Comments on: They're Made out of Meat

They're Made out of Meat

CrunchyFrog — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 08:42:52 -0800

A short story by Terry Bisson (discussed earlier) has been adapted to the very small screen as a short film.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 08:57:52 -0800

Hah, that's suprisingly good.

By: damehex

damehex — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:14:04 -0800

Cute! But the pacing is super terrible. Reads snappy on the page. Extra laborious onscreen here.

By: smallerdemon

smallerdemon — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:15:03 -0800

Bisson once gave a talk where I went to college. A very literary minded friend of mine (a guy who loves language, and poetry, and reading them aloud) went up on stage with Bisson to read this story. Nothing, not even this short film, has ever touched how fantastic my friend and Bisson read it together. It's one of those moments that after it has happened you look back on it and appreciate it tremendously. I'm sure Bisson has done it before, but it's one of those moments where the two right people at the right time doled out the dialogue perfectly. You could tell Bisson loved the read of it too. :)

By: caddis

caddis — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:37:49 -0800

I liked it

By: Dipsomaniac

Dipsomaniac — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:46:04 -0800

It's a shame that they edited the dialogue. I think that they took out some of the best parts. Still, surprisingly good. "We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?" They shouldn't have taken those out.

By: Staggering Jack

Staggering Jack — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:46:59 -0800

I thought it was good . I wished they could have used the line "Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

By: potch

potch — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:48:53 -0800

The soundtrack is awesome. I watched it twice just for the music.

By: BillyElmore

BillyElmore — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 10:22:15 -0800

The short story is always better than the short film, it seems, but it's always good to see meat do well.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:05:25 -0800

Meatfilter.

By: A189Nut

A189Nut — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:11:52 -0800

But the aliens are meat...

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:07:15 -0800

It's time to meet the meat!

By: BillsR100

BillsR100 — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:47:40 -0800

my favorite line......."They talk by flapping thier meat at each other"

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:52:29 -0800

"You're riding in the Cash Cab!"

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:53:56 -0800

I agree that the pacing is terrible. Damn you, Tom Noonan!

By: Potsy

Potsy — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:57:00 -0800

But the aliens are meat... Yeah, that kind of ruins it. When they are sitting there dicussing the way the meat makes sound, they are already doing just that in their (presumably fake) human bodies. It's much funnier to imagine two pure energy beings sitting comfortably in their ship, discussing the meat beings.

By: Dipsomaniac

Dipsomaniac — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:31:41 -0800

I was thinking the same kind of thing, Potsy. I think I would have done the film in voice-over style, and not shown the aliens at all.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 14:42:07 -0800

What's up?

By: neuron

neuron — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:15:45 -0800

"The aliens will contact us when they can make money by doing so." -- David Byrne

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:18:59 -0800

If they have a word for meat, then they must already be familiar with some kind of animals. In which case, they would compare our capabilities not with the intermediate* material we're made of, but rather with those animals with which they're already familiar. *Intemediate meaning in this case more specific than "matter", or "carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen", but less specific than "bone, sinew, muscle, organs".

By: Dipsomaniac

Dipsomaniac — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:42:21 -0800

Not necessarily, George_Spiggot. Maybe they're using the word they got from the Weddilei.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:43:29 -0800

I wondered where the incredibly photogenic Victory Diner was. A google image search made short work of that question. It's in Staten Island. (scroll to bottom.) NYCers probably knew that.

By: pjern

pjern — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:53:58 -0800

Metafilter: Sentient Meat

By: empath

empath — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:07:40 -0800

The fact that it's two people made out of meat talking about other people who are made out of meat completely ruins it for me.

By: spazzm

spazzm — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:27:51 -0800

This will be much funnier when it can be performed by robots.

By: batou_

batou_ — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:14:54 -0800

I think the should have used disembodied voices witnessing human actions like in 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Ahhh, but different... And, I'm with Dipsomaniac. The changes to the dialog were for the worse.

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 20:09:53 -0800

fucking stellar...thanks... solopsist, metafilter: the meat the the machine?

By: oraknabo

oraknabo — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 00:02:39 -0800

ehhh... But I do love Tom Noonan.

By: Feral

Feral — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 01:36:09 -0800

I love this story, but it's really meant to be heard rather than seen.

By: w0mbat

w0mbat — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:27:36 -0800

I love it when some idiot film-maker adapts a story he doesn't even understand.

By: Staggering Jack

Staggering Jack — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:40:44 -0800

I love it when some idiot film-maker. . . It did win the grand prize at the 1st Annual SF Short Film festival.

By: micketymoc

micketymoc — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:12:09 -0800

I think the should have used disembodied voices witnessing human actions like in 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Ahhh, but different... Or they could have ripped off MST3K and had a couple of robots riffing on "thinking meat... dreaming meat" while watching the meat on a movie screen. Then again, what do I know.

By: Julnyes

Julnyes — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 22:27:59 -0800

I've always loved the line "They're meat all the way through." it makes me giggle every time I read it.