In an age where film discourse gets divided between wholly original films and derivative spectacle based on existing properties, it's rare to find a big-budget spectacle that straddles that line of bombast while remaining distinctly of its own universe. Such is the case with Tom Harper's The Aeronauts, which just premiered on Amazon Prime Video. Based loosely on a real-life hot air balloon ride in the 1860s in which scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) took vital atmospheric data that would kickstart the science of meteorology (and also broke records for the highest any human being had been at that point), the film straddles an intriguing sense of wonder with seat-clenching thrills not unlike the survival stakes of Gravity. Not only that, Redmayne's co-star female aeronaut Amelia Rennes (Felicity Jones), a fictionalized replacement for Glaisher's real-life copilot, provides welcome chemistry and plays host to some of the more physically death-defying elements of the film. The day after it screened at the Chicago International Film Festival, The Spool got a chance to sit down with Harper (who also directed this year's Wild Rose) to talk about the origins of the project, balancing real-life spectacle with visual effects, and the cinematic utility of a dog in a parachute. (More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Overcast for sponsoring this episode!)