You Broke the Ship, Robert - Star Master Log: Felix Speed (w/ Scott)

Star Master Log

Sep 8

START HERE·EPISODE·SWN RULES EXPLAINED

Jeff sits down with Scott to talk through Episode 30, You Broke the Ship, Robert, and quickly regrets giving him only one listen's worth of credit. Scott answers a full round of pop quiz questions about Felix's fight to keep the Scapegoat's engine together while the rest of the crew handles their own mess topside, and gets nearly all of them right. The two get into how the ship-to-ship combat was built as a puzzle instead of a straight dice fight, using the house rules Brian just covered on SWN Rules Explained. They close out the episode with a spoiler-filled tangent about Edge of Tomorrow.

[00:00:03] Felix: Access approved.
[00:00:05] Star Master Jeff: Hey everyone, Star Master Jeff here, and welcome back to the Star Master Log. Today I'm joined by Scott, who plays Felix Champlin. We're talking episode 30, You Broke the Damn Ship, Robert. If you haven't listened to it yet, go do that first, because what follows is a spoiler conversation. Scott, welcome.
[00:00:26] Felix: Hey, how's it going, Jeff?
[00:00:27] Star Master Jeff: It is going pretty dang good, my friend. How's it going with you?
[00:00:31] Felix: Yeah, pretty good. Happy to be chatting about this episode. It was a fun one.
[00:00:35] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, I actually went into this one a little worried because it's all space combat. But it turns out that the way that we ran it was like super dynamic and really fun to edit. So I really enjoyed it.
[00:00:44] Felix: Yeah, totally agree.
[00:00:46] Star Master Jeff: So you listened to this episode, obviously already. Did you just listen to it once? Or did you really do your homework and listen to it five times?
[00:00:54] Felix: Listen, I just did the once but I I lived it too. So you could you could say I've listened to it twice.
[00:01:00] Star Master Jeff: Okay, I'm just saying, I just did Doge's interview for the last episode, which was 11 rounds, and he listened to it like three times. Just saying, someone's got to one-up him now.
[00:01:12] Felix: Well, you know, some of us have comprehension skills.
[00:01:15] Star Master Jeff: Okay, wow. Okay, so you only need the one listen is what you're saying? Even though we played this one like two months ago, you only need the one listen. So I can give you like a pop quiz hotshot, and you're telling me you'll get everything correct.
[00:01:26] Felix: Well, I think I'll do pretty well.
[00:01:28] Star Master Jeff: Interesting, I'll give you a quick question right now then, not that this was planned at all, but you're kind of putting yourself on the spot. Okay, um, Froggy comes onto the bridge. Why does he do that?
[00:01:40] Felix: Well, he, he read the book that he found in Thorn's room, and he thinks it was a how-to guide to be a captain, and he's going to take over being captain because Thorn's going down to Felix.
[00:01:51] Star Master Jeff: Damn, okay, you got it. That's a deep cut. Well wait, what was the book actually, if not a how-to guide?
[00:01:58] Felix: It was a fiction book. It was about, it was a space adventure book that Thorne likes to read under his covers at night. He didn't say that part, but I I imagine that's what he's doing.
[00:02:07] Star Master Jeff: I can only assume that you're cheating somehow. So I'll give you more questions later. But actually, that's super impressive. So in this episode, you're down in the engine room for most the entire thing. And pretty quickly, Robert's pushing the ship to the limit. You're trying to like keep up with maintenance as everything is redlining. But you're oftentimes the guy on the ship during a combat where everything relies on you. So what's it like walking into a session knowing that you have a reputation of having to keep the ship going and that everything depends on you?
[00:02:42] Felix: Well, I think I bring maybe two things to that. One is a little bit of confrontational energy because it's like, well, you guys got to do your part too. You know, I can keep the engines running, but if you don't know how to fly the damn thing or if you can't hit a target, then what good is a functioning engine going to do? And also because, you know, I'm managing so many systems. If one thing goes wrong, then everybody blames me. And, you know, I just don't think that's fair. So I bring a little bit of hotheadedness to it, I think.
[00:03:09] Star Master Jeff: Why do you think that it's not fair?
[00:03:11] Felix: Because, you know, if they don't like it, then they can come down and do it themselves.
[00:03:17] Star Master Jeff: So it's not fair because you feel like they could just do it themselves?
[00:03:21] Felix: Or because they don't take any personal responsibility for their actions. You know, like if we're getting to the truth of the matter, if Robert's pushing it too hard and not paying attention to to how the goat sounds and how she feels. And that's it's not my fault for not being able to work a miracle.
[00:03:38] Star Master Jeff: That's true. I mean, you did tell him to like watch his speed, but Thorne told him top speed. Yeah, he said Felix speed. He said what Felix starts shouting, keep going. So yeah, he has to choose between Felix speed, which is stop going faster and pushing the engine when you start yelling and kind of going beyond that top speed. And really, no matter how loud you're screaming, he's measuring how hard to push the ship between those two different things. And in this particular episode, he does override your limit. And I think he actually calls it discipline. I don't know why he calls it that. But that's Robert Ross in a nutshell. He's practicing discipline as you're yelling at him by ignoring you. And when the engines actually do give out, do you consider that being on Robert for pushing past that red line, or sort of on you for not screaming loud enough or on Thorne for not captaining on your side when he had to pick a side?
[00:04:35] Felix: In the immediate moment, I take responsibility and blame because, you know, I don't have full visibility to the situation up top. And, you know, from a, a game perspective, I flubbed my roles, right? And that's, that's why it stopped working. So like, in that sense, it is my fault. I guess I secondarily blame Thorne for not reigning Robert in a little bit.
[00:04:59] Star Master Jeff: Pop quiz, hot shot. Why were Haley's guns not working correctly since episode one that we discovered this episode? She hadn't zeroed them in. Yeah, she had miscalibrated. She had never calibrated them in the first place, exactly. Okay, you know your stuff. I'll keep trying to think of more questions as we go. But in the meantime, twice this episode, it's Felix's repair role, like you were just saying. That's the thing putting the whole crew in danger. He's not really succeeding at his repair roles. So what's it like playing the guy whose hands... control the fate of the ship at all times, instead of the actual external threat being the biggest problem in the scene.
[00:05:43] Felix: I mean, it's stressful, right? Because if I failed that one role at the end, it was going to cause the engines to shut down. And that was really stressful because it was my fault. Knowing that if I kept failing, the ship could explode. It does create some moments of like strategizing, but also like stress because I want it to get working again. And I also want to not be on fire because I think at one point Felix was almost on fire.
[00:06:09] Star Master Jeff: Yes, yeah, there was a huge fireball go to flame as Thorne was running down the hallway to help you. First of all, maybe we should take a second to talk about that Thorne trying to help you. He does some fire extinguisher stuff. He doesn't really understand how to do any fixing. And he opens up the manual to try to like show you how to fix your own ship.
[00:06:28] Felix: Mm hmm.
[00:06:29] Star Master Jeff: Does that land for you as like annoying, but still kind of useful? Or does the annoying part just sort of completely wipe out any useful aspect of him being in the room?
[00:06:40] Felix: There's there's two ways to look at it. One is how Felix looks at it, which is annoyed that, you know, he asked Thorne to come down here to help. And all he did was put out some fires, which, you know, I could have done easily. From a Scott perspective, it was hilarious. And I thought it was amazing the way it turned out. Because Thorne has... I think Thorne has a fix skill. Like a skill point in fix, which is why I wanted him to come down. He's just useless at it. But he ended up just rolling a really bad roll to assist. And then taking all the credit for it.
[00:07:14] Star Master Jeff: Or rather, in his words, going up top to just yell at other people. That's how a manager works, right?
[00:07:20] Felix: Yeah, I think... We haven't been in a lot of stressful space situations, and I feel like Thorne maybe hasn't been a captain very long. So it's a new experience for him.
[00:07:30] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, pop quiz hotshot. At the end, Thorne and Froggy are talking, and Froggy says he wants something. Actually, Froggy says he wants two somethings. What are those two things that he wants?
[00:07:43] Felix: Well, he wants his own room, but he first asks for the deluxe cabin on the Billy Goat, or the Kid, I think is what we named it, the little shuttle that we brought on board.
[00:07:54] Star Master Jeff: It's officially called The Life is Unfair, but off screen, you have all agreed to rename it to The Kid, but I don't think that's actually made it onto the show yet.
[00:08:02] Felix: Yeah.
[00:08:03] Star Master Jeff: So you've heard it here first. A thing they've never used before and they stole after murdering some people. They're going to rename it. But he also wanted to take a shower because Robert had told him he couldn't take a shower.
[00:08:15] Felix: And did Robert actually tell him that, according to Robert? I don't think Robert actually chimed in. We just had Froggy's word and Robert's silence. Okay.
[00:08:27] Star Master Jeff: So while you're down in the engine room fighting fires, I know I'm giving you the old snip-snap, the old whiplash, pop quiz, back and forth, questions, more pop quiz, but I kind of want to just draw your attention to and get your thoughts on the fact that you're down in the engine room having a real physical altercation with fire and sweat and grease and wrenching everything you can wrench, and they were sort of having their own soap opera up on the bridge with Froggy and Thorn and interpersonal relationships. What's your reaction to that? Because you seem to often be living in a different reality or even sometimes playing a different game than the rest of the crew.
[00:09:03] Felix: I mean, there's nowhere else Felix would rather be. He doesn't want to deal with the personal stuff. He doesn't want to deal with soft problems. You know, he wants to solve solvable things. And machines and computers are those hard problems to solve. You know, we haven't really gotten to spend much time with Felix from a mechanical perspective. perspective, meaning like his work with machines, not game mechanics. But that's also a big part of his background and identity is tinkering is, you know, making machines repairing machines, And so he enjoys being in that space.
[00:09:40] Star Master Jeff: So pop quiz, Hotshot. I'm trying to think of these questions as we go. So sorry if some of them are going to be super obscure, but you should know everything about the episode. So why does Froggy leave the bridge after he's had his whole Captain LARP obsession?
[00:09:55] Felix: Well, Haley reminds him about the unhallowed thing and it makes him sad again.
[00:10:01] Star Master Jeff: You're too good. What the fuck? How do you know that? How do you remember that so well? Jeez, dude.
[00:10:07] Felix: OK, yes. Do you want to ask me about ISO racking her shotgun to shoot a ship out of our ship? Because that happened.
[00:10:12] Star Master Jeff: God damn, man. You know all the beats. OK, you know what? Fine. In on Wafisa, you leave the ship and you run into two soldiers and one of them has a name. What's his name? You got me there. You got me there, chief. That's right, motherfucker. His name is Jorgen. And I made it up on the spot. And I don't know if it's a name in real life. But his name was Jorgen. It sounds Swedish. And you slaughtered him like an animal.
[00:10:40] Felix: It does sound Swedish. And you murdered him. A J with an O and an umlaut.
[00:10:45] Star Master Jeff: So I gotcha, you idiot. But you seem to know this one episode. But I think you better go back and refresh your memory on Jorgen. And well, actually, you know, I'll give you one. It's a little bit easier. The first two drift rats you met, what were their names? I know Box.
[00:11:01] Felix: Because we talk about him all the time. Off mic, I think. Glad I thought of it. I don't remember the other guy's name because we don't talk about him. Fair.
[00:11:12] Star Master Jeff: I don't remember his name either.
[00:11:14] Felix: I should have just said something then.
[00:11:15] Star Master Jeff: I know you could have been like Box and Jorgen. Jorgen's like the name that I reach for. Okay, so just open ended here. How do you feel about this episode? Do you have any like comments or memories that you want to tell the audience about?
[00:11:37] Felix: I mean, it was a really fun way to run ship-to-ship combat when it was like there was pursuit, everybody had something to do, and it was a good mix of role-playing as well as mechanical stuff. So it was really fun to play and really engaging to listen back to. From a story perspective, it's just a really intense sequence because we're going from the computer hacking scenario where all these electro-robot things are swarming us to having to bolt out of there and then get back to the goat and then fly away all while Felix has compartmentalized the fact that now he knows where Voss is and maybe knows where PD is. So there's like this urgency to the actions as well. Like that's probably why I'm pushing the goat so hard and trying to get her working to her maximum capacities because we have to get to where we're going next as soon as possible.
[00:12:31] Star Master Jeff: yeah and about the combat itself this is kind of the second combat in a row where i've run it more as like a puzzle or there's lots of things going on it's not just roll the dice did i hit blah blah blah we incorporated both in the 11 rounds episode and in this episode Threats that cannot be dealt with by just shooting at them because you're trying to escape. Your ship is redlining. You have Froggy cropping up and creating trouble. There's a tension between you and Robert and then the tension between you and Thor. We have tension between Haley and Froggy. We have ISO doing God knows what in the background. She didn't really surface. I picture her in the airlock with a suit and her shotgun waiting for borders. Yeah, that makes sense. And that all kind of wraps up into like my methodology of GMing, which I went over when I was talking to Doja in the last SML. But also the way that we did the space combat was using house rules, house rules that are at the end of the normal stars without number guide is a whole house rule section. We use those and we tweak them slightly. So as a plug for anyone out there, just a few days ago the last rules explained by brian released and he talked about house rules using uh that space combat the one from here in episode 30 as an example so if you're interested to know what sort of house rules we used or how we run that combat go check out that episode it's a really good one it's really quick he only does like little 10 minute episodes and they're nice easy to digest so go check it out Speed round. All right. I'm going to give you some rapid fire questions, Scott. Answer quickly. Don't do what Stephanie does. Don't do what I did when Dojo gave me speed round.
[00:14:12] Felix: Oh, no, he did a speed round for you? No.
[00:14:14] Star Master Jeff: In the middle of the speed round, he kind of took control. I was powerless.
[00:14:18] Felix: That's such a Doja thing.
[00:14:20] Star Master Jeff: So yeah, as I do these, if you want to think of a question for me, I would be honored to answer your questions.
[00:14:24] Felix: I'm not interested in other people generally, so don't worry about it.
[00:14:28] Star Master Jeff: Well, okay, now you're going to have to. Okay, fine. Pop quiz hotshot. Damn it, I can't think of a question. Here we go. Speed round. What's the first thing Felix says to Thorn once they're both breathing easy again after this whole situation? Is he going and admonishing him? Is he being like, Captain, you were a really big help?
[00:14:49] Felix: You know, I don't really think he's going to say anything about the situation in the engine room because I am hyper-focused on getting to the next step. So it's going to Thorne and being like, all right, we're out of that, Cap. We got to start planning because we're going to be...
[00:15:04] Star Master Jeff: He calls him Cap?
[00:15:06] Felix: Sometimes.
[00:15:06] Star Master Jeff: Sometimes Cap, sometimes Thorny. That kind of leads me to a question that's not even on the list. Like you're calling... Because I've never heard you say that, but like now you're saying you call him Cap. I feel like that's sort of like a little bit of fan fiction going on. Do you think that people out there are shipping Felix and Thorne? Oh, probably. Who would you ship? If you were listening to the show, what fan fiction, who would you, who's like the ship? Give me three pairings that you would ship.
[00:15:32] Felix: I mean, that's like all the pairings, but I mean, my number one pairing is Robert and Froggy, you know, like an enemies, like an enemies to lovers thing where they have to keep up the facade that they really hate each other. But you know, when night rolls around, Froggy has a, Froggy has a room and it's Robert's.
[00:15:49] Star Master Jeff: Oh, my God, dude, don't tell Doja that friendship will be ended. It's like that's a real heated rivalry. What's your next show?
[00:16:01] Felix: Probably Thor and Felix. I think they've got a bit of history. You know, they worked together before this all happened a little bit. And, you know, I think Felix respects Thorne more than the other two. He sees him as more capable. He doesn't understand the soft skills stuff, but he's glad Thorne has those. So I think that would work on him.
[00:16:25] Star Master Jeff: And finally, it's obviously Haley and the three-tined fork. Haley and... Haley with two Ys and Haley with one Y. Oh, weird. That's, like, uncomfortable.
[00:16:40] Felix: Probably Haley and Roger. Probably Haley and Roger or Haley and the space monster from Beyond the Void. Oh, well, we don't even know if there's a space monster.
[00:16:49] Star Master Jeff: We saw tentacles things moving around. Dude, Doc Ock has tentacles. They're not organic, though they can... That's true. You can ship his tentacles with... Okay, anyway, moving on. So... Honest read on Robert and how he pilots. Do you think he's like a reckless genius or just reckless?
[00:17:08] Felix: I mean, I would say just reckless at this point. I mean, or just like a reckless good pilot. I didn't see anything genius level in his pilot in this time. You're brutalizing Robert and Doja in this episode.
[00:17:23] Star Master Jeff: Robert, really, really fucking ugly or just normal ugly? Go.
[00:17:30] Felix: But, you know, I think Iodine mechanically in this game, it's tough to do cinematically. You know, I think he did a good job getting away and kind of positioning us well to take those shots. But like, there's nothing crazy excellent. Not like what Felix was doing down in the injured room, keeping the ship together. I mean, come on.
[00:17:50] Star Master Jeff: So let's say that this actual whole combat went south. Thorne is like, abandon ship. And everyone's rushing to like get off the ship, like piling into the kid to get to leave the goat. Does Felix save himself or does he risk his life to save the ship?
[00:18:07] Felix: At this point, he's going to save himself because he's got bigger fish to fry with Dr. Voss and Petey, right? So he's going to... You know, he can't go down with the ship at this point because there's too much at stake.
[00:18:19] Star Master Jeff: He wouldn't just like message Thorne and be like, if I die doing this, make sure Petey and Voss are taken care of. Or does he not trust the crew to that degree?
[00:18:27] Felix: He doesn't trust the crew. Or even if he does, he needs to make he needs to see it through himself. Hold on. Let's back up a step. Does he trust the crew? I don't think he trusts the crew to do what Felix wants to have done. Their goals aren't necessarily his goals, even after all this time spent together. And so they may not make the decisions that Felix would make in a situation like with Petey or with Dr. Voss. And so while he trusts them to be capable at their own jobs, he doesn't necessarily trust them to have the desired outcome in mind that he does.
[00:19:05] Star Master Jeff: Right, and I feel like he'd want to be there for vengeance. I think he would burn down everything so that he could be alive to see the vengeance happen. He takes pleasure in it, I think. And more than anyone else, I think he would take pleasure in his vengeance.
[00:19:20] Felix: Yeah, I think it would be like a cold pleasure. I think Felix is very cold and calculated in those ways.
[00:19:27] Star Master Jeff: So last time when I was talking with Doja last episode, we ended up talking about life for quite a bit and it was really fun. And since you're not going to ask me any speed round questions, I thought it would be fun if you and I talked about something that is sort of podcast adjacent. So I reached out to you ahead of time and I asked you to choose a movie for us to quickly discuss that has something to do with the podcast. Let's hear it, man.
[00:19:49] Felix: Alright, so I wanted to pick a movie that we had both seen, that we could talk about it and one that's maybe a little under appreciated or under seen, even though it has some pretty big stars in it. And that is Edge of Tomorrow. So if you don't know, Edge of Tomorrow is a 2014 film directed by Doug Liman, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. And, you know, I'll do a spoiler free thing right here. And then we can decide if we want to get into spoilers or not. But Tom plays a military officer. He's a PR officer, so he's not a combat officer. And he's serving in a conjoined military who is fighting back an alien invasion on Earth. And these aliens are seemingly unstoppable. They're making unlimited progress no matter what the humans are throwing at them. There's only been one success from the humans, and that was in a battle where Emily Blunt's character was able to drive back the alien forces. But since then, nothing's been nothing's been successful. They're getting ready for one big final push against the alien stronghold, holding them back in France. So kind of mirroring World War Two a little bit, pushing into the beaches of Normandy and things don't go well for Tom Cruise. He gets he gets involved in a way that he didn't want to be involved in. And the movie progresses from there. Nice.
[00:21:13] Star Master Jeff: I actually love this movie. And spoiler-wise, if you haven't seen this movie yet, that's on you. Like, if you're listening to this podcast and you like sci-fi, you've got to go see this movie. We're going to do spoilers. We've got to do some spoilers. So if you don't want to hear spoilers, ciao. Come back later. Everyone else, you're in the cool kid club. You get to hear us talk about Edge of Tomorrow. This is awesome. Actually, you and I are in a film club together, so... Yeah, tell me a little bit about your thoughts and feelings on Edge of Tomorrow. Did you choose it because you like it, or did you choose it because you have beef with it?
[00:21:46] Felix: No, I really like it. I chose it because... don't watch i love hard sci-fi it's not the genre i go to a lot um but i was thinking about movies that kind of feel like a ttrpg session and edge of tomorrow feels like that in a lot of ways because it's a movie where like a lot of stuff goes wrong all of the time and the characters have to adapt And in this movie, the adaptation is because of the time loop scenario, which spoilers, you know, Tom Cruise's character gets covered in blood from an alien and he begins time looping Groundhog Day style. Every time he dies, he goes back to the start of the invasion. Such a cool concept. And gets to keep trying things. Yeah. And getting better and better at it. And Emily Blunt's character had done that previously, which is why they won that battle. So they join up. And so it shows like almost like character progression and leveling up, but all within this like contained period of time that he keeps iterating over. And so it feels kind of like, you know, RPG ish. And I just love that kind of feel in a movie where somebody is getting better at something. And I could do a whole episode on time loop movies. I love time loop movies.
[00:22:55] Star Master Jeff: Dude, me too.
[00:22:56] Felix: Wait a minute. Hold on. Quick aside. What's the best time loop movie? I mean, so Groundhog Day is kind of the originator of my passion for this. And I do still love Groundhog Day. I really like Palm Springs. Have you seen Palm Springs?
[00:23:10] Star Master Jeff: Oh, of course. I've seen every time loop movie. Yeah. Maybe.
[00:23:14] Felix: Probably. Palm Springs is really good and is kind of a funny take on it. Have you seen Time Crimes?
[00:23:22] Star Master Jeff: I have seen Time Crimes.
[00:23:24] Felix: That's kind of an interesting one because it's more like a closed-loop time travel movie than a time loop movie.
[00:23:30] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, well, I'm very pretentious about my time loops. I'll watch any time loop movie, but then I'm always like, that doesn't even make sense, as if time travel even exists. But I want it to be internally consistent, which, back to Edge of Tomorrow... Is not. It is so not internally consistent with itself, especially with the way the ending goes, where he somehow loops back to before the beginning of the loop, which makes and everything has changed.
[00:23:59] Felix: I hate that ending so much. They don't really explain how it how it works. You know, it's like, oh, this one alien, this one like special species of the alien controls the time loop. And if its blood gets on you when it dies, you take over its loop, which, you know, magic. How is that an evolutionary advantage for the species to be able to do that? So that doesn't make sense. And the fact that if you get a blood transfusion from somebody else, then you lose that power. Yeah, right. I forgot about that aspect. What the fuck? That doesn't make any sense. Which is weird because it's not like the blood went into his blood.
[00:24:34] Star Master Jeff: It's not like he got a blood transfusion from the alien. Yeah. So, yeah, I totally agree with that. But there are aspects of the movie non time travel based that are actually I mean, the time travel stuff is cool, but they're like mech suits. their power armor, are sick as hell. And I don't know if you read the original book, but they play a really big part in the original book as well. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's like a comic book. No, it's a light novel. It's Japanese originally. And the author wrote it for exactly the way you described it is why the author wrote it. He kind of wanted to do like... what's happening to mario like you're in world one one you keep dying what if mario could remember every death and get better at it because that's what's happening to you you remember every death so you get to keep replaying it so yeah that's a interesting concept and very groundhog day yeah for sure but the power armor is like crazy complex and he has to go through and learn like a million different ways of like utilizing it in like the proper way what you kind of see in the movie a little bit Yeah, great choice, man. How would you rate that movie?
[00:25:38] Felix: I mean, I'd give it like, like four out of five stars, you know, eight out of 10, whatever, whatever scale you want to use here. I think it's really solid. I think it's just a fun action sci fi movie. Let's use number of froggies. How many froggies would you give it? I think froggies like a negative scale though. So I'd probably give like, I don't want to give it too many froggies. I'd probably give like one and a half froggies.
[00:25:59] Star Master Jeff: Right. When we don't need to know what the upper number of froggies is, you give it one and a half. There's no out of anything. No, no, it's just one and a half froggies. Yeah, I think I'd give it like... 28 froggies.
[00:26:12] Felix: Oh, wow. That's a lot of slime. I mean, there is a lot of slime in this movie.
[00:26:17] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, so this is a slimy movie, and that's what I'm basing my froggies off of. This movie, I walked away from it feeling wet, and that's how I know it's a froggy movie.
[00:26:27] Felix: One thing that I do appreciate about this movie is that you don't get in modern day as much as Tom Cruise not in a Mission Impossible role.
[00:26:35] Star Master Jeff: Yes. Yeah. Which I love him in Mission Impossible 1. I'm not a huge fan of the franchise, but I do like Tom Cruise, even though he's a weirdly problematic actor. Oh, yeah. He's not crossing the line where I'm like, oh, he sexually assaulted a bunch of people. He's just in a different Scientology world where he's part of an organization that abuses people. And it's like, can I still watch his movies? Yeah. Unlike Chris Pratt, where it's like Chris Pratt's super problematic and I can just be like, ah, fuck him. I don't need to watch those movies. Yeah, they're bad movies.
[00:27:09] Felix: Yeah. I think it's because, you know, his obsession with like physical action just really lends itself to great movies. You know, what I hate about movies these days is everything looks like it's filmed in front of a green screen. Here we go. You know, it's flat. It's boring. But to actually have physical locations and physical stuff like the power armor, you can tell that it's real.
[00:27:33] Star Master Jeff: Dude, we just lost the entire segment of people that love Chris Pratt. And now you're trying to like target the whole Marvel audience. I hate things that are filmed in front of green screen. Well, there goes everyone who loves Indiana Jones 4 and everyone that loves Marvel. Well, I don't want him anyway, so there. Yeah, if you like Marvel, get out of town. We don't want you listening to the... No, everyone loves Marvel. Please stay. There are many redeeming qualities of Marvel, but the green screen... No bueno, but in the new Spider-Man, not a lot of green screen.
[00:28:08] Felix: It looks pretty good. Definitely a lot more actual stunts in that movie, and I think Holland's experience on the Odyssey, and Christopher Nolan is the master of physical sets, and I think as Holland gets more involved in those movies, he'll bring some more of that experience in. Doomsday from the trailers, that's another discussion. We don't have to talk about that today.
[00:28:28] Star Master Jeff: No, we don't. There's infinite movies, and we could definitely go on forever, but however... pop quiz hotshot. I'm going to ask you a question about the next episode. No, no, not even this episode. So can you really remember it? You've never even listened to it. You've only ever played it. At the beginning of the episode, Thorne and ISO are cooking a meal for the rest of the crew. Do you remember what that meal was? Pretty sure it's a pot roast. Fucking A, dude. You have a mind like an iron trap. How do you remember that it was a pot roast?
[00:29:00] Felix: Well, because I remember they were cooking it in the oven, which I found odd at the time, because usually you cook that in a slow cooker. Well, we can bring it up with Brian.
[00:29:10] Star Master Jeff: This is the future. Everyone cooks in an oven. Don't you know anything? I thought you were smart.
[00:29:16] Felix: And they were chopping the vegetables to put in with it when it was almost done. It was confusing how they cook it.
[00:29:22] Star Master Jeff: Yeah, well, there was like a time skip. Yeah. Yeah, Thorne kept picking up his data pad and looking to see if the money from the auction had hit his account yet. Anyway, I guess that's a little bit of a preview for the next episode. But I think we've gone on too long, my friend. So before we close out, what is Felix most afraid of going into the next session?
[00:29:43] Felix: I mean, he's afraid of failing. That's the core fear that Felix has is failing. And so he doesn't want to fail Dr. Voss. He doesn't want to fail Petey. He doesn't want to fail his crew. And so it's being prepared and coming out ahead is all that he can want to do.
[00:30:05] Star Master Jeff: Well, it's all our time for today, Scott. Thanks so much for coming on and talking both episode and movies with me today.
[00:30:12] Felix: Absolutely. Happy to be here.
[00:30:14] Star Master Jeff: Scapegoats forever. Scapegoats for life. Next time on the Dark Star Adventurecast, the scapegoat drops out of Spike above Prometheon Station. Voss is down there, and so is whatever Virodyne's been hiding out here in the black. Season one is coming to a head. If you want to get these episodes two weeks before they drop publicly, the Dark Star Adventure Cast Patreon is at patreon.com slash darkstaradventurecast. We really, really appreciate each and every one of our patrons, and we hope to see you there. Thanks so much for listening, and from both Scott and I, keep following that signal. Bye, all. Bye.