GET TO DA CHOPPAH! The 80s actiontastic retro thread

[Sly Boots]

So, inspired by the Long Tall Sally clip posted in the celebrity RIPs thread for Little Richard, rewatched Predator again last night.

Hottest of hot-takes: Predator is still great, and while some of the 80s action tropes come off cheesier than the dairy aisle at Costco (the bulging biceps when Arnie shakes Carl Weathers' hand near the start ),it absolutely holds up.

Might have to do Commando again soon.

[Mantis]

Predator has something which a lot of other Arnie flicks don't in the genuine tension it slowly builds up before the big reveal. Such a great movie.

[Animalmother]

Funnily enough I watched Predator 2 last week and it also still holds up really well. I almost forgot how gleefully violent it is and that 90% of the dialogue is angry yelling. Wonderful stuff

[Maturin]

Yep, I really, really like Predator 2. It's nowhere near as sharply directed as P1, but it's a really fun and inventive continuation of the story. I think as the years have gone by, it's gradually gone up more and more in my estimation.

[Alan]

Doesn’t hurt it that the movies following it have been so bad..... SO bad that they even make AvP look better than it is.

[Wrathbone]

I watched Conan the other night for the first time in a while - probably my favourite Arnie film, and certainly one of my favourite fantasy films. I always crack up at the scene where Conan's asking a merchant about the snake tower in town, and the guy says (completely deadpan) "Two or three years ago it was just another snake cult..."

Can't walk down the street without stumbling across another of those bloody snake cults. They must be the Greggs of Hyboria.

[Animalmother]

Conan is a amazing. The sheer silliness of it somehow works with great performances by Arnie and James Earl Jones.

Predators isn't all that bad, watched that last week as well and it's much better than I remembered. I never made it past the 30 minute mark of The Predator thought, it was so fucking bad

[Sly Boots]

Conan is a amazing. The sheer silliness of it somehow works with great performances by Arnie and James Earl Jones.

Predators isn't all that bad, watched that last week as well and it's much better than I remembered. I never made it past the 30 minute mark of The Predator thought, it was so fucking bad

Yeah, definitely re Predators. If you can get past the slightly odd casting of Adrian Brody as an action hero then it's actually a very decent film.

[Snowy]

So, inspired by the Long Tall Sally clip posted in the celebrity RIPs thread for Little Richard, rewatched Predator again last night.

Hottest of hot-takes: Predator is still great, and while some of the 80s action tropes come off cheesier than the dairy aisle at Costco (the bulging biceps when Arnie shakes Carl Weathers' hand near the start ),it absolutely holds up.

Might have to do Commando again soon.

"All I care about is Chennyyyyyyyyyyy!"

Commando is another one that is just an unalloyed pleasure to watch every time. It is so stupid, riddled with terrible effects and continuity bloopers and completely daft - I fucking love it

[Wrathbone]

Commando is the gift that keeps on giving. I must have watched several billion times before I noticed that in the scene where Matrix throws Bill Duke through the motel wall, not only do the couple having sex in the other room have a camera set up next to the bed, but the woman is behind the man, doggystyling him. Have to wonder what led them to that innocuous creative decision back in 1985.

[Wrathbone]

Tonight's viewing is Conan the Destroyer, the much-maligned sequel which I managed to get on blu-ray for under a fiver the other day. All I remember about it is that Grace Jones spends most of the film screaming at people while hitting them with a stick and that there's a character called Bumbatter. I also vaguely remember reading that the new director (John Milius was smart enough not to return) complained that Arnie spent most of the first film wearing too many clothes, so he mandated that Conan should wear little more than a loincloth for the sequel. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the extent of the direction on the film.

[Snowy]

Commando is the gift that keeps on giving. I must have watched several billion times before I noticed that in the scene where Matrix throws Bill Duke through the motel wall, not only do the couple having sex in the other room have a camera set up next to the bed, but the woman is behind the man, doggystyling him. Have to wonder what led them to that innocuous creative decision back in 1985.

I have just had to YouTube the film as in all the times I have watched it (many) I have never noticed that, or rather I think I have but never taken it in

[Maturin]

When you see a film so many times, it's hard not to spot all the flaws. And Commando has many glorious ones.

I think I mentioned this once before, even in the first few minutes the film makes no sense. Bennett explained later on that he had to fake his own death and kill the others, so it would trigger the Colonel travelling to Matrix's hideaway - so they could follow him to find Matrix. Yet they were already there waiting in the bushes before the helicopter landed.

Then they sprayed Matrix, her daughter and the two soldiers with wild machine gun fire, and they only ducked out the way of the bullets due to Arnie's magic smelling ability. Despite needing the two of them alive to serve the plot.

It was the 80s though, so it was probably just a first draft from a scriptwriter on cocaine.

[Snowy]

Fun fact - did you know that the proposed sequel to Commando eventually became Die Hard after Arnie turned it down?

[Strudel]

Sorry Snowy but...

During a recent interview with Bristol Bad Film Club, Steven de Souza, who wrote the initial draft of Commando 2 (which ultimately never got made) was asked about the whole Die Hard legend. It turns out, that's all it ever was, because as he tells it, there is absolutely no way Commando 2 was turned into Die Hard.