PLUS House Of Guinness

0:07Welcome to Pilot Plus, your extended guide to every show that matters. And this week, I am sorry to report, it's all gone very, very wrong. We'd wanted initially to review Monster, which is, of course, right up Steph's True Crime Alley. That's not a you for me. But sadly, the embargo was having none of it. But okay, that was fine because it presented an incredible opportunity, which is the Taylor Swift documentary on Channel 4 was then up for grabs. Oh my God! You best believe, though, that my tears ricocheted when we discovered that screeners of said Taylor Doc were not available. And so here we are, knocking on Stephen Knight's door once again, and we're reviewing House of Guinness, despite the fact that Boydie kind of stealth-reviewed it on Monday's podcast.

0:50But that said, that said, it's worth mentioning, this has definitely polarised people somewhat. Some people are saying it's the new succession, where one friend of the pod described it to me as Timu Peaky, which genuinely might be the best description of anything I've ever heard. Who said that? That's really clever. I promised I wouldn't say. Okay. But it's, yeah, that is genuinely tickled me. Maybe we don't think it's too me. Well, we're certainly going to find out. We're going to find out who's correct, though. So, Steph, you downed an hour-long pint of the black stuff and lived to tell the tale.

1:25So, please give us a full accounting of your Guinness world record. Okay. Well, I have to say, just full disclosure, my husband is half Irish, okay? and I recently was in Dublin with the Irish people. I went on the ferry and it was a trip I very much enjoyed. With the Irish people. I'm telling you now, going to Ireland with Irish family is such an incredible experience that you should try and get someone Irish in your family to go to Ireland with. Anyway, yes, so I love Ireland. It's beautiful and wonderful. However, this was not obviously because it's set in the 1800s, right? So it's not the island that is the island now.

2:09But when it first started, the House of Guinness, I was like, oh, this is an advert. This just looks like an advert. And Boydie had alluded to this before, saying how they do the thing, which then, what is the name for it when they put up the words really massive on the screen? Is there an actual term for it? I mean, they're just very highly stylized title cards, aren't they? I don't know if there's a - It's too much. It's too much to begin with. It looks like a whiskey advert. And that's what it looks like to begin with. So I was a bit like, oh, this looks like it's going to end like an advert.

2:40However, as it went on, I thought, no, this is okay. This is okay. Then the soundtrack was a little bit too gangster rap. But my husband said, oh, no, no, no. That is Irish hip hop. This is hugely authentic. And he thought it was the best show ever. He thought it was absolutely brilliant. Is he a fenian, your husband? I have no idea. He thought it was great. And he said to me, what you will never understand about this stuff is it's going to speak to the Irish youth. And I was like, is it? Yeah. And I felt quite ignorant because I was like, oh, I don't think this soundtrack quite lands. And he was like, no, no, it really does land.

3:22This is actually, if you listen, you know, they're rapping in Gaelic and it's actually incredible. And I was like, oh, okay, actually that is really good. That put a whole new spin on it. So when I kind of got into it from that perspective, I thought, actually, this is really good. Yes, it is a bit poor man's peaky in places, but James Norton is the person I think that kind of brings it together because he's so scary as kind of the boss of the Guinness factory. I thought all the female characters were very good. I would say it's really, I don't know about you guys, I found it really hard to follow the story because there was a bit of an assault on the senses in terms of soundtrack, explosions.

4:09So actually, if I'm being totally honest, by the end of it, I wasn't quite sure what had happened. Do you know what I mean? It was a bit like, at the beginning, the father dies. So then the whole thing's right. So the father dies. They're trying to get the funeral cortege through Dublin. There's a big attack. Like, you know, people on both sides are screaming and shouting and it is a bit of an assault. You feel very much in the centre of it, but you're not quite sure what's happening. Is that fair, would you say, Boyd? Yeah, I know what you mean, yeah. Yeah, kind of like you see, you know, they set alight all those barrels, don't they?

4:49And, you know, who are the people who are setting alight the thing? Yeah, it's really hard to know who's on what side and obviously there's an internal battle with the brothers of the Guinness family that are left. And so it's kind of, so there's an internal battle, there's an external battle. It's hard to know without understanding, and maybe it's a fault of mine that I don't really understand or have very much knowledge about Irish history. It's quite difficult to unpack. Would you say that's fair? Yeah. What's slightly odd about this show Is that the title cards Are you referring to That's it title cards Should we give them a name Are you referring Steph to the size of them Or the way they come up Both things I find offensive I'm going to call them smash cards Smash cards is great They are now smash cards What's weird about those things Is they flush them up And sometimes it's just Dublin 1872 Which is fine.

5:50Which is fine, right. Exactly. But then what they do throughout the series is they also flash up facts. Yes. Right? They often do a thing about how much is this money in modern day times. They do that kind of consistently. Oh, this£10 ,000 in those days is£100 million now. And they do like fascinating facts pop up on screen. This is not horrible histories. You don't need those. No, I agree you don't need those. And it's very much drawing attention to its own artifice and its own kind of gimmickry when it does that. And I don't think it needs to do that. And I've done a bit of a 180 on this. I've been a bit of a reverse variant because I carried on watching it.

6:33I thought I'll give it more of a chance. So I've now watched like five episodes of this. And you're right. They don't immediately make it clear what these rioting kind of rebellious Irish Lithuanians. And why? Basically, they are Irish Republicans who are campaigning against the Guinness family's, you know, associations with the British. Like their autonomy of the whole. Yeah, they'll do anything. The Guinness family, as depicted in the show, it's all about capitalism, isn't it? So the big idea of the show, I think, is Stephen Knight's kind of point, one of the things he's trying to say is, it doesn't matter what the political situation is, the capitalists, the rich Guinness family in this case, will do whatever it takes to advance their business, including going to America and dealing with dodgy people there, dealing with the British and not supporting Irish republicanism, which is why those people throwing Molotov cocktails at the carriage as it draws up in Dublin, that's who they are.

7:32But you're right, it kind of plays out in a way, in a sense, that you kind of, by osmosis, realise that they're facing quite a lot of political unrest, and there's lots of people campaigning against them without making it really clear via an entitled card or anything, for example. A smash card. A smash card. And yet smash cards do tell us lots of trivial stuff that isn't really important. So, yeah, that's my long-winded answer to your point about smash cards. See, now I understand it more. But what I would say is, yeah, those smash cards at the beginning should say, it's this time. These people are fighting for this.

8:08These people are fighting for this. And in the middle of it, you've got the Guinness family. And that would be a great way to utilise the smash cards. See, I'm not sure I would agree. Oh, God. Because sometimes I think... How surprising. There you go. Yeah, I'm going to be contrary because that's, you know, my whole thing. But I think sometimes it's quite nice for them not to spoon feed you all of the context. I quite like sometimes having a vague idea of the time and the players and then almost having to feel my way through the politics of it. No. So that I understand then, you know, I want to be surprised.

8:41his bike i don't want it all spelled out especially as a historical thing you can look it up but then you're in the middle of like a massive fight and you're like who the fuck am i rooting for i think but i think there's a there's a feeling right because you see a lot of sort of like working class people throwing things at the casket of a rich dead man so that's that's you understand the class struggle right off the bat i don't think you need to know the politics yes and then james norton who clearly works for him who we've always seen he's a bit of a sort of ray donovan character but he works in the kind of factory and he's like your foreman time and he slips on that impractical but massive wooden knuckle buster and starts lamping them with it and i thought the way that was shot it had so much energy to it it was really kind of an electric bit of direction i should say like this this this show fascinated me because this screams otto bathurst to me or bathurst i don't know quite how you pronounce his name who obviously gave peaky blinders its distinctive vibe it's rock and roll feel and also it's anachronistic style with like that music that he put in you know red right hand nick cave at the beginning of that first episode you know all of that stuff was very otter now this is tom shanklin and he hasn't worked on peaky to the best of my knowledge so he did work on sas rogue heroes which obviously has smash cards and a lot of this stuff in there as well it's very that but it's interesting i'd be fascinated to know how much of that is tom shanklin thinking all right this is what stephen knight is for the my touch point my reference point is peaky or whether stephen knight now who almost has a i mean i won't say he has a distinctive star because the man has so many arrows to his bow and they're all extremely different but if you look at sas in particular and peaky blinders and this these three things that he's done and i think thousand blows to a certain extent they all have that slight rock and roller kind of feel to them and i wonder how much of that is in the screenplay like how much of it now he injects oh i think it's it's largely in the screenplay but yeah you know he's i think i i think this is his shtick and i can and i initially he has many shticks though to be fair he does not just in comparison to a thousand blows yeah i don't know The Thousand Blows, that's similar.

10:36They're all very, I think they're all very, Stephen Knight has come up with this very self-consciously stylish, cool way of doing period dramas. These are almost all, aren't they? We're talking about period dramas. And it's like his own private revolution against the twee, costume drama format of old. Yeah, that's a good point. So these are all smash your face in, huge title cards in all of them. Like, S.A.S. Rogue Heroes has even more than this. It does. It's very big on the smash cards. Very big, very big. So, I find it all a bit self-conscious. And yet, actually, in this case, and I really like S.A.S.

11:15Rogue Heroes as well, in this case, it does seep into your bloodstream somehow, the storytelling and the characters. And by episode three, I've been won over. And I actually think episode three onwards, it really picks up and it really starts to take off when you know these characters. Like, you know, like, for example, with that one, it's going to go into Anthony Boyle's character, Arthur. He's going through a lot of stuff in his private life. And that ends up being not just a subplot, but a key element to the whole driver of the story and all of that. And I think the way it deals with that is actually really interesting.

11:47I know you're, and maybe it is like we said before, you have to maybe watch another one. For me, I did not care about anyone. Like, I didn't care about anyone's story in this at all. And for me, and maybe that, I don't want to say it's a female perspective on it, but I feel like I needed to have like, there needed to be someone in there that I really cared whether they lived or died. And I couldn't care less. All I really cared about was whether James Norton was going to get on with the sister. And I was like, oh my God, is that going to happen? Because that is really exciting. And he is so, I mean, he's just so charming.

12:23And he, you know, is incredible. Obviously, you can just watch him. Well, he's nasty. I mean he's really He's really He's really Horrible I know I know But he's one of those ones That you actually like Love That's what he goes for You know Bad boy But I just Do you think that's a fair point That actually in this first episode Though that you don't Yeah I agree There's an introduction Of so many characters There's so many So much conflict It's hard to care Yes My critique of the first Episode is It's much It seems to be much more Into establishing It's cool Vibe Yes Which it does very well It does very well Right It looks amazing.

12:58And the character's all looking brilliant, by the way. It's beautiful shots all the way through the whole thing. Like, the way it uses light and dark and, you know. Yes. The alleyway scene is amazing. Yeah. I do think the focus is too much on establishing the coolness of it rather than giving us characters. No, I always find the do we care about them thing. You know, are they? But you're right. I didn't care about them much either. But by the time you get to episode three, and there's, like, arranged marriages going on and stuff like that, it gets a bit Bridgerton. actually, with episode three, in a good way.

13:30And by the time you get, then you start to care about them more. Particularly, I would say, Anthony Boyle's character, Arthur. And so I really liked it from then on. There's also a wild role for Jack Gleeson. Remember Jack Gleeson from Game of Thrones? Joffrey. He has an amazing transformation. He's the one they send to New York to do their business there. And he's fantastic in it. And he's almost unrecognisable from Joffrey. and is very funny and entertaining. So I think it takes too long to get going because of the whole cool thing and the smash cards. But once you get into it, I am now fully on board and I will probably finish it.

14:09Why do you think that he's done that when we're in a time where we're used to that? Do you know what I mean? We're used to that kind of thing. You don't need to take that time to establish the cool. You know his work. You know that he's cool. I disagree. I think the average person doesn't necessarily think, oh it's a Stephen Knight show I think that's going to be especially on Netflix and we get it but most people on Netflix are like what is this it's got Guinness in it do you know what I mean it'll be oh it's a period drama and you've immediately got it like Bridgerton does this Bridgerton is a period drama but it establishes very early on it is different it is cool it is anachronistic you will love this even if you don't like period dramas you might not like Downton Abbey you will like Bridgerton and it's not just because it's wall to wall sex in the first season so it establishes its cool credentials and I think what this does immediately it says it basically it gets you in there it says this is fucking rock and roll like this is not some fusty you know 19th century period drama it is rock and roll and while you're not necessarily 100 on board with the characters and you don't even necessarily like them but then that's true of succession as well like as he balls character didn't like wasn't overly interested in louis partridge didn't like wasn't overly interested though i was curious to the fact that he wants to run the business and he's having a negotiation with his brother about the succession before his dad's even cold that's interesting but i was also I was also very interested in, you know, James Norton's character, who is, as you say, kind of roguish and dangerous and has an interesting influence on the sister.

15:26And even Niamh McCormack's character, who's the kind of the Fenian organiser, she's not hugely well drawn in that first episode, but you're interested and you're interested in that angle. And so from my perspective, I was like, I don't really understand the politics of these characters. I don't necessarily understand the history of it, but I get that there are these sides that have issues and I get that there's fireworks. and also it was just really fucking cool. I think, I think people will stay for James Norton from the first episode because James Norton is James Norton. I would say that. I think if you, because that's why I would stay.

15:58He is, I can confirm James Norton. You know what I mean? Like people will, he's the kind of actor that people will watch anything he's in. He's a big draw, yeah. Like he's the draw. So you're like, oh, it's a, if someone goes to you, oh, it's a James Norton thing. You'll be like, oh, right, well, I'm definitely going to watch that because it's James Norton. But I, yeah, I do have that real problem with, I think you've got to, I think in the beginning, it's also not clear who James Norton is. It took me a while to figure out that he wasn't one of the brothers. And maybe I've just been, is that me being stupid?

16:29I think that's good storytelling. It's better to avoid clunky exposition. Oh, no, I want to know. This is what David Simon used to talk about when he did this, this kind of lean forward storytelling. And he was like, he doesn't like TV that spoon feeds you stuff where you just sit supine and the TV show watches over you. He wants you to lean forward and actually have to work to understand it because it kind of engages the audience. Yeah, but you're working too hard. Like you have to, I totally get that. There has to be an air of mystery. You have to like want to like, it has to unravel in some way.

16:56But to not unravel at all and be like, who the hell? Who are these? These people are fighting. I don't know what the hell, who's he? How's he related to him? You can't, that's just a mind mess. You know, it's too much. A mind mess, yes. But equally, like you also have to think about that this is a Netflix show. A smash card and mind mess. A smash card and mind mess. But this is a Netflix show, which means they all drop at once, which means they don't need you to be interested enough to tune in next week. They only need you to be interested enough to not turn it off when the next episode queues up.

17:26Yeah, okay. And I think it does that. I think with its kind of rock and roll music, with its smash cards, with its kind of sexy people in it, it makes you think, do you know what? I will watch another one. And I think that's kind of all that first episode needs to do. Well, I'm telling you, Liam Brendan George, half Irish, thought it was absolutely fabulous. the Amber George and the Amber George is the test isn't he well as you know yeah you know I mean his Frenchies fan is famously okay listen he's finished Netflix but he said it was really clever and it was brilliant the way they'd done you know they'd got all the Irish hip hop in there which obviously I had no idea that was Irish did you guys know that was Irish hip hop in there absolutely not no isn't that really I mean that for me is interesting I'm quite a basic bitch though it has to be said there's something that just tickles me about anachronistic soundtrack stuff like it just gets me which is obviously exactly what it's designed to do it just you get there's something just inherently exciting about you are so not a basic bitch well anyway with stuff like this it really it really works on me that like they walk down in kind of slow motion and it's playing some popular beat combo banger i can't name any of the songs for the soundtrack okay i'm like steven knight that is yeah i'm like i fucking love it and i know it's manipulative and i know it's it is timu peaky in some regards but it still fucking works i see i'm in the middle of a bit i i i was with steph for the first couple of episodes and i wasn't really bothered about it and i thought it was i as i i think i can do without all the with the smash cards and the and the and the anachronistic songs and the i can do with all that i think it's become a bit of a stephen knight cliche now to be honest which is something that i don't think but i think it's something that viewers do not do not speak ill of the creator of my beloved sea i know which has no smash cards i'm worried what's going to to James Bond, it's going to be James Bond 1956 smash card.

19:11Oh God, don't say that. If there is a smash card in a James Bond film, I'm just going to say, I'm just going to say, while you are right, he definitely has this in these, like you look at The Veil, that doesn't really have this star to it. Look at fucking, you know, Maria, right? Do you know, like he has range. Spencer, he has range. I know, I know, but in terms of his period, his big period TV dramas, this is what he's going for now. This is the way he deals with them. Yeah, and I just think this one didn't need so much of it as it's got. But having said that, you know, I had been won over by the time I watched episode three.

19:47So, you know. And you did retain the facts about how many pounds we're in this day and age and all that kind of stuff. Well, I haven't retained those facts. No, I have not retained those facts. But so I kind of, I mean, I don't mind. I've got over the gimmickry and that's fine. and I've accepted it because the stories and the characters are engaging enough to carry on. And so, yeah, I'm coming with it now. But, yeah, and I think it's good. I think his big skill of not resorting to clunky explanation, exposition is a good thing in answer to, you know, he does show us by and large who these people are, what they're capable of, what they're doing, et cetera, et cetera.

20:25James Norton, yeah, you do need time to realise he's the fixer rather than a brother. I mean it's quite bold isn't it for him he's a huge star it's quite bold for him to take on what's essentially a supporting role because he's not in it nearly as much as the brothers right quite rightly it's their story is he not no no he's a fictional character totally fictional creation whereas the others are based on actual people so it's quite interesting that he's he's taken the role in the first place but I think it is he gets to do a lot of stuff shall we say as it goes on you know extreme stuff in all kinds of ways so So it must have been what he gets to do was the attraction of it and the lavish Netflix budget for a Stephen Knight show.

21:05But, yeah, it doesn't spoon feed you. Apart from the smash cards, it does not explain in a clunky way what's going on and who's doing what to who. You just have to kind of immerse yourself in it and you will get the hang of it. You will get the hang of it. Okay. Well, James Norton wears a lovely coat. What can I say? Yeah, I liked his coat. It was a good coat. It's great from a fashion point of view. There's a really gratuitous penis shot, I warn you now, in episode three. James Norton's penis. Suddenly Steph is back on board. I'm not going to say whose penis it is. All of humankind, should I say.

21:40But I think... It is, it is. No, it's a gratuitous... Oh, Steph's out again. I do think, oh, this is a really gratuitous penis shot. You know, bravo. Well done to everyone involved. Okay. Something for everyone to look forward to. I saw a film recently, which I thought was interesting. It was a romantic type film. and it had it had lots of you know sort of love sequences in it but the only full frontal nudity was male I thought that was refreshingly unusual so what film did you see I can't tell you it's embargoed oh what's that it's not very important or a big film when you know I'm trying to get what that is no it's it's it's yeah it's not Brett Goldstein's penis is it it's not it's not although although I loved that film and that divided the Empire Office although I love Brett Goldstein's penis I do love Brett Goldstein's penis.

22:27Yes, that's what I was saying. Was Brett Goldstein in to see you? Because he was in the office the other day. He was in to see Chris, yes. He was in to talk to all of you. And everyone was going wild. Yeah. Like, people were going actually crazy. Did you hear? No. There was, like, a meeting. I was in a meeting room, and someone came in and was like, Brett Goldstein's in the office. He's in the kitchen. And then everyone was like, well, let's just leave the meeting and go and talk. And I was like, I don't think so. I don't think the people from Empire would appreciate that. I really don't. I seem to recall when we had Bradley Cooper in for a web chat, all of like close that and heat and grazie was suddenly down in our office for some reason even though they've never visited us before i know yeah i know didn't even bring cake anyway house of guinness which is showing now on the netflix oh yeah yeah in full now this is the next week where obviously k is not here therefore we do not have a miss k versus the post bag instead once again you are forced to survive mr james versus the triage system so i'm gonna fire up fire up the mailbox and just randomly pull stuff out of it but before I do anything else I am going to I'm going to address something that HK Phil brought up last week when he asked me to talk about foundation and I didn't do it and I'm not going to do it now either but I am going to say just for you Phil just for you Helen O 'Hara is coming into the office on Thursday we are going to do a foundation season 3 spoiler special I saw it about 10 months ago I remember almost nothing but fuck it that's the length of detail you're looking for I'll try and brush up beforehand And we're going to delve into it all.

23:48So we will have the Foundation Spoiler Special chat up. I want to say Friday. That might be optimistic, but I'm going to give it a go. I love Helen O 'Hara. Who doesn't love Helen O 'Hara? We've established that. So, okay, let's begin with this one. It comes from Rachel. Oh, my God, James. Are you, sorry, when you, this triage system, sorry, I thought you at least had like a bit of a rudimentary look at that. you're not looking at it you're literally just going through the inbox it's like a Kinder Surprise I literally just click on an email no because Kinder Surprises are delightful and enjoyable and you get a toy at the end you do yeah so the thing is what we find out now is whether the toy is a good toy or whether it's one of those really shitty toys that they have in the Kinder Surprise so this is where we're at so that's the surprise will it be a good toy or a shit toy no pressure Rachel I don't know if this is a shit toy it might be so I'm going to read it we'll see where it goes if it's really unfortunate or racist we'll cut it out it's all easy so there you go great great that's the three-hour system in a nutshell great rules okay go for it good rachel god rachel come on do me proud thank you for reading our email apparently we read her email uh let me scroll down she's got the previous email where she had oh this was this was okay okay just to to give this some context because i have now scrolled down uh she's a new mum or was a new to a seven-week-old little boy, Atticus, who has heard every episode of the podcast.

25:13Do you remember this? Congratulations and fantastic name, Rachel. Yes, it is a good name. But anyway, so Rachel and Atticus have written in again. This is almost certainly not going to be racist. This is great. Thank you for reading our email. Just thought I would follow up and say, Atticus isn't a fan of Foundation. It's not on my sofa list. But he has listened to a lot of Star Trek. I say listened as he can't see more than 8 to 12 inches away. Thank you again for the continued company at 3am feeds and early morning coffees. Love, Rachel and Atticus. P.S. James Bond and if bellend might be Atticus's first word.

25:49Let's just say I'd be in trouble if it was. And at this stage, it's more likely to be engaged or famously. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, Rachel, I've been there at those 3am feeds. And the last person that I would want to listen to at 3am is James Dyer. I mean, harsh but fair. harsh but fair alright let's move on to the next one this comes from Kat hey lovely podlets I've been watching and enjoying Alien Earth it's great it looks amazing it's tense and suitably gross but it is so disappointing to see that they haven't credited H.R. Geiger in the credits there is no Alien franchise without Geiger's singular talent and invention his contribution to science fiction in general cannot be discounted given how much Alien changed the landscape of sci-fi as a whole to see the creator of the creature the series is literally named after being snubbed in this way seems disrespectful what are your thoughts should the artist always be credited even once their creation is being designed by others if so should we stop crediting authors whose books are loosely adapted for film and television as well thanks cat ps geiger is pronounced giga with two hard g's just in case k isn't sure or indeed james it turns out uh yeah i've always called him hr geiger but in the back of my head even as i was saying it i did think i'm pretty sure it's pronounced giga So HR Giga.

27:05Stephanie, strong feelings about HR Giga? I think credit where credit's due. I think people should always be credited for any kind of original concept. Just always. I mean, Jesus Christ, how long are those bloody credit rolls? I mean, just chuck another name in. What's the issue? I mean, there is that. What's the harm? It probably comes down to legalities, doesn't it? Because if you are the author upon which a story is based, I believe you have a legal right to ownership of said work and subsequent works because you generated the story uh hr geek was obviously brought in to do design work and that's not the same so he doesn't have ownership of the of the concept or any of that it's you know yeah but it's like that lady from nike it's like that nike story isn't it like she did she designed the tick there's a little thing yeah it's i don't know and i feel like i think it's bad yeah i was surprised i was actually i assumed they did credit him i was really surprised they don't um just because the xenomorph alien is such an iconic design by him.

28:07That's the first thing you think when you think about an alien, apart from Sigourney Weaver. The way they deploy the xenomorph is increasingly annoying in the series, as I've mentioned. I mean, that's wrong, but that's funny. But for some point, in Predator Badlands, it's not going to say, based on a creature designed by Stan Winston. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but I think that it should say that. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it should say that. I think everything has an origin story and you should have that full credit in there. What harm is it? I mean, he's no longer with us, is he, HL?

28:38He died a while ago. So I wonder whether, you know, What are you trying to say? So if you die, then he's dead now, he won't there. Boy's like, he's never going to know. I almost think from the creator's point of view that they may have paid more attention to crediting him if he was still with us. Well, that's very rude. I think they should have just, just because he's passed. Because he could have sued, you know, because it's such a significant element. I don't think he could have sued. Why not? Because I don't think he has any legal right to it, I wouldn't have thought. Because he was paid to just do design work and it's just a job.

29:12In the same way that a production designer on any, I mean, obviously he was a surrealist and he's an artist. Like, it's not quite the same thing. But a production designer doesn't generally own the look of a thing they design. I would not have thought for a film. It's owned by the studio because they pay them to do a job. They do the job and they have it. They commission them to design this thing. I know but it just doesn't seem right does it no yeah I think I think it seems right I think it's what's interesting about this conversation is it like I think a lot of what we're talking about is because he is he is a quite a high profile artist and because his design is so distinctive that's why we're talking about whereas if it was any other like do you know who designed the mask and scream good point and and would we ever say based on the mask designed by bob schmidt like no that you know no actually not a good point because the masking screen no a terrible fucking point right the masking the mask that's just based on munk it is actually based on minks the scream isn't it yeah that's not yes what did you call him monk isn't it is it not pronounced munk i would say monk monk monk it's not munch what would you say edward monk is it monk munk or munch oh i think it's i think i'll go okay all right that's another time i've got giga wrong so do you know what i mean okay um no not the same at all i think and also i suppose the other point from that is you get into the world of merchandising as well because think about i don't know it just is it's so globally iconic and like like i just said like when you think of alien that is the first thing that is the first image that pops into your head and because he is an artist in his own right it's a very tricky one I think out of respect what I would say is out of respect for him he should be included in the credits I'd be fascinated to know if they discussed it yeah no it would be interesting I'm pretty sure Ridley Scott is very good at crediting him with a lot of of alien success and a lot of you know the power of alien I think he because he you know he designed so much the whole world of the planet and the look at the weird, lots of weird elements to it, not just the xenomorph in the original Alien.

31:19And I think Ridley Scott is very good at acknowledging that. And I'm not sure the makers of this show are clearly as honored about acknowledging it. But I would have thought a nice, you know, based on a design by H.R. Giger would have been, you know, it would have been nice. I know, I see what James is saying. It's not something legally, okay, that has to be done. But I think his contribution is different and exceptional in comparison to, you know, the examples, the Scream example that you lamely came up with. Yeah, it was terrible. I originally said it was good, which is actually shit. No. So that's my point.

31:52Yeah, I think he's a unique, he has a unique contribution to this huge franchise. That's my feeling. And that's what it should have said. And thank you for his unique contribution. Yeah, that's what it should have said. And it didn't. It was an oversight. Yeah. Did I say that I've watched all of The Savant now? No, you didn't. you did not say that you'd watch all of the savant now i'm glad you liked it well actually actually we're going to keep that little bit in steph and i am going to go straight to a question about the savant okay and this one comes from amar and i believe we read out one of his questions last week and i was quite prolific in the post bag at the moment hello amar hey gang says amar i didn't agree with apple's decision to pull the savant but your discussion got me thinking about a broader point why does apple tv plus and apple's movie business exist in the first place it has great shows and big name talent yet as you mentioned subscriber numbers are relatively low and apple doesn't seem especially concerned so is it purely a prestige marketing wing of the company and if it is primarily about prestige do you think fewer high profile actors might want to work with apple in the future if politics are suspected of playing such a heavy role in the content decisions this might hit them harder sorry a few questions in there enjoy the week amma that is very that is a multi-layered question and it's very intelligent void will answer it for you um yeah i think it's got a point i mean what i think apple's the big question of why is that bothering with all this content i think they decided to climb aboard the content wagon years ago because kind of like it's what everyone's doing now all tech you know all the big companies are doing it it's like well apple it is weird to think though but But before they launched Apple TV +, you know, it was all about iPhones.