Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
164 Plays5 years ago
It’s pizza time as Perry and Derrick watch the classic 1990 live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Perry got introduced to the franchise as an impressible youth while Derrick was already a jaded adult, and yet there’s a lot of common ground. Find out why this film holds up so well and how it succeeds where Michael Bay’s reboot failed.
---
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/superherocinephiles/message
Recommended
Transcript
Opening Greetings and Enthusiasm
00:00:21
Speaker
Thank you! We were awesome! Vodacious! The chick! Gnarly! Radical! Totally too good to... Wicked! Delicious! Omega! I have always liked...
00:00:54
Speaker
Huh? Cowabunga! I made a money! All the half-shells they're the heroes for. In this day and age, who could ask for more? The crime wave is high, with muggings mysterious. All police and detectives are furious, because they can't find the source of this lethally evil force.
00:01:20
Speaker
This is serious, so give me a quarter. I was a witness, get me a reporter. Call April O'Neill, and on this case, hey, you better hurry up. There's no time to waste. We need help like quick on the double half-pity on a city. Man, it's in trouble. We need heroes like the Long Ranger. When Tonto came pronto, when there was danger, they didn't say we'd be there in half an hour, because they displayed journal power.
Technical Hiccups Pre-Show
00:01:52
Speaker
I am half of your host Perry Constantine and I am the other half Derek Ferguson coming to you after a whole host of technical issues with that we finally we got everything together folks this is
00:02:07
Speaker
This is like the cursed episode today, isn't it? Cause this week, I mean, cause we were supposed to record the other day and there was scheduling confusion and then, and then today, you know, I sign on and my mic's not working and then my internet's not working and then you couldn't find audacity. Yeah. Yeah. Oh no. Well, I mean.
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, okay, as far as Wednesday go, I thought we were doing it Friday as usual. I didn't know that we had, or I had forgotten or whatever, that we had agreed to do it on Wednesday. And so that was my fault. Because I said, wait a minute, we were supposed to record? I saw the thing from here. I said, wait a minute, we were supposed to record. And the funny thing was that I had watched the movie that we're going to do. I had watched it on Wednesday.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I saw the post you made about it in our Facebook group, so I thought, oh, okay, so he's on board, because he usually watches it the day of, so. Yeah, but here was the thing. Okay, it was on Netflix. They had on Netflix, because usually I go to Netflix first, and then if I can't find on Netflix, then I go to Amazon Prime. So it was on Amazon Prime for $3.99, you know, the rent, which I did, you know, $3.99, you know, what the hell, I don't mind.
00:03:19
Speaker
I don't mind spending four bucks for you guys. But it was on Netflix. But here was the thing. It was gonna be gone by May 1st, which is today. So I said, okay, well let me watch it now and make my show notes and everything like that so that I'll be ready on Friday. Yeah, but I had actually watched it Wednesday.
00:03:39
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay. But yeah, that was actually some confusion on my part because we had been recording normally on Wednesdays and then we had to change a few episodes because of just scheduling hiccups. Like I had something come up and I think you had something come up one time and I forgot to just confirm if we were gonna do it on Friday or Wednesday. And I just kind of assumed, which you know what they say about assumptions, you know, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me, so.
00:04:06
Speaker
See folks, this is all the fascinating backstage behind the scenes stuff that you don't get anywhere else.
00:04:15
Speaker
Okay, so all that aside, how you doing today?
Weather Updates and Personal Experiences
00:04:19
Speaker
I'm doing fine. As I said earlier, we were talking earlier, after like a couple of really crappy days of rain and it was gray and stuff like that, we had a beautiful sunny day, 70 degrees. So Patricia and I took the opportunity to get out and just drive around and see what was doing.
00:04:41
Speaker
You know, so today as Ice Cube said, today was a good day.
00:04:48
Speaker
That's good. Yeah, over here, the weather's gotten really warm. Like, I've started using the air conditioning now, because it gets really hot up down here in the summers. Really? And we're starting to get into that season. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In fact, the humidity is crazy here in the summer, especially in, like, August. I remember when I first came here, back then it was worse, because back then I was living, like, right near the ocean. Now I'm up in the mountains, so it's a little bit cooler. But back then, like, the first time I got here, I arrived in August.
00:05:17
Speaker
Seriously, I'd be outside like 15 minutes and I'd be dripping with sweat. That's how bad it was. Oh yeah. Like every single day I got home from work. First thing I did was take a cold shower. Yeah. Jump in and take a shower. I hear you.
00:05:34
Speaker
But yeah, but it's nice nicer up here and weather's nice and but we're probably going into lockdown for a little bit longer it looks like because My university yesterday was supposed to be the the last day that we were gonna be doing these zoom classes But then they said oh, we're extending it to the 20th now. Oh Okay
00:05:54
Speaker
Well, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. I think so, too. I think it's a good thing. And you know what? I kind of like the distance classes. I know some teachers don't like them, but it's been pretty good for me because I don't have to fight through rush hour traffic in the morning anymore. Oh, yeah. Well, there you go. That's a plus right there. Anytime you don't have to do traffic. Yeah. I was saying to Patricia the other week
00:06:19
Speaker
We had went to Long Island. We went up to Long Island. And it was just such a pleasure not having to fight traffic, because usually it takes us about two hours to get out there with the traffic and everything like that. But with no traffic, we zipped out there. We zipped back in no time at all. And I said, well, you know something? I see that the plague does have its upside.
00:06:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, occasionally, if I if I'm free, I'll drive my girlfriend to work and she works like in the center of the city. And, you know, we're not like Manhattan or anything over here, but it's it's big enough and crowded enough that you get a lot of traffic in the mornings. And usually that time of day when I
Pandemic Impact on Daily Life
00:07:01
Speaker
drive her, like we get a it's not too bad, but it's there's a fair bit. But the other day I drove her to work and it was like it was like a ghost town.
00:07:09
Speaker
Wow, okay. Yeah. Well, that's how yeah, that's like how it is here I mean now the traffic is becoming I noticed today that traffic was like a little bit heavier but that's because you know people I think because you know, there's the big push on over here to relax all of the social distancing and you know Trump has lost his mind and he's determined to open everything back up and you
00:07:32
Speaker
you know, so forth and so on. But Patricia and I, we made up our minds that we're going to continue doing what we've been doing because I'm of the opinion that, listen, until they come up with a vaccine, nobody is safe.
00:07:47
Speaker
I agree, I'm the same way. Although I will push back on you about Trump losing his mind because to lose your mind, you first got to have a mind to lose. Well, this is true. First you had to have a mind in order to lose it. So yeah, I give you that. So I mean, and yeah, I mean, I have no idea where we're going to end up after this. I say, listen, there's only, there's only one of three things that can happen now to cap the year off, either alien invasion, the rapture or zombie apocalypse.
00:08:15
Speaker
Well, didn't you see like it was NASA or someone actually like reveal that something about UFOs recently? Yeah, NASA. The way this year has been going, like it would not surprise me. I mean, when you think about it, impeachment was back in January. It feels like it was 10 years ago. Oh man. You know what? Matter of fact, the whole Trump presidency has felt like it's lasted 15 years.
00:08:40
Speaker
Oh, I feel like I've aged 15 years. Yeah, this is the shortest presidency that has lasted the longest simply because so much has happened. When you go back and when you look at all the different things that's happened, you say, my God, it's only been three years. Look at how much shit has happened. It's insane. It really is.
00:09:03
Speaker
You know if I were able to travel back in time 20 years and tell people what was gonna happen. They locked me in the booby hatch. Oh Absolutely throw me in the you know, you'd be like Bruce Willis and 12 monkeys. Yeah, exactly You know you would sound like a crazy man if you went back 20 years and tried to tell people what was going on right now They locked me up they would
00:09:27
Speaker
And I couldn't blame them. I couldn't blame them. I really couldn't. Oh, yeah. Neither could I. I mean, it's just so much crazy has been happening. It's insane.
Comic Book Continuity Issues
00:09:39
Speaker
But one of the nice things about this is it's given me more time because I've started taking drawing classes on Udemy. And so I saw this thing the other day about
00:09:50
Speaker
you know, fan art challenge or something. So I posted on my Facebook, you know, you guys want me to draw fan art of, you know, characters, you know, I said, you know, preferably superhero characters, because those are the ones I'm most familiar with. Then just, you know, tell me what character you want to see. So I've been doing a whole bunch of those. I've been posting them up on the Facebook group. And it's been fun. It's been a good way to get my mind off things. Yeah. So the Colossus and the Storm came out pretty good.
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah, the first few ones were not that great. And then the Colossus one and then the Storm one, they both came out much better. So I mean, that's great. Shows them making some progress. Yeah, yeah. I mean, those two are like my favorite so far out of all that you've done. Those two are like my favorite. Because I looked at the Colossus. Wow, that is really cool. I had to go with Punk's Storm because that's my favorite version of that character. OK.
00:10:39
Speaker
you know, from the 80s run that Claremont did. Yeah. That, that her, when she was, when she had the punk look and then she lost her powers, like she was totally badass. Yeah. That was the one where she, she fought Cyclops for leadership of the team and she kicked his ass with no powers. Yeah, she didn't have his powers and she fought that one eyed chick and she took over the Morlocks.
00:11:00
Speaker
that gang of mutants that was living underground in New York. Well, I was recently, also too, it was good. Like I had been recently rereading like a bunch of 80s X-Men comics. Like, cause there was some, I don't know, like about a week or two ago, Marvel had this two for one sale. So I just went on a binge buying a bunch of X-Men graphic novels of stories that I haven't read in years. So I've read like Mutant Massacre and the Australian Outback years and all that good stuff. Oh yeah, yeah. Which those were some of my favorite era of the X-Men comics.
00:11:30
Speaker
That was when the team was like, was mostly women, in fact, man, you know, even though they were the X-Men, most of the team was women. Yeah, I mean, the only guys, it was Wolverine, Colossus, Havoc, and Longshot, and the rest were all women. Yeah.
00:11:46
Speaker
So yeah, that was an interesting era. So it's nice going back to that. And you know, they're really, that was when Claremont was like really trying to be creative and push it in different directions. And it was, it's kind of disappointing that after that, they decided to throw all that away and go back to basics. Yeah, well.
00:12:03
Speaker
Usually that's what they do sooner or later with the X-Men. They say, you know, they say, okay, we gotta go back to basics. Well, I mean, that's what they do with everything, basically. And I understand why, because, you know, these are a brand and, you know, you gotta keep these characters kind of evergreen for new readers and all that. So I get it, but in the same, it's kind of like that. I get it, but at the end, I understand it, but at the same time, I don't completely like it. Well, I don't like it either, because you know what? I get, it used to be that they figured that the average
00:12:32
Speaker
life of a comic book reader was what, like about like 10 years? You know, because they figured like after a certain age, you know, like they stopped reading comics and everything like that. But such is not the case now.
00:12:45
Speaker
No, no. You don't have, like, comic book readers don't age out. I mean, you know, like, they used to. I remember when I was growing up, of course, you know, and then when I was, like, in high school and everything like that, you know, and people would say, oh, you still read those comic books because they figured that after a certain age, you know, you age out of reading comics. You didn't, you know, you didn't read them anymore. You know, but, you know, but such is not the case. I mean, you have more older people reading comic books than you have younger people.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, younger people tend to be more invested in anime and that kind of thing. Yeah, anime, video games and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, you know, they don't read comic books anymore.
00:13:23
Speaker
Well, they do. They're reading the manga. They're not really reading the superhero stuff. And part of the problem with that is because of all the continuity. So you come out of the Avengers movie, and you want to read some Avengers comics, you don't know where to start. Because there are like 10 different Avengers titles, and none of them have the characters from the movie. So it could be really confusing. Yeah, none of them have a blessed thing to do with what's going on with, you know.
00:13:53
Speaker
But that's something I think is going to be changing in the coming years because the old model is not working anymore. I think this crisis has kind of shown that and it's kind of like showing the cracks in the system. So I think they're going to probably try and do some different stuff and maybe do more like
00:14:10
Speaker
Because one of the things I like to that DC has done is they do these like standalone books that aren't really in any sort of set continuity. So you can watch like Superman the movie and then go read Superman all star Superman and you're totally fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's because you know what?
00:14:32
Speaker
As far as I'm concerned, the main thing that's wrong with DC and Marvel is that the continuity has become more important than the stories. The stories really don't matter anymore. They're more worried about the continuity. Right. And then you get different writers come on who they don't even know all the continuity. So they just go with what they remember, which causes more problems and makes it even more confusing.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Because, yeah, and then they just want to tend to just, which is why you keep getting, you know, issue one, you know, like a title where, you know, keep having issue one because the new people, they come on, they don't want anything to do what happened before.
00:15:09
Speaker
Right. And that's also another fault of the industry is just the numbering system and all that. It's because number one sell like hotcakes, so they put them out as often as they can.
TMNT Origins and Impact
00:15:21
Speaker
Right. But anyway, so to segue from comics, we're talking about a movie that was based on another comic book, but this was an indie one, and that's 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:15:31
Speaker
And this was my pick for the week. And I got introduced to the turtles through the cartoon that premiered in 87. Because I was at the perfect age. I was just starting elementary school. So I was right in that target demographic. And that show just sucked me in. I had turtle everything. I had turtle bedsheets, turtle pajamas, turtle clothes, turtle underwear, all the toys and the play sets and all the video games, everything.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's why I never got into the turtles myself because I was already a jaded adult by the time that it came out. And yeah, I noticed that there are certain things, if they don't hit you at the right age, you just don't get it.
00:16:17
Speaker
Right. Right. And I think that The Turtles was one of those things because I, you know, I mean, I just never got it. I said, OK, well, that's, you know, kitty stuff, you know, and I just never really I never really bothered with it. And in terms and when it comes to the cartoon, you're absolutely right. Like it was kitty stuff. I mean, that was like, you know, standard 80s cartoon fare where it was it was silly. It was goofy. And it was just total kid stuff meant to sell toys. That's really the only reason that show existed.
00:16:44
Speaker
Because Netflix has this series, The Toys That Made Us. Have you seen any of that? No.
00:16:52
Speaker
Oh, it's great. They talk about all these different toy lines and it goes like the history of them. Like they did one on Star Wars, they did one on Barbie, they did one on GI Joe, and they did one on the Turtles, they did one on Power Rangers, Masters of the Universe. It's really interesting stuff. And they did the Turtles one. And I didn't know this, but it seems that the toy line was actually what led them to get the TV series. Oh, okay. So one fed off the other.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, basically. But it's such a weird thing, because this was, yeah, we talked before about back in the 80s, they had this really weird thing where they would take these really violent properties and turn them into Saturday morning cartoon shows. Like you had Rambo, you had RoboCop. Yeah, Rambo of all things was a Saturday morning cartoon, yeah. Yeah, and Ninja Turtles was another one, because the comic book came out in, I wanna say, 84?
00:17:49
Speaker
And it was just this little black and white indie comic that they self-published with the money they got from a tax refund. And it was just supposed to be this little rinky-dink thing. It wasn't supposed to go anywhere. They killed off the shredder of the first issue because they didn't know if there was ever going to be a second issue. And it went...
00:18:08
Speaker
It was like the 80s version of going viral. And it just became such a huge mega hit in the comic world. And the comic was very dark and very violent, and it was part serious and also part parody because they were both really big fans of Frank Miller's Daredevil, which was coming out at the time, and also The New Mutants. So they decided, well, let's combine them together. And so they created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:18:36
Speaker
And so like the first issue, they're talking about how the ooze fell down the sewer and it was, they very subtle, they not so subtly implied that the radioactive material that changed the turtles and splinter was also the same stuff that blinded Matt Murdock. Oh, okay. Yeah, you know, something as a matter of fact, I do remember here, here is something like that, that yeah, it's supposed to be the same stuff. So that's why it, yeah.
00:19:05
Speaker
Okay, see, I can go for that. And I do remember reading the interview with them when they were saying that the whole Mutant Ninja Turtle thing was like a homage parody slash parody of Frank Miller and his overuse, some would say, of using ninjas in Daredevil.
00:19:24
Speaker
Oh yeah. And they also parodied that too because the main ninjas they fought were the foot clan, as opposed to Daredevil who always fought the hand. The hand, yeah, the hand and the foot. And see, it's so weird because I didn't know any of this stuff when I was a kid, obviously. So I saw the parody before I saw the real thing. Yeah. Well, as a kid, you didn't care about it. You didn't care about that story. Right, yeah.
00:19:50
Speaker
Right, so and, but yeah, and that and that comic series like their IDW has the publishing rights to the turtles now and they've been, and they've republished like collections of the original series and so I read through it a few months ago, and it's pretty good and they're doing a new series now where they brought back
00:20:09
Speaker
One of the creators, I think it was Kevin Eastman, I think it was Kevin Eastman who was doing it and he's like basically rebooted it from the ground up and started it all over again and gave him like a tweet to origin and all that kind of stuff. But the funny thing is, is that this movie, like it's a weird story how this movie got made because no studio wanted to touch it because Masters of the Universe flopped.
00:20:33
Speaker
And so they had to make it, and they had actually first tried to make it before the cartoon was even planned. But no studio wanted to touch it. And then, you know, they thought it was too ridiculous. Because this was, you know, this was pre-Batman when they were trying to get this thing greenlit. So nobody thought a superhero movie like this would sell anything. And the cartoon became a hit, and then they were worried because they thought a live action version of a Saturday morning cartoon would fail.
00:21:02
Speaker
And so it's interesting how it came out, because they took some elements from the animated series, like April being a reporter, that's something from the cartoon. In the comics, she was a lab assistant. Casey Jones has a much bigger role in the movie, whereas in the show, he was just kind of like this one-off character.
00:21:18
Speaker
Okay, but in the comics he's like a supporting cast member and also the origin is slightly different because in the comics it was Splinter was a was a real rat just like in the movie But in the TV show they combined him with his master So he was actually hamato Yoshi and then he got transformed into a
TMNT Film Adaptation Insights
00:21:38
Speaker
rat by the ooze. Oh, okay interesting
00:21:42
Speaker
And it was a bit of a darker take, right? The Foot Clan soldiers, they were real ninjas, they weren't robots like they are in the animated series because you've got these heroes who are fighting with swords and size and stabbing things. You can't have them stab real people on a Saturday morning cartoon show, so they had to be robots.
00:22:02
Speaker
Well, yeah, see, that's the thing. They have all the, you know, they have these characters with these deadly weapons, but then they can't use them like in the movie, you know, like in the movie. And I know that in the Superhero Cinephiles Facebook group, I think it was Tobias Christopher had mentioned that there was, you know, that there was a backlash against the violence.
00:22:24
Speaker
in this movie when it had its theatrical run. And I'm saying, wow, really? Because I'm watching the movie, and you know, the only thing that, who's the guy that has the swords? Which turtle has the swords? Leonardo. Okay, Leonardo. The only thing he cuts up with the swords is a slice of pizza.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, there's this one scene where he's fighting this one foot member and he keeps slashing him, and the foot member keeps ducking, and then when he fakes out the foot soldiers, like, gotcha, and he kicks him instead. Yeah, he kicks him instead. Yeah, you never see him cutting anybody with it, you know?
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, and they've got the nunchucks, but nobody has any broken. But, you know, this is the type of movie where, you know, it's violence, but it's not really violence, because nobody gets hurt, really. No, like the only one who I think ever actually hits someone with his weapon is Donatello, with his staff. Yeah, with his staff, that's it. But, I mean, you know, nobody gets killed in this movie. Nobody, you know, gets really hurt or anything like that. So, I mean, I really, I said, really? People can play by the violence in this movie? You're kidding me.
00:23:32
Speaker
Well, then also at the end, I mean, you got Shredder being crushed in a dump truck. Yeah, but even then, it's not like you have like blood gushing out all over the place and everything like that. I mean, this is a movie that, you know, this is one of those movies that fall into the category that adults, if adults watch it in the right spirit, they can enjoy it. But it's plainly made for kids, you know.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, and well, one of the things about it too is like the 80s were just a weird time and like this is like this came out in 1990, but it was around the same time and in the 90s too, like parents were getting ultra concerned about like everything back in those days. Like there was a campaign against Dungeons and Dragons. Oh, yeah, yeah into Satan worshipers and you know, I don't know there was something in the water back in the 80s and the 90s and parents just went crazy.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, there was a whole thing like even on TV for a while there from like 7 o'clock to like 9 o'clock. All of the networks had to show family programming.
00:24:33
Speaker
It couldn't be anything violent or too sexy. The networks had to wait until the later hours, like nine to 10 o'clock to put on their violent shows or their sexy shows or whatever like that. Yeah, it was a mandate that from seven to nine, it was just gonna be family program. It was that whole,
00:24:51
Speaker
You know, every once in a while we go through that crap in this country. Oh, everything's got to be for families. Everything has got to be for families. Well, I don't know. I believe that there should be some things for family, but there also should be things for adults, too.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? I don't know. This is just my theory that I just came up with spur the moment, but I wonder if it was just like some sort of collective post-traumatic stress disorder from like the race riots and the violence against civil rights protesters and the Vietnam war. And just like all these people who had grown up during that time were now adults and become parents. And then they were freaking out about all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well, see, you know what?
00:25:34
Speaker
The thing is that whenever a movement like that happens in this thing, those people, they want everybody to conform to how they think. And me, I've always had a problem with people that, okay, I'm of the mindset that, okay, if there's something that I don't like, I just don't watch it. But you know what, if you wanna watch it, yeah, go ahead. There's a lot of movies that I consider to be torture porn.
00:26:01
Speaker
You know, but listen, if that's what you want to watch, that's okay. I have a problem with these people that think like stuff like that shouldn't exist. Period. In other words, if they don't like it, it will, then it shouldn't exist. We should just get rid of it. You know,
00:26:16
Speaker
which of course is insane, you know, just cause you don't like it. You know, why are you infringing on somebody else who enjoys that type of stuff for better or for worse? I mean, you know, yeah, I drew the line at certain things, like of course child pornography and you know, stuff like that. But yeah, but you know, pretty much I'm a live and let live guy. You know, if you like something, hey, go ahead and watch it. And you know, God bless, you know, as long as you're not doing it and the road is scaring the horses.
00:26:43
Speaker
I mean, take it back to what you said we were talking about comic books earlier. And, you know, I see that all the time. Like I whenever there's like a post about, you know, the comics industry, like every every year, there's like, you know, a half dozen posts about how the comic industry is going to is going to be dead by this time next year. And it's not. But every time I see people commenting on it and saying, like, good, it should die. I'm like, why? Why do you want it to die? Why do you want it to die? You know?
00:27:10
Speaker
What, you know, did the comic industry drop a house on your sister or something, you know? Yeah, I mean, show me how the dog, where it touched you. Yeah, you know what, it's just a mentality that I don't understand and I can't get behind, you know, so, but that's just me.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm the same way. And yeah, there was a backlash against all sorts of kids' programming back in the day. There was backlash against even the Ninja Turtles cartoon show, which was so slapstick and campy. And even Power Rangers had this huge parents' backlash, just like, this is way too violent for kids. Yeah, well, I mean, listen, it even went to TV shows like the A-Team. You have the A-Team and the A-Team, no matter how many bullets they were firing, nobody ever got shot.
00:27:56
Speaker
Nobody ever got shot. And if you had a scene like there was a car chase or something like that, let's say the car flips over. The car would flip over. Somebody might be chasing the 18. Okay. The car would flip over and you would hear the guys in the car asking each other, are they all right? Are you all right, Sal? Yeah, I'm fine. How, you know, just, just like, you know, to make it clear. Okay. Nobody got killed.
00:28:16
Speaker
You know, so yeah, it was- In fact, a lot of TV shows, like kids' animated shows, they couldn't even, if there were guns in the show, they could not fire real bullets. They had to be like laser weapons. Yeah, right, exactly. And the exception to that was Batman the Animated Series, because they had guns that fired real bullets. But then there was other stuff, like in the, there was a Spider-Man cartoon in the 90s, and like they had really silly rules, like if Spider-Man lands on a roof, there can't be any pigeons there.
00:28:46
Speaker
or because he can't be shown to be killing pigeons or anything. I'm like, who comes up with this stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, really, and it just it just bothers my mind that people actually got get paid for this type of stuff, you know, and they're like that chick that's on The Simpsons all the time that the only line that she ever says is won't somebody think of the children?
00:29:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah. Reverend Lovejoy's wife. Yeah, Reverend Lovejoy's wife. And I think that they always have a woman like that or a man. Let me not be sexist. But they have a person in the room when they're coming up with these rules that that's their whole man date. Well, won't somebody think of the children?
00:29:30
Speaker
want somebody to take it to children. You know, we can't do this because the children might imitate it, you know, which is usually the whole rationale behind it. But we can't show this because kids might imitate it. And without realizing that, you know, kids have more sense than you give them credit for. They know they're watching a cartoon. They know this isn't real. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I grew up watching tons of violent movies. Like I watched Robocop when I was like five or something like that. And you know what? I turned out
00:30:00
Speaker
relatively okay. Yeah, I mean, I don't watch the Warner Brothers cartoons. Oh yeah, same here. Which is horrendously violent. I never drunk an animal on my sister's head or, you know, try to push them off a cliff. Yeah, because we know that was the cartoon. Now, one of the things that surprised me, because I know you're not a Turtles fan, like you said, you'd kind of aged out of that. You weren't in the target age group when this came out. Right. But you actually said that you saw this movie when it first came out in the theaters.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yes, I did. I saw it when it came out, which is not too remarkable because we're talking about the 80s. And during that period of the 70s and the 80s, I pretty much went to the movies like two, sometimes even three times a week because it was a lot cheaper to go to the movies back then. It was a lot cheaper. And what would happen was that you would have your first run movie theaters
00:30:54
Speaker
on Broadway that were a little bit more expensive and everything like that. But usually what I did was that I waited till the movies came to the grind houses on 42nd Street where it was cheaper. And you could see like a double even a triple feature. So yeah, so I don't remember, I don't remember if I saw this movie in a first-run movie theater on 42nd Street, but I do remember seeing it in the theater because a lot of times what would happen is that like after work and I worked in Manhattan
00:31:24
Speaker
And I work for the Board of Education, which means that I got off at like three, four o'clock in the afternoon.
00:31:31
Speaker
So what I would do is I would go and I would take in a movie. And that's how, you know, I said I went there. And, you know, me, I don't go see anything, really. So I said, let me go see this and see what it's like. I don't remember my impression of it back then to be honest with you. I must not have liked it or else I would have remembered a lot more about it because when I watched it Wednesday,
00:31:55
Speaker
It was just like watching a brand new movie, really. One that I had never seen because a lot of this movie I didn't remember. But then again, you know, 1990, you know. So yeah, there was a lot of it I didn't remember. Some of it I did, some of it I didn't. Yeah, like I've seen this movie several times over the years. Like I, you know, I had it on VHS back in the day as a little kid, I watched it all the time. And then I found it on DVD, like, I don't know about, this has got to go back like,
00:32:23
Speaker
probably 20 years now, when I found it on DVD, you know, I snapped it up right away and I've watched it several times since then. And you know what surprises me every time I watch it is it holds up really well. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, this is, you know, well, it was made in 1990, so which means that they made it around eight, but it cracked me up how this is so much 80s movie.
00:32:45
Speaker
Oh, you know, this is yeah, this is a 1980s movie.
Technical Achievements in TMNT Movie
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So what were some of your thoughts watching it this this time around? Because this is basically like, like you said, it's basically like the first time you saw it. Well, OK, the first thing let me say is that what really impressed the hell out of me was the, you know, the stunt work, the, you know, the guy, because it could not have been easy.
00:33:11
Speaker
to work in those suits? No, no, because those suits, they were not just like big rubber suits, but they had like animatronics in them as well to control the facial movements. So like all of that stuff, like when they're making those facial movements and stuff, there's a guy in that suit and that's like the robotics doing its work. Yeah, they had like somebody off to the side was controlling the mouth.
00:33:36
Speaker
And stuff like that. But I mean, it's a remarkable technical achievement. And those suits look really good. Even now, I was looking at it. Oh, yeah. There are some moments when you see like, you know, the the lips look a little unnatural and all that if you look closely. But for the most part, those suits, they still hold up really well. Yeah. Yeah. I was really amazed. I was well, they were made by Jim Henson, you know.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, this was the last movie he worked on before he died, actually. Yeah, his piece. So, I mean, hey, you know, when you're talking, I mean, when you talk about Jim Henson, you're talking about a guy that knows his stuff. So, I mean, I was amazed at even now, like I'm saying, and we're talking like, what, like 30 years, you know, later, and how good those suits look. Yeah, yeah.
00:34:25
Speaker
And the stunt work, because you're right, some of the actors who worked on the stunt men, they said that they'd take the suits off and they'd just be dripping with sweat, or they'd have people passing out because of it, because it was so hot inside those things. Yeah, and I mean, these guys are doing rolls and tumbles and flips and kicks and everything. I mean, they're doing actual martial arts moves. They're not faking it.
00:34:51
Speaker
Because I know that one of the guys that was in it is Ernie Reyes Jr., who, you know, who, you know, he knows his martial arts, you know. So I mean, these were actual martial artists in this. So they're not faking the moves. They're doing actual and to do it in those suits. Yeah, that couldn't have been easy. And in fact, Ernie Reyes Jr., he got an actual role in the in the sequel. He played the pizza boy. Oh, OK.
00:35:15
Speaker
So yeah, he played the pizza boy in the sequel who like kind of helps out the turtles and he can, he knows martial arts and stuff and he goes undercover for them in the foot clan and all that. So yeah, he got a, he, they brought him back to, and you know, I bet he was glad he didn't have to do all that stuff in the suit anymore. Yeah. Cause like I said, I, you know, my, my hats is off to, I mean, those guys that were in the suit because they're actually acting with their bodies.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of really good body language work that they do in this movie with those characters. Well, it really impressed me in that, OK, you have a movie where your four lead characters basically look the same. They all look the same. The only thing that differentiates them is the bands that they were, you know, the different colored bands that are around their eyes and their weapons.
00:36:07
Speaker
but through the voice and the body language, yeah, these guys do a pretty damn good job of giving each of the turtles different personalities. Yeah, and you know, that's something that they really kind of invented for this movie because the comic and the cartoon, they didn't have a whole lot of differentiation, especially in the early days. This movie really kind of gave them the personalities that now everybody associates with those characters.
00:36:35
Speaker
So, you know, Leo's like the stern leader type who, you know, the teacher's master's pet and all that kind of stuff. You know, Donnie's the intellectual whiz, the smart one, Raph's the, you know, the kind of the brash, sarcastic one, and Mike's like the, you know, the fun-loving kid, basically like a big kid type of character. Yeah, I like how they gave like Raphael, they gave him like his own like kind of little subplot.
00:37:05
Speaker
The movie with him dealing like his anger issues because he's got anger issues. He's very resentful He's very you know, he likes being by himself and they have a nice scene with splinter You know to sit some down and talk to him and try to say well, you know what? You know, I kind of worry about you because you know, you know You're not dealing with your anger very well and Raphael's trying to explain them why you know Well, I'm angry all the time. I don't really know why you know
00:37:28
Speaker
And it's a nice, you know what, if anybody told me that it would be a nice little bit of characterization between a giant rat and a giant turtle, you know, I would have said, get the hell out of here. But it is a nice little sweet little scene, you know, that's in there, which shows me that, you know, they treated these characters, the, you know, the screenwriters and, you know, the director, I think his name is Steve Bannon. Baron?
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah, Steve Bear. Oh, good. Thank God. That they had respect for these characters as characters and they were not afraid to give them scenes to, you know, accentuate the fact that these characters have feelings and emotions and aspirations and, you know, what have you.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, well, Steve Barron, he was a fan of the comic books. He met with Eastman and Laird, who were the creators, and he showed them the comic books. He showed them a bunch of comic books. He's like, that's the movie right there. It's right there in those pages. We don't really have to do much else.
00:38:32
Speaker
And you know, I always like when a director has that mentality, when they're like, well, I'm not gonna, like we were talking last week with Aquaman and James Wan. I was like, you know, well, no, we don't have to change this stuff. This stuff is just fine the way it is. Yeah, it's right there. You know, everything that we want is right there. You know, we don't need to tinker with it. We don't need to change a whole bunch of stuff around. Let's just put it up on the screen.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah, and in fact, but there was some pushback on Barron, because Barron actually wanted to make the movie more violent, more like the comic book. And he was actually like removed from the movie, like towards the end of production. So like there was some other stuff that was probably supposed to be, there's some other scenes and stuff that were supposed to be more violent, but he was taken off. So he wasn't able to do like exactly what he wanted to do. But even that being said, like they still get a lot more right with this movie than they get wrong.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, like, I mean, I have no previous knowledge of the turtles and I don't know their backstory, you know, the way that you do. I don't know anything about that. But I found that this movie for somebody like me just coming into after seeing it again, after all this time, it was very accessible. They did a great job of just like establishing the characters and their relationship. And it was not hard for me to, you know, say, OK, well, OK, I got this.
00:39:51
Speaker
and in a very short amount of time too, right? Like it's just like their origin story is basically just like a five minute conversation that April has with Splinter. Yeah. And right in there, he tells you everything you need to know. And they break it up because then they later tell the origin story, Splinter's origin story, how he ended up coming to America, how he knows martial arts, you know, his connection to the Shredder and the Foot Clan. And they end up doing that later in the movie, which I thought was a nice way to break it up.
00:40:18
Speaker
Well, you know me, I have a fondness for 80s movies anyway, because I don't know. I'm the type of person, not every movie or TV show or comic book or what have you needs to have a ton of backstory to explain.
00:40:36
Speaker
you know, where we are and how we get there. Like, what's in there? Casey Jones in this movie. We actually know nothing about Casey Jones. He just shows up and becomes part of the crew. And you know, that's it. You know, we don't need to, because we didn't need to know anything about Casey Jones until that moment. Exactly. They tell us exactly what we need to know. And they give us a little hint of his backstory. When him and April are at the at the farmhouse, they're on the swing and he's, and she says, you actually played professionally. He says, yeah, before I, before I got injured.
00:41:05
Speaker
Right, exactly. There's this little bit of backstory and the actor who plays him, Elias Koteas, you know.
00:41:14
Speaker
veteran actor, he's been in tons of stuff. He's been in like everything. But this was what I always most associate with him because this was the first thing I'd ever seen him in. Like to me, he's always Casey Jones. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at it and I'm saying that, well, this is the guy, you know, and I always have mine every movie. I always have mine. Well, who the hell led him in this movie? And yeah, he,
00:41:38
Speaker
That's his, that's his slot in here. I looked at him because I completely forgotten he was in this movie. And I said, Oh shit, Elias coach. I said, who the hell let him in this movie? You know, he looks like he's having the, he looked like he's having a ball and he has that great, and he has that great scene where he confronts, you know, the street kids that the foot clan has been recruiting as their street show soldiers. And he has a great scene where he just like reads them to riot at and basically tell, and basically tell, you know, all this is bullshit, you know?
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, because they're trying to say like, oh, and you know who that guy he's talking to is, right? The actor who played that kid he was talking to? Oh my god, Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell, yeah. Holy shit. Talking about who led him in this movie. Yeah, I said, wait a minute. And I did not know it was him until, like I said, I was doing my research and I was looking up the cast and everything like that. I said, wait a minute, Sam Rockwell. And then I went back and looked at the movie again. And then when I took a good look at him, I said, oh, yeah, I can see it now. OK.
00:42:37
Speaker
i said wow he looks so different like you got a squid to recognize him in that role yeah yeah i mean like you like i said i had to go back and i had to watch it and then i paused it like it's the scene where he's bringing in a bunch of new recruits and he's giving them cigarettes and then there's another scene like that scene where you know casey jones is reading the kids the riot act and there's a really good shot of his face
00:43:01
Speaker
And that's what you can really see is Sam Rockwell. And then you look at, you said, OK, yeah, that's him. That's Sam Rockwell. Yeah. And you know, Koteas, he really throws himself into this role. Like you said, he looks like he's having such a good time. And he really embodies that character, I think. Every time I think of Casey Jones, I always think of Elias Koteas, because I think he captured that character better than anybody
TMNT Character Dynamics
00:43:24
Speaker
else.
00:43:24
Speaker
And, like, that scene in the park when he and Raf meet for the first time, that scene is, like, one of my favorites in this movie. Because him and Josh Pius, who... He's the only one who actually was the guy inside the suit, and he did the voice work for one of the turtles. Everyone else, they had a suit actor and they had a voice actor. But Josh Pius did both.
00:43:45
Speaker
And Pius and Koteus, in that scene, they have this great back and forth with each other. Yeah, they're going back and forth. And he's pulling out all the baseball bat and the cricket bat and the hockey stick. And I said, well, wait a minute. What the hell? I said, is that a golf bag? He's toting on his shoulders with all of this stuff. And they have a nice little back and forth.
00:44:12
Speaker
It resonates like later on when the turtles are fighting the foot clan and Casey Jones shows up and they say, what are you doing? And he said, listen, you're beating up on my friend there and you act and you honestly believe it when he says, you know, that's my friend you're beating up on, you know.
00:44:27
Speaker
Because he sees them, he sees them across the street, which, you know, there's a bit of coincidence in this movie, but it works for the story it's telling. But he spots Raph on the roof across the street, and then he goes over there, and you think he's going to pick a fight with him. But then he comes in and he helps the turtles out. Yeah, and he kind of just, you know, like, very, it cracks me up how, you know,
00:44:51
Speaker
He's a guy, you know, you would think that, okay, one turtle would be enough, but even he's not too freaked out when he meets Raphael and they have the fight scene. He's not all that freaked out by fighting this, you know, this human-sized turtle. Well, you know, what I love about this is, yeah, he has that scene where he says he sees him with his hat come down. He's like, he's like, oh, what are you? He's like, you're a punk-er? I hate punk-ers, especially ones that wear masks over their ugly faces with green skin. Yeah.
00:45:21
Speaker
But you know, there's that thing where like a lot of the New Yorkers who encounter the turtles in this, they don't seem surprised by a lot of this stuff. Like there's that cab driver when Raph rolls over the hood of his car and the passenger's like, what the hell was that? And the cabbie's just like, oh, it looked like a green turtle in a trench coat. Yeah, it was a turtle. Yeah, but you know, that's that whole New York vibe. Like, you know, nothing fazes a New Yorker, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know, we've seen it all, you know, so hey, it's just,
00:45:46
Speaker
And after he tells the passenger, the passenger says, oh, OK. And he says back in the seat like, oh, OK, cool. And they go about their business like, it's all right. But yeah. Oh, man. And I also like that scene that
00:46:05
Speaker
He also has this great scene with Donatello later on when they're fixing the truck. And they're exchanging insults back and forth in order of the alphabet. In alphabetical order, yeah. They're coming up with a hose braid. Because Donatello says, OK, well, what are you up to now, in case he says, OK, like H. And then you get what they do. He says, oh, OK.
00:46:29
Speaker
And then you had, uh, Judith Hogue as, uh, April in this. And, you know, it's funny, she was working on another movie with Robin Williams when she got this part. And she told Robin Williams about it. And Robin Williams, right away, he gives her a stack of comic books, because he's- he's a huge fan of comic- he was a huge comic book fan. He loved The Turtles. So he gave her, like, this huge stack of comic books for her to read, and told her all about her character and everything. Oh, cool.
00:46:52
Speaker
So yeah, it's a nice little Robin Williams connection in that. But you know, she doesn't quite, like she had a lot of problems on the set. Yeah, and it shows.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah. And that's why, like, in the sequel, she was recast. I think Paige Turco played April in the sequel, because they didn't want her back, because I think she, even afterwards, she went out around bad-mouthing the movie, like, saying it was too violent, as well, and that kind of stuff. Yeah, she... Great legs, though. But, you know, she works too hard at the plucky girl reporter.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, and she doesn't really sell it at all. Yeah, she's like, you needed somebody like Aaliyah Thompson to like sell this role. See, Aaliyah Thompson went in there. You know who else was in the running for the part of April? Who? Nicole Kidman.
00:47:45
Speaker
Okay, Nicole Kidman. Oh yeah, well, Nicole Kidman would have sold, yeah. Yeah, I think if they, I don't know why they didn't go with Nicole Kidman, but she would have, she would have sold that role a lot better, I think. Oh, absolutely, yeah. She would have sold, because, you know, not that, you know, not that I didn't, not that I don't like Judith Hoag outright, you know, I mean, because there's, again, there's a nice little scene where she's bonded with the turtles after they've saved her and they've taken her to their home down in the sewer.
00:48:17
Speaker
and then they take her back to her place and they're eating pizza and they're just laughing and hanging out and you know doing silly shit like you know they're doing impressions oh yeah and that was a nice little scene also again there's also a nice moment there about the relationship between Raf and Mikey because you know
00:48:37
Speaker
Mike's like, oh, wait, you're going to love this. And then Raph kind of grows like, oh, not Cagney again. Yeah, right. Exactly. You know, so it was again, it's a nice little scene of characterization that I appreciate because you didn't have to do it. But I'm glad that you did, you know, to slow down action a little bit in order that we get to know these characters a little bit better before the mayhem starts.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, so that was a nice little scene. But yeah, otherwise, like I said, she, you know, she, you know, she tries to sell the plucky girl reporter a little bit too hard. So yeah, she's, she's kind of felt, felt kind of off in this movie. But like, I love all the turtles, they get little moments together, right? Like there's the scene when they're in the apartment and Leo and Raf are going at it. And then Don and Mikey are, are just kind of like, you know, fight, fight, kitchen, kitchen. And they're just kind of like, you know, we, we've seen this all before.
00:49:31
Speaker
Yeah, and they're off to the side and they're just like saying, yeah, let's go to, and they're just sitting in the kitchen and saying, you know, let them to, you know, have it out. You know, this is something we see all the time anyway. So, you know, what the hell? Yeah. And I like those little moments. Like they really, those little moments, they do a long way to sell the fact that you get, you know, that these, you feel that these guys are brothers.
00:49:51
Speaker
And I think that those little moments, they really helped to sell that notion. And like all the characters, they feel like, you get a sense that these characters all do like each other. And even when they're fighting against each other, like there's that, after Raph is injured, and then Leo is the one who's like the most broken up about it, because he feels so guilty, because he's the one who sent him away, basically. Right, exactly, yeah. And you know, so as we've said before,
00:50:18
Speaker
in, you know, in examining these movies, you know, it's not all about the fighting and the, you know, and all the superpowers and everything like that. What makes it is the relationship between these characters and use. And as you say, quite accurately, you know, we buy that these are brothers, you know, because they do what family does. You know, they bicker and then they come back together and, you know, they go through their little things. But at the core of everything, you know,
00:51:15
Speaker
they're all together.
00:51:18
Speaker
and they're fighting and then Splinter's like, hey, 10 flips now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what I like is that they give Splinter this very warm, compassionate,
00:51:32
Speaker
personality because there's a scene where he's been captured by the foot clan and that little annoying little snot, uh, Dan, you know, he comes into where splinter is hung up, you know, he's chained to the fence and everything like that. And splinter says to him, you know, we'll come over and you know, when he says, Oh yeah, well,
00:51:51
Speaker
you know since your trouble well if you're here you know with the foot plan you got problems you know you know if you need an ear to talk to you know i mean the guy's chained up on the fence and he's still being a counselor to this kid you know which i thought was kind of you know
00:52:07
Speaker
I'm glad you mentioned that scene because I was gonna bring that up too because that's another really touching scene when not so much Danny because like you said yeah he's a little annoying brat but but it's splinter who sells that scene because he there's that time when you know Danny's like yo my dad couldn't care less about me and then splinters like you know I don't think that's true he's like because all fathers care for for their sons and he you know he says that with the and you know
00:52:30
Speaker
the way he, the tone in his voice and just the way that they animate the creature in that scene. Like you really feel the emotion in that for some reason. I mean, listen, when you have a movie and the character that comes across with the most emotion and heart in the movie is an animatronic rat.
Splinter's Emotional Depth
00:52:51
Speaker
Now see, now, okay, see that's talent.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah. That's artistry. Okay, to me, that's art right there. When there's an animatronic rat that comes across with the most art and the most personality and the most warmth out of any of the characters that's in the movie. Love's a strong point of Guardians of the Galaxy as well, because that scene when Groot's protecting them all, and they're about to, from dying, and he's basically sacrificing himself, and he says, we are Groot. I mean, I...
00:53:21
Speaker
I start weeping every time I watch that scene. Oh, man, listen. Listen, if that don't get you, then you have no heart. Yeah. When he says we are good, yeah. If that don't get you, I'm sorry. Me and you can't be friends because I lose it when, yeah, I'm with you on that scene. When I saw it in the movie theater, there wasn't a dry eye that was in the house. No, no. In fact, I'm actually tearing up now just thinking about it.
00:53:51
Speaker
But, you know, like you said, that is art. I mean, it takes real talent to do something like that and to pull it off when you've got an animatronic rat, which obviously just by virtue of what they had available technology wise at the time, you can only do so much with that. And so it's relying a lot on basically
00:54:14
Speaker
you know, a bodyless voice to really carry the emotion in that. And they, I don't know how they did it, but they did it. Well, actually, you know, that's something that I noticed that actually in most of the scenes he's in, Splinter's stationary. He's not moving.
00:54:31
Speaker
No, yeah. Yeah. I think there's a scene toward the end where he's confronting Shredder on the rooftop. And really, that's the only time we ever really see Splinter in action when he's moving. Every other time, he's either sitting down or he's chained up on that fence. And that's it. Yeah, that's a good point. Never thought about that. But you're absolutely right. He's totally stationary most of the time.
00:54:59
Speaker
And so you mentioned the Shredder. I want to talk a little bit about him. Like, you know...
00:55:06
Speaker
One of the weaknesses in this movie is I think the Foot Clan in general, because in the comics, they're actual trained ninjas. But in this movie, you know, they're a bunch of wayward kids. So it's kind of hard to buy them as being ninja experts. Yeah, you know what? You never get the feeling that they're actually a credible threat. Like really the only guys who are like is Shredder and the other guy, the bald-headed guy, that's like his right hand man.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah. Tatsu. Yeah. Okay. Those are the only, but the rest of them, like you said, did like these street kids that, you know, they're taking in. They turn it for whatever reason. They don't explain why in the movie that they're doing this, you know, I guess, you know,
00:55:49
Speaker
I mean this is just a bad guy thing to do so yeah that's why they're doing it but uh yeah you never really get the impression that this ragtag bunch of street kids no matter how much you dress them up like ninjas and give them ninja weapon like they're really much of a threat
00:56:07
Speaker
you know, to the turtle. And yeah, Tatsu, actually, he, a Japanese actor, Toshishiro Obata, who he was in Demolition Man. He was in Red Sun Rising with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. He was also in The Shadow movie as one of the, as one of the Mongols. And he was in Showdown with Little Tokyo. Yeah, he's in a whole ton of stuff, that guy.
00:56:30
Speaker
And you know what, the guy who plays Shredder is James Saito, but he didn't voice the character. Which again, I thought was kind of disappointing because James Saito is a pretty good actor. It's too bad they didn't, I mean, there's some, I think there's some racism going on in there where they thought like an Asian actor couldn't be understood on screen with a mask covering his face. Ooh. But other than that, like...
00:56:52
Speaker
And it is kind of a pity that he doesn't get to voice himself. And you have this white guy who's doing the voice instead. But the thing that killed me about Shredder though is that when he walks in that first time and he's got the cape on and everything, like he looks imposing, he looks menacing, but then you get a shot of him in the light and he's wearing like this hot pink jumpsuit. Yeah, yeah. Kind of takes the menace out of, you know,
00:57:20
Speaker
You being this badass supervillain, when you're wearing pink, quite frankly. Yeah. And it's like shimmering pink. Now call me sexist if you want, folks. I don't care. But you know what? You cannot convince me that you are a badass ninja supervillain when you're wearing shimmering hot pink.
00:57:40
Speaker
Now, to Saito's credit, even though he didn't get to do any voice work, like, he does a lot, we were talking before about body language, he does a lot of good things with his body language to make this character feel threatening, even with that ridiculous costume. Yeah, that's how you, you know, with all the blade, and even the Turtles make fun of it. They said, well, you know, he doesn't have any problem opening up cans.
00:58:00
Speaker
Yeah. When they beat him for the first time and said, well, who's this guy? I don't know. But he don't have no problem opening up cans. I'll tell you that. They don't even take them seriously. No, no. That's a great point, too.
00:58:15
Speaker
It's one of the, it's the parody aspect of it, right? They're willing to make fun of themselves, acknowledge that, you know, yeah, some of this stuff is silly. Yeah, I mean, like, who walks around in the suit that's basically, you know, gintu knives? I worry about what happens when he has to go to the bathroom. Oh, lord, yeah.
00:58:32
Speaker
him and that other guy, the guy from the Master Kung Fu comics, there was a guy, one of his occasional enemies that he would fight. Oh, Razor Fist. Was a guy called Razor Fist, who didn't have any hands and he just had these blades on the end of his arms. And I said, now, what does he do? Does he have a guy that he hires to, you know, wipe him when he goes to bed? That's the only thing I can figure.
00:58:59
Speaker
You know, because they came out with epic collections of the old Master of Kung Fu run that I picked up and read. And the entire time, every time I see Razor Fist, I kept thinking about that. Yeah. Like, how does he do anything? Yeah, how does he do it? How does he eat? You know, how does it, you know, even if they had had a scene somewhere in there where they show that maybe he has like these robot arms that he, you know, he takes off the blades and, you know, puts on these robot arms.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Cause I'm saying, wait, this cat can't walk around with these blades on his stumps all day long. Oh, yeah. That's comics for you. I mean, his comic books, folks.
00:59:41
Speaker
It's like that line about who changed the tires on the Batmobile. Nobody does it. Nobody does it, yeah. Oh, is there anything else we need to touch on in this movie? Let me see. We covered stunt work, the acting, the...
00:59:58
Speaker
No, I think that's what I mean, you know, one of the fun things about doing this podcast with you is that, you know, I'm getting this because I would have never probably went back and watched Teenage. I know for a fact I would have never thought to go and watch Teenage music, Mutant Ninja Turtles on my own if you hadn't brought it up.
01:00:17
Speaker
But what I'm finding out is that I'm enjoying seeing these movies that I would have never went back to the store on my own, you know? And this is one of those movies. I would have never went back to the store. Now, having said that, while I'm watching it, I'm saying to myself, you know something? This ain't bad. This actually is pretty damn good. If I had kids, this is a movie that I would, this would be the gateway drug into superhero movies. I would give this to my kids a lot.
01:00:47
Speaker
You know, I was reading something last night about Power Rangers and one of the original actors on the show, you know, he, after he stopped acting, you know, he went to, he did some work in Afghanistan, like working as a healthcare provider over there in the war. And then he came and he got a call from one of his old cast mates saying, why don't you come over to this comic book column with him? He's like, he's like, why would I do that? He's like, nobody will remember Power. He's like, you kidding? No, those fans are grown up now and they're watching it now with their kids.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know what? I could see that. I could see somebody who, who having watched this movie as a kid, would sit down and watch it with their own kids and say, listen, this is something that I enjoyed. And I could see, you know, I, I remember what was it? About a year or so ago, maybe a couple of years ago. Uh, I watched
01:01:36
Speaker
because there was a movie in 2017, it was like a darker version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They look like, you know, I mean, they look like- Oh yeah, the Michael Bay one. Oh, that was, oh, wait a minute, that was talking about Michael Bay? Yeah, Michael Bay produced that one. He didn't direct it, but he produced it, and that's why Megan Fox is in it. Yeah, and it was like a dark, I mean, they were like really muscular and bulked up, and they looked more like monsters.
01:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was like everything was like big and loud It was just like it was they took like all they suck like all the charm out of the turtles in that thing Okay, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking about that movie While I was watching this cuz cuz don't ask me why I thought this was the same movie as this one and then when I watched that I said well No, well, this is a reboot or whatever like that and it was supposed to be like
01:02:27
Speaker
quote unquote adult and dark and grim and gritty and all that other bullshit and everything like that and now that in my mind I'm comparing these two movies and that was the point I was going to make that version took all the charm and and that's what this movie has going forward it's got charm this is a movie that actually charmed me while I was watching it yeah I mean this thing's got charm coming out of his ass and that
01:02:51
Speaker
And also like some of the choices they made in the remake, I don't understand where they were coming from. Like they had the Shredder who's, you know, a ninja master, but they got him in this giant suit of armor with all these swords and stuff coming out of it. It's like, why? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a bizarre movie. I saw it and I said, you know, well, and now that I'm, like I said, I'm rerunning some of the scenes of both movies.
01:03:18
Speaker
on two different screens in my head. And I'm saying that that's not, you know what, that's a version that is made for the modern comic book fan who insists that everything be realistic and, and, and darn. And you know, oh, well, it's gotta be real. Oh, it's gotta be grounded in realism, you know, which is, that's a phrase now I have come to detest because
01:03:41
Speaker
usually nine times out of ten that usually that's a signal to me now that the filmmakers okay well you just threw everything out the window that you didn't like and you just put in a whole bunch of bullshit you know anytime I hear that phrase well it's got to be grounded in reality oh okay listen these are wait a minute these are mutant turtles
01:04:02
Speaker
that got intelligence by, you know, some radioactive—where's the grounded in reality in that? Exactly, yeah. I mean, you gotta acknowledge the ridiculous aspects of this, and that's where the charm comes from. If you try to explain that away, it doesn't work. Yeah. And that remake, I mean,
01:04:22
Speaker
Uh, God, we know what else about that remake, too. They basically stole the plot from the Amazing Spider-Man movie in that movie. Really? Because Shredder's trying to spread the mutagen all across the city in, like, aerosol form. That's exactly what the lizard tried to do in Amazing Spider-Man.
01:04:38
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now I think about, yeah, you're right. As long as I only saw that one time, I said, well, this is, you know, and I have a lot of respect and I appreciate a movie that when it has a ridiculous premise, you know, like this movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it's a ridiculous premise, but you know something? Have the confidence to go ahead and just embrace the ridiculousness of it.
01:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, and make that work for you, which is what this movie, like I said, this movie charmed the pants off of me. 30 minutes in, not even 30 minutes, I'm like 20 minutes in. Okay, by the time we get to the scene with Casey Jones and Raphael having the fight, you notice the part? Okay, I was all in.
01:05:20
Speaker
by the time I got up to that scene, I said, okay, I'm in it. I, you know, I stopped watching it with a critical eye and I started just enjoying it. Right. Yeah. And they do that. They embraced the ridiculous, like there's the scene when they're watching the tortoise and the hare and they're rooting for the turtle and they're like, come on, just ninja kick the damn rabbit.
01:05:41
Speaker
Oh, and Mikey, they come back from training in the farmhouse, and April asks him if he wants some ointment, and he says, no, no. And he takes turtle waxes. As a can of turtle wax, yeah. And even they laugh about it. Which I'm saying, well, did they really want the turtle waxes? Were they doing that just to break up the tension of the situation they were in? Well, actually, that was intense.
01:06:01
Speaker
Because there was a there was a deleted scene, a delete or deleted sequence where Mikey was in a bit of a depression after losing splinter and with Raph being injured. And so when they first got to the farm, he was like he was like suffering under depression and like he punches a hole through a wall at one point. And so in that scene, it makes so much more sense because the whole point of that scene was it was Mikey coming out of his funk now that Raph was back.
01:06:25
Speaker
And one thing that I appreciate about this movie, which I always do, by now, if you guys out there, if you don't know that I'm such a fan of 1980s movies, is because back then, they knew how to make movies that were not bloated. And this movie doesn't have any fat on it. No, no, it's very streamlined. Yeah, it's very streamlined. I mean, the plot goes from A to B to C to D. You know, it's always moving. It's always, you know,
01:06:56
Speaker
There's no scenes in here that's put in here just to pad out the running time or whatever like that. You know, right. There is no, which I appreciate. Of course, now I get to think from people talking about, oh yeah, but you know, well, what about the world building? And I appreciate having the, no, no, no, no, no, no. Some things you don't need. And this movie definitely didn't need that. It gives us the premise. Okay, these are mutated turtles.
01:07:23
Speaker
Their sensei is a rat that learned ninjutsu when he was in his cage and he just imitated his master. It's a thing that listen, if you're gonna watch a movie, first of all, okay, if you're gonna watch a movie that's called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you can't sit there and poke holes in it.
01:07:45
Speaker
Because they're telling you right up front what it's going to be about. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now, if you're going to sit there, then you want to put on your realistic hat and say, well, this isn't realistic, or that is a realistic. OK, well, then you need to go watch the Christopher Nolan Batman movies then. You know, don't watch this movie.
01:08:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is not a movie. I mean, the Turtles in general, they're not for someone who doesn't like fun.
TMNT's Generational Appeal
01:08:11
Speaker
Yeah. Because it started out as a parody. Like, when they came up with the characters, they were just doing random sketches and trying to make each other laugh. That was the genesis of the idea. And, you know, so you just got to embrace that aspect of it.
01:08:25
Speaker
even the the toy makers when they were making the toy line like they were coming up with all these ridiculous concepts like a lot of body humor and that kind of stuff using it like they had one character who his mutation was he had a giant nose and he blew snot out of his nose and all this kind of stuff right they're just having fun with it yeah and and considering
01:08:45
Speaker
You know, one thing that always has amazed me about the whole, uh, concept of this is, is how long it has actually lasted. Oh yeah. So, I mean, there's gotta be something to it. If it's lasted, you know, like you said, I mean, you know, it started, I mean, you know, like back during the eighties.
01:09:03
Speaker
And, you know, there's still a lot of interest in, I mean, you know, the franchise. Don't they have an animated series that's on now? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing I was about to mention is that almost every generation has their own Turtles TV show. Like back in the 80s, early 90s, we had the original cartoon. In the early 2000s, they did another cartoon that was really good. It was much closer to the comics.
01:09:29
Speaker
About like 10 years after that they rebooted with another show which is like most like mostly CGI and and now they've got a new show out now and so yeah, they're always like bringing it back and and it's one of those concepts that you know
01:09:44
Speaker
Kids just love it. It just, it keeps bringing them in. And wasn't there a CGI movie? Yeah, there was a CGI movie and it was like around 2005, 2006, somewhere around there. And that was pretty good. That was actually kind of a loose sequel to the first two live action movies. Okay.
01:10:03
Speaker
But that was good.
Notable Voice Talents
01:10:04
Speaker
It had, in fact, that one had, that one had some big name voice talent in it because it had Sarah Michelle Geller was April, Chris Evans did the voice of Casey Jones, Patrick Stewart did the voice of the villain. What's her name? Z Zang did the voice of Karai who's like the, who takes over for the shredder
Movies and Lifelong Attachments
01:10:26
Speaker
after he's dead.
01:10:26
Speaker
Well, I've noticed that a lot of people, especially like actors and stuff like that, I've noticed that that a lot of them, like this is one of the things that they grew up with. So they, like you said, if it, this is one of these things that if it catches you at the right age, you fall in love with it and you're in love with it for the rest of your life. Like me, like, okay, when Speed Racer came out,
01:10:48
Speaker
You know, like the movie Speed Racer, man, I was in seventh heaven because I grew up with Speed Racer. And I feel about Speed Racer the way that you feel about, I mean, you know, the turtles, you know? Yeah, because it caught me at the right age. And something else, you know, talking about introducing it to future generations, like that's something that I remember growing up with is I like the Sean Connery James Bond movies because my dad used to watch them with me when I was a kid.
01:11:17
Speaker
And that's why Sean Connery is my favorite James
Love for 'Diamonds are Forever'
01:11:19
Speaker
Bond. Well, OK, I'm glad you brought that because I get into this all the time with people because my favorite James Bond movie is Diamonds are Forever, which universally is regarded as the worst of the Sean Connery James Bond movies.
01:11:35
Speaker
Okay, I'm not gonna defend the movie, and I never do defend the movie. It's my favorite simply because it's the first James Bond movie I saw in the theater and I saw it with my father. Also along those lines, I like, You Only Live Twice is one of my favorite Bond movies. Not because it's a good movie, but a lot of that was filmed in the part of Japan where I live, which has become my home now, so I feel a real attachment to that movie because of that.
01:11:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of things you attach to, you know, simply because of sentimental feelings. Like I said, you know, with that James Bond movie, Diamonds are Forever. I mean, every time it's on, I watch it, and yet the plot makes absolutely no sense. As a matter of fact, halfway through the movie, they completely forget about the diamond smuggling plot. And it goes into Blofeld trying to take over the world with the, you know, it's a crazy plot, but...
01:12:26
Speaker
Like I said, every time I watch it, it brings back those memories of when I saw it. I mean, you know, with my father, which especially now that he has passed away, it makes the movie even more special to me. And what else? You know, we saw The Wild Bunch. That was like my first grown up movie. Yes, folks, I am that old that I actually saw The Wild Bunch in the theater. But again, it was special to me because it was like my first grown up movie and I saw it with my father.
01:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, so these movies I think you know
01:12:58
Speaker
When they catch us at the right age, they resonate with us and it brings back those memories that we had when we first saw it, when we first discovered it. And that's why there's some things that people say, Oh, you know, it's, Oh man, I watched so and so growing up and I loved it. And people say, Oh, you really liked that? And, you know, don't scoff at people when they say that, you know, this is something that they love, you know, when they was, because that means a lot to them, you know, it really does.
01:13:24
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, I would mention Power Rangers earlier because back in the day, I also got really into Power
Nostalgia with Power Rangers
01:13:30
Speaker
Rangers. That hit me at the right age. And now it's on Netflix. Right. So when I'm like reading or something like that, I like to have something out of the background. I like what I want to have some background noise. So usually I'll just put on some show on Netflix. And so I chose, you know, put on Power Rangers.
01:13:44
Speaker
And you know, I find myself, I'm often looking up from my iPad, just like kind of like getting reabsorbed into it. The entire time I'm thinking like, yeah, this is cheesy. Yeah. That's just like mostly stock footage that they've reused a thousand times in this one episode. But there's a, there's a charm to it because that hit me at the right age. Yeah. I mean, when you were watching it at the time, yeah, you didn't care. You just didn't care about any of that stuff, which is why I think that
01:14:13
Speaker
There are certain ages when it's the best time for you to discover something because once you get to be an adult, a crusty jaded adult like we are now, we start picking apart the flaws. But when you're watching at a certain age, you don't care about none of that shit. All you know is that you dig it. Well, I mean, the X-Men is a perfect example, right? I got caught into that because of the animated series. And even to this day, I love the X-Men. I'm still reading X-Men comics.
01:14:38
Speaker
Yeah, like, okay, like now when people, when they talk about Spider-Man, now I'm not a big Spider-Man fan, but you know something? If you put on
01:14:49
Speaker
the 1960s Spider-Man animated series, I still didn't watch that all day long. Because it caught me at the right age. I know a lot of people knock nostalgia. There's been these two competing forces a lot.
Nostalgia vs. New Stories
01:15:04
Speaker
There's pro-nostalgia and anti-nostalgia, where it's like, it should be all new. But it's like, oh, no, let's strip mine the past. But honestly, I don't really care. If you give me something that makes me feel like I was 10 years old again, I'm all in for that.
01:15:18
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Which is why I, you know, love the Marvel Cinematic Universe because they make me feel like I did when I was a kid, 12, 13, 14 years old, reading comic books. Exactly. Yeah. Perfect example.
01:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, and to me, that's more important than anything else. That it makes me, oh man, you know, this takes me back to when I was a kid. And I love reading, I couldn't wait to read the next issue of Avengers or, you know, The Hulk or, you know, Iron Man. You know, it takes me back to that, which, you know, and I know people knock the, you know, oh, yo, I hate those movies. You know, they're too bright, they're too colorful, they're too cheerful. You know, well, okay, well, you know what? You go watch Batman versus Superman then.
01:16:04
Speaker
You know miss me with that bullshit, you know, yeah. Yeah. All right.
TMNT Movie Success
01:16:09
Speaker
Okay Um, so I think we've pretty much exhaust everything we have to say about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I mean, but basically like this and you know, well, here's a funny story about this movie that I just remembered now Yeah, folks. I'm unorganized deal with it. But
01:16:25
Speaker
Like, when this movie came out, they showed it to, like, one of the guys who was a producer on it, he was the one who, like, got it green lit and everything, got it moving forward. Like, he showed it to the people who were working on the cartoon and the toy line, and they said to him, they were mortified when they saw the movie, and they're like, you've killed it.
01:16:43
Speaker
Like, we just started this franchise and now you've killed it with this movie because, you know, this cartoon, this toy line, it's all goofy and funny. And then you come up with this dark movie and and then and he thought he was worried. He's like, oh, shit, did I really kill it? And then the movie became huge, became a massive success. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this was for I may still be the highest grossing independent movie of all time.
01:17:06
Speaker
Really? Okay. Because they couldn't get a studio to pick it up, so they had to do it independently. Yeah, because I think it was New Line Cinema. I think it was New Line Cinema. I think it was Golden Harvest, I think. Golden Harvest, okay. Which, you know, they did a lot of the Kung Fu movies back in the day. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, Golden Harvest, of course.
01:17:23
Speaker
So yeah, they did it. And I mean, just so much about this movie just works. Like the animatronics, the suits, like it still holds up.
Believable Animatronics and Stunt Work
01:17:32
Speaker
Like some of the fight scenes may seem a little bit sluggish by today's standards, but it still works really well. Yeah. I mean, you know, listen.
01:17:40
Speaker
Like I said earlier, this is the type of movie where nobody gets hurt. I mean, you know, even though they got all these ninja weapons and they jumping around and everything like that, you know, but nobody's getting hurt. And again, I cannot praise enough the work of the stunt people and the martial artists that had to wear those funky suits while they were doing these moves. And they had to make it look good while they were wearing these suits, too. And they do. They pull it off. I mean, you know, they had me convinced.
01:18:09
Speaker
And because, OK, because a movie like this, it either succeeds or fails. What if you buy that these are actual turtles? You know, and even though and even though on some level you say, yeah, well, you know, it's guys in suits, but still, these guys are very good looking suits, you know. So, yeah, you know, it's it's a movie that I, you know, I'm glad I saw it.
01:18:40
Speaker
And it's a movie I would highly recommend to anybody, you know, because movies like this, again, I think that it's a nostalgia value. And it reminds us that not every superhero movie has to be all dark and grim and, you know, and miserable and unhappy, you know, that you can have a superhero movie about a bunch of
TMNT's Contentment with Themselves
01:19:08
Speaker
superheroes who enjoy being superheroes, even though these are not exactly superheroes in the conventional sense, but you know.
01:19:17
Speaker
you don't have the turtles, they have their conflicts and their angst and everything like that, but they're not walking around talking about, oh, I'm miserable because I'm a turtle, I wish I was a human, which if they had gone that route, I would have instantly disliked this movie. But they don't, they enjoy being what they are. Yeah, I mean, well, there's that one scene where Mike Dux puts his head in his shell to avoid getting hit by an axe, and he says, you know, I love being a turtle.
01:19:41
Speaker
Yeah, you know, they enjoy being who you know, they embrace who they are and they enjoy being who they are, you know, and I'm glad that they didn't have because, you know, sometimes they have that type of thing in here where, oh, they wish they were human. Oh, I wish I was human. If I was human, I would know you don't have any of that here. No, no, none of that. And also you mentioned that, you know, this is basically an 80s movie. There's another thing because you know who voiced Donatello, right? Who?
01:20:06
Speaker
Corey Feldman. Corey Feldman, that's right, yeah. Because when I saw the credits at the end, I said, oh shit, that was Corey Feldman? I said, wow. Who was like an 80s icon, you know? Yeah, he did The Voice of Donatello. He only did it in this movie. Well, and also going back to what you were saying early on about how much money this movie... I mean, it was obvious that this movie made a lot of money because they made two sequels after this, right?
01:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, they got lower budgets and they got much crappier suits. And the second one, it's got its charm. It's a bit sillier, but it's still got its moments. And the third one, that's when they go back in time to feudal Japan. That's just a total mess. Oh, okay. See, I never saw that one. The sequel I saw, because that's the one with the infamous appearance by Vanilla Ice. Oh, god, yeah. Doing the Ninja Turtle rap. Oh, god, that whole scene.
01:21:00
Speaker
It's hard to believe that there was a time when people actually liked Vanilla Ice. Yeah, listen, you'd be surprised. When I tell people that Vanilla Ice actually was a thing at one time, when he was popular, they'd look at me like I'm crazy. I said, no, you'd be surprised. Vanilla Ice was a thing. Yeah, crazy world, man. The 80s and the 90s, man, there were crazy times. Oh, man, you should have been there. You loved it.
01:21:30
Speaker
Well, I was there, I was there in the 90s. I mean, I wasn't an adult then, but I was there. Yeah, but you had to have been an adult during the 80s to truly appreciate. Trust me, it was a lot of fun. All right, okay, so that about does it for us.
Upcoming Discussion: 'Hulk Versus'
01:21:51
Speaker
So this was my pick. So now I'm tossing the ball back to you and my friend. What are we gonna be watching next time? Okay, now.
01:21:58
Speaker
I thought that we were switching up a little bit in a couple of ways because we haven't done Marvel for a while, right? What was the last Marvel movie? I think it was Black Panther. Yeah, it was Black Panther. So I thought we'd go back to doing Marvel, but also let's switch it up because we haven't done the animated movie yet, right?
01:22:22
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, that's true. We haven't. Okay. So my pick for next week is going to be a movie that I found on Netflix. It was a while ago. We was knowing they didn't do any advertising for it, but I watched it and I enjoyed it greatly. It's a movie called Hulk versus. Oh, okay. Yeah. And it's got two separate stories with the Hulk. Uh, in one story he fights Thor and in the other one he fights Wolverine. Right. Okay. Yeah.
01:22:50
Speaker
You've seen this one? I have a memory of seeing. I think I saw part of it. I don't know if I saw the whole thing or maybe I think I got distracted by something else or something happened that I didn't actually sit down and pay attention to it though. Okay. Well, I'm giving you opportunity now to pay attention to it. So if you're agreeable, we'll do hope versus.
01:23:12
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I'm down. It's our first animated film. So yeah, I'm totally down for that. Okay, cool. Thanks a lot for listening.
Superhero Cinephiles Community Promotion
01:23:20
Speaker
Head on over to the Facebook group, Superhero Cinephiles, joining the conversation there. I've been posting up some of my artwork lately, so you can see some of that. Derek posts up movie reviews. We do occasional polls every now and then.
01:23:34
Speaker
Yeah, just a bunch of superhero fans getting together to talk about what we like. So come on in, you know, pull up a chair and join the discussion. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Super Cinema Pod on both of those. Patreon.com Super Cinema Pod. If you want to give us some help, toss us a few bucks. And also, you know, you don't want to.
01:23:54
Speaker
subscribe then you know pay a subscription fee then you can also just go to the the website superhero cinephiles.com if you buy any movies from there or if you click the link and buy anything off of amazon from there we get a little bit of a kickback which helps us keep the lights on around here kickbacks are good don't let anybody tell you different
01:24:13
Speaker
All right, Derek, thanks so much. I'm glad that you didn't hate this movie. Oh, no, no, thank you. And yeah, like I said, this movie, like I said, by the time I got to that scene where it was the fight in Central Park with Casey Jones and Raphael, I was charmed. And that, to me, is the main appeal of this movie. If you watch it, if you sit down in the right spirit and you watch it,
01:24:37
Speaker
I think you're going to be just as charmed as much as I was by it. It's a very good movie. I enjoyed myself. Thank you for recommending it. Oh, as always. All right. That's it for us. We're getting naughty here. Stay safe. Wash your hands and be a superhero and wear a mask if you go outside. There you go. My man said it all. You guys stay safe. God bless and good night.
01:25:04
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superherocinephiles at gmail.com. Or you can also visit us on the web at superherocinephiles.com. If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners.
01:25:31
Speaker
You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of pheasantudios.com.