WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.919 Okay, let's unpack this. I want you to picture, 00:00:02.120 --> 00:00:05.240 you know, the most famous story in Western history. 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:09.980 The story of Jesus. You know, the beats. The 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:12.480 manger, the shepherds, the robe, the sandals, 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:15.460 the hill outside Jerusalem. You got it. It's 00:00:15.460 --> 00:00:18.820 an image that's pretty deeply ingrained in the 00:00:18.820 --> 00:00:21.079 cultural consciousness, regardless of what you 00:00:21.079 --> 00:00:23.559 actually believe. Right. Now, I want you to take 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:26.000 that image and just... Throw it out the window. 00:00:26.140 --> 00:00:28.760 Right. Instead, I want you to imagine the nativity 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:30.699 scene didn't happen in the Middle East. Imagine 00:00:30.699 --> 00:00:33.880 it happened in, well. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:35.880 That is certainly a choice. And imagine that 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:38.600 instead of robes, everyone is wearing like leather 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:41.539 trench coats. And instead of Roman centurions, 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:45.079 you have this futuristic dystopian police force. 00:00:45.299 --> 00:00:48.039 Right. And the whole thing is set to a rock opera 00:00:48.039 --> 00:00:50.380 soundtrack that sounds like it just fell out 00:00:50.380 --> 00:00:52.960 of a time capsule. From 2003. Oh, yeah. Exactly. 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:55.079 From 2003. You're painting quite the picture. 00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:57.039 We are, of course, talking about the project 00:00:57.039 --> 00:00:59.859 known as Hero. And we have to emphasize that 00:00:59.859 --> 00:01:01.780 the exclamation point is at the beginning of 00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:04.370 the word. It's vital. It's not just hero. It's 00:01:04.370 --> 00:01:07.769 hero. It just screams early 2000s excitement. 00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:10.349 It really, really does. It's a very specific 00:01:10.349 --> 00:01:13.150 artifact of its time. So here is the mission 00:01:13.150 --> 00:01:15.829 for this deep dive. We are looking at a project 00:01:15.829 --> 00:01:19.250 that came out in 2003, which attempted to answer 00:01:19.250 --> 00:01:22.969 a really wild what if question. What if Jesus 00:01:22.969 --> 00:01:26.269 was born in the USA, specifically in the Rust 00:01:26.269 --> 00:01:29.890 Belt, and grew up to lead a revolution in... 00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:32.349 like a cyberpunk New York City. It sounds like 00:01:32.349 --> 00:01:34.409 fan fiction when you put it like that. But this 00:01:34.409 --> 00:01:36.790 was a massive production. Oh, it was huge. The 00:01:36.790 --> 00:01:38.810 sources we're looking at today are clear that 00:01:38.810 --> 00:01:40.909 this wasn't just an album. It was a multimedia 00:01:40.909 --> 00:01:43.829 universe. Right. We're talking about a rock opera, 00:01:44.049 --> 00:01:47.250 a nationwide tour, a DVD release, a trilogy of 00:01:47.250 --> 00:01:50.370 novels. And this is my personal favorite, a series 00:01:50.370 --> 00:01:52.129 of comic books. And what makes this deep dive 00:01:52.129 --> 00:01:54.269 so interesting, you know, beyond the letter codes 00:01:54.269 --> 00:01:56.709 and the rock music, is that it is a fascinating 00:01:56.709 --> 00:01:59.409 study and adaptation. How so? Well, the creators... 00:01:59.469 --> 00:02:02.269 took these ancient texts, the Gospels, and tried 00:02:02.269 --> 00:02:05.250 to forcefully transpose them onto a near future 00:02:05.250 --> 00:02:07.909 setting to make them feel immediate. The sources 00:02:07.909 --> 00:02:10.449 keep using the phrase street smart. They wanted 00:02:10.449 --> 00:02:12.870 a street smart retelling. Which is really just 00:02:12.870 --> 00:02:15.830 code for modern, gritty, and urban. They wanted 00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:18.009 to strip away all that historical distance. Yeah. 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:19.889 If you read the Bible, it feels like ancient 00:02:19.889 --> 00:02:21.930 history. If you watch Hero, it's supposed to 00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:24.469 feel like watching the evening news in a dystopia. 00:02:24.830 --> 00:02:27.469 So before we get into the wild casting choices. 00:02:28.379 --> 00:02:32.319 And believe me, the cast list is insane. We need 00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:35.139 to understand the world they built. For sure. 00:02:35.259 --> 00:02:37.039 Because reading through the background lore, 00:02:37.219 --> 00:02:39.879 this is not the New York City we know. This place 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:44.240 is terrifying. It is. They didn't just change 00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:46.699 the costumes. They changed the geopolitical reality 00:02:46.699 --> 00:02:50.250 of the entire Earth. The source material describes 00:02:50.250 --> 00:02:54.009 the setting as a near future dystopic Earth. 00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:56.409 Right. And the whole planet is under the thumb 00:02:56.409 --> 00:02:59.590 of a global government called ICON. Which stands 00:02:59.590 --> 00:03:01.430 for the International Confederation of Nations. 00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:04.310 Exactly. And, you know, in a lot of sci -fi, 00:03:04.469 --> 00:03:06.550 a global government might be a good thing. Like 00:03:06.550 --> 00:03:08.330 in Star Trek, you've got the Federation. But 00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:11.669 here, the text explicitly states that ICON rules 00:03:11.669 --> 00:03:15.360 with an iron fist. It's a totalitarian regime 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:17.439 that controls everything. And here's where it 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:20.500 gets really specific to the genre. ICON hasn't 00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:22.520 just taken over the economy or the military. 00:03:22.719 --> 00:03:25.900 They've gone after culture. Specifically, they've 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:29.340 wiped out almost all religion worldwide. And 00:03:29.340 --> 00:03:32.400 that is a classic trope in that Christianity 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:35.199 versus the government genre of fiction. Totally. 00:03:35.219 --> 00:03:38.000 The idea is that the state sees faith as a competitor 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.460 for loyalty, so they just eliminate it. The sources 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:43.599 note that nearly all faith systems are gone, 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:46.770 replaced by allegiance to ICON. But there is 00:03:46.770 --> 00:03:49.009 a loophole, and I love how specific this detail 00:03:49.009 --> 00:03:51.569 is. The summary mentions that while most religions 00:03:51.569 --> 00:03:54.169 are gone, Judaism is the only ancient religion 00:03:54.169 --> 00:03:56.710 that survives and flourishes. As much as it can 00:03:56.710 --> 00:03:59.050 under this regime. Yeah, as much as it can. It's 00:03:59.050 --> 00:04:01.330 a necessary plot device, really. Yeah. I mean, 00:04:01.349 --> 00:04:02.669 if you're going to retell the story of Jesus, 00:04:02.830 --> 00:04:05.229 you need the Jewish context. You can't tell that 00:04:05.229 --> 00:04:07.009 story without the prophecies and the cultural 00:04:07.009 --> 00:04:09.250 background. Right. But since they moved the geography 00:04:09.250 --> 00:04:11.069 to America, they had to move the religious center, 00:04:11.150 --> 00:04:13.289 too. Right. There's a note here that says there's 00:04:13.289 --> 00:04:16.279 only one synagogue left in existence. And where 00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:18.819 is it? It's in Brooklyn. Of course it is. So 00:04:18.819 --> 00:04:21.139 in this world, Brooklyn is basically the new 00:04:21.139 --> 00:04:24.379 Jerusalem. In a narrative sense, yes. It becomes 00:04:24.379 --> 00:04:27.300 the center of the spiritual conflict. But it's 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:30.480 not a nice place to live. The source describes 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:35.300 New York City in this timeline as a police -occupied 00:04:35.300 --> 00:04:38.160 war zone. Police -occupied war zone? I mean, 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:40.689 that is a heavy description. Well, it reflects 00:04:40.689 --> 00:04:42.610 the anxieties of the time. Remember, this is 00:04:42.610 --> 00:04:45.910 2003. We're post 9 -11. The idea of New York 00:04:45.910 --> 00:04:48.769 as a target or a place of conflict or under heavy 00:04:48.769 --> 00:04:51.490 security surveillance was very real in the cultural 00:04:51.490 --> 00:04:54.370 psyche. CRL just takes that anxiety and dials 00:04:54.370 --> 00:04:56.610 it up to 11. Totally. So you've got ethnic gangs 00:04:56.610 --> 00:04:58.829 fighting in the streets. You've got these small 00:04:58.829 --> 00:05:01.009 revolutionary groups trying to fight back against 00:05:01.009 --> 00:05:03.389 ICON. And the police are just cracking heads. 00:05:03.769 --> 00:05:06.470 It sets the stage for a very high stakes narrative. 00:05:07.100 --> 00:05:09.139 This isn't a peaceful countryside where some 00:05:09.139 --> 00:05:11.100 teacher is walking around giving sermons. Yeah. 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:14.420 This is a powder keg. And into this powder keg 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.240 steps our protagonist. Okay. Let's talk about 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:19.720 the protagonist and the cast in general. Because 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:21.819 if you were following the Christian music scene 00:05:21.819 --> 00:05:26.319 or CCM in the early 2000s, this cast list is 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:28.740 like the Avengers assembling. It is effectively 00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:31.779 a super group. Yeah. The producers didn't hire 00:05:31.779 --> 00:05:34.750 random actors. They went out and got the front 00:05:34.750 --> 00:05:38.149 men of the biggest bands in the genre to voice 00:05:38.149 --> 00:05:40.490 these characters. Leading the charge, playing 00:05:40.490 --> 00:05:42.470 the character named Hero, who is the Jesus figure, 00:05:42.649 --> 00:05:45.129 we have Michael Tate. A massive name. I mean, 00:05:45.149 --> 00:05:47.649 for context, he was one third of DC Talk, which 00:05:47.649 --> 00:05:50.050 was arguably the biggest act in that world in 00:05:50.050 --> 00:05:52.290 the 90s, and later became the lead singer of 00:05:52.290 --> 00:05:54.790 the Newsboys. Right. He has this very powerful, 00:05:54.930 --> 00:05:58.110 soulful pop rock voice. Casting him just signals 00:05:58.110 --> 00:06:00.360 that this is going to be a polished... big budget 00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:02.040 production. And then you have the supporting 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:03.920 cast. And this is where the adaptation choices 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:06.379 get really fun. They didn't just move the setting. 00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:09.579 They localized the names to sound more New York. 00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:12.139 Well, that's a key part of the street smart strategy. 00:06:12.259 --> 00:06:14.579 Yeah. If you have a guy in a trench coat named 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:18.240 Simon Peter, it just feels anachronistic. It 00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:21.079 breaks the immersion. So in Hero, Peter becomes 00:06:21.079 --> 00:06:23.980 Petrov. Petrov. And he's played by Mark Stewart. 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:27.129 Who is the lead singer of Audio Adrenaline. He 00:06:27.129 --> 00:06:29.990 had this really raspy rock and roll voice. It 00:06:29.990 --> 00:06:33.069 fits the character perfectly. Petrov isn't a 00:06:33.069 --> 00:06:35.350 fisherman. In this version, the disciples are 00:06:35.350 --> 00:06:37.709 usually depicted as part of the street element. 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:39.730 And then you have Mary Magdalene, who becomes 00:06:39.730 --> 00:06:42.730 Maggie. Played by Rebecca St. James. Yeah. Again, 00:06:42.730 --> 00:06:45.250 huge star power there. She was basically the 00:06:45.250 --> 00:06:49.009 pop princess of that era. Right. And Maggie sounds 00:06:49.009 --> 00:06:50.810 like someone you'd meet at a diner in Brooklyn. 00:06:50.990 --> 00:06:53.110 It grounds the character. It's clever if a little 00:06:53.110 --> 00:06:55.430 on the nose, like Judas Iscariot becomes Jude. 00:06:56.089 --> 00:06:58.810 Jude works well, though. It sounds contemporary. 00:06:59.009 --> 00:07:01.310 Hey, have you seen Jude? Sounds natural. Have 00:07:01.310 --> 00:07:03.470 you seen Judas? Sounds like a Bible study. True. 00:07:03.730 --> 00:07:06.089 But the one that made me laugh in a good way 00:07:06.089 --> 00:07:09.870 is the antagonist. We have the chief rabbi who 00:07:09.870 --> 00:07:12.290 represents the religious establishment that opposes 00:07:12.290 --> 00:07:15.050 Hero. In the Bible, that's Caiaphas. And Hero, 00:07:15.129 --> 00:07:17.569 his name is Kai. Efficient. Very efficient. And 00:07:17.569 --> 00:07:21.029 Kai is played by John Cooper. Explicitly mentioned 00:07:21.029 --> 00:07:23.829 in the sources, John Cooper from Skillet. Now, 00:07:23.910 --> 00:07:26.550 Skillet is a hard rock band. They got really 00:07:26.550 --> 00:07:29.290 huge later on. But even then, they had an industrial, 00:07:29.509 --> 00:07:34.389 heavy sound. By casting him as the villain, they're 00:07:34.389 --> 00:07:36.829 using that aggressive vocal style to characterize 00:07:36.829 --> 00:07:39.189 the opposition. It codes the religious establishment 00:07:39.189 --> 00:07:43.050 as industrial and threatening. Exactly. And Kai 00:07:43.050 --> 00:07:45.589 isn't working alone. He's conspiring with the 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:48.389 secular authority. In the biblical text, you 00:07:48.389 --> 00:07:50.670 have the Roman Empire. Here, you have police 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:53.089 chief Devlin. So instead of a centurion, you 00:07:53.089 --> 00:07:55.529 have the chief of police of a dystopian NYC. 00:07:55.629 --> 00:07:57.689 It maps perfectly. Okay. You have the religious 00:07:57.689 --> 00:07:59.490 leader, Kai, and the law enforcement leader, 00:07:59.629 --> 00:08:02.310 Devlin, working together to maintain order against 00:08:02.310 --> 00:08:05.120 this new revolutionary threat. But there is one 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.560 character who is unique to this telling. He's 00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:10.000 not in the Bible. He serves as our guide into 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.139 this world. Right, the narrator. Yeah, the narrator 00:08:12.139 --> 00:08:14.420 is a guy named Agent Hunter, played by Paul Wright. 00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:16.980 This is a fascinating narrative device. Agent 00:08:16.980 --> 00:08:19.279 Hunter gives the whole thing this kind of noir 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.459 detective story vibe. His backstory is that he 00:08:22.459 --> 00:08:25.000 is a former ICON agent. He was part of the oppression. 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:27.779 Right, the text says he met Hero, joined him, 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:30.399 and was thrown in prison. So the entire opera 00:08:30.399 --> 00:08:33.320 is framed as his flashback. It's a testimony 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:35.980 from inside a prison cell. Oh, interesting. I 00:08:35.980 --> 00:08:37.940 used to be one of them. Then I met this man, 00:08:38.019 --> 00:08:41.440 and now I'm here. It adds a layer of mystery 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:44.159 and grit that a standard third -person narration 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:46.720 wouldn't have. Okay, so we've got our cast of 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:48.720 rock stars. We've got our dystopian Brooklyn. 00:08:49.559 --> 00:08:52.139 Let's look at the actual story arc. We started 00:08:52.139 --> 00:08:54.740 with that hook about Pennsylvania. How does that 00:08:54.740 --> 00:08:57.120 actually play out? Well, according to the source, 00:08:57.379 --> 00:08:59.639 Hero is born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Okay. 00:09:00.139 --> 00:09:02.399 But because the world is in chaos, or remember, 00:09:02.539 --> 00:09:05.200 it's a war zone, his family is forced to flee. 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:08.279 So the flight to Egypt from the original story 00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:10.960 becomes a flight from Pennsylvania to the Jewish 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:13.399 slums of Brooklyn. Correct. They flee to the 00:09:13.399 --> 00:09:15.240 only place where their culture still exists. 00:09:15.500 --> 00:09:17.940 He grows up in this enclave in New York. And 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:19.980 then, just like in the original narrative, he 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:22.259 disappears for a while, grows up and starts his 00:09:22.259 --> 00:09:24.440 public ministry. But since he's in this police 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:27.009 state, his message hits differently. Yeah, the 00:09:27.009 --> 00:09:29.230 source says he begins to preach and teach the 00:09:29.230 --> 00:09:31.669 principles of Christianity to the people of New 00:09:31.669 --> 00:09:35.590 York. Specifically, he's teaching people to love 00:09:35.590 --> 00:09:37.629 their enemies and care for each other. Which 00:09:37.629 --> 00:09:40.610 honestly sounds nice and fluffy, but in a totalitarian 00:09:40.610 --> 00:09:42.570 regime, telling people to love their enemies 00:09:42.570 --> 00:09:46.129 is basically treason. It is incredibly subversive. 00:09:46.370 --> 00:09:50.590 If ICON rules by fear and division -pitting gangs 00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:54.429 against each other, then a message of universal 00:09:54.429 --> 00:09:57.830 love creates unity. And unity is the one thing 00:09:57.830 --> 00:10:00.870 a dictator cannot tolerate. Exactly. The authorities 00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:03.509 immediately view him as a revolutionary. So they 00:10:03.509 --> 00:10:05.210 aren't just worried about his theology. They're 00:10:05.210 --> 00:10:07.450 worried he's going to start a riot. In a way, 00:10:07.450 --> 00:10:10.610 he is a riot of kindness, maybe, but a disruption 00:10:10.610 --> 00:10:12.289 to the order nonetheless. And that sets up the 00:10:12.289 --> 00:10:14.909 conspiracy. Kai and Devlin team up. They find 00:10:14.909 --> 00:10:17.649 their snitch, Jude. Who betrays Hero to them. 00:10:17.870 --> 00:10:20.210 In this urban setting, it feels very much like 00:10:20.210 --> 00:10:22.330 a confidential informant turning on a gang leader. 00:10:22.529 --> 00:10:24.490 Now, we have to talk about the climax, because 00:10:24.490 --> 00:10:26.450 this is the part of the deep dive where I really 00:10:26.450 --> 00:10:28.830 need you to visualize what the creators did. 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:32.799 We know how the gospel story ends. It ends with 00:10:32.799 --> 00:10:35.919 the crucifixion. But you can't exactly drag a 00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:38.320 wooden cross up a hill in a sci -fi city. It 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:40.080 wouldn't make sense. No, it would look totally 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:43.019 out of place. So they made an adaptation choice 00:10:43.019 --> 00:10:45.500 that is probably the most striking image in the 00:10:45.500 --> 00:10:48.259 entire production. The source quotes a review 00:10:48.259 --> 00:10:50.840 from CCM Magazine that highlights this detail. 00:10:51.059 --> 00:10:52.840 What'd they do? The execution takes place on 00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:55.779 a corner street sign. A street sign, like a walk 00:10:55.779 --> 00:10:58.259 -don't -walk metal pole on a street corner. Exactly. 00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:01.580 Hero is executed on a street sign. That is visceral. 00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:04.240 It is. It recontextualizes the symbol entirely. 00:11:04.419 --> 00:11:07.919 I mean, over 2 ,000 years, the cross has become 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:10.899 jewelry. It's on steeples. It's gold. It's silver. 00:11:11.100 --> 00:11:13.419 We've sanitized it. We've totally sanitized it. 00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:16.679 By turning it into a street sign? A piece of 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:19.700 dirty urban infrastructure? It forces the audience 00:11:19.700 --> 00:11:21.899 to look at the brutality of the act again. It 00:11:21.899 --> 00:11:24.360 anchors the divine and the mundane. It's happening 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:26.179 right there on the corner while traffic goes 00:11:26.179 --> 00:11:28.700 by. Precisely. It suggests that this sacrifice 00:11:28.700 --> 00:11:31.240 isn't happening in some wholly set -apart place. 00:11:31.379 --> 00:11:33.639 It's happening in the gutter, essentially. It 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:35.820 fits that street -smart mission perfectly. And 00:11:35.820 --> 00:11:38.139 then obviously, the story doesn't end there. 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:41.179 You have the resurrection. Yes. But even the 00:11:41.179 --> 00:11:42.759 resurrection gets the street -smart treatment. 00:11:43.240 --> 00:11:45.860 The source describes the scene where Hiro returns 00:11:45.860 --> 00:11:49.639 in victorious, sin -conquering glory. But note 00:11:49.639 --> 00:11:52.440 who he goes to see. The text calls them his hip 00:11:52.440 --> 00:11:56.000 street friends. Hip street friends. I love that 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.379 phrasing. It dates the project so perfectly. 00:11:58.659 --> 00:12:00.620 It really does. It sounds like a marketing executive 00:12:00.620 --> 00:12:04.399 wrote it. It probably did. But the CCM Magazine 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:07.679 review, which came out in January 2004, was incredibly 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:10.379 positive about this scene. They described it 00:12:10.379 --> 00:12:13.379 as an epic climax capable of inducing chills. 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:15.980 So despite the potentially cheesy terminology, 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.460 the emotional beat landed. It seemed so. They 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:21.320 said it was capable of softening the hardest 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:24.159 of hearts. So as a piece of theater, it worked. 00:12:24.259 --> 00:12:26.340 It delivered the emotional payoff. We've talked 00:12:26.340 --> 00:12:28.120 about the story and the look, but we haven't 00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:30.080 really dug into the sound. We called it a rock 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:32.700 opera, but that's a broad term. I mean, the who 00:12:32.700 --> 00:12:35.360 did rock opera, phantom is an opera. What are 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:37.059 we listening to here? It was a sonic melting 00:12:37.059 --> 00:12:40.809 pot. The source lists a mix of rap, rock, pop, 00:12:40.889 --> 00:12:44.049 dance, and Broadway -style tunes. That is a lot 00:12:44.049 --> 00:12:46.649 of ingredients in the blender. It is. But it 00:12:46.649 --> 00:12:48.529 reflects the diversity of the city they were 00:12:48.529 --> 00:12:50.490 trying to portray. If you're in New York, you 00:12:50.490 --> 00:12:52.450 hear everything. You hear hip -hop, you hear 00:12:52.450 --> 00:12:54.830 rock, you hear club music. Right. Hero tried 00:12:54.830 --> 00:12:56.909 to capture all of that. So you have Michael Tate 00:12:56.909 --> 00:12:59.230 doing his smooth pop -rock thing, you have John 00:12:59.230 --> 00:13:01.450 Cooper screaming industrial metal, and then you 00:13:01.450 --> 00:13:04.009 have... Rap battles. There were rap elements. 00:13:04.190 --> 00:13:06.009 Yes. It was trying to be everything to everyone. 00:13:06.129 --> 00:13:09.190 And that leads us to a specific term used in 00:13:09.190 --> 00:13:13.409 the review. Seeker friendly. Yeah. I wanted to 00:13:13.409 --> 00:13:15.350 ask about that. Seeker friendly sensitivity. 00:13:16.289 --> 00:13:19.049 That sounds like industry jargon. What does that 00:13:19.049 --> 00:13:22.269 actually mean here? In the context of that subculture, 00:13:22.389 --> 00:13:24.629 a seeker is someone who isn't a Christian but 00:13:24.629 --> 00:13:27.389 is. curious or, you know, looking for answers. 00:13:27.850 --> 00:13:30.789 Seeker friendly means art or events designed 00:13:30.789 --> 00:13:33.190 to be accessible to those people. It means lowering 00:13:33.190 --> 00:13:36.009 the barrier to entry. So no Latin chanting, no 00:13:36.009 --> 00:13:38.710 insider theology that requires a degree to understand. 00:13:39.090 --> 00:13:41.110 Exactly. They wanted this to be something you 00:13:41.110 --> 00:13:43.250 could show to a friend who loved The Matrix or 00:13:43.250 --> 00:13:45.690 X -Men and they would get it. They wouldn't feel 00:13:45.690 --> 00:13:46.990 like they were in the church service. They'd 00:13:46.990 --> 00:13:49.090 feel like they were watching a cool sci -fi musical 00:13:49.090 --> 00:13:52.230 that just happened to be about Jesus. Hence the 00:13:52.230 --> 00:13:54.950 leather trench coats and the comic books. Hence 00:13:54.950 --> 00:13:57.090 the entire universe. We mentioned the comic books 00:13:57.090 --> 00:13:59.149 earlier, but it's worth circling back to. The 00:13:59.149 --> 00:14:01.710 source mentions a trilogy of novels and a series 00:14:01.710 --> 00:14:03.990 of comic books released alongside the album. 00:14:04.230 --> 00:14:05.990 Comic books feel like the most natural fit for 00:14:05.990 --> 00:14:08.629 this, honestly. They do. The structure of the 00:14:08.629 --> 00:14:11.240 story. A special individual with a mysterious 00:14:11.240 --> 00:14:14.059 origin fighting an evil global organization, 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:19.320 ICON, with a secret base in Brooklyn. It's superhero 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:22.179 logic. It basically is a superhero origin story. 00:14:22.669 --> 00:14:25.129 Even the title. Hero positions him not just as 00:14:25.129 --> 00:14:27.789 a savior in the theological sense, but as a hero 00:14:27.789 --> 00:14:31.029 in the action adventure sense. It's commodifying 00:14:31.029 --> 00:14:33.389 the narrative into a format that a generation 00:14:33.389 --> 00:14:36.389 raised on Marvel and DC would intuitively understand. 00:14:36.750 --> 00:14:38.769 And for those who couldn't catch the live tour 00:14:38.769 --> 00:14:41.090 because this thing did tour arenas, they released 00:14:41.090 --> 00:14:44.330 a DVD. Filmed at the Star Plaza Theater. So we 00:14:44.330 --> 00:14:46.690 actually have a visual record of the street sign 00:14:46.690 --> 00:14:49.289 execution and the whole dystopian set design. 00:14:50.190 --> 00:14:53.289 So. When we step back and look at Hero more than 00:14:53.289 --> 00:14:57.129 20 years later, what are we looking at? Is it 00:14:57.129 --> 00:14:59.649 just a weird piece of nostalgia? I think it's 00:14:59.649 --> 00:15:01.769 more than that. It's a fascinating cultural artifact. 00:15:02.350 --> 00:15:05.169 It represents a specific moment where that community 00:15:05.169 --> 00:15:07.529 was trying very, very hard to be relevant. They 00:15:07.529 --> 00:15:09.870 didn't want the story to feel like a dusty museum 00:15:09.870 --> 00:15:11.870 piece. Right. They looked at the culture around 00:15:11.870 --> 00:15:13.889 them, which was obsessed with the near future, 00:15:14.049 --> 00:15:17.769 with dystopias, with urban grit. And they said, 00:15:17.789 --> 00:15:20.429 our story belongs here, too. It's ambitious. 00:15:20.570 --> 00:15:22.710 You have to give them that. Taking a story from 00:15:22.710 --> 00:15:24.350 antiquity and putting it on a street sign in 00:15:24.350 --> 00:15:27.210 Brooklyn is a big swing. It is. And whether you 00:15:27.210 --> 00:15:29.429 think the hip street friends dialogue ages well 00:15:29.429 --> 00:15:33.230 or not, the core idea is compelling. They identified 00:15:33.230 --> 00:15:35.690 that people were feeling anxious about the future, 00:15:35.850 --> 00:15:38.809 about government control, about war, and they 00:15:38.809 --> 00:15:41.649 tried to answer that anxiety with their hero. 00:15:41.850 --> 00:15:45.409 It's a time capsule of 2003 fears and 2003 hopes. 00:15:45.649 --> 00:15:48.899 So here's a thought to leave you with. Hiro imagined 00:15:48.899 --> 00:15:53.440 a near future from the perspective of 2003. They 00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:56.159 predicted a world of total surveillance and global 00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:58.480 control. And in many ways, we are dealing with 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:00.419 issues they predicted just in different forms. 00:16:00.539 --> 00:16:03.779 Right. But their version was very physical. Police 00:16:03.779 --> 00:16:07.240 on corners. Our version is digital. Algorithms 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:11.299 and data. So if this story were retold today, 00:16:11.519 --> 00:16:14.820 if you want to reboot Hiro for our current version 00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:17.789 of the near future. What would it look like? 00:16:17.889 --> 00:16:20.570 That is the question. What does ICON look like 00:16:20.570 --> 00:16:23.990 in the age of AI? Is the oppression a guy with 00:16:23.990 --> 00:16:27.429 a baton or is it a social credit score? And where 00:16:27.429 --> 00:16:29.850 would Bethlehem be? If the margins of society 00:16:29.850 --> 00:16:32.070 aren't in a steel town in Pennsylvania, where 00:16:32.070 --> 00:16:34.350 are they? Where would a modern hero have to be 00:16:34.350 --> 00:16:37.110 born to be truly on the outside looking in? That's 00:16:37.110 --> 00:16:39.429 a powerful thing to mull over. The story remains 00:16:39.429 --> 00:16:41.750 the same, but the setting always tells you what 00:16:41.750 --> 00:16:43.870 a society is afraid of and what it thinks it 00:16:43.870 --> 00:16:45.850 needs. Thanks for taking this trip back to the 00:16:45.850 --> 00:16:48.409 leather -clad days of 2003 with us. It was a 00:16:48.409 --> 00:16:50.269 pleasure to explore the archives. We'll catch 00:16:50.269 --> 00:16:51.149 you on the next deep dive.