"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989) vs "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989): Part 1

<v Speaker 1>Hey, it's Brett and Harley from the Only Okase Show.
<v Speaker 2>And when I'm not gleaming the cube or justing my swatchwatch,
<v Speaker 2>we're listening to this Syearly you Can't Be Serious Podcast.
<v Speaker 2>Welcome back to the Shurley you Can't Be Serious Podcast.
<v Speaker 2>We have a special song for you that we will
<v Speaker 2>play at the end of the episode that by the
<v Speaker 2>Surely you Can't Be Serious band, little bluesy lethal weapon
<v Speaker 2>sounding number that incorporates a little lethal weapon one and
<v Speaker 2>a lot of lethal weapon two. Because today, boys and girls,
<v Speaker 2>ladies and gentlemen, we are here to talk about the
<v Speaker 2>two best sequels from nineteen eighty nine, Indiana Jones in
<v Speaker 2>the Last Crusade versus Lethal Weapon Twodee.
<v Speaker 1>I've been waiting to talk about the sequels from nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty nine with you for over a year. We've been
<v Speaker 1>talking about this matchup for a long time, long time.
<v Speaker 2>We're finally here, Yes, and.
<v Speaker 1>I'm just here to remind you only a penitent man
<v Speaker 1>will pass an ex never.
<v Speaker 2>Ever marks the spot. So you're ready to go.
<v Speaker 1>My soul is prepared. How's yours?
<v Speaker 2>Very good? Very good? Yes, my soul is prepared as
<v Speaker 2>well as are my notes. This was a fun one
<v Speaker 2>to dive into. It's crazy because I mentioned in our
<v Speaker 2>last episode, Hey, I know the tie in between these
<v Speaker 2>two movies, these two incredible sequels from nineteen eighty nine,
<v Speaker 2>and you you called them that. I remember you saying that,
<v Speaker 2>you know, two best sequels of nineteen eighty nine, And
<v Speaker 2>the thought that went through my head was, well, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but this is the third Indiana Jones. That's right movie.
<v Speaker 2>But then I remembered the second Indiana Jones movie is
<v Speaker 2>not a sequel.
<v Speaker 1>You are correct, And when you told me that, I
<v Speaker 1>was like, oh man, that's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>It's a prequel. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
<v Speaker 2>takes place before the events in Raiders of the Lost.
<v Speaker 2>It is a prequel, And so Indiana Jones and the
<v Speaker 2>Last Crusade is technically the first Indie sequel before we
<v Speaker 2>get out of the gate.
<v Speaker 1>Is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the best name
<v Speaker 1>they could come up with for this.
<v Speaker 2>Movie, well, given that they probably thought it was the
<v Speaker 2>last one. It's kind of like you know Ozzy Osbourne's
<v Speaker 2>No More Tours tour, right, which I mean how many
<v Speaker 2>tours ago was that? I mean he spent ting a
<v Speaker 2>bunch of them since then. I think that, you know,
<v Speaker 2>Harrison was probably pretty emphatic that this was going to
<v Speaker 2>be his last movie. But I can also tell you,
<v Speaker 2>going back to what I was saying, the connective tissue
<v Speaker 2>between these two they're both written by the same guy.
<v Speaker 2>Jeffrey Boham wrote both of these just before nineteen eighty nine,
<v Speaker 2>obviously so that they had time to make the movies.
<v Speaker 2>But he even said in nineteen ninety six, saw an
<v Speaker 2>interview he did in nineteen ninety six. At that time
<v Speaker 2>he was working on another Indiana Jones movie script and
<v Speaker 2>he said, Spielberg's for it, Lucas is for it. Our
<v Speaker 2>only hang up is whether Harrison Ford's going to do
<v Speaker 2>it or That was in ninety six.
<v Speaker 1>I heard about one that Frank Dearbond worked on in
<v Speaker 1>the late nineties that could have been awesome. The stories
<v Speaker 1>that we got before this, like the scripts that were
<v Speaker 1>submitted and stuff, are fascinating. Yeah, you know, Spielberg's Jewish,
<v Speaker 1>so doing a movie on the Holy Grail, I don't
<v Speaker 1>know if it is necessarily super comfortable for him. And
<v Speaker 1>there are other continents and places we could have gone.
<v Speaker 1>And obviously we went off the rails after the last Crusade.
<v Speaker 1>But it's super interesting to think about the what ifs
<v Speaker 1>with the Indiana Jones franchise.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely one percent. I was struggling on this one. We've
<v Speaker 2>talked about Jeffrey Bohm before, right, As a matter of fact,
<v Speaker 2>we've talked about him several times before because we know
<v Speaker 2>that he did Lost Boys, we know that he did
<v Speaker 2>The Dead Zone. He was actually an uncredited script writer
<v Speaker 2>on Lethal Weapon one, which we did in the first
<v Speaker 2>season as well versus Diehard. Yeah, he was called in
<v Speaker 2>to work on Shane Black script because he was a
<v Speaker 2>guy who was a studio guy who they would go
<v Speaker 2>to to change things up on the fly, and so
<v Speaker 2>he did actually work on Lethal Weapon one. So technically
<v Speaker 2>this is the fourth and fifth movies that we've talked
<v Speaker 2>about that are Jeffrey Boem scripts.
<v Speaker 1>That's crazy. I wouldn't have thought about.
<v Speaker 2>That, right, And then you and I were talking and
<v Speaker 2>I was like, his you know, his abilities were incredible,
<v Speaker 2>and You're like, yeah, but he really kind of fell
<v Speaker 2>off the world like two thousand or something. What happened
<v Speaker 2>to him? And I was like, well, he died.
<v Speaker 1>Like I was wonder why his IMDb page wasn't full
<v Speaker 1>of stuff. I did not know that he died.
<v Speaker 2>My gosh, he died at fifty three. Yeah, died very
<v Speaker 2>young man, fifty three years old. It had a lung condition.
<v Speaker 2>I guess that led to a heart failure just suddenly.
<v Speaker 2>So tragic loss. Because obviously he's a very skilled guy.
<v Speaker 2>And I am excited to talk about his history because
<v Speaker 2>even though we've talked talked about the fifth movie that
<v Speaker 2>he's done, but we haven't really talked about him that much,
<v Speaker 2>and so I'm kind of excited to talk about his history.
<v Speaker 2>But before I get there, Yeah, I got to ask
<v Speaker 2>you a question, all right, Yes, yes, So we got
<v Speaker 2>two kind of concepts in these movies that I haven't
<v Speaker 2>really delved into before. Okay, and this is these are
<v Speaker 2>the rabbit holes that I went down. All right, So
<v Speaker 2>which do you think is the older reference? Okay, diplomatic
<v Speaker 2>immunity or the Holy Grail. Well, it's got to be
<v Speaker 2>the Holy Grail, right You would think that, wouldn't you.
<v Speaker 1>Yes? Interesting, Yeah, So let's just let's start.
<v Speaker 2>Let's start talking about it. Okay, diplomatic community. Diplomatic immunity
<v Speaker 2>can be traced back as far as the rama Gyana,
<v Speaker 2>which is an Indian like a holy book that has
<v Speaker 2>a lot of history from Ramayana, rama Yana, Ramayana. This
<v Speaker 2>is an important work in Indian history, right okay, and
<v Speaker 2>it's now. The thing is is that it's had a
<v Speaker 2>lot of different variations over several centuries, but it dates
<v Speaker 2>back to as early as the seventh century, that's the
<v Speaker 2>six hundred's BC. The Ramayana dates back as early as
<v Speaker 2>six hundred years before Christ. And within it is the
<v Speaker 2>concept of diplomatic immunity. Wow, so well before Christ. But
<v Speaker 2>we're going to get into that in a second. If
<v Speaker 2>even that's the earliest reference to the Grail, but we'll
<v Speaker 2>talk about that in a minute. So in the Ramayana,
<v Speaker 2>there is a part where one of the demon kings
<v Speaker 2>is ordering the killing of this this prince, and his
<v Speaker 2>younger brother says, hey, no messengers and diplomats should not
<v Speaker 2>be killed per ancient practices. So it was even an
<v Speaker 2>ancient practice six hundred years before Christ. Wow, diplomatic community.
<v Speaker 2>I would have had no idea. But if you just
<v Speaker 2>give it a little thought, think about the movie three hundred.
<v Speaker 2>Remember when he comes to He's come to give them
<v Speaker 2>a message, right, yeah, yeah, and he and then all
<v Speaker 2>of a sudden they're like surrounding the messengers around that
<v Speaker 2>big old well. Everybody remembers this part right, right, and
<v Speaker 2>he's like this is crazy, and he's like, this is
<v Speaker 2>a sparta, right because he kills the messenger, which was
<v Speaker 2>against custom. You weren't supposed to kill the messenger unless
<v Speaker 2>in some circumstances they made obscenely high demands, which I
<v Speaker 2>guess was the excuse in this one. But also you
<v Speaker 2>think about Brave Heart. Even in Brave Heart, they before
<v Speaker 2>they have the battle, the lords walk, they ride their
<v Speaker 2>horses out to the middle of the battlefield and they
<v Speaker 2>talk with each other, they flip the coin and yeah yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and then and then Braveheart, then mel Gibson's riding around
<v Speaker 2>him in a circle, like causing trouble. And it's all
<v Speaker 2>this idea that in order to have a good relationship
<v Speaker 2>with somebody that you might be at war with, in
<v Speaker 2>order to endeavor to engage in peace, you have to
<v Speaker 2>give those diplomats, those messengers, if you will, immunity. And
<v Speaker 2>what's crazy is it's still exists today.
<v Speaker 1>Our buddy James Buckley spent one day at work on
<v Speaker 1>the Louisiana State payroll writing up specific notes for us
<v Speaker 1>on this very topic under the bus after he helped you,
<v Speaker 1>I am no I scratch that. I'm super thankful that
<v Speaker 1>he did that, but he came up with some interesting stuff.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna throw this at you real quickly. So obviously,
<v Speaker 1>diplomatic community still applies in the United States today or
<v Speaker 1>and around the world. So listen to this. In nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety seven, this is just one example. There was a
<v Speaker 1>ambassador from the Republic of Georgia who killed a teenage
<v Speaker 1>girl while driving drunk. Georgia, his home country, waived his immunity.
<v Speaker 1>So like the US said, hey, Georgia, this guy drunk driving.
<v Speaker 1>What are we gonna do with him. They're like, no,
<v Speaker 1>he'd wave his immunity. So he was tried and did
<v Speaker 1>time over here. But another example, there was one diplomat's
<v Speaker 1>son who was accused of raping on fifteen separate rape
<v Speaker 1>charges Holy and when they were like, dude, you're going
<v Speaker 1>to jail, they were like, diplomatic community, man, we're not
<v Speaker 1>doing anything.
<v Speaker 2>Huh.
<v Speaker 1>So they what country it doesn't say, oh, doesn't say,
<v Speaker 1>but they kicked him out of the country.
<v Speaker 2>But they didn't prosecute him.
<v Speaker 1>They didn't arrest him, no, but he tried to pull
<v Speaker 1>the diplomatic community thing like, my son, this is not
<v Speaker 1>US soil, right, your laws don't a play here.
<v Speaker 2>And that's that's the accurate reading of the statute. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, this is it. We're talking about international law.
<v Speaker 2>This is something that varies from country to country, but
<v Speaker 2>is basically Geneva Convention and well before it. Obviously thousands
<v Speaker 2>of years of this practice. It has been the practice
<v Speaker 2>that the diplomats to a foreign country are not bound
<v Speaker 2>by the laws of that country. Now, as you mentioned
<v Speaker 2>with the drunk driving guy, the home country can say
<v Speaker 2>they do as they call them home, but basically that's
<v Speaker 2>making them a person non grata, which means, hey, you
<v Speaker 2>can do with it what you want to do with them, right.
<v Speaker 2>But obviously there are other situations where the home country
<v Speaker 2>is like, nope, we'll just bring them back here.
<v Speaker 1>Apparently, parking tickets in and around New York City.
<v Speaker 2>It's a big problem.
<v Speaker 1>It's reported that New York City has said that they
<v Speaker 1>are owed sixteen million dollars in unpaid parking tickets from
<v Speaker 1>diplomat sixteen sixteen million dollars ho cow how about that.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, how much is a parking ticket in fifty
<v Speaker 1>bucks or right?
<v Speaker 2>So sixteen million dollars of fifty dollars parking tickets. How
<v Speaker 2>many diplomats are there?
<v Speaker 1>Diplomatic community? Oh my gosh, take this parking ticket and
<v Speaker 1>shove it.
<v Speaker 2>I like, guys, quit patrol on the un parking lot please,
<v Speaker 2>it's a waste of time all right.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, According to the Bayou barrister, mister James Buckley, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he said that. According to him, the end of lethal
<v Speaker 1>weapon two Arjin Rudd should have been arrested and tried,
<v Speaker 1>and that MYRTA probably would have been arrested as well.
<v Speaker 1>You don't just get to shoot diplomats.
<v Speaker 2>You don't get to revoke their immunity.
<v Speaker 1>No, but it was really boked, really satisfying to watching
<v Speaker 1>shoot it.
<v Speaker 3>It's Jeff been revoked.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean, what a great plan, like if you
<v Speaker 2>think about it from the point of view of the
<v Speaker 2>South African diplomats, like, hey, we can engage in this
<v Speaker 2>drug trade, yeah, and we can claim diplomatic community.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, I had a thought the other day
<v Speaker 1>and I sent you a picture. I text you a
<v Speaker 1>picture at the very beginning which this Lethal Weapon two
<v Speaker 1>starts off with a bang. You get the little Looney
<v Speaker 1>Tunes theme.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yes, you do. Right as the WB comes up.
<v Speaker 2>You get just a little taste of Looney Tunes, which
<v Speaker 2>is appropriate for rigs.
<v Speaker 1>On I'm totally fine with. Yeah, and you dive right
<v Speaker 1>into a car chase. That's mid chase.
<v Speaker 2>Mid chase. And I watched this one with Rock and
<v Speaker 2>he was like, I kind of fell asleep and we
<v Speaker 2>watched the first one. Do I really need to know stuff?
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, no, I mean, as long as you know
<v Speaker 2>the relationship exists and that he was crazy and suicidal
<v Speaker 2>before and at the end they're friends and he's not
<v Speaker 2>suicidal anymore, that's all the matter. And we start in
<v Speaker 2>the middle of the car chase and he's like, so,
<v Speaker 2>is this the end of Lethal Weapon? I'm like, no, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>this is like a completely separate story. You don't have
<v Speaker 2>to know the first story to understand the second story
<v Speaker 2>at all. He's like, okay, and then he fell asleep.
<v Speaker 1>Oh man, Well, I love how it starts off with
<v Speaker 1>a bang. You know, Indiana Jones wastes no time to
<v Speaker 1>get started either. You're right in the middle of a
<v Speaker 1>buddying adventure at right beginning right but Letho Weapon two,
<v Speaker 1>you're right in the middle of a car chase and
<v Speaker 1>it's super funn You get the humor right off the
<v Speaker 1>bat where Riggs takes over pushes Murta to the side
<v Speaker 1>and it's like it's a brand new car and he's
<v Speaker 1>gonnase He's gonna try and get up and around and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, there's not enough room, Riggs.
<v Speaker 2>No, you know, I love the eighties, the eighties time
<v Speaker 2>capsule where he's like, oh, yeah, you're already going sixty
<v Speaker 2>five And he's like, oh my gosh, I know right,
<v Speaker 2>my wife's dnew corn. I'm not going any faster.
<v Speaker 3>You're doing sixty five now set the.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah yeah, where.
<v Speaker 1>He's about what that's back when it was illegal to
<v Speaker 1>go over fifty five miles per hour anywhere. Yeah, But
<v Speaker 1>they chase this guy. They're talking South Africa. Helicopters show up,
<v Speaker 1>machine guns. The LA police realize, holy crap, this is
<v Speaker 1>more than just your standard drug bust. The car flip's
<v Speaker 1>over and they hear something kind of shuffle in the back.
<v Speaker 1>When Riggs karate kicks open the trunk, all these gold
<v Speaker 1>coins fall out. Well, those are South African krue grants kruegerrands.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm watching this as an older man now, when
<v Speaker 1>I was sixteen and nothing, I'm like, krue grands. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know what that is. So those were currency from
<v Speaker 1>South Africa which was illegal to use in the United
<v Speaker 1>States because we had this complicated relationship with South Africa
<v Speaker 1>due to apartheid.
<v Speaker 2>Right that suckers worth.
<v Speaker 1>Twenty five hundred dollars wow per one kruwe grant.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>So you think about how many fell out of the
<v Speaker 1>trunk there in nineteen eighty nine dollars.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Oh that's fantastic. Here you go. Okay, So I
<v Speaker 2>told you how old the diplomatic community is. Yes, now
<v Speaker 2>we got to talk about the Holy the question for
<v Speaker 2>the Grail, there's no archeology. It's a race against evil.
<v Speaker 2>If it is captured by.
<v Speaker 5>The Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over
<v Speaker 5>the face of the earth.
<v Speaker 2>Do you understand me?
<v Speaker 1>I think it's funny, by the way, when you're like,
<v Speaker 1>it's six hundred years before Christ, Well, lucky for us,
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about the Cup of Christ. So we know
<v Speaker 1>exactly how long it is before the Holy Grail.
<v Speaker 2>Right, except not really, because we did a little Bible
<v Speaker 2>research beforehand, right, yeah. And him talking about drinking out
<v Speaker 2>of a cup at the Last Supper, it do it
<v Speaker 2>mentions a cup, and he talks about sharing the cup.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, in Matthew and Mark and Luke, every single
<v Speaker 2>gospel for the first three mentions this. Hey, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>drink out of this cup and I'm gonna pass it
<v Speaker 2>to you. But nowhere in there is there anything about
<v Speaker 2>it giving you everlasting life. Nowhere in there is there
<v Speaker 2>anything about Joseph of Arimathea using this same cup to
<v Speaker 2>catch his blood when he's on the cross us right, No, Alexandrada,
<v Speaker 2>Alex right. I mean, now there's there. When I asked
<v Speaker 2>you about it, you were like, well, there's this part
<v Speaker 2>where he's talking about the if you drink from drink
<v Speaker 2>from the well, that gives you eternal life. But I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>where's that? And you said John four, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>that's way too early for this supper. That's true, that's
<v Speaker 2>the lady at the well. Right, let me read you.
<v Speaker 1>John four to fourteen.
<v Speaker 2>Reallyeah, they do it.
<v Speaker 1>But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed,
<v Speaker 1>the water I give them, will become in them a
<v Speaker 1>spring of water welling up to eternal life.
<v Speaker 2>Huh.
<v Speaker 1>Now that's the woman.
<v Speaker 2>At the well. That's that's symbolism talk boys and girls.
<v Speaker 2>That's a parable that is not He is not talking
<v Speaker 2>about a cup that is the fountain of youth or
<v Speaker 2>that gives you eternal life.
<v Speaker 1>Doesn't wash away bullet holes, and it certainly is not
<v Speaker 1>something that you. I mean for you to get immortality,
<v Speaker 1>but you got to stay within a fifty foot radius
<v Speaker 1>of the not.
<v Speaker 2>Very worth while, not very good.
<v Speaker 1>I've like that night stay for nine hundred years.
<v Speaker 2>I texted you a picture. There's the scene at the
<v Speaker 2>end where the earthquake is happening and the night is
<v Speaker 2>just standing there with a look on his face watching
<v Speaker 2>everything crumble. And I'm like, I have been in that
<v Speaker 2>guy's shoes before. Were you like you do all of
<v Speaker 2>this stuff for your kids? You're like, you've built all
<v Speaker 2>of this stuff, and they just zoom in and immediately
<v Speaker 2>destroy everything, and You're just like, well that was worth
<v Speaker 2>six hundred's in a cave by myself.
<v Speaker 1>Waiting here for you guys to come along and screw
<v Speaker 1>everything up in fifteen minutes.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, at least I get to die now, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>so Holy Grail. Yes, I'm gonna butcher this name, but
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna try anyway, because it's a French name. Chritian
<v Speaker 2>de Torres is the author of the Arthurian Legends from
<v Speaker 2>the mid eleven hundreds to eleven ninety and eleven ninety
<v Speaker 2>he wrote Perceval and the Grail, which, if if you
<v Speaker 2>are a ready player one fan, you remember that's why
<v Speaker 2>he gave his avatar that name of Percival is because
<v Speaker 2>Perceval is related to the Holy Grail. Right. But the
<v Speaker 2>thing was is that Troyes didn't finish it. He died. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>So this is an unfinished poem, so many authors since
<v Speaker 2>then have added to it. This is a thousand years
<v Speaker 2>after Christ when this idea of the Grail, not the
<v Speaker 2>Holy Grail, but the Grail comes up because it's only
<v Speaker 2>just a grail. This is like a thousand years after Christ,
<v Speaker 2>a thousand years after Christ talking about the legend of
<v Speaker 2>King Arthur and his knights.
<v Speaker 1>And very nearly a thousand years before Monty Python.
<v Speaker 2>Yes okay, right, yes, So in the eleven nineties, not
<v Speaker 2>too long after the story is written, a guy named
<v Speaker 2>Robert de Baron writes something called Joseph d Arimathea, and
<v Speaker 2>in that one, the grail is portrayed as Jesus's vessel
<v Speaker 2>from the Last Supper, which then Joseph of Arimathea uses
<v Speaker 2>to catch Christ blood at the crucifixion.
<v Speaker 3>OK.
<v Speaker 2>So this idea of the holy Grail, you know, a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people will say in Christian tradition, well, yes,
<v Speaker 2>Christian tradition, that is a thousand years after the fact, right,
<v Speaker 2>it's after that that the grail becomes holy and it
<v Speaker 2>becomes interwoven with this idea of a holy chalice that
<v Speaker 2>he used at the Last Supper, and it gets continued
<v Speaker 2>in the Lancelot grail cycle, and then later much later
<v Speaker 2>in the fifteenth century La Morte de author where we
<v Speaker 2>get most of our King Arthur stories. Now there's just
<v Speaker 2>some interesting facts, right. The grail is supposed to be
<v Speaker 2>guarded by the Fisher King. You've heard of the Fisher
<v Speaker 2>King before. I had no idea that it was related
<v Speaker 2>to the grail. The King Arthur buffs out there will
<v Speaker 2>be like really, yeah, no, I'm sorry, not a King
<v Speaker 2>Arthur buff But he was the last in a long
<v Speaker 2>line of kings that guards the grail. He is both
<v Speaker 2>the protector and physical embodiment of his lands. But he's
<v Speaker 2>got this wound which renders him impotent, and his kingdom's barren,
<v Speaker 2>and so he's unable to walk, he's unable to ride
<v Speaker 2>a horse, and he just.
<v Speaker 1>Not able to do right.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, the queens didn't stick around to see what happened
<v Speaker 2>with the grail, right because there was nothing to stick
<v Speaker 2>around for. So it portrays him as spending his time fishing.
<v Speaker 2>The fisher king. He spends his time fishing while he's
<v Speaker 2>awaiting a chosen one who can heal him of his wound,
<v Speaker 2>and the healing of the wounds are always dependent upon
<v Speaker 2>the completion of a hero's knights quest. Interesting see how
<v Speaker 2>this is all fitting together? Right? Yep, here's another thing.
<v Speaker 2>Most of the versions of the story have both the
<v Speaker 2>Holy Grail and this thing called the Lance of Loginous.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the Lance of Logenus is no nw discovery
<v Speaker 2>for me. This is the holy Lance. It's called the
<v Speaker 2>Lance of Logyenus because it was named after Saint Loginus.
<v Speaker 2>This is the spear of Destiny, or the holy spear
<v Speaker 2>that is alleged to be the one that pierced Jesus's
<v Speaker 2>side as he hung on the cross during the crucifixion. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>there's a mcguffin that's just waiting for a story to
<v Speaker 2>get written about it, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, absolutely, Spear of Destiny, yes, yes, I'm on board.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, not the Dial of Destiny. Not the Dial of Destiny,
<v Speaker 2>the Spear of Destiny. Yes. So there you go. That
<v Speaker 2>is the Grail story. And that story is about one
<v Speaker 2>five hundred years after diplomatic community.
<v Speaker 1>That's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible.
<v Speaker 2>You gotta love that. Jeffrey Boehm, at basically the same
<v Speaker 2>time is writing a story about both of these ideas, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's great. So what was it our second episode that
<v Speaker 2>we did, Raiders of the Lost Ark Verses back to
<v Speaker 2>the Future.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was.
<v Speaker 2>So we've been talking about this movie for a long time.
<v Speaker 2>Everybody probably knows the story of Steven Spielberg and George
<v Speaker 2>Lucas being on the beach building sand cast Steven Spielberg
<v Speaker 2>saying I think I'm going to try to direct a
<v Speaker 2>James Bond movie. Yes, right, and then George Lucas saying, no,
<v Speaker 2>I got a better idea, and his whole thing is
<v Speaker 2>Indiana Smith, and he has a bull whip and a hat.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, And he talks about the old serials that
<v Speaker 1>used to watch, you know, the Saturday serials.
<v Speaker 2>And Spielberg's like, yes, I'm in let's do it now.
<v Speaker 2>Spielberg says that at that time George told them, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I've got three different stories. You just have to agree
<v Speaker 2>to a direct to direct all three. Well. He then
<v Speaker 2>also says that was a complete lie. He only had
<v Speaker 2>one story and it was a little bit of a story, right,
<v Speaker 2>I mean. And Lawrence Casden later on to write the
<v Speaker 2>fully fleshed out version, but he didn't have any other stories.
<v Speaker 2>They had to come up with those afterwards once Raiders
<v Speaker 2>was successful.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't George Lucas get the arc story from his dentist?
<v Speaker 2>Gosh, I can't remember who it was. Some other person
<v Speaker 2>gave him the arc of the Covenant as the mcguffin
<v Speaker 2>after the idea of Indiana Smith had come about. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>by the way, Spielberg says, he was the one that
<v Speaker 2>said we can't do Smith.
<v Speaker 1>We have to do John, thank you, thank you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, good job, yeah, good job.
<v Speaker 1>Too close to Nevada Smith.
<v Speaker 2>Steve McQueen, Oh okay, yeah, all right, So the next
<v Speaker 2>story that he wants, that George wants to do is
<v Speaker 2>the story of this haunted castle and something called the
<v Speaker 2>Sun King.
<v Speaker 1>The Sun King like the first song off of Coulton
<v Speaker 1>Sonic Temple.
<v Speaker 2>Yet, no, no, that's a different thing. Okay, I said
<v Speaker 2>it wrong, Okay, it is. It is the Monkey King
<v Speaker 2>or Sunday Kong or something like that, which is this
<v Speaker 2>Buddhist character. It is a superhero monkey in Buddhist's literature
<v Speaker 2>from like the sixteenth century that can like talk and
<v Speaker 2>intelligent and and all I can think is, well, thank goodness.
<v Speaker 2>Spielberg said, that's a terrible idea. Let's do something else.
<v Speaker 2>And so what they end up with is Temple of Doom.
<v Speaker 2>Temple of Doom written by Willard Hyuk and Gloria Katz,
<v Speaker 2>and they make it a prequel then once Temple of
<v Speaker 2>Doom's done. So he's got this idea of this character
<v Speaker 2>from Buddhist culture and this haunted castle. But Spielberg has
<v Speaker 2>just finished up with doing Poltergeist, which we've talked about before.
<v Speaker 2>Although it does say it's directed by Toby Hooper, it
<v Speaker 2>was probably Spielberg who.
<v Speaker 1>Really directed to cut his hands all over that one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, right, and so he didn't want to do another
<v Speaker 2>haunted mansion, haunted castle thing, and so that's how they
<v Speaker 2>ended up with Temple of Doom. But after Temple of
<v Speaker 2>Doom again the Monkey King and the haunted thing comes
<v Speaker 2>up again, and Spielberg's like, now, I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>do that.
<v Speaker 1>So after Temple of Doom, Remember, Temple of Doom was
<v Speaker 1>really dark. Spielberg has even apologized for how dark it is.
<v Speaker 1>They both were going through divorces, they both had this
<v Speaker 1>sort of bad attitude about life, and so that's why
<v Speaker 1>Temple of Doom when you watch it, there's not a
<v Speaker 1>lot of joy in it. Now, there's some cool action
<v Speaker 1>scenes that it has its moments, but overall you don't
<v Speaker 1>feel real great when you're watching Temple of Doom. So
<v Speaker 1>as early as nineteen eighty four, or Lucas is trying
<v Speaker 1>to convince Spielberg that the third story should be about
<v Speaker 1>the Holy Grail, and Spielberg's like, he didn't think that
<v Speaker 1>mcguffin was strong enough.
<v Speaker 2>At that time, Monty Python had already done it, right.
<v Speaker 1>They had right, right. So Lucas is like, well, okay,
<v Speaker 1>let's flesh out this haunted house thing and that's when
<v Speaker 1>you know Spielberg had just done pulled your guys to whatever.
<v Speaker 1>But Diane Thomas actually wrote a screenplay that contained the
<v Speaker 1>Haunted House story. Now Diane Thomas, if you remember she
<v Speaker 1>wrote Romancing the Stone.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah, she.
<v Speaker 1>Was a waitress. She met Michael Douglass somehow she got
<v Speaker 1>him the script. He loved it. He goes on and
<v Speaker 1>makes Romancing the Stone. That makes her kind of this
<v Speaker 1>screenplay superstar. Well, she's killed from a drunk driving accident.
<v Speaker 1>But because of her death and the fact that they
<v Speaker 1>didn't really like the Haunted House story, they kind of
<v Speaker 1>moved on from that. Then they get Chris Columbus to
<v Speaker 1>write a screenplay. Now, Chris Columbus, he had worked with
<v Speaker 1>Spilberg on Gremlins essentially, Yeah, we talked all about that
<v Speaker 1>in our Gremlins episode.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>He writes the story Indiana Jones and then lost City
<v Speaker 1>of these Sun Kung powd King or whatever it is
<v Speaker 1>right there you go, right, which that contains a lot
<v Speaker 1>of like evil spirits and demons and you know, spiritual stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, they didn't really like it, so they rejected Chris
<v Speaker 1>Columbus's script. So then they go back and then that's
<v Speaker 1>when they come up with Indiana Jones and the Monkey King. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So in my research for that, the only thing I
<v Speaker 1>could really pull out of it other than this weird
<v Speaker 1>thing of superhero monkeys is that there's like Indian Jones
<v Speaker 1>has to play chess and every time he makes a
<v Speaker 1>move that eliminates a character, like somebody evaporates, like a
<v Speaker 1>person dies. Okay, So Spielberg's like, just not, I just
<v Speaker 1>don't really like that, and so Lucas is like, well,
<v Speaker 1>then we're back to the Holy Grail, right, And so
<v Speaker 1>at that point, Spielberg's like, Okay, let's see if we
<v Speaker 1>can make the Holy Grail thing work. But I want
<v Speaker 1>to explore this idea of who could be Indiana Jones's father,
<v Speaker 1>And so Lucas is like, yeah, but we're going for
<v Speaker 1>the Grail, and spill Work's like, yeah, but the hunt
<v Speaker 1>for the Grail is the search for the father. It's
<v Speaker 1>a father and son's story.
<v Speaker 2>You got to love how this is so beat by
<v Speaker 2>beat Raiders of the Lost Ark, Right, Yeah, You've got
<v Speaker 2>Indy on a big quest, then you have Indy teaching
<v Speaker 2>a class, then you have a new assignment, and Brody
<v Speaker 2>is in Indy's house, trying to convince him to take
<v Speaker 2>the assignment right beat by beat for Raiders, Right, sure,
<v Speaker 2>But then they're talking about the Grail and he says,
<v Speaker 2>Indy says, do you believe? And then there's this nice,
<v Speaker 2>pregnant pause, do you believe the Grail actually exists? And
<v Speaker 2>Brody says, the search for the Cup of Christ is
<v Speaker 2>the search for the divine in all of us. But
<v Speaker 2>if you want fact, Cindy, I have none to give you.
<v Speaker 2>At my age, I'm prepared to take a few things
<v Speaker 2>on faith. I said to you, Okay, the mcguffin in
<v Speaker 2>this thing is not actually the whole The mcguffin is
<v Speaker 2>the diary.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Sure, we chase it around the whole movie.
<v Speaker 2>We do. It goes from good guy to bad guy,
<v Speaker 2>to good guy to bad guy and all over the place.
<v Speaker 1>Right, But I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers.
<v Speaker 2>For the first half of the movie before the diary
<v Speaker 2>is the mcguffin. The father is the mcguffin. It's him
<v Speaker 2>that they're trying to find. It's him that's leading all
<v Speaker 2>of the action to where it's going, and it's they're
<v Speaker 2>just using his diary to help find him again.
<v Speaker 1>Very similar to Raiders in the fact that they have
<v Speaker 1>to find the headpiece to the staff of Raw, then
<v Speaker 1>they got to find the map room, and then they
<v Speaker 1>gotta find the arc.
<v Speaker 2>You know, so an X never ever marks the spot.
<v Speaker 2>I love it, love it.
<v Speaker 1>So, Spielberg says, I know this guy named Jeffrey Boham,
<v Speaker 1>he worked with me on Innerspace. Let's give him a
<v Speaker 1>shot at this thing.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So, like I said before, we haven't talked about
<v Speaker 2>Jeffrey Boham's history before, but I feel like I got
<v Speaker 2>to give I mean, the guy did some incredible stuff,
<v Speaker 2>including these two movies coming out in the same year.
<v Speaker 2>So he grew up in He grew up in New
<v Speaker 2>Jersey and eventually moved out to California. Was inspired. He
<v Speaker 2>can remember being inspired by the movie Tom Jones Albert
<v Speaker 2>Fenny movie from sixty four, and he was so impressed
<v Speaker 2>by it, Like he was like, this is nineteen sixty four.
<v Speaker 2>You couldn't just go to scriptorama dot com. Right. He
<v Speaker 2>actually sent away as a kid, sent away to have
<v Speaker 2>the script given to him. Wow. And when he got it,
<v Speaker 2>he was like, I couldn't believe it. How empty the
<v Speaker 2>pages were. Like he was expecting to be just packed
<v Speaker 2>full of words and it's all this empty space. So
<v Speaker 2>that was a big lesson for him. But he was
<v Speaker 2>an artist, like he was. He was a good artist,
<v Speaker 2>and so he thought, well, I'll get into film and
<v Speaker 2>I'll do stuff like set design and artistic design. But
<v Speaker 2>then he started thinking about it and he's like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't really want to be the guy in the background
<v Speaker 2>doing all this stuff. And he learned about the film
<v Speaker 2>program at UCLA and he's like, I'll go in and
<v Speaker 2>I'll study directing, and that was what he wanted to do.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, I'm going to be a director, and so
<v Speaker 2>he goes graduate program at UCLA. He has a teacher
<v Speaker 2>who's a mentor for him over there that he only
<v Speaker 2>ends up with because he can't afford to produce his
<v Speaker 2>own movie. Apparently, even in the in film school, you
<v Speaker 2>have to fund your own student film project.
<v Speaker 1>Right, And so he's like, well, crap, I don't have
<v Speaker 1>the money to do that.
<v Speaker 2>I'll take a script writing class and I'll just write
<v Speaker 2>a script and see how that does. Right. Well, the
<v Speaker 2>teacher tells him on his first few projects, you suck,
<v Speaker 2>and he's and his reaction is not like, well, I
<v Speaker 2>picked the wrong field. His reaction is, well, I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to keep doing this until I get good, and he
<v Speaker 2>basically bugged the teacher into becoming a mentor for him. Well,
<v Speaker 2>then he graduates and his teacher gives him a call
<v Speaker 2>and he says, hey, I know a producer who is
<v Speaker 2>looking for some scripts, and I think he might be
<v Speaker 2>interested in a couple that you've given me. Is it
<v Speaker 2>okay if I give him your scripts? And he's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>of course, heck yeah. The producer calls him and he says, well, well,
<v Speaker 2>these aren't really what I want to do, but I
<v Speaker 2>can tell that you've really got some talent. And he says,
<v Speaker 2>my girlfriend just becoming an agent and she's looking for clients.
<v Speaker 2>Would you want her to be your agent? And he's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>heck yeah, I would love to have an agent. Sure,
<v Speaker 2>And so she is his first agent and he is
<v Speaker 2>her first client. Huh. But she's also I think they're
<v Speaker 2>ultimately married. She's married to this producer and so she
<v Speaker 2>has some connections and he immediately starts getting work. So
<v Speaker 2>he has never been a spec script guy. He's never
<v Speaker 2>been the guy like Chris Columbus that's writing in his
<v Speaker 2>rat invested basement apartment, sending scripts off hoping that somebody
<v Speaker 2>will read them. It was he just started immediately getting
<v Speaker 2>work working on other people's stuff. Good for him. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So he's always been a working writer. So one of
<v Speaker 2>his first big assignments that he got we talked about
<v Speaker 2>in her Halloween episodes last year is the Dead Zone. Right.
<v Speaker 2>Remember we said Stephen King but had a bunch of
<v Speaker 2>people trying to write a script for the sing including
<v Speaker 2>Stephen King.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 2>Like they were like, Steven, why don't you try it
<v Speaker 2>because nobody else can do it, And they got Stephen
<v Speaker 2>Kings and they're like, well this sucks too.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So he had he had worked with Stanley donnon.
<v Speaker 2>You remember Stanley Donnan. He had, he had done like
<v Speaker 2>Singing in the Rain, like he was the original director
<v Speaker 2>attached the Singing in the Rain director was the original
<v Speaker 2>director attached to the Dead Zone. Wow, And so that's
<v Speaker 2>who Jeffrey Broehm wrote the script for. Well, then director's change.
<v Speaker 2>He goes on with his life and later when David
<v Speaker 2>Cronenberg gets attached, he called Jeffrey Bohm back up and
<v Speaker 2>he's like, hey, I like your script. That's right.
<v Speaker 1>Was he went like reverted back to him.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, one of the original scripts. He goes back and
<v Speaker 2>which is It's interesting because Cronenberg had written all of
<v Speaker 2>the other stuff that he had directed, but this one
<v Speaker 2>he liked Jeffrey Boum's stuff enough that he was like,
<v Speaker 2>I'm keeping what you had. That was eighty three ish,
<v Speaker 2>right yep. In eighty seven he gets inter Space and
<v Speaker 2>the Lost Boys, right, which the Lost Boys another big
<v Speaker 2>complete change. Remember the Lost Boys was supposed to be
<v Speaker 2>like Cooney's and Peter Paan, right yep, And they completely
<v Speaker 2>changed that to make it rock and roll and cool.
<v Speaker 2>That was Joel Schumacher's idea. But he's like, Jeffrey Boehm
<v Speaker 2>can take this this script and make it a completely
<v Speaker 2>different script. And that's how we get the Lost Boys.
<v Speaker 1>You remember who was in charge of the Lost Boys.
<v Speaker 1>That was a Richard Donner property.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Richard Donner is over the Lethal Weapon movies.
<v Speaker 2>So there you go. So then you get a successive Interspace,
<v Speaker 2>you get a success of the Lost Boys, and Richard
<v Speaker 2>Donner has a Lethal Weapon two script that Shane Black
<v Speaker 2>has written. We talked about that one in our Lethal
<v Speaker 2>Weapon one episode about it being a much darker the
<v Speaker 2>way sequels go with writers, a much darker take, and
<v Speaker 2>Riggs ends up dead at the end, and we even
<v Speaker 2>we pull the script and the opening scene is an
<v Speaker 2>action scene, but it's an action on an airplane. It's
<v Speaker 2>not a car chase, so very little. I think Shane
<v Speaker 2>Black still gets a story credit on this, but I
<v Speaker 2>think it was a major overhaul by Jeffrey Ball, right,
<v Speaker 2>So Shane Black, I mean his version, Like you said,
<v Speaker 2>it's called play dirty.
<v Speaker 1>That was the name of the script. So Leith Weapon,
<v Speaker 1>play dirty, much darker. I told you there's an action
<v Speaker 1>scene where an airplane carrying a bunch of cocaine over
<v Speaker 1>Los Angeles explodes and there's like a thin layer of
<v Speaker 1>cocaine over the entire.
<v Speaker 2>City in the nineteen eighties, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>And then like you said, at the end of it,
<v Speaker 1>Riggs sacrifices himself for Merta. He gets killed. If you
<v Speaker 1>even go back to the original Lethal Weapons story, they
<v Speaker 1>even filmed this scene.
<v Speaker 2>Riggs leaves, he gets the heck out.
<v Speaker 1>Riggs is like, We're out of here. This that was
<v Speaker 1>fun and good to see it.
<v Speaker 2>I'm out here, not going to be a cop anymore, right,
<v Speaker 2>not a cop tonight, Roger.
<v Speaker 1>This is personal, that's right, and so thank goodness they
<v Speaker 1>decided not to take that road, but so you go back.
<v Speaker 1>They film that scene. They also filmed a scene for
<v Speaker 1>Leath Weapon two where Riggs actually is killed and they
<v Speaker 1>had had some alternatives, right right. They filmed a scene
<v Speaker 1>where they're celebrating Thanksgiving dinner and Patsy Kinsey's character Rikavan
<v Speaker 1>hagendas Brian hagandas yep.
<v Speaker 4>No Vanden has it's Dutch.
<v Speaker 2>Is they're eating Thanksgiving, eating Thanksgiving to floating with her
<v Speaker 2>lifeless eyes in the bottom of the lake.
<v Speaker 1>Huh, that's right? Which that man that from theater? Oh,
<v Speaker 1>stunning and from heartbreaking.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So when he was doing when Jeffrey Bohm was
<v Speaker 2>doing Leath a Weapon, he's what he said. He says,
<v Speaker 2>you do a lot of changes on the Lethal Weapon
<v Speaker 2>movies because Donner is very spontaneous and he always wants
<v Speaker 2>something new the day he shoots the scene. So he
<v Speaker 2>would call him up around seven in the morning and go,
<v Speaker 2>we're about to shoot the scene. I have an idea.
<v Speaker 2>What you think can you fax it to me? And
<v Speaker 2>so it was like he was the guy who could
<v Speaker 2>do stuff quick on the fly and was available to
<v Speaker 2>do it.
<v Speaker 1>And so, by the way, something on the Shane Black script. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Shane Black has said that that Leath the Weapon two
<v Speaker 1>script is the best thing he's ever written.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>He was so upset that they rejected it that he
<v Speaker 1>offered to give the money back and they were like, no, dude,
<v Speaker 1>you did the work. And then he's like, yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>screw you, guys, I'm taking the money. But I mean
<v Speaker 1>just really hurt his feelings that they didn't like it
<v Speaker 1>enough for him to do it right. When they eventually
<v Speaker 1>offered it to Jeffrey Boham, he wrote two different versions
<v Speaker 1>of it. One was more action, one was more comedy,
<v Speaker 1>and Donner said, combine them and that's what we get
<v Speaker 1>at least the web and two it's super funny.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it's loaded with action. It's it's great. And
<v Speaker 2>that's and going back to Indiana Jones, that third movie
<v Speaker 2>becomes more light hearted. They had gone dark with Temple
<v Speaker 2>of Doom, and it becomes more lighthearted, more fun, more comedy,
<v Speaker 2>more action. And I said this, I sent this to you.
<v Speaker 2>I was like, okay, I've just blown my own mind.
<v Speaker 2>I said, are are you ready for this? Movie? One?
<v Speaker 2>An action adventure quest introducing the hero. Movie two, darker,
<v Speaker 2>more ominous hero discovers the darkness within himself. Movie three
<v Speaker 2>much more light hearted Ensure, where the hero is reconciled
<v Speaker 2>with his estranged father. Did I just describe the Indiana
<v Speaker 2>Jones trilogy or Star Wars?
<v Speaker 1>You nailed it. I mean there's a formula.
<v Speaker 2>It's the same deal, right, It's the same.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, our man, Robert Mark Cayman, actually also
<v Speaker 1>worked on Lethal Weapon two. Remember him from the Karate
<v Speaker 1>Kid episode? Yes, did some work on leth a Weapon two.
<v Speaker 2>Trying to think what he would have done.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know exactly, rights, yeah, okay, dialogue maybe.
<v Speaker 2>So after after he's done with Lethal Weapon two, he
<v Speaker 2>gets a call from Steven Spielberg and he says, hey, oh,
<v Speaker 2>we're going to do a movie. Actually, actually what he
<v Speaker 2>says is he says something like, you want to get
<v Speaker 2>real rich?
<v Speaker 1>You want to get really rich?
<v Speaker 2>And I was like, yeah, why, yes, please? Then Spielberg says,
<v Speaker 2>I think you should do the next Indiana Jones movie.
<v Speaker 2>It's something to do with the Holy Grail. He said
<v Speaker 2>he had to talk to George because George didn't know
<v Speaker 2>who Jeffrey Bohm was, right, And so a long time
<v Speaker 2>goes by and he just kind of forgot about it.
<v Speaker 2>And then Spielberg calls him again after something for some
<v Speaker 2>other reason, and he goes by the way, anything going
<v Speaker 2>to go on for that Indiana Jones idea, and he said,
<v Speaker 2>I think George is going to call you soon. Got
<v Speaker 2>a call from George. He wanted to meet at Amblin.
<v Speaker 2>They went over there, they got a long next step
<v Speaker 2>was spending about two weeks with George working on the story.
<v Speaker 2>George already had the ideas for the Vienna scenes and
<v Speaker 2>the boats and the propellers and all of that stuff.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm going to throw back to our Phantom Menace episode.
<v Speaker 2>We've talked several things now about where George is like, Hey,
<v Speaker 2>I want to do this, and somebody was like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't think that's a good idea, right, terrible idea, George. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And that is why when you had the Phantom Menace,
<v Speaker 2>where George is writer, director, and producer and financier, there's
<v Speaker 2>nobody there to go George, I don't think that's a
<v Speaker 2>good idea. All right, you're fined. Yeah. Yeah, So fortunately
<v Speaker 2>in this situation, people were still able to tell George, eh,
<v Speaker 2>maybe not the Monkey King.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we talked about that's a great, great point.
<v Speaker 1>When George is strictly in charge, you run into problems,
<v Speaker 1>but you've got Lawrence Casten to push back, or you've
<v Speaker 1>got Marcia Lucas to push back. You know, he needs
<v Speaker 1>somebody to keep him in check.
<v Speaker 2>Filmmaking is a collaborative process. You cannot have a dictator
<v Speaker 2>in the mix.
<v Speaker 1>I've got something interesting for you on Spielberg during this time. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So Spielberg, you think about it. He had kind of
<v Speaker 1>gone dark a little bit after Et, you know. So
<v Speaker 1>he does Poldergeist, he does Empire the Sun's He's wandering
<v Speaker 1>in the wilderness just a little bit. So Spielberg said
<v Speaker 1>that nineteen eighty eight was one of the worst years
<v Speaker 1>in cinematic history.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, And he said, I'm watching.
<v Speaker 1>These movies that were not what they could have been,
<v Speaker 1>and a lot of them were done by my friends.
<v Speaker 2>Ouch. Yeah, because he's.
<v Speaker 1>Involved in Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, he turns down.
<v Speaker 2>Big and rain Man. Yeah, and I'm wondering if.
<v Speaker 1>That's a little bit accusatory of those two movies.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I don't know, because we talked. We talked
<v Speaker 2>about Big and his reasons for not being involved with
<v Speaker 2>that because his sister's involved with that, right, Yeah, she
<v Speaker 2>wrote the script, she did, right, Yeah. And Penny Marshall,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, obviously she took that one and sailed with it.
<v Speaker 2>But I see other reasons on Big and then rain Man.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how you're not going to say that's
<v Speaker 2>a great script, but it's it's not big and flashy
<v Speaker 2>like all of Spielberg's other stuff is either.
<v Speaker 1>So he did make a comment about rain Man how
<v Speaker 1>he thought he could have pulled more emotion out of it.
<v Speaker 2>Huh.
<v Speaker 1>So I wonder if that's the one he's got pegged.
<v Speaker 2>I wonder. Okay, all right, so there we go. We've
<v Speaker 2>we've got the history, we've got the stories behind the scripts.
<v Speaker 2>Let's talk about casting.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, all right, let's fly back to leath a weapon too.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I'm surprised you haven't heard about me. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I got a bad reputation, and sometimes I just go
<v Speaker 2>on nuts, like.
<v Speaker 1>Now, okay, so number one, you've got mel Gibson movie
<v Speaker 1>star extraordinari at this time, Yeah, we had just seen
<v Speaker 1>him in Lethal Weapon one in nineteen eighty seven. You
<v Speaker 1>and I both agreed. Man, this guy's awesome. He got
<v Speaker 1>his start in Australia and became a star in the
<v Speaker 1>mad Max movies.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>Riggs is when he starts to take hold of the
<v Speaker 1>American audience.
<v Speaker 2>Yep. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So he's thirty three at the time of filming Lethal
<v Speaker 1>Weapon two.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, He's on the.
<v Speaker 1>Cover of People magazine. He's the heart throb of America,
<v Speaker 1>sexiest man in America. It was all about that butt
<v Speaker 1>scene in Legal Lethal Weapon too, right. It didn't hurt,
<v Speaker 1>that's for sure. But this is way before any of
<v Speaker 1>his crazy antics that happened later on in his life.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I mean, as you pointed out, every girl wanted
<v Speaker 2>to be with him and every guy wanted to be him.
<v Speaker 1>It's true. Yeah, you know, we talked about how in
<v Speaker 1>Lethal Weapon he was drinking two pints of beer every
<v Speaker 1>morning for breakfast and still showing up on time. You
<v Speaker 1>got a hydrate and then you got Danny Glover back.
<v Speaker 4>I'm black.
<v Speaker 3>That's why I want to go to South Africa to
<v Speaker 3>join up with my oppressed brothers, to take up the
<v Speaker 3>struggle against the tyranny of the racist, fascist, white minority regime,
<v Speaker 3>fascist white regime. One man, one vote, one man, one vote,
<v Speaker 3>Free South Africa. You're dumb son of a bitch.
<v Speaker 1>Your dumb son of a bitch. I've just about as
<v Speaker 1>much as I want. Yeah, we talked about how he
<v Speaker 1>was hired from his role in The Color Purple Right,
<v Speaker 1>which is a Spielberg movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, got a little bit of.
<v Speaker 1>A connection there. These guys have such great chemistry on screen.
<v Speaker 2>I think they're really great friends too. Even off screen,
<v Speaker 2>I think that they they just got along very well.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to overstate this, but as far as
<v Speaker 1>on screen chemistry, these two characters work incredibly well together.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>You believe that Riggs has been adopted by this family.
<v Speaker 2>The thing is is that what you have from lethal
<v Speaker 2>weapon one to lethal weapon two is a completely different dynamic, right,
<v Speaker 2>because lethal weapon one, they're at odds, like Martas just
<v Speaker 2>trying to get through is last year being a police.
<v Speaker 2>He just wants to retire. He's just too old for this,
<v Speaker 2>you know, years old, and he wants to be done
<v Speaker 2>and cool and quiet. And he gets partnered up with
<v Speaker 2>this rogue cop who is suicidal and doesn't seem to
<v Speaker 2>have any concern for his own life for the lives
<v Speaker 2>of people around him. Right, So it's the perfect oppositional story.
<v Speaker 2>But what you have by the end of the movie
<v Speaker 2>is the crazy cop has become saying and is no
<v Speaker 2>longer suicidal, and the enemies have become friends. So what
<v Speaker 2>do you do for part two? Right? Because are they
<v Speaker 2>going to fight about something again? Because what the point
<v Speaker 2>that you made was these guys work together so well. Well,
<v Speaker 2>they work together as guys who are fighting with each other,
<v Speaker 2>and if you look at Lethal Weapon two, they work
<v Speaker 2>together as best friends because that's what they are in
<v Speaker 2>Lethal Weapon. Do they don't give us these guys fighting again.
<v Speaker 2>They're a different relationship where their best buds looking out
<v Speaker 2>for each other, have each other back, you know, finishing
<v Speaker 2>each other's sandwiches. You know, it's it's that that relationship
<v Speaker 2>that these two actors must have. Really, it's them worked
<v Speaker 2>well together regardless of what the character's relationships are.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely one hundred percent. You know, I heard Mel Gibson
<v Speaker 1>talking about how they as actors, they creatively came up
<v Speaker 1>with the idea they would spoon the spaghetti out of
<v Speaker 1>the same dish without getting plates, because that's who they
<v Speaker 1>are right.
<v Speaker 2>And Joe Peshi is just like, what what you know?
<v Speaker 2>I don't don't have any plates.
<v Speaker 1>Now listen, you drop in Joe Peshi. We need to
<v Speaker 1>have a conversation about who adds more to the franchise.
<v Speaker 1>Is it Sean Conry is doctor Henry John Senior? Or
<v Speaker 1>is it Joe Peshi? As Leo gets because they both,
<v Speaker 1>I think when you drop them in, it levels up.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, Okay, okay, okay, bed cop bed cock.
<v Speaker 3>I got it.
<v Speaker 5>I know all those.
<v Speaker 2>Routine Leo gets. Yes, sir, you said, it's me.
<v Speaker 1>Leo gets whatever you need. Leo gets, you get it.
<v Speaker 1>I use that all the time to break the ice
<v Speaker 1>when I meet people.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's good.
<v Speaker 1>So Riggs and MYRTA are standing side by side, and
<v Speaker 1>now they're new they're joint pain in.
<v Speaker 2>The butt is Leo gets Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>But I think he's like us, like we get to
<v Speaker 1>ride along in the cop car with Riggs and MYRTA.
<v Speaker 1>He is the audience representation. Oh my gosh, what kind
<v Speaker 1>of gun do you have? Because it's awesome you get
<v Speaker 1>to shoot people right right? Can I turn on the siriren?
<v Speaker 2>You know one of the texts I sent during the
<v Speaker 2>movie was like Riggs worst witness protection cop ever. Like
<v Speaker 2>what you immediately take him on an assignment where there's
<v Speaker 2>gun play and as it turns out, gun play with
<v Speaker 2>the people he's supposed to be protected from.
<v Speaker 1>And he gets him kidnapped and beaten up.
<v Speaker 2>Little little convenient, little plot point there.
<v Speaker 1>I told you stop being a killjoy, but listen to this.
<v Speaker 1>So I have found this really fascinating. So Joe Peshi
<v Speaker 1>is the third guy. Leo gets whatever.
<v Speaker 2>You want Leo gets.
<v Speaker 1>He had been in Raging Bowl with de Niro. He
<v Speaker 1>had a really good, strong start to his career. He
<v Speaker 1>does Easy Money with Rodney Dangerfield in eighty.
<v Speaker 2>Three Needle Scratch. That movie is terrible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and then he kind of goes through a dry
<v Speaker 1>spell where he does not a lot of anything. He
<v Speaker 1>does Lethal Weapon two, which gives him rocket fuel. But
<v Speaker 1>then listen to what he does over the next six years. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>Betsy's wedding, good Fellas, Home Alone, JFK, my cousin, Vinnie Leith,
<v Speaker 1>A Weapon three, Casino.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what Betsy's wedding is, but the rest
<v Speaker 2>of those are definitely all major, major movies, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and he's so funny and you believe him as
<v Speaker 1>the Pip squeak, but he's having the time of his life.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I love it when he says they're talking to the
<v Speaker 1>captain's chewing him out or whatever, and he's like, yes, sir,
<v Speaker 1>you know they're like, He's like, these guys are good cops.
<v Speaker 1>They usually make me stay in the car.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, usually usually doesn't matter if he's dirty, rigs.
<v Speaker 3>He's a diplomat, he's got immunity, he's beyond the law.
<v Speaker 1>We can't touch him, arrest him, prosecute him.
<v Speaker 3>Is that clear?
<v Speaker 2>Does that spell it out for you? Yes, sir? Okay,
<v Speaker 2>the hell is this guy?
<v Speaker 1>Leo gets nice to meet you, sir? Gets jeez, you
<v Speaker 1>took a civilian on a bust, a civilian.
<v Speaker 2>You're supposed to be protectedly alive.
<v Speaker 1>It's okay, it's okay. I signed to wait.
<v Speaker 5>Besides, I usually wait.
<v Speaker 1>In the car usually usually that's right. Hey, they're very
<v Speaker 1>adamant about that.
<v Speaker 2>So obviously we've seen him in some pretty scary characters, right, Like,
<v Speaker 2>I mean.
<v Speaker 1>They're just horrifying and good Fellas and Casino both.
<v Speaker 2>For sure, right, But he's so lovable in this, like
<v Speaker 2>he's a lovable teddy bear in this like ewok yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So I saw him talking about how he came up
<v Speaker 2>with the character and he's like, okay, so we're gonna
<v Speaker 2>dress him like Joel Silver. Yes, Joel Silver is the
<v Speaker 2>producer of Lethal Weapon and of Diehard. I mean he
<v Speaker 2>and Predator and a bajillion other things in the eighties,
<v Speaker 2>right right right, But he's a very flamboyant guy. By
<v Speaker 2>the way, side note, go check out our who for
<v Speaker 2>Roger Rabbit episode with the Docking Bay seventy seven podcast
<v Speaker 2>with Dayton Johnson because we talk about how that's an
<v Speaker 2>acting moment for Joel Silver. He's the director of the
<v Speaker 2>opening cartoon. God yeah, Roger, Yeah, that's it. That's droll Silver. Anyway,
<v Speaker 2>they take his clothes because he's got this big, flamboyant
<v Speaker 2>style of dressing. And then he says he takes the
<v Speaker 2>he takes his inspiration from the people who work at Disneyland,
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, you'll go you'll go into Disneyland and
<v Speaker 2>be like, excuse me, can you tell me where the
<v Speaker 2>Magic Kingdom is? And they'll be like okay, okay, okay,
<v Speaker 2>so the Magic Kingdom, I wait, yes, okay, so okay,
<v Speaker 2>the Magic Kingdom is this way, and they're always just
<v Speaker 2>bubbly and full of smiles. And so that was how
<v Speaker 2>he creates the character of Leo Getz. I love it, man,
<v Speaker 2>that's great. I love it. It is great. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So let's talk briefly about Joss Auckland. He plays Argent Rudd. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>he's the bad guy.
<v Speaker 2>The bad guy, diplomatic immunity.
<v Speaker 1>That guy had a community, my dear officer who could
<v Speaker 1>not even give me a bucking ticket. He plays the
<v Speaker 1>bad guy the next year in the Hunt for October.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>He's the bad guy in Bill and Ted's bogus journey
<v Speaker 1>that we covered in season one, I believe. Okay, but
<v Speaker 1>he had had some roles. He had been in the
<v Speaker 1>Three Musketeers movies, and I mean he was a you know,
<v Speaker 1>stage actor. This guy's a big British.
<v Speaker 2>British guy, rischh guy. Yeah. None of these guys were
<v Speaker 2>actually South.
<v Speaker 1>African South African. No, No, they were British. Okay. Now
<v Speaker 1>I want to talk about the lovely Patsy Kinsett. You know,
<v Speaker 1>she's got a interesting surely you can't be serious connection
<v Speaker 1>that I want to drop on you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Okay, we're talking. We're talking about Missus hogandhass.
<v Speaker 1>Rika venden Huss Yes, yeah, which I'm curious. She was
<v Speaker 1>twenty one when she did Luth the Weapon two. Alison
<v Speaker 1>Duty was twenty one when she did Indiana Jones in
<v Speaker 1>the Last Crusade.
<v Speaker 2>She was twenty one and she auditioned for it. I
<v Speaker 2>think she's about twenty three when they actually shut them.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, your early twenties. Yeah, who you taking in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty nine.
<v Speaker 2>I don't care. Blindfold me and send me in with
<v Speaker 2>something to pin the tail on, and I'm good to go.
<v Speaker 1>No.
<v Speaker 2>They're both phenomenally beautiful.
<v Speaker 1>Matris incredibly beautiful women. Okay, all right, So here's the
<v Speaker 1>interesting thing about patsy Kins. There's an interesting connection to.
<v Speaker 2>Interest in case pat patsy Kins that is listening to
<v Speaker 2>this episode and you're like, oh, you had a chance,
<v Speaker 2>but then you said that forget it, Patsy, I'll smoke here.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. She plays a young girl in the movie Hanover Street,
<v Speaker 1>which I've never seen. I've always wanted to see. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure how she's related to the main character.
<v Speaker 1>I think maybe a step daughter or something.
<v Speaker 2>Like that. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>The starring role in that one goes to mister Harrison
<v Speaker 1>Ford Hanover Street. Interesting, and she's a little girl in that.
<v Speaker 2>So this is missus Hogendas. Okay, because the reason that
<v Speaker 2>River Phoenix got picked to be the young Indie was
<v Speaker 2>because he had been in a movie Mosquito Coast with
<v Speaker 2>Harrison Ford. Harrison was the one that suggested him, and
<v Speaker 2>he fantastic he was. He had watched Harrison and his
<v Speaker 2>behaviors and knew how to do it good Harrison impression
<v Speaker 2>when he wasn't looking.
<v Speaker 1>Let's say that for the Indiana Jones cast. Okay, all right,
<v Speaker 1>all right, but here's the interesting surely you can't be
<v Speaker 1>serious podcast connection to Patsy Kinset Okay. Her first husband's
<v Speaker 1>name is Dan Donovan. Okay. He was in the band
<v Speaker 1>Big Audio Dynamite. Okay, famous song called the Globe from
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety one.
<v Speaker 2>You would know it here. It is right here.
<v Speaker 1>Oh bless you, bless you well, go away beauty.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, that's her first husband.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So apparently she's really easy to marry to have to
<v Speaker 1>stay married too, because she's been divorced four times. But
<v Speaker 1>her second husband is Jim Kerr. Does that name Ring
<v Speaker 1>a Bell to you like Kerr McGee Kerr? Yeah, Jim Kerr.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, is he related to Kermagee? Nope, okay, no, I
<v Speaker 2>got I got nothing with Jim Kerr.
<v Speaker 1>Jim Kerr sings this song.
<v Speaker 2>Jim Kerr from Simple Minds.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, you're exactly right.
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, okay, good job Jim Kerr.
<v Speaker 1>Now get this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Her third husband sings this song.
<v Speaker 5>And all the Roads we have to walk co winding.
<v Speaker 6>And all the lights and that a blinding Oasis loves
<v Speaker 6>Jim Gallagher Gallagher, Yeah, what so she's.
<v Speaker 1>Into the musicians well, and she's a musician herself. She
<v Speaker 1>actually sings this song the Ring a Bell for You.
<v Speaker 2>No, it is not.
<v Speaker 1>What is that that's called I'm Not Scared?
<v Speaker 2>Oh? From Eighth Wonder.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you're exactly right, see that I had that album.
<v Speaker 2>She looks beautiful in that viga she does I don't
<v Speaker 2>know why you're giving up on her post eighty nine.
<v Speaker 2>I have a guitar. I haven't given up on you. Like,
<v Speaker 2>there you go, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Then rounding out the cast, you've got Darlene Love, who
<v Speaker 1>played Trish from the first one. She's in all four.
<v Speaker 1>She's fantastic. Okay, you've got Tracy Wolf who plays Rhianne,
<v Speaker 1>which in the theater when she does that condums commercial.
<v Speaker 1>The theater that I watched it in was belly laughing.
<v Speaker 1>It's such a funny moment in the movie because rig
<v Speaker 1>sets it up. Hey, everybody, guess what tonight, the lovely
<v Speaker 1>rhei Enn Mertad Channel eight or whatever at eight o'clock
<v Speaker 1>is gonna make your you and a commercial. And of
<v Speaker 1>course the entire praseinct watches her do a condom commercial,
<v Speaker 1>and Roger is mortified, that's wrong.
<v Speaker 2>I love that commercial. She makes me one of my rubbers.
<v Speaker 1>Will you look at the body on this girl. I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna pretend I didn't hear you say that.
<v Speaker 5>Now.
<v Speaker 1>I got a couple of names I want to drop
<v Speaker 1>on you real quick. Mark Ralston plays Hans and Jeanette
<v Speaker 1>Goldstein plays Shapiro.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, sir, two, we're.
<v Speaker 1>In a movie together.
<v Speaker 2>I know it. Yeah, what is it? It is? Aliens?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you Haveasquez, Basquez and Drake one of my favorite
<v Speaker 1>lines because they're kind of buddy buddy in that movie too. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>they got a little something happening.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean so, but they they share no screen
<v Speaker 2>time together in this movie. He is the guy they're
<v Speaker 2>chasing at the beginning. If you don't know who I'm
<v Speaker 2>talking about, he's the he is in Shoshank Redemption, he's the.
<v Speaker 1>He's one of the sisters.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's the sister, Like he's the guy. What's guy?
<v Speaker 2>The guy's name Boggs. Boggs. He's Bogs and shoshannk Redemption.
<v Speaker 2>So that I mean, you don't know by that. Listen,
<v Speaker 2>you need to get together and watch them. Surely you
<v Speaker 2>can't be serious podcast movies, guys, okay, because you're missing
<v Speaker 2>out anyway. He is like buddy buddy with her in Aliens.
<v Speaker 2>They're both a part of the crew along with Bill Paxton,
<v Speaker 2>who were there to kill some bugs. And I mean, god,
<v Speaker 2>Janette Goldstein could not look any more different.
<v Speaker 1>She looks totally different, and you never really got a
<v Speaker 1>good look at her. I mean, she doesn't really do.
<v Speaker 2>Much except when she's peeking around the corner trying to
<v Speaker 2>catch a glimpse of Murtaz. He sits on a toilet.
<v Speaker 2>Get out of here.
<v Speaker 1>So that rounds out the cast pretty much for Leith
<v Speaker 1>a weapon too. Other than the people that you have
<v Speaker 1>from the first movie.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you got Richard Donner's cousin who's in all of
<v Speaker 2>his movies, including Scrooge as the police chief who was
<v Speaker 2>also a policeman in Superman one.
<v Speaker 1>Right, remember that's done by Richard Donner.
<v Speaker 2>Yes. Yeah, we talked before about how John Lovetz was
<v Speaker 2>not the first choice for Leo Getz. Yeah, you had
<v Speaker 2>some name for me on this.
<v Speaker 1>I do I know that one of them is John Lovetz.
<v Speaker 1>John Levitz was talked about. So Joe Pantaliano was the
<v Speaker 1>other guy they were looking at.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so Joe Pantaliano, Yes, is the guy who's in Goonies.
<v Speaker 2>He's one of the two brothers, not the one who
<v Speaker 2>sings op Agent Johnson with the two pay Yeah, that guy, right, Francis.
<v Speaker 2>And he's the he's the main bad guy, not the
<v Speaker 2>main bad guy, like he's not Agent Johnson, but he's
<v Speaker 2>the main like spy conspirator bad guy in the Matrix.
<v Speaker 2>I told this to you earlier and you're like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if you say so, And I'm like, what what do
<v Speaker 2>you mean if you say so? I just mentioned two
<v Speaker 2>gigantic movies there, and you're like, well, I like the Goonies.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like you didn't like the Matrix.
<v Speaker 1>It's one of my Yeah, it's one of my cinematic sins.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not a big fan of the Matrix.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we got to revisit that one. Brother, I don't
<v Speaker 2>I don't understand.
<v Speaker 1>I've only seen it once.
<v Speaker 2>That's a problem.
<v Speaker 1>I may have had a bad day. I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh. All right, yeah, we definitely need to
<v Speaker 2>need to go rev Is it that one? Cool? Okay, Okay, guys,
<v Speaker 2>that'll have to do it for part one. Please come
<v Speaker 2>back and join us for part two of Indiana Jones
<v Speaker 2>and the Last Crusade versus Lethal Weapon two. And here
<v Speaker 2>is a little song that I wrote just for you, guys.
<v Speaker 2>I hope you enjoy it.
<v Speaker 4>We're back, We're bad, You're back, salthak eighty man to me.
<v Speaker 5>The sually at the drive roof diplomatic immunity. I'm not
<v Speaker 5>a cop, tonight, Roge, this is personal. This was a
<v Speaker 5>new Carris Well, it's stealing? Is it? Steal? Is south
<v Speaker 5>Side and eighties? Man to me, I'm Leo, guess and
<v Speaker 5>whatever you want Leo kids, I'm getting to oh for
<v Speaker 5>this shore. Why do you do this to yourself? Well?
<v Speaker 5>Who else am I supposed to do it too. Any
<v Speaker 5>meeting night, hay more South king a hand to me,
<v Speaker 5>diplomatic cutity, guys, a cute don't die all the toilet.
<v Speaker 5>I'm getting too old for this. Surely South is surely
<v Speaker 5>bad to me. South like the surely bad South, Like
<v Speaker 5>the surely band that's.
<v Speaker 2>So awesome, the Rama Yama. Okay,