Blank Check with Griffin & David - Raiders of the Lost Ark with Brian Michael Bendis

Episode Date: February 9, 2025

You’re a young movie fan. It’s 1981. STEVEN SPIELBERG is teaming up with FREAKING GEORGE LUCAS (!?!?!) to make a movie with HAN SOLO…can you imagine how hyped you’d be?? Marvel Comics legend Brian Michael Bendis joins us to recount the colossal impact of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in this rollicking adventure of an episode. Jewish mysticism and weird Nazi stuff! Alfred Molina getting covered with a bunch of live spiders! Karen Allen coming up with an incredibly detailed backstory for Marion and Spielberg being like, “sure, whatever”! Danny DeVito almost being cast as Saleh?!?! You bet we’re getting into it, snakes and all. Check out JinxWorld Check out Brian’s Comics Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blackjack Podcasts. Why did it have to be podcasts? Great. I don't think I nailed it. Sometimes I'm able to pull a surprising Harrison out of my pocket. Needs to be growlier, even at that age. Snakes, snakes, podcast. Fuck. It is tough now. I think I'm better at doing older Harrison. Yeah, go ahead. It's tough when he's you Thunderbolt Ross seeing a snake snakes why does it have to be snakes you know my joke is that he's gonna turn into Red Hulk when they're like we have to make the military more

woke he'll be like right that'll be what it is I don't even know is Thunderbolt Ross right wing he is right look we have a guest I want our guests to answer not to put him on the spot under ball a Republican You know, I love this podcast so much and I Immediately went to I wonder what thing we're gonna talk about that. I couldn't predict and right away right away Thunderbolt Ross right wing. Have you ever written for the big man? Have you ever written Thunderbolt Ross the best character? I have ours in it actually I have I did a the best character in Marvel Universe? I have in, actually I have, I did a, believe it or not, a weird little mini arc in Avengers with the great Walt Simonson.

Yes. And with Red Hulk front and center. I had this, like, I wanted Walt Simonson. He like joins for a minute, right? He's in the Avengers as Red Hulk, right? I forgot. Something. Yeah, something was going on. But yes, but no, I did not in my heart lockdown,

the politics of the time, it just had him in mission. So I can't speak to the larger- Does the Marvel universe have Democrats and Republicans? Like, does that come up or is it sort of like, we don't- Well, kinda, but like mostly from a different universe than the one we live in now. So it's not even, I don't even know if people would like refer to that in that way, you know I mean, that's why I'm so excited to see a Captain America movie

That's about the president if you see it as an Air Force one sequel. I think it is deeply exciting and a huge swing and I Appreciate that kind of thing and let's say just incredible weave on Thunderbolt Ross's ideology. Yeah, we don't really know we don't know we were very Very focused on where the mustache went when he turned well, so that was a much bigger issue for us as a group Where does it go? I'll say this I guess Brave what brave new worlds what's called now? Yeah, it's coming out right it's called now? Yeah.

Is coming out right around the time of this episode, maybe a little bit after? That's right, it's coming out in February, right? I was, not to be like a pedantic nerd, I was very thrilled in the trailer where there's a line where Harrison Ford's like, They told me if I wanted to be president, I had to lose a mustache. Oh, interesting. Right. We haven't had a mustachioed president since maybe Roosevelt. But that sort of solves the Red Hulk mustache issue, where they're just like, well, he just shaved

before he ever became the Red Hulk. I'm not joking. It was a large conversation in the Marvel retreats. Where does the mustache go? Where did you land on the logic? I just went, listen, not every fight's my fight and I'm moved on with my life. Like there's a lot going on.

This is not for me to solve, yeah. I'm trying to get Miles Morales into the 616. I've got my lane. I've got issues that I was dealing with at the time. Red Hulk has a gun, right? That was part of his thing. But it was like, it's like, you know the Hulk? And I'm like,

yeah, I know the Hulk. He's incredibly strong. And they're like, yeah, but he also has a big gun that he shoots someone with. There are other Hulks that had guns. I guess I guess in the 90s, or fix it would carry on a Tommy gun. In the 90s, it got for Hulk to have. See, when I when I saw the trailer, I was much more I've been I've, as we are going to discuss, I have lived with the Harrison Ford's energy as an actor my whole life,

which has varied from the most excited bull, most movie star movie star, to his middle ages, which were, ah, ah, ah, yeah, and that went on for a very long time. And then we've entered the, this era, which started around Forced Awakens, where he's just enjoying being Harrison Ford. And I never saw this coming. I thought we were going to be stuck with Cranky Harrison Ford for the rest of our lives. Yeah. When does, that's actually a great point. When does Cranky Ford begin where it becomes

like, do you even want to be here like Harrison? I would say it starts with Hollywood homicide. I think Hollywood homicide is a reflection of what was going on at the time. Yes, but I think that's sort of the fulcrum point. Well, I'm going to argue that in the 90s, when he's Jack Ryan and Richard Kimball, he's gruff, but he's not totally grumpy,

all the way up to Air Force One. That's honed movie star persona shit. Gruff, not grumpy. And then post Air Force One, you have six days, seven nights, random hearts, K-19, what lies beneath Hollywood homicide. We're getting quite grumpy there. Yeah, but here's, okay, I mean, look,

this is what we're here to do on this episode. Thematically, he makes sense as a grump in what I need to be. Let me interest the podcast because I want to get into this very deeply. This is a very interesting conversation. Go ahead. In an episode about one of. A very famous movie. But also like one of the most definitive movie star performances of all time. No, no question. Right? Like this is obviously, inarguably, one of the totemic creations of the American cinema. Indiana Jones will always be on like the Mount Rushmore to a certain extent, the tapestry of like what is this popular commercial art. But this one in particular, for a guy who had already created an insanely iconic character, in a Wild Blockbuster franchise.

And had been in two of them already, right? Right. I feel like this is one of those performances, kind of like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, like John Wayne in Stagecoach, right? Where people just study it and go like, what did they fucking synthesize here? Total natural ease,

humor, sexiness, you know, doesn't... Gives a shit, but doesn't seem like he's trying hard. You know, like, you can't fake it. Can't fake what he's doing. Yes. There's a lot of pictures of him. Just like we can't fake the fact

that this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I suppose we could fake it. I'm David. I know! I mean, I could AI me. Refused! Just like some AI that goes,

what do you want from me every two minutes? David's entering his early 2000s. What if I become the red David in 2025? We might need that Think so you need to red Hulk to roll out. That's it. Maybe that's a year 15 arc Have they done any other color hulks since read? There's composite Hulk, right? All of them. Have they really? Any other color hulks since read there's composite Hulk, right? All of them have they really they've done a lot of whole okay Yeah, is there like a purple hole and the and the red Hulk famously debuted on the TV show Like that was that was they even referenced it in walk hard My daughter recently was watching an episode of Spidey and his friends or whatever the cartoon is or there's small spideys That Hulk was in and Hulk's just walking through the carnival

with Spider-Man, by the way. And I was kind of like, this is not what Hulk's supposed to be like. He's just a green man, but apart from that, the same as any, right? And she just looked at him, she was like, he doesn't have any clothes on. And I was like, you're not wrong.

That's the only takeaway she could have from this child Hulk. Because he didn't seem angry. Right. So he was just a man with no clothes on. Is he bigger than the other kids? That's the only takeaway she could have from this child Hulk because he didn't seem angry. Right. So he was just a man with no clothes on. Is he bigger than the other kids? Yeah, he's like...

But he's not like huge. He's like a big kid. He's taller. He's large. He's muscle-bound. I don't know. The whole thing's weird. Some of these guys don't translate well as kid form. Like Spider-Man does. Does she like Miles Morales? Yeah, she likes all three of them. Yeah, he's right there in the front Just saying. I know the creator of- I can feel good. Please introduce our guest. It's a blank check of Griffin and David. I'm Griffin I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers such as making Jaws

Sure. And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear Like Raiders of the Lost Ark in the wake of a bounce like 1941. This is another thing to talk about here. This is like one of the greatest comeback movies in Hollywood history. Instant comeback and probably one that doesn't, it's not like he was like, ah 1941 doesn't work. I guess I'll do my sort of throwback Alan Korderman thing.

You know, like, and everyone was like, oh sure, retreat to safe ground with that, Steve. Like, it's risky. It's risky, and this is also a movie that is imbued with the energy of, I need to not fuck up. Yeah. Like, you feel a certain, in a weird way, it's only positive, but Spielberg being in his head

about like, I need to get over the hump of being a wunderkind and not be a flash in the pan. Yeah, this poster. David's pulling up a really weird poster. Can you turn this around to show? This is a British poster. I mean, Ford just looks like 85 in this poster. Look at him!

I don't know. Anyway. Our guest today, as David was saying right before we recorded, arguably the most important impactful comic book writer of our generation, of our lifetime, you were very much the guy that I feel like we grew up on and grew up with and activated through. Brian Michael Bandis, unbelievably, is on the show. Well, that's awfully nice.

Thank you for having me. I am thrilled to be here. I am a huge fan of this podcast. As I reveal over time, including knowing that I could jump in early and without being introduced. It's a pro move. It was my obligation, but I'm thrilled to be here. And I will say, for the few people, I know you like to keep it on the download, what you're doing But when I said I was doing the show And they go hey what movie and I said raiders

uh the reference in which I was Shown like oh they gave you right Oh, it was like literally an honor an honor among amongst us blankies. I'm on the patreon I am a huge huge fan. So you've listened to his blather on about Marvel movies, but also think about this It's the funniest thing because like yeah, I've listened to you blab around about the mummy I've listened to you blab around about awesome powers I've listened to you It is a very very excellent space for my head to be in when I'm doing laundry and other things

Like driving my kids around like an Uber. But I will say it is very funny that part of the magic of this podcast is that often you will venture into other subjects with no warning. And when I'm listening to a Marvel podcast, I'm like, hey, you might bring up some secret invasion stuff. It might come up.

But it's always amazing when you're talking about like Austin Powers Man in mystery and all of a sudden you get into a dark Avengers ranch and I'm like, oh that's hilarious I would never guess that you're you're a tremendous amount of your work looms very large in both of our minds I feel like to some degree like one of the connection points we found early on when we became friends was Bendis comics Yeah, I think like, you know, you know, really sort of like that worship But then also like finding like we have the same like oh these arcs were as big for you as they were I just had to move my bookshelf from one side of the room to the other I had to take all the comic trade paperbacks off put them all back on I put

Faithfully had my my bendis shelf all the dare devils, all the Avengers, all the pow, uh, you know, all the Jessica Jones, anyway, ultimate Spider-Man, I have all of your ultimate Spider-Mans. Thank you, man. That means a lot. It's really cool. No, okay. Fine.

Well, you should hear it then. I have them all. I have like 16 of those things. They're heavy see I believe I have every single issue of the original run but that was transferred to yes a Basement that my father oversees that I am very concerned about the status of yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah, that's tough, right So I I've almost been too scared to check but at one point and for a very long time I had all of them a single issues

Buying in real time. What if I came like just brought you want to drag you about killing some character? I'm trying to think of what character I'd be mad about I would be very happy to have that conversation with you but I will say to pivot into our subject I don't think there's any movie that I could refer to as more important to the DNA of how old I was when it came out and what the world was like and what the culture was like and how like everything about my life at this stage that wasn't Marvel

was Lucas and Spielberg. And I was giving like a great amount of thought in some of the links I sent you, Griffin, about why do I know all of this? Why do I know all of this by heart? I knew every single magic trick that Lucas and Spielberg did from Star Wars through Temple of Doom. There really was this amazing time where these two wonderkins were doing magic tricks and then couldn't wait to show us

how they did the magic trick. Like here's how the land speeder works. And I'm 10 to 15 years old and I'm being showed the magic trick and then being showed how it's done. And mind blown constantly. Like there's no other space I'm in with Star Wars and Indiana Jones,

and it just keeps building and building. Star Wars comes out in 1977, I'm 10 years old. I see it in the theater. One of my favorite things you guys talk about is how old you are when you see certain things and the experience of what that was. And here I am right at this, like, I see Star Wars in theaters and also Star Wars stays in theaters for two and a half

years. Right. So you see it multiple times. It's just the thing. I think you can do constantly. The entire time, my entire childhood and see Star Wars up until Empire Strikes Back comes out. One of my favorite moments as a movie theater going child was my mom took me to see Empire Strikes Back comes out. One of my favorite moments as a movie theater going child was my mom took me to see Empire Strikes Back. This is giant cliffhanger. I never experienced a cliffhanger outside of a comic book.

With a comic book, it's always coming next month. Spider-Man's gonna die. We'll figure out how in a month from now, you'll find out he's not dead. This one, I literally, I just sat there in stunned silence and my mom just let me watch it again. We just never left the theater. We just like, Oh, she's like, they're going to roll it again. If nothing else, you just, yeah, 40 minutes later, they're going to show it. They're just like, you're not going to get the resolution you want, but at least you can just

watch the same movie a second time immediately. That's so that's like method. Oh, that's the experience I didn't have, right? I didn't get to watch Empire Strikes Back and then have to wait three years for Return of the Jedi. Do you remember being happy with Empire Strikes Back? Like forgetting the cliffhanger? Just generally, were you satisfied or were you like, I don't know what to make of that? Yes. Also, you're very aware, oh, they're not repeating it.

They're continuing it. It's, oh, it's a snow planet. Everything that we celebrate about it, the initial feeling was complete celebration. It's everything better. It's everything elevated and evolved. They're doing it. It's broadening out, yeah. The only thing we didn't have is,

and I have a lot of kids, so I get to funnel my pop culture memories through how they're processing their pop culture memories through how they're processing their pop culture memories right now. Like my son knows when the next four Marvel movies are coming out. No idea when and if another Star Wars is coming out,

unless maybe you had a subscription to Starlog, maybe you caught something on some weird Entertainment Tonight thing. But other than that, unless you caught it live, unless you caught it in the moment, you really didn't know what's gonna happen, right? Yeah, I mean, I talk about my little cousin, George a lot, who's now someone I'm giving your trades to

as he's digging deeper and deeper into Marvel, but he is very much a kid who's aware of what the upcoming Marvel slate is. Right, it's weird. You know, and he's like talking about the moves of like, so what does it mean that Downey Jr. is coming back, but he's a different character? Like he's like fully in on that. I mean, I've said this, it's just the quote that is the most fascinating to me was, he

was like, what Marvel movies are still coming out? This was whatever, a year or two ago. You know, he always has to be like, so what are the next three Marvel movies? And he was like what's coming out? And I was like well the Marvels comes out in three months and he goes I hear the buzz isn't good isn't that? And I'm like you're eight! Who's giving you the buzz? You don't have a cell phone! You're not on social media! What is this? But like he's very tapped into all this stuff in a way that's just like this is the monoculture. Like the monoculture is, in a weird way, the discussion of the industry and all of that.

Whereas I think, you know, David and I always felt like weird kids where we were paying attention to this at a time when like people were not. Yeah. Where most adults were not. Well, you would have one friend. I had one friend who I shared like the comics thing with or maybe two, you know, like where we, that was it.

And then maybe, right, maybe you read Wizard Magazine, so then you know a little bit about what's in the future. But yeah, you do not watch entire presentations of Slates on YouTube at press conferences and things like that. Also the entire cottage industry of trying to guess what will happen next, you talking about that experience of like Spielberg and Lucas being so pioneering and kind of serializing legitimate A level filmmaking, right?

That they were sort of like bridging this gap between like the old serials that they grew up with and the comics that they grew up with and the TV shows and the radio plays and all of that that were always seen as low art you know or children's art or like pop trash or whatever it was and then elevating this to like a level craft but getting people roped into the story in that way. Listen I'm forgetting what the original connection point was but if it was you messaging me or someone telling me

Do you know that Brian Michael Bendis is a listener at some point? It got relayed to me and then we started messaging and then you did the George Lucas talk show I guess about a year ago, maybe yeah eight months. I loved it I absolutely adored that you were wonderful on the show but you... We had already been messaging back and forth a little bit at that point of, like, we've got to find something for you to be on for, and we will keep potential guests

in the hopper for a long time sometimes to wait to find the right fit, and there were a couple things we were throwing out and going back and forth on. Then you come do George Lucas' talk show, and you came with, like, 10 Indiana Jones prop replicas. I don't think I've told you this. No. But Brian comes with like a hat but he comes with like a grail diary replica. He comes with like maps. Like he comes with like all the paperwork and like you really look right there.

Hey there you go. A little Jewish boy with a cup of rice there. A little a chalice there. Is this thing that's very nice about doing the show Is that sometimes we will have people like yourself where George Lucas was so important to them In their development as an artist or whatever and they basically use Connor as like a surrogate to say those things right? You were very earnestly talking through the value of what this stuff means to you to Connor who is very good at receiving that stuff was he can go kind of Yeah, yeah, well, of course Right and I like that lodged in my brain and then a couple months after that we were like, let's do it Let's fucking do early speed bird

And I feel like you were the first message I sent of just like Raiders Well, you said hey, we're doing early Spielberg, which I could have done any of them. And, and, and I think I said to you Temple of Doom, because I will, as I will describe to you, I'm now in high school, learning story and Temple of Doom is playing at my local theater across the street from my house, the entire. Like, I saw it every day. Like I went to it every day. So it was like, even though Raiders is obviously the better film, the Temple of Doom, things were unlocking.

It was, it met you at a pivotal moment in your life. Yes. Yes. Yes. And even the, oh, this is darker, this is different. Why, why am I is darker, this is different, why, why am I feeling differently about this? Like every choice that's being made was interesting to me. So, and then you literally said no Raiders.

And I was like, oh, of course I will accept Raiders. But I. But I was like, it would be a miss for us if you came on and did this one. And that gives you an opportunity to talk about Indiana Jones as a whole and Lucas and Spielberg and all of this. It feels like you saying that like, you know, it's a big deal that we let you do this one. I was like, that will make our lives easier.

If we have Brian talk about Raiders and like kick off this Indiana Jones run, I think it's one of the things that David and I talk about a lot with your work and how important it was for us At a sort of developmental age like what you're talking about of like learning how story works through The stuff you're absorbing and seeing what works and what doesn't is that like I feel like we will often cite you as someone who is incredibly good at Understanding the the format in which you are doing the storytelling in the sense that you are telling long form serialized stories. But there was a thing, I think a trend that started to bum me out. And I feel like we've complained about David that started

in the 2000s that has only gotten more and more extreme over time, where I would be reading single issues and feel like this is just a graphic novel that is being split up into six parts. That I'm just now having to wait a month to read chapters. You know, very similar, a lot of our complaints about streaming television now where people are like, well, this is really just a 12 hour movie. And that balance of like doing something that has integrity as the one piece you're engaging with at that moment, but can also amount to something larger. You write great arcs, but I also think you understand the value of like, this issue needs

to be satisfying. There's like a big picture and a small picture of what's going on there. And like Indiana Jones is this basically it feels like storytelling experiment for Lucas and Spielberg to be like, can we make a movie that is just that? Right? There are all these famous lines of what if it was just the good parts and none of the boring parts? What if it was a Republic serial that never ended at every 10 minutes?

There's like another huge moment, another big cliffhanger. And where does it go from here? And then, yeah, I guess leaving you probably with the same feeling as Star Wars of like, so what happens to Indiana Jones now? So a few things are going on here. Number one, both Lucas and Spielberg are eager to let us in on the on the magic trick and to take take us in. And as a young and I'm all in.

And so when I sent you that that network special on Raiders of the Lost Ark that aired on like CBS or as a document, right? But if you can only see the movie in theaters, there's no other way to experience it. And all of a sudden they're showing you a behind this, an hour long behind the scenes with genuine interesting, you know, and also honest storytelling.

There's one bit in that special I sent you and interesting, you know, and also honest storytelling. There's one bit in that special I sent you where Spielberg literally is exhausted in Morocco going, I'm in the middle of desert with all my friends. I'm completely embarrassing myself. This is not working. Like he's having complete napostra syndrome. And I was thinking, how?

I wonder if this would air today. Like I wonder if the director of Wicked was staring and having just the moment like we all have going, you know. So this honesty that they're sharing with us and on top of, all right, so Lucas is Star Wars, Spielberg did the same thing with Close Encounters and Jaws. Also, we have the John Williams documentary, which is out right now at Disney+,

which really does a good job illustrating this, is that in lieu of DVD and VHS, we have the soundtrack, just sit in our room, stare at the ceiling, and relive the movie in our mind's eye with whatever You know trading cards we have like we're we're we're absorbing it and remembering it and Contextualizing it in in ways that are just different than what happens today. No, no better or worse. You had like novelizations I guess or that's another form of patients, right?

Like that's about as close as it got I guess but that was a big one too because even the close encounters of novelization written by Steven Spielberg whether it is or isn't but it says written by Steven Spielberg it Internalizes the story for a young person who's only seen externalizing it and now you're now I'm I feel like I know what Roy Neary like I'm like I know know how he's thinking. You're hearing his internal monologue, yes. Yeah, so that's for a young grader, all this is new. So all this is happening, including whatever 1941 was. Like, but all of it is very also connected loudly to the comic book space.

Star Wars and Indiana Jones are also comic books. And the Star Wars series is drawn by Howard Chaikin to start with, which is one of the greats of all time. You had Walt Simonson doing the Close Encounters adaptation and it is wonderful. It is not just, it is- And never is that- Well, they're very much like, you know,

the short version of a story, like the Cliff Notes version of it, but visually spectacular, and there's a great, like, how they made it of the Close Encounters comic book that showed the differences of how something is directed versus how something is shown on the page.

First time I'd ever seen that talked about anywhere. This is a huge moment for a young comic book creator. All I have is How to Make Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee, and everything George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are telling us. Spielberg is loud on graphic novels for close encounters, makes a huge like national lampoon's heavy metal version of 1941 that is loud and naughty and completely inappropriate by today's standards.

And then the Raiders of the Lost Ark is a two issue mini series, Cliff Notes by the amazing Klaus Jansen. So these are all like world-class comic creators that are stopping what they're doing to adapt or to take what might have been a weekend gig for them adapting these movies. But I remember the Raiders of Lost Ark, two issue Cliff Notes came out and I was living. I was, this is not enough of an abdication I mean they they skipped the well of the souls I mean, there's just like major pieces missing because they just don't have the thing and I was at it though a tarot chicken

Yeah, like you said he he's the coolest damn. Yeah, no, it's pretty good Yeah, I'm looking fucking cool Look at Blade Runner comic abdication by Al Williamson. You're about to be Leveled like things because I right because I was too, you know, I was too old for this stuff, right? Yeah Like by the time I was watching these movies like you could you know rent them I mean the moment you're talking about cool in the John Williams doc I mean, the moment you're talking about in the John Williams doc hit me really hard and kind of unlocked a thing that I don't think I'd ever like verbalized in such a specific way and some of the talking heads say to your point of like, the movie's out of theaters

at some point, you have the soundtrack, you look at the liner notes, you play it in your head and I feel like so much of my childhood I would listen to CDs of film scores and try to Reconstruct the sequences in my mind. I mean literally listen to the beat and go. Oh, that's where that happens That's when that moment happens. This little swell here is that if you have the same kind of demented brain that the three of us clearly have You're trying to like deconstruct these things to understand how they were made. But you're also trying to remember the... Right. ...the sort of pure emotion you felt the first time that...

Relive some form of it. Yeah. But the... This notion I don't think I've really thought about before of Lucas and Spielberg kind of being the first major open source filmmakers that like I was rewatching recently, a thing I watched multiple times a year, but that like Peter Bogdanovich attempting to interview John Ford and John Ford just giving him like the steeliest non-answers of all time to everything.

And that whole generation of movie star movie directors movie makers like I don't know Right who either were just like very sort of like aloof and and Tony and their sort of attitude about everything Or would try to just be like, oh, no, I just shoot movies. They're trash Whatever like try to sort of hide their emotions Lucas and Spielberg were kind of the first enthusiasts who reached that level of success and wanted to, like as you're saying, kind of tell everyone what they did. Share the process.

I think a lot of it was based off of giddiness, of like, can you believe we get to do this? More than them consciously trying to educate another generation, but it is why those two guys and their movies across these like 15 years primarily are so influential, were so activating for so many artists in different mediums because you were getting the pieces in that kind of way. And you were getting the supplemental material, all the merchandising and all the stuff, the

adaptations, all that helps keep the movie alive in your mind. But they're also doing interviews interviews fan culture is rising there are places like you know starlog and whatever they can like talk to Where these things can be distributed and then lodge into heads forever So and the same thing was going on in comics where there's a lot of our a lot of our masters were Not giving like Jack Kirby often refers to him as a job, I have to make sales. Jack Kirby was the John Ford of comics, yeah. And not in a, but he never cranky like John Ford,

but certainly would not give up I am an artist until his much later years when enough people were yelling at him, you're an artist, that he finally says, okay, okay, I'm an artist. But so there was like, getting any kind of information about how to do any of this was really, if you felt like an archeologist,

you felt like you had to like really sift through, issues of comics, buyer's guide and comic scene magazine and Starlog, looking for just any kind of information about how to tell a story or what, so anytime someone like Lucas and Spielberg particularly really couldn't wait to tell you how the magic trick worked, it was deeply exciting. I am also interested in that they kind of stopped doing that

after a while. Like there was a window well into the, by the time they get to the third Indiana Jones, they have stopped sharing. He doesn't do director's commentaries. And if you think of anyone's doing director's commentaries, it's him, it's Spielberg, because it feels like all director's commentaries beholden to him, and he didn't do them. And it was strange and appealing at the same time

that he stopped sharing. I found that deeply fascinating. David, it's February, which means it is my birthday month. And all I ask for as a present this year is a robust slate of new theatrical motion picture releases. And that our listeners perhaps use our sponsor Regal and their Regal Unlimited program to see such releases. Yeah, what do we got? Heart Eyes.

Yeah, from our friend. An original horror film directed by our friend, past and future guest, overdue to having back on the pod, Josh Rubin. Yeah, well, he's been busy making films. He has, wild and he's got a new one hard eyes. That's uh, that looks really exciting Love hurts. I would argue one of the weirdest K-Hee-Kwan action movies to be pushing the fact that it stars two Academy Award winners in history The marketing is Academy Award winner Kee Kwan, Academy Award winner Ariane

DeBose and you're like, yeah, right. I guess so. That's very exciting. You've also, well, let's acknowledge it. Someone's coming. Hail to the chief. Stomp, stomp, stomp. President Red Hulk. Let me check my glasses here. I'm used to Hulks being green, but this one's red. Finally, finally, we can stop talking about Red Hulk because we'll be able to see him. And vote for him. Yes. And also opening up, you know who's going to possibly kick Red Hulk's butt? The monkey.

Paddington in Peru. Oh, sure. But can we look, Paddington in Peru, we're all obviously excited to eat some marmalade sandwiches with Paddington, although I'm a little worried about how they've maintained with the long distance flight to Peru underneath a hat. What's awesome about all this is that there's lots of interesting different kinds of movies. This is what I like, variety. In theaters that you can go see.

And with Regal Unlimited, the whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable. I find that once you have the Regal Unlimited, right? You know, sort of the option of basically like, let me pop over my theater. I have three free hours. You do it more.

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We think it could benefit everybody, especially the movies. I want to swivel back to your childhood. So, so 1980, you see in prayer strikes back, you have this experience with a cliffhanger. 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark comes out. So you're 14. Is that right? So I'm 13. How I'm 13, 14 years old. How aware are you of this coming down the pike? Like what's all in? Right. Yeah. Okay. That's the thing. How it was told to us. And it's funny when I was talking To people about doing this a couple of people said what could you possibly say about Raiders Lost Ark sure that hasn't been said I get into sometimes challenge of these that when we do the most totemic movies of all time like you're like it is kind

Of impossible to overstate the impact of Raiders of the Lost Ark when you're like Oh, it was one of the most successful movies of all time, it launched one of the most enduring franchises in history, it is like key movie star text, key filmmaking text, it is like a movie that everyone is still kind of ripping off or trying to like chase, and then you're also like, it was fucking nominated for best picture, like it just kind of did everything

Yeah, everything right everything that could be so here's what I came up They go what what what is there left to discuss with Raiders a lot that hasn't been discussed and I go I honestly don't think I've heard a serious conversation about this movie post fable men's which to me Completely changed my perspective on some of the elements of this movie and what he was doing and why he was doing it, including the fact that he lived with the monkey. He lived with the monkey. I never in the 57 years I've been alive on this planet

knew that young Steven Spielberg lived with this little monkey. My kids are growing up with a little chihuahua. My wife has a chihuahua, our pandemic dog. And I wonder which one of my kids will make art out of the chihuahua like Spielberg had to with the monkey. So there's that and also, I have a very deep memory of how we were sold Steven Spielberg of the time. And it was all, you know, keeping it light

and keeping it, you know, compared to the Fable Men's. But like, I remember my mom going, you know, Steven Spielberg gave his mother a Bloomingdale's card with no limit. Like, she can go to Bloomingdale's and buy whatever she wants, whatever she wants. Right, if you, Brian, if you like telling stories, this is what you need to aspire to be

and then how you need to handle that level of success. So that was always, and I'm sitting there, well, I'm gonna be a comic creator, so that will be no problem at all for me to accomplish that goal. But so, but it was so interesting that it was such a, it was my mom really trying to share with me some kind of information about this thing

that I won't shut up about, right? So she heard something, she shared it with me. But it did still with me, oh, the mother relationship, and then you see it for real laid out later in his later work in Fable Mention. Like, oh, took him a long time to get there. Yeah. Well, and it took us a long time in our history to get around to

The the balance to do of early Spielberg. I'm so fucking happy. We waited to do it until post fable men's Yeah, because it does really make all of these movies make a little bit more sense or whatever I mean we're just interesting from different angles now When I watch a movie like this, which I've seen a number of times, you know, I'll just I feel like I talked about this a little bit when we did our crystal skull episode Eight million years ago an episode that wasn't controversial at all good movie, but like Indiana Jones was a weird blind spot for me I was yeah, I do remember you talking about this. It's not your franchise in the way that say Star Wars Well, it just wasn't.

And I had the baby version of what you're describing with Star Wars, which is I didn't see them until the special editions came out. So I had that thing of the movies being released one month apart and feeling like, oh, there's a kid at school who says he has a VHS of Empire Strikes Back, but that's cheating. I need to wait three weeks until Empire comes out in February, you know?

And like people at school being like, you know Darth Vader's their dad, right? And I'm like, that's impossible. What the fuck are you talking about? But having this mini three month arc of needing to wait to see the next one, I just never seen Deanna Jones. And I feel like it was a movie that most kids I know

were like shown when they were five. I don't know if I was sure it was five. That was kids I know were shown when they were five. I don't know if I was five. That was a thing that parents just passed down to people very early. I feel like it was a thing I knew through osmosis. I saw 8,000 parodies of the Boulder rolling. I knew what the theme song was. I could make jokes about Indiana Jones.

But I just never got around to watching them. And then when Crystal Skull was coming out, my roommate at the time, Spike, was like, how have you never seen these? Gave me his DVD box set. I watched all three of them, I think, in the week leading up to Crystal Skull. So a lot of my opinion of Crystal Skull

has also shifted by I didn't have decades of living with this thing in expectation before I saw the one that everyone got angry about. You know, like those four movies all were seen for the first time in the same week for me. I can't even imagine what that feels like. Exactly. That's crazy, yeah. And I have, in whatever it's been,

the 15 years since then, more, 18, gone back to watch Raiders a lot. And every time I do, I try to sort of like remove layers of my awareness and try to get myself into the head space of just watching this as a pure object. Right, you're just sitting in the theater, you know Harrison Ford's in it, but that's all you know

and you just watch this extremely fun rip roaring adventure. Right, the thing I cannot even imagine is for you being your age, your generation, already invested in this shit, the mere news of, hey, Spielberg and Lucas are gonna make a movie together must have been fucking mind blowing.

That these two guys are like, you know, neck and neck chasing each other. You know that they're friends. That's part of the mythology. That these guys are buddies. They kind of come out of the same soup. They're two sides of like the same coin You know, here's like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones

Inspiring each other and then it's like they're they're doing they're unifying their powers. Here's like the mega project And I remember and that was a like how interesting is yes He's the director of the films and so but I remember it growing up as, it's a Steven Spielberg joint that Lucas is part of, right? But when you read the transcripts, which is part of what I was excited to bring to the George Lucas talk show, that you read the transcripts and it is shocking how much Lucas had this lockdown. Like he really had this figured out from the get-go in a way that's even stronger

than the way he had Star Wars lockdown. Star Wars was always, you know, building and building and building until it became what it was, right? Including the scroll. Like everything was like stuck onto it as it went, but he really sat down with those guys and goes, here's what we're doing. And had like major parts of it locked down. I love this transcript. For

those who don't know online, you can find the literally the transcript and the recording of Spielberg, Lucas and Kasdan. Just working it out, just, you know just doing a little mini writers room and figuring it out. And it is glorious for someone like me who always sat there and going, why is it so hard for me to figure out how to create things, right? And then when you see the three masters in a room, also not figuring it out right away.

I mean, my favorite moment in the transcript is when someone says, maybe Marion's the villain. And I'm like, oh my God. Cause you're sitting there going, that's not a bad story. Like that's not a bad way to go with this, but oh my God, I'm so glad they didn't. And oh my God, I'm so glad they shared this with, like just the idea of the multiverse of madness

that could have come out of that room is so brilliant to me. But I just was so impressed with George Lucas and those transcripts. So you really get to see the magic that is him at full blast. Anyway. Right, it's the whole thing about him that is so fascinating and maddening at the same time

where you're like this guy who just had this incredible flow state period and a weird lack of self-awareness, where he was either so right or so wrong, and there is a pretty dramatic moment where the pendulum swings. It's so easy now, I feel like in a modern context, people write him off and go like

oh he's like a broken clock that was right twice a day you know but everyone else around him made really good decisions and people saved him from his worst instincts and Raiders is like as you said this thing he basically brings to Spielberg and is like I'm hiring you to direct this like this is a for hire job for you to execute my vision of this thing I've mapped. Like this is a four hire job for you to execute my vision of this thing I've mapped out. And this is a movie that has like four primary authors in Spielberg, Lucas, Kasdan and Ford.

Where the movie doesn't work if you're missing any one of those four guys. But I do think they all in a lot of ways contribute equally To the the soup of the thing even if oh, Lucas is primarily the first 25 It's also I mean good moment to crack open the dossier But talk about this as a comeback movie This is a movie that like largely stems out of two failures which are like the myths of 1941 And spielberg being like have I fucked up?

combined with All his movies up until then had gone over budget over schedule were lauded were successful You know he had the jaws close encounters thing like as feathers in his cap, but the second 1941 bombs it's like well now we can acknowledge that this guy is not infallible, and maybe it's not worth putting up with his shit if sometimes he's going to make something like that. That costs us a lot of money, along with everything else. And then the other big thing is Spielberg desperately wanting to be the first American

to direct a James Bond movie, a thing that he keeps getting fucking rejected from doing. He's made two of the biggest movies of all time and they will not let him through the door. I like that rejection at this level hits him so hard that even decades later, he still brings it up. Like he's still kind of mad. He didn't get to direct the James Bond. Right. That he was like, I made fucking jaws. Like what more do you want out of somebody?

So the dossier I am opening it Raiders of the Lost Ark Steven Spielberg. They are admirers before they're friends we should say right like George is a little older than Spielberg. Is that right? Or at least he's a little more He's creatively further along than Spielberg, right? Like George Lucas has already established by the time that Spielberg is emerging as a filmmaker. Spielberg... Well, Lucas is also part of Coppola's situation for a long time.

Yeah. Like, there's all these stories of... Yeah. Lucas is three years old of it. Okay. But the other interesting thing is that, like, Lucas goes to film school, right? Like links up with all these people, comes out with a better reputation faster in a certain way than Spielberg, who is the wunderkind who skips straight to a studio contract.

Yes. But is not getting that sort of prestige around him, whereas Lucas, it's like you have Coppola and everyone saying like, this guy's a genius. But yeah, so Coppola and Lucas at all, all known as Spielberg, when Duel comes out on TV and after American Graffiti comes out, George Lucas starts a daydream of like, let's make a sort of B picture at an A picture scale, right? Like an old Republic film serial from the thirties and forties, your Flash Gordon's and all that.

But how he has this idea of like a 1930s style, supernatural, grave robber, archeologist type thing, right? Which is, that's the Indiana Smith is the character he comes up with. No, no, it's perfect name. And he does, I mean, his original, this is George Lucas's original conception does sound about right, which is like college professor, goes off on adventures, also can be found at a nightclub

with like thirties ladies on his arms, right? He brings in Philip Kaufman who is, well, where's Philip Kaufman at this point? Again, already an established filmmaker to sort of flesh it out. Kaufman is like, eh, drop the nightclub and the ladies for now. Like you don't really need that.

You more want this to be like, this kind of like intellectual slash adventurer thing. Like he's a professor, but he's also fighting the Nazis. He's, you know, smart, but he also is finding like magic shit. Right, because that's the thing about Neneia Jones. We're like, oh, he's like this smart professional. He's like, yeah, that's that magic box from God.

And you're like, what? And he's like, you know, who knows? Or maybe it's just a box. I don't know, but it might be like have like Jewish magic inside of it. Don't open it. That all these movies are like about the meeting place between like hard facts and science and history and like inexplicable religious phenomena. So as Lucas is developing this, his other passion project,

Star Wars, takes off. So Star Wars happens. How did that turn out? I don't know. I can't check right now. I think it did okay. Okay. But in the theme of your podcast,

it does seem that Raiders of the Lost Ark is his blank check for Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. Right, because I mean, obviously Empire and Jedi, it's like, well, he a little bit right because I mean obviously Empire and Jedi it's like well He now owns the rights he gets like turn this into like an industry and map out where Star Wars goes But there's a certain extent of like They're not an obligation, but it's like well of course I have to keep doing Star Wars this feels like yeah second

major new thing he is creating. Well, the other thing that happens right after Star Wars comes out and begins to conquer the world is that Steven Spielberg goes on vacation with George Lucas. Yes. They go to Hawaii. Spielberg is wrapping up on Close Encounters, which also comes out in 1977, of course. And Spielberg mentions offhandedly, like, a dream of mine is to make, like, a James Bond movie. And George Lucas is like, I have that beat. I have something better than that.

Right, I have the same basic idea, but better, and it's this Raiders of the Lost Ark idea. And as Spielberg says on hearing it, he said, I felt like I was eating a barrel of popcorn at a noon matinee. Like, because it's basically just like, you can do a James Bond movie, but with a more fun aesthetic,

a more you aesthetic in a way, right? Not this British spy aesthetic. What is the American James Bond? Right. And it can be a globetrotting adventure. That's fun. Like, you know, and all that. And Spielberg had been says he had called Cubby Broccoli after Jaws came out being

like, hello, do you want to hire me? Like, like begging him for Bond. And that's not how Broccoli did business, right? Like he, you know, he had his like three British guys who did the, you know, John Glenn and Guy Hamilton, those guys, like he's not going to hire this American wunderkind. So he's not going to make James Bond.

I feel like it's part of the fascinating mythology of this movie that like even, and I imagine this was the case with you, Brian, like the George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, like Hawaii Beach conversations have taken on this mythical quality over time, where there were all these kind of regular pow wows they would do at these sort of like check-ins at like the parallel moments in their career. There's the infamous story of before Close Encounters and Star Wars come out and they're both absolutely terrified about how their movies are gonna do.

And they consider making a deal to swap profit participation. Like each one thinks the other guy's movie is gonna work. They're both like, ah, God. Yeah, right. And the fascinating thing of you're just like, it boggles the mind that there was space for both Star Wars and Close Encounters to exist at that level in the same year.

It feels like a case where the audience would vote on which version of a sci-fi movie they wanted, and both of them working to that extent is insane. I believe Aaron Sorkin will one day write a movie about three vacations of Lucas and Spielberg after different ages. That would be fun. So Philip Kaufman nominally is the first choice

to direct the movie because he had worked with Lucas on it at a certain point, but Philip Kaufman loses interest. So Lucas brings it back to Spielberg more officially. Are you interested? Yes, I am. And so then they look for a screenplayplay a writer to actually write a full screenplay they really just have like a story sketched out and They read this script called Continental Divide that had been written by Larry Kasdan

Who had only written another script called the bodyguard? Yes, which right not even made and canal divide is the one that ends up being the Belushi movie Yes, but they like these scripts. Yeah, so they So they think he has a Howard Hawksian sensibility. Very fun. And so they're just basically like, you know, will you turn this into a proper screenplay for us? It's wild that they kind of take a flyer on him. It's wild that he was so firmly the right choice

when neither of those scripts seem to be obvious indicators. Right, speak to a Raiders thing. Right. And then he obviously has his like a time in the Lucasfilm trenches. But then you look at what his career becomes once he goes off as his own director. And it does feel weird to be like, wait, right. Raiders was written by the guy who did Mumford. Sure. Or even Body Heat. Like, did you, Pittsburgh, Body Heat? Yeah, that's right. Did that ever happen?

Right, yeah. Which was, at the time, for people to know, the sexiest thing that ever been on the table. It's a hot movie. I mean, you get it when you watch it. It's one of Connors' favorite things to bring up. Which is true. Wait, then what Larry Kasdan wrote Body Heat? No, what? Well, no, that Lucas produced Body Heat,

but had his name removed from it because he thought that people would be turned off of the movie being sexy with his name attached. It's like the Mel Brooks Elephant Man thing where it's like they'll think it's a comedy. He's like, if my name is on it, it will not be taken seriously as an erotic work. It's fair.

Wow, I did not know that one. an erotic work, but it's fair. Wow. I did not know that one. That's a great one. That's fantastic. So Lucas and Spielberg, they do fight a little bit as Spielberg puts it. Like George loves logic and sometimes you'll get sort of swallowed up by the logic, right? Like trying to make a fun story.

Um, but George will back off when you are like, no, I want to do this and I, I'm going to go shoot my movie. He says, George is a bit like Disney. He does put a vision out there. That's so attractive. You'd be a fool or a slave to your own ego if you denied it just because it didn't come from you. Uh, interesting.

The biggest dispute was, uh, tote, you know, the, the evil German guy, Ronald Lacey's character, uh, Spielberg wanted to have a prosthetic hand. That was like a machine gun and a flame thrower. And they have like concept art that they had built up with this. And George Lucas was like, that's the wrong genre. Like that's sci fi. Right. Like, I don't care how cool that sounds. Right. Like that's fucking James Bond shit. Yeah, that's too much. Like we're not having a robot armed Nazi. Right. Right? You know, and in my opinion, George Lucas, as metal as that sounds, like, George Lucas is completely correct.

Like, these guys are all the scarier because they're just three fucking guys in hats who are like, maybe Hitler would like this coffin. But it is fascinating when the James Bond franchise is so based on technology, right? That the chorus is that Q is showing you the 10 new objects and what the car can do and all of that. That they're making this movie where they're like, technology's not the thing, but also magic exists.

No, like Star Wars, like changed James Bond. They went into outer space. James Bond went to the moon because of Star Wars. So- He raped that moon. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, he did. So, uh, Indiana Smith, uh, there's a Steve McQueen movie called Nevada Smith. So Spielberg's like, what do we do about that? And they're like, Indiana Jones. So there you go. That's how that happened. Uh, and yes, there is the famous transcript that Brian was referencing,

uh, that does have the infamous moment where they reference like how young should Marion have been when they had this Tris that when you read it now, you're like a little skeeved out by, but they are, they are sort of playing with how like shocking or transgressive can they make it. The movie is very vague about it. It has the kind of like, I was old, I was old enough, you know, but like, it does not throw down any numbers. No, I mean, I think an incredibly wise decision, I think is like a perfect kind of Spielberg. What are, at this point in time, his judgment, 1941 aside, is sort of so impeccable

about like what does the information mean to give the audience and what do they not need to be concerned with? Like he just knows how to portion out the exact right amount of visual information, narrative information, backstory and whatever. If numbers are left out only because he thought it was like excess fat, it is a decision that has greatly helped the legacy of the movie long term. So Casden, you know, he writes the script, takes six months. He said he basically never checked in with them, just went off and did it himself. Steven's working on 1941. George is working on Empire Strikes Back. They give him a researcher named W. Fine, who brings him all this research about

like Hitler and the occult and Egypt at the time and all that stuff. He delivers the script and George is like, let's take lunch. And they sit down and George is like, do you want to write Empire Strikes Back? I'm like working on this sequel. And Larry Cassidy is like, do you want to read this script first? And he is like, I'll read it, but you have the job I'll call you tomorrow if I hate this script and you know, he didn't have to read But like Lucas had basically become his own studio at this point

like this is the weird thing of he's insulating these guys from like studio notes and And perhaps there are early signs of things that will plague later Lucas Attitude where it's like guess what like Larry Kasdan was the right horse to bet on Yes, and he had a feeling about him and he was right It might be a little insane to just be like I'm not reading this draft. I'm hiring you to write another thing Yeah to write the Empire Strikes Back like once again like a thing where it's like you weren't even in With the the last Star Wars movie, but I don't care. I want you to write The Empire Strikes Back. Like once again, like a thing where it's like, you weren't even in with the last Star Wars movie, but I don't care, I want you to write this. Some stuff that got cut though,

there was a somewhat of a love triangle between Marion and Bellic and Indy. They got rid of that. A lot of the stuff they cut was just like, this thing needs to move. Like, you know, just pare it down, pair it down. They go to... So now they have this package.

Lucas producing, Spielberg's directing, Kasdan wrote it, Frank Marshall is also producing it, right? And they take it to Hollywood, essentially, and they're like, let's make the greatest deal in the history of Hollywood. Like, I think they truly were like... I guess 1941 hadn't come out yet, too. So they are like big swinging dicks, right?

but that's the big difference if 1941's got like a like a tale to it, but at the time even though it was a big loud thing That wasn't close encounters, but it didn't fail. It was like on cable, right? It was ever yes, like it wasn't fail. It was like on cable forever. Like it just sat on Showtime. There were certain movies that just lived on Showtime and became part of our consciousness. Not all good ones. No, of course not. Right. It's somewhat of a long-tail cult thing.

I mean, yes. It failed at the lofty expectations of a Steven Spielberg follow-up. There's this infamous story about, in guess the early 2000s when Eisner was overseeing, Michael Eisner was also involved in this film, but Eisner was overseeing the Pixar rollout of the five film deal that he had made around Toy Story, right? And the movies were getting bigger and bigger and more and more lauded and other Disney execs we're like we need to come up with a plan for how we continue our relationship with Pixar because

Our contract with them is gonna run out and their value is going up so much they're gonna have all the negotiating leverage and Eisner said to them they're gonna have a flop and When they have a flop they'll come back to us and we hold the cards and we pounce. And then the next movie that came out was Finding Nemo, was the highest grossing animated film of all time. And they were like, you fucked up.

Right, you could have had this. Yeah, they bet on the wrong way. You could have had it. And it's one of the things that leads to Eisner's downfall. I think within the industry, there was a similar thing going on with Spielberg, where like Eisner was scared at that moment with Pixar, they are never gonna be able to receive any oversight,

because they've done so well without our interference up till this point, that they're not scared of us. And I think Spielberg's success was so meteoric just on like Jaws and Close Encounters back to back that I think the industry probably was excited for 1941 to not work. Cause it's like, maybe this guy's come down to earth. Maybe he can be controlled now.

But the fact that he has already set up this deal with Lucas, that Lucas is the one who basically is putting himself in the position to have oversight over him, and that on top of that, he himself now has this chip on his shoulder of like, I want to prove them wrong and become responsible. The deal they're offering to these studios, to be clear, is like, we own the movie, George onto the negative,

you get action for distributing it, like you get some money. Universal says no, Fox and Disney and Warner Brothers say no. Paramount is like, okay, even though this is gonna make, need to make like $60 million domestic before we even see any money, we'll take the risk. Obviously it was a good gamble by them, but this is right, this is before the days of like, well, no, we need to own the intellectual property because the whole point is we can then create whole universes around the television or video games,

action figures and all that. But it's it's the legendary Lucas deal where he gives up his salary and his points as a director on Star Wars to retain the control and the merch and like the deal that You know people say like the last time that will ever fucking happen The studios made that mistake one time, but they gave Lucas the power to be able to just demand that as his terms from here on out so Yeah, Eisner is the guy paramount who makes it happen just FYI and Yeah, Eisner is the guy at Paramount who makes it happen, just FYI. And they get 60, 40 grosses until the grosses reach $35 million.

And then it goes to 50, 50. All merchandising and franchise rights remain with George Lucas. Sequels are planned from the jump, but, you know, they have approval and all that. Harrison Ford is not the first choice to play Indiana Jones, as I feel like Tom Selleck is often listed as the famous first choice that passed on it. And I think it's like that is kind of true. He was committed to Magnum PI. And they definitely screen-tested him,

and they liked that he looked like Jim Steranko, the famous comic book illustrator, had done some concept art that kind of looked like Tom Stur... He certainly looks like a classic square jawed pulp hero. Right. Even a little more than Harrison Ford, who's obviously maybe the hottest man who ever lived. Harrison Ford's so handsome.

Yes. But have you seen these, this concept art? Has he seen the concept art? I'm just making sure. Did I just show you the cup for Christ? Anyway, so... But have you seen these this concept art? Has he seen the concept art? I'm just making sure. Did I just show you the cup for Christ? Anyway, so, yes, but here, so Jim Sterenko, for those who don't know, is kind of like one of our Orson Welles

in comics. Yes, the great. He was at the time miles ahead of everything that was going on in the mainstream comics, and most famous for like kind of like creating the Nick Fury that people would refer to as Nick Fury up until Samuel L. Jackson like that the cigar chop and but when you see Nick Fury stuff like his eight like it feels like it's from 80 years in the future, right? You're like, I can't believe this is from the 60s or whenever it was, you know, like, it feels so modern.

But, like, Nick Fury, his Nick Fury looks like Tom Selleck, right? Like, Tom Selleck looks like the sort of, like, archetypical handsome action star of comics of the 60s and 70s and 80s in just kind of the, like, impossible jawline, cheekbonesbones chin. Yeah, and so the look, what you refer to as Indiana Jones is right there,

right up front in these storyboards and concept art pieces as Shterenko did. Sometimes he is very, very credited with this, sometimes not in a weird way, like I'm always interested in, because one of my favorite things about Steven Spielberg that will repeat for sure during this whole run that you're doing now is how generous he is about giving people credit for really big things in Steven Spielberg's career. Like,

oh, the boulder was this person's idea. Like, he'll never take credit for something that was someone else's idea, which as we know in Hollywood is unicorn behavior and it's certainly something that I even, like, I will aspire to that. Like, I looked at that as, that's someone I want to grow up to be. Like someone who always can give credit where credit is due.

Beyond that, I feel like he often will frame it as, here was my bad first idea, and thank God this other person came in with the intervention. Like he's, in talking about this sort of like open source way of understanding how these things are made through the way he tells you about their making, he's explaining to you what the bad draft was and then crediting the person

who had the spark of inspiration, which this is a deeply collaborative movie. Right, it is. The celic thing, you know, there's the infamous kind of like American Graffiti, Carrie shared casting sessions, or no, it was Carrie and Star Wars. Yeah, sure. I think. But then American Graffiti has its own casting session. This sort of generation, am I wrong about this, Brian?

That I was carrying American Graffiti begat Star Wars. You're right. Like that was, okay. Yes, there's all that pooled casting pot though of all the kind of young actors in the 70s who read for all of these movies kept on going in Lucas had this like very specific kind of bug bear of like I don't want to reuse actors He that's part. Yeah, he's the one who's like harrison in another thing

Like let's not like, you know, they also peter coyote and tim matheson are two names they like well when you when you watch the um, Coyote and Tim Matheson are two names they like. Well when you watch the screen test you get you got your Magnum PI and it feels like they did give it to him but when you watch the screen test even you're like yeah yeah no it's Harrison Ford but the one that's closest in the screen test is Tim Matheson looks like well if I was seriously looking at that footage and I had to make a choice that Tim Matheson looks like. Well, if I was seriously looking at that footage and I had to make a choice, that Tim Matheson is interesting, but not Harrison Ford.

It's just not there. And also, the Sean Young of it all. Well, yes. But the kind of like American Graffiti, Animal House, all these movies that are kind of these incubators of like, here's the next wave of people who's gonna pop and who's gonna be a movie star. Harrison Ford, infamously, had to fight really hard

to get Lucas to consider him from Star Wars because he had found all these young actors for American Graffiti and then was like, I don't wanna repeat the same cast, I need new faces. That's why he's doing this like, pulled casting session and trying to find new people and Harrison Ford's the reader and finally he's like I guess I can't deny this fucking guy but I think going into Raiders he feels even more so like I can't do this a third time. Well he had

famously Ford refused to sign a three-picture deal for it to play Han Solo which is why he kind of has them over a barrel when they're doing the other movies where he's like, please kill me off. And like, no, no, no. You know, so George is like, he's going to do that again. Harrison Ford reads the script to raise a lost arc and immediately signs a three picture deal. So he's like very, very on board in a way that I guess he he'd more enthusiastic. And he, you know, Spielberg is like the initial concept of this character was like two-fisted lover, CAD, Hellion, right? You know, like Harrison takes him out of that mold

a little bit, like makes him feel a little like more like one foot in each world, right? Like, you know, a little more academic, but also a little more like gritty and grounded I mean how to describe what Harrison Ford is doing when like Han Solo is like kind of the ultimate finesse character and you obviously have your big moments where like his guard comes down well you realize magic of Han Solo is that he's full of shit exactly in Star Wars right I do have a hot take here go ahead if you

will join me on this and if not that's okay but I am having grown up with this part of my perspective of Harrison Ford is is is altered a little bit by the existence of a movie called the Frisco Kid uh Yes. So in Cleveland where I grew up. Which he makes it comes out in between Star Wars and Empire right? Yes. Or maybe yeah it's like 79. It's one of his like first follow up what do I do now that I'm a movie star. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yes it's a it's a western comedy starring a very very into it. Gene Wilder playing a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, Han Solo was taking a rabbi across the thing, and eventually they get to meet each other's cultures and kind of figure out stuff. This was the most Jewish movie I had ever seen in my life

at this age. And in Cleveland, it played in a theater in the Jewish neighborhood, in the Center Mayfield Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, every Saturday for years. Oh wow. And it played like fucking Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean, I played, like, after Shabbos,

the Jewess would come and watch Han Solo give us representation. And then, of course, people would whisper, you know he's Jewish. Like this is now made famous by- Harrison Ford, a quarter Jewish, not too shabby. Yeah, yeah Made famous by Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song. Yeah, but like but as Jews we would we we had we'd call them We at least at least the Jews I knew had

Don't you forget? He's Jewish. He's Jewish. So watching watching Raiders in particular and it codes very Jewish like Indiana Jones codes Han Solo doesn't code Jewish but Indiana Jones absolutely does code as a Jewish action hero and Marion also codes Jewish and for me at the time I could feel it I Like, oh, like there is Spielberg's bringing it to the, bringing it right to the table. And that was part of also how we got to know him as a little Jewish boy done right, right? Like he's done good.

Yeah, so. But the whole aspect of this movie being this like Nazi revenge movie, right? It goes beyond just being, you know, an adventure film in which the Nazis are easy villains because we all know who to root for in that situation, or at least hope that one would know who to root for in that situation, is heightened by it being all about, like, basically the intervention of God and this sort of, like, course correction that possibly arguably creates an alternate timeline. I have a very strong memory of like

when we're seeing the movie and then the Ark is in the basement of the submarine not being attended to and then God kind of like blocks out the the Nazi symbol with kind with an amorphous shape that looks like a mug and dovet. It's got six stars almost, and my mom elbowed me and went, mug and dovet. And I'm like, what's that? Oh my God.

It was like, oh my God, is God just got his mask? It's everything about it was like, it's a Ten Commandments sequel. Everything about it was strange, and's a Ten Commandments sequel, like everything about it was strange and I didn't know what was happening. But that's what's so fascinating about this coming fairly formed from Lucas first is that he's like a hyper wasp

and then he like assigns Larry Kasdan and Spielberg to be the ones who actually realized this thing and through some combination of conscious effort and just their own mentality and their history and their background, all this stuff gets coded into it. But Lucas is the one who's designing this around the Ark of the Covenant and the tablets and all of that. Right?

Yeah. Well, let me ask you, having watched all four of them in a weekend, did any of this click with you? No, absolutely not. Like when I was watching it for the first time, I remember, here's like a very distinctive memory I have. Watching the first one,

this was in the worst apartment I ever lived in where my bedroom was the living room, where the TV was, and I slept on two mattresses behind a couch. And I watched the movie and I came out and I knocked on Spike's bedroom and he said, so what do you think? And I went, yeah, it's a lot of fun. And he was like, a lot of fun.

What are you talking about? It's the best movie ever made. And I was like, no, it's like a fun movie. And then I don't like Temple of Doom very much. I'm excited to rewatch it. Yeah, but it's a, it's a fun movie. I have always struggled with it. And like Last Crusade has always been the one that is my favorite. Yeah, it's a very griffy

It's a very griffy movie and I feel like is a very Buster Keeney movie in particular there was something that clicked for me and watching that one of like oh that's The huge part of the DNA of these movies is silent comedy and not just the adventure serials That one makes brings it to the forefront So that's when I sort of really locked in. And I saw Crystal Skull and was like, half of that works for me, half of it doesn't. It doesn't feel sacrilegious because I haven't lived with this my whole life. I mean, right.

I mean, for me, I've always had locked into the three movies before Crystal Skull existed. They're all religious in a different way. Like this is about Jewish mysticism, Temple of Doom is about Hindu mysticism, Last Crusade is about Christian, you know, sort of folk right mysticism. And it's sort of annoying that Crystal Skull doesn't have any of that Crystal Skull's doing the thing where it's like, well now it's the 50s, so we're, what was the genre of the 50s is, you know, it's more like sci-fi. We're gonna do aliens. And I just wish it had picked Elaine, but we can talk about that. We devoted a whole episode to it.

Yeah. I think that movie is trying to- But yes, the Jewish- Yes, find a way to split the atom. The weird Jewish mystic undertones of Raiders of the Lost Ark are fun to me because I think this movie is dark and scary and weird in a way that I love.

Temple of Doom, you know, presses on that pedal a little too hard. And I kind of enjoy how nasty it is, but it's a mean-spirited movie in a way this isn't. But this movie is... sort of haunted, like, and scary, and it's fun, but it's also, like, yeah, it's kind of terrifying to consider what's going on in...

There's also a lightning and a bottle thing with this movie. I mean, let's dig into actually, like, talking about the movie itself as it plays out. David, people like to say that one should stop and smell the roses. Today I'm doing something different. I'm imploring our listeners to stop and listen

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Yes My god Dan Yes? Who can plant a rosebud? My god, Dan. Black petunias too. It's been a while. How are you? Dan Candyman can. Been a dog's age.

It has. It's been a long time since you guys have invited me to come over. No one invited you. I felt like it. I felt it in the air. My ears were burning. Wow, Dan Candyman. You look like crap. It's been a rough couple years. Why? What's. Wow, Dan Candyman, you look like crap.

It's been a rough couple of years. Why, what's going on, Dan? I come from the Candyman family, of course, of the Montreal Candymans. And we're a flower family, by trade. The name does tend to confuse people, along with me singing a song that's a modified version of the Candyman, the Willy Wonka song.

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I don't, well, you know. These are just gray shells. There's not a color in sight. Look, I'll admit, yes, I'm selling candy. That's not really why I came in here today Okay, what's going on? I need flowers. I no longer have the hookup. My family has completely divested Well, and I actually do have great news for you Is all roses from 1-800 flowers are picked at their peak here for every step of the way and shipped fresh to ensure

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Yeah. Oh gosh. Because this is a stressful time of year. I mean, you know Valentine's Day is really rough on Dan Candyman I don't because I'm part of a very large polycule. I have to get a lot of flowers. I Hate all your lore. I think it's interesting and people are gonna be excited Well, you better get on it because bouquets are selling fast locking your today And of course if you do order a dozen roses, they'll double the rose bouquet for free. That's a great value

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How do you make my weekdays less busy? These issues are linked. I go, how are the twins sleeping? You go great. No problem there. I'm joking through the night. Yes I have to feed my family you have more mouths to and that is true. Although they just eat They don't eat lovely meals but I have to make lovely meal and I get home and my time limit is my time windows limited and It is hard to just kind of you know find a magic recipe in the fridge every single day. What a compelling personal it is sort of experience this is yeah I mean if you really want to get into it I do like

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You know, you start with one of the most infamous opening sequences of all time. That is, you're just dropped right into the action of the most like thrilling series of incidents imaginable as you watch this guy basically do his like side gig which is being the coolest movie hero in history you know and avoiding slings and arrows and as someone who was there i can tell you that the thrill ride that is the first 10 15 minutes of the movie is overwhelming, as experiencing it for the first time. It is incredible. These are Spielberg pulling out tricks we have not seen him do before,

stuff he would master and everything, but all of this is just working, working, working. And by the time he goes, I hate snakes, you are just, your breath is just gone in a way that so few movies can achieve. It's an incredible experience. I wanna unpack it more fully, but like the back-to-back of that

and then him in the university, right? And to this point of my experience watching them for the first time, this is a movie that I've now like rewatched maybe every two years because I'm really like, I should study this more as a thing. Not that I need to deepen my appreciation, but I'm like, there's an element of ketchup to a certain, ketchup entertainment of course,

our finest distributor. But even though I prefer Last Crusade, I almost never rewatch it, because I'm like, I know I think that movie's fun, but there's something in the codex of this movie that is so distributed. You prefer Last Crusade? It's just my sensibility, I think.

I mean, but we'll see how the rewatch goes. No, it's deeply, that's fast, I make no judgment. Yeah, I wouldn't say it was better by any argument. Yeah, but I think a lot of it's the comedy of it. But the immediate thrill ride, you're saying, followed by the university and just the feeling of, oh, this is just this guy's life. What we just saw wasn't the craziest thing

that's ever happened to him. That's another adventure, and then he just flies back and teaches a class, right? There's a lighting in a bottle thing in this movie that the other movies can't totally recapture in the same way, and I think Temple of Doom, being a prequel, makes this even more of an issue. To your point, which is all the weird spooky mysticism

of it is really fascinating when you're like, this is the first time this guy is challenged in this way, which isn't to say it's the greatest challenge of his life, but it's like the greatest ideological challenge of his life, which is I don't believe in this way, which isn't to say it's the greatest challenge of his life, but it's like the greatest ideological challenge of his life, which is I don't believe in this shit. No, yeah, yeah, right, right, right. He is kind of a Mulder and Scully together. Like, he's like, look, I believe that this object

may be the quote unquote lost ark or whatever, but I'm not sure I believe that that means it's gonna have magic inside of it. I just sort of, you know. I do scary shit for a living. Yeah, right. I'm constantly encountering weird shit. It is all explainable.

Yeah. There's a certain like power this movie has to being the one film that is him having to realize that there's a lot about the world he doesn't understand and a tremendous amount of skill and how much that is not a wildly overstated sort of plot to the movie. It is kind of just like a minor thread running the whole time. Yes, to everything you're saying.

And also the, it's the, it's the game of expectation. Like you see the poster, you know, who Han Solo is, you know, who Harrison Ford is, you know, the credits you're obsessing over that you're looking at the top trading cards ahead of the movie's release, trying to figure out what you think the movie is. And I can't express enough having these collector cards is really all you have. And Star Wars has made them like statements of fact

and looks inside that you're only gonna get from these top trading cards. So once the Raiders ones hit, they're like the encyclopedia of everything you're only going to get from these top trading cards. So once the Raiders ones hit, they're like, they're like the encyclopedia of everything you're going to know. And then the movie comes in your 10 minutes in and expectations met, exceeded, and now completely surprising you. Oh, not who you thought he was. He is a nerdy professor. And, and also, I think that the reason that none of us tripped on the Marion's age thing when we saw it in the theater

was because that scene when the student blinks and has written love you on his eyes and he reacts maturely, like there's no skeevy reaction to it, so he's not a skeevy piece of shit. Like he's not, like there's an excuse there for him to like wink or do something gross. And he did not, like that is not who he is. So when Marion says, I was a child,

you just, I did not think she was an actual child. I thought this is someone who- No, she's saying, you know, I was too young and he's, you know, you're older than me, which he is. But like- Yeah, no, but I remember when Twitter hit that a few years ago with way wide and I was like, oh, yeah, that does ring badly. But I never thought it the whole time. It's this fascinating thing of like that line is a vestige of clearly the development of being like, what if she was literally a child? And it plays in the context of the Finnish movie more like I was young,

you know? Like the way we talk about like, I was like, my brain wasn't fully formed yet, you know? These things where there like was a power dynamic, but they're also close enough in age, the two actors in a way where you're just like, okay, so they were like on opposite sides of a narrow developmental line, maybe. But you're right, like every one of those characterization choices is so impactful. It's the other, we've talked about before

how much Harrison Ford loves Indiana Jones, right? He's always felt more enthusiastic about the sort of legacy and importance of the character versus Han Solo, where he's kind of been in and out on loving Han Solo. Yeah, yeah. And it makes sense because Harrison, how would I put this? He talks so much about, like, how he approaches acting

like a craftsman that he's not very precious about it, even though I think he has a tremendous amount of technique and people who work with him are like, he cares a lot more about it than he wants to let on. He tries to play like Gruff, I don't give a shit. But he's like a very thoughtful, intentional person. Sort of red hulky. Right, and he has talked about how

he had his period of brief frustration, I think, post-Star Wars and Indiana Jones, where he is like, great, now I can do anything. I can do Mosquito Coast, and I can do whatever. And very quickly, it was like, audiences wanna see you be Harrison Ford. Yes, you better not stray too much from the now very established star persona you have.

Right, his Inside the Actors Studio is incredible, and James Lipton kind of pokes him on that. And he says to the effect of, what am I gonna do? Cry about the fact that I'm Harrison Ford? I try doing other stuff. I very quickly realize audiences don't love seeing me in that kind of movie or that kind of movie starring me. It doesn't appeal to either audience.

I have peace with where I am. He'll make these jokes about, I get paid money to fall down well. I get it, right? There's that part of it that's kind of blind. But when he talks about the craftsman aspect of it, he's like, my job is to fulfill the needs, is to look at the story and go,

what needs to be accomplished in this shot, in this moment, in this line? He thinks about it not in a technical way, but really tied to narrative. the story and go like, what needs to be accomplished in this shot, in this moment, in this line? He thinks about it not in a technical way, but really tied to narrative. You know, it's not about like, what is in my heart that I need to get out of my system? Or what like, you know, sort of prism of the human psychology am I trying to like capture here? As much as he gets down to the brass tacks of like this is storytelling. It's visual storytelling. What is conveyed by me like tilting my head three

degrees, you know, or raising my eyebrows here. It is this, in that sense, this franchise is so perfectly built for him because it is this like episodic, serialized, trying to game out how this guy is making decisions in real time and narrowly just surviving. It is like a structure for a movie and a series that is perfectly suited to the way he thinks as an actor, which is what do I need to do to get the audience to lock into this moment and what are we trying to convey here? And in that sense, Spielberg is such a good match for him. And it remains so weird that they never work together outside of these movies. Well, Harrison Ford made a lot of weird choices. I mean, like, I feel like the choices he makes

that are like making a good movie within his star persona are like Witness, Working Girl, and then the Jack Ryan movies, things like that where it's like, it's doing a slightly different thing in The Fugitive. Slightly different thing, he's still Harrison Ford, he's the Harrison Ford we know and love, these movies are giant hits. And then there's stuff like Mosquito Coast or Presumed Innocent or Frantic or whatever

where it's like, what if I showed you a darker side and the audience is usually like, nah, we don't really wanna see that. And you watch those movies later where it's like, what if I showed you a darker side? And the audience is usually like, yeah, we don't really want to see that. Like, and you watch those movies later and you're like, there's a lot that's interesting about this. And he's really good at darker side stuff, in my opinion. Well, and to close the loop on a thing we set up fucking 90 minutes ago. But like what lies beneath is the first time he weaponizes.

People don't expect me to be that dark. Right. Yeah. And that movie's a big hit and feels like it gets a lot of juice from like, Holy shit, you've never seen Harrison Ford like this. And then right after that movie is when you start the era of him feeling like a grump. Yeah. Is he tired? Is he bored?

Is he too grumpy? Are the movies written around his grumpiness? Is his persona now that he's like at odds with everything? And I think you're right, Brian, that's not until Force Awakens where he kind of owns around his grumpiness is his persona now that he's like at odds with everything. And I think you're right, Brian, that's not until Force Awakens where he kind of owns being elder statesman. There's a glint in his eye with Force Awakens

that there just isn't with so many of these movies. And I think like we were living through that era every time there was a new big Harrison Ford movie being like, is the magic going to be back this time? Because there's just shit like the opening of this movie where you have this like beautifully deliberately designed series of shots, the build of the mystery of what's going on, even just down to the paramount logo transition.

This movie just sets you on its course so beautifully and this sense of like we're not hiding this guy in shadows but why are you not showing me his face when he's harrison ford and it's not because there's some twists coming it's because spielberg knows he has one chance to make a first impression and like harrison ford knows how to step exactly correctly into the right at the right timing at at the right angle and looked like $20 million. And suddenly, yeah. Having experienced that walk into the light, it was, yes, we know it's Harrison Ford,

but by the time he walked into light, it's Indiana Jones. It really is a perfectly crafted sequence where you're kind of like shedding Han Solo, which is an enormous thing over this character, is that he's literally played the most iconic character of our lifetime already. And the reason you're hiding his face is because you need to be introduced to this character through action before you're thinking of him primarily as Harrison Ford. Everyone knows that they bought a ticket for. Right. His name is on the poster, his face is on the poster.

I'm seeing the Harrison Ford movie. But he's, like, forcing you to engage with Indiana Jones as an abstract idea before he then has Harrison Ford step into the light, and it's like, and this is who he is now, and you're thinking about this character and not Han Solo. And then you just have this, like like perfect fucking Rube Goldberg machine sequence of just like the most classical Spielberg like introduction of information in ways that feel charming

and effortless but stick in your brain so that he's setting up the perfect payoffs to come later. The way you build the entrance into the temple versus like what the escape is going to be of repeating the things like the golf and needing to swing over and the arrows and all that shit. It's like just incredible set of payoff shit. And because it's so yeah, Melina and because it's so thrillingly dark and scary and spiders and shadows and literally wet skulls. Hell yeah. We're not like at this age that I'm at.

Like this is like I'm feeling very like challenged and seen like oh you're not talking down to me. And then I would learn as I got older that was kind of Stan Lee's magic too. It's like I'm not gonna talk down to you. You come here. And that was just, you feel respected almost as an audience member. Like, oh, and so all the way through Temple of Doom, like they keep like pushing it and pushing it and pushing it in the frame they're at. So when

people were complaining about Temple of Doom being too dark, I was like, what? That's what this is. Yeah. This is what this is, yeah. I like the opening sequence to this film. I think it's quite fun. That's a bold take, yeah. I think it's really, really constantly thrilling. Alchemist is so fucking good. This is his first performance ever, but there's like, it's... He's already got the character actor eyes.

Yeah, yeah. The character actor eyes. Yeah, but if you watch the behind the scenes, you can't believe he made another movie, because they literally put him in the set and dumped a bunch of spiders right just toward him. And then famously the spiders wouldn't move. They were just sitting on it. So they go what you got to do is got to put a female spider on there and all the spiders start getting all excited. And that's what you see when you see the the spider spider meat market. Yeah Yeah, so and and you're sitting in he's never made a movie before like I don't know I just feels like the first Hollywood experience the exact right energy and such like skillful control of the dial of like when he's playing

Scared when he's playing cocky you just are like, maybe he's actually not gonna screw over. And then maybe he does. He's like, yeah, I could see him screwing. But also you're like, is this guy competent enough that Indy's in trouble, that he's going to get away with it? Is he overstepping? It's a lot of right. What you're saying, like, you know, like a lot of stuff being communicated through basically nothing and you get it all. Like who are these people and what are they doing? You just understand everything without really anyone having to say much. And, you know, Harrison Ford,

he's a very confident onscreen presence. Again, it's a struggle to talk about movies like this. My passion for this movie and my frustration with the comic book adaptation was so high that I spent the year of 1983 at my Passover vacation. I'd got a VHS copy of the movie and I sat on my couch with a big thing of like chocolate pudding, the cheapest junk food I could find at the time.

And I sat there and I drew every single edited shot of the movie because I was going to do the Real adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was going to send it to Marvel and then they were gonna stop publishing What they were publishing and they were gonna stop the presses and publish mine. All right now I can't I can't Express to you enough how much I am not good and I'm a little child and I literally every time there's an edit, I pause the movie and draw what's on screen. I drew 45 pages of comic book art. I never got out of the jungle.

I don't think I even got into the cave because it's just like, yeah, it's just Indiana Jones walking of the jungle. I don't think I even got into the cave because it's just like, yeah, Indiana Jones walking through the jungle. Right. So yeah, but that's how formative it was to me. Do you have this art somewhere? Yes, I absolutely do. Belongs to a museum. It absolutely doesn't.

You saying, you're talking about the things like the trading cards and the comics adaptation, like them taking this movie and splitting it only into two issues. You're like, this opening sequence is an entire issue. Things like the trading cards, you're like, it would take 100 sequential trading cards to get through the beats of just the opening. It is like an entire movie. It's a mini movie in and of itself. It has, I mean, like how many shots are in the first

10 fucking minutes of this? That are just like indelible history of cinema shots. But I'm saying the pure number of shots. No, no, no, you're right, you're right. It's both. It's that every shot is like a deliberate, like diamond cut, perfect, evocative, communicative, exciting, thrilling, kind of meaningful image

with like these perfectly timed edits. You know, you watch a big action sequence in a movie, today you might have as many shots and as many cuts, but it's just 20 meaningless kind of setups of like multiple cameras filming the action from multiple angles and then it's sort of edited in whatever mishmash way. And you're like, no, these are like 60 deliberate different setups that all are like telling you something very specific from where the camera is relative to the action and where the action is and the screen direction and all of this fucking shit. It is like a sequence, the whole movie is like this, but this sequence in particular

is like every single shot is moving the story forward in like a very deliberate way and in a way you could not have done in the previous shot. Even sometimes when it feels like the shift of angle is marginal, when the action plays out, you're like, that's why the camera had to be here rather than there. He's good at that stuff. He's pretty fucking good at it. He has the best innate brain for that maybe maybe, of anyone who's ever lived. Yes, he does.

The one influence I was not aware of at the time, but I became aware of more recently, was how important Chuck Jones was to Steven Spielberg at the time. And it's clearly all over 1941, that is a Chuck Jones cartoon trying to come to life. Whereas this one has the influence of Chuck Jones's mousetrap-like storytelling being produced towards a narrative that deserves it. It's quite an interesting kind of magic trick on its own that that would be amongst all the John Ford and other influences there's like a Chuck Jones business every time

he's kind of setting up his shots or or laying out how he's gonna make his action who's Chuck Jones Chuck Jones yes all right I just asked you oh of course I'm just asking though again as be on behalf of the audience who may not yes he's kind of I appreciate that Ben and also, there's a book that came out recently called Spielberg, The First Ten Years, and in it they dive a little harder than I'd ever seen about how Spielberg and Chuck Jones are just hanging out. They were having lunch and getting together and-

Right. Spielberg was one of the people who was really working hard to elevate Chuck Jones in the public's eye to like this is living legend, like master of the form for the last couple decades of his life. The other thing and speaking to what you were saying Griffin is like he's Spielberg proudly says they shot this film in 73 days, which is, you know, very, very short shooting schedule for a movie this epic.

They would shoot just three or four takes, like not like 40 takes, because he storyboarded, you know, very precisely, which is a Spielberg trademark. But really, he's like, really for this one, I would I, you know, they were the fallbacks in my previous movies. But for this movie, it was like really to stay on schedule and to like, you know, stay to exactly what I'd conceived. It was an exercise in self-discipline for him.

Like he needed to prove to himself that he could do it. So it's kind of a live action animated vibe, right? Like it's like, we've already drawn what's supposed to happen. Now there are things of course that change, such as the famous fight with the swordsman, which just turns into Indie shooting him versus like the whip versus sword duel that made it...

Because everyone had diarrhea. Because everyone had... You know, these are the stories where it's like they became, you know, IMDB lore that everybody recites. But this perfect combination of things being so perfectly worked out in advance and then inspiration hitting and things changing and evolving on the fly.

Me, Chuck Jones' Ben, I feel like is kind of credit as being like the real father of Bugs Bunny, but also was like the main architect of the Road Runner Wile E. Coyote shorts, which I feel like have a lot of influence on this. And the philosophy that's talked about a lot about with animation, but in particular, all the like Termite Terrace, Looney Tunes animators,

was like the importance of anticipation and how to visually sort of indicate to the audience what the character thinks is gonna happen, what they're thinking, what they're trying to do, so that you can subvert the expectation and have the comedy of what goes wrong. Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff, staying suspended in the air, looking down,

recognizing he's standing in the air, and then he, like, falls. You know, things like that, where it's like that's being conveyed wordlessly. That's why the, like, Wile E. Coyote thing, I feel like is very... has a big influence on this, where so often, despite the fact that Indiana Jones has, like, 40 of the most quotable, despite the fact that Indiana Jones has like 40 of the most quotable lines in the film history

in this one movie, many of his biggest sequences he's kind of moving through wordlessly. Yeah, absolutely. It needs to play out in his face, it needs to play out in his action, it's the beauty of even just like the power of the sandbag thing, right? Of just this moment of him like relishing the idol,

walking towards it, the golden glow on his face, taking out the sandbag, holding the two in his hand, weighing it, pouring a little bit out. And you're like, that's a kind of complicated idea that is being conveyed to us in like 15 seconds. Okay, this is like a pressure trap, it's a weight trap, he needs to substitute it with something of equal weight, he does it, he thinks he gets away, it's wrong, the thing starts to slide down, the ground shakes. It's all such beautiful nonsense. Yes, but that's like, this is where I'm very jealous of you, Brian, is I'm just like, I

probably knew Indiana Jones as the guy who runs away from the boulder. That was how it was introduced to me. I cannot imagine sitting in the fucking theater and being like, already this movie's done so much, the temple, idol pedestal starts to go down. You're like, what's gonna go wrong now? No one could have fucking anticipated it was the biggest boulder you've ever seen.

Perfectly round boulder. A thing that must have felt like impossible that this could even be depicted on camera. And like these things are so cliche now and so part of film history about like even like snakes I hate them like screaming laughter in the theater like the first time that joke is told the first time you see him lose his shit like like loses he loses his cool. Because he's kept his shit like like Lucy he loses his cool because he's completely together through all this and Singship for like 10 minutes and then now attack right snake

Yeah, it's the the the delight is through the rough. It's it's incredible to even you know You're still we're feeling it 50 years later. You can still like feel the the the embers of the joke. Hey Ben I'm I'm a big fan of Ben and his taste Ben what what was your relationship? Have you seen this before? numbers of the joke. Hey, Ben, I'm a big fan of Ben and his taste. Ben, what was your relation? Have you seen this before? And that's a true, that's a true good guest, bringing Ben in. Oh yeah.

Specific. No, no, I was really curious what your relationship to all of this is. I am a big fan of Indiana Jones. Have you always been since childhood? Yep. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was, you know, it, it was something I feel like I'd catch

middle of the day on the weekends playing on cable TV. I had to watch it. Also, I played... The video games? The computer games. Yes. Yeah, the Atlantis one in particular. I loved that game.

But also he's dusty, he dresses wet. He goes into pits, he's finding bones, he's stealing treasures. He's just like, he's such an amalgamation of all of these characteristics in this incredible way. He's like kind of a bad boy, but he's smart. He gets down and dirty. He's also an egghead, right.

Like that's the weird, I just can't get over, every time I rewatch this. you love the cut to the universe Yeah, you're just like this is when the movie should fall apart You almost feel like the legacy of this movie should be greatest opening sequence of all time, and then they fuck it up It's literally the greatest exposition scene in the history. Yeah exposition scenes. It's an incredible thing But it's such an insane change of pitch that it's wild that it keeps the momentum. But I would say for me, origin-wise,

this is like major bonecore. Oh, sure. Yes. There's just bones all over this franchise. You're right, it's a bone-heavy world. And he uses it as a torch. Yep. It's a, it's a comedic device when you know, a bunch of Bratlin bones come out of nowhere. I just, I love that. That's such a fun element. It's just so fun to consider this like academic being

like, well, I'm going to go find this Peruvian idol. Where is it? It's in this video game level right cave, you know, where it's like, you have to'm going to go find this Peruvian idol. Where is it? It's in this video game level cave, you know, where it's like you have to do eight traps and dodge the spikes and, like, you know, solve the puzzle and all that. And as a kid watching this movie, I'm just like, yeah, the people who build these things. Of course, this is part of ancient lore.

But also, like, we were born... Because I've been playing Super Mario my whole life. Yes. But also, we were born into a post a post Indiana Jones world where you're like Oh, I get it. He's like an Indiana Jones type You know true Versus like this movie creating a thing that is like when you break it down into the elements of even how Lucas pitched it To him it's wild that it was so fully formed because it is an odd idea and it's odd that it's not like

There's there's such an obvious instinct I would imagine to make it into a Clark Kent Superman thing that you're like oh professor Jones is the cover is his boring sort of like front for his real like adventuring right or but instead it's he's a nervous professor who gets thrown into these situations and he's in over his head and he doesn't like exploring. No, instead it's like, you know, the U.S. you know, intelligence comes to him and is like, look, Hitler wants the Ark of the Covenant. We figure you're the guy to figure that one out.

Like, you know, like they're the he's he's a known adventurer. But to your point about being the greatest exposition that one out. Like, you know, like, he's a known adventurer. But to your point about being the greatest exposition in cinematic history, right? The fact that you watch him spin that blackboard and start to break down and chalk the history, giving them the fucking backstory, right? Like, just dropping his bona fides and his theories.

And he gets his rocks off as much doing that as he does successfully outrunning a boulder They are both equally exciting to him. He plays them differently Then so he goes to move the story along and then he goes to Nepal No, I am not What No, he's that we haven't met him yet. Excuse me Sorry, not bad I thought you meant solid right now. Well, that's all locks there. Yeah, we'll get back to Brian's laughing I mean if you want happy that he got to see if you want to tell you who they wanted for the part of Belloc

Sure Spielberg wanted Jacques du Tronc Who's a French actor? He really wanted this character that guy's French Jacques Dutronc who's a French actor. He really wanted this character. Oh wait, that guy's French? Well, let me tell you, do you think this guy looks French to you? Jacques Dutronc! I'm seeing here a second choice for the role was Croque Monsieur. Croissant du Fromage? A French musician. These were real names, these were beloved actors at the time.

But I guess he had played Van Gogh. Kaka Van? Epi-La-Pew? Anyway, he's busy. But he was busy smoking a cigarette. Spielberg really wanted the character to be played by a Frenchman. Yes.

Paul Freeman enters late. They've already thought about Giancarlo Giannini, which is a fun idea. Yeah. And Spielberg just liked his eyes, said he has the champagne villain from a film noir vibe. Yeah. Right. Like, it's like, this isn't a tough guy exactly. He's like a smart, mean guy and like whatever.

Good. Good. I also like the villain that's handsome in his own way. Like, he's equally handsome. Different kind of handsome. If that's your type. Yeah, he could be a leading man in a different movie I also it's funny. I always go like it's wild that he's still alive Because he plays so much older in my mind watching this movie than he actually was at the time

I think Ford is two years older than him. They're they're roughly the same I feel like that lock is like 15 years older than Indy. He does feel a little bit patronizing I guess that's why. Which is something he's successfully sung as an actor I think it's also the fact that Belloc's a little more hands-off, right? Yeah, and Belloc is it's a perfect film because he's like yeah, he's smart like Indy's smart Mm-hmm, but he sells to the highest bidder, clearly. He has no scruples. He's unscrupulous Yes, that's very true. And he Like you say like doesn't get his hands dirty like Indy does.

Indy's got dirt under his fingers. That's what's so frustrating is Indiana Jones can go through this whole fucking adventure, roll out by the skin of his teeth, hat intact, right? And be like, oh my God, what a thrilling set piece. And Belloc is just standing there and he's like, I'll take that. Thank you. Right. That Belloc just is able to stay one step ahead of him

while avoiding the trials and tribulations that Indy had to go through. He's also wearing the uniform of an explorer, Bellocq. Yes. But he's not dirty at all. Right. Right, like it's like clearly he's like... He looks good.

An immaculate like white suit. Yes, his cream. It's like he's trying too hard to fit the part, whereas Indy is just fashion-wise, I mean, one of the best looks of all time. It's really interesting how the villains... It's so simple, too. Like, I feel like the villains of every Indy movie

are not merely famous actors until, I guess, you get to like, Cate Blanchett by the time we're doing the new ones, where it's like, well, everyone wants to be in it. When they announced that Cate Blanchett was playing, was going to be in Crystal Skull, I was like, well, she must be playing the new Love Interest. Right.

Because it feels weird for a franchise that never has out and out movie stars as villains. Like, even Mads Mikkelsen feels too well known in that type. Well, God, I love Mads Mikkelsen. I do too. Because lazy casting is a villain these right It's like but right like Amrish Puri and then like last crusade who would you you know? Who's the biggest it's like Alice in Duty and no, but it's why am I forgetting his name now?

Your favorite I do love him Julian Glover These are character actor guys as a guy who Lucas liked was like, you're a good stuff shirt. Right, right. Right. And that's what Paul Freeman is, and he's excellent. But it's also part of the Indiana Jones structure, where it's like, you have these secondary third villains.

You have boss level villains. There's an overarching guy who you're fighting against in sort of like, almost a conceptual battle but the actual action sequences don't happen with that person which is I feel like another mistake modern movies tend to make is like they want the belloc to also be the best fighter in the world and you're like no that's two separate guys belloc sends someone else out to punch Indy. And we in this time frame of James Bond, Jaws is Richard Keele.

Right. That's that's his doctor's name is Jaws. And that is an iconic villain that that goes like that is referenced in every, you know, variety show of the time. That's also part of the time. That's also part of the Lucas and Spielberg is there's always these weird variety hours that would do sketches about Star Wars or Indiana Jones and James Bond. And so Richard Kidd would show up as Jaws. So when you're watching Raiders and the big,

the burly Nazis, they're boxing right outside the plane, that's a jaw scene. Like that's, that's a flat out James Bond jaw scene. Right. But it's like, I mean, it's always the example I throw out, but like that's a clear thing they lifted from James Bond very wisely. Right. Yes. Of like, there's a guy who they're trying to track down, who is the man in the lair who is going to monologue I will talk to them and wear a suit and pour right, you know serve them dinner

And that guy will give like an a-class performance and then you're gonna have some weird-looking guys with gimmicks Who create like different sort of like battle puzzles for Indiana Jones to get through? Versus I always think of quantum of solace where at the end James Bond has to fight Mathieu Almeric and I'm like, well this fight is over. Well, there is a big general guy that he fights. Well, no, it's still good. Curly co fights and we'll look we'll do Quantum of Solace one day. Very interesting movie. I defend you.

I will. I will. Brian. Thank you. Do you like Quantum of Solace or are you anti Quantum of Solace? I am such a big Casino Royale fan that it's hard to wrap my head fully around Quantum, but it is a part of Casino Royale, so it's hard to let it go as well. Yes, it's like a sort of nasty little...

I don't hate it, but you know, much like nothing's Force Awakens except for Force Awakens, same thing with Casino Royale. I think of it as the Temple of Doom to Casino Royale's Raiders of the Lost Ark in sort of complimentary. Okay. Bump on them in similar ways, for similar reasons. But okay, so then they go to meet Marion.

We have to talk about Marion Ravenwood. Played by Karen Allen. Yes. Obviously they're looking for Arthur Ravenwood. What the fuck his name is? what's the dad's name? Abner Ravenwood. Abner Ravenwood, right, but he's dead. And his daughter is running the bar in his stead in Nepal

and she's got this medallion and, you know, off we go. But what do we think of Karen Allen? This is an incredible performance of the highest order. It doesn't get enough credit to this day. It just isn't. Even though the franchise eventually acknowledged like, yeah, she was always the one with these later movies. Right.

Yes, she still doesn't get enough credit. For trying to do anything else. Right. Carry on, Brian. And I get the, that's the James Bond lesson they did wrong, I think, which is, he gets a new lady friend every thing. And also, a lot of people feel like, you know,

Maren Ravelwood is one of the great characters of cinema and then followed by Willie Scott, who isn't. I would be no offense to Willie Scott. Just screaming at the top of her lungs the whole movie, which is not anywhere near as interesting as what Marion brings to the table Well, it's like I wanted to make the anti Marion to have fun with the flip side of it But the anti Marion means you're doing the opposite of what works Marion's a good character

They made one bad choice, yeah So watching the making of that I sent you that aired on television, there was two takeaways that were amazing. Number one, that she basically says, I think she's one of the first people to say, she says as nicely as you could possibly say, but she's basically saying, I'm doing everything

he's doing but in heels and backwards, right? And she absolutely is. And also that she would come to Spielberg with bigger ideas that he would take very seriously, including, I don't think I knew until recently that the scene between her and Belloc, drinking each other under the table, was improbbed. They went off to the side, improbbed the scene,

put it together and gave it to Spielberg. Here's what we worked out because I want to wear this dress and I want to do this for the rest of the movie. And they went off and improv'd and came back and he accepted it and changed the course of the movie in a positive way. So she has authored her character in a way that few actors, particularly in a movie like this, get to do. And that's amazing. It's a thing with Spielberg I find so fascinating is most filmmakers who are this precise in their craft

have a tendency to go towards the sort of like Hitchcock, like you are a model. I am telling you what to do. You have to hit, especially because it's just like with Spielberg, it's like, if you step an inch off, the shot's not gonna work, right? The timing needs to be like hair precise. And yet it feels like he's very collaborative.

It never feels like he is boxing his actors in. There's this weird dance between the visual language feeling so rigid in a certain sense and yet the performances feeling very fluid and organic in between and even like Marion's introduction this long oner of the drinking contest in the bar in Nepal where the camera's just kind of slowly moving back and forth between the two of them. It's really unshowy. The unconscious effect of it is knowing

that you're watching this in real time without cuts, that you're seeing these shots being taken, even though it's probably fucking water or whatever, right? But it's like such a perfect, wordless, like drinking this guy under the table, walking off, kicking everyone out of the bar, and immediately being like, she's not even like tipsy. Right. And she's also, I mean, she's a tiny little firecracker.

So this is the other part of this character, is that it feels like her first fight with Indiana Jones is also like, how dare you did this to me and then you fucking walk out of my life and then you come back like nothing happened and you want my fucking help on one of your stupid fucking adventures, you and my dad, right? There was this whole feeling of this woman who is like, yeah, look, I'm this like cool badass lady

who like beats tough guys in drinking contests and runs a bar and doesn't take any guff. It's like not by choice. It's on affectation. I was basically deprived of having a normal childhood. I was raised this way. I was raised this way. My like first romance was a guy who was my father's protege

who was trying to be my dad and pulled me even deeper into this shit. To give you some Caranelle on news. Please. News? No, we got dossier stuff, you know, background. my dad and pulled me even deeper into this shit. To give you some Karen Allen news, please news. No, you got dossier stuff, you know, background. Spielberg had noticed her in Animal House where she's Peter Wright. We all did. Right. She really stood out in a great way as as you're better than all of this.

Yeah, like she he was like she's like a Carol Lombard. She's like an Irene Dunn, like one of these sort of like thirties, like heroines with like a big chip on her shoulder. Right. Natural fit. She's like an Irene Dunn, like one of these sort of like 30s, like heroines with like a big chip on her shoulders, right? Natural fit. Karen Allen says some of the people who tested that she heard about Deborah Winger, Sean Young, as previously mentioned, Barbara Hershey.

Karen Allen auditioned with John Shea, Lex Luthor himself, from the 90s, Lewis and Clark. And he was in Mutant X. Remember John Shea? Remember Mutant X? Yeah. And then she did a screen test with Tim Matheson. And it was always the bar X. Remember John Shay? Remember Mutant X. Yeah. And then she did a screen test with Tim Matheson. And it was always the bar. It was always the bar. Like, that was the... That's what she's doing.

And she said she just loved the character, reminded her again of all those firecracker, you know, broads from the 30s and 40s, right? And a character that she felt had kind of vanished from movies, right? Like, that's an old kind of female lead. Like, in the 50s and 60s that kind of character had gone away guess you have a Katherine Hepburn yeah she plays the sadness of the character like it's the thing I think that causes people to like

get up in arms and like cancel Ind... Cancel Indy. Is that what you're trying to say? I was gonna say, when people complain about fucking like Mary Sue characters, right? When they push back on this idea of like, Oh, so now I'm supposed to believe that this woman who's smaller than everyone is tougher and a better fighter and smarter and funnier and prettier and all this sort of stuff. I think a lot of it is like people trying to recapture this character. Right. And Karen Allen correctly, I think, figures out how to dramatize all of her behavior being a bit of a defensive posture and learned survival instincts, rather than it feeling like, I don't

know, just a show, you know? She says she went to Spielberg and said, I have a whole history for this character. I think I was in this romance with Indy when she was 16 years old. Like she also is doing this stuff. And Spielberg apparently looked at her and was like, that's an entirely different movie.

We're not doing that. Like, clearly like Lucas and her are both kind of like, what if there's this twisted back story spilt Bricks like I'm making an adventure movie. It doesn't matter like under the hood. It's a little Right her ultimate take is like I think she had a crush on him like, you know Maybe there was a flirtation or whatever when she was like essentially a late teenager I don't think this was just some major romance. She thinks that's the movie take on Marion and Indy, not something more darker.

But there's this version of, it's obviously far less tragic, right? But I think about the end of True Grit, where the poignancy of that story is like, oh, this girl kind of never gets over this right like she's this tough flinty little girl and everyone thinks it's kind of cute and funny and she goes on this wild adventure. Right it's clear that she's very tough to interact with because she's such a tough flinty woman with one arm. And Marion's got like a version of that where you're like how many fucking adventures was she dragged along to between these two men in her life?

Who were such like important figures in her development? If you want to see Spielberg direct the scene in the bar It's in the in the in the dock I put on my social media because it's an incredible bit of watching him direct Just the wonder of her putting the shot glasses down and what it's in him getting the crowd to do what they need to do and react accordingly. That was another thing. It's wonderful direction. I was looking at Juror number two,

a film that we both love. Have you seen Brian? I have not seen it, but I will. It's very good. Clint Eastwood, famous for doing maybe half a take. One and a half takes, right, is him having a long movie. Right. A thing I noticed watching this movie

that I wanna to be clear I like a tremendous amount But now Clint Eastwood filming digitally. It's a little brighter. You can see everything I kept in multiple sequences noticing how bad the background actors were and it is a thing that I'm not putting on the background act No, but it's the problem of these Clint movies Yeah, these late Clint movies where it's's like, people really have to come correct, because it doesn't take very long. And I think the principal cast of this entire movie,

of Juror, is doing that. But, like, background actors are a thing that are hard to dial in, because it's, like, a complicated machinery. They haven't read the fucking script. They're showing up. A first AD is like, so basically what's going on in this scene, they're wearing costumes that they got five minutes ago. It's hard to get everyone synchronized on the same page.

That fucking drinking contest, where there's like 10 people over each of their shoulders and you can tell it's a combination of like stunt guys, character actors and people who seem like non-professional actors. And all of them are immaculateulate and there's no editing wiggle room. This whole thing has to play out in one shot when the camera pans over from one to the other the people in the background need to be doing the right thing and I like rewound it five times and I was like no one's doing too much and no one's doing too little. There isn't anyone who looks checked out or distracted, but there's also the opposite of people being like, yeah, Marion, go Marion, and making like huge faces.

And this whole movie is like that. And that's the shit that's like astonishing for me, is he's just able to get everything in the frame correct. And then even down to like the Indiana Jones silhouette, appearing on the wall after Marion kicks everyone out of the bar. down to like the Indiana Jones silhouette, appearing on the wall after Marion kicks everyone out of the bar. I feel like the story with that is that because the shadow would actually be going

in the opposite direction, logically. Sure, but it doesn't, okay, they're messing with fit. That he's like walking backwards, he's starting closer to her backlit and then moving further away. Sure. Because if you get closer starting closer to her backlit and then moving further away. Okay, sure. Because if you get closer and closer to her shadow, your shadow gets smaller.

Your shadow shrinks, yes, right. Right, or the opposite way. Well, it depends on where the light's... Yeah, whatever. But it's like that's a moment where Spielberg has this idea of this clear, impactful, iconic shot. A lot of filmmakers would get so caught up with trying to capture that image that the Karen Allen performance part of it would be secondary,

but that's the most important part, is how beautifully she plays that moment of dropping the glasses and immediately being kind of like astonished, emotionally overwhelmed, furious, and then going up to him and slapping him in the face. It's like, here's the whole dynamic already. It's true. It's all you need. You're up over there right away. emotionally overwhelmed, furious, and then going up to him and slapping him in the face. And it's like, here's the whole dynamic. It's true. It's all you need. You're over there right away. And he never really gets it with any other character in the sequels.

Yeah, the romantic. Well, I think Willie Scott doesn't work and Allison duty is kind of like a misdirect. Yeah, Allison duties. I know I think she's good, but I think that character is like a kind of thing. Wrong footing. And I think the thing that Last crusade gets right is that like Indiana Jones needs a sparring partner. They just make it his dad instead of a love interest because I think they know

they're not going to beat Marion on the third one. It's not worth trying a third woman. And the winning thing for a crystal skull for me is when she comes back into it, A winning thing for Crystal Skull for me is when she comes back into it, she comes in as clearly this woman has never had a break, and as now has a glorious agent of chaos. So to get to the Jewish coding again, I feel with Marion as well, but there is in Crystal Skull,

she definitely has that Jewish mother energy of, get in the car car we're leaving like like this is Like and I just adore it tremendously and there's a joy of her performance in the crystal skull like she is deeply happy to be back and deeply happy to Revisit this character at this age and it's just she's shining with it It's just it just makes the movie a lot of fun to watch. I feel like we adore her. Animal House was a movie I was shown way too young.

For how overprotected my parents were, my dad basically at maybe six showed it to me as if it was Talmudic. Was like, you must understand this. So she loomed very large in my childhood of I feel like one of my first on-screen crushes. And as you said, I think generationally, especially for people who were alive at that time, that character, like, even though she's not in that much of the movie, she is just like kind of so captivating.

And there is just some sort of like inner life and sort of like, there's a sense of self she has that is very fixed and her like weird balance of like how much bullshit she will tolerate versus when she puts her foot down which is the stuff that they're like really weaponizing very well in this film. You know the Willie Scott problem is like Indiana Jones can't have a sidekick who doesn't want to be in the movie and they try this with Mutton Wombat as well, which is like he needs someone who is as equal, but has a different thought process on how they should be handling things.

They both need to be trying to drive the story, but with different approaches. And Marian's just the perfect example of that. Where like, and it's just structurally, very beautifully built about when she falls out of the movie and when she comes back when you think she's dead When he finds her in bell ox tent that leaves her there the sort of like anytime she's not on screen You're going where's Marion when's Marion coming back by the way opening weekend 13 years old Marion dies totally believed it

I oh my god, they killed her. I feel like I Yeah, totally fell for it. Also when you watch the documentaries, which I rewatched everything in preparation for this, Spielberg is so head over heels in love with Kate Capshaw as he should be in the making of that it is distracting them. It is a hundred percent. He literally, the end of that documentary, he goes, Indiana Jones didn't get the girl. I did. He literally looks in the camera says those words

So that's where his head is at when this movie is being made So Marion and Indi go to Cairo they meet Sala. It's something you probably know about your introduction of totes Who I will say in the mirror. Yeah, who rocks is my favorite character. Of course it is he feels ideologically I like his Ronald L, in this movie especially, just looks like a puppet to me. It looks like they made him. Now, obviously, maybe that's partly because his face melts at the end in this way that...

Yeah, but I think he looks like he's... Yeah, he was always a puppet. They melted him. He was created by Aardman. He is a plasticine man. It's just, there's... He's so good in every scene, but he always, you're just kind of like, this is like a fake person. There's something uncanny about him. There's an alien in his head working believers.

I find him very captivating. Spielberg infamously wanted Klaus Kinski and couldn't get him to agree. That would completely have unbalanced this movie. Could you imagine? Might be fun. Could you imagine? I mean, beyond, like, this sounds like a production

that didn't have the room for error to allow a Klaus Kinski into the ecosystem The damage he would have wrought behind the scenes. Everyone's pooping their guts out already But I'm also like his performance would have been very over cranked I imagine that would have been fun in its own way, but there's something about Ronald Lacey kind of like never Tipping over but instead of the documentary airing on CBS and Primetime, it was the Erudite Khan. Yes. Yes. He, Spielberg said, you know, I thought he had Pierre Lorry vibes, which I think is right.

And just kind of perfect weird look. And you know, the three guys who get melted at the end, right? It is this perfect triumvirate of villainy of like, you know, Belloc, this sort of cool erudite It's not even ideology for him. He's really just in it for the money right then the big lack of idea The big statuettes Nazi guy you're just like can't wait to watch this And then the weird little creep Nazi guy who's like me. I'm reading maps I want Hitler to have arc power and seems to maybe have some weird psychosexual thing going on.

But much like a lot of other areas of the movie, it's done just the right amount, not really delved into. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, totally. We meet him. But yeah, OK, we go to Cairo Sala. You know who is supposed to play Sala, right?

Danny DeVito. Danny DeVito. He was supposed to basically be like a Cantina creature from Star Wars, right? Dan DeVito. Danny DeVito! He was supposed to basically be like a cantina creature from Star Wars, right? Like this fun little guy, and DeVito drops out late. I'm not sure why. And because we kind of get to see him play the character in Romancing the Stone, it's weird to not be able to see it.

I still can't see it. Like I'm a huge Danny DeVito fan, a huge fan, and grew up with him my whole life, and I cannot see that this would work. It's another thing that feels like it would unbalance the movie. I think so, I don't think it would work. I don't think the movie benefits from Sala being funnier.

I'm sure if Dan DeVito were in this movie, every single second on screen would be funny, but does that help the film holistically which is this sort of balanced thing that Spielberg has such good instincts for at this point in time I think especially after 1941 where he is like maybe I don't have the handle on comedy I thought I did maybe I really need to like be deliberate about this it's just so funny that like in the same way that it's weird that Paul Freeman plays Bellocke whose thing is like hoity-toity Frenchman, you cast John Rhys Davies as Sala.

Well, this is the thing. They send him the script, and John Rhys Davies is like, I am not a 5'2 Egyptian guy. What are you thinking here? And Spielberg is basically like, I loved you in Shogun. He plays, you know, the drunk Portuguese guy, or Spanish guy in Shogun. Then Nester Carbonell played him in the new version beautifully, uh I want you to do something like that mixed with like false staff or whatever and John Reiss is like well, of course I can do that, you know Which I think it's just like even if that it doesn't make sense as casting on paper

Spielberg understands what that character needs to accomplish, which is... Exposition sounds pretty fucking good coming out of his mouth, right? Like just the actual register of his voice, this sort of like classically trained, he can make anything sound like poetry. And he needs to be this sort of like high-impact support with this sense of joy and this sort of like devilish, you know, sort of like a Mistrifis quality. But also it's like he needs to be able to relay the three lines that explain what's gonna happen

for the next 10 minutes of the movie and keep you interested. Right. And from the time he's there helping, every joke lands. Every line read is perfect. In fact, when I was trying to imagine And from the time he's there helping, every joke lands. Every line read is perfect. In fact, when I was trying to imagine how you were gonna open this episode, I literally thought it was podcast, very dangerous.

You go first, is where I thought you were going. I probably would have done an even worse job with that impression. His voice is just astonishing. It's incredible. It's incredible in Dial of Destiny as well. It hasn't lost the beat. It's another thing that Temple of Doom is missing, is Sala.

Mm-hmm. But yeah, we meet some- We brushed over Brody entirely. We brushed over Brody. Yeah, you're right, because Brody's there from the beginning and he's so good. Yeah. Denom Elliott was nominated for Best Supporting Actor- IsFTAs. Right. He probably partly a you know

The Brits love this guy I was just looking at this Denom Elliott won three consecutive supporting actor BAFTAs. Right. So there you go after this Okay, I think he maybe had one nomination before this. He wins for Trading Places. Wow. Yeah. And then he wins for two other movies, British movies I didn't even know of. Okay, let me see. Dan Holm, Elliot Baffley. Well, just while you're looking it up, if I can be professorial for a second, there's some things in this screenplay that are just undeniably perfect. And one of them is the fact that Denholm Elliott, like the only time we're ever in Indiana Jones' house

for 25 years is the scene where he comes over and goes, hey, don't do this. Just, this is everything wrong, everything bad. I'm getting the creeps. And then you get to see Indiana Jones just blow him off. And it's one of the series of scenes where people keep pulling him aside. And we, the audience, are the only person

that also knows that everyone has warned him, don't do this. Yes. The good guys, the bad guys, everyone's saying, don't go down this road, and he can't help himself, which I found, it's an incredible bit of business. So that's following that great exposition scene

where not only are we getting all the information we need from the for the movie, but we're getting Indiana Jones's perception of it and his take on it and his relationship to it. And that's what's often missing from exposition scenes in any kind of storytelling is, okay, we need this information, of course, please. But what's your hot take on it? Why you? Why am I hearing this from you and what are you not telling me? Or what are you blowing off?

And all of that is just exceptional writing. Characterization getting lost in exposition, which is what leads to scenes that feel like homework, where you're like, okay, and when does the movie start versus having the perspective in the exposition of the character reacting to what they're finding out? And it's telling you things about them that are gonna come in helpful Later in your processing of the movie because I mean Brody it's like okay. Here's this weird like guy who finances his expeditions clearly has this kind of like boyish glee at the idea that not only are they acquiring these objects and

Like protecting them in the right context where they should belong putting me museum whatever right? has this kind of like boyish glee at the idea that not only are they acquiring these objects and like protecting them in the right context where they should belong, putting them in a museum, whatever, right? But also that he kind of loves hearing Indiana Jones report back and tell him the crazy shit he got up to. He never wants to do that. He loves that that's part of the equation. Yes, perfectly. He's not about to fly to Peru and whatever. Right. But you have like this really beautiful, very quick, sort of like three scene arc of Brody being excited

to hear what his expedition was like. Oh no, Bellic took it from you at the last second. That's a bummer. The only friend Indiana Jones has that could really appreciate all that went into this is his friend Brody. Who he can really share this with. Then you have like,

Porkins and his partner show up, right? Here's a new potential assignment. You're watching Brody process the information as well at the same time. And then as you said, followed by him visiting Indiana Jones at home and being like, okay, but seriously don't do this.

Jack Porkins. Also you can pack a gun back in those days. You couldn't pack a gun in your shoes. Yeah, you could get through TSA. Now you can't even pack toothpaste. But also, Porkins, his relationship to it, they literally come to Indiana Jones and go, hey, what do you know?

And he goes, well, I know this exact information. And the guy goes, whoa, Jesus Christ. And like that, I'd never seen that in a movie before. Like, well, why are you asking him if you're not gonna believe him? Yeah, everything about this scene is wonderful. He lost the BAFTA to Ian Holm for Chariots of Fire, which of course is the best picture winner of that year.

Okay, makes sense. And then he gets BAFTA wins after this for Trading Places, which he's incredibly funny, obviously. And then yes, a private function, which is like an Alan Bennett, famous British dramatist, like comedy with Michael Palin, and Defense of the Realm, which is this kind of like dark British political thriller with Gabriel Byrne.

Don't know, I should watch them. Bet you he rocks in them, but it is crazy that he won three BAFTAs. That's a good movie. Defense of the Realm was a good movie. Not just one three, three consecutive. It's 84, 85, 86. He is nominated for Room of the View in 87.

Which is his one Oscar nomination. Which he's also amazing in. This is a thing, you look through old BAFTA years, and now the BAFTAs, like a mirror of the Oscars, too closely where it's kind of boring. They used to just have such pride in their guys. And it was a more British, there was not a lot of American movies making it.

And if there is, it's like Den Helm Elliott and Raiders where they're like, well, we like the British guy. Right. We like that British guy in that movie. But then they also like, Jamie Lee Curtis wins for Trading Places that same year. They love Trading Places. It's kind of farce in the way they probably do.

They just had interesting zags. But yes, to your point, like the fact that we're seeing the introduction of the arc as an idea through Brody as well as through Indy means that when Brody says you shouldn't do this, that hits differently for the audience where you're like, this is the guy who likes Indiana Jones doing Indiana Jones shit. He's bankrolling it. He thinks it's fun.

He likes hearing the stories. He's in favor and he's saying this is one step too far, which is basically the introduction of like, there are forces at play that are maybe beyond your comprehension. This is like touching on mystical shit that's a little scary. Maybe, maybe, which Indy is just like,

what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. But he literally goes, the wrath of God or some shit, right? So you're, and by, you know, by Billy Wilder rules, you are promising that we're gonna see some wrath of God at the end of this movie, or they put it there, you don't really think about it again, and then when the wrath of God starts coming,

oh shit, we're going, oh, we're there, we're going to the, God's coming. This is super exciting, because once you hit it, you're like, what am I looking at? And you remember, oh, they told us. Wrath of God. Oh shit. So it's, it's deeply exciting.

David. Yeah. That's got to hurt. That's a quip. That's a quip that people make or like, do not go in there. That's like another quip, but if they're saying that's got to hurt, maybe they're saying it about root canals and if they're saying, do not go in there. That's like another quip. But if they're saying that's gotta hurt, maybe they're saying it about root canals. And if they're saying, do not go in there, maybe they're saying that about a mouth with

a bunch of plaque buildup. My point here is if you want to avoid being the subject of quips like that, maybe you should use our sponsor today, Quip. Yeah, so why don't you get yourself Quip 360. It's an oscillating toothbrush, Griffin, that's literally gonna revolve around you. That's what I like. I've been using Quip for a long time,

but the 360 is the kind of like round brush. Sure, yeah, yeah. This is the whole thing with Quip. It's an electric toothbrush that doesn't overcomplicate the most basic daily ritual. I feel like Quip just exists to make this as easy as possible. Very simple designs, ultra quiet, super clean, you know, easy to maintain, and is scientifically according to the American Dental Association, scientifically proven to remove up to 11 times

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and you go over. I get to you. I got a bunch of equipment stuff sent to me every you know, a few months. It's really, really helpful. I've got 25,000 five star reviews and you know, people love quip and they got a perks program. You know, I love perks love perks programs you do quip perks quip quip puts quip perks is a little hard to say I'm gonna say that's just for me quip puts their money where their mouth is when you subscribe to autoship you'll be enrolled in quip perks to earn credit back over time just for listeners of blank check get 20% off-site wide and a free travel case and counter top stand at getquip.com slash check. That's get q-u-i-p dot com slash check.

Free your mouth today and save 20% site wide plus a free travel case and counter top stand at getquip q-u-i-p dot com slash check. Get quip q-u-i-p dot com slash check. Quip. Quip. I mean, obviously, right. But the weird thing about Indiana Jones that is only people have remarked on is, right, he probably didn't need to do anything, right?

They were always going to open the arc and all get murdered by it. Do you have thoughts on this? And like this, this became right. The sort of galaxy brain nerd take of like of like indie doesn't really even do much Well, it's like we watch this movie of Indiana Jones doing a bunch of shit But the big question is if you remove him from the narrative does the outcome change at all? Well our perspective of the narrative changes very much in itself changes the narrative So I would say is kind of like the defining element of what makes an interesting lead character

This is what people get wrong is they're like oh an interesting lead character is a character who does a lot of shit They're impactful because they're high functioning and capable He makes the right kind of moral choice at the end of each of his movies like you know right like Indy does But I think it's beyond that where it's like the lesson is You want to watch the movie that Indiana Jones is in. The movie where he's not in it wouldn't be fun. You could watch these same events play out even if they were unaffected without this guy doing his shit.

Oh, you don't want to watch just Nazi treasure hunters? Yeah, no, it probably wouldn't be very fun. But you see so many blockbuster movies that can't answer why the main character is the main character, right? Where you're like, they're the main character because they decided that's the main character at the center of the story. It's not interesting to be telling that story from that character's perspective. But isn't there also the argument that it's like, they open, they open the Ark, some kind of ancient magic creatures, whatever comes out, and they look upon these Nazis and turn into demons and destroy them,

and they do not destroy Indiana or Marion, it's not just because Indiana's closed his eyes, isn't it also? It's just like they know these spirits have rendered judgment, and they know that Indy and Marion are not, you know, evil of heart, as everyone else gathered is. Well, that's the low-level sort of like Inglourious Bastards version of like, this is me creating an alternate history

where there is like some modicum of like, a microcosm representation of a course correction. Of like, there being a cosmic balance. That's a perfect reference, is that like, we're taking history and we're just little little tweaks so we can have some fun with it. If you, I'll answer a question with a question.

If you were tied to a pole with David and there was the wrath of God was swirling around you and David said, Griffin, keep your eyes shut. Would you be able to? It's actually a good question. This is what's tough, okay? I think I'm capable of keeping my eyes shut. If David's-

Screaming and yelling and- But now I'm commanding you. If David's the one telling me to do it, the tone of voice is really gonna make a difference. Griffin? Griffin! Close your eyes! There's a version of it in which I keep my eyes open just to rile him up.

I know, look! There was an essay by a guy, Matt Pombroy for Esquire, that was sort of like expanding on this whole, how is the movie's outcome affected? What changes if you remove Indiana Jones from Raiders? And I'm just gonna read the quick sort of summary of this. But he says, like, the argument is if the major things that change if Indiana Jones is not in the movie is that Toad kills Mary and probably right away. Yes, right, right.

She won't survive. Right. Just at the bar. At the bar at the bar, uh, the arc would have been flown to Germany on the plane because Indiana Jones wouldn't have stopped the German mechanic. And that means that the arc goes straight to Hitler opens up and burns his face. So maybe we lose some good pieces. We, you know, we lose some heroes.

This is the interesting thing. You're like the main thing that Indiana Jones stops is the arc from getting straight to Hitler who probably wanted first-right refusal and cracking That bad boy open right? It's it's a it's an interesting perspective but and and also there's a lot of you know, talk about like, you know that There's a lot of talk about like, when we heard the line in Last Crusade of, it belongs in the museum, the ongoing joke, it was a great line of dialogue.

Then years later you go, wait, no, it doesn't. It does not belong in the museum. It belongs exactly where you're stealing it from. But in most of these movies, he is keeping it from bad guys who are taking it. Like they are going to take it. So that's it. He's like better a museum or in a warehouse

than in Hitler's front lawn. That's the better part of the argument is that the thing he stops from happening is it getting to Germany, right? It's that like it never ends up in complete Nazi control. Right. And Lord knows whatever, maybe they could have done something bad with it. And Lucas had this thing about that. The MacGuffin always has to go back where it was cut or disappear. He has like that. He has said this out loud. And I always

wrestled with that back and forth, just from a storytelling point of view. And I'm like, okay, perfect ending for Reyners. And I do believe a perfect ending for Temple of Doom because he returns them to the village. He does not bring them to the museum. And you gotta get a sense that young Indiana Jones has learned a lesson, right, on some level. And then by the third one, it's the grail

and the grail is just gonna go and fall into the pit. So even though the joke of it belongs in museum and There's a comic book out right now called the horizon experiment by the guys that did the good Asian where it's a like a flipside of Indiana Jones, whereas she's literally taking things out of museums and Bringing the back great adventure. It's a great idea. I wish I thought So but yeah, what, but streets of Cairo. Right, right. To fill in the

several action sequences in between the Denouement and the bar. Which one is which? There's the car chase, which rocks. There's the... In the documentary, my favorite stuff about Cairo is these beautiful

wide shots that look like either timeless shots and then you cut to Robert Watts, the famous producer, when I had to go down and yank every one of those TV antennas off of every rooftop and they're like, oh, those poor people. I just thought they didn't have antennas. It's television, right? But it's so much part of the lore of this movie too, that it's like 120 degrees and they all get like dysentery. There's someone who didn't, I think it might be Spielberg, who like wasn't drinking the water.

There's some, anyway. Yes. But like a movie that is already him trying to keep himself on rails, be controlled, be precise, starts getting like more and more. He's basically like throwing dead weight off of a plane with a dying engine, going like, how do we save like 10 minutes here?

And obviously that's how you get the sword versus gun fight. You know the story, right, Ben? You know when Indy shoots the guy, right? The guy's like got the sword and he's swinging around and he just shoots him. It's like the most badass moment in the year. But that was supposed to be a big fight. Oh There was a fully

choreographed like extended set piece Indie fighting this guy with a whip versus his sword and they get there on the day and everyone is like shitting their pants And Harrison Ford's like what if I just shot him? What if he does his good big like show and then I just shot him? What if he does his whole big show and then I just shoot him dead? Because of course he's got a gun. Why would he use the whip if he doesn't have to? That's incredible.

Yeah, and it's like, it is this iconic moment that I feel like people try to replicate a lot. And a lot of times when other movies do something like this, it feels like it is an unsatisfying subversion that you are avoiding showing us the thing we want to see. I think there's something weirdly just in the DNA of it being created in an organic way versus it being something that is reverse engineered.

This is the problem with a lot of movies that try to be Indiana Jones. Is there looking at the end result and going, we need something like this. You need the swordsman moment. You need a character like Marion, and you're starting from like the final results surface level elements.

Indiana Jones also just has so much action that like you don't miss whatever you're missing there because it's onto the next thing and we're running and we're running. It's like Indiana Jones is 70% set pieces anyway. So it's fine. And if you want to, if you want to accuse any of the Jones are doing anything wrong in the movie is he has caused chaos throughout this village. I mean, he's just like, he has tipped over everyone's business. These are small businesses and he is just causing gas.

He is an unhelpful presence, that's true. And it's also that he can find treasure. Like as much as I love Indiana Jones, he is looking for treasure. But like talking about Chuck Jones influence, like Marianne hiding in the barrels and it like having this like sequence of it almost becoming like three card Monty of like where is she feels like a thing that Bugs Bunny does to like avoid Elmer Fudd. You know, like I feel like there are 10 shorts where he does a similar thing,

where he's like hiding in different jars and peeking his head out. And the monkey giving her away, giving her up. Yes. Very funny. The monkey Steven Spielberg grew up with in his house. Right. And then you're just like, the relationship Marian has with the monkey

in that brief amount of screen time feels so mirrored to his mother's relationship with the monkey, which also kind of makes sense in terms of like what you're saying about part of the Willie Scott problem being that Spielberg was so taken with Kate Capshaw that to a certain degree, maybe his judgment is out the window, right? I'm not saying that he wasn't noting her more because he was in love with her, but there are other considerations going on in his mind. He is so sort of like entranced by this woman's existence versus I think what helps Marion avoid ever feeling like

some weird kind of like idealized little boys fantasy of a tough girl Who's also pretty and is cool and is funny is that it does feel like to some degree. She's like his mom right that like everything we now know about Spielberg's real mother and from the failments boss the way he's talked about her written about her and being this sort of person who like Refused to be boxed in in life flowy poetic spirit who was being boxed in but was It was like constantly pushing against it and acting out and causing trouble and all of that It feels like he's pulling from a very personal experience of a woman. He had a non-sexual relationship with

Who she knows she had a sexual relationship with is Seth Rogen. She did in real life. Um, yeah uh the sala of his family, but um But but also like I know they it's just like little clips and stuff It's almost not fair to even judge the whole relationships on the four seconds They show us in the documentary, but you can see in the in the raiders doc The ones made like the serious docs made about this is that you can see in the, in the Raiders doc, the ones made like the serious docs made about this is that you can see them, Karen Allen and Spielberg really working like really like, like challenging each other in the best way possible. Whereas every

clip of him and and Kate Capshaw is very flirty and very they're having a blast and there's nothing creepy or weird going on, but they are absolutely falling in love with each other and it's just a different vibe. It just is, yeah. And the best part in the stuff with Kate Capshaw is that she won't do the snake. Right, that she's so scared of everything, yeah. But you'll do the bugs.

Right. Okay, I'll do the bugs and it cuts to the bug scene because you promised me bugs. Like they're very much in that space as a couple. I would not do the bugs. I would do the bugs. I would do the bugs. Okay. I'll do the bugs. And it cuts to the bug scene. It goes, you promised me bugs. Like this, they're very much in that space as a couple right there. I would do the snake. I was surprised by her choice as well. I think she was just trying to get out of the day. The well of souls, as you mentioned, is cut out of what the comic book or the novelization, the comic book did not have the, I believe. Yeah. There's like that kind of chunk is cut out of it, but you I guess it's the slowest chunk of the movie

It's the least You know kinetic part, but it's fun. It's fun puzzle stuff. I like puzzle stuff Yes, yes, this is where it helps to have sala in this part of a movie too that you have this like Bonvivant guy who when Indy is getting more academic, you can have Sala be big. Right, right, right. But even like Sala, like trying to pull the, like when they're really trying to lift the lid

off the Well of Souls, like there's some tremendous shots there, one of which I've never seen someone strain that hard on camera before. Like I just like, Sal is like really looks like he's gonna pop something. And then there's a shot of Harrison Ford in an almost wild-eyed like mania, like he hasn't slept, it's gonna happen.

And it's a very rare shot of him just almost like spiritually out of control. Like I must, like like and it's what it did not not to rewind on you but you know Belloc hits him with that hey you and I are the same guy which is by the way for writers out there never write that scene it's been written you don't have to write it please don't write it please please please even if you really feel like you're villain and hero or two sides of the same coin you don't need someone to say it. Don't have anyone look at the camera and say it.

But in this time, he does. He goes, yeah, you and I are the same guy. I don't even know why we're fighting. We're both looking for the same shit. We both feel the same way about this stuff. And then in that moment where Harrison Ford is wild-eyed to open the Will of Souls, you see that the villain is right. The villain, that he is right, that Harrison Ford is built to the same stuff

as this guy here. And when the moment's happening, he cannot stop himself. And that's great character stuff, particularly from action movies. There are movies like Sorcerer and The Abyss and The Thing, two of which we've covered. Sorcerer will probably do one day. Right.

Where you're like, part of the magic of this movie is you telling how fucking difficult it was to shoot. Sure. That those are movies that like, successfully. They're screening, you can feel it, yes. Right, and they successfully represent the extreme environmental conditions that the characters are in,

which you also know the cast and crew were put through as well, and that it's not faked, and that, like, the tone of Kurt Russell's skin is a legitimate reaction to him actually being, like, in a fucking Arctic environment for that long. It is wild to me that Raiders, in particular, does not have that kind of weight to it.

Where I, like, if I... when I watch this movie, every- It feels quite effortless. It feels light and breezy. And then every 10 minutes, I think like, Jesus fucking Christ. They, this would just must've been the most exhausting gauntlet in the world. It is nonstop action in like very inhospitable climates and terrains and just all the things

you know about like how rushed they were and everything. It is like- I think that's the magic of Michael Kahn, the editor. That's true. It's just one of the magic of this collaboration is this lifelong relationship between him and his editor and him and he does it. He makes things look effortless. And sometimes that doesn't work towards like a hook.

It doesn't. It has that same effortless. So it should look like a little harder. And with this, I don't know, there's just like, there's so much grit and dust on screen. Yeah, Ben, it's a very dusty movie, Ben. So dusty. So dusty. And uh, Hook is exactly the movie to bring up though. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, But there's a difficult balance of like you also don't want this movie being too weighed down by it feeling like too much of a struggle

There is like no, yeah Right hook. There's like no tension, right? I mean, I know people love hook and we're gonna talk about hook and there's fans of that movie You know a whole generation we will have a defender on the episode. It's a Movie say either we'll tell you off like don't tell you okay But like it's a very it's it's a movie that sometimes really feels like it's plotting and it's even though these sets are large And these actors are here to have fun or whatever. I'm saying you're're like, you're like, oh, this movie was like filmed on air conditioned sets. Everyone's trailers were close by.

The catering must have been great. You know, like you feel that lack of like Glenn close stopped by. Right. You sure did. Like I'm sure that that movie had its own struggles and its making, but like Raiders, they're like, this is like a fucking like complicated, like military operation. Yeah. I mean, I think that they're like, this is like a fucking like complicated like military operation. Yeah, I mean, I think Spielberg was- That they're like willing into existence.

Spielberg has said with Hogan again, we'll talk about like, where he's like, I didn't have a lot of faith in the meat of the movie and I cover for it by being like, make the sets bigger, more colors, more, more, more. You know, like, and that's how that movie feels to me. It's like, it's just kind of like trying to distract you from not much.

I think you're right about Michael Kahn deserving a lot of credit. I also think, like, John Williams' score is so much lighter than you would think. It is so much jauntier than you would think. There are obviously so many different le motifs in Indiana Jones that are iconic, beyond just the obvious bum-pa-bum-bum, where you're like, it's wild that Indiana Jones has 10 perfect themes that alternate.

And most of them feel like they're more, like they would be more in place in like a screwball comedy or like a classic Hollywood romance. You know who it lost to? In 1981, it lost to Reds. Chariots of Fire. Oh, well, ofs. Chariots of Fire. Oh, well, of course. Chariots of Fire, there you go. And obviously John Williams had various, he had like three Oscars at that point.

But you're like, how did it lose? Oh, Chariots of Fire, well, it's pretty famous. I'm sure it will be brought at numerous times throughout this wave of your podcasts, but the John Williams doc on Disney Plus does a really excellent job giving you an overview of what was something I grew up in going back to the world I grew up in is is John Williams delivering a Bang like like a world-class the career defining Banger of a soundtrack about every four months. Yes, just it is it is on one

jaws close encounters all the Star Wars, and then Superman, and things in between. It's incredible, and then as expressed in the documentary, he may be one of the greatest, biggest pop stars of all time, and certainly of that era. Like, who was a bigger musician? Who did you, I knew who he was at 11 years old I knew his name and I knew that that that that if his name was attached to the movie I was in good hands.

But also like Marion's theme is like the fifth most important theme in this film musically like that's the quality of like his number five you know it's not just like oh he came up with a perfect theme for Indiana Jones, the character, and then the rest of the score is just riffing in variations on that one thing. It's just incredible. It's insane. And to the point where John Williams would then take me to other filmmakers, like I literally feel like I met Brian De Palma and other people was through the John Williams works with him,

then he must be equal to Spielberg. I will then go there. Well, it's almost like, it's like the famous Roger Ebert, like M.M. at Walsh, Harry Dean Stanton role, where you're like, no movie with those guys and it can be entirely bad, because those guys are always gonna do something interesting. You're like, there is no entirely bad movie

with a John Williams score. It's an interesting question. The Fury. There are certainly, there are movies I don't like You're like there is no entirely bad movie with a John Williams score There are certainly score there are movies I don't like that he did the score for Yeah, but no you're arguing like does his score make even the most bland have some value. I mean I'm gonna argue 1941 is among his very very best like right here, right John. I've written whole graphic novels just in the 1941 Wow It's just an incredible soundtrack. He did this quarter hard fun. Yeah, I remember the heartbeat score being good. There you go Yeah, I just any coffin. Yeah Andy Kaufman heartbeats, I feel like I brought up a lot on this podcast

But as like an Andy Kaufman weirdo comedy obsessed kid I would see photos of that movie in magazines and shit as like this was one of the first best makeup nominees. And I'm like, there's a Bernadette Peters Andy Kaufman robot love story movie. How is this not my favorite movie of all time? It felt very hard to see for a very long time. They finally put it out on DVD at some point in the mid 2000s. And I was like, I get to see Heartbeat, which is about to become my number one favorite movie in history.

And it just so definitively doesn't work in a way that is astounding. That was another one of those movies that played for a window on Showtime all the time. In the earliest days of cable, when there was only like six movies and they just played constantly. Like the movie Scavenger Hunt would play like constantly right so yeah so I did

see that and as a fellow comedy nerd of an age I was oh please of course it just you guys don't understand it it's it's brilliant and you people don't understand it and you watch it for four minutes go oh no okay that's all right that's not skills is the least funny character in the history of movies the cigar smoking robot I hate to cut you off, but we must finish our discussion You don't want to hear me rant about cat skills for the fifth time in the arc of our podcast exactly right? I do not simply because we have much as he doesn't I do but I appreciate it There's other episodes of that and are there action sequences. We have not get into gotten into enough of

sequences we have not gotten into enough of the many, many action sequences in this movie. I do think the car chase is the best constructed, you know, the horse chase. And also opening weekend and opening experiences. By the time we're at the car chase, you are truly a breathless audience member. You just cannot believe how much movie you're getting and how much it works. Uses every part of the truck, go on top, go in the hood, go, you know, right? Like, you know, I like anything that, you know, maximizes a small space.

This is more movie than you thought was previously possible. Right. Right, like Dave and I talk about when we did the Raimi series and watched those spider-man movies Which were so pivotal for us because they come at a time Parallel with your work and all of that, but you watch those and there was an expectation of superhero movies Where for so long it was like you can't make these they're too expensive the effects aren't there

And then it finally got to the threshold point computers can make spider-man swing through the air But you'd watch these movies and be like he's gonna have like two fight scenes Right. It is just not cost effective. Right. He will have like one fight scene in the middle. I mean god bless That's what the first x-men movie is totally where you're like, oh they're out of action money, right? You know, I think there's two really two to three really fun And I love and like the very soft spot for that movie. Yeah, but I do as well. It's locked on heavy. The final battle between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man at the end of the first Raimi movie is like four minutes.

Right. You know, it's like. I'm physically incapable of not saying out loud that I saw that movie for the first time sitting on a couch next to Stan Lee and Sam Raimi's office on an A.B. cart. That fucking rules. They rolled in an A.B. cart,

and I was not told what I was doing there, and then that's what I found out I was doing there, and I'm now supposed to watch the movie when Stan, who I don't know, is sitting right next to me. You must be very early. Having a lifetime of emotions about the special effects catching up to that

which he's been trying to make this movie since he thought of it Right must have only been in the Marvel fold for like a couple years at that point, right? Yeah. No, I was I was early-goings I did not know I was there Sam Raimi Smartly figured out that he and I had the same job to write a spider-man right and it was and we're

interested in the things that we did that were similar and the things that we did that were different and had us come in as like the first test audience and it was genuinely an incredible moment in my life because I'm literally just a Sam Raimi fan, just the evil dead guys here and then all of a sudden Stan walks in, hey do you believe us? Sits down and we're watching a movie. Good Raimi impression by the way. Thank you. Did he like it? He was, I literally, he got emotional at the end.

There was like, he wasn't, he wasn't bawling, but he was, you know, he was misty eyed and took us down memory lane for a while. It was quite wonderful. And then they asked us, you'll like this. They asked us if we wanted to stay and help like rewrite, work some of the dialogue situations out and Dan grabbed his windbreaker and he goes, oh, I wrote a hundred twenty six issues of Spider-Man. They're all yours. Goodbye

And he was gone and I as a younger creator just stayed and immediately realized that he was smart and I should have ran out Right, and you're not talking, you know exacts all of ran out. Right. And you're not talking, you know, exacts all. But what an experience. It was an incredible day. I'm sorry. I started. No, it's a pretty good anecdote. You're allowed. The reason I brought all this up is that I I have I think

I imagine this is what it would have felt like to watch Raiders in the theater at the time. But seeing Spider-Man 2 opening night when the subway chase sequence goes on for like 15 minutes... It keeps happening. ...and I kept feeling like this is impossible. How is this still going? The projector should be breaking down.

I don't think the infrastructure exists to let Spider-Man exist doing Spider-Man shit for this long, and that's not even the final sequence of the movie, where it's like by the final sequence of the movie, where it's like by the time you get to the truck chase and you're like, this is like the fifth, like absolute like balls to the wall, like jam extended set piece

that he has constructed now in this movie. And also set it up with one of the greatest lines in history, which is, I don't know, I'm making up as I go, which is such a ballsy line of dialogue for any action movie, let alone this, I don't know, just like, you're like, oh, oh, I don't know what's happening.

And like, he doesn't know what's happening. Right, it's a mission statement, it's the thing that so many of the imposters get wrong, and it's the same thing that works about John McClane in the first Die Hard, is it's fun to watch a hero who is capable but doesn't totally have it figured out. That we need to watch them work it out. If someone is too in control of a situation it gets pretty fucking boring and you want to see the struggle the pain them doing the math in their head.

Yeah, he's smart. He's passionate. He can do it. He's not going to stop. How far will he go? This is where we are in the movie in our heads. Like how far is this going to go? And then also, then you find out from the making of that it's mostly second unit that he that Spielberg gave over that sequence, a very storyboarded sequence to the second unit They talk about in great length in the documentary and and so you're like watching a stunt team being given a free rein It's almost a Valentine to them like like here's everything we know how to do and we're gonna have the blast doing it And no one's telling us no because the directors not here and and you're getting all their best stuff George Lucas also did a lot of the second unit. He basically had to do that. Like, that was how to get the movie finished. But it's also, I think it's a self-imposed Spielbergs, like, I'm not doing 1941 again.

Exactly. I will not go over schedule. I will not get this reputation. Right. The way to keep this movie on rails is to understand what needs to be delegated to other people. Right. Right. Right.

So... Should we shout out at least the shirtless, chungus Nazi? I love that guy. He's so huge! Again, you love his ideology. No. Can you just like how large he is? No.

This is not quite a merchandise spotlight, but here's the thing I want to say. Kenner gets the Star Wars license in 1977, right? And starts making all the figures and some of them they come up with these names like the walrus man you know an elephant head and whatever that later then Lucas is like no no we need to give him canonical names this is Momonidon this is whoever this Pondibaba right but the whole like Lucasy thing of like we're gonna come up with a backstory and a name and a species and a planet For every fucking background character any object you see in any shot, even if it's never explained. There's an answer for it

I love that across now four plus decades the history of Indiana Jones merchandise None of these characters are ever named. He's named German McKinnon. Correct when those toys are in 1981 they are German mechanic monkey man you know like those are their names Kyro swordsman right exactly Wow and then like Lucas film loves to fucking backfill and be like never mind we finally landed on name for that Star Wars character never does that with Indiana Jones none of them are ever fucking named like any character who isn't given a name on screen has no? Cannon name yeah, it is a looser world which is fine. It's good right, but also you're like who's that character? He's a German mechanic big guy big man. He's got a fucking Raleigh fingers mustache

How do you know about Raleigh fingers? I just am I my age like when that guy punches Harrison Ford right in the fucking face, you're like, oh, he falls down. Like, he's literally, his knees go to jelly. And I don't think I'd ever seen that in a movie. I'm sure Burt Reynolds did it and stuff in the Smoky and the Bandit movies and stuff like that.

But I just, I had not seen it. And I was, oh had not seen it. And I was, oh my God, he might die. Comparing, not comparing everything to modern day, but like the infamous fucking like Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, contractual, how many punches they can take and how they can never lose a fight and whatever. You got two movie stars who both look like

the German mechanic and refuse to ever look uncool or weak for half a second. And Harrison Ford's like, no, this guy should fucking cold cut me. I have no ego about this. I beat him in the end. Everything should be hard for me. Right. Yeah, and in the movie, the great scene where we,

the quiet moment on the submarine where you get to see how beat the fuck up he is. Like, oh, everything hurts. I mean, and like that's still to this day, not something you see in movies. Really from then to the end, he doesn't do much. Like he's really out of commission and that's still to this day not something you see in movies really from then to the end He doesn't do much like he's really out of commission and he's tied to a pole like it's like that's right Once they're on the U-boat and stuff. It's really just a matter of Jones being like I think bellic wants to test the arc

You know and that's sort of gonna be the weakness here Yeah, it's going right, but you're right from that moment on, you have the moment of intimacy that comes only when he's acknowledging his own wounds and scars, the years, not the mileage, right? This moment that feels like- Incredible thing. Right, and that fucking, just when you think it's gonna lead to an ecstatic love scene,

it leads to, like, he's getting knocked out, you know? Like, he just is barely keeping his shit together. And to be, the end of Indiana Jones, where Jewish ghosts melt Nazis, is awesome. But it's a passive ending for Indy in a way, and so it's a bold choice. Post the boat. Basically everything he tries is kind of a non-starter. You're like, oh, he's going to put on like a German soldier outfit. He's going to infiltrate them.

This will be an exciting last 30 minutes where he's amongst them. Almost immediately They're like we busted you you're right up there with a fucking bazooka What do you think you're doing? You look like Harrison Ford? It's just surprising in a way that they whatever like I just feels like a Hollywood studio now I guess would be like well, come on. No Indy has to you know Use the ghosts against them or what? You know like they're indy has to be more involved in this. And it's their thing, and they get to do what they want. And who is the Hollywood studio in this case?

That's not, no, but that's... George Lucas. That's what I'm saying. Right. Like, you know, they don't have a studio. It's like, A notes, I think, were less bad than they are now. But on top of that, you basically have this movie bankrolled by another artist. Yeah.

And so they get to have a sitting. They also, like, there's some shots in the doc about Spielberg looking at the models for the ghosts, the Angel of Death that's coming at the end, and they look very space alien, very close encounters-ish. And he's delighted. He's like, oh, this is perfect.

I'm like, oh, I would not be able to see like what he sees. Like it's kind of amazing that he does see what it actually is gonna look like on screen because you cannot tell with even perspective that that's what it's gonna look like. The other thing I want you to do is that I think about the action heroes of the time. So when I was growing up, when Harrison Ford got into shape

for Temple of Doom, it was international headlines about how buffed out Harrison Ford is. He is jacked to the gills. He got in shape. And then you see it today, he is just in very good physical shape. Normal man shape, right. Justin Long in comedies is as buff as Harrison Ford is in Temple of Doom. So this summer, I had a good summer with the kids, like, showing them, like, stuff they

wanted to see they hadn't seen before, like Terminator 2 and The Martian, just like stuff that they were too young for when they came out. Yes, The Martian. And looking at Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2, which is not him in his biggest, but him in his most iconic, and he is the exact same shape as Paul Rudd in Ant-Man. Yeah, yeah, basically. I mean, look at the- The biggest man in the world at that time,

the biggest man in the world, and that is mid-Marvel by today's standards. Yes, I'm not throwing out the Justin Lung thing wantonly. No, I remember- I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about. I had a very specific moment, I think probably around that time,

that He's Just Not That Into You came out, when I was trying to kickstart my acting career in whatever way, and I was waiting at a stoplight to cross the street in New York, and I looked over and he was standing next to me, and the first thing I clocked was, wow, he's got guns. And I was like, this isn't Justin Long trying to campaign for some superhero

role, like our whole body image of people in movies has become so distorted that the guy who plays the skinny gawky guy in comedies is actually cut in real life. Nick like cheating in the good place. But, um, I, yeah, I, I remember like Harrison Ford working out, made me go work out. Like I was like. You can do it. Like I, this little, I should get some definition.

But I do, I guess I also saw it as obtainable. Like he had worked out and he looked good, you know. Also, we haven't mentioned, Harrison Ford gets hurt a lot in movies in real life. Like watching all the documentaries in a row, he gets hurt on every single one. Almost every movie gets shut down. He's always breaking limbs and crashing planes. Yeah, up until including Forced Awakens.

Like he's like he's like broke his arm or leg in the hydraulic press. OK, so the I'm just making it up as a go along thing, I think, works because in some ways, that is an admission of Spielberg talking about his own creative process, right? But that is the side of Indiana Jones that is Spielberg himself who's looking around at the elements and gaming out what is the most fun way to construct this.

How do I get out of this, right? It's not even the most fun way to construct it. It's what people talk about where he gets to set and goes like, what is the fewest number of shots I can get this in? If this person walks from here to here on this line, then suddenly that's a oner and we can cover half a page in like five minutes or whatever it is. He's the most famous for it.

It gets talked about endlessly by film nerds, but you guys will reference it. Often it is to watch him construct this. Like when he he when the Dot cameras are on him watching him in real time Construct a scene either from this or from Lincoln with the same amount of just he's so good at it It's just in it right. He really may be the best at that that ever lives I think he is and I it's like you watch that footage and it's almost like he's like speaking in tongues where it's like he's channeling something from like another dimension where he's just like oh wait a second, and he just

like calls out five chess moves and he's not doing it in a bossy or demanding way. It feels like it's just coming to him suddenly and then the thing comes together so quickly and he just like knows exactly how to get it really fast. The other part of it is the Indiana Jones thing of talk about the fallibility of him as a hero, right? That he isn't worried about looking weak or failing or whatever it is. There's something unified there in the fact

that Harrison Ford himself hurts himself a lot, and it's not just like, oh, he gets injured on set because he's not good at doing stunts. He gets in a fucking plane and crashes them, and then people go, hey Harrison, maybe time to stop flying planes, and he's like, oh, he gets injured on set because he's not good at doing stunts. He gets in a fucking planes and crashes them. And then people go, hey, Harrison, maybe time to stop flying planes. And he's like, fuck off. And he gets in another plane. Like, there is something he's playing that speaks to something very real in him, which is this guy who just keeps fucking doing the shit.

Even when he gets like knocked out, he just gets back up and walks off like the fucking crash site. Yeah, but pre-Indiana Jones, you remember a scene where there was just a moment where the hero licked his wounds on camera? I can't even think of it. Yeah. No, and like thinking about like comparable like 70s stars, you know, I know this is an 80s movie,

but like, you know, who are the sort of towering figures of like 70s action cinema, right? right a they're largely a lot older like you still have like you know Lee Marvin movies and like Charles Bronson movies and those things where those guys are a lot steelier and a lot more humorless Burt Reynolds is way more humor he does not want to show that he cares he's never gonna get his hands that messy right like he's more the to get his hands that messy, right? Like he's more the Han Solo type of wanting to be a little bit above it. And then you have like Dirty Harry, who is similarly just like,

Dirty Harry is never going to show fucking vulnerability. Yeah. I was like, like, when they're like, when I was thinking back on this, like how did I as a kid know that Burt Reynolds didn't give a shit? Like, how was that messy? Was it that Burt Reynolds didn't give a shit? Like, how is that message? Was it from him going on The Tonight Show? I mean, I truly, like, wasn't that-

Yeah, it was a message to me. Just like, he's not giving it at all. But it's like, that was the product. Like, that's what he was selling. It was like he was like the pet rock, and people were like, so what do I do? And they were like, you just put the rock on your desk, and you pretend it's a pet.

And you're like, I gotta do the work? He and you pretend it's a pet and you're like I gotta do the work He's just gonna sit there and flub his fucking life Also You were talking about the costuming it's also how he's wearing the costume that the costume or talks in the documentary about how How Harrison wears clothes and he's not just wearing the jacket He's kind of wearing the jacket like almost off his shoulders half the time. Like it's barely on him. It's very unique. Like it's...

And when he like buttons up his tie and puts the jacket like there's a more like a more respectful Indiana Jones in the costume. But most of the time the jacket is almost not on his shoulders. But that's like the craftsman side of it, which is like he's doing things that are unnatural, but he understands that he is in the business of making iconography. And the tough thing to do is to do that and not have it play as self-conscious.

That he is able to give this very natural, behavioral performance with that kind of self-awareness. Yeah, and again, you said before, the other thing with Spielberg is every single one of these supporting performers and or stunt people and or just presence on the screen just really feels right and exciting and surprising. Like it's just everywhere you turn,

there's something really interesting to look at. There's someone who's bringing their whole story to this one line of dialogue that they're reading, even the Nazis. You know, also I, uh, I know we're heading towards the end here with, with the Nazis, but it was very interesting to me when they were talking about making crystal skull and he said, no Nazis. I'm not like, he literally the only rules feeler put out There's I'm not going back to doing cartoon Nazis post

Schindler's less he yeah like yeah like and that that arc of Just maturity as a storyteller like I I have made a statement so powerful. I can't go back to The Bugs Bunny Nazi, I can't do that. And him knowing he can't do that. I find that very fascinating, but it also feels like an admission that he shouldn't have made another Indiana Jones movie. That's the problem. It is what is so interesting about him that like, you know, I feel like it's been said that part of the calculation

of making Temple of Doom a prequel was that he didn't wanna just do the Nazis again. And if you were setting it right after, World War II isn't resolved, you don't wanna go too far in the future, it felt like you could put it earlier and put it in a different timeline. And then Last Crusade, he's like,

why am I trying to like fucking perfect something? He's never gonna be better than Indiana Jones fighting the Nazis. But if you get to a point's never gonna be better than Indiana Jones fighting the Nazis. But if you get to a point where you don't wanna make Indiana Jones fight the Nazis anymore, then maybe it's like not the time to make an Indiana Jones movie. But also you get that great line in Last Crusade,

the famous, Nazis, I hate these guys. Like he's the only one that hates them. Like, this is something about me you should know. I don't like Nazis. It's a great line of dialogue. One of his defining characteristics. You gotta wait a decade for it too, which is great. All three face meltings.

So good, so different. I mean, obviously, Tote is the best one. Yes. But they're all fun. But it's like, three of the best practical visual effects of all time all happening right next to each other. And as you said, what's great about about is that there are three different bites at the Apple they are different philosophical approaches the practical effects are

good I think also the individual freaks are you know like Paul Freeman is the best I mean not Paul Freeman sorry I'm told is the best yeah the way he just goes like like you know, he hits the scream the best, but yeah, just one is sort of shrinking, right? Like a sort of drying fruit, Toad, the Nazi guy, Toad melts, and Belloc blows up, boom. The behind the scenes of the Toad head,

where like it was this incredibly like complicated, immaculately built layer by layer, basically like candle head. It makes sense because that's exactly what it looks like. It looks like this thing is truly like being melted layer by layer. Right. And they had like 40 fucking hairdryers on it and then we're speeding it up even further. But you're like, it's a thing they could only do one time successfully.

And a lot of it is like theoretical where they're like we think this will work It worked. It's cool. And it still works. I'm here in Portland where Raiders and jaws plays on theaters at least once a summer so I got to take The kids like my my son saw jaws for the, for the first time, completely works even through modern eyes, and Raynors also works, and the head melting. I always wonder, is this read at all, or is this just something I grew up with? So I love it, right?

It's decades old. Does this just look like an old, like, Three Stooges cartoon to my kids? You know what I mean? And they come, nope, it works. Completely rattled them. And to the point where you're watching it now, I remember thinking, do they find an actor that looks like this model they built? Because they, it's so perfectly... Right. That's part of what helps sell the illusion. You're right. Is that he himself looks like a model.

Right. Right. That's why he looks like a little robot. Like I said, like a little alien. So it's also just very satisfying in that sort of careful Jewish four way. It's Nazis getting what they deserve, but it's also just right. You're like, you're like, yeah, I, I know now maybe in the, in the moment I would not know this, but the viewer has the kind of confidence of like, I wouldn't open that fucking box. Ben?

You don't open the box. If I open the box, I think God's hand would come out and pound me. Be like, what's up, brother? Hey, keep it up, Benny. And then just turn into a bunch of coins. Yeah, buddy! He wouldn't beat your ass, he'd Dap you.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Good job. But it does feel exactly like Inglourious Bastards were like, oh, this is much farther along than I thought we were going with this storyline. We are well past what I thought was the line. And also, I don't know where this is going to end. Is God going to show up with the voice of Gene Hackman and give us the business? I don't know what's going to happen.

Oh my God. Gene Hackman never played God, did he? Yes, he did. I just tipped my hat. It's a movie with, the movie that is in Greece starring Olivia Newton. Two of a kind. He is the voice of God in the John Travolta, Olivia Newton. Wild.

Yes, Oliver Reed plays the devil. Is that movie good? Probably not. It was a notorious bomb. Another one I saw in theaters, so chuffed from my experience. Yes, Oliver Reed plays the devil. Is that movie good? Probably not. Another one I saw in theaters so chuffed from my experience watching Grease. Of course, this must be even if it's half Grease. Yeah, it's a truly Terrible movie. It's a heart. Speaking too, by the way, um, I rewatched the Cisco Ebert of this movie,

because I'm of an age where everything Cisco Ebert did affected me greatly. They were my film school for all of my childhood. And every one they championed, I immediately took notice of. And so you watch this clip and they are just giddy with excitement over this movie. They just can't believe they experienced this movie in a way that they rarely show on camera. That's awesome. And it really is.

And Siskel says to Ebert, you know, I was thinking, is this year movie such shit that I'm just loving every second of it? Because we haven't seen, he goes, honestly, Robert, we haven't seen a good movie in like six months, like a really good movie. He goes, honestly, Robert, we haven't seen a good movie in like six months, like a really good movie. He goes, is it that or is it just a really good movie? And they agreed that it's just a, it's a really good movie. And this was a terrible movie, the year for the cinema. Like, it's kind of surprising that it got nominated

not just for best picture, but best director when they had snubbed Spielberg for Jaws. But it did just like, this movie, I think was just fucking undeniable. Yeah. And it was obviously the biggest hit of the year. Um, and the, you know, but you're right, of course, the Jaws have been as well now, but it, it's treated like these Spielberg movies pre-Schindler's list is treated

where it gets the noms, wins a bunch of tech awards and does not touch, like there's no acting attention and on, and it loses to, uh, there's no acting attention and it loses to Chariots of Fire and Reds, respectively, for picture and director, which are, Reds is this, you know, big, egotistical passion project. I love that movie, but... I love that movie dearly. It is one of my favorite movies of all time.

It's an amazing movie. I covered it in great length on Scott Ackerman's... Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, that's right. Great episode of Scott Hasn't Seen. Oh, thank you. And then Chariots of Fire is the little movie that could that year. That's the movie everyone. It's the Coda of its year. Everyone's like, you know, I really loved that movie Those are serious movies about serious things coming out of a 70s where new Hollywood was like we got a fucking engage with shit Politically and like Spielberg is making these like fun,

like gumball rally movies. Yeah, it's just not right. The Oscars have not caught up to what he's doing. Yeah. And they- And yet they couldn't ignore him. He gets the noms. There's a weird balance of them being like,

come here, but not too close. Yeah. To be clear, I love Reds. It's a weird public narrative that goes on for the 80s, like when Spielberg get his due. Like this is the narrative through every movie including Color Purple and all the way all the way up to Schindler's List. Let's play the box office game. Okay, any final things you want to say? I mean the final moment you sort of teed this up but it's like it is the one most satisfying resolution to

what do they do with the relics that the movie the sequels can't ever replicate of just putting it in a crate and it's just like stacked up and then this incredible shot of this warehouse and being like Every single fucking crate in this place is an Ark of the Covenant Has some fucking thing in there that caused some crazy adventure presumably Yeah, anyone with a little story brain just explodes like every one of these is an adventure every one of these is a comic book I have to read yes, but it's it's also kind of like it's this weirdly like bittersweet note of like and all that for what? it like gets stacked up and

then you get the shot of Karen Allen in full wardrobe and makeup, like a woman about town, like which we had not seen, because we've only met her at, we met her at her lowest and watched her through an adventure. So here she is in full makeup, and you're like, holy shit.

Like, I don't know, it just, it was like, at the end of the movie, the last thing you think of, oh my God, is a fun thing to think of and also? Thinking of it like if it was today I wonder if Karen Allen would have more of like a Jennifer Lawrence career You know me and more of like I know she had shots where she got we talked about it on the star man I'm right. I mean, I think we both said that we think she should have won the Oscar that year and she wasn't even nominated and it does feel bizarre for like, either or, if it was just Animal House or

Indiana Jones, you'd be like, either one of those should have set her up to have a dominant career for 15 years. The fact that she did both, it's just kind of bizarre that she didn't have a bad career, but it's like she should have been like one of the top five female stars in America for all of these. Yeah, she had everything. Yeah. Yeah. And yes, she was clearly capable of doing anything

and everything and still is. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Film was the biggest film of the year. It was successful. Very successful. Made $2 220 million domestic 20 million dollar budget comes out June 12th 1981 Brian was there I was there opens number one of the box office We're in this stage where we you know wide really beginning to have right opening weekends

Number two is another what it opened to is four million dollars robust Yeah, but also interesting I reading this morning Was not tracking well prior to release they were worried about it There was there was a Superman 2 without tracking it by a mile Interesting. So that is yeah, I know One of the big hits of the year, but not as big but as a child I was all it was all in our Raiders like we were we couldn't wait So that's weird to hear that.

It is opening against another new movie that is a big adventure movie, epic fantasy movie, that is not as well remembered. In 1981, it's a big epic, it's not Excalibur, is it? No, even more ancient than that. In terms of when it's set? Yes. Is it biblical? No a

Little forward maybe a little bit. I don't know. No, it's a no ancient myth Ancient myth. Yes The Titans there you go. Oh With Harry Hamlin and Laurence Olivier and you know release the Kraken mode obviously later Remade with Sam Worthington. Yes. The last work of Ray Harryhaus. Who I guess really is kind of our generation's Harry Hamlin?

Yes, no, I mean, that's the big thing is it was... It was the end of the Harryhaus. Right, and look, it's a throwback. We're letting Harryhausen do one last, yeah. Here's another new movie that week, a comedy, one that we, also epic, one that we will, I'm sure, cover on this show one day. We will cover this someday.

81, epic comedy. Is it a genre mashup? It's a comedy something? Biblical epic? It, hmm. He's struggling to think how he would describe this. It's a jokey epic movie. Is it History of the World Part One?

Is it Holy Moses? Oh, it's okay. History of the World Part one from Mel Brooks. I Was gonna pull out a Holy Moses. It's just pretty that would have been good. Yeah But not a film. I've maybe only seen once not a Mel Brooks. I really know very well It's not one of my favorites, but I it's it is good stuff consistently funny. It's got great stuff in it Yeah, but so all three of those movies are opening against each other. That's why.

Very weird that Raiders and Clash of the Titans, like those feel like way too much overlap there, but they were. Now, number four at the box office. Ben, you might be interested by this movie. It is... It's called Bone Dirt River. It is the third of, I mean, I don't know, six or seven films that this comedy duo made that you might be interested by. Is it a prior and wilder? No, you're pitching

this to Ben. Okay. Oh, I think I know who it is. I don't want to guess these guys like to, you know, take it easy. Oh, you're talking about Cheech and Chong, right? My boys. What is the third Cheech and Chong movie? Big proponents of the Jazz Cigarettes, those two. Yeah. Is it the weird one where it's like the brothers? Corsican Brothers, I think, is the last one. That is their sixth movie. Oh, wow.

Okay. Way off. Okay, the second one is Cheech and Chong's next movie, is that correct? That is the second one. The first one is Up in Smoke, obviously. Is this- Oh, the first one's Up in Smoke, okay.

Is this Sweet Dreams? It's called Nice Dreams, in which they sell drugs out of an ice cream truck. And Stacy Keach is a DEA guy who's trying to catch them. Should we do the Cheech and Chong? We've mentioned it, we've had them on Patreon brackets. I gotta say this, I've seen, I don't know if I've seen all six,

but I definitely have seen a lot of them and I don't remember anything about them That's weird because he must have been dead sober while watching Would you include yellow beard and after hours? No, I feel like Cuz we'd want to we want to save that for Martin Scorsese and Mel Damsey series Any credit for pulling Mel Damsy director of Yellowbeard? No, I think it's- No look up! It's Up and Smoke, next movie, Nice Dreams,

Things Are Tough All Over, Still Smokin' and Corsican Brothers is sort of their last live action film together. In how many years? They did that very close together. Like Up and Smoke is 78 and Corsican Brothers is 84. They did them all back to back to back to back to back to back. And then they stopped.

Was there a later, more recent movie where they teamed up again, animated? Yeah, it was straight to DVD. It was straight to DVD? Oh no, it wasn't actually. It did have a limited theatrical release. The Cheech and Chong's animated movie. Exclamation point. But I was also thinking, because I know they've both done animated roles. No, it wasn't actually it did have a limited theatrical release the Cheech and Chong's animated movie exclamation point I was also thinking because I know they've both done animated roles

I was like was there a thing where they cast them like Brother Bear style to play animals Well, Chong is in Zootopia. That's what I'm saying and Cheech is in Lion King, right? They're all in yeah, they're reliable. Yes, of course Ramone in Cars, right? Of course. I'm sure there's a Nash Bridges special episode. Yeah. Number five is a romantic comedy, directed by and starring its star, written, directed by and starring this man. Is it an Alan Alda?

It's an Alan Alda. I got that right! You did. Okay. Is it the one with Carol Burnett? It's the one with Carol Burnett. And Len Cariou, Rita Moreno, Sandy Dennis. Do you know this title, Brian? No, it's not Sweet Liberty. Sweet Liberty is young Michelle

Pfeiffer. Sweet Liberty is his second film. Okay. And there's the Joe Tynan one is a different one, right? There's the one where he plays the politician. Is that what it's called? I don't fucking know. Yeah. The seduction of Joeuction of Joe time. Thank you Okay, this one is called. This isn't the Four Seasons is it it's the Four Seasons his debut which is now being remade with Tina Fey and John Ham maybe that's not a Neil Simon. It feels like it feels like a Neil Simon, California suite type thing Oh, that's it and it has a It feels like a Neil Simon California Suite type thing. Ah, that's a good one. And it has a four part structure, season by season.

But it is not, it is Alan Alda written and directed by him. Never seen it. I never have either. I'm trying to find this, there was an announced fucking Tina Fey Four Seasons. Yeah, you're right. There is some kind of Netflix show, I think. But I. Yeah, you're right. There is. Some good Netflix show, I think.

Yes, but I'm trying to remember who the other person is. It can't be Jon Hamm. He's in every TV show now. Like, it can't. It might have been Correll. Steve Correll. It's a day and night reteam. Yeah, I could see that.

Yeah. And Colman Domingo. Sure. Also in the top 10, you've got, and I wonder if you saw any of these movies, Brian, you got Bustin' Loose, the Richard Pryor film.

That was on cable constantly, all the time. Never seen that one. Cicely Tyson is in it. I don't know. It looks like he's Bustin' Loose, I guess. You've got the Sean Connery movie Outland,

which is a Peter Himes film. I enjoy Peter Himes. That's like him with a shotgun. But it's like set on Jupiter. It's like a space western. I've never seen it, but it seems very cool. And my guess is it's not as cool as I want it to be because it's not that famous,

but you're saying it's pretty cool. It is not that cool. There is a comma. Believe it or not, there is a graphic novel adaptation by Sterenko. Wow. Well full circle on this puppy. But I, and it's one of his great mid career moments as a comic creator. And if a comic book is so well done and so innovative and strength kind of thing that you go see the movie thinking you're seeing something similar and it's just not there. It's very, you know like there's certain sci-fi movies of that era that just all vibe like Black Hole,

they're just depressing and dark and weird and not Star Wars, it's that. It's not alien, it's not as bad as Black Hole, but it's trying to be alien and it and not Star Wars, it's that. It's not alien, it's not as bad as Black Hole, but it's trying to be alien and it's just not connecting. The tagline is on Jupiter's moon, he's the only law. That sounds like the best movie of all time. Exactly. Put it in the heartbeats, Cannon.

It's set on Io, the volcanic moon. Not Europa. Oh, okay. You've also got an action film called Kill and Kill Again. Mm-hmm. Good title. Yep. Don't know much about that one. You've got something called The Legend of the Lone Ranger. Yeah, that was a big movie. That was one of those well very marketed movies. It was marketed with Star Wars energy and right with a young Michael Horse as Tonto Michael Horse from Right. With a young Michael Horse, as Tonto, Michael Horse from Men Peaks.

And then you've got the Gary Coleman comedy on the right track. I can kind of see what Siskel and Ebert were talking about of like, do movies just suck right now or does this rock? Because History of the World Part 1 is good, I guess. Pretty much every other movie I described seems mixed to bad. Yeah, I also feel like History of the World was a hit, but not on the level of his previous movies. I think it was seen as a little bit of a like,

is Mel repeating himself. Yeah, we do these old box office games and there's sort of like seven masterpieces in the multiplex. Instead you've got On the Right Track, which was the, yeah. And by the way, we'll get to that. Like fucking E.T. Summer is notorious for like wall-to to wall bangers, you know, like a lot of the other Spielberg movies, these box office games are coming out in like peak blockbuster

years. 81 feels a little thin. Gary Coleman plays an orphan who lives in a locker at Union Station in Chicago. Then he like wins the lottery or something. OK, there's the Gary Coleman cartoon Show like on some snot that a guy sneezed like I didn't even have a tissue He was like, do you remember the Gary Coleman cartoon show Brian where he was like an angel? Yes. Yeah, and it was called the Gary Coleman show which was confusing cuz I'm like is it supposed it's supposed to be Gary Again kids. This is a time time where there was things on TV

and either you watch them or there was nothing else to watch. Or you stared at the wall. This is your choice. You have a choice. Go read or watch this. And there's no Disney on demand or every Star Wars or every Marvel movie available at every second of the day.

I'm sure you're gonna stick in a hoop you could chase. This is, I will say, David, a perfect example of what you refer to as not really movies. Like the movies that don't really exist, except they do, they were in theater. On the right track. On the right track. Yeah, well, it was a financial success.

I mean, $13 million, I think. Back then it was like- Double the opening of Raiders Yeah, nice work if you can get it. Yeah, so yeah, so it does it does look at that box office It is interesting. It does feel like 1981 was a bit of an odd year after years of Star Wars Superman

Right these like adventure. Yeah, my god where it's like the big hits of 1981 are like Raiders, Superman 2, Arthur, Stripes. Like it's like movies that do have some legacy, but it's not blockbuster-y in the same way. It's a bit of an odd moment before the 80s really ramp up and we start getting like a lot of sequels and big action movies and Arnie and Sly and all that stuff. Some of these movies, their tale is fully on home video and cable. Like Stripes played constantly when I was a kid, to the point

where all of my friends knew it by heart. Like every line. Except no one's ever seen the second half of Stripes. My favorite thing. That one's ever seen it. No one's ever seen it. It's the most watched first half in history. Too long. That movie is actually too actually too long to that movie should be 82 minutes long. It's like 110 minutes long Oh, you watch the shorter cut. We got to be done Griff. We've been talking for so long. I'm not complaining Yeah, well, I'm just looking I'm checking my notes here. It's an episode on Raiders of the Lost Ark

Yes, well, this is a problem. We have on these spiel for episodes. Yes. They're all Yeah, there's a lot to talk about. Yeah. There's a lot to talk about. You know what's interesting? Harrison Ford got like six million for this. I just saw this. Five million each for the two sequels. And then $65 million for Crystal Skull. Well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe his deal for Crystal Skull was 20% of first dollar gross.

The money, yeah. Right. Not profit. Like that was the deal elevated by Crystal Skull that Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford were like, it's 20% to each of us right off the top. Probably partly why it took so long to make it. Do you think this movie is Harrison Ford's best performance? Oh, boy. Oh, come on now.

I think it's his most important performance, and I think it's the greatest distillation of what he is uniquely great at as a movie star, if that makes sense. Han Solo will always be my favorite Harrison Ford character. It's just the one, and probably a lot of it was, I saw it at the right age. But single performance, maybe, yeah.

I mean, I think that might be, what would that reaction you had was, what was that reaction? You're weighing witness in your mind, I feel like. I love witness so much, but I think it would be a little, you know, an arach of me to be like, I think it's witness. little, you know, anorak of me to be like, -"You can get to witness." -"Yeah."

Morning Glory, obviously. Yeah. I contend he could have gotten an Oscar nomination for. Furtado. He's also very good in Presumed Innocent. I love him in all of those sweaty, late 80s, early 90s thrillers that he made. And I witnessed sort of the start of that. And I love him in Air Force One, and I love him in many, many things.

But I think, yeah, I think Indy is probably a good argument. You're posing a good question because it is an interesting case of a lot of stars like him, you'd be like, well, there's the most iconic performance, what will clearly be the first line in their obituary. They're never gonna surpass that. And yet, actually, their best performance is X, Y, or Z, right?

You're like, well that's their most famous performance but their best actual work as an actor was this other thing. This might be one of the rare cases where they're the same answer. They're the same thing, yeah. Yeah. I think given the kind of stuff he is. At step four, the greatest thing he ever put on film was on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the sketch where he confronts Chewbacca for sleeping with his wife.

It is an incredible comic performance, which he does not break, and every line he delivers is near perfection. And if you think I'm joking, Google it later, it is an incredible live performance where he just kills. That sketch was written by Jeff Loveness who later wrote, and in the last quantumania. Oh no shit, I didn't even know that, that's fantastic. He had done like viral videos, got hired on to Kimmel,

that was the first thing he wrote. We had him on the George Lucas talk show talking about this. That was him on Kimmel, I think the Monday or Tuesday after Cowboys and Aliens had came out. And he, during the interview, cannot stop smarting from the fact that the Smurfs beat them at the box office. It was the mistake of him not going on to promote the movie in advance. They booked it as a victory lap, assuming the movie would be a blockbuster. And then

he's just like, you know, I guess we're not as good as the Smurfs. But the show opens with that Chewbacca sketch was just incredible and lives in my mind forever because he's yelling at Chewbacca and he goes, I don't need you anymore. I'm in a movie with Daniel Craig now. And he says Craig. and I think about it all the time Is it yes, was he right? He's right America. Yeah, I'm in movies with Daniel Craig Craig, but it's not Craig It's Craig Craig We will link to that clip the episode description Chewbacca and I think we should also It's time to be done Brian anything you want to plug oh

Yeah, listen head over to Jinxworld.com where we can see you sign up for my newsletter and all my books that are available at dark horse Com including powers and the brand new released masterpiece and for fans of this podcast I have a graphic novel coming out in January called fortune glory the musical Which tells the very true story about how I was the writer of the Spider-Man Broadway musical, turn off the dark for a week and a half. I think people will enjoy that true Hollywood disaster story.

Wow. Oh, I cannot wait to read that. Are you kidding me? Brian, please come to New York sometime so I can pick your brain about all kinds of things. I have so many nerdy questions for you about the early 2000s in Marvel, especially the fucking thunderbolt Ross mustache conversation. That was nothing. I have lots to ask you. That's the coolest question David had.

All right. Well, then I know you want to go, but I just want to take a minute and say that I really do love you guys in this podcast a great deal. It is Not to be weird. I do think you guys are this spiritual successors of Cisco and Ebert in the best way possible I just think it's this is elevated conversation that makes everyone I talked to about it Think better about their work and make smarter choices. So I just really wanted to say thanks. Ben is sitting behind the monitor. Ben's going like, wow! Victory lapping.

Well, no, because he of course wanted us to call the podcast Griffle in Simsburg. And he's gesturing like, what was I telling you guys? He was right. I was right all along. He was right all along. And every time you give Ben a nickname, I consider it for myself as well.

Like Dirt Bike Bendis does sound like something I could have pulled off in my younger days. So I do appreciate you guys test marketing these Ben-related nicknames. Hey, happy to do it. Thank you so much for being here. It truly is an honor. As the show's gone on for years, every once in a while we hear about someone who's a listener and it flips us out and we're like, that fucking person listens to us make fart jokes. But you are one that is truly humbling because of how large you loom in our development of

how we understood stories for both of us personally, much the way you talk about the Lucas and Spielberg stuff that you grew up with. Thank you. Thank you all for listening. Yes, join us next week for should I double check? I believe it's a movie called ET the Extra-Terrestrial. Just making sure that nothing yep yep ET the Extra-Terrestrial. So I'm just gonna check my notes here. We're doing our blankies the next week. Banger. Yeah another good one. Yeah ET the Extra-Terrestrial. Fairly large. He made it one year later. Yes How yeah, that's amazing. And by the way, and after ET that's it. He's he never goes back to there's no doubt of Spielberg's No, I mean, no when he makes three movies that don't go over as much but it doesn't matter. Yeah

He's he's unquestionably minted from the moment of Raiders on they're Like we can't, it's, it's not a fluke. How far does this Spielberg wind with you? Up to Schindler. Oh, okay. That's farther than I thought. Oh yeah. Yeah. It gets to him winning his Oscar and then we'll win our Oscar for best podcast.

A category, I assume they're including in next year's ceremony, along with most cheer worthy moment, most dollars for CEOs collected. Coming up in a few days over on the Patreon, we're doing a Spielberg bonus covering something evil and savage. Oh, yeah. It's two major TV movies in between Duel and Sugarland Express. And as always, Bendis, you got me thinking, drafting already in my head. Ben's nickname for this has to be Bendy and a bone, right? There you go. There you got me thinking. Drafting already in my head. Ben's nickname for this has to be Bendiana Bones, right?

There you go, there you go. Yes.