Season 7 Episode 18: Dragonslayer
Join us, won't you, for a podcast involving an ever rotating cast of cinema lovers and haters who discuss both films great and from the deepest recesses of your dark and twisted mind. Spoilers ahead. Welcome to another episode of Cinematic Anarchy.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of Cinematic Anarchy. I have nothing else to say. Damn it. Okay. Anyway And
Speaker 3:that's it.
Speaker 4:Podcast Well, come to the shit show.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Drink some water, you thirsty bitches. Bye.
Speaker 2:Damn it. Overall ready. Well, was really nothing to say about this movie, so we're done. Yeah. Anyway.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, normally, I prepare a little something, some weird little thing that I just let tumble out of my mouth at the beginning of the podcast. But this time, I had nothing because it has been a shit storm of a week. So here I am after having watched this movie three separate times. Are going to be vicious. This is a deviation from our plan because we realized that we had this in the list before we started adding a whole bunch of other sword and sorcery type movies.
Speaker 2:We decided we're going to try to actually steer away from that and stay on the whole barbarian thing. But we wanted to keep this in the list, and now that we've watched it, I don't know why. But
Speaker 3:I think this was a good all fantasy. Like, was a good
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We've done all adventure because we did Ulysses. And then this was our first like all fantasy. And then we'll get into fantasy adventure. So this was a good like example of the opposite side of the spectrum where no one in this movie could have rocked a loincloth in any way, shape, or form, but there was magic and dragons and shit.
Speaker 2:Well, there was a point where he technically should have worn a loincloth, but we'll get to that. This the movie that we're talking about is nineteen eighty one's Dragon Slayer starring Peter McNichol, Caitlin Clark, and Ralph Richardson, amongst others. And and I don't know if you noticed partway through the movie, there is one nice little cameo from a soon to be emperor in the movie.
Speaker 4:Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Mister Ian.
Speaker 2:Ian McDermott.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Who dies immediately. Immediately. Justifiably.
Speaker 4:Yeah. But somehow, he may return?
Speaker 2:Yelling Satan in the face of the dragon.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Somehow he will return.
Speaker 2:Somehow. I watched this movie three times, twice on my own, and once more through because I missed something, which you brought to my attention.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And
Speaker 2:I'm not happy that I went back because
Speaker 3:there was a little
Speaker 2:little bit more Peter McNichol dingle than I really wanted to see there.
Speaker 3:It really was. This is a Disney movie. This feels like the time that I I got the Blue Lagoon at Walmart because it was in like the $5 bin, and I was like, guys, this is gonna be fun. We'll watch it. I remember watching this as a kid, and then I sat in horror at the whole movie.
Speaker 3:It's such a fucked up movie, and there's so much nudity. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It was brought up to me by a friend of mine that this is proof positive, that one scene though that I missed twice, that Galen is at least mildly bisexual. Because he's Because well, he thought that he was swimming full naked towards another man at crotch level. Mhmm. Eyes wide open.
Speaker 4:Eyes wide open.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You
Speaker 2:know? And once he got close enough and is startled by the fact that it is indeed a woman, not a man before him, that is the the first to oh, shit. Damn. Okay. Not what I expected.
Speaker 2:She
Speaker 4:Yeah. Was expecting to be looking at something that he wanted to look at. Yes.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's fair. I just So at like that
Speaker 2:the very least mild bisexual curiosity.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I like that his name gets shouted by every single character at some point. But because it's Galen and it's really hard to shout that, it just sounds like, So even everyone, even the wizard guy at one point is like in the dragon's talons, and he has to like tip his head back because he's like, fucking do it, and he has to go but he doesn't say Galen, he just goes, girl. Girl. Girl.
Speaker 3:I was like, okay. We could have given him this is why in fantasy you get like complicated names. Because if you have to shout them, at least they sound like something. And not this guy who everyone just sounded like they were wordlessly shouting at him the whole time.
Speaker 2:Is it possible that Galen is just a a difficult name for somebody with a thick English or Scottish accent to rattle off while yelling.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It could be. So then you choose a different because
Speaker 2:the L kind of falls out of there, then it's
Speaker 3:just Yeah. Yeah. I know. It happened the whole movie. It's like, oh, there they go again.
Speaker 2:So this is a bit darker than I expected from what is essentially a Disney movie, though technically is a collaboration between Paramount and Disney.
Speaker 3:Yeah. This reminded me of The Flash in that at no point did I know what was happening, but I also wasn't having a good time. At least in the Flash, was like, oh, this is fun. I don't know what's happening, but everyone's wearing very bright colors, and
Speaker 4:there's Flash flash with Gordon.
Speaker 3:Flash Gordon, sorry. Okay. Whatever.
Speaker 2:I mean, probably some There were no really bright colors in this movie.
Speaker 3:No, the other man in red spandex who runs around, that guy. Yeah. I was like, I don't know, okay. I'll let you talk Chris, because I was mystified by this movie, on the whole.
Speaker 4:I did call right at the beginning when when the wizard guy gets stabbed. I'm not walking on
Speaker 2:the road.
Speaker 4:They're walking and I was like, what do you wanna bet? That he got himself stabbed so that he didn't have to take the trip? And then whenever they got there, they just bring him back. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mean, that's a fairly predictable plot point. Yeah.
Speaker 4:That's And Galen eventually is like, that's it. He saved himself the trip. His feet. He didn't wanna walk.
Speaker 2:This is essentially Lord of the Rings, except the main character doesn't wanna walk.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, this is how I plan on doing every other road trip from here on out, rest of just kill me the beginning. Sure, you're doing
Speaker 4:a pile of ashes,
Speaker 3:and throw me back to water at Yeah. The Exactly.
Speaker 2:It's like, dehydrate me, then rehydrate me at
Speaker 3:the end And then use me to explode the bad guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And that's a downside of
Speaker 2:You're assuming every trip that you have from here on out has a bad guy at the end to blow up?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, what? Otherwise, why go? You And just stay in your the best part is he kills himself so that he won't have to walk, but the guy that he gets to carry him is like the oldest man who's ever olded in the history of old people.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's Engie Wook from The Neverending Story.
Speaker 4:Right. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I thought I knew the face from somewhere, like the voice and everything just sounded really familiar.
Speaker 3:It is my scientific specialty. That was Sam. I was like, oh, it's Engie Wook. As soon as he talked, I knew that.
Speaker 2:I didn't recognize a lot of a lot of people in this film, to be entirely honest with you. Outside I
Speaker 3:don't think they wanted to be recognized. Apparently, Peter does not put this on his like, he doesn't claim this movie in any way.
Speaker 4:He's embarrassed by this movie.
Speaker 2:Well, he was young, naive, and yeah, that's about it. I'm gonna sell him a Young, naive.
Speaker 3:Young, yeah. The dragon was cool, I
Speaker 4:thought he did alright.
Speaker 3:The dragon Bit was
Speaker 2:of a short king in this movie.
Speaker 3:Just Yeah. Who yeah. The dragon was cool. This was a good good argument for how practical effects hold up a lot better than CGI generally does. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I believe they was it Neil Gaiman? Had had said that this is probably one of the best dragons ever put on screen.
Speaker 3:I think George Mar a couple of people did. Couple of couple people people did. I think somebody quoted Guillermo del Toro as being like Vernithrax, or Varnithrax, whatever his name is.
Speaker 4:Vermithrax Pajorative. Vermithrax It
Speaker 3:was the best dragon ever.
Speaker 2:Everybody that had to say that name in this film could actually say that, but Galen, they had trouble with.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I could not remember the thing's name.
Speaker 4:You put your effort into the important characters.
Speaker 3:Varnathrax. And then they kill its babies.
Speaker 2:Important characters. Which one is that?
Speaker 3:Vermithrax. Had that scene where it was like, trying to wake its babies up. That was so sad. Was like, I'm on the side of the dragon now. I want you to fucking kill all these people.
Speaker 2:Well, even Ulrich was saying that technically, the dragon is not necessarily evil, but at this age, it is decaying, decrepit, in constant pain. So it is basically in anguish on a continual basis.
Speaker 3:I get it.
Speaker 2:Which would make anybody grumpy, angry, just feed me so I don't have to leave my nest.
Speaker 3:Welcome to your forties. And he doesn't even have ibuprofen. My God. That'd be terrible.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why you had to sacrifice two virgins a year, he didn't have to leave his nest. He could just be sort of a hermit. Yeah. Care of the kids.
Speaker 3:That she, I was probably my favorite scene, is when the princess puts her name. The only chits in the thing are her. Like, I am righted or wrong. And then he frees her and she's like, yeet. And she runs into the dragon's lair.
Speaker 3:And I was like, It oh
Speaker 4:immediately does.
Speaker 3:I was like, oh, he's gonna go save her. And then we got there, and the dragon is eating her leg, and then it like rips her foot off and is running around with her foot in its mouth. I said, what the fuck?
Speaker 4:He barely even says like, oh, that sucks.
Speaker 3:I know. And he's like, no. Well.
Speaker 2:There are too many lead characters that somehow just casually wandered into this thing's lair and then did not get eaten.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I know. And then she dies immediately. Everyone else goes in and out with impunity. She walked in and they were like, out.
Speaker 3:You're out.
Speaker 2:No baby death. Nope. Well, it's it just it's gotta be virgin. That's all it's gotta be. I know.
Speaker 2:Which actually doesn't explain how Valerian got in and out of there with all the scales.
Speaker 3:Well, does if it's after the scene where they're making out on the rocks.
Speaker 2:You think that he took care of that for her? And then they're just no. That's not fresh meat. No.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's just I basically said it.
Speaker 4:I'm eligible because I'm a virgin.
Speaker 3:He's like, he comes up behind her and starts rubbing her shoulders like They get physical,
Speaker 4:and then she doesn't have any problem in
Speaker 3:the can handle that. Can handle Mike,
Speaker 4:I have a theory about the virgin twice a year. Okay. Which is the mom dragon just wants to sleep. And as long as a virgin is provided to her children, then the children don't get hungry, and they don't wake her up. And so she just stays asleep.
Speaker 4:And that's why she's not attacking the town, is because her kids aren't saying, mom, make me some dinner. And she just gets to sleep for six months.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's fair. Yeah. I get it. I would also like if people just brought delivery to my door, so that I didn't have to feed my children.
Speaker 4:I can just stay in bed. Food gets delivered directly to the kids. Right. Kids never bug me.
Speaker 3:Does it have to be a virgin, or is that the church? Is that like them puritanizing? Probably.
Speaker 2:Whole sexual attitude. Doordash.
Speaker 3:Reminds me of the scene from What We Do in the Shadows, when he's like, no, it doesn't have to be purge and blood, but, you know, if you're gonna eat a sandwich, you just wanna make sure nobody's fucked at first.
Speaker 2:I I mean, that's fair. I don't want anybody's dick in my sandwich before I eat it.
Speaker 3:It's like my favorite line. Line. So that's probably her feeling. She's like, well, this way I know they're fresh. So that's fine.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. Why do I have so little to say about this movie?
Speaker 3:Because nothing happens, Chris. Nothing happens. Okay? We open and they're like, this is a wizard. He lives in a castle.
Speaker 3:He has a young boy who lives with him. And then people show up and they're like, we would like to hire you. And he's like, I'm not hireable. And they're like, it's a dragon. And he's like, cool.
Speaker 3:Let's do this. And then a third guy shows up and he's like, I can't let you do that. You gotta prove you're a The third guy
Speaker 4:is the sole source of conflict in the movie.
Speaker 3:I know. Well, he's like, I can't let you go. I have to make sure you're a real wizard. And the wizard guy's like, cool. Stab me in the chest.
Speaker 3:And hands him a dagger. And the guy's like, I don't want okay. And he stabs him, and then the wizard dies. And they're all like
Speaker 4:And then they burn him.
Speaker 3:They're all like, well, okay. I guess he wasn't a wizard. And then they burn him. And then they're like, well, okay, wizard boy. I guess you don't have anything else to do.
Speaker 3:So you wanna come with us? And Angi Wook is like, yeah, I'll go too. Because like, what am I gonna do? Stay here in this castle with all my stuff where it's warm and safe and I have food and shit. And so they walk off with them.
Speaker 3:Where within fifteen minutes, the most female who's ever dressed like a male, but still looks like a female ever. Oh, no. We find out she's a girl and everyone is like, yeah, we already knew that. Galen's like, I already knew you were a girl. Which well then, why would you get in the water with her?
Speaker 3:But whatever. And
Speaker 2:Why would you have been so surprised?
Speaker 3:Right. If you already knew. He's like, oh, I already knew that. It's fine. It's fine.
Speaker 3:And then he, for some reason, realizes that when he wears the necklace from the wizard guy, he can do magic? Well, he waited a bit to even leave
Speaker 4:because he had to burn a wizard
Speaker 3:and shit.
Speaker 4:But then he found the necklace hidden in something hanging from the ceiling.
Speaker 3:No. He tells him to go back and get the necklace. Like, get the dagger and the necklace.
Speaker 4:Inside of a globe.
Speaker 3:Oh, god. I'd already forgotten, because my mind was
Speaker 4:like, this doesn't matter. Amongst a bunch of other globes hanging from the ceiling. And then this one was glowing, and he's like
Speaker 2:Oh, no.
Speaker 4:A necklace.
Speaker 2:What happened was it was in he had he had had the necklace, and he put it in, like, this little steel box. And then it found its way outside of the steel box, and he took it, put it back in, put a rock on top of it. And then as he's walking away, then he finds it in the globe as it glows again, he realizes what it's gotta be.
Speaker 4:Yeah. He's starting join up with everybody.
Speaker 3:Right. Right.
Speaker 2:And then am the wizard.
Speaker 3:And then Engie Wook dies like immediately. He gets shot, but with an arrow, from the only guy who's the guy whose only purpose is to randomly kill people throughout the movie. And he's just like throw it in Yeah, the burning he does kill more people than a dragon. Yes. And then they finally get to the village of like 10 people.
Speaker 3:So how is this village sustaining the dragon? I don't know. And there's a king for some reason. And the king is like, I have a lottery, which is definitely not the Hunger Games, and I'm gonna draw your name, and then you have to go die. And then we watch a lady die just to prove the situation is serious, and then we watch Emperor Palpatine die to prove the situation is serious.
Speaker 3:And then people are just either going to the cave or coming back from the cave or exploring the cave for like four hours. That's how long that whole part felt. Yeah. Then
Speaker 2:eventually don't think this broke more than an hour. Okay. Was an an and hour forty
Speaker 3:and nine minutes. Know, because Matt was kept going, how much is left?
Speaker 4:I was falling asleep.
Speaker 3:How much is left? That's how we forgot. We forgot we finished watching this movie.
Speaker 4:So both made a mental note. Okay. We have forty minutes left in this movie. I know. But then apparently we toughed it out and finished it.
Speaker 4:Because then we went back this morning to finish watching it. And we're like, wait, hold on. Skip forward. Wait, we already got to this part. Skip forward.
Speaker 3:I know. And then to
Speaker 4:the end. Oh, yeah. Already Then
Speaker 3:it's like, I'm gonna defeat the dragon because I haven't been back to the cave in, fifteen minutes of movie time. So I have to make my trek back to the cave and then back again. So this time, I'm gonna take something. So they go to the blacksmith, who for some reason, the girl is now living with as a girl. And he's like, I need to kill the dragon.
Speaker 3:He's like, I got you fam. They go to for a ride. He's like, oh, yeah. Once upon a time,
Speaker 4:it's her uncle.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's her uncle. Okay. Yeah. They go to they go to It's a
Speaker 2:not here. Valerian's father.
Speaker 4:Oh. At first, it was father. See, even I didn't they first got back, she said
Speaker 2:called father. But then later guys.
Speaker 4:He said
Speaker 3:I wish I had been that smart about my own daughter.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Your father was smarter than me.
Speaker 3:So I don't know if it's like I've claimed you or even the movie doesn't know. I don't know because this man hid a spear with a wooden an iron spear with a wooden shaft in a waterfall. Getting actively poured on. So he has to pull it out of the waterfall and he's like, I have forged to this. Somehow he's
Speaker 4:on a whim, I forged a spear to slay a dragon.
Speaker 3:So somehow he's capable of making metal that can slay the dragon, but he was like, this is too powerful. But instead of destroying it, he stuck it in a waterfall in a cage?
Speaker 4:Well, because the other guy would come kill him if he thought that
Speaker 3:Oh, god. I don't And since there's only eight people in the village, the news would travel fast, so it's fucking fine. And then Galen's like, I have to make it better. And so he lights it up with his magic powers. Then he's like, I'm gonna go defeat the dragon.
Speaker 3:And then he goes and he just stabs. He's like, yoinks the dragon, and the staff breaks, of course, because it's been in a waterfall. And then he has to run back to the village again. And then they're like, I think With you the broken stick. Oh, and then he collapses the mountain on the dragon, and they're like, Yeah, you killed the dragon.
Speaker 3:He's like, Hell yeah, killed the dragon. And then they have a whole big celebration, and then the one guy shows up to be like, But you didn't really kill the dragon. He's like, I kinda think I did. And then like, there's a huge earthquake. It's so much, and yet nothing at all.
Speaker 3:The most interesting part is after he brings the wizard back, and the wizard's like, I got this. And he just goes stand stands at the top of a mountain and is like, eat me. Eat me.
Speaker 4:He doesn't even explain. He's just like He's like You'll know what to do.
Speaker 3:You'll know what to do and hands him the necklace. And so the dragon grabs him and he's like, no. And Galen smashes the necklace and the wizard fucking explodes like a bomb, and destroys the dragon.
Speaker 4:Does he does he pop back into reality? No. Back at his castle? I don't know. He's a necromancer.
Speaker 4:That's what they say. I don't because this guy's a necromancer. I have to be rehydrated elsewhere?
Speaker 3:I don't know. Then the dragon falls and for some reason, it's just all internal organs. Like, I want to know if they went to a slaughterhouse and they were like, can we have all your livers, all of your intestine, like any internal organs you're getting ready to throw out, we'll take. And they just drape them over the edge of the dragon because that's And what it looks then the king shows up and like, doink, sticks it with his sword, and they're all like, the king slayed the dragon. And Galen's like, well, fuck this place and leaves.
Speaker 3:And that's the end of the movie.
Speaker 2:I believe that he did come back. Ehlers did come back at the end of the movie. That's the horse that they ride off on.
Speaker 3:Oh, there you go.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go. That's a good one.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because he's like, I wish we had a horse.
Speaker 4:Then immediately when he gets his mind back
Speaker 3:to his castle. Yeah. He's like, now I can walk back home. Now I'm a horse. God.
Speaker 3:It's it's hard to talk about this movie because like, I mean, that was literally the whole plot. I mean, other stuff happened, but it didn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I can see why this didn't make a lot of money. I'm also a little disappointed in myself that I didn't force us to watch a second movie because we're twenty minutes in, and I pretty much laid out the entire film.
Speaker 3:Know. Which is a
Speaker 2:lot faster than watching this three times.
Speaker 3:It was so long.
Speaker 4:The most interesting thing about this movie was how they shot the dragon. Yeah. The dragon was cool. It was semi robotic. And so they would they would actually have the computer robotically move the robot, and then they'd and they'd film it while it was moving.
Speaker 4:So, then you didn't have the weird, like, jerkiness, I guess.
Speaker 3:From stop motion. It was called show motion.
Speaker 4:Stop motion doesn't have any motion blur, like, between frames.
Speaker 2:Right. So that that blur effect that they had perfected for this particular movie was originally what they were going to go with for, I think they said the second Terminator movie or something to that nature. Before they went the other way, like, to animate the that movie before they went the other way and used the CGI that they did. Yeah. So Interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh, No. It wasn't it was the original Terminator movie, not this secondary one.
Speaker 3:I want this whole movie from the point of view of the dragon. Because the dragon's just minding its own business, then every fifteen minutes, somebody shows up in the cave.
Speaker 2:I don't want this whole movie from the point of view of the dragon necessarily. I would like to see this entire movie from Valerian's point of view rather than the sort the failed sorcerer's point of view. Yeah. Because I think that her backstory was far more interesting than whatever that was going on with Galen.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And she's such a because she shows up and she's this I was like, okay. This is gonna be an interesting character. It's clearly a female actor playing a male. And she's shown up with this group of people, and they've come to hire this wizard.
Speaker 3:This is gonna be cool. We're in like a crawl situation where we're gonna go on a cool journey with some people that can use magic and shit. But we wouldn't
Speaker 4:even get flying horses.
Speaker 3:No. No. There's no fire steeds. Sorry. And then she's nothing.
Speaker 3:Immediately they're like, She's a girl, she's like, Well, there goes my agency, never mind. And she literally makes no decisions. She makes a shield that actually resists the fire. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Goes out with a basket and collects scales? Because this thing sheds like a shit ton of scales.
Speaker 2:Which I mean, if she was the niece of a blacksmith, I understand she might have picked up some of what he was doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, I get it. But then and then immediately she's like, well, got well, guys, I'm actually a girl. And they're all like, we knew that. And then she starts dressing like a woman immediately.
Speaker 3:Even when the dragon comes back, she's like, well, I guess I'm part of the lot now. Guess I might die. Oh, well.
Speaker 2:Or that whole scene where she's basically, I know you're in love. He goes, yes, I am in love. And she goes on. He lets her basically lets her basically tell him, I think you're in love with the princess. You're a beautiful princess, blah, blah, blah, which I don't understand because there was very little contact between the princess outside of her, you know, getting him out of jail.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Like, I I let you know that your father's an asshole and and hasn't put you in this lottery at all, nor has he put anybody of any wealth in that lottery. So she lets him free despite her father, and they apparently, Valerian thinks that there's some kind of bond between them now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Even though as soon as he sees her dead, he's like, well, okay. I'm not sure anyone actually had emotions at any point in this movie. I think like when he sees her naked when we all see her naked really.
Speaker 2:That wasn't her, by the way. Was a body double.
Speaker 3:That was a body yeah. But he's like, ah, and then you're like, that fulfilled his acting quota for the whole rest of the movie. He was like, sorry, but I've only got bland left. I have no other setting now. I mean, this tiny dragon creature is running around with the person who freed you from prison's foot in its mouth.
Speaker 3:And he's like, oh no, that's gonna get on everything. That's scary.
Speaker 2:I mean, that is honestly what my reaction would have been though. Like, I saved you. And then she goes and throws herself into the dragon's cave, and I would have just been like, well, alright. That was not what she wanted, but whatever.
Speaker 3:You know, we all make our choices. And then he graphically murders the baby dragons, like chops their heads into pieces with his magic spear.
Speaker 2:He murders two with the spear, puts the spear down, gets tackled by a third, and then somehow beats this one to death with a torch?
Speaker 3:Yes. With a torch. It's clearly like a costume head, so it's just squishing when he hits it with a torch. It's a it's
Speaker 2:You're imagining the scene where he's like hitting this thing, and it's just squeaking like a dog toy every time he smacks the fucking thing.
Speaker 3:Could you redo this movie with a different Foley artist and do ridiculous sound effects for everything?
Speaker 2:Think it needs to happen. Think it needs Yeah. To
Speaker 3:It needs like the Knight's Tale treatment where you do it again, but with like popular songs from the era playing over the background.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then a really creative Foley artist who just does the most, the dumbest. Because this movie was just bland. Like everything was one note. Every acting moment was one note. Every musical score moment with even when the dragons flying at you, it's like, what score was happening?
Speaker 3:I don't even remember.
Speaker 2:The most emotion you get in the entire movie is literally from Hodge.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, were they going with this? What were they hoping to achieve? Like, what had they done that they were like, this is this is the move?
Speaker 2:A tax
Speaker 3:write This is the move. A tax write off.
Speaker 2:That's probably what they were looking to achieve here.
Speaker 3:It feels like. Because I feel like usually movies have movies that are that lead into them. You're like, okay, this one is like this. Okay, here's the next logical step. Okay, let's do Crawl.
Speaker 3:Crawl's older than this, or newer than this, isn't it? Isn't Krull '83?
Speaker 2:I believe yeah. Krull's a a a Krull, sorry. Is a Kull? Sorry.
Speaker 3:Krull.
Speaker 2:Krull's the other thing. Krull the conqueror then
Speaker 3:Krull's '83. Yeah. Krull's Yeah. '80 I thought so. So two years later, they do Krull, which is like space sword and sorcery.
Speaker 3:And I kinda wanna do crawl now because it's this movie, but a better movie.
Speaker 2:Or you can go for the absolutely ridiculous version of space sword and sorcery and just watch ice pirates.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You can do that. But does anybody go?
Speaker 2:Everybody that watched that film.
Speaker 3:There's young Liam Neeson. Yeah. That's all I got. Oh, and another as guy.
Speaker 2:Far as we go with that.
Speaker 3:We just watched
Speaker 2:We're just Naked watching that for Liam Neeson.
Speaker 3:We just watched Naked Gun, the new Naked Gun.
Speaker 2:Was actually pretty good. Expected was the
Speaker 3:whole so funny. It was so Matt was laughing so hard. I liked all the original Leslie Nielsen comedies, so I was in it. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I am I am fully expecting. I am fully hoping that Liam Neeson's the the tail end of his career is just a whole just a whole series of just reboots of those film. Not those films specifically.
Speaker 3:Just hit letting him be the straight man. I mean, he's in that's what he is in the a team when he's Hannibal on the a team, and he did such a good job.
Speaker 2:Leslie Nielsen.
Speaker 3:Liam Nielsen.
Speaker 2:No. Leslie Nielsen was the guy that originally did the films. Am I not is that
Speaker 3:what you're thinking? The Naked Gun films. But I want Leslie Nielsen's the original guy, Liam.
Speaker 2:What I'm saying is I wanna see him do reboots of old Leslie Nielsen movies.
Speaker 4:So we're
Speaker 3:because he's such a good straight guy. Like, he's such a good like, to deliver the stupid lines with just the deadpan expression. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Got a new Mr. Magoo movie, you know?
Speaker 3:Another airplane. I'm here for all of it. Don't call me Shirley. Oh my god. I would watch the shit out of that.
Speaker 3:It was so good. It was so it was so dumb. I get you know what? We get a lot of serious movies. You get a lot of movies like, say, Dragon Slayer, where they think they're very serious, or now we get a lot of movies that are very cinematic.
Speaker 2:I feel like this the the the direction of this movie was simply the guy got on set. He's like, okay. You've been through the script. I've watched you guys, you know, go at this with some real strong emotion. Now, what I want you to do is deliver this as if you were bored to be here.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Absolutely bored that you're even here.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know?
Speaker 3:They put away the craft services table. They refused to feed anybody. Everyone was tired. No. They fed hungry.
Speaker 2:I'll guarantee you they fed people, but it was the the cooked entrails because they couldn't afford anything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's true. Mhmm. Yeah. They made They
Speaker 2:drove that first.
Speaker 3:Wasn't this filmed on location in Scotland?
Speaker 2:I think so. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's plenty of dishes they could have made with that shit. I just wanna know who was like, here's how we're gonna do the dead dragon, guys. Are you ready? Organs.
Speaker 3:Organs everywhere.
Speaker 4:Real organs.
Speaker 3:Real organs. We're just gonna drape that shit. Everyone's gonna know it's a dead thing. Matt starts going, meat. Did you ever watch the dragon?
Speaker 3:The dragon heart movie?
Speaker 4:The dragon heart, where he sticks in
Speaker 3:the lake. He falls in the lake, they're like pounds people are like Meat. Meat. Meat.
Speaker 2:Just a local grocer had spoiled haggis and said, here you go. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Have at it. Throw in the dragon man, whatever.
Speaker 4:All just sheets
Speaker 2:of it everywhere.
Speaker 3:Barnithrax? Vernithrax?
Speaker 2:Vermithrax. God. Vermithrax pejorative.
Speaker 3:It's because everybody seems to think that dragon names end in an x sound, because there's Varmithrax, this one. Vermithrax?
Speaker 4:Verma.
Speaker 3:And then in, was it Skyrim, there's Parthenax, And then in the Aragon series, there's Galvatorix. No. He's the bad guy. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 4:He's a human.
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting if you go into IMDB, like, a vast majority of the photos or the stills from this are all in black and white. And I thought to myself, like, really, if they just took the color completely out of this film, it might have been more interesting as a black Yeah. White
Speaker 3:Just as for visually interesting. I, at no point, knew where anybody was. I didn't know where the dragon's lair was in relation to the town. I didn't know how far the town was away from the wizard's house. There was no sense of place or distance at any point in this movie.
Speaker 3:People would be hanging out in town and then all of sudden, they're just on like a sheer rock wall hanging out.
Speaker 4:Why not?
Speaker 2:All I know is that the dragon was more than two leagues away. Because they did say, right, how far are you gonna get? One or two leagues? And that's it.
Speaker 4:Yeah. The wizard's house was a 100 leagues away.
Speaker 3:Was it? Mhmm. That's what
Speaker 4:the guy complained about at the beginning.
Speaker 3:How I don't
Speaker 2:far is the league?
Speaker 4:About three miles.
Speaker 2:Three miles? Okay.
Speaker 3:So it's 300 miles away?
Speaker 4:No wonder Ulrich didn't wanna walk in.
Speaker 3:He was like, ain't walking that shit. Kill me now, bitches. Just kill me now. Carry my ashes.
Speaker 2:I guess I guess he accused him of only being able to walk about six miles before he collapses.
Speaker 3:He was old.
Speaker 2:So in general, the dragon was 300 miles away from where the wizard was.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I would just be like, you know what? Just kill me. If I knew how to get somebody there.
Speaker 3:So you might have done not walking that shit. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:And they're there in, a week. It does not take them long to travel. They're like, and then now we're back. It's fine.
Speaker 2:That's big. 300 miles should take a little bit longer.
Speaker 3:If you're on foot. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm glad we didn't go, like, Lord of the Rings level, like, epic three hour movie here. Because just three or four more half hour segments of walking.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It felt like three hours though. Like, it did ever I'd be like, okay. Time has passed. And then I'd pause it, and a minute had gone by in the movie.
Speaker 3:And I was like, no. How? It's not no. But they've already been to the Dragon's Lair and back four times. I don't understand.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:wait. That does mean I mean, if that Dragon's Lair was like 300 leagues or whatever, 300 miles away. A lot fucking walking to go back to.
Speaker 4:It wasn't a 100 leagues away from the king and his town. They just traveled a 100 leagues to find the wizard Yeah. To potentially kill the dragon.
Speaker 3:Where did they start Which means they could have just left and start like, the dragon is there. He's trying to kill all of you. Why don't you just go
Speaker 4:Grab the, like, 20 people in your whole
Speaker 3:There's 10 of you who pack your shit. Go a 100 leagues that way. And then then if the dragon follows you, you can be like, oh, wizard. The dragon followed us weird as day. No.
Speaker 4:It's your problem because it's here.
Speaker 3:I know. Like, they're all like, we can't we're here, and we live here. But the dragon was there when they got there. Right? The dragon didn't come.
Speaker 3:They set up a town near the dragon and they were like, oh no, what can we do with this totally avoidable disaster?
Speaker 2:Fair enough.
Speaker 3:And then they're like, oh, but magic is dying out of the world. That's another part of the plot line is like, this is the last wizard. This is like the last dragon. And when they die, all of that stuff will be gone.
Speaker 2:Magic is fading. Hopefully, soon the dragon will too, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I
Speaker 2:I think probably one of the best scenes in the movie as far as I'm concerned was the very beginning where Galen has introduced Ulrich. Just grab a handful of sulfur, and he walks into the room, and he drums on a drum that doesn't drum. Just and uses the sheet of metal to sort of make a little, I guess, thunder or you know? And then throws sulfur on the ground and poof.
Speaker 4:He's doing his best.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, that's his whole job. We don't know why he's with the wizard. We don't know what his purpose is. We don't know if he's some sort of wizard in
Speaker 4:to be a sorcerer.
Speaker 2:It is the the most anticlimactic, I guess, introduction to a character that I've ever seen. For somebody who honestly I mean, for all intents and purposes, Ulrich was a mildly entertaining character to watch for what little he was on the film. Yeah. Or what little he was in the film.
Speaker 3:Maybe that's why they killed him off. They were like, guys, this is an insurance write off. We can't have you actually acting. Acting. Kill that man and bring him back at the end.
Speaker 2:You're not bored enough. We have to kill you early.
Speaker 3:I know. I'm sorry but you're using emotion and we don't like that here. So they killed him and then when they brought him back, he did the only cool thing that anyone did in the whole movie. He like made an eclipse and he like called a bunch of clouds for some reason and then the dragon was like, well, I don't know what all that was about, but I'm just gonna grab It's
Speaker 4:getting the dragon's attention.
Speaker 3:I guess. So he grabs them and he's flying off and somehow as he's flying away, like a distance, a far distance, he turns and he's like, because he can't say Galen, obviously. He has such a shout at the guy, and he's like, well, okay, I'm gonna smash he's telling me to smash it, and then he goes to smash it and it starts glowing even brighter and he picks it up like, oh, it's okay. And then he doesn't even It got prettier. It got prettier.
Speaker 3:And they're like, no. No. No. Smash it. And he's like, okay.
Speaker 3:So he puts it down and he smashes it. That was the best part of the whole movie was when the wizard exploded. Exploded. I died. I was like, the fuck just happened?
Speaker 3:Is he an explosive device? I don't understand. I don't understand. He blow and then the dragon is like, well, that's it for me. And he goes, he falls and dies, falls into the middle of this lake.
Speaker 4:And then explodes. Yeah. When he hits the water.
Speaker 3:Oh my god. All of his organs shoot out of everywhere in his entire body.
Speaker 2:I think the there were a couple of entertaining moments throughout the film. I I will admit there are some things in there that are like, if you just had more stuff like this, like the king trying to turn lead into gold with the stack of lead Jenga, basically. It's all stacked like Jenga blocks. There
Speaker 3:were parts where you were like, you knew what to do, and then you chose not to do it.
Speaker 2:Like So he he I think he mistook the wizard for an alchemist of some sort?
Speaker 3:Well, don't they mention making gold? And I think the guy is like, Oliver, because, like, I even I can't do that. If I could, then we'd have more money.
Speaker 2:Right. Mhmm. But the king is an idiot, so he doesn't know.
Speaker 3:I know. The king is yeah. I don't know. What's his name? Something
Speaker 2:geez. That was
Speaker 3:a It was Boris broken Rex.
Speaker 2:Something Rex. Cassadorius Rex.
Speaker 3:Cassadorius Rex. Imagine if that was the name of Peter's character, and everybody had to yell that all the time. Cassadorius. Oh,
Speaker 2:I'd just be It
Speaker 3:should've made more sense.
Speaker 4:I think that yell is better than Galen.
Speaker 2:Yep. True. Before you actually pointed out the the full nude scene that happens within five a five second span of this film, I actually thought when he caught up to Hodge just after he got shot, I thought it was just him running from the lake to Hodge, and his hair was wet because he had basically he was so out
Speaker 3:of shape that he just
Speaker 2:sweat that curly fro of hairs down. Just I just saw those sweat pouring off him. I didn't realize he had gone for a swim. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Did they cut that out of the version you watched? Did
Speaker 2:No. You just miss
Speaker 4:It is
Speaker 2:literally it's because it's so short that I
Speaker 3:And your brain is already like, leave. Don't watch the rest. Go. Go seek actual entertainment. I watched it twice
Speaker 2:before that, so I don't understand how I did not see that part. Because it's a very short scene. It it lasts, I think, what, five to ten seconds between from It's
Speaker 3:very at best.
Speaker 2:So if you look away, it's done.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That can be said about most of the scenes in this movie. It was very choppy. I think the longest scene is when the mountain is collapsing.
Speaker 2:Probably. Oh, no. The longest scene was the initial virgin that got killed.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Her struggling with those handcuffs forever.
Speaker 3:I want her to be the main character. She did more acting than literally anyone else in the rest of the movie.
Speaker 4:That's why they removed her character.
Speaker 3:I know they were like, sorry bitch, you gotta burn Too much acting. Too much acting.
Speaker 4:You're selling it too hard.
Speaker 3:It's like in God, what's that movie? Team America World Police. She tried acting. Not acting. My parents were killed by an actor.
Speaker 2:I I wouldn't rank this amongst the worst movies that we've watched.
Speaker 3:It was just it just was nothing. Like, it wasn't even Yeah. There was barely
Speaker 4:any like narrative. Was it was so straightforward of, you go there, you get a weapon, you try to kill it. They needed like a side quest, like a puzzle they have to solve to get the tool to kill the dragon.
Speaker 3:No. Everybody knows where the dragon Everybody knows roughly how to kill it. They're just all like, it's gonna die anyway. It's old.
Speaker 2:There was a little I
Speaker 3:mean, how
Speaker 2:too little fantasy to the fantasy movie sort
Speaker 3:of Right. Mhmm. Yes. It was like it was trying to be fantasy, but like fantasy light. Like, we're gonna have a dragon, we're kinda gonna have a wizard, but we don't wanna do a whole lot of special effects.
Speaker 3:So like
Speaker 2:Hear me out. Rather than teaming up with Paramount, they should have teamed up with Jim Henson.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that maybe
Speaker 4:puppets make every movie better.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just saying this could have done with more creatures, little bit more magic,
Speaker 3:and it was story. It could have told a story. It doesn't tell a story.
Speaker 2:Even a world where where magic is slowly fading away, you know, you could have done more with it. But Yeah.
Speaker 4:This is more of an anecdote.
Speaker 3:Is it an anecdote?
Speaker 2:They leaned on the faded part, not
Speaker 4:the magic kill a dragon, but then a guy just blew up.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But then my boss came back and he totally just blew it up. And then
Speaker 4:Took all the credit.
Speaker 3:And then the king showed up and he went toink, and he said that he was the one that killed it. And I was like, fuck all this shit, and then I left.
Speaker 2:Does this mean that if Galen was a slightly more intelligent character, he could have saved us almost an hour worth of this movie and just gotten there, thrown the shit in the lake, and been done with it? Yes. Yeah. Rather than So if
Speaker 4:if Ulrich had explained anything to Galen. Ulrich didn't tell Galen anything. He told Hooch? No.
Speaker 3:Hooch? Hodge.
Speaker 4:Hodge. Hodge. He told Hodge. Thank you. And then Hodge almost died before he passed the information on.
Speaker 2:Told Hodge who confided in Turner, and then nothing got done because the fucker was crazy and talking to a dog.
Speaker 3:Yep. Exactly. That would have made the move is the movie better if Peter does the entire thing in his accent from Ghostbusters?
Speaker 2:By far.
Speaker 4:By far.
Speaker 2:Yeah. By far. This would have been a much Every
Speaker 3:time he opened his mouth, I wanted it to be the guy from Busters.
Speaker 4:Oh, no.
Speaker 2:And instead, what we got was the watered down version of the guy from Numbers. So Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is definitely I mean, an early early film for him.
Speaker 3:It's his first film.
Speaker 2:Was it his first film?
Speaker 3:Mhmm. I think so.
Speaker 2:I'm I I didn't even bother looking to see if there was any other films that he had done prior to this.
Speaker 3:It's at least his film debut, whether he was in something else like TV otherwise.
Speaker 2:I mean, he's been
Speaker 3:on a
Speaker 2:shitload since then. So I'm I'm like rolling all the way down here in 1981, literally literally his first acting credit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then his next acting credit after this was Sophie's Choice.
Speaker 3:Who who saw him in this and was like, I know the man. I know the man that we need for this.
Speaker 2:We need somebody that that has the the capability of just acting out a gut wrenching scene.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh, I know the guy. I saw this movie. It was great. He's gonna be able to really turn this.
Speaker 3:He had so much emotion in Dragon Slayer. I just know it. He's gonna really crush this. Oh. That must have been a crazy audition for him to go from this and then roll up and be like, I'm a be in Sophie's Choice, y'all.
Speaker 2:Here's my acting reel from Dragon Slayer, and they're just looking at this like, tax write off.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Ian McDermott's in this during the Star Wars run because 1980 is Empire and '83 is Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 2:Right. But I don't think I I don't think the emperor was part of the whole thing until Return of the Jedi, if I'm
Speaker 3:not mistaken. An empire?
Speaker 4:I think the emperor doesn't show up until Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're right. Because the first time I see him, he's a hologram, and he's like, something weird. They were trying for something, and it didn't work out. So he goes from this to being in Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 4:Upgrade.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean
Speaker 3:Do you think he needed a new kitchen or something? Did he need a new roof on his house? And he was like
Speaker 2:he doing the Michael Caine thing for Michael Caine took up that Jaws movie. Was like, I just needed a new wing on the house.
Speaker 3:I know. I've seen him in interviews, and it's hysterical. People are like, you know how bad that movie was? He's like, no. I've never seen it, but I've seen the house that bought my mom.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Something about what movie?
Speaker 3:Jaws four, I
Speaker 2:think. Oh,
Speaker 3:okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:That is a terrible film.
Speaker 3:Worse or
Speaker 4:better than Garbage Pail Kids.
Speaker 3:There is a podcast
Speaker 2:There's reason why Garbage Pail Pail Kids is currently our bottom.
Speaker 3:It is. It is the the the rock bottom. Yeah. But did you know that there's a podcast dedicated specifically to shark movies? He only does shark movies, Bucket of Chum.
Speaker 2:Yes. I've listened. Yes. Yes. I can There's appreciate Bucket of a lot of like, there's one that I'd love to I'd love to watch for this podcast.
Speaker 2:Amityville Shark Attack.
Speaker 3:He started like right around when we did, and I keep waiting for him to run out of shark movies, and he has yet to run out of shark movies.
Speaker 2:Oh, there are many shark movies.
Speaker 3:I am so impressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, honestly, if you if you ever get a chance to check out SRS Films, just go there to find any number of of hundreds of just low budget trashy shark movies. People are making them I all the
Speaker 3:was trying to think of another movie that's like Dragon Slayer where it just felt like not like I didn't I wasn't even interested enough in it to dislike it. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's definitely like a it's so bad, it's horrific. I just like Garbage Pail Kids, I just want to rant about it anytime it ever pops up. And then there's the it's so bad, it's entertaining.
Speaker 3:And then there's this weird sweet spot that I just discovered watching Dragon Slayer where it's like it's so bad and uninteresting. I literally have already forgotten I watched it.
Speaker 2:I feel like Dragon Slayer, it's 1981. If I had actually watched this in 1981, that it might have had more of an effect on me than me watching it three times in a row now. Because I seem to hate it more every time I watched it.
Speaker 3:Do I resent this? We sat down than I did last time.
Speaker 2:If we sat down and did this podcast after the first watching, I definitely liked it a lot better and would have given it a higher rating. After the third watching and the subsequent Dingle Dangle that I got to watch, I was just done. I was like, yeah. No. Nope.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Even even with that little bit of nudity thrown in, nothing saved there.
Speaker 3:Mm-mm. I don't know. Maybe we've tried watching this movie called Being Human with Robin Williams.
Speaker 2:Being Human. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay. I've
Speaker 3:seen that. And it's like him traveling. It's not even him. It's it's kinda like Cloud Atlas if Cloud Atlas didn't have any through line. It was just what if Robin Williams was four different characters?
Speaker 3:And for some reason we added a semi humorous voice over that doesn't really match the tone of the rest of the movie. And I think we made it half we made it to John Totoro. Isn't it John?
Speaker 4:Yeah, John Tutturo.
Speaker 3:The Jesus. We made it to the Jesus being a Roman guy who has to kill himself, and he tries to get Robin Williams to kill himself first and or kill him and then kill himself because he doesn't want to be the one who has to kill himself.
Speaker 4:And he doesn't want to die alone.
Speaker 3:And I was like, I'm a 100% sure I'm done with this movie. And we just turned it off. Off. And then there's like a weird humor. I can't even you have to watch it to get what I'm saying, but apparently they did it without the voice over and everyone was like, I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 3:So they added the voice over which actually has nothing to do with the movie. It doesn't help. And it does not help and it does not clarify anything. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just a little side note. My stomach just growled at high volume. And I watched the sound top out on my microphone.
Speaker 3:Well, you lean forward at the same time, so I wasn't sure, but I thought, you know what? That's fine, Chris. We're all friends here.
Speaker 2:I didn't like I didn't just, like, rip one. That sound literally was my stomach creaking creaking like an old door in this movie. Sound effects we probably should have had.
Speaker 3:Yes. I know. Was there even a Foley artist? I don't
Speaker 2:even remember. I think that Peter McNichol was the Foley artist. It was just that drum in the thing, you know, just the entire film.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just
Speaker 2:Hey. We're gonna give you a few things. We can't afford a a Foley artist. So, Peter
Speaker 3:They gave him a pair of shoes and a violin bow, and they were like, figure it out, dude. I don't know what tell you.
Speaker 4:Then noise.
Speaker 3:Make some noise. They the crew was so short. Did you watch the credits?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Credits were so fucking short. Which they made so short.
Speaker 2:I I I have to try to understand why they decided to hire the basketball player that played Tirion for some reason. I don't think he was a basketball player, but this guy was sizably bigger than everybody else that they cast.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Mhmm. Because he's the only conflict. I mean, the dragon's there, but the dragon's not a bad guy. The dragon's just trying to eat lunch and stay in her lane, and people keep coming to try to kill her.
Speaker 3:And if they just gave her people that they didn't mind if they got eaten, then it wouldn't be such a big deal.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then the other guy keeps showing up and just murdering people.
Speaker 4:Just stopping people from getting healthcare. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, mean, the dragon is just cranky old and hungry, and you just happen to be the meal.
Speaker 3:Right. And he's like, I'm gonna go kill the dragon, and he's like, No, you're not. I'm gonna kill you. But also, we're trying to find a solution. Okay.
Speaker 3:I think I can go kill the dragon. He's like, no. I have to stop you. Well, then just let the dragon kill him. Because he's like, you can't kill the dragon.
Speaker 3:He'll kill you. She'll kill you. Okay.
Speaker 4:Then just You're just going to make it angry.
Speaker 2:He doesn't make a bargain until his daughter's on the line. Like they've gone off to take his daughter for sacrifice and the king is finally like, no, no, don't kill him. We need him. I need you to kill the dragon now. Please go.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't understand why there wasn't more conflict at the end of the movie seeing as his daughter just walked off into the cave to be eaten anyway. He could have easily blamed it on this guy. Yeah. But no.
Speaker 3:Because he really but I mean, he did try to save her and she did not want to be saved. She was like, I will protect my people. And she ran into the cave, and then got her foot bit off. I was like, is she really Are you fucking serious right now? Because-
Speaker 4:She died that fast.
Speaker 3:She died that fast, and they're literally already eating her? Right now, on screen? In this Disney movie?
Speaker 4:Like cats, they start eating you before you get-
Speaker 2:Like I said, it's dark and there was a bit more gore in this than you would expect from Disney in the eighties.
Speaker 3:Yes, I know. It reminded me of when they released Nightmare Before Christmas, and they were like, this is too difficult and dark for children. Made it. They released it under the touchstone pictures.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Because that was their like adult branch. But this one they were like kids love dragons. This is fine. Kids love people getting eaten alive.
Speaker 2:Sure. Was this PG? Fine. Was this considered a PG movie back then? This is a PG film.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2:Yes. Was back before what was the remlins that they that pushed the PG 13. I
Speaker 3:feel like when we've wrapped up our sword and sorcery series, we need to do children's movies that are way more fucked up than you remember.
Speaker 2:Coraline. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The brave little toaster.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:The Brave Little Toaster is some
Speaker 2:dark shit. So maybe maybe I'm wrong, but did anybody else feel like Ulrich, when he got resurrected, had a whole Gandalf the White moment?
Speaker 3:He did. He was better dressed than when he died. And he had also shaved in the afterlife. And he had a weird snake thing on his hat. Who is this guy?
Speaker 2:It looks like a poop emoji sitting on his head. But it was a snake. Had a snake head. It looked like a pile of shit until you got it at the right angle.
Speaker 3:Man, we've all been
Speaker 2:there so snake's head, you know.
Speaker 3:Who was this actor? This actor looked familiar, and he felt like he was acting in an entirely different movie from everybody else.
Speaker 2:Ralph Richardson playing Ulrich. Ralph Richardson. Let's see. He was in Time Bandits, Doctor. Chivago, Grey Stoke, The Legend of Tarzan.
Speaker 2:He's been in quite a few things, but mostly back in the eighties. I believe he's passed he passed away quite a while ago.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. Rachel said a couple years after this came after Dragon Slayer came out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, I mean, I I know I recognize him from Time Bandits. I don't 100% remember watching Greystoke. I know I watched it. I just it's been a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Watership Down, Jesus of Nazareth. There's a lot on here, but things that I'm never going to oh, that's where I recognize him from. He played the caterpillar in the 1972 version of Alice in Wonderland. Alice is in is in Wonderland.
Speaker 2:Oh, maybe that's
Speaker 4:where I recognize his face from.
Speaker 2:And he was also the crypt keeper in the original tales from the crypt back in 1972.
Speaker 3:He kind of already looks like the crypt keeper. Like, I don't even think he needs makeup.
Speaker 2:No. Not at all.
Speaker 3:No. I don't know what movie he thought he was in, but it wasn't this movie.
Speaker 2:No. He's one of those people that just seem to be acting in something completely different. Or at the at the very least, he was given his instructions completely separate from the rest of the crew.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Or he wouldn't dial it down. That's what I'm saying. They were like, listen, guys. You're gonna get paid, but this movie is designed to flop.
Speaker 3:So I just need you to just fucking show up, say your lines, and go home. And he was like, I don't have quit in my body. And they were like, then we will kill you, and you will show up again later at the end. And he was like, okay.
Speaker 4:I still get paid at the same level.
Speaker 3:I still get paid the same? Okay. Cool. I don't have to actually walk all that far? Fine.
Speaker 2:You get the first five minutes and the last five minutes. And those are the only important five minute segments of the movie. Yeah. And everything else in the middle is drivel. Right.
Speaker 3:Because he's the only one who's had any hope of ever defeating the dragon.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Right. Because Galen's bravely trying with his like toothpick spear thing that he takes.
Speaker 2:What do you feel would have happened if the king had gotten frustrated trying to turn lead into gold and instead shattered the crystal because it wouldn't work for him.
Speaker 3:Well, then I guess they'd just be waiting out the dragon dying just like they'd already planned on doing.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously, this was a a a an explosive device meant to blow up the ashes.
Speaker 4:Well, the ashes blow
Speaker 3:up the
Speaker 4:explode. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was the detonator, and the ashes were explos. Yeah. So would the ashes have exploded just the same as
Speaker 3:Well, no. Because he needed to bring him back. So he needed to throw him in the
Speaker 4:lake Because of
Speaker 2:technically, it's it's I I wanna say that what you had at the end was reconstituted wizard beforehand. You still have wizard. He
Speaker 3:was dehydrated.
Speaker 2:Magical ashes.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Are they really his ashes? Because I don't think they ground up the bones. So his bones are still back at his house.
Speaker 3:Honey, I think we've gotten too deep here. I just don't think there's a I don't fucking know. They didn't know how to end this movie, so they were like, what if the wizard didn't die? Explosion.
Speaker 2:We're just asking questions that would have been fun to have answered by the actual film itself.
Speaker 3:I know. And he can somehow summon a storm and an eclipse, but he can't just kill the dragon.
Speaker 2:Right. Okay. Other food for thought. He can somehow summer and summon a storm in an eclipse, but could not maybe levitate to the dragon.
Speaker 3:Fly. You know, something
Speaker 2:to that nature, teleport something.
Speaker 3:Lightning bolts? I don't know. We've got options that were not pick me up in your claw, and then I blow up.
Speaker 2:He has he has control over fire. He has control over the the air, the earth, everything. He seems to have control of almost all the elements and somehow lunar cycles at the same time, which is strange.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And yet, cannot kill the dragon.
Speaker 2:No. To be able to kill the dragon first, we must burn me to ash, and then you need to have Hodge take me halfway, and then you take me the rest of the way after it dawns on you at the very last second. Oh, that's what he meant.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Because you were already there in the middle of the Flaming Lake at one point.
Speaker 4:Maybe maybe he was just trying to finish all the trophies, and one of them was blow up the dragon with your cellar.
Speaker 3:Well, you know when you're playing a video game you know when you play in you're playing a video game and you go to an area and you spend a while there, and then you leave and you check and it's like, sorry, but this is only at 89% completion. And then you have to go back and figure out what you missed?
Speaker 2:No, sir. When I
Speaker 3:said That's what that felt like.
Speaker 2:When I said you need to blow up the dragon, I literally meant you need to blow up the dragon.
Speaker 3:You. Are the explosive device. Body. Wizard
Speaker 2:was And he self can't destructed blow himself up. By five
Speaker 3:He can't blow himself up. He has to have Galen smash his crystal unless he could have blown himself up, but he wanted to make sure Galen smashed the crystal first.
Speaker 2:It's like, I could blow myself up, but I wanna feel I want you to feel like you accomplished something here.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I want you to feel like you're a part of this.
Speaker 2:I because I I I think I I might have misspoken when I said I had a vision and it had it had something to do with you. I mean, it really
Speaker 3:Doesn't he envision his death?
Speaker 2:Yeah. He sees the whole thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. He's like, well, I know how this ends.
Speaker 2:I I I've seen something that involves you. What is it? Don't worry about it.
Speaker 3:This is exactly how I feel like I would react to an apocalyptic situation. Like, if you showed me, like, the world has ended, there's nothing but zombies, civilization has collapsed, I'd be the one that's like, I'm out. I'm out. I'm not struggling for the rest of my life for just to have more time. I'm not running around trying to find food and ammo and trying to find a safe place and getting shot at by stupid people.
Speaker 3:That's not going to be me. I'm just going to be done. And I feel like Ulrich and I are on the same page. Okay. If magic is going away, as soon as I kill this dragon, it's gonna be the last fantasy creature in the world, then I think I'm ready to go too.
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. Because then what what's the use of me being around?
Speaker 3:Right. What am I gonna do? Levitate shit?
Speaker 2:Because it seems like this dragon has already been fed several other wizards prior to this.
Speaker 3:Oh, it gets it eats like seven people in this movie. Like, it eats the lady at the beginning. It eats the princess.
Speaker 2:Well
Speaker 3:Weren't they sending one every six months?
Speaker 2:He inquires.
Speaker 4:Yeah. A lady, but he mentions several other wizards have tried to take this thing down.
Speaker 2:They've all they're all dead. They've been eaten. Oh, okay.
Speaker 4:Because he's he's suggesting alternatives. He's like, why don't you go see this wizard or this wizard? They're like, dragon already ate them.
Speaker 3:So, in
Speaker 2:fact, it's like, you're our last resort.
Speaker 3:He's like, joke's on you. I'm still gonna die killing the dragon. I'm just gonna do it with die or
Speaker 2:somehow is resurrected as a white horse.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So alright. So I I I think we've really stretched this as far as we could with with
Speaker 3:We did a good job, I think.
Speaker 4:Yay us. Better us.
Speaker 2:Better than the source material deserved.
Speaker 3:I'm ready for some half naked men. What's our next movie?
Speaker 2:I actually think that our next movie after this is supposed to be Conan, but I could be fully mistaken. I see, you should have told me to have that up before I I started this poll.
Speaker 3:Pop quiz.
Speaker 2:Because I think that shortly after this film because this this is 1981, I believe shortly after this was the original Conan the Barbarian.
Speaker 3:Yes. I think you're right.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to say Conan the Barbarian.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's '82, so Conan would be next.
Speaker 2:I will I will backtrack if there was oh oh, wait. Did we try to throw fire and ice in there as well? Was that prior
Speaker 3:that's later. I think song I think Song of Fire and Ice. No. We will not be reading a George R. R.
Speaker 3:Martin. It's 1983. It's Fire and Ice.
Speaker 4:So that's post
Speaker 3:So that's gonna be after Conan.
Speaker 2:Sounds good to me. Would you rate this on a scale from one to 10?
Speaker 4:Three.
Speaker 3:I feel like it's not on the scale, because that would imply that I had paid enough that I had been like interested enough to have it
Speaker 2:in has the to at least be on the scale unless you consider this worse than having watched Garbage Pail Kids.
Speaker 3:It's not. Nothing is worse than having watched Garbage
Speaker 2:It Pail at least has to be on the scale then.
Speaker 3:Love that you sent me an ad. You sent me an ad for garbage mail kids in HD, and I was like, I would rather die. I would rather die than watch the snot kid in high definition.
Speaker 2:Of all the things that That's a punishment. Did not need a four k remake.
Speaker 3:Why? How? Who was like, this movie is so popular. This shit's gonna sell like hotcakes. People are gonna wanna watch the alligator nightmare puppet child eat eyeballs out of a lunchbox in four k.
Speaker 2:I mean, the costumes themselves as Garbage Pail Kids were creative, but nothing that they did with them was I don't even want to talk about this.
Speaker 3:They're nightmare children. Nightmare, I'm gonna I'm gonna get okay. I'll give it a rating. Okay. I'll give it a rating.
Speaker 3:So I'm I'm with Matt. It's like a three, three and a half. It's not as bad as Garbage Pail.
Speaker 4:We finished it.
Speaker 3:We finished it. We forgot we finished We went back and watched it and we were like, shit. I think we already watched this and it was so forgettable. It's just it's not even memorable enough to be bad, but it's bad enough. When you're when you're in it and you're watching it, it's an unpleasant experience.
Speaker 3:So I'm gonna give it a three.
Speaker 2:So if you had talked to me after my first watch, I would have given it about a 5.5. Honestly, after my first watch, wasn't terribly disappointed with it. It wasn't a great movie. It's nothing that I'm going to go back to watching. It's nothing that I am going to curse at having spent $5 to watch.
Speaker 2:That being said, after having watched it for the third time, and now having both the ass and dangle of Mr. Peter McNichols stuck in my head. I'm probably gonna rate it about a two, two and a half at best.
Speaker 3:Just Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think that I and I even will sat down and watch this with my very disinterested son. He was just like, I could not get him off his phone. There's nothing going on. Thank you for watching it with me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It is the visual equivalent of watching somebody drag their fingernails down a chalkboard.
Speaker 2:I would no. Say No. I would say it is the visual equivalent of watching already dry paint dry.
Speaker 4:Or maybe you're watching and really out of shape guy, sweatily dig a hole.
Speaker 3:Oh. To most of Instagram.
Speaker 2:Which is what I thought happened before he caught up to Hodge later in the movie. But that's beside the point. I had no idea why his hair was wet and matted to him. Like, does he sweat that much?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I love that they did nothing to his hair. They were like, beautiful. Leave it. And his hair does not match what anybody else's has happening.
Speaker 3:Everybody else has like long fantasy hair, and he's like, his But usual
Speaker 2:it was all disheveled too. Like, there's no reason for his hair to look that good back then.
Speaker 3:No. It's so hydrated. What what were you doing? Those are some hydrated curls, Peter. What kind of that's magic.
Speaker 3:To be able to maintain that in that setting? Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't I don't know. No. I I've got nothing else to say.
Speaker 3:It's Okay. I think it's good. We'll just leave it there.
Speaker 2:It was a terrible film. I like to imagine that they rode off into the sunset, and it wasn't the last dragon.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like to I like
Speaker 3:That another dragon came and ate them. I like that ending. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like to think that they they they killed the the the mother, and then somehow the father finally comes home after a long journey. He's like, where's my wife? Where's my kids? Fuck. Now they're dead.
Speaker 2:You know? Yep. And the entire neck they would have an entire sequel to the film, which is equally as boring of just the the father hunting them down through the the countryside. And they're just a little bit ahead of it at all times. And that's all you see is just father flying, horse galloping.
Speaker 2:That's it. The entire
Speaker 3:movie. And it'd be like the Gamork and the never ending Or
Speaker 4:the sequel is Reign of Fire.
Speaker 3:Oh, it goes to sleep underground, and then later we dig him up in London. Mhmm. Yep. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Okay. I did
Speaker 3:That's a better movie.
Speaker 2:It's been a while since I've that was well, Matthew McConaughey. Right?
Speaker 3:Matthew McConaughey, Gerard Butler Bale. Christian Bale. That was some star studded shit, and everybody shit all over that movie. Shit on that movie.
Speaker 2:That was not as bad a movie as
Speaker 3:they made it. A bad And then I saw somebody watch it, and they were like, guys, why does everybody hate this movie? It's a really good movie. And I was like, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I remember watching it and being like, oh, this was a really good movie.
Speaker 2:I saw it in
Speaker 3:two It It came was you know what it was? It was in the middle of the big CGI backlash.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because Star Wars Episode one had come out and everyone was like, too far. Too far, George. Too far because it was all CG but it wasn't good CG? Like it was not good CG. And then everyone was using CG because now it's cheaper, but it wasn't good because it was in that moment where CG was just not great.
Speaker 3:And they were using a ton of it, and so when it came out and they were CG dragons, which they're not even bad CG dragons. Yeah. But still CG dragons. People were like CG, uh-uh.
Speaker 2:I think the
Speaker 4:I hate this shit. Principle.
Speaker 2:The problem that we had with with Star Wars in general, though, is they had also been completely everybody had been clamoring for like a re release, like a DVD or blue DVD re release of Star Wars
Speaker 3:back
Speaker 4:special editions.
Speaker 2:And they kept getting the special editions where he CGI ed things in that should not have been in the movie.
Speaker 4:Every time Yeah. He replaced more scenes.
Speaker 2:Like that that god awful scene where they actually watched Jabba slithering across the ground.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Which was terrible.
Speaker 3:With Han Solo. Oh, yes.
Speaker 2:And then everybody just I just want the original trilogy, the original footage on DVD. That's all I want. Never got it.
Speaker 3:They did eventually.
Speaker 2:They did. It was a long I was gonna say it was it was a long time afterwards.
Speaker 3:It was a long time and they released them. It was a big deal because I went and bought them because that was the version I grew up on.
Speaker 2:He melted
Speaker 3:So I went and bought those. Yeah. He did.
Speaker 2:I think that they should have released a box set that had, like, all of the different versions that he had released.
Speaker 3:Just you could compare them?
Speaker 2:Just you could compare, like, great movie.
Speaker 3:Yep. Shitty shitty. He retconned episode six, and he put Hayden Christensen in instead of Sebastian. I forget what his name is now. But the guy that they had played, Vader.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:They made it Christian made it Hayden Christensen. I don't I only watched four, five, and six. So do not come at me for Star Wars trivia. I only watched the original trilogy.
Speaker 2:I mean, don't come at me for Star Wars trivia You
Speaker 4:you watched one one weekend in college.
Speaker 3:Okay. I watched one, two, and three.
Speaker 4:You did a a marathon. You watched all six movies.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's commitment right there.
Speaker 4:Said at the movie, at the end of all the movies, you were really cracked out. What you said
Speaker 3:Hate and Christiansen made a lot of sense when you've been watching Star Wars for eighteen hours or It's like, I get it. Kinda made sense. But I was also Christiansen. Overtired. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a that's a terrible binge though. That's a lot of Star
Speaker 3:Wars in one show. Star Wars, I just couldn't.
Speaker 2:I think the worst binge I ever did was watching all of the unedited versions of Lord of the Rings back to back
Speaker 3:We did that. We did that.
Speaker 2:That was painful. That was an entire day worth of work.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's all day.
Speaker 2:I think it's fourteen hours. It's like, where did
Speaker 3:I Something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where did my friends go?
Speaker 3:I know. Where did time go? Right. Space go?
Speaker 4:Like, why did I watch
Speaker 2:all of this?
Speaker 3:Because they're good.
Speaker 2:They are okay. I I will agree the original series. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I could my TED talk about those is long.
Speaker 2:The The Hobbit. Still don't watch The
Speaker 4:Hobbit movies.
Speaker 3:Fuck The Hobbit.
Speaker 4:We watched the first one.
Speaker 3:Fuck The Hobbit.
Speaker 2:I am happy though
Speaker 4:We got the ick.
Speaker 2:That he turned The Hobbit into three separate films, rather than taking each individual book from the original set and turning each one into three. Because imagine if he had gotten that idea in his head before he even got to The Hobbit, where he was like, I could make three movies out of each one of these books.
Speaker 3:I'm glad he did not. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Technically, I mean, you're considering how if you're considering how long those movies actually were, he almost did.
Speaker 3:He kind of did. But they are like a once in a generation cinematic achievement. And I will leave it there because that TED Talk is at least three hours long.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Considering what kind of things Peter Jackson was doing before that. Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Mhmm. I don't know who was like, it's the same thing that got Peter McNichol hired for Sophie's Choice. They were like, you know that guy that did the frighteners? I think he's got this.
Speaker 3:I think we hire him to do Lord of Rings.
Speaker 2:There was two other movies, Bad Taste and I think The Willies that he did too, which were really two really bad kind of
Speaker 3:I like The Frighteners, though.
Speaker 2:The Frighteners was good. Yeah. I did like The Frighteners. I think they said The Frighteners was supposed to originally be part of the Tales from the Crypt series. Oh.
Speaker 2:But they turned it they turned the script down for some reason, and then it got farmed out and was done that way instead. So we'll just leave you with that little bit of info and Privia. Why don't you go ahead and tell our good friends at Cinematic Anarchy where they can find the Strange and Beautiful Book Club podcast?
Speaker 3:Well, all of our podcasts are available on strangeandbeautiful.network. Of course, we stream everywhere you can stream podcasts, but if you want to figure out what we're currently up to, you can go there or every once in a great while I update Instagram. I can't make any promises, but it's kind of there. We're doing Dune for Strange and Beautiful Book Club. We're still in the middle of doing Babylon five.
Speaker 3:And that pretty much sums it up. Keeps us busy.
Speaker 2:Updating Instagram is a pain in the ass.
Speaker 4:I hate it. It auto posts to blue sky, though.
Speaker 3:Yes, it does. I do auto post to Blue Sky. So if you're on Blue Sky, you can see every time I post a new episode to anything.
Speaker 2:I think I I keep having to, like, post the videos out there every once in a while, but, like, I am not as current with the videos on Blue Sky as I am anything else. Like, I'll get the little
Speaker 3:You are so on it with the videos. Every time you're like I just get a notification that's like, Chris wants you to collaborate on this video, and I'm like, hell yeah. He's doing all this work. I will piggyback on that and just add it. It shows up on my page.
Speaker 2:I'm like, I'm like trying to get like little snippets here and there. I think I'm I'm gonna start putting more of the more of the little clips up on YouTube to try to get things moving a little bit over there, get shorts. I'm getting some recommendations on how to use TikTok a little bit better from somebody that's probably about 25 younger than me. It was like
Speaker 3:Tick Tock? You mean the robot from Return to Oz? That's the only experience I have with Tick Tock.
Speaker 2:I miss that movie. But yeah. No. I I I definitely need to use my platforms a little bit better. And that one, he's giving me a little bit of extra information on.
Speaker 2:He's like, you know what you do is you go and find audio, like a really popular, like, audio, attach it to whatever you're putting there and then turn the volume all the way down. So it's pushing it out to more people because like, you have like audio that was used like several 100,000 times. It's gonna push it out to people that are watching those clips that are attached to that audio.
Speaker 3:Interesting.
Speaker 2:So guess what I'm gonna be trying this week?
Speaker 3:Well, have fun. Let me know how it goes.
Speaker 2:We shall see because the audio that I've been using, I mean, who the hell was attaching Flash Gordon, the theme song to Flash Gordon to anything?
Speaker 3:Whatever. I don't even put hashtags on shit anymore. You're doing great. You are doing great, Chris.
Speaker 2:Pat on the back. And I you can find our podcast at a lot of the places we were just talking about. YouTube, Spotify. You can find us pretty much anywhere you find podcasts and some video podcasts as well. Outside of that, I've got literally nothing else to say.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, you know, Conan the Barbarian is the exact movie that we're watching the next time, so I don't have to do some kind of correction in the middle of all this. But if it's not, I can just be like, hey, we fucked up. I this is not the movie that we were supposed to watch. This is not the barbarian film you were looking for.
Speaker 3:Well, it's cinematic anarchy. You should expect a little chaos. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's in the
Speaker 4:That might be a good outlaw outro. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Expect a little chaos? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And remember, this is cinematic anarchy, so you should expect a little chaos.
Speaker 3:Expect the unexpected.
