Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb in today's episode originally aired four eighteen, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Dungeons and Dragons, the movie from the
Speaker 1: year two thousand. Yes, the one starring Jeremy Irons. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It's rough at times, but this
Speaker 1: was the episode that we selected for the two hundredth episode,
Speaker 1: or well, the two hundredth film selection for Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's jump right in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: we've reached a milestone. It is our two hundredth film selection.
Speaker 3: A Rob did just have to wrecked me before we
Speaker 3: started here. I was going to say it was a
Speaker 3: two hundredth episode. It is not, because we had a
Speaker 3: couple of films that went more than one episode, or
Speaker 3: multiple films crammed into a single episode. But this is
Speaker 3: going to be our two hundredth one, and we're keeping
Speaker 3: with a theme we established last week where we looked
Speaker 3: at a film for our one hundred and ninety ninth
Speaker 3: film selection, we did a film set in the year
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine. That was the cyberslop movie Virtuosity, starring
Speaker 3: Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Today we decided to stick
Speaker 3: with that into a movie I guess not set in
Speaker 3: the year two thousand, but that came out in the
Speaker 3: year two thousand, and that is so the year two
Speaker 3: thousand in film in so many ways. And that is
Speaker 3: the movie Dungeons and Dragons, not the one from twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, the old one, the one with Jeremy Irons,
Speaker 3: Thora Birch, Justin Whalen, Marlon Wayans, and Bruce Payne. What
Speaker 3: a cosmic adventure into nostalgia in the mind this was.
Speaker 3: And we're not I'll lie to you. It's not good,
Speaker 3: but it is a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to Some of you may have follow
Speaker 1: up questions here. You might ask, well, how about some
Speaker 1: of those films that the listeners suggested for the two
Speaker 1: hundredth We I think we'll get back to some of
Speaker 1: those suggestions in later episodes, but I don't know. For
Speaker 1: my part, I begin to just feel like, oh, Man,
Speaker 1: it's so much pressure to figure out, like what is
Speaker 1: like the weird movie to do for two hundred, and
Speaker 1: falling back on the idea of like two hundred two
Speaker 1: thousand just felt a little It felt a little easier
Speaker 1: when it came to the decision making process. And another
Speaker 1: question you might be wondering, perhaps cowering a little bit
Speaker 1: in fear, are we going to do the next twenty
Speaker 1: five episodes of Weird House Cinema related to the subsequent years.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say definitely not. I don't think we
Speaker 1: could keep that up. I mean, we'll see what happens
Speaker 1: next week, but it's definitely not going to be the
Speaker 1: next twenty five episodes.
Speaker 3: Well, next week we could do two thousand and one
Speaker 3: of Space Odyssey and keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, though I don't know. I think that's more in
Speaker 3: our category of reference text rather than subject text.
Speaker 1: But we did do a core episode of stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind on two thousand and one of Space Odyssey,
Speaker 1: so there is some Space Odyssey in the vault.
Speaker 3: Now. Obviously we're gonna have a lot to say about
Speaker 3: Dungeons and Dragons as a movie, but I think we
Speaker 3: also need to appreciate right here at the top that,
Speaker 3: of course it is an adaptation of the tabletop gaming
Speaker 3: system Dungeons and Dragons. So Rob, maybe we got to
Speaker 3: start just by talking about that, like you're a little
Speaker 3: bit of the short, short version of your personal history
Speaker 3: with D and D, because I know we could both
Speaker 3: go into a lot of detail here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, first of all, just a reminder, Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons dates back to the mid nineteen seventies is a
Speaker 1: role playing game. It is I often try to explain
Speaker 1: it to people who aren't that familiar with it as
Speaker 1: kind of a communal storytelling game where you have a
Speaker 1: dungeon master running the game. You have players playing characters
Speaker 1: within that game. The dungeon master is running things and
Speaker 1: is the final say on the rule, but the players
Speaker 1: are also contributing creatively to it. They are not being
Speaker 1: told a story. Everyone is collaborating on the story together,
Speaker 1: and it's just a tremendous amount of fun it is.
Speaker 1: If you've never played Dungeons and Dragons before, or some
Speaker 1: similar role playing game, I highly recommend it. It is
Speaker 1: a great social, creative hobby in pastime that is also
Speaker 1: connected to any number of additional solo hobbies in past times.
Speaker 1: It's something that has brought a lot of joy into
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 3: Collaborative storytelling is a good way to put it for
Speaker 3: people who aren't familiar. Imagine that essentially, the dungeon Master
Speaker 3: creates the setting and scenario, and you create a character
Speaker 3: within that setting in scenario, you say what your character
Speaker 3: in particular does in reaction to that setting and scenario
Speaker 3: created by the dungeon Master. They tell you what happens
Speaker 3: in return, and you go back and forth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I don't remember exactly when I first started
Speaker 1: getting into it. I definitely had watched the old nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three cartoon at one point, but that didn't like
Speaker 1: really pull me in all the way. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: I was in boy Scouts and I observed some of
Speaker 1: the older scouts playing dungeons and dragons. The dungeon Master
Speaker 1: kid was using his father's like pre satanic panic, like
Speaker 1: full demon monster supplements, and it was just it looked
Speaker 1: like a lot of fun. So I started getting into it,
Speaker 1: and I by you know, by the mid nineties, I
Speaker 1: was all into Forgotten Realms, Raven Loft, Kara Tour, Dark Sun,
Speaker 1: Spell Jammer, all these different worlds and subsettings within Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons. I probably read more than I played, but
Speaker 1: it was still a blast. But then, around the turn
Speaker 1: of the millennium, when this film comes out, I went
Speaker 1: to college and for idiotically didn't do any non video
Speaker 1: game D and D stuff for like more than a decade.
Speaker 1: So today's movie drops at a time in which I
Speaker 1: was weirdly disinterested and out of touch with all things
Speaker 1: D and D. I think my main memory of the
Speaker 1: trailer was that, oh, it looks like it has Jeremy
Speaker 1: Irons in it. But at the same time, I was
Speaker 1: at least slightly disappointed that he appeared to not have
Speaker 1: a wizard beard or wizard hair.
Speaker 3: That's true, you know. I was trying to We'll talk
Speaker 3: more about this as we go on, but I was
Speaker 3: trying to class all the characters in the movie. I
Speaker 3: was saying, Okay, what D and D class are you?
Speaker 3: Because when you play the game, you pick a character
Speaker 3: class that tells you, like what kind of skills and
Speaker 3: powers you have. You could be a barbarian or a fighter,
Speaker 3: or a cleric or a wizard. And I was like, man,
Speaker 3: Jeremy Irons doesn't feel like a wizard because he doesn't
Speaker 3: look like a wizard. He looks I don't know, it
Speaker 3: looks like a warlock. Maybe, what do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe more of a warlock. Look.
Speaker 3: I mean they never mentioned a packed patron or anything.
Speaker 1: But yeah. And I don't know. I don't know one
Speaker 1: hundred percent why it bugged me at the time, because
Speaker 1: I'm not really bugged by it now. But I think
Speaker 1: a big part of it was and I was having
Speaker 1: to like piece together where things fell in the timeline.
Speaker 1: I think part of it was that by April of
Speaker 1: two thousand, Today's movie came out in like December of
Speaker 1: two thousand. By April of two thousand, we already had
Speaker 1: a trailer featurette for Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring,
Speaker 1: which would come out December two thousand and one, so
Speaker 1: we already had a visual taste of what was possible
Speaker 1: with live action high fantasy, and even from the trailers,
Speaker 1: it was obvious that two thousands Dungeons and Dragons was
Speaker 1: quite obviously missing the mark.
Speaker 3: God that contrast is crazy to imagine that this was
Speaker 3: almost like overlapping in time and that we're going to
Speaker 3: try not to just like be mean or rag on
Speaker 3: the movie the whole time. But yeah, the comparison is
Speaker 3: so funny. It's like imagining that trailers for The Matrix
Speaker 3: were already out when lawnmower Man was in theaters.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I mean it's really not fair because
Speaker 1: we're again we're talking about Lord of the Rings here,
Speaker 1: one of and arguably the most important texts in modern
Speaker 1: fantasy literature. It served as one of the one of
Speaker 1: the primary inspirations for and dragons in general, and furthermore,
Speaker 1: Peter Jackson's adaptations. No matter what your quipples might be
Speaker 1: about the finished product, they were jaw dropping cinematic spectacles
Speaker 1: that pushed the technological envelope, that energized fans and generated mainstream,
Speaker 1: popular and critical success. So it's unfair to compare this
Speaker 1: smaller picture that had I think, when all was said
Speaker 1: and done, like half the budget, so but not that
Speaker 1: small of a budget. You know, it is never going
Speaker 1: to live up to what Fellowship of the Ring was
Speaker 1: able to achieve.
Speaker 3: You Know something I was just thinking about recently with
Speaker 3: the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies is I
Speaker 3: don't know if they often get enough credit for how
Speaker 3: good of a job they did simply from a writing
Speaker 3: point of view, adapting the material. We can have our
Speaker 3: complaints about, like, oh I wish Tom Bombadill had been
Speaker 3: in there. You know, I don't like that they didn't
Speaker 3: include this, or that they made this moment like, you know,
Speaker 3: there were changes introduced, and a lot of times purists
Speaker 3: can be upset by that. But I think think they
Speaker 3: really did a kind of impossible task of cramming as
Speaker 3: much of the spirit of the story into film into
Speaker 3: reasonable I mean long but still reasonable film run times
Speaker 3: as possible. It really, I think is a marvelous achievement
Speaker 3: of adaptation writing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Again, it's just unfair to compare virtually anything, especially
Speaker 1: this film, to Fellowship of the Rings and the subsequent
Speaker 1: Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films. They just succeeded
Speaker 1: in so many ways.
Speaker 3: But while we're on the subject of the differences between
Speaker 3: Fellowship of the Ring and Dungeons and Dragons as movies
Speaker 3: from around the same time, one big difference is that,
Speaker 3: of course, Fellowship of the Ring is an adaptation of
Speaker 3: a book. It's an adaptation of something that is already
Speaker 3: a fixed narrative, which is like a you know, it's
Speaker 3: a more familiar way of making a movie from existing
Speaker 3: source material. The Dungeons and Dragons movie had a very
Speaker 3: different and kind of writing assignment, which is that it
Speaker 3: was to adapt a game system or sort of a world.
Speaker 3: There is no fixed narrative of Dungeons Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 3: I think there are some like, you know, pre written
Speaker 3: campaigns that exist out there. Rob you can probably shed
Speaker 3: more light on that, and there may be some like common,
Speaker 3: commonly accepted sort of history things in the Dungeons and
Speaker 3: Dragons world, but there's no fixed narrative like there is
Speaker 3: in a book. Players make up their own stories. So
Speaker 3: what your job is if you're adapting this into a
Speaker 3: movie is you have to kind of make up a
Speaker 3: story that packs in a lot of details about what
Speaker 3: it's like to play the game and captures feelings of
Speaker 3: common experiences that players have when they're playing with their friends.
Speaker 3: Does does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, try it. You have to to attempt to
Speaker 1: try and nail the vibe of the D and D
Speaker 1: world and the vibe of playing D and D at
Speaker 1: the same time, which, to be clear, are often in
Speaker 1: stark opposition to each other. You may have like a
Speaker 1: really like very serious and even dark set of events
Speaker 1: happening within the story of the game. But yet a
Speaker 1: gaming session of Dungeons and Dragons might be just full
Speaker 1: of goof off moments and laughter and so forth, and
Speaker 1: yet they can still work together at the table in
Speaker 1: a way that might be more of a struggle thematically.
Speaker 1: With a motion picture. I would argue that twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three's Dungeons and Dragons Honor among Thieves, the most recent
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons film, did more of a commendable job
Speaker 1: of pulling this off, and watching today's movie, it'd be
Speaker 1: easier to momentarily put that aside if they didn't actually
Speaker 1: say honor among Thieves multiple times in the dialogue.
Speaker 3: But they didn't know that was gonna They didn't the
Speaker 3: title of the later movie.
Speaker 1: They didn't know. But it's impossible to avoid. But no,
Speaker 1: you're right, it's like they're they're adapting a vibe. They're
Speaker 1: adapting ip a world or multiple worlds and various creatures
Speaker 1: within that world, but they're not leaning on like a
Speaker 1: core text. But to be clear, even by nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: and certainly by the year two thousand, there were plenty
Speaker 1: of Dungeons and Dragons novelizations out there. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: like a million dragon Lance novels, So there was some
Speaker 1: material out there that could have leaned on, though you know,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know, I haven't read most of
Speaker 1: those books. Not everything is you know, reasonable for adaptation
Speaker 1: and so forth. But you know, there were and are
Speaker 1: plenty of Dungeons and Dragons stories one could could go
Speaker 1: to for things like this.
Speaker 3: But one thing that makes those stories different is they're
Speaker 3: almost like they're reading a story that someone has created
Speaker 3: within the framework of the D and D world, but
Speaker 3: they're not cannon for all, like players of.
Speaker 1: D and D, right, right, Like any given person's favorite
Speaker 1: moment from Dungeons and Dragons is going to you know,
Speaker 1: be a little different from everyone else's moment if you're
Speaker 1: just talking about the tabletop experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, as you said, this is something that the
Speaker 3: more recent D and D movie did a lot of.
Speaker 3: You could tell there were a lot of in jokes
Speaker 3: in the movie. And I still think the more recent
Speaker 3: movie works pretty well. I mean, I don't know, I
Speaker 3: have played D and D, but I can imagine it
Speaker 3: still works pretty well as a film even if you've
Speaker 3: never played it. But there are just a lot of
Speaker 3: little treats in there for players, because it will have
Speaker 3: the characters in the movie getting into a situation that
Speaker 3: players commonly find themselves in, and it's funny, too funny
Speaker 3: to recognize, like, oh, I can't speak with dead and
Speaker 3: I still have this many questions I can ask and
Speaker 3: we already got the information we need, you know, and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing over and over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And also I think the other thing that the
Speaker 1: more recent film did well is that it had it
Speaker 1: did have canonical figures that one could leave the film
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I want to know about that that
Speaker 1: Lich guy. I want to know more about these Red Wizards,
Speaker 1: and they're there is material out there you can read
Speaker 1: about them. They're part of a setting. This movie doesn't really,
Speaker 1: I think, do much of that. You might say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a neat beholder. I just saw float by. I'd
Speaker 1: like to know more about those guys. Well, there's plenty more.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it doesn't really do much with the beholders,
Speaker 3: does it. You briefly see one as a purple blob
Speaker 3: that flies off screen, and then I'm like, ooh, we're
Speaker 3: gonna come back for a beholder fight.
Speaker 1: Nope, Nope, Nope, they're basically screen savers.
Speaker 3: But anyway, as I was saying, the more recent D
Speaker 3: and D movie does a lot of that, I think
Speaker 3: this older movie does a little bit of that. There's
Speaker 3: a little bit of nodding towards kind of common player experiences,
Speaker 3: but a lot less. It feels more like they were
Speaker 3: just trying to create a story roughly within the D
Speaker 3: and D universe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I should say some nice things about this film.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, I think it has some excellent locations,
Speaker 1: including the sedl Ossuary and the Checker Public. Also, I
Speaker 1: think that the Czech Republic State Opera House is used
Speaker 1: as a location at one point, and multiple other Czech
Speaker 1: locations that look really cool and they make good use
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 3: Gorgeous interior locations in fact, that are a quite ludicrous
Speaker 3: contrast to like It'll cut from there to a like
Speaker 3: CGI dungeon. It is just you could not imagine something
Speaker 3: more like uglier and more dingy looking.
Speaker 1: Yes, the CGI is all horrendous, but I should also
Speaker 1: point out there are some nice practical sets as well.
Speaker 1: There's that the Eye Room and the labyrinth. The Evil
Speaker 1: Layer is really nice. So there's also like anything that's
Speaker 1: not cgi in this film has at least a reasonable
Speaker 1: shot at looking okay.
Speaker 3: There there is at one point, it's toward the end
Speaker 3: of the movie. I wish it had come earlier, a
Speaker 3: quite lovely hand painted backdrop for like a a like
Speaker 3: a mad effect when they go to when they go
Speaker 3: to like the Thomas Kincaid LOTHLRII you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's it's like very pretty.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the practical stuff works pretty
Speaker 1: well for the most part. And then of course we
Speaker 1: have the performances. There are some definite duds in there,
Speaker 1: but who there are some there are some really fun
Speaker 1: performances to be hold on top of everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll have to talk about that. And speaking of
Speaker 3: continuing themes from last week, A list actors getting in
Speaker 3: a B movie and just giving it everything they've got,
Speaker 3: or maybe more than they've got actually, So, Rob, what's
Speaker 3: your elevator pitch for D?
Speaker 1: The main thing I came up with was complete a
Speaker 1: D and D movie before Y two K, which yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes out after Y two K, but you know
Speaker 1: they're filming it in nineteen ninety nine, and also it
Speaker 1: comes at it's the end of a long journey to
Speaker 1: make a Dungeons and Dragons motion picture, and I'll get
Speaker 1: into some of those details when we talk about the director.
Speaker 3: I think they had to roll a twelve or above
Speaker 3: to achieve that goal, and they rolled a twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, at one point I think they rolled one
Speaker 1: and then they realized they did have inspiration and they
Speaker 1: were able to take that back nice. All right, let's
Speaker 1: listen to a little bit of the tray their audio here,
Speaker 1: and hopefully you'll get to hear Jeremy Irons a little
Speaker 1: bit in there as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a faraway world, all people deserve to be
Speaker 3: free and equal. The child is not fit to govern
Speaker 3: an empire. The forces of darkness.
Speaker 4: You can control dragons for the Dyanami my command.
Speaker 3: I can crush the empress.
Speaker 1: This has gotta be some twisted magic experiment.
Speaker 3: Seriously wrong. I have threatened to conquer a kingdom. What
Speaker 3: can I do to stop profiance?
Speaker 1: If you can obtain a rod of Chevrial, you could
Speaker 1: control read dragons.
Speaker 3: I suggest we lay low. Let the whole thing blow
Speaker 3: of a come back rob everybody. There's one small problem problem.
Speaker 4: I kind of committed us to find it. Trust me that,
Speaker 4: oh it's your time to die.
Speaker 3: Dungeons and Dragons. You want to play video?
Speaker 1: All right? Now into Dragons against Us all right. If
Speaker 1: you want to watch Dungeons and Dragons for yourself, you
Speaker 1: can find this one in multiple formats, including some free
Speaker 1: streaming services. That's where I watched this film. You can
Speaker 1: find it on your your Plex and your two b's
Speaker 1: if those are options for you. There also there also
Speaker 1: have been different DVD and Blu Ray releases, including Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons two Movie collection on Blu Ray. That's if
Speaker 1: you want to be clear, you're not getting the more
Speaker 1: recent Dungeons and Dragons adaptation in there. You're getting one
Speaker 1: of the crappy sequels to this film. So bye, with caution.
Speaker 3: Did any actors from this movie come back in that one?
Speaker 1: Bruce Payne just as Bruce Payne. He came back at
Speaker 1: least for the initial sequel. I don't know who if
Speaker 1: anyone came back for part three. I don't know if
Speaker 1: anyone seen Part three.
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk about the connections.
Speaker 1: All right. We're going to start at the top with
Speaker 1: director producer Courtney Solomon born nineteen seventy. So to be clear,
Speaker 1: there had been previous attempts to officially capitalize on D
Speaker 1: and D's popularity as a film going back to the
Speaker 1: early eighties, but nothing came together until around nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: that is when then nineteen year old Courtney Solomon with
Speaker 1: basically only a passion for Dungeons and Dragons, some family
Speaker 1: background I think on his like on mother's side in
Speaker 1: Canadian TV production, and also we should we should, we
Speaker 1: should realize there's probably a natural twenty charisma role in here,
Speaker 1: because he managed to convince TSR, the parent company of
Speaker 1: D India at the time, to give him a shot
Speaker 1: at producing the thing.
Speaker 3: Had he made a movie at this point.
Speaker 1: No, he had not, as far as I can tell, No,
Speaker 1: nothing like that had occurred. So yeah, we may rag
Speaker 1: on this film a little bit in this episode, But man,
Speaker 1: that was roughly my age when this movie came out,
Speaker 1: and looking back at myself, I was barely capable of
Speaker 1: any level of adulting, you know. Solomon, however, at nineteen
Speaker 1: and in subsequent years won over TSR and then traveled
Speaker 1: around the world seeking financial backers and scored one in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong business magnate Alan Zamon and so by the
Speaker 1: mid nineties, the plan with Solomon as producer was to
Speaker 1: do this up as one hundred million dollar production with
Speaker 1: a big director.
Speaker 3: One hundred million dollars in the in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Yeah like that. I mean, you know, you're talking about
Speaker 1: Fellowship of the Ring range in terms of your budget.
Speaker 1: But of course that's you know, years later. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they were talking about having the likes of Francis Ford
Speaker 1: Coppola or James Cameron produced. I think Stan Winston was
Speaker 1: also attached at one point, but as often occurs in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: plans changed.
Speaker 3: Coming hot off of Pumpkinhead, I shall make the D
Speaker 3: and D movie.
Speaker 1: Wow, imagine what the effects would have looked like. Though
Speaker 1: you have gotten a good beholder in that one.
Speaker 3: I want to see that Francis Ford Coppola verse. Would
Speaker 3: it have had al Pacino in it? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh that would have been a different That would
Speaker 1: have been a different evil mage villain, wouldn't it.
Speaker 3: Oh, my lord? Imagine wizard, Yes, evil wizard al Pacino
Speaker 3: like he is in heat, you know with the.
Speaker 1: We joked, but I don't know, there's there. I can
Speaker 1: see a version of this film that would have worked
Speaker 1: with al Pacino, but I don't know, and we never
Speaker 1: got to have it, so plans changed. Hollywood producer Joel
Speaker 1: Silver came on board. There was talk at one point
Speaker 1: of doing it as a TV series instead. This is
Speaker 1: the natural one that I mentioned earlier. Then, No, I
Speaker 1: guess the natural one was when they were considering doing
Speaker 1: a low budget direct to video project, but they were
Speaker 1: able to push through and get things back up to
Speaker 1: a thirty to thirty five million dollar budget. And at
Speaker 1: this point it was clear Solomon himself was going to
Speaker 1: have to direct it again. This was his first directorial gig,
Speaker 1: but he did it. He pulled it off.
Speaker 3: It's like the artifact has attuned to you and you alone.
Speaker 3: You mess. You're the only one.
Speaker 1: You were the only one who can wield it. You
Speaker 1: were the chosen one, and so he did. Now as
Speaker 1: a director. He followed this up with two thousand and
Speaker 1: fives in American Haunting and twenty thirteen get Away, but
Speaker 1: it's mostly remained active as a producer on such films
Speaker 1: as two thousand and nine Universal Soldier Regeneration, twenty twelve's
Speaker 1: Universal Soldier, Day of Reckoning, twenty sixteen's Mister Church The
Speaker 1: Strangers Chapter one. From recent years, and I think there's
Speaker 1: some sequels on the way, and he's listed as a
Speaker 1: producer on an upcoming red Sonia film.
Speaker 3: Well, despite the criticisms I've already made, I do want
Speaker 3: to say this story makes it even more impressive that
Speaker 3: this film got made and is as fun as it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's bad, but you're not going to be bored,
Speaker 3: I think when you watch this movie. So yeah, hats
Speaker 3: off to Courtney Solomon, and I do want to echo
Speaker 3: what you said earlier. We may rag on this film,
Speaker 3: but we rag with love.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, We've said before it's a miracle that any
Speaker 1: film gets finished. And kudos to him for bringing this
Speaker 1: one home. Now the writing credits, there are two credited
Speaker 1: writers topper, Lillian and Carol Cartwright. Lillian screenwriter and director
Speaker 1: who also had a small part in the in the
Speaker 1: Conehead movie nineteen ninety three's Coneheads, and then Carol Cartwright
Speaker 1: was also one of the writers on twenty twenty two's
Speaker 1: Missus Harris Goes to Paris, which was well received and
Speaker 1: even earned her and her co writers an Australian Writers
Speaker 1: Guild Award.
Speaker 3: Oh cool. As for the Coneheads connection, I don't know
Speaker 3: how I knew, but I felt a little bit of
Speaker 3: Conehead's juice on this.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't think they were involved with writing it
Speaker 1: at all, but they showed They're credited as showing up
Speaker 1: as one of the pilots in the code, and it
Speaker 1: could be an IMDb error, but I'm going to assume
Speaker 1: it's real.
Speaker 3: Now, I think we're about to start discussing the cast
Speaker 3: and the characters. I mentioned at the top of that
Speaker 3: D and D the game has character classes in it
Speaker 3: so you can cheer. You know, your rogues, your rangers,
Speaker 3: your your clerics, and so forth. Should we take a
Speaker 3: stab at saying what actual D and D class the
Speaker 3: characters in this movie are supposed to be? If anything?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we should beginning with our chief antaganist. This
Speaker 1: is a profion, a high level mage, I would assume, now.
Speaker 3: Rob, you know the D and D lore better than
Speaker 3: I do. But the way I sort of understand it
Speaker 3: is that your main magic users in D and D
Speaker 3: are your sorcerers, your warlocks, and your wizards. The wizard
Speaker 3: is sort of the intellectual magician who learns their powers
Speaker 3: through study. The warlock is the sort of bound to
Speaker 3: a demonic entity magician who gains their powers through through
Speaker 3: this relationship with you know, something that grants the power.
Speaker 3: And then finally your sorcerer sort of has magic in
Speaker 3: their blood. They you know, they like come from a
Speaker 3: magical background and they do it on instinct. It's kind
Speaker 3: of hard to fit Jeremy Iron's character in this movie
Speaker 3: into any of the three. You would he fits the
Speaker 3: esthetic of a warlock the most, but they never mention
Speaker 3: anything about a patron. So I'm gonna say, even though
Speaker 3: he feels more warlocky, he's got to be.
Speaker 1: A wizard, right, Yeah, Yeah, I think he's definitely a wizard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he is the puppet man as opposed to the puppet
Speaker 1: or the conduit as you would have in those other
Speaker 1: two classes. Okay, that being said, no beard, and not
Speaker 1: that a wizard has to have a beard. But again,
Speaker 1: at the time this bothered me. So Jeremy Irons born
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight. This is I believe our first Jeremy
Speaker 1: Irons film. I've read that he joined the film during
Speaker 1: its filming at the behest of Joel Silver and, according
Speaker 1: to Irons, out of a need to help pay for
Speaker 1: a castle he had just purchased.
Speaker 3: Amazing it reminds me of that A quote from Michael
Speaker 3: Caine about Jaws the Revenge. As somebody asked him about it,
Speaker 3: he says, I haven't seen the film. I've heard it's
Speaker 3: quite terrible, but I have seen the house it built
Speaker 3: and it's lovely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Irons has a long and ongoing career on
Speaker 1: the stage, TV and the big screen, with credits going
Speaker 1: back to nineteen seventy one. He really began to skyrocket
Speaker 1: with TV's Brides Had Revisited in eighty one, which earned
Speaker 1: him numerous nominations, and his nineteen eighty six was pretty stellar,
Speaker 1: seeing him play Twin Gynecologist and David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers
Speaker 1: and also Father Gabriel and Roland Jeffy's masterpiece The Mission,
Speaker 1: and he then went on to win the Academy Award
Speaker 1: for Best Actor for his portrayal of Klos von Buloh
Speaker 1: in Reversal of Fortune opposite Glenn Close and Ron Silver.
Speaker 1: Subsequent notable credits include David Cronenberg's m Butterfly from ninety three,
Speaker 1: The Lion King from ninety four, in which he voiced
Speaker 1: Scar Now that's also a very juicy voice role.
Speaker 3: And also I think the way that a lot of
Speaker 3: kids come to learn who Jeremy Irons is. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 3: when I was like, I grew up watching The Lion King,
Speaker 3: and then when I was older and like learning about movies,
Speaker 3: I was like, why is this weird guy? His voice
Speaker 3: is so familiar. Oh it's Scar Oh okay, And so
Speaker 3: you make the connection that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Long Live the King, I'll say always back in
Speaker 1: ninety five with Diehard with a Vengeance, plays the villain
Speaker 1: in that. He's in two thousand and two is the
Speaker 1: time Machine, playing like a super intelligent more. He's in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five's Kingdom of Heaven from Ridley Scott.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and eight's The Color of Magic, that's a
Speaker 1: Terry Pratchett adaptation, TV's The Borgias, the Snyder DCU Batman films,
Speaker 1: TV's The Watchman. He's quite good in that.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and then twenty twenty one's House of Gucci,
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen, but of course that was a
Speaker 1: lot of people like that as well.
Speaker 3: So of course, Jeremy Irons is a terrific actor, and
Speaker 3: I love him in so many roles. One that stands
Speaker 3: out to me is a kind of one of his
Speaker 3: unsung roles, but is really good. He plays a nasty
Speaker 3: financial CEO in the movie Margin Call.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen Oh, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does in that A character that he often
Speaker 3: does very well, which is a deeply morally compromised and
Speaker 3: scummy but quite charismatic man.
Speaker 1: Yes, scummy charismatic aristocrat is a role that he plays
Speaker 1: very well. And I would say his performances there's often
Speaker 1: a kind of quiet subtlety to them, like he gets
Speaker 1: into higher energy zones. I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: make it sound like he's just, you know, like just
Speaker 1: a certain energy level for the rest of his performances,
Speaker 1: but it's generally not high energy and not like this film.
Speaker 1: I don't know if.
Speaker 3: I've ever thought to describe a movie performance this way before.
Speaker 3: But what I realized is Jeremy Irons came into this
Speaker 3: film with the idea, what if I were to approach
Speaker 3: acting with the goal of maximizing not quality, but quantity.
Speaker 3: So is this good acting from Jeremy Irons? I honestly
Speaker 3: don't even know how to answer that, But what I'm
Speaker 3: sure of is you cannot complain about the portions of acting.
Speaker 3: You will be taking leftovers home from from D and
Speaker 3: D like his His performance will leave you full and
Speaker 3: you cannot consume it all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If a normal Jeremy Irons performance is like a subtle knife,
Speaker 1: this one is a chainsaw. He's on full blast the
Speaker 1: whole time. It's glorious to behold. He's snarling, his skull
Speaker 1: is about to pop through his face. His presence absolutely
Speaker 1: makes this film more watchable than it would have been otherwise,
Speaker 1: and so I think the energy level is absolutely the
Speaker 1: right choice for this film. I honestly don't know if
Speaker 1: this was Jeremy Iron's choice, or if this was the
Speaker 1: director's choice or some compromise between the two, but I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine this film without it.
Speaker 3: We shall have to modify our plans.
Speaker 1: Just chewing it up now, I'm not sure his performance
Speaker 1: really lifts everyone around him up in equal measure, which
Speaker 1: is something you sometimes see when you have a high
Speaker 1: caliber actor working with younger and less experienced talent. But
Speaker 1: I also have to acknowledge that maybe this film was
Speaker 1: not exactly the sort of workshop environment for that sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't mean this as a slight against the
Speaker 3: great Jeremy Irons, but I would say a lot of
Speaker 3: his scenes they don't feel very collaborative. They feel more
Speaker 3: like he is a mad bull that has been unleashed
Speaker 3: on the set and they've started filming. Yeah, and everybody
Speaker 3: else is just kind of they've got to kind of
Speaker 3: deal with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very much the vibe I get here too. Now,
Speaker 1: behind every mad villain there is a henchman, and the
Speaker 1: hinching here is provided by Bruce Payne, who plays Damadar,
Speaker 1: who I guess he's a sword made. I think the
Speaker 1: exact terminology changes from one edition of D and D
Speaker 1: to the next, but it's like a wizard, a magic
Speaker 1: user who also swings a sword around, which I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely in the rules, but it always feels to
Speaker 1: me like, come on, dude, you can choose to be
Speaker 1: a fighter or a wizard. Why do you have to
Speaker 1: try and be both? Share the love with the table.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. Yeah. I was trying to place him as
Speaker 3: well as having trouble. He's got big he's got big
Speaker 3: scary arm. Okay, so, and he's got a big sword,
Speaker 3: and that does seem to place him in the kind
Speaker 3: of physical fighter class, but he's also peripheral to a
Speaker 3: bunch of dark magic yeah.
Speaker 1: And when he shows up at one point, Richard O'Brien's
Speaker 1: character is like, get that mage out of here. No
Speaker 1: mage is allowed, so I guess he's a mage.
Speaker 3: But also that goes on something in the movie where
Speaker 3: it treats mage not as a character class in the game,
Speaker 3: but as an economic class. Like in the world of
Speaker 3: this D and D movie, if you are a mage,
Speaker 3: that means you're rich. Right.
Speaker 1: The Mages control everything, as we'll get into. But then
Speaker 1: this dude's like walking through portals, and granted, magical portals
Speaker 1: are really thrown around in this movie with reckless abandons,
Speaker 1: but I'm not entirely sure who's casting them. Is Damadar
Speaker 1: casting them or does he have like a travel wizard
Speaker 1: with him at all times?
Speaker 3: It's like they can cast misty step without being able
Speaker 3: to see where they're going.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But Bruce Payne, Yes, we've talked about Bruce Payne
Speaker 1: on the show before. Born nineteen fifty eight, British actors agent.
Speaker 1: Screen he was in Alan Clark's snooker musical Billy the
Speaker 1: Kid and the Green Bays Vampire, a glorious film and
Speaker 1: a fine supporting and singing performance by Pain as the
Speaker 1: one Akato. He's great in that, and I'm to understand
Speaker 1: he's also really good in nineteen eighty six's Absolute Beginners.
Speaker 1: But man, the nineteen nineties Bruce Payne that I think
Speaker 1: most of us are familiar with are it's this Bruce Payne.
Speaker 1: It's like looming British villain Bruce Payne, like he really
Speaker 1: found his niche, his paying niche in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: Numerous films we can reference here in which he's playing
Speaker 1: some variation of this bad guy.
Speaker 3: Sometimes feels in this movie like he's trying to match
Speaker 3: or compete with Jeremy Irons, like they were literally like betting,
Speaker 3: which one could overact more just stunningly inappropriate line deliveries
Speaker 3: taking four or five times longer than necessary to spit
Speaker 3: out function very functional lines like placecards at every gate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, like really drawn out. And the look of
Speaker 1: this character too, we have to I mean, you mentioned
Speaker 1: the armor he has. He has some cool looking armor,
Speaker 1: you know, neat cape, big sword, but he also has bright.
Speaker 3: Blue lips electric blue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like like he just had some sort of like
Speaker 1: really bright slushie or something or that. It is like
Speaker 1: just really bright blue lipstick that I kept expecting it
Speaker 1: to be explained one way or another or another, like
Speaker 1: there's some sort of like mentat wine that he drinks.
Speaker 1: But I don't think they ever really make any sense
Speaker 1: of it. It's just a bizarre visual choice.
Speaker 3: He's one of those bald guys with blue lips. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And then later part of What's in this World?
Speaker 1: And later as he's infected by a bizarre CGI brain parasite,
Speaker 1: he also begins to boast increase only inflamed ears. So
Speaker 1: most of the scenes you end up with hav him
Speaker 1: like close in on his head, bright blue lips, big
Speaker 1: red ears. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the ears look painful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he manages to push through all this and
Speaker 1: make you believe in the character's cardboard villainy. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a cardboard villain, very much a henchman. But you
Speaker 1: know he does a commendable job here.
Speaker 3: He gets to do the classic you know, the hero says, hey,
Speaker 3: you said if I gave you the artifact, you'd free
Speaker 3: my friends. What does he get to say?
Speaker 4: I lie?
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Other Bruce Payne performances the nineteen nineties that I think
Speaker 1: cemented his place as a go to villain. He does
Speaker 1: have a role in nineteen ninety one's Howling the Freaks,
Speaker 1: in which he plays a hideous dart Nosferatu character under
Speaker 1: a lot of makeup. I don't know if I would
Speaker 1: have ever recognized this as Bruce Payne. But then, more
Speaker 1: to the point, he was in nineteen ninety two's Passing
Speaker 1: Your fifty seven, in which he plays the villain opposite
Speaker 1: Wesley Snipes. His subsequent credits included the likes of ninety
Speaker 1: three's Necronomicon Book of the Dead, Tales from the Crypt
Speaker 1: Warlock three, the End of Innocence, taking over the part
Speaker 1: from Julian Sand's Highlander Endgame in two thousand and the
Speaker 1: two thousand and five D and D sequel that we
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, in which he was I believe the only
Speaker 1: cast member returning.
Speaker 3: Good to stay busy.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, so those are our chief antagonist and
Speaker 1: the henchmen. Let's get into the actual adventuring.
Speaker 3: Party here, Yeah, our heroes.
Speaker 1: So this is one of those encounters where the dungeon
Speaker 1: master didn't really tell everyone that they needed certain roles.
Speaker 1: He didn't explain that somebody needs to be the cleric
Speaker 1: because there's no cleric in the party. Now, in fact,
Speaker 1: you have two rogues.
Speaker 3: Two rogues. Our main two characters are both rogues. That
Speaker 3: is imbalanced.
Speaker 1: Imbalanced though I don't know. Anytime i'm dungeon mastering, I'm like,
Speaker 1: just play what you want to play. If we're all rogues,
Speaker 1: we'll roll with it, We'll find a way. But in general,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to sort of steer everyone towards a balanced party.
Speaker 1: So I guess our main rogue here, ultimately our lead character,
Speaker 1: our protagonist is Ridley Freeborn, a generic rogue, I guess,
Speaker 1: played by Justin Whalin.
Speaker 3: My name is Maximus protagonist. Oh boy, Yeah, he's got
Speaker 3: such like hero kid energy in this Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All of his scenes feel like they were directed
Speaker 1: by uncle baby Billy, you know, like major tings energy. Here.
Speaker 1: It's not a character that I ever found myself liking
Speaker 1: or rooting for. Not that it's the actor's fault, but
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is our hero. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Boy, you didn't like the Dark Knight of the Soul
Speaker 3: scene in the late movie when he's like, why are
Speaker 3: bad things bad?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well why do we have to fight evil? Yeah?
Speaker 1: At that point I was more like, get on with it.
Speaker 1: Just at the scene where you fight the evil. Obviously
Speaker 1: you're going to fight the evil, dude.
Speaker 3: Come on.
Speaker 1: So this actor American actor who previously worked as a
Speaker 1: child actor on such films as nineteen eighty eight's The Deadpool,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one's Child's Play three, and various TV shows
Speaker 1: including The Wonder Years and Blossom. And he was active
Speaker 1: through I believe around two thousand and nine when he
Speaker 1: retired from acting.
Speaker 3: Okay, but as we said, it's it's not just one
Speaker 3: rogue in the lead. It's a buddy rogue movie. Yes,
Speaker 3: so we got the other one, played by Marlon Wayans.
Speaker 1: Yes, Marlon Wayans of the Wayans Brothers plays Snails. Snails
Speaker 1: is another generic rogue. I believe he uses the comedic
Speaker 1: sidekick specialization within the rogue archetype.
Speaker 3: Here arcane prankster.
Speaker 1: Essentially, but no magic.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So. Born nineteen seventy two, Wayan's brother actor, writer, and
Speaker 1: comedian who's best known for wildly over the top comedic
Speaker 1: performances in such films as The Scary Movie Franchise, which
Speaker 1: he also co wrote and co produced, two thousand and
Speaker 1: four's White Chicks and two thousand and six Little Man
Speaker 1: and I haven't seen this one, but this is the
Speaker 1: one where he plays like a cgi face assisted baby,
Speaker 1: like it's Marlon Wayan's face on a baby. Oh no,
Speaker 1: so I mean it's what put him on the map,
Speaker 1: and people enjoyed these films that made him a success,
Speaker 1: And that is mostly the vibe we get in D
Speaker 1: and D. He is the comedic relief. He has won
Speaker 1: maybe two scenes but most likely one scene in this
Speaker 1: movie where he mostly plays it straight, but for the
Speaker 1: most part it's full scary movie mode for the rest
Speaker 1: of the picture.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's doing comedy, physical comedy, and character comedy for
Speaker 3: most of the film, which makes it rather jarring. In
Speaker 3: the scene where he gets murdered by the villain, which
Speaker 3: is suddenly very serious, and all his friends are like, no, dead,
Speaker 3: and I kept thinking, well, surely he can't really be dead.
Speaker 3: That would be so totally weird, especially given how just
Speaker 3: he's like joking all the time. But no, he's just dead.
Speaker 3: They just killed him.
Speaker 1: He pulls such faces in scenes where he's not even
Speaker 1: talking that reminded me of some of the supporting performances
Speaker 1: by this particular vaudevillian actor in Santa Claus Versus the Martians,
Speaker 1: Like it's that level of just over the top intensity.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: But the crazy thing for me though, was I was like,
Speaker 1: I was looking at his filmography and I realized, you know,
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, that's also the year that Marlon
Speaker 1: Wayans appeared and was widely considered a really solid, serious,
Speaker 1: dramatic performance from him. And that's Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for
Speaker 1: a Dream.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I had forgotten he was in that, but yeah,
Speaker 3: he's great in that. This is around the same time. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean, you know, the man has and
Speaker 1: had the tools. But I mean, obviously there's a lot
Speaker 1: more money to be made in the comedy business. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's snails. More on snails than in a bit, all right.
Speaker 1: The next character, I think is obviously an NPC. I
Speaker 1: don't think she has any marketable skills other than she
Speaker 1: is the Empress. The Empress Savina played by Thora Birch.
Speaker 3: Now we're gonna we're making a habit of having to
Speaker 3: say this as we talk about every actor playing a
Speaker 3: good character in this movie. But no offense to the
Speaker 3: actor here, no offense to Thora Birch. But there, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there is not much going on with this character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they were maybe going for a childlike
Speaker 1: empress vibe here, you know, from the never ending story,
Speaker 1: Except what if we weighed her down with like two
Speaker 1: tons of chain mail, because she just ends up looking
Speaker 1: uncomfortable in most of these scenes.
Speaker 3: Well, but also force her to make speeches like engage
Speaker 3: in political rhetoric. The childlike Empress does not do that, right.
Speaker 1: So, born in nineteen eighty two, she kicked things off
Speaker 1: as a child actor, and at this point had already
Speaker 1: appeared in such films as nineteen ninety two's Patriot Games,
Speaker 1: ninety three's hocus Pocus ninety four is clear and present
Speaker 1: danger and very important one episode of the nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: Outer Limits. But this film is also sandwich between two
Speaker 1: of her most critically acclaimed films. I believe when they
Speaker 1: filmed Dungeons and Dragons, they'd already shot nineteen ninety nine's
Speaker 1: American Beauty, but then it comes out before D and
Speaker 1: D comes out, obviously, and then after American Beauty came out,
Speaker 1: of course, she received a lot of acclaim for that performance,
Speaker 1: and then she would go on to have a really
Speaker 1: solid performance in two thousand and one's Ghost World, opposite
Speaker 1: Scarlett Johansson and Steve Usimmi. It's been a long time
Speaker 1: since I've seen either of those films, but I do
Speaker 1: remember her as being rather good in Ghost World.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think I've seen either of those since
Speaker 3: the early two thousands. But yeah, same like thor Birch,
Speaker 3: I like with much of the cast, I would be
Speaker 3: curious to hear her thoughts and what she remembers about
Speaker 3: making this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because yeah, I you know, again, solid actress, but
Speaker 1: this is not the picture. All right, let's move back
Speaker 1: to the actual adventuring party. We also have Marina Pretensa.
Speaker 1: She is a human mage and she was played by
Speaker 1: Zoe mcleland born nineteen seventy four, American TV actress, best
Speaker 1: known for this film. I think, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: I thought she was actually pretty good in this role.
Speaker 1: Despite the flat misogyny gags that were kind of shoehorned
Speaker 1: in there, I don't know, she was more alive, Her
Speaker 1: character felt more alive, and her performance therefore followed in
Speaker 1: ways that other characters did not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, another example of not a great,
Speaker 3: not a wonderfully written role, but she's doing what she
Speaker 3: can with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she appeared on such TV shows star Trek Voyager,
Speaker 1: and I think she was main cast on Designated Survivor.
Speaker 1: All right, Next up, we have el Wood Gutworthy. He
Speaker 1: is a dwarven fighter and he is played by Lee
Speaker 1: Arenberg born nineteen sixty two, possibly under celebrated American character actor.
Speaker 1: You might not know his name, but you'll instantly recognize
Speaker 1: him from such projects as the Pirates of the Caribbean movies,
Speaker 1: which he played. His character's name is pinel Pinel.
Speaker 3: See one of the two sort of comedy pirates, the
Speaker 3: bad guy comedy Pirates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the bald one, the bald bearded comedy pirate.
Speaker 1: He also has appeared on TV shows like Friends and Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: But I think the first place I saw him was
Speaker 1: a nineteen ninety Tales from the Crypt episode titled for
Speaker 1: Crying Out Loud, which co starred Katie Segal, Iggy Pop
Speaker 1: and Sam Kennison as the voice in Arenberg's head.
Speaker 3: Sam Kennison as the voice in his head. Yes. Wow.
Speaker 1: He also played the Eternal Flame in the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: three cinematic Marvel Freaked, and you'll also find him in
Speaker 1: some other bits as well, like he plays a hold
Speaker 1: up man in RoboCop three.
Speaker 3: As for his role in this movie, I mean, I
Speaker 3: hope you like seeing food in people's beards. That's a
Speaker 3: yuck yuck. You know they're gonna go for that joke
Speaker 3: many times, and you will actually be quite impressed how
Speaker 3: much food they can fit in his beard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just kept saying it's not funny enough. Let's
Speaker 1: add more chicken wings to the gag.
Speaker 3: More chicken. Yeah. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I remember being a little grumpy about the dwarf as
Speaker 1: comic relief elements in Jackson's Lord of the Rings. But
Speaker 1: gut worthy here is ten thousand times worse than any
Speaker 1: of that. Like, this film's vision for a dwarf is
Speaker 1: that of a kind of drunken, bearded umpa lumpa whose
Speaker 1: main character traits are alcoholism, gluttony, and poor hygiene.
Speaker 3: Yes, he drinks, he fights, he has chicken.
Speaker 1: And beard, and that's that's pretty much. Yet it's kind
Speaker 1: of awful. And I think like he is painted orange
Speaker 1: or I don't like it's like he has like an
Speaker 1: orange beard, like a bright orange beard, and I think
Speaker 1: there's like orange pain on his face. It is it's
Speaker 1: just everything is wrong. About this presentation.
Speaker 3: Okay, but no confusion about class here. This is our
Speaker 3: standard fighter. He's like, got a battle axe, That's what
Speaker 3: he does.
Speaker 1: He specializes, though, in background fighting, not like key villain fighting,
Speaker 1: but just background stuff.
Speaker 3: Doing doing a leg sweep and uh well I think
Speaker 3: he leg sweeps Damodar one time.
Speaker 1: Oh it gets one hit, you know, It's it's a
Speaker 1: team effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but mostly you're right. He's back there slamming around
Speaker 3: while our more prominent characters are in the foreground.
Speaker 1: All right. Up next, we have Norda, an Elvin ranger
Speaker 1: played by Kristin Wilson born nineteen sixty nine, American actress
Speaker 1: best known for playing Lisa Doolittle in nineteen ninety eight's
Speaker 1: Doctor Doolittle and It's two thousand and one sequel. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: she's married to makeup affects artist Martin Estell's who worked
Speaker 1: on Chronicles of Riddick and also worked on this film,
Speaker 1: So it's very possible that dungeons and dragons brought this
Speaker 1: couple together.
Speaker 3: What better way to find true love.
Speaker 1: As for her performance, I mean, I think it seems fine.
Speaker 1: They have her wearing one of those ridiculous fantasy female breastplates,
Speaker 1: but that aside. You know, I totally bought her as
Speaker 1: a no nonsense Elvian ranger.
Speaker 3: She has a good funny moment when Snails is trying
Speaker 3: to flirt with her and she's like, how old are you?
Speaker 3: And he says twenty three and she's like, I'm two
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty five.
Speaker 1: That was pretty good. Yeah, all right. Next up, we
Speaker 1: have just really a couple of kind of fun cameos,
Speaker 1: a little side characters that are encountered. The first I
Speaker 1: already mentioned in passing that Richard O'Brien shows up, and yes,
Speaker 1: Richard O'Brien shows up as Zilious, a master thief born
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two. This is, of course the mastermind behind
Speaker 1: the Rocky Heart Picture Show, in which he also played
Speaker 1: riff Raff. He played He played Mister Hand in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight s Dark City, and we previously mentioned him
Speaker 1: in our episode on nineteen eighty's Flash Gordon, in which
Speaker 1: he played a character named Falco. We're gonna come back
Speaker 1: to O'Brien in the future when we talk about a
Speaker 1: film in which he's more central, So you know, I'll
Speaker 1: keep this brief and say that, yeah, he does bring
Speaker 1: his signature charisma to this small role, but he still
Speaker 1: manages to feel a bit out of place as well.
Speaker 3: I'd say, once again doing what he can.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Ooh, but then Tom Baker shows up as hal
Speaker 1: varth An Elvin Kleric kind of late in the film.
Speaker 1: He attempts, but what fails to resurrect Snails. Who's he healing?
Speaker 3: He's healing justin Welle healing Ridley. He's like, he's apps
Speaker 3: in with Yellow Zippi's apps.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, Snails is just all the way dead
Speaker 1: at this.
Speaker 3: Point, Snails is dead. Well, Snails does resurrect at the
Speaker 3: end of the movie. Oh okay, remember they like they
Speaker 3: put a thing a jewel on his grave and then
Speaker 3: it suggests he's still alive somewhere else and they could
Speaker 3: go meet him.
Speaker 1: I think, oh, okay, well, all right, there's so there's
Speaker 1: some hope for Snails. Yeah so yeah, okay, so he
Speaker 1: heals our main protagonist.
Speaker 3: Yes he's not. We've been saying about a lot of people.
Speaker 3: They do what they can. I don't know. Tom Baker
Speaker 3: feels like he's kind of sleep walking through this. When
Speaker 3: he says his lines. It feels like he's saying them
Speaker 3: for the first time.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. I mean, that may very well
Speaker 1: be the case, but maybe I just find Tom Baker
Speaker 1: captivating enough that that leak enough for me where I'm like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this guy's doing it, this guy knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Look at that.
Speaker 3: I mean Tom Baker's Tom Baker. Yeah he So he
Speaker 3: brings more Doctor Who energy than rasputant energy.
Speaker 1: I'd say here, Yeah, so Tom Baker, if you're not
Speaker 1: famire born nineteen thirty four, still active, I believe, a
Speaker 1: British actor of stage, screen and TV, best known as
Speaker 1: the fourth and longest serving incarnation of the doctor in
Speaker 1: Doctor Who from nineteen seventy four to nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: And there have been so many great doctors over the years,
Speaker 1: but I think Baker still stands out as one of
Speaker 1: the most iconic. And I think for me, he's like,
Speaker 1: this is my Doctor Who. If I'm ever if I
Speaker 1: remember in a room and there's a Doctor Who episode
Speaker 1: playing and it's Tom Baker, I'm just drawn in. I've
Speaker 1: got to see what he's gonna do, what's he's gonna say.
Speaker 1: He's my go to.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I think I know way less Doctor Who
Speaker 3: than you do, but I do think of them. I
Speaker 3: do think of him as the doctor among many doctors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, he can play it all. He
Speaker 1: can be silly, obviously. He can also play malicious characters,
Speaker 1: such as in seventy three is the Vault of Horror
Speaker 1: and also the Golden Voyage of Sinbad from the same year.
Speaker 1: He can also play serious really well. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: his role as Resputant and Nicholas and Alexandra from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Speaker 3: He is mesmerizing in that role.
Speaker 1: That's one. I still need to see ivants in that one.
Speaker 1: But I have seen the Golden Voyage it sent that.
Speaker 3: That's a good one. It's got some great monsters in
Speaker 3: it all right.
Speaker 1: And finally, the composer for this film is Justin Cain
Speaker 1: Burnette born nineteen seventy three, American film and video game
Speaker 1: music composer who apparently worked under Hans Zimmer early in
Speaker 1: his career, and he's gone on to score numerous genre
Speaker 1: pictures such as two thousand and fives in American Haunting
Speaker 1: and some fairly big TV projects as well, like The Patient,
Speaker 1: in addition to working in the musical department on some
Speaker 1: pretty big films by the likes of Michael Bay and
Speaker 1: Tony Scott and Ridley Scott.
Speaker 3: I don't think the music in this is bad, though.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's kind of a funny fit. Like the opening
Speaker 3: fanfare sounds to me a lot like the music from
Speaker 3: a sports movie. It sounds like, oh, you know, Johnny's
Speaker 3: running for the touchdown and you know they finally put
Speaker 3: him in and he's gonna save the team season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or it's just kind of like I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like I've said before, you know, sometimes the film's musical
Speaker 1: score needs to kind feel invisible. It's just working in
Speaker 1: the background doing its thing. And you know, I guess
Speaker 1: that's basically what the score here does.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, are you ready to talk about the plot?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 3: So the movie starts with something that absolutely feels tacked
Speaker 3: on in post production. It's some voiceover narration playing over
Speaker 3: a dismal gray screen with some wisps of CGI missed,
Speaker 3: and it's just an old man's voice. I don't know
Speaker 3: who's talking here, but it says the Empire of Ismir
Speaker 3: has long been a divided land ruled by the Mages
Speaker 3: an elite group of magic users. The lowly commoners, those
Speaker 3: without magic, are little more than slaves. Izmir's young Empress
Speaker 3: Savina wishes equality and prosperity for all, but the evil
Speaker 3: mage Profion has other intentions.
Speaker 1: No, I have to admit it's intriguing. Imagine if they've
Speaker 1: shown us any of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the horns start blasting. This is the part
Speaker 3: where it sounds like football. And then we zoom over
Speaker 3: a bunch of CGI. So we're zooming over bridges spanning
Speaker 3: a waterway with a mini towered castle rising beyond. And
Speaker 3: real question when we get a look at this castle,
Speaker 3: I was genuinely wondering, is this CGI model based on
Speaker 3: the Disney Castle image, the more elaborate one, Because it
Speaker 3: looks like it.
Speaker 1: We are like swooping in on it. It feels like it
Speaker 1: very much the same trajectory as we do the Disney Castle,
Speaker 1: and the opening Disney logo sequence feels a lot like it.
Speaker 3: But then, perhaps fittingly for the theme, does the camera
Speaker 3: fly into a window in one of the majestic lofty
Speaker 3: towers in the sky. No, it does not. Instead, we
Speaker 3: plunge down over the surface of the moat and then
Speaker 3: straight through the heavy iron bars of a gate leading
Speaker 3: into a dungeon.
Speaker 1: It's fittings. You know, we didn't really get into this,
Speaker 1: but it's called dungeons and dragons, so you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Producers are like, Okay, there needs to be a dungeon
Speaker 1: and there needs to be a dragon, and really, if
Speaker 1: you could fit all of this into the first ten
Speaker 1: minutes of the film, that would be great.
Speaker 3: So the environments here, again to emphasize, are at this
Speaker 3: point CGI and the animation is murky and hideous. I
Speaker 3: was trying to describe what these environments look like. It's
Speaker 3: a little difficult, but like in nineties computer game terms,
Speaker 3: imagine the CD ROM game Missed, but make it fugly
Speaker 3: instead of mysterious. So it's like misst but with the drab,
Speaker 3: depressing color palette of the original quake. Yes, So we
Speaker 3: fly through a tunnel in this dungeon into a room
Speaker 3: where a bunch of hooded occult servants are toiling in
Speaker 3: the dark. There are chains, ladders, gears, lanterns, and skulls,
Speaker 3: lots of skulls just sitting around in random places. There's
Speaker 3: one thing that looks like a kind of a ramp
Speaker 3: or a gangway on top of a pipe that's pouring
Speaker 3: water into a big stone pool, and on the ramp
Speaker 3: there's just a skull sitting right in the middle of it.
Speaker 3: Somebody's gonna step on that.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, this one fell out, just put it on
Speaker 1: top of the box.
Speaker 3: There's some kind of big machine being operated, so we've
Speaker 3: got cultists. They're pulling chains and working levers. There's a
Speaker 3: big cogwheel revolving, and then in the middle of the
Speaker 3: room there is a three axis gimbal. So you might
Speaker 3: have seen these with like I don't know, used for
Speaker 3: astronaut training, where it's the rings that spin within rings
Speaker 3: along the different axes. And what's in the middle is
Speaker 3: not an astronaut. It is a large black scepter fixed
Speaker 3: with a green jewel.
Speaker 1: You know, I need to throw in here. I was
Speaker 1: able to get my kid to watch the first like
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of this film with me because they're about
Speaker 1: to turn thirteen and they're already super into Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 1: You know, they've read the books, they're playing the game,
Speaker 1: and so it was fun to watch part of this.
Speaker 1: I really didn't expect or demand that they watch all
Speaker 1: of this film with me. But at this point they
Speaker 1: were already like, oh, it looks like they're making a
Speaker 1: making a magical item there, and they started spouting all
Speaker 1: the rules for how long it's going to take to
Speaker 1: make a magical weapon and so forth.
Speaker 3: Did this lead to frustration.
Speaker 1: That they did quickly realize this is not a good film,
Speaker 1: but they didn't seem bored And I have to drive home.
Speaker 1: At this point we are into the physical sets, practical sets,
Speaker 1: and it's a totally different vibe, like, Yeah, I'm buying
Speaker 1: this as a real place and I'm intrigued by what's
Speaker 1: going on here.
Speaker 3: And then also, hey, so yeah, we've come out of
Speaker 3: the CGI into the real sets and we get our
Speaker 3: first glimpse of the main attraction, Jeremy Irons.
Speaker 1: Oh what an entry. It's so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's like an evil mage dressed in black,
Speaker 3: wearing a burgundy cloak, and from the very first second
Speaker 3: he appears, he is just squealing with raw ham energy.
Speaker 3: He comes waltzing down the dungeon stairs towards the scepter machine,
Speaker 3: and he's got his arms stretched out to the sides
Speaker 3: like he's doing ballet. And also off to the side,
Speaker 3: you've got Bruce Payne playing the henchman Damnadar, and again, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's like bald and haughty with with the muscle morph
Speaker 3: armor and the big sword and the electric blue lips.
Speaker 3: And then we get a close up of Profyon the
Speaker 3: Mage here looking evil, and it's a close up, like
Speaker 3: his face fills the entire frame and you can see
Speaker 3: all his pores. You can see that this must have
Speaker 3: been filmed in the afternoon because his mustache stubble is
Speaker 3: starting to come in, and you can see the way
Speaker 3: someone appears to have combed his eyebrows so that the
Speaker 3: hairs all flare upward. And then the evil music swells
Speaker 3: and it's clear he wants that scepter, so he steps
Speaker 3: forward and he sticks his hand out and zaps the
Speaker 3: rod with force lightning. Also you can see rob I've
Speaker 3: got a screenshot for you to look at here, but
Speaker 3: it's like he has to step over some little moats,
Speaker 3: little like gutters on the floor in order to get
Speaker 3: to the thing. He's gonna get his cloak wet.
Speaker 1: That's true. I mean you've got to just expect to
Speaker 1: get your cloak muddy and bloody.
Speaker 3: And wet in these scenarios. Yeah, So Profion starts chanting
Speaker 3: a magic spell. It's a bunch of nonsense words, and
Speaker 3: we see little cgi dragons flying around inside a kind
Speaker 3: of portal in the gimbal machine. And then Jeremy Irons
Speaker 3: keeps ratcheting up the intensity and his face bones so
Speaker 3: it just goes in on him and he's going off.
Speaker 3: His face is getting weirder and crazier, and something finally
Speaker 3: works with his magic. The machine stops spinning and Profion
Speaker 3: can approach and remove the artifact and it's glowing green.
Speaker 3: It casts a sickly green light over his face. And oh,
Speaker 3: my lord, the expressions he is making here, Like he
Speaker 3: projects a quivering, overtly sexual ecstasy as he takes hold
Speaker 3: of the magic step. So he like grabs the rod
Speaker 3: with this electric zapping effect and then he holds it
Speaker 3: up in the air, screaming yes, and just like Folks,
Speaker 3: even if you don't want to watch the whole movie,
Speaker 3: I recommend you watched this scene at the beginning, just
Speaker 3: to do like the Jeremy Iron's face survey, you know,
Speaker 3: add little tasting notes at all, the little moments where
Speaker 3: you get to see his teeth doing this, his tongue
Speaker 3: doing that. What's that sound he's making? Why is he
Speaker 3: going bad? It is so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you watch nothing else, watch the first fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes because you will get so much of this performance.
Speaker 1: It is just oh, it is just a like a
Speaker 1: stiff shot of absolute like one twenty percent to Jeremy
Speaker 1: Iron's ham.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and of course it's it's Bruce Payne approved. He's
Speaker 3: sitting there like the you know, his lips tight together,
Speaker 3: like yep, yep, that's my boss.
Speaker 1: Oh god, those lips.
Speaker 3: So pro says, come Damadhar, and they walk up the
Speaker 3: steps to a big door that has what can only
Speaker 3: be described as a dragon logo on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like behind this door it's dragons are us.
Speaker 3: And Profion calls out to his terrified hooded servants. He says,
Speaker 3: release him. So the guys in hoods they're trembling with fear.
Speaker 3: They start cranking a bunch of wheels and levers and
Speaker 3: the door opens up to dragons r us and what
Speaker 3: do you know, there's a dragon inside and it starts
Speaker 3: coming out, and what a dragon this is. As I've
Speaker 3: said many times now, we're trying not to just hate
Speaker 3: on the movie too much, but We've got to tell
Speaker 3: you straight that this is some of the worst CGI
Speaker 3: I can think of in any major motion picture.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my goodness, I mean the dragon does does
Speaker 1: not look good. I mean the the CGI is not good.
Speaker 1: And then just it's just such a generic looking dragon
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, especially when you consider what's already
Speaker 1: come before practic We talked about Verma Thrack's pejorative in
Speaker 1: the Dragon Swayer on a previous episode of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: like one of the greatest dragons ever brought to life
Speaker 1: on the screen. To go from something like that to
Speaker 1: something like this, it's just it's a travesty.
Speaker 3: Now, it doesn't look quite so bad at the very
Speaker 3: first moment because it's farther away and partially hidden in darkness.
Speaker 3: But then it like lunges out and it starts spitting
Speaker 3: fire on all the hooded cult guys and it roars
Speaker 3: into the camera. I think they were actually going for
Speaker 3: a callback to Jurassic Park. There are a couple of
Speaker 3: moments where it does where the CGI dragon does a
Speaker 3: kind of body motion or something almost exactly like a
Speaker 3: shot in Jurassic Park, and it seems not accidental.
Speaker 1: It is often sobering to realize how early Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: comes out in relation to some of these films with
Speaker 1: bad CGI monsters later on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah this, so this dragon is not finished baking,
Speaker 3: but no more time. It's out of the heaven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we gotta get this out before Y two K.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so Profion commands the dragon to approach him,
Speaker 3: and he starts gloating. He says, yes, I control dragons now,
Speaker 3: and Damodar is just dripping with obsequious flattery. He's like,
Speaker 3: you have the power of the immortals, and Profion says
Speaker 3: he's snarling. He says, with a dragon army at my command,
Speaker 3: I can crush the Impress. I can control what is
Speaker 3: rightfully ours. Go. I'm not going to keep trying to
Speaker 3: do the Jeremy Iron's voice when I quote him. So
Speaker 3: he just keeps doing amazingly weird stuff with his face,
Speaker 3: voice and tongue. Here, Rob, this is the part where
Speaker 3: you were talking about his skull trying to escape, and
Speaker 3: so he's oh, and he also he says things that
Speaker 3: are echoing kind of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 3: He's like, I can use every ounce of your rage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately nothing gold can stay. There's a little pun
Speaker 3: because this is a gold dragon. Apparently something goes wrong
Speaker 3: and Profion.
Speaker 1: Keeps do they say it's a gold dragon?
Speaker 3: They say, they say that the Impresses dragons are gold dragons.
Speaker 1: Well, that's not right. I'm not going to get into it.
Speaker 1: That's that's I mean, that shouldn't be. Gold dragons are special.
Speaker 1: They're nobody's dungeon.
Speaker 3: Well no, I think we do need to get into
Speaker 3: this later. Because also they bring up like red dragons
Speaker 3: in contrast to the gold dragons, as if like it
Speaker 3: was like, oh, oh, red dragons, that that would be
Speaker 3: really that's really something, okay.
Speaker 1: I mean in short, like gold dragons are good and
Speaker 1: red dragons are bad. Okay, So it's weird that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with a gold dragon like.
Speaker 3: This, Well the gold dragon here, that makes sense because
Speaker 3: the gold dragon does not want to obey Profion, and
Speaker 3: so it like starts backing up into it. Cl It's like, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not working with this guy. And then the door
Speaker 3: slams shut on it and like stabs it and and
Speaker 3: a death recalling almost exactly in another callback to Return
Speaker 3: of the Jedi, the Demid the rank or in return
Speaker 3: of the Jedi. That's right, they rank or it and
Speaker 3: then we get to watch the dragon's cgi blood spill
Speaker 3: out and pool on the floor and then run down
Speaker 3: the stairs, which looks absolutely hilarious. And I have questions
Speaker 3: about shots like this in the movies, like how expensive
Speaker 3: would it have been to actually just pour some red
Speaker 3: krosyrup blood down a staircase versus the cost of computer
Speaker 3: animating flowing blood in the year two thousand? Why would
Speaker 3: this be done? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we have to be at that
Speaker 1: tipping point here where the digital effect is cheaper than
Speaker 1: the practical effect, even though the digital does not look
Speaker 1: nearly as believable.
Speaker 3: How could that even be though? Like how much does
Speaker 3: it cost to make a bucket of fake blood? And
Speaker 3: just I mean, I guess the cost of the labor
Speaker 3: to clean it up after you've spilled it?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I don't know. I mean maybe it's it's
Speaker 1: there in the budget chet where they're like, we're already
Speaker 1: paying for these digital effects, let's have them do the blood.
Speaker 1: I don't know, they can't afford some just good Kensington
Speaker 1: Gore whip stuff on the spot.
Speaker 3: Bizarre anyway, Jeremy irons he like groans with frustration. It's
Speaker 3: like not again, and he puts his head in his hands.
Speaker 3: He just foiled. So he says, this is the part
Speaker 3: where he says, we shall have to modify our plans.
Speaker 3: He says they're going to summon the High Council of
Speaker 3: Mages and that he's going to try to turn them
Speaker 3: against the Impress, and Damadar says it will be done.
Speaker 3: And then oh, when the cgi blood hits the water below,
Speaker 3: the water catches fire, and then the fire runs out
Speaker 3: of the dungeon into the moat all around the castle.
Speaker 3: So the whole city can see the fire, and they
Speaker 3: gather around the moat to look at.
Speaker 1: It, but they're not like super concerned. It's kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: the river's on fire again, you know, It's just this happens.
Speaker 1: This is just the kind of ecological nightmare we're living in.
Speaker 3: It's the Cuyahoga. Yeah. So on the banks of the moat,
Speaker 3: here we meet our two protagonists. This is our pair
Speaker 3: of buddy rogues. This is Ridley and Snails, Justin Whalen
Speaker 3: and Marlon Wayans. Ridley's first line, commenting on the water
Speaker 3: catching fire. He says, I'm telling you it's got to
Speaker 3: be some twisted magic experiment gone seriously wrong. And you know,
Speaker 3: Snails is less, He's got less of a bee in
Speaker 3: his bondet about this. He's just like, you know, Ridley,
Speaker 3: why are you always mad at the Mages? And Ridley says,
Speaker 3: I'd just love to find a way to give those
Speaker 3: mages some payback. So, as I said earlier, in this movie,
Speaker 3: mages seems to be an economic class. Mages are the rich,
Speaker 3: seemingly whether or not they're personally really like a wizard.
Speaker 3: And Ridley and Snails, on the other hand, are representatives
Speaker 3: of the common people. Ridley is a sort of idealistic
Speaker 3: class warrior who wants to fight for the poor and
Speaker 3: stick it to the mages, and Snails is less idealistic.
Speaker 3: The way he explains it, he's like, the world's never
Speaker 3: going to change. There are the haves, the have nots,
Speaker 3: and the gotta gets, and we two rogues. We are
Speaker 3: in the last group where the gotta gets. But Ridley
Speaker 3: comes up with an idea of what they should do
Speaker 3: to punish the Mages for setting fire to the river.
Speaker 3: They're going to pull off a heist at the Magic School,
Speaker 3: which is in the highest tower in the castle. And
Speaker 3: also I'm not going to narrate all this as we
Speaker 3: go on throughout the movie, but just be aware that
Speaker 3: in every scene with Ridley and Snails, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of what is supposed to be comedic banter and like
Speaker 3: you know, comedic back and forth and zany character gags,
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to be generous, but most of it
Speaker 3: does not work very well, and it is rarely very funny.
Speaker 1: So they have decided that they are going to get
Speaker 1: their revenge by breaking into the stronghold of some of
Speaker 1: the most powerful and dangerous people on the planet.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, and they're going to steal from them.
Speaker 1: Ye all right, sounds good. Sounds like a good plant.
Speaker 3: So from here we move on to it scene that
Speaker 3: looks like it was filmed in the opera house in Amadeas.
Speaker 3: It's like a beautiful interior location, but this is the
Speaker 3: Council of Mages and it's got box seats full of
Speaker 3: old men and cloaks, and there appears to be a
Speaker 3: sort of floor debate going on between Profion and a
Speaker 3: guy who's sort of impress Savena's ally named Asmath. So
Speaker 3: there are a lot of old men yelling in the background,
Speaker 3: But basically the gist of the scene is that Profion
Speaker 3: is saying, the Empress is going to dissolve the Council
Speaker 3: of Mages and seize power for herself. He explains that
Speaker 3: she wants to do this because of her naive belief
Speaker 3: that she can bring justice and equality to all the people.
Speaker 3: And then as Math tries to calm him down, he's like, oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: In time, with our council, she will come to see
Speaker 3: why things cannot be changed. And then Profion says, maybe so,
Speaker 3: but is that a risk you are willing to take.
Speaker 3: Her revolutionary ideas have already taken root among the people.
Speaker 3: In time, her influence will go row. As the months
Speaker 3: go by, she will learn to master the powers of
Speaker 3: her scepter, and when she does, I have no doubt
Speaker 3: she will use it to enforce her changes upon us.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And so you know, they're they're arguing about this political situation,
Speaker 3: but I feel like we need to go one step of,
Speaker 3: we need to go one step back. What does the
Speaker 3: Council of Mages do? Like, what are its powers and
Speaker 3: agenda currently?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are the checks and balances right.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Profion urges the council to vote to remove the
Speaker 3: scepter from the Empress's control and destroy the threat of
Speaker 3: revolution forever. Is this supposed to be the sceptor that
Speaker 3: he was already trying to use in the scene before.
Speaker 1: I think I become increasingly confused about scepters in this movie.
Speaker 1: It starts out so clear, like there's the scepter, it's
Speaker 1: got a you know, a grain gem on it, trying
Speaker 1: to use it to control the dragons. But then there's
Speaker 1: talk of her scepter later on, there's a skeleton with
Speaker 1: a sceptor. Are these a rod? Are they?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: That's the rod?
Speaker 3: Rod?
Speaker 1: Okay? But I found myself confused at multiple times, like rod, scepter,
Speaker 1: multiple scepters, multiple rods. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Only a fool would confuse a rod with a sceptor.
Speaker 3: And then also we get a scene where we meet
Speaker 3: the Empress somewhere else in the castle, so thora Birch
Speaker 3: is she's the Impress, She's she's kind of goth in
Speaker 3: this scene, but in a later scene she's got some
Speaker 3: are they cool? Yeah? I guess cool? Cool weird costumes
Speaker 3: in this movie and this this scene, she's kind of
Speaker 3: goth with like pins stuck in her hair. Later on
Speaker 3: she'll be in like bizarre gold chain mail.
Speaker 1: She looks more comfortable here for sure.
Speaker 3: Yes, but this scene was actually shot in a very
Speaker 3: beautiful location. Once again, I think this must be some
Speaker 3: kind of cathedral or basilica somewhere. This doesn't look like
Speaker 3: a movie set anyway. She's been She's being advised by
Speaker 3: a kindly older mage named Vilden, and he explains that
Speaker 3: the the mages are afraid of her because she believes
Speaker 3: in freedom and equality for all the people, and so
Speaker 3: they're trying to limit her power. And he's got a
Speaker 3: way for her to outsmart the mage counsel and get
Speaker 3: the upper hand, and that is to acquire the rod.
Speaker 3: You know the rod. Yes, it's the mcguffin, the main
Speaker 3: mcguffin of the movie. She's got to acquire the Rod
Speaker 3: of Savriel, which controls dragons, but unlike her scepter, it
Speaker 3: controls red dragons. Here's what I was talking about. In
Speaker 3: the scene. They don't explain it. Is this something that
Speaker 3: the audience is supposed to understand because it's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: red dragons. Oh wow?
Speaker 1: Okay, By the way, I want to add that it
Speaker 1: does kind of feel like every MPC we encounter has
Speaker 1: a name made up on the fly by the DM
Speaker 1: where the game's like. And then the mage introduces his
Speaker 1: name as Vilden his name, and let me write that
Speaker 1: down so I remember it.
Speaker 3: Later the exact same thought. The naming game is not
Speaker 3: strong here Wilden, Yes, a Profion Yeah, anyway, Profion overhears
Speaker 3: this conversation with the help of a little magical spy creature.
Speaker 3: Where is this supposed to be a mefeit?
Speaker 1: You think, yes, I did not make this connection, but
Speaker 1: my kid did. They were like, oh the method.
Speaker 3: I think that could be right. Yeah, okay, anyway, so
Speaker 3: he's got a little like spy, a little gray spy
Speaker 3: demon that runs around peeping on things. And then he
Speaker 3: knows immediately. So Jeremy Irons is like, I must have
Speaker 3: the Rod of Savriel. He says, with one wave of it,
Speaker 3: he's going to be able to topple the Empress and
Speaker 3: bring down that useless Council of idiots with her. So
Speaker 3: he sends Damodar to the Magic School to steal the
Speaker 3: scroll that shows the location of the Rod of Savriel
Speaker 3: from Vilden and then kill Vilden too. So here's where
Speaker 3: our characters start kind of colliding with each other. So
Speaker 3: Ridley and Snails they sneak into the magic School to
Speaker 3: steal things in the night. Of course, they're using rope
Speaker 3: and grappling hooks. You know, they're rogues, that's what you do.
Speaker 3: They make a lot of jokes about how Snails, I
Speaker 3: think is afraid of heights, which is not great for
Speaker 3: a rogue.
Speaker 1: But rogues can always go under or through, they don't
Speaker 1: have to go over.
Speaker 3: I guess that's true. And then there's some gags here
Speaker 3: with like big foam dragon teeth and magical boxes of
Speaker 3: illusions and stuff. Meanwhile, in the room next door we
Speaker 3: meet another character. This is Vildun's assistant, Marina, who is
Speaker 3: a young mage in training. Yes her name is Marina
Speaker 3: like the place where boats go, and Marina is very intelligent,
Speaker 3: but she is also snobby and condescending to non mages.
Speaker 3: So Vilden and Marina are looking for the scroll that
Speaker 3: says where the rod is, because you know, you got
Speaker 3: to get the rod, and eventually they find it, but
Speaker 3: they are interrupted when Marina catches Ridley and Snails in
Speaker 3: the middle of like loading up their lut sacks. She
Speaker 3: ties them up with a magical lasso, but then is
Speaker 3: interrupted once again when damn It shows up to kill
Speaker 3: Vildan and take the scroll. So Damodar kills Vilden and
Speaker 3: Marina escapes through a magical portal, the first of many,
Speaker 3: with the scroll, inadvertently pulling Ridley and Snails along behind
Speaker 3: her with the lasso. This portal takes them out into
Speaker 3: the streets of the city below, and then, while running
Speaker 3: through the streets pursued by the bad guys, our three
Speaker 3: young heroes bump into a dwarf warrior who I believe
Speaker 3: is sleeping in a big compost heap.
Speaker 1: Yes, because according to this film, that's what dwarfs do.
Speaker 1: They drink, they eat, they don't brush their teeth, and
Speaker 1: they sleep on piles.
Speaker 3: Of garbage on compost. Yeah. So now our three heroes,
Speaker 3: and then now also the dwarf fighter, who we will
Speaker 3: come to learn is named Elwood. They all dive down
Speaker 3: into a drain pipe in the sewer to escape as
Speaker 3: Damodar closes in. So Elwood is just a member of
Speaker 3: the party. Now, it's that fast. They just bump into
Speaker 3: him in some garbage, and now he's part of the party.
Speaker 1: That was his call to adventure was just somebody bumped
Speaker 1: into him. Now we're hanging out.
Speaker 3: And here's where we get one of Bruce Payne's most
Speaker 3: unbelievable line deliveries. I wrote down exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: He says, post brigades at every sewer, entrance and exit.
Speaker 3: I want them found now. But you will just not
Speaker 3: believe how he says that.
Speaker 1: He says it like it's his only line in the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Anyway, later we learned that Marina has been
Speaker 3: framed for the murder of her teacher, and the four
Speaker 3: heroes decide that they've got to work together. Ooh, and
Speaker 3: then here's where we get that great ludicrous scene where
Speaker 3: Jeremy Irons punishes Bruce Payne for letting them escape, so
Speaker 3: he puts CGI snakes in Bruce Payne's ears. I don't know,
Speaker 3: how would you describe the parasite implantation scene?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Weird CGI creature. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how it gets in exactly, Like does he shove in
Speaker 1: his mouth.
Speaker 3: He's like zaps it into him somehow. But then we
Speaker 3: see it like running around underneath his skin, and then
Speaker 3: it comes up to his ears and his ears get
Speaker 3: all swollen, and then the snakes pop out of his
Speaker 3: ears and he looks unhappy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as I know, this is not something.
Speaker 1: It may be something in D and D. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of creatures in D and D, and this
Speaker 1: is not what I'm familiar with it in any case.
Speaker 1: But I mean, the CGI is not the best, but
Speaker 1: it's also not the worst, even by this movie's standards.
Speaker 1: It and pain does a good job selling like the
Speaker 1: otherworldly pain of having this creature inside his head. And
Speaker 1: I have to say you included a very nice screenshot
Speaker 1: here where Jeremy Irons is looming behind him and you
Speaker 1: have these like the osuary constructures like crowning his head,
Speaker 1: like horns of like skeletal horns. It's it's really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh yeah, another actually great interior location here, but yeah,
Speaker 3: for a ridiculous scene.
Speaker 1: And it's like he's being with a fate worse than
Speaker 1: death for like a minor screw up.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: We also learned here that the Impress's tracker Norda, is
Speaker 3: in pursuit of the scroll as well. So this is
Speaker 3: how we're gonna work what seems like a ranger character.
Speaker 1: In Yeah, yeah, she's a ranger, and he's like, just
Speaker 1: follow her. This just got a lot easier. Also, that's
Speaker 1: that's the whine I put the snake in your head
Speaker 1: so we can follow the tracker.
Speaker 3: So now we go to a bar, which is basically
Speaker 3: the most icedly canteena scene. We just see a lot
Speaker 3: of people, a lot of different kinds of creatures running
Speaker 3: around drinking, you know, zany antics, people just dancing, just
Speaker 3: kind of dancing like they're at a club kind of.
Speaker 3: It doesn't necessarily look like the medieval aesthetic of a
Speaker 3: dance dance going on.
Speaker 1: It's a weird scene because some of the creatures just
Speaker 1: look like dudes in face paint. Others look like like
Speaker 1: serious attempts to create something like goblins or orcs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and others look like they jumped off the page of
Speaker 1: the Garden of Earthly Delights, you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah. This is also the scene where they're
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how much chicken they can fit
Speaker 3: in Elwood's beard.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the answer is a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's trying to tell stories while he's eating
Speaker 3: like a chicken hole. You know, that's the joke like
Speaker 3: you just take the whole chicken and shove it in
Speaker 3: your face. But they seem so Our heroes seem to
Speaker 3: have arrived at a consensus that they can find the
Speaker 3: rod of Savrial themselves and that they need to do this.
Speaker 3: And this appeals to Marina because she's going to be
Speaker 3: able to clear her name. And then the others are
Speaker 3: tempted by the idea of a financial reward from the
Speaker 3: Empress when they deliver it to her. And there's a
Speaker 3: lot more banter and open mouth chewing related comedy. I
Speaker 3: was trying to think. Major takeaways from the scene are, like,
Speaker 3: there's class antagonism. Marina insults Ridley and Snails for being criminals,
Speaker 3: and they try to explain to her the concept of
Speaker 3: honor among thieves. That's where this comes in. She's like, well,
Speaker 3: commoners really are common it seems, and Elwood wants gold
Speaker 3: and chicken, and so it becomes clear that Ridley has
Speaker 3: a crush on Marina. Uh oh, So they kind of
Speaker 3: even though they argue, they don't part ways, they're kind
Speaker 3: of drawn together and they figure out how to do
Speaker 3: some kind of magic teleportation into inside the scroll. I
Speaker 3: don't remember exactly what's going on there. But also in
Speaker 3: the scene, Snails meets Norda, the Empress's ranger. You know,
Speaker 3: she's very very kind of stoic and keeps the cards
Speaker 3: close to the chest. But he goes up and tries
Speaker 3: to buy her some wine and like whispers to the bartender,
Speaker 3: like make it your cheapest wine. But then this scene
Speaker 3: is ended when Damadar and his soldiers show up. And
Speaker 3: this is going to be a pattern throughout the film
Speaker 3: where there's just like a scene that ends because Damodar
Speaker 3: arrives that just happens over and over and over.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean it's not the worst structure have I
Speaker 1: guess in a story, but but yeah, it is definitely
Speaker 1: the pattern.
Speaker 3: Elwood cleverly covers their escape by flipping over a table
Speaker 3: and shouting bar fight yeah, which and everyone obeys.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, later Ridley and Marina they teleport like back out
Speaker 3: of the scroll and now they know what the next
Speaker 3: leg of the quest is. Somehow they know that they've
Speaker 3: got to get into the Temple of Dragons so they
Speaker 3: can get the rod. And to get into the Temple
Speaker 3: of Dragons, they've got to have a magic artifact called
Speaker 3: the Eye of the Dragon, which is held by Zylas,
Speaker 3: the boss of the Thieves Guild in a different city
Speaker 3: called Antius. You catch all that you're getting all these details.
Speaker 1: Are you supposed to write this on the back of
Speaker 1: your character sheet. I mean you can refer back to
Speaker 1: it and then check them off as you get them.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, first we got to get the one,
Speaker 1: and then we need to get.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so that's where they're going next. And then
Speaker 3: they show like a couple of the nicest looking things
Speaker 3: in the movie are just random, like zoomed out location shot.
Speaker 3: So there's one going going into Antius that doesn't look
Speaker 3: too bad. That's like, it's kind of interesting. It's like
Speaker 3: showing these big kind of castle fortified castles up on
Speaker 3: these spires of rock rising above a valley with bridges
Speaker 3: spanning out to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks really cool. I don't really get the
Speaker 1: sense that the place we then go to is in
Speaker 1: fact this location. No, it doesn't look like it, but
Speaker 1: would have been neat to go there. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of goofing around. When our heroes arrive.
Speaker 3: They go to the marketplace and they just see weird
Speaker 3: people and creatures and it's like, oh, I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I'm getting distracted from our mission by various things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Our mage momentarily looks at some jewelry that's being
Speaker 1: sold by a vendor, and the dwarf says, if I
Speaker 1: don't get to drink, you don't get to shop.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh my god, oh boy. And eventually
Speaker 3: they talk their way into a meeting with Zilas at
Speaker 3: the Thieves Guild played by Richard O'Brien and Marina. When
Speaker 3: they go in, Marina says to Justin Whalen, She's like, so,
Speaker 3: this is it, right, everything a thief strives for? And
Speaker 3: Ridley says, yea, yeah, So what a thief strives for
Speaker 3: is to live in like a baroque salon with purple walls,
Speaker 3: gold furniture, rugs and pillows everywhere, and lots of weird
Speaker 3: people lounging about in various states of dress, and also
Speaker 3: somebody to feed you grapes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he really. Richard O'Brien's character comes off more
Speaker 1: as like King of the Circus as opposed to like
Speaker 1: Prince of Thiefs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I agree, there's there is a showbiz element
Speaker 3: to him that doesn't quite feel like the Thieves Guild.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, everything feels a little off with this character
Speaker 1: and this presentation and this whole scene. Again, none of
Speaker 1: this is like Richard O'Brien's fault. It's just I don't know,
Speaker 1: things didn't come together right. And then we also have
Speaker 1: that weird purple headed guy. Yeah, and the eye with
Speaker 1: the third eye, and also just like some very like
Speaker 1: strong overacting underteaeth, all that makeup that was just distracting
Speaker 1: every time he was on this. I was just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what choices led us to this.
Speaker 3: So thoughts on Richard O'Brien's performance. He's not hamming it
Speaker 3: up with quite the rocket fuel intensity of Jeremy Irons,
Speaker 3: but I think he is having fun with this goofy roll.
Speaker 3: He's sort of a pale, greasy human eel version of
Speaker 3: Job of the Hut, but he's got this like wide
Speaker 3: ingratiating smile. He does some casual sexual harassment of Marina.
Speaker 3: He's a little off and he makes some vaguely threatening
Speaker 3: comments at them, but then eventually a deal emerges. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: there's a thing called the Antius Guild Maze. It's sort
Speaker 3: of a deadly obstacle course full of traps, and if
Speaker 3: Ridley can make it through, he's going to get the
Speaker 3: Dragon's Eye. And Okay, they make a deal, So I'm
Speaker 3: not going to narrate solving the maze, but anyway, Justin
Speaker 3: Whalen has to solve and avoid some Indiana Jones traps
Speaker 3: to get the prize at the end of the course.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if this maybe British listeners can chime
Speaker 1: in on this. I wonder if this whole thing is
Speaker 1: a reference to the Crystal Mayze game show that I
Speaker 1: know Richard O'Brien was one of the hosts of.
Speaker 3: Oh I know nothing of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly nothing I've ever seen, but I'm
Speaker 1: just familiar with it from being familiar with Richard O'Brien's
Speaker 1: work over the years.
Speaker 3: Now, at the end of this whole sequence, Zilas tries
Speaker 3: to betray them. So it seems the prize that Justin
Speaker 3: Whalen retrieved from the end of the maze was the
Speaker 3: artifact that he wanted and Xilas has never been able
Speaker 3: to get this out of the maze before, so he
Speaker 3: tries to steal it from Ridley, but they are interrupted
Speaker 3: by the arrival of Damadar once again, once again, and
Speaker 3: yet again, a big fight breaks out and our heroes
Speaker 3: except for Marina, are able to escape because of the fight,
Speaker 3: and Marina gets captured. Later, our heroes regroup in the
Speaker 3: woods and they are caught by Norda, the ranger, the
Speaker 3: tracker who works for the Impress. Here's where you get
Speaker 3: a good look at her armor, and it's funny. It's
Speaker 3: like very reflective, I don't know, it's like glinting even
Speaker 3: in the dark of the forest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very form fitting plate armor. And if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen any fantasy illustration of a female woman in armor,
Speaker 1: you know exactly what they're going for here.
Speaker 3: So she's trying to arrest them and take them back,
Speaker 3: take them and the scroll back to the Empress. But
Speaker 3: in this encounter instead she learns of the treachery of Profion,
Speaker 3: and then she reports back to thora Birch via a
Speaker 3: magical zoom call, and the Empress commands in Orda to
Speaker 3: instead work together with these people and seek out Damodar
Speaker 3: and acquire the rod. You must get the rod. Everybody
Speaker 3: wants the rod. So Norda is now on the same
Speaker 3: team as our heroes. Now Marina, of course, has been captured,
Speaker 3: and there's like an interrogation scene where Bruce Payne comes
Speaker 3: in with his blue lips and he's like, you know, ooh,
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily want to overthrow the Empress, but I
Speaker 3: have no choice. I've got ear snakes and she's like.
Speaker 3: He's like, can you help me? And she says no,
Speaker 3: I don't know how to help you. And then he
Speaker 3: gets real mad and he says he's like, well, I
Speaker 3: can suck the information I need out of your brain
Speaker 3: with my ear snakes, and then he does it. He
Speaker 3: gets the info he needs, which I think was basically
Speaker 3: like where are you going? Yeah, and then we're back
Speaker 3: with our heroes in Noorda where they're continuing their journey.
Speaker 3: We eventually find out they're going to come rescue Marina,
Speaker 3: and this is where you get that exchange between Norda
Speaker 3: and Snails where it's like, how old are you? I'm
Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty four?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, reasonably good joke there.
Speaker 3: So it's time for rescue. They get to the fortress
Speaker 3: where Marina is being held, and Snails and Ridley sneak
Speaker 3: in with the grappling hooks. This is the part where
Speaker 3: they say Ridley look beholders, and then there's just like
Speaker 3: a long shot with like there are some vaguely purple
Speaker 3: looking things in the distance, Like what those the purple blobs?
Speaker 3: Way far?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it almost feels like like the digital
Speaker 1: team was like, you know, we can we can throw
Speaker 1: some beholders into one of these scenes and you can
Speaker 1: do some added voiceover about it, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. But it's beholders. If you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with them, listeners. These are hideous, floating head like beings
Speaker 1: with numerous eyes on stalks and one central eye. They're
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous creatures to run into in a Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons campaign. They're they're very evil, they're like super paranoid.
Speaker 3: They don't do.
Speaker 1: Grunt work guarding castles. Uh. There are some other like
Speaker 1: beholder related creatures like spectators that I guess you could
Speaker 1: maybe have in that role, but beholders are not doing
Speaker 1: that work. Beholders are not going to just be casually encountered.
Speaker 1: And more to the point, they're like there's like central
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons ip, like these are things that that
Speaker 1: that they're almost instantly recognizable as dungeons and dragons creations,
Speaker 1: so kind of I mean, it's kind of neat that
Speaker 1: they're included as a as an easter egg here, I guess.
Speaker 1: But also just they totally don't make the most out
Speaker 1: of a beholder appearance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody fights one. They like throw a bone essentially
Speaker 3: to make one run off after it, and then they
Speaker 3: sneak in the Then our two rogues split up. Snails
Speaker 3: goes into Damodar's room and he gets he falls into
Speaker 3: like a pit of quicksand disguised as a rug. Is
Speaker 3: this something from D and D It may very well be.
Speaker 1: I did like the effect here, because oh yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a practical effect. They did some sort of like
Speaker 1: a painting on top of a like a movie quicksand situation,
Speaker 1: and he sinks into it.
Speaker 3: So I did like this, Yeah, I thought it looked good.
Speaker 3: He sinks into a bunch of oatmeal and his gross
Speaker 3: looking and then of course Damodar comes in and attacks Snails.
Speaker 3: He says something like he's like just like all thieves,
Speaker 3: always taking things that don't BELI long to you, like,
Speaker 3: that's a really good dig against a thief.
Speaker 1: It's true. It's true though, they're always doing it.
Speaker 3: And they fight, and you know, Snails before he's always
Speaker 3: being cowardly. He actually gets some good slashes in on
Speaker 3: Damadar and then he runs away and then we see
Speaker 3: Damadar like pursuing him at a steady march like Jason Vorhees. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Ridley rescues Marina from a dungeon. They fight their way out.
Speaker 3: We get one of those scenes where so many movies
Speaker 3: in the nineties like this, a scene where the girl
Speaker 3: hits a guard with a stick and the boy says nice,
Speaker 3: you know, and then you gotta have that. And then
Speaker 3: Damodar corners Snails at a dead end on the castle
Speaker 3: grounds and they fight and his brutal Damadar beats him
Speaker 3: up and like breaks his bones. We hear bones cracking
Speaker 3: and crunching, and then Ridley and Marina show up to
Speaker 3: the rescue and I was like, okay, okay, Snail's gonna
Speaker 3: be okay, They're gonna help him, and then nope, he
Speaker 3: just gets murdered. Damadar kills him. Like this is off
Speaker 3: tone something I don't know. It didn't feel like that
Speaker 3: was supposed to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the tone on this choice is a little off,
Speaker 1: but yeah, kills him dead and you know, ending possibilities
Speaker 1: aside like he's super dead, he mostly stays dead also.
Speaker 3: Then then Bruce Payne stabs Ridley with the sword, and
Speaker 3: just when he's about to finish him off, Marina saves
Speaker 3: the day by zapping Damodar with pink magic and then
Speaker 3: teleporting them away to somewhere else once again. Yes, so
Speaker 3: that encounters over rip Snails. There's a brief interlude where
Speaker 3: we get to see the Empress giving a very wooden
Speaker 3: speech at the Mage's Council about the people and about
Speaker 3: Profion's treachery, and she says she says Profion is trying
Speaker 3: to take all the power for himself. Profion accuses her
Speaker 3: of the same. They go back and forth, and it's
Speaker 3: weird energy because it's like Jeremy Iron's frothing at the
Speaker 3: mouth versus an introverted teenager.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this scene just I mean, Jeremy Irons is super
Speaker 1: amusing as always, but yeah, I just felt bad for
Speaker 1: thora Birch because like this, it just feels like like
Speaker 1: two completely different planets of acting going on here, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't look comfortable.
Speaker 3: Elsewhere, our heroes reach their destination. This is the part
Speaker 3: where I'm saying it's one of the best looking things
Speaker 3: in the movie. Kind of I'm not sure exactly what
Speaker 3: this is, but it looks to me like a hand
Speaker 3: painted background. It's basically, you know, it's like a big,
Speaker 3: drooping kind of giant tree with a bunch of glowing
Speaker 3: lights in it. It's a little bit Thomas Kincaidlothlauri and
Speaker 3: a little bit Ewok village on indoor, but with some
Speaker 3: dark magic. And it may be very pretty, but we
Speaker 3: are not ready to yub nub yet because the quest
Speaker 3: is not complete now. When they arrive, there's an elf
Speaker 3: played by Tom Baker with short blonde hair who heals
Speaker 3: Ridley by zappanim and then Tom Baker says a bunch
Speaker 3: of things. He says, he's just kind of talking out
Speaker 3: of nowhere. I don't think this is prompted by anything.
Speaker 3: He's like, the Elvin peoples do not require spells to
Speaker 3: work with magic. You use magic. We are part of it,
Speaker 3: as are all living creatures, including dragons. Sadly, humans see
Speaker 3: only their destructive powers. And then Ridley wakes up. He
Speaker 3: explains he had a bad dream where he saw a
Speaker 3: dragon being born, and then Tom Baker explains that magic
Speaker 3: is the life force of nature. He keeps everything around
Speaker 3: us alive, so if the dragons were to be destroyed,
Speaker 3: it would that would destroy the fabric of magic and
Speaker 3: with it all life. And at this point I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: who is this guy? Do they even say who he is?
Speaker 1: I was just so pleased that Tom Baker had finally
Speaker 1: shown up and there was some captivating acting happening on
Speaker 1: the screen. I was like, yeah, I trust you completely,
Speaker 1: whoever you are after.
Speaker 3: This, So of course Ridley is healed, and then there's
Speaker 3: that dark Knight of the Soul scene I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: where like Ridley and Marina are they're arguing about whether
Speaker 3: the Impress's plan to help the common people is worth
Speaker 3: putting faith in, and at one point Marina says that
Speaker 3: Ridley is what Snails died for. But also Marina says
Speaker 3: that she now understands why the common people, why non
Speaker 3: mages are worth fighting for, and then justin Waylen's like,
Speaker 3: you know, for a mage, you're pretty smart, and then
Speaker 3: big old kiss. But of course there's a little naked
Speaker 3: cgi demon looking on the methods there again, so we're
Speaker 3: gearing up for the final showdown. Our heroes are given
Speaker 3: some magical weapons. Ridley gets a silver sword and Elf
Speaker 3: says it will protect him. I do kind of like
Speaker 3: these costumes we see. I don't know who these elves are.
Speaker 3: I guess they're like wood elves of some sort, but
Speaker 3: they look like Texas chainsaw elves. They've got ed gain
Speaker 3: masks on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they look a little disturbing.
Speaker 3: OK, this is it's weird that a lot of the
Speaker 3: best looking visual stuff and I'm not saying it's that great,
Speaker 3: but the best stuff is like hidden away in the
Speaker 3: final third of the movie, but we get a scene
Speaker 3: where Ridley has to go into a dungeon alone to
Speaker 3: retrieve the rod before Belloc, I mean before Damadar gets it.
Speaker 3: And he's attempted by many treasures in the treasure room,
Speaker 3: but then he thinks better of it before removing anything.
Speaker 3: So he's like, gonna steal some gold, but then he's like, no,
Speaker 3: I shouldn't do this. He puts it back down and
Speaker 3: he says sorry snails, like snails would have wanted me
Speaker 3: to steal this. But he talks to a skeleton covered
Speaker 3: in cobwebs who identifies himself as sav Reel, the creator
Speaker 3: of the rod. Oh yeah, Now he says, be warned,
Speaker 3: anyone who wields the power of the Rod must suffer
Speaker 3: a horrible fate. And I think he says that the
Speaker 3: Rod must be destroyed or it's wielder will be destroyed.
Speaker 3: And then like absolutely out of nowhere, we just like
Speaker 3: cut to Jeremy Irons back in the city, back in
Speaker 3: some doll and he's screeching. The Impress has called out
Speaker 3: to dragons upon us. We see the dragons flying through
Speaker 3: the sky and attacking the tower. He's like, destroy them.
Speaker 3: So here we kind of go into action movie mode.
Speaker 3: A lot of the rest of the movie is just
Speaker 3: people fighting cgi dragons, people shooting giant ballistas at them,
Speaker 3: zapping them with magic, buildings exploding with dragonfire, and dragons
Speaker 3: versus dragons. There's like one part where a dragon gets
Speaker 3: zapped and it falls out of the sky and it
Speaker 3: gets impaled on a spire on top of a tower.
Speaker 3: The camera really lingers on this and it looks bad.
Speaker 3: And then of course a bunch of people are fighting
Speaker 3: for control of the Rod. So like Ridley brings it
Speaker 3: out of the dungeon, then Damodar steals it from Ridley
Speaker 3: in company. Then Ridley escapes and his friends they portal
Speaker 3: back to where Damodar is and then they steal the
Speaker 3: rod back from Profion.
Speaker 1: Now is it just one point each time you acquire
Speaker 1: the rod? Or how does the scoring work?
Speaker 3: Here? Very good question? Yeah, how does the experience? They're
Speaker 3: really racking up a lot of XP at the very
Speaker 3: end here. And so there's a final fight that's like
Speaker 3: Ridley versus Profion, And there is a line where Jeremy
Speaker 3: Irons says, not so talented. Hey, mister Ridley, I think
Speaker 3: the movie The Talented Mister Ripley had just come out
Speaker 3: like the year before.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, solid movie. Always always
Speaker 1: a gamble to reference a better movie in your movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Ridley is Ridley gets hold of the rod
Speaker 3: at one point and he's like, okay, now I'm going
Speaker 3: to use the rod. That's been the whole point of
Speaker 3: the story. We got to get the rod so we
Speaker 3: can use it against Profion. But then he has a
Speaker 3: tempted by the ring moment he like holds it up
Speaker 3: and you can see him grinning with all the power
Speaker 3: he has. Now it's like flowing into him, and he
Speaker 3: looks at the dragons and you see him realizing what's happening,
Speaker 3: that he's being tempted, and he turns away from the
Speaker 3: power of the ring or from the power of the rod,
Speaker 3: and he refuses it. He says, I won't become you,
Speaker 3: referring to Profion, and then he smashes the rod with
Speaker 3: his sword.
Speaker 1: Foolishly. I thought he was going to give in for
Speaker 1: a second there, and I was like this, that there's
Speaker 1: more to this kid than I thought. Maybe he's got
Speaker 1: it in him. No, he doesn't have it in him.
Speaker 3: So anyway, he smashes it and then they're still fighting Profion.
Speaker 3: At one point, Profion summons a I think like a
Speaker 3: ghost bone dragon to attack the Empress.
Speaker 1: It just kind of like climbs on her back and
Speaker 1: makes her squat down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the Empress uses her gold scepter against Profion,
Speaker 3: and that like makes all the gold dragons that are
Speaker 3: flying around to come and eat Profion, like one eats him,
Speaker 3: like the t rex eats the guy off the toilet.
Speaker 1: And going back to our earlier discussion, yes, it does
Speaker 1: make sense that she would command gold dragons instead of
Speaker 1: red dragons because gold dragons are good, red dragons are bad.
Speaker 1: But also I mean dragons and dungeons. Dragons are not
Speaker 1: just you know, you know, beasts, they're highly intelligent. So
Speaker 1: there's a whole discussion we could have here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're treated more like beasts here, like you just
Speaker 3: kind of bossom around and they do what you say,
Speaker 3: and then the dragons fly away in the end, and
Speaker 3: now it seems like everything's good, you know, every all
Speaker 3: the problems are fixed. We get we're like cutting away
Speaker 3: and then we see we don't even see off screen.
Speaker 3: We hear the Impress in voiceover saying, this is a
Speaker 3: direct quote people of ismir, I do declare that you
Speaker 3: are now all equal. Let the celebration begin.
Speaker 1: That easy, Yeah, and then they were good.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you say that from the beginning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So here's a question. How many levels do you
Speaker 1: think these characters accrued during the during the run of
Speaker 1: the film here, because they feel like they start off
Speaker 1: at like level two and maybe cap it around level three.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like there's a tremendous amount of growth.
Speaker 3: That's funny. I was gonna say. I was going to
Speaker 3: say they spend most of the movie at level two
Speaker 3: and then in the last ten minutes they go from
Speaker 3: level two to level nine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I mean they get some some high
Speaker 1: power magical weapons, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Do we ever see our magic users learning additional spells?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Do we see them throw dust around?
Speaker 3: They play?
Speaker 1: I mean, at least there are some spell components in
Speaker 1: the mix, but that's about all we see. I don't
Speaker 1: think we think we see any magical books.
Speaker 3: Really do we.
Speaker 1: See anybody reading from a tone of magic or a scroll?
Speaker 3: Not that I recall, and certainly not to learn a spell.
Speaker 3: I mean there is a library full of scrolls at
Speaker 3: the beginning.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it can be disappointing if the
Speaker 1: prop department can't really meet your needs on that. I
Speaker 1: mentioned the Color of Magic earlier in the in the picture,
Speaker 1: which has a great cast, and of course I love
Speaker 1: the work of Terry Pratchett. But as memory serves, there's
Speaker 1: a magical book that shows up in that picture that
Speaker 1: they just didn't make it look believable enough for me
Speaker 1: to be like a tome of ancient magic, Like it
Speaker 1: looks like they were really rushed creating it. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a gamble there. You got. The props department
Speaker 1: has to be able to meet you on any of
Speaker 1: these requests. For sure.
Speaker 3: It's just a paperback of how to win friends and
Speaker 3: influence people. Yeah. Oh, but we also alluded to this.
Speaker 3: There's some kind of code. There's some kind of happy
Speaker 3: coda where they go to Snails's grave and then they
Speaker 3: like put the ruby on it and it lights up,
Speaker 3: and then it's like, oh, Snails is still alive if
Speaker 3: we go somewhere else and then they turn into they
Speaker 3: turn into magic and fly away.
Speaker 1: I mean it is true in Dungeons and Dragons, there's
Speaker 1: always a way to bring a character back. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a multiverse. There are all sorts of resurrection spells.
Speaker 1: There's no reason that a fun character needs to stay
Speaker 1: dead forever. So Snails will return, but actually he won't.
Speaker 1: But Snails could return. You could all go home and
Speaker 1: roll up a Snails and tell your dungeon master, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm changing characters. Snails from two thousands Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: is now Injuring. Our campaign.
Speaker 3: Our party is Snails profion. And I was gonna say
Speaker 3: l would, but like, what's the funny twist on it?
Speaker 3: Like what if Elwood became a vegetarian and he was
Speaker 3: always just getting Satan in his beard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Satan and beats. Yeah, these are good choices
Speaker 1: to have. You know, you need choices like this for
Speaker 1: your your character. It gives you some stick to fall
Speaker 1: back on during all the small moments of a campaign.
Speaker 3: All right, Is that all we've got on Dungeons and
Speaker 3: Dragons two thousand for now?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much more we could say. Every
Speaker 1: scene with Jeremy Irons is like a masterclass in overacting
Speaker 1: and hamming it up. There are so many weird choices,
Speaker 1: digital effects that don't really come together, and yet at
Speaker 1: the same time some admirable practical effects, some admirable sets,
Speaker 1: and certainly some really cool interior locations. I would say
Speaker 1: this is not a movie for everyone. I'm not encouraging
Speaker 1: everyone to go out and watch this movie in its entirety,
Speaker 1: but everyone must see the first fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: The Emperor has decreed. All right.
Speaker 1: So that is two thousands Dungeons and Dragons. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it. I think it was a solid choice
Speaker 1: for our two hundred film selection here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: So now we just have to chug on and eventually
Speaker 1: start thinking about the three hundredth film.
Speaker 3: We will not do the movie three hundred.
Speaker 1: We will not do three hundred. It's true, all right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna gohea and close this episode out, but
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. We know
Speaker 1: that there are multiple listeners who are Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts,
Speaker 1: and you may have additional insight on what's happening and
Speaker 1: what's not happening in this film. Likewise, if you have
Speaker 1: thoughts on anything we've referenced in passing different Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons locations, Dungeons and Dragons novels, what are your favorites?
Speaker 1: Because I really haven't geez, I don't know that I've
Speaker 1: ever read one myself. I'm familiar with them, but I
Speaker 1: never picked one up. So if I were to pick
Speaker 1: one up, which one would it be? These questions and
Speaker 1: more write in with your answers. Just a reminder that
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and
Speaker 1: culture podcast, with core episodes in the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed on Thursdays and Tuesdays, and then
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays we do a short form episode, but on
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film here on weird House Cinema. If
Speaker 1: you want to see a list of all the films
Speaker 1: we've covered over the years, go to letterboxed dot com.
Speaker 1: You'll find us there. Our user name is weird House
Speaker 1: and we have a nice list of everything. We've covered
Speaker 1: all two hundred film selections, and we're going to start
Speaker 1: looking ahead at the future. Sometimes you can peek ahead
Speaker 1: and see what's coming up the following week.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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