Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Universal Soldier (1992) - Roland Emmerich | Houselights #186

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Universal Soldier (1992) - Roland Emmerich | Houselights #186 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the ned Palty. Welcome back to House Lights, specifically the House
0:24
of Emeric, where we are looking at the works of Roland Emeric, legendary
0:30
action big budget director who delivered so many treasured memories to those of us who
0:35
lived through the nineteen nineties and those who discovered things on video afterward. Here
0:41
we are. Are you ready to regenerate your love for Jean Claude Van Dam's
0:47
action movie career. I hope so, because we are looking this week at
0:52
nineteen ninety two's Universal Soldier, which gives me great pleasure to welcome to the
0:58
squads regenerated from the Battle of Helm's Deep and Sergeant Darren Moser, who maintains
1:08
the kid friendly battle truck Transform a thon thingy that maybe could have been merchandise
1:15
had this been a PG thirteen movie. Gentlemen, are you ready to tackle
1:19
the mission and dissect the resurrected soldiers of Universal Soldier? I'm ready, I
1:26
am. I got a bucket of ice. Yes, a bucket of ice.
1:33
Rated art really doesn't stop the toy train. If we look at RoboCop,
1:37
there were many a toy and a cartoon and many other things. So
1:42
this totally could have been a toy line. That's true. That's true.
1:46
I you know, we love you put them in ice and they change color.
1:49
It totally would have had one of those chemical things you put your action
1:52
failures in ice, and the key the cold changes it. I think some
1:56
matchbox cars like that they had. I just don't want an anatomically correct Jean
2:00
clon Beddam. That's I just don't want that. You know, all his
2:04
clothes come off on this doll. I don't get it. You know,
2:07
it was actually a hallmark before we get into the everything. I was a
2:12
huge Jean Claude van Damn fan, the way any sane, rational young man
2:17
was back in the late eighties and early nineties. If you put Jean Claude
2:21
van dam in front of it, it was like, there's at least gonna
2:23
be some fighting. I know, there's gonna be some fight scenes here,
2:25
and somebody's gonna do the splits. I'm on board for this. The downside,
2:30
being as you're alluding to the nudity, I believe I have seen Jean
2:34
Claude van Dam's naked posterior almost as many times as my own. Somehow,
2:38
and I don't know how I feel about that. But how do you guys
2:43
feel about Universal Soldier? That's what we're here to discuss. I'm the only
2:46
one old enough to have seen this in the movie theater. We know that.
2:50
And I have a story that scarred me for life having to do with
2:54
it, where I had to see it twice in one week because I saw
2:59
it one time, didn't care for it, and then grew up in a
3:02
small town and when my friend was visiting, we was like, oh,
3:06
well, I didn't see it, I said, but I did, and
3:08
he said, there's nothing else to do where you live. I said,
3:10
that's a fair point. I guess I'm going to see this again. And
3:15
so I saw it twice. I helped contribute to his ninety five million dollar
3:19
box office. But I need to know, Tristan, was how many times
3:24
did your father show this to you? Or was this for Boten? In
3:28
the Ridell family playlist, this was This was not for Boden. But it
3:32
was something that my dad never really got into. I mean, like,
3:38
you know, like I've seen tons of Segal and Schwarzenegger and Salone and John
3:45
cleudeven dam like I remember, you know, Kickboxer and blood Sport and things
3:50
like that, Like we would watch those, like we would watch the TV
3:53
cuts you know of John claud Vendam a lot. But Universal Soldier never really
3:57
Oh oh uh oh what was it? Time Cop Time Cop? Was that
4:01
was the watershed moment? That was all downhill after that. Yeah, yeah,
4:05
like that was when he had the mullet right one of the times.
4:09
Yes, yeah, like we yes, that one. Like my dad was
4:13
just like, no, now see you here, Tristan, this is this
4:16
I'm gonna sit you down for this one, okay, So like you just
4:19
that you would start explaining it to me. It was a street fighter too,
4:23
right, that was definitely in the downward slope of this as it was,
4:27
Yes, it was, yeah, yeah. Universal Soldier never really never
4:31
really broke into the Riddell household family favorites category, the shelf as it were.
4:38
So this was actually my first time seeing it all the way through.
4:41
I remember seeing bits and pieces here and there, you know, when it
4:44
would pop up at two am on TNT. But no, this this is
4:46
my first time from beginning to end. Oh delightful, Darren. I know
4:51
this is not your first time beginning to end, But how many years has
4:54
it been since the first time you saw you, it has been a while.
4:59
This was definitely a Blockbuster rental. You know. It's funny because looking,
5:03
you know, back through it, I would have sworn that the cover
5:08
for this is the cover that's like one of the sequels where it has like
5:12
kind of a circle around it. That's the more known poster, but that's
5:15
not actually the poster for this one. I'm like, oh, it's not
5:19
okay. I would have put money. If we were on Who Wants to
5:23
Be a Millionaire and they're like, what movie is this poster? I would
5:26
have lost. But no, this was yeah, definitely, you know,
5:30
I mean, you guys know me. I was living in the sci fi
5:33
slash fantasy. It should have been two segments, but it was always one
5:36
segment, a blockbuster every week, checking out cool new stuff. And yeah,
5:43
that's definitely where I picked up on Universal Soldier. Probably probably around high
5:46
school. I would have to guess. I can't put a date to it,
5:50
but yeah, so it's definitely I don't own it. It's not on
5:55
my roster. But it was fun getting to revisit it and seeing if it
6:00
kind of held up to that little bit of the salgia memory. Yeah,
6:03
I mean it's it's definitely a movie of its time. There are a whole
6:08
lot of hallmarks of its time. But the first question, the most important
6:12
question, is we have a movie that deals with a lot of you know,
6:16
there's a time jump in the beginning, There's you know, a lot
6:19
of action that is put into this. There's a lot of fake military mumbo
6:25
jumbo put into it. There's a sci fi angle and everything like that.
6:30
My question is this is a director coming second in a row to a novel
6:34
science fiction concept, novel science fiction concept with a question mark after it,
6:39
because there are doubt there's undoubtedly the DNA of RoboCop in here, and some
6:44
people at the time compared it to Terminator two, which I consider something of
6:46
a puzzler, but we all agreed that, you know, Moon forty four
6:51
Tristan was a bit of a challenging script. Do you find a director who
6:59
is hell helping shape a script to the best that it can be here,
7:02
or do you find somebody who pulled the script off the shelf and said,
7:05
we'll add a couple of funny lines for Jean Claude and go I you know,
7:11
after reading this is so this is so weird, But like after reading
7:16
you know what they went through to get it made, you know, he
7:21
you know, Emeric was just like, yeah, I want Devlin on this
7:25
one. Am I saying that right? Right? Yeah? Like Dean Devlin.
7:28
Yep, yeah, I want Dean Devlin on this one. I want
7:30
him to do it. I this one. This is the type of movie
7:34
that definitely feels like I'm not I'm not trying to be effusive with praise preemptively
7:42
and say like Emeric is some sort of auteur, but this definitely feels like
7:46
some like a salvage mission mission where the concept is really interesting. It's a
7:53
great it's a great sci fi concept. It's a really great sci fi concept
7:58
of I mean, you know, he died and Nam you know, resurrected
8:03
to be used as a super soldier later in life, like later on in
8:07
a different era. He's a man out of time, you know, like
8:13
you know, the Vietnam era. The Vietnam VET is very much defined in
8:18
in cinema as PTSD, Like my god, like like the amount of movies
8:24
that we have about Vietnam vets going through PTSD dwarfs anything that we have in
8:31
reference to any other war or any other veteran going through PTSD, and so
8:37
you mix that with a sci fi concept of you know, coming back,
8:41
and you know it has this It has a horrible introduction followed by a really
8:46
great what's a what? What kind of term am I looking for? Like
8:50
we're like rising action, like you have ok, yeah, you have a
8:54
really you have a horrible introduction followed by a really great rising action and so
8:58
it definitely feels like I'm an artist is trying to fight a studio system.
9:05
As I was watching this, I kept feeling like like Emeric had an idea
9:09
in his head on what he wanted to do and yet had a lot of
9:13
restraint. And I think previously like there was like one or two different directors
9:18
who wanted to make this movie and were like, you know what, You're
9:22
not giving me enough money. You like, you're not letting me do what
9:24
I want to do. So I'm out and Emeric's just like, hey,
9:26
I can do it. And so this to the long long answer short too
9:33
late. I know, I feel like Emeric is he has an idea in
9:39
his head, but he's being kind of held back by the studio system and
9:43
by producers and just the mechanics of cinema. Do you do you feel the
9:48
same way, Darren, or do you feel that this is somebody still struggling
9:52
with source material? No, I mean it. I agree with Tristan.
9:58
It does feel like, you know, the fact that it's being rewritten is
10:03
not a shock to me. Like it definitely feels like there was that nugget
10:07
of a good idea, and I think you see that in You can definitely
10:11
tell what scenes were like bangers and what scenes were like, well, we
10:15
have to get from A to B, so let's put something here like the
10:18
Damn. That scene is probably the best sequence in the entire movie, from
10:26
establishing what's going on to showing how the Universal Soldier program works. That is
10:33
like the core. And then after that it's like, you know, okay,
10:39
well we have to get to the part where the girl sees it and
10:41
then she's in trouble, and then we have to have the moment that you
10:45
know, Van dam goes off the rails, and then somehow they're at a
10:50
motel and we start to kind of spiral, you know, as far as
10:54
the big set pieces. But I I will say, though, the thing
11:01
I remembered the most from all the times I've watched it is the truck.
11:05
The truck was my my favorite thing. The fact I still don't quite know
11:09
how it could collapse and uncollapse and not squish everything that's inside. But I
11:13
didn't care. It didn't matter, you know, it could be a tartest
11:16
inside for all I cared. But the fact that this thing driving it comes
11:20
out of like a super guppy, like they deploy it out of a plane,
11:24
and then as it's driving down the road, I swear the thing takes
11:28
up two lanes. It's so big it is uh and it's you know,
11:33
got a great set piece. It does a lot of cool stuff. So
11:37
I always loved the mobile, the mobile command unit. That was my face.
11:41
Did you guys ever see Spice World, the Spice Girls movie? Of
11:46
course I saw that in theaters. Of course you did. Okay, it's
11:50
amazing if you haven't seen it, everyone needs it was But the first thing
11:58
I thought of, like Darren, when you miss the truck and how you're
12:03
just like, how on earth does that collapse? It has to be like
12:05
a tartist, it's got to be bigger on the inside. I love how
12:07
in the Spice World. The first thing I thought of was Spice world because
12:11
they have the they have the British, the the Union Jack bus and it's
12:16
clearly just the size of a double decker bus, but when you get inside,
12:20
it's gigantic, way bigger than they could ever be. And I love
12:24
how they don't even address it. They don't even handwave it. It's just
12:26
that's the movie there, and it's beautiful. Now. I mean the thing
12:31
is, though, Darren, you know, by pointing to the truck and
12:33
trusting your point about it being you know that that sort of piece of amazing
12:37
movie tech. Do you would you consider Darren this in Earmark be cause again
12:43
we made reference during Moon forty four. It's not like we haven't seen these
12:46
movies. Now that we're getting into like this is this is familiar territory for
12:50
anybody who was born before the nineties, even slightly like you were going to
12:54
encounter these movies at some point of it if it wasn't in the theater.
12:58
Do you see elements like that? Is that the work of rowand Emerick and
13:03
his partner Dean Devlin. Are we seeing certain things take shape? The obsession
13:09
with cool tech, the way action sequences are staged, in obsession with military
13:15
pseudo jargon that doesn't really exist, and if you really think about it for
13:20
a second, you're like, they really said nothing of value there, Like
13:24
do you see that DNA starting to come together for Emeric and Devlin? No,
13:31
I definitely think so. I'm actually really glad that we watched Moon forty
13:35
four last week and seeing this as a stepping stone. You know, I'm
13:41
not saying I'm not saying it's a good movie. No, I'm totally messing
13:45
with you, but I love the fact that we, yeah, we can
13:46
look at it in comparison and see, Okay, here is him taking the
13:52
best parts of Moon forty four and like you said, like building the world.
13:58
He definitely knows how to build a world, whether or not all the
14:05
pieces connect, you know, like there's the you know, there's the flashback
14:11
of the Vietnam War, and there's the you know, motel. The Motel's
14:15
probably the weakest point of the entire thing. But the I will say,
14:20
I like I mentioned this when when we were talking about Moon forty four with
14:24
like the helicopters and the world, that it's a really important that you set
14:31
your rules in sci fi and then you stick to them, because otherwise you
14:35
don't know as a viewer what's going to happen and what the stakes are.
14:39
And I think in Universal Soldier you have, you know, the regen factor,
14:45
you have the needing to cool down with ice, you have you know,
14:48
the programming, and like, I think that stuff he aces he does
14:54
really well. Like you said, there's that core concept of a Universal Soldier
14:58
that's really intriguing. But it gives us a good third of a movie probably
15:05
of like that really good stuff and then some other pieces. It definitely gives
15:09
some other pieces that that much is sure. But speaking of you know,
15:13
that core element and getting to what you were talking about Tristan with the rising
15:18
action and you reference the sort of difficult opening to get past because I think
15:22
that there's definitely budget limitations, I guess you could say because it's very obviously
15:28
shot on a sound stage. It's not really lit like the outdoors when they're
15:31
in the jungle and stuff like that. If that, if that was outdoors,
15:35
you're gonna blow my mind. It was you're kidding me. Then that
15:39
is the most poorly lit outdoor stuff I've seen in a very long time.
15:43
How crazy is that? Because I thought the same exact thing I was like,
15:46
this is so poorly done. This this is crazy. Like I got
15:52
to find out where they shot it. They shot it on a golf course.
15:56
Okay, all right, so it was that's a golf course. But
16:02
they but they brought it on some plants. But yeah, they have like
16:06
angles to shoot to make it look like the jungle. But that's what's crazy
16:11
is that, like they they shot it on a golf course to shoot outside,
16:15
and they brought in obviously tons of plants and they set up the the
16:21
huts, and but they shot it so narrow that it looks exactly like a
16:26
studio shoot. It's you know, like use the space, Like why shoot
16:30
it outside? Like why shoot it outdoors? Unless it was cheaper than you
16:33
know, ranting a studio. Maybe it was, or maybe it was I
16:37
mean, honestly, maybe it was just a shortcoming on the part of the
16:41
cinematographer. Now you know, that's not to say that he didn't do other
16:45
things, because my recollection of Stargate and Independence Day was that they shot the
16:52
outdoors stuff quite well during those movies. So you know, obviously it's it's
16:56
sort of a one time thing. But in terms of the structure of the
17:00
film, I especially coming at it this time, I think it's a terrible
17:04
opening. I think that a stronger opening for the film is to have them
17:08
show up, go to the thing, have a flash of what Van Dam
17:14
sees, and then spend the rest of the movie unspooling the mystery of what's
17:18
flashing in his brain, as opposed to opening with that thing and clearly establishing
17:23
you know, basically they set a stopwatch with that opening, where it's like,
17:26
okay, well one of them is gonna you know, one Gren's the
17:29
bad guy and he's going to go off the rails at one point, and
17:33
Van Dam obviously is going to be the good guy and he's going to remember
17:36
everything. That is such a true statement, Like this movie could have been
17:41
vastly improved by editing, by just like you know, flipping the script,
17:48
just like moving things around. Absolutely. You know, you could start like
17:52
the damn sequence, you know, start it like a Bond film. Yeah,
17:56
start it with a big set, Start with your longest set. Yeah.
18:03
Yeah, Like bring in the audience like we're in, Like it adds
18:06
some mystery to it, where like I love it when the guy said it's
18:10
like like you're you're sitting them you know, you're setting them down a mile
18:12
and a half away. We only got ten minutes, right, you know,
18:17
like it and then like boom, like they're they're there, and like
18:19
like you're seeing the guy go down the damn like on the on the rope.
18:23
Like there's so many practical stunts with that too. I think that we
18:27
really got to give this movie some praise in that respect, is that during
18:32
that damn sequence there's a lot of practical stunt work that you just don't really
18:37
see that much anymore. And this was such a cool the best damn sequence
18:42
ever, you know, this was this was such a good sequence, and
18:47
like you add some mystery to it, you add some intrigue instead of just
18:51
like laying it out in front of you. Is this that really would have
18:55
elevated the movie. I think a great deal. But the thing is that
18:57
you know this, this movie made money. It did it did? It
19:00
made almost one hundred million dollars, which back in the day, you know,
19:04
number one, it more than tripled its budget. I mean, yeah,
19:07
wasn't it like twenty three million? Yeah it was twenty three million nine
19:12
yeah, so yeah, so they got a tremendous return on investment. Audiences
19:17
obviously responded in some way to it. It made a ton more sequels.
19:22
Well that we'll get to that in a couple of minutes, because I mean,
19:26
you know what, those are good. I'm just let's let's go straight
19:29
into it enough that they're like, hey, let's keep trying to do this,
19:33
but let's there. It goes cinematic universe that exists with alternate timelines and
19:37
everything. It's like the Halloweens series. It's exactly like Halloween. It's like,
19:41
well, we're going to ignore that other movie that came first that we
19:45
don't want to talk about. Well, is there anything in this Darren?
19:48
As you watch it where you say to yourself, you know, you know
19:52
what, Yeah, this is a world that I like that I want to
19:56
come back to. I want to relive the world of Universal Soldier, not
20:00
once, not twice, not thrice, but what I believe it's five more
20:03
times after this, Like is this this sort of thing where like you would
20:06
pin franchise hopes on this, No, not at all, Like really they're
20:11
all dead, Like they're I don't see where you would take the story at
20:18
all. But you know, but to circle back to you know what you
20:25
were mentioning about the possible different opening, it made me think, who is
20:30
our point of view? Like, is it the reporter? Is it Van
20:34
Dam? Because because of the opening we got it's kind of Van Dam.
20:38
But he also has no memory through like eighty percent of the movie. So
20:44
yeah, if you had set it up instead of like you see, you
20:48
know, it's kind of a reconstructed memory, like there's not all pieces there
20:52
and some maybe some characters like you know, do it something where like their
20:56
faces are like face blindness, like you can't tell who they are, and
21:00
so it's kind of piecing together, and so we don't know that you know,
21:06
London is going to be was in the past and was the one who
21:08
did it? And then when that hammer falls in act two and we realized,
21:12
oh my gosh, the guy he's serving next to is the guy who
21:17
basically killed him. That's the moment to reveal that. So stick with the
21:21
reporter in the beginning, keep the intrigue of like who are these guys,
21:26
who are they? What are they? Where did they know it's little robo
21:29
cop there? But yeah, it's you know, who is he? What
21:32
is he? Apparently? What I think something that was interesting was that originally
21:40
that like they shot at this they shot at a specific way where the US
21:44
military was much eveler. Oh right, I did read that. Yeah,
21:51
in in in what they were So apparently the damn situation, the terrorist damn
21:56
situation was orchestrated by the general or sergeant or whatever he was colonel to justify
22:06
the Universal Soldier program, like they were they were hired bad guys in order,
22:11
like just to give the Universal Soldiers something made terror in order. It's
22:15
like syndrome from Incredibles. It's like, make a bad situation to justify my
22:19
budget. And and something I think like later in the movie like whenever,
22:26
Oh, I think at the at the motel, like he told all the
22:29
soldiers to kill all the witnesses and so they just made like this wing like
22:33
you know, of of the military so evil, and I think at the
22:37
time they're like, no one's gonna believe that the military can do this kind
22:44
of evil act because like when did Top Gun come out? That was eighty
22:48
six Top Gun was eighty six two. Yeah, so you're like on a
22:52
rise of good military. Well, the clicks. America was also feeling very
22:59
good about the military after the First Gulf War, and they weren't very much
23:03
of a taste of looking at Basically, after ninety one, it was okay
23:10
it. That was the moment to be like, okay, we're moving past
23:11
the Vietnam thing. Now we've sort of wallowed for a little bit. I'm
23:15
not being dismissive of anybody that went through anything with that statement. I'm saying
23:19
like that there was sort of like a cultural shift where it went very pro
23:23
military all the time under any circumstances around that time. Again, I'm not
23:29
assessing a value judgment. I'm saying that's simply the way that the cultural tone
23:33
shifted. It was there. I witnessed it. I know what happened.
23:37
You were absolutely right, and I think you articulated it well. Like in
23:42
ninety one, like post Desert Storm, it was such a huge success in
23:47
the eyes of the media, of the zeitgeist of pop culture. It was
23:52
very much like Raw Raw. You know, we're winners again. You know,
23:56
we lost Vietnam, but we won this one. We won in the
24:00
Middle East, and so we're going to reflect that now. Obviously we have
24:03
a different tone now culturally. You know, we've had several decades speaking which
24:08
oh my gosh, it is a it's amazing because being you know, in
24:14
the year twenty twenty four, we think about how far away Vietnam was,
24:18
and when you're watching a movie that's set in nineteen ninety two, it's not
24:23
that far. Like ninety two to Vietnam isn't really that much time when you
24:30
think about it. Twentye is years. Yeah, the war, Yeah,
24:33
was wrapping up in the early seventies, so it was about two decades.
24:37
Yeah, right, yeah, give or take a few years here or there.
24:40
It's just to nine to eleven roughly, right exactly. And that that
24:44
bens the mind to me when you think about that, when you when you
24:48
think about the time, the timing aspect of it, and I don't really
24:53
have anything thoughtful to say other than that's crazy to me. Well, I
24:57
yeah, I mean the thing is with the time diff and stuff like that,
25:00
something that maybe it's because we're so far away from Vietnam now that this
25:06
very much weighs in my mind. But I know that at the time,
25:07
Darren, it weighed in my mind. Listen, we're dealing with the same
25:11
sort of RoboCop principle. I have to accept that doctor Frankenstein. Technology is
25:17
now within our grasp, and they could resurrect these guys in the first place.
25:21
But do you think it would have been better to have had it be
25:25
some sort of nondescript Central American conflict sort of like Predator, instead of saying
25:30
these guys died in Vietnam and then they're back twenty years later. Instead say
25:34
they were in a mission in a jungle location somewhere three or four years prior,
25:41
and they were part of like an elite team. Like that's why you
25:42
never knew about the conflict in specific, that's why they could pull these guys
25:47
without anybody missing them. Yeah. I will say the one of the biggest
25:52
stretches of the plot is the fact that it's been twenty years, so like,
25:56
they died and it's not like, oh, and then we brought it
25:59
back to life. It's like, but did you bring them back and then
26:02
freeze them for twenty years? Just that much of a gap really surprised me.
26:07
So yeah, I think, yeah, Central America, you know,
26:11
whatever, you make it, do it kind of like again, kind of
26:15
like RoboCop, where it's been successful in the three missions they've had there,
26:19
but now we want to bring it into America and we got to get the
26:23
sign off from the big brass to let it be amongst our you know,
26:27
civilians. So let's you use the situation of the damn and this is the
26:33
perfect time to deploy. I feel like I'm describing exactly another plot of another
26:37
movie. I can't remember what that movie is, but it's a very you
26:41
know, it's very done. It's a good movie. But I mean that
26:47
also gets to we have these two characters who kill each other and then are
26:52
brought back as squad members, which seems like a dicey thing to try to
26:57
do anyway, Like it's sort of like, oh, way, these guys
27:00
they didn't get along, let's bring them both back. It seems like you'd
27:03
be like, well, let's choose again of them. Twenty years later,
27:06
it's like, oh, yeah, you know number thirteen and number forty four
27:11
they made it through the program and didn't die, because I'm sure there were
27:14
other examples that they tried that didn't make it. Sure I can buy that
27:18
they don't have that intrinsic knowledge of the situation of their death. But okay,
27:23
yes, you know, but a big grander scheme that doesn't sound like
27:26
a good idea. Well, I you know, Additionally, I would say
27:30
that maybe looking at your looking at the two dead guys, and one of
27:34
them has a necklace made of ears that he carved off of a bunch of
27:37
slaughtered civilians, maybe you'd be like, you know, it seems like this
27:41
one might be a trouble maker. Maybe dot we're not going to bring him
27:45
back. But but that's a military thing, of the hubris of no.
27:51
But I mean they do that a lot in movies, like the fact that
27:53
when he's uh, when John Claude, you know, isn't responding, and
27:59
he's it's like, I think we should take them out of circulation. She's
28:02
like, no, he's fine. I'm like, how many times have we
28:03
seen that? What if you just listen to the tech and done as he
28:07
suggest run a diagnostic, run a little three diagnostic for all I care,
28:11
it would have been different. So, but at the core, you have
28:18
these two characters who start off killing each other and then they're brought back.
28:22
Key to this movie is going to be whether you buy the antagonist protagonist chemistry.
28:29
It's necessary, you know. Let's go to the classic die hard Hans
28:33
Kruber and John McClain. They got to work so that when they finally have
28:40
their like key scenes together, that chemistry is there and you buy it like
28:42
however you get it by hooker by crook, it happens movie magic, Tristan,
28:48
Do you feel any of that type of energy between Dolph Lundren and Jean
28:52
Claude Van Dam. No, I don't. It's interesting because apparently and Van
29:00
Dam became really good friends during this production, like they became fast friends,
29:08
and which is really great to hear, Like I love that. I'm a
29:12
sucker for that, even though I don't follow entertainment news. And when I
29:15
say entertainment news, I mean like stuff that you read in People magazine.
29:19
But I love hearing that when people are like, oh, yeah, we
29:22
came in the best of friends. We have dinner every Thursday, you know.
29:25
I love that kind of stuff. But that chemistry does not come across
29:29
on scene because I think that they're just not great actors. I feel like
29:36
Van Dam doesn't have that much to work with. I myself am a Vandam
29:40
fan. And if you are a VANDAM fan and you haven't seen JCVD,
29:45
the movie JCVD, you absolute masterpiece of a film, Absolutely brilliant, brilliant,
29:53
brilliant movie, and just it shows what Jean Claude van Dam actually can
30:00
do. It's it's a great example of someone who has been pigeonholed into a
30:07
situation. Anyway, Dolph Lungren is not a good actor. I'm sorry,
30:11
he's just not He's not. I mean, like, there's a lot of
30:17
times when he can be very entertaining. He's hired for his jawlin. Yeah,
30:22
I mean he looks magnificent. He has an amazing presence, but he's
30:29
he's kind of you know, he just you the less lines you give him
30:32
the better and that's why he works so much in Rocky anyway, But the
30:37
chemistry just isn't there. And I think there was oh like speaking of which
30:42
of them being friends, there was something I read It just blows. It
30:47
doesn't blow my mind because this kind of crap happens all the time. But
30:49
they got into a fake fight outside of Can in order to drum up publicity
30:56
for the movie. It's so so depressing when you hear crap like that.
31:03
It's dumb. Especially it's dumb especially because you attach and I know how this
31:08
is gonna sound, but you attached such like the Can film festival always had
31:12
like sort of like a mystique put around it when I was growing up,
31:15
where it was like, oh, it's the can film. Oh, this
31:18
movie won the Palm Door the Can Film. Oh it's an official competition.
31:22
Yeah, and they're also promoting Universal Soldier. And I'm like, okay,
31:26
guys, let's let's maybe take a little bit of the shine off of this
31:30
brass for a second. Okay, because good lord, Like, let's just
31:33
be honest. A bunch of people descend on a French town because they can
31:37
expense account it, and they try to sell a bunch of movies to each
31:40
other, and a bunch of people are terrible, and a bunch of people
31:42
are making careers out of it. Okay, fine, But given the fact
31:48
that this had I mean Carol Co, the production company behind it, was
31:52
on the ropes. They pinned everything on this movie to sort of like get
31:57
them through their financial trouble. And the movie does do well, especially when
32:02
you bring in like the entire worldwide box office, you know which at the
32:07
time, I can tell you, in nineteen ninety two, American press and
32:12
audiences did not care much about what the movie made Outside of the United States.
32:16
It was not a thing we even thought about. It's still something.
32:21
Chinese market, Yeah, the Chinese market was not what it is today.
32:24
Well it's also I mean it's just it's so strange. It's so strange.
32:30
But there are a there are obviously things that people latched onto. I look
32:36
at it and I try to find some joy in the supporting cast, because
32:39
we see Leon Rippy come back, he was in Moon forty four, and
32:44
we see some sort of mainstays. An actor named Robert Trevor is the He's
32:50
the owner of the most he's the manager. I tell that guy's in everything,
32:53
like the best part of the movie. Yeah, best part of the
32:55
movie. He I love. I love Rubbert trab On top of that,
33:01
Oh you got some more money in that walllet of yours. Yeah, Hercules
33:07
and Xena fans know him very much as as a beloved character, so it
33:13
was very fun to see him pop up. And and the aforementioned we've talked
33:15
about him, you know earlier in the episode Colonel Perry that you know,
33:20
the guy who's basically heading the program, ed O Ross is one of those
33:23
guys where you see him and you're like, oh, yeah, that guy,
33:27
right, he has I would say, he has, in my opinion,
33:30
the best type of Hollywood career, because the guy gets work and he
33:36
doesn't need to worry about whether he's going to be top billing or negotiate for
33:39
anything. And nobody's ever going to blame this guy for the film tanking.
33:43
He he could be in the worst movie on Earth and he will be back
33:46
in the next movie six months from now. I always love seeing the guy,
33:50
and he actually has a pretty good range and everything. But Jerry Orbach,
33:55
the esteemed Jerry Orbach, appears in this and Aaron, I want to
34:00
ask you, was that as much of a shock for you as it was
34:04
for me the first time I saw it, where I was like, oh,
34:07
it's Loumier He's in this, and you know, like, really,
34:13
you're going to make a Loomier reference before you make a Law and Order reference.
34:17
Yeah, come on, he's a singing French candlestick, right. But
34:22
you know all that to say, do you think that Emeric does a good
34:28
job of while his two leads, I think we can all say don't have
34:32
the best chemistry in the world on screen in this film. Do you think
34:36
that the supporting cast is basically they're clearly communicated to They're filling their roles,
34:42
right, the director has to give them the supporting direction. Do you think
34:47
that this is a director who manages this, this larger cast with a bunch
34:54
of you know, Hollywood mainstays. Does he pass the test here? I
34:59
think does? It's interesting. I feel that Emeric's career is a sequence of
35:06
stare steps, you know, he like, we're still a movie or two
35:10
away from Independence Day, the big one, but this is a step forward.
35:15
It's a step up from Moon forty four. It's at least showing that
35:20
he can, you know, pull something together. It'd be interesting to see
35:24
with Stargate if he was as much salvaging it versus birthing it. I'm not
35:31
sure. I haven't looked into the details on that, if if he was
35:36
more involved in the story from the beginning. But no, I think he
35:39
definitely shows, you know, that he can do a decent movie. And
35:44
I was looking at again at this and Stargate and his movies always make money
35:50
like they're making money. They're they're doubling or tripling their budgets, like it's
35:53
not crazy blockbuster money until Independence Day, but it gets there. So so
36:00
yeah, I can it's different than maybe some of the other director we've covered
36:04
where we've looked at them and we've been like, why did they give you
36:07
this, because we didn't see anything that told us you were capable of that.
36:12
But I feel that, yeah, universal soldier in the performances he's getting
36:17
for what it is. Yeah, it's a step in the right direction.
36:22
Now, in terms of the step in the right direction, I think obviously
36:25
we're going for some stuff that's more action packed, bigger spectacle in his next
36:30
two films and then actually next three, because when we hit Godzilla, that's
36:35
really the peak of nineteen nineties spectacle. It has a whole interesting story about
36:40
what it did to the film and movie release industry as a whole. Actually,
36:47
but you know, taking a look at that spectacle, Tristan, we
36:52
always joke about the fact that we're very obsessed with like knowing where my place
36:55
is and where I am in relation to different things. Do you think that
37:00
this is a director who gets a handle on that now. Obviously Moon forty
37:04
four we're like smaller budget, smaller production, reuse stuff. We don't know
37:08
where we are in the canyon. We have a big fight on a truck
37:14
on somehow top of a cliff after it drives for a little while. We
37:17
have the action sequences at a motel, we have the action sequence at a
37:22
like a road stop. Do you get the sense of somebody who's getting a
37:28
better handle on establishing that sense of place, direction and placement within the action?
37:35
First off, I want to thank you for a magnificent question. I
37:38
think that's a great question. I think that was well articulated, and I
37:43
think that was well executed. The answer is yes, I do. I
37:49
really do. I really do. I think that was a I think there's
37:52
a huge huge jump in quality in terms of geography. I really do.
37:58
Because we talked about A Moon forty four, how confusing and sometimes debilitating the
38:07
you know, you almost felt like you were in a fugue state at certain
38:09
times when you were, you know, walched in washing the production with this
38:14
one, No, this one was very utilitarian when it came to like,
38:16
you know, and they're in their car now, then they're outside the car,
38:20
they're in the motel, they're outside the motel. Even when they were
38:22
going through like room by room, like when he was busting down the the
38:27
pulselwood walls of the of the motel, like you knew where he was and
38:32
you knew where everything was. And you know when when the female lead played
38:37
by Ali Walker, you know when she was going onto in the desert,
38:44
you know, like onto where the the the big collapsible truck was, Like
38:49
you knew where everything was, you knew how far away she was. It
38:52
truly was much better than Moon forty four. And I think for a sophomore
39:00
undertaking, you saw a huge promise and just as he would get the most
39:07
Improved award when it came to cinematography and geography. And also, I just
39:13
want to mention real quick, I have such a soft spot for Ali Walker
39:16
in my heart, understandable. I love her so much. I think she's
39:21
so great. She's incredibly underrated. I think she is a great actress.
39:25
She has a great presence, a magnificent voice, very distinct, and I
39:31
think she killed it in this movie. I feel like she was how do
39:36
I phrase this without sounding like I'm pandering, I feel like she I think
39:42
she's the most charismatic actress I'm sorry, you know, performer on screen like
39:47
you know I made the reference to Jerry Orbach earlier, and Jerry Orbach I
39:52
think is in our Malcolm McDowell sort of role in this one, where he's
39:55
like, yeah, it's a check, Sure, I gotta make a car
39:58
payment. I'll show up for this. That's fine, absolutely, whereas ali
40:00
Walker is showing up and saying, Okay, I'm going to make this count.
40:05
I'm building my resume because she had just I think made a date.
40:08
She had just made her debut on daytime soap operas in like nineteen eighty eight,
40:12
so just a few years before this. So I think you definitely get
40:15
the sense of somebody who showed up and it was like, Okay, this
40:16
has got to be able to go on my resume. I'm going to show
40:20
up and I'm going to make it work. And I so you know,
40:23
I'm not trying to like take you know, your point away from you.
40:28
I'm just saying I phrased it really well. I think that's that's an that's
40:30
absolutely true. That's exactly how I feel. And I just wanted to really
40:34
touch on that where I feel like Ali Walker was the right actress, wrong
40:38
movie kind of situation. I'd say that's fair. I'd say that that would
40:43
There were actually a number of especially early nineteen nineties films where you could say
40:49
that a lot about an actress who was in a movie and you were like,
40:52
this is garbage, but she's really good, you know, like there's
40:58
there's a whole laundry list of them up doing, including another movie that Ali
41:01
Walker was in singles. So we go around here as we're oh, I
41:08
know, oh no, I just bombed gen X one of your own turned
41:12
on you folks, that's me. But seriously, that movie is terrible.
41:15
But you know, as we go around and you know, as we love
41:19
to say, we're rounding third, I have two because I'm may ask you,
41:24
Darren about the music of Universal Soldier and whether this score is a Moon
41:31
forty four or whether we've got a score that that's a little bit more the
41:37
voice of a film, Like is this a soundtrack where as we're talking about
41:42
it now, you're like, yeah, that was pretty good, or are
41:45
you on the scale of what what did it sound like? Again? A
41:49
little more on the what did it sound like? But I'm looking through Christopher
41:54
Frank's you know list, and it looks like he did a lot of Babylon
42:00
on five, like he did Babylon five, Babylon five the beginning a lot
42:02
of third space all the movies, and that doesn't surprise me because this kind
42:07
of feels like TV movie, like it gets the job done, but it's
42:14
you know, it's it's TV movie. I think that nails it right there,
42:17
like it's it. It's kind of memorable, but there's nothing it's it's
42:22
not John Williams. Not that we need to scale everything by John Williams.
42:27
It would be very difficult. It's not Sehn Williams. No, Okay,
42:31
that's fair, that's fair. I'm trying to think of of a contemporary example
42:37
where I don't know, man like, it's just like, well, you
42:42
know, it's not a Scorsese film, you know, let's just say that,
42:45
you know. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. You know what
42:46
I'm saying. Well, I mean he did he yeah, I mean he
42:50
did. You know, uh uh. He did work with Tangerine Dream for
42:55
for films. Outside of this, he did, you know, some other
42:59
stuff as well, but this in specific. I mean, Tristan, are
43:02
you closer on the forgettable? On the scale of forgettable too? I'd listen
43:07
to it while I'm working. Are you which end of the scale you're closer
43:10
on? I couldn't hum two bars from it. I have no idea.
43:14
I have no idea. I'm thinking back and I honestly cannot tell you anything.
43:20
Yeah, I'm firmly there. I think probably there was some snare drum
43:23
in it because it had military and that seems to be a nice fallback.
43:28
So I'm willing to bet this somewhere in there there's some snare drum. So
43:32
as we, you know, are past the music and everything. One last
43:37
question on a technical side is, obviously there are some different there's a different
43:43
level of visual effects here than in Moon forty four, Darren. Is this
43:47
a director who, when given this opportunity for more involved visual effects, and
43:55
I mean including explosions on set, including staging bullet wounds that heal and stuff
44:01
like that. Is this a director who handles these things very well? Like,
44:06
do you see a director that is has now established himself after this work
44:13
as somebody who's gonna be able to handle large scale effects. No, I
44:16
do think. I think the best compliment is the fact that I don't really
44:21
even remember effects, Like, yeah, you mentioned the bullet wound and I'm
44:24
like, oh, that's right, there was that moment where it like disappeared,
44:28
But I think of a lot of the car chases and the double bus
44:31
fight, like pulling that off in a safe way that communicates the message of
44:37
the story like that, you know. Yeah, explosions are explosions. You
44:43
put a couple cameras up, you make sure they're far enough away. You
44:46
do it once, maybe you show it three or four times in a row
44:51
in about five seconds to make it feel bigger. But no, there's a
44:54
lot of you know, little things like like we mentioned running through the walls,
45:00
Like I don't even think of them as special effects or as uh,
45:04
you know, stunts. There's a lot more stunt heavy in this movie really
45:07
than special effects. It's definitely at that kind of an action movie. But
45:12
no, I could see that paying off in Stargate for sure. This is
45:15
right up Stargate's alleys. Stargate's just a little bit different flavor and a little
45:20
bit bigger, just kind of taking the notches a little bit higher. But
45:23
yeah, I watching this, I would feel confident with where that's going to
45:28
go in two more years. Tristan, you feel the same, Yeah,
45:31
I honestly do. Like I kind of echo what what Darren said that the
45:37
special effects, you don't really think about like they're they're ninety special effects and
45:40
there's nothing egregious about it. And I think it's it's very grounded. It's
45:45
it's very like like Jaren, like you said, like there's an explosion,
45:49
there's fire, you know, like the the uh, the wound on his
45:53
chest, it heals in a really cool way and there. Yeah, there's
45:59
nothing crazy, like, there's no The concept is more sci fi than the
46:05
material that we're seeing, and I think that lends itself to forgive a lot.
46:09
Forgive isn't the right word, but it allows you to ground it in
46:15
reality because of your execution, because the concept is sci fi and not what
46:20
you're seeing. I mean, I think like the like the needle injection part
46:27
where it comes to the guy's face that could easily look really fake, but
46:30
they do it really quick and then they cut away and they leave it just
46:35
enough on screen for you to realize what happened, because yeah, that's like
46:38
a face process. I mean, anything on the face, we know what
46:42
that looks like. We're gonna know if something looks like, oh, you
46:45
just added a little bit of something on his cheek and made it look and
46:47
I mean I still remember that was as a younger kid watching that, that
46:52
was always my least not least favorite, but like the part that kind of
46:54
you remember after the fact and you're like, uh, it's coming right out
46:59
of his face. Very well done. So inevitably here as we as we
47:02
near the finish, our favorite bit for anybody who's new to House Lights,
47:07
because I feel like we have to reintroduce it every so often. Like any
47:13
sane movie fan, all three of us we enjoy the work and respect the
47:19
work of the late Lance Reddick. We all love him, we all think
47:22
he was great, and so we've adopted a bit wherein we try to find
47:27
where adding Lance Reddick to a film would improve, it would make it better,
47:32
or just a role that he would do really well with. And so
47:37
we've come to love this part, and so I will toss it to you
47:40
first, Tristan, where do you see Lance Reddick coming in to Universal Soldier?
47:46
Perhaps even dare I say, to help improve the experience of Universal Soldier
47:53
Orbo's role, I think would be the easiest place to put him. Yeah,
47:59
doctor greg Yeah, yeah, doctor Gregor. Absolutely, it's it's one
48:02
of those things where he'd pop up. I think it would be even I
48:05
think it would improve that because like when you're watching Universal Soldier, like like,
48:09
why on Earth is Orboch in this? Like he's such a recognizable person
48:15
this because of Law and Order. I mean some people say Lumier but whatever,
48:19
those people are weirdos. But yeah, like with Law and Order,
48:21
you know, he's such a presence where you're just kind of it's almost distracting.
48:25
But with Lance Reddick, you'd go, oh, hey, that's Lance
48:29
Reddick. That's cool, and it's so yeah. So that's that's my answerwer
48:34
Darren, where do you find mister Reddick? Now? It was actually my
48:37
answer as well, Doctor Gregor, because I think Lance would really nail it,
48:44
would extend the suspense on is this a friend or a foe because we
48:50
kind of meet him and then there's a little bit of that flashback that Van
48:53
dam has of like, oh he was the actual doctor, which again was
48:58
kind of confusing to me as is it the doctor twenty years ago because he
49:02
doesn't look twenty years younger or is it a doctor now that's turning him into
49:07
the Universal Soldier. All that to say, I think Lancereddick would do a
49:12
great job in that of delivering his performance in a way where you aren't sure
49:19
if this guy's on our side, and that's good. I think that would
49:22
add to the plot. Well, I think it's funny that you mentioned you
49:25
both mentioned Orbach, because there was an alternate ending to the film which was
49:30
way more complicated, and I'm grateful that they didn't have because, like doctor
49:36
Gregor shows up, you find out Van Dam's parents were being played by actors
49:40
and it was all a trap to try to get them together, and it's
49:43
like all a big mess, and that sounds like a mess. So Orboc
49:46
had a much larger role originally, and then instead he winds up with a
49:52
lot of it on the cutting room floor a La Brando in nineteen seventy eight
49:55
Superman and Superman too. But around with the idea of doctor Gregor myself and
50:02
I also toyed around with the idea of replacing Edo Ross and having him be
50:06
Colonel Perry because I can buy I can buy Lance Reddick in that type of
50:12
role. But honestly, I would swing for the fences, and I would
50:15
say simply because it would add so much to it. Additionally, from a
50:21
very interesting people from different backgrounds serving together, whether it's in Vietnam, or
50:27
elsewhere sort of thing. I would replace Dolph Lugren with lance Reddick. I
50:31
would have him be Sergeant Andrews Scott and the choice and layer granted the lead
50:38
last week. So in the fight scenes, in the fight scenes, he's
50:43
got a lot of reach, right, He's got a lot of height on
50:46
Van Dam And I think that he would also play that sort of cold menacing
50:52
much more effectively than Lundgren would. And I would also buy him, I
50:58
think more at the moments when Scott takes command of everything. I would buy
51:04
him more as a military leader rather than Dolph Lungren with a gun, if
51:09
that makes sense, Like I would, I would. I think that Lancered
51:14
could have the bearing of somebody who commanded troops behind him. It gives me
51:19
like Bill Duke's role from Predator as Mac that just kind of cool cucumber.
51:25
It's got the shaving with the safety raizor like that kind of a vibe.
51:31
Well, I just think I think he would have brought something to the role
51:35
that would have helped really improve it. But maybe I'm giving away too much
51:39
about my own rating. So I will go ahead, and I'll go first,
51:44
and I will say that this is a step Darren. It's not a
51:47
step down, is it a step up? Kind of because it is a
51:54
more coherent movie. It's obvious that he learns little bit at least about how
52:02
to frame things and have movement and action progress in such a way that it
52:07
makes sense where people are. I honestly think the fight on the truck sort
52:12
of falls apart at one point where I'm like, wait, how did they
52:14
get up there? There's a cliff now, like what wait? And Dolph
52:17
Langren, you know, like that is the exact moment where it falls apart.
52:22
Like once we get to that scene, that's when as an audience member
52:25
you're like, I'm tired, yes, well, and Lundren coming back is
52:30
just so dumb. Don't have Lungern come back and then have doctor Gregor show
52:35
up and be like, Aha, no, we're we got to end you,
52:37
but we're keeping the program blah blah blah blah blah whatever. But in
52:40
terms of ratings it is a step forward. For me. It's two stars.
52:45
I I didn't care for it in nineteen ninety two. I don't particularly
52:51
care for it now, but especially when comparing it with Moon forty four,
52:54
this is a director that I would at least feel is capable of doing better
53:00
things than what I saw. And you know, maybe I'm a little disappointed
53:05
that there wasn't more fight with Van dam Like I don't know, I felt
53:12
I felt a little let down in terms of the amount of fisticuffs that he
53:15
was involved in. But you know, that's what it is. So two
53:20
stars from me and Tristan. I'll kick it over to you. Where do
53:23
you rate on a scale of five? Universal Soldier, Yeah, I'm the
53:28
same, Like, I'm giving it two stars. I think this is a
53:31
huge What's crazy is that this is a huge step up from Moon forty four
53:37
At two stars. When you set the barlow enough, every day is up
53:42
right, Like I wanted to give it. This is going to sound really
53:45
petty, but I wanted to give it a two and a half, which
53:46
in my mind is mediocre. Two is bad. I wanted to like this
53:51
movie. I wanted to go at it with a nostalgic lens and say like,
53:53
oh yeah, this is nineties action like this is. You know,
53:57
at least it's entertained. It's bad movie, but at least it's in entertaining,
54:00
And I think there were parts that went entertaining, but there was just
54:02
way more bad that out shown the the good, and there was like there
54:08
was so many moments when you're like like we like I talked about like when
54:12
we get to the uh you know, like get to the cliff side,
54:15
You're just like, oh my god, I'm done. I'm tired. And
54:20
you know, like when we get to the farmhouse and we see his parents
54:22
and we're like those people raise Jean Claude van Dam, the guy with the
54:28
Brussels accent. Okay, sure, okay, all right, sure, yeah
54:30
yeah yeah yeah, and they hold to French and they lampshaded it. Yeah,
54:36
oh my gosh. Yeah there was And also like that scene where he's
54:39
completely naked and then like bends over and looks at Alli Walker through his legs.
54:45
It's just like that's not cute, it's not funny, it's just eye
54:49
rolly. You're just like, oh my god, this is stupid. There's
54:52
so many moments where it was just like ugh, oh this is stupid,
54:58
and so like like what what sucks is that like the second scene with the
55:01
dam is the best scene, and it's all downhill from there, and so
55:06
yeah, two stars, yeah, Darren, Yeah, I think two stars
55:10
across the board. I think it was an improvement from Moon forty four,
55:15
which we set at a zero almost. But but I will give him credit
55:21
though I can't see him going from Moon forty four to Stargate. This needs
55:25
to be in the middle. He's cutting his chops, he's getting bigger and
55:30
better, he's pulling off action really well. He know, actually has kind
55:36
of lead stars and a lot of other crew. But like we, you
55:39
know, we kind of really smashed on Moon forty four it having at least
55:45
any sort of lead character in that regard. So this is a little bit
55:50
different. It's and while you know, and John Claude is a name,
55:53
you know, he's working with names now and he'll continue to do so.
55:59
So yeah, I think it's a it's a step up. Yeah, there's
56:02
a little bit of nostalgia in there. You again, gotta love the foldy
56:07
truck. But is it? Am I gonna watch it again next week or
56:10
it will be another ten years? Probably more on the ten year side,
56:14
But that's okay. Well, there we go. We have reconnected with Universal
56:20
Soldier and we are moving on to the next room in the House of America.
56:23
And Darren, what is it that we're gonna be stepping into next week
56:30
exactly whether it's going into a room or across the galaxy. Next week,
56:35
we're covering nineteen ninety four's Stargate. Here on house Lights, Join the Revolution,
56:42
Join the net Party.