Episode 195 - Never Too Young to Die: LIVE! (w/ Matt McConkey)

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

2 minutes ago, CameronH said:

I am a HUGE fan of Dalton. He fucking smolders. I wouldn't say Lazenby is the worst Bond, but I agree that Hulu documentary makes him come off as a terrible human being.

How could you not get lost in those eyes? Ooph, I'm heating up.

Not saying I wouldn't want to drown in Daniel Craig's baby blues (because I would!), but it makes me sad when people give Dalton the brush-off. He's pretty great!

[Cameron H. 23786]

I would really like to emphasize just how terrible of a spy Stargrove Sr is. In his brief time on screen, he manages to: blow himself up, get his team killed, get betrayed, give himself up by branding his paramour with earrings baring his family crest, and implicate his son while under mild interrogation.  Apparently this super spy's plan was to send his son a care package full of candy bars, fruit preserves, and top secret floppy discs that homicidal maniacs are willing to kill for. He paints a target on his son's back and doesn't even bother to include a single note to say, "Oh, and by the way, heads up, I just endangered your life. Say 'Hi' to Cliff for me..."

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

A couple omissions that have been eating at me: 

1) When Lance pulls up next to Danja after tracking her with Cliff's bike, Danja says to him, "Hop in." What about his bike? Surely it's not attached to that car anywhere. I think there's an ADR line added where he says, "wait my bike!" or something like that, but he just leaves Cliff's bike out in the middle of nowhere? 

2) When Danja and Lance are driving she starts talking about what a great guy Stargrove Sr. is and says something about how much he did for her and her family - what did he do? Where is her family? We never find out. 

3) When Lance and Cliff pull up to wherever the Mad Max crew is, there are a couple of bikes next to the wall and Lance asks, "Can you hot-wire that one?" and Cliff is all, "yeah" but then they just leave and that never comes back into play. 

Also, if you ask me, Cliff is the real hero of the movie.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Okay, so here's a problem I have with this "movie" and its "plot."

We're told that this disc will allow Ragnar to re-route radioactive waste from Diablo Canyon into the city's drinking supply and contaminate it "forever." Okay, fine. But, I mean, like, that's it. That's all that it does. It doesn't actually control Diablo Canyon or the reservoir. If Ragnar doesn't have that disc, then there really isn't a threat. I mean, seriously guys, it's just a shitty floppy disc. Just snap that fucker in two. Problem solved. 

Had the movie been the slightest bit interested in making sense, they would have wrote it so Ragnar had aleady hacked into Diablo Canyon and rigged it to redirect the waste into the drinking water in two days. Then he could say to the government, "Hey, in 48 hours I am going to irrevocably poison your water supply. The only way to stop it is with this disc in my possession - which I will give to you for one billion dollars in gold, ransom, jewels, and money. Ragnar out!" Had they gone this route, then you could have had Stargrove in a race against the clock to steal the disc before it's too late.

I don't know, it just seems to me that the only real conflict in the movie is between our heroes and their moronic refusal to end Ragnar's madness at literally any moment of their choosing.

[Elektra Boogaloo 3371]

You know who'd make an awesome Bond? Lynda Carter.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

For a second I thought I had stumbled onto the James Bonding board lol.

[Cameron H. 23786]

I don't know a whole lot about motorcycles, but I do know that rolling up to the heavy metal nightclub riding a dirt bike while everyone else is riding medievally-accoutred, horse-motorcycles is lame as fuck.

[BalconyMonster 4]

Did anyone else notice as the turdballs are chasing our heroes during their escape from the incinerator, that there's a crew member right in the foreground of the shot?  This movie was edited so poorly it made me question everything that was happening, like the first time we see Vanity's nips after she's hosing off, were we really supposed to see them, or did they just not make the cut in time? 

[Whitmore_Baggs 0]

Vanity was in the Last Dragon the year before this, or probably the same year and Never Too Young and they just pushed one out first. There are some similarities with a younger male lead with Vanity, and a wacky boss villain with a gang, martial arts instead of gymnastics. Those kept popping into my head when I saw this. 

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

19 hours ago, CameronH said:

Okay, so here's a problem I have with this "movie" and its "plot."

We're told that this disc will allow Ragnar to re-route radioactive waste from Diablo Canyon into the city's drinking supply and contaminate it "forever." Okay, fine. But, I mean, like, that's it. That's all that it does. It doesn't actually control Diablo Canyon or the reservoir. If Ragnar doesn't have that disc, then there really isn't a threat. I mean, seriously guys, it's just a shitty floppy disc. Just snap that fucker in two. Problem solved. 

Had the movie been the slightest bit interested in making sense, they would have wrote it so Ragnar had aleady hacked into Diablo Canyon and rigged it to redirect the waste into the drinking water in two days. Then he could say to the government, "Hey, in 48 hours I am going to irrevocably poison your water supply. The only way to stop it is with this disc in my possession - which I will give to you for one billion dollars in gold, ransom, jewels, and money. Ragnar out!" Had they gone this route, then you could have had Stargrove in a race against the clock to steal the disc before it's too late.

I don't know, it just seems to me that the only real conflict in the movie is between our heroes and their moronic refusal to end Ragnar's madness at literally any moment of their choosing.

In a shocking twist, Cameron H is smarter than the bozos who wrote this movie!

[Cameron H. 23786]

18 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

In a shocking twist, Cameron H is smarter than the bozos who wrote this movie!

[Crashbangboom 18]

On 8/17/2018 at 3:08 PM, Crashbangboom said:

Loved the movie, loved the episode.

As for the incinerator Vanity was tortured in, it appears to a brickyard facility, so it was an industrial kiln used to cure clay into bricks. So...

1: the temperature dial would not go by 100's as bricks are fired 1200 Celsius, roughly 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.

2: the human body shuts down at about 250 degree and at 700, she would be on fire, the metal table would be glowing red as would the cuffs holding her down

And, probably the most baffling

3: why would someone install a two-way intercom in an oven?

Update: the metal would not exactly glow, it doesn't give off visible light until 758 degree. Also, the boiling point of water is 212 degree and humans are 70% water, so she may not actually be on fire but more melted from the inside while the skin shrivels. Anything left will most likely burn as it would be very dry. You are welcome for that nightmare fuel.

[Robert Denby 103]

8 hours ago, BalconyMonster said:

Did anyone else notice as the turdballs are chasing our heroes during their escape from the incinerator, that there's a crew member right in the foreground of the shot?  This movie was edited so poorly it made me question everything that was happening, like the first time we see Vanity's nips after she's hosing off, were we really supposed to see them, or did they just not make the cut in time? 

There’s also a bad edit at 1:18:00ish where they took a cut of Stamos, on his back, kicking a bad guy to get his gun, then jump-cutting to a different shot with his stunt double on his back doing the kick-up to a standing position. 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

On 8/18/2018 at 4:09 PM, CameronH said:

Okay, so here's a problem I have with this "movie" and its "plot."

We're told that this disc will allow Ragnar to re-route radioactive waste from Diablo Canyon into the city's drinking supply and contaminate it "forever." Okay, fine. But, I mean, like, that's it. That's all that it does. It doesn't actually control Diablo Canyon or the reservoir. If Ragnar doesn't have that disc, then there really isn't a threat. I mean, seriously guys, it's just a shitty floppy disc. Just snap that fucker in two. Problem solved. 

Had the movie been the slightest bit interested in making sense, they would have wrote it so Ragnar had aleady hacked into Diablo Canyon and rigged it to redirect the waste into the drinking water in two days. Then he could say to the government, "Hey, in 48 hours I am going to irrevocably poison your water supply. The only way to stop it is with this disc in my possession - which I will give to you for one billion dollars in gold, ransom, jewels, and money. Ragnar out!" Had they gone this route, then you could have had Stargrove in a race against the clock to steal the disc before it's too late.

I don't know, it just seems to me that the only real conflict in the movie is between our heroes and their moronic refusal to end Ragnar's madness at literally any moment of their choosing.

I was also left wondering why they were so sure that blowing up the laptop was going to stop the poisoning of the water supply. As far as I could tell, the code in question had already been executed and the screen was now just displaying a countdown. You don't stop a time bomb by just smashing the digital screen. You actually have to de-wire it or send a new command if there's some kind of control system.

If Cliff had been in charge of this operation, I'm sure he would have brought this up. There's a non-zero chance that the town got poisoned anyway.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

On 8/17/2018 at 8:20 AM, joshg said:

Paul alluded to this, but I can't get over how bonkers the chewing-gum bug was.

1. You can't actually chew the gum with the bug inside it; it's just a thin circle of gum wrapped around a metal device. Even if you could, the way you'd be contorting your mouth to chew around the metal would look so awkward that it would defeat the whole purpose of surreptitiously disguising the device. You're going to be nearly as obvious when you try to extricate the bug from the gum. You're way better off just popping a regular piece of gum and then slipping the bug from your pocket into the chewed-up wad when no one is looking.

2. Since Cliff was just a normal college student, why did the bug have to be disguised in the first place? Designing bazookas, etc. is crazy, but you could say that Cliff was a pyro. Those weapons were out in the open for all to see (and apparently...not suspend him for?) Disguising a listening device is specific to spy gadgetry, a la James Bond. What did Cliff plan to eavesdrop on, so crucially that he'd go through the trouble of disguising it as a piece of gum? If I found out that my roommate planned to eavesdrop on people for fun, I'm not so sure I'd trust him.

3. I hate the wording Cliff uses, "Chew it up."  GROSS.

 

Let's also note that the payoff for this chewing-gum bug is that it does absolutely nothing to help our heroes stop the bad guy. Stamos leaves it with Gene Simmons, who discovers it immediately and flushes it down the toilet, and that's the end of that.

At least in the first Mission: Impossible they introduce exploding gum and then have it actually blow up a damn helicopter.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

On 8/17/2018 at 10:15 AM, Aaron TE Price said:

I think something needs to be said for how progressive Cliff's performance is, considering the context of when this movie was made. He's an Asian-American supporting character from the 80's that doesn't speak with an embarrassing accent or make offensive Asian metaphors. The fact that he's Asian-American isn't even referenced, which seems pretty much unthought of back then.

Granted, he's a genius inventor, which could be considered a stereotype, but at least it's not an offensive one, which was a rarity.

I agree that this is unusually respectful, given that we are in the era of Short Round and Long Duck Dong.

But I will also point out that when you boil this movie down, it's still about some extremely skilled and competent non-white characters (Cliff and Danja) who get shunted to the side so that the clueless, inexperienced young white guy is able to inexplicably save the day.

[Cameron H. 23786]

20 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Let's also note that the payoff for this chewing-gum bug is that it does absolutely nothing to help our heroes stop the bad guy. Stamos leaves it with Gene Simmons, who discovers it immediately and flushes it down the toilet, and that's the end of that.

At least in the first Mission: Impossible they introduce exploding gum and then have it actually blow up a damn helicopter.

That’s actually something I kind of enjoyed although I’m not sure that it was fully explored (or intentional). It showed just how inexperienced he was and showed how far Ragnar was ahead of him. There are fight scenes where the bad guys straight up ignore him and just attack Danja - which is exactly how it should be! She’s the threat! It’s not until he gets Stargroved by his father’s medallion that he actually becomes competent (and a bloodthirsty killer).

[Cameron H. 23786]

Am I the only one who felt that the only reason Vanity's character is named "Danja" is so that it can suit the Bond-ian convention of giving the female characters pun-tacular names?

(Danja being a (near) homonym for "Danger.") 

[taylor anne photo 11311]

24 minutes ago, CameronH said:

Am I the only one who felt that the only reason Vanity's character is named "Danja" is so that it can suit the Bond-ian convention of giving the female characters pun-tacular names?

(Danja being a (near) homonym for "Danger.") 

It kept reminding me of LaGanja Estranja 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

1 hour ago, CameronH said:

That’s actually something I kind of enjoyed although I’m not sure that it was fully explored (or intentional). It showed just how inexperienced he was and showed how far ahead of him Ragnar was. There are fight scenes where the bad guys straight up ignore him and just attack Danja - which is exactly how it should be! She’s the threat! It’s not until he gets Stargroved by his father’s medallion that he actually becomes competent (and a bloodthirsty killer).

Sure, I kind of enjoy the inversion in that one scene. But still . . . the device never comes back? No other uses for the gum?

[Cam Bert 8145]

So Ragnar's big weapon that all his cronies love is "the finger" which is basically a razor sharp finger nail. However "the finger" is only like an inch long if that.  Do you know how deep into your body your internal organs are? Hint, it is more than an inch. So what's the threat of "the finger"? In theory you could use it to sever major arteries and cause them to bleed out but in most cases in the movie when Ragnar uses it he goes right for the chest area. You are doing nothing there. Yes it'll cut you and hurt, but at that length there is no way it could kill you right away. Also at that short length Ragnar really would have to get in super close in a fight to make it work, and because of its location there is no way he could make a fist and fight effectively hand to hand. 

[joshg 207]

1 hour ago, CameronH said:

That’s actually something I kind of enjoyed although I’m not sure that it was fully explored (or intentional). It showed just how inexperienced he was and showed how far ahead of him Ragnar was. There are fight scenes where the bad guys straight up ignore him and just attack Danja - which is exactly how it should be! She’s the threat! It’s not until he gets Stargroved by his father’s medallion that he actually becomes competent (and a bloodthirsty killer).

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they were going for something "edgy" by subverting our expectation with the bug. But come on, man...that's one of the reliable pleasures of this genre. When Chekhov's aka Q's gadget is introduced in the first act, we expect it to be put to satisfying use in the second or third act.  It's like the money shot of spy movies. The idea of having the gadget blow up in the hero's face, literally or metaphorically, would have been a funny idea in a spoof like Johnny English or Austin Powers, a la Wile. E. Coyote (I don't think they ever tried it, though...). Unfortunately this movie isn't satirical enough for that. 

[joshg 207]

1 hour ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Let's also note that the payoff for this chewing-gum bug is that it does absolutely nothing to help our heroes stop the bad guy. Stamos leaves it with Gene Simmons, who discovers it immediately and flushes it down the toilet, and that's the end of that.

At least in the first Mission: Impossible they introduce exploding gum and then have it actually blow up a damn helicopter.

Are you suggesting that this movie isn't as good as Mission: Impossible?

[Cameron H. 23786]

Speaking of the dumb bug-gum, I would just like to point out that having a reason to plant a bug is just as important as where you plant it.  After leaving Ragnar, Lance rushes outside, ducks behind a dumpster, pulls out a receiver of some sort and hopes to hear...what?  What was he expecting to happen? As near as I could tell, there was no one even left at The Incinerator. Who did he think Ragnar was going to speak with? Did he just assume that Ragnar would hold criminal court in her dressing room? Was he just hoping that as soon as he left the room Ragnar would indulge herself in a nice, long, self-incriminating soliloquy? 

[Cam Bert 8145]

I know we've already talked about the Road Warrior inspired punk baddies of the film, but the other 80s film this was reminding me of was Dragnet. Specifically how the punk bad guys seem to party down in an abandoned amphitheater. Then I looked it up and Dragnet came out the following year, so was Dragnet ripping off this movie?