Episode 141 - The Shadow: LIVE! (w/ Pete Davidson)

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

My thought on the nose prosthesis thing would be that The Shadow projects a small aura around himself that changes his face just enough to further distance the Shadow persona from Cranston. I don't believe he actually physically changes his face. The deal with his nose just seemed like hiding the hotel on a much smaller scale.

 

RE: why have a disguise when no one would see him?

 

He clearly does show himself to his Shadow bros, and apparently, as is the case with Dr. Tam, appears to them as Cranston under the guise of a random other Shadow bro. There's also the possibility he could be exposed in a fight, necessitating another layer of identity protection.

[RyanSz 3140]

THREE QUESTIONS:

 

When Alec Baldwin came back to America, how did no one ask him about the multiple tattoos across his hands from when he was an opium lord, or did he somehow have access to a early version of tattoo removal?

 

As for Penelope Miller, since she is apparently immune to The Shadow's jedi mind tricks, how come she can't see the invisible building like normal since it is basically the same type of magic being used?

 

Since beryllium spheres are a huge part of this movie does that mean that this movie is in the same universe of Galaxy Quest where the entire ship is powered by giant beryllium spheres? As we all know, people love seeing your beryllium sphere.

 

As for the henchmen of this movie, I loved that basically from a period of about 84-95 you had a handful of guys who were in EVERY action movie as the henchmen. You had the guy who played Endo in Lethal Weapon in the opening scene, one of the hatchet men from Big Trouble in Little China, the white mongol who has been in everything from Barb Wire to Hard Target. This would eventually lead to a late 90s change where Danny Trejo and Thomas Rosales Jr., among a few others who were then featured as the go-to henchmen.

[FrancisRizzo3 212]

As for Penelope Miller, since she is apparently immune to The Shadow's jedi mind tricks, how come she can't see the invisible building like normal since it is basically the same type of magic being used?

 

I'd argue that Khan was far more powerful at that point than Cranston, so Khan could keep the building from her. It would make sense though to have her realize something is up with the space though.

[RyanSz 3140]

For those interested here is the invisible Shadow figure that had been made, and the rest of the toyline was just various versions of The Shadow and a few different ninja characters.

And of course this being a shitty line of toys based on a shitty movie in the 90s, there is a vehicle that was never featured in the movie.

[IJoinedJustForThis 35]

Whee! 74 comments in and late, late at night (or indeed early in the morning after hanging on to coverage of the munich attacks) I catch the new show!

 

I'm excited without knowing anything, but in a rare occurrence I *did* watch both the shadow and the phantom beforehand. Just tell me June is featured, I love her to death! (again, sorry paul.)

[IJoinedJustForThis 35]

Skimmed the 4 pages of comments as responsibly as I could in my current state, but I feel quite secure stating that nobody in the comments (listening to episode proper still to come) mentioned the terrible, terrible obvious glued-on beard on the villain, nor the music over the ending credits, both of which I would expect to have been pointed out. Come on people, step up your game. Checking back tomorrow.

[FresherPie 16]

Re reading minds: perhaps. I think that was one of his abilities, but it was one that could be resisted by those of strong wills.

 

Re Kent Allard: I think that is right. With your reminder I seem to recall that Lamont was a character he played as sort of a playboy ladykiller to draw suspicion away from him being the Shadow. Before he left for Asia, he was Kent, and came back to play the character Lamont, sort of leaving who he really was behind altogether.

[Auden 1809]

I interrupt this thread to bring you the news that a sequel to Blair Witch Project is going to be released in September!

 

http://www.avclub.com/article/comic-con-screening-reveals-adam-wingards-woods-ac-240013

 

OMGOMGOMG.

 

The trailer made my stomach feel hollowed out, and I watched it on my iPad with the volume turned way down.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

Tim Curry always makes something worth watching. How else can you explain the enduring legacy of "Clue"? Yes, it's a top-shelf 80s comedy cast, but Curry gets the best lines, moments, and is even the hero in 2 out of 3 endings.

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

you can skip this ... i'm just purging my brain of this rubbish ...

 

 

Re Kent Allard: I think that is right. With your reminder I seem to recall that Lamont was a character he played as sort of a playboy ladykiller to draw suspicion away from him being the Shadow. Before he left for Asia, he was Kent, and came back to play the character Lamont, sort of leaving who he really was behind altogether.

 

thats what i was thinking first but the fact that the guy he has dinner with, the cop, is his uncle ,,, would his uncle not notice that people are calling him a different name, that he was living a different life? so we are back to the mind powers thing again. he would have to use them to make people who knew him as kent to now know him as lamont and know his history. plus the cops family history would need to be changed ... oh wait .. wait .. he made the cop believe he was his nephew to get close to him, for information ... ah that crafty shadow ...

 

but this is as pointless as khan wasting his powers by hiding a whole building. this was a massive building in new york ... he would have had to hypnotise everyone in the world incase someone who knew of the building visited/returned to new york.

 

visitor - "oh thats a nice building"

 

hypnotised person - "what building"

 

v - "that one right there, the hotel monolith"

 

hp - "there hasn't been a building there in years?"

 

v - "its right there .. its huge ... look at it!!"

 

hp - "theres no building there ... what are you on guy .. you been sampling that tibetin opium everyones talking about??"

 

 

 

or if the illusions these guys create only worked on people within a certain distance of new york then any letters coming in, news articles, even peoples phone calls would have to be monitored and altered ...

 

these guys are both massively inefficient when it comes to using their powers .. but i dont blame them .... do you know who i blame ... their teacher ... that tulku guy at the start ... this whole mess his his fault .. him and that knife he stole from eddie murphy

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

Eta2: but I just saw on Wikipedia that Cranston was a real guy and they like shared identities? Like swapped? There was a contract involved? Idk. I can't with this movie. It's TOO weird.

 

ha, i just saw this ... i agree ... I can't with this movie either

[MilesStauffer 0]

I was surprised with all the fur in this movie. Isn't Baldwin a huge animal rights advocate? Maybe it was before he donated his time to PETA.

 

miles

[Cameron H. 23786]

When Baldwin is brought to the temple, The Master tells him, "You watched your spirit, your very face, change as the beast claws its way out from within you." Hair and fingernails aside, if the cost of being evil is that my face may transform into something resembling mid-nineties Alec Baldwin, I might just have to recalibrate my moral barometer. Like, seriously, do we actually need all these puppies and kittens in the world when I can look like this:

 

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

When Baldwin is brought to the temple, The Master tells him, "You watched your spirit, your very face change, as the beasts claws its way out from within you."

 

This is probably giving the movie too much credit, but what if the structural changes in his face when he is The Shadow isn't a disguise? Maybe that's his actual face, and the one we see the rest of the time is one he actively works to construct by hypnotizing surrounding individuals? It might not even be an intentional move on his part. It could possibly be something he picked up over time in the interim before becoming an opium kingpin; because, really, who would say no to 90s Alec Baldwin's face? Even when it's surrounded by gross hair and long weirdly-painted fingernails.

 

eta: I skimmed but I'm not sure if this was mentioned. So, the long fingernails - in Chinese culture it's a symbol of wealth. No, really. Long fingernails mean you aren't out in the fields busting your ass all day. It shows you live in comfort and style to be able to maintain long nails. Now for the grosser side of things: having one long nail (usually on the pinky) isn't just a coke thing. Many sober men will keep a long pinky nail to dig wax out of their ears and pick their noses.

[tomspanks 9039]

When Baldwin is brought to the temple, The Master tells him, "You watched your spirit, your very face change, as the beast claws its way out from within you." Hair and fingernails aside, if the cost of being evil is that my face may transform into something resembling mid-nineties Alec Baldwin, I might just have to recalibrate my moral barometer. Like, seriously, do we actually need all these puppies and kittens in the world when I can look like this:

 

 

Huh, no back hair. Color me surprised.

[StefánBirgirStefáns 11]

The reason this movie doesn't make sense is because it didn't happen.

 

After ordering the killing of the man who he saw as a father (shoot through him), Alex is riddled with guilt--guilt that three naked women can't subside. He overdoses on opium and goes into a opium induced coma. In his coma, his subconscious deals with the guilt by creating a scenario where he can redeem himself. This explains why the the bad guy is descendant of Gengis Khan, the world's most famous invader, because Alex invaded a world he didn't belong in by becoming a drug kingpin in China. Shiwan Khan is just the "evil" that Alex became. The knife, well, Alex's stanky ass fingernails. He is itching and, although unconscious, he scratches that itch with those fingernails and his mind creates a living knife.

 

 

He calls himself "The Shadow" because he is just a shadow of the man he once was.

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

The reason this movie doesn't make sense is because it didn't happen.

 

After ordering the killing of the man who he saw as a father (shoot through him), Alex is riddled with guilt--guilt that three naked women can't subside. He overdoses on opium and goes into a opium induced coma. In his coma, his subconscious deals with the guilt by creating a scenario where he can redeem himself. This explains why the the bad guy is descendant of Gengis Khan, the world's most famous invader, because Alex invaded a world he didn't belong in by becoming a drug kingpin in China. Shiwan Khan is just the "evil" that Alex became. The knife, well, Alex's stanky ass fingernails. He is itching and, although unconscious, he scratches that itch with those fingernails and his mind creates a living knife.

 

 

He calls himself "The Shadow" because he is just a shadow of the man he once was.

 

 

well shit!!!

 

that's beautiful

 

where were you yesterday when my head started spinning ... play the correction of the week theme paul!!!

 

and that's your first ever comment ... welcome to the boards sbs

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

I love Tim Curry in everything. Even Congo. I will watch him in anything.

tim curry is back for the rocky horror tv special

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3TDwa2cDOc

[Mathey 419]

When I was a kid I got into pulp novels and old radio shows, mainly due to stuff like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Rocketeer comic book - another character that got a 90's movie adaptation – though that one was actually fun, even if it bombed going up against Terminator 2. This fandom was a bit of a proto-hipsterism, 'cuz I could look down my nose at other comic book nerds into '90s heroes like Spawn and bore people with my knowledge about proto-superheroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow. I was (am?) pretty insufferable about it.

 

So, with that in mind, its probably no surprise that I aggressively hated this movie when it came out.

 

The movie bends over backwards trying to include all the wacky elements of the original character while also updating it for a '90s audience with a thick lacquer of camp and irony that does service to neither goal. It just hurts your head trying to wrap your head around what they were going for.

 

If they were trying to out-Batman the 1989 Batman, they obviously didn't succeed. As overblown as that movie could be, it still had a consistent tone, style, and focus that this mess never approaches. So much awful camerawork that just drags things out and draws attention to itself...ugh.

 

If they were trying to make a camp comedy, it also doesn't come together – its not enough to just underline the dumbness you're depicting to make it funny. You need some wit and maybe even something other than contempt for your own material to pull that off.

 

And if this was meant to be a love letter to the classic character...well, all the odd revisions to the origin, sci-fi power explanations, and the inconsistencies in the script only leave nerds like me ticked off while utterly baffling the rest of the audience.

 

I have honestly no idea if a coherent and successful Shadow movie could be made nowadays (the premise was born on the radio and thrived on '30s era mysticism) but this was definitely not it.

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

I absolutely think you could try to make this movie in the current atmosphere. An entire subset of humanity with psychic powers that are used to hide various aspects of themselves in society? Hell yeah I'd watch that.

 

Really, all this script needed was a single, concise direction. It tries to do too many things at once and so doesn't do much. For example, you could have taken out the entire first few scenes in the opium den and then in the temple and instead used another vehicle to deliver backstory. It could have been something as simple as a photograph of Cranston with a monk and Wu somewhere in there.

 

We also don't need to see Cranston being a bad guy to know he was one. He served in The Great War, that's a source of more than enough angst for his moral dilemmas. And if they wanted to setup for the knife to show up later, Cranston could have had an old, visible blade-type injury to his person that even he was unable to hypnotize away - just like his shadow. That would have also symbolized his lack of control over the knife, and we could later see the scar gone when he gains control over it.

 

They put several dream sequences in the film. Those could have been giving us something actually world-building instead of telling us over and over how tormented Cranston is.

[Mathey 419]

I absolutely think you could try to make this movie in the current atmosphere. An entire subset of humanity with psychic powers that are used to hide various aspects of themselves in society? Hell yeah I'd watch that.

 

Put in those terms - that does sound pretty cool.

 

The recent Iron Fist teaser and the mention of the new Doctor Strange movie reminds me how heavily those origin stories lean on the same sort of Orientalism and Shangri-La/Atlantis mystic hoodoo stuff that the '30s Shadow (and legions of other pulp guys) were founded on. Back in the day, everybody and his brother learned how to do Superhuman Thing X by studying with gurus in Tibet.

[tomspanks 9039]

They put several dream sequences in the film. Those could have been giving us something actually world-building instead of telling us over and over how tormented Cranston is.

 

This also happened way too much in Batman v. Superman.

[DanEngler 5249]

The recent Iron Fist teaser and the mention of the new Doctor Strange movie reminds me how heavily those origin stories lean on the same sort of Orientalism and Shangri-La/Atlantis mystic hoodoo stuff that the '30s Shadow (and legions of other pulp guys) were founded on. Back in the day, everybody and his brother learned how to do Superhuman Thing X by studying with gurus in Tibet.

Yeah, I didn't watch The Shadow, but the plot described in the episode sounds remarkably similar to Batman Begins.

 

American millionaire (Lamont Cranston/Bruce Wayne) does some bad shit, is "redeemed" by traveling to (Tibet/Bhutan) to train in the Mystic Arts, returns to (New York/Gotham) after many years to battle organized crime using fear/darkness/brute force while maintaining his cover as a hapless playboy, is confronted by (Shiwan Khan/Ra's al Ghul), a fellow practitioner of the Mystic Arts who (killed/secretly was) their master and is now threatening to destroy a decadent society via (atom bomb/microwave emitter). In the course of defeating their nemesis, our hero inadvertently reveals their secret identity to love interest (Margo Lane/Rachel Dawes).

 

Also, something about fear gas and a talking knife.

[jarrycanada 2483]

Ohh so that's what pokemon go is, it's a iPhone game. do players gain something from challenge people?

 

reason I ask is because some little kid came up to me in the park and was asking me if I wanted to play, I thought it was a code word for drugs.

[Sun Tzu Said That 32]

Yeah, I didn't watch The Shadow, but the plot described in the episode sounds remarkably similar to Batman Begins.

 

American millionaire (Lamont Cranston/Bruce Wayne) does some bad shit, is "redeemed" by traveling to (Tibet/Bhutan) to train in the Mystic Arts, returns to (New York/Gotham) after many years to battle organized crime using fear/darkness/brute force while maintaining his cover as a hapless playboy, is confronted by (Shiwan Khan/Ra's al Ghul), a fellow practitioner of the Mystic Arts who (killed/secretly was) their master and is now threatening to destroy a decadent society via (atom bomb/microwave emitter). In the course of defeating their nemesis, our hero inadvertently reveals their secret identity to love interest (Margo Lane/Rachel Dawes).

 

Also, something about fear gas and a talking knife.

 

 

They are so similar, in fact, that someone drew comparisons between them years back.

 

David Goyer noted that he wrote a screenplay for Doctor Strange in the 1990's. He noted that he wanted to follow the origin storyline -- a selfish, acquisitive man gets redeemed when going to Tibet and studying under a mystic. Then The Shadow came out in 1994 which featured a similar origin. "Batman Begins" also featured a somewhat similar origin (although Wayne was self-absorbed, he was not really acquisitive) -- and it was written by David Goyer!

 

Considering that The Shadow was one of the inspirations for Batman and has even been sort of appropriated by the Batman universe as The Grey Ghost, I'm okay with this.