Unnatural Selection

Don’t get Sicilian Defensive as Camilla and Emma break down the very first limited series in Unnatural Selection History—The Queen’s Gambit! They get into the details of chess history, compelling orphan origins, and how hard it is to find good adaptation interviews from high lockdown in 2020.

Content warnings for The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis include: death of a parent, alcohol abuse, medication abuse, childhood drug abuse, child sexual assault, shitty adoptive fathers, and 60’s-questionable depictions of the story’s sole Black character.

Content warnings for The Queen’s Gambit (2020) include: suicide, death of a parent, alcohol abuse, medication abuse, childhood drug abuse, shitty adoptive fathers, and questionable depictions of the story’s sole prominent Black character.

The interviews Emma references for this episode can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX6SvqjBedY

https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/interview-audio-scott-frank-d9e8489138cc

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/28/950010157/queens-gambit-co-creator-scott-frank-wanted-to-explore-the-cost-of-genius

https://ew.com/tv/the-queens-gambit-netflix-scott-frank-interview/

https://www.theringer.com/2020/11/17/tv/the-queens-gambit-netflix-scott-frank-limited-series-godless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9gjJhyCyw

You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and Camilla @anteatermom.bsky.social. You can check out Camilla’s Twitch streams at WeAreAlexandra and the VODs at WeAreAlexandra on youtube. Emma and the Alexandrite System are both a part of the Moonshot Network. If you like what you’ve heard and want to support them, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork

The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com/https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com

Life finds a way and so do film adaptations. Join Emma and Greg to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Unnatural Selection’s third anniversary with the adaptation that both started their relationship and made Emma want to start this podcast—welcome, to the Jurassic Park episode! Emma and Greg get into the nitty gritty details of dinosaur development, blending lawyers and PR guys, and how sometimes making changes to characters based on who you cast makes things better, actually.

Content warnings for Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton include: dinosaur-related gore and death, death of an infant, children in peril, mild weirdly handled classism/racism, the folly of capitalism, and more computations than you’re expecting.

Content warnings for Jurassic Park (1993) include: dinosaur-related gore and death, children in peril, electrocution, and the folly of capitalism.

The book and articles Emma references in this episode can be found here:

Shay, Don; Duncan, Jody “Making of Jurassic Park” Copyright 1993. Published by Ballantine Books. New York

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/06/movies/film-visiting-jurassic-park-for-real.html

https://sffgazette.com/sci_fi/creating-jurassic-park-a-classic-interview-with-author-michael-crichton-a1296

https://abcnews.com/Entertainment/jurassic-park-turns-25-scenes-moments-iconic-summer/story?id=55332468

You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and Greg on discord at Hamamelis. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and was to support the network, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork.

The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com/https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com

Become a very technical boy with Emma and CJ as they break down how on Earth a $1.5 million pitch for a film of William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic became a $30 million Hollywood flick starring Keanu Reeves. They get into Gibson and director Robert Longo’s friendship, the fact a director’s cut does not really exist, and how sometimes editing is everything.

Content warnings for Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson include: violence, cyberpunk gore, vaguely questionable portrayals of trans characters, and a junkie dolphin.

Content warnings for Johnny Mnemonic (1995) include: violence, cyberpunk gore, slightly more questionable portrayals of trans characters, memory loss, mourning the death of a child, an epidemic taking place in the early 2020’s (but not that one), and whatever the hell is going on with the Preacher.

The articles and resources Emma and CJ reference on this episode can be found here:

https://www.wired.com/1995/06/gibson-4/

https://www.wordyard.com/dmz/digicult/gibson-8-4-94.html

https://www.screenslate.com/articles/johnny-mnemonic-black-and-white-robert-longo-interview

https://web.archive.org/web/20070627074200/http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/98-3/issue7/gibson.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-24-fi-5524-story.html

https://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/5140

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/30/johnny-mnmemonic-keanu-reeves-william-gibson

Smith PA, ed. Conversations with William Gibson / Edited by Patrick A. Smith. University Press of Mississippi; 2014.

You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and CJ on most socials @nearfutures. CJ is a part of Sly Robot Games and you can find more of his work at https://cjlinton.com/ including his game Bring Down the House, which Emma loves dearly. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and was to support the network, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork.

The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com