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Return of The Holy Grail to the Silver Screen
Adam writes: "That's right - the Grail will soon be back in theaters (or theatres), with 24 seconds of previously unreleased footage!"
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IN A.D. 952
...
QUEST WAS BEGINNING
ARTHUR: What happen?
LANCELOT: Somebody set up us the grail
BORS: We get signal
ARTHUR: What !
BORS: Main screen turn on
ARTHUR: It's you !!
FRENCHMAN: How are you Englishmen ??
FRENCHMAN: ALL YOUR GRAIL ARE BELONG TO US
FRENCHMAN: You are on the way to taunting
ARTHUR: What you say !!
FRENCHMAN: You have no chance to survive make your time
FRENCHMAN: HA HA HA HA
ARTHUR: Take off every 'TROJAN RABBIT'
ARTHUR: You know what you doing
ARTHUR: Move 'RABBIT'
ARTHUR: For great Camelot!
Thirty years ago, sure. Back in the late sixties and early seventies, the civilized world plus Yorkshire was a bleak and desolate place devoid of joy and humor. But why do people still find Monty Python funny today?
There's been a whole lot of progress in the last thirty years. Monty Python may have been pioneers of a sort, and they sure made the BBC cringe like no one had before. But do they really hold a candle to Full House or Pee Wee's Great Adventure or any of the other brilliant programs that have followed? No.
It says a lot more about geek culture than about the quality of Monty Python's work that they've persisted as long as they have. Geeks, though they pretend to be iconoclasts on the cutting edge of technological and cultural revolutions, are really as conservative and scared of change as the people they deride. They cling to Monty Python, because they can feel rest assured that their adulation is justified, that Monty Python is officially and canonically funny. The fact that millions of scraggly geeks with crunchy socks have memorized the exact same jokes and the exact same non sequitors doesn't detract from Monty Python's appeal. Indeed, it only reinforces its appeal, since it gives geeks the sense of community and brotherhood they crave so much for not having it in the real world.
Monty Python's back in the theatres, eh? Well, I think I'll sit this one by. I've already seen the Holy Grail once or twice on my trips to the middle east, so why would I want to see it again in the theatres? If you ask me, Monty Python's sun has already set.
well, they published a script, looks like they took the marked up shooting script, stuck in some stills, and sent it to the printers. I bought it in a English edition 20 or so years ago. That has not just the script for the sceen (with a big slash through each page in what looks like marker or crayon) but also stills for the King Brian The Wild sceen, so footage was shot.
Plato seems wrong to me today
Wuss. The following, though not scrupulously perfect, is from memory.
KING: Make sure the prince doesn't leave this room until I come and get him. ...Right?
GUARD: Not to leave the room, even if you come and get him.
KING: No no, until I come and get him.
GUARD: Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room.
KING: No no. You stay in the room, and make sure he doesn't leave.
GUARD: And you'll come and get him.
KING: Right.
GUARD: We're not to do anything apart from just stop him entering the room.
KING: No no, leaving the room.
GUARD: Leaving the room, yes.
KING: Got it?
GUARD: Oh! Oh, if we... er, if he... Uh...
KING: Look, it's quite simple.
GUARD: Er...
KING: You two just stay here, and make sure he doesn't leave. Got it?
GUARD: Oh, I remember. Er, can he leave the room with us?
KING: No, I want you to keep him in here, and make sure...
GUARD: Oh, we'll keep him in here, obviously. But if he had to leave, and we were with him...
KING: No, just keep him in here...
GUARD: Until you or anyone else...
KING: No, not anyone else, just me...
GUARD: Just you...
KING: Get back.
GUARD: Get back.
KING:
GUARD: Right, we'll stay here until you get back.
KING: And make sure he doesn't leave.
GUARD: Hmm?
KING: Make sure he doesn't leave.
GUARD: The prince?
KING: Yes! Make sure he...
GUARD: Oh! I'm sorry, I thought you meant him. (indicates other guard) Y'know it seemed a bit daft me having to guard him when he's a guard.
KING: Is that clear?
GUARD: Oh, quite clear, no problems.
[ KING turns to leave; GUARDS move to follow. ]
KING: Where are you going?
GUARD: We're coming with you.
KING: No, I want you to stay here, and make sure he doesn't leave!
GUARD: Oh, I see. Right.
Schwab
Shameless show-off
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Patron to movie employee: Right! You stay here and make certain that the movie does not leave the cinema!
Employee: Right, we will stay here until the movie leaves the theater.
Patron: No, you stay here, and make certain the movie does not leave.
Employee: Right, we wont let people enter the theater.
Patron: No you STAY here until...
(Continue until Lancelot appears)
(Apologies for the discombobulation, this is the only part of the Holy Grail I have not memorized. It's just too convoluted...)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
...so why would I want to see it again in the theatres? If you ask me, Monty Python's sun has already set.
...Errr.... No.
Why would someone want to watch a movie twice? Heck, I have seen Star Wars, I don't need to buy it again. I don't need the merchandising. Oh, I have read the Lord of the Rings once a year for the last 14 years, and I guess I won't have to go see the movie either because I know what happens!
A few years back, the Meaning of Life appeared at a theater, here. I own the movie. I went to see it anyways. It was great watching this movie on the big screen (no cropping!) and, the best bonus, being there with a bunch of my friends, and a theater full of rabid Python fans.
The only thing about Monty Python and popular culture (read, Star Wars, Matrix, etc...) that is different, is that the Pythons were very talented and an extremely well educated bunch. Their sort of humor appeals more to the intellectual type (geeks) than average sit-com crap. A large proportion of their comedy is intellectual. If you get the jokes, you are suddenly part of a club. How many people would find the "Bruces Philosphers Song" (sp) outrageously funny? Not everyone I would wager. The reason I would say this is that Joe Average probably has no idea who Immanual Kant, Heidgger, David Hume et al were!
So, if you believe that the sun is setting on Python, then it must be setting on other big phenomena too. The only difference is the level of intellect required to get the subtle jokes and allusions.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Come on, Drew Barrimore's not as pretty as people seem to think she is, but calling her a cow is a bit uncalled for.
--
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
I thought I would share that the missing 24 seconds, if you weren't aware, are from Castle Anthrax, ("I can face the peril!") featuring a few quick cuts of girls doing generally bad things that you wouldn't discuss over a cup of tea with your grandmother.
Anyway.
One other story I'd like to share is from the Criterion Collection's laserdisc release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A fabulous edition that you can now, thanks to the death of laserdisc, get super cheap on ebay (I found it for less than $20, including shipping). On it is a fantastic commentary with Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Here is a comment from Terry Gilliam on the first American screening. I'm paraphrasing here, but the gist is the same:
"On our first screening, in New York, I couldn't believe the response. People were lined up around the block. I was nervous as hell, not believing what I was seeing. Saturday Night Live had yet to hit TV's across the country, and sketch comedy was generally something thought as avant garde at the time. After the screening, a couple came up to me and told me how much they respected Monty Python and loved my work. I thanked them and told them I appreciated the support.
The two were Gilda Radner and John Belushi."
- Terry Gilliam
Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard.
A good joke is timeless. If you don't find the joke humoruous, that's your loss, not mine...
It will be 24 seconds of them discussing about the previously unseen 24 seconds of footage..... and it'll prolly go on for at least 5 minutes.....
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Here's the script
Someone you trust is one of us.
That reminds me. Long ago in 1992, when the net was younger than it is now, I was working in London for the MultiMedia Corporation on a CD-Rom with Douglas Adams. He was friends with the various pythons, and he suggested that Terry Gilliam dropped in to see what we were doing with our computers.
We showed him our CD-ROM titles, and an early version of QuickTime, and mentioned Usenet in passing. he expressed interest, so we sat him down in front of the Mac that had the modem (in our cable cupboard) and showed him alt.fan.monty-python.
He was fascinated, and sat there reading it for at least 40 minutes. I remember him seeing someone ask for the script to Holy Grail and him posting his production company address for them to get a copy (of course somone else posted the entire script the next day, and no-one ever believed that Terry Gilliam was posting from our address).
Well, I will say one thing for this post, it definitely has attracted quite a bit of attention and quite a bit of responses, so I figure its time for me to do my part and have part in this lovely little response fest as well. Afterall, what is life without mob mentality (She's a witch!!!).
Well, there has been a whole lot of progress in all sorts of things. But does it make those things which made the foundation upon which the other stuff stands obsolete? Not at all... comedy is not technology, it does not become obsolete . When one thinks about it, why would comedy become obsolete? We could really get into the theory of comedy (I know many a person who has taken the class), but that's just going to be wasting our time. A good deal of Python's comedy was done in such a way that it was rather universal, which is why they succeeded in many different cultures rather than just ours.
Saying that comedy becomes obsolete like technology is like saying that literature becomes obsolete like technology. Thus, we should not go back and read anything that was prodcued before 1995 as it has all been said more recently and more relevant to our times. This is hardly ever the case. Quite often, the newer material is stuff that was pretty much ripped off from the original and done in the manner of a cheap hack, which would then give me less pleasure than the pure original. Why then would I bother with something that is modern and not purely original when I could have the pure sources? Well, that is simple as well... they new people have something new to offer above and beyond what the original source did.
What conclusions have we come to in this posting. Basically that saying anything old is categorically better than something new is wrong, and vice versa. Python continues to exist and be popular because people enjoy it, and other stuff isn't as appealing to them. It will continue to be so as long as these conditions exist.
By the way, I'll try to ignore the fact that you even brought up Full House in comparison to Holy Grail and Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
oh, you mean the stuff about bunnies? (right after Zoot mentions knitting exciting underwear and in similar scenes with her in Anthrax)
...and should NOT be part of the extra 24seconds. hopefully that will be on the DVD's cut scenes; it's too silly to be funny in the same nature as the rest of the film, even given the film's zaniness.
that's in the director's cut.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Actually, it was "Yaaay." Without enthusiasm. Now you try it.
Better, better, but "Yaaay." From the back of the throat.
That's it!
Oh, you wanted an interesting comment? It's karma whoring in here.
"Karma whoring? What a stupid concept!"
Its the fact that they were too cheap for expensive actors, or props, or special effects, and all they had was their wit and natural funniness. I mean the fact that they use coconut shells for horses isnt really all that funny unless you realize that they couldn't afford horses, and they realize that too, and they just make fun of it.
Some of the newer stuff where they had money, and didn't make fun of themselves as much, isn't nearly as funny.
He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks- dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire. He was vicious.
(Monty Python, Episode 14)
--rana, who almost fell for this as serious until he read the "Full House or Pee Wee's Great Adventure" bit...
;)
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
They have really been too busy to put a thorough response here, but my personal fave's of their post-Monty Python work have been Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and A Fish Called Wanda.
Great to see that we are right on the bleeding edge today.
Whatcha doooo with those rollin' papers?
Make doooooobieees?
I was hoping they would include the "King Brian the Wild" segment from the original script. That was a seriously funny bit.
For those who haven't at least read it, King Brian is a bit "authoritarian." All of his subjects were missing one of their arms, presumably because an arm offended the king one day. (Except for the archers, who are missing one leg, but that's a different gag.) Anyway. King Brian doesn't like close harmony groups. Well, he has auditions for close harmony groups, and for every group that auditions he has the aforementioned archers execute when they've finished! The king enjoys this immensely.
King Arthur and his men pass through his land, and are "pressed" into auditioning, even though they consider themselves more of a "chorus" than a "close harmony group." Not too many close harmony groups are auditioning these days, so they're always trying to get new talent in the door for the king's amusement.
Anyway, it's a great bit, too bad they didn't have it on film. After reading the script, I was hoping that it was simply cut from the final release, rather than never having been filmed at all.