Aug. 9, 2024

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (w/ Christiaan Funkhouser)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, seemingly the last of a trilogy of adventure collaborations between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas at the time, came in the middle of a bit of a career shift for Spielberg. You can see a bit of that infused into the movie with more emotional themes mixed into the typical Indy action fare. We talk about that, the incredible stunts and effects, and more in our discussion of this search for the Holy Grail.



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Guest Info:
Christiaan Funkhouser
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mr.funkhouser
Twitter (X): https://x.com/MrFunkhouser

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4308922/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

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Other Links:
My Letterboxd Ranking of Spielberg Films: https://letterboxd.com/eliprice/list/elis-ranking-of-steven-spielbergs-directorial/ 



Research Resources:
- Steven Spielberg All the Films: The Story Behind Every Movie, Episode, and Short by Arnaud Devillard, Olivier Bousquet, Nicolas Schaller
- Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films by Molly Haskell

Transcript

Eli Price (00:02.728)
Hello and welcome to the Establishing Shot, a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. I am your host, Eli Price, and thank you for joining me for episode 56 of the podcast. We are continuing in our early Spielberg series covering his movies from the 70s and 80s, and we are really nearing the end.

I guess this podcast really is kind of only the penitent men will pass for this one because we are covering Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, wrapping up that original indie trilogy. And I have a first time guest joining me today, excited to have Christian Funkhouser on today. And I, you know, I'm...

Christiaan Funkhouser (00:41.148)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (00:46.108)
Woo!

Eli Price (01:01.768)
Assuming you don't have to do a German accent for your last name. so I didn't, but, but it's a Christian with two A's, which I've always loved about your name. But yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06.716)
No, you don't. Thank you. Yes. It is pretty cool. They thought it was German because my dad's German, Austrian, obviously, but it turns out it was Danish. So that's how I like. But my favorite philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. So I'll kind of I'll do it. I'll claim it. So we're good. It's fun.

Eli Price (01:18.12)
Yeah Danish okay close.

Eli Price (01:25.018)
There you go.

Eli Price (01:28.968)
that's awesome. Yeah. Christian is joining us for the first time. Christian, why don't you, let the people know a little bit about who you are and what you do. And maybe, I don't know, anything else you want to share about yourself.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:45.692)
Yeah, sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Christian. I met Eli. We went to seminary together down in Nolens and we have stayed in church because we both love movies and everything. So I have I've written little novels as a teenager. I've got my little books over there. They're awesome. One of them is about a castle that well, a T -rex that eats plants because I love Jurassic Park and that had a big effect on me.

Eli Price (01:52.936)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:00.136)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:13.832)
Very nice.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:15.26)
Even though that doesn't have to do with Jurassic Park, it's all good. Anyway, there's dinosaurs and that was the important thing. So I eventually at some point partially inspired by some conversations that Eli and I have had. I'm working on my own like kind of like review thing to kind of examine things from a Christian perspective and like movies and stories and things like that. So that's my labor of love that I have not finished yet.

Eli Price (02:20.968)
Right.

Eli Price (02:36.872)
Okay. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:44.924)
But eventually we're working and then I'll have you on and it'll be great. But I am a I was a pastor for a little bit. Church politics happened. And so I've been kind of doing my own little thing going around. But that's given me more time to watch movies and to form opinions on them and learn more about how the process goes. I've got a friend of mine who is a director and we've written screenplays together. So I've been on the front end. Well, more of the back of the camera, but I have done a couple like.

Eli Price (02:47.88)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:02.92)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:14.076)
Hey, we need someone to ring the doorbell and give a pizza to the guy. So I've gotten to do that kind of stuff. So in doing that has given me, like you start to notice things like, OK, so this guy over here was just told to stay this. And then this guy was told to walk over here. And it's really interesting to kind of then you watch movies again from a new point of view, which has been pretty awesome. But eventually, I want to get my PhD and be Dr. Funkhouser.

Eli Price (03:20.2)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:27.272)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (03:31.432)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:37.8)
yeah. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:42.492)
And I'd love to look at how stories affect, how Christians can use pop culture for like witnessing and evangelism and to help get across the story of Jesus through other stories that we have and find redemption and redeeming all different things. So that's a lot. That's a...

Eli Price (03:42.792)
Yeah.

Eli Price (04:01.96)
Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. No, that's really cool. Yeah. I think, you know, stories are kind of the universal language. And so, yeah, I, I, I love talking about stories. Obviously that's kind of like what you end up doing when you talk about movies, like on this podcast, we talk a lot about the making of it, but then when you start digging in, we end up talking about the story and.

what impact it has. And, yeah, I think one of the reasons I love, I just love doing this is because I get to talk about stories. So yeah, I'm glad to have you on. And it is always cool to jump in, you know, to kind of a set of filming and see like what goes on and what all goes into it. I've, I've been able to do that once or twice.

Christiaan Funkhouser (04:43.884)
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Eli Price (05:01.384)
with some friends too. So, yeah, I'm really just a normal guy that likes talking about movies and, you know, reading about them and watching making of documentaries and stuff. So, Hey, yeah. So, and then I'll bring every once in a while, I'll bring in someone that knows more about that stuff than I do and, have them, you know, give better insight than I have into it. So,

Christiaan Funkhouser (05:14.108)
Hey, that's all you gotta do.

Christiaan Funkhouser (05:28.924)
A lot of it is like, wait, this is OK. We need some. This needs to happen. Who can do this? OK, there you go. You do this, especially like on indie movies, which is not indie, but in non like super high budget professional. Yes. Exactly. Independent films. There you go.

Eli Price (05:35.748)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (05:41.768)
Yeah. I N D I E movies. Yeah. Independent.

Yeah. So what, I'll, I always love to ask my guests what their first experience with our director was. So do you have, what's your earliest Spielberg memory? I'm assuming it might have something to do with Jurassic park, but I could, that could be wrong. I don't know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (06:04.316)
so you were wrong on that one. I realized it as I was going through stuff. So my, my family used to live in North Carolina. We would come down for, to visit my grandma. And then we'd always stay at my aunt's house. My aunt didn't believe in cable, but she had movies. And the one movie that I always watched was Indiana Jones and the last crusade. Every day after VBS and stuff like that, we would watch through it. Cause it had, it had Nazis and.

Eli Price (06:08.264)
Okay, there you go.

Eli Price (06:22.216)
Mm.

Eli Price (06:26.312)
Very cool. There we go.

Christiaan Funkhouser (06:32.988)
zeppelins and people in Fezes, which was really cool to me. And I still think is because our corner tanks witty banter. And they had Jesus kind of stuff about that. And so it was it passed the smell test with my with my aunt. So then I was able to. So, yeah, so it was watching that. And I realized after kind of rewatching it for this, how that kind of spoiled me.

Eli Price (06:33.224)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (06:36.84)
Yeah, tanks.

Eli Price (06:44.968)
Kind of.

Eli Price (07:01.352)
Mm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (07:01.532)
in terms of movies, because there's just so much that it in the Jones and last crusade does correctly in terms of stuff. But we'll get into that later. But then the other my other big memory, I mean, I saw it and that was really cool. But I think my other biggest one that had the most impact was Jurassic Park, because I've always loved dinosaurs. And even. I remember seeing it in theaters when it came out and I didn't know that was going to be scary.

Eli Price (07:09.512)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (07:17.928)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (07:30.876)
And it was especially to me as a kid. But like it had such an indelible thing. I went to Universal Studios when I was like 10, 10, 15 years ago. And they had a thing of the main Raptor. And I could not I would not turn my back to it at all. It's just something innate within my person. I could not turn my back to it because I did not trust it. And I even like felt.

Eli Price (07:43.112)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (07:55.464)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (07:58.3)
very nervous, like going, go ahead and you can touch them. I'm not touching that thing. It's not my hand off. It's only it's waiting. I know it is. But even as an adult, like it just left that much of an impression just because it's it was done so well. And maybe that's that's the drastic part of this is as crusade. But there is he has a way of doing things and of getting the right actors and getting the right thing. And just the cinematography that he.

Eli Price (08:01.8)
Mm -mm.

Eli Price (08:15.208)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (08:27.196)
directs with just he doesn't have to tell everything. Anyway, so he's he's a brain. I like him. There.

Eli Price (08:29.576)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (08:35.336)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I actually heard someone recently kind of talk about how, Spielberg movies are so, kind of universally impactful, partly because at the end of the day, it's, there's not one, there's not like something about his movies. That's like where you're like, I guess the best way to put it is maybe he doesn't like.

Impress himself upon his films like some directors do like some directors you watch it and you're like, yeah That's a Tim Burton movie, you know or you know, you know We were talking about Aronofsky and he kind of has that a little bit. You're like, this must be an Aronofsky movie You know, it's they have a certain like feel david fincher is kind of like that. You're like, it's a fincher movie but spielberg's like you can kind of be like this this feels like a spielberg movie, but it's almost like

Christiaan Funkhouser (09:07.388)
Yes.

Eli Price (09:33.352)
any movie that's just like grand and shot really well, you're like, this feels still like Spielberg. And it's just because like, he has like, he, he kind of taps into that universal like language of film in a way that's like very, I don't know, unique, especially amongst his peers. Like, I mean, you have like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (09:49.66)
Yes.

Eli Price (10:00.776)
Scorsese and De Palma and Lucas and all those guys and Spielberg kind of stands out in that way of the like all great directors. You know, but it just kind of like that universal appeal to his movies is really interesting, I think.

Christiaan Funkhouser (10:20.828)
And I think you, you kind of hit the, I don't want to say, you hit the nail on the head in the sense that like, it's because he doesn't impress himself on it. So, you know, okay, this is a high quality movie, you know, all this kind of stuff. And it's so it's, you kind of just like, okay, well, it doesn't, it's so, I don't know. man, what is it? It's almost like, you know, when you're cooking and you have like an avocado and avocados and have like a taste taste, but it's that very like palate cleansing.

Eli Price (10:29.256)
Right.

Eli Price (10:48.104)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (10:50.748)
clean, fresh type taste without being too much. And so it's kind of like, yes. And I think that's one of the things he brings to it, which can be a downside to some, like with Aronofsky, you can definitely tell when it's an Aronofsky film or in that Shyamalan. You can always tell. And so then you start to look for that. And then when they don't live up to what they did previously before, that was so good, you're like, OK, well, that was a terrible movie.

Eli Price (10:53.928)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, that makes everything else work even better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (11:15.496)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (11:20.092)
Whereas with Spielberg, since he's just, and that's not to diminish what he does, it's that he does it so well that he doesn't have to impress himself upon it. And so I think, and that allows us to, yes, we can compare like Last Crusade to Temple of Doom, but we can't really compare Last Crusade to Jurassic Park or Jaws because it is so like fresh and different and new.

Eli Price (11:26.888)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (11:49.692)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Eli Price (11:50.376)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's jump into the last crusade. I'm glad to hear that. It's like your, your first Spielberg memory. That's really cool. but yeah, let's talk about it. So, he's coming out Spielberg at this point in his career is coming off of it's like, he's still kind of in that peak high of his eighties sort of, but he's really like, possibly like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (11:58.428)
Woo.

Eli Price (12:17.704)
starting to fall off of that with his last two movies. So the color purple and the color purple did fine commercially, not like fantastic, but kind of had like a critical disinterest. It had some controversy around it, but really like a disinterest amongst critics. And then Empire of the Sun was really just kind of like a commercial flop in, you know, for Spielberg, for a Spielberg movie.

and so he's coming off of those two movies. and you know, those are more serious movies, more, you know, empire of the sun centers around a child, but it's a, it's a more mature movie, in its content than, than, that is the one with Christian Bale as a kid. empire and, yeah, he's, he's a kid in,

Christiaan Funkhouser (13:06.396)
Is that the one, Bruce Willis?

Christiaan Funkhouser (13:12.418)
okay, sorry.

Eli Price (13:17.288)
in Shanghai during World War II when Japan invades. So yeah, that one, so it's kind of in the war, you've got some more mature, you know, stuff going on. But yeah, so this, he kind of puts a pause a little bit on those quote unquote adult ambitions, those more mature films and jumps back into the well of Indiana Jones.

Christiaan Funkhouser (13:23.228)
okay.

Eli Price (13:46.312)
he, he also kind of still had a bad taste in his mouth from temple of doom, which we talked about on that episode that he, he still kind of like, wasn't happy with how that turned out. that's fair. I, I did appreciate it more, as I talked about in that episode with this watch through, but yeah, I still think it's the worst of them in my opinion, but yeah. yeah. So the, you know, this maybe is a little bit of an apology for temple of doom too.

Christiaan Funkhouser (13:51.676)
I hated that movie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (13:58.044)
Neither was I, so that's two of us.

Eli Price (14:16.392)
cause as we'll see and talk about, it really like harkens back a lot to Raiders. but before they got the story that we ended up with, there were a lot of story ideas for this one. They went through a lot of work honing in on what they were going to do. Lucas wanted to do like a haunted Scottish castle, which was kind of rejected for the last Indie movie.

and he even commissioned, this screenwriter, Diane Thomas, who had, done romancing the stone in 84. and I guess she probably worked on it, but she passed away in 85. So I don't even know if she finished that script. but it turns out Spielberg did not want to do that anyways. and so, he, he, I think it was just like he had done poltergeist, which he like semi directed.

not in credit, but you know, the lore is that he did a decent amount of directing on that as the producer. But yeah, so he had, you know, he'd done his haunted house movie really, you know, it was his story. He had done it. He didn't want to do the Scottish haunted castle. So yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (15:21.212)
Interesting.

Christiaan Funkhouser (15:35.612)
That doesn't even I would agree with him in that because I can't I mean, there was a Scottish haunted castle type thing. Well, not really Scottish, but anyway. But yeah, I don't that's said seem very Indiana Jonesy to me.

Eli Price (15:43.464)
Right.

Eli Price (15:53.736)
Yeah. Well, we, what's funny is we talked about on the temple of doom episode that the, one of their original scripts for that movie had him, discovering this, like, like hidden land with dinosaurs in it. And that would be, and I was saying at first I was like, why would Indiana Jones, why would that be an Indiana Jones movie? But then like, the more I thought about it, the more I was like, I guess like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (16:11.708)
my.

Eli Price (16:23.176)
pretty much everything Indiana Jones encounters is pretty mystical and strange. So I mean, it's kind of like why, but also I guess why not? But yeah, Lucas was obsessed with a quest for the Holy Grail. He loved the myths around it, the lore, really loved it, and Spielberg did not really want to do the Holy Grail thing.

Christiaan Funkhouser (16:29.308)
Yeah, that's fair.

Eli Price (16:52.2)
he felt like it was too much of an, like an esoteric biblical reference. just wasn't that into it. So Luke was like, well, okay. He brought in Chris Columbus. Chris Columbus had worked with, Spielberg and Amblin. he, he was one of the co -writers on 1941. but then he also did some Amblin work with like Gremlins, Goonies, Back to the Future.

so yeah, they, they commissioned him. He was working on a script with this Chinese legend of the half man, half ape monkey King. and Spielberg and Lucas kind of decided they were a little bit wary of the racism, critiques after temple of doom. So they're like, well, you know what? Let's do Nazis. Everybody hates Nazis. There's the universal bad guys. Let's make Nazis the bad guys.

Christiaan Funkhouser (17:29.564)
I'm terribly

Christiaan Funkhouser (17:39.356)
Okay. Whoops. Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (17:50.3)
And it made sense with the, ⁓ in the, with Rays of the Lost Ark, how, and he's in that time period and it's a good time period. So I'm just, it makes sense.

Eli Price (17:55.976)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Let's, yeah, let's jump back to the Nazi. So, and I don't think Spielberg really cared for the Columbus scripts. on top of that, I don't think he, he didn't have anything against Chris Columbus. He was kind of one of his protege's. I just think he, he wasn't going for the stories. but Lucas was stuck on the Holy grail and immortality.

And Spielberg was like, not only like, was like, too esoteric. He also like associated it with the lunacy of Monty Python and the Holy grail, which is fair. And so he really like needed another layer of interpretation with it. And as they were working on story, it's unclear who first had the idea to include his father. It was like maybe Harrison Ford or maybe Spielberg.

maybe somebody else, I don't know, but he liked that idea. and on top of that, Lucas kind of was like, okay, he, he, Lucas really used Joseph Campbell's, like hero's journey, from the hero with a thousand faces, the kind of classic, warco. Yeah. he, he would, Lucas says that he like models a lot of his writing off of that. You can see it with.

Luke and Vader, but probably most clearly. and so he, he was, he kind of liked that idea too. So they had Holy grail Spielberg, I guess, relented on the Holy grail eventually. And, they, so they got Holy grail, they've got a father son relationship, but then they like, weren't, couldn't agree on who should write the script. so.

Christiaan Funkhouser (19:47.292)
And I will say that the father and son thing, and I know I think we get to that a little bit later on, but that just makes it made.

Eli Price (19:52.904)
Right, right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (19:58.524)
It just had an overarching story thing with the fact that you've got the dad was searching for it and then the son was able to kind of work with it to happen. But then also how you got to kind of see how the father shaped the son. But then as well with how different they approach things. And that, I think, gave them a lot of good parts for comedic stuff, but also.

Eli Price (20:21.672)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (20:28.316)
It gave them, it didn't, it wasn't just about, let's go find the Holy Grail as opposed to just go find the Ark of the Covenant. It was, there's other parts of the story going on along well. And I think that I'd have been, of course we don't know for sure, but that might've, unless anyone knows Spielberg, you can let us know. Unless that, that might've been like part of what it was. Okay, it's not just about the Holy Grail. It's about the father, the son finding the father and then, by the way, the Holy Grail exists type thing.

Eli Price (20:35.688)
Right.

Eli Price (20:55.016)
Right. Yeah. And that was, that was part of like when they were, they were working on the story from, from what I could gather with my research, that was one of, it was sort of something like that. It was Spielberg like, okay, if we're going to do the Holy grail, like let's work in, like, let's, let's use it, but let's not make it like the main focus. let's, let's focus on this relationship. And, yeah, we'll, we'll definitely like dig into that later. even deeper.

but yeah, they, so they, they had to obviously get someone to write the script. Spielberg didn't really trust himself writing scripts. so he didn't let himself write scripts. He, he always, Mino Meas worked on the story with them. He, I think he worked a little bit on script at first. he had done work with Spielberg and his amazing stories series. He worked with him on, empire of the sun. So,

Yeah, he joined on, I think he might have a story credit. I don't remember. But then they brought in Jeffrey, Jeffrey Boehm, who had done a movie with Joe Dante called Innerspace in 87. So Jeffrey Boehm writes a script and he's the one I'm pretty sure that has like the, the screenplay credit in like the credit roll.

And so he, I guess he like writes the bulk of the script or at least like the skeleton of it. And then Spielberg brings on Tom Stoppard, who really like was the main writer of Empire of the Sun. He brings him back. He had like really like jailed with Stoppard.

And so Stoppard actually like is the one who had probably the most vital contributions to the story. He really like, he kind of like trimmed to the fat as they say, cut out like superfluous stuff, like scenes they didn't need, stuff like that. He's the one that changed Kazim from a Nazi collaborator to a member of this brotherhood of the cruciform sword. And then, yeah, cause I think he was originally just kind of like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (23:10.524)
interesting.

Eli Price (23:14.92)
Collaborate this guy collaborating with the Nazis and then he's the one that kind of like adds the real rhythm to it probably that has something to do with like trimming the fat to keep the rhythm going He sharpens the gag and the dialogue and he's like Spielberg I think even credits him with like basically writing all the father -son dialogue stuff so yes

Christiaan Funkhouser (23:40.764)
He did great.

Eli Price (23:42.76)
So Stoppard, Tom Stoppard really had it. Jeffrey Bohm gets the writing credit, but Stoppard is probably the real hero behind the writing here, which man, you've got to love a good script. This, I feel like this is a really good script for this movie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (23:57.18)
interesting.

Christiaan Funkhouser (24:02.172)
I, yes. Minnow has story credits on IMDB with Lucas, but Stoppard is not in there in the writing credits, which is so sad if, since he did, I guess he's probably somewhere in editing, but it's anyway, sorry.

Eli Price (24:08.456)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah, he's not.

Eli Price (24:20.68)
Yeah, I think, I think I mentioned on the empire of the sun episode that stoppard kind of became Amblin entertainments, like script doctor. So, for a while, so he was like doctoring a lot of the scripts, but not, not those kinds of guys, like don't really get writing credits. They're just like taking the scripts and making them better. I feel like they should, I don't know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (24:29.98)
Ahhhh

Christiaan Funkhouser (24:38.3)
Right. That's fair.

Christiaan Funkhouser (24:45.276)
I should get something.

Eli Price (24:46.088)
There's like, I don't know what the rules are for all that, but I know there are like stipulations and stuff that they have to go by as far as who gets credit and who doesn't. But yeah, it is what it is. Yeah, I mean, really with this story, they also just kind of return to their roots. There's a lot of callbacks to Raiders. There's a lot of very Raiders feeling like...

action and set pieces and I mean you have the Nazis. There's even like Howard Hawks movies where a big influence on the original story and character and so the father son duo kind of feels more like a Howard Hawks movie. You're bringing back Salah and Marcus Brody. So yeah they're really just like hey we did Temple of Doom.

Christiaan Funkhouser (25:36.54)
Woo.

Eli Price (25:43.336)
You know, some people liked it, some people didn't. Let's just, let's go back to the hits, you know? Right. but yeah, so they, they get to work on it. the opening Western pastiche, I guess you could say was originally intended to be a simple action scene. This is probably like the last thing on the script. They,

Christiaan Funkhouser (25:47.932)
This one worked. Right.

Eli Price (26:09.544)
They just wanted to do kind of like homage to John Ford, which was a big influence on Spielberg. You can see it in a lot of his movies with like wide, wide shots of like desert and silhouettes and stuff. So, but they, they, they end up, adding on Lucas, like basically wants to add in the young Indy stuff and Spielberg Spielberg was like hesitant at first to add that stuff. you know, he had just come off of doing a lot of.

kid like movies with kids in it. And I think he was kind of like wanting to move on from that maybe. but, but he, you know, he relents and I'm glad he did. They add that in, into the story, at the very beginning and yeah, well, yeah, it did. Well, we'll definitely talk about that more in a minute for sure. When we get, when we start talking about, river Phoenix and everything. but yeah, the, the other like interesting thing about this movie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (26:54.14)
I felt that it worked.

Eli Price (27:09.384)
which I maybe should have had earlier in the notes, but Spielberg actually had been working on the movie Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. he had been working on that for like a couple of months or so. and he abandoned that movie and, Barry Levinson ended up taking it on. but it went big at the 89 Oscars. and like Spielberg is like.

has up to this point, like not won an Oscar himself, other people in his movies have won Oscars. So it's kind of like, did Spielberg miss out on his opportunity to finally get recognized with an Oscar by dropping Rain Man? But, you know, he chose, he had had some recent box office, like kind of like dull moments and he was like, let's get another big hit and wanted to do the crowd pleaser.

And yeah, from what he says too, this turned out to be like one of his most enjoyable filming experiences. So probably for him and his life and where he was, it was probably a good decision to do this movie instead of doing another like adult drama.

Christiaan Funkhouser (28:15.356)
Thanks.

Christiaan Funkhouser (28:26.492)
And I think he was able to do a pretty good balance of, because nowadays you get fan service, especially with like a lot of the Marvel movies or whatever. And it's like, OK, we know what you're doing there. It's not just that let's go back to what worked and let's tell a story people want to hear. It is like, look, member berries. look, nostalgia. This is great, isn't it? Isn't it wonderful? And I don't feel that they.

Eli Price (28:32.456)
Yeah.

Eli Price (28:44.936)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (28:49.308)
heat. I don't feel that it didn't, to me, it didn't come across that way. It was like, yeah, this is, this is why I liked this character and things like that.

Eli Price (28:53.352)
Yeah.

Eli Price (28:57.192)
Right, right. Yeah, it's it's almost like the right way to do fan service this movie in a way Yeah It it's kind of like fan service before fan service was really a thing But yeah, actually like I think in 89 there were a ton of sequels That came out that year so I guess like that sort of

Christiaan Funkhouser (29:14.588)
Yes.

Eli Price (29:25.544)
culture is like starting to grow. Let's pump out more like sequels of movies people loved sort of thing. If.

Christiaan Funkhouser (29:34.076)
There wasn't 89 when Return came out, Return of the Jedi.

Eli Price (29:38.728)
No, that was like 83, 82. Yeah. 83, I think. But yeah. But yeah. 80, no, 89 was like, honestly can't think off the top of my head, but I do remember like scrolling through 89 films and being like, there's a lot of, got a lot of sequels going on here. But yeah. So the.

Christiaan Funkhouser (29:42.716)
My bad.

Eli Price (30:08.296)
The crew returns for, you've got a lot of like returning crew members. the, I think, it was either Spielberg or Lucas kind of talked about how it was kind of like a happy family reunion with everybody returning for, for this. But, but yeah, Robert Watts was the indie producer. he's fun, fun to listen to if you ever watched like the making of documentaries.

He's in there talking about, he's usually like the one talking about the locations. And it's fun hearing him talk about that. Yeah, you story credits for Lucas and Mino Meas, as we said. Screenplay credit for Jeffrey Bohm, but Tom Stoppard, the MVP of the script without the credit. Douglas Slocum returns as the director of photography, cinematographer.

Michael Kahn, his tried and true editor. Yeah, Michael Kahn is back. Yeah, just incredible how huge of a collaboration Spielberg and Kahn is. Same with John Williams too, doing the score. Everybody loves John Williams. Yeah, a goat, I guess.

Christiaan Funkhouser (31:27.964)
Woo!

John Williams is great.

Yes. And I think one of the things I know probably as well, but just the way that he. It's almost like like a like a like a musical type score where you always have like the hints of everything in the background. And so, like, if you don't if you've not seen the movie, but you've heard the John Williams score, you can start to kind of like get a feel of what's happening and like, this is related to this and so forth. And he's just he's.

Eli Price (31:47.784)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (32:00.616)
Mm -hmm, sure.

Christiaan Funkhouser (32:03.004)
He's a writer. I mean, he is a writer. He writes music, but he's a it's almost he tells a story as well, just in the score, which is.

Eli Price (32:08.968)
Yeah. I think the thing he does really well is, he adds to character. Like, you know, he, when you hear like the Imperial March, like you think of Darth Vader and when you think of Darth Vader, you think of the Imperial March and like, same with like Indy. When you, when you think of Indy, you think of the, the Indy March and

Christiaan Funkhouser (32:16.988)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (32:24.508)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (32:33.5)
Ba -da -da!

Eli Price (32:34.44)
Yeah, the Raiders March. And when you think of the Raiders March, you think of Indiana Jones. It's like, it's tied to, so I think that's one of the things he does really well. That and queuing you in on like emotional beats too. Yeah, right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (32:42.716)
I would agree.

Christiaan Funkhouser (32:47.708)
Yes, without it seeming like forced or it's not like I was watching a show and like the music was swelling. I was like, OK, now they want me to feel emotional. And it's like, whereas when Williams does it, it's like I'm already feeling emotional. And wait, OK, I see you did that.

Eli Price (32:55.656)
Right. Right.

-huh.

Eli Price (33:05.32)
Yep. huh. For sure. Yeah. Sound and sound effects. You have Richard Hems and Ben Burt. Ben Burt is the... I like Ben Burt. He's a cool sound guy. He's one of those guys that's fun to hear about. Like he... In the making of stuff, he's like telling you where he got all the sounds that you hear. He's the Star Wars sound guy too. So all the fun...

Christiaan Funkhouser (33:29.148)
Nice. So he did like Foley stuff too? The Foley? Like the, like how you have like the scratching on the microphone and then that's the actual.

Eli Price (33:33.128)
He did what, sorry.

Eli Price (33:40.392)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that stuff. Like, so he, he basically like they had a catalog of like sounds that they used for all the indie films that they would like go back to like, yeah. yeah. Elliot Scott does the production design with Steven Scott doing the art direction. Elliot Scott, I'm pretty sure is returning as well. and then Peter Rob King does the makeup.

Christiaan Funkhouser (33:41.756)
Okay, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (33:52.22)
The Wilhelm scream for sure.

Eli Price (34:08.616)
Anthony Powell and Joanna Johnston do the costume, which I know for sure they're returning crew members. And I know Anthony Powell did, yes, she did. Yeah, she's the indie costume. And Anthony Powell definitely was in Temple of Doom, I remember. So special effects, Michael Lanteri. I don't know if he's returning. George Gibbs, I think is...

Christiaan Funkhouser (34:15.484)
Yeah, I think she was in the first one too. She did the hat.

Eli Price (34:38.6)
returning, doing like mechanical stuff. Visual effects, Michael J. McAllister. It's his first time as the VFX supervisor, but he did work on Temple of Doom as like one of the chief VFX cameramen. Vic Armstrong, who is like the Indiana, he's like Indiana Jones, like 1B, I guess you would say. Cause he does,

Like Harrison Ford, people like Harrison Ford like does all his stunts. Well, like not really. He doesn't do all of his stunts. Vic Armstrong does the coolest ones really. so if you see like something like crazy happening, it's probably Vic Armstrong. there's a few exceptions where, where Harrison Ford's doing like the really crazy thing, but yeah, he did get pulled. He did get pulled behind the truck, on, on Raiders, but.

Christiaan Funkhouser (35:31.196)
That's fair.

Christiaan Funkhouser (35:35.356)
in Raiders.

Eli Price (35:37.256)
it was Vic Armstrong climbing under the truck so you know the harder part Vic Armstrong did yeah that's always incredible yeah and then really as far as crew goes just wrapping up you have Michael D. Moore and Frank Marshall doing some second unit unit directing when you're shooting like a bunch of locations it's just you got to have

Christiaan Funkhouser (35:41.948)
Ahhhh

Yeah, the hat stayed on his head the whole time.

Yes.

Eli Price (36:07.304)
second unit directors.

Christiaan Funkhouser (36:09.052)
Yeah, I think Frank Marshall, I think he eventually got married to KK or Kathleen Kennedy. Aren't they together?

Eli Price (36:16.488)
I think they were married at one point. Are they still married? I think they might be. Yeah. But Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy and Spielberg started Amblin together. So, yeah, they, they co -founded, they were like three, the three co -founders of Amblin and Frank Marshall did a lot of like production work with Spielberg and Kennedy too. So.

Christiaan Funkhouser (36:22.204)
I think so. I don't know. But.

Christiaan Funkhouser (36:29.116)
I thought I knew there was some connection with all that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (36:41.308)
And I think that he was he was only a producer, only a producer. He was only a producer on Raiders. So I think now he got to step in on the director thing. So that's kind of cool.

Eli Price (36:49.032)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He did some second unit direction for Temple of Doom too. So yeah. And Color Purple too, I think. He did some directing when Spielberg couldn't be there. Yeah. Yeah, they're good collaborators. So really, I mean, it really is kind of like a family reunion for the crew. Cast is a little different. The cast kind of like turns over other than Harrison Ford.

You have some returners from Raiders, but not from Temple of Doom. But yeah, Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones, obviously. Apparently he did contribute to the idea of having Indy's father, or at least was like going along with it. You know, it's like, yeah, let's do that. That's a great idea sort of thing. And yeah, he said this was the most sophisticated and maybe most fun to make.

Christiaan Funkhouser (37:27.868)
Woo!

Eli Price (37:48.2)
in one of the interviews, which I thought was cool to hear.

Christiaan Funkhouser (37:51.068)
Yeah. And you could, you could really tell that him and Sean Connery got along really well as well. You could.

Eli Price (37:58.408)
Yeah, and they did. And that was really cool. Like, they, it seemed like they formed like a bit of a bond, you know, on set. It wasn't one of those things where like, they must be so close. And then you turn the camera off and they're like, they hate each other, which can happen. You know, that's what acting is. You can, you can pretend to like someone and, and not actually like them, but this is not one of those that it seems like they actually like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (38:13.468)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (38:18.044)
Right, good to pretend.

Eli Price (38:26.984)
really enjoyed each other's company and working together. So, yeah, Sean Connery has Henry Jones, the Indiana Jones father. Lucas wanted to hire Gregory Peck. Spielberg did not want Gregory Peck. I don't think he had anything against him. I think it was just like he didn't think he was right for what he envisioned. Same thing with John Houseman, kind of a Shakespearean actor. He didn't want him.

Christiaan Funkhouser (38:33.628)
Woo!

Christiaan Funkhouser (38:44.348)
Good. Yeah.

Eli Price (38:57.256)
But yeah, they really kind of go full circle with casting Sean Connery because one of the influences for Indy was both Lucas and Spielberg both love Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Bond movie. So that's not Connery in that movie, but the Bond relation is there. So yeah, kind of full circle. You get their original Bond in your Indy and Jones movie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (39:12.092)
huh.

Eli Price (39:25.512)
Yeah, Connery's kind of coming off of a little bit of an upswing, another upswing in his career. He had done the name of the Rose in 86 and then the big one was the Untouchables, Brian De Palma movie in 87. He actually won supporting actor for that role. So he was on an upswing and he was actually like really delighted to take the part. It is funny. He was only, he's only 12 years older than Harrison Ford, which is...

Christiaan Funkhouser (39:54.332)
They did great with the makeup. You know, like makeup, dressing, stuff like that.

Eli Price (39:54.792)
Which is funny. Yeah. Yeah. but, but Harrison Ford looked, he looked young for a long time. Like he kind of had, he looks old now, but like for a long time, he kind of like stayed in that, like looking like he's like 35, 40. so the, yeah, Connery was delighted to take the part at first, but kind of didn't started like.

seeing that his character like doesn't appear till page 70 in the script. They have him written as like this sage like wise Yoda character and he was like not really into that. But Sean Connery is like I guess infamous for like bringing his own notes and suggestions to his characters. And so he gives a lot of input and then Tom Stopper too changed a lot of that stuff. So along with.

Christiaan Funkhouser (40:43.388)
Hey guys, I think, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (40:50.492)
Woo!

Eli Price (40:52.04)
Connery's suggestions. So they really, Stoppard really like saved them from losing Sean Connery probably.

Christiaan Funkhouser (41:02.3)
I think if you think about like what we got versus if he was just like a well young indie you must do this and it's like okay well that would be terrible yeah

Eli Price (41:09.864)
Yeah, yeah.

Not interesting. Yeah, so yeah, Connery, I read that he based his performance on Richard F. Burton, who was a Victorian area explorer. I know nothing about Mr. Burton, but I thought that was maybe there's someone out there listening who knows who Richard F. Burton is. And they're like, so cool. I didn't know that. You know, I love Richard F. Burton and you know, shout out to our one fan of the Victorian area explorer.

But yeah, he, and then of course, you know, Connery add his, adds his own little eccentricities to his characters too, which is always fun. So yeah, glad to get Sean Connery. Alison duty, plays Elsa. she plays Elsa Schneider. they originally wanted, someone named Amanda Redmond, but she was deathly afraid of rats. So she did not take the role.

Christiaan Funkhouser (41:53.052)
It is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (41:59.388)
Okay, sorry. Have a good -

Eli Price (42:13.16)
yes, yes, a lot of rats. yeah, Alison duty was, a 21 year old, Irish model. she had, she had just been in a view to kill, which another bond connection there in 1985, she was kind of like a secondary bond girl. she was one of the first two audition and, ends up getting the part. she's very, I mean, 21 is very young.

Christiaan Funkhouser (42:13.596)
There were rats in this, a lot of rats.

Eli Price (42:42.728)
for, you know, do getting a role this big. So kudos to her. she must've done really well in her audition. and really, but really this is kind of like the peak of her career. She doesn't really do a whole lot that was notable, in her career, but yeah, she, she obviously had to work a ton on an Austrian accent. You know, she's not Austrian. So, yeah, yeah, she, I think she did really well.

Christiaan Funkhouser (43:08.7)
I wouldn't have known she was Irish from there. Yeah.

Eli Price (43:12.584)
Spielberg too, he thought she did very well like playing off of the men and like nailing like comedy bits and stuff like that. Yeah, you got some returners, Denham Elliott as Marcus Brody. He actually, I think I read that he was pretty ill during a lot of the filming. He had just been diagnosed with AIDS. So that's kind of sad. You know,

sad to hear, but you could tell in the movie. So, you know, kudos to him for, you know, pushing through that. He talked about in an interview how he really enjoyed his character, how his character becomes like someone with three left feet when he's out of his environment, which yeah, definitely. Yes, for sure. John Rhys Davies also returning as Salah Indy.

Christiaan Funkhouser (43:59.948)
Yeah. And he played it off well. It worked really well.

Christiaan Funkhouser (44:10.044)
Himling. Yes.

Eli Price (44:11.756)
I love how like overplayed John Rhys Davis does that role, which I think he's kind of like just how he acts. But yeah, I can like hear his voice in my head going, Indy! Julian Glover comes on as Walter Donovan, our baddie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (44:20.22)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (44:28.72)
It's so easy. he did such a good job.

Eli Price (44:41.032)
the movie. Yeah, he actually originally auditioned for Vogel, the Nazi guy, but they called him back and wanted him to be Donovan. So yeah, so he was, I think he's British, so he had to do an American accent. So yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (44:41.468)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (44:58.332)
Yeah. Well, and I, I really can't. He's too, like, suave or debonair type thing to come off as a Nazi because a Nazi, you need a little bit of creepiness to it or a little bit of like. That's true.

Eli Price (45:06.792)
Yeah. Yeah.

Or maybe he's just a really good actor, who knows? Maybe he's really more Nazi -like and he fooled us.

Christiaan Funkhouser (45:17.66)
my!

Eli Price (45:20.616)
yeah. yeah. And then of course we get to river Phoenix as the young Indy. He was 17 years old, making this movie, but like what's crazy is he's 17, but he's already kind of had like some acclaimed roles. He was in Rob Reiner's Stand By Me in 86. Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast in 86 also.

Christiaan Funkhouser (45:29.18)
Yep. Wow.

Eli Price (45:47.144)
And then, running on empty, which was a Cine Lamette film in 88. So he, he had some like really, like worked with some really good directors already and some popular roles. Ford is the one who recommended him because, he worked with him on mosquito coast. and you know, knew how good of an actor he was. And, even said he kind of like out of all the

Kid actors he'd seen he's like he looks the most like I would have at that age, you know So yeah, and like I guess it also helps that he's worked with Ford. So he kind of has more insight into like how Ford acts and his mannerisms and stuff that he kind of has to To pull off in the in that opening sequence Yeah, River Phoenix is you know, he he really like

Christiaan Funkhouser (46:20.284)
cool.

Christiaan Funkhouser (46:31.1)
Yeah.

Eli Price (46:43.944)
It's unfortunate that he had a like, James Dean sort of career. I think he was like, I want to say he was only like 22 or 23 when he died of an overdose. super sad. but yeah, so that really like is sad and sucks cause you know, he was just super, super promising as a, as a young actor. everybody thought he was like the next like,

Just huge thing. Yeah. And I mean, you can see it in this movie. He's, he's great. I think he knocks it out of the park really as, as the young Indy. Yeah. Just rolling through a few more people. You've got Michael Byrne as Vogel, Kvork. I'm going to kill this name Kvork, Mlikian, Mlikian, something like that as Kazim.

tough name. Robert Edison plays the grail knight. They actually wanted Laurence Olivier, but he was pretty ill. Laurence Olivier I think ended up passing in the summer of 89. So this would have been 88 when they were filming, but he was pretty ill. So, but yeah, Robert Edison, I think I read that he had only been in like one film in like 1948 before this. He was like a, he was a stage actor. So he wasn't really an

Christiaan Funkhouser (47:45.787)
It is.

Eli Price (48:14.024)
bunch of movies. So they, this is, I guess his second movie. I didn't actually look at his like filmography and see if this was really actually his second movie, but that's what I read somewhere. So whoever I read that, if they lied, you can take it up with them. And then Richard Young plays, I think in the cast list, he's as Fedora, which I'm take to mean is the guy at the beginning of the movie that gives gives young in the Fedora.

Christiaan Funkhouser (48:24.024)
Yeah, it's all good.

Eli Price (48:43.784)
and then the, the about the Edison.

Christiaan Funkhouser (48:45.148)
You are correct, by the way.

the at this point he did. Yeah, he just on TV shows some but that's about it. So.

Eli Price (48:53.32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, mostly a stage actor. I mean, he was great. That's the girl night. I loved that. I like it. Yeah. Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (49:02.076)
He did. And he looked so like prestigious or prestigious when he was just standing there.

Eli Price (49:09.032)
Yeah, it makes it makes when he delivers that You have chosen foolishly or whatever the line is it makes it like come off really funny when he Says that line Yeah, the last cast member that I want to point out is our Recurring gag role and it it kind of become like a running joke that pat roach would be in a fight scene

In the movie, he actually wasn't in this one. They got cut, or they didn't and weren't able to film it or something like that. But you can see him in the movie still. He's like running along in a Nazi uniform at one point. so sad we didn't get a Pat Roach fight scene. He was, he was the, the plane, the big plane Nazi that he fought fights at the plane. And then, and he's like the, the guard that he fights in the,

Christiaan Funkhouser (49:57.532)
Yes. Okay.

Eli Price (50:04.488)
Like before they go down into the temple, he, he fights, Indy fights him in his like room. and then, yeah, so he's like recurring like, we've got to have a fight scene with fat Roach, but we didn't get it here. Kind of sad.

Christiaan Funkhouser (50:12.892)
So this is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (50:19.964)
So we need to blame Stoppard. He's ruined it. He's ruined our opportunity to get that third one. It's all his fault. No, he hasn't. That's...

Eli Price (50:22.632)
Yeah, I know, maybe. Maybe it's not Stoppard. Let's not blame Stoppard. I guess he did so much great for this movie. It surely was somebody else's fault, right? Yeah, yeah, so let's jump into the production. They start in May.

Christiaan Funkhouser (50:31.58)
Okay.

Christiaan Funkhouser (50:37.084)
Okay, we'll give him a pass.

Eli Price (50:49.288)
1988 in Almeria, Spain. Yeah, so you got the kind of Andalusian desert for a lot of like the action set piece exteriors, which is where they shoot a lot of like spaghetti westerns. So, yes. So you got that kind of feel going on. But yeah, they do like, I mean, all of like the big action set pieces you think of or shot.

Christiaan Funkhouser (51:05.468)
And now...

Eli Price (51:17.064)
here is like the first things they shot. So the tank chase, the Messerschmitt plane chase, the beach scene, the plane in the tunnel stuff, like all that stuff was shot there in Almeria. And then they moved to Granada, Spain. And the only thing they did there was their railway station with Marcus Brody, where he's like, does anybody speak English? So.

Christiaan Funkhouser (51:43.58)
yes. And then he goes into the truck. Yep.

Eli Price (51:46.568)
Yes, yeah. Yeah, that was in Granada. And then they move on to Elstree Studios, the faithful and true London studios where Spielberg shoots a lot and Lucas both shoot a lot of stuff there. So they do the, all the interior stuff is basically at Elstree. They do some exterior stuff like the Hitler scene is at some school in the north of London.

They do some segments of the boat chase at the Grand Union Canal in London. So they do some exterior stuff there, but mostly it's just they're doing all the studio work and interior stuff there. And then they actually... Go ahead.

Christiaan Funkhouser (52:28.412)
Yeah. And I think the, sorry, the boat scene, and they're on the boat. I didn't miss that, did I? No. That was in a studio, right? I think.

Eli Price (52:34.344)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (52:41.032)
Yeah, so like the part where it's like... So the exterior stuff they do is like where they're actually like riding the boats, but they do... when they're doing like the stunt stuff, like with the propeller, that's in a tank in an adelstri. So yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (52:57.596)
What about the one where he's on the boat, when we see like kind of older Indy and he's being like punched? That was probably at Elstreet. Okay. Sorry.

Eli Price (53:06.28)
Yeah, that yeah, that's a L Street to it. Probably. I didn't, I didn't see that specifically was at L Street, but pretty much anything that's not, well, there is some stuff at universal that they shoot that we'll talk about in a second, but pretty much anything that's not like an exterior, a real true exterior where you can tell like this was shot outside is at L Street. Yeah. they do.

Christiaan Funkhouser (53:30.492)
Yeah. Okay. That's fair.

Eli Price (53:35.304)
some second unit work in Venice. Also Robert Watts, the producer, talks about how he did not want to shoot at Venice in the summer because it's very crowded, but he had to do it anyway. So they were able to get control of part of a canal so that they could shoot it without crowds of people around. But yeah, so yeah. Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (53:59.516)
that was gonna be crazy. Yeah.

Eli Price (54:04.328)
Yeah, they go from Venice and Elstree to Jordan and get the beautiful shots of Petra. Man, incredible. Really incredible stuff there. Spielberg even talked about they were guests of the Royal Palace and Queen Noor and her kids actually drove some of them to set one day, which is wild. Yeah. Which had to look that up. She was the queen for a long time until she was married.

Christiaan Funkhouser (54:15.932)
that was.

Christiaan Funkhouser (54:25.852)
That's pretty cool.

Eli Price (54:33.48)
She was actually like an American born, but of Jordan descent. And she married the guy that was the queen. I mean, the king of Jordan. And so, yeah, so yeah, I thought that was cool. Yeah, that shot of Petra. And that's only like one part of Petra. There's actually like a lot more of that stuff with the stuff carved into the rock face. I think that would be really cool to go see.

Christiaan Funkhouser (54:38.188)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (54:43.804)
my.

Christiaan Funkhouser (55:02.3)
I agree that all that stuff. So.

Eli Price (55:05.768)
Yeah, maybe one day. We'll see. You know, one day.

Christiaan Funkhouser (55:10.044)
Yep. I'll do like an establishing shot, like, venture, like a cruise. Yes, a tour.

Eli Price (55:14.312)
Tour, yeah. A worldwide tour where we go to all the spillberg locations. That'd be really cool. Gotta go to Jurassic Park Island, you know. Yeah, they wrap up everything in the US. It's mostly like the opening stuff they shoot in the US.

Christiaan Funkhouser (55:22.012)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (55:31.484)
Just hope all the dinosaurs are gone.

Eli Price (55:44.04)
They do the train stuff in Colorado and New Mexico. And then they use the Canyonlands in Utah for like the very opening and then some of the like rock face stuff. They even talk, you know, you've got the classic paramount mountain crossfade into a rock or whatever. And Temple of Doom, it was on the gong that they transitioned. But yeah, and they...

Christiaan Funkhouser (56:10.684)
Yes, it was.

Eli Price (56:12.968)
They kind of talked about, it was easy to find a rock to transition out in Utah. And because they searched for like forever in Hawaii for the original one. it took them like a week or two to find, find the right thing. And then for Utah, they were like, yeah, it was easy. We like, we just found one. but yeah, they,

Christiaan Funkhouser (56:23.1)
Yeah, because I was a bit different.

Christiaan Funkhouser (56:31.164)
This is right through here. Yeah. Wow.

Eli Price (56:36.872)
Yeah, as I was saying earlier, the so the interior of the cave for the opening and then the interior of the train they shot at Universal. So those are the only like interior stuff they didn't shoot at Elstree. Yeah. And then they actually, so, well, we might talk about this later, but they went back and added in the motorcycle with the sidecar stuff. Late, very late. And so they shot that kind of in the Bay area, kind of around.

Christiaan Funkhouser (57:00.284)
Ahhhh.

Eli Price (57:06.28)
Lucas's home somewhere around and somewhere around there. They shot that stuff. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (57:13.244)
Interesting.

Eli Price (57:15.432)
Yeah, so yeah, production design, special effects, all that stuff. Let's talk about this because I always love talking about this stuff. It's always so fun to see like the, you know, the ingredients that makes all this stuff happen. The opening, so the opening drain sequence, you have this guy, Jules Sylvester, who's the animal wrangler for the movie. And so they get like.

four to five alligator, you know, you got to get all these animals for, for this circus train. So, he said they got like 1400 snakes, giant tortoises and lizards and of course a lion. Got to get the lion. But yeah, for, so for the snakes, he, he said that, so they got river Phoenix laying on like 2000 rubber snakes. And then when they call rolling, which, you know,

Christiaan Funkhouser (57:56.284)
Yeah.

Eli Price (58:11.528)
rolling the camera, he dumps like a thousand garter snakes onto river Phoenix. and then, when they say action, he dumps another like four to 500 garter snakes onto Phoenix. And then you've got like nine people like are off camera collecting snakes and stuff. which is always like, yeah. yeah, but garter snakes, I guess are like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (58:26.428)
That's just, my goodness.

Christiaan Funkhouser (58:36.284)
That's so, that's so crazy.

Eli Price (58:41.352)
He was talking about how they're like kind of small and they're like really, really wriggly. So they really look good on camera. but yeah, that's, that's a lot of snakes. it's not as many snakes as they had on Raiders, but, yeah, there was, there was like four or 5 ,000 snakes and stuff on Raiders. It was, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (58:50.908)
That is a lot of s -

interesting. That is...

Christiaan Funkhouser (59:02.044)
Geez. I wonder, do we know if, no, forgot the guy. The guy who played young Indy, if he has a fear of snakes now. Or had a fear of snakes.

Eli Price (59:10.344)
River Phoenix. You know, I guess we'll never know. I guess not since he seemed to be fine. I don't know. Kept running. But yeah, you've also got the rats. Got to talk about the rats. You've got...

Christiaan Funkhouser (59:18.14)
That's fair.

Christiaan Funkhouser (59:27.484)
I guess so, yeah.

Eli Price (59:37.224)
Snakes in the first movie, which you got snakes here too, I guess but snakes in the first movie bugs in the second I really like it's Spielberg even said he's like, I think we're running out of you know, creepy crawly things to use So got you you've nailed like the big three snakes bugs and rats like, you know, what else is there? Yeah, I guess but I mean there's spiders in the opening of of raiders. Yeah

Christiaan Funkhouser (59:59.068)
I think Spires would be the only next thing. Cause that would have been.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:00:05.916)
Yes, that's right.

Eli Price (01:00:07.08)
They kind of knock off the tarantulas, which tarantulas are more or less like harmless, but anyway, but they're big and spooky looking, scary looking. yeah. So Frank Marshall finds some rat breeders. So they, to be able to use rats on set, they have to breed them. because they have to, they have to do that to avoid like any diseases or whatever. So they have to be bred in captivity to be, for them to be allowed to use them.

So they bred around like 2000 rats for this movie, which I also heard somewhere 5000, but I kind of doubt it was that many. 2000 probably sounds right to me. But yeah, they...

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:00:51.708)
I wonder if they could even do that nowadays. Like just breed a bunch of rat just because it's like, something she made is like, yeah, I get it. I mean.

Eli Price (01:00:55.208)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:01:02.152)
it's just rats like it's a lot of rats but yeah they it's their it is their first like creepy crawly thing that they can train you can't really train snakes or bugs but so they did train the rats they had they had them like on set for like three weeks doing like repetition stuff to get them to do kind of in general like what they wanted them to do

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:01:04.06)
so many of that

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:01:14.588)
It's true.

Eli Price (01:01:29.288)
But yeah, Harrison Ford and Allison Doody both like didn't really have a whole lot of problem working with rats, which was kind of part of the getting hired. Well, like not for Ford. For Ford, they probably would have cut the rats if he was like, I'm not doing rats. But he was cool. He said he was a nature counselor when he was a teen and did some work with rats then. So yeah, so and Doody was just like, yeah, I don't have a problem with it. I'm good.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:01:43.548)
turn right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:01:50.556)
Interesting.

Eli Price (01:01:57.576)
But one of the funny things is that rats apparently don't really make a lot of noise on set or whatever. But you want to have like rat noises. So yeah, Ben Burt recorded these like high pitched chicken sounds that he used for the rats. So it's actually chickens you're hearing when you're hearing all the rats chattering, which is really funny. And then of course you can't set rats on fire.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:02:07.58)
You need the right key.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:02:21.436)
Yeah, very much.

Eli Price (01:02:27.624)
So they had like mechanical rats for that part. They were like little, they like held one of them up and it was just like this rat doing like the kind of rat crawl motion. So yeah, what's funny is to me is you have all these rats go through all that work and it's really just like, what do they have like two minutes on screen? It's movie magic right there.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:02:40.54)
Yeah. Wow.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:02:53.5)
Right.

Eli Price (01:02:57.352)
All this work for two minutes of screen time.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:03:00.635)
That's one of the craziest things. If anyone ever has the opportunity of going on a set or whatnot, you see we've just spent the last three hours setting up for a 10 -second shot if it doesn't get cut. And I think that was the most shocking thing on my end, seeing that kind of stuff. So you got to think, they had to breed all the rats. They had to train them for three weeks. And then you get only two minutes.

Eli Price (01:03:07.848)
Mm -hmm.

Ha ha ha.

huh.

Eli Price (01:03:19.08)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:22.888)
Right.

Eli Price (01:03:27.78)
Yeah, I mean I'm sure there was like a lot more footage of the rats but like the final edit you get two minutes of rats But I mean I loved it, you know, let's see and all those sweet little guys running around, you know Yeah Yeah, I think Ford really actually did like working with the rats. He was like holding one Talking to it on the making of he was like they're actually quite friendly. I

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:03:33.212)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:03:46.108)
I had to get the wrong one over. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:57.288)
He's like, you know, holding a rat. Yeah. Yeah. So the, another thing, the ship with the propeller thing, we talked about that a little bit, but yeah, that was shot in an Elstree back lot in a tank. George Gibbs was like the mechanical special effects guy. So he kind of oversaw that. But yeah, the propeller part of the tank had like about 15 feet of water.

and the rest of the tank was like four feet. So you have to, I guess you have to have like deeper for the propeller to be able to turn, but it's a, it's an actual like boat like propeller that they had running. that was like chopping away at the boat. so it was, it could have been dangerous. They did some things to, with perspective though. so they had like the, the boat,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:04:28.796)
Interesting.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:04:44.924)
What could?

Eli Price (01:04:50.152)
like the little inboard boats were like longer. They made some like longer ones so that there was like plenty of distance between the actor and the blades. And then Spielberg shot with a long focal length lens. I think he said it was like a 250, 250 milliliter millimeter lens that he shot with to get like a long focal length. So it kind of like makes an in perspective like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:04:53.628)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:05:16.092)
it goes a lot closer.

Eli Price (01:05:18.728)
they're actually like a lot farther away from the spinning blade, the dangerous spinning blade, but on screen it looks like they're closer than they are. So I thought that was cool. That's definitely some movie magic stuff there.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:05:31.868)
Yeah. I had.

I had a revelation while I was there. I was like, that scene, you get to the propeller and everything. And then when they were going in between the two boats, I was like, this is why I have an irrational. I'm not crazy, like phobia type thing. But this is why I have an irrational, like, fear of going between two semis. So they're just going to, like, close in and my car will explode. Or even like on boats. I'm like, I'm not afraid of falling off the boat and drowning. I'm afraid of falling off the boat and being sucked into the propeller. And I think.

Eli Price (01:05:40.24)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yep. Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:05:54.76)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:06:03.272)
yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06:05.436)
So I now attribute that to this. I realized this. I was like, my gosh, this is where it came from.

Eli Price (01:06:09.96)
It's a deep -seated fear from your childhood watching. It's like, thank you, Spielberg. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Things that you don't have to actually be afraid of, that's a good fear to have. Being afraid of dinosaurs is like, that's a good fear. You won't ever have that fear realized. Well, I mean, until they...

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06:13.02)
Yes, plant it from watching this every day for a week. Yes, thanks, buddy. That and dinosaurs, things I don't really have to be afraid of.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06:26.908)
I guess, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06:34.236)
It could be a lot worse.

Mmm. Dun dun dun.

Eli Price (01:06:40.008)
until they get those fossils, that DNA from those fossils, you know, and we actually have a real Jurassic Park. Just don't do it guys. Don't do it. If there's any scientists out there, don't do it. Science, lay off science. man. Yeah, the fire scene where they're kind of tied together, which is a great, just a great sequence.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06:43.58)
I should do Jurassic Park. We've had many movies why this is a bad idea.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:06:53.404)
You need to spend more time thinking about whether or not you should. Exactly. Thank you.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:07:05.948)
Yeah, that's such a good seat.

Eli Price (01:07:10.056)
So they, a lot of the stuff in that is like fireproofed, like the curtains and whatnot. But really like they have to be able to control the fire. Cause even though a lot of stuff is fireproofed, it can still get out of control. So they have these like little, I can't remember, they're like these gas pole sticks that they like turn gas on and off for, and they light them.

So they turn the gas on and light them and the fire comes out. And then when they're ready to cut, they just turn the gas off and the fire goes down. So that's how they do a lot of like, that's how they control the fire, which I thought was really interesting. Cause you don't really think about that until you're like watching like a making of doc and you're like, yeah, I guess they do need a way to control the fire. Cause fire's pretty crazy. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:07:44.796)
That makes sense.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:07:55.676)
Wait a second, how did -

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:08:00.476)
Yes, it just all goes up.

Eli Price (01:08:04.072)
Another interesting thing, so Anthony Powell, the costume designer, he apparently found a bunch of like genuine Nazi uniforms somewhere. He's just like, yeah, I found a bunch in Eastern Europe somewhere. You know, like, okay. So yeah, got genuine Nazi uniforms. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:08:19.036)
Okay, that works.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:08:23.324)
I will say, especially for bad guys, having bad guys look good is really important. And Nazis have some of the best looking uniforms. And so to be able to... And I think you could tell... I don't know if they had realistic uniforms and raiders, but these looked so good. And I think... And so now that makes sense of why they...

Eli Price (01:08:28.616)
yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:43.912)
Yeah, I don't remember.

Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:51.912)
other apparently apparently found a box of them somewhere in Eastern Europe I mean I'm sure whoever has a bunch of Nazi uniforms isn't like itching to hold on to them so yeah

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:08:52.092)
They looked really good because they were a thing.

go here have some Nazis okay

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:09:04.732)
Right. Yeah, that would be, man, that was like 42, that would be 40 some odd years after, 88. Yeah, about 40 years or so. Hmm. Interesting.

Eli Price (01:09:13.16)
Yeah. 40 year old uniforms, which is interesting. You know, I don't know, because in, in the, when we were doing the color purple, we kind of talked about the, the costume designer for that was talking about how like body shapes change over time. And so like clothes from like way back when, like, even if it was like in general, the right size for you probably wouldn't fit right because our like general body shapes kind of

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:09:30.748)
Yes.

Eli Price (01:09:43.144)
different over time. I guess like maybe like you're like the broadness of shoulders and you know your I guess like circumference of your like rib cages and stuff like that. So it makes sense. Yeah taller you need longer like shirts and whatnot so yeah but so yeah I don't know if that would apply like in 40 years maybe not as quite as much as like turn of the century.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:09:49.724)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:09:55.932)
How many people are taller nowadays too?

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:10:01.5)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:12.936)
80s. But yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:10:17.244)
What do you think about it? Like the some of the actors that would have been like in their fifties or whatever would have been, you know, kids at that time. So it kind of makes sense from the same general stock. But the uniforms looked really good. I think the the props and the not necessarily the props, but the costuming was phenomenal. The only thing I would disagree about is the hat looked better in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But outside of that, it.

Eli Price (01:10:24.68)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. yeah, they did. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:38.6)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:10:43.976)
Okay. You were telling me there's like some hat lore out there. There's like some people that are deep into indie hats.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:10:47.74)
Everything looks super good. There.

like multiple dozens of pages, like going down into like the dip of the hat and like how tall it is and like moving around. It was made from a from a special. So the material went from being made out of like rabbit skin to beaver skin because beaver skin was a little more durable and they they lost. They didn't get the right the person who was supplying the beaver skin.

know, the rabbit skin was from Brazil and then he went out of business and they had to go and try to source it from somewhere else. And there's like a whole like fan pages on the Internet where they're going in and they're just like looking at doing all the measurements and the whole story of how like, like because they originally made. I think you mentioned it in your Raiders one about how this role was originally signed for Tom Selleck. And so they had had a bunch of costuming for him. And then when.

Eli Price (01:11:24.264)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:11:44.584)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:11:49.404)
Harrison Ford came on there. They had to kind of scrap a lot of the stuff, still keep the general ideas. And so the who is it? I forgot her name, but the costuming Janine Jojo. Yes, she took him to this like Lords and Noble or something, some like famous shop costuming shop that did stuff for the queen and everything. And they had like 150 different fedoras and they like threw him on the ground and he had to like try them all on. And they had to go and find one where the brim was like.

Eli Price (01:12:00.776)
Joanna Johnson, yeah.

Eli Price (01:12:14.344)
Nice.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:12:19.324)
white enough and, but there's all this stuff and, and it goes to make this iconic cat. And like these people are really into it so much so that like they started like, rioting, you know, online of our, about all this stuff. And the fun fact is some, one of the fans was so into the hat and want it such a replica. Cause they didn't, you know, all the people from back in the eighties weren't doing the job anymore. This guy actually learned how to make hats and.

Eli Price (01:12:20.488)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:12:33.732)
Man.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:12:49.18)
made his own indie hat. And it was so good and so lifelike that that's the hat they used for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the other one, Dial of Destiny. They actually used this fan made of this guy who created a company because he's such a fan of the hat. And I would never have imagined like a hat having that much of a thing, but it's pretty cool. Yeah. So but they just such a great job in the costuming. Everything just looks.

Eli Price (01:12:56.36)
wow.

Wow, okay.

Eli Price (01:13:06.76)
Wow.

Eli Price (01:13:12.168)
There's power in the hat. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:13:20.348)
great on it. So it was pretty good.

Eli Price (01:13:21.128)
Yeah, no, that's awesome. I love that there's like whole fan pages just about indies hat. I love that It's you know, I always say like we do deep dives on Into these movies on my podcast, but i'll just say we don't we don't do that deep of dives That's a little too deep

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:13:29.148)
Just about that. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:13:41.852)
Yeah, there's some deep dyes. Like even down to like the indentation is like, you know, three millimeters on this top part. And like the bow of the hat, like on the side is moved forward just slightly for her to fit Harrison Ford's head. Whereas the kind you buy in the store, even for like six hundred dollars, it's like what they cost goes. It's back a little bit. And so it's it's crazy. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:13:50.6)
That's wild.

Eli Price (01:13:55.432)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:14:07.624)
Wow, yeah, yeah, wow. Yeah, so the hat is, I guess the hat is a little bit different for this one. Is that what? Okay.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:14:17.948)
Yeah, he used the same hat for Temple of Doom and this one. Yeah, because it was made out of beaver skin versus rabbit, which is more firm and rigid. Apparently, I don't know for sure. Just from what I see, it's more firm and rigid. And because if you remember in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when he's in the water and the hat's kind of all droopily, it doesn't do that as much when he goes into the other places.

Eli Price (01:14:22.888)
Temple of Doom, yeah.

Gotcha. Yeah. Well.

Eli Price (01:14:42.088)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gotcha. Definitely sense, huh? Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, now that you say that, that rings true. But I don't know that I would have noticed that without like hearing about this hat lore. So I love it.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:14:48.124)
And it's very interesting. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:15:03.516)
Yeah, same here. It's like one of those. And then when we get into the cinematography, there's Hattlore cinematography that I'll throw in there. Yes.

Eli Price (01:15:08.712)
Yes, I'm looking forward to it Yeah, let's let's jump we have a few more like production stuff to go through but yeah, let's know you're good That's part of it the hat The yeah, so we got the plane through the tunnel Yeah, I'll in the making of you kind of see part of that there's several things they have to do to make that happen so

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:15:18.716)
Yeah, that's fine.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:15:28.348)
That was a cool scene.

Eli Price (01:15:37.64)
Like one of the things in studio they do is like they're pulling like a train, like I mean, not a train, a plane model, like through the studio on tracks, you know, with some back projection behind it on fire and that sort of thing. So you have that sort of stuff. And then, they, they're not actually, I don't know. I didn't really like see him finding my research, like how much actual plane flying was done.

but I think a lot of it was done in studio. And then...

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:16:08.604)
And you can see a lot of the green screen aspect in the planes. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:11.976)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. but yeah, the, the, yeah, that that's one of the things that maybe doesn't age that well, but when I watch, I don't really care. Like I, it still looks really good, even though you can tell it's like, you know, kind of like done in, in studio sort of thing. So,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:16:31.292)
It looks better than the CGI for a lot of movies nowadays. So we'll give it a pass.

Eli Price (01:16:34.024)
Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah. The other thing is they didn't have obviously digital fire then. And so for like the tunnel thing, the only way that they could do it and make it look realistic was using miniatures. So when you have the guy going by waving, I think that's like...

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:16:45.436)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:16:56.764)
Eli Price (01:17:03.88)
not a miniature, but the rest of it is done in miniature. So they had made like a little tunnel. It had to be like big enough for the camera to go through and follow it through. And they had to like, you know, time up the mini explosives just right, which I remember the guy that did a lot of the special effects worked in 1941. He had talked about how doing explosives for miniatures is like super hard because...

you know, it's an explosion, but you have to make it small. It's like, how do you make an explosion small? And so you kind of have to like figure out some workarounds and how to like get the explosions and all that. So yeah, I thought that was really cool. It's always fun to see what stuff they do with miniatures.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:17:36.828)
Wow, that's interesting. You don't know what I think about that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:17:49.276)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:17:55.644)
Yeah. It's like with the AT -ATs in Star Wars, how like when you look some of the behind the scenes, you see that the little tauntauns were like little figures that they had to do the thing with. And it's like, wow, OK. Wow. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:17:58.312)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:18:05.32)
Yep.

Eli Price (01:18:09.368)
Yeah. Yeah, I love all that stuff. Yeah, and a lot of times like when they're doing miniatures where there's characters, it's like little, you know, stop motion puppets that they end up using. Like that's what they did for some of the minecart stuff in Temple of Doom. It's like stop motion with like some puppet models for the characters. So that's, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:18:28.028)
Ahhhh

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:18:36.188)
I feel that with that they're like, we need to make a ride somehow. So we're just going to, there you go. Now you have a ride. We're going to include this.

Eli Price (01:18:39.704)
Yeah. Well, they wanted to do the, they want to do a mind chase in Raiders and ended up doing, it just kind of rolled over and they, they were able to do it in Temple of Doom. So I wonder if there was any of that stuff here. I didn't see it in my research, but I can only imagine there was like ideas they had that they couldn't fit in a temple that they were able to do here probably. Yeah. I do know that Lucas was determined to get a World War I tank in the film.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:19:02.024)
Probably with a tank.

Eli Price (01:19:09.)
So maybe that's one of the things, maybe that's one of the ones that Lucas really had been interested to do and finally was able to fit it in. But yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:19:16.636)
That was such a crazy scene.

Eli Price (01:19:20.552)
Yeah. Well, what's crazy about it is Spielberg. so it wasn't like written in necessarily to the script. Spielberg wrote it in storyboard, basically that whole like pink chase sequence. yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it just like goes to show Spielberg just has those like big action set pieces are just like, come so naturally to him. he can just envision it in his mind. just, yeah, so good.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:19:33.916)
such a long chase too.

Eli Price (01:19:50.376)
and like the geography of it and you like having, and you're being able to like, with the camera and the editing show, like help, help the audience keep their, where they are and what's happening and where everyone is. in a, in a sequence like that. So good. BF Ford, the other thing I thought was funny is in the making of doc, you have it like cuts to like Harrison Ford with the.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:20:09.916)
Yeah, so good.

Eli Price (01:20:20.072)
the story flipping through the storyboard with his horse and being like talking to his horse and being like, and then we're going to go here and yeah, you gotta love the little sense of humor. Florida was having fun. So, yeah, they originally were going to get a small like French Renault, tank. but Gibbs, George Gibbs, the

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:20:29.18)
That's great.

Eli Price (01:20:45.192)
Mechanical special effects guy. He was like, well, I think I might just build one. So he built like a real still 28 ton tank is like the the one that you see driving actually like driving through and it's like functional and like yeah, just Yeah Yeah, and then of course they build a second one that's like kind of like one that's pulled by a truck and

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:21:03.036)
Hey, I'm going to go ahead and build the tank. Just don't worry.

Eli Price (01:21:14.312)
where they can get some, that's basically the one where they do like all the fighting on top of it. So you can have like a camera mounted in the back of the truck and you know, cameras mount, you know, following it on the sides. And so that one, the tracks actually don't even like touch the ground for that one. It's just, it's pulled behind on some sort of like card, I guess. So like when, when Ford's like, when Indy's face is like by the tracks and stuff and the tracks are turned and those tracks aren't actually like touching the ground.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:21:19.58)
Okay, that makes sense.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:21:38.396)
Yeah, I'm the thing.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:21:44.06)
that's cool.

Eli Price (01:21:44.52)
Yeah. Yeah. but yeah, I thought that was cool. movie magic. yeah, Vic, Vic Armstrong was talking about how the tanks really only move like 10 to 12 miles an hour, but they make a, they, they're wanting to make them look faster. So, but so riding the horse next to a tank that's only moving like 12 miles an hour is actually pretty, he was like, it's actually kind of hard to like get it to look right on screen.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:21:50.428)
movie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:22:07.1)
Christiaan Funkhouser (01:22:13.756)
Yeah, because you need the horse to look it's actually trying.

Eli Price (01:22:14.608)
Yeah, you look you've got to make the horse look like it's actually running hard, but it's actually not it's actually kind of moving pretty slow. So Yeah, that was interesting Yeah, they they end up shooting like eight to ten days for this it was I think originally slated for like two days and so they spent a lot of time getting this chase this tank chase

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:22:25.724)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:22:40.124)
Well, it was like 20 minutes long. Didn't feel like it, but it was, yeah, within the thing. So I don't know, whoever scheduled that for two days, that's pretty, they have their.

Eli Price (01:22:42.088)
Yeah, it's pretty, it is pretty long. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:22:49.768)
Well, I think they, I think they just like got out there and expanded it. That's why Spielberg had to like storyboard so much of it. Like, cause it, I think it was in the script, but just like not to the extent that they ended up doing.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:22:54.3)
that makes sense.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:23:04.796)
Yeah, because there were a lot of different parts to it. You had the shooting of the tank, and then you had the inside the tank, and then you had the outside, and then you had him hanging, and then the... Yeah, I can see that.

Eli Price (01:23:07.144)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:23:11.456)
right. Ford actually did do that stunt though where he's hanging on the the gun and they are like you got people like pouring dirt and stuff on top of them and yeah that was actually Ford not Vic that was one where it wasn't Vic it was actually Ford yeah the another funny like funny aspect of the production they you've got so you've got the beach scene with like the seagulls and stuff.

And what they found out was that you can't really train seagulls. They just kind of do what they want to do. So they couldn't get the seagulls to fly like they want them to to fly up. And so they just put a bunch of fake seagulls out on the beach for like the scenes where they're out there. And then the flying ones are actually just doves, just white doves. Yeah. So I thought that was funny. There's actually a

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:23:47.612)
That's fair. That is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:24:03.707)
I guess you could train them more.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:24:08.412)
That is...

Eli Price (01:24:09.)
cut in the making of Doc or they're like and action and they're like shaking these boxes and the birds just like aren't going anyway they will not fly out another just few things the final so you got the final test sequence where he's going through you know the three tests the you know word of the breath of God the word of God

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:24:17.82)
Go, go, go. That's great.

Eli Price (01:24:38.568)
And, yeah, just as far as production goes, one of the things I thought was cool was there. They showed like Spielberg kind of mapping out the Jehovah stones. So they kind of have this, they kind of have like pieces of, they haven't like drawn the letters on them yet and just kind of are mapping it out. And he's like, actually like testing, okay, I can jump from here to here. So we need to put like the, you know, the E here and, yeah. So he's like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:24:54.716)
Christiaan Funkhouser (01:25:02.972)
That's cool.

Eli Price (01:25:05.736)
A lot of people don't realize but directors are like really like in the middle of everything. So good directors are like Spielberg anyway. So he's like map. He's literally like mapping out all that stuff, which is really fun. The most probably like the I think Spielberg said is one of the most interesting things ILM, which is spill is Lucas's like production design company basically.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:25:11.388)
There. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:25:32.924)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:25:35.4)
one of the most interesting things they did was the bridge for the path of God's. It's like a forced perspective, kind of illusion. so they actually did, it's like a miniature and the, they had this guy, Paul Houston paint it. so it's like a matte painting, for that bridge. And he like literally just is painting like what he sees, that it's like matched up with.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:25:41.084)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:26:05.32)
which it really is just incredible. And when it does like the, when the camera moves to the side and it reveals it's. It's like, it's magical. Like it's really cool.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:26:13.02)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:26:17.468)
It does. It looks. And like nowadays, I think you could easily say, it's just CGI. But like back then they didn't have the CGI in this, like the same way that we do now. He's just like.

Eli Price (01:26:23.944)
Right.

Yeah, he is just there's a dude literally just like painting like matching like exactly the what's behind it for the force perspective.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:26:35.708)
Do you know, is this the paint, the same guy that did the painting for like the Death Star?

Eli Price (01:26:40.328)
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, well, or if you know and you're a listener, you can email us. Yeah, it is ILM, so it might be. Who knows?

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:26:41.708)
Okay, we'll find out in post.

Just because it's ILM. So yes, let us know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:26:57.276)
Because I know that there was one that like that whole scene like when the the Emperor ship lands and you have all the stormtroopers and everything out there. Apparently that was just a painting. And so.

Eli Price (01:27:07.56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they do. There's a lot of matte paintings for backgrounds. I know in Temple of Doom, I don't think I didn't see that there was as many here as there was for for Temple of Doom. But yeah. Let me I'm doing I'm trying to do some like searching while I'm Paul Houston, I see him and I see he has a wookie pedia page.

So maybe. He's a senior digital art artist on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition release. So Houston's work on the re -release of Star Wars began in 94. okay. New Mos Eisley scenes. Spinkin' Obies Hut. Okay. So, I don't know. I'm not seeing anything about like the original stuff. But it's also like not loading for me for some reason. Very good.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:27:45.244)
Christiaan Funkhouser (01:28:02.716)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:28:06.728)
So, yeah, so he, I mean, he's obviously got some Star Wars link there, but so yeah. Yeah, Paul Huston is that guy. Without the O, H -U -S -T -O -N, if people want to look it up. Yeah, I just thought that was incredible. That was like one of, that was like one of my favorite little like images in the whole movie, I think, is the reveal of that bridge.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:28:06.812)
That's all good.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:28:33.468)
That was one of them where, like, I went back and I was like, wait a second. my gosh, was that the whole time?

Eli Price (01:28:38.408)
Mm -hmm Yeah, you you really do like if you go back and like just do like Move the frame forward and back like it just it matches up So like you can't really tell That it's you know different. It just yeah, really really cool

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:28:49.852)
It's so cool.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:28:56.188)
And then Spielberg with his and we mentioned it briefly before about how you you don't notice it till he moves the camera. Him knowing to like move the camera just enough to show you and then move it back. It's it's such an.

Eli Price (01:29:02.28)
-huh.

Eli Price (01:29:10.664)
move it back to like the exact point it needs to be, you know? Yeah, yeah, just great.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:29:14.364)
Yeah, and then you're like, So you get to kind of explore with it. So that's really good.

Eli Price (01:29:20.36)
Mm -hmm.

For sure, yeah. The other thing with those, you know, when they're in the the grill room, you know, there's the earthquake. So they have like these hydraulic gimbals that kind of move the floor pieces around. And Ben Vert said the sound is actually just like rubbing on an inflated balloon for the yeah, for the like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:29:45.884)
Yeah, I guess you could, I could see that. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:29:49.608)
All that stuff. And then he had a lot of like, I talked about they have like a sound catalog. They had just this catalog of, at one point they probably like for Raiders even, they might've done this, went out and done a bunch of like a bunch of dropping stones and rocks and sand and dirt. And so they had a catalog of those sounds that they are able to like pull from for stuff like that. So yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:30:08.604)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:30:14.844)
That's crazy. Yeah, that's Foley work is very interesting.

Eli Price (01:30:19.56)
Yeah, yeah for sure it yeah that sound stuff is really good they yeah. yeah Yeah, the the last production thing big production thing is obviously Having Donovan turn into dust You've got to have a healthy man Turn to dust and like kind of one take or like, you know a movie magic one take it's he's obviously not really turning to dust in one take but

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:30:24.348)
how they make sounds out of things that aren't sound.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:30:48.636)
Bye!

Eli Price (01:30:48.968)
In one shot, I guess I should say, not one take. But yeah, three, so they had like three different puppets in various stages of decay. And so in the edit, obviously they have to like morph one to the other. So that's part of it. And then the final skin decay for that, they pasted like a ton of little pieces of shrinkable plastic onto the puppet.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:30:51.484)
Yeah, it's all good.

Eli Price (01:31:18.92)
And so and then obviously when so they shot it in time -lapse and then they blew hot air on it I don't know with what but they blew hot air on it and obviously like it's the shrinkable plastic so blow the hot air on it it like flies off like Yeah Yeah, I thought that was cool. It's always fun to see how they do that stuff, but Yeah, you know, there's I'm sure like if you like really

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:31:36.476)
Yeah, interesting.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:31:42.62)
pleasure.

Eli Price (01:31:48.584)
just like watch the movie and try to pick apart stuff. You would see like a lot of little things that, one of the production guys was just talking about how like you didn't have CGI then. And so there's a lot of like little things that you just like can't fix and it just stays in the movies back then. And I think that's kind of cool. Like that it's not perfect, you know, it's, it's, it. Yeah. I just think that's cool. but yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:32:07.548)
It is right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:32:15.868)
It almost makes it more real, the fact that it's not perfect. Yeah. I agree.

Eli Price (01:32:20.68)
Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Do you, would you like some fun facts? I have some, I have some fun facts. Are you more into fun or facts or? That's the real question. Okay. But do you like it when your fun is very factual? Cause that sounds less appealing. Well, we're going to do.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:32:27.26)
I win. I love fun facts.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:32:33.756)
I like it when my facts are fun. So I don't.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:32:41.18)
I was about to say that's that's slightly less desirable, but it could could be. We'll find out.

Eli Price (01:32:49.992)
facts that are fun. So one of the fun facts is that Spielberg told the Nazi actors to cross their fingers behind their backs when they did the Nazi salute. Because it doesn't count if you cross your fingers. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:32:51.644)
Okay.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:33:01.788)
Nice.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:33:06.076)
Apparently not. That... Because this had a lot more like... A lot more like Nazi, like Nazis being Nazis, because it had like the book burning scene and actually Hitler...

Eli Price (01:33:15.496)
Right, right. Because it is like more further into the war, I guess. So that makes sense chronologically, I guess.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:33:20.668)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:33:25.243)
I said, and now that I think about it, there's a one scene where like they're in the car and the guy comes and he's like, hi, you know, whatever he said. And you don't you only see his one hand, you don't see his other hand. So there we go. Now we know that he's he waited. He. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:30.92)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Eli Price (01:33:37.16)
There you go. He crossing his fingers behind his back, you know? Another fun fact, the zeppelin scene is set in the winter. Yes, set in the winter, but it's actually really hot because it's the summer and Sean Connery talked about how he sweats profusely. And so he did the scene without his trousers on to stay cooler. And,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:33:48.092)
One of the best, okay.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:33:55.228)
Interesting.

Eli Price (01:34:06.088)
And since Ford was like, you're really going to do it with no trousers? And Connor's like, yeah. So Ford did it too with no trousers.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:34:17.404)
man, I feel like I want to go back and see like to see where like where they had the cameras like and just to kind of see.

Eli Price (01:34:20.936)
Yeah. I thought that was great. Some more hat stuff for I have a quote from 40. He said the hat was always coming off. It's like the constant, the constant trouble. Yeah. That's the movie magic though. You don't, you edit the hat coming off out, you know, you don't include that in. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:34:34.748)
That's interesting, because it had always stays on on the thing.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:34:43.42)
I guess so.

interesting because he's always because like that hat is like synonymous with him kind of like with the music and John Williams like that hat and an indie like it's an Indiana Jones hat like my hat that I have back there is a fourth doctor hat but if one were to like see it and they're all that's probably an Indiana Jones hat because we just kind of associate that fedora with indie.

Eli Price (01:34:51.528)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:34:55.912)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:35:04.744)
Yeah, yeah, because it's up for Dora. So yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. last thing is not really a, it's more of a, it's not a fun fact. It's more of like a, a comforting fact, I guess you could say is, Spielberg talked about how he really likes films that rely on the best of all departments coming together and not like relying on computer work. the quote I pulled was that's good old fashioned movie making.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:35:20.06)
Okay.

Eli Price (01:35:34.568)
So yeah, I think these indie movies are like a perfect example of like having just peak crew, like crew members in all departments just like really nailing their jobs. So, yeah. Yeah, let's talk a little bit of like cinematography, camera, editing, all that fun stuff. I have a few notes here and I know you wanted to talk some about this too, but.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:35:35.132)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:35:47.324)
best of the best of the best. Yeah. Now that makes sense.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:35:55.9)
Woo!

Eli Price (01:36:03.208)
Yeah, I mean, you get all the typical like wide shots and closeups and tracking shots and whatnot that we've come to expect from Spielberg. and you know, he's, he's working again with Douglas Sulkum, who's done all the indie movies. So you kind of have a thread of a look between the three films. Like, you know, they, they all have a similar like feel and atmosphere. Obviously like you've got a lot of more reds in temple of doom, but, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:36:21.948)
That's fair.

Eli Price (01:36:32.552)
I did think that this one seemed to have more like bright outdoor sequences than the first two did. I don't know if you noticed that, but yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:36:32.988)
Okay.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:36:43.58)
Yeah, yes. Because even though in some of the ones and Raiders, you had the the outdoor in the in South America, South America, it was still very like muted, almost like there was a filter over it. Yeah. Whereas in this one, when you had like the. Well, even. my gosh.

Eli Price (01:36:55.272)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:37:00.104)
Yeah, shade it because you're in the forest too. So, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:37:11.228)
in the parts where the guy can't find where he's going, where Bert, I'm sorry, I'm bad with my names, where Bertie can't find where he's going, like that just seems a lot brighter. I guess I just kind of attributed it to better quality cameras and everything. But it makes sense because I'm...

Eli Price (01:37:14.44)
Yeah, Brody, yeah.

Eli Price (01:37:20.232)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:37:26.664)
Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

I think they're doing a lot more outdoor shooting too, just in general in this movie, like location outdoor stuff. So that might have something to do with it.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:37:38.236)
Yeah, for sure. And I guess it's not just all like, I guess I think a lot of it in Raiders was in Egypt or whatever the case is, whereas in that thing. Whereas in this one, you actually got to go to Venice and you got to go. Yeah, that's fair.

Eli Price (01:37:48.584)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:37:55.112)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, what were some things that stood out for you as far as like the cinematography work?

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:38:05.596)
Yeah, I really liked the way in the beginning part when you have with.

with young Indiana Jones and they're in that little cave area and they're going in there, we're watching the guy with, I think they called him Fedora man or whatever. And they're watching him in there. The way that the camera is kind of like hidden behind rocks too, as they're like peeking over to kind of give us, this is what they're seeing kind of puts us in that like, I'm being hidden type situation. I'm hiding too. I hope I don't get found out. And then when they're,

Eli Price (01:38:17.96)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:38:25.128)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:31.176)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:36.168)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:41.448)
Mm, that's good, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:38:45.596)
on the train and how we get to, and it's, it's also, it's just a good shot, like, you know, a wide angle out where you get to kind of see them running. You get that really cool silhouette. but it also, it gave us kind of a heads up of, that's the rhino tank or, that's the snake area or rather with the snake one. I think it was a, we saw the snakes or the reptiles and then it goes out and it shows the snake. We're like, okay. And so we kind of.

Eli Price (01:38:52.104)
Right.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:39:03.432)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:11.208)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:39:14.972)
gets a play along and like, and, but he doesn't, so yeah. So like with the reptile one, he, we see afterwards. So we don't always have foreknowledge, but then sometimes we do. And that kind of builds up anticipation and tension. And I think one of the, the, I think one of the other things, and this goes to the hat lore. I promise I'm not one of those hat guys, but there is, they really love the silhouette of Indy with his hat.

Eli Price (01:39:27.368)
Yeah.

No, yeah, that's really cool, yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:44.488)
Right. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:39:45.148)
And like the first thing you see in Raiders of the Lost Ark, you don't even see Indiana Jones face for like the first like 10 minutes you see, but you see the hat. And there's, and once I heard that, I was like, wait a second, let me look. So I was looking around there and then in The Last Crusade, of course you see Indy more, but the hat and the silhouette of the hat and the way that it, or not just the hat, just his silhouette is really, they do a lot with.

Eli Price (01:39:49.32)
Mm -hmm.

All right.

Eli Price (01:40:02.216)
Right.

Eli Price (01:40:13.192)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:40:13.724)
And it's like, even though you don't know who it is, you see the art and introduction of Sean Connery. You've got Indy sitting there or sneaking in and whatever. And then in the background, the camera's down. And then you see this shadowy figure with, it ends up being Sean Connery, with a vase to go and crash on Indy's head. And just the way, like with camera angles and using shadows to tell stories, because it's almost like,

Eli Price (01:40:19.112)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:40:34.632)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:40:40.136)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:40:43.676)
reminiscent of like a 1940s, like, movie poster where like, it's kind of shot low and you see the high and like, and it's, it's just really like little clever things like that, that you don't see, but like some con you don't see, but like subconsciously you can begin to associate things. And it just, I just, I really like it when, and I think that's one of the examples about the good old fashioned filmmaking. Cause you have the lighting on spot.

Eli Price (01:41:03.08)
Right.

Eli Price (01:41:11.784)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:41:13.244)
You had the photography good. You had even the way that because nobody.

Eli Price (01:41:14.632)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:41:21.02)
If you're going to go and like hit someone over the head, you're not going to do the hold your arms up and then just kind of wait for a second and then crash in. So just all the little things working together create like really cool scenes.

Eli Price (01:41:26.632)
Right. yeah. Yeah. And I think it's like, like the design of like the set design and stuff play, like when you were talking about the circus train stuff and I was like, yeah, that's really like, I don't know that I like that stood out to me, but when you were, when you were talking through that, I was like, you're right. Like it really is like, the way the camera, like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:41:39.932)
Yes.

Eli Price (01:41:54.664)
cues you in on what to expect or maybe even sometimes like tricks you into expecting one thing and then doing something else. Yeah, it's so good. And yeah, one of the things that Spielberg does that I love is, you know, you talked about Sean Connery coming in and one of the things he does is instead of like moving the frame to a character for a close up or zooming in on a character,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:42:01.5)
Right.

Eli Price (01:42:23.656)
for a close -up, he'll have the character either step into frame or like move closer to the camera for their close -up. Yeah, I've seen it. It's in every Spielberg film, like basically up to this point. He does it. So a character will like walk into frame in a close -up or they'll like be farther away from camera and they'll walk closer up into frame.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:42:32.796)
That's interesting.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:42:51.228)
Yeah, I think in a.

Eli Price (01:42:52.168)
One thing he does a lot with Indiana Jones specifically is he'll be facing away from the camera and he'll turn towards the camera for his closeup. There's a lot of that. and I love all that stuff. It's so good. and it's all like, usually it's not just like a cool shot. It's usually like building character or revealing something about a character. Like a lot of times when Indiana Jones turns around, it's like the emotion on his face.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:43:01.34)
Yes.

That's really cool.

Eli Price (01:43:20.84)
that tells you something. But it's also an interesting way to get to a close -up shot, too. So it's like the technique working alongside the storytelling, which is something that Spielberg is just great at.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:43:42.108)
I think in Jurassic Park, I think in the very beginning, Robert Moldan like walks into the thing and the side thing. And that's that's yeah, that's very.

Eli Price (01:43:49.416)
Mm -hmm, yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:53.416)
Yeah, it's not, I'm telling you, he does it. It's like a, it's, I think it's like a signature Spielberg move is like characters moving into the frame. I don't know, maybe he stole it from somebody else before him. It's probably, probably so, but in my, in this deep dive, that's something that I've seen that seems distinctive for Spielberg. So,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:44:04.764)
And that kind of...

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:44:16.188)
It might have been the thing where he made it popular. He was like, this is cool. OK, cool. I'm going to perfect it.

Eli Price (01:44:18.696)
Yeah, yeah. He took something like, yeah, he took something he saw in like an older movie. And yeah, yeah. I actually saw like a, it was like a more modern interview where Spielberg was talking about how you have a lot of like younger people these days that are like into film, but they're not like well versed in film history. And so he was talking about how like,

Everyone he'll he's like, they'll know me and score Zazie and us guys. But like, we're all just like stealing stuff from the guys before us. Like, it's, it's like a. Like film as an art is like just builds on the generation before, like you're, you're just kind of taking and maybe tweaking or doing something different with what the guys before you did. So, I thought that was cool. He's basically like saying, you know,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:44:55.204)
Right.

Eli Price (01:45:16.488)
You need to watch older movies to really learn more about film and see the progression of film through the history of the art form. I thought that was really cool.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:45:28.812)
And now that you, after mentioning that, like, I think the reason why I was looking at the shadows for like Sean Connery coming in is because in the movie Gaslight from the 1940s, they, because they didn't have the good lighting, they really played around with the shadows and that kind of stuff. So watching that movie, I was looking at that. And then when it happened in the movie, it subconsciously triggered like, wait a second, this is.

Eli Price (01:45:42.568)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:45:47.112)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (01:45:58.728)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:45:58.748)
So yeah, I think he's, I think it also shows a good amount of like humbleness on Spielberg's half that he was willing to point to that. But I think that's really important to go to the older movies, not just with your, and now granted the stuff in the eight, this is, you know what, this is like 40 years old, 40 plus years old. So it's pretty old, but even older stuff that's closer to like the eighties, like 80 years old and whatnot.

Eli Price (01:46:05.48)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:46:13.064)
yeah.

Eli Price (01:46:21.224)
yeah. Mm hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:46:28.988)
is although sometimes it can be difficult but it's to kind of watch through some of it because there's there's some issues but anyway it is it's good stuff.

Eli Price (01:46:38.6)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, like, so as far as editing goes, I think I mentioned this already, but yeah, they're they're going through the edit there. And him and Michael Kondiside, they need a little one more like action scene. And that's when they go back and film the motorcycle sidecar chase stuff. So they were actually like in the middle of editing or like getting close to the finishing the editing.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:47:02.3)
Eli Price (01:47:07.368)
And they went back and added that because they felt like the rhythm of the movie called for like another action piece right there. And that is something about the indie films is they're like, because they're modeled after those old serials that you would go and watch like the cliffhangers, you know, you got an action, you got an action scene and there's a cliffhanger and then you go back to the next week and see the next one. And they're kind of like built like that in a feature film form. And so you have.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:47:16.572)
That's interesting.

Eli Price (01:47:37.416)
You have like every 10 to 15 minutes in an Indiana Jones film, some new action sequences starting up, you know, you maybe have like an action sequence and then a little bit of exposition or a little bit of like drama or whatever, and then you're back into action. So it, it really, like you have to have that rhythm. And so him and Michael Kahn were like, okay, we, we really need like one more action piece to throw in right here to keep that rhythm going.

so Spielberg is one of those guys that's like those directors that's always willing when he sees something not working, he's not just going to stick to his guns. He's going to go ahead and change it. Make sure it's like the best, which I super appreciate.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:48:22.652)
appreciate it. And that scene, even though I had seen it, I hadn't watched the movie for a while prior to kind of rewatching it for here. But with that, it just flowed so smoothly because like they're they skate from the castle, which that was that was really funny. There were a lot of like really like laugh out loud, kind of catch you off guard type thing. But they go in there and he sets the boat and I'm like, yeah, this is when they're going to get into the boat. And then they don't get in the boat. I'm like, wait a second. I've been bamboozled.

Eli Price (01:48:31.4)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:48:37.736)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:48:43.208)
Yeah, yes.

Eli Price (01:48:49.)
Right.

Ha ha ha ha.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:48:52.348)
And then I was like, thinking, I was like, okay, that's right. They're going to send it off. And, you know, they, it's interesting that Indy didn't wait. Cause they, the people had been, you know, they had been bamboozled to chase them on the boat, but then they bust out of the crate and the, the double motorcycle. Yeah. So it's like, just wait.

Eli Price (01:49:05.48)
Yeah. Chasing them. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:49:12.104)
Yeah, before they even take off on the boat. I thought that I was like, what are you doing? Like, wait a minute. Let them get out on the water first.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:49:19.58)
But then I could also think if I'm amped up on adrenaline being chased by a thing, maybe I'm not going to wait. Yeah. And that's I think part of the cool is that we'll get to that later on, but with the indie thing. But I think that's part of the coolness of Indies that he's like an every man type person. But that whole scene, like that was a really fun scene, too, because it also was you've got Indy on the thing. And then when they do the like the jousting thing, like that was just so and then they remember and he throws it in there and it's and then you've.

Eli Price (01:49:22.76)
Yeah. You're just like, let me get out of here. You know.

Eli Price (01:49:31.944)
yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (01:49:43.176)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:49:49.276)
And you've got on the other side, you've got Sean Connery, who's just sitting in the car, like just doing his thing exactly, which really pairs the way that that character, the two characters are written. It really kind of sums them up where he's kind of being dragged along with Indies craziness. So it's.

Eli Price (01:49:52.2)
Yeah. Just like bewildered.

Eli Price (01:49:59.56)
huh.

Eli Price (01:50:04.328)
-huh. I think at one point he's like, we're, we're getting shot out. And he's like, and he's like, yeah, it happens to me all the time. You know, I love that he jousts. I love like, you just, I would love to be a fly on the wall and that, the room where that was decided. They're like, what if we make Indiana Jones joust a guy off of his motorcycle?

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:50:12.956)
Yeah, it was great.

I had forgotten about that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:50:30.428)
And he does it. And then he kept it and used it to throw into the wheel of the other one. So it's like, it's very, and that one scene that goes to Indiana Jones' character, he's very like resourceful and like, what am I going to do? okay, cool.

Eli Price (01:50:36.392)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:42.472)
Right. And it's, it's almost, you can make it like, the resourcefulness of Indiana Jones is like a, like meta stand in for the resource, sourcefulness of like Spielberg and his filmmaking. and like using everything. I mean, it's not like, obviously written for that reason, but like, you can see it. It's like, you know, your, your character, you bleed into your characters and your story. So like your.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:50:57.692)
yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:51:03.164)
Right.

Eli Price (01:51:12.488)
Spielberg's is a very like resourceful director. He like wants to use like everything and and that like bleeds into the character of Indiana Jones who's like very resourceful and like uses everything that's around him and Yeah, yeah, that's cool Yeah, editing is an incredible and I say it all the time on this podcast but editing is like the

like way underappreciated art form within like the overarching like film art form. But yeah, I loved in the making of Robert Watts, the producer was talking about how Michael Kahn is like a master at like fine tuning everything in the edit to play to the audience's emotion. And then it cut, it went to Michael Kahn talking about how he edits and he was saying,

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:51:43.932)
It is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:52:03.9)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:52:09.8)
that he doesn't edit from like logic or like like some sort of system or whatever he edits from how like from feeling and He was just kind of like when I'm doing my editing if it feels right then I know it's good and so Yeah, and so that's I guess that's like why he is able to edit into playing to emotion so well is because like that's literally how he's editing he's not like

I've got to do this step one, step two. He's like trying to just piece it all together. And when something, when he like gets a, gets an edit done and it feels right, then I mean, that makes sense because that is what movies are supposed to do. They're supposed to feel right. They're not, it's not some like logical, whatever, but

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:52:41.66)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:52:59.292)
And when you do get into that logical thing, then it becomes a lot of like what we have nowadays.

Eli Price (01:53:03.4)
And then so I'll say that but like so I did my I did a series on Wes Anderson his edits and his framing and everything is very like mechanical but He also like uses that as a tool to surprise you with emotion so it's still like While the edit isn't like I'm editing

for feel, it is a very like mechanical, logical edit. It's still used to propel the emotion. Like you have these surprising, cause you're so like tuned into like the preciseness of everything in an Anderson film that like when the emotion comes, it's like almost catches you off guard. And so it's still like plays to the emotion, even though like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:53:52.636)
ha. Great.

Eli Price (01:53:57.512)
it's not the same as like the way Michael Kahn is playing to the emotion with his edits. So I think that's an interesting contrast.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:54:05.756)
Yes. I think part of it, there's just like a.

You can tell when someone's a good photographer because like they just have the ability to capture that. Like it's almost like an innate thing. And you can have people who are really just like fly off the cuff type thing, but then also people who are really specific. And but they've just got that natural talent to begin with. I think that might be part of work on and Scorsese and like how all they kind of.

Eli Price (01:54:14.696)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:54:21.672)
Yeah, sure.

Eli Price (01:54:32.104)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:54:40.892)
Yeah, how they with the way that they do the things, even though one may be super precise and like very like methodical and the other one may be more off the cuff. They've just got that innate kind of feeling. And I do think that editing is extremely, extremely underrated because it is like so my my friend who's a director when we've done our indie films and everything, he ends up being one of the ones directing or doing the editing. And so then he.

Eli Price (01:54:52.648)
Right.

Eli Price (01:54:57.416)
Yes, yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:55:10.524)
I learned some things and so I was like preparing the shots and like trying to find the best like version of because when you have a conversation when you're recording a conversation or filming conversation you're getting like five different angles and so he was like okay so I mean if you could pair this down to like your two best ones that you think are good and then I'll go and I'll pick the final sets and so I'm looking through them I'm like this section when this person says this and we cut

Eli Price (01:55:24.84)
Right.

Eli Price (01:55:31.56)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:55:39.26)
And there's just so much and it is so time consuming. And so that's when people like Connor, I would have to do it and it works really well. And that's just, that's very impressive.

Eli Price (01:55:40.328)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:55:48.424)
Yeah.

And I mean, even like they're like shooting on film even. So, I mean, it's even harder, like it's even more work to like lay out your edits and cut them to like, you're, you're literally cutting edits. Like you're not, you're not going, you're not like, yeah. So yeah. When, when you make cuts now, you're, you're just like highlighting something and pressing delete. But, but back then you were literally.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:55:57.116)
Christiaan Funkhouser (01:56:03.9)
Okay. Wow.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:56:09.052)
No control of the unique.

Eli Price (01:56:21.)
physically cutting. So, yeah. yeah, the, I guess the last thing as far as like the, the whole production goes as the score we've talked, we've talked a decent amount about the score earlier, but, but yeah, I love, I love Williams when he's talking about the Indy score on the doc. He's, he's kind of, he kind of describes it as like riding a bike, you know, you, you jump back in and you're like, yeah, I know exactly.

where I'm going, like I know what to do, which is cool. He said Star Wars was similar, like jumping back into the Star Wars score each time was just like riding a bike. You kind of jump back in and get back into the groove of those themes and that music, which is probably like, sounds good, but like, I mean, he's a genius. So, you know, maybe it's just cause he's a

you know, a musical score genius that sounds like that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:57:23.036)
Well, he we so there's the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I'm in Atlanta. And so like the symphony orchestra will do like the music of John Williams and the person who is. no. What was their name? The conductor will give a little intro about stuff and the some of the stuff that he talks about, like in the way that because he'll he'll talk about like how certain things were created and.

Eli Price (01:57:32.456)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:57:41.48)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:57:51.964)
So that's where he's the one that that taught or that showed that how the the emperor's theme is secretly hidden into the end of Anakin's theme at the thing. But and that kind of jaws kind of came from the evening news, like the little doodoo. But just those little things and seeing like the depth to which Williams went into things and.

Eli Price (01:58:02.568)
Mm, yeah.

Eli Price (01:58:09.32)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:58:17.672)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:58:18.492)
And I think on the Raiders one, you guys talked about how Indiana's theme kind of matched the Hananlea theme.

Eli Price (01:58:29.064)
Yeah.

Yeah, the theme with him and Marion sounded very similar to me to Han and Leia's theme. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:58:37.216)
Yeah. It's very good. And I thought it was at first because I one of the things that the guy from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra said is that if you want, like, just sort of over a great overview of like the thing, go to his ending score, because that's when he pulls in music from everything. And so every time before I saw I have like an epic film score like Chana, let's do when I do my own writing and stuff, I'll do that and I'll be like, it's Star Wars. And then it's like, wait a second, it's not Star Wars. It's Indiana Jones. And.

Eli Price (01:58:51.88)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:58:59.336)
Sure.

Eli Price (01:59:04.456)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:59:07.196)
So yeah, that's.

Eli Price (01:59:08.712)
There was one part of this movie where it sounded like it was about to start up the Imperial March, I think. But it was just like a tiny little piece that sounded similar to something in the Imperial March. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:59:20.604)
You're like, wait a second. Right. And and then we did briefly briefly discuss it before, but just about like how kind of it's like a like a rock opera or whatever, where you can tell what's the tune, the tone is supposed to be. And when, the Nazis are here and you get the Nazi version, the music of it. And and that just kind of prepares you for like, this is what's going to happen. I think that happened when they were in the zeppelin and everyone thought they were good. And then you hear like the.

Eli Price (01:59:35.464)
Yeah. Right.

Eli Price (01:59:47.624)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (01:59:49.436)
Or whatever it was, I forgot it. And then, there the Nazi guys are walking to the Zeppelin. And so it just adds so much to it.

Eli Price (01:59:51.848)
Right.

Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I think he said to the score for this one was like two hours. Like it's the orchestra is like playing almost the whole time, which is wild. Yeah. Yeah. So, they're wrapping up, they're getting ready to release it. It's, it actually releases like a year after they start production, but, but yeah, they're doing the marketing Spielberg's like, this is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:00:04.412)
Jeez.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:00:09.692)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (02:00:24.456)
My last indie film, you know, whatever, which was the original plan. And that was true for a while. It was the last indie film for like 19 years, I think. but yeah, so they release it in the U S May 24th, 1989. and yeah, it's a big hit. I mean, it's the worldwide box office ends up being 474 million, which I think adjusted as like a billion dollar movie.

Basically, the effort it was.

the highest grossing worldwide box office of 89, but domestically it got second to Batman. But yeah, worldwide was highest. And I mean, I think the budget was 44 million, I think is what I saw in my research. So it was the biggest budget of any of the indie films and the biggest box office of any of the indie films. So.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:01:26.076)
Yeah, you're right, 1 .2 million. Or 1 .2 billion today. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:01:29.128)
Billion, yeah, yeah. Adjusted from 474, yeah. Yeah, and at the time it was the 11th highest worldwide box office, I think. So yeah, it was a big hit. It was his biggest hit since ET. The press was largely kind of the film. And really like by this point, indie films had become like credit proof for audiences. Like it's...

Growing fan base, people don't really care if critics like it or not. They're going to go see it. So, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:02:05.596)
That's interesting that that was happening at because for me, Temple of Doom was like a huge setback. And I would have been super skeptical because it was really dark. It was rough.

Eli Price (02:02:17.384)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think yeah, I think people like kind of came around like it still did temple of doom still did well like Yeah, and and yeah, I think it kind of gains like it got some like pushback and But but it did like it still did really well and like I think also like was one of those movies that kind of like got a second win too and people like really liked it

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:02:29.532)
Yeah, I know a lot of people really like it. For me, it was a no go.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:02:48.796)
That's fair. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:02:49.832)
kind of later on. But yeah, I mean, especially when you get to put Sean Connery on the poster with Harrison Ford, it's like, yeah, people are going to come.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:03:02.396)
Yeah, those are because this is after Connery was Bond, right?

Eli Price (02:03:08.132)
yeah, Connery kind of like, he was bond in the fifties. So yeah, or sixties, sorry, not, not fifties, sixties. So yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:03:12.892)
Okay, yeah, we're good, sorry. Yeah, six.

Okay, just making sure I was like, I was pretty sure that I was like, okay, maybe I'll ask it. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:03:22.568)
Yeah, I think, I think that's like, I don't know if that was like the very beginning of his career, but it was towards the beginning of his career. He was Bond. yeah, that not everyone, not all the critics liked it though. There was a lot of reviewers that found it kind of mechanical and like falling off of energy, which I guess if you're viewing it with a certain perspective, I guess you could see that. But yeah. I always like to read Pauline Kale's,

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:03:29.5)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:03:49.832)
reviews from the New Yorker because she is very like, she's one of those like, she's, you're going to like really like it or really like nail it or whatever. And so I just like her reviews, even if I, like, I disagree with her take on this, but I just love, I still like reading her reviews. she had, she said quotes, it's simply, is sorry. I'm

I must have copied and pasted this wrong, but she said something to the effect of it. It simply isn't like as it doesn't have like the exhilarating leaping precision that Spielberg gave us in the past. And I just kind of think that's wrong. Yeah. I guess, I don't know. I guess maybe, I guess so. It could be one of those things where a certain type of person, like I guess Paul and Kale was maybe.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:04:35.1)
I thought the pacing was fantastic.

Eli Price (02:04:49.512)
feels like you have to do something new and different. And I guess this is doing a lot of like the same things that have worked before. And I guess some people might see that as like, you're not growing as a director. You're just doing the same old stuff. But it's also like, well, if it's not broke, like why fix it in my opinion? Like it works. So like, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:04:54.876)
yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:05:14.396)
And it didn't follow a formula. It did a lot of the same things, but it wasn't like formulaic. It was like, we're going to even down to the we're going to hide people like in a bus that, you know, the stand isn't really a stand. But it was done in a different way and wasn't like, how are they going to escape this time? It was like, haha, you suffered my expectations. And the guy you're trying to save is going into the Nazis place as opposed to.

Eli Price (02:05:22.088)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (02:05:37.608)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:05:43.644)
hiding from the Nazis in there. And so I think that was, I think that that's how it was able to stay fresh and be new, because it was still, it was doing things differently. But we were familiar with, so we weren't, as it wasn't like,

Eli Price (02:05:54.824)
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (02:06:02.696)
Yeah, I think this is doing enough new stuff with an indie film that like I really I don't know. I think it's a step forward even for the indie films. But yeah, as far as awards go, it got Oscar nominations for the sound and for the score and it won an Oscar for sound effects editing. So Ben Burt and Richard Hems got their Oscar statuettes and yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:06:12.508)
Yeah, I agree.

Eli Price (02:06:32.68)
The other thing that came out of this was there was actually a TV series from 92 to 93 called the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles starring Sean Patrick Flannery as the young Indiana Jones. but apparently the show flopped. It didn't do very well. but it did have four TV films, that starred, the same, same guy, Flannery.

as young and he had a Jones from 94 to 96. so that are apparently aren't, aren't that great. So they wanted river Phoenix to do it and he did not want to do it. So they had to get somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. I don't blame them. Well, I mean, he was, he was basically like a movie star at this point. So, I mean, why would you, why would you start doing like TV at that? Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:07:07.548)
I remember this.

No.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:07:16.796)
I hate when we typecast. That's fair.

He did a good job.

Eli Price (02:07:31.016)
Yeah. Yeah. So let's, let's just kind of talk about some just key things about the movie. dig in a little bit more. One of the things that I thought was, it's more of like a Spielberg related, like, where he was in life. So it's, it's really like a weird period for Spielberg. and he seems to kind of be a little bit lost in his career in life, trying to find himself. and.

I kind of because of that, I feel, cause I mean, he's coming off the color purple and the empire of the sun, which didn't do as well as he wanted them to do. He's a new dad, at this, you know, fairly new dad. He, I guess his kid is, let's think, I guess his kid is probably like three ish, three, four at this point. so fairly new dad, you know, he's got a marriage that's.

not doing that great. And so to me, I kind of see this as like, it's kind of like a safe swing. Like he gets to re -immersed himself into the Indiana Jones world. Like it's a safe swing and a point in his life where like a lot of stuff is like on the rocks, he's not really sure, you know, where he's going both like career wise and like in his life.

And so like, this is kind of like, let me jump back into this and then like to like re -immersing in his youth with the father, son story and everything. yeah, he, I mean, he goes on. So if you think about like the progression to where he goes after this, he goes on to, explore like divorce with Victor. So always his next movie is kind of like a.

remake of a guy named Joe, Victor Fleming movie. And then like, he goes on to do Hook, which is a Peter Pan story. So he's really like re -immersing himself in his youth after doing a couple of more drama mature films. Yeah, this one, I feel like like, it's kind of like a safety blanket almost in the middle of this like lost period, you know.

Eli Price (02:09:57.32)
where he's like, okay, let me like step back from doing, we talked about, he stepped back from Rain Man and do something that I know people are going to love, that I, that I know, like that I can do well. and I think that's a good move, you know, at a fraught time in your life to kind of step back and do something that you know you can do and that you know, like will be a good experience, you know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:10:15.836)
It is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:10:27.42)
Yeah, and I think he was able to pull it off, obviously, because that's my favorite Indiana Jones movie. But he was able to, I think this goes back to that whole thing we talked about where he would, man, I don't have a right term for it, but just how he's able to not push himself into it and able to stand back and be.

Eli Price (02:10:32.488)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Eli Price (02:10:51.592)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not impressing himself on the... Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:10:56.316)
So he was able to explore the theme exactly. And he was able to explore those themes without doing it. So I think that was.

Eli Price (02:11:01.192)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:11:07.004)
Because just by watching that, I wouldn't have thought anything about what was going on in his life. Yeah. I think that's important because that makes it more timeless.

Eli Price (02:11:17.992)
Yeah, what's going on in his life. Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:23.208)
Right. Yeah. And yeah, he's for sure doing that through his career. He's kind of like working through, and even like if you, there's certain interviews that I've heard where he says like, especially like in his early days, his like early career, he says like movies were my therapy. Like he was kind of working through his stuff through his movies, but he...

He's able to tap into that universal language so that like, it doesn't feel like you're watching some dude deal with his problems. Like it feels more like universal. yeah. Cause I mean, cause another thing at this time was he, is reconciling. He's I think starting to maybe at least reconcile with his father's after like 11 years of estrangement. because you know, this is, if you've seen the fabled men's, you probably like remember this.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:11:55.356)
Right.

Eli Price (02:12:16.84)
aspect, but he thought his parents divorce was because his dad was kind of absent and working kind of a workaholic. But he found out like later on that his mother was actually having an affair and that's why they got divorced. And so he's kind of starting to reconcile with his father at this point. And that plays into this film and the subsequent ones, you know, in the sort of things he's exploring.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:12:43.836)
And they even mentioned something where he's like.

and when they're on the zeppelin and they say something about the, well, your mom never knew or whatever. And it could be that the dad was a strange and that's kind of what you think. But then it also could be a situation where, well, yeah, she cheated on him because she, and so, but that subtle thing, once again, that's something, if you didn't know what was going on, you would just think, it's just part of a conversation that a father and a son would need to broach at some point. So yeah.

Eli Price (02:12:52.584)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:12:56.488)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:13:01.832)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:13:12.84)
Right.

Eli Price (02:13:17.896)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, he's also like obviously not doing that great with Amy Irving when they're shooting because the Not long after they released the movie in June of 89 they divorce So he's done with that too and he really doesn't like start us upswing in his personal life until he marries Kate Capshaw in 91 And also like meets his future collaborator

Janusz Kaminski around this time too. So he's really just in a period of just kind of like a dip in his personal life. And luckily we have this like really great film in the middle of that like just weird part of his life.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:14:03.676)
I wonder not to get religious over the religious, but you've got that kind of idea where like, you know, Jesus is really upset at the Pharisees and that for how dare you try to heal this man and Jesus, I go ahead and raise your hand, like how he channeled that anger and frustration and something creative and beautiful and whatnot. I wonder if this is kind of like the way Spielberg did it because now knowing even more about what had happened.

Eli Price (02:14:20.616)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:25.448)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:14:32.776)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:14:32.988)
It's like the fact that this was such a hopeful and positive and funny and all that kind of movie is like he was channeling all that stuff into something beautiful and and.

Eli Price (02:14:37.8)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:44.616)
Mm -hmm.

and yeah yeah

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:14:48.508)
Yes, thank you. Optimistic, very optimistic and almost idealistic in some ways. It was like.

Eli Price (02:14:53.512)
Yeah, well he is he's a very like sentimental and idealistic director and even in these periods where like he's you know, he's like Empire of the Sun was probably the most like Unidealistic and unsentimental movie he had made up to this point pretty much everything else is very like you can see Even in moments of his life where he was just like wasn't doing well personally his films are still like very sentimental and optimistic

And I really appreciate that. You know, he's, he's able to like work through that stuff. Obviously he's working through it and you can see it. If you know what he's going through in his life, you can kind of see it in the film, but it doesn't come through in a, in a mean way and it doesn't come through in a resentful way. It's still like, yeah, like you said, like idolistic and yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:15:51.644)
Because in the end they ride off into the sunset. And that's kind of like the idea, that's our goal, to be able to ride off into the sunset and be happy.

Eli Price (02:15:54.216)
Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:16:01.416)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mentioned some Spielberg distinctives earlier. I always like to talk about some of those. One of them that you see, you see throughout the tension building. He's great at like building tension through not like big things, but just like little moments and little things. Like one of the...

The standout thing in this movie to me was the tension when he's going through like the three tests before they get to the grill room. But the way he builds tension is he like does these intercuts between Indy doing the test and Henry like talking about what he needs to do, like as he's like, you know, bleeding out from his gunshot wound.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:16:33.948)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:16:48.924)
Right. And yeah, so he's going through and you have like Indy saying that the penitent man or whatever the phrase is. I don't remember. I'm sorry. And then you've got him. And even then, like sometimes Henry didn't. Yeah. He didn't know how to do it. So he couldn't just, you know, remember this? Now he did with the Jehovah with the eye. And that's like.

Eli Price (02:16:52.264)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:17:00.264)
It builds tension. Yeah. It's a right. Yeah. Yeah.

huh. Well, he said it, but he's not hearing it. he's, he's, it's, they're separate, like they're separated. They can't hear each other. yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:17:13.084)
Right, exactly.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:17:19.836)
And that is even more tension because it's like, he knows. How are we going to tell him? We can't tell him. Nobody knows. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:17:24.424)
Yeah. It's just a, it's a very, like it's a very different, unique way to build tension through that, that inner cutting back and forth. I thought that was really cool. yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:17:37.66)
I agree. I hadn't thought of that part. And then even then, so now that I thought about it, I'm thinking more about it, how they are how he's just saying the same things that had been repeated throughout the show or about throughout the movie. But in the hands and he's just like remembering it. And. But then we're getting to see it happening and how they're figuring out in real time, which is.

Eli Price (02:17:43.912)
Heheheheh.

Eli Price (02:17:50.728)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:18:02.44)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:18:06.556)
kind of for us, we get to kind of figure it out real time as well. And we're put into that tension.

Eli Price (02:18:09.864)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it brings in like the, just like that signature thing about the indie films, like the mystery and the like solving the mystery is like part of the fun of an Indiana Jones movie. And, and that's something that temple of doom really lost, I felt like was that solving a mystery, aspect, and so, it's just like refreshing to get that back with last crusade.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:18:19.548)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:18:29.148)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:18:40.008)
Christiaan Funkhouser (02:18:40.316)
And even though it was only like the last like 15 minutes of the movie or last 20 minutes of it and the rest of it was getting to the journey. But it was that that part was such a good payoff. You didn't have to spend, you know, the whole thing and trying to figure it out. It's just that was whereas in Raiders of the Lost Ark, they were establishing that Indy was the one that knew all this stuff. And that's so we don't we're not part of that process. But then we got to be part of it. And even like showing.

Eli Price (02:18:44.04)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:18:48.872)
Right, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:19:10.044)
at least in the first one with the breath of God test how the one person got their head chopped off. So then we got to like, see, they're like, OK, let's see. I wonder if it has something, you know, that kind of stuff.

Eli Price (02:19:14.312)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:19:21.48)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it also like gets you a... I don't know, Donovan is like actually like a really good little villain, I thought. You get to see some of that in that sequence for sure.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:19:34.236)
And that was, are we, do we have a part we're going to talk about the villains? Cause I want to, I have more thoughts on that.

Eli Price (02:19:37.32)
Yeah, we can. We can, we can hit it when we're, we'll talk about characters and, in a second and we'll, we'll, I'll give you some area to talk about that. yeah, one, another Spielberg, we talked a little bit about like the wide shots. you get closeups. We talked about that Spielberg distinctive. One of the things that's a Spielberg distinctive that I love that, is so,

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:19:42.3)
Okay, cool. Good to.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:19:47.708)
Yeah, it works.

Eli Price (02:20:05.736)
I don't think Spielberg is great at doing like a full -on comedy movie because 1941 was a disaster of a movie. but he is actually like really good at comedy, but it's like these short little gags and stuff like that. He puts into like the other, like it's like add -ons. He's really good at like comedic add -ons.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:20:28.764)
Right.

Eli Price (02:20:30.44)
And so I wrote I was like thinking like okay, what are all like the gags in this movie? So I was like made a list of all the like funny things I thought was funny that made me like chuckle as I watched the movie the first one the very first one is when young Indy like misses the horse He jumps off and the horse runs forward. I'm like, that's good

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:20:46.364)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:20:51.26)
Cause he, he, he caught it. He jumped on the horse that way normally in Raiders, I think. Right. He like lands perfectly and that type of chicks. Yep.

Eli Price (02:20:56.424)
Yeah, exactly. So it's a callback. Yeah. It's a callback. So it's like a double joke. It's like a he misses it. And that's just like funny slapstick. But also like it's a callback to to Indy jumping on the horse. Yeah. And the first one. Yeah. The one of the fun. One of my favorite, favorite gags in the movie is the librarian. He stamped in the books and he's banging on the, you know, the stone. He's like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:21:21.66)
Yes!

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:21:25.564)
and he's like...

Eli Price (02:21:26.376)
He's so confused. He's like, how is my stand making this? And it's just like, it's really stupid. But it's just funny. I love it. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:21:34.684)
Yeah.

And it also brought back to like, even though it was, it's unrealistic, it's also realistic. Cause it's like, well, you know what? People aren't just going to be randomly able to destroy things without making noise. But he's like, I'm going to take this and then funnel this silliness into, or funnel this real thing that would happen into something that's kind of silly and go from there.

Eli Price (02:21:42.152)
Right.

Eli Price (02:21:48.136)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:21:57.584)
Yeah, it's silly that it's happening in the first place. So why not? Let's, let's just make a gag out of it, you know? cause the reality is who's going to just like, let this guy like destroy the floor of the library. But yeah, so they just kind of lean into that and like, okay, we'll make it a gag, you know? you know, why don't people notice the noise? it's cause this guy thinks it's a stamp.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:22:06.844)
Yeah, and address the reality of the situation too.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:22:13.66)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:22:26.076)
Right. But even then they did mention, they think, the library is closing. I'm going to go and make sure that we're good. So he knows enough to throw in the little things too.

Eli Price (02:22:30.632)
Yeah, yeah. man. Yeah. yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's a little detail that's there that I wasn't even thinking about. Yeah, you get the line Nazis. I hate these guys. Just a funny line. Yeah, let me get run through these. Some other lines that I love. No ticket.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:22:54.94)
Yeah, we're good.

Eli Price (02:22:59.079)
And everybody like holds up their ticket. all the Indy. So when Indy gives the speech about Brody, Brody's like competence, and then it cuts Brody's like, does anybody speak English? It's great. It's a great comedic, little thing. the Sean Connery is actually has some really good like comedic delivery. he's like, there's a fire. It's like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:22:59.26)
Yes! Yes, that's so good.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:23:11.632)
Yeah, he can speak 12 languages and he's good. He's already there right now. Yep.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:23:24.412)
so many good lines yeah

Eli Price (02:23:28.552)
And he's like, thinks it's a metaphor. He's like, no, look, it's actual fire. Love it. and the other one is when he's, he's like manning the gun on the plane and he shoots the tail of the plane. It's just like, looks like they got us son.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:23:32.976)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:23:52.22)
That was so good because like in both situations he caused it, but he just like played it off and let Indy think that it was so I think in that one he's like did they shoot us and he was like Because you could tell he was trying to figure out like how am I gonna explain this? And once again, that's a very realistic thing that if you've never shot the gun thing You might not even think about and then they play it off and make it good

Eli Price (02:23:57.)
Yeah, place it off. He's like, I'm afraid they got us.

Yep.

Eli Price (02:24:16.424)
Yeah, you wouldn't. Yeah, yeah, you're just shooting and. yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:24:22.268)
I think in the fireplace, twisty thing, when they find the secret thing, that was just when they spin around one time and they don't show anything, and then they go to the second time and then do they get noticed and they're like, that was really good too.

Eli Price (02:24:26.872)
yeah, that's fun.

Eli Price (02:24:31.656)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I don't know that that lady's yelling is supposed to be funny, but it's pretty funny. She's just like, I don't know what she's saying something in German, but.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:24:42.46)
Yeah.

I think she said allies.

Eli Price (02:24:49.756)
is that what she said? I didn't have the... A lot of times I have subtitles on, but I didn't have subtitles on this time. So yeah, I don't know. I did have a few little quibbles with the film. Yeah, yeah, go for it. yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot to mention that. That's a great line. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:24:51.58)
I that's how I heard it this last time, but who knows what it actually was.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:25:07.004)
Well, just real quick, the and then the pen is mightier than the sword. That is that's one that I I have a fountain pen. And I was like, if ever I need to do that stuck with me. Like from when I was a little kid watching it and the thing just the pen is more than because I'm not the type of person and I've never have been to like the I'm going to go out and punch people and whatnot, but I like turn out smart. And so like I was able to relate to the dad and that one is like, ha ha. And just like how.

Eli Price (02:25:21.864)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:25:29.448)
Right.

Eli Price (02:25:32.904)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:25:35.484)
And I actually like the fact that it was Brody who got a kick out of it. They're like in this super situation. They're almost about to die. Yeah, he's like, the pen is mine. That's so it's great.

Eli Price (02:25:39.112)
Mm -hmm Yeah, and he's like over explaining which makes it funny get it Yeah, of course you have like the the named after the dog gag too I forgot to mention that which is fun. It is yeah, it's it's Lucas's dog is named Indiana. So that's what the character is named after. Yeah. Yeah

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:25:56.348)
Which is a real thing, isn't it? Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:26:04.22)
That's crazy. But his name is, the character's real name is Junior Indiana Jones, I think.

Eli Price (02:26:09.736)
It's Henry. Yeah. Henry Jones Jr. Yeah. Yeah. That's his actual name and he took on the dog's name. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:26:12.444)
OK. I think.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:26:18.812)
Good deal. Let's get.

Eli Price (02:26:20.84)
Yeah, a few fun little quibbles Sometimes I find some quibbles, which this is a movie that I love so these are like really like insignificant quibbles I just think they're kind of funny. what the first one is like indy bases his entire persona on this guy He meets for like 30 seconds as a kid Like what's that about? apparently

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:26:42.556)
Yeah?

Because he matches. Yeah, because.

Eli Price (02:26:46.408)
Apparently though, they originally intended for that character to be Marion's dad, who, who like became his mentor, but they just like that never materialized in the script, I guess. And so I'm just being like, so this guy like takes the, this, this cross and like gives him a fedora and he's like, that's who I want to be. which I guess is like, that happens with kids, I guess, you know, they.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:26:52.796)
Christiaan Funkhouser (02:27:09.948)
Yeah, that's that is.

Eli Price (02:27:16.488)
You know, they're easily like, I want to be just like this person that I don't really know, you know? But yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:27:24.316)
Yeah. And then he...

Yeah. And that makes sense. Yep. Yep. That will. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:27:34.632)
Yeah, the another quibble is, what, what's the deal with the cruciform sword brotherhood? Like what, who are these guys and why do they care so much about the grill? And like, it's just like, it's just like, kind of weird. I don't, I don't really get those guys, but, but you know, whatever it's fun.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:27:48.636)
Yeah!

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:27:57.34)
like we're going to go kill you and then it's like no you don't care about the girl okay cool go on about your business yeah

Eli Price (02:28:01.608)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's just, I don't know. It's a quibble. It's still fun. I don't, you know, I don't really care that much about it. The only other quibble I have is why does someone need to protect the grill if it becomes ineffective when you leave the room? Like, why do you like who cares? Like who cares if someone is immortal living in this room? Like, you know, I don't know it. I guess it's just because it's sacred, you know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:28:19.9)
Yeah, that's fair.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:28:26.972)
Right. And.

Eli Price (02:28:31.816)
I guess that's the thing. Like it's sacred and holy, so you don't want just anyone getting to it. I don't know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:28:35.068)
Was it that?

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:28:42.652)
And then they they don't. OK, well, I guess that's more cool to the other one, because obviously he ages and stuff like that. But.

Eli Price (02:28:48.904)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but so it because he does leave the room but it I guess it's power enough to heal the you know, the heal the thing in the moment.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:28:59.036)
So I was under the impression that it was a. It worked, but if you took the cup past the seal, then the cup just became a normal cup and it was no longer the Holy Grail. But that it would still like if the Nazis, like if Hitler were to go in there and and drink it and then leave, then he would be he would have the benefits of it.

Eli Price (02:29:13.64)
Right.

Eli Price (02:29:19.688)
No, I don't think so. That's not the idea that I got from the way the Knight described it. The way I understood it is like, if you leave the room, then you're just like, you're back to normal.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:29:37.084)
Yeah, that that's even more.

Eli Price (02:29:38.024)
Maybe I'm wrong on that. Maybe you're right. Maybe it is only like if the cup leaves the room, it's useless. Maybe it is like you can drink and then leave. That would, I guess, make more sense as to why someone needs to guard it.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:29:49.82)
I was thinking why would...

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:29:54.396)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:29:55.016)
But that's not how I understood it. I don't know. It wasn't, well yeah, that was, I did like that aspect. That was fun, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:29:58.844)
And then why were there so many cups there?

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:30:05.18)
I did, yes, and that was one of the ones that's always... Okay, so let me ask you this. Did Elsa intentionally try to sabotage the guy? You think it was? Okay.

Eli Price (02:30:12.552)
yeah, absolutely. yeah, she didn't like that dude. She was just interested in the grail. Just like Indy was, I think.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:30:21.596)
Yeah, and it's.

Because that's this is this this watching it through the most recent time I began to realize like, wait a second. She's disillusioned with the Nazis because they hate knowledge and stuff like that. And that was.

Eli Price (02:30:36.232)
Right. She doesn't like, she's not all about the Nazi. Like she's not lying when she says she's not interested in the Nazis, I think earlier in the movie. Well, you get that shot, you get that shot of her like tearing up when they're burning the books. That it's like a very character building little closeup that tells you so much about who she is and what she cares about.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:30:42.62)
Yeah. And but previous.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:30:50.62)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:30:56.828)
Yeah, this is the first time I really paid attention to that part. And I was like, wait a second. And that's why she doesn't scream. And then when he's like, doesn't kill her. Yeah, that is interesting.

Eli Price (02:31:01.032)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:09.128)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, any are there any other like a really intriguing or like important like images or sequences that you like stand out to you in the film?

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:31:27.9)
I thought the, we talked about like the jostling on the motorcycle being a really cool thing.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:31:40.988)
the end of it.

When he has the notebook and he meets Hitler. Like that was a really like kind of funny, but then also kind of like, he's and then like how Hitler kind of signs it right on. Yeah, it's it's very. Interesting and how like, you know, Indy's got to say, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to I need to survive? And then how he goes in and he and how it was just all kind of like random to how it wasn't like.

Eli Price (02:31:47.464)
Yeah, yeah, that's a really funny gag.

Eli Price (02:31:56.264)
Yeah, a little tension.

Eli Price (02:32:03.016)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:32:12.072)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:32:13.916)
And then and I thought that was interesting and kind of goes into the whole thing of like, well, Hitler was signing autographs because at the time Hitler was very popular in Germany. And it brings us back to reality and like seeing how people glorified him and that kind of stuff. While still. We know that it's bad, obviously, and and then kind of seeing what almost as this field was like, hmm, I wonder what would happen if and unlike the Captain America Punch the Nazi thing, it was a.

Eli Price (02:32:22.088)
yeah.

Eli Price (02:32:33.448)
Right.

Eli Price (02:32:39.944)
yeah, no.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:32:44.092)
I'm going to get this book. Or, you know, then he signs it, which I think is and and Hitler even looks through it a little bit. So. And I think that was another thing of adding extra attention to it, because like, is this Hitler actually know what's going on with this? He going to recognize it? Is he? Yep, he's just like, this is some thing. So I thought that was really cool. And then the.

Eli Price (02:32:47.944)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:32:57.032)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:33:00.776)
Yeah, turns out he's just a doofus.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:33:13.34)
the other sequence. I'll get back to you. My brain just kind of went away for a second.

Eli Price (02:33:18.76)
Yeah. Yeah. I, so I really love the, the, the whole like conversation they have, like the heart to heart thing that Indy, Indy's like basically like trying to get his dad to like regret. And, he's like saying, you know, you weren't there, like you didn't show any interest in me. And I thought it was really interesting how.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:33:33.724)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:33:47.784)
you know, Connery's Henry Jones is kind of like, you know, well, you weren't interesting. And then when you became interesting, you like you left and, and then he does the whole like, well, I'm here now. Like, what do you want to talk about? and, and he's like, I really have no idea. And he's like, so what are you complaining about? Like, let's get back to it. It's really interesting. Cause it's. At first you're like, he's just like being dismissive of.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:34:09.212)
Yeah, that was...

Eli Price (02:34:18.536)
you know, his childhood or, but, but then like, when you really keep watching the movie, you kind of realize like, well, like he is like connecting with him now. And I guess that's just how that character sees it. It's like, why are we going to delve through all that? Like, let's, let's do what we are doing now. We're connecting now. Let's, you know, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:34:41.98)
Spend time in the moment now and not... Yeah, exactly.

Eli Price (02:34:45.544)
But yeah, I just thought that was really interesting. Like obviously it's sort of just like kind of a funny thing too, but yeah, really love that. I love like the three tests is so fun. The breath of God, the word of God, the path of God. That's great stuff.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:35:02.044)
Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:35:08.828)
And, and he mentions, you know, it's a leap of faith as what's gonna do it. And I think, and I think that was able to pay homage to an overall religiosity without like being too much. I guess Lucas was able to kind of do his thing without going too much into it.

Eli Price (02:35:12.744)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:35:23.176)
Yeah, well that's something in that's something in all these is like they're very religious, you know, they're they have these religious motifs that kind of run through them, which is interesting. It's yeah. yeah, let's talk about characters. young, young. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:35:42.652)
Okay. Actually, real quick. The let it go part. I saw a note over here. I think because you talked about the silhouettes and like the ending thing. I really. It always perplexed me when I watched it as a kid. So he literally sees her reaching down. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. And then not doing it. And then it almost like literally immediately recreates. And I've always like, why is he doing it? Like then I was thinking.

Eli Price (02:35:47.4)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:35:52.52)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:36:07.784)
Right, right. Yeah.

because they feel this. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:36:13.436)
Well, maybe he could maybe he felt like he could grab it and whatnot. But then this time, like when I was watching, I was like, he's he's wanting to do it because he's reconnecting with his dad. And this is so important to his dad. And he wants his dad to be able to like this. I'm reinterpreting it. You know, he wants his dad to be able to achieve that thing that he's always wanted, like not to get the dad's approval, but because he's reconnected with his dad and he wants to show his dad, hey, I love you and I want this has been your dream. And.

Eli Price (02:36:29.128)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:36:42.94)
really, you didn't even get to touch it because it was saving your life. And now that you're sent, you know, you can meet your thing. And he was doing it out of love. And then but then that was like, just let it go. And that was and so that was a really touching part. Whereas before, I was just really like, Andy, why are you being stupid? It's like almost like with the ring, like where he's like, I need to have it. And it's like, no, it's not about that potentially. And I think that was a really cool sequence.

Eli Price (02:36:47.784)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:36:55.016)
Yeah. yeah.

Eli Price (02:37:07.336)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't think about it in that light, but I do. I do. Now that you say that, like that is probably true. there, it, that see, that sequence is like the culmination of, you know, we can dive into a little bit that father son relationship. That's like that, if that, the movie kind of rises or falls on that really,

father son dynamic and the, the relate that relationship and you know, what are they, you know, that, you know, are they going to reconcile? Are they like good? it, one of the things that I noticed was, so the whole movie, he calls him junior. and when he's like trying to save him, that's the first time he calls him Indiana too. And so, so that, that's it even.

That was one of the reasons why it was like so touching to me. It's like, he's like looking down and you know, he's trying to like save him and he says like, Indiana, let it go. and yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:38:17.404)
And he's not doing it in like an ordering voice. It's a father pleading with his son, hey, let it, yeah.

Eli Price (02:38:21.992)
Yeah, it's father. It's and it's caring and it's and it even like could be, you know, you know, going back to both the conversation that they had at the bar and also like the what you were talking about of like Indy's trying to get it because his dad always wanted like he wants to please his dad and make his dad proud. And it's almost like he's saying like, let it go being like, let it go.

Like literally like let go of trying to get the grail, but also like let go of the past. Like you don't have to, you don't have to like try to please me or make me proud. Like, and he says his name, which is for the first time that he goes by, which is another way of saying, like, I see you. Like you don't have to, you don't have to do that. Like you don't have to hold onto those things. Like I see you right now for who you are. And like, I'm.

you know, proud of you and it's like, yeah, so, so touching.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:39:22.748)
Yeah. So then you go theologically and it's, you know, that's what Jesus does. Hey, let go of the things that you pursuing these things is only going to bring you pain and death and stuff like that. Let go and just trust me and let's get out of here. So there's so much good stuff. So good.

Eli Price (02:39:34.408)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you, and you know, like, you know, that Henry is like kind of working toward that point because, you know, when the tank crashes, you know, he thinks he lost Indiana Jones and he's, he's like, I've lost them. I never told him anything. I, you know, I wasn't ready and five minutes would have been enough. And, you know, they, you know, he comes back and they hug and stuff, but this is like the.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:39:54.812)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:40:06.632)
the final like culmination of that of like him. I don't know, just like they, they see each other finally and they like, they can let go of whatever happened in the past and move forward. and you know, that propels into, you know, Spielberg mentioned in the, in the making of on this topic, like he mentioned how,

The movie doesn't end with some big action thing or some special effects. It ends with the father -son meeting of the minds and hearts and then they ride off together into the sunset. So it's like they're moving forward. Yeah, really, really cool.

Eli Price (02:40:56.648)
Yeah. yeah. Characters young Indy. One of the, the only thing I wanted to put on talk about for young Indy is just like the character building efficiency that Spielberg has. And just like a 10 minute sequence you got, I mean, we've got his early vocation, his uniform with the leather jacket and whip. You've got the scar on his chin, which is fun. you know, Harrison Ford actually has the scar, which I think he said he got in a car accident.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:41:08.316)
It was so good. It's just like.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:41:25.724)
Interesting.

Eli Price (02:41:26.056)
So not as exciting as a whip scar, but you know, his weapon, you get this fear of snakes, you get the...

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:41:32.956)
When he wasn't like right beforehand, he wasn't because the snake falls on the big dude and he's like, it's just a snake and the third side. But then we find out, OK, that's that's I would be afraid to. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:41:35.944)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:41:39.656)
Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's frightening. Yeah. You get, you even get like a couple of his mantras like, like that belongs in a museum and what are you going to do? I don't know. I'll figure it out. You know, those are kind of some classic Indiana Jones mantras. You get even a taste of like his relationship with his father. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:41:51.836)
belongs in a museum. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:07.016)
I mean, just incredible like character building. And it's like stuff you already know about Indiana Jones, but it's just like this fun way of reminding you of all the things you know about Indiana Jones. And yeah, just great.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:42:11.196)
And it didn't seem forced. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:42:25.852)
And like we talked about the horse jumping things. We got to see like, this is how he, he kind of grew and did all this stuff. And it didn't seem forced. It didn't seemed, it, we are, we've already bought into this concept that are on the thing. okay. So there's a lion lion tamer has the bull whip, you know, we're not too concerned that he knew how to do the bull whip immediately. And did it hurt himself or other, because it makes sense. And I think that was,

Eli Price (02:42:33.)
Mm -hmm, yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:44.648)
Yep.

Eli Price (02:42:48.968)
yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:52.552)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:42:55.836)
It did a really good job of kind of showing everything. I also throw back to like the Boy Scouts back in the day. I was like, he's a he's a life scout. This is great.

Eli Price (02:42:58.536)
Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. I think in like 88 or 89, Spielberg got like the some sort of special like honor, like Eagle Scout honor like thing award that the Boy Scouts presented him with, which is really cool. So yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:43:23.74)
I will say that never in a million years did we ever do anything like that when I was in Scouts. We're not going around in the mountains and stuff.

Eli Price (02:43:27.656)
Yeah. You're not going into the canyon country of Utah and exploring on horses. Yeah, that's too bad. Yeah. man. You had mentioned Donovan. You wanted to touch on something for Donovan.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:43:35.32)
And people may have done it, but that was not my experience with it.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:43:47.228)
Yeah, he was. I really appreciate smart villains. And he had that one scene like so first off, I had forgotten that he was a villain. So he's going through there and I was like, he's just a good like passing on information, doing this stuff. But there's that one scene. And I think it was Donovan who did it. It might have been the other Nazi guy, but where?

Eli Price (02:43:53.192)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:43:58.12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:44:03.624)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:44:15.452)
So they have to they have to make the decision. Do we go for the map, which is in. Wherever or do we go to get the book and so then you fast forward a little bit and one of the bad guys, and I think it was Donovan who was like, well, no, you obviously know this meat. This book obviously means something you still need it because that's why you went to Berlin. And like, that's not something I thought about, but it makes sense. And I like having a clever villain that would would do that.

Eli Price (02:44:19.848)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:44:33.384)
Right.

Eli Price (02:44:39.88)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:44:44.552)
Yeah. And he's also like, he's, he's smart and he's also like very menacing, like you, and you really get that there at the very end. Like he's, he's like, the dude gets his head chopped off and he's like, next somebody else try. And then like, you know, he just like straight up shoots Henry, like no, like not even a second thought about it. You know? yeah. -huh. Again, tension.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:44:46.012)
And I.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:44:54.076)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:44:59.804)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:45:08.252)
Yeah. And that put a time clock on it, which was because and that just shows how intelligent he was like, this is the only way I'm going to get Indiana Jones to do this. I need to do something that he cares about. I need I need to do something that would harm something that he would care about. And he didn't choose to do to to shoot Elsa, which I think stereotypically could be done. But I think it was smart enough to do it. And he chose to that because he knew he wasn't good.

Eli Price (02:45:18.152)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:45:29.032)
Right.

Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:45:36.828)
Because I don't think that Indy would have done what he did if it was for, my gosh, his other two companions. I think he would have only done it for the dad. Exactly. And so I just think that was really smart and really clever. And.

Eli Price (02:45:45.224)
for Elsa.

yeah, Brody or Sala, yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:45:56.968)
Yeah. In any Bond movie or any other Indiana Jones movie, it would have been Elsa getting shot. But yeah, it was the dad. And I think even in, there was like a panel interview of all, like the indie women at one point and, Alison duty talked about how she was like jealous because that should have been her role, but Sean Connery was doing her role. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:46:18.652)
Should have been me. Wow. And I think the other thing, the, how was it called?

They wait to kill the people. Like when he was in the car, he is like, OK, keep them alive because you never know if we might need them or whatever. And then as soon as he gets the notification, we have the map. And he's like, OK, now you can kill them. Go and kill them. And like because he didn't do the classic, classic like Bond thing of, well, Mr. Bond, you will die eventually. Have a good day. You know, and then he gets out or the Batman villain or whatever. It's it was a.

Eli Price (02:46:41.64)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:46:48.232)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:56.136)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:47:01.18)
we're going to go and tie up these loose ends because and then you're smart. So there's this I really appreciate smart and cleverly written bad guys who are like realistically without. He wasn't just like evil for evil's sake. He was we're going to go through and figure this out. And then.

Eli Price (02:47:02.824)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:47:12.136)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:16.872)
Yeah.

Little did he know he's dealing with a man who somehow looks into figuring his way out of stuff in every situation. Yeah, which is a great thing about Indy. He doesn't ever like, it's not like his like, extreme intellect and intuition. It's always just like he looks into stuff. I love it.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:47:30.172)
and his rationale.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:47:39.484)
like, this is, I guess so. And then when he, when Donovan had the fancy cup, you know, and he was like, this is fit for the king of kings. Totally makes sense. Absolutely believable on there. Yeah. So I think that he was really good. And then, like you said about Indy, I think he's kind of that every man character because it's like, he gets into the mess and now granted he has an inordinate amount of luck to be able to get out of these things that nobody else would.

Eli Price (02:47:46.472)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. Sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:47:59.912)
Right.

Eli Price (02:48:06.44)
Yo, yeah. Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:48:09.5)
But especially in happening to find Nazis whose uniforms he can wear, with the exception of the one time enragers who looked like a stripper. But it's I think that's one of the really cool things about Indiana Jones and why he is so universally beloved is because he's not super powerful at everything. He he makes mistakes. He pays for those mistakes. A lot of times we're getting punched in the face.

Eli Price (02:48:14.632)
Yes.

yeah.

Eli Price (02:48:25.832)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:48:33.736)
Right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:48:36.572)
and not all of his plans work. And that's part of the fun of things. So I think it's, I think that goes back to George Lucas's, his love with the monomyth. Because we get to see, yep.

Eli Price (02:48:40.776)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:48:48.52)
Yeah, yeah. The Joseph Campbell hero's journey. Like, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Ford in Ford was saying in an interview that I saw that the most important thing about the character was, and like why he like stands the test of time is like both kind of his tenacity in that way that we've been talking about and also like his pleasure and just seeing amazing things and solving mysteries. Like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:48:53.852)
We get to see that through.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:49:18.428)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:49:18.6)
You just see like on his face, like when he's just like excited, like he, Indiana Jones gets excited at the same time we get excited. which I, yeah. No, go ahead.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:49:28.12)
Right. Like in Raiders, when he goes and he just drops it and he's kind of waiting to see. And then we're all kind of waiting to see. And then when things start to fall, then that's one of the ones where we got to see him look back. And he's so expressive with his eyes. there's a giant rock. Or in this case with the.

Eli Price (02:49:36.264)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:47.912)
Yeah, right.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:49:55.484)
Anyway, there's a lot of different things, especially with the tank. How like he's hanging there and he's like, OK, I'm good. And then he's like, God, no, I'm not good. And then things just one guy gets shot and then the tank moves just in the right amount of time. And then he's like, or sorry. But then at the end, you know, things are super sentimental. And he just he's like kind of looking over the rock face with everybody else. And he's just out of breath and beaten. And he's just like,

Eli Price (02:49:58.184)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:50:02.024)
Hahaha.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:50:20.36)
Mm -hmm.

yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:50:25.34)
And he's there. He's like, let me give me a chance to rest. And they're like, no, we got to go. We got to go. And he's like, yeah, of course. Yes, he needs that, which is great. I have that. That was fun.

Eli Price (02:50:29.328)
Okay. And the hat blows in of course. Yeah. You gotta have the hat. yeah. Love it. yeah. The other thing I was thinking about was like, when he's looking at, when they're in the library and he's looking at the stained glass and he's seeing the numbers and he's like slowly putting together, you can see on his face. And I was doing the same thing. I was like thinking like, the X and remembering like the X marks the spot.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:50:51.996)
Yes.

Eli Price (02:50:59.56)
comment he made in the class, like X never marks the spot. And so I was remembering that line and putting it together at the same time he was. And so like the excitement of like solving the mystery, like you get, you do that with Indiana Jones. And I think that's like one of the reasons why, like, you can still connect with Indiana Jones because he's, he's like, gets excited along with you and he's figuring it out, like along with you as the audience, which is really fun.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:51:02.684)
Never mind this f -

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:51:08.7)
Right.

Yes.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:51:28.092)
And especially in this one, they take you along the journey a little bit more. Where in Raiders, he was the one, I'm going to bring the dirt. And then because they were kind of establishing.

Eli Price (02:51:32.872)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (02:51:37.608)
Mm -hmm. This is this one is his dad's expertise more so he's yeah, so Mm -hmm

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:51:42.716)
Yeah. And he's just kind of going along with it. And I am so glad that they didn't just make him a Yoda character.

Eli Price (02:51:49.32)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. The I guess the other character we should touch on is Elsa in general. You know, it's it's one of those things where is Elsa just there as a catalyst to bring the father and son together? Like, should we? Is this kind of like product of the times the woman is there to help the man realize himself both for like father and son? And I don't know.

It's one of those things where like.

could the female characters have been written a little bit better and more like independent and yes. but I do feel like this one is, she does feel like she has more agency, than especially, you know, the, the character in temple of doom is just like, she has no agency. She has. Yeah. Marion has some agency.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:52:43.26)
Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:52:48.252)
She's just there to scream and just yell about some stuff.

Eli Price (02:52:53.352)
that she kind of like loses a little bit more and more as the film goes on, unfortunately. but like this character feels more like she has a little bit more agency throughout the film. Like she's making decisions that aren't relying on the man, but at the same time, she is kind of like a plot point to kind of like bring father and son together. but at the end of the day, like this just isn't really about the women characters.

you know, it's just one of those things where it's like, you know, maybe it could have been written in a way, you know, if this was written today, like you won't, I mean, you get, you get what we got with dial of destiny. You get a female character that's like way more in control and way more like has way more agency. you just wouldn't really get a character like this in most movies.

today, which I think in some ways is good, but you know.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:53:55.644)
But I think she...

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:54:00.764)
it in this one. So in Dial of Destiny, it takes place a lot further in the future. I think for her ending up being like a Nazi agent or whatever the case is, I think it totally makes sense. They would have used her and her good looks and she would have used that to get ahead and they used her to get with Indy. Now that's a gripe that I have against it. I don't think that I don't like the idea that Indy and his dad slept with the same girl. That was weird. I wasn't fan of that.

Eli Price (02:54:05.032)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:54:12.872)
Right, right.

Eli Price (02:54:17.448)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:54:28.776)
Yeah, it's a weird like Oedipal thing going on there. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:54:30.924)
Yeah. And it's like, you didn't have to get into that. It's OK. But for her to use her feminine wiles to get this, because obviously, because she has so much agency, almost it was more like a Scarlett Johansson, a Black Widow type thing. Let me use my feminine wiles to get what I need so that I can to meet my goals.

Eli Price (02:54:35.528)
That's it. It's okay. But I...

Eli Price (02:54:48.264)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:54:55.112)
Sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:54:59.368)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:54:59.836)
It wasn't that she was just being used to help them, but she had every reason to do it because she was a very dedicated and strong person. And she knew, she knew what she was doing. And I don't feel that she was user. And I think she did have a lot of agency because she was the one that chose to turn, over. And I think that was, so yeah.

Eli Price (02:55:12.168)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:55:16.072)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:55:25.672)
Yeah, I think so. I think the where the critique, because this would have been like probably a critique from some people at the time and probably still today, it's lessen how she plays out in the as a character, like within the framework of the story and more of like the writing of the character for the purpose that like she's written for. So like the term some would use would be like the Hitchcock blonde.

And so like that the idea of the Hitchcock blonde was Hitchcock loved You know a pretty blonde woman who was who had like she was smart and she was strong But but a lot of times in those Hitchcock movies where you have that character She is there to kind of help the male character like realize himself like if you think of rear window like the female like she's she's strong. She's smart

You're like, why is this guy's, this guy is stupid. Why doesn't he marry this woman? but really at the end of the day, like she doesn't have any like character arc herself necessarily. She's just there as like a strong, pretty blonde woman to help the man realize himself, like to, to help him dive into his site. So it's more of like using, it's more of like the writing, and using the character to do that thing. And I, and I think that's.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:56:44.38)
Okay, that's interesting.

Eli Price (02:56:53.992)
a fair critique. I just think it's not like that big of a deal for an Indiana Jones movie that like isn't really taking itself all that seriously anyway. So, you know,

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:57:07.516)
I think if it wouldn't have been her, they could have easily have in this particular, like in Temple of Doom, it had like that one. It really was more just that's just a woman there to be a random love and they have no chemistry or something like that. I think if they would have obviously taken out the romance aspect of it, but they could have easily have switched this with a male character. And so because of that, I think it was just the assistant who was there to kind of.

Eli Price (02:57:16.584)
Yeah, that's just bad.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:30.024)
Right. Sure. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:57:36.54)
Lauren and to kind of lull us into a sense of false security. So I think they could have done that. So that's why I guess I'll give them a little bit more of a pass, because it wasn't like a woman in the fridge or girlfriend, wife in the fridge, whatever that trope is. So I think where that that's what's spurring on. I think this was a so I'll give it a little bit more of a pass. But I think definitely more agency than a Bond girl. And I see what you're saying about the Hitchcock blonde.

Eli Price (02:57:40.072)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:48.712)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:57:58.696)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:58:06.62)
But I think she had a little more agency. Whereas in Rear Window, you definitely could not switch her out with another character. It had to be a woman in that role, whereas I think you could do so. Yeah. But I think she played it very well. And even at the end, we saw that she was, well, even for her end, we saw that her, my goodness. She cared about it too much, and that was her downfall. But then it.

Eli Price (02:58:12.776)
Sure.

Eli Price (02:58:17.544)
Yeah, yeah, that's a fair point, yeah.

Eli Price (02:58:23.688)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:58:32.392)
Yeah. Well, yeah, duty, Alison duty did mention in an interview, like she actually did like how the character goes from like good to like just totally obsessed in the end. Yeah. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:58:42.748)
Yeah. Which I think is very interesting because maybe that was how she was justifying this as a whole. Maybe that's what she was justifying. Like she realized the Nazis are bad. And she's like, if I had this, then maybe I can atone for some of the things. Maybe reading too much into. But I think the major part of her agency is when she uses what she had, that place that she had gotten to get rid of Donovan. I like you can totally trust me now because I've been building this up and then haha.

Eli Price (02:58:55.432)
Yeah, maybe, yeah.

Eli Price (02:59:06.568)
Yeah, yep. Yeah. Right, yeah. Turns on him. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I wrote down this, I've been listening. So I have read Steven Spielberg, all the films. It's like a big kind of like compilation. It's up here. Yeah. Above me, if you're watching. But it's, and I always, I don't know if I mentioned this all the time, but I do put,

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:59:12.06)
Here, have this cup. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (02:59:23.068)
and you're back, behind you. Yep.

Eli Price (02:59:35.304)
my like major reading resources and the episode notes at the bottom. So if you do want to like, what was that book called? What, you know, what was the author, you know, I put those in the notes because I do pull a lot of like information from, I pull a lot of information from like, the making of docs and stuff on the disc, but also like the, I have this book and then, a life in Steven Spielberg, a life in film by Molly Haskell. I pull a lot of stuff from that. I've listened to that on audio book.

That's why I don't have it behind me. But yeah, I pulled this quote from her book. I thought it was really good on the note of characters. She said, quote, Spielberg's skill at humanizing his characters just enough to draw one in, primarily through the universal nexus of family and childhood, creates a felt reality in which the two dimensional characters seem out of place. Spielberg's recognition of himself.

and his workaholic father represented a major shift in sympathy. And it was a theme that would play out and hook too. So she's, she's just kind of talking about how, Spielberg is so good at humanizing his characters, drawing you in. You, you've got that universal thing that, that we've talked about that he plays into. and then she applies it specifically to like, you have, you have a kid and the workaholic father that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:00:53.692)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:01:01.192)
You know, you see that also in like hook, play out there. And so, just as like examples of how he does that. And yeah, it's, it's like what you're talking about earlier. Like you see in the characters. Play out like Spielberg has his movies as making movies as therapy, you know, working out those things like, yeah, just like that, that kind of stuff. yeah, the, the, the last thing I just wanted to mention was this.

and this is something that I think, I think I just to kind of like give a shout out, I think it was Sean Fennesey that pointed out these relations on, the rewatchables podcast. And I listened to it. They have an episode on this. that's good. but he was pointing out that there are a lot of parallels to the fabelmans. And he was kind of saying that because of that, this really.

Like in hindsight, this seems like a core text for Spielberg, this movie. So he was pointing out that Young Indy and the Circus Train is kind of like, relates to Spielberg's first movie, the greatest show on earth being something that, you know, it's a circus movie and that's something that like was integral to him, you know, pursuing moviemaking was seeing that movie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:02:15.676)
Hmm.

Eli Price (03:02:22.44)
and then you have this complex emotional relationship with an intellectual and withholding father, which you see play out in the fabled men's as like, you know, semi autobiographical thing. And you see it play out here. we, we kind of talked about the weird, weird, Oedipal relationship with the mother, that he had, you know, and the father and son sleeping with the same woman is kind of like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:02:42.716)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:02:48.04)
Play on that. I don't know that that was a conscious because to bill burr actually didn't really want that in the movie which makes sense, but But yeah that it does play into that and then they both end with a horizon shot Which is another parallel. So yeah, he just pointed out like this this seems like in hindsight This is like a cortex for Spielberg. It relates to like his childhood story and the fabled men's so much in these like

connecting ways. I just thought that was interesting. Yeah, but yeah, just as a final thought, this is really like the end of an era and you know, a saga too, but the end of an era for Spielberg. I said that in my notes, I put the end of a saga for now because we do return to Indy eventually, but yeah, it feels like this movie is really, you know, we have one more movie in the 1980s.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:03:21.244)
Yeah, it is.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:03:38.3)
for now. Yep.

Eli Price (03:03:47.272)
But this really does feel like kind of the exclamation points at the end of, you know, an era for Spielberg. It's, you know, you're, you're wrapping up the 1980s, your first, you know, 15 years of Jaws came out in 75. So, you know, you have, he, he did some TV stuff, you know, in the late sixties, early seventies. but Jaws was, was,

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:04:09.756)
Perfect.

Eli Price (03:04:17.32)
Sugarland Express was 74 or 73. So that was his first theatrical release. So you're not quite two decades into your career, but as a feature filmmaker. But yeah, it's still just kind of feels like the end of an era. You have Spielberg talks about how these Indiana Jones movies,

really he learned more from making those than like his more serious and personal films. And this sort of this movie feels like it's kind of like the halfway point. Like he's showing like I'm not going to choose between action movies and serious like I'm not going to choose between fun movies and serious movies. I'm going to I'm going to do both now at the same time. And you see that here with the

The family drama is just as important as like all the fun action stuff in this movie. and the movie kind of rises or falls on that even with all the fun stuff happening around it. and, yeah, I mean, you, you kind of, he has like another, like couple of, like, you got always and hook that come out, that are kind of like still in his weird period, but then you hit Jurassic park, which is a fun movie. And then you.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:05:19.356)
For sure.

Eli Price (03:05:43.784)
Well, you hit Schindler's List in Jurassic Park in the same year. So, I mean, you, you know, you've got the fun movie and the serious movie and he's like, I'm not choosing anymore. I'm doing, I'm doing both. Like, and I'm going to do both really well. He, you know, he's kind of learning from, he's learned from his mistakes and like in comedy and action stuff. And he's learned from his mistakes and like, draw his, like,

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:05:47.676)
Jeez. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:06:10.92)
more serious drama stuff and he's like really moving forward into a different phase of his career after this and the next couple of movies really. And I just think that's like just another reason that this movie is so important and you know, vital and great because it is that exclamation point. It's like, here's my final indie film. You know, obviously we know that wasn't technically true, but.

For all intents and purposes, he did. He did Crystal Skull. He didn't do... No. But he did do Crystal Skull. Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, I just... I don't know. This is another reason to really appreciate and enjoy this movie. Yeah. It's my favorite indie movie as well. I know you mentioned that.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:06:40.892)
Did he do Crystal Skull? OK. He did not do Dial of Destiny. OK. Yeah, that was Mangle.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:07:00.22)
think it was great. It's just my favorite. And yeah, because I think when even when like when you were like, Hey, here are some movies, I was like, I'd like to do this was my favorite Indiana Jones one. Because it's

Eli Price (03:07:12.52)
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is my favorite Indiana Jones movie. I love, I think, I mean, I just think the, the Connery Ford, chemistry and that, how that storyline plays out to the movie. I find it very touching. and it adds that draw dramatic element to Indiana Jones that wasn't really there before. it made Indiana Jones like not just like a

completely out like outrageously fun movie, but also like touching and emotionally impactful. And that's, that's what was missing from Raiders for me was like, yeah, it's fun and like perfectly shot and everything, but like, I do weigh like emotional impact. And I don't, I don't, I, I love just a fun movie. I don't think every movie has to like say something profound or do something profound.

but I do like weigh those movies with a higher, like, to a higher degree that do like have some emotional impact, obviously. So yeah, this, I love this, this movie. It's, it's just great as my camera bounces, I've bumped something.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:08:31.964)
I would say this is one of my top 10 films of all time, which is a really big thing, but it just, it hits.

Eli Price (03:08:38.248)
That's awesome. Yeah. So would you say it's your favorite Spielberg movie? This or Jurassic Park, I guess. A tie.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:08:47.324)
Yeah. It's kind of like the whole thing. Like I love Rogue One, but I wouldn't love Rogue One as much if I hadn't seen the original trilogy. And so it's kind of like that where it's like, I love so much about this. But then Jurassic Park had, I would say, even more of a profound impact on me as a child, seeing it in theaters like that. But this really has hit so many things from a technical point of like good movie making that.

Eli Price (03:08:56.392)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (03:09:15.72)
Yeah, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:09:17.276)
I don't think that Jurassic Park was designed to try and hit because I don't, if, if, the original trilogy was more like Rogue One, I don't know that I would love it as much because Rogue One is kind of, it can be depressing except for, so it's kind of like in that sense. So, if I were to make a movie, it would probably be more along the lines of an Indiana Jones and last crusade than a Jurassic Park, even though it might have elements of both, but just that.

Eli Price (03:09:23.08)
Yeah, sure.

Eli Price (03:09:32.552)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:09:46.812)
It would be because I think this is that positive emotional impact is really good. But then you can't. Does that make sense? I guess so. I would say that about Jurassic Park's in my top 10 of all time movies, too. So it's there, but I don't know where. There you go. They are top tens. So because because it's just like I said, it hits everything so well.

Eli Price (03:09:50.408)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, no, yeah, I'm trying.

Eli Price (03:10:01.48)
There you go.

I won't make you choose between the two. We'll just say they're both top 10. Yeah, you're allowed to tie. That's okay.

Eli Price (03:10:15.592)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:10:15.932)
It's got the humor without going overboard in the humor. It's got the action. It's got the emotional impact. It's got a good story. It's got great pacing. It's got great. It just it does. Like if I were teaching a class on how to make a movie, this would be like my go to for like, hey, here's here's what we need to do. Write papers on this. And of course, there are other movies that are really good too. And that in terms of like a. Hey, here are components of a good movie. I think that's why. And.

Eli Price (03:10:32.872)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (03:10:41.704)
Right, yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:10:44.252)
you putting it as an exclamation point, I think it kind of that makes sense because that's kind of at the end, like he's learned and gone through so much and he's been able to experiment and find his stride of who he is. And once again, I really appreciate where you said about how he's not having he's not choosing one or the other. He's choosing both. And I think that's what this shows that he can do both. And then we see later on that he does do both really well. And he doesn't have to be typecast into, you know, a certain type of film.

Eli Price (03:10:51.528)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:11:00.392)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:11:07.976)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (03:11:13.8)
Mm -hmm.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:11:14.524)
And I think we are better as movie lovers because of that.

Eli Price (03:11:19.752)
Absolutely, yeah for sure. Yeah I have I actually moved this from like a 8 out of 10 to a 9 out of 10 on this rewatch because I yeah just love it it's great.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:11:22.78)
See you again.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:11:31.292)
I think that's good. I think a nine out of 10. If we say that the tent like 10 is the absolute most perfect movie ever. I don't know that will ever exist, but I think it is. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:11:39.176)
Yeah, I don't, I don't do, I have plenty of 10 out of 10 movies that I wouldn't say are perfect because I don't think there's a such thing as a perfect movie. So, but yeah, yeah, this, yeah, I really love this movie. yeah, that's, I mean, I think we've, I think we're good. Like I think we've hit the last crusade. We have, we've passed the three tests. I think we've made it to the grail. but now we can't leave the room.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:12:04.348)
Woo!

Eli Price (03:12:07.304)
We want to stay immortal unless it's unless you are more right about it than I was. yeah.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:12:09.02)
I guess I'll just...

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:12:13.404)
Who knows? We'll just find out. If there's earthquakes when this releases, you will know what happens.

Eli Price (03:12:16.936)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You'll find out if you've chosen wisely or foolishly. There we go. But yeah, that's all we have. Well, before we go, I want to give you, make sure you have space to tell people where they can maybe follow you or see what you're up to. Is there a good spot to do that?

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:12:23.004)
that was a good part too.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:12:38.844)
Yeah. On X, you can follow me at Mr. Funkhouser or eventually. And maybe by the time this is released and whatever, I'll have Dancing Fox doing more. But at Dancing Fox Studio or DancingFox .Studio for just an actual web address. We'll hope to have stuff. And it's all about exploring stories and.

Eli Price (03:12:43.272)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:12:58.152)
Okay.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:13:08.444)
finding parallels in it. And then eventually when the podcast launches, then we'll have you on it and it'll be great. It'll be exciting, depending on if you beat me in the draft. We'll kind of determine that way.

Eli Price (03:13:09.416)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:13:15.752)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll be fun.

Yes, yeah, I'll make sure to link those in the episode description so that people don't have to remember they can just go click it. So yeah, if you want to follow Christian, please go follow him and you know, be looking on the lookout for the it's Fox Studio. Danzigfox .studio is the website. Yeah. Okay. Danzigfox.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:13:41.116)
Dancing Fox, Dancing Fox Studio. Yeah.

Eli Price (03:13:46.472)
be on the lookout for that. Maybe it'll be, this will be releasing in August. So maybe by the time that rolls around. Yeah. it'll be around by then. So that'll be exciting. yeah, yeah, that's, that's all we have next week. As Christian just alluded to, we're going to be doing a trilogy's movie draft. so that's exciting. so be on the lookout for that next week and then we'll be wrapped.

Christiaan Funkhouser (03:13:52.156)
yeah, hopefully it should be there. Yeah. By that time.

Woo!

Eli Price (03:14:15.272)
Wrapping up the 80s with Always, talking about that the week after that, his last film of the 1980s. It's sad to have the early Spielberg series coming to a close, but yeah, be on the lookout for those things. I'm excited to do a movie trilogies draft with Christian next week, but that's all we have for this week. So I have been Eli Price for Christian Funkhouser.

You have been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.

 

Christiaan Funkhouser Profile Photo

Christiaan Funkhouser

Storyteller

Hi! I’m Christiaan. I love stories—it doesn’t matter how they’re told. The way they transport you to a different world and allow you to experience something that would never exist is so cool. I find the ways a story or character can inspire, encourage, or even convict us fascinating. One of the reasons I love movies is because there are so many different stories being told and seeing how they all come together (or not in some cases) makes the whole experience of a movie something that is hard to replicate. I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to work behind the camera, be in the writers' room, and even make a few guest appearances in some indie and festival films and the insight I gained from there has been invaluable in giving me a unique perspective I love to share with others. It’s one of the reasons I started DancingFox.Studio and why I was so honored to have the opportunity to share with you all my love for stories and movies on the Establishing Shot Podcast!
I have my M.Div in Christian Education and want to eventually get my Ph.D. in something involving philosophy, theology, and pop-culture.