Trivia / Time Bandits

• Acting for Two: Sean Connery also plays a fireman at the end. Maybe, if he's actually meant to be Agamemnon in modern times.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • It was Sean Connery's idea for Agamemnon to do magic tricks for Kevin.
  • Derrick O'Connor came up with the idea to make the bulk of his dialogue unintelligible.
  • Ralph Richardson came up with the idea to dispose of the pieces of Evil in the post box.
  • Katherine Helmond promoted the idea that her character look totally human alongside her ogre husband, both for the contrast and because she didn't want to undergo elaborate makeup sessions.
• All-Star Cast: And HOW! Most of them were Monty Python fans and wanted to work with Terry Gilliam.
• Billing Displacement: In the opening credit, the stars who receive top billing are almost perfectly inverted with their screen time. It's only in the closing credits that the actual main characters (the Time Bandits and Kevin) receive top billing.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Dream Away" by George Harrison.
• California Doubling: The Italy scenes were shot in Wales and the Greece scenes were shot in Morocco.
• Career Resurrection: At the time, Sean Connery hadn't had a hit film in years. His small part as Agamemnon revived his career.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Michael Palin wrote the role of Robin Hood for himself, but John Cleese wanted to play him.
  • Palin and Terry Gilliam briefly discussed if Cleese was right for the role of the Evil Genius.
• Channel Hop: Disney was offered this film, but ultimately turned it down, which pissed off a lot of people working at the studio at the time.
• Completely Different Title: Essentially. In Spain, it was retitled Time Heroes.
  • The Japanese title is Bandit Q.
• Creative Differences: This was the only film Terry Gilliam made for HandMade Films, due to numerous clashes with Denis O'Brien.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin wrote the role of Agamemnon for Sean Connery but didn't think they'd actually get him. In the script, it reads, "Agamemnon takes off his helmet to reveal... Sean Connery, "or an actor of equal but cheaper stature". To their amazement, the script found its way to Connery, who loved it and agreed to do it.
• Dawson Casting: 49-year-old Ian Holm plays the 26-year-old Napoléon Bonaparte.
• Dyeing for Your Art: John Cleese had to shave off his beard in order to play Robin Hood.
• Enforced Method Acting: According to Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin's interview on the DVD, David Rappaport was so into the character of Randall that he didn't socialize with his co-stars and kept demanding close ups on himself. The invisible barrier scene where the other Time Bandits get angry at him, the actors were really angry at David for the way he treated them.
• Fake Brit: Shelley Duvall as Pansy and Katherine Helmond as Mrs. Ogre.
• Fake Nationality: Brit Ian Holm as Frenchman Napoleon. Also Charles McKeown also a Brit playing a Frenchman. And as always the very Scottish Sean Connery as the Greek King Agamemnon.
• Missing Episode: In the published screenplay, there are several black & white stills from scenes that do not appear in the final film. These include the 'spiderwomen' sequence and Agamemnon giving Kevin a knife (this is later used when Og takes it from Kevin's satchel to unlock their cage). Other deleted scenes included Kevin waking up at night to find his bedroom flooded with water and a pirate ship sailing through his window and the bandits trying to rob a bank in 22nd century London. Terry Gilliam stated at the 2011 Bradford Film Festival in the UK that he believes all the cut footage to be lost.
• The Other Marty: Ruth Gordon was cast as Mrs. Ogre but was injured before production.
• Role Reprise: Ian Holm had previously played Napoléon Bonaparte in the 1974 BBC miniseries Napoleon and Love.
• Stillborn Franchise: Terry Gilliam considered doing a sequel to the film and even started work on a screenplay in 1996 (simply titled Time Bandits 2) but eventually gave up on the project owing to the deaths of David Rappaport (Randall), Tiny Ross (Vermin) and Jack Purvis (Wally).^note As of 2020, Mike Edmonds (Og) is the only Time Bandit still living.
• Technology Marches On:
  • Evil asks Robert to explain "subscriber trunk dialing", which is a means of direct dialing a long distance number (rather than going through an operator), which is largely obsolete now that every call is direct dialed.
  • The embodiment of evil explains that he knows better than the Supreme Being because he has knowledge of "Digital watches. Soon I shall have knowledge of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I understand those, I shall understand computers. And when I understand computers, I will be the Supreme Being." This is all mothball stuff nowadays, but in 1981, it was pretty cutting edge. In fact, Evil trumpeting the Silicon Revolution at this point was actually pretty prescient.
• Wag the Director: Ralph Richardson took his role so seriously that he submitted his own red ink edits complete with message "God wouldn't say that".
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Ogre's wife was going to be in really heavy make up, but as noted Katherine Helmond thought it would be funnier if she looked like an ordinary person.
  • Terry Gilliam did not originally intend to hire Sean Connery as Agamemnon, he only wrote in the script that Agamemnon looked like Connery as a joke while adding that they would have to hire someone of similar physical stature but cheaper. Apparently someone upstairs thought that he really did want Connery and sent the script his way, and to Gilliam's surprise the former James Bond star expressed genuine interest in the part.
  • Agamemnon was originally supposed to appear at the climactic battle against Evil leading an army of Greek soldiers and being killed, but it could not be worked into Sean Connery's schedule (they only had him for about two weeks, as his role was basically a cameo). Having Connery appear as the fireman at the end was the compromise they devised to bring things full circle for Kevin.
  • Jonathan Pryce was offered the role of the Evil Genius but was unavailable owing to his commitment to Loophole.
  • In the screenplay, when the Supreme Being chases after Kevin and the gang, He initially appeared as a "classical" depiction of God: robes, white beard, etc. A picture of this version of the Supreme Being appears in a published book of the screenplay, suggesting the Supreme Being scenes were filmed as written, but ultimately the "classical" depiction was replaced with the "floating head" version of the Supreme Being seen in the film.
  • Gilda Radner was considered for Mrs. Ogre.
  • According to Michael Palin's diary, some of Denis O'Brien's casting suggestions included Burt Reynolds as the Evil Genius, Peter Sellers as the Supreme Being and Art Carney as Winston the Ogre.
  • Comparing the movie to the original script reveals that there were a lot of deleted scenes and sequences, especially during the Time of Legends part of the movie - with notably an entire forest of living tree-hands planned. Most noticeable is one specific scene that was shot involving the group's encounter with two elderly knitting spider-women. While entirely filmed, the scene is considered to be lost and all we have left of it are its script and a few black-and-white pictures depicting the actresses in makeup and the gigantic spiderweb-covered lair built for the scene.

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