Legend with Evan Dawley

What this episode covers

Geoffrey's friend Evan Dawley, author of Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City, 1880s-1950s, joins us to talk about a movie he watched like ten times as a D&D-loving teenager: Legend. This movie was directed by Ridley Scott (what!?) and stars a pre-Top Gun Tom Cruise and his love interest, Mia Sara (AKA Sloane from Ferris Bueller's Day Off).Here's Evan's Summary:Legend was on cable back when I was in my early/mid-teens, not long after my family got cable, and when I was playing a lot of D&D, so I watched it many times. With all that, I was expecting to have a good memory of the plot, but as I sat down to write this, I realized that there are a lot of gaps in my memory—or maybe those are in the movie itself? So, here goes. The movie is set in some idyllic village, where the lead character, a young woman (Mia Sara), wanders in the fields on a perfect summer afternoon, to the sound of synthesizers. She heads for the forest, passing the cottage of a familiar older woman—who is evidently from a lower class—who warns her to be careful as she heads into the forest; the older woman specifically warns the young woman about "old oaks." As she walks among the trees, the sky turns dark, the wind picks up, and she is suddenly in a different realm. I think she literally falls down a hole. In this new realm, which is dark and scary, she encounters a few characters who I guess are there to help her, but are really kind of weird. There is a seriously creepy, and shirtless, elf who does most of the initial talking; a short creature with a human body and a boar's head who says less; and a dreamy, loin-clothed youth named Jack (Tom Cruise); this is the only name I remember from the entire film. They try to help her, I'm not sure initially from what, maybe to get home, maybe from the darkness in the realm. They go to some fancy house, where they encounter an impressively-designed demon (Tim Curry), who Boar's Head refers to as "Big D!" The young woman falls under his spell and is transformed from Sweet Country Girl to Scary Goth Princess. Jack comes to her rescue, I think he wields a sword in the process, they escape from the demon, return to the place where she entered the realm, and then she crosses back into her familiar forest. She walks home on a perfect summer's day to the sound of synthesizers.This movie had a synthtastic 80s soundtrack (well, the US version did, anyway), and great creature work, but tonally and plot wise, it is a hot messssss. Evan remembered a lot, but also forgot a lot of stuff, like Lily's name, and that the Tim Curry demon was called "The Big D" because… of course he was. … Evan also forgot the unicorns… So there's that.Geoffrey points out that this is the second movie we've done with a gump in it. Weird. This one is way different than the one in Return to Oz, though. Thanks to Evan for joining us!If you're having fun listening to us, please tell your friends about us! Subscribe to our newsletter at thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com for free, or pay $5/month to get access to two bonus paid episodes each month! We're also on Patreon if that's your jam! Rate and review us! follow us on Twitter where we're @thisiswhy_pod! And, of course, you can always drop us a note at at [email protected]. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com/subscribe

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