michael would have loved this

I think he's just old and watches PBS like old people do because modern media confuses him.

Unlimited power, unlimited lasers, scary little British guys running around - and they still lose to a farm boy with a bowl cut and a dog. If I was running the Empire? Over in ten minutes. No Death Star explosions, no rebels flying into tiny holes - we seal the holes, okay? You get a guy, he seals it. Not hard. I know holes.

And Darth Vader - lot of people say I’m like Vader. Big presence. Deep voice. Very strong breathing. Incredible cape. We used to do capes in this country. We’re bringing them back. Space Force wears them first. Long black capes, red trim. You see that coming across the moon? You surrender. Immediately. We tested it at Mar-a-Lago - the waiters looked fantastic, folks.

Oh yeah this story is incredible. There is evidence that these expeditions made it to north America. iirc the word for spear in Taino is the same as the word was in Mali at the time, and there were spearheads found in Taino territory that had the same unique blend of three different metals that were used in Mali at the time. So the theory is that these Malian explorers made it to north America, traded with locals and eventually integrated into communities in North America long before colonizers showed up

Edit: here's a fun lecture on the topic

Les Mie revolution is crushed by the state tho. Don't want to give him any more ideas.

Reagan became very worried about glitches in the nuclear warning system after watching WarGames. He developed the SDI program, which was often nicknamed Star Wars.

Just saw your edit, that wasn't even the reference I was making, there's just a lot of layers and parallels between the two lmao

I tried to rewatch it with my partner the other night (hence why it was on my mind) and unfortunately the cargo plane that blows up is mostly full of desperate people. Gerard Butler tells all the 'selected' people to get off because he sees the fuel leaking and knows it's dangerous. They run off it and a bunch of desperate, zombie-coded masses run on before the gunfire ignites everything.

(yes I am wearing my 'genius at work' tee shirt, why do you ask?)

I don't mind the ridiculousness - I'm kind of an OG Roland Emmerich disaster movie defender - but I just found it very dull the second time around. We eventually gave up and rewatchrd Contagion instead which still more than holds up, even though it probably wasn't the best thing to watch when I have the flu.