The Secret of NIMH (1982)

<v Speaker 1>Hello, and welcome to the All Eighties Movies podcast and
<v Speaker 1>the podcast where we talk about the blockbusters, love locks,
<v Speaker 1>and everything in between. From one of the presses Decades
<v Speaker 1>from Movies the nineteen eighties. I'm host Bill Banton. Long
<v Speaker 1>of me on this journey revisiting eighties movies is my
<v Speaker 1>co host Jason Nasse.
<v Speaker 2>Hello, Jason, Courage of the Heart is very rare. The
<v Speaker 2>stone has a power when it's there.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, listeners, we are discussing with Spoils of plenty.
<v Speaker 1>The nineteen eighty two animated movie The Secret of Nim.
<v Speaker 1>It was produced by United Artists and Don Bluth Productions
<v Speaker 1>and distributed by mgm UA Communications. The movie stars the
<v Speaker 1>voice talents of Elizabeth Hartman, Peter Strauss, and Don Delaize.
<v Speaker 1>Written directed by Don Bluth, this movie is rated G
<v Speaker 1>with a running time of one hour and twenty two minutes.
<v Speaker 1>It was based on the children's novel Missus Frisbee and
<v Speaker 1>the Rats of Nim by Robert C. O'Brien. So what
<v Speaker 1>is this movie about? What's on the box? If you
<v Speaker 1>grew up in the nineteen eighties and went to your
<v Speaker 1>local video store to rent this movie, you would find
<v Speaker 1>this description on the back of the VHS box. It
<v Speaker 1>is what's on the box, take Away, Jason.
<v Speaker 2>The Secret of Nim marks a spectacular return to the
<v Speaker 2>classic Disney style of animation. The story revolves around a
<v Speaker 2>certain Missus Brisbee, a widow mouse with four little mice
<v Speaker 2>who live underground in a field. Every year at springtime,
<v Speaker 2>the family are forced to leave their home when the
<v Speaker 2>field is plowed. This year, however, one of the little
<v Speaker 2>mice is too sick to be moved, and Missus Brisbee
<v Speaker 2>must find a way to save the family from the
<v Speaker 2>imminent plow forces. She sets off to enlist help and
<v Speaker 2>is joined by a crackpot crow with a heart of gold,
<v Speaker 2>a pompous true and a great wise owl. They alone
<v Speaker 2>are powerless until they meet a race of intelligent super
<v Speaker 2>rats who are party to the sinister Secret of Nim.
<v Speaker 2>The Secret of Nim is a rare film in which
<v Speaker 2>the cartoon characters really capture the imagination, particularly Jeremy the Crow,
<v Speaker 2>an inspired invention The Secret of Nim.
<v Speaker 1>Secret of Nim Jason our first animated movie.
<v Speaker 2>Here we go. I know, I thought the same thing.
<v Speaker 2>I was like, we haven't gone into this foray yet,
<v Speaker 2>but yeah, looking forward to it. Man, all right, so
<v Speaker 2>that was what's on the box?
<v Speaker 1>And Jason, do you remember the first time you saw
<v Speaker 1>the Secret of Nim Nope, this is gonna be quick. I, however,
<v Speaker 1>do know that I saw it.
<v Speaker 2>I can feel it in my gut. Bill Bant. I
<v Speaker 2>was only eight when this was released, and the plot
<v Speaker 2>of this movie escaped me completely. I know I saw it,
<v Speaker 2>though I haven't seen it since I was a child,
<v Speaker 2>and I only recall it being an acclaimed animated film.
<v Speaker 2>That's all I got. What about you? Do you remember seeing.
<v Speaker 1>This pretty sure? I saw it on HBO. Definitely not
<v Speaker 1>in theater. Definitely do not rent this. This was a
<v Speaker 1>cable watch and I don't think I watched it very
<v Speaker 1>many times. So this was a long time coming to
<v Speaker 1>revisit this. And I know it took a long time
<v Speaker 1>to come up with animated movies because let's be honest,
<v Speaker 1>animated movies in the eighties were not the greatest per se.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, everyone probably has one or two they really
<v Speaker 1>do like, but I think overall, compared to where we
<v Speaker 1>are now with animation, the eighties were kind of.
<v Speaker 2>A dip, no question.
<v Speaker 1>So let's talk about the movie. What are our impressions
<v Speaker 1>secreted in.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm looking forward to this Bill because this was
<v Speaker 2>fun just watching a solid animated film, Don Bluth's animated
<v Speaker 2>feature film directorial debut, head of Don Bluth Productions. I
<v Speaker 2>looked at his filmography. Man, this guy. You know once
<v Speaker 2>he broke away from Disney, which we may talk about
<v Speaker 2>in fun Facts and Trivia. He directed an American tale,
<v Speaker 2>The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven. These
<v Speaker 2>are big animated films from the eighties, some of the
<v Speaker 2>better films like it, and I agree with you Bill
<v Speaker 2>Bant that there wasn't a lot to pick from, but
<v Speaker 2>his films are good. And then after the eighties you
<v Speaker 2>have Thumbelina Anastasia. One of my cult favorites is titan Ae.
<v Speaker 2>I've watched that several times and I forgot that Don
<v Speaker 2>Bluth had done that one. And then listen to this
<v Speaker 2>Bill Bent. I was looking at his filmography on Wikipedia
<v Speaker 2>and at the very bottom it says Dragon's Lair. The
<v Speaker 2>movie is to be announced.
<v Speaker 1>They've been talking about it for a long time. I
<v Speaker 1>think there was a one of those fundraiser campaigns to
<v Speaker 1>get it started Kickstarter a year or two back. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know where it went. So I don't know if
<v Speaker 1>that's happened or not. I would love for that to happen.
<v Speaker 2>How cool would that be? All right?
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I'd certainly be the theater to watch that one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure, for sure. So this being his directorial debut,
<v Speaker 2>and if I'm not mistaken in the research, he feels
<v Speaker 2>that this is his favorite film still to this day.
<v Speaker 2>I get why. Talking about the tone of this, I
<v Speaker 2>like this style of animation, this darkness, this mystery. I'm sucker,
<v Speaker 2>as you well know, for good lore. I like the
<v Speaker 2>cool mysterious locations discovered along the Heroine's journey and this film,
<v Speaker 2>we obviously have all the archetypes present in this. We
<v Speaker 2>have the heroine or hero, the Chosen One and Missus Brisbee.
<v Speaker 2>We've got the hero's journey. We have our sidekick slash
<v Speaker 2>Jester and Jeremy the Crow voiced by the Great Dom Delawies.
<v Speaker 2>We have the wise Old Man with mister Ages, the
<v Speaker 2>Wizard slash Sorcerer, Nicodemus, the Shadow Figure or in Genner.
<v Speaker 2>There's an amulet key or with powers. There's the Promised Land,
<v Speaker 2>which is supposedly either the Lee of the Stone or
<v Speaker 2>Thorn valley for the rats. It's got all of those elements,
<v Speaker 2>which I'm very attracted to, so I definitely enjoyed the tone,
<v Speaker 2>the look, and the feel of this overall. I mentioned
<v Speaker 2>some of the cool names there of some of the characters.
<v Speaker 2>Nicodemus first of all Greek origin, meaning victory of the
<v Speaker 2>people kind known as a spiritual, biblical, or intellectual leader
<v Speaker 2>or truth seeker. Great name, Nicodemus, really cool name. I agree,
<v Speaker 2>that is a good name. Dragon the cat. Would you
<v Speaker 2>ever name your cat? Dragon? That's pretty sinister? That was interesting.
<v Speaker 2>Jenner was kind of a cool name for our bad
<v Speaker 2>guy or antagonist in this film. Mister Ages for the
<v Speaker 2>wise old mouse who is like part time primary care
<v Speaker 2>physician and part time mechanic I guess or alchemist. That
<v Speaker 2>was cool. Missus Brisbee is great. We'll talk about her
<v Speaker 2>name later, our heroin protagonist. Well, you know what I
<v Speaker 2>noted too, is we never learn her first name. No,
<v Speaker 2>we do not. No, I'm stepping on my trivia right now.
<v Speaker 2>Because missus Brisbee doesn't have a given name. Fans have
<v Speaker 2>nicknamed her Elizabeth in loving memory of her voice actress
<v Speaker 2>Elizabeth Hartman, who passed after this. And yeah, until that
<v Speaker 2>character had no on screen first name. She was only
<v Speaker 2>revered as Missus Jonathan Brisbee. Also the name just Nim
<v Speaker 2>in the title Folks by the way, all caps because
<v Speaker 2>it's an acronym for National Institute of Mental Health. And
<v Speaker 2>these are things I had completely forgotten about. Of course,
<v Speaker 2>same here, and I'm like, wow, this is weird but cool.
<v Speaker 2>What does the National Institute of Mental Health have anything
<v Speaker 2>to do with this movie? So I enjoyed the mystery
<v Speaker 2>of that and the names. There's some creativity and it's
<v Speaker 2>fun that there's some really simple names in here too,
<v Speaker 2>like obviously Jeremy the Crow, and then you have the
<v Speaker 2>kids like Martin and Tim and Cynthia. So anyway, great
<v Speaker 2>great characters, great voice actors in this. I do love
<v Speaker 2>the animation in this because I will always have an
<v Speaker 2>attachment to this style. It is a bit of a
<v Speaker 2>throwback to, like it says in the What's on the
<v Speaker 2>Box synopsis, throwback to that classic Disney style. Bluth specifically
<v Speaker 2>wanted to bring that style back for this. You mentioned
<v Speaker 2>some of the voice actors were justked about. Elizabeth Hartman
<v Speaker 2>as Missus Brisbee, Derek Jacobe as Nicodemus, Arthur Mallett as
<v Speaker 2>mister Ages. We talked about Tom Delawiz. I mean, he's wonderful,
<v Speaker 2>a lot of fun, and that's just to name a few.
<v Speaker 2>But Shannon Doherty does a voice in this I couldn't
<v Speaker 2>believe that I had no as Teresa, the middle child
<v Speaker 2>of missus Brisbee's. And then guess who else? Will Wheaton
<v Speaker 2>will shocked at that too, his feature debut as well
<v Speaker 2>as Doherty's, and he does the voice of Martin, the
<v Speaker 2>eldest son of Missus Brisbee. All these characters being the
<v Speaker 2>mice starring in this film, So yeah, pretty cool. Got
<v Speaker 2>to give a shout out to the film composer, the
<v Speaker 2>one and only, Jerry Goldsmith. Do you love the music
<v Speaker 2>in this bill? Yes? I did.
<v Speaker 1>And there's a little hint of Poltergeist in there.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, nice nice call. I don't know if I picked
<v Speaker 2>up on that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there's a I'm trying to think, what's scene that
<v Speaker 1>really stood out? I'm like, oh, yeah, that sounds very poultery.
<v Speaker 1>It might have been when they went in the rats Layer. Sure,
<v Speaker 1>I think I heard a little bit of it. Now
<v Speaker 1>that you say that, I can kind of hear it.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, Jerry Goldsmith, you know growing up being a
<v Speaker 1>fan of film composers and orchestral soundtracks. Of course I
<v Speaker 1>always called them the three J's right, the big three.
<v Speaker 1>Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and John Williams seemed to be
<v Speaker 1>the ones I was always listening to, so always been
<v Speaker 1>a Goldsmith fan. Of course, James Newton Howard would get
<v Speaker 1>on that list for me later on, with Danny Elfmanhn Zimmer,
<v Speaker 1>Michael Caman, et cetera, et cetera. Those were my eighties
<v Speaker 1>film composers. Jerry Goldsmith was definitely up there on the
<v Speaker 1>list for me. So I loved the soundtrack, and this
<v Speaker 1>happened to be his animated feature debut, the first animated
<v Speaker 1>feature he'd ever done. So yeah, I enjoyed this film,
<v Speaker 1>Bill Band. It's definitely of a time. This is just
<v Speaker 1>kind of weird and wild.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm twenty five minutes into the film and I'm
<v Speaker 2>totally engaged and I find it fun, but I admit
<v Speaker 2>that there's a part of me questioning where's this going.
<v Speaker 2>The films less than an hour and a half long,
<v Speaker 2>were almost a half an hour in and I wasn't
<v Speaker 2>sure what direction it was going in. I was wondering
<v Speaker 2>about the pacing of the story. I don't know if
<v Speaker 2>you had any feeling about that. I'm going to about
<v Speaker 2>to get into a little more of my issues with that,
<v Speaker 2>but didn't know if you were feeling that at all.
<v Speaker 1>I think mine was more of who is this movie
<v Speaker 1>made for?
<v Speaker 2>Huh?
<v Speaker 1>And I think of the opening scene when we have
<v Speaker 1>Nicodemus and he's talking the cold open, right, and he's
<v Speaker 1>writing into the journal the story of cool Jonathan Brisbee.
<v Speaker 1>It is a cool scene, but I'm thinking, if I'm
<v Speaker 1>eight years old and I'm watching this, I'm not really
<v Speaker 1>paying attention to what Nicodemus is talking about. So this
<v Speaker 1>whole cold open has gone over my head. So I
<v Speaker 1>have no idea what is going on. And luckily because
<v Speaker 1>every time I watch movies for this podcast, I always
<v Speaker 1>make sure I do close captioning so I see what's happening.
<v Speaker 1>Also also, even for me as an adult, I was
<v Speaker 1>kind of half listening, but then when I was watching
<v Speaker 1>what was being said, I'm like, oh, I really need
<v Speaker 1>to pay attention to this, right. And there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of dark moments in this m h A lot of
<v Speaker 1>scary stuff for young children, no question, so older children,
<v Speaker 1>I think they might turned off because it's like a
<v Speaker 1>movie about mice. I don't want to watch a movie
<v Speaker 1>about mice. Pretty significant mouse in the cartoon world already,
<v Speaker 1>so why do I need to watch something else for mice?
<v Speaker 1>And then you have to make them engaging enough for
<v Speaker 1>adults because they want to pay attention to what's going on.
<v Speaker 1>They're the ones that are bringing their kids to watch
<v Speaker 1>this movie. It almost feels like it's more for them.
<v Speaker 1>It has that those kids we went to film school
<v Speaker 1>with you had a like secret to him to be
<v Speaker 1>cool in the film world.
<v Speaker 2>Sure, right, That's what it felt like. This movie was
<v Speaker 2>four interesting.
<v Speaker 1>I did enjoy the movie, though, I mean I watched
<v Speaker 1>this a ton the last couple couple of days. I
<v Speaker 1>listened to it more than I watched it, which is
<v Speaker 1>surbrise's because it's animation. But my overall thing was like,
<v Speaker 1>who was this movie really made for? Because Adam Maners
<v Speaker 1>left Disney to start another studio and this is their
<v Speaker 1>first effort, right, so you got to hit it out
<v Speaker 1>of the park or else you're in trouble. And I'm
<v Speaker 1>surprised too. I've never seen this book. Missus Frisbee and
<v Speaker 1>the Rats of nim never heard of it. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>never heard of it either, And I think even with kids,
<v Speaker 1>you would think I would still see it at the bookstore.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe I've seen adaptations of the Secret of Nim, but
<v Speaker 1>never anything that said Missus Frisbee and the Rats of Nim.
<v Speaker 1>I've never come across it or even heard of it,
<v Speaker 1>which was a surprise.
<v Speaker 2>Good point.
<v Speaker 1>So this is ballsy to do this, But I did
<v Speaker 1>enjoy it. It's just how were you getting the people
<v Speaker 1>to get in the theater to watch this movie? Even
<v Speaker 1>if you look at Disney films, there's all those dark moments.
<v Speaker 1>There are dark moments, and a lot of Disney's you know, right,
<v Speaker 1>someone's always losing a parent or something. But this one
<v Speaker 1>has a lot more dark moments than you would typically
<v Speaker 1>think for a children's film. When you're looking at the characters.
<v Speaker 1>This movie seems like it's supposed to be for six
<v Speaker 1>to ten year olds because it's supposed to be cute
<v Speaker 1>little mice, but it's really not. So would ten to
<v Speaker 1>fourteen year olds be interested in this?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. You make all great points. That's some
<v Speaker 2>great commentary built because and I agree wholeheartedly, the rescuers
<v Speaker 2>had come out in seventy seven I Believe, which was, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's one of my favorites. Yeah, that's a classic. And
<v Speaker 2>so this is a real risk doing another Mice movie, right,
<v Speaker 2>and this is an issue for those when they were
<v Speaker 2>trying to make the movie and get it sold, you know,
<v Speaker 2>So that makes sense. I totally agree with you with
<v Speaker 2>the cold Open. I had to watch the cold Open
<v Speaker 2>three or four times to make sure I knew what
<v Speaker 2>Nicodemus was saying, because I did not have the clothes
<v Speaker 2>catching on. And you're right. It's like, well, maybe this
<v Speaker 2>movie's made for me because I love that lore stuff.
<v Speaker 2>But you're absolutely right. You would think the core target
<v Speaker 2>demographic would be those kids, the little you know, the
<v Speaker 2>young kids from six to ten, eight to ten, what
<v Speaker 2>have you. And the movie in that cold open starts
<v Speaker 2>with basically a death. Nicodemus is talking about the death
<v Speaker 2>of jonasthan Grisbye. That's a really dark way to start,
<v Speaker 2>and it has some cool animation with him using like
<v Speaker 2>that fountain pen, that magical pen writing in his journal
<v Speaker 2>book and you're trying to read the writing that's on there,
<v Speaker 2>and it's a little ahead of the dialogue or behind
<v Speaker 2>the dialogue. I couldn't tell, but it's not the easiest
<v Speaker 2>to follow, so I did have to go back and
<v Speaker 2>make sure. Oh okay, so it's been four years since
<v Speaker 2>they left NIM and Jonathan Grisby passed away at the
<v Speaker 2>hands of dragging the cat, you know, and it's like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>cool opening, but not necessarily easy to follow. So that's
<v Speaker 2>a great point. This was a yeah, you're right, a
<v Speaker 2>big risk to go in this direction for your first
<v Speaker 2>feature out of the box after departing Disney.
<v Speaker 1>Not the easiest sell here, But yeah, I think this
<v Speaker 1>story to me seem pretty basic because it's that and
<v Speaker 1>you've talked about the heroes journey and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 1>and what a parent will do for their child. That
<v Speaker 1>really resonated with me. Missus Brisbe steps out of a
<v Speaker 1>band so many times, having to do things to make
<v Speaker 1>sure she's going to be able to save her son Timmy.
<v Speaker 1>You know, to go see the great owl when you're
<v Speaker 1>the primary food group for that owl, right, that's gutsy.
<v Speaker 1>That's gutsy. And then the plow starting and then trying
<v Speaker 1>to jump in and shout it off, that's gutsy. Going
<v Speaker 1>to see the rats kind of your enemy, that's gutsy,
<v Speaker 1>So I did like that house. She always had to
<v Speaker 1>step out of her element because she's doing this for
<v Speaker 1>her child.
<v Speaker 2>One thousand percent. And I appreciate your perspective as a
<v Speaker 2>parent because I am not a parent. I do not
<v Speaker 2>have kids, so I don't look through those glasses when
<v Speaker 2>I see it. I mean, I knew that's what she
<v Speaker 2>was doing, but that it's not necessarily what impacts me
<v Speaker 2>the most. It did work, and it shows how much
<v Speaker 2>heart she has and thus is able to use the
<v Speaker 2>amulet at the end. And speaking of the amulet, you
<v Speaker 2>had a question about the amulet before we got online
<v Speaker 2>to record this episode. And my issue or issues with
<v Speaker 2>this movie, I should say, this film left me with
<v Speaker 2>a lot of questions that mostly revolve around the magical
<v Speaker 2>and fantastical aspects. I'm with you on this. So I
<v Speaker 2>just wrote these questions and you can answer, you can
<v Speaker 2>cut me off whatever, or we talk about it at
<v Speaker 2>the end. But I just wrote these and I'll just
<v Speaker 2>spit them out. And so Nicodemus had some kind of
<v Speaker 2>supernatural powers as a result of the lab testing at
<v Speaker 2>NIM because it didn't seem as though the other rats
<v Speaker 2>had either magical or supernatural powers. He's a wizard type.
<v Speaker 2>And then did he use his power to make the
<v Speaker 2>amulet powerful? Because the amulet itself has supernatural qualities? Was
<v Speaker 2>he doing that in the very beginning when he puts
<v Speaker 2>the amulet in the box, did he put the power
<v Speaker 2>into the I'm not sure that if that amulet as
<v Speaker 2>sparkly is is that what Jeremy called it? Yes, the
<v Speaker 2>road that's great is just has an innate power in itself.
<v Speaker 2>It was there's just like, what's going on here? What
<v Speaker 2>is the amulet? And why is it that Kademus has
<v Speaker 2>these powers? So is this a sword and sorcery movie
<v Speaker 2>or these just animals that are highly intelligent for a reason,
<v Speaker 2>which we do find out later in the film. And
<v Speaker 2>then I was asking myself, why are the rats in
<v Speaker 2>the rose bush harnessing the electricity? What are they using
<v Speaker 2>it for exactly? And why did they need it? Was
<v Speaker 2>it for general living purposes? And then I realized in
<v Speaker 2>reading more and then think about it, it made sense because
<v Speaker 2>they have more human qualities and thus require that power
<v Speaker 2>to do their work inside of the rose bush, et cetera.
<v Speaker 2>To keep the lights on basically, And Nicodemus has a
<v Speaker 2>quote when he's talking to Missus Brisbee says, he says,
<v Speaker 2>my child, we can no longer live as rats. We
<v Speaker 2>know too much. So they're obviously elevated and more evolved.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I was like, at the end, I'm going
<v Speaker 2>you have Jenner and his sidekick Sullivan. They've got swords
<v Speaker 2>and they're going to start to implement their evil plan.
<v Speaker 2>Where'd the swords come from? Where are they carrying swords?
<v Speaker 2>So again, I love the lore in this, but I
<v Speaker 2>just have some questions, specifically with those fantastical elements. Missus
<v Speaker 2>Brisbee literally uses the Amulet at the end to lift
<v Speaker 2>her cement block home from the mud, like Yoda uses
<v Speaker 2>the force to lift the x Wing from the swamp.
<v Speaker 2>Where did this magic come from? Why is this magic
<v Speaker 2>here existing in this world? It felt separate a little bit.
<v Speaker 2>I liked it, I just needed to have a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more of the why, like why it was there.
<v Speaker 1>I suppose I'm one hundred percent agreement, and I thought
<v Speaker 1>that somehow Nico demons had put Jonathan's spirit into the
<v Speaker 1>amulet and that's how it was able to activate and
<v Speaker 1>save the kids.
<v Speaker 2>But totally idea, Yeah, I thought that's kind of what
<v Speaker 2>he was doing too, But it doesn't get answered.
<v Speaker 1>No, it doesn't get answered. Why does he have magical
<v Speaker 1>powers if you got the same shots that all the
<v Speaker 1>other rats and mice did. Why are they just more intelligent?
<v Speaker 1>But none of them show any signs of having any
<v Speaker 1>kind of power?
<v Speaker 2>Right, So I have more questions that I'll bring up later.
<v Speaker 2>But my other issue I think with this because I
<v Speaker 2>mentioned the pacing in the way the story unfolds, I
<v Speaker 2>felt like Jenner, our antagonist, is introduced a bit too late.
<v Speaker 2>It's about forty minutes or so into the film, almost
<v Speaker 2>halfway through, and his motivation is very simple. I just
<v Speaker 2>felt like we needed to be introduced to the rats
<v Speaker 2>in the rose Bush earlier. That's the part of the
<v Speaker 2>film that started to really intrigue me, because that's the core.
<v Speaker 2>That's when we learn about Nim. We learned about these
<v Speaker 2>rats that are now, like I said, more evolved and
<v Speaker 2>highly intelligent, and they have been stealing the power of
<v Speaker 2>the electricity and feel shame for that. They've been stealing
<v Speaker 2>electricity and power from the Fitzgibbons home, the farmer's house,
<v Speaker 2>and now their whole plan, which is mentioned by Nicodemus
<v Speaker 2>in the very very beginning is to move to another
<v Speaker 2>location so that they don't have to steal anymore and
<v Speaker 2>somehow attain or obtain their own power by their own means,
<v Speaker 2>meaning electricity. So it's very strange, but it just I
<v Speaker 2>felt like the rats and gender should it that whole
<v Speaker 2>idea concept plotline through lunch should have been introduced earlier.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think that does make sense. We're saying. I'm
<v Speaker 1>trying to figure out how you've put it in.
<v Speaker 2>Mm hmm. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>You really don't meet one of our batties until yeah,
<v Speaker 1>halfway through the movie.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's funny you just said one of our batties, because, honestly, Bill,
<v Speaker 2>I thought this was going to be headed toward a
<v Speaker 2>showdown between the rats and or mice and dragging the cat.
<v Speaker 2>I thought that was going to be a big thing
<v Speaker 2>at the end, and it just didn't happen.
<v Speaker 1>Of course, Oh that's true. Yeah, dragging the cat kind
<v Speaker 1>of disappears.
<v Speaker 2>I mean literally, missus Brisbee succeeds in her mission in
<v Speaker 2>drugging the cat, and then that's it. We don't see
<v Speaker 2>him anymore. I like draggoning the cat, I kind of
<v Speaker 2>I just maybe that is just a taste thing For me,
<v Speaker 2>I just liked him. I was like, when is the
<v Speaker 2>big the big battle with Dragon the cat, because that's
<v Speaker 2>the whole with the movie starts with you learn about
<v Speaker 2>Jonathan Brisbee's death and you think, I'm assuming he was
<v Speaker 2>killed by the cat or we don't. We'd actually don't
<v Speaker 2>know how he died specifically, I don't think.
<v Speaker 1>Do we no, But it is to go to drug
<v Speaker 1>the cat, so I would guess it was Dragon that
<v Speaker 1>did it, mm hmm. But it's not one hundred percent clear, right.
<v Speaker 2>So when that is how the movie kind of starts
<v Speaker 2>and you're just like, ooh, there's this big bad cat,
<v Speaker 2>which is great, you got mice, you got cats that
<v Speaker 2>that totally makes sense their rivals enemies and how is
<v Speaker 2>that going to come to a head at the end.
<v Speaker 2>So those are my issues. That was it. Otherwise it's
<v Speaker 2>an entertaining film. It looks fantastic. The colors are great,
<v Speaker 2>so many rich colors. I like the characters. I thought
<v Speaker 2>the voice actors were a lot of I mean, Dom
<v Speaker 2>Delowiz is fun. So it was an It's hard to
<v Speaker 2>say I was even revisiting it feels like I was
<v Speaker 2>visiting it for the first time and I thought this
<v Speaker 2>was kind of a weird wild ride that I wasn't expecting.
<v Speaker 2>Pleasant surprise for me overall.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, are you wanna get in the favorite scenes or moments?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let's do it, all right?
<v Speaker 1>So what are our sum of our favorite scenes and moments
<v Speaker 1>from the Secret of Nim for all eighty two minutes
<v Speaker 1>of it? Well, I mean we did talk beforehand. I
<v Speaker 1>think we all had the same certainly. The first one
<v Speaker 1>was meeting Jeremy played by Dom Delawiz.
<v Speaker 2>Jeremy the Crow.
<v Speaker 1>Just hearing his voice, I forgot how much I used
<v Speaker 1>to love Dom Delowiz.
<v Speaker 2>As a kid.
<v Speaker 1>Yep, yep, absolutely when we get into accounaball run. I
<v Speaker 1>was Captain Chaos once for Halloween. That's how much I
<v Speaker 1>loved Dom Delowiz in that character, and just hearing him
<v Speaker 1>just brought back so many memories. He was just a fun,
<v Speaker 1>lovable guy. He just always just seemed to be happy
<v Speaker 1>when he was on screen, and that's what I just
<v Speaker 1>kind of missed, And he has that with this character too.
<v Speaker 1>He's just a fun dufas crow, always getting into mischief.
<v Speaker 1>So just have him introduced just a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 2>One thousand percent couldn't agree with you more. I knew
<v Speaker 2>he was in the movie, but then he just shows up.
<v Speaker 2>He just starts talking and it's like, oh my god,
<v Speaker 2>that's Don Delawise. He's hilarious. I love this. This is
<v Speaker 2>going to be fun. He's goofy, he's clumsy, he's all
<v Speaker 2>those things. It's perfect. I mean, he's cast so perfectly
<v Speaker 2>as Jeremy the Crow and this so lots of fun.
<v Speaker 2>That goes right into you know, his introduction goes right
<v Speaker 2>into my first favorite scene, which is the escape from
<v Speaker 2>Dragon the Cat. And this is just a really fun
<v Speaker 2>action sequence and watching it just for the animation, because
<v Speaker 2>we get Dragon chasing both Jeremy missus Brisbee through the trees.
<v Speaker 2>There's all these snapping branches. Dragon looks amazing, so intimidating
<v Speaker 2>with his one yellow eye and one blue eye, and
<v Speaker 2>he's got the big claws and he's just big and
<v Speaker 2>fat and strong and just jumping all over surprisingly agile.
<v Speaker 2>So they're jumping through the trees and then into the water.
<v Speaker 2>The animation is so colorful and it looks great. It's
<v Speaker 2>really well directed action. There's some really cool action in it.
<v Speaker 2>I appreciated all of that. There's one moment where Jeremy,
<v Speaker 2>because when we're introduced to Jeremy the crow, he's tangled
<v Speaker 2>up in the string. He actually uses that string, dangles it,
<v Speaker 2>and Missus Brisbee jumps onto it and then swings onto
<v Speaker 2>the tree. A great moment and the action sequence, and
<v Speaker 2>then afterward with Jeremy kind of being self congratulatory and
<v Speaker 2>at the same time mistakenly somehow manages to save the
<v Speaker 2>medicine for Missus Brisbee's sick son. A lot of fun.
<v Speaker 2>It's good action. I watched it a couple times. I
<v Speaker 2>was like, this just looks really it's just really cut
<v Speaker 2>well and looks really cool, and dragon's really intimidating. I
<v Speaker 2>liked it a lot.
<v Speaker 1>And this is what I love about old animation too,
<v Speaker 1>is like the scene when Missus Brigsby's climbing up the
<v Speaker 1>tree and you can see some of the branches are
<v Speaker 1>off color because you know there's the ones that are
<v Speaker 1>going to be animated.
<v Speaker 2>Oh sure, I missed that stuff. Mm hmm.
<v Speaker 1>You be like a rock and like, oh, okay, the
<v Speaker 1>character's going to kick that rock just because it's a
<v Speaker 1>different color than the background.
<v Speaker 2>Temp.
<v Speaker 1>I don't, I can't. I can't remember what they call that.
<v Speaker 1>The back the backdrop and then they you know, you
<v Speaker 1>put the cells on top of it to animate, but
<v Speaker 1>there's something off color you know, that's going to move
<v Speaker 1>or something. So I did enjoy seeing all that, especially
<v Speaker 1>through the action sies when they're scrambling through or swimming
<v Speaker 1>in the water, like, oh okay, you can see the
<v Speaker 1>stuff that's going to move or get touched in that point.
<v Speaker 1>So it was a lot of fun. That's funny you
<v Speaker 1>catch that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure, they have those background I don't know
<v Speaker 2>if Matt paintings or what it would be like kind
<v Speaker 2>of correct, but yeah, they have that whole Yeah, it's
<v Speaker 2>so many layers. It's just layers upon layers of stuff,
<v Speaker 2>but you can kind of see that. So it is
<v Speaker 2>fun to pinpoint for sure. So what do we have next?
<v Speaker 2>So I'm just going right into another cool animation action sequence.
<v Speaker 2>And it's the morning of the move. It's the plow
<v Speaker 2>is coming early because the frost has lifted. It's moving day,
<v Speaker 2>and the Brisbee's got to get out of the house.
<v Speaker 2>But they can't move because young Timothy is sick with pneumonia.
<v Speaker 2>So that's a problem. This is just a little bit
<v Speaker 2>of a kind of an Indiana Jones sequence, good action.
<v Speaker 2>You got the plow coming through the field headed right
<v Speaker 2>towards the Brisbee house, which is the cinder block that's
<v Speaker 2>underneath the ground. But you have this great character an
<v Speaker 2>anti shrew, a shrew who is like basically the ant
<v Speaker 2>to this family who has warned them they got to
<v Speaker 2>get out of their house. And so she's there with
<v Speaker 2>the family and Missus Brisbee when the plow approaches, it's
<v Speaker 2>just this cool action where Missus Brisbee just kicks into action,
<v Speaker 2>jumps onto the plow and is like trying to figure
<v Speaker 2>out a way to stop it. She figures that's the
<v Speaker 2>only way to do this. Missus Brisbee then flies in
<v Speaker 2>to save the day, cuts the fuel line, and of
<v Speaker 2>course the plow stops right before running over the Brisbee home.
<v Speaker 2>They're jumping through the gears. The animation is just really
<v Speaker 2>cool and it's just funest and then you have the
<v Speaker 2>great Jerry Goldsmith score in the back. That's it fun.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I found it to be a pretty fun scene.
<v Speaker 1>And then you see the tube like, oh, okay, any
<v Speaker 1>street is gonna pull this tube off. Stop somehow stop
<v Speaker 1>the tractor. There we go boom. Another favorite scene was
<v Speaker 1>the meeting the rats, so missus Brisbee has to meet
<v Speaker 1>with the rats in order for them to come up
<v Speaker 1>with a plan to move her house before the plow
<v Speaker 1>does eventually rip through their home. And just going back
<v Speaker 1>to dragons Layer, just because so much of that animation
<v Speaker 1>reminded me of so many of the scenes from Dragon's Layer,
<v Speaker 1>the game which I loved playing in the early eighties
<v Speaker 1>at United States of America. I remember playing it the
<v Speaker 1>first time. It was on the boardwalk in Wildwood. My
<v Speaker 1>mom put in the fifty cents and died, Died, died,
<v Speaker 1>But it was hooked to that game forever. You just
<v Speaker 1>see that looks in that scene and just the world
<v Speaker 1>that the rats created. I always love animated stuff when
<v Speaker 1>we get to go into a world like rats or
<v Speaker 1>little people, and how they use common objects in a
<v Speaker 1>different way from what we use them for. And you
<v Speaker 1>see a lot of that. Christmas legs for us is
<v Speaker 1>our main lighting for them. So just that kind of
<v Speaker 1>stuff is a lot of fun to watch. Could agree more.
<v Speaker 1>I had this as well. I just I wrote down
<v Speaker 1>the descent into the Rat's layer deep inside the rose bush.
<v Speaker 1>Such a cool location, cool idea. It's ominous, everything appears electrified,
<v Speaker 1>great colors once again, love all the electric effects. Then
<v Speaker 1>there's one moment Missus Brisbee goes into like an open
<v Speaker 1>like a clearing, and this beautiful like green valley within
<v Speaker 1>the bush, and then you have Brutus, this giant rat
<v Speaker 1>guard with an electrified spear.
<v Speaker 2>Love that moment. It's just so cavernous, and there's a
<v Speaker 2>great line because you talk about the size difference in
<v Speaker 2>the pright and they remind you how tiny they are
<v Speaker 2>because at one point missus Brisbee is following mister Ages
<v Speaker 2>through this cavernous area to get to Nicodemus, and she says,
<v Speaker 2>is it always so dark? And mister Ages goes, We're
<v Speaker 2>down three feet like it's that's like a big deal
<v Speaker 2>for them, Yeah, waist deep, whoa right? Three feet. But
<v Speaker 2>my favorite part is when they meet Justin the captain
<v Speaker 2>of the Guard and they all get aboard the lantern
<v Speaker 2>and close the door, which then seals them inside the
<v Speaker 2>lantern and it's lowered downward underneath the water and goes
<v Speaker 2>below the water all the way to the bottom and
<v Speaker 2>the water and then just drains out of the cavern.
<v Speaker 2>They get out of the lantern and make their way
<v Speaker 2>into the grain storage area, and then the council room.
<v Speaker 2>It's just a really cool thing with the lantern being
<v Speaker 2>lowered and they're inside it. So again that size ratio
<v Speaker 2>thing was pretty cool.
<v Speaker 1>The whole mechanics on getting to the I guess main ballroom,
<v Speaker 1>as you would say, a lantern are used as an elevator.
<v Speaker 1>Another scene that really reminded me of Dragon's Layer when
<v Speaker 1>she was walking through the first initial part and the
<v Speaker 1>thorn bushes come out of nowhere and they kind of
<v Speaker 1>intertwine and almost like you can't turn around and get out,
<v Speaker 1>you got to go forward, and I was like, oh God,
<v Speaker 1>that's so Dragonslayer also so cool.
<v Speaker 2>I love the idea that the rats of the sequence,
<v Speaker 2>when they go into like the council room and you
<v Speaker 2>have Genner talking to the all the council men or
<v Speaker 2>council rats, that there's a line in there where they
<v Speaker 2>feel that all the other animals in the field are
<v Speaker 2>lower creatures, which is just a cool concept. The fact
<v Speaker 2>that they're rats, and we as humans obviously think of
<v Speaker 2>rats as kind of guttural, yes, dirty diseased animals, not
<v Speaker 2>all of them, of course. I don't want to offend
<v Speaker 2>all the rats out there, but I'm just saying that
<v Speaker 2>they are the ones calling the other animals lower creatures
<v Speaker 2>is very cool. Love that when you keep bringing up
<v Speaker 2>Dragon's Layer because I've never lost money quicker, I should
<v Speaker 2>have just literally thrown my roll of quarters into the trash.
<v Speaker 2>It was so fun. Don't get me wrong, off dragons
<v Speaker 2>Layer is the best, but man, I sucked at it,
<v Speaker 2>and it was always fifty cents instead of twenty five cents.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, it was first video game. I remember being
<v Speaker 1>fifty cents. Damn two quarters and I played for all
<v Speaker 1>thirty seconds.
<v Speaker 2>Sex Mom and dad are like, you're already done in
<v Speaker 2>the arcade? Yeah, lost all my quarters in two minutes.
<v Speaker 1>And then a final favorite scenier moment for us I
<v Speaker 1>think we agree on this one is the final duel
<v Speaker 1>between Justin and Jenner.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, great stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So the Rats do agree to help the Brisbees move
<v Speaker 1>their home because of the debt for Jonathan Brisbee, because
<v Speaker 1>we do find out it's Jonathan Brisbee that got them
<v Speaker 1>out of nim or did the last stage to get
<v Speaker 1>them out, so they're beholden to him. But the first
<v Speaker 1>a little bit argument about it, and then Jenner sees
<v Speaker 1>it as an opportunity to get rid of NiCoT Damas
<v Speaker 1>because he wants to be in charge of the rats,
<v Speaker 1>and unfortunately they are successful and Nicodemus dies and that's
<v Speaker 1>when Justin realizes that Jenner set this whole thing up
<v Speaker 1>and they have the final duel.
<v Speaker 2>I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. Always like
<v Speaker 2>a good swordfi. You were talking about this earlier Bill,
<v Speaker 2>this is violent. There's death in here. I was like, wait, oh, damn,
<v Speaker 2>Nicodemus is actually dead. I didn't think they would succeed
<v Speaker 2>with the plan they did. They killed him. I forgot
<v Speaker 2>about that too. These rats are slicing each other up,
<v Speaker 2>We're seeing blood flowing. I always like a good sword fight,
<v Speaker 2>solid choreography. Love the fact that it's Jenner's kind of
<v Speaker 2>evil sidekick that comes to the good side and as
<v Speaker 2>he's dying, saves the day by throwing his knife into
<v Speaker 2>Jenner's back and then he falls to his death. So
<v Speaker 2>little trivia on this. I love this. The staging of
<v Speaker 2>the climactic sword fight between Justin Jenner was largely taken
<v Speaker 2>from the Tony Curtis Kirk Douglas duel in the Vikings
<v Speaker 2>film from nineteen fifty eight, and some choreography, including the
<v Speaker 2>villain getting stabbed in the stomach, was literally copied by
<v Speaker 2>the animators. Other moments were inspired by fight scenes in
<v Speaker 2>the Adventures of robin Hood nineteen thirty eight. A little
<v Speaker 2>robin Hood in there? Yeah for sure? Was that Errol Flynn? Yes?
<v Speaker 2>That one?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Okay, Time to move on to Swiss Cheese and
<v Speaker 1>Complaints Apartment. And why don't we call the Swiss.
<v Speaker 2>Cheese because although this movie is delicious, it does have
<v Speaker 2>farmhouse mouseholes, yes, and it doesn't have those farmhouse mouseholes.
<v Speaker 2>We just file a complaint with the Complaints Apartment. So
<v Speaker 2>what do we have for Swiss cheese complaints in this Well,
<v Speaker 2>in the beginning, this is just super nitpicky. I was like,
<v Speaker 2>apparently anti Shrew isn't too concerned about our poor sick Timothy.
<v Speaker 2>She visits the Brisbee home and there's some interaction between
<v Speaker 2>her and the eldest son, Martin, who doesn't care for
<v Speaker 2>her too much. But Shrue is very Shrewish, and she's
<v Speaker 2>just warning them that they're going to have to get out,
<v Speaker 2>they got to move, but she gets tangled up with
<v Speaker 2>the kids and then just takes off, and they're trying
<v Speaker 2>to tell her that Tim is sick, but she doesn't
<v Speaker 2>seem to be affected by It's like there's a kid
<v Speaker 2>with the pneumonia and they're like if they call her
<v Speaker 2>anti shrew. I think that was the problem I had.
<v Speaker 2>I was just like, if she's anti shru, shouldn't she
<v Speaker 2>be a little more concerned about the sick boy.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, you would think so, or she'd even
<v Speaker 1>knew that he was sick to begin with.
<v Speaker 2>Mm hmm.
<v Speaker 1>And that whole warning system, they didn't have been a
<v Speaker 1>lot of time. That was basically the next day the pole.
<v Speaker 2>Started, right, Yeah, that was quick.
<v Speaker 1>Who could pack up their place and overnight and get
<v Speaker 1>that stuff out?
<v Speaker 2>I thought about that too. That's interesting. That was in
<v Speaker 2>the back of my mind. When you see all the
<v Speaker 2>other creatures running away, you have I failed to mention
<v Speaker 2>that during that action sequence, it's great to see all
<v Speaker 2>the rabbits, the bunnies, the squirrels, the birds flying out
<v Speaker 2>of the fields, like, oh, they're just abandoning their homes.
<v Speaker 2>They got to leave it all behind, no time to move.
<v Speaker 1>So, speaking of animals, I couldn't figure this out either.
<v Speaker 1>Why could some talk and some couldn't, Like we understand
<v Speaker 1>why the rats of nim could speak, that's explained, But
<v Speaker 1>why does Missus Prisby speak. I can understand maybe why
<v Speaker 1>the kids speak because they're from Jonathan, but Anti Shrew
<v Speaker 1>why can't she speak? But then rabbits can't. The great
<v Speaker 1>alcol Jeremy can. All the other animals in the field,
<v Speaker 1>they don't seem to have that ability.
<v Speaker 2>No, they're just like squeaking and squawking. How did all
<v Speaker 2>that work? You bring up a great point. I'm glad
<v Speaker 2>you said that, because it's the problem again, the magic
<v Speaker 2>in this movie. I don't understand. It's one thing to
<v Speaker 2>have a conceit where you're watching a kid's animated film
<v Speaker 2>where the animals talk, of course, right, yeah, Like you
<v Speaker 2>just go and that's kind of what you expect. But
<v Speaker 2>then when some can and some can't, and then you
<v Speaker 2>learn that there are rats that were injected with some
<v Speaker 2>special concoction that made them of higher intelligence, then you're like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>that would be cool if that's why they can talk.
<v Speaker 2>They can actually speak English because they were given this
<v Speaker 2>special injection. And then they would have to explain why
<v Speaker 2>missus Brisbee also can speak, but maybe she didn't not
<v Speaker 2>you know, you could come up with some other things,
<v Speaker 2>but I thought that's what they were going to go with.
<v Speaker 2>They were going in that direction as to why they
<v Speaker 2>could talk when I saw that some of them couldn't.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, dragging can talk.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Honestly, it didn't bother me. But when the movie's over
<v Speaker 1>and then you think about it, why was it that way?
<v Speaker 1>It should have just been the mice in the rats
<v Speaker 1>and that kind of should have been it.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Speaking of things happening quickly, at the end, when
<v Speaker 2>the rats, led by Nicodemus and Justin, decide to help
<v Speaker 2>missus Brisbee move her home, they moved super quickly. They
<v Speaker 2>designed and built an entire pulley system in order to
<v Speaker 2>move the Brisbee cinder block home. It seems like ours,
<v Speaker 2>it's just really quick. I'm like, wow, they have an
<v Speaker 2>entire pulley system.
<v Speaker 1>Well, it seemed weird because I think it almost seemed
<v Speaker 1>like they were moving it from one side of that
<v Speaker 1>rock to the other side, right, which made me think,
<v Speaker 1>why are you even on that first side to begin with?
<v Speaker 1>If you know the pliole comes every year, mm hmm.
<v Speaker 1>If everybody knows the pile comes, it's like living in
<v Speaker 1>California and like, oh, you know, what, I'm gonna build
<v Speaker 1>my house right on the fault line and take my chances.
<v Speaker 2>Right, or you know in California there's mudslides, so you
<v Speaker 2>just put your house right. Yeah, I'm going to put
<v Speaker 2>my house at the foot of the mountain on the cliff, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Or yeah, I'm gonna put my house right by the
<v Speaker 1>river that always overflows. Move somewhere where you don't have
<v Speaker 1>to worry about the great move every year.
<v Speaker 2>Kind of a major inconvenience. So yeah, I'm glad you
<v Speaker 2>brought that up too, because it seemed like that was
<v Speaker 2>a big deal. The Great Owl says to miss Brisbee,
<v Speaker 2>go back, talk to Nicodemus and the rats, and move
<v Speaker 2>to the lee of the stone. And I'm like, well,
<v Speaker 2>that sounds cool. What the hell does that mean? So
<v Speaker 2>I had to look it up, and lee means a
<v Speaker 2>protected downwind area. It acts as a metaphor for safety
<v Speaker 2>and shelter, so it refers to the sheltered space behind
<v Speaker 2>a large anchored stone, the lee of the stone. And
<v Speaker 2>so it's like, I thought the lee of the stone
<v Speaker 2>was some other magical place like where she was going
<v Speaker 2>to move, and you're right, then, it's just no, it's
<v Speaker 2>the other side of the stone where there's right. It's
<v Speaker 2>nothing special. It's just the lee of the stone on
<v Speaker 2>the other side, the sheltered side.
<v Speaker 1>Which made me think too, they live in a cinder block.
<v Speaker 1>I don't even think it's that big for mice to
<v Speaker 1>begin with.
<v Speaker 2>That's actually a good point. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>But if I'm the farmer and I'm gonna plow my field,
<v Speaker 1>this is the first thing they do is walk the
<v Speaker 1>field to see if there's stuff like cinder blocks in
<v Speaker 1>there to dig it out. So when I drive my
<v Speaker 1>plow over it, I'm not wrecking my plow.
<v Speaker 2>Man, you just hit another thing. I was thinking about
<v Speaker 2>putting this and make the big fears that the plow
<v Speaker 2>is going to destroy their home, and I'm going you
<v Speaker 2>live in a cinder block, it's going to destroy the
<v Speaker 2>plow if anything.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's just going to turn it. Yeah, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>get to my big complaint.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I know.
<v Speaker 1>In Leath a Weapon, I talked about how much I
<v Speaker 1>did not like that final closing song. Oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>this one blows it away. This is gonna be one
<v Speaker 1>of the worst final credit songs ever. And even the
<v Speaker 1>other song in this movie is not good either. It
<v Speaker 1>almost remined finds me of Willie Welcome to Chocolate Factory.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh the cheer Up Charlie song. I always skip
<v Speaker 1>that scene in the movie, and I was like, oh
<v Speaker 1>my god, this is like it's cousin song. When she's
<v Speaker 1>feeding Timmy the medicine and there's that song playing, I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>this song is awful. It's in it's and then I
<v Speaker 1>was like, I can't get any worse than this, But nope,
<v Speaker 1>when the closing credits come on, that song is twenty
<v Speaker 1>times worse. That's definitely now the worst closing credits songs
<v Speaker 1>I've heard from an eighties movie.
<v Speaker 2>You nailed it. It's off putting, to say the least.
<v Speaker 2>I know it's supposed to be fairy tale esque and
<v Speaker 2>to have that vibe and feeling it just makes me
<v Speaker 2>think of Princess Bride, which is great because that's Mark Knopfler.
<v Speaker 2>And then it also makes me think of another movie
<v Speaker 2>like this where it's fantastical and mystical or is a
<v Speaker 2>legend with Tom Cruise and Tim Curry, and that movie
<v Speaker 2>has some weird lyrical music too, but I think it's
<v Speaker 2>John Anderson from Yes does some one of the songs
<v Speaker 2>in that and it's actually okay, but it's does this fit?
<v Speaker 2>Does this feel like it belongs here?
<v Speaker 1>It's may you want something catchy? It was catchy. You're
<v Speaker 1>not gonna sing this. It's not memorable for the movie.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe just caught up in the Disney trap, because there's
<v Speaker 1>always there's always those great memorable songs from a Disney.
<v Speaker 2>It's another great point, So you'd.
<v Speaker 1>Think he would have done that for this. You know what,
<v Speaker 1>not only may do better animation than you're doing right now, Disney.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna put in a better song animation, yes, from
<v Speaker 1>what Disney was doing at the time. Definitely better animation.
<v Speaker 1>Music not so much. I got one more complaint.
<v Speaker 2>Oh go ahead. Jeremy the Crow completely disappears for the
<v Speaker 2>third act finale or finales if you will. There's the
<v Speaker 2>sword fight, there's the raising the house from the mud,
<v Speaker 2>all of that. Before that happens, we do see missus
<v Speaker 2>Brisbee talk to Jeremy, who was kind of swimming underwater
<v Speaker 2>in disguise under the lily pads, and then she says,
<v Speaker 2>go get a ton of string. I want you to
<v Speaker 2>get more string. Go get a bunch of string, and
<v Speaker 2>he takes off like he's on a mission. Great, and
<v Speaker 2>then this whole thing happens. And I was waiting for
<v Speaker 2>Jeremy to show up at some point with either the
<v Speaker 2>string to help pull something or do something with it.
<v Speaker 2>But I just thought he would appear at some point
<v Speaker 2>for some reason, to even clumsily help things along. He's
<v Speaker 2>literally does not show up until the very end of
<v Speaker 2>the movie, just gone.
<v Speaker 1>It is very weird how characters come in and out
<v Speaker 1>of this film.
<v Speaker 2>He's the comic relief. It gets really dark at the end.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe that's why they didn't they took him out.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how do you bring him back in
<v Speaker 1>for that moment, but he should have been in there somehow. See,
<v Speaker 1>that would be perfect. You somehow bring Dragon back and
<v Speaker 1>Jeremy comes in somehow and gets dragging out of the
<v Speaker 1>picture so they can try to complete their task with
<v Speaker 1>saving the brisbee.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, that's a great call. That's a great as if
<v Speaker 2>Dragon wakes up, Yes, he wasn't drugged enough. He wakes
<v Speaker 2>up in the middle of thing and then goes after
<v Speaker 2>them as they're trying to get the cinder block out
<v Speaker 2>of the mud, and Jeremy has to run interference and
<v Speaker 2>fight off Dragon. Oh. That would have been great.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure they had that written now, it just wasn't
<v Speaker 1>in the budget.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, they didn't have a lot of money to
<v Speaker 2>work with, as it turns.
<v Speaker 1>Out, all right, I want to move on to Hey,
<v Speaker 1>that's that actor case probably a voice actor in this
<v Speaker 1>segment with Spotlight, a character actor you have seen in
<v Speaker 1>many other films, an actor making their big screen debut,
<v Speaker 1>or an actor that makes an uncredited cameo's Hey, it's
<v Speaker 1>that actor.
<v Speaker 2>Who do we choose this week? This week for our
<v Speaker 2>Hey it's that actor, we went with John Kerodine, John Carodine,
<v Speaker 2>who voices the Great Owl, classic actor from Poughkeepsie, New York,
<v Speaker 2>known for his deep baritone voice, and it is great
<v Speaker 2>in this as the Great Owl, known as one of
<v Speaker 2>the great character actors in American cinema, actually did voice
<v Speaker 2>work all the way back in the late nineteen twenties
<v Speaker 2>for Cecil B. De Mill. He was a protege and
<v Speaker 2>close friend of John Barrymore, was then a prolific film
<v Speaker 2>actor and later on typecast is a horror film star
<v Speaker 2>and low budget and ultra low budget horror films. He
<v Speaker 2>was a member of the group of actors often used
<v Speaker 2>by John Ford that became known as the john Ford
<v Speaker 2>Stock Company. His IMDb filmography goes all the way back
<v Speaker 2>to nineteen thirty and between. Then in the eighties, he's
<v Speaker 2>known for classic films such as The Grapes of Wrath, Stagecoach,
<v Speaker 2>The Ten Commandments. He plays a role in one of
<v Speaker 2>my favorite Danny k movies, The Court Jester in nineteen
<v Speaker 2>fifty five. But during the eighties he was featured in
<v Speaker 2>these notables, The Boogeyman from nineteen eighty, The Howling in
<v Speaker 2>eighty one, The Nesting also in eighty one. He's the
<v Speaker 2>Supreme Commander in Bill Band's favorite movie of all time,
<v Speaker 2>The Ice Pirates nineteen eighty four. He plays a character
<v Speaker 2>named Leo in Peggy Sue Got Married, which we also
<v Speaker 2>did on this very podcast. That film was from eighty six.
<v Speaker 2>And then I just wanted to say the title of
<v Speaker 2>this film, The Adventures of Tora prison Ship Star Slammer,
<v Speaker 2>that was also in nineteen eighty six. You gotta look
<v Speaker 2>that one up, look at the cover. It's great. He
<v Speaker 2>played Count Dracula in four films. House of Frankenstein from
<v Speaker 2>forty four, House of Dracula from forty five, Billy the
<v Speaker 2>Kid Versus Dracula in sixty six and Nocturna in seventy nine.
<v Speaker 2>Father to five sons, three of which at least I
<v Speaker 2>think there's four of them were actors. You'll know these
<v Speaker 2>three for sure. His sons David Carodine, Robert Carodine from
<v Speaker 2>Revenge of the Nerds RIP, and Keith Carody. One of
<v Speaker 2>his grandchildren is actress Martha Plimpton, who's featured in some
<v Speaker 2>of our favorite eighties flicks. John Carodine passed away from
<v Speaker 2>natural causes in nineteen eighty eight at age eighty two.
<v Speaker 1>Dig Yeah, great voice as the great Al. He was
<v Speaker 1>great as a great al. Okay, move it on to
<v Speaker 1>facts and trivia. What are some facts and trivia we
<v Speaker 1>have about the secret of them?
<v Speaker 2>Let's see here. This was a seem to be a
<v Speaker 2>popular fun fact during the film's production. Aurora, which was
<v Speaker 2>I believe is that they're one of the production companies.
<v Speaker 2>Roora contacted the company Whammo, the manufacturers of Frisbee flying discs,
<v Speaker 2>with concerns about possible trademark infringements if the Misses Frisbee
<v Speaker 2>name from O'Brien's original book was used in the film.
<v Speaker 2>Wammo rejected Aurora's request for Waiver to use the same
<v Speaker 2>sounding name to their Frisbee in the film. Aurora informed
<v Speaker 2>Bluth in Company that Missus Frisbee's name would have to
<v Speaker 2>be altered, but by then the voice work had already
<v Speaker 2>been recorded for the film, so the name changed to
<v Speaker 2>Missus Brisbee necessitated a combination of re recording some lines,
<v Speaker 2>and because John Carradine was unavailable for further recordings, careful
<v Speaker 2>sound editing had to be performed, taking the B sound
<v Speaker 2>out of another word from Carrodine's recorded lines and replaced
<v Speaker 2>the F sound with the B sound, altering the name
<v Speaker 2>from Frisbee to Brisbee. Wow.
<v Speaker 1>So the film was famously produced out of don blues
<v Speaker 1>garage or a shoe string budget so tight that the
<v Speaker 1>final stretch was financed by Bluth, Gary Goldman, and John
<v Speaker 1>Pomperroy mortgaging their homes so to achieve the level animation
<v Speaker 1>quality they were striving for. The team rucine Lely were
<v Speaker 1>grueling sixteen hour days, often bringing work home just to
<v Speaker 1>keep pace crazy.
<v Speaker 2>This was Jerry Goldsmith's first music score for an animated movie.
<v Speaker 2>He later said it was among his personal favorites. He
<v Speaker 2>was instrumental in introducing the movie to Steven Spielberg, who
<v Speaker 2>went on to work with Don Bluth on An American
<v Speaker 2>Tale in eighty six. According to Bluth and Gary Goldman
<v Speaker 2>in their DVD commentary, Goldsmith so loved the movie that
<v Speaker 2>he volunteered in extra three weeks to polish and refine
<v Speaker 2>the score, even though he was not contractually obligated to
<v Speaker 2>do so.
<v Speaker 1>According to Don Blue's biography, early versions of the Secret
<v Speaker 1>of Nim looked very different from the final film. An
<v Speaker 1>initial draft stayed much closer to Missus Frisbee and the
<v Speaker 1>Rats of Nim, while a later script by Stephen Barnes
<v Speaker 1>introduced major changes. In this early draft, the scientists from
<v Speaker 1>Nim's played a much larger role, with the story cutting
<v Speaker 1>back and forth between them and the animals. There was
<v Speaker 1>even discussions of making one scientist a central villain balanced
<v Speaker 1>by a more sympathetic good scientist, a concept that was
<v Speaker 1>ultimately scaled back to a brief flashback and mostly offscreen presence.
<v Speaker 1>In the finished film, Missus Brisbee herself was written as
<v Speaker 1>even more openly emotional, and the character Isabelle from the
<v Speaker 1>book was included rather than being removed.
<v Speaker 2>In the adaptation.
<v Speaker 1>One planned sequence had dragged the cat attacking the Brisbee home,
<v Speaker 1>after which mister Ages and Justin would explain to the
<v Speaker 1>children what happened to their father. The climax was also
<v Speaker 1>far more grounded. Instead of a mystical resolution involving the amulet,
<v Speaker 1>one version had nim gassing the Rats home, forcing a
<v Speaker 1>desperate escape. Another concept centered on Brisbee making a literal
<v Speaker 1>leap of faith across a deadly chasm, with her children
<v Speaker 1>succeeding only because of the encouragement Justin had given her earlier,
<v Speaker 1>making courage rather than magic the driving force behind the ending.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's interesting you talk about that. You can read
<v Speaker 2>it on it. The changes they made from the book
<v Speaker 2>and then beyond kind of explain my issues with this.
<v Speaker 2>With the fantastic they added that fantastical magical quality gener's
<v Speaker 2>character too. I think you know, either was bigger or
<v Speaker 2>smaller from the book. But the changes they made were like, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>that's why it feels a little separate from everything else,
<v Speaker 2>or we just have a lot of questions as to
<v Speaker 2>why it's there or how it works.
<v Speaker 1>Great because they just don't explain why it happens.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it wasn't in the book that makes sense.
<v Speaker 2>The movie also heralds a return to using the multiplane
<v Speaker 2>camera for scenes requiring depth, especially Nicodemus's magic hologram, and
<v Speaker 2>in the opening sequence, where with the aid of backlit animation,
<v Speaker 2>the wise old rat beckens magic vapors from an ink
<v Speaker 2>well to grace the pages of an ancient book with
<v Speaker 2>fiery gold lettering. Last, but not least, there are more
<v Speaker 2>than six hundred colors used in this movie. One character,
<v Speaker 2>chemist Mouse mister Ages has twenty six colors.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, that's cool. Yeah, can move on to box office.
<v Speaker 1>So The Secret of Dim hit theaters on July second,
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty two, opening in only eighty eight locations. With
<v Speaker 1>an estimated budget of seven million dollars, The movie pulled
<v Speaker 1>in fourteen point six million across North America. It opened
<v Speaker 1>in the seventeenth spot at the box office and never
<v Speaker 1>entered the top ten. It didn't help that Disney had
<v Speaker 1>released Bamby on the same day, which opened in seven
<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty theaters and made close to two million
<v Speaker 1>dollars that week. Nim's biggest grossing week was on its
<v Speaker 1>third week of release, when it was in seven hundred
<v Speaker 1>theaters and pulled in one point four million in ticket sales.
<v Speaker 1>By the end of its run, it became the sixty
<v Speaker 1>eighth highest grossing movie of nineteen eighty two. Then, moving
<v Speaker 1>on to reviews. From growing up in the eighties, we
<v Speaker 1>would watch sneak previews with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert
<v Speaker 1>to hear the reviews and watch clips of upcoming movies.
<v Speaker 1>Their review of The Secret of Dim was unanimous two
<v Speaker 1>thumbs up. Gene wasn't a big fan of the opening
<v Speaker 1>of the movie or the main character, but once the
<v Speaker 1>movie explored the world of the rats, things really picked up.
<v Speaker 1>Roger impressed with the movie's depth, depth of characters, and
<v Speaker 1>depth of animation. Rotten Tomatoes is it a Tomato Meter
<v Speaker 1>score of ninety three percent? What's the Popcorn Meter score
<v Speaker 1>of eighty six percent? It also has an IMDb rating
<v Speaker 1>of seven point five. So this brings us to additional
<v Speaker 1>thoughts and questions. Do we have any additional thoughts in
<v Speaker 1>questions about the secretive nim Yeah, I've got a few
<v Speaker 1>for you, okay.
<v Speaker 2>In the very beginning of the film, after the cold
<v Speaker 2>open with Nicodemus, we're introduced to mister Ages. He's inside
<v Speaker 2>this piece of this giant piece of farm equipment that's
<v Speaker 2>sitting out in the field. What is he working on?
<v Speaker 2>In the beginning, he's clearly inside the equipment. We learned
<v Speaker 2>later on that he's one of the two mice that
<v Speaker 2>survived the nim experiments and got out. So he's highly intelligent,
<v Speaker 2>we learned later. So it kind of makes sense looking back.
<v Speaker 2>But is he using his intelligence for that medicine preparation,
<v Speaker 2>or alchemy or the power that he has because he
<v Speaker 2>seems to live inside that equipment right his home is
<v Speaker 2>down inside that farming tool.
<v Speaker 1>I got a little confused. I initially thought he was
<v Speaker 1>in the plow trying to sabotage it so it wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>be ready. But then I'm like, why would you have
<v Speaker 1>all that stuff in there if the plow is going
<v Speaker 1>to happen soon and then you would lose everything, So
<v Speaker 1>he must be in a different machine.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then what he's doing.
<v Speaker 1>I have no idea, but yeah, maybe it is for
<v Speaker 1>the exodus to the was that thorn valley they were
<v Speaker 1>going to go to correct Maybe he was working on
<v Speaker 1>our power source once they moved. That's the only thing
<v Speaker 1>I could think of. I think he did reference like
<v Speaker 1>something big.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, yep, must be what it is?
<v Speaker 1>There you go the power source for what they're going
<v Speaker 1>to survive on.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, well that leads to my next question, the good segue,
<v Speaker 2>because do we need to see Thorn Valley at the end.
<v Speaker 2>This is what it's all leading up to, all building
<v Speaker 2>up to, is this exodus to Thorn Valley where the
<v Speaker 2>rats are going to go. We don't ever see it,
<v Speaker 2>and we don't know what they're going to do or
<v Speaker 2>how they're going to survive once they get there.
<v Speaker 1>I was interested to see where Thorn Valley was because
<v Speaker 1>it was like it'd be hilarious. It's really just on
<v Speaker 1>the outskirts of the farm. It's just some little if
<v Speaker 1>It also is on just on the other side of
<v Speaker 1>the stone. Yeah, I did want to see it, but
<v Speaker 1>I didn't think it was necessary to see it. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>we've mentioned Dragon's lay Are tons of times throughout this.
<v Speaker 1>Did you ever finish the game? I never did. I
<v Speaker 1>never completed it. I believe I've watched the gameplay on
<v Speaker 1>a YouTube video so I could see what happens somebody
<v Speaker 1>playing it live and they finish it. But no, did
<v Speaker 1>you win the game? Had you gotten through it? Yes,
<v Speaker 1>I have. I remember the first time I saw someone
<v Speaker 1>beat it. I was in Atlantic City and there was
<v Speaker 1>this place, oh god, I think it was called Ocean One.
<v Speaker 1>They actually had the game on a big screen so
<v Speaker 1>people could gather around and watch, and some kid had
<v Speaker 1>finished it, and maybe it was like fifty people watching
<v Speaker 1>this kid finish the game. So I was the first
<v Speaker 1>time I saw the ending. All it is is memorization, right.
<v Speaker 1>I think there's maybe twenty six different animated scenes, and
<v Speaker 1>then it does them reverse. So once you learn how
<v Speaker 1>to do it, the one way all you got to
<v Speaker 1>do is just reverse on the on the other side,
<v Speaker 1>and then when you get to the final scene with
<v Speaker 1>the Princess Daphne, that's yeah, it's really not that hard.
<v Speaker 1>It's just, yeah, you just have to put the time
<v Speaker 1>in because I know so he did that Dragon's Layer
<v Speaker 1>two and then Space Ace and they're more linear. I
<v Speaker 1>was terrible at those. Yep, that's hard. They just didn't
<v Speaker 1>seem as fun. It's a kind of a bummer that
<v Speaker 1>didn't catch on as well. Yeah, but the problem was
<v Speaker 1>the games were very they were expensive to make, and
<v Speaker 1>they broke down really easily from because of your everything
<v Speaker 1>was on a disc record sides discs. Someone hit it
<v Speaker 1>and knocked it off whack. But yeah, I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if I ever knew that. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's cool man. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that was during the time it captured my imagination because
<v Speaker 1>the animation in the game just looked so cool. Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>And I mean that was the first attract. And it's
<v Speaker 1>like this medieval fun story and your hero is kind
<v Speaker 1>of goofy but still cool. And on top of it,
<v Speaker 1>it was during that Choose your Own Adventure phase that
<v Speaker 1>I was going through reading Choose your Own Adventure books.
<v Speaker 2>And playing Yes, God, I love those two the text
<v Speaker 2>Choose your Own Adventure game on Apple two wee and
<v Speaker 2>was playing Zork. Love that game. I'm waiting for that
<v Speaker 2>movie to come out. I'm sure it will at some point.
<v Speaker 2>And because you were just doing you just writing text
<v Speaker 2>and giving directions and it's just totally left to your imagination,
<v Speaker 2>dragons Layer had a little bit of that feel like
<v Speaker 2>you were choosing the direction where your character could go,
<v Speaker 2>you know, choose or you know the adventure he was
<v Speaker 2>about to go on. So it had that same kind
<v Speaker 2>of magical quality to it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and the fact it kind of randomized, like you
<v Speaker 1>could play the game ten times and it would take
<v Speaker 1>you on a journey ten different ways. And I think
<v Speaker 1>that was kind of fun about it, which is what
<v Speaker 1>I didn't like about Space Ace or dragons Layer two.
<v Speaker 2>Right, makes sense. I got a couple more questions real quick. One,
<v Speaker 2>if Nicodemus could see that Missus Brisbee was in trouble
<v Speaker 2>after the plow scene, there's a quick scene where you
<v Speaker 2>have Nicodemus looking through his like what is it called,
<v Speaker 2>like that hologram, It's like a I don't even know,
<v Speaker 2>like a looking glass. I don't know what it is.
<v Speaker 2>But he can see what's happening outside of the rose Bush,
<v Speaker 2>and he keys in on Missus Brisbee, who is clearly
<v Speaker 2>in trouble and now has talked to Anti Shrew and
<v Speaker 2>Auntie Shrew says you need to go talk to the
<v Speaker 2>Great Owl, and Nicodemus is watching, going, yes, Missus Brisbee,
<v Speaker 2>go seek the wisdom of the Great Owl and that
<v Speaker 2>should help you on your journey. And I'm like, hey, Nick,
<v Speaker 2>why don't you just skip a step and go get her,
<v Speaker 2>Like you can just leave the Rosebush, go find Missus Brisbee.
<v Speaker 2>You know that she needs to, like it, just seemed
<v Speaker 2>though he had this magic eye, this eye and the
<v Speaker 2>sky kind of thing, and could see what was going
<v Speaker 2>on with her, and all already knew she was in
<v Speaker 2>trouble and that eventually she was going to come to
<v Speaker 2>him as if she It was kind of like almost
<v Speaker 2>like a prophecies kind of thing where he figured the
<v Speaker 2>wife of Jonathan Brisbee would eventually come to his doorstep.
<v Speaker 2>So it was like, if he knows that, why not
<v Speaker 2>just send some rats out to go retrieve her, get
<v Speaker 2>her and then find out exactly what it is what
<v Speaker 2>she needs, which is their help. Does that make sense?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well he should have sawd too that Jenner was
<v Speaker 1>plot in the kiln, you know, yeah, do you think
<v Speaker 1>about that too much?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>A lot of issues going on at that point.
<v Speaker 2>I had a really simple question for you, Actually, go ahead.
<v Speaker 2>Do you think the Great Owl, who was really cool?
<v Speaker 2>Does he look like an owl?
<v Speaker 1>It was interesting because we meet him and he's covered
<v Speaker 1>in cobwebs, But would he just sit there and spiders
<v Speaker 1>spin webs on him that fast during the day and
<v Speaker 1>then he goes out, eats and repeats the process.
<v Speaker 2>He looked cool, he looked great. It's just I'm used
<v Speaker 2>to the the classic look of an owl that has
<v Speaker 2>kind of a roundish head that you know obviously can turn.
<v Speaker 1>The toosy pop out. That's who you're looking for. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I expect.
<v Speaker 2>And he just kind of looked old and curmudgeonly and
<v Speaker 2>just kind of kind of strange, just covered in hair
<v Speaker 2>and feathers and webs.
<v Speaker 1>Like you said, Yeah, he's been around for a while.
<v Speaker 1>It's got a lot of bones in that, that's for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Oh, I just got even to miss Brisbee man
<v Speaker 1>with the name drop god every time she said her
<v Speaker 1>husband's name, boom. I just got what you needed. That's awesome,
<v Speaker 1>that's right. Do you know who I am?
<v Speaker 2>Right? Free steak Dinners for life? That that movie was
<v Speaker 2>made today? Do you know who I am?
<v Speaker 1>Jonathan Brisbee's wife, O my house.
<v Speaker 2>You wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for my husband.
<v Speaker 1>Ye okay, let's move on to a rating. So on
<v Speaker 1>a scale of one to five trackers, what do you
<v Speaker 1>give the secret to?
<v Speaker 2>Nim? This was tough, Bill Band. I like this movie.
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to be generous. I'm giving it four tracks.
<v Speaker 2>I think this is it's a cool movie. You know
<v Speaker 2>why I'm going to give it for is because I
<v Speaker 2>think it was an achievement for the time. We didn't
<v Speaker 2>talk about it in our Fun Facts and Trivia specifically,
<v Speaker 2>you did touch on it in the very beginning of
<v Speaker 2>our podcast. The fact is, Don Bluth and several other
<v Speaker 2>animators literally left Disney and this was to do this
<v Speaker 2>out of the gate, and they did not have a
<v Speaker 2>large budget, and Blue took a chance with not only
<v Speaker 2>you know, changing some stuff from the book clearly, but
<v Speaker 2>also it was a risk. It is dark in tone.
<v Speaker 2>They didn't have a lot of money to work with,
<v Speaker 2>and they did it. The movie's fun, it's entertaining. It
<v Speaker 2>has a great score by Jerry Goldsmith. There's some rollicking
<v Speaker 2>adventure to be had. I love the action sequences. It
<v Speaker 2>is extremely colorful. Dom Delawez is really fun in the
<v Speaker 2>scenes that he has as Jeremy the Crow. And I
<v Speaker 2>liked it following Missus Brisbee or Missus Frisbee if you
<v Speaker 2>will on her journey, love the locations, love me some
<v Speaker 2>good low or was it a little confusing at times?
<v Speaker 2>And did it come out of nowhere at times? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>It did, but it didn't bother me enough to give
<v Speaker 2>it a lower rating than for so I'm gonna give
<v Speaker 2>it for tractors nice.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna give it three and a half. I think
<v Speaker 1>I probably like this movie now more than I did
<v Speaker 1>as a kid. I really didn't remember that much going
<v Speaker 1>back to watch it, and I really had no interest
<v Speaker 1>in seeing it. If it wasn't for this podcast, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if I ever would have seen the movie again.
<v Speaker 1>I have a copy of it. Someone gave me a
<v Speaker 1>copy of it for our kids, and I'm just like,
<v Speaker 1>I just kind of remember to being dark. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know my kids will be into it, but now I
<v Speaker 1>feel like I need to show them this. I'm wondering
<v Speaker 1>if they'll like it at their age. I mean they're teenagers,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, it might be that thing Mouse movie what
<v Speaker 1>I want to watch this Mouse movie for. But I
<v Speaker 1>almost feel like I'm the right aide to enjoy this
<v Speaker 1>movie right now.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. Yeah, it's a great point you made
<v Speaker 2>right from the beginning.
<v Speaker 1>And I agree. I enjoyed the score. I just really
<v Speaker 1>enjoyed listening to Dom Delle Louise. And it's eighty two
<v Speaker 1>minutes and it's it's fast. It's it's really quick, and
<v Speaker 1>that's always a good sign. Nothing worse than having an
<v Speaker 1>eighty two minute animated movie and feeling like it's four
<v Speaker 1>hours and it drags. It really doesn't. There's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of good and it's not cheap animation. The whole body
<v Speaker 1>moves when they're talking, they're animated, it's just not the
<v Speaker 1>mouth that's just saying words. There's a lot of movement.
<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of love that's put into this film.
<v Speaker 1>You can really see it. And credit to the animators
<v Speaker 1>and all the hard work they did, putting in time
<v Speaker 1>and effort to it. It really does show on the screen.
<v Speaker 1>So this was a big surprise for me. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you and I had a hard time trying to pick
<v Speaker 1>a movie to do. We did the schedule. All we
<v Speaker 1>put was animated movie and I kept going back and forth,
<v Speaker 1>going what are we going to do? I don't even
<v Speaker 1>know if I'd like any of these, And you said,
<v Speaker 1>let's try this, And I'm glad you picked this one.
<v Speaker 1>This makes up for the hitcher, Jason.
<v Speaker 2>I appreciate that. Yeah, I still are you for the
<v Speaker 2>Ice Pirates though, Oh that's true. It was a labor
<v Speaker 2>of love. It was a painstaking price. You can find
<v Speaker 2>all of the technical details in the trivia if you
<v Speaker 2>want to look it up, do a little research. But
<v Speaker 2>I appreciate the fact that Don Bluth decided to go
<v Speaker 2>a little old school. He went back to some classic
<v Speaker 2>techniques that he thought had been put aside just to
<v Speaker 2>get this style of animation done so and it paid off.
<v Speaker 2>I'm glad you, said Sprite. I was also pleasantly surprised.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, and I want to find this book now.
<v Speaker 1>I'm surprised, right, I just never really come across it.
<v Speaker 2>It's a cool idea.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I'd like to know how different it really
<v Speaker 1>is from the book.
<v Speaker 2>National Institute for Mental Health nim wild. Okay, that wraps
<v Speaker 2>it up for this week's episode.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We
<v Speaker 1>really appreciate it. If you enjoyed the show, be sure
<v Speaker 1>to follow us on your favorite streaming platform, leave a rating,
<v Speaker 1>and drop a review. A nice so the better Curious
<v Speaker 1>For more you would be check out all amiesmoviespodcast dot
<v Speaker 1>com for everything you need to know.
<v Speaker 2>About our show.
<v Speaker 1>We'll catch you next time as we jump into another
<v Speaker 1>unforgettable jin from the great movie decade of all time,
<v Speaker 1>the nineteen eighties. Until then, stay awesome and have an excellent.
<v Speaker 2>Dany no taste for blood. Huh. They've taken the animal
<v Speaker 2>out of here. Thanks for staying up with us. Good
<v Speaker 2>Night World.
<v Speaker 1>It opened in the seventeenth spot, the Box off the
<v Speaker 1>Box Office.
<v Speaker 2>That's an interesting accent.