(machine beeping)
- What do those pulses indicate?
- [Scientist] What?
- Oh, the beeps and blips.
We don't know.
- Some of our information about outer space
may no longer be completely accurate.
Anyway, there's still only nine planets
in the solar system as far as we know.
Billy?
- Except now there's an alien.
(spacecraft rumbling)
- It's a film that takes place around 1955
in this fictional town called Asteroid City.
These junior stargazers and space cadets
get interrupted by this world-changing event
with an appearance of an alien.
- I would describe it as an ensemble movie
about a bunch of characters who are,
don't think they're probably anything like each other,
or don't seem to, or appear to have a lot in common.
But then pretty quickly
through a series of extraterrestrial events,
realize just how similar and undifferent we can be.
- This film, when it came to me,
it was during the quarantine time, and it was so...
It was like this hopeful thing to think about and focus on
in a very uncertain time.
And getting to talk to Wes,
it was so wonderful to connect with him
and have somebody to...
Even in the kind of isolation that we're feeling,
we were both talking about the same thing.
And it just felt, gave me so much life in a very weird time.
And I think in this film, these characters are,
you know, kind of in their own worlds,
not necessarily really orbiting each other.
They're very much in their own thing.
And then this unbelievable thing happens
where they suddenly realize that they're actually
kind of more human than otherwise.
And they're forever changed because of that.
- As Jeff Goldblum says, you know,
he's playing the alien, but you know-
- He's more of a metaphor. - He's more of a metaphor.
(both chuckling)
You know?
I think one of the common threads through Wes's work
is this sense of irony-
- What's happening now? - I don't know.
- and playfulness.
I think he expresses those things through this film as well.
And it becomes more lyrical, more of a poem,
and a meditation on things,
which allows for the audience to drift in and out
of thoughts and feelings in a way that's personal to them.
I think it's just part of the life
and the world that Wes has created.
- They're filled with so much fear when they see the ship
and the alien comes down.
And then we get the glimpse of the alien
who's trying to kind of pose for a picture
and looks really sweet.
And then the military swarms it, you know,
it's just like the fear,
just the tremendous fear of the unknown,
when in fact there was nothing to fear at all, right?
When the alien comes back and drops the asteroid back off,
he was just doing inventory.
Just kind of, like, undercutting that level
of tremendous kind of nervous fear
that we seem to feel all the time.
To me it feels there's a comment on that for sure.
- Yeah, and I think there...
Instead of fear there can be a reaction of wonder-
- Right. - of curiosity, of connection.
And so the fact that we were in quarantine,
we had each other, so we were fortunate in that way
that we weren't isolated on our own.
That we a actually had a little community
that we were quarantined with
under the kind of mystery of having this sighting together.
So that was kind of exciting. - Yeah.
- These characters in the world of Asteroid City
all disperse once the quarantine is lifted,
and they all must go to their various states
or wherever they're from.
But who are they gonna talk to about this experience?
Like, they're the only other people that know
what it was like to, and I guess we as viewers are too,
so it kind of connects us to them.
But like, just when you're talking about like,
reaching out to someone, like in a...
Talking to Wes, like, having this thing in common.
And, like, it's interesting.
What do you do when you were just a handful of people
were part of something mesmerizing?
How do you continue to live with that and, like, share that?