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The Shadow
202 Plays3 years ago
This week, Perry is joined by Steven Honeycutt of the Reptilian Media YouTube Channel to discuss 1994's The Shadow. We discuss some of the things that hold up with this movie and have some differing views, but overall come to the conclusion that this film feels like a missed opportunity.
Visit Reptilian Media for more of Steve's work.
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Transcript
Khan's Threats and World Domination Plans
00:00:36
Speaker
Nice time. Thank you. By the way, you sent Margo Lane to kill me. Kill you? If I wanted you there, Yinko, I would have your liver on the pole by now. I said to go to be killed. Tell me, how did you kill her? She's alive. And she's a danger to you.
00:01:06
Speaker
She now knows exactly who you are. How long will you let her live? How long before your pure instincts take over? I'm on to your plan, Khan. You still don't have the beryllium sphere, and without it, you can't complete the bomb. Besides, you know I'm gonna stop you. You American are so arrogant.
00:01:29
Speaker
You think your meaningless decadent country is the new cradle of civilization, but let me tell you something. Hey, that's the U.S. of A you're talking about, pal. I am talking about ruling the world. I'd like to give you a name. Leonard Levinsky. Brilliant psychiatrist. You'll talk. You are boring me. Oh, that knife. Recognize it?
00:01:58
Speaker
No, no, no, I correct myself. I took it out of the toku after I ran it through his heart. When will you learn to listen to your instincts? Instincts? I'll show you my instincts. Never did master the purpose, did you? Still expected to respond to brute force.
00:02:27
Speaker
My Mongol warrior aren't terribly bright, but they are loyal. Except the truth, there is no light without shadow, and you and I are their shadow. I will sooner destroy a Rembrandt and kill you. For the last time, will you join me? You cannot fool me. You cannot defeat me. Your mind is an open book to me. Then learn how to read.
00:02:58
Speaker
Wheatley! Harkon! Aah!
Introduction to Steven Honeycutt and His Work
00:03:43
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Barry Constantine. And today we've got a new guest on who we've had some difficulty getting on, playing a scheduling tag back and forth over the past few weeks. But we finally got you on and that's Steven Honeycutt. Steve, how you doing today?
00:04:00
Speaker
I'm doing great. I'm a very busy man. No, just kidding. But maybe I am. I don't know. We'll see. I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing good too. And thanks for being accommodating with the different scheduling mishaps. No worries, man. I know exactly where you're coming from. So before we get started talking about today's movie, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?
00:04:24
Speaker
All right, my name is Steve Honeycutt. I'm a writer and actor based in LA. I just recently crowdfunded in my own comic book, Escape to Earth, which is a
00:04:39
Speaker
Very pulpy in its own way there's dinosaurs and robots. There's no shadow type character maybe I'll get around to that some someday if I can can crowdfund another one but but yeah it was a pretty exciting to crowdfund that and
00:04:58
Speaker
You know, speaking of the shadow, he comes from the world of like, you know, audio dramas. I also produced an audio drama podcast by the name of Ray Can't Sleep, which is about a burnt out musician who is trying to discover why he can't sleep and he unearths this huge conspiracy. So if you like audio dramas, you might want to check it out.
00:05:20
Speaker
And you said you're a writer too. So is your writing primarily comics or what's your primary focus with writing stuff? Well, I pretty much started with screenplays and they were never really getting made or getting sold unless I made them.
00:05:39
Speaker
I haven't made a feature yet, a few turned into short films and I was just like, what am I going to do with these screenplays that are sitting on my hard drive gathering digital dust? So one of them became the comic book that got crowdfunded and well, I mean, Ray can't sleep.
00:05:57
Speaker
I mean, I wrote it in screenplay format, but it was always supposed to be an audio drama. So yeah, I'm kind of jumping all over the place here, but I'd love to get back to feature writing and hopefully producing one someday, trying to work back up to it, basically. Yeah, screenplay and screenwriting is just one of those things that's,
00:06:18
Speaker
such a difficult thing to break into and making it yourself, producing it yourself, it's such a Herculean task. Even comic books, even with crowdfunding and all that, it's still so many moving parts, so many different things to juggle, which is one of the reasons why I've mostly done novels because it's just me I got to worry about.
00:06:40
Speaker
Ooh, I mean, that's, I'd like to talk to you about that, because I mean, that's what I've always sort of thought about jumping into that, that sort of genre as well, but I don't know, someday. How many have you written? About, I think the one that just came out today actually is number 30, I believe.
00:07:01
Speaker
Wow, so you're 30 novels? Yeah, yeah. That is amazing. What do you write? So me, mostly these days I'm doing urban fantasy, but I've also done, I've been superheroes, I've done some pulpy stuff, some action-adventure stuff. But yeah, mostly these days I've been doing urban fantasy stuff.
00:07:22
Speaker
Do you have a shadow analog in your novels? No, I do not actually. I do have a character that is kind of a shadow analog that's been talking about burning digital dust. I do have a concept and I've done like a little short story about a character like that.
00:07:41
Speaker
um haven't turned it into anything anything as of yet so but we'll see what happens when you hear that well hey you should uh if you haven't you should consider the world of uh audio books or audio drama and you know just take your novel and put in a bunch of sound effects and stuff of course it ain't easy yeah but it is doable i mean sounds are free and voice actors are a dime a dozen baby and i can say that because i am one so
00:08:08
Speaker
I've had a few of them produced into audiobooks. Back when Audible had their, well, they still do, their royalty share program, where you and the voice actor, you split the royalties, but they cut like the royalty share, they cut that in half, like the amount of royalties you can get. So it used to be, when they first started, you could easily find a voice actor who's willing to do the royalty split, but now it's a lot harder.
00:08:37
Speaker
So now you got to pay up front for the production costs. That's how it goes, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a challenge. I did have two of my urban fantasy books got optioned by Tantor, but they haven't said anything about the rest of the series. Sweet. Yeah. But that's the problem. Like once they option those, then it's tough to produce any more with that series because I can't get the same actor and all that kind of stuff. So. Right. But anyway, so.
00:09:06
Speaker
And I see, I can see from your, your background there. So people who are listening, you can't see this, but I see, um, Steve's got like a bunch of ultra force action figures got, uh, I think that's grifter from wildcat, some, uh, some great paperbacks up there. So, um, obviously you're a nerd. And, uh, so I want to talk to you about what's kind of, what was kind of your, your intro point in entry point into, into this world.
00:09:28
Speaker
Oh man. Well, uh, you know, back in the nineties, I, uh, I mean, that's when we moved and I basically got into, we introduced to, I found out that there was a shop that only sells comics. Like, uh, before that I was just, uh, buying them off the, um, the rack.
00:09:48
Speaker
I mean, my parents sort of introduced me. I mean, they weren't nerds or geeks in the slightest. Like my mom maybe read Archie or something. I remember like, you know, if I begged her enough in the grocery store, she would get me an Archie double digest.
00:10:05
Speaker
Um, and I mean, I was so little, I didn't even, I mean, if there's any jokes in Archie comics, I wasn't even getting them back then, but I was just like, Hey, this is colorful. This is fun. It reminds me of a cartoons. Um, and so, and then of course,
00:10:22
Speaker
Batman 89 came out and that was a, you know, huge deal. And I would say, if it weren't for Batman 89 you and I wouldn't even be talking about the shadow right now. But I mean no like full on nerd them if you want to call that came with my
00:10:37
Speaker
introduction to the the comic shop world in the 90s because I didn't even know that there was such a thing as independent comics at that point. I just I knew Marvel. I knew about Marvel mostly because the school library had actually these little hardbound collections of Marvel comics. There was one for Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Captain America,
00:11:02
Speaker
And I forgot the fourth one, Daredevil, Daredevil. And I remember me and my friends, we would all just check them out and sort of trade them amongst ourselves and stuff and, you know, see who could grab it. And then eventually, you know, made my way to buying them off the rack. And then in the comic shop world where this
00:11:25
Speaker
crazy new company called image was exploding onto the scene. I was probably too young for it. But hey, that's what the big kids were into. So I was going to be into it too. Like I got into the world of young blood and Wildcats and and all that stuff. And even though I was like, $2.50 for a comic, are you out of your mind? Because like before that, you know, they were all like a buck and
00:11:49
Speaker
And then got into valiance and yeah and then of course during the 90s you also had like sort of the first wave of comic book movies again because of Batman 89.
00:12:02
Speaker
I loved The Rocketeer, I loved Dick Tracy, even though I'd never read like Dick Tracy comic strip in my entire life, anything with like trench coats and like guns and action, like I was all on board for. And I mean, I even went, I remember seeing the Phantom in the theater as well.
00:12:23
Speaker
Uh, and I, I was listening to your episode on that and I like, it treaded a lot of similar territory that I think you and I are going to be treading, uh, tonight.
Influences and Adaptations of 'The Shadow'
00:12:32
Speaker
So I actually had to stop. I was like, Oh, I don't want to rip this guy off. Um, so, um, so yeah, I mean, I guess, uh, long answer, um, to your question is, uh, uh, finding a comic shop in the nineties, basically.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's how most of us got in because, or through like, I mean, for me it was, it was like the animated series and stuff like that. Like Batman, we had Batman 89, we had Superman the movie. So those were like always part of my life. Like I don't remember a time where I did not watch those, did not know about those movies, right? Cause I'd watch them so young. But then it was like, you know, Batman the animated series came out right after Batman returns, which was huge. And then,
00:13:12
Speaker
the x-men and all that kind of stuff and then eventually finding a yeah I said when you were talking about you know the grocery store and stuff I was having flashbacks to you know my own time when you never I'd go to the grocery store with my my parents or my grandmother and and they just be like all right fine just stay here in the comics section and just read comics while I take care do what I have to do.
00:13:34
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And I would say it's because of, you know, the magazine section in the grocery store, which definitely helped fuel my sort of obsession with the shadow movie when it came out. Because I remember, I think, what was the big one on Starlog? I think Starlog and Fangoria were all published by the same publisher, and they would come up with a movie specials.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I remember I would just, I wouldn't buy it at first. I would just go in and read the shadow movie special magazine over and over again. Eventually I bought it and I'm pretty sure I still have it sitting in my, my comics in my, well, one section of my comics in my, my mom's attic. And I'm sure it's pretty sure it's still there in mint condition, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I think I first found out about this movie from, um,
00:14:27
Speaker
also through comics, but through like the because all the comic books back then in the, you know, like 93, 94, they all had advertisements for the shadow movie. Oh, man, I miss those.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, so obviously we're talking about 1994 is the shadow and just the whole idea of it. And like, you know, cause I, you know, I love superheroes, love Batman and all that kind of stuff. So I just love the fact that we had, Oh, a new superhero movie. I don't know anything about this. And this was actually the first, like some connection that my dad had with stuff. Cause like, well, wait, wait, the shadow. Cause he had, he had listened to the radio show when he was a kid.
00:15:01
Speaker
So that's how he, so he knew about that. And when I was, I was telling him, showing him the images and stuff, he's like, it's like, no, no, no, no, the shadow doesn't wear a costume. He's just invisible. And I'm just like, like, yeah, but he wears a costume in the movie. And I found out, you know, later doing research that in the, the pulps, he had the costume, but in the radio show, he was just invisible the whole time. Right. Right. Yeah. I never, um,
00:15:22
Speaker
got a chance to, there's a shadow cereal as well. And I think he dons the costume in that, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, you're absolutely right. The radio show is, yeah, he's just a voice basically. And I also feel like the, and I'll just say straight up, like all of my knowledge about the shadow comes from the, well, aside from this movie,
00:15:51
Speaker
The radio show and the run of dynamite comics which are really great. I don't know if you ever read them, but they're at the one I think Garth Ennis did that. He was involved with, there's like a couple of different series they.
00:16:05
Speaker
Like there was like a regular shadow ongoing. There was one that they called the shadow now where it's like him and per current day. Uh, yeah, they were doing a lot of stuff with the shadow for a while there. I think it was like early two thousands, maybe 2010, I think. And they were doing a lot of stuff with a bunch of different pulps, uh, which I'm at 100% for because like.
00:16:27
Speaker
I mean, I don't know about you, but you can only read so many like Batman and X-Men stories to where you're like, eh, what else is out there? You know, at least that's what I'm always asking. I'm always asking what else is out there, like in the world of like comics or movies or whatever. And, uh, but, uh, but yeah, like.
00:16:43
Speaker
And that is the one weird, like the characterization of the shadow in the radio show compared to the one in the movie is pretty different. I've never read the pulps. I'm actually in a shadow Facebook group. And yeah, I was told that if I really want to get the real deal, I should read the pulps. One of these days I will, just haven't gotten around to it yet. Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
Pretty much my only firsthand association with The Shadow is really from this movie. Like I've never read any of the comics. No, I did listen, when the movie came out, my library, they had a bunch of the radio show episodes on cassettes. And I had checked a few of those out and I'd listened to a few of them, but that was so long ago that I don't really have much memory of it anymore. But mostly it comes from the movie and just like secondhand research, like just hearing about people talk about it.
00:17:39
Speaker
When I first started getting into writing and publishing, I did a lot of work with a lot of independent publishers and I still do occasionally. So there's a lot of like, I found out about the shadow and Doc Savage, John Carter and all that through my association with those guys. And yeah, one of the things, I love Batman, I love the X-Men, I love seeing new stories with them, don't get me wrong, but I also think it's,
00:18:07
Speaker
It's cool to see people taking these other characters, especially like a lot of these public domain characters and giving them a new lease on life in comics, in novels and short stories. And it sucks when you have some of these characters like the Shadow or Doc Savage or the Avenger who are, the rights are still owned by someone and those people aren't really doing a whole lot with those rights. Yeah, it's a shame for sure.
00:18:36
Speaker
So yeah, that's, but when I saw, I was really excited about this movie as a kid. And then I don't think I'd actually watched it in the theater. I think I'd actually rented it when it came out on video. And when I saw it, I was just kind of like, oh, okay, that was a movie. And that was about, and I never really thought much about it since then. But then I had rewatched it a few years ago and you may have heard this and people who would listen to that episode remember talking when we did the Phantom.
90s Pulp Movie Era and 'The Shadow'
00:19:01
Speaker
There was like this weird,
00:19:03
Speaker
pulp revival period of the pulps in the 90s in movies and TV, because they had had, you know, they were starting to get popular because of stuff like Batman. And so superheroes were starting to get more popular in the mainstream, but they didn't really have the budgets to do the big mainstream superheroes that everyone knew about. But the pulps, they're just basically regular guys in masks. So it was a lot easier to handle.
00:19:32
Speaker
And so you had a lot of these studios buying up these different properties back then. And the three big ones were really, you had the shadow, you had the phantom, and like you mentioned, the rocketeer.
00:19:47
Speaker
And of those, I think, you know, the Rocketeer, undoubtedly the best one, it still holds up today. Oh, yeah. It's such a well-made movie, such a brilliant movie, such a brilliant use of the time period. It really
00:20:02
Speaker
very much like the Indiana Jones movies, it sets it in that period without making it feel like Kishi or something like that, right? It feels really, it feels like an accurate representation of that time period while still managing to be a lot of fun.
00:20:19
Speaker
Oh yeah. I mean, I think the reason why the rocketeer probably stands out among the other two that you said, it's just because that script is just iron tight iron clad. Like it's so good. Um, I think pretty much all three of them kind of, kind of bombed, right? Uh, out of the gate almost. I'm not sure about the rocketeer. I think the rocketeer did pretty decently. Um, if I'm not, I'm not 100% sure though.
00:20:47
Speaker
Uh, so while I'm thinking about it, did you watch the Disney animated rocket tier where it's like a little girl? No, I haven't, but, um, but I am looking forward to once my daughter gets a little bit older, I'm looking forward to having her be able to watch that.
00:21:00
Speaker
Sure, sure, yeah, I gotcha. But yeah, those, yeah, I think it's, you know, Indiana Jones was huge, Batman did huge, yeah, so I can imagine all the other studios were like, well, what else we got? Like, who else can we get? And so yeah, they got the shadow and the fan, although, you know, you say that, you know, they're just regular guys in masks, however, you know, it was, they really, I mean, there was a lot of visual effects in the shadow. There were, yeah, yeah.
00:21:27
Speaker
It was so expensive looking. And plus, you got the director, Russell Mulcahy, who is the director of Highlander, a very visual director. And watching this,
00:21:43
Speaker
His, it almost feels like, and I don't know if you, like you've seen the movie and I think you might, maybe even done an episode about it, which is why when you were asking for guests, I didn't even bring it up. You've seen Sam Ramey's dark man, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've done an episode of that. The reason why he made up dark man is because he couldn't get the rights of the shadow. Yeah. Yeah. So, and this feels like it was directed by Sam Ramey sometimes, sometimes I like just a lot of the way like the, uh, you know, when they did the, um,
00:22:13
Speaker
This is one of the many, I have it written down in my notes, like just a bunch of kind of stuff that they have just piled on that I didn't think really needed to be in there when they showed like the tube, like they put a little note and the tube goes all over the city and stuff. Like that was just so needlessly expensive. Like we didn't even need to see it.
00:22:33
Speaker
and the way it was going all over the place just reminded me very much of Sam Raimi's style. I almost, and you know, and it's weird because this is a universal picture and Sam Raimi was with Universal for a long time when he was going through Dark Man and Hercules. I just wonder if he like maybe wasn't even available for some reason and they were like, well, who else we got? No, I think it was.
00:22:58
Speaker
If I'm remembering my history correctly, like his dark man came out before this, came out in 1990. Oh, absolutely. And when Sam Raimi was interested in doing The Shadow, that was around that time period. And they thought he wasn't, they're like, no, this guy, he can't do it. This is too big of a property. This is too much potential to give it to the director of the Evil Dead trilogy.
00:23:21
Speaker
Oh, they gave it to the director of the Highlander trilogy. Well, the first two Islanders. Right. OK. I get it. Yeah. And they also had a similar problem because he had also wanted to do Batman, too, after after Burton left. And so he had approached Warner Brothers about, you know, revamping the Batman franchise. And they had the same reaction. They're like, we're not we're not going to hire the guy who did Evil Dead. No, we're not going to put him in a Batman movie. And then after that, he does Spider-Man. And then everyone's like, oh, fuck, we probably should have hired him.
00:23:49
Speaker
Oh, I thought you were gonna say after that, he went and created Mantis. Can't leave out Mantis. That too, yeah, yeah, you're right. And Mantis is a, that's another interesting one because you watch that pilot and you compare it to the TV show. Like the pilot is so much more steeped in the pulps as opposed to the TV show. Oh, it's so pulpy. Like even like there's, cause I forgot to mention at the top, I also do another podcast called Obscurity Now where
00:24:14
Speaker
We look at stuff that we consider to be like almost forgotten by, you know, at least the normies in the world. And we did an episode on, uh, on Mantis. And yeah, just, I mean, I remember watching that when it premiered on TV back in the day, because I would watch anything related to superheroes no matter what. And like, it was so shadow esque, like.
00:24:36
Speaker
There was a couple of times where he just used his mask for the mind control, which they never did in the TV series. And yeah, it was just, this was, you know, Sam Raimi doing his like, once again, his Batman mixed with something else. So maybe mixed with a bit of shadow, you know, called Mantis.
00:24:57
Speaker
but uh but yeah like uh yeah the shadow seemed like it was very expensive to me like um i just uh yeah they weren't cutting any corners i mean of course they were it seemed like mostly they were hanging out on the universal backlot um a lot of the time uh for a lot of the exteriors and stuff but uh and also i felt like the um
00:25:19
Speaker
A lot of times the visual representation of his powers like doesn't really make sense because the way the shadows powers works is that like he's clouding your mind so you can't see him. So when they show him like walking around like his footsteps in the water like that doesn't make any sense because that's just
00:25:39
Speaker
that makes it say that he's actually like an invisible man, a guy who has the power of actual invisibility. So just that, I mean, I just thought that was just one of the flaws of the movie is that they couldn't really kind of figure out exactly what his like power set was at the time.
00:25:56
Speaker
You know, that's a good point. And I never even there was something off to me when I was rewatching it, like when he's in that scene with with Tim Curry and he's in the water and they could see his feet in the water because they make a point of mentioning in the like I understood it when they had it.
00:26:12
Speaker
the Mongols saw his shadow because they make that point in the opening text scroll that, you know, the shadow is, his shadow is the only thing he can't hide. And I'm like, okay, you know, it's corny, but it makes sense. So, you know, that's the rules we're establishing. And then they had, you're right. They had the footsteps, they had the water and that doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't make sense. He doesn't physically turn invisible. So that was, yeah. And I was watching them like, this feels really weird for some reason, but I don't know why.
00:26:38
Speaker
Then talking about the effects, the effects of this movie were, I was actually kind of surprised how, how much some of the facts, hold up like because I remember the. I remember, you know, watching this as a kid and I remember the.
00:26:53
Speaker
the knife with the teeth and everything. I remember being kind of freaked out about that as a kid and we're watching it now. I hated that knife. I'm like, why is the knife alive? I mean, I must've been, I don't know, 10, 11 watching this in the theater. And you know, I was already, you know,
00:27:14
Speaker
cooked in by the magazine and you know all the marketing hype and everything so but even I at that age was like why is the knife alive and this is what leads like for a lot of this a lot of the visuals and stuff I was getting Highlander 2 vibes in the way that I feel like
00:27:33
Speaker
The director, Russell Mulcahy, who I actually love. I love Highlander one and, uh, some of his other work. And, you know, he also directed Highlander two. Uh, you've seen Highlander two, right? Unfortunately, yes. I just feel like that's one where just like he and whatever producers are involved, just got a big like mound of Coke. And they're just like,
00:27:55
Speaker
What, what crazy crap can we put in this movie that doesn't make any sense? Um, and yeah, and that was the talking knife, but I guess, uh, to play it sort of devil's advocate, um, in that in the shadow Facebook group that I'm in, apparently that knife thing is actually from one of the pulp novels or something like that. And I was like, that's fine. Still didn't need to be in there. We really didn't need to be
00:28:19
Speaker
in there, at least they could have had it in there doesn't need to be alive, you know, doesn't need to be alive. The one thing about it, though, is I was surprised how well those effects actually held up because I had very strong memories that knife and I was when I sat down to watch this movie last night, I'm like, Oh, I bet that knife is going to look like shit now. And it actually didn't still look pretty decent. It did look good. You know what else it reminded me of? Remember how in the Mortal Kombat movie how
00:28:45
Speaker
Scorpion's little like a spear thing was also alive. You remember that? Yeah. What producer is like, oh, we got to bring these weapons to life, baby. That was a weird choice. Yeah. And that movie is an example of CGI that doesn't hold up because I remember Reptile from that movie and just looking absolutely god awful now.
00:29:08
Speaker
Still a better movie than the new Mortal Kombat. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I love I love I'll defend that the original Mortal Kombat movie to my to my to my grave, but not so much annihilation, but that's also another story. Right. Sure. But yeah, I mean, the the effects in this looked really good. I was really kind of surprised how well they hold up, because especially for a movie at that time, because these movies weren't really taken seriously.
Critiques of 'The Shadow' Film Elements
00:29:35
Speaker
And right.
00:29:37
Speaker
And another thing that's funny is, you know, when I was talking about comparing it to the Rocketeer and the Phantom and the shadow of those three, it's definitely the bottom of the barrel for of those three movies. Rocketeer, obviously. And the Phantom is like this weird kind of blend of the two of them. It feels like it's
00:29:56
Speaker
It's well, some of the people are taking it seriously, like Billy Zane is taking it pretty seriously. He's pretty committed to it. Catherine Zeta Jones is taking it pretty seriously. And then you got Treat Williams and Lesser Buffy just like, you know, completely terrible.
00:30:11
Speaker
Christy Swanson. Christy Swanson, that was it. Yeah, I just call her Lesser Buffy because I can never remember her name. Right, right. I mean, what do you mean by the shadow is the bottom of the barrel compared to those other two? I think the shadow, because even though it's got some really good effects, I feel like it doesn't seem to take itself as seriously as the material needs to be. It feels like it's a bit too tongue-in-cheek.
00:30:36
Speaker
And I think a big part of that came from the fact that David co up the screenwriter was a big fan of the radio show, and he was trying to kind of mimic the style and the tone of the radio show which
00:30:48
Speaker
doesn't really work in 1994. I mean, I mean, I know it's been a while since I've listened. I mean, the radio show wasn't very jokey though, was it? I don't know. Like I said, I don't really have much of a memory. I just read that in IMDB that that was one of his things. He wanted to make it similar to the same tone as the radio show as opposed to the darker tone of the pulps.
00:31:15
Speaker
See, I would say that he, I would say that he was probably the positive force, like the things that are good about the movie. And I imagine there was producers breathing down his neck to add in more comedic elements. Like the stuff that I could feel sort of like the studio like forcing into the movie are things like
00:31:43
Speaker
Okay, because yeah, there is an interesting sort of line you got there. Like, yeah, you can tell he wants it to be serious because there's a lot of casual death and violence in this. I was so surprised. I was like, when Shawan Khan makes the cab driver just drive his car into like a gas tank and blow up,
00:32:07
Speaker
And then he makes another guy put a gun to his head and like blow his head off. I think that was like, I was just like, wow, like you're, you're never going to see that in any MCU movie. Like nobody dies in those movies. Like if they do, it's way off camera, you never see it. So, and I think that at least in, you know, in terms of, you know, pulp tone, like that is, that's where you want to be. But then when you get stuff like,
00:32:34
Speaker
I mean, I love Tim Curry, man, but he was there to be a comic relief. And he went pretty over the top, like, especially there was a scene where Siwan Khan again, and I think John loans great as Siwan Khan, like he is so he he always does great as a
00:32:54
Speaker
Sadly, the Asian villain. I'd love to see him just play like, I mean, I don't even know if he's still, I'm pretty sure he's still alive. He's still alive. I checked last night because when I was doing research for it, then it's weird because IMDB, they have got this really old picture of him, which usually is a sign that the actor has died. So I was really kind of surprised when I looked into it, found out, no, he's still alive, but he hasn't made anything in a long time.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I remember seeing him like one of the last ones he was in that I remember is like the transporter where of course he played the Asian villain and he was looking pretty old then and that was like what 20 years ago. So yeah, I'm pretty sure he's retired too bad. I mean, he was great, but whatever he had a great run. But anyway, he was yelling at his thugs, which I also have comments about them as well.
00:33:46
Speaker
to go and you know get the shadow basically they're like go get him and uh
00:33:51
Speaker
Like Tim Curry, I think he was like, ooh, should I go too? Or is this like something like cheesy and very sort of Disney-esque? And I was just like, yeah, that doesn't, it would have been so much better if they would have, I'm sure David Coep, if he really is a fan of the shadow, wanted to make it as serious as he want, if he could have made it as serious as he wanted to, it probably would have been a lot better. That's just my theory.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah. Probably, yeah. Now a few things you said there, like one of the things, now you make a good point with the violence and all that and the death and that's true. But I think one thing that the MCU does that I think this movie doesn't is it feels like the performances are taking it a little bit more seriously and they're a little bit more earnest. I feel like there's a lot of camera winking, especially in with Alec Baldwin's performance in this.
00:34:48
Speaker
But I feel that in both. I mean, in the MCU and this. I mean, I guess pre-Disney MCU, there wasn't that much camera winking. But now, to me, it all feels like ever since Guardians of the Galaxy, it's all been camera winking, especially in your Thor Ragnarok's and your Love and Thunder and stuff like that. But no, yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:35:13
Speaker
Alec Baldwin is, he's hamming it up, but I'm enjoying his performance in this. I mean, it would have been better. Again, like, I mean, if you can imagine like the Christopher Nolan version of The Shadow, it would probably be a million times better. Like everyone would be taking it super seriously. Might even be too serious. But yeah, but this is, you know, years before that. So I mean, what do you think of Alec Baldwin's performance as The Shadow?
00:35:42
Speaker
it's weird because on paper Alec Baldwin seems like he'd be a great fit for this character and I know that David Collett felt like that too like he had written the script actually with with Baldwin in mind but you know and it's it's hard to think about Alec Baldwin now because I so associate him with 30 Rock and there's more comedic stuff now I'm glad you said 30 Rock and not him accidentally shooting someone I probably shouldn't have brought that up but uh too late you can edit that out if you want
00:36:12
Speaker
Actually, my wife did mention that when I was watching this last night. She's like, who's that? I'm like, oh, that's Alec Baldwin. Then she brought up the shooting thing. And I'm like, didn't he shoot someone on set? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that happened. Now, I have a question for you since you and I are probably the only ones watching the shadow in 2022. When he turns into the shadow in the costume,
00:36:34
Speaker
Like does his face change too? Like I, it was, it's so weird. Like I feel like there's like some sort of, like there's like a stunt man or something. Like, do you get what I'm talking about? I do. Yeah. There's something really weird about the way he looks in the costume. I almost feel like his nose is too big or something. I don't know what it is exactly. I think they were really trying to capture like the regular shadow look, which is a dude with a big nose. And yeah. And I was just like,
00:37:03
Speaker
I'm like, how are you explaining this? Like, is the, so which is the real version? Is that like Baldwin? Like the real, um, I forgot what's, uh, what's the shadows Lamont Cranston? Like is Lamont Cranston the real guy or is the shadow the real guy? Like you can actually really like get into some deep, you know, woo psychology here or something, or
00:37:27
Speaker
or were they just like really desperate to try to capture that shadow look to where they were just like going with it and again you know the cocaine was probably flowing and that's like one thing that I kind of do like about this movie because it's obviously pre Christopher Nolan and so there's a lot of stuff that they're just going with like
00:37:50
Speaker
why does uh schwan khan's uh thugs like why are they wearing samurai armor like i mean where would they get it like why do they need to wear it um like why can't they just dress like in normal 1940s clothes and the answer is because this is a pulp movie and like that's probably what they would have done back in like the serial uh basically and you just sort of have to go with it
00:38:14
Speaker
Like another thing that I feel like was kind of forced upon David Coep was like, okay, so you really have to suspend your disbelief here. Okay, so we've got our main protagonist who is basically a, I mean, you could say a mentalist or telepath basically. And then his main villain shows up and again, why does he have to show up in a coffin? Like, why can't he- I was thinking that too. I couldn't understand why he needed to do that.
00:38:41
Speaker
You just have to go with it. And so now we've got two, you know, powerful mentalists or telepaths who have to like fight each other, but then
00:38:51
Speaker
throwing in even more disbelief is, oh, look at this, a random woman that I've never met before. Oh, she also has the ability to be a telepath. And it's just like, it's like, is everyone a freaking telepath in the shadow universe? And in the radio show, uh, you know, Margo Lane was definitely not a telepath as far as I can remember. Um, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong and never in the comics that I read.
00:39:18
Speaker
And I mean, I understand that, you know, they probably beefed up a part because like this whole thing is like, you know, just dudes fighting each other for the most part. So they wanted to have a, you know, a strong female lead. What do you think about Penelope Ann Miller's performance in this as Margot Lane?
00:39:38
Speaker
I mean, she does decently with what she's given. I mean, problem is what she's given isn't that great but like, again, if you compare it to, to Christy Swanson in in
00:39:50
Speaker
the Phantom where she was given a lot more material and she's terrible at it. So I think with what Penelope Ann Miller was given here, she did decent enough with it. Yeah, the whole telepathy angle just doesn't seem to really serve much of a purpose, right? It doesn't really, it's just like a reason for Lamott to have some sort of interest in her in the first place and- Right.
00:40:19
Speaker
Like, why can't they just be boyfriend and girlfriend? Just because of this. And also like, if she, I mean, and that was one of the fun things I liked to talk about. It also kind of stretches the credulity of it because, you know, we're, you know, this mysterious woman who suddenly shows up in town, she also happens to be a telepath and oh yeah, her father can build an atomic bomb and he's gonna be the, like, I think we're pushing the coincidences too far then.
00:40:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's too much. It was too much and I could see a lot of people, even probably the hardcore shadow fans at the time were probably just like, eh, this is too much for me to deal with. I don't know. I felt like she, again, probably not her fault, but
00:41:08
Speaker
I felt like she didn't really have a lot of range at least in this performance it was all just sort of a little over the top all the time and it kind of annoyed me a bit. I don't remember being that annoyed when I first watched it but like watching it here in 2022.
00:41:25
Speaker
I was like, ah, man, like, no wonder we haven't really heard from her in a long time. Again, I mean, I would say, yeah, I mean, I haven't watched the Phantom in a while, but yeah, probably better than Christy Swanson. Maybe they're both hanging out right now, haven't they? Well, I don't know. Christy Swanson has become like a Trump fanatic now, so I don't think she's hanging out with much of anyone. She's gone to Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain route.
00:41:50
Speaker
Oh man. Yeah. We talk about both of those guys quite a bit on, uh, on obscurity now. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, including, um, the original Hercules TV movie, but anyway, um, yeah, like, and that was, uh, like the, their dynamic, like whenever they're like on screen together, it just doesn't, this just doesn't work. Um, for me at least they're annoying together. Um, and it would again, like.
Comparison with Other Adaptations and Potential Improvements
00:42:21
Speaker
If you had maybe more of, I mean, again, I don't want to say if you would have had more of a visionary director because Russell Mulkey at his peak was very visionary or visual. Maybe if it had more of a
00:42:36
Speaker
the Sin City vibe, like, you know, taken more seriously, like you said, it would have been, I mean, you know, it would have been a completely different movie and maybe more successful, like, who knows? Yeah, I think they were trying to, because, you know, this came out in, after Batman Returns, but before Batman Forever. So it's in this period when
00:42:58
Speaker
I think studios don't really know what the line is because Batman Returns had pushed things too far for audiences' taste at that time.
00:43:06
Speaker
And Batman forever hadn't come out yet, which had taken things completely. So this is in this weird kind of like, we're trying to see how we can make something that's semi-dark with some over the top comedic elements to kind of water it down a little bit. Right, it's like when Disney tries to go dark and you get Black Widow, which is an absolutely terrible movie. I hope you agree.
00:43:31
Speaker
Um, somewhat, like I, I, it's not my favorite of the MCU movies, but I don't, I don't think any, like none of the MCU movies are actually, I don't think any of them are actually terrible. Even the one I hated the most was Iron Man three, but after rewatch doing an episode on that, I kind of had some, uh, some shifts in opinion on that. See, I liked that one as a Shane Black movie. I am a Shane Black fan. Uh, like I never read an Iron Man, like I read like maybe the
00:44:00
Speaker
a reprint of the original Iron Man. I was never an Iron Man fan, never read the comics. So when that movie came out and it was like, good, like I was blown away, but you know, that's a tangent. Yeah, we didn't go back and listen to the episode we did with a few guys on that. And the Shane Black of it was kind of like my biggest issue with it because it felt more of a Shane Black movie and less of an Iron Man movie.
00:44:26
Speaker
Oh, 100%. Yeah. And if you like that sort of thing, yeah, more power to you. But as much as I love Shane Black, that was a situation where I felt like the director was putting his own style and is above the adaptation side of things.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I mean, and that's, that's how I feel about post Disney MCU is that they just go in there and do whatever they want. Now they don't really respect the, uh, the material too much. It's why you end up with, uh, the task, like weird female taskmaster who was not the taskmaster, like in the slightest from the, I did not, I did not like that. I will, I will agree with you on that. I did not like that aspect of it.
00:45:10
Speaker
But backing up to Iron Man 3, everyone was so mad about the Mandarin. And I was just like, eh, I don't care. But again, that's because I didn't really read. I mean, I remember watching the cartoon. I remember the Mandarin. But I was just like, I guess if you don't have a nostalgia for a certain thing, then you don't care. No, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think if you look at the Guardians movies is a good example of that because I
00:45:40
Speaker
had very little familiarity with the Guardians comic books, but, you know, Star-Lord in the movies, completely different from what he was in the comics. So yeah, I actually- Whereas if, but also like, and that's because I wasn't a Guardians fan, but then you compare it to something like Moon Knight, which we had just had done an episode of that fairly recently. I was a lot more critical of Moon Knight because I loved those comics. Right. I mean, I try to look at
00:46:10
Speaker
I try to look at these things as a movie critic and a comic book fan and see if it succeeds in any way. And most lately, Disney's just been failing in my eyes for the most part.
00:46:25
Speaker
But but anyway, I guess we should get back to the shadow. Yeah, yeah. You listen, you listen to what I said about Iron Man three. It was I definitely had conflicting opinions when we did that episode. But but yeah, with with the shadow. You know, one other thing that really kind of bugged me with this movie, and this kind of connects to what you were saying before about the
00:46:48
Speaker
the clouding men's minds things is that the whole, the telepathy in this is not really portrayed with any sort of real consistency because a lot of times it seems like Lamont Cranston is capable of just reading people's minds, but then other times he needs to question people and ask them for information. So I can't understand why.
00:47:14
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think the way they sort of, you know, handled that in the radio show and the comics is basically like, you know, some people's minds are stronger than others. But, but yeah, I mean, I definitely hear what you're saying. What I don't get is that
00:47:30
Speaker
by the end of the movie, he gets full on telekinesis and he throws shards of glass at Siwan Khan and that's not the shadow. The shadow is not Batman either. To me,
00:47:46
Speaker
The characterization of the shadow in like the comics and the radio shows is that he's more of a, you know, almost like a Dr. Strange type. He's like the smartest guy. He doesn't need to resort to fighting because he's already smarter than you for the most part. He just sort of like, you know, he doesn't even have to do this, but you know, puts his hand to his forehead and you know, he's like, oh, you know, you don't even see me. You're going to tell me everything I want to know. Then you're going to drop your gun and blah, blah, blah.
00:48:14
Speaker
uh but and i'm sure like the studio execs were like oh no no he's got to beat up someone and you know of course he you know when he comes up against other people who he can't control their mind then he has to resort to his uh awesome guns and everything but uh but yeah like watching the shadow like knowing what i know about the shadow now and watching him like fight some thugs i'm just like why is he fighting them why isn't he just using his uh
00:48:41
Speaker
in his ability to cloud their minds and like the shadow in the radio show or comic would just make the thugs fight each other or, you know, basically. And it's weird that they don't explain that because there's a lot of exposition in this movie. Yeah, almost too much because like there's that one scene when he's with his uncle and his uncle's like, you know, I've never never meddled in your fairs, not even, you know, after the war when you were disappeared for seven years and he's very specific about it.
00:49:08
Speaker
Um, right. So they have, they have all these expository scenes, but they never really have an exposition explaining how the telepathy works. And I guess I wonder if part of that is just because we don't want to explain it because we don't want people to think too much about it.
00:49:22
Speaker
Well, I mean, if you're going to go that route, why even explain his origin? I mean, of course, again, as we said, this was my introduction to the character. And I guess this is the origin in the radio show, too, where they're just like, oh, he was a bad guy who
00:49:40
Speaker
you know very similar to Dr. Strange like went to Tibet and you know learned all these uh you know wacky mystical powers um because I guess you know that was just uh that was sort of like the trend back in like the 40s and 50s is that uh
00:49:56
Speaker
The Tibet is like the source of all this mystical power and stuff because you know a lot of people didn't travel as much back then. Right. If someone comes back and they're like, Oh, I learned how to cloud men's minds. Thanks to this Tibetan monk. They're like, Oh, really? Tell me more.
00:50:14
Speaker
So yeah, like they they I could have just lived without having the whole origin part at the beginning. And again, that's why like, I was almost taken aback when I was watching it because, you know, now nowadays, I guess, depending on who you're watching, if it's Disney or Warner Brothers, Disney, especially, you know, they're basically family films. Now, before I felt like they were action comedies. Now they're more like,
00:50:42
Speaker
family films and you know, Dr. Strange, he's not even allowed to go to Tibet because they can't acknowledge Tibet because then they can't sell the film in China and all this other stuff. And this movie opens up and you've got freaking Lamont Cranston in an opium den surrounded by prostitutes and stuff like you know, which is the way the pulp, you know, should be like, yeah, you're just not going to get that here in 2022. That's too offensive.
00:51:07
Speaker
Well, I think one of the reasons why they had that origin in there, because it was originally supposed to play a bigger part.
00:51:15
Speaker
in the finale. So originally when they're going through the hall of mirrors, that was supposed to be a much longer sequence. And Khan was going to be taunting Cranston by showing images from his past on the mirrors from when he was yin-ko, but there was an earthquake and it destroyed the set and the filmmakers, they ran out of time and they ran out of money so they couldn't do the scene as they had originally planned to do it.
00:51:44
Speaker
so that so the entire connection between the the opening scene when he's you know yanko and he's he's a bad guy and the end it is just gone now so now it just feels very um extraneous that rush oh yeah the the yeah that man that makes so much sense because the end felt uh very rushed um like they didn't have a really good
00:52:07
Speaker
Uh, just final battle, like in the slightest, it was all just, you know, a bunch of, uh, you know, effects basically. And, um, I mean, if you think about it, like what happens in that fight? Like Siwan Khan uses his telekinesis to, uh, to throw the knife at him.
00:52:26
Speaker
And then he, you know, stops the knife like with his hands and I guess he remembers his Jedi training or whatever, and then basically turns the knife back on him plus he throws a bunch of shards of like mirror and yeah, it all feels very rushed very cocaine inspired. And yeah, I mean I think I remember even.
00:52:47
Speaker
back then, when I first watched it, I was like, I have no idea what's going on in this, in this end here. And it just felt very unsatisfying. Like, like, what, what I feel like would have been, I mean, what you described to me sounded great. Like, you know, they could have gone at each other with their like mentalism skills and, you know, get out of stalemate and then resort to like fisticuffs and like, you know, be the shadow can beat them that way. And I,
00:53:16
Speaker
That would have been better than what we got. Yeah, I think I think one of the biggest failings is that I think this movie is trying too hard to be Batman light.
00:53:28
Speaker
Whereas if you look at the shadow, like I know in the radio show they had simplified his origin so that he was just Lamont Cranston, but in the popes he was actually a different guy altogether. Lamont Cranston was another guy and the shadow just assumed his identity at times and used his resources.
00:53:48
Speaker
like the shadow is actually more like moon night where he's got all these different identities, he assumes. I think doing something like that would have been a lot more interesting, but I think the studio, they wanted something. They wanted Bruce Wayne, yeah, basically. I remember,
00:54:05
Speaker
When after I saw it, I went into my local comic shop in Williamsburg, Virginia. And of course, like the comic book shop owner, he was, you know, much older, at least much older to me. He was probably really only in his like late twenties, early thirties at the time. And I was like.
00:54:20
Speaker
So what did you think of the shadow? And he's like, I didn't like it. They made him too much like Bruce Wayne. I'm just like, Oh, well, whatever you say, but he was 100% right. I mean, again, I, you know, didn't have the relationship with the shadow then that I do now, but yeah, he was 100% correct.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's that's a I think that's probably a big reason why this movie didn't really find any success is that people went to see it and they're like, well, it's kind of like Batman, but it's like a it's like a low rent version of Batman. So I don't really like it. Right. If it would have just I'm
00:54:57
Speaker
could have just let David co-ep like do his thing probably would have been a lot better. I just had like a you know a thought like remember in the early 2000s when like uh you know 300 and the spirits like were sort of uh all those really heavily stylized ultra violet uh I think that's when like Watchmen came out
00:55:18
Speaker
They should have done a shadow dent. That would have been interesting. Let Zack Snyder have a shot at him. I mean, the old Zack Snyder. I don't know about the new one where he's using all these dumb lenses and stuff to film zombies. I don't know about that. But the Zack Snyder from 300, I'd like to see him take a crack at the shadow.
00:55:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think the shadow would be a character that's so much more suited to Snyder's sensibilities and like his views on heroism and superheroes because you look at his DC movies and it's just like motherfucker really just doesn't really like superheroes. So maybe you should give him more of these pulp characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would love to see like
00:56:01
Speaker
you know, a pulp revival and maybe some of these other characters could take a little break for a while. I mean, do we need another Thor movie? I mean, I just, I actually just saw the latest one today and for me, I'm on board for more Thor movies.
00:56:18
Speaker
Mm hmm. I mean, I haven't
Discussion on 'The Shadow's' Plot and Character Development
00:56:20
Speaker
seen it. I mean, I wasn't a huge fan of Ragnarok's. I thought it was too jokey. And I didn't get when you were mentioning the Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, I was the one guy who read like the Guardians of the Galaxy run that basically sort of made them a thing again. You mean the admin landing run? Yes, exactly. Yeah. And that have you read that one? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:44
Speaker
Like it was so good and like, and it was humorous, but it was still like serious and the plot was serious and the threat was serious where, I mean, I just, uh, gardens of the galaxy to me, it was just, I'm like, why is there a mix tape with all this mom music on it? And I just, uh, like there was too many jokes, like, Oh, look at that. He thinks he's invisible. If he doesn't move, ha ha ha ha. That's just not what I want a superhero movie. That's just my own personal opinion.
00:57:14
Speaker
Fair enough. It's not for everybody. I will say, though, that it was the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, they ended up making my wife into a fan of superhero movies, when as before that, she would not touch them with a 10 foot pole. Well, sure, they're great for non comic book readers, I'd say. For yeah, for the normies. If you want to call them that. But yeah, I mean, it was what it was. But with
00:57:43
Speaker
Yeah, with the shadow, what do you think of the Brooks Brothers conversation? Oh, yeah, that was when I started to cringe, as the kids say.
00:57:57
Speaker
I was like, what, like, all right. So now they're, cause it felt like, I think up until then stuff was feeling pretty serious. Uh, you know, and even though he's like, you know, Siwan Khan shows up in a, in a coffin, like I was still going with it. Like, you know, he's the villain, whatever.
00:58:13
Speaker
And then, yeah, they do that. And then when they shoot the bullets at each other and they both, yeah, that was so dumb. Even back then, I was like, all right, I get that this is a pulp world, but why is that shot even in there to show that they're evenly matched? It's like they didn't need that. They could have come up with something else. That just seems like an overpriced visual shot that they could have omitted and then used the money for something else.
00:58:42
Speaker
I will say one thing I liked about the Brooks Brothers line, though, is that I think it it does it. The problem is it feels so out of context in that scene, like it's just it feels so because it just comes out of nowhere. So it just feels so forced in that. But I do. But I do like it because it does make me realize that, oh, wait, Siwan Khan's a guy who actually does understand the modern world because it's too much. He's in these elaborate costumes and all that. And it and it feels like he
00:59:11
Speaker
it feels like he's been sleeping in the coffin for like the past 50 years or something. So in that aspect, I did like that. I did like it because of that. It made me, it gave him more of a connection to the real world, to the modern world. Sure, sure. But then, I mean, it begs the question. I mean, if he knows what's going on, why travel around in a coffin? That's, that's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the problem. You have all this other stuff there. Yeah. And also to like, also to like him walking around with, um,
00:59:41
Speaker
in like the robes and stuff when the, when the Navy guy's making fun of him and, or when the manga warrior is, I guess trying to tail Lamont, but he's doing it in full manga warrior garb and nobody looks, here's him a second look.
00:59:58
Speaker
Uh, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. Yeah. That's some ridiculous stuff that you got to go with. I mean, again, I feel like, uh, maybe that's just studio stuff. Maybe there's like multiple, uh, just sort of alternate takes that they could have gone with. Um, and just the studio came in and they're like, Oh, we want this and this and this and screw your vision. Like.
01:00:19
Speaker
uh I guess we'll uh we'll never know um but another thing I can tell you that um I feel like it's too much and maybe should have been saved for a shadow sequel or maybe just not even dealt with at all is like I didn't like that the way the shadow got around was a taxi yeah yeah um it was too much and then also the whole shadow agents even though I know that's a big part of the radio show um
01:00:48
Speaker
It just didn't work for me for, I mean, like maybe like a few people, but it's just, I mean, wouldn't people notice the rings after a while? I guess it's just one of those things that you have to go with. It's sort of like a kind of classic pulp archetype. The, you know, the shadow club that all the kids were, you know, drink your Ovaltine, right? From, from the Christmas story. That's the little orphan Annie. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
Um, but yeah, they could have done without that. I feel like, um, and I wish they just would have come up with a better way for him to get around. Um, and I'm trying to even think like how, and see, that's the thing is that like in the comics and in the, um, the radio show, you know, the shadow just appears because that's what he does. Um, like, uh, in the, the scenes when he's in the, like the opening scene when he's in the taxi with the, um,
01:01:44
Speaker
that, uh, uh, Asian guy who he saves at the beginning, like professor, whatever he is. And the guy's just like sort of sitting there cowering and he's over there cackling and laughing. It's, it's just weird and awkward, like, especially when the cab driver does it joins in with the cackling. That just felt really, then it kind of gotten to the ridiculous territory. Right. Like, I feel like there's definitely, there was potential for like a really good movie in there, but I think it just got muddled down with, uh,
01:02:12
Speaker
you know, studio intervening, intervention possibly, or who knows, maybe even like Russell McKay, he was just like, we need more exploding glass, or he's actually Australian. I should be doing an Australian accent, but yeah, you know how he loves his exploding glass. And there definitely was a lot in the end, like in the third act there when they were finally sort of fighting each other, but.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yeah, I like the idea of the agents, but I don't feel, I think you're right. I don't think like they were really used in the way that they could have been. I mean, for one, I mean, the whole idea of the agents seems to be that the shadow doesn't have to rely on any one person, but they give him the cab driver who knows basically everything about him, which, you know, and
01:03:01
Speaker
Like it would have been one thing if we saw him with different cab drivers each time or something like that. But to like have it all on one because I think they wanted him to have like an Alfred type character or something like that. Yeah, well then why not just give him, well, I guess you would need a shadow mobile at that point. If I remember correctly, I think there is some kind of vehicle that went with the shadow action figures. Do you remember those when they came out? Vaguely, but yeah, I think you're right.
01:03:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, even though there wasn't a shadow mobile in the, in the movie, but you know, it's action figures. So you got to have a vehicle or something.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the, the answer, I mean, they, yeah, they should have just, you know, just give them a, a butler or something and like a, a black, like souped up Rolls Royce or something like anything besides a taxi. That's just weird. So yeah, there was the shadow mirage, um, SX 100, which was like a roadster car. And then there was also the shadow night mist cycle cycle. I can't, I mean,
01:04:08
Speaker
If you ride a motorcycle with a trench coat, I mean, won't it get caught in like the spokes or something? I don't know. I mean, I guess Batman was able to do it with his cape. And it's technically not a trench coat, right? Isn't it actually a cape, I think? Yeah, I think it's both, isn't it? It's a trench coat or like a really long raincoat with a cloak. Okay. Yeah, yeah. If I'm not mistaken. Okay.
01:04:34
Speaker
But yeah, that was another issue too is the agents weren't really handled that well. And also Ian McKellen just feels like, cause I'm always surprised when I watch this movie and I see Ian McKellen in it because he just, he feels just so out of place in this movie. Well, I felt that when I saw Tim Curry, I was like, man, I actually forgot he was in there. I was like- Well, in fact, the only reason Tim Curry said yes to this movie is because he heard that Ian McKellen was in it.
01:05:03
Speaker
Oh, I thought he said yes because, you know, he was originally supposed to be the Joker in Batman 89. And he was like, oh, I'm not going to miss out on another blockbuster. I mean, that's just sort of like the story I built up in my head. No, no, apparently it was just because he wanted to work with, with McKellen.
01:05:22
Speaker
How about that. But yeah, it just seems like he's and his his old thing like the whole the absent minded scientist I think they took that bit a little bit too far with he doesn't know the difference between red and green type of stuff.
01:05:35
Speaker
Well, I think he's colorblind is the problem. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that was just sort of cheesy. And then the fact that he's also Margo's father, just too, too much, too many coincidences as we, as we said before. And also the, the bomb chase at the end, when they're running away from it or running after it, that whole thing was just, you know, that was taken into Benny Hill territory, I felt. Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely agree with that.
01:06:07
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's pretty much everything that I had to say about this movie. Mostly I think it's just kind of a lot of missed potential. And I mean, I think the shadow is an interesting character. So it would have been, it would be interesting to see someone who likes these pulp stories go back and revisit this, not necessarily this incarnation, but redo it or something.
01:06:36
Speaker
All right, so I just brought up my notes. I mean, you can not use this or not if you walk, but I just, there were some, a few things here that I forgot to mention. Like, you know, usually when you're introduced to an important character, especially in a movie, you know, there's, well, I guess, all right. So there, I guess we were introduced to Schwann Kahn when he showed up in his,
01:07:00
Speaker
um you know coffin then he just magically shows up in the sanctum just out of nowhere in the shadow sanctum he knows exactly where it is and everything um and that was just uh anti-climactic um i mean i get i guess the idea is maybe the shadow isn't used to dealing with other telepaths so he didn't bother to
01:07:24
Speaker
put any kind of magical, you know, you know, he didn't hypnotize the whole city like Schwann Kahn did to camouflage the hotel. So yeah, I mean, he just magically showed up and that just felt sort of anticlimactic to me. What else do we have here? I think everything else we covered. I really liked when they revealed the
01:07:48
Speaker
aforementioned hotel when they were you know when he was just looking at it and they showed it it's a beautiful like design like the design for the whole city and everything felt great it felt really I mean aside from the fact that it felt like the universal back lot I mean at least it was all real and not CGI because they didn't really have that back then um
01:08:10
Speaker
And then when they had the, uh, and again, this, uh, was sort of cartoony super villain territory was when, um, Siwan Khan turns on the rotating floor at the end. Do you remember that? Yeah, that was weird. I was like, he had time to make that rotating floor before the shadow showed up. Like, uh, yeah, just a lot of, uh, stuff that, again, as we said, that you have to have to roll with, but, um,
01:08:37
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. I feel people who are really in the shadow
01:08:43
Speaker
They still sort of acknowledge the movie positively for the most parts. Like, I mean, I love the shadow character. I just wish more people could see him the way he's like portrayed in the comics and the radio show is like, you know, more of a sort of cerebral, you know, almost kind of like a Dr. Strange without magic, if you will, instead of a wanna beat Batman.
01:09:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So apparently, this is interesting is that looks like Sam Raimi had gotten a second crack at this. And in 2006, they said that he would him and Michael Ouzlan, who produced the Batman movies were going to be co producing a new shadow film. And
01:09:30
Speaker
And he said that we've got, and Sam Raimi said in 2007, we've got the rights to the shadow. And then in 2012, the website shadow fan said that at San Diego 2012, when Raimi was asked about the status of the shadow project, he said they hadn't been able to develop a good script and it wouldn't be produced as planned. But that's the latest I've seen about this. I mean, I'm not sure if he still has the rights or anything like that.
01:10:00
Speaker
Right, well, you know that very recently, James Pattinson, I think I'm saying that name, right? You know, the author. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Shadow novel, but according to the dudes in the Shadow Facebook group, it is not very shadowy in the slightest. No, I've heard a lot of people complain about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm just checking right now. Yeah, no problem.
01:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, James Patterson. It was with Brian Sitson, James Patterson. James Pattinson, Robert's dad. But yeah, I've heard people just say like, it is absolutely terrible. I haven't read it, so, and again, I don't have any familiarity, so I have no idea how it compares, but even just like looking at the cover of it, I'm like, it doesn't look, if you know anything about the shadow, this would not make you think that this has any connection to that.
01:11:01
Speaker
Yeah, the problem with the shadow the reason why I mean and I've like thought about this and again this is my own sort of personal hypothesis. Like the reason why Batman is a million times more successful than the shadow.
01:11:17
Speaker
is because the shadow is very of his time and he doesn't have a cool logo like Batman does. Like you put that bat signal on anything and people will buy it. There's not really a cool shadow signal, unfortunately. And even like if you were to bring the shadow into
01:11:38
Speaker
2022, like you were going to make a modern shadow. Like, you know, I could already see it. It would be some dude who wears a hoodie or something. Uh, and, and for that look is so classic. I mean, maybe you could do it where it's so far in the future that that look is like a popular again. Like you've seen the movie, the animated or the anime, uh, ghost in the shell, right? Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:05
Speaker
Like if you think about it, like that bad guy in there who's hacking people's ghosts and making it so you can't see him, that's the shadow, baby. That's right. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if you wanted to do a far in the future shadow movie and you can, you could even say, Oh, look,
01:12:22
Speaker
people are wearing those wacky styles from the 50s again, like, I figure like a cyberpunk shadow would actually kind of work and no one can take that idea. That's mine, Stephen Honeycuts, copyright, even though I don't own the shadow, the slightest. Well, you can always do it for a new concept because it's divorce enough where you wouldn't be accused of copyright violation.
01:12:42
Speaker
Absolutely. Now you're thinking like an author there. Okay, but I think that's all we got to say about the shadow. So Steve, you want to tell people where they can find your stuff?
01:12:53
Speaker
Sure, yeah, you can go to at reptilian media on Twitter, or check out the reptilian media YouTube page where I post the security now podcast. Every Sunday we talk about something weird and forgotten. Originally we were going to do the shadow on that show but since we've already talked about it here, and maybe I'll keep that, kick that a little down the
01:13:19
Speaker
the current for a while. Yeah, we talked about Mantis there and we've recently been talking about the reviewing all of the founding father image comics since it's 30th anniversary. So going through there, we had some pretty big success making fun of Rob Liefeld's art because we also post on TikTok. So we found like him,
01:13:49
Speaker
Some of his little shortcuts and young blood, number one, which, uh, really went over quite well. So, uh, I mean, we're really just there for laughs, but we also try to like throw in some information as well. So at reptilian media on YouTube, Twitter, or wherever you get podcasts. And that's where we are.
01:14:07
Speaker
Okay, great. Well, thanks a lot for coming on the show. It was an interesting discussion about the shadow. And yeah, and that does it for this episode. You can find us at superherocinephiles.com is the website, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. And be sure to like and review us on iTunes. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
01:14:31
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:14:51
Speaker
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01:15:35
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.