And Achilles says to Alexander, you're making
my beer curdle. Alexander says, you make my drink
taste like blood. What does that even mean? It's
amazing. Hello and welcome to Camp Kaiju Monster
Movie Podcast. We're your hosts, Vincent Hannum.
And Matt Levine. And we're talking about all
our favorite monster movies, the good, the bad,
and the downright campy, and asking if they stand
the test of time. Traditional Kaiju, creature
features, space invaders, the supernatural, and
everything in between. All strange beasts welcome
here. Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zach Linder
and the Zach Pack, powered by Coldwell Banker
Realty, your source for real estate, home rehab,
fixing and flipping for investor clients and
residential buyers. Reach out to the Zach Pack
today for real estate services. Follow the Zach
Pack on social media and contact the Zach Pack
for investment opportunities. Link in the show
notes. It's a new age of combat. Human beings
genetically engineered to be the best fighters
in history. Two champions. It isn't over until
someone wins. At war with each other. I have
already killed you. Two invincible men. Let's
finish it, Alexander. Here and now. The ultimate
killing machine. I'm gonna get in this thing
and I'm gonna kick your... Wow. Talk about everything
in between. We have a blast of a show coming
up. We're all about robot jocks. We have returning
guests, Matt. We do. Yes. Thank you to the Sean's.
I'll let you introduce them, Vincent, but good
to have you guys back. Thank you for joining
us. Thank you. Love it. That was great. That's
exactly what I was expecting. So I'll let you
two actually take it away. All right. Hey, everybody.
It's Sean Pryor. Once was on the episode where
we talked about the book Kaiju Unleashed. I am
the author of Kaiju Unleashed. I write books
for a living of all kinds. And I'm glad to be
back on. I'm glad to be back at the camp. I got
my bag of marshmallows. I got my s'more maker.
Like, I'm in a good place right now. So thank
you for having me back, Vincent. It's lovely
to be back. Our supreme pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us. And now to get out
of character here for just a moment. Hello, this
is Sean, also known as the host for Big Mecca,
but not huge podcast where we talk about different
Mecca related stuff. And I am thrilled to be
here with you guys to go ahead and talk about
one of my childhood favorite movies. I'd like
to see how it holds up to you guys. Definitely.
And when I wanted to program Robot Jocks, I was
so glad that you two wanted to. Join this. I
think this movie seems right up your alley. Just
based on what I know about you guys and your
interests and and mechs, but anime and comic
books. And I think this movie just kind of hits
all those notes. So I'd love to, I don't know,
lean on Sean Pryor and Sean Childers to expand
upon that. That kind of stuff. Vincent, you can
lean on me. So many good sound bites already.
I love it. I didn't know Alexander was in this
picture. Straight from Robot Jocks to Camp Kaiju.
Alexander himself. Amazing. Well, thank you all
listeners for hanging out. If you enjoy this
nonsense and this craziness, we call Camp Kaiju.
Rate and review us wherever you listen. You can
send us listener comments. We have a whole bag
full of listener comments, but you could do so
at campkaiju at gmail .com, our Instagram at
camp underscore kaiju underscore podcast. Or
if you'd like to even be a featured voice on
the show, leave us a voicemail at 612 -470 -2612.
Tell us about your favorite monster movies. Give
us your best Alexander impression. Check out
our website. campkaijupodcast .com for more reviews
and special content. And you'll find links to
our Threadless store and our Patreon, which leads
us into, you know, the shouting out the heroes
of Camp Kaiju who are our patrons. We have Jason,
Beastruel, Sean Childers, and our anonymous patron
and Peggy and Chris B. Thank you for supporting
us. We appreciate it. Listeners out there, we're
going to get to production history. We're going
to talk about all the ins and outs of the talent
in front of the camera, behind the camera, and
we're going to review the movie. But before we
get to that, we always have to shout out Monster
Movie History. This month in June, the calendar's
stacked. You know what? This is an amazing list
of films, and if I only could choose one, I have
to find one that has the best personal story
behind it. So that would be predator 1987. Ooh.
Okay. So that, that comes out like, like summer
spring, summer 87. So like I'm 11 years old.
Okay. And, and I remember like seeing the trailers
for it, the movie theater. And that's as a child.
And even still like, sometimes as an adult, like
I don't really mess with like, Alien and Predator.
I got a whole story about Alien. The whole story.
I literally did not watch that movie for almost
30 years after seeing it at the age of six. So
that's how bad it traumatized me. But that creature,
the Predator itself, it always freaked me out
as a child. And so when my family went to the
theater, I had one of my cousins with me. We
went to go see something else and they went to
go see Predator. You fast forward a year later,
it's on HBO. And I'm like, OK, you know, I'm
12 now. I'm like, I can do this. I can do. No,
I couldn't do it. When they cut off Apollo Creed's
arm, I screamed to high heaven. And I was just
like, we're out. It's like, we're out. We can't
do this. Can't do this anymore. But like I probably
watched it about 10 years ago. I was like, wow,
this was really, really good. Like I see it in
a completely different light now. And so, you
know, like there's no more that, you know, that
childish fear. Now it's just that I never I never
want to face that thing. So Arnold can do that
for me. So it's all right. Go ahead and let yourself
up in mud and scream and hold a torch. I'm good
with it. You know, it's so, so yeah, like it's,
it's good. And plus that predator laugh at the
end, you know, before he self -destructs is always
just awesome. You know, like it spawned so much,
like say what you want about the other sequels
and like the team that the versus movies with
alien and like all the other directions that
the predator franchise has gone. I mean, prey
is fantastic. And the animated anthology movie
that just came out was really good, too. So like
it's I think it's starting to make that turn
for the better again, you know, over like the
last like four or five years. But but as a child,
this movie scared the living bejesus out of me.
And I would not go into the woods. And yeah,
if I saw. Nope, nope, nope. Two main trees. Nope.
Got to go. Yeah. But no, that's that's my pick.
That's fantastic. Yeah. Wow. Do you have a favorite
out of that particular series? All the Predator
movies, like right now, it's Prey. Good choice.
Prey's number one. Now, the thing is, is that
like Alien versus Predator, it's not that it's
a good movie because it really isn't, but like
Sanaa Lathan as the female, as the lead, she's
awesome. She's awesome. And I'm like... why didn't
y 'all give her something else on top of the,
after, after that? And like, no, no, she doesn't
need anything. No, she's fine. And I'm like,
no, give her another movie, you know, have her
team up with the predator and they can go wreck,
wreck shop or something. Nope. Not doing that.
And so besides that, the movie's not that good,
but, but like the predator and so now Latham
are like the best things about that movie as
a whole, but like, but yeah, like pray just really.
Man, it's so good, and it's, like, frightening
in, like, all the best ways possible. And, like,
you know, I don't care for gore, but, man, when
they go in, they go in. I'm just like, eh, eh,
okay. We survived. We survived. So, yeah, that's
my favorite. What about you, Sean? Man, if it
wasn't for Prey, I would probably say Predator
2. Yeah. Predator 2, it got a lot of crap back
in the day. No, that movie is fantastic. I finally
did a rewatch of, well, no, a watch in general
of all the Predator movies because I had only
seen the first one. This is going to sound blasphemous,
but I hate the first one. But once I started
with 2 and then moved my way forward, man, I
loved 2. But then Prey just beat that out of
the water. Anytime you can get Danny Glover.
Danny Glover fighting, fighting aliens, you know,
which is something that, you know, back then
it was just like, out of all the action, all
the people they could have got for this movie,
it was like, Hey man, Danny Glover is a lethal,
isn't a lethal weapon. That's the hot, like one
of the hottest things going out. We could put
them in this and bring Gary Busey with him too.
And set it, set it in the future, but it's not
really the future, but it is the future. Oh,
there's Bill Paxton. And, and like, there are
so many things it does well, but man, when it
hits those stereotypes with them gangs. With
those Jamaican gangs, man, I laugh at it now.
I laugh. I laugh heartily. Because it's like,
okay, first it's a street crime movie. Predators
taking out the Jamaican drug gangs. And then
it's like, okay, we have to stop this alien menace.
But then it gets really, really good. And that's
where we got the whole alien head trophy. Which
sparked how many decades of freaking fandom freaking
out over that. Oh, yeah. Plus, you got the deleted
footage on the Blu -ray or DVD of Danny Glover
dancing with a bunch of predators. That is an
amazing scene. Whoa, I have to check that out.
Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's really cool. Wow.
That's great. If you don't mind, I was going
to mention Gremlins off of this list because
it was a toss between Ghostbusters, Gremlins
or Poltergeist. Gremlins for me was a holiday
classic back in the day, and it still is. But
I've managed to move on to other holiday classics,
not Thanksgiving, because that movie is we're
not talking about that. But with regards to Gremlins
itself, I love that movie. And when it came to
watching Gremlins 2. on public television back
in the day it was very hard to find they were
trying to air it and then whenever you see in
the newspapers like oh here's your tv listings
couldn't find it gremlins can find anywhere tnt
all day every day along with lord of the rings
for whatever reason but anyways gremlins 2 the
reason why i have this specific memory tied to
gremlins itself i was supposed to be watching
gremlins 2 it was on wb one day back in the day
you know cw now And instead of it playing Gremlins
2, I ended up watching a really low budget horror
movie by accident. My mom was doing something
off in the background. And this guy is a janitor.
And he ends up taking some person, some high
school person, and kills them by putting them
into the copier machine. It's just wailing on
them like, this isn't Gremlins. I don't know
why. What was it? I don't remember. I do not
know. The mystery. But it was a really low budget
horror movie that now I associate with gremlins
from here on out until the end of time because
of that. So that actually, that does kind of
sound like a scene that you would see in gremlins
to the new batch. Like I would not be surprised
if the gremlins killed somebody by putting them
through a copier in that movie. That's not too
far fetched, you know? Oh yeah. Like it could
be comical, but no, it definitely was not trying
to play comic. Wow. I'm intrigued. Yeah. Listeners
out there, if you know what Sean, a .k .a. Alexander,
is talking about, let us know. I gotta know.
You are dead in here! You could be. Matt, what
do you got to shout out? There are so many good
movies on this list. It's very hard to choose,
including several movies that we've talked about
in the podcast, like King Kong vs. Godzilla and
Wolf. I think the one that I'm going to shout
out, though, is Splice from 2009. That's a very
underrated Canadian horror movie directed by
Vincenzo Natale, who also made Cube, another
underrated horror movie. But Splice is great.
It's definitely a monster movie. As the name
implies, it's very much about genetic engineering
and kind of... giving birth to a creature and
then you know like you know adrian brody and
sarah polly are in it and they play like the
parents to this creature and like there's some
sort of incestuous themes it's it's really dark
and it has this great like human element that
i think the best horror movies have so if you
haven't seen splice check it out that's my recommendation
yeah i saw it years ago and and it was there
are some moments that are seared into my memory
for sure Yeah. Some rough parts of that movie,
but in the best possible way. Yeah, for sure.
I think it's a, I think it's a good one. Yeah.
Yeah. So two things about that movie. I finally
saw that movie for the first time last year.
And that movie is absolutely fantastic, even
as dark as it goes. But the reason why I was
drawn to it was because of the cover art, because
the monster's face looks like Anya Taylor joy.
Yeah. So I was like, you know what? I'm kind
of digging her right now. Why not? So jump right
into it. I was satisfied. All right. Unintended
connection. But yeah, indeed. Adrian Brody Predators.
Quick shout out there. But my movie is from 1957.
It's called The Monster That Challenged the World.
Have you guys seen it? Never seen this one. It
is something I came across like a bargain bin
DVD, you know, but I put it on. And I was blown
away. It's about like a mutated mollusk that
comes up out of the ocean and eats people, of
course. But what sets it apart for me from other
1950s B -movies is that the special effects are
really gross and gnarly in a way that reminded
me of more like 80s special effects monster movies.
And seeing this in the 50s, it's black and white.
It's shoestring, but they go for it. I'm like,
wow, this is gnarly. I'm intrigued. I don't often
see monster movies from the 50s that go hard
with their gruesome special effects. So I would
recommend. Kind of sounds like the end of Fiend
Without a Face. Splattering brains all over the
place. Yeah, yeah. You'll be thinking about it
long after it ends. Nice. That's awesome. I still
can't believe all the movies on this list that
came out in June. Like, so many. Holy cow. The
Legend of Boggy Creek. Holy crap. Yeah, I've
got that DVD. Oh, man. Did you buy it in Kissimmee?
I ordered it. I was living in Kissimmee when
I bought it. Okay. Nice. Yeah, I'll share with
you guys. There's a horror almanac. that me and
Matt use to find these month -by -month histories.
And it's not just releases. It's deaths and births
and other milestones in horror history. It just
goes month -by -month. So it's a really neat
resource. Do you remember the name of that website
offhand, Vincent? Yeah, it is because I have
it tabbed. It is... Horrorsociety .com. Nice.
That's a society I want to live in. No, we're
going to live in a post -apocalyptic society
where war and Alaska is determined by single
-handed mecha combat. Sounds like an anime I
watched. Doesn't it? Doesn't it? It does. Specifically
one called G Gundam. But it's basically where
all these different nations, you know, they live
in space colonies and then they end up fighting
each other for, you know, resources and who gets
to control pretty much all the other nations.
So, yeah, they borrowed from that heavily. Oh,
yeah. It leans heavy into Gundam, for sure. For
sure. And the thing is, when I saw this when
I was a kid. like Gundam wasn't accessible. Like,
you know, like stuff like stuff like Robotech
was, was more, was more accessible. Transformers
was, was more accessible, but, but like, like
this, this film though, man, like I tell you
when I was 14, I saw it on HBO because it was
one of those like HBO, you've never seen this
before. Cause that's like, that was one of HBO's
things like around 1990, like late 89, early
90. They started being like, well, hey, you know,
how can we differentiate ourselves from the other
cable stations and, like, pay cable stations
and whatnot? And they're like, well, how about
if we just start showing movies that nobody's
ever seen before and just calling it, you know,
giving something snazzy over top of it? So, like,
that's how you get to see Robot Jocks on HBO.
That's how you get to see. dark man three. Oh
God. No. And like, and like all these other things
before, like they really started making like
original films and like originals, like original
series outside dream on. Okay. And so, but this
was their way to like, you know, pad up, you
know, pad up the, you know, the, the schedule.
But the thing is, is that like, man, like, I
love that. I love that film as a child. And,
you know, and like, it hits a little bit harder
now that I'm, that I'm older. But, like, the
thing is, if this movie would have came out when
it was originally supposed to come out, it should
have came out around the same time RoboCop came
out. Mm -hmm. I think, like, that delay truly
hurt that movie from ever doing anything in the
box office. Because when you look at RoboCop,
you look at RoboCop and you look at the special
effects, especially with the stop -motion stuff
with ED -209. Like, they're doing the same thing
in Robot Jocks with less money. Yeah. You know?
And then they'll still also have people in the
actual mech suit doing stuff, too. And so, like,
all the green screen, blue screen stuff, for
the most part, with the exception of maybe two
or three effects, it's all clean. Like, the opening
scene in Robot Jocks, like, it's very James Cameron
-ish as far as, we've got $10, how can I make
this look frightening? Yeah. you know, like,
like go look at the original Terminator film,
man. Like, like, like go, if you go look at that,
like, like that's, that's what I think of as
soon as it gets to that opening scene in robot.
Cause I'm like, and as a kid, once again, I wasn't
thinking about it, but watching it last night,
like in high definition, I was like, well, I'll
be damned. This is actually really impressive
for $5. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I gotta, I
gotta give Stuart Gordon his props, man. Cause
like, Like he really made like he really he really
did something with with this one. Like, yeah,
does it have does it have its flaws? Yeah, we'll
talk about those. But man, I just this film is
really close to my heart. And those HBO screenings
probably are like a big reason this became like
a cult movie years down the road. You know, like
people like young people like just stumbling
upon this movie being like, oh, why does nobody
know about this? More people should see this
movie. I feel like that directly led to this
movie is kind of like belated cult following,
you know? Oh, yeah. Most definitely. That's exactly
how I got my copy back in the day where once
it was on a video on demand or HBO, just pop
it in the VCR, just hit record and wait for it
to end. I love that. The good old days. Our distinguished
guests, feel free to elaborate more on your personal
histories with this film, but I think we can
go ahead and talk about that. The last quick
thing, I'll just... say for you know cam kaiju
stuff is that our next episode will be the company
of wolves from 1984 matt this is your pick if
you want to talk a little bit about it I've never
seen it and I don't really know very much about
it. So I don't have much to say, but it's very
well reviewed. It's directed by Neil Jordan.
From what I've read, the little bit that I've
read, it's kind of like a surreal coming of age
story mixed with a lot of like gothic horror.
So I'm excited. Beyond that, though, I don't
know what to expect. So we'll see. That's been
kind of hit or miss when I brought movies to
the podcast that I've never seen before. So crossing
my fingers and hoping for the best. We'll see
what happens. I love that. You know, mystery
box element to it. Yeah, seriously. That's pretty
good. And then after that in July, we'll have
a traditional Kaiju feature TBD. Matt, you and
I got to put our heads together on that. Maybe
our patrons will be able to vote. So stay tuned
for you all out there. And then me and Matt are
going to announce the next six months worth of
episodes here on Camp Kaiju. So listeners, guests,
Matt, stay tuned. We'll have some good things,
no doubt. I will be tuning in. A new motion picture
will transform the summer of 1986 into an incredible
adventure. Transformers, the movie. An epic story
of good versus evil. This spectacular animated
adventure stars Orson Welles as Unicron. Leonard
Nimoy as Galvatron. Robert Stack as Ultra Magnus.
Judd Nelson as Hot Rod. And Eric Idle as the
Junkion Warrior Wreck Guard. 1986, the most exciting
adventure in the universe is on planet Earth.
Transformers, the movie. Coming this summer to
a theater near you. In the year 2035, a corporate
power will rule our nation with terror. Using
a secret army of synthetic humans, they will
destroy all who oppose them. But a small outpost
of rebels will fight their killing machine. By
reviving a weapon from their past, they will
wage the final battle for our future. The makers
of robot trucks take you to a future where super
robots keep the peace. Well, General, you're
getting a ringside seat here. But beneath the
technology lies a plot. The Eastern Alliance
is on our side. To turn its machines. Come on,
what would somebody be hiding under a ghost town?
How about a huge cache of weapons? The whole
damn robot's intact! Into engines of destruction.
Captain Wally has commandeered the robots. I
learned a whole nine... Robot Yards. Strap it,
Sophie! No. Fuck. The Robot Wars have begun.
Robot Wars, the next exciting story from the
producers of Robot Jocks. Okay, so personal histories
with Robot Jocks. Mine's going to be really brief.
I did not really know anything about this movie
till I watched it last night for the podcast.
And I consider myself a Stuart Gordon fan. I
like Re -Animator a lot. From Beyond, I think
it's called, his second movie. I like that one
a lot too. But somehow, yeah, this one passed
me by. I was not aware of this movie at all.
And I was delightfully surprised. I'll just say
that for now. Nice. Nice. I first came across
this movie three years ago. I was in Hot Comics,
a comic book store in Minneapolis, and it was
free comic book day. So I got my comic books.
But then I saw off to the side by the cash register
was a little shelf of used B movies, right? And
I picked up one. It was not Robot Jocks. It was
another Charles Band movie, Robot Wars. I picked
it up just based on the premise alone. But it's
it's free comic book day. So the shop is packed.
And, you know, I love I love everyone. I just,
you know, nerds are the best people. And I had
somebody see what I picked up and they shouted
across the room. They like laser honed in on
what I was buying. And they said, watch robot
jocks. I was like, OK, I'm going to remember
that one. And of course, I went home and found
it online. And I'm not going to bury the lead.
I fell in love with it. I hadn't seen it since
then, though. So it was a really nice rewatch.
But I will say, though, as a teacher, whenever
I've had like really quiet classes, maybe it's
towards the end of the school year and we're
not really doing a whole lot anyways, I will
start Robot Jocks for my students, especially
if I know they're into like Transformers. Or,
you know, similar things. And every time we only
get like 20 minutes into it, but every time they're
hooked and they're like, what? What the hell
is this? I'm like, isn't it great? Damn right.
See, I'd love been a student in your class. You
roll on the TV, the TV card. Like, oh, it's on
now. Here we go. Here we go. What we watching?
What is this ancient? art form that you have
brought into us. I'm like, it's called stop motion.
Appreciate it. Yeah. Infinitely better than CGI.
Oh my goodness. Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. CGI has dropped
off so much. And so from so many movies over
like the last, like 15 years, man, it's three.
Excuse me. That's the thing. It's the, it's the
drop off in quality. They can do it. So I'm saying
like, I'm an expert, but from my arm chair, they
can make it so. quickly and and affordably affordably
that you know you can kind of see the the proof
in the pudding between that and like a lot of
special effects houses really literally being
run out of business you know for being like low
-balled and then asking for a lot in a short
period of time Asking a lot of these special
effects studios for a lot of things in a short
period of time. That's also been a major problem,
too. That's why practical effects work, y 'all.
There's nothing wrong with getting your hands
dirty. And that's how I feel about this film.
It really feels like Stuart Gordon and everybody
involved in the film, they got their hands dirty.
Whether it be Ron Cobb. Once again, now that
I'm older and I see these names, they mean something.
And because I used to have an Art of Ron Cobb
book and I was like, I did not know he drew all
this cool stuff. You know, I did not know that
he like he did so many conceptual conceptual
artwork for like so many movies. And like that's
something I'm just really big into is conceptual
art. And so I'm like, oh, wow, Ron Cobb. I was
like, well, that's really cool. And as a kid,
I didn't know who Charles Band was. Now that
I'm older, I'm like, oh, man, this is the king
of the B movies. You know, like. The thing is,
I know him from Full Moon Entertainment. That's
where I know the name from now. Especially, there
was a comic book publisher I once was working
for, and probably about a decade ago, they inked
a deal with Full Moon to do comic books for Puppet
Master and a couple other movies, a couple other
franchises. They did that for about two years.
But, man, it just... When I was a kid, when this
came on, I did not move. This movie was everything
to me because I was just like, okay, I'm getting
Mecca. I'm getting these really cool characters.
I don't care if the budget's low. I'm not paying
attention to that. I'm 14. And it was everything
to me. And the thing for me is that it was a
movie that nobody else in the house understood.
Cause it's at my grandma's house. Okay. Is that
my grandma's house? So when robot jocks came
on, everybody left. So it's like, Oh yeah. I
was like, I get to live on to myself. Oh man,
this is wonderful. Okay, great. Let me get some
popcorn. Oh, this is great. This is great. Oh,
that boy watching robot jocks, you know, you
know, and so, you know, so like, like those are
the memories that really, that really like pull
me, pull me back in every time I think about
it. But like, I think one of the other things,
Because I don't want to hug up all the time.
One of the other things about the film, besides
Gary Graham being awesome, and Gary Graham plays
Gary Graham in every single film he's ever in,
and I love that man for that. Absolutely love
that man for that. He's great. But Anne -Marie
Johnson as Athena, it's an interesting casting
decision. And here's why. Anne -Marie Johnson,
in my personal opinion, should have been... A
movie star, a big movie star. Like she started
off in like when I was a kid, Robert Townsend
used to have these comedy specials on HBO. And
so like all the comedy specials would have like
sketches in them, like skits. And she would be
in them. OK, that's where I first saw her. So
then I fast forward like five, six years later,
I'm like, Robot Jocks, what's she doing in this?
I'm like, I didn't know she's going to do action
and science fiction. I was like, well, this is
cool. And, you know, she does a really good job.
And then I see her a couple of years later, like
the last like two seasons of A Living Color.
And that's like and she's done some other things,
but I'm just like she had the look. She did actually
have legitimate acting jobs. And, you know, it's
just, you know, she just got overlooked. And
so like when I watch Robot Jocks, I'm like, man,
we could add so much cool stuff, you know, with
Achilles and Athena. We could add other movies,
sequels. Because it's not like this stuff was
expensive, but, you know, like, we got what we
got. And, you know, so I'm thankful that we at
least got this. That's an interesting point about
legacy. But more importantly about Anne -Marie
Johnson, yeah, I think her screen presence is
dynamite in this movie. And she and Gary Graham
play really well off of each other, too. They
have great chemistry. Yeah. Yeah. Good cast all
around. Okay, well, let's talk about some of
the cast and crew. Direction and story is by
Stuart Gordon, who we mentioned a little bit
earlier. I would say a cult genre director, big
into horror especially, but he's known for a
couple of HP Lovecraft adaptations. But the big
ones are Re -Animator from 1985 and From Beyond
from 86. And these were both produced by Empire
Pictures. as is Robot Chalks. But what I love
is that this dude, Stuart Gordon, I was watching
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids recently, and you cannot
be how surprised I was when I saw Stuart Gordon's
name in the credits after that movie, or even
in the pre -credits. I was like, no, the Stuart
Gordon? Amazing. He wrote that film, he co -created
it, and he executive produced. The sequel, Honey,
I Blew Up the Kid with Disney. This guy knows
what he's doing and I love it. He knows genre
filmmaking so well. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
traumatized me as a child. I just want to throw
that out there because there's some horror elements
to that movie and the giant ants and the giant
bees and everything. I had to be carried out
of the theater screaming the first time I saw
that movie. And I largely blame Stuart Gordon
for that. So thank you, Stuart Gordon. Oh, man.
I'd say what generation X has just been traumatized
their entire damn lives. You have the predator
and then you have honey. I shrunk the kids. It's
a no win situation. No, but I, I get you, Matt.
And I, I've seen reanimator and I've seen obviously
the honey. I, I shrunk the kids series, but you
know, there's, there's horror elements, there's
action, but there's also a lot of heart in these
movies too. And I think in robot jocks as well.
And I think. I always look for that as an audience
member, as an artist. You know, that makes me
care about it long after the initial viewing.
But yeah, Stuart Gordon directed and came up
with the story. But he was not alone in co -writing
the film. Science fiction author Joe Haldeman
also came on board. I've known of, I know of
the name, like, and I know of, like, it's not
that Haldeman. And Gordon had beef with each
other. It's just that they had different visions
of what the movie should be. You know, like,
you know, like I know like Haldeman was, was
pissed because like, you know, this is supposed
to be a movie, a movie for adults that you can
take kids to. And like, Gordon's like, no, this
is a movie for kids that adults can also watch.
It's very evident in this movie. Yeah. Yes. Yes,
exactly. Thank you. Thank you. You know, like
when Athena and Achilles start fighting each
other, you know, in Achilles' place after he's
been sedated, they fall into bed and he falls
on top of her and she's like, you know, he's
like, what do you think I came back here for?
And like, tries to give her a kiss and she bites
his lip. I was like, oh, yep, this is not for
the kids right here. This is not. So chaste at
the same time. Like, they don't. They avoid the,
the cliche romance that you'd expect. Well, except
for right at the very end when he manages to
lift her out. And then they ended up kissing
each other again for no real random reason. Just,
just because like there wasn't a, there wasn't
enough time to like, to like expand on like the,
like the, this relationship, if you can call
it a relationship, because it wasn't really a
relationship. You know, it was like he because
like he came back because like Achilles came
back because he didn't want to see Athena get
hurt. I that's that's absolutely fine. Is it
really truly fully explained? Not really. You
know, but like you get it like in this. This
is the way the film supposed because once again,
it's a film made made for kids that adults can
watch. And so it's like we're not going to fully
elaborate on. We're just going to be like, hey,
he because he literally Achilles takes his coat
because he goes to see his family. He goes to
see his relatives and he sees that Athena is
going to be piloting, piloting the mech. And
he just grabs his coat and he just bolts back,
you know? And so like, you know, he's doing that
for her and she's, you know, she's thinking,
oh, he just wants, he just wants a spot back
and he doesn't want me to be successful. So,
you know, that's how Athena feels about it. So
yeah, man, it's, it's, but yeah, like, yeah,
the whole. The whole conflict between Haldeman
and Gordon, honestly, I think it made for a better
movie because Gordon made the movie he wanted
to make. You know, he made the movie that he
wanted to make. And so it was worth it. I would
have been interested to see what the full vision
of either of them separately would have been
like, because it feels like that they didn't
really expound upon the idea of what they really
wanted for the whole, you know, post -World War.
aspect to it where it's like yeah we are dwindling
on these resources but we need to make sure that
everyone is repopulating the earth even though
the resources are dwindling and there's just
a bunch of other different things that seem to
go against itself that just upon this rewatch
it didn't make sense but you're kind of just
told to go with it yeah yeah I read that Haldeman
was like the only member of the crew that actually
was a soldier. He fought in Vietnam, I believe.
So he wanted to make a movie kind of about that,
like a soldier's experience in like war and a
dystopian future. And of course, everybody else
is like, no, this isn't a war movie. This is
a kid's movie. But yeah, Sean Childers, to your
point, I kind of would like to see that version
as well. But the version that exists is insanely
fun. Like I also want this version too, you know,
I want them both to exist, which is impossible,
but you know. I am interested in exploring Haldeman.
He's best known for the novel The Forever War
about his experiences in Vietnam. The producers
of Robot Jocks. So I was like, oh, hold up. There
are two bands. We have executive producer Charles
Band, whom we've talked about. But this movie
was actually produced, produced by Albert Band,
his father. And I just love connecting these
genre films to old classic Hollywood. So Albert
Band. Began his career at Warner Brothers in
the 1940s. He assisted directed The Asphalt Jungle,
directed by John Huston, and with Huston co -wrote
The Red Badge of Courage, which Huston also directed.
So there's a legitimate background there, legitimate
quote unquote. But Albert Band obviously worked
with his son Charles a whole heck of a lot with
Empire Pictures. Charles Band founded the studio
in 1983. I love this factoid that I read at its
height. Empire would release two films a month,
one theatrically, one for video. And Empire Pictures
was new to me, but not these movies. Ghoulies,
Reanimator, Troll, a whole list of others. After
Empire folded in 1988, Band then performed Full
Moon Features. Maybe best known for the Puppet
Master series. I'm sure other people have lots
of other favorite films, but Puppet Master stood
out to me in the catalog. Yeah, when y 'all shared
the notes with us, when I saw that, and you talked
about it a moment ago, Empire will release two
films a month, one in the theaters and one for
home video. You got to think about it, at a time
like that, it was risky to do, but the movie
budgets were so low that... Like it's this whole
thing of, OK, if this film doesn't hit in the
movie theater, OK, hopefully people rent this
movie enough, this movie that we just put out
enough to make up for the money that we lost.
You know, because way, way, way back when they
had, you know, like these video retailers had
to pay absorbent amounts of money for one VHS
tape. It could be anywhere from $30 to $100 -something,
because they were renting the movies, and that's
how the movie rental places recouped. They just
kept renting that same movie out as many times
as they could until they recouped the cost. But
that was a really smart method, man. I got to
give it to them. It didn't last long enough,
unfortunately, but that's pretty genius. And
I just love that Charles Band and Full Moon and
Empire, you know, they're carrying the baton
that... William Castle and Roger Corman and many
others before them kind of picked up or like
laid down is what I probably what I should say.
But like, you know, proud makers of B movies
where it's not necessarily about prestige and
high quality films, but it's about entertainment,
creativity, putting product out there and like
good and bad, like concepts of good and bad taste
go out the window with guys like that. And I
just love that the band family like carried on
that torch, you know? Yeah. And you're able to
see. In so many of these movies, we'll use Robot
Jocks as an example. It had a $7 million budget,
which isn't anything. And yet, I love seeing
creators and artists forced to get creative with
their limited resources. And I think that that
can lead to creative choices. And put another
way, not the safe choice. But not the safe choice
can lead to the more interesting choice and the
really making sure. Hey, guys, we got to get
this right because we're taking a swing here.
So let's put everything we got to it. Yeah. Oh,
yeah. So who do you think was behind the choice
of Tex doing exactly what he did to kill the
doctor? Because that whole take the hat and then
just lightly bat his gun away. That was a...
That was great. Yeah. I mean, that was a little,
you know, can we... Can we try a few other choices,
maybe? Can we try a few other creative ways?
But, you know, someone said, hey, keep it simple.
Knock the gun out of the way and just do it.
Just move on with it. We're down to our last
roll of film. Yeah. So make it quick. Make it
brief. All right, Yosemite Sam. It takes that
swing. You know, so yeah. Perfect. Print it.
That had to be laugh out loud. Oh, yeah. The
cinematography is by Mac Allberg, a Swedish cinematographer
who moved to Hollywood in the 70s. He was a frequent
collaborator with Stuart Gordon on Reanimator,
From Beyond, and Dolls. And I don't know what
you guys think, but I think his cinematography
on Robot Jocks... I was kind of blown away. It's
beautiful. Like just very bright colors. And
like the special effects obviously play a big
role in that as well. But really good work by
this Swedish cinematographer I'd never heard
of before. Yeah, that's why I included him. I
thought there was like an aura, like a soft,
warm light around so many of the characters that
just, I don't know. I can't explain why I liked
it, but it felt good. It just made this movie
feel even... It's like they were trying to go
for a B and a half rather than just straight
B. B plus, yeah. Any cinematographer that can
see their cast in shiny silver suits and running
around trying to climb up a metal maze to get
to the top. And one, not laugh at it. And two,
film it in a way that makes you take it seriously.
I have to give you props. Like, I have to legitimately
give you props. Seriously. No, you're absolutely
right. I think everyone takes this movie very
seriously. It doesn't make fun of itself. No,
it doesn't. Which is huge. And it just, again,
it adds to the longevity of this movie as a rewatchable
film. Yeah. Can I read about the robots? Yes,
please. Okay. Robots designed by... The homie
Ron Cobb. Ron Cobb is a cartoonist and concept
artist, contributed to movies like Star Wars,
Alien, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Conan the Barbarian,
Back to the Future, and The Abyss. The man is
an incredible artist. When I think about conceptual
artists, I think about Ralph McQuarrie, Ron Cobb,
Sid Mead, who's another fantastic conceptual
artist. I think of cats like that, like Doug
Chiang. They bring so much to the table before
the film is even a spool of film is used. They
bring so much energy with their creativity and
their artistic styles. Ron Cobb was a reason
why I wanted to draw as a child. I love that.
That's awesome. You know what I mean? It was
anime, cartoons, Ron Cobb. You know, and so like
is like, you know, some he designed some of the
Star Wars monsters. And the reason why I know
that is because, you know, Lucasfilm used to
do all those documentaries about their own movies
and showed you, hey, this is how we make this
stuff. So maybe you can make it, too. And so
like that, those types of things always started
to make me look at like looking at the credits
as a kid, concept designer, concept art and things
like that, you know. And so I yeah, it just it's.
it's such a major piece of the film, you know,
and none of it, none of that, none of that artwork
is ever on screen, but it is translated because,
you know, but it's translated to the screen in
so many different ways. But so yeah, Ron, Ron
cop's just amazing. Yeah. I love that. Do you,
like, I'm sorry to say I don't know exactly,
like, do you, the specific sort of, like, features
of the mech suits, like, we talked before about,
like, the saw that comes out of, like, the penis
area. The crotchal region. Yeah, the groin region,
exactly. Do you, like, do you know what Ron Cobb
contributed to that? Did he play a role in, like,
the concept of, like, that artwork? I'm sorry
to say, I don't know. No, like, I think, like,
I think Ron Cobb did, like, a majority of, like,
the basics for, like, for Achilles. If I recall
correctly, he did a majority of designs for both
mechs, but, like, focused more on the Achilles
mech, especially with the fact that, like, the
Achilles mech is really a three -in -one. You
know, it's a roller. It's also a spaceship. And
it's also a mech. It's also a regular standard
mech. So, like, I think, like, if I recall correctly,
he's really influential in the design of that
one for sure. You know, like, Ron Cobb definitely
designed that spider mech. He definitely designed
that because like that screams Ron Cobb. Was
he part of a wild, wild West at all? We won't
talk about that. And I don't think, you know,
we won't, we won't talk about the, no, no. God.
Thinking about that. But like, no, like, so like,
so like, even though like Ron, Ron Cobb's drawings
didn't make the screen. They literally brought
that to life and they made it look easy. Yeah.
Yeah. I love that. I do have to wonder their
idea as to why they wanted to go ahead and just
go up in space. But I think when we get into
random stuff later on. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I've
got thoughts about that, too. Yeah. So Ron Cobb's
drawings then were brought to life through stop
motion by David W. Allen. long list of noted
films, the first of which being Equinox, which
Matt and I have talked about on this show from
1970, but other maybe more well -known films,
The Howling, The Twilight Zone movie, Young Sherlock
Holmes, which he earned an Oscar nomination for,
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, speaking of. So he
had a long association with Charles Band, David
W. Allen, and just creating all kinds of creatures.
The select cast, this is such a sparse list here,
but Gary Graham as Achilles, Anne -Marie Johnson
as Athena, two rock stars. Playing Alexander,
the villainous, mustache -twirling Russian is
Paul Koslow. Check out his Wikipedia, he's a
veteran actor of TV and film, as well as... We
have Michael Aldridge as Tex, another larger
-than -life cartoon character, essentially. Tex
Cowboy. Yeah, Tex is a cowboy. Yeah. And then
we have Danny Kamikona as Doc Matsumoto. I love
Doc. I thought Doc was great. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Great character. Can I shout out one more cast
member who's not on the list here? please jeffrey
combs who is so memorably over the top and reanimator
just like one of the most bizarre performances
i've ever seen and is also in some other really
good maybe not very good but like gives memorable
performances in horror movies like the frighteners
for example jeffrey combs has like a very small
bit part in this movie he's like one of the two
townspeople who's like cheering for oh he's one
of the ones that dies I think he does die, yeah.
He has probably like two lines in the entire
movie. But I wanted to shout him out. He worked
with Stuart Gordon a lot. He's amazing in Re
-Animator. So it was very cool to see him in
this movie, albeit briefly. And you know who
else is in this movie, very briefly? Stuart Gordon
himself. He plays the bartender. Oh, okay. That's...
Okay, bet. Also, low -key, if you ever watched
Goof Troop, the person that voices Max, A young
Jason Mardsen is in Robot Jocks. And he's the
kid that is related. Killies is here. Yes. There
you go. Yes. I mean, I think a common theme with
this movie, with tonight's conversation, is this
movie is so much better than its release would
have you believe. It was a bomb. But with the
cast and the crew. Like, all the pieces are there.
And obviously, I think we do all agree it's a
pretty good movie. Yeah. But, like, yeah, it
just did not get the initial love that it maybe
should have gotten. No, like, by the time it
came out, man, it was, like I said, like, with
Empire Pictures closing, like you talked about,
like, that just literally killed the film, you
know? And then it's just at this point where
you eventually have to put it out. You spent
the money. But then it's like, okay, well, we
don't really have an advertising budget. Okay.
How many, how many, how many, how many theaters
can we actually get this into? How many theaters
will actually be interested in buying it? Have
we designed a new trailer for this film now that
it's like almost three years late and people
have already seen Robocop. Right. You know, Transformers
is already out the door because Hasbro screwed
that up, you know, because. Yeah. And the cold
war is over. Yes. Yeah. So 1987, when this was
made, prime Cold War, Rocky four. Let's go. Right.
But 1990, we won. It's over. I'm just thankful
that they didn't decide to, you know, shelve
it for a tax write off. I know. Oh, man, don't
get me started on that. I'm with you there, Sean.
Yeah. Warner Brothers release. The Looney Tunes
cartoon. No, they gave it to somebody else. I
think to do it. Yeah. Okay. I mean, there's a
couple, there's the cat one movie that they shelved,
but then there's Acme Wiley coyote versus Acme.
That's the one that's getting, that's the one
that's getting bought. That's the one. Yeah.
I forget which distribution bought it, but they
did purchase it. Yeah. It's whoever ended up
putting out the latest Looney Tunes movie. I
think the day that earth blew up or something
like that. Catch up entertainment. That's it.
Yeah. Yeah, so they're releasing Wile E. Coyote
versus Acme. So, you know, maybe one day we'll
be able to see Batgirl one day. Don't depress
me on this. Come on. Hey, man, I'm sorry, bro.
I'm sorry. We was going to go see Michael Keaton
as Batman. He was supposed to, like, cameo in
the film. They filmed it. Oh, my gosh. So much
work. And Keaton also was supposed to be in the
last Aquaman movie, and then they swapped him
out. And so you had the Flash movie, which I
still haven't watched. Don't. Just don't. The
whole Ezra Miller thing is just his antics, just
completely like, no, I can't watch this. But
that's the only chance you get to see Michael
Keaton as the Dark Knight again. And so it's
like... It's tough being a fan sometimes of these
properties, isn't it? Mm -hmm. I mean, I'm still
holding out for a new Transformers movie, but
you know, whatever. I'm not going to get in my
Hasbro. I'm holding out for that Godzilla Pacific
Rim crossover. Don't you start! Don't you start!
Hey, hey. It's a movie. We all want to see it.
You know what? I'm still waiting for Batman 66
versus Godzilla. Like, like... When Lorenzo Simple
wrote the script, if I got the name correctly,
the gentleman who wrote many of the episodes
of Batman and also wrote the Flash Gordon movie
that came out in 1980, he wrote the script. It
exists. And just things fell apart. Things fell
apart and it didn't happen. And I'm like, you
mean to tell me y 'all had the script in the
vault this damn long and y 'all didn't even make
an animated movie? Besides the fact that like,
sorry, I'm going again. Nope. Stop. Stop. All
right, all right, all right. We'll get back on
track. Robot jocks. Crash and burn, baby. So,
yeah, we talked a lot about Haldeman and Gordon
already. They had tried to collaborate before.
They had differing visions. Honestly, two sides
of the same coin, I think. Principal photography
began in Rome in 1987. David W. Allen filmed
his stop motion in California. Now, what I will
point out is Haldeman has a pretty great quote
that I wanted to read. He said, quote, I would
try to change the science into something reasonable.
Stewart would change it back to Saturday morning
cartoon stuff. I tried to make believable, reasonable
characters, and Stewart would insist on throwing
in cliches and caricatures. It was especially
annoying because it was a story about soldiers,
and I was the only person around who'd ever been
one. Matt, you alluded to that earlier. Here's
the problem with that. My personal opinion. Here's
the problem with that. There really aren't any
soldiers in this movie. Because they're robot
jocks. They aren't soldiers. The robots are the
dang gone soldiers, if you really think about
it. The pilots do the thing, and they control
the mech and whatnot. But they're not soldiers,
really. You know what I mean? Because with Gundam,
Gundam has actual soldiers, okay? Kid soldiers.
Kid soldiers at that? Yes, thank you. And so
there's a feeling of war and military and things
like that in the balance. Here, there isn't military.
This is sport. This is combat sport. To acquire
and procure goods and needs in countries and
states. So it's war, but it's not war in the
sense that Haldeman envisions war because he
served in Vietnam. Gordon is like, no, no, this
is just all fantasy. It's all fantasy. We don't
need to make these intricate metaphors and similes.
Just keep it simple. Less is more. And that's
the whole movie. Less is more. The entire time.
They blow through that story fast. That movie's
an hour and 24 minutes long. You do not have
enough time to explain anything in this movie.
You just go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree with that,
Sean. Even though I said before that I wanted
to see the Haldeman version that's a little bit
grittier and actually about soldiers, I don't
think it would work. With this story and these
characters, it would not work. So I agree with
that. And I don't know if you guys felt this
way, too, but I thought of many other movies
while I was watching Robot Jocks, which is not
a knock against Robot Jocks at all. But one of
the movies I thought of was Starship Troopers,
which I think also has this weird blend of like.
It's like a satire of militarism and fascism,
but it's also like so silly. It's like, it is
kind of like a Saturday morning cartoon a little
bit. And Starship Troopers goes a lot further
in terms of like blood and guts and violence
and gore and like the satire behind it all. But
I feel like both movies have like this weird
combination of like a very adult sort of like
subversive. you know, the soldier militaristic
aspect. And then like kind of like a comic book
vibe, you know, I don't know if any, any of the
rest of you felt that way, but Starship Trooper
is definitely one of the movies I thought of
while I was watching this. I mean, it also helps
that one of the lines is practically the same.
It's we're doing our part. Yeah, totally. Yep.
Exactly. So it had its main release in November
of 1990, peaking at 13 at the box office, but
it technically premiered. in Spain in October
of 89. So for what it's worth, regardless, it
was years after production wrapped on this film,
which we stated did not do it any favors. So
the film was met with generally negative reviews,
but, but there were two, I say, sequel in name
only films from Charles band. So for example,
Crash and Burn is a film from 1990. It is on
Tubi. I did watch it last night. Not the worst
thing I've ever seen. It's not the worst? Okay,
okay. Listeners, Robot Jocks is the godfather
compared to Crash and Burn. Wow. Robot Wars.
I don't know. Is that a hot take? No, no, no,
no, no. You've just told me don't mess with it,
so I appreciate it. Yeah. Don't mess with Robot
Wars. Crash and Burn. If you have an hour and
a half, you have nothing else to watch. But Robot
Wars felt like, and this is not a knock, but
like a sci -fi original movie from the early
2000s. It was just kind of like, I see what you're
doing, but it's not all together there. So after
watching this the other day, I ended up purchasing
a dual pack DVD of both Crash and Burn and Robot
Wars. Amazing. I own Robot Wars. Remember. I
have that. I don't own Robot Jocks. But you know
what's really funny? You can actually watch Robot
Wars on YouTube for free. Somebody uploaded the
entire movie on there. There you go. Nobody's
copyright striking that film. Nope. Not at all.
Which is weird because Robot Jocks you can't
actually find on YouTube, but you can get on
Amazon Prime, you can get on Pluto TV and Tubi.
It's just like, what in the world? Yeah. But
the DVD or the Blu -ray is out of print. So it
would seem. It's from Dream Factory. I was so
happy I got my copy. Yeah, it goes for like $90
on Amazon. I'm not getting into that. No. There
are so many special features that I want. There
is a commentary with Stuart Gordon on there.
I almost rewatched it just to listen to that.
That's almost worth it for me. Take my money.
I'm seriously considering spending $90 to get
that on Blu -ray. I'm embarrassed to admit that,
but I thought about it for a second. I don't
think I'm going to, but we'll see. I can tell
you guys once we're done with recording on what
I plan on doing with it. Wow. Can't wait. You
just really love Robot Jocks. You have no idea.
Okay. I might have an idea. Here's an idea! Oh,
man. I really wish I'd have known that Robot
Jocks made it to Blu -ray in 2023. Crap. Arrow
Video has Robot Jocks within a bigger collection
of Empire movies. Empire Screams. Yeah, yeah.
that that's the one i might spring for because
then you're going to get some other stewart gordon
empire pictures as well yep i'm looking right
now robot jocks it's got archive audio commentary
with director stewart gordon archive audio commentary
with associate effects director paul gentry mechanical
effects artist mark rapoport and stop motion
animator paul jessel crash and burn an interview
with actor gary graham her name is athena interview
with ann marie johnson I want this so bad. I
paid $70 for this box set just for one movie.
We'll all pool our resources to get it for the
entire team. It's not a bad idea. It'd be like
that episode of The Simpsons where they pooled
their money for their Radioactive Man comic.
It's like, okay, who's going to get it first?
Yeah. That would be the only bad part, yeah.
Trading it among each other. So now I have to
ask, what's the most that you guys spent on any
kind of DVD media? I'll go first, if you don't
mind. I spent $400 on an anime that's only 13
episodes long, and it's a mecha anime called
Dual Parallel Trouble Adventure. And I bought
it. It came in, pristine condition. It's like
old school Genion packaging, and it's a giant
bubble box, basically. and a month later they
announced it as a re -release on blu -ray for
40 bucks oh man but you can you have like the
fan pride you know like you can be proud of yourself
for like dishing out that much money for that
i did at first and then once it got re -released
i'm like you know what i feel like ripping it
in half but i didn't it's still on my shelf good
i'm happy to hear that yeah yeah i think for
me it was i bought because they were out of print,
and it was something that was on either Sentai
Filmworks or another anime website. But Gatchaman,
a .k .a. G -Force Battle of the Planets. I have
that in my shelf. Gatchaman, the first series,
is all on Blu -ray, which is great. But there
were sequel series in Japan. I think one of them
was called Gatchaman Fighter, Gatchaman F, and
Gatchaman 2, I believe. So I bought those box
sets. I paid like... For the bundle, I paid like
$125. But there's a ton of episodes. So really,
in the sense of it all, it wasn't that much money.
But still at the same time, this is before PayPal
and 4 existed. This is before it existed. And
Afterpay. So I'm like, I can spread this out.
Instead of like, well, I guess I'm not eating
for a week. Yeah, that's so real. I haven't spent
that much. I've asked for such things for like
my birthday or Christmas. So I'm grateful for
that. But I'm thinking just recently I spent
35. Okay. So on Etsy, there's a guy who does
custom artwork for DVD or for Blu -ray cases.
And I just years ago got rid of a bunch of cases.
I kept my discs of like the thing from another
world and them, for instance. So I saw this guy
on Etsy. I was like, oh. I want a custom sleeve
for these 50s sci -fi movies. So it was $35.
I'm like, I can't wait to see what he comes up
with, though. And now I can put it on my shelf
where it belongs, and it'll look pretty cool.
That's awesome. Yeah, that is awesome. The first
one that comes to mind for me is a pretty recent
purchase. This also will probably make me sound
like a huge film nerd, as all of us are, but
there's a director I really love, Louis Foyard,
who made a lot of like... silent French crime
serials in the 1910s, like Le Vampire, Fantomaz,
Judex, just like crazy surreal stories of like
criminal gangs in Paris and like cops and like
journalists that track them down. And he has
a serial called T -Min from 1918 that has always
been like really hard to find in the United States.
And Gaumont, the French company, just put out
a Blu -ray box set. And I was like, you know
what? I'm going to buy the French Blu -ray box
set. I'm going to watch this eight hour long
silent serial and it's going to be great. Great,
and it was. It was awesome. That's awesome. Oh,
man. I'm so happy for all of you. That's good
stuff. I'm still not as happy. I mean, that was
a lot of money. You're a true fan. Yes. All right,
let's get into our sponsor break, and then we
can start talking about the good, the bad, and
the campy with Robot Jocks. Camp Kaiju is sponsored
by Zach Lindner, the Zach Pack, powered by Coldwell
Banker Realty, your source for real estate, home
rehab, fixing and flipping for investor clients
and residential buyers. Reach out to the Zach
Pack today for real estate services. Follow the
Zach Pack on social media and contact the Zach
Pack for investment opportunities. Link in the
show notes. I've been saving this email we have
for Menia's mailbox for this episode. So, John,
you emailed Camp Kaiju. with a whole host of
recommendations related to Charles Band and Empire
Pictures. And this was even before I think we
really started talking about robot jocks. So
way to go, John, for being ahead of the curve.
But here's what John shouted out. Robo Warriors
from 1996, Crash and Burn, the making of Crash
and Burn, and John sent me the links to all these.
Robot Wars. Making of Robot Wars. John says Charles
Band also tried kaiju films with full moon features.
So we have movies like Zarkor, The Invader, The
Claw, The Sea Monster. Just, I love the titles.
Even if I know nothing about it, I know that
I want to see these movies based on the titles.
Zarkor is in Kaiju Unleashed. Oh yeah? That's
a fact. Sarkor the Invader is in Kaiju Unleashed,
and that story makes zero sense. You mean this
Kaiju Unleashed right here? Yes, sir. Nice. No,
no, no. This Kaiju Unleashed right here. Hey,
how'd you get my copy? Are we in the same room?
Oh, my goodness. Man, I don't need some dimension
hopping, all right? Yeah. Everyone get your own
copy of Kaiju Unleashed. Link in the show notes.
Welcome to Poverty Row Studios on the other side
of harmony. The stars were dimmer and the red
carpets dripped with blood. Together we will
watch the best of the worst. Movies known for
their limited budgets, outlandish concepts, and
questionable performances. But with enough haunted
houses, zombies, ape men, and devil bats to keep
you up at night. This is the Poverty Row Picture
Show. I dare you to sleep through these nightmares.
I am Peter Lorre. You may remember me from such
films as Arsenic and Old Lace and The Face Behind
the Mask. This week on the Poverty Road Picture
Show, we will bring you another Bela Lugosi outing
from Monogram entitled Bowery at Midnight, starring
Lugosi and that zany cast of delinquents. Whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me check my notes here.
Believe it or not, but Bowery at Midnight does
not feature the Bowery Boys. In fact, well, yes,
yes, it features an equally groan -worthy pack
of the undead. That is right. Zombies, ladies
and gentlemen, we have another zombie movie.
But before you get too excited about this 61
-minute film, know that these flesh -eating ghouls
are saved for literally the final two minutes
of screen time. Nevertheless, then... There may
be some sadomasochist pleasure to derive from
the rest of the film. So let me tell you about
Bela Lugosi cutting a devilish figure playing
two parts. That of a nice guy professor by day
and his evil alter ego by night. It is this character
named Carl Wagner who runs a criminal enterprise
from a soup kitchen in the slums with more secret
passageways than an escape room from hell. Dwelling
in the cellar of this hideout is a drug -addicted,
maniacal doctor who, unbeknownst to Wagner, has
been turning the victims of gangland into undead
fiends. In the end, with the police closing in,
it is Wagner who becomes the final victim of
these zombies. It is a juicy ending to an otherwise
bland outing. Fans of Lugosi will no doubt relish
the performance, but even for a monogram picture,
Bowery at Midnight struggles to make sense of
characters, relationships, or plot points. Now,
if none of these things matter to you, Bowery
at Midnight may be a guilty pleasure. In one
scene, there is an Easter egg, a film poster
for The Corpse Vanishes, that can be seen hanging
in the background. All this does is remind you
that you might rather be watching that cinematic
car crash. It does feature a deadly botanical
plot device. An orchid. But never mind Matthew
and Vincent. Never mind what they have been telling
you. My own pleasant plant pet has been nothing
but kind. Oh, she may be a little protective
now and then. What good pet isn't? Isn't that
right, Lila? Yes. You must. You just be you.
Spread your roots as wide as you please. Matthew.
He is only jealous of your companionship. Anyway,
next time on the Poverty Row Picture Show, we
will discuss our second George Zuko picture.
A film entitled Dead Men Walk for PRC. And by
George, dead men will walk if they ever come
near you, Lilac, with trimming on their minds.
This summer, our world will come under attack.
The mayor has declared... A state of emergency.
By the most evil force ever known. He has armies
at his command. And only one power on Earth can
stop him. Welcome to my life. Now, the ultimate
adventure begins. To the ones you love. Zeon
forces yearn for redemption. Char, the leader
of this rebel, has hatched a plan. We will discipline
the people who continue to live on Earth and
eliminate the source of any war. Under the guise
of surrender, Zeon will make their final assault.
What are they up to, Char? What do you think?
Deeming earthlings so vile a creature. Char schemes
to save the planet by destroying the people.
The Earth cannot go on like this any longer.
No one has the right to put you in that way.
Only the Londo Bell, Amaral Ray, and his Gundam
stand in their way. Fable suit Gundam, Char's
counterattack. Saturday, January 4th at 11 p
.m. The Don't Swim exclusive. Revenge is a dish
best served. Was the other title that you said
Craw? C -R -A -W? C -R -A -A exclamation point.
Cray. Cray. I don't know if that's better or
worse than Craw. I love it either way, though.
That's an awesome title. Or is it Crenergizer?
Because, you know, double A batteries. Could
be that. Could be. The only Charles Band knows.
Yeah. There's also, John also shared an anime
short. I want to know if you guys have heard
of it. Dragon's Heaven? No. No, but that does
sound familiar. Okay. It's from 1988. There's
a lot of cyberpunk mech stuff for anime back
in the day. A lot of it you can actually find
on YouTube for free because their licenses expired
so long ago. One of the things that we talk about
on our show is that there's a lot of stuff that
you don't really have access to unless you can
acquire it. Or if they put it on YouTube, because
licensing, it's just a giant cluster. There's
a lot of stuff that you just won't be able to
get legally anymore. YouTube has a lot of good
stuff. Sometimes I'm like, I feel like I should
be paying money for this, and it should go to
the distributor. But if the rights lapsed, there's
a lot of good stuff on YouTube. It's a treasure
trove, obviously. I think it's amazing. YouTube
is pretty much everybody's go -to place. But
like, you know, folks that are like internet
savvy, like, you know, like, or like, like YouTube
is also on your television, you know? So a lot
of people are watching it there and not to mention
the whole, they have their own cable service
essentially too. So like it's, it has everything
good and a lot of bad, but still it's like, it's
the go -to place. For sure. You know, I'll take
advantage of the internet archive. Not yet, but
I hear it's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I always
just see if something's on there. I actually
streamed Robot Jocks on the Internet Archive,
and it was on there. I had to dig a little bit.
I had to get past a French dub version because
it's crowdsourced from the world. So somebody
uploaded a French dub, and I was like, that's
not the one I want. So I kept digging, and then
I found the... Did you watch any of the French
dub? I have to ask. I just skipped through it,
but you know, I don't speak French. I just want
to know how he says Achilles as you go. Achilles.
Oh, that's good. I'm going to have to find out.
I would watch it only for that reason. Yeah.
Achilles. Yeah. Some things would translate.
Alexander would. He transcends language. He's
great. True. All right, guys, so the is the breakdown
of our show. Now we'll talk about the good, the
bad and the campy. We'll just go around and we'll
start with the good. You know, just share what's
really what you really like about this movie,
what stands out for you. And we'll go from there.
So anyone really dying to start? Oh, yeah. The
stop motion is fantastic. It's by far the the
visuals are. Just something that you can look
at and be like, I'm going to sit down for a second.
I don't want to I don't want to actually go anywhere.
This is something that needs to stay on my TV
and burned into my retinas. So absolutely. Just
visually, it's a mess. I wouldn't say masterpiece,
but it's it's damn near close. That's really
the best thing that I can say. I will say that
the chemistry between Gary Graham and Anne -Marie
Johnson as Achilles and Athena is great. And
they're not really on screen together that much,
if you really think about it. An hour and 24
minute movie. And you're dealing with a limited
amount of time and in a very simplistic form
of storytelling. But they really do find a way
to give Athena a full storyline, even though
it feels incomplete. you know because like like
you know when she apologizes for taking the mech
and kisses kisses achilles you're like okay y
'all was just fighting like about an hour ago
so you know what i mean so it's just like i don't
know where this relationship is going but like
it's clear both y 'all got something for each
other so we just gonna let this slide but like
it does beautiful things with little to no money
and the thing is this entire film Like, watching
the entire film, I was like, man, this is so
cool. Like, I was so pulled in. And the only
time I felt like, oh, man, this is cheap, is
when they cut to the bar. When they first cut
to the bar, like, I'm not saying that it needs
to be Star Wars Cantina, okay? I'm not saying
that. It's just that, like, the whole film is
so sci -fi and so, like, the way it's filmed,
the way it's shot, the way it looks, it has that
look and feel until you get to the bar. And when
you get to the bar, that could be a bar anywhere
in the current United States of America. Yep.
That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing
it's missing is an Applebee's sign. Dang. You
know? But everything else is gorgeous. Doc's
one of my favorite characters. The fact that
he talks about how people like... steal information
and basically sign stealing, baseball term, stealing
advantages to combat against other weaponry and
stuff like that. It's great. And Doc kind of,
once again, because of the limitations of the
story, Doc is also kind of like a father figure
to Achilles in a lot of ways, but it's real subdued.
If people think Tex is the father figure, no,
Tex is just the asshole. Like, Tex is the walking
embodiment of, like, every 80s misogynistic male
low -key racist dude. Like, he would legitimately,
if he was in the Married With Children universe,
he would legitimately be a member of No Ma 'am.
Yep. You know. So, like, but, like, he's perfect.
Like, he's perfect for the role. Like, everybody
is perfect for their role in this movie. like
my like and the thing is maybe it only being
an hour and 24 minutes maybe it helps the film
so like i'm so caught up in it and i'm like why
can't i have more you know but like it cuts itself
off at the right time you know so like i'm good
with it totally i i love how i mean i love the
style like you watch this movie if you don't
understand that it is it is striving for a style
a pastiche you know it's not cliche it's it's
homage like it knows what it's doing and if you
don't understand that you're not gonna this movie's
gonna go over your head actually but if you're
locked into it if you if you grew up watching
saturday morning cartoons you're gonna be like
oh i know what i'm watching it just happens to
be live action so yeah the characters are larger
than life but they're so grounded in the performances
like tex and doc and And Alexander. I mean, these
guys are cartoon characters in the flesh. But
again, they're treated with respect and sincerity.
Nobody's making fun of themselves, which is excellent.
Yeah, the direction is so... The movie's so tight
in its choices that it's making. And Stuart Gordon,
he adds little things all over the place that...
That will go over your head. But if you watch
this movie more than once, you'll start noticing
new things every time. And wow, when a movie
does that, that's just something you can easily
go back to. Like this time, I noticed that Achilles,
when he's naked in bed and Athena's walked in
on him, he takes his towel or his bed sheet and
he slings it over him like a toga. And I'm like,
oh, because you're Achilles. So subtle, but it's
so perfect. Don't forget the foot injury of the
actual mech. Yep, that's right. I love that my
mind is blown. Robot Jocks has blown my mind.
So, Stuart Gordon, the man knows how to make
a good movie. A tight movie, whatever. But I
love all that. I love the world building in this
movie too. And I'm going to credit him and Haldeman
too in crafting a world where Sean Childress,
you mentioned this earlier, like, yeah, there's
like things with the, with the, in the background,
you know, that this future world is dealing with
severe population decline, which is why they're
creating people in, in quoting, you know, test
tubes and they're doing their part. They're doing
their part, but like that's the movie never harps
on it. But if you look in the background, there
are propaganda posters and there's the, the world
is fleshed out, even if it's not spoken deliberately
on screen. And I just appreciate that kind of
world building. So I fell into that world. The
martial arts is awesome. Sorry. Some great baby
campy stunts and, and fight choreo. The humor's
there. I love the anime influences. All right,
I'll leave it there for now. Yeah, totally agree
with all you guys. I feel like there's not. too
much else to say in the good category, but yeah,
I'll just sum it up by saying this is such an
entertaining movie. As Sean, one of the two Sean
said, you know, it's an hour and 25 minutes and
that's perfect. It probably sounds a little obvious
to say this is an entertaining movie, but like,
I feel like that should not be dismissed. That's
like the entire point of it. Basically it's,
it really is like a Saturday morning cartoon,
like comic book style. And that is not in any
way a criticism of the movie. It's, you know,
And just personally, when I watched it last night,
didn't have the best day. And I was like, oh,
I want to, you know, I got to watch this movie
for Camp Kaiju. And like, you know, for an hour
and a half, you're like, I don't care about anything
else. I'm in this world. It's so fun. It's so
beautiful. The characters, like you said, Vincent,
are larger than life. There's a lot of humor.
Yeah, it's like entertainment is a divine thing.
And this movie offers a ton of it. It's great.
Love that. Is there anything we don't like about
this movie? The only thing. Sorry. No, I'm sorry.
Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, no, no, no. Go, go, go.
Okay. The only thing I don't like about this
movie is the fact that Empire Pictures fell apart,
so it couldn't come out in its specific year.
Like, that's really the only truly bad thing.
That and the doctor that made all the Tubis.
I understand the reason why they put her in the
movie, but does she really need to be in the
movie? No. Right. Yeah. Not to the extent that
she is in the movie. You know, like that would
be my bad. Like that would be the bad. Like that's
not saying she did a did a bad job. It's just
that the character is not needed because the
two bees explain themselves. Right. I got a sense
that this doctor is sort of like a mother figure
to Athena. But the movie doesn't go into that,
doesn't have the time, it doesn't have the budget
to go into that dynamic. now lose it or keep
it but yeah it didn't bother me but i know exactly
what you're talking about yeah for sure so that
is along the lines of what i was going to say
where basically there wasn't enough time in the
movie so all the world building that is there
it just doesn't feel completely fleshed out because
again there's a lot about it that just seems
to be going against itself like you've got this
you got this But it kind of contradicts it like
partway through. It's like, I'm not sure if I
if I understand that. And then you got the random
scene with the death jungle gym, which is what
I'm going to call it. What else? Love it. It's
just like, why? Just why? There's no other question.
Just why? That's the only real bad for it, because
everything else I think can be pushed towards
the campy category. I would just agree that maybe
like. It could use a little more world building.
There are themes in this movie, as we've talked
about, that are like subtly alluded to. And I
feel like maybe they could be a little bit more
substantial. I think like the two, like I do
understand, like contradicting myself a little
bit. I love how just like fun and fast and like
quick pace this movie is. But like the two bees,
especially. the the test tube people it's like
this is a world where like soldiers even if they're
fighting in mechs are like you know bred for
the specific purpose of like fight like conducting
warfare on behalf of their nations and that's
a pretty fascinating idea like i would love to
know more about this world Maybe some of the
like conflicts, we get that a little bit with
Achilles, but maybe not all that much. And he's
not a test tube baby or whatever. So yeah, that
aspect of the world could have used a little
bit more substance, I think. I have to say, like,
it's it's a fine line between cliche and homage.
Sorry, Vincent, I'm not. I agree with everything
you said, but like it is a fine line to me. And
it's like sometimes it's it's like this movie
is trying to throw all the cliches. It's trying
to fit them all in this movie. And like it is
entertaining. Like it's it's fun, but it's like
maybe a little more. There's originality in the
visual style, maybe not so much in the story
and the characters. That's maybe both a good
and a bad thing, but that's what I would say
for my bad category. For sure. The way... I don't
like how... I would prefer if Athena had a little
bit more to do with the final fight. The fact
that she gets rescued by Achilles at the end.
Just kind of... defeats the entire character
arc she's had this entire movie where she's a
strong independent woman with agency and she
proves herself more than capable than anyone
else sure she's a little impetuous but who isn't
but then it just kind of fizzles at the end when
she gets knocked on her butt and gets saved by
the man I'm like well okay that was nice knowing
you Athena all right there should have been an
actual separate fight with her a little bit longer
and then have him show up to where he can do
his fight. I think so. I think they could have
earned that a little bit more. Yeah. I was kind
of hoping it would be a two -on -one fight, but
maybe the movie didn't have the budget for that.
No, that's Pacific Rim. Right, yeah. I was just
going to say, like, a good way to, like, kind
of fix that is, let's say, for instance, if Achilles
does rescue, like, the quote -unquote rescue
thing, and a puller out of the mech, and he...
pilots the mech. And then they, you know, like,
and instead of it ending with the fist bump and,
you know, and, and whatnot, it can do the fist
bump and then it cross fades and there's a gym
and we just do straight up like the Rocky, the
Rocky three ending with like Rocky and Apollo.
You want to ring the bell? Ding. We can do that
with Athena and Achilles because they got a relationship.
It's all perfectly evident, but they still want
to fight to see who's the best. If you ended
it that way, I think that would clear up a couple
of things. Dude, you need to write that. Don't
get me started. I just might. That's it. That
would have been such a feel -good ending. What
could have been the sequel we never had? Speaking
of, did you see what he had originally planned
to do as a sequel to this movie? Oh, remind me.
What was it? It would have been Achilles and
Alexander in their robots versus aliens. What?
Pacific Rim. That's Pacific Rim. Exactly. Yeah.
But yeah, I like, I mean, Pacific Rim is not
a sequel, but it's, again, how many movies do
we have of this kind of people in giant mechs?
fighting each other there's not many that i know
of or at least not many to this level no at least
not in the live action sense in the live action
sense exactly so yeah i was also going to say
the the sequence where achilles flies off into
space okay i love i love that idea but you didn't
do anything with it you just kind of flew around
the earth and then landed back and i was like
in the same exact spot which was hilarious but
that but that's where i saw a budget limitation
where i was like if this movie had been given
more money we would have a dog fight in space
like we would have something truly memorable
but as it stands it's just kind of a throwaway
sequence which is which just leaves me wanting
more Yes. Power Rangers movie had a space sequence.
It was a lot shorter, but at least they kick
somebody. They kick somebody away. Yeah, that's
right. I like that Power Rangers movie more than
I expected to. We've covered that on the podcast
in the past. That movie's pretty cool. Yeah.
It's a fun movie. Turbo, not so much. That movie's
a giant sex joke, but I'll discuss that later.
Oh, the first Power Rangers movie. It's really
got a lot of Toku behind. Not for the Power Ranger
parts, but the non -Power Ranger parts when they're
just the teenagers. It does a lot of very Japanese
Toku stuff, which I didn't expect them to do.
It flows pretty well. Ivan Ooze was a perfect
villain. It does a lot of good things. Still
has its flaws. Still has its problems. I adore
that movie so much, man, man. Yeah. Yeah. I was
impressed. Yeah. It's a, you know, it's a guilty
pleasure of mine. So, well, okay. Now the campy.
Everything. Just everything. Every single damn
thing on that screen from beginning to end, you
know, especially the, yeah, man. oh my god yeah
yeah everything everything yeah um how many how
many times can i talk about alexander i just
want to shout out like he has so many memorable
lines i'm gonna put those lines into this episode
but my favorite is a one of the the tubies challenges
alexander at a bar you touch me all right Sean
Childers, I want you to say the line as Alexander.
I will make your death interesting. I will make
your death interesting. It's so good. Nice. And
Achilles says to Alexander, you're making my
beer curdle. Alexander says, you make my drink
taste like blood. What does that even mean? It's
amazing. Yeah, everything. Can we talk about
Tex just offing himself? Man. The way he took
that jump. If they had to put that goofy scream
at the end of it. Yahoo! perfect yeah he just
just jumped he was like well i guess it's time
to die you know what makes that scene for me
though what's that so you hear the thud and not
only do you hear the thud you see gary graham
and this other random dude just staring at each
other for a second like yeah okay That other
random dude is amazing. All of his facial expressions
are marvelous. I could not take my eyes off of
him whenever he was on screen. I love that extra
whoever he is. It was great. Yeah, janitor number
three. He got his SAG card with that moment.
That leads me to mention, can I say one specific
thing that was the campiest and most amusing
to me, in addition to Alexander? All the reaction
shots in this movie, particularly by the woman
doctor that we talked about before, but also
this other guy who's an older, kind of benevolent
military commander or something. There's so many
cutaway reaction shots where there's a mech fight
going on, and then it cuts to one of those two,
and they just give so many amazing facial expressions.
I can imagine Stuart Gordon. And with those actors
for hours on set being like, all right, give
me scared. Give me concerned. Give me titillated.
And like just how amazing those like shooting
days must have been. It's so fun to watch those.
I love it. Can we talk about the pilot suits
real quick? Yeah. They just look like brake pads
and all the other kind of different things that
you'd see on a roller derby. Yeah. Very shiny.
Very. Achilles puts one puts a suit on. It's
not one of the shiny suits, but he puts his pilot
like suit on that underwear. I just happen to
be like, oh, all right. We free balling it. That's
cool. You would. He would. He does not care.
I do like the Achilles helmet, though. I do like
that helmet. I thought that helmet. Yeah. I mean,
again, the production design of all these elements
are incredible. I wrote in the notes. The only
finality is death unless you choose to change
the path that ends the cycle of violence. And
for Alexander, that whole thing is, I got to
kill you. I got to kill you. I got to kill you.
That's his whole MO. It's not just about me winning.
It's to also kill you to ensure that you will
never beat me. All I know is death. All I know
is how to serve death. So then when you actually
get to the part where like, Their mechs are both
destroyed. And, like, Alexander's like, oh, no,
I'm still going to kill you. Where's this pole
at? And then, oh, fighting. And then, like, finally,
it clicks in, you know, into Achilles' head.
He's like, yo, man, we can both live, you know?
Yeah. Like, I mean, if not, I will beat your
ass. But we can both live. And then they both
agree to it. And then they fist bump. And I'm
like. Credits. That's it. And I'm like. We could
resolve this like an hour ago. Yeah, but that's
true. That was something I wrote down. Just like
if you they are willing by the end and certainly
Achilles to disobey their superior officers.
And that takes guts. I mean, that doesn't not
realistic, you know, unfortunately, because sometimes
maybe the better choice is to disobey because,
hey, we're going to live. I like that idea. And
maybe that's Haldeman's influence, soldier Vietnam.
I mean, so I think, I think if there's some,
I mean, I don't know. I'm Stuart Gordon is also
a very savvy filmmaker writer, but maybe if there's
any deeper themes, maybe that's Haldeman's influence
about classism, about, you know, the prejudice
about test two babies versus the other people.
And like, there's a lot of divisive character
relationships between. The elites, the fighters,
and then, oh, the poor people, the bleacher bums
who are just in rags. And there's just a very
stratified society here. And sign waivers that
say, like, if you die, it's not our fault. Yeah.
Which is so real. Yeah, they don't care about
them. Yeah. I do think it's realistic. I'm not
saying that sarcastically. I think attendees
at NASCAR races have to do the same thing. I
thought the scene where so many people are killed
in the bleachers during the robot fight is a
fascinating scene. We don't know much about this
world, but the little bit that we do know, I
absolutely believe that those bleachers would
be set up there and there would be kind of a
protective covering, but it does no good whatsoever.
And of course, the government is like, yeah,
well... got what they deserved like all of that
seemed totally believable to me you know feel
free to interject with anything else but let's
go around give it our final rating Matt yeah
as always at the end of Camp Kaiju we give the
film a rating our highest rating is it's a timeless
classic it definitely stands the test of time
our second rating is there may be some antiquated
moments but overall it's great it stands the
test of time our third rating It may be historically
significant or just fun, but it does not stand
the test of time. And our lowest rating, it is
not worth revisiting. It definitely does not
stand the test of time. Should I start it off?
Sure. Okay. So for me, I'm going to give this
our second highest rating. Maybe there aren't
antiquated moments. There are certainly a lot
of campy moments, which is not a criticism, as
we talked about before. Maybe I would have liked
to see a little bit more originality, a little
more world building. But this movie is awesome.
It's just I'm not going to curse. This is a family
friendly podcast, but it is just effing awesome.
It looks great. It's so entertaining. I, again,
didn't know really anything about this movie
and I had a wonderful time watching it. So for
me, there are some moments that are not as great
as they could have been. But overall, it's great.
It stands the test of time. Great. Anyone want
to piggyback off that? I also agree with Matt.
I feel the exact same way. The only thing that's
kind of antiquated is the massages. The massages
are important to the film because that's used
for Athena to overcome that, but then her agency
gets taken away by the end of the movie because
she doesn't get to finish the fight. But besides
that, like I said, with the exception of maybe
two or three small special effects shots that
didn't really look that good. Everything else
is amazing. This is a fun and great movie. I
can't recommend it enough. There's something
about, as I said before, less is more and simple
storytelling that can really push the story really
far. And it leaves you asking questions in the
best way and thinking about how would this move
forward? You know, and like, I love films that
do that. I do not. Everything doesn't have to
be Oppenheimer. OK, you know, like it's so like
it keeps it simple and I'm and I'm with it. And
yeah, it definitely it's it's great. And it stands
the test of time for me. Fantastic. What do you
think, Sean Childers? Years ago, when I was a
wee lad, this is a movie that I used to watch
many, many times. as a little tyke growing up.
But beyond that, now we're going to go into the
American part. I haven't watched it since I was
a kid. So a lot of it's held up in nostalgia
for me. Rewatching it recently, there were, like
you guys mentioned, a lot of moments where it's
like, okay, yeah, this is camp, which is awesome
because, you know, I thrive on camp. Just look
at rubber. But then, as Sean mentioned, there's
the misogyny aspect, which... That kind of struck
me as a point where I'm like, like, yeah, she's
a tough person. She does things on her own, but
then it also does get taken away throughout multiple
moments towards the end there. Despite all that,
though, I still really enjoy this movie. I think
it's something that I will continue to watch
relentlessly and then probably circulate it with
my yearly or annual Pacific Rim watches. So I
rate it the second highest brand of hot dog stew.
Nice. Yeah, I think you are all so correct with
the portrayal of Athena there, especially at
the end of the movie. But I'm right in line with
you all. I think it's a I think this movie is
a classic, not only of a genre, because there
are so few other examples, but of like science
fiction of a B movie. Just it's a simple story.
Told exceptionally well. And all the talent cared
so much about getting it right. And they do.
And I've seen it a couple times. I'm going to
keep watching it. And I bet I'm going to see
new things every time I rewatch it. I got to
be looking out for Achilles' foot wound, for
example. And what else is at play? So I love
it. Matt, I'm happy to share. I'm so glad you
liked it because I love preaching the gospel
of robot jocks and Stuart Gordon and all these
dudes. So wonderful, wonderful movie. Wonderful
conversation. Thank you, Sean and Sean. Truly,
if you want to plug anything that you're working
on that you want folks to check out, feel free
to take a couple of minutes to do that. Alexander,
you have the floor, sir. You will see. The brand
new podcast season two coming soon of Big Mecca,
but not huge. OK, I am done. How can you top
that? No, I don't know if I don't know if I could
top that. No, I can't. I feel bad for any of
my neighbors because I live in really like thin
walls. They're excited about your podcast now,
though. No, they're not. Well, you can find me
on the Internet. I'm on Blue Sky under Sean,
S -H -E -W -N, R. Pryor, like Richard Pryor.
Sean R. Pryor on Blue Sky, The Sean P. Show on
Instagram. And those are like really the two
main social media places that like I make posts
now. I also have a website. If you want to see
like. Like over 50 books that I've written, you
can go to SeanPryor .com and there's a section
that shows you every single book I've written,
whether it's a graphic novel, a chapter book,
a kid's book, a historical graphic novel, a book
about Godzilla films and all the things that
spawned after it. You name it, it's on that site
and you can find out where to get my books and
such. Yeah. And also like any bookstore or any
bookstore website, like bookshop .org or wherever
you go to get your books, you can just type my
name and hopefully there's only one Sean Pryor
and you can see like all the books I've written
there too. That's awesome. Thank you. And I'll
put links to your stuff and Big Mecca Not Huge,
the podcast as well in our show notes. Thank
you. Thank you both. Please have a good rest
of your night. I appreciate your time so, so
much. Oh, you're very welcome. No, this was a
blast. Like, anytime I'm able to be on this show,
like, it changes, like, my whole demeanor. Like,
I could be having the worst day possible. And,
like, since last night, since watching this last
night on Pluto to now, I have just been happy.
So, no, you guys are great. And I love what you
do. And just keep up the great work. And I appreciate
you. I feel the same because I was at work today
and I wanted to slack off the entire time because
I really just want to record as soon as possible.
Because it's just being able to talk Mecca is
always fun. But being able to talk Mecca with
people who actually enjoy it, too, that's even
better. Yeah. So, yeah, I was really looking
forward to this. So thank you. Thanks, guys.
That means a lot. Appreciate it. Thank you guys
so much. And let me just say I can relate. Like,
you know, all day at work today, I was like,
yeah, not having the best work day. Cannot wait
to go home and talk about Robot Doc. So, yeah,
I can relate. And thank you so much. This has
been an awesome conversation. Yeah. All right.
Until next time. Bye! Kill it! I have already
killed you right here.