'80s Movie Montage

Dragonslayer

• Anna Keizer & Derek Dehanke • Season 5 • Episode 12

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In this episode, Anna and Derek discuss why the hell the villagers with daughters didn't just go elsewhere, the degree to which George R.R. Martin probably ripped off this flick, and much more during their chat of Dragonslayer (1981).

Connect with '80s Movie Montage on Facebook, Twitter/X or Instagram! It's the same handle for all three... @80smontagepod.

Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.

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SPEAKER_00:

have you ever considered the consequences of failure what failure what are you saying you want the dragon back you came here and toyed with a monster who are you to risk our people our villages but your children were dying only a few does that sound cruel

SPEAKER_02:

Hello and welcome to 80s Movie Montage. This is Derek.

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And this is Anna.

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And that was Cassiodorus Rex talking to Galen. And by the way, yeah, it does sound a little cruel. In 1981's Dragonslayer.

SPEAKER_01:

This is correct. Yeah. All correct information.

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Cassiodorus Rex.

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I mean, it sounds like a dinosaur.

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Very much. Very, very much so. Yes.

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I mean, his name has in it king. So that's like Rex means king. And

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Cassiodorus Rex isn't even the craziest name in this movie.

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No, it's not. I

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would say Vermithrax pejorative is... The best name for the best dragon, maybe ever.

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The best name? I mean, it is memorable for sure. Okay,

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I'm going to give a participation award for Smaug.

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For Smaug. Smaug. Yeah, I do love, that one's very fun to say. I love saying Smaug.

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Vermithrax pejorative.

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It's a little mouthy. It is. A little wordy. So is the

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dragon.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

True.

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Very mouthy.

SPEAKER_01:

True. Yeah. So Dragon Slayer, my first viewing.

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Yeah.

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Not yours.

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Not by a long shot.

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Not by a long shot. I've

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seen it many times. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

How have I been married to you and not really know that? I mean, obviously this was like kind of your pick.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I've literally watched it at home.

SPEAKER_01:

You have? I don't remember at all. I don't remember at all. But with me in our home that we share?

SPEAKER_02:

You were here. Yes.

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But I wasn't like sitting next to you.

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No, no. Okay. You were walking around. I was just

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walking around the house. Okay.

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Doing your best to avoid the movie, I think. I

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have no recollection of you ever watching this movie in my presence.

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Most recently this year.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so Dragon Slayer 1981. Yes, we will get into thoughts on the film, but as we do, we're going to start with some of the main players, first of which, the writers. So the first writer, I think to some degree, also, I want to say like a producer, Hal Barwood

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is

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the gentleman's name. And an interesting... filmography for this guy so amongst some of his like strictly speaking writing credits once i go through them it'll give you kind of an idea i think of some of like the individuals that might have been his like professional peers or collaborators because he has writing credits on the sugarland express it's uncredited but he also has a credit on um Close encounters.

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So then Dragon Slayer is just another one of the all-time greats that he worked with or worked on. Yeah.

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I guess I should say, though, that he does have producing credits, but it does, according to IMDb, he did mostly writing. So revert what I said. I thought he was mostly producer, but he's actually mostly writer. Okay. A film called Corvette Summer. And then he actually has writing credits for a number of video games. And notably among those video games, he has credits for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlanta. Mm-hmm. Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures.

SPEAKER_02:

That sounds amazing. That's a great

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title. And

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His Desktop Adventures.

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Yeah, and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. So it seems like he might have a relationship with Spielberg because of all these gigs that were thrown his way.

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Yeah, there was a LucasArts gaming development company.

SPEAKER_01:

Or Lucas. Yeah, yeah. It seems like maybe there's a connection there.

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They made some amazing older PC games. Okay. So that's what I'm assuming those were

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part of. I mean, my guess is that to varying degrees, either Spielberg or Lucas would have had some input on storyline for even video games. So I feel like there's maybe some kind of connection there. So, okay. And now moving on to the other writer who also is the director of this film. Interesting. Matthew Robbins. So he... You know, I said that, like, because I corrected myself and said that Hale was more so a writer than producer. So Matthew seems to be more so also a writer than a director. Oh, okay. 24 writing credits as opposed to eight directing credits. So also interesting because they seem to, to a varying degree, like, be writing partners. Okay. They have a lot of shared credits. This is a very interesting credit, not shared by Barwood. He's uncredited, but according to IMDb, he did do some writing on Electronic Labyrinth THX-1138-4EB. Is

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that the full name of that?

SPEAKER_01:

That's the short that inspired THX, 1138. So it seems like he, to some degree, worked on that. And then again, we have Sugarland Express, another uncredited credit for Close Encounters, also Corvette Summer. And then he kind of has gone out on his own. So he has writing credits on Batteries Not Included, the film Mimic, as well as its sequel, Mimic 2. Crimson Peak, so more recently, Crimson Peak. And then also, Gear... guillermo del toro's pinocchio so it seems like maybe he has a little bit of relationship now with del toro because crimson peak is also that's right yeah okay so uh it seems like perhaps writing is more so his wheelhouse but as far as his directing credits go so barwood and robbins wrote corvette summer robbins also directed that

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Interesting.

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Yeah. And then a film that is going to come down the pipeline at some point. He also is the director of The Legend of Billie Jean.

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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All right. So that one is going to have to be covered at some point.

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Fair is fair.

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Fair is fair. And I love that movie.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

He also directed, so he wrote Batteries Not Included. He directed that. And then lastly, a film I put down, Bingo. Okay.

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Is it spelled a fun way or do you just

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want to say it? Decided to give it a little bit of flair. Yeah. Well done. So that is Matthew Robbins. Okay. All right. Moving on. Some of these, well, there's a very, very notable exception. And I should say, to be fair, this is an Oscar nominated film.

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For effects. For effects.

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It's nominated in two categories.

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Okay.

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So I will get to one, and the reason why that came up is because this person is a little bit of an exception to most of the roles in terms of players where I don't have super extensive filmographies for some of these people, including cinematography. So the cinematographer on this film was Derek. Great name. Great name. Van Lint. They

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spelled it right, too. Good for them.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, sure. Derek.

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Yeah, I don't care how they spell the Van Lint.

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I was like, I didn't know you would have an opinion about that. But yeah, he has seven total cinematography credits. But it is wild, absolutely wild when I tell you what his very first DP credit was for a feature.

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What was it?

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Alien!

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Holy shit!

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Right?

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So, once again, we're just talking about how this movie is centered on excellence.

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I, okay. So off the top of my head, I don't know if alien was nominated for bus cinematography. I think it should have been, if it wasn't,

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it should have been just for like

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a beautiful film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like

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the time that they like land on the rock and remove it. There are some beautiful shots there.

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Yeah. So he did that. Unfortunately, alien is 79. So just out from under us being able to do

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it. Look forward to our next podcast. Seventies movie groove.

SPEAKER_01:

You have brought that up before. I

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know.

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Um, So here's what's interesting. So Dragon Slayer 81, right on the heels of Alien. And then there's almost a 20-year gap between Dragon Slayer and then his next credit called The Spreading Ground.

SPEAKER_02:

You just need some time after a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_01:

I just kind of knew you were going to say something like that. So that's another one of his credits. And then a TV miniseries I have, Sine Shalom. Okay. So, okay. Here we go. music so yes you are correct um dragon slayer was nominated for best special effects um and among like the people because there's more than one person nominated for best special effects and among those people just because we don't usually go over that category so really quickly i just want to give a shout out um the people who are nominated for that dennis murin Ken Ralston, Brian Johnson, and then Phil Tippett, who is incredibly well known. That's the name that stood out for me.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

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Because he's like Jurassic Park. He's done kind of everything. I

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mean, the nomination was certainly very well deserved.

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Yeah. Because

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even... Even now, it obviously can't hold up. Having a full-size dragon on screen is not going to hold up from 1981 versus what we've seen in things like Game of Thrones. Interestingly, the creator of Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, has gone on the record as saying that Vermithrax Pejorative is the best-looking dragon he's ever seen on film. Although, I think there's a lot of... Other movies since then that have kind of borrowed from the design of

SPEAKER_01:

that. The close-ups are great. Yeah. And I did just a tiny bit of reading on some of the long shots, like when the dragon is going after... I'm probably just going to keep calling him Peter McNichol. Yeah, Galen. Yeah. It wasn't stop motion per se. It was kind of like a...

SPEAKER_02:

It was like an innovative form because... This came out kind of around the same time as Clash of the Titans. And there were really only just the one dragon monster that it'd deal with instead of all the wacky stuff in Clash of the Titans. But it wasn't exactly like a stop motion. It was something like a new... Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I think Tippett was behind that.

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Okay.

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But yes, very well deserved. And then the reason why that all came up is because it also was nominated for Best Original Music.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, the guy that did it used some music that he had left over from 2001, A Space Odyssey.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I didn't know that.

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He had like bits that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So that person, Alex North, and I don't think we have brought him up before. I don't think we have. We haven't. Yeah. And it's wild because this guy is... 15 Oscar nominations. He never won a competitive Oscar. He did get an honorary Oscar in 86, but for like basically like, sorry guy, we never actually, you never actually won. So let's give you an honorary one. Amazing. Well deserved. But yeah, he did get a nomination for this film for best original score. And yeah, Holy cow. When you go through his filmography, some of the films... I mean, his career started well before this film. So his first... I kind of limited it to mostly the films that he... got Oscar recognition for, starting with A Streetcar Named Desire.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, I've heard of that. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. So he got Best Original Score nomination for that. The 1951 Death of a Salesman got another Oscar nom. Viva Zapata, another Oscar nom. Okay. He also worked on the 1952 Les Mis. He got Best Original Song nomination Oscar nomination for a film called Unchained, which features the song Unchained Melody. Oh, okay.

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All right.

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Got another Oscar nom for... Now, the rest of the Oscar noms, the best original song that was the outlier in terms of his nominations, the rest are all scores. So he got one for The Rose Tattoo. He worked on the film The Bad Seed. He got another nom for The Rainmaker. The older... Not the one with... Who's in the newer one?

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Is it Danny DeVito and... Was it Tom Cruise? I don't think Tom Cruise. Or was it Matt Damon? Matt Damon, I think. Matt Damon, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So the older film. He got another nom for Spartacus. I am Spartacus. He worked on The Misfits. He got a Best Original Score for Cleopatra. Another nomination for The Agony and the Ecstasy. Another nomination for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a fun family movie,

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by the way. Oh, man, that is a rough one to get through. If

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you ever need something just to kind of like take a nap to or fall asleep to...

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I don't think you could take a nap to that film. They're all yelling the whole way through. That's not a nap kind of film.

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Okay, that's

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fair. But it is a film where if you're just feeling so happy and good about life, and you just for whatever reason want to be taken down a notch, that's the film to watch. The mayor from

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Jaws, the mayor of Amity, just goes crazy in that movie.

SPEAKER_01:

Is he the younger husband? He's in it, right? Is he in it? I mean, of course the two that stand out for me are Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. So in any case, so North also got a nomination for The Shoes of the Fisherman. He worked on Willard. He also, the next three, all nominations, Shanks, Bite the Bullet, Under the Volcano. I don't know any of those films. No. but got noms for all of them. And then getting a little bit more current as far as like in the 80s, he worked on Pritzy's Honor. So this is what I think is so interesting. I, in part, brought up Death of a Salesman, the 1951 movie, because then he also worked on, and I don't know if they just straight up pulled his score from the film, but he does have a credit for the 1985 movie. Death of a Salesman. Oh,

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okay.

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And then among some of his last credits, Good Morning Vietnam. All right. Okay, moving on to film editing. Tony Lawson.

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Just the one editor. Just the one editor. That's also a sign of a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_01:

You're really pushing this narrative here, but I'm going to let you do it. So... More really notable films for his filmography, but I don't think, yeah, he hasn't come up before. But he worked on Straw Dogs, Barry Lyndon, The Bounty, The American Way. I didn't know that there was a 1986 film called Cast Away. No,

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is Wilson in that one? No,

SPEAKER_01:

no, no, no. But it's also slightly stylized differently. The Tom Hanks one is Cast Away. He worked on The Witches, he worked on the 1992 Wuthering Heights, Tom and Viv, the 1995 Othello, Michael Collins, and a little bit more recently the TV show, I'm going to say it wrong, The Borgia.

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Oh, no, I think that's... Close? Probably,

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yeah.

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Maybe? I think so.

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And then I believe he's probably retired at this point because his last credit's from 2012 for Byzantium.

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Okay.

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Okay, so we're at the stars of the film. All right. We're just rolling right along with this masterpiece. First credit, of course, Peter McNichol. You mentioned his character's name, Galen. Mm-hmm. this was his very first credit, like out the gate. That's kind of insane. Yeah. I mean, he did good. He, um, so I, I guess it's as good a time as any is to say

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he look. Yeah. Maybe it's because I always think of him as kind of like the twitchy weird guy from the museum and ghostbusters too.

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Yes.

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But as much as I enjoy this movie, um, I do feel like it was slightly miscast, that character.

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He is a very good actor.

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Yeah.

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He's had a very long career. He's very much working to this day. For me, I didn't quite get maybe the charisma I was looking for. Are

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you saying he lacked the riz?

SPEAKER_01:

A little bit. Okay. And I feel bad saying that because I actually, I mean, I don't, I can't say, like, oh, I have a favorite Peter McNichol role, but I do think he's a really good actor. But he just, whether it's his choice or the director's choice or whatever, it was played a little bit more subdued than I would have wanted from the lead.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, for him especially. Like, yeah, I think a different actor... that was playing it more straight up or serious, I think would have been fine because that's how basically everyone else in the movie was,

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you know,

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it's not, it's not like a lady Hawk where

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everything is kind of like a really funny that you say that because like, that's actually what was in my head is like,

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yeah.

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And maybe that's like a really unfair comparison, but even like him or like, Or like Tom Cruise in Legend, like just somebody who has like a little bit more oomph on screen.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, I don't know if they were intentionally trying to like go for someone that... that wasn't as experienced because they were supposed to be the apprentice and they were supposed to carry that.

SPEAKER_01:

And this actually was loosely inspired by Fantasia's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Yep. So, which is pretty cool. I love Fantasia. You

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look nothing like Mickey Mouse.

SPEAKER_01:

Beautiful film. So, You know what? Actually, before I say anything about how I overall felt about the film, I'm actually very curious. What is it about the film? Look, I will say, though, I'm cutting myself off here. I know generally the genres you really lean into. This is right in that wheelhouse. It is. So is that why you like the film so much, or is there something in particular that has kind of captivated you?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I think it's that, and also at the time that this first came out, you wouldn't like the, the effects and everything were innovative for the time. They like hold up a little bit still in 2024, but it was like something like seeing Vermithrax pejorative in the eighties was amazing. Like it was just like something super cool to be able to see something come to life like that. And yeah, There were more fantasy-style movies back in that decade. You don't see it as much now. I mean, yeah, the whole Game of Thrones thing, I suppose. Kind of

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took its place.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So yeah, it's one of those movies that I was able to see at just the right time. It's like... as you said, in my wheelhouse of genres that I really love. And it did things that other movies hadn't been able to do yet, effects-wise. I mean, it's probably not

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surprising. That's fair. specific point is very fair.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, it's not a surprise that Clash of the Titans is also one of my favorites from that era.

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Yeah. I mean, that one is more entertaining to me because it just is more entertaining. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

you enjoy that lore. Yes, I do. I do. Very much so. And this doesn't really, like, notwithstanding the connection to, like, Fantasia, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, it's more of just, like, an isolated D&D kind of Like, you know, here's someone who has to go on a quest. Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

That's fair. I mean, I will say that I think McNichol, even though I wish there was, like, a little bit more charisma there, I do have an appreciation for, like, the groundedness he brings to the role.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, he, what I do like about the character is like, yes, he's an apprentice. So there is a, um, a certain kind of immature, like, especially like that one scene where he's being really cocky. Um, I mean, it must've been kind of

SPEAKER_02:

an asshole to that old guy

SPEAKER_01:

right at the beginning. Yeah. But overall he doesn't come across as being like this, like kind of, you know, dim witted, uh, doesn't have any kind of, like, sensibility about him. Like, they actually give him intelligence. Yeah. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Throughout a lot of the movie, and it's interesting because we talked about the pacing of the movie and how...

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you know, it definitely takes its time getting to some of the more crazy scenes.

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It's a little bit like the gate in that regard.

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Yeah. Yeah. By the time you get to the dragon, you're really ready for some dragon action. Yes, you are. And the interesting thing is for as much time as they spend getting up to that, it doesn't really feel like they put a lot of that into his character. Like he just kind of is.

SPEAKER_01:

I would have liked to have known more about him. I say that's pretty much my default with a lot of films. It's like, I don't really know. Like, how did he come to be the apprentice? Does he have family? Yeah. Um, you know, is he an orphan presumably? Um, so I do think that that is something, and it's funny cause like the film is like, I think a hour 49. Yeah. Yeah. It is funny how many times they go to

SPEAKER_02:

this goddamn dragon.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Right. I mean, it is because usually like, I feel like nowadays you'd have one, one climactic encounter. Like he would, the whole film would be this buildup to this like battle and then that's it. But like,

SPEAKER_02:

I'm going to know. Okay. So first of all, you see, you don't really see the dragon. You just like hear that sound effect of it, like drawing breath in before it like torches the first, uh, first sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

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Then he drops a mountain on it. Right. Comes back. Right. Then he goes to try to kill it. Doesn't work. Right. Comes back. Right. Like, they're back and forth to this,

SPEAKER_01:

like, Dragon's Lair. It is a funny... way of telling this kind of story because yeah it feels very off from like what conventionally you would even in like fairy tales you know like usually there's like one encounter between the big baddie and whoever but okay i

SPEAKER_02:

mean at a certain point the dragon should have just been like you know where

SPEAKER_01:

to find me so mcnichol let's go through his filmography um as i mentioned still very much working today i was telling you uh before we recorded what is absolutely crazy insane to me is that Basically, his next film was Sophie's Choice. Okay. All right. Which, holy cow. I mean, like... Another, you know, we were talking about Virginia Woolf. If you want a real downer of a film, if you're just having too good of a day, then go watch Sophie's Choice.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm just going to watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf if I

SPEAKER_01:

need to. Yeah, between the two of them? Yeah. Oh, boy. And that in itself, a real Sophie's Choice. Do you watch Sophie's Choice or do you watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? There was a 1986 film called Heat that he was in.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I thought it was the other. It's not the same Heat.

SPEAKER_01:

It is not.

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I was really... I'm like, oh my God, it's an 80s movie. We can cover that. It

SPEAKER_01:

is so not... And you wouldn't think it's an 80s movie. It doesn't even look like an 80s movie. It doesn't. You mentioned earlier... So yeah, he... The guy's got range. I'll give him that for sure. Oh, yeah. Because he is in Ghostbusters 2. He

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could

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not be more different. He's a pretty absurd character. Very

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much so.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So he does that. He does House Sitter. He has done TV work for sure. One of his earlier series, The Powers That Be, he's in the film Adam's Family Values, Dracula, Dead and Loving It, the film Bean, like Mr. Bean. Oh, yeah. A lot more TV. Chicago Hope. Probably a lot of people, I would think, know him from Ally McBeal because he was one of the series regulars on that show. Oh, okay. The Show 24, Numbers, CSI, Cyber. I think... What? Just

SPEAKER_02:

the

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way you said it. It's amazing. I mean, come on. Cyber. Aren't they all cyber? They all use ridiculous technology that's like not really a thing in those shows.

SPEAKER_02:

It's CSI cyber. I'm sorry. There were like so many.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, CSI cyber. That

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makes it even funnier. So he's just like IT. CSI.

SPEAKER_01:

Cyber. Information technology. CSI. IT.

SPEAKER_02:

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

SPEAKER_01:

So I do think this show was right up his alley and I do vaguely recollect him from it, Veep.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. I know what kind of character he probably was. He was

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very foul-mouthed in that role.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's everybody in the

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show.

SPEAKER_01:

That doesn't narrow it down, does it? Yeah. More recently, the TV show All Rise. And then actually, he's done a lot of voice work. Okay. Especially with video games. And in particular, he has come back time and again to the character of the Mad Hatter in many of the Batman video

SPEAKER_02:

games. Oh, okay, cool. So, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so moving on to basketball star Caitlin Clark.

SPEAKER_02:

What? We both just started cracking up as soon as that credit hit the screen. We're like, what the?

SPEAKER_01:

It's just so timely. Not the

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same

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Caitlin Clark.

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She wasn't even born. Congratulations. I think it's the fever. Oh, did they finally win a game? They won a game. Oh, good. Good for them. Good. I'm very happy to hear that

SPEAKER_01:

actually. It's

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like, man, they've had, I think she had like 48 hours between the end of the college season. And so maybe that's hyperbole, but not by much.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm glad that they won. And I hope that people do not put a really unfair expectation on her. to be a certain way her first year in the WNBA regardless of like how amazing she was as a college player like it takes time

SPEAKER_02:

it's man it is a whole thing that is a whole discussion like people are just going crazy over the amount of attention that she brought to the WNBA whether like she's really ready for like and to be fair this is not a WNBA podcast we're already going way more into it than I ever anticipated

SPEAKER_01:

so this Caitlin Clark

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, she was born in 1952, so she is not playing

SPEAKER_01:

professional basketball. Kaitlyn Clark could be Kaitlyn Clark's mom. Oh, my God. Is she? No. Oh. But she does play Valerian. Say it for me. Valerian? Valerian. Yeah. This also was her very first credit, so the two leads are, like, super young and really at the very beginning of their acting careers. So... Yes she I think though they did a pretty like when she first came on screen you're like you know she's a girl writer you said something to that effect they did a good job though of like like yes in some films where the woman's like pretending to be a guy yeah it's really ridiculously obvious like for as much as I absolutely love her there's no way anyone could mistake in uh Victor Victoria

SPEAKER_02:

oh yeah

SPEAKER_01:

Julie yeah yeah I mean no but here I feel like you know if you were just like walking down the street and you weren't paying attention sure she could be a dude walking through the village I don't know but that'd be a tough thing I mean that'd be so tough because like I totally understand why her dad did it and at some point he had to have sat her down and be like this is why I'm making everybody think you're a boy like that's that to me is really interesting she's young obviously but at some point her dad had to tell her hey We both know you're a girl, but this is why you can't tell anybody.

SPEAKER_02:

They must have been doing that lottery for quite a while.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think the dragon's like, what, 400 years old or something like that, I read.

SPEAKER_02:

For some time then, yeah. Vermithrax pejorative was quite old.

SPEAKER_01:

Quite old. So Clark, she is no longer with us, unfortunately. Yeah. But among her credits, we have... I have... Like, she did do TV. Nothing that was really kind of ongoing. But among her film work, we have Crocodile Dundee.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

The Big Picture, Blown Away, Cost of Living, and then her final credit was Never Again. All right. All right. Moving on to The Sorcerer. So... Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. He's the guy. He's one of the more interesting characters in the entire movie, and it's unfortunate that you don't get to see him for that much. I mean, you see him at the beginning, you see him at the end.

SPEAKER_01:

He is a really interesting character. Yeah. I feel like they could have done maybe a version of this film with him more so in it.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's how we kill two birds with one stone here. We get... We get some flashbacks. We take all that extra time we have before we get to the dragon, and we show some flashbacks with him and Galen, and that also gives us

SPEAKER_01:

a little bit more on Galen. Yeah, no, I would have liked that. Maybe how they first met. Maybe his parents gave him up, or I don't know. But yeah, that could have been interesting. So played by Ralph Richardson. So by the time he started in this film, he had already been... a very much working actor for 50 years. Some amazing credits to his name. And a lot of these actors are British actors, and so some of the credits that I have, some are very well-known because they're from classic stories, but some of the credits might be British properties, so not firsthand familiar with them.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. I mean, I see one right off the bat from the 30s that looks pretty popular. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

From the 30s. Yeah. Okay. Well, let me go through some of them. So his very first credit was in 1933. Yeah. I have, I just listed a lot of the ones I thought were kind of fun.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. The ghoul. That is fun. What's more fun than a ghoul?

SPEAKER_01:

So there is a film from 1933 called...

SPEAKER_02:

Friday the 13th.

SPEAKER_01:

Friday the 13th.

SPEAKER_02:

Amazing. I had no idea. I had no idea Jason went so far back. That

SPEAKER_01:

would have been amazing. It is stylistically spelled differently. So they spell out the number 13. That doesn't mean anything. So Friday the 13th from 1980, which maybe we'll do that one this year, is like... one three th so it's yeah ordinal number um in any case yes he was in that i don't think it was like a horror film

SPEAKER_02:

it doesn't look like it at all

SPEAKER_01:

yeah yeah so he was in the citadel the four feathers the 1939 the fugitive

SPEAKER_02:

oh my god he was in the fugitive

SPEAKER_01:

1942 the avengers what the fuck It is a really funny filmography when you look at all this, how everything's recycled. Oh, my God. 1948, Anna Karenina.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

He was an Oscar-nominated actor. He got a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nom for The Heiress. Oh. I was... Well...

SPEAKER_02:

We'll

SPEAKER_01:

pay homage to that.

UNKNOWN:

I know.

SPEAKER_01:

That's exactly right. We'll get some herbs for dinner tonight. So he's nominated for the heiress. He's in Richard III, Exodus, Long Day's Journey into Night, the 1962, The 300 Spartans. He was in 300? I know. You're

SPEAKER_00:

going

SPEAKER_01:

to do that. Dr. Zhivago. Oh, wait, that was just the actual. Carry on. Yeah, I don't think they've ever remade that. Time Bandits. And then another Oscar nom, again, for Best Supporting Actor for Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the

SPEAKER_02:

Apes. Yeah, that's with, wasn't our friend from The Highlander in that? Our friend? Yeah, I don't know him. I just couldn't think of his name, so I'm like... The lead? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe?

SPEAKER_02:

Christopher Lambert?

SPEAKER_01:

Is he fucking Tarzan? Yeah. No. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

he sure is.

SPEAKER_01:

I was going to say something kind of rude. I'm not trying to be rude, but did you have to have kind of a physique to be Tarzan?

SPEAKER_02:

How dare you?

SPEAKER_01:

The person I was thinking of was Dolph Lundgren. Oh. But that's probably wrong, too. No, it

SPEAKER_02:

in fact was Christopher Lambert.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay. Well, okay. So moving on to, like, I guess the baddie in this film, which is funny considering the character's name. You know,

SPEAKER_02:

look. Which

SPEAKER_01:

is why I think George R.R. Martin pulled from this film.

SPEAKER_02:

Because, look, he's already talked about how he's in love with Pejorative the dragon.

SPEAKER_01:

You love saying this name as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02:

Vermithrax Pejorative, yes. And then Caitlin Clarke is named Valerian.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, okay. And then the big baddie, played by John Hallam, his name is Tyrion? What?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

Whoever made Dragon Slayer, could you just write the end of Winds of Winter for

SPEAKER_01:

us? So I'll say this. Even though I didn't know this film, and even though I can't claim that it's on my top 10, I'm really glad that you brought it on my radar. Because when I see a film like this, or like the last one we did, The Gate, that was introduced to us by Chris.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

When I get to see these films and I realize like, oh, there's like a following for these films. These films are known. And of course, I don't have exhaustive knowledge of this decade. So it's like really fun to learn about these films and learn about the connections and the inspiration that they probably gave to other creators.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't know what happened. I don't know why it... I don't know. Maybe it was getting... Well received when it came out or it got a lot of attention then. But if you just like Google or look up clips from the movie on YouTube, almost everything you're going to find is like one of the best like dragon or fantasy movies from the 80s that you've never seen.

SPEAKER_01:

And I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I don't think I knew that. I've just I've known it since I've grown up. I've always enjoyed it. I didn't know that I was part of the cult that was the cult following

SPEAKER_01:

of this movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Sorry. All right. So as far, you mentioned the actor who plays him, John Hallam. Is that how you would say it?

SPEAKER_02:

That's just how it is now. Okay. We both said it. We both said it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So among some of his credits, we have Nicholas and Alexandra. A lot of like... Couples. Antony and Cleopatra. And then a far departure, the 1973 The Wicker Man. Oh,

SPEAKER_02:

my God.

SPEAKER_01:

Great horror. He's in Flash Gordon, which technically we could cover at some point.

SPEAKER_02:

Oof. Really? Maybe. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, I think that'd be fun. It

SPEAKER_02:

would be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, I feel like Flash Gordon and Clash of the Titans would be like a two for one.

SPEAKER_02:

There is a Dolph Lundgren Flash Gordon, isn't there? I don't know. I think there is.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. He was in Life Force, a TV show called EastEnders. So a little bit more recently, as in we're getting into the 90s, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Cult, The Conqueror, and a TV series, miniseries, The Tenth Kingdom, as well as, again, many TV appearances. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

He was a pretty obvious bad guy. As soon as that guy wrote in, you're like, oh, so this is a bad guy? And then he proceeds to kill himself. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, they did a really great job. He just

SPEAKER_02:

killed old people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

The fight with him and Galen at the end, though, I'm like, come on.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. I'm

SPEAKER_02:

not buying it. I know. That was one of the things with Galen's character. I'm like, I don't think so. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, didn't you say that Valerian could beat him up?

SPEAKER_02:

I'd put my money on Valerian over him before I'd have Galen fight him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, so moving on to Peter Ear.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, you mean Cassiodorus Rex?

UNKNOWN:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

The king. Okay, so here's something I do really love about this film. Yes, it's all fantasy and make-believe, but it's supposed to be set in, like, presumably medieval times

SPEAKER_02:

for sure yes

SPEAKER_01:

and what i really liked about the film which i thought was interesting is like more so uh perhaps more realistic look at what it meant to be a i'm doing air quotes king in that time

SPEAKER_02:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

because like for instance at the end which is a really funny way to end the film where he takes credit for killing the dragon he he comes up to to where the dragon has been slain in like a rickety kind of wood um what would you call it like uh carriage carriage and he does have like presumably like a gold crown on his head but really nothing else speaks to him being like royalty and having like a royal lifestyle in the way that sometimes it's portrayed. Yeah. Like it's actually pretty humble the way that he is shown on screen. Oh

SPEAKER_02:

my God. The way that they talked at, at him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I'm like

SPEAKER_02:

talking to your King like

SPEAKER_01:

that. Yeah. So I thought that that was really interesting actually, that like he's the King of this land, I guess, or Erland is the way it's like, that's the name of it. Yeah. Yeah. Erland. Yeah. Um, but yeah, He's really not living a quality of life that is like, I think...

SPEAKER_02:

Well, compared to everyone else in this Ur-land, he's probably living the best life.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, but it's not like... It just felt like their two worlds were closer together than what we often see depicted between royalty and the subjects.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

is all I'm saying. Okay, so some of his credits, we have like some of these actors, because again, I feel like in British entertainment and cinema, not to say that like U.S. Entertainment doesn't do this, but they pull a lot from classics. So he was in Julius Caesar, Maurice, Orlando. This is a little bit more recent. Orlando, The Remains of the Day, Princess Caribou, Dangerous Beauty, The Golden Bull, From Hell. Oh,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah. That's more recent, right? Very much so. Was that with Johnny Depp? Yep. About the... Jack the Ripper?

SPEAKER_01:

I believe so. And Heather Graham?

SPEAKER_02:

I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Shadows in the Sun. And then also, as with many of these people, a lot of TV appearances. Okay, so we're coming down to... I have like three and a half

SPEAKER_02:

more people. Okay, well, sadly, none of them will have names like Cassiodorus Rex.

SPEAKER_01:

No, they don't. We have Hodge, though. Oh, yeah. So he is like kind of... So certainly not the Sorcerer's Apprentice, but kind of his assistant?

SPEAKER_02:

The Apprentice's Apprentice? Assistant

SPEAKER_01:

2? It's kind of Assistant 2. But I got the sense that Hodge and the Sorcerer probably have been together a lot longer. And then at some point, Galen came along. Because he's also just like an older gentleman.

SPEAKER_02:

Very

SPEAKER_01:

much so. So his first credit, very much on par, was in 1935. The actor's name is Sidney... Okay. And, again, I think probably most of his career was centered on, like, British cinema or British entertainment. We have the film St. Joan, Night Creatures, a TV series called Firecrackers. I just listed a lot of... films that I thought, again, had really fun titles. He was in a movie called Die, Monster, Die, as well as The Fearless Vampire Killers, as well as Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. Wow. So I think he did a lot of horror.

SPEAKER_02:

Frankenstein's a monster and the monster from hell? That would have been too many monster references in the title.

SPEAKER_01:

Speaking of horror, he does, and you know, we covered this film. I don't, though, off the top of my head know who he was. He was in An American Werewolf in London. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm trying to figure out who he was.

SPEAKER_02:

And his character name was Alf. And I just got to be honest, I don't remember Alf in that movie anywhere. I

SPEAKER_01:

don't think he was one of the victims. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I

SPEAKER_01:

don't... know if he might maybe was one of the pub patrons

SPEAKER_02:

maybe maybe maybe they had gotten to shave off that beard and he was a pub patron

SPEAKER_01:

he has actually a very identifiable face because you're right he was a never-ending story and i remember him in that

SPEAKER_02:

that's what he was in okay i was trying to think i know that i had seen him but he he looked almost the exact same in dragon slayer

SPEAKER_01:

and never-ending story yes i mean they're just a couple years apart yeah um the film that is not the pirate movie but just pirates he's in that and then um he passed in 87 and his final credit was Crystal Stone okay as well as again like he had a very large filmography he did a ton of stuff and did a lot of like TV appearances okay this was an interesting character Princess Elspeth Elspeth yeah I thought it was Elspeth I think the entire time I

SPEAKER_02:

didn't know it was

SPEAKER_01:

a P I did not either I was like nodding and then shaking my head. So played by Chloe Salomon. And not a huge filmography. I mean, she... I liked this too about the film that...

SPEAKER_02:

No character was more dedicated to their realm than her.

SPEAKER_01:

She had a very interesting take on the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Elspeth was like, I have to allow myself to be sacrificed to this dragon. And you know what? That didn't even happen. She just got eaten up by the dragon babies.

SPEAKER_01:

It was kind of a sad... That whole storyline played out just in a very sad way.

SPEAKER_02:

She did not need to die like that.

SPEAKER_01:

No, her death kind of meant nothing.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely nothing. It was kind of like a... That moment I definitely remember seeing as a kid because it's kind of horrifying.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Like little baby dragons gnawing on her. I give them a lot of props for them actually showing them just... fucking going to town on her corpse yeah like it's gnarly well this

SPEAKER_02:

movie this movie was kind of in some ways the impetus for the creation of touchstone pictures so that disney could put out more mature content without it being

SPEAKER_01:

disney yeah yeah um but yeah she you know maybe naively did not realize that she was never in danger for the lottery. Um, nor were any of the other affluent young virgins, I guess. And I

SPEAKER_02:

love how, how little like the viewer was really supposed to care about her because we all know that Galen is in love with Valerian and it's like, no, don't go. Yeah. But like, yeah, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, one thing. Okay. So off topic a little bit, but at one point we were watching and you're like, like, so this was after Galen reveals to Valerian that like, he's in love with her. Oh yeah. And then they kiss and you're like, well, she doesn't have to worry anymore. Right. Cause she's not a virgin. I'm like, I don't think they, the way they talked about it,

SPEAKER_02:

the way they talked about it before it like, before it got to that scene, it feels like they were really putting out that... That vibe? Well, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Really? I didn't get that at all. They kissed. It was a very innocent kiss.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it was, but I guess Disney...

SPEAKER_01:

But if they were smart, they would have boned, because then, yes, her being a potential victim would have been off the table.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, I mean... You just like instead of the walk of shame, you just like you walk up to the to the like court, pull your name out of the lottery and say, peace out. I'm done.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's the other thing, too. It's like, OK, so what's going on in this village that these people don't leave with their daughters? Like, where are you going to go? I don't know. Another village where there's like not a dragon like anywhere. Why did they all just peace out and leave? Like, was the dragon going to track them down? Was there something in particular about this village? It's

SPEAKER_02:

tough for me to anticipate what moves Vermithrax pejorative would have made in that cut. Am I saying it a little bit different every time, I think?

UNKNOWN:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

I just know you enjoy any chance to say the name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But... Look, I don't... I'm saying them out because I don't know which one is my favorite. Vermithrax pejorative or Cassiodorus rex. Those are my favorite names ever.

SPEAKER_01:

Ever?

SPEAKER_02:

In any movie.

SPEAKER_01:

So I guess I'm just a little confused about like, look, if you live in an area where there is a dragon and you have a... you guys have a baby girl and you know that at some point she's probably going to be put up to be killed. Uh, get out of early. Like, yeah. Like leave the village. Like, wouldn't that be impulse enough? Like even if you were on the road walking for days, wouldn't, If there was a risk of your daughter being burned to death by a dragon, wouldn't you just leave? They weren't necessarily held there.

SPEAKER_02:

They didn't have to stay.

SPEAKER_01:

That's my point. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly my point. I didn't get the sense that they were, like, forcing people to stay there against their will.

SPEAKER_02:

No. I don't know. Maybe they just had good benefits. Otherwise, they're like, you know, it sucks, but,

SPEAKER_01:

you know. Okay. Does that sound

SPEAKER_02:

cruel?

SPEAKER_01:

Jeez. So, Chloe Salomon, a somewhat abbreviated filmography. I don't have a lot for her. She does have some TV appearances. Notably, I have that she was part of the TV miniseries Winston Churchill, The Wilderness Years. The

SPEAKER_02:

Wilderness Years.

SPEAKER_01:

As well as... As

SPEAKER_02:

opposed to The Desk Job Years.

SPEAKER_01:

As well as Fanny by Gaslight, another TV miniseries. And then I think she's retired. Her last credit was a 95. It was a TV series called Tears Before Bedtime, which sounds very sad. So

SPEAKER_02:

much fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Very sad. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Sad. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01:

So two more people here. One. All he's credited as is Valerian's father. And you were right. That was him,

SPEAKER_02:

right?

SPEAKER_01:

It was him. He was just

SPEAKER_02:

talking about himself

SPEAKER_01:

as her father. It's just weird when you talk about yourself in third person. It's confusing. Especially if you're never really given a name. Yeah. But... Emery James is the actor's name. He, look,

SPEAKER_02:

similar to Elliot Nessa's wife in

SPEAKER_01:

The Untouchables. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

This guy did enough to earn a name.

SPEAKER_01:

He did good. I was kind of debating whether or not to include him, but I really liked the character for as much as we got to see of him.

SPEAKER_02:

I would have at least accepted Valerian's father slash blacksmith. Yes. Right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I don't know. guess i'd never see slashes on imdb it's like this is the one credit you get so but in any case so yes a lot of classic properties this guy was part of again a lot of tv work and then as far as like i have a couple tv movies and a tv series to call out okay twelfth night the man in the iron mask oh yeah another version of antony and cleopatra okay and the diary of anne frank all right Okay, so I'm just bringing him up because I think there's a certain segment of the population, but how could you not bring him up? He's in the movie for all of, like, 90 seconds. He

SPEAKER_02:

has a great scene, though. I already

SPEAKER_01:

know who you're... Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, Ian McDermott, right? Yes. Yeah, the emperor... From? From the Star Wars...

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Palpatine.

SPEAKER_02:

One of my favorite moments in the Star Wars sequels, the sequel trilogy. So somehow Palpatine came back. Well, guess what? He's

SPEAKER_01:

not coming back in this one. And not only is he back, but Rey is his granddaughter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

All of those powers would have come in handy in Dragon Slayer, where instead he was a priest, I believe, whose... Brother Jacobus. Yeah, his master plan was to just show up talking a lot of shit to the dragon. Like, go away, demon. I think he called the dragon Lucifer. Probably. Clearly, the dragon was offended because his name was Vermithrax pejorative, not Lucifer. And boy, did that guy... The effects when that guy got torched... Like, immediately, the hair just, like, burned off his head.

SPEAKER_01:

It was just, wow. And he was sporting some flow. Like, because we never get to see him that way in Star Wars, and so it was interesting to see him.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you just see, like, this, like, human figure with the hair already burned off and just screams. Like, some guy at Disney must have been like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah. So, he has a very notable cameo in this film. Okay, film synopsis. What do we got? A young wizarding apprentice is sent to kill a dragon which has been devouring girls from a nearby kingdom. It

SPEAKER_02:

was quite far away, so sure. That's

SPEAKER_01:

it, though. That's the whole thing. I don't know if I'd call it a kingdom. The

SPEAKER_02:

kingdom of Erland.

SPEAKER_01:

And was he sent? No. Yeah, he makes a choice, kind of.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, at the beginning of the movie, Ulrich, the wizard? Yes. Look, there are probably differences between wizards and sorcerers. I know that there are.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know what they are. Oh, wow. That's a whole conversation, huh? But

SPEAKER_02:

yeah. Yeah. I don't want to go down that road. I know that that's a touchy subject. Because they use those terms kind of interchangeably, and the fact that they specifically say young

SPEAKER_01:

wizarding.

SPEAKER_02:

Wizarding. Yeah. But- Ulrich told him that he had this task to do and that he was a part of it. I'm assuming he couldn't tell him what was going to happen or maybe it doesn't happen. That whole time paradox kind of thing since he had foreseen what was going to happen. But to say that he was sent, eh, I

SPEAKER_01:

don't know. I think it... I mean, it is... I'm trying to think of how much of an arc Galen has. I mean... Like I said, he starts off being at times a little cocky. Yeah. A little bit full of himself. But that quickly kind of falls away, I feel. And then, like I said, he becomes a much more kind of like subdued character. But in any case, it's fine. Like it's...

SPEAKER_02:

I would have preferred... the text that they had on the poster, which is kind of amazing, by the way. If you go to IMDB and look up the key art, the poster is just, it reminds me of like the Star Wars poster in many ways with like the posing of Luke and Leia and in this one with Galen and Valeria. But it just says, in the Dark Ages, magic was a weapon, love was a mystery, adventure was everywhere, and dragons were real. I'm

SPEAKER_01:

looking at it right now.

SPEAKER_02:

I like that synopsis. Just give me that. Does that constitute a synopsis? Probably not.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like a tagline.

SPEAKER_02:

Tagline.

SPEAKER_01:

But I... I do think that there are really interesting things about this film that set it apart from like other kind of similar-ish films of the era. And you're right. I feel like these types of movies aren't really made anymore. I do feel like it's kind of fallen into the realm of television, interestingly enough.

SPEAKER_02:

Like the last movie that I can think of that really went down this path, and I'm not going to even bring up The Green Knight because I don't have a master's degree in Arthurian legend. Stardust. But Stardust had way more comedy. A big part of it was... That's probably more like Princess Bride type of

SPEAKER_01:

fantasy. More family-friendly, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

And then Dungeons& Dragons, Honor Among Thieves, just had way more of a comedic element to it. But

SPEAKER_01:

that's probably the closest to this. I'm actually glad that you brought that up because maybe that's something that was kind of missing for me. I'm trying to figure out... Like I've mentioned, I think... A lot could have been done to address the pacing issue, which I think is probably the main issue I have with this film, is that the first two-thirds of the film... It's

SPEAKER_02:

slow-ish.

SPEAKER_01:

...really are slow. And for it being, like, an hour 50, basically, like, they could have shed some of that time.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, like, at least a quarter of the budget was on the effects and the dragons. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Which, okay, give us more of that. I mean, I don't know what, maybe, if there was anything from the third act that was... cut from the film but that was super interesting I loved seeing the effects I always do that was super fun to watch even with like like I actually appreciated that they really went there like not only did they show these like baby dragons chomping on this dead princess but like even just like him killing the baby dragons yeah and the mama dragon she

SPEAKER_02:

was not amused she was not amused very upset

SPEAKER_01:

like that was all super interesting to me and um I think that's probably the biggest issue I have with it. But then secondarily, I feel like often enough when it comes to films like this, there's kind of this like... camaraderie there's like this chemistry between the characters they're all in this like quest together so to speak and yes there's the love story and it's sweet I liked it I like the scene where like she you know they're obviously miscommunicating with each other she thinks that he's telling her that he's in love with the princess um He doesn't understand why she's upset because he's in love with her. So that was a sweet moment. But I felt like overall I was kind of missing like an element of camaraderie with the characters. That's fair. Yeah. And that always makes it more fun. Just like like other films like Willow and things like that that are kind of on that similar. Well, similar vein.

SPEAKER_02:

If they made this movie now, it would probably be like two separate movies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Because it would end like the... not when he brought down the mountain, but maybe if Peter Jackson was going to make it into The Hobbit, he would make it into each dragon encounter would be its own movie.

SPEAKER_01:

Or it ends right as the spear is revealed or something like that. I was a little disappointed when I was looking up stuff for the movie and I found the Siskel and Ebert review. They

SPEAKER_02:

both really liked it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, interesting. And

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not surprised that they talked a lot about the effects because, again, at the time it would have been pretty amazing. But they showed a scene where he has like that super sharp spear that could puncture a dragon scales. And, uh, Siskel just says, here's a scene where, uh, he's just facing off against the dragon with his magic sword. I'm like,

SPEAKER_01:

there's a sword spear. It's a two handed

SPEAKER_02:

weapon.

SPEAKER_01:

Sorry. Um, uh, Which, you know what? I'm going to say right now that S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't have done shit, especially given how long that dragon was blowing fire at him.

SPEAKER_02:

If that dragon was in a hospital and a nurse was saying, breathe into this peak flow meter, off the charts. Because it exhaled fire for what felt like five minutes.

SPEAKER_01:

And I feel like... So as far as like camaraderie, I actually think that that would have benefited then from maybe actually bringing in another character.

SPEAKER_02:

They teased it with us with Galen and the Hodges.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, uh, Hodge.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. I thought we were going to get more of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Like if we could have just had another character, whether it was Hodge or Alrick living throughout the course of the film, um, like just something else would have helped.

UNKNOWN:

Um,

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm not sure if like really Tyrion's storyline did anything for me. Like I wasn't really... worried about him the whole time like I don't know like I kind of knew the bad he was gonna get it at some point but I guess I maybe assumed the dragon would get him but

SPEAKER_02:

maybe at the end Tyrion's gonna kill Galen and this movie will just end that's how it ends

SPEAKER_01:

so

SPEAKER_02:

Tyrion kills Galen the dragon kills everyone the end

SPEAKER_01:

it's it yeah it was just like an interesting way that they went about it I don't know like if this was ever fast-tracked into production if like I don't know I just felt like it had a lot of elements to make for really great film it didn't totally come together for me i very much understand why people consider it beloved in large part because of the effects in the dragon and what they were able to accomplish for 81 because that is truly an accomplishment yeah um so but at the end of the day i am really glad i got to see it i mean you don't does it hold up for you do you still enjoy watching it as much as you did

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I do, actually. I think particularly the end, even though the effects, like the green screen effects at the end, I appreciated that they took the time to have Ulrich bring in all this weather just so he could then cast another spell to hit the dragon with lightning. I'm like, oh, yeah, they did some cool things. And again, there weren't as many fantasy movies that... we're trying to go at it from just a straight up perspective instead of making it like a fantasy comedy thing, which I still enjoy. I still like that, but like no movie is going to be perfect. I think they tried to do something a little bit different with this in terms of, of the way they presented it. And obviously the effects are, are still impressive. And back at the time, again, it was just incredible to see. So. And then the names.

SPEAKER_01:

And then the names. Actually, Did you know that the spear has a name?

SPEAKER_02:

I am not surprised, but I can't remember what it was. What have we got? Sicarius Dracorum. Okay. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know, but like... Dragon Spear. Dragon Slayer? Yeah, it actually... Oh, I think you're right. I think actually the name of the spear is Dragon Slayer. Yeah, they did call it that. Yeah, exactly. So that makes sense. Call to action... I mean, for me, I don't mean for this to be my default, but, like, I'm just curious how much this film has been on the radar of other people who really enjoy AD cinema.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I think that's probably the best, like... I was kind of surprised when I started looking up stuff, and so many references were about how it's like one of these movies that you've never seen. So I think that's a good call to action. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We would love to hear from everyone out there. If you want to get in touch, you can do so through Facebook. I guess I have to stop. I'm not going to, though. Stop calling it Twitter, even though domain name has changed. I

SPEAKER_02:

mean, look. Elon Musk would like to call you it Would like you to call it X. And my response would be, fuck them.

SPEAKER_01:

Twitter.

SPEAKER_02:

Twitter.

SPEAKER_01:

So you can get a hold of us through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. It's the same handle for all three. It is at 80s Montage Pod and 80s is 80S.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm really looking forward to when this one launches and you have like the little post talking about us. And it's going to be this week talking about the movie that launched Caitlin Clark's career.

SPEAKER_01:

So sneak peek.

SPEAKER_02:

You should tag her too.

SPEAKER_01:

That actually would be very funny. Just do it. But I would look like an idiot. But in any case, people didn't get the joke. Okay, well... Okay, well... And I think you're going to get it right away. Okay. It's a great clue. It sounds like. Well, maybe I shouldn't make it so easy. Oh. Cyndi Lauper.

SPEAKER_02:

Cyndi Lauper. Is it Girls Just Want to Have

SPEAKER_01:

Fun? Yes, it is. It is Girls Just Want to Have Fun. And this is one of those films that outside the realm of John Hughes, like obviously the 80s was just a boom time for teen films. Is this your Dragon Slayer? No, it's not my Dragon Slayer, but it's among those films that I just remember watching from being a very young kid. It actually has some great music in it. I remember the dancing at the end was so fun. Between the John Hughes films, this and Can't Buy Me Love are the ones that I just kind of grew up with, and it's really fun. I mean, two huge names. It

SPEAKER_02:

better be. It's literally in the title.

SPEAKER_01:

Sarah Jessica Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt. Did you know that Helen Hunt is in that film?

SPEAKER_02:

I have seen portions of this movie. Yeah, I actually... Because you tried

SPEAKER_01:

it on. Okay, but you've never actually watched it the whole way through. I've not made it through the whole thing. And Jonathan Silverman. Oh, and Shannon Doherty, actually. So a lot of people are in it. Okay. Very excited to share that one with everyone. And in the meantime, thank you to... Everyone who listens to the podcast, so many podcasts, so many choices. So many. Too many.

SPEAKER_02:

So

SPEAKER_01:

thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

But not this one, I mean.

SPEAKER_01:

But not this one. No. So thank you for taking the time to listen to ours, and we will talk to you again in two weeks' time.