Episode 158: The Fifth Wall | Rick & Morty Season 4, Story Structure & Religion

After an eventful couple of weeks, we’re back in the studio with the conclusion of our mini episode series on science fiction film and television. This week, we’re getting schwifty with insights from Season 4 of Adult Swim’s Rick & Morty. Through the particular lens of Season Four, Episode Six: Never-Ricking Morty (you know, the one with the Story Train), we’ll explore what it means to be postmodern sci-fi. We’ll discuss Dan Harmon’s signature “Story Circle”—an adaptation of Joseph Campbell’s comparative mythology research—and the layers of in-universe and out-of-universe commentary this episode achieves. Like, it’s so meta. Plus, what happens when stories become the basis of entire belief systems—from Jesus Christ to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to Rick Sanchez himself…

—

Find out if your state offers free COVID-19 tests and get tested through Project Baseline. Thank you for wearing a mask and protecting the health and safety of your community.

__

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 157: Rage Against the Machine | Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Greek Myth & Technology

We’re back. In the fourth installment of our science fiction mini-series, we’re taking on another iconic sequel (and finally succumbing to the lure of James Cameron) by covering 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The sci-fi-action-blockbuster that spawned some of cinema’s most quotable moments also deals in massive questions of human responsibility, technology, destiny, and compassion. We’ll discuss Sarah Connor as an analog of Cassandra, the cursed prophetess of Troy, and the film’s parallels to a widespread mytheme. Plus, what is SkyNet? What is the technological singularity? Is the future set, or are we bound toward the same destruction via many paths? Come with us if you want to live… and learn!

—

Find out if your state offers free COVID-19 tests and get tested through Project Baseline. Thank you for wearing a mask and protecting the health and safety of your community.

__

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 156: The Kobayashi Maru | Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Mythology & Shakespeare

“Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space.” That’s right, friends, for the first time in our three years of podcasting, we are heading where no man has gone before and taking on the beloved Star Trek franchise with a deep dive into 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Considered the best of the Star Trek films, The Wrath of Khan is simply dripping with literary references, from the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. How do all these dizzyingly complex texts inform the philosophy at the heart of the story? How does this science fiction film conform to age-old revenge stories while also functioning as a naval war story in space? How do reason and passion—two powerful thematic forces in the Star Trek universe—find harmony in the characters of James T. Kirk, Spock, and the inimitable Khan? Beam up with us for the answers to all these questions and more… Part 3 of a short series on sci-fi in movies and television.

—

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 155: Kane's Son | Alien (1979), Greek Mythology & The Body

As we continue careening through the vacuum of space in our mini-series on sci-fi classics, we’re picked up by the commercial ship the Nostromo. A strange creature lurks on board… This week, we’re discussing Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror/science fiction mashup ALIEN. We’ll explore the ancient themes that resonate from Greek mythology into this modern masterpiece, and we’ll discuss how the persistent mind-body problem suffuses this intensely visceral film. A movie that masterfully tackles questions of gender and sexuality, survival and heroism, humanity and monstrosity. Don’t forget—if we break quarantine, we could all die.

—

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 154: Starchild | 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mythology & Philosophy

Open the pod bay doors and join us beyond the infinite as we dive deep into Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this first part of a mini-series on sci-fi in movies and television, we’re starting with what many consider the greatest science fiction film ever made (and we don’t disagree). We’ll explore some of the myriad readings of this ambiguous and powerful piece of visual storytelling, discuss themes of evolution and progress, and offer some insights into the unique collaboration of Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. We’ll decode some of the visual and auditory symbols, bringing analysis from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. How does Kubrick fashion a sci-fi masterpiece that works its magic on the unconscious, stirs our “mythological yearnings,” and infuses Romance and poetry into the cold vacuum of space? All this and more on this week’s odyssey.

—

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

(BONUS) The Wheel of Ka: Coda

Just when you thought the Wheel of Ka was over, and after 7 books of re-reads and discussion about Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, Derek and Steve return with the coda. We sat and reflected on the time, and gunslinger-esque dedication it took to complete our side project, and realized we had just one more episode of the Path of the Beam. In an interview style bonus, Derek asks Steve several questions about the books, what connects them, their strengths, their weaknesses, and debate like two old stars in a constellation over Midworld, locked in dialogue, trapped in gravity, and forever repeating.

We hope you enjoy this bonus, and remember, all things, even the Beams serve the Tower, why would this podcast be any different?

—

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Episode 153: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road | The Wizard of Oz, Mythology & Americana

I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. Skip with us down the Yellow Brick Road in this long-overdue discussion of the 1939 MGM classic The Wizard of Oz. As the concluding subject of our five-part series on nostalgic films, we’ll explore the template Wizard sets out for the other films in our series—Back to the Future, Hook, Beetlejuice, and E.T. Why is The Wizard of Oz so baked into the collective unconscious? Does it earn a place among Classical mythology and folklore? Can it be read as a feminist text, or does it perpetuate the tragic messaging that girls and women should eschew ambition and adventure? All these questions, plus Dorothy as the existential hero and the influence of Shakespearean drama. Let’s go over the rainbow!

—

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

(BONUS) Norse Myths, Tolkien & More with Author Joshua Gillingham

In a very special Midnight Myth Bonus, we sat down with Joshua Gillingham, author of The Gatewatch, an epic troll-hunting adventure inspired by the Norse Myths and the Icelandic Sagas. For an hour+, we nerd out about all things Norse: from common misconceptions about the Era of Viking to Loki’s most outrageous antics to the evolution of trolls and dwarves throughout time. We also get the opportunity to discuss how profoundly the Norse myths and Icelandic Sagas influenced the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, and therefore, much of contemporary fantasy literature.

The Gatewatch by Joshua Gillingham is available now. Grab your copy (or e-book) from Crowsnest Books or order from your local bookstore.

Want to learn more about Norse Mythology, the Vikings, and Scandinavian Folklore? Start here!

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

The Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings by Dr. Kevin Crossley-Holland

The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods & Heroes

John Bauer, painter of Scandanavian Folklore.

—

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!