While the Monty Python gang has never really faded from cultural relevance, October 12th saw the 40th anniversary of the troupe’s all time classic “Monty Python And The Holy Grail.” The film, which seems to have only gotten better over the years, is marking the occasion with a limited theatrical re-release to correspond with the new Blu-Ray package (which has already dropped in the U.K. and will hit stateside on the 27th). Included in this Blu-Ray box set are a handful of new tidbits, the most intriguing of all being 14-minutes of lost animation footage with a commentary by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam.
READ MORE: Ranked: The Films Of Terry Gilliam
The “lost reel,” Gilliam quips early in his introduction, “is probably the only reason to buy this Blu-Ray version of the film.” Much of the rest of the video follows suit, with similarly glib bon mots from the writer/director (who, for the record, co-wrote and co-directed the flick). But along with the to-be-expected humor littered throughout, Gilliam offers some interesting tidbits about both ‘Holy Grail’ and these newly uncovered animated scenes. The art design, he explains, “was all the artwork that the monks had literally drawn around the edges of their illuminated Bible.”
The box set of course comes with much more than just the lost animation footage, including a new Q&A with the Pythons from the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, packaging that can be reconstructed into a catapult, and the short film “How To Use Your Coconuts.” The animation reel, though, really is just about enough to merit the box set’s purchase.
Give the reel a watch below and be sure to weigh in with the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow in the comments. [Dangerous Minds]
Thank you for this. One note: Please don\’t pluralize animation. We don\’t refer to acting as \’actings\’, do we? As in: \’14 Minutes Of Deleted Actings\’? Or beer: \’I had 14 beer in the fridge, eh? Which one of you hosers drank em?\’