the vynsane asylum

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was on IFC tonight. I let A Jr watch some. Many might argue that makes me nuts. She didn't get most of it, but thought it was hilarious when the French knights threw the cow at Arthur's group, and was able to follow and laugh hysterically at the stupidity of the guards in Swamp Castle.

Anyway.... I got the 1999 DVD. The picture sucked. The subtitles were wrong (not a good thing on such a quotable movie, where many would be following them just to verify words they might be iffy on). So I got the 2001 DVD as well.

Here's where I'm getting confused, and am too lazy to dig out the 1999 DVD right now. I could swear that the Castle Anthrax sequence was slightly shorter, (eliminating Dingo's rather unfunny breaking of the fourth wall to ask if the audience thinks the scene is necessary). I'm rather sure this scene wasn't in the original movie at all, since I don't recall it on the original VHS I rented, the (different) VHS I bought, or any TV viewings. I remember clearly thinking, "Goddammit, I can't get rid of the shitty old DVD because they fucked up the Castle Anthrax scene and the original isn't on the Special Edition DVD anywhere."

But I can't find anything online now that mentions this being added to the 2001 DVD. I'd think any sort of adding scenes to a classic would stir up some controversy, but the closest I can find is mention that it wasn't in the theatrical release, but is on every home video release, which seems totally wrong. I doubt a scene I'd seen a few dozen times before would've stood out and been unrecognizable to me in 2001.

Most everything else, even IMDB, seems to treat the movie as if that scene was always there. To me, it seems like everyone forgetting that Greedo never got off a shot before 1997. The movies are equally iconic, especially among nerds, and, though Dingo's speech doesn't completely change the movie like Greedo's shot does, a not-really-funny joke anywhere in Holy Grail is almost as bad.

anarky wrote:To me, it seems like everyone forgetting that Greedo never got off a shot before 1997. The movies are equally iconic, especially among nerds, and, though Dingo's speech doesn't completely change the movie like Greedo's shot does, a not-really-funny joke anywhere in Holy Grail is almost as bad.

what the hell are you talking about? greedo always got a shot off, and han slightly ducked just in time. it's because han isn't a cold-blooded killer!

Here's the scene as I remembered it:


The difference is at 4:51, which, now that I know there was something originally cut from it, is a bit choppy (as they're standing still in the beginning but suddenly at what looks like another end of a corridor walking in the middle of Dingo's sentence, and an echo suddenly materializes out of nowhere), but I'd rather have a choppy edit that went unnoticed for 25 years than about a full minute of unfunny in what's otherwise one of the funniest flicks ever.

I thought they added a scene somewhere, but I thought it was something else.

You're not wrong. I've seen that movie enough times that when I watched the added scene it is completely jarring.

Funnily enough, I just watched it with my 7 and 11 year olds over the holidays. They greatly enjoyed the Camelot musical number as well as the animations. I also showed them the LEGO version on the second disc, which they watched like five times in a row.

Life of Brian will have to wait until they are considerably older.

The back of the DVD that I have calls out the fact that it has 27 seconds of new footage (or something similar). Movies actually change and exist in multiple versions all the time, but the only time most people seem to care or notice is on Star Wars.

i seem to remember a scene at the end of the 1989 batman where vicki vale comes upon two kids dressed up as and playing as batman. there are mentions of it online as a deleted scene, and mentions of other lines that were cut on the home video release, but that one is not included as a 'theatrical but not home video' scene.

I haven't watched the extras on my DVD of Batman, but, now that you mention it, I remember that scene as well. I'm not sure where else I would've seen it.

The big problem with that movie when it airs on network TV is that they always seem to cut to commercial after the "My balloons. He stole my balloons!" line. Which would be bad enough, cutting in the middle of one of the best scenes. Only when they come back from commercial, they go on to the next scene and entirely eliminate the classic "Why didn't someone tell me he had one of those... things? Bob, gun. <BLAM!!>" sequence.

Going back to the Monty Python added footage, it did clear up something that's always nagged at me. When the King is talking to the crazy Terry Gilliam character in scene 27, and the narrator is nattering on about scene numbers, and they cut to the long shot of the crown yelling "get on with it!". Before that just seemed so random, I always felt there was something else to it, and now its because of that lost footage where the "Get on with it" is set up.