Last Action Hero (1993): What the Heck Happened?!

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcast. You know, guys, you may ask yourself,
<v Speaker 1>was Hawkins echoing putty joke from the movie Predator, Shane
<v Speaker 1>Black's worst joke. The answer is no, Shane Black's worst
<v Speaker 1>joke is a movie called Last Action Hero.
<v Speaker 2>And that's what we're here to talk about today, Last
<v Speaker 2>Action Hero. My gosh, this is the last movie I
<v Speaker 2>walked out on. I'm actually excited to come here and
<v Speaker 2>revisit a movie that I had not seen since I
<v Speaker 2>walked out of the theater in nineteen ninety three.
<v Speaker 3>I gotta say this.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we talked about last time when we had
<v Speaker 1>Jeff before and we were talking about oh you ate
<v Speaker 1>one two, And I said, Arlene, I had just spoken
<v Speaker 1>with him before we started recording and asked him which
<v Speaker 1>one he was picking between one two and Long Cold Winter.
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, I'm siding with Jason. It's got to be.
<v Speaker 3>OU eight one two, And then of course you chose
<v Speaker 3>not OU eight one two. Right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, he called me back after we dropped our episodes
<v Speaker 1>and he was like, I gotta say this. I think
<v Speaker 1>I'm changing my answer. I think that I still am
<v Speaker 1>siding with Jason. I think it's still long cold winter. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>and so it's still on the same page. And he
<v Speaker 1>called me just yesterday and asked what was coming up,
<v Speaker 1>and I told him and he said, oh, Last Action Hero.
<v Speaker 2>I would have.
<v Speaker 1>Walked out on that movie, but I was on a
<v Speaker 1>date and that is the only reason that I did
<v Speaker 1>not walk out on that movie.
<v Speaker 2>Well, we've got here from the Film By podcast, mister
<v Speaker 2>Jeff Johnson. Jeff, hell us about your podcast. What you've
<v Speaker 2>got going on right now?
<v Speaker 3>Man?
<v Speaker 2>Well, I am happy to be back with both of you.
<v Speaker 4>We are the a Film By podcast where we are
<v Speaker 4>waxing intellectual about Hollywood's biggest and best directors, their underrated hits,
<v Speaker 4>and what we love about them. Along the way, we
<v Speaker 4>have come up with a couple very fun limited series
<v Speaker 4>which I'm happy to say has featured both Jason and
<v Speaker 4>d Our nineteen eighty six series, our nineteen seventy six series.
<v Speaker 2>We've had some fun stuff.
<v Speaker 4>So as always happy to collaborate with you guys, Always
<v Speaker 4>happy to be here at the Shirley Studios.
<v Speaker 2>Well, thanks for coming back on today. We are going
<v Speaker 2>to talk about what the heck happened in nineteen ninety three,
<v Speaker 2>when we sat down to watch Last Action Hero. Jeff,
<v Speaker 2>what are your initial thoughts on this one? Where did
<v Speaker 2>you see this in the theater or what? Give us
<v Speaker 2>your story?
<v Speaker 4>I did see this in the theater, I'll be honest.
<v Speaker 4>I was excited to see it. The week prior, me
<v Speaker 4>and two of my cousins had went and't seen Jurassic Park. Right,
<v Speaker 4>so pretty easy to get tickets for Last Action Hero
<v Speaker 4>because dinosaurs were ruling the box office. First time I
<v Speaker 4>saw it, I gotta be honest, I loved it. Not
<v Speaker 4>to say that I was hip to the whole meta
<v Speaker 4>commentary that it was pulling off, you know, way before
<v Speaker 4>it's time.
<v Speaker 2>But I enjoyed it for what it was. And it's
<v Speaker 2>one of.
<v Speaker 4>These movies where it has its it has its haters,
<v Speaker 4>but I'm not one of them.
<v Speaker 2>D You watched this movie last week?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, for the first time or the first time I
<v Speaker 3>watched this movie?
<v Speaker 2>Initial thoughts?
<v Speaker 1>Do you want me to tell you? I mean, I'm
<v Speaker 1>going to say this or I thought i'd say it
<v Speaker 1>for the end. Okay, here we go, Here we go.
<v Speaker 1>We got We know that you hate it, We know
<v Speaker 1>that Jeff loves it.
<v Speaker 2>Wait a minute. Now, I did hate it.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, so you get a question mark over your head
<v Speaker 3>as well.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just I'm just saying. I'm just putting it out there.
<v Speaker 2>I hated it in ninety three.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so we can say that the first time that
<v Speaker 1>you watched it, you hated it. The first time that
<v Speaker 1>Jeff watched it, he loved it. Right, I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>save what I feel about the movie the first time
<v Speaker 1>I watched it, which was again this week.
<v Speaker 4>A final judgment on a What Were They Thinking?
<v Speaker 2>Episode? Yes, it's fantastic. Okay, So let's dive into the
<v Speaker 2>story behind the story here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, starts off with a couple of college buddies who,
<v Speaker 1>like me, were kind of disillusioned with all of the
<v Speaker 1>action movies from the eighties. You know, we talk routinely
<v Speaker 1>about some of the movies that I haven't seen, and
<v Speaker 1>I've kind of noticed a trend. I haven't seen Commando,
<v Speaker 1>I haven't seen Cobra, I haven't seen Rambo, seeing part blood.
<v Speaker 1>Action movie for me was going to be Raiders of
<v Speaker 1>the Lost Arc or die Hard. Those were my action movies,
<v Speaker 1>the ones where it was all guns and explosions and blood.
<v Speaker 1>I just didn't get into those things. I thought they
<v Speaker 1>were just kind of silly, and there were a couple
<v Speaker 1>of college guys who felt the same way, and so
<v Speaker 1>they rented every single action movie of the eighties that
<v Speaker 1>they could find, figured out all of the tropes that
<v Speaker 1>they could find, and they wrote this really dark, heredy
<v Speaker 1>movie called Extremely Violent.
<v Speaker 2>He's never seen Rambo Jeff.
<v Speaker 4>I the list that he just gave us, I am stupefied.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, you missed out on quintessential eighties action films.
<v Speaker 2>It's true.
<v Speaker 1>So those two guys were named Zach Penn and Adam Leff.
<v Speaker 1>Now we've talked about Zach Penn before because he also
<v Speaker 1>went on to write the screenplay for Ready Player one,
<v Speaker 1>which we discussed in detail with our friend Van Allen
<v Speaker 1>Plexico on the White Rocket Podcast with a friend def Dave. Obviously,
<v Speaker 1>Jason and I are huge fans of the book Ready
<v Speaker 1>Player One. We are less so for the movie, but
<v Speaker 1>still not a bad screenplay for Zach penned right. And
<v Speaker 1>what's interesting is he's made his career off of writing
<v Speaker 1>action movies, but he started his career by making fun
<v Speaker 1>of them.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, look at this list here. Last Action Hero
<v Speaker 2>Men in Black, X Men Part two incredible Hulk, The
<v Speaker 2>Avengers Ready Player one. That's an impressive list.
<v Speaker 1>Indeed, and his partner Adam Leff. If you haven't heard
<v Speaker 1>of him, you're obviously not a Biodome fan.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, let's not forget PCU.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yeah, right yeah, Jeremy Pivens in one of
<v Speaker 1>his pivotal roles.
<v Speaker 2>So when they sat down to write this script, these
<v Speaker 2>are two college guys, he said, they went to the
<v Speaker 2>video store and they rented every single action movie that
<v Speaker 2>they could, and they watched him one after another after another. Now,
<v Speaker 2>I'm guessing that the video store clerk did not look
<v Speaker 2>like Bobby Brown and Angie Evahart. Probably more like Jeff
<v Speaker 2>and Dayton, I'm guessing probably, But they he said that
<v Speaker 2>they sat down and watched every action movie. He said,
<v Speaker 2>it was soul crushing to watch Steven Sagall movie after
<v Speaker 2>steven Sagall movie.
<v Speaker 3>Again.
<v Speaker 1>I don't watch Steven Siagall movies. I don't watch John
<v Speaker 1>Cloud Van dam movies. This movie, I mean, it came
<v Speaker 1>at the right time. Say what you will about the
<v Speaker 1>quality of the movie. Right, the idea of a spoof
<v Speaker 1>of all of the eighties action violence explosions shoot them up.
<v Speaker 1>It was time they had reached their pinnacle. It was
<v Speaker 1>time to do a parody of those movies. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>this movie could have been scary movie five years before
<v Speaker 1>scary movie came out except for action movies. But will
<v Speaker 1>have to decide whether they hit the mark or whether
<v Speaker 1>they missed the mark. But if you look at what
<v Speaker 1>happened after this movie where the action movies of the
<v Speaker 1>eighties went, it went by the way of Steven Siagall
<v Speaker 1>movies and John Claude Van Dam movies, which were not
<v Speaker 1>up to par of the movies of the eighties. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>we're still talking about Rambo and Commando and even maybe
<v Speaker 1>Raw Deal in that mix. But is anybody really talking
<v Speaker 1>about JCVD movies.
<v Speaker 2>No.
<v Speaker 4>I guess this makes me an apologist for both those actors.
<v Speaker 4>But when you're talking about Jean Claude Love blood Sport
<v Speaker 4>got to be a guest on the All Eighties podcast
<v Speaker 4>not too long ago talking about blood Sport, Love, Kickboxer,
<v Speaker 4>Double Impact, all his fun stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Steven Seagal, For me, those hit at the right time.
<v Speaker 4>I was like ten eleven years old, so hard to
<v Speaker 4>kill and out for justice. My thought was the rule was,
<v Speaker 4>as long as he has a cool name like Mason Storm.
<v Speaker 4>And it's a movie title with with exactly three words,
<v Speaker 4>you know, above the law, hard to kill, march for death,
<v Speaker 4>out for justice. That's that's the formula first to go.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well, and I think that you made you made
<v Speaker 1>a good point. You were about ten years old when
<v Speaker 1>those movies were coming out, right, And yep, I mean
<v Speaker 1>when this movie came out, I was a year away
<v Speaker 1>from graduate.
<v Speaker 3>I mean I was even a year I was.
<v Speaker 1>I was about to graduate high school the next spring, right,
<v Speaker 1>and Jason was in one college. Yeah, he's in college.
<v Speaker 1>Age difference is huge. I sent you guys at text earlier.
<v Speaker 1>Zack Simmons, who is the city prosecutor for one of
<v Speaker 1>the places that I'm a judge is. He's like, I'm
<v Speaker 1>angry with you because your podcast has made me watch
<v Speaker 1>this movie screenshots of Superman four the Quest for Peace,
<v Speaker 1>which we covered with Jeff Honor what that happened last year? Right,
<v Speaker 1>And I said, I am so sorry. I am genuinely
<v Speaker 1>sorry that you felt obligated to do this. And I said,
<v Speaker 1>please please don't watch Supergirl, okay, because it's just it's
<v Speaker 1>worse and it's just not worth it. He said, you
<v Speaker 1>know what, I was born in nineteen eighty three, and
<v Speaker 1>I actually saw those movies when I was a kid,
<v Speaker 1>but I loved them then because they were just superheroes
<v Speaker 1>on TV, and so I loved them. And so at ten, yeah, sure,
<v Speaker 1>Martial Arts movies with lots of you know, mustly great
<v Speaker 1>action in the Jungle, I can totally see love in those.
<v Speaker 1>Me at eighteen, Jason, at twenty, we're like, yeah, is
<v Speaker 1>there something better that we can watch?
<v Speaker 2>So this is what happened when I saw it in
<v Speaker 2>the theater. I saw an R. Schwarzenegger movie directed by
<v Speaker 2>John McTiernan. I'm all excited. I go, there's this stupid kid,
<v Speaker 2>the bad haircut, crossing his eyes, going freaking whiskers the cat. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, what the f am I watching?
<v Speaker 1>So, Jason, you described this before I watched the movie.
<v Speaker 1>You were like, Okay, you like cheeseburgers, right, And I'm
<v Speaker 1>like yeah. And you're like, and you.
<v Speaker 3>Like hot fudge Sunday ice cream?
<v Speaker 1>Right?
<v Speaker 3>I'm like yeah, and you go, but would you like
<v Speaker 3>hot fudge Sunday on top of a cheeseburger? And I'm
<v Speaker 3>like no, And he.
<v Speaker 1>Was like, that's what this movie is. And I think
<v Speaker 1>that is an excellent analogy of this movie. And I
<v Speaker 1>think that they took it even to the extreme because
<v Speaker 1>when they promot did the movie, they only told you
<v Speaker 1>you were getting the cheeseburger.
<v Speaker 2>That's right.
<v Speaker 1>They didn't let you know about the ice cream. And
<v Speaker 1>if you know the ice cream's coming, then maybe you're
<v Speaker 1>ready for it. But if you suddenly have a cheeseburger
<v Speaker 1>with ice cream all over in front of you, you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna be like, what the heck, what what are we
<v Speaker 1>doing here? There were many, many problems, but one of
<v Speaker 1>the key problems that they had with this movie is
<v Speaker 1>they prepped guys like you who were totally into all
<v Speaker 1>of those action movies from the eighties, that this was
<v Speaker 1>the pinnacle.
<v Speaker 3>This is going to be the best action movie you've
<v Speaker 3>ever seen.
<v Speaker 2>That's what they said. That was the exact word, right.
<v Speaker 2>But it wasn't that.
<v Speaker 1>It was supposed to be a spoof. It was supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be a parody. We said at the beginning, these
<v Speaker 1>guys wrote this movie to be making fun of those movies.
<v Speaker 1>Why would they promote it as one of those movies? Stupidity,
<v Speaker 1>bad marketing, Yeah, that's what I'll call them. This one
<v Speaker 1>that's a mistake that happens later on. I mean, once
<v Speaker 1>they've you know, they're far into the movie and they're
<v Speaker 1>promoting it and they're marketing it. That's the mistake they're
<v Speaker 1>making then. But they make mistakes at the outset. They
<v Speaker 1>buy this script, which is arguably a better script. I
<v Speaker 1>haven't read it, but there are a lot of fans
<v Speaker 1>of the script as it's written, and as it was written,
<v Speaker 1>the kid is not a kid. He's a teenager, right,
<v Speaker 1>And there's a kind of moving part that he's lost
<v Speaker 1>his father and he's trying to escape the tragedy of
<v Speaker 1>his life. That's the thing that was left. He goes
<v Speaker 1>into the movie to find out, Oh my gosh, the
<v Speaker 1>violence that exists in the movies is much worse than
<v Speaker 1>I could ever imagine at my home. And so it's
<v Speaker 1>it's a realization.
<v Speaker 2>But what do they do.
<v Speaker 1>They take that well conceived idea and they give it
<v Speaker 1>to the writer that wrote the movie that they're making
<v Speaker 1>fun of. They give it to Shane Black, and then
<v Speaker 1>they get the director of the movie that they're making
<v Speaker 1>fun of. They get John McTiernan, and they say, you
<v Speaker 1>write it and you direct it. Those guys are brilliant.
<v Speaker 1>I love their work, but why would you give them
<v Speaker 1>the movie that is making fun of their movies to direct?
<v Speaker 1>It be like having George Lucas direct Spaceballs. That's right,
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't make make sense.
<v Speaker 2>Good call. It's like asking Clint Eastwood to hang around
<v Speaker 2>with an orangutang and make a comedy. Oh wait, sorry, no,
<v Speaker 2>it just doesn't work right. It just it's it is
<v Speaker 2>a mixture of a cheeseburger and hot fudge Sunday. It's
<v Speaker 2>taking things that I do like. They just couldn't find
<v Speaker 2>that tone. And Jeff, you and I were talking the
<v Speaker 2>other night. They brought in William Goldman to work on
<v Speaker 2>this script, among other people including Larry Ferguson, who worked
<v Speaker 2>on Hunt for Red October.
<v Speaker 1>And worked on Aliens three. He was the guy that
<v Speaker 1>wrote the script that everyone unanimously hated.
<v Speaker 2>And he brought in Carrie Fisher aka Princess Leah. Yes
<v Speaker 2>that one Leah Leah. Excuse me, but they brought in
<v Speaker 2>William Goldman, who had written The Princess Bride. And I
<v Speaker 2>told you, Jeff, I'm like the one singular movie in
<v Speaker 2>this world that combines action and comedy and fantasy perfectly
<v Speaker 2>is The Princess Bride. Absolutely that movie.
<v Speaker 4>Like I told you when we were talking about that,
<v Speaker 4>I don't care what genre film you enjoy, you get
<v Speaker 4>it with The Princess Bride.
<v Speaker 2>That's right. They paid him a million bucks to come
<v Speaker 2>and work the script four weeks. Four weeks.
<v Speaker 3>It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a week. Boys.
<v Speaker 2>Pretty good gig, bight there, That's a great gig.
<v Speaker 1>But I mean, if you're the guy that wrote Bush
<v Speaker 1>Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and all the presidents men
<v Speaker 1>and Marathon Man and The Princess Bride, and somebody's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>here's this total turd, what can you do with it?
<v Speaker 1>I can't do anything with it. Will pay you one
<v Speaker 1>million dollars. Let me see what I can do for
<v Speaker 1>next four weeks.
<v Speaker 2>Step back, boys, I'm gonna take a shot at this.
<v Speaker 1>And the truth is is it he couldn't save it.
<v Speaker 1>And I can't believe that because this to me, this storyline,
<v Speaker 1>even with the way they jacked up the whole concept
<v Speaker 1>by making it a younger kid and taking out the
<v Speaker 1>extreme violence, even with that, they could have done a
<v Speaker 1>better job with it and add a great movie.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, they could have.
<v Speaker 4>Well, it's back to marketing because you know, like you said, Jason,
<v Speaker 4>you went in ready and hungry for that cheeseburger, and
<v Speaker 4>then you had two scoops of rum raising slopped on.
<v Speaker 2>We were like, what happened here? I watched the City
<v Speaker 2>Stickers earlier.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know, I don't I don't like rum raising,
<v Speaker 4>but it was a city slickers. I blame City Stickers.
<v Speaker 4>Imagine if you will, and let me take over for
<v Speaker 4>marketing here. Okay, how about the movie trailer? Voiceover guy
<v Speaker 4>tells you this summer, Arnold Schwarzenegger does not want you
<v Speaker 4>to come see the movies.
<v Speaker 2>He wants you to be in the movies.
<v Speaker 4>And then boom and you get some great fast cuts,
<v Speaker 4>you get some action cuts, you kind of pepper in
<v Speaker 4>a couple of the fantastical and cartoony elements of this movie.
<v Speaker 4>So now you're like, you're curious, You're going, wait, it's
<v Speaker 4>Arnold Swarzeningger. But but it's it's comedy and it's did
<v Speaker 4>I see an animated cat?
<v Speaker 2>Is that what that was?
<v Speaker 4>Now you've got you got a couple balls in the
<v Speaker 4>air here where you're thinking, Okay, I like Arnold Swarzenegger.
<v Speaker 2>I liked Twins when he was funny.
<v Speaker 4>I liked Who framed Roger Rabbit when there was animated
<v Speaker 4>people and real people. Sure, it starts to create a
<v Speaker 4>a different vibe for this movie, and I think people
<v Speaker 4>going in have a different expectation. And then that way,
<v Speaker 4>nineteen ninety three's Jason Colvin is not walking out of
<v Speaker 4>the theater because he was he got a bait and switch.
<v Speaker 4>There is another theory on why this movie bombed. I
<v Speaker 4>don't know if you guys saw.
<v Speaker 2>That or read that.
<v Speaker 4>It comes from Arnold Schwarzeninger himself, because Arnold, Oh yeah, well,
<v Speaker 4>Arnold loves this movie. He has said it is his
<v Speaker 4>most underrated role. Back in May, he was talking to
<v Speaker 4>Cinema Blend. His quote was Last Action Hero. It was
<v Speaker 4>slaughtered before anybody saw it. It was literally a political
<v Speaker 4>attack because I was campaigning for former President George H. W. Bush,
<v Speaker 4>but Bill Clinton won. Last Action Hero was great. It
<v Speaker 4>wasn't fantastic, but it was underrated. Now more and more
<v Speaker 4>people are seeing it and saying, I love this movie.
<v Speaker 4>I'm getting the residual checks, so I know it's true.
<v Speaker 4>It made money. That's always an important thing. For me
<v Speaker 4>because it's show business, right, He's endorsed in the wrong horse,
<v Speaker 4>and Hollywood was like, no, we're gonna shut this movie down.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So here's another one of the marketing missteps in the process.
<v Speaker 2>Us.
<v Speaker 1>They know that Jurassic Park is coming, they know when
<v Speaker 1>it's being released, They know that they have thrown this
<v Speaker 1>thing together in nine months, and that all you had
<v Speaker 1>to do was postpone things two weeks, three weeks, just
<v Speaker 1>a little bit of time, and you are not consumed
<v Speaker 1>by the Jurassic Park tsunami.
<v Speaker 3>But did they do that.
<v Speaker 1>No. Their thought was, you know what, Spielberg's washed up.
<v Speaker 1>His last movie was Hook, and that sucked, by the way.
<v Speaker 1>Carrie Fisher also helped out with Hook. But and it
<v Speaker 1>did suck. But you have made a critic, you have
<v Speaker 1>chosen poorly on your release.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, one week after Jurassic Park.
<v Speaker 3>Mistake.
<v Speaker 2>Mistake.
<v Speaker 4>This is June thirteenth when this is coming out. So
<v Speaker 4>to D's point, make it an August movie. You know,
<v Speaker 4>this is the last action hero. This is the last
<v Speaker 4>hurrah for these kinds of movies. Let it be the
<v Speaker 4>end of summer. The marketing guys here, everyone's just failing.
<v Speaker 2>There's so many things that they could have done to
<v Speaker 2>make this a better experience for the viewer. You know,
<v Speaker 2>we forget Arnold had just been in Terminator two. You
<v Speaker 2>talked about the best action movie of the nineties. It's
<v Speaker 2>in the conversation McTiernan had given us die Hard Predator
<v Speaker 2>Hunt for October. Diehard maybe the best action movie of
<v Speaker 2>the nineteen eighties. So having a chance to recalibrate our
<v Speaker 2>expectations would have been important. You either have to go
<v Speaker 2>all in i e. Naked gun or loaded weapon. It's
<v Speaker 2>got to be all in spoof or all in action.
<v Speaker 2>It can't be both.
<v Speaker 3>Here's the thing.
<v Speaker 1>You can have satire and you can have farce in satire,
<v Speaker 1>but you don't have to have farce in satire, and
<v Speaker 1>that is the critical mistake that they made.
<v Speaker 3>You can have this movie be a.
<v Speaker 1>Satire of all of the action movies if you are
<v Speaker 1>choosing to go that way, right, if you're sticking with
<v Speaker 1>the idea of the script that this is supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be a mock of all of the action movies of
<v Speaker 1>the eighties, But that doesn't mean that you have to
<v Speaker 1>move into the Zucker Brothers' farcical stuff You don't have
<v Speaker 1>to have the tennis shoes sticking straight up out of
<v Speaker 1>the trash can. You don't have to have the guy
<v Speaker 1>getting killed by the ice cream cone in the back
<v Speaker 1>of the head lord. You don't have to have the
<v Speaker 1>gigantic moon with the bicycle flying through the shadow as
<v Speaker 1>an obvious throwback to eat. You don't have to do
<v Speaker 1>that stuff. You can still make fun of it, which
<v Speaker 1>is I've said this probably a handful of times over
<v Speaker 1>the course of our podcast. I think that's what leth
<v Speaker 1>Weapon three was doing. I think Lethal Weapon three was
<v Speaker 1>making fun of the other two, but it didn't go
<v Speaker 1>so far as to make it farccle, and it's still fun.
<v Speaker 1>It's still enjoyable. Also, by the way, carry Fisher came
<v Speaker 1>up with the Renee Russo part for that movie as well.
<v Speaker 2>Nice. But what they chose to do was try to
<v Speaker 2>mix those two up.
<v Speaker 1>Mix the satire that seems ultra realistic in with the farcicle.
<v Speaker 1>That is, it belongs in a mel Brooks movie, or
<v Speaker 1>it belongs in a scary movie or a Zucker Brothers movie.
<v Speaker 2>I think we all agree the concept, the idea of
<v Speaker 2>this kid magically getting pulled into his favorite action movies.
<v Speaker 2>Is a great idea, and it could work if you
<v Speaker 2>get pulled into a lethal weapon movie. Guys are not
<v Speaker 2>going to be killed by ice cream cones and smoke
<v Speaker 2>doesn't come out of the angry sergeant's ears.
<v Speaker 4>But to be fair, Animated aren't getting out of line
<v Speaker 4>with their female partners Police Station.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 3>Can we just touch on that for just a second?
<v Speaker 3>That world? Okay? The idea is this kid goes into
<v Speaker 3>the movie world.
<v Speaker 1>Then somehow the movie world becomes like backstage at MGM.
<v Speaker 1>Why are all of these other characters from other movies
<v Speaker 1>in this movie instead of it being like the world
<v Speaker 1>of Jack Slater?
<v Speaker 3>Right? Why does that happen?
<v Speaker 4>D That's the one nitpick I have about this movie
<v Speaker 4>is that it breaks its own rule. The whole idea
<v Speaker 4>of the Magic Ticket is that you can go into
<v Speaker 4>the movie of your choice.
<v Speaker 2>You can live in that world.
<v Speaker 4>There's too many cameos to name, would be here all night.
<v Speaker 4>I get why they did it, you know, because sitting
<v Speaker 4>there in this theater, you're like, oh, there goes Robert
<v Speaker 4>Patrick from Terminato two. There goes Sharon stone form based
<v Speaker 4>against me. You know, it's eye candy. It also breaks
<v Speaker 4>the rule that the movie sets up.
<v Speaker 1>Then to further break that rule, even go beyond eye Candy,
<v Speaker 1>you have the Seventh Seal and you have Death from
<v Speaker 1>the movie to and Seal coming out. Now, obviously it's
<v Speaker 1>a very old movie, so they didn't have the actual actor.
<v Speaker 1>The guy they had was Ian McKellen. With that point,
<v Speaker 1>I mean like he had had a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>a career early on, but he was not a movie guy.
<v Speaker 1>He was a stage actor. This was kind of his
<v Speaker 1>reintroduction into the movies. So I thought that that just
<v Speaker 1>that fact alone was pretty cool. But when he comes
<v Speaker 1>out of the screen as Death, he's got this moment
<v Speaker 1>where he confronts the characters and he's like, Jack Slater
<v Speaker 1>is not on my list, and I just wanted to
<v Speaker 1>see who he was.
<v Speaker 3>But you you are on my list. But don't worry.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna You've got a long time left to go.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm like, wait a minute, this is Death from
<v Speaker 1>the movie Seventh Seal. This is not actual Death, Like,
<v Speaker 1>how does he have this or it just doesn't It didn't,
<v Speaker 1>Like you said, it broke its own rules.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, I was telling you last night. The
<v Speaker 2>break in scene at the beginning of the movie, Danny's
<v Speaker 2>apartment is broken into. He's terrorized by this thug, and
<v Speaker 2>it means nothing to the story. It means absolutely nothing.
<v Speaker 2>Nothing happens. I guess they put it in there to
<v Speaker 2>show that he doesn't have it dad, but we already
<v Speaker 2>know that and it is meaningless to him. Like, he's
<v Speaker 2>not upset, right, He literally is struggling to call the
<v Speaker 2>police in time to get over to the theater and
<v Speaker 2>catch the movie before it starts. It doesn't put any
<v Speaker 2>fear in him. He doesn't act as a coward so
<v Speaker 2>that we have a character arc that he becomes brave
<v Speaker 2>later on. He's not brave, so that we can see
<v Speaker 2>the seeds of the character when he is brave later on.
<v Speaker 2>It's literally just this throwaway moment that could have been great.
<v Speaker 2>It could have been an opportunity to truly give his
<v Speaker 2>character some depth so that we root for him, because
<v Speaker 2>to me, that is the biggest sin of the entire
<v Speaker 2>movie is that you have no reason to root for
<v Speaker 2>this kid. Oh absolutely.
<v Speaker 4>On a Film By podcast, we talked about this movie
<v Speaker 4>back in June. It was our John mc ternan episode
<v Speaker 4>we had ninety Days in the nineties. Author Andy Frye
<v Speaker 4>join us, and what started off as what was going
<v Speaker 4>to be a conversation with the movie turned into you know,
<v Speaker 4>like this is this is what they did wrong, and
<v Speaker 4>this is what they did wrong and d we talked
<v Speaker 4>about that scene though, that is it's a complete throwaway
<v Speaker 4>to have this crackhead break in and the time like
<v Speaker 4>like it doesn't add up. You know, if he's got
<v Speaker 4>to meet Nick at midnight and it's eight o'clock and
<v Speaker 4>you're telling me that the you know, the guy breaks in,
<v Speaker 4>he's handcuffed and he goes down to the police precinct.
<v Speaker 4>What is Mercedes Rule doing for a living? Where the
<v Speaker 4>police department called. I'm not a father, I know you
<v Speaker 4>guys are. But she gets she gets a phone call
<v Speaker 4>that her son has been in a aggravated assault. Someone
<v Speaker 4>broke into her home. The miner is at the police station,
<v Speaker 4>and she says, send him straight home when you're done.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly right.
<v Speaker 4>And the police aren't going to give him like an escort.
<v Speaker 4>They're not gonna he's a ten year old kid, but
<v Speaker 4>we're not gonna drive him home. Hey, mom says, straight home.
<v Speaker 2>That should all that should have been cut.
<v Speaker 1>Let me say this because I know that we've talked
<v Speaker 1>about it, and we'll probably talk about it a little
<v Speaker 1>bit more, but let's talk about the kid here for
<v Speaker 1>just a second. Do I think that all of his
<v Speaker 1>acting choices were the best choices. No, I don't, but
<v Speaker 1>that or kid was handed a turd to work with.
<v Speaker 1>If you just look at a handful of his lines
<v Speaker 1>that he has had to read what was on the script,
<v Speaker 1>you go, I feel sorry for this kid, Like he
<v Speaker 1>had to say, my name's Danny O'Brien or whatever the
<v Speaker 1>crap it was, I'm a kid, Like that was somebody.
<v Speaker 1>Shane Black, a man who's been paid two million dollars
<v Speaker 1>for a script, wrote that line.
<v Speaker 2>What Yeah, I'm a kid? Look you said it.
<v Speaker 4>You know, we talked about the resume for Shane Black,
<v Speaker 4>Zach Pen, and Adam Leff in a game of whoever
<v Speaker 4>smelt it delt it? You know we know that we
<v Speaker 4>know Zach Penn and Shane Black are awesome. Adam Lef
<v Speaker 4>PCU and Biodome. I'm not saying who's responsible for writing
<v Speaker 4>Danny Madigan's dialogue or developing that character, but I gotta wonder, like,
<v Speaker 4>out of the three writers responsible for his terrible dialogue,
<v Speaker 4>who's in charge here because outside of the bad dialogue,
<v Speaker 4>it's just Austin O'Brien's terrible acting, which is on a
<v Speaker 4>Jake Lloyd level. You know, fan of nas Jake Lloyd level,
<v Speaker 4>you know.
<v Speaker 2>It's just bad, bad, bad. He's a bad actor. I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 2>Is the movie any better with mcaulay Culkin, Yes.
<v Speaker 4>Deficantly better, Jason, I don't know if we want to
<v Speaker 4>get into this now. I told you I had three
<v Speaker 4>options for you on here.
<v Speaker 3>I'm waiting all day for this.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, okay, no way before you do that. The possibilities
<v Speaker 2>for Last Action Hero what should have been was Arnold Schwarzenegger, McCully, Culkin,
<v Speaker 2>Alan Rickman. That is what initially was set up. Yeah, right,
<v Speaker 2>and even Timothy Dalton was talked about. Now, Charles Dance
<v Speaker 2>did a great job. I'm not awesome, right, Yeah, But Schwarzenegger, McCully, culkin,
<v Speaker 2>and Alan Rickman move over. Jurassic Park. Take my money.
<v Speaker 4>So you guys are the producers, I'll play the casting director.
<v Speaker 4>I've got what I'm going to say is a safe
<v Speaker 4>choice and inspired choice, and then the obvious choice. Keep
<v Speaker 4>in mind, these three actors, they are age appropriate within
<v Speaker 4>a couple of years. Each one of them has been
<v Speaker 4>in the business long enough to to be great. Okay,
<v Speaker 4>here's here's the safe choice. In nineteen ninety two, I'm
<v Speaker 4>gonna give you Jonathan Brandis. So the year before Last
<v Speaker 4>Action Hero, he does Lady Bugs and Sidekicks, which shows
<v Speaker 4>he can have a blockbuster star, whether it's an action
<v Speaker 4>star or a comedic star, and he can play the
<v Speaker 4>sidekick role to both of them, right, Brandis, Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he did that was in like the Dolphin thing
<v Speaker 3>with Roy Scheider.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah you're talking, You're talking about SeaQuest. Okay, the year Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>he joined SeaQuest the year that Last Action Hero comes out.
<v Speaker 4>So even with Roy Scheider proven, you know he can
<v Speaker 4>play the kids sidekick. So that's that's my safe choice.
<v Speaker 4>You would have had it, You would have had fine
<v Speaker 4>with that. Ye, here's an inspired choice. And I think
<v Speaker 4>you know this is a little bit of a maybe
<v Speaker 4>blow your mind on who it is? Do you guys
<v Speaker 4>if I say the name Brandon Quinton Adams get getting
<v Speaker 4>question marks?
<v Speaker 2>Okay?
<v Speaker 4>So in nineteen eighty eight he had a small role
<v Speaker 4>where he played a character named Zeke and Michael Jackson
<v Speaker 4>smooth Criminal and Moonwalker. If you remember the video street
<v Speaker 4>kids are watching outside, and the one kid says, look
<v Speaker 4>at him, go I taught him everything he knows, and
<v Speaker 4>the other kid says, no, you didn't. And so Brandon
<v Speaker 4>Adams is the one that jumps down and does a
<v Speaker 4>perfect Michael Jackson dance number right there. Okay, you probably
<v Speaker 4>don't remember him from that, but I know that in
<v Speaker 4>ninety one you might remember.
<v Speaker 2>Him as Jesse and the Mighty Ducks.
<v Speaker 4>And if you don't remember him there Jason, you definitely
<v Speaker 4>know him because in nineteen ninety three, same year as
<v Speaker 4>Last Action Hero, he's in the Sandlot. He plays the
<v Speaker 4>pitcher Kenny. Yes, who dares him to?
<v Speaker 2>You know, here's my heater, I dare you to hit it?
<v Speaker 4>Yes, this kid, this kid was ready to blow up.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I mean he could have been a box office star. Okay,
<v Speaker 4>so that's the inspired choice, right.
<v Speaker 2>You're blowing my mind. I didn't know that the picture
<v Speaker 2>from the Sandlot was the same kid in the Smooth
<v Speaker 2>Criminal video.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, okay, okay. And then finally, I'm you know, I'm
<v Speaker 4>gonna lob this one in. It's it's my obvious choice.
<v Speaker 3>Again.
<v Speaker 4>Think of the year, Think of the resume that he's
<v Speaker 4>got in the eighties, late eighties, Princess Bride, Little Monsters,
<v Speaker 4>The Wizard, Fred Savage.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, And in nineteen ninety.
<v Speaker 4>Three, the Wonder Years is ending, when Last Action Hero
<v Speaker 4>is coming out, So it would have been a great
<v Speaker 4>transition for his film career. Again, and we've seen that
<v Speaker 4>he can handle the big budget movie and have fun
<v Speaker 4>with it. Good point, and he's popular. Kevin Arnold, Kevin
<v Speaker 4>Arnold and Arnold Arnold and Arnold. I can't some would
<v Speaker 4>get me a marketing.
<v Speaker 2>Job because I don't know to tell you.
<v Speaker 4>But okay, so Jonathan Brandis, Brandon, Quintin Adams, Fred Savage.
<v Speaker 2>Who do you guys like? Man? I gotta go with
<v Speaker 2>Fred Savage. Man, that's a no brainer. Agree, Yeah right.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know who's asleep at the wheel, but that
<v Speaker 4>and again, any three of these guys would have been
<v Speaker 4>light years ahead of Austin O'Brien.
<v Speaker 2>I just don't know what I.
<v Speaker 1>Think that Fred Savage could have actually sold the line Amadeus.
<v Speaker 1>It won eight oscars. Oh gosha, I think Fred Savage
<v Speaker 1>could have sold that line. It's a terriblene once again, terrible,
<v Speaker 1>terrible writing for this poor child actor. But I think
<v Speaker 1>Fred Savage might have been able to sell that.
<v Speaker 4>Line, and I would I would think that Fred Savage,
<v Speaker 4>even at this young age, he's got enough enough time
<v Speaker 4>in the business and enough cloud to say to look
<v Speaker 4>at some of these lines and say, wait, you want
<v Speaker 4>me to say, Hey, I'm Danny Manigan, I'm just a kid.
<v Speaker 4>I guarantee you. Fred Savage makes the Danny character less whimpy,
<v Speaker 4>less whiny, less.
<v Speaker 2>Weak, less cross eyed. Yeah, that too, definitely. Let's talk
<v Speaker 2>about what we think really worked in this movie. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>so I think the action really worked in this movie.
<v Speaker 2>The action is awesome. McTiernan cannot be bad if he
<v Speaker 2>tries diehard, just bleeds out of his pores. Okay, the
<v Speaker 2>practical effects, the stunts, the car crashes, Schwarzenegger hanging off
<v Speaker 2>of an elevator, glass breaking, even the shootouts are awesome.
<v Speaker 2>They're all fantastic. I think the those are all really good.
<v Speaker 2>I think mister Benedict, that character is cool and you
<v Speaker 2>know solid. You know the contacts that he wears they
<v Speaker 2>have a nice day contacts, I'm not sure about that
<v Speaker 2>as a character. I thought his was really good. Bridget
<v Speaker 2>Wilson as his daughter was inspired goodness gracious majors, they
<v Speaker 2>did nothing with her basically except annoy you because she's
<v Speaker 2>screaming at the top of her lungs the entire time.
<v Speaker 4>Well, quickly, I'll say she definitely graduated from the Kim
<v Speaker 4>Beasinger school of screaming. But where the second you start
<v Speaker 4>to get annoyed, you realize that she's using it as
<v Speaker 4>an offensive weapon. Right, guy smacks her and she's like,
<v Speaker 4>big mistake, has her dad's catchphrase, and she's beaten the
<v Speaker 4>crap out of this guy while she's screaming at the
<v Speaker 4>top of her lungs, so that the guys in the
<v Speaker 4>other room just assume that you know, she's she's getting
<v Speaker 4>tore up. I could go both ways on the on
<v Speaker 4>the screaming, like, yes, it's annoying, but it's also like
<v Speaker 4>an effective tool that her character does.
<v Speaker 2>The one scene that I thought was awesome because it
<v Speaker 2>fits so well into eighties action movies. You have one
<v Speaker 2>one moment, they're jumping the car like a thousand feet
<v Speaker 2>over this thing, the kids cross eyed and making goofy sounds,
<v Speaker 2>and then you crash into a lingerie photo shoot. This
<v Speaker 2>is straight out of a you know, a lethal weapon
<v Speaker 2>type of movie. And that was fun and funny and
<v Speaker 2>I liked it. Yeah, And then there's one other thing.
<v Speaker 2>There's one joke that hit for me that I thought
<v Speaker 2>was really funny. Arl Schwarzenegger's carrying around a guy going
<v Speaker 2>he needs a doctor. This guy needs a doctor. He's
<v Speaker 2>not dead. And then one guy in a very Bugs
<v Speaker 2>Bunny like moment, says, I'm a doctor, right straight out
<v Speaker 2>of the Bugs Bunny cartoons. That was funny, And then
<v Speaker 2>the soundtrack is amazing. One more thing, Jeff, the iconic
<v Speaker 2>shot of Schwarzenegger in the movie Theater pulls out his
<v Speaker 2>gun to shoot the axe murderer, and you have that
<v Speaker 2>cool crane shot. These guys just are so good at
<v Speaker 2>what they do, they're just not good at what they
<v Speaker 2>don't do.
<v Speaker 4>So that that shot that should have been the poster.
<v Speaker 4>And if look at the poster, the poster is almost perfect,
<v Speaker 4>except for you've got the kid doing that stupid face
<v Speaker 4>in the poster, you know, as as Jack Slader's carrying him,
<v Speaker 4>you know, tucked away like a football, so this he's
<v Speaker 4>not cross eyed at.
<v Speaker 3>Least, you know.
<v Speaker 1>I think that the the thing they absolutely nailed, that
<v Speaker 1>they absolutely nailed on this movie was the movie within
<v Speaker 1>the movie. Within the movie, Arnold Schwarzeningger.
<v Speaker 3>As Hamlet, to be, Oh, not to be, not to be?
<v Speaker 1>When we get the Joel Silver style like dark and
<v Speaker 1>it's brilliant of course, because again they're making fun of
<v Speaker 1>lethal weapon. Like there's just lethal weapon ish ness everywhere
<v Speaker 1>in the movie, right, Jack Slater is Martin Riggs, right,
<v Speaker 1>just without the partner. You even have the when the
<v Speaker 1>when the house explodes, just like a lethal weapon.
<v Speaker 3>You have the old black cop.
<v Speaker 2>It was just two days away from retirement, like.
<v Speaker 1>It's and you've got the countdown, which I thought was
<v Speaker 1>pretty funny honestly, as he's just pulling through the cards.
<v Speaker 1>I think everybody hates that scene. I thought it was
<v Speaker 1>just chuckling to myself and it was that and I
<v Speaker 1>was like, this is great satire right here, this is funny.
<v Speaker 1>But to have that Joel Silver style Hamlet where Hamlet
<v Speaker 1>just starts shooting everybody with an oozy I thought, freaking brilliant.
<v Speaker 1>That is great.
<v Speaker 2>That was funny.
<v Speaker 1>The soundtrack is a no brainer. I mean it was
<v Speaker 1>a huge it was a hugely successful. It's the one
<v Speaker 1>success they had, Like the action figures didn't sell everybody
<v Speaker 1>hated the movie, but the album everybody bought it because
<v Speaker 1>it was so freaking good. I think that the story
<v Speaker 1>idea is fantastic. It is I think that the idea
<v Speaker 1>of going in and I thought this was kind of
<v Speaker 1>funny because literally, by pure accident, I'm watching old silent
<v Speaker 1>movies this past week. I'm watching it. I'm like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>it's a guy going into a movie and becoming the
<v Speaker 1>main character in the movie. And it's from like nineteen twenty,
<v Speaker 1>like it's one hundred year old movie and it's Buster Keaton.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, look, okay, so it's an inspired choice. You know,
<v Speaker 1>it's Alice in Wonderland through the looking Glass all that stuff,
<v Speaker 1>and the idea that there's something to be learned about. Hey,
<v Speaker 1>when we do all these violent and crazy things, how
<v Speaker 1>does that translate into real life? I think, again, inspired choice.
<v Speaker 1>When the villain gets into the real world and you realize, wow,
<v Speaker 1>bad things happen and nothing happens to the people that
<v Speaker 1>do them, that's a poignant moment. I think they did
<v Speaker 1>a ton of great stuff with that. And I agree
<v Speaker 1>with you, Jason. I think that the action was done
<v Speaker 1>like an action movie.
<v Speaker 3>It was real.
<v Speaker 1>It was if George Lucas directed Spaceballs, and all of
<v Speaker 1>a sudden, you can't tell is this a movie or
<v Speaker 1>is this a farce of a movie or a satire
<v Speaker 1>of a movie. So I thought, I thought all of
<v Speaker 1>that was great. But I'll say this, even the dumb,
<v Speaker 1>farcical things that they did, they still made me chuckle.
<v Speaker 1>But here's the key difference that I had from what
<v Speaker 1>you had, Jason. I didn't go in expecting only a cheeseburger.
<v Speaker 1>That's true. I went in knowing that this movie is
<v Speaker 1>supposed to be a spoof of action movies, and so
<v Speaker 1>I knew what to expect. I was ready for it,
<v Speaker 1>and so I could enjoy it. I wasn't expecting pure action.
<v Speaker 1>I wasn't expecting a Zucker Brothers movie. I was expecting
<v Speaker 1>John McTernan does a spoof of his own style, and
<v Speaker 1>that's totally what I got. So my expectations were met.
<v Speaker 1>That was not the case for the entire audience of
<v Speaker 1>the world back in nineteen ninety three.
<v Speaker 4>I will concur with the both of you when it
<v Speaker 4>comes to the action of this movie and the soundtrack
<v Speaker 4>that lights out, they just they hit it out of
<v Speaker 4>the park on this one. What also works for me.
<v Speaker 4>Austin O'Brien aside, I'm talking at both sides of my
<v Speaker 4>mouth here because I'm talking about what they did get right.
<v Speaker 2>But the casting.
<v Speaker 4>You've got the biggest action star of the nineteen eighties,
<v Speaker 4>You've got Oscar winners like f Murray Abraham and Anthony Quinn.
<v Speaker 4>You've got the feature film debut of Bridget Wilson, and
<v Speaker 4>you know, again all the fun cameos. So I think
<v Speaker 4>the casting was fantastic. Another thing that I think that
<v Speaker 4>they really got right, and this is something that I
<v Speaker 4>know is important to you guys as well, is the mcguffin.
<v Speaker 4>This magic ticket with a mysterious origin. Harry Houdini passed
<v Speaker 4>it down and he got it from someone who got
<v Speaker 4>it from someone. The Magic Ticket is a fantastic mcguffin
<v Speaker 4>for both the villains and the heroes. So I love
<v Speaker 4>the I love the Magic Ticket. And then lastly the
<v Speaker 4>comedy when it hits right, and I'm you know, you
<v Speaker 4>mentioned Schwarzenegger, you know, and the doctor and then hit him,
<v Speaker 4>knocking out the doctor, and then he's like the doctor
<v Speaker 4>has fainted and someone.
<v Speaker 2>Helped the doctor.
<v Speaker 4>You know, It's like, but but I love you know,
<v Speaker 4>like IND's point when when Charles Dance when his character
<v Speaker 4>makes it into the real world and he starts to
<v Speaker 4>pick up on the fact that bad things happen and
<v Speaker 4>you get away with it. I love that moment where
<v Speaker 4>he he shouts out to the alley, I've just shot
<v Speaker 4>him man, and I want to confess, and the response
<v Speaker 4>he gets is he shut up down there.
<v Speaker 2>So like that kind of.
<v Speaker 4>Comedy I dig in this movie, and even the banter
<v Speaker 4>between Arnold and Charles Dance when he knocks on the door.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I just speak to the drug dealer of
<v Speaker 2>the house.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, upside to do the day we're killing drug dealers?
<v Speaker 4>Do you have any I just that part is fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>I love I love some of the comedy.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, get rid of the farcical stuff, you know, ice
<v Speaker 4>cream cones at the back of the head and Danny
<v Speaker 4>Manigan cross eyed and you know, doing his goofy noises.
<v Speaker 2>Get rid of all that.
<v Speaker 4>But there there there's still plenty that works as far
<v Speaker 4>as the comedy.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, a quick Calvin cut of this movie that makes
<v Speaker 2>it one hundred thousand percent better. All right, okay, and
<v Speaker 2>it's so easy. I told the this hours two hours
<v Speaker 2>and ten minutes. You trim it back to an hour
<v Speaker 2>and fifty. You cut all the farcicle crap out, so literally,
<v Speaker 2>you go through. You scrub the ice cream cone to
<v Speaker 2>the back of the head, You scrub some of the
<v Speaker 2>stupid fart jokes, the silent but deadly I mean that
<v Speaker 2>was somewhat humorous, but calling the guy Leo the fart
<v Speaker 2>and he was a flagelette man. All that stuff is
<v Speaker 2>for Leslie Nilson. Take that out of there. Do something
<v Speaker 2>with whiskers the cat euthanasia. Yes, and you trim the
<v Speaker 2>stupid cross eyed kid shot. Everything else is fantastical and acceptable.
<v Speaker 4>Could we cut a little bit more of Austin O'Brien's dialogue. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>And I'm just I mean, I'm not being like a hater.
<v Speaker 4>I'm just saying, like some of just some of that
<v Speaker 4>bad dialogue.
<v Speaker 2>Sure cut it.
<v Speaker 4>Like when he when he first meets Bridget Wilson's character
<v Speaker 4>and then he has that moment by himself where he's like, Hi,
<v Speaker 4>I'm Danny Madigan and I haven't had a long life,
<v Speaker 4>but I just want you to know it's all downhill
<v Speaker 4>for me.
<v Speaker 2>It's like, just can we.
<v Speaker 4>Just cut most of his stuffy. Cut a lot of
<v Speaker 4>him and give me more Marcedes Rule. That'd be my
<v Speaker 4>trade off, I'd request.
<v Speaker 2>And she's never looked better in my opinion. She she
<v Speaker 2>looks wonderful in this movie.
<v Speaker 4>Dirty girl looking fantastic in this moody and I believe her,
<v Speaker 4>you know, like and I feel bad for her, you know,
<v Speaker 4>she's she has that terrible, that that sad line, like I, hey,
<v Speaker 4>you think I asked to be a widow before before
<v Speaker 4>I'm forty, Jason, you know, I'm a big fan of Marcedes.
<v Speaker 2>Rule, you know, because of Fraser. But I wish we
<v Speaker 2>could have.
<v Speaker 4>Had more of her in this movie.
<v Speaker 2>One thing I wish we could have had more of
<v Speaker 2>in this movie, Man, it was so close to be.
<v Speaker 2>In an awesome moment in the movie Theater, Jack Slater
<v Speaker 2>is pulled out a gun. He's trying to shoot the
<v Speaker 2>ex murder. Everybody's duck and it's mass chaos and he's
<v Speaker 2>tackled by Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I thought, man, this would
<v Speaker 2>be a really cool way to have a fight right here,
<v Speaker 2>like do something. Oh yeah, and you know they have
<v Speaker 2>a minor disagreement and that's it. And I thought that
<v Speaker 2>really could have if you could have expanded that scene
<v Speaker 2>into some sort of wrestling match.
<v Speaker 1>Or that could have been your trailer for the movie,
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, and that would have given you the
<v Speaker 1>appropriate expectation.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, Greed.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was gonna say, what the Colvin cut, I'll
<v Speaker 1>give you the grapes cut here, all right. Yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 1>I would have cut some of the farcical things, although
<v Speaker 1>like I said, I did enjoy them because I had
<v Speaker 1>that expectation. So the key thing that I would say is,
<v Speaker 1>had they marketed it properly at the beginning, they would
<v Speaker 1>have offended a whole lot less folks. But there's this
<v Speaker 1>beautiful opportunity to create a father son story here. He
<v Speaker 1>is a father who's lost a son. Danny is a
<v Speaker 1>son who's lost a father. They are both looking for
<v Speaker 1>the wrong solution to their problem, and ultimately that could
<v Speaker 1>have been the right solution. And so if you build
<v Speaker 1>that relationship and make that more of a focus of
<v Speaker 1>the movie, then suddenly we've got characters that we can
<v Speaker 1>care more about. And that gets us through the kind
<v Speaker 1>of bumpy ride of the ice cream cones and the
<v Speaker 1>funeral full of people who all have their own personal
<v Speaker 1>oozzis right right, right, yep.
<v Speaker 3>And so if you've.
<v Speaker 1>Got those things that you care about, and you eliminate
<v Speaker 1>some of the silly stuff that they're just doing because
<v Speaker 1>they think that's what they're supposed to do. Because of
<v Speaker 1>mel Brooks here, I think is an important thing that
<v Speaker 1>would have been a very simple fix. Change the way
<v Speaker 1>the real world looks compared to the movie world. I
<v Speaker 1>think one of the key problems is that they look
<v Speaker 1>exactly the same. If your point is to show the
<v Speaker 1>difference between movies and reality, you need to be able
<v Speaker 1>to see that on the screen, right. Desaturate what you're
<v Speaker 1>doing in the real world, give it a more authentic vibe,
<v Speaker 1>which you absolutely could have done at this point, and
<v Speaker 1>then that drives that point home that you're trying to
<v Speaker 1>make in the movie itself about what is good about
<v Speaker 1>movies and what's bad, and what's good about real life
<v Speaker 1>and what's bad. So I think those simple changes and
<v Speaker 1>you have a movie classic instead of a classic.
<v Speaker 4>Blunder, I absolutely agree, and to your point on the desaturation,
<v Speaker 4>and I'm not I don't want to pick a scab
<v Speaker 4>here from the last time I showed up when we
<v Speaker 4>talked Alien three, but imagine, imagine if the movie world
<v Speaker 4>had that hazy blues of Cameron's Aliens, and then in
<v Speaker 4>the real world we get the cpia tones of the
<v Speaker 4>yellowish tint that Venture had in Alien three. You're absolutely right,
<v Speaker 4>distinguishing between the two worlds would have been much better
<v Speaker 4>for this film.
<v Speaker 1>One more change that I would make. The axe murderer
<v Speaker 1>has to be.
<v Speaker 3>Less intelligent and less well spoken.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, he's this scarred up walking in a yellow
<v Speaker 1>rain slicker with.
<v Speaker 3>A makeshift axe in his hand. You can't talk like
<v Speaker 3>a very educated man and talk to Jack about the
<v Speaker 3>problems that they've had and the way that they can
<v Speaker 3>work these things out. Brilliant Jack, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant Jack.
<v Speaker 1>No, no, no, he's a psychotic killer. Make him talk
<v Speaker 1>like a psychotic killer. Make him sound like Buffalo Bill
<v Speaker 1>from Silence of the Lambs, And then yes, we now
<v Speaker 1>have a scary villain instead of something that just seems ludicrous.
<v Speaker 4>To your point, The Rippers played by Tom Noonan, who
<v Speaker 4>is famous for playing the Tooth Fairy in Michael Man's
<v Speaker 4>Manhunter from nineteen eighty six. Yeah, so again with there's
<v Speaker 4>a Silence of the Lambs connection that guy's creepy and
<v Speaker 4>scary enough. You know you didn't have to make him
<v Speaker 4>look like Chro Magnan.
<v Speaker 2>Man.
<v Speaker 4>If you're gonna make him look like that, make him
<v Speaker 4>more barbaric, more gruff, not what we got.
<v Speaker 2>Well, is it time for final judgment?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so we have two kind of final judgments here.
<v Speaker 1>Number one. I mean we kind of already have talked
<v Speaker 1>about how we felt about Alien three, but we're comparing
<v Speaker 1>Alien three and Last Action Hero to some degree, although
<v Speaker 1>we are really asking the question what the heck happened?
<v Speaker 1>But we talked about how we felt about Alien three.
<v Speaker 1>Let's talk now. You've rewatched it, Jeff, you loved it
<v Speaker 1>when you first saw it, and you've rewatched it as well.
<v Speaker 1>I watched for the first time, Jason, would you think
<v Speaker 1>on the rewatch?
<v Speaker 2>So on the rewatch, I've already told you guys, this
<v Speaker 2>is not a walk outable movie. So I was with
<v Speaker 2>my college buddy Craig Parrish. I want to give him
<v Speaker 2>a shout out. We both agreed, we both walked out.
<v Speaker 2>We were like, this sucks, get us out of here.
<v Speaker 2>But upon rewatch, it's a fun ride. There's a lot
<v Speaker 2>of fun to be had in this movie. There's some
<v Speaker 2>stupid decisions that were made, but overall I had recalibrated
<v Speaker 2>my expectations for the movie. I knew what I was
<v Speaker 2>getting into, and overall it was a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's a It was a big swing and
<v Speaker 2>a big miss, but at least they took a big
<v Speaker 2>cut and really went for it. They just didn't They
<v Speaker 2>just didn't catch it right. So overall I enjoyed it
<v Speaker 2>upon rewatch.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, Jeff, you loved it when you first saw it
<v Speaker 1>and have now since expanded your palette, if you will,
<v Speaker 1>on what quality movies are versus how you felt when
<v Speaker 1>you were ten. So what did you think on the rewatch?
<v Speaker 2>I'll say this.
<v Speaker 4>Years and years watching it, you know every now and
<v Speaker 4>then does it have its faults? It absolutely does. I
<v Speaker 4>do think it was ahead of its time. You know,
<v Speaker 4>we talked about that meta commentary that that the film
<v Speaker 4>offers up and I would love to do to see
<v Speaker 4>more from it. I know they just released a four
<v Speaker 4>K Blu ray that has an alternate ending and some
<v Speaker 4>other some other goodies. I still like the film. I
<v Speaker 4>think it's fun, but I'm not ready to buying the
<v Speaker 4>Blu ray. I've got for seven ninety nine is one
<v Speaker 4>thing before I'm going to spend forty bucks on a
<v Speaker 4>four K steal book that has the I'm not there yet,
<v Speaker 4>so I'm kind of trying to compromise. Meet Meet Jason halfway.
<v Speaker 4>I loved it, and I still I still care a
<v Speaker 4>great deal about it. It's got some great moments, but
<v Speaker 4>I get it. It's not for everybody, but it was
<v Speaker 4>for me.
<v Speaker 1>I like it, okay, And just real, real quick before
<v Speaker 1>I throw this out there. They didn't know what to
<v Speaker 1>expect when this thing finally came out, right, they and
<v Speaker 1>they test audience.
<v Speaker 3>They showed it to him.
<v Speaker 1>We've talked about Mark Cannon before because Mark Cannon when
<v Speaker 1>we talked about vacation, he was the guy when everybody
<v Speaker 1>else said, no, vacation idea is a stupid idea. He
<v Speaker 1>was the one guy at Warner Brothers right who said, no,
<v Speaker 1>I think we can make this something great. And he
<v Speaker 1>was right, And then I said, and then he went
<v Speaker 1>on to do Purple Rain and Batman, and I mean,
<v Speaker 1>if you look at his stage production career, it is flawless. Well,
<v Speaker 1>he's the president of Columbia. At this point, they do
<v Speaker 1>their test showing the cards they got back were so
<v Speaker 1>bad that he confiscated all of them and destroyed them.
<v Speaker 1>But unfortunately he didn't keep it a secret. And Jeffrey Wells,
<v Speaker 1>who was just a freelance guy, then he wrote a
<v Speaker 1>story about it and it created white a havoc. I
<v Speaker 1>saw the interview that Brian Gumble did with Arnold Schwarzenegger
<v Speaker 1>before this movie came out, and he's talking to him,
<v Speaker 1>this is before the movie comes out, and he's talking
<v Speaker 1>to him about all the bad press that this movie
<v Speaker 1>is getting. So I think that it's terrible at that
<v Speaker 1>point in history that not only did they give people
<v Speaker 1>false expectations, but then they made that even worse by
<v Speaker 1>putting out these stories that put everybody questioning, oh my gosh,
<v Speaker 1>is this just going to be this horrible, horrible thing.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't have to experience any of that. I got
<v Speaker 1>to watch it a week ago when I knew that
<v Speaker 1>you hated it, and I knew that you liked it,
<v Speaker 1>and I knew that it's supposed to be a far
<v Speaker 1>and that it wasn't well received. I sat there watching
<v Speaker 1>that movie with a smile on my face the whole time.
<v Speaker 1>I loved it. I mean, I'm not gonna rewatch it.
<v Speaker 1>There are a lot of things that I was just like, Oh, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I can see why everybody hated this part. Okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I can see where this is terrible. But I knew
<v Speaker 1>that going in, and so knowing that going in, I
<v Speaker 1>got to really truly enjoy this movie.
<v Speaker 3>And I did.
<v Speaker 1>I obviously have a lot of criticism of the movie,
<v Speaker 1>because I just threw that out there for the last hour,
<v Speaker 1>but truthfully, on my first watching of it.
<v Speaker 3>I genuinely enjoyed the movie.
<v Speaker 1>I thought that it was a good concept, not even
<v Speaker 1>poorly executed, just with some poor decisions, but for a
<v Speaker 1>lot of other factors that were outside the movie itself,
<v Speaker 1>this could have been a truly great movie.
<v Speaker 2>It could have been a great like one of the
<v Speaker 2>best of the nineties. Yeah, okay, let's go. Let's go
<v Speaker 2>comparison Last Action Hero to Alien three. Jeff, you love both,
<v Speaker 2>so you're on the hot seat.
<v Speaker 4>Man, Okay, Well, you know what, I'm not gonna put
<v Speaker 4>a lot of thought into it. I'm gonna say Last
<v Speaker 4>Action Hero would be my choice between the two.
<v Speaker 2>All right. So for me, when I think back to
<v Speaker 2>where I was, I was very like I read Entertainment Weekly,
<v Speaker 2>I watched movies like crazy. I was into what was
<v Speaker 2>coming up on the Blockbuster movie screen for the summer.
<v Speaker 2>I went into Alien three expecting aliens. What I got
<v Speaker 2>was a kick in the nuts in the first three minutes.
<v Speaker 2>Last Action Hero. I had just seen Jurassic Park and
<v Speaker 2>I was expecting Terminator two, and so with that heightened expectations,
<v Speaker 2>what I got was like cold water in the face. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>So I hated both of these movies when I saw
<v Speaker 2>him the first time in the theater, But after rewatch,
<v Speaker 2>after some time has passed, after I recalibrated my expectations,
<v Speaker 2>Alien three still sucks balls, but Last Action Hero is
<v Speaker 2>enjoyable for what it is.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so I land on the same page as both
<v Speaker 1>of you, honestly rewatching, Like, I saw Alien three in
<v Speaker 1>the theater, and I was young enough at the time
<v Speaker 1>that I didn't couldn't tell you exactly what was bad.
<v Speaker 1>I just was like, this was boring. This is a
<v Speaker 1>boring movie. Didn't live up to the first two. Now
<v Speaker 1>that I've seen Last Action Hero and I've rewatched Alien three,
<v Speaker 1>one hundred percent, Last Action Hero is the better movie.
<v Speaker 1>Alien three is worth the watch. If you're analyzing the
<v Speaker 1>history of David Fincher and what he had to do
<v Speaker 1>and what he had to work with and what came
<v Speaker 1>out despite all of the obstacles that he had. But
<v Speaker 1>beyond that, other than an educational experience, it's not worth watching.
<v Speaker 1>It's not something I would pick out and watch with
<v Speaker 1>the kids. Last Action Hero. I would totally take this out.
<v Speaker 1>I'd say, Okay, guys, this is a movie that is
<v Speaker 1>full of action, and it's also full of stuff where
<v Speaker 1>they're making fun of movies that are action movies, and
<v Speaker 1>we would get to enjoy it for that, I would
<v Speaker 1>have a great time. I think all of this would
<v Speaker 1>have a great time. Last Action Hero definitely wins the day.
<v Speaker 2>All right, guys, Well, we want to hear from you.
<v Speaker 2>Hit us up on Facebook, hit us up on Twitter,
<v Speaker 2>send us an email. Tell us what you think about
<v Speaker 2>Last Action Hero. Tell us what you think about Alien three. Jeff,
<v Speaker 2>thank you. Where can we find your your stuff? Man?
<v Speaker 4>We are streaming on every platform, but I'll make it
<v Speaker 4>easy for you. Just head over to www dot a
<v Speaker 4>film by podcast dot com. You'll find links to all
<v Speaker 4>the streaming platforms, plus some other fun stuff.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 4>We have access to all the episodes but we're also
<v Speaker 4>throwing some more fun stuff, some trivia stuff for there.
<v Speaker 4>We always love talking to people on social media, so
<v Speaker 4>you can definitely find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
<v Speaker 4>at a film by podcast as well.
<v Speaker 2>One thing I went through out there real quick. We
<v Speaker 2>have a Patreon page. Jeff, you have a Patreon page.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, a film By does have its Patreon page as well.
<v Speaker 2>Awesome. We now have a money back guarantee. If you
<v Speaker 2>come over to our Patreon page and you listen for
<v Speaker 2>one month and you don't like it, we'll send your
<v Speaker 2>money back, no questions asked. What do you have to lose?
<v Speaker 2>We got tons of great stuff over on our Patreon page.
<v Speaker 2>We just a deep dive on Kokomo. Jeff, you were
<v Speaker 2>with me when we did. There's something going on. We
<v Speaker 2>deep dive on one hit wonders and sort of musical anomalies.
<v Speaker 2>It's a lot of fun. Check us out on Patreon, and.
<v Speaker 4>I'll point out I'm not just a guest host. I'm
<v Speaker 4>also a patron. I absolutely love these episodes and I
<v Speaker 4>look forward to him every month.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks Mike, appreciate it. I'm a patrion of yours. I
<v Speaker 2>love your stuff too, man.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you.
<v Speaker 4>All.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Well, we will be back next week. D we're
<v Speaker 2>taking a deep dive with our friend Amanda Janek. Amanda Janik,
<v Speaker 2>who has been a listener of ours, made a like
<v Speaker 2>a billboard that said, Jason and d you've got to
<v Speaker 2>go into the cure and depeche mode, and so we're
<v Speaker 2>going to do that with her next week. Rest. I
<v Speaker 2>remember seeing that. Wasn't that on your Facebook page? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the Shirley Facebook.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, and I recognize the name because you have
<v Speaker 4>You've warned me Jason, like, hey, I've made some some
<v Speaker 4>comments that you felt.
<v Speaker 2>She's not gonna like that when you when when she.
<v Speaker 3>Reached out, So she was offended by your position on
<v Speaker 3>Greece too.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it that's what it was. Yeah, we'll come back
<v Speaker 2>next week and hear the latest edition of the Shirley
<v Speaker 2>Camby Series podcast.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you guys so much for listening.
<v Speaker 2>So there's a whole bunch of you know, the cameos
<v Speaker 2>and the bloated budget. They put Last Action Hero on
<v Speaker 2>a rocket.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, we forgot to mention that that's so ridiculous
<v Speaker 1>And the rocket didn't even take off until like the
<v Speaker 1>movie had been out for a month.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I wonder everybody already hated it.
<v Speaker 2>It failed to lunch,