The Bearded Trio

E.T's Original Ending Featured Dungeons & Dragons We all love E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial from start to finish   and that ending will have us all in tears.  That goodbye scene and that magical John Williams score is the perfect ending to the 1982 Steven Spielberg classic.  But did you know that the ending was going to be completely different?  Spielberg had a different idea to the ending and it was, in a way thanks to the epic music by John Williams that gave us the ending we all love. Robert MacNaughton who played Michael, Elliott's older brother in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial had this to say about the ending in an interview with Yahoo Movies back in 2019: “The last scene was going to be all of us playing Dungeons & Dragons again, except this time, Elliott’s the dungeon master. Because he was the one that found ET, he sort of got in with the group. [...] And then they would pan up to the roof and you’d see the communicator and it’s still working — in other wor...

How Much Would The Reward Be To Catch A Killer 25 footer In 2021? Did you know that the $3000 reward in Jaws would be worth $14,500 with adjusted 2021 numbers?   The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.51% per year between 1975 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 388.87%.   Quint insisting on $10,000 for the head, the tail, the whole damn thing would be the equivalent of a few dollars short of $50,000!  This means that today's prices are 4.89 times higher than average prices since 1975, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index. A dollar today only buys 20.46% of what it could buy back then. The 1975 inflation rate was 9.13%. The current year-over-year inflation rate (2020 to 2021) is now 1.68%1. If this number holds, $10,000 today will be equivalent in buying power to $10,167.62 next year. The current inflation rate page gives more detail on the latest inflation rates. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielb...

The general upheaval that marked 2020 in all parts of our society has carried over into 2021 in a handful of ways. Star Wars publishing has been far from immune from the after-effects. After seeing several titles undergo long delays, some as long as a year, two forthcoming books that cover The Mandalorian have been canceled.  The Mandalorian: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Pablo Hidalgo and scheduled for a July 6 release date, has been canceled . In addition, an untitled adult novel based on the Disney Plus hit show has also been canceled .  All this comes on the same day Variety reported Disney Plus has now hit 100 million subscribers worldwide.  Hidalgo's Ultimate Visual Guide, which as of Tuesday afternoon was still available to order on Amazon, was to be the latest in a great series of hardcover reference books that detail the characters, weapons, environments and creatures of the show. Similar books exist for all other Star Wars film releases, and I have enjoyed ever...

Fun Fact:  Did you know?  The "TOP MEN!" guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark (Major Eaton) is also Porkins in Star Wars?  The actor is William Hootkins and you may have seen him in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Blackadder II and Tim Burton's Batman to name a few. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

Iconic Moment From The Empire Strikes Back - The Gantry Shot.  Okay, it might not be the bottomless pit of the movie but that's still a bit of a jump!  Let's hope those boxes and mattresses are soft enough to take a young Mark Hamill.   Of course, this shot is the dramatic climax to The Empire Strikes Back where (spoiler) we find out that Darth Vader is Luke's father.  Often misquoted as "Luke, I am your father" the actual line in the movie is   "No, I am your father."   This big reveal was kept secret especially to Darth Vader actor, David Prowse who had a reputation of spilling the beans about the plot to media.  To prevent the actor knowing and others, they replaced the actual lines with placeholder dialogue.   Mark Hamill  Tweeted what the original line was on set and the agony of not being able to tell anyone: "The cast & crew first learned of it when they saw the finished film. When we shot it, Vader's line was ...

PHOTO OF THE DAY: STEVEN SPIELBERG IN FRONT OF DEVIL'S TOWER - Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Fun Fact about Devil's Tower - Even today, Devil's Tower is frequentely used for ceremonial rituals.  including sun dances, sweat lodges, and prayer and artifact offerings. (While visiting the park, make sure not to touch or move any religious artifacts.)  Find out more here. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

I love the 80's.  I love Star Wars too.  So when clever fans of both merge the two, my day just gets better and better.  It's a well known fact that TV in the 80's was the best and especially their opening credits.  Here are seven of the best opening credits with added Star Wars. Airwolf Rebels The Love Boat The A-Team Macgyver Airwolf Imperials. Dallas Family Ties

Monkey Island with that mighty pirate...what was his name?  Fancy Pants?  No, no Guybrush Threepwood, that's it.  Well if you loved the Lucasarts game you would have bound to have fallen in love with the theme tune.  Well here's a rendition with a little extra retro.  The main theme tune from the game played on floppy disk drives.  Enjoy.

Ever since I first watched Star Wars in 1977 I’ve wanted to be part of that wonderful and mysterious galaxy far far away.  In the beginning my Kenner Star Wars figures helped me with that craving but it wasn’t until I was on a British holiday camp in the early eighties did I realise there was another form of entertainment that could overload your senses and place you right in the middle of the Death Star attack.  Of course that medium was video gaming and it all started with the Star Wars Arcade machine. I was at a Pontins or Butlins holiday park in the early eighties and in the small arcade room that they had, were the usual array of pinball machines, fruit machines and the odd video games machine.  Defender, Space Invaders and Galaxian were the standard for those days.  But something caught my eye or rather my ears.  I could hear the familiar Star Wars theme being played.  I scanned the room eagerly, trying to determine where it was coming from and t...

Back to the Future Easter Eggs One of the best trilogies of all time, and arguably the best time travel movie of all time, Back To The Future has a ton of secrets and Easter eggs that you may not have even noticed before! Here's a whole bunch for you to spot. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

S ome clever person has put this Wilhelm Scream compilation together.  Some I knew but there are quite a few I didn't know were in that particular movie.  Worth a watch. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

Here's a TV commercial from 2002 for Toys "Я" Us celebrating 20 years of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.  In the commercial we see our friend E.T. getting confused over the giraffe's name.  It's Geoffrey by the way. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot more.

A Q & A With Jeff Commings, Host of the Podcast John Williams, A Musical Journey Happy Holidays everyone, Brad here. At some point in our lives, we have all been dazzled, calmed, thrilled and moved by the music of John Williams, perhaps the finest film score writer/conductor who has ever lived. If you're like me, you grew up with his themes for Yoda, Superman, Indiana Jones and many other iconic characters on your record/CD/tape/mp3 players on a fairly constant basis. However, I never studied music in any kind of formal way. But I wanted to learn more about the construction and meaning of those themes that have been such a soundtrack of my life. Thus, my discovery of Jeff Commings' podcast The Baton: A John Williams Musical Journey . A couple years ago, Jeff set out to build a podcast on analyzing, one by one, every musical score Williams has written dating back to the start of his career in 1959. It was an ambitious project, but one that comes to a conclusion tomorrow (Dec...

The year hasn’t ended yet, but we lost two more Star Wars icons in December with Dave Prowse and Jeremy Bulloch . I never had the pleasure of meeting Dave Prowse, but got his autograph quite a while back when OfficialPix had done a signing with him. I did however, have many opportunities to meet Jeremy Bulloch and got his signature on action figures, 8x10’s and what not. He was always very kind and pleasant and was a joy to be around. Back in November of 2017, there was a convention in the Chicagoland area called “Days of the Dead”, which is primarily a horror-themed con, but Jeremy Bulloch was appearing there, and they were offering a rare chance for a photo-op with him IN the Boba Fett armor, with Han Solo in carbonite as a backdrop. Everyone got two pictures with him, one with the helmet on, and one with it off. I was so glad to have had that opportunity. The other photo-op I did with him was back at “Star Wars Celebration Anaheim” in 2015. It was a group pic of him along with Dan...

Rare video showing Spielberg on set directing the visitor centre sequence and the Brachiosaur sequence. We also get a very rare glimpse at a deleted scene, and some unused footage.

The Mandalorian Season 2 Chapter 16 Review I'M WARNING YOU RIGHT NOW, SPOILERS FOR THE LATEST OF THE MANDALORIAN ARE BELOW. I SHIELD YOU FROM NOTHING!  OK, YOU'RE WARNED! IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE EPISODE YET, STOP HERE, GO WATCH IT AND COME BACK FOR MY REVIEW. WE GOOD? OK, those are the formalities officially out of the way. Each week, I'll be posting a quick recap/review of each new episode of The Mandalorian. I'll give a basic play-by-play with some thoughts and speculation about how each episode could figure into the larger picture of this season, and Star Wars as a whole. So let's get after it. SEASON 2: CHAPTER 16 : "THE RESCUE" EPISODE PREMIERS ON December 18, 2020 DIRECTOR : PEYTON REED EPISODE LENGTH : 47 MINUTES Wow. What a finale. Director Peyton Reed, writer Jon Favreau and company didn't mess around in the final episode of season 2 of The Mandalorian. They went there, and by "there" I mean "THERE!"  We begin in sp...

We would like to take this opportunity to wish Steven Spielberg a very happy 74th Birthday. Thank you for all the wonderful movie memories over the years. Thank you for deciding to pursue a career in film so you could bring us wonderful journeys such as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. I could go on, and that's just the movies. On the small screen you help bring some classic such as Duel, Animaniacs, Taken, Falling Skies, Tiny Toons, Band of Brothers, ER and like the movie classics you brought us, so many more. We hope you don't retire for many years and continue to enlighten our lives with your magic on the big and small screens. Thank you for inspiring us, along with George Lucas and John Williams who are your long term collaborators to create this web site. Happy Birthday Steven. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, John Williams and a whole lot...

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE “I’M HERE TO FIGHT FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND THE AMERICAN WAY.” - Superman  U.S. Release Date: December 15, 1978 Starring: Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve Music by: John Williams  Directed by: Richard Donner Oscar win: Best Visual Effects This week is the 42nd anniversary of what most people consider to be the greatest superhero film of all time. It also happens to be my all-time favorite film. It started the superhero genre on the big screen, and to this day is the gold standard on how superhero films are made or ought to be made. The director of 2017’s WONDER WOMAN used this film as a template, and the president of Marvel Studios has stated that they use it as inspiration in their films.  Much has been documented about the making of this great blockbuster that almost wasn’t. Both director Dick Donner and executive producer Ilya Salkind have gone on record about the trials and tribulations of trying to make a man fly, because many special...