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

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This

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Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick and Rob.

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Speaker 1: I am so excited for the movie you picked today

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Speaker 1: because it is our very first Weird House Cinema leather

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Speaker 1: diaper barbarian movie. Uh that I can't believe it's taken

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Speaker 1: us this long to do one, because the LDBM is

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Speaker 1: a almost perfect subgenre, well suited to two. I think

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Speaker 1: our sort of knowledge bases and and tastes and and

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite things about the leather diaper movies

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Speaker 1: of the eighties is yes, they you know, they have

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Speaker 1: a basis in the sort of Conan thing. You'll have

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Speaker 1: a strong guy with muscles wearing a loincloth. He carries

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Speaker 1: a sword or an axe, or maybe he just wrestles

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Speaker 1: or something. But what I love about the movies like

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Speaker 1: this from the eighties is that they so will often

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Speaker 1: start mixing genres in a in a bizarre, haphazard, almost

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Speaker 1: blindfolded way. So the pinnacle of this, I think I've

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Speaker 1: mentioned on the show before is a movie called Your

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Speaker 1: Hunter from the Future, in which a Conan type guy

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Speaker 1: muscle dude in leather diaper uh does battle at the

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Speaker 1: end of the movie with Darth Vader. But this one

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Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about today is in fact

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Speaker 1: a Hercules movie where Hercules fights robots. Yes, this is

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Speaker 1: um okay, so it's definitely a sword in Sandals muscleman movie.

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Speaker 1: But it is also very spacey in a way that

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Speaker 1: that doesn't quite uh, it doesn't go so far as

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Speaker 1: to say this is science fiction Hercules. Um it. It's

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Speaker 1: still grounded in some sort of mythic sensibilities and in

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Speaker 1: an idea that we're we're in antiquity, but everything is

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Speaker 1: also just totally Oh I was thinking of it. It's like,

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Speaker 1: what if Hercules in stories of Hercules were just totally

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Speaker 1: Italian space disco, but without the Italian space disco music,

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Speaker 1: but just that sense of like glittering, sparkling cosmos and

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Speaker 1: sweat and uh yeah it's in sexuality and and so forth.

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Speaker 1: That's that's what this movie feels like. It also has

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Speaker 1: that Italian disco sci fi sense of it's a movie

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Speaker 1: where they don't even try to hide the strings and

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Speaker 1: the special effects shots, so you'll see, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's the jar from which all creation emerges when it

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Speaker 1: explodes in space. And so they have a special effects

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Speaker 1: shot where there's a jar floating in the starfield and

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Speaker 1: then it blows up, but then you see pieces of

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Speaker 1: it are just dangling from strings and they leave it

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Speaker 1: in the shot, and yeah, I high five for that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The the effects in this film are ambitious but often imperfect,

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Speaker 1: but in a way that has a real charm to it.

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Speaker 1: You know. Um, I won't say that many of the

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Speaker 1: effects in this movie look great, but I did enjoy them. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they're very enjoyable there, and they're often different from like

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Speaker 1: you go into a film like this and you expect, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, special effects that don't quite knock it out

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Speaker 1: of the park. But but this one, it goes in

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Speaker 1: some directions you don't really expect. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: sort of transparencies and a lot of things sparkling and

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Speaker 1: sort of exploding with electronic synth that you you're not

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Speaker 1: expecting to explode like that. It's uh, it's a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun. Oh but there's another thing we haven't even

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Speaker 1: mentioned yet. So so this is Hercules three, starring lou

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Speaker 1: Ferrigno as Hercules. Uh, you might know from from playing

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Speaker 1: the Hulk on the old TV show, though I never

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Speaker 1: saw him in that. I think I know him mainly

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Speaker 1: from the movie Pumping Iron, which is a documentary in

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Speaker 1: which he just plays himself at a like the you know,

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Speaker 1: the weightlifting competitions, and in that he's sort of the

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Speaker 1: underdog character and he's squaring off against Darnald Schwarzenegger and

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Speaker 1: they're both pumping and explaining why they pump better. And uh.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, so this is Hercules starting loufer Rigno. But

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Speaker 1: this is also a Canon Films picture. This is a

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Speaker 1: Golden Globus movie. Uh. And so whenever you see the

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Speaker 1: Cannon Films logos, certain things that suggests something about the

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Speaker 1: flavors that are going to follow. You know. Canon Films

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Speaker 1: is famous for in this period in the eighties, making

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Speaker 1: movie after movie that are in the genre that I

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Speaker 1: would call poster. First, you have a poster before you

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Speaker 1: have a script. And the poster is almost always a

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Speaker 1: guy with a machine gun and then some other things

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Speaker 1: in the background, right right, Yeah, there's often a very

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Speaker 1: very macho feel, a very just just all things eighties. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Wound up in again a Cannon film, and I can't

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Speaker 1: remember if we've actually covered a cannon film on here before. Um,

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Speaker 1: but I'm sure if this is the first, it won't

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Speaker 1: be the last. Oh surely not. Oh but okay, so, yes,

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Speaker 1: hercules three cannon films. It is at its heart, Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is a muscle guy movie, absolutely a shining jewel

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Speaker 1: and the long cinematic tradition of muscle man movies. The

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Speaker 1: basic principle of these films is, of course, you usually

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Speaker 1: have just a a bare chested muscleman hero who must

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Speaker 1: battle evil and save the day, generally with just his

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Speaker 1: brute strength. Um. The flavor is generally mythic, you know,

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Speaker 1: sword and sandal, comic book stuff. Uh. You know, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it goes in more of a sci fi direction. For example,

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Speaker 1: uh movies we have covered on Weirdolt Cinema, Hands of

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Speaker 1: Steel and Arena. Those are both, to a certain extent

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Speaker 1: muscle man movies we both have, especially Hands of Steel.

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Speaker 1: But but for the most part we're dealing with stuff

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Speaker 1: that's more more sword and sandals, sort of strongman uh shenanigans.

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Speaker 1: You cast a bodybuilder and then you just watch the

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Speaker 1: movie come to life around that. Zeke right, Um, I

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Speaker 1: do agree that that is the heart of it is

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Speaker 1: like a character who must use their brute string in

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Speaker 1: order to defeat the villain. So they're swinging a sword,

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Speaker 1: or they're wrestling, or they're wielding a hammer. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's the barbarian type, the Hercules type. But there was

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Speaker 1: a strange phenomenon in the eighties. I'm sure you'll know

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Speaker 1: immediately what I'm talking about, where the Muscleman movie and

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Speaker 1: the guy with the machine gun on the poster movie

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Speaker 1: sort of merged. A great example of this is Commando

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Speaker 1: starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, where the premise of the movie is

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Speaker 1: that the hero is a man who shoots guns at

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Speaker 1: the bad guys, but they also just get a bodybuilder

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Speaker 1: to play him. So the main characteristic of the hero

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Speaker 1: is that he is, you know, eight hundred pounds of

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Speaker 1: stiff beef, but he also just like you know, uses guns.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And it's important to to note the sort

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Speaker 1: of bodybuilder turned actor thing, the the sort of non

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Speaker 1: actor that's brought into play the character in these roles. Um.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it is really vital to the whole

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Speaker 1: recipe for success here. Like you you don't want uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, too much of a as being in there,

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Speaker 1: no matter how muscular they are. You know. That's why

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Speaker 1: I just I could only be so interested in the

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Speaker 1: idea of the Rock playing Hercules, and the more recent

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Speaker 1: Hercules movie, The Rock is great. Dwayne Johnson is a

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Speaker 1: is a really really solid action star, and he's huge.

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Speaker 1: He's huger now than ever before physically. But I feel

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Speaker 1: like he's too good of an actor to play Hercules.

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Speaker 1: You know that that's kind of yeah, that's a good point. Um.

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Speaker 1: I think you could make a case that Arnold Schwarzenegger also, though,

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Speaker 1: has a lot of natural screen charisma. But one thing

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Speaker 1: about this movie, uh, that I like is that so

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Speaker 1: you got lufer Igno as Hercules, and he I don't

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Speaker 1: want to be mean, but he's not good. He's not

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Speaker 1: acting really in this and but he works in the

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Speaker 1: role because I think somehow, the worst the actor is like,

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Speaker 1: the less screen charisma they have, the easier it is

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Speaker 1: for them to come off like an underdog, even though

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Speaker 1: they are eight hundred pounds of hard beef. So this guy,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's just a wall of muscle, and he

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Speaker 1: might look kind of like a bully beating up on

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Speaker 1: the bad guys, except that he's kind of awkward and

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Speaker 1: and doesn't say his lines in a very natural way,

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Speaker 1: and that gets you on his side somehow. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: don't want him to be too confident or you know,

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Speaker 1: to have that confidence actually shine through in the performance.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, a lot of these don't mention a few examples. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot of these movies come about with a non

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Speaker 1: actor muscle man. It's you know, pulled out of generally

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Speaker 1: out of the bodybuilding world, and and is you know,

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Speaker 1: they strapped the rockets to him, and sometimes they assent

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Speaker 1: like Arnold as an example of that. Arnold, I guess

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Speaker 1: arguably gets better at acting as his career uh proceeds.

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Speaker 1: But I was looking back at Michael Weldon's um in

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Speaker 1: the Psycontronic video and film Guides his right up for

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Speaker 1: the original Conan movie, and he referred he he kind

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Speaker 1: of pans it. He's kind of like, it's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's another Dino film. It's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's all excess. It's um, it's non actor Arnold Schwarzenegger

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Speaker 1: punching a camel. And that's the only memorable moment in

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Speaker 1: the film. I mean, it is hard to forget the

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Speaker 1: camels yeah, I mean, ultimately, ultimately I disagree with with

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Speaker 1: with Welton in this, but he was looking at it

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Speaker 1: like more or less around the time of the release too.

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Speaker 1: But but another great thing about Hercules is that it

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Speaker 1: doesn't require the hero to do much acting. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Hercules doesn't really need to say a lot in this movie.

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Speaker 1: Many of the scenes are him sort of being led

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Speaker 1: around by other characters and and instructed to do things,

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Speaker 1: and then he does them right, you know, usually brute

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Speaker 1: strength pretending to pick up a giant syrophone boulder, but

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Speaker 1: doing so in a way that really like shows off

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Speaker 1: the muscles and uh. And of course as a director

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Speaker 1: you have to make sure all those muscles are are

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Speaker 1: are lit and and oiled appropriately, so there's a real

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Speaker 1: art to it. What was the lotion budget for this movie? Yeah? Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you're interested in a deeper dive into the history

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Speaker 1: of muscle than I have to recommend a book I

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Speaker 1: was looking at. I didn't get a chance to to

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Speaker 1: to pick it up and read it and do a

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Speaker 1: deeper dive. But it's titled Descended from Hercules, Biopolitics and

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Speaker 1: the Muscled Male Body on Screen by film scholar Robert

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Speaker 1: a Rushing, Um, this looks like a really interesting read

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Speaker 1: because I think it it looks like it gets into

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Speaker 1: a lot of the questions, not only the history of

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Speaker 1: these movies, but also what does it mean when you

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Speaker 1: take a body like this and you you you you

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Speaker 1: put it on the big screen and you make it

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Speaker 1: be like the center of like truth and justice and

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Speaker 1: you know, all admirable qualities in hypertrophy. Very tas Yeah, alright,

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Speaker 1: So the muscleman movie eventually grows to include such films

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Speaker 1: as Conan the Barbarian Beast Master. H three hundred would

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Speaker 1: be a more recent muscleman movie. It's not centered so

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Speaker 1: much around one muscle man, but like all muscleman I guess, uh,

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Speaker 1: and you might well guess that. Well, I guess all

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Speaker 1: of this began with the mythic Hercules, right, I mean

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Speaker 1: he's been a popular figure, uh you know since antiquity.

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Speaker 1: I mean he was he was you know, a Roman sensation.

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Speaker 1: He's the equivalent of the Greek Heracles. But the interesting thing, um,

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Speaker 1: and this is something that the Rushing points out in

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Speaker 1: his book, of course, is that muscleman movies begin actually

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Speaker 1: with another figure, one that I'd never heard of. Until

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Speaker 1: I started reading Michael Weldon's psychatronic film Guides, and that's

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Speaker 1: um uh Machista this, um this, This is the original

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Speaker 1: Italian cinema muscle man. So a lot of the movies

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Speaker 1: that I've always thought of as Hercules movies were actually

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Speaker 1: uh Maschist or mashi ste movies that were like retitled

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Speaker 1: for American audiences with with Hercules or they give him

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Speaker 1: some other muscleman name like Sampson or something. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but Motista was the original. And apparently this just means

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like machiese mo, you know, so it

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Speaker 1: basically means the macho man. The film that apparently kicked

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Speaker 1: all of this off was nineteen fourteens Uh Ken Area.

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Speaker 1: This was directed by Giovanni Pastrone. This is an epic

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Speaker 1: set during the Second Punic War, based loosely on Gustav

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Speaker 1: Laberts eighteen sixty two novel Uh Salambo, which I've never read.

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Speaker 1: I have a beautiful paperback copy of it on myself

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Speaker 1: that I've never actually read it. Oh interesting, some nineteen fourteen.

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Speaker 1: This goes way back. This goes way back. This is like,

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Speaker 1: this is legitimately one of the oldest and most popular

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Speaker 1: figures hero figures in cinematic history. So this wouldn't make

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Speaker 1: sense though, that muscle man movies would go back to

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Speaker 1: silent film times or even this far back. But you know,

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Speaker 1: back to a time when I mean in the early

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Speaker 1: days of film. A lot of what they were putting

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Speaker 1: on film was not like dialogue driven narratives, but it

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Speaker 1: was something that they thought would be interesting to look at. Yeah. Yeah, Now,

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Speaker 1: this first film, though, um Caberria, was apparently a huge

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Speaker 1: hit and was also highly stylish. You look at you

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Speaker 1: can look up skills with this or even footage of it,

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Speaker 1: I believe where you see like these epics sets. It

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Speaker 1: was a true sword and sandals epic that influenced a

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Speaker 1: number of different filmmakers of the silent era. It's regarded

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Speaker 1: as a Silent era classic. But it also had this

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Speaker 1: character who I don't even think it's like the central character,

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Speaker 1: but he's the He's the huge muscular slave to the

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Speaker 1: Roman spy of Fulvious who is on a spying mission

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Speaker 1: to Carthage. I believe in this film, and uh, and

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Speaker 1: people really connected with this here, like who is this

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Speaker 1: big muscular guy. He's the breakout character. He's the Boba

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Speaker 1: fette of this movie. It's like I want, I want

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Speaker 1: to know more about Mashi Stay. I want the muscle guy,

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Speaker 1: so Maschi Stay in. This was played by um um

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Speaker 1: Barto Lomeo Pagano who lived eighteen seventy eight through ninety seven.

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Speaker 1: Um he was a stevedore who was like discovered, Like

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Speaker 1: they see him and they're like that guy that is

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Speaker 1: our our machis day. Uh. They hauled him in and

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Speaker 1: they cast him in the role, and he goes on

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Speaker 1: to play Machies Stay almost exclusively for the rest of

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Speaker 1: his career. All told, we're talking thirty films in which

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Speaker 1: he plays ms she Stay out of a thirty two

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Speaker 1: film filmography over the course of fourteen years, I believe. So. Also,

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Speaker 1: when this guy hits it big, no previous acting experience, right,

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Speaker 1: no previous acting experience, and and he just started like

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Speaker 1: he stuck with what works here, I'm seeing a trend

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Speaker 1: of like nearly a century now. Yeah. So uh, Pagano

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Speaker 1: becomes get those muscles in front of the camera. So

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Speaker 1: Pagano he becomes an international film starck. These ma She

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Speaker 1: Stay films are a big hit, though they're often retitled

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Speaker 1: in foreign markets. So the character becomes known, at least

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Speaker 1: for subsequent films as Hercules or Samson, you know, the

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Speaker 1: the biblical character or the other Biblical character that you

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Speaker 1: might think of when you think of intense physical strength Goliath.

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Speaker 1: That's a strange choice because wasn't Goliath the villain of

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Speaker 1: the story in the Bible that he was the philistine

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Speaker 1: and soldier who David had to defeat. Even though David

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Speaker 1: was smaller, he beat him by using his wits by like,

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Speaker 1: I mean weakness. It's only one of the you know,

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Speaker 1: the most famous um like Old Testament stories, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's always makes for a great great illustrations and works

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Speaker 1: of art, cinematic treatments. George Eastman played Goliath and one

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Speaker 1: adaptation we might remember huh, but so but it didn't matter, like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, Goliath, he's our hero now, yeah, yeah. I

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Speaker 1: mean when a character is that muscular, I guess, and

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Speaker 1: that's strong, how can he be anything other than the

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Speaker 1: hero of a picture. By the way, this also reminds

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Speaker 1: me of how in so many of the Al Santo

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Speaker 1: movies were were relabeled as Samson for foreign markets. So

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Speaker 1: just I don't know a strong name, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if they just won't want to get people in there. Now,

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Speaker 1: the character machis Day would live on long after Pagano retired,

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Speaker 1: appearing throughout the sixties and even the seventies. I think

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Speaker 1: he shows up in some Jeff Franco movies. But Machistay

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Speaker 1: w basically just going to fight various villains and monsters.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't need to be part of a more epic plot.

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Speaker 1: He's just here to do good and fight evil. He

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Speaker 1: travels to the underworld. Like I think, there's basically a

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Speaker 1: much he Stay Inferno movie. I don't know how much

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Speaker 1: um of of Dante's original text is actually involved there

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Speaker 1: and in that, but but he he apparently goes to

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Speaker 1: the inferno. But he's often played in subsequent films by

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Speaker 1: bodybuilders turned actors. Now as far as the muscleman movie

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Speaker 1: Timeline goes. I could be wrong about this, but I

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Speaker 1: remember having an impression that these got huge in Italy

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Speaker 1: and then subsequently around the world and like the sixties.

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Speaker 1: Am I right about that? Yes, And that's where we

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Speaker 1: actually see the first Hercules movies where it's not just

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Speaker 1: a retitle at Hercules, but let's make a movie about Hercules.

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Speaker 1: Um So you have you have an actor who had

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Speaker 1: also played Muchi's stay, Mark Forrest take on the role

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixties Revenge of Hercules, and this was an

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Speaker 1: Italian film. And after that, more and more herk movies

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Speaker 1: get made, including oh, this one is attractive given all

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Speaker 1: that we've talked about. Nineteen sixty four's Hercules, sampson Um

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Speaker 1: Machista and Ursus the Invincibles. So you get like four

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Speaker 1: different strong men all teaming up to battle evil. And

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Speaker 1: that one and this was sixty four. It is the

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Speaker 1: Expendables of nineteen sixty four. Yeah, And of course from

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Speaker 1: then on we have various actors up, generally like very

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Speaker 1: very often bodybuilders turned actors playing the role Alan Steele,

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Speaker 1: Steve Reeves already mentioned, Mark Forrest, uh and various others.

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Speaker 1: You know, Brian Thompson would go on that would would

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Speaker 1: plaim at least once. This is of course, the big

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Speaker 1: muscular dude who was one of the Punks and Terminator

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Speaker 1: and also played Shao Khan in the second Mortal Kombat movie.

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Speaker 1: Um oh, that one was good. You get you get

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Speaker 1: Kevin Sorbo of course playing him on screen. You get

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Speaker 1: the rock taking a shot at it, and also it

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Speaker 1: should be should be noted Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh yeah, so

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Speaker 1: this was an interesting coincidence we were pointing out. So

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Speaker 1: in this movie, Hercules is played by Luferigno, and I'm

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Speaker 1: right in saying this is his first movie. This was

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Speaker 1: Luferrigno's first feature film, I believe. So, yes he had

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Speaker 1: of course, he had done Hulk already, so he'd done

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Speaker 1: Hulk in various TV appearances. But this was this was

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Speaker 1: the rocket that was going to propel Luferignou into the

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Speaker 1: cinematic stratosphere. And also Arnold Schwarzenegger's first screen role was

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Speaker 1: playing Hercules in the nineteen seventy movie called Hercules in

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Speaker 1: New York, which I have seen but I remember almost

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Speaker 1: nothing about except that it was almost unwatchable boring. Did

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Speaker 1: have Robert England in it? Am I remembering that? Correct? That?

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Speaker 1: If so, I've forgotten about that. I watched this in

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Speaker 1: college and I remember it being like hard to hear

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Speaker 1: what anybody was saying in it. But yeah, but oh,

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Speaker 1: but the premises, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a muscle guy and

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Speaker 1: he's Hercules, and the gods send him down to New

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Speaker 1: York for some reason. So he's just running around in

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Speaker 1: modern New York at the Fish out of Water, Fish

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Speaker 1: out of Time, Shenanigan's inside. I'm sure. Yeah, all right, Well,

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Speaker 1: shall we go ahead and hear the trailer for Hercules.

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Speaker 1: From the depths of Space comes the Strongest Man on

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Speaker 1: Earth in the super adventure Odyssey, Hercules. The Incredible Loon

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Speaker 1: for Rigno is Hercules in the battle with unearthly teachers. Hercules,

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Speaker 1: the superhuman human with the strength of an army, Hercules

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Speaker 1: facing love and the bewitching forces of evil. The Incredible

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Speaker 1: Moon for Rigno is Hercules. Go Lion Globus production from

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Speaker 1: the Kinnon Group. This is a pretty good trailer. I

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Speaker 1: have to admit, I don't think I actually watched it,

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Speaker 1: so I don't know what you just heard. We'll take

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Speaker 1: my word for this one. This one is Zeus approved. Well,

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Speaker 1: if it's the Zeus in this movie, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if it's going to be that hard to get approved.

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Speaker 1: Because this is a kind of a kind of groovy,

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Speaker 1: hands off Zeus who who may be about to take

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Speaker 1: a nap? Yeah, yeah, this is a this is a

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Speaker 1: snoozer of a Zeus. All right, let's start at the

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Speaker 1: top with this one. Uh. The writer director on this

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Speaker 1: one is Luigi Cotzi, writer and director still making films today,

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Speaker 1: Italian director, probably best known for this film and also

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Speaker 1: it's sequel, as well as his frequent work with Dario Argento.

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Speaker 1: I did not know this movie had a sequel. Is

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Speaker 1: lufer Igno also in it? Yes? And I was reading

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Speaker 1: like mixed counts on whether he was like sort of

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Speaker 1: tricked into doing a sequel, Like they were filming stuff

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Speaker 1: for another film and they're like, let's make it a

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Speaker 1: sequel sequel. I'm not sure. I can imagine them just

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Speaker 1: repurposing his shots from this movie and and making a

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Speaker 1: sequel around them, because a lot of the scenes with

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Speaker 1: Louferigno in this movie primarily feature Luferigno doing reaction shots

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Speaker 1: rather than talking. Uh so you so it's another character

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Speaker 1: talking and then him just making a blank face into

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Speaker 1: the camera. Yeah. So I'm saying you could use that

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Speaker 1: with pretty much anything. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. He looks at something,

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Speaker 1: he reacts, he runs down a tunnel, and then he

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Speaker 1: lifts something. Um now, uh, let's talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about Cozy here. His first film was the nineteen

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Speaker 1: six nine low budget adaptation of Frederick Paul's novella The

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Speaker 1: Tunnel Under the World, which apparently got Dario Argento's attention,

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Speaker 1: and he subsequently worked with our Gento on Four Flies

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Speaker 1: on Gray Velvet, earning a story credit. He also has

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Speaker 1: a story credit on Argentos three action comedy The Five Days.

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Speaker 1: He goes on to direct his own Jalo film with

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Speaker 1: ninety five The Killer Must Kill Again. But then from

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Speaker 1: there he really goes on to cement his place in

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Speaker 1: cinematic history, writing and directing such epic Italian B movies

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Speaker 1: as of course this, uh, but also nineteen seventy nine

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Speaker 1: Star Crash in nineteen eighties contamination. Oh, I did not

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Speaker 1: make the connection to Star Crash, but that makes so

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Speaker 1: much sense. This movie has extremely powerful Star Crash flavor,

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Speaker 1: just waves of Star Crash aroma wafting off of it.

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Speaker 1: Even in the scenes where they talk about raise, I

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Speaker 1: was repeatedly reminded of Star Crash. Uh. You know, there

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Speaker 1: were at least like five dialogue moments that were that

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Speaker 1: were akin to uh, you know, nothing can stop these

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Speaker 1: deadly rays. These deadly rays will be your death. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of shared DNA between this film and

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Speaker 1: Star crash Um Now Coacy also worked in various other

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Speaker 1: roles on other Argento projects, so you just seems to

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Speaker 1: be a frequent collaborator and helper uh to Argento. But

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Speaker 1: he was also second assistant director on the notorious klas

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Speaker 1: Kinski Nosferatu sequel. So this is the sort of unofficial

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Speaker 1: sequel to Werner Herzog's nos Ferrato movie titled Vampire in Venice.

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Speaker 1: This is the one where basically Kinski reportedly like showed up.

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Speaker 1: He was supposed to have had his head shaved to

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Speaker 1: play Nosferrato, and he says basically no, I'm not shaving

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Speaker 1: my head. And also I am directing this film now.

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Speaker 1: So I've never seen it, but it has something of

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Speaker 1: a reputation. Well, I bet that would have in a

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Speaker 1: roma all of its own, a somewhat different one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all right. The star of this film is, of course,

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Speaker 1: as we've mentioned, louver Rick no born nineteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: former professional bodybuilder um uh and pumping iron contemporary of

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Speaker 1: Arnold Schwartzenanger seen here at what feels like just peak

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Speaker 1: condition and just peak mass. He is voluminous in this movie.

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Speaker 1: He is just he is just an absolute Skyscraper of meat. Yes,

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00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: uh yeah there, And like I said, they do a

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Speaker 1: lot of showing off of his physique and and you know,

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Speaker 1: you hear jokes about people skipping leg day. For Regno

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Speaker 1: did not skip leg day. He has just legs, like

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Speaker 1: just muscular tree trunks. I feel like this movie has

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Speaker 1: a lot of scenes of like close ups of those

421
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 1: uh you know in the I guess somebody's got big

422
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: muscles and low body fat in their veins are just

423
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: poking out through the skin and while they're flexing. There's

424
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: a lot of that. Absolutely now Ferregno again is probably

425
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: best known to many as the original green skinned Hulk

426
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 1: from TV is The Incredible Hulk, which began as a

427
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:44,400
Speaker 1: two hour pilot in nineteen seventy seven and ran five

428
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 1: seasons eighty episodes until two and was then followed by

429
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: three TV films, one of which featured Thor and another

430
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: one had the character Kingpin and it played by John

431
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: Reis Davies. Um Anyway, for Farigno played the Hulk in

432
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: all all of those as well. He ultimately didn't achieve

433
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,920
Speaker 1: the same level of fame as Arnold, but he still

434
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: played hercules in this film and its sequel, and he

435
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: also played Sinbad in Zog Castellari Sinbad of the Seven Seats.

436
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: So uh, there we get we get a double dipping

437
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: of the mythic there. Oh wow, I've never seen that one,

438
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: And that's funny because I have a deep appreciation for

439
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,959
Speaker 1: the for the in many ways quite bad but in

440
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: other ways wonderful. Uh Ray, Harry Housing sindbad movies which

441
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 1: have had great stop motion monsters in them. I did

442
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: not know that Frigno was in any later Sinbad adaptations.

443
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: Definitely a later Sinbad, not the not the classic Harry Housing.

444
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: I can only imagine this seems like it would probably

445
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: be bad. Now, every every hero needs a villain, and

446
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: so we have one in this film. And if you're

447
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 1: going to choose a villain out of the catalog of

448
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: of Greek mythology, I feel like this is a good choice.

449
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: They'd decided to go with King Minos. Oh yes, and

450
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: he makes it a wonderful villain in this movie, though

451
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 1: mostly what he does is apparently stand around on the

452
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: moon talking about which robots will next be sent to

453
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: kill Hercules, yes, and explaining the plot a little, explaining

454
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:21,199
Speaker 1: his plans, and sometimes just just asking that the the

455
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: evil robots that are gonna be sent down be made

456
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: bigger just so he can look at them. Yeah, can

457
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: you make it a little bit bigger. He's more of

458
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: a he's a bit more of a project manager in

459
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: many ways. But anyway, fun villain played by the actor

460
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: William Burger, who lived Austrian American actor who pops up

461
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: in a lot of spaghetti westerns uh and just plays

462
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: a lot of villains in general in eurocinema. Um. He

463
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: he appears in the films of such directors as Jess

464
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: Franco and Zogi Castellari, Mario Bava, Lomberto Bava and and

465
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: also ron O'Neil. Uh So he's yeah great in this

466
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: As the evil King Minos, he has one of these

467
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: um uh you know, mustache lest beards that looks particularly

468
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: evil on his face. For some reason, it could in

469
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 1: another context look rather Mennonite, but no, in his context

470
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: it does look like a beard of of ill intent. Yes,

471
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: all right. And then playing the daughter of King Minos,

472
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: we have the we have the character Adriana played by

473
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: Sybil Danning, who is another Austrian American actor of note.

474
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: Born nineteen fifty two. She was an actor and model,

475
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: best known for a whole string of B movies in

476
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties. Some of her probably most famous

477
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: roles include Roger and Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars

478
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 1: from eighty. She's also in Howling to Your Sister Is

479
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: a Werewolf from five. But but she she appears like

480
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: randomly and just films you wouldn't expect her to, Like

481
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: she's pops up in the Musketeer films from the seventies,

482
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: the ones that you know had like Michael Yorke and

483
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: Oliver Read and Christopher Lee and them. So she's a

484
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: villain in this Mostly she she sort of walks around,

485
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: scheming and whispering in people's ears to get them to

486
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: do bad things. I read I don't know if this

487
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 1: is true. I read that in an earlier version of

488
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: the script she was maybe going to be hercules love interest,

489
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: but like that she and lou Ferrigno did not get

490
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: along and the script was rewritten so that she was

491
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: a villain. Did you read that? I didn't read that.

492
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 1: I had read that an early version of the script

493
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: was was more provocative, and that Luferigno especially it was like, Nope,

494
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: I'm not filming this. It needs to be cleaner, and

495
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: so they made what is it essentially a G rated film.

496
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: Like one of the reasons I ended up putting this

497
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: on was that it was you know, it was a

498
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: long weekend. There was you know, some some snowy weather,

499
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: and I was like, I need something that I can

500
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: play with the family moving around the house. And this

501
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: looks like a good selection. Yeah, I mean, I think

502
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: it was a rated PG. It's in some areas I

503
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: think they're pushed in it. Well, in some areas they're

504
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: really pushing these outfits. Uh, these outfits are pushed to

505
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: the limits by the various male and female actors wearing them. Yes,

506
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: Like at one point it seems like that they went

507
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: out of their way to put like when Luferrigno is

508
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: first birth out of the Cosmos and they show him

509
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: floating in space in his ideal form, it looks like

510
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: they went out of their way to match the color

511
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: of his speedo to his skin tone so that it

512
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: was exactly the same. Yeah. I have to say another

513
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: thing about Lufigno in this is that he pretty much

514
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: has the physique of one of the old masters of

515
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: the universe. He Man Toys. So I remember catching parts

516
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: of this on like TBS or t n T back

517
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and this just felt natural

518
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: because I'm like, well, yes, that that is that there

519
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: it is. That is the body of a he Man

520
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: action figure. I have a whole bunch of these in

521
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: a in a box, so it makes sense that this

522
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: is our hero. But wait, I have a I have

523
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: a note about Sybil Danning's character. Okay, so this character's

524
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 1: name is all over the place. When when I watched

525
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: the movie, I watched on HBO Max, And so the

526
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: character that Sybil Danning is playing, and this corresponds to

527
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:22,479
Speaker 1: the actual mythology, is Ariadne or Ariadna. That's usually spelled

528
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: A R I A D n E. Then in the movie,

529
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: it seemed like the characters were saying her name out

530
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: loud as Arianna, like it would be A R I

531
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: n A. And then in the in the subtitles and

532
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 1: some text for promoting the movie, her name is Adrianna

533
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: or a D R I A n A. So there's

534
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: like three different versions of what her name is, and

535
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: the movie itself doesn't seem to agree. I don't know,

536
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: maybe that's nitpicking. But well, not not the first or

537
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: last time we've encountered, um, you know, pronunciations being all

538
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: over the place for a character. Well, and spellings. But

539
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: never mind. All right, let's move on to some of

540
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: the supporting characters here. UM. We have, of course, the

541
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: the god Zeus, pops up frequently in this played in

542
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: this film by Claudio Casanelli, who lived five You might

543
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: remember him from our discussion of the post apocalyptic film

544
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,239
Speaker 1: Hands of Steel. He is the actor who played one

545
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: of the villains in that film that died in a

546
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: tragic helicopter crash during the filming of Hands of Steel.

547
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: Now he was a frequent UM. He was frequently popped

548
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: up in in various Italian films, often playing Uh. I

549
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: think kind of kind of villains here and there. Um. Now,

550
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: when you cast it an actor as Zeus, I mean,

551
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: that's a that's a big acting ask. I mean, to

552
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: my mind, I instantly think of of Laurence Olivier playing

553
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: Zeus in the Clash of the Titans, which came out

554
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: a few years before this, and I think definitely UM

555
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: influenced uh this film in some ways that will discuss.

556
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: I think of Liam Neeson's playing Zeus in the remakes

557
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: of the Clash of the Titans films. You know, so

558
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: there's a there's a grandiose presence that needs to be

559
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: there to be Zeus, and you think about like who's

560
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,959
Speaker 1: who's is in the mythst like he's a powerful and

561
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: dangerous figure, Like you don't want to get on the

562
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: bad side of Zeus. Uh. The Zeus in this film

563
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: is a different experience, Yes, yes, totally. You want that

564
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: combination of like authoritative and irresponsible, somebody who is simultaneously

565
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: like when he talks, everybody turns and listens and people

566
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: are afraid of him, but also he's unpredictable, undependable and dangerous.

567
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 1: Right in this he's more a little sleepy. Yeah. Well,

568
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: but also the actor who plays him. Once I noticed this,

569
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: I couldn't unsee it, and he just looked like him

570
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: in every single shot. He looks like Jon Stewart of

571
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: The Daily Show. He looks like Jon Stewart in a

572
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: Santa Claus wig and beard. Yes, and he I didn't,

573
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: I did. I didn't put this together to you, you interning.

574
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: You sent me this picture and I'm like, oh my god,

575
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: he does and he looks like he's doing that sort

576
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: of John Stewart um sort of shock confusion face that

577
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: he often pulls in bits, so totally looks like a

578
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: John Stewart bit. It looks like it's like John Stewart

579
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: playing a satirical take on Zeus. So will be fuddled Zeus. Right, Um,

580
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: let's see who else do we have in this we

581
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: have we have King a Gs played by Brad Harris.

582
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: Harris live thirty three through two thousand seventeen, American bodybuilder

583
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 1: turned actor uh turned European acting mainstay, and he played

584
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: a lot of strong men in his career, including Goliath

585
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: and Samson. So this few kind of feels like like

586
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: like a wink to the muscle man um cinema fans

587
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: of the day. M Uh. Then we have um an

588
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: Israeli actor by the name of Jehuda Ifrani who plays

589
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: the character dor Con, who is I believe the uh,

590
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,719
Speaker 1: the advisor to the to to this King. He's an

591
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: Israeli actor again who player appeared in nine Phantom of

592
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: the Opera starring Robert England. This is the Robert the

593
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: Nightmare on the Elm Street inspired Fantom of the Opera film. Uh.

594
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,319
Speaker 1: He pops up in the Delta Force American Ninja three. Uh.

595
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: And in the film The Omega Code. Oh, The Omega Code.

596
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,919
Speaker 1: That's a Christian apocalypse movie, one of my favorite genres. Yeah.

597
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 1: Starting with Michael Yorke, I think was a villain in that,

598
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: right he was. He plays the Antichrist. And it also

599
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: has Michael Ironside as a hinchman of the Antichrist and

600
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: Casper van Deen as like a self help author who

601
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: in the end he gets converted and becomes a good guy. Uh.

602
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: Let's see who else is in it? I think those

603
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: are all the main Oh, Katherine Oxenberg is in it.

604
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: She was in like Lair of the White Worm and stuff.

605
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: All right. Um, now we have the character Cassiopeia is

606
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 1: essentially the damsel in distress in this film, and she

607
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: is played by Ingrid and Sin born nineteen sixty American

608
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: actor making her film debut here. She mostly did television

609
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: after this. Another important female character in this is um

610
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: is Searcy Cerci is of course the witch, the sorceress. Uh.

611
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: And in this she has played by Marella D'Angelo born

612
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: n six Italian actor whose credits also include Caligula and tenebrae. Oh.

613
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: She She's actually pretty great in this, especially because when

614
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: we first meet her, she's in like um, she's in

615
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: the krone form. And then she drinks hercules Is blood.

616
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: Am I right about that? She like cuts him and

617
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: drinks his blood so she can rely like regain her

618
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,479
Speaker 1: youth and strength and magic powers. Uh. And then there's

619
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: like a long middle section of the movie where it's

620
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: just like Searcy bossing Hercules around and it's great. He's

621
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: following her around doing everything she tells him to do.

622
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: She's like, I need you to reach inside this glowing

623
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: egg and he's like, okay, it burned my hand. He's

624
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 1: like you must reach He's like no, no, it's freezing

625
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: my hand. It's it's a great state. Oh your hands

626
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: in there again. Yeah. So Sarcy is great in this,

627
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,919
Speaker 1: and it's definitely one of the many characters who's who's

628
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: again wearing their outfit to the absolute limit. Oh my

629
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:22,760
Speaker 1: god that the tassels on her outfit or hilarious. Alright,

630
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: another character, So we mentioned King Minos. Now we have Minos,

631
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: we have Minos's daughter, uh, and yet we have no

632
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: maze or labyrinth in this film, and we have no Minotaur.

633
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: So don't get excited about the prospect of either of

634
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: those standard um uh features of a King Minos story

635
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: popping up. But we do have the character who is

636
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: of course credited uh in in the in the various

637
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:51,800
Speaker 1: myths as creating the Labyrinth and creating various other works

638
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: of of of of artistry and technical craftsmanship in h

639
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: in the mythological canon, and that is the character data Us.

640
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:06,359
Speaker 1: Now in this movie, Daedalus is not a human craftsman.

641
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: She is like a figure who is birthed out of

642
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: the chaos of the universe and then like takes form

643
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: and where's this strange costume that has these big ears

644
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 1: uh and and talks about how she hates magic and

645
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: hates the gods and only love science, right, yes, And

646
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: they're plotting, let me basically plotting the destruction of the

647
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: gods via science. They're talking about how much better than

648
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: than the gods science is. Uh, it's it's pretty fabulous.

649
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: This is where the robots come into play. They are

650
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 1: the the the automatons of data list here. Yeah, she

651
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: makes the robots that Minos greedily begs her descend against Hercules. Yes, so,

652
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: in in this film, Datus is played by Eva Robbins,

653
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: transgender Italian actress, model, and activists who appeared in Dario

654
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: Agento's Tenebre as Women on the Beach. She played the

655
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:05,320
Speaker 1: famed inventor of Greek mythology in both of the coatsy

656
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: Hercules movies. So she does pop up in the sequel,

657
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: and I should mention dressed in a just absolutely bonkers

658
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: costume here that feels like part comic book villain from

659
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 1: space and also part Christmas tree ornament. Yeah. I was

660
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: trying to her helmet. Yes, I don't know how to do.

661
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: It's like it's a little bit Planet of the Vampires

662
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: but spray painted gold and then with these big ears

663
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: popping off of it. It reminded me a little bit

664
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: of some of the like diamond shaped ear ornaments popping

665
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 1: off of I think I remember from the acrobats in

666
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:44,959
Speaker 1: the Star Wars Holiday special to pop up in the hologram. Yeah, yeah,

667
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: that's a fair comparison. Robbins continued to act in European

668
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:52,720
Speaker 1: indie films after this, uh, sometimes appearing alongside such actors

669
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: as Charlotte Rampling. So um so she apparently wanted to

670
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: have quite an interesting career well, I loved every one

671
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: of her scenes in this movie. The Minos datalst scenes

672
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: are are highlights of the film. Yes, um oh, this

673
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: is a character who sadly doesn't really do much, but

674
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: we have this character show up at one point to

675
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,359
Speaker 1: challenge Hercules by the name of Kings and Odama uh

676
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: and it in. This character is played by Big Bobby

677
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: Rhodes born from Demons. Yes, black Italian actor who pops

678
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: up in a number of Italian action in B movies.

679
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: Probably best known yeah for playing Tony the Pimp and

680
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:37,280
Speaker 1: Hank the gym instructor in Lomberto Baba's Demons and Demons Too,

681
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: but he can also be found in the Island of

682
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: the Fishmen a k a. Screamers. Uh. He was in

683
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,880
Speaker 1: Sergio Martino's The Great Alligator, which features a story credit

684
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 1: by Georgie Eastman, and he also did stunts. He's credited

685
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: with underwater stunts in the underwater monster movie Leviathan. So

686
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: he's great, but he's kind of wasted in this film.

687
00:39:57,120 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, he's He plays a small role. He

688
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: plays like the king who uh he what is it? He? Um?

689
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: Hercules and Cercy needs something from him and in order

690
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: to get it, Hercules has to has to like grow

691
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: huge and then like push apart the the street of Gibraltar,

692
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 1: the pillars Hercules. Yeah, and basically, um Bobby Rhodes character

693
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,439
Speaker 1: just watches on from a litter and it doesn't really

694
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 1: do anything but just actimized. At this I thought they

695
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: were going to fight or something. I was getting excited. Well,

696
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: the litterally that he's being carried in, though, is a

697
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,799
Speaker 1: mammoth skeleton that was pretty so he's like within the

698
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: ribs of a mammoth um. The mammoth skeleton made me

699
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: think of now Wolf in Santa Fe. And I have

700
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: to say that several of the sets in this movie

701
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: just feel like now Wolf, Like I'm just straight up

702
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: back in now Wolf and except there are various Greek

703
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: gods standing around. Alright, one more credit on this before

704
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,399
Speaker 1: we move onto the plot, and that is, of course,

705
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: coming back to the music here. The music is by

706
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: Pino Donaggio Borne. The music here is rather traditional for

707
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:08,359
Speaker 1: the most part, but Pinot is a rather big name,

708
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 1: noted for working with such directors as Joe Dante, Uh,

709
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: Luccio fulci Uh, Terence Hill, Charles band Uh and probably

710
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: most famously Brian de Palma. He worked with Diploma on

711
00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: eight different films, carry Home Movies, Dressed to Kill, Blowout, Body,

712
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: Double Raising, Cane, Snake Eyes, Passion, and Domino Wow. I

713
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: honestly gotta say, I don't remember much about the music

714
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 1: in the movie. It didn't It didn't really strike me

715
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: one way or another. I mean, it's it's one of

716
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 1: those scores that I feel like it did the job.

717
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: It did exactly what it needed to do. It doesn't

718
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: stand out, It certainly doesn't doesn't overshadow anything going on

719
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: with the Farigno's muscles on the screen, so it's in

720
00:41:50,920 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: a perfect supporting role. All right, Well, let's dive into

721
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: the plot of this baby. All right. Well, I think

722
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: this is one where we're not going to do the

723
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:09,399
Speaker 1: whole story beat by beat, but focus on some sections

724
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: that were interesting to us. And I do want to

725
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: start right at the beginning, because I love the way

726
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: this movie begins. I love a movie that where the

727
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: prologue goes all the way back to the beginning of

728
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: the universe, or actually, in this case, before the beginning

729
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 1: of the universe, because it starts off just by showing

730
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 1: you slow motion fireworks exploding, and then it says, in

731
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 1: the beginning, before creation, there was darkness. Uh. And then

732
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: we learned that from the primordial explosion emerged the fire

733
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 1: of chaos, and then the chaos merged with the darkness,

734
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: and from this union were born the elements. Rob, do

735
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: you have a notepad ready to record what the elements are? Okay,

736
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: let's go. There's four of them. Okay. The elements are night, day, matter,

737
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: and air. Okay. Oh, and I like that when it's

738
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: telling us this, So the you know, the chaos merged

739
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: with the darkness, there is like a uh, it's just

740
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: this long series of sort of cause vaguely cosmic looking

741
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: special effects shots, and this one is something that's on fire,

742
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 1: bathed in red light, moving toward the camera. Yeah. Yeah,

743
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: we're we're in just total cosmic mode for for several

744
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: minutes here. There are no humans, there's just space stuff

745
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: going on, right. Okay. So, so we got the four elements, night, day, matter,

746
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: and air. And then after this we find out that

747
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: out of the misty radiance of the cosmos there came

748
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: forth a jar, golden and glittering Pandora's jar. But then

749
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 1: it shows us the jar and it looks like a spaceship.

750
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: It's got different like multicolored windows. Yeah, it's pretty fair

751
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: like it's is. It's as close to looking like a

752
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: spaceship as it could be without just blatantly being a

753
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 1: space like they I think like they manage it rather nicely,

754
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: like they're you know, they're they're they're not going too

755
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 1: far with the sci fi, but they're going right up

756
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: to the line. Uh huh. We we find out it

757
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,840
Speaker 1: is filled with the essences both good and evil, of

758
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,439
Speaker 1: life itself, and then we see the jar explode. It's

759
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: clearly this is one of the parts they talked about

760
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: where like they kind of don't even care with the

761
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: special effects, where so it explodes and then you just

762
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: see a couple of parts of it don't fly off

763
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: and fall fall down there like hanging from threads. But

764
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 1: then we learned that from the fragments of the jar.

765
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: Remember this was the jar, Pandora's jar that contained all

766
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 1: of the essence of life, both good and evil, And

767
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: from the fragments of that jar, it says that the

768
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: planets and the Solar System were formed. And then you

769
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: see the jar fragments zooming through space like like the

770
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: fighter ships on Battlestar Galactica. And so it starts explaining

771
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 1: planets to us. It's like, here are some of the planets. Uh.

772
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 1: It tells us about Saturn, the world of mystic Rings,

773
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: and then it says other fragments became the flaming Energies,

774
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: gave shape to Mercury. Yet another fragment gave birth to

775
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: the colossus Jupiter, the Titan of the Skies. Any Greek

776
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: mythology nerds want to pick a bone with that one,

777
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: I'll leave it there. But then it goes on. So

778
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: we're getting closer to Earth. It says the worlds of

779
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 1: the universe were created along with the moons that accompanied them,

780
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 1: and then Earth, and then it says, and on Earth

781
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: there was life everywhere. And then we get like a

782
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: zoom in shot to what looks like a like a

783
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: satellite photo of one of the shores of Michigan or something.

784
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: But then finally, okay, we need we need some some

785
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 1: beings to populate these worlds, right, So it says that

786
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: the first beings that the Creation brought forth were not men.

787
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: They were of the Supreme essence and became gods. They

788
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: claimed the moon as their home. So In this version

789
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,720
Speaker 1: of Greek mythology, the gods were the first creation, not

790
00:45:55,719 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: not the Titans, so that it doesn't do the multiple generations. Uh,

791
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: they were the first creation. And they live on the moon. Yeah,

792
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: there's no Mount Olympus, it's the moon instead. Instead of

793
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: this this planet that's filled with life, they're gonna live

794
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 1: on this just desolate moonscape. And what do the gods

795
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:14,479
Speaker 1: do there on the moon, Well, there are only three

796
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: of them. There's Zeus, Hera and Athena, and and they

797
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: sit there on the moon. And it says they decide

798
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: the ultimate fate of mankind and of all that lived. Yeah,

799
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: they're simplifying the pantheon somewhat here, right, And so the

800
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: thing about the gods in this movie is that they

801
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: are severely on drugs. When when we get zoom ins

802
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: of all three of the gods, I would say especially

803
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: Hera and Athena, but all three of them really seem

804
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 1: to be in a kind of potent pharmaceutical realm. Like

805
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: their pupils are a mile wide, right, and they're yeah,

806
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: they're they're they don't have a lot of emotion in

807
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: what they're saying and what they're doing. They don't really

808
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: have the the the characterizations that you're you're more accompanient,

809
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: you're more accustomed to with say um Zeus and then uh,

810
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: and then also Athena are just not going to be

811
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: found here. I would say the one that actually feels

812
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 1: the most out of character of all three of them

813
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: is Athena. Athena, I feel like should be a a

814
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: sharp and powerful presence. She is she You know, there's

815
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: so much that Athena is. Athena's wisdom, Athenas warfare, Athenas

816
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 1: all these things in this movie. She is zonked. She's

817
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 1: just kind of aerily delivering lines as if I'm not

818
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: even sure if she's aware whether anybody is listening or not.

819
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: And really, these whole sequences kind of feel like sportscaster sequences,

820
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: like let's let's go back and hear the commentary and uh,

821
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,280
Speaker 1: and here they are just sort of very, very detached,

822
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 1: talking about a game happening, you know, somewhere else across

823
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: the city. That's right. So they're in this They're in

824
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 1: this set that has these weird pillars coming up off

825
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: the surface of the moon. And then Zeus says, Okay,

826
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 1: Pandora's jar has been broken. The forces of evil have

827
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: been let loose. The world of mortal men is facing

828
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: its our decision, it will go down to destruction or

829
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:09,439
Speaker 1: else it will survive. And then Harra says, of course,

830
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,399
Speaker 1: Harra is always making kind of a nasty face. I mean,

831
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 1: Hara is often the villain of of these stories. Certainly

832
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: she's the enemy of Hercules. That that is true to

833
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: the myth, I think. But Harra says, this is their

834
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: moment of trial. They have to show themselves worthy of

835
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: everything we gods have given them. But it hasn't made

836
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 1: clear that they've given them anything. But anyway, here is

837
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: so Finally Athena comments, She's like, but evil is dark

838
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: and strong. It may be that the scales of fate

839
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: are not equally balanced. H So Zeus takes all this

840
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: into consideration and he decides that there needs to be

841
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: a way to equalize both sides of the struggle. It's

842
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: not entirely I think this means the sides of the

843
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 1: struggle are on one side it's humans and on the

844
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: other side it's the destruction of humans. Uh. So he's like, Okay,

845
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 1: we need to make this air. So he asks Athena, like,

846
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:03,960
Speaker 1: how can we make it fair? How can we do it? Yeah?

847
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:08,359
Speaker 1: And it was Zeus, again known for his fairness, right. Uh.

848
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: And so Athena has an amazing idea. She says, if

849
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,439
Speaker 1: you don't want to increase the powers of all men,

850
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 1: why don't you increase those of one so that he

851
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: may fight for all the others. What a weird capitalist

852
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: approach to um to orchestrating the affairs of men. Uh.

853
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 1: But Zeus his reaction, he's clearly enthralled by this idea.

854
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, if you ever seen when somebody mentioned,

855
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: you know, somebody's really hungry, and then somebody else suggests

856
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,720
Speaker 1: a delicious food they could eat, and then their eyes

857
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: sort of like go off somewhere like they're just imagining it.

858
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: That's the way Zeus reacts. He's really grooving with it.

859
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:52,359
Speaker 1: He goes a man who is stronger and more intelligent

860
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: than all other men, just gazing like at his lap.

861
00:49:57,840 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 1: So anyway, they decide, yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll

862
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: get a hero, as they say, it will be a

863
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 1: hero with the body forged in the furnace of a

864
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:07,919
Speaker 1: thousand sons, a body capable of undergoing every labor, every pain,

865
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: practically invincible, made from the purest of all energies light.

866
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: I like how he kind of totally spaces on the

867
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:20,320
Speaker 1: idea of the superior intellect and just focuses on the body,

868
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: which is again what you want in a Hercules movie. Right.

869
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: So they start off as saying that this will be

870
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: a man who is stronger and more intelligent than all

871
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: other men. This is not a comment about about lou Ferrigno.

872
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: This is like in the script, there's really not much

873
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: to indicate that this Hercules is even of average intelligence.

874
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: And again that's that's just part of it. I mean, yeah,

875
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: Hercules in the midst you do have more of a

876
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 1: like there's the cunning of Hercules, but we don't really

877
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 1: see the cunning of Hercules in this film. It is

878
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 1: the brute strength of Hercules. And when cunning things need

879
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 1: to be done, well, that's where Circe or some other

880
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,280
Speaker 1: character is going to apply some some some cunning thought.

881
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: Like multiple of the labors of Hercules involved not brute strength,

882
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 1: but him coming up with like an outside the box

883
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,839
Speaker 1: solution to a problem. Uh, now you know he does

884
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:11,839
Speaker 1: come up he does. They do actually reflect one of

885
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: the cunning moments of Hercules in this um, but that's true.

886
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: The cleaning of the stables, yeeah, theah, the agean stables, which,

887
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: of course is this this whole sequence in the it's it's,

888
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating because I was, I want, I watched

889
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:27,799
Speaker 1: the film and I had to to quiz my my

890
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:31,879
Speaker 1: wife and son. I said, you guys know the the

891
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,719
Speaker 1: Trials of Hercules, Guess which one they did in this film?

892
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: And I think I quiz you the same way, like,

893
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: which is the ultimately the last one you would choose

894
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,720
Speaker 1: for for for a cinematic portrayal. You know, it doesn't

895
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 1: feature a monster. It just features the cleaning of some

896
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 1: just awful, um poop filled stables. That's the one that

897
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:53,800
Speaker 1: they choose. Though. It's a great sequence as well, because

898
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 1: the stable, like everything in this film, the stables look

899
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: like they are on another planet, Like every location in

900
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 1: this film feels like a different cosmic location. That the

901
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,439
Speaker 1: stables look like horses, like these twin horses, and uh

902
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: and and he diverts the whole river to flood it.

903
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: It's a it's it's a great scene. It is, yeah,

904
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: but but that comes much later. We're still the phase

905
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 1: here where they're they're talking about sending this being made

906
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: of light to Earth, and then it shows him, so

907
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: it like fades in on Hercules wearing a speedo, posing,

908
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: flexing his muscles amidst the stars. Yes, uh, greased and

909
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,840
Speaker 1: and and lit from above. And I guess the problem

910
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: is that they can't send him to Earth like this.

911
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: You're I don't know why they can't, but they just can't,

912
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 1: you know, you know, he can't arrive at Earth as

913
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:44,319
Speaker 1: an adult being made of light. Instead. I think the

914
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 1: deal is they have to slot his his her soul,

915
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:51,760
Speaker 1: which is made of light, into the body of immortal baby.

916
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:54,360
Speaker 1: And then that makes me wonder, Wait, what happened to

917
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: the baby's original soul? I mean, maybe there was no

918
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: original soul like this one was already slotted for this

919
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 1: vac they like they they they birthed a soulless baby

920
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 1: in preparation for inserting the hercules soul, the muscle soul

921
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: made of light from the stars into the baby. Yeah, okay,

922
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: well anyway, lou ferrig No, he goes down. He possesses

923
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 1: a baby. This baby is this part I think is

924
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: sort of according to the myth, is the child of Infitrion.

925
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: And alca Many and uh, and this is at the

926
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:29,479
Speaker 1: City of Thebes. It tells us this is the City

927
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:32,239
Speaker 1: of Thebes and the Bronze Age four thousand years from

928
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 1: this moment. But then I'm like, wait, is Thebes also

929
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: on the moon? Because they show Thebes and it looks

930
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: like it's in space. It's this stone city with these

931
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: big walls. I mean, it looks kind of like a

932
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, a cross between a medieval castle and

933
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,760
Speaker 1: like Chattel Hoyak. But it's in space with like comet

934
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:52,920
Speaker 1: sipping around. Oh yeah, it's like that with with every location,

935
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: isn't it. Like later on we go to Atlantis and

936
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: it's like green. It looks like another at it, And

937
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 1: then I was asking myself, is this supposed to be

938
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: another planet? And then they showed the sky and it

939
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:08,799
Speaker 1: has like three moons or something, and they're also they're

940
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:11,279
Speaker 1: traveling through space at various times to get from one

941
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 1: location to the other. Um so very cosmic without characters

942
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 1: actually coming out and and and referring to these as

943
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 1: different planetary locations. Yeah, I did not know what to

944
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:26,760
Speaker 1: make of that, but you know what it I enjoyed

945
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: looking at it, so okay, but immediately Hara is trying

946
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:33,319
Speaker 1: to kill this baby, because you know that's what Harrod does.

947
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: She doesn't like Herchiles and she wants to destroy him,

948
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:41,399
Speaker 1: so she sets events in motion to uh to lead

949
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:44,279
Speaker 1: to the death of baby Hercules. UH. And then we

950
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 1: get an escape in infancy narrative, you know, like the

951
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess this is there in some of

952
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: the original Hercules myths, but it's also like you know,

953
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:54,280
Speaker 1: the stories of Moses or Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew,

954
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: where like there's uh, there's a chosen baby and then

955
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: like the forces are aligned against to him and he

956
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: has to be secreted away. So in this case in Thebes,

957
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:07,719
Speaker 1: there's like there's a usurper king who comes in and

958
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 1: he kills herciless parents, and he's trying to kill Hercules.

959
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: He's being urged on by one of the recurring villains

960
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 1: of the movie played by Sybil Danning, who is the

961
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: She plays the daughter of the wicked king Minos of

962
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,440
Speaker 1: Thea who will get to in just a minute. But

963
00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 1: so there's like a rebellion against the king's forces and

964
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: it's the narrator comes in. I think it says like

965
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: and the wicked rebels turned thebes into a war zone,

966
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:33,919
Speaker 1: and it just shows you know, fire and a bunch

967
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: of people going. Meanwhile, I should also say, like when

968
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: we see the soldiers and stuff in these scenes, it

969
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: is just a feast of weird fake gold armor and

970
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:48,720
Speaker 1: cod pieces. Oh and there's also a thing this actually

971
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 1: turns out to be important later. I mean, we're not

972
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:52,959
Speaker 1: gonna try to explain every in and out of the plot,

973
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 1: but there is an important theft at the beginning where

974
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 1: like a thief sneaks into a temple and steals a

975
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,400
Speaker 1: sacred sore this kind of sword in the stone, he

976
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: pulls it out of its resting place, he kills a

977
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:08,680
Speaker 1: couple of guards and with some hilarious bow and arrow action, right,

978
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: and then that Yeah, that sword is basically never mentioned

979
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,120
Speaker 1: again for the rest of the film till we get

980
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 1: to the very end, and then it becomes extremely important

981
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 1: and it's re established. Yeah, And so little Hercules gets

982
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 1: taken away by a nursemaid to protect him from from

983
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: the evil rebels, and she puts him on a river,

984
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 1: puts him on a boat and sets it down a river,

985
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 1: and then Harrod tries to kill him multiple ways. I

986
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: think at one point he's going over a waterfall, but

987
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 1: then Zeus, in this hilarious special effect, reaches out and

988
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 1: catches the boat from the waterfall, and you see this giant,

989
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 1: pale hand reaching out from the water that gets the

990
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: boat and then pulls him to the moon where he's

991
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:56,720
Speaker 1: like this tiny little thing in his hand and shows

992
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: Zeus looking at the boat. He's like, oh, and then

993
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: he him back in the river. Here is like, you

994
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 1: can't do that, that's cheating. You have to put him

995
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:06,320
Speaker 1: back in the river. And then he does, but he

996
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:09,480
Speaker 1: puts him downstream of the waterfall and he's like, you

997
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:11,919
Speaker 1: didn't tell me which part of the river to put

998
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: him in. But then also Hara tries to send a

999
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 1: couple of snakes to kill Hercules, and baby Herk just

1000
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: strangles them. Oh yeah, it's a great sequence because they're

1001
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 1: super fake monster snakes and uh and this this baby

1002
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: is not a good actor and just not very convincing

1003
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 1: at all, So it makes for hilarious sequence. One thing

1004
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 1: I wanted. And so of course Hercules gets rescued by

1005
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: by a nice old couple and they take him in

1006
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 1: and raise him, and uh, you know, they're very sweet

1007
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 1: they're sweet pastoral lists and uh, and we get a

1008
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 1: montage of him growing up and growing stronger. And how

1009
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 1: do you think so, Conan the Barbarian came out in two,

1010
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:54,480
Speaker 1: this movie came out in night three. How do you

1011
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 1: think they're gonna show young Hercules growing and getting stronger? Oh?

1012
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: You to strap him to that millstone? That's right, So

1013
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: they have a montage of him turning a millstone. The relation.

1014
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:11,240
Speaker 1: The fun thing about this, though, I was reading, is

1015
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:14,400
Speaker 1: that there is a millstone scene I think in the

1016
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:18,880
Speaker 1: first Motista movie. So I believe Milius was may have

1017
00:58:18,960 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: actually been referencing the history of muscleman movies by including

1018
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: that ian Conan the Barbarian. Well, that would make sense. Okay,

1019
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 1: I'm back on board now, every every movie should have it. Then,

1020
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 1: it's just that they're all calling back to the original.

1021
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,280
Speaker 1: How else are you getting to know that he's strong

1022
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 1: and that time is passing, like this is the logical

1023
00:58:41,120 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: way to do it, one of the things. So once

1024
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 1: he grows up, he is of course lufer Igno then

1025
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:55,960
Speaker 1: and we get to see him being very strong, you know,

1026
00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:58,520
Speaker 1: chopping wood, pulling trees up out of the ground with

1027
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 1: his arms and Uh. One of the great scenes once

1028
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 1: he's finally an adult is the bear scene Robbed. You

1029
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 1: could you describe the bear scene? So it is your

1030
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:13,920
Speaker 1: basic bear wrestling scene, and I think it possibly reuses

1031
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:16,960
Speaker 1: some bare footage from another movie. I forget which one,

1032
00:59:18,120 --> 00:59:20,520
Speaker 1: but you know, it's Hercules versus a bear. You know

1033
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,560
Speaker 1: who's gonna win. It's gonna be Hercules. Um, but but

1034
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:25,920
Speaker 1: what what do you expect to happen when Hercules defeats

1035
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:27,479
Speaker 1: the bear? You think he might just you know, either

1036
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: he whips the bear and says, all right, go back

1037
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:31,440
Speaker 1: to the wild you or you know, or puts a

1038
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 1: sleeper hold on it and just you know, just puts

1039
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: it to sleep and walks off. No, that's not good enough,

1040
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 1: that's not epic enough for this Hercules. Well, first of all,

1041
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:41,920
Speaker 1: also so yeah, it intercuts between stock footage of a

1042
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:44,840
Speaker 1: real bear and then one of the worst bear suits

1043
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 1: I've ever seen on a in film, like unbelievable. It's

1044
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 1: it's worse than the than the wicker Man remake bear suit.

1045
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 1: I didn't even notice that. I mean, I don't know,

1046
00:59:57,200 --> 00:59:58,800
Speaker 1: I didn't think too long and hard about it being

1047
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 1: a fake bear. I mean, it's it's a guy wearing

1048
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 1: a bunch of carpet samples basically, but he grabbed but

1049
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 1: he so he defeats the bear. Oh and the bear

1050
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:13,919
Speaker 1: kills his kills his father him. Yeah. Uh, so he

1051
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 1: kills that guy. That guy's laying dead on the ground,

1052
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 1: and Hercules is like, oh, you bear, and then he

1053
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 1: grabs him and he throws him into space. Yes, it's

1054
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 1: a great sequence because it's just as goofy as it sounds.

1055
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 1: But oh but of course, uh, of course the bear

1056
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 1: thrown into space by Hercules. You know, here's your mythic

1057
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: connection thrown up into space by Hercules and becomes the

1058
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 1: constellation Ursa that you know, the bear in the sky,

1059
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 1: the first of many constellations, right right right? Well yeah, actually,

1060
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 1: because so after this, Athena and Hara like taunt each other.

1061
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: Athena's like, ha ha, all your heroes are going I

1062
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: guess this means Harris sent the bear. She's like, all

1063
01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: your heroes are going to end up getting thrown into space.

1064
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:00,400
Speaker 1: Is like, don't worry, I have many other are people

1065
01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:03,919
Speaker 1: waiting to fight for evil? Uh and here's oh, here's

1066
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:05,840
Speaker 1: the part where we get into one of my favorite

1067
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:11,160
Speaker 1: things in the movie my favorite recurring characters, Minos and Dadalus. Uh. Now,

1068
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:14,680
Speaker 1: I can't remember what we already said about where Minos

1069
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: is where they are in this scene. I don't know

1070
01:01:17,320 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: how to even begin to describe where they are what

1071
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 1: is happening, But it looks like they are. Minos is

1072
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:27,760
Speaker 1: like in space in a I don't know, on the

1073
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:31,440
Speaker 1: Moon or on some other planet, standing among a bunch

1074
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:36,120
Speaker 1: of rocks on top of a giant stone head that

1075
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:39,919
Speaker 1: has a mustache and is glowing from the inside. Yeah,

1076
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,400
Speaker 1: it's it's ball. I have no idea what you're supposed

1077
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 1: to be. I think they're in space somewhere, I guess,

1078
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:47,479
Speaker 1: which is weird because we get the impression that he's

1079
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 1: based on Earth, right, like why the island of theory? Yeah? Yeah,

1080
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 1: So I don't know if he's come out here to

1081
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: meet data list like you have to meet data is

1082
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: halfway or what I really I don't know, but this

1083
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:03,920
Speaker 1: is where they meet and scheme. Right, So Minos calls

1084
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 1: out Minos is like dattle Us, embodiment of knowledge, reasoning, curiosity,

1085
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:12,920
Speaker 1: great genius of invention, master of science, I King Minos

1086
01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:16,640
Speaker 1: of the calling you to step into time and space

1087
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 1: that's great, materialize out of chaos. So he tries that

1088
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: looks around no datals. So then he tries again and

1089
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:34,000
Speaker 1: he goes daddle and then she finally does appear. Is

1090
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:38,400
Speaker 1: she wearing a cellophane cape? Uh? It does have some

1091
01:02:38,400 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 1: some clear Yeah, it looks cellophane. And then there's like

1092
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:44,960
Speaker 1: this netguard that is like clear plastic. It's a it's

1093
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 1: a lot this costing. Well, there's immediately conflict between them

1094
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:52,440
Speaker 1: because Dadalus is afraid that Minos wants her to serve

1095
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:56,000
Speaker 1: the gods, but she hates the gods, so nothing to

1096
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 1: do with them. And she's like, one day, Minos, you

1097
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 1: will have to choose between the gods and science. And

1098
01:03:03,920 --> 01:03:07,320
Speaker 1: he says, you know me, I'm dedicated to science. I

1099
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:09,800
Speaker 1: do not believe in the gods, but doing them a

1100
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,720
Speaker 1: little favor can't hurt, can it. And uh so he

1101
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:16,440
Speaker 1: you know, he's gonna be working for hera because she's bad.

1102
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 1: And this is setting up one of the major themes

1103
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 1: of the movie, which is truly deeply bizarre. It makes

1104
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: no sense whatsoever in the context of this story, and

1105
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:30,959
Speaker 1: it makes no sense on its own terms, but it's

1106
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 1: the science versus magic theme. I think this is basically

1107
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 1: a dynamic like we saw in the Thing from Another World.

1108
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:42,880
Speaker 1: It's like a Jocks versus Nerds movie, with the Jocks

1109
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: representing magic and goodness and the Nerds representing science and evil. Yeah,

1110
01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 1: so it's like it it seems like in some respects

1111
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:57,000
Speaker 1: it's a weirdly anti science movie. It's just like like

1112
01:03:57,000 --> 01:04:00,160
Speaker 1: like God's rule, science rules kind of a thing. Well,

1113
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:03,600
Speaker 1: and it's not an argument over like whether science is

1114
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: good or not. It was it's like, yeah, science of

1115
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 1: course is evil, and that is why we support it

1116
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:14,160
Speaker 1: because we like evil. Yeah, it is interesting, how like

1117
01:04:14,800 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 1: I feel like a less imaginative film might have gone

1118
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:19,520
Speaker 1: with this and been like, okay, we'll have data List

1119
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:21,440
Speaker 1: being here, and you know, Data's will be just kind

1120
01:04:21,440 --> 01:04:23,920
Speaker 1: of like a mad scientist, you know, a well established

1121
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: trope clearly by this point in cinema. Yet they didn't

1122
01:04:27,520 --> 01:04:29,680
Speaker 1: go in that direction at all. Instead, we have this

1123
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:33,880
Speaker 1: data Lists agent, embodiment of chaos who doesn't even live

1124
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:39,520
Speaker 1: in our normal space time, kind of appearing to minos Um. Yeah,

1125
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 1: like an ambassador of another world. Very strange step into

1126
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:47,920
Speaker 1: time and space. But anyway, Datalyst is eventually like Okay,

1127
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:50,920
Speaker 1: I've already kept stepped into time and space. We can

1128
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,360
Speaker 1: kill lufer rig No, that is that is doable. Uh.

1129
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:56,760
Speaker 1: And she says, this is my solution to Hercules, and

1130
01:04:56,800 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 1: then she pops up three like Erector set toys. Yeah,

1131
01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 1: these director sets are a good reference. They're these very

1132
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:11,280
Speaker 1: very interesting looking small automatons. There's a dragon looking creature,

1133
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 1: there's a sort of bug looking creature, and there's a

1134
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:19,520
Speaker 1: kind of a center looking creature and um they Yeah,

1135
01:05:19,720 --> 01:05:24,280
Speaker 1: they're strange looking. There's a definite, uh, definite direction here

1136
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:26,720
Speaker 1: in in the way they decided to portray these I

1137
01:05:26,800 --> 01:05:30,400
Speaker 1: wonder to what extent they were clearly influenced by Clash

1138
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:32,480
Speaker 1: of the Titans, which had come out, you know years before,

1139
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:35,760
Speaker 1: that had some you know ahead of the mechanical owl

1140
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:39,080
Speaker 1: in it. That's just a real, a real hoot, uh,

1141
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:41,400
Speaker 1: certainly one of the fun parts of that film. And

1142
01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:44,440
Speaker 1: they're like, well, we one mechanical owl, we can have

1143
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:48,280
Speaker 1: three mechanical villains, and maybe it'll simplify the whole stop

1144
01:05:48,320 --> 01:05:50,280
Speaker 1: motion monster thing. Like we're not going to really be

1145
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:53,120
Speaker 1: able to bring the full hairy house and game to

1146
01:05:53,240 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: this film. Uh, so maybe we can do something that

1147
01:05:56,880 --> 01:06:00,280
Speaker 1: is a little less fleshy but also cool to look at, right,

1148
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:04,280
Speaker 1: so Minos oh, but he reacts by being He's like,

1149
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,080
Speaker 1: such a small solution to such a big problem. And

1150
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:14,600
Speaker 1: then he looks sadly directly into the camera. But Dadalus

1151
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 1: is like, uh, Minos, my dear size like time and

1152
01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:22,439
Speaker 1: space is relative um, and then he's he realizes he's like, oh,

1153
01:06:22,520 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: relative to atmospheric conditions, right, and on hitting Earth's atmosphere

1154
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:31,040
Speaker 1: it will grow big, huge, immense, terrifying. Is he programmed

1155
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:35,160
Speaker 1: to destroy Hercules? They talk to these little mechanical toys.

1156
01:06:35,240 --> 01:06:38,200
Speaker 1: They talk about the colossal exterminator that you really are.

1157
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:41,400
Speaker 1: So they send a giant robot B to kill Hercules,

1158
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:44,880
Speaker 1: and then Hercules defeats it by poking it with a stick.

1159
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 1: To be fair, he pokes it very hard and multiple times.

1160
01:06:48,840 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 1: But he does defeat the giant robot by poking it

1161
01:06:51,680 --> 01:06:54,440
Speaker 1: with a stick. Oh, and at this point her well.

1162
01:06:54,520 --> 01:06:56,640
Speaker 1: So his father has been killed by a bear, his

1163
01:06:56,720 --> 01:06:59,120
Speaker 1: mother is killed by a giant b robot during the

1164
01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 1: giant b robot out attack, and Hercules is just bereft.

1165
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:05,640
Speaker 1: So he must strike out on his own to answer

1166
01:07:05,720 --> 01:07:08,000
Speaker 1: the riddle of his life, which and there's a great

1167
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 1: moment where he looks off in the distance and says,

1168
01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:15,920
Speaker 1: why am I stronger than other men? Uh? So? Here? Yeah,

1169
01:07:16,040 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 1: here he goes onto a series of adventures and labors

1170
01:07:18,800 --> 01:07:21,200
Speaker 1: that will of course end with him facing the evil

1171
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:24,600
Speaker 1: King Minos and his wicked daughter Sybil danning to to

1172
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:27,480
Speaker 1: kill science once and for all and save the world.

1173
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: And along the way, they're all kinds of weird adventures

1174
01:07:30,840 --> 01:07:33,120
Speaker 1: and encounters. Again, we're not going to hit all the

1175
01:07:33,160 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: points on there, but rob are there are there any

1176
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:38,320
Speaker 1: ones that you want to mention in particular? I maybe

1177
01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:40,080
Speaker 1: it would be good to start with the contest of

1178
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:42,720
Speaker 1: strength and tire. What do you think, Oh, that's a

1179
01:07:42,760 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: great sequence because there's um like he he wrestles like

1180
01:07:47,120 --> 01:07:50,680
Speaker 1: a dozen men who have a log. He battles like

1181
01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:54,920
Speaker 1: multiple swordsmen, I think. And then he goes up against

1182
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 1: two chariots with blades on the on the on this

1183
01:07:58,120 --> 01:08:01,120
Speaker 1: like spokes of the wheels. And this was a sequence.

1184
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 1: I remember seeing this on TV for sure. I don't

1185
01:08:03,280 --> 01:08:05,240
Speaker 1: think I've ever seen this film and its entirety before,

1186
01:08:05,240 --> 01:08:08,960
Speaker 1: but I remember this part because the chariots make two

1187
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:11,280
Speaker 1: swipes at him, the first time they come at him,

1188
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:13,480
Speaker 1: we go to a side view and he super Mario

1189
01:08:13,640 --> 01:08:19,000
Speaker 1: jumps over them, and and then when they come back

1190
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:20,960
Speaker 1: to get him the second time, he just stands there

1191
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:25,280
Speaker 1: and the blades break against the just the brutal beef

1192
01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:28,320
Speaker 1: of his of his legs like this, so muscular that

1193
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,280
Speaker 1: blades cannot cut him. And then he like grabs the

1194
01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:36,120
Speaker 1: chariots and pulls back defeats So you know, four horses

1195
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:40,080
Speaker 1: with his with his awesome strength. Right, the most important

1196
01:08:40,120 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: thing about a warrior is that he have indestructible shins.

1197
01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:45,479
Speaker 1: That's what we learn from this. And uh and of

1198
01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:48,599
Speaker 1: course Hercules wins the contest. He is the greatest warrior

1199
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:52,519
Speaker 1: competing entire and so the uh oh, the whole thing

1200
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:54,920
Speaker 1: is that the winner of this contest is going to

1201
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:58,360
Speaker 1: be given an important mission. So Hercules wins, and he

1202
01:08:58,360 --> 01:09:00,800
Speaker 1: finds out what the mission is, and so the king

1203
01:09:00,920 --> 01:09:02,680
Speaker 1: comes up to him and he's like, okay, you won.

1204
01:09:02,760 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 1: So your mission is you have to take my beautiful

1205
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:08,680
Speaker 1: daughter Cassiopeia to Athens and you have to protect her

1206
01:09:08,720 --> 01:09:11,720
Speaker 1: along the way, because he explains there is a whole

1207
01:09:11,720 --> 01:09:14,599
Speaker 1: lot of evil and mischief about out on the roads

1208
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:17,639
Speaker 1: and this is due to the wicked king minos from

1209
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:21,599
Speaker 1: the isle of theory, like monsters are coming from the island. Uh,

1210
01:09:21,640 --> 01:09:25,600
Speaker 1: and because of his evil daughter Sybil Danning. But but

1211
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:27,880
Speaker 1: then I love, we get the intervention by the king's

1212
01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:34,080
Speaker 1: scheming advisor. Who is this stammering nerd named dor Con. Yes, yeah,

1213
01:09:34,160 --> 01:09:38,200
Speaker 1: kind of a kind of a Donald pleasancy um uh

1214
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:41,360
Speaker 1: presence to this guy. Oh yeah, he's got a really

1215
01:09:41,360 --> 01:09:43,880
Speaker 1: great objection. So that the king is like, yes, you

1216
01:09:43,920 --> 01:09:47,719
Speaker 1: will escort my beautiful daughter. And then the advisor is like,

1217
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:50,800
Speaker 1: this man is a great warrior, yes, but how can

1218
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:53,400
Speaker 1: we be sure he isn't part of the evil and

1219
01:09:53,479 --> 01:09:57,080
Speaker 1: mischief you mentioned. The King's like, oh, that's a good point.

1220
01:09:57,160 --> 01:10:01,800
Speaker 1: We can't. But so they they decided to test him further,

1221
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:03,840
Speaker 1: and this is where we get the famous you know,

1222
01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: labor of Hercules, the cleaning of the stables, and it's

1223
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:10,160
Speaker 1: the Stables of Sibilly. Oh but so if if you're

1224
01:10:10,200 --> 01:10:12,479
Speaker 1: not familiar with the myth, rob what's what's the basic

1225
01:10:12,520 --> 01:10:15,160
Speaker 1: outline of the Cleaning of the stables labor? Well, this

1226
01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:18,240
Speaker 1: is this is a clever Herk moment where you think, oh, well,

1227
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:20,240
Speaker 1: this is just gonna be a whole bunch of shovelin

1228
01:10:20,280 --> 01:10:22,599
Speaker 1: poop for old Hercules, and surely he's up for it.

1229
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:25,439
Speaker 1: But there's a time constraint here. Even Hercules can't shovel

1230
01:10:25,479 --> 01:10:28,920
Speaker 1: this much poop. Well, what Hercules does instead is he

1231
01:10:28,960 --> 01:10:32,639
Speaker 1: diverts the rivers through the stable and uh and clears

1232
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:36,160
Speaker 1: out all the poop. And this is truly This would

1233
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:38,799
Speaker 1: not have been my first pick for a cinematic portrayal

1234
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:41,639
Speaker 1: of one of the Trials, but it's pretty awesome because again,

1235
01:10:41,680 --> 01:10:46,839
Speaker 1: the stables look otherworldly and weird, and they look pretty foul.

1236
01:10:47,240 --> 01:10:49,280
Speaker 1: He diverts the river through it, and it's just you know,

1237
01:10:49,280 --> 01:10:50,920
Speaker 1: it's one of those great shots where you have the

1238
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:55,160
Speaker 1: miniaturized set but full scale water, so everything looks looks

1239
01:10:55,160 --> 01:10:58,840
Speaker 1: a little fake. Uh. And then and then we get

1240
01:10:58,840 --> 01:11:01,519
Speaker 1: the before and after. Right, here's water going through these

1241
01:11:01,560 --> 01:11:04,759
Speaker 1: these awful looking stables, and then when the waters are done,

1242
01:11:05,080 --> 01:11:09,720
Speaker 1: everything is just sparkling white right. Uh. Yeah, yeah, it

1243
01:11:09,760 --> 01:11:14,160
Speaker 1: looks like a like a locker room or something. Oh.

1244
01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:16,519
Speaker 1: And of course along the way, Herchiles falls in love

1245
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:20,360
Speaker 1: with Cassiopeias. You might imagine he's like, uh, and he

1246
01:11:20,360 --> 01:11:23,040
Speaker 1: he gets her to agree he's like, um, hey, if

1247
01:11:23,080 --> 01:11:25,040
Speaker 1: I get all the poop out of these stables, you're

1248
01:11:25,040 --> 01:11:30,120
Speaker 1: gonna agree to marry me. And she's like, well, okay uh.

1249
01:11:30,160 --> 01:11:32,679
Speaker 1: And then he does it and they kiss, and then

1250
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:35,360
Speaker 1: Zeus shoots lightning out of his head and makes them

1251
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:39,599
Speaker 1: fall asleep. Don't I don't recall why if Zeus explained

1252
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:41,320
Speaker 1: why he did that. I think he just wanted to

1253
01:11:41,320 --> 01:11:43,960
Speaker 1: move the plot along, right, So he shoots the lightning,

1254
01:11:44,080 --> 01:11:47,160
Speaker 1: the forehead lightning at them. They they're knocked out, and

1255
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:49,240
Speaker 1: then they get captured by the bad guys and at

1256
01:11:49,240 --> 01:11:52,120
Speaker 1: this point they're split up. Cassiopeia is taken off to

1257
01:11:52,160 --> 01:11:56,040
Speaker 1: the evil island of Theora to be a human sacrifice,

1258
01:11:56,560 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 1: and Hercules, oh, they're they're like, oh, take him out

1259
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 1: to the ocean. I think it's Sybil Danning who's like,

1260
01:12:02,040 --> 01:12:04,479
Speaker 1: we'll throw him in the ocean. He'll be eaten by sharks.

1261
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:07,400
Speaker 1: But come on, he's hurt, he's fine. He just swims

1262
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:09,400
Speaker 1: for a week and then gets to shore. It doesn't

1263
01:12:09,439 --> 01:12:11,800
Speaker 1: even encounter a shark for a second. Here, it feels like, oh,

1264
01:12:11,800 --> 01:12:13,439
Speaker 1: we're gonna get hurt at risk of a shark. Now,

1265
01:12:13,720 --> 01:12:15,800
Speaker 1: they don't even mess with him. Oh, and here's where

1266
01:12:15,800 --> 01:12:18,040
Speaker 1: we get that series of adventures with Hercules and the

1267
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:22,720
Speaker 1: sorceress Cercy. Uh. Well man, that's a tongue twister sorceress Cercy.

1268
01:12:23,040 --> 01:12:25,640
Speaker 1: But anyway, when we first meete her, she's in like

1269
01:12:25,720 --> 01:12:29,080
Speaker 1: gnarly witch form. But then she regains her her youth

1270
01:12:29,120 --> 01:12:33,120
Speaker 1: and vitality by drinking some of HER's blood, which is great. Uh.

1271
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:35,040
Speaker 1: And then we get all this backstory of how she

1272
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:37,879
Speaker 1: lost some of her powers because the evil King Minos

1273
01:12:37,920 --> 01:12:41,280
Speaker 1: of Thea took away her magic and she's got to

1274
01:12:41,320 --> 01:12:44,120
Speaker 1: get hurt to help her, I think I don't like

1275
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:47,439
Speaker 1: recover some artifacts or something that will give her power back.

1276
01:12:48,840 --> 01:12:51,840
Speaker 1: But there's just one screenshot I pulled out for you

1277
01:12:51,920 --> 01:12:53,799
Speaker 1: to look at, Rob here, because it's just an example

1278
01:12:53,800 --> 01:12:57,520
Speaker 1: of one of the many side splitting lee unfortunate reaction

1279
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:00,559
Speaker 1: shots of lufer Igno where some other character is talking,

1280
01:13:00,600 --> 01:13:03,800
Speaker 1: but it's just showing us Lufigno's face. And I'm not

1281
01:13:03,840 --> 01:13:06,320
Speaker 1: sure if anybody was actually talking when they filmed this,

1282
01:13:06,360 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 1: because he's not reacting. Yeah, but even when he's not

1283
01:13:10,479 --> 01:13:15,280
Speaker 1: reacting again, there is a certain charisma to Ferrigno in this,

1284
01:13:15,520 --> 01:13:17,479
Speaker 1: and it it does shine through, but not in a

1285
01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:20,840
Speaker 1: way that makes the character feel too confident, right, No,

1286
01:13:21,080 --> 01:13:24,200
Speaker 1: it's more of a Forigno in this movie. I think

1287
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:28,120
Speaker 1: is likable, but like we said earlier, it's and somehow

1288
01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:30,960
Speaker 1: it grows more out of his lack of screen charisma.

1289
01:13:31,040 --> 01:13:33,760
Speaker 1: He's just kind of he's kind of all buddy, yeah,

1290
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:35,960
Speaker 1: And just even though he is created by the gods

1291
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:37,600
Speaker 1: and has all this power, yeah, he's up against some

1292
01:13:37,680 --> 01:13:41,440
Speaker 1: really scheming elements here. He's up against evil kings and

1293
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:45,920
Speaker 1: and the manipulations of rival gods and beings from outside

1294
01:13:45,920 --> 01:13:49,560
Speaker 1: of space and time, and and of course three giant robots.

1295
01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:53,000
Speaker 1: Um there are going to be two additional robot battles.

1296
01:13:53,040 --> 01:13:55,680
Speaker 1: All of them basically have the same energy of her,

1297
01:13:55,960 --> 01:13:59,800
Speaker 1: like poking things that are not on screen. It really

1298
01:13:59,800 --> 01:14:04,120
Speaker 1: may to you value even more just how amazing the

1299
01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 1: work of Ray Harry How's it was. You know, he

1300
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:09,400
Speaker 1: could have these amazing models that had this life to them,

1301
01:14:09,439 --> 01:14:11,760
Speaker 1: but also they were able to shoot these sequences in

1302
01:14:11,800 --> 01:14:14,640
Speaker 1: ways where it felt like human beings and monsters were

1303
01:14:14,640 --> 01:14:17,960
Speaker 1: occupying the same space. You never get that illusion in

1304
01:14:18,040 --> 01:14:21,719
Speaker 1: this picture. No, the effects in this movie are not good,

1305
01:14:21,760 --> 01:14:25,559
Speaker 1: but I do think they're fun despite being bad. Uh.

1306
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:28,880
Speaker 1: And so there's more. There's more scheming by Minos and

1307
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:33,360
Speaker 1: Dadalis leading up to the next big robot battle. Uh. Dadalists,

1308
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:35,920
Speaker 1: I think this says like, well, we're gonna kill Hercules

1309
01:14:35,960 --> 01:14:40,360
Speaker 1: with my three headed metal metal monster, and Minos is like,

1310
01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:44,320
Speaker 1: oh another robot. Huh, well the last one didn't do

1311
01:14:44,400 --> 01:14:48,200
Speaker 1: too great. The dentalist is like, this one spits cosmic

1312
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:51,840
Speaker 1: rays of deadly fire. And then uh oh and she

1313
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:54,240
Speaker 1: says do you know what that means? Oh? And he's

1314
01:14:54,320 --> 01:14:57,080
Speaker 1: very impressed. He's like, oh, cosmic rays of deadly fire.

1315
01:14:57,160 --> 01:15:00,960
Speaker 1: Well in that case, great. She's like do you know

1316
01:15:01,000 --> 01:15:04,320
Speaker 1: what that means? And then he says they will be

1317
01:15:04,400 --> 01:15:09,080
Speaker 1: they will be eliminated, disintegrated, not a trace, Yes, yeah

1318
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:12,320
Speaker 1: they Darth Vader says no to disintegrations, but Minos is like, yes,

1319
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:15,439
Speaker 1: let's have some disintegrations. Oh and this is one of

1320
01:15:15,479 --> 01:15:18,439
Speaker 1: the funny parts where Minos is for some reason, he

1321
01:15:18,520 --> 01:15:21,960
Speaker 1: just wants to see the monster grow just a little bit. Yeah,

1322
01:15:23,760 --> 01:15:25,800
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm paying for it. I want to see

1323
01:15:25,840 --> 01:15:27,400
Speaker 1: the monster go a little bit before we send it

1324
01:15:27,439 --> 01:15:29,759
Speaker 1: down to Earth where naturally, again, we kind of skipped

1325
01:15:29,760 --> 01:15:33,400
Speaker 1: over this but entry into Earth's atmosphere will cause the

1326
01:15:33,479 --> 01:15:36,719
Speaker 1: robot to grow, because that's just that's just the natural

1327
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:39,679
Speaker 1: order of things. That's that's science, and these guys love science.

1328
01:15:39,880 --> 01:15:42,120
Speaker 1: Oh but so Hercules and Cercy have to face off

1329
01:15:42,160 --> 01:15:44,840
Speaker 1: against this monster and so they sort of defeat it

1330
01:15:44,880 --> 01:15:48,679
Speaker 1: with something akin to the Perseus method going up against Medusa.

1331
01:15:48,720 --> 01:15:52,799
Speaker 1: They use a reflective shield to shoot the deadly cosmic

1332
01:15:52,920 --> 01:15:57,320
Speaker 1: rays back at the robot. And I think this is

1333
01:15:57,360 --> 01:16:01,480
Speaker 1: one where this is Hercules, this is not Herk's own cleverness.

1334
01:16:01,479 --> 01:16:04,160
Speaker 1: Cearcy has to tell him what to do. Yeah, but

1335
01:16:04,240 --> 01:16:06,679
Speaker 1: you have a lot of cool flashing lights in this sequence.

1336
01:16:06,720 --> 01:16:09,679
Speaker 1: It's very very visually appealing. Yeah, they're in a cave.

1337
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:12,920
Speaker 1: There's a big three headed metal dragon attacking them, shooting

1338
01:16:13,000 --> 01:16:16,839
Speaker 1: rays and he's using the shield to reflect them. But anyway,

1339
01:16:16,880 --> 01:16:20,880
Speaker 1: after they win that battle, um, they get Oh, they

1340
01:16:20,960 --> 01:16:23,040
Speaker 1: end up moving on to what is one of my

1341
01:16:23,120 --> 01:16:26,320
Speaker 1: favorite visual moments in the movie, which is when Herk

1342
01:16:26,400 --> 01:16:28,880
Speaker 1: and Cercy have to cross the river Sticks to go

1343
01:16:28,960 --> 01:16:32,120
Speaker 1: to the Temple of Eternity, which is this giant skull

1344
01:16:32,280 --> 01:16:35,760
Speaker 1: mountain with caves for eyes and a mouth, and so

1345
01:16:35,840 --> 01:16:41,000
Speaker 1: you get the river, the boatman Karen, who's this creepy

1346
01:16:41,040 --> 01:16:44,200
Speaker 1: skull face? This scene I thought was actually pretty atmospheric

1347
01:16:44,240 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 1: and effective. Yeah. I mean our characters are going to

1348
01:16:47,000 --> 01:16:50,360
Speaker 1: hell here, they're going to hades, and uh it feels

1349
01:16:50,439 --> 01:16:52,880
Speaker 1: it feels good. Like a number of sequences here could

1350
01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:55,200
Speaker 1: be a you know, like a straight up metal album

1351
01:16:55,280 --> 01:16:57,840
Speaker 1: cover after this. Let's see, there are a number of

1352
01:16:57,840 --> 01:17:00,439
Speaker 1: other adventures. There's the one where Herchilles has to push

1353
01:17:00,560 --> 01:17:03,879
Speaker 1: the pillars of the now so called pillars of Hercules

1354
01:17:03,960 --> 01:17:08,720
Speaker 1: apart to to open the Mediterranean. See. Uh, there is

1355
01:17:09,040 --> 01:17:12,320
Speaker 1: there's a great scene of bootstrap physics where they somehow

1356
01:17:12,479 --> 01:17:16,439
Speaker 1: access a a chariot that I think would be pulled

1357
01:17:16,439 --> 01:17:20,440
Speaker 1: by a pegasus, but the pegasus isn't there. So Hercules,

1358
01:17:20,520 --> 01:17:22,960
Speaker 1: well what does he do? Oh this is great? Yeah?

1359
01:17:23,320 --> 01:17:27,439
Speaker 1: They yeah, they strap uh what a boulder to the

1360
01:17:27,520 --> 01:17:32,400
Speaker 1: to the chariot, and then Hercules heaves the boulder through space.

1361
01:17:32,800 --> 01:17:36,800
Speaker 1: They jump into the chariot and and the boulder that

1362
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:40,679
Speaker 1: Hercules just through pulls the chariot that they're now riding

1363
01:17:41,080 --> 01:17:45,960
Speaker 1: through space. Brilliant. I love it. Oh, and also so

1364
01:17:46,080 --> 01:17:48,960
Speaker 1: they they like fly through space and then they fall

1365
01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:51,559
Speaker 1: in an ocean and then they swim to the harbor

1366
01:17:51,760 --> 01:17:55,439
Speaker 1: of theory the Bad Guys Island, and the harbor there

1367
01:17:56,080 --> 01:18:00,760
Speaker 1: has what looks like a robot Colossus of RhoD bestride

1368
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:03,960
Speaker 1: the entrance to the harbor. So if you like zoom

1369
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:07,320
Speaker 1: in on it, it's it's like the colossus. Um. I

1370
01:18:07,400 --> 01:18:10,400
Speaker 1: think the actual colossus probably was not straddling the entrance

1371
01:18:10,439 --> 01:18:12,800
Speaker 1: to the harbor, but it's often shown in art straddling

1372
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:16,439
Speaker 1: the entrance. Uh, and so it's doing that in this

1373
01:18:16,640 --> 01:18:20,800
Speaker 1: image here. But it's a robot, yes, and their pyramids

1374
01:18:20,840 --> 01:18:23,760
Speaker 1: back there and everything's green. It looks like we're at

1375
01:18:23,760 --> 01:18:27,200
Speaker 1: the like on the Necron home world or something. It's

1376
01:18:27,240 --> 01:18:30,080
Speaker 1: it's trippy and they're like again like three moons or

1377
01:18:30,360 --> 01:18:33,679
Speaker 1: or suns in the sky in the background. So uh

1378
01:18:33,720 --> 01:18:37,360
Speaker 1: it is this is clearly not even Earth. I don't know.

1379
01:18:37,920 --> 01:18:40,439
Speaker 1: This movie is very vague again with where things are happening.

1380
01:18:40,439 --> 01:18:42,720
Speaker 1: But this does not feel at all like our planet. No,

1381
01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:44,880
Speaker 1: but I do love the way this part looks. And

1382
01:18:45,040 --> 01:18:47,639
Speaker 1: so we get a bunch of final confrontations. Hercules has

1383
01:18:47,680 --> 01:18:50,439
Speaker 1: to battle the third robot, which is like a robot centaur.

1384
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:53,799
Speaker 1: I don't remember that battle being all that notable except

1385
01:18:53,840 --> 01:18:59,320
Speaker 1: that poking. Yeah. Unfortunately, Searcy is unceremoniously killed and she

1386
01:18:59,400 --> 01:19:03,960
Speaker 1: has one of those really funny lucid death things where

1387
01:19:04,040 --> 01:19:07,240
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, I'm dying and then she just lucidly

1388
01:19:07,320 --> 01:19:12,240
Speaker 1: delivers some some final dialogue and then goes, oh, yeah, well,

1389
01:19:12,240 --> 01:19:15,400
Speaker 1: remember she was depowered. She lost her powers, because when

1390
01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:19,160
Speaker 1: a sorceress falls in love, they lose her powers. So

1391
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:22,840
Speaker 1: ultimately it's it's Hercules is fault for being just so

1392
01:19:23,000 --> 01:19:28,080
Speaker 1: lovably handsome. And there's a final confrontation where Herchiles has

1393
01:19:28,120 --> 01:19:31,280
Speaker 1: to rescue Cassie Upeia. He has to go into a

1394
01:19:31,360 --> 01:19:34,839
Speaker 1: volcano and fight the evil king Minos, so that sword

1395
01:19:34,920 --> 01:19:37,800
Speaker 1: comes back into there's oh my god, this sequence is

1396
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:41,719
Speaker 1: so great because they're fighting on like a platform over

1397
01:19:41,840 --> 01:19:46,360
Speaker 1: the volcano where a phoenix is said to be captured,

1398
01:19:46,760 --> 01:19:51,960
Speaker 1: and Minos whips out like a rainbow light sword with

1399
01:19:52,000 --> 01:19:55,519
Speaker 1: which to murder Hercules and at the time and he's

1400
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:58,280
Speaker 1: also like, also, hey, that's the sort of thieves back there.

1401
01:19:58,280 --> 01:20:00,439
Speaker 1: It's holding the phoenix in place, no b at touch it.

1402
01:20:00,439 --> 01:20:04,280
Speaker 1: It's super important. So of course Hercules draws the sword

1403
01:20:04,320 --> 01:20:07,040
Speaker 1: of Thieves, and then they get the sword fighting up there.

1404
01:20:07,400 --> 01:20:09,679
Speaker 1: Who do you think wins? I mean, of course Hercules wins.

1405
01:20:09,680 --> 01:20:12,559
Speaker 1: And then who is it who like ages rapidly and

1406
01:20:12,600 --> 01:20:15,200
Speaker 1: then turns into dust like in the Last Crusade? Is

1407
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:17,800
Speaker 1: it Cibil Danning? It is civil Danning? Yes, because after

1408
01:20:17,960 --> 01:20:20,800
Speaker 1: Minos is defeated, she's like, you may have one, but

1409
01:20:20,880 --> 01:20:23,240
Speaker 1: I'll kill you. And she's gonna throw a spear, but

1410
01:20:23,320 --> 01:20:27,679
Speaker 1: instead her throws throws the sword. Uh, she's impaled, falls

1411
01:20:27,720 --> 01:20:31,360
Speaker 1: and we get that yet that that slow motion disintegration sequence,

1412
01:20:31,360 --> 01:20:33,719
Speaker 1: which is nice. Oh yeah, but it's such a happy

1413
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:38,639
Speaker 1: ending because Hercules rescues Cassiopeia. Uh, they kill Science once

1414
01:20:38,680 --> 01:20:42,040
Speaker 1: and for all, and then they escape from the burning

1415
01:20:42,040 --> 01:20:44,960
Speaker 1: island of Theory and it's happily ever after. Yeah, they

1416
01:20:44,960 --> 01:20:48,640
Speaker 1: embrace on the shore and then they become a constellation

1417
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:54,360
Speaker 1: in the sky. It's perfect, absolutely perfect. Take that Science,

1418
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:57,320
Speaker 1: all right, Well, this one, this one was super fun.

1419
01:20:57,400 --> 01:21:00,519
Speaker 1: And yes, this is a very viewable film if you

1420
01:21:00,800 --> 01:21:03,240
Speaker 1: subscribe to HBO Max, at least in the States. I'm

1421
01:21:03,280 --> 01:21:05,960
Speaker 1: never sure how these things work. You can currently find

1422
01:21:05,960 --> 01:21:09,120
Speaker 1: the first Hercules movie, uh, the one we watched on

1423
01:21:09,320 --> 01:21:12,960
Speaker 1: HBO Max and all of its beautiful, colorful Glory. Uh.

1424
01:21:13,040 --> 01:21:16,880
Speaker 1: It has also come out on Blu Ray in recent years.

1425
01:21:17,280 --> 01:21:19,519
Speaker 1: Uh So there's a very nice looking Blu Ray edition

1426
01:21:19,560 --> 01:21:21,639
Speaker 1: of that. And I think you can also still pick

1427
01:21:21,720 --> 01:21:25,880
Speaker 1: up a Hercules double feature DVD that includes both this

1428
01:21:26,000 --> 01:21:30,160
Speaker 1: film and the sequel, both lutherig No Hercules films, uh

1429
01:21:30,200 --> 01:21:33,679
Speaker 1: in one DVD package. Wait, if he already turned into

1430
01:21:33,680 --> 01:21:35,920
Speaker 1: a constellation, what's he gonna do in the second one?

1431
01:21:36,000 --> 01:21:38,800
Speaker 1: Just twinkle? I think they have to battle all the

1432
01:21:38,840 --> 01:21:41,240
Speaker 1: same characters again like it had. Basically has the same

1433
01:21:41,680 --> 01:21:44,400
Speaker 1: cast minus Sybil Danning. So I'm not sure exactly how

1434
01:21:44,439 --> 01:21:46,479
Speaker 1: it goes down, but I have to bet I'm kind

1435
01:21:46,479 --> 01:21:49,680
Speaker 1: of interested to check it out now. All right, well,

1436
01:21:49,720 --> 01:21:52,200
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and close it out here, but

1437
01:21:52,680 --> 01:21:55,360
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there, your thoughts

1438
01:21:55,439 --> 01:22:00,360
Speaker 1: on Hercules, your thoughts on oh, just any Hercules movie

1439
01:22:00,560 --> 01:22:04,000
Speaker 1: or muscle Man movie in general, the legacy of muscle

1440
01:22:04,040 --> 01:22:07,960
Speaker 1: Men movies, all of that is fair game. If you

1441
01:22:07,960 --> 01:22:10,160
Speaker 1: would like to check out other episodes of Weird House

1442
01:22:10,200 --> 01:22:13,439
Speaker 1: Cinema that publishes every Friday. In the Stuff to Blow

1443
01:22:13,439 --> 01:22:16,080
Speaker 1: Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast with

1444
01:22:16,160 --> 01:22:19,439
Speaker 1: episodes core episodes coming out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but

1445
01:22:19,479 --> 01:22:21,599
Speaker 1: we do listener mail on Mondays. We do an artifacts

1446
01:22:21,600 --> 01:22:24,559
Speaker 1: short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we put

1447
01:22:24,600 --> 01:22:27,000
Speaker 1: most of the serious concerns aside and just talk about

1448
01:22:27,040 --> 01:22:30,719
Speaker 1: a weird film. Um I tend to blog. I blog

1449
01:22:30,760 --> 01:22:34,080
Speaker 1: about these episodes at smooda music dot com and if

1450
01:22:34,360 --> 01:22:37,120
Speaker 1: you use Instagram, I have set up in an Instagram

1451
01:22:37,120 --> 01:22:40,320
Speaker 1: account for Weird House Cinema is just Weird how Cinema,

1452
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:43,040
Speaker 1: so you can follow it there. Huge thanks as always

1453
01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:46,600
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

1454
01:22:46,600 --> 01:22:48,599
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1455
01:22:48,600 --> 01:22:50,800
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

1456
01:22:50,840 --> 01:22:52,720
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

1457
01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:55,719
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.