Maverick fought an alien invasion!

Hello, and welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real. As usual, I'll be your host today, along with my brother Leif. Today, we've got a special treat for you because director Joseph Kaczynski will be joining us. He's the director of such films as Tron Legacy, Oblivion, and the upcoming Top Gun Maverick. Make sure you stay until the end of the episode because he drops one of the biggest bombshells our podcast has ever had. So keep listening and don't miss it as we try to argue that the films Oblivion and Top Gun Maverick are in the same universe. I actually have a question for you. Who would win in a fight? Jack Harper from Joseph Kaczynski's Oblivion or Maverick from Tom Cruise's Maverick? Who would win in a fight? It's a good matchup though, right? Like they're both expert pilots. They're both main characters. This is a hand-to-hand fight. I think Jack Harper wins because he can fight. No, it's an airplane fight.

Jack Harper has his super space airplane. But he still wins. Now, if you had said Jack Harper versus Jack Reacher. Whoa. Whoa. Jack Reacher wins hands down. He's just going to keep on ringing. Jack Reacher is insane. He just beats up people in random bars for no reason. So he can just wait there for the policeman to show up. Yeah, to arrest him. He can be there when that policeman is arrested. Even though that would have happened regardless. He didn't need to go there to beat anyone up. He didn't need to be there. The guy wouldn't have been arrested anyway. He just wanted to beat them up. That was all. He just sort of beat up some guys. He's like, wait a minute. If the sheriff in this town is about to be arrested, I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. This is my moment. There's no law. This is like Wild West rules.

But wait, we're not here to talk about Jack Reacher. Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise, directed by Joseph Kaczynski, written at least partially. I think Kaczynski must have worked on the writing. He wrote the graphic novel that it was apparently based on, even though that graphic novel doesn't actually exist. It's unpublished. Kaczynski actually talked about this in an interview with Empire Magazine. He said that the writer's strike occurred in 2007, so he had a treatment for the film, but no way to actually write it. So they partnered with a comic book company called Radical Comics, which allowed him to continue working on the story with some writers by developing a series of images and, you know, just a couple story beats to go along with them. Oblivion was released in 2013. The graphic novel is credited to Joseph Kaczynski. Screenplay is credited to Michael Arndt and Carl Geidisek. Yeah, I think grammatically it's Michael ain't.

Really? A-R-N-D-T? or michael isn't no i'm just oh you're so smart dude you got me what's oblivion about can you lay it all out for me so basically it's about tom cruise doing this weird thing where he lives then he dies then he repeats that's the tagline everyone knows oblivion is about live die repeat so basically it's about a man living on the edge of tomorrow oh my god we're so funny we really are he partners up with a woman named victoria to defeat this alien menace and only no wait no realize that she also goes back in time whenever she dies sorry i'm still still going i've never seen edge of tomorrow you've never seen edge of tomorrow no i've heard it's great you should see it i think it's a really fun sci-fi movie it's based on a manga called all you need is kill oh there's a way better name for it i know isn't it i would have seen it why didn't they keep that name oh my goodness let's get back to it okay so oblivion

is about you wanted me to tell it right yeah but you weren't gonna so i was gonna i'll do it i'll do it i'll do it so this is about jack harper jack harper is played by tom cruise and his wife who we are going to call his earth wife for some reason named victoria they are tasked by a mothership in the sky that is supposedly helmed by a human woman named sally who gives them tasks every day and basically they are taking the Earth's water and like breathable air and sending it to another planet. Yeah, they're like converting it to energy is what they say. And I do think this is the best part of the movie and the greatest thing about the premise is that, whoa, as you might expect from that, turns out that they are parasites and they are working for aliens. They think that aliens are trying to stop them. But really, humans are trying to stop them and they're working for a mothership of aliens.

Sally is not real, just like the popcorn And they are stealing all of Earth's resources to send to Jupiter's biggest moon, where presumably the aliens might live. I don't know. No, I love it. Tom Cruise ends up finding his space wife, someone who he was married to before. Yeah, his actual wife. Turns out Victoria isn't really his wife. And also Tom Cruise, for whatever reason, is a clone of himself who every time he goes up to space gets reprogrammed and then sent back down. Is that right? I mean, I think they have hundreds and hundreds of him and Victoria all over the planet. And every five years they recommission them. Like they bring them back, kill them and send down another one. I have a few things that I want to say about Oblivion. I don't think we need to go through the whole movie like scene by scene just because our theory is like very self-contained. But I do want to say just because we're talking about the character of Jack Harper, who is

played by Tom Cruise, I really enjoy Tom Cruise as an actor. Of course, in his bigger roles, he's awesome. Like, you know, Mission Impossible is always really, really fun. But I especially like his smaller roles. Like, for example, Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder, I think, is his best role ever. He's so good as Les Grossman. Roy Miller in Night and Day, I think, is amazing. He's almost like a parody of Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible. Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher, also amazing, which we talked about. Oh, Jack Reacher. Wow. And let's not forget his best role on the Oprah show. On Oprah, dude. Tom Cruise went crazy. I was surprised at how many times he tries to break her hands. I know. In the real recording. Okay, so anyone who hasn't seen it, you can, of course, go and watch the clip from Oprah where Tom Cruise goes nuts. But what you may want to do, if you want a slightly toned-down version,

is just watch the ending scene of Scary Movie 4, which is a parody of that. Far funnier and less creepy. it's so good i love it well okay so tom cruise doesn't have any memories of his wife of julia who he finds except for the memory of going up to a tower where there are some like viewfinders when tom cruise goes into area 52 yeah does he start in area 51 no he starts in 49 and goes to 52 i think they deliberately avoided 51 just we don't want any crazy fan theories about this movie no but when he goes into area 52 i actually love that scene where he lands and he sees someone else getting out to do his job to fix a drone by and he's like what is going on here who could that be uh it's probably another technician and i love it because of all the questions this raises right like for him area 52 is supposed to be unbelievably like radioactive like you die as soon as you enter it and yet there's no radiation and then there's someone fixing a drone and then he gets closer

it's like what it's literally me doing my job fixing a drone here i love that scene i think it's awesome i think it was really really good he beats up area 52 jack harper takes his ship he comes back and the area 52 clone is gone yeah he's just gone so he left julia in a cave in full view of Area 52 clone. Yeah, you didn't even try to hide her. Who, Julia is dying. And also Area 52 clone saw her. And I love that he saw her and had the exact same, like, completely dehabilitating flashback where he gets totally immobilized. That's just how these clones act. No, that's just how they all act. They really, really screwed up the programming. It's such a good scene, I loved it. But anyway, he just got up, saw Julia dying, and then left. And then at the very end, Julia's just living alone, you know, in that little oasis with a daughter for some reason. And then that clone shows up because her Jack Harper died. Area 52

finally found her. And she's like, yay. Like, she's like, this one will do. This implies that that clone who did not lose his Victoria and was like actually affectionate towards his victoria saw julia once for a second and then went home did whatever version of divorce they have and left to find this julia he's like i'm done with you i want my space wife i actually think what happened is that he just went crazy and just wandered in the desert for two years until he wandered into that oasis he gets there with the entire resistance yeah just just coincidence It's like he was wandering and like, hey, turn this direction. He's like, Walker. You'll find it. But just like getting beat up by another version of self just ruined him. Just like, well, I don't know what to do now. I guess I'll wander around. That is a pretty weird thing to have happen. Have you ever been beat up by another version of yourself?

What does happen when Jack and Victoria complete their mission? So, Vitette wants to be able to control these clones. And I think the implication is that the longer they're out there, the more free will they get, like the less the brainwashing applies to them. So it gives them five years, after which time it brings them back, disposes of them, and sends down two new clones. Why does the Tet let Tom Cruise in? Because it asked him to bring Julia. That's the whole reason. The Tet killed Victoria and said, hey, Jack Harper, you didn't die. You know that girl you've got there? Why don't you bring her up? Why does it want her? It doesn't explicitly explain that, but it's implied that it believes she would be a more effective partner for Jack. That if it brainwashed her, he would do what it says. And honestly, the events of the movie make me believe that. Morgan Freeman, that was Morgan Freeman's plan all along.

Yeah, no, Morgan Freeman had the same plan. So I think the Tet made the right call. So here's what I really want from the Oblivion sequel. I want it to be about a couple who are married, who are working, doing the same thing, And it is Jack Harper, Tom Cruise, and Morgan Freeman. Now they're married. Because he brought Morgan Freeman up to the tent instead. No, it's true, he did. Well, that would be pretty cool. Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. Sally is like, I guess they're a more effective team. It's the person he brought. Oh, that would be so cool. Wow. They're like showering together. We are an effective team. Welcome home, dear. I've been here with my husband, Jack Harper, for as long as I can remember. Yeah, dude, he can narrate it. Five years ago. oh my gosh that would be amazing wow but no i i actually i really like the idea of the tet alien it doesn't make any sense for an alien species to send armies across space just to some little

planet in the middle of nowhere just to like conquer it that makes zero sense it makes a little more sense to just send a factory over there and then produce native species to conquer the planet for you, because you don't even know if your species can live on that planet, right? It makes way more sense to use something that's already there, and then you just send a factory. It's way easier to send that. I really like that portrayal of an alien invasion. It's kind of like the idea of the von Neumann probe, if you've ever heard of that. What's that? First thing is there's the Fermi paradox. You know what that is, right? Yeah, I know that. Okay, so obviously if we're not alone in the universe and there were aliens that evolved before us, they should have been able to spread out to all reaches of the galaxy by now because the universe has existed and galaxies existed for such a long time. Why haven't we seen them?

Right. The idea is that there is some sort of great filter that every species will go through that stops it from progressing. It ranges from the spectrum of them destroying themselves to them never having existed because the pure act of existing is so freaking difficult that no one's ever done it except for us on earth right that could be the great filter or maybe the most likely great filter is just developing a way to travel the unbelievable distances right right because it's ridiculous how far everything is in space it's true but see that's where this thing comes in is that like von neumann probes basically a species that developed long before we did but has the same capabilities as we do or slightly more advanced should be able to create robots that can spread out through the galaxy, find resources, and create more robots, and then spread out through the galaxy more in an exponential fashion. If you do the math on that, these

von Neumann probes, if they were ever developed, should have filled the universe by now. But that depends on when they started. But presumably, like, if there was an intelligence like us, assuming we're not unique, that had developed, you know, millions of years before us, it seems like they could inhabit the entire galaxy with robots. But we have no evidence of that, so clearly nothing has ever done that. What's the purpose though? You're talking about the paperclip maximizer here. If you create a probe that just wants to make more probes, what's the purpose? Why do I want to fill the galaxy? To fill the universe. Right. Why? Yeah, I don't know. But the point is that someone could have done that, but no one has. The only reason I was bringing them up is because the Tet in this movie is not exactly like that, but it is kind of similar. I mean, I think it's interesting that it's working in a similar fashion. It's just using humans as

its drones sending them to their own planet to mine resources for it that it is then using to presumably spread out to other planets i love it i think it's so cool to see what is basically a super indie 70s uh sci-fi as a modern blockbuster like that doesn't exist like you said it's it's steeped in the annals of sci-fi right like the theoretical stuff like von newman probes and i just think it's cool the way they put this whole universe and this whole alien invasion plan together. And how they do that, right? Like, it's cool. Lucky us. We've got Joseph Kaczynski here to talk about his movie, which is amazing because I got so many questions for him. Hello. Thanks, guys. I can't believe we get to talk to the legendary Joseph Kaczynski. It's going to be great. So there's an interesting theory about Oblivion that actually involves Top Gun Maverick, oddly enough. First of all, I want to say I actually love Oblivion. I

I think it has a really cool and unique concept of like a human doing his best to take care of the Earth. But actually, he destroyed the Earth. He just didn't know it. I think that's so fun. I love that twist. It really fits with our podcast and kind of putting twists on movies. But also, I love the atmosphere of the movie. There's kind of this like lonely solitude. I don't know if you've seen a movie called Silent Running. Yeah, of course. Silent Running was one of the inspirations for it. It was definitely in those 70s sci-fi. It was like Omega Man, Silent Running. And then I had all these, as a kid, I had all these illustrated science fiction books that by artists like Chris Foss, they just had these kind of incredible visions of what science fiction looked like, which was different than how it had been depicted in films at that point. So yeah, but yeah, 70s sci-fi, that kind of lonely last man on earth was absolutely the

kind of influence for that type of film. Back when sci-fi movies were less mainstream and more indie, when we were getting movies like Dark Star, Logan's Run even, right? Like there's a bunch of these really indie feeling sci-fi movies from back then. And I think at its heart, Oblivion is one of those indie sci-fi movies that just became a blockbuster when Hollywood got wind of it, right? Oblivion was conceived as a very, very small science fiction film because I thought it was gonna be my first film i wrote it in 2005 and thought it was going to be like a 15 million dollar really small science fiction film and then got a lot bigger than that when tom cruise yeah when tom cruise saw it and and heard kind of what i wanted to do with it it became it became a much bigger film but it still has the themes and ideas and kind of intimate nature of what i originally conceived it was just done at the very kind of highest level and had level of you know has the

aerial sequences and shooting in Iceland and building the Sky Tower and all this stuff that I never would have been able to do on a shoestring budget. Okay, so I actually I want to drop the theory on you guys now. I'm gonna tell you that there is a theory and I truly believe it having watched this movie, you know, a few times and really thought about it that Jack Harper, the main character of this movie is pete mitchell aka maverick from top gun that they are the same person not just that they are similar but that they are in the same universe they're the same person oh that oblivion is basically a shared universe no top gun that's just you might be thinking to yourself surely will not get confirmed how am i gonna prove this first of all they're both played by tom cruise so of course that helps a lot right but look at their personalities jack harper is a total loose cannon right like he flies around he ignores the rules he rides around his

motorcycle just wants to go play basketball but also you know he's a very skilled and very dedicated pilot right like he's top notch top gun sound like someone else we know sound like a certain pete mitchell a certain maverick who likes to fly around breaking the rules but is really good at his job yeah they're pretty much the same personality and more importantly both of them are canonically born in 1962 which i don't think that could just be like a coincidence i think that's purposeful there can't have been that many people born in 1962 no it's not like an entire year for people being born no what is the one iconic thing that maverick always has on his face a smile a pair of aviator sunglasses that's right he popularized the entire aviator brand they took off because of that movie well wait a minute jack harper also has a pair of special aviator sunglasses that he loves and wears in every single flashback to when he was alive

and still keeps and puts on a shelf in his cabin he's got special aviators those are iconic of top gun now what do we know about jack harper's profession well he's a pilot and he worked on a special mission with a experimental spacecraft what do we know about maverick from the new movie top gun maverick turns out pete mitchell maverick he's now testing insane space airplanes that's his job to test these experimental spacecrafts basically and top gun maverick takes place in the year 2019 even though it's now releasing in 2022 is that right right either 2019 or 2022 we'll see what they say when it releases but it was originally filmed as 2019 because that was when it was going to release right it is pre-pandemic but either way we know that the invasion in oblivion happened sometime before 2077 um many years before 2077 because jack harper who was born in 1962 was still alive and young yeah that's true and we know that since

he's the same age as maverick maverick would have been you know old enough for active duty and still flying spaceships around if that was his profession right like the timeline completely fits now i believe it's somewhat implied that the invasion happened in 2017 and maverick is in 2019 um so that could mess things out but i mean maybe the events in oblivion happened a little later than we thought right yeah i think the 2017 date comes from when jack finds his space wife julia he tells her that she was in delta sleep for 60 years he could have just been off by a little bit right like he doesn't know so yeah sure his memory has been wiped many times he has no clue well and that that answers another question why did he change his name from pete mitchell to jack harper i mean he has no memory the very first line in the movie was it's been five years since the memory wipe right like no you're correct and they've certainly given him false memories they changed

his wife to victoria but julia calls him jack so the only answer that i have for this is that she He also has a smooshed brain and can't remember anything. Before she calls him Jack, I think he introduces himself as Jack. So maybe she's just going along with it. I don't know. The only one who can answer this for sure is Joseph Kaczynski. So luckily we got him here. Surely he never would. Yeah. Yeah. They were both born in 62. They were some identical twins. They're both where ABA is. Wait, hold on. There was a rift in the space-time continuum creating two parallel storylines. One. Oh, my gosh. The Tet arrived and, you know, young Jack Harper joined the NASA and investigated the Tet. And then the other universe, which is the one we live in, Pete Mitchell joined the Navy and starred in Top Gun Maverick coming in 2022. There you go. You could definitely make an argument for that. And yeah, they are.

They're in the Tom Cruise shared universe, you know. That's amazing. I mean, you pretty much, that's the whole theory. You just said it. That would have to be it. Yeah, I'll buy that. That's so cool. That makes a lot of sense. i don't know if people know this but we made um oblivion cruise shirts i still have mine after we made the movie and it is the top gun logo but it says oblivion and it's 7f14 it has a above the logo so that was amazing shirt that's so cool and i still have i still have mine to wear it every once in a while oh man so then was directing top gun maverick is that like a dream come true for you yeah it is it's it's absolutely i mean i remember seeing top gun as an 11 year old kid you know in the theater in the summer of 86 you know i remember seeing you know jay bruckheimer's logo at the top of the movie and or his name along with don simpson and that was probably one of the first movies i'd seen tom cruise in and you know the way that tony scott

shot the aerials i mean that was the movie of that year uh yeah to be able to direct the to continue that story and work with Tom and Jerry and was, uh, an incredible experience. Awesome. That's so cool. No, I think this is a really cool theory. And I think that it pads out both characters. Like we get to see Pete Mitchell in a completely different environment. Now we get to see how he would act, uh, the kind of life he would live in a post-apocalyptic world. Like how often does that happen that you get to see the main character from like an eighties drama, just a straight up drama now in like a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world that's so cool that's so freaking cool i love this and then on the other hand we get to see this you know sci-fi post-apocalyptic drama man in you know as a young guy in the 80s and also in the in 2022 when maverick comes out we'll get to see how he's like then i wish that we could like go back and you know take

the main character um julia roberts from pretty woman and like i don't know put her in terminator right and see what happens wow like something like that right like that's what this is i think that's incredibly cool oh and she's fighting clones of richard gear like but it's the terminator inside his skin she's rich now and he's just a poor robot just trying to make a living i mean i have a lot to say about that movie so let's save it let's not say it we're gonna have another episode some things are better left unsaid well like what like you know when you blow your nose and a tissue and then you put it in your purse then you reach in for your lipstick or something and your hand pushes into it wait wait wait wait you're right some things are better left unsaid oh what a good movie anyone who doesn't know we're referencing top secret uh amazing movie. Not Top Gun, but it does have Val Kilmer in it. Yes, it does. He's amazing in it.

He's a good actor, dude. So there's this rumor circulating that Tom Cruise insisted, basically made an ultimatum that he wouldn't be in the movie Maverick unless Val Kilmer also starred in the movie. Is that true? Because I think that's pretty cool. We all wanted to figure out a way for val to be in the movie and um i think we were thrilled that we were able to do that and val wanted to be a part of it as well so you know i can't i can't say anything about the role now because you know the movie is not out yet but i'm i'm looking i can't wait for people to see tom and val together you know because that's one of the greatest rivalries of all time I know. I remember that locker room scene and to see those rivals, you know, become friends at the end of that film and how that relationship has evolved over the last 35 years is a lot of fun. We actually talked to Jack Epps, who wrote, you know, Top Gun.

And he told us, yeah, I know, it was amazing. And now we're talking to you. I'm so excited. So he told us that with Penny Benjamin, the story about how Maverick buzzed her house and got in trouble for it, he told us that that story was based on a story that they heard from an actual Navy pilot who did that. And the shockwave from the jet was so powerful, it knocked the house off its foundation. Incredible. I was just wondering. That doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise me. All the stories, you know, a lot of those stories from the first movie and, you know, from our film as well are all based on real, you know, stories we hear from naval aviators. Amazing. So, yeah, that doesn't surprise me one bit. That's a great story. Rumors abound that Jennifer Connelly will be playing Penny Benjamin in this movie. And I have to ask, are we going to see a flashback of this event where Maverick knocks her house off its foundation?

All I can say is, you know, you'll have to you have to see it on the biggest screen possible, you know, to experience it. Yeah. Yeah. Not too long. Well, thanks, guys. This has been a lot of fun. And I really appreciate the detail you guys went to asking those questions. I love it when fans, you know, really dig in and come up with their own theories. And I think that's what films are meant to do. They're meant to be discussed and debated. And so I appreciate that. That's our pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for taking the time. Hey, so what do you think of Oblivion now that you know that Maverick is actually Jack Harper, the main character of Oblivion? I think that makes him a very, when he is Maverick from Top Gun, that adds a whole backstory to him. You're like, oh, this is what he did. Of course he's flying around spaceships, dodging aliens. He doesn't do anything like that.

I love it. I think this is a really, really good theory. I love it. And dude, can you believe that Joseph Kaczynski confirmed it? confirmed it confirmed it his take was a little different than ours with separated twins but you know hey it's fine and it's completely confirmed because he is the director of oblivion and top gun maverick right well what he blew my mind with was that when he made oblivion and what was it 2013 that their shirts were the top gun logo top gun logo like he's been planning oh my gosh oh my gosh no like that means that they actually this guy's pulling like a popcorn is a real long con to get top gun maverick he is and that means that legitimately jack harper being born in 1962 was not a mistake and not a coincidence he was always on purpose he is he is pete mitchell he's maverick or at the very least his identical twin jack harper yeah oh my goodness oh man this has been like my favorite my favorite development in all of our

theories this is insane like i never expected this one no we've never had a director just straight up interrupt us to be like yeah yeah yeah yeah it's true okay here's how it happened no no he had his own like ready to go primed and pumped like theory he was itching to say i think he's believed this for years man man hey if uh if your mind was blown by that revelation just like ours uh get a hold of us on twitter uh leave a review on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts rate us uh follow us tell your friends about us because oh boy today we learned once and for all the popcorn is not real oh the popcorn isn't real popcorn so not real well it might be real music for this episode was provided by christine keep listening keep thinking up your own fan theories. And remember, the popcorn isn't real.