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S02E35: SPECIAL: Short (Round) For a Stormtrooper!
30 Plays2 months ago
Join us as Bob and Harrison Gerard turn their sights from a galaxy far far away back to this galaxy... but still a long time ago. It's an Indiana Jones takeover on this special edition of Short For a Stormtrooper!
Join the Short for a Stormtrooper community!
Discord: https://discord.gg/a89TD3XdFX
Email: SFASpod@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Origin of Harrison's Name
00:00:01
Speaker
It's an Indiana Jones takeover and it's happening real quick. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello welcome to a very special edition of Short for a Storm Trooper. Our guest today is my son Harrison Gerrard. Hello.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello. And Harrison, what do you like to tell people about your namesake? ah Well, I was named after Indiana Jones.
00:00:38
Speaker
You were named after Harrison Ford, but in an Indiana Jones type way. I like when you say that. Yeah. Yeah. And not a Star Wars Well, I do think it is slightly more embarrassing to be named after ah Star Wars character.
00:00:51
Speaker
I don't know, but i i have never felt at all embarrassed to be named after an Indiana Jones character, nor would I be embarrassed to name someone after an Indiana Jones character.
Indiana Jones & Star Wars Fan Base
00:01:02
Speaker
i think that is a great franchise. Yeah. And it's true. I'll talk a little bit about how we came up with that name in a second. But Harrison and I have been talking for a while that it would be fun to pivot an episode of Short for a Stormtrooper and just talk about Indiana Jones, because I think the Venn diagram of listeners of this podcast who also are fans of the Indiana Jones franchise is probably almost one to one.
00:01:27
Speaker
So here we are. And I think that they are like in many ways, like two sides to the same coin, like in terms of like pulp narratives, you know, they are pretty, uh, representative of each other.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah. Very similar, very similar. And obviously of course, George Lucas influence. I think Steven Spielberg had way more influence on star Wars than people even realize. So it makes sense. Same creators.
00:01:55
Speaker
But speaking of creator, like this is how you got your name, right?
Adventure in Egypt & Pregnancy Story
00:01:59
Speaker
Was ah my wife and i were in Egypt and we had planned the trip a long time ago and then my wife got pregnant. She was like five or six months pregnant with Harrison.
00:02:11
Speaker
When we went to Egypt, the doctor said it was okay for her to go. ah We knew that we were going to have a girl, so we had the girl's name all picked out. And we thought, well, on this trip, we'll figure out what a boy's name would be just as a backup.
00:02:24
Speaker
And when we were in Egypt and exploring the pyramids and all this stuff, I thought, oh, Egypt, Indiana Jones, Harrison. Oh, Harrison Gerard. Sounds really good.
00:02:35
Speaker
It's such a great um story. Also, I don't think she's been on the podcast, but going to Egypt while you are six months pregnant is one of the most Sherry Gerard stories of all time. Like that is such a thing she would do.
00:02:47
Speaker
God forbid, like we have to eat the cost of this Egypt trip. I'll just go to Egypt when I'm massively pregnant and miserable. Well, the thing that was so funny was we took a day trip down to ah Luxor.
00:03:01
Speaker
Right. And we flew and somehow Sherry just got really sick on the flight. And the poor purser of the Egypt air flight was like, oh my gosh, here's this American woman. She's obviously very pregnant. She's going to die on my flight.
00:03:18
Speaker
She's like, he's like, how may I make you comfortable, ma'am, and bringing her cold compresses and stuff. And then famously, she was just going to sit in the car, but you know in in the air-conditioned car, while I went with our guide and toured everything.
00:03:33
Speaker
And ah we got picked up by the guide, and the guide said, i will pray the Koran over you. And we're like, you know, that's okay. We don't really need that. He's like, no, no, no, no. no He puts his hand on her forehead.
00:03:45
Speaker
He prays in Arabic. And 10 minutes later, she's picture perfect.
Disney Reboot Rumors & Actor Comparisons
00:03:50
Speaker
Enjoyed the rest of the day. but you Such an Indiana Jones story, right? Just that little touch into the supernatural.
00:03:57
Speaker
yeah Totally. I love that. Yeah. Well, hey, listen, there there were two big things I wanted to talk about. um The first quickly, and then the second one I think we'll spend more time on. There are rumors floating around, and I have to admit first off that these rumors seem to be coming mostly from clickbaity genre websites that Disney is planning on rebooting Indiana Jones with a different actor, ah maybe as a Disney Plus series as opposed to movies.
00:04:28
Speaker
What are your thoughts on that? I think my thoughts are different than the majority of other people i see online where I know that there are a lot of diehard, like Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford only, and I will die before it's anyone else. And I have never felt that way. i think I...
00:04:49
Speaker
I really love like pulp narratives and I think like something about it um and something about Indiana Jones I've always liked is the idea that like the movies we have are just like random snippets from like this hidden greater Indiana Jones narrative, right? Like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom especially, like these are supposed to be like, you just pick two comic book issues off the shelf And yeah these are them and there's way more. And so in that way, like, I think having Indiana Jones be other people kind of makes sense in like a soap opera way.
00:05:29
Speaker
And so it doesn't bother me per se. But also, i i love to I will be the first in line to um ah purposefully ignore things that are established canon if I do not like them and I just don't have them in my head and I never think about them again. It's like Ray being what?
00:05:52
Speaker
Palpatine's granddaughter. I don't even know because as soon as I heard it, I was like, well, that is really stupid. And I don't think that's the case. So it's one notch worse than somehow Palpatine returned.
00:06:03
Speaker
yeah Yeah. We just, we'll, we'll just agree to disagree about the candid birth parents of Ray Skywalker. Yeah. And you know, I have very similar thoughts. I, I rebel against the argument that only Harrison Ford could be Indiana Jones for two reasons is number one, we know that can work like with the James Bond franchise, right? Totally. We get a new James Bond has the same general, you know,
00:06:28
Speaker
character strokes, but it's always a different character. So that works just fine.
Indiana Jones Video Games Discussion
00:06:34
Speaker
The other thing is people forget, we've already had four other actors play Indiana Jones on screen. We had River Phoenix at the beginning of, um, of the last crusade.
00:06:46
Speaker
And then we had three different actors play him in the young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which people forget about. And it's really great. He's got the eye patch. That really old guy. And then we had the the two younger ones, the Sean Patrick Flannery, I think is the more famous. He was the older version. and then there was the really little version of Indy.
00:07:04
Speaker
So we know that works. So I i re reject that. i'm I'm open to whatever comes. I will set my expectations low on it and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.
00:07:16
Speaker
That is my take. I do think um it reminds me of... I was reading something about when they were doing the box art for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, which yeah is a huge canon piece of... um Short for a Stormtrooper lore. Yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
ah yeah But that they were... When they were painting Indiana Jones on the box art, they like the first take they purposefully did in Indiana Jones, who did not look like Harrison Ford to try to start to establish that like James Bond kind of vibe. And then the marketing people came back and said, no, it really needs to be Indiana Jones.
00:07:57
Speaker
This is me remembering something I read like five years ago, so it might not be perfectly accurate, but I do know that that somewhat happened. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because that's actually the segue to where I wanted to go next is Indiana Jones computer games.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah. Right. So you and i I know are both agreed that Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis is probably the pinnacle. Indiana Jones game is one of the best adventure games ever created. And ah best I view it as adventure.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah. hands And probably the second or my second or third favorite Indiana Jones story all, all together. Totally. Totally. Right. But we both also played through the newest entry, which is Indiana Jones and the great circle.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. Which I loved. I thought it was so incredibly good. I love to. So let's talk about that for a second. Let's talk about the great circle. ah We've got the, the DLC, the next chapter coming out, I think just in about three or four weeks, yeah i think middle of September.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah. yeah like Yeah. Indiana Jones and the order of giants. I think it's going to pick up on the storyline of the giants famously played by Tony Todd before he passed away.
00:09:16
Speaker
I think it's going to take place in the section of the Vatican that in the base game they said, sorry, you can't come in here, even though it's on the map and it's fully modeled. Oh, I don't know if I ever found that place.
00:09:29
Speaker
Oh, you totally. It's like, this is so boring if you're listening to the podcast and you haven't played this game, but it's like, yeah you know where the Nazi camp is on that map. Yeah. And like where the fountain is, it's like left of that.
00:09:41
Speaker
There's like probably a third of the Vatican map. I think it's like gardens or something. So we'll see. Okay. Interesting. Hopefully it is not only there because i spent the most time in the Vatican of any of the three maps of that game.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah. So let's talk about with that game, the voice actor, right? Because ah Troy Baker. Yeah. Right. Is that his name?
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. um Played Indiana Jones. And when I watched the trailer of it, I thought it was Harrison Ford. I thought they got Harrison Ford and they de-aged his voice the same way that they did at the beginning of Dial of Destiny.
00:10:22
Speaker
And when I heard it was Troy Baker, who also played like Joel in The Last of Us. And ah Booker DeWitt in Bioshock Infinite. Oh my gosh, right? Like, you know, a quintessential Mount Rushmore game, video game actor. He did such an amazing job of sounding like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Yeah, it he owned that character shocking.
00:10:46
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it never felt like he was aping Harrison Ford. It just felt like he was... you know, honoring him. totally it was Yeah, he did a great, he did a really great job.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah. So we're looking forward to the sequel of that. That was great. My only complaint really with Indiana Jones and the great circle is I sensed that they ran out of budget when it got to the final act.
00:11:10
Speaker
We won't talk too much about details in case people haven't played it because if you haven't played it, highly recommend. Oh yeah. I was like, it was probably my game of the year for yeah whichever calendar year it came out in.
00:11:22
Speaker
It was really, really good. But the story does kind of fizzle out at the end. Yeah, I think like like all AAA games for many, many reasons. But yeah, the final probably hour of gameplay is a little lacking.
00:11:37
Speaker
little rushed. yeah Yeah, but I'm struggling to think of a AAA game that I did not think that that was the case. It's kind of like horror movies where like the real key to success is can you stick that final 30 minutes?
00:11:50
Speaker
Right, right. So here's what I'm interested in your perspective on with this is How would you compare the experience of playing fate of Atlantis, which we both played through again, just, you know, a few months ago yeah and great circle, like which of those experiences felt more like you were Indiana Jones.
00:12:16
Speaker
I think if the question is like, which do you feel more like Indiana Jones? Yeah, you, personally. Then I think probably Great Circle, especially because it's like first person and it's a little more action oriented.
00:12:29
Speaker
But I think in terms of like feeling like Indiana Jones, I think Fate of Atlantis somehow feels more like the movies to me. It feels a little closer to the core canon.
00:12:43
Speaker
And I'm sure part of that is just that, like, it is older and came out before i was born. And so, to me, there is more relevance there. But, uh... it does There is something about it that I think feels a little closer to like the core trio of movies. than yeah ah well and I also think a big part of it too is like fate Atlantis is like a very famous thing.
00:13:06
Speaker
The Great Circle right is not that famous. It's not famous. It's a true thing. Yeah, it's a quote-unquote thing. Yeah. Quote-unquote true. It's so real. It's so real. It's really there. It's a real
Favorite Indiana Jones Movies
00:13:18
Speaker
theory. It's an actual theory. It's like the Ark and the Warehouse. It's totally real. um However, yeah,
00:13:27
Speaker
yeah and I think the Giants too, like the Giants are are interesting, but they are not as captivating to me as the whole Atlantis thing. And I don't know. So that is my one ah thing that I like less.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, and it was interesting because I'll have to admit, when I was playing Fate of Atlantis, I really knew nothing of the origin of Atlantis and Play-Doh, and you know I really learned a lot from playing that game. Totally.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah. So um we just have a couple minutes left. What is on your mind, Indiana Jones-wise? Yeah, what I wanted to ask you about is your take on, do you like the Indiana Jones pinball table? Oh.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, well, there's been a few of them. Yeah. Right. And because I have a I've been playing a lot of pinball lately, I have a virtual pinball table and I've got i think there's just been two. I've got a couple of versions of it on my virtual pinball table.
00:14:25
Speaker
um I do like the one that basically just covers, I think, the first four movies. So I think that's the older one, to be honest. Is that the one with a gun? Because one of them, like the, yeah, I believe so. like the gun to shoot, the to shoot it.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah. I'll tell you but my, my favorite thing in this, I don't think I've told you about this is you can, there's a big arc in the, of the covenant on the play field, a big arc Mac, and it'll give you a,
00:14:57
Speaker
ah Multi ball. If you you know do enough things and bash it, you get a multi ball. But what happens is you. Well, I remember when that happened in the movie, when the Nazis opened the Ark of the Covenant and they get a multiple.
00:15:08
Speaker
Well, that's what it's like. Right. So when you when you get the multi ball, you bash it and the lid opens up and there's four balls on it and they come shooting out of the arc.
00:15:21
Speaker
that Just like the ghosts, which is great. So, yeah, I do love it. I think I would be all in for a new Indiana Jones themed game. ah The next game that's supposed to be coming out from Stern Pinball, which are the granddaddies in the ah room right now, is a Star Wars game. It's yet another Star Wars pinball machine. I think this will be like the fourth or fifth.
00:15:44
Speaker
We're going to it this time, folks. This is going to be, I know, right? Well, the good thing is, is the most recent one is very popular, but I don't like it. I do not like it. I also do not like the Mandalorian pinball table that much.
00:15:55
Speaker
Is this the star Wars one that they're selling at Costco? It is not. That is like the home kind of dumbed version, dumbed down version. Oh yeah. Of of the most recent one. Okay. Right.
00:16:07
Speaker
But they'll probably be announcing like in a week or two, a brand new table, brand new design for a star Wars theme. And nobody really knows if it's going to be prequels or sequels or clone wars, or, you know, it could be, it could be anything.
00:16:22
Speaker
We'll see. We'll be sure to update it here. but um And then my final question is, which of the original three movies, like, which is your favorite if you were going to just put one on to watch?
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah, it would always be Raiders. um You know, my my rank order, even though I don't believe in rank ordering, but but you kind of have to, if you're a nerd, right.
00:16:46
Speaker
Is Raiders then last crusade, then temple of doom, then dial of destiny. And then the crystal crystal skull.
00:16:59
Speaker
That's pretty close to mine. I think I have always been a Temple of Doom lover yeah for all the reasons I think a lot of people don't like it. um and And on the flip side, i feel like the other way around with Last Crusade, like Last Crusade is the one that I watched the least...
00:17:18
Speaker
And that being said, like, I think all of these movies are like, they're the difference between them to me is like a fraction of a percent. You know,
Influence of Spielberg and Lucas' Divorces
00:17:28
Speaker
they're all like at like a 9.8 and then yeah we're splitting hairs.
00:17:33
Speaker
But um i don't know. There's something so fun about Temple of Doom. And I love ah Willie. Who is that? And then she's married to Capshaw. Yes.
00:17:44
Speaker
She's married to him in real life. She is. As Steven Spielberg likes to say is, is, you know, at the end of the movie, he won the girl. He actually beat Indiana Jones out for the girl. Well, and that intro sequence where they sing anything goes in Cantonese, maybe. yeah It was the 80s. So who knows? they But um it was so incredibly good. I love that scene.
00:18:05
Speaker
Oh, and I remember watching that, you know, at the Woodfield Theater, the Plitt Woodfield Theater in Schaumburg, Illinois at midnight on opening night. And that sequence started and I was just like, what in the world is happening? Oh, my gosh. It's so cool. I love that. It is It is. It took me a while to come around to it. i have to admit, I have my estimation of Temple of Doom has gone up considerably.
00:18:32
Speaker
in, yeah you know, in the last few years, I did love the interview with both Lucas and Spielberg, where the interviewer was like, you know, the movie's really dark. And they're like, well, you know, they rationale it away. And then they the interviewer keeps pressing them. But it's really dark. What was going on?
00:18:49
Speaker
And at the end, Spielberg just says, well, we were both going through really bad divorces at the time. Yeah. yeah it is All right. is really really dark. it is It is. All right. Which is why you love
Conclusion & Future Teasers
00:19:01
Speaker
it.
00:19:01
Speaker
Okay. what We have to wrap it it up. So thank you Harrison for being here. And next week on chore for a storm trooper, we will get back to talking about star Wars. ah You might not know this.
00:19:13
Speaker
My fans who are actually listening to this is when I am down at your house in Costa Rica next week, we're going to record an episode. So look forward to that on Tuesday.
00:19:25
Speaker
When you're down at my house in Costa Rica? No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking to Sherry and Zach. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Shout out to all of my dad's fans. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:38
Speaker
Friends and family. All right, we'll wrap it up there. ah Hit like, hit subscribe. May the force be with you. Bye-bye. Who's that mindless choice to do? Podcasts, hope you see them through.
00:19:50
Speaker
Star Wars is your favorite in it. Let's chat for 15 minutes. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for sporn trooper?
00:20:03
Speaker
Aren't you a little short for a sporn trooper?