Yes, my friends. It is time, once again, for Time Bandits love.

[hajario]

I saw this when I was in High School. I loved it so much. None of my friends appreciated it at all.

[ArrMatey]

Horseflesh! The missing bandit’s name was Horseflesh!
(Amazing the things our minds work on, isn’t it?)

[Mrs.Cake]

ArrMatey

I’m stretching my brain trying to remember, but during the movie, another member of the band is mentioned. He had a very odd name… Not that the rest of them had completely normal ones, but I recall them saying something along the lines of, “If (x) were here, he’d know what to do!”

That would be Horseflesh, who is also in the credits.

This has been a traditional Thanksgiving flim in the Cake household for fifteen years. It nearly makes up for the noxious existance of “The Brothers Grimm”

But I see you already remembered Horseflesh.

[Rhythmdvl]

Mom!!! Dad!!! Don’t touch it… it’s evil!!!

I can’t tell you how many times I use that (or some derivation)

Time Bandits is in the Dvl household’s Pantheon of Great Movies. There are a lot of great movies, but relatively few make it into the Pantheon.

[Helena]

I use Pink Bunkadoo as a screen name sometimes.

[bobkitty]

I am not ashamed to say that this movie scared the ever living crap out of me, and I haven’t seen it as an adult because I doubt I’ll have a much better response.

mske, it doesn’t make sense in the scheme of the rest of the movie, that I can remember. That’s one of the things that utterly freaked me out.

[Little_Nemo]

Gilliam joked that Robert Redford had been cast for the role of Horseflesh but Disney threatened to sue if they had seven dwarves so they had to cut his part.

[Bosstone]

@Mach Tuck

I remember my father taking me to this when I was young, and him losing it during the Robin Hood scene.

That was where I lost it. Up until that scene, I was swimming in a sea of bewilderment, unable to find any sort of context for the movie, and was just sort of watching with a stunned look on my face. After Cleese gratefully injected some good old Monty Python humor into the movie, I was able to get a handle on it and enjoyed it the rest of the way even though it made so little sense.

[sciurophobic]

@mske

I have vague memories of seeing the movie as a kid. The only part I can somewhat clearly remember is the kid imploring his parents not to touch some sort of rock that was in the microwave. They proceeded to do so anyways and promptly disappeared. This seemed to be of no great concern to the firemen who were there at the time and they proceeded to leave this newly orphaned boy alone on his front yard.

My favorite final line from a movie is that scene, although I’ve always misremembered it as “Mom! Dad! Don’t touch it! It’s evil!”

[Zebra]

Now do you guys think this movie has a happy ending or a sad ending.

Some people I know think the end is sad because he is now orphaned.

But I think the end is happy because he has a photo of the map. (and he was basically an orphan to begin with)
I thought we agreed no leaders!
RIGHT!
So shut up and do what I say!

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Wasn’t Sean Connery one of the firemen at the very end? When I first saw it when I was little, the end left me feeling a bit uneasy. I couldn’t help but identify with the kid, and the thought of coming back from a grand adventure only to find my home destroyed, see my parents vanish (however flaky they might be) and be left all alone was scary. Older interpretations of the ending basically involve an assumption that the little band would show up and whisk him away onto the next adventure, running after the firetruck, and he’d end up being adopted again. shrug

[beowulf573]

I came very close to trying to buy one of these, but $90 was too rich for me.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

@beowulf573

I came very close to trying to buy one of these, but $90 was too rich for me.

WANT!!! That is so on my list for after the economy stops eating itself…

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

We and our kids loved it. We always took the ending as happy – Sean Connery, who was the kid’s protector and adopted father, winks at him as he drives away. We took that to mean that he would be back for him, and would be a far better parent than the ones he had.

[Sublight]

@mske

(I’m sure it made total sense given the rest of the movie, but that is the only part I remember).

I think the sense it was supposed to make was that the Universe can be a really cruel and uncaring bastard.

[Just_Some_Guy]

@ArrMatey

And when it came out on VHS, you have NO idea how much I tried to freeze-frame the map in good enough resolution to make a copy of it…

Richard Garriott, the game designer behind the Ultima series, actually went with a group of friends multiple times just so they could watch the end credits and try to copy the map. He wound up integrating something similar into Ultima II.

[Zebra]

And the George Harrison Song that plays on the end credits… Any idea of where to get it?
(George was one of the producers of the movie)

[Iteki]

Another who saw this age 6-ish and has “Don’t touch iiiiit!” burned forever into my mind.

[Cervaise]

I love this movie almost from beginning to end. It contains one of my Top Ten Lifetime Moments In Any Movie Ever: at the end of the the bandits’ magic act before Connery’s King Agamemnon, when they disappear, and the crowd goes wild, while at the center of the applause, the King has a slowly dawning horrified realization that All Is Not Well. There is a very small number of absolutely flawless perfect moments in world cinema, and this is one of them. Gives me chills no matter how many times I see it.

Also, I like to quote the Ogre’s line, when his belowdecks wife asks if the bandits are in the cauldron yet, when in reality they’re resetting his spine: “Just about.”

[3acresandatruck]

@Zebra

And the George Harrison Song that plays on the end credits… Any idea of where to get it?

The song is “Dream Away” and is on the Gone Troppo album. I love that tune.