Raiders of the Lost Ark with Brian Michael Bendis

You’re a young movie fan. It’s 1981. STEVEN SPIELBERG is teaming up with FREAKING GEORGE LUCAS (!?!?!) to make a movie with HAN SOLO…can you imagine how hyped you’d be?? Marvel Comics legend Brian Michael Bendis joins us to recount the colossal impact of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in this rollicking adventure of an episode. Jewish mysticism and weird Nazi stuff! Alfred Molina getting covered with a bunch of live spiders! Karen Allen coming up with an incredibly detailed backstory for Marion and Spielberg being like, “sure, whatever”! Danny DeVito almost being cast as Saleh?!?! You bet we’re getting into it, snakes and all. Check out JinxWorld https://www.jinxworld.com/ Check out Brian’s Comics https://www.darkhorse.com/Search/Brian%20Michael%20Bendis Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

  Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things.

• 0:12David Sims?

  Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly.

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

  Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now.

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was livestreamed for the first time ever. But also, the replay is still up there, but only until October 30th.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

  It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work.

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'd have seen you that happy.

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

  You were thrilled. You were like a pick and share.

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

  Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny.

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

  And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it.

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're into that sort of content.

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  So once again, that's at dynasty.tv.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Podcasts. Why did it have to be podcasts?

• 1:43David Sims?

  Great.

• 1:43Griffin Newman?

  I don't think I nailed it. I've, I, sometimes I'm able to pull a surprising Harrison out of my pocket.

• 1:49David Sims?

  Needs to be growlier, even at that age.

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Snakes, snakes, podcast. Fuck. It is tough now. I think I'm better at doing older Harrison.

• 1:59David Sims?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 2:00Griffin Newman?

  It's tough when he's young.

• 2:01David Sims?

  Dude Thunderbolt Ross seeing a snake. Snakes, why? Have to be smart. You know, my joke is that he's going to turn into Red Hulk when they're like, we have to make the military more woke. He'll be like, right? That'll be what it is. I don't even know. Is Thunderbolt Ross right wing? He is, right?

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  Well, look, we have a guest who can answer.

• 2:18David Sims?

  I want our guest to answer this.

• 2:20Griffin Newman?

  Not to put him on the spot.

• 2:21David Sims?

  Is Thunderbolt Ross a Republican?

• 2:22Speaker 04

  You know, I love this podcast so much that I, I immediately went to, I wonder what thing we're going to talk about that I couldn't predict. And right away.

• 2:32Griffin Newman?

  Right away.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Thunderbolt Ross right wing.

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  Have you ever written for the big man? Have you ever written Thunderbolt Ross, the best character in the Marvel Universe?

• 2:39Speaker 04

  In, actually, I have. I did a, a, believe it or not, a weird little mini arc in Avengers with the great Walt Simonson.

• 2:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  Um, with, with, with Red Hulk front and center. I had, I had this, like, I wanted.

• 2:54David Sims?

  He like joins for a minute, right? He like, he's in the Avengers as Red Hulk, right? I forgot.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Something. Yeah, something was going on. But, uh, so yes, but no, I did not, uh, in my heart lock down the politics of the time. It just had him in mission. So I can't speak to the larger.

• 3:12David Sims?

  Does the Marvel Universe have Democrats and Republicans? Like, does that come up? Or is it sort of like, we don't?

• 3:17Speaker 04

  Well, kinda, but like mostly from a, a different universe than the one we live in now. So it's not even, I, I don't even know if people would like refer to that in that way. You know what I mean?

• 3:28Griffin Newman?

  That's why I'm so excited to see a Captain America movie that's about the president.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  If you see it as an Air Force One sequel, I think it is deeply exciting and a huge swing. And I, I appreciate that kind of thing.

• 3:40Griffin Newman?

  And let's say, just incredible weave on, uh, uh, Thunderbolt Ross's ideology.

• 3:45David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, we don't really know.

• 3:47Griffin Newman?

  We don't know.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  See, we, we were very, very focused on where the mustache went when he turned into the Hulk. So that was a much bigger issue for us as a group.

• 3:56David Sims?

  Where does it go?

• 3:57Griffin Newman?

  I'll say this. I guess, uh, Brave, what Brave New World's what it's called now?

• 4:02David Sims?

  Uh, yeah.

• 4:04Griffin Newman?

  Is coming out right around the time of this episode, maybe a little bit after.

• 4:07David Sims?

  That's right. It's coming out in February, right?

• 4:08Griffin Newman?

  I was, not to be like a pedantic nerd, I was very thrilled in the trailer where there's a line where Harrison Ford's like, uh, they told me if I wanted to be president, I had to lose the mustache.

• 4:20David Sims?

  Oh, interesting. Right. We haven't had a mustachioed president since.

• 4:25David Sims?

  Maybe Roosevelt.

• 4:26Griffin Newman?

  But that sort of solves the Red Hulk mustache issue. Where they're just like, well, he just shaved before he ever became the Red Hulk.

• 4:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  I'm not joking. It was a large conversation in the Marvel retreats. Where, where does the mustache go?

• 4:40Griffin Newman?

  Where did you land on the logic?

• 4:42Speaker 04

  I, I just went, listen, not every fight's my fight and I moved on with my life. Like there's, there's a lot going on.

• 4:48Griffin Newman?

  This is not for me to solve. Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm trying to get Miles Morales into the six one six. It's, I've got, I've got my, I've got my lane. I've got a, I've got issues that I was dealing with at the time.

• 4:57David Sims?

  Red Hulk has a gun, right? That was part of his thing. But it was like, it's like, you know, the Hulk. And I'm like, yeah, I know the Hulk. He's incredibly strong. And they're like, yeah, but he also has a big gun that he shoots someone with.

• 5:08Griffin Newman?

  But there are other Hulks that had guns.

• 5:10David Sims?

  I guess. I guess in the nineties.

• 5:11Griffin Newman?

  Mr. Fixit would carry around a Tommy gun.

• 5:13David Sims?

  In the nineties, it got good for Hulk to have a gun.

• 5:15Speaker 04

  When I, when I saw the trailer, I was much more, I, I've been, I've, as we are going to discuss, I have lived with the Harrison Ford's energy as an actor my whole life, which has varied from the most excitable, most movie star, movie star.

• 5:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  To his middle ages, which were.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that went on for a very long time.

• 5:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  And then we've entered the, um, this era, which, which started around Force Awakens, where he's just enjoying being Harrison Ford.

• 5:47David Sims?

  All right.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  And I'm solo. And I, and I, I never saw this coming. I thought we were going to be stuck with cranky Harrison Ford for the rest of our lives.

• 5:55David Sims?

  Yeah. When does, that's actually a great point. When does cranky Ford begin where it becomes like, do you even want to be here? Like Harrison?

• 6:03Griffin Newman?

  I would say it starts with Hollywood homicide.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  I think Hollywood homicide is a reflection of what was going on at the time.

• 6:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but I think that's sort of the, the fulcrum point.

• 6:15David Sims?

  Well, I'm going to argue that, uh, in the nineties, you know, when he's Jack Ryan and Richard Kimball, he's gruff, but he's not.

• 6:25David Sims?

  Totally grumpy, all the way up to Air Force One.

• 6:27Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's honed movie star persona shit.

• 6:30David Sims?

  Rough, not grumpy. And then post Air Force One, you have Six Days, Seven Nights, Random Hearts, K-19, What Lies Beneath, Hollywood Homicide. We're getting quite grumpy there.

• 6:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but here's, okay, I mean, look, this is what we're here to do on this episode to some degree.

• 6:42David Sims?

  Thematically, he makes sense as a grump in What Lies Beneath and K-19.

• 6:46Griffin Newman?

  Let me interest the podcast because I want to get into this very deeply. This is a very interesting conversation in an episode about one of-

• 6:51David Sims?

  A very famous movie.

• 6:53Griffin Newman?

  But also, like, one of the most definitive movie star performances of all time.

• 6:58David Sims?

  No, no question.

• 6:59Griffin Newman?

  Right? Like, this is obviously, inarguably, one of the totemic creations of the American cinema. Indiana Jones will always be on, like, the Mount Rushmore to a certain extent, the tapestry of, like, what is this popular commercial art? But this one in particular, for a guy who had already created an insanely iconic character-

• 7:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 7:20Griffin Newman?

  -in a Wild Blockbuster franchise.

• 7:22David Sims?

  And had been in two of them already, right?

• 7:25Griffin Newman?

  I feel like this is one of those performances, kind of like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, like John Wayne in Stagecoach, right? Where people just study it and go, like, what did they fucking synthesize here?

• 7:36David Sims?

  Total natural ease, humor, sexiness, you know, doesn't, gives a shit but doesn't seem like he's trying hard, you know, like, you can't, you can't fake it. Can't fake what he's doing.

• 7:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:51David Sims?

  Pictures of him.

• 7:52Griffin Newman?

  Just like we can't fake the fact that this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 7:56David Sims?

  I suppose we could fake it. I'm David.

• 7:57Griffin Newman?

  We, I know!

• 7:58David Sims?

  AI me.

• 7:59Griffin Newman?

  Refuse!

• 8:00David Sims?

  Just like some AI that goes, "What do you want from me?" every two minutes.

• 8:03Griffin Newman?

  Cranky David face. David's entering his early 2000s.

• 8:07David Sims?

  What if I become the red David in 2025?

• 8:10Griffin Newman?

  We might need that.

• 8:11David Sims?

  You think so? You think I need to Red Hulk, to Rulk out?

• 8:14Griffin Newman?

  That's, maybe that's a year 15 arc.

• 8:17David Sims?

  Have they done any other color Hulks since Red?

• 8:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's composite Hulk, right?

• 8:20Speaker 04

  All of them.

• 8:21Griffin Newman?

  Have they really?

• 8:23Speaker 04

  They've done a lot of Hulks, yeah.

• 8:24David Sims?

  Is there, like, a purple Hulk?

• 8:25Speaker 04

  And the, and the Red Hulk famously debuted on the TV show. Like, that was, that was, they even referenced it in Walk Hard.

• 8:33David Sims?

  My daughter recently was watching an episode of Spidey and His Friends, or whatever the cartoon is, where there's small Spideys that Hulk was in. And Hulk's just walking through the carnival with Spider-Man, by the way. And I was kind of like, this is not what Hulk's supposed to be like. He's just a green man, but apart from that, the same as anything, right? And she just looked at him and she was like, he doesn't have any clothes on. It's like, you're not wrong. That's, and that's the only takeaway she could have from this child Hulk. Cause he didn't seem angry.

• 9:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 9:03David Sims?

  So he was just a man with no clothes on.

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  Bigger than the other kids?

• 9:06David Sims?

  Yeah, he's like.

• 9:07Griffin Newman?

  But he's not like huge. He's like a big kid.

• 9:09David Sims?

  He's large. He's muscle bound. I don't know. The whole thing's weird. Some of these guys don't translate well as kid form, like Spider-Man does.

• 9:18Griffin Newman?

  Does she like Miles Morales?

• 9:19David Sims?

  Yeah, she likes all three of them.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  He's, yeah, he's right there in the front.

• 9:22Griffin Newman?

  Just saying.

• 9:23David Sims?

  I know the creator of, please, please introduce our guest.

• 9:26Griffin Newman?

  It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their career, such as making Jaws.

• 9:34David Sims?

  Sure.

• 9:34Griffin Newman?

  And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear, like Raiders of the Lost Ark in the wake of a bounce, like 1941.

• 9:45David Sims?

  That's absolutely true.

• 9:45Griffin Newman?

  This is another thing to talk about here. This is like one of the greatest comeback movies in Hollywood history.

• 9:51David Sims?

  Instant comeback and probably one that doesn't, it's not like he was like, ah, 1941 doesn't work. I guess I'll do my sort of throwback Alan Quarterman thing. You know, like, and everyone was like, oh, sure. Retreat to safe ground with that, Steve. Like it's risky.

• 10:07Griffin Newman?

  It's risky and this is also a movie that is imbued with the energy of, I need to not fuck up.

• 10:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Griffin Newman?

  Like you feel a certain, in a weird way, it doesn't, it's only positive, but Spielberg being in his head about like, I need to get over the hump of being a wonderkin and not be a flash in the pan.

• 10:27David Sims?

  Yeah, this poster.

• 10:27Griffin Newman?

  David's pulling up a really weird poster. Can you turn this around to show?

• 10:30David Sims?

  A British poster. I mean, Ford just looks like 85 in this. Look at him. I don't know. Anyway.

• 10:37Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today.

• 10:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  As David was saying right before we recorded, arguably the most important impactful comic book writer of our generation of our lifetime. You were very much the guy that I feel like we grew up on and grew up with and activated through Brian Michael Bendis. Unbelievably is on the show.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  Well, that's awfully nice. Thank you for having me. I am thrilled to be here. I am a huge fan of this podcast.

• 11:04Griffin Newman?

  Dumb, stupid.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  As I will reveal over time, including knowing that I could jump in early and without being introduced.

• 11:11Griffin Newman?

  It's a pro move. Yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  My obligation, but I'm thrilled to be here and I will say for the few people, I know you like to keep it on the download. What you're doing. But when I said I was doing the show and they go, hey, what movie? And I said Raiders, the reverence in which I was shown like, oh, they gave you Raiders. It's like literally an honor, an honor amongst amongst us blankies. I'm on the Patreon. I am a huge, huge fan.

• 11:40David Sims?

  So you've listened to his blather on about Marvel movies?

• 11:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but also think about this.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  It's the funniest thing because like, yeah, I've listened to you blab around about the mummy. I've listened to you blab around about Austin Powers. I've listened to you. It is a very, very excellent space for my head to be in when I'm doing laundry and other things like driving my kids around like an Uber. But I will say it is very funny that the part of the magic of this podcast is that often you will venture into other subjects.

• 12:11Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  With no warning.

• 12:12Griffin Newman?

  That's true.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  And when I'm listening to a Marvel podcast, I'm like, hey, you, you might bring up some secret invasion stuff.

• 12:18Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  It might come up, but it's always amazing when like you're talking about like Austin Powers, a man in mystery. And all of a sudden you get into a Dark Avengers rant. And I'm like, oh, that's hilarious. I would never have guessed that.

• 12:31Griffin Newman?

  Your, your, a tremendous amount of your work looms very large in both of our minds.

• 12:36David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 12:36Griffin Newman?

  I feel like to some degree, like one of the connection points we found early on when we became friends.

• 12:42David Sims?

  Was Bendis Comics?

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think like in our, in our early sort of like courtship, but then also like finding like we have the same like, oh, these arcs were as big for you as they were for me.

• 12:53David Sims?

  I just had to move my bookshelf from one side of the room to the other. I had to take all the comic trade paperbacks off, put them all back on. I put faithfully had my, my, my bendis shelf, all the daredevils, all the Avengers, all the pow, uh, you know, all the Jessica Jones. Anyway, I had Ultimate Spider-Man. I have all of your Ultimate Spider-Mans.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  Thank you, man. That, that means a lot. It's really cool. Nah, what do you, who wants one?

• 13:18David Sims?

  Okay, fine. Well, you should hear it then. I have them all. I have like 16 of those things. They're heavy.

• 13:22Griffin Newman?

  See, I believe I have every single issue of the original run, but that was transferred to, yes. A basement that my father oversees that I am very concerned about the status of.

• 13:36David Sims?

  Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

• 13:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:38David Sims?

  That's tough.

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  Right. So I, I've almost been too scared to check, but at, at one point for a very long time, I had all of them in single issues.

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  Buying in real time.

• 13:48David Sims?

  What if I came like, just brought you on to drag you about killing some character? And now I'm trying to think of what character I'd be mad about.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  I would be very happy to have that conversation with you, but I will say, uh, uh, to pivot into our subject of the day is that I don't think there's any movie that I could refer to as more important to the DNA of how old I was when it came out and what the world was like and what the culture was like and how like everything about my life. At this stage that wasn't Marvel was Lucas and Spielberg. And I, and I, I was giving like a great amount of thought in some of the links I sent you, Griffin, about like, like, why do I know all of this? Like, why do I know all of this by heart? I knew every single magic trick that Lucas and Spielberg did from Star Wars through Temple of Doom.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  And, and it really was this amazing time where these two wonderkins were like doing magic tricks. And then couldn't wait to show us how they did the magic trick. Like, here's how the landspeeder works.

• 14:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  And I'm 10 to 15 years old and I'm being showed the magic trick and then being showed how it's done.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  And mind blown constantly like there's no other space I'm in with Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And it just keeps building, building. Star Wars comes out in 1977. I'm 10 years old. I see it in the theater. One of my favorite things you guys talk about is how old you are when you see certain things and the experience of what that was. And here I am right at this, like I see Star Wars in theaters and also Star Wars stays in theaters for two and a half years.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. So you see it multiple times.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  It's just the thing, a thing you can do constantly, the entire time, my entire childhood and see Star Wars up until Empire Strikes Back comes out. One of my favorite moments as a movie theater going child was my mom took me to see Empire Strikes Back. This is giant cliffhanger. I never experienced a cliffhanger outside of a comic book. With a comic book, it's always coming next month. Spider-Man's gonna die. We'll figure out how in a month from now, you'll find out he's not dead. This one, I literally, I just sat there in stunned silence and my mom just let me watch it again. We just never left the theater. We just like.

• 16:07David Sims?

  Oh, she's like, they're go, they're rolling again. Well, if nothing else.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, 40 minutes later, they're gonna show.

• 16:13Griffin Newman?

  You're not gonna get the resolution you want, but at least you can just watch the same movie a second time immediately.

• 16:18David Sims?

  That's so that's.

• 16:18Griffin Newman?

  It's like methadone.

• 16:19David Sims?

  That's an experience I didn't have, right? I didn't get to watch Empire Strikes Back and then have to wait three years for Return of the Jedi. Do you remember being happy with Empire Strikes Back? Like forgetting the cliffhanger, just generally, were you satisfied? Or were you like, I don't know what to make of that?

• 16:34Speaker 04

  Yes. Also, you're very aware, oh, they're not repeating it. They, they're continuing it. It's, oh, it's a snow planet. Everything, everything that we celebrate about it, the initial feeling was complete celebration. Like it's everything better. It's everything elevated and.

• 16:51Griffin Newman?

  They're doing it. It's, it's broadening out. Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  The only thing we didn't have is like, like, and I have a lot of kids, so I get to funnel my pop culture memories through how they're processing their pop culture memories right now. Like, my son knows when the next four Marvel movies are coming out. We have no idea when and if another Star Wars is coming out, unless maybe you had a subscription to Starlog, maybe you caught something on some weird Entertainment Tonight thing. But other than that, unless you caught it live, unless you caught it in the moment, you really didn't know what's gonna happen, right?

• 17:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean, I talk about my little cousin George a lot, who's now someone I'm like giving your trades to as he's like digging deeper and deeper into Marvel. But he is very much a kid who's like aware of what the upcoming Marvel slate is.

• 17:41David Sims?

  Right, it's weird.

• 17:42Griffin Newman?

  You know, and he's like talking about the moves of like, so what does it mean that Downey Jr. is coming back, but he's a different character? Like, he's like fully in on that. I mean, I've said this, it's just the quote that is the most fascinating to me was, he was like, what Marvel movies are still coming out? This was whatever, a year or two ago. You know, he always has to be like, so what are the next three Marvel movies? And he was like, what's coming out? And I was like, well, the Marvel's comes out in three months. And he goes, I hear the buzz isn't good in that. And I'm like, you're eight!

• 18:09David Sims?

  Who's giving you the buzz?

• 18:11Griffin Newman?

  You don't have a cellphone, you're not on social media, what is this? But like, he's very tapped into all this stuff in a way that's just like, this is the monoculture. Like, the monoculture is, in a weird way, the discussion of the industry and all of that. Whereas I think, you know, David and I always felt like weird kids where we were paying attention to this at a time when like, people were not.

• 18:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 18:33Griffin Newman?

  Where most adults were not.

• 18:34David Sims?

  You would have one friend, I had one friend who I shared like the comics thing with, or maybe two, you know, like where we, that was it. And then maybe, right, maybe you like read Wizard Magazine, and so then you know a little bit about like what's in the future. But yeah, you do not watch. Entire like presentations of slates on YouTube at, you know, press conferences and things like that.

• 18:58Griffin Newman?

  Entire cottage industry of trying to guess what will happen next. Like you talking about that experience of like Spielberg and Lucas being so pioneering and kind of serializing legitimate A-level filmmaking, right? That they were sort of like bridging this gap between like the old serials that they grew up with and the comics that they grew up with and the TV shows and the radios plays and all of that that were always seen as low art, you know, or children's art, or like pop trash or whatever it was. And then elevating this to like A-level craft, but getting people roped into the story in that way. Listen, I I'm forgetting what the original connection point was, but if it was you messaging me

• 19:43Griffin Newman?

  or someone telling me, uh, do you know that Brian Michael Bendis is a listener? At some point it got relayed to me. And then we started messaging and then you did the George Lucas Talk Show, uh, I guess about a year ago, maybe?

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, eight months. I loved it. I absolutely adored that experience.

• 20:00Griffin Newman?

  You were wonderful on the show. But you, we had already been messaging back and forth a little bit at that point of like, we got to find something for you to be on for. And we will keep potential guests in the hopper for a long time sometimes to wait to find the right fit. And there were a couple of things we were throwing out and going back and forth on. Then you come do George Lucas Talk Show and you came with like 10 Indiana Jones prop replicas. I don't think I've told you this.

• 20:23David Sims?

  No.

• 20:23Griffin Newman?

  But Brian comes with like a hat, but he comes with like a Grail diary replica. He comes with like maps. Like he comes with like all the paperwork. And like you really, look right there.

• 20:34David Sims?

  Hey, there you go.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  A little Jewish boy with a cup of Christ.

• 20:38David Sims?

  There, a little, a little chalice there.

• 20:40Griffin Newman?

  It is this thing that's very nice about doing this show is that sometimes we will have people like yourself where George Lucas was so important to them, uh, in their development as an artist or whatever. And they basically use Connor as like a surrogate to say those things to.

• 20:54David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 20:55Griffin Newman?

  You were very earnestly talking through the value of what this stuff means to you, to Connor, who is Very good at receiving that stuff.

• 21:02David Sims?

  Because he can go kind of like, uh huh.

• 21:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, of course, it's a perfect movie or whatever. Right. And I like that lodged in my brain. And then a couple of months after that, we were like, let's do it. Let's fucking do early Spielberg.

• 21:13David Sims?

  Let's do Spielberg.

• 21:13Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like you were the first message I sent of just like Raiders.

• 21:18Speaker 04

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

• 21:54David Sims?

  It was, it was, it met you at a pivotal moment in your life.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, yes. And, and even the, oh, this is darker. This is different. Why, why am I feeling differently about this? Like every, every choice that's being made was interesting to me. So, and then you, and you, you literally said, no Raiders. And I was like, oh, of course I will, I will set Raiders, but I.

• 22:14Griffin Newman?

  But I was like, it would be a mitzvah to us if you came on and did this one. And that gives you an opportunity to talk about Indiana Jones as a whole and Lucas and Spielberg and all of this. It feels like you saying that, like, you know, uh, it's, it's a big deal that we let you do this one. I was like, that will make our lives easier if we have Brian talk about Raiders and like kick off this Indiana Jones run. I, I think it's one of the things that David and I talk about a lot with your work and how important it was for us. Uh, at a sort of developmental age, like what you're talking about of like learning how story works through the stuff you're absorbing and seeing what works and what doesn't is that like, I feel like we will often cite you

• 22:56Griffin Newman?

  as someone who is incredibly good at understanding the, the format in which you are doing the storytelling. In the sense that you are telling long form serialized stories. But there was a thing, I think a trend that started to bum me out. And I feel like we've complained. About David that started in the 2000s that has only gotten more and more extreme over time where I would be reading single issues and feel like this is just a graphic novel that is being split up into six parts that I'm just now having to wait a month to read chapters. You know, a very similar a lot of our complaints about streaming television now where people are like, well, this is really just a 12 hour movie. And that balance of like doing something that has integrity as the one piece you're engaging with at that moment,

• 23:39Griffin Newman?

  but can also amount to something larger. You write great arcs, but I also think you understand the value of like, this issue needs to be satisfying. There's like a big picture and a small picture of what's going on there. And like Indiana Jones is this, basically, it feels like storytelling experiment for Lucas and Spielberg to be like, can we make a movie that is just that? Right? There are all these famous lines of what if it was just the good parts and none of the boring parts? What if it was a republic serial that never ended? At every 10 minutes, there's like another huge moment, another big cliffhanger. Where does it go from here? And then, yeah, I guess, leaving you probably with the same feeling as Star Wars of like, so what happens to Indiana Jones now?

• 24:22Speaker 04

  So a few things are going on here. Number one, that both Lucas and Spielberg are eager to let us in on the on the magic trick and to take take us in. And as a youngin, I'm all in. And so, when I sent you that that network special on Raiders Lost Ark that aired on like CBS or as as as a as a document, right? But if you've only can only see the movie in theaters, there's no other way to experience it. And all of a sudden, they're showing you a behind this an hour long behind the scenes was genuine, interesting, you know, and also honest storytelling. There's

• 25:02Speaker 04

  one bit in that in that special I sent you where where Spielberg literally is exhausted in Morocco, going, I'm in the middle of desert with all my friends. I'm completely embarrassing myself. This is not working. Like he's having complete an apostle syndrome. And I was thinking how I wonder if this would air today. Like, I wonder if if if the director of Wicked was staring and having just a moment like we all have going, you know, so so this honesty that they're sharing with us and on top of, all right, so. Lucas did Star Wars. Spielberg did the same thing with Close Encounters and Jaws.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  All right, so now, and also, we have the, in the John Williams documentary, which is out right now at Disney Plus, which really does a good job illustrating this, is that in lieu of DVD and VHS, we have a soundtrack to just sit in our room, stare at the ceiling, and relive the movie in our mind's eye with whatever top, you know, trading cards we have. Like, we're absorbing it and remembering it and recontextualizing it in ways that are just different than what happens today. No, no better or worse.

• 26:15David Sims?

  You had, like, novelizations, I guess, or comic book adaptations, right? Like, that's about as close as it got, I guess, right?

• 26:22Speaker 04

  That was a big one, too, because even the Close Encounters novelization, written by Steven Spielberg, whether it is or isn't, but it says written by Steven Spielberg, it internalizes the story for a young person who's only seeing, externalizing it. And now you're, now I'm, I feel like I know Roy Neary, like, I'm like, I know.

• 26:41David Sims?

  You're hearing his internal monologue, yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 04

  So that's for a young creator, all this is new. So all this is happening, including whatever 1941, what, like, like, like, but all of it is very also connected loudly to the comic book space. Star Wars and Indiana Jones are also comic books. And the Star Wars series is, you know, drawn by Howard Cheekin to start with, which is one of the greats of all time. You had Walt Simonson doing the Close Encounters adaptation, and it is wonderful. It is not just, it is, well, they're very much like, you know, you know, the short version of a story, like the Cliff Notes version of it,

• 27:28Speaker 04

  but visually spectacular, and there's a great, like, how they made it of the Close Encounters comic book that showed the differences of how things, something's directed versus how something is shown on the page. First time I'd ever seen that talked about anywhere. So this is a huge moment for a young comic book creator, right? So all I have is How to Make Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and everything George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are telling us. Like every so and Spielberg is loud on graphic novels for

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Close Encounters makes a huge like National Lampoon's heavy metal version of 1941. That is loud and naughty and completely inappropriate by today's standards. And and then the Raiders of Lost Ark is a two issue mini series. Cliff Notes by the amazing Claus Jansen. So these are all like world class comic creators that are stopping what they're doing to adapt. Or to take what might have been a weekend gig for them adapting these movies. But I remember the Raiders of Lost Ark two issue Cliff Notes came out and I was, I was living. I was, this is not enough of an adaptation.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  I mean, they they skipped the well of the souls. I mean, there's just like major pieces missing because they just don't have the thing.

• 28:50David Sims?

  I'm looking at it though. It's Harold Ching. Yeah. Like you said, he, he's the coolest. Damn.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:55David Sims?

  It looks pretty good.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:57David Sims?

  The art looks fucking cool.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Look at Blade Runner comic adaptation by Al Williamson. You're, you're about to be leveled.

• 29:06David Sims?

  Like, right, because I, right, because I was too, you know, I was too old for this stuff, right? Like by the time I was watching these movies, like you could, you know, rent them or, you know, like I could just watch the movie.

• 29:18Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the, the moment you're talking about.

• 29:20David Sims?

  Cool.

• 29:21Griffin Newman?

  In the John Williams doc, uh, hit me really hard and kind of unlocked a thing that I don't think I'd ever like verbalized in such a specific way. And, and some of the talking heads say to your point of like, the movie's out of theaters at some point. You have the soundtrack, you look at the liner notes, you play it in your head. And I feel like so much of my childhood, I would listen to CDs of film scores and try to reconstruct the sequences in my mind. I mean, literally listen to the beats and go, oh, that's where that edit is. That's when that moment happens.

• 29:53David Sims?

  This little swell here is that.

• 29:55Griffin Newman?

  If you have the same kind of demented brain that the three of us clearly have, you're trying to like deconstruct these things to understand how they were made.

• 30:03David Sims?

  But you're also trying to remember the, uh, the sort of pure emotion you felt the first time that.

• 30:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:38David Sims?

  Okay.

• 30:38Griffin Newman?

  And that whole generation of movie star, uh, movie directors, movie makers.

• 30:42David Sims?

  Like, I don't know.

• 30:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. Who either were just like very sort of like aloof and, and tony and their sort of attitude about everything, or would try to just be like, I don't know, I just shoot movies. They're trash, whatever. Like try to sort of hide their emotions. Lucas and Spielberg were kind of the first enthusiasts who reached that level of success and wanted to, like, as you're saying, kind of tell everyone what they did.

• 31:08David Sims?

  Share their process, right.

• 31:09Griffin Newman?

  Share the process. I think a lot of it was based off of giddiness of like, can you believe we get to do this? More than them consciously trying to educate another generation, but it is why those two guys and their movies across these like 15 years primarily are so influential, were so activating for so many artists in different mediums, because you were getting the pieces in that kind of way. And you were getting the supplemental material, all the merchandising and all the stuff, the adaptations, all that helps keep the movie alive in your mind, but they're also doing interviews. Fan culture is rising. There are places like, you know, Starlog and whatever that they can like talk to, where these things can be distributed and then lodge into heads forever.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  So, and the same thing was going on in comics where there's a lot of our, a lot of our masters were, um, not giving, like Jack Kirby often refers to when there's a job, I have to make sales.

• 32:04Griffin Newman?

  Jack Kirby was the John Ford of, of comics. Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  And, and not in a, but he's never, he's never cranky like John Ford, but, but certainly would not give up, I am an artist until the, his much later years when, when enough people were yelling at him, you're an artist that he finally said, okay. Okay, I'm an artist, but uh, um, so there was like, like getting any kind of information about how to do any of this was really, you've, you've, you felt like an archaeologist. You felt like you had to like really sift through, you know, issues of comics, buyer's guide and comic scene magazine and Starlog, looking for just any kind of information about how to tell a story or what, you know? So anytime someone like Lucas and Spielberg particularly really couldn't wait to tell you how the magic trick worked.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  It was deeply exciting. I am also interested in, um, that they kind of stopped doing that after a while. Like there was a window, uh, well into the, but by the time they get to the third Indiana Jones, they have stopped sharing. Uh, they, he doesn't do director's commentaries. And if you think of anyone's doing director's commentaries, it's him. It's Spielberg. Cause like, it feels like all director's commentary is beholden to him. Uh, and, and he didn't do them. And it was strange and appealing at the same time that he, that he stopped sharing. I found that deeply fascinating.

• 33:29Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 33:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 33:33David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 33:35Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 33:35David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 33:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. She's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 33:42David Sims?

  Okay.

• 33:42Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 33:47David Sims?

  Wow.

• 33:48Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 33:50David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up. Well, while you, while you tell the, the great listeners about the great stuff on movie.

• 33:56Griffin Newman?

  Well, movie is a global film company, bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what movie does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 34:08David Sims?

  Yes.

• 34:09Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 34:10David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 34:11Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 34:17David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 34:18Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburg, Past and Future Guest.

• 34:20David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest.

• 34:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:24David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 34:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:26David Sims?

  Um, this movie rocks. It's got, of course it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 34:31Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 34:32David Sims?

  Legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 34:34Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 34:35David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 34:37Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 34:38David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 34:39Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 34:40David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. It won the Queer Paul McCann. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like it obviously has, it was out in theaters this summer and now it's on movie.

• 34:50Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to, to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 35:04David Sims?

  Yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 35:09Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 35:11Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 35:21David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on movie and you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 35:33Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 35:43Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 35:43David Sims?

  Yes.

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, and an A-list cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood as Lucy, David Johnson as Dr. Seward, and many more. That is an all-star cast.

• 36:05David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiance Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 36:25Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina may just hold the key to bring down the Count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 36:41David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Eschery and a spatial dolby Atmos sound design, Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home. Feel the terror of being hunted and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Audible's new full cast original adaptation, written by Robin Ahearn, now on Audible. Listen to the darkness. Go to audible.com/listen to Dracula.

• 37:15Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 37:16David Sims?

  Yes?

• 37:16Griffin Newman?

  Ugh.

• 37:17David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 37:18Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 37:19David Sims?

  Ah!

• 37:21Griffin Newman?

  And you know what that means, the old stereotype about November.

• 37:23David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 37:26David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 37:27Griffin Newman?

  Packed schedule, questionable food choices, and somehow a social calendar that got way fuller than you planned. And I ain't talking about Sam Fuller. We're not covering him yet in the podcast.

• 37:36David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 37:37Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 37:38David Sims?

  I can't remember. Big Red One. We could call it the Big Red Podcast.

• 37:42Griffin Newman?

  Listen, when things get complicated, not when life is easy, when you got time for a whole routine, right now, when everything is full and something has to give one scoop cold water every morning before anything else, as I like to say, scoop there it is.

• 37:55David Sims?

  You do like to say that every morning you text me, scoop there it is. And that means I now know that you had your AG1.

• 38:02Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 38:03David Sims?

  Uh, but yeah, you're, I know you're, you're a daily AG1 user and it's basically the, uh, the glue that holds your internal organs together at this point.

• 38:11Griffin Newman?

  It's not just marketing. AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials, not weekend a study.

• 38:18David Sims?

  Thank you for that.

• 38:19Griffin Newman?

  Four independent studies with key nutrient levels improved within three months of consistent use. This is the thing I like about AG1. They're not resting on their laurels. They constantly work to better themselves.

• 38:31David Sims?

  Um, yes, AG1. They've got now AG1 Pro.

• 38:35Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 38:36David Sims?

  Same daily drink now with the performance and recovery layer built in. So you've got five grams of Cre vitalis, a premium German made creatine monohydrate, and one of the most studied compounds in sports science, plus CAHMB for muscle protection and zinc carnosine for gut support.

• 38:54Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 38:55David Sims?

  Next gen is the foundation pro adds what your body needs to recover.

• 38:59Griffin Newman?

  You might be having some big meals this November. AG1 is what you need to keep your gut in check. Keep things, as I like to put it, regular.

• 39:07David Sims?

  Yes. So for a limited time, visit drink AG1.com slash check and get a free immune support bundle, including omega three, fish oil and vitamin D three plus K2 with your first subscription of AG1 next gen or AG1 Pro. That's drink AG1.com slash check. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Belank check send you.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  I want to swivel back to your child, like, so 1980, you see Empire Strikes Back. You have this experience with a cliffhanger 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark comes out.

• 39:46Griffin Newman?

  So you're 14, is that right?

• 39:48Speaker 04

  So I'm 13.

• 39:49Griffin Newman?

  13.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  How? I'm 13, 14 years old.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  How aware are you of this coming down the pike? Like, what's?

• 39:54Speaker 04

  All in.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Right?

• 39:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  That's the thing, how it was sold to us. And it was funny when I was talking to people about doing this, a couple of people said, what could you possibly say about Raiders Lost Ark?

• 40:06Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  That hasn't been said.

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

  This is the issue we get into sometimes.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Challenge of these episodes.

• 40:10Griffin Newman?

  When we do the most totemic movies of all time, like you're like, it is kind of impossible to overstate the impact of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When you're like, oh, it was one of the most successful movies of all time. It launched one of the most enduring franchises in history. It is like key movie star text, key filmmaking text. It is like a movie that everyone is still kind of ripping off or trying to like chase. And then you're also like, it was fucking nominated for best picture. Like it just kind of did everything. Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  Everything right, everything that could be. So here, here's what I came up, they go, what, what, what is there left to discuss with Raiders a lot that hasn't been discussed? And I go, I honestly don't think I've heard a serious conversation about this movie post Fableman's, which to me completely changed my perspective on some of the elements of this movie and what he was doing and why he was doing it, including the fact that he lived with the monkey. He lived with the monkey. I never in the 57 years I've been alive on this planet, knew that young Steven Spielberg lived with this little monkey. My, my kids are growing up with a little chihuahua. My wife has a chihuahua,

• 41:18Speaker 04

  our pandemic dog. And I, and I, and I, I wonder which one of my kids will make art out of the, out of the chihuahua like, like Spielberg had to with the monkey. So it's just like, so there's that. And also, like, I have a very deep memory of how we were sold Steven Spielberg of the time. And it was all, you know, the keeping it light and keeping it, you know, based, you know, compared to Fableman's. But like, I remember my mom going, you know, Steven Spielberg gave his mother a Bloomingdale's card with no limit. Like he, she can go to Bloomingdale's, buy whatever she wants, whatever she wants.

• 41:56Griffin Newman?

  Right. If you, Brian, if you like telling stories, this is what you need to aspire to be, and then how you need to handle that level of success.

• 42:05Speaker 04

  So that was always like, and I'm sitting there, well, I'm going to be a comic creator. So that will be no problem at all. For me to accomplish that goal. But so, so, but it was so interesting that it was such a,

• 42:17Speaker 04

  it was my mom really trying to share with me, like some kind of information about this thing that I won't shut up about, right? So she, she heard something, she shared it with me, but it did still with me. Oh, like the, the mother relationship. And then you see it for real, laid out later in his later work and in Fableman's, you're like, oh, took him a long time to get there. Yeah.

• 42:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, and it, it took us a long time in our history to get around to. The balance due of early Spielberg. I'm so fucking happy we waited to do it until post Fableman's.

• 42:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 42:49Griffin Newman?

  Cause it does really make all of these movies.

• 42:52David Sims?

  Make a little bit more sense or whatever. I mean.

• 42:54Griffin Newman?

  We're just interesting from different angles now. I, when I watch a movie like this, which I've seen a number of times, you know, I'll, I'll just, I, I feel like I talked about this a little bit when we did our Crystal Skull episode. Eight million years ago, an episode that wasn't controversial at all.

• 43:10David Sims?

  Good movie.

• 43:10Griffin Newman?

  But like Indiana Jones was a weird blind spot for me. I was.

• 43:14David Sims?

  Yeah, I do remember you talking about this. It's not your franchise in the way that say Star Wars.

• 43:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, it just wasn't. And like I had the baby version of what you're describing with Star Wars, which is I didn't see them until the special editions came out. So I had that thing of the movies being released one month apart. And feeling like, oh, there's a kid at school who says he has a VHS of Empire Strikes Back, but that's cheating. I need to wait three weeks until Empire comes out in February, you know? And like people at school being like, you know Darth Vader's their dad, right? And I'm like, that's impossible. What the fuck are you talking about? But having this mini three month arc of needing to wait to see the next one. I just never seen Indiana Jones and I feel like it was a movie that most kids I know were like shown when they were five.

• 43:59David Sims?

  I don't know if I should.

• 43:59Griffin Newman?

  That was a thing that like parents just passed down to people very early. I feel like it was a thing I knew through osmosis. I saw 8,000 parodies of the boulder rolling. I knew what the theme song was. I could make jokes about Indiana Jones. But like, I just never got around to watching them. And then when Crystal Skull was coming out, my roommate at the time, Spike, was like, how have you never seen these? Gave me his DVD box set. I watched all three of them, I think in the week leading up to Crystal Skull. So a lot of my opinion of Crystal Skull is also like shifted by, I didn't have decades of living with this thing in expectation before I saw the one that everyone got angry about. You know, like those four movies all were seen for the first time in the same week for me.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  I can't even imagine what that feels like.

• 44:42Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 44:43Speaker 04

  Crazy, yeah.

• 44:44Griffin Newman?

  And I have, in whatever it's been, the 15 years since then, more, 18, gone back to watch Raiders a lot. And every time I do, I try to sort of like remove layers of my awareness and try to get myself into the headspace of just watching this as a pure object.

• 45:02David Sims?

  Right. You're just sitting in the theater. You know Harrison Ford's in it, but that's all you know. And you just watch this extremely fun, rip-roaring adventure.

• 45:09Griffin Newman?

  Right. The thing I cannot even imagine is for, for you being your age, your generation, already invested in this shit. The mere news of, hey, Spielberg and Lucas are gonna make a movie together must have been fucking mind-blowing. That these two guys are like, you know, neck and neck chasing each other. You know that they're friends. That's part of the mythology, that these guys are buddies. They kind of come out of the same soup. They're two sides of like the same coin. You know, here's like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones inspiring each other. And then it's like they're, they're doing, they're unifying their powers. Here's like the mega project.

• 45:50Speaker 04

  And I remember, and that was a, like, how interesting is, yes, he's the director of the films and so, but I remember growing up as it's, it's a Steven Spielberg joint that Lucas is part of, right? But when you read the transcripts, which is part of what I was excited to bring to George Lucas Talk Show, that you read the transcripts and it is shocking how much Lucas had this locked down. Like, he really had this figured out from the get-go in, in a way that's even stronger than the way he had Star Wars locked down. Star Wars was always, you know, you know, building and building and building until it became what it was, right?

• 46:33Speaker 04

  Including the scroll. Like, every, everything was like stuck onto it as it went. But he really sat down with those guys and goes, here's what we're doing. And had like major parts of it locked down. I love this transcript. For those who don't know, online, you can find the, literally the transcript and the recording of Spielberg, Lucas and Kazdin.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  Just working it out, just, just, you know, doing a little mini writer's room and, and figuring it out. And it is glorious for someone like me who always sat there and going, why is it so hard for me to figure out how to create things? Right? And then when you see the three masters in a room, also not figuring it out right away. I mean, my favorite moment in the transcript is when someone says, maybe Marion's the villain. And I'm like, oh my God, like, you know, like, like, because you're sitting there going, that's not a bad story. Like, that's not a bad way to go with this. But, oh my God, I'm so glad they did it. And oh my God, I'm so glad they shared this with, like, just the, the idea of the multiverse of madness that could have come out of that room.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  It is so brilliant to me. And I, but I, I, I just, I just was so impressed with George Lucas in those transcripts. So you really get to see the magic that is him at a full blast. Anyway.

• 47:52Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's the whole thing about him that is so fascinating and maddening at the same time, where you're like, this guy who just like, had this incredible flow state period and a weird lack of self-awareness, where he was either like, so right or so wrong. And there is like, a pretty dramatic moment where the pendulum kind of swings. And it's so easy now, I feel like in a modern context, people sort of write him off and go like, oh, he's like a broken clock that was right twice a day, you know? But everyone else around him made really good decisions and people saved him from his worst instincts. And Raiders is like, as you said, this thing he basically

• 48:32Griffin Newman?

  brings to Spielberg and is like, I'm hiring you to direct this. Like, this is a four hire job for you to execute my vision of this thing I've mapped out. And this is a movie that has like, four primary authors in Spielberg, Lucas, Kasdan, and Ford, where the movie doesn't work if you're missing any one of those four guys. But I do think they all, in a lot of ways, contribute equally to the, the soup of the thing, even if Lucas is primarily the first 25%. It's also, I mean, good moment to crack open the dossier, but talk about this as a comeback movie. This is a

• 49:11Griffin Newman?

  movie that like largely stems out of two failures, which are like the miss of 1941 and Spielberg being like, have I fucked up? Combined with all his movies up until then had gone over budget, over schedule, were lauded, were successful. You know, he had the Jaws, Close Encounters thing like as feathers in his cap, but the second 1941 bombs, it's like, well, now we can acknowledge that this guy is, is not infallible. And maybe it's not worth putting up with his shit if sometimes he's gonna make something like that.

• 49:45David Sims?

  That, that costs us a lot of money is along with everything else.

• 49:49Griffin Newman?

  And then the other big thing is Spielberg desperately wanting to be the first American to direct a James Bond movie, a thing that he keeps getting fucking rejected from doing. He's made two of the biggest movies of all time and they will not let him through the door.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  I like that rejection at this level hits him so hard that even decades later, he still brings it up. Like, he's still kinda mad he didn't get directed to James Bond.

• 50:12Griffin Newman?

  Right, that he was like, I mean, fucking Jaws. Like, what more do you want out of somebody?

• 50:17David Sims?

  So, the dossier, I am opening it, Rage of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg. They are admirers before they're friends, we should say, right? Like, George is a little older than Spielberg, is that right? Or at least he's a little more, he's creatively further along than Spielberg, right? Like, George Lucas is already established by the time that Spielberg is emerging as a filmmaker. Spielberg-

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Well, Lucas is also part of Coppola's situation for a long time.

• 50:43David Sims?

  Like, there's all these stories of, yeah, Lucas is three years old of him.

• 50:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay. But the other interesting thing is that, like, Lucas goes to film school, right? Like, links up with all these people, comes out with a better reputation faster in a certain way than Spielberg, who is the wonderkin who skips straight to a studio contract.

• 51:04David Sims?

  Yes.

• 51:05Griffin Newman?

  But is not getting that sort of prestige around him, whereas Lucas, it's like you have Coppola and everyone saying like, this guy's a genius.

• 51:12David Sims?

  Um, but yeah, so Coppola and Lucas, I'll, I'll notice Spielberg when Duel comes out on TV and After American Graffiti comes out, George Lucas starts to daydream of like, let's make a sort of B picture at an A picture scale, right? Like, an old republic film serial from the 30s and 40s, your Flash Gordons and all that. But how he has this idea of like a 1930s style supernatural grave robber archaeologist type thing, right? Which is, that's the Indiana Smith is the character he comes up with.

• 51:47Griffin Newman?

  No notes, perfect name.

• 51:49David Sims?

  And he does, I mean, his original, this is George Lucas's original conception does sound about right, which is like college professor goes off on adventures, also can be founded a nightclub with like 30s ladies on his arms, right? He brings in Philip Kaufman, who is, uh, well, where's Philip Kaufman at this point? He was pretty, again, already an established filmmaker to sort of flesh it out. Kaufman is like, eh, drop the nightclub and the ladies for now. Like, you don't really need that. You more want this to be like, this kind of like intellectual slash adventurer thing. Like, he's a professor, but he's also fighting the Nazis. He's, you know, smart, but he also is finding like magic shit. Right? Cause that's the thing about Niniya Jones, you're like, oh, he's like this smart professional.

• 52:33David Sims?

  He's like, yeah, that's that magic box from God. And you're like, what? And he's like, you know, who knows? Or maybe it's just a box. I don't know, but might be like, have like Jewish magic inside of it. Don't open it.

• 52:44Griffin Newman?

  That all these movies are like about the, uh, meeting place between like hard facts and science and history and like, uh, inexplicable religious phenomena.

• 52:56David Sims?

  So as Lucas is developing this, his other passion project, Star Wars takes off. So.

• 53:02Griffin Newman?

  And how did that turn out?

• 53:04David Sims?

  Eh, I don't know. I can't check right now. I think it did okay.

• 53:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 53:08David Sims?

  But in.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  But to the theme of your podcast, it does seem that Raiders of the Lost Ark is his blank check.

• 53:13Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 53:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:15David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 53:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. Cause I mean, obviously Empire and Jedi, it's like, well, he now owns the rights. He gets to like, turn this into like an industry and map out where Star Wars goes. But there's a certain extent of like, they're not an obligation, but it's like, well, of course I have to keep doing Star Wars. This feels like the second major new thing he is creating.

• 53:39David Sims?

  Well, the other thing that happens right after Star Wars comes out and begins to conquer the world is that Steven Spielberg goes on vacation with George Lucas.

• 53:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 53:48David Sims?

  They go to Hawaii. Spielberg is wrapping up on Close Encounters, which also comes out in 1977, of course. And Spielberg mentions offhandedly, like, a dream of mine is to make like a James Bond movie. And George Lucas is like, I have that beat.

• 54:04Griffin Newman?

  I have something better than that.

• 54:04David Sims?

  Right. I have the, I have the same basic idea, but better. And it's this Raiders of the Lost Ark idea. And as Spielberg says on hearing it, he said, I felt like I was eating a barrel of popcorn at a noon matinee. Like, because it's basically just like, you can do a James Bond movie, but with a more fun aesthetic, a more you aesthetic in a way, right? Not this British spy aesthetic.

• 54:24Griffin Newman?

  What is the American James Bond?

• 54:25David Sims?

  Right. And it can be a globe trotting adventure. That's fun. Like, you know, and all that. And Spielberg had been, says he had called Cubby Broccoli after Jaws came out, being like, hello, do you want to hire me? Like, like begging him for Bond. And that's not how Broccoli did business, right? Like, he, you know, he had his like, three British guys who did, you know, John Glenn and Guy Hamilton, those guys. Like, he's not going to hire this American wunderkind. So he's not going to make James Bond.

• 54:52Griffin Newman?

  I feel like it's part of the fascinating mythology of this movie that like, even, and I imagine this was the case with you, Brian, like, the George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, like Hawaii beach conversations have taken on this mythical quality over time, where there were all these kind of regular powwows they would do at these sort of like check-ins at like, the parallel moments in their career. There's the infamous story of before Close Encounters and Star Wars come out, and they're both absolutely terrified about how their movies are going to do. And they consider making a deal to swap profit participation. Like, each one thinks the other guy's movie is going to work.

• 55:33David Sims?

  They're both like, ah, God, yeah.

• 55:35Griffin Newman?

  Right. And the fascinating thing of, you're just like, it boggles the mind that there was space for both Star Wars and Close Encounters to exist at that level in the same year. It feels like a case where the audience would vote on which version of a sci-fi movie they wanted. And both of them working to that extent is insane.

• 55:53Speaker 04

  I am, I am, I believe Aaron Sorkin will one day write a movie about three vacations of Lucas and Spielberg.

• 56:00David Sims?

  Oh, that actually would.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  At their different ages.

• 56:02David Sims?

  That would be fun. So Philip Kaufman nominally is the first choice to direct the movie because he had worked with Lucas on it at a certain point. But Philip Kaufman loses interest. So Lucas brings it back to Spielberg more officially. Are you interested? Yes, I am. And so then they look for a screenplay, a writer to actually write a full screenplay. They really just have like a story sketched out and they read this script called Continental Divide. They had been written by Larry Kasdan, who had only written another script called The Bodyguard.

• 56:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes, right.

• 56:32David Sims?

  Which would not have been made.

• 56:33Griffin Newman?

  And Continental Divide is the one that ends up being the Belushi movie?

• 56:36David Sims?

  Yes, but they like these scripts.

• 56:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:38David Sims?

  So they like, they think he has a Howard Hawksian sensibility, very fun. And so they're just basically like, you know, will you turn this into a proper screenplay for us?

• 56:51Griffin Newman?

  It's wild that they kind of take a flyer on him. It's wild that he was so firmly the right choice when neither of those scripts seem to be obvious indicators.

• 57:01David Sims?

  Right. Speak to a Raiders thing.

• 57:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then he obviously has his like a time in the Lucasfilm trenches. But then you look at what his career becomes once he goes off as his own director. And it does feel weird to be like, wait, right, Raiders was written by the guy who did Mumford?

• 57:18David Sims?

  Sure.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Or even Body Heat. Like you're like, did you pitch Spielberg Body Heat? Like, did that ever happen?

• 57:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 04

  Which was at the time for people to know, the sexiest thing that ever been.

• 57:31David Sims?

  It's a hot movie.

• 57:32Griffin Newman?

  It's one of Connor's favorite things to bring up, which is true.

• 57:37David Sims?

  Larry Kasdan wrote Body Heat. No.

• 57:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, that Lucas produced Body Heat, but had his name removed from it because he thought that people would be turned off of the movie being sexy with his name attached. It's like the Mel Brooks Elephant Man thing where it's like, they'll think it's a comedy. He's like, if my name is on it, it will not be taken seriously as an erotic work.

• 57:58David Sims?

  Right. It's fair.

• 57:58Speaker 04

  Wow. I did not know that one. That's a great one. That's fantastic.

• 58:01David Sims?

  So Lucas and Spielberg, they do fight a little bit. As Spielberg puts it, like George loves logic and sometimes you'll get sort of swallowed up by the logic, right? Like trying to make a fun story. But George will back off when you are like, no, I want to do this and I, I'm going to go shoot my movie. He says George is a bit like Disney. He does put a vision out there that's so attractive, you'd be a fool or a slave to your own ego if you denied it just because it didn't come from you. Interesting. Their biggest dispute was Tote, you know, the evil German guy Ronald Lacy's character. Spielberg wanted to have a prosthetic hand that was like a machine gun and a flamethrower. And they have like concept art that they had built up with this.

• 58:44David Sims?

  And George Lucas was like, that's the wrong genre. Like, that's sci fi.

• 58:48Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 58:48David Sims?

  Like, I don't care how cool that sounds. Right. Like,

• 58:51Griffin Newman?

  That's fucking James Bond shit.

• 58:52David Sims?

  Yeah, that's too much. Like, we're not having a robot armed Nazi.

• 58:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 58:57David Sims?

  Right. You know, and in my opinion, George Lucas, as metal as that sounds, like, George Lucas is completely correct. Like, these guys are all the scarier because they're just three fucking guys in hats who are like, maybe Hitler would like this coffin.

• 59:11Griffin Newman?

  But it is fascinating when the James Bond franchise is so based on technology, right? That the cornerstone of the thing is that Q is showing you the 10 new objects and what the car can do and all of that, that they're making this movie where they're like, technology's not the thing, but also magic exists.

• 59:27Speaker 04

  No, like, Star Wars, like, like, changed James Bond. They went into outer space.

• 59:32Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 59:32Speaker 04

  James Bond went to, went to the moon because of Star Wars. So,

• 59:36Griffin Newman?

  He raped that moon.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 04

  Yes, he did.

• 59:40David Sims?

  So, Indiana Smith, there's a Steve McQueen movie called Nevada Smith. So Spielberg's like, what do we do about that? And they're like, Indiana Jones. So there you go. That's how that happened. And yes, there is the famous transcript that Brian was referencing that does have the infamous moment where they reference, like, how young should Marion have been when they had this tryst?

• 1:00:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:00:06David Sims?

  That when you read it now, you're like, a little skeeved out by. But they are, they are sort of playing with how, like, shocking or transgressive can they make it? Uh, the movie is very vague about it. It has the kind of like, I was old, I was old enough, you know, like, but like, it does not throw down any numbers.

• 1:00:26Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, I think an incredibly wise decision, uh, I think is like a perfect kind of, um, Spielberg, uh, what, what are, at this point in time, his judgment, 1941 aside, is sort of so impeccable about like, what is the information you need to give the audience? And what do they not need to be concerned with? Like, he just knows how to portion out the exact right amount of visual information, narrative information, backstory and whatever. If, if that, if numbers are left out only because he thought it was like excess fat, it is a decision that has greatly helped the legacy of the movie.

• 1:01:07David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 1:01:07Griffin Newman?

  Long term.

• 1:01:09David Sims?

  So Kazdin, you know, he writes the script, takes six months. He said he basically never checked in with them, just went off and did it himself. Steven's working on 1941. George is working on Empire Strikes Back. Uh, they give him a researcher named W. Fine, who brings him all this research about like Hitler and the occult and Egypt at the time and all that stuff. Uh, he delivers the script and George is like, let's take lunch. And they sit down and George is like, do you want to write Empire Strikes Back? I'm like, working on this sequel. And Larry Kazdin's like, do you want to read this script first? And he was like, uh, I'll read it, but you have the job. I'll call you tomorrow if I hate this script. And, uh, you know, he didn't have to read it.

• 1:01:46Griffin Newman?

  Wow. But like Lucas had basically become his own studio at this point. Like, this is the weird thing of he's insulating these guys from like studio notes. And, and perhaps there are early signs of things that will plague later Lucas productions.

• 1:02:02David Sims?

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:02:02Griffin Newman?

  In this attitude where it's like, guess what? Like Larry Kazdin was the right horse to bet on.

• 1:02:06David Sims?

  Yes. And he had a feeling about him and he was right.

• 1:02:09Griffin Newman?

  It might be a little insane to just be like, I'm not reading this draft. I'm hiring you to write another thing.

• 1:02:13David Sims?

  Yeah, to write The Empire Strikes Back. Like, once again, like a thing where it's like, you weren't even in with the, the last Star Wars movie, but I don't care. I want you to write this. Some stuff that got cut though, there was a, a somewhat of a love attract, a love triangle between Marion and Belik and. Indeed.

• 1:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:32David Sims?

  They got rid of that. Just a lot of the stuff they cut was just like, this thing needs to move. Like, you know, just, just pare it down, pare it down. They go to, uh, now, so now they have this package. Lucas producing, Spielberg's directing, Kazan wrote it. Frank Marshall is also producing it. Right? And, uh, they take it to Hollywood, essentially. And they're like, let's make the greatest deal in the history of Hollywood. Like, I think they, they truly were like, I guess 1941 hadn't come out yet, too. So they are like big swinging dicks.

• 1:03:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. But that's the big difference.

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  If, if 1941's got like a, like a tail to it, but at the time, even though it was a big loud thing that wasn't Close Encounters, but it didn't fail. It was like on cable.

• 1:03:17David Sims?

  You're right. It wasn't. Yes.

• 1:03:18Speaker 04

  Like it just sat on showtime. There were certain movies that just lived on Showtime and became but part of our consciousness. Not all good, like.

• 1:03:26David Sims?

  No, of course not. Right. It's a, it's a somewhat of a long tail cult thing. I mean, yes. It failed at the lofty expectations of a Steven Spielberg follow up.

• 1:03:34Griffin Newman?

  There's this infamous story about in, I guess, the early 2000s when Eisner was overseeing, Michael Eisner, who's also involved in this film, uh, but Eisner was, uh, overseeing the Pixar rollout of the five film deal that he had made around Toy Story, right? And the movies were getting bigger and bigger and more and more lauded. And other Disney execs were like, we need to come up with a plan for how we continue our relationship with Pixar because our contract with them is going to run out and their value is going up so much. They're going to have all the negotiating leverage. And Eisner said to them, they're going to have a flop.

• 1:04:18Griffin Newman?

  And when they have a flop, they'll come back to us and we hold the cards and we pounce. And then the next movie that came out was Finding Nemo.

• 1:04:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:04:24Griffin Newman?

  Was the highest grossing animated film of all time. And they were like, you fucked up.

• 1:04:29David Sims?

  Right. You could have had this. Yeah. They bet on the wrong way.

• 1:04:31Griffin Newman?

  You could have had it. And it's one of the things that leads to Eisner's downfall. Right? I think within the industry, there was a similar thing going on with Spielberg where like Eisner was scared at that moment with Pixar. They are never going to be able to receive any oversight because they've done so well without our interference up till this point that they're not scared of us. And I think Spielberg's success was so meteoric, just on like Jaws and Close Encounters back to back, that I think the industry probably was excited for 1941 to not work because it's like, maybe this guy's come down to earth. Maybe he can be controlled now.

• 1:05:14Griffin Newman?

  But the fact that he has already set up this deal with Lucas, that Lucas is the one who basically is putting himself in the position to have oversight over him. And that on top of that, he himself now has this chip on his shoulder of like, I want to prove them wrong and become responsible.

• 1:05:32David Sims?

  The deal they're offering to these studios, to be clear, is like, we own the movie, George owns the negative, you get action for distributing it, like you get some money. Universal says no. Fox and Disney and Warner Brothers say no. Paramount is like, okay. Even though this is going to make like, need to make like $60 million domestic before we even, you know, see any money, we'll take the risk. Obviously, it was a good gamble by them. But this is right, this is before the days of like, well, no, we need to own the intellectual property because the whole point is we can then create whole universes around the television, or video games, action figures and all that.

• 1:06:08Griffin Newman?

  But it's, it's the legendary Lucas deal where he gives up his salary and his points as a director on Star Wars to retain the control and the merch. And like, the deal that, you know, people say like, the last time that will ever fucking happen. The studios made that mistake one time, but they gave Lucas the power to be able to just demand that as his terms from here on out.

• 1:06:32David Sims?

  So, uh, yeah, Eisner is the guy at Paramount who makes it happen, just FYI. And they get 60, 40 grosses until the grosses reach $35 million, and then it goes to 50/50. All merchandising and franchise rights remain with George Lucas. Sequels are planned by the, planned from the jump, but you know, they have approval and all that. Harrison Ford is not the first choice to play Indiana Jones as I feel like Tom Selleck is often listed as the famous first choice that like passed on it. And I think it's like, that is kind of true. He was committed to a TV, to Magnum P.I. And they definitely like

• 1:07:13David Sims?

  screen tested him and they liked that he looked like Jim Staranko, the famous comic book illustrator, had done some concept art that kind of looked like.

• 1:07:22Griffin Newman?

  He certainly looks like a classic square jawed Paul Piro.

• 1:07:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:07:28Griffin Newman?

  Even a little more than Harrison Ford, who's obviously maybe the hottest man who ever lived.

• 1:07:32David Sims?

  Harrison Ford's so handsome.

• 1:07:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:07:34David Sims?

  But have you seen these, uh, this concept art?

• 1:07:37Griffin Newman?

  Has he seen the concept?

• 1:07:39David Sims?

  I'm just making sure.

• 1:07:40Speaker 04

  Can I just show you the cup for Christ? Anyway, so, um, uh, yes, but here, so Jim Staranko, for those who don't know, is kind of like one of our Orson Welles in comics.

• 1:07:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes, like great.

• 1:07:50Speaker 04

  Like he was, he was at the time, miles ahead of what everything that was going on in the mainstream comics and most famous for like, kind of like creating the Nick Fury that people would refer to as Nick Fury up until Samuel L. Jackson, like that, that the cigar chop and.

• 1:08:07David Sims?

  But when you see his Nick Fury stuff, like his, like, it feels like it's from 80 years in the future, right? You're like, I can't believe this is from the 60s or whenever it was, you know, like, it feels so modern.

• 1:08:20Griffin Newman?

  But like Nick Fury, his Nick Fury looks like Tom Selleck, right? Like Tom Selleck looks like the sort of like archetypical handsome action star of comics of the 60s and 70s and 80s in just kind of the like impossible jawline, cheekbones, chin.

• 1:08:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so the look, the, what you refer to as Indiana Jones is, is right there, right up front in the, in these storyboards and concept art pieces that just, just Staranko did. Um, sometimes he is very, very credited with this, sometimes not in a weird way. Like I'm always interested in, because one of my favorite things about Steven Spielberg, that we'll repeat for sure during this whole run that you're doing now is how generous he is about giving people credit. For really big things in Steven Spielberg's career, like, oh, the boulder was this person's idea. Like, he'll never, he'll never take credit for something that was someone else's idea, which, as we know in Hollywood, is unicorn behavior.

• 1:09:24Speaker 04

  And I, and certainly something that I even, like, I will aspire to that. Like, I looked at that as, that's someone I want to grow up to be. Like, someone who always can give credit where credit is due.

• 1:09:37Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:07David Sims?

  Right, it is.

• 1:10:08Griffin Newman?

  The Selig thing, you know, there's the infamous kind of like, American Graffiti, Carrie, shared casting sessions. Or, no, it's Carrie and Star Wars.

• 1:10:19David Sims?

  Carrie, yeah, sure.

• 1:10:20Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 1:10:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Griffin Newman?

  But then American Graffiti has its own casting session. This sort of like, generation, am I wrong about this, Brian?

• 1:10:26Speaker 04

  That's why I was carrying American Graffiti begat Star Wars.

• 1:10:30Griffin Newman?

  You're right.

• 1:10:30Speaker 04

  Like, that was, okay.

• 1:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes, there's, there's all that like, pooled casting pot, though, of all the kind of young actors in the 70s who like, read for all of these movies, kept on going in. Lucas had this like, very specific kind of bugbear of like, I don't want to reuse actors.

• 1:10:47David Sims?

  He, that's part, yeah, he's the one who's like, eh, Harrison in another thing, like, let's not, like, you know, they also, Peter Coyote and Tim Matheson are two names they like.

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  Well, when you, when you watch the, the screen tests, you get, you got, you got your, you got your Magnum P.I. And I, it feels like they did give it to him, but when you watch the screen test even, you're like, Yeah, yeah, no, it's Harrison Ford. But the one that's closest in the screen test is Tim Matheson. Looks like, well, if I was seriously looking at that footage and I had to make a choice, that Tim Matheson is interesting, but not Harrison Ford. I just, it's just, it's just not there. And also the Sean Young of it all.

• 1:11:30Griffin Newman?

  Well, yes, but the, the kind of like American Graffiti, Animal House, all these movies that are kind of these incubators of like, here's the next wave of people who's gonna pop and who's gonna be a movie star. Harrison Ford infamously had to fight really hard to get Lucas to consider him from Star Wars, because he had found all these young actors for American Graffiti and then was like, I don't want to repeat the same cast. I need new faces. That's why he's doing this like pooled casting session and trying to find new people and Harrison Ford's the reader. And finally, he's like, I guess I can't deny this fucking guy. But I think going into Raiders, he feels even more so like, I can't do this a third time.

• 1:12:10David Sims?

  Well, he had famously, Ford refused to sign a three picture deal for, to play Han Solo, which is why he kind of has them over a barrel when they're doing the other movies where he's like, please kill me off. And like, no, no, no, you know. So George is like, he's gonna do that again. Harrison Ford reads the script to raise the lost ark and immediately signs a three picture deal. So he's like, very, very on board in a way that I guess he, he's more enthusiastic. And he, you know, Spielberg is like, the initial concept of this character was like, two fisted lover, cad, hellion, right? You know, like Harrison takes him out of that mold a little bit. Like, makes him feel a little like, more like one foot in

• 1:12:53David Sims?

  each world, right? Like, you know, a little, a little more academic, but also a little more like gritty and grounded. I mean, how to describe what Harrison Ford is doing?

• 1:13:02Griffin Newman?

  Especially when like Han Solo is like, kind of the ultimate finesse character. And you obviously have your big moments where like, his guard comes down.

• 1:13:11David Sims?

  Well, the whole magic of Han Solo is that he's full of shit. Like, in Star Wars.

• 1:13:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  I do have a hot take here. If you will join me on this. And if not, that's okay. But I, having grown up with this, a part of my perspective of Harrison Ford is, is, is

• 1:13:30Speaker 04

  altered a little bit by the existence of a movie called The Frisco Kid.

• 1:13:37Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 1:13:37Griffin Newman?

  The Gene Wilder picture.

• 1:13:39David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  So in in Cleveland, where I grew up.

• 1:13:42David Sims?

  Which he makes in between it comes out in between Star Wars and Empire, right?

• 1:13:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:45David Sims?

  Like, or maybe, yeah, it's like seventy nine.

• 1:13:47Griffin Newman?

  It's one of his, like, first follow up. What do I do now that I'm a movie star?

• 1:13:51David Sims?

  Yes, right.

• 1:13:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52Speaker 04

  Yes, it's a it's a Western comedy starring a very, very into it Gene Wilder, playing a very loud rabbi. And and Harrison Ford playing a gunslinger of Harrison Ford energy. And and these it's it's basically a road picture where this where Han Solo is taking a rabbi across the across the thing. And eventually they get to meet each other's cultures and kind of like figure out stuff. This was the most Jewish movie I had ever seen in my life at this age. And in Cleveland, it played in a theater in the Jewish neighborhood, in the Center Mayfield Theater

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  in Cleveland, Ohio, every Saturday for years.

• 1:14:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:14:40Speaker 04

  And it played like fucking Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean, I played like after Shabbos, the Jews would come and watch Han Solo give us representation. And and then, of course, people would whisper, you know, he's Jewish. Like, this is now made famous by.

• 1:14:57Griffin Newman?

  Harrison Ford, a quarter Jewish, not too shabby. Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, made famous by Adam Sandler's Hanukkah song.

• 1:15:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:04Speaker 04

  But like, but as Jews, we would, we had, we'd call them. We at least, at least the Jews I knew had had declared.

• 1:15:11David Sims?

  Don't you forget, he is Jewish, he's Jewish.

• 1:15:14Speaker 04

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

• 1:15:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But the whole aspect of this movie being this like Nazi revenge movie, right? It goes beyond just being, uh, you know, a, an adventure film in which the Nazis are easy villains because we all know who to root for in that situation, or at least hope that one would know who to root for in that situation.

• 1:16:10Griffin Newman?

  Is heightened by it being all about like basically the intervention of God? And this sort of like course correction that possibly arguably creates an alternate timeline? You know?

• 1:16:22Speaker 04

  I have a very strong memory of like when the movie, or we're seeing the movie and then the, the ark is in the, you know, in the basement of the submarine not being attended to. And then, uh, God kind of like blocks out the, the Nazi symbol with kind of an amorphous shape that kind of looks like a mugged of it. It's got like six stars, like almost, and, and my mom like elbowed me and went mugged of it. And I'm like, I'm like, oh my God, like, it's like, it, it was like, oh my God, is, is God just got? Like it's everything about it was like, every kid, like it's a 10 commandments sequel. Like it was just everything about it was, was strange and I didn't know what was happening like my.

• 1:17:02Griffin Newman?

  But that's what's so fascinating about this coming fairly formed from Lucas first is that he's like a hyper wasp. And then he like assigns Larry Kasdan and Spielberg to be the ones who actually realized this thing. And through some combination of like conscious effort and just their own mentality and their history and their background, all this stuff gets coded into it. But like Lucas is the one who's designing this around the, the ark of the covenant and the tablets and all of that, right?

• 1:17:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:34Speaker 04

  Well, let me, let me ask you, having watched all four of them in a weekend.

• 1:17:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:37Speaker 04

  Did any of this click with you?

• 1:17:39Griffin Newman?

  No, absolutely not. I like, when I was watching it for the first time, I, I remember, here's like a very distinctive memory I have. Watching the first one. Uh, this was in the worst apartment I ever lived in where my bedroom was the living room where the TV was and I slept on two mattresses behind a couch. And I watched the movie and I came out and I knocked on Spike's bedroom and he said, "So what do you think?" And I went, "Yeah, it's a lot of fun." And he was like, "A lot of fun? What are you talking about? It's the best movie ever made." And I was like, "No, it's like a fun movie." Uh, and then I, I don't like Temple of Doom very much. I'm excited to re-watch it.

• 1:18:14David Sims?

  Yeah, but it's a, it's a flawed movie.

• 1:18:16Griffin Newman?

  I have always struggled with it.

• 1:18:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Griffin Newman?

  And like Last Crusade has always been the one that is my favorite.

• 1:18:21David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a very Griffey movie.

• 1:18:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:18:45David Sims?

  I mean, right. I mean, for me, I've always, I always had locked into the, the three movies before Crystal Skull existed.

• 1:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:52David Sims?

  You know, they're all religious in a different way. Like this is about Jewish mysticism. Temple Doom is about Hindu mysticism. Last Crusade is about Christian, you know, sort of folk, right mysticism. And it's sort of annoying that, uh, Crystal Skull doesn't have any of that. Crystal Skull's doing the thing where it's like, well, now it's the 50s. So we're, what was the genre of the 50s is, uh, you know, is more like sci-fi. We're going to do aliens. And I just wish it had picked a lane, but we can talk.

• 1:19:19Griffin Newman?

  We devoted a whole episode to it. I, I think that movie is fine to, yes.

• 1:19:23David Sims?

  The weird Jewish mystic undertones of Raiders of the Lost Ark are fun to me because I think this movie is dark and scary and weird in a way that I love. Temple of Doom, you know, presses on that pedal a little too hard. Uh, and I kind of enjoy how nasty it is, but it's a, it's a mean spirited movie in a way this isn't, but this movie is sort of haunted like and scary and, and it's fun, but it's also like, yeah, it's kind of terrifying to consider what's going on.

• 1:19:53Griffin Newman?

  There was also a lightning in a bottle thing with this movie. I mean, let's dig into actually like talking about the movie itself as it plays out.

• 1:20:04Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:20:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:05Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary Capturing Bigfoot.

• 1:20:11David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:11Griffin Newman?

  On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:20:22David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:20:23Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. Fifty-nine years later, a reel of 16-millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything.

• 1:20:33David Sims?

  Wow.

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery, told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:20:46David Sims?

  Of course, you've got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film everyone knows, of Bigfoot out in the woods, like the famous Bigfoot picture. This has other stuff shot by him that no one's ever seen. That's what makes this movie different.

• 1:20:58Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand-new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called "the best rendering of the footage ever seen."

• 1:21:07David Sims?

  I feel like we've all seen that footage as like grainy.

• 1:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:10David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever, you see it in a documentary for two seconds. But this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:21:17Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:21:31David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:21:33Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, yes, but that's more of a hobby.

• 1:21:35David Sims?

  Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:21:51Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more about Capturing Bigfoot at capturingbigfoot.com.

• 1:22:07Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:22:07David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:22:08Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:22:10David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:22:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing like an impression of a red carpet correspondent, asking who you're wearing right now.

• 1:22:15David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:22:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, wow. What a Quince, Quince, Quincy dense.

• 1:22:22David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip dense sweater.

• 1:22:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:22:27David Sims?

  It's a sort of a brown. Would you agree?

• 1:22:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's like, maybe like a, what would you, a chocolate?

• 1:22:32David Sims?

  Sure. I have been seated next to people wearing this item of clothing and they have brushed against me, not to brag, and gone like, so soft.

• 1:22:40Griffin Newman?

  Oh, a soft boy. But listen, the best pieces in your closet are the ones that you can count on, whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where I'm shopping for myself and everyone on my list.

• 1:22:56David Sims?

  Quince does rock. It's got high-quality staples made with these premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere.

• 1:23:03Griffin Newman?

  Like you're wearing right now?

• 1:23:04David Sims?

  14 karat gold, Italian leather.

• 1:23:08Griffin Newman?

  Mama mia.

• 1:23:08David Sims?

  All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. These cashmere sweaters, like the one I'm wearing, start at just $60. Lineup doesn't stop there. You've got premium down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories, everything your loved ones need to stay warm and look put together all season long.

• 1:23:28Griffin Newman?

  And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 1:23:41David Sims?

  Um, so yeah, obviously I'm wearing Quince sweater right now. I've got Quince bedding at home. Ooh, they've got Christmas stockings.

• 1:23:48Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:23:49David Sims?

  They got tree skirts. Garlands, if you want to go Christmas mode.

• 1:23:53Griffin Newman?

  Your tree deserves to be dressed in Quince as well. And when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. Think fine jewelry, leather bags, the aforementioned hotel-quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list. If you want to give the gift of quality this holiday season, download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, that's a year, now available in Canada and the UK too. Ding dong. And when Quint asked where you heard about them, let him know it was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:24:39Griffin Newman?

  You know, you start with one of the most infamous opening sequences of all time. That is, you're just dropped right into the action of the most like thrilling series of incidents imaginable. As you watch this guy basically do his like, uh, side gig, which is being the coolest movie hero in history, you know, and avoiding slings and arrows.

• 1:25:00Speaker 04

  And as someone who was there, I can tell you that the thrill ride that is the first 10, 15 minutes of a movie is overwhelming as, as experiencing it for the first time. It is incredible. These are people pulling out tricks we have not seen him do before. Stuff he would master and everything. But all of this is just working, working, working. And by the time he goes, I hate snakes. You are just, your breath is just gone in a way that so few movies can achieve. It's, it's an incredible experience.

• 1:25:33Griffin Newman?

  I want to unpack it more fully, but like the, the back to back of that and then him in the university. Right? And to this point of my experience, watching them for the first time, this is a movie that I've now like rewatched maybe every two years because I'm really like, I should study this more as a thing. Not that I need to deepen my appreciation, but I'm like, there's a, there's a, an element of ketchup to a certain ketchup entertainment, of course, our finest distributor. But even though I like prefer Last Crusade, I almost never rewatch it because I'm like, I know I think that movie's fun, but there's something in the codex of this movie that is so like distributed.

• 1:26:13Speaker 04

  You prefer Last Crusade to Raiders?

• 1:26:15Griffin Newman?

  It's just my sensibility, I think. I mean, but we'll see how the rewatch goes.

• 1:26:19Speaker 04

  No, it's deeply, that's past. I make no judgment. I just.

• 1:26:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I wouldn't say it was better by, by any argument. Yeah. But it's, I think a lot of it's the comedy of it. But the, the immediate like thrill ride you're saying, followed by the university. And just the feeling of, oh, this is just this guy's life. What we just saw wasn't the craziest thing that's ever happened to him. That's another adventure. And then he just flies back and teaches a class, right? There's a lightning in a bottle thing in this movie that the other movies can't totally recapture in the same way. And I think Temple of Doom being a prequel makes this even more of an issue. To your point, which is all the weird spooky mysticism of it is really fascinating. When you're like, this is the first time this guy is challenged in this way,

• 1:27:06Griffin Newman?

  which isn't to say it's the greatest challenge of his life, but it's like the greatest ideological challenge of his life, which is, I don't believe in this shit.

• 1:27:13David Sims?

  No, yeah, yeah, right, right, right. He is kind of a Mulder and Scully together. Like, he's like, look, I believe that this object may be the quote unquote lost ark or whatever, but I'm not sure I believe that that means it's gonna have magic inside of it. I just sort of, you know.

• 1:27:30Griffin Newman?

  I do scary shit for a living.

• 1:27:33David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:27:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm constantly encountering weird shit. It is all explainable.

• 1:27:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:38Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:27:57Speaker 04

  Yes, to everything you're saying. And also it's the, it's the game of expectation. Like you see the poster, you know who Han Solo is, you know who Harrison Ford is, you know, the credits, you're obsessing over that. You're looking at the top trading cards ahead of the movie's release, trying to figure out what you think the movie is. And I can't express you enough, having these collector cards is really all you have. And Star Wars has made them like statements of fact and looks inside that you're only gonna get from these top trading cards. So once the Raiders ones hit, they're like, they're like the encyclopedia. Of everything you're gonna know. And then the movie comes and you're 10 minutes in and expectations met, exceeded, and now completely surprising you. Oh, not who you thought he was.

• 1:28:43Speaker 04

  He is a nerdy professor. And, and also, I think that the reason that none of us tripped on the Marian's age thing when we saw it in the theater was because that scene when the, the student blinks and has written love you on his eyes and he reacts maturely, like, like, like, no, no skeevy reaction to it. So he's not a skeevy piece of shit. Like, he's not, like, there's, there was an excuse there for him to, like, wink or do something gross. And he did not. That is not who he is. So when Marian says, I was a child, you just, I did not think she was an actual child. I thought this is

• 1:29:23Griffin Newman?

  No, right. She's saying, you know, I was too young and he's, you know, you're, you're older than me, which he is.

• 1:29:28Speaker 04

  But like, Yeah, no, but I, I, I remember when Twitter hit that a few years ago with, wait, what? And I was like, oh, yeah, that does ring badly. But, but I never thought it the whole time.

• 1:29:38Griffin Newman?

  It's this fascinating thing of like, that line is a vestige of clearly the development of being like, what if she was literally a child? And it plays in the context of the finished movie more like, I was young, you know, like, the way we talk about, like, I was like, my brain wasn't fully formed yet, you know? These things where there like was a power dynamic, but they're also close enough in age, the two actors, in a way where you're just like, okay, so they were like, on opposite sides of a narrow developmental line, maybe. Uh, but you're right, like, all, every one of those characterization choices is so impactful.

• 1:30:18Griffin Newman?

  It's the other, we've talked about before, how much Harrison Ford loves Indiana Jones, right?

• 1:30:24David Sims?

  He, he's always felt more enthusiastic about the sort of legacy and importance of the character versus Han Solo, where he's kind of been in and out on loving Han Solo.

• 1:30:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. And it makes sense because Harrison How would I put this? He talks so much about like how he approaches acting like a craftsman.

• 1:30:47Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:31:02David Sims?

  Sort of Red Hulk-y.

• 1:31:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. And, you know, he has talked about how he had his period of brief frustration. I think post-Star Wars and Indian Jones where he's like, great, now I can do anything. I can do Mosquito Coast and I can do whatever. And very quickly it was like, audiences want to see you be Harrison Ford.

• 1:31:21David Sims?

  Yes, you better not stray too much from the now very established star persona you have.

• 1:31:26Griffin Newman?

  Right. There's his Inside the Actors Studio is incredible and James Lipton kind of like pokes him on that. And he says like to the effect of like, what am I gonna do? Like cry about the fact that I'm Harrison Ford? I like tried doing other stuff. I very quickly realized like, audiences don't love seeing me in that kind of movie or that kind of movie starring me. It doesn't appeal to either audience. I like have peace with where I am. He'll make these jokes about like, I get paid money to fall down. Well, I get it, right? There's that part of it that's kind of blight. But when he talks about the craftsman aspect of it, he's like, my job is to like fulfill the needs. Is to like, look at the story and go like, what needs to be accomplished in this shot, in this moment, in this line?

• 1:32:09Griffin Newman?

  He thinks about it not in a technical way, but really tied to narrative. You know, it's not about like, what is in my heart that I need to get out of my system? Or what like, you know, sort of prism of the human psychology am I trying to like capture here? As much as he gets down to the brass tacks of like, this is storytelling. It's visual storytelling. What is conveyed by me like tilting my head three degrees, you know? Or raising my eyebrows here? It is this, in that sense, this franchise is so perfectly built for him. Because it is this like episodic, serialized, trying to game out how this guy is making decisions in real time

• 1:32:53Griffin Newman?

  and narrowly just surviving. It is like a structure for a movie and a series that is perfectly suited to the way he thinks as an actor. Which is, what do I need to do to get the audience to lock into this moment? And what are we trying to convey here? And in that sense, Spielberg is such a good match for him. And it remains so weird that they never work together outside of these movies.

• 1:33:18David Sims?

  Well, Harrison Ford made a lot of weird choices. Uh, I mean, like, I feel like the choices he makes that are like, uh, making a good movie within his star persona are like Witness, Working Girl, and then the Jack Ryan movies, things like that, where it's like, he's doing a slightly different thing in The Fugitive. Slightly different thing, he's still Harrison Ford, he's the Harrison Ford we know and love. These movies are giant hits. And then there's stuff like Mosquito Coast, or Presumed Innocent, or Frantic, or whatever, where it's like, what if I showed you a darker side? And the audience is usually like, eh, we don't really wanna see that. Like, and you watch those movies later, and you're like, there's a lot, lot that's interesting about this. And he's really good at darker side stuff, in my opinion.

• 1:33:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, and to close the loop on a thing we set up the fucking 90 minutes ago, but like, what lies beneath is the first time he weaponizes, "People don't expect me to be that dark." Right?

• 1:34:09David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:09Griffin Newman?

  And that movie's a big hit, and feels like it gets a lot of juice from like, holy shit, you've never seen Harrison Ford like this. And then right after that movie is when you start the era of him feeling like a grump.

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20Griffin Newman?

  Is he tired?

• 1:34:21David Sims?

  Too grumpy.

• 1:34:21Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:34:36David Sims?

  There's a glint in his eye with Force Awakens that there just isn't with so many of these movies.

• 1:34:41Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And I think, like, we were living through that era every time there was a new big Harrison Ford movie, being like, is the magic gonna be back this time? Cause there's just shit, like, the opening of this movie, where you have this, like, beautifully deliberately designed series of shots, the build of the sort of mystery of what's going on, even just down to the, the fucking, the Paramount logo transition, right? Like, this movie just, like, sets you on its course so beautifully. And this sense of like, we're not hiding this guy in shadows, but why are you not showing me his face when he's Harrison Ford? And it's not because there's some twist coming, it's because Spielberg knows he has one chance to make a first impression.

• 1:35:22Griffin Newman?

  And like Harrison Ford knows how to step exactly correctly into the right at the right timing, at the right angle and look like $20 million.

• 1:35:33Speaker 04

  Also, having, having experienced that walk into the light, it was, yes, we know it's Harrison Ford, but like by, by the time he walked into light, it's Indiana Jones. It really is a perfectly crafted sequence where you're kind of like shedding Han Solo, which is an enormous like thing over this character is that he's, he's literally played the most iconic character of our lifetime already.

• 1:35:58Griffin Newman?

  And the reason you're hiding his face is because you need to be introduced to this character through action before you're thinking of him primarily as Harrison Ford. Everyone knows what they bought a ticket for.

• 1:36:09Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:36:10Griffin Newman?

  His name is on the poster, his face is on the poster. I'm seeing the Harrison Ford movie, but he's like forcing you to engage with Indiana Jones as an abstract idea before he then has Harrison Ford step into the light. And it's like, and this is who he is now, and you're thinking about this character and not Han Solo. And then you just have this like perfect fucking Rube Goldberg machine sequence of just like the most classical Spielberg, like introduction of information in ways that feel charming and effortless, but stick in your brain so that he's setting up the perfect payoffs to come later. The way you build the entrance into the temple versus like what the escape's going to be of repeating the things like the gulf and needing to swing over and the arrows and all that shit.

• 1:36:55Griffin Newman?

  It's like just incredible set of payoff shit.

• 1:36:58Speaker 04

  And because it's so, yeah, Melina, and, and because it's so thrillingly dark and scary and spiders and shadows and, you know, literally, you know, wet skulls. Yeah. Um, we're not like at this age that I'm, that I'm at, like this is like, I'm, I'm feeling very like challenged and seen like, oh, you're not talking down to me. And then I would learn as I got older, that was kind of Stan Lee's magic too. It's like, I'm not going to talk down to you. You come, you come here and that was just, you feel respected almost as an audience member like, like, oh, and so all the way through Temple of Doom, like they keep like pushing it and pushing

• 1:37:39Speaker 04

  and pushing it in, in, in the, in the frame they're at. So when, when people were complaining about Temple of Doom being too dark, I was like, I, what?

• 1:37:47Griffin Newman?

  That's what this is. Yeah.

• 1:37:48Speaker 04

  This is what this is. Yeah.

• 1:37:50David Sims?

  I like the opening sequence to this film. I think it's quite fun.

• 1:37:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:53David Sims?

  I think it's really, really

• 1:37:54Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 1:37:55David Sims?

  thrilling.

• 1:37:56Griffin Newman?

  Is so fucking good. This is his first performance ever.

• 1:38:00David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  But there's like, it, it's.

• 1:38:02David Sims?

  He's already got the character actor eyes.

• 1:38:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:05David Sims?

  Character eyes.

• 1:38:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Speaker 04

  But if you watch the behind the scenes, you can't believe he made another movie because they literally put him in the set and dumped a bunch of spiders on him.

• 1:38:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. Just tortured him.

• 1:38:15Speaker 04

  And then famously the spiders wouldn't move. They were just sitting on it. So they go, what you gotta do is you gotta put a female spider on there and all the spiders would start getting all excited. And that's what you see when you see the, the spiders.

• 1:38:28Griffin Newman?

  Gotta create a spider meat market. Yeah.

• 1:38:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. It, it so, and, and you're sitting there and he's never made a movie before. I like, I don't know. I just feels like the worst Hollywood experience to start with.

• 1:38:38Griffin Newman?

  The exact right energy and such like skillful control of the dial of like when he's playing scared, when he's playing cocky.

• 1:38:44David Sims?

  You just are like, ah, maybe he's actually not going to screw Indy over. And then maybe he does. He's like, yeah, I could see him screwing it over.

• 1:38:51Griffin Newman?

  But also you're like, is this guy competent enough that Indy's in trouble that he's going to get away with it?

• 1:38:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:38:56Griffin Newman?

  Is he overstepping?

• 1:38:58David Sims?

  It's a lot of, right. What you're saying, like, you know, like a lot of stuff being communicated through basically nothing and you get it all. Like, who, who are these people? And what are they doing? You just understand everything without really anyone having to say much. And, you know, Harrison Ford, he's a very confident on screen presence. Again, it's a struggle to talk about movies like this.

• 1:39:20Speaker 04

  My, my passion for this movie and my frustration with the comic book adaptation was so high that I spent the year of 1983 at my Passover vacation. I'd, I'd got a VHS copy of the movie and I sat on my couch with a big thing of like chocolate pudding, the cheapest junk food I could find at the time. And I sat there and I drew every single edited shot of the movie because I was going to do the real adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was going to send it to Marvel and then they were going to stop publishing what they

• 1:40:04Speaker 04

  were publishing and they were going to stop the presses and publish mine. All right. Now, I can't, I can't express to you enough how much I am not good and I'm a little child. And, and I, I literally, every time there's an edit, I pause the movie and draw what's on screen. I drew 45 pages of comic book art. I never got out of the jungle. I don't think I even got into the cave because it's just like, yeah, it's just Indiana Jones walking through the jungle. So, yeah, but that's how formative it was to me.

• 1:40:34David Sims?

  Do you have this art somewhere?

• 1:40:36Speaker 04

  Yes, I absolutely do.

• 1:40:38David Sims?

  Belongs in a museum.

• 1:40:40Speaker 04

  It absolutely doesn't.

• 1:40:42Griffin Newman?

  You, you saying, you're talking about the things like the trading cards and, and the comics adaptation, like them taking this movie and splitting it only into two issues. You're like, this opening sequence is an entire issue. Things like the trading cards, you're like, it would take 100 sequential trading cards to get through the beats of just the opening. It is like an entire movie. It's a mini movie in and of itself. It has, I mean, like, how many shots are in the first 10 fucking minutes of this?

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  Like indelible history of cinema shots.

• 1:41:17Griffin Newman?

  But I think the pure number of shots.

• 1:41:19David Sims?

  No, no, no, you're right. You're right.

• 1:41:20Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's both. It's that every shot is like a deliberate, like diamond cut, perfect, evocative, communicative, exciting, thrilling.

• 1:41:30Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:42:13Griffin Newman?

  And in a way you could not have done in the previous shot. Even sometimes when it feels like the shift of angle is marginal. When the action plays out, you're like, that's why the camera had to be here rather than there.

• 1:42:24David Sims?

  He's good at that stuff.

• 1:42:25Griffin Newman?

  He's pretty fucking good at it. I, he has the best innate brain for that, maybe of anyone who's ever lived.

• 1:42:31David Sims?

  Yes, he does.

• 1:42:32Speaker 04

  The one influence I was not aware of at the time, but I came aware of like more recently was how um, important Chuck Jones was to Steven Spielberg at the time. And it's, it's clearly like all over 1941 in a real, that is a Chuck Jones cartoon trying to come to life, whereas this one has um, the influence of Chuck Jones's mousetrap like uh, storytelling uh, being produced towards a, towards a narrative that, that deserves it. It's quite, it's quite an interesting kind of magic trick on it, on its own that, that that would be amongst all the John Ford and other influences. There, there's like a Chuck Jones, there's a business every time he's kind of setting up his shots or, or laying out how he's going to make his action.

• 1:43:18David Sims?

  Who's Chuck Jones?

• 1:43:19Griffin Newman?

  Chuck Jones. Yeah, sorry. I'm just asking. Looney Tunes. Oh, of course. I'm just asking though, again, as be, on behalf of the audience who may not know. Yes, he's kind of.

• 1:43:27Speaker 04

  No, I appreciate that, Ben. And also if there's a book that came out recently called Spielberg, The First 10 Years. And in it, they, they dive a little uh, harder than I'd ever seen about what like how Spielberg and Chuck Jones were just hanging out to get like, they were having lunch.

• 1:43:41Griffin Newman?

  I feel like, right.

• 1:43:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:45Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg was one of the people who was really working hard to elevate Chuck Jones in the public's eye to like, this is living legend, like master of the form for the last couple decades of his life.

• 1:43:58David Sims?

  Yeah, the thing, and speaking to what you were saying, Griffin, is like, Spielberg proudly says they shot this film in 73 days, which is, you know, very, very short shooting schedule for a movie this epic. They would shoot just three or four takes, like, not like 40 takes, because he storyboarded, you know, very precisely, which is a Spielberg trademark, but really, he's like, really for this one, I would, I, you know, they were the fallbacks in my previous movies, but for this movie, it was like, really to stay on schedule and to like, you know, stay to exactly what I'd conceived.

• 1:44:32Griffin Newman?

  It was an exercise in self-discipline for him. Like, he needed to prove to himself that he could do it.

• 1:44:37David Sims?

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

• 1:44:51Griffin Newman?

  Because everyone had diarrhea.

• 1:44:52David Sims?

  Because everyone had, you know, these are the stories where it's like they became, you know, IMDb lore that everybody recites.

• 1:44:58Griffin Newman?

  But this perfect combination of things being so perfectly worked out in advance, and then inspiration hitting, and things changing and evolving on the fly. Chuck Jones, Ben, I feel like is kind of credited as being like the real father of Bugs Bunny, but also was like, the main architect of the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote shorts, which I feel like have a lot of influence on this. And the philosophy that's talked about, a lot about with animation, but in particular, all the like Termite Terrorists, Looney Tunes animators, was like, the importance of anticipation, and how to visually sort of indicate to the audience what the character thinks is gonna happen, what they're thinking, what they're

• 1:45:43Griffin Newman?

  trying to do, so that you can subvert the expectation and have the comedy of what goes wrong, you know? Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff, staying suspended in the air, looking down, recognizing he's staying. Standing in the air and then he like falls, you know, things like that where it's like that's being conveyed wordlessly. That's why the like wily coyote thing, I feel like is very, has a big influence on this. Where so often, despite the fact that Indiana Jones has like 40 of the most quotable lines in film history in this one movie. Many of his biggest sequences, he's kind of moving through wordless.

• 1:46:16David Sims?

  Not talking. Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  It needs to play out in his face. It needs to play out in his action. It's the beauty of even just like the power of the sandbag thing, right? Of just this moment of him like relishing the idol, walking towards it, the golden glow on his face. Taking out the sandbag, holding the two in his hand, weighing it, pouring a little bit out. And you're like, that's a kind of complicated idea that is being conveyed to us in like 15 seconds. Okay, this is like a pressure trap. It's a weight trap. He needs to substitute it with something of equal weight. He does it. He thinks he gets away. It's wrong. The thing starts to slide down. The ground shakes.

• 1:46:55David Sims?

  It's all such beautiful nonsense.

• 1:46:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:47:25David Sims?

  Perfectly round boulder.

• 1:47:26Griffin Newman?

  Right. A thing that must have felt like impossible that this could even be depicted on camera.

• 1:47:31Speaker 04

  And like, and these things are so cliché now. It's a part of film history, but like even like snakes, I hate them, like, screaming laughter in the theater, like the first time that joke is told, the first time you see him lose his shit. Like, like losing, he loses his cool.

• 1:47:48Griffin Newman?

  Because he's kept his shit together through all this insane shit for like 10 minutes and then the snakes cause him to have a panic attack. Right.

• 1:47:53David Sims?

  Right, one snake.

• 1:47:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's the, the, the delight is through the roof. It's, it's incredible to even, you know, you're, we're feeling it 50 years later. You can still like feel the, the, the, the embers of the joke. Hey, hey, Ben, I'm, I'm, I'm a big fan of Ben and his taste. Um, uh, Ben, what, what was your relation? Have you seen this before?

• 1:48:14David Sims?

  Now, that's a, that's a true good guess, bringing Ben in.

• 1:48:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:48:17David Sims?

  Specifically.

• 1:48:17Speaker 04

  No, no, I was very curious what your relationship to all of this is.

• 1:48:21Speaker 03

  I am a big fan of Indiana Jones.

• 1:48:23David Sims?

  Have you always been since childhood?

• 1:48:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:48:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:26Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:48:27David Sims?

  I mean.

• 1:48:27Speaker 03

  It was, you know, it was something I, I feel like I'd catch middle of the day on the weekend, playing on cable TV. I had to watch it, you know? Uh, also I played, um.

• 1:48:40David Sims?

  The video games?

• 1:48:40Speaker 03

  The computer games.

• 1:48:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:48:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43David Sims?

  They're so good.

• 1:48:44Speaker 03

  Particular. I love that game.

• 1:48:46Griffin Newman?

  Also, he's dusty. He dresses well.

• 1:48:49David Sims?

  Yeah, he goes into pits.

• 1:48:50Speaker 03

  He's finding bones.

• 1:48:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:52Speaker 03

  Getting, stealing treasures. He's just like, he's such an amalgamation of all of these characteristics in this incredible way.

• 1:48:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:59Speaker 03

  He's like kind of a bad boy, but he's smart.

• 1:49:02Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:49:02Speaker 03

  He gets down and dirty.

• 1:49:04Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like, that's the weird, I just can't get over it every time I re-watch this.

• 1:49:10David Sims?

  You love the cut to the universe.

• 1:49:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You're just like, this is when the movie should fall apart. You almost feel like the legacy of this movie should be greatest opening sequence of all time and then they fuck it up.

• 1:49:21Speaker 04

  It's literally the greatest exposition scene in the history of exposition scenes. It's an incredible scene.

• 1:49:27Griffin Newman?

  But it's such an insane, uh, like change of pitch that it's wild that it keeps the momentum.

• 1:49:34Speaker 03

  But I would say for me, origin wise, this is like major bone core.

• 1:49:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:49:40Speaker 03

  Yes. There's just bones all over this franchise.

• 1:49:44David Sims?

  Uh, you're right. It's a bone heavy world.

• 1:49:48Speaker 03

  And he uses it as a torch.

• 1:49:50David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:49:51Speaker 03

  It's a, it's a comedic device when, you know, a bunch of bratling bones come out of nowhere. I, I just, I, I love that. That's such a fun element.

• 1:50:00David Sims?

  It's just so fun to consider this like academic being like, well, I'm going to go find this Peruvian idol. Where is it? It's in this video game level.

• 1:50:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:50:09David Sims?

  Cave, you know, where it's like, you have to do eight traps and dodge the spikes and like, you know, solve the puzzle and all that. And as a kid watching this movie, I'm just like, yeah, the people who build these things. Of course. This is part of ancient lore.

• 1:50:21Griffin Newman?

  But also like we were born.

• 1:50:24David Sims?

  Playing Super Mario my whole life.

• 1:50:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:26David Sims?

  You know, like.

• 1:50:26Griffin Newman?

  But also we were born into a post-Indiana Jones world where you're like, oh, I get it. He's like an Indiana Jones type.

• 1:50:33David Sims?

  You know?

• 1:50:33Speaker 03

  True.

• 1:50:34Griffin Newman?

  Versus like this movie creating a thing that is like, when you break it down into the elements of even how Lucas pitched it to him, it's wild that it was so fully formed because it is an odd idea. And it's odd that it's not like.

• 1:50:50Griffin Newman?

  There's such an obvious instinct, I would imagine, to make it into a Clark Kent Superman thing, that you're like, oh, Professor Jones is the cover, is his boring sort of like front for his real like adventuring.

• 1:51:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:08Griffin Newman?

  Or-

• 1:51:08David Sims?

  But instead it's like-

• 1:51:09Griffin Newman?

  He's a nervous professor who gets thrown into these situations and he's in over his head and he doesn't like exploring.

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  No, instead it's like, you know, US, you know, intelligence comes to him and is like, look, Hitler wants the Ark of the Covenant. We figure you're the guy to figure that one out. Like, you know, like, he's, he's a known adventurer.

• 1:51:29Griffin Newman?

  But to, to your point about being the greatest exposition in cinematic history, right? The fact that you watch him spin that blackboard and start to break down in chalk the history, giving them the fucking backstory, right? Like, just dropping his bona fides and his theories. And he gets his rocks off as much doing that as he does successfully outrunning a boulder. They are both equally exciting to him. He plays them differently.

• 1:51:55David Sims?

  But then, so he goes, all right, to move the story along, and then he goes to Nepal in search of-

• 1:52:00Griffin Newman?

  Really moving along.

• 1:52:01David Sims?

  No, I am not really moving it along.

• 1:52:03Griffin Newman?

  We should mention-

• 1:52:03David Sims?

  What?

• 1:52:04Griffin Newman?

  Belloc!

• 1:52:05David Sims?

  No, he's, we haven't met him yet.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, he's the one who tells the fucking fraternity!

• 1:52:09David Sims?

  Oh, oh, Belloc, sorry, sorry, not Belloc. I thought you meant Solok.

• 1:52:12Griffin Newman?

  No, we'll get to Solok.

• 1:52:13David Sims?

  Belloc's there.

• 1:52:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:14David Sims?

  We'll get back to Belloc.

• 1:52:15Griffin Newman?

  Brian's laughing.

• 1:52:16David Sims?

  I mean, if you want-

• 1:52:16Griffin Newman?

  He's happy that he got to see-

• 1:52:18David Sims?

  If you want us to-

• 1:52:19Griffin Newman?

  Hell, to each other.

• 1:52:20David Sims?

  Tell you who they wanted for the part of Belloc.

• 1:52:23Griffin Newman?

  Uh, sure.

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  Spielberg wanted Jacques du Tronc, uh, who's a French actor. He really wanted this character to-

• 1:52:28Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, that guy's French?

• 1:52:32David Sims?

  Well, let me tell you, do you think this guy looks French to you?

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  Ho, ho, ho.

• 1:52:36David Sims?

  Jacques du Tronc! Uh, don't-

• 1:52:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm seeing here his second choice for the role was Croque Monsieur.

• 1:52:43Griffin Newman?

  Croissant de fromage.

• 1:52:45David Sims?

  A French musician.

• 1:52:47Griffin Newman?

  These are real names. These were beloved actors at the time.

• 1:52:49David Sims?

  But I guess he had played Van Gogh.

• 1:52:51Speaker 03

  Hépie la puille.

• 1:52:53David Sims?

  Anyway, he's busy. But.

• 1:52:56Griffin Newman?

  He was busy smoking a cigarette.

• 1:52:57David Sims?

  Spielberg really wanted the character to be played by a Frenchman.

• 1:53:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:53:01David Sims?

  Paul Freeman enters late. They've already thought about Giancarlo Giannini, which is a fun idea.

• 1:53:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:08David Sims?

  And Spielberg just liked his eyes, said he has the champagne villain from a film noir vibe.

• 1:53:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:15David Sims?

  Right? Like, it's like, this isn't a tough guy exactly. He's like a smart, mean guy and like, whatever. Good, good.

• 1:53:21Speaker 04

  I also like the villain that's handsome in his own way. Like, he's equally handsome.

• 1:53:26David Sims?

  Different kind of handsome.

• 1:53:27Speaker 04

  If that's your type.

• 1:53:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he could be a leading man in a different movie. I also, it's funny, I always go like, it's wild that he's still alive. Because he plays so much older in my mind watching this movie than he actually was at the time, where I think Ford is two years older than him.

• 1:53:43David Sims?

  They're roughly the same age.

• 1:53:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it feels like Belloc is like 15 years older than Indy.

• 1:53:48David Sims?

  He does feel a little bit patronizing. I guess that's why.

• 1:53:51Griffin Newman?

  Which is something he's successfully sung as an actor. I think it's also the fact that Belloc's a little more hands off, right?

• 1:53:56David Sims?

  Yeah. And Belloc is, it's a perfect villain because he's like, yeah, he's smart, like Indy's smart, but he sells to the highest bidder, clearly.

• 1:54:04Griffin Newman?

  He has no scruples.

• 1:54:05David Sims?

  He's unscrupulous.

• 1:54:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:07David Sims?

  That's very true. And he, like you say, like, doesn't get his hands dirty like Indy does. Indy's, Indy's got, you know, dirt under his fingernails.

• 1:54:14Griffin Newman?

  But is, that's what's so frustrating is Indiana Jones can go through this whole fucking adventure, roll out by the skin of his teeth, hat intact, right?

• 1:54:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:54:21Griffin Newman?

  And be like, oh my God, what a thrilling set piece. And Belloc is just standing there and he's like, I'll take that.

• 1:54:26David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 1:54:27Griffin Newman?

  Right. That Belloc just is able to stay one step ahead of him while avoiding the trials and tribulations that Indy had to go through.

• 1:54:33David Sims?

  He's also wearing the uniform of an explorer, Belloc.

• 1:54:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:37David Sims?

  But he's not dirty at all.

• 1:54:38Griffin Newman?

  Dirty, right.

• 1:54:39David Sims?

  Right? Like, it's like, clearly, he's like. He looks good.

• 1:54:42Griffin Newman?

  An immaculate, like, white suit. Yes. His cream.

• 1:54:45David Sims?

  It's like he's trying too hard to fit the part, whereas Indy is just, fashion-wise, I mean, one of the best looks of all time. It's really, it's really interesting how the villains. So simple, too. Like, I feel like the villains of every indie movie are not merely famous actors until, I guess, you get to like Kate Blanchett. By the time we're doing the new ones where it's like, well, everyone wants to be.

• 1:55:07Griffin Newman?

  When they announced that Kate Blanchett was playing, was, was going to be in Crystal Skull.

• 1:55:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:13Griffin Newman?

  I was like, well, she must be playing the new love interest.

• 1:55:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:16Griffin Newman?

  Because it feels weird for a franchise that never has. Out and out movie stars as well, like even Mads Mikkelsen feels too well known in that type.

• 1:55:26David Sims?

  Well, I, God, I love Mads Mikkelsen because lazy casting is a villain these days.

• 1:55:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:55:30David Sims?

  Like, but right, like Amish Purie and then like Last Crusade, who would you, you know, who's the biggest?

• 1:55:34Griffin Newman?

  It's, uh, it's, uh.

• 1:55:35David Sims?

  Like Alice in Duty and.

• 1:55:36Griffin Newman?

  No, but it's, um, why am I forgetting his name now? Uh, uh, your favorite, uh, from Empire.

• 1:55:42David Sims?

  I do love him, Julian Glover.

• 1:55:44Griffin Newman?

  Julian Glover is the main villain of that movie.

• 1:55:46David Sims?

  These are, these are character actor guys.

• 1:55:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's a guy who Lucas liked was like, you're a good stuffed shirt. Like.

• 1:55:51David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:55:51Griffin Newman?

  Right, but.

• 1:55:52David Sims?

  And that's what Paul Freeman is and he's, he's excellent. Like you're.

• 1:55:55Griffin Newman?

  But it's also part of the Indiana Jones structure where it's like, you have these secondary, like third villains. You have like, you know, boss level villains. There's an overarching guy who you're fighting against in sort of like, almost a conceptual battle. Um, but the actual action sequences don't happen with that person. Which is, I feel like another mistake modern movies tend to make is like, they want the Belloc to also be the best fighter in the world. And you're like, no, that's two separate guys. Belloc sends someone else out to punch Indy.

• 1:56:29Speaker 04

  And we, in, in, in this timeframe of James Bond, Jaws is, Richard Keel, right? That's his, that's his actor's name is Jaws and that is an iconic villain, uh, that, that goes like, that is referenced in every, you know, variety show of the time. That's also, that's also part of the, the Lucas and Spielberg is there's always these weird like, uh, you know, variety hours that would do sketches about Star Wars or Indiana Jones, uh, and, and James Bond. And so Richard Keel would show up as Jaws. So when you're watching Raiders and the, the, the big, the, the burly Nazis are, they're boxing outside the, right outside the plane, uh, that, that's a Jaws scene.

• 1:57:13Speaker 04

  Like that's, that's a flat out James Bond Jaws scene.

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  Right, but it's like, I mean, I, it's always the example I throw out, but like, that's a, a clear thing they lifted from James Bond very wisely, right?

• 1:57:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:57:25Griffin Newman?

  Of like, there's a guy who they're trying to track down, who is the man in the lair. Who is going to monologue.

• 1:57:31David Sims?

  The guy who'll talk to them and wear a suit and pour, you know, serve them dinner.

• 1:57:34Griffin Newman?

  And that guy will give like an A class performance and then you're going to have some weird looking guys with gimmicks.

• 1:57:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:57:40Griffin Newman?

  Who create like different sort of like battle puzzles for Indiana Jones to get through. Versus I always think of Quantum of Solace where at the end, James Bond has to fight Mathieu Almaric. And I'm like, well, this fight is over.

• 1:57:53David Sims?

  Well, he, there is a big general guy that he fights. Well, no, it's still good. Curly Loco fights him. We'll, look, we'll do Quantum of Solace one day. Very interesting movie. I defend it. Uh, I will, I will, Brian. Thank you. Uh, do you like Quantum of Solace or are you anti Quantum of Solace?

• 1:58:06Speaker 04

  I am, um, such a big, um, Casino Royale fan that it's, it's hard to wrap my head fully around Quantum, but it is a part of Casino Royale. So it's hard to let it go as well.

• 1:58:17David Sims?

  Yes, it's like a sort of, right, nasty little.

• 1:58:19Speaker 04

  I don't hate it, but you know, much like nothing's Force Awakens except for Force Awakens, same thing with, uh, Casino Royale.

• 1:58:28David Sims?

  I, I think of it as the Temple of Doom to Casino Royale's Raiders of the Lost Ark in, in like sort of complimentary.

• 1:58:34Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Bump on them in similar ways for similar reasons.

• 1:58:38David Sims?

  Um, but okay. So then they go to meet Marion. Let's, we have to talk about Marion Ravenwood.

• 1:58:43Speaker 04

  My god, my god.

• 1:58:44David Sims?

  Played by Karen Allen.

• 1:58:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:58:46David Sims?

  Obviously they're looking for Arthur Ravenwood or whatever the fuck his name is. What's the dad's name? Uh.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  Abner Raven.

• 1:58:51David Sims?

  Abner Ravenwood. Right. But he's dead and his daughter is running the bar in his stead in Nepal and she's got this medallion and. You know, off we go. But what do we think of, uh, Karen Allen?

• 1:59:02Speaker 04

  This is an incredible performance of the highest order. It doesn't get enough credit to this day. It's just in.

• 1:59:09David Sims?

  Even though the franchise eventually acknowledged like, yeah, she was always the one with these later movies.

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  We were kind of foolish.

• 1:59:17David Sims?

  Get enough credit.

• 1:59:17Griffin Newman?

  For trying to do anything else.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:59:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and, and I, I, I get the, that's, that's the James Bond lesson they, they did wrong, I think, which is he gets a new, he gets a new lady friend every, um, uh, thing. And also, uh, a lot of people feel like, you know, Marion Ravenwood is one of the great characters of cinema and then. Followed by Willie Scott, who isn't.

• 1:59:42Griffin Newman?

  I would no offense to Willie Scott.

• 1:59:43Speaker 04

  Screaming and yelling, just screaming at the top of her lungs, the whole movie, which is not anywhere near as interesting as what Marion brings to the table.

• 1:59:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's like they wanted to make the anti Marion to have fun with the flip side of it, but the anti Marion means you're doing the opposite of what works.

• 2:00:01David Sims?

  Exactly. Marion's a good character.

• 2:00:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:00:03David Sims?

  So the anti version would be a bad one.

• 2:00:04Griffin Newman?

  There was a good, bad switch and they made one bad choice. Yeah.

• 2:00:08Speaker 04

  So watching the making of that I I sent you that aired on television, there was two takeaways that were amazing. A number one that she basically says, like, I think she's one of the first people to say, she says as nicely as you could possibly say, but she's basically saying, I'm doing everything he's doing, but in heels and backwards. Right? And and she absolutely is. And also that she would come to Spielberg with bigger ideas that he would take very seriously, including, I don't think I knew until recently that the scene between her and Belloc, you know, drinking each other under the table was improvised.

• 2:00:45Speaker 04

  They went off to the side, improvised the scene, put it together and and gave it to Spielberg. Like, here's what we worked out because I I want to wear this dress and like, I want to do this for the rest of the movie. And they they went off and improvised and came back and he accepted it and changed the course of the movie in a positive way. So she has authored her character in in a way that few actors, particularly in a movie like this, get to do. And that's amazing.

• 2:01:13Griffin Newman?

  It's a thing with Spielberg I find so fascinating is most filmmakers who are this precise in their craft have a tendency to go towards the sort of like Hitchcock, like you are a model. I am telling you what to do. You have to hit, especially because it's just like with Spielberg, it's like if you step an inch off, the shot's not going to work. Right? The timing needs to be like hair precise. And yet it feels like he's very collaborative. It never feels like he is boxing his actors in. There's this weird dance. Between the visual language feeling so rigid in a certain sense.

• 2:01:57Griffin Newman?

  And yet the performance is feeling very fluid and organic in between. And even like Marion's introduction, this long one-er of the drinking contest in the bar in Nepal, where the camera is just kind of slowly moving back and forth between the two of them. It's really unshowy. The unconscious effect of it is knowing that you're watching this in real time without cuts, that you're seeing these shots being taken, even though it's probably fucking water or whatever, right? But it's like such a perfect wordless, like drinking this guy under the table, walking off, kicking everyone out of the bar and immediately being like, she's not even like tipsy.

• 2:02:35David Sims?

  Right. And she's also, I mean, she's a tiny little firecracker.

• 2:02:39Griffin Newman?

  So this is the other part of this character is that it feels like her first fight with Indiana Jones is also like, how dare you did this to me? And then you fucking walk out of my life and then you come back like nothing happened. And you want my fucking help on one of your stupid fucking adventures, you and my dad, right? There was this whole feeling of this woman who is like, yeah, look, I'm this like cool badass lady who like beats tough guys in drinking contests and runs a bar and doesn't take any guff. It's like not by choice, it's on affectation. I was basically deprived of having a normal childhood.

• 2:03:15David Sims?

  Right. I was, I was raised this way. I mean.

• 2:03:17Griffin Newman?

  I was raised this way. My like first romance was a guy who was my father's protege, who was trying to be my dad and pulled me even deeper into this shit.

• 2:03:27David Sims?

  To give you some Karen Allen news.

• 2:03:29Griffin Newman?

  Please. News?

• 2:03:30David Sims?

  No, we got dossier stuff, you know, background. Spielberg had noticed her in Animal House, where she's Peter Riker.

• 2:03:36Speaker 04

  And we all did, right? She's really stood out in a, in a great way, whereas, as you're better than all of this.

• 2:03:42David Sims?

  Like she, he was like, she's like a Carol Lombard, she's like an Irene Dunne, like one of these sort of like 30s, like heroines with like a big chip on her shoulder, right? Natural fit. Karen Allen says, some of the people who tested that she heard about Deborah Winger, Sean Young, as previously mentioned, Barbara Hershey, Karen Allen auditioned with John Shay, Lex Luthor himself, from the 90s, Lois and Clark.

• 2:04:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:04David Sims?

  And he was in Mutant X. Remember John Shay?

• 2:04:07Griffin Newman?

  Remember Mutant X?

• 2:04:08David Sims?

  Yeah. And then she did a screen test with Tim Matheson, and it was always the bar. It was always the bar. Like, that was the, that's what she's doing. And she said she just loved the character, reminded her again of all those firecracker, you know, broads from the 30s and 40s, right? And a character that she felt had kind of vanished from movies, right? Like, like, that's an old kind of female lead. Like, in the 50s and 60s, that kind of character had gone away. Guess you have, like, Katharine Hepburn.

• 2:04:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, Katharine, very Katharine Hepburn.

• 2:04:36Griffin Newman?

  She plays the sadness of the character. Like, it's the thing, I think, that causes people to, like, get up in arms and, like, uh...

• 2:04:46David Sims?

  Cancel Indy.

• 2:04:47Griffin Newman?

  No, I was...

• 2:04:48David Sims?

  Sorry, what are you trying to say?

• 2:04:49Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, when people complain about fucking, like, Mary Sue characters, right? When they push back on this idea of, like, oh, so now I'm supposed to believe that this woman, who's smaller than everyone, is tougher, and a better fighter, and smarter, and funnier, and prettier, and all this sort of stuff. I think a lot of it is, like, people trying to recapture this character.

• 2:05:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:05:09Griffin Newman?

  And Karen Allen correctly, I think, figures out how to dramatize all of her behavior being a bit of a defensive posture, and, like, learned survival instincts, rather than it feeling like, um, I don't know, just a show, you know?

• 2:05:30David Sims?

  She says she went to Spielberg and said, "I have a whole history for this character. I think I was in this romance with Indy when she was 16 years old." Like, she also is doing this stuff, and Spielberg apparently looked at her and was like, "That's an entirely different movie. We're not doing that." Like, like, clearly, like, Lucas and her are both kind of like, "What if there's this twisted backstory?" Spielberg's like, "I'm making an adventure movie. It doesn't matter." Like, stop it.

• 2:05:54Griffin Newman?

  But it's under the hood.

• 2:05:55David Sims?

  It's a little bit under the hood.

• 2:05:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a perfect amount of spice, though.

• 2:05:58David Sims?

  Yes, Karen Allen's...

• 2:05:59Speaker 04

  It's exactly what it needs.

• 2:06:00David Sims?

  Right, her ult- Take is like, I think she had a crush on him. Like, you know, maybe there was a flirtation or whatever when she was like essentially a late teenager. I don't think it's just some major romance. Like that's, she thinks that's like the movie sort of take on Marion and indie. Uh, not something like more darker and.

• 2:06:18Griffin Newman?

  But there's like this version of, it's obviously, uh, far less tragic, right? But like, I think about the end of True Grit. Where like the poignancy of that story is like, oh, this girl kind of never gets over this. Right? Like she's this tough, flinty little girl and everyone thinks it's kind of cute and funny and she goes on this wild adventure.

• 2:06:36David Sims?

  Right. It's clear that she's very tough to interact with because she's such a tough, flinty woman with one arm.

• 2:06:41Griffin Newman?

  And Marion's got like a version of that where you're like, how many fucking adventures was she dragged along to? Between these two men in her life, who were such like important figures in her development.

• 2:06:53David Sims?

  But, uh, that.

• 2:06:54Speaker 04

  If you want to see Spielberg direct the scene in the bar, it's in the, in the, in the doc, I put on my social media. Cause it's, it's an incredible bit of watching him direct. Just the wonder of her putting the shot glasses down and what, and him getting the crowd to do what they need to do. And the like, react accordingly.

• 2:07:12Griffin Newman?

  That was another thing.

• 2:07:13Speaker 04

  Wonderful direction.

• 2:07:13Griffin Newman?

  I was looking at Juror Number Two, a film that we both love. Have you seen Brian?

• 2:07:18Speaker 04

  I have not seen it, but I will.

• 2:07:20Griffin Newman?

  It's very good. Clint Eastwood famous for doing maybe half a take of everything.

• 2:07:23David Sims?

  One and a half takes, right? Is him having a long day.

• 2:07:27Griffin Newman?

  Right. A thing I noticed watching this movie that I want to be clear, I like a tremendous amount. Uh, but now Clint Eastwood filming digitally, it's a little brighter. You can see everything. I kept in multiple sequences noticing how bad the background actors were. And it is a thing that I'm not putting on the background actors.

• 2:07:44David Sims?

  No, but it's the problem of these Clint movies, these late Clint movies where it's like, people really had to come, have to come correct. Cause it doesn't take very long.

• 2:07:52Griffin Newman?

  And I think the principal cast of this entire movie of Juror is doing that. But like, background actors are a thing that are hard to dial in because it's like a complicated machinery. They haven't read the fucking script. They're showing up, a first AD is like, so basically what's going on in this scene? They're wearing costumes that they got five minutes ago. It's hard to get everyone synchronized on the same page. That fucking drinking contest, where there's like 10 people over each of their shoulders. And you can tell it's a combination of like stunt guys, character actors, and people who seem like non-professional actors. And all of them are immaculate. And there's no editing wiggle room. This whole thing has to play out in one shot. When the camera pans over from one to the other,

• 2:08:35Griffin Newman?

  the people in the background need to be doing the right thing. And I like rewound it five times. And I was like, no one's doing too much and no one's doing too little. There isn't anyone who looks checked out or distracted, but there's also the opposite of people being like, "Yeah, Marion! Go Marion!" And making like huge faces. And this whole movie is like that. And that's the shit that's like astonishing for me. Is he's just able to get everything in the frame correct, you know? And then even down to like the, um, the Indiana Jones silhouette, you know, appearing on the wall after Marion kicks everyone out of the bar. I feel like the story with that is that because the shadow would actually be going in the opposite direction logically.

• 2:09:20David Sims?

  Sure, but it doesn't, okay, like they're messing with fit.

• 2:09:23Griffin Newman?

  That he's like walking backwards, he's starting closer to her backlit and then moving further away.

• 2:09:30David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:09:31Griffin Newman?

  Because if you get closer and closer to a shadow, your shadow gets smaller.

• 2:09:34David Sims?

  Yes, right, right.

• 2:09:35Griffin Newman?

  Right, or the opposite way.

• 2:09:36David Sims?

  Well, it depends on where the lights, yeah, yeah, whatever.

• 2:09:39Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, that's a moment where Spielberg has this idea of this clear, like impactful, iconic shot. A lot of filmmakers would get so caught up with trying to capture that image that the Karen Allen performance part of it would be secondary. But that's the most important part, is how beautifully she plays that moment of dropping the glasses and immediately being kind of like astonished, emotionally overwhelmed, furious.

• 2:10:07Griffin Newman?

  And then going up to him and slapping him in the face. It's like, here's the whole dynamic already.

• 2:10:10David Sims?

  It's true. It's all you need. You're on board with it right away. And he never really gets it with any other character in the sequels. Yeah, the romantic.

• 2:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, I think Willie Scott doesn't work and Alison Doody is kind of like a misdirect.

• 2:10:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:23Griffin Newman?

  Alison Doody's, no, I think she's good, but I think that character is like a kind of

• 2:10:26David Sims?

  She's a plot thing.

• 2:10:27Griffin Newman?

  wrong footing. And I think the thing that Last Crusade gets right is that like Indiana Jones needs a sparring partner. They just make it his dad instead of a love interest because I think they know they're not going to beat Marion on the third one. It's not worth trying a third woman.

• 2:10:44Speaker 04

  And, and a winning thing for Crystal Skull for me is when she comes back into it, she comes in as, and as clearly this woman has never had a break and is now has a glorious agent of chaos. She is, she is, we, and to get to the Jewish coding again, I feel with Marion as well, but there is in, in Crystal Skull, she definitely has that Jewish mother energy of get in the car, we're leaving. Like, like this is, like, and I just adore it tremendously. And there's a joy of her performance in Crystal Skull. Like she is deeply happy to be back and deeply happy to revisit this character at this age. And it's just, she's shining with it. It's just, it just makes the movie a lot of fun to watch.

• 2:11:29Griffin Newman?

  I feel like we adore her. Animal House was a movie I was shown way too young for how overprotective my parents were. My dad basically like at like maybe six showed it to me as if it was Talmudic. It was like, you must understand this. So she like loomed very large in my childhood of I feel like one of my first onscreen crushes. And as you said, I think generational, especially for people who were alive at that time, that character, like even though she's not in that much of the movie, she is just like kind of so captivating. And there is just some sort of like inner life and sort of like, there's a sense of self she has that is very fixed. And

• 2:12:09Griffin Newman?

  her like weird balance of like, uh, how much bullshit she will tolerate versus when she puts her foot down, which is the Stuff that they're like really weaponizing very well in this film. You know, the Willie Scott problem is like Indiana Jones can't have a sidekick who doesn't want to be in the movie. And they tried this with Mutton Wombat as well, which is like, he needs someone who is his equal, but has a different thought process on how they should be handling things. They both need to be trying to drive the story, but with different approaches. And Marion's just the perfect example of that. Where like, and, and it's just structurally, very beautifully built about when she falls out of the movie. And when she comes back, when he thinks she's dead, when he finds her in Belloc's tent, but leaves her there.

• 2:12:54Griffin Newman?

  The sort of like, anytime she's not on screen, you're going, where's Marion? When's Marion coming back?

• 2:12:59Speaker 04

  By the way, opening weekend, 13 years old, Marion dies, totally believed it. I, oh my God, they killed her.

• 2:13:05Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I would.

• 2:13:06Speaker 04

  They killed her. Yeah. Totally fell for it. Also, when you watch the documentaries, of which I rewatched everything in preparation for this. Spielberg is so head over heels in love with Kate Capshaw, as, as he should be in the making of that, it is distracting them. It is a hundred percent. He literally, the end of that documentary, he goes, Indiana Jones didn't get the girl, I did. He literally looks at the camera and says those words. So that's where his head is at when this movie is being made.

• 2:13:33David Sims?

  So Marion and Indy go to Cairo. They meet Sala. It's something you probably know.

• 2:13:38Griffin Newman?

  We have your introduction of, of Toad, who I will say.

• 2:13:41David Sims?

  Oh, in the, yeah, who rocks.

• 2:13:43Griffin Newman?

  Is my favorite character.

• 2:13:44David Sims?

  Of course it is. He feels.

• 2:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Ideologically, I like his.

• 2:13:49David Sims?

  Ronald Lacey, in this movie especially, just looks like a puppet to me. It looks like they made him. Now, obviously maybe that's partly because his face melts at the end in this way that it's like, yeah, he was always a puppet. They melted him at the end.

• 2:14:01Griffin Newman?

  Created by Arndtman. He is a plasticine man.

• 2:14:04David Sims?

  It just, there's, he's so good in every scene, but he always, you're just kind of like, this is like a fake person.

• 2:14:12Griffin Newman?

  There's something uncanny about him.

• 2:14:12David Sims?

  There's an alien in his head working believers.

• 2:14:16Griffin Newman?

  I find him very captivating. Spielberg infamously wanted Klaus Kinsky and couldn't get him to agree. That would completely have unbalanced this movie.

• 2:14:24David Sims?

  Might be fun.

• 2:14:25Griffin Newman?

  I mean, beyond like, this sounds like a production that didn't have the room for error to allow a Klaus Kinsky into the ecosystem. The damage he would have wrought behind the scenes.

• 2:14:34David Sims?

  Everyone's pooping their guts out already.

• 2:14:36Griffin Newman?

  But I'm also like, his performance would have been very overcranked, I imagine. That would have been fun in its own way, but there's something about Ronald Lacey kind of like never tipping over.

• 2:14:46Speaker 04

  But instead of the documentary airing on CBS on primetime, it would have aired at Cannes.

• 2:14:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:14:52David Sims?

  He Spielberg said, you know, I thought he had Pierre Laurie vibes, which I think is right. And just like kind of perfect weird look. And, you know, the three guys who get melted at the end, right? It is this perfect triumvirate of villainy of like, you know, Belloc, this sort of cool erudite. It's not even ideology for him. He's really just in it for the money, right? Then the big.

• 2:15:14Griffin Newman?

  Lack of ideology.

• 2:15:15David Sims?

  The big statues Nazi guy, you're just like, can't wait to watch this guy. And then the weird little creep Nazi guy who's like, dang, I'm reading maps. I want Hitler to have arc power.

• 2:15:26Griffin Newman?

  And seems to maybe have some weird psychosexual thing going on. But much, much like a lot of other areas of the movie, it's done just the right amount, not really like delved into.

• 2:15:36David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:15:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:38David Sims?

  Um, so, uh, yeah, totally. We mean, but yeah, okay, we can go to Cairo Sala. You know, you know, who was supposed to play Sala, right?

• 2:15:45Griffin Newman?

  Danny DeVito.

• 2:15:46David Sims?

  Danny DeVito. He was supposed to basically be like a cantina creature from Star Wars, right? Like a, this fun little guy and DeVito drops out late. I'm not sure why.

• 2:15:58Speaker 04

  And because we kind of get to see him play the character in Romancing the Stone. It's weird to like, like we can see it. I still can't see it. Like I, I'm a huge Danny DeVito fan, a huge fan and grew up with him my whole life and I cannot see that.

• 2:16:14Griffin Newman?

  It's another thing that feels like it would unbalance the movie.

• 2:16:17David Sims?

  I think so. I don't think it would work.

• 2:16:19Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:16:54David Sims?

  Well, this is the thing. They send him the script and John Rhys Davies is like, I am not a 5'2" Egyptian guy.

• 2:17:01Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:17:01David Sims?

  What are you thinking here? And Spielberg is basically like, I loved you in Shogun. He plays, you know, the drunk Portuguese guy and Spanish guy in Shogun. The Nestor Carbonell played him in the new version beautifully. Uh, I want you to do something like that mixed with like Falstaff or whatever. And John Rhys Davies is like, well, of course I can do that, you know?

• 2:17:19Griffin Newman?

  Which I think it's just like, even if that, it doesn't make sense as casting on paper. Spielberg understands what that character needs to accomplish, which is exposition sounds pretty fucking good coming out of his mouth, right? Like just the actual register of his voice, this sort of like classically trained, he can make anything sound like, like poetry.

• 2:17:43David Sims?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:17:44Griffin Newman?

  And he needs to be this sort of like high impact support with this sense of joy and this sort of like devilish, you know, sort of like mischievous quality. But also it's like, he needs to be able to relay the three lines that explain what's going to happen for the next 10 minutes of the movie and keep you interested.

• 2:18:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and there, and from the time he's there helping, every joke lands, every line read is perfect. In fact, when I was trying to imagine how you were going to open this episode, I thought you were, I literally thought it was podcast, very dangerous. You go first is where I thought you were going.

• 2:18:21Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I probably would have done an even worse job with that impression. His voice is just astonishing.

• 2:18:26Speaker 04

  It's incredible. It's incredible. And dial for, uh, dial of destiny as well. It hasn't lost the beat.

• 2:18:32David Sims?

  It's another thing that Temple of Doom is missing is Sala.

• 2:18:35Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:18:36David Sims?

  Um, but yeah, we meet Sala.

• 2:18:37Griffin Newman?

  We brushed over Brody entirely.

• 2:18:39David Sims?

  Bro, we brushed over Bro, yeah. You're right. Cause Brody's there from the beginning and he's so good.

• 2:18:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:46David Sims?

  And.

• 2:18:47Griffin Newman?

  Denzel Elliott was nominated for best supporting actor at the BAFTAs.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  Right. That's probably partly a, you know, the Brits love this guy.

• 2:18:57Griffin Newman?

  But pull this up. I was just looking at this. Denzel Elliott won three consecutive supporting actor BAFTAs.

• 2:19:03David Sims?

  Right, so there you go.

• 2:19:04Griffin Newman?

  After this.

• 2:19:04David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:19:05Griffin Newman?

  I think he maybe had one nomination before this. He wins for Trading Places.

• 2:19:09Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:19:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:11Griffin Newman?

  And then he wins for two other movies, British movies I didn't even know of.

• 2:19:16David Sims?

  Um, okay, let me see. Denholm Elliott BAFTA.

• 2:19:19Speaker 04

  Well, just while you're looking it up, if I can be professorial for a second, there's some things in this screenplay that are just undeniably perfect. And one of them is the fact that Denholm Elliott, like, the only time we're ever in Indiana Jones's house for 25 years is the scene where he comes over and goes, "Hey, don't do this. This is, this is, this is everything wrong, everything bad. I'm getting the creeps." And then you get to see Indiana Jones just blow him off. And it's one of the series of scenes where people keep pulling him aside and we, the audience, are the only person that also knows that everyone has warned him, "Don't do this."

• 2:19:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:57Speaker 04

  The good guys, the bad guys, everyone's saying, "Don't go down this road," and he can't help himself, which I found, it's an incredible bit of business. So that's following that great exposition scene where not only are we getting all the information we need for the movie, but we're getting Indiana Jones's perception of it and his take on it and his relationship to it. And that's what's often missing from exposition scenes in any kind of storytelling is, okay, we need this information, of course, please, but what's your hot take on it? Why you? Why, why am I hearing this from you? And what, and what are you not telling me? Or what are you, what are you blowing off? And all of that is just exceptional writing.

• 2:20:37Griffin Newman?

  Characterization getting lost in exposition, which is what leads to scenes that feel like homework. Where you're like, okay, and when does the movie start? Versus having the perspective in the exposition of the character reacting to what they're finding out, and it's telling you things about them that are going to come in helpful later in your processing of the movie. Because I mean, Brody, it's like, okay, here's this weird like guy who finances his expeditions. Clearly has this kind of like boyish glee at the idea that not only are they acquiring these objects and like protecting them in the right context where they should belong, putting them in a museum, whatever, right? But also that he kind of loves hearing Indiana Jones report back and tell him the crazy shit he got up to. He never wants to do that.

• 2:21:21Griffin Newman?

  He loves that that's part of the equation.

• 2:21:23David Sims?

  He's not about to fly to Peru and whatever.

• 2:21:26Griffin Newman?

  Right. But you have like this really beautiful, very quick sort of like three scene arc of Brody being excited to hear what his expedition was like, oh no, Belik took it from you at the last second. That's a bummer. Right?

• 2:21:39Speaker 04

  And the only friend Indiana Jones has that could really appreciate all that went into this is his, has been his friend Brody.

• 2:21:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:22:02David Sims?

  Jack Porkins.

• 2:22:03Speaker 04

  Also, you can pack a gun back in those days. You couldn't pack a gun in your suitcase.

• 2:22:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you could get it through TSA. Now you can't even pack toothpaste.

• 2:22:10Speaker 04

  But also Porkins, um, uh, his relationship to that, they literally come to Indiana Jones and go, hey, what do you know? And he goes, well, I know this exact information. And the guy goes, whoa, Jesus Christ. And like, like that, I'd never seen that in a movie before. Like, well, why are you asking him if you're not going to believe him? Yeah. It's everything about this scene is wonderful.

• 2:22:30David Sims?

  He lost the BAFTA to Ian Holm for Chariots of Fire, which of course is the best picture winner that year.

• 2:22:34Griffin Newman?

  Okay, makes sense.

• 2:22:35David Sims?

  Uh, and then he gets BAFTA, uh, wins, uh, after this for Trading Places, which he's incredibly funny and obviously. And then yes, a private function, uh, which is like an Alan Bennett, uh, famous British dramatist, uh, like comedy with Michael Palin and Defense of the Realm, which is this kind of like dark British political thriller with Gabriel Byrne. Don't know what I should watch them. I bet you he rocks in them, but it is crazy that he won three BAFTAs.

• 2:23:03Speaker 04

  That's a good movie.

• 2:23:04Griffin Newman?

  Not just one, three, three consecutive. Eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six.

• 2:23:08David Sims?

  Is dominated for Room with a View in eighty-seven.

• 2:23:10Griffin Newman?

  Which is his one Oscar nomination.

• 2:23:12David Sims?

  Which is also amazing and.

• 2:23:14Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing, you look through old BAFTA years and now the BAFTAs like a mirror of the Oscars too closely where it's kind of boring. They used to just have such pride in their guys.

• 2:23:23David Sims?

  And it was, it was a more British.

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing.

• 2:23:26David Sims?

  A lot of American movies making it and if there is, it's like Den Homelion Raiders where they're like, well, we like the British guy.

• 2:23:32Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:23:32David Sims?

  We like that British guy in that movie.

• 2:23:34Griffin Newman?

  But then they also like Jamie Lee Curtis wins for Trading Places that same year.

• 2:23:38David Sims?

  Trading Places. It's kind of farcey in the way they probably do.

• 2:23:41Griffin Newman?

  They just had interesting zags. Um, but yes, to your point, like the fact that we're seeing the introduction of the arc as an idea through Brody as well as through Indy means that when Brody says you shouldn't do this, that hits differently for the audience where you're like, this is the guy who likes Indiana Jones doing Indiana Jones shit. He's bankrolling it. He thinks it's fun. He likes hearing the stories. He's in favor. And he's saying this is one step too far, which is basically the introduction of like, there are forces at play that are maybe beyond your comprehension. This is like touching on mystical shit. That's a little scary.

• 2:24:18David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 2:24:19Griffin Newman?

  Maybe, which Indy is just like, what the fuck are you talking about?

• 2:24:22Speaker 04

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

• 2:24:45Speaker 04

  Super exciting because once you hit it, you're like, what am I looking at? And you remember, oh, they told us wrath of God. Oh shit. So it's deeply exciting.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  I mean, obviously right, but the, the weird thing about Indiana Jones that a zillion people have remarked on is right. He probably didn't need to do anything, right?

• 2:25:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:04David Sims?

  They were always going to open the ark and all get murdered by it.

• 2:25:07Griffin Newman?

  Do you have thoughts on this?

• 2:25:08David Sims?

  And like this, this became right. The sort of galaxy brain nerd take of like Indy doesn't really even do much.

• 2:25:13Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's like, we watched this movie of Indiana Jones doing a bunch of shit, but the big question is if you remove him from the narrative, does the outcome change at all?

• 2:25:21Speaker 04

  Well, our perspective of the narrative changes.

• 2:25:24Griffin Newman?

  Very much.

• 2:25:24Speaker 04

  In itself changes the narrative. So.

• 2:25:26Griffin Newman?

  Which I would say is kind of like the defining element of what makes an interesting lead character. This is what people get wrong is they're like, oh, an interesting lead character is a character who does a lot of shit. They're impactful because they're high functioning and capable.

• 2:25:39David Sims?

  He makes the right kind of moral choice at the end of each of his movies. Like, you know, right? Like Indy does.

• 2:25:44Griffin Newman?

  But I think it's beyond that where it's like, the lesson is you want to watch the movie that Indiana Jones is in.

• 2:25:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:25:52Griffin Newman?

  The movie where he's not in it wouldn't be fun.

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  Uh.

• 2:25:56Griffin Newman?

  You could watch these same events play out, even if they were unaffected without this guy doing his shit.

• 2:26:01David Sims?

  Treasure hunters?

• 2:26:03David Sims?

  Yeah, no, it probably wouldn't be very fun.

• 2:26:05Griffin Newman?

  But you see so many blockbuster movies that can't answer why the main character is the main character, right?

• 2:26:12Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 2:26:13Griffin Newman?

  Where you're like, they're the main character because they decided that's the main character at the center of the story. It's not interesting to be telling that story from that character's perspective.

• 2:26:21David Sims?

  But isn't there also the argument that it's like, they, oh, when they open the ark, some kind of ancient magic creatures, whatever comes out? And they look upon these Nazis and turn into demons and destroy them. And they do not destroy Indiana or Marion. Is this, it's not just because Indiana's closed his eyes. Isn't it also, it's just like, they know these spirits have rendered judgment and they know that Indy and Marion are not, you know, evil of heart, as everyone else gathered is.

• 2:26:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's the low level, sort of like Inglourious Basterds version of like, this is me creating an alternate history where there is like some modicum of like, a microcosm representation of a course correction of like, there being a cosmic balance.

• 2:27:08Speaker 04

  That's imperfect reference is that like, we're taking history and we're just little, little tweaks so we can have some fun with it. If you, I'll, I'll answer a question with a question. If you were tied to a pole with David, uh, and there was, the wrath of God was swirling around you and David said, Griffin, keep your eyes shut. Would you be able to?

• 2:27:32David Sims?

  It's actually a good question.

• 2:27:33Griffin Newman?

  This is what's tough, okay? I think I'm capable of keeping my eyes shut. If David-

• 2:27:39Speaker 04

  Screaming and yelling and-

• 2:27:40David Sims?

  But now I'm commanding you.

• 2:27:42Griffin Newman?

  If David's the one telling me to do it, the tone of voice is really gonna make a difference.

• 2:27:45David Sims?

  Griffin! Griffin! Close your eyes!

• 2:27:49Griffin Newman?

  There's a version of it in which I keep my eyes open just to rile him up.

• 2:27:53David Sims?

  Ah, look!

• 2:27:55Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:28:25David Sims?

  Uh, yes, right, right, she won't survive.

• 2:28:28Griffin Newman?

  Right, just at the bar.

• 2:28:29David Sims?

  At the bar.

• 2:28:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the Ark would have been flown to Germany on the plane, because Indiana Jones wouldn't have stopped the German mechanic. And that means that the Ark goes straight to Hitler, opens up and burns his face.

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  So maybe, we lose some good pieces, you know, we lose some heroes.

• 2:28:49Griffin Newman?

  This is the interesting thing.

• 2:28:50David Sims?

  But Hitler gets burned up.

• 2:28:51Griffin Newman?

  You're like, the main thing that Indiana Jones stops is the Ark from getting straight to Hitler, who probably wanted first riot refusal and cracking that bad boy open.

• 2:28:59David Sims?

  Right, right, right, right, right.

• 2:29:01Speaker 04

  It's a, it's a, it's an interesting perspective, but, and, and, and also, there's a lot of, you know, uh, uh, talk about like, you know, the, the, when we heard the line in Last Crusade of, "It belongs in a museum," the, the, the ongoing joke, it was a great line of dialogue, uh, that, uh, but, and then, years later you go, wait, no it doesn't, it does not belong in a museum, it belongs exactly where you're stealing it from. Uh, but in most of these movies, he is keeping it from bad guys who are taking it. Like, they, they are going to take it, so, um, that's, that's it, like, he's, he's like, better in a museum or in a warehouse than, than in Hitler's.

• 2:29:41Griffin Newman?

  That's the better part of the argument, is that, the thing he stops from happening is it getting to Germany. Right? It's that like, it never ends up in complete Nazi control.

• 2:29:51David Sims?

  Right. And lord knows, whatever. Maybe they could have done something bad with it.

• 2:29:56Speaker 04

  And Lucas had this thing about that the MacGuffin always has to go back where it was or disappear. He has like that, that he has said this out loud and I always wrestle with that back and forth. This is from a storytelling point of view. And I'm like, okay, yeah, the perfect ending for Raiders. And I, I do believe a perfect ending for, um, uh, Temple of Doom, because he returns them to the village. He does not bring them to the museum and you gotta get a sense that young Indiana Jones has learned a lesson. Right. On some level. And then by the third one, it's the Grail and the Grail is just gonna go and, you know, fall into the pit. So even though the joke of it belongs in museum. And, uh, there's a comic book out right now called The Horizon Experiment by the guys that did The Good Asian,

• 2:30:37Speaker 04

  where it's a, like a, a, a flip side of Indiana Jones, whereas she's literally taking things out of museums and bringing them back to Great Adventure. The great idea. I wish I thought of it.

• 2:30:49David Sims?

  So, but yeah, what, but.

• 2:30:51Griffin Newman?

  Streets of Cairo.

• 2:30:52David Sims?

  Right, right. To, to fill in the several action sequences in between the denouement and the bar. Uh, which one is which? There's the car chase, which rocks, there's the.

• 2:31:06Speaker 04

  Well, in the documentary, my favorite stuff about Cairo is these beautiful wide shots that look like either timeless shots. And then you cut to Robert Watts, the famous producer, when I had to go down and yank every one of those TV antennas off of every rooftop. And they're like, oh, those poor people. It's just, I didn't, I just thought they didn't have antennas.

• 2:31:25David Sims?

  Television, right?

• 2:31:26Griffin Newman?

  But it's so much part of the lore of this movie too, that it's like 120 degrees and they all get like dysentery.

• 2:31:34David Sims?

  There's someone who didn't. I can't, I think it might be Spielberg, who like wasn't drinking the waters. There's some, anyway.

• 2:31:39Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:31:58David Sims?

  Right. And obviously that's how you get the sword versus gun fight.

• 2:32:02Griffin Newman?

  You know the story, right Ben?

• 2:32:04David Sims?

  You know, when Indy shoots the guy, right? The guy's like got the sword and he's swinging around and he just shoots him. It's like the most badass moment in the, but that was supposed to be a big fight.

• 2:32:12Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:32:36David Sims?

  That's incredible.

• 2:32:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And it's like,

• 2:32:38Speaker 04

  It's incredible.

• 2:32:39Griffin Newman?

  It is this iconic moment that I feel like people try to replicate a lot. And a lot of times when other movies do something like this, it feels like it is an unsatisfying subversion. That you are avoiding us, avoiding showing us the thing we want to see. I think there's something weirdly just in the like DNA of it. Being created in an organic way versus it being something that is reverse engineered. This is the problem with a lot of movies that try to be Indiana Jones is they're looking at the end results and going, we need something like this. You need the swordsman moment. You need a character like Marion. And you're starting from like the final result surface level elements.

• 2:33:20David Sims?

  Indiana Jones also just has so much action that like, you don't miss whatever you're missing there. Because it's on to the next thing and we're running and we're running. You know, it's like Indiana Jones is 70% set pieces anyway. So it's fine.

• 2:33:36Speaker 04

  And if you want, if you want to accuse Indiana Jones of doing anything wrong in the movie is he has caused chaos throughout this village. I mean, he's just like, he has tipped over everyone's business. These are small businesses and he is just causing chaos.

• 2:33:49David Sims?

  He is an unhelpful presence. That's true. And it's also that he can find treasure. Like as much as I love Indiana Jones, he is looking for treasure.

• 2:33:57Griffin Newman?

  But like talking about Chuck Jones influence, like Marion hiding in the barrels and it like having this like sequence of it almost becoming like three card Monte. Of like, where is she? Feels like a thing that Bugs Bunny does to like avoid Elmer Fudd. You know, like, I feel like there are 10 shorts where he does a similar thing where he's like hiding in different jars and peeking his head out.

• 2:34:19David Sims?

  And the monkey giving her away, giving her up.

• 2:34:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:34:23David Sims?

  Very funny.

• 2:34:23Speaker 04

  The monkey Steven Spielberg grew up with in his house.

• 2:34:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:35:10Griffin Newman?

  idealized little boy's fantasy of a tough girl who's also pretty and is cool and is funny, is that it does feel like to some degree, she's like his mom. Right? That like everything we now know about Spielberg's real mother from the failments, but also the way he's talked about her, written about her and being the sort of person who like refused to be boxed in in life.

• 2:35:33David Sims?

  Flowy poetic spirit who was being boxed in, but was resisting.

• 2:35:36Griffin Newman?

  And was like constantly pushing against it and acting out and causing trouble and all of that. It feels like he's pulling from a very personal experience of a woman he had a non-sexual relationship with.

• 2:35:48David Sims?

  You know who she had a sexual relationship with? Seth Rogen.

• 2:35:51Griffin Newman?

  And she did, in real life.

• 2:35:52David Sims?

  Um, yeah.

• 2:35:54Speaker 04

  The Sala of his family. But, um, but, but also like, I know they, it's just like little clips and stuff. It's almost not fair to even judge the whole relationships on the four seconds they show us in the documentary. But you can see in the, in the Raiders doc, the ones made, like the series docs made about this is that you can see them, Karen Allen and Spielberg really working, like really, like. Like challenging each other in the best way possible. Whereas every clip of him and Kate Capshaw is very flirty and very, they're having a blast. And there's nothing creepy or weird going on, but they are absolutely falling in love with each other. And it's just a different vibe. It just is. Yeah.

• 2:36:38Speaker 04

  And the best part in the, in the, the stuff with Kate Capshaw is that she won't do the snake.

• 2:36:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. That she's so scared of everything. Yeah.

• 2:36:45Speaker 04

  But you'll do the bugs. Okay, I'll do the bugs. And it cuts to the bug scene. He goes, you promised me bugs. Like they're this, they're very much in that space as a couple right then.

• 2:36:54David Sims?

  I would not do the bugs. I would do the snake.

• 2:36:56Speaker 04

  I was surprised by her choices while I think she was just trying to get out of the day.

• 2:37:00David Sims?

  The Well of Souls, as you mentioned, is cut out of what the comic book or the novelization? The comic book did not have the.

• 2:37:05Speaker 04

  I believe, yeah, there's like, that kind of chunk is cut out of it, but you, I don't want to.

• 2:37:10David Sims?

  It's the slowest chunk of the movie. It's the least, uh, you know, kinetic part, but it's fun. It's fun puzzle stuff. I like puzzle stuff.

• 2:37:18Speaker 04

  It's almost archology.

• 2:37:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yes, yes. And this is where it helps to have Sala in this part of the movie too, that you have this like Bon vivant guy who when indie is getting more academic, you can have Sala be big.

• 2:37:35David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:37:36Speaker 04

  But even like Sala, like trying to pull the, like, like when they're really trying to lift the lid off the Well of Souls. Like they're both, there's some tremendous shots there, one of which I've never seen someone strain that hard on camera before. Like I just like Sala's like really looks like he's gonna pop something. And then there's a, a shot of Harrison Ford in an almost wild eyed like mania, like he hasn't slept. It's gonna happen. And it's, it's a, it's a very rare shot of him just, um, almost like spiritually out of control. Like I, I must like, and it's what, not, not to rewind on you, but you know, Belloc hits him with that.

• 2:38:17Speaker 04

  He, you and I are the same guy, which is, by the way, for writers out there, never write that scene. It's been written. You don't have to write it. Please don't write it. Please, please, please. Even if you really feel like you're villain and hero or. Two sides of the same coin.

• 2:38:30David Sims?

  You don't need someone to say it.

• 2:38:31Speaker 04

  Don't have anyone look at the camera and say it. But, uh, but in this time, he does, he goes, yeah, you and I are the same guy. I don't even know why we're, why we're, we're fighting. We're both looking for the same shit. We both feel the same way about this stuff. And then in that moment where Harrison Ford is wild eyed to open the well of souls, you see that the villain is right. The villain, uh, he is right that Harrison Ford is built to the same stuff as, as this guy here. And when the moment's happening, he cannot stop himself. And that's great character stuff, particularly for an action movie.

• 2:39:01Griffin Newman?

  There are movies like Sorcerer and The Abyss and The Thing, two of which we've covered. Sorcerer will probably do one day.

• 2:39:10David Sims?

  Definitely cover, yeah.

• 2:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Where you're like, part of the magic of this movie is you telling how fucking difficult it was to shoot.

• 2:39:17David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:39:17Griffin Newman?

  That those are movies that like successfully.

• 2:39:19David Sims?

  Training, you can feel it. Yeah.

• 2:39:21Griffin Newman?

  Right. And they successfully represent the extreme environmental conditions that the characters are in, which you also know the cast and crew were put through as well, and that it's not faked. And that like the tone of Kurt Russell's skin is a legitimate reaction to him actually being like in a fucking Arctic environment for that long. It is wild to me that Raiders in particular does not have that kind of weight to it. Where I like, if I, when I watch this movie, every.

• 2:39:53David Sims?

  Quite effortless.

• 2:39:54Griffin Newman?

  It feels light and breezy. And then every 10 minutes, I think like, Jesus fucking Christ. They, this would just must have been the most exhausting gauntlet in the world. It is nonstop action in like very inhospitable climates and terrains. And, and just all the things you know about, like how rushed they were and everything.

• 2:40:18Speaker 04

  I think that's the magic of Michael Khan, the editor is.

• 2:40:21Griffin Newman?

  That's true.

• 2:40:22Speaker 04

  Like, it's a, one of the magics of this, this collaboration is this lifelong.

• 2:40:28Speaker 04

  You know, relationship between him and his editor and him and he does is he makes things look effortless. And sometimes that doesn't work towards like, like, like a hook. It doesn't, it has that same effortless. So it should look like a little harder. And with this, I don't know, there's just like, there's so much grit and dust on screen. Yeah, Ben, it's a very dusty movie, Ben.

• 2:40:49David Sims?

  So dusty.

• 2:40:51Speaker 04

  So dusty. And

• 2:40:53David Sims?

  Hook is exactly the movie to bring up, though. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

• 2:40:56Griffin Newman?

  But there's a difficult balance of like, you also don't want this movie being too weighed down by it feeling like too much of a struggle. There is like

• 2:41:05Speaker 04

  No, yeah.

• 2:41:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. Hook, there's like no tension.

• 2:41:08David Sims?

  Hook is right. I mean, I know people love Hook and we're gonna talk about Hook and there's fans of that movie, you know, a whole generation.

• 2:41:14Griffin Newman?

  We will have a defender on the episode.

• 2:41:16David Sims?

  It's a clunky movie.

• 2:41:18Speaker 04

  Did you say editor?

• 2:41:18Griffin Newman?

  We'll tell you off mic.

• 2:41:19David Sims?

  Don't tell you off mic. But like, it's a very, it's, it's a movie that sometimes really feels like it's plotting and it's, even though these sets are large and these actors are here to have fun or whatever.

• 2:41:29Griffin Newman?

  But that's what I'm saying. You're like, you're like, oh, this movie was like filmed on air conditioned sets. Everyone's trailers were close by. The catering must have been great, you know? Like, you feel that lack of like

• 2:41:40Speaker 04

  Glenn Close stopped by to be a

• 2:41:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like, I'm sure that that movie had its own struggles in its making, but like, Raiders, they're like, this is like a fucking like complicated like military operation.

• 2:41:51David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, I think

• 2:41:52Griffin Newman?

  That they're like willing into existence.

• 2:41:54David Sims?

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

• 2:42:12Griffin Newman?

  I, I think you're right about Michael Khan deserving a lot of credit. I also think like, John Williams' score is so much lighter than you would think.

• 2:42:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:21Griffin Newman?

  It is so much jauntier than you would think.

• 2:42:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:23Griffin Newman?

  There are obviously like so many different le motifs in Indiana Jones that are iconic beyond just the obvious bump, bump, bump, bump, where you're like, it's wild that Indiana Jones has 10 perfect themes that alternate. And most of them feel like they're more, like they would be more placed in like a screwball comedy, or like a classic Hollywood romance.

• 2:42:45David Sims?

  You know, who it lost to?

• 2:42:46Griffin Newman?

  In 1981. It lost to Reds?

• 2:42:50David Sims?

  Chariots of Fire.

• 2:42:51Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, of course.

• 2:42:52Speaker 04

  Chariots of Fire, there you go.

• 2:42:53David Sims?

  And obviously, John Williams had various, he had like three Oscars at that point. But you're like, how did it lose? Oh, Chariots of Fire. Well, it's pretty famous.

• 2:43:00Speaker 04

  I'm sure it will be brought in numerous times throughout this wave of your podcasts. But the John Williams doc on Disney Plus does a really excellent job giving you an overview of what was something I grew up in, going back to the world I grew up in, is, is John Williams delivering a banger, like it's a world-class, career-defining banger of a soundtrack about every four months.

• 2:43:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:43:25Speaker 04

  Just, it is.

• 2:43:26David Sims?

  Was on one.

• 2:43:28Speaker 04

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

• 2:43:56Griffin Newman?

  But also, like, Marion's theme is like the fifth most important theme in this film musically? Like, that's the quality of like his number five? You know, it's not just like, oh, he came up with a perfect theme for Indiana Jones, the character, and then the rest of the score is just riffing in variations on that one thing.

• 2:44:15Speaker 04

  It's just incredible.

• 2:44:16Griffin Newman?

  It's insane.

• 2:44:17Speaker 04

  And to the point where John Williams would then take me to other filmmakers. Like, I literally feel like how I, I met Brian De Palma and other people was, was through, um, oh, oh, oh, John Williams works with him, then he must be equal to Spielberg. I will then go there.

• 2:44:33Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's almost like, it's like the, um, the famous Roger Ebert, like M M at Walsh, Harry Dean Stanton role, where you're like, no movie with those guys, and it can be entirely bad, because those guys are always gonna do something interesting. You're like, there is no entirely bad movie with a John Williams score?

• 2:44:50David Sims?

  It's an interesting question.

• 2:44:51Griffin Newman?

  There are certainly, there are movies I don't like that he did the score for.

• 2:44:56David Sims?

  Yeah, but no, you're arguing like, does his score make even the most bland?

• 2:45:00Griffin Newman?

  Have some value.

• 2:45:02David Sims?

  I mean, probably, yeah.

• 2:45:02Speaker 04

  And you can argue 1941 is among his very, very best, like, right here.

• 2:45:08Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:45:08Speaker 04

  John, I've written whole graphic novels.

• 2:45:11Griffin Newman?

  Just to the 1941.

• 2:45:12Speaker 04

  Wow. It's just an incredible soundtrack.

• 2:45:14Griffin Newman?

  He did the score to Heartbeats.

• 2:45:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:45:17Griffin Newman?

  I remember the Heartbeats score being good.

• 2:45:18David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:45:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:19Speaker 04

  With Andy Kaufman?

• 2:45:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:21Speaker 04

  Andy Kaufman Heartbeats?

• 2:45:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:22Speaker 04

  Well, I never heard that.

• 2:45:23Griffin Newman?

  Andy Kaufman Heartbeats, I feel like I brought up a lot on this podcast, but as like an Andy Kaufman weirdo comedy obsessed kid, I would see photos of that movie in magazines and shit as like, this was one of the first best makeup nominees. And I'm like, there's a Bernadette Peters, Andy Kaufman, Robot Love Story movie? How is this not my favorite movie of all time? It felt very hard to see for a very long time. They finally put it out on DVD at some point in the mid 2000s. And I was like, I get to see Heartbeats, which is about to become my number one favorite movie in history. And it just so definitively doesn't work in a way that is astounding.

• 2:46:00Speaker 04

  That was another one of those movies that played for a window on Showtime all the time in the earliest days of cable, when there was only like six movies and they just played constantly. Like the movie Scavenger Hunt would play like constantly. Right? So, yeah, so I did see that. And as a fellow comedy nerd of an age, I was, oh, please, of course, it just, you guys don't understand it. It's, it's brilliant and you people don't understand it and you watch it for four minutes, go, oh, no, okay, that's all right.

• 2:46:26Griffin Newman?

  That Catskills is the least funny character in the history of movies, the cigar smoking robot?

• 2:46:31David Sims?

  I hate to cut you off, but we must finish our discussion.

• 2:46:33Griffin Newman?

  You don't want to hear me rant about Catskills for the fifth time in the arc of our podcast?

• 2:46:38David Sims?

  Exactly right. I do not. It's simply because we have.

• 2:46:40Speaker 04

  As much as he doesn't, I do, but I appreciate it. There's other episodes for that.

• 2:46:44David Sims?

  Are there action sequences we have not get into, gotten into enough, uh, of the many, many action sequences in this movie? I think that, I do think the car chase is the best constructed, you know, the horse.

• 2:46:57Griffin Newman?

  The truck chase?

• 2:46:58David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:59Speaker 04

  And also, opening weekend and opening experiences, by the time we're at the car chase, it is, you are truly a breathless audience member. You are, you just cannot believe how much movie you're getting.

• 2:47:12David Sims?

  Uses every part of the truck, go on top, go in the hood, go, you know, right? Like, you know, I like anything that, you know, maximizes a small space.

• 2:47:22Griffin Newman?

  This is more movie than you thought was previously possible.

• 2:47:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:47:26Griffin Newman?

  Right? Like David and I talk about when we did the Raimi series and watched those Spider-Man movies, which were so pivotal for us because they come at a time, parallel with your work and all of that. But you watch those and there was an expectation of superhero movies where for so long it was like, you can't make these. They're too expensive. The effects aren't there. And then it finally got to the threshold point. Computers can make Spider-Man swing through the air, but you'd watch these movies and be like, he's gonna have like two fight scenes.

• 2:47:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:47:54Griffin Newman?

  It is just not cost effective.

• 2:47:56David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 2:47:57Griffin Newman?

  He will have like one fight scene in the middle.

• 2:47:58David Sims?

  I mean, God bless. That's what the first X-Men movie is.

• 2:48:01Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:48:01David Sims?

  Where you're like, oh, they're out of action money.

• 2:48:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:48:04David Sims?

  You know, like there's two really, two to three really fun, and I love, I'm very soft spot for that movie.

• 2:48:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but I do as well. But like, the final battle between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man at the end of the first Raimi movie is like four minutes.

• 2:48:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:48:17Griffin Newman?

  You know, it's like.

• 2:48:18Speaker 04

  I'm physically incapable of not saying out loud that I saw that movie for the first time, sitting on a couch next to Stan Lee and Sam Raimi's office on an AV cart.

• 2:48:27Griffin Newman?

  That fucking rules.

• 2:48:28Speaker 04

  They rolled in an AV cart and I was not told what I was doing there. And then that's what I found out I was doing there. And I'm now supposed to watch the movie when Stan, who I don't know, is sitting right next to me.

• 2:48:41David Sims?

  You must be very early.

• 2:48:42Speaker 04

  Having a lifetime of emotions about, about the, the special effects catching up to that, which he's been trying to make this movie since he thought of it.

• 2:48:51David Sims?

  Because he must have only been in the Marvel fold for like a couple of years at that point, right?

• 2:48:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I was, I was early going. I did not know I was there. Sam Raimi smartly figured out that he and I had the same job to.

• 2:49:04David Sims?

  Right, to reintroduce Spider-Man.

• 2:49:06Speaker 04

  Right, yeah. And it was, and was interested in the. Things that we did that were similar and the things that we did that were different and had it had us come in as like the first test audience and it was it was in a genuinely an incredible moment in my life. Cause I'm literally just a Sam Raimi fan, just the evil dead guys here. And then all of a sudden Stan walks in, hey, do you believe us? Sits down and and we're watching a movie. It was in, it was.

• 2:49:29Griffin Newman?

  Good Raimi impression, by the way.

• 2:49:30Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 2:49:31David Sims?

  Did he like it?

• 2:49:32Speaker 04

  He was, I, I literally, he got emotional at the end. There was like, he wasn't, he wasn't bawling, but he was, he was, you know, uh, he was misty eyed and, and, and took us down memory lane for a while. It was quite wonderful. And then, and then they asked us, you'll, you'll like this. They, um, they asked us if, uh, we wanted to stay and help like rewrite work at some of the dialogue situations out. And Dan grabbed his windbreaker and he goes, oh, I wrote 126 issues of Spider-Man. They're all yours. Goodbye. And he was gone and I, as a younger creator, just stayed and immediately realized that he was smart and I should have ran out.

• 2:50:06David Sims?

  Right. And so you're not to talk to, you know, execs all night.

• 2:50:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but what an experience.

• 2:50:12Speaker 04

  It was an incredible day. I'm tired, tired of it.

• 2:50:14David Sims?

  No, it's a pretty good anecdote. You're allowed.

• 2:50:17Griffin Newman?

  The reason I brought all this up is that I, I have, I think, I imagine this is what it would have felt like to watch Raiders in the theater at the time. But seeing Spider-Man two opening night, when the subway chase sequence goes on for like 15 minutes.

• 2:50:34David Sims?

  It keeps happening.

• 2:50:34Griffin Newman?

  And I kept feeling like this is impossible. How is this still going? The projector should be breaking down. I don't think the infrastructure exists to let Spider-Man exist doing Spider-Man shit for this long. And that's not even the final sequence of the movie. Where it's like, by the time you get to the truck chase and you're like, this is like the fifth, like absolute, like balls to the wall, like jam extended set piece. That he has constructed now in this movie.

• 2:51:04Speaker 04

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

• 2:51:19Griffin Newman?

  But it's a fucking mission statement.

• 2:51:21Speaker 04

  He doesn't know what's happening.

• 2:51:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:51:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's smart. He's passionate. He can do it. He's not going to stop. How far will he go? This is where we are in the movie and our headset. Like, how, how far is this going to go? And then also, then you find out from the, the making of that it's mostly second unit. That he, that Spielberg gave over that sequence, a very storyboarded sequence to the second unit. And they talk about it in great length in the documentary. And, and so you're like watching a stunt team being given free rein. It's almost a Valentine to them. Like, like, here's everything we know how to do. And we're going to have the blast doing it. And no one's telling us no, because the director's not here. And, and you're getting all their best stuff.

• 2:52:30David Sims?

  George Lucas also did a lot of the second unit.

• 2:52:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. He basically had to do that. Like, that was how to get the movie finished.

• 2:52:36David Sims?

  But it's also, I think it's a self-imposed Spielberg's like, I'm not doing 1941 again.

• 2:52:40Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:52:40David Sims?

  I will not go over schedule. I will not get this reputation.

• 2:52:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. The way to keep this movie on rails is to understand what needs to be delegated to other people.

• 2:52:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:52:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:52:51David Sims?

  So, uh.

• 2:52:53Speaker 03

  Should we show out at least the shirtless Chungus Nazi? I love that guy.

• 2:52:58Griffin Newman?

  He's so huge.

• 2:52:59David Sims?

  Again, you love his ideology.

• 2:53:01Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:53:01Griffin Newman?

  No. Can I do?

• 2:53:02David Sims?

  You just like how large he is.

• 2:53:03Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:53:04Griffin Newman?

  This is not quite a merchandise spotlight, but here's the thing I want to say. Kenner gets the Star Wars license in 1977, right? And starts making all the figures. And some of them, they come up with these names like the walrus man, you know, an elephant head and whatever. Uh, that later than Lucas is like, no, no, no, we need to give them canonical names. This is. On Needon, this is whoever this Panda Baba, right? Um, but the whole like Lucasy thing of like, we're gonna come up with a backstory and a name and a species and a planet. For every fucking background character, any object you see in any shot, even if it's never explained, there's an answer for it. I love that across now four plus decades, the history of Indiana Jones merchandise, none of these characters are ever named.

• 2:53:46David Sims?

  He's named German McKenna.

• 2:53:48Griffin Newman?

  Correct. When those toys are sold in 1981, they are German mechanic, monkey man, you know, like those are their names.

• 2:53:56David Sims?

  Cairo swordsman.

• 2:53:57Griffin Newman?

  Right, exactly. And then like Lucasfilm loves to fucking backfill and be like, never mind, we finally landed on a name for that Star Wars character. Never does that with Indiana Jones. None of them are ever fucking named. Like any character who isn't given a name on the screen has no canon name.

• 2:54:14David Sims?

  Yeah, it is a looser world, which is fine. It's good, right?

• 2:54:18Griffin Newman?

  But also you're like, who's that character? He's a German mechanic.

• 2:54:20David Sims?

  Big guy, big man.

• 2:54:21Griffin Newman?

  He's got a fucking Raleigh fingers mustache.

• 2:54:23David Sims?

  He does. How do you know about Raleigh fingers?

• 2:54:26Griffin Newman?

  How do I know about Raleigh fingers?

• 2:54:28Speaker 04

  I, I just, at my, at my age, like when that guy punches Harrison Ford right in the fucking face, you're like, oh, he falls down. Like, like he's literally, his, his, his, his, his knees go to jelly. And I don't think I'd ever seen that in a movie. I'm sure Burt Reynolds did it and stuff in the, in the Smokey and the Purrin' movies and stuff like that. But I, I just, I had not seen it and I was, oh my God, he might die.

• 2:54:52Griffin Newman?

  Comparing, not comparing everything to modern day, but like the infamous fucking like Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel contractual, how many punches they can take and how they can never lose a fight and whatever. You got two movie stars who both look like the German mechanic and refuse to ever look uncooler, weak for half a second. And Harrison Ford's like, no, this guy should fucking cold cock me. I have no ego about this. I beat him in the end.

• 2:55:15David Sims?

  Everything should be hard for me.

• 2:55:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:55:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:17Speaker 04

  And in the movie, the great scene where we, the quiet moment on the submarine where you get to see how beat the fuck up he is. Like, oh, everything hurts. Like that's still to this day, not something you see in movies.

• 2:55:30David Sims?

  Really from then to the end. And he doesn't do much like he's really out of commission and he's tied to a pole like it's like that's right. Once they're on the U boat and stuff, it's really just a matter of Jones being like, I think Belloc wants to test the ark. You know, and that's sort of going to be the weakness here, right? Rather than this going right.

• 2:55:48Griffin Newman?

  But you're right. From that moment on, you have like the moment of intimacy that comes only when he's acknowledging his own wounds and scars. The year's not the mileage, right? This moment that feels like, right. And the fucking, just when you think it's going to lead to like an ecstatic love scene. It leads like he's getting knocked out, you know? Like he, he just is barely keeping his shit together.

• 2:56:10David Sims?

  And to be, the end of Indiana Jones, where Jewish ghosts melt Nazis is awesome.

• 2:56:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:16David Sims?

  But it's a passive ending for Indy in a way. And so it's a bold choice.

• 2:56:21Griffin Newman?

  Post the boat. Basically, everything he tries is kind of a nonstarter.

• 2:56:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:25Griffin Newman?

  You're like, oh, he's gonna put on like a German soldier outfit. He's gonna infiltrate them. This will be an exciting last 30 minutes where he's amongst them. Almost immediately they catch him.

• 2:56:33David Sims?

  Like we busted you.

• 2:56:34Griffin Newman?

  You're right up there with a fucking bazooka. What do you think you're doing? You look like Harrison Ford.

• 2:56:38David Sims?

  It's just surprising in a way that they, whatever, like it just feels like a Hollywood studio now, I guess, would be like, well, come on, no, Indy has to, you know, use the ghosts against them or whatever, you know, like they're, Indy has to be more involved in this.

• 2:56:52Griffin Newman?

  Right, but.

• 2:56:52David Sims?

  It's their thing and they get to do what they want.

• 2:56:54Griffin Newman?

  And who is the Hollywood studio in this case?

• 2:56:56David Sims?

  That's not, no, but that's.

• 2:56:57Griffin Newman?

  George Lucas.

• 2:56:57David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying, right? Like, you know, they don't have.

• 2:56:59Griffin Newman?

  It's like, A, notes I think were less bad than they are now. But on top of that, you basically have this movie bankrolled by another artist.

• 2:57:08David Sims?

  Yeah. And so they get to.

• 2:57:10Speaker 04

  It also like, there's some shots in the doc about like Spielberg looking at like the models for the, the ghosts, you know, the, the angel of death that's coming at the end. And they look very space alien.

• 2:57:23Speaker 04

  Very close encounters-ish like, and to the, and he's delighted. He's like, oh, this is perfect. I'm like, oh, I would not be able to see like what he sees. Like, it's kind of amazing that he does see what it actually is going to look like on screen. Cause you cannot tell with even perspective that that's what it's, what it's going to look like. The other thing. And what you said, I think about the action heroes of the time. So when I was growing up, when Harrison Ford got into shape for Temple of Doom, it was international headlines about how buffed out Harrison Ford is. He is jacked to the gills. He got in shape. And then you see it today. He is just in very good. Yeah.

• 2:58:03David Sims?

  Normal man shape. Right.

• 2:58:05Griffin Newman?

  Like Justin Long in comedies is as buff as Harrison Ford is in Temple of Doom.

• 2:58:12Speaker 04

  So this, this summer, I had a good summer with the kids, like showing them like stuff they wanted to see they hadn't seen before, like Terminator two and, and the Martian, just like stuff that was, they were, they were too young for when they came out. Yes, the Martian and, um, uh, uh, uh, looking at, uh, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator two, which is not him in his biggest, but him at his most iconic. And he is the exact same shape as Paul Rudd in Ant-Man.

• 2:58:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Basically. I mean.

• 2:58:38Speaker 04

  The, what the biggest man in the world at that time, the, the biggest man in the world. And that is, that is mid Marvel by today's standards.

• 2:58:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I'm not throwing out the Justin Long thing wantonly.

• 2:58:47David Sims?

  No, I, I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly.

• 2:58:50Griffin Newman?

  I had a very specific moment, I think probably around that time that, uh, he's just not that into you came out. When I was like trying to kickstart my acting career in whatever way. And I was waiting at a stoplight to cross the street in New York and I looked over and he was standing next to me. And the first thing I clocked was, wow, he's got like guns. And I was like, this isn't Justin Long trying to campaign for some superhero role. Like our whole body image of people in movies has become so distorted that the guy who plays the skinny gawky guy in comedies is actually cut in real life.

• 2:59:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like Cheety in The Good Place, but, um, I, I, I, I remember like Harrison Ford working out made me go work out. Like I was like, like, like, I, yeah, I, this little, I, I should get some definition like, but I, I do, I, I, I guess I. Also saw it is obtainable like like like like he had worked out and he'll feel good.

• 2:59:45David Sims?

  You know?

• 2:59:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. Also, we haven't mentioned Harrison Ford gets hurt a lot in movies in real life, like and watching all the documentaries in a row. He gets hurt on every single one. Almost every movie gets shut down.

• 2:59:55David Sims?

  He's always breaking limbs and crashing planes.

• 2:59:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, like up until including Force Awakens, like, like, like he's.

• 3:00:01David Sims?

  He like broke his arm or leg in the hydraulic press.

• 3:00:04Griffin Newman?

  Like, okay, so the, the, I'm just making it up as a go along thing. I think works because in some ways that is an admission of Spielberg talking about his own creative process. Right?

• 3:00:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:16Griffin Newman?

  That that is the side of Indiana Jones that is Spielberg himself, who's looking around at the elements and gaming out. What is the most fun way to construct this? How do I get out of this? Right? Yeah, no, it's not even how most fun way to construct it. It's what people talk about where he gets to set and goes like, what is the fewest number of shots I can get this in? If this person walks from here to here on this line, then suddenly that's a one or and we can cover half a page in like five minutes. Or whatever it is.

• 3:00:42Speaker 04

  He, he's the most famous for it. It gets talked about endlessly by film nerds, but you, you guys will reference it often. It is to watch him construct this, like when he, when the doc cameras are on him, watching him in real time, construct a scene. Either from this or from Lincoln with the same amount of just, he's so good at it. It's just in a, right? He really may be the best at that that ever lived.

• 3:01:06Griffin Newman?

  I, I think he is, and I, it's like you watch that footage and it's almost like he's like speaking in tongues. Where it's like he's channeling something from like another dimension where he's just like, oh, wait a second, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. And he just like calls out five chess moves and he's not doing it in a bossy or demanding way. It feels like it's just coming to him suddenly and then the thing comes together so quickly. And he just like knows exactly how to get it really fast. The other part of it is the Indiana Jones thing of talk about the fallibility of him as a hero, right? That he isn't worried about looking weak or failing or whatever it is. There's something unified there in the fact that Harrison Ford himself hurts himself a lot. And it's not just like, oh, he gets injured on set because he's not good at doing stunts. He gets in a fucking planes and crashes them.

• 3:01:51Griffin Newman?

  And then people go, hey, Harrison, maybe time to stop flying planes. And he's like, fuck off.

• 3:01:54David Sims?

  No.

• 3:01:55Griffin Newman?

  And he gets in another plane. Like there is something he's playing that speaks to something very real in him, which is this guy who just keeps fucking doing the shit. Even when he gets like knocked out. He just gets back up and walks off like the fucking crash site.

• 3:02:12Speaker 04

  Yep, but pre-Indiana Jones, you remember a scene where there was just a moment where the hero licked his wounds on camera? I can't even think of it, yeah.

• 3:02:20Griffin Newman?

  No, and like thinking about like comparable like 70s stars. You know, I know this is an 80s movie, but like, you know, who are the sort of towering figures of like 70s action cinema, right? A, they're largely a lot older. Like you still have like, you know, Lee Marvin movies and like Charles Bronson movies and those things where those guys are a lot steelier and a lot more humorless. Burt Reynolds is way more humor. He does not want to show that he cares. He's never gonna get his hands that messy, right? Like, he's more the Han Solo type of wanting to be a little bit above it. And then you have like Dirty Harry, who is similarly just like, Dirty Harry's never gonna show fucking vulnerability.

• 3:03:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was like, like, wondering, like, when I was thinking back on this, like, how did I as a kid know that Burt Reynolds didn't give a shit?

• 3:03:12Griffin Newman?

  Was it from him like going on The Tonight Show? I mean, I totally like, wasn't that?

• 3:03:16Speaker 04

  Message to me, just like, he doesn't, he's not giving it a thought.

• 3:03:19Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, that was the product. Like, that's what he was selling. It was like, he was like the pet rock and people were like, so what do I do? And they're like, you just put the rock on your desk and you pretend it's a pet. And you're like, I gotta do the work? He's just gonna sit there and flub his fucking lines?

• 3:03:35Speaker 04

  Also, you were talking about the costuming. It's also how he's wearing the costume that the costumer talks in the documentary about how, how Harrison wears clothes. And he's not just wearing the jacket, he's kind of wearing the jacket like almost off his shoulders half the time. Like, it's barely on him. It's very unique. Like, it's, and when he like, like buttons up his tie and like puts the jacket, like, there's, there's a, there's a more, like, a more respectful Indiana Jones in the, in the costume. But most of the time, it's, it's, the jacket's almost not on his shoulders.

• 3:04:07Griffin Newman?

  But that's like the craftsman side of it, which is like, he's doing things that are unnatural, but he understands that he is in the business of making iconography. And the tough thing to do is to do that and not have it play as self-conscious. That he is able to give this very like natural behavioral performance with that kind of self-awareness.

• 3:04:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. And again, you said before, the other thing with Spielberg is every single one of these supporting performers and or stunt people and or just presence on the screen just really feels right and exciting and surprising. Like, it's just everywhere you turn, there's something really interesting to look at. There's someone who's bringing their whole story to this one line of dialogue that they're reading, even the Nazis, you know. Also, I know we're heading towards the end here with with the Nazis, but it was very interesting to me when they were talking about making Crystal Skull. And he said, no Nazis, I'm not like, like, he literally, the only rule Spielberg put out is I'm not going back to doing cartoon Nazis post Schindler's List.

• 3:05:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he refused to.

• 3:05:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, yeah, like, and that that arc of just maturity as a storyteller, like, I have made a statement so powerful, I can't go back to the Bugs Bunny Nazi. I can't do that. And him knowing he can't do that.

• 3:05:33Griffin Newman?

  I find that very fascinating, but it also feels like an admission that he shouldn't have made another Indiana Jones movie. That's the problem. It is what is so interesting about him that, like, you know, I feel like it's it's been said that part of the calculation of making Temple of Doom, a prequel, was that he didn't want to just do the Nazis again. And if you were setting it right after World War II isn't resolved, you don't want to go too far in the future. It felt like you could put it earlier and put it in a different timeline. And then Last Crusade, he's like, why am I trying to like, fucking perfect something? He's never going to be better than Indiana Jones fighting the Nazis. But if you get to a point where you don't want to make Indiana Jones fight the Nazis anymore, then maybe it's like, not the time to make an Indiana Jones movie.

• 3:06:18Speaker 04

  But also, you get that that great line in Last Crusade, the famous Nazis, I hate these guys. Like, he's the only one that hates them. Like, this is something about me, you should know. I don't like Nazis is very, it's a great, it's a great line.

• 3:06:32Griffin Newman?

  One of his defining characteristics.

• 3:06:33Speaker 04

  You got to wait a decade for it, too, which is great.

• 3:06:35Griffin Newman?

  All three face meltings.

• 3:06:37David Sims?

  So good. So different. I mean, obviously, Tote is the best one.

• 3:06:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:06:41David Sims?

  But they're all fun.

• 3:06:42Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, three of the best practical visual effects of all time, all happening right next to each other. And as you said, what's great about it is that they're three different bites at the apple.

• 3:06:54David Sims?

  They are.

• 3:06:54Griffin Newman?

  That they're different philosophical approaches.

• 3:06:57David Sims?

  The practical effects were good. I think also the individual freaks are, you know, like, Paul Freeman is the best. I mean, not Paul Freeman, sorry. Tote is the best.

• 3:07:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:05David Sims?

  Ronald Lacy, the way he just goes like, ah, like, you know, he, he hits the scream the best. But yeah, just, uh, one is sort of shrinking, right? Like a sort of drying fruit. Tote, the Nazi guy, Tote melts.

• 3:07:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:19David Sims?

  And, uh, Belloc blows up.

• 3:07:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. The behind the scenes of the tote head where like, it was this incredibly like complicated, immaculately built layer by layer. Basically like candle head.

• 3:07:33David Sims?

  Makes sense because that's exactly what it looks like. It looks like this thing is truly like being melted layer by layer.

• 3:07:38Griffin Newman?

  Right. And they had like 40 fucking hair dryers on it. And then we're speeding it up even further. But you're like, it's a thing they could only do one time successfully.

• 3:07:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:07:49Griffin Newman?

  And a lot of it is like theoretical where they're like, we think this will work.

• 3:07:53David Sims?

  It worked. It's cool.

• 3:07:55Speaker 04

  And, and it still works. Um, I live, I'm here in Portland where, um, Raiders and Jaws plays on theaters, um, at least once a summer. So I got to take, um, the kids to like, my, my son saw Jaws for the first time. Completely works even by modern, through modern eyes. And Raiders also works and the head melting completely. Like, I always wondered, like, does this read at all? Or is this just something I grew up with? So I love it, right? It's decades old. This is just look like an old, like Three Stooges cartoon to my kids. You know what I mean? And they come, it, nope, does, it works completely rattled them.

• 3:08:35Speaker 04

  And to the point where you're watching it now, I remember thinking, did they find an actor that looks like this model they built? Cause they, like this, it's so perfectly.

• 3:08:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's part of what helps sell the illusion. You're right. Is that he himself looks like a model.

• 3:08:50David Sims?

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

• 3:09:12Griffin Newman?

  Ben?

• 3:09:12David Sims?

  You don't open the box.

• 3:09:14Speaker 03

  If I opened the box, I think God's hand would come out and pound me. Be like, what's up, brother? Hey, keep it up, Benny.

• 3:09:21Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:09:21David Sims?

  And then just turn into a bunch of coins.

• 3:09:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:09:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:25Griffin Newman?

  He wouldn't beat your ass. He'd dap you.

• 3:09:26David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 3:09:28Speaker 03

  Good job.

• 3:09:31Speaker 04

  But it does, it does feel exactly like Inglourious Basterds where like, oh, this is much farther along than I thought we were going with this storyline. Like I, we are well past what I thought was the line. So that very, and also I don't know where this is going to end. Is God gonna show up with the voice of Gene Hackman and give us the business? I don't know what's gonna happen.

• 3:09:49Griffin Newman?

  God, Gene Hackman never played God, did he?

• 3:09:53Speaker 04

  Yes, he did. I, I just, I just tipped my hat. He, it's a movie with, um, the movie that isn't Grease starring.

• 3:10:00David Sims?

  Two of a kind. He is the voice of God in the John Travolta, Olivia Newton.

• 3:10:04Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 3:10:05David Sims?

  Yes. Oliver Reed plays the devil.

• 3:10:07Griffin Newman?

  Is that movie good?

• 3:10:09David Sims?

  Probably not. It was a notorious bomb.

• 3:10:11Speaker 04

  Another one I saw in theaters, so chuffed from my experience.

• 3:10:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:15Speaker 04

  Watching Grease. Of course this must be, even if it's half Grease.

• 3:10:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:19Speaker 04

  No, it's, it is a truly terrible movie.

• 3:10:23Griffin Newman?

  It's a heartbeat.

• 3:10:23Speaker 04

  Speaking too, by the way, um, I rewatched the Siskel and Ebert of this, of this movie. Cause I, I'll, I'll, I'm of an age where everything Siskel and Ebert did affected me greatly. They were my film school for all of my childhood. And everyone they championed, I, I, I immediately took notice of. And, um, and so you watch this clip and they are just giddy with excitement over this movie. They just can't believe they experienced this movie in a way that they rarely show on camera.

• 3:10:54David Sims?

  That's awesome.

• 3:10:55Speaker 04

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

• 3:11:19Griffin Newman?

  Like, it's kind of surprising that it got nominated, not just for best picture, but best director. When they had snubbed Spielberg for Jaws.

• 3:11:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:11:27Griffin Newman?

  But it did just like, this movie, I think was just fucking undeniable.

• 3:11:31David Sims?

  Yeah. And it was obviously the biggest hit of the year. And the, you know, but you're right. Of course, the jaws had been as well now, but it, it's treated like these Spielberg movies, pre Schindler's List is treated where it gets the noms.

• 3:11:44Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:11:44David Sims?

  Wins a bunch of tech awards.

• 3:11:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:11:46David Sims?

  And does not touch, like, there's no acting attention and, and it loses to, uh, chariot to fire and reds respectively for picture and director. Which are, reds is this, you know, big egotistical passion project. I love that movie, but.

• 3:12:00Speaker 04

  I, I love that movie dearly. It is, is one of my favorite movies of all time.

• 3:12:04David Sims?

  Amazing.

• 3:12:04Speaker 04

  I covered it in great length on Scott Aukerman's.

• 3:12:07Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 3:12:08David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. Great episode of Scott Hasn't Seen.

• 3:12:10Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 3:12:10David Sims?

  Um, and then chariot to fire is the little movie that could that year. That's the movie everyone, it's the coda of its year. Everyone's like, you know, I really love that movie.

• 3:12:21Griffin Newman?

  Those are serious movies about serious things coming out of a seventies where new Hollywood was like, we gotta fucking engage with shit politically. And like Spielberg is making these like fun, like gumball rally movies.

• 3:12:34David Sims?

  Yeah, it's just not right. The Oscars have not caught up to what he's doing.

• 3:12:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:38David Sims?

  Uh, and they.

• 3:12:39Griffin Newman?

  And yet they couldn't ignore him. There's a weird balance of them being like, come here, but not too close.

• 3:12:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:12:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:47David Sims?

  Uh, to be clear, I love reds. I love reds.

• 3:12:48Speaker 04

  It's a weird public narrative that goes on for the eighties, like when Spielberg getting his due. Like this is, this is the narrative through every movie, including color purple and all the way, all the way up to Schindler's List.

• 3:12:59David Sims?

  Let's play the box office game.

• 3:13:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Any final things you want to say? I mean, the final moment, you sort of teed this up, but it's like, it is the one most satisfying resolution to what do they do with the relics? That the movie, the sequels can't ever replicate of just putting it in a crate. And it's just like stacked up and then this incredible shot of this warehouse and being like. Every single fucking crate in this place.

• 3:13:26David Sims?

  Is an arc of the.

• 3:13:27Griffin Newman?

  Has some fucking thing in there that caused some crazy adventure presumably?

• 3:13:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, anyone with a little story brain just explodes like every one of these is an adventure. Every one of these is a comic book I have to read.

• 3:13:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but it's it's also kind of like it's this weirdly like bittersweet note of like and all that for what? It like gets stacked up.

• 3:13:46Speaker 04

  And then you get the shot of Karen Allen in full wardrobe and makeup like a woman about town. Like, like which we had not seen because we've only met her. And we met her at her lowest and watched her through an adventure. So here she is in full makeup and you're like, holy shit. Like, like, I don't know, it just, it was like, at the end of the movie, the last thing you think of, oh, my God. It is a is a is a fun thing to think of. And also, um, thinking of it like if it was today, I wonder if Karen Allen would have more of like a Jennifer Lawrence career. You know what I mean? More of like, I know she had shots where she got to be the lead.

• 3:14:23David Sims?

  We talked about it on the Starman episode.

• 3:14:25Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I think we both said that we think she should have won the Oscar that year and she wasn't even nominated. And it does feel bizarre for like, uh, either, either or, if it was just Animal House or Indiana Jones, you'd be like, either one of those should have set her up to have a dominant career for 15 years. The fact that she did both, it's just kind of bizarre that she didn't have a bad career. But it's like, she should have been like one of the top five female stars in America for all of eighties.

• 3:14:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:14:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And yes, she was clearly capable of doing anything and everything and still is. Yeah.

• 3:15:06David Sims?

  Film was the biggest film of the year.

• 3:15:08Griffin Newman?

  It was successful.

• 3:15:09David Sims?

  Very successful, made 220 million domestic, $20 million budget, comes out June 12th, 1981. Brian was there.

• 3:15:16Speaker 04

  I was there.

• 3:15:17David Sims?

  Opens number one at the box office. We're in this stage where we, you know.

• 3:15:20Griffin Newman?

  Wide release.

• 3:15:21David Sims?

  Beginning to have right opening weekends. Uh, number two is another.

• 3:15:24Griffin Newman?

  What it opened to?

• 3:15:26David Sims?

  Do you say? $4 million.

• 3:15:28Griffin Newman?

  Robust.

• 3:15:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:29Speaker 04

  But also interesting, I reading this morning, uh, was not tracking well. Prior to release, they were worried about it. There was, there was a Superman two without tracking it by a mile.

• 3:15:40David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 3:15:41Speaker 04

  That is, yeah, I know.

• 3:15:42David Sims?

  Superman two is one of the big hits of the year, but not as big.

• 3:15:45Speaker 04

  But as a child, I was all in on Raiders. Like, we couldn't wait. So that's weird to hear that.

• 3:15:52David Sims?

  It is opening against another new movie that is a big adventure movie, epic fantasy movie, that is not as well remembered.

• 3:16:01Griffin Newman?

  In 1981, it's a big epic. It's not Excalibur, is it?

• 3:16:04David Sims?

  No, even more ancient than that.

• 3:16:08Griffin Newman?

  In terms of when it's set?

• 3:16:09David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:16:10Griffin Newman?

  Is it biblical?

• 3:16:11David Sims?

  No, a little forward, maybe. But I don't know. No, it's a, no. Ancient myth.

• 3:16:18Griffin Newman?

  Ancient myth?

• 3:16:19David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:16:20Speaker 04

  Clash of the Titans?

• 3:16:21David Sims?

  There you go.

• 3:16:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 3:16:23David Sims?

  With Harry Hamlin and Laurence Olivier, and, you know, released The Kraken Mode, obviously later remade with Sam Worthington.

• 3:16:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:16:32David Sims?

  The last work of very Harry.

• 3:16:33Griffin Newman?

  Who I guess really is kind of our generation's Harry Hamlin. Yes, no, I mean, that's, that's the big thing is it was.

• 3:16:38David Sims?

  It was the end of the Harry.

• 3:16:39Griffin Newman?

  Right. And look, it's a throwback. We're letting Harryhausen do one last, yeah.

• 3:16:43David Sims?

  Here's another new movie that week.

• 3:16:45Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:16:46David Sims?

  A comedy, one that we, also epic, one that we will, I'm sure, cover on this show one day.

• 3:16:52Griffin Newman?

  We will cover this someday. Eighty-one. Epic comedy. Is it a, is it a genre mashup? It's a comedy?

• 3:17:00Speaker 04

  Biblical epic?

• 3:17:01David Sims?

  It.

• 3:17:03Griffin Newman?

  Hmm. He's struggling to think how he would describe this. Is it History of the World Part One?

• 3:17:09Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 3:17:09David Sims?

  History of the World Part One from Mel Brooks.

• 3:17:13Speaker 04

  I was gonna pull out a Holy Moses, which is pretty.

• 3:17:15David Sims?

  That would have been good.

• 3:17:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:17David Sims?

  Uh, but not, a film I've maybe only seen once. Not a Mel Brooks I really know very well.

• 3:17:22Griffin Newman?

  It's not one of my favorites, but I, it's, it is consistently funny. It's got great stuff in it. Yeah.

• 3:17:28David Sims?

  So all three of those movies are opening against each other.

• 3:17:31Griffin Newman?

  That's why.

• 3:17:31David Sims?

  Very weird that Raiders and Clash of the Titans, like, those feel like way too much overlap there, but they were. Now, number four at the box office. Ben, you might be interested by this movie. It is.

• 3:17:44Griffin Newman?

  It's called Bone Dirt River?

• 3:17:47David Sims?

  It is the third of, I mean, I don't know, six or seven films that this comedy duo made that you might be interested by?

• 3:17:55Griffin Newman?

  Is it a prior and wilder? I know you were pitching this to Ben. Okay. Oh, I think I know who it is. I don't want to guess.

• 3:18:01David Sims?

  These guys like to, you know, take it easy.

• 3:18:04Speaker 03

  Oh, you're talking about Cheech and Chong.

• 3:18:06David Sims?

  That's right.

• 3:18:06Speaker 03

  My boys.

• 3:18:07David Sims?

  What is the third Cheech and Chong movie?

• 3:18:09Griffin Newman?

  Big proponents of the jazz cigarettes, those two.

• 3:18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, is it the weird one where they're, it's like the brothers?

• 3:18:15Griffin Newman?

  Corsican Brothers, I think is the last one.

• 3:18:17David Sims?

  That is their sixth thing.

• 3:18:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:19Speaker 03

  Way off.

• 3:18:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay. The second one is Cheech and Chong's next movie. Is that correct?

• 3:18:23David Sims?

  Uh, that is the second one. The first one is Up in Smoke, obviously.

• 3:18:26Griffin Newman?

  Is this?

• 3:18:27Speaker 04

  First one's Up in Smoke.

• 3:18:28Griffin Newman?

  Is this Sweet Dreams?

• 3:18:29David Sims?

  It's called Nice Dreams.

• 3:18:31Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:18:32David Sims?

  Uh, in which they, uh, sell drugs out of an ice cream truck. And Stacy Keach is a DEA guy who's trying to catch him.

• 3:18:42Griffin Newman?

  Should we do the Cheech and Chong movies?

• 3:18:43David Sims?

  We've mentioned it. We've had him on Patreon brackets.

• 3:18:46Speaker 03

  I gotta say this. I've seen, I don't know if I've seen all six, but I definitely have seen a lot of them and I don't remember anything about them.

• 3:18:55Griffin Newman?

  That's weird because he must've been dead sober while watching.

• 3:18:58Speaker 04

  Would you include Yellow Beard and After Hours?

• 3:19:02Griffin Newman?

  No, I feel like, because we'd wanna, we'd wanna save that for a Martin Scorsese and Mel Damaski series. Any credit for pulling Mel Damaski, director of Yellow Beard?

• 3:19:13David Sims?

  No, I think it's.

• 3:19:13Griffin Newman?

  No look up.

• 3:19:14David Sims?

  It's Up in Smoke, Next Movie, Nice Dreams, Things Are Tough All Over, Still Smoking, and Corsican Brothers is sort of their last live action film together.

• 3:19:25Speaker 04

  In how many years?

• 3:19:27David Sims?

  They did them very close together. Like, like Up in Smoke is 78 and Corsican Brothers is 84. Like, they did them all back to back to back to back to back and then they stopped.

• 3:19:36Griffin Newman?

  Was there a later, more recent movie where they teamed up again animated?

• 3:19:42David Sims?

  Yes, there was. Yeah, it was straight to DVD.

• 3:19:44Griffin Newman?

  It was straight to DVD?

• 3:19:45David Sims?

  Oh, no, it wasn't actually. It did have a limited theatrical release. The Cheech and Chong's animated movie, exclamation point.

• 3:19:51Griffin Newman?

  But I was also thinking, because I know they've both done animated roles. I was like, was there a thing where they cast them like Brother Bear style to play animals?

• 3:20:00David Sims?

  Well, Chong is in Zootopia.

• 3:20:01Griffin Newman?

  That's what I'm saying. And Cheech is in Lion King.

• 3:20:03David Sims?

  Right. They're all in, you know, they're reliable.

• 3:20:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes, of course, Ramon in Cars.

• 3:20:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:20:08Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 3:20:08Speaker 04

  I'm sure there's a Nash Bridges special episode.

• 3:20:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:11David Sims?

  Number five is a romantic comedy, uh, directed by and starring its star, written, directed by and starring this man.

• 3:20:20Griffin Newman?

  Is it Alan Alda?

• 3:20:21David Sims?

  It's an Alan Alda.

• 3:20:23Griffin Newman?

  I got that right?

• 3:20:24David Sims?

  You did.

• 3:20:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Is it the one with Carol Burnett?

• 3:20:26David Sims?

  It's the one with Carol Burnett and Len Carreyu, Rita Moreno, Sandy Dennis.

• 3:20:31Griffin Newman?

  Do you know this title, Brian?

• 3:20:33Speaker 04

  I know it's not Sweet Liberty. Sweet Liberty is young Michelle Pfeiffer.

• 3:20:37David Sims?

  Sweet Liberty is his second film?

• 3:20:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay. And there's the, uh, the, the Joe Tynan one is a different one, right? There's the one where he plays the politician. Is that what it's called?

• 3:20:46David Sims?

  I don't fucking.

• 3:20:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. The Seduction of Joe Tynan.

• 3:20:48Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Okay. This one is called, this isn't The Four Seasons, is it?

• 3:20:53David Sims?

  It's The Four Seasons, his debut.

• 3:20:55Griffin Newman?

  Which is now being remade with Tina Fey and Jon Hamm, maybe?

• 3:21:03David Sims?

  Really?

• 3:21:03Speaker 04

  That's not a Neil Simon? That feels like a Neil Simon.

• 3:21:05David Sims?

  It feels like a Neil Simon California Suite type thing.

• 3:21:08Speaker 04

  Ah, that's a good.

• 3:21:09David Sims?

  And it has a four-part structure, you know, season by season. But I, it is, um, not, it is Alan Alda, written and directed by him. Uh, never seen it.

• 3:21:21Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I never have either. I'm trying to find this. There was, there was an announced fucking Tina Fey Four Seasons.

• 3:21:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're right. There is some kind of Netflix show, I think.

• 3:21:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But I'm trying to remember who the other person is.

• 3:21:34David Sims?

  It can't be Jon Hamm. He's in every TV show now. Like, it can't.

• 3:21:38Speaker 04

  It might've been Correll.

• 3:21:39Griffin Newman?

  Steve Correll. It's a date night routine.

• 3:21:42David Sims?

  Yeah, I could see that.

• 3:21:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:21:44David Sims?

  Uh.

• 3:21:44Griffin Newman?

  And Colman Domingo.

• 3:21:45David Sims?

  Sure. Uh, also in the top 10, you've got, uh, and I wonder if you saw any of these movies. Uh, Brian, you got bustin' loose, the, uh, Richard Pryor film.

• 3:21:56Speaker 04

  That was on cable constantly, all the time.

• 3:21:59David Sims?

  Uh, never seen that one. Uh, Cicely Tyson is in it.

• 3:22:03Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:22:04David Sims?

  I don't know. It looks like he's bustin' loose, I guess. Uh, you've got the Sean Connery movie Outland.

• 3:22:11Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 3:22:12David Sims?

  Uh, which is a Peter Heim's film. I enjoy Peter Heim.

• 3:22:15Griffin Newman?

  That's like him with a shotgun.

• 3:22:16David Sims?

  But it's like set on Jupiter.

• 3:22:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:22:18David Sims?

  It's like a space Western. I've never seen it, but it seems very cool. And my guess is it's not as cool as I want it to be because it's not that famous, but you're saying it's pretty cool.

• 3:22:29Speaker 04

  It is not that cool. There is a comma, believe it or not, there is a graphic novel adaptation. By Storanko.

• 3:22:37Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 3:22:38Speaker 04

  Well, full circle on this puppy, but I, and it's one of his great mid-career moments as a comic creator. And the comic book is so well done and so innovative and Storanko kind of thing that you go see the movie thinking you're seeing something similar and it's just not there. It's very, you know, like there's certain sci-fi movies of that era that just all vibe like Black Hole. It's just depressing and dark and weird and not Star Wars. It's that. It's not Alien. It's not, it's not as bad as Black Hole, but it's, it's trying, it's trying to be Alien and it's not, it's just not connecting.

• 3:23:17Griffin Newman?

  The tagline is on Jupiter's moon, he's the only law. That sounds like the best movie of all time. Put it in the heartbeat, Cannon.

• 3:23:24David Sims?

  It's set on Io, the volcanic moon, not Europa.

• 3:23:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 3:23:28David Sims?

  You've also got an action film called Kill and Kill Again.

• 3:23:31Griffin Newman?

  Hmm, good title.

• 3:23:32David Sims?

  Yep. Don't know much about that one. You've got something called The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

• 3:23:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was a big movie. That was one of those, well, very marketed movies. It was marketed with Star Wars energy and it's.

• 3:23:46David Sims?

  With a young Michael Horse as Taunta, Michael Horse from Twin Peaks. And then you've got the Gary Coleman comedy On the Right Track. I can kind of see what Siskel and Ebert were talking about of like, do movies just suck right now? Or does this rock?

• 3:24:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:03David Sims?

  Because History of the World Part One is good, I guess. Pretty much every other movie I described seems mixed to bad.

• 3:24:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I also feel like History of the World was a hit, but not on the level of his previous movies. I think it was seen as a little bit of a like, is Mel repeating himself?

• 3:24:19David Sims?

  Yeah, we do these old box office games. There's sort of like seven masterpieces in the multiplex. Instead, you've got On the Right Track, which was the, yeah.

• 3:24:28Griffin Newman?

  And by the way, we'll like get to that. Like fucking E.T. Summer is notorious for like wall-to-wall bangers, you know? Like a lot of the other Spielberg movies, these box office games are coming out in like peak blockbuster years. Eighty-one feels a little thin.

• 3:24:42David Sims?

  Gary Coleman plays an orphan who lives in a locker at Union Station in Chicago. And then he like wins lottery or something.

• 3:24:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay, there's the Gary Coleman cartoon show.

• 3:24:51David Sims?

  It was written like. On some snot that a guy sneezed like he didn't even have a tissue.

• 3:24:56Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember the Gary Coleman cartoon show, Brian? Where he was like an angel?

• 3:25:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:25:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And it was called the Gary Coleman show, which was confusing because I'm like, is it supposed? It's supposed to be Gary?

• 3:25:08Speaker 04

  Again, kids, this is a time where you, there was things on TV and either you watch them or there was nothing else.

• 3:25:14David Sims?

  Or you stared at the wall.

• 3:25:15Speaker 04

  This is your choice. You have a choice. Go read or watch this and there's no, there's no Disney on demand or every Star Wars or every Marvel movie available at every second of the day.

• 3:25:26Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure you got a stick in a hoop you could chase.

• 3:25:29Speaker 04

  This is, this is, I will say, David, a perfect example of what you refer to as not really movies. Like the movies that don't really exist, except they do. They were in theaters.

• 3:25:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, on the right track. Yeah, on the right track.

• 3:25:44David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, uh, it was a financial success. I mean, 13 million dollars. I think, you know, back then it was like.

• 3:25:50Griffin Newman?

  Double the opening of Raiders.

• 3:25:51David Sims?

  Yeah. Nice work if you can get it.

• 3:25:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:53David Sims?

  So, yeah, so it does. It does. Looking at that box office, it is interesting. It does feel like 1981 was a bit of an odd year after years of, uh, Star Wars, Superman.

• 3:26:04Griffin Newman?

  Godfather, Poseidon Adventure.

• 3:26:07David Sims?

  Oh my God. Where it's like the big hits of 1981 are like Raiders, Superman two, Arthur, Stripes. Like, it's like movies that do have some legacy, but it's not blockbuster-y in the same way. It's a bit of an odd moment before the eighties really ramp up and we start getting like a lot of sequels and big action movies and Arnie and Sly and all that stuff.

• 3:26:30Speaker 04

  Some of these movies, their, their tale is fully on home video.

• 3:26:34David Sims?

  And television.

• 3:26:35Speaker 04

  Like Stripes played constantly when I was a kid to the point where all of my friends knew it by heart, like every line.

• 3:26:42Griffin Newman?

  Except no one's ever seen the second half of Stripes. My favorite thing.

• 3:26:45Speaker 04

  No one's ever seen it.

• 3:26:46Griffin Newman?

  No one's ever seen it. It's the most watched first half in history.

• 3:26:50David Sims?

  Too long. That movie is actually too long too. That movie should be 82 minutes long. It's like 110 minutes long.

• 3:26:55Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you watched the shorter cut?

• 3:26:57David Sims?

  We gotta be done, Griff. We've been talking for so long. I'm not complaining.

• 3:26:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, I'm just looking. I'm checking my notes here. It's an episode on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 3:27:03David Sims?

  Yes, well, this is a problem we have on these Spielberg episodes.

• 3:27:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:27:06David Sims?

  Uh, they're all pretty famous.

• 3:27:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:09David Sims?

  There's a lot to talk about. Um.

• 3:27:13Speaker 04

  You know what's interesting? Harrison Ford got like six million for this. I just, I just saw this. Five million each for the, the two sequels. And then sixty-five million dollars for Crystal Skull.

• 3:27:26Griffin Newman?

  Well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe his deal for Crystal Skull was twenty percent of first dollar gross.

• 3:27:34David Sims?

  The money. Yeah.

• 3:27:35Griffin Newman?

  Right. Not profit. Like, that was the deal elevated by Crystal Skull that Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford were like, it's twenty percent to each of us right off the top.

• 3:27:46David Sims?

  Probably partly why it took so long to make it.

• 3:27:48Speaker 04

  Do you think this movie is Harrison Ford's best performance?

• 3:27:52David Sims?

  Oh, boy. Oh, come on now.

• 3:27:55Griffin Newman?

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

• 3:28:12David Sims?

  But, single performance, maybe. Yeah. I mean, I think that might be.

• 3:28:17Speaker 04

  What, that, that reaction you had was, was, what was that reaction?

• 3:28:21Griffin Newman?

  You're weighing Witness in your mind, I feel like.

• 3:28:23David Sims?

  I love Witness so much. Um, but I think it would be a little, you know, anorak of me to be like, you think it's Witness?

• 3:28:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:32David Sims?

  Um.

• 3:28:32Griffin Newman?

  Morning Glory, obviously. I contend he could have gotten an Oscar nomination for.

• 3:28:38David Sims?

  Frittata.

• 3:28:38Speaker 04

  He's also very good in Presumed Innocent.

• 3:28:41David Sims?

  I love him in all of those sweaty late eighties, early nineties thrillers that he made, and I, and Witness sort of the start of that. And I love him in Air Force One, and I love him in, you know, many, many things. But I think, yeah, I think Indy is probably a good argument.

• 3:28:54Griffin Newman?

  You're posing a good question because it is an interesting case of a lot of stars like him. You'd be like, well, there's the most iconic performance. What will clearly be the first line in their obituary. They're never gonna surpass that. And yet, actually, their best performance is X, Y, or Z. Right? You're like, well, that's their most famous performance, but their best actual work as an actor was this other thing. This might be one of the rare cases where they're the same answer.

• 3:29:21Speaker 04

  They're the same thing, yeah.

• 3:29:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Given the kind of stuff he is.

• 3:29:25Speaker 04

  Except for the greatest thing he ever put on film was on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the sketch where he confronts Chewbacca for sleeping with his wife.

• 3:29:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:29:38Speaker 04

  It is an incredible comic performance, which he does not break. And every line he delivers is near perfection. And if you think I'm joking.

• 3:29:48Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 3:29:49Speaker 04

  Google it later. It is an incredible live performance where he just kills.

• 3:29:55Griffin Newman?

  That sketch was written by Jeff Lovness, who later wrote him in The Lost Quantum Mania.

• 3:30:01Speaker 04

  Oh, no shit. I didn't even know that. That's fantastic.

• 3:30:03Griffin Newman?

  He had done like viral videos, got hired onto Kimmel. That was the first thing he wrote. We had him on the George Lucas Talk Show talking about this.

• 3:30:10Speaker 04

  Okay, cool.

• 3:30:11Griffin Newman?

  That was him on Kimmel, I think the Monday or Tuesday after Cowboys and Aliens had came out.

• 3:30:18Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 3:30:19Griffin Newman?

  And he, during the interview, cannot stop smarting from the fact that the Smurfs beat them at the box office. Like, it was the mistake of him not going on to promote the movie in advance. They booked it as a victory lap, assuming the movie would be a blockbuster. And then he's just like, yeah, but I guess we're not as good as the Smurfs. But the, the show opens with that Chewbacca sketch, which is incredible and lives in my mind forever. Because he's yelling at Chewbacca and he goes, I don't need you anymore. I'm in a movie with Daniel Craig now. And he says Craig. And I think about it all the time. Is it?

• 3:30:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:30:53Griffin Newman?

  Was he right?

• 3:30:54David Sims?

  He's right. Americans say it wrong.

• 3:30:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm in movies with Daniel Craig.

• 3:30:58David Sims?

  Craig, but it's not Craig. It's Craig.

• 3:31:00Griffin Newman?

  Craig.

• 3:31:02Speaker 03

  We will link to that clip in the episode description.

• 3:31:05Griffin Newman?

  Chewbacca.

• 3:31:06Speaker 03

  And I think we should also wrap up the episode.

• 3:31:09David Sims?

  It's time to be done.

• 3:31:10Griffin Newman?

  Brian, anything you want to plug?

• 3:31:12Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Listen, head over to jinxworld.com where you can see, you can sign up for my newsletter and all my books that are available at darkhorse.com, including Powers and the brand new released masterpiece. And for fans of this podcast, I have a graphic novel coming out in January called Fortune Glory the Musical, which tells the very true story about how I was. The writer of the Spider-Man Broadway musical Turn Off The Dark for a week and a half. I think people will enjoy that true Hollywood disaster story.

• 3:31:42Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 3:31:43David Sims?

  Oh, I cannot wait to read that. Are you kidding me? Brian, please come to New York sometime so I can pick your brain about all kinds of things. I have so many nerdy questions for you about the early 2000s in Marvel especially.

• 3:31:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the fucking Thunderbird Ross mustache conversation.

• 3:31:59David Sims?

  That was nothing. That was nothing. I have lots to ask you.

• 3:32:02Griffin Newman?

  That's the coolest question David had.

• 3:32:05Speaker 04

  All right. Well, Ben, I know you want to go, but I just want to take a minute and say that I really do love you guys and this podcast a great deal. It is not to be weird. I do think you guys are the spiritual successors of Siskel and Ebert in the best way possible. I just think it's elevated conversation that makes everyone I talk to about it. Think better about their work and make smarter choices. So I just really want to say thanks.

• 3:32:31Griffin Newman?

  Ben is sitting behind the monitor.

• 3:32:32David Sims?

  Going like, what?

• 3:32:33Griffin Newman?

  Victory lapping. Well, no, because he of course wanted us to call the podcast Griffin Simsberg. And he's gesturing like, what was I telling you guys?

• 3:32:41David Sims?

  He was right. He was right all along.

• 3:32:43Griffin Newman?

  He was right all along.

• 3:32:45Speaker 04

  And every time you give Ben a nickname, I consider it for myself as well, like Dirt Bike Bendis. This sounds like something I could have pulled off in my younger days. So I do appreciate you guys test marketing these Ben related nicknames.

• 3:33:01Griffin Newman?

  Hey, happy to do it. Thank you so much for being here. It truly is an honor. As the show's gone on for years, every once in a while we hear about someone who's a listener and it flips us out. And we're like, that fucking person listens to us make fart jokes? But you are one that is truly humbling because of how large you loom in our development of how we understood stories. For both of us personally, and much the way you talk about the Lucas and Spielberg stuff that you grew up with.

• 3:33:31Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 3:33:32Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you all for listening.

• 3:33:34David Sims?

  Yes, join us next week for, should I double check?

• 3:33:37Griffin Newman?

  I believe it's a movie called E.T. The Extraterrestrial.

• 3:33:39David Sims?

  Just making sure that nothing, yep, yep, E.T. The Extraterrestrial.

• 3:33:43Griffin Newman?

  So I'm just gonna check my notes here.

• 3:33:44David Sims?

  We'll do our blankies the next week.

• 3:33:46Griffin Newman?

  Banger.

• 3:33:46David Sims?

  Yeah, another good one.

• 3:33:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, E.T. The Extraterrestrial, fairly large.

• 3:33:51David Sims?

  He made it one year later.

• 3:33:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:33:53Speaker 04

  How, yeah, that's amazing. And by the way, and after E.T., that's it. He's, he never goes back to, there's no doubt of Spielberg's.

• 3:34:00David Sims?

  No, I mean, no, when he makes three movies that don't go over as much, but it doesn't matter. Yeah.

• 3:34:04Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's unquestionably minted.

• 3:34:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:34:07Griffin Newman?

  From the moment of Raiders on, they're like, we, we can't, it's, it's not a fluke.

• 3:34:12Speaker 04

  How far does this Spielberg run with you?

• 3:34:14Griffin Newman?

  Up to Schindler.

• 3:34:15Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. That's farther than I thought. Oh, yeah.

• 3:34:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it gets to him winning his Oscar. And then we'll win our Oscar for best podcast, a category I assume they're including in next year's ceremony, along with most cheer worthy moment.

• 3:34:27David Sims?

  Most dollars for CEOs collected. Coming up in a few days over on the Patreon, we're doing a Spielberg bonus.

• 3:34:36Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 3:34:36David Sims?

  Covering Something Evil and Savage.

• 3:34:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah, his two major TV movies in between Dull and Sugarland Express. And as always, Bendis, you got me thinking, drafting already in my head. Ben's nickname for this has to be Bendis and a Bone, right?

• 3:34:53David Sims?

  There you go. There you go.

• 3:34:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.