12: Aniara

The Monte Hall Effect

The boys talk “Call Your Boyfriend,” ABBA, The Swedish Chef, tasty pastries, the best dates to visit Minnesota, “The Rapture,” bleak (and unwatchable?) movies from Scandinavian directors, "Funny Games" (grrrrrr...), misunderstood "happy" endings, Avenue 5, Silent Spring, the cold calculus of actual human colonization, "A City on Mars" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, the genetically perfect progeny of the oligarchy, yet more orbital mechanics (Tola rants about the plane of the ecliptic), getting straight to the existential horror, spaceships and colonies likely being more cramped than we realize, space being really big, but Mars not being really all that far away, the brilliant future of AI as a copyright and/or classroom cheating enabler, ignorance of the constellation of Lyra, Tola's requisite sailing reference, Chekhov's algae, the entropic nature of complex systems, "Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson, differing access to crayons, the profundity of William Shatner, an epic AI mike drop, Jayne Cobb's workout regimen, cults, giant space orgies that are not as much fun as they sound, the relative ease of interplanetary communication, the death of hope, random sci-fi puzzle boxes, confusion versus wonder, paying horribly for carrying even a small measure of optimism, failure cascades, the false dichotomy of saving Earth vs reaching for the stars, "Children of Men," being careful about what we watch and read in the middle of the night, space trying to kill you, the Lars von Trier oeuvre (h/t Brian Kamman!) and much more – all while taking in a movie based on an epic, book-length poem from Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson.
Content Warning: at several points we discuss the topic of suicide, which also factors into the plot of the film. If you are in crisis and need to talk to someone, text HOME to 741741 (in the US) for free help from a counselor.
Thanks again to Paul Zastrow for sound editing this episode.
Final score: Science (78%), Fiction (93%), Film (90%).
Next up: "Buckaroo Banzai" as a palate cleanser!
(re-posted 3/12/24)