Closing Remarks and Future Episodes

awward. comeome out a bl It's not that wararriors, it's the thirteenth wararrior. Lizzy, did you ever see Warriors? No, Nope. Okay, that joke's gonna work for about ten percent of our audience. Welcome back to What went wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them let alone a good one, let al knowone a friaking awesome one As always, I'm one of your host, Chris Winnerau, joined by Lizzy Bassett who has selected for us a movie that I think we've talked about doing since we literally incepted this podcast. And in fact, Lizzy, I was meeting with a producer friend this morning to discuss something completely unrelated. And then when I said I was going to record, he said, what are you recording? I said the thirteenth word and he said, I love movie. So I'm sorry to have stolen the announcement from you, but please, take it away. Well, Chris, I think we're all dying to know. what was your experience with the thirirteenth Warrior prior to today? Had you seen this before? Did you see this in theaters? This came out in nineteen ninety nine, so we were about ten years old. Yeah. So in theory, we could have seen this in theaters. I definitely did not see it in theater. No one did I remember watching it on VHS a lot. It was one of a number of VHS films that we just wore to a nubven just over time. Just the cardboard jacket has fallen apart like an original Honess Wagner baseball card. It was I mean, I remember Dannyaylor, shout out Danny Naylor. We watched this movie all the time together. I thought this was one of the best movies ever made as a kid You know when we talked about Braveheart before and how we thought like Braveheart o my God. like this is the peak of sophistication. This I think maybe holds up in some ways a little bit better. I don't know. They're similar. They're very similar. They are very similar. I think Braveheart is the better movie I agree. I think the thirirteenth Warrior is better than people have said it is or critics said it was. and Braveheart, I don't think is quite as good as critics said or you know, the Academy said it was at the time. Anway This movie is a blast. Is it good? I don't know reallyally It is insane. It's got great production value. The production design is outstanding. Yes, The costumes are great. I mean, they basically said, lookook, let's do seven samurai, add six more samurai and remove all character development. And that's this movie. And if you can just kind of meet it on those terms It's a lot of fun. It's a very fun movie. I xted Lizz because I knew this movie had problems but I didn't know what they were. And I don't know the answer to this. Lizzie is convinced this is not the case, but I am like, the woman who is the queen the first time we see her as we like pan past her, I am convinced that is a completely different woman than the actress that plays for the rest of movie. No, no, So Christ he was like, this is a different woman and I was like, it's not Christ. And I was like, look at the hair. The hair is curly and it's straight and And I was like, Christopher, there are curling irons. and And he was like, no, you can't do that. No, no, no, no, no, to be fair, I did admit There are curly ir I did not fight you on that. It is a good point and I will acknowledge, I thought the same thing when I was watching it. they do look different enough That I think is a big tell that the styling of her was so different across two different scenes. Yes. It might be a little clue that perhaps the same person was not at the helm for all of the shoots. Well, especially it was like her eyebrows looked so much thicker, for example, in the first shot. Anyway, but point is this movie started I was like, I can't pay this close attention as I' Shes got a lot of me. Yeah, that's right. Like a bowl full of Viking sign. And it's really fun. It is. And I mean, look, it falls very short on character development. I really couldn't tell one Viking from another aside from our They The two blondies, big blonde and little blonde, I'll call them like are Fy and the other one played by Dennis Door Wh I literally can't remember the name. Happy guy. Happy guy. Also Tony Currnt because he's just Scotish just likerecognizable But it also it doesn't really matter. Antonio Banderz is a movie star. It's fine. He said, Alec Guinness, hold my beer. I'm going to play an Airum in this movie. Well, we're gonna talk about that. I don't think we can equate it quite to Alec Ginness, but we we'll get there. No, I agree. You can't. It's a little nuanced. But my point is it's a really fun movie. It's a really silly movie, but that's a very serious movie, but also has some great elements and some really great set pieces. I thought, for example, the whole cave sequence was Yeah, it's great. L very cinematic and really shows a lot of scope The waterfall looked amazing when they're falling off the waterfall. It really visually holds up in my opinion, almost what twenty seven years later that we're watching it now. So five severed Viking heads to the thirteenth warrior. Amazing. How about you, Lizzie? Well, first of all, I just want to say that this episode is a bit of a gift to a dear friend of mine, Nick Nakazono. This is one of his favorite movies. is. Is this the Nick whose basement you were watching movies in all the time? No, no, no. There was no nick there. Nick who is the drummer in the band I was in for a while who is an extremely talented drummer and also a super fan of the thirirteenth Warrior. So this is for you, Nick and I'm Yeah, great, write that song. Yeah. So when this movie came up, I was like, I completely forgot about that movie, but I had the same experience that you did. I did not say this in theaters. We owned the VHS and the DVD eventually of this and I watched it so many times. It's super watchable. It's so watchable. betweenet the ages of probably like eleven and fifteen or something, I must have watched this movie Probably at least ten times. Yeah. And yet I really didn't remember it very well. Didn't remember the story. Certain moments shot. Yes. Beowulf, whatever the version of his name is in the B Bvi. Like hims like sitting on like his like pseudoround in the ra in the rain. Yeah. I will remember that as much as Ruter Howuer in the rain at the end of like Blade Runner, you know, certain moments. You know, the scene that I rememember the most clearly, which I know some people think is goofy, but I actually think is really cool and very well done is the language learning scene. Yeah, I know. I think it's fun. I think it's excellent. It is fun. Like I understand that it takes a leap fa to go along with that like he's learning this completely foreign language this quickly, but they're doing so many things at once. They're showing a passage of time. They're showing the way that he's hearing repeated phrases over. I just I think the way that they do it is really smart. And it also lifts the, you know, it takes the pressure off of them to deal with accents or foreign languages like from that point forward because they've established, okay, now he can understand. And also him having an accent at that point actually makes sense because they're all speaking their native language and he's not. Yeah. So I think it worked really well accent fromr Malaga, Spain maybe doesn't make as much it sense. But that's fine. No, I agree. I like that scene. There's always movie mumbo jumbo that we need to do to figure out certain logistical shortcuts and whatnot. And that to me is a great example of good creativity. and I like it. I agree. He did it fast and he did it, I think, very effectively. All to say I'm with you, I think the visuals in this movie are great. The production design is insane as we are going to get into, more so than I think you can even recognize when watching it on the screen. And yet it feels like there is something just under the surface here that could have been truly remarkable, and it just didn't quite get there because to your point, there is so little character development And there's so little time spent on really anyone other than Antonio Banderis, and even his character is Paperfin. It just feels like we're moving from loopped head to lopped head and we gott to keep lopping to get to the end of this. By the time he turns toward Mecca at the sunset, I was like, what he has skipped his prayers this entire movie. What are we doing right now?. Yeah, It was like they remembered on the last day of shooting like Yeah. Yes. All right, well, there's a lot to get through here. So I do want to get into it. So Chris, as we enter into today's battle, this mono Aano behind the scenes, let us recite the completely made up Viking prayer. Lo there do I see my father? Lo, there do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever Now we got that out of the way, how about a real Viking proverb that maybe sheds a little more light on today's story Prraise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it has been drunk nor a film until it has been made, released and then rereleased on home video Might we just rewind to a woman until she is burnt Was that the one? Yeah You didn't bat ey. I didn't want to convention. Lizzie was like, Yep, checks out. keepeep going. It's fine. All right. Well, they do burn them on the funeral pyres with somequencys this movie. They liked it, Chris. They liked it. At the end when Bouvai dies, I thought they were gonna throw Antonio's girlfriend into the p. L David and he was so mad Yeah No, at the beginning, they explained that's the old ways you won't see that again. Right, Very convenient Now, the details as always, Thirteenth Warrior is directed by John McTieran. It's written by William Wischher Jr. and Warren Lewis based on Eaters of the Dead. That's the shortened version of the title by Michael Crrighton. It was released on august twenty seventh, nineteen ninety nine, and it starred Antonio Banderis, Vladimir Koolich, Dennis Storhoy, Omar Sharif, coming back And many, many more, Tony Curan, as you mentioned Now our main sources for today include a ton of interviews, articles, a making of documentary from twenty eleven that was rereleased on French Blue Ray, which you will hear a couple clips from. They are in English, and Michael Crichton's a factual note on Eaters of the Dead, which was an essay added to the Eatater' paperback at the end of the book later on All right, Chris, how familiar are you with the legend of Beowolf Very lightly isn't it I mean, it's Beowulf hero guy goes to the aid of a king. M like this movie. They're being attacked by Grendel. I'm just gonna tell you what it is So let's get some background on Beowulf first. It's Friday the thirteenth though, becausecause it's really Grendel's mother. It's really misses Vores. That's what I'm going gonna again. Yes, it is it is. It's Grendel's mother. Yes. Okay, so Beowulf is an epic poem that's thought to be written between five hundred and one thousand CE or AD Most likely written in Anglo Saxon England, even though it takes place in Viking Scandinavia, it is basically considered the hottest shit ever written in old English, which is notable for a few reasons. One, it's really old. And two, it is one of the earliest languages that normal everyday, you know, dirty pours in Europe actually spoke, not Latin, which for example, was reserved for Really a pretty small percentage of the people. Dirty rich. Dirty rich. Everybody was dirty. Technically correct. Yeah. So we're talking minimum three to four hundred years prior to something like the Canterby talales.. I think when people think, oh, old English, they think something like that. Nope, that was middle English. and you can barely even read that if you try to read it without a translation. I did try to read it in college. Yeah.ope about middle of the way through So no one knows who wrote Beowulf. They don't even know if it was told orally for decades or centuries prior to it being written down, which means they don't know if it was the work of one person or many, though there are arguments to be made for both cases. They do know that even though there doesn't seem to be any record of a real person named Beowulf, there are records of some of the other characters and places that appear in the text It's believed that it heavily blends myth, legend, and obviously like complete fantasy with some early pagan Scandinavian politics. And it basically contains two parts. Part one is the one that most people remember. It's the one that you were beginning to recite so eloquently. Right. I see Beowulf he walks here.. Yeahah as the Vikings. as they did This is the one I remember reading in high school. King Hrothgar essentially parties too hard in his meet hall and wakes up swamp monster Grendel, who decides to retaliate by carrying off Hothgar's men and eating them. Beowulf, prince of the I think Gez, I don't know, Southern Sweden now shows up and offers his Grendel extermination services. Beowulf then rips Grendel's arm off with his bare hands and Grendel sort of slugs off and then dies in the swamp Of course, he forgot to kill the Big Bad, which is Grendel's mommy, who shows up the next night, kills more people. Beowulf goes out, kills her. Everyone celebrates, Beowulf returns home to his king, King Higalac. That's the part that I think most people remember. There's also a part two where we kind of fast forward, Beowulf is a lot older. his king and then the next in line to that throne, they've both died. so Beowulf now gets the crown. and then a big scary fire breathing dragon shows up, causing a ruckus. An old ass Beowulf has to drag himself out there and fight it So old for He's at least thirty and it's just his bones are dust, you know Loo like Ray Winstone in a Robert Semeus version. Yes Yeah. All of his men but one abandon him. He does eventually kill the dragon, but ultimately dies from a bite in the neck. So part two is a bit of a bummer. That's why I think most people only read partart one Fast forward a millennia or so, and a guy named Kurt Villidson was planning to teach a college course on the Great Bars. Now the idea was to teach a whole class on all the classics that are supposedly crucial for everyone in Western civilization to read, but no one wants to because they're such snoozers. Oh Bars B O R E. B O R E S. Yes. I thought you were saying like the Dutch in South Africa Youot it. It was like, I don't know how this is gonna to connect to Ierm. It's not And he told his friend at the very top of the list of boars was a boar so boring, it could kick off the whole semester. And that was the legend of Beowulf Now I think this is interesting because we read Beowwulf in high school and I do not remember thinking it was boring at all. Granted, we only read the arm ripping off slugggin through the forest part, but I thought that was pretty fun And Kurt's friend, a published author, seemed to agree and took personal offense on Beowulf's behalf. He was like, you're wrong and dumb. Beowulf is exciting and fun and I'm going to prove. Also I'm six foot nine and I'm Michael Cridon Is he six, nine or six, eight? six nine. It's too tall. Did I tell you my dad met him when he was writing disclosure? Really? Yeah, he was meeting a different lawyer, another labor employment attorney. And I think this other lawyer wanted to like show off basically and invited my dad out. My my dad's tall. He's six, threeot tall en. And then Michael Frrighton proceeded to like unfurl his giant Sunderman body over him. Yeah. Anyway Yeah, so my dad has a sign copy of disisclosure somewhere at our house from that meaneting. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. All right, well, if you're not familiar with actual human giant Michael Crichon, he was the certified smarty pants behind mega hits like the Andrama to Strain and Jurassic Park, of course, and Disclosure. He was born in nineteen forty two and grew up in Roslland, New York. He went to Harvard and graduated with a degree in anthropology, which he then took And taught at Cambridge University in England before returning to Harvard for medical school. Just a real moron. But during medical school he started publishing thriller novels under different pseudonyms, and of course, he did great at that as well. He did well enough that he decided maybe it was time to use his real name and give this writing thing the old college try while he's still in college, by the way, because in nineteen sixty nine, the same year he graduated At Harvard Medical School, he released the Andromeda strain, which became an instant bestseller. and so Crichon told the medical community, Lose my number. It should also be noted that he's like pretty handsome, so he's sixaling. Pretty handsome double Harvard graduate who has just succeeded at literally everything he's done. I wouldn't say he was lacking in confidence But I heard he couldn't draw blood. This may be a fake story. What I had always heard he had a hard time drawing blood and so the nurses would always do it for him. He was uncomfortable with it. It was what I had heard, but that may be inaccurate. Turns out, he didn't need to be able to do it. In nineteen seventy three, he directed his first feature, which was what? Was it Westworld? Westworld. Yes. Yeah. We have to cover this at some point.. And in many ways, I feel like he kept revisiting this idea across his career in different ways. Jurassic Park is the obvious correlation. The monsters at the park, you know, go haywire. Absolutely. Now he would go on to direct five more features over the course of his career or should that number be six. We'll decide today to nineteen seventy four and Beowulf, Crichton started with the idea that many epic poems and legends were at least loosely based on real events. We understand this. This is sort of the idea of like a true story being passed down orally over centuries and decades, and then it kind of becomes this fantasy, but somewhere there was a kernel of truth in it. So we started playing around with the idea of uncovering the true story behind Beowulf But as we discussed at the top of the episode, no one knows who wrote Beowulf, and Crrightton realized that if even the best scholars in the world couldn't figure this out, he would just end up making up a whole new story and trying to pass it off as history anyway. So he decided to flip the script. What if an eyewitness account already existed As he wrote in the factual note, quote, the concept of a preree existing manuscript bypassed the logical problems which had earlier impeded me, because a found manuscript would not be my creation, even though I would create it. Of course, such thinking is absurd, but it happens all the time I bet he's fun at cocktail parties I just imagine if I had to be in a conversation with Michael Crright at a cocktail party I would fully be Rittenneee Zellwiger in Prittget Jones diary with Salmon Rushi just going, Do you know where the toilets are? Also, you would have neck problems just from like looking up at this man as he talks to you So he figured that the most common kind of eyewitness would have been somebody who's just like kind of boring and describing battles most likely because they're not from the same culture. They've come along for the ride. He said I concluded the most useful account would be written by an outsider, someone not part of the culture who could report objectively on the events as they occurred. But who would this outsider have been? Where would he have come from And then it occurred to Crichon that the outside observer he needed already existed. becausecause there was a very real Arab man named Ibbn Fodlan, who had traveled from Baghdad norther into Russia in the tenth century. There he came into contact with Vikings, and his manuscript provided some of the best and earliest eyewitness accounts of Viking culture. Crichon said Ibn Fodlan had a distinct voice and style, he was imitable. He was believable, he was unexpected After a thousand years, I felt that In Fodlon would not mind being revived in a new role as a witness to the events that led to the epic poem of Beowulf Somebody asked him. I think that's fair. Yeah I agree. I think it's a really cool idea. I do too. Now, apparently, this manuscript had been translated into pretty much every language except for English. There were only a few fragments in English that existed. so Crrightton combined those with some very minor changes into the first three chapters of his next book, Eers of the Dead. And then he wrote the whole rest of the book in the style of the existing manuscript taking Ibn Fadlan along the rest of his now mostly made up journey Now Crichon began with the intention of making it clear which parts were real and which he had added or embellished, but quote, withithin a few years, I could no longer be certain which passages were real and which were made up. At one point I found myself in a research library trying to locate certain references in my bibliography, and finally concluding after hours of frustrating effort that however convincing they appeared, they must be fictitious. I was furious to have wasted my time, but I only had myself to blame He was literally looking for scholars that he had made up years earlier and didn't remember that he had made them up. He's turned into Chat GPT. That's what's happened here. Yes. Yes So in March of nineteen seventy six, Crrightton published his Beowwolf fan fiction under the title Eaters of the Dad, the manuscript of Ibnfadlon relating his experiences with the Northman in AD nine hundred twenty two. I know what you're gonna say. Colon a Beowwolf fan fiction. is It is. And also this is basically its own genre now, It's real person fiction or RPF. RPF. RPF. Yes That is the technical title. I believe you. H a lot of moral gray area that is being discussed currently because you're writing fan fiction about people who are real and usually alive. This feels fine though when it's like yeah, when they're alive, it's very different. But fifteen hundred years later, I think we're okay. I agree. I'm watching Love Story, the JFK junior Ryan Murphy thing right now. I can't do it. I can't do it I'm against it. Well, I'm against it. I know, I think I am too. I'm against it. Chris is against it. I think I agree. Is it very entertaining and aesthetically pleasing? Yes. Sure. Is it wrong? I think, yes. But we're fine with this. I wanna watch the RFK Olivia Nutsie love story. That's what I wantna know Thanks Okay, Eaters of the Dead in case you can't tell by that title, which is eight pages longer than that did not take off like the Androma Strain Hat. Sales were pretty modest. It did garner a small but devoted group of fans, and apparently Beowulf scholars liked it According to Michael Cron An anyway. So a film adaptation was put into motion and it kind of hung around and develop in hell for more than a decade. As did Crichton's directing career, none of the films he directed ended up being big hits. And then in November of nineteen ninety, he published what, Chris? Jurassic Park, right? Jurassic Park. And it was an immediate massive bestseller. Have you read Jurassic Park? Oh, yeah. It's great. A few times. I've read The Androma Strain I read Eaters of the Dead when I was younger. I read most of his books through the nineties. Sar was always a favorite of mine as well. They're amazing. Yeah. Did you ever see the great train roobbery? No, but he directed that, yeah. I really like it. It's really good movie. I think he's a good director. I think he is too. He's just an extremely talented person. It's really wild to see how wide a net he really cast in terms of his interests Yeah bothoth professionally and creatively. Yeah, it is amazing Well, suddenly, Crichton IP was the hottest ticket in Hollywood. So Jurassic Park obviously gets snapped up by Steven Spielberg. That was released in nineteen ninety three. We've covered it on the podcast, massive hit. And then back to back in September of nineteen ninety four, ER premiered on NBC, which Michael Crichon also created. So he is as hot as you can possibly be at this point And producers are combing through his bibliography looking for their next big hit. when of course they come across Congo. I think that was the next movie that came out. I can't remember what year that was, but I think it was between Jurassic Park and he was the dead. We have to cover it. They were just covering silverbag gorillas. anything withith lasers. Yeah. An anythingthing he had written they were like Yeah. We'll take it. How much does that cost Yeah So obviously, they're like, great eaters of the deead, let's do it. And by December of nineteen ninety six, the press release went out. Synergy and Touchstone pictures would produce Eaters of the deead directed by John McTiernan, prodroduced by McTiernan and Crichon, and it would star Antonio Banderis. Okay. greatreat. It's hot ack It is. Now shortly thereafter, Synergy struck a deal with Disney over an unpaid production advance, they fork over most of their library, including this which point this movie moved fully underneath Touchstone and Disney. S somethinghing Disney M come to regret. Now, it seems Disney was very excited about the partnership between John McTiernan and Michael Crichon because the same press release announced that McTernan would be helming airframe for them as well. another Crichon adaptation. Right. And this partnership does seem like a great idea on paper. By nineteen ninety, John McTiernan had churned out three back to back hits Predator Die H, my personal favorite, the Hunt for Red October. That's your favorite of those three Yes. love that movie. I think it's a great movie. I just it's like it would be an underdog pick. I think most people would pick Die hardard. I think it's really cool that you pick the hunt for Red October. I love Die Hard too. I really love the Hunt for Red October. It's a great movie. It's a sleeper. I think people sleep on it a little bit. I think it's great. Well, they shouldn't. Yeah. And I love nothing more than nineties Alec Baldwin. But then of course Another movie we've covered on the podcast, The Last Action Hero, came out in nineteen ninety three. Much better than people give it credit for. Yes, it is. Very smart movie out of its time. It is But it was absolutely dinosauropper Hy Jurassic Park at the box office. Big time. Big time flopper. You know, we covered this movie. This was personally crushing for both McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. It really hit them both very hard. So McTiernan was looking for a hit and he had high hopes that Eaters of the Dead would fill that gap. And he had read the book When it came out, he liked it But he had a couple of notes that he thought they could spice up a little bit. So Chris, let's listen to John McTiern and talk about the book a little bit. And again, this clip and all of the other clips that you will hear over the course of this episode are from the Making of the thirirteenth Warrior documentary, which was included as part of the French Blu Ray release. I was always curious about it. I thought it had a problem to work as a story. H This is interesting. I should have paid attention to my first intuition. I thought it had a problem because the monsters weren't serious enough. and in the end they didn't do anything. The ending was kind of a was it was not quite serious or scary enough So then I came up with this idea that wait, if I made the people who are attacking them, if I make them truly not human and Physically very scary. Well then the story gets a lot better. He's exactly right. Y. Even in this version, they don't go far enough. Oh they don't do his idea at all. Okay, good. because the thing I was going say my biggest bump that I wrote down in my notes was, why are we seeing these shots of the quote monsters watching them, which gives it a away that they're as people early in the movie. And the two touchstones that I had watching this movie I was thinking about the descent The Trogllyite movie does a great job of making a terrifying monster that's ultimately just like a person, you know, and Bone Tomahawk, which is almost even closer, which does another version. basically just eaters of the deead. It's cannibals in the hills. I mean, even Barbarian does something similar that's ye. I agree. And he's right. they're not super compelling. He's right about a lot, as we will see over the course of this episode Crichton didn't like that idea. He was very focused on it being scientifically accurate. He didn't like the idea that there could be any suggestion that these were not humans. He didn't even want that to occur to people as a possibility. So this idea of McTiernan's goes in the garbage. Now when it came time to adapt the novel, McTiernan obviously very excited. He's like, great, again, I have some ideas how we can make this translate to film better And in fact, screenwriters William Wisher, junior and Warren Lewis did most of their writing at McTieran's ranch in Wyoming. William Wisher, best known as one of James Cameron's longtime writing partners, they worked together a ton. and he'd also worked as a script doctor on Die Hard withith aengeance with McTian. they knew each other. Warren Lewis, also industry veteran, had been working as a production assistant, just had worked absolutely everywhere, and he'd been an assistant director on McTieran's directorial debut Both of these guys been in Hollywood forever Now Mcterin and the writers all felt that the ending of Eaters of the Dead was Molol Weeak saauce, as he said there. And they had to solve. McTernan referenced the Michael Canaine film Zulu. Have you ever seen it? No. So at the end of this movie, Michael Caine and Co, they're completely outnumbered by the warriors that they're fighting. Oh, this is is it like the nineteenth century colonial British regiment film? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Maybe I have seen this movie now that you mention it. You might have. They're completely outnumbered and at the very end The tribesmen start chanting and one of the Brits is like, why are they mocking us? And someone else is like, they're not mocking us. They're saluting us because we have put up such a fight. And so that's McTiran's idea for the end of this. It would be the Wendels and the Vikings are fighting. almost everyone is dead. The Vikings are still outnumbered though. and at the very end, the Wendels start chanting. Initially, the Vikings think that they's then taunting them But then it would be Iban, the cultured man in the group, saying no, they're saluting you. And that would be the end and the Wendel would retreat after recognizing the Vikings strength. So it's still a little bit of like a mirror, but it's a little less of a mirror than it is in the book. And Crichton said So McTrnan was quickly discovering that Michael Cron was not just a consultant, he had final veto rights on pretty much everything in the movie. And also, I said McTterinan was going to be write about a lot, notot on this, he had a very specific vibe that he wanted for the movie and that vibe was comomedy Chris And that's because he had someone very specific in mind for the lead role A natural fit for the material Michael Keaton Uh Well, you know, when I'm reading the Quran at night and it's just hanging out with my friends. Yeah, I mean, look, Michael Keaton's amazing. He is amazing. Not for this. I don't think he makes sense in this as a Viking. Like he's justt really fit to me in this world. I don't w want to sell him short. Maybe Michael Keaton could do it. It doesn't make sense to me on paper. No. So the way McTian was picturing it was quote basically an urban Jewish guy who goes off with these crazy barbarians, but then Michael did a movie just before that didn't do very well. so now the studio suddenly didn't want him It's like describing like city slick or something. I' like what Yeahah, this is so different. Yeah. So he has like completely diverged from the source material here. So I will give Michael Crrightton some credit. If somebody came and pitched me this idea, I'd be like, what U So I think, you know then he's quetching the whole time he's like what are doing? He's supposed to be Muslim. Yeah. It does make sense that they didn't want Michael Keaton for those reasons and also he'd had a string of clinkers before this that had done very poorly at the box office. So I think that they were scared off from a financial perspective as well. Now this is confusing though because according to Warren Lewis, the Islamic faith of Ibn Fadlam was always going to be central to the story and they wanted to present it respectfully. So I don't know if the screenwriters were in a totally different way. They can both be true. You know what I mean? I think they are true. Yeah. The screenwriters could have had one directive and believed it. and then at the same time, Mc Ternan' like, I want Michael Kat. What if we did it with Keaton Yeah He's Jish. Yeah. Okaykay. You don't know. I don't know. I didn't mean you, I meant the collective, we don't know. I don't know, but I could still write real person fiction about it and maybe I will. We we should write the book the making of this movie but it's Michael Keaton. Great. let's do it. Yeah. So Antonio Banderas was either filming or had just filmed the Mask of Zoro. And it seemed pretty clear that he was poised to be quite a big star at this point. Love that movie. We will cover the Mask of Zoro. I love that movie so much. Yeah. Also, I just want to give a shout out Antonio Banderas because he was a bigger star in Spain, obviously. He was trying to break into Hollywood, but the earliest roles that he took in order to break into Hollywood, I mean, do you know what some of his first English language roles were? Philadelphia. Philadelphia. Y he plays the partner of Tom Hanks's character, which was I just love him. Yeah. I think it makes sense. he came from like the school of Pedro Allmadovar and like interesting Spanish sex comedy world. so I know, but it doesn't mean No I agree with you. I'm just saying it's consistent with who he seems to be. Yeah, you know. But also Desperato, I frreaking love Desperato. That movie's awesome It's great. So according to Antonio, they sent him the script for Eaters of the Dead and basically said, Who do you want to play?? And he was most interested in playing Herger, the character eventually played by Dennis Storhoy. Now does this make any sense No, But can you give me the archetype of which one that is? Dennis Storhoy is the main other than Beowulf, he's the main one. like little little brother, that one. But you know what? that to me, knowing Beneris because Banderis is very funny. He is very funny. Like that does make sense, like a little bit more of a court gesture approach Except there's zero percent chance you could have him play a Viking Sure, but I'm just saying like from a personality perspective, if they said, takeake your pick. Yeah, you know, sure. Totally. My guess is they were doing that as a courtesy because they expected him to just say, I want to play the lead. And then they handed it back and they're like, no, one of the highlighted names is just Ivan is the only one that Basically. So he does come around to playing Ibn Fodlon and according to McTierren, quote it became a very different movie with Antonio Banderas because he was more serious I had intended it to have a comic edge, this very urban, basically modern guy among these creepy guys. and then you would use that sense of humor all the way through. Antonio is very good with humor, but it's a different sort of humor. He doesn't do that wise ass stuff. That's true. Antonio Benderres is very funny, but in a very different way from Michael Keaton. Although I will say, having seen the Mask of Zoro, I think he's quite a bit funnier than McTieran is giving him credit for. He's very funny, but here's where I think the difference is. Antonio' funny when it feels like he's in over his head, right? That's where I find him very funny is when he's like in Desperato, right? When he's like, Hey guys, let's slow down and then the guitar pops open and all the guns are there and's like, Oh, shit That whereas Keaton's I think, funnier when he's more in control reacting to things.. So. Which actually in this scenario, Benuris makes more sense. I agree. He's supposed to be a fish out of water. I think he's perfect. Right Now, you might say, but Lizzie, Antonio Banderis, like Michael Keaton, is neither Muslim nor Arab and you would be correct. However, I think there is a much stronger case for Banderis to play this role than there ever was for Michael Keaton Let me explain. Benderis was born in Malaga in southern Spain and he has spoken at great length about his own identification with Arab culture because quote, the Arabs were in Spain for eight centuries, and that is a part of me. This is of course true. A lot of Spain is under Arab rule for almost eight hundred years. And yes, that timeframe does coincide with when Beowulf was probably written. The dominant language in the region was classical Arabic Arab architecture, literature and culture were all extremely promin, especially in Al Andalus, the region we now call Andalua, all of which is to say, is this the most appropriate casting? No, definitely not. Is it technically possible that this character could theoretically have been from Spain? M I don't think so. I'm saying is Michael Crichon's making shit up left and right. you know, this is not the worst thing they could have done. No, but obviously you should cast an Arab actor in the role. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I don't think this casting deserves quite as much shit as people give it for this. Well, I think like three things can be true at the same time. I think yes, you could do some mental gymnastics to say. You can flip yourself out. You can kind of teach sure But I think the truth is and I was looking at a Reddit post about this and somebody emailed about like, you know, takeake it easy on Aan Guinness in Lawce of Arabia. this movie never would have been green lit, you know, without him blah. That's hey, that's a fair point, but also, you know They made a choice in that movie to cast an unknown in the lead, Peter O'touool and therefore they would need like an Alec Guinness. you know. So that was our point on that film. But in this movie, you're going to need a big name in the lead role and the thirirteenth Warrior is the lead role. And there were very few, if any Middle Eastern North African actors working in Hollywood to your point at the time. And so I think part of it though is that Michael Keaton, if you were to say, he's an Arab, we wouldn't believe it as a Western audience.. But if you say, Antonio Beneerys, we believe it because we've been used to seeing Hispanic actors play theseese types of roles are going all the way back to Anthony Quintn and stuff, you know, back in the day. All I'm just saying is anyway, I see how they were justifying this way more than they would ever have been able to justify Michael Keaton in this part. Yeah, of course. But again. Should you cast an Aerb actor Yes. Sure. I think they would now. probably. May hope so. who knows. Now for the role of Bouvi, the studio also had someone very specific in mind, Stellen Skarsgard. Yeah, sure. He's the only one. And was he that well known? He was in the deep blue sea around this time. In terms of like large blonde Scandinavian actors, there's probably one name. Well, it's like him and Ruter Howu. Yeah Yeah and Rutgerher is too old. I was like, whereere is Rutger Haer? Yeahah, I think he was, but maybe it's the king. Well, Skarsgaard was unavailable. So they were forced to run down their list of literally every giant blonde man they could in America, Canada, Europe until they came to pretty much the last choice, Czech Canadian actor Vladimir Coolich. He's great. And he still had to wait four months to get the part because the studio didn't want him, Michael Crichon didn't want him. The only person who thought that he could play buullvye was John McTiirdan. And eventually they ran out of blondze and they said, fine, cast him. Now the other Vikings were cast a lot to do with the way that they looked. You've got Dennis Storhoy, He is Norwegian Tony Curran, of course, is Scottish, who did League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Richard Bremmer, is English You got the idea. They're large. So McTernen and Crichon seem to be mostly focused on physicality for the rest of the Vikings. This does make sense. They wanted big guys to contrast against Antonio Banderas. I have met Antonio Banderas in person. He came into the IMDB studio at TIF for an interview. He was so unbelievably lovely and graceful and generous, and he's a pretty slight guy. And according to Coolitich, he also didn't have any problem with the film playing up their size difference. He had zero ego about it. Yeah. Banderas said, quote, for me, it was like making a movie with the Los Angeles Lakers. These people were enormous Yeah. I mean, in the Maskosaura, he and Anthony Hopkins seem around the same size, you know, when they're shooting movie. And again, it works. And there's something very ballaic about, you know, the way that he moves. Oh, he's beautiful. Yeah Yeah. Actually, to be honest, I think they didn't do enough to show the size difference in the finished product. It could have been way funnier, especially when you realize Vladimir Koolichch is six Antonio Banderas is five eight tops. Yeah, you don't see them next to each other. There's not a lot of like two shots I almost wanted more of like a fellowship of the Ring shot, you know, where you see the Halflings in front of Gandal. You could. And it sounds like they were all completely on board with it. Banderas does not have an ego about this stuff. Just a lot of close ups in this movie. Obviously, he's super handsome and hot. Like why who cares So Omar Sharif was cast as Mechizadeek, a glorified translator. we really don't get enough of him on here. And he had a pretty crap time on this movie. It was so bad that he took an almost four year hiatus from acting and basically made the decision never to take a movie because of the money ever again He would later say that he thought to himself, quote, let us stop this nonsense. These meal tickets that we do because it pays well. Unless I find a stupendous film that I love and it makes me want to leave home to do, I will stop. Bad pictures are very humiliating. I was really sick. It is terrifying to have to do dialogue from bad scripts to face a director who does not know what he is doing in a film so bad it is not even worth it exxploring That's a little hard on the thirirteenth wararrior. stick it on the DVV. But it was not a fun set in his defense. So let's get into it. And by the way, we're not going to have any time to spend on Omar Sharif. he's barely in the movie but there was one very sweet story Antonio Banderis told about how when they were on the camels together at one point and there wasn't any, you, they didn't have microphones on. They were just shooting them riding. and apparently, Omar Sharif looked at Antonio Banderis and said ab and like you know that's great. Yeah. And it made Antonio Vendereas so happy because he obviously was looking at someone he'd watched growing up in Lawrence of Arabia. So production was set to kick off in British Columbia, but a full month before any camera started rolling, the Viking cast went into training. They had to learn archery, fencing, swordsmanship, horseback riding. Some of them had never been on a horse, including Vladimir Koolich, which he admitted you can definitely tell when you watch him ride in the movie. They were also given Norwegian language classes and they all went except for Vladimir again, Beowulf cut class and headed to the bar because he figured he'd already played a Norwegian in the X files, so he probably knew enough to get by I'd like to point out that the actual Norwegian, I think showed up Beowulf was like Bye Meanwhile, the production team had an absolute nightmare of building the sets. Much of this film was shot on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and in case you're wondering, they shot three seasons of alone on Vancouver Island, which is the show where you get dumped in the wilderness and have to survive. So this was not an easy place to set up a movie set. But that's also why McTiernan and the production team insisted on it. They needed somewhere remote with a lot of expansive wilderness and no visible civilization, and they found that that was really hard to find in actual Scandinavia. It makes sense. That's a smaller physical area. It's much more developed, much more recently. I don't think this looks like Scandinavia. I think it looks like the Pacific Northwest. but yeah, it didn't bother me from there. Like I was like, it's great Yeah know, it reminded me a lot in its scope and scale of Last of the Moicans and the build of the fort that they do in Last of the Mohicans, The Great Hall really reminded me of that. Yeah. so they built that main structure, that giant hall, using timber they collected from Vancouver Island. and the village they built around it is insane. According to production designer Rod Quinn, there were at least sixty buildings. They built roads, they built a lake In the middle of nowhere for this, everything was real Much of it was built by local native tribes, also who understood how to work with the local materials and in the very extreme weather conditions. Also, if you notice the pillars inside the Longhouse that look quite a bit like totems, those were by local tribesmen. That's cool. Yeah. they look amazing. They huge. That great haall interior It's real, it's all real wood. I know. It's one of the best looking sets you'll see in a movie. It's really amazing. It is amazing think They were forced to do it for real to a certain degree because the stuff was not on a sound stage. like they were out in the actual wilderness. You have to build something that can withstand the kind of weather that they were going have there. Yeah. They also really did burn down the entire village at the end. Again, it looks amazing. Yeah. That reminded me so much of the burning of the farmhouses in Seven Sama. I mean, it really feels like they're doing a real all to that movie. Yes. So once they were done building an entire Viking city, they started building the Queen's lair, which they did on a sound stage in Vancouver. And they needed the rock to look as realistic as possible. So they studied Elk Falls on Vancouver Island. They copied the rock face. As you said, I think the cave looks fantastic. It looks great. They light it extremely well. It never feels like the lighting is forced. You know what I mean? Sometimes you do a cave set and you watch it in a movie and you think, good, where's that perfect moonlight coming from? You know, really this looks good. I thought they did a great job You mentioned the lighting. I think for large portions of this, they had the actors essentially lighting themselves with the torches. They didn't have additional lights and it looks really good. And to your point, Lizzie, with the fireside chat scene earlier, when he's learning the language, they establish that lighting style during those scenes very effectively. So you know, we're used to that by the time we get to the caves. Yeah. And Meris pointed out, the scope of the set is a lot betterer grander than what you actually see in the film, which pissed producers off because they spent so much money on it. They wanted to be able to see it, but his point was that McTiernan wasn't cheapening the shots by showing everything. He wanted it to feel real, even in the close ups. I can see both points here. I will say, watching the behind the scenes footage, when you see more of what the village actually looked like, I do wish they had shown more of it I think this also speaks to your point about not seeing Banderas in the same shot as his compatriots, which is this movie is almost entirely like shot on telephoto lenses. I mean, on one extreme, you have your close ups, but then on the other, I mean, these five hundred millimeter shots of a child, you know what I mean, running up the hill to get back to the place, I don't know, it flattens it a little bit and it does it limits your view. I agree. I understand what he was trying to do. I'm team producers on that one Yeah, you can p like Robert Egggers the Northman, for example. takes a much wider approach to the way he shoots it. Now principal photography kicked off on june twenty sixth, nineteen ninety seven, and right away there seemed to be a problem, which is that Michael Crton and John McTiernan did not see eye to eye about anything. Well, Michael Crichton was six footine, so ye. So the cast and crew are notoriously tight lipped about what happened during this initial shoot, but our researcher Laura managed to dig out this comment from Huck Kiton, who claimed to have worked as a boom operator on the film, and he does have the IMDB credits to back that up as Tom Huck Kaiten. So I'm going go ahead and share this says, quote, Very many moons ago I was the boom operator on the thirirteenth Warrior. Briefly, well, sort of anyway. The project was never going to be much more than a sideways take on Beowulf, but McTee's take was a much more focused and tighter picture than what was ultimately released. Crichon was a decidedly unpleasant and tall fellow, and John eventually had enough and essentially ordered him off the set and out of Canada And that is true. It does seem that John McTieran removed Michael Crrightton from the initial set And then as if a six foot nine grump looming over you wasn't enough, Antonio Banderas dislocated two discs in his back during a fight sequence. It probably didn't help that he had jumped basically straight from the mask of Zoro where he did an enormous amount of his own stunt work. I don't think people realize how much of that is Antonio Banderas, and then straight into the thirirteenth Wrior. He said quote, I spent a month and a half working in tremendous pain and on medication, rolling around in the mud and rain, wearing chain mail that weighed a ton So when all the argument started, I stayed out of it, I just wanted to finish the movie. He said they were trying everything to fix his back. They flew in doctors from LA. They ended up just having to shoot him full of anesthetics, and he said it got to a point where you could have hit him in the back with a hammer and he wouldn't have felt it because he was so numb. It reminds me of Harrison Ford in Temple of Doom. It's so rough chymoapaine, papaya extract injection. After having my daughter, I had my first real like serious back problems and back injury and it is horrible and can be completely immobilizing. Like I didn't understand how bad it is and how much it affects every movement that you're making. I cannot imagine doing what he's doing on this movie with that kind of injury So this required McTiernan to kind of think on his feet and adjust their shooting schedule as well as the script a bit, which led to more focus on Dennis Storhooy, which you feel, I think, in the back half of the movie. And then Dennis Storhoy almost died They were filming the sequence where they have to swim under the cave wall to escape, and they were doing this in a giant water tank on the set. And Antonio Banderas looked around at the dirty opaque water, realized that there's no way they could see him when he was under the water in that tank. so he's like, Ah actually going to swim under this wall because there's a bunch of shit down there that I could get caught on. I'm just gonna take a big breath, as we both do, go down, go underwater, hang out for long enough for them to get the take that they need and pop back up, which is a good plan and probably what they should have done from the beginning So he does exactly that, but here's what happened next So I come out They already cut it And uh Suddenly, Somebody screams on the other side. Where is Dennis And it says some the other side He's not here. And we start looking at each other and then I feel I see the wall of this cave, this pond there Moving o my God. So I go under the water and I grab something and I feel this hand grabbing my arm. And I pull like this and here comes Dennis Great He didn't shoot for three days. He almost died Yeah, Apparently Storhy came out of the water with foam coming out of his mouth. Jesus. Yeah Yeah, this is where on most tank shoots like this, especially the ones that we've covered, you would have safety divers Yeah, even on something as shallow as this. You know, even a maniac like Cameron has the safety divers there. Now does he punch them in the face when they save him? Yes. Yes, he does. But they're there. To be fair, I'd rather be punched in the face than foaming at the mouth. Yeah, I mean, this is really scary. Yeah, it's terrible Also, to Pitis' point, they didn't need to go underneath that wall. You know, he's saying there's a bunch of pipes and stuff down there. Like there were things you could get caught on. and he did Of their time on set, Vladimir Koolich said, We were all really passionate about the project and we shot it in the worst conditions in Canada. When you go through something that heavy, it stays in the film Filming rapped november first, nineteen ninety seven, everyone went home, assuming their job was done Okay come out to play! You need to watch Wriry You don't want to based on what you're doing. It's fun. Okay. Now the initial release date was May of nineteen ninety eight, and early on there were already a few rounds of reshoots. November to December of nineteen ninety seven, this took place on McTernan's ranch in Wyoming. they captured shots of the writers traveling. a lot of this was not the actors. this was doubles. This is fine. This makes total sense Yeah In January of ' ninety eight, though, McTernon reshot portions of the scene in the cave with The Wendell's mother at this point, portrayed by actress Susan Willis, who was seventy two years old. Keep that in mind. Which also makes sense because in the finished version of the film, whoever they use, I'm just like, there's just a lady who's here. This is no one's mother. This is just a lady. I agree. Yeah. This is a young semi hot lady. Yeah more on that in a little bit So with these early reshoots in place, McTernon screened his cut stillill called Eaters of the deead at this point to a test audience sometime around the end of January beginning of february nineteen ninety eight And then Ain't it Cool News posted the results They pooled nineteen reviews submitted by people who had attended the screening, and these reviews broke down as such, five positives, eight middle of the roads, and six negatives. Yeah, that's not good. That's not good. Especially for test screening. So like, you know, I remember the first time I did a test screening I'm not gonna share the score that the movie got. It improved. But I thought it was really good. And they were like, no, you don't understand. This is quite bad. Well, they were like, it's fine But it's not what we want it to be because we've pulled in people who are supposed to like the movie. Like a lot of the time these test audiences that are pulled in, it's the demographic you're going for. That's actually a really good point I want to talk about for a second because one thing McTran was very upset about with this test screening was that they didn't listen to him about where they screened it. They screened it at the galleria in Glendale. and McTrnan was like This is not that movie. This is not a shoot 'em up head ripping off action movie yet, even though it will be eventually. I was gonna say. He was like, this is Beowwulf, this is more elevated. This is something a little bit, you know longer, more complicated, more developed. L can we also screen it in New York? Can we screen it somewhere else? And they said no. That's the same logic I use. I said, this is elevated, this is Beowolf. They didn't believe me. Well, they didn't believe him either. I would like to actually read some of these reviews because Ain't Cool News published three of them. So first, this is the positive one It wasn't orgasmically great, nor was it paintainfully bad, not even close. It was a solid adventure film well told and beautifully staged, and that in and of itself makes it a worthwhile film Now the middle of the road. The film was exactly as it read in the script. I have not read the book, so I can't make any comparisons, but I have a problem. The movie was okay, two point five stars, but for some reason, I liked it. I can't explain it That's how I feel. I agree. Yeah. I'm like, is it's not my brain says not but my heart says like it. Watching this again and again. And lastly, the bad That's it. I hate to say this, my fellow geeks, but John McTieran is dead in my eyes. A man who I once thought of as an action movie god no longer exists in my world. This guy did end his review with I missed Frasier for this Sorry, this person sucks. Like I don't like saying that about people. He's probably a fine person, but also, come on. I agree. I hate reviews like that. That kind of hyperbole is ridiculous. It is. But the point is none of those are ringing endorsements. No. Now there are a few other clues in these reviews that I want to share. One, the score was entirely missing at this point It was temped with Westworld, The Mission, The Crow, Apollo thirteen, and Braveheart. This is normal. Graham Ravevel, who was the composer attached to the film, was still working on the score. He completed it in February of nineteen ninety eight. That's around or after when the screening took place. So fine. Tw, nobody liked the love interest. In fact, one person pointed out that the fact that they were using Braveheart score, I'm guessing during the sequences with the loveve interest really highlighted how sort of half assed it was Th, manyany of the reiewers were familiar with the source material and most agreed, it kinda sucked, so their expectations for the story of the film were low. However, they came in hoping for over the top Viking violence and they didn't get it here because Prior to this point and all throughout the shoot, John McTiernan had been explicitly instructed by the studio to go for a PG thirteen rating I feel like you can tell in the first Great Hall fight, which is so chaotic and dimly lit and fog filled. that fight was disappointing watching it this time around. I liked some of the other fights a lot more, but that fight I just felt like you've thrown the edit into a blender. It's blender cutting, right? We're just cutting to random shots and I cannot see anything. I know what's so frustrating about this is This is completely not his fault. He knew this. Yeah, of course. And they were telling him, you have to do it PG thirteen. And his point was, okay, well, PG thirteen with guns is a lot easier because you can show a gun going off and not show the person getting shot with a sword. What are you supposed to do? You do exactly what you just described. You kind of make it a mush mess. And of course, two of the highest grossing films of nineteen ninety nine ironically would end up being R rated films with the Sixth Sense and the Blair Witch project. Yes. because Problem number four Prior to this point and all throughout the shoot, John McTiernan had been instructed by the studio to explicitly go after a PG thirteen rating. And number five, one reviewer spotted John McTernan and Michael Crichton whispering feverishly after the screening. It seemed clear to everyone it had not gone well Reportedly, it didn't help that seated only a few spots away from Crrighton and McTiernan had been some guy who kept loudly exclaiming it was so bad he could have directed it himself those people at screenings, I just hate them Guys don't Now inevitably the release date was pushed back because here's what happened next. Disney brought in Michael Crichon to essentially take over the film He would be directing reshoots as well as the new edit. But here's the thing, Chris, this wasn't just a result of the bad test screening. Reportedly, this had been in the works for months. Remember that boom operor who said Michael Crichon had been kicked off the set and out of Canada? Well, it seems actual human giant Michael Crichton, was none too pleased about this, and he did not let it go No like Dennis Nedry, he started working behind the scenes against the production as a whole. He began pouring the poison in Disney's ear that they had a choice to make. either honor McTieran's vision and never work with Crichon again, or get rid of McTieran and gobble up all the Crton IP they could shove in their dinosaur jaws. Well, and this is what ninety seven is the last world Jurassic Park Crton still Oh yeah. Sphere did bomb around this time. It doesn't matter. The amount of things he's made that are money makers are huge. I secretly love that movie Alex Far a lot. His point was which is more valuable to you. And the answer to Disney at that point was pretty clear. It is. I mean, on the one hand, they have the cass way of putting it would be an aging action director who may no longer be culturally ir relevant in the way that he was at the tail end of the eighties. On the other hand, they have a fricin idea machine paperback master. I mean, it's him and Stephen King, basically. And he's also just too tall. If that man is yelling at I cant turn him I can't say no. so I just that song from Oklahoma played in my head. I'm just a girl who kindis I know. That's an actual song. And we did that play in our high school with that song. It was Michael Eisner just sing that. Oh man, we do have to write fanfiction about this and that scene goes in. We do However, you can't get rid of a director of Joh McTieran's stature that easily. He was a huge director, and obviously McTiernan pitched a fit. Now I could not figure out whether or not he had fininal cut. But what Disney did was they gave both McTieran and Crrightton their own sound stages to both film reshoots simultaneously. W, They're doing a bake off. Here's our boom operator again, with the goodood gososs Both Crichton and McTee were calling the alternating shots. McT's view of the project was purposely much less bloody, a major bone of contention with Crton, so I suppose it wasn't surprising that we ended up doing a couple weeks of stage work, featuring a whole lot of chopped limbs, squirting blood and decapitation's courtesy of, quote director, Mike. As John had to be on set being the director of credit, it was pretty wild hearing him loudly sarcastically exclaim, Oh, that's a great fucking shot. We certainly couldn't have lived without that after nearly every one of Crichton's gems Which is also weird so funny In theory, the studio mandate was not to put in the head chopping off and then they switched exact afterfter the test screening, they realized that they had made a mistake. Michael Crichon also was like this needs to be way more violent and they laid it all at the feet of John McTieran, which was not fair at all Now, if you ask Michael Crichon, he would say,h, everyone agreed on the reshoot. It was no biggie. Only took forever for them to do because we had to wait for Antonio Banderas to be available. To which I say, two things can be true, sir. You may have had to wait for Antonio Banderas to be available, but you were not in agreement on this. So in July of nineteen ninety eight, this is when the massive round of Los Angeles reshoots take place, the majority of which are directed by Crichton with some shots on McTernan's set According to makeup artist Charles Porlier, the director's helelm scenes, quote sometimes in turns, but never together, sometimes one doing a second version of the other's just completed scene. It was very uncomfortable at times for the crew trying to maintain two different loyalties to two men who had differing visions. Acording to Vladimir Koolichch got so bad that McTurnnon and Crichton would tell the actors not to tell the other director what they had just been shooting. And finally one day, Koolich had had it, and he was chatting with Crton about the situation because they had become friends. and Crton told him, Vladimir, it doesn't matter what you're doing over there because I have final cut And sure enough, he was right Now this is due in no small part to the fact that McTernan had to leave the set in order to start filming the Thomas Crown affair in New York. So he threw up his hands and got on a plane. A which point, Michael Crichon essentially took complete control of the production. The first thing he did was replace the actress playing the Wendell's mother. As we said, this was initially played by an older woman, much more of a grand matriarch, and he said, I want a young hot witch And reportedly people in the test greetings didn't love Bulvite Brutally killing off an old lady. I want to see that. That is what I want. You want more ha exploitation? J Just admit. I do. You know I love hag exploitation. So Crrighton brought in Kristin Cloke, and that's so you see in the final product. He also reshot the leader of the Wendell Army. You can see it ' you can see him composited into the earlier scene in the movie. I just remember that shot happened Well the horns. Yeah, the horns are composited in Jason Glass played the role during principal photography but Crt brought inunten and Vladimyir Orlov, and then added horns to his headdress. This was to make him more identifiable. Th to your point, they had to go back and add horns to glass via VFX. Crton added way more gore. This is the headadings head ripping off, also reshot the underwater cave exit, which is now at Point Doom in Malibu and a new rainy funeral for Bulvi at Pacific Palisades According to Crichon, he also changed the title. He said it was getting constant negative feedback from people. and he said even though the studio did not want to change the name, he pressured them into changing it to the thirirteenth Warrior M Now according to McTieran in twenty twenty three, too much is made of Crichton's involvement. And then in the end, only about three scenes of the film were shot by Crichton. So the difference between their two cuts was only five to ten minutes. To which I say five to ten minutes could be an enormous difference. Well, let's just put it this way. You could say, on the one hand ninety to ninety five percent of the movie was directed on set by John McTurnan. I think that's true. On the other hand, a movie's tone is very much still established in the edit, which Crichon very much had control over, it sounds like. Yes, I think almost complete control. And he made one pretty massive change in post production, which is that he scrapped Graham Reall's score completely. Yeah. Jerry Goldsmith, right is the creditited. He brought in Jerry Goldsmith who he'd worked with on comoma, the Great train roobbery and rununaway You can actually hear Reavel's score. It leaked online and you can listen to it in full. I did. A lot of people argue that it's far superior to Goldsmith'. I don't know if I agree with that. Obviously Jerry Goldsmith is one of the best composers ever, but it feels like Goldsmith's doing Han Zimmer. Yes. Like it really feels like he's doing the score from the rock. I was actually comparing the two of them ose Well because it was rush. Of course they may have tempted with that score. You know what I mean? And he's trying to match that. who knows? It's hard to know without seeing the score connected to a cut in terms of the Grand R Reavel one, but I will say it is definitely more varied. It features both more Nordic instruments and more Arab instruments. There's a lot more space in it. I do think I prefer it to what's in the final film Sound designer Brian Williams who worked on Gram Revevel's original score, said the original cut of the thirteenth Warrior had a darker, grittier, and more realistic tone. Of the music, he said, quote, I must confess that Goldsmith's score didn't leave any impression on me at all. It was just another generic Hollywood score from what I recall I think that's fair Now in September of ' ninety eight, they held another test screening with Crichton's cuts in place as well as Goldsmith's score. And it didn't really test better than McTieran'. In fact, I think you could argue it tested worse. One audience member wrote, quote, The thirirteenth Warrior is a poor example of filmmaking. The plot is as thin as Kate Moss and the characters are as interesting as wet cardboard. Antonio Banderas plays Ahmed Ibn Fadlan, an Arab with a Spanish accent, who was chosen by Vikings to be the thirteenth warrior in a fight against an invisible enemy who eats away flesh and may not be human. Well, it turns out there's not a lot of fles eating and the invisible enemy turns out to be mountain men who think they are bears You know, one of the problems too is I feel like the movie gets a lot of energy when they go on the offensive and they move into the caves. And it's interesting how if you look at the other movies I feel like who have done similar things, the ones I mentioned the Dcent and Bone Tomahawk, They have that forward momentum, right of in the descent, it's like they're entering the cave right at the beginning of the movie, and Bon Tahak, it's a journey to find the canannibals. Defense movies, I think can be tough like this, right? where they're effectively just stationary for a lot of the movie. Yeah. tryrying to survive the night and it can feel pretty static Well at this point, it seems the studio kind of just threw their hands up and decided to dump the film. They didn't even give it a premiere Koolich couldn't believe that the film, which he'd thought would be his big break had devolved into watching these two men behave like children. Here's Vladimir Koolich talking about what he felt like the problem with the movie was and a possible solution The weakness is you got thirteen characters that you don't develop fully So when you start to lose them to the battles, You don't really care because you're not connected to them I made a suggestion, which unfortunately didn't happen was we're on this boat. All you have to do is take a handheld camera aroundround the boat as you travel and give each character twenty seconds You know, like let's say this guy is a blacksmith, know, or this guy is an arch or he makes archery equipment or whatever. And so when this guy dies, you go, Oh, that's a blacksmith. Oh, that's too bad It's a shame. But they never got that. So we lost a lot of characters in the first battle, You didn't know who they were And I thought that was a sad because we shot for ten months. We had plenty of time to established characters So the reason I wanted to play this clip is because I think this is a really good and simple idea. And it's a great example of why it can be important to listen to people you know, I think the best directors are able to listen to their collaborators And in this case, maybe because there was so much defensiveness, because the director position was being challenged, suggestions like this completely fell by the wayside. He's totally right. This was a simple way to at least be able to identify who was dying because you literally can't. Yeah, it's the hardest thing in the quote like men on a mission sub genenre, right, the team mission subgenre. And the two examples that I think do this so well The one that probably just takes too much time and would be too difficult to copy is, for example, Ocean's eleven. Yes, which in a four minute montage explains eleven characters down to a T and we know all of them going forward. But it does it basically by saying exactly what he's saying to do here. Yeah, you get roughly thirty seconds with each character, twenty to thirty seconds. it's really just one beat, you know with each character and we understand them. It's an extremely well written movie The other one though, that could be a better, again, it came out after this movie, but I think it's a great example of this. Set aside any feelings you might have about the movie and it being jingoistic, et cetera Black Hawk Down establishes all of its characters so well. These are all grunts GIs with the same haircut, pretty much all just white guys and you understand this guy's the typist, right? This guy's the R Ra go guy. This guy doesn't have his back plate armor on. That's Tom Sizmore. this you know what I mean? Like Sizemore but you ever place himself and does it great. But that movie does such a good job in the first twenty minutes of We know who ten twelve guys are very specifically. I have a secret to admit I like that movie. I think I haven't seen it in a long time, but I like that movie. Oh, I like it too. I think it's an exceptionally well made movie. I think there's a lot to gas with geopolitically, but I think it's actually one of Ridley Scott's best directing efforts of like the last twenty five years. I agree All right, on august twenty seventh, nineteen ninety nine, the thirteenth Warrior released wide and came in second place on its opening weekend behind the Sixth Stents, which had been released three weeks earlier. But something else was released three weeks earlier too, the Thomas Crown Affair, directed by John Mceret. Wow, that's crazy. Unlike the thirteenth Warrior, the Thomas Crown Affair opened to good reviews and a strong box office turnout It made its budget back and then some thirirteenth wararrior did not The reviews of the thirirteenth Warrior were also not kind Roger Ebert said to extract the story from the endless scenes of action in carnage is more effort than it's worth. The film seems to have been conceived from the special effects on down. instead of beginning with a good story and then adding FX as needed, it apparently began with FX and then the story was shoehorned into the pauses in the action whichich is funny because of course it did actually start with the story R just it started with Beowulf Rumors started swirling that the thirteenth wararrior had been a very expensive mistake. The budget had been set initially somewhere around sixty million do, we think, and it seems like that was inflated to over eighty five million doars with the cost of reshoots and recuts. Some blogs started reporting the budget had ballooned to more than one hundred sixty million doars. This seems almost impossible given Disney only reported an eighty five million do dollars loss that quarter based on box office receipts from this film, Mumford and Mystery Alaska Nevertheless, the thirirteenth warrior did lose an enormous amount of money. It made something like sixty million doars at the box office And it seemed doomed to go down in history as one of the biggest box office bombs Disney had ever seen. Joined later, of course, by John Carter, which I think also deserves a rewatch and a different legacy. and the Lone Ranger, which we can leave where it is. We covered it. I know. Which though, to be fair, has some amazing set pieces. Trains. It does. know last train I know Shootout is fantastic. I agree But something unusual started happening when the film released on VHS and DVD eople started watching it Chris Winterbauer kept renting it So did Lizzie Bassett. Yeah. Over the years, it gained a cult following where the vast majority of people who have watched it never did so in a movie theater. We all watched it at home. And it did garner some support from the Muslim community as well. Writer Mohamedad Zahir pointed out that the film quote pioneered a Muslim hero in Hollywood blockbusters and cultivated a devoted cult following, especially amongst Muslims searching for positive representation on the big screen However, doctor Reza Aslan wrote quote, As someone who has spent twenty years trying to make movies and television shows that put Muslim identities at the forefront, I think the thirirteenth Warrior probably hurt the situation because it was such a box office disaster that some people in Hollywood decided that they weren't going to make a movie with a Muslim protagonist anymore Th almost immediately we had the events of nine hundred eleven, which allowed Hollywood to turn Muslims into the antagonists I wouldn't necessarily say that there was a snowball effect so much as it was nine hundred eleven. I agree. Like I don't think this movie made a big enough impact. you know what I mean? Well it was a box office bomb. I see his point. It's the same argument that studios have made, you know, in previous episodes we've cover against women as directors. It's like if you made a movie that didn't do well, don't put a lady behind the camera, you know? Yeah, but I guess in this instance with the amount of behind the scenes bickering going on between McTiernan and Crrightton. I could see a lot of other reasons being pointed. I'm not saying they're not going to look for a scapegoat. Tot. I'm just saying I would imagine it would hurt Banderism, for example, potentially, as like a leading man. It didn't, which I think is good because he came out pretty unscathed. Everybody agreed he held his own in the movie and was one of the best parts of it. As for John McTiernan, his string of clinkers would, of course continue with Roller Ball and Basic. But it was on Roller Ball that he hired a private eye, Anthony Pelicano to illegally wiretap the phone of his co producer during a creative dispute, which he then lied to the FBI about. He would end up serving ten months in federal prison. So many have theorized that what happened on the thirteenth wararrior may have been breaking point that led to something like this. He developed a paranoia so strong that he wiretapped his coworkers' phones And after going through this story This had to have been traumatizing Because in this case, it was true that Michael Crichton was absolutely working behind the scenes to edge him out from pretty early on in the production. Now does that mean that you have an excuse for wiretapping your creative co producer's phone? No, not at all Do I potentially understand what broke his brain and led to that? Yes Yeah, and I would imagine it's almost more of a holistic breakdown Yes, there are specific things pushing him in that direction. but I would imagine just it's really hard to come down from such a high Yeah of those three movies he did at the end of the eighties into the early nineties and then all of a sudden you're just not on sure footing anymore. Never recover. Never fully recovered, right? Yeah. And that's extremely I think would shatter my brain personally more than necessarily the specifics of the thirteenth Warrior, although I'm sure there's a cumulative effect. Yeah. But yeah, no, he it was a tough end, you know, to a very, very talented director's career Now there are still die hard, thirteenth Warrior fans who advocate for the release of the McTiernan cut with Graham Reavevel's original score. According to Coolitich, Crton wanted a really fast moving quick cut film, and McTernan wanted something much more layered. Coolichch said Crichton seemed uncomfortable with dead air If people weren't actively telling the story, his story, he wanted to move on. McTernan understood the importance of space and silence, and it seems he still does. When asked about the infamous director's cut, he said, Maybe it's better, it remains a myth It probably does, right? You know what I mean? My guess is he's telling the truth that it's not as different as people think it is. Yeah. I think having had the opportunity to, you know, make a movie where I've seen If you were to see the Director's cut of something I made versus the final one, I think most audience members would have a hard time pointing out the differences, even though it feels so drastic to me. and I think that's probably the case with most of these films as well. Yeah. And there are other instances where the Director's cut people actually don't prefer. L Legend is one of the famous ones. I think a lot of people prefer the tangerine Dream score that was released with theatrical version against Ridley Scott's will as opposed to the Jerry Goldsmith version that was done later All right, Chris, Well, what went right? I have to say the first thing that went right is nineteen ninety nine, The yearar of movies with numumbers in the title. Can I give you a little list? Six cents? Yeahep. So I was thinking about the two that came to mind when I was watching this were the sixixth cents and the ninth gate. Oh yeah. the Roman Pansky film with Johnny Dpp Yeah. And I was going through a list. Okay, so Star Wars episode one, technically. Three kings, which we're gonna cover. Yep, Three to Tango, the Nev Campbell movie. Sixth Sents, the sixixth day with Arnold. if you haven't seen that one, the cloning one. eight Millimeter Ninth gate, ten things I hate about you and the thirteenth wararrior. Wow. That's nine movies with numbers in the title from ' ninety nine. So that went right. numbers. o I'm just kidd For me, Antonio Bandera iss movie star. Yeah, I agree. He was, I still think he remains, but he was such In an era, you know, if you go eighty five to ninety five, let's say, an era of beefcakakes, a lot of big dudes, you know what I mean? L from Schwarzenegger, but even Willis a little bit is more slight than Schwarzenegger, but Mel Gibson, you know, all of these guys. And then here comes Banderas, who, as you said, is a much slighter person than a lot of these Hollywood A listers and just embraces himself in every way. and he's so endlessly appealing. he's so charming, he's so effortless But without, he never undercuts the drama, you know what I mean of the scenes and whatnot. He's think's so's so wonderful. I have never not enjoyed watching Antonio Banderis in anything. I think he's fantastic. And I'm very excited about him in the Anthony Bourdain bioic coming out later this year, Tony. Yes, that looks really good. It does look really good. A number of folks were saying that they didn't love Banderis His casting and interview with the vampire because he's so different than the character described in the book. I loved it. I agree. I think he fits so effortlessly into all of these worlds. He's such a chameleon, and yet he's always so himself. And that's a unique ability. is So I'll give mine to Antonio. I agree. I love him. I'm gonna give mine to the production design team on this. I think the work that they did is It's amazing. It's amazing. I hope they know, I'm sure they do, but I hope they know what an accomplishment this was and how many people love this movie and love it for that love being able to see the scope of this and see the Viking village and everything. I mean, it's amazing. I think that's what gives it its rewatchability is actually that the world feels so lived in. Yeah. So even though the story's thin, it still feels rich around it. I agree. And then I want to give a little sub what went right as well to the original idea behind the book. I know we dumped on Michael Crichon a lot during this and I think you know he handled this pretty poorly. He's a brilliant writer, but yeah I love this idea. I think this is a very cool way of handling this. and I love the way that his brain worked backwards from Okay, here's Beowulf. What if it was real Okay, I can't find the real story. I'm going to make the real story from which this legend bloomed. It's really fun, it's really cool. too your point, it's a version of, yes, essentially fan fiction or real person fiction, but that doesn't hurt anyone. And if anything even expanded on and resurfaced this real person, Ibn Fodlon who actually did write an extremely important documentation of the Vikings at that time. So I think the idea is really cool. He was so smart, he was such an incredible writer and he's directed some great things as well. He didn't do himself any favors here, but those are my what went rightits. All right, Lizzie, well thank you so much. Weve finally got through a true Was it great or were you eight? And the answer is both? Yeah Lizzie, if folks are enjoying this podcast and they would like to be the thirteenth warrior to our dozen indistinguishable Vikings How can they support it? You can tell a friend or family member, you can say, Hey, remember the thirirteenth Wrior? No, well, you should. And here's a podcast episode about it. You can leave us a rating or review on whatever podcaster you are listening to this on. You can go a step further and you can now subscribe in both Spotify and Apple where you will get at least one bonus episode every month. They're usually reviews This month is absolutely jam packed. You're not getting one, you're not getting two, you're getting three kind of four movies that are covered in these reviews. We covered backackrooms and obsession at the beginning of this month. We covered Disclosure Day. We will be covering Toy Story five. So please subscribe so you can get those episodes. We're having a lot of fun doing them and we love writing off going to the movies as a business expense So please keep that up. Well, An seeing your guys' comments It's very like Patreon to see how you feel about the movies. Exactly. Our favorite part is to see where you agree, where you disagree, where you think we're dumb. That's right. Please keep tellelling us. And for five dollars, as Chris just said, you can join our Patreon and you get everything I've just mentioned. Plus, you get an ad free feed, pllus, you get the fan community Chris is talking about We do read all your comments, we respond to your comments. We don't employ people. We can't afford them. It is us talking to you anytime you are talking to us on Patreon So keep that in mind. nicer in the Instagram comments. Sir, you know who you are that I'm talking to. And if you would like to take it one step further, you can for fifty dollars a month get a special Full stop supporter shout out just like one of these Uh, David, can I get some Viking music here to set the mood No There do I see my fathers. Adrian Peng Korea, Ben Schindelman, Blaze Ambrws, Brian Donghue, Daniel P. David Friscalanti, Michael McGrath, Steve Winterbauowerer, and James McAavoy Lo, there do I see my mothererss, Angeline Renee Cook Beatrix Earhart Brittanyy Morris Brookks. S Grace B, Lenna L. J, Lydia Howes, and Rosemary Southwward And my sisters MZodia Felicia G. Karina Kanaba, Kate Ellrington, Kathleen Olson Amy Elishlager McCoy, Lousy Susan Suzanne Johnson And my brothers, Darren and Dale Conkling, Evan Downey Jason Frankl JJ Rapido, John D. Wilshire, Nate Ashley, Nate the Ninth Scott Oshita. Chris Lo Low there do I see the line of my people, Cameron Smith, Don Schibel, film it yourself Frankenstein, half Grey hound. Ro Ja, Son Chinani Back to the beginning. Lo, Galen and Miguel the Broken glass kids, Jry Hillpiper, Jose Amelano Salto del Giorgio, Mark Bertha, Mariposas Humans, Matthew Jacobson, the Provost family, the O's sound like O's do call to me. The cast and crew of win a trip to Brownntown bid me take my place among them In the halls of Valhalla, where Sadie, just Sadie, may live forever Thank you so much, Lizzie. Next week We are really excited because we are also going back to a nineties cult classic that has been requested so many times And that is Lizzie, a movie that made Hollywood say, This is why you don't let ladies direct or star in movies. And we are talking about Tank girl. I'm very excited. An incredibly creative talkal aboutout Great productrodion design movie that has a complicated story and legacy, and I'm really excited to dive into it with you. Great. I can't wait. All right guys, until next week. We'll see you then. Bye. What went wrong as a Sad booom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer Host productuction and music by David Bowman This episode was researched by Laura Woods and edited by Karen Krepssaw