Broternal Order Of Different Helmets/Movie/Commentary

Transcript
HONSTLAR: Hello, and welcome to the creators' commentary of The Broternal Movie: Order a Pizza, or whatever this thing is called. I never bothered to check.



EDITED VIDEO GREG: I'm confused about the canonicity of this. Grindolo died in the movie, right? And isn't Honstlar supposed to be in, like, some other dimension or whatever?



HONSTLAR: There's a fine line between fiction and reality in our universe. For now, we're just going to be acting like this movie is a work of fiction, even though it totally happened. Don't think about it too hard.

DIRECTOR: I'm here too.

The bizarre extradimensional entity that wrote the script and directed the movie will be joining us as well. I'm sure he'll be doing most of the talking.

DIRECTOR: That's a fair expectation. Being the writer and director, I've got a lot to say about the making of this movie. I'll touch on some subtle details, my original intentions, my reasoning for making those decisions, that sorta thing.

HONSTLAR: This'll be like half commentary, half interview. We'll ask the questions, Mr. Extradimensional Director Guy over here will answer them.

DIRECTOR: This movie was written over the course of four years, so just a heads up, I'm going to be throwing around the word "originally" a lot. Like, originally, I wasn't part of this commentary, and Gfd did all the talking, but I thought it was a bit out of character, so I decided to show up.



EDITED VIDEO GREG: Trust me, Garbles, no one can insult your intellect. It's so far beyond articulation that every possible insult is actually a compliment.



DIRECTOR: Now let's roll the film!

{The movie starts with the text "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."}

COACH E: So, why did you start the movie with a Star Wars reference?

DIRECTOR: Mainly because the opening is indeed set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Once I realized that, I knew I had to throw that in there. Also, I thought it would be funny to open the BODH's first feature-length film by parodying one of the most iconic film openings of all time. It sets the tone quite well, I think.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Doesn't really count as a parody when you steal the phrase verbatim.

RABITE: I like this opening shot. It shows the massive scope of the movie, and establishes both Xar'ak's power and, you know, evilness.



SRMX12: So tell us more about this opening scene. Why did you choose to start it with a flashback?

DIRECTOR: This wasn't always the opening scene. I knew I wanted a scene showing Xar'ak and Grindolo working together, but I didn't know where in the movie to put it. I thought about including a scene in the Dimension of Darkness where the BODH find some kind of mystical orb that shows Xar'ak's memories, but that just felt forced.

STOM: So what was the original opening?

DIRECTOR: It used to be that scene of Grindolo talking to the Pretender in his castle, but it felt like a bit of an anticlimactic way to start the movie.

SRMX12: I feel like that would be the opposite of anticlimactic, since it's the beginning rather than the climax. Is there a word for that?



SUME: Please stop saying words.

Wait, darn it.

DIRECTOR: Eventually I realized I could solve multiple problems (the forced flashback and the anticlimactic opening) by moving this scene to the beginning, so that's what I did.

STOM: Wow, that worked out perfectly.

DIRECTOR: There is one drawback, though, and that's that it introduces Xar'ak very early on. I really wanted to portray Grindolo as the main villain of the movie until his death in Act 1, to make it an even bigger twist. However, by introducing Xar'ak here, the audience probably expects him to return as the main villain.

SRMX12: There is a silver lining, though, because it means that Xar'ak has some buildup and doesn't just show up in Castle Grindolo out of nowhere. Without this buildup, his introduction might feel a bit random.

DIRECTOR: That's true. Unrelated, but in the original draft of this scene, the planet was called something like "Zarxorg-6", I think? But that always felt like a bit of a generic placeholder name, so when I moved it to the beginning, I put more thought into coming up with a pleasant-sounding name that rolls off the tongue, and not something I thought of in two seconds off the top of my head. I'm not quite satisfied with Yonvarg either, but it works. I'd rather settle for a decent name than try every combination of letters to get a perfect one.

SUME: Can you talk about Grindolo here? Like, what's his deal?

DIRECTOR: I wanted his physical form to look big and strong, with a lot of, well, physicality, in contrast to his ghostly spirit form. I also wanted him to have a weapon of some kind to emphasize his brute force and physical strength, as opposed to the mind games and magic he uses in the present-day. I thought of a really cool weapon for him to have, but unfortunately I don't feel like I described it that well in the script.

GRINDOLO: This is a very faithful recreation. I looked pretty much identical to this 500 years ago.

{Grindolo meets Xar'ak.}

DIRECTOR: Not a lot to say about this scene. Fairly self-explanatory expositiony stuff.

SUME: Well, tell us how you came up with Xar'ak. Like, what's his deal?

DIRECTOR: For that, I have to go back to the origins of the movie. One day, the idea popped into my head to make a BODH movie script, basically an extra long episode with a darker tone and higher stakes. To achieve those high stakes, however, I couldn't just use Grindolo again. I needed to come up with a new villain, an unstoppable force threatening the entire universe. That villain became very similar to Grindolo, so I decided to make him his dad. As for his motivations, I wanted to give the movie the highest stakes I could imagine, so I went further than universal destruction. What's worse than universal destruction? Eternal suffering, of course!

SUME: Kinda dark, but okay.

DIRECTOR: I actually thought of the name Xar'ak before coming up with the idea for this movie. That's just a name I use whenever I need something that sounds like a malevolent cosmic entity or eldritch abomination, and it seemed to fit this character pretty well. It's a combination of the most evil-sounding letters, with an apostrophe thrown in for good measure.

HONSTLAR: I thought of the name "Warraki" for him, but by that point the director had already come up with the name Xar'ak, so Warraki was relegated to Grindolo's last name instead.

GRINDOLO: You came up with my last name?!

HONSTLAR: Please don't analyze the fourth wall too hard.

SRMX12: Kinda funny that Xar'ak makes a big deal over following the schedule, and then later an entire plot point depends on him taking over Earth early, not following the schedule.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I tried to explain that with a line that basically says "when we get more powerful, we may not need the schedule", but yeah, not great writing on my part.

{Grindolo arrives on Earth.}

DIRECTOR: It was mentioned in a previous episode that Grindolo was sealed in the Cave of the Golden Fedora, but I don't believe it was ever specified why he was sealed there specifically. It was also mentioned that he was sealed by Sir Honald Waddler, but never explained exactly how he did it, or what he was doing at the time. So I decided to connect Grindolo's backstory to the Golden Fedora, and suddenly everything fell into place. Why did Grindolo invade Earth? To get the fedora! Why was he sealed in that cave? Because he tried to steal the fedora from it, and it was the closest cave available! And how did Honald manage to do this? With the fedora, of course! Why? Because he was a guardian of the fedora! It all worked out so nicely.

SUME: I just find it funny how Honald wishes Grindolo was incapable of using the fedora "as long as the cave remains shut" or whatever. Like, why not wish it for all eternity?

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I had to include that there because he does use the fedora later on, both in the movie and in previous episodes. I guess Honald just said that 'cause it sounded fancy.

{The opening credits begin.}

HONSTLAR: Hey look, here's the part where I come in!

DIRECTOR: Yep. I wanted to introduce all the main characters (because this is a movie, not just any regular episode), so I gave each of them a little scene in the opening credits.



DIRECTOR: The sandwich-making scene was originally a lot longer, with several more ingredients, each one cutting to a brief shot of Gfd preparing that ingredient. I remember one of them was an entire cow, and showed Gfd on a farm wearing a farmer's outfit with some wheat sticking out of his teeth or whatever. Another was snails, and showed him placing his sandwich on the ground and luring snails onto it. Don't remember the rest, though.

{Coach E talks to Coach Z.}

COACH E: I think it's a shame that this is pretty much the most we see Coach Z in the entire movie.

ZASCUB: There's not a lot to say during these opening credits, is there?

I've thought of approximately three entire words to say during this scene! Two of them are "crustacean", but still!

{Rabite draws Homestar.}

DIRECTOR: This scene clarifies that Rabite's name is pronounced Rabbit. The funny thing is that I couldn't actually find a source for that, so it might be wrong. That pronunciation was just something I thought I remembered learning from the creator at some point.

RABITE: I cannot confirm the pronunciation of my name, since you're writing me right now.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: This is a weird fictional world we live in.

{Greg and Dean are watching the movie.}

DIRECTOR: This scene originally showed "THE END", like the movie was over, but then it would zoom out of a TV screen to reveal Greg and Dean watching it. I thought that was kind of funny, but to have it flow better with the other scenes, I decided to have them watching this very movie.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Again I will say, this is a weird fictional world we live in.

DEAN: So what movie were we watching originally?

DIRECTOR: Movie Logos: The Movie. There was going to be a callback to that movie title later on as well, with "Movie Logos 2: The Logening"... Come to think of it, there were a lot of references to Greg's logo obsession that were all coincidentally cut. Huh.

{The meeting begins.}

DIRECTOR: Oh, and speaking of stuff that was cut... this meeting. It was originally way longer, as you can see in the deleted scenes.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Considering how long the movie is currently, I feel like you made the right decision. Who wants to read through dozens of lines of non-plot development?

DIRECTOR: I like their helmets. This was the first time I had to make finished art for these helmets, which is funny considering we're the Broternal Order of Different Helmets. Also the first finished art of the Pillquarters, which is based on Honstlar's concept art.

GRINDOLO: Here's my big scene.

DIRECTOR: That's right. This fight scene was originally a lot shorter and only included Grindolo, but I wanted to raise the stakes, so I added all the other villains the BODH have fought over the years. And even though this scene has no bearing on the actual plot, it took two episodes to set up, which conveniently happen to be the two episodes immediately preceeding this movie. There was the space episode where Grindolo got a hold of Gankroar's holographic disguise tech, and then the episode where he uses that tech to impersonate Gfd and steal their the team's time machine. At the end of that episode, you see him using that machine to bring together all these villains.

HONSTLAR: I like how this shows how powerful we are compared to all these villains... and then when Grindolo defeats us, it shows how powerful he is... and then when Xar'ak defeats him, it shows how powerful he is... and then when Homsar gives me his power to destroy him, it shows how powerful he is...

DIRECTOR: Yeah, there's kind of a passing of the torch throughout the whole thing. Here, no one messes with the BODH &mdash; except Grindolo. No one messes with Grindolo &mdash; except Xar'ak. It's an effective way to communicate how powerful these characters are relative to each other, and to flip the script and raise the stakes.

STOM: In case anyone forgot, Mots's whole thing is he demands potato salad all the time, because it's the opposite of me giving out waffles. Hence his usage of potato salad in combat.

DIRECTOR: In previous episodes we didn't know the shadowy figure's name, so we called him Master Green Dude. Then his name was revealed to be Z Sabre, so I had to address that here.

It only appeared in, like, a couple episodes, right?

{The BODH morphs into Power Helmets.}

DIRECTOR: My limited knowledge of the Power Rangers has kept me from including the Power Helmets as a major part of the script or including them in any of the images, so that's why they show up so rarely.

GRINDOLO: This is my favorite scene. My triumphant victory over my mortal enemies.

HONSTLAR: I must say, I admire your willpower, not murdering us all right here in the recording booth.

GRINDOLO: You're welcome. Although who's to say how long it'll last, my patience is wearing thin...

ZASCUB: Too bad you inflicted a delayed death spell on us instead of killing us outright. Worked out in the end, though, since we saved the universe and everything.

GRINDOLO: We all make mistakes. Don't count on this one happening again.

DIRECTOR: Grindolo's speech here is supposed to be foreshadowing. Grindolo tells Honstlar that this is the day he'll die, which is kind of true &mdash; but not in the way he thinks. He also says he'll die a failure who could not stop his most powerful enemy, could not save his friends, yadda yadda, all of which is untrue in the end.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: So what exactly is the point of this scene? Grindolo beats us, but it doesn't really amount to anything, since we make it out alive.

DIRECTOR: Like I said, I really tried to make Grindolo seem like the movie's "big bad", and this scene cements that. His easy victory over the protagonists, his evil speech... it all screams "this is the main villain". In fact, this scene originally had one of the characters saying exactly that, which I thought was a bit on-the-nose, so I cut it out. Basically, this is all building toward the next scene, where your expectations for this movie are turned on their head, and the movie's "main villain" is dispatched with ease.

{Grindolo is planning universe domination in Castle Grindolo.}

DIRECTOR: There was originally a short scene here where one of Xar'ak's minions, scanning the universe for potential threats, informed Xar'ak of Grindolo's plans. That was cut, since Xar'ak had already been introduced earlier in the script, so it didn't really need to be included. Also, it's not really explained clearly here, but the reason Xar'ak hadn't interfered with Grindolo's evildoing until now is because Grindolo had just begun planning to take over the universe, which conflicts with Xar'ak's plan to do, well, exactly that. So, the Pretender saying "you-know-who" is referring to Xar'ak, if you didn't catch that.

GRINDOLO: I don't think trombones actually play chords, but that instrument in particular was chosen to reference a previous episode &mdash; the one right before this movie, if I'm not mistaken.

{Grindolo dies.}

GRINDOLO: Oh no, don't make me watch this. It was painful to film.

DIRECTOR: Grindolo's death here serves multiple purposes, and is basically the inciting incident that causes the entire movie to happen. Without Grindolo dying here, the movie (and the series as a whole) would end right here.

GRINDOLO: Oh, sure, rub it in, why don't you.

DIRECTOR: Firstly, it establishes the threat of Xar'ak &mdash; with a simple hand gesture, he destroys the movie's "main villain", the one who defeated the BODH. Secondly, it leads the BODH to learn more about Xar'ak, leading to them stopping him. Thirdly, Honstlar requested that this movie bring back Grindolo's physical form, which is how his minions plan to bring him back, as seen after the credits. It also allows Grindolo's past self to have a redemption arc, which may have an eventual impact the future of the series, as I'll be discussing later.

{The BODH celebrate Grindolo's demise.}

DIRECTOR: So, that was kind of a lot of words, but there's not much to say about this part.

Some other guy was like "Gfd, this is not the time for pranks, we have to make a good first impression" and I was like "Pranks?". You know, comedy gold and all that.

DIRECTOR: This part where Gfd says he explodes whenever he doesn't eat was originally just another dumb joke, but it eventually became foreshadowing for a later scene. If it wasn't for that, this probably would've been cut as well.

{They go to Xar'ak's house.}

DIRECTOR: Yeah, so this is the part where Xar'ak is first seen unsilhouetted. This was going to be where his name was revealed as well, but after moving the flashback scene to the beginning, the wording of the transcript became kinda clunky, so I decided to reveal his name right at the beginning.

HONSTLAR: You can learn more about this in the deleted scenes, but when we ask Homsar for information, there was this whole long scene where we gathered the Homsartifacts from that game Strong Badia the Free. Not really much reason for it to be there, though, so it was cut pretty late in development.

DIRECTOR: I like the idea of Homsar of all people being this omnipotent, all-knowing source of wisdom, and I've worked it into a few of my fanstuffs. This one goes the furthest with that idea, turning Homsar into the physical embodiment of the universe, the most powerful being within it, and saving the day at the very end.

SRMX12: There was a previous episode where I learned that the meaning of life was 27, so this line is a reference to that.

DIRECTOR: I'm not a fan of how this entire long scene is basically just boring exposition, but I did what I had to do to communicate this information. I probably could've thought of a more creative way to communicate it, but this scene was written pretty early and I never bothered to change it.

DEAN: When you say certain scenes were written early or late, what does that mean? Was this written out of order?

DIRECTOR: Ehh, kind of? It was mostly written beginning-to-end, but sometimes I would write scenes early when I had ideas for how to write them, and save other scenes for later when I couldn't think of ideas. Also, since this movie was written over the course of multiple years, some scenes were written years later than others, so that's what I mean when I say a scene was written early or late.

SRMX12: Homsar mentions the Bronze Beret here, and that was actually supposed to be foreshadowing at one point. I think it used to be called the Bronze Bowler, and at the end, it would be revealed that the Bronze Bowler was actually Homsar's hat all along, and he uses it to save the day or whatever. Can't recall why that idea was cut, but I like the idea of other magic hats existing out there somewhere, with no further context or explanation. Like, there's a Golden Fedora and a Platinum Porkpie, why wouldn't there be a Bronze Beret as well?

DIRECTOR: So, I discuss this a bit in the deleted scenes, but early on I had three main ideas for the movie's plot. One, I wanted a group to enter an evil dimension and face some trials. Two, I wanted a group to time travel. Three, I wanted a group to go to outer space. It took a lot of iteration to make all three things happen as simply and smoothly as possible. Originally, the B-Team had to go to space to find the "Deletovoid" and retrieve SRMX12's thyme machine from deletion. There was another version in which everyone boarded the Space Machine, but since the B-Team would simply be returned to Earth, there wasn't much reason to bring them along. Then, as Honstlar's character arc was decided and his "reluctant hero" thing was established, his arc demanded that he didn't go with the rest of the BODH at first either... it was kinda messy, but I figured it out.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: So you didn't have a clear story planned going in? That sounds like a terrible idea.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, my main regret with this movie is not spending more time planning the plot. As it is, it's basically just a bunch of unrelated events held together with several layers of duct tape. Over the years of writing, I found better and better ways to stick this plot together to make it seem more like a cohesive whole, but it's still basically just duct tape. Heck, the main plot, the BODH destroying the elements, turns out to be pointless. If I ever make another BODH movie, it's sure to be a lot better, mostly because I learned so much while writing this.

COACH E: You mentioned Honstlar's character arc... can you elaborate on that?

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I wanted this movie to be more than simple action and comedy, I wanted to add character development and some kind of central theme like most movies do. Originally Honstlar's arc was simply that he was reluctant to be a hero, but then accepted the responsibility and sacrificed himself in the end... but that was kind of generic, so I had to dig a bit deeper. I tried to figure out what the movie's cental theme should be, what traits these characters share... then I realized Grindolo and Xar'ak share the same motivation: revenge. If I gave Honstlar (the protagonist) this motivation as well, then I could find some way to make it the central theme.

COACH E: Interesting. So how does this arc progress over the course of the film?

DIRECTOR: In this scene Honstlar refuses to be a hero, and it's not until he seeks revenge that he decides to join his friends. Throughout the movie, he knows he has no hope of saving Earth, he's only in it for vengeance. That is, until Honstlar and Grindolo help each other abandon their vengeful ways. This shows Honstlar that he and Grindolo are more similar than they think, and teaches him that doing good is better than revenge. So, in the end, instead of simply destroying Xar'ak and being done with it, he sacrifices himself for a good cause. It's not super deep or complex, this movie isn't supposed to be a philosophical masterpiece, so I'm satisfied with how it turned out. Like I said, this movie wasn't planned very well, so like pretty much everything in this movie, the character development was kind of tacked on like duct tape.

{The Space Machine approaches the portal.}

RABITE: I really like this shot. It's a cool-looking portal.

DIRECTOR: There was a scene here of Xar'ak detecting the BODH's presence and closing the portal, but surprise surprise, it was cut.

{Honstlar plays video games at the Pillquarters.}

EDITED VIDEO GREG: How is he playing Stinkoman 20X6? Shouldn't it have been Ruffle-ized and unplayable at this point?

SRMX12: He mentions the ground disappearing on the first boss, so obviously he's playing the pre-level 10 version on Flashpoint or something.

Is there any reason to play Stinkoman if there's no level 10?

SRMX12: You spent 15 years playing Stinkoman before level 10 came out.



DIRECTOR: The bosses coming out of the TV here shows that Xar'ak tortures people however it's most convenient, basically. Honstlar's playing a game, so the bosses come to life. If someone was toasting bread, the toaster might toast that person, and so forth. You get the idea. This concept was originally shown in much more detail, as you'd get to see the horrific fate of just about everyone in Free Country, USA, but&mdash; say it with me now...

ALL: IT WAS CUT!

DIRECTOR: By the way, Xar'ak taking over Earth is "the tragedy" referred to in the name of Act 1. I thought it would be neat if each act name sounded similar, so I made them all start with "the", followed by a two-or-three-syllable word ending in a long E sound. Tragedy, journey, and finale, in that order.

SUME: Why did you choose to divide the movie into acts?

DIRECTOR: The script is a bit daunting, so I tried to split it up into more manageable chunks to make it seem less overwhelmingly long.

DEAN: As you've probably noticed, both of these emails are sent by names resembling Xar'ak. There's Xavier Rakson, and K.A. Rax is just his name backwards.

{The Pillquarters is destroyed.}

DIRECTOR: When I originally wrote this scene, it was supposed to be this big shocking moment, but in the years I've spent writing this movie, the Pillquarters has blown up and been rebuilt so many times it's just a mild inconvenience at this point.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: So why'd you blow it up? Explain yourself.

DIRECTOR: The first time the Pillquarters exploded, it was replaced with the Pillquarters Metallix, which was the same thing but shiny. I thought that was a bit of a missed opportunity, since their headquarters could be so much cooler. Also, a pill is only tangentially related to the BODH, and kind of requires context to make sense, so I thought a helmet-shaped headquarters would be more fitting. I also felt like this movie should shake up the status quo somehow, and changing the headquarters seemed like a good way to do that.

HONSTLAR: And here's Act 2!

DIRECTOR: Yep. The name "the Dark Dimension" had already been taken, so I just moved the words around and added "of". The Dimension of Darkness originally looked a lot worse as well. It was basically a giant gray swirling vortex, with gray ground, gray mountains, just a bunch of gray. And since these shots are still images and filmed at this angle, you couldn't even tell the sky was supposed to be a swirling vortex. So I redesigned it and I like it a lot better now. Looks evil, but also surreal and bizarre.

STOM: So what's with Guide?

DIRECTOR: I needed someone to explain the challenges and stuff, so I just decided to create a character for that purpose. Also, this lava lake was originally supposed to be acid or poison for some reason, but I changed it to lava because that's more exciting, and lava better fits the new color scheme of the area.

{Half the BODH leaves the lava lake.}

DIRECTOR: Then they split up here 'cause, I dunno, I just thought it might be kind of interesting to have the two halves of the BODH doing different challenges and eventually reuniting. Breaks up the formulaic monotony of these challenges.

{Long pause.}

DIRECTOR: There's a lot to say about Act 1, because it introduces and sets up a lot of stuff... and there's a lot to say about Act 3, being the epic conclusion and all... but Act 2 kinda speaks for itself. It's not even that significant to the story.

HONSTLAR: Should I fast forward it?

DIRECTOR: Sure, go ahead. I'll talk about some of the stuff that happens as it fast-forwards.

{The movie fast forwards.}

DIRECTOR: I, uh, I like how the characters' 2016 designs are based on my terrible Photoshop skills back then. And I didn't notice this until, like, the exact day I released the movie, but the three elements bear a striking resemblance to Infinity Stones. The one in this image was originally red, but as I was uploading the images I remembered it was supposed to be yellow and changed it accordingly, and that's when I realized how similar it looks.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Won't be the last MCU ripoff in this movie, that's for sure.

DIRECTOR: And then the fear challenges. This is another thing you can read more about in the deleted scenes, but until shortly before release, the second set of challenges included two more trials: mind-switching and memory loss. I removed those because they weren't that interesting.

SUME: These fear trials feel like a missed opportunity to flesh out these characters and give them some development.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, that's true. I added the "don't give in" rule so the characters would be forced to struggle against what they want to do, rather than simply facing their fears and being done with it. Made it more interesting, I think.

RABITE: I just noticed that there's kind of a subtle red glow around these fear illusions, showing that they're not real.



DIRECTOR: Yeah, but it does kinda lead to character development later on, since you resist eating Honstlar at the end.

SRMX12: This bit is kind of a parody of terrible computer hacking scenes. I like all the meaningless and nonsensical tech jargon.

DIRECTOR: Instead of Senor Cardgage, this scene originally had a generic character named Ticketm'n until, like, a few days before release. I like this whole Isle of Pom quest, it's definitely a highlight of the B-Team B-plot. It was originally a lot longer, too.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Stom's waffle-throwing here reminds me of Mario's hat throws in Mario Odyssey. You know, the jumping off the hat, throwing it at enemies, throwing it in a circle...

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I think I might've been thinking about that when I wrote it.

We had to pay him a fortune to star in this movie. It's a shame the big celebrity guest star was only onscreen for half a second, but at least he tasted good.

DIRECTOR: And then here's the part where "Meanwhile, During the Movie" begins. We won't be commentating that, but I'll at least discuss it a bit. It was originally part of the movie, but it was really boring. Basically just going to each universe, saying "Hey, who wants to beat up a ghost?" and leaving. I decided to spruce it up with fun quests like going to the moon, travelling through each Stinkoman level, uniting armies, stopping crimes, etc., but at that point the movie was way too long and the pacing was completely annihilated, so I decided to make it its own thing. It's kind of a shame, 'cause that has some of my favorite jokes, and is perhaps even more entertaining than the movie.

ZASCUB: Any thoughts on the third challenge?

DIRECTOR: Yep. This is yet another thing I mentioned in the deleted scenes, but the BODH fighting each other wasn't always the third challenge. It was originally time travel shenanigans, and this fight scene would've happened later on, as a result of Xar'ak detecting their presence, separate from the three challenges entirely. Decided to scrap the time travel stuff and make this the third challenge instead.

DEAN: I think you might've gone a little too far with all the fight scenes. There's the fight in the Pillquarters at the beginning, and then the entire second half of the movie is several fight scenes in a row. There's the B-est Team fighting Grindolo, the BODH fighting each other, the battle of multiple universes, Honstlar and Grindolo teaming up against Xar'ak, the whole fabric of reality thing...

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I'm not sure why that happened either. I don't even like fight scenes that much. That's just the way it happened to work out, I guess. I do remember the third challenge was a lot of fun to write though, what with the sketchbook stuff and the clones and spaceships and the character development and everything.



DIRECTOR: I honestly can't remember why I created Gfd-2. I think maybe because I liked Gfd so much, I wanted him on both sides? Or to make both sides evenly matched? I also can't remember if his whole sacrifice arc was planned from the beginning, or if I came up with it later. When you spend a few minutes every few months for a few years writing a movie, you tend to forget a lot.



DIRECTOR: Yeah, I like how Gfd-2 started as just a sketchbook clone of Gfd, and ended up having this complex character arc. First he suggests killing the evil half of the BODH, then soon comes to realize how much the BODH means to each other. Knowing that he was created simply as a temporary soldier, he swallows his fear and fulfills his purpose, sacrificing himself to let his creators reunite.

Nice bit of attention to pacing there.

HONSTLAR: And here's Act 3!

DIRECTOR: Yep. You can probably stop fast-forwarding now, I've got some things to say here.

{The movie resumes playing at normal speed.}

EDITED VIDEO GREG: So it turns out the elements were all fake and most of the movie was for nothing. Why did you make this decision?

DIRECTOR: I forget, honestly. I think this twist was planned all along? If I remember correctly, I wanted an excuse for the BODH to participate in these trials (hence the elements), but I also wanted an excuse for them to fight Xar'ak (hence them being fake). Also, I think my thought process at the time was that, realistically, Xar'ak was too powerful to be defeated simply by destroying some crystals. Of course, realism doesn't even remotely matter in this movie &mdash; I mean, Gfd literally conjures an army of donuts out of nowhere, anything is possible.

COACH E: I gotta say, Honstlar, your acting here is phenomenal.

HONSTLAR: Thank you! This is quite an emotional part, and a bit of a turning point for my character arc, so I really had to give a good performance.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I like writing these emotional scenes, even though I'm terrible at them. They all too often feel generic and sappy, maybe too serious for the movie's otherwise lighthearted tone, but I still kinda like 'em anyway. They're not really expected to be taken too seriously.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: And here comes more boring exposition.

DIRECTOR: I wanted to explain who Xar'ak was, and I thought making him the embodiment of the dark side of the universe was a satisfying explanation. He's basically the Anti-Homsar.

ZASCUB: Ouch, that battle looks very one-sided.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I wanted the B-est Team's arrival to be this big cool moment, so I had them arrive when they were needed most. The BODH are defeated, they've given up, and just when it seems all hope is lost, here comes the B-est Team!

EDITED VIDEO GREG: And plagiarism!

DIRECTOR: The history of this scene is a bit hard to remember. I think I might've come up with the idea of reinforcements (including Reinforcements) arriving through portals before Avengers: Endgame came out. Once I saw that movie, I knew that such an association would be made, so I decided to jokingly acknowledge that and make it kind of a parody to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

SUME: This interdimensional battle scene is cool, but doesn't have much bearing on the overall plot, so where did the idea come from?

DIRECTOR: Like the destruction of the Pillquarters, I kind of just stole a moment from a previous BODH episode that I didn't feel was explored to its fullest potential, and, well, did that. I wrote a scene in the rough draft of Helmet Quest 2 where all the Homestar Runner characters fought alongside us, so I decided to reuse that here just because it would be a really cool, cinematic way to cap off the film. This time, though, I raised the stakes by making them fight dark versions of each other.

HOMESTAR RUNNER: I feel like I should say something here to break up the wall of text.

DIRECTOR: I actually didn't come up with the idea until... well, not that late in the writing process, but certainly not early either. Originally the final battle was just in the fabric of reality, but I thought "Hey, this is the movie, it's supposed to be epic, so why not include a scene of all the characters fighting each other in every universe?" I clearly underestimated how long this battle would go on. It's a significant portion of the script, even after so much of it was cut. There's so much potential with this concept, it kind of just wrote itself.

{The battle begins.}

DIRECTOR: Oh no, I literally just now realized that I forgot to put the red eyes on the bad guys in the shot where they're all charging toward each other. That's embarrassing.

SRMX12: Aside from that, these are some pretty impressive shots, and there are a lot of them. What are your secrets?

DIRECTOR: My secrets? Well, mainly the fact that a lot of the work in the VFX department was already done. I made an image for Homestar's 20th anniversary of all the characters standing together in a crowd, then I made a better updated version a few years later, so I used a transparent version of that for most of the shots. For the evil half, all I had to do was turn it black and white and put red dots over the eyes, which I forgot to do in that one shot.

{The characters talk to their past selves.}

DIRECTOR: I didn't originally plan for the Prisma One and magic sketchbook to be destroyed in the third challenge, and that part was written pretty late, so I had to include this part to rectify that.

It's oozing gross fluids all over the place.

DIRECTOR: I knew Greg's sketchbook would come in handy in this battle, and thought it might be fun for him to become kind of a weapons dealer, drawing and supplying any resources his army needs. This battle actually has quite a few "storylines" going at once, like the giant Bubs vs. Bubs fight, and the Dangeresque thing. Stuff that's established, then returned to later on. I wanted to split these scenes up to add some variety and break up the pacing.

DEAN: And then the Power Helmets merge with the Helmet Squad. Why was this decision made, I wonder?

DIRECTOR: As I've said, I don't know Power Rangers very well, so I couldn't do much with them. I also kind of thought it was redundant to have two different superpowered forms of the BODH, so why not merge both forms into one? It's also another way for the movie to alter the status quo, which is something I kind of set out to do with this film. Wouldn't feel quite as impactful if everything stayed the same, would it?

DEAN: Kinda seems like you're just trying to remove the Power Helmets from existence.

DIRECTOR: That's a ridiculous accusation. Uh, {cough} totally ridiculous.

GRINDOLO: You know what's ridiculous, this scene. I'd never ask Honstlar for help.

DIRECTOR: I really like Honstlar and Grindolo's dynamic. It's a highlight of episodes like the Tappatok one, where they're forced to work together. It's especially interesting here, because they're both realizing how similar they are, and both changing each other for the better.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: What's the point of Grindolo's redemption anyway? It doesn't really contribute to the movie, since he dies immediately.

DIRECTOR: In the short-term, it contributes to Honstlar's arc. In the long-term, I have plans for how this redemption will impact the future of the series.

RABITE: Ah, so this redeemed version of Grindolo will be revived somehow?

DIRECTOR: No, this is Grindolo's past self, and was completely erased from existence when Honstlar resets the timeline at the end. This redeemed version of Grindolo is not planned to return. However, Honstlar still remembers that this sacrifice happened, and... well, I don't want to spoil it.

DOOBLE: Pasted greens!



DIRECTOR: Not much else to say about this battle. I thought it would be cool if Strong Bad was put up against characters he imagined, and used his imagination to defeat them, hence the Dangeresque bit... I also thought it might be neat to have the magic characters fight the technological characters... and at some point I realized The Moon counts as a character, and that they'd need to defeat it somehow...

STOM: Yeah, not a lot to talk about. I feel like Grindolo's redemption is the more interesting part here. It just feels so out-of-character, why did you even consider it?

GRINDOLO: Can we please stop discussing this?

DIRECTOR: I thought it was impossible too, at first. I mean, Grindolo is the bad guy! He was created by the personification of evil, how could he possibly turn good?! I don't remember how or why I even thought of the idea, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. He hates Xar'ak, yet their goals and motivations are basically identical. Why would Grindolo act exactly like the person he hates most? He never chose to be a villain, he was created to be. So, what's forcing him to continue being one?

{Grindolo dies.}

GRINDOLO: Aaand the worst part of the entire movie. Or... at least bottom 3. Seriously, why'd you have to give me three death scenes?! Seems a bit excessive.

DIRECTOR: Three?

GRINDOLO: The flashback where Honald destroys my physical form, the part where Xar'ak kills me in my castle, and this bit where I sacrifice myself.

DIRECTOR: Oh yeah, that is three. I forgot about the first one, I thought it was only two.

GRINDOLO: So, why kill me three times?

DIRECTOR: It was honestly just a coincidence. The first time was to flesh out your backstory, the second was to establish the threat of Xar'ak and progress the story, and the third was mainly for character development reasons.

Where'd the idea for that come from?

DIRECTOR: I don't remember exactly. I think I realized how many Trogdor variations there were, and wondered what would happen if they did the Helmet Quest 2 thing and merged into a singular entity. I also thought that having the remaining good guys team up against one giant opponent would make for an epic finale to the battle.

SRMX12: I assume this discussion here reflects your actual thought process when coming up with a name for Megador?

DIRECTOR: Yeah, Trogdor is one of those words that's impossible to combine with other words in a natural way. Maybe I could've gone with Terrordor? Nah, that's terrible.

No wait, Trogdoom!

DIRECTOR: Ooh, I kinda like that one.

{Trogdor's Fiery Rage begins.}

DIRECTOR: Trogdor's Fiery Rage was always planned to end the battle, but not in this form. Originally, it just conveniently burninated the remaining bad guys and left the good guys intact.

RABITE: Why'd you change it?

DIRECTOR: I wanted Honstlar's reunion with the BODH to be more impactful, so I decided to have Trogdor's Fiery Rage wreak havoc on the entire battlefield, and have Honstlar rescue the gang with his flight powers at the last second. You know, like the B-Team's arrival I discussed earlier. It wouldn't've been as exciting if he had just shown up after the battle like "hey guys" and taken them to Xar'ak.

RABITE: Interesting. When did you change it?

DIRECTOR: Pretty late. Unfortunately, that change meant I had to discard an image I had made, depicting the good guys standing victorious in the aftermath of the Fiery Rage. In the new version, they've all been burninated, so I couldn't include that image. I might include it in this commentary, though.

HONSTLAR: And now the final battle truly begins. Gotta say, the Fabric of Reality has a pretty neat aesthetic.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: An aesthetic that bears a striking resemblance to that place from Kung Fu Panda 3.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, there may have been some influence there. I just thought it was really cool to have a final battle take place in this infinite plane where there's no gravity and anything is possible. It made for a pretty insane and visually spectacular battle.

DEAN: I like how as Xar'ak gets more and more serious and dangerous, the background becomes more dark and red.

DIRECTOR: Yep. I really like when movies use color as a motif, so I tried to have yellow represent the good guys and red represent the bad guys. It's a very surface-level motif, though. Xar'ak's eyes and weird orb thing are red... each team's side of the Fabric of Reality is their respective color, and grows more red as Xar'ak takes more lives... there's a yellow glow around the BODH on the poster... the logo has "Order" in yellow and "Chaos" in red... and that's it, really. It can hardly be called a motif, and I'm sure there are plenty of examples of a color being used in a completely different context because these colors are so common.

HONSTLAR: And here's the classic line "Cuz', you know I always come prepared!"

DIRECTOR: Pretty shoehorned, if you ask me. Honstlar reminded me to include it, so I just put it in the first place that came to mind. I probably could've put that line somewhere else to integrate it more naturally into the script.

STOM: Aaaand the coolest shot in the movie.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I wanted to have a specific "cool moment" that the entire movie has been building up to, where the visuals, music, and story combine to create pure chills-inducing excitement. This is it. Hopefully it achieves the intended effect. The ensuing battle is cool too, but it would be a lot cooler if you could actually see it.

ZASCUB: What are you talking about? We can see it.

DIRECTOR: But our watchers&mdash; er, readers can only read the description text and dialogue.

ZASCUB: Why?

DIRECTOR: I, uh, don't have time to explain.

COACH E: And now things get serious.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, my original idea was to have the characters gradually killed off throughout the movie, but it didn't seem right for any of them to miss the final battle, so I waited until them to kill them.

GRINDOLO: Why were you so intent on murdering the BODH? I can get behind that, for sure, but I'm just curious what your motive was.

DIRECTOR: Just wanted to give the movie a darker tone, raise the stakes and add some suspense, communicate that this isn't just another regular episode.

I think that makes me one of the most powerful beings in existence.

DIRECTOR: Oh, yeah, that reminds me... this isn't relevant to the movie at all, but at one point I briefly considered revealing Gfd was the physical manifestation of some cosmic entity bent on consuming entire galaxies to survive. Like, he had some incomprehensible cosmic power that allowed him to eat so much. But that idea was kinda dumb.



SUME: ...What does the nutmeg do?



SUME: Please reveal all of your secrets. You baffle us all regularly.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: I'm not sure I want to know his secrets.



EDITED VIDEO GREG: See?

SUME: That just raises more questions than answers.

DIRECTOR: And here's another example of making a moment more impactful, as I discussed earlier. Note how Homsar doesn't show up until almost everyone's dead and it seems all hope is lost.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Sure is convenient that there happens to be an omnipotent entity that just happened to show up at the exact right moment.

DIRECTOR: Yeah, I kinda wrote myself into a corner making a villain this powerful. This was the best way I could think of beating him &mdash; having an equally powerful character show up at the last minute and help Honstlar save the day.

{Xar'ak takes over the universe.}

DIRECTOR: I guess this could be considered the low point of the story &mdash; the entire world lies in Xar'ak's grasp, and Honstlar is the only one in the universe left to confront him. Other than that, not much to say.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: This universal destruction looks pretty neat.

RABITE: Yeah, and I like how the first planet we see restored is Yonvarg-5, which is kind of a nice bookend to where the story began.

DIRECTOR: This is also the first time Xar'ak expresses panic, or pretty much emotion of any sort. I tried to save that for the very end.

RABITE: What was your reasoning for the ten-year timeskip here?

DIRECTOR: I honestly don't remember why I decided to skip ahead ten years. I think it might've been because I had the idea for Honstlar to travel through time and space after his sacrifice, so he can just reunite with the BODH in another time (closer to the events of this movie), and I guess I wanted to show the future of the timeline where Honstlar vanished. I do like this ending, as it shows the long-lasting impact of Honstlar and his sacrifice, and gives the whole movie a grander scope &mdash; it begins 500 years in the past, and ends 10 years in the future, rather than simply taking place entirely in the present.

HONSTLAR: I like seeing how many members the BODH has accumulated in these ten years.

DIRECTOR: I had this whole long list of names of new members, and I hardly got to use any of them. Those names were: Steeby, J.G., Ross, The 3000, Strong Plaid, CoolMan123, Jerry Palaroncini, Guboze, Zugi, and Severalpie Jr. I tried to choose names that sounded like fan characters or Internet usernames, like the rest of the BODH. One of them would've had the title of Security Enforcer, and another would be the Be'sing Do'ser.



DIRECTOR: Yep. {pause} Uh, what do I talk about now?

Who's your favorite character?

DIRECTOR: Maybe I'm biased, but I'd have to say Gfd. His personality is so entertaining, and his status as the comic relief character makes him kind of omnipotent &mdash; he's capable of anything as long as it's funny, so nothing is really "out of character" for him... well, except not being completely insane. He isn't bound by rules or continuity like the rest of us.

SUME: How so?

DIRECTOR: For example, if it was revealed that a classic character like Homestar could turn into a cheeseball at will, that would be a huge and shocking revelation. It would go on his wiki page and everything. But if it was revealed that Gfd could turn into a cheeseball at will&mdash;

GFDGSGXGZGDRC: Which I can.

DIRECTOR: &mdash;you'd just shrug it off and go "well, he's Gfd, of course he can do that". There's a mysteriousness about him that I enjoy, and I like how distinctive his speech is. He uses an odd blend of sophisticated and informal language to articulate the stupidest of thoughts so eloquently.

GFDGSGXGZGDRC: Why, thank you!

DIRECTOR: Most of the time, you can only tell the speaker of dialogue by the bold text at the beginning of the line. But even without that bold text, you can often tell Gfd's lines apart from anyone else's.

VOICE: Truer words have never been spoken, my fine feathered friend. Actually, come to think of it, truer words have probably been spoken several times. Like last Tuesday when I said "this is a good sandwich". I'd be willing to bet that, like, only two or three truer words have ever been spoken. What are those words? I dunno. Probably, like... "desk"... "flamingo"... and, um, "moist towlette". Oh wait, that last one was two words. But still, those are some very true two words. I'd go so far as to say two-er words have never been spoken.

VOICE 2: Yeah, sure. Can we talk about something else now?

DIRECTOR: See what I mean? You could tell that first line was Gfd even without the name. I don't even know who said that second line, and I wrote the thing!

SUME: Actually, I could tell it was Gfd because I could hear his voice.

DIRECTOR: Right. I'm mainly speaking to the friendly folks from the other dimension. They have terrible hearing. So, continuing with my Gfd spiel...

EDITED VIDEO GREG: You're still not done?

DIRECTOR: Ironically, Gfd is probably the character I would least tolerate in real life. He's so great to write for and observe, but he's pretty much my polar opposite. If you guys were real, I'd hang out with all of you before I'd hang out with Garbles.



DIRECTOR: Oh, sorry. Nothing. I'll explain when you're older.

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Enough about Gfd already. Can't you talk about some other characters for once?

DIRECTOR: Sure. While Gfd represents my love of surreal comedy, Greg represents my love of more sarcastic, dry humor (at least the way I write him). He's always pointing out flaws, making fun of stuff, and breaking the fourth wall, which is another trope I really enjoy. They play off each other perfectly, so it's kind of a shame they don't interact a ton in this movie. Then again, pretty much everyone else plays the "straight man" in relation to Gfd's "comic relief", not just Greg. Speaking of dry-witted sarcastic characters, Sume kind of plays the same role as Greg in that regard.

HONSTLAR: Wha' 'bout me?

DIRECTOR: Honstlar doesn't have as much of a clear, defined personality in my writing, so he's a bit of a blank slate I guess. His role is mainly to serve as the leader, motivating and looking after his team. SRMX12 I feel is a bit of a missed opportunity in this movie. His character page on the fanstuff wiki explains his personality in great detail, making him out to be a hilarious and well-developed character... but I can't quite capture that personality in my writing, so he's mainly relegated to "logical technojargon guy". And unfortunately, everyone else just doesn't have much personality. Coach E is kind, Stom is generous, Zascub is dumb, Rabite is shy... that's it, really. It's difficult to give these characters much individuality when I'm working with pre-existing characters who are already kind of generic to begin with.

HONSTLAR: Hey, we've been talking so long, the movie's over. We skipped talking about the post-credits scene.

DIRECTOR: That's fine, there's not much to say about it. The ten-year timeskip gave me an opportunity to give Mr. Dando his traditional shirt, so I did that... and, uh, this sets up the return of Grindolo's corporeal form... yep, that's all I have to say about that.

HONSTLAR: So, uh, thanks for listening to this three-hour commentary. Sorry we didn't talk very much.

DIRECTOR: It's fine, the readers will actually be reading it, not listening to it. Any dead air will be imperceptible in the transcript.



''{Everyone laughs. Pause.}''

EDITED VIDEO GREG: Was that supposed to be an "everyone laughs, iris out" ending 'cause you couldn't think of any other way to end this commentary?

DIRECTOR: Yeah, but this is an audio commentary, so it can't really iris out. Anyone have any other ideas for an ending?