This has been a great episode so far (I've got about 50 minutes left to listen to).

I was three when Star Wars hit the theaters in 1977. My dad was in to photography and stuff so he enjoyed films and I remember having this Super8 reel of an abridged version of Star Wars. It was black&white and silent but you could watch a few scenes. We also had this LP (record) of the Star Wars soundtrack. I remember being five or six years old and I would load in the record on my families HiFi and sit in front of the speaker and close my eyes and watch the movie clips in my head while I listened to the music.

When I was 13, Cd's were just coming out and my dad took me to Circuit City to get my first CD player and CD. I chose this, a compilation of Star Trek movie soundtracks, as my first CD. It had music from Star Trek the Motion Picture through Final Frontier. This introduced me to James Horner. Unfortunately, this disk, along with half my CD collection, was lost 15 years ago when vandals set fire to my car. But, being inspired by your DiF episode, I just purchased it again from Amazon.

I was in band for seven years (from fifth grade to my Junior year in high school). I played trumpet and french horn but I never did anything in music after high school. I was second trumpet my freshman year and first french horn my Junior year and had three solos in our marching band performance, but I never learned to read music. I could read notes and play the keys on the instrument, but I could not sight-read. I couldn't look at the notes on the page and figure out the melody, I had to hear the music then I could play it. So, even though I was passionate about movie soundtracks, and could play a musical instrument, I never got into composing but instead focused on the camera side of film making.

Now my kids share my interest in soundtracks because I still buy them and listen to them constantly. My twelve year old knows the names of movie composers. His favorite right now is John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, and other Dreamworks flicks). But he also likes Trevor Rabin (National Treasure) and Hans Zimmer.

My favorites have changed over the years. I started with Williams, then Goldsmith and Horner, then to Zimmer. But recently I've really been mesmerized by Steve Jablonski. I could listen to The Island and Transformers all day long.

I had to go to Vegas yesterday for the day so I had eight hours of driving time to fill (4 over and 4 back) so I listened to several older DiFs again and one of them was Super8. After listening to your guys commentary again I think I realized the disconnect.

If you're expecting an alien movie then the kids story doesn't really fit in. Likewise if you are expecting a story about the kids trying to finish their film then the alien story doesn't seem to tie into that. I think you are victims of the advertising. You are trying to find the connection between the footage the kids shot and how it affects the alien plot, or visa versa. But you need to look at it through a different lens. It's not about the alien and it's not about the film. It's a boy meets girl story. In order for the two of them to get together, everyone has to learn how to let go of all the issues they have. The film they are making and the alien train crash are simply the devises used to get the boy and the girl together.

In the beginning of the movie it's the need of a female lead that first brings the girl into this boy's world. Then later it is the alien plot, specifically her being abducted, that finally brings them together in a meaningful way. It's the girl that teaches him to to stand up and not be pushed around by his bossy friend. Its his like for the girl that finally drives him to confront his dad. The plot revolves around the boy getting the girl.

I think the advertising set up an expectation that the footage they shot would have something to do with the alien plot. But if you look passed that with a clean slate, then I think you can see what the movie was really about. The boy gets the girl. And in order for that to happen, everyone had to learn to let go of their issues.

She's perfect. :-)
She was diagnosed with a TAPVR heart defect. The arteries coming from her lungs didn't connect to the heart so the oxygenated blood couldn't get into the left side of the heart and it back flowed into the right side and mixed with the un-oxygenated blood. So the right side of her heart was doing all the pumping and she wasn't getting 100% oxygen-rich blood to her body. They went in and cut the artery and the heart and stitched them together and now her system functions properly. They said there should be no need to ever go back in, it's a one-time fix.

10188 Star Wars Death Star
3803 pieces. It's also the most expensive set I've ever bought at $400. It took me and my kids about a week to build.

Le Freak

(oooooooohhhhhhhhh...   FREAK OUT!)

Super8 is one of my favorite modern movies. I would've loved to have been part of the live chat. Why aren't you guys announcing your sessions anymore? The release/record thread still says you're about to discuss the hunger games in April. There's been no activity on that thread for two months. I sometimes just go the live feed on a sunday afternoon only to find nothing happening. I once stumbled upon your comic con discussion but that was it.

Anyway, about Super8, I found the theme of "letting go" very clear. The creature just wanted to get home. By keeping him here and not letting go, the government turned him into an enemy. By blaming the drunk for his wife's death and not letting go of his bitterness, the dad made an enemy out of the drunk. The boy couldn't let go of his mom and thus made an enemy of his dad. Everyone needed to learn to let go.

Now about the creature and his ship, he needed some sort of energy source to reconstitute his ship, he couldn't just do it on his own. The airforce knew that, that's why it was no issue to transport them together. The creature still needed some sort of energy source to work with, that's why he was taking all of that hardware. They brought the cubes back into town to catch the creature. The airforce guy tells the Dr. That they are going to bait him and catch him. The cubes were the bait to lure the creature out. What they didn't know was that the creature had built a machine to reconstitute his ship. Maybe the creature had some sort of electrical aura or magnetic field around him that caused all the tech around him to go haywire. Maybe the machine he made just enhances and focuses that energy, I don't know. That part of the story isn't explained very well I agree.

I just love the feel of this movie. It definitely has some imperfections but it just feels good. It's a sappy, Spielberg, 80's, feel good movie. If I could walk out of the theater feeling this good after any movie then I say it's a success.

Hey, pastormacman here. Im from the tfn forums where I went by the screen name "jedipastor". I'm the guy that made all of those "religious" light saber fights. I've been lurking on these forums here at DiF for a while but I don't think I've properly introduced myself. I want to become a more active member of this community.

I found DiF from an invitation post that I believe Teague put on tfn. I got hooked right away. At first I was disturbed by the incessant foul language that I thought was unnecessary but have come to realize that it was just the way it is. I figured that if I wanted everyone here to tolerate the religious overtones in my films and still be able to appreciate my saber fights then I can do the same. I consider DiF to be a genuine guilty pleasure for me. My wife doesn't like to listen and I won't let my kids listen, but I certainly enjoy it. I've learned so much about the industry and the technique of filmmaking and I really enjoy the fun way you guys deliver your information to the masses. As long as you guys keep making podcasts, I'll probably still be downloading them and laughing to myself in my headphones.

About me:

I'm the media director at my church. I live in Bakersfield, CA, just over the mountains north of Los Angeles. I'm the father of three, two older boys and a new baby girl. She had to have open heart surgery at a week old to correct a heart defect back in August but she is in perfect condition now. I've been making videos as part of my job for over ten years now. Before that it was a hobby of mine since high school. I currently shoot with a Canon 5D and am hoping to direct a feature sometime in the future. Just gotta find a good story. (not one of those typical "religious" stories that play on the hallmark channel, those bore me to tears) My favorite movie is "Empire of the Sun". I saw that when I was 13 and it was the first time that I understood the language of cinema. That was "the" movie for me, the movie that solidified my desire to tell stories using a camera.

Went to a keynote here at NAB today. Two of the speakers on the panel were Rob Legato and the Woz. Rob showed some effects breakdown clips from Hugo. Woz, who's with FusionIO now, showed off an new PCI card for workstations called IOFX that effectively puts 420GB of RAM into your desktop workstation through the PCI bus. After Effects CS6 utilizes it to get 1.4Gb/s real time renders in After Effects. The room full of Prost production guys seemed to like it quite a bit.

1) The Dark Knight
2) Unforgiven
3) Batman Returns (just for you Trey ;-)
4) Super8
5) Citizen Cain
6) Battlefield Earth

These are all movies I either know really well, and can just listen to the commentary while I drive, or would enjoy watching again. This is why I just couldn't pull the trigger on Airbender. I've only seen it once and have no intention to ever see it again.

I apologize in advance for the long post.

Trey, you make a big point in this commentary that theists have a problem accepting that atheism could be right, that in doing so they must accept that they could be wrong. I don't remember hearing whether or not you accept that theism could be right and that it is possible that you are wrong. To me you come across just as dogmatic as you claim we are.

Is it possible that I am wrong in my belief? Of course. Does accepting that possibility make me second guess my choice? No. I have my own experiences that build the foundation of my faith.

Most people misunderstand faith. God never asks us to have blind faith in Him. All throughout the Bible He tells His people to remember what He did. He is called the Faithful One. You don't get to be called faithful unless you have proven yourself in the past. My boss knows I'm faithful because I have come through for him time and time again. Faith does not negate proof. Faith is the inevitable outcome of proof. I have experienced things in my life that act as proof on which I have built my faith. Just because you have never experienced such things doesn't mean that my faith is unfounded.

Where God does ask us to have blind faith is in something He has promised that hasn't come true yet. In those cases He asks us to look back on all the times that He did come through and it helps us to believe in the yet-to-be-fulfilled promise. God is not unreasonable.

In Contact, Ellie experienced an event that caused her to have faith in something she couldn't prove to anyone that didn't experience it. Her intellectual honesty forced her to admit that she could be wrong but it doesn't appear that that admission caused her to lose faith. She still believed that she really experienced that event even though she couldn't explain it or rationalize it to anyone else.

I'll give you one event in my life. Just one out of many. I had a really bad pain in my side, I didn't know if it was maybe a hernia or my appendix or something, but it hurt inside my body. It was late on a Saturday night. I was working on a video that was to play in church the next day. My wife had brought me a late dinner and I had just got to a finishing point and had the computer render the timeline. I was in so much pain, I got off my chair and collapsed on the floor holding my side. As I laid there I heard footsteps outside my door and in walks my boss, the Senior Pastor. He said he was driving by on his way home and God told him to stop by the church. He asked if I was ok and I said no, I'm in a lot of pain. He put his hand on my side and began to pray. As he was praying, I felt heat begin to come from his hand, like someone had placed a heat pad on me. His hand didn't start off hot, it heated up. My side heated up. I had never in my life experienced anything like that. He finished praying and the pain was gone. The pain had been with me all day since 8 in the morning and it suddenly went away. He left, I finished the video and went home. You can call me a liar but I EXPERIENCED it. My wife and kids were there and they saw it happen.

I have a lifetime of experiences that has built my faith. Could I be wrong? It's possible. I may be attributing things in my life to God that might actually be caused by something else. Perhaps I cannot scientifically link the events to a supernatural being, but I cannot deny the fact that these events did happen to me. What I have is a theory (belief in the God of the Bible) that happens to fit the facts (events that have happened to me).

My question to you is, do you accept it as possible that you could be wrong? Or are you willing to throw out all my life's experiences that I myself have lived through as nonsense just because you have never experienced it?

(I don't mean for this to sound personally directed at you Trey. You were just the one who repeatedly made the statement and I was responding to that. This is really a general question that I put out there for everyone.)