Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious Podcast. We have a very special occasion today.
Speaker 3: Up in the air. It's a bird, it's a plane.
Speaker 2: No, it's the most craptastic movie you've ever seen in
your life.
Speaker 3: This time, it's personal. It is personal this time. You know.
For a long time we've said we don't pick losers, right,
but today we're picking losers.
Speaker 2: But we are picking the number one losers, the absolute
best losers of all time.
Speaker 3: We've got our buddies today. Hey, we've got Jeff and
Brad from the Film By podcast. Guys, how are you
doing today?
Speaker 4: Doing great?
Speaker 5: Jason and de the dudes of Steel Boy you gotta
get it?
Speaker 2: Uh, you stole one of my line.
Speaker 3: Quotes are coming out early.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So everybody who's used to our normal format on
the podcast, we were doing something completely different today. Number one,
we have a couple of awesome guests from another podcast
called a Film Buy. We have done a podcast with
these guys before. We've got Jeff and Brad together today
with us, and we previously done a movie of nineteen
eighty nine, which was also a sequel. We did Ghostbusters too.
I thought that was one of the best episodes that
we ever did. I was a little bummed that we
didn't publish it to our stuff. You guys had you
had You had a great episode right there. I thought
that was a really fun one to do, and it
was great to work with you guys. I'm really excited
to be hear doing it again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: Well, I figured that you guys wanted to do another movie.
Were Statue of Liberty like leaves Liberty Island And I'm like,
are we seriously doing another movie where the Statue of
Liberty moves again?
Speaker 3: But wow, I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the body once what the body wants?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, So today we are covering Superman four. Typically
our format is to bounce back and forth between the
two movies that we cover, but we're going to start
with Superman for the Quest for I don't know what
they were really looking for, and this was really pretty bad.
I got a couple of couple of quotes here that
I feel like is appropriate for this intro. The first
one is betrayed, betrayed, betrayed, and then you stole my
the dude to steal you're gonna get it, But I
think probably the best one is stop, don't do it?
Speaker 5: The people, Oh my god, passion that it was Shakespeare.
Speaker 2: So we were going to talk about Superman four first,
then on our next episode we will be talking about
Jaws the Revenge. We can't call it Jaws four, right,
because who knows if they really even consider Jaws three
a part of the series or not. I don't know,
But today we are talking Superman four, Cannon produced, Canon ruined,
and the end of what had begun as a spectacular series. Guys,
how recently have you seen Superman four?
Speaker 4: Last night?
Speaker 5: For me it was it was last night for me
as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, last night.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, So I can't believe I've never ahead. I
woke up at two o'clock in the morning. I'm like, well,
I might as well watch Superman four while I'm not sleeping.
So I watched it a couple of nights ago. It
is the first time that I've seen it since I
saw it in the theater in nineteen eighty seven. Wow. Wow,
really yeah? And I can wait another thirty four thirty
five years, so I see it again.
Speaker 3: Did you guys see this in the theater or what's
what's your relationship with it?
Speaker 5: I saw it in the theater?
Speaker 3: Did you cry or I remember?
Speaker 5: I remember being a little upset, not because you know,
I was a little bit I was a little just
a little bit older, because I had seen Superman two,
I had seen Superman three, and you know, enjoyed them,
but I did not enjoy this one at all.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know what.
Speaker 4: I didn't see it in the theater. But what I
saw was my local like market like gas station, jeff
Nos a UDF used to sell just like a pin
wheel of comic books, and they had a movie adaptation
of Superman four in comic book form. So actually read
it before seeing the movie, but I didn't see it
until it came out on a video.
Speaker 2: Okay. So the question that I had when I watched
this movie the first time and when I watched it
thirty five years later the second time, is how did
this piece of crap get made?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And the answer comes down to money and the lack thereof.
Dear listener, if you haven't checked out our episode where
Jason and I and John Reid from the thirty something
Movie Podcast compare Man of Steel versus Superman one and two.
Definitely go check those out. The saul Kinds are the
producers of those movies, the original two movies, and they
had also done Superman three, which I love, sucked, I
think Jeff and Joyce I had with it.
Speaker 4: Okay, I took some I took Jason's advice from when
you guys did the Batman episode where you went and
you watched like Batman Forever and Batman and Robin doing this.
I watched Superman three and Superman four like together to
compare him, to see which one.
Speaker 5: Was better or worse.
Speaker 4: And I'm ah, man, this was a hard one. This
was the harm one because Superman three I watched, tried
to watch it a couple of nights ago, and I
had to turn it off.
Speaker 3: But I pushed through it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had.
Speaker 3: I pushed through it.
Speaker 4: The beginning. The beginning is just too comical.
Speaker 3: The opening scene is ludicrous.
Speaker 2: It's hilarious.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not supposed to be hilarious. We're talking
about Superman.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I got two words for both Brad and
Jason that why this why Superman three is by far
better than Superman four. And those two words are a
net o'tool thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: And I say help Mauriel Hemingway.
Speaker 2: Right, Merria Hemingway is nice to look at, but she
brought nothing to the table. At least a net O'Toole
is an accomplished actress, and her exchange with Christopher Reeve
during the Smallville scenes is absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 3: Okay, listen, I'm gonna make a comparison and then we
can move on from Superman three. But Superman three, in
my book, was like when I watched The Last Jedi
for the first time. I hopes kicked in the balls, right, Okay,
massive fall from Superman two, total disappointment. What am I
looking at? This movie is total crap. So when I
saw Superman four, it was kind of like the Last Skywalker.
Speaker 2: I was like, Eh, not that bad, Yeah no, and
I was It was the exact same. It was just
like that for Star Wars with us. I didn't hate
the third or the second in the sequel series, but
I absolutely despised the last one and absolutely despised this.
But even in between Superman three and Superman four, you
have a salt kind production that is called Supergirl.
Speaker 3: I'm spiking the football early on. This is the worst
DC movie of all time? Super Girl is an abomination.
Have you guys seen that one?
Speaker 4: I had since I was a kid. I barely remember it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it came out in eighty four. Yes, it
on IMDb right now has a rank of four point
four out of ten, which is pretty bad. Yeah, Superman
four has three point seven. I don't know that I
disagree with you. I don't know that Supergirl isn't at
least as big a piece of crap as Superman four.
But I think that the expectation for Supergirl was so
low that people weren't they because they cared right Superman four.
There was a decent chunk of folks who were unhappy
with Superman three, but there were also a bunch of
guys like us that absolutely loved it, and so in
coming into Superman four, that was the we were set
up for the biggest fall ever after having Superman one, two,
and three on our books. Okay, but what happened is
is that the saul Kinds had a disappointment with Superman
three underwhelming performance on that one, they had an even
worse performance with Supergirl, and so they were basically out
of money. And then enter the Cannon Group.
Speaker 3: So the Cannon group, you got these wheeler dealer guys
always making moves from Israel, and they wanted to crack
into the American market. And I watched this documentary called
Electric Boogoloo. Jeff, did you watch it?
Speaker 4: Documentary?
Speaker 3: It's awesome, love it. It made me like instant fans
of these guys Falls of Steel. And so they would
get movies made by simply making a poster, finding investors
by hey, look at this poster. We're working on this
movie right now. You can be a part of it.
You just donate your money, and you know you can
help us with that. Well, the movie they weren't. They
didn't have a script, they didn't even have really an idea.
It was just a poster. Yeah, And they would fund
these movies just by being ballsy enough to ask for
the money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The two names are your Globus and Menehem Goland. Okay, yeah,
it's just hard. I'm just going to say the Cannon
guys from now on r Okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, easier that way.
Speaker 2: So what they would do in addition to these poster
ideas is that so the con Film Festival would happen
and they would show up and in the paper. They
would buy advertisements for every single page in the paper,
like full page advertisements for their movies. And then, like
you said, they'd go show posters and they'd try to
get investors for their movies that they had no script for,
no actors, no director, nothing except a poster.
Speaker 3: And it worked, all right, everybody, Let's take a quick
break and hear from our good friend mister Dayton Johnson
over at the Docking Base seventy seven podcas Cast.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 7: I'm Dayton Johnson, the host of the docum based seventy
seven podcast. I love to talk about movies. First of all,
it was Bradburd's directorial debut Once from the get Go,
proving that he is one of the best directors in Hollywood.
There I've said it. It's so much fun, the jokes
are great, like I said, and you have such a
great voice. Cast Harry Connick Junior as a beat Nick
was a stroke of genius to cast him. I mean,
come on, I love to talk about music. I want
to talk about the first song on the album Our
Litster Sealed. As far as I'm concerned, this is a
perfect pop song. It's catchy, it's fun, it's not quite
a few minutes long. The vocals are great. It's just
so much fun and there's nothing there's nothing wrong with it.
It's just a perfect pop song. And I have a
lot of friends that like to do so as well.
Speaker 5: The witches are are you know, as long as there
the creepy sexy, which is you know, you shouldn't be
looking like the neck down?
Speaker 4: Okay, good, but come back to us, d come back
to us.
Speaker 8: No, I'm going with the wikis.
Speaker 2: The witches are definitely much more nightmare fuel, but the
fact that they look like.
Speaker 4: The Texas Chansaw centerfolds.
Speaker 7: We have a lot of fun and we hope you
will give us a listen. You can find us on Podbean,
good Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, and remember,
when it comes to watching movies and listening to music,
physical media is better than streaming.
Speaker 3: And it worked for a while.
Speaker 2: It works so well that they started calling it the
Cannon Film Festival. Wow. Well, I mean so it worked,
so it marked Yeah, So in eighty five or eighty six,
they're there. The saal Kinds are there. The saal Kinds
are having money troubles, and these wheeler dealers buy the
rights to Superman for five million dollars five million dollars.
Can you imagine buying that franchise for five million dollars
even in eighties money that seems nuts sturgeat.
Speaker 5: Not as ridiculously low for a property like Superman. Absolutely
just is.
Speaker 2: And just to give some perspective to that, they paid
Christopher Reeve six million dollars just for his part, just
for his one part. So can you imagine that the
rights being bought for less than you pay one actor
in the movie. It's it's crazy, it's crazy. But because
they've got this choice piece of property, they're thinking, Okay,
we're going to sink all of our funds into this,
and they get together a budget of thirty six million dollars.
Thirty six million dollars in nineteen eighty six, you're going
to make a good movie, right.
Speaker 3: Well, i'll tell you this then I just throw this in.
You know what the biggest budget movie of nineteen eighty
seven was at thirty million dollars Caause of Revenge. Wow,
that's thirty million, So thirty seven would have been the high.
Speaker 2: Been bigger, yeah, except that once it was time for
actual production, the Cannon Group had put out so many
atrocious movies that they were also out of money, and
they slash the budget from thirty six million to seventeen million,
cut it more than in half. Yeah, at the last minute,
at the last minute.
Speaker 3: So the Cannon Group they did breaking They did Break
into Electric Boogloo. Both great movies they did over the top.
I just watched a movie my good friend Jeff Johnson
maybe watched the other day called Invaders from Mars. Oh, yeah,
they did Masters of the Universe. I mean, these guys
wheeled and deal their way into major Hollywood movies.
Speaker 2: There were several decently made movies in there, literally hundreds
of movies or a handful that they were a successful with.
But it only takes a handful and then you got
some money to go buy up Superman, right.
Speaker 3: I mean in their formula was you know, guns, boobs
and you know, you know, shoot them up stuff, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean they had a pretty good thing to
one with Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris when you think
about it, lots of good I mean quality entertainment. You know,
if you're like you said, if you want the guns
and the boobs and the explosion, you're watching a cannon movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when they get a script, the question was
which Chuck, Yeah, Chuck Norris to give it to Chuck Brownson.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know, we could do a whole other episode
just on the fact that they beat Rambo to the
box office by fast tracking the Chuck Norris movies Missing
in Action.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was that's a great story too, because
they filmed Part one and Part two at the same time,
and then and they watched them and they're like, wow,
part two is way better than Part one, which came
out with good with the bad movie first. So they
literally they released Part two first and then made Part
one a prequel.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's crazy, because isn't it a Missing in Action two?
The beginning is like the title of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was like the Return of Braddock
or something like that.
Speaker 5: I think that was ERD.
Speaker 4: That's three okay, Raddick one is I don't even remember
Missing an Action, but Missing in Action two. You don't
need any need to see the others. It's just a
good movie itself.
Speaker 2: It's a fun movie.
Speaker 3: It was on HBO about every third movie all the time.
Speaker 5: But again it goes back to their just the hustlers
that these guys were missing in action too. The beginning
comes out, it blows the doors off of everyone's expectations,
and then all of a sudden, you're like, wait, where's
where's the first one? Did I miss it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: And then they bring that out and you're and you're.
Speaker 3: Like, uh huh, I think I just rewatched two.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Have you guys seen Life Force?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I love Life Force.
Speaker 4: Actually have a copy. Jeff made me buy it. Oh
my god, Jeff gave me a no hurl guarantee. On
the director's cut of Life Force.
Speaker 5: I did a screen factory put out a gorgeous, like
two K resolution steel book with a ton of extras.
This was one of those movies Brad and I saw
back when we were seventeen and Friday night we were
hitting Blockbuster and it was just like randomly like, hey,
let's check this out. You know, we had a couple
other uh, there were a couple of girls that we
that we hung out with, and Brad wasn't one of
them that that chose Life Force, and kind of inner
induced us to it, and we're like space.
Speaker 4: Would have been, and they probably regretted it. About five
minutes into it is Untilda May is naked. You know,
thirty percent of the.
Speaker 3: Movie naked space vampires.
Speaker 5: Yeah, would you like to have the director's cut exactly?
Speaker 4: I think you can say that the Cannon guys kind
of did the exploitation films of the eighties. They knew
the video market. They knew the turnaround to get into
you didn't need a long run in the theater. You
knew that the video markets would pick it up. I mean,
there wasn't just your big video chain. Gas stations were
renting videos. There was a video place everywhere. They knew
their market.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately they had no money. When they decided to
make Supermen for right.
Speaker 3: They slashed the budget from thirty six to seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. So the other part that Christopher Reeve demanded,
other than the six million dollars salary and writing power
in the movie, is that they would fund his pet project,
which is called Street Smart. Have you guys seen that
I have?
Speaker 5: You're talking without Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it was like Morgan Freeman's breakout role. I
think he was nominated, mate, did he win the Oscar?
I can't remember. He was at least nominated from him.
Speaker 5: He was nominated that if you haven't seen it, it
is definitely worth watching. Really, okay, see seeing these two
guys way out of their element.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: And I don't want to give away a bunch stuff
about the movie, but yeah, I would, just I would.
I would recommend it seeing Christopher Reeve. Anytime you see
Christopher Reeve not playing Clark Kent Superman is always to
me it's fun.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: We talked about death Trap recently and how incredible he
is in that film Street Smart. Same thing, like, you know,
get if you want a totally different take on what
Christopher ee can do, check that one out.
Speaker 3: Think about this for a second. Richard Donner does Lethal Weapon.
Chris Reeve is on the short list to play Martin Riggs. Real, wow,
how how different is that series? You know?
Speaker 5: I don't even know if I can. I can't even
see it in my head. I really can't.
Speaker 3: Well, it's mel Gibson was so awesome in that. I mean,
he is Riggs.
Speaker 4: But how different the whole Superman series would have been
If the Salcons wouldn't have fired him off of Superman two,
we could have had three to four Richard Donner Superman
no Lethal Weapon, Maybe.
Speaker 5: I would sacrifice a Richard Donner or Superman three and
four in order to get a leath the weapon one
and two.
Speaker 2: I'll trade. I'll make that trade me too, good call.
So they get a director. This guy's name Sidney J. Feur.
I hadn't heard of him, because here's why I think
we've maybe even talked about this before. I still haven't
seen Iron Eagle. Oh there you go. Top Gun was
the fighter pilot movie for me of nineteen eighty six,
and that was all I needed. I didn't need to
go see Iron Eagle, but that was his one success,
if you want to call it that. Now, if you
look at IMDb rankings and you like put it on
a grading scale, he's got fifty seven directorial credits. You
are going to be hard pressed to find any that
are better than a failing grade. Like, there's just none
that are above a six point zho hardly at all,
even Iron Eagles at a five point four D.
Speaker 5: Can I give it? Can I throw one more of
his credits just to give him a little more, just
just to defend him, if you will. Yeah, I don't
know where it ranks. It might it's probably be at
a six or above. But let's not forget nineteen eighty two.
He gave us the entity with.
Speaker 4: Barbara Hershey's and that's to this day, that's still is
one of the scary movies.
Speaker 5: I think I've seen.
Speaker 3: Resounding success at A six point seven. Hey, right, right,
h Hey. I'll tell you two guys that they offered
the director chair two number one. They offered it to
Richard Lester done part two and part three yep. And
then they also offered it to Wes Craven and also
offered it to Richard Donner. Well, I know, right, Wes
Craven though, hot off of Nightmare in El Street, Hey,
we want to make Superman. That's interesting. And then they
go back to Richard Donner and they say, hey, Man
come back. Yeah, And he actually thought about it and
actually been doing Leath the Weapon, right, he was busy
doing Leath the Weapon. Yeah, Okay, I mean you think
about it Superman one. When you go back and Rewatch,
You're like, man, this is really good. He had that
word that he abided by the very similitude, like we
live in Superman's universe. Everything that happens in this movie
has to be real and it has to be accepted
as factual. In this superhero world we live in, you
don't have the don't walk and walk sign fighting each other.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, that is one of the That is one
of the ugly marks against Superman three.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with that, Thank you. I don't disagree
with that. Yeah, I roll the weather with the computer.
Speaker 3: And play an atari against Superman.
Speaker 2: But but to be to be fair, to be fair.
Even in super Man one, you had a bit of
ridiculous reach. Whenever he discovers where the kryptonite is, he
slides the ladder over to a book in his bookcase
and is like, oh, there was a meteor found in
South America. Well let's go down there. It's all of
a sudden he's got kryptonite. I mean, there are holes
that happen even in the best of the Superman movies.
I think it is now time for us to jump
into the massive bag of craft that a Superman for
and talk about what they got wrong.
Speaker 3: Should we start with what they get right? Or we
want to go straight?
Speaker 2: What's going to be a short list? We can do that.
Speaker 5: Do you know what I can do with a single
strand up Superman's here.
Speaker 4: If you make it you pay them flies.
Speaker 5: It would be a short, very short list for what
they got right.
Speaker 2: I will say this, the story idea is one that
could have been good.
Speaker 6: Dude, this worldwide nuclear war for your own personal financial gain.
Speaker 2: Nobody wants war. I just want to keep the threat lush. Yes,
that you when the idea of having a villain that
has the same powers, which I mean admittedly they had
that in Superman too, but if you've got one that
is controlled by Lex Luthor, his biggest nemesis, that lends
itself to some good possibilities. I don't think you need
the nuclear war stuff. I don't think you.
Speaker 3: Wait, we're not talking about bad stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. I got much too
much to say about that. But just story idea wise,
the idea of creating another super creature is actually a
good idea, and it will work. We've seen it work.
The movie is called Mega Mind.
Speaker 4: There you go, right, I mean, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean Brad's new Father here, but we've all seen that movie, right.
I mean they take the DNA of the departed superhero
and they create what they are thinking is going to
be another superhero but turns out to be a super villain.
They could have totally done that with this movie and
had a great movie. You know, maybe Superman's ready to
retire and so somebody finds a way to duplicate him
and then that guy ends up being evil. That becomes
a good movie that way.
Speaker 5: One thing that definitely works for me is his address
to the un I think aside and I'm not talking
like the production of it, because it definitely looks cheap
the way he walks in, but his dialogue there and
Christopher Reeve's performance in that moment I think is one
of the better moments of this movie. It's very heartfelt.
You can tell Superman truly wants to do something for
humanity that we can't do for ourselves. And I love
that moment in the film.
Speaker 8: And there will be peace.
Speaker 6: There will be peace when the people of the world
want it so badly that their governments will have no
choice but to give it to them. I just wish
you could all see the earth the way that I
see it, because when you really look at it, it's
just one worm.
Speaker 2: Just the backstory on that. In order to get Christopher
Reeve to come back as Superman, they had to offer
him an obscene amount of money, which they did, and
then they had to offer him some writing power in
the script and that was his key piece that he
wanted in the script, is that he wanted to address
the nuclear arms conflict that was going on and how
Superman was going to deal with that. And so, yeah,
I agree with you. I think in that moment we
get the Superman of Superman one where he is he's
all about you know, truth, justice in the American way.
Speaker 4: Actually, I'm gonna flip your guys's review because I think
the nuclear war thing works better than the Nuclear Man thing.
I think the first half of the film up unto
the like the un speech, is actually not bad. The
actual intent of yeah, what would you do if there
really was a Superman? You probably want to get rid
of all the nuclear warheads, It's like, and there's a
few key scenes where Christopher Reeve is really struggling being
like what do I do?
Speaker 3: What do I do?
Speaker 4: And when he does that little thing with like when
Lois comes and visits him and he just takes her
off the balcony and flies there, you can just tell
he he has no one to talk to and when
he bad stuff already, this is good stuff, No this
is good stuff. When he tells her that thing of
never put any one thing above the rest, you know
of what Krypton had told you know is leaders of
Krypton had told him to do. I think works up
until the un speech. The movie is not that awful.
I think some of that works. The intent of Superman
for was I think heartfelt, and then it just goes
off the rails.
Speaker 2: This is my nephew, Lenny. He worships me, the dude
to steal.
Speaker 3: Where are you gonna get it? So you're cool with
right up until the point the Superman becomes like a
maniacal tyrant at that point, Yeah, basically.
Speaker 2: For life. Yeah, the storyline of the guy taking over
the paper is straight out of the comic books and
Morgan Edge. He's the Morgan Edge character, which wow, we get.
Of course when we do Superman and Lois, we get
a great version of that. Like you recognize it now right.
Speaker 3: Check out our other podcast, the podcast Full of Kryptonite,
where we go through the CW show Superman and lows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are not afraid to plug anything. But you've
got that and even the storyline with Jeremy and you know,
Superman should be the one that cures the nuclear weapon
problem that we have. That I think it was a
storyline in the comics as well.
Speaker 3: It's just you just said the word Jeremy and shifting
to bad stuff.
Speaker 2: I just I'm just saying good, bad, or indifferent. They
were a part of the original comic book. I mean yeah,
they were a part of comic book storylines.
Speaker 3: Okay, I want to say something. Get this off my chest. Really,
the one thing that works for me is the cast.
You have Christopher Reeveback. You have Gene Hackman, you have
Margo Kidder. You've got maryel Hemingway, who is a babe
in nineteen eighty seven. You have John Cryer, who his
character is kind of stupid, but he's he's a legit
actor and he's done some good stuff since then.
Speaker 6: Plenty of my loud mouth nephew gets his energy from
the sun without it, he's like you at night.
Speaker 3: So the cast since then, yeah, I mean, you know,
at the time, not so much. Okay. You have Mark Pillow.
Speaker 2: Hold up his arms look great.
Speaker 3: His did look very good. You have the teacher in
the school is actually the the lady in kindergarten cop
who is getting beat up by her husband that Schwarzenegger
steps in and helps her out with thank you film deabus.
I believe Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margo Kidder. That just
stopped right there. We're headed in the right direction. We've
got something to build on. We're ready to go.
Speaker 2: And then at d Rails.
Speaker 3: One more thing about the cast, and I can't remember
the guy's name.
Speaker 5: You guys have to help me o this.
Speaker 3: The dude who plays Porkins in Star.
Speaker 5: Wars, William William Hookins.
Speaker 4: Yes, Dirty coppin Batman, Yes, Lieutenant Eckhart at cart Yeah,
think about the future.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: And if you look to the left or right of him,
the not the guy that's the mad Russian. The other
guy that is Oscar winner Jim Broadband.
Speaker 5: I was blown away when I saw this recently.
Speaker 4: This movie has two Oscar winning actors in it.
Speaker 2: It's impressive that the two. I mean, they're so campy,
those guys. But you've got You've got William s Houtkins.
Speaker 3: He's Porkins in Star Wars, he's at Art in Batman.
Speaker 5: Let's not forget Major Eaton and Raiders.
Speaker 2: Yep, top Man, Top Men Men, Yes, he's Munson and
Flash Gordon right, and to tie the other guy in.
You've got your Oscar winning British actor who's been in
I mean, too many things to mention, let's just say
Harry Potter throw that out there, right.
Speaker 3: And you've got William A. Hootkins.
Speaker 2: The Russian guy was the doctor who was in Flash
Gordon as well. Which doctor the doctor When they've got
him tied to the table and they're about to like
do whatever the mind meld thing is that they wait.
Speaker 4: Not the ball worms, the balls.
Speaker 2: You got it? That's him?
Speaker 5: Oh wow, Yeah, Okay, hey, I'll just say this, you know,
because it ties to the cast. Also one more, one
more thing that works for this movie and maybe the
heart of the movie because they've been in all the others.
Jackie Cooper and mart McClure playing Harry White, Jimmy Olsen. Yes,
those guys. Their performance in this movie is just as
good as it was in Superman the movie Superman two.
Granted they don't have a whole lot they have to
do for us, but I appreciate their performances.
Speaker 2: I can just see Jackie Cooper saying, Okay, I'm gonna
play this part, but I want to be able to
leave right after the beginning of the movie and come
back right before the end. That's all I'm gonna be there.
Speaker 4: And the thing is his speech at the end on
how he got the company back. It's actually a pretty
good scene.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: He's like, yes, right, I left, and he's like, I've
done enough stories on corporate takeovers where I've been doing
my research, and I got you. I got my investors
to buy you out. It's not a bad scene.
Speaker 3: It was a little bit quick. I was like, wait,
what just happened? Yeah, yeah, planted just a few scenes. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I got a little annoyed with Mark McClure in this movie,
actually all of them. Yeah, I'm not a big Superman.
Speaker 5: Jimmy Olsen, how you?
Speaker 3: Oh what a scoop?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 3: He was in one, two, three, Supergirl, and four and
he was also in Justice League.
Speaker 2: Oh right, a man of steel if I remember, right? Anything?
Speaker 3: Is there anything else good? We can say?
Speaker 2: I can't think of anything. I mean, there may be
something that comes up along the way.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it might come up. It might come up
along the way.
Speaker 2: Craptastic, craptastic and then a little more past. Okay, so
let's begin with the opening scene of the Russians in
space and a random piece of spacecraft just happens to
go and hit one of these guys.
Speaker 3: And nails him out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: It doesn't kill him, despite the fact that traveling close
to the speeded light and good news, Superman just happens
to be flying in space at that moment, and we
get this scene where we're looking at Superman coming at
the camera. If you will pay attention when you watch
this movie, you get the identical cut in every single
moment that we see Superman flying. They give us the
exact I mean, like he cape flies the same way.
And if I'll just throw it out there, you're gonna
remember the part where he's flying through the subway. M h.
It's the same scene, Like he does the exact same
back in fourth I mean, I just thought, could you
not have filmed two takes and maybe just switched it
up a little bit. I think there's probably seven or
eight different times that you see the exact same Superman
flying at the camera.
Speaker 5: And poorly done too. It's it's almost like rotoscoped.
Speaker 3: I don't believe a man can fly, No.
Speaker 5: I believe a man can cut and paste an image,
is what.
Speaker 4: I maybe thinking that Alfonso Koran was watching the beginning
of this movie was like, I'm gonna make a whole
movie about this. So maybe we got gravity because of
the beginning of Superman for but probably not. What doesn't
work a nuclear Man destroy Superman. First, I have fun Man,
nuclear Man, nuclear Man, that scream, and then he gets this,
like later on in the film, he gets this after scream.
This like this extra like almost like raptor scream. Scream
was driving me crazy. It just it went from I
feel like a political kind of drama type of thing
that you maybe you would see in like an episode
of Smallville too, just a we don't know, just keep going,
just finish the movie somehow, and and I feel like
that's what they did. Even the battle sequences, they're barely moving.
He gives me that weak punch in the back and like, yeah,
even in Superman two, so I mean, let's see Superman
two was what nineteen eighty eighty one. Even the fight seques,
but these ones.
Speaker 3: Were so bad.
Speaker 4: I felt like there were like two teenagers that have
never fought before being like, Oh, come on, I'm gonna
hit you.
Speaker 3: You hit me?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I'm gonna hit you. It was very
weak as far as the fighting stuff, and everything is
slow mode. They were going so slow. The subway crash
or the subway thing there is, yeah, there's that shot,
that repeating shot. There is never a scene where he
is touching the subway. They cut it to where he's
just like, I'm gonna stop it, and then the thing
stops and then he has to say, oh, just let
everyone know. Even though the sky passed out and almost
killed all of you, it is still the safest way
to head, you know, transportation, like, no, it's not. It
is not if your drivers are passing out.
Speaker 2: They were trying to go for the first showing of
Superman and Superman one whenever he rescues her from the
helicopter crash and still flying, it's the safest form of travel,
and they were going for that, and they missed it
so badly. But you've made a great point is that
they obviously they'd cut their budget in half. Special effects
are obviously significantly gone. But I think this is the
key kind of conundrum for me on these two movies
is that in Superman four, it's terrible because they don't
show you any special effects.
Speaker 3: And in Jaws, the revenge. It's terrible because they show
you some really awful special effects, so you can go
too far in either direction. You got to show us
a little bit. I mean, at the very least show
me his hand touching the front of the subway. Just
I mean, it doesn't even have to be fast, you know,
just speed up the camera or whatever you like. But
but nothing, you show me nothing at all. That's just
bad editing. But was there just in case?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I don't know if this is too soon, But I
didn't know that Marriel Hemingway could breathe in space.
Speaker 3: Well there, Okay, you're making my list of most ludicrous
moments right there.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to forget about it. But and the
thing is, I knew it was coming. I knew it
was coming, and I was trying to talk myself into it, saying,
maybe it's not as bad as you remember. Maybe they're
just really high up in the air and it's dark
outside and they're not really in space. And it got
that way till she looks down and the Earth is
like tiny, like so far, and she was just like,
oh no, the Earth is all the way down there,
and I'm like, how did this get past anybody who
saw this part and said we should keep this in
the film, because this was There was a two hour
version of this film, and they cut out a half hour,
but they said, no, I'm sticking to my guns. We're
keeping the scene where Merrill Hemingway can breathe in space.
Speaker 2: Breathing space, and then Bradley still affects her even she's
one hundred of miles above the stort or.
Speaker 3: You know the fact that it might be freezing cold
up there.
Speaker 2: I mean before obviously that happens. We have a reintroduction
of another thing from the earlier Superman Superman two, the
super Kiss Clark.
Speaker 7: You've gotta go with your gut.
Speaker 2: Superman's frustrated because Little Jeremy has called him out for
not doing anything about nuclear war. They print in their
tabloid new tabloid version of The Daily Planet that Superman says,
drop dead.
Speaker 6: Kid.
Speaker 2: Wait, that is a throwback of a real historical event,
Gerald Ford in the seventies. The state of New York
was asking for help and for a federal aid, and
jeroff Ford said no, And the paper said New York
City can drop dead was how they phrased it. So
he's got this internal struggle going on and dealing with that,
and so to help him through that situation, he decides
to show Lewis Lane who he really is again, and
then he takes her on an around the world flying
journey where she's absolutely terrified but can also fly a
little bit herself. There's one point I took a picture
and I shared it with Jason. I may have shared
it with you too, Jeffy. Yep, when he throws her
like she's still kind of flying but obviously freaked out.
This is again right out of Mega mind, right. I
can see the guys in Mega mind going, oh, we
got to have a part where he like throws her
and lets her fall so he can save her and
be the ero. So but there's that point and as
he's catching her, you can see his foot go down
in front of her and stand on invisible air.
Speaker 4: I think I was just thinking, I'm like, man, Superman's
got a six months. They hear me. He's like, hey,
there you go, and he just lets her go because
she starts to go down. She's still flying, but she's
going down. I'm like that is terrifying, you know, and
it's like, you go, I'll.
Speaker 3: Tell you my fourteen year older like, oh gosh, this
will scare the crap out of her.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what's terrifying is I now have to
question how often does Superman do this to Loisy? You know,
because he's probably saving a fortune in therapy, you know,
because anytime he's got something bugging him, he just goes
and lays one on Lois and Hey, I'm Superman and
here's here's what's happening. And why does he have to
reveal the secret Doe? I? I don't you know, couldn't
Superman just fly down to Lewis's apartment and say, Hey,
I'm having some trouble.
Speaker 3: What do you think? Can we talk about the escape
from jail for Lex? Yeah, that's the most ridiculous jail
break in movie history. Somebody pulls up and says, listen,
check out my stereo. Right, Lenny's car is absurd.
Speaker 4: What's more absurd Lenny's car or Lex Luther's nineteen twenties
bomber outfit towards the end of the film and thinking
we're gonna lay low for a while and they're in
like a ridiculously glad car and he's dressed like, how
are you gonna lay load dressed like that.
Speaker 3: He looks like Snoopy dressed as the red bearing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, look here's what I'll go ahead and ask the question.
Because Lex is clearly on the work farm that John
Rambo is on exactly busting rock without doubt. How do
you just roll up past security and your outlandish the
lineamobile as I call it, his name's all over it.
Speaker 3: How do you just roll up?
Speaker 5: And then and the cops are like, hey, check this out.
Speaker 3: Absolutely we can climb and they draw on their guns.
Speaker 2: And so once once again you have a special effect
that should be there that's not there, and then this
one is there. It's guilty on both because it shows
you the special effect which it should never have shown you.
So they he remote controls of the car. It goes
flying off of the cliff. When you see it fly
off the cliff, you can see the bottom of the
hot wheels car. Yeah, it is a black flat matt
bottomed the car, which is just absurd.
Speaker 3: And then you should see an explosion.
Speaker 2: Right now you don't, and just much funny high high
off of the cliff and there is fire at least
coming out. They just crawl over the edge unscathed. I
think that they should have been the super villains because
they have obvious superpowers.
Speaker 5: The super villain here is the second unit director who
took seventeen million dollars and told his kid, take that
hot wheel, throw it in the sky, that he's going
to just film it.
Speaker 3: It's awful. When I watched those guys climb out basically unscathed.
I think about the very similitude of Richard Donner. This
is how far we've fallen. That scene alone is so bad.
It's just it's just unacceptable.
Speaker 2: And then we have what I still think is like
the good idea of taking Superman's DNA to make another
Did you guys know that they're supposed to be two
nuclear men like the film?
Speaker 3: Yes, I read that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first guy that was supposed to be a yeah,
supposed to be more of a Bizarro kind of character
who worked even less well then the second one, which
is hard to imagine. But anyway, you've got the good
idea of let's take a strand of Superman's hair. I
even like the idea that they have the hair in
the Superman Museum so that you get the idea of
how strong it is. But then but.
Speaker 3: Then ls Luther walks right up and just like clips
it takes it.
Speaker 2: He daytime going on with these wire cutters that he
bought at home depot. Superman's hair is not going to
be cut with wire cutters. It's crazy.
Speaker 3: Do you see the thousand pounds weight cut it? But
he just snip snips and takes it away. And then
we see him in the lab making some sort of
go and then somehow all it takes is to sneak
into a nuclear launching pad. Is that you just got
to step in line and wear a uniform yep. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And there that little concoction that he puts in there,
which almost is like a baby chicken or what looks
like the ginger that comes on there your with like sushi.
Speaker 2: What is that thing? It's just it just.
Speaker 4: Oh man, can we talk about Nuclear Man go for
the ridiculousness of him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the spawn of Nuclear Man is that the missile,
like the all the other missiles that Superman has thrown
into the sun with his giant net. Wherever that might
have come from.
Speaker 3: He got it from the same place they Yeah, so
Lex Luthor knows that Superman's throwing all the nukes they're
shooting up into the sky, into the sun.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why the military is still shooting these
things up, but he knows it's happening. And so the
key catalyst for the Superman while Sabbi ginger sauce that
he's made, is that it has to be thrown into
the sun. And so I'll just send it to Superman
and he'll do my dirty work for me. And then
when the thing goes into the sun, a fetus comes out.
Speaker 6: A car.
Speaker 2: I can't go on from there.
Speaker 4: I just it's so funny that you said that, because
as it was watching this last night, I was watching
it on HBO Max and my internet slowed down and
the movie pauses right at the fetus last night for
what felt like thirty seconds or a minute, and I'm like,
am I gonna.
Speaker 2: Have to this?
Speaker 4: It's just stuck on my screen, this fetus. So it
was just like finally it kicked back on, but I'm like,
I'm just sitting there staring at the fetus. Felt like
an eternity.
Speaker 3: Your WiFi was going what in there?
Speaker 4: It was, It's like I think my WiFi was like
why are you watching this?
Speaker 3: Why are you wasting?
Speaker 2: Why are you wasting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that brings up thank you guys for making the
sacrifice to watch these two movies. I went for it.
Speaker 4: I went. I watched Jaws three, Jaws four, Superman three,
Superman four. I've had so much junk of movie watching
in the last couple of nights.
Speaker 2: So let me I get a question. This is personal
question for you. Were you holding your newborn son during
any of these watching.
Speaker 4: Some of them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually yes, you may need to expose him to
a lot more good stuff. So that stuff.
Speaker 4: I was explaining it to him. I was like, this
is there's a purpose in all this, son, I promise
you I will explain later.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know what we we glazed over. We talked,
we brought it up, but we just kind of glazed
it over. But nuclear Jeremy standing up in front of
his class, I'll tell you what work. We gotta get
Superman to get the nukes.
Speaker 8: I tell you I'd write a letter too, that would
do some good.
Speaker 3: Santa Claus, no Superman.
Speaker 4: I was like, shut the up, Jeremy, you're saying Jeremy
spoke in class. Basically, Pearl Jam's Jeremy is actually about Superman.
For the quest for peace.
Speaker 3: I am dead now. Oh god, hilarious. I want somebody
to make that video I met Jeremy will be I
will play it in this right. Oh gosh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Let's talk about Jeremy for a second, because even
if you couldn't get a better actor, because that kid's awful.
Just his delivery. First off, he's looking out the window,
he's not paying attention. He kind of gives some attitude
to the teacher, and every time you see him, he's
just like, yeah, Superman. There is not one likable thing
about this kid, not one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, And they're watching the news in social
studies class or what I mean, what's going on there?
Such cheap, yeah, question, so cheap. Jeremy needed to be
sent to attention immediately and then swats you know?
Speaker 2: So so nuclear man is a fetus and then a
man and then a completely clothed man somehow.
Speaker 3: By the way, I'd love to give you a hard
time about you keep saying nuclear but they but Gene
Hackman does it the entire movie too.
Speaker 2: He does.
Speaker 5: If Hackman can do it, that's exactly I got the pronunciation.
Speaker 2: You know what the sun is, it's nothing more than
a huge nuclear bomb.
Speaker 5: Quoting Jae's four, Brad just says, my gear crept out rebooting. Now, hey,
hey my gear old crap. I pay Spectrum top dollars,
so I'm always on. That's gold Man. Oh good lord,
you guys are bringing the game today.
Speaker 2: I think you need to leave that in.
Speaker 4: See, as soon as I started talking about the Internet
screwed up, it's actually been fat hopefully it does. It
hurt me talking about and it said, yeah, that's right.
You watch that bad movie last week.
Speaker 2: We thought that Brad had been eaten by a shark
and taking down to the bottom of the ocean. It
turns back.
Speaker 3: He's He's okay, he is alive and no problems.
Speaker 5: The breath on that thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, so nuclear Man not only spawns in three seconds
from his fetus, he spawns fully clothed with costume and
with some really messed up fingernails. What is that about? Why?
Speaker 5: Okay, So, when him and Lenny are doing this mister
Wizard thing with their their beakers and the bubbling stuff,
Luther takes a scrap of of like a garment and
he's going to add that to the mix with the DNA.
And because Lenny, I remember Lenny's like, uh, that's not
enough to clothe him, and Gene Hackman's explanation that I
don't even remember what it is because it's just so
stupefying him with him. Yeah, he's like, oh, that's right.
The computer inside will do something for us. I'm like,
the computer and the fabric, the computer? What computer? Because
are we talking nanotechnology? Because I don't get it.
Speaker 2: Hey, I missed that line completely. I must have completely
toned out. I think I got hungry for Chinese.
Speaker 5: But well, speaking speaking of getting hungry, I'll tell you
right now, and I know I don't mean to jump
back to the again, but talk about taking a good
idea and totally ruining it. The opening title sequence with
the names flying in. I love that in Superman. I
love it in Superman two. Did you guys notice how
I'll tell you right now. If you blink you missed
four names. If you got up to go to the
get your Chinese food or the bathroom, that seems over,
I mean they fly by. I don't know if that's
just people going. I know people have to I know
my name has to be on this, but I don't
want people to see it. If you could just speed
the camera, you know, times ten.
Speaker 3: The opening credits, they're they're terrible, awful, maybe the last
thing added or something like that. You know, they we
still had twelve dollars. Okay, give me the best you got, you.
Speaker 5: Know, yeah, d Why does Nuclear Man have saber tooth
foring youernails?
Speaker 2: Well, the answer is because it's a plot point that
they could have to use later later on.
Speaker 3: Is it Is it really a plot point?
Speaker 2: It absolutely is.
Speaker 3: I mean, so he scratches him one time and makes
him sick.
Speaker 2: I know, but I mean that you won't know that
that's what's going on unless you see those absurdly long fingernails, right,
and so yes, that brings us to Brad's point earlier
that this was literally the worst fight choreography in the
history of fights. They look like they were trying to
hug each other and then smack each other with their palms.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was.
Speaker 2: It was terrible. Let's not forget that Nuclear Man somehow
knows to come to Lex Luthor's place. That must be
part of that nanotechnology you're talking about. And then what
is his weakness. It's the shade he melts like the
witch off of Wizard of Oz as soon as he
walks into the shade. I mean it's not even like
completely closed off. It's like you're not directly in the sunlight.
All your battery power is immediately eliminated and you crumple
like a bag of class. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, and the fact that you know, Lex Luthor, supposed
to be the greatest criminal mind of all time, didn't
think that soon Superman might figure this little tidbit out.
That's a pretty big vulnerability.
Speaker 2: I could beat this guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yourself in a basement.
Speaker 2: I can beat this guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lock yourself in a basement. He's never gonna get in.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 5: Wait, wait till nine o'clock at night, we all beat him.
Speaker 3: Hey, well, on that point, Superman actually does the like
the world's greatest defeat of nuclear Man. I'm going to
take him to the dark side of the moon. He'll
be permanently in the shade. Nobody can ever get to him.
It's totally fine, he can stay there forever. We're all good.
Everybody got to take care. Oh wait, the sun rises.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I literally when that part happened on that's
an actual smart move. You're taking him to a spot
where literally the sun never shines right, literally never shines.
Next scene, the sun is coming up on the moon.
Speaker 5: You're already up there. Why not, you know, you give
that big a toss of all the nuclear weapons. Why
not just toss him into like another galaxy. We know
there's other galaxies because he tells the un there's other galaxies.
You're tell me that you couldn't just send him to
some void area of space where there is no sun.
Speaker 3: He shouldn't have to. He's on the dark side of
the moon.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure one of your guys's favorite scenes and
definitely necessary for a movie that had to be cut
down by thirty minutes, was the double date scene that
we for some reason needed just for giggles, I guess,
But just what a waste of time.
Speaker 2: I have pointed out on multiple occasions in this podcast
that a movie has to have some comedy in, it
has to be funny. Yes, But at that particular scene,
I started looking at the Wikipedia page for Superman four
and then going and getting some Chinese food, Like I
was like, Okay, this is useless, so I'm gonna go
do something else right now. This was I mean, it
was so bad, It was so not funny in an
horrible attempt to be funny, and it was just boring.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all it needed was a laugh track, and it
would have played perfectly as any sitcom from the nineteen eighties.
Oh yeah, that's how I look at it.
Speaker 3: John Ritter as Superman.
Speaker 5: Yeah, perfect, right, there you go.
Speaker 2: By the way, the TV show, they do absolutely no
explanation as to why Superman and Clark Kent are doing
a double date together, why they would ever agree to that.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, that's one of the twenty five percent of
the movie that they cut out. Just introed right into it,
well we've got a double date. It's with Clark and Superman.
I'm like, okay, here's the thing.
Speaker 3: Superman could take both those girls and say, look, hey guys, listen,
I can't really do this.
Speaker 2: This is dumb.
Speaker 3: I'm Superman. And they'd be like what and he gets
super kissed both of them, and you know why, Sure,
the problems very true even with that.
Speaker 2: I just I remember this, She says, I've known the
whole time. When he's talking to her, and she's, you know, hinting.
Lois Lane is hinting that she knows who he is,
and he's like, have you do you know you do
you remember, like the super kiss didn't work, And she's like,
I've note the whole time. I'm like so confused work yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, oh you don't even know my name.
Speaker 4: Hell yeah, remember Superman too, I know everything. You lost
your powers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't kiss enough. Apparently it needs to grab
her butt too, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, second base is the memory.
Speaker 3: That's where they you know, you don't want to put
her in the hospital, you know, like odomizer or whatever.
Speaker 5: But again, abuse of power, and let's talk let's get briefly,
let's talk about powers, because I understand you have to
sometimes do something in a movie that they that's not
canon to the comic book. It's not cannon to the character.
The memory wiping kiss being a great example.
Speaker 3: The ramat Bess keep going.
Speaker 5: Okay, so he has X ray vision, he has heat vision,
and in this movie he has rebuild the Great Wall
of China. Nuclear Man destroys the Great Wall of China.
Superman looks at it hard and it puts itself back together.
That's not how it goes.
Speaker 4: Also, he can make things disappear too, Yeah, and makes
his ship disappeared, but just like looks at it and
it just disappears.
Speaker 5: Give me just draw two red lines coming out of
his eyes, so I know he melted it. He destroyed it, right,
Brad's right, disappearing vision.
Speaker 4: I feel like he has one more magic trick that
we're forgetting.
Speaker 2: It's the hitting the baseball into space.
Speaker 4: No, that's just super strength.
Speaker 3: But I feel like he has one more but the
baseball and would.
Speaker 2: Have been destroyed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that thing would have been a thousand toothpicks in
his hand.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, no, that's that's absurd. But the other is
I mean, he's got that green stick. He's had it
from the whole time. He gets the super scratch, he
turns into the supercrypt keeper with the gray hair, and
that's so all of a sudden he's like, oh yeah,
I've got the green stick. And he holds the green
stick and cut two. He's completely noise and a good
news because it was right at the time that the
nuclear man. The nuclear man looks at the paper and
decides he wants to have mural Hemingway as his own.
Where is the woman?
Speaker 6: Give it up?
Speaker 2: He'll never find it. If you will not tell me,
I will hurt a Paul.
Speaker 5: Don't do it.
Speaker 4: The paper and how does he know that he knows
right right away is never going to get to her.
How do you know that nuclear man was just looking
at the paper and he's like her, that's the one
that I want. He just knows you're never gonna find her.
When was there a scene where you two were discussing,
I'm gonna go after this girl.
Speaker 3: He's like, bring me the woman. He's like, uh, her
a you you've got him.
Speaker 2: At that moment, just before that moment that he's the
nuclear man is standing in the street and with his
you know, the force, uses the force and crush the taxi.
And I took a picture of this and I was
going to send it and I forgot and then Jason
sent the same picture that somebody else had taken. You
don't see the wires when the car gets crushed, but
then when they zoom into it after it's already been crushed,
then you can see the wires. I'm like, all you
had to do is say, dude, go take those off.
We don't need them anymore, we don't need them in
this shot, and yet there they are.
Speaker 3: When you told me that you could see wires in
this movie, I'm like, I don't really pay attention to
the details of it. No, they are so blatant. I
couldn't believe it. You can see the wrinkles and the
curtain in the backdrop when they're on the moon.
Speaker 4: And the thing is, if you would have told me, oh, yeah,
you see a few wires in like the seventy eight
version or sometime, it was like, come on, technology is
progressing throughout the years, but the effects get worse, obviously
because of money, but still it's just oh man.
Speaker 3: When Nuclear Man is even going up Florida, Florida floor,
you can see the wires from Florida ceiling. He's righting
those wires right up.
Speaker 2: The talk after this movie was the Superman that Christopher
Reeve had gotten heavier. It wasn't that he had gotten heavier,
it's that they had the belt around him, and because
it was a low budget, cannon made movie, the belt
made him look probably ten pounds heavier than he really was.
Speaker 5: His harness. He's not Superman anymore. He's SpongeBob SquarePants. His physique, he.
Speaker 4: Lost a lot of stuff of his physique.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's not and that's not fair to Christopher Reeve.
It's just it's how they had him hooked up in
the harness, right. He looked he looked like he was
out of shape.
Speaker 3: We have forgotten one of the other major sins committed
by Superman in this movie, the fact that he moved
the moon to block out the Sun in order to
defeat Nuclear Man. And what's that going to do to
the tides and all that stuff. Well, but here's the thing.
Speaker 2: If you fly around the Earth and make the Earth
go backward, that's true. It will not reverse time. It
will send Earth flying out into the galaxy. It will.
But the difference is I have bought in by the
time we reached that point in Superman one. This movie, Yeah,
it's just another cherry on top of the who Sunday
that we got.
Speaker 4: And I think that they said, myself, will what worked
in Superman two. There's a fight on the moon in
Superman two. Yep, so they'll throw that in. There's a
fight in Metropolis going through a few buildings, and there's
of course, don't do it the people that they just
said recreate some of those scenes. True, not very well,
but scene on the moon, seene in Metropolis of fighting,
and I yeah, I just felt like they were being like, oh,
I mean, it worked once, Let's try it again.
Speaker 5: My problem with the moon move is he takes three
years to arrive in his rocket ship from Kryptony and
he clearly you can clearly hear Jarrell instructed him on
Einstein's theory of relativity. You know better, don't move the moon.
Just yeah, everything's destroyed if he does this. And I
hate that. I hate that I'm old enough to pick
at it like that because as a kid, I probably
would have been like, oh, yeah, just move the moon,
you'll beat him. But does it play for me now?
And it never will play?
Speaker 4: Yes, it was. Guess My question is is what did
the cast and crew think of this film after it
was done.
Speaker 5: I know Christopher Reeve think or what he thought, because
even in his book he I think there's one sense
he's like, the less we say about Superman four, the better,
and that's in his that's in his autobiography.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but you know what, So like, I heard
John Cryer talking about this and we're kind of moving
towards wrap up. But John Cryer said when they released this,
it's not a complete movie, and he's right. There should
have been better effects, you know, things that make the
story more cohesive that you know, maybe he wasn't involved
in it, so they just put out kind of an
incomplete project.
Speaker 2: And he's right asked this, Do you guys think they
could re edit the footage that we have from this movie?
Do you think that they could re edit it and
make it a good movie?
Speaker 3: They could make it as good as Superman too, Okay,
I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean the first half maybe. I think if it
would have turned into because they started very realistic with
the film of like, all right, let's do some real
world stuff and throw it in the Superman universe. And
if you actually did that, of saying we're going to
rid the world of nuclear weapons, so many countries would
have a major issue with that, and I think that
included the US. Yeah, playing with that a little bit
of the conspiracy and world leaders kind of maybe joining
with Lex a little bit more besides just the three.
It would have made it a little bit more interesting
in somewhat way. But yeah, it just I don't know
if you could edit it to make it better.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think you if you clean up the effects, maybe
give nuclear Man, not Jeene Hatman's voice, give him anyone's voice.
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 4: Make him a mute. Make him a mute.
Speaker 5: I think if you did enough work, it would probably
be as good as three. That's where I would leave it.
Speaker 3: I wanted to mention this, guys. At the end of
Superman Quest for Peace, you have a shot of Superman
sort of like back in the neighborhood. Guys, how you
doing good to see everybody? That was plucked straight out
of Superman one? Yeah, which it looks great, right, Well,
the reason it looks great is because it's from Superman one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the same clip from all four films.
Speaker 3: I think its whole.
Speaker 5: They do a fourth that that break the fourth wall,
smile at the audience.
Speaker 3: Everything was good. Well, Jaws the Revenge pulls the same tactic,
and we'll talk about that next week. Does it does?
Speaker 2: Watching it after the credits started rolling, so I don't,
I don't know what.
Speaker 3: It's the same. It's the it's the explosion.
Speaker 5: Oh, I was waiting for Bruce to smile at us.
Speaker 2: I forgot. I have one shining moment here that I
forgot to mention when I said, good stuff all right,
and that is the composer. Composer for this movie is different.
It was different than Superman one, different than Superman two.
We know that in Superman two that John Williams met
with met with Dick Lester, and when they went to
the bathroom and came back, He's like, I cannot work
with this man and left, and so somebody else had
to take his music and do something with it. And
basically we had the same type of thing with this movie.
But the guy that they got to do it is
a composer named Alexander Kurage. And as it turns out,
Alexander Courage had actually worked with John Williams extensively. He
was his orchestrator. He would orchestra. He would take John
Williams music and would make the full orchestration out of it.
And he did the same thing with Jerry Golds and
so he literally was in the right spot to just
take I mean they even say it at the beginning
in those super Fast credits, based on, you know, the themes
of John Williams, right. So he he took this music
and did the right things with it. Quick story. He's
mostly an orchestrator, but he was the composer of a
very famous score. He composed the original music for Star Trek,
the TV series from the sixties. Wow what Yeah, so
not bad. Here's the rest of that story. Gene Roddenberry
decided to write some lyrics for that song the O. No,
not that like literally like like lyrics were. There are
words to be sung, It's just that nobody's ever actually
heard those. But he wrote them, which means that he
got half of the royalties from all of the times
that they've used that score. Geen Rodenberry got half the roles.
So I think Alexander courage was felt a bit screwed
over in that circumstance. But I just thought that was
an interesting story.
Speaker 3: All Right, everybody, We've got mister deaf Dave back to
do a shurly showcase. This time, he's going to go
back all the way to season one, where we did
a match up Bill and Ted's excellent Adventure versus Bill
and Ted's bogus journey versus Bill and Ted face the Music.
Let's hear what Dave has to say.
Speaker 8: Greetings, royal ugly dudes, This is Deaf Dave Esquire and
I have traveled through time just to give you this
Bill and Ted review in order to unite all podcast
listeners and save reality as we know it. Recently, I
noticed that strange things were afoot on Amazon Prime. So
after watching Bill and Ted Face the Music, I wanted
to send you this most non heinous Shirley showcase, but
I couldn't think of anything to say. At first, I
was like, lyrics, sit up some lyrics, dude, But then
I decided to go to the future and get this
review from future Dave since he had plenty of time
to write it. At first he was like, get away
from me, you COVID pandemic dip weed, but then I said,
this is a film review, Future Dave, not a medical review.
But since the clock is all I was ticking in
San Dimas, I'll skip the rest of that story and
get straight to it. I saw Excellent Adventure in theaters
my senior year of high school, and it was an
instant classic for me. Any movie that can get away
with soakrates and mister the kid playing catch for the
nerve football is my kind of movie. Gingas Con Twirling
is aluminum bat like he wants a second shot at
Riggs and McClean the fruit dude really enjoying his corn
dog at the food court. Historical Babes and short dead dudes.
They're all so funny. But what makes it work is
the genuine friendship between Bill and Ted. In a world
that certainly must seem too complicated for them, they have
found each other, and their dim wittedness allows them to
take all the absurdity of time travel in stride, because
how was that any more difficult to understand than algebra class?
And the idea that these two lovable, sweet losers would
one day make the music that would align the planets
and unite the world is just hilarious. This movie earns
my highest recommendation to all my cinematically inclined comrades. Listen
to nineteen eighty nine Deaf Dave. That dude knows what
he's talking about, even though I'll probably never watch it
again because I've seen it sixty nine times. I also
saw Bogus Journey in theaters a couple of years later,
and I was disappointed in it. It just got a
little too weird for me. Words like Station and Melvin
just made no sense, and it was basically a big
miss for me. There were highlights, of course, Death is hilarious.
Death was easily the best part of that movie. I
think he's a great addition, and he was awesome, and
there were some important continuity bits at the end with
the future history of the Wild Stallions. But I do
not watch this movie very often. It's a thumbs down
for me. Put it in the Iron Maiden, and now
that brings me to Bill and Ted face the music. Now, look,
you can't have a totally triumphant sequel without Eddie van
Halen on guitar. And you can't have Eddie van Halen
on guitar because he's dead, dude. But otherwise he's doing
okay now right away, this movie made me mad with
the Bill and Ted Daughters. Since this franchise is always
gleefully dismissed any worry about time travel paradoxes, then so
do I write like any plot hole created by time travel,
you just kind of shrug your shoulders, play some air guitar,
and get over it. But the franchise does respect its
own continuity for the most part, which is why the
Daughters annoyed me. Bill and Ted had sons at the
end of Bogus Journey. So either the sons are thirty
years old and this movie just ignores their existence, or
were supposed to accept that they really had daughters and
they're still only teenagers. Either way, I don't like it,
and it doesn't help that the two actresses playing the
daughters have zero of the chemistry that Alex Winner and
Keanu Reeves have. As far as Bill and Ted themselves,
it was great to see them again. All the bits
where they run into their future us as are great,
and so their scenes almost work. They almost capture that magic.
But the only thing that was missing was punchline. It's
the plotline of the Daughters that comes the closest to
recapturing the magic of the first movie. The idea of
traveling through time to assemble the best band in history
is a winning idea. Seeing Jimmy Hendrix and Louis Armstrong
casually hanging out in the background of scenes really channels
the tone of the first movie. It really felt like
the Bill and Ted story that I wanted but never
got in Bogus Journey. The only problem was that Bill
and Ted were not in these scenes. This should have
been the movie. This should have been Bill and Ted's story,
but instead is given to the two daughters and they
just drain it of all energy. Also, this movie would
apparently have us believe that the only white guy to
make a historically significant contribution to music is Mozart, and
I'm just not ready for that level of disrespect for
King ad Rock. I had just about made up my
mind that this new movie was a disappointment when Death
and the Killer Robot from the Future Dennis Calea McCoy
start taking over the movie and suddenly I'm laughing a lot.
That pure Bill and Ted brand of absurdity is captured
and now I'm having fun. And then I gotta say,
the ending blew me away. It was never about the
song itself. It was about all of us singing together.
What an incredible message. It just kind of snuck up
on me and punched me in the face. Now, and
the music itself had me fired up, like it gave
me goosebumps. It was an awesome movie moment like this
is a great ending to this.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 8: I don't think the movie had done enough to establish
the daughters as these cool DJ producer types, so that
part seemed a little unearned. But hats off, because this
movie absolutely delivered on the ending. We actually do get
to see wild Stallion's music unite the world world and
align the planets, something that was teasing the first movie
we never expected to actually see, but we get it.
And what a perfect ending to the bill and head story.
So for me, the ending of Faced the Music totally
delivered and with the help of Death and Dennis Caleb McCoy,
managed to save the whole movie For me. There are
things about it that still annoy me, but it's a
net positive, so it's a thumbs up from me. So
here's how I rank them in last place, of course,
at number four, Bogus Journey at number three, we have
Faced the Music. Then at number two it's excellent adventure,
and then San Demus Football number one. Huh, well, that's
gonna do it for me. Guys, I've got this creepy
guy staring at me like he wants to play a
game of battleship.
Speaker 3: I love your show.
Speaker 8: Keep it up. I'm gonna get out here, but I'm
leaving you with these most bodacious words of wisdom. Be
excellent to each other. And oh I almost forgot future.
Dave wanted me to give you a message. He says,
congratulations on your fight Club versus six Cents episode. It
was most triumphant party on dudes.
Speaker 3: Okay, Dave, great job as always, super created, super insightful.
Love the movie quotes hilarious. I gotta disagree with you
on Bill and Ted's bogus Journey. I think that was
a lot of fun, but for the most part, I
think you nailed it. Thanks again. If you aren't familiar
with Deaf Dave, go back to our season two matchup
of Beastie Boys License to Ill versus Run DMC's Raising Hell.
Dave is a superstar when it comes to discussing eighties
hip hop. He's also a very successful writer. Go check
out some of his books. I myself just picked up
The Gideon Kine Demon Hunter, which is a collection of
short stories including our pal Van Allen, Plexico and mister
Deaf Dave himself. I can't wait to dive into that.
And I gotta say I love the message from Future
Deaf Dave about the matchup between six Cents and Fight Club.
That's a mammoth matchup from nineteen ninety nine. We'll see
what we can do, Future Dave. By the way Station,
This movie was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards. Just two,
just two, worst of the worst. Right, we've picked the best,
worst movies of all time. So the first one was
worst Supporting Actress for Mariel Hemingway. She lost to Daryl Hannah.
Speaker 2: For Wall Street.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: The second was for worst visual Effects, lost to.
Speaker 6: You.
Speaker 2: Got it really up for our next podcast, So guys,
be sure on whatever podcast that you are listening to,
hit that follow button, hit that subscribe button, Go check
us out at Shirley Podcast on Twitter, at Shirley Podcast
on Facebook. You can check out the film by guys
at a film buy on Twitter, same on Facebook. Correct, yes,
all right, why don't you guys tell us what your
next episode is going to be so that people can
tune in for that.
Speaker 5: Well, today Brad and I went back to Summer School.
We talked about a film by Carl Reiner, The Mark
Harmon Classic Summer School. So that is available right now
on your favorite streaming platform.
Speaker 2: So everybody, thank you for two in. Be sure and
check out our next episode where we dive in and
tear apart just the revenge.
Speaker 3: You guys coming back for that right, We will see
you next week.
Speaker 5: We will definitely be.
Speaker 2: Back to this time is personal. When the Canes Film
Festival would happen can the Cane Yeah, sorry, the Cane
Film Fest Cane Can Can Can con Con Can Can Can.
Speaker 3: I was here at Can. What do you think.
Speaker 4: Brad would be? Yeah, I've always called Can. I know
that the winner gets the palm dure gone.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go con