Our Thanksgiving Double-Feature Tradition | Episode 15

Thanksgiving Double Feature

Charlotte: All right. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. 

Adam: Yeah. To our very special holiday edition of 

Charlotte: Perf Damage.

Charlotte: Yeah. Our Thanksgiving episode

Adam: where we talk about our, our 

Charlotte: unusual according to some Yeah. Thanksgiving tradition. Yeah. We have a double feature that we play every single year. Yeah. 

Adam: It's not a usual one, but it's one that we've been doing for what, close to a decade now, right?

Adam: Probably. That's a long time. That is a very long time. 

Charlotte: A lot of people watch what Plane? Plane streams and automobile automobiles for sure. Yeah. That's the big one for Thanksgiving. It is. We're talking about Thanksgiving movies here. 

Adam: I mean, I'm a big fan of Than Killing, but I don't remember liking that one.

Adam: You didn't watch it with me. I don't remember. Otherwise you'd just be like, oh my God, it was so amazing. I don't think I would say that, but yeah, I'm pretty sure you would never say that. . Yeah. 

Adam: 

Adam: I know you're pretty well, I think you would not really enjoy things 

Charlotte: killing. No, I think I've seen that before or seen parts of it and was just really not, its so 

Adam: stupid.

Adam: It's amazing. 

Charlotte: Yeah. I'll pass. Yeah. So we're gonna talk about movies that have nothing to do with Thanksgiving, except for they have everything to do with our Thanksgiving. Yeah. How did this 

Adam: become our tradition, Charlotte? 

Charlotte: This double feature was on, I think it was amc. They played these two movies back to back on Thanksgiving.

Charlotte: We just happened to turn it on right when the first one was starting and I thought, Hey, this is a great Thanksgiving movie as a 

Adam: joke. Well, yeah, and it was like our post Thanksgiving, you know, like you're kind of like, Ooh, I'm so 

Charlotte: full. Yeah, it was. It was after the meal. There were a bunch of dudes over. It was me and a bunch of dudes I think.

Charlotte: I don't know that there were any females there. Yeah, it's usually 

Adam: he was a bunch of dudes at our house, so 

Charlotte: The first movie was Robocop, which I'm a big fan of. Loved me some Robocop. We all watched it, loved it like you do. It seemed like people were gonna go after Robocop ended, but then Predator came on and everybody kind of sat back down and then watched Predator 

Adam: and then they got sucked in. Yeah, because why wouldn't they? It's such a freaking awesome movie. Movie. 

Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's 

Adam: so many quotable lines from, from the moment that they do that hand clap at the beginning.

Charlotte: This is in Predator. Who, who does he high five with? Carl Weathers. Yeah. They give a high five and it's just a closeup on their biceps. Yes. And it's pretty glorious. They do a, they do a whole high five closeup on muscles. Yeah. Then it's just muscle straining.

Charlotte: Yeah. So, you know, dudes see that. They sit back down, they watch the whole movie. They do. They do. So the next year, it just sort of became a joke. I said, Hey, let's watch a Robocop and Predator. And then we did. And then 

Adam: everybody sat and 

Charlotte: watched it. that happened. And then it just became a thing.

Charlotte: And 

Adam: then every year everybody's like, Hey, you gonna put on Robocop Predator? Yeah. When we 

Charlotte: do our Friendsgiving or, yeah. 

Adam: It's a Friendsgiving. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Well we have, for the most part, we have random family members that show up and in a while always say, wait, why are we watching 

Adam: this? '

Charlotte: You know? Maybe that's why family doesn't come out to visit us for Thanksgiving anymore. could 

Adam: be. We chased them off. Family members 

Charlotte: listening. Is that why eighties action movies? Come on. You don't like movies from 1987? Both of them. Right? 

Charlotte: So anyway, so we're gonna share those with you and tell some little behind the scene stories about both of those. So if you wanna hear more about these action movies, just 

Adam: stay tuned. Stay tuned.

Adam: All right. Charlotte, what are we gonna start with? What's our first movie? 

Charlotte: Well, we're gonna go in order that The order that AMC went in. 

Adam: Yeah. And the order that we always go in every year. The 

Charlotte: order we always go in, which is Robocop first. I feel like it's 

Adam: perfection this way too. 

Charlotte: All right. We'll start off with Robocop.

Charlotte: I'll read the synopsis here. The runtime is 102 minutes. It's from 1987, directed by Paul Ver Hoen and the synopsis, in a dystopic and crime ridden Detroit. A terminally wounded cop, returns to the force as a powerful cyborg. Haunted by submerged memories, eh, you know? Yeah. 

.

Adam: This movie works on a lot of different levels, like how it's a satire. It is. It's a really fun action movie. It is. I think it's also a condemnation of the of big business. Mm-hmm. and kind of a satire of the consumer culture of the eighties. 

Charlotte: Absolutely. . Which is why I think this movie still holds up today because all of the themes are still relevant. Yeah, I agree. In this film.

Charlotte: Yeah. So basically in the film, there's a cop on the fourth, Alex Murphy. Alex Murphy, and the big evil corporation is called OmniCorp, and they own the police force and the movie takes place in futuristic Detroit. They never really specify the year that it takes place in, but the whole idea is that they want to gentrify the city, turn it into this thing called Delta City, and they have to first clean up all the crime off the streets.

Charlotte: Hence the need for these robocops, which are programmed with all the rules of the law. And by any means necessary. Take care of the crime in the city. 

Adam: Yeah. And the funny thing is that it isn't initially Robocop No. Like their first, their first program is completely different.

Adam: It's the ED 2 0 9 

Charlotte: program. Right. Which stands for enforcement Droid 2 0 9. 

Adam: Right. But that goes horribly awry. . 

Charlotte: ===== yeah, ED 2 0 9 just doesn't work out. There's a scene towards the beginning of the movie where there's a conference at the evil OmniCorp corporation, and they bring in this prototype, the ED 2 0 9, the enforcement droid, and it's this gigantic robot thing with big, big feet.

Charlotte: It's kind of hard to describe that. What does that 2 0 9 look like? I mean, he kind of looks like a big microphone with feet. Yeah, microphone on two feet. Yeah, two big legs and they try to What's gun arms? Yeah, they do with dim. Yeah. He's got these giant gun arms and they do a demonstration where they have someone point a gun at the ED 2 0 9 and.

Charlotte: He points a gun back at the person pointing the gun at him, and he says, you have 20 seconds to comply to drop your weapon. 

Adam: Yeah. Mr. Kenny, who's a junior exec at OCP on Core, right? Yeah. 

Charlotte: Ocp. Yep. And the guy drops the gun, but at 2 0 9 does not drop his guns. He malfunctions and 

Adam: does not register that the guy is complied and put down his gun 

Charlotte: and that guy gets shot a 

Adam: lot.

Adam: for like five minutes. 

Adam: And this is your opening scene too, which is amazing. It, it really sets the, the tone of the film overall. Yeah. It's incredibly violent, but in a way that's almost cartoonish because it's so over the 

Charlotte: top. Well, interestingly enough, the mpaa, when they first submitted this, made them cut a lot of the violence, particularly from that opening scene where, you know, it's not opening, but you know very much towards the beginning scene.

Charlotte: Right? With Ed two and nine, whenever he kills that junior executive because he, he shoots this guy, I don't know, it was 10, 15 seconds, 20 seconds. It's a long time. It feels like a really long time. It feels like a really long time. But when you cut that down, it makes it gory and , kind of shocking.

Adam: Well, shockingly violent, which it is. It is. 

Charlotte: But in the director's cut, the original cut, it goes on for a lot longer, and you sort of go through these moments where, oh God, that's really violent. That's crazy. Oh, whoa. And then it keeps going and then you're like, this is ridiculous. You know, you kind of come around to it so that it, yeah, that's 

Adam: that rule of comedy it's funny.

Adam: Then it's not funny. And then if it goes on for so long, it becomes funny again. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Well this is more like shocking and then, 

Adam: and then Horrific. Horrific. Then funny. Ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Read that 

Charlotte: gala. Yeah. So it's interesting how cutting that actually made it more violent, but the MPAA thought that it was more acceptable.

Adam: Yeah. Cuz it was less time on screen. Yeah. 

Charlotte: So there is a guy in a police force. 

Adam: He's murdered by Clarence Boker. 

Charlotte: He. Dies but doesn't die. Yeah. So the company decides to use his body to meld with a machine. So he becomes this half machine, half man, Robocop. Cyborg. Cyborg. Yep. 

Adam: Correct. Because the ED 2 0 9 failed so hard. Mm-hmm. when they unveiled it. OCP has to release something very soon because they said they were going to clean up crime 

Charlotte: Right. For urban PAC modification. Yes. For 

Adam: urban ation. 

Charlotte: Yeah. So that's, that's how he becomes the robocop. He's sort of a prototype and also, well he's, he's the prototype basically. Yeah. And 

Adam: they purge his.

Charlotte: Yeah. suppress his memories. He's still human, but he doesn't have any memories of who he is. 

Adam: Who he was before he became Rub cup. Right. But unfortunately those memories are persistent. Mm-hmm. and they start to come through. They do. And slowly over the course of the film, he begins to remember who he was beforehand.

Adam: Mm-hmm. , that he was Alex Murphy, he had a family 

Charlotte: and who shot and killed him and who those people ultimately work for. Right. 

Adam: That's very important. Yeah. 

Charlotte: . So this was directed by Paul Verjon, and the job didn't initially get offered to him, it went to Jonathan Kaplan. Who was gonna do it, but then he ended up turning it down and he did project X instead. 

Charlotte: Project X, that's with Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt.

Charlotte: After that, and these might not be in the right order, but it also went to Alex. Who directed Repo Man, who went on to do Sid Nancy. He seems like kind of a natural fit for this sort of thing.

Charlotte: That would've been a 

Adam: very different film though. Then he has that punk rock aesthetic that this does not. 

Charlotte: I think it would've worked though cuz it would've been could've. Yeah. Very anti-establishment, which this film definitely 

Adam: is. It's basically given the finger to everything.

Adam: Corporations. Yeah, 

Charlotte: yeah. Then it went to David Kronenberg for a bit. 

Adam: Ooh, God, I would've loved to that. Can you imagine that? I think that Robocop would've looked very different. He would've been very human, but with the components of the computer. That would've been a body horror movie at that point.

Adam: Yeah, probably. Yeah. 87 would've been 

Charlotte: after the fly. After the fly. That was 1986. So just the year before. 

Charlotte: Would it still be our double feature?

Charlotte: Who knows? 

Adam: Probably with that I, that pedigree probably it would if 

Charlotte: Chris Whale, if if AMC showed it Yeah. They, before Predator on Thanksgiving. It would've happened. It would've happened, yeah. So Paul Verjon he got offered the script. He said that he flipped through it. 

Charlotte: He thought this is trash tossed it. And he was on vacation with his wife, I think in the south of France or somewhere in Europe. . He's. The Netherlands. The Netherlands, and his wife picked up the script and she read it and she said that there's a lot of really good stuff in here. I think you could make statements and comments about things, and I think you should reread this.

Charlotte: So he reread it, decided to do it. Yeah. I think he 

Adam: saw it as schlock because of the title. 

Charlotte: Robocop too. well, that's the thing about Robocop. It's a total B movie concept, but elevated to level Exactly. With its themes, 

Adam: I feel like that movie is way better than it should have been.

Adam: Mm-hmm. on the page. Yeah, I bet it read completely different. 

Charlotte: So Robocop takes place in Detroit, but it was actually shot in Dallas, Texas. The only time you see Detroit is in the stock footage at the beginning 

Adam: of the movie 

Charlotte: detroit like big time claims this. Oh, they do 

Adam: so much. So it says Detroit so much. It does, 

Charlotte: 

Charlotte: So Detroit actually had a Robocop day in 2014 they had Robocops showing up everywhere. So there was a guy dressed as Robocop that showed up on the morning news to give you the weather report.

Charlotte: Oh, that's awesome. Robocop showed up at Tiger Stadium and threw the first pitch at a baseball game. How? 

Adam: How do you throw the first pitch in that outfit? There is video 

Charlotte: in that outfit. Yeah. Yeah. You can hear the commentators, which , it's kind of funny. 

Charlotte: There was a push in, the early two thousands to design a Robocop statue and erected for Detroit because they thought, well, Philadelphia has a rocky statue. We should have a Robocop statue. So there was a Kickstarter that raised 70 grand to build this statue, which has been built but does not have a permanent home yet.

Charlotte: So I think it's still sitting in a warehouse. 

Charlotte: In addition to all of this, Detroit also hosted the Robocop musical for about a decade 

Charlotte: you can actually watch the whole musical on Vimeo if you just searched Robocop the musical. It's a part one and a part two.

Charlotte: They have a break for the intermission. It is freaking hilarious. I wish that it would come to la 

Adam: we'll put a link in the description of this episode. Yeah, 

Charlotte: it's really good. There's, it's well with your time. It's amazing. Yeah. The songs are really good. The Dick Jones song is pretty incredible. 

Adam: There's also an amazing number sung by a Emil who is part of Clarence 

Charlotte: Bokers gang. Clarence Boer is the big bad in Robocop.

Charlotte: Well, 

Adam: Dick Jones, the big bad, well, Clarence bought a curve. He's 

Charlotte: the little or bad. He works for the big bad. He's the little or bad, but. Still bad. 

Adam: A meal in the play is gay and he has an entire song about how hard it is 

Charlotte: it's not easy being gay when you're a gangster.

Adam: 

Adam: It's so good. It's a great 

Charlotte: number. It's really, there's a whole tap dance to it too. Yeah. 

Charlotte: . Okay. So the whole movie takes place in Detroit. Detroit loves the movie. Robocop is played by Peter Weller in the film. He was not the first choice. Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually, they were thinking about him, but they realized he would look ridiculous in a Robocop outfit.

Charlotte: The whole Robocop outfit. He's got kind of a metal armor on. So imagine Arnold as big as he is with additional metal on, he would definitely 

Adam: not be able to move anywhere so big. Yeah. So it would like you couldn't 

Charlotte: get through doors. Yeah. They thought, they thought about him, then they thought about Michael Iron's side.

Charlotte: Tom Barringer was considered. Oh, that's for the role? Yeah. Of Alex Murphy, AKA Robocop And Rer Howard, who worked a lot with Paul Ver Hoven was also heavily considered. 

Adam: He was specs. Yeah. Can you, you imagine if Rob Bot took one look at Arnold and was like, ah, I don't think so. Yeah. Rob 

Charlotte: Botin did the effects in the movie and he designed the Robocop suit 

Adam: 

Adam: Rob een, who won an Academy Award for the. In 1982. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Really incredible makeup and special effects. 

Adam: Did Bicentennial Man? . 

Charlotte: Okay. Right. Well, speaking of Academy Award, that was a joke by the way. Robocop was nominated for three Oscars and it won. One of them 

Adam: did it. 

Charlotte: It went for sound effects editing, but it was also nominated for Best Sound and Best Film editing. Nice. Yeah. So Academy Award? Winner Academy. Academy Award winner. Yeah, that's, I mean, these are the kind of things that we recommend around here. So Peter Weller was chosen as robocop, they say, because of his chin and his mouth, because that's what you see the most of in the.

Charlotte: You know, you got a pretty good gen in mouth, I guess. Very expressive. He manages to emote a lot through his facial expressions. Although you can barely see his face. You feel that he's human. Even though this guy's half robo cop, I don't think we've really explained what Robocop is.

Adam: , Peter Weller is a good actor and he really embraces the physicality of the role too. His Robocop is much different than other people's Robocop. Yeah. The way he moves the locomotion, I read that he took a lot of classes about movement. Oh, 

Charlotte: he was, he studied mime work. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. But once he got into the costume, he realized that that wasn't going to work. Like, so they had to rethink how Robocop was gonna move, cuz Paul Verjon kind of wanted him to be more snake-like and more smooth.

Charlotte: But as soon as he got in the suit, they realized that also wasn't possible. Right. So, 

Adam: well you can see too, it's methodical. He moves his head first and then his body moves. Mm-hmm. It's well thought out. He really thought about how this character would move if he was a computer or run by a computer.

Charlotte: So Peter Weller plays Robocop. He was fired a couple days into shooting because he and Paul Verjon butted heads so much.

Charlotte: So they shut down production, the producer did for two days, and they started reaching out to Lance Hendrickson to replace Peter Weller. , but then they realized that the suit that they had made for Robocop, which was hella expensive, had been custom fitted to Peter Weller's body. And it would be crazy expensive to go back and to redo that.

Charlotte: And plus it would be time consuming. And they didn't really have that cause they were, they had just started filming. 

Adam: Right. Despite the fact that Lance Edwardson has a very similar frame. 

Charlotte: He does, yeah. And he, he would've been great. He would've been 

Adam: been great in that too, but there's no way that they could have fit it cuz it, Rob OT actually cast his body, right?

Charlotte: No. So that was 

Adam: complicated. Things built specifically for him. They would've had to go back to square 

Charlotte: one to do it again. So Weller and Vera Hoen made up, went back on set, started filming Bot and Vera Hoven actually had a lot of fights too. There's one where they were fighting over the lighting.

Charlotte: Whenever you see. Alex Murphy's face for the first time when he's a robo cop, and they take the little mass thing off, and the way it was lighting it, they kept fighting over the look and they had these huge blowouts. Well, 

Adam: The fact that the special effects hold up to this day, that stretched over kind of look of the skin. Mm-hmm. On the metal frame still holds up to this day is a testament to Rob bot's work. Mm-hmm. , it was, it's an amazing, amazing makeup job.

Adam: Yeah. 

Charlotte: Another cool thing, Monty Hellman was actually hired as the second unit director on this, which is kind of like the assistant director position.

Charlotte: Yeah. Two lane black 

Adam: top guy. Yeah. No 

Charlotte: way. Yeah. He said that he was originally put up to direct the film, but the producer said that he didn't see Hellman as an action director. So, They brought in Paul Ver Hoen, and then they ended up hiring Monty Hellman to work second unit directing, but directing the action scenes in the film, basically.

Charlotte: So he 

Adam: wasn't an 

Charlotte: action director, but he could, but could direct action. Yeah. That's a very Hollywood band. Yeah. So you figured that one out. Yeah. So Monty Hellman, like, like you said, he did two Lane Blacktop, which is a huge cult car chase movie from 1971. But he started out with Roger Corman.

Charlotte: Roger Corman hired him to do his first film. 

Charlotte: Yeah. The first film was a horror film called beast from Haunted Cave in 1959 and it was shot in South Dakota back to back with skit troop attack. So Roger Corman shot two movies at the same time with different directors, but same actors, same location, same, a lot of things, but two completely different movies, which is So Roger Corman 

Charlotte: There was a funny publicity stunt when this movie came out they wanted to get a picture of Richard Nixon shaking hands with Robocop to use in their advertising. . So they pay Richard Nixon, 25,000. And that money he donated to the Boys Club of America. Richard Nixon shaking hands with Robocop Robocop, why not?

Charlotte: Right? Yeah. Now they would just Photoshop that, yeah. So Roger Ebert loved it. He gave it three outta four stars and 

Charlotte: Roger Ebert's review starts out. There is a moment early in Robocop when a robot runs a muck. It has been programmed to warn a criminal to drop his gun and then to shoot him if he does not comply the robot. An ugly and un gangly machine is wheeled into a board meeting of the company that hopes to make millions.

Charlotte: By retailing it, a junior executive has chosen to pull a gun on the machine. The warning is issued. The exec drops the gun. The robot repeats the warning counts to five and shoots the guy dead. This is a very funny scene, whether it was even funnier before the MPAA code and ratings administrated.

Charlotte: Requested trims. And it is, I suppose, a moot point. It is funny in the same way that the assembly line in Charlie Chap's modern times is funny because there is something hilarious about logic applied to a situation where it is not relevant. 

Adam: Oh, that's cool. I love that he hearkens back to, 

Charlotte: to modern times.

Charlotte: Modern times. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true because , this would never happen. And yet they play it very real like it would happen, just like, tightening the bolts for what purpose in modern times, . 

Adam: Right. And, but in the reality of the film that they've set up, it's acceptable.

Adam: Like you 

Charlotte: accept it.

Charlotte: he liked how this movie starts off sort of as a normal Suspense thriller film, but then it completely goes a different way than he expected it to go. So he really liked it, that's what I love about Roger Ebert, though.

Charlotte: he's unabashed about things that he likes. He's not afraid to say that he really likes something that maybe most critics wouldn't like. I feel 

Adam: like he accepts a movie for what it is or what 

Charlotte: it's trying to be. Exactly. He goes in and he judges every movie based on itself, not comparing it to other things, which is how I try to look at movies too, which, if you look at my letter box, sometimes it'll be all over the place and I get called out for, why did you really like this?

Charlotte: But you gave this, that, people disagree with my ratings, but you can't judge movies against each other. No, you 

Adam: can't say, Hey, Schindler's List against Robocop, or, you know, 

Charlotte: I mean, you could, to have fun. 

Charlotte: . So I have a fun little story about a film that I was working on. It's actually a serial, so one of those Republic Picture , chapter serials that came out in the thirties and forties. There was one called the Ma Marvel from 1943.

Charlotte: And in it, one of the characters says a line that's oddly similar to one of the most quotable lines from Robocop . And I thought that was the funniest thing whenever I heard that. But no one else really thought it was that funny.

Charlotte: Maybe because they don't watch it every year on Thanksgiving, but I had to record it and bring it home and show you. 

Adam: Yeah. So like in the room, no response, huh? No one was like, whoa. That's just like 

Charlotte: robo guy people. People know the quote, but they didn't necessarily know where it came from. Yeah. It's pretty funny.

Charlotte: just, I just wanna mention a little thing about Peter Weller. He has had a really interesting career since Robocop. So he's still acting, but in the early two thousands he decided that he wanted to go back to school.

Charlotte: And he ended up getting a PhD in Italian Renaissance art history. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. First he went to Syracuse University. He did their master's program in Florence, Italy and then he got his PhD from UCLA in 2014. So he even taught, He used his PhD and he taught a class at Syracuse University 

Charlotte: Called Hollywood and the Roman Empire. for a couple years. Apparently it was a very, very popular class. 

Adam: Well, I mean, wouldn't you wanna go take a class with Peter Weller? Yeah, I would. 

Charlotte: Yeah. He's even been on the History channel even before he got his PhD. There's a series called Engineering an Empire which is all about different empires and European history and he is the host of this whole thing that, and he takes you through all these different empires that's from 2006, kind of cool.

Charlotte: So Robocop laugh, do whatever you will, but the film is so relevant. It's got a lot to say. There's a lot about capitalism, privatization 

Charlotte: it questions automation and what is human and how much of yourself do you have to lose before you're not? You think about that with all the organs that are being grown, or they talk about 3D printing and things like that. 

Adam: Elon Musk talks about putting chips in our brains too.

Charlotte: Yeah. And how much of that can you do before you're not human? So it brings up those kind of things. Also, police having too much power, or corporations owning things like police or hospitals, or prisons. 

Adam: Also this predicted the bankruptcy of Detroit. It 

Charlotte: did, oddly, in 2013 Detroit, the city declared bankruptcy. That's actually predicted in the movie robocop, 

Adam: 1987 

Charlotte: people. Yeah. lots of good stuff in there. So if you haven't seen it, check it out.

Charlotte: It's fun. It's better than it should be.

Adam: It never takes itself too seriously. No, and , Clarence Boer is such an amazing, bad guy. I'll buy that for a dollar.

Adam: So many 

Charlotte: quotable lines. Robocop 1987. Check it out part one of your double feature on Thanksgiving.

Charlotte: All right, Adam, so tell us all about the second part of our double feature Predator 

Adam: 1987, directed by John Mcan,

Adam: T R t. One hour 47 minutes. A team of commandos on a mission in a central American jungle, find themselves hunted by an extraterrestrial warrior. And that's it in a nutshell. An alien. Yes, an alien warrior.

Adam: So the, the really interesting thing about this film is it started out as a joke that makes a lot of sense. The genesis of this film was in a joke that was floating around Hollywood after Rocky Four came out. There was a joke that's well after he beat the Superhuman, who's he gonna fight next?

Adam: And Alien. And there were these two guys floating around Hollywood It's a lot of

Charlotte: floating around in Hollywood. 

Adam: These two young screenwriters were like, whoa, wait, wait a minute, Rocky versus an Alien. That's a really cool idea.

Adam: So they wrote a script kind of based on that concept called The Hunter, where a bunch of extraterrestrial. Warriors are hunted by, an invisible monster. They're the top of the food chain, and then they get hunted by an extraterrestrial monster that, that tops them all. And then, you know, they kind of develop that concept a little further and they're like, well, what's the greatest threat?

Adam: Oh, it's man, man is the greatest threat. So what if man is hunted by an extra terrestrial? Oh, wait a minute. What's the, you know, the most formidable person in humanity? Oh, that's the hyper trained special ops forces like warrior. You 

Charlotte: know, this is one of the ultimate 

Adam: dude movies. Oh, it's such a dude movie.

Adam: It's amazing though, setting the 

Charlotte: jungle, all kinds of dudes that hit the gym nonstop. 

Charlotte: Who's in this one? 

Adam: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Carl Weathers. Jesse Ventura, Shane Black is in this film as an actor. Who's Shane Black, the writer. Kiss, kiss, bang bang iron Man, lethal Weapon, his pedigree is huge. So he acts in this film. They hired him hoping that he would do onset rewrites, and he was like, no, I'm just an actor on this one. 

Adam: So originally Jean-Claude Van Dam was hired to be the predator in this film and he only lasted a few days on set . Why did he. He did, he ultimately quit. There were a few reasons cited. One of one of the reasons was that a producer saw him, he's five nine and he's on set with all these gigantic dudes, you know?

Adam: Uh, Yeah. Arnold's what? Six one. So he's six one. Bill Duke, six, four Jesse, the six four Sonny Lando is six three. All these guys are gigantic. And they're like, how is this menacing? I don't understand how this little five nine dude is gonna scare these people. So that was one reason given.

Adam: Another reason given was that he was super difficult to work with. really? Yeah. He did not want to be behind a mask. He wanted his face to be seen on screen. Oh yeah. That's not gonna work. And they're like, okay, no dude, this doesn't work for our concept. 

Charlotte: Yeah, this is an alien predator. Yeah. 

Adam: And you are the guy hired to play the predator.

Adam: And the other thing that's been cited over the years is that he complained about being in the body suit and that it was too hot in the jungle and that he couldn't act because he got overheated. It just didn't work out. 

Charlotte: Yeah. Well I'm glad it didn't because who they got.

Charlotte: Yeah. 

Adam: So ultimately they got Kevin Peter Hall, seven foot two. Yeah. This gigantic human being who just completely embodied that character Cause 

Charlotte: who had just come off of Harry and the Henderson, Harry and Henderson's.

Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. He played, yeah, he played Harry. Yep. I love that movie. Who doesn't love that movie? So good. So good. Anyways, 

Adam: so Kevin Peter Hall came on to be the Predator and They reconceived the whole concept of the predator when they had this very imposing kind of figure. 

Charlotte: What did they do? 

Adam: So originally the Predator was designed by Richard Edlin, the guy who had worked on Star Wars and Poltergeist and star Trek, the motion picture too. his effects company had done a lot of big budget films and he designed this creature that kind of looked like a cross between a human dog with big yellow eyes.

Adam: Mm-hmm. , have you seen what it looked like? No, I haven't. Can I show you a picture real quick? 

Charlotte: Oh, whoa. That really looks different. It looks kind of like a, dog skull on some weird muscley muscles is in no skin and muscles over bone. Yeah. Very. With sort of an armor. That's weird looking, 

Adam: I mean it's not a terrible design. No, it's not. You've seen alien type things looking like that before.

Adam: Yeah. This is bad. It's not the iconic alien that we ultimately got. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Doesn't have the dreadlock 

Adam: things. No, not at all. It's also kind of insectoid right Very insectoid with, it 

Charlotte: almost looks like it belongs in the Teenage mut, ninja Turtles. , 

Adam: or even worse the power Rangers.

Charlotte: 

Charlotte: so they redesigned the suit. So they ended up redesigning the suit just because 

Adam: it wasn't what they were looking for. They were looking for something really dynamic looking something that nobody had ever seen. And, in Richard's defense the script originally called it very insectoid, once they got into production, they realized this wasn't gonna work.

Adam: So then they, pitched around town, and they said, Hey, can someone come up with a very unique look? And Rick Baker pitched something but ultimately it ended up going to Stan Winston, the guy that designed the Terminator. Mm-hmm. . And the funny, this is a great story.

Adam: The concept of the predator came from a flight that Jim Cameron and Stan Winston took together. San Witson was gonna pitch his idea for the creature. So he is sitting there next to Jim Cameron drawing on the plane. On the plane, and he says, I'm trying to draw this alien. And uh, Cameron leans over to him and he says, you know, I've never seen an alien with Mandibles.

Adam: I think that would be a really good look. And so he gave him the core concept of the actual design. Stan Winston said that as soon as he said that to him, it all clicked in his head and he saw it. He saw it instantly. Yeah. I mean, that's, Oh my gosh, this is gonna be something no one has ever seen 

Charlotte: before on screen.

Charlotte: It's so unique looking and you 

Adam: haven't, yeah, no one had ever done anything like that before. you know? Yeah.

Charlotte: These effects really hold up too. They're all practical. Yeah. Well, they're not all practical that No, that's all practical.

Charlotte: That is. Yeah. I'm just saying not all the effects are practical. Yeah. This was nominated for best visual effects for an Academy Award. Oh. For visual effects. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It did not win, but it 

Adam: was nominated. Yeah. That design is incredible. Mm-hmm. and that, and that's why I feel like this franchise has, the longevity that it does is the original design of that creature.

Adam: . This was a really hard shoot they shot in Mexico. It shot cause 

Charlotte: most of it takes place in a jungle.

Charlotte: So they actually shot it on location? They did, yes. 

Adam: So originally they decided shoot this film next to the resort in Parto Valarta. So they had a place to stay good place to live, right. That kind of thing. And you know, a lot of beautiful stuff was very close to them, right? But that is not on the Gulf side, so it's not as jungle like.

Adam: And when they originally went down to scout the sites, it was very green and ver and beautiful and they were like, oh, this is gonna be perfect. When they actually went down there to shoot the film, it was fall. All the leaves had fallen off the trees . And so they literally were gluing leaves onto the back, onto the trees for shots and, and spray painting them green.

Adam: That's funny. Yeah. So they ended up moving it about halfway through the shoot over to the Gulf side, which is super jungley and that's where they ran into a lot of problems. It got way more expensive. Everybody got sick. Arnold Schwarzenegger lost 25 pounds. So did John Mcan, the director.

Adam: He lost 25 pounds. And Arnold could probably lose it and afford it. John Mcan was a skinny dude to start out with, and he was very sickly afterwards. They did not have good water over there. It was a really hard shoot. The elements were very, very much a part of their everyday life. Yeah. Scorpions, snakes, leeches.

Adam: Hey, 

Charlotte: well maybe that's part of what makes the movie so good. Well, 

Adam: I think it might be the reality of it, you know? Yeah. Like, These guys were suffering Yeah. For, for this. And it looks like it on screen. Yeah. It 

plays 

Charlotte: like that on screen. Yeah. 

Adam: Oh, Arnold got married during this film. This is when he married Maria Schriver. They were in the middle of shooting and he ended up getting married. And so they shut the production down for three days so they can go on their honeymoon. And then he came back and finish shooting . That's cool. Everybody said he was super nervous leading up to it.

Adam: To That's the wedding? Yeah, to the wedding. He was really freaking out, right before it. It was pretty funny. Also, this was super masculine film, as you've already noted, and all the guys were in massive competition for weightlifting all the time.

Charlotte: Hey, if you were in a movie with Arnold and you had to wear a tank top, would you not be at the gym 24 

Adam: 7? Yes. So all of them trained together and I guess they had competitions all the time. They would get up three hours early before their call time and go and work out. So that they would be properly pumped on set, right?

Adam: Oh, it shows except for cold weathers. , cold weathers. He's making a stew. No . Right? He claimed that his physique was natural and that he didn't have to work out. And he ran that joke the entire time. Apparently he waited for those guys to be done and go to set and then he would go and work out super hard's.

Adam: Hard working out 

Charlotte: in his hotel room. . 

Adam: Yeah, but he would not work out with the guys cuz he claimed that everything was natural on his body. That was the way he was born, baby.

Adam: So, despite this movie being an unmitigated sci-fi action film classic now when it came out, it was not well reviewed. No, no, not at all. This is what the Los Angeles Times had to say. Oh, Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times said, arguably one of the emptiest feebles most derivative scripts ever made into a major motion studio movie.

Adam: Oh, burn. Ouch. Right? But that's not even as bad as Janet Maslin of New York Times. She called it grizzly and dull with few surprises. What? 

Charlotte: Okay. I mean, let's be honest. It's an action film. It's got all the explosions. It's Arnold. 

Adam: No one wanted Arnold a good review back then. Yeah. Except for our boy, Roger Eber.

Adam: Of course. 

Adam: This is a quote from Roger Ebert, Predator moves at a breakneck pace. It has strong, simple characterizations, it has good location photography and terrific special effects. And it supplies what it claims to supply an effective action movie.

Adam: And that just goes to say what we said about him in the first review. 

Charlotte: He reviews movies for what they're trying to 

Adam: be for. Yes. He said, Hey, objectively, this is an action film. It's got sci-fi elements. Mm-hmm. , is it a good action film? And it is an exceptional action film. Yeah. I could watch it every year.

Adam: Oh, and we do . 

Charlotte: Um, And so many good quotes in this film. It's endlessly quotable. 

Adam: Highly quotable. What most people don't realize is that John mc tier is also. making commentary about military, industrial complex and guns and things like that.

Charlotte: Well, as a lot of sci-fi 

Adam: movies do. Also they ran into a little financial issue with this film when it was about two thirds of the way done. Fox was really happy with all the dailies they were getting back. But they ran outta money and I think part of that had to do with that big move. Right. That makes sense. From one side to the other. And, they couldn't shoot the ending of the film and so they went back to Fox on their hands and knees and said, can you give us a little more money?

Adam: And of course they did 

Adam: they got an additional $2.5 million to finish the film.

Adam: So Originally this film was budgeted at 15 million and it ended up being about 18 million all in and it grossed a hundred million at the box office and another $35 million worldwide. It's widely considered one of the greatest action sci-fi films of all time. And it spawned what three sequels now two Aliens versus Predator Sequels. So six movies all in 

Charlotte: then there was that new predator that came out just this past year.

Charlotte: Right. Pre Yeah. Pray, I thought was excellent. I know some people that didn't like it. Oh, I 

Adam: thought it was incredible. They went back to basics. They stripped it all back down. 

Charlotte: Yeah. It's the predator story that it takes place in a Native American setting in the past. Yeah. In the past.

Charlotte: And it's a female versus the predator, and she's a very believable badass, she's not a badass by trade, but she holds her own. 

Adam: They take time to actually set up the culture that she lives in.

Adam: Yeah, they do. They do. And I think too, by stripping away the modern weapons against a predator, it puts you at a 

Charlotte: disadvantage, right? Because a predator is really high tech. Mm-hmm. , that's something you didn't mention. Oh, yeah. 

Adam: Earlier we didn't talk about any of the toys and things that Yeah. And he's 

Charlotte: not just a 

Adam: monster.

Adam: One of, one of the things about the series is that in each incarnation you get more technological advances, like cool hunting tools. Yeah.

Adam: Oh, this is interesting too. The two writers of the original screenplay, the Hunter John and Jim Thomas are now suing for the rights of the original screenplay back. So it's a similar situation to the Friday the 13th thing, where if they end up winning the rights back then it'll be split across different incarnations of it.

Adam: So like in Friday the 13th the original writer, Victor Miller, owns the name Jason Forhe. He owns the name Friday the 13th. He does not own the hockey mask because that came in subsequent ones. And so it could be a similar situation with this franchise where they will own the rights to certain aspects of the predator. Like the creature design. Yeah. Things like that that happened in the first movie. And that Disney will then have to either come to some sort of agreement with them to get it back, or they make other films in that world with the stuff that they own, but not the things that have come subsequently. It's an interesting situation we're in now with that kind of thing. If you are the originator of a script or concept that is now owned by other people, 35 years later, you can sue to get it back. Interesting. Yeah. So anyway, that's our double feature. 

Charlotte: That's our Thanksgiving tradition every year. If you ever find yourself at our house, it will happen. 

Adam: Just go with it. 

Adam: It may seem weird at first. Hey, if you've had enough wine, it, it's all good. Don't worry about it. And if 

Charlotte: you're at our house, you've had enough wine, , 

Adam: absolutely. 

Charlotte: All right. 

Charlotte: Thanks for joining us 

Charlotte: feel free to send us a message, perf damage podcast@gmail.com. Let us know what your Thanksgiving traditions are, what double features you like to watch. I've heard a bunch of interesting ones, all of which I've forgotten by. So we can cut that or you can send us a note on Twitter where app perf damage.

Charlotte: You can also check out every single film that we've listed or that we've talked about here, listed in our perf damage letter box account. and it'll all be there. They'll all be there. Adam's keeping it up to date, 

Adam: All right. Until next time. 

Adam: Thanks for joining us here on Perf Damage.