Speaker 1: Its oil.
Speaker 2: I'm back midnight viewers to midnight viewing. My god, here
Speaker 2: it is. It's a superhero event. It's the Fantastic Four. No,
Speaker 2: not that one. We're talking about the very first iteration,
Speaker 2: the first cinematic, live action iteration of the Fantastic Four.
Speaker 2: It's our first unreleased film here on midnight viewing, making
Speaker 2: it difficult to find, or at least it was for
Speaker 2: many years when we were all trying here to talk
Speaker 2: with me about. This is my co host here at
Speaker 2: midnight viewing. This is HBHB. How you doing.
Speaker 3: What's going on? Man, I'm doing great. It's Clobren time.
Speaker 3: Follow on. Let's get into this. I'm very excited. As
Speaker 3: always I say that every week, but I'm really excited.
Speaker 3: This was one that I wanted to do for a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 2: Let's talk Fantastic Four first and foremost, off the top,
Speaker 2: who's your favorite member of the four?
Speaker 3: Probably Ben Grimm. Probably The thing.
Speaker 2: Now is that for the Hybraic parallels, I.
Speaker 3: Knew you were gonna come up with the fact that
Speaker 3: he's a member of the Tribe's it's probably part of it.
Speaker 3: But he's such he is the best hearted one of
Speaker 3: the whole bunch. He's truly the monster with the heart
Speaker 3: of gold. He's the gentle giant, and he will go
Speaker 3: to any length to protect his family, to do what's right.
Speaker 3: He's just he looks fucking cool. I love Ben Grim.
Speaker 3: Who's your favorite if we're.
Speaker 2: Talking the Misbegotten Mess that was those two films from
Speaker 2: the early two thousands. From those movies, my favorite is
Speaker 2: Johnny Storm because it's Chris Evans I love naturally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is the right answer, by the way.
Speaker 2: But realistically, overall, with the Fantastic War through the ages,
Speaker 2: it's become clear to me that Sue Storm is not
Speaker 2: much of a character, or at least was never really
Speaker 2: presented cinematically that way, and neither was Johnny Storm. Johnny
Speaker 2: Storm is really obnoxious to me as a character, and
Speaker 2: worse than both of them is Read Richards, who I
Speaker 2: find to be a straight up villain the Marvel universe.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna go with obviously the thing as well.
Speaker 2: He is much cooler, having a rock guy who's funny
Speaker 2: and who's sweet and who falls in love and wants
Speaker 2: to be rid of this gift quote unquote. He's the
Speaker 2: only one who really gets fucked by the Transformation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can I put it in an honorable mention though, Herbie,
Speaker 3: if we're talking, the thing is my favorite of the
Speaker 3: entire like Fantastic Four, kind of continue him. But if
Speaker 3: I'm really being honest or at least an honorable mention,
Speaker 3: my favorite depiction of a member of Fantastic Four, I
Speaker 3: think you know where maybe you know where I'm going
Speaker 3: with this it is it's got to be Bill Murray
Speaker 3: as the Human Torch in the nineteen seventy five Fantastic
Speaker 3: Four radio drama.
Speaker 2: Anyone here has seen a flaming teenager.
Speaker 3: I knew you were going to remember it. It's it
Speaker 3: all serious. I mean, it's bizarre number one that Bill Murray,
Speaker 3: our Bill Murray. The Bill Murray is doing is voicing
Speaker 3: this sort of braddy superhero. But I will say, like
Speaker 3: anyone who's listened to those that radio show, it's actually
Speaker 3: probably the most slavishly adherent to the original comic. So
Speaker 3: there is that. It's got that going for it, but
Speaker 3: it is very It's a distinctly odd experience to hear
Speaker 3: one of the greatest voices in comedy playing the brash
Speaker 3: Johnny Storm. So I had to mention that at least
Speaker 3: we can move on now, but I wanted to mention that.
Speaker 2: We're only moving on, but we're actually moving backward. What's
Speaker 2: your history with Fantastic for Were you a reader of
Speaker 2: the comic?
Speaker 3: I was. I can't say that it was my favorite,
Speaker 3: but I certainly collected it and read it during my
Speaker 3: prime comic book collecting phase, which is probably pre high
Speaker 3: school around that time, so I was a pretty big
Speaker 3: reader of it. It can't I also can't say that
Speaker 3: I was a devoted reader of the original sixties run
Speaker 3: because some of those I found a little bit. They're
Speaker 3: very dated. Let's say now. I recognize the importance and
Speaker 3: I love the fact that they're this iconic superhero team.
Speaker 3: But I read it quite a bit, and I was
Speaker 3: a big fan of the what ifs that featured the
Speaker 3: Fantastic Four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I myself never read Fantastic Four. I could never
Speaker 2: get into them. I didn't. I understood the family dynamic
Speaker 2: of it, and I knew they were Marvel's familial heart
Speaker 2: as it were. But I only became interested in Fantastic
Speaker 2: Four when it involved their greatest villain, Galactus, more specifically
Speaker 2: Galactus's herald noorin Rad, the Silver Surfer, who is one
Speaker 2: of my top ten Marvel characters. I love how existential
Speaker 2: and just what a horrific situation that character finds himself in.
Speaker 2: I never really dug too much into the comics, although
Speaker 2: I very, very happily watched all of the cartoons from
Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies and whatever we were getting in
Speaker 2: the eighties, any iteration of the Fantastic Four animated I
Speaker 2: was down for.
Speaker 3: I also, if we're talking about the comic or extensions
Speaker 3: of the comic, I do want to make one recommendation
Speaker 3: to you and the audience at large. It's a book
Speaker 3: that came out in two thousand and three called Unstable Molecules.
Speaker 3: Are you familiar with it? Father Malone? No?
Speaker 2: Hippit me to it.
Speaker 3: It's written by a guy named James Stern, and it
Speaker 3: posits that the Fantastic Four were actually real normal people
Speaker 3: that inspired the Marvel bullpen of the late fifties to
Speaker 3: create the Fantastic Four comic. In the book, it's funny
Speaker 3: that you talk about how Read Richards is your least
Speaker 3: favorite member, because in this book he is the worst.
Speaker 3: He's this stuffy, self absorbed Columbia professor who is dating Sue,
Speaker 3: but pays her no mind and is very self absorbed.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I mean, Richard's in every iteration of
Speaker 2: the Fantastic Four, but this.
Speaker 3: Is like a real world version of read Richards no powers.
Speaker 3: These are just real people that, like I said, inspired this.
Speaker 3: Johnny is a bitter aloof teenager who never got over
Speaker 3: the death of his parents, and he is inspired to
Speaker 3: run away eventually spoiler alert by a Beatnick Ben is
Speaker 3: a friendly, go lucky boxing trainer, but he has issues
Speaker 3: with rage and sexual addiction. In this, God Stop It
Speaker 3: and It's great, and Sue is torn between trying to
Speaker 3: raise her younger brother and failing at it, and also
Speaker 3: living under the strictures of that time period and the
Speaker 3: things that it forced young women to adhere to. It's sad,
Speaker 3: it's funny, it's uncomfortable, it's exceedingly creative, and it won
Speaker 3: the Eisner Award for Best Limited Series two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: It's You're not gonna get any there's no superpowers, there's
Speaker 3: no super villains, there's none of that. It's just a
Speaker 3: super creative look at what if this was the inspiration
Speaker 3: for the Fantastic Four.
Speaker 2: It's great, sounds like a drag man.
Speaker 3: It's I'm maybe under selling the the humor and the
Speaker 3: sort of the the coolness of the concept. It's really
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna deny that it's sad and poignant, but
Speaker 3: it's great. It's what a create. It has a little
Speaker 3: bit of that Watchman thing where at the end there's
Speaker 3: a bibliography that goes through what happened to them, interviews
Speaker 3: with the real people. It's very cool. If you like
Speaker 3: the Watchman, you'll like this.
Speaker 2: Father Malone, well, I do like the Watchman. Who doesn't
Speaker 2: like Watchmen? Of course? And what about after Watchmen? Do
Speaker 2: you like after Watchmen?
Speaker 3: I is that an aftermash joke that you're making because
Speaker 3: it was a before Watchman? Was there an after Watchman too?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, I'm thinking of before Watchman. That's how little
Speaker 2: mind I paid to it.
Speaker 3: Before Watchman was just okay, I can't speak to you.
Speaker 2: What do you know what? It's not just okay? Let
Speaker 2: me tell you something. Maybe the comedy Edward Blake friends
Speaker 2: with the Kennedys. What fuck are you talking about? That's
Speaker 2: not what happened.
Speaker 3: He's the guy in the Grassy Knoll for fuck's sake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, Look the grassy noll thing. I don't think
Speaker 2: is next necessarily in the comic, but was portrayed in
Speaker 2: the film like it's a I think it's hinted at
Speaker 2: maybe in the comic. But yeah, of course he was.
Speaker 2: He probably did that for fun. I don't think he
Speaker 2: was even under orders anyway.
Speaker 3: I don't remember much about before Watchman, but let's see.
Speaker 2: You know what around this time period when America is
Speaker 2: we were also hopeful and then I hope died thanks
Speaker 2: to the comedian. Right around that time, Marvel's The First
Speaker 2: Family was born. They wouldn't get any sort of actual
Speaker 2: live action adaptation for many years, but they almost sooner
Speaker 2: than the one we eventually got in the early twenty
Speaker 2: first century, Right around nineteen ninety one ninety two, there
Speaker 2: became an opportunity where a film comingy look, everyone at
Speaker 2: some point or another option to Marvel property and then
Speaker 2: found out that it was unfilmable for them, or making
Speaker 2: a superhero movie is not as easy as they think.
Speaker 2: And up until now, the only actual feature film released
Speaker 2: under the Marvel imprint was Howard the Duck by nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three.
Speaker 3: What about the Captain America movie that.
Speaker 2: Was never released? Was it the Albert is the Albertqune
Speaker 2: movie with Matt Salinger and fucking oh my god, Scott
Speaker 2: Pollen as the Italian Red Skull. I know what's it
Speaker 2: going on, Captain. Hey, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I did see a poster for it in the theater.
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that it was released, But because I
Speaker 3: saw the Fantastic Four poster too.
Speaker 2: I don't believe it was released, sir, because I saw
Speaker 2: the same poster, and you know me, I was stoked
Speaker 2: for a Captain America movie. Sure did not happen, and
Speaker 2: then O man man when it did not. When I
Speaker 2: finally saw it, which was came out on video pretty
Speaker 2: pretty quickly, as soon as the straight to video became
Speaker 2: a thing. What never came to video was the promised
Speaker 2: Fantastic Four movie, the one that showed up on Film
Speaker 2: Threat magazine, which was a national publication. It was a
Speaker 2: periodical of note.
Speaker 3: It's a very polite way of categorizing it.
Speaker 2: Although I will say I was an avid reader of
Speaker 2: Film Threat. I don't know if you were.
Speaker 3: If I was, I love Film Threat.
Speaker 2: They certainly covered a lot of what was actual independent,
Speaker 2: underground cinema at the time. These were hard to find.
Speaker 2: Features in most cases Fantastic four.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: I gave pause when I saw this on the cover.
Speaker 2: I was like, what are they doing?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: Also around nineteen ninety three, then this ended up being
Speaker 2: made at Corman Studios. I lived three blocks from Corman Studios.
Speaker 2: Had no idea what was going on behind those doors,
Speaker 2: and else I would have busted my way in and
Speaker 2: worked on this movie. HB. How did we get here?
Speaker 3: In terms?
Speaker 2: Constantine Films has the rights to Fantastic Four? Right, Sorry,
Speaker 2: their copyright is going to run out. It's as tale
Speaker 2: as old as time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they needed to see It's a little murky.
Speaker 3: I thought you had to at least have a movie
Speaker 3: in production before that copyright ran out in order to
Speaker 3: have it renew itself. That's a little bit murky. And
Speaker 3: we'll get into the ins and outs of how it
Speaker 3: pertains to finas the Fantastic Four. But he it's my
Speaker 3: understanding that the guy was a barn what's his last name?
Speaker 3: Barrent Constantine man, sorry, Baron Constantine. He went to Lloyd
Speaker 3: Kaufman at Trauma to try and get a quickie film made,
Speaker 3: and he turned him down because he figured it was
Speaker 3: too big of a budget. For trauma to handle. He
Speaker 3: then went to Roger Corman, and Roger Korman approved. I
Speaker 3: believe it was the biggest budget up to that point
Speaker 3: for any Corman film, which was a million dollars to
Speaker 3: fast track this movie and get it into production, and
Speaker 3: everything happened very quickly. But there was there was no
Speaker 3: indication at least to the creatives dealing with this, the actors,
Speaker 3: the director, the editors, any of these people that this
Speaker 3: was anything but a genuine theatrical release. Everybody was stoked,
Speaker 3: like we were that, Wow, this is a fantastic four
Speaker 3: movie's actually going to be made, and we want to
Speaker 3: make this the best thing that we can make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Plenty of stories of people walking around the halls
Speaker 2: of Korman studios with that script in their hand, going
Speaker 2: who's making this? We are? And yeah, So Corman agrees
Speaker 2: to provide a million and a half to against constantin Films,
Speaker 2: one million dollars. So Constant is actually putting up the
Speaker 2: million dollars. Korman is putting up a million and a
Speaker 2: half in production costs, which means he's using his studios
Speaker 2: and his equipment and his staff and everything, and who
Speaker 2: knows what he's paying them whatever. So basically, this movie
Speaker 2: is being made for one million dollars, even though we're
Speaker 2: told it's double that budget. I'm getting I'm guessing yeah.
Speaker 3: But everybody, the actors are all excited. These are some
Speaker 3: actual actors of note, Jay Underwood, who was in The
Speaker 3: Boy Who Could Fly and a few other things. These
Speaker 3: aren't just Lightning.
Speaker 2: The Day my kid went punk.
Speaker 3: That's right, I forgot he was in.
Speaker 2: That covered here on the cable box theater Midnight, a
Speaker 2: division of Midnight it was.
Speaker 3: By the way, it should be noted that a lot
Speaker 3: of what we're describing here comes out of a movie,
Speaker 3: a companion piece to Fantastic Four, if you will, called Doomed,
Speaker 3: the Untold story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four. That it
Speaker 3: goes into exhaustive detail about everything that we're describing here,
Speaker 3: and it's highly recommended.
Speaker 2: For years, that's all you could see of the movie.
Speaker 2: The documentary had footage of the film in it, and
Speaker 2: the film remained unreleased, so if that you had to
Speaker 2: see Doomed.
Speaker 3: But every like the actors involved were excited because everybody,
Speaker 3: the director, they saw this as this could be really
Speaker 3: good for their career. They realized they were doing this
Speaker 3: under the constraints of a Roger Corman production, and that's
Speaker 3: that's obvious when you see the movie. But it's also
Speaker 3: pretty clear when you watch The Fantastic four Father Malone,
Speaker 3: that this was made with a lot of love for
Speaker 3: the source material, that no one folding this in. They're
Speaker 3: doing the best they can.
Speaker 2: Yep, they're doing the best they can. See here's the
Speaker 2: thing terribly. Look as a young man when I heard
Speaker 2: that they were doing fantastic for it and it was
Speaker 2: Corman and they were doing for a million dollars, I
Speaker 2: was like, this is going to be the greatest train
Speaker 2: wreck of all time. I cannot wait to see what
Speaker 2: a fucking nightmare this is, right, and that, of course
Speaker 2: film Threat at the time their coverage was we're doing
Speaker 2: our best here, folks, But I would not hear that. Then,
Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't care doing your best. Get out
Speaker 2: of the way. Let somebody else make the fantastic for it.
Speaker 2: Don't hold onto this copyright if you're willing. My thought
Speaker 2: then now too is if the only thing you can
Speaker 2: get going with the movie is this, maybe you shouldn't
Speaker 2: have the rights to the film anyway.
Speaker 3: This is true, and it also bears repeating that this
Speaker 3: was obviously a very different time for Marvel movies. Nowadays,
Speaker 3: a Marvel movie like Fantastic Four First Steps, that's a
Speaker 3: big budget, highly anticipated movie. This was a time when
Speaker 3: Marvel couldn't really they couldn't get movies made under their
Speaker 3: own banner. They didn't have the resources or the infrastructure
Speaker 3: any of that, or there wasn't much public interest. Comic
Speaker 3: book movies weren't really a thing.
Speaker 2: But you're right then we did have Captain America and
Speaker 2: we had The Punisher now, which is more disappointing by
Speaker 2: the time that they're making this film.
Speaker 3: I never saw The Punisher, so I can't speak to
Speaker 3: the Punisher. I can't speak to Captain America. And it
Speaker 3: was pretty damn disappointing. It wasn't as bad as that
Speaker 3: TV show from the seventies with Red Brown is that
Speaker 3: his name? The football player who played He's.
Speaker 2: Just wearing a fucking motorcycle helmet for his regular helmet.
Speaker 3: It's insanity, right, But Scott Pollard was pretty good as
Speaker 3: the Italian Red Skull, though.
Speaker 2: I have to say, yeah, that's because Scott Polland's awesome,
Speaker 2: But it makes no sense he could still be German
Speaker 2: Red Skull in Italy? What are they doing? He could
Speaker 2: be visiting anyway.
Speaker 3: But you're right. The expectations I think for the average
Speaker 3: moviegoer fan of the Fantastic Four were probably pretty low
Speaker 3: when they heard that Roger Korman was making this picture.
Speaker 3: But despite that, there's excitement anyway, because again, there weren't
Speaker 3: many comic book movies, let alone one featuring your favorite
Speaker 3: superhero team, so there had I don't remember at the
Speaker 3: time being super excited for it, but there had to
Speaker 3: be some excitement of we're getting something like this could
Speaker 3: be this could be pretty cool. I'm gonna be cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I say this a lot, but I always feel
Speaker 2: like sometimes science fiction fans and comic book fans, all
Speaker 2: the genre fans up until recently, because now obviously nerd
Speaker 2: culture has exploded in all directions, but we were starved
Speaker 2: at a certain point, like any scrap that could fall
Speaker 2: off the table that had a cape on it that
Speaker 2: we were pretty stoked about it. It always reminds me
Speaker 2: of you look at racks and racts of romance novels.
Speaker 2: It's like people reading them know they're shit, but they'll
Speaker 2: just do for now. And that's what we were getting,
Speaker 2: like we were, oh, this little bit. We'd even take
Speaker 2: Howard the dock. That's the insent, just.
Speaker 3: A little like a starving person you give a crust
Speaker 3: of bread, they're going to leap upon that crust of
Speaker 3: food with like hunger is the best sauce. That's the saying, right,
Speaker 3: So anything is better than nothing in this case, Oh,
Speaker 3: we believed HB.
Speaker 2: I actually aligned to you because that documentary didn't come
Speaker 2: out until twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: I was going to I was gonna mention that I
Speaker 3: didn't want you. You're on a roll, so I didn't
Speaker 3: want to get in your way.
Speaker 2: I had seen fantastic, I've seen. I saw Fantastic for
Speaker 2: ninety seven, the Rocher Carbin one, like the bootlegs were
Speaker 2: pretty quick, they were.
Speaker 3: I remember being at a few conventions, even I think
Speaker 3: the Weekend of Horror that you and I went to
Speaker 3: in high school. I remember seeing those like clamshell boxes
Speaker 3: at some exhibitors and going like, oh, this fantastic might
Speaker 3: have been the first time I even was really aware
Speaker 3: of the Fantastic four Corman movie. But little did I
Speaker 3: know that really was it. It was never going to
Speaker 3: be released either, as a bonus feature for the two
Speaker 3: thousand Movies or anything. And as far as I know,
Speaker 3: it's still there's no plan to ever release it, is there?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Is it not on Blu ray?
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 2: I think it's on a steel book. Didn't I see,
Speaker 2: like Adam Scott in the Criterion closet taking it down? Oh,
Speaker 2: fantastic for Roger kum. Interestingly, this is not actually directed
Speaker 2: by Roger Korman even we called them, even than we
Speaker 2: call it a Roger car film.
Speaker 3: It's got a special limited edition cover by Mondo, like
Speaker 3: a special edition could be, but.
Speaker 2: No, I draft TSK cover.
Speaker 3: I can still see it that that cheap o case
Speaker 3: with the like digitally printed cover poorly, like the color
Speaker 3: is all faded and bad looking. And you just knew
Speaker 3: that somebody dubbed this off of their own VCR. And
Speaker 3: that was the other thing. This we're talking video cassettes.
Speaker 3: This wasn't like you're getting a DVD or even like
Speaker 3: a CD ROM. This was a video cassette.
Speaker 5: Boot from the pages of the world's greatest comic book.
Speaker 4: Adventure for heroes on a daring mission in space, but
Speaker 4: something went wrong, genetically transformed, they become the most powerful
Speaker 4: superheroes of all time, but the forces of evil about
Speaker 4: to destroy their cosmic power.
Speaker 6: Find them, and.
Speaker 5: To survive, they must utilize all their strength to put
Speaker 5: an end to their arch nemesis. Dude claubretime The Fantastic Four.
Speaker 2: Okay, here we go, Fantastic four. This was made to
Speaker 2: be released on May the thirty first, nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: It was never released. It is ninety minutes. It was
Speaker 2: written by Craig Nevius and then rewritten by guy named
Speaker 2: Kevin Rock, directed by oly Sassone or Sassoan Oly Sassoni
Speaker 2: who Knows. Starring Alex Hyde, White, Jay Underwood, Rebecca Stob,
Speaker 2: Michael Bailey, Smith, Carl Scharfalio, Ian Trigger, Kat Green, George
Speaker 2: gains for two seconds, and he's very very very good.
Speaker 3: He's got he's like fifth or sixth billing, and he's
Speaker 3: only in it for literally those two minutes.
Speaker 2: He just gets a blowjob from a prostitute and a
Speaker 2: podium and he's on his way. Also starring and starring
Speaker 2: Joseph Kulp as Victor von Doom, Doctor Doom. Okay, ninety
Speaker 2: minutes that I mentioned, it's ninety minutes, that's all right,
Speaker 2: here's the thing. I agree with yours and Film Threats
Speaker 2: and the Doomed documentaries appraisal that this is a very
Speaker 2: earnest film made by serious people. They are not winking
Speaker 2: at the product, which was always comic book fans greatest
Speaker 2: fear that we were getting Adam West Batman sixty six again.
Speaker 2: By now Batman had come out, and Batman was a
Speaker 2: serious dude because now it's Michael Keaton, which sounds funny
Speaker 2: that he was anyway. So Batman is a serious dude now.
Speaker 2: So we're expecting at least our filmmakers to take the
Speaker 2: product seriously, to take our characters and the world they're
Speaker 2: in seriously, and this one definitely does that.
Speaker 3: It does. It's not the greatest story. There are clearly
Speaker 3: concessions to things like budget and what have you, but
Speaker 3: it's not the train wreck that everybody feared it would be.
Speaker 3: I will say this. We've talked about those incredible Hulk
Speaker 3: TV movies that came after the fact, the one with
Speaker 3: Thor and the one with Daredevil and so forth. I
Speaker 3: will say I think this is at least on a
Speaker 3: par with the one with Thor, if not better than
Speaker 3: that one. That one. I think is. It's too much
Speaker 3: of a departure from who thor is, and it's just
Speaker 3: not made with all that much care and creativity. But
Speaker 3: this you can tell. Like you said, it's very earnest
Speaker 3: and the story, while not the greatest story, is very
Speaker 3: comic book like. It's fairly true to the source material.
Speaker 2: If this were I say this a lot about origin
Speaker 2: story movies for comic book characters. If this were a
Speaker 2: pilot for a television series, I would say this is
Speaker 2: a great fucking pilot. Everyone should seek it out and
Speaker 2: watch it. Look what they did, the fact that this
Speaker 2: is a theatrically minded feature that is ultimately a fucking
Speaker 2: dodge so they can maintain the rights to the characters.
Speaker 2: It's Sully's my take on the film. It doesn't the
Speaker 2: let me put it this way. The sort of naked
Speaker 2: greed on display balances out the earnestness of the cast
Speaker 2: and crew. So now I have to just judge the
Speaker 2: movie as.
Speaker 3: Is, of course, and I would say, I think if
Speaker 3: you asked the or if you talk to the actors,
Speaker 3: they would ask you to judge this movie on its marria.
Speaker 3: It's as opposed to all the baggage that it comes
Speaker 3: freighted with so on those on that basis alone, Father Malone,
Speaker 3: did you were you entertained? Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2: I was entertained, definitely, and I did have a good
Speaker 2: time watching it. Was I scratching my head a lot.
Speaker 2: Was I wondering what the fuck is going on? Several times?
Speaker 3: Me too? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did I immediately go? Wait? Is that supposed to be
Speaker 2: the mole Man? Yes? All of these things? H me, yes,
Speaker 2: what's the story here?
Speaker 3: So it's the Origin story. It starts with the Origin
Speaker 3: and other fantastic four that I think most people probably
Speaker 3: know at this point. There are some alterations and some
Speaker 3: streamlining happening in this one. Starts out Victor von Dune
Speaker 3: and read our classmates, just like in the comic book.
Speaker 2: But this is mental by the way that we're starting
Speaker 2: with them as young people. I get what they're doing,
Speaker 2: but it's fucking crazy that this is a ten near jump. Anyway,
Speaker 2: please continue. These guys are these are guys who Here's
Speaker 2: George Gaines by the way, from fucking the Commandant Lassarde
Speaker 2: from police Academy is giving them this nonsense, fucking generic
Speaker 2: lecture out of college.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's so, what's happening? Is there's a comet called
Speaker 3: Colossus that's going to come very close to Earth. I
Speaker 3: think it's meant to be a stand in for like
Speaker 3: Haley's Comet, and.
Speaker 2: Which was all the rage in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: It was not so much in the nineties. But we'll
Speaker 3: we'll slip past that Doom and read Richard's are they've
Speaker 3: built some sort of machine, some device that will siphon
Speaker 3: energy from this was a little bit vague. I think
Speaker 3: that they're looking to make a device that can harness
Speaker 3: energy from this comet. Because it's going so close to
Speaker 3: the Earth, it's going to be some sort of clean energy.
Speaker 3: There's a malfunction because Reid wanted to go over the
Speaker 3: figures the second time and Victor did not, which is
Speaker 3: close to the book. There's an explosion. Doom is presumed dead,
Speaker 3: but it's he's actually not dead. He has confederates from
Speaker 3: his home country of Latveria that, for reasons that are
Speaker 3: a little bit murky.
Speaker 2: They save him, a little bit murky.
Speaker 3: They take him back to his home country. And then
Speaker 3: we flashed forward ten more years and I'm sure I'm
Speaker 3: glossing over some things.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I mean, basically before the craziness Ben, and
Speaker 2: we meet Ben and his relationship with Read Richard's and
Speaker 2: they're like, Read is like he's in the most hilarious
Speaker 2: sort of here's signage to indicate where we are. The
Speaker 2: Storm family like boarding house where it's Storms, Sue Storm's
Speaker 2: mom and young Sue Storm and young Johnny Storm are
Speaker 2: like playing video games in the because they're kids.
Speaker 3: So that was irving, by the way, so it's not.
Speaker 2: All creepy that little girl is obsessed with older man
Speaker 2: Read and to the point of, by the way, okay,
Speaker 2: as earnest as everyone was, let's call this fucking movie
Speaker 2: when it's bullshit, because it's the fucking most bullshit line.
Speaker 2: Everything he's dreaming. She actually says that. She actually presses
Speaker 2: her hands against her cheek and watches him walk up
Speaker 2: the stairs and says, Read, he's so dreaming.
Speaker 3: The only thing missing her little hearts that are shooting
Speaker 3: out from her head as she's doing this. But that,
Speaker 3: but like I said that, that part of it was
Speaker 3: creepy to me because it's vic Reid and Ben are
Speaker 3: just those are the actors. They don't change like when
Speaker 3: they age.
Speaker 2: It's just them they do because they've spray painted Alex
Speaker 2: Hyde White's with the white Yeah, yeah, giving him the
Speaker 2: gull wing hair the ash special.
Speaker 3: But it's and it may be true to the book
Speaker 3: because I know that Sue was meant to be much
Speaker 3: younger than Reid.
Speaker 2: But it's one of cares just started with all of
Speaker 2: them graduated.
Speaker 3: They didn't need to they could have. They didn't need
Speaker 3: to have this ten year jump because it didn't really
Speaker 3: add much and it only made me uncomfortable because there
Speaker 3: is Sue Storm at eleven or twelve years old mooning
Speaker 3: over Reid Richards and you know that they're going to
Speaker 3: be romantically involved eventually. So that's a very odd thing
Speaker 3: to have to grapple with. But anyway, they.
Speaker 2: See that Transformers movie with with Mark Wahlberg, where like
Speaker 2: a major plot point is that his daughter is involved
Speaker 2: with an older man, and like at one point, the
Speaker 2: older man character recites like the Statutes of Limitations for
Speaker 2: like minors, and have you seen this movie? It's insanity, man.
Speaker 3: I don't think I've seen any of those Transformer.
Speaker 2: Movies, So I just want to tell you about it.
Speaker 2: Like takes out like a farm. It's clearly at that
Speaker 2: time Michael Bay was being accused of untour.
Speaker 3: Sure, but it's this is a little some of the storytelling,
Speaker 3: and this is a little suspect. But nevertheless, they we
Speaker 3: flash forward. Now Read killed Bay.
Speaker 2: He's so dreamy, so Read.
Speaker 3: Is it's ten years later. Read has built his rocket ship.
Speaker 3: Apparently the comet is this colossus comet is still orbiting
Speaker 3: the Earth. Somehow it's ten years later. Maybe it's made
Speaker 3: its return trip. That was left uncertain in my mind. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Now he's going to take this ship up and do
Speaker 3: an experiment, a similar kind of thing he Inveigel's Ben
Speaker 3: to pilot.
Speaker 2: It's Ben as a pilot, so that makes sense. And
Speaker 2: then for his astrophysicist and or co pilot and or
Speaker 2: other technicians, the Storm kids.
Speaker 3: Of course, Johnny Storm in the book he was young too,
Speaker 3: but I think in that case it was more like
Speaker 3: he was like a prodigy. He was a good mechanically,
Speaker 3: so he was going to be an asset to the crew,
Speaker 3: whereas in this case, not that Underwood plays him badly,
Speaker 3: but he's just a he's just a teenager, and it's
Speaker 3: it's unclear why what qualifies him to go on this spaceflight.
Speaker 2: He's a hyperactive dummy here in the movie, he.
Speaker 3: Got he very wide eyed, a hyper so they go up,
Speaker 3: Oh no, but okay, I'm leaving something out here, so
Speaker 3: they here's where it gets a little weird, Father Malone,
Speaker 3: so he gets weird everybody, so they Reid realizes that
Speaker 3: they need some a force field to protect them from
Speaker 3: the cosmic rays, if you will, so he arranges to
Speaker 3: have this giant diamond be part of the ship's makeup.
Speaker 3: It will protect them from the harmful radiation. But there's
Speaker 3: this character who's supposed to be the Moleman, but they
Speaker 3: couldn't get the rights to the Moleman, so in this
Speaker 3: movie he's called the Jeweler. The Jeweler has an obsession
Speaker 3: with Alicia Masters, who is the blind Sculptress from the
Speaker 3: book to in order.
Speaker 2: To tell people who there is, there's a blind sculptress,
Speaker 2: and in this movie, she's been hired by the city
Speaker 2: to memorialize the Fantastic Four after they're killed.
Speaker 3: But that's after this that's okay, So at this point
Speaker 3: she is just a sculpturest okay, and he and the
Speaker 3: Jeweler is obsessed with her. So in order to give
Speaker 3: her a gift, he steals this diamond and replaces it
Speaker 3: with a fake At the same time, Father Malone, doctor
Speaker 3: Doom is looking to sabotage their flight because now he's
Speaker 3: officially Doctor Doom with the costume and the metal mask
Speaker 3: and everything.
Speaker 2: Lots of fetish shots, like lots of like shots of
Speaker 2: the eyelets and the mouth, just the hooded figure and
Speaker 2: lots of the fingers. This okay, we'll get to him soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he he figures into this. He also wanted
Speaker 3: to say, like I said, sabotage this mission, but he
Speaker 3: observes the Jeweler stealing the diamond, so he says, my
Speaker 3: work is done. I don't know, have to is perfect.
Speaker 2: I loved this part of the script. By the way,
Speaker 2: this was so comic bookie, like out of left field.
Speaker 2: We should also say that the Jeweler character is like
Speaker 2: it's a prosthetic makeup on the character. It's made to
Speaker 2: look like. Okay, now we're in the comic book world
Speaker 2: once this guy shows up, and this really is when
Speaker 2: it turns into a comic book because that's when doctor
Speaker 2: Duom arrives as well, and now we're getting shouts of
Speaker 2: him in the classic mass. The costume for Doctor Doom,
Speaker 2: it should be noted, is fucking awesome in this movie.
Speaker 3: That's probably my favorite thing out of the whole movie,
Speaker 3: which admittedly is maybe a low bar to get over,
Speaker 3: but this is the most comic, accurate version of Doctor
Speaker 3: Doom that we've gotten. Even to this day, I would
Speaker 3: lay claim to this. It's cheap, it's not perfect, but
Speaker 3: they got the mask details really good. It's I'm not
Speaker 3: over selling it. It's great. But they go up, the
Speaker 3: crew goes up in this rocket. The cosmic rays overwhelmed them.
Speaker 2: They crash, They they have lost I am flying in
Speaker 2: a rocket in outer spacemember, remember astronaut Jones. No, I
Speaker 2: want to share it right now.
Speaker 3: You might have to produce it into this.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely, I'm definitely going to You're gonna, you're gonna.
Speaker 2: You're going to laugh when you hear it. It's fantom.
Speaker 3: I'm laughing already. So they crash and they've lost telemetry,
Speaker 3: so no one knows where they are, and they're trying
Speaker 3: to survive. But they're already the powers are already manifesting themselves,
Speaker 3: although in a limited capacity budgetary, but for budgetary reasons.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, first of all, the capsule of the spaceship,
Speaker 2: everyone is in tinfoil like heat suits. Yeah, and they
Speaker 2: needn't be. It's really silly. It's typical Corman thing. They
Speaker 2: keep saying this was such a great budget, and obviously
Speaker 2: it was. This was their biggest budget at the time,
Speaker 2: But if you just looked like a couple of years beforehand,
Speaker 2: they did Battle Beyond the Stars, and that movie looks great,
Speaker 2: and there's tons and tons of space stuff in it.
Speaker 2: All that shit looks great. Here this stuff. Obviously they're
Speaker 2: only doing one scene with the outer space, and so
Speaker 2: they're not going to pay that much attention to it.
Speaker 2: They're not going to spend that much money on it.
Speaker 2: But I think about Corman Studio. I remember walking past
Speaker 2: Korman Studio like every day, just looking at spaceships lying
Speaker 2: around in the parking lot. So it's not like they
Speaker 2: didn't have more material. I did not like the cosmic sequence,
Speaker 2: other than when they were getting their powers and they
Speaker 2: were using the step printing process where they're just using
Speaker 2: stock footage of lens flares and shit to approximate like
Speaker 2: they've been irradiated. I loved that.
Speaker 3: But to your point about how bad some of this looks,
Speaker 3: I think it's maybe less a budget thing and more
Speaker 3: of According to Doomed the documentary, not only did they
Speaker 3: have to make this film cheaply, but they had to
Speaker 3: make it very quickly. They were always I think they
Speaker 3: only I think the it was like I want to say,
Speaker 3: it was like a four or five week shoot, which
Speaker 3: is insane for something of this that of this supposed scale,
Speaker 3: And that didn't leave a lot of time for post
Speaker 3: production work. And I think there were some issues. I
Speaker 3: think that the money ran out.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's just say, even though we saw a
Speaker 2: finished film, this is still not a finished film. Honestly.
Speaker 2: There are whole sequences where I'm like, there would be
Speaker 2: music here, there should be music here. They didn't even
Speaker 2: get that far.
Speaker 3: Right on the One of the biggest examples of that
Speaker 3: is and they talk about it, and Joseph Kulp talks
Speaker 3: about this. So he is acting as doctor doom And
Speaker 3: I noticed this as I'm watching it. I said, Poya's
Speaker 3: voice is really muffled. Did they not do any ad
Speaker 3: R on him, because it's as if he's delivering his
Speaker 3: lines with the Yes, he's absolutely not only is he
Speaker 3: delivering his lines with the mask on, but they never
Speaker 3: had him in to loop his dialogue to make it
Speaker 3: more intelligible. So that's just one example of the corner
Speaker 3: cutting that took place on this picture.
Speaker 2: And you know, all obviously he would know that while
Speaker 2: he's acting the fucking part, so he's he's not going
Speaker 2: full tilt all the time, and like, even if he
Speaker 2: fucks something up, he'd be like, I'm just gonna adr
Speaker 2: that anyway.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'll fix it. I'll fix it in post.
Speaker 3: It's not a big deal. But there was no post
Speaker 3: for the actors. But I guess we'll get back to
Speaker 3: that anyway. They get picked up this crashed crew, they
Speaker 3: get actually before that we're talking about the special effects,
Speaker 3: so lack thereof Johnny never gets to really flame on
Speaker 3: until the very end of the movie. So while in
Speaker 3: the book he flames on almost immediately and they're arguing
Speaker 3: and he flies around and this all he does is
Speaker 3: he sneezes and the sneeze causes a flame to shoot out,
Speaker 3: and that's it. That's all really, And aside from his
Speaker 3: hand lighting on fire a few times, you don't really
Speaker 3: get much of Johnny doing the human torch thing.
Speaker 2: Not a whole lot of experimentation from the four Once
Speaker 2: they get their powers.
Speaker 3: You know. So they're picked up by people they believe
Speaker 3: to be the army, but it's in fact confederates of
Speaker 3: Doctor Doom, and he takes them to what they believe
Speaker 3: in the military installation, but it's actually his castle or whatever,
Speaker 3: and he's trying to harness their abilities, like he's taking
Speaker 3: blood from them, he's burning all these experiments. They finally
Speaker 3: figure out that this isn't the military. I don't know
Speaker 3: what we're going to get out of here. They By
Speaker 3: this point, Ben Grimm has officially become the thing. Actually
Speaker 3: before we even get to.
Speaker 2: That, let's get to that. Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 3: Talk a little bit about the thing, like what was
Speaker 3: your take on the costuming and the effect work around
Speaker 3: Ben Grimm Father alone. I'm really curious what your take is.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing the magazine cover and thinking, oh man,
Speaker 2: we're in for a fucking ride here. This is going
Speaker 2: to be fucking dreadful. And but from the very first
Speaker 2: time I saw the movie, the best thing about the
Speaker 2: movie is the thing. It's not only almost comic accurate
Speaker 2: looks wise, but it moves great when it's being shot judiciously.
Speaker 2: The articulation of the mouth is really good. When we
Speaker 2: first meet him, and he's asking questions like why did
Speaker 2: this happen to me? Read what are you doing? All
Speaker 2: of that was great. I mean, they only had one suit,
Speaker 2: so they don't really when it's Clabern time. It's more
Speaker 2: like quick editing time. But I loved the suit. And
Speaker 2: I even like the guy who played Ben before he
Speaker 2: becomes the thing, because it's just a stuntman afterwards. It's
Speaker 2: like a swamp thing situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's two actors. One guy plays Ben Grimm
Speaker 3: in human form, and I agree he's very good in this.
Speaker 3: And I also agree with you that when it's shot properly,
Speaker 3: the articulation of the thing's face and his mouth and
Speaker 3: he's talking, there were moments where I was legitimately impressed
Speaker 3: because it almost holds up even thirty years later. You
Speaker 3: can see him articulating the words that the actor is speaking.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it falls apart because it's not shot well. And
Speaker 3: the fact that the Ben grim that the thing that
Speaker 3: I know from the comics. He's big, right, He's supposed
Speaker 3: to be able to go toe to toe with the
Speaker 3: Hulk creatures like that. In this case, all you're getting
Speaker 3: is kind of a big stunt man with this suit.
Speaker 3: He looks a little puny, punier than he should, I think,
Speaker 3: And there's something about the suit itself that reads less
Speaker 3: like rock and more like it just looks very latexy
Speaker 3: that when he moves.
Speaker 2: Around, if it comes off at anything, it comes off
Speaker 2: like a lizard skin. You're right, it never comes off
Speaker 2: like stone. And they could have just maybe thrown in
Speaker 2: some sound effects or had some grit falling off him
Speaker 2: to maybe sell that just a little bit, because you're right,
Speaker 2: they never really even mentioned that he's a rock man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's and the fighting is a little bit goofy,
Speaker 3: but I do I do think that's clearly a lot
Speaker 3: of time and effort went into the servos that worked
Speaker 3: the character's face and mouth, so that part was really good.
Speaker 3: There's not really much to be said about Sue Storm.
Speaker 3: That's really just your typical matted shots of her, like
Speaker 3: half visible, half not visible. I think there's one shot
Speaker 3: of her shooting like an energy weapon or like a
Speaker 3: shield out of her hand, but that's about as far
Speaker 3: as it goes with her. And the less said about
Speaker 3: read Richard's stretching ability, the better probably.
Speaker 2: Oh h okay, so read Richards anytime he stretches. It's
Speaker 2: either a practical effect which looks terrible, or it's a
Speaker 2: straight up hand animated like stretch where his clothing is
Speaker 2: also stretching inexplicably with like his leg stretches out and
Speaker 2: tripped somebody. It's I would rather have had no powers
Speaker 2: than the powers that we end up seeing and Sue
Speaker 2: Storm the way that's presented that drives me crazy. I
Speaker 2: don't care if you just have somebody disappear on screen
Speaker 2: and it's the same effect that they've been doing since
Speaker 2: the fucking Invisible Man in the nineteen thirties, that's fine
Speaker 2: by me. But if the person disappears and two characters
Speaker 2: are standing on opposite sides of that person and they
Speaker 2: open fire, that person hasn't disappeared, they're just no longer visible.
Speaker 2: She would still be shot and killed. And that sort
Speaker 2: of thing happens over and over again, where she disappears
Speaker 2: a second before somebody lunges where she was standing, just
Speaker 2: there like a millisecond ago, and suddenly she's not there,
Speaker 2: as if she has gone off to some other realm.
Speaker 2: That's not how it works.
Speaker 3: She's just invisible to the naked eye. She hasn't de materialized,
Speaker 3: and that I did think of that myself after the
Speaker 3: youmpteenth time, where there's a guy on either side of
Speaker 3: her with a rifle and they both opened fire, and
Speaker 3: the joke, not the joke, but the idea is because
Speaker 3: she's disappeared, they effectively kill each other. But that wouldn't happen.
Speaker 3: That that did make me a little bit crazy too.
Speaker 2: Moments like that HP just make me want to turn
Speaker 2: up the radio or to take these broken wings and
Speaker 2: learn to fly again, learn to live so free. Oli
Speaker 2: Sassone the filmmaker here. He was a music video guy
Speaker 2: all through the nineteen eighties. He did the autograph song
Speaker 2: turn Up the Radio video, He did mister Mister's Broken
Speaker 2: Wings video. He did a Juice Newton. He did the
Speaker 2: It's in the way that you move, It's in the
Speaker 2: way that you use it from Eric Clapton.
Speaker 3: He did that video, oh from the Color of Money.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. He did a Gloria as Stefan. He did a
Speaker 2: Jerry he did when Jerry Lee Lewis finally made his
Speaker 2: Great Balls of Fire video in conjunction with the movie
Speaker 2: That Was his Life in nineteen nineteen eighty nine, this
Speaker 2: guy directed it. He directed a John Lee Hooker video.
Speaker 2: So my question is, why is this poorly edited? Why
Speaker 2: is this one of the most poorly edited films I've
Speaker 2: ever seen? There's no musicality. In fact, while I was
Speaker 2: watching it, I kept thinking during the action scenes, man,
Speaker 2: they should have gotten a music video editor, or they
Speaker 2: should have gotten a music video director.
Speaker 3: I'm going to chalk that up again to the conditions
Speaker 3: in which this was made. That they didn't have a
Speaker 3: lot of time, they didn't have a lot of resources.
Speaker 3: I think at a certain point they essentially stole the
Speaker 3: reels and they worked post production on their own dime.
Speaker 3: So under those types of conditions, it's a wonder that
Speaker 3: the thing got quote unquote finished at all. You and
Speaker 3: I both agree it's not truly finished. But he, I
Speaker 3: got to say in that documentary, he was probably the
Speaker 3: most endearing of all of the people that had to
Speaker 3: deal with this situation because he is like he's He
Speaker 3: comes off as a real ham and eggs director. Somebody
Speaker 3: who works for hire probably gets it, takes pride in
Speaker 3: getting his work done on time and under budget. I
Speaker 3: get the sense a lot that this whole situation, when
Speaker 3: it once it finally came to light, the reasons for
Speaker 3: making this movie that he was probably completely blindsided by
Speaker 3: it and probably offended as a filmmaker. That's his he
Speaker 3: says often in this movie. You're a filmmaker. You don't
Speaker 3: abandon your film when it's taken away from you. You
Speaker 3: do the best you can to finish what you can
Speaker 3: and turn in something anything. I think that's probably why
Speaker 3: this isn't up to those higher standards.
Speaker 2: I will say that whoever the cinematographer was, he did
Speaker 2: a good job because this is bare bones Roger Kruman bullshit,
Speaker 2: and more often than not, it's lit to his best,
Speaker 2: to the best of the cinematographer's ability. This never looks
Speaker 2: like a sitcom. This looks like it is attempting to
Speaker 2: be a feature film from people who are constantly being
Speaker 2: thwarted by their boss and their work being sent straight
Speaker 2: to video.
Speaker 3: You're right, it does. The sheene of the movie. The
Speaker 3: look of the movie is actually pretty good. It's I
Speaker 3: would put it on a par with have you ever
Speaker 3: seen the pilot for the Spirit TV Show with Sam
Speaker 3: Jones and Nana Visitor? Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 2: No, you should?
Speaker 3: That might be something you want to look into for
Speaker 3: another episode. It it feels a little bit like that.
Speaker 3: It actually it has a sheene to it. It looks
Speaker 3: professionally shot and lit. Where this obviously where Fantastic four
Speaker 3: falls apart is mostly in the editing, like you said,
Speaker 3: and the special effects. However, one thing I'm sure you're
Speaker 3: might be leading up to this, one thing that I
Speaker 3: was actually pleasantly surprised by is the fact that this
Speaker 3: movie actually had a real score. I wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 3: I thought this was going to be source music, like
Speaker 3: library music to the nth degree. But they actually got
Speaker 3: two guys to come in and compose a score and
Speaker 3: have a forty piece orchestra perform it and record it.
Speaker 2: I thought that has count for something, definitely counts for something.
Speaker 2: There's not enough of it, Like I said, there's whole
Speaker 2: portions of the movie where I'm like, where's the music here?
Speaker 2: Man and Bravo and Bravo that it's not what At
Speaker 2: the time, everyone was just doing Batman. They were all
Speaker 2: any superhero related thing that was coming down, either on
Speaker 2: television or in the movies. You were getting some variation
Speaker 2: of Danny Elfin's either horns or drums, horns or drums.
Speaker 2: Even Danny Elfman was sounding exactly like Danny Elfman when
Speaker 2: it came to his horns and his drums. Try to
Speaker 2: listen to the differences between Dick Tracy and dark Man
Speaker 2: and fucking Batman and The Flash and all of the
Speaker 2: other Danny. Those are all Danny Elfman scars from around
Speaker 2: the same period. What was he doing? Turn one of
Speaker 2: those down. You don't need to do Dick Tracy. Can
Speaker 2: you think? Can you remember that the Dick Tracy theme
Speaker 2: at all right now?
Speaker 3: Not even a little bit. Because he became a prisoner
Speaker 3: of his own success in terms of the creativity, everything
Speaker 3: started sounding the same only from that time period. I
Speaker 3: think it's around the time period. That's why a movie
Speaker 3: like Midnight Run was such a surprise, because that was
Speaker 3: a Danny Elfman soundtrack. But that sounds nothing like any
Speaker 3: of the other things. It's guitar forward. It's cool, it's different.
Speaker 3: You and I were fiends for Batman when it came out.
Speaker 3: We both jumped on that soundtrack. I listened to it constantly.
Speaker 3: I got sick of it. I didn't need to hear
Speaker 3: it coming out of The Flash or The Simpsons or
Speaker 3: any of those things that you just described. It drove
Speaker 3: me nuts because it all sounded the same.
Speaker 2: I'll say that Midnight Run soundtrack that he did felt
Speaker 2: the most appropriate. At the time. I was a big going,
Speaker 2: go boying go fan. I'm sure you were too. So
Speaker 2: once he started producing scores for movies, it was, first
Speaker 2: of all, it was elating because the first one was
Speaker 2: Pee Wee's Big Adventure. It was so boingoe but at
Speaker 2: the same time so cinematic that it made sense. But
Speaker 2: when Midnight Run came out, it was like, Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: fucking Danny Aufman because it was guitar and it was
Speaker 2: rocky more than anything, and I thought, Wow, he's just
Speaker 2: gonna keep this variation going. Like all of these differences
Speaker 2: are like his score for his early score for Summer School,
Speaker 2: which is like a zydeco score. All that stuff is great, man.
Speaker 2: I thought he's just going to be running the gamut here.
Speaker 2: But all he was doing was biding his time taking
Speaker 2: these jobs until he could start doing his Danny Elfman thing,
Speaker 2: which was a child's choir and drums and down.
Speaker 3: That's beetlejuice.
Speaker 2: That's all of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all of them. And I'm hearing I can
Speaker 3: almost hear people listening to this fool and saying, what
Speaker 3: about John Williams. This stuff sounds the same, it doesn't.
Speaker 3: I reject that because he may be using his tools
Speaker 3: are the same the orchestra. But you can't tell me
Speaker 3: that soundtrack for Indiana for rad As the lust Arc
Speaker 3: is the same as the soundtrack for Superman, which is
Speaker 3: the same as a soundtrack for Jaws. I reject that outright.
Speaker 3: So anyway, you who have that notion in your head,
Speaker 3: get it out right now. So I have not seen
Speaker 3: the New Superman yet, but it's my understanding for the
Speaker 3: malone that didn't they interpolate his John Williams's theme of
Speaker 3: Superman in that movie.
Speaker 2: When Superman first comes into action. Yes, there are shades
Speaker 2: of the Williams score, which is smart because you're never
Speaker 2: going to do anything better.
Speaker 3: Ever, it's ever, that's the thing there have been since
Speaker 3: let's say, since I don't know did he do this.
Speaker 3: What was the last Superman movie he did the soundtrack for?
Speaker 3: Was it two or three?
Speaker 2: I think it was just Superman Williams so Superman and
Speaker 2: then just Superman, and then somebody came in and did
Speaker 2: variations on the work he had done for the Because
Speaker 2: it was supposed to be one and two, so I'm
Speaker 2: sure some of his score was used in two, but
Speaker 2: he didn't compose anything new past one.
Speaker 3: So let's say, putting aside the Christopher, the original Superman
Speaker 3: movies and all the sequels, we're talking about Man of Steel,
Speaker 3: the Justice League movies, the all how many Superman movies
Speaker 3: have there been since there's Superman Returns. Let's say four
Speaker 3: or five Superman movies until the most recent effort. None
Speaker 3: of them had any kind of memorable soundtrack. There's a
Speaker 3: reason for that. His theme is fucking iconic. That's why
Speaker 3: you have to interpolate his theme in the newest one,
Speaker 3: because that's what people want. No one will ever live
Speaker 3: up to that.
Speaker 2: I will say, there's only one score that can compete. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's the song save Me by Remy Zero from the
Speaker 2: television series Small Belle. Come on, Baby, Somebody save Me.
Speaker 2: You were a big fan of that Small I'm still
Speaker 2: a fan of that show Small. I'm still a fan
Speaker 2: of that show up until I'm gonna say season seven,
Speaker 2: maybe season eight. Here's why I know that it goes
Speaker 2: wrong there for me because in its initial run, I
Speaker 2: watched the series religiously and I got to about series
Speaker 2: seven or season seven, and then I just trailed off.
Speaker 2: It just went away. Sometimes that happens with television series, right,
Speaker 2: life gets involved. That's a long chunk of time to
Speaker 2: invest in a television series. So then I made a
Speaker 2: concerted effort. I'm going to rewatch this series from the
Speaker 2: beginning and because it had by then ended, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to the ending, knowing full well that
Speaker 2: we were going to get at least briefly Tom Welling
Speaker 2: with the s on his chest after ten years, Right,
Speaker 2: I'm ready for it. I go to about season seven
Speaker 2: and then I just trailed off because I just lost interests.
Speaker 2: Basically what happens on that show is as soon as
Speaker 2: Lex Luthor is off the show, it is a meandering
Speaker 2: and trying to figure out what it is and can
Speaker 2: never find its way back ever.
Speaker 3: So Rosenbaum is your Lex Luthor.
Speaker 2: Then he definitely is my Lex Luthor. Yeah, although Nicholas
Speaker 2: Holt we got to get back to back to what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here, But I will say Nicholas Holt
Speaker 2: is very scary, and that's the first time Lex Luthor
Speaker 2: has been that for me. Cool.
Speaker 3: I hope to see it soon. Anyway, back to the
Speaker 3: Fantastic Four.
Speaker 2: I don't even know where we were, Let's talk about
Speaker 2: Doctor Doom. So let's just talk you got something to
Speaker 2: do there about No, I'm good, right on. Then let's
Speaker 2: talk Doctor Doom fully because we've mentioned the costumes. Fantastic
Speaker 2: Robert culps on Joseph Kulp, Robert Culp. For those of
Speaker 2: you who don't know, it's not going to help you.
Speaker 2: If you don't know, you either watched I Spy or you.
Speaker 3: Did Greatest American Hero. He was his sidekick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've either seen Santa's Sleigh or you haven't.
Speaker 3: He's he's a very distinctive he. This wasn't like a
Speaker 3: total movie star, like a Tom Cruise type, but he
Speaker 3: did his fair share of TV a lot of He
Speaker 3: probably was on the A Team at some point shows
Speaker 3: of that caliber.
Speaker 2: You know what My favorite, my favorite Robert Culp performances Colombo. No,
Speaker 2: get out of here. I don't watch Colombo. That's your thing.
Speaker 3: Oh man, he's great in Colombo, But go ahead.
Speaker 2: Mayor Tyler in Turk one eighty two, that's a good call.
Speaker 2: When he sees the when he sees the train pulling
Speaker 2: in and he noticed and he sees that it's been
Speaker 2: graffitoed and that his photo op has now been ruined
Speaker 2: once again, and he goes, ah shit like that. That
Speaker 2: line reading lives in my brain.
Speaker 3: But it's not him and this movie. It's his son
Speaker 3: in the Fantastic Four. And we've talked all about Robert Culp.
Speaker 3: It's Joseph Culp.
Speaker 2: Yes, Joseph Culp a is doctor Victor von Doom, doctor Doom,
Speaker 2: the Masked Wonder. He does a lot of hand acting,
Speaker 2: obviously Robert Culp's son, Joseph Cupp. Obviously Joseph Culp. Once
Speaker 2: he got those gauntlets on and felt those individual little
Speaker 2: armor bits over his fingers clicking and clacking, he decided knuckles.
Speaker 2: He decided, I know how to play this part entirely
Speaker 2: with my hands.
Speaker 3: It was that got distracting. But he talks in that
Speaker 3: documentary about one of his inspirations was Mussolini. I guess
Speaker 3: the director said, watch these Mussolini clips and see how
Speaker 3: he's always putting his hands, crossing his arms, doing things
Speaker 3: with his hands. And then he did what they did,
Speaker 3: like a half and half shot at a shot of
Speaker 3: Mussolini and a shot of doctor Doom and you can
Speaker 3: see the influence. That's what he's going for. However, there
Speaker 3: are moments where it's almost it gets into voguing territory,
Speaker 3: where he's doing it a little too much, and it's
Speaker 3: a very tight Sometimes it's a very tight shot of
Speaker 3: his face with his hands very close to his face.
Speaker 3: It's a little distracting, but vocally he I thought he
Speaker 3: did a pretty good job despite the mask and having
Speaker 3: to really project and maybe this not being the fine
Speaker 3: his perceived final vocal take. I thought he did a
Speaker 3: pretty good job of embodying doctor.
Speaker 2: Doom, Mussolini and Monroe Vogue.
Speaker 3: Did you think he? I thought he did pretty good.
Speaker 3: What did you think fought him alone?
Speaker 2: When the hands started fluttering on screen, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: here's an actor who feels constrained by that mask and
Speaker 2: knowing no one seeing anything he's going to be doing.
Speaker 2: So he's doing his best to make his impression, to
Speaker 2: make this his in some way. And then the clickity
Speaker 2: clackiness of the gauntlets themselves made me think, oh, he's
Speaker 2: just having fun with these gauntlets. All of his choices
Speaker 2: just made me keep thinking about his acting choices. Okay,
Speaker 2: those needed to be fucking rained. In not his fault.
Speaker 2: I'm not blaming him. I'm blaming only the director of
Speaker 2: the Turn Up the Radio music video for not fucking
Speaker 2: raining that shit in just through editing. What the fuck man?
Speaker 2: The clickity clacking? What's happening then? Although I do think, yes,
Speaker 2: had that been edited correctly and we have been given
Speaker 2: the performance and they'd given him the time to adr
Speaker 2: all of his dialogue, I think it's a very credible performance.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really good performance of Doctor Doho.
Speaker 2: It's certainly better than anything Julian McMahon did in those
Speaker 2: two big budget, gross fucking movies. And what see better
Speaker 2: than that fucking what twenty fourteen fantastic with the four
Speaker 2: as the a What does that even mean? Fantastia co
Speaker 2: or Fantapha?
Speaker 3: Was Josh Trask Josh Trank Trank? I see Trask Trenk.
Speaker 3: I agree. I was actually curious how you would stack
Speaker 3: him up next to Julian McMahon, because I never look
Speaker 3: rest in Peace.
Speaker 2: I hated him.
Speaker 3: I never thought he was I thought he's a great
Speaker 3: actor in Nip Tuck. He's fantastic. He is not good
Speaker 3: as doctor Doom.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, he's just playing this kind of laconic version
Speaker 2: of Doctor Doom, and I'm like, that, ain't Doctor Doom.
Speaker 2: Doctor Vuom is the fucking head of Laveria. He was
Speaker 2: his magic. He's fucking bombastic and crazy.
Speaker 3: He looked good though, like his face if you especially
Speaker 3: like if you look at the Secret War limited series
Speaker 3: that is Julian McMahon. If he had been giving the
Speaker 3: right material in the right direction, he could have been
Speaker 3: a really good Doctor Doom.
Speaker 2: Plus I hate all of this, like we have to
Speaker 2: every comic book script does this. We have to re
Speaker 2: write someone's origin in some way for no good reason,
Speaker 2: like in that case, like he's suddenly magnetic now and
Speaker 2: he slowly turns into Doctor Doom like the mask forms
Speaker 2: itself over the course of the movie. Great, that's really clever.
Speaker 2: Do you feel good about yourself that you added that
Speaker 2: to the fucking lore and you like this.
Speaker 3: Got says to be a cloud instead of this skyscraper tall,
Speaker 3: fucking scary alien creature coming to eat your planet.
Speaker 2: That go be crazy so much amorphous cloud in the
Speaker 2: sky and blue lightning and oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's a positive Doctor Doom. In the Fantastic
Speaker 3: four ninety four movie is a positive in my book.
Speaker 2: If they had made this movie, here's what should have
Speaker 2: happened to HP. They should have said they look at
Speaker 2: the suit for Doctor Doom and look at the suit
Speaker 2: for the Thing, and go, we need to rewrite. Right now,
Speaker 2: this is now the fantastic one. This is going to
Speaker 2: be the story of the Thing and Doctor Doom during
Speaker 2: that experiment, getting lost on some other plant and then
Speaker 2: duking it out for tour, and let's spend all the
Speaker 2: money and buy another suit and buy another one for
Speaker 2: him and make this happen, and right now that would
Speaker 2: be a cult classic. We go to see on Friday nights,
Speaker 2: The Thing versus Doom.
Speaker 3: I'm there for it. I'm there.
Speaker 2: Those are the best parts of the movie. Look, other
Speaker 2: performances are good across the board. The performance is pretty good.
Speaker 2: I think Alex Hyde White gets to that sniveling, fucking
Speaker 2: I want to punch you in the face. Read Richard's
Speaker 2: characteristic that I think is essential to that character. Is
Speaker 2: that a compliment? Probably not.
Speaker 3: He's fine. I think he's fine. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: overpraise or underpraise him. I think he's fine. It's nothing special,
Speaker 3: but he doesn't embarrass himself. It's not like he's not
Speaker 3: a bad actor. I can tell that he's a good actor.
Speaker 3: He may just not this may not have been the
Speaker 3: right part for him. And Sue Storm I couldn't really
Speaker 3: get a handle on because she's not really.
Speaker 2: She's completely underwritten. This movie does not pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 2: Not at all.
Speaker 3: But then again, some of those are early Fantastic Four
Speaker 3: comic books. She probably probably failed the test as well.
Speaker 3: She's not well written in the early days either. It's
Speaker 3: just a different time. But by nineteen ninety four they
Speaker 3: should have known better and written her.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's write our female lead like a real character
Speaker 2: you would actually want to spend some time with instead
Speaker 2: of just another flighty idiot. He's so dreaming. I don't
Speaker 2: know where we go from HAIRHP, What at the thoughts
Speaker 2: do you have on this?
Speaker 3: I guess ultimately the question is this a success? Should
Speaker 3: this have ever been released? Or is this something that
Speaker 3: maybe was better left as a legend in a vault somewhere.
Speaker 3: I guess that's where That's the only place we can
Speaker 3: go from here. Do you think it's as good or
Speaker 3: bad as the legend suggests?
Speaker 2: I think had they just dumped it onto video cassette
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four or ninety five, then it would
Speaker 2: just be a curiosity, the same way the Nick Fury
Speaker 2: movie is a curiosity which you can go watch. David
Speaker 2: Hasselhoff as Nick Fury. It's out there, Nick Fury, Agent
Speaker 2: of Shield. Go check it out. It's readily available. Written
Speaker 2: by David Goyer, Mister, he wrote a bunch of He
Speaker 2: wrote all those again Chris Nolan movies, so he must
Speaker 2: be a good writer. Yeah, check out his work on
Speaker 2: the David Hasselhoff Nick Fury movie. Anyway. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: had this movie come out then we wouldn't be talking
Speaker 2: about it right now other than in relation to this
Speaker 2: new one coming out, and I don't think we would
Speaker 2: be speaking as favorably about it.
Speaker 3: I agree. I think being suppressed, for lack of a
Speaker 3: better word, is probably the best thing that could have
Speaker 3: ever happened to this movie. Not speaking of the fact
Speaker 3: that the actors didn't get any sort of a boost
Speaker 3: from the picture, I'm not sure they would have if
Speaker 3: this had been dumped onto video. But something that is
Speaker 3: you can only find in bootlegs and handed from geeked
Speaker 3: geek over the years. It gives it cachet that it
Speaker 3: wouldn't have had otherwise. But if I'm judging this purely
Speaker 3: on the film's merit, I don't think we would We
Speaker 3: certainly wouldn't be talking about this movie now if this
Speaker 3: had just come out and gone, because it would have
Speaker 3: just been like it was a goofy attempt at doing
Speaker 3: the Fantastic Four. There's no other there's nothing more to
Speaker 3: add to the story. But this makes it a curiosity.
Speaker 2: Here's what I will say about this. And because apparently
Speaker 2: this is just a property where it's going to continue
Speaker 2: to happen to Thank god it's back at Marvel, because
Speaker 2: the Josh Trank movie is the exact same story. That's
Speaker 2: them holding onto the fucking copyright because it was going
Speaker 2: to revert back to Marvel. And given that comparison, watch this.
Speaker 2: Do not watch the Josh Trank movie. This is one
Speaker 2: thousand times better than that. This one has the spirit
Speaker 2: of the movie. As we've said, you and feel that
Speaker 2: everyone is pulling in one direction, and that direction is
Speaker 2: let's make a good movie here and are really only
Speaker 2: our budget is tripping us up here. Look, part of
Speaker 2: that budget should have been spent on a professional screenwriter
Speaker 2: beyond Chris Nevius, who I know. He's written some movies
Speaker 2: that people like I don't, and I think his script
Speaker 2: is good here, but it needed to punch up from
Speaker 2: somebody who maybe knew the comics better, or New Action
Speaker 2: better something I don't know. There was something missing here.
Speaker 2: The limitations are there, and the limitations are in the direction.
Speaker 2: Also the budget, there are a lot of limitations. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: if you put all of those limitations together, what you
Speaker 2: get here is a thousand times better than a big
Speaker 2: budget twentieth century Fox movie with a CG lead as
Speaker 2: the thing and perhaps the most ununified Fantastic Four of
Speaker 2: all time, featuring the stupidest version of Victor vondhom I
Speaker 2: have ever fucking seen. And I actually like that actor.
Speaker 2: I'm not holding it out on it. I'm not taking
Speaker 2: anything out on him, but that version of Doctor doom
Speaker 2: Is makes Julian McMahon look great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's as you said earlier, like I in watching
Speaker 3: this movie, I was I don't think I was ever bored.
Speaker 3: I might have been confused, but I was pretty consistently entertained.
Speaker 3: And that's that's pretty cool. It was ninety minutes pretty
Speaker 3: well spent.
Speaker 2: It's fleet to foot man ninety minutes that that trank
Speaker 2: movie is more than two outs. Anyway, I'm gonna stop
Speaker 2: baging on it. Where can people find this? Do you
Speaker 2: think is it on the YouTube?
Speaker 3: Maybe it is on the YouTube. You can also get
Speaker 3: I'm sure you can get copies on eBay if you
Speaker 3: want to go that route. Conventions. I bet you this
Speaker 3: is still being sold at conventions, maybe Comic Con.
Speaker 2: Oh man, not probably in the disc form now. He
Speaker 2: probably just put this in your computer. Here's a thumb drive.
Speaker 2: Here's a thumb drive. It's fantastic. Far on it. Man,
Speaker 2: you got the I got what you need here in
Speaker 2: this thum drive.
Speaker 3: It's probably remastered now and remastered in quotes. Of course,
Speaker 3: you can't remaster something that you can't get the source
Speaker 3: material back for.
Speaker 2: Ooh, do you think there's a fan edit of this
Speaker 2: where somebody has gone in and made the effects better?
Speaker 3: No, but now you're making me want to try to
Speaker 3: seek that out, because you can do.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what it is on home computer, folks.
Speaker 2: If we find anything worth your time, it'll be in
Speaker 2: the show notes section. I'll put a link just to
Speaker 2: the fucking YouTube thing. So you can see what we're
Speaker 2: talking about in general, but if somebody's done something super cool,
Speaker 2: we'll also put it there until next time HP, which
Speaker 2: will be very soon. Oh my god, we're gonna be
Speaker 2: working together too often. Now, where can people find you
Speaker 2: if you're not hanging out here at midnight Viewing? All right?
Speaker 3: So I co host The Night Mister Walter is a
Speaker 3: taxi podcast with my esteemed co host right here father alone.
Speaker 3: I am also an occasional guest in the Culture Cast
Speaker 3: with Chris Dashu. I host the Noise Junkies music podcast.
Speaker 3: And I have a bandcampsite HP Music Place dot bandcamp
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: Immediately and check out HPE's music. He does all of
Speaker 2: the music for everything I'm involved with. You're hearing it
Speaker 2: at the beginning and the end of this show. All
Speaker 2: the different variations of midnight viewing actually, because each one
Speaker 2: has its own specific theme, all for mister HP. So
Speaker 2: go check him out. And as for me, you know
Speaker 2: what's happening here. It's midnight viewing. We're on twice a week.
Speaker 2: It's killing me slowly. I'll be dead soon. Just keep
Speaker 2: tuning in until that happens. And oh, what's this is? Friday.
Speaker 2: Monday will be another Fantastic Four that will be Father
Speaker 2: Malone's weekly roundup. That will be the latest Fantastic Four movie.
Speaker 2: That'll be Monday the latest, And then next Friday, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, Next Friday HP will be the start of
Speaker 2: a new fest unless they've come up with a better title.
Speaker 2: Nobody's come up with it yet. But next week's Next
Speaker 2: Friday begins Predator Fest. Ah shit, Starting with the original
Speaker 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger. We're gonna get to the chopper. We're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about the fucking tie business. We're gonna drill it.
Speaker 2: We're gonna find ourselves buried in LA's deepest an Alabama.
Speaker 2: Tick you and me, baby, Continue next Friday, everybody. Until then,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave you with a bit of dialogue from
Speaker 2: the Fantastic Four movie.
Speaker 7: Read help me. We were friends once, remember.
Speaker 5: Hang on, Victor.
Speaker 7: You see you have not the courage to strike the
Speaker 7: final blow. Do you, just as ten years ago you
Speaker 7: failed in a moment of triumph, you betrayed me. The
Speaker 7: losses was to be ours together, and now it stands
Speaker 7: between us. You still have a chance to read go on,
Speaker 7: save me. Do not think for a moment I shall
Speaker 7: have a rest until I have it is rightfully mine.
Speaker 1: Here's to the future, my friend, exist.
Speaker 6: Sis Sis sist y