Midweek Mention... Swiss Family Robinson

Swiss Family Robinson

Sidey:

Pete, you've been on holiday?

Pete: I have

Sidey: to Florida.

Pete: Yes

Sidey: Which is where Disney lives.

Pete: Well, it is one of the locations that Disney Lives. But I also went to the Caribbean as they call it, over there, but the Caribbean to you and I. And that kind of inspired me to do some kind of Disney themed week.

Also bit of inspiration that this, this film that we're going to now talk about was, was filmed in Tobago

Reegs: Yeah in

Pete: Caribbean Nice. Or Caribbean as as normal people

Sidey: Did you go On dry land as well, or

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. So we went on an island. Yeah. Not too dissimilar to the Swiss family, Robinson Island.

There was some, there was loads of animals that didn't belong there and pirates and stuff. Nice. But they were, they were like more themed pirates for the kiddies and stuff. There was a pirate ship, even

Sidey: crumbs.

Pete: Yeah. So, yeah, lots of, lots of fun there.

Sidey: Well, yeah, so you did nominate Swiss Family Robinson and there are various iterations we're going for the 1960.

Dan: I was quite excited when I heard it was this version, cuz it was the one I remember. Yeah. From growing up

Sidey: the premier

Dan: and it's Millsy of course, in this

Sidey: Mills bomb.

Dan: Yeah,

Yeah. Who's a terrific British actor.

Um So yeah, so I was interested to see if any of the, the distant memories I had of watching this film stood up today

Sidey: when my Mrs had that we were doing this, she was fizzing at the clo at the prospect of watching this. Wow. She was very excited because this was a favorite of her and her brother from their youth.

I don't recall. Seeing it, or I must have seen it at some point, but it certainly wasn't one that I thought, Oh yeah, I remember that from

Pete: well, it was always on around Christmas cuz like there's, there's Christmas references in it. And yeah, I, I hadn't seen it for silly, silly amounts of time, but it, I sort of, I, I, I remembered it fondly from back in the day, so I wanted to revisit it.

And as you say,

Sidey: well when you do revisit it, first thing you see is a message on Disney Plus saying that this.

Things that happen in it that reference or represent attitudes, which were not okay at the time and on. I think it's what it says and are not okay now. But they were what happened in the film and they've left them in to, I think it says some bullshit about like start a conversation or,

Dan: right.

Pete: I just, I didn't watch it on Disney. I haven't got Disney Plus,

Sidey: Well that's what it does

Pete: does. But it, it did come up with something, but I didn't really

Sidey: Yeah, so it says that you are, I I was thinking right, what we gonna get some

racism or something? Like what

can we, look

Pete: look

Reegs: was a bit like what is gonna happen because I've got fond memories of this as a, as a kid and it's pirates and

Dan: We've seen enough of these films though.

there

are occasionally just phrases or attitudes that are, are so

Sidey: Stereotypes of some unfortunate stereotypes like in Dumbo and stuff like that. But this one, so when it does start and you're pretty much straight into the shipwreck.

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: And then the aftermath with the family and then there's animals and then straight away the way the animals have been treated.

I was like, Oh, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's fucking ruthless.

Pete: Although there are some other

Sidey: things like later on, but, But the first thing you see, I was like, okay, they must be referring to like animal cruelty. Cuz this is like full on.

Pete: Well, I mean, yeah. Nowadays watching it with far more kind of like context and understanding than when I was a kid. You realize that there are loads of chickens and pigs and ducks and everything that have just been thrown in a load of fucking water and they're all panicking, which is having the desired effect from a cinematic point of view.

Yeah. because they're in, they're taking part in a shipwreck panicking way more than the family are, by the way, who seem to be fairly, you know, they're getting drenched and they could drown at any point. They're, they're fairly calm with perilous situations.

Reegs: except for Francis.

He's the youngest brother who just, every time he's on screen, he's just squealing

Sidey: The first utterance from him, I was like, to Mr.

Does he die? It is like, No.

Pete: So I immediately started feeling all that plea with myself that, that this guy was gonna totally ruin the film for you, , because I was just thinking this is absolutely everything that side, You'll be pleased to know that the actor who plays him is now dead as most of them are, but he died like quite young-ish, 60 or something like that of

Sidey: Probably because of this horrible cancer.

but Yeah. Yeah.

But he does get sidelined, like for quite a lot of the movie.

Reegs: we probably shouldn't skirt over the fact that that first few scenes of the, the boat, the ship crashing on the rocks amazing.

Absolutely incredible

Dan: in for sure. It's it does,

Reegs: But no, I mean, you know, considering this as 1960, it looks and feels very realistic even if, you know, even if the scenes of the interior are not quite so convincing.

Sidey: Well, I did think the raft scene when they were trying to navigate between some. And that particular bit with the dogs and the water is like, they're like

they're gonna die. Like Sure, yeah. Yeah. And they are trying to navigate the raft and I thought that does actually look genuinely quite perilous.

Like they could easily stack it onto some rocks. It's

Dan: difficult to do. Yeah. Cuz there was a lot of swirling water in and around those rocks and everything.

Reegs: So we have this big crash and you know, they do eventually make it to land and the first thing they do, did you notice the first thing they do, they.

And they thank God and it, and it's done in a way that can only be done in a film from the 1960s. It's like no judgmental element to it. It's just they turn up and they thank God that they've survived this horrendous thing. And then, you know, they just move

Dan: Yeah. And they build a, a makeshift little camp and it, it froze it down with rain and they all get soaked and it's a horrible night. And the next day they set about rescuing as much stuff off the ship as they can, as well as starting on building a, a better place to live cuz they're not sure how long

Pete: Well, it, it turns out that, I mean, we haven't gone through the name, We, we don't know the name of John Mill's character other than Father Robinson.

Dan: Yeah. We got father and

Pete: we've got mother.

Mother.

And then we have Fritz,

Dan: eldest

Reegs: looks so much like John Mills. They really could be.

Pete: He does look like yeah, a relative of his, doesn't he? He's got the same sort of like face and Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: doesn't

Pete: Sst t doesn't,

Reegs: Ernst is kind of, Fritz is, is one of, is a wannabe dad.

He looks like him and he wants to be the the father figure to the group as well of the boys. And then Ernst is the sort of studious, bookish one with a sort of nerdy foy hair. And then Francis is just the insufferable, awful

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: nine year old there to be a child in peril.

Pete: Yeah. And then I think the only other things that have names are the, are the two great Danes, which are Duke and Turk.

Dan: Oh no. But you've got,

Pete: Oh, they

Dan: a little bit later on and we should probably talk about the animals towards the end where we've got a, a fantastic climatic race that they're involved in.

Pete: Right. But I mean, we haven't said that they've, the reason why they've crashed is cuz they were getting chased by pirates. has been mentioned and the whole reason that they're on a boat in the first place is cuz they are sailing to passers New to

Sidey: Guinea New

Guinea to start

Pete: to start a new,

Sidey: colony effectively.

Dan: again, another kind of outdated attitude I guess, that, you know, that we would go over and start

Reegs: I know it's right, they're in the

Pete: but that, I don't think that's, that's not. Right. Okay. In, in the film. That's, So things like that did happen and I don't, Is it, is it bad to like show that in films, if you were gonna make a film now about people

Reegs: Well, also

Pete: like relocating and stuff.

Reegs: escaping the Napoleonic Wars. That's right. He doesn't wanna be conscripted. So yeah, there's something else, but it that's, I know it's right there in the title, but it was only watching it this time around.

I was like, Oh yeah, they're actually Swiss. Yeah.

Pete: They're

Sidey: not, Yeah,

Reegs: They're not Americans

Pete: and an Englishman.

Yeah. Which is what their accents are all the way through.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: Anyway, so they, but what it turns out is that this family are fucking super good

building shit.

Sidey: Well, at this point. Well, there's another, there's, there's an incident with a tiger.

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: Oh yeah. Straight

Sidey: this point, my daughter was out. She, and like with the dogs in the water and stuff like that, she was like, Mom, you said this was fun. I don't like it. And we said, We'll just watch a bit more cuz you know there's gonna be like fun escapades and stuff.

Yeah. And then we got to that and she's like I don't like it. I don't wanna watch

Reegs: it. She's right though. I found deeply distressing from the very get go, the, the treatment of animals in this movie. From the first

Sidey: I mean my daughter's a like,

a proper animal lover, and so she was

out my

Dan: daughter started

Reegs: it's too much. This is way too much. Like for the, the animal treatment is just off the charts, like distressing, I think I

Dan: And, and it's

It's clearly, you know, real animals in and

Reegs: often being provoked in some way, forced to fight.

You see dogs

Pete: fight dogs fighting takers,

Reegs: mean, you know,

Pete: although look at all they

Reegs: in horrible conditions. And then weird attitudes like when there's a baby elephant that comes along. The guy's first, the little kid's. First job is to enslave the baby elephant.

Sidey: Well, it nearly drowned him behind the scenes, which was law. And, but they had a zebra, which they put in the ca and they were

actually electro.

That's how they're getting it to move to do stuff. And that's, that's the kind of shit the accepted

Reegs: And there's the zebra in the, in the pit at the end. And it looks really about,

Dan: about it, they've strapped a monkey to a dog towards the end, braced him around a

Pete: well it's more humane than gluing it.

Sidey: At least you can

untie

Pete: else you gonna get the monkey to stay on the dog? You need to think outside the box, Daniel.

Sidey: So yeah, I think we got 20 minutes before my daughter was out. She was just like, No, this is not cool. And I honestly, watching the dogs and what I thought, maybe they killed loads of dogs and they just. Like putting more dogs in to get the shots, you know? Cause it was fucking horrendous.

Reegs: they did.

I I was really close to turning it off, I have to say. Like, just not because it, I did, I couldn't believe that I would've watched this as a child and it not have that impact on me. But I guess it goes to show you how attitudes have changed and,

Dan: and there is loads about the animals, but I.

As I say, Disney do address it in the beginning. They want it to spark conversations. So whether this should even be

Sidey: on the television I mean that's what maybe I mean you can even go into that. I mean, that's just pr is it? They just, they just wanna milk this and put it on their streaming service for the last few pennies they can get out of it.

And the way that you can do that is by saying, Oh look, we were cus back in the day, but we can talk about it now. I mean, I, you know, if you're being really cynical about

Reegs: Or is it Disney kind of owning their problematic history and going, Here it is, and we did do this stuff and because

Sidey: yeah I mean that's the conversation. isn't it

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. I

think that's, It's better. It's better that. Talk about it rather than just like sweep it under the carpet.

Anyway,

Reegs: anyway, so yeah. Loads of horrible shit with animals. But also there's a plot

Sidey: also. They build a shantytown, like in about a nanosecond. They go from a tent to this.

Incredible Treehouse thing that they've made. Did you notice what the sink was? . It's a

Pete: Oh, turtle shell. Yeah.

Sidey: So the, the Barb Barrack treatment like continued, but the mother, they just, Mrs was starting to hate this, that they kept calling each other father and mother.

Pete: You do get that even nowadays in some like older fashion sort of thing, where like parents will call each other mother and father in front of the kids. That's because otherwise it's like,

Sidey: But she's like, Oh no, I'm really upset because we've crashed on this as I was stranded and we've got no future. And he goes, Yeah, but I've made you a kitchen

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: I was gonna say, Pete.

That's true. Granddad.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a fridge somehow, like a cooler.

Sidey: And it's when he says, I've actually made you some curtains and you can change the curtains if you want. She's like a sound. I'm, I'm in

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: but, but running through the plot anyway, just so we get there, cuz there is plenty of social kind of commentary in and around it, but they built this treehouse.

They know that the pirates are still lurking around the, the island. They also want to go and explore because it's such a big island. They're not sure.

Reegs: They don't

Dan: might be

Reegs: an island, Dan.

They think it's a peninsula, maybe

Dan: a peninsula and, and that might explain The animals that got there there was once a

Pete: an acapella go

Dan: then broke

Reegs: Well no a landbridge it was a theory at the time of the time when the book was set, which is in the 18 whatevers. Yeah. So, but yeah, the.

Dan: But yeah. Well, Fritz and Ernst get into a boat to go and explore the island and upon their kind of

Reegs: they, they do actually deal with the number one thing that I was thinking about.

Two young lads on an island like that, they're pretty upfront, straight away, dealing with the sexual tension, aren't they? They talk about, Oh, if we could find a woman, I don't care how old she is, he

Sidey: says

That was another one. I was like, Okay. That's another

Reegs: thing. Yeah. I didn't know if he meant really old or.

Sidey: well cause

they were

Pete: was thinking really young would probably be,

Reegs: Yeah.

Anyway, but they do, like, they're quite up front in this PG film of dealing with the brothers, like building sexual

Sidey: And the mother mentions it as well. She says, Well, you know, it's great, you know, father, that you are having a great time living on a dessert island, but these kids have got no fucking future here. Yeah. They're gonna have to bum each other

Reegs: Basically. That's what she says. Yeah.

Dan: Fortunately. Anyway, they find Roger, the cabin boy who's, who's been shipwrecked with his grandfather in actually on, on a further appearance. And as they're making their

Sidey: work well on, on the absolute first appearance, The first like frame of film,

Dan: you guess? First time. Really.

Sidey: guess it was,

Pete: Like, I know this has got you in a lot of trouble in Thailand as well, Dan, but yeah, no, that, that immediately was a girl immediately Bertie, but

not

Dan: tough. Ernst and Fritz because they,

Sidey: the all the savages because we get some like, pretty casual races and thrown

Pete: Well, again, again, it's sort of, it's, it's basically intimated that he's had to dress her up as a boy because Yeah, there's gonna.

Sidey: passed around the,

Pete: some horribleness going on

Reegs: on.

Pete: cuz I

Reegs: I mean, Yeah. Literally that is one of the, Well,

Dan: onset

Pete: but like, again,

Dan: in here with that, you know, you're thinking, Geez, you,

Sidey: you

enjoying this kids, you getting a kick outta

Reegs: fancy going on the condo.

Dan: is what it was like for me when I was growing up.

Pete: But again, this, this is not a true story, but it's, it's. It's meant to be realistic to a point, and it's set in a time where if you are marooned on a desert island and load of pirates come by, what would've definitely happened is, is a lot of nastiness if there was a young girl there. Yeah. So it, it's, it's, it's of a time and dated and, and kind of sinister to think about, but also true to its core material, I guess.

Sidey: I guess

Reegs: I'm just surprised to see it in a PG film

Sidey: But it's also, you know a white film. Depicting savages, you know, That's the reality of it, you know, And, and you are

Reegs: But they are pirate savages in this one. I know what you're

Sidey: saying. Fucking man yeah,

Pete: there's there's loads of balance. You look at like Ace Ventura two and he's like, white devil, you know, that, that completely balances out absolutely everything that has gone before in, in, you know,

Sidey: it's very true Very true's very cheap Very cheap Very cheap

Dan: men armen. And so they're trying to take the, the cabin boy,

Pete: And the

grandfather.

Dan: B and the grandfather, but he can't get away in time. And he says just, just get out, get away, get away. And they run off. And on the way back through the jungle, which is pretty bad, they have to fight an anaconda. That was used as the garb

Sidey: It was a Star Wars Yeah, Star War

Dan: for Star Wars later. And as was the director Ken Ann.

His name was taken as Ankin Skywalker. It's just another

Reegs: love it

that Love

Dan: deep research gets your Pete and then they find out that she's a girl when she won't cross the water and take off the

Reegs: you take off her

Dan: and then all of a sudden they just like, Oh, it's a girl, you know? And, and she suddenly, Half is, is like helpful and, and useful as she, she did.

She just straight away just goes, Oh, you'll have to carry me the whole way. Now,

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Don't ask me. I'm just a girl.

Dan: like, up until that point, she's traveled halfway across the world dressed as a boy in a cab, you know, and got away with it. But

Reegs: yeah,

Dan: they, they get her back.

Pete: Well, they, they Christmas, well

Dan: is Christmas day, isn't it?

They're walking back and they're singing

Pete: something They do, but before they get them back there's like, I mean this is gonna make me sound like a total cu probably cuz I am. But I, I was not okay with the animal stuff, but I wasn't like, Oh, I can't watch this.

I'm gonna have to turn it on. And like, it was like, I know that that's what happened in films back in the day. I've watched fucking you, I know you bottle Lawrence Arabia. Horses just getting fucking like plowed over in camels and shit. I've watched loads and loads of old films with loads of stuff. You'll have watched loads of films where horses and everything has got hurt and not like, Like gone.

Oh God. Watch it. So

Reegs: Well, yeah, but

Pete: but because it's dogs or whatever and people prefer dog. I don't actually like dogs, not so

I wasn't troubled or bothered by that. But the zebra a bit. I was, Oh, this is not fucking nice at all. Well, they've basically buried a zebra in some, like, presumably manufactured quick sound that is fucking horrible.

That Zebra is, is basically thinks it's gonna die.

Dan: then add Hyen is closing

Pete: they've got nibbling at it. Like, what the

Reegs: That's why. But this movie was never more than five minutes away from showing you something deeply distressing.

And it wasn't just dogs, it was, it was

Pete: Yeah, I, I thought it was strong as well.

Reegs: and

Dan: But at, at the time, people weren't thinking of that

kind of

Reegs: know they weren't, but it's very frequent in this because animals are so much a part of the plot and it literally is every five minutes something horrible.

Pete: It, it does show the balance as well because there's, there's obviously they. Embrace the animals as well. Like the, you know, the dogs are

Reegs: there. Well, they enslaved them.

Pete: but they, they, Right.

But they also save them as well. They save some animals. It's not just

Reegs: like, it's to make them the means of production,

Pete: Okay. But that's also what used to happen back in the day.

Dan: It still happens now it

Pete: still happens now. Right. So it's, it's not just, I, I can't, I don't think we should

Sidey: animal stuff equals bad. The sexual tension ratchets up because they now's a girl and two boys. Yeah. And they're both well into her, even though she's got short hair.

Pete: Yeah. It's

Reegs: an amazing scene where they dance and they're kind of exchanging partners and it almost, you know, it's the precursor to the fight that they have later.

Dan: Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Pete: Before this they have this There's a scene where another one, another like unfortunate reference over. So the eldest brother makes reference about the Bertie before like the boy saying, Oh, he's a bit of feminine. He's like matey, like back in, in Switzerland that we used to call a sissy.

Yeah. Obviously talking about how,

Sidey: he's a queer

basher Exactly. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah

Pete: the act that plays s is gay. Was gay, he's dead now. So that made it probably a bit weird that he.

Reegs: not hide well, not hiding his sexual identity in 1960. I expect he was probably Fairly used to that

Pete: to it. Yeah, yeah. But they do, They come back at Christmas.

They have, Oh, Christmas tree. Christmas tree, inexplicably, Like they're really excited about it a couple of times and have to like belt it out.

Dan: Well, they've just got back off this long journey away. They weren't sure if they were

Pete: go like, yeah, not like, Oh, I've gotta sing another, another verse of O

Reegs: piano. They've got a piano. Did they make that?

Pete: got it off the

Sidey: It's that one key There's that one key. I've probably got a bit

wet

Pete: use dog's bones as the

Reegs: the keys Yeah.

Dan: But they they do find out that the pirates are closing in. And now that she's there and she was the, the Pirate's property or pirates prisoner they're gonna come back for us. So the plan is to blow up the boat and then set traps in and around the.

Reegs: They've got like a last man type position that they're gonna defend. That's like the old man has scouted it out and they're gonna lay traps, like

Dan: they go full a team again, don't they? Like when they built the, the house in the first place, now

Sidey: it's a bit more Star Wars

Dan: all these traps, and you've

Pete: Oh, this was the Ewok battle of Indoor.

Yeah, but the logs and Yeah,

Dan: at one point father has put out a, a flag. I think he's a little bit earlier.

Pete: Oh, quarantine flag to scare off the pirate

flag

Dan: isn't it?

Sidey: It's a black death

Dan: that. Yeah. But we know now that's the, the cool time for India. It wasn't the quarantine flag at

Sidey: Korea

Pete: Oh, right.

Dan: it was, that's all.

It was important.

Reegs: they trap a, a tiger in a pit. Francis does. Francis does. He's been trying to do it all. Movie,

Dan: quite clever actually. They put this meat over a pit on kind of like a tripod and cover the, the pit with leaves.

Reegs: Yeah. But there's loads of them.

They've dug all these holes and then they just cover, it relieves for the pirates to run into. It's amazing.

Dan: is fantastic. So they, they leave it all there, but. Then things have started to, to rat up a little bit with the sexual tension going on. And the boys have a fight. Father finds out and says, I tell you what, I've been pushing you too hard.

We're gonna have the first official holiday tomorrow. And

Sidey: cue some more animal

Dan: so, so this was probably the, the worst part of it all.

Got all the animals in and you are

laughing

Sidey: chasing an ostrich round and just like

tormenting

Pete: I've I've rid in an ostrich. It's

Sidey: must have been a strong fucking ostrich.

Pete: No, I wasn't as fat back then. This was when I was 14,

Sidey: so

Dan: of 'em riding o one's on an elephant. Other one's on this. Poor, tortured zebra who's been electrocuted to death, and you can see it's tea for, you know, a couple of times. They have to fast forward the action just because it's that erratic and everything, all the animals, the monkey on the dog is just like horrified, isn't it?

It's absolutely fear for its life. Anyway, this goes around and his mother starts the firing. Lo and behold, the pirates are not too far away and they've heard

Reegs: Thank God they've come to stop it. They've had enough of

Dan: this, what I was thinking, it's the RS PCA have come to save their day. Like, so they all, they all pull onto the beach and the, the Swiss family Robinson go into their positions up on

Pete: on

the, I remember this, this bit. I was, it was so cool. The bits I loved as a kid were when they, when they showed you like all the, like the working mechanical

Sidey: Yeah yeah

Pete: the original tree house and so on, and then the final scene with like the gum powder and all the little booby traps and devices that they've created.

Like that was fucking

Dan: the coconut

Pete: Yeah. But what, what's hilarious through is, The dad is just like handing around the rifle, going like, Oh, have a look. Just try and shoot him over there. Oh, good luck. Oh, good luck with that. Oh, unlucky. Next time and everything. There's no, like, there's no fear or sense of

Dan: like, well do a,

Pete: dealing with it.

Like, this is like a fun day out. Yeah. And they're doing like a, this is a bit of an obstacle course. It's like, Oh, the bloody pirates are gonna

Reegs: Well, Fritz, I think he fritz takes the chick off to one side to teach her how to shoot so she won't be raped. But it's played as like a seduction.

Pete: Yeah.

What's sexier than teaching a girl how to shoot someone to avoid rape?

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: They've got that that arrogance. So they're not actually going to be, you know, they're not

Pete: Yeah, they're totally

Reegs: white Dan. They're white, they're not gonna die.

Dan: and, and let's. Script and they've also set up all these traps that those dumb pirates are gonna fall into. And there's one real kind of mean pirate that, that had won.

And he seems to have a little more about him. And at one point he's getting him to do a pizza movement and come around the back. But Francis's. Pirate alarm on the steep side that a bank goes off and alerts them.

Pete: He's the real hero of

Dan: He is. You know, he's caught a tiger and he's, he's set the alarm

Pete: harmed an elephant.

Yeah. Well, if we, if we're talking about, you know, problems, Did you have a problem with the fact that the, the main pirate was of totally different ethnicity to all the other pirates, but you.

You're not so fu about the Asians getting mixed up.

Are you

Dan: wasn't he?

They were speaking

Sidey: They were speaking I was

Dan: Right.

Reegs: Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. I thought that was appalling.

Sidey: Well pirates

Dan: made up of different,

Sidey: pirates didn't have to have a certain ethnicity. They just a

gang

Pete: I think it was they were painted in a particularly poor light.

Reegs: Yeah, they were. Yeah. They, This is not a flattering or nuanced portrayal of what might lead some men to be pirates,

Dan: in, in, In other news, though, this was the first movie from Disney and Pan.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I think made up for all of its failings.

Dan: will,

I

Reegs: Anyway, we've got, We're so close to the end. We might as well finish it off now because there is the big ruckus that what happens? A load of pirates fall in with the tiger who just malls a load of people to death.

Pete: Tiger. There's pirates like springing back out of the Yeah.

As if the tigers like whacking

Sidey: Well the cav

Reegs: think the ana con's in

Sidey: the cavalry arrive. Grandpa Simpson comes along and he's, you know,

Dan: Just in the nick of

Pete: which, which did confuse me because he was what? They'd let him go to go and get a ransom or something like that. Why'd they let him go? Because he was obviously, he, he kept playing the money card going, Listen, if you know I'm very valuable, you're not gonna kill me.

Sidey: Yeah I'm the only one who can read and write He said, I'm the only one who can write. I will write the ransom note and be able to do the comms. Yeah. And then there must have been some like Game of Thrones style sailing where people just teleport from one place to another for him to come back and blow anyway, to the goodies.

Reegs: There's loads of like explosions on the hill and people getting blown to bits.

And there

Pete: are children shooting people with

Reegs: lobbing grenades at them. loing, homemade improvised devices.

Dan: and the reward is they get to stay on the island. Ernst is gonna go back to university that

Sidey: he wants to go to that there London,

doesn't he Yeah.

The

Pete: get a tall

Reegs: And was the implication that he was gonna get the girl?

Dan: No.

I think

Reegs: Fritz goes off with her at the end. I was You losing the will to live

Pete: Fritz

and Roberto have got like

Dan: Roberto

Reegs: that what happened, right, The

Pete: don't be like that.

Reegs: I

was, honestly, I was,

Dan: I think they might go to start that new colony in New Guinea. I think that's

Pete: Well, no, the, the, the, the grandfather says, Look, you were on your way to New Guinea. I'll jot you off there if you want.

I

Dan: Drop you off on the way.

Pete: just Jo jot you there. Yeah.

Dan: just pass Robert's garage. Just keep going. Swing around. Couple of rights. Yeah.

Pete: are allowed to go and live somewhere

Dan: Well, this took 40 million. Which is 367 or 8 million in, in this day's

Pete: So it's a fucking massive hit. It

Dan: was a massive

Sidey: bigger than that. It's large

Reegs: and it is a really good film. I mean, it looks amazing. The production values are off the charts. There's loads of interesting stuff thematically, but I, The animal

Dan: if you could get away from, from that, the animal cruelty and you know, have something else and you know, there, there is enough adventure and fun and, and

Reegs: oh, it's a good story, isn't it?

It's a good

Pete: It is it

is a good story. Like, like I said, you know, I'm only, I'm only mucking about, There were, there were definitely parts of the animal stuff that were like fucking pretty jarring.

Sidey: lot of the treatment of what they did to the animals together are like properly legal. Like now

Pete: yeah.

Sidey: you cannot do that. I mean,

Pete: And rightly so. Completely. Like yeah. What it, what it does is it then it creates, so if you made that film again, but it was all like cgi, like you, it wouldn't have the same kind of effect, but obviously you don't wanna have that effect of like, animals in distress and and so on.

But the practical stuff, parking the animal stuff, I mean, You know, as you were saying, like the, the sets and the practicals, like designs and stuff like that are fucking brilliant. Yeah. And still, like, to me like, like made me kind of like fucking gave me that like warm fuzzy feeling of, of seeing like the, the, the treehouses immense.

And, and, and you know, like the final scene with the, like the booby traps and everything, I know they're fairly rudimentary, but with the

Dan: well Disney went all out here and, and they really you know, they did, it went to Tobago.

The actors out there, they talked about how difficult it was.

Reegs: Yeah, it sounds a bit like water world.

The, the

Sidey: shoots nearly jibbed it halfway through cause he was like horrendously homesick.

Dan: So many like near misses where injury could have

Sidey: you see the one about John Mills

Dan: on the stone on

Sidey: on the, They just like, Oh, here's a, you know the bit they frolicking about in the

pool and they do like

the tar and swing?

Yeah. And there's just like loads of jagged rocks in the water. John Mills, when he fell like, like hit his foot on one, like he just missed

like inhaling himself and like the elephant did stand on the kid's head underwater, like nearly fucking

drowned him

Reegs: There was a lot of of shots that I thought, how have they done this in a movie that's like this old you know?

Dan: Yeah. No, it was really ambitious, wasn't it? I mean, incredible. It's but it obviously does have these terrible kind of moments with animals that we look at back now, and we think shocking, but at the time they wouldn't, they wouldn't have thought about it. In fact, it is, I dunno when they banned it, but when I, I was reading about it says, this practice is now illegal.

And you thought, well, of course it is. Yeah. Should have

been then, you know, I mean, ju morally that's so, so wrong. But what Dr. Doolittle next,

Pete: Oh yeah. There's probably some lots of animal cruelty in that I'd imagine,

Sidey: I'd say,

I,

wouldn't have carried on watching. Not, not because I'm like so screamish about the animal stuff, but I was just like, I wasn't, I didn't have a huge nostalgic vibe for it.

No. So when my daughter checked out, I scared on watching it because I had to for this, but really I was just like, I could have

Pete: And the misses did she?

Sidey: She said it just hasn't aged Well, I don't remember it. You know, I remember it being really good watching it back. Now it just doesn't feel as good as I, I remember.

Reegs: Yeah,

definitely. Best if you have nostalgia for it, leave it there.

Pete: Yeah, no, I'd, I'd, I'd go along with that. There was still some bits that I enjoyed very quickly. John Mills is, who's grandfather?

Reegs: Christians

Pete: correct.

Sidey: Cooler Shaker? Yeah.

Reegs: Tava