rooted in principle and rooted in courage and rooted in knowing what's going on. That's just for whatever reason, that just popped in my head.
So the next scene, Warwick, is one of the film's most horrific, most horror inducing scenes. And remember, this is a horror movie, even though it's a sci-fi horror movie. That scene happens next. Talk a little bit about what happens in that scene and why it pushes and how it pushes the plot forward.
Warwick Fairfax:
So Kane who had that creature on him, he wakes up and he seems to be fine and they're all eating a meal together. Everything's going well. They're laughing, having a good time. And as we're learning, so the spoiler alert, when things seem to be going well in a horror movie, it is not a good sign. It won't last. So enjoy it while you can. Just goad yourself, something bad is going to happen. I just know it. And indeed that is what happens. So we see that Kane seems to be ravenous. It's like he's eating way more than you would think a normal person would.
Gary Schneeberger:
Especially when he just woke up, right,-
Warwick Fairfax:
Right.
Gary Schneeberger:
... who just woke up from not doing anything.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. And then Kane starts writhing and shaking and screaming. He's obviously sick. Something bad is going on here and a creature comes out of his chest and it has teeth. I mean, at this point, it's a small little creature and the creature runs away. Kane is dead at this point and they send his body off into space and they all run around now looking for the creature throughout the ship. So one moment you're having a nice meal and the next moment this weird creature comes out from this guy's chest and runs off. So it just from in a nanosecond, it goes from being a calm time to what the heck is going on here.
Gary Schneeberger:
So the alien that had affixed itself to Kane's face and then got on his face and got some probes down into his... And somehow was then in his stomach and then burst out and now he's on the loose, which is Ripley's worst fear back to, where on quarantine, they didn't listen to her. So her worst fear now has come to life. What happens next because more worse fears keep coming now?
Warwick Fairfax:
They sure We do. The crew has a cat, Jones or Jonesy as they call it, and this cat sets off a sense that the team has developed to allow them to catch the alien as it moves around the ship. So they've sort of tested out this technology, it does work. When Jones sets off one of the motion sensors, Brett, an engineering technician, goes to find him and Brett encounters the alien. Well, at this point the alien is not small, it's massive and it kills him. And Ash says the creature has adapted well. Again, a bit of foreshadowing. There's a little bit of too much admiration in Ash's voice.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, right.
Warwick Fairfax:
So Dallas then devises a plan to force the creature off the ship with an airlock. So Dallas wants to chase this creature into an airlock and then let it off into space. And so Dallas asked Mother, the computer, about alternative plans to kill the alien, but the computer seems to be unable to answer the questions. The Mother has nothing, so to speak. It's just not helpful. Its answers are like uncertain, basically, "I don't know". So then Dallas enters these air ducts with a flame thrower, but is ambushed and killed by the alien. So what this movie does a good job of is it shows you hints of violence. You'll see this creature come up behind Brett. You'll hear screams from Dallas, maybe a hint of a creature about to get him. But then it cuts away leaving a lot to the imagination, which really the best kind of horror movies is when it's your imagination that is thinking, "What exactly happened? I know he's dead, but ..." So Ridley Scott does a great job in directing this movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Ripley is now in charge of the ship and she has her suspicions and has had, you could tell the way she looked at them. She's had her suspicions about Ash and she has them confirmed in one of the most pivotal scenes in the movie. Let's take a look and a listen to that scene.
Movie Clip:
Ash: There is an explanation for this, you know?
Ripley: Is there really? I don't wanna hear your goddamn explanation. Ash, open the door. You open the door.
Parker: Get her up, get her up. It's a robot, Ash is a goddamn robot. Holy shit! Shit! Help me get this f...ing thing off! Oh, God. God, Jesus.
Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, that scene, not easy to watch, very jarring to watch. That scene makes everything that has come before though makes sense, doesn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It really does. So with Dallas Dead, Ripley now has access to Mother and she wants to know how to kill the creature. So Ripley is now acting captain and she has access to Mother and some of the information there. So Mother says that their orders are to retrieve the creature and that the crew is expendable. So in the scene we see that Ripley confronts Ash who comes up behind her while she's reading this message from Mother and Ash says that there is an explanation and Ripley angry, she just tears off and Ash traps Ripley in a part of the ship and with superhuman strength hurls Ripley to the ground. Now Ash then forces Ripley down and gets this rolled up magazine and puts it down Ripley's throat. At this point you're wondering what's going on with Ash putting a rolled up magazine down Ripley's rote and you wonder if Ash wants to pour something down Ripley's throat.
I mean, it's the kind of thing that you would think may happen. So Parker comes from behind Ash and hits Ash with this metal tube. So when Ash's head almost comes off, we see that Ash is a robot. And then we see that Ash has been protecting the creature all along. Ripley asks Ash about the special order. Ash says it was to bring back the life form that is priority one. All other priorities are rescinded. Parker curses Ash and a company who clearly don't care about their lives. Ripley asks Ash how to kill it and Ash says, "You can't."
Now at this point, I think we see that the creature is actually within Ash. So it's a very weird thing that we see going on here. So Ash says that the creature's structural perfections is only matched by its hostility. Ash admires its purity. It is unclouded by conscience or morality. Ash says he can't lie about their chances almost smiling and says they have his sympathies. At this point they pull the plug on Ash. So it seems like Ash is being protecting the creature all along. Partly maybe it's his orders to protect the creature, bring it back for study. Maybe also the creature is within Ash, but it just seems that Ash has this admiration for this creature. It's sort of structural perfections, it's purity. And Ash admires the fact that the creature is unclouded by conscience or morality. I mean, what a thing to admire. Yeah, Ash is clearly in the camp of this very malevolent creature.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And as you were describing that, it just occurs to me, you mentioned Parker, who I don't think we've introduced yet. He's the one of the seven we haven't talked about. Parker is one of the engineers. So he's a very no nonsense kind of rough and gruff and physically intimidating guy. So that's why he takes the big metal tube to Ash and ends Ash's sentience, if you will, eventually. But with no hope of defeating the alien, Ripley decides that she has to initiate the self-destruct sequence and abandon the ship. But it's not as simple as that, Warwick. What happens next?
Warwick Fairfax:
So Ripley is now, again, clearly in command. You've just got Ripley and Lambert and Parker left. So Ripley says to the other two, "Okay, I'm going to go prepare the shuttle." And she's hoping to kill the creature when the ship self-destructs because they have no idea how to kill it. And she tells the other two, Lambert and Parker, to go collect some critical supplies and equipment for the shuttle for when they take off. While Lambert and Parker are gathering supplies, you see that this alien creature kills both of them. You see it's put some sharp part of itself right through Parker and then put some tentacle around Lambert. So you just see hints of that. So now alone, Ripley starts the self-destruct process, but the alien blocks her root to the escape show. And so Ripley narrowly escapes and turns back to abort the self-destruct sequence because she feels like "I'm running out of time", but she fails to return to where this self-destruct mechanism is before the override option expires.
So with only a few minutes left to evacuate, Ripley frantically returns to the shuttle and finds that the alien is gone. She takes Jones the cat with her and she boards the ship and launches it seconds before the Nostromo explodes.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. So she's in the shuttle, ship's blowing up. End of story, right? Roll credits. Nah, come on. This is a horror film, folks. There's on jolt, one shocking surprise left. Alien still has one scary surprise left. Describe what happens next and that is indeed what happens last in Alien.
Warwick Fairfax:
So Ripley is now in the shuttle and you think all is well. Again, never a good sign, certainly not in a horror movie. So we see the main ship blow up and it blows up in a massive explosion. Ripley says under her breath, "I got you, you son of a blank."
Gary Schneeberger:
Blimp, yep.
Warwick Fairfax:
[inaudible 00:41:45]. Fill in the details. Ripley almost seems comatose. When you've gone through this crucible that Ripley has gone through and you've been running for your life and then you feel like you're finally out of danger, you just sort of sit back and take a breath and you're almost sort of numb after the whole experience. And she does feel like almost comatose from that experience. But then she sees, on the other side of the shuttle, this creature crawling around and she races to get away and she hides among the spaces. I mean, this shuttle is not big and she has an idea. So she climbs into one of the space suits and puts the helmet on and she gets like the spear gun and she comes out of hiding almost singing to herself under her breath because she has a plan and she starts pushing buttons and what Ripley does is she sucks the air out of the shuttle and then opens the airlock.
Now she has a spacesuit on, so this is obviously all planned and the creature is beginning to be sucked out of the shuttle. But before getting sucked out of the shuttle, the creature tries to hang on, it's got its tentacles on either side of the airlock, the opening of the airlock and Ripley shoots it with a spear gun and it finally lets go. So then we see that Ripley closes the airlock, puts air back in the shuttle and takes her spacesuit off. So at this point she thinks, "Okay, we're good," but not yet.
Gary Schneeberger:
Not yet.
Warwick Fairfax:
So this creature is trying to crawl back in where the rocket tubes are. And so Ripley turns on the rockets and the creature is finally blown away. So at this point, Ripley then begins to make a final report in her log and she says, the other members of the crew are dead. The cargo and the ship are destroyed and she'll reach base in about six weeks. She says, "This is Ripley the last survivor of the Nostromo signing off." Ripley hugs the cat and talks to the cat because it's the only left and says, "Come on, cat," and hugs it. And so Ripley is in a cryopod and the movie ends.
One of the interesting things to note in this movie is you do see some humanity on the part of Ripley in that Ripley goes to great lengths to save the cat and that's definitely a priority. She's not this callous cold person. She's trying to save everybody, but in the end, it's only Ripley and Jones, the cat, that survive.
Gary Schneeberger:
And what's interesting, right? That's the end of the movie, but it's not the end of the Alien cinematic universe. They've made how many sequels? They've made like three or four sequels to this movie, including some in which the alien fights the predator from the Predator movies. I've never seen any of them, but this film, this antagonist definitely has legs going forward. Sigourney Weaver comes back for at least two more movies. There's something about this idea of an alien from space that is indestructible in everything that Ash said, it has no humanity. It has no morality. There's something about that that is appealing to moviegoers, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
It really is true. Yeah. As you mentioned, you've got that movie Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger and it is an alien-like creature. It's very malevolent and kills everybody except Arnold Schwarzenegger and he's sort of clambering over rocks and streams with kind of camouflage on. And this whole alien genre, there's quite a few Alien-like movies that come out after this. It's just sort of your worst nightmare to see this malevolent creature. You don't know what it is, where it's come from. All you know is it wants to kill you. That seems to be its mission in life. So yes, it spawned a very scary genre of movies.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. All right. So we don't talk about these movies, Warwick, just enjoy the films as we said at the outset, right? We don't watch them just for entertainment. We watch them because there's crucibles in them and we want to help folks who go through crucibles, learn some lessons from these movies about how to do that. So how do the crucibles that the characters in Alien go through offer us insight into how to move beyond our own crucibles, especially, and this is important, in the face of challenging circumstances, yes, but even scary circumstances, which are definitely at play in Alien. How does this movie help us navigate our own crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Alien highlights that dichotomy between those who will do what is right and those that will not and the severe consequences that ensue. So clearly that happens here. Ripley is concerned about letting Kane back on the ship with an organism on him. She understandably and rightly wants to invoke quarantine. Dallas, on the other hand, the captain, he just goes along with a company line and supports the science officer. "Hey, it's not my responsibility. Company, they want to investigate life and maybe there's a profit in it. And besides it's not my decision, it's a science officer's decision or it's the company's decision. It's really anybody's decision other than me. Not my problem."
The other really sad thing here is the company clearly values potential profit that the creature might bring over the safety of the crew. It is clear that the crew are expendable. It's all about profit. It's all about leveraging this alien creature for some benefit of the company. They can always find other crew. So there are powerful lessons in Alien. Are we going to do what is right like Ripley or are we going to go along with a company line like Dallas and Ash do? "Hey, it's not my problem, not my responsibility. I don't have a choice. I'm just doing what I'm told to do. I'm just going to do what's expected. I don't want to make enemies with the people I work with. Certainly I don't want to make enemies with the powers of be or my bosses above me."
So are we going to do what Ripley does or do what Dallas and Ash do? Are we going to lead a company that only cares about the bottom line or that cares about people? It's often in the corporate world, you're constantly concerned about earnings per share and got to constantly increase profit. Maybe we'll have to right size, which means lay off some people, but it's just a few and hey, I don't know that I really need to do this, but if I don't hurt the quarterly profits and I don't think I can explain to the shareholders and investors and let's just do what's expedient, let's just do what's easy.
So are we going to be that kind of a leader or are we going to work for a company whose values that are completely against ours? Maybe it's like, "Well, it's a paycheck," or it might be, "This company pays really well. I just have to go along to get along and, hey, I just work here. I don't set the company values." And the challenge is you go along with one poor decision after another or you just acquiesce to them and pretty soon you've moved as we find in Star Wars from the light into the dark side.
It happens a bit like a lobster boiling step by step. And so this movie shows that our decisions on some of these powerful questions, they have significant consequences. The repercussions of our decisions might be much bigger than we realize. It's so easy to say, "Well, it's just a white lie and doesn't everybody cheat on their taxes?" And "I didn't lie. I just didn't tell the whole truth. I left out some key facts, but hey, I didn't murder anybody, right? I mean, it's not a capital crime. It's just something little." But something little eventually becomes bigger and then it becomes so big that it's too late to back out because backing out might mean loss of reputation or even worse, maybe prison. So you may think, "Oh, that will never happen to me." Well, it's easier than you think if on bad decision, one unethical decision after another in some cases, molehills can grow into mountains.
You don't want to be that person that starts off as somebody that just didn't do anything that wrong, but one poor decision after another, one acquiescing to somebody's orders after another leads you to be a person that you don't even recognize and at that point you feel like it's too late.
Gary Schneeberger:
Friends, the house lights are back on. Our feature is over for this week. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. Next week we will have another film where we will discuss the crucibles there and the lessons you can learn from them. And I'm going to do it, Warwick, I'm going to ask Scott, give me a drum roll here so I can tell everybody what the next film is. Excellent. Next time we are going to talk about Terminator 2: Judgment Day and I'll leave you with this folks, just so you know, we'll be back. See you next week.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like "the helper" or "the individualist". Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
What happens to your sense of self when everything you’ve known is suddenly turned upside down? In this episode, we dive into Planet of the Apes, the classic sci-fi film that used a stranded astronaut’s nightmare scenario to hold a mirror up to the chaos and disillusionment of late 1960s America. This is the first episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. We examine the film’s central crucibles, chief among them, how you muster the resilience to keep moving forward when your entire world has been inverted. What do Taylor’s struggles on screen reveal about your own capacity to survive disorientation, loss of identity, and a world that no longer makes sense? These are the questions we’re digging into this season.
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film? Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. And Taylor was finally captured. He's holed up in a net. And Taylor for the first time speaks in front of the ape, his neck must have healed enough. And as he saw and heard, he says, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape." Now the apes, they are stunned. You cannot deny Taylor's intelligence. This is no mere mimicry. This is intelligence.
Gary Schneeberger:
In this pivotal moment from the movie Planet of the Apes, a stranded astronaut reveals he's not the animal the ruling class of apes believes him to be. This week in the first episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future, The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema, we examine the film's central crucibles, including how you muster the resilience to keep moving forward when everything you've known is turned upside down. How can understanding these crucibles help you overcome your own? Stay tuned.
Well, friends, welcome to another episode of Beyond the Crucible. And I want you to do one thing before we start, find a calendar and look at it, because if it's summer, guess what we're doing? Beyond the Crucible is starting its special summer series. And we had so much fun the last three years where we have done this on films. We focused our summer series on the crucibles, the things you can learn about overcoming crucibles from movies. We did another one before the last, this is the fourth time we've done films as the basis for diagnosing how you get beyond your crucible, and we're doing it again this year.
Now, after doing movies the first year that spotlighted heroes, then we spotlighted classic movies that were celebrated by the American Film Institute, AFI. And then last year we did movies that had just a whole, you've heard of Chock Full o'Nuts coffee. This was Chock full of Crucibles, films that were full of crucibles that we could then unpack to help you get through your crucibles. And now we're moving to the fourth year of our summer series in films. You know what, Warwick? I'm going to call for a drum roll since we're going to... Scott, give me a drum roll before I tell folks what the name of the series is this year. One, two, three, go. There it is. We are calling it this year, folks, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema.
And Warwick, before I say anything else and before we do anything else and dive into the film that we're discussing this week, why movies again? I asked you this question last time for the summer series, why movies again? This is the fourth time I said that we've done cinema for our summer series. What are you hoping listeners and viewers get out of our discussions this year?
Warwick Fairfax:
Both you and I, Gary, we love movies. We love looking at movies from a Beyond the Crucible perspective. It's funny, when you watch a movie just for fun, it's very different than when you're watching it from a Beyond the Crucible perspective, because we're looking to see, as is the case in really all of the movies we review is, we're looking at a protagonist that's facing significant crucibles and significant challenges that they have to overcome. And it's really a test of character. In some of the movies, many of them, they ride to the occasion and become better versions of themselves, their heroism, their self-sacrifice is evident. And in a few movies, actually the reverse happens and somehow they are found wanting, so to speak, when they face a crucible. But either way, we can learn a lot.
So we've covered, as you mentioned, movie superheroes, sports heroes, historical heroes. We've looked at movies from the American Film Institute's top 100 movies. And last year, as you say, we focused on films with significant crucibles. But it's really a proving ground, if you will, movies where you can just see faced with monumental challenges that seems almost like outsized compared to most of us. But still, it's a proving ground of how will they survive, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, will they rise to the occasion or will they be defined by their worst day? As they say in Star Wars, so to speak, will they go to the dark side, so to speak, as opposed to the forces of light, if you will.
Gary Schneeberger:
And it's funny that you mentioned that it's different to watch movies for this than it is just to pop into a theater on a Saturday and watch a movie for purely entertainment, because this has changed the way I watch movies. Now when I'm just watching a movie for entertainment, I'm like, "Oh, that would be a good crucible." I mean, I'm seeing crucibles pop up in just films I watch every day in my life. So you're correct, there's a different lens through which we look at these films. And in particular, I want to ask you, Warwick, why are you so excited about us doing science fiction films this time around? Because you love science fiction films so much. So explain about why you love them so much and why they're particularly resonant for discussing crucible experiences and how we overcome them.
Warwick Fairfax:
I've loved science fiction my whole life, basically both in books, movies, TV shows. I think one of the most influential science fiction films ever made was 2001: A Space Odyssey, it came out in 1968. Remember that date, 1968, folks, it might come up later. So in this movie, you saw future technology with space shuttles. You had screens on the back of seats, which we have now in planes, but didn't exist back then. You had talking, intelligent computers, video conferencing. So it was just amazing, the technology that you saw. And one of the other shows that I was a big fan of was the original Star Trek that aired from 1966 to '69. I also read widely in science fiction, including great sci-fi novels by Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. Arthur C. Clarke actually wrote the screenplay for 2001 of Space Odyssey.
And so what I really loved about science fiction, and still do, is not only does it explore future technology, but at its best, it explores deep societal issues about the future of the human race and how it'll interact with other forms of life and technology. What is humanity? Are we going to move forward in a way that is benevolent? Are we going to be a force that's not for good? How do we treat each other? How do we treat people that look different than us? All of these things are explored in science fiction.
In science fiction, we see very significant crucibles portrayed. Can the human race survive? Will the expansion of humans across the galaxy be beneficial or not? Will technology get to the point where it will control humans? So you've got these mega overall crucibles as well as the crucibles of the main characters in the stories. So it's one of the reasons why I love science fiction. It explores these deep societal issues. And in some cases, like Star Trek, for the most part, it portrays a benevolent future where humanity actually cares about other people. So yeah, it's some of the reasons I love science fiction.
Gary Schneeberger:
Well, folks, if you caught Warwick's little hint about 1968 and you know a lot about science fiction, you may have an idea of what we're going to talk about this week, because we're kicking off our summer series with the original Planet of the Apes, which came out in 1968. Now, since then, it has spawned a whole bunch of sequels back in the '60s and '70s, and then a bunch of reboots in more recent times. But the summary of the movie, if you remember from last year, I read the summary of the film in the log line, Hollywood terminology for what a movie's about. Here's the log line for Planet of the Apes, "An astronaut crew crashes on a distant planet in the future where highly intelligent apes are a dominant species, and humans are mute, enslaved creatures, forcing the sole survivor to fight for his survival and expose the truth."
Now that sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? And there's a bunch of crucibles that we're going to talk about in the midst of that, which can help you get past your crucibles. But the movie, Warwick, opens with the lead astronaut whose name is Taylor. And they just call him Taylor throughout the whole movie. But later on we learned in the credits, I think it says, his name is George Taylor. So it's George Taylor. And he's recording in this first scene of the film, a video diary of the mission his crew is on. He explains that they're in deep space, that's the phrase he used. And even though they have been gone only six months in their time, by their body clocks, 700 earth years have passed since they blasted off. The scene, just Taylor talking into his microphone while his three other crew members are asleep in their pods where they sleep, reveals him to be both cynical and a little full of himself. How does this initial scene, Warwick, shape what we're about to see later in this film as it goes on and the crucible that Taylor finds himself in?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So as the movie opens, here's Taylor in the spaceship, his three crewmates are in cryogenic pods, which as science fiction writers of long theorized, that if you want to survive in deep space over massive periods of time, obviously you need that kind of technology. So it's just him at that point, he's the only person who's awake. And this log that he's dictating, it shows Taylor to be reflective, but a cynical man. He says he leaves the 20th century with no regrets. He continues and says, "Space squashes a man's ego. He feels lonely. Is man a marvel of the universe? Does he still make war against his brother and keep his children starving?" So clearly Taylor has a dim view of the human race. He's almost happy to be away from it. So he's reflective, but he's just wondering, "What is the point of man? What is the point of humans? Are they a beneficial force in the universe or not?" So he's asking these existential questions at the very beginning of the movie.
Gary Schneeberger:
When Taylor wakes up from his own slumber scene or two later, the film's biggest crucible has been set into motion. Their ship has crashed in a desolate area, the men's female colleague has not only died in her sleep because her pod cracked, but she seems to have been dead for more than a year because she's all wrinkled up on her face. Planet of the Apes is a no hurry. This is one of the beautiful things about this movie to me, it's a no hurry to get to this overarching crucible as the men set out on foot to find a more inhabitable place, to find higher ground.
They believe that they're on a distant planet. Taylor says it's more than 300 light years from earth and that they have been away from earth for more than 2,000 years. And it's funny, because Warwick and I, as we were preparing for this, did a lot of sci-fi math, and that all sinks up. And even though I'm bad at earth math, we did sci-fi math together and that sinks up. But as they walk, we see how deeply jaded Taylor is about the America that they left behind. So talk a little bit, Warwick, about what we come to understand about Taylor in these scenes where he's trying to make sense of where they've landed after his journey in space.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So here we see, here's Taylor and his crew, they've landed in a lake in this incredibly desert place with rocky deserts and high cliffs, and there's not vegetation to be seen anywhere. And so they clamber out of the spaceship and they've got their packs with food and some technology stuff that they need, and they start walking through this stony desert. And it's so isolated. There's thunder and lightning but no rain. There doesn't seem to be a moon. And Taylor, as they're walking with his two crewmates, he rides them hard. He just really gets on their back. And one guy in particular who is called Landon, he just is really merciless. Taylor says really to them all, "We're here. We have to accept reality." And he's sarcastic about the human spirit. And then he says about Landon that basically, "You're on a journey, you're an ego trip. I bet there's probably some decaying, rotting statue of you, Landon, on earth." Basically he said-
Gary Schneeberger:
Great leadership.
Warwick Fairfax:
... "Yeah, you just want to be hero with a legacy. It's all about the ego. That's why you wanted to be on this trip, you just wanted to be this big hero." And Landon admits to Taylor that he has him pegged. Taylor may be merciless, but Landon is basically saying, "You got me." And then he says, Landon about Taylor, that he thinks Taylor believes that life is meaningless. And Taylor says, "Well, he's a seeker." And he says, "There must be something in the universe that is better than man." So clearly Taylor, as we're beginning to see, has a very dim view of mankind. And so he was hoping there's something better out there. And Taylor's view of man is just shown in a very graphical, harsh way when Landon, he plants this small little U.S. flag on the ground, which small is maybe a couple of inches. I mean, it's small. It's not feet.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. It's like what kids wave at parades, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. And he sticks it in this rocky ground as if, "Gere we are, we're claiming this ground for the United States," or something. And so what's Taylor's reaction? He laughs this sarcastic belly laugh as if, "Oh, come on, really, what's the point? You've got to be kidding me." It's just this savage, sarcastic laugh at landed. It's just merciless. And again, this really shows Taylor's view of the human race, "What's the point? The U.S., the earth, there is no point." Clearly his view of mankind is not good.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And he's going to get some company in his view of mankind not being good in the next scenes that come up in Planet of the Apes. So talk a little bit about the next scenes and the crucible that the astronauts find themself in, because this movie is called Planet of the Apes. So I'm guessing something's about to turn here in the film.
Warwick Fairfax:
Very true. So Taylor and the crew begin to see vegetation a little bit at a time, and they're thinking, "Huh?" Because they're not going to survive too much longer if they have to walk through the desert with their elementary provisions. And so they come across more vegetation. And then finally they see this large waterfall that descends into a pond. And they're thinking, "Hallelujah." There's a pond, there's a waterfall, there's clean drinking water. So they take their clothes off and just dive in and go for a swim. And so at this point they're feeling pretty good about life. Well, meanwhile, we see the outlines of other humans. We don't really see their faces too much. We see arms pulling things. And so these humans, they take away their clothes and their packs, and basically rip their clothes apart. They rip their packs apart and distributes things everywhere. So whatever provisions or technology they had in those packs are now useless, they're just destroyed.
And so the crew begin to see this, and they dash out of the water to try and get their clothes and their packs. And so finally they come across a clearing with a whole bunch of humans who were in skins. I mean, these look like very mute and unkempt, very primitive people. And so just as Taylor and his crew are trying to figure out what's going on here, we hear the sound of apes. And suddenly into the scene we see these gorillas on horsebacks with guns. And the humans are terrified by these gorillas and they flee. And the gorillas, they begin to fire their guns at the humans and try to capture them with nets. And in the frenzy, one of the crew, Dodge, is killed. Taylor is shot in the neck. And Landon and the other crew member is also captured.
And the apes are talking. This is a very different world. I mean, at this point it's clear that these talking apes are in control and the humans are the primitive people that are enslaved, and that the world has been turned upside down. And one of the things that we'll find is, these humans, not only do they not seem very intelligent, they're mute, they don't talk. So the whole world is turned upside down. The apes are in control and the humans are animals basically, who are just being rounded up in nets and shot and captured.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And I love that it takes a bit of time to get to that reveal. We're seeing them, the astronauts are trying to find their way and people are stealing their clothes. And it just seems like it's a normal sci-fi action movie. And then all of a sudden, boom, there's gorillas shooting at them. And the gorillas aren't just shooting at them, they're doing things that human hunters do to their prey. I mean, talk about that a little bit, because you see things that clearly shows the gorillas are the quote unquote "people," as we would say, and the people are the quote unquote "animals."
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So these apes are talking, they're taking photographs of each other on the hunt, because this is a hunt. And you'll even see humans tied upside down by their ankles much the way that people might after hunting deer or elk or some kind of game, they might capture it and hang it up saying, "Hey, look what I've got with my prey. I did pretty well in the hunt." So humans are no more than deer or elk. They're just another type of game to be captured and killed.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, it really shows how the tables have been turned in the Planet of the Apes, in the planet and in the film. The action then shifts a little bit, Warwick, to Taylor in captivity. It's there that he meets an animal scientist, the chimpanzee Dr. Zira, who is fascinated by what she sees in him as an intelligent... That's greater than most humans that she's encountered. She's intuitive and she sees that in him. She's trying to prove that man can be domesticated in her work. And her fiance, another scientist named Cornelius, is conducting research to discover a "missing link," quote unquote. You've heard that phrase before, right, folks? Cornelius wants to find a missing link among the humans that shows how apes came from something, what's the thing that apes came from? He's doing research into that.
Meanwhile, the orangutan, Dr. Zaius, head of the planet's religious and scientific endeavors, is dubious about what the couple is trying to do. "Man is a nuisance," he says. Taylor's unable to speak to Zira and Cornelius because of his neck wound. Remember, he got shot in the beginning when the gorillas were taking control of everything, but he does begin writing them notes that prove his intelligence. Warwick, in these scenes, it's Zira and Cornelius who face some pretty intense crucibles themselves. What trials do they find themselves up against as they study Taylor and try to stay at the same time in the good graces of Dr. Zaius?
Warwick Fairfax:
So Zira is an animal psychologist who wants to understand more about humans. So remember in this world, humans are considered animals. So therefore she's an animal psychologist. And she believes that humans have the capacity for some intelligence. And she also says that there is no biological reason why they cannot speak, because the all the humans are mute on this world. And Dr. Zaius, on the other hand, who's really over Zira, has no time for humans and believes that humans can only do simple mimicry. He says, "Only brain surgery makes sense. Humans are useless. They should be exterminated." And he says, "Simeon, survival." In other words, apes is what is important. So he believes not only are humans are useless, but in an ideal world, there would be no humans. They should be exterminated. That's his view of humans. And Zira's fiance Cornelius, he on the other hand, he's conducting archeological research about apes descending from man. So he's an archeologist and he believes that there's an evolutionary connect between apes and man.
Now these lines of research, whether it's Zira on humans having some capacity for intelligence, and Cornelius looking at the link between apes evolving for men, they're going to get both of them into serious trouble with Dr. Zaius and those in charge. So Zira and Cornelius in a sense, they're trying to advance science, be it through biology or archeology, and they want to understand humans and archeological history, but this is a world where the studies that Zira and Cornelius are conducting are considered criminal activity. They're certainly considered heresy. These are banned lines of inquiry.
Zira sees that Taylor is writing notes because as we mentioned, he can't talk because of the neck wounds he has, but he's writing notes. And as she watches his notes, it's very clear he's intelligent and he's not just some dumb human, that's undeniable, but she knows she will face massive pushback in this area of research from Dr. Zaius. But she's a scientist, she wants to push forward scientific understanding, in this case, biological understanding of humans. So she knows what she wants to do from a scientific perspective, but yet what are going to be the repercussions for her and her career if the powers that be object to her line of heretical inquiry. So she's in a bind.
Gary Schneeberger:
As you're talking about all of that, I just thought of one of those things where watching the movie in the Beyond the Crucible context is different than watching it just to enjoy it. I've always thought it interesting in this movie that the kinds of apes have different jobs. The chimpanzees are scientists, the gorillas are the enforcers, and the orangutans are the leaders. But it's interesting now that I think about it in the context of what you were describing earlier with George Taylor thinking that mankind is backward, has it wrong, still kills their brother, there's a stratification to this society that I have to believe is a little bit of a commentary of what in 1968 was the way that America operated, I would think, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean, as we'll see, you can say a lot about human society and its ills and things it's done, and a lot of that is fair commentary, but it's not like this world of apes is some socially evolved-
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, exactly.
Warwick Fairfax:
... community of enlightened folks. It seems that apes are trying to suppress knowledge because of heresy and fear and other unenlightened ways of thinking. And yes, it does seem there is stratification. You've got the chimpanzees, which you say are the scientists. And then in some sense above them, or at least it feels that way, the gorillas are the ones who are the soldiers, the enforcers, the police. And then you've got the orangutans who are the heads of council and leaders. And you don't see a chimpanzee being either an enforcer or the head of the councils, that doesn't happen. So it doesn't seem like an enlightened society. And even if humans are these dumb, mute, unintelligent beings, shouldn't they be treated with care and love? I mean, most enlightened people today believe that animals should be treated fairly and humanely. They shouldn't be just rounded up and killed for sport so to speak. You make a good point, Gary, that it's not like this ape society is so enlightened. It has issues-
Gary Schneeberger:
Right, it's not Nirvana.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, it is certainly not.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. So Taylor's crucible gets turned up several notches in the scene that follows what we've just been talking about. He is chased by gorillas. Remember, they're the enforcers. He is chased by gorillas who serve as soldiers through the apes' museum, which features exhibits of humans, includes Dodge, one of Taylor's other crewmates from his spaceflight who has been taxidermied. The scene ends with one of the most notable moments in Planet of the Apes. Let's watch and listen to a clip of that moment.
Dr. Zira:
Taylor, why did you run away?
Speaker 4:
Security, police.
Dr. Zira:
I'm in charge of this man.
Gary Schneeberger:
No longer, madam. He is now in the custody of the Ministry of Science.
George Taylor:
Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape.
Gary Schneeberger:
So Warwick, why is this scene and the scenes that led up to it so pivotal to the direction that Planet of the Apes takes?
Warwick Fairfax:
Before Taylor escapes, there are conversations between Zira, Cornelius, and Dr. Zaius. So Zira and Cornelius are trying to tell Dr. Zaius that Taylor is intelligent and there is evidence of an earlier culture prior to ape-recorded history, into the work that Cornelius had been looking into. It is clear that Dr. Zaius is very hostile to this way of thinking. So we then see Taylor in a cage with gorillas coming to take Taylor to get a lobotomy based on orders from Dr. Zaius. That tells you everything you need to know about Dr. Zaius. He's afraid of Taylor, he wants to squash anything and everything that he's about.
And so as they're about to take Taylor away, Taylor flees for his life and he's running all over the place, as you mentioned, through this museum with these humans that are there, in one case, the stuffed human that used to be his crewmate Dodge. And Taylor was finally captured and he's holed up in a net. And Taylor for the first time, as we saw in this clip, speaks in front of the apes, his neck must have healed enough. And as you saw and heard, he says, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape."
And Now the apes, they are stunned. You cannot deny Taylor's intelligence. This is no mere mimicry. This is intelligence. Well, intelligence with attitude, but intelligence nonetheless. And Taylor is now a very real threat to Dr. Zaius and the others in charge. So Taylor by his presence calls into question everything that ape society believes in, everything it was founded on, everything they believe about ape evolution and man's role in society. And so Taylor's now back in a cage with the gorillas yelling at him. And Taylor says in another memorable scene, "It's a madhouse." Clearly Taylor is not in, as you put it, Nirvana, he's not in this magical place. It's like, "What upside down crazy world am I in?" This is not the society he was looking to be a part of when he thought it would be great to escape from the human race. This doesn't seem like a great landing place for Taylor. This isn't this happy place free of human control, far from it.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And when I see that, "Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty apes," scene, it makes me nostalgic for the days of movie theaters, because that scene is a lot more fun, I bet, in 1968 when you're watching in a crammed theater full of people and that happens and the crowd goes nuts and applauds as opposed to you're watching on your big screen at home. I think we've lost a little something. It has nothing to do with crucibles, but we've lost a little something where those moments can't be shared together in a communal setting.
Warwick Fairfax:
[inaudible 00:31:55].
Gary Schneeberger:
So both Taylor and the scientists are then put on trial, he, Taylor, because Dr. Zaius wants to ensure that he can never procreate, they, the scientists, for scientific heresy. In the debate that follows, there are many points of contention that address the issues in our culture about evolution and other issues like that. If you watch this movie and you see this court scene, you can see a lot of things that point to 1968 America, and in some senses to America today. Those themes get expounded on even more after Zira and Cornelius bust Taylor out to save his life. And the action shifts to the archeological site that Cornelius has been studying. Dr. Zaius turns up and dismisses the evidence, good bureaucrat. Human or ape, there are bureaucrats. He dismisses the evidence and destroys the site after Taylor escapes into the forbidden zone where his spaceship crash-landed.
Warwick, what stands out to you from these scenes? And why does it serve as cultural commentary on life in the 1960s America?
Warwick Fairfax:
So in this courtroom, it's not just Taylor that's on trial, but so are Zira and Cornelius. So this courtroom wants to pretend that Taylor must have been operate on to be able to speak. Humans can't naturally speak, it's a circus trick, that they must have done something to him. And Zira and Cornelius have been accused of scientific heresy. And obviously nobody believes that he's from another planet, which is what Taylor claims. And when they go out to find his other crew members, because he said, "Hey, I'm not alone. I had some other crew members with me," because he knows that Dodge was killed, but he doesn't know what happened to Landon. And so Taylor goes and he sees Landon, but he sees the side of Landon's head has been shaved and there's surgery. He sees that he's been lobotomized. So now Landon is just some mute, sadly, unintelligent being like other humans. And Taylor just yells at them and says, "You bloody baboons." It's like, "What have you done to my crewmate?" He's just horrified by what he sees. And Dr. Zaius, interestingly enough, rather than just admit it, for some reason he says that Landon suffered brain injury, maybe he had a head trauma and there was an operation that was needed.
And so at that point with all this going on, after this courtroom, we see Cornelius and Zira break Taylor out of prison and flee. Now Dr. Zaius says Zira and Cornelius will be indicted for heresy and that Taylor will have experimental surgery done to him so that he will be a living death. I mean, there's a scene in which Dr. Zaius talks to Taylor and basically says, "We're going to do experimental surgery onto you. And that will be like a living death." And Taylor knows what that means, he's seen Landon. And so it's just a horrific scene. And so Zaius says that Taylor is a menace, a walking pestilence. So we see Cornelius and Zira, as we've mentioned, break Taylor out of prison. And they go through the desert and eventually they end up in a cave that lies beside the sea. Now, this is a cave where Cornelius has been doing his archeological research. And so Cornelius says that there are tools and bones at this site from 1,300 years ago.
What's interesting, as we've mentioned, is that Dr. Zaius turns up and he has his henchman of gorillas, because he suspects, "Where's Cornelius going to go to?" He's going to go to the forbidden zone, to this cave where his research is. And so in the scene, not only do we have Zira and Cornelius and Taylor, but we also have Dr. Zaius there in this cave. Now one of the other things to mention is that when Taylor was in this prison, there was a human woman there who he calls Nova. She, like other humans, is mute, limited intelligence, but they form a bond, and he takes her with them as he's escaping from prison. And so again, here we are in the cave, Zira, Cornelius, Taylor, Dr. Zaius and this woman, Nova, and they're looking at these tools and bones from 1,300 years ago, but then they see there are artifacts from 700 years before that, which show an ancient culture that was more advanced.
And what's interesting is they find a human doll beside the bones of a man, not an ape. Remember, humans are meant to be these unintelligent people. You don't see animals with dolls, not unless a human has given it to them.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Dogs have toys. They don't have little babies.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. And they don't get it themselves, you know?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
People provide it to them. Anyway, so we see this human doll beside the bones of a man. And then Taylor sees a man who wore false teeth, eyeglasses, and some kind of a heart valve. Those are all evidence of a bygone culture of some sophistication. So here we have this human woman, Nova, and Nova squeezes the doll, and that doll says, "Momma," much like dolls today would say. But here's the thing, Taylor asked Dr. Zaius this question. He says, "Why would an ape make a human doll that talks?" Because remember, humans are mute, they have no intelligence. So why would you do that? It makes no sense. There is no answer to that question. And Dr. Zaius, as we'll find, is not surprised for what they're finding, because I think he's been there before. But then Dr. Zaius fires this back. He says, "If man is so superior, why didn't he survive? Where are these intelligent humans today if they even existed?" No real good answer to that question either.
So then we hear gunfire outside and everybody rushes out. We see that the gorillas are there and they're armed. Taylor captures Dr. Zaius and he makes the gorillas retreat. And he says to Dr. Zaius, "Look, I want a horse, I want a gun and provisions for myself and for Nova," the woman that's been with him on this trip. And they want to just get away. Dr. Zaius lets them go. He wants to get rid of them. But before they leave, we see that Dr. Zaius has the cave entrance dynamited, because he wants to erase all evidence of what was found. And this harkens comes back to something earlier when we had Taylor in an outside cage. And before they knew he could speak, when his throat was still damaged, he writes some letters on the ground that Nova erases. And he gets angry at Nova. Well, then there are other letters that haven't been erased. Well, Dr. Zaius sees those letters and erases them. There's no hint of surprise at all on his face. So Dr. Zeus knows that there was human intelligent life at one point on that planet.
So none of this is a surprise. He wants to, as one of the religious leaders, erase all evidence of intelligent human life. And so he wants this cave dynamited, which he does. So then as Zaius is lying tied up, he says this to Taylor, he quotes from the 29th scroll of the ancient ape laws. And what he's about to say, it is haunting. This is what the ape scrolls say. It says this, "Beware the beast man, alone among primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yay, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle layer for he is the harbinger of death."
So that's what Dr. Zaius thinks of humankind. And then he goes on to say that all his life he was afraid of someone like Taylor, somebody that would be like those intelligent humans that he's discovered on this archeological dig, I'm guessing years ago. And Dr. Zaius says this, "Man's wisdom must go hand in hand with his idiocy. Emotions must rule his brain, a war-like creature who will hurt everything around him." And then Dr. Zaius says, "The forbidden zone was once a paradise. And then man made a desert of it."
So in these scenes, we see why Dr. Zaius is so afraid of Taylor and the work that Zira and Cornelius are doing, Zira showing that mankind has the capacity for intelligence, and Cornelius that there was indeed intelligent human life at one point on this planet, extremely threatening to ape culture and everything that Dr. Zaius believes in. So he believes, Dr. Zaius, that humans are a menace and only bring destruction. They should be in cages, if not ideally be exterminated. There should be no trace whatsoever of humans' prior civilization or their technology.
So in the late 1960s, as we think of the time when this movie came out in 1968, you had both civil rights movement, you had the Vietnam War, you had the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. So there probably would've been many at the time who wondered, "What is the value of the human race?" Look at the assassinations. Look at the bigotry that necessitated the civil rights movement. Look at what's happening to what was perceived at the time as the quagmire of the Vietnam War going after years costing enormous amounts of lives.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And before I get to the big reveal of the movie, I'm going to do a little reveal since we have time to do this. And actually, Warwick, in 1988, I interviewed Charlton Heston who played Taylor, and I asked him about Planet of the Apes. I just asked him, because I was going through all of his movies, "And so tell me about Planet of the Apes." This is what he said to me, "Actually, that was the first of the space operas. And the thing that perhaps was unusual about it was that as a space opera, the humans had the best parts," Charlton Heston said in 1988. "Since then, they still make them in their marvelous movies, but the robots and the curious creatures have the best parts." And then he said this to me, which I just thought was hilarious, "They approached me the other day about doing a sequel, which confuses me because they've already made a sequel or about four of them. I can't figure out what the hell they would make me do." I said this back to him, "Maybe they'll put you in eight makeup." And Charlton Heston said back to me, "No, then I wouldn't do." He did it. He actually did it about 15, 20 years ago when they did the first reboot of Planet of the Apes with Mark Wahlberg. But there's a little trip back to my interviewing days in 1988.
All right, back to our programming here. The biggest reveal, Warwick, comes in the scene that follows what you were just talking about, the scene that ends it. Taylor rides farther in the forbidden zone to discover something that shows the truth of how the planet of the apes, the planet itself, not the film, the truth of how the planet of the apes came to exist in the way that it exists. And I'm going to let you explain what exactly we see in that final scene.
Warwick Fairfax:
So after this fascinating talk between Taylor and Dr. Zaius about humanity and all its ills, we see Taylor and Nova ride off along the shorelines of the sea. And as they do that, there's a conversation where Cornelius asked Dr. Zaius what Taylor will find out there. And Zaius says, "His destiny." This is truer than even Dr. Zaius knows. So in this last scene of the movie, and this is one of the all time classic movie scenes.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's got to be in the top 10 or top five. It's incredible. So we see Taylor, he's riding along the shoreline of the sea, and we see him looking up at a statue, but at first the camera is situated high and above this statue. We don't quite know what it is, but it's enormous. And Taylor is looking up at it. And he mentions these immortal lines. He says, "Oh my God, I'm back. I'm home. All the time, we finally really did it. You maniacs, you blew it up. Damn. God-damn you all to hell." I mean, he's just screaming at the top of his lungs. So he's on the sand, on his knees, looking up at the statue. And then we see Nova looking up at this half buried statue. It's the Statue of Liberty.
Gary Schneeberger:
That still gives me chills just to hear that.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, absolutely. It's half buried in the sand. And this really is Taylor's worst nightmare, because they're not on some other planet, they're on earth. And it's because of man's idiocy, not some other human race of some other planet, but humankind on the planet earth. It's because of man's idiocy, as Dr. Zaius calls it, that the human race as Taylor knew it no longer exists. They're a shadow of their former selves. They're enslaved, they're mute, they have limited intelligence, they're running around in skins, they have no agency or authority. They're just treated like animals. So it seemed that sadly that Taylor's cynicism about the human race was warranted. I'm reminded of that phrase we sometimes say, that we don't want to be right. I wonder if Taylor was thinking of that, that, "I knew I had a dim view of the human race and where it was headed, but I was right. And how could I be right? I do not want to be right." At that moment he wasn't so much cynical, he was horrified, he was distraught. He wasn't saying, "Well, you got what you deserved." Ge was angry at humankind, of which he was a human.
And interestingly, yes, he says, "You maniacs, you blew it up," but he also says, "We finally really did it." He doesn't say, "They did it," "You did it." He says, "We." He's taking some responsibility for the destruction of the human race. It's a powerful scene.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, Taylor in the beginning, both cynical and full of himself. At the end of the movie, he's emptied of himself and he doesn't have any place for cynicism. It's now replaced by just horror and deep despair, as you pointed out. It's a brilliant end to the movie, but it's not an end, Warwick, to the lessons that we can learn from the planet of the Apes. So let me ask you this. How do the crucibles the characters in the Planet of the Apes face offer us insight into how to move beyond our own crucibles, especially in the face of challenging circumstances where we might not have agency, as you pointed out, we might feel like we're trapped, what are some lessons that we can pull from Planet of the Apes to apply to our own crucibles?
Warwick Fairfax:
So in Planet of the Apes, throughout the movie, Taylor is in this incredible mind-bending crucible. The human race is now mute with little intelligence, and it is enslaved by apes. Human civilization has seemingly destroyed itself. All of Taylor's worst fears about humanity have been realized. At the beginning of the movie, Taylor's clearly cynical about the human race as well as his crew members. Taylor does not have many redeeming qualities. At the beginning, he'd be hard-pressed to think of anything, but as the movie progresses, we see that Taylor shows resilience. He does not give up fighting for his own survival or fighting for the truth. He wants to escape, he wants to figure out what has happened, what is going on. And he is determined to show the apes that he is intelligent. It's not like, "Look, I'm done for. What's the point? They're probably going to kill me." He doesn't give up. He never gives up.
So he's fighting for his own survival and fighting for the truth that he is intelligent. But more than just fighting for his own life and fighting for the truth that he is an intelligent human, he shows compassion. Early in the movie, Taylor shows zero compassion for people. And it's clear that he cares about the welfare of Zira and Cornelius. He's concerned about them being indicted for heresy for thinking that humans can be intelligent or that there was some ancient civilization before apes, as in potentially human civilization before apes. And Taylor also cares about Nova. Now Nova was in the same cage as he was at various times when he was captured. And she can't speak, again, like all of the humans of limited intelligence, but he has compassion on her. And when they escape, he wants to take her with him.
So this isn't some companion who we can have an intelligent conversation with, but yet he shows compassion and wants her to come. And so as we look at all this, sometimes we're faced with crucibles that are terrifying and beyond our control. They could be economic depressions, worldwide pandemics, earthquakes, other disasters, and they might seem way beyond our control, and they're a test of our character. Will we give up, as we often say, will we hide under the covers and say, "This is it. This is awful. I'm giving up"? Or we say, "Yes, it's awful, but how can I get out of the pit of despair? How can I take one more step even when I think..." We may think that, "One more step to where?" You know?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's a worldwide pandemic, it's an economic depression, there is no hope. Imagine trying to take one more step in the Great Depression, which was in the U.S. and many other countries from 1929 into the '30s, endless bread lines, "One more step, what is the point?" But people of courage will say, "I'm going to take one more step." And not only do we have the opportunity to show resilience, but amidst these horrific crucibles, we have the opportunity to show compassion. Do we care about just ourselves or about others? Again, think about the Great Depression. Maybe you scarcely have enough food to feed your family, or maybe there's a friend across the road, an old lady that's a widow, maybe you can part with a little bit of your food and provisions for her. You don't have much for your own family, but when disaster strikes and horrific crucibles strike, it's a test of character. Will we show resilience? Are we going to be all about ourselves? Or will we show compassion? Will we have the capacity to care for others?
So crucibles are a tremendous test of character. And really this whole movie, Planet of the Apes, it's a test of Taylor's character. He goes from some cynical person that could care less about anybody else that thinks that humanity is doomed a destruction, and he goes from that to being somebody that shows resilience, that never gives up. And while indeed humanity has in this movie caused its destruction, at least as humanity and intelligent life was known back then, he shows compassion on Nova and Zira and Cornelius. And so this movie shows that despite the devastating crucibles that you can face, it is possible to get through them with character, with resilience, and compassion, and some level of human dignity.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word's been spoken on a subject. And our sci-fi-loving host, Warwick Fairfax, just spoke it with authority. And that will end this first episode of our summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. Next week we will be back. And we're not going to tell you what it is, we want you to come and be excited to find out, to discover the film crucibles that we're going to walk you through in the next episode of this summer series. We'll see you next week.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com, take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
Can a movie actually help you turn a setback into significance?
In this episode, we discuss our latest blog, 3 Lessons from 3 Years of Discussing How Movies Help Us Move Beyond Crucibles, ahead of our 2026 summer movie series kicking off July 7. We revisit the insights on resilience and personal growth we uncovered from three films explored in our previous series — The Pursuit of Happyness, Singin’ in the Rain, and Captain America: The First Avenger.
From these stories, we learn to silence our inner critic, choose joy in the middle of life’s storms, and believe — like Captain America — that we can do this all day.
Missed our previous summer movie series? We’ve compiled them all into playlists: Lights, Camera, Crucibles (2022): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLohc3aLoBAA5z9VYnQtD1s7n53hcfalM
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Perseverance without purpose, this movie makes clear, eventually burns out. But perseverance connected to meaning becomes remarkably resilient and that's something that we all need to lean into. No matter what our crucible is to match meaning to our perseverance. That's the secret sauce of putting one foot in front of the other and moving beyond this happened to me, to this happened for me, and here's my life of significance. No, your ears are not deceiving you. I'm just the guy that said the thing about secret sauce of turning trial into triumph. And on this episode, we discussed that. Would you believe that movies can be a key ingredient to creating that secret sauce? Listen as Warwick and I discuss our latest blog, three lessons from three years of discussing how movies help us move beyond crucibles and you will understand what we're talking about. In advance of our 2026 movie series that begins July 7th, Warwick and I discuss the insights into turning setback into significance we learned from three films we unpacked in previous series, The Pursuit of Happyness, Singing in the Rain, and Captain America, The First Avenger.
From these three movies, as you'll hear, we can learn how to stop being critical of ourselves, how to choose to celebrate through life storms and how we can believe we can do this all day. Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond the Crucible, and this is unlike most. This will be unlike most of the episodes of Beyond the Crucible you have watched or listened to. But I'll tell you this first before I tell you how it's going to be different. This is another of the episodes in which Warwick and I discuss his most recent blog, or let's say the most recent blog at beyondthecrucible.com. And this one has been, as I intimated a few sentences ago, this one has been recast. There's a new lead speaker in this one, you might say. It's called Three Lessons From Three Years: How Movies Help Us Move Beyond Crucibles. And our usual starring writer is taking a supporting role in this podcast episode. So let me step aside and turn it over to our supporting player, our supporting host, our co-host who's going to ask me questions because I wrote the blog.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, Gary, thank you. I really enjoyed reading this blog. It is a terrific blog. Fantastic points. So let's start off. So Gary, what led you to write this blog?
Gary Schneeberger:
Seems so weird. Just to hear you say that to me seems weird, but I have a non-weird answer, I think. We're preparing right now to launch our fourth summer series about movies. We did it last year. We did it the year prior to that. We had something else the year prior to that and then in 2022, I believe was the first year that we did it. We have looked at films as a jumping off point to discover and talk about how to move beyond your crucible, but then also how to live a life of significance.
And since our new summer series on movies is about to launch on the 7th of July and it will go all the way through the end of August, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back over those three other years in which we did movie episodes and to see what were some key learnings from some key films. So I sort of randomly selected three films for us to go through to have this discussion. And before I say any more about that, I'd be absolutely remiss if I didn't say starting July 7th, the new summer movie series is called Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of sci-fi Cinema, which may have been influenced just a little bit by our usual host but today co-host, Warwick Fairfax.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well said. As we'll learn this summer, I'm a big science fiction fan, so a big fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, all sorts of sci-fi movies as well as some of the great writers of science fiction, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark who wrote the screenplay for 2001, A Space Odyssey. So we will be having a lot of fun learning, a lot of lessons about how to bounce back from your crucibles this summer, but in the future, in the world of sci-fi.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes, good stuff. We've recorded most of it, so just got a couple more to do, but there's some really good stuff there. And again, the reason that I selected the movies that I've selected here is I wanted to sort of make the point that you can get from films in a variety of genres what we aim to do in our summer series on films. And that is here are some tips for how you weather your crucible, how you move beyond your crucible, and how you ultimately get yourself on a path to a life of significance. And the three that I picked demonstrate that wide birth of just how varied films can be that give us those insights.
And the films I picked were one that's based on an absolutely true story, that's The Pursuit of Happyness, one that's based on a true era in American history, but it's not a true story. And that's Singing in the Rain, which goes over, which sort of walks us through when movies change from silence to talkies and all the crucibles that caused. And then there's the far out pure fantasy of superhero films, one of my favorite genres and the movie that I picked in that case to discuss in the blog that we'll discuss in this episode was the first Captain America, Captain America, The first Avenger.
Warwick Fairfax:
So help us understand why, whether it's fantasy based on history or a true story, why even in all those three genres, can we learn a lot from how to bounce back from your worst day, your crucibles?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I've longed to say this forever, that's a good question, Warwick. And besides just the kind of films, where they fall in the profile of the movie itself, there's also Singing in the Rain is a musical comedy. The Pursuit of Happyness is a pretty strong drama and Captain America, as I said, is pure fantasy. So it really does crisscross all the ways you can crisscross, both in the type of film in terms of the genre, but also in the type of film in terms of whether it's funny or it's musical or it's dramatic or it's fantastical. And I think the reason that that all works out is because crucibles, as we talk about on this show all the time, are universal experiences.
So if they're universal experiences for a guy like me and a guy like Warwick, who if you've been around us any period of time on this podcast, more than 300 episodes now, we're not exactly alike in a lot of ways, that's fair to say. And yet the crucibles that we've been through and the lessons we've learned from them and the lessons we've applied and how we've built the lives of significance, which are different in both of our cases, there are some similarities there.
One of the things I say all the time to guests on the show as I'm talking to them before we actually have the episode recording is one of the things I've discovered in co-hosting 300 episodes plus of the show is that even though the circumstances of a crucible are markedly different from person to person to person, the emotions that they unleash in a person, I discover week after week after week with guests and with movies to be frank the emotions that they elicit are strangely and wonderfully and revealingly similar, even though the circumstances couldn't be more different. And I think we see that in the movies that we do too that, and what we'll talk about here is you may not have experienced the crucible that, well, I can almost guarantee you haven't experienced the crucible that Captain America, Steve Rogers experiences, but you can learn some things from that. That's the beautiful universality of the difficult subject that we talk about every week on the show and that's crucible experiences.
Warwick Fairfax:
I think one of the other things about movies is that they sort of highlight in Technicolor, so to speak, to use an old movie phrase in a way that sort of highlights the severity of the crucible, the challenge, the times seeming hopelessness. In each of these movies, there's a very real challenge that certainly in the case of Captain America, that nobody I don't believe in our audience will have gone through this or will ever go through that, I think that's a fairly safe assumption. And even in the others, it may not be something that you've gone through or will go through. Certainly you won't go through going from silent movies to talking movies, technology has gone.
But yet why movies are so good is they present a protagonist with a huge challenge. Will they be defined by their worst day or not? A couple of years or so ago, we actually looked at movies where the protagonist was defined by their worst day.
Gary Schneeberger:
Correct.
Warwick Fairfax:
They in fact got worse, whether it's The Godfather or Citizen Came. So there it's really a cautionary tale of what not to do. So really the arc of their story starts at one point and just gets worse over the course of the movie. Rather than learn the lessons, they're just defined by their challenges and in various ways they get better, angry. There's not a whole lot redemptive arc there, but that's why movies are so good is it really, it makes the learning easier because the contrasts are so sharp. Does that make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh yeah, for sure. And it's also interesting, we talk about it all the time when we do a film series is that it's totally changed the way that we watch movies, right? I mean, you and I, when we're watching movies for this, for the summer series coming up and for the three that preceded this one, you're not just watching it to have like a bucket of popcorn and a soda and just sort of veg out on the couch. You're taking notes and you're observing things from everyday life that you can apply to the folks who are listening and watching. It truly does. It's totally changed the way I watch movies for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's get into kind of these three movies and the-
Gary Schneeberger:
I'm sorry, Warwick. I'll say upfront. I'm sorry that in the blog I wrote, I didn't have seven points. I only had three. I apologize, folks, if you don't get that Warwick often, but he's been breaking it a lot lately. Usually many times he's written seven points, but lately he's been really going nuts and doing eight or nine points. I just have three this time.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. It's point inflation, I'm afraid. So it goes up by three or 4% each year with CPI. So let's get started. So as we always do with these blog discussion episodes, you've extracted some insights and action steps listeners and viewers can take from the three films you selected. So let's go through these three films. So let's talk about in The Pursuit of Happyness and the first lesson you write in your blog is protect the dream. What do you mean by protect the dream and what can we learn from the movie Pursuit of Happyness?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. In that movie, Chris Gardner, who's the lead character, he faces what looks like, feels like we experience like, he certainly experienced like it's an endless avalanche of setbacks. He loses money. His wife leaves him. He becomes homeless. He sleeps in shelters and subway bathrooms with his young son beside him. Life seems determined to break him, but he keeps moving forward. We talk about it all the time, right? Warwick, you've said it and you said it more lately, you talk about we have a choice to make at the juncture of every crucible, do we hop into bed and pull the covers over our head or we keep moving forward?
And Chris Gardner keeps moving forward. And one of the most powerful moments in this film that we talked about in the episode that we did on this in our summer series a couple of years ago is he tells his young son, "Don't ever let somebody tell you that you can't do something, not even me, your dad. You got a dream you've got to protect it." That really leapt out. I remember the conversation because we played a clip that showed that and his son was all dejected, he missed a shot when he was playing basketball out just at a park and it really hit him hard. And this idea of you got a dream, you got to protect it is so critical to what we talk about on Beyond the Crucible all the time.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And just for a bit of background, what was Chris Gardener's dream? What was he trying to achieve that seemed like a dream that was the impossible dream? What was that dream?
Gary Schneeberger:
He wanted to be a stockbroker. He found out about this program that one person would be selected out of dozens of applicants. One person would get a job as a stockbroker. And not only not having been trained in that endeavor, that field, so there's that aspect of a crucible going on where he's up against people who've got MBAs and who've got a lot of education and a lot of experience. He has none of that. He's selling, right? If you remember at the start of the film, he's selling these kind of odd and not really useful medical devices or trying to, that he's bought in advance and he can't unload them. So he's got that going on. He's got this dream to be a stockbroker while all these other things continue to befall him and his son. So that dream would have been easy. If you watch The Pursuit of Happyness folks, that dream, his dream would have been... I mean, you could probably wallpaper a room in your house with the number of times he had the opportunity to let his dream die, but he refused to let that happen.
Warwick Fairfax:
So there could have been friends, neighbors, maybe inner voice saying to him, "People like me don't get jobs there. The system's probably rigged. I won't be able to get in." I don't know that that's spoken explicitly in the movie, but it had to be in the back of his mind. So there was all sorts of negative voices that could have been telling him, "Give up. You don't have a prayer. It's one in a million."
Gary Schneeberger:
And there were times when his voice was one of the negative voices. One of the scenes in the movie that we unpack is that he paints on his wall when he's trying to paint his apartment. He paints, "Dear Chris, you suck on the walls." And again, what that shows, I think, Warwick, is that even when our inner voice, even when what we project sometimes indicates we're starting to wobble, indicates we're close to falling down. In this film and what we can learn from this film and apply from this film is just don't give up. You can have moments of doubt, you can even express that doubt, but just keep moving forward, just keep trying. Even when Chris Gardner does that in the film, writes, "Dear Chris, you suck," he keeps pursuing the possibility that his life can be something more, that how he's living is not all there is. We've said it all the time, right? Is this all there is? Chris Gardner in this film recognizes that there's a point beyond, is this all there is for him? And he keeps pursuing it and that's the perseverance that ultimately transforms his life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Really talk about what's the purpose that keeps moving him forward when many would have just cried uncle and said, "Yeah, I'm tapping out. I'm giving up." What's the thing that kept pulling him forward?
Gary Schneeberger:
The movie makes very clear that Chris Gardner's ultimate goal, why he's trying to become a stockbroker, why he wants to do that is he wants to give his son a better life. He's not doing it for himself. He's not doing it so his alumni newsletter from his high school will indicate how great he is. He's doing it because he wants to give some security to his son who's with him and loves him unconditionally despite all of the setbacks that he has to endure with his father. So that's why Chris Gardner kept going. Perseverance without purpose, this movie makes clear, eventually burns out, but perseverance connected to meaning becomes remarkably resilient. And that's something that we all need to lean into no matter what our crucible is, is to match meaning to our perseverance because that's the secret sauce of putting one foot in front of the other and moving beyond this happened to me, to this happened for me, and here's my life of significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
I want listeners and viewers to really listen to what Gary just said because these are really profound words. What Gary wrote was, as you've just said, "Perseverance without purpose eventually burns out, but perseverance connected to meaning becomes remarkably resilient." One of the things we talk about at Beyond the Crucible is how important a life of significance is, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. Without a life of significance, without purpose, why bother getting out of the pit of despair? Why bother moving forward? Why not just give up? But when you say to yourself, "This isn't about me.
It's about my kids, my wife, my husband, my friends, my family. It's about some higher purpose of serving the people in my neighborhood or maybe starting a nonprofit or thinking differently about the company that I'm working in or the business I founded." It's when there's some higher purpose, some higher calling in which this isn't about me, it's like, "Well, I can't afford to fail because people are counting on me." That's the key point that you're making, Gary, is I don't care how much perseverance or even resilience you have, if it's not anchored to some higher purpose, something that will help others, you'll fail. Does that make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. Without those conditions that you just described, you will let one step forward be insufficient compared to two steps back. In other words, perseverance attached to meaning allows you to go, okay, two steps back is I'm still making one step forward. It allows you to keep taking the step forward despite how many steps back happen. It may take you longer to get where you're going, but the goal isn't to get there fast. The goal is to get there because of the meaning attached to what the goal is.
Warwick Fairfax:
And that's one of the keys to getting beyond your crucible getting out of the pit is you've got to forgive yourself and show yourself some grace. If you don't, then you just give up. You'll say, "I'm not worth it. People shouldn't count on me because I'm let them down." So yeah, talk a bit about just the importance of, and we talk about this quite a bit is when you're getting beyond your crucible, you've got to be willing to show yourself grace. Yes, learn the lessons of your crucible, learn lessons of your mistakes, but ultimately you got to let it go. You got to let it go.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. It's interesting the film, he writes, "Dear Chris, you suck on the wall" that he's painting. Well, what ends up, it's on primer on the wall, so he just paints over it and it goes away. And I think there's something instructive in that for us in that he doesn't put it on a sign that flashes by his alarm clock every day. He doesn't wake up every morning to make that part of his daily recitations of how he's going to get through the day. "Dear Chris, you suck." It's a fleeting moment. It's a passing thing. He expresses it. He feels a little sorry for himself.
He feels ashamed of himself. He's not happy with himself, but he doesn't live there. He doesn't stay there. And to your point that you make often, Warwick, he makes that decision that he's going to keep moving forward. He's going to keep taking the steps that are going to get him to where he wants to go, which is not, as we've said, not about him. It's not about dollar signs. It's about his son and providing a better life. It truly is not a life of success as the world looks at it. Chris Gardner's after a life of significance. And the beautiful part about the movie is he finds it in the end.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's talk about the second movie, Singing in the Rain and lesson two is entitled Choose Joy in the Storm. And that is an incredible title for the second point. Choose Joy in the Storm because that's not normal. That sounds, say what? How do I do that? Why would I do that? So talk about this movie and what's the key point you're trying to make here.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, first of all, let me say when you look at... Here's three movies about how to move beyond crucibles and live a life of significance. And one of them is The Pursuit of Happyness and one of them's Captain America who becomes an Avenger and saves the world. And you're thinking, okay, those make sense, I can see there's probably good crucible moments in there that you can learn from. And then you see Singing in the Rain and you're like, what? I mean, there could be people who would look at that and think it's the outlier here. One of these things doesn't belong here, as they used to say on Sesame Street, I believe. But even though there are no world saving missions, the central message of this movie and how it plays out may be the most relevant to our discussion here of all.
Warwick, you've observed on this podcast many, many times. And frankly, in the discussion of this film in our movie series a couple years back where we talked about this, the movie embodies, and these are your exact words that I pulled from the transcript, "Having a positive attitude on almost seeing our trials and crucibles as gifts rather than something to weigh us down." That's what you're going to get if you take, again, if you watch Singing in the Rain not just... And trust me, it's easy to watch it and just want to dance around and then enjoy all of the joy that's in there. But if you watch it with Beyond the Crucible goggles on, you will see that our trials and crucibles are gifts rather than something to weigh us down, as Warwick said. And that idea matters because crucibles don't just test our endurance, they test our perspective. I'll say that again. They don't just test our endurance. Can we take it one more day? Can we go on one more step?
They test our perspective. As we're taking that step forward, what are we trying to glean? What are we trying to gather? What are we trying to do? That idea matters most, I think, because Don Lockwood, the film's hero is an example of this. He experiences, as you indicated, career upheaval. Don's a silent film actor and all of a sudden talk he's come and there are no more silent films and he's got to talk on film, which is okay for him, but not quite okay for the starlet with whom he stars in most of his movie, who has a rather unappealing screen voice, we'll say. The world around Don Lockwood changes dramatically, yet instead of becoming bitter or cynical, he adapts creatively and optimistically. That is a critical point for the way all of us can process crucibles, which is why we talked about it a couple of years ago and why we're talking about it today, because that perspective is going to help propel you forward in the midst of a crucible to help you get to the end of your crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
And then the other beat in the story is there's another woman, Kathy Selden, played by Debbie Reynolds, who I think this was about her first movie, this came out in the 50s and she has an incredible voice, but she has to lip sync the singing for Lina Lamont who just cannot sing. And so the way it would work is she wouldn't get any credit. So you have all these crucibles of trying to salvage the, was it the Talking Cavalier or something? I forget exactly what the name of it-
Gary Schneeberger:
The Dueling Cavalier it was-
Warwick Fairfax:
There you go. Exactly. The Dueling-
Gary Schneeberger:
Cavalier, I believe.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So for the Dueling Cavalier to Dancing Cavalier and it had to turn a silent movie into a talking movie, deal with this controlling obnoxious Lina Lamont with the high pitched voice and deal with the fact that somebody that Don Lockwood was growing to like a lot in Kathy Selden, she wouldn't get any credit even though she was singing. So you have all these crucibles and talk about there's really a pivotal scene singing in the rain, which is really it's an incredible scene. When we first watch it's like, oh, this is just so fun, but yet there's a profound meaning that I think most of us missed in that singing in the rain scene. Talk about that scene and why it's so profound.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, again, watching the movie, watching the scene that you're talking about with our Beyond the Crucible goggles on gives you a whole different appreciation for it. Because here's what we see in the film, Don Lockwood has just with Cosmo Brown and Kathy Selden come up with an idea to really be able to make the dueling cavalier into the dancing cavalier. And Don's all happy and it's like late night. It's the next morning really in Los Angeles. And he goes to go home and sleep and it's pouring rain outside. And he decides, you know what, even with these difficult circumstances, even with this down pour, he's going to sing in the rain. He's so happy about what's just happened in his and his friends being able to identify a way to turn this crucible situation into this life of significance into a new kind of movie that will bring joy to people.
One of the reasons this scene has endured for generations, and you probably know exactly what I'm talking about folks when I'm talking about this scene, is it represents something that is deeply aspirational. The ability to maintain hope even when circumstances are difficult. Don Lockwood's life hasn't gotten perfect. He's got an idea to how to make it better, but it's not perfect. And yet he is so ebulient. He is so happy that he dances around, stomping in the rain. There's a street cop that looks at him like he's a little nuts. Don sort of slithers away. And it's important to note that what he's doing here is not denying the pain. And if we learn to process our crucibles that way, to sing in the rain of our own crucibles, it doesn't mean that we're denying the pain.
It's not that we don't think the hardship still exists, it means refusing to let hardship have the final word. And if we didn't already have a tagline for Beyond the Crucible, that could be a tagline for Beyond the Crucible work, refusing to let hardship have the final word. Too many people spend their lives waiting for ideal conditions before they allow themselves hope, joy, or movement forward. But resilient people understand something crucial that you don't have to wait for the storm to pass before choosing your attitude. You can be joyous in the rain. As Don Lockwood sings, I'm happy again, even though he's getting drenched in his nice clothes. He's a Hollywood star after all. He's able to do that. And that's a lesson we can all apply to our own lives and would be wise to.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so well said. I mean, it's worth looking at that scene, look it up. Here he is. They don't know whether this movie is going to be made, going to be able to be turned from a silent movie to a talking movie. We don't know if Kathy Selden's going to get any credit. We don't know in her singing, we don't know if they can somehow counteract or deal with the sort of egomaniac controlling tendencies of Lina Lamont. All of that is in jeopardy. All of that is uncertain. They don't know which way the movie head is going to go. They have an idea.
Gary Schneeberger:
RF Simpson.That's his name, R.F. Simpson.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. Well said. Well done. So they have an idea of what they want to do, but at this point in the movie, they have no idea if it's going to work. It's all of these things that could go wrong as we've mentioned. And so here he is Don Lockwood played by Gene Kelly and he's literally dancing in the rain. He's sort of swinging around lampposts and it's like even though the storm is raging yet he's just talking about singing the rain and how happy he is. So just think about it. That's not an easy thing to do. But I'd say when you look at the guests we've had on the podcast, have been through just incredibly horrendous crucibles. They may not be able to change what happened, but they can change their attitude. I think of Johnny Eric Santarta, who we spoke about a little bit ago was one of the stories in the book.
And she was somebody that as a teenager in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, she dove off a platform in the water and it was very shallow and she became a quadriplegic. Well, this was like in, I don't know, '67 or something like that. This is more than 50 years ago has she been living as a quadriplegic and she's a person of great faith. She's had a radio show, Johnny and Friends. She's helped disabled people all over the world. And her attitude is one of joy, despite the fact that it takes hours for people to help her get ready in the morning and hours to help her get ready for bed. And she's reframed everything to say something that's almost impossible to understand talking about her wheelchair as a passport to joy. It doesn't mean that she likes what's happened or she wants what's happened for anybody else, but she now has a ministry and a purpose that wouldn't have existed.
So she is a joyous person despite the fact that every day you could say the storms are raging. There is no hope in terms of physical recovery beyond what it's been. That won't change, but yet you can control your attitude. So if somebody like Johnny Eric Santarta can control her attitude, I mean, my gosh, it makes us think, are our storms that severe? Really what we're saying is you can't change what happened, but you can choose how you respond to it. You're going to get angry and bitter. So this is awful, but I'm going to choose hope. I'm going to choose even joy and find a way to move on. So I was going to say, does that make sense? In a way, it doesn't make sense, but yet it's true.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, it does. It's one of those things, right? I jotted a note here on my page that what Don Lockwood does and what the film invites us all to do is to allow hope to make us dance again because that's what Don Lockwood does in this film. And he has nothing to hang onto as he leaves Cosmo Brown's apartment at night. He has nothing to hold onto except the hope of what the conversation was of how they can fix this movie. He doesn't know if as you said, all those many things have to line up for it to happen, but simply that hope of being able to move beyond the crucible. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's still a tunnel. He's still in the tunnel. The tunnel's still dark inside, but he's allowing hope to make him dance again, which is why he dances in the rain so wildly and so wonderfully if you recall the scene, as Warwick said, go check it out.
So it is indeed, as I said at the outset of discussing this film, you can look at Singing In The Rain and just think it's a fun Hollywood musical from the really golden age of Hollywood musicals, but it's more than that from a perspective of how it can move you, how it can educate you, how it can give you the tips and the action steps to not let your worst day define you. Don Lockwood could have let his worst day, oh no, they just made these talkies and my number one co-star who's as famous as I am, everybody wants to see Lockwood and Lamont can't do talkies because their voice is really sort of hard on the ears.
He was a stuntman before he was an actor. He could have gone back to being a stuff stuntman. Who knows what he could have done, but he didn't do that. He found hope and even before that hope was fulfilled, right? That's the lesson here, folks. You don't have to wait for hope to be fulfilled, to achieve hope. Hope like, okay, I'm across the finish line. Hope has now become something good. Hope can still be in the context of a crucible, but when you have that hope, it can give you all the thrust that you need to dance again. And as Kelly sings, as Don Lockwood sings in the song in that famous clip, "Come on with the rain. I'm happy again. Keep it coming." It doesn't mean his crucible's over. Keep the rain coming, but I'm happy again. And that changes everything. How you face the crucible changes the way that you endure the crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
So well said. Keep it coming, keep it coming rain. I'm happy again. That is words to live by. So let's talk about this third movie, Captain America, the First Avenger. And I love the title of this third point, lesson three Character Matters More Than Strength. Why did you pick Captain America the First Avenger and what's the key learning that we need to understand from this movie?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, I feel about superhero films the way you feel about sci-fi films. So Captain America is one of my favorite films because in the Marvel cinematic universe, it does the origin story better than just about any other Marvel film does. And the origin story of Steve Rogers, who becomes Captain America is... I mean, if there was a textbook for crucibles and what they feel like and how you go through them, this is it. When we meet Steve Rogers, he's physically weak. He's repeatedly rejected by the military and underestimated by nearly everyone around him. He wants to join the fight against the Nazis, but his physical condition repeatedly holds him back. And I did something when we did this movie, Warwick. I have a boxed edition of the first of the Avengers movies and what they call the first iteration of the Marvel cinematic, phase one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And inside that DVD pack were these profiles from the government of all the superheroes who were in the Avengers. And here's what Steve Rogers said about him. And I talked about it. This is not in the film, but it's in this background stuff I got in my DVD package. So here's how unfit for duty in the military's mind he is. Steve Rogers is only 5'7" and 110 pounds. He has asthma, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, sinusitis, high blood pressure, palpitations, or pounding in his heart. He also suffers from easy fatiguability, heart trouble, nervous trouble, and has had household contact with a tuberculosis patient.
I mean, you feel bad for Steve that he's been rejected by the military to go fight the Nazis in World War II, this movie set in the World War II era, but you can kind of understand it when you read this dossier on him, but yet, it really worked. It just occurs to me as I say it, but yet. Those are some powerful words for any crucible situation we face, right? But yet. So before I talk about the but yet in Captain America, why is that such a powerful word for us as we're going through Crucible? Sorry, I'm playing co-host now.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, no. All good. Yeah. I mean, you could easily look at this guy and say, "Well, if ever there's somebody that does not deserve to wear the uniform, it's this guy." Because physically, I mean, how could he even lift a heavy pack and rifle and be there at D-Day and help his buddies? He would let the team down because he's just too weak, too small, too sickly. I mean, you might feel bad for him, but it's like he can't risk other people's lives with this guy. I mean, objectively you would say, "Look, I'm sorry. I feel bad for you, but you let down the team. You just don't physically have what it takes." But it's easy to say, "Well, we don't have what it takes. We should give up like Don Lockwood didn't or Chris Gardner, but they easily might have." It's easy to say, "Why keep trying? Just give up."
Gary Schneeberger:
It's wearying, it's wearying to keep trying.
Warwick Fairfax:
But even when it all seems hopeless, there can still be hope. Even when there seems to be no way there can be a way. Even when things seem absolutely impossible, things can be possible. That's really the essence of Beyond the Crucible is, but yet it's like, okay, things feel hopeless, well, maybe they feel that way, but maybe there's a way. Maybe we need to think outside the box. Maybe we need to approach it differently. Maybe we just need to take one more step and see what happens. But yeah, those are powerful words.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And the way in Captain America, The First Avenger is the medical official who's kind of overseeing who gets in the army, who doesn't at the place where Steve's at, even though he tries several recruiting stations to get in, there's a doctor named Erskine who sees him and sees something that's not in his medical records that offers an opportunity for Steve, that others have missed this. He recognizes that Steve Rogers' true strength isn't physical, it's moral. As Erskine explains when Steve is given a chance to take part in a top secret program to create a super soldier, this is what he says. "This is why you were chosen," he says to Steve, "Because the strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power, but a weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion." I'm getting chills saying those words. That's what Dr. Erskine sees in him and that's what we could, should, must see in ourselves if we're in similar circumstances.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean, that's really profound, Gary. Dr. Erskine, he sees something that is not shown in the medical records. He recognizes as you say so well that Steve's true strength isn't physical, it's moral. It's really the strength of his character and Dr. Erskine captures it well. Somebody who's very strong, they don't know what it is to be weak, to feel powerless, to have compassion. But somebody who is physically weak understands compassion, understands the plight of the underdog. It's one of the things we say at Beyond the Crucible is those who've been through crucibles often have compassion for others because they know what it's like to be downtrodden, to be mistreated, to be not appreciated, to be overlooked for people to say, "Oh, you'll fail. You don't have what it takes." There's a level of compassion that somebody like Steve Rogers has. I think of, gosh, whether it's Abraham Lincoln, I think history would say his greatness was the greatness of his character, or we could look at George Washington.
We had a guest on recently Diederik Hoogstraten and he is the co-writer of a movie that's coming out July 3rd called Young Washington, looking at a young George Washington probably like 17, 50s, 60s or before just years before he became head of the continental army for the American forces and then president. And what we see in that movie and what history records is Washington's greatness was because of his character. History will tell us that Washington lost more battles than he won. He was not a strategic or tactical military genius. He was up against British generals that objectively were better strategists than he was. And he would've admitted that. They had more experience, maybe more talent, but that wasn't really his greatness. His greatness wasn't because he was the superior military strategist, which he wasn't. It was his wisdom, his character. He knew that winning the American Revolution was basically making sure his army survived.
If they could survive, then they had hope. So he had overall a lot of wisdom, but when we look at some of history's greatest leaders such as Lincoln or Washington, it was the greatness of their character. And that's really shown by Steve Rogers and Captain America. His greatness was his character and that is something that we all have the opportunity to be great at. Character is something that we can choose each day. Are we going to make the honest choice? The choice that is about others, the compassionate choice, or are we going to make the ego-driven self-centered, it's all about me choice. We can choose our character. A lot of things we can't choose in life, but character is made up of choices and that's so true here. So talk about what happens with Chris Rogers because life changes and his abilities change, but his character doesn't.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And before I do that, it's interesting that you brought up Young Washington and George Washington's his sort of journey to leadership because it's exactly kind of the same for Steve Rogers here. Steve is selected over more qualified candidates because the doctor sees in him kindness and humility and a never say die attitude. And Washington, even though all those things you said are true, ends up rising to the point of leading the continental army because of his character, because of that soul work stuff that we talk about all the time. Interesting part about that as Steve, because it plays out for Steve Rogers and it plays out for Captain America. He's often bullied as Steve Rogers and he tells his attackers as they're beating him up, "I could do this all day." And that's exactly the kind of perseverance he will need after receiving a super soldier serum that turns him into Captain America.
Suddenly he's not 120 pounds anymore. He's a lot bigger than that and a lot stronger than that. And perhaps even more than his chemically enhanced body though, Steve's spirit to keep meeting challenges head on, both in costume and out of costume is what makes him a hero. As we encounter our own crucibles adopting the mindset, I could do this all day, which he says throughout other Captain America movies, throughout all the Avengers movies as super villains are beating him up, not beating him up, but hitting him, he's like, "I could do this all day." That's who Steve Rogers is. And we would be wise to take that on as a mantra as we go through our lives, because crucibles, even after we've been through them and we've come out on the other side, guess what, right? Have you ever experienced any crucibles since your big one that you talk about? I have.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely.
Gary Schneeberger:
They happen and having this, I could do this all day mentality. I'm going to be fine. I can get through this. It may not be easy, but I can apply myself to it. I can get through it. And that comes from character, not from strength. Steve Rogers doesn't say that. Captain America doesn't say that because he thinks he's more powerful necessarily than all the super villains he faces or all the other 1940s bad guys, mala factors that he faces. He does it because he knows his internal fortitude, I think is what Steve is at play when Steve Rogers/Captain America says, "I could do this all day."
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so well said. And you can see that in some of these other movies like Chris Gardner going to talk to that guy, a manager at the brokerage firm in San Francisco, he keeps trying to button hole him to get a shot and I'm sure he would say, "I could do this all day. I'm going to keep at it. I'm not giving up." Or you think of Don Lockwood in Singing in the Rain. "Hey, if it rains tomorrow, I could do this all day. I'm going to keep singing in the rain. We'll get there. I don't know how we'll get there." A lot of things have got to fall into place, but in each of these three movies, the main characters had a bit of a lot of a sense of, I could do this all day. Does that kind of make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. I mean, again, if the podcast didn't already have a tagline, that could be the tagline. Beyond the Crucible, Colin, I could do this all day because that's what you need. That's what perseverance is. That's what persistence is. That's what drives you forward. And again, going back to The Pursuit of Happyness, fueled by this higher purpose, it's not just about you. Steve Rogers doesn't have, "I could do this all day" as his motto because he wants to beat people up. He does this all day because he wants to keep people safe. That's where that comes from. He dedicates his life to serving others and that's where he can do this all day so he can do that all day. He can serve others, help others. That's the reason why he can do this all day is because it allows him to do that all day.
Warwick Fairfax:
So well said. So Gary, what's the one truth? The one important thing that they can do that you'd like to leave for listeners and viewers?
Gary Schneeberger:
All right. Since we're talking about films, I'll give you a short film answer first and that is this. No one may ever make a movie about you and the crucibles you faced. But don't miss the lessons movies can teach us about how to turn your trials into triumphs. The inspiration they offer will be with you long, long after the closing credits roll through. That's the short film answer. Here's a bit of a longer form answer. If you want to pick up some insights you can learn and action steps you can follow to move beyond your crucible, start watching movies and TV shows and any dramatic undertaking, go to plays and watch those with these goggles on. Do it with what I've been calling Beyond the Crucible goggles.
Look for good counsel within the entertainment that you consume that's more than entertainment. That's an extra step beyond that, that shows you how you can weather a crucible first, but then move beyond it second. We've said many times during our summer film series and by that it's a plural series. The three that you've already seen and heard and the one that's coming up we've said that watching movies from the perspective of how to turn setback into significance unlocks great wisdom to help you not allow your worst day to define you. Even movies in which the character's worst days do define them are instructive. So films can either show you what to do or what not to do and both are powerful lessons.
Warwick Fairfax:
I think of the phrase character matters. Typically when you've gone through a crucible, it can be life changing. It can feel like life defining. You can't necessarily change what happened to you, certainly with physical crucibles. In my case, growing up in a 150-year-old family media business and fresh out of Harvard Business School, launching a 2.25 billion takeover, because my dad had died earlier that year in 1987. I felt like the company wasn't being run well or run along the ideas of the founder. So that ended up not working out. Three years later, the company had to file for bankruptcy. So the point of that story is I can't undo the mistakes I made or the incredibly challenging situation I was in. I mean, neither of us can undo the crucibles that we went through. It happened. It was life altering. You can't undo it. And that's typically the way you can't necessarily or even rarely undo the crucibles, but what you can do is change your attitude.
You can approach it with character. You can forgive those who've harmed you, which as we always say, doesn't mean condoning. But if you don't forgive, it's like sort of drinking poison. You're the one who's in prison. So you can forgive. You can find a way to, as J.S. Park said in a recent podcast who's a chaplain of a level one trauma center in Tampa Bay. He talks about with grief you move with. You can't necessarily forget everything, but you can find a way to move forward. You can find a way to care for others and live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So really the key battle at these three movies show is it's the battle of the soul. It's the battle within. How do I not let this define me? How do I not live a life of bitterness?
So how do I stop endlessly replaying the movie in my head of the terrible thing they did to me or the terrible mistakes I made? How do I stop? That movie is not helpful to play in your head over and over again. How can I in a sense move on, move with that? And the key is really choices. It's a choice of the character, choice of the soul. And that's what these three movies show us. It's neither of these characters were defined by their worst day. They found a way to keep moving forward and there was a higher purpose that fueled what they did. And just really remarkable three movies that teach us so much.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And let's put a bow on the package here by mashing all three of them up. Because what do we learn in our conversation today? We learned this. We learned that we can reject the feelings of, Dear Gary, I'll use myself. Dear Gary, you suck. We can choose to sing in the rain and we can decide. We can believe that we can do this all day. With that, Warwick, I'm going to switch back now to the co-host of the show and I'm going to go over the reflection questions that always end blogs. The first reflection question on what we've discussed here today, folks, is this. Have you had to protect a dream of the life you want beyond your crucible? How did you do it? Think about that for a while. Second point of reflection. When have you had to choose joy in the storm to sing in the rain?
What was the effect of you doing so? How did that work out for you? My guess is it worked out for you pretty well. Third point of reflection is this. How can you build up your character in the same way that you build up your strength? How can you do that inner work that Warwick talks about so often? And that folks is a wrap on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. We will not be with you next week because we're taking a week off. And then the week after that, July 7th, our new summer series, Back to a Better Future, the crucibles of sci-fi cinema begins and runs all through July and all through August. So we will see you then.
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What does it take to bring George Washington to life on screen — not as a monument, but as a man?
In this episode, screenwriter Diederik Hoogstraten joins us to share the vision behind Young Washington, the upcoming film hitting theaters July 3 that explores the formative years of America’s most celebrated Founding Father. Long before he led the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War or became the first President of the United States, Washington was forged by crucibles — and Hoogstraten built the script around exactly those moments.
Hoogstraten opens up about how he and his co-writers shaped the story around the experiences that built Washington’s resilience, integrity, and commitment to service. He also reflects on the crucibles of his own life that he drew upon to bring the “father of the country” authentically to life.
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
To me, writing the movie, it was essential to get those very early formative years write because he faced a number of Crucibles to come up with that term again that really, really shaped him.
Gary Schneeberger:
That's our guest this week, Diederik Hoogstraten, discussing his mindset as he was co-writing the upcoming film Young Washington. The movie hitting theaters July 3rd looks at the early days of the man who would lead the American colonies to victory in the revolutionary war and become the first President of the United States. Hoogstraten explains why he fashioned the script around the moments in which Washington built his resilience, integrity, and commitment to service. And shares the crucibles of his own life that he drew a pawn in bringing the story of the father of our country to life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Diederik, it's so wonderful to have you, Diederik Hoogstraten. He is a screenwriter, producer, and author. He grew up in the Netherlands. He has spent a lot of his adult life, New York, Los Angeles, and now Texas. He is married to Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten, who was the CEO of Wonder Project, I found out. And so Diederik has done a lot of work on a number of screenplays and is the co-writer of a movie we're going to talk quite a lot about in this podcast, Young Washington, incredible movie. I very much enjoyed it. And Diederik is a graduate of the Columbia University's journalism school where he got his masters. And I understand that you write and run wherever you go and you're called the Running Dutchman, which what a title, which is a lot of fun. So before we get into the movie of Young Washington, tell me a bit about the backstory.
You grew up in the Netherlands and you've been a journalist and now a screenwriter. Were there any kind of parts of your background that just said you just loved writing stories? Or how did you get to the point where you would co-write a screenplay, Young Washington?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
That's a great question. First of all, thanks for being here. Love the show you do and it's a privilege to talk to you too. I like that question because when you frame it like that, it makes me wonder, how did I get here really? Growing up in a college town in Holland, Netherlands, as you said, long before the internet age, obviously we read the newspaper at breakfast. I gravitated to the sports section always as long as I can remember. There were good stories there. Fun fact is that the papers that we read at home, two newspapers the morning, the evening. I ended up writing for them both when I lived in New York. So that was a real badge of honor for me. But I grew up in a relatively small college town in the eastern part of Holland, middle class. I think what got me going was my dad lived for stories.
He was a minister when I was young, then he left the church to be an academic and was a beloved professor at the University of Nijmegen. I think that's maybe where it came from. I always liked to write. I always liked to hear stories, to listen. Before I got to college in Holland, I had a tough moment, a story of which I still need to write. So forgive me if I tell it a little bit slowly. My crucible moment that I've been thinking about before getting on here was when I got very, very ill at age 16, 17, had a tumor that had to be removed behind my right eye. My kids think it's very cool. I still have a scar next to my eye there and it is a spectacular story. At the time it was this experimental surgery. I was under for nine hours. My parents really didn't know if I would come out alive. I did, but I remember that time as profoundly disturbing, lonely, scary.
In my childhood, there had been a lack, I want to say, of purpose and direction and guidance generally. I love my parents dearly. My mom is no longer around. My dad and I are very close at this point. I don't think he would mind me saying that he wasn't much of a dad to a younger boy at the time. I don't think he knew what to do. And I kind of know why. All of that to say, when I got really sick, skipped a year of school, got dropped into hospitals, I remember that time as just dark and lonely. And as a true crucible, I really have taken on that term, basically listening to your show to be honest, because the question walking out of that hospital for the last time, I believe was what am I supposed to do now? The pain is gone, but now what? There was an emptiness on the other side of it.
And I'm connecting it back to your question. I wonder if telling stories initially as a journalist with distance, telling other people's stories later as a screenwriter now where I tell my own, whether that was partially an answer to that question. I also came to my faith much later, not until I went into some dark years of abuse and self-destructiveness, which we can talk about. I'm very, very comfortable talking about it. But that crucible moment I think made me grow up very quickly, made me wonder what on earth I was doing and why I didn't die effectively, but set me on a good trajectory when I look back at it now several decades later.
Warwick Fairfax:
So you went through this illness that could have killed you and you have this moment of, I don't know if it's beginning of clarity or just sense of, I want my life to matter to count for something. I don't want to just drift through life. I want to have an impact. I don't quite know what it is, but it's an affiliate with a sense of my life needs to have meaning.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
I think that's fair to say. I wouldn't have recognized it or been able to formulate it at the time in those words. But I think I started to realize I wanted to get away from where I grew up. I wanted a clean break. I went to Israel for a bit during my gap year, learned to love everything Jewish and Israeli. To this day, I'm a great admirer of the Jewish people. I think it also was a beginning of a reconnection to the faith that I'd had as a young child when my dad was a minister, but my own father, I believe, sort of left his faith behind at that time. And so in our childhood, I have three sisters, there was Christmas. That's as far as I would say, maybe Easter, but we barely found ourselves in church or even looking at the Bible. And maybe that time in Israel was the beginning of a reconnection to it.
Finally, I ended up finding myself in the United States, upstate New York as an exchange student. I'd always been drawn to America, to be honest. My wife says, "Never forget to tell people about Alex Keaton." I watched Family Times growing up. I loved the A-Team and I loved Family Ties.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, me too. The A-Team.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
There you go.
Gary Schneeberger:
Awesome.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Yes, brilliant. Still love the show whenever every run shows up. But Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties introduced me frankly to the idea of a healthy defense of capitalism of Ronald Reagan, who was considered to be pretty much evil from the perspective of a progressive family in Holland. Just something about that appealed to me, spoke to me. I think it was inside of me to the horror of my family, no doubt, but I found my way to the United States. Oh, and there was also, I have this book sitting right here. I read this in college that talked real about his love for America in the 1830s.
And it's interesting that it's not really a scholarly book. It reads as an old text because it is, but it is really a very long love letter to America. And so Alex P. Keaton and Alexis the Talk Real, I feel like helped me in my fledgling love and interest in America. Once I got to New York, I frankly haven't looked back. I found my way, as you said, to Columbia Journalism School and ended up finally in Los Angeles as a journalist where I met my wife and then switched to screenwriting. One thing I would add is that yes, I think throughout this time, maybe tiny step by tiny step, I found some clarity and direction and purpose. But during all this, I don't want to forget to mention this. I was still absolutely beholden by a couple of addictions. For a long time, I heavily smoked cigarettes and I really drank to numb the pain or just to forget some of the struggles that I didn't want to attend to, I suppose.
The smoking, I quit fairly early when I started to get serious about running. The drinking really only about six years ago at the beginning of COVID, I was finally able to say no more. That's maybe a crucible moment in and of itself. And then by the side of my wife, I think and having our three amazing children, I think I truly found my purpose of living a life that is in which I am no longer the central character. And that's been such an incredible liberation for me. My children, my wife, God, our church, the school, my friends are now writing movies about truly great men like Washington.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, what an amazing journey you've been on. I think back to Family Ties, you were the Dutch version of Family Ties, progressive family like Alex Keatons and you were not as progressive. So it's sort of art becoming reality, which is obviously ironic. And then kind of moving to the US and becoming a journalist and then screenwriter. And if you don't mind me asking, at least what were some of the struggles? There's always a reason that led you to smoking a lot of cigarettes and alcohol. What were some of the challenges that you were trying to numb the pain with that you now obviously probably through faith in part in your family, you don't have a need to numb the pain the way you did?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Yeah, that's fair. I think good question. I think that it goes back to my childhood, to be honest, that being a boy in what I would call an all female family that was very progressive, very feminist. It was not an easy way to grow up. Don't want to call myself a victim here. Do not feel like I'm still suffering from that. But I think the... And by the way, the habits of both smoking and alcohol, I picked them up in the house age 12, 13. There was booze everywhere. There were ashtrays everywhere. It's what we did and not sure I want to blame anyone for it. It's just that I was very susceptible. I have an addictive personality. I thank God often that I never tried the cocaine when I was in New York that was everywhere, or any other really serious drugs that could have absolutely got me and maybe killed me if I had succumbed to that.
So I'm grateful that didn't happen, but I think there was a habit formed early on. And maybe as you asked that question and I think about it, maybe me finally letting go of these habits altogether also meant separating myself in a healthy way from that part of my childhood as well.
Gary Schneeberger:
I have to jump in at this point, Warwick, because you and I, Diederik, have a lot in common. I was a journalist too, not from such a prestigious school as you did, but I worked 15, 20 years in journalism. I also had a drinking problem in my past. I celebrated just earlier this month or late last month my 29th year of sobriety. So I know exactly what that comes from and journalism did not help me walk away from it. It helped me walk deeper into it. So I definitely understand what you're talking about there. It's not easy to get past, I also had cigarettes and I found oddly enough cigarettes were harder to quit than alcohol. I actually smoked a few years after I quit drinking. So you have overcome some demons for sure.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Yes. Well, thank you for sharing that and congratulations, Gary. That is no small feat.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So just one last question before we get to Young Washington. I understand that one of the other crucibles you have was a conflict with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It was very public. And I think you and a fellow member Wenting Zoo were called Rats Cancer, which is strong words for journalists. So without getting into all the details, what was that like? Because that must have been extremely painful, that whole crucible.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
It was an interesting time. I was grateful to be a part of the Hollywood Forum Press for a while, got to vote for the Golden Globes, and in fact it helped me. It actually set me on the course towards screenwriting myself. I got to read all the nominations for screenwriters for scripts and loved many of them, admired many, many of them. Some of them I remember thinking, I wonder if I could take a pass at this script to make it better. So it actually helped me in that way. There were some great people in that organization. There was also levels of corruption that are hard to describe. I had covered the United Nations in New York and I always compared it to the Hollywood version of the UN. And there came a time when both Wenting, she goes by Ting Ting from China and we were close friends at that point, where we both just couldn't live with ourselves anymore and said let's speak out.
Let's try to work with some journalists in LA who are trying to expose all of this. The backlash that you quoted from was intense. It's interesting, having grown up in a home where strong language and verbal views were very common, I think I could handle it fine. That didn't affect me. It might also be that at that moment in time, I think I was getting closer to God. I had a couple of kids. Kelly and I had a wonderful marriage. I wonder if I was just well-equipped at that point to shake it off and to say, "This is not about me. None of this really is about me. They're strong words, but they say everything about the people speaking them." And so I've left that behind. It's interesting to see that the Hollywood were impressed and the Golden Globes are still around showing once and for all that Hollywood, it doesn't really matter how corrupt you want to be as long as you throw a good party and give away some awards.
Warwick Fairfax:
I hear you. So let's talk about Young Washington. So you're the close screenwriter of this. How did you get involved in such a project? Obviously it's the 250th anniversary of the US. I have the word is pressure, but it's an honor. But to tell the story of the young George Washington, I'm sure everybody involved wanted to do it well, do it accurately but make it interesting. So talk about how did you get involved in this movie?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Yeah. I'm glad we have a little bit of time because I should connect it to my wife's first steps to starting this company, The Wonder Project which, Gary, I know you know John Irwin pretty well. So yep, my wife Kelly and John got connected back three, four years ago, I want to say, introduced through a friend. Kelly at that point had left Hollywood behind. We lived in Austin, Texas. She had worked for a long time at Sony Pictures, Netflix, and YouTube. So she'd been in Hollywood and in entertainment, she had left that behind. But once John approached her and said, "Let's do this. Let's build something that's HBO level quality, but that's for the faith and values audience. Let's make really good stuff for people between the coasts." Of course, they can also be on the coast, but most of our viewers I think are more in the middle of the country.
And of course, John had been doing this with movies like Woodlawn, with American Underdog, with Jesus Revolution, terrific films, high-end films that made a lot of money for the studios behind them. And so John and Kelly wanted to start their own studio to produce this type of content. And two projects he had in mind were both origin stories, coming of age stories. King David, the biblical David, which became House of David, a show you can watch on Amazon. And then George Washington for many years, his mind had been set on those two stories. I believe even that some folks advising him that said, "Sound like good stories. If you want to do those, start your own place, go do it yourself." He brought in Kelly, my wife, to do the business side of it all, which he still does to this day. John is the creative mastermind of the studio.
And for this movie to your question, Warwick, Kelly said she knew of my love of America, anything American, including constitution, history, early colonial history has a deep interest of mine. She said, "You and John should talk. Just talk. I can't be in the middle of it, but you guys meet. See if you like each other." And that's what we did. We immediately hit it off. It's hard not to like John Irwin, frankly. He is not just brilliant, but also extremely kind and wonderful and just a pleasure to work with. So I brought in my friend Tom Provost, fellow writer, a frequent collaborator. Tom and I, basically, I put it like this, we spent many, many hours with John Irwin downloading his vision for this film onto our computers, just talking, taking notes. He knew what this movie would look like. And I don't know, Gary, you've been around John, you may have seen this.
It's remarkable that the first conversations with John captured the essence of the movie as you guys saw it this week. Even though there's many, many stages of development, just there's nine or something drafts of the script alone. Then you get to shooting the film in Virginia and in Ireland, you get to post-production, which takes many months. And yet what we have now with this incredible cast, by the way, is so close to his vision initially. So he basically hired me. My wife's company hired me to help write the script three years ago.
I should admit, it wasn't immediately planned for the 250th anniversary. It was planned to come out soon. It just so happened that due to all sorts of circumstances, House of David had to come first. And I've often thought that I think George Washington wouldn't mind if King David got the preference and got to go first in this case. But yeah, that's how we began.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's talk about just some of the key themes and moments in the movie. And I just want to say as a bit of backstory for Beyond the Crucible folks, obviously my last name is Fairfax and there's a few Fairfaxes. Two explicitly in the movie one is mentioned behind the scenes, and some of them come across better than others. Well, one of the main protagonists and friend of George's growing up was William Fairfax. It so happens my oldest son's name is William Fairfax. We call him Will. Yeah, I just thought that was very funny. And in an alternate universe, you could have said to John, I got the perfect cast member. I know Joel Smallbone is good. He's Australia. I'm from Australia. I think that's great. But how about this, John? William Fairfax as William Fairfax. Wouldn't that be cool?
Probably a few years younger than the characters meant to be. And my son is actually a pretty humble guy, so that's probably would be a bit of a challenge to play the William Fairfax as portrayed in the movie, but I find that kind of very amusing. So in one of the early scenes, we sort of see a bit of a life change for George. We see that his dad has died and he won't be able to go to school because they really don't have a whole lot of money. They're not like the Fairfaxes that have nobility and money. And I think Brother Lawrence, half brother Fairfax is a superior class and the world's an unfair place. But there's sort of a key scene where how many kids go, "I want to go to school," but they won't let him. The school just turns him away. And there's a key scene where George is talking to Lawrence and Lawrence gives him these classic books.
People aren't educated the way they were back then on Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, and basically just read these books and he does. So just talk about those scenes and George's attitude, because it's really life changing. He wants to be successful and it would seem like at the beginning of the movie, that's not going to happen. This is a class structure, even in America at this point. So talk about those early scenes and what do we learn about George and his character from those early scenes.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
I love that question because as you know, later in the movie we get onto the battlefields for real and there are elements of the Patriot and the Revenant even when he goes off into the wilderness, which at the time was Ohio, the Western frontier. But to me, writing the movie, it was essential to get those very early formative years right because he faced a number of crucibles, to come up with that term again that really, really shaped him. And for instance, what I really hadn't known was that he desperately wanted to go to England to go to school. As you said, his father passed away when he was nine. He also lost his half brother, Lawrence, who then stepped in to be his mentor as you see in the film. But he begged his mother, he begged Lawrence like, "Let me go, not just to school, but let me go to London." Now that part, it's a little bit less visible in the film as it was in the first draft that we wrote, but his mother really was very firm.
And this is true apparently where she said, "I know you were going to go to England. That's where your brother went. And if your dad had been around, fine, but you're one of the men of the farm now. We got to work." And one of his mother had been a little softer hearted and had said, "Sure, George, we'll ship you off to London." We might never have seen George Washington again in the later United States. And history could have been very, very different. So I like thinking about these little hinge moments in history where if this, then that. Back to your question though, I think he was forged in loss and tragedy, George was. People may not realize that because I think we think of him as the father of the country, an austere and distant figure and the greatest American. Joseph Ellis, one of his biographers said he's considered the father of the country.
And as Freud and Shakespeare have told us, it can be very difficult to approach your father and to understand your father and to have an honest picture of your father. I can testify to that myself as well. And so in that way, I think the movie is an attempt to really understand who he was, how he became who he was through loss, through suffering, but then starting to display these virtues. And there's three things I think in his character that we try to expose as the movie goes on and that's his resilience initially in the face of these challenges. And then his integrity that he starts showing when he's finally allowed and able to serve in the military, which is not easy for him either because as you said, he wasn't off the right station. And then I think later in the movie, we get to this idea of service that initially it was his ambition really and his deep need for status and for recognition that drove him.
And later toward the end of the movie, we get to what's some of the qualities that we know of the later Washington, and that is to be a servant leader. But again, I think the building blocks for all of that are in the early parts of the movie. And I'm very grateful for the cast, especially man, the guys playing George Washington, just tremendous.
Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, can I jump in just because Diederik said three words that we say all the time at Beyond the Crucible are keys to moving beyond your crucible and leading a life of significance. He said, "Resilience, integrity and service." Explain a little bit more. Why are those things so important in the context of having this conversation on a podcast called Beyond the Crucible?
Warwick Fairfax:
One of the things we say a lot at Beyond the Crucible is this statement that's hard to live by, which is it didn't happen to you, it happened for you. Nobody likes the crucible. You didn't like some of the crucibles you've gone through. I certainly haven't and certainly Gary hasn't. But it's like, okay, in the case of a young George, this isn't fair that my father died and then later his brother and he won't be able to get an education. Time and again, he wants to have a royal commission. They basically are not so many words laugh at him. That's not going to happen. He doesn't have the money anyway to afford it, but he's just a colonial but yet he never is defined by his crucibles. He doesn't like it, but he chooses to overcome them. And so many great lines, his brother says, "Obedience could be commanded, but respect must be earned." And if you desire to be great, you must study well time and time again, there's this expression which obviously everybody would understand.
Lawrence, his brother says, "We are Pawns, but even a Pawn can take a king." And spoiler alert, but the American forces do indeed defeat the British and the United States is born and King George is defeated. So there you go. In case you didn't know that did happen. So that is a brilliant line. And he also says, "To obtain the applause of men is a heartfelt satisfaction." But he says, "To merit it is my highest way." He doesn't want applause for men just because of it. He wants to earn it. The deep seeds of his character are written in very early in this movie, which is brilliant. So those early scenes. We see him with Sally, which again, if anybody knows anything about American history, the founders of our country, I'm also American citizen now, it's not George and Sally Washington. It's George and Martha. So that's a bit sad. I think history would tell maybe she had the love of his life.
Certainly he was always very good friends with Sally. So that's a great backstory. So we mentioned he does some surveying work for Lord Fairfax and goes into the wilds of the Allegheny and that was a pretty tough journey. So he comes back and somehow the governor finds a way to make him like a major in the militia, and off he goes to sort of look at these French forts that are out there. The French are on the Western frontier and the British obviously don't like that. And so there's that whole kind of scene. So he comes back, sees the governor. There's some peace treaty he has to sign. I guess he's not good at reading fine print. And so that's not good. He finds obviously he doesn't get Sally, but somebody else does, somebody maybe of my name. But eventually he gets set out again and that doesn't go particularly well.
And really sort of one of the key scenes I would say in this movie is when that whole experience with his Virginia forces against the French, he is really not a military leader at this point, doesn't go well. And you see the movie for the amazing details and he comes back and he feels like he's a complete failure. And he says, "Yeah, his mother was right. She knew he'd failed, which is not exactly what she said, but that's how he interprets it." And his mother says some incredibly wise things. I wanted to get your thoughts on this, in which his mother says, "Failure is the tutor sent by God if you don't learn from it. You fail twice. If you do learn from it, you've learned wisdom." And so his mother says, "If you must return to soldier and go as God's servant, do it with your whole heart, find your path, make it yours, make it straight and prove them wrong." She says again, "Because even a Pawn can take the king."
So at that point, it's the lowest point in the movie, he feels like a total failure. His mother really offers wise words. So talk about that because he could have said, "The deck is stacked against me. I'm quitting. I was set out to fail. I knew nothing about soldiering. I'm humiliated." All of the generals and the governor will say, "See what happens when you send out a colonial to do the work of true British officers. These colonials they're idiots." And so talk about that scene because George doesn't just give up like many would. So what does that tell you about George's character at that point in the movie?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Thank you for that. Beautiful to hear some of those lines read back to me. Actually, that's special. Thank you for noticing all of that. The mother, as I listened to you, I realized that this idea of resilience actually was modeled by Mary more than... She lost her husband. She had a lot of land and a farm and quite a few kids and animals. And of course, servants or slaves who were there and who also need to be fed and housed and be part of it. That was life back then. And so she not only managed but kept her sanity and her wisdom and her wit. And so that scene, I think it's surprising that it's ultimately his mother who says, "Okay, you failed, and I didn't want you to do this in the first place." She doesn't say, "I told you so." She says, "Are you going to get back up?" That's really the question she asks him.
And I think that's so powerful that if a parent can... I see this in my own kids every day, can you encourage them enough to want to get back in there. Not tell them to do it because that usually doesn't work, but also don't cuddle them and tell them, "Oh, just come feed the horses for the rest of your life and just hang out." As we wrote that, I thought a lot about that resilience and then integrity is, of course, it's not the absence of failure but only the question of what you do with it. As a broken person, as a fallen, as a sinner, if you will, if you want to put it in biblical terms, what do you do when things get that hard? And one of the reasons I tell people now, this movie should resonate with all of us so much today is because we have such small, tiny problems now in our lives. And yet we want to give up or we want to reach for the alcohol or we want to just close the curtains and go quiet, or just scroll social media. That the things he went through were real.
I won't give it away, but some really, really dark stuff happens on the battlefield in these early scenes, beautiful scenes, the way John Irwin portrayed that and the way Will Franklin Miller did, who plays George Washington, I think he captures something there beautifully. But that level of loss and struggle that can be overcome. And mother Mary, again, we interpreted this based on historical facts that we could find, but we wanted her to be that voice of encouragement and of sort of a steady kind of support. And maybe in a way that many of us wished we had a mother or a father to do that. There's a little bit of that in it. In that sense, I might envy George a little, but he had that and thank God he did because he literally got back in the saddle as you described.
And things still don't go so well in the battlefields, but they gradually improve. I also love Sir Ben Kingsley in this film. He just captures that Governor Dinwiddie so well. And it's also, to me, a crucial little scene when George comes back into the office and says, "Governor, I have failed. I am done." That to me shows his integrity. You might interpret it as giving up, but I think he's willing to accept the consequences of his decisions and his actions. Of course, Governor Dinwiddie immediately says, "Well, that doesn't reflect very well on me." So he's still in his ego phase, but George himself says, "That's not the point. I think I need to step back and accept these consequences." After which the mother encourages him to not give up.
Warwick Fairfax:
His brother Lawrence actually provides incredible wisdom and love to George from Beyond the Grave. We see this, and this is so well written and so well laid out in which we see George looking at a book that was, I guess Lawrence gave to George. And in the inscription of the book it says, "Dear George, you were right. I was wrong. The world in its ways can change. Your most affectionate brother Lawrence." So before he said, "Give it up. You can't change the world." And he's saying, "No, George, you were right." That's sort of a, as I sometimes say, like a drop of grace. And then one of the pivotal scenes in the movie is you see George going to, I guess it's General Braddock and another sort of second in command. His name is Gage. And what's interesting is George has failed if the whole world at the time, at least in the colonies, he's failed.
He's saying, "Look, I don't need rank or pay. I can be your aid to comp." That's basically saying, "I can be your executive assistant. I can just write your letters, you dictate anything. I just want to learn from you and do what I can to help." And even General Braddock is pretty full of himself. He admires this young man. This man has failed, but yet he doesn't really want anything other than to be with, to be an aid. And I don't know, it doesn't look like Gage would've kind of allowed that if he was in combine just judging by the expression on his face. Talk about that because that is an incredible moment of humility. And he's not being defined as we say by a worst day, by failure.
He's saying, "Okay, I failed, but I'm willing to learn." That level of humility is all inspiring." So just talk about that because that's one of the key scenes in the whole movie, showing a young George's humility.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Yes. Thank you for that again, because I think the Washington we later got to know, I think every biography talks about his humble demeanor, his humility, his ability, of course, to step back from his commandership in the army and later as president. We thought it was important to put that first inkling of his humble nature and his humility in the movie. That was the right moment, I think, because it allowed us to also show some of the humanity of General Braddock with Andy Circus, like you said, very full of himself. But also George showing the humility reaches Braddock in a different way as well.
For character development in a film, if you want to get to this idea of the servant leader, which we want to show that really George is becoming and that's how we get to know him later in his life. And then I think that a humble character is an essential part of that. And so we had to find a way to show it. It ties into, in that, I believe in that same sequence but I haven't seen the movie in a little while. But it ties into this moment when once he has offered his services as, like you say, an executive assistant, they're on their horses, they're on the trail and he sees some of his old buddies who he hadn't seen since some very bad stuff happened. And he jumps off the horse and he says, "Give me an axe. I want to help you clear this trail."
And so not only is he getting sweaty doing the manual labor, he's also then apologizing to them and saying, "I messed up and I will never leave you out there hanging again." Not to give it away, but later in the movie, he will prove that point. So yeah, it was really once his mother, as you said, had, as you described, beautifully work, had set him up in that direction. He then took that onto the field, if you will, onto the trails, into the frontier area where they were going to battle the French and some of the Native Americans and led with humility.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's so well said. So just giving just a very broad overview without getting into details of this movie. He's back obviously with General Braddock and you'll have to see the movie. But let's just say that General Braddock is full of himself and George tries to offer him some pointers based on his experience, but Braddock's like, "I got it." So you see how that unfolds not too well. So there's a time when things are challenging and George rises to the occasion, and finds a way to rescue some of the Virginians in a very difficult situation. And that really changes the arc of his career because he becomes a hero, not because necessarily have done so well, but he finds a way and actually uses some tactical intelligence. Again, see how he manages to do that. It's a great scene when he figures out a way to rescue his fellow Virginians.
So he comes back now and he's the hero. He's in the local paper, the Virginia Gazette, and they write just about his exemplary courage. And he was sick at the time. And as I said to Gary [inaudible 00:43:40] in the paper, it says he did this despite being an infirm condition. I don't think probably, either of you used the word, this particular person was an infirm condition too much, I'm guessing, and you're right.
Gary Schneeberger:
I never did in my journalism career. I don't know about you, Diederik.
Diederik Hoogstraten:
No.
Warwick Fairfax:
But it's great. And the governor, you're right, a player by Ben Kingsley, this is so well written, he says, "The most failure is the end." This is after he comes back, not exactly having succeeded, but at least rescuing some of the Virginians. The governor says, "The most failure is the end. For you, it only seems to be the beginning. And since leadership is the problem, I'm going to give you the opportunity to answer a second chance." So he makes him a colonel again in the militia. And the full arc of his character is shown, at the end here George Washington. He's now a colonel in the militia and he's got his Virginians, Virginian militia in front of him. And again, these words are just incredibly written and just sum up the arc of the journey of this character. And so George says to the militia, he says these words, "I'm not a British officer. I'm not a gentleman of England. I have no title, no Royal Commission. What I do have is you, all of you. I'm a Virginian and it is my honor to serve."
And all the men shout to Virginia. It's an incredible scene. So you've got this confident but yet humble George Washington, the man that we will come to know later on in the American Revolution. So this is an incredible evolution. So just talk about the evolution from the bottom of the pit of failure and humiliation to now he's a hero, confident but yet humble. And all of his men, they're cheering him. This is an amazing evolution of... So what do you see as you see this evolution of George Washington in this movie?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Man, you are very careful and brilliant film watcher. I have to say that's such a good analysis and such a great focus on some of the key moments in the film. So I truly appreciate you taking the time to notice all of that. I want to illustrate the point you're making by also that scene where Thomas Gage, the British officer serving directly under General Braddock at some point says there's a retreat which may or may not have been true. "And Washington, what could be the risk of going into battle and probably dying?" And he says, "My men, my men are worth the risk." And I bring that up because I think that that is a culmination of this character development. In modern terms, I think early on he was driven by ego as we probably all are as kids, as young people, status, it was all about what can I achieve? Where do I belong? It's all about I, I, I.
And for him, this development happens quickly. He's not even in his mid 20s by the time at the end of the movie the scene you beautifully described, where he actually leads his men with humility and with that confidence. But I think he's been forced, I should probably say, to get away from that egocentric, ego driven, self-driven journey to realize the choices I make affect people very dear to me, whether that's my mother, my little brother, the men who I'm supposed to lead or the men who I'm supposed to serve or the country. Of course, it wasn't a country yet. We're talking about the colony of Virginia primarily. So he is able to get out of his own way, if you will.
I think that there an element that we don't address as much in the movie, but you quoted his mother talking about God. Of course, they read the Bible. Of course, they were all Christians. We know that, that was how they lived. And I'm personally pretty convinced that his faith was also building and growing during that time. Historians might take me on there. We don't really know. I'm just inferring from what we do know and from what we know about that time. And then again, from the development of his character that you described, that arc, it's almost impossible for me to imagine that there wasn't a higher power guiding and supporting and showing him the way really.
Warwick Fairfax:
So as we look at Young Washington here, and one of the lessons for us today about George Washington aspirate in this movie, what can we take away from it? Especially as we try to crawl our way out of our crucible, out of the depths of the pit, what can we learn from George Washington this movie that applies to our lives today?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Yeah. Well, it's some of the things that you've summed up and that we've been discussing here, the choice between what's convenient and what's right. I think that keeps popping up for young Washington. What do I maybe want to do? What feels good? What is easier? Or what could be considered my calling or my purpose or what is this higher idea? And as I listened to your interview with Mark Divine, terrific. I really stopped and paused when he talked about the need to go quiet, to go internal to whether that's prayer, meditation. My sense is that Young Washington did a lot of that. And we see some of it in a movie, whether he's riding a horse or chopping a tree or sitting by a stream when he's really young and really, really distraught. And this movie I think is trying to show us that a young man can suffer so many challenges and failures and setbacks and losses and yet come out as what one biographer calls it our greatest secular saint.
If we have a saint in America, it's probably George Washington. So to keep in mind for young people especially, hopefully they find it interesting and exciting. This is a fast-moving movie. There's a lot of action. There's some romance, there's war, there is violence in it. As they watch it, I hope they can find meaning and recognition in this idea. Yes, we do fall. We always do, we all do, and that's not the end of it. In fact, it can be the beginning. And that to me would be the key for myself, frankly, learning about him and writing these scenes that you're describing. I really took that away for myself again, almost as a reminder. I've tripped up quite a bit in some ways. I sometimes wonder if I deserve to be here. I think all of us can have that little bit sort of an imposter syndrome in life, but then a project like this can help remind us.
Of course, Church on Sunday can do it too, reading, connecting with others by the way. Sorry, the last thing I'll say to this question on George, he is not afraid to be open to the connection to others. So even when he doesn't want his brother in the room, he doesn't want the counsel of his mother or his friends trying to tell him or warn him, he is and stays, I think, open to that connection. And that's a big lesson I think for many of us when the urge can be to push away, to separate, to close the door, to be alone, instead try to find it in yourself to say yes, to open yourself up.
Warwick Fairfax:
One of the things you're highlighting, Diederik, and by mentioning just the podcast we did with Mark Divine is we talk a lot on Beyond the Crucible about the importance of the soul work. That's the greatest journey. It's a journey within. It's the development of character. And one of the things that I don't know that we fully appreciate now, but back in the 1700s, part of the 1800s, the development of character was something that was focused on. And that is certainly something I think Lawrence probably would've been believed in George's Mother Mary. And certainly George he's reading these books not just about to educate him about history and science and math and what have you, but about character. And I think of my own ancestor, my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, one of the things they did was play a parlor game and they would talk about who's your greatest hero.
We don't do that today. Maybe there aren't too many great heroes. But back in the day they did and they would have, I'm sure, in George Washington's time as he was growing up in those circles. And so for my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, his greatest hero I believe was Nelson of Napoleonic War fame and his wife, Sarah's Wellington. But it's not just because of the deeds, it's because of who they were. So you could say, "What's the greatness of Washington?" It was because his primary aim in one sense was the development of his character. Yes, I think it was inspired by God, but it was wanting to be a great person in the sense of having great character, humility, courage, servant leadership, service. That's why he's so great, not because he was a brilliant military strategist, which he wasn't. But he was probably one of the main focuses in his whole life was the development of his character, the development of his soul.
It's a lost era because yes, it was him, but there was a cultural estuary, if you will, at that time amongst some people that that's kind of what you did develop your character. Did everybody do it right? Did they pay lip service to it? But at least it was part of your education. So just talk a bit about that because that's not... We don't talk about that in school these days with our kids. Character development is important. Let's talk about these books and these characters in history. What can we learn from? We don't do that, right?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Exactly right. That's such a great point. And the movie very clearly I think shows how important that is to George himself as opposed to the Fairfax family. So it's interesting that the lower class, the lowly colonials took it a lot more serious than the English upper class, the posh folks across the river. They just wanted good parties and wanted to make sure the right people came to the parties, which did not include George initially. But I hear you on that work. It's funny, my own children, our kids go to a neighborhood school here. It's a private school called Regents. It is a classical Christian school and character formation is an explicit part of that school. It's one of the reasons we're there. So they think of this project as a triangle, family, school, church. We work together on shaping, helping to forge that character. And I think that's what we see in the movie as well.
I wish it was still around. I think about my own grandfather born in 1911. I think he still got a lot of that in his early education around World War I, I suppose we're talking, but it's harder to find these days for sure. I think to George it came natural, thanks to probably his father who we don't see in the movie to be fair. But his mother, his brother, it was simply part of their family culture and what a gift for him.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, one brief amusing comment before we close talking about Fairfax is William Fairfax doesn't come across too well. I like to think my son, William, has better character and certainly a strong faith. But William comes across as this sort of pompous, self-important, I'm rich, you're not. Now, I guess it's his cousin, Lord Thomas Fairfax played by Council Grant. He comes off a bit better, but one amusing fact is the Fairfaxes that own most of Northern Virginia, they're from Yorkshire. And we actually a number of years ago met the descendants of the Lord Fairfax, there is still one. My family, surprisingly and not surprised, and it came from Warwicks, hence my name. I like to think the Warwicks of Fairfaxes might be a bit more humble, but who knows? That's a different branch, but there you go. It's just those Yorkshire Fairfaxes. What can you say?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
Absolutely. I think you're on the good side of the traffic.
Warwick Fairfax:
I'd like to think so. Their Fairfaxes don't come across too well, other than Kelsey Grammar's, Lord Thomas Fairfax, but there you go.
Gary Schneeberger:
That will bring us the planes on the ground. We finished this fascinating discussion, really a two for one. There's Diederik Hoogstraten, his story, and then the movie he wrote, Young Washington. And I am now going to, because I'd be remiss in my duties as host if I didn't do this, Diederik, how can people learn more about the film and more about the Wonder Project?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
I appreciate the opportunity. Wonder Project is a channel on Amazon Prime. So all the content including later on this movie will be available there. Of course, the movie is releasing wide in theaters on July 3rd right before the Independence Day weekend. Angel.com, they'll start selling tickets very soon. You can already find a QR code there and this is kind of interesting. I think you guys will appreciate it. There's a QR code there to allow you to pay it forward. You can buy a ticket for a high school student and this is important. There's five million high school students learning about American history any given day. We hope and think that this movie can bring history to life in a way that they might not be exposed to as much. Books are wonderful. Books are one thing. A movie can have a very different effect on a young mind as we all know.
And we hope that folks pay it forward to some students who might not be able to have a chance to see the movie, otherwise that's on angel.com and of course wonderproject.com is available as well.
Gary Schneeberger:
Warwick, as always, the last question or questions is your prerogative, so take it away.
Warwick Fairfax:
So Diederik, this is a question we ask a lot at the end of podcast discussions, but there might be somebody today that maybe they feel like today's their worst day, maybe what was done to them was horrific, or maybe they've made a catastrophic mistake, maybe the world sees them as a failure. Either from your life experience and/or George Washington as portrayed in this movie, what would be a word of hope to somebody might today feel like today's their worst day and they've failed, life's over, or they've just had a terrible experience? What would a word of hope be to that person?
Diederik Hoogstraten:
What a powerful question and an important one. Maybe I can combine experiences of young George and myself. I struggled with a lot of depression, alcohol and other bad substances were the answer to that. I think George was probably pretty depressed. That was not a word they would at the time. So I think in response, sure, you can be angry, sad, tears are great, isolating yourself can be necessary. But ultimately I would say open the door, open the window, let the light in, let the air in, let others in. It took me a while to learn this lesson. In fact, I married my wife a little bit later because it took me just a very long time to be able to say, "Okay, God, I hear you. I understand I am not supposed to live this life by myself." And in fact, trying to do so, it's not going that well.
So connect, open the doors, let the light in, take a deep breath. Those are big ones. If you can find the ability to live for something greater than yourself, whether that's kids or spouse, your God, your community, that's I think where the answer lies ultimately.
Gary Schneeberger:
Friends, I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word on the subject has been spoken. And our guest today, Diederik Hoogstraten, has indeed spoken. So Warwick, we just finished a fascinating discussion with Diederik Hoogstraten, who is both someone who's been through crucibles and someone who's written a film that's coming out soon called Young Washington. And in that film, Young Washington, as in George Washington, goes through a lot of crucibles. So lots of topics, lots of ground covered. What are some takeaways that you would like our listeners and viewers to have from this discussion?
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, thanks, Gary. It was an incredible discussion with Diederik and hearing about his life story, as well as the story of the young George Washington as portrayed in this incredible movie Young Washington that comes out July 3rd. Highly recommend seeing it. And so it's interesting that Diederik, he had crucibles as a kid. He had an illness that was sort of touch and go, that he kind of made it through that. And that began the beginnings of thinking about what is my purpose in life? How do I want my life to count? It wasn't fully formed, but he was beginning to think about that. He grew up in a family that was fairly progressive and it's just so funny as he watched Alex Keaton, The Family Ties. Somehow he identified with Alex Keaton and became, I guess, a little less progressive than his family and became a person of faith. Went to Columbia grad school for journalism and became a journalist and then a screenwriter.
And as a person of faith and his wife now works with the Wonder Project producing uplifting movies and movies that would cater to a faith-based audience. And so he's had his own challenges, but I love the way he wrote this movie and the way he and his wife and John Owen, who is the head of Wonder Project, his wife Kelly is the chief executive of the Wonder Project and they're such a great team, great actors in this movie. And really as you look at this movie Young Washington and the story of a young George Washington, you see throughout all the scenes, there's a lot of battle scenes, a lot of incredible moments, but it's really an evolution of George's character. We talk a lot Beyond the Crucible about the most important journey that you can go on is the inner journey, the journey of the soul. It's the soul work.
And you see in this movie a young George, he loses his dad when he's a young boy. A number of years later, he loses his half brother Lawrence. Life is hard. He doesn't have the money or the status to get a royal commission in the British Army. All he can get is into the colonial militia, the Virginia militia and he's looked down upon by the professional soldiers and he has challenges in a campaign in what was then thought of as the West in Western Pennsylvania into Ohio. He doesn't do so well and he comes back as a failure. And the generals, the British generals and the commanders, they view him as a failure and they're probably thinking, well, of course he's a colonial. He doesn't really have any formal education, which he didn't after his father died. He was self-taught, but he didn't go to school.
And rather than just say, "Okay, life is over," which he could have, he said, "Okay, I failed." But he shows incredible resilience. And he goes to General Braddock who was going to lead a campaign out to fight the French who have a bunch of forts in the Western part of the English colonies. He basically says, "Look, I know I failed, but I'll go as your aid, basically as your secretary, if you will." And General Braddock is pretty full of himself, admires this young George's humility and allows him to come. And there are great scenes where a young George Washington rescues his Virginia troops, or at least his Virginia countryman in really a scene of epic courage and bravery and it changes the arc of his career. The governor Dinwiddie played by incredible Ben Kingsley appoints him as a Colonel in the militia. And he's still not going to commission in the regular British army, but at least Colonel and the Virginia Militia and is now respected by the troops. So really by the Virginia militia.
Really, this movie shows the evolution of George Washington and really the growth in his character. Failure doesn't define him. We say all the time at Beyond the Crucible, your worst day doesn't have to define you. If you learn the lessons of your crucible, you can say that your worst day didn't happen to you, it happened for you. George Washington models that as well as anybody I can think of. He is not defined by his worst day. He picks himself up. He learns from his failures. He shows incredible humility. And really as history shows the greatness of George Washington is because of the greatness of his character. The fact that we have a United States is due in large part to George Washington, and that is due in large part to the greatness of his character. Read about George Washington, not just the battles and history which is important, but read about his character. Look for moments of evolution and strength of character. We can learn a lot from this movie and from George Washington.
Gary Schneeberger:
In light of what you're saying, he said three things Diederik Hoogstraten did that I think are interesting to talk about. One, he said that through his struggles with his crucibles, what Washington developed was three things we talk about all the time here, resilience, integrity, and service. That's one thing he said. The second thing he said was that you, Warwick Fairfax, are a very, very, very excellent viewer of movies because he complimented you... Sorry to embarrass you, but he complimented you on the way in which you apply what you watched in the film to ask questions. And then the third thing, probably the best thing to get your comment on is your note about without Washington going through what he went through, we wouldn't have America perhaps. And it made me think after he said that, I thought that's true for all of us. If we didn't go through our crucibles and come out the other side having learned lessons and applied them to living lives of significance, I know my life wouldn't be where it's at right now.
I think you'll probably say your life wouldn't be where it's at right now. And I'm sure Diederik thinks the same thing. Pick any of those points that you want to talk about. If you want to talk about more than one, go ahead.
Warwick Fairfax:
So many good points. Yeah, it is amazing George Washington's resilience and you make a very astute point. His failures made him the man that he was. And not just his failures, but how he dealt with them. He liked the fact that he was considered a failure after going to the wilds of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio and just being humiliated by the French troops and French commander. No, but he didn't let that failure define him. He learned from. He learned both the military tactics as well as just learnt and grew as a human being. That's really the greatness of Washington is his ability not to be defined by his worst day. And yet without those failures he wouldn't have the resilience that he needed and certainly in the revolutionary wars, as I mentioned in the podcast, he lost more battles than he won. He was not a great military strategist and history would tell you that.
He was up against the British army at the time the greatest army on the face of the planet in the late 1700s, early 1800s. But yet he knew that he had the wisdom to realize that survival is what matters. So he kept making sure that the American army would survive. He wouldn't go to pitch battles where he would lose and wipe out his whole army. He found a way to survive and eventually he got help from the French military and the American colonies eventually won. So yeah, the genius was really his humility and his character and he was willing to learn and grow. So there's so much we can learn. And you're right, if my crucible hadn't happened and I hadn't done the takeover or it had worked, I still would have been in Australia mined in this massive media company, but not really fitting in because I'm not a chief executive type. I'm a reflective advisor. There would be no Beyond the Crucible. There would be no book.
I met my wife Gail in Australia. We probably still would have been married, but our kids would have grown up there with being a Fairfax in Australia is like being a Rockefeller or a Bush in this country. It's not fun in the sense that people have expectations. Yeah, we wouldn't be doing this podcast. If either of us hadn't bounced back from our crucibles, then who knows? There wouldn't be a podcast. Would there be movie books that you write and have written? Who knows?
Gary Schneeberger:
No.
Warwick Fairfax:
It's like, would you have met your wife Kelly? Or you met her years before, but would you reconnect it?
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. Re-met her, yes.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah.
Gary Schneeberger:
Probably not.
Warwick Fairfax:
You're right. You don't have to be defined by your worst day, but if you learn the lessons and don't let that failure define you, the best days can be ahead. You can be a stronger, better person than you ever possibly could have been. That's true. I think for us, it certainly is true of George Washington.
Gary Schneeberger:
For sure. Crucibles are the spark for a new life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Amen.
Gary Schneeberger:
So until the next time we are together, please remember what we've discussed here on this episode. Your crucible experiences are hard. Diederik's were hard, Warwick's were hard, mine have been hard. But what we've learned here and through the story of George Washington is that your crucibles aren't the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons of those crucibles, if you like Washington, develop resilience, integrity, and service, you can chart a course to a new destination that is the most rewarding destination you can ever reach, and that is a life of significance.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.
The most powerful advisers aren’t the ones who flatter — they’re the ones who refuse to let you quit. In this episode, we explore the remarkable story of Louis Howe, the man most historians credit as essential to Franklin Roosevelt becoming president of the United States.
Part of our ongoing series, More Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership, this episode unpacks not just who Howe was and how he shaped FDR’s trajectory, but what his example teaches us all about being a truly great adviser. From holding those we serve accountable when crucibles hit to speaking hard truths that prevent future ones, Howe’s legacy offers timeless lessons in loyalty, courage, and purpose-driven counsel.
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible. I think it may well be true that without Louis Howe, most of us would never have heard of Franklin Roosevelt. That's how important Louis Howe was to Franklin Roosevelt after arguably the defining moment in his life getting polio.
Gary Schneeberger:
Talk about not just a life-changing impact, that's a world-changing impact. And we discuss it all this week in our latest episode of the series within the show, more stories from the book Crucible Leadership. You'll learn not just who Louie Howe was and how he changed the trajectory of Franklin Roosevelt's life, but also the lessons he can teach us all about how to be a good advisor. From refusing to allow those we're advising to give up when crucibles hit to speaking truth to power to help them avoid future crucibles, these are just some of the actions Howe took that earned him the praise of history as the man who made Roosevelt.
Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. You've joined us at, again, an interesting time because we are doing another episode of what we call our series within the show and that is this year it's called More Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership. You can all applaud us for being creative because last year we did one called Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership. So this year there are More Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership. And Crucible Leadership is the book that Warwick wrote in 2022 that truly not making this up, not inflating it, if it weren't for Crucible Leadership beyond the Crucible would not exist. It's the book that birthed the brand. Each month, although with our summer series coming up starting in July, we're going to take a pause until September after this. But each month in what we're calling the series within the show, as I said at the top of the show, we'll feature one story from Warwick's book spotlighting one key learning that helped the subject of that story overcome a crucible and can help you do the same when you apply the lessons of it.
And we've edited an interesting twist this year at Warwick's suggestion because there were some stories that were in the final published book in 2022, Crucible Leadership. Some stories as it went through the editing process got excised, the cutting room floor as they say. So we're alternating back and forth between stories that were in the book and stories that were not in the book. And this is one of the stories that was indeed in the book. Although we did swipe a couple of things that didn't make the book. There's like a couple of call-outs that aren't in the book, but it's mostly a story that's in the book. So today we are going to talk about a man who made the cut and that is we'll be discussing Louie Howe. Louie Howe on being a good advisor. So Warwick, every episode I begin, I ask you this, both why is Louie Howe in the book and secondly, who was Louie Howe? Help people understand what we're about to talk about here.
Warwick Fairfax:
So not everybody's heard of Louie Howe, but the man that he spent his life helping, I'd say pretty much everybody's heard of this guy, certainly everybody in the United States. So the man that Louie Howe spent his life helping is President Franklin Roosevelt. And he was his closest advisor for many years leading up to the presidency during the Great Depression and the early '30s. Louis Howe was critical to Roosevelt's rise of the presidency and was particularly critical to Franklin Roosevelt as well as his wife Eleanor after Franklin Roosevelt got polio in 1921. I think it may well be true that Roosevelt may not have had a political career after being stricken with polio. As we get into more, polio was considered a political death sentence back then. It's hard to believe, but back in the day in the '20s and gosh, '30s, '40s, if you had polio, you were meant to just stay at home, be an invalid. Somehow it was shameful. It's just hard to understand, but that was the prevailing culture, certainly at the time when Roosevelt got polio in 1921. I think it may well be true that without Louis Howe, most of us would never have heard of Franklin Roosevelt. That's how important Louis Howe was to Franklin Roosevelt after arguably the defining moment in his life getting polio.
At that point, as I mentioned, Polio was almost like this political death sentence. You're meant to stay at home and be an invalid and Roosevelt may well have done that. He may well have hid under the covers, felt sorry for himself if it wasn't for Louis Howe encouraging him. So that's how important that Louis Howe was to Franklin Roosevelt. And in that sense, if you look at the impact that Roosevelt had on the nation of the United States and the Depression and in the Second World War, that's how important Louis Howe was to Roosevelt and to the United States and arguably the world, given the US's prominence in helping defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the war. So not everybody has heard about him, but he had a massive impact.
So who was Louis Howe? Louis Howe grew up in a prosperous Indianapolis family that ran into hard times. The family moved to upstate New York to Saratoga Springs and Howe started working at a young age for his father newspaper, the Saratoga Son. Now, Louis Howe first met Roosevelt in 1911. So at this point, Roosevelt is a young man and Roosevelt is in a senatorial fight against Tammany Hall for the New York State Senate. Tammany Hall was the political machine at the Democratic Party back then. And Roosevelt's persistence and eventual victory in this state senatorial fight really impressed Howe. And the first impression of Howe had of Roosevelt is quite striking. He said he was so impressed with Roosevelt, his seriousness, his earnestness, his dedication to the cause. And he said, "From that moment, we became friends." And Howe said these very telling and prophetic words. He said, "And almost at that very first meeting, I made up my mind that he was presidential timber and that nothing but an accident could keep him from becoming President of the United States." Well, Howe was almost true, nothing but an accident. You could say getting polio was almost like an accident, but even an accident didn't prevent him from becoming President of the United States in large part because of Louis Howe.
So as we mentioned, Howe first met Roosevelt in 1911 as a member of the New York State Senator as Roosevelt was and really from the beginning, Howe felt that Roosevelt, he had what it took to become president, he had the enthusiasm, the charisma, he had just this X factor that those who know who are in that political game, they see somebody and say, "This guy has what it takes. This person has what it takes." So Howe helped guide Roosevelt in 1913 when Roosevelt became assistant secretary of the Navy in President Wilson's administration and later on, Howe worked as Roosevelt's campaign manager during the 1920 presidential campaign. And Roosevelt was on the Democratic ticket and Roosevelt was candidate for Vice President of the United States alongside the presidential candidate, James Cox. Now, Cox lost a landslide to Republican Warren Harding, but in 1920, Roosevelt, it just seemed like the sky's said limit. He was a young guy and here he is, he was a former state senator in New York assistant secretary of the Navy under Wilson. And here he is vice presidential candidate for the United States. So it seemed like sky's the limit. This guy's stars on the rise.
Gary Schneeberger:
So why then did you use in your book Louis Howe as an example, as an illustration of being a good advisor? Because there's a lot of directions I think Louis Howe could have gone too, but he dedicated his career really to helping Franklin Roosevelt build his career. So why Louis Howe as a good advisor?
Warwick Fairfax:
So it's interesting. We haven't talked a lot about advisors and good advisors on Beyond the Crucible. What we do talk about quite a bit is the importance of having a team of fellow travelers. And what we mean by that is some fellow travelers, they can encourage us when we're down. Let's say we feel like it's our worst day, we're in the pit of despair and they say, "This day feels terrible, but tomorrow it might be a bit better. They encourage us, they're with us when we're down." That's one type of fellow traveler, those who encourage us. And the other are people who have skills that are different than ours. So maybe we work in a nonprofit or for profit company, maybe we're more of a visionary founder and others may be more marketing, public relations, marketing, manufacturing, operations might have skills that we don't have. A wise matter woman surrounds themselves with people who have different skills than they do? So that's really critical to have fellow travelers and not go it alone and say, "I've got it." Rarely do we just have it. There'll be days when we don't have it and we need help. That's why fellow travelers are important.
But there's a particular type of fellow traveler that really going to focus on today and that's absolutely critical to make our vision become a reality and it's certainly critical to folks who are leaders. And we feel that leadership, it can be of a small company, a large company, it could be just an initiative in your local neighborhood park. In that sense, I think we can all be leaders. We all have things that we're passionate about and we want to bring to reality. So having a good advisor is critical. So what is a good advisor? A good advisor comes alongside us and speaks truth to power. What it doesn't mean is just telling us what we want to hear. Now maybe that's the easy path, but that's not the good path. True leaders, true people that really want to get something done, get out of the pit of despair and get beyond their crucible, live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. They're absolutely committed to bring that vision to reality. Those kind of people want good advisors that will speak truth to power and be straight with them.
And good advisors, they'll offer wisdom directly or indirectly. Sometimes the most powerful advice comes from penetrating questions to cut to the core of our soul. You know it's a good question when you say, "I haven't thought about that. I need a minute because I'm not sure." Well, that's really just cut me to the core. That's a good question. And good advisors, they're fearless. They can't be intimidated. They will do whatever it takes to help the organization and help that person, even if that means getting fired or even if they're not a paid advisor, maybe it risks losing the relationship. A good advisor will risk losing the relationship, not in some burn the ships, a crusader mentality, but more they so believe in the person, they so believe in the vision that they will run the risk of getting fired or not being in that person's circle again because it's the right thing to do. They will do the right thing no matter what. That's what a good advisor will do. They have no hidden agenda. It's not about what they want to achieve. It's about helping the leader achieve their vision, helping the organization achieve their vision. That's what a good advisor is.
And when we look at that criteria, I have to believe that Louis Howe would be in the Hall of Fame for being good advisors. He may well be arguably the GOAT, the greatest difficult time of advisors. Certainly when you look at the challenges that Roosevelt faced getting literally out of bed, which was not easy when you've got polio and he had to walk with these heavy metal braces strapped to his legs. It was so difficult to walk. He had two sons who were athletic and well-built. They had to be because they helped their dad walk as he shuffled along, trying to make it look easy as he lent on his two sons. It was not easy for him to get out of bed. But Louie Howe was beside him in his darkest days and was there encouraging him that would speak truth to power. And really Louie Howe from 1911 on, when he met Franklin Roosevelt, he dedicated his entire political life, his entire working life to helping Roosevelt in his political career. That was his sole focus, no other agenda other than helping a man he deeply believed in further his career and hopefully become president.
Gary Schneeberger:
So I've got two follow-up questions. This has never happened before where I'm like, I have two follow-up questions over what you've just said. I'm trying to figure out which one I'm going to go to first. I'll go to the one I think will be a shorter answer first. It's important to note, you mentioned the importance of a good advisor speaking truth to power. It's also important to note though that if we want to have good advisors around us, we have to be people who are willing to let someone speak truth to "Power to us." Because that doesn't work. If you are not open to hearing unvarnished truth spoken to you to help you, it's going to be tough to have good advisors. That's fair, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's such a good and profound question. You can be the best advisor in the world, but you will not be able to do any good if the person you're advising, the leader you're advising is not open to input. Few people are because you need to be a very strong man or woman, a very strong leader to say, "I don't know everything. And sometimes not only can I be wrong, I can be very wrong." How many leaders in politics or business will say, "Hey, there are sometimes I'm really, really wrong. Sometimes I just completely miss it and I need people to help me and I need people around me, a team of certainly good advisors that will speak truth and I need the humility to be able to listen to them." It doesn't mean their advice is always right. We're all human, we're fallible, but I will listen to them. My default might be their advice may well be right until proven otherwise rather than the other way. I'm sure they're idiots until proven otherwise. Maybe one time in a million, they'll offer some good thought, the rest to the time they're idiots. Well, you've got to have a real sense of humility. Great leaders are humble.
I'm reminded of that book Good to Great by Jim Collins in which he analyzes some of the greatest business leaders as marked by returns on the stock market over a 15-year period long term success in the market. And what he finds in the data is the great leaders, the most successful, yes, they're driven, but they're humble. A humble leader takes advice. A humble leader takes input. So if you're not that kind of person, your chance of being successful will be a lot less. So it's such a good point that Louis Howe is a great advisor, but he needed somebody like Franklin Roosevelt that would listen to him and he trusted Louie Howe. He knew he was on his team. He knew his agenda was only for Franklin Roosevelt. So yet you got to be able to listen, otherwise good advice will go nowhere.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. So that was my first question. The second one actually it works out great because the second one speaks more to the qualities of the advisor. And you said at the very outset of our discussion here that most people who are listening and watching probably have never heard of Louis Howe. It seems to me that being somewhat unknown, flying beneath the radar, that's in the job description really of being a truly effective advisor, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so true. If your agenda is to get your name in lights, "Hey, I'm Louie Howe." And obviously no TV back then, but there was radio, there were movies. He could have gone to, I don't know what Hollywood or all of the big functions on the radio saying, "I'm the secret behind Franklin Roosevelt. He'd be nothing without me. He'd still be in the bed with polio." So it's really "Every smart thing that comes out of Roosevelt's mouth, it's all me. It's all Louis Howe." Now whether some of that might be true, not all of it, no, that's not a good advisor. A good advisor only has your interest at heart and their not looking for the limelight. They're looking for you to be the one that the world sees as successful, as really bringing their vision to reality is hopefully helping the world in some way, which certainly Franklin Roosevelt did. So yes. A good advisor will tend to be not as well known and people I think at the time knew how important he was, but he wasn't seeking adulation. He was just trying to help Franklin Roosevelt so it's a very good point.
Gary Schneeberger:
All right. Now we'll go back to our regularly scheduled program here of the things that we've already prepared for. And that is this pivotal truth. In a very real sense, Roosevelt may never have become president if it weren't for Louis Howe, right? Why was Howe so instrumental in Roosevelt's ascendance to the White House?
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's go back to 1921. Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with polio. He actually visited a boy scout camp shortly before this when people now believe that's where he contracted polio. He had a vacation placed in Campobello Island, which is in New Brunswick, Canada, not too far from the border with Maine in the US and Roosevelt was out swimming in the water. He came back felt chilled. I think one side of his body felt stiff and paralyzed and by the next day he was completely paralyzed from the waist down. He couldn't move his legs. Now at the time, as we've mentioned in 1921, having polio was considered a death sentence. It was mainly a disease that would affect kids. When they would get polio they would be told to stay inside. Parents would tell their kids, just don't go to the local public pool because I think it was thought that just being around kids there, they might contract it.
There was huge fear at the time of polio because there was no vaccine at the time, no cure, nothing could do. And so as I mentioned, it was considered like this political death sense, this career death sentence. You're meant to stay inside, be an invalid. During this time, Louie Howe sought to boost the spirits of both Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. And Howe would not give up on Franklin Roosevelt. Now I imagine when this first happened, Roosevelt might have been saying, "Well, my life's over. My career's over." As we often say, he might have thought he was in, I'm sure, the pit of despair. There's no way out, no vision I can bring to reality. My political career's done. Nobody's ever going to hear Franklin Roosevelt again. I wouldn't blame him if that's what he's thinking. But Louis Howe was dedicated to preserving the memory and enhancing it of Franklin Roosevelt.
So he encouraged Roosevelt to write statements on public issues and get them out so that people could read about them and write magazine articles and encouraged him to appear at the 1924 Democratic Convention. One of the things he also did was that he encouraged Eleanor Roosevelt to speak throughout New York State, to keep Franklin Roosevelt's name in the state of New York. And you have to remember that Eleanor Roosevelt back then, she was a shy reserved person. She was not used to public speaking. We think of the Eleanor Roosevelt later who, if memory serves me, I think she actually gave a speech after Franklin Roosevelt died to the United Nations. So it's hard to remember an Eleanor Roosevelt back in the early '20s in 1921. This is probably the last thing she wanted to do, but she was a very strong woman. And when Louis Howe said, "You've got to help Franklin, you've got to help keep his name in the public eye, you need to speak." And I'm sure that Howe coached her on how to speak and some thoughts she might want to consider saying, and so she did.
And this campaign was successful. In 1928, Governor Alfred Smith of New York got the Democratic nomination for presidency and Governor Smith urged Roosevelt to run for governor of New York and Roosevelt did win and became the governor of New York in 1928. Now, Republican Herbert Hoover beat Alfred Smith in the '28 election, but Roosevelt was back and this culminated in Howe's advisory role with Franklin Roosevelt when he became president in 1932. In those early years, Howe was appointed secretary to the president, which is really what we call the White House chief of staff, which is a critical position in the modern presidency. Howe did an amazing job, but how he got him out of bed literally and back in the public eye is remarkable. Because one of the other things that's important to note that Franklin Roosevelt's mother, Sarah, she subscribed to the traditional view. She urged Franklin to give up any hopes of further political office. She wanted him to stay in bed, be an invalid, and she would help care for him.
Now, Eleanor didn't have the same opinion that Sarah did, but her opinion was greatly helped by Louie Howe. So there were two voices. Sarah saying to Franklin, "Stay in bed, be an invalid, I'll care for you." And Eleanor, I think knowing that if that happened, she'd lose the husband she married, the person that really wanted to make a difference. And so with Louis Howe's help, Franklin Roosevelt didn't listen to his mother and came back from this devastating crucible of polio. One of the things we say is it didn't happen to you, it happened for you. Are you going to be defined by your worst day? Well, in this case, Franklin Roosevelt was not defined by his worst day.
And one of the things I've often thought of ... And this is really more about Franklin Roosevelt, is he was the son of, I guess you'd say, an aristocratic New York family, very old money New York family. And in his younger days, he was this charismatic, happy-go-lucky life at the party kind of guy. And yes, he may have been intelligent and charismatic, but can you imagine somebody like that in 1932 in the height of the depression, "Hey, I'm Franklin Roosevelt. I'm a wealthy guy. I go to parties, but I can help you. I can relate to you people in America who were struggling, who don't have jobs, who just trying to get food on the table, vote for me." I think he wouldn't have had a prayer. If they'd vote for that guy, there's no way.
But then when you see this guy, even though They shielded how bad what he went through was, people could see him with the braces struggling to get up. They would never show him in a wheelchair because that was considered political death and he was pretty much never shown in a wheelchair. In fact, the press, hard to believe back then they collaborated with him to avoid showing in a wheelchair. Can you imagine the press would never do that now. But back then they admired him. So it's just remarkable that without polio, I think he could make a good case, he never would've become president. Without Louie Howe, he would've just stayed in bed.
Gary Schneeberger:
And then unfortunately, as much as Howe was helpful to him, Howe's own life was cut short by his own illness and death, and that had an effect on Roosevelt, right? Even if people didn't know who Louie Howe was, the Roosevelt who went on after Louie Howe died, there was some personal political upshot to that, right? So how did that play out once Louie Howe was removed from the scene of Roosevelt's life?
Warwick Fairfax:
Unfortunately, Louis Howe's health declined and he died at 1936. Now, just to give an indication of Louie Howe's impact on Roosevelt, look at what was said about him in the press at the time. He was known as the man who put Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. That's how the press described him. Other people may not have known much about Louis Howe, the press did. They knew exactly how much impact that Louis Howe had. And for the first time in his political life, in some sense, Roosevelt was now alone. Yes, he had Eleanor, but he'd lost his key political advisor who had a really close pulse on the political environment, on the country. He was an invaluable source of advice and intelligence and somebody that Roosevelt would listen to. So Roosevelt was so devastated by losing Howe he actually had the White House flags flown at half-mast. This wasn't a Senator. This wasn't a former president. This was his advisor. I wonder if there's been any subsequent White House chief of staffs who when they've died and had the White House flag flown at half-mast. I'd be surprised if they were, but that just goes to show you how much Roosevelt admired and respected Louis Howe.
Roosevelt canceled all these appointments and activities for at least the next few days, was in seclusion. And some historians have said that the political mistakes that Roosevelt made in the years after Howe's death were due to the absence of Howe's incessant criticism and accurate assessment of public opinion. Howe's devotion and loyalty to Roosevelt was remarkable. He'd be able to say, "Hear what you're saying, Mr. President, but don't think the public's going to go for it. I don't think that's a hill we want to die on." That's the kind of advice I don't think he got elsewhere.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And you said as you began what you were just talking about, that Howe was known as the man who put Franklin Roosevelt in the White House. So there was absolutely insiders had information of the impact of another insider in Louis Howe, but how generally did history view Howe's importance to Roosevelt while he was in the White House and in fact going back to how he got into the White House?
Warwick Fairfax:
One of the greatest tributes to Louis Howe was given by Franklin Roosevelt's son, Elliot Roosevelt. And Elliot Roosevelt said this, "The person who was most responsible for the development of my mother's personality was Louis Howe as he was of my father. He was a man that gave my father the iron will and the ability to move ahead politically, which I don't think he would've ever done on his own. Louie Howe was probably the greatest influence on both my father and my mother's lives." Those are strong, strong words. Time Magazine after Howe's death, he wrote this, and these words are so well written. "Admirers he Roosevelt had by the millions, acquaintances by the thousands, advisors by the hundreds, friends by the score, but intimates such as Louie Howe, he had only one." That shows you what Time Magazine thought of Louie Howe. They deeply respected his impact. Howe's influence on Roosevelt? It was profound. Even after Roosevelt became president, Howe continued to speak to Franklin Roosevelt bluntly and frankly. He refused to let the aura of the presidency prevent him from offering honest advice. He was known by some as the man behind Roosevelt and the New York Times described him, Louis Howe as the president's other I. That's a dramatic statement.
Gary Schneeberger:
And not eye that you see out of, but other I capitalize, right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. Incredible. And this is what the New York Herald Tribune said of Howe. And these words are profoundly true. Speaking of Louie Howe, they said this, "His loyalty is not to himself or to an abstract ideal of government, but solely to Franklin D. Roosevelt." Now that's some advisor. And the New York Herald Tribune, they got to write. Louie Howe's loyalty was only to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now that's an advisor. He wants to do whatever he can to help Franklin Roosevelt be successful and was willing to say whatever it took. He would speak truth to power. Now, did Franklin Roosevelt listen all the time? Probably not. But Roosevelt had such confidence in Louis Howe I better believe that he listened to him more often than not.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah.
Warwick Fairfax:
Why wouldn't you?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. This is the part of these episodes where we're pulling stuff from your book that are really interesting to me because this is something that you did not write in your book, but personally in your own journey, your own professional and personal journey, being a good advisor is important to you. You've had good and bad advisors, you've been an advisor yourself. Why do you think the role of advisor is so important and what does it take to be a good one? Because that's something that Crucible Leadership didn't talk about. So talk about it here.
Warwick Fairfax:
I have quite a few things I'm very passionate about. I have very strong convictions. I don't always talk about everything that I believe in and strong convictions of just because I probably get tedious for people. But one of the things I have very strong convictions about is what it takes to be a good advisor. And there are reasons for that. I've had both good advisors and not so good advisors so it's no wonder I have strong opinions. So just a bit of the backstory. During my takeover of my family's 150-year-old media business in Australia, I had a number of advisors. Some were well-meaning, but arguably their advice wasn't as good as it should be. And some were not so well-meaning. They might've had ulterior motives. But both in a sense, were they well-meaning or not so well-meaning their advice from my perspective looking back was not that helpful. I had some, again, well-meaning. They said they'd been praying for God to raise up somebody in the heart of the media in Australia for years. In the sense they said that I was an answer to prayer. Well, that's a huge load to put on somebody that's 26 years old. You're an answer to prayer for the nation of Australia, for the media.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Not just to people, but like a country.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, right. Like God's anointed you or something. My gosh. And so that was well-meaning, but this only helped fuel my desire further to bring the vision of the company back in line with my great-great-grandfather, John Fairfax, back in line with his vision and see the company was well run. And their hearts may have been in the right place, but what they and others didn't do is ask me a series of penetrating questions.
I've thought about that a lot. What would I have done? If I was somebody else going back in time knowing me the way I do, what questions would I have asked me? And here are some of the questions. I would've asked "So, Warwick, is this something that you want to do or are you just doing it because of your great-great-grandfather? I know your dad, Sir Warwick Fairfax." He had the same name as me other than he was knighted. He died in his 80s and early 1987, the same year that I did the takeover. "I know you're obviously devastated by your dad's death. Are you doing it because of his legacy? Are you doing it because some other family members threw your dad out as chairman 11 years before in 1976? Is it some kind of revenge thing?" Which wasn't consciously. Subconsciously who knew? That would've been an interesting question.
"Why are you doing this? You've told me, Warwick, that your dad didn't really agree with the direction of the company, had issues with management. Is that why you're doing it? Do you have the skills to do this? Do you want to be a chief executive or publisher of John Fairfax Limited? Is that really what you want to do in life? Are you doing it for you? Are you doing it because you want to make your dad and your great-great-grandfather proud in some sense? Why are you doing it? Is this really the right thing to do? Have you heard God's still small voice saying, 'You need to do this.'?" There's so many questions a good advisor would have said. Would I have liked that? I don't know. Would I have listened? I don't know that either. I'd like to think I would. I can't swear that I would, but I would have liked to been given the chance and I wasn't given the chance in that sense.
And I've mentioned, I had other advisors that I'm uncertain as to their motives. After the takeover was launched, these advisors, there were things they could have said because the company ended up with too much debt. Even before the October 1987 stock market crash, one of the things that really put us in trouble was that other family members sold out. They didn't want to be trapped in a company controlled by a 26-year-old. Who would? That added enormously to our debt. So when I said, "Okay, we're going to do this takeover, help me come up with the plan to make it work." Did they say, "Okay, so Warwick, your key assumption here is other family members aren't going to sell out." And I'd say, "Yeah, I don't think they will." A good advisor would have said, "That's crazy. You know your family but no rational person is going to stay in a company control by a 26-year-old. It won't happen. I'm telling you that is an assumption that's flat out wrong. It won't happen. If this takeover is predicated on that, don't do it because it won't work. That's just stupid.
I'm telling you, if the family sell out, the numbers won't add up. It'll go from challenging to it'll be a miracle if the company survives. That would have been speaking truth to power. I'd like to think that would have crossed my attention because this company had thousands of employees. Obviously, I didn't want to put that in jeopardy. So I would have had me thinking, but it didn't happen. They didn't say, This is nuts. They might have asked a question, but I would have liked people to speak truth to power. So yes, I have strong opinions about what a good advisor is. And ironically, subsequent to the failed takeover, I moved to the US in late 1990. My wife's American. I've lived here in the US ever since. And I've actually been an advisor. I've been on the other side and I've tried to be the kind of advisor that I didn't get. That's why I have such strong opinion. That's why it's so personal. I've been an elder at my church for many years, which is a non-denominational evangelical church. I was on the school board of a private Christian school for a number of years and there's some faith-based organizations I advise to this day.
And when I'm an advisor, I'm fearless. It's funny, I'm somebody that's fearful about a number of things, but when I'm in an advisor mode, whether it's on a board, being an elder, advising a number of organizations, I am fearless in that particular context. And why? Well, I feel like from almost a biblical perspective that I try to work hard as unto the Lord. And so I try to speak truth to power. I try to do it diplomatically, but I can be direct if I need to if that's what's required. And sometimes that might be the people who are good friends of mine on these organizations and I try to act in their best interest and the best interest of the organization. Now, I'm a certified international coach federation executive coach. So sometimes I offer my advice through questions and often that is the better way to offer advice. But whatever it takes, whether it's asking questions or giving direct advice, I don't hold back. For the most part, I would say that advice has been well received. That's not necessary, but obviously that's a blessing. I feel like, "Okay, I am making a difference when I offer my advice." And so yeah, that's one of the things I do as an advisor and it's a role I think it's so important because very few people have people that will be willing to speak truths to them no matter what.
I try to do it nicely and kindly, but one way or the other, I make sure that they hear what I'm saying and I let go of the consequences because it's not my life and move on for the most part pretty good about that because I'm not the person making the decisions. I'm just the advisor. So I really try to not hold it too tightly because it's their life, not mine, and I respect that, but I want to be the kind of advisor that gives them advice that I didn't get.
Gary Schneeberger:
I'm going to get personal here for a minute and talk about I've always thought of good advisors, the people to surround yourself with are those who not just people who will commiserate with you, not just people who will celebrate with you, but people who will elevate you. That has been my experience. Because you mentioned here about how that Time Magazine said that he was an intimate of whom Roosevelt only had one. So it was described by Time Magazine as an intimate. I just want to give a shout-out to a friend of mine who started out as just a professional advisor, worked for me, but then we developed, right, he became an intimate in his name. Shout out to you, Rajeev Shaw. "What's up, bro? You're on the podcast But my friend Rajeev fits exactly what you're talking about. There was a time eight, nine years ago when personally I was pondering a decision that he knew about and he had to pray through it. He had to summon the courage to do it and he had to confront me about what was not in his estimation, the right move for me to make. And what it is immaterial. What is material for this discussion is that he put our friendship, a decade long friendship on the line by confronting me with something that in his estimation and his counsel was not something that I should do.
We still talk about that and we're closer now than ever, but if it wasn't for that concern, that counsel, that being an advisor, I could have trundled off into some bad territory in my professional and my personal life. So it's true that people who are good advisors like Howe to Roosevelt can become intimates who can speak life into some pretty dying situations in our lives. That's a pretty fair assessment, isn't it?
Warwick Fairfax:
That's such a great point and great example. Rajeev Shaw was willing to speak truth to a friend. He didn't know how it would be received. He'd say, "Rajeev, you're nuts. What are you talking about?" That he risked the relationship because he cared about you. That's a true friend that's got to be willing to risk it all for your benefit. And I think as you're implying, you listened to him, you listened to his advice. Now what does that do now as you think of Rajeev and what do you do? What does that do for your friendship when he's willing to risk it all for you? What does it make you feel now about Rajeev?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. He elevated me. We commiserated plenty of times. We celebrated many times and we still do both to be honest with you, but he elevated me and he still does that too. So those are the best relationships in my experience to have where you can have someone who is willing to put it on the line to elevate your character, to elevate your outlook, to elevate your actions. That's the kind of thing that he did for me and that it's made a huge difference in my life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. And really, as you look back on Rajeev, I'm sure you were good friends before. You probably became even better friends afterwards.
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
You admired him before, but it's like, when I needed you, Rajeev, you had my back. So it's like it wasn't that you lack confidence before, but that kind of thing, it takes a friendship and respect to a whole other level. Is that fair?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, that's fair. Absolutely fair. Now so that if he does listen to this, he doesn't think I'm getting too mushy. I'm just going to have to say my special nickname for him, which is, all right, calm down chuckle butter. Everything's fine. Okay. And we'll move on with the show, Warwick. Our wrap up here is what are the big takeaways from Louie Howe's service to Roosevelt that we discussed today that can help our listeners and viewers become better advisors and fellow travelers?
Warwick Fairfax:
Louis Howe's sole motivation was to help further the career of Franklin Roosevelt. That was it. He wanted to help his friend, the person he admires so much, Franklin Roosevelt. Now when Roosevelt was a young man, clearly Howe saw something in him in Roosevelt that was different. He saw that this young guy, he had the makings of a successful politician, somebody who would even be president one day. Roosevelt was charismatic, he was personable, high energy and Louis Howe was an astute person. He knew politics and this guy has what it takes. He could go all the way. It wasn't just professional. Louie Howe was willing to do whatever it took to help Franklin Roosevelt the man. And the way Howe came alongside Franklin Roosevelt in 1921 when Roosevelt got polio, it is just amazing.
Again, as we've said, having polio, it was a political if not career death sentence. But even when Roosevelt may have been feeling bad about himself, which would be completely understandable, here he was a year before in 1920, the candidate for Vice President of the United States, just one year before. The sky's the limit. Most people would be feeling like, "This is so unfair. I've got my whole life ahead of me. I could become president potentially. What is the deal? This is so unfair." But yet Louis Howe wouldn't give up on Roosevelt. Not only was he saying, "Look, tomorrow will be better." He had a plan. He had a plan for how Roosevelt's going to get out of the bit of despair. Okay. Franklin, I know this is tough, but you can write articles. It'll be published in various publications and circulars. Okay, Eleanor, I know you're not used to public speaking and you're not used to being the limelight. Franklin needs you. You need to go speak throughout the state of New York. Keep Franklin's name up there. 1924 Democratic Convention. Franklin, I think you need to find a way to be there to be prominent. 1928 election comes by and Franklin Roosevelt becomes the candidate and then the governor of the state of New York.
This was all Louis Howe pushing Roosevelt, not in a place he didn't want to go. It wasn't like Louis Howe was trying to force Roosevelt to go into direction he didn't want to. Roosevelt had all the skills and abilities to be a successful politician. He was a smart man, charismatic, knew how to get on with folks, but Howe gave Roosevelt the strength to do that which he wanted to do. He helped Franklin Roosevelt listen to Eleanor and ignore his mother, Sarah. His mother, Sarah, like many of the times to just stay in bed, Franklin, be an invalid. They were from a prominent New York state aristocratic family. They had money. They had the ability to just live in a nice house and be cared for. But Louis Howe knew that this would have killed Franklin Roosevelt. He would have been a shadow of his former self. He would have been thinking what might have been. I could have made a difference, what might have been. And that would be death by a different name, death of what might have been. You don't want to be that person. And Louie Howe wouldn't let that happen.
He had a very willing partner, if you will, in Eleanor, but he strengthened Eleanor. He gave Franklin Roosevelt's strength to come back from what he came back so that he wouldn't be defined by his worst day. And it's worth remembering again these telling words of Franklin Roosevelt's son, Elliot. We've mentioned them before. It's worth remembering as we sum up Louie has impact on Franklin Roosevelt. Again, Elliot Roosevelt's words. The person who was the most responsible for the development of my father's personality was Louis Howe as he was of my father. He was the man that gave my father the iron will and the ability to move ahead politically, which I don't think he ever would have done on his own. Louie Howe is probably the greatest influence on both my father and my mother's lives. We would all be fortunate to have somebody like a Louie Howe in our lives who would speak truth to power, who speak truth to us and his only motive, the soul motive was in our best interest and the best interest of the organization. We would all be so blessed to have somebody like Louis Howe in our lives.
Gary Schneeberger:
Folks, that'll wrap up this sixth episode of our series within the show, More Stories From the Book Crucible Leadership. We'll turn the page in September. That's the next time we're going to turn the page in September after our summer movie series to another story to help you turn the page and move beyond your crucible to a life of significance. We will see you then.
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