Robot Jox

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to Movie Oubliette, the film review podcast for movies that most people have mercifully forgotten.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Dan.

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Conrad.

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And in each episode, we drag a forsaken film out of the Oubliette.

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Discuss it and judge it to decide whether it should be set free.

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Or whether it should be thrown back and consigned to oblivion forever.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Movie Oubliette

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_05]: We focus on forgotten fantasy, sci-fi and horror films because we love giant mecha battles, vibrating electrified jungle gyms and crotch chainsaws.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a must.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, of course.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Conrad, welcome back to the podcast.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_05]: And it was great to hear you and Serge having a great episode while I was away.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it was fun.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It was fun.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely good to have such a dinosaur expert on Carnosaur, that movie.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But please tell us about your exploits in Toronto.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, it's just a dream come true, really.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I spent 11 days getting up in the morning and spending the day watching movies and having lunch with Joe Lipset of the Horror Queers or our friend Sam.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Or on one particularly memorable day, Vincenzo Natale asked me up for lunch, which was great.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_05]: So, yeah, it was just loads and loads of premieres of films and bumping into celebrities or spotting celebrities on red carpets or just in the wild.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Fantastic food.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Great company.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: My ideal holiday, really.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Does it feel like a fever dream that you've just woken up from?

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It does now.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm back to work.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like, did that happen?

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, you know, running from one screening to another thinking, hey, that elderly gentleman looks like Stephen King.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, actually, it is.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_05]: It is Stephen King.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, my God.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So, we do have some Minnesota extra bonus episodes with you and Joe talking about Tiff.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But any standout films from the festival?

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I really love Dead Talent Society.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that's probably my favourite.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Although The Substance was the buzziest horror title in the show.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_05]: And I definitely recommend people check that out either in cinemas now or when it lands in MUBI on the streaming service.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_05]: It was amazing.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_05]: But Dead Talent Society was really fun.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Sort of like a Beetlejuice-y afterlife comedy horror that deconstructs the J-horror cliches and tropes with troops of people sort of staging shocks.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_05]: They're the ghosts and they're trying to frighten people.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And so, there are teams of them trying to stage frightening experiences for the living in order to get social clout in the afterlife.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, wow.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_05]: It's hilariously funny.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_05]: It's really good.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Cool.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Loved it a lot.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And the director was there.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_05]: So, it was great to see him.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, wow.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_02]: What a time.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Indeed.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, what have our listeners been talking about?

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Anything in the mailbag today, Conrad?

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Ever since I started uploading our podcast onto YouTube, our YouTube channel, because they now have like a podcast tab, we're starting to get comments on our old episodes, which is really fun.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, yes.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_05]: So, CR41489 said, I hate the remake of The Vanishing with a passion.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_05]: The original is incredible and I still have trouble watching it as I find it to be very creepy and disturbing.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_05]: I still enjoyed your overview of the crappy 1993 version.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Ah, yes, yes, yes.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think Travis Malloy, our guest, would agree.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_05]: I think he would.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I think I was the outlier in that one.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I was the stan for the 1993 version.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I didn't mind it.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I think there were, yeah, there were definite problems.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Also, I haven't seen the original, so I had nothing to compare.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So, hmm.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_05]: We also heard from Wicked Person on Conquest.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_05]: He said, I started watching this and it seemed so washed out and blurry and double exposed that at first I thought something was wrong with the print.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I thought maybe it had been captured with a cell phone camera off a screen or something.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_05]: There was never really a sharp image at the best of times apart from the laser rose.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Nice portmanteau, Dan.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, right.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It was very, yeah.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a very foggy, blurry movie.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But it did add to the whole sort of ethereal aesthetic of it.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it did.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_05]: But, I mean, good luck to anybody that tries to remaster it in 4K for Blu-ray because it's never going to look great, I don't think.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And finally, we heard from Film Aficionado on Carnasaur.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And he said, big props to Diane Ladd for performing her own cesarean section.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_05]: That's mom strength.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, my God.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, that scene was, yeah, pretty shocking.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_05]: I was laughing a lot listening to that episode and you talking about her helpfully holding her own abdomen open for the birth of the dinosaur.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_05]: It's nice of her.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And we didn't hear from Serge of Cold Crash Pictures because you heard him for over an hour in the episode.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We get pretty nerdy about dinosaurs on that episode.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's great.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_05]: It's great talking about feathers, no feathers.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_05]: I loved it.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_05]: It was fantastic.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_05]: It was a huge education for me, I think.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, we always love hearing from you.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Please do keep writing and commenting.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Love the comments.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Conrad, you are back.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Time to fetch that film for today.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_05]: See if I can find my way over to the Oubliette.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, here it is.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I'm in a room with like a jungle gym that's shaking.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Doesn't look very stable.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_05]: I guess, should you climb it?

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the movie's right at the top here.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Hang on.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, this bar's slippery.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, this one's burning hot.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_05]: I've got the movie, thank goodness.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_05]: That doesn't look fun at all.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Whoa, it's copper in time.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, deary me.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_05]: The obstacles in the Oubliette these days.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, what a challenge.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_05]: What do you have today, Conrad?

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_05]: So, I have with me today the 1990 American post-apocalyptic mecca science fiction film,

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Robot Jocks.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Directed by Stuart Gordon, with a screenplay by Joe Haldeman based on a story by Stuart Gordon,

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_05]: and starring Gary Graham, Anne-Marie Johnson, Paul Koslow, Robert Sampson, Danny Kamikona,

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Hilary Mason, and Michael Aldridge.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Hmm.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_05]: What happens in Robot Jocks?

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Hmm.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, in a not too distant future, the remains of the human race has emerged from a devastating

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_05]: nuclear war with a determination to resolve its territorial disputes in a much more mature

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_05]: way.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Giant robot boxing matches.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Achilles is a superstar robot jockey for the benevolent country known as Market.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_05]: In a match against his nemesis Alexander, the unsportsmanlike killer from the Confederacy,

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Achilles heroically blocks the path of a robot fist missile when it strays towards the bleachers

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_05]: and threatens to kill dozens of enthusiastic spectators.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Unfortunately, it pushes his robot into the stand, killing hundreds of innocent spectators,

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_05]: including children.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Suitably traumatised, Achilles drinks himself into oblivion and refuses a rematch.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_05]: That is, until he discovers he's been replaced by Athena, a genetically engineered robot jock

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_05]: and his secret crush who won a challenge involving a booby-trapped vibrating jungle gym.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_05]: He rushes back to save her and reclaim the pilot seat, only to be incapacitated by Athena so she can don

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_05]: his armour and march into war on his behalf.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, it's the Iliad told through the medium the ancient Greeks intended.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Giant robot boxing matches.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Can Achilles rescue Athena from Alexander's bloodlust?

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Will he win and secure the vital territory of Alaska for market?

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_05]: And who is the secret mole who's leaking technology secrets to the enemy?

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Find out after the break.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And we're back to talk about the 1990 Empire Pictures classic, Robot Jocks,

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_05]: which was selected by our patrons from a vote on the entire contents of Arrow Video's

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Enter the Video Store collection, which featured five Empire Pictures movies.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_05]: This one emerged as the clear favourite.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Had you seen it before, Dan?

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I had not seen it before.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I heard a lot about it, but I, yeah, I'd never seen it.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Had you?

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I had, yeah.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_05]: So I saw this when I suspect most people saw it, which is on VHS, where it had a really cool cover

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_05]: and was very tempting for a preteen who liked robots.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_02]: When I was researching this movie, there's a bunch of them that came out.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think half of them or all of them are under Charles Band's production company.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's Crash and Burn in 1990, Robot Wars in 1993, which also stars Danny Kamikona and

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: also Robo Warriors in 1996.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Are they all Charles Band?

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_05]: They are all Charles Band.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_05]: One of them is directed by Charles and one of them is directed by his dad, Albert.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_05]: But neither of them are sequels to Robot Jocks, even though one of them, Crash and Burn, I think,

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_05]: was marketed as Robot Jocks 2, Crash and Burn.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_05]: But they have no relation to the original movie whatsoever.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is surprising.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I don't know why they didn't turn it into a franchise.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_05]: It would make perfect sense to do so because it's a compelling concept.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, they did have an idea for a sequel for this movie, which was to have Achilles and

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Alexander team up to fight against aliens, which is why they had like a space sequence

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_05]: in the middle of this where they fly out of the arena and do battle in space briefly.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yeah, we'll get into that.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I think like a lot of people have also said that Robo Warriors, which is the fourth one

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: in the robot series of films, is kind of like that sequel because there is a battle with

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_02]: an alien force with giant robots.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It's none of the same characters, though.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like very far into the future.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the Earth is occupied by aliens already.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of like a rebellion, I guess.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I had never seen any of these movies.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I was really impressed, for starters, with Robot Jocks by the robots, by the makers.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was trying to think of other films.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And the only other film I can think of in terms of live action, giant, controlled by people

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: robots, not Transformers, but actually controlled by a person inside the robot is Pacific Rim,

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: which had a lot of similarities to Robot Jocks.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and was released many, many, many years later in 2013, directed by Guillermo del Toro.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I think there are even some moments or references or a line of dialogue or, you know, a few shots

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_05]: here and there where people think surely there is a direct inspiration here.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_02]: There must be.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even how the pilots are controlling the robots, like it's mirroring their movements

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_02]: inside, like they're on this kind of treadmill type machine.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So they walk on the...

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very, very similar to Pacific Rim.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_05]: It is, yeah.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Another film that I thought of subsequently was one that I quite like.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a Sean Levy movie starring Hugh Jackman called Real Steel, where they aren't giant robots.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_05]: They're sort of human sized robots, but they are doing the boxing matches and the boxer is sort

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_05]: of controlling them remotely.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I haven't seen that one.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's interesting that there haven't been that many giant mecha live action robot movies.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But in the anime world, there have been like countless.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like limitless amount of Japanese anime mecha battle series.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So many.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Just to list a few.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably the most famous.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But you've also got Gundam and Code Geese, Pat Labore, Gurren Lagann.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_02]: There's just like countless, countless amounts of anime with mecha robots, but there's no live

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_02]: action for some reason.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And Robot Jocks, I have to say, must have been the first in terms of an actual mechanized

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_02]: robot.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess you can count Ultraman, which is that Japanese 60s movie, but it's clearly a man in

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_02]: the leotard.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: There's no mechanics going on there.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So Robot Jocks feels so pioneering, like it's going into completely uncharted territory.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_05]: So the director, Stuart Gordon, who also wrote the original story, said he was very much inspired

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_05]: by Macross, which is another property that I'm not familiar with.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It's another anime.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, yes.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the full name of the anime is called Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which came

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: out in 1982.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_05]: So it was that plus Transformers, which was taking the world by storm around about this

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_05]: time.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_05]: And he kept waiting for Japanese cinema or for somebody else in Hollywood to do the live action

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_05]: fighting robots movie.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And nobody did.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_05]: So he thought, okay, there's a hole in the market.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_05]: He had a three picture deal with Empire Pictures after Reanimator.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And he'd already done From Beyond another Lovecraftian adaptation.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I've seen that.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Not as successful as Reanimator, but still well received and Dolls.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_05]: But he really wanted to shift gears in terms of genre to sort of show that he wasn't just

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_05]: a horror guy.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_05]: So he pitched Robot Jocks to Charles Band, the owner of the studio, who was wary because of

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_05]: the complexity and the ambition of what he wanted to pull off.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_05]: But after he saw the special effects guy, David Allen's test footage of what it could look

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_05]: like and how cost efficiently they could do it, he signed off on it.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think it was their most ambitious production and budgeted at around six and a half, maybe

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_05]: seven million dollars.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Other sort of properties that are kind of Mecha adjacent, Transformers definitely.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It did feel quite Power Rangers-y.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Other people say that.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Just the look of it.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very bright, very kid-friendly looking.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't look dirty or lived in at all.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's costume looks straight from the rack, like brand new.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Never been worn.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_05]: It's the jolliest dystopian film I've ever seen.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_05]: It's all very bright, primary coloured plastic.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_05]: It looks really chirpy and happy.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I did also liken it to Voltron as well, which I adored as a child, which also has a giant

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: sort of Mecha robot.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's lions joining together.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But it had a very sort of similar vein of like, let's fight with different weapons that seem

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: to spawn from nowhere.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, I did really like that.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the fights themselves had the sense of like, what's going to happen next?

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there were all these surprise weapons that seem to be unveiled and used.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was exciting to watch.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And that seems to be an essential part of the sport as well, that they have two phases.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_05]: One phase, which is long distance fighting, where they reveal all of these weapons that

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_05]: they've secretly cooked up behind the scenes, almost like Formula One racers trying to engineer

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_05]: a better, faster car.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_05]: And the floating referee ship would come in and blow a whistle and say, okay, long distance

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_05]: fighting's over.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Now it's hand to hand.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_05]: And then they'd start going at each other.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_05]: And it was, you know, what bladed or chainsaw-y weapons have they got hidden about their person

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_05]: that they can use at close range?

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you did mention it did feel like the Iliad with giant robots.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even the characters' names.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got Achilles and Alexander and Athena.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_02]: These are all very Greek names.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very gladiatorial with the battles.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: It felt like the running man a little bit.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I thought about that too.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Just kind of this spectator sport that all the sort of populace are watching and cheering

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: for in the stands and betting on.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: It felt almost like Hunger Games even as well.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So instead of having wars with people, you're just having battles to secure property?

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Apparently.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's a ridiculous premise, but it's just an excuse for the robot battles.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_05]: And what I love about it is, although it is a post-apocalyptic, post-nuclear movie, and

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_05]: it touches on various social issues, sort of, you know, people trying to rebuild the human

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_05]: population, genetic engineering of people for a very specific role.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_05]: It touches on a wide range of issues, but they're sort of window dressy.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't go deep into them.

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_05]: It just sort of brushstrokes to create the world in which the robot battles can happen.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_05]: But there is no question that the main focus of this thing is robot battles for 10-year-old kids.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I am surprised this wasn't a huge hit in terms of toys.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I would have loved to have all of those meccas as a toy that I could play with and shoot missiles

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_02]: out of or like, you know, a dick chainsaw pop out and, you know, that sort of thing.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Why wasn't this marketed better?

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, it didn't do well, right?

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_05]: No, it didn't.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_05]: The main reason for it is that Charles Band's Empire Pictures got into financial difficulty

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_05]: towards the end of production of this movie.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_05]: In the early 80s, there's this one bank, Credit Lyonnais, that was just throwing money at these

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_05]: people that were very enthusiastic and wanted to create sort of mini studios that would churn

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_05]: out loads of films for distribution.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And Empire was one of those.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And in fact, Charles Band had purchased Dino De Laurentiis' studio off of him after he fell

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_05]: into trouble after Dune, which we covered earlier this year.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So he bought the studio, which was kind of laying fallow and spruced it up and started

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_05]: shooting two films at once there.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_05]: This was one of them.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Then he got into financial trouble himself around about 1989 and had to sell all of the assets

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_05]: back to the bank.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think another studio eventually picked the movie up and funded the completion of the

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_05]: special effects.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_05]: So instead of coming out on its original projected release date, which I think was 1989, it slowly

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_05]: crept out in 1990.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_05]: It got a brief theatrical run in November around Thanksgiving, where it was barely noticed.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_05]: It yielded 1.3 million at the box office on a 6.5 million budget.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_05]: It debuted at number 16 in the American box office at a time when Home Alone, Rocky V and

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Child's Play 2 were topping the charts.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And it did pop up to 13 by week two, but then it was pulled and dumped onto VHS, which I think

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_05]: is where it eventually found its audience.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Although fans were a little bit disappointed, apparently, because they were expecting Stuart

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Gordon to be the king of horror continuously.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And all of a sudden, he's got this fun sci-fi adventure movie that is, let's be honest, clearly

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_05]: geared towards family viewing.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes and no.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yes, because it's almost like watching a cartoon.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: The villain, Alexander, is just like cartoon villain.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a caricature of a villain.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Like with this sort of Soviet Russian evil accent, talking about squashing everyone like bugs.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, you've got your very stereotyped protagonist with Achilles.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just Harrison Ford, essentially.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just this kind of disgruntled hero that is just good at things for some reason, but

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_02]: doesn't want to be there.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But I was really impressed by the character of Athena, though.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not what I expected.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: She's not like your stereotypical blonde, big busted white woman.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Like she's not white.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_02]: She's African-American and she's quite muscular.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Her hair is supposed to be sort of androgynous, I think.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And sort of neutral, I think.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So these genetically engineered robot jocks, these pilots, they're called Tubies after

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_02]: like being test tube babies, essentially.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So her look is not supposed to be attractive, I guess.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But she is kind of the romantic interest for Achilles.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I think for the most part, the characters are very cliche, very expected.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But there are some interesting characters with Athena and some unexpected violence as well.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So Dr. Matsumoto, who's sort of the engineer of the weapons of the robot jocks, he does get,

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: there's a big spoiler here, he does get like assassinated, essentially, and killed.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's shocking.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot of blood.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't really see the gore part, but just the act of shooting someone in the head and

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_02]: then blood sprayed on the wall behind him.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't say that was for kids.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_05]: It's edgier, yeah.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_05]: But they were definitely shooting for a PG rating.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think they got it rather than PG-13.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_05]: But it was an 80s PG.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_05]: It was sort of, you know, like Raiders of the Lost Ark had stuff in it that was like,

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_05]: really?

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Is this for kids?

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, right.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_05]: But it seemed to be fine.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_05]: There's also a lot of nudity in there, which is surprising.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's mainly butts.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's equal opportunities butts.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_05]: We see Achilles and Athena's butts.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_05]: During the course of the movie.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_05]: It's very much that Paul Verhoeven, in the future, we're all going to be showering in gender

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_05]: neutral spaces that we just share together.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's not going to be an issue, sort of sci-fi trope.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, very Starship Troopers.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And Robocop as well, I think, in the police station, I think they were just changing in

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_05]: front of each other and it wasn't an issue anymore.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_05]: The interesting thing about the Athena character, Anne-Marie Johnson pointed this out

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_05]: in an interview on the box set.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_05]: She felt it was really ahead of its time because the white person, which is Achilles, is depicted

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_05]: as a throwback, not the future.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_05]: The sense she got from it was that the script was depicting the future as being very much

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_05]: multicultural and that all of the genetically engineered robot jocks, the Tubies, were people

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_05]: of colour but of an unspecified ethnicity.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And I also liked how the character of Dr. Matsumoto, I guess he's supposed to be Japanese.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't have a Japanese accent.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Or like an Asian accent whatsoever.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_02]: He's very American and they don't talk about it and it's just normal.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't point out his race or anything where he doesn't have any cliches apart from having

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: origami everywhere, which is, I guess that's fine.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's his thing.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's quite lovable.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I really liked the fact that he was trying to figure out who the mole was so he didn't

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_02]: tell anyone.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's so committed to the cause and so loyal to their team or country or whatever it is.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And so with him and Tex confronting each other, it's really powerful.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I felt really sad when he gets killed off by Tex.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_05]: It's got real dramatic chops to it in place as the movie.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Given the preposterousness of the premise and how cheap and cheerful it is, it's surprising.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Did you see that coming a mile away?

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, come on.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It was so obvious.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_05]: But there was the problem that there weren't really any other characters that could have

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_05]: been candidates.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Plus the only sort of Chekhov's loose end that's introduced at the beginning is someone saying,

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_05]: how did you win your last fight, Tex Conway?

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And it eventually emerges.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_05]: It's because he had insider information and it was all a ruse to get people to trust him.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's one of those characters where you, of course, you know he's evil because they

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: depict him as a very unlikable character.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_05]: He's the only really unlikable character on the market side, I would say.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, there's a little bit of tension between the robot jocks.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a bit of Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Top Gun sort of rivalry that's introduced in a

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_05]: training scene.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And there is also this rivalry between the Tubies and the people who weren't genetically

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_05]: engineered.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a line of dialogue.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_05]: If they're the future, I'm glad I'm history or something.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_05]: So there's a bit of prejudice there.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes, for sure.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I quite like that conflict between the old and the new fighters.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really interesting because the Tubies were read to be the ultimate fighters physically

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and also to be completely unflinching in their goals of victory.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_02]: There's one scene where they were asking Achilles, why did he stop the missile from hitting the

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_02]: stands?

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And because he was like, well, I didn't want to have all these people killed, even though

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: he did end up killing hundreds of people.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he did.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But the Tubies just said, I would have just let them die.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_02]: For victory.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_05]: They signed a waiver to get their ticket.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_05]: They know what they were getting into.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just like, wow.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: They only have one goal in mind, and that is to win the fight at all costs.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's a source of tension between Athena and Achilles as well, because she is trying

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_05]: to figure out why he was so successful in order to give herself a competitive advantage

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_05]: or develop her skills.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And he's so, you know, as you say, Harrison Ford, laconic.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_05]: He's great at everything.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_05]: But doesn't really want to be there.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_05]: He's not interested.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_05]: And he's trying to tell her that it's just luck.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And that you need to be afraid.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_05]: You need the fear to be there to be effective.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And she cannot understand that because she is bred to be purely efficient, very deterministic.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_05]: I am the sum of my genetic parts.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_05]: And there is nothing sort of magical like luck hovering in the background.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just purely design.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And she doesn't get it.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's so fascinating.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I guess it's been explored a lot, especially with AI movies or like robots, like Terminator.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: The idea of like you can breed the perfect human, but they're not ever going to be like human.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to have like empathy and sensitivity towards other people because they are essentially robots, I guess.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it was still fascinating to see.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I know you kind of described it as window dressing in this, you know, forget all that.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_02]: We just want to see robots punching each other.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was still a great way to set up this dystopian future.

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I also did like the fact that I guess the whole population of the world was decimated by this nuclear holocaust.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So there are all these posters and billboards promoting pregnancy, like get pregnant now.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And you have Achilles visit his brother or his sister or whatever.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And they've got like hundreds of kids just like running around.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like that's a really interesting world to be in where people are encouraged to have as many kids as possible.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_05]: In order to repopulate the earth.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_05]: On the commentary track, Stuart Gordon points out that because they were filming in Italy, which is not so keen on birth control.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_05]: It's, you know, very Catholic.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Some of those posters were actually just there when they were shooting.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_05]: So not all of it is sci-fi set dressing.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Some of it was just there when they were filming the apartment scene where he goes to visit his brother.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's fascinating.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_05]: That sort of stuff is fascinating.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And also the idea that you would settle territorial disputes through a spectator sport that's been highly commercialized.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lovely cameo in the movie from Jeffrey Combs from Reanimator as one of the spectators, which is a nice little nod.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_05]: But just this idea that you would reduce something as important as that, like Running Man, reduce crime and punishment into a reality TV show, a spectator sport.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_05]: It could be a really dark, tinged criticism of war and of gambling and of sport and reality TV.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_05]: It could be.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's such a jolly, upbeat, happy movie that's just enjoying itself.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_05]: All this stuff is just there.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's not in the same way that Starship Troopers is a flag-waving, trumpety, exciting movie that has a really bitter taste to it right underneath the surface.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's clear that Verhoeven intended it that way.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Gordon's movie is just fun.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_05]: It hasn't got a deeply sarcastic edge to it at all.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's partly due to the visuals.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it just looks so bright and welcoming.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have a dirty, lived-in suffering in this dystopian future.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_02]: No one really looks like they're suffering.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, even when he goes to visit his brother, their apartment looks quite nice.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it doesn't look gummy or, like, disheveled or anything.

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_02]: They're making a meal and they say, oh, we even got meat.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And they open the lid and there's just one sausage in this pot.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I mean, it is just one sausage, but it doesn't look bad.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_02]: It looked quite appetizing.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'll get that meal.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So, it's just that sort of look of the entire film doesn't look, it's not that bad, really.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the nuclear holocaust will be just fine.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Especially if we've got giant robots to watch.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess we should talk about the giant robots.

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I was blown away by how amazing they looked.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Pre-CGI, no CGI whatsoever.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of stop motion and puppet work.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But they pulled it off.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_05]: They really did, yeah.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_05]: This is the genius of Dave Allen and his team that they decided to shoot.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_05]: I think a lot of it is live action, miniature puppetry work.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_05]: All shot in the El Mirage lake bed in California's San Bernardino County.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_05]: And the idea is that if you can shoot live action outdoors in bright sunlight on a landscape that's perfectly flat and uniform,

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_05]: then you can do these amazing forced perspective shots where the miniatures are in the foreground

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_05]: and you can have people like a mile away in the background walking around.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_05]: And they appear to be standing next to a 100 meter tall robot.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's all in camera, first generation, no compositing.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And it looks great.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the, I think they did do some green screen stuff with the stop motion where it was in a studio.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And you can kind of tell all that stuff.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But the movements of the stop motion, because stop motion has this kind of, not janky,

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_02]: but you can see these movements are not that fluid, but it suited these robots because robots don't move fluidly.

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_02]: They have this kind of stuttery movement to it.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So it did actually quite pair well with these giant robots.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, all the stuff that you mentioned in the desert.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of puppet stuff or a lot of just like parts of a robot.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So you've got legs and you've just got a guy holding the legs out of shot and letting it fall down.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So it looks like the robots collapsed or just moving one leg across.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, wow, it's so simple.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But because of shot on location, it looks amazing.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It really looks like it's, I mean, even though they are miniatures, they're still quite large.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_02]: They're about like maybe five foot tall.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Like they're quite big puppets.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_05]: They are, yeah.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_05]: It's quite difficult to do some of the stop motion stuff with them because they couldn't really bear their own weight on one foot, for example, for walking sequences.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So you can actually see that they're being held up by wires on the Blu-ray in some of the stop motion shots.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, it was complicated stuff.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And also there's a bunch of guys trying to film this in the desert in burning hot sunshine in the middle of the day for months.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_05]: I think the special effects took over a year to do.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not sure if that's in elapsed time or just because of the stop start nature because they kept running out of funding because of the financial difficulties Empire was in.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_05]: But it took a very long time to make this movie.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_05]: And it really was a labor of love for them.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_05]: They loved doing this smashy, crashy robot battle in the middle of the desert.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of pyrotechnics as well.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of explosions, which I think they shot in slow motion so that it looks much more impressive when played back.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It was so well made that every scene in the battles, I just kept saying, oh my God, that looks amazing.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Because you've got these mekkahs as well with endless amounts of different weaponry as well.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So you've got lasers coming out.

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got missiles.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You have a bone saw.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So this kind of chain wire shoots out and wraps around the other mekkah's arm and saws it off.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got the dick chainsaw that comes out of a compartment from Alexander's four-legged sort of spider robot.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, wow, that's really ambitious.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to move this four-legged, two-clawed robot.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_02]: That's incredible.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't even fathom how they managed to pull this off.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_05]: It's impressive work.

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think had it been given the theatrical release that was originally planned for it and had a lot of marketing behind it,

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_05]: I think this really could have been a huge hit for Empire.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it could have saved the studio.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_05]: But as it was, it just vanished, which is so sad.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_05]: But as you can imagine, it did find its audience on VHS, particularly for me, because I didn't know who Stuart Gordon was at that time.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Right, yeah.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_05]: And this was just catnip for a pre-teen brought up on Star Wars and Transformers, of course.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_05]: There was a TV series in the UK called Robot Wars.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm fairly certain that it was inspired by this, where people would build robots with secret weapons.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, the remote control ones?

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And they'd try and destroy each other's robots.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It was great fun.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking about that show when I was watching this movie, because I thought, oh my God, just this is like giant versions of, yeah, that British Robot Wars show where you have these little remote control like cars with like buzz saws coming out of it.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And like electric shock jabbers and things that would like flip it over and stuff.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I was, yeah, very, very impressed with the effects.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And just like really some of the scenes where there's a scene where Athena, she pilots one of the robots and they're trying to stop her and she has to climb out of the hangar.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like pretty amazing movements that they had to achieve with her, like putting the robot foot through one of the windows of like a control center.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And then she had to pull herself out of the hangar.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like really, really complicated movements that they somehow pulled off.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And all of it executed really well, considering how little money and resources they had to work with.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And the robots themselves look really good too.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_05]: They're mostly designed by Ron Cobb, who is very famous for working on things like Star Wars and Alien.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_05]: So he created that lived in universe, but was also very good at creating convincingly engineered robots that look as though they work and look really cool.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: The design.

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I think Achilles' robot did look very Transform-y.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a mouthful to say.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But it definitely did look like a Transformer.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And there is a moment where it literally does transform almost into another vehicle.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I might get into it in the movies.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, the other, like Alexander's robot, it just felt almost like steampunky.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you could see all the pistons, you could see all the nuts and bolts and the way that they sound designed everything.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It felt very strained and mechanical and noisy and clangy.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It didn't have a very futuristic sound to it, but I love that sort of clumsy industrial approach to the sound design.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_05]: I did too.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_05]: No, this is definitely not your robots as designed by Apple.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_05]: This is not your Apple futurism.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_05]: This is grimy.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_05]: They're in the pits building these things with whatever they've got left over from the nuclear holocaust.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you cut to the people in their bright jumpsuits.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And then some of the other effects didn't quite get pulled off.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So you've got the hover car that Achilles has, and it really looks quite flimsy.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It looks like it's a very wobbly PVC glue gun together car.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure they're just lifting up with a pulley or something.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It's definitely not hovering.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing mechanical working in that car.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_02]: He might even be flintstoning it to make it move.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's one scene where he gets overpowered by Athena.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_02]: She beats the shit out of him, essentially, which is amazing to see.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, really great character, Athena.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And locks him in his room.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_02]: He can't get out.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So he remote controls the hover car to crash into his room so he can escape.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_02]: But the hover car just looks horrible.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It looks so cheap and ridiculous.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_05]: It's very angular, very boxy.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And I love the fact that he's got a remote control to lock it that's like, it's huge.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like...

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_05]: But then he can operate it to crash through his wall later.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_05]: So it's a multifunction car locking device.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Now it's time for Random Trivia.

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_05]: So Dan, what fascinating piece of trivia did you find in your robot today?

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is just a tiny piece of trivia, but we have a cameo from Stuart Gordon as the bartender

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_02]: in the sort of futuristic, strangely...

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't understand bars in sci-fi future movies.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, they always look so uncomfortable.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're drinking out of ridiculous glasses that seem to defy physics for some reason.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, the bartender is, in fact, Stuart Gordon.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know that.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I completely missed that he was in the movie.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_05]: I had one piece of trivia for you, which is that Trent Reznor sampled some of the crowd

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_05]: noise from Robot Jocks for the Nine Inch Nails 1994 album, The Downward Spiral.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, cool.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Because he's a fan of the movie, I guess.

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I can totally see that.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to listen now for that sample.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Send that somewhere.

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's our trivia.

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Shall we go back to the characters?

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I liked Achilles.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Really?

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's kind of portrayed as this very honorable guy.

[00:44:33] [SPEAKER_02]: He's very empathetic about people and trying to save the people in the stands.

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But he's kind of quite horrible to Athena.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_02]: The way he talks about her, he says something like, oh, some of them are quite good to look

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_02]: at as well.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just a little bit disgusting.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And the way he and Tex Conway talks about women, it's just like, oh, are we supposed

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_02]: to like this guy?

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_05]: It's not the most progressive movie from 1990.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Its depiction of Athena and what she represents is great.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And Marie Johnson does a great job of that role.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I think its depiction of the two white guys, including Tex Conway.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_05]: They are very sexist.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Their assumption is that a woman will...

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Is it that a woman will never be a robot jocks or is it that a tubie will never be robot

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_05]: jocks?

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not quite sure.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_05]: There's prejudice in some way or another.

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not quite sure what they're heading for.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_05]: What I liked about Achilles is that he wasn't toxically masculine in the sense of he wasn't like

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Top Gun.

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_05]: He wasn't all about being the best and being really proud of himself and his country.

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_05]: He really was just trying to get through his contracted 10 fights.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_05]: That's true.

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And get out of it.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And he cared more about saving the spectators than winning.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_05]: So you got the sense that he was just a fairly humble, low key guy who was just trying to get

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_05]: through it alive and wasn't really interested in anything else.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And I quite like that.

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, his attitude towards women and Athena particularly, not great.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_05]: But it just sort of felt like that 80s Harrison Ford character that is a bit of an asshole when

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_02]: it comes to women.

[00:46:23] [SPEAKER_02]: But also like when it's revealed that she was going to be his replacement because he quit

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and she's been recruited as a replacement.

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_02]: He comes back to be like, no, I want to do it.

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And I can't figure out whether it's to save her because he knows that she's not ready or

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_02]: it's because he doesn't believe a woman should.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's this a little bit of gray area where I'm not sure whether his intentions are

[00:46:53] [SPEAKER_02]: as honorable as they should be.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_05]: No, I think you're right.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it is to save her.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think it is because he is afraid for her.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_05]: But he also underestimates her.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_05]: He also thinks that she's not capable of doing it, which it's not great.

[00:47:10] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, actually, she doesn't do particularly well against Alexander.

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she's definitely not ready.

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_02]: She's got this idea that because she's been bred to be the ultimate fighter that she is,

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_02]: but she clearly wasn't.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I found the romance icky.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think Athena was into him whatsoever.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They have this fight and he tries to kiss her and she bites his lip and then I think

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_02]: kicks him in the balls.

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Knees him in the crotch.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she does.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, which I was like, yes, yes.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want this like ridiculously inappropriate romantic kiss in the middle of a fight scene.

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Come on.

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So that was great.

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But then he kisses her again when he saves her from the robot and she's unconscious and

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_02]: he's trying to pull her out.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he kisses her.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like she's barely conscious.

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_02]: There's no consent there, is there?

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_05]: She does not know what's going on right now.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_05]: And she does get rescued like a damsel.

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, he forces himself on her again.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you're right.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't think she is romantically interested in him at all.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's the old 80s trope of if you just keep going, you'll wear her down eventually.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You just have to force it on her and eventually she just has to give in.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I think she has admiration for him as a robot pilot, but I don't think she loves him or

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_02]: likes him even.

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's no attraction.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I would have liked the film to go in a different direction than the third act.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it would have been interesting to have her actually be good in the robot and for

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Achilles to realize, hey, I'm old.

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I should move aside and have this new generation of fighters.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I'm going to support this woman and she's going to win.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that would have been a really interesting film if she was the victor and he trained her

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_02]: to become the next fighter.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_05]: That would have been interesting.

[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_05]: And you can certainly see that sort of storyline in other movies that have emerged since then.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I really thought it was going in that direction.

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I really did.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I mean, I remembered it from my teenage years, so I already knew it wasn't.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I think what was shocking for people at the time, particularly at the, not the height of

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_05]: the Cold War.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_05]: I think the Cold War really was reaching its death row by 1990.

[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_05]: But people were shocked to see the fighting at the end resolve with them realizing that they don't need to kill each other over this and that they could both live.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Alexander and Achilles stop and fist bump and then the credits roll.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Which was a bit of a shock.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_05]: And in fact, Gary Graham, who played Achilles, is disgusted with that ending.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Really?

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_05]: He thinks that Paul Coslow's character, Alexander, is a murdering swine, quote unquote, who deserved to die.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_05]: And he should, his character should have killed him.

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_05]: And he wishes in retrospect that he'd used whatever power he had by saying, you know, I signed up to this script and this is the script I want to film or I'm walking.

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_05]: He wanted to really push it, but he didn't feel as though he could.

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_05]: And he was persuaded to do this anti-war message.

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Alexander was horrible.

[00:50:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, in the first scene of the film, he just mercilessly kills a pilot.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_02]: He does.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_02]: He's won the battle and he just like cold-blooded murder.

[00:50:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm surprised they just let him still fight.

[00:50:56] [SPEAKER_02]: If they have all these rules in these battles and this guy clearly just kills someone.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And they just let him keep fighting in more battles.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_05]: There's kind of a cavalier attitude toward death, which doesn't quite square away with the fact that they need to repopulate the earth.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it seems ridiculous that they would allow spectators to watch this when it's so dangerous.

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_05]: To be honest.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I thought that as well.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't make sense.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Especially if the stands don't even have a protection.

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I thought, oh, they're safe.

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a roof.

[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And no, they're not safe.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_02]: If so many people die.

[00:51:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So many people.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, another scene in the movie where I thought, this is for kids.

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Surely not.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_05]: There was a tension there in terms of the tones between Stuart Gordon and the screenplay writer, Jim Haldeman,

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_05]: who was a novello and Hugo award-winning writer of science fiction, very much based on his own experience as a Vietnam veteran.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_05]: So he was pushing to make the robot fighting as convincing as possible to sort of try and root this ridiculous premise in as much realism as he possibly could.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Sort of get really gritty with it and focus on the lives of these military people.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Whereas Stuart Gordon was very much pushing towards, I want this to be accessible to the widest audience possible.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_05]: And let's face it, it's robots fighting.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_05]: This is for kids.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_05]: This is for preteen and teenage boys.

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_05]: We don't need the gritty Vietnam storyline hovering underneath this.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So there was a tension there.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really surprised that Stuart Gordon was trying to go in that direction because he is known for horror.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_02]: He is known for definitely not kid-friendly movies like Reanimator, From Beyond, Dolls, The Pit and Pendulum.

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_02]: These are not for kids.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it's quite strange that he's responsible for the more campy ridiculousness of this movie.

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_05]: But at roundabouts this time he was trying to shift into family fair because his very next movie was going to be Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Which if you look at the credits, he's still credited as a writer and maybe an executive producer on that movie.

[00:53:24] [SPEAKER_05]: He had to drop out of directing it because he was unwell.

[00:53:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_05]: And so he came back to Robot Jocks to finish it off once it got its funding.

[00:53:34] [SPEAKER_05]: But he was all geared up to do Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which is a fun family adventure full of special effects.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that movie.

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing.

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_05]: But it still has his hallmark moments in it.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Like he used to talk about his favourite moment being the moment where the dad is about to eat his own son in the breakfast cereal.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, the cereal.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's him.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_05]: That's his idea.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, wow.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Sort of slightly macabre and disturbing, but for kids.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I definitely thought the robot battles were standout.

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, I had so much glee watching them.

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it definitely did remind me of Voltron or Transformers or Power Rangers.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't like Power Rangers, but.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It had that sort of sense of like, yes, boys love this shit.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Like this is what I'm all about.

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to see giant robots bashing the crap out of each other.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Especially when it is as excellently for the time.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_05]: And some of it still stands up now, realised as it is with David Allen's effects.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think also a lot of the upbeat tone of the movie comes from Frederick Talgorn's score.

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, yes.

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_05]: A beautiful symphonic score from a classically trained composer performed by the Paris Philharmonic,

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_05]: I believe.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, wow.

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's got the noble horn over suspended strings in the opening sequence as the camera pans across a robot war wasteland.

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And sense of wonder cues and really exciting action cues.

[00:55:13] [SPEAKER_05]: It's all very corngold and John Williams and bright and beautifully orchestrated and full of energy and scale that the movie is desperately trying to deliver.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think it's a real joy to listen to the score.

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It does have a sense of grandness to it.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't feel cheap.

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't feel like battle beyond the stars, like playing wrong notes.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I especially love the cue with the reveal of Alexander's final robot with the four legs when he arrives.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's got this huge brass motif that rings out.

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just so like menacing and incredible sounding.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are moments in the movie where it feels quite romantic with the strings.

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It feels very stirring and emotive.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Even in connection with the Athena character, which, again, is unearned because she doesn't feel anything for this main character.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_05]: But it does have a romantic theme for her.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, it is beautiful, lush music.

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I also love the fact that there are moments where there is no music.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So in the final hand-to-hand combat with Achilles and Alexander, and they're out of the robots.

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_02]: They're just on the ground, just having a fist fight pretty much with poles, I guess.

[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's no music at all.

[00:56:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And you just have visceral sounds of these two men, you know, hitting each other and grunting and sweating and panting.

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's great.

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I love moments of no music.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you have the end with them realizing, hey, we don't need to fight anymore.

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the music starts again.

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just like, wow, that's great cueing.

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_05]: It is very good.

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And for a kid, it's like, oh, wow, we don't have to kill each other.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_05]: We could just be friends.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_05]: How stirring and wonderful.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_05]: And then, yeah, roll credits and out comes the anthem.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_05]: It's good stuff.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Coming to you live from the Movie Oobly at Theatre, it's the prestigious Moobly Award.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Hello.

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It's everyone's favorite part of the podcast, the Moobly Awards, where we nominate our favorite giant robot clashing parts of the film in a number of awkward, unconscious, romantic kiss categories.

[00:57:39] Oh, no.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Best quote.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_05]: My favorite quote comes from Doc Matsumoto, who, in his confrontation with Tex Conway, comes out with the classic line,

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_05]: we always remain all the people we've been.

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes.

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_05]: He's trying to get Tex to realize that he was a good guy once, but it turns out that he wasn't.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_02]: For a moment, you think, oh, maybe he's had a change of heart, but no, then he just murders him.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Blows his brains out.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Never mind.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_02]: My favorite quote is, it's an exchange between Athena and Achilles.

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So, Athena says, I was bred not to be afraid.

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And Achilles says, okay, then you're not human.

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Athena says, I am human.

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I was bred for a purpose.

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You, you just happened.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Achilles responds with, yeah, that's what daddy used to say.

[00:58:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Best hair or costume.

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to say, not my favorite, but what I would say most horrible here is Athena's.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know what's going on here.

[00:58:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of pulled back, slicks back on the sides.

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's then like a buzz cut, poofy top.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And then at the back, it's like a braided short rat's tail.

[00:59:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just so many things wrong all at once.

[00:59:15] Yeah.

[00:59:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Basically, what's going on there, Dan, is the 80s.

[00:59:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm sorry to say, the 80s happened to Anne-Marie Johnson's hair.

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's horrible.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_05]: My favorite piece of costume was from Tex Conway, who, despite wearing the standard issue,

[00:59:34] [SPEAKER_05]: futuristic white shell suit with red trim, still has a cowboy hat and boots.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_05]: And a white neckerchief as well.

[00:59:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, what do they call it?

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_05]: A wild rag, the cowboy thing that they wear at their necks.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:59:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's called Tex as well.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean...

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It comes with the name.

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Most 90s moment.

[01:00:05] [SPEAKER_05]: So, my most 90s moment is the distorted imagery to depict flashbacks.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Happens when Achilles has a nightmare, PTSD, NARM flashback to his robot falling into the stands.

[01:00:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's all this weird, polarized, color, negative...

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_05]: ...weirdness that's going on.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really know what was going on.

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_05]: It's ridiculous.

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_05]: But I feel like this is rife in the 90s.

[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Whenever people remembered anything, it was always very distorted, the imagery.

[01:00:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_05]: For some reason.

[01:00:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Most notably on a film we've covered, Strange Days from 1999.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, yes.

[01:00:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Where it had a reason in the story, which is that it's been recorded.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_05]: So, that was fair enough.

[01:00:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: My most 90s.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say sort of late 80s, early 90s.

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But sort of the influence of Japanese cinema or Japanese aesthetics onto film.

[01:01:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether that be the use of martial arts in a movie, which does happen in this.

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But also the living quarters felt very Japanese.

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_02]: They had sort of paper, like Japanese screens and everything looked very minimalistic.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the floors almost look like tatami mats.

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that you have a character called Dr. Matsumoto as well with his origami everywhere.

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just thinking of like a lot of martial arts movies came out in the 80s and 90s.

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Like Karate Kid, Three Ninjas, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And all sort of that Japanese aesthetic as well.

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Very much present in Johnny Mnemonic that we covered too.

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Popular.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Favorite scene.

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: My favorite scene is sort of the, it's one of the battle scenes.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, it's going to be one of the robot battle scenes.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's after they've flown from space back to Earth.

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And you've got Archeles' robot transforms.

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So, it kind of folds over and it has these tank tracks on the bottom.

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, it can roll around like a sort of a tank vehicle.

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you have Alexander's robot with his dick chainsaw that folds outwards from its groin compartment.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And then slices through the front cockpit of Archeles' robot mecha.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, Archeles has to jump out of the way to prevent being sworn in half, literally.

[01:02:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's just so many things going on.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And so many cool, like transformer type weapons being revealed and being deployed.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's just like a boy's wit dream.

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it really is.

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I loved it all.

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_05]: You never knew what was going to happen next with those robots.

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_05]: And it kept the fight so fresh and exciting.

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: I have to say, yeah, the final robot fight is ultimately my favourite.

[01:03:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Or at least it was when I was a kid watching this movie on VHS.

[01:03:25] [SPEAKER_05]: But as an adult, I really like the scene between Athena and Achilles after he's drunk himself to oblivion and he wakes up naked.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Because it's funny, as you said, with great physical comedy from Gary Graham.

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_05]: The verbal sparring between the two is great.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Athena's idealism and his battle-worn cynicism clashing against each other.

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_05]: It's great dialogue, great performances.

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's very economically shot because there are one and a half minute takes in there moving all the way through his apartment building.

[01:04:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Doing, you know, complex physical comedy and dialogue.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And moving from one two-shot composition to another as the dialogue and the argument progresses.

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And I just watched it and thought, this is really good filmmaking.

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And great acting.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_05]: This is...

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Why is this in this silly robot battle movie?

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_05]: It's good.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes, yes.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Loved it.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Most cliché moment.

[01:04:27] [SPEAKER_05]: The biggest cliché for me in this movie is the villain's confession is caught on tape and played back to everyone.

[01:04:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, yes.

[01:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I liked it though.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was a really cool, like, gotcha moment.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_05]: So Dr. Matsumoto, who's recording his briefing on the secret weapon, manages to capture Tex Conway, admitting that he's the mole and murdering him.

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_05]: It's very familiar as a trope.

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_05]: It happens in Batman Returns when Batman broadcasts the Penguin's confession.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_05]: That's right.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_05]: It happened in the Neil Marshall movie Doomsday that we did, where Sinclair recorded and broadcast the evil guy's confession.

[01:05:16] [SPEAKER_05]: And, of course, it happens in Robocop.

[01:05:20] [SPEAKER_05]: And the villain in that ends up going out the window, although I think he's thrown rather than jumps in this case.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_05]: So, yeah, very familiar, I thought.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Best special effect.

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I would like to point out one scene, and there's no, there is a robot in it, but there's no battling, there's no weapons.

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the scene in the hangar, showing Arklees' robot in this hangar underground, and it just looks massive.

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, they really nailed the sense of scale and enormity with the robot in this hangar, with all the steam.

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And it just looks huge.

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it does.

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_05]: It's one of those forced perspective shots, and they are my favorite shots, that's what I was going to say,

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_05]: where they have a miniature in the foreground and people walking around at the feet of the robot,

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_05]: but they're actually, like, two miles away in the desert.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_05]: It's brilliant.

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_05]: It works perfectly.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah.

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Favorite sound effect.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_05]: My favorite moment in terms of sound is, I'm being clever here, it's a non-sound.

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_05]: It's the fact that when they go up into space, and there are explosions and damage,

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_05]: there is no sound whatsoever, all you can hear is the score.

[01:06:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's very much a deliberate move on Stuart Gordon's part, born out of his love of Kubrick's 2001.

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, he loved that when you go up into space, you can't hear anything.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's purely down to Frederick Tau Gordon's score to keep the energy going in the soundtrack of the score.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I love it.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's really cool.

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I love moments of silence.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was amazing that it was intentional.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, very much so.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: My favorite sound is during the hand-to-hand combat scene with Achilles and Alexander.

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're swinging metal poles left over from their wrecked meccas.

[01:07:26] [SPEAKER_02]: When they make contact, the poles, they have such a satisfying, resonant, metal clang sound.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's almost musical.

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: It, like, rings out.

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing.

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Most funniest moment.

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_05]: My funniest moment is when Achilles visits his brother and sister-in-law,

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_05]: and they proudly announce that they have meat for dinner,

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_05]: and then they lift the lid of the crockpot, and there's one sausage sitting in some goo.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I would totally eat that, though.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Really?

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I thought it looked really tragic.

[01:08:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I did giggle.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_05]: I was not expecting one sausage.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: The funniest moment for me, this is definitely unintentional.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So I watched it with my wife, and I had to run it back and highlight it again,

[01:08:24] [SPEAKER_02]: because it's just so ridiculous.

[01:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the fight scene between Achilles and Athena,

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and there is a body double for Athena that's clearly not her,

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's clearly a very tall man.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just like, hang on, you weren't fooling anyone with that scene.

[01:08:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's all, Mooblies.

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mary Jo Peel, and you are listening to Movie Oubliette.

[01:09:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's time for our final verdicts.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Should Robot Drox be resurrected from its mecha prison

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: to be allowed to blast back into public view and be celebrated?

[01:09:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Or should it be flashbombed and shot with missiles, lasers,

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and a projectile claw to fall back into the dark Oubliette?

[01:09:23] [SPEAKER_02]: A raise from cinema history.

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Conrad, what's your final verdict for Robot Drox?

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, this is one of those childhood nostalgia moments for me,

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_05]: because I do remember watching this when I was a preteen on VHS.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_05]: It was catnip to me then, because it was robots fighting each other,

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_05]: and a little bit of blood, and a little bit of violence,

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_05]: and a bit of nudity.

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_05]: So I thought this was awesome.

[01:09:51] [SPEAKER_05]: But looking at it back as an adult,

[01:09:54] [SPEAKER_05]: what surprised me is not only does it hold up,

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_05]: because David Allen and his team's special effects work

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_05]: is just so brilliantly done, all in camera practically,

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_05]: and some of the stuff stands up today.

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And at least if it isn't convincing in the sense of it being real,

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_05]: it is still thrilling to watch in terms of what it's depicting.

[01:10:16] [SPEAKER_05]: The film is actually pretty well written and performed,

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_05]: and has some great scenes, and some great sociological themes,

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER_05]: and some real drama and issues going on.

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_05]: So I was surprised at the quality of the filmmaking.

[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, yeah, it's basically just a 85-minute robot battle movie,

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_05]: but it's a really good one, with a great score, great effects,

[01:10:41] [SPEAKER_05]: interesting production design, and a great cast that are fully committed to it.

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_05]: So I think if you haven't seen this,

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_05]: if this has completely passed you by,

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_05]: and you're a Pacific Rim or anime nut,

[01:10:54] [SPEAKER_05]: you're going to absolutely love this movie.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I would agree with everything you've just said.

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it does have some flaws.

[01:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It is a bit campy and wacky and silly at times.

[01:11:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very bright and definitely not believable

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_02]: as a lived-in dystopian future.

[01:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, you can't deny the robot battles are amazing.

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, even now, they are incredible to watch.

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I was gobsmacked by what they were able to achieve

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of, yeah, weaponry and movements.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And so impressive.

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I wish I'd seen this movie as a kid.

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I would have loved it.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I love Transformers and Voltron.

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, this would have been my favorite movie

[01:11:47] [SPEAKER_02]: if I'd seen this as a kid.

[01:11:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So 100% I'd recommend this movie.

[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm shocked at how good this movie looks for 1989 slash 1990.

[01:12:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That is, it astounds me.

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_05]: And $6.5 million.

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a low-budget movie.

[01:12:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:12:10] [SPEAKER_05]: And it looks great.

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, really is.

[01:12:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[01:12:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:12:16] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's two thumbs up from us.

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Probably, like, doing a fist punch in the middle of the screen

[01:12:25] [SPEAKER_05]: and shouting crash and burn.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_05]: But did our patrons want it to crash and burn?

[01:12:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Hello, Hal?

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, Conrad.

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Time for the patrons vote, please.

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_04]: They agree with you guys.

[01:12:38] [SPEAKER_04]: They want it to escape the oubliette.

[01:12:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, of course.

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, it's almost unanimous.

[01:12:45] [SPEAKER_05]: 89% to 11% want to set this free.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, wow.

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Chisilla says,

[01:12:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Crash and burn.

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_05]: They're talking about the acting, right?

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_05]: The Kmart noble Willingham wasn't too bad.

[01:12:59] [SPEAKER_05]: An astonishingly never broke character.

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_05]: It's comforting to know that in the future,

[01:13:04] [SPEAKER_05]: these huge corporation nation-states keep the office friendly

[01:13:07] [SPEAKER_05]: by hosting Bring Your Grandmother to Work days.

[01:13:13] [SPEAKER_05]: How else would we ever meet Margaret Thatcher's less attractive sister?

[01:13:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I was also really surprised to see future health and safety

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_05]: allowed spectator stands at Jäger battles,

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_05]: even if they can't see anything due to the roof over the seats.

[01:13:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:13:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Right from the beginning, I knew that wasn't going to end well.

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_05]: The jungle gym of death was awesome,

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_05]: but I wish there had been more.

[01:13:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Giant mech suit battles.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Too much jocks.

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Not enough robot.

[01:13:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Pack rim for the win.

[01:13:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I can't ever get enough stop motion animation.

[01:13:48] [SPEAKER_05]: There's something nostalgic and charming about it.

[01:13:50] [SPEAKER_05]: I'll take it over CGI any day.

[01:13:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd let it climb its way out of the oubliette

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_05]: just for the stop motion alone.

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_05]: After all, could we really stop it?

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Great.

[01:14:03] [SPEAKER_05]: And Iconographer says,

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_05]: hmm, this is a funny one.

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd never heard of it before.

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_05]: The camp, the naivete, the optimism are all a lot of fun.

[01:14:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Giant robots fighting each other is always a good time.

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_05]: It felt like a combination of Clash of the Titans and the Power Rangers.

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Of course, it has some problems.

[01:14:25] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a little racist and sexist,

[01:14:28] [SPEAKER_05]: and it has an actual villain named Tex.

[01:14:30] [SPEAKER_05]: But how about the twist ending?

[01:14:32] [SPEAKER_05]: The Russian mech's giant crotch chainsaw.

[01:14:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Wow.

[01:14:37] [SPEAKER_05]: I did not see that coming.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_05]: All in all, I enjoyed this.

[01:14:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Let it crawl its way out of the oubliette.

[01:14:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for the fun, right?

[01:14:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, yes.

[01:14:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So, don't want to set it free.

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Ooh.

[01:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Be free.

[01:14:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Robot Jax.

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Crash and burn.

[01:14:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So, Conrad.

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Another classic.

[01:15:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:15:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Another classic.

[01:15:02] [SPEAKER_05]: What is up next?

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, next time will be our Halloween episode.

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_05]: And for Spooky Season, we have a returning special guest who wanted us to talk about the 1960 British psychological horror film, Peeping Tom.

[01:15:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I haven't seen this movie.

[01:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And it has a reputation for being one of the sort of proto slashers.

[01:15:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly, yeah.

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_05]: So, in the same way that Black Christmas tends to be overlooked in favour of Halloween, Peeping Tom tends to be overlooked by Psycho, which came out the same year.

[01:15:44] [SPEAKER_05]: But it is supposed to be just as influential.

[01:15:47] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a Michael Powell movie of Powell and Pressburger fame.

[01:15:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And those two filmmakers are getting a bit of a resurgence this year.

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_05]: A lot of remasters and retrospectives happening.

[01:16:01] [SPEAKER_05]: So, should be fun.

[01:16:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Hmm.

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, looking forward to that.

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Never seen it.

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Cool.

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So, listeners, if you want to look out for that, you can follow us on all our socials as Movie Oobly It.

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And you can email us at movie.ooblyit at gmail.com.

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[01:16:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[01:16:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And if you want to support the show, head on over to Patreon, where for as little as a dollar you can nominate films for future episodes.

[01:16:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Get extended portions of the show.

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_05]: For $5, you get to vote on the final verdict.

[01:16:31] [SPEAKER_05]: And here are exclusive Minisodes.

[01:16:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And for $10, you can be an executive producer with all the behind-the-scenes info.

[01:16:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Like Chazilla, Eddie Coulter, Isaac Sutton, Dr. Doggy, Serge, Iconographer, Ryan A. Potter, and Evan Goodchild.

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.

[01:16:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:16:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got merchandise on Redbubble and a YouTube channel.

[01:16:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And please, please give us a rating and review, if you haven't already, on whatever you're listening to us on.

[01:17:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It does help us out and spread the word of the Oobly It to the masses.

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Indeed.

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:17:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And the more superlatives you can put in your review, the more likely we are to be picked up by the algorithm and thrust in front of newbies' eyes.

[01:17:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[01:17:15] [SPEAKER_05]: So lay it on thick.

[01:17:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, please.

[01:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[01:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess that's it for this episode.

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back, Conrad.

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Does it feel weird to be back in the podcast seat?

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It does.

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:17:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'll soon get used to it, I'm sure.

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: All right, listeners, crash and burn.

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you next time.

[01:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Goodbye.

[01:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Bye for now.

[01:17:42] [SPEAKER_03]: We review the films others tend to forget.

[01:17:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Come with us and open up the movie you beat.

[01:17:53] [SPEAKER_01]: You make my drink taste like blood.