Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with Chris Gethard

you have podcasted poorly that's good right i i do want to just i want to highlight two interesting taglines for this movie one i really like one i think is really stupid is adventure still has a name or was that for i think that's the second one uh so the first one is terrible in my opinion so bad so funny that they did this and this is the teaser poster that's just indie uh holding his whip the man with the hat is back okay and this time he's bringing his dad it just sounds like a baccala it just sounds so stupid i remember the man with the hat is back and i had flipped in my mind that that was for temple and that man with the hat chris the man with the hat is back chris the man with the hat is back and this time he's bringing his dad like i'm like what do i care if that's exciting his dad like it's not inherently good news first half their man with the hat is that's fine it's a little iconic hat he's more than a hat he's bringing his dad he has a man with a hat he was recently on connections nyt connections uh things indiana jones like it was like a hat whip bomber jacket there's a fourth thing anyway the other tagline i want to say about that poster yeah beautiful brewsters yeah really nice painting although i also think i prefer the the main poster of painting well that one's incredible because it's a nice but you said like oh it's that tagline and indeed with the whip you should make it clear that painting is like that poster is like a drew struzan painting of indiana jones like a kmart photo studio it is like a high school like yeah head and shoulders turning to the camera three-quarter profile i think they settled on a really nice tagline for the main poster which is have the adventure of your life keeping up with the joneses i think that's a clever way to do the family yeah that's all here's what i said this movie kind of needs no tagline you just like put the poster out and you're like here it is the third indiana jones movie and tron connery is his dad but that's why i think they're saying the dad thing because they're like the dad you know like they want you to know about the dad sure it's not just like a third indiana jones which would probably be enough just like indiana jones he's here it is a little bit sad that they didn't come up with keeping up with the joneses first that was the second swing though you know that shouldn't have been no not only is it the second swing but it's also like the second beat of the second swing uh and here's a cool japanese poster which has river phoenix on it that's pretty cool i think river phoenix is so fucking good in this movie and i love that sequence so fucking much well we'll get right into it because it's the first sequence in the movie i'm just i'm gonna get ahead of this right this is my favorite indiana jones movies i've said in other episodes i know it is objectively not the best i know that definitely raiders does basically everything this movie does better they're so similar and like similarly i'm like i can't argue that it's better than the opening fertility idol sequence of raiders but the river phoenix sequence is my favorite indiana jones sequence which is absurd to say when it does have harrison ford in it that is absurd that's that's borderline not saying it's the best not saying it's the best i have so much fun watching it it's really great it's really great last two state is my favorite but it also i have really been thinking hard and i know i don't know if i'm supposed to jump in yet i never know i never know absolutely i did this was i i did briefly have to think i thought i was like was this the first movie my dad ever took me to see in the theater 1989 how old would you have been i was nine but i realized it wasn't right it feels a little old for you some of the first movies i actually it made me research the first movies i ever saw in the theater and the first movie i believe i saw in the theater is actually really really it's me quite funny which was that i started breaking on the earliest movies i remember it was like this an american tale yeah home alone and batman right but these are all 89 90 91 like that era then there was an early outlier which is that my dad clearly had no one to go with and did bring me to see star trek 4 theater that's a great movie for a six-year-old yeah uh for a six for a six-year-old first experience in a movie is the fourth sequel well sure story-wise but you know what it's fun because it's like they're in they're out of fish out of water there's a whale it's a pretty gentle movie that is most accessible to a six-year-old zero contact which is like space people in modern-day san francisco being confused by like calves and shit and then giant flying it does have like almost police academy a really well executed version of that too it's like i would i do i will say though all of these things i love your defense of it i have a feeling that if i sat my father down and said why is the first movie i ever saw in the theater star trek 4 he'd be like i didn't want to go it was that or sitting by myself in a way that would have made me sad right right do you remember liking it i remember liking the experience of seeing indiana jones the part of why i felt like last crusade might have been the first movie i ever saw was i was like i do have those sense memories i'm so glad to get talked about them here where i'm like this is perhaps the movie more than raiders because of the theater experience like this is the movie that makes me feel how you want movies to make you this is my thing with it i'm like i know raiders is better and i watch raiders more because i'm like i want to study this it is such a miracle of like construction and craft and yet i just have so much fun watching this and i'm like this is a perfect example of like what i want out of just like fun well-made popcorn well-performed i like to be a lot we could chris though you had some thought i feel like you were completing it maybe just the idea of like this will always be my favorite indiana jones because i saw it in theater i also have such a i'm 95 certain i was attached to this movie that because this was 1989 i started reading comic books around 1987-88 and i have a very distinct memory that someone might correct me lord knows your fans will be the first one to tell me if i'm right or wrong i love your fans i love them and it's honestly i also want to say it's nice because a lot of other times i've been on there's been natural segues into star wars stuff and i know your fans have a lot of people talk about that but i don't really see too many connections between this movie and star wars it's a string light episode is the off spring hold us so they have the same start colonel veer's stunning performance as walter tom i love that guy but i do remember seeing a trailer for the captain matt salinger captain america that i think was before this movie i've heard a lot of people talk about that that's a 1990 film so that would have been appropriate captain america came up and a few nerds in the theater flipped out but this was an era in my life where i've been reading comics for two years in isolation and all of a sudden you were like oh there are others like me i'm in a room with people who who like being yeah although i feel like that was like a nadir for comic book captain like late 80s he was very uncool x-men had become so cool like the avengers were kind of not that cool no matter it's probably around there no might be earlier we are in a very fascinating 10 year plus run by mark grunwald which i mean it which has the best captain america's ever been and also some of the most inexplicably atrociously bad writing you've ever seen in a comic book i should do a deeper i've never really read cap in like a sort of thoughtful way because i'm not a patriot right i just i'm not a patriot i'm a u.s agent guy actually i just like that guy when you dive into the mark grunwald run of captain america you know who detects if you really like the conversation about it he's yeah it's funny like he he's not someone like his rogues gallery i'm not definitely yeah i don't know i loved obviously when captain america cool game when brubaker did him right when suddenly was like whoa captain america's like dark spy stuff and this is so cool i love all that i feel like i've heard a lot of folks of your generation talk about that experience of the captain america trailer being pretty widely attached to last crusade in the same summer that burton's batman has just come out and feeling like oh shit it's all happening like if you've just seen batman work and you've seen captain america teaser that's the shield you have to think like holy shit they're all gonna happen now every year they're gonna make all of them they're all gonna work with the public and then it's like captain america comes out is like muddled with is a nothing movie disappears batman basically comes the only superhero that works until the 2000s we're also people i think some younger people sometimes forget we're also now not again i don't want to dwell on it but we're also now far enough away from return of the jedi that liking star wars is getting decidedly lame star wars has become like cheesy kitchen before the re-releases actually before the toys got cool isn't it's weird kind of swampy i love what you're fucking setting up right like i'm just gonna correct you on the toys thing the fact that you fucking got to it the toys got cool the re-releases happened star wars got cool again but we are in a stretch where liking like wearing an x like i liked the x-men by this point i would never wear an x-men t-shirt no when i say the x-men were cool i mean they were cool in the sense of like they had become marvel's biggest star but obviously comic book they were the coolest thing within comic and where again the tie into the culture too let's not also forget driven teenage mutant turtles is in the process of about to explode like nerd shit is about to hit and this movie but it's got its own little quadrant right like it's not like now where it's the main thing in culture but yeah this movie this movie made you feel good about being an unabashed fan yeah for the first time in my that that cycle has always spun but in my life cycle being in that theater hearing those people flip out being there with my dad i'm like man it's just the movie that probably more than any other imprinted in me the feeling like i want to sit here i want to eat popcorn i want it to be dark i want everybody to be quiet i also feel like generations of people molded by spielberg giving you that beautiful feeling 89 is a year that for better or worse starts to feel like the year that sets hollywood on the course of where it is today like you look at the 89 blockbusters and you're like this is a good slate but also the studios kind of comes to chasing this line they start chasing dick tracy almost immediately right but it's like disney renaissance because last i believe last crusade batman and ghostbusters 2 all break opening weekend records it's like the record gets broken like three times in one summer you've brought this up many many times next thing you know everyone's having panic attacks in san diego wait i don't get it comic con comic con i think it all kind of you are not wrong next thing you know i now have it i can now read you always say this and then i just i can't tell i look this up here are the opening weekend records it was held by beverly hills top 2 with 26 million opening weekend in 1987 last crusade beats that with a 29 ghostbusters 2 then beats that with like 29.4 you know like slightly higher and then batman crushes that at the end of the year in 1989 with 40 million dollars which is then beaten by batman returns yeah so it holds for like three years yep and then jurassic park batman forever beats jurassic park people forget 52 mil and then lost world beats batman forever what do you think beat lost world people kind of forget about this because spider-man becomes the famous the first movie to open over 100 million dollars is it sorcerer stone harry potter yeah right because i remember people being like is harry potter gonna be the first movie with 100 million weekends a little below made like 94 90 and people were like you know what i guess it's just mathematically impossible there was no way to have that many tickets right and then the following year not even like six months later spider-man does 114 and people were like holy shit impossible and then you get to like a decade plus later avengers endgame does like 114 opening day oh endgame did yeah sure it did 357 i wonder if that'll ever be beaten i guess it will on deck but this movie did break the record like you say griffin and it does it is a year of sequels and comic books and also like a little mermaid so like that you know that element rising again there's a cartoon you know movies yeah it's it's a year of like right it's this is what we want the industry to be but you also have look who's talking dead poet society you have non-franchise-y things like you have a big comedy you have a big adult one of those family franchise yeah yeah two dead two poets yeah the poet society tokyo drafting yeah we can keep anyway look this is blank check with griffin david i'm griffin david it's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and given a series of blank checks whatever crazy passion products they want sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby this is a miniseries on the films of steve spielberg first half of his career and we're talking today about indian jones and the last crusade his third of four indiana jones movies that he directed that he directed his third of his four for many years the fairly satisfying conclusion to the indiana jones series and now the the middle entry in the indiana jones series yeah technically it is weird to be like that is this is now the exact midpoint and it's another thing where like you talk about that star wars dead zone i know it was a little is that like star wars just kind of goes away for 10 years yeah and it's like it was dead on the vine right it's like hardcore nerds are keeping it alive but very low burn yeah you know books and then everyone loves those timothy zahn books now that's coming back in the in the if you were reading those timothy zahn books yeah you were a loser i would wait it to the period between original star trek and canceled in the movies right where you're like there's a small fervent group of people who are digging into this but that period is shorter and that period is like it's like those people were cultivating a cult show they were like we need to keep this culture that didn't get that many viewers alive star wars it's like these are the biggest movies in the world they're just done but the fans are like but we want more so we'll just sort of right we'll read some books and we'll be like it was like you know star wars fan was wide and thin and star trek fandom was like more concentrated and small but the other part of it is that like you know lucas very early on was like i'm gonna do nine right and then after return the jedi people were like that's not fucking happening and he so quickly does the two ewok movies and it's like i'm doing two cartoon shows and droids and ewoks and ewok movies all kind of don't really hit in the way i think he hoped like and we try as someone who was live then like the ewok movies you tried we watched them you were ready yeah we were confused right we knew what they were yeah give you a sense like and this will age me everyone will know that i am truly an exennial that this this micro generation the yep yeah the oregon trail generation that's something we're called the exennials apple 2es with oregon trail and our questions here's what it meant to be star wars is that i was on a pre-world wide web internet where you would dial in from your computer to individual bbs's and when i tell you there was one that i found in whippany new jersey that had an archive of star wars fan art that you could spend hours downloading on 2400 you would take a 2400 mode of like oh someone drew a picture of an at-80 walker and you can dial this bbs and download it because someone's making fan art like the level of loserdom that i just described that i actively participated in and was that kid of like i like star wars so i have a floppy disk of fan art that i'm downloading from a bbs in whippany new jersey like that's where we were at this idea that that every store was going to be stocked with lightsabers that there would be an entire theme park to go get lost in the immersive experience of this no you're using your computer to sit for hours communicating with another computer computer in whippany new jersey that's what you have to do you have talked to me about and not said what's that it's just kind of an objective reality that when you were starting out at the ucb theater you were like the cheat code is if you make a star wars reference everyone in the theater will last when you're on the road doing college shows because you're just like the people who come to improv shows are the exact people who have this knowledge base in their head and they don't hear other people say it out loud and you even look at early conan o'brien and there's a similar thing of them making jokes about deep cut star wars characters which is like they know their audience they're gonna pop if they hear lobot or bosk right and you're like now if you say that people are like yeah bosk is at walmart everybody and my kid knows who bosk is everyone else i just want to say i did not come here to talk about i had i had a real firm intent to not great well too much on star wars just understand that this is a cultural discussion about the impact of 1989 that i did not lead indiana jones and the last crusade when you're seeing this in theaters chris let's say our guest today oh sorry i didn't realize these blankies no fuck i am i'm a bad boy you forgot about chris this is def blank track jam hamburger i'm scared you motherfuckers i just did a show with hamburger really a month ago i did a show with the real alonzo hamburger holy shit in new jersey i got a text from a club booker that was like hey if you're free tonight we're just doing a show bunch of people dropping in hamburger's gonna be i was like in the car before i could even hit reply this is incredible how did he do of course he said the word hamburger right it's like hansen i'm like they better play mbop they play mbop i'm like i got what i wanted like the whole thing is he says hamburger instead of square but it's almost become like an ocd compulsion like he'll hit a punchline and then between the set up and here's the punchline in the rhythm hamburger and here's the set up for the next one it's not like curse words and now it's become like the smurf saying smurf yeah it's wild but he also was I'm not making fun of him hamburger was fucking great he's been doing it forever but it was also fun because it was a bunch of very young New Jersey comics in the green room and hamburger who predates me by many many years but then I walked in and was like everyone's just sitting quietly not talking to hamburger I'm gonna sit down and ask hamburger some questions and then the whole room gathered up and showed their respect and listened to the stories of Alonzo, Hamburger, Jones that fucking rolls, Hamburger Chris Gathard yes you did our live show last year for the 9th anniversary I think that was the last my presence is in Southampton this is true and you made a bit about you guys are afraid to have me back on which you always think you'll make the joke publicly and you'll text me and you'll be like I get it if you guys don't want to this is his fifth episode yes now it is kind of crazy that it's been five spread out over 10 years but I also think you're a high impact guest we want the right pairing you text me four times a year and you were haranguing us about this right before the record when you guys are doing Kurosawa when you're doing Akiru that's the episode I want you walked in here today and you went you guys call yourself a movie podcast isn't this supposed to be a movie podcast where's Kurosawa I'll pull back the curtain I said when are you guys doing Kurosawa Davidson's response was there's just so many movies and I went is this not a movie pod it's a funny rejoinder is that not the goal it would take half a year it would take half a year for us to do Kurosawa you don't have to do all that's the whole fucking thing that we only work around is we split in half which is what we did with Spielberg we did half of Spielberg seven years ago and now we're only I do get that you're not scrambling to watch a six hour long reinterpretation of Hamlet in his do the people not want to hear you guys talk about fucking Yojimbo am I crazy here that they don't want to hear I think it's an aspiration I think there's a certain level of people but I just do want to say I often times have texted you guys like if you can't have them back I get it and I just need to be clear I'm not ever standing out to make your fans furious I don't want to you're the nice guy podcasting I'm not trying to get people mad but if they get mad to a degree where I find it funny and unreasonable I will at that point be the heel you did a bit at our live show where you played into that and played the heel and my manager who I don't think has ever listened to an episode of the podcast texted me and said that angry nerd was hilarious where did you find him look at that where did you find him Griffin when I was someone shepherding you in your early career this is how bad things got from where did you Griffin discover Gethard this is what's wild to me is the amount of times she's had to hear me talk about you they don't even know these people that's Chris Gethard and she was like oh it's not like she doesn't know who Chris Gethard is but it was like it was disconnected for her I get it I think also you came in started speaking from the crowd started wiling people up we may be never properly produced because everyone was like we know who the fuck this is also the way you asked me to do that show was we're doing this thing at Town Hall can you come do the Gethard thing play full heel can I just say one quick thing and I'm not apologizing we talked a lot about Spider-Man 2 on the Spider-Man 2 episode did my bit miss maybe there are people where I've read their opinions that they were looking forward to that episode and felt that down by it and I feel very sad about that because it's one of my favorite movies when I read some people on the blank checks on Reddit going this guy his show got cancelled and he's been cut from every movie and I'm happy maybe there's something to be said for the culture of Reddit and fandom where they crossed over that some of you could do some soul searching I'm not setting up at the end of your bit you walk off stage and we had a moment of genuine earnest reflection in which we just called out this whole podcast doesn't happen without you we used to watch your show we were obsessed with you you know exactly but I mean yeah it's like basically David and I bond over the ritual of the Gethard show David had a very nice review and I believe you interviewed him about that review no Alyssa who saw both of us being really active in the community was like you guys should be friends but also I mean fucking Hosley because Creek and the Cave hires and the Takeover's producer of all of their podcasts but specifically Talkin' T.C.G.S because Riley and I were already doing he comes in mid-stream there was a stretch to at times threaten it we were like we can't have the podcast analyzing the show there was a more popular TV show as a fan side of the show what was the platform the episodes used to be on do you remember there was the website where they would like the archived episode before you were uploading to YouTube I remember the name of that place I think so Blip TV Blip TV Blip.TV Blip.TV what I remember is reporting to you imagine if the other show existed with Twitch and Discord I mean we're fucking it out on Blip TV I remember telling you how the first episode of the podcast talking about the show had done and you said that's more listens than Blip TV reports we get per episode and it forced you to look under the head and be like is Blip TV's algorithm wrong do they not know how to actually measure that I was wrong if we see everything that's happened with Blip TV since then my paranoia was incorrect but this is was you always have a Wikipedia a decade of dreams it feels very important to have you back on you're getting mad at me right now because they're going just talk about Last Crusade guys why do I forget I'm actually going mad let's talk about Indiana Jones I'm being a really good boy he's been a really good boy we're hearing the movie and that we're starting off the episode by talking about the early days but now we're going to swing into talking about the subject tell me about your relationship with Indiana Jones the first one I see is Last Crusade in theater the second one I see is that my parents used to take me there was a campground called Otter Lake it's still there it's in the Poconos North Jersey that's a good cheap vacation camping on a campground in the Poconos this campground is one of these places that has a camp store that's the first place I ever bought comic books they also did movie nights and I see Raiders I see Raiders as part it's screened at a campground in like a little outdoor pavilion which is a really beautiful way to see Raiders in your memory is it a print are they like showing a print or they like projecting a VHS I would be shocked my parents were like where's the cheapest place we can go these people probably like literally prop up a big screen TV no it wasn't for a screen they would project DVDs on my summer camp but I do feel like there was a weird culture it's the only reason I ask the follow question there was a weird culture of like 16mm prints existing of blockbuster movies that were basically just for like Boy Scouts and shit like that in my memory it wasn't like I want to tell you that I can still hear like the crickets and smell campfires and hear the like of the film starting probably a VHS but I would argue crusade in the theater and then double back to Raiders of the Lost Ark with your parents at a summer camp surrounded by other kids that's an 80s childhood and then you immediately jumped to Temple to fill that in Temple I don't see for a few years from what I remember one of my best friends in high school and later one of my college roommates he has a VHS of Temple that I watch I don't watch until high school I don't think I saw Temple until it was randomly on TV or whatever but I do feel like a lot of the most iconic things I knew about Indiana Jones before seeing any of them were images from Temple which is weird I think we talk about it in that episode but there was such a media frenzy around look how fucking Jack Harrison Ford got for Temple that I think the imagery of him with the ripped off sleeve and the machete and his chest showing was for a long time kind of just one of the most repeated Indiana Jones images and him tied up to a stake I remember feeling like that was really scaring my head and again I haven't rewatched all of them for recent purposes and I know I will also say too I'm not obsessive with Indiana Jones him the big ball chasing him that's Temple as well that's Raiders that's the iconic they were jumbled up in my mind but yes it's last you stayed in the theater it's Raiders at a summer camp you're making me realize all three Indies have a big he's tied to something scene like the first one has him in Marian while the arc is being open the second one has him tied up while they're hypnotizing him it's when he's tied to his own dad yes and they're talking about fucking tied to your dad the bondage they're talking about fucking hey I mean we have to talk about this later it's a huge part of this movie it's largely airy fun with this sort of silly weird thing at the center of it of like they become Eskimo brothers they both had sex with the same woman who again also though the psychology of Steven Spielberg making the Nazi that they both had sex with undeniably super hot in her Nazi outfit is I'm now old enough to realize the psychological layers of that I want to see if there's anything because I do wonder when she's just a Nazi Yowza Empire of the Sun I mean I agree Empire of the Sun's the episode right before this correct? Yeah Just as we've been recording a little out of order So Bilga our friend Bilga Beery on that episode put forward the notion that the big shift in Spielberg's career is like at about the midway point he shifts in perspective of making movies from the vantage point of a son and making movies from the vantage point of a father and that this is kind of a fulcrum movie because it's dealing with both sides of that which is very interesting to me and I think through that prism this movie's relationship to sexuality is very interesting and how weird Spielberg's relationship depicting any form of sex in movies or even really talking about it is but also so much of his core trauma being related to the cuckling of his dad and being too aware of the sexual lives of his parents and all this sort of shit it is just funny that this movie is like an Eskimo Brothers family adventure comedy that just kind of won't move on from that but also it's like you've set up these Indiana Jones movies that have this sort of like James Bond style we're going to have a new love interest every movie and then this one basically does the fake out of just like she's not a love interest she's a villain and for the second half of the movie it's going to be him and his dad I also have been re-watching I just finished really deeply meaningful to me re-watched the original Star Wars trilogy with my five year old which anybody who's heard me on the show can imagine that that was like very real for me but I am which he like D plus medium yeah of course and you know what else here's the thing that's really really cool I mean this movie has so little to do with Star Wars we can't focus on it too much loved Obi-Wan like loved Obi-Wan loved every time Obi-Wan came back it is sad to see though that kids now grow up with enough spoilers that like another kid had told him about Luke and Vader he knew so much about Yoda that you realize the magic of this little impish creature turning out to be a wise old like he had wish I could have seen that cold I mean I saw that cold I think I already knew like Yoda's wise but the reason the only reason I want to bring it up because I don't want to dive down the Star Wars rabbit hole is that both Han Solo and Indiana Jones are also by modern standards and who cares but I'm like oh Harrison Ford played a real good sex pest I don't think Indiana Jones so much I don't know man here's a flower he's a little he's Pepe Le Pew I agree with you he basically starts rubbing his dick over his pants I gotta fuck this rod like instantaneous can we just get that sound clean one more time I agree with you and it speaks to how good Spielberg's story math brain is at this point where he's like if we later find out she's a Nazi the audience won't hold it against him so smoking hot but I also like to the point where he's still trying to save her as she tries to steal the holy grail one last time he's like come on you gotta get back up here like you're like oh man jeez that's interesting we'll talk about that I find Willie Scott so annoying she's one of the least favorite characters in the history of movies and part of what I find annoying about her is as we've covered in that episode it feels like a character who's trying to stop Indiana Jones from being an Indiana Jones movie and the tension between the two of them is just him being like I'm Indiana Jones sooner or later she's gonna fuck me I'm just kind of sitting here being like okay lady until she finally breaks down right what I think they correctly identified in sort of recalibrating for this movie is like man you know what's Harrison Ford magic and the thing they stumbled upon that you wouldn't think would be a superpower is like the back and forth between him and Leia and this guy who's so fucking cool and confident being a little flummoxed by like fuck I wish I didn't care about you and you can actually needle me there's character growth Marian has that because of the history and fucking Henry Jones Sr. has that where it's fun to watch Indiana Jones be like fuck I'm pretending I don't care I also want to say to you I'm not bringing it up to be like sex pants let's cancel Harrison Ford just like oh society has changed this does feel jarring like my kid will watch Indiana Jones someday and be like it's kind of aggressive with girls dad like you go oh I'm not saying like I don't care and I'm not looking for a debate on it but I'm just like oh whoa like the ships stand out that like this was the most charming motherfucker of our childhood twice I do franchise him charming the shit out of all of us and it does you do flag it pretty quickly in 2025 I just think there's an interesting kind of rug pull on this movie like sort of emasculating him halfway through because the second his dad enters it's like he's infantilized and also his dad's like instantaneously calls him sir right and also his dad's like yeah I fucked her you know and it's just sort of like it kind of defangs that weird sexual element of him in a way where it's like now he's like a little boy also the reveal comes via she talks in her sleep which I think famously was an improvised line that's a very good line either improvised or maybe suggested by someone but let's open the dossier blankies quick question and be honest when was the last time you actually thought about how much fiber you were eating not protein not calories fiber in the US fewer than 1 in 10 adults hit their daily recommended intake and fiber isn't a bonus nutrient it's foundational that's where Huel comes in on those days when I got to rush to the studio to tape an episode and I need a quick and healthy meal I reach for one bottle for one scoop that gives me everything a real meal is supposed to give you the black edition ready to drink has 35 grams of protein 7 grams of fiber 27 essential vitamins and minerals no artificial sweeteners it's gluten free and it's under 5 bucks or let's say on the days that I want something a 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Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash check for free shipping and 365 day returns Quince.com slash check before Indiana Jones the last crusade Steven Spielberg was supposed to make Rain Man that was a masterful moment of leadership thank you well please I'm going to keep and just good you're really good tell you guys things we covered in the previous Indiana Jones movies Spielberg really wants to make James Bond they kept rejecting him Lucas comes to him and is like I got a good idea this is like the James Bond killer but when he brings it to him he's like if you make it you have to promise me you make three there's sort of this handshake deal of like I want this to be a franchise and I don't want you to run off and have shit your jaw sequels in your wake I need three out of you so he's not contractually like tied on paper but he owes a third Indiana Jones movie totally I don't want to talk too much about George Lucas it doesn't have much to do with him they're working on scripts for years right and it's just sort of not happening Spielberg has this attitude of like I'm not going to do the third one unless I like the script because we kind of got eaten alive on template Rain Man Martin Brass Project Martin Brass drops out Steven Spielberg works on that project for a long time of course he eventually drops out for reasons that Griffin is kind of setting up and Barry Levinson takes over and wins Best Picture and Best Director which was hunting for in the 1980s he was working with Dustin and Tom Cruise on it like the whole thing and he says they just could not get the script where he wanted it and they hit this point where they were planning on an Indy you know Indy 3 Memorial Day 1989 and he was like I'm just going to have to stop doing Rain Man because like I won't have enough time to do Indy essentially so you know he's made a lot of grown up movies right like before Last Crusade he's back to back made Colorful and Empire these two sort of like conscious departures from like the Spielberg type of movie and Temple of Doom is also like a Spielberg movie that's kind of fighting itself I think the public is like can you go back to doing something that's just fun the other movie of course that Spielberg almost does is big written by his sister Ann and he wanted Harrison Ford to play the part you know to play Joey Joel right imagine Harrison Ford I don't know Josh Harrison Ford I just don't see that at all pointing his finger at people I like candy he decides that he would be stealing his sister's thunder in a way that's the way he sort of puts it and he steps aside which I think was smart and the path worked out better for everyone involved Harrison Ford has had kind of a great run post Temple of Doom he does Witness gets an Oscar nomination I still think it's one of his best movies he talks about that as being a real turning point in his career of like this is not what the public wants at Harrison Ford I can't fight it they're like they're bought into the brands and they don't care about me going into something I find interesting they want to see me play the hits but it's an excellent film with an excellent performance and then 88 is Frantic that's not a huge hit although it's not a bad movie the plans movie and Working Girl which is a great hit for him and I think a nice swerve it's a good diversification movie of just like this guy's movie star power is expanding while Spielberg and Ford are off doing all this George Lucas who we're not going to talk about much apparently is developing whatever this will be tentatively initially the monkey king was the name of this which is like ancient Chinese mythology a very big figure he says at first he had said to Steven Spielberg like what about the holy grail and Steven Spielberg had been like meh then he you know he goes over to the monkey king oh I see Spielberg says when he said holy grail he was like rabbits jumping out of you know he was like Monty Python oh in his mind the like the shadow of Monty Python was too big to take holy grail seriously so this monkey king idea which Chris Columbus a writer of gremlins at that point is a big amblin in house developed something eventually it's called Indiana Jones in the lost city of Sun Wu King okay not rolling off the tongue but has this prelude set in a haunted castle which was something they thought about for Indy too like what if we did like a big haunted Scottish castle with Indy and then mostly it's like set in the far east or whatever this all gets junked you know they eventually just like forget it there is I think a script you can read out there though like there's something out there that people have found and that's when George Lucas is like please holy grail can we do my idea for the holy grail there also have always been the rumors that Diane Thomas at some point was developing a version that was the haunted castle expanded at large the haunted castle thing was just around for a long time they're like throwing a lot of shit at the wall but Spielberg was like I just did Poltergeist I don't want to do another haunted house movie even if it's a castle Lucas is holy grail Spielberg is like can we put his dad in it Spielberg is like can we put his dad in it Spielberg is like the dad thing is interesting weird I wonder why Spielberg was insisting on putting a complicated dad relationship into a movie so he's like we can do a character study here there can be some juice there and George Lucas said how is that conducive to the grail search sounds like George was a real fun George Lucas famously does not like using interiority to interrogate his own relationship to his father it's just like well the dad could be the grail hunter and Ford likes that idea they bring in who wrote Color Purple they don't like that script they bring in Jeff Boehm who is the credit guy who done the Lethal Weapon movies also that in the Menho script to a certain extent Jones Senior was the MacGuffin you have this thing of he's been kidnapped he's gone missing looking for it you don't get to him until the very end of the movie and Jeff Boehm is like that's the halfway point you want at least half a movie of them riffing off I was actually shocked re-watching it to come in today it's deeper into the existing movie than it it's 48 minutes in where I was like oh you already have a really good fun 48 minutes where Sean Connery even appears and imagine if he didn't enter until they got to the cave at the end I feel like we talk about so many modern movies that do this especially like legacy sequels and shit and then at the end you bring out the old guy or whatever and you're just like no we want to see it it feels like sometimes movies outthink the big blow up pop at the end of the movie and they think that's the maximum impact and stringing the audience along in anticipation until that point you're like no we want to see the characters we like doing stuff if you have a good hook let it play out rather than let it be a twist so you know I think they settled well right on what you're talking about they initially Lucas is imagining kind of an Olivier type like an eccentric British guy or more prim and proper but Spielberg is immediately like no James Bond we need Sean Connery which is just like a billion dollar idea Sean Connery is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford but I think they sell that just great Ford looks weirdly young like I guess for his age and Connery looks old the fact that he let himself go bald and doesn't dye his hair and all that shit you know he's got the gray Lucas is a flat note he's like no he's James Bond it's overwhelming and Spielberg is correctly unlike James Bond at this point and like Unpunchable has recontextualized him in a really good way and I also think the 12 year age difference I feel was like a movie fun fact that was I heard a lot as a child of like you want to do some crazy in like books I read about movies or like in theater pre-movie trivia and much like the box office record getting like beaten multiple times I feel like there are now so many movies where you're like the mom is 5 years older where the 12 years between Connery and Ford doesn't feel that insane anymore I'm also like I kind of buy that Connery could have gotten someone pregnant if he was 12 not to be gross about it I don't think the movie is thumbs down to that that's your backstory going off of that so this is like one of these teachers they bring Connery the script he has the notes he's on Connery he comes over to George according to Spielberg and says look anything Indie does in the context of the story I have done better when he talks about sleeping with Elsa right in that I slept with her too that's Connery putting that in now in that context it sounds like Connery's idea that is nonsense but I do think it was a gift for the movie I do think they figured out the right way to execute that Connery is so charming and funny is it fair to say he is to the Indiana Jones franchise what Samuel Jackson is to the Die Hard franchise this injection of joy I know what you're saying second one is wobbly we covered those last year and it was a similar thing where we're just like Die Hard 2 doesn't have a handle on what this is anymore and is just trying to repeat the same thing and find ways to flip it you're right where they're just like we need to like balance this with something else we need someone I agree with you I think that's a really good take thank you so much and also solves the problem of like how you top Marion Connery's take is which is like don't make it a new love interest he thinks India is kind of a I'm so nervous about the tension between Griffin's interjections and David's no I'm just trying to I got you I'm on your team I'm a good boy I do feel like they kind of trick Connery into playing more of a wimp than he realizes by doing this bit of he's kind of like the whole movie being like all these theatrics it's unbecoming to do this fucking adventure hero shit like the intellectual aspect of it even if he's like fucked Elsa first it does have this vibe of just like he's a man of letters he's smarter and more mature and he's unimpressed with everything he's doing he gives him alpha energy of like I don't know how to use these guns and planes and shit and when they're in the car he's just like go faster it's a perfect balance of the two things they found a way to satisfy his I need to be the coolest guy notes in a way that is funny and gives Indiana Jones more to fight against in terms of feeling low status but I also think some of that is to give credit to the filmmakers and the choices is not some of that intentional in the themes of like nobody thinks their dad is cool when you're young and then you grow up and realize maybe your dad has done some cool stuff and then obviously the other side of the coin which I think the idea of this being the fulcrum between son to father and Spielberg you go in a movie that is weirdly almost all set pieces and almost all big adventure fun that line Sean Connery has of like I never even told him anything it would have taken five minutes weirdly emotional to watch as a dad right now who has thought a lot about my relationship with my father and my relationship with my son you did a great one person show that is available for Republicans on Audible that is all about that about you sort of re-examining your relationship with your father through the prism of being a dad that line always I mean I will also say and I don't want to jump too far ahead like I do have such a you know when you learn how movies work some of the magic goes away I remember being nine years old and when the tank went off the cliff I was like oh shit Indiana Jones is dead I had not been trained so that was never going to happen so that moment really stands out to me but re-watching it today as a dad it would have taken five minutes here's the other thing I think this movie is very clever about is like the real narrative spine of this thing or let's say the emotional spine of this is that like Indiana Jones would tell you I'm nothing like my father I hate my father I hate but he he and I didn't know each other he was not good at he was not there for me and I think it's the audience of the opening sequence which kind of does this mislead of like Indiana Jones had one encounter with this random stranger who seemed so fucking cool and mythical that he modeled his whole life after him and yet this movie is like Indiana Jones doesn't realize that he's become his father that so much of what he does is informed by his father he's like he uses his dad of like you bailed and dodged all responsibility when the only reason he's here is because we watched him climb out of a window to not do his job at the university and not from all the way but it's like the thing of Connery on the floor talking through the things he hopes Indiana Jones has digested about the grail so that he can make it through the traps and he's running in his head and it being this sort of silent disconnected dialogue between the two of them although I would argue Griffin and we can pin this for later I would actually argue that the narrative side of this movie strangely is an ode to the wonders of transportation okay well I'm interested in that let's get that off right now I want to just say the other prologue the young Indiana Jones prologue is another George Lucas idea that Spielberg is also very resistant to kind of against Spielberg being like I've kind of done that right like I've done so much you know movies about kids and stuff like this also do you need to like explain Indiana Jones which I'm like this is the good version of what I hate every time a modern franchise movie tries to do it this movie somehow just like gives you 10 minutes with a lot of like that's the first time with the whip that's the first time with the hat here's how he got the scar I love it so much and part of it's that it's like they don't hit it with dialogue that it's all visual and it moves so fast and that part of it is like dismantling him it's like this is like a show this is like a posture you know are there any other films you guys can think of that do the little mini movie before the movie like Inglourious Basterds yeah I feel like there's I mean my recent The Empty Man you know I like movies that do that they're kind of like right like we're gonna tell a whole contained little mood setting story and then I mean that is a James Bond thing usually so like we're gonna have a whole little James Bond mission happen and then credits and then James Bond will begin the main mission which may or may not be connected that much there's maybe more of it in horror like you know the misdirected I do always love that this one is beloved right in general and he's like A I think Roofing's a great actor B that's the working actor in his age group who looks the most like I looked at mine at that age have you guys looked up I looked up the chubby wet friend the chubby wet friend he's really good the story of that actor is pretty fascinating really pretty fascinating who's the actor I am remiss because I took a bunch of notes on my laptop which I did not bring but that actor is it fascinating in a way where if we start talking about it it would bum us out no I don't think so if I remember right now he's like a fitness guru with a lot of opinions on having been in Indiana Jones mini movie was he credited as chubby wet no I forget his character's name but he's just he's a chubby friend and he's strangely wet he's sweating to the degree of wetness through the entirety of the river there's a desert yeah no it's a warranted wetness can I sidebar to Jeff Bohm for a moment had like a killer fucking screenwriting career and you look at this guy he dies at 50 he's like credited on all these like big ambly movies or sequels or whatever and you're like oh this guy must have been like a Shane Black Joe Esther House like died in a mountain of cocaine was like doing high paid script punch out no he had like a bizarre like heart illness he died young after a protracted battle and then you read about him for being this guy who they like brought into fixed scripts and got paid so much and has all these huge credits he sounds a lot closer to John Hughes where it was like didn't like the industry was a real family man just had really good story math instincts and all these things where they bring him a script that was like this has been development for 10 years the premise is great but yet no one can crack it we keep attaching talent but we lose them and he would just be like here's the problem right here and just immediately solve it like the emotions of it and you can read his Wikipedia is really thorough and actually very well written and it goes through like project by project and what his takes on each project very few he originated and it was like the thing about his screenplay just to note is that according to Spielberg Stoffert wrote every single line of dialogue in the film which was sort of like at that point Stoffert had written Empire of the Sun for him like Stoffert is right so like all those great lines we were talking about I think a lot of that is coming from Tom Stafford.

Anyway, Spielberg, I think, recognizes after Temple of Doom. Oh, Denholm Elliott should be in this movie. John Rhys-Savies should be in this movie. I don't know why I didn't have his friends from the Raiders of the Lost Ark that everyone liked not being in the second movie.

You talking about being surprised at how late Connery comes in, I was surprised where I was like, in my memory, the whole second half of the movie is like the four of them as a wrecking crew. To me, it was much closer to the River Phoenix prologue and then we're pretty quickly into this father story. Oh no, that's all after Venice and the whole church and all this stuff. And because it ends with like, oh, the four of them which I think is a wise decision, Alison Doody, who plays Elsa.

Which, let's say, it's funny to say, funny to hear. An Irish actress. Not to be disrespectful. Her name is Alison Doody.

Her name is Alison Doody. No, get around. As someone whose last name spells Gahard, I cannot participate in a last movie. She made her debut as a sort of like, small character in a view to a kill, Zavon's movie.

When we did that page downstairs, I was like, who the fuck is that? Started doing like wolf whistles and then I was like, oh, it's Alison Doody. And so I guess she's kind of getting cast off of that. She is kind of plucked out of relative obscurity and doesn't really have with Spielberg at the time.

He was like, I want Grace Kelly. I found this woman. She looks like Grace Kelly. She does have the look like Gahard was saying.

But also, this character is going to be a mystery, you know? It's like, right. It is, again, we'll get there, but she's obviously an extraordinary attractive human being and is playing an object of affection for multiple characters in this movie. But a costumer made a choice to say she shall be at her most smoking hot while in Nazi regalia.

River Phoenix, obviously, brought to Spielberg by Harrison Ford. Julian Glover, obviously, had been in The Empire Strikes Back. Yes. We had him do.

I think he'd interviewed like, that's kind of depressing for him. You had Colonel Rears? In the weirdest Colonel Rears, right? Yes, correct.

He's the guy in the AT-AT who's like, your favorite character. No, my favorite character. No, no. Admiral P.

I'm sorry. Admiral P. They are companion characters. Your favorite thing in Star Wars is that sidebar of Empire of the Empire 2 Jedi.

He's in both. The fact that he's just a guy who someone gets killed next to him and it's like, you're in charge and he's like, fuck, David, I'm a fairy piece. Yeah, the battle's one of my best pieces. And then he makes it all the way to the end of Jedi.

Like, he keeps dodging Vader, strangling him, even though he fucked up himself. He's in the corporate machine, climbing the corporate ladder, trying to stay out of the way. It's a very relatable thing for anyone who's ever worked in. He's the only Star Wars member of the Empire that they bother to give any arc.

Everyone else tends to just kind of die. David, I guess I just don't understand your obsession with bringing up Star Wars. Speaking of favorite Star Wars characters, this movie has a kid Fisto, everybody. Who is?

Kazim. Kazim is your Fisto. Kazim is the Fisto of this movie. I thought you were going to say that Grail Knight is your Fisto.

The Grail Knight is cool. The Grail Knight is maybe the saddest character in the history of Star Wars. I know. We need to save this, but when I threw the list to Gep and was like, we're doing Spielberg, what do you want?

You responded with a Grail Knight specific. There's so much to say. A statement that might sound hyperbolic, but that I kind of agree with you. What did I say?

I'll remind you. But it was your whole reason for why you do this movie. You didn't tell me this stuff with your dad. You focused on the Grail Knight and you had it taken.

I said, you have to do that episode. I have so much to say about the Grail Knight, but maybe Kazim is like the saucy tin. Kazim is the guy, he's the Kifisto though, where he shows up, doesn't get much sweet. And you're kind of like, I want to see, whatever this fucking Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword bullshit is, give me an Andor for the Cruciform Sword crew.

I think I can say this. Kazim has fucked shit up in his life, he will do so again, and now he's gone. I like Kifisto. Years ago, auditioned for what they had said was Untitled Star Wars Project, and when I read the sides, I was like, this is clearly a Young Indiana Jones show.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. And it was going to be animated. And then I think as like Dial of Destiny was kind of getting complicated, they were like, let's just focus on this and not do the sideshow. But there was going to be a Disney Plus animated sort of like River Phoenix-esque rather than Young Indiana Jones-esque.

And after X-Men 97, I think they could pull it off. X-Men 97, some of the best television I've ever seen. But there's nothing like X-Men 97 where it's like, people are not only nostalgic for that sort of old throwback X-Men, they're nostalgic for the 90s cartoon aesthetics, the 90s cartoon plotting. Like it's like, it's not just that X-Men 97 is like, oh, let's sort of like do a new X-Men.

No, no, we're picking up the thread of that show. We're weirdly bolded again. We're weirdly bolded again. It's not a new show.

Yeah, it's like sort of we're just bringing it back. And also we're just like picking good comic storylines. Also, everyone who likes this has aged by 25 to 30 years, so like we'll do some stuff you can handle 25 to 30 years. It was good.

The thing that was very funny about the Indiana Jones cartoon thing was usually, you know, you'll get these breakdowns and it'll be like, untitled Lucasfilm project and you read it and you're like, this is Star Wars but they're trying to hide that it's Star Wars. Yes, they called Space Bears famously. Right. This they sent out as untitled Star Wars cartoon show and I was like, oh cool, I'm auditioning for a Star Wars cartoon show and then I read the slides and they gave all the characters alien names but they talked about being at a university and studying adventurers and wanting to collect relics and I was like, you're using Star Wars as a cover for it being Indiana Jones and you've named all the characters like Blork Blork but I was like, I think I'm reading for either young Sala or young Broby.

It was one or the other. Your Wano experience could make you a fantastic animated Sala. I think so, but the show has just not happened. David, you look like a man who doesn't know that fast-growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers.

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I'm going to push back on Kazim being the Fisto. I'm going to say this. I'm going to explain my reason behind this. Not that he's not your Fisto, but in terms of his function in relation to the movie.

The other Indiana Jones films, the characters that occupy this kind of role, right? We joked about in the other episodes that outside of your main intellectual rival in the Indiana Jones movies, most of the iconic Indiana Jones films don't have names. It's like German mechanic and monkey man and thuggy guard, right? The guy who swings things around until he gets shot.

I mean, truly, the merch doesn't even name them, which Lucas loves doing. They all are just a description of who they are and you get nothing more, right? And even if you're spending a whole sequence with the fucking guy and there's a sense of character, you're like, this guy is defined by what he wears or what his job is or what he holds and that is his whole fucking prison. The fact that Kazim introduces himself and starts explaining himself a little already makes him a little less mysterious and you're just like, oh, I'm not used to Indiana Jones side goons being fleshed out to this degree and I still don't think it's a nice surprise when he pops back up again.

Where you're so blatantly facing away from camera until he... But you're like, I was ready to never see Kazim again. I think the Fisto thing is that I think a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Fisto is as a film archetype which I think everyone would agree that is a film archetype. It is, it is.

But I think the idea of who's that person? They're visually intriguing. Kazim looks great. Looks great.

And also, both Kazim and Fisto, those parts were written small but I would argue that the actors squeezed more juice out of that than ever was intended by the screenwriter director of Machine Performance. The Fisto is the juicer of the movie. Who squeezed more juice than you ever thought? And Kazim squeezed so much more juice and intrigued the audience to a degree where much like Fisto in the prequel trilogies you can't help but walk away and go, there are parts of the plot I don't remember and I've been looking forward for decades to learn the plot of this but what I do remember is that that green guy with those tendrils is fucking cool.

Kit Fisto except for this is his reaction to Palpatine attacking with a light tear. Yeah. It's just the worst part of the movie. I would have a impression of Kazim's death in this I would say maybe equally overwhelming compared to his punching above his weight and earning a little bit more in the audience.

Odette Fair in The Mummy is kind of a plussed up version of this character. He's Kazim as like holy or like in the whole movie where they're going to the mummy's tomb and a guy shows up and is like my entire life job is making sure nobody fucking goes to the mummy's tomb. I know how scary it is and it's this sort of holy thing for me. You're right though.

It's one of the smart things that the mummy does is it makes Kazim the Sato. Have that character The Warriors is such a cult classic that has stood the test of time even with the director's cuts trying to make it worse is it's a movie comprised almost entirely of Fisto. I think it's fair to say that movie is an oops all Fisto. That movie is even half the main characters are Fistos.

Something went wrong in the cabin crunch factory and now the whole movie is made out of Fisto. That entire gathering that happens like at the front. Yeah exactly. Oh this is my dream.

Can you dig it? It's a grill. No no we're not going to grill me. We're not going to grill me.

The city is yours. The city is yours if you Fistos can count. Fistos come out and play. It's going to be shot in 63 days which is fairly impressive given the scale.

The vibe from the set is literally basically everyone's just like we had a great time everyone got along and it went really well. Like there is no drama emerging from Last Crusade. Ford and Connery are like we fucking clicked right away we both like what we were doing. Can I put forward obviously at the absolute peak I think at this point of like give this man an action sequel and he'll run it like a machine.

Can I put forth a movie analog? Yes. Ocean 13 and Last Crusade are similar. Yes I mean Last Crusade is a much better version of this but like we tried something different with the second one and people were less into it.

We're sorry we're going to give you the exact Indiana Jones sequel we think you want. You know? And I think there is that like freedom especially because he's coming off of some grown up movies where he's like it'd be fun to play with toys again. And like he makes Schindler's List so shortly after this things like making the Nazi woman hot The merchandising line from Schindler's List is notoriously armed.

I will say Spielberg insists on it's the last time he's able to kind of have this sort of fun. Yeah but that's what I don't like about this movie is if some of it feels a little right I don't know. Can I say one other thing too? If in the movie The Warriors you replace every time they said the word boppers with the word fistos everything about that movie not only still works but gets better.

I'll move on. I'll move on. I'll move on. I don't care about this.

No my point about Last Crusade Spielberg insists or has the idea of including a moment that I really think is interesting in Last Crusade which is when you see when they're in Berlin like both being burned which is this moment of like unlevity right like where you're like Jesus fucking Christ almost every other moment the Nazis in this movie are cartoon nobodies right or literally just like bowling pins for and weirdy old crusty guys he makes them like people they are really toothless in this movie in a way that's interesting compared to even Raiders where they're quite sinister with its cartoon Nazis I'm just kind of like it does feel like Spielberg has run out of things to do with that sort of stuff like it's like that they're so silly I mean this movie is silly this movie has a very good tone to it that it doesn't deviate from even the book burning scene though I'm like it has this it puts a pit in your stomach and it has since I was a kid it does and they're marching it's one of the only moments that really does that but then it goes on so long that you do start to realize even with all this they're just marching in a fucking circle sniffing their own parts you don't think there's any part of Spielberg that's like fuck these Nazis I think there is they're toothless as much as he makes them goofier and this movie has so much more of a cartoon tone it does feel like he's attacking them in personality and like culturally a lot more I even think that like Hitler signing the grail diary thing is like a moment of just like right this guy's just like a fucking narcissist right like all of this just came out of this guy with like a complex who like literally when handed the thing he's hired goons to find for him still just thinks that also I just on like a contextual note this movie I did realize I'm like oh these guys who are actors who go to school for it who train who work really hard who get to it and a level where they can be in major motion pictures and then they happen to look enough like Hitler to credibly play Hitler well you never want a phone call but you know what I mean I'm like damn man that's a tight casting that's real weird we talk about other recent episodes like the world of people who are that for Lincoln and that's a much better silo to be in you know there's a lot of decks of Hitler casting off like you'll book shit but you gotta keep putting on that little fucking mustache I just want to tell you something that seems you do not know do you know who plays Hitler in this movie I always forget Michael Sheard is the name of the actor but do you know another role that he played he plays Ozzel Admiral Ozzel in the Empire Strikes again David you're really pushing who is the guy who comes out of light speed too fast yeah fucks up gets killed so that Admiral Ozzel is I'm just saying I don't think that guy plays Hitler again I have not always been respectful on this show I've not always been the most respectful guest that's one of the most respectful things anyone's ever done Let me just remind you that our show is being listened to by people who may not immediately know who fucking Admiral Ozell is. Speaking of Star Wars admirals, I recently did text Bobby Moynihan, and I'm not someone who smokes weed at all. I just texted Bobby the other day, what if Admiral Ackbar wasn't an actor? What if that was a real guy?

What if you were like, I'll mind a Trader Joe's, and you could be like, big fan. I don't know if I can repeat it, but Bobby Moynihan's Ackbar, but he used to be with the UCB. No, no, no. I can't say it, but it was incredibly good.

Can I close two loops on two things here? David. Things have worked in stuff. Julian Stanz was on George Lucas' talk show, right?

Julian Stanz? No. I'm sorry. Julian Blotter.

I'm sorry. When I told you that, you were like, that's depressing for him. He had to be interviewed by you guys. And I think it was in London, we were doing an all-day stream of people who have been in movies with Harrison Ford and using that as the threat, so we talked to him about both Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

He said that Donovan is easily his favorite role he's ever played in his career. He's really, really good. And for guys who are classically trained, I expect him to sort of be like, well, those are fun, silly movies I did for money, and they're serious roles. I prefer.

And he was like, no, it was so great to be the main baddie in an Indiana Jones movie. Oh, no, turn! He has fun with the turn! Look, he's really good, and he's a great villain.

He's probably... It's weird. He is the main villain. Yes.

And at the same time, it's like, you have Vogel and you have... And Nelson is kind of more than the active villain, in a way. But he's really good, and the turn is really clever with him. Now, to this point, what we were saying about this movie is take on the Nazis.

I think this character is sort of like a heightening of fucking Belloc, right? Where it's like, this guy has a lot less swag than Belloc. He's a lot less cool. He's just kind of a dork.

In a certain way, he's like a rich, dork hobbyist. That's the thing. He's like all these jerks we have to deal with now. It's very weird.

Where I'm like, you don't even have an ideology. Probably you became a Nazi because you want the Holy Grail. We're living in an era where some of these billion assholes are trying to figure out a little bit of a situation. When he's just like, you're working with Nazis, he's just like, I don't think about things that right.

Donovan doesn't come up with moral justification for it. I joined the club so that I can get the Holy Grail. And it has this terrifying line of, I'll be living forever long after the Nazi party's dead. It doesn't matter what I did to support them, but you also have him set up in the movie.

The way the film introduces him, it feels like he is the guy who sends Indiana Jones on a mission, not the guy who's going to be his wife all the time. And you're like, he fits into that role, just being the guy He does, but it's a little too slick. But I think there's something fun to this character being like, these guys are not cool at all. And people who do this are morally bankrupt and uninteresting.

Just before we move on, I just gotta give props. Admiral Ozzel and Hitler, that's the hell of an eye on me. I don't think that's an actor who did a lot of Hitler. He had a broad British, whatever career.

This was the other thing that Glover said, Spielberg was really loyal. I'm sorry, Lucas. Yeah, he was his guy. His British character actor.

And he was saying, Stephen, we're hiring Glover. My guys we've had in London have just been fucking poking. I love the idea that George Lucas calls that guy up. He's like, I got your back.

I'm going to get you back in. It's going to be a blockbuster. You're going to make residuals. And you're playing a really well-known character.

Yeah, yeah. So you're going to be Adolf Hitler. Clearly, I must have a meaty monologue. It's kind of a non-speak thing.

What's the other loop? It's under five. Don't forget. I'll remember.

Let's not jump to the end. The whole thing with Last Crusade is, as much as it has lots of fun stuff, I do feel like 80% of what everyone wants to talk about is just the Grail scene, because it's such a little short story of a scene, right? And it's so weird. And also, the minute you start to overthink it, you're like, I'm sorry, Elsa's just like, this one.

And he's like, yeah, I believe you. 1941. Have you ever seen it again? I have not.

Spielberg's first attempt at, like, making Nazis villains in a kind of, like, popcorn movie that isn't going to take it seriously, right? It becomes more about the Japanese, but Christopher Lee plays a Nazi officer who's working with the Japanese. And it just, like, doesn't work. And Christopher Lee, obviously, like, one of the greatest of the time.

And he's doing his best. And he's introduced speaking German, and you're just like, I can't wait to hate Christopher Lee as a comedy Nazi. And it doesn't connect. Spielberg wrote and shot and cut Christopher Lee in 1941 doing the exact coat hanger bit.

He was like, here's a really funny idea. You have a twisted Nazi character. He takes out a device. You think he's going to torture the guy.

There's this whole interrogation stuff out in that movie. And then it turns out just a coat hanger and this guy cares about his fancy clothes more. And he was like, I thought it was so funny. I put it in the movie.

It fell fucking flat. It was silent. It was dead. And I couldn't get over it.

And I was like, I have to make this joke work in something. And then I was like, Raiders, we built this character. It would work for him, right? And it was like, it fucking played like gangbusters.

I wasn't going to throw that out. That speaks to his, like, growth in learning how to calibrate. How can you do Nazis in a movie where you're not dealing with the full weight and severity of what they did, but you're also not completely turning them into, like, silly bullshit, right? Which 1941, that's a larger problem with that movie.

It doesn't have to deal with serious issues in a funny way. Raiders does it in a more scary way, but this movie, I think, has the right version of, like, comedy Nazis because it does take more potshots at their expense. I do think there's something to note about there's a documentary, I believe, called The Last Laugh all about how Jewish comedians deal with Holocaust jokes. And seeing someone of Spielberg's generation come about as a very prominent Jewish director and see him sort out how to portray Nazis throughout the course of his career, there's just something obvious to be said about culturally, it's fascinating.

And, like, there's no way to get it right. I just see him, like, that does represent on some level feeling. I think Drew Glover is fun. I think Allison Judy is fun.

I don't think, just my big note for this movie, it's not even a big note, I don't care. I like this movie, I think it's fun. I think it's a good movie. It's just, I don't, there's nothing scary about the villainy in it, really.

So there's just a lot of stakes. But the whole second half, it's like, no, but the major conflict becomes him figuring out shit with his dad. That conflict, that stuff is fine. That sort of supplants the, who's the bad guy he needs that way.

But to me, dad has been completely resolved after the tank goes off the cliff. Like, after that, they are settled. I think part of it is the grail, which is fun, but at that point, the Nazis, I'm not like scared of them at all. Well, one thing that really stands out to me is just a big show, don't tell note of, they basically say, if the Nazis get the Holy Grail, they kind of indicate now they'll be able to have these Nazi super soldiers that can't die.

We're just like, as a viewer, I'd never buy another one to have it. With Raiders, there's this kind of, there is this more gripping, like, we both, someone's going to get to this weird thing first, and Lord knows what's in it, but like, the Nazis have designs on its power. With the Holy Grail, right, there's this sort of like, wow, what if someone got the Holy Grail? I'm like, what if someone got, what do you mean, that he lives forever?

Like, okay, one guy, like, is this? You're going to have, like, your whole army come drink from the Holy Grail at this point. And then, of course, they get there, and it's like, yeah, you can live forever if you stay right the fuck here in this place, and you cannot leave. You can't cross the seal.

Yeah, you can cross the seal, but like, that's not the Grail myth. It's always like, you know, when it's time to start talking about that scene. The Grail myth is, you know, an Arthurian legend all the way to this. It's always right.

It's like, oh, well, that would be great, and then you get there, and you're like, I guess I can think hard about why this would be great, because it's not great. Like, this wasn't worth it, and the journey is the destination, the destination is the journey, and all that. It ties back into the Nazi thing, though, because how much of it, there's also something fascinating to watch, like, hey, prominent Jewish filmmaker dealing with Nazis, also a movie that presupposes that Christian mythology is happening, that there is a Holy Grail that has magical powers. Right, the original, Raiders is Old Testament.

It is far more rabbinical in, like, the nature of... Raiders is Jewish? Right. Temple is Hindu?

This is Christian. There's, like, a thing, there's, like, a... Choices on the... I mean, this is the thing that people always point out, of, like, the disconnect between the original trilogy and the two later Old Man Indy movies, more than anything, is, like, the first three are all about, like, I don't believe in religion.

Right. It's, like, the supernatural, but through, specifically, the presence of religious... I believe in the artifacts that people can hear it about, it's gonna keep me alive. But you're closing off those, like, specific religious stories that, you know, like, versus the latter two are, like, there's a thing he may or may not believe in, but it's a lot fudgier of, like, a time travel device or aliens.

This movie is, like, it benefits from being, like, yeah, fucking Arthurian legend. That's, like, so baked in. But it does almost feel like it gets to the end, and even Spielberg himself is kind of, like, eh, and, like, I guess you drink from the Holy Grail. Like, it feels like a guy who has...

The end of this movie is so goofy, and I think it works. But it is, like, on paper, you're just like, this is really silly. Wait, can we talk about the crown? Which feels like Spielberg does not the cobwebs and being, like, you want fun, Spielberg, here's fun, Spielberg.

They're on top of a fucking circus train. Which is all the way back to, you know, The Greatest Show on Earth, the big circus train sequence and that, with the first cinematic sequence that impacted him. But he's also just loading, like, everything up. He's like, I'm gonna give you all the fun.

When you're on top of a moving train that has animals inside of it. If you ask me, like, what's the big set piece chase transportation-y thing in West Crusade, in my mind, as a fan, since I'm not, I go, oh, the tank one. And then you rewatch it, you're like, they got a train? Motorcycle.

Motorcycle sidecar. They got a plant. Blimp, blimp, blimp, blimp. The history of transportation.

It's camels. Indy doesn't like camels. I mean, there is a running theme, though, of, like, hey, rats come and help you. Horses come and help you.

Do the rats help? Well, the rats give them the heads up that the fire is on. They're running rats. The rats are pointedly not Nazi cooperatives.

It's also like, hey, the Nazis have all this tech, but animals like Indiana Jones. Yeah, he's a more... And just, like, Indy uses a gun. He will use a gun.

But it's not really his primary thing. Inelegant. It's like a blaster. Yeah, random inelegant.

Because I'm now playing the Indiana Jones video game, which has been very, very good. And in that game, you don't have a gun initially. You know, you can get one. But it's like, no, Indy has, like, a whip.

And he, like, picks shit up and, you know, improvises, right? Like, he'll have a shovel or, like, a statue or something. It's on the back of his heels. Right.

And, you know, he just needs his whip, his fedora. I mean, is it a little cute than any River Phoenix sequence that ends with, like, the sort of Indiana Jones-type guy being like, all right, take my hat. You lost that, kid. You know.

You have to like it. Is that a little too cute? Am I just kind of sick of that stuff? Because now it's the backbone of all these, like, sequels.

I'm trying to get joy, though. No, I enjoy this movie. It makes you think a little bit, I mean, about, like, I always wanted to know where he got his jacket. No, I will agree with you that it is the only moment in the sequence that butts up against being a step too cute for me, where I'm like, the guy doesn't have to hand him the hat.

I can be like, and then later he bought a hat because he thought it looked cool on that guy. But Spielberg likes to prove it, I don't think. But I also like that that sequence ends with, like, here's this, like, thrilling adventure and he's, like, starting to develop his love for, like, you know, this whole way of life and the, like, you know, find a different way to express his love and respect for history and these objects than his father, who's more purely academic. Although it's also funny to realize, too, and I'm sure this is something that I have a blind spot to, I occasionally don't realize there's already internet dialogues about things, but he's a really terrible archaeologist.

Have we discussed this? This was part of your text. He's really, really, really bad at being an archaeologist. Uh, what's your, what's your problem?

The cross of Coronado ends with a ship exploding. Like, he goes to, he realizes, hey, we gotta go through this library to get down to this crypt, and he just takes a fucking metal thing and starts pounding. He does smash. Everything he ever touches in an archaeological sense is lost in time immediately because he explodes it in a ball of fire.

There's also a couple times when he's kind of just like, oh, I found this ancient. Or whatever, you know, he's like going on something. Like, everyone in the academic field, when they see Henry Jones Jr.'s name get attached to a case file, they're just like, oh, fuck, everything we do will be, we'll crumble to goddamn dust before we can even take a photograph of it, because this asshole has to smash everything and make it explode. Your text, when you put forth your choice of Last Crusade, my favorite thing about Last Crusade is that Indiana Jones is the worst archaeology of all time.

The Venice, the Venice crypt scene is, we located one of the brothers, the first crusader night, but before anyone else knows about it, we climb, climb out of the sewage system and it's gone forever. Your follow-up text, within seconds of finding the actual tombs and graves of real Templar night space and gold and fire bump, he makes it rubbing, he makes it rubbing, he gets immediately destroyed and it's so funny to watch the movie with that in mind. Yeah, he's bad at archaeology. Really bad.

Well, it's because he has Steven Spielberg, like, crafting inventive action sequences around him, okay? He'd love to probably just be chill. I just don't believe he'd ever get to a professor level at a university behaving this way. People are massing in his office, waiting for office hours.

I find that to be one of the biggest logical reaches of this type. It is funny that it's like, okay, we have the opening sequence and then we tie, you know, we jump forward in time. I just want to close a little bit, I just want to say, I like that that sequence is that he rushes home, he's got it, he thinks his dad's going to love it, right? Connery, we don't even show an actor playing young Connery, you hear the voice, he's dismissive, and then it's like, cops show up, cops are in bed with these people, they make him give it back, we have six witnesses, and he sees this fucking fat cat out the window, and it's like, system is rigged.

Like, he's in a microcosm, he's got this excitement of feeling like, I've done it, I've won, and I'm going to have my dad's respect, and it's like, your dad doesn't give a shit, and this fucking lifestyle is going to be a grind, it's going to be an uphill battle the rest of your life against these fucking dudes with the nice suits and the money. And then I just like that a hard cut, hard cuts to him on the ship in the rain, and he's still trying to get this one object from this one guy. So where did you find it? And he's going to look him in the eye and go, what?

I murdered the entire crew of the ship. That's the thing. I murdered everyone on the ship. He didn't mean to, he just meant to get the cross.

But archaeology-wise, this is bad form in the field of archaeology. I murdered a bunch of people, and now I have this cross. I do just like that Indy has this basically unseen adventure that we just see the final minutes of on the boat. Indy gets the cross back, right?

He goes back, and he is finally like, I'm going to fucking teach my class, I'm going to do my office hours, right? Like, I'm not, no more, like, pending ventures, pie-diving closed loop. I'm going to have these horny girls. Yeah, take a number, I'll see every single person, it's fine, you know, hey, Donald Elliot, how you doing?

High five, like, you know, and gets a weird package, right? He's like, yeah, weird package, but you know what? No, he's, at least, it doesn't feel forced to me that Indy is trying to be a college professor for a second. He's so bad at it that there would be, he would honestly probably be, his name, his name and photo would be circulated in college archaeology departments worldwide of do not hire this.

He's a great professor for me. He's fantastic at locating artifacts, unfortunately, instantly destroys them every single time. I agree with you that he thinks that I can hang up the fucking hat and teach full time, and I'm good, and I closed the last, like, big narrative arc in my life, which was getting that fucking cross, and now I'm here. If he hadn't gotten the delivery from Donovan, he would have, in two weeks, started going crazy and being like, give me that fucking whip back, but he's convincing himself he's ready to, like, move on, and much like he couldn't fucking move on until he closes the loop on the cross thing, get in the grail diary and be like, fuck, that's my dad's shit.

He goes to see Walter Donovan, Walter Ronan's like, grail, grail, grail, that's my dad's obsession, call him, I did call him, he's missing, okay, there's this, he doesn't really want to do this. It's a little bit more the obligation of, like, well, if my fucking dad is missing, right. I guess I have to put the effort in. I think it's more or less about seething his dad than it is about impressing his dad.

Because if I show up, he's going to be like, good shit kid. So, right, the next sequence is Venice. It's the catacombs and the introduction of Elsa. Great sequence.

Dr. Schneider. Kazum is there. Yes, that's true.

Great sequence. The rats are the special effect that no one would ever bother with anymore. Yep. Like, that would be CGI now.

Spielberg gets 2,000 fucking wet rats and makes everyone, like, deal with them. It looks amazing. Wait, say more. 2,000 wet rats.

Now, has anyone ever attempted to do that at New York Fashion Week, Ben? That's a course and ambition on you. Yeah. Damn.

But has anyone ever had 2,000 wet rats on a runway? I don't know. I think there is maybe some ASPCA issues there. Yeah, and also some, you know, public health hygiene.

They are currently fighting against rats. Right. We don't want, like, but maybe you've got to want one place to be dealt with. Sure.

Can I say, old librarian who thinks his stamp is weirdly loud? I think that is so fun. This is the quality gag that makes this my favorite of the movies where I'm like, that is such a grand bit. I think it's funny.

It's a classic rule of three thinking of, like, it's funny once and by the time it's been, like, extended for a while, we're just like, I'm just like, I love the librarian. And the choice that it isn't like, oh, this guy's oblivious. He's not hearing the sound because of the stamp. Then it starts to become this little tiny mini story of this guy being like, look, am I incredible at stamping shit?

Also the most powerful man alive? Also the type of proof that shows why casting directors deserve Oscars. Because you need an appropriately weird looking guy to play a befuddled librarian. And go on this little arc of, like, he's starting to feel himself.

You know, like, this guy needs to be able to really act. He can't just pick that character grew and changed by the end of the show. Now, help me out here. They learned, okay, we found the tomb.

Henry's being held at this castle. Here's the roots of the grail, the diary, all this stuff. This is when Elsa's room has been ransacked, which we later learned she does. Is she doing that just to get in Indy's bed and, like, kind of win his trust?

Or is there, like, a deeper conspiracy? I think it's, she really wants the grail diary. Right. And if she trashes her room, too, he'll never suspect that she went and rooted around his room.

But I also think it's part of her playbook. She wants to seduce him or make him think that he is seducing her so that there is a guard down, perhaps, as well. Yeah. I think it's all part of the same.

The castle sequence, someone on the rated I would say in Indy's. I agree. I hear you say you're, like, sort of, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but, like, a little underwhelmed, perhaps, compared to Raiders. No, I would actually be alive.

But I'm like, it's really only the third act that whips. Almost everything else is, like, a fun idea. You have the third act of this movie whips. Only in the sense that, like, the grail, the, like, I love it.

I feel like you were the one who's kind of saying, like, there's stuff about the end that I don't buy the states. Every single set piece is so fucking, so fucking great. And there's, like, five of them. My whole thing with this movie is that it is basically whatever.

Spielberg is like Barry Bonds in, like, a high school game. Right. Where it's like, he can do this shit so good at this point. He's done it.

He's, it almost feels like George Lucas is making my third indie movie. He's like, bam, I just made it. Fuck you. I can do anything.

And he does always the same year, which is not as good, but he's like, not only can I make your third indie movie like that, I can make it immediately make another movie. I'll make it in two months. Whatever. Or, like, five amazing set pieces.

Like, fuck you. He's just becoming a machine at this point. And so there's a, yeah, like, there's just something about this movie. I, I'm always, every time I watch it, I'm like, this is so fun.

Everyone's having a good time. Maybe it's just a little weightless to me. I like the Connery stuff, obviously, because it's great. I like Connery.

Connery's reaction to the tank going over to the cliff adds, like, a full star to the movie for me. Because I'm like, that's really just enough for me in terms of, like, weight, emotional weight. Otherwise, what is this movie about? I don't know.

I don't know. Raiders of the Lost Ark, I think, is so brilliant and scary and, like, the shadow of the Nazis hanging over it in such an interesting way. It's a better movie. It's so cool.

And a deeper film. Tempo Zoom is, like, massively flawed. I think so, but this is one of those series where, like, I don't remember. Like, I saw them all when I was a kid.

They were never my movies. I was a Star Wars kid more than, like, I was an indie kid, I guess. So I don't have, like, a deep, like, obsessive love of them. I wonder how often, I think that's a classic, right, for these kinds of things.

There is a whiny, piss baby, angry nerd YouTuber that I hate watch who I'm not getting any specifics of, but Indiana Jones is one of his main beats. And it's one of those things where he's just like, by Last Crusade, they fucked it up. It's Billboard doing kiddie shit. It's lost the stakes of, like, the adventure serial.

There's no argument for, yeah, the edges are a little same old shit. I don't like that. Even with Star Wars, my kid loved kiddie walks. He loved kiddie walks.

The thing of, like, these things are for families and kids is fine. It's just annoying when then George is, every complaint director means, like, move your kids, move on. I'm like, you're the age where, like, you saw Raiders in theaters and it probably blew your minds. And you were a little older and you saw Temple and you were like, this shit's scary, it's growing up with me.

And then by the time you see Last Crusade, you still fucking love Indiana Jones, but for the first time you're maybe a little bit older than the movie. And he, like, throws it down a well. And he talks about, he spends so much time talking about, like, how they fucked up the Indiana Jones franchise and how it's his most beloved character. And I'm like, you like two out of the five movies.

At this point, you dislike more Indiana Jones than you'd like. Like, you just have to accept it. Like, you can just say, I love these two films. But at a certain point, if you're fighting against that much of the franchise, you're denying what it is.

Enjoy, right, why even care? The Castle is great. It's great. He's great to hire.

His kid doesn't know. They realize that they slept with the same girl. Scooby-Doo revolving door. Ford doing the Scottish accent.

You know, Ford having a little bit of, you know, like, character fun. But then also the guy calling out, if you're a Scottish lord, I'm a, it's fun. Which also, it's like, I think is incredibly good is when they're fighting about Indiana Jones's feeling of, like, indifference to him that he felt as a child, right? And, like, his, like, refusal to engage after your mom left, all this sort of shit.

Yeah, I've talked in 20 years because of you. And Connery, one of his defensive lines is, well, you moved out just as you were starting to get into the thing. This thing of, like, it's a bit of a brutal line. I have no interest in talking to children the second you start becoming an adult, you move out.

And it's like, yeah, that's how it fucking works. You didn't want to be a dad. You didn't do the work. There's also something to be said.

Like, I think that there is truth through the kid's perspective of that, but I also think there's something quietly super fucking real about you understand your dad more when you've been through some stuff. And when you were a kid and you get old enough to understand, like, especially back then, historically, like, maybe a dad was gone all the time and that's the reason you had food and a house to sleep in and a lot of families needed a dad. But the dad, clearly, he didn't deal with the loss of his wife very well. No, and, like, but that emotionally, like, I don't know, and some of this obviously relates to conversations I had with my dad, but I'm like, I remember having a conversation with my dad once asked me, my dad once said to me, I always liked calling you when we moved houses because you and I were really good about packing up a truck.

And I remember saying to him, yeah, I remember during one of those days, it was the first time I felt like I could let my guard down and really, like, talk to you. And seeing my dad had this heartbroken look on his face and he's like, wait, you were almost 30 at the time that you're talking about. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, you didn't feel like you could let your guard down around me until you were 30?

And it was heartbreaking. But when I watched that moment of him I still need to be an Alpha Connery note and it's mostly played as a joke, there's something about this movie in the second half forcing them to become contemporaries. That's why it works. It's real shit.

It's just like he's seeing things from a different vantage point because he and his dad are doing the exact same shit in lockstep. They're on the same adventure. They're in the same action sequences. They're after the same goal and he's like, I'm nothing like you.

I spent my entire life trying to be that fucking guy named Fedora on the train. And it's like, no, you're doing my shit in different clothes. A little bit. And I think Senior comes to take his son more seriously because he watches him in action mode, which is something he doesn't do.

Right? Like Senior doesn't do action mode. He's watching his son actually be in action mode. Lovely moment of Ford watching Connery chase the birds away with his umbrella.

The birds is a really fascinating moment. And being like, my dad's just some guy. I feel like I've heard you talk about a lot in different circumstances your realization at some age as a nerd that your father knew the names of the members of the Fantastic Four. And being like, my dad is a serious grown-up who has a job and has no interest in my childish bullshit.

And then being like, not only were you into these characters when you were my, you still remember what their names are. This is in your head. You know? There's like that part of it being like, he's seeing kind of the little boy version of his dad in that moment.

I think that's just crucial too. I think, I think for the character, yeah, the Buck Henry Jones Sr. has such a silly hat. He's looking incredible.

Being like, don't forget my hat in the same way that his son does but his son has a cool hat. I think what I'm realizing as we talk it out loud is, and some of this is Sean Connery's performance, some of this is in the script, but I go, I will say, and David, I respect your opinions on some far more than my own, but I go, the dad-son stuff in this movie I think actually does make it significantly more than just it moves from set piece to set piece in a way that... But that doesn't start until halfway through. Once he shows up, the movie is...

But I like that sort of. I mean, it's like, if the second half of this movie were a flipped mirror image of the first half and the dad thing was not part of it, it would be like, yeah, this is just Spielberg showing off that he can do great sequences. I do like that the movie has this kind of sneaky turn into thematic weights and the weight is characterization which is basically the thing that is avoided in the first Indiana Jones movies. There is characterization but we're not really digging into the psychology of Indiana Jones.

He's a character defined by action and there's a sense of his relationships to these people but it's like, I'm just fucking moving forward. And his dad's the only person who can get him to stop and have to reckon with shit. And it's why I like starting with him as a little kid again because you're just like, this guy isn't mythical, he's a dude. And everything that's cool about him is, like all of us, a direct result of who he was raised by, right?

For both good and bad. It also recontextualizes every other Indiana Jones movie now with the thing of like, this guy's chasing his dad and after you watch this one you know that when you re-watch the other ones. Yeah, yeah, it's certainly, especially Raiders. Temple Doom is a strange movie to think about in any sense but you know, he's helping these kids in Temple I guess.

There's a somewhat fatherly thing with him in short round, you know. I'm not saying that all of a sudden this turns into like a psychological breakdown of the characters that never got the credit it's due but I do think this movie is more than set piece to set piece because of that exact stuff. No, I agree with what you're saying for the prism of like, Spielberg is just a few years away from leveling up to being able to tell really complicated, mature adult, psycho-emotional stories. And like in that context you're just like, aren't you ready to move on from this?

Even if this film has emotional weight and something to say about like fathers and sons and whatever, it's still doing that in a very pop candy-coded way and like aren't we ready to like level up to a certain degree? But I think this is like the last time for me that he kind of has this right balance of doing this. There's a moment in To Kill a Mockingbird I believe it does not make the film but where Atticus shoots this rabid dog and in the process one of his glasses lenses breaks and then he reaches down with his heel and just grinds out the glass so it's not sharp and nobody gets cut on it. It gets cut on it and he walks away and Jen is amazed and he's like, I can't believe my dad was the one that you guys all had to take the shot and one of the neighbors is like, do you not know that your daddy is the best shot in the county and everyone's known that for fucking days?

And the sheriff is specifically a bad shot. And they're like, why do you want our stuffy lawyer dad to do this? Did you not know your dad is a fucking bad? And in the end, like the Last Crusade is a movie length exploration of the idea of like, hey, all the shit you don't know about your dad might just fill in some of the emotional gaps that a whole generation of fathers ravaged their sons with.

And what you just said will basically always get me. Like, even in the worst executions of that, when I don't respect it intellectually, I'd be like, they are playing with like powerful materials there. It's always going to throw a little something at me and like being able to do it pretty well in a movie that also delivers good fucking bits and like five of the best directed action sequences you've ever seen. I'm just like, this is like a perfect movie movie for me.

Listen, Field of Dreams, them playing catch, we were talking about right before this record, never not make me cry. Yep. And I couldn't give less of a shit about baseball and yet I watch that and I'm like, baseball's the most important thing. You know, when they throw the ball around, I'm like, absolutely, baseball.

Archie Moonlight Graham is the Fisto of Field of Jacksonville. Now that is a good take that I have no objection to. I think Archie Moonlight Graham is more important than Kid Fisto. What the fuck are you saying?

That's so mean to Kid Fisto. Important is actually the most offensive word you could have used in the second. My whole problem with Kid Fisto is that Palpatine just The whole problem with Kid Fisto is that there are no problems The only problem with Kid Fisto is that character should have weaknesses individual Star Wars movie because it could turn into a thing for you. But like, you know, Mace Windu just shows up and he's like, I'll bring three of my best guys.

the Jedi Wrecking Crew. Exactly. And Palpatine, who is a billion-year-old for the end of this episode. All right, well then let's move on to the Zeppelin scene.

Would you not watch the whole Archie Moonlight Graham prequels of Field of Dreams? Sounds pretty cool. And do you know that Archie Graham Moonlight can hold his breath underwater and he can smell fear? And he's got to be getting home so Alicia doesn't think he's got himself a girlfriend.

The Zeppelin scene. This is actually though technology that there's a reason why we don't utilize it anymore. There's rumors to bring them back. I think it's time.

I think it's time. Iron Metal Impact for short flights. Let's go back to Zeppelin. Are we running out of helium?

Isn't that a thing? That's a great question. Which is going to, I mean, just be fucking murder for the industry of doing funny voices. I know.

We talk about this in next week's episode. But I think they just don't go that fast, right? Isn't that part of the problem with Zeppelin? Great, let's slow down.

Let's enjoy ourselves. Can we just turn off our phones and float in the sky? We're all so addicted to our phones, I say as I spin the Disney Emojiglips wheel on two different devices. I would say there's a very funny consistent thing that I'm not nitpicking in Last Crusade though, but it shows up in the Zeppelin scene very prominently is a bunch of things that are so joyous, funny, awesome moments where the aftermath of them just, like the, it's the clerk's bit of like you think about how many contractors are dying.

The pacing of the aftermath doesn't add up. They punch the Nazi, they throw him, he lands on the big pile. No tickets. Everyone takes those tickets.

Fantastic. Funny gag. But the idea that the Zeppelin just then slowly floats away eventually of course. Oh shit, we're turning around, we're back to Berlin.

Yes, maybe it's a little silly. I guess we should use this plane. I said that Spielberg never gets this balance right again which of course is me realizing I stupidly am ignoring Jurassic Park right? Which is truly the last time he gets the balance right.

But that is a movie where to this point what you're saying I think he's starting to realize it here he's like my understanding of like movie logic and spatial geography and what the audience sees and doesn't what I'm like like a fucking magician I'm making him look here and not think about this. He's starting to like fuck around and be like I can put together a sequence that doesn't actually make any sense and not make people realize that it doesn't make any sense You won't give up and Jurassic has a ton of overthinking which is like very skillful shit. And one of these things too that it's like I rewatch it now by myself and then you realize part of the pacing of that feeling weird is because that motherfucker knew the crowd would have been cheering. Yes.

That a theater full of people is laughing and clapping. He's so good at this and if they're laughing they're not going to think about the fact where it's like well wait a second the Zeppelin's still only five feet above this guy. They have 20 Nazi dudes jumping. It doesn't matter He was pacing it for the fucking pause break that he knew he got.

It's like Hamburger had just performed Hamburger. The guy's going wild. This is what the tank thing is too where I guess there will come a point I guess in any you know where these action movies that these those kinds of sequences are pre-vis so well that it almost feels too easy right like oh he ducks just when he does but the tank sequence you're just kind of like I've got to just give it up. The thing that still makes Spielberg better at this than anyone else who has ever lived is the exact thing that the sort of like obsessive pre-vis before the script is done actually fights against which is just like what are the character moments what are the moments in this that are going to pop as like a laugh and it's not because it's a dumb one-off joke it's something that surprises you where someone does something differently than you expect it reveals something different about themselves these sequences have their own internal like arcs and peaks and valleys like they're symphonic and he knows he knows like he's got a holding shot for 30 seconds because if I do something right now the audience is going to be riding such a high from the last thing they won't be able to process this his mastery is just insane at his point.

I had a very weird thought that ties into this which I think you guys will enjoy which is I've been to Hollywood studios many times it's a great little show but it does this funny thing my favorite play quietly wrote all the dialogue but they do that funny thing which when I was a kid I loved which is like they presuppose that you're sitting in these bleachers watching the actual filming of a movie and then I get old and I wind up being lucky enough to be an actor who has been on some films that's largely cut out of films as R slash Lenkies has danced on but cut out of some big ass movies and have remained in the content of some great films thank you so much making a joke referencing my past by the way same thing with my biggest credits on paper of the biggest movies I've been in are all the ones I've been cut out of it's how it fucking goes it's fine we're workers but you go to it as an actor to the stunt show and you're like ah that's not how movies really work and it's silly they're pretending this is a movie and then you rewatch an Indiana Jones movie and you're like I bet Steven Spielberg was running this set way closer to the actual tender and tone of the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular at Hollywood studios than any other movie he actually runs the set that cleanly especially again people there are just no complaints from this now Raiders that was hard by now it's kind of just like I bet there are fucking crazy amounts of trucks and scaffolding and cranes and shit and things flipping up and people diving off a building doing flips like all that shit they show at the stunt spectacular I'm like I am willing to buy into the kayfabe that a Steven Spielberg set is actually as fun and crazy as that stunt spectacular that's kind of all you hear from people who work on his movies I do think we mentioned it already but I do think Connery's reaction to the tank going over the way he just like simply and quickly plays the entire there's people fighting on the tank and on top of the tank being rescued from the tank treads Indy holding his dad's leg with a whip as his dad bounced on the tank he's literally riding shotgun in this entire action sequence and he's like yawn who cares the crazy tank guy you mentioned children's you also mentioned before like the Indiana Jones habit of just like this guy is the blank the tank pilot with that with the crazy leather hat like it's so fun he just didn't think his son was gonna die and obviously he doesn't die but like Connery has just that moment of like oh shit he convinces us right like it's actually fuck I actually didn't get to tell him like all these things I meant to tell him which here's another thing that quietly belies him being so shocked at the idea that Indiana Jones died does quietly speak to a level of respect he has for what his son does because he's like I know my son goes off on all these stupid fucking adventures and he's going through like pitfalls and traps and shit I never worry he's gonna die right that's why I've been putting off he's great at being Indiana Jones I hear he's off in some fucking Peruvian like booby trapped you know I don't think I should have called him and said hey I love you before he goes off so that all happens now to me the emotional arcs of this movie are pretty much resolved and it's time for a wonderful like LucasArts video game point and click adventure like sequence which is the grail like the puzzles of the grail and then the emotional puzzle of the night you know which is what I said earlier which is him having to do it alone and revealing how much he has ingested of what his father's of his father's work does add a new wrinkle onto the emotional closure I agree with you that it's like they've gotten to the place where they can admit to each other that they love each other there is still just one added step of like I'm more like my dad and I realized all of his life's work is in my bum and every kid and I felt this with my dad Spielberg clearly felt it with his just that feeling of like the sting of like why didn't my dad ever slow down and have that five minute conversation with me is also coupled with why does every son assume that his father hasn't actually fought hard about who he is and why he's behaving and how it relates to his son and you're like ooh and then to immediately follow it up with like he just fought a tank by hand saved you in the process fell off a fucking cliff and it's like you have the one moment of emotion that you share and then he collapses from exhaustion and you go no get the fuck up we gotta get back to work we're almost at the end he's like god damn the last time I ever saw you now Indiana Jones is on the flip side of that which is like his dad's been fucking shot and the stakes of this now like fucking tumorier level he has to go through is if I fuck this up and I don't do it in time my dad's dead and we're now at the stage of life where the son takes care of the father correct thank you now the son has to move forward you are never ever ever concerned that he's not gonna do it as an audience member no but those are the stakes for Indiana Jones the character that's why he still has unresolved shit it's fine you know he's gonna do it he has to trust his dad he has to take a leap of faith and all that what amuses me so much is I think all that stuff is great the puzzle solving stuff is so cool the floor with the Jehovah the leap of faith is the coolest thing then he gets to the ground now let's discuss this sequence it's a fountain or whatever the holy water thing it's a knight in knightly armor chainmail it's old ass dude this motherfucker has been there for 700 years not even across the puzzle this guy can't do Wirtle every day 700 fucking years he's been sitting around and these assholes if he had Wirtle how many times would he have gone through all of the Wirtle like a limited amount of Wirtle words like 500 years he's getting like clean B every day he's getting a spanogram and strands he's eating whatever they can he's fucking jerking off he doesn't have fucking popper on him do you think he jerks off this guy wait here's my question do you think every day he picks a new cup to jerk off to because that's the only thing he can look at this fucking guy they say it 700 years of silence sitting there guys I'm sorry breaking news I was just sent two texts from my father this is breaking news do you know what I'm about to say he's going to tell you this is big from Peter Newman deadline link draft day feature to be adapted for TV oh I did I did just a basketball twist and my dad says time to bring back Rick the interview I mean get him in there you didn't tell me this fucking news it just noticed can't trust this guy is Rick all grown up these are the questions I hope they're asking is it um you know is this like the fucking suits LA where it's like oh it's suits LA does it have any of you guys with suits LA they're like no it's just like a legal show set in LA we're just calling it suits like is Costner involved you know like do we have you know let me be one fucking legacy character I never thought I say this but guys were at the ground night scene and we need to focus on this is what I wanted to say I thought the thing I've been promising to recite back to you was in text then I looked the text exchange was that he's a bad archaeologist the thing you said was said in person I believe at the the Gethard 10th anniversary show the reunion show which was such a wonderful night you said this from backstage I said like hey we'll do last birthday in like a couple months 10th anniversary 15 you're right this show is 10 that was 15 so excuse me but you said to me something to the effect of I think one of the funniest bits of all time is this guy being in this fucking case for like 700 years with nothing and Indiana Jones Strong immediately fucked up his entire just like he fucked up the catacom under Venice he fucked up the cross but it's so personal for this guy for 700 years and then like where's the next night that's gonna come take over Indiana Jones comes he doesn't even allow the guy to finish explaining hey man finally you don't look like a knight Indiana Jones straight up cuts him off and is like eh not my thing man that's not really how this is bad and then before he can finish the sentence the Nazis come pick the wrong cup that guy turns into a fucking Beetlejuice it's weirdly scary then Elsa is all fucked up she drops the thing because she just straight up can't even listen for 10 fucking her ADHD he's like just don't take it past the thing she takes it past the thing we got the earthquakes and then I think one of the saddest and also funniest moments in maybe all of cinematic history is that guy gives a sad little wave he's been waiting 700 years and two minutes later this asshole Indiana Jones finds it this movie has three beats the cross of Coronado he makes everything explode the fucking Templar Knight's grave he makes it explode he finally finds the Holy Grail he fucks that up too in your words maybe the funniest bit of all time that little wave that knight gives is so sad what is happening to that knight do you think he wants he's been praying for death well no of course because of all the stuff that happened he's been praying for death for like 694 years we are to assume that he has drank from the correct cup centuries earlier and gets to live forever and he can finally get the sweet release of a well earned death move on here's my question Indy comes in let's just go through what happens Indy comes in he's kind of like I don't know man I kind of need to say my dad Nazis come in this is the moment I just think we have to touch on the knight's like okay we'll choose a fucking cup Elsa is like let me choose Julian Glover's like yeah sounds good she does it on purpose right I assume what she's doing is on purpose right how fucking dumb is Julian Glover that he's like yeah you know what actually you pick and she's like literally just goes like this one she doesn't even walk the length of the cups she just grabs one that's my point though it's like he's he is just some dumb dork he could have walked over that old ass grab his nuts and twisted him and been like tell me the corner ask a couple questions just take a cursory glance weird old man he's like oh it looks great it's gold we're in the Kruger syndrome this guy thinks he knows everything we're blowing past the part where Indiana Jones is like who are you he's like I'm one of three runners and Indiana Jones straight up oh so you're 700 years old anyway man I'm kind of not into it this is not really my scene I love this movie so much but the end is like I need to save my dad this episode is like playing Moushier Spielberg said when Lucas initially pitched in the Holy Grail Spielberg was like is there anything fun you can do with the ending of the Holy Grail is there a special effects thing you can do he was a little concerned is a little boring at the end I think that this ending is so iconic and well regarded they figured it out and obviously the special effects thing they figured out was the rapid aging is cool we'll do that but everything it's just like the only time pressure is on Indy which is I want to save my dad there's no time pressure on Julian Blubber he could just really be like I'm going to take a look at every single he could just go save your dad so I know which one is the right that's an option for him there's a lot of options for him some would actually say that's why he shot the dad but he's just like glug glug glug Beetlejuice I love it I love it I love him bringing Beetlejuice let's remember his whole thing was he was the most pure one so his two brothers he was like they failed goodbye my brothers we will never see each other again survival the fittest he assumes I'm the first link in a chain where other knights will achieve this take over and it will last for eternity and instead the first guy who shows up fucks it all up and he just goes I guess I could have been fucking cheeseburgers for the past fucking 700 years because the first asshole to come take over fucked it up here's a fun thing to consider this guy sucks as an archaeologist this guy doesn't even know that movies exist this dude has no idea he doesn't know that printed words he doesn't know that the movies all this shit cheaper let alone that who the fuck is your clocking away well god he would have loved that dude he doesn't know about Nintendo no he actually does weirdly doesn't that's the one thing I love Nintendo Jesus has permitted Nintendo he doesn't want to break Nintendo but you know that's also like he only had Duck Hunt it wasn't even the double cartridge with Mario Brothers oh he just had the Duck Hunt he didn't have the gun he didn't have the gun he was playing Duck Hunt he had a controller so okay okay so Julian Glover dies Julian Glover dying is great Indy's like Indy even Indy is a little briskly like well I think it's this shitty one that's Carpenter's Cut but again he doesn't even like I just have to do one full scan just one full scan hearing you guys say Spielberg was never particularly interested in the Grail this I will say and again he's given a million props about his mastery like this one does feel like a guy who doesn't give a fuck about this has made it the like the ultimate goal of the movie you can sort of feel that he doesn't totally give a fuck about the Grail itself he's done Cup is proven good okay takes it to Connery saves Connery that problem is solved now it's kind of like okay now what do we do right and of course Elsa takes it across the Great Seal which is not Indy's fault if you're disparaging he doesn't cause that chaos that is Elsa's fault everywhere he goes in an archaeological sense though the place explodes or collapses um crack opens in the earth Elsa falls down it you know Indy tries to rescue her she's too tempted by the cup she falls to her death Indy resists the temptation of the cup gets out instead goes with his death the cup the Grail cup falls into the abyss right onto that little ledge but like then this is my question they all leave Grail Knight as we know goes like uh bye is Grail Knight still going to live and just kind of be stuck there still is he going to get the cup back or has the cup gone and Grail Knight's about to die Grail Knight has the craziest choice to make of anyone in this which is like no one else I guess cares about this half as much as I thought so I guess now do I stay here and live walk over the seal and die well there's another option that ties into this which is that there's another logic which is so Grail Knight I Indiana Jones this is not my thing but my father has now drank from the cup and conceivably he spent his whole life chasing this It's actually my father that should be doing this. And my father has sort of lived in absentia in a way that I've always resented, but if it was for the purpose of this, maybe this was Iver's, he could stay. And we just watched him drink from the Holy Grail. And they poured it on his stomach.

Henry Jones Sr. also is like, I got illumination out of it. I got everything I wanted. Peace, Grail.

I'm not even going to ask you a question. But much like, yeah, just no further input required. But much like in Race to the Lost Ark, it's like, oh, what's in the Ark? It's like, I don't know, we're a ghost, let's get out of here.

You know, like, and this one's like, to finding it. But the whole thing with the Holy Grail is right, you get there and you're like, hell yeah. And it's like, couple of attached, couple of provisos here. One, you can't leave.

Two, no one's here. So it sucks. What do you think the Grail might? Like, when they were all leaving, he would have been like, no, guys, no, wait, why don't you have to take over?

And they'd be like, no, I'm sorry. That's the question. I mean, they obviously like, we got TikTok and shit. We got to go, man.

They fixed Connery's bullet wounds, right? But it's like, by feeding the water, is he now, does he live forever? No, you don't live forever just by drinking from the water. You got to stay there.

And it's not just you drink it once you stay there. So that's the kind of, you know, poison chalice thing. Yeah, I can live forever. You can live forever in this room like Cubs?

Living a Grail might's life. Yeah, this room has not life at all. It's cup room. Do you like anything but Cubs?

Does he jerk off into every cup? Yes, yes. Guys, it's a little sacrilegious. To your point, do you think it's a little sacrilegious?

Are you going to jerk off into the Holy Grail? Let's just leave it sacrilegious. To your point, about it feeling like Do you think they were all pissed that they had already blown knowledge was the real treasure? That it feels like this movie is building to some sort of line?

Illumination always struck me as a very weird line, both in that it's a little soft and there's so many tie-ins that have, like, Holy Blood, Holy Grail isn't written, Da Vinci Code isn't out yet, but this idea that the Holy Grail ties into the Illuminati is out there. And it feels like Illumination is a weird what you get out of it. It feels like they're backed into a corner of how do we not double beat the ending of the last one, but it's like, that line doesn't make a ton of sense in Temple of Doom versus what's going on in that movie. Whereas in this, it's like, what you want him or Connery to say is something like, no, the Grail doesn't matter.