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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,

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Speaker 3: we are going to be talking about the nineteen eighty

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Speaker 3: one fantasy adventure Dragon Slayer. This was a first for me.

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Speaker 3: I'd heard about this movie for years. In fact, a

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Speaker 3: good friend of mine has long been recommending it. Was

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Speaker 3: the first time I ever got to see it, and

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Speaker 3: I was mighty impressed. What an event this was.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, This is one too that I've heard about

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Speaker 2: for ages, especially in reference to the titular dragon. So

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Speaker 2: I knew it was going to have great dragon effects.

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Speaker 2: And so It's been on the to watch list for

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Speaker 2: a very long time, probably since I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: and I would see promos for it on cable for

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Speaker 2: cable viewings of it that I never never got around

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Speaker 2: to watching it, and ultimately I think I'm glad that

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Speaker 2: I waited. Now. The reason that we ended up selecting

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Speaker 2: Dragon Slayer is because, as many of you might have noticed,

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Speaker 2: on Monday, there a lot of people got to witness

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Speaker 2: a total solar eclipse, and that got us thinking, well,

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Speaker 2: we should watch an eclipse movie, And when you start

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Speaker 2: looking around for films that feature a total solar eclipse

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Speaker 2: in a meaningful way, there's really not a lot to

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Speaker 2: choose from, And for my money, it basically comes down

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Speaker 2: to two choices. You can do nineteen eighty one's Dragon

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Speaker 2: Slayer or you can do nineteen eighty five's Lady Hawk.

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Speaker 3: Now, Rob, as much as I can see why you

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Speaker 3: would be drawn to Dragon Slayer, I am quite perplexed

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Speaker 3: that you picked the non rutger Hower option of the two.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think Lady Hawk is a fine film too,

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Speaker 2: And they're actually actually very interesting films to compare in

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Speaker 2: a couple of different ways, because, on one hand, both

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Speaker 2: films cast organized religion in a suspicious or antagonistic light.

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Speaker 2: Both films immersis in a setting that is supposed to

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Speaker 2: feel realistically medieval or dark ages to some extent with it,

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Speaker 2: but with at least some magic. In other words, we're

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Speaker 2: not dealing with a high fantasy, non Earth world. We're

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Speaker 2: not dealing with worlds where magic can just do anything.

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Speaker 2: And both films center around a fresh faced protagonist, and

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Speaker 2: of course, both films prominently feature a total solar eclipse.

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Speaker 3: Hmmm, that's interesting. Now it's been a while since I

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Speaker 3: saw a Lady Hawk. I don't even recall what role

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Speaker 3: the eclipse plays in the plot, but I do like

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Speaker 3: that you bring up the kind of interesting fact that

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Speaker 3: they're fantasy movies that seem to be set roughly within

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Speaker 3: real history, like I believe we're supposed to interpret the

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Speaker 3: or Land, the setting of Dragon Slayer as somewhere within

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Speaker 3: post Roman Britain, like say Britain in the six hundred's

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Speaker 3: AD or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's very much the sense that I got

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Speaker 2: from it. It is a world in which magic and

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Speaker 2: sort of traditional pagan if you will, beliefs are seeping

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Speaker 2: away from the world, just as this new religion of

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Speaker 2: Christianity is seeping in. And there's this idea that magic

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Speaker 2: can still be potent, but it is uncertain, like magic

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Speaker 2: is leaving the world. And this again, this is not

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Speaker 2: an everything as possible world of high fantasy magic and

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Speaker 2: so legitimate magic in Dragon Slayer shares an uneasy space

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Speaker 2: right alongside trickery, right alongside superstition and the teachings of

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Speaker 2: this new alien religion that's being brought in by.

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Speaker 3: Outsiders and in the end getting all the credit for

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Speaker 3: what our good, virtuous pagan magicians do.

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Speaker 2: That's right. So anyway, Yeah, no shade on Lady Hawk.

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Speaker 2: Lady Hawk is a lot of fun. That one is

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Speaker 2: a fun adventure film with a compelling romantic curse at

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Speaker 2: the center. But Dragon Slayer is its own spectacle. I

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Speaker 2: mean this is it's certainly a creature lover's favorite, dazzling

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Speaker 2: cinematography and effects, but also I feel like there is

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Speaker 2: a lot more to Dragon Slayer than just the creature.

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Speaker 2: I think I maybe just had the wrong opinion of

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Speaker 2: it for all these years, where I thought that maybe

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Speaker 2: it was kind of a creature only flick, like, all right,

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Speaker 2: you're gonna be bored the rest of the time. But

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Speaker 2: the monsters impressive, and there are plenty of movies like that,

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Speaker 2: and we've probably watched films like that for Weird House before.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, as far as the human drama goes in Dragon Slayer,

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Speaker 3: I would say I have some mixed thoughts, but they're

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Speaker 3: mostly positive. On the downside, I will admit that most

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Speaker 3: of the characterizations in this movie are not very deep, Like,

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Speaker 3: you know, you're not getting deeply drawn characters. The characters

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Speaker 3: are closer to archetypes, but in the immediate scenes they're in,

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Speaker 3: I would say often the characters behave in rather interesting

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Speaker 3: and unexpected and nuanced ways, Like the villains aren't as

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Speaker 3: villainous as you might expect, and you can kind of

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Speaker 3: see things from their point of view, and the heroes

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Speaker 3: sometimes do things that you wouldn't quite expect from a

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Speaker 3: story like this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, when the characters feel not so deep, it is

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Speaker 2: often in a way where you're like, I would like

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Speaker 2: to know more about this character. I feel like there's

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Speaker 2: more depth here that the movie. You know, it's just

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Speaker 2: it's just not a film that's going to explore those

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Speaker 2: additional depths. But there's like this feeling that those depths

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Speaker 2: are present in this character, Like the characters feel real

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Speaker 2: and nuanced enough that it may be there, which is

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Speaker 2: not the case with other films that we've talked about. Yes,

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Speaker 2: I do want to mention just a few reviews of note,

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Speaker 2: because this film does has long had its supporters and

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Speaker 2: its fans. I looked in Weldon's Psychotronic Encyclopedia film and

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Speaker 2: this particular write up is by Bob Martin and not Welden,

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Speaker 2: but he urges readers and I think this is written

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Speaker 2: around the time of its release, not to dismiss it

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Speaker 2: as kid stuff just because it's a Disney co production.

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Speaker 2: And as quote, it's got true medieval grit.

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Speaker 3: I mean, this is a rather dark and grimy film.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And you know that maybe doesn't sound as

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Speaker 2: impressive now because we had you know, however, many seasons

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Speaker 2: of Game of Thrones. Everybody's seen a lot of gritty

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Speaker 2: medieval fantasy at this point, but at the time it

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Speaker 2: was certainly like a breath of fresh gritty air.

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Speaker 3: I suppose I would say it's not as dark as

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Speaker 3: Game of Thrones, like there is not the violence in

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Speaker 3: it is not as cold as that. But it's a

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Speaker 3: good bit darker than your standard fantasy fair certainly in

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still PG I have to stress now. Roger

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Speaker 2: Ebert gave it three stars and raved over the Dragon

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Speaker 2: over and also over the Old Wizard and its overall dark,

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Speaker 2: grimy tone and look, and he said, here is a

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Speaker 2: movie with the courage to be grungy.

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Speaker 3: Now, I wonder if this is at all a reaction

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Speaker 3: to or maybe not a reaction to, because I think

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Speaker 3: it was the same year the movie Excalibur from nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty one, which this has come up on the show before.

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Speaker 3: I've still never seen it, but my impression of it

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Speaker 3: is that it is just an almost offensively gleaming film.

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Speaker 3: Everything is just very polished and shiny and high you know,

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Speaker 3: high fantasy veneer. Whereas, yeah, this movie is gross and slimy,

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Speaker 3: and a lot of the locations are cramped, dark, dank

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Speaker 3: caves and rooms with like weird liquids bubbling in them,

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Speaker 3: and it's just like it's just a movie where everybody

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Speaker 3: looks like they smell bad.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Ebert specifically mentioned ex Caliber in that review, because yeah,

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Speaker 2: ex Caliber is shiny, super gleaming, blinding armor. But also

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Speaker 2: we have to keep in mind that ex Caliber, which

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Speaker 2: which I have a lot of fond memories off is

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Speaker 2: all is not quite set in the real world. It's

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Speaker 2: set in kind of It's set in a mythic world.

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Speaker 2: Is a mythic world about Theorian legend, you know, So

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Speaker 2: it's it's a maybe just a step or two room

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Speaker 2: moved from any kind of realistic, real world, you know,

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Speaker 2: magical setting. Now. I mentioned Game of Thrones earlier. George R. R.

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Speaker 2: Martin ranked it number five on his top ten fantasy

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Speaker 2: movies of all time, just below Lady Hawk, The Wizard

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Speaker 2: of Oz, The Princess Bride, and The Lord of the

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Speaker 2: Rings trilogy.

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Speaker 3: Okay, you mean he Raked Dragon Slayer or not excal

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Speaker 3: Dragon Slayer.

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Speaker 2: I don't think ex Caliber made this particular list. I

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Speaker 2: mean not that. I mean I could also see him

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Speaker 2: being of an ex Caliber fan, because I do remember

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Speaker 2: in the books a lot of descriptions of very brightly

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Speaker 2: colored armor. It seemed to be very important to him

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Speaker 2: to make sure that armor wasn't boring looking. And it's

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Speaker 2: not boring looking at Excalibur.

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Speaker 3: Uh, that's interesting. So he placed it behind Lady Hawk.

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Speaker 3: But you know, I can see these other entries. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: the Wizard of Oz, Yeah, the Lord of the Rings,

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Speaker 3: that makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Princess Bride. Everybody loves the Princess Bride. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: un understandable. You can find that and just do a

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Speaker 2: search for George R. Martin top ten fantasy films and

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Speaker 2: you'll easily find the list we're referring to. And then finally,

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Speaker 2: I'll say, you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger

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Speaker 2: fan of this film than director Giermal del Toro. I'll

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Speaker 2: be mentioning several things that he had to say about

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Speaker 2: this film and his connections to it as we proceed.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, certainly I can imagine that del Toro is

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Speaker 3: here for the dragon. He's like, when do we get

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Speaker 3: to the dragon? And this movie really does have an

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Speaker 3: amazing dragon, especially for the time it was created. But

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Speaker 3: this is an awesome looking dragon, but not just looking.

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Speaker 3: I want to stress that what's so great about the

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Speaker 3: dragon in this movie is that even before you see it,

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Speaker 3: its presence is signaled through you know, different kinds of

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Speaker 3: like point of view shots and sound effects and the

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Speaker 3: suggestion of it looming out of view in certain scenes

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Speaker 3: in a really powerful, ominous way. That is just one

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Speaker 3: of the great monster presences in any movie I've ever seen.

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Speaker 3: And I really like that the dragon in this movie

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Speaker 3: is a monster, is not just a I don't want

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Speaker 3: to say just a lot of the dragons were used

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Speaker 3: to lately see more of the elegant, intelligent, fantasy dragon variety,

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Speaker 3: you know, like almost kind of a higher being. This dragon,

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Speaker 3: it might be cunning, but it is. It's not like

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Speaker 3: a talking dragon. It's not a nice dragon. It's not

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Speaker 3: a noble dragon. This is a nasty, disgusting monster that

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Speaker 3: wants human blood.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, Yeah, the dragon is amazing. The presentation

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Speaker 2: of the dragon is amazing, and I mean not just

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Speaker 2: the full blown effects, but like the fine art of

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Speaker 2: presenting a monster in a film, of teasing it out

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Speaker 2: of you know, early on in the film we don't

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Speaker 2: even see it yet. We see instead like carved representations

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Speaker 2: of the dragon in these dank, you know, desolate settings

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Speaker 2: that set the tone and prepare the imagination for the

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Speaker 2: monstrosity to come. All right, In terms of elevator pitches

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Speaker 2: for this one, mine is pretty simple. It's look, no

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Speaker 2: one likes having to make a yearly blood sacrifice to

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Speaker 2: a dragon.

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Speaker 3: However, however, what if we did it twice a year.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I said, if you come into this just

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Speaker 2: for the dragon, you won't be disappointed. But there's a

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Speaker 2: lot of other stuff I think to keep your mind busy,

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Speaker 2: and we'll get into that as we proceed. Well, let's

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Speaker 2: go ahead and listen to some trailer audio here to

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Speaker 2: give you a sonic taste of Dragon Slayer.

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Speaker 3: That would be witnessed to something someday of consequills to you.

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Speaker 3: To me, there's a great task needing to be done. Now,

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Speaker 3: don't you've heard about trouble at home?

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Speaker 2: A dragon, fire and stench.

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Speaker 3: It is evil, pure and simple. Want me to do

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Speaker 3: battle with that?

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Speaker 2: And behold, for I'm chosen. I shall die a prey bailer.

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Speaker 2: Twice a year, the King selects a new victim, chosen

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Speaker 2: by lot girls virgins.

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Speaker 3: Your kittens made a package with a monster.

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Speaker 2: What your children will dying? Only a few because that's

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Speaker 2: sound cruel.

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Speaker 3: Dragon Slayer coming from Paramount Pictures.

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Speaker 2: All right, now, if you want to go out and

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Speaker 2: watch Dragonslayer yourself or rewatch it, however you approach it

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Speaker 2: before getting into the rest of this episode, well, let

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Speaker 2: me tell you this one is widely available. You can

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Speaker 2: easily rent or buy it digitally, but I would say

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Speaker 2: pay attention to what version you're watching. Get this in

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Speaker 2: the highest visual quality possible. We watched it on the

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Speaker 2: excellent twenty twenty three Paramount Blu ray, which provides us

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Speaker 2: with a four K remastered version with Dolby Atmos sound mix,

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Speaker 2: original screen tests if you're into that, A six part

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Speaker 2: documentary that is quite good. I watched a couple of

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Speaker 2: installments of this, dealing with the dragon effects and another

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Speaker 2: aspect of the production, and then also a commentary track

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Speaker 2: by director Matthew Robbins and Dragonslayer Megafan Ghiramel del Tour.

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Speaker 3: I want to hear more about this commentary track because

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Speaker 3: I've heard good things about other Del Toro commentary tracks.

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Speaker 3: A friend of mine has brought up before that his

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Speaker 3: Blade two commentary is is a pretty great listen.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I definitely did the Blade two commentary track

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Speaker 2: back in the day. I think I also did his

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Speaker 2: hell Boy commentary track. And I don't do a lot

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Speaker 2: of commentary tracks these days. It's just a lot harder

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Speaker 2: to find time for them sometimes. I also think it's

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Speaker 2: maybe not as constructive for the weird house cinema treatment

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Speaker 2: to get like really into the weeds on the director's commentary.

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Speaker 2: And not all commentaries from directors or stars and other

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Speaker 2: people involved in the production are necessarily that great. But

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Speaker 2: del Toro is always worth listening to. But because I mean,

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Speaker 2: he has just such you know, expertise, He has such

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Speaker 2: love for cinema and especially horror cinema and monster cinema,

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Speaker 2: and this one is this is really special because I

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Speaker 2: have to stress, this is a film that del Toro

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Speaker 2: had nothing to do with Del Toro was a boy

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Speaker 2: when this came out, he was a fan, and he

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Speaker 2: ends up having you know, meaningful connections to director Matthew

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Speaker 2: Robbins later on. But yeah, he's he's on this commentary

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Speaker 2: track with the director, you know, out of love for

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Speaker 2: the film, out of you know, and I'm also friendship

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Speaker 2: with the director, and you know, he's he's asking a

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Speaker 2: lot of really insightful questions about the production and also

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Speaker 2: commenting on the things that he really loves in it

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Speaker 2: and pointing out some nuances that either might be lost

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Speaker 2: on a first time viewer or a casual viewer, but

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Speaker 2: also maybe or more apparent to a filmmaker as opposed

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Speaker 2: to to you know, someone who's just a pure viewer

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Speaker 2: of cinema. Let's go ahead and start talking about the

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Speaker 2: connections here. So yeah, I just mentioned him. Matthew Robbins

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Speaker 2: was the director and one of the writers on this

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Speaker 2: born nineteen forty five American writer and director, who at

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Speaker 2: this point was coming off of a nineteen seventy eight

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Speaker 2: comedy titled Corvette Summer starring Mark Hamill and Annie Potts.

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Speaker 2: He was part of the so called American New Way

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Speaker 2: film movement alongside the likes of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg,

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Speaker 2: and worked early on, often in uncredited capacities, with both

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Speaker 2: directors contributing writing and or ideas for such projects as

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven's Electronic Labyrinth THCHX eleven thirty eight four

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Speaker 2: eb that's the short film that would become the THCHX

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Speaker 2: eleven thirty eight. He had something to do uncredited with

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Speaker 2: seventy five Jaws, seventy seven's Close Encounters of the Third Kind,

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Speaker 2: and then additionally as a credited screenwriter, he'd written on

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Speaker 2: scripts for Spielberg's nineteen seventy four film The Sugarland Express

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Speaker 2: and the baseball movie The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars

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Speaker 2: and Motor Kinks.

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Speaker 3: That's not exactly the background you would expect coming into

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Speaker 3: dragons Layer.

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Speaker 2: That's right, But you know, dragons play based all to dragons.

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Speaker 2: Dragonslayer is another one of these films though, that comes

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Speaker 2: in the aftermath of Star Wars, right, so you know,

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Speaker 2: the studios are all hungry for the next Star Wars

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Speaker 2: and a lot of you know, directors and writers come

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Speaker 2: along and they're like, well, you know, you're looking for

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Speaker 2: the next Star Wars, and it just so happens. I

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Speaker 2: have the script ready to go.

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Speaker 3: Big epic adventure with a young hero who yearns, yearns

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Speaker 3: for greatness. Here we go.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Unfortunately, Dragonslayer was not a commercial success, and afterwards

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Speaker 2: Robin's directive Let's see nineteen eighty five's the Legend of

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Speaker 2: Billy Jean eighty seven's Batteries Not Included, which he also wrote,

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Speaker 2: I have seen that one when I was a kid.

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Speaker 2: That's like little flying robots in it. He also did

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Speaker 2: a rad dog movie called Bingo in nineteen ninety one.

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Speaker 2: He did not write that, he just directed It.

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Speaker 3: Is a rat dog movie, like like Beethoven.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the dog. I think the dog is wearing sunglasses

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Speaker 2: on the cover. Like you just look at the poster,

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Speaker 2: the box out for this movie. It's like, that's a

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Speaker 2: rat dog movie. That dog's rat.

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Speaker 3: He's gonna wear sunglasses in the movie. Might do some

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Speaker 3: dancing to some rock music, maybe, Robert Palmers on.

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Speaker 2: I'd say thirty five percent chance this dog rides a skateboard.

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Speaker 2: That kind of movie, yeah, uh okay. And on the

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Speaker 2: screenwriting front, he co wrote nineteen eighty five's Warning Sign,

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Speaker 2: but then in nineteen ninety seven, he worked on a

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Speaker 2: script for Del Toro's first and nearly his last American picture.

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Speaker 2: According to del Toro, it's the film mimic on this film,

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Speaker 2: and the filmmaking experience was somewhat compromised by studio interference.

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Speaker 2: It led to a very long and ongoing collaborative relationship

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Speaker 2: between Del Toro and Robbins. To date, they've pinned four

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Speaker 2: produced scripts together, so Mimic twenty tens Don't Be Afraid

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Speaker 2: of the Dark, twenty fifteen's Crimson Peak, and twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: two's Pinocchio. He's also worked on screenplays for a couple

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Speaker 2: of Bollywood films, I believe, and he's still very much

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Speaker 2: an active screenwriter to this day.

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Speaker 3: But he had a co writer on Dragonslayer.

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Speaker 2: Right, That's right, That's how Barwood born nineteen forty screenwriter

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Speaker 2: and director who came up alongside Robins, co wrote a

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Speaker 2: number of scripts with him, including The Sugarland Express, Corvette Summer,

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Speaker 2: and Warning Signs. Barwood also directed Warning Signs. That was

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Speaker 2: his only feature length film, but he went on to

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Speaker 2: direct and design several video game projects for Lucas Arts

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Speaker 2: and also wrote for them. All Right, now getting into

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Speaker 2: the cast here. This is a dragon movie, but this

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Speaker 2: is also a wizard movie, and we have a pretty

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Speaker 2: great wizard in this the Wizard Oldric and a great

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Speaker 2: wizard requires a great actor, and boy, they landed one

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Speaker 2: for this film with Sir Ralph Richardson.

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Speaker 3: He really does well because he can capture the kind

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Speaker 3: of humble, befuddled, quaint version of the wizard as just

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Speaker 3: an unassuming old man, but he can also come to

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Speaker 3: seem quite powerful when the need arises.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love how he's able to capture what

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Speaker 2: I think of as the weirdness of wizards, you know,

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Speaker 2: like I feel like there should be something about a

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Speaker 2: wizard that is, you know, just just utterly mysterious and dangerous,

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Speaker 2: like this is an individual with with knowledge beyond the

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Speaker 2: common man, and therefore, you know, who knows what's going

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Speaker 2: on in that mind of his.

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Speaker 3: Part of any great wizard is that it's not just

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Speaker 3: that they're powerful, but that you are not permitted to

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Speaker 3: know how powerful they are.

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Speaker 2: Right right, So Richardson does a great job with that.

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Speaker 2: He's also to convey able to convey this kind of

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Speaker 2: melancholy almost sadness of like this aging master, you know

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Speaker 2: who still has his powers that is disposable, but he's

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Speaker 2: very much in decline, just as magic is leaving the world.

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Speaker 2: Like this is a very old man who is not

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Speaker 2: long for this world either.

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Speaker 3: I mean quite explicitly portrayed as someone who, you know,

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Speaker 3: if he'd stuck around a few more years, might have

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Speaker 3: been burned at the stake by the newly converted Christians

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Speaker 3: in the village right now.

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Speaker 2: I should point out that on the commentary track, Robinson

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Speaker 2: del Toro point out, you know, they certainly talk about

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Speaker 2: his craft and how good he isn't like utilizing props

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Speaker 2: such as the knife. We'll talk about the knife in

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Speaker 2: a bit. They talk about it how utterly piercing his

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Speaker 2: eyes are in many of these scenes. He's quite a

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Speaker 2: screen presence. But they say, like a lot of that

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Speaker 2: weird energy has is also legitimate, Like he's like a

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Speaker 2: delightfully weird person. He apparently kept a pet rat in

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Speaker 2: his pocket the whole time on set, a pet rat

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Speaker 2: named Ratty, and he would take him out between takes

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Speaker 2: solid wizard move.

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Speaker 3: How did he not talk the rat into getting screen time.

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Speaker 2: He's a consummate professional. Yeah, the consummate professional knows that

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Speaker 2: the rat is here for emotional support and friendship. But

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Speaker 2: you're not gonna like shoehorn him into the scene.

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Speaker 3: The rat provides rat magic, whether you see it or not.

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Speaker 2: Right right, So yes, sir, Sir. Ralph Richardson You know.

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Speaker 2: Nineteen oh two through nineteen eighty three legendary English actor

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Speaker 2: of Stage and screen, two time Oscar nominee. His dramatic

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Speaker 2: credits include such films as nineteen forty nine The Heiress,

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty five's Richard the Third, sixty five's Doctor Chivago,

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven's Jesus of Nazareth. But he's equally

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Speaker 2: celebrated for his late career fantasy and sci fi work,

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Speaker 2: appearing in nineteen seventy three's Frankenstein The True Story, seventy

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Speaker 2: five's Rollerball, nineteen eighty one's Time Bandits, and nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: four's I Always Forget that this film's title is so long,

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Speaker 2: but Grace Stoke the legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.

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Speaker 3: Wait, is that the Christoph Lambert Tarzan?

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Speaker 2: It is? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: And in Time band It's this Ralph Richardson play God.

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Speaker 2: I believe he does. Yeah. My memory of Time Bandits

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Speaker 2: is a little fraid I really need to revisit it.

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Speaker 3: I believe it's David Warner as the Devil and Ralph

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Speaker 3: Richardson as God. Let's look it up. Well, his character

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Speaker 3: is called Supreme Be but yes, I think he's supposed

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Speaker 3: to be God. He arrives at the end of the

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Speaker 3: movie after Evil has been defeated, and he's just sort

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Speaker 3: of this tidy business like a British man with a

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Speaker 3: dry sense of humor.

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Speaker 2: All right, So that's our wizard, and more on the

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Speaker 2: Wizards as we proceed here. But we also have an apprentice.

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Speaker 2: The Sorcerer's apprentice in this film is the character Galen,

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Speaker 2: played by Peter McNichol born nineteen fifty four.

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Speaker 3: You know, I think before this I mainly knew him

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Speaker 3: as Janosh from Ghostbusters Too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think if you know him from nothing else,

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Speaker 2: it is from Ghostbusters Too, where he's the guy constantly

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Speaker 2: singing the praises of Vigo the Karpathian.

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Speaker 3: Yeah he is Vego, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Which is you know, a wonderful, you know, comedic performance

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Speaker 2: in that. And I think he's had a number of

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Speaker 2: really sort of out there comedic performances throughout his career.

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Speaker 2: He's had a very rich career on stage, screen and TV.

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Speaker 2: This was his first film role, coming off of theater work,

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Speaker 2: but he debuted on Broadway the same year in Crimes

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Speaker 2: of the Heart. He followed up Dragon Slayer with a

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Speaker 2: role in nineteen eighty two Sophie's Choice, and subsequent films

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Speaker 2: include nineteen ninety three's Adams Family Values and nineteen ninety

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Speaker 2: five's Dracula Dead and Loving It. That Is, of Course

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Speaker 2: Is That? Of Course is a comedy starring what Leslie

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Speaker 2: Nielsen is Dracula and McNichol plays the Wrenfield character in that.

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Speaker 3: Oh, It's got a w Renfield in it. I don't

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Speaker 3: think I've ever seen that one? But why do I?

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Speaker 3: Why do I think of it as a comedy adaptation

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Speaker 3: of Dracula that hughes way closer to the original story

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Speaker 3: than it needs to.

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Speaker 2: That may be great. I believe I saw this when

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Speaker 2: I was younger, but I just vaguely remember a few

432
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 2: gags from it. A lot of people will also recognize

433
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 2: McNichol from TV. He was a cast member on Ali McBeal,

434
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,360
Speaker 2: and his other TV credits include Tales from the Crypt.

435
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 2: He was in one of Russell McKay's episodes. He was

436
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 2: on twenty four, he was on Veep, and he's also

437
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 2: done a fair amount of voice acting, including voic seeing

438
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 2: the Mad Hatter in the Arkham Asylum Games.

439
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 3: Now, I think McNichol does quite well with the young

440
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 3: hero role in this movie. But when I mentioned earlier

441
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,920
Speaker 3: that a lot of the major characters don't seem especially deep,

442
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 3: he's I sort of had the main character here in mind,

443
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:21,879
Speaker 3: like he we don't ever really know why he wants

444
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 3: anything that he wants. And I'm not complaining too much

445
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 3: because I still love dragons Layer, you know, It's not

446
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 3: something that prevented me from enjoying the film. But he's

447
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 3: to be generous, as you said earlier, maybe a character

448
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 3: who generates more questions than he answers.

449
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, there are times where I find myself wondering, well,

450
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 2: why is he making this choice? Why does he want

451
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 2: this thing that he seems to want? And Yeah, and

452
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 2: it seems to be a common analysis of the film

453
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 2: based on some of the reviews I was looking at.

454
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 2: But like you, I do like mcnickel in the role.

455
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 2: He has this kind of weird cherubic quality. He feels

456
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 2: more like a nerd hero as opposed to like a

457
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 2: sort of you know, sex appeal teen heart throb kind

458
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 2: of a character. Though I do love the idea of

459
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 2: eighties teens with like heart dotted Peter McNichol posters on

460
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 2: their walls.

461
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 3: I feel like he's decently handsome in this film.

462
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 2: Oh man, Yeah, I mean it's it's a major motion picture.

463
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 2: He's he's plenty handsome.

464
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 3: But but yes, i'd see what you're saying. I mean,

465
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 3: he's not like a like a muscle bound go get

466
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:29,959
Speaker 3: her hero. He's, you know, he's a little bit apprehensive,

467
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 3: though he's also brave, but he's Yeah, he's closer to

468
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 3: nerd than Jock, definitely.

469
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that that does make him more endearing. Like,

470
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 2: I don't think this character would have worked as well,

471
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,439
Speaker 2: especially given maybe some of the limitations we were talking about,

472
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 2: if some of one of the other sort of flavors

473
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 2: of the day or hot up and coming talents had

474
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 2: played him, Like, for instance, I read that Eric Roberts

475
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 2: was considered for the part. Oh and I think Eric

476
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: Roberts is quite excellent in some of the millions of

477
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 2: films that he's done, But that would have been an

478
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 2: entirely different Dragons player, even like nineteen eighty nineteen eighty

479
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: one Eric Roberts, it would have been a different flavor.

480
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 3: Sorry, I got sidetracked just because I started thinking about

481
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 3: actors that have been in too many movies, and I

482
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 3: was like, what if it had been Udo Kierre or

483
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 3: John Carodine.

484
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was thinking. I was thinking that Eric

485
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,120
Speaker 2: Roberts is kind of the John Karrodine of our time.

486
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 2: All Right, so we're here, We're still on Team Wizard here,

487
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 2: and the Old Wizard has a retainer by the name

488
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 2: of Hodge, and he's a familiar face because he is

489
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 2: played by Sidney Bromley, who lived nineteen oh nine through

490
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, a British character actor who we've talked

491
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 2: about on the show before because he was in nineteen

492
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 2: eighty four is the never Ending Story in which he

493
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 2: played the Nome scientist in gy Wok.

494
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 3: In that does he basically use the same voice in

495
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 3: both movies?

496
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think so, that's what I say. Voice,

497
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 2: same beard, same kind of like general. Well, I mean

498
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 2: he's ratcheting up that demeanor and never ending story because

499
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 2: he's playing this kind of outrageous Gnome character. But still,

500
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 2: I mean he's he's very much a character actor. I

501
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: get the impression, like you hire Sidney Bromley, like you

502
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 2: want certain things.

503
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 3: Yes, but in both cases he's very much like yo,

504
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 3: she surely.

505
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:14,680
Speaker 2: Enough, exactly. Yeah. His other credits include sixty two's Night Creatures,

506
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 2: sixty seven is The Fearless Vampire Killers, the excellent nineteen

507
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 2: seventy one adaptation of Macbeth, nineteen eighty one's An American

508
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: Werewolf in London, and nineteen eighty six as Pirates.

509
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 3: Oh what is he in? Werewolf in London? Is just

510
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 3: one of the guys in the pub.

511
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 2: I think he's one of the pub guys. Yeah, I

512
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 2: don't specifically remember him, but I mean that's that's where

513
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 2: he has to be. That that makes the most sense.

514
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 2: Or he's like a street person that the werewolf kills

515
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 2: in London, like that would be the two main candidates here,

516
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 2: but I don't remember.

517
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 3: But Hodge is a lovable old grump like he spends

518
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 3: most of his screen time complaining, but he's it's quite

519
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 3: sad when he is killed.

520
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 2: Right, all right. We also have a heroin in this picture,

521
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,719
Speaker 2: and that is the character of Valerian, played by Caitlin Clark,

522
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 2: not to be confused with a basketball star of the

523
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 2: same name whose name is all over the news right

524
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 2: now for basketball reasons. But this is the actor Kaitlin Clark,

525
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen fifty two through two thousand and four.

526
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 3: Right, So she plays the character who kind of sets

527
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 3: the whole plot in motion right by by seeking out

528
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 3: the advice and counsel of a wizard in defeating the dragon.

529
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, she's the one who arrives on the

530
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 2: scene and is like, Hey, we need help with our dragon.

531
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 2: And it's a really interesting character because and this is

532
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 2: I think a prime example of a character that I

533
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: ultimately wanted to know more about. Like I feel like

534
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 2: there's ultimately unexplored depth here that, you know, depth that

535
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 2: we just got to get a hint of in many scenes,

536
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: but you want to know more about.

537
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when I said that the characters could

538
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 3: have been deeper, I mainly had these two main roles

539
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 3: in mind, Peter mcnichol's character in Kaitlyn Clark's character. But yeah,

540
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 3: she's interesting because she when we first meet her in

541
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 3: the movie, her character is disguised as a boy and

542
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 3: we learn that she has had to spend her whole

543
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 3: life whenever she was in public so far disguised as

544
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 3: a boy in order to avoid being drafted into the

545
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 3: potential lottery to become dragon food, which all the girls

546
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 3: of her village.

547
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 2: Were yeah, yeah, And then ultimately we see her, you know,

548
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 2: it seems like she has the opportunity to live openly

549
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 2: again as herself, but then plans change and so yeah,

550
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 2: it just left me wanting more exploration of this character.

551
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 2: But anyway, Clark came out of the theater scene and

552
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 2: this was her first feature film as well, followed by

553
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 2: sporadic TV work occasional small roles in such films as

554
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six As Crocodile Dundee nineteen ninety four is

555
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 2: Blown Away. She remained more active in theater and later

556
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 2: as a theater instructor. Now her father in this who's

557
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 2: just credited as the character's name, is just Valarian's father,

558
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 2: and he was played by Imres James, who lived nineteen

559
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 2: twenty eight through nineteen eighty nine, a Welsh Shakespearean actor,

560
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 2: probably best known for this film. His credits include a

561
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 2: lot of Shakespearean theater and British television, including Sherlock Holmes,

562
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: Doctor Who, and Hammer House of Horror. In fact, we

563
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 2: have discussed the episode of Hammer House of Horror that

564
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 2: he acted in in Stuff to Blow Your Mind episode

565
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 2: Halloween episode Anthology of Horror that we did. That's the

566
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty episode The Mark of Satan.

567
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that was a creepy one where we talked

568
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 3: about like the evil mind control virus theme of that episode.

569
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 3: I was looking at the screenshot you showed me of

570
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 3: him in that episode and I think he might have

571
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 3: been playing like the coroner or something. But in Dragon

572
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 3: Slayer he plays Yeah, Valerian's father, who you know. He's

573
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 3: a very like, strong, kind, sturdy, friendly presence, and he

574
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 3: takes it quite well that his daughter seems to have

575
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 3: fallen in love with one of the last pagan wizards

576
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 3: in the country.

577
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's very supportive and very protective. So yeah, fine,

578
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 2: fine character, so old performance. Oh but now let's get

579
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 2: to the royal family of the area, starting with the king.

580
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:23,959
Speaker 2: The King Casadorus Rex played by Peter Air born nineteen

581
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 2: forty two. He is a practical ruler for dark times.

582
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think practical is a good word for him

583
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 3: because and this will come up even more so with

584
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 3: I think the next character we're going to talk about,

585
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 3: But he is While you would say that he sort

586
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 3: of fills the role of a villain in the plot,

587
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 3: he's not really all that villainous. He does some kind

588
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 3: of bad or sneaky things, but he ultimately is shown

589
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 3: to be quite quite practical and quite you know, sympathetic

590
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 3: in many ways.

591
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's a pretty nuanced character, and then

592
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 2: the performance is quite nice instead, So we don't get

593
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 2: like a cartoon tyrant. We don't get a comical coward here,

594
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 2: but rather a rational ruler who has made some morally

595
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 2: questionable and at times hypocritical choices in order to maintain

596
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,239
Speaker 2: the status quo, in order to I think it very

597
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 2: much in his mind as he discusses to keep the

598
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 2: peace and to keep everything, to maintain stability. And if

599
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 2: that means yeah, feeding a woman to a dragon every year,

600
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 2: well that's just what you have to do. It's what

601
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 2: we've done. It seems to be working. Let's not shake

602
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: the boat, right. Peter Air probably best known for this film,

603
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 2: but his extensive credits include nineteen nineties, Mountains of the

604
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 2: Moon ninety twos, Orlando ninety threes The Remains of the

605
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 2: Day in two thousand and ones from Hell, alongside such

606
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 2: TV shows as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in Rome.

607
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 3: He's got some interesting facial hair choices.

608
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, they dress them up nicely for this. Now,

609
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 2: his daughter in this picture is Princess Alsbeth, played by

610
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 2: Chloe Salomon. So this is the king's noble and idealistic daughter.

611
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 2: More on her in a bit. But the actor here

612
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 2: a British actor with extensive TV and stage roles, though

613
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 2: this was her biggest film, and interestingly enough, this is

614
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: Alec Guinness's niece.

615
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,280
Speaker 3: Oh, I had no idea.

616
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 2: So in many ways she's the heart and moral compass

617
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 2: of the film. But that doesn't necessarily bode well for her.

618
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say her character's fate was one of

619
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 3: the biggest surprises of the movie. Got incredibly grim there

620
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:33,879
Speaker 3: for a.

621
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:38,239
Speaker 2: Bit, all right. Now back to the sort of the

622
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,800
Speaker 2: villain realm are sort of villains and shades of gray.

623
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 2: Here we have the character Tyrian, and this is the

624
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 2: King's main enforcer, a cold man but also a practical

625
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 2: man of the sword.

626
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the same thing I said about the King

627
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 3: I think applies to his character, but even more so

628
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 3: he's he is I would say, the human villain of

629
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 3: the movie. But I kept waiting for him to do

630
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 3: something more overtly villainous, more absolutely selfish, but he really doesn't.

631
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 3: Unless there's something I'm forgiving, I don't think he ever

632
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 3: really does something overtly all that selfish. Instead, it seems

633
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 3: like he has a view about what would be the

634
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 3: best way to protect the people of the kingdom, and

635
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 3: he is following through on that view.

636
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there is one murder. Oh well, there's

637
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 2: more than one murder, but there's there's one that's particularly

638
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 2: cold blood. Well, we can get into that. And when

639
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 2: we get into that.

640
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 3: It is cold blooded, but it is part of his

641
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 3: strategy for protecting his people.

642
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: That's right.

643
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 3: I'm not saying murders, okay, I'm just saying, like, you

644
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 3: never end up seeing him doing something where he's just like, oh,

645
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 3: trying to grab all the gold and take it away

646
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 3: for himself or something.

647
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 2: Right. He makes some good points, as we'll get into.

648
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 2: But this character is played by John Hallam who lived

649
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 2: nineteen forty one through two thousand and six. We've actually

650
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,200
Speaker 2: talked to him on the show before because He played Luro,

651
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:06,320
Speaker 2: the second in command Hawkman, in nineteen eighty one's Flash Gordon,

652
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 2: which means he was very hard to focus on since

653
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,280
Speaker 2: he was almost always in a scene with Brian Blessed.

654
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, how could you even see him?

655
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like, basically he's the other Hawkman that's not Brian Blessed,

656
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 2: and that is somewhat less loud. His other credits include

657
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one's The Last Valley with Michael Caine, Nicholas

658
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 2: and Alexandria from the same year, nineteen seventy three is

659
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 2: the Wickerman, eighty five's Life Force, Oh eighty five, Santa

660
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,760
Speaker 2: Claus the Movie, and nineteen ninety one's Robin Hood Prince

661
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 2: of Thieves.

662
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 3: It's a lot of movies I've seen and I don't

663
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 3: remember what he was in any of them.

664
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 2: Let's see and one more cast member I want to

665
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 2: mention here, and that is this, I guess you would.

666
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 2: He's kind of a like a missionary, a Christian, an

667
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 2: outsider that has brought Christianity to the local realm. Here.

668
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 2: Brother jacopis here and he is played by Ian McDermot

669
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 2: born nineteen forty five. So yes, the man who would

670
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 2: become Emperor Palpatine seen here in a small but solid part.

671
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 3: Right, So he is the person who shows up at

672
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 3: the village to tell them the good news of Jesus

673
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 3: Christ and to inform them that the dragon is not

674
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 3: a dragon but is Lucifer incarnate. And then he just

675
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:22,720
Speaker 3: gets like blasted with fire.

676
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, so instead of like twinkling depths of decrepit evil,

677
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:31,319
Speaker 2: we get reckless religious fanaticism. And in the process, I

678
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 2: think we do get some hints of the tools, the

679
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,439
Speaker 2: acting tools he'd employ in his performances of Palpatine over

680
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 2: the decades to come. But yeah, great tremendous actor in

681
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 2: Star Wars and out of Star Wars. Outside of the

682
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 2: Star Wars franchise, his credits include nineteen eighties The Awakening,

683
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 2: eighty three's Gorky Park, eighty eight Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, nineteen

684
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 2: ninety five's Restoration in nineteen ninety nine Sleepy Hollow. All right, now,

685
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 2: going behind the scenes here, we don't always call out

686
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 2: the cinemaographer on a picture, but we absolutely have to

687
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 2: hear because the cinematography in this film is amazing and

688
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 2: it is by a legend in the business. Derek Van

689
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 2: Lint who lived nineteen thirty two through twenty ten.

690
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 3: I agree, this is a fantastic looking movie, and in

691
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 3: all of its different ways. I liked that there's a

692
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 3: lot of visual contrast in the sets and the settings,

693
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 3: Like you're constantly going back and forth between environments that

694
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 3: are cramped and claustrophobic and slimy and ugly and suggest

695
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 3: hell to and then going from there to beautiful open

696
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 3: vistas and mountain landscapes and valleys and running water and

697
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 3: all that. There is a there's a pleasing sort of

698
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 3: rhythm of images, and I like that.

699
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, come as no surprise, I think to a lot

700
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 2: of people that his other main cinematography credit in feature

701
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,359
Speaker 2: film is for nineteen seventy nine's Alien, and I think

702
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 2: you'd definitely see that in comparing like the caves environments

703
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 2: and even the other interior environments that we explore in

704
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 2: this film, comparing those to the you know, like the

705
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 2: alien planet in Aliens, or just the depths of the Nostromo.

706
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,720
Speaker 2: But the curious thing is that outside of mostly dragons

707
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 2: Layer and Alien, he worked mostly on commercials for Canadian TV.

708
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 2: He was a Canadian. You know, there's and I couldn't

709
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 2: find a complete list of everything he worked on, but

710
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 2: he did like an Atari twenty six hundred commercial for

711
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 2: Activision's Pitfall two and yeah, so not a lot of credits.

712
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 2: But even then, from what I've read, he was highly

713
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 2: influential within the business and actually turned down work on

714
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 2: subsequent big film projects with Ridley Scott and others. He

715
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 2: directed a single feature link film himself the year two thousands,

716
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 2: The Spreading Ground starring Dennis Hopper, which was also co

717
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:02,760
Speaker 2: written by Mark Berman.

718
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 3: Oh, I haven't seen.

719
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 2: That so anyway, He's one of the many reasons you

720
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 2: should definitely see this film in the best quality possible

721
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 2: in a nice dark room, good TV.

722
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 3: It looks fantastic.

723
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 2: Now. The composer on this film is another legend in

724
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 2: the business, and that's Alex North, who lived nineteen ten

725
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 2: through nineteen ninety one American composer and fifteen time Academy

726
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 2: Award nominee. His most famous scores include those for nineteen

727
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: fifty two as a Streetcar named Desire and Death of

728
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 2: a Salesman nineteen fifty six is Unchained That's where We

729
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 2: Get Unchained, Melody nineteen sixty one, Spartacus sixty four is

730
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 2: Cleopatra eighty five's Under the Volcano. He completed a score

731
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 2: for two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey, but Kubert

732
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 2: rejected it in favor of a needle drop classical music score,

733
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 2: and I'm to understand he actually reused some material from

734
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: the two thousand and one project in this film. Hmm. Now.

735
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: He received an OSCAR nomination for Dragon Slayer, but lost

736
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,240
Speaker 2: out to Vangelists for his work on Chariots of Fire.

737
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 2: John Williams was also nominated that year for Raiders. But

738
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 2: I mean, Charots of Fire is an all timer, so

739
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 2: I mean, if you got to lose to Chariots of Fire,

740
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:15,800
Speaker 2: it's perfectly fine.

741
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 3: I think the music in Dragon Slayer works quite well,

742
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 3: especially right at the beginning of the movie. There's it's

743
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 3: you know, classic dark fantasy opening opens with like a

744
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 3: black screen and these just lead heavy horns really working

745
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 3: the brass section. It's dark, deep, ominous. It's really good.

746
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, highly effective. All right. Now, this is a special

747
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 2: effects movie. This is this is got This has tremendous

748
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 2: special effects and we're not going to be able to

749
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 2: do complete justice to them here. But the dragon does

750
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: not play himself. This was the work of a vast

751
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 2: industrial light and magic crew featuring such names as Dennis Murran,

752
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 2: Phil Tippett, Ken Ralston and Brian Johnson. The film was

753
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 2: nominated for a Special Effects OSCAR that year, but lost

754
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 2: out too. The only other nominee, which was also an

755
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 2: ILM project, Raiders of the Lost Arc. This film so

756
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 2: they used various methods to bring the dragon to life.

757
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 2: The film makes use of the Go Motion system to

758
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 2: create realistic motion blur and smooth character articulation for the dragon,

759
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 2: as well as related miniature elements, and according to ILM

760
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 2: on their website, the film inspired the development of the

761
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 2: Go Motion system. I think Tippet had previously employed some

762
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 2: of the techniques on The Empire Strikes Back, but this

763
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 2: was a big Go motion picture and if you want

764
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 2: more details on what that consists of, again, I highly

765
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 2: recommend the making of documentary that is on the Blu ray.

766
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 3: I was curious about how they achieved the shots of

767
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 3: the dragon moving because it does look unlike really any

768
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 3: other special effects shots of that type, I can think,

769
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 3: and it looks wonderful.

770
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's the So these different types of

771
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 2: effects obviously see have large scale pneumatic limbs you got

772
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 2: a large scale heads stop motion go motion miniatures, flying

773
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 2: miniatures that are brought to life in a very kind

774
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 2: of like Star Wars spaceship fashion, and then puppetry, flamethrowers

775
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 2: and so forth. But I imagine the scenes you're thinking

776
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 2: of are particularly like the crawling around the cave sequences,

777
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 2: and I believe that what we're talking about here are

778
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 2: those go motion sequences that Phil tip It was in

779
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 2: charge of, and indeed these are just just so magical.

780
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 2: It just absolutely feels alive. I Mean, there's a reason

781
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 2: that del Toro himself says like this, not only is

782
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 2: this the best dragon that had ever been done, this

783
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:45,720
Speaker 2: is the best dragon that has ever been done.

784
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 3: In cinema still to this day. Yeah, I don't know.

785
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:51,360
Speaker 3: I don't know what I would think was better.

786
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even I've read other productions talking about

787
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 2: their dragon and it's like they oftentimes acknowledge the DNA

788
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 2: Dragon Slayer in what they do. You know, it's like, well,

789
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 2: we looked at Dragonslayer, we looked at what worked, and

790
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 2: we tried to build off of that.

791
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 3: All right, are you ready to talk about the plot.

792
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 2: Let's dive in.

793
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 3: So we begin in darkness, as I said earlier, with

794
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 3: those the heavy, scary kind of horn melodies playing. And

795
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 3: then eventually, out of the blackness we see a burning

796
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 3: torch emerge, and then there's another and another, and the

797
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 3: picture kind of differentiates from just pure black into an

798
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,879
Speaker 3: indigo nighttime sky in the background, and then the dark

799
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,720
Speaker 3: shapes of dead trees in the foreground. So a group

800
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 3: of people are making their way across the hillside by

801
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 3: torchlight in the dead of night. And then somewhere else

802
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 3: we see an old man in a dim cave like room,

803
00:44:55,800 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 3: surrounded by arcane instruments, engaged in magic and alchemy, and

804
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,320
Speaker 3: he sort of waves a fire of sorcery into existence

805
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,840
Speaker 3: in a metal bowl and then stares into the flame

806
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 3: like he's divining a scene from elsewhere or from the future,

807
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 3: and we hear screams and the sound of metal clashing violence,

808
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 3: all this echoing in his mind. And then the party

809
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 3: we saw traveling by night, they arrive at the heavy

810
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,800
Speaker 3: door of a hilltop castle and they knock and somebody

811
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 3: answers the door. I believe it's Hodge. Here are sort

812
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 3: of like a strange old man, and he tries to

813
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 3: turn them away, but we learned that this is the

814
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 3: dwelling of Ulrich of Kraganmore. He says, yes, you've come

815
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 3: a long way, Yes, your business is urgent, it does

816
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 3: not matter. He sees no one, and there's grumbling from

817
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 3: within the party. They are being led by a young

818
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 3: man named a Valerian, and some of the unhappy travelers

819
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 3: are like what now, boy. In fact, I think it's

820
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,439
Speaker 3: the guy who's going to later convert to Christianity that's

821
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 3: being really grumpy. But eventually they get led inside the

822
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 3: castle and the master of the castle is the great

823
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 3: wizard Ulric of Kragnmore, and he has foreseen that he

824
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 3: must meet with them. He also tells his young apprentice Galen,

825
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 3: that he foresees his own death and matters that will

826
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 3: be of great importance to Galen as well. We learned

827
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 3: that Galen is an eager young student. He wants to

828
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 3: Basically what he wants more than anything else in the

829
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 3: world is to become mighty in the ways of sorcery.

830
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 3: But he is still learning. And then we get to

831
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 3: the scene where Ulric comes out to meet the travelers,

832
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 3: and I thought this was really funny. I love the

833
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 3: use of what you might call diegetic special effects in

834
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,399
Speaker 3: this scene. So you know, in many cases you might

835
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 3: say that the mechanisms of special effects are non diegetic

836
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: because they're just supposed to appear on screen as if

837
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 3: they are representing some kind of real magic. But here,

838
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 3: as Ulrich comes out to meet the guests, Galen is

839
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 3: like shaking some sheet metal to generate a sound of thunder,

840
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 3: and then he throws exploding powder on the floor to

841
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 3: create a flash of light and smoke as Elrick enters

842
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 3: the room, so it's like he's still sort of got

843
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 3: the sorcery training wheels on, you know, he's like using

844
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 3: these materials.

845
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 2: It also reminded me a bit of some of the themes

846
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 2: they're explored in The Last Unicorn, like the idea of

847
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 2: having to put a like a fake horn on a

848
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: real unicorn so that normal people could see it, like

849
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 2: a we're living in a world here where magic is

850
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 2: leaving the world, there's less magic available, but also legitimate

851
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 2: sorcery as we see it in the film has kind

852
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 2: of like this kind of subtle quality to it, and

853
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,879
Speaker 2: there's kind of the sense that just normal folk might

854
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 2: miss it, they might not understand what they're seeing. So

855
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 2: perhaps you've got to spice things up a little bit

856
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 2: with some stage effects and so forth.

857
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,319
Speaker 3: But of course Ulric is the real deal, because when

858
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 3: he comes into the room, we see him immediately using

859
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 3: real magic, like he raises flames on the candles and

860
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 3: in the hearth with a And so he meets with

861
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 3: the travelers. We learn they are a delegation from Orland,

862
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:09,279
Speaker 3: which is beyond Valvatia, and he says, let's see the artifacts,

863
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 3: as if this is almost like a routine, kind of

864
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 3: recurring type of meeting. He's just like, we go through

865
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,320
Speaker 3: the steps here, show me the artifacts, and they share

866
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 3: with him scales and an enormous tooth. Ulrich at first

867
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 3: seems a little intimidated. He says, the beast that this

868
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:31,439
Speaker 3: came from must be enormous, and he suggests they try

869
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 3: someone else. He says, try the Meridid sisters or Rimbau.

870
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 3: These are other sorcerers that apparently have experience fighting dragons,

871
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 3: but Valerian says, nope, they are all dead. Ulrich seems

872
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 3: to be the only great sorcerer left in the land.

873
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 3: Ulrich then discovers more of their plight. The king of Orland, Cassiodorus,

874
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 3: has made a pact with the monster. The dragon agrees

875
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 3: not to attack the villages and burn the crops of orland.

876
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,400
Speaker 3: But this is only as long as at the spring

877
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 3: and autumn equinox he receives a human sacrifice, they will

878
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 3: send him a virgin selected by lottery. Ulric judges this

879
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 3: arrangement barbaric, and then Valerian says to him, are you

880
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:17,439
Speaker 3: afraid of dragons? And Ulric says, I'm going to quote

881
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 3: him here he says no. In fact, if it weren't

882
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 3: for sorcerers, there wouldn't be any dragons once the skies

883
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 3: were dotted with them, magnificent horned backs, leathern wings, soaring,

884
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 3: and their hot breath wind. Oh, I know this creature

885
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 3: of yours, vermicthrax pejorative. Look at these scales, these ridges.

886
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:44,320
Speaker 3: When a dragon gets this old, it knows nothing but pain,

887
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:50,399
Speaker 3: constant pain. It grows decrepit, crippled, pitiful, spiteful.

888
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 2: It's a great moment because, I mean, obviously he's not

889
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:58,320
Speaker 2: just describing the dragon here, he's also talking about himself.

890
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 2: He's talking about the of.

891
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 3: Age, that's right, So that's interesting. But also it's a

892
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 3: strange take on the dragon. So you know, We were

893
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,319
Speaker 3: saying earlier that the dragon in this movie is very

894
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 3: much a monster and is not one of the noble, intelligent,

895
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 3: you know, higher dragons of some other fantasy stories. But

896
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,759
Speaker 3: it almost sounds like maybe this same dragon would have

897
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 3: been many many years ago. But dragons, when they become old,

898
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 3: become twisted and cruel. Yeah, and it's because they themselves

899
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 3: are in pain.

900
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:32,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it reminds me a bit of examples

901
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 2: we've talked about in the natural world concerning meat eaters,

902
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 2: you know, particularly a man eaters, large predators that have

903
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 2: just have turned to killing and consuming human beings. And

904
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 2: in many cases that's not because you have a creature

905
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 2: in its prime. You have a creature that's aging, that

906
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 2: maybe has dental problems and so forth, and therefore has

907
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 2: kind of been reduced to this status.

908
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's having troubles in the way it always has before,

909
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 3: and so is trying new things out of desperation. So

910
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,760
Speaker 3: Ulrich agrees to help them. He suits up to travel,

911
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 3: and he says goodbye to Galen and Hodge. Hodge is

912
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,360
Speaker 3: his retainer there at the castle. Galen's his little magical assistant.

913
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 3: That's Peter McNichol, As he's leaving, he says to Galen,

914
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 3: keep your hands out of my reagents. But ooh, then

915
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,839
Speaker 3: we're about to get a really great villain introduction. As

916
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 3: the party is preparing to leave the castle of Kraganmore,

917
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 3: they are intercepted by armed men led by Tyrian, the

918
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 3: captain of Cassiodorus's royal guard, his king's guard, if you will.

919
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 3: Tyrian is a large man. He is sneering and seemingly dangerous.

920
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 3: He has that energy of someone who is calm for

921
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 3: the moment, but could suddenly become violent. However, once he

922
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 3: starts talking, I gotta admit Tyrian makes some good points.

923
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 3: He says, Look, I know what you're up to. You

924
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:03,280
Speaker 3: know you're gonna get a wizard to go kill this dragon. Well,

925
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 3: I don't love the dragon either, but if you try

926
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 3: to kill it and fail, you are going to stir

927
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 3: up a huge mess of trouble and it may that

928
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 3: may be disastrous for the people of the kingdom. So

929
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 3: if you're going to try to kill the dragon, you

930
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 3: better be sure that your wizard is up to the job.

931
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 3: And then Hodge responds to this saying, ah, so it's

932
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 3: a test you're looking for. We don't do tests, and

933
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 3: Tyrian's response is no, of course not. They never do tests.

934
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 3: Not many real deeds either. Oh, conversation with your grandmother's

935
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 3: shade in a darkened room, the odd love potion or two.

936
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 3: But comes a doubter. Why then it's the wrong day,

937
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 3: The planets are not in line, the entrails are not favorable.

938
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 3: We don't do tests. And so Tyrian comes off like

939
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 3: a villain in the scene. But he's making a lot

940
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,800
Speaker 3: of sense. You do not want to send Uri Geller

941
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:00,760
Speaker 3: up to fight the monster that is going to react

942
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 3: with swift and terrible revenge.

943
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:05,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he does make some great points here. You know,

944
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 2: it's like, again kind of in support of the status quo,

945
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 2: but it's like, are you gonna actually solve any problems

946
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 2: with this or are you just gonna make things worse.

947
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 2: He's very much of the mindset I think, you know

948
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 2: better better one hundred years of tyranny than a day

949
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 2: of chaos, that sort of thing.

950
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 3: But they have experience to base this on, because they

951
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 3: will reveal later that the king's brother long ago did

952
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 3: try to go slay the dragon to free the people

953
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 3: from its from its oppression, and in response to this, attack.

954
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:41,280
Speaker 3: The dragon burned all their crops and attacked their villages

955
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 3: and many were killed and it was horrible. Yeah, but anyway,

956
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 3: Ulric says, yeah, okay, Tyrian, I will consent to a test.

957
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:52,880
Speaker 3: And it's what test is it? It's the old stab

958
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 3: me with the magic dagger test. So Ulric assures Tyrian.

959
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 3: He like gets Peter McNichol to go get a special

960
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 3: dagger for him, and he puts the dagger against his

961
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 3: chest and says, go on, you can't hurt me. And

962
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 3: then Ulrich he uses magic to trap Galen inside his

963
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 3: workshop to prevent him from intervening, and Tirian does the

964
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 3: test and oh no, Ulrich is killed.

965
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:18,320
Speaker 2: This is a really great scene and one that I

966
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 2: enjoyed rewatching with commentary. So Richardson really does a lot

967
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 2: of subtle, fascinating work here, Like there's kind of like

968
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 2: ritualistic handling of the dagger leading up to the test,

969
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 2: the bearing of his breast for the dagger, and there's

970
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 2: the look in his eyes, you know with this at

971
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 2: first with the boldness and assuredness of a powerful wizard,

972
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:43,760
Speaker 2: but then it, you know, it kind of transitions into

973
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 2: like the certainty, the the the mundane nature of death,

974
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 2: you know, and del Toro talks about this a bit

975
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:56,960
Speaker 2: on the commentary track, compares the overall blocking and cinematography

976
00:54:56,960 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 2: of the scene to like a Rembrandt painting. You know,

977
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 2: it's really a great sequence and really a showcase for

978
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 2: Richardson's acting.

979
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:07,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there are a lot of things about

980
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,319
Speaker 3: this movie. I think you could regard as a bit

981
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 3: rim brandy. There are these scenes of orange light and shadows.

982
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 3: But also, yeah, the blocking, like the way the wizard

983
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 3: kind of collapses, Yeah.

984
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 2: Because he does do Like the death here does not

985
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 2: feel magical. It feels like an old man foolishly getting

986
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 2: himself stabbed through the heart and just dying there in

987
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:30,359
Speaker 2: the mud.

988
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 3: It makes you wonder did he actually have any powers

989
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 3: at all? I mean, we saw him light some candles

990
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:36,640
Speaker 3: and stuff, but was that it?

991
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 2: And it seems very much a world where that is

992
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 2: a strong possibility that he had no magic left in him.

993
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 2: There was no great magic left for this guy to do.

994
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 3: So we see funeral rights for Ulrich. Galen burns his

995
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:51,840
Speaker 3: body on a pyre. There's a green flame that emerges

996
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 3: and Galen looks on with terrible sadness. We see shooting

997
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 3: stars streaking across the heavens, and the next morning Hodge

998
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:02,760
Speaker 3: comes in scrapes up the ashes from the funeral pyre

999
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 3: into a leather pouch, and we see Galen kind of

1000
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 3: moping around, covering up Ulric's things with cloth and wondering

1001
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:13,279
Speaker 3: what to do with himself. But his adventure is just

1002
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 3: beginning because some magical selection is at work here. Galen

1003
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 3: finds Ulric's enchanted amulet burning for him, burning with this

1004
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 3: eager orange light in his presence, It has chosen him

1005
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 3: as its next owner. You are the wizard now, Galen, and.

1006
00:56:30,640 --> 00:56:33,400
Speaker 2: Just fills him with the foolish self confidence he needs

1007
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 2: to set out to slay the dragon.

1008
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:38,320
Speaker 3: That's right. So we see Galen and Hodge on the

1009
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 3: journey to Orland. They're making the journey and they're like

1010
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 3: catching up to the party of visitors that came to

1011
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:48,719
Speaker 3: them earlier. Galen seems excited and a little bit overwhelmed

1012
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:51,360
Speaker 3: by his new power, like he's levitating an egg in

1013
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 3: his hands while they walk across the country. This is

1014
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:59,040
Speaker 3: the first time we see some really gorgeous exterior location shots.

1015
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 3: They're going through a green valley framed by mountains and

1016
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:05,240
Speaker 3: they make their way through these misty, sun dappled woods.

1017
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 3: It's very beautiful, but Galen is also he's playing with

1018
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 3: and arguably abusing his wizard powers. Hodge is complaining and

1019
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 3: Galen starts like magically stealing his cloak and stuff. Eventually,

1020
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 3: Galen and Hodge catch up to the traveling party and

1021
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 3: Galen introduces them to his new powers and says, you know,

1022
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 3: he's saying, I take on the burden of your request.

1023
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 3: I am Galen, I am the inheritor of Ulrich's knowledge,

1024
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 3: and I am the sorcerer you seek. Now Here we

1025
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 3: cut away to somewhere else in Orland, where we are

1026
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 3: going to witness a sacrifice to vermic Thrack's pejorative the Dragon.

1027
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:54,320
Speaker 3: I don't know if we even took a moment to

1028
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 3: comment on the dragon's name yet, did we know?

1029
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 2: But it is such a wonderful name, and it is

1030
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,240
Speaker 2: kind of left a little vague whether this is thought

1031
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 2: of as an individual name or like a species sort

1032
00:58:06,120 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 2: of name, given the wizard's identification of it earlier.

1033
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 3: Oh, I hadn't thought of it as a species name.

1034
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 3: I thought of it as like a proper name. But

1035
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 3: you could be right. It works either way, I think, Yeah,

1036
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:22,600
Speaker 3: but how does anybody know this is the dragon's name? Like,

1037
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 3: does the dragon use this name itself? We never hear

1038
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 3: it talk.

1039
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:30,000
Speaker 2: I don't know if it can talk, it doesn't, or

1040
00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 2: it no longer speaks. Yeah, this is not a dragon

1041
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,400
Speaker 2: with anything to say and say with words. It speaks

1042
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:38,840
Speaker 2: instead with flames and violence.

1043
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 3: Right, So we see a procession of soldiers, carts, robed

1044
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 3: priests winding up a mountain path of dark rocks. They

1045
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 3: are escorting a prisoner, a young woman dressed in white

1046
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 3: with flowers in her hair. She is a sacrifice that

1047
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 3: is meant for the dragon, so they take her up

1048
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 3: the mountain and they leave her chain to a stake

1049
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 3: near the mouth of a cave, and the priest produces

1050
00:59:02,800 --> 00:59:06,959
Speaker 3: a scroll and begins reading an official decree commemorating the sacrifice.

1051
00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 3: Though while he's reading this, there begins a great deep rumbling,

1052
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 3: and the soldiers and the teamsters with the carts they

1053
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 3: all panic and they start just trying to get out

1054
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 3: of there as fast as they can before the cleric

1055
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 3: even finishes reading the statement, which is really funny. So

1056
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 3: everybody's trying to run away, like the carts are getting

1057
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:29,040
Speaker 3: stuck in the mud and people are freaking out. But

1058
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 3: this scene is actually quite scary. Yeah, the young woman

1059
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:37,120
Speaker 3: being sacrificed, she struggles to free herself from her manacles.

1060
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 3: We hear these heavy footsteps approaching. We don't see the

1061
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 3: dragon yet, but these sounds are coming from the yawning

1062
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 3: mouth of the cave, their steam rushing up from the

1063
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 3: gaps in the rocks. And then we see a giant,

1064
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:53,040
Speaker 3: clawed pair of toes curling around the corner of the rock,

1065
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 3: and the beast reveals itself in full to her, but

1066
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:01,240
Speaker 3: not to us yet. We get the feeling we sort

1067
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:03,480
Speaker 3: of see from its point of view, and get the

1068
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 3: feeling that it is towering, monstrous. We do see that

1069
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 3: it has a slimy tail covered in these these spikes

1070
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 3: protruding bones. Not like the elegant sort of patterns of

1071
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 3: ridges and bumps you see on smoother dragons of recent media.

1072
01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 3: This looks more like a gigantic spine of fish bones,

1073
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 3: you know, like broken in places, irregular modeled, with age,

1074
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 3: covered in scales and mucus. Just horrible in every way.

1075
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 2: And again we don't see it in full us the viewer.

1076
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 2: We see bits and pieces of it the full shape

1077
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 2: of the dragon is implied rather than stated overtly.

1078
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:47,040
Speaker 3: Right, So the young woman actually the last moment, does

1079
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 3: manage to free herself from her from her manacles, but

1080
01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 3: it's too late. The dragon is there. It's looming over her,

1081
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:59,080
Speaker 3: a giant, stinking, hateful mass, and then finally it just

1082
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 3: unleashes a breath of fire. It's an incredibly effective scary scene.

1083
01:01:04,520 --> 01:01:06,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like a horror movie sequence right here,

1084
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:09,760
Speaker 2: and it uses the tools of horror quite well. Like

1085
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 2: you mentioned her trying to free yourselves from herself from

1086
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 2: the manacles, and of course that they're cutting up her

1087
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:18,600
Speaker 2: wrists there she's straining and having to squeeze, like and

1088
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 2: it's one of those small touches, you know, where we

1089
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 2: can more easily imagine that pain and that desperation than

1090
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:29,640
Speaker 2: we can like the larger, more fantastic aspects of and

1091
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:33,600
Speaker 2: extreme aspects of the situation, and therefore, like the familiar

1092
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 2: makes the fantastic more real to us. So it's excellently done.

1093
01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 2: And yeah, when we start seeing these glimpses of the dragon,

1094
01:01:43,880 --> 01:01:47,120
Speaker 2: just utterly terrifying. On the commentary track, Del Toro just

1095
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 2: loses his mind over this sequence. He's just He's like, oh,

1096
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 2: what of what I wouldn't give for a scene like this?

1097
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 2: You know, It's like, find someone in your life who

1098
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 2: loves you as much as del Toro loves these dragon sequences.

1099
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:02,200
Speaker 3: That is a good point you make about the way

1100
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:05,480
Speaker 3: that it combines different types of horror in the same scene,

1101
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:08,800
Speaker 3: for this greater than the sum of its parts effect

1102
01:02:08,920 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 3: that the horrors of the scene are both large and small,

1103
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:19,680
Speaker 3: both sort of concrete and familiar, and then fantastical and magical. Yeah. Anyway,

1104
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:22,840
Speaker 3: after this terrifying sequence, we see Valerian wake from a

1105
01:02:22,920 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 3: nightmare in a cold sweat at their camp in the forest.

1106
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:30,640
Speaker 3: And then here at the river beside the camp, Galen

1107
01:02:30,720 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 3: wakes up and he decides to go bathing in the water,

1108
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 3: which Valerian is also doing as well, and in this

1109
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:40,120
Speaker 3: process he discovers that Valerian is not a young man

1110
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:43,200
Speaker 3: but a young woman in disguise, and this is where

1111
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 3: we get the story she fills him in. We find

1112
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 3: out that she has lived her whole life in public

1113
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 3: disguised as a boy to hide from the Vermicthrax sacrifice lottery,

1114
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 3: and Galen promises he'll help her keep her secret he's

1115
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:00,960
Speaker 3: not going to tell anybody, and they have conversation where

1116
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 3: Valerian reveals also that it's only the daughters of the

1117
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:06,720
Speaker 3: common people who are in danger. If you're rich enough,

1118
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:08,720
Speaker 3: if you're the daughter of the king, you can avoid

1119
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 3: the lottery. But of course Valerian's father is just a

1120
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 3: blacksmith's he's poor.

1121
01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:16,120
Speaker 2: Now on the commentary track, they do point out like

1122
01:03:16,120 --> 01:03:20,320
Speaker 2: the obvious connection here to like the military draft, particularly

1123
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:24,120
Speaker 2: you know, during the nineteen sixties in the United States,

1124
01:03:24,160 --> 01:03:25,920
Speaker 2: and so there's you know, there's this is one of

1125
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 2: the many moments in the film where there's actually some

1126
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 2: there's a lot of food for thought in the scenario

1127
01:03:30,680 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 2: that's being drawn out for us here. You know, it's

1128
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 2: it's it's fantasy, Yes, it's it's it's supposed to be

1129
01:03:39,400 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 2: centuries ago in this you know, somewhere a little adjacent

1130
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:45,280
Speaker 2: to history. But he does have you know, there are

1131
01:03:45,320 --> 01:03:49,320
Speaker 2: various comparison points for modern life in the modern world. Yeah.

1132
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. So also in the scene though Galen sees a

1133
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:57,040
Speaker 3: vision in the water, his like amulet activates and he

1134
01:03:57,080 --> 01:03:59,919
Speaker 3: starts to use the water surface as a divining mirror,

1135
01:04:00,560 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 3: and he sees soldiers riding on the road and Tyrian,

1136
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 3: the captain of the King's guard, overlooking the camp, drawing

1137
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:11,200
Speaker 3: his bow, and now he sees Tyrian has shot Hodge

1138
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 3: with an arrow. So Galen is like, no, no, no,

1139
01:04:14,080 --> 01:04:16,440
Speaker 3: and he runs to intervene, but it's too late. Galen

1140
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:20,320
Speaker 3: finds Hodge dying of his wound, and Hodge instructs Galen.

1141
01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:24,520
Speaker 3: He says, our master had dying wishes. Take this pouch

1142
01:04:24,640 --> 01:04:28,760
Speaker 3: of Ulrich's ashes, find the lake of burning Water and

1143
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 3: throw the ashes in, and then Hodge dies. Galen tries,

1144
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 3: I think, to resurrect him with magic, but this fails.

1145
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:38,720
Speaker 3: So the stakes are up, and this sort of marks

1146
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:40,440
Speaker 3: roughly the end of act one.

1147
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:43,200
Speaker 2: Ish yeah, yeah, I think so.

1148
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:45,840
Speaker 3: So Galen, Valerian and the rest of the Erlanders make

1149
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 3: their way back to Dragon Country, and again lots of

1150
01:04:48,480 --> 01:04:53,160
Speaker 3: absolutely gorgeous outdoor location shots here, the landscape, the rocks

1151
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:57,120
Speaker 3: covered in moss, waterfalls, mountains of gray boulders, and on

1152
01:04:57,160 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 3: the way they pass by the Lair of vermathrax b

1153
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:02,600
Speaker 3: Orative and Galen wants to go straight to it. I

1154
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:04,920
Speaker 3: think they're like, well, let's go home first, but he's like, no,

1155
01:05:05,080 --> 01:05:06,960
Speaker 3: get me there right now. So they go to the

1156
01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 3: cave mouth. Galen is just he has so much zeal

1157
01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 3: he just goes straight inside, against the warnings of Valerian

1158
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:16,120
Speaker 3: and the others. It's very tense when he goes in.

1159
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:19,760
Speaker 3: The atmosphere in the dragon's cave is wonderful, and he

1160
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:22,280
Speaker 3: tries to call out vermath Rax, and there are these

1161
01:05:22,320 --> 01:05:25,320
Speaker 3: blasts of smoke and dust, but the dragon does not appear.

1162
01:05:25,840 --> 01:05:28,919
Speaker 3: So Galen comes back out of the cave, and he's

1163
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 3: been told by the others that there is only one

1164
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:34,560
Speaker 3: entrance and exit to the cave. There's no other way

1165
01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:39,160
Speaker 3: in or out, so seemingly kind of chastened by fear

1166
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 3: a little bit. Instead of going in to fight the

1167
01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:45,160
Speaker 3: dragon inside, he does a magical incantation to cause a

1168
01:05:45,200 --> 01:05:49,800
Speaker 3: boulder to fall down and plug the mouth of the cave. Again,

1169
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:52,280
Speaker 3: we've been told this is the only entrance, but it's

1170
01:05:52,280 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 3: almost like he doesn't know his own strength, because it

1171
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:57,400
Speaker 3: ends up causing a gigantic rock slide with all of

1172
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:00,680
Speaker 3: these rocks coming down and piling up over the mouth

1173
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:03,000
Speaker 3: of the cave, and it seems to have worked. The

1174
01:06:03,040 --> 01:06:05,920
Speaker 3: mouth of the cave of Vermathrax is filled in with

1175
01:06:06,120 --> 01:06:08,160
Speaker 3: rocks and they say he's done.

1176
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 2: It, all right, mission accomplished, kind of like a lucky

1177
01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:11,640
Speaker 2: first blow there.

1178
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:14,919
Speaker 3: All right, yeah, good thing, the movie's over. But it's

1179
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:18,280
Speaker 3: not so. Back at the village, everybody is celebrating being

1180
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:21,080
Speaker 3: freed of the dragon. There's a bonfire. They're burning the

1181
01:06:21,120 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 3: cult effigies of the dragon that they'd previously carried up

1182
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:27,840
Speaker 3: the mountain in fear. Galen is telling stories to the children,

1183
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 3: and we meet Valerian's father, who is the village blacksmith,

1184
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:35,760
Speaker 3: and Valerian finally now free of the dragon's curse. She

1185
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:39,280
Speaker 3: in this scene puts on a dress and reveals to

1186
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:43,160
Speaker 3: everyone that she is a girl. And there's also a

1187
01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:46,000
Speaker 3: funny development in the scene, which is where we meet

1188
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 3: the Christian missionary and it's Ian McDermid and some of

1189
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:53,200
Speaker 3: the villagers are talking. I think, I forget the villager's name,

1190
01:06:53,240 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 3: but it's the one who seems to be really into

1191
01:06:55,200 --> 01:06:57,920
Speaker 3: what the Christian is saying. He's like, don't you think

1192
01:06:57,920 --> 01:06:59,920
Speaker 3: it's strange that there's a holy man in the villa

1193
01:07:00,280 --> 01:07:02,520
Speaker 3: at the same time that the dragon was defeated?

1194
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:05,720
Speaker 2: Makes you think, yeah, I think this is the character

1195
01:07:06,200 --> 01:07:10,000
Speaker 2: Griel played by Albert Salmi who lived nineteen twenty eight

1196
01:07:10,040 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 2: through nineteen ninety. He was an American character actor. It

1197
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:16,000
Speaker 2: was in a bunch of things. He was in Caddy Shack.

1198
01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:18,840
Speaker 2: He was on episodes of the original Twilight Zone and

1199
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:22,120
Speaker 2: Night Gallery. And I think his voice is dubbed in this,

1200
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:24,400
Speaker 2: but he has a very recognizable face.

1201
01:07:25,200 --> 01:07:29,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, but record scratch. The party stops when soldiers come

1202
01:07:29,440 --> 01:07:32,200
Speaker 3: riding into the village on horseback, led by Tyrian, the

1203
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:35,040
Speaker 3: captain of the King's guard, and they're like, we need

1204
01:07:35,080 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 3: to take Galen off to meet the king. The king

1205
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 3: wants to meet the wizard who delivered them all from

1206
01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:42,919
Speaker 3: the power of the dragon. And so we see Peter

1207
01:07:43,040 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 3: McNichol in front of the king trying to do demonstrations

1208
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:48,440
Speaker 3: of magic. It's not going super well, Like he tries

1209
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:51,080
Speaker 3: to levitate a table and just kind of knocks stuff.

1210
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:53,400
Speaker 2: All over the place a little bit nothing convincing.

1211
01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:56,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, but this is where we hear the stories that

1212
01:07:56,800 --> 01:07:59,479
Speaker 3: I alluded to earlier, where the King explains like, look,

1213
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:02,320
Speaker 3: we have had to kill the dragon before my brother

1214
01:08:02,400 --> 01:08:04,560
Speaker 3: tried to do it, and all it led to was

1215
01:08:04,760 --> 01:08:08,760
Speaker 3: horrible reprisals from the dragon. So we have to make

1216
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:12,240
Speaker 3: sure did you really kill the dragon? Is it really dead?

1217
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:15,880
Speaker 3: Galen promises, yes, it is, but the king is suspicious

1218
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:18,719
Speaker 3: of him. He doesn't believe it, so he takes Galen prisoner,

1219
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:21,599
Speaker 3: throws him in the dungeon, takes away his magical amulet.

1220
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:26,760
Speaker 3: And in the dungeon here Galen meets Princess Elspeth as

1221
01:08:26,760 --> 01:08:29,160
Speaker 3: she comes in, saying like, oh, I heard you muttering

1222
01:08:29,200 --> 01:08:31,680
Speaker 3: spells in Greek and Latin. It seems like that's not

1223
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:33,920
Speaker 3: working because you know of your amulet. But I speak

1224
01:08:33,960 --> 01:08:37,599
Speaker 3: Greek and Latin too. And in this scene they sort

1225
01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:39,519
Speaker 3: of talk about what goes on with the dragon, and

1226
01:08:39,560 --> 01:08:42,240
Speaker 3: it's revealed that she is naive about how she's been

1227
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:45,720
Speaker 3: avoiding the dragon's lottery. Galen fills her in like, yeah,

1228
01:08:45,800 --> 01:08:48,759
Speaker 3: your dad's covering for you, like your name's not going

1229
01:08:48,760 --> 01:08:49,559
Speaker 3: into the lottery.

1230
01:08:49,760 --> 01:08:51,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, where she thinks, I've just I've had the same

1231
01:08:51,880 --> 01:08:55,439
Speaker 2: risk the whole time, and you know, I've been lucky.

1232
01:08:55,520 --> 01:09:00,160
Speaker 2: But he's like, no, that's that's complete complete bs that

1233
01:09:00,200 --> 01:09:01,560
Speaker 2: the fixes in obviously.

1234
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:05,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, And she goes directly to her father, King Cassiodorus

1235
01:09:05,520 --> 01:09:09,040
Speaker 3: and confronts him about this, and so he's he's about

1236
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:13,120
Speaker 3: to sort of have to answer for misleading her about this,

1237
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:17,160
Speaker 3: letting her think that she'd been competing fairly, not competing,

1238
01:09:17,160 --> 01:09:19,479
Speaker 3: and that she'd had the same fair risk as all

1239
01:09:19,479 --> 01:09:23,600
Speaker 3: the other girls. But instead they're interrupted. There's like the

1240
01:09:23,680 --> 01:09:27,360
Speaker 3: quaking of the earth and on no vermoth Rax is alive.

1241
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:31,400
Speaker 3: And in the middle here Galen escapes the dungeon because

1242
01:09:31,439 --> 01:09:34,040
Speaker 3: the princess comes and frees him. She's she's sort of

1243
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:37,160
Speaker 3: like his revelations have rocked her world, and she's like, Okay,

1244
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 3: i gotta let him out of the dungeon and I'm

1245
01:09:38,960 --> 01:09:41,800
Speaker 3: in rebellion mode. Now Galen gets on a horse and

1246
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:45,639
Speaker 3: runs away from the castle. Meanwhile, the villagers are led

1247
01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:49,160
Speaker 3: up the mountain in terror by the Christian monk, by

1248
01:09:49,240 --> 01:09:52,559
Speaker 3: brother Jacopus, and the Christian tells them this is not

1249
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:56,320
Speaker 3: a dragon, it's Lucifer. But vermuth Rax comes out of

1250
01:09:56,360 --> 01:09:59,720
Speaker 3: the earth and faces off against the Christian wizard here

1251
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,880
Speaker 3: and it is no contest. There is a breath of

1252
01:10:02,920 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 3: hot wind and the dragon is so scary.

1253
01:10:05,880 --> 01:10:09,000
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, Yeah, this is this is another great sequence.

1254
01:10:09,040 --> 01:10:11,760
Speaker 2: This is another sequence that del Toro loses his mind

1255
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:15,719
Speaker 2: over because it's just just it's the way it's blocked,

1256
01:10:15,760 --> 01:10:20,080
Speaker 2: the way it shot, the way Vermathrax rises up out

1257
01:10:20,080 --> 01:10:23,640
Speaker 2: of these flaming pit, this flaming pit with it with

1258
01:10:23,680 --> 01:10:29,439
Speaker 2: these horns, like some sort of Satanic figure emerging out

1259
01:10:29,439 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 2: of hell, and then like it very quickly, I think

1260
01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:36,640
Speaker 2: becomes obvious to our Christian missionary friend here that he

1261
01:10:36,760 --> 01:10:39,759
Speaker 2: is out of his element, that this is not something

1262
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:41,280
Speaker 2: that he's going to be over to be able to

1263
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:43,160
Speaker 2: overcome with his religion and his faith.

1264
01:10:43,600 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is. He is vanquished by the power of evil.

1265
01:10:47,800 --> 01:10:50,320
Speaker 3: So we cut to sometime later where we see Tyrian

1266
01:10:50,439 --> 01:10:54,280
Speaker 3: arrive at the house of Valerian and her father, and

1267
01:10:54,400 --> 01:10:56,759
Speaker 3: Tyrian and his men are searching the village for Galen.

1268
01:10:56,840 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 3: So they're going around the house like looking in baskets

1269
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:02,600
Speaker 3: and stuff, being like the wizard hiding in here, and

1270
01:11:02,760 --> 01:11:06,800
Speaker 3: Tyrian threatens that you know what, because the dragon is

1271
01:11:06,840 --> 01:11:09,280
Speaker 3: now so angry that somebody tried to go kill him,

1272
01:11:09,960 --> 01:11:13,040
Speaker 3: there's going to need to be an early sacrifice ahead

1273
01:11:13,040 --> 01:11:15,800
Speaker 3: of schedule. And you know what, now that everybody knows

1274
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:18,080
Speaker 3: about your daughter, she's gonna have to be in the

1275
01:11:18,080 --> 01:11:21,519
Speaker 3: lottery too. And they tried, they try to find Galen,

1276
01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:23,280
Speaker 3: but they don't find him anywhere, so they leave and

1277
01:11:23,320 --> 01:11:25,799
Speaker 3: it turns out he was hiding in like a secret

1278
01:11:25,880 --> 01:11:27,680
Speaker 3: compartment under the anvil.

1279
01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:29,880
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, standard issue, I think.

1280
01:11:30,320 --> 01:11:33,959
Speaker 3: Yeah. But here we get a forging the weapon sequence

1281
01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:36,800
Speaker 3: where we find about how we find out that Valerian's

1282
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:41,720
Speaker 3: father has created a secret dragon slaying weapon that he's

1283
01:11:41,720 --> 01:11:45,760
Speaker 3: got like hidden in this cage that's hidden behind a waterfall.

1284
01:11:45,920 --> 01:11:48,439
Speaker 3: That this is really cool. It's like this giant spear

1285
01:11:48,520 --> 01:11:50,680
Speaker 3: that he's made, but he never had the courage to

1286
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:53,800
Speaker 3: use it himself. And Galen sees it. He says it's

1287
01:11:53,800 --> 01:11:57,280
Speaker 3: a beautiful weapon, but he it will be useless unless

1288
01:11:57,280 --> 01:11:59,720
Speaker 3: he unless he has the amulet back. That's the only

1289
01:11:59,760 --> 01:12:02,200
Speaker 3: way he can, like, I think, infuse it with the

1290
01:12:02,240 --> 01:12:04,120
Speaker 3: power it needs to fight the dragon.

1291
01:12:04,600 --> 01:12:04,800
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1292
01:12:05,360 --> 01:12:08,000
Speaker 3: Then we get the big lottery scene where they're gonna

1293
01:12:08,120 --> 01:12:11,439
Speaker 3: select who has to face the dragon next and who

1294
01:12:11,479 --> 01:12:13,800
Speaker 3: gets picked. When they pull the tiles out of the

1295
01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:18,320
Speaker 3: big pot, why it's Elsbeth, the princess. The king tries

1296
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:21,040
Speaker 3: to say, like, no, no, no, my minister read the

1297
01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:23,559
Speaker 3: name on the tile wrong. Let us draw another tile,

1298
01:12:23,680 --> 01:12:27,439
Speaker 3: But all the tiles say Elsbeth. In fact, she arranged

1299
01:12:27,479 --> 01:12:30,639
Speaker 3: it that way because she thinks it's only fair given

1300
01:12:30,680 --> 01:12:34,000
Speaker 3: that she has been protected unfairly all these years past.

1301
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:38,320
Speaker 3: There's no changing it. She's now selected. The king is desperate,

1302
01:12:38,360 --> 01:12:41,080
Speaker 3: trying to talk anybody into helping him get out of this,

1303
01:12:41,160 --> 01:12:44,200
Speaker 3: Like he tries to talk Tyrian into saying, let's figure

1304
01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:47,040
Speaker 3: something else out. It can't be her, But Tyrian's like, yeah,

1305
01:12:47,240 --> 01:12:48,200
Speaker 3: it seems fair to me.

1306
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:51,639
Speaker 2: This is a great sequence, And I love how I mean,

1307
01:12:51,640 --> 01:12:53,679
Speaker 2: first of all, for plot reasons they do it this way,

1308
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:56,760
Speaker 2: but also I think it plays into the overall theme

1309
01:12:56,800 --> 01:12:59,519
Speaker 2: of the picture. There's this sense that the lottery is

1310
01:12:59,560 --> 01:13:02,760
Speaker 2: this thing that, once it has been created, is no

1311
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:06,800
Speaker 2: longer entirely in control, in the control of the king

1312
01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:10,120
Speaker 2: and his men, you know, Like there's this energy between

1313
01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:14,719
Speaker 2: the king and his men and the crowd, like they're channing,

1314
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:17,040
Speaker 2: stir the tiles, stir the tiles with kind of urgency,

1315
01:13:17,160 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 2: like you know, obviously like stir it up. You've got

1316
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:20,759
Speaker 2: to make sure it's fair, got to make sure it's fair.

1317
01:13:20,800 --> 01:13:24,920
Speaker 2: Like it's this great kind of semi chaotic feeling that

1318
01:13:24,960 --> 01:13:27,879
Speaker 2: things could get out of hand very easily.

1319
01:13:28,240 --> 01:13:30,960
Speaker 3: That's right. It's almost like the people themselves have a

1320
01:13:31,000 --> 01:13:34,760
Speaker 3: frenzy for the outcome of the lottery selection. So the

1321
01:13:34,840 --> 01:13:38,960
Speaker 3: king feels utterly helpless, like he can't really and it's

1322
01:13:38,960 --> 01:13:42,000
Speaker 3: happened in public, so he can't really undo it. So

1323
01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:45,120
Speaker 3: he thinks of the only other thing that occurs to

1324
01:13:45,200 --> 01:13:48,200
Speaker 3: him is we have to actually kill the dragon. So

1325
01:13:48,240 --> 01:13:51,800
Speaker 3: he catches Galen, having snuck back into the castle looking

1326
01:13:51,800 --> 01:13:54,360
Speaker 3: for his amulet. He catches him and he begs him,

1327
01:13:54,400 --> 01:13:56,760
Speaker 3: and he says, you can have your amulet back if

1328
01:13:56,800 --> 01:13:59,920
Speaker 3: you kill the dragon and save Elspeth. So Galen is

1329
01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 3: and given like official sanction. Now we see him and

1330
01:14:02,280 --> 01:14:06,360
Speaker 3: the blacksmith trying to like magically fire the dragon slayer weapon,

1331
01:14:07,120 --> 01:14:10,479
Speaker 3: like using the amulet to power up the spear. I

1332
01:14:10,520 --> 01:14:12,439
Speaker 3: love the following scene. By the way, there's a scene

1333
01:14:12,479 --> 01:14:16,160
Speaker 3: where Valerian goes up up the mountain to collect scales

1334
01:14:16,439 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 3: from the dragon to make for Galen a dragon scale

1335
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:24,800
Speaker 3: shield that he can use to face vermath Rax. Oh,

1336
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 3: and also while she's up there, she discovers there are

1337
01:14:27,280 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 3: baby dragons in the cave and they are also scary

1338
01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:31,360
Speaker 3: and must also be destroyed.

1339
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:33,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are not cute and they and I say

1340
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:37,479
Speaker 2: this lovingly, they have some real Gromlin energy. They did.

1341
01:14:37,600 --> 01:14:40,640
Speaker 2: It's great. So this is definite puppetry used here, but

1342
01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:41,439
Speaker 2: to great effect.

1343
01:14:41,640 --> 01:14:44,479
Speaker 3: These Vermras babies would be popping out of a toilet

1344
01:14:44,560 --> 01:14:49,519
Speaker 3: in another movie or another movie cover some VHS box art.

1345
01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:53,880
Speaker 3: But also here we get the culmination of a I think,

1346
01:14:53,920 --> 01:14:57,200
Speaker 3: if I'm going to be fully honest, a somewhat underdeveloped

1347
01:14:57,240 --> 01:14:59,919
Speaker 3: love story. But you know what, it's fine. It's fantasy adventure.

1348
01:15:00,160 --> 01:15:02,360
Speaker 2: There's just kind of like acknowledge it, like we we're

1349
01:15:02,520 --> 01:15:05,160
Speaker 2: most of the way into this picture. We love each other, right, yeah, yeah,

1350
01:15:05,200 --> 01:15:05,639
Speaker 2: of course we.

1351
01:15:05,600 --> 01:15:08,640
Speaker 3: Did, right. Galen and Valerian they announced their love with

1352
01:15:08,680 --> 01:15:11,519
Speaker 3: the in love with each other. Valerian initially thinks, oh, Galen,

1353
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:14,040
Speaker 3: you must be in love with the princess, but he's like, no, no, no,

1354
01:15:14,040 --> 01:15:15,840
Speaker 3: I love you a good thing.

1355
01:15:16,360 --> 01:15:19,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, silly doc. That relationship hasn't been established either.

1356
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:33,040
Speaker 3: This all leads up to the Great Final Confrontation, where

1357
01:15:33,160 --> 01:15:36,200
Speaker 3: where Elsbeth is taken up to be sacrificed to the dragon.

1358
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:40,599
Speaker 3: Galen appears and announces his intention to kill the dragon first,

1359
01:15:40,640 --> 01:15:44,760
Speaker 3: and everybody runs away in fear, everyone but Tyrian, and

1360
01:15:44,880 --> 01:15:47,840
Speaker 3: Tyrian says, you know, this is the way, and if

1361
01:15:47,880 --> 01:15:51,240
Speaker 3: you intend to interfere with the sacrifice, I will stop you.

1362
01:15:51,960 --> 01:15:55,320
Speaker 3: And they fight, and initially Galen is not a fighter,

1363
01:15:55,320 --> 01:15:57,840
Speaker 3: he's not trained to, you know, fight a captain of

1364
01:15:57,880 --> 01:16:01,240
Speaker 3: the King's guard, but through a combination of pluck and luck,

1365
01:16:01,320 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 3: he does prevail in this duel.

1366
01:16:03,520 --> 01:16:06,960
Speaker 2: He also has a magical spear weapon, which he doesn't

1367
01:16:06,960 --> 01:16:09,800
Speaker 2: completely know how to use, but it is a magical weapon.

1368
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:12,320
Speaker 3: So he's got like a plus three on this baby exactly.

1369
01:16:13,240 --> 01:16:16,160
Speaker 3: So the princess, Yeah, it's funny. It's like it's a

1370
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:19,920
Speaker 3: hand to hand combat battle between what would you say,

1371
01:16:19,960 --> 01:16:25,080
Speaker 3: like a level six fighter versus a level two sorcerer. Yeah,

1372
01:16:25,120 --> 01:16:28,120
Speaker 3: but yeah, he has a magical weapon, so it makes

1373
01:16:28,160 --> 01:16:30,559
Speaker 3: up the difference. Ah, But it was kind of all

1374
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:34,560
Speaker 3: for nothing here because the princess determined to be a sacrifice.

1375
01:16:34,560 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 3: She's like, no, it's got to happen. She runs into

1376
01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:40,880
Speaker 3: the cave and then Galen runs in after her, and

1377
01:16:41,200 --> 01:16:47,080
Speaker 3: in a really shockingly unexpected and horrifying scene, the princess

1378
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:51,240
Speaker 3: is in there just being like eaten up by baby dragons.

1379
01:16:51,240 --> 01:16:54,240
Speaker 3: They're just like tearing off her limbs and eating them.

1380
01:16:54,520 --> 01:16:57,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have what They've killed her and are now

1381
01:16:57,240 --> 01:16:58,240
Speaker 2: like taking her apart.

1382
01:16:58,960 --> 01:16:59,800
Speaker 3: Unbelievable.

1383
01:17:00,160 --> 01:17:04,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, these little like disgusting little gromlins, and yeah, it's

1384
01:17:04,640 --> 01:17:09,120
Speaker 2: really a daring choice for again, a Disney co produced

1385
01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:14,080
Speaker 2: fantasy answer to Star Wars picture. I remember the Yeah,

1386
01:17:14,280 --> 01:17:17,439
Speaker 2: the director in commentary with Del Toro kind of said,

1387
01:17:17,479 --> 01:17:18,920
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of stuff we got away

1388
01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:22,080
Speaker 2: with in this in part because we were making a

1389
01:17:22,080 --> 01:17:27,839
Speaker 2: film abroad and you know, so far from from studio heads,

1390
01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:30,080
Speaker 2: and so they you know, they weren't getting dailies. They

1391
01:17:30,080 --> 01:17:32,640
Speaker 2: didn't know that, you know, we had, you know, the

1392
01:17:32,680 --> 01:17:34,320
Speaker 2: way we were shooting some of these choices.

1393
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:37,639
Speaker 3: Well, the movie is the more remarkable for it these

1394
01:17:37,680 --> 01:17:38,360
Speaker 3: are choices.

1395
01:17:38,600 --> 01:17:38,840
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1396
01:17:38,960 --> 01:17:42,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Galen goes in and fights the baby dragons

1397
01:17:43,200 --> 01:17:46,120
Speaker 3: and he defeats them pretty easily, but then he goes

1398
01:17:46,160 --> 01:17:49,960
Speaker 3: deeper into the cave and finds a burning lake. Now

1399
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:52,080
Speaker 3: that meant something to me when I saw it, but

1400
01:17:52,280 --> 01:17:55,240
Speaker 3: apparently Galen doesn't really remember at this point, like, oh, yeah,

1401
01:17:55,280 --> 01:17:58,680
Speaker 3: that's significant. It will come up again. But there's a

1402
01:17:58,680 --> 01:18:02,519
Speaker 3: big confrontation here between Galen and Vermathrax. They have their

1403
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:05,600
Speaker 3: first big fight and the dragon in the scene is

1404
01:18:05,680 --> 01:18:09,840
Speaker 3: finally revealed in all of its hideous glory and wow, Rob,

1405
01:18:09,880 --> 01:18:12,600
Speaker 3: would you like to say anything about what what vermuthrax

1406
01:18:12,680 --> 01:18:14,000
Speaker 3: looks like when revealed?

1407
01:18:14,120 --> 01:18:15,800
Speaker 2: Oh? I mean, there's so many ways to approach it.

1408
01:18:15,800 --> 01:18:17,599
Speaker 2: I mean the simple thing to say is like, this

1409
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:21,640
Speaker 2: is a real dragon, like you feel. Yeah, you can

1410
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:25,040
Speaker 2: put your mind in the appreciating the special effects and

1411
01:18:25,080 --> 01:18:26,880
Speaker 2: trying to see all the things they've done to bring

1412
01:18:26,920 --> 01:18:29,120
Speaker 2: this dragon to life. But for most of this it

1413
01:18:29,200 --> 01:18:33,479
Speaker 2: just feels like a real creature. And they make so

1414
01:18:33,560 --> 01:18:36,440
Speaker 2: many wonderful choices in the design to make that possible,

1415
01:18:36,479 --> 01:18:40,880
Speaker 2: things like making sure that is a quadruped that it

1416
01:18:41,360 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 2: doesn't have like four limbs plus wings. Its front limbs

1417
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:50,000
Speaker 2: are wings and therefore when it's crawling around in the cave,

1418
01:18:50,320 --> 01:18:52,280
Speaker 2: it's moving like a bat on.

1419
01:18:52,160 --> 01:18:55,320
Speaker 3: The ground, the bat comparison. That's great. The way the

1420
01:18:55,360 --> 01:18:58,880
Speaker 3: wings are folded as it crawls and ugh yeah yeah.

1421
01:18:58,920 --> 01:19:01,639
Speaker 2: And then the way they've shape the head. A lot

1422
01:19:01,640 --> 01:19:03,840
Speaker 2: of a lot of folks have pointed out like it

1423
01:19:03,880 --> 01:19:06,360
Speaker 2: has this kind of brow, so it has a lot

1424
01:19:06,400 --> 01:19:12,280
Speaker 2: of like I want to say, personality, but personality befitting

1425
01:19:12,439 --> 01:19:16,479
Speaker 2: a great beastly dragon like this. You know, there is

1426
01:19:16,640 --> 01:19:18,519
Speaker 2: an animal intelligence there.

1427
01:19:18,880 --> 01:19:20,800
Speaker 3: It reminds me a bit of a skexis.

1428
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:23,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's a solid comparison.

1429
01:19:23,760 --> 01:19:26,519
Speaker 3: So they fight and they there's a bunch that goes

1430
01:19:26,520 --> 01:19:28,320
Speaker 3: on in this fight. They get their jabs in, it

1431
01:19:28,360 --> 01:19:31,639
Speaker 3: blows fire and all that, but it's a stalemate here.

1432
01:19:31,680 --> 01:19:34,320
Speaker 3: The fight is not fully resolved. And the next day

1433
01:19:34,360 --> 01:19:37,480
Speaker 3: Valerian goes up the mountain and she finds Galen unconscious

1434
01:19:37,479 --> 01:19:39,599
Speaker 3: on the rocks. She wakes him and takes him back,

1435
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:41,679
Speaker 3: but he is still alive, and so is the dragon.

1436
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:46,160
Speaker 3: So at this point, Valerian's father talks them into leaving

1437
01:19:46,360 --> 01:19:48,479
Speaker 3: or Land. He's like, you know, y'all are young, you're

1438
01:19:48,520 --> 01:19:51,120
Speaker 3: in love. Just live in peace, go somewhere else and

1439
01:19:51,160 --> 01:19:54,880
Speaker 3: share your love, he says. He says, magic magicians. It's

1440
01:19:54,920 --> 01:19:57,760
Speaker 3: all fading from the world, all dying out. That makes

1441
01:19:57,760 --> 01:20:00,800
Speaker 3: me happy. That means the dragons will be eyeing out too.

1442
01:20:01,240 --> 01:20:03,760
Speaker 3: And they try to leave. They take their stuff and

1443
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:06,120
Speaker 3: they start loading up a boat to go live their

1444
01:20:06,160 --> 01:20:10,200
Speaker 3: life somewhere else. But then something changes. There's a darkness

1445
01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:13,880
Speaker 3: growing in the sky and it is a total solar eclipse.

1446
01:20:15,080 --> 01:20:18,080
Speaker 3: And here's your eclipse. Tie in the eclipse. I don't

1447
01:20:18,080 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 3: know if maybe I miss something about this, if they

1448
01:20:21,000 --> 01:20:24,320
Speaker 3: said it had any particular magical effect on the dragon.

1449
01:20:24,479 --> 01:20:26,960
Speaker 3: But one thing it does seem to do is cause

1450
01:20:27,080 --> 01:20:31,919
Speaker 3: Galen to remember that his master Ulrich wanted his ashes

1451
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:34,599
Speaker 3: to be thrown into the burning lake, and he remembers

1452
01:20:34,680 --> 01:20:37,800
Speaker 3: there was a lake of fire inside the Dragon's cave.

1453
01:20:38,439 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. My wife watched this movie with me

1454
01:20:41,840 --> 01:20:44,200
Speaker 2: for rewatch it. She had seen it before many years ago,

1455
01:20:44,920 --> 01:20:47,280
Speaker 2: and afterwards we were like, yeah, did anybody say there

1456
01:20:47,320 --> 01:20:49,599
Speaker 2: was going to be an eclipse? Is that factored into

1457
01:20:49,640 --> 01:20:51,360
Speaker 2: the plot at all? It does very much feel like

1458
01:20:51,720 --> 01:20:54,559
Speaker 2: and then a total So a total solar eclipse happens

1459
01:20:54,800 --> 01:20:56,360
Speaker 2: because it looks awesome.

1460
01:20:57,280 --> 01:20:59,960
Speaker 3: It does look awesome, and there is a total solar

1461
01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:03,040
Speaker 3: clips going on for the entire rest of the showdown

1462
01:21:03,080 --> 01:21:03,719
Speaker 3: with the Dragon.

1463
01:21:04,160 --> 01:21:07,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's a solid twenty minutes of totality.

1464
01:21:07,560 --> 01:21:12,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Galen does remember this. He does as he

1465
01:21:12,400 --> 01:21:15,559
Speaker 3: was instructed. He goes back up to the Dragon's cave,

1466
01:21:15,720 --> 01:21:19,360
Speaker 3: goes inside, throws the ashes into the water, and in

1467
01:21:19,400 --> 01:21:23,679
Speaker 3: a cradle of green fire, Ulric is resurrected. He's back.

1468
01:21:23,840 --> 01:21:27,760
Speaker 3: The power of the Dragon's fiery lake like brought him

1469
01:21:27,800 --> 01:21:30,559
Speaker 3: back from the dead, at least temporarily so he can

1470
01:21:30,640 --> 01:21:32,840
Speaker 3: face the dragon with them.

1471
01:21:33,040 --> 01:21:34,760
Speaker 2: I have to say, I wasn't sure this was gonna happen.

1472
01:21:34,840 --> 01:21:38,000
Speaker 2: It's easy to in retrospect expect this to happen, but

1473
01:21:39,120 --> 01:21:42,080
Speaker 2: Ulric's death early in the picture just felt so final

1474
01:21:42,280 --> 01:21:48,160
Speaker 2: and so yeah, Mundane like it just the film worked.

1475
01:21:48,560 --> 01:21:51,080
Speaker 2: The trick worked here, and I really wasn't expecting him

1476
01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:51,639
Speaker 2: to come back.

1477
01:21:52,280 --> 01:21:54,360
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, you know, back down in the village, this is

1478
01:21:54,360 --> 01:21:56,800
Speaker 3: when one of the guys is converted to Christianity, the

1479
01:21:56,800 --> 01:22:00,800
Speaker 3: gray old guy, and he's baptizing everybody. Yeah, and then

1480
01:22:00,800 --> 01:22:03,000
Speaker 3: we get the final showdown. So now it is vermath

1481
01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:07,400
Speaker 3: Rax versus the three of our heroes, Galen, Valerian and Ulrich,

1482
01:22:08,360 --> 01:22:11,000
Speaker 3: and so Ulrich goes up on like a mountain peak

1483
01:22:11,080 --> 01:22:14,439
Speaker 3: and he's casting down lightning bolts at the dragon and

1484
01:22:14,479 --> 01:22:17,880
Speaker 3: the dragon is dive bombing him. Vermathrax is like flying

1485
01:22:17,920 --> 01:22:20,200
Speaker 3: by the dragon in the scene, has a kind of

1486
01:22:20,360 --> 01:22:22,800
Speaker 3: jet fighter quality to him, you know what I mean?

1487
01:22:23,439 --> 01:22:25,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I believe it was one of the

1488
01:22:25,400 --> 01:22:29,040
Speaker 2: extras with Phil Tippit talking about though I it might

1489
01:22:29,080 --> 01:22:30,679
Speaker 2: have been Phil Tippit. But I don't think Phil Tippitt

1490
01:22:30,720 --> 01:22:34,519
Speaker 2: did these effects sequences so much. I mean, he was

1491
01:22:34,720 --> 01:22:36,760
Speaker 2: I think therefore it, but he was. I think he

1492
01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:38,920
Speaker 2: did with some of the other stuff more. But they

1493
01:22:38,920 --> 01:22:41,680
Speaker 2: did talk about how, like most of the scenes of

1494
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:44,280
Speaker 2: the dragon in flight, you're not getting that flapping, sort

1495
01:22:44,320 --> 01:22:48,639
Speaker 2: of labored takeoff effect that we've seen in other dragon films.

1496
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:52,200
Speaker 2: This is a dragon like swooping down from peaks and

1497
01:22:52,280 --> 01:22:55,920
Speaker 2: indeed flying with this kind of like fighter jet kind

1498
01:22:55,920 --> 01:22:59,000
Speaker 2: of severity, so we are very effective.

1499
01:22:59,160 --> 01:23:01,879
Speaker 3: It's almost like you can hear a jet engine roaring

1500
01:23:01,960 --> 01:23:04,879
Speaker 3: as he goes by, and he goes by so fast.

1501
01:23:07,439 --> 01:23:09,400
Speaker 3: A lot of other movie dragons have more of a

1502
01:23:09,439 --> 01:23:11,960
Speaker 3: helicopter quality, you know, they just kind of like hover

1503
01:23:12,160 --> 01:23:15,320
Speaker 3: around somewhere. This one like swoops, he goes really fast.

1504
01:23:16,360 --> 01:23:18,760
Speaker 3: And what Galen and Valiering have been told to do

1505
01:23:18,960 --> 01:23:21,840
Speaker 3: is to smash the magical amulet at the right time.

1506
01:23:21,880 --> 01:23:23,599
Speaker 3: They're going to know when it's the right time, and

1507
01:23:24,160 --> 01:23:26,960
Speaker 3: ultimately Ulric is snatched up by the dragon. He's being

1508
01:23:27,000 --> 01:23:30,040
Speaker 3: carried away. They know, okay, it's the time. Now they

1509
01:23:30,120 --> 01:23:34,520
Speaker 3: smash the amulet, and this apparently has like a detonation

1510
01:23:34,680 --> 01:23:39,200
Speaker 3: effect on Ulric. That's like the detonator for Ulric's resurrected form,

1511
01:23:39,640 --> 01:23:43,560
Speaker 3: and it blows up the dragon. The eclipse ends, Vermuthrax

1512
01:23:43,760 --> 01:23:47,360
Speaker 3: is dead. There's a big, gory, charred skeleton laying on

1513
01:23:47,400 --> 01:23:50,080
Speaker 3: the ground, and who gets credit. Well, they bring the

1514
01:23:50,160 --> 01:23:52,000
Speaker 3: king in, They like bring him up in a in

1515
01:23:52,040 --> 01:23:55,400
Speaker 3: a carriage and they hand him a sword and he

1516
01:23:55,439 --> 01:23:57,639
Speaker 3: stands there and he just kind of pokes the corpse

1517
01:23:57,680 --> 01:23:59,880
Speaker 3: of the dragon and they're like congratulations.

1518
01:24:01,040 --> 01:24:07,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So he ends up appropriating the church, the kingship,

1519
01:24:07,840 --> 01:24:11,880
Speaker 2: the rulers, as Del Toro puts it, the man co

1520
01:24:11,920 --> 01:24:17,240
Speaker 2: ops everything completely, completely claims all the credit for the

1521
01:24:17,320 --> 01:24:19,000
Speaker 2: victory over the dragon.

1522
01:24:19,200 --> 01:24:23,680
Speaker 3: Yeah that's right. The now baptized villagers come up and say, ah,

1523
01:24:23,960 --> 01:24:27,640
Speaker 3: just the church that saved us from the dragon. But

1524
01:24:27,800 --> 01:24:29,760
Speaker 3: there's also a nice ending where we see Galen and

1525
01:24:29,840 --> 01:24:32,400
Speaker 3: Valeria and they're still in love. They've survived this and

1526
01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:34,559
Speaker 3: they get to travel on together and who knows what

1527
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:37,760
Speaker 3: kind of adventures of pagan sorcery they can get up

1528
01:24:37,800 --> 01:24:39,840
Speaker 3: to in this rapidly christianizing land.

1529
01:24:39,960 --> 01:24:42,920
Speaker 2: The end, yeah, their final there's this final bit where

1530
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:45,240
Speaker 2: they sort of accidentally summon a horse, like a really

1531
01:24:45,240 --> 01:24:48,160
Speaker 2: beautiful horse, which is you know, it's it's a little

1532
01:24:48,160 --> 01:24:50,160
Speaker 2: bit kind of like cheesey ended on a nice note,

1533
01:24:50,200 --> 01:24:52,400
Speaker 2: but also I like it. I was talking about this

1534
01:24:52,439 --> 01:24:54,559
Speaker 2: with my wife. It's she was like, yeah, it's kind

1535
01:24:54,560 --> 01:24:56,559
Speaker 2: of like there is still magic, it's just a different

1536
01:24:56,600 --> 01:25:01,000
Speaker 2: type of magic, you know. And and so the world,

1537
01:25:01,080 --> 01:25:03,280
Speaker 2: at least for these two characters, is not going to

1538
01:25:03,320 --> 01:25:05,679
Speaker 2: be devoid of magic, but maybe magic ends up taking

1539
01:25:05,760 --> 01:25:06,439
Speaker 2: a different form.

1540
01:25:06,920 --> 01:25:12,120
Speaker 3: Maybe it increasingly looks less and less like hidden forces

1541
01:25:12,160 --> 01:25:15,760
Speaker 3: operating and more and more like luck. Yeah, anyway, that's

1542
01:25:15,800 --> 01:25:18,439
Speaker 3: what I have on Dragon Slayer. But I'm glad you

1543
01:25:18,479 --> 01:25:21,360
Speaker 3: picked this one, Rob. I really really liked it. Yeah.

1544
01:25:21,439 --> 01:25:23,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean credit to my wife for because I

1545
01:25:24,000 --> 01:25:25,640
Speaker 2: was I was looking at a number of things for

1546
01:25:25,720 --> 01:25:27,120
Speaker 2: this week and she was like, well, we got to

1547
01:25:27,120 --> 01:25:30,840
Speaker 2: watch an Eclipse movie do Dragon Slayer? And so I

1548
01:25:30,880 --> 01:25:33,120
Speaker 2: was like like, well maybe, and she's like, I'll watch

1549
01:25:33,120 --> 01:25:36,439
Speaker 2: it with you. I'm like, okay, So she doesn't always

1550
01:25:36,560 --> 01:25:39,320
Speaker 2: always watch him with me. It's a lot to ask.

1551
01:25:40,120 --> 01:25:42,559
Speaker 2: So so yeah, this was a lot of fun. Oh

1552
01:25:42,560 --> 01:25:44,360
Speaker 2: and you know, I forgot to mention and mention the

1553
01:25:44,400 --> 01:25:46,679
Speaker 2: special effects. I do want to call out that one

1554
01:25:46,720 --> 01:25:48,760
Speaker 2: of the main individuals credited with the design of the

1555
01:25:48,840 --> 01:25:52,599
Speaker 2: dragon and also the typeface was man by the name

1556
01:25:52,640 --> 01:25:56,800
Speaker 2: of David Bunnett, who you know, I think also worked

1557
01:25:56,800 --> 01:26:00,599
Speaker 2: in like the video game industry, but yeah, he It's

1558
01:26:00,640 --> 01:26:03,240
Speaker 2: even said that if you look at a picture of

1559
01:26:03,240 --> 01:26:07,160
Speaker 2: this guy, the dragon kind of looks like a self caricature,

1560
01:26:07,720 --> 01:26:09,840
Speaker 2: like there's sort of elements of his face, like his

1561
01:26:09,960 --> 01:26:15,280
Speaker 2: brow and the dragon. So anyway, you know, it's a

1562
01:26:15,320 --> 01:26:18,519
Speaker 2: credit where credits do there? He had a hand in

1563
01:26:18,600 --> 01:26:24,360
Speaker 2: designing this tremendous dragon whoa Verma thrax pajorative.

1564
01:26:24,520 --> 01:26:27,000
Speaker 3: A finer name has never been conjured.

1565
01:26:29,560 --> 01:26:31,800
Speaker 2: All right, we'll go and close it up here then,

1566
01:26:31,920 --> 01:26:33,640
Speaker 2: but we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Do

1567
01:26:33,720 --> 01:26:37,840
Speaker 2: you have memories of seeing Dragon Slayer for the first time,

1568
01:26:37,920 --> 01:26:42,599
Speaker 2: be that in a theater, on video or like on

1569
01:26:42,640 --> 01:26:44,960
Speaker 2: a Sunday afternoon on A and E. I think they

1570
01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:48,280
Speaker 2: were they aired it there. I remember seeing promos for it.

1571
01:26:48,479 --> 01:26:50,960
Speaker 2: Write in. We would love to hear from you. Just

1572
01:26:51,000 --> 01:26:54,519
Speaker 2: a reminder that Weird House Cinema is the Friday episode

1573
01:26:54,520 --> 01:26:55,920
Speaker 2: that we published in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1574
01:26:55,960 --> 01:26:58,640
Speaker 2: podcast feed. We're primarily a science and culture podcasts, but

1575
01:26:58,720 --> 01:27:01,000
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just

1576
01:27:01,040 --> 01:27:03,639
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.

1577
01:27:03,680 --> 01:27:04,880
Speaker 2: And if you want to see a list of all

1578
01:27:04,880 --> 01:27:07,360
Speaker 2: the movies we've covered over the years, go to letterbox

1579
01:27:07,400 --> 01:27:08,840
Speaker 2: dot com. It's l E T T E R b

1580
01:27:08,880 --> 01:27:11,559
Speaker 2: oo x d dot com. Look for us. Our username

1581
01:27:11,640 --> 01:27:13,720
Speaker 2: is weird House. You'll find a list of everything we've

1582
01:27:13,720 --> 01:27:16,880
Speaker 2: covered and sometimes a glimpse at what's coming up next.

1583
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:21,240
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

1584
01:27:21,600 --> 01:27:23,160
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1585
01:27:23,200 --> 01:27:26,120
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1586
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:28,240
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hi,

1587
01:27:28,400 --> 01:27:31,120
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1588
01:27:31,160 --> 01:27:38,800
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1589
01:27:38,920 --> 01:27:41,840
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1590
01:27:41,960 --> 01:27:44,719
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1591
01:27:44,880 --> 01:27:48,120
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.