EPISODE 114 — Runaway

[jarrycanada 2483]

It makes me think of this...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo

 

 

the man who owns the world.

[Joven 373]

Anyway, earlier in the film, Ramsay's son (most annoying performance by a child actor EVER, by the way) asked his father if Lois would ever go crazy and try to hurt them. Ramsay said something to the effect of, "No, Lois would never hurt us."

 

Did anyone else think that Luther would sneak one of those chips into Lois and get HER to try to kill Ramsay's kid? It seemed like that's what Crichton was setting up. But, surprise surprise, she never does.

 

I thought that too, and was waiting for it either to be an emotional thing like hes reluctant to do it for like a half a second before he does the patented 'throw his coat over it and then bash it to death' maneuver (coats are like robot's weakness, its like throwing a silver razorwire net soaked in garlicy holy water on a vampire, if this movie is to be believed), or if he would somehow talk the robot out of its rampage by emotionally connecting to it, like the T800 in Terminator 3, or Tails' plane in the Sonic Boom cartoon (if anyone has ever seen that...Tails is definitely fucking that plane.)

[Wien 401]

This podcast really turned into a robotist screed.... we just took down the Confederate flag, gays can get married everywhere... lets not take a big step back with this bigoted attitude towards robots.

[jarrycanada 2483]

BTW you guys should really give the tv show "Humans" a chance as it's got a exciting twist at the end of the season. SPOILER!!!

 

it turns out shes not a robot but a filipino worker posing as a robot to get a green card.

[Lando 2019]

Anyway, earlier in the film, Ramsay's son (most annoying performance by a child actor EVER, by the way)

 

No way this kid is worse than the son in Over The Top or Jayden Smith in After Earth.

[Cameron H. 23786]

I have to admit... I didn't watch this. I was too preoccupied with the gif war with Cameron lol.

 

Riddle me this:

 

A Sailor, A Man, and A Dodo,

 

All joined together and coated with rime,

 

Tell me, who was the fool that fell

 

for a diabolical ploy of mine?

 

[HotSaucerman 2051]

So, those pest control robots at the beginning... why would those farmers need to call the police to catch it? The lady cop runs over to it and picks it up over her head! But for some reason, those 4 farmers are powerless to stop it.

[Joven 373]

Cut them a break, their insurance didn't cover that. Thanks Robama!

[Joe Lerini 7329]

That bullet removal audio made me rock. hard.

...baby, all night?

[Joe Lerini 7329]

 

No way this kid is worse than the son in Over The Top or Jayden Smith in After Earth.

Or, not covered on this show, but Bob in The House By The Cemetery.

[souprman 10477]

end credits makeout in spark shower un-fucking-real people

[jarrycanada 2483]

I know whats wrong with junes cable, I've seen this before...

 

JUNE GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!

 

[VinsanityV22 500]

Y'know, when I heard that Gene Simmons was the villain, my mind originally thought they were finally going to tackle "Never Too Young to Die" the John Stamos "young James Bond" (sort of) vehicle where the lead singer for KISS plays, basically, Tim Curry's character from Rocky Horror Picture Show mixed with a bad guy from Mad Max.

 

This is a fun movie too, Runaway, but I'm still disappointed that "Never Too Young to Die" will apparently have to wait for another episode of HDTGM.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

I feel like the way Gene Simmons pronounces 'template' is pretty standard over here in the UK. Then again Gene Simmons isn't British, so fuck that guy.

I didn't think it was that weird, honestly. "Tem-plit" is the official SAE pronunciation, but colloquially, "tem-plate" is pretty common, too. Also, Paul making fun of other people's pronunciation....really?

 

Anyway, one thing they touched on early on in the episode was Ramsay's backstory. There are a few things here that I kept waiting for them to make, but they never really did. Ramsay's story is that there was a dude he was chasing that went into a tall building. Ramsay gave up the chase, and that guy went on to murder a family. First off: did anyone ever catch this guy? Is he still on the lam? Presumably, he was caught and brought to justice, right?

 

If so, then what makes his backstory any different than what happens in the movie? Almost everyone in this movie dies because of Ramsay and his partner. Not counting the mom that got stabbed in the beginning, let's look at the deaths in this movie:

 

- Cameraman: Why the fuck did Selleck take this dude outside and arrest him?

 

- Scientist guy: murdered by the heat-seeking gun after Ramsay chases the scientist. Both Ramsay and Penny were standing less than 10 ft from Gene Simmons. The scientist looks at Simmons, freaks out, and then takes off running. Selleck chases him down, but why didn't he go, "Hey Penny! That dude that just freaked him out is probably important. Fucking grab him!" Not to mention that Simmons must have started running after them immediately, too. She straight up ignores that and is like, "Oh, I'll go find a random alleyway to drive in because they're certain to run right through here!"

 

- Two cops in the hotel room? (I thought it was an office building, but then there were weird suite things): Ramsay grabs Tits McGee and throws her out of the room, but Penny jumps in alone, thus giving Simmons the chance to react more quickly than he would have if they had raided his room from both sides at once.

 

- Kirstie Alley (whose name, by the way, they all mispronounce all episode): They basically just throw her at him and are like, "We clearly have no plan for your safety. Bye, bitch!"

 

- Sally: By this point, their incompetence keeping him on the street is enough to make them culpable for any other deaths. That said, they have to have known the tracker was somewhere in the bathroom and that he was probably setting a trap for them. Instead of looking the fuck around, they're just like, "Welp, I'm sure it's all good, right? See ya, Sally!"

 

That's six people dead because Tom Selleck and his partner are shitty cops. But it's okay because he saved his son in the end! It just felt weird after his whole backstory was that the criminal that got away killed a family afterwards, but they let Gene Simmons get away multiple times in this movie, and literally no one acts the tiniest bit distraught over his body count.

[RikkiHo 84]

You guys touched on this in the beginning of the episode, but I think we need to emphasize the fact that Penny's line when she catches the agricultural bot is literally "YAAAAAAAY!"

 

This is just a theory, but stick with me here: I truly believe that all of the spark explosions in the movie are KISS pyrotechnics donated by Gene Simmons. Can't disprove it.

[Joven 373]

I would just like to take a moment to actually kinda defend Ramsay, at least past Ramsay.

 

So,

A. he has a condition, now exactly what that is I would say is up for debate, since movies and people colloquially use acrophobia and vertigo interchangeably, when they aren't the same thing. Maybe he has both, bad vertigo which would disorient him physically when dealing with heights, which could have maybe caused some trauma when he was younger and triggered a fear of heights in general. Or maybe he has one or the other, either way he has a valid condition.

 

B. The building the guy ran into, everyone keeps saying "oh it was just a tall building", but you missed the fact that it was under construction. Now, as the foreman at the construction site they went to explained, a lot of construction sites are very open, no railings, the elevators don't have doors, no real thought to safety because the robots are doing most the work and its the future 80s so who cares.

 

C. The way the guy phrases it when telling the story is vague, he just says "he couldn't follow him". That could either mean, how a lot of other people took it, in that he just never went into the building. But its equally or probably more valid to interpret it that he did enter the building, tried following the guy, but when he noticed how high he was getting and it got to him he broke off pursuit. Theres probably not a lot of ways the guy could have gone out of the building, so if Ramsay had never entered it, he probably could have picked up the chase again when the guy tried to come back down or out, so I would say its more likely he stopped while already in the building and overlooking some open pit, or maybe the classic starting to cross a beam over a huge gap and freeze midway through because you're too scared kinda thing, that caused him to not only stop pursuing but also made him choke and waste lots of time negotiating a way down and some recovery.

 

If Ramsay was prone to epileptic seizures and the guy had ran into a strobe light and binaural dubstep emporium, I'm not gonna blame him when he collapses on the floor and the guy evades him. So, I am siding with the movie, the first incident which caused him to be transferred to the runaway department, was not in fact Ramsay's fault.

 

However, he is still a horrible cop who botches lots of operations and gets a bunch of people killed in the movie with his incompetence.

[IHugKittens 53]

OK, am I the only one who actually thought "WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING TOM SELLECK IN YOUR FILM IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SHOW HIM SHIRTLESS?" Anyone else thought that?

[WarlocksEvilPlan 10]

 

Or, not covered on this show, but Bob in The House By The Cemetery.

Amazing reference! "You shouldn't have come here Bob."

 

Also, what about Tom Selleck and the water thing in the news? This is a big week for him.

[Blast Hardcheese 636]

Runaway has to be one of the most listless action movies I have ever seen. And it was made in the era of high-energy science fiction movies such as The Terminator, RoboCop and Return of the Jedi. Compared to those films, Runaway is just lying around the house. "Shuffleaway" seems like a more appropriate name for this film.

Here are a couple of things I noticed:

*Man, Tom Selleck looks tired in this film. He's super low-energy and just looks annoyed at everything. And that's what you want in a sci-fi action film: a hero who sighs heavily and needs to rest against stuff almost all the time. Maybe he had the flu or mono when they shot this movie..

*At the beginning of the film, Selleck looks right into the camera twice. He does it once in the police lab, and another time in the helicopter. It almost looks like he's about to address the audience directly.

*Speaking of looks, Gene Simmons does this great "WHA...?!?" face towards the end of the film when Ramsay's partner, Thompson, busts into the construction site to save Ramsay's son.

*How annoying was that fuckin' kid, by the way?

*In the middle of a crowded outdoor restaurant, Luther shoves a knife into the back of Christie Alley's head, killing her instantly. He then lays her body into the nearby pool, and stands back up to reveal that his hand is coated with blood. But none of the patrons of the restaurant seem to notice or care, like, at all.

*Is it just me, or are the robots in this movie really underwhelming? Most of them are a little more than two feet tall and look like toys you wouldn't want to get for Christmas. And the spider robots are hilarious; when in certain scenes it's obvious that they're stationary, but bouncing on a jib or something.

*I love that Ramsay and his boss take turns being annoyed with each other. It's almost like, "Is it my turn to berate you now?"

*Dye his hair green, paint his face white and slap some red lipstick on him, and Gene Simmons is Golden Age Joker.

*How long do you think it took Luther to make all of those stacks of fake, bound money, anyway? Why not just stick a Spider robot in the briefcase and let it spring into action when the guy he double crosses opens it?

*Funaway

[IHugKittens 53]

Also I love how at some point the movie suddenly switched to a bizarre neo-noir vibe with Kirsty Alley being the classical femme fatale, complete with the expected femme fatale haircut and the chain smoking smoking and stuff... And then she dies.

[RikkiHo 84]

Does anybody think that those red targeting grids for the windshields would make it FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE to see while driving?

 

Didn't Kirstie Alley give away her plan when she audibly yelled "this is my insurance policy" into Tom Selleck's earpiece which was on a DIRECT LINE to Gene Simmons? How did she expect to not get stabbed when she showed up with a half torn template card?

[Molly L. 99]

I'm about to start in on the ep - I just finished this movie. It was...something. This world seemed like a NIGHTMARE. Like, Tom Selleck's son was LITERALLY being raised by a robot. And all these people had robots they needed to call someone else to control! How is that safe? ALTHOUGH I might be convinced that a sushi robot is a good idea.

 

I don't know if anyone else listens, but did it remind anyone else of the two most recent episodes of 99% Invisible about the automation paradox? Basically they talked about the benefits vs pitfalls of automation, specifically in planes and self-driving cars. It's super interesting, an a great podcast in general. This quote from the second episode's post is particularly relevant:

 

"[A]s automation makes our lives easier and safer, it also creates more complex systems, and fewer humans who understand those systems. Which means when problems do arise—people can be left unable to deal with them. Human factors engineers call this “the automation paradox.”

 

This movie is basically this in the worst way - like, the people who do know how to deal with it turn it against you and then the robots try to kill you and you can't stop it. This is not the kind of future I want to live in. But now I'm starting to think it's imminent...damn it.

[Cameron H. 23786]

*How long do you think it took Luther to make all of those stacks of fake, bound money, anyway? Why not just stick a Spider robot in the briefcase and let it spring into action when the guy he double crosses opens it?

 

Not only that, but who the Hell wants to deal in cash? I'm assuming these robotics guys are somewhat smart, why not force him to pay via wire transfer to a Swiss bank account? Luthor may be a murderous scumbag, but as long as he wants something only they can provide, they have the upperhand.

 

Take back the power fellas!

[seanotron 2307]

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

if you read the back cover blurb it actually sounds like a half decent sci fi. i love the list of not-so-special special features. surprised the movie isnt listed as one.... it has images, it has sound, youre welcome

 

and remind me to never trust a review from the los angeles herald examiner .. again