Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (w/ Jacob Allen)

Eli (00:01.754)
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 we are here on episode 92 of the podcast. We are diving back into the Indiana Jones well today. So exciting as we continue in our Spielberg series today covering Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull.

And I'm excited to have a new guest joining me today. Jacob Allen is joining me and yeah, Jacob, welcome.

Jacob Allen (00:40.248)
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Eli (00:42.416)
Yeah, so Jacob, me and Jacob got connected kind of through, there's a publication called Think Christian that does a lot of like pop culture and faith stuff and they do like a little movie club every once in a while and we kind of got connected through that. We both attended one of those and probably a few. We've probably been in a few together.

Jacob Allen (01:07.03)
Yeah, probably a handful.

Eli (01:10.318)
And so that's how we got connected and both love to talk about movies and yeah, and Jacob even has a new creative endeavor of his own. So do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about what you're up to with your podcast and your substack and all that?

Jacob Allen (01:28.878)
Definitely. Yeah. Several months ago, I kind of had the urge to create a platform for myself to express and just kind of explore a process of my own sort of creative or spiritual ponderings. And something I'm passionate about is just the convergence of spirituality and creativity and

think particularly in religious contexts, this is a generalization, but in religious contexts, feel maybe the...

the creative pursuit of the divine is maybe undervalued. And that was just, you know, I found myself thinking about those things a lot and so I wanted to give myself a way to process those. so using Substack, I just started a small publication that I call Lean Forward. And just the idea of Lean Forward is slowing down long enough to, you know, kind of take a breath and think and lean in and just, you know, ponder about some of the more mysterious elements

of our faith, which I find, you know, a really natural way to get at some of those elements is through creativity. And, you know, just a natural approach for me is film and music. So in Lean Forward, I tend to talk a lot about and write a lot about film and music.

And from the beginning of Lean Forward, and this isn't fully realized yet, I kind of had the vision that it might become sort of like an umbrella media company for a few different endeavors. So whether that be film or music production or podcasting, those are three things that I, again,

Jacob Allen (03:12.654)
kind of my grand vision of Lean Forward is those three things fall under the umbrella and you know, thinking about, know, what's the most, the easiest thing for me to do right now is probably create a podcast. And so I started thinking about, you know, what I might like to cover in that podcast. you know, the first thing that came to mind was Bob Dylan and I, you know, just love Bob Dylan and just pretty big Dylan head and also grew up on the Beatles as well. And,

I think in Bob Dylan and John Lennon, there are some moments in history that just kind of stick in my head, almost like scenes from a movie. And I think my fascination with them stems from sort of a fascination with pop culture in general and how for better or worse pop culture drives culture at large. And so my thinking is by understanding the relationship between these two individuals that

shaped the pop culture waters that we swim in now, we might have a better idea of how to navigate just the cultural waters that we're in today as well. So I'm in the process of writing and releasing kind of in real time the first season of the conversation podcast. So that's the name of the podcast. And season one is covering the relationship between Bob Dylan and John Lennon.

Eli (04:32.956)
Cool. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (04:33.902)
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I've released one episode, but it's been really rewarding so far. I'm excited to keep going.

Eli (04:38.608)
Yeah. Yeah. I was able to listen to about half of it. was telling Jacob before we started recording and so I'm enjoying it. It's, I enjoy it. It's like a essay style podcast, which I really enjoy when those are like well put together. and yeah, it really is. It's you include some, some kind of like music interludes and stuff, if I'm remembering correctly, that are kind of like, well produced. so, yeah.

Jacob Allen (04:44.536)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (05:01.164)
Yeah.

Eli (05:06.78)
Yeah, definitely go check out. And you mentioned it, it's called The Conversation. And so...

Jacob Allen (05:12.47)
Yeah. So probably the easiest way to both lean forward and the conversation are through Instagram. yep. You can find them both.

Eli (05:20.08)
Yeah, yeah, I'll and I'll I'll link all those in the episode description so that people can find them easily But yeah that it's really cool and what better time to to dig into Bob Dylan than after the the success of a complete unknown Did you enjoy that?

Jacob Allen (05:37.9)
I know, I know, didn't, you know, Bob built-

So, okay, you're gonna have to forgive me. I haven't seen it yet. And that was one of those where, you know, having a six-month-old just, you know, it just did not, you know, it's like there are movies that I know my wife won't want to see, so I'll go see those in theaters by myself. But that was one of the ones that she did want to see. it's, as far as it is for me to get away for an evening at the movies, it's even harder for her. So we just haven't caught it yet. But, you know, everybody that I tell that I'm making a podcast about, Bill, that's the first thing they ask.

Eli (05:45.27)
no.

Eli (05:49.455)
Yeah.

It's hard.

Eli (05:57.435)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (06:11.0)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. But there's a lot of Bob. Like there's, I actually went like, I went and saw it then I went on like a Bob Dylan kick. So I watched.

Jacob Allen (06:11.726)
So I've told so many people like, haven't seen it yet.

Jacob Allen (06:21.93)
I think that's something that you posted on the socials about the Bob Dylan kind of kick you've on.

Eli (06:26.02)
Yeah, yeah, I watched a couple of different a couple of the documentaries. I watched the Who's the director of that movie with the various actors? Playing is it? Is it Todd Haynes? Yeah. Yeah it was great. It was so like weird. I loved it Yeah, yeah, there's a Kate Blanchett plays one of the Bob Dylan's which is great

Jacob Allen (06:38.142)
yeah, gosh. Yes, Todd Haynes, thanks. What'd think of that? It's, it is about as weird as the movie about Bob Dylan should be. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (06:55.176)
Right. Yeah, it's awesome. And she just like nails his voice. I mean, just everything. Yeah, she nailed his mannerisms. It's awesome. Yeah, Bob's like really in the cultural consciousness right now, which I'm like always thinking about Bob. And so I don't know, like, I don't know if, you know, what prompted Daddy for the podcast was just seeing him out there because the movie and all that, or if it was just kind of naturally sprang from my own,

Eli (07:07.526)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (07:12.742)
Yeah.

Eli (07:24.518)
sure. Yeah, maybe a little bit of both. Yeah, I mean it's like as much as we want to be like I guess like pure in our artistic endeavors there's also like an element of like what is the most marketable right now so

Jacob Allen (07:25.1)
musings about him but it's working out. Yeah, I think probably so. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (07:41.902)
Definitely. Well definitely. And I've even thought, well I hear that there's a Beatles movie coming out too. So I'm just thinking like, am I being like, is that right? Okay, yes. was like, am I?

Eli (07:46.811)
Yeah, or a series of Beatles movies actually, I think I heard that there was gonna be several by is it Mendes? Is it Sam Mendes? Yeah Yeah, that's cool Yeah, and you know, we'll get a little bit a little different Cate Blanchett accent in our talk today Yeah

Jacob Allen (07:53.762)
Okay.

I did see his name in attachment, yeah.

Jacob Allen (08:11.276)
Yes, my word, that's true. Great segue.

Eli (08:16.156)
but before we do get into that, I do love to ask my guests, about their kind of introduction to the director we're covering. So do you have like any memories from your childhood or, know, maybe it was teenage, I don't know, of Spielberg? What was your like earliest memories?

Jacob Allen (08:32.8)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, my earliest memory of Spielberg was watching Hook. So Hook, you know how like in childhood there might be a summer where you watch the same movie over and over and over again, like every day of the summer. There was a summer when I was, I mean, really little, probably first or second grade where we watched Hook over and over again. And I know Hook just kind of is not regarded as one of his...

Eli (08:42.78)
Mmm.

Jacob Allen (09:02.174)
best and is often regarded as one of his worst. But I'm just, think I'm, I'm like of the age where I saw it at the right age, that it's just like, it's, it's an amazing movie. And so I watched, I watched Hook before I really knew who Steven Spielberg was or before I knew what a director was. So I wasn't really looking out for.

Eli (09:04.92)
Yeah.

Eli (09:19.823)
Right.

Eli (09:23.292)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (09:26.156)
you know, the man behind the movie. And I haven't seen Hook in years since childhood. So if I revisited it, I'm sure I would A, see the Spielbergisms come out of it. And I might also see those quibbles that people have with it. But it's right now, it's kind of frozen in my mind. just a...

Eli (09:43.441)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (09:47.308)
great movie but I think the first time that I saw a Spielberg movie I was like that's Spielberg was probably seeing Saving Private Ryan at around I don't know 12 maybe

Eli (09:56.742)
Hmm.

Jacob Allen (10:00.75)
12 or 13, think, I know it was like the first R-rated movie I ever saw. And it was my dad's favorite movie. And so I kind of knew that I was going to grow into it at some point. So it was kind of the movie that was on the horizon. I was looking forward to getting to watch it. And...

It wasn't about that time that I was like discovering what IMDB was and so I could watch a movie and just see everybody involved. So I think Saving Private Ryan around 2008 or so was probably the first time that I saw a Spielberg movie and thought, okay, that's Spielberg. So yeah.

Eli (10:22.118)
Sure.

Eli (10:33.37)
Yeah Cool. Yeah, so you didn't did you You didn't really grow up with like the Indiana Jones movies necessary like a lot of people do

Jacob Allen (10:41.122)
Well, OK, well, now that you say that, did grow up. There was a period, like I do remember being introduced to Indiana Jones.

Eli (10:48.284)
Okay.

Jacob Allen (10:49.398)
So it's funny, but until you said that hook was my kind of like honest to goodness first thought so there's I don't know why that is but no I mean I do have memories of spending the night at friends houses and watching Indiana Jones and I even have like a memory of Introducing a friend like I like a sleep overnight I was at a friend's house and I showed him Indiana Jones and it was clear that his mom like didn't really Approve or didn't really and so it was like I remember this like awkward feeling of like

Eli (10:56.634)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (11:02.524)
Hmm.

Eli (11:09.82)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (11:19.202)
Gosh, sorry, you know, but which, you know, it's Indiana Jones. There's nothing too objectionable in there. but no, I yeah. And I don't know at what point I made the connection between Indiana Jones and Steven Spielberg. I think I honestly probably made this connection. The George Lucas connection between Indiana Jones and Star Wars before I made the Spielberg connection. But so anyway.

Eli (11:25.743)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (11:34.876)
All right.

Eli (11:42.534)
Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, you know, I don't know, I can't remember what I've talked about in the past. It's been a while since I've covered an Indiana Jones movie at this point, but yeah, I mean, I saw the movies growing up at some point, but I didn't like grow up with those being like this such strong movies, like probably the Generate, like

Jacob Allen (11:53.816)
Sure.

Yeah.

Eli (12:14.428)
parents generation did you know or even really the like like I'm a Younger millennial I guess and so probably like even like older Millennials more had like Indiana Jones was a strong part of their childhood, you know 80s kids 91 yeah

Jacob Allen (12:14.606)
Sure. Sure. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (12:29.184)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. What year were you born? Okay. Yeah, I was born in 94. Well, yeah, my wife, you know, we rewatched Crystal Skull a couple nights ago and my wife was like, are you surprised that people still like these movies? Because we made it, I made the comment of like, they're just, it's kind of silly and, but not in a bad way, you know? And she's like, are you surprised that people still like these movies? And I don't know this for a fact, but I like, I wonder if...

Eli (12:47.002)
Yeah, sure. Right, right.

Jacob Allen (12:56.268)
Yeah, back in the 80s, if it was like cooler, if just the whole idea was cooler, and now it's nostalgia, you know? But I don't know. I love them. I've had a blast revisiting them.

Eli (13:04.668)
Yeah, I can see that, yeah. Yeah.

Eli (13:13.104)
Yeah, I mean they are like, and we'll talk about it in this one especially, how they all kind of have a little bit of silliness to them. yes, I guess a spoiler of the future of this talk is like, I like this movie and I kind of feel like a lot of the criticisms of this movie like,

Jacob Allen (13:32.514)
I did too. I did too.

Eli (13:38.245)
You could apply those criticisms to all the Indiana Jones films. So I feel like it's unfair to apply them to this one. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll definitely get into that. That's a kind of, I guess, a sneak peek into later in the conversation. But we do, like we always do, start at the beginning, which is Indiana Jones, Henry Jones Jr. and Henry Jones Sr. riding off into the sunset.

Jacob Allen (13:41.998)
Yeah, 100%. 100%. I totally agree.

Jacob Allen (13:52.631)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli (14:08.284)
at the end of The Last Crusade Spielberg talked about in the special features for this movie how like He there was a reason he ended that movie that way is because he for all intents and purposes He felt like he was done with Indiana Jones Him and in Lucas if if you've listened to past episodes, you might remember, you know, they they kind of from the beginning agreed to three films and they

They made those three films and I think Spielberg probably thought like, okay, we're done with Indiana Jones, you know? But they did start making some TV series with the young Indiana Jones. I've never seen it. Have you ever seen any of those? I have not. I honestly don't plan to.

Jacob Allen (14:42.882)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (14:56.13)
No, I haven't, No. I like to keep certain things sacred. Like my Indiana Jones.

Eli (15:03.612)
Yeah Yeah So those movies are are a thing I mean those TV show TV series are a thing and some kind of TV movies too I think there's some of them are just like TV movies and really the gestation of this particular Indiana Jones film kind of began from Lucas seeing Ford return for one of those

One of those episodes so it was in 93 he was in an episode It was like a longer episode called the mystery of the blues I don't know anything about the movie except I saw a screenshot of the The guy who plays the young Indiana Jones playing a saxophone and I was like, I do not think I want to watch this movie This show or whatever and but in that in that episode

Harrison Ford plays like the 50 year old version of Indiana Jones and Lucas was saw this and he was like, huh I wonder if we could do like another movie with just Indiana Jones older like kind of a more matured and See where it takes us. So that's kind of like the Yeah, so so Lucas kind of had this idea way back in 93

Jacob Allen (16:20.62)
Yeah.

So sorry with Lucas. Okay, okay.

Eli (16:31.396)
When that episode came out and he was like there might be something here for to do a movie with a more mature older Indie so Yeah Yeah

Jacob Allen (16:38.316)
Yeah, that's interesting. 93 was the year the fugitive came out as well. So there's a lot going on in Harrison Ford world in 93.

Eli (16:48.398)
yeah, yeah, he had a Harrison Ford as another sneak peek into next week. We're going to be doing a Harrison Ford performances draft. So Harrison Ford, as me and Jacob are familiar preparing for that draft draft was very busy in the like mid eighties to mid nineties, like very, very busy. but yeah, so really like Ford and Spielberg were kind of resistant at first, but

Jacob Allen (17:08.684)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (17:17.24)
as we know Lucas can be pretty persistent and he was getting some some writers to write some screenplays for it didn't really have anything he did have ideas that he kind of like already from from the like early in the process wanted incorporated one was the crystal skull so there was like a

unfinished script of the TV show that that had something to do with a crystal skull and he really liked that idea and that kind of mythology and So that was really early on like he wanted that in the movie Yeah, and just like all the like Indiana Jones McGuffins the the crystal skull is like based in something that is a real thing Yeah

Jacob Allen (18:01.742)
Cool.

Jacob Allen (18:13.076)
Okay.

Eli (18:14.812)
So like there's the most famous one apparently was found in 1924 by a British traveler and his daughter in Belize. There's like, it's a very like apparent, this is my knowledge off of very, very minimal research on this, but there are apparently like very ambiguous circumstances that these things were discovered under. And so like, it's not really known like,

Jacob Allen (18:24.014)
That's cool.

Jacob Allen (18:31.809)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (18:40.27)
Hmm.

Eli (18:45.2)
Like even like the one of the things I read put discovered in quotes like quote unquote just quote unquote discovered So I think like the the question is like where are these things like? discovered from some ancient thing or where they like planted or like made up like their their actual like

Jacob Allen (18:50.414)
I don't know what that means.

Jacob Allen (19:06.967)
Yeah.

Eli (19:08.996)
real crystal skulls, but did someone like make them and then like come up with this story of how they found it and it's something ancient. So, so it's like pretty ambiguous, like history behind these things, but they are real thing and they're like, they're, they're associated. They got like associated with like new age folklore and stuff. so, yeah. And then of course, along with the crystal skull, Lucas really wanted to do something with aliens. So.

Jacob Allen (19:14.764)
Right. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (19:22.723)
Yeah.

Eli (19:38.301)
I think his thoughts was along the lines of, okay, the first movies are like in the 30s and early 40s, and they kind of like go along with like the serial episodes of that time. And so like if we're doing an older Jones, he would be in the 50s, which the movie is set in. And the kind of like pop serials of that time were like B sci-fi stuff. And so, yeah.

Jacob Allen (19:48.14)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (19:53.343)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (19:57.78)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (20:04.874)
Interesting. was that I mean, that's one of the first things that strikes me watching it is like, you know, not knowing any of the background that you just laid out. It does seem like an interesting fusion of of Spielberg's preoccupations, you know, so I I almost might have wanted to assume that, you know, the alien thing, the alien element was Spielberg's input initially. So that's interesting.

Eli (20:32.57)
Yeah Yeah, well so one of the one of the funny things is like Spielberg when when the movies got kind of like mixed to negative reception Spielberg kind of like admitted that he kind of all along wasn't sure about the McGuffin stuff He like he wasn't like super sure about it but like

Jacob Allen (20:48.214)
Yeah.

Eli (21:01.424)
just trusted Lucas and went with it. which I don't know if he, I don't know how he felt about the aliens exactly, but the MacGuffin part, he was like, not so sure about like, if that would work well or not, but like trusted the process.

Jacob Allen (21:04.458)
Sure.

Jacob Allen (21:09.795)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (21:13.197)
Mm-hmm.

And like, and when you say McGuffin, the skull itself. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, think it works well enough.

Eli (21:19.77)
Like the skull is the MacGuffin, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so and You know It makes sense that it's like, okay, we're gonna we're gonna have this crystal skull. We're gonna like do homage to like the 50s be alien sci-fi movies and and then like of course Spielberg was not interested in doing Nazis as like bad guys anymore after Schindler's List and so

Jacob Allen (21:41.154)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (21:49.91)
Right. Yep.

Eli (21:53.597)
which understandably so and So like that was kind of off the table already But then when you set it in the 50s, it just makes sense to go with Russia as the bad guys and tap into the Cold War So those are all all of these ideas were like floating around from pretty early on And yeah, it really took

Jacob Allen (21:55.873)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (22:05.282)
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly.

Jacob Allen (22:13.056)
Interesting. Yeah.

Eli (22:18.694)
From what I could tell, like in the early 2000s is when Spielberg was finally like kind of convinced to return to Indiana Jones, partly by Lucas being persistent. And then partly to Ford had started, Ford had like called him up and was like, you know, I think this is, this would be a really good idea for us to like jump back into this. There's fans, you know, there's, you know, Ford, think

jokingly talks about like he's in it for the money, but also it's it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. I think he really is sometimes in it for the money.

Jacob Allen (22:52.79)
Yeah. He seemed legitimately happy to be along for the ride on this one though. I feel like that comes through in his performance.

Eli (23:00.548)
Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. And so like it is, so Spielberg, Lucas and Ford, one of the crazy things about the Indiana Jones, they both like own 11 % of Indiana Jones. So between the three of them, that's like 30 % of all the Indiana Jones stuff goes to, goes to them, which, Spielberg and Lucas kind of like invented that idea as far as like being a filmmaker goes like owning.

Jacob Allen (23:21.942)
of ownership is theirs. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (23:34.333)
Like taking revenue instead of a salary For for your films. It's very it's pretty rare for like the actor to like have a stake in it like that and along with Along with that stake also comes like the power to say like no, we're not making the movie So like if it really all three of them had to be on board to make the movie if one of them said no Then they couldn't do it

Jacob Allen (23:37.953)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (23:47.15)
But it... yeah.

Jacob Allen (23:59.714)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (24:03.91)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (24:06.062)
It's fitting for this to be the movie where an actor would have that kind of stake. how do you separate Indiana Jones from Harrison Ford? Yeah.

Eli (24:13.956)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, and we might talk about that at some point in this discussion too. And so, yeah, so, you know, the other thing I read was that Spielberg's kids kind of wanted him to make another one. And so, yeah. And really like, if you think about it, all the movies he made, like from starting with like,

Jacob Allen (24:21.804)
Yeah, we might.

Jacob Allen (24:33.248)
that's funny. Yeah.

Eli (24:42.33)
I mean for a while he'd been making pretty serious movies like the only exception would maybe be the terminal Is pretty like unserious Maybe like a serious like undertone in it, but pretty unserious as a movie Yeah, but other than that they're all all of the movies even like a fun movie like catch me if you can it's like very much like coded with like divorce and

Jacob Allen (24:54.167)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (24:58.474)
No, yeah, it's fairly light, yeah.

Jacob Allen (25:11.488)
Yeah, it's dark. It's a dark movie.

Eli (25:11.836)
Yeah And so yeah, and you know, he's coming off of like one of his most controversial Tough like movies that he ever made with Munich and So like he also kind of was like, okay, I can probably use a break and have a more like recreational movie Yeah, and yeah, so

Jacob Allen (25:26.541)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (25:32.334)
Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah, for sure.

Eli (25:40.785)
They all got on board. Frank Darabont, who's probably most popular for writing The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, also directed those, I think. I think he wrote and directed both of those. But those are what he's popular for. But he had written several episodes of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. so Lucas had commissioned some scripts from him.

Jacob Allen (25:49.646)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (25:54.229)
I so, yeah.

Eli (26:08.592)
He did like several rewrites and they just, it didn't work for Lucas and Spielberg, I guess. And so, yeah, so he did come up with the idea of Indy having an offspring. I think in his version, it was a daughter. And then like his version had Marion more part of the plot with, which this is interesting. Instead of the Mac character,

which we get in the film, Marion's husband kind of played in that role. So there was this like weird dynamic of like Marion and her husband and her husband being like the double-crosser guy. And so I think, I honestly think like, I wonder if, I would like to see that version. That sounds like an interesting dynamic, a triangle there.

Jacob Allen (26:47.712)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (26:51.391)
Yeah, okay.

Jacob Allen (26:59.138)
For sure. Could be interesting. Quist. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Eli (27:05.456)
And then also the bad guy was a Russian, but he was like a Russian guy that Indy had like worked with in the past, but they had kind of split down different paths, which makes sense because there was a point where like Russia and the US were like on the same side. If you think of like the world wars, like common enemy kind of thing. But then obviously Russia.

Jacob Allen (27:14.71)
Okay.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (27:28.675)
Hmm.

Eli (27:32.556)
that this path split at some point and so so then that makes sense, but That is not the script we ended up with but the bones of the script we did get were kind of started with darabont And this is really interesting Shyamalan actually was working on a script at some point and not Shyamalan the man himself

Jacob Allen (27:34.412)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (27:52.206)
Whoa. Well, that now to think of that, that seems, you know, laughable. But at the time, at that point in someone's career, I like people were still wondering if he was going to be the next Spielberg. So so that may be quite as shocking as you would think. But I think about it.

Eli (28:01.283)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (28:07.866)
Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely.

Eli (28:13.892)
Yeah. Yeah. So he, he actually, he actually gave up. he, what I read was he gave up because of the difficulty of setting up working meetings with three overworked celebrities.

Jacob Allen (28:26.808)
My word, that's so funny. He must have been pretty frustrated if he was going to give up on an Indiana Jones movie.

Eli (28:29.584)
Yeah. And then.

Eli (28:33.722)
Yeah, but also at that time Lucas was like trying to wrap up the the prequel trilogy with star wars And so I can imagine trying to like get him nailed down to try to write to try to work on this indiana jones script was like pretty difficult, so So shawn malone got frustrated and was like i'm out But the final adaptation we ended up getting was commissioned to david kepp

Jacob Allen (28:40.27)
Hmm.

Jacob Allen (28:47.138)
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Jacob Allen (28:54.018)
That's so funny.

Eli (29:03.79)
It's the the one the screenplay we actually like end up with for this movie. He's the one that adds arena spout go the the cate blanchett character Lucas kind of had insisted that Indy have a son and that he'd be like a young rebel with a motorcycle and leather jacket kind of some generational conflict thing and So he incorporates that into the script. Yeah Yeah, yeah

Jacob Allen (29:25.742)
Which I thought was nice. I really thought that worked really well.

Eli (29:33.723)
Yeah, then yes, Bilburg's like, okay, if we're doing this, we're going to stick to the same, like, directing, editing, action style of the originals. He really wanted it to feel in line with those. Kind of tells Lucas that, like, he's trying to keep digital effects to the minimum, which I find ironic because the opening shot is a CGI prairie dog.

Jacob Allen (29:57.48)
I know. I mean, okay. So overall, I am sure we'll get into this. Overall, I thought the effects were fine, but it's off to a rough start with that prairie dog.

Eli (30:03.76)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, well, we'll definitely I have a lot of notes on the the special there's like a whole like 20 minute, special feature about the effects for this one. So so I have a lot of notes on that. We'll definitely talk about it the the crew, Will be very familiar. frank marshall, of course, producing kathleen kennedy not not on the list

Jacob Allen (30:15.501)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (30:20.659)
Okay, that's funny.

Eli (30:36.942)
as producers, which was surprising to me.

Jacob Allen (30:38.904)
But I think she was, I noticed Kathleen Kennedy when, like, I think it was the opening credits in the movie. Did you notice that? Yeah.

Eli (30:47.002)
Maybe so. like sometimes the main source I use for like the crew information, sometimes it it leaves people out, I've noticed. So maybe she was. I'm trying to look in the... Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they just left her out. No, it's not showing it on Letterboxd either. It has some other people listed, but not her.

Jacob Allen (30:56.942)
OK. Interesting.

think she was in the opening credits.

Eli (31:16.572)
The other person my source listed was, he's not like a producer producer, but he was a producer for, they got some like footage in Brazil. And so he was the producer for that. His name was Flavio Ramos Tambolini. So the aerial unit producer for the Brazil. Like they got some like plates to add effects into and stuff to get some jungle shots.

Jacob Allen (31:30.441)
Okay.

Jacob Allen (31:41.143)
Yeah.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Eli (31:46.001)
But yeah, as we mentioned, the screenplay was by David Kep, who, David Kep has an interesting, interesting career. He's written, like he wrote Jurassic Park, so he'd worked with Indy before, I mean, with Spielberg before. But yeah, he has a very interesting career. If you like, look at his, just his filmography, he's, I mean, he's written Spider-Man, Mission Impossible.

Jacob Allen (32:00.334)
It's supposed to be a river park.

Eli (32:15.632)
Death Becomes Her, Panic Room, Carlito's Way. Yeah, very.

Jacob Allen (32:19.832)
How funny. Trying to track a through line there would be a difficult task. But there are some bangers in there though.

Eli (32:25.06)
Yeah, it's it's tough. and Yeah, and actually he wrote a movie from this year presence, which I saw and really actually loved yeah, it's the it's

Jacob Allen (32:35.214)
I haven't seen that one yet. That's a Soderbergh, right? Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. I'm eager to see it though.

Eli (32:41.796)
Yeah, I it's funny because if it does feel like one of those movies that it either works for you or doesn't and which so like for people that are like I didn't go for it. I'm like, I understand But it worked really well for me. I loved it But yeah david kepp interesting career, but yeah, he wrote this one, and then we've got like a bunch of guys that are like typical like

Jacob Allen (32:55.916)
Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Eli (33:11.098)
go-to dudes. Janusz Kaminski as the director of photography, Michael Kahn as the editor, John Williams the man the myth the legend for the music, Ron Judkins and Ben Burt for the sound. So it's always good to see Ben Burt coming back. he was Ben Burt actually worked on Munich too so he had he hadn't worked with Spielberg since

Jacob Allen (33:37.089)
Okay.

Eli (33:39.677)
the original indie films until Munich. So cool to see him back. Production design by Guy Hendrix Diaz. And he's, I'm trying to remember if he's worked with Spielberg before. His name was familiar. And I'm kind of doing some great podcasting work, vamping, to see if I can find him in this.

Jacob Allen (33:41.23)
Okay. Yeah. Back in rotation.

Jacob Allen (34:04.942)
Thank

Eli (34:07.324)
this list and I'm not finding him. So I can't remember if he's worked with Spielberg before. It kind of seems like he did, but maybe not. Nope, he had not, because I just looked it up. Yeah, but yeah, I think he did a great job with the production design for this movie.

Jacob Allen (34:27.822)
Yeah, I did see that. I that was a real strong point of the movie.

Eli (34:31.29)
Yeah, art direction by Mark W Mansbridge. And then, you have your effects guys. Pablo Hellman was the VFX guy. He's a, he's a, he's a Georgia Lucas's company, ILM. He's an ILM guy and he'd, he'd worked, he worked on more of the worlds. so with, Spielberg, so, he, you know, he, he has some experience there.

And then I'm trying to see this there's another guy Daniel Suddock who did the special effects And I'm trying to see if he's worked with Spielberg before too Usually I do this before recording but Our listeners have the great privilege of listening to me figure it out live Today, but yeah, those are the that's the crew

Jacob Allen (35:23.438)
I'll be your number cruncher if you'd like me to you just keep talking. I'll just

Eli (35:27.836)
Daniel Sudick, I did not see him. So we'll just it'll just be a mystery If he's worked with Spielberg before but but yeah, I mean the main guys that are like the Spielberg dudes are Yeah, they're there Kaminsky, Kahn and Williams and then really Judkins too. Judkins is and has worked a ton with him on his sound and you know for an action movie adventure movie like this, the sound is pretty important, so

Jacob Allen (35:41.644)
you expect to be there are there.

Yep.

Jacob Allen (35:52.161)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (35:57.73)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (36:00.039)
Yeah, let's talk about the cast. It's surprisingly a pretty small cast to talk about. Very few characters of any incident at all, surprisingly. But of course, Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones.

Jacob Allen (36:03.544)
do it.

Dude.

yeah, for sure. There's not, there's only a handful of cameras.

Jacob Allen (36:16.822)
Right. Yep.

Jacob Allen (36:22.126)
So he was 65 at the point of this movie's release.

Eli (36:27.9)
Yeah, I can't remember if he was 65 at the release or at the shooting, it was shot, because I think it was shot end of 2007. So he was either 65 or 66 when it released.

Jacob Allen (36:32.792)
Sure. Yeah. Okay.

Jacob Allen (36:38.497)
Okay.

Jacob Allen (36:43.831)
What's so funny about that is I remember so this is my first time rewatching it since it was out in theaters So I saw it in theaters and I hadn't seen it again until a couple nights ago And I remember seeing it in theaters and thinking he looks so old But watching it the other night. I was like he looks young

Eli (36:50.78)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (36:58.629)
Yeah.

Eli (37:02.542)
Is it because you've seen Die of Destiny?

Jacob Allen (37:05.206)
It's gotta be just because we all know what he looks like. He looks old now. Like now he looks old, old. Yeah. So I'm sure that, know, and I was just struck by like this, this movie came out almost 20 years ago. You know, so he's 20-ish years younger. 17 years ago. So just it's like, okay, well he was 17 years younger than he is now. So he would, but I was just, I was struck.

Eli (37:09.006)
Yeah, now he looks real.

Eli (37:18.14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess, I guess 17 years ago now.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (37:33.802)
honestly by how youthful he looked.

Eli (37:36.412)
Yeah, I mean, so he was 65, Spielberg 61. They're both pretty, they're both at this point in their careers, very active still. Like the Harrison Ford had kind of slowed down, I guess in the 2000s, I would say, with.

Jacob Allen (37:55.258)
What was the movie with Brendan Fraser that he was in? I'm trying to think of something else that might have come out in this era.

Eli (38:00.157)
Yeah, mean he would really like the movies there it's hard to think of those movies in the In the tooth, I mean 42 was yeah 42 wasn't even until 2013 so Yeah, I don't even know the whole ones

Jacob Allen (38:07.992)
For sure, it is.

Jacob Allen (38:13.528)
That was later. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (38:21.066)
Extraordinary measures is the one that I'm thinking about and that was in 2010.

Eli (38:24.932)
Yeah, and that's not even I think firewall would have been the one but that was like a flop That was that was 2006 and i've never seen that. but yeah, so I mean this is really like I guess like a resurgence for for a second wind I guess for ford Yeah, and

Jacob Allen (38:30.698)
Yeah, I never saw this.

Jacob Allen (38:45.806)
Yeah. Definitely.

Eli (38:51.384)
One of the funny, like, fun fact things I found is, so in my book resource, Frank Marshall says that Harrison Ford went on a strict diet so that he could fit into their original costumes, but on the special features, Harrison Ford in the interview says that they shipped him the costume and he just put it on and it fit.

Jacob Allen (39:12.255)
my word. Yeah, imagine that.

Eli (39:16.294)
So I kind of, I kind of lean toward believing Frank Marshall on this one. Yeah, it was really fun. So I watched the special features first and heard Ford say that and I was like, that's, that's crazy that it's still fit them just right. And then I read in, in, in my book resource, it's called, it's right here. If you're watching the podcast, it's above me, it's called all the films and, in that resource.

Jacob Allen (39:19.968)
I've been trying to believe him as well. That's so funny.

Eli (39:44.743)
Frank Marshall's like, yeah, he went on a strict diet. I'm like, now that's funny. The discrepancy there. But yeah, mean, Ford, he said like the whip came back to him easily, like kind of like riding a bike.

Jacob Allen (39:58.73)
Yeah. And I read that he had to put his foot down with some of the paramount execs who, safety reasons, they're like, oh, we can just CGI the whip. It'll be no big deal. And that was like, he wouldn't have it. And he insisted on, he's like, oh, those safety rules, are dumb rules. Like, we're not going to CGI the whip.

Eli (40:04.796)
Hmm.

Eli (40:21.724)
Yeah, I'm not gonna imagine Spielberg was backing him on that one Because like why why CGI something when you don't have to, you know? But yeah, yeah, I mean he still is doing like most of his stunts in this movie which There's not as much in this one. You can tell the difference

Jacob Allen (40:26.658)
Probably so.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (40:39.426)
Mm-hmm.

But he's just, I mean, he's just derpy as ever in his stunts. Just so ungraceful. And I love it. He's just the most, like, just unconventional action star. You know, he's like an action star, but that's just part of his charm is that he's not great at it.

Eli (40:47.398)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (41:02.278)
Well, he's like, and we'll talk about this, like when we talk about Harrison Ford in general, when we do the movie draft, but like he's like the kind of action movie star where like just normal guys like me or you could look at him doing action scenes and be like, yeah, that, that would be me if I was in that situation. Like,

Jacob Allen (41:21.132)
Yeah, I try to do a sound that is what it was like. Yeah, I just go crashing through that piece of glass, yeah.

Eli (41:29.178)
Yeah, yeah, if I had the courage to do it, then that would be me, like, being clumsy and, like, falling into just the right situation at the right time.

Jacob Allen (41:36.758)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's a trait of Indies that they hit on, and this one is that he doesn't ever have a plan. He just goes for it.

Eli (41:47.973)
Yeah, yeah, and they kind of play into that with like the Shia character too when he like brings back the snake to the the dry sandpit and He just yeah just rolling with it But yeah, you know we we had talked about Harrison Ford, you know being excited to do this again and Really like if you you can find interviews where he talks about like this is his favorite character That he's that he's ever played

Jacob Allen (41:54.796)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Eli (42:17.828)
And you know, it makes sense because it's kind of like an outlet for him to have the best of both worlds, because you know, he's not like a derpy, just action guy. He's he's an intelligent dude. And so he gets with this character to play like an intellectual, like a guy that's like a professor, but also like,

Jacob Allen (42:41.325)
Yeah.

Eli (42:45.254)
plays into the strengths he has as an actor, which is definitely like the action, the quippy lines, like those are his strengths.

Jacob Allen (42:47.905)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (42:51.958)
Right. I loved, I loved the bit where they're, they're on a chase, like it's the motorcycle chase through the college campus and they come to a screeching halt in the library and one of his students sees him and asks him like a question about an assignment. And it's to your point, it's like, it is the combination of the action and he gets to be intellectual with the student. And you know, it's so funny. Yeah. There's like a

Eli (43:01.713)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (43:09.946)
Yeah.

Eli (43:18.438)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (43:21.164)
Coalescence right there in front of our eyes. Both of those streets, yeah.

Eli (43:23.43)
Yeah, think that's where he is that where he screams out you've got to get out of the library Yeah Yeah, love it a very indie line as well And yeah other players you have Let's let's do talk about Karen Allen because it was great to see her back in this movie playing Marion Ravenwood Yeah, I loved seeing her back

Jacob Allen (43:28.704)
Yes, yes, yeah, so good.

Eli (43:52.654)
in the indie movies.

Jacob Allen (43:54.292)
It felt a lot like their reunion moment felt a lot like the Princess Leia reunion moment in The Force Awakens though.

Eli (44:02.47)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of similar chemistry with yeah, know, Han and Leia and then Indy and Marion for sure. And I even like, I even, I think in the Raiders episode, I talked about how I noticed the score for Marion's theme and for Leia's theme is very similar. Yeah, they have a similar kind of sound and even like,

Jacob Allen (44:26.414)
that's interesting. Yeah.

Eli (44:32.912)
the melody, like the main melody for those themes kind of even have a few notes that are like that follow the same trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's something I noticed. was like, John Williams is a smart dude. He, knows how to recycle stuff.

Jacob Allen (44:52.246)
Yeah, certainly. That's not an accident. Yeah.

Eli (44:56.664)
but yeah, so Karen Allen was contacted at the start of 2007 and, and the special feature she's like, it's real cute. She's like talking about how she had imagined, you know, being in an Indiana Jones movie again for a while, but just thought that would never happen. And then she gets the call and it's like, yeah, absolutely. And she was like, I expected like a cameo or whatever. But then she read the script and she was like, I have like a whole.

whole a lot to do so but then she had to keep it secret for six months because they they kept this like on under wraps pretty tight so yeah yeah for sure and then the the other the other like indie related character would be shia la buff as mutt williams probably my fate one of my

Jacob Allen (45:32.493)
my god.

Jacob Allen (45:37.23)
would be a hard thing to keep secret.

Eli (45:53.351)
favorite things that's like not a joke in the movie, but made me chuckle is how Mutt tells Indiana Jones his name is Mutt and Indy like responds with like bewilderment of like what kind of name is Mutt and then he's like defensive and he's like I chose this name and I'm like so why are you why did why did it's you could be defensive if someone gave you that name but not if you chose it

Jacob Allen (46:14.958)
you

Jacob Allen (46:19.374)
Yeah. Well, it's personal. He takes it personal. You know, it's like the criticism of his personal choice.

Eli (46:24.41)
Yeah.

Eli (46:29.154)
Yeah, but I'm like, but you could have gone with anything and you chose mutt.

Jacob Allen (46:34.572)
Totally MUTT. Yeah. That is so funny.

Eli (46:37.884)
Yeah, I thought that was funny. Mutt Williams. Spielberg was an executive producer on Transformers. And I think Spielberg probably saw Shia LaBeouf as like his next big star that he could like use a bunch. That's just like the vibe that seems like was around this whole movie and this casting.

Jacob Allen (47:00.366)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (47:05.532)
and we'll talk about why that didn't happen later on. But yeah, Shia LaBeouf, he didn't really get a lot of screen time in the special features, but you know, he just, and I think it's just because, I think it's partly because like the word, the like kind of rumors are that he was more difficult on set to deal with and...

Like him and Harrison Ford didn't really get along a whole lot. So, which makes sense for Shia LaBeouf during this period of his career. Kind of like in hindsight, we kind of know like stuff he was dealing with and so, you know, it's hard to like, it's easy to kind of have sympathy for Shia LaBeouf even though he was apparently a pain.

Jacob Allen (47:40.522)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (47:47.138)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (47:54.902)
Yeah, certainly. Yeah, certainly. I thought his character and their chemistry in the movie was nice,

Eli (47:59.93)
Eli (48:05.496)
Yeah, it's like it's reminiscent of the pro I guess the problem for me was like it's reminiscent of the chemistry between Ford and Connery but like way like lower like doesn't doesn't meet that mark at all like it makes you think of it which is actually like not a good thing because the chemistry of Ford and Connery was incredible. So so I think that kind of like works against that

Jacob Allen (48:22.157)
Right.

Jacob Allen (48:25.816)
Sure, because it doesn't meet. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Eli (48:35.16)
character in the movie is like it's hard to live up to the the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery yeah and it's like they're very obviously like trying to riff on like that generational thing of like you know Connery's father to Ford's like son and then

Jacob Allen (48:41.676)
Yeah, that was an iconic duo, yeah.

Eli (49:02.502)
transitioning that like they're very obviously like trying to play into that and so yeah to me it just like worked against it unfortunately but but yeah they did they did try to get Connery back but Connery was just like it's too small a role I'm not interested and so he so they put him as a picture yeah he's so he's dead which I mean makes sense he would have been

Jacob Allen (49:06.594)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (49:11.5)
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, we'll talk more about that.

Jacob Allen (49:21.838)
So that, yeah, so that they, he's dead.

Eli (49:31.971)
Old at this old enough to be like makes sense that he would be passed away at this point. I guess And then of course the other the other major player Well, I guess there's one more the the other one that I have a lot of notes on is Kate Blanchett as a Reno Spalco And Kate Blanchett's just great like I don't really care what she does she just is kind of

Jacob Allen (49:37.986)
Yeah, yeah, certainly.

Jacob Allen (49:50.007)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (50:00.934)
fun to watch. really brings, like she's doing, I read like one of her inspirations was Colonel Rosa Klebb from the Bond movie from Russia with Love. I think that's the second one, the second Bond movie, which I've seen but it's been a while, so.

Jacob Allen (50:01.976)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (50:18.134)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's so funny. It's so funny that, you know, I'm looking at your notes too, so I'm sorry. I'm not sure what I doing, but it's like this whole it's so and this is part of the charm and what we love about Indiana Jones. It's so goofy and there are so

Eli (50:24.752)
I don't know how close that was.

Eli (50:34.373)
No, yeah.

Jacob Allen (50:44.782)
The caricatures are so heightened. it's so funny to think of an actor of the caliber of Cate Blanchett reading the script, seeing how over the top her character would be and just being like, I'm in, I'm locked in. It makes me like her all the more, you know? But she does seem like an actor that's always just kind of been game for whatever, you know?

Eli (50:46.747)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (51:00.026)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Eli (51:04.966)
yeah. Yeah. And

Eli (51:10.33)
yeah. She's just like, I'm all in and I'm doing, I'm just going to do this to like the nth degree, whatever it is. that's why she basically is Lydia Tarr now. cause she, she like made that character feel like a real person. but yeah, yeah, she even talked about like looking at 50s yearbooks and picking a haircut out.

Jacob Allen (51:18.498)
Yes, totally. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (51:24.727)
Mm-hmm.

You committed? Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (51:39.416)
for this character. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (51:39.692)
That's funny. I noticed the haircut. That was a great touch to her character for sure.

Eli (51:44.931)
yeah. Yeah, she's great in the movie. Ray Winstone, guess, would be the other major character throughout the movie as George Mackmahal. I think he's just like serviceable. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (51:53.432)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (52:02.136)
for sure. I like Ray Winston. His character's arc was a little bit like felt like a bit of a contrivance. Like he's revealed to be he reveals himself to India as a double agent. You're like, OK, that is that's a complete story arc. Like we've gone three quarters of this movie thinking that you had just double crossed.

you know, Indy, to find out that you know you're you've been with them all along. OK, that's great. Like we can ride that wave through the rest of the movie. And then, you know, in the last. And yeah, exactly. It's like, OK, you needed somebody to point the gun at them. Like that was I was just like, OK, whatever.

Eli (52:37.67)
Cross.

Eli (52:43.098)
Yeah.

Eli (52:46.716)
Yeah, I was like, why couldn't you just have had like them catch up to them at just the right moment?

Jacob Allen (52:51.778)
Yeah, yeah. my gosh. Or have him never have like reasserted his allegiance to Indy. Like you just could have just cut that out and they could have been, it would have been just fine for Ray Winston to have double crossed Indy and have stayed in that camp the whole movie.

Eli (53:00.859)
Yeah.

Eli (53:07.994)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is what it is. He's serviceable. He's got some funny line readings that are fun.

Jacob Allen (53:14.776)
first thing is the same.

Jacob Allen (53:20.224)
He's an enjoyable, engaging actor to watch. Yeah.

Eli (53:23.758)
Mm-hmm, for sure.

Eli (53:32.486)
some water.

Eli (53:42.461)
Some more like minor characters that kind of might just pop up. Well, one of them is throughout Igor Jeninkein, which I probably butchered that name. He's like the main Russian heavy guy. The character's name is apparently Antonin Dvchenko. I don't think they say that name in the movie. But he's like the Russian heavy that's like

Jacob Allen (53:58.894)
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (54:05.462)
Never heard that name.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (54:12.548)
all through the movie, so figured I'd give him a shout out. And then you have John Hurt as Professor Harold Oxley. I guess he comes in at the end as a pretty major player. And he's good. I think he does what he needs to do well for the movie.

Jacob Allen (54:23.799)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (54:29.986)
Mm-hmm.

He's another character kind of like Cate Blanchett where I was just like, you know, an artist of your caliber. I felt like he embraced his role and I, I really liked him. I liked his character a lot.

Eli (54:39.418)
Yeah, playing a madman. Yeah. Yeah. And then Jim Broadbent as Dean Charles Standforth, which I could have told you he was the dean, but I couldn't have told you his name. You know, he's fine telling Indy that he's lost his job. I say that he does deliver like one of the better lines of the movie at one point.

Jacob Allen (55:08.366)
I may note of that as well. what is he, he says, we seem to have reached the age when life stops giving you things and starts giving, and starts taking them away. That's a good line.

Eli (55:12.294)
Yeah.

Eli (55:21.648)
Yeah, which is a good line. It's a well-written line and he delivers it like solid like with the right with the right like Yeah with the right weight I guess behind it Yeah, so, know, yeah, he's not in the movie very much at all, but like when he's there he he he gets the job done very well, so Broadbent well done, you know But yeah, let's jump into the production the

Jacob Allen (55:26.872)
He sure does. Just like you'd expect him to.

The right amount of sincerity.

Jacob Allen (55:42.882)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (55:51.237)
The production of this movie was 84 days from June 18th to October 11th, 2007. And so if you know when it was released, which was May of the next year, you're like, wow, that's actually kind of far away because a lot of times they'd roll, Spielberg would like roll over movies pretty quickly. But this had a lot of.

Jacob Allen (56:14.606)
Mm.

Eli (56:17.862)
digital effects stuff they had to work on, so it was a long post. But yes, Spielberg, a quote I wrote down from him was, once production started, it was like no time had passed at all. Which is fun to hear, you know.

Jacob Allen (56:19.086)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (56:31.064)
You think that that speaks to the fun that he was having? Yeah, I think so, That's cool.

Eli (56:34.472)
Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, he's jumping back into this, this thing that basically like was a part of what made him who he is. And with like all the like actors from, from then, like probably a lot of the same crew. Um, yeah. So he was probably just having a lot of fun. Um, muscle memory as far as like how to film it and stuff. So.

Jacob Allen (56:51.703)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (56:55.725)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli (57:03.356)
They had a few locations for this movie new mechs in New Mexico. They shot on location They built one and a half kilometer road for the opening so that's fun and Yeah, Lucas really wanted to like introduce Indy in an under like They're in a unique circumstances So he's like put him in the trunk and that's how I'll introduce him. So which is you know, I was reading that and I was like

Jacob Allen (57:24.796)
yeah.

Eli (57:33.253)
Okay, like that is unique in that we've never seen Indy in a trunk before, but technically... Well, okay, I guess the first time we ever meet Indy, he's not like captured, but he is like being hunted. So... So not... It's like similar, I guess not exactly so. Yeah. But yeah, so they shoot in New Mexico on location.

Jacob Allen (57:48.791)
Right.

Jacob Allen (57:53.57)
Not completely foreign. Yeah.

Eli (58:01.584)
They go to Yale University and get some campus shots. And I'm pretty sure the library shot is at Yale.

Jacob Allen (58:05.453)
Yeah.

Yeah, we so my wife and I recently had the chance to visit Yale because we have a friend that's there and we were there in July of last year. So pretty recently. And I was just like, that looks very familiar. And even there were shots of there were shots of, you know, the earlier parts of that chase sequence where they're driving through New Haven. That looks like New Haven and.

Eli (58:12.607)
cool.

Eli (58:16.624)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (58:30.096)
You

Jacob Allen (58:31.346)
And in that library, we were, you we went to the library and so I looked up the location and it was and it was Yale. That was cool. That was cool to see it show up in a movie. It's a lot of fun.

Eli (58:39.514)
Yeah, yeah, it's fun to, it's fun to like notice places and movies. yeah. so yeah, they, they did do that, that stuff at Yale and I guess around a little bit around Yale too. and then, yeah, they, they did, Hawaii as a stand-in for Peru. So, if you're familiar with what we've covered in the past, they did.

Jacob Allen (58:44.288)
Yeah, it really is.

Jacob Allen (58:53.291)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (59:06.778)
some Hawaii shooting for past indie movies. And in fact, the original mountain to paramount like Fade was a mountain in Hawaii that they found. So yep, back to Hawaii, which I guess it's fun to go to Hawaii and shoot in Hawaii. It's got to be nice.

Jacob Allen (59:08.76)
gotcha. Okay, cool.

Jacob Allen (59:18.58)
Alright. Okay, cool.

Jacob Allen (59:29.59)
Yeah. You did the end job, so you know why.

Eli (59:33.957)
And then, yeah, after that, they went back to LA and they were working kind of out of four different studios for the interiors and some of those set pieces, some of the jungle set pieces, the pyramid set pieces, stuff like that. so yeah, the, they're as the working title I thought was funny was just genre for this movie. And yeah, they really like, this was Spielberg's always like,

Jacob Allen (59:42.264)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (59:58.412)
That's funny.

Eli (01:00:03.516)
pretty secretive and like keep things under wrap for his productions, but this one they especially were because

Jacob Allen (01:00:05.23)
Uh huh. Yeah. I really didn't want anyone to know anything about it.

Eli (01:00:11.758)
Right. And yeah, they're they do as much digital effects as there are in this movie. There is a good bit of like real sets. And so, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:00:25.162)
I appreciated that watch. Like that really stood out to me in positive way on this rewatch. Yeah.

Eli (01:00:29.37)
Mm-hmm Yeah, yeah, and you can notice when you when you do like when you tune into that sort of thing you can notice like okay, these are like These are actual like real sets that they're interacting with it's not just all this digital stuff that you get a lot of today Yeah Yeah is so for the cinematography camera work all that Spielberg Spent a lot of time with Janusz Kaminski

Jacob Allen (01:00:36.758)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:00:43.202)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:00:58.778)
like watching the original, studying the lighting work and all that because Douglas Slocum, who was the DP for the first, the original trilogy was retired. so Kaminsky, which I assume I kind of, that made me, when I was reading that, it made me assume that if Slocum wasn't retired that Spielberg probably would have brought him back for this one. But.

Jacob Allen (01:01:02.318)
in a minute.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:01:22.006)
Maybe so, but by this point, by this point, Spielberg has been working with Kaminsky for a lot, for a number of years. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Eli (01:01:29.788)
Since 93, since Schindler's List. yeah. He's been working with Kaminsky and Kaminsky alone. since 93. So, you know, that's 15 years of working with the same DP. know, Spielberg did want the lighting, like he wanted it to look like an indie film. So they did study it a lot, but you do see some like...

Jacob Allen (01:01:46.253)
Yeah.

Eli (01:01:57.905)
personal touches from Kaminsky like.

Jacob Allen (01:02:00.174)
I feel like this to me was a real strength of the movie as you would expect when you're thinking about Kaminsky and Spielberg.

Eli (01:02:09.03)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:02:12.62)
I just, you you mentioned the terminal earlier. The terminal is not a great movie, I don't think. But there are moments in it where it's like, my gosh, this is why I go to the movies. You know, and I think it's the Spielberg and Kaminsky touch that they can bring movie magic to anything. I think Crystal Skull is a much better movie than Terminal, but there are breathtaking moments where it's just like, for all of the camp and all of the cheesiness of this movie, they are like...

Eli (01:02:15.366)
Mm-hmm. No.

Eli (01:02:31.121)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:02:42.616)
They're making movie magic. It's just like, this is why we go to the movies. You know, I just, I don't know what some of the standout shots were for you or if there any, but there were, it was kind of a recurring visual effect of, you know, there'd be a character's figure silhouetted against a screen or against a wall. I think of the scene where Indy is, he's like tied down in the tent and he's like forced to look at the skull.

Eli (01:03:02.758)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:03:10.862)
And there's a shot that backs up and you see, you know, from the other side of maybe like the, canvas, the, yeah, exactly. Like you see the shadow, you know, his silhouette and then just him in the middle, like Harrison Ford's presence in the middle of, of that silhouette and just, there were a handful of shots very similar to that. they're just kind of breathtaking. Yeah. I mean, they're breathtaking.

Eli (01:03:17.36)
Yeah, it's like a sheer sheet almost. Yeah.

Eli (01:03:28.198)
Yeah.

Eli (01:03:35.291)
Yeah, I actually noted that one. I noted that particular one because I was watching it I was like, that's like, sometimes when you watch, when you're like doing a series like this, you really like tune into stuff like that. And so I was watching and I was like, that's cool. Cause a Spalco is like, you know, doing her like evil, evil lecturing. and he's like, yeah, it's, it's Kaminsky playing with like light and shadow. It's something he does a lot.

Jacob Allen (01:03:48.782)
It really is.

Jacob Allen (01:03:55.831)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:04:02.135)
Yeah.

Eli (01:04:03.888)
and in that one, yeah, it's just, it's almost like, you know, you, if you want to like be like, put your critic, you know, hat on and like, try to analyze what's being said in the reality, they might've just been like, this is a cool shot, but you could even like, yeah, you could analyze like, it's cause like, you know, Indy is like kind of a shadow of the man he used to be. He's older. and so you get like,

Jacob Allen (01:04:20.814)
Which is kind of what I suspect, yeah.

Eli (01:04:32.826)
You can see Indy through the sheet, but you also can see like his shadow but on the sheet that you're like looking at him through because of the backlighting Yeah, really really I loved that like there's several like you said of that that sort of thing in the movie And yeah, he Kaminsky loves working with all that kind of thing so one of the

Jacob Allen (01:04:39.01)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:04:56.534)
Yeah, I'm sure that was a treat for him to get to experience an Indiana Jones movie. Yeah.

Eli (01:05:01.05)
Yeah, i'm sure yeah and He did so I I really liked the way this movie looked kaminsky I like the way he lights but I there's certain things he does like when he gets to like the super intense backlighting where it like creates this like flurry glary kind of look so he does a lot of that and like minority report and I honestly like don't

like that. And so that's like

Jacob Allen (01:05:32.27)
Yeah. Does it just try to take you out of the movie?

Eli (01:05:37.711)
A little bit. Yeah Yeah, like Minority Report. I was like good grief. Like can we stop getting like can we see the characters and stop seeing them in silhouette with like glares behind them? But Because I loved I loved Minority Report But like that was like one of my least favorite things about the movie was the way it looked But he doesn't really do a lot of that sort of thing in this movie he he does like

Jacob Allen (01:05:38.957)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:05:47.03)
Let's play it.

Jacob Allen (01:05:55.789)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:06:07.376)
He puts a little personal touch, like sticks pretty well to like the, the traditional like indie look, I think. yeah. And, I mean, you, you also have like he, in the special features, he talked about like how fun it was to shoot that, you know, you have to introduce indie with the hat. And so like there, I, his, I think it was, I think it might've been Kaminsky's idea. I'm not, you don't, you know, write that neat.

Jacob Allen (01:06:10.349)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:06:15.276)
Yeah, yeah, agreed.

Jacob Allen (01:06:29.086)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (01:06:37.206)
I'm not sure, this is just my vague memory, but he did talk about like really enjoying that setup with like the shadow on the car putting that the indie hat on so... yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:06:45.888)
Mm-hmm. You got a lot of mileage out of the hat in this movie. Which I think, we may talk about this a little bit later, thematically, like one of those final shots goes, there's a lot there. It's awesome.

Eli (01:06:58.01)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. The other thing about this movie is it's shot on film, shot and edited in film. So Spielberg, even in, in 2008, a lot of people are switching over and he's, he's sticking to the film. so thankful for that. let's dig into the production design and effects and stuff. There's cause there's a good bit to talk about here.

Of course with the indie movie, you know, there's a lot of a lot of production and effects to talk about but Yeah, they they did reproduce like the the doom towns is what they were called from the 50s for nuclear testing They did some they Kind of skipping down they did they use some like miniature work for that. So they had like Basically like

miniature versions of those little neighborhoods that Ford is in and it really like a lot of times like effects teams will use miniatures for like explosion shots and so instead of like Doing a big big explosions in like a full-size set they do the explosion stuff in a miniature

Jacob Allen (01:07:58.904)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (01:08:26.478)
And it's better than doing the miniature and then adding it into like, they're like adding like CGI or like adding it into another plate is like more appealing to the eye than like just CGI and the explosion because you really need something with like some like weight to it to get the explosion to look good. and

Jacob Allen (01:08:33.356)
You know.

Jacob Allen (01:08:41.708)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right, right. What did you think about the Doomtown? Yeah.

Eli (01:08:55.524)
It was fun. It's like, it's, it's one of those things that's like, okay, I see what Spielberg's like definitely playing on his like, kind of fractured relationship with suburbia here. There's definitely some like underlying thematic stuff going on here with that. and so it was fun. Like it's definitely like kind of

Jacob Allen (01:09:12.077)
Yeah.

Eli (01:09:26.606)
If you're familiar with like Spielberg's relationship to like the suburbs and like how like he has like nostalgia for it, but also like struggles with I guess I don't know how good that is for creativity and for you know, all that sort of thing and you know, he has some some I guess like You know, there's divorced

Jacob Allen (01:09:49.846)
Yeah.

Eli (01:09:55.965)
tied to that for him, the kind of fracture of the nuclear family. so, and then ironically, the nuclear bomb explodes the mannequin nuclear family watching the television set. So there's definitely something going on with that.

Jacob Allen (01:10:00.76)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:10:07.052)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that was one of my favorite sequences in the whole movie. I just thought it was eerie and it was weird in a way that you don't and just like unsettling in a way that you don't always expect to get from Spielberg and I thought it was just so effective for all the reasons that you just said but even just like the imagery of him walking around and amongst these models. Yeah, it was weird. I loved that sequence. Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:10:37.508)
Yeah the weird mannequins and Yeah, I was like I was wondering I didn't look it up, but I was wondering like Did they actually set these towns up like with electricity and with like? with a bunch of mannequins

Jacob Allen (01:10:52.086)
Yeah, well there's a scene where, or a shot where he like, he tries to get a drink of water from the tap and there's no water. So apparently they didn't run water.

Eli (01:11:01.52)
Yeah, Yeah, which makes sense but You know, yeah, I was like I was like did they actually do like did they dress all the mannequins up? Like what's the because if so, like what's the point of that? I don't really know And now that you say that wasn't there a sprinkler going in one of the yards So they ran water somewhere

Jacob Allen (01:11:14.434)
Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:11:20.664)
For yeah, for who's benefit. I think there was, yeah. For who's benefit.

Yeah, anyway, it's funny.

Eli (01:11:31.677)
But yeah, anyway, it is weird. don't know. But yeah, they used a miniature to catch that explosion. then you do have like the, think they said the nuke town was like a one eighth scale. So it was like 60 by a hundred feet, the little miniature town that they built. And then they had like a hundred gallon air cannons.

Jacob Allen (01:11:52.526)
jeez. Yeah.

Eli (01:12:02.22)
Under it that kind of like blasted the town and yeah And then the nuke was like that basically Spielberg sent ILM like an original plate, which is just the original plate is just like the shot that they're gonna add it to and so you have Harrison Ford like walking up the hill and Looking out and there's like a space where they're like, okay there's the space where you're supposed to add the nuke the

Jacob Allen (01:12:05.742)
gotcha.

Jacob Allen (01:12:31.406)
Yeah, interesting. thought so too. thought I did too. Thinking about like this, not to take the conversation off the rails, but one thing that did come to mind was thinking about

Eli (01:12:32.122)
You know, the mushroom cloud. And so it looks pretty good. I think. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:12:48.032)
You know, maybe surprisingly, Spielberg came up in conversations and interviews I saw with Wes Anderson circa Asteroid City. And so much of that is, you know, kind of the same time period. There's nukes going off in the background as they're testing. And, you know, then there's obviously the alien landing that, you know, in Asteroid City. So I wonder what.

Eli (01:12:58.16)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:13:11.718)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:13:16.832)
Yeah, I don't know. I wonder how much this movie, if at all, was on Anderson's mind as he was thinking about Asteroid City.

Eli (01:13:25.148)
Yeah, you never know. you know, Wes Anderson...

Jacob Allen (01:13:28.318)
Sometimes I think that we as viewers make these connections before the artists do.

Eli (01:13:31.718)
Yeah, yeah, sometimes, yeah. Yeah, they, I mean, they definitely have like influences always, but Anderson can be a bit of an enigma, so.

Jacob Allen (01:13:43.193)
Yeah, he's an enigma that was very surprising when he start, know, Anderson starts talking about Spielberg for whatever reason that's not appearing that people would automatically, you know, make. even, know, Anderson, Anderson talks about, go ahead. I was gonna say Anderson talks about, you know, the divorce of his parents being a pretty pivotal moment in.

Eli (01:13:52.187)
Yeah, but I mean, he's one of those guys that's like, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

Eli (01:14:04.209)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:14:08.202)
you know crops up in his work a lot so there's some common ground for sure.

Eli (01:14:15.002)
Yeah, and I think like they the their application of the camera is fairly different, but I do think they both have like a very like intuitive sense of like once they're on a set of where to put like they both do a lot try to do a lot of like practical sets because they both have just an eye for space and

Jacob Allen (01:14:25.004)
Yeah.

Eli (01:14:40.676)
where to position the camera and where how the camera should move or not move. yeah. And you know, I've, I've covered Wes Anderson on the podcast. like thinking on like all of those films and then relating it to like Spielberg, there's definitely like a similar, just intuitiveness of like just camera work between the two for sure. That, you know,

Jacob Allen (01:14:42.668)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:15:05.76)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:15:08.868)
isn't necessarily like, everyone doesn't necessarily have that. Even like, even great directors are like, not all of them have that to the same degree.

Jacob Allen (01:15:12.632)
Right.

Jacob Allen (01:15:19.574)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:15:21.434)
Yeah, but I mean there's just there's so much detail in this movie that And really like all indie films, but you know This is the one we're talking about. So like it was fun. And one of the there's like a whole special feature Thing with just props they have the prop property master doug harlocker just going through all the props that they used So he's like talking about like the swords they made for

Spalco's character they like made those swords in the sword box that she gets them out of from scratch and Mutt's letter that he has is like written from scratch and all the little like doodles from Oxley Yeah, just I mean everything like they he talked about like yeah

Jacob Allen (01:15:58.114)
Yeah. Nice world.

Jacob Allen (01:16:05.932)
Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:16:13.134)
Lots of attention to detail and you know all stuff that you would hope. It's like it makes for good world building. You would hope that that filmmakers would go to those links.

Eli (01:16:19.614)
yeah.

Eli (01:16:23.354)
Yeah, one of the funnier ones was that Lucas apparently has like carried the same comb around for a long time and so like he took it out and was giving Shia LaBeouf pointers on comb etiquette.

Jacob Allen (01:16:37.806)
my goodness. That's so funny.

Eli (01:16:41.276)
So I love that I was like, man, can you imagine being on set and George Lucas being like, now here's how you handle a comb.

Jacob Allen (01:16:45.858)
getting.

Jacob Allen (01:16:49.614)
Here's how you properly handle a gum.

Eli (01:16:52.348)
I mean, they also like brought out some like stuff from the Lucas archives like the the knapsack that he uses was Was not like new they had to kind of pulled that out from the archives the Obviously the Ark of the Covenant was the same one they used in Raiders. That's in the warehouse scene They also I thought this was funny too they recreated Moses's staff from

Jacob Allen (01:17:09.069)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:17:20.614)
the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. And it's one of the objects that busts out when the crates are busting in the warehouse. Yeah. Which that's a really cool set, the whole warehouse thing.

Jacob Allen (01:17:21.198)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:17:29.059)
that's funny. That's funny.

Jacob Allen (01:17:36.332)
Yeah, what did you think of that? thought so too.

Eli (01:17:38.981)
Yeah, it's it's really cool. They They did so it's like it's a mix of it's one of those scenes where it's like a good mix of practical set and also like digital expansion like so they They have like the practical part where the actors are and then like it's kind of like there's blue screen and they kind of add in the depth digitally, which it was cool to see the the ilm guys talking about that because they

Jacob Allen (01:18:00.866)
Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:18:08.038)
They talked about like the process, like the arduous process of like creating the objects and they're like, they're, when they're, when they create them, there's, there's, they're just these like gray things. And then there's like a whole team that like adds color and texture to the objects. But yeah, that's a crazy process. and it's, it's funny, like that it's like,

Jacob Allen (01:18:14.562)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:18:24.684)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:18:35.908)
Everyone's like, digital, it must be easier. And it's like, no, it's probably actually easier to make the actual props and set. That's why movies are so expensive these days is cause you have to pay all these guys to like create all these CGI objects. Yeah. thank goodness we didn't get that. but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of great like.

Jacob Allen (01:18:41.518)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:18:53.644)
Yeah, like whips.

Eli (01:19:03.974)
Practical effects and stunts you're still getting like breakaway crates with like Air cannons busting the crates open as the Jeep pulls through and guys are getting pulled back on cables and know stuntmen or what up whatever They they did they had to work with Shia For on that Harley for like I think they said they worked like every day for like six weeks with him on the Harley Because those things are heavy. They're like

They're not like super easy to like handle, especially when you're doing, when you have like Harrison Ford on the back of it doing stunts.

Jacob Allen (01:19:40.206)
Adding some weight to it, yeah.

Eli (01:19:41.797)
Yeah, so that's always fun to hear. The pyramid, like, yeah, let's talk about the pyramid set because that's really, that really stands out as looking like really good in my opinion. I think some of the, so I will say like for the warehouse set, for the pyramid set, there are some sections where you get wide shots that don't look quite as good.

Jacob Allen (01:19:57.302)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:20:10.925)
Right.

Eli (01:20:11.866)
because when they do, when they pull out those wide shots, you can really tell like, okay, some of this is real and some of this is CGI. And I think that's the, that's probably like the difference between like 2008 and 2018 of like where the, that those like that CGI effects have come. Cause today you probably would have a harder time telling the difference of like what was the practical set and what was CGI.

Jacob Allen (01:20:19.883)
Yeah, for sure.

Jacob Allen (01:20:27.0)
for sure.

Jacob Allen (01:20:31.436)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:20:40.61)
Yeah.

Eli (01:20:41.338)
whereas then it did kind of stand out to me. was like, okay, like, yeah. But I mean, they did like, the pyramid stuff where the actors are is like practical set, which is really cool.

Jacob Allen (01:20:45.974)
A little bit of an eyesore.

Jacob Allen (01:20:58.156)
Yeah. And just the, the sand flowing out from, know, that was all really cool. Yeah.

Eli (01:21:01.232)
Yeah. Yeah, that was real. It was real sand flowing out and the like the little pillars really do like go up. There's yeah, those are real. They built like a they had like one miniature pyramid like to scale that they built on a lazy Susan. So they they kind of put that against a I guess a blue screen.

Jacob Allen (01:21:10.638)
close in on themselves and yeah.

Eli (01:21:31.212)
Filmed it like turning from different angles so that they could say yeah, so they could kind of add that in You know where they needed to so it's like you're not having to CGI a pyramid you just add in the miniature so So a lot of like really smart decisions As far as that goes which I think I think stands out late, you know they they really just use CGI to like extend stuff so like

Jacob Allen (01:21:34.144)
Okay.

Jacob Allen (01:21:38.208)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:21:59.352)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:22:00.413)
The pyramid, the actual set of the pyramid is not super tall, but in the movie it's really tall. So they kind of use digital effects to extend that out where it looks like they're running down a lot more steps when in reality the actors are just running onto the floor.

Jacob Allen (01:22:07.028)
Mm-hmm. Right. No, for sure.

Jacob Allen (01:22:16.097)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:22:23.18)
Yeah, it's effective. mean, it looks great.

Eli (01:22:25.168)
Yeah, yeah This is another notable thing this is the first time that the creepy crawlies are digital so That's a little bit disappointing to be honest Because you that's like one of the like trademarks of the indie movie is like what is the creepy crawly gonna be for this one? Yeah, and the ants

Jacob Allen (01:22:41.676)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:22:50.006)
Right. The big old ants, dude. What did you think, regardless of how believable it looked just because of the CGI, what did you think of just the concept of the ants in that sequence?

Eli (01:23:04.248)
It's fine. I don't love it.

Jacob Allen (01:23:08.205)
It ranks higher on the list in that movie of just kind of the camp like. It's pretty campy.

Eli (01:23:13.838)
Yeah Yeah, it's just like I think it's I think that here's the difference to me I think so like all of the creepy crawly stuff is very like Cheesy campy stuff like with the snakes in the original you've got the rats in last crusade the bugs and temple of doom

Jacob Allen (01:23:35.37)
Okay, the rats in the last crusade, that is incredibly effective to me. We rewatched that one recently and it's just like, well, and then do you remember the when, or the shot where, whatever, can't remember, Schneider, she's wearing her heels and she steps on a rat. Can you picture it?

Eli (01:23:41.104)
Yeah, there's a lot of real rats.

Eli (01:23:55.696)
Yeah, I think so.

Jacob Allen (01:23:57.578)
I hadn't seen crusade in, I don't know, maybe 10 years or so, but I knew that that was about to happen. And I told my wife, was like, you might want to look away because it's just, it's so, it's so unsettling. Like, and you know, that, that was a creepy crawly sequence that just was, it works so well. And, and the ants aren't anywhere close to that level.

Eli (01:24:10.544)
Yeah.

Eli (01:24:17.402)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, and I think it's just like you want that, you gotta have that trademark creepy crawly cheesy campy sort of situation in an indie movie, but when you, when they're actual real practical creepy crawly things, it's fun. But when it's all digital, it's kind of like it takes away the whole like

Jacob Allen (01:24:43.982)
Yeah.

Eli (01:24:51.566)
Actual Yeah, yeah Because that's the that's the thing about like you think about like the bugs and temple of doom it's like yeah, this is like cheesy like they're gonna Be scared of the bugs but like there's real bugs and so you're kind of like, okay, I guess I kind of get it They're pretty gross, you know But like yeah that that's totally lost with this and

Jacob Allen (01:24:51.663)
just a visceral element like you know

Jacob Allen (01:25:01.589)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:25:11.426)
But it is kinda scary. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:25:20.572)
You know, I mean, there's a degree to which it's impressive that they were able to create this simulation engine that made all these ants, but at the end of the day, it just looks and feels a little cheesy. I don't know. That's one of the things that works not great for me in the movie.

Jacob Allen (01:25:31.691)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:25:46.434)
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I'm with you.

Eli (01:25:49.989)
I did like this Spielberg in the special features was joking about. He was like, we need to add in to the bonus features, me saying like, we need 150,000 more ants because in like all the special features for the past films, it's like, we need more snakes, we need more rats, we need more bugs. We need more ants. I thought that was very like.

Jacob Allen (01:26:02.542)
.

Jacob Allen (01:26:09.358)
More ants!

Eli (01:26:18.948)
Self-aware humor, you I guess the last thing with special effects is Pablo Hellman the the VFX supervisor Talked about the destruction of the temple was like the hardest thing to create in the whole movie for the digital effects Which makes sense cuz like if you think about like you have so many moving parts and like none of that is real none of that is obviously the set isn't actually like

Jacob Allen (01:26:20.083)
Totally, yeah. For sure.

Jacob Allen (01:26:34.178)
Hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:26:43.628)
Yeah. Right.

Eli (01:26:48.742)
breaking apart and being sucked up into a portal. So, you know, they have, yeah, and it's just like a lot of moving objects that are like hitting each other and breaking apart. And that's just like really difficult to create, you know, digitally. It looks okay, you know, I don't think it's like, that looks amazing, but it's fine. And then, you know, the

Jacob Allen (01:26:49.964)
Yeah, yeah. You have to make it look believable somehow.

Jacob Allen (01:27:03.853)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli (01:27:17.296)
The flying, the B-movie flying saucer is kind of like pretty campy, but like kind of fun, you know.

Jacob Allen (01:27:20.31)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:27:26.604)
Yeah, I think it looks it looks better and more. You know, just engrossing when it's. Lifting away from the inside of the temple versus that wide shot of the group watching it move like fly away. That doesn't work as well when it's when it's leaving the temple and they're inside of it, or maybe we're just seeing it from the inside. don't that. That looks like.

Eli (01:27:41.19)
Sure. The wide shot, yeah.

Yeah.

Eli (01:27:53.809)
Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:27:56.182)
You know, pretty unnerving, like pretty, pretty awe inspiring. Yeah.

Eli (01:28:00.785)
Yeah, I think they called it the garbage disposal. It's like on set, I think is what I remember them saying. That's pretty funny. But yeah. And then like, I don't know, the aliens. I'm totally fine with the idea of having aliens in the movie. Like that doesn't bother me whatsoever. But like once you start getting close ups of the CGI alien, it's kind of like.

Jacob Allen (01:28:04.945)
that's funny, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:28:09.102)
Yeah.

Eli (01:28:29.326)
Okay, this didn't age very well. Like, it doesn't look great.

Jacob Allen (01:28:31.758)
Yeah, Yeah, that's something, that was one of the things I was just most fascinated to think about was, you know, a world in which an alien wound up in an Indiana Jones movie. And I like that that happened. You know, I like that.

Eli (01:28:46.128)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, overall, I don't think the digital effects are bad in this movie. They just have some, like, poor applications, I think.

Jacob Allen (01:29:02.014)
And I would by no means consider it like a detriment of the movie. There were some weak moments, but I think the sum total ends up in the positive.

Eli (01:29:05.07)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. mean, really just like the more like practical set pieces, the better. mean, like even thinking about like the door, like the crystal skull door that that's like a, that was like a fully functioning, you know, scale door that like had those like, you know, moving. Yeah. really cool. mean, it just looks cool. and so

Jacob Allen (01:29:28.6)
You see the logs tumble down the side and yeah. It does, yeah.

Eli (01:29:37.725)
You know the more of that the better in an Indiana Jones movie and so like when you start to get to to CGI then it just kind of like takes away the the fun of the Indiana Jones practical effects, I think Yeah A lot of fun sound in this movie Ben Burt. I talked about him being back with to work with Ron Judkins and

Jacob Allen (01:29:52.888)
Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Eli (01:30:06.876)
Ben Burt talked about hire, he hired his son to organize thousands of sounds from the archives of the older films. Yes. So, I mean, you're just listening to whips and guns and explosions.

Jacob Allen (01:30:13.962)
that's funny. That would be such a cool job to get hired to do that. yeah. And Wilhelm screams.

Eli (01:30:23.964)
Yeah, oh man, um But yeah, I mean the movie sounds good it it Honestly, like there's not I don't have any complaints there. Um, the other thing I thought was fun was ben burt talked about Uh, he had always wanted to do sound for a movie with a sword fight Yeah, and so he was like the adventures of don juan with ariel flinn was like his inspiration for the swords and the Sounds and all that so I thought that was fun

Jacob Allen (01:30:34.668)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:30:42.497)
that's funny. And you got it.

Jacob Allen (01:30:51.091)
Okay, that's cool. Yeah, that's fun.

Eli (01:30:55.412)
you get, and then, you know, there's also, the electrical sound, like kind of electronic sounds you get when you're trying to like do, when you get into the alien stuff and, the, the, the one thing that he talked about that I thought was really cool was he said he was getting in his car in a grocery store parking lot and the light post was like making this weird buzzing sound.

Jacob Allen (01:31:08.533)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:31:21.436)
And so he happened to have his recorder on him. And so he got out and recorded that and that ended up being the sound that the skull makes. Yeah. Which when you hear it, knowing that you're like, Oh, that does sound like a lamp post. That's kind of like buzzing, you know? Um, yeah, I thought that was fun. Uh, as far as music goes, I mean, it's John Williams doing the indie stuff.

Jacob Allen (01:31:27.458)
That's cool.

Jacob Allen (01:31:33.742)
Thanks

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:31:47.756)
Yeah, it almost, I hate to say it, but it was almost diminishing returns for me. I don't know. I don't know if you felt that like. And it was just, it was kind of like, and that's where we get that kind of movement. That's where we get that kind of movement. I don't, yeah, I don't know. To your point about John Williams knowing.

Eli (01:31:54.544)
Really? Okay. That's fair, I guess.

Eli (01:32:04.058)
Yeah, sure.

Jacob Allen (01:32:13.898)
He's a smart guy and he knows how to borrow. It sounded like it could have been a Harry Potter theme at times. You know what I mean? it's just like, it's, going, it's, it's, it's effective in that it's going to take you back. Like it's going to make you remember those early memories of watching Indian Jones. I think that's, that's a successful, you know, but

Eli (01:32:21.702)
Sure. Yeah.

Eli (01:32:38.832)
Yeah, the thing for me with John Williams is like the man's definitely like a genius, like he's phenomenal. But I think when you start to like watch like I am like all these Spielberg movies in succession and you're hearing like all these John Williams scores, you know, my wife and I watched the Harry Potter movies a while back and you know,

Jacob Allen (01:33:04.238)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:33:07.132)
I don't know just hearing all the John Williams scores you start to realize like He does kind of borrow sounds and movements and stuff a lot from himself which is fine, but

Jacob Allen (01:33:17.614)
Yeah, and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. like, and honestly, I would, I would be inclined to give an artist like him the benefit of the doubt to say that there are like thematic purposes for that too, like.

Eli (01:33:31.098)
Yeah, there are.

Jacob Allen (01:33:31.918)
You know, I'm signaling back to another character and causing the viewer, you know, just like maybe even subliminally to remember this element of a previous character and find them in this new one. So it's like, I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt in a lot of that. You know, I don't think it's just like lazy, you know.

Eli (01:33:43.42)
Yeah, maybe.

Eli (01:33:52.997)
Yeah, I don't think that and like I don't I want to be careful because I don't want to sound like I'm like You know dissing John Williams. I mean when you make something as transcendent as the ET score then like you're a genius, you know

Jacob Allen (01:34:02.761)
yeah, far be it.

Jacob Allen (01:34:09.11)
Well, and I think that that's why I'm inclined to give him the benefit of doubt. In any art, like in any artist, you see similar elements crop up. I mean, that's what we talk about it with Spielberg. Like Spielberg has these little nuggets that pop up. And so why would it not be the case for Williams as well in his composition?

Eli (01:34:20.412)
Hmm.

Eli (01:34:32.292)
Hmm yeah Yeah, I guess like the the the way like watching the way Spielberg like applies his Spielbergness to different like stories and different like at like settings and stuff is really fun but like I guess like after a while like hearing so many John Williams scores like back-to-back you kind of get to be like I wish he would do something like

Radically different. So that's why I loved the catch me if you can score Because it's like that jazzy It's a really fun score and it's like how I think it's I mean you have to put ET number one But to me the catch me if you can score is like a close second. Honestly, maybe even above the jaw score Which it's hard not to put jaws up there too, but I don't know. It's just like that one's really fun

Jacob Allen (01:35:07.576)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:35:18.318)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:35:27.726)
Well, and going back to the movie magic thing, think, you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't say that, you've got, you know, Kaminsky, Spielberg, and Williams is obviously like a huge contributor just to that. Like, oh my goodness, this is why all these elements swell at once. And it's like, okay, this is why I go to the movies, you know? And so.

Eli (01:35:46.459)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yep. And then, you know, going into like the next thing on my notes is the editing. Michael Kahn is the, his like tried and true editor. You know, I, I like to, if, if you're a regular listener of the podcast, you've heard me say this before, but like editors are like the unsung heroes of, of moviemaking. But like really like the story is told in the edit ultimately.

You know, Michael Kahn is just like, he's an incredible edit film editor. Like, yeah. And this, one of the crazy things is, which is the, guess like the detail behind this fact is that usually Michael Kahn and Spielberg are like working on the edit as they go. but the, the movie was cut a week after the filming was completed. Like.

Jacob Allen (01:36:24.105)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:36:46.577)
Eli (01:36:48.54)
Michael Kahn was just like, all right, the movie's cut. I'm done. Um, like, yeah. And so, and there's like, there's like eight months of post production. So part of, yeah, part of that is just like, they had to get the movie cuts because there were so much digital work to be done, like adding that stuff in. Um, but yeah, he's just great. You know, he's

Jacob Allen (01:36:59.637)
And on a week of that, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:37:15.724)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:37:17.092)
He's probably faster cutting actual film than most movies are like digitally editing.

Jacob Allen (01:37:22.958)
Yeah, certainly. That's pretty fast.

Eli (01:37:26.032)
Which I have a theory that I've stated before. You can let me know what you think about it. that movies used to turn around faster than they do now. And I think part of the problem is when you shoot on film, there's only so much film you have that you can pay for. And so you have kind of a limited to a certain degree amount of footage.

Jacob Allen (01:37:36.768)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:37:55.399)
to sift through, whereas with digital, it's like you have so much footage to sift through, and so it just takes so much longer to get the edit done.

Jacob Allen (01:37:55.444)
Sure. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:38:01.336)
Totally. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:38:05.29)
I think that's probably a pretty accurate assessment. Yeah.

Eli (01:38:08.858)
Yeah, so that's my theory and I'm sticking to it. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much the production and posts, know, eight months of posts, it's just all them adding the digital stuff to the movie. The movie presented, the first showing of it was at the Canfield Festival.

In France, May 18th 2008, he had done this several times. Like presented it not in competition for the festival. Like ET was presented out of competition at Con, premiered. So he kind of does that. But in the, this is where like the shyest stuff comes in is like in the stuff, the press stuff, like leading up to the film release.

Jacob Allen (01:38:47.137)
Yeah.

Eli (01:39:07.832)
There had already been some like bad, like bad stuff like in the air of like the Mutt character not being great. And so like Shia LaBeouf, guess to save face, it starts like saying, apparently at one point he said something to the degree of like he didn't know he was going to be like the Jar Jar Binks of the Indiana Jones movies.

Jacob Allen (01:39:35.176)
I don't think that's fair to say.

Eli (01:39:37.273)
And no, and so like from Spielberg gave him like the we're selling cars kind of speech, like you can't do that. And I really just think like he just kind of lost the Spielberg push after that. Like Spielberg was kind of like, you know, if this is what I'm going to have to deal with, no, you know, no thanks. And yeah, we never really got.

Jacob Allen (01:39:49.09)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:39:54.018)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:40:00.59)
Yeah. It's hard not to let your mind wander and think what if that dynamic had not been maybe so sour or if it hadn't been sour. Jeez. Jeez. Well, and what's a bummer about that is I don't know what you think about this.

Eli (01:40:09.264)
What if, yeah. Yeah. What if Shia had like nailed it in the press tour, you know? Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:40:22.422)
You know, is the dynamic between Mutt and Indy on the same level as Indy and his and Sean Connery? No. But I really liked the Mutt character and I thought I thought he had some really moving moments, you know, like I really thought that he was a pretty good character.

Eli (01:40:46.288)
Yeah. Well Shia like, you know, say what you will about him, but like the dude can like nail emotional moments. he, he w like he can tap into, into like teary eyes like nobody else. Like the dude can, can sell the emotions.

Jacob Allen (01:40:55.201)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:41:03.126)
Mm-hmm. Right?

You can. And he even had just like, you know, I like, thought that the key moments for his character development, he also hit like, I, the scene where it's towards the end, it's in kind of like the final sequence where we're there, they've...

traversed the spiral staircase down through the pyramid and they're kind of like mucking about in the water and no one's like quite sure where to go next and Shia's like come on guys let's go this way and you can see him trying to take lead

Eli (01:41:31.718)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:41:41.052)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:41:45.102)
And then he kinda, I don't remember exactly what he says or what does, but he says, come on, like, let's go this way. And then he wavers a little bit and is like, right? Like this way? And I just thought like, that was kind of like a father, like son moment where it's like act first, then figure out the ramifications or if you're way off base, second. But it also just shows like him stepping up, taking charge of the group. And, and I, you know, I like, I thought that was great.

I thought his, my goodness, I laughed so hard watching it the other night. When they're, yeah, yeah. Harrison has just like reverse blow darted the one guy which I thought was funny. And Shia says like, he's like, what, like aren't you any kind of pauses? He's like, a teacher? And.

Eli (01:42:28.774)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:42:38.448)
You're a professor? Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:42:42.798)
And I just like his, timing of his has it like that hesitation. I just thought it was, it was brilliant. Like it's just, it's so, you know, the line readings are far from just, there's a lot of character infused in some of those line readings.

Eli (01:42:46.236)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:42:49.691)
Yeah.

Eli (01:42:57.018)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's more of like, more of the like some of the quippy one-liner, like just some of the things he says is very like, where the, some of the criticism comes is like, I don't know him being Shia and, know, being like, you're just a professor. You know, I don't know. Some of that stuff I think is where he gets criticism, but like,

Jacob Allen (01:43:22.272)
Yeah, sure.

Eli (01:43:25.338)
At the end of the day, I think the problem with the character is not Shia. I think it's just not a very well-rounded character. It's in the writing, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:43:31.278)
It's in the writing. Yeah Yeah, well and like I mean, gosh the most egregious the most egregious to me moment in the entire movie is shy becoming Tarzan like You know, that's rough. It's like what what are we doing here? But that's and it's like okay. That's that is certainly the most Jar Jar Binks moment in the movie, but that's my fault like and and I think

Eli (01:43:43.868)
Yeah

Eli (01:43:54.862)
Yeah, yeah, sure. No.

Eli (01:44:00.989)
He's just like, they told me to go swing on these vines, so I guess I will.

Jacob Allen (01:44:03.986)
Totally, I just, I mean, I thought that, yeah, it far from undermines the merits of the performance and even the character. thought the character was pretty, all things considered, well-rounded, you know.

Eli (01:44:21.19)
Yeah, yeah and you know while we're on the subject, know, it's There's definitely I think when they started this movie, I do definitely think they were there was like maybe the inkling of the idea of like maybe Shia can take the mantle of This franchise and maybe we can keep getting stuff out of it. Like that had to have been

Jacob Allen (01:44:46.306)
Yeah.

somewhere out the back burner. Well, dude, I don't know if now is the time to talk about it. Maybe it's not, but I'm just the last shot, dude, like where he starts to pick up the hat and it's like, he snatches it away. It's like, there's only one ending, you know? So, you you wonder like.

Eli (01:44:51.012)
Yeah, in the air, you know.

Eli (01:44:57.67)
Sure, let's do it. The ending? Yeah.

and he snatches it.

Eli (01:45:08.09)
Yeah, there's just one.

Jacob Allen (01:45:12.458)
maybe that was a conversation somewhere or even just like we're all kind of thinking the same thing or wondering the same thing. But at the end of the day, they, you know, the filmmakers picked a side. There's one, there's one Indy, but I.

Eli (01:45:18.704)
Yeah.

Eli (01:45:25.564)
Yeah, they did.

Eli (01:45:29.9)
there's two there's two possible things you could do there one is like you know Shia puts on the hat and like you know Harrison Ford kind of gives him like the wink thumbs up like yeah dude you're you're it now I'm I'm going off to my my married life yeah but but that's not what they went with they went with him snatching away from like this is so like meta textual of like

Jacob Allen (01:45:41.976)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This is the rest of my life, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:45:53.944)
God.

Jacob Allen (01:45:58.678)
That is so winking.

Eli (01:46:00.956)
Which I don't know how on purpose that was it's like it will probably never know

Jacob Allen (01:46:07.168)
Well, and I think that's been a takeaway of this conversation thus far for me is there are things that I just read into. But, you know, and as I and as I'm watching the movie, as I'm watching the movie, I'm noticing all sorts of things. like, man, why, you know, why was why was Spielberg interested in this? Like, why? You know, what what maybe led him to think this is now is the time to fuse Indiana Jones with.

Eli (01:46:14.692)
Yeah. Yeah. It's hard not to.

Jacob Allen (01:46:33.056)
with kind of this transcendent, you know, image of an alien, like, but then, you know, to find out it's like, no, that's something that Lucas wanted all along. It's like, okay, well, okay. You know, is there anything to think about now? But it's so funny how we, how we do that.

Eli (01:46:42.224)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

yeah Yeah, this the movie was released may 22nd of 2008 It opened to 151 million dollars, which is really good opening weekend So it had a hundred eighty five million dollar budget so You know, that's like the dream to like almost make back your budget for a big budget movie like that opening weekend

Jacob Allen (01:47:04.302)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:47:14.542)
And the first weekend, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:47:19.12)
but it ended with 317 million domestic, 790.6 million worldwide box office. good, like good return, I think for us, for any Indiana Jones movie, guess like maybe like you might expect more, but for a movie that like was, which we'll talk about in a second, not the best received critically, pretty good return.

Jacob Allen (01:47:46.036)
Right.

Eli (01:47:49.124)
It was like the third biggest hit of 2008. It was like top 20 all-time box office at the time of its release. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:47:52.417)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:47:56.201)
Yeah, that idea of it being, know, well, actually, I'll let you get to the next thing that you're going say before I jump in. You go ahead and move on. Again, I'm privy to some of your notes, so I apologize. I'm just following along. But the idea of it being the first Indiana Jones movie with the internet is a fascinating idea. And I think like,

Eli (01:48:06.106)
No, go ahead. You, go ahead.

Eli (01:48:11.92)
No, do it. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:48:25.368)
So in 08, I would have been like 13 years old. I knew pretty quickly. And I don't even know that I was that tapped into what the broader opinion of the movie was. But at 13 and 08, I was pretty aware that people were broadly viewing the movie as kind of a joke.

Eli (01:48:29.148)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (01:48:55.042)
Yeah, so that's interesting. You know, I don't know.

Eli (01:48:57.242)
Yeah, well, it's it's so like, so I'll say like some people were enthusiastic. So Ebert, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times, he liked the movie like, yeah, three and a half stars out of four. Like that's a good rating for like an Ebert. You know, Ebert was was always an indie fan, but like Ebert when when he felt like something missed the mark, like he would say, like he wasn't

Jacob Allen (01:49:09.132)
Yeah, I noticed that.

Right.

Jacob Allen (01:49:17.688)
for sure.

Jacob Allen (01:49:25.836)
Yeah, he wasn't bashful. No.

Eli (01:49:26.8)
It wasn't like he just, yeah, he wasn't just gonna give it a pass just because it was an indie movie. Empire loved it. Other ones commended the movie, but they talked about some of the quibbles, the Mutt character, the kind of predictability of the plot, that sort of stuff, which is, I guess, fair.

Jacob Allen (01:49:32.472)
Right.

Jacob Allen (01:49:54.061)
Yeah.

Eli (01:49:56.348)
but for a movie like this. like not super negative, but when it came to like the internet talk of the movie, not so kind. And like you said, this is the first indie movie in internet age. It's the beginnings of the meme probably. We didn't call it that back then, but.

Jacob Allen (01:49:59.276)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:50:18.924)
Yeah. No, I'm wondering, that's I was wondering how much of it would have played like a what we would call a meme now.

Eli (01:50:28.016)
Yeah, well, mean like nuking the fridge became Yeah, it became like a phrase that was like associated with like You know really screwing your movie up like it became like synonymous with a movie having Like made some bad choices like they really nuked the fridge. And so yeah, I mean that's a meme, you know

Jacob Allen (01:50:30.99)
That like that lives on. Yeah

Jacob Allen (01:50:49.998)
Yeah, yeah, that's far from the most laughable moment in the movie

Eli (01:50:55.706)
Yeah, yeah, I like that moment to be honest I like the fri- like Is it ridiculous? Like yeah, it's ridiculous. But like what isn't ridiculous in Indiana Jones movies? Yeah, and Spielberg did take the blame for that like he he I think he put the McGuffin blame on Lucas, but he did

Jacob Allen (01:51:09.93)
in the Indiana Jones universe, yeah.

Eli (01:51:22.812)
He did say like, oh, I was behind the fridge nuking. That was my idea. But I don't know. I like the fridge nuking. I don't...

Jacob Allen (01:51:26.529)
Hahaha

Jacob Allen (01:51:35.222)
attitude. funny. It's no more. Yeah, it's no more ridiculous than so many of the other things that we get in Indiana Jones.

Eli (01:51:42.78)
Yeah, but I mean it's it's wild this movie has a 2.7 on letterboxed Which is so low, uh, I just I don't get it. Um, it's got a 65 meta score surprisingly Which isn't

Jacob Allen (01:51:50.21)
No.

too.

Jacob Allen (01:51:58.515)
Yeah, I noticed it was in the green on Metascore, which I was surprised by.

Eli (01:52:02.778)
Yeah, I was kind of surprised by that too, honestly. But 2.7 on Letterboxd is super, super low. And I don't really know why. I don't know, I just don't get it. It didn't get any awards, really. I mean, it got like some...

Jacob Allen (01:52:23.47)
Here's a question, is there anything that you would have, like, that you would think would be award worthy from that movie? Like, if... Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:52:33.456)
The sound.

That would be the only thing that I would think like because the effect I don't know it's hard so for effects wise it's hard to like Take my brain back to 2008 effects. So like what this would these effects looked really good in 2008 and they were doing some stuff that was like pretty, you know, like the ants and the Though like the temple destruction at the end like would that stuff been enough to

Jacob Allen (01:52:47.96)
For sure. Yeah.

Hold up now. Yeah.

Eli (01:53:06.012)
that it should have like, I don't know, I would have to look at like what other films were getting nominated for that for the 2009 Oscars, I guess. But yeah, maybe effects, but definitely sound. I I don't know. Other than that, like, I don't know. Like it's not, it's not a director or best picture or acting or like.

Jacob Allen (01:53:11.842)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:53:33.304)
It's not getting any of those and it doesn't really need that. I mean, production design, you might could see.

Jacob Allen (01:53:36.31)
No.

Jacob Allen (01:53:41.358)
Yeah, I thought there were some really, really amazing set pieces and props.

Eli (01:53:45.818)
Yeah, so, but like even like costume or hair and makeup, I guess like you could see them just being like, they're just like recreating what they have already created. So you don't need to get rewarded for that.

Jacob Allen (01:53:58.668)
Yeah. Did you notice? Did you notice the costume designer was Mary Zilfers, who was a frequent collaborator of the Coens?

Eli (01:54:10.94)
So she's collaborated with Spielberg. I'm trying to see, I'm trying to pull up her, but I know her name and so I know like she's definitely done. Yeah. Yeah, she was on the terminal, the costume designer for the terminal. It seems like she would,

Jacob Allen (01:54:13.686)
was build before. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Jacob Allen (01:54:27.48)
She stands out when you see her. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:54:35.052)
Yeah, okay, gotcha.

Eli (01:54:40.572)
more than that, but I'm not seeing any other things. So sometimes it's funny. So, letter box, cause I'm on letterbox. sometimes letterbox doesn't get all of the crew. catch me if you can. That was the big one. cause catch me if you can, has tons and tons of extras and, and you know, it's period. So, she did, she, she was, in the special features for that talking about costuming. So, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:54:55.021)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:54:58.892)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Jacob Allen (01:55:07.084)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha.

Eli (01:55:11.1)
So yeah, but I mean, costumes are good, but it's like, you're just.

Jacob Allen (01:55:16.086)
is especially handed these iconic, you know, Indiana Jones costumes, yeah.

Eli (01:55:18.66)
Yeah Right But yeah, I mean it's Yeah, I don't I don't know. I don't think it really I don't think it necessarily deserved any awards but but yeah I guess like the last thing before we just like Dig into like other things we thought about the movie is just about like so

Jacob Allen (01:55:33.462)
No. Yeah.

Eli (01:55:48.221)
The fifth Indiana Jones was already like probably being talked about back then. Um, and, but yeah, so 2020 in February, 2020 was when we got the news that Spielberg, there would be a fifth Indiana Jones, but Spielberg would not be directing it. So I don't know if you remember that, but I, I was, uh, I was tuned into that sort of thing at that time. So that's one of the things I remember is like, Oh man, it's

Jacob Allen (01:56:06.606)
Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:56:13.229)
Yeah.

Eli (01:56:17.126)
They're gonna do Indiana Jones without Spielberg. That's weird. we're not gonna be covering Dial of Destiny, but I liked Dial of Destiny.

Jacob Allen (01:56:20.035)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:56:28.35)
So, truthfully, I never saw it either. didn't have a huge interest in seeing it. Just... And that's... Yeah. My position on it has maybe softened a little bit just based on the reception. But knowing that Spielberg wasn't attached to it, and then also just kind of hearing about some of the de-aging, there was just a... Like, a lot of my... Just kind of like...

Eli (01:56:31.889)
Yeah.

It's actually really good.

Eli (01:56:43.12)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:56:52.24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:56:56.174)
alarm bells went off and I kind of like deprioritized it in the years viewing and just haven't got back to it since but

Eli (01:57:03.482)
Yeah, I kind of feel the same. I feel very similar to it as I do about this one. I feel like it's, I feel like it's, I mean, like it's sort of a similar thing. So the de-aging thing I would equate to like the ants or the alien CGI. It's like, is it the best? Like, no, but like it doesn't detract like a ton from the movie is it's just like, it's one of those.

Jacob Allen (01:57:12.438)
Okay, that's good.

Eli (01:57:32.11)
elements of the movie that makes it like, okay, yeah, it's not on the same level as like the originals, but it's still really good. And it like digs into kind of like the theme of like getting old even more, you know.

Jacob Allen (01:57:38.092)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:57:47.572)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this one started to do that a little bit, but yeah. No, it certainly wasn't. Yeah. And honestly, I felt like, yeah, yeah, certainly, And to your point, I wonder if that's because they knew that there was going to be more down the line. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:57:52.078)
It did. It wasn't heavy-handed with it. Which I appreciate it.

Eli (01:58:07.152)
Maybe, yeah. It's hard to know. But especially since I'm not like doing research on Dial of Destiny, so I don't really know when the inception of it. Yeah. But no, I would definitely like check it out. Yeah. It'd be fun to watch it. So I rewatched all of the movies before I went and saw that one. It's...

Jacob Allen (01:58:15.148)
Yeah. The origins of that one. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:58:33.916)
So back in what was that? 2022 or 2020, 2023. It was 23. Yeah. Because that year I rewatched all of the indie movies and then I rewatched all of the Mission Impossible movies. And, and on my birthday, I did a double feature at the theater. I told my wife, I was like, for my birthday, I want to go to the theater and see Dial of Destiny and Dead Reckoning.

Jacob Allen (01:58:37.482)
was the before last. I think was 2023. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:58:50.158)
We watch all the miss... Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:58:56.14)
That's awesome.

Eli (01:59:03.674)
And so I saw them, I watched them back to back at the theater. dead reckoning for sure. Yeah. It's like, it's probably my like second or third favorite mission impossible. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (01:59:03.95)
That's awesome.

Which one did you like more?

Jacob Allen (01:59:17.39)
Yeah, we rewatched all the Mission Impossible movies last year in build up to Dead Reckoning and dude it was just a blast and I say rewatched I had not seen most of them Yeah, they were great

Eli (01:59:31.386)
Yeah, there was a couple I hadn't seen before.

yeah, let's, let's dig into, mean, we've talked about a lot of this stuff already that I have in the notes, you know, quibbles, the CGI stuff, maybe not aging the best. you know, there's an element of like, can't that this really just can't live up to some of the, like their originals. So it's all it's got that weight on it to begin with, you know, the plot can be like a bit.

Jacob Allen (01:59:58.786)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:00:06.648)
indecipherable I Will say like as I was watching the movie I kind of noted in my mind I was like this does get back to a lot of the fun like following clues that like It's one of the reasons like I I like Temple of Doom probably the least out of all the indie movies is because it got away from Like the let's follow the archaeological clues

Jacob Allen (02:00:08.298)
Sure.

Jacob Allen (02:00:33.708)
Yeah.

Eli (02:00:35.142)
kind of element and this really like leans into that a good bit, which is fun. But, yeah. One of the things that, so here's a quibble we haven't really talked about that like the original trilogy is like masterful with that I think this one kind of like loses a little bit is the, and it's something that like Spielberg, especially like in the first stretch of his career,

career was really good at. You have action that draws out just the right amount of time and then you have a slow down scene where like you slow down, you get maybe some more exposition, you get a little bit of character development and then you pick back up with some more action. And this movie I feel like draws out some of the action sequences just way too long without giving you the break you need like

Jacob Allen (02:01:18.614)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:01:29.261)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:01:33.242)
I found myself like in the biggest one is probably like the jungle chase scene. I found myself like kind of being like, okay, when is this, when are we going to get to something else? You know? So I think that's probably a weakness. One of the weaknesses of the movie is just like, it doesn't, it doesn't have the like phenomenal pacing like the past ones did.

Jacob Allen (02:01:38.286)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:01:43.19)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:01:57.518)
Pace is the exact word that came to mind. think of like in the Last Crusade, there's the boat chase scene, which is just your point, the perfect length and a great chase scene. And then it ends with a very brief bit of exposition between Indy and the, you know, one of the men who is a part of the group that has just been tasked with protecting the grail.

Eli (02:02:04.806)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:02:27.402)
And he just explains why he was chasing Indy. it's like, that was great. I don't know if you can picture it, but the boat is sidling up to the dock and Indy lets that individual off. That was just, it was exactly what you just said. It was just kind of like a deload moment from the chase scene that we don't really get anything like that in this movie.

Eli (02:02:47.989)
yeah.

Eli (02:02:54.108)
Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's just, there's an element to where it just isn't gonna, it is not gonna add up, you know. I don't know, did you have any other quibbles? I thought, yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:03:04.846)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:03:10.988)
I feel like we hit on a lot of them, just a lot of like over-expositing. At one point I was like, am I supposed to be keeping up with the lore? Like, am I supposed to be tracking? There's a little bit of that, but no.

Eli (02:03:18.598)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli (02:03:25.286)
Yeah, it might be just because out of all the things they've covered this is the one with like the the weirdest like least Like rooted in reality lore I Guess temple of doom is a little bit of that. But like I said it it kind of doesn't have as much of that kind of like archaeological stuff in that one Spielberg distinctives I love to hit on

Jacob Allen (02:03:38.488)
For sure. Yeah, certainly.

Jacob Allen (02:03:48.544)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:03:54.556)
This is really just like, it's got all of them.

Jacob Allen (02:03:59.566)
I wrote in all caps lens flares. Just so many lens flares. I felt like I like I noticed so many.

Eli (02:04:04.184)
Okay, I didn't notice though. I didn't even notice that.

Spielberg doesn't do a ton of that. Kaminsky does, that's more of a Kaminsky thing I would say.

Jacob Allen (02:04:16.972)
Yeah, and I think I've just conflated the two of them.

Eli (02:04:19.428)
Yeah, which is fair. mean, they're it's yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:04:22.606)
It's hard for me to separate them in my mind. Their styles and their trademarks have just become so enmeshed with each other. Yeah.

Eli (02:04:28.898)
Mm-hmm. Yeah Yeah, but if you watch like if you watch all the way all the movies up to 90 93 before Schindler's List, it's really like there's not a he's that's not something he's big on

Jacob Allen (02:04:37.431)
For sure. No, certainly.

Jacob Allen (02:04:42.19)
yeah, you're definitely right. You're right.

Eli (02:04:44.656)
The lens flare king to me has always been JJ Abrams. That dude loves lens flares.

Jacob Allen (02:04:48.802)
Well, okay, I've thought about that, but I've also thought, I've always assumed that that was because he loves Spielberg and he's just riffing on Spielberg.

Eli (02:04:56.099)
Yeah.

Yeah, maybe so.

Jacob Allen (02:05:01.827)
That's always been my assumption. Because he did come to mind watching this movie. think of like the lens flares you see in like Super 8. But what's this Spielberg nod?

Eli (02:05:04.122)
Yeah, I think it's.

Eli (02:05:09.54)
Yeah, it I think it's maybe just because jay-jay abrams do does them with less quality than spillberg does

Jacob Allen (02:05:18.542)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:05:23.139)
But uh, but yeah, I mean you've got shadows and silhouettes and reflections and low-angle close-ups just incredible composition and Geography is a little hitter than this in this movie like the junk like the jungle scene just overall just doesn't work incredibly well It's hard to keep up with like What's going on? Yeah

Jacob Allen (02:05:29.749)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:05:43.552)
Yeah.

Just a sense of like, where are we? Yeah.

Eli (02:05:49.104)
which is usually like a strength of Spielberg. It's funny because I talked about in the Munich episode last week, which as we're recording is not released yet. you wouldn't know nor will, but the listeners hopefully will have listened to it maybe. But I talked about how like that movie is like a masterclass of geography and space and composition. It's just like,

Jacob Allen (02:05:51.971)
Okay.

Jacob Allen (02:06:05.036)
Yeah.

Eli (02:06:19.034)
It's to me, it's Spielberg like at the top of his game as far as showing the audience the space and letting them know like where everyone is and what's going on where. It's really like incredible. And then to go to this movie and it's like, I know, I feel like you got a little bit lazy with it. It's kind of harder to keep up with stuff.

Jacob Allen (02:06:29.986)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:06:39.916)
Yeah, feel like the sequence, one of the sequences that I really liked.

Was the the sequence in the Mayan ruins where they do combat the you know the dart blowers like and I do feel like Yeah, exactly. I felt like that was a sequence where you got a sense of this scope and scale of the set piece and and where the characters were in relation to each other but by and large you're right there there wasn't like a very strong sense of of geography or place

Eli (02:06:52.742)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:06:56.762)
Yeah, like the graveyard.

Eli (02:07:09.564)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:07:16.026)
Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, the other, I guess the only other like big distinctive or like image that like we haven't talked a lot about was the opening and how like that both like looks incredible and also like kind of sets up the theme at the same time of like American.

Jacob Allen (02:07:38.872)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:07:44.463)
Americans versus Russians like in a in a very like, know subtle way, but definitely there And yeah, I mean that scene is like that probably like the best shot Sequence of the whole movie is the camera moving in and out of those vehicles Yeah, and you get like reflections and hubcaps and it just like it looks so good

Jacob Allen (02:07:46.561)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:08:01.27)
Yeah, it's a really strong opening. Yeah, it's a really strong opening.

Jacob Allen (02:08:09.326)
Yes, yeah, yeah, I agree. I had some of those same exact thoughts. Yeah.

Eli (02:08:15.664)
Yeah. I mean, so like thematically we've hit on a few things. At the end of the day, there's not like anything incredibly deep about Indiana Jones movies. Like there's underlying themes that are there for sure, but at the end of the day, there are adventure movies that are fun, fun to watch.

Jacob Allen (02:08:30.818)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:08:34.357)
Mm-hmm.

For sure. I don't know if you follow Matt Singer on Letterboxd, but after watching this, went back and just saw what some of those people had said about it. And he had a quote about this movie. he gave this movie originally two stars. And then at some point in the past, it bumped it up to two and a half. And one of his most recent rewatch,

Eli (02:08:43.323)
Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:09:02.412)
He said, I wrote it down because I it was really interesting. said, I have a feeling that every Steven Spielberg movie gets a little more interesting after you watch the Fableman's, even his less successful works like this one. For example, the father issues in the kingdom of the crystal skull were always there on the surface, but some of the specific details only resonate now, like how Mutt dropped out of college and how Indy is furious about that and demands he goes back to school, foreshadowing the way Burt Fableman will demand Sammy stay in school instead of pursuing his

filmmaking dreams and so I feel like those are some of the Spielberg isms and just like the themes and ideas that he's obsessed with I think if that's a like if you were to retroactively go back and watch all of his movies you'd see them you know you'd see them here and for sure for sure so I don't know yeah this movie it gets at some of the paranoia that was present in sort of the late 50s and

Eli (02:09:33.425)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:09:46.166)
yeah, it's there in all of them almost, yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:10:01.006)
You know, doing a little bit of number crunching, Spielberg would have been 11 in 1957. So, you know, if, if Spielberg at 61 or whatever you said he was, sent himself back to his 11 year old, like, you know, I'm, yeah, I'm sure he's thinking about his dad and I'm sure he's thinking about, you know, what it must have felt like to hear just the, the country in a panic.

You know, I think he's not very heavy handed with any of that, but I think that's there. And I think that that's all just like, love to see that stuff. Crop up again and again in any artists work because it, it, you know, it, it's a reminder that there's intention, you know, in, and even these just like, so, you know, this is one of the least high brow entries into his.

Eli (02:10:35.514)
Yeah. yeah.

Eli (02:10:43.612)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:11:00.558)
But he's himself, he's still Spielberg. I loved seeing some of that stuff.

Eli (02:11:06.716)
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. My, my closing thought on this one is just, kind of deals with that ending. Um, and you know, we've talked about like aliens, like in a, in an Indiana Jones movie is not like that crazy. mean, they've had ideas for all kinds, they've had ideas for like a haunted castle, Indiana Jones movie. They've had ideas for like a lost world dinosaur, Indiana Jones. So all these ideas like are very silly.

Jacob Allen (02:11:08.749)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:11:14.369)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:11:32.172)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:11:36.573)
And yeah, so aliens is really not that far-fetched when you have when you have like Ghostly ghouls coming out of the Ark of the Covenant to end a movie like is aliens like that much more far-fetched than that? I don't not not to me but But my final thought that relates to that is just Spielberg's fascination with film like as an art form

Jacob Allen (02:11:36.62)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:11:42.008)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:11:47.842)
and

Jacob Allen (02:11:53.528)
For sure. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:12:05.87)
and

Eli (02:12:06.148)
you know, there's, you know, I kind of, wrote down what better way to symbolize the importance of the art form you love than far advanced multi-dimensional aliens who identify with your hero's occupation. You know, there's the line that Indy has where he says they were archeologist. he, like, he finds these beings that are so far beyond us and they're interested in the same thing he is as a character.

Jacob Allen (02:12:19.214)
Thank

Jacob Allen (02:12:25.539)
Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:12:33.964)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:12:35.366)
To me, that's like the perfect like symbolism for Spielberg and his like fascination with the art form that he loves. And just thinking like if there are beings that are higher, like wouldn't it be incredible if they were interested in the same thing that I'm interested in?

Jacob Allen (02:12:41.271)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:12:46.85)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Allen (02:12:58.006)
Yeah, yeah. I, yeah, I think the that's, that is a good point. One of the I think one of the most lasting thoughts that I had was it's still playing with like, Indy's faith, you know, and he's just he seems so much. And, but he's, he it's like, he can explain so much of it as an intellectual, but then he also can't explain.

so much of what he's seen and there was a line somebody, and it might be Miriam, but it's like, why are you still not believing what you're seeing? And that's maybe, you know, at the start of the final third of the movie. So it's a question that is on our minds as we get to the movie's climax. And when they're in that like throne room or whatever it is, he...

Eli (02:13:48.124)
Mm-hmm.

Jacob Allen (02:13:56.338)
is you know k blanchett's character has gone up to to the to the figure on the throne

And she says something along the lines of like, do you not believe? And he says, I believe that's why I'm down here. And on one hand, you'd say, okay, well, that's just like a one liner. But it really struck me as like a real genuine sense of reverence. He's like, no, I believe like that's why that's why I'm a lot further away from that thing than you. Yeah, exactly. And I thought that was like, just so like some really nice consistency and even like maybe even

Eli (02:14:13.968)
Yeah.

Eli (02:14:24.348)
Yeah, I'm staying away, right.

Jacob Allen (02:14:35.148)
you know, rounding his character out a little bit more. Like that to me of like, I believe that's why I'm done here is as much of a profession of faith as we've seen that as we've got from Indie in the franchise, you know, thus far again. So I just thought that was really great.

Eli (02:14:37.916)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:14:47.302)
From indy. Yeah.

Eli (02:14:51.856)
Well, I'll say this If you like that, then I think you're gonna really like Dial of Destiny So you need to go see it and then Whenever you finally see it, shoot me a text and let me know if you liked it Ratings this is I have this as like a three and a half stars It's an enjoyable like solid good movie in my opinion

Jacob Allen (02:14:57.39)
Yeah, good to know.

Jacob Allen (02:15:05.262)
Yeah, I will. sure will. Yeah, thanks.

Jacob Allen (02:15:14.926)
Yeah, that's what I did too.

Eli (02:15:22.176)
and I'm sad that so many people have it rated so low. But yeah. I mean, it's like, it's not like...

Jacob Allen (02:15:27.948)
Yeah. Ebert had it right.

Eli (02:15:37.277)
Incredibly high up my like Spielberg rankings. It's it's kind of like middling but um But yeah, it's good movie. I enjoyed it Yeah, yeah for sure Yeah, I mean that's really all I've got for this week. Think we've hit on pretty much we've we've exhausted our Cranking Kingdom of the Crystal Skull talk but we will be jumping into

Jacob Allen (02:15:46.72)
Agreed. Agreed. Thanks for the occasion for the rewatch.

Jacob Allen (02:16:01.313)
our notes. Yeah.

Eli (02:16:07.576)
Harrison Ford performances movie draft For me and Jacob, it'll be in just a few moments for for you the listener. It'll be next week But yeah, I'm excited about that. That'll be fun So look forward to that and then hopefully we'll be jumping into the adventures of 1010 after that getting into the the 2010s, so That'll be fun but

Jacob, you had mentioned earlier Instagram is the best place to follow you. What's the handle that should follow there?

Jacob Allen (02:16:43.574)
Yeah, lean forward pub for lean forward. And there are links there to the actual substack. and then the conversation with Jacob Allen for the podcast about Bob Dylan and John Lennon. And there are links there as well to, Spotify and Apple music. Yep.

Eli (02:17:03.878)
Sweet. Yeah. And I'll again, I'll make sure to put those in the episode description so you can just click the links, go follow Jacob and his Substack and his podcasts and looking forward to hearing more. Yeah. Excited about hearing more about Dylan and John Lennon. It's not something I'm familiar with, so I'm excited to hear about it.

Jacob Allen (02:17:23.618)
Yeah, that'll be fun. Man, it's ripe for a lot of just really interesting discussions. So yeah, I'm excited to bring it out. Cool.

Eli (02:17:31.706)
Yeah. Sweet. Well, yeah, that's, that's really all we have for this week. I have been Eli Price for Jacob Allen. You've been listening to the establishing shot. We'll see you next time.