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Captain America (1990)
199 Plays3 years ago
Before the MCU showed how Captain America can be done right, other studios showed us how to do it wrong. Writer Geoffrey Golden is the guest this week to discuss Albert Pyun's 1990 Captain America film starring the son of JD Salinger. We discuss the terrible costumes, the strange choices (including the very bizarre change of the Red Skull from German to Italian), and about Cap's carjacking super power.
Visit Geoffrey's website to find out more about him.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:14
Speaker
Attention, all personnel, please move to your stations. Prepare for final systems check down. Closest slightly elevated. Respirations, check. Stand by for move to stage one. Senator Kirby. How nice to see you, sir. How are you? Colonel? Colonel? Lieutenant.
00:00:41
Speaker
Steve, this isn't Mussolini's Italy. You are free to change your mind whenever you... Save it. Okay, doctor. Because of you, I have the chance to make a wrong thing right. I thank you for that. Commencing stage one. So this process can take a frail boy with polio, give him the strength and speed of a world-class athlete. Think what kind of army we'll have.
00:01:09
Speaker
Let's just make sure our boy comes out of the safe and sound before we go counting our chickens. Where'd you get your guinea pig? Happens to be the best damned candidate out of 600 volunteers. It's gonna be a national hero. Not exactly. His name's a secret.
00:01:27
Speaker
Only Dr. Vercelli and myself know who he really is, who kept it that way to protect his family. For the rest of the world, he's just codenamed Captain America.
Jeffrey Golden's Background and Interests
00:01:35
Speaker
He may not be Superman, but he'll be a living symbol of what this country stands for.
00:01:42
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine. And today I'm welcoming a new guest, and that is Jeffrey Golden. How you doing today, Jeff? Oh, I'm doing great. How about yourself? I'm doing pretty good. It's a little bit early here, but I'm doing good. It's a little early. Where are you? I'm in Japan. I'm in Japan, so it's 7 a.m. here.
00:02:01
Speaker
Oh, OK. Oh, that's rad. Yeah, I'm in Los Angeles. So it's three o'clock. Yeah. Is it 7 a.m. in the future? Yes. Yeah. It's Saturday morning here. Can you give me the can you give me the lotto numbers? No, I can't help you out with that. I'm sorry.
00:02:19
Speaker
If I had those types of powers, I would not be living in the place I'm living in. I'd be living in someplace a lot nicer. I'd be living like Maui or something like that. That's fair. I've always wanted to visit Japan. Have you been to the Super Mario theme park? Have you been to Super Nintendo World? No, we haven't been yet, but we do want to go. My daughter's only about...
00:02:45
Speaker
about 18 months or so now, and my son's coming soon. So once they get older, then we're hoping to take them out there.
00:02:52
Speaker
That's cool. I've been dreaming about a Nintendo theme park since I was a little kid. And so I'm very excited. So supposedly we're getting it in LA early next year. Oh, really? I'm very, very excited about that. But I think yours is the Japanese one is going to have more bells in it. I think you're going to have a whole Donkey Kong edition. So you know. But I'll take what I can get.
00:03:22
Speaker
Nintendo theme park wise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my wife's the one who first told me about it. So both of us definitely want to go there once we finally have a chance. And once our kids are old enough to, you know, not give us heart attacks when they're walking around. Absolutely. Yeah. Just suddenly they're like to run after Luigi and you're like, where did they go? God, where did they go? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so first thing I'd like to do is why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
00:03:49
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, let's see. I'm Jeffrey. I am a narrative designer and a game creator based in LA. I've written for Capcom, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Disney, and indie studios around the world.
00:04:07
Speaker
I am the game master for adventure snack, which is an interactive fiction email newsletter.
Game Writing and Design Discussion
00:04:14
Speaker
So if you like playing like choose your adventure books as a kid or you enjoy playing like text adventure games.
00:04:22
Speaker
like Zork or what have you. This is that, but through email. I turn your inbox into an adventure twice a month, sending out new and funny and weird mini text adventure games you can play on your lunch break in your inbox. And that's at adventuresnack.com.
00:04:45
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, so I love games, I love writing, and yeah, and I enjoy bad movies. I really love a good bad movie, so this was fun, what we ended up watching today. Yeah, fun's not exactly the word I use for it, but we'll get there. So what was, I want to talk a little bit about you, because you said you're a game writer, what was probably the biggest game you've worked on writing-wise?
00:05:13
Speaker
Hmm, that's tough. I guess it would be the first one that comes to mind is a game called fallen Legion Revenants, which I worked on for two, two, two and a half years. It's an action RPG on switch and PlayStation.
00:05:32
Speaker
20 hours of content or something like that, all said and done. Yeah, it takes place in a grim, steampunk world of be set by a plague, by a horrible plague, nothing we could relate to.
00:05:49
Speaker
Right. Nothing, nothing relevant. Actually, he wrote it. We started writing it well before we even knew what knew what COVID was, or it would be it was written with the the 19, the what they call the Spanish flu, though it wasn't a Spanish flu invite.
00:06:09
Speaker
And then it just happened during production, towards the end of production, it started. And we ended up as just like, wow, okay, all these things that we wrote about ended up coming to pass. So it's your fault, basically. Yeah, I guess I willed it into being. Sorry about that. Sorry, folks. But yeah, so that was a pretty intense project. I think we ended up being
00:06:36
Speaker
I want to say like three feature-length screenplays worth of writing or something like that when it was all said and done. It was quite a bit of work. Okay. Wow. I've never heard of that game. I'll have to look that up. I've seen like game scripts before and just knowing about how much
00:06:59
Speaker
how much story is in a lot of these games. I can't even, and me, I'm a writer myself, but I'm a novelist, so I do it all by myself, basically. Or when I do comic books, sometimes you have a little bit of input from the artist, but I can't imagine, I can't even fathom all the work that must go into all the different, you know,
00:07:19
Speaker
decision trees and all that that has to go into game writing.
Superhero Comics and Current Engagements
00:07:23
Speaker
This is true. I mean, for fallen Legion of evidence, you know, depending on who you befriend in the castle or who you betray, that opens up a whole other story paths, whole other branching paths. And there's lots of different ways and configurations of things that can happen in the story. But not every game is like that. I mean, sometimes I work on games with very simple stories.
00:07:49
Speaker
I did a game for Disney recently called Disney Wonderful Worlds, where I wrote the Toy Story Adventures, and there it was pretty straightforward. There was no branching paths. They needed somebody to write the Toy Story characters in voice, and I was happy to do it. I'm a Disney fan, so I was very happy to do it.
00:08:10
Speaker
So it really runs the gamut, you know, as a game writer, sometimes you'll be writing something for years and years with a lot of intense branching. And sometimes you might work for something on a couple of weeks or maybe a month of really simple projects. So, yeah, it really, it really runs the gamut. I've written novels and comics as well. And I will say that game writing, yeah, it's a whole other beast. It's wild.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this is the superhero cinephiles podcast. So what is do you have any experience with superheroes, either in movies or comics?
00:08:46
Speaker
experienced as a fan. As a fan. As a fan, yeah. Oh, sure. I love superheroes. I read, I was an avid reader of X-Men comics growing up. That was my, X-Men was my jam. X-Men and the tech. I liked X-Men because it was about, it's for the same reason a lot of people like it. Cause it was about outsiders. And you know, in high school, you know, you feel it's like, yeah, I'm real.
00:09:16
Speaker
I'm really edgy. Nobody understands me. I'm just like Wolverine. I'm exactly like Wolverine. But I also love those characters and just the big personalities bouncing off each other.
00:09:31
Speaker
Not, they didn't feel inaccessible. They felt very human and relatable. And then I love parody. I love satire. And the tick was, I was big into the tick and those NEC comics. So I read a lot of them, the chainsaw vigilante,
00:09:51
Speaker
the man eating cow. He's just, Ben Edlin's work is just really funny. I really love it. So yeah, I read some serious superheroes, some funny superheroes. And yeah, I enjoy every superhero comics to this day. I don't keep up regularly with what's going on. I think the last run that I read
00:10:18
Speaker
through was the latest version of the X-Men comics, the one where they go to Krakowo. Oh yeah, the Hickman stuff. Yeah, the Hickman stuff. Yeah, I read the first arc of the Hickman stuff. I thought it was very good. Yeah. I'm not reading every week, but I do, I check in.
00:10:39
Speaker
And I enjoy checking in. And then I watch the movies like all of America. You know, I recently saw Doctor Strange 2 and the Batman. So I'm pretty well caught up. We're going to probably start watching the new Ms. Marvel show tonight. Oh, really good.
00:11:00
Speaker
I have a superhero recommendation that may be flew under your radar or some of your listeners' radar. It's really good. The Squirrel Girl podcast, there's a Squirrel Girl podcast. It's like an audio fiction series where she hosts a radio station on college radio with her friends. And it's very funny. It's written by the comic writer, Ryan North, who's a very, very talented writer.
00:11:28
Speaker
It's, it's really funny it features some celebrity guests. Paul Scheer plays Spiderman in this universe. It's, it's, it's really clever and really well done so I highly recommend that. Yeah, cool. I never even heard of that. I'm one of the same things that.
00:11:47
Speaker
You're into too. I also started off with X-Men and I keep up mostly with the trade paperbacks when they come on sale. So I'm definitely not up week to week anymore. Can't afford it. But so I'm curious as an X-Men fan myself, what was your, what era of the X-Men did you start reading in? Was it like the 90s? Was it the 80s?
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely would have been the early 90s. Maybe some, I probably read back issues of the late 80s stuff. It was clear, I think it was my time was defined largely by Claremont, Chris Claremont's work. I read pretty much the last thing that I like read
00:12:33
Speaker
the last books that I remember reading like hardcore from when I was a kid, from when I was a teen, was the Age of Apocalypse and Generation X. Age of Apocalypse was definitely like the culmination.
Analyzing the 1990 Captain America Movie
00:12:51
Speaker
Actually, did Marvel vs. DC happen after that?
00:12:55
Speaker
Um, they have been very, very close. Yeah. Very similar timing. Yeah. And that was another one that I that that was another big event that the Marvel versus DC was was big. And then I think by the time onslaught happened, I was sort of checking out
00:13:15
Speaker
the monster that turns out to be Charles Xavier. I think that was where I stopped reading for a while. And then I've come in periodically. I've read, I really loved Grant Morrison's run. That was excellent. I do another podcast where we all talk all about the Morrison run, actually. Oh, amazing. Oh, great. Yeah, there's so much to it.
00:13:42
Speaker
It's just, wow, he really, he, yeah, he's like a singular voice. I mean, it's really a pleasure reading his stuff because there's really nothing quite like it. I've read a lot of his books, like the Filth I've read, We Three, a lot of his like weird indie books or, you know, offshoot books. And yeah, his stuff is great. He's so imaginative. Yeah. You should also check out, he wrote a book, Supergods, a few years ago.
00:14:11
Speaker
If you haven't read that, it's not a comic book. It's but it's like it's like a nonfiction book about about the superhero genre. It's really good. It really kind of shows like how much you love how much they love superheroes. Awesome.
00:14:25
Speaker
But today we're talking about the 1990 Captain America movie. So if anybody thinks that it was that Chris Evans was the first, he was not actually, and in fact, even Matt Salinger wasn't the first. The first Captain America were made for TV movies in the seventies. There were two of them, I believe. But then Matt Salinger, who's,
00:14:50
Speaker
the son of J.D. Salinger, the author, actually. Yes, which is incredible. Yeah, yeah. That is it. That in and of itself is kind of a fascinating thing of like, what was that? What was that relationship like? Can you imagine being J.D. Salinger's son? How horrible.
00:15:09
Speaker
It must be. I mean, like I listen, I don't know. He maybe was a loving dad. His public persona makes me think it would be he'd be absolutely insufferable as a father. But but then again, we don't know what both people are like behind. Right. So there's some I actually did a little bit of research because I was just curious about it. And he apparently had a really good relationship with his father. But his sister apparently was a little bit more
00:15:38
Speaker
more more challenging or I don't know the whole details but she wrote a book about about her father and Matt Salinger like slammed the book and you know said it was like you know it was you know she's like overdramatizing things and stuff like that so so I don't know all the details but apparently there's a little bit of disagreement among kids over how what kind of a father he was interesting all right fair enough
00:16:02
Speaker
Um but yeah so this movie uh it was it had a long production history apparently like um they'd originally planned Universal had originally gotten the rights and they had planned it to do uh you know a full-length theatrical film with uh Jeff Bridges as Captain America and Peter Fonda as the red scroll as the red skull
00:16:24
Speaker
Oh, wow. There's also some concept art of Falcon, Baron Zemo and Bucky. But obviously it never got made. And that would have been like in the early eight. They don't have a date here, but it says here that after that in 1984 is when the Canon group got a hold on their picture on the right. Right.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, the Canon group is incredible. Have you seen that documentary? That's definitely worth watching. No, but I've heard of it. Yeah, I have to take a look at that. It's great. I mean, what a bonkers studio Canon was. I mean, this guy was just throwing money at anything, at anything and everything. And good for him. I mean, he didn't have good taste.
00:17:11
Speaker
But boy, did he have a lot of money to make movies? And yeah, and yeah, he and boy, did he ever. And so, yeah, that that documentary is definitely worth it. It's a wild story. It's one of those like wild business rides, like the Chuck E. Cheese story is another one like that, where it's just like when they got money, they just like spent it fast. They just spent it fast. I'm making them the motion that people make at strip clubs where they're making it rain.
00:17:41
Speaker
They're making it rain. I'm doing that right now on this podcast. Just illustrating how much money they had. So yeah, it makes sense that they had Captain America money in the early 80s. Yeah. So speaking of that, they had
00:17:59
Speaker
1986, they had a script that involved a statue, a stolen statue of an old red skull stealing the Statue of Liberty and which I don't even know how good thing they threw that script out.
00:18:15
Speaker
Hmm, I think it could have been. Listen, I, okay, okay. Well, like, right, if you're trying to make a good movie, don't make it about stealing the Statue of Liberty. But if you're trying to make an even funnier, cheesy blockbuster, then by all means stealing the Statue of Liberty is like among the funnier things you could do.
00:18:34
Speaker
I wonder how many characters have stolen or hijacked the Statue of Liberty. Like I know the Ghostbusters did it in Ghostbusters 2. Right. And it was a frequent target of Carbon San Diego. I'm trying to think of other characters that have stolen the Statue of Liberty.
00:18:56
Speaker
uh i feel like there was one where they there was like an evil magician who like made the Statue of Liberty disappear i i i've got some memory of that as well but i'm not exactly sure what it was yeah like it like the sticky put the thing over like the the like a big blanket like over the Statue of Liberty and then lifted it and then it was like gone
00:19:18
Speaker
Mm hmm. I don't know what that is. So if you're listening, if you're out there, listeners, please write in and tell us what it is we're thinking of, if you can remember. Well, so okay, so they threw out this draft where he where, where it's called steals the Statue of Liberty. That's too bad for us.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, and eventually, they eventually, the writer, Michael Winter, who had worked on the Death Wish movies, he actually worked with Stan Lee on it. And surprisingly, I'm not sure if this is the same Lawrence Bloch, the novelist, if it is, I mean, Jesus Christ. But I mean, that was a surprise when I saw that name pop up in the credits, because he's a really good novelist. So, but
00:20:02
Speaker
We all have our bad days. Yeah. And then eventually. But then but I think they just did the story and then John Stockwell did some work on the script and and Stephen Tolkien did as well. No, John Stockwell was originally supposed to be the director, but then Albert Pine was brought in to replace him.
00:20:22
Speaker
And there were a bunch of people who were up for this. Like Val Kilner was up for this role, but he did the doors instead, which was definitely a good career move. Dolph Lundgren and Schwarzenegger were up for the role. Schwarzenegger accent cost him that role. But even who made it in the film, right? Ronnie Cox from RoboCop 2, he's in this too, which was, and he, I was surprised when I'm looking at him in this movie and it turns out that
00:20:52
Speaker
He said that the script, the original script was actually really good. And he said, he's like, I don't know how they took, he said it was like one of the best, it's like the best script he had ever read in his career. And he said, I don't know how they went from that script to this piece of shit.
00:21:08
Speaker
That's remarkable. I mean, it's interesting because like, you can tell Stan Lee was involved because there's a lot of like early Marvel stuff, like bears little to no, like when the adaptations come around, like they bear like little to no resemblance to the comic story. Like it's oftentimes it's,
00:21:32
Speaker
you know, hey, it's the human torch and his robot friend, you know, it's like, oh, okay, right, they just did whatever. But in this case, the beats of the film do match like what we commonly think of as the Captain America mythology, like that, those beats, at least in the initial like first half of the film, like,
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, tell you the origin story of Captain America more or less. If things definitely get off the rails at a certain point. And even within the points where in which they are following the story there's moves that they make that are like completely ridiculous but like you can like
00:22:19
Speaker
it bears the resemblance of a Captain America story.
Critique and Inconsistencies of the 1990 Film
00:22:24
Speaker
So I could see where there might've been a better draft at some point that happened even more closely to the comics, maybe budget cuts or recasting sort of thing forced them to make changes to the script. I mean, it only, the movie, according to Wikipedia, the movie only had a $3 million budget and it does show. It shows, it shows.
00:22:45
Speaker
Absolutely. So it may have been that the original Jack was meant for, which was meant for a bigger studio, you know, because it didn't end up a cannon, right? Didn't it didn't it end up cannon bought it, but then it ended up at like a sub can at like a cannon spin off studio, right? Or something like that. I'm taking a look here. It was filmed in Yugoslavia.
00:23:09
Speaker
which, right, which is also great. I'm not sure, I'm not sure actually. It doesn't say that here in this Wikipedia thing, but yeah, it's listed as an American Yugoslavian film. Yeah, good sign. Very good sign right there.
00:23:29
Speaker
Um but yeah and it was it was originally made in like it was shelled for two years apparently so I think even the studio knew that they didn't really want to release this but and it was originally supposed to originally um the director had wanted to make the costume look a little bit more realistic like he had he had suggested um the director had actually originally talked to marvel comics about using the
00:23:54
Speaker
the black costume from that Steve Rogers was wearing in the 1980s as the captain, which later became US agent's costume. Marvel said no to that. And then the director asked if they could make the suit more tactical with like a pouch belt and with like a quarter male armor. And again, Marvel said no, it had to be the classic red, white and blue leather look is what they demanded.
00:24:18
Speaker
And it was actually made by the same costume shop that made the Batman suits in Batman and Batman Returns. Oh, wow. Yes.
00:24:27
Speaker
Oh, well, we all have our bad days. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this thing looks like this thing looks like garbage. I mean, it's no with no uncertain terms. I mean, it looks like something you'd buy at a Halloween store. It doesn't look good. I mean, especially in close up, like you look at that mask, it has like a really
00:24:50
Speaker
a really thin quality to it. It's interesting because they definitely abandoned the costume for a good chunk of the film. For so long that I was like, I wonder if he's going to wear the costume again.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, but it's like, you know, you can see why. It looks like a TV, it looks like a TV movie costume maybe at best. It was also incredibly hot up here. Like Matt Salinger was like dripping with sweat when he got out of that thing. But also too, it just looks, it looks like it's not even fitted for him. Like when you look at those closeups of his face, it doesn't match the contours of his face at all. Yeah, wrinkles on his face. Yeah, and it's also the,
00:25:35
Speaker
They had tried originally to have it without the ears and to have them just ear holes and have his own ears come out, but apparently it didn't work. So I don't know why you would put on fake ears that instead of just putting, just covering them up completely. Like that was just such a weird choice.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, that is fascinating. I'm looking at it now and just reminding myself. Yeah, they look they are. That is weird because they look like wrinkly. It looks like like he's got like his ears have been like beaten up or something like that. He's taken like one too many, you know, shield shots to the ear. Yeah, it's yeah, it's a little weird, a little weird.
00:26:15
Speaker
They also bizarrely make the red skull Italian in this instead of German. I thought that was a really strange choice. Yeah, all Italy stuff. I guess they were like, you know, we want to be let's be hip and cool. Everybody does fascism. They do German fascism. But, you know, the Italy's Italians were fascists, too. Like, let's do some real system Italy. I don't know. Yeah. What do you I don't know what the thinking was there. Maybe I don't know.
00:26:41
Speaker
At first I thought maybe it had to do with the actor they cast, but then I just looked it up now and he's born in Ohio. So it's not because of the actor. No. And also the accent is all over the place. I mean, it is supposed to be Italian and sometimes it's recognizable as Italian. Most of the time I would say it's just like vaguely European. It's just like some kind of nonsense, nonsense Europe.
00:27:08
Speaker
country. I mean, a lot of times that's what they do, you know, they'll just say it's a evil stand, you know, or whatever, you know, it's like, okay, but no, they were, they very specifically grounded it in Italy. But yeah, he did not sound Italian 100% of the time, for sure.
00:27:27
Speaker
I also couldn't understand the logic of the story where we have to find the Red Skull's real name to stop him. I could not figure out why they thought that would be, that would stop him. I mean, the guy's been, he's been a fascist super villain now for decades. He's killed like JFK and Martin Luther King. I don't think hearing his mother's voice is really gonna change his mind at this point.
00:27:51
Speaker
No. Yeah. That was a weird Martha sort of a moment. Yeah. Yeah. What a strange kryptonite. I mean, I guess it took him back to the time when he was forced from his home. And that was traumatizing hearing that audio. But like,
00:28:17
Speaker
so traumatizing that you wouldn't like be, I don't know. This is, so I'm a wrestling fan and there's this thing in wrestling, the distraction roll-up, which sometimes gets abused as a technique, but basically it ends, if you want to try to preserve your face,
00:28:39
Speaker
um you know the strength of your face what you do is you have a distracting person come out during the match and the face is so distracted that the villain gets the heel gets a quick roll up and uh and and uh thus is able to win the match um but it's like in real life it would never that would never happen you no one would ever be so distracted that they couldn't like
00:29:08
Speaker
Completely just care is just like, think, you know, it just completely debilitates you I mean that's what happens to the Red Skull he does exactly yeah exactly what he did, militated by this audio.
00:29:21
Speaker
they didn't even they didn't even lamp post it either like it that was signpost it rather um like they could have had a thing where it was like the his daughter or whatever like brings in a family album at one point and it's like father i thought we could look at this for a minute he was like i never want to see that never show me my
Attempts to Find Positives and Film Production Insights
00:29:44
Speaker
past you know what i mean so it's like oh okay it's a thing right you know like we could have done that but uh they didn't yeah yeah it's just it came out of nowhere when i'm sitting here and i'm watching the movie because i'd actually seen this twice before um before watching it this time um oh wow i so you had asked me what what movie i wanted to like if i had known that you had seen it two
00:30:07
Speaker
twice before. I wouldn't have suggested it. Because that is a lot because I'd never seen this before. I love bad movies, as I said, I and so I'll go out of my way to watch like a really good bad movie. So I hadn't seen this before. So for me, this was fun. But you had seen it twice. I'd seen it twice before. Yeah. The first time I actually saw it was when I was a kid, because it was actually on
00:30:32
Speaker
my library actually had a VHS copy for rent when I was a kid. And so I remember seeing them like, wow, they made a Captain America movie? Well, I'm gonna have to watch this. And I'm watching them like, even as a kid, I'm just like, I don't think that's how movies are supposed to be done. And then later on as, looks like I lost my camera here. But when I was older, when I was in high school, a buddy of mine had actually managed to
00:31:02
Speaker
to get me a copy of it. And he, and when he gave me a copy of it, I watched it with some friends of mine and just, and it was just, that was just kind of like watching it and, you know, making fun of it type of thing, basically. But, so this is the first time I'm sitting there and I'm watching it with like an analytical and eye and trying to give it the benefit, whatever benefit or the doubt it has. And it,
00:31:30
Speaker
So on the show, one of the things I try to do is I try to focus on the positive aspects of these movies. Even movies that are generally bad, we try to find some good things to say about it, but every now and then you get a movie where there's just not a lot of good to say about it. And this is one of those movies.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right. I'm trying to think now that you've okay now that challenge accepted. What are some things that I like about this film. Well, as I said earlier, I mean,
00:32:06
Speaker
I like that it tries to tell the origin story from the comics, that it's that he is a night that he's a superhero in the Nazi era, that he, you know, through no fault of his own, he gets frozen and reawakens in a modern era.
00:32:27
Speaker
I mean, I'll take that to like, you know, we're making Captain America like fucking gritty, like he's family died in a warehouse and he couldn't save them and they burned alive in front of his face and now he's an American man for revenge, you know. You know, yeah, I mean, it's the 80s.
00:32:52
Speaker
It's a canon related to, oh, so, oh, by the way, this is the, according to Wikipedia, the rights were sold to the Canon group, but then the founder, one of the founders of the Canon group left in 89. And this was part of his severance package was the rights to Captain America, which he took with him to another studio, 21st century film. So that's why, that's,
00:33:20
Speaker
It's not a canon film, exactly. It's like a hand-me-down canon. So yeah, that's what I would say is maybe the best thing. I mean, there's no real good performances in the movie. Everybody is kind of bad. I mean, yeah, even the season guys like Ronnie Cox and Ned Beatty, they're not really doing much in this movie.
00:33:48
Speaker
No, like some of those characters are meant to be like important, like the president and his childhood best friend, the journalist, like our supposed, we spent a lot of time with them. We're supposed to care about them. I didn't really care about either of them. You know, the love interests, maybe they'll
00:34:17
Speaker
Oh, and the really bad one was the original love interest is kind of terrible. Like when she's when she becomes an old lady like it's very not believe like it's very believable.
00:34:31
Speaker
Also weirdly in that scene, did you find it weird that like she was the only one who died? And like the other ones, the other two guys in the scene, the husband and the journalist were like kind of more like violently roughed up on screen, but they bolster by, she was just like pushed to the ground and like she dies. Like I found that to be very strange. I found that to be very strange.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, that was a definite example of fridging right there. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, the costumes weren't particularly good. No, even like the red, like when I, my memory of watching this as a kid was that I thought the red skull makeup when I was a kid looked pretty good, but looking it back and now I'm like, no, no, it's not, it's just all bad. Yeah, I mean, you could see the paint on his eyes underneath the mask, you know, but then they do a weird thing where they like,
00:35:28
Speaker
make him look weirdly human. They make up his face again so that his face isn't bright red anymore, which was a weird choice. It's like the one iconic thing about the character. You probably want to keep him with his face red. Yeah, apparently they had said,
00:35:51
Speaker
They'd said that nobody wanted to, that they felt that the audience wouldn't want to look at that, that skull face for the entire movies. That's why they did that, which is just like, I'm like, I don't even understand how you have that logic. I mean, is it just because it's so bad you just, you'd have that logic, but. Cause it's not like the version that they ended up with was good. In fact, it's just kind of confusing because it's like, why, why did this happen? Like.
00:36:14
Speaker
I don't know that they explain it. I don't think they're like, oh, my skin condition. No, no, it's yeah. When I get in the condition to clear it up. I'm the reddest girl. I'm a killer. You captured America. Oh, I hate you so much. It doesn't sound like that. That's the prop. Like it doesn't sound distinctly Italian folks. It doesn't sound you listen to it. And it's just weird.
00:36:38
Speaker
What he just did is not that much different from the performance in the movie. Well, no, I mean, what I'm doing is like comical, but it's like clearly Italian. Right. And what he does is like this like muddied, weird accent that is like.
00:36:53
Speaker
vaguely Italian at best. I'll tell you the scene that I love in the film, and it's not because it's good, it's because it's hilarious. I love that, and spoiler for a bad movie, I love when Captain America strapped to the rocket
00:37:18
Speaker
that is headed for the White House, that is headed straight for the White House, kicks the rocket a couple times.
00:37:26
Speaker
And that force of those kicks are enough to change the trajectory of the rocket so much that it goes to Alaska. Yeah. Wow. Like, watching it, I was just like, I wanted to give it a standing ovation. I just love the logic of that. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. I mean, it's like the Red Skull basically invented
00:37:54
Speaker
you know, ICBMs, even ICBMs that I don't think currently can reach that far. Right. Because that range is unbelievable. It's just- Yeah, that would go from Italy to Washington DC. Wow. And then it wasn't like it was high up in the air in Washington DC. It was like right above the ground and he kicks in. And also the thing I love about that scene is, you know, he sees the kid there and then later on when he finds the president and he's like, you were the little boy. I'm like, how the fuck
00:38:23
Speaker
Fuck would you remember that? Yeah, you were strapped to a rocket on your way into a collision course with the White House. You probably wouldn't remember the specific bystanders. You probably were going so fast, you wouldn't have been able to make him out at all. So that's just I don't even know. Yeah, it was just it was so ridiculous.
00:38:44
Speaker
God, it's just, I thought it was funny too that because they obviously had no budget and they didn't want to cast a different actor to be Scrawny Steve Rogers. So what they did instead is they just say that he's got polio and that he's got a bad leg. So then like the scene when he's running with his bad leg and stuff like that, I'm just like, this is so bad. Yeah, it was really, it looks really bad. It also, yeah, it doesn't,
00:39:12
Speaker
This was one of the things about it, like, you know, the initial scenes where I was like wondering, like, was there a reason that they picked? Did they say that there was like a particular reason for choosing him? I don't think so, no. Yeah, that was weird to me. That it was like, like, I would have expected him
00:39:33
Speaker
like rather than opening in like the house, maybe it opens in like the bear, maybe it opens in like the barracks. Right. And it's like, he is being like discharged from the army with polio, but he was like the greatest soul. He was like a really great soldier. Like he was a really promising soldier. And he's being he's but he's has to be discharged. There's nothing he can do. He can't serve his country.
00:39:58
Speaker
it's except then then they're like actually wait a minute you're such a good soldier maybe you would be the prime candidate for this this thing like some kind of logic to be like why is it this look why him um we don't get any explanation for why him it's just sort of he's just says like well i gotta do this goodbye well also i mean it does this weird thing where it it
00:40:22
Speaker
And I think the MCU Captain America films were smart where they'd said, you know, we're gonna split this. We're gonna have one, the first movie is all gonna be in World War II. And then it's gonna end with him getting frozen. And then the second movie, that's we're gonna have it in the modern day, which is such a better move because you see here, those two stories are just crammed in together and they don't fit together well because we get that,
00:40:48
Speaker
Cause he doesn't even have any training. Like, they just, he, you know, they, the scientist is killed. And then next thing we know he's on a plane and they gave him a costume and the shield and they're like, okay, you're going to go stop the red skull now. It's just like, the guy doesn't even, hasn't gone through like a single day of training and you're, now he's got to go and be a superhero. It's just, it's just like, well, you got, we got a costume, we got a shield, you got superpowers now. So I guess you can do it.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I also like the super hero, the superpowers are kind of vaguely defined in this film.
Comparisons with Other Adaptations and MCU Influence
00:41:26
Speaker
It's like, yeah, what it's like, well, I wish I had more. Yeah, he says, like, I wish I had more training with that shield, but he's like, uses it perfectly. So I guess, yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker
but yeah like he is super strong at times but like at other times it feels like he's getting his ass kicked in a way that like you wouldn't expect somebody with super strength to be getting their ass kicked also i thought it was really funny
00:41:50
Speaker
where Red Skull sends his daughter with a handgun to like kill Captain America. And it's like, you got this daughter who we haven't described as having any particular skills? Surely you have this. And she's like, yeah, yeah, leave it to me. I'll kill this superhero with a regular gun. Shouldn't be any problem. A superhero with a bulletproof shield and a bulletproof costume. I'll kill him with my handgun.
00:42:19
Speaker
A killing with my handgun shouldn't be a problem for me. Somebody who has fighting experience, who is an assassin, maybe. They don't say. It's fascinating.
00:42:37
Speaker
I will say though, and one thing you mentioned earlier, like it was good that they stuck pretty closely to the origin story. Because if you compare it to example for the Red Brown films, in those ones, it was just like he was Captain America's son. He was a former Marine and his father was a government agent in the forties. And then he had gotten the nickname Captain America.
00:43:04
Speaker
But, um, right. Yeah. And he gets a, he gets the, the flag formula it's called. And then, um, which was developed from his father's glands or something like that, which is weird. Um, it saves his life. And then, and then he, um,
00:43:21
Speaker
And then he drives around in this high tech motorcycle and he's using this plastic see-through shield. But yeah, that was the, and so I'm glad they didn't go that route. And they actually did stick pretty closely to the classic origin. Because it's such a basic origin. I mean, you don't need to screw with that.
00:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I mean, listen, if you're adapting it, like if you're buying this thing to adapt it, like take what's good, take what works. And like the origin story of Captain America works. And so, yeah, I was glad that some of the DNA, it did feel like an extension of the comics to some extent. But can we talk about Captain America's greatest power in this film?
00:44:09
Speaker
Just one second, I wanna mention too, one other, one change they made to the origin, which actually has been a good change, and it's something that the Marvel movies also added in. It's that the red skull was the first recipient of the super soldier serum. And so then this is like the scientist is like trying to make amends for that. I think that's a good thing too, tying the origin story, tying the red skull into the origin, because in the comics, the red skull was just a guy in a mask.
00:44:38
Speaker
for decades. And then it was only after he died, and then he got resurrected in a cloned body of Steve Rogers. So now he's got the powers, but for the longest time, he was just a guy in a mask. So I think that was a good change they made. Yeah, that is good. That ties them together too. It's like Captain America has a sense of obligation to fighting him because he knows what those powers can do. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense.
00:45:08
Speaker
Alright, so now you want to talk about Cap's greatest power in this movie? I want to talk about his greatest power. Now, I wouldn't say that it's his super strength. And I wouldn't even say that it is his shield, his remarkable shield. I would absolutely say his greatest super ability
00:45:26
Speaker
is stealing cars. I knew you were going to say that. I fucking knew it. I'm just waiting. He's going to say it. He's going to say it. He does it. He does it twice. It's his go to his go to move. Captain America's go to move in this movie is getting somebody's trust.
00:45:45
Speaker
And then just being like, oh, I need to step out of the car for a second. Like I need to smoke or I need to hurl. I'm feeling sick, yeah. I feel like car sick or something. And then they get out of the car and then Captain America
00:46:01
Speaker
jauntily sneaks into the front seat of the car and steals it. He does it twice to two different heroes in the film. The two of our good guy protagonists, he steals cars. Captain Carjacker, yeah. He is Captain Carjacker or Carjack America. You know what the bizarre thing? This movie had two influences on the MCU. One is the Red Skull origin.
00:46:28
Speaker
The other is the carjacking thing, because if you watch the MCU films in every single one, he steals a car. Does he really? I did not notice it. Because you think about in the first well, in the first one, you can make an argument that technically he doesn't, but and it's just one brief scene, but it's at the end when the Colonel and Patty
00:46:49
Speaker
come and pick him up in the or Peggy come and pick him up in the car when the when the plane's going over and that's the Red Skull's car. So technically that's a stolen car. Oh, got it. So that was that was kind of a reach. But in in the winter soldier, him and Black Widow, they steal the car that they take to New Jersey. And then in Civil War, they steal a car after the after they leave the prison and before when they go to the airport.
00:47:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, wow. He steals a lot of freaking cars. Yeah. What is what's up with that? That's fascinating. The what is I mean, yeah, I guess I guess carjack is the American way. I can see that. Yeah, you're making your way in the world. You're figuring things out. Yeah. Stealing some cars.
00:47:39
Speaker
stealing some cars and uh and getting on that open road yeah um they'd also had some references to other references to the comics and the love interest because you had um
00:47:53
Speaker
Bernie Stewart is the love interest, his name in the 1940s. And in the comics, he had a love interest who was also named Bernie. I can't remember, different last, Rosenberg, I think was her last name or something. I can't remember. And then they had had, and then her daughter is Sharon, which is obviously referenced to Sharon Carter, who was the love interest in the comics, the major love interest.
00:48:21
Speaker
Although again, still, like I don't know. I mean, you have such an opportunity here where you could tie him more closely into this president's story by having the government pick him up, by having the government bring him back in, by having Sharon as a government agent who is assigned to him. It doesn't necessarily have to be SHIELD, but just like CIA or something like that would have made it. It would have made so much more sense.
00:48:47
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, without question. I mean, it's the president is has this weird B story with like his good childhood friends, who is the journalist. And I didn't get it. The fuck the the Captain Midnight, decoder ring thing where they both love this radio serial hero. It's like,
00:49:11
Speaker
What are we doing here? It was stupid. Yeah, it was just felt really extraneous. Yeah, I agree. It would have made much more sense that, you know, if you're going to have a president
00:49:23
Speaker
character in a Captain America, there's probably going to be, well, although that by the end of it, Captain America becomes his Bucky. And the president becomes Captain America's Bucky. And yeah, the two of them are, it sort of becomes a Air Force One on the ground kind of situation where it's a
00:49:48
Speaker
It's a president who kicks ass. I mean, for a while, I kind of thought the president was going to be able to save himself entirely, because he manages to get out of his own cage. He manages to run off. He probably could have just saved himself. He probably could have, yeah. I mean, the only thing Captain America really does is he comes in with the music at the end. Right, yeah. Yeah, we didn't really need Captain America, as it turns out.
00:50:17
Speaker
So that's funny. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing is just, and it's the shield too, it looks so, I remember the first time he throws the shield at the Nazi camp or whatever it is, then it's just like, it flies off screen and then it comes in from a completely different angle. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that looks real, that looks. Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
I guess, now I'm just kind of thinking like, did anybody do it right prior to the MCU? I guess it's the Batman films, the Tim Burton Batman films that really like bringing an established and already existing superhero from the comics into film in like a credible way.
00:51:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I think there are definitely ones before Iron Man. I mean, you had Superman, obviously, the 1978 one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Tim Burton Batman, definitely. That's that's a big one. That's the one I think of the rainy Spider-Man movies, the the X-Men movies. Oh, of course. Those came out before before the MCU. I guess maybe like earlier, what like prior to tonight, prior to this movie,
00:51:32
Speaker
Like it would be Superman. I would probably be the super the original Superman and Batman. Yeah. And I watch this. The timing is about the same, but the Ninja Turtles movie also came out in 1990. Oh, yeah. You know, you know, among those, I actually think
00:51:53
Speaker
The Ninja Turtles movie is probably, technically speaking, the most impressive. Technically speaking, yeah, I think I definitely agree with that. Jim Henson killed it with those costumes. Those puppet masks, the moving animatronic
Exploring Successful Early Adaptations and Missed Opportunities
00:52:09
Speaker
masks. I mean, the first movie, the sequels look terrible, but the first movie looks incredible. That work holds up today, I think.
00:52:18
Speaker
We had covered it on an earlier episode of the show. It's just like maybe two years ago that we covered it. And it still holds up when I've rewatched it then. And so that animatronic work was unbelievable. But also, you know what? Another movie that a lot of people probably don't realize, but it's another Marvel movie. And although it's not quite a good adaptation of the comic books, it is still a pretty decent movie for what they had to work with was the 1978 made for TV, Doctor Strange movie.
00:52:48
Speaker
Oh, I've heard about that. Yes. There's some issues with it, right? Some of the effects look bad. The costume, they put them in at the end of the movie. It doesn't look really good. But other than that, it's a pretty solid TV drama for the 1970s especially. That's cool. Yeah, I was trying to check that out. I couldn't find it. It's hard to find. It's really hard to find.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was curious about it. Having seen the new Dr. Strange movie, I was thinking about trying to watch that, but- Yeah, you'd have to- Yeah, hard to find. I mean, you'll have to track it down through some less than reputable sources, but it's out there. It's floating around out there. Because I saw it when we'd covered it on one of our early episodes, like way back in the beginning of the show. And it's not bad.
00:53:44
Speaker
What's your name? Jessica Walter was in it too. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, it's good for her. That's great. She's always good. Yeah. But back to this movie, I mean, even like none of the performances are really anything that special. Matt Salinger, even, you know, he's a Captain America fan. So I guess that's something, but he doesn't, he doesn't,
00:54:10
Speaker
do anything to make me care about his character. Like his character is just so flat. Yeah, he doesn't emote. No. That's the problem. And in fact, it's kind of a problem throughout the film. It's like they're
00:54:22
Speaker
you don't see there's not a lot of performances in this film. You know, there's, I mean, Captain America, yeah, he's like kind of among your drier, Marvel heroes, you know, but I think there's something the MCU
00:54:41
Speaker
plays it very smart where he's a really, they emphasize that he is the stranger in a strange land. They emphasize the sort of the 1930s zenith of him, of him as a guy. So that like when he is in modern day America, there's something stilted and weird about him. And it's like a purposeful choice. Whereas here, he doesn't really feel
00:55:09
Speaker
It's like, it's like being in modern day doesn't even really faze him that much. Right. And it doesn't change his character. I mean, like, you know, you think of a film like the original like Austin Powers, and like that's, that's like what you like, that's like what you expect.
00:55:30
Speaker
thematically for a Captain America story to feel like, because this is a guy who was ripped out of his time, above his time period. Almost all the people he knows and loves are dead or about to die. That's a crazy thing. And I didn't feel like it registered on this Captain America at all. No, not at all. I feel like it's just like, oh, okay, I got to fight those Nazis. I'm back.
00:55:56
Speaker
Where are the Nazis? It's like, it's like my dude, like things have changed a bit. And we didn't even get a scene where he like, like he sees a Walkman at one point. And it's like says like made in Japan on it. And therefore he gets suspicious of the journalist. But like, he's never like in awe of it.
00:56:20
Speaker
he's never like he doesn't like pick it up and like try to like figure it out like it's like huh like right yeah you know is this a personal recording device you know wait is this a uh what is this audio how does this work you know like that's the that's what i'm here for with yeah yeah you know there's none of that there's no surprise
00:56:44
Speaker
It's a hallmark of bad movies that are high concept bad movies. When the characters don't acknowledge how weird it is, what is happening is happening. It's like instant marker of like, oh, this is a bad move. The filmmakers didn't figure out how to express the surprise that would come from
00:57:11
Speaker
normal people experiencing such a crazy shot. Right, right. And so, CS you get something like this where he's just like, he's just a guy just feels like a guy. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Nothing, nothing surprised like I get it. And they did some of that in the MCU but it made sense because
00:57:29
Speaker
he had been in the world, because there's been a period of time between each movie, right? So he gets woken up in the present at the end of the first movie, and then we have the Avengers, and some time had passed, because he talks about, he's in the gym, and they talk about leaving stuff at your apartment. So he'd had some time in the modern day. But even still, they did like the fish out of water thing. They did with the things where he doesn't understand people's references to pop culture and stuff like that.
00:57:59
Speaker
Except when finally there's the Wizard of Oz reference, he gets excited because that's the only thing he recognizes. And then in Winter Soldier, I thought they did a really good job because again, there's another gap in time, but it shows that like anyone who is a young guy who wakes up in, excuse me, in the future, you'd be curious about stuff. You'd want to learn about stuff. You wouldn't be like an old man all of a sudden.
00:58:27
Speaker
which is a crutch I think the comics have fallen on a lot where they kind of portray him.
00:58:32
Speaker
as a grandfather, even though he's still technically a young guy. Right. Yeah. And it's different. It's a different thing. It's just like you have like a different set of morals. You know, you'd have like a different set of reference point, you know. But yeah, you wouldn't be an old man. Right. You know, you would be you're just somebody from another. You're a young man from another era where people treat each other differently and people thought about things differently. Your politics would be different. Yeah.
00:58:59
Speaker
Yeah, like what I mean, I guess I needed this Captain America to like turn on MTV and just be like, what's going on? You know, I mean, even just to see a TV and just be like, what is this? Yeah, exactly. There's none of that. Like the only the close thing we get is when Sharon shows him the tapes of like history and he's just like,
00:59:22
Speaker
And he makes one comment in the middle of it. That's just like the closest thing we ever get to something referencing the man at a time aspect. But there's no surprise. There's no coping with the fact that all because the movie doesn't have enough time. So it's just like that's another problem. They're trying to cram.
00:59:39
Speaker
You've got to cram the World War II origin story. You've got to cram the animosity with the red skull. You've got to cram in the time jump. You've got to cram in the man out of time story and you've got to cram in the mission in the modern day where he has to save the president. You have to do all that and you have to do it only in 90 minutes.
00:59:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there were some stuff though that they could have, like they should have cut the president and his journalist body. Yeah, just cut that whole, just cut that out. We don't need, we don't need any of it. Like he's a president. Like we get it. Like we understand what a president is like, and that a president may need to be rescued from a super villain. Like I can get, I can get that. Like I can get there without any backstory for who that guy is.
01:00:24
Speaker
Yeah. You know, just like, like, I think the yeah, I think there was definitely stuff to cut and there was definitely stuff to add that would have made the film considerably better. It right. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's not slow paced, but it it's just lumpy. It is very it's a lumpy film. So he had a there's apparently a director's cut.
01:00:55
Speaker
Wow, yeah. Although it's not that impressive because Albert Pine had done a tour. He'd gotten the, he'd gotten the director, he'd gotten the work print, the rights to the work print version and he released his own director's con. It was like available on his website. And all it is, is there's a little bit of,
01:01:22
Speaker
character development on Cap at some point, but it's nothing that really special. And other than that, it's just a lot of recycled footage. So it's just like, it's a really bad, it was clearly just an attempt to cash grab. Cause I think he had released that when the first Avenger came out. Oh, I see. Got it. So yeah, it's just, it from, I haven't seen it, but from what I've read, it doesn't seem to be anything that impressive.
01:01:47
Speaker
got it. Okay. Yeah. Well, they weren't hiding like some amazing, they weren't hiding some of the best stuff or whatever. No, no. I mean, what we saw was the best thing we had. And it's, it would, it's really saying something when this is the best thing you've got.
01:02:00
Speaker
Yeah. Listen, if you were a Marvel fan growing up and you wanted to see your characters on the big screen, you were oftentimes out of luck. These things did not get adapted well until X, until the first
01:02:22
Speaker
X-Men movie and Spider-Man. Yeah, Blade, Spider-Man, X-Men. It took a while to get there.
01:02:32
Speaker
But yeah, all growing up, you would be... For me, it was all about X-Men, the animated series. That was like, oh yeah, this is... Because they really adhered to those comics. They really did their best. Even though it was a show for kids, they really took a lot of the themes and stuff and brought them out. So I was like, oh cool, I read there. I read the legacy virus and here it is.
01:03:00
Speaker
So yeah, this was definitely like a dark ages for Marvel at this time. And yeah, and it shows- Well, I mean, yeah, Marvel had a really weird thing where they were just so desperate, Stanley was so desperate to get movies made of these characters that they just sold the rights to basically anybody who offered. And it did not work well for them.
Final Thoughts and Podcast Conclusion
01:03:24
Speaker
I mean, occasionally you, every now and then you'd have a situation where like you got the, you know, the whole TV show, which was very culturally significant, but, or you got the Dr. Strange movie, which wasn't bad, but, but a lot of times you got stuff like, you know, like this or the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man or, you know,
01:03:40
Speaker
or the Roger Corman Fantastic Four and- The Roger Corman Fantastic Four is, if I was to decide, if you were, I haven't seen both of the Roger Corman Fantastic Four and this Captain America, I strongly recommend the Roger Corman Fantastic Four. Absolutely, yeah, that is a much- It is much worse and therefore much more entertaining. You know what, in a weird thing though, in a weird way though, it is worse, but I feel like
01:04:10
Speaker
There was, have you ever seen the documentary about that movie? Oh yeah, definitely. There's a- No, there was a love for it. You get a sense that they really cared about what they were doing. I don't get the sense that anybody except maybe Matt Salinger cared about what they were doing here. Yeah, I get that. There's definitely like a by the numbers, the sort of vibe to this. Yeah. With a lot of like weird choices and stuff that inexplicable things.
01:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, the Fantastic Four movie is like, it's bursting with energy. It's all misguided, but it's definitely bursting with energy and enthusiasm, which is what makes it such an enduring classic in the bad films, you know, canon.
01:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think this is as memorable, but it definitely has its moments. The hitting of the missile in midair to swerve it away for the White House, that was for me like the high watermark of the film. That's where I felt like it really like, wow, we are doing something here. You know what? You know what kind of reminds me of, and this is probably just because it's fresh in my mind, but have you seen Morbius yet?
01:05:27
Speaker
Not yet, no. So it's very similar. It reminds me a lot of Morbius in that it's bad, but it's not spectacularly bad. Like, you know. Right. It's just a very mediocre kind of bad. And it's just like, it's there, it's boring, and it's not interesting. Morbius is very much like that. That's funny. But people are memeing out over Morbius. I know, that's why I was so disappointed that it was not so spectacularly bad, because it's just bland.
01:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, this is bad. I think this is maybe, I think it's worse than, I think it's worse than bland, but it's not as bad to be like The Room or something like that. Right, exactly. It's not like Chardonnada or anything like that. You're not gonna have drinking parties watching this movie. But I wasn't bored either. There was enough bad,
01:06:25
Speaker
red meat in here that I could laugh with my partner while we were watching it. I wasn't thoroughly unentertained. I just think that like, yeah, it doesn't reach the heights of the wild heights of a Roger Corman Fantastic Four. And maybe that's because I've seen this before, so I know what to expect. So maybe that's why it didn't have that effect on me this time. But for me, it was just very boring.
01:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. At least on this viewing. I certainly would not watch this movie multiple times. That is wild. Okay. All right. Well, Jeffrey, thanks so much for coming on to talk about this movie. Why don't you tell people where they can find your stuff again? Absolutely. I'm on Twitter at Jeffrey Golden. That's G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y, like the giraffe.
01:07:16
Speaker
G-O-L-D-E-N like the color. My newsletter role playing game is Adventure Stack and you can find it at adventurestack.com. I also do, I've also co-host a podcast where we make up new bad movies.
01:07:33
Speaker
So we create with the help of a role-playing game system. My two friends and I, we create new straight to VHS movies. And that show is called Worst Movies Ever Played. And you can find that on the Starburns audio network, wherever you get your podcasts. So it's Worst Movies Ever Played. Okay, great. Well, thanks so much for coming on.
01:07:59
Speaker
even though you made me watch a really bad movie, but thanks anyway. And yeah, thanks for coming on. We'll have to come yet. Maybe we'll have you come on again and talk about Fantastic Four next time. Oh, sure. Absolutely. I'd love to. That'd be blast.
01:08:13
Speaker
Okay, all right, well, that does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephile. Superherocinephiles.com is the website, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. Please make sure to like and review us. And if you join our Patreon, you get these web episodes a week in advance, plus you get the special book club episodes where we're doing reviews of comic books. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
01:08:39
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
01:09:00
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comments but don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash supercinemahot and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts.
01:09:43
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.