Episode 227 - Double Dragon: LIVE!

[PaulM 2]

Why is no one talking about the Double Dragon Cartoon Show that aired for 2 seasons in the early 90's.  Featuring the Martial Arts/Police instructor Brothers as they fight crime with their double dragon powers.

[Elektra Boogaloo 3371]

i am so happy June still doesn't recognize video games. I think this is the third time that there was a "reveal" that June didn't know it was  a game, if you count "Serenity."

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

So is it only possible to make a decent video game movie if you don't base it on a specific game? I'm thinking about Scott Pilgrim or Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle here.

[tomten3000 34]

11 hours ago, DeanOCarroll said:

Can we discuss the special effects a bit? I know it's no surprise that an HDTGM movie has pretty terrible FX, but I was in high school when this movie came out, making videos with friends at our local Community Access TV Station, doing our effects on a machine called a Video Toaster. And I feel like those effects weren't substantially worse than a lot of what we see here.

And maybe nobody would have noticed in 1994. But then you cast, as the character who does the most morphing/transforming and other FXy stuff, Robert Patrick. We had all seen him, three years before, in T2 morphing via the best, most state-of-the-art effects Hollywood had at the time. Of all actors you could transform with D-grade effects, why pick the one guy we'd seen transform the best way possible? it's like if you made a movie three years from now and cast Josh Brolin as a different large purple-skinned villain, but instead of using advance digital effects you just stuck him in an old grape costume from a Fruit of the Loom commercial.

Great post. I will say, as mentioned earlier, that Robert Patrick is from Cleveland and one of the producers, Alan Schecter, was also from Cleveland. Schecter was sort of the Russo Bros before the Russo Bros, but of B-movies. So that's likely the real reason Patrick is in the film at all. Shoot a movie in your hometown a couple years after your mega breakout role. Who wouldn't want to do that?

[AndyReichel 16]

At the end of the movie Robert Patrick inexplicably has shit all over his shirt. It's at the part when the one Lee brother possesses his body.

[austin14 5]

So got to totally agree with Paul on this movie you got to love this movie, my omission is about the games and how to double dragon has somewhat returned.  Unlike Mario, Street Figther and Mortal Kombat were they had lacklustre movies in the 90s, there have still been video games coming out based on those properties, compare this to Double Dragon which last will received game was 2012 Double Dragon neon  with the last double dragon with the  last game being 8bit Double Dragon IV coming out in 2017 developed by Arc System Works who owns the property. But some Double Dragon characters have returned this year in the game River City Girls,  while games are about the girlfriends of the protagonists from the river city ransom games saving their boyfriends Billy and Jimmy lee appear  in the game as NPC who can teach you move, as well as ABOBO who is a boss  with the game going into his backstory of his parents not love him enough as a baby. 

[theworstbuddhist 572]

22 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

So is it only possible to make a decent video game movie if you don't base it on a specific game? I'm thinking about Scott Pilgrim or Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle here.

Silent Hill? Resident Evil? Final Fantasy? None of them classics to be sure but certainly all as good as Jumanji if that is the quality line.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

1 hour ago, theworstbuddhist said:

Silent Hill? Resident Evil? Final Fantasy? None of them classics to be sure but certainly all as good as Jumanji if that is the quality line.

Jumanji: WTTJ is better than those, I say. That's the newer movie with The Rock, not the Robin Williams one.

The first Resident Evil was pretty okay I guess.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Detective Pikachu is a fairly solid video game movie. 

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Great episode as well. I dont understand why they thought that the aerosol can in the combustion chamber in their car was going to be brought back later, considering it destroyed their engine and made them pedestrians for the remainder of the movie aside from their stolen Jet Skis. 

I cant remember recalling them talking about the wildly inexplicable moment where they rev the engine on a motorcycle for the thing to just fall apart on them. Was their ever an explanation for that?

[Scary_Mirage 32]

Bemused in the podcast that you guys referred to the arcade game's ending twist of the brothers fighting each other to the death to win Marion's affections but showed the Nintendo Entertainment System version in which Jimmy is "revealed" to be the gang leader (though I admit I never realized until now that it's possible in the NES version Jimmy's coat in the final room is a potential serial killer/fratricide trophy in Marion's room!) 

To share some personal memories, I received the NES game as a present when I was a kid and my grandmother watched me play and commented that it was strange Billy punched people with "coffee mugs." I explained that those pixels were his fists. Also, I watched the movie on rental VHS when I was a tween and thought it sucked: the cameo of the arcade game during the Billy-Jimmy fight was the best part of the movie!

Linkage to previous HDTGM film: the plot of Streets of Fire (gang kidnaps sexy girl; lover boy fights gang to rescue her), directly inspired the plot of this Japanese video game and many others in the 80s.

It saddens me that the anime-style Neo Geo arcade game based on this live action film (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byIIafnor_s) is not good yet still much more enjoyable than the movie itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

15 hours ago, Ofcoursemyhorse said:

Detective Pikachu is a fairly solid video game movie. 

That's a grey area, since Pokemon is more than just a video game.

[austin14 5]

3 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

That's a grey area, since Pokemon is more than just a video game.

There is a detective Pikachu game its a spinoff thats about a human and a talking Pikachu solving puzzles ike professor Layton that came in march of 2018 on the 3DS

[The_Other_MikeD 68]

Super late observations: When they get into the elevator (in Robert Patrick's office), the doors don't close. Then we get some b-roll of an elevator descending. Then they 'get out' but the doors again don't appear, the group is just there on the bottom floor.

It is mentioned that the federal government doesn't help them when the earthquake hits.

Why isn't George Hamilton listed in the credits? Is he embarrassed to be in a movie that he mentions his own name?

When we first meet Milano she is 'disguised' as graffiti by wearing the coat but they are all facing the wall. Do they just stand in the alley all night just in case someone comes down the alley so they can jump out at them?

 

 

 

 

[tomten3000 34]

On 11/25/2019 at 9:54 AM, DeanOCarroll said:

Can we discuss the special effects a bit? I know it's no surprise that an HDTGM movie has pretty terrible FX, but I was in high school when this movie came out, making videos with friends at our local Community Access TV Station, doing our effects on a machine called a Video Toaster. And I feel like those effects weren't substantially worse than a lot of what we see here.

And maybe nobody would have noticed in 1994. But then you cast, as the character who does the most morphing/transforming and other FXy stuff, Robert Patrick. We had all seen him, three years before, in T2 morphing via the best, most state-of-the-art effects Hollywood had at the time. Of all actors you could transform with D-grade effects, why pick the one guy we'd seen transform the best way possible? it's like if you made a movie three years from now and cast Josh Brolin as a different large purple-skinned villain, but instead of using advance digital effects you just stuck him in an old grape costume from a Fruit of the Loom commercial.

I may have mentioned before, but Robert Patrick is from Cleveland. One of the producers, Alan Schecter, was also from Cleveland and responsible for bringing the film to the CLE. So that’s the real connection. Patrick wasn’t doing many leads at that time, so this was an opportunity to do that, as well, and in his hometown.

[number2 8]

A great article on this great film https://www.patreon.com/posts/punching-day-34616613