Oft Off Topic
Oft Off Topic is a humorous podcast where two men with no memory or attention spans attempt to talk about all the nerdy and geeky things they love.
Marvel at how they fail to stay on topic in the most entertaining ways possible. If the subject is The Ewoks, they'll wind up talking about Tarzans nipples or Alan Thicke the robotic love machine. Talking about Mr. T and theyll somehow wind up connecting his success to the Umbrella Corporations T-Virus.
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Oft Off Topic
Legend 1985 Part One: Lets make a movie
Join us for an in-depth exploration of the iconic 1985 fantasy film, Legend. From its inception as a passion project to its groundbreaking visual effects, we'll delve into the behind-the-scenes magic that brought this mythical world to life.
In each episode, we'll interview key figures involved in the film's creation, including:
- Ridley Scott: The visionary director who brought Legend to the screen.
- Tom Cruise and Tim Curry: The iconic actors who portrayed Jack and Darkness, respectively.
- Production Designers and Costume Designers: The artists who crafted the film's stunning visuals.
We'll discuss the challenges and triumphs faced during production, the film's cultural impact, and its enduring legacy. Whether you're a die-hard fan or simply curious about the magic of filmmaking, Legend: The Untold Story is a must-listen podcast.
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legend, the movie that I remember watching as a kid and, um, not many people seem to remember you know, like I mean, I don't know, I'll google it and it's like everyone's like legend. But when I talk to people they're like I think I've heard that before. Well, the movie's a legend. Yeah, exactly, well, I also. When I google legend, there is another legend that came out with fn. Uh, what's his name?
Speaker 2:oh, no, I'm blanking his name uh no, that's his actual name, george. What's his name?
Speaker 1:Oh no, I'm blanking on his name Bane. No, that's his actual name, george. What's his name? Bane, tom Hardy?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah, he did a movie, legend, where he played as twins, so he played two roles and he was British. And I've actually seen clips of it. Wacky gangster hijinks, a British gangster movie. British people are always funny, always drinking their teas and wearing monocles and stuff. That's exactly right. Monocles must be had, monocles tea. Very harmless people they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally harmless. When they ran half the world it was just like, please do this and we'll give you a sucker.
Speaker 2:Yep, everything was very proper Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, everything.
Speaker 1:No torture or murder at all, nope, all right, so you ready. Legend 1985. Let's learn about some legends. Yeah, very clear, 1985. If you actually want to Google this movie, I highly recommend you put Legend 1985, because, as you might realize, you just type in Legend in Google and, yeah, you'll get that tom hardy movie. But you also get like books, comics, video games, um, I don't know folklore, just you know legends, kind of very generic term so it's like you're sitting around.
Speaker 2:You just wrote a book. You're like what should I name this legendary story?
Speaker 1:I just wrote yeah, so yeah if you're gonna look up legend, make sure you add the 1985 that's important in the search also.
Speaker 2:I do remember this movie, but I don't. I never actually saw it. Far as I know, it's just like young tom cruise, a big horny, uh tim curry and a horse and a lot of sexual tension. I assume, uh, yeah some, yeah, some, just some, just some, yeah anyway let's go.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go. Legend is a legend is a fantasy movie released in 1985 star tom cruise, mia, sarah and tim curry. Even if you've never seen Legend, you've probably recognized the VHX box art, but we'll get to that later. Speaking of box art, did you see it? I posted it on the.
Speaker 2:I did not, but I actually legitimately remember the box art though, because it was kind of the cool box art back in the day.
Speaker 1:Right, but I did post it in the thread. I mean, if you want to take a look at it as a reminder.
Speaker 2:It looks like he just blew a giant load in his hand and he's fantasizing about Tom Cruise in that giant wad. Right yeah, now this actually people had complaints about this.
Speaker 1:They thought it was too confusing, so they ended up changing it to a little bit different, like there's a little more splash where his hand with Tom Cruise and Mia Cera was a little bit closer and you actually saw more like the lighting of his face and stuff.
Speaker 2:Wasn't it is like brought it closer to him and yeah they.
Speaker 1:They made it a lot more clear. I still think this one's superior and it's a lot more, a little more artistic. Plus you see the villain, but you don't. You know, you don't get quite as good a look. You really want to look how you watch the movie, or I guess now you google it. But so this movie was directed by a little known director. I using words twice and I can't believe I didn't catch that. Let's try this again. The movie was directed by a little-known director who has since fallen into obscurity. This little-known person named Ridley Scott oh right, he actually became one of the most famous directors out there, although that's arguable. Everyone at least has heard of it Led to it with his fourth movie, after movies I've never heard of, which is 1977 the duelists have you ever heard this movie?
Speaker 2:that was too uh, that had to do with like a car out in the desert chasing other people in a car, I think okay, well, I'm not gonna look at that, I'll believe you I believe it was a horror movie and it was like people, like a family, just driving through the desert and all of a sudden, just this psycho car, out nowhere, comes and tries like ramming them off the road and chasing through the desert and it's, you know, tension.
Speaker 1:There you go um, there reminds me a lot of that movie, uh quinn tarantino released a while back.
Speaker 2:Remember that it was a death grind or whatever yeah, no death grind house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was grind house, but death proof. Grind house was two movies. Death proof was the one he did which had, like you know, it was a bunch of stunt ladies out there driving a car and he tried to kill him and blah, blah, blah I always wanted to see that movie, but I never did it's worth it.
Speaker 1:It really is worth it. Like you know, kurt russell being the bad guy on that one um, I definitely. You know that one is a lot wordier because it was, you know. But the second movie was actually pretty good too, which was, uh, that one was a zombie one and that was. That was pretty fun. That neither one were great.
Speaker 1:My favorite one about the second one, which I can't blame the name blanking on the name, but what they did was, while the movie was playing, they're hyping up to a big final showdown with the zombies and as they're leading up to it, the film breaks. You know, I did this in the movie I don't know if they do this in the warped and it was like they, it was like the film had broken and so they spliced two parts of the movie together so there was a sex scene that was starting to happen. Also, the film broke and it cuts to after the big engagement. The house is on fire, the people have died and like the survivors of the big battle have like come back and I was like, oh my god, I can't believe that happened. It's like I thought it was pretty cute.
Speaker 2:I like how they did. That's one way to save on budget too.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we bought this giant action-packed finale. Well, we're kind of low on money. I have a plan. That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry this is driving me nuts. Here is Grindhouse is actually a planet terror, by the way, but Grindhouse is also a genre of movies, so I typed in Grindhouse it was like oh, all these movies like no, I was specifically looking for a certain one anyway I'll even put two bucks down.
Speaker 2:It's probably a uh type of music too somewhere along the way sounds like a form of metal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure house metal.
Speaker 1:So anyway, after the duelist there's a movie you probably had heard of is 1979's alien. Uh, this movie only started a billion dollar franchise, most recent entry being alien romulus, which you've seen, and I have not seen it. It is a good movie. I intend on seeing it, I that will, but I'll probably have to wait until it comes streaming. Yeah, that's just the life I live. And there was also another movie in 1982, blade runner, a movie most everyone loves the quotes but but either haven't seen or can't remember. And I'm the second one. Yeah, I remember bits and pieces of it because I know I've seen it. You know I I'm bringing up enough memories to know that I have watched the movie, I just can't really remember it fully.
Speaker 2:When I was a little kid we rented it and I watched about half hour of it, kind of got bored and wandered off because I mean it's not an action-packed movie when you hear some cyborgs and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Yeah not really. I mean, I remember a few like you know he's going through with a gun and people out of the way and robots, and you know they're saying like someone had a snake and they're like is that a real snake? They're like who do you think I'm rich? Because apparently it, you know oh yeah, all pets were.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah yeah, we're cyber.
Speaker 2:All animals were dead in the future, and stuff like that and then of course you know he's out there, the main villain, talking about like crying in the rain and tears of rain that's what it is yeah, so apparently roger howard wrote that line or something like that, like that, oh yeah, yeah, that's awesome I like when the actors add something that actually means something instead of like, the actor adds something that's totally pointless and ruins the movie also there's a little known uh computer game back in the 90s blade runner, pretty good, it was like an investigation was it a set from the same thing or just it just so happened to share a name?
Speaker 2:uh, it, uh, it was from the same world and everything. I don't know if you played the same guy, but yeah, you're tracking down. Uh, you'd actually get to interrogate the cyborgs and try to get them to admit what they were. The whole like focus on the eye thing and you try to get them to react to things. Be like I have. The one line I remember is you could like pull out briefcase and be like yes, do you like this briefcase? It's made of real baby skin and you had to watch their pupils to see how it reacted. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because if they reacted, weirded out, then you knew it was a human. If they just had no reaction, it was a robot, or probably me or a psychopath, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So Scott wanted to make a classical family movie for a while. His intention was to make his third release as he was working on his first, so he was already planning his third movie while he was working on his first one. The next movie he wanted to make, called, was Tristan and Isolde. Tristan and Isolde, I'm probably saying that wrong.
Speaker 2:It's a very family movie sounding name from back in the time.
Speaker 1:Well for various reasons I didn't really look into. The movie was never made. Instead he made Alien, which I think was probably the better choice. And while he was doing e-learning he started doing pre-production work for dune, uh, which eventually abandoned, and dune was picked up by david lynch and oh became what it became. Yeah, after dune imploded for him, he went back to his idea of, you know, classical fantasy film. Uh, on side note, I I still don't like that dune, I just don't like it. You know, um, I read the books and, honestly, the reason why I didn't dislike that most was even before I read the books I watched. Uh, I guess now people consider pretty cheesy, but like there was a sci-fi miniseries that came out with dune, I really liked that it was actually like that, from what I know of and it stuck fairly close to the books and so when I watched david lynch's, I'm like what is this, seriously?
Speaker 1:what is this this?
Speaker 2:is it's got a battle. It's. It's got Patrick Stewart carrying a battle pug, so your opinion is invalid Battle pug trunks. Everything else, yes, it does. And also it's got the better version of Baron Harkonnen in it, because he's an actual bad guy in that movie. True, in the most recent one he's a pretty bad guy, but yeah, this one.
Speaker 2:Not really. He's kind of just looking out for his own interests, trying to make sure his own people are in like good positions, you know, just looking out for his family. Nathan, he's a good man and the original movie he, like you know, pulled out hard plugs and bathed in their blood for no reason.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you remember that scene, but in the well, they also like, yeah, they also trim it down Cause in the books like he was a David Lynch movie.
Speaker 2:He's like bring me the boy and they bring him like this little shaved, like 18 year old dude, and he like pulls him and starts like pawing all over him. Then he pulls out the heart plug and his blood sprays all of Baron Harkonnen. He's like yes, yes, pleasure me and Sting and the other guy, just tender, be like yeah, that's why I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why I think he's the more evil guy than the one from the uh, yeah, fair enough movies, yeah, fair enough that dude just kind of sits in his hot tub smoking his pipe, just being like yes, life is good although he does come across a lot more evil.
Speaker 1:I guess there's a difference of various evil. You have like joker evil, then you have. You know, lex luther be evil. So anyway, when he for legend, he took inspiration from classical fairy tales, including brothers grim. Uh, these, of course, are best known for the dark interpretations where which are now disney classics, my favorite being cinderella. Um, at the end of that one, the evil stepmother is forced to dance to death on white hot iron shoot. I always prefer that one to just like.
Speaker 1:I don't know the disney where I guess it is like she's like oh, I'm prince, now bye, and they leave you know, yeah, those brother grim's tales, they uh, they had repercussions for what people did in those things oh, absolutely, like, even in the they bitch made cinderella two and three, which you know were stupid, but whatever, uh, they still never really had, uh, they never got, she never was punished, you know, even on the third one, I guess, um, now I have, I have little girls, so I saw it at some point. But like that on the third one I don't remember the second one um, like the one of the sisters actually turns out to be like she's just misunderstood and becomes kind of cinderella's friend, while the other other sister is like still a bitch, I don't know, whatever who cares?
Speaker 1:we're not talking about that uh, anyways, uh really, scott had the idea of turning a young hermit who's transformed into a hero and rescues the princess from an evil demon, thus saving the world from a winter's curse, not cursed curse. Now in hollywood, there are tens of thousands of screenplays of all genres floating around. I mean you, if you want a screenplay.
Speaker 1:There's a large dump of screenplays that you can just pick just ask any waiter in hollywood and they will have a screenplay absolutely um, if scott wanted to, he could have got one of those use as is and rip it apart, leaving only bitch the bits, bits of the original intact. You know, and that happens a lot too, you know, you see, oh, this was written by so-and-so.
Speaker 2:But also, don't forget 13 other guys messed with it, tweaked for the big screen by all these people and they just destroy the thing and tear it to shreds and the story is like please don't do that. They're like you signed it over to us, mwahaha.
Speaker 1:All they kept was the characters' names, and that was it. Yeah, basically, characters names. And that was it. Yeah, basically. In front of a love story to an action movie, yeah, instead he won on the original script. In an interview with cinema is cine, fantastic film critic alan jones said this was because he believed quote it was far easier to design a story to fit the medium of cinema than bend the medium for an established story. Unquote. I assume this guy knows what he's talking about. I don't know who he is and I didn't really research anything into it. I just I saw the quote, I liked it and I ran with it uh, quote Without any further scrutiny on my part.
Speaker 2:That quote sounds right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what? I got that from a very legitimate source called Wikipedia.
Speaker 2:Honestly, you could say the same thing about video games and comic books too. They're kind of designed for their own medium. It gives you the best stories out of them.
Speaker 1:I mean, that is actually true If you actually, instead of taking something that was written for I don't know a book or a miniseries, and trying to change it to a movie that's not going to have the same feel A good example too would be like VR games.
Speaker 2:Just trying to take a regular game and putting it in VR doesn't work as good as designing something for VR.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not so. In the original draft of the script, princess Lily, our heroine, slowly transformed into a furry-clawed beast who was beaten but seduced by the antagonist baron core core denuer. The hero's journey was to be long, with several subplots. It was quickly decided, the quest to be substantially reduced and avoid any subplot.
Speaker 2:That's about to be the subplot, that had to be all sorts of subtext on bestiality, I would think yeah, it had to be, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But even still, after the revisions, the script called for a lengthy and expensive film that was impractical to shoot, especially in 1985. And there were 15 script revisions. They just weren't ready for the Lord of the Rings style of movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they shot for the moon and they realized they could only make it to Puerto Rico. Exactly yeah. Even with you know which, at the time, $25 million to make the movie which sounds nothing now, but in 1985, that was, that was nothing, that was that was a decent amount of movie yeah, and he was a uh and he was a commodity at this time, so they wouldn't mind throwing money at him instead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, that was even with what they want to do. They're like no. So scott had actually originally offered the movie at disney, but they passed on a do as darker toe, which sounds strange for them to do like now, you know, but if, but, if you remember Disney at the time they were still doing.
Speaker 2:Oh family friendly image you know, like Mickey Mouse, rescuers Down Under is like the most hardcore thing we've done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. So there was no scary dark films for them at the time. Next, they needed to choose locations. So they scouted several places in Sequoias of Yosemite National Park, but do the massive scales of the trees, and they loved it. The environment was perfect and stunning. The problem is they couldn't control it.
Speaker 2:There are way too many. That's where the Ewoks parts were shot too for Return of the Jedi, oh really.
Speaker 1:I actually didn't know that You'd think.
Speaker 2:I would, yeah, anyways, continue, sorry.
Speaker 1:But for them there were too many factors to consider. You know, getting the supplies out there, they're getting electric, electricity um, they likely needed damage, a lot of area to get the kind of shots they wanted, and so all these factors were the primary reason why they did not shoot there, because the cost at the time would be astronomical and protests yeah, true.
Speaker 1:Instead they decided to shoot the whole thing on the 007 stage over in england where they built a forest. They could fully control. Control over one. They couldn't. And fair enough. You know you watch the movie. You even watch the movie. You can tell it's a stage. You know you're not getting fooled. However, it works. You know, at no point. There's really nothing wrong with that. Oh, I mean, it doesn't stand out, it's not so fake.
Speaker 2:You're like oh, you're standing on soundstage it's not with the cardboard cutouts out and back that people are moving to like waves and you know it's.
Speaker 1:It fits the ambience of the movie, uh. But now they had to set, they didn't move on to main cast. First they needed to cast the lead role of jack, though it's never actually used in the film. His full net, his full name is jack in the green. It's a dumb name, but it's actually a real creature from british folklore. Well, not real, but you know, yeah, jack the green is a pagan spirit in the form of a boy who'd leave, who's dressed in leaves and lives in the forest. Uh, I did search for some cool backstory or something, but kind of honest, you know that it's kind of lame.
Speaker 2:You know he's just a boy who lives in the forest, that's it people see him every once in a while at the corner of their eye and he skips away or whatever. Yeah, yeah on some poor feral kid back in the 1700s living down right woods he was lost somewhere.
Speaker 1:They're like look, there's a boy who leaves, he's Jack of the Green. Like somebody, help that child, he's lost no no, he's a mythical wood creature.
Speaker 2:He'll be fine, as he's just like shivering and starving. No, that's the way they're supposed to look. It's fine.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's totally cool. I'm sure he's great. Let's go, let's go, let's go. We don't need another kid at home. Let's leave him right. Which is actually how, actually how he got there in the first place. Oh right, so the original actors considered were johnny depp, jim carrey and robert downey jr. And johnny yeah right, that's johnny depp and um rdj, I could see. But yeah, that's, I actually had that on here. But jim carrey question of mark do anything at that point in 85?
Speaker 2:well, at that point in time, he'd only done some stage stuff and some in like I think he's popped up on carson once, maybe because he didn't even do it at that point well, he did use four small movies that no one's heard of, but there was one he did do in 1985.
Speaker 1:Uh, wise old researching, I saw this. He did a movie called once bitten. It's a cheesy vampire movie that I've again. I've actually seen it. I think I have two. He's like he's a guy obviously this guy, but he's a guy who gets bitten by this female vampire because he's a virgin.
Speaker 2:And like someone has got to go like buy pig's blood at the grocery stores because he doesn't want to drink people blood.
Speaker 1:Right, and he gets is that is that the one that this is I think so because I remember all the ins and outs of it. The couple scenes I I remember is she bites him in the groin area, and there was a scene where his girlfriend actually asked two of his friends to see if he got bit there. And so in the showers they try to check, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And then they start screaming homo alert, homo alert. And then everybody runs out like what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have absolutely seen that movie.
Speaker 2:You know what? It wasn't an awful movie, it wasn't a good movie, but I remember laughing about it. I enjoyed it. I remember being like ha ha, this is entertaining.
Speaker 1:At the end of the movie they escape because he finally has sex with a girlfriend in a coffin and once he lost his virginity then she was no longer the vampire, didn't want him anymore. So I guess she only went for virgin teens. But of course he looked 26,. You know he was. He was a high, you know in the eighties he would. He looked like a high schooler from movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back when high schoolers and movies are 28 years old.
Speaker 1:And Tom Cruise got this role after the outsiders and risky business, so he wasn't a no name, but he wasn't a household name.
Speaker 2:Yet that happened. That happened after Legend. Yeah, top Gun was what like pushed him to household. I would say, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:That's actually I have on here, which happened immediately after Legend. So Legend was 1985, 1986, Top Gun came out, so that's when he became Tom.
Speaker 2:Cruise, the Tom, cruise, yeah, yeah, the.
Speaker 1:Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2:Worldwide sensation. Tom Cruise, because, yeah, you're right, liked him, but they weren't like you know. Oh my god, it's top. Yeah, you'd say tom cruise like risky business.
Speaker 1:You know something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah he was that dude in risky business?
Speaker 1:I remember that with the sliding across floor in his socks neat um, the role of princess lily went to an actress named mia sarah. Um, she hadn't done much outside of one episode of my all my children, um, and she was mainly known for her stage work, which actually impressed scott. Unfortunately, her career never really took off after this. She did a lot of movies I've never heard of and like one-off characters on tv shows like chicago, hope and csi, uh. But she did actually a little side note.
Speaker 1:She did play dr hireling quinzel on birds of prey, that batman show that didn't go anywhere, that didn't have batman. That came out like 20 years ago. You remember that, not the movie, the tv show. Tv show, yeah, bird birds of prey came out like it was in the early 2000s and it didn't have batman in it and like it was basically an all-female cast and dr harley quizelle was at the time. She like started off as one of their like friends and obviously she turns evil at some point. She never actually becomes harley quinn, but it's yeah, it's kind of hinted that she's gonna be evil.
Speaker 2:But there's also a time cop, the movie that influenced liquid nitrogen. For all of us. You are jumping ahead.
Speaker 1:You're like, almost like. It's like you're looking over your shoulder looking at a script. It's not bad. No, don't stop, because my next line is for me. I remember from 1994's Time Cop. She was a love interest of Jean-Claude Van Damme, who time by shooting themselves very fast at a wall.
Speaker 1:I love this movie but it was so fucking stupid. I mean, you remember that they like got a little crash test dummy car and flung themselves on a wall and it didn't make any sense because they would show up at whatever time they were going for without being in a car and then they would like get the person they were actually going after, then hit a button and then they were back in the car. You know like it didn't. I don't know how that worked. You know it was like plot, yeah, exactly like they were going back in time and they got the guy like I got this guy. He was a time slipper, blah, blah. So yeah, movie's so dumb.
Speaker 1:Anyway, she was his love interest in that movie. Um that whenever I see her, that's always the first thing that pops up, which is weird because you would think, aside from legend, I, I would actually remember her for her more popular role, which is 1986, ferris Bueller's day off, which he did right after this. So you think you know being a much bigger film, uh, than either legend or time cop. You would think people would think I would have thought her first on from Ferris Bueller's, but I didn't. I thought of her time cop. Surely, you've seen, I thought of her time ago. Surely, you've seen. You've seen Ferris Bueller's Day.
Speaker 2:Off. Actually, no, I have not seen it. I've seen, but here's the thing I've seen so many like clips and excerpts and spoofs of it. I'm pretty sure I got the whole movie down One scene.
Speaker 1:I always think about that movie. It's like it's totally inappropriate, but like she's in school, right? So Ferris bueller is, pressures his friend to give him his dad's favorite car and they go to the school to pick his girlfriend up. Well, he's playing his dad, her dad pretending, and so he has a trench coat on, a hat and sunglasses and he's waiting for her in the parking lot and she's leaving school and the principal's standing there on the front steps and he's watching her go out there and as she walks up that he like he playing the dad deeply, like tongue, kisses girlfriend in front. And now again, principal, that's your dad and he all he goes is. So that's why she's so weird. Nah, man, you're, you're a mandated reporter, you're. You just saw this teenage girl get tongue-kissed by her dad. Do something Anything Like, even just call CPS.
Speaker 2:You're forgetting, nate. This is the 80s People didn't do this in the 80s, very true.
Speaker 2:The whole call CPS and report it. That happened because of these things happening in the 80s and nobody reporting it. The 80s is literally the time you could go up to any elementary school and be like, yeah, I'm little Joey's dad's friend from work, I'm here to pick him up and they're just like, here we go and you just drive off with any kid you wanted from school. Back then, nate the kid would be like I don't know that man. He says he's your dad's friend from work. That's why you don't know him.
Speaker 1:Just go with him and you're there's a reason like uh podcast, like uh last podcast to the left, exists because yes exactly you know. Just I don't know.
Speaker 2:You pick my victim just off the street and if you couldn't get one from school, yeah, just find a latchkey kid, be like hey, kid your parents home.
Speaker 1:No, all right, and the ironic thing is the guy who played the dad in that show, or the guy who played the principal in that show, um, I said dex, I was also like a beetlejuice. He turned out to be a pedophile. He did Well, I know he got caught with a child.
Speaker 2:He was exchanging naked pictures with a child. According to him, he never had sex with him, though.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, let's all just take his word for that, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not something I ever put a whole lot of research into, though. No, I wouldn't oh my yeah, oh my exactly, oh my I'm sure is he still alive. Yeah, okay, I'm sure he'll be showing up on like joe rogan's podcast to tell you I looked for I looked up recently because I wanted to see because, again, that's the kind of conversation we're having.
Speaker 1:Jenny is like is he still alive?
Speaker 2:yeah, he's still alive, yeah, because I was like he's still married he is not still married.
Speaker 1:so, all that being said, scott needed to do a perfect casting for the villain role and he needed someone who could act through layers of makeup and come off cross as believable. He needed someone who could be willing to swing from the rafters and find them. He did Darkness, a massive, muscular red demon with goat legs and gigantic black horns. I mean, these damn horns are iconic. Each thick black horn was approximately three feet and surprisingly light. After a few failed attempts they were also made to wear a large yellow slit in uncomfortable contacts and talk through the mouth of massive fangs. Which actor could pull those feet off? Tim fucking Currie is who could.
Speaker 2:Who could pull off a giant, muscular red demon and a small pasty British man? Damn straight.
Speaker 1:And it was his performances on the Rocky Horror Picture Show that attracted Scott to pull him in, and he was right to do so because, curry, seriously, he pulled it off and he's one of those actors, kind of like john lithgow and a few others. He's good in whatever role you put him in, just because he can you know act yeah, well, and also curry can really emote, and just, you know, really not so much nowadays, but you know that's for yeah, ha ha ha.
Speaker 1:So, but the main characters of, uh, let's see, of these main characters of legend, uh, there were still a few notable roles, like lesser roles, but you know they needed to be there first. There was jack's raspy, half-naked elf named honeythorpe gump and he was played by david bennett, who that's why they play doctor who? No, that's david tenet bennett with a b. Yeah, this guy, yeah, you, you've never heard of him. I mean she's done. Yeah, this guy, yeah, you've never heard of him. I mean she's done other things, I'm sure, but nothing you've ever heard of the stalkery fairy Una, who stands. Jack was played by Annabelle Leight, for some reason, I like using the word stands, probably from your kids. No, I just I heard that one day.
Speaker 2:I was like oh, I like that person over the age of 40 I know that uses it. Oh, really, well, there you go. Yeah, I think so. I could be wrong.
Speaker 1:Which is, which is our one because a lot of people who, like the younger kids, saying stands, I'm like you weren't even alive when that song came out. Uh, what song, uh, really yeah it's an m&m song I don't listen to m&m, so man, well, I I mean, I don't either anymore, but back in the early 2000s I did. Yeah, there was that like basically uh, stan refers to a song. Eminem did you know? I think it was called Stan.
Speaker 2:Anyway, about, yeah, the South Park episode where they're like Stan with Stan or whatever it was, oh okay, that's funny, stan with Stan.
Speaker 1:So the two dwarves that tagged along were Brown Tom played by Cork Hubbard, and Screwball played by Billy Barty. Of these two you probably only recognize Billy Barty.
Speaker 2:He's one of those little person actors who's been in a shit ton of stuff. Yep, I looked at him. I recognize him from, yeah, a ton of stuff back in the day and actually right off the bat.
Speaker 1:I recognize him as Gwildor from Masters of the Universe. That's right Tie in for the last episode.
Speaker 2:I wrote, I'll pop it. Haha, check out that episode for more info on him. And yes, I did that intentionally.
Speaker 1:Good job, that's the ticket I did it on purpose.
Speaker 2:214 acting credits. Oh wow, he's even the voice in the new batman adventures. Well, back in 97.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah he did a bunch of shit, like, seriously, like he. When you're, when you think about little people, actors, he's one of the first for the popular, it's first let's. Let's be real. Almost everyone thinks of um, wicked, warwick, wicked. Uh, warwick davis. Yeah, warwick davis. Jesus christ, yeah, warwick davis, the first person people use at least me, I think.
Speaker 2:The second one is the game of thrones dude, whose name I can't think of, um actually I know things nowadays. It probably is that guy actually.
Speaker 1:He's number one it's my age telling saying that warwick davis is number one. But it's, it is um peter dinklage. There you go. Thank you, mike the dinkle. Yeah, peter dinklage is absolutely number one nowadays, you know, and number two Warwick Davis. But this guy, I don't know if he's number three or not, but he's definitely high, he's in the top five, you know. You see him. He's like oh, you're that guy.
Speaker 2:Also. Another one, I'd argue, is the one dude with the monocle from fucking Time Bandits. That dude was in a friday and stuff like that, I think yeah, yeah, and he was in um bad santa oh wow, robert picardo was in this too. Sorry I got ahead of you that's all good.
Speaker 1:I didn't really go deeper in that. So, um, let's see. Well, okay, so jack, those were jack. Well, maybe those were jack's friends, but dark, but let's not forget Darkness. Well, he doesn't really have friends. He wouldn't be a proper dark lord if he had friends. He had minions. But the lead henchman, or henchwoman, was Blix, played by Alice Clayton. On the few videos I watched of him the research they love talking about her makeup. It was modeled using Keith Richards as a reference, just like Jack Sparrow, although you know they did do it first.
Speaker 1:They made her all disgusting, but you could see the similarity and I did load her picture up on the comparison between her and david. I guess I mean, maybe they started off, but they added a really big nose, long ears, slide guess wrinkly and a big forehead. I mean, yeah, I guess I see it I mean, I guess on, maybe on set it was a little more noticeable, because a lot of people would walk up to her and she's like you look familiar. And she's like, oh, you know, keith Richards. I'm like, oh, I see it.
Speaker 2:But you know, looking at images, I don't know, I guess you know, Then again, I'm not Also just kind of like generic creepy British person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean to be honest, if you say you're like quick, what does Keith Richards look like? I'll be, uh, baseball glove. Yeah, I mean I. So I mean, if I saw him on screen, oh, that's keith richards. But I don't think about him enough to really like bring his face up on command.
Speaker 1:He looks like living embodiment of mesothelioma right so blix has two cronies to follow around a pig man named pox, played by peter peter o'farrell, and a small black knight called blunder named, played by kieran slash. Uh, the last actor worth mentioning. Uh only had one scene in the movie, and who, boy, what a scene. The character is med muckabone. She's a hideous swamp, monster, creature, witch, goblin thing. They have gnarled, wrinkled green skin, extra long fingers and long claws. She was played by robert picardo, best known for his role on star trek voyager.
Speaker 1:He was also a hologram person who showed up in star trek first contact and ds9, which one day, I swear, I will write like I keep on saying d space nine, it's my favorite. I'll find anybody who says not the best and I still stand by that and I still have every intention of writing the podcast about it. I just it's just, it's a huge undertaking. It it's like something I want to give the proper respect to and actually like really dive deep and it's almost to the point like uh, there's actually uh on youtube, there's.
Speaker 1:These people do podcasts in every episode of star trek next generation and they just recently picked up deep space nine and like oh man, I would really love to like do a podcast, kind of like focusing on each episode, but that's, that would be a whole thing. I'm just not in a space that I have the time, energy or will to dedicate to, so I just don't know how deep I should go to to really like satisfy what I want to do for it. So it keeps on getting pushed back carl, you two face.
Speaker 2:At one point did he yeah for one of the cartoons? Oh yeah, he actually has over 250, uh oh yeah, he's on imdb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I recognize him right off the bat.
Speaker 2:He's been in a million and one things oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the one thing I actually listed on here that I had forgotten he did, that I loved as a kid, you know. For around the same time I had forgotten he was the cowboy Interspace. Have you ever seen that movie?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did. Oh, Actually, I don't remember a cowboy from Interspace.
Speaker 1:Well, he was the generic villain, Like he was the guy trying to kill the main character, Apparently. Apparently he had a he was the one who had like a hidden gun in his finger. You know he would point.
Speaker 2:Okay, I kind of vaguely remember that it's been a while since I've seen inner space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:Inner space, yeah, that was one where they got shrunk down and injected into what's his butt, wasn't it, oh my?
Speaker 1:God, I see his face. Short, short, short. Trouble with names. Okay, this is going to continue to happen. Um, I'm sure you've noticed it before and you'll notice it going forward. If there's a name I forgot about it, I actually I'm no better.
Speaker 1:So well, and here's what really sucks. I work at the post office now and everyone there some of these people have been there for years. You know, pushing 10 years like these people. You know I'm at a place that this is going to become. Just like you. I'm sure you work in a place, like I've always worked in places where it's like, okay, it's a revolving door. You know anybody here can leave at any minute. Anybody here can be fired at any minute. You know it's no one or very few people are like this is where they're going to retire and you work in a place like that. Or you're working in a place like no, seriously, this is your job. You can go to retirement with this, can go to retirement with this. This is the first time I've actually worked somewhere where like no, seriously, I could go to retirement.
Speaker 2:So I've worked with people here for quite a while and I barely know anyone's name this is the first job you've ever had where it might pay off to remember somebody's name, and you're just like I can't, after 40 years of not doing it.
Speaker 1:I know exactly what you mean not just like their names, but like the names and the routes they do. So they called me and they're like oh yeah, so and so called in and then you need to work for it. My okay, cool. And I walked in, like okay, what right am I on? They're like. They just looked at me like 13. I'm like and here's the thing, the route, because I'm a rca right now, so I I'm not quite a full-time, I'm not quite. It'll take at least a year before I can become full-time. But like, I come in and the person I'm assigned to to actually like the main route I'm on is 13 for that person and I know their name and I didn't know what route they were doing.
Speaker 2:So little Susie's route.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I really need to start like putting a concentrated effort to start remembering people's name there, because this is I mean, unless they let me go for some reason, that I, I don't know this is where I plan to be. I mean, unless they let me go for some reason, I don't know, this is where I plan to be, unless my art career is good. If this takes off and my art career takes off, I'll burn the place to the ground. But you know, assuming that that doesn't happen, this is where I'm going to be. So I really need to start remembering people's names.
Speaker 2:Like a concentrated effort when you get introduced to somebody that one trick they say actually does help. That stupid trick where when you shake their hand, you repeat their name back to them like twice. Yeah, they're like hi, I'm Jim. You grab their hand, you shake it, you're like hi, jim, nice to meet you, jim, I'm Sean. That actually does help, even though you feel like a total tool doing it.
Speaker 1:Well, the problem is now I've been there long enough that, like a lot, of, I know my main manager, but there's another manager there who calls me, talks to me. She actually tries to hook me up and like I have no fucking clue her name.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's how you get the introductions back in. All you have to do is figure out a way to royally cheese them off and then immediately be like, oh no, we got off on the wrong foot. Hold on Introductions again. And then you do it. See, all you got to do is what I'm hoping will happen.
Speaker 1:What I hope happens is like I just listen for her name, so like while I'm around them I'm like trying to see if I can see her like name tag or her like you know, whatever, and like I'm going to wait for somebody to say her name, like I heard someone say it earlier, like yesterday, but I didn't quite hear it. So it's an, a word, but I don't know what it is name, name, uh. So back to the legend. The prosthetics on legend were seriously on point. Like at the time of production, legend held the record for the largest makeup crew ever dedicated to one project. As the cast came on, crew on board, the crew immediately took casts their bodies and drafted images how they'd eventually look. Between 8 and 12 prosthetics were attached to each of the actors faces about approximately three and a half hours per actor. The actor had the worst by far was tim curry.
Speaker 1:This poor bastard spent most of his time in the chair with all the shit they had put on him, never mind the large bull-like horns at his head. As I mentioned, these were three, three foot fiberglass horns held together by a harness. They actually went through a couple iterations. Um, you know the first one. It wasn wasn't super heavy, but it was too heavy for someone to wear on any kind of constant basis on their neck. Yeah, but they eventually did make a fiberglass. So once they actually put it on there from what I read, it actually wasn't For as big as they were. You'd think they were really heavy, but what they finally kind of figured out was how to make it not bad, as they probably built like a neck brace into it.
Speaker 1:That went down to the shoulders or something yeah, they.
Speaker 2:They got him to where he was, like one of those crown setups that people with broken necks wear something similar to that?
Speaker 1:well, not because he still had to move his head and stuff. But they, they definitely did like they helped him out as much as they could uh he can move his head, but batman couldn't.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious exactly well, and, of course, what I would consider the worst torture was those contacts I mentioned. They jammed their eyes like. I don't like contacts anyway, you know. Even put a regular contacts in, I don't like doing it. I couldn't imagine those fake contacts are nightmares from what, oh my god. And plus, as it was big enough to cover like the whites of his eyes, so they were like large contacts they put in his eyes. And there was also a scene early on the movie like the first time they introduced him. They introduced him like he was like in a black light situation and his eyes were glow green, like his teeth glow green, his nails glow green and his eyes glow like glow. So they were.
Speaker 2:I'm sure those weren't comfortable you know, never mind them, and also usually you can't see deadly crap out of those kind of contacts either yeah, like that little slit in the eyes. That's probably all you could see out of most of the time I would, from what I've heard anyways and especially the first time with those, those light green.
Speaker 1:We probably couldn't say anything, but fortunately he didn't have to look at anybody, he was just kind of talking to the air. So he wasn't, he didn't really need being on his own monologuing.
Speaker 2:He was basically exactly 100.
Speaker 1:You totally nailed it. He was sitting in his throne monologuing um and just like, talking to his minions who happen to be around him, but no one specific, so he didn't have to like make eye contact like those kind of villains actually, for whatever reason, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just the imposing villain doesn't have to do much, just sit there and be evil well in the making of I saw for the special edition dvd.
Speaker 1:Uh, they basically said like after being in the chair for so long, a lot of his complaints would kind of slip away once he actually saw himself. You know, he stood up, he looked himself in the mirror.
Speaker 2:He's like damn because I'm guessing he's like in the chair, like three in the morning and makeup for about four hours to get all that done a minimum.
Speaker 1:I think it was like. I think I saw like probably six hours.
Speaker 2:How long yeah six to eight hours is how much that sounds about right. Yeah, because that kind of makeup takes forever. I remember hearing the doo-doo dwarf talk about just. His makeup was like five or six hours, I think that's not as, and that's not as intricate as this is.
Speaker 1:I don't think no and uh, you know, basically you know, as marvel as he would at the how he looked at the beginning. At the end of the day, he was done and he had to sit. He basically had to go in a bath and to liquid the solid build gum, spirit. That was like with spirit gum that held everything together and occasionally, uh, curry would just like lose it and he would rip the prosthetics off. He just couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, this would sometimes take skin off of it because they're basically caulking it to him essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and so when this happened, they would actually the shoot around him for about a week because the damage that happened like they had to give him time to heal up enough they put the stuff back on him is that, you know, was unfortunate. It didn't have, didn't sound like it happened a lot, but it happened on off and on because you know if it happened a lot that would be a big issue for production, but fortunately it wasn't too bad. And of course, the filming had a share of issues as well. The biggest hitch they hit was the studio burning down about 10 days before filming. They lost everything. Yeah, like the entire forest they made was all gone and it was like real bad. It was pretty lucky too, like everyone's on break at the time, like they, there was no one really in the building when it happened so do they know what the cause?
Speaker 1:of the fire was, or I don't think. I think it was an electrical issue. It was very generic. You know it was they. I didn't see any like it was this, but it wasn't arson or anything. It was just, you know, someone somewhere did something stupid and it it lit on fire, you know somebody says it's an electrical thing.
Speaker 2:I think of that futurama episode where god's I think it's god talking vendors like yes, you could just burn it down and claim the insurance as an electrical thing anyways but yeah, I mean, no one was hurt.
Speaker 1:You know it was it, but they did lose a lot of money. Honestly, though, like since most of the shooting was already done you know it wasn't they didn't lose a ton of time. It was expensive and they kind of had to fix things to wrap it up. Sorry, I just hit my microphone, but it was fine. The people who were affected was the upcoming James Bond movie. They were about to shoot Because, again, this took place in a studio. It was called the 007 Studio. This is where they shot 007. So they definitely took a hit, because they were like where are you going to do this next? No, we haven't shot anything yet. And that's all for this episode of Off Top Topic. We discussed the legend from conception to production. Next time we'll talk the movie itself, along with three reasons why the theatrical ending is bullshit. Thanks for listening.
