What is Political and Mod Direction

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Haffrung said:
The mini-series Shogun (1980) had a huge audience, and was the first exposure to ninjas for a lot of people. I know it was for me and my friends.
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I think it’s generational, the James Bond film You Only Live Twice was 1967 so they weren’t unknown but without home media they no doubt faded from popular culture until Cannon Films brought them back with a vengeance to American audiences.
 
I enjoyed it when I saw it on VHS in the late 80s. Couldn't say how well it holds up today.
 
sharps54 said:
What you don’t think an action hero like Burt Young couldn’t take a couple of ninjas?

Yeah, I would agree with that assessment.
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I liked when the ninjas show up at the shipyard, and Caan and company are more exasperated than intimidated, like they're just sort of tired of dealing with them.
 
Brock Savage said:
It's one of those films I wanted to watch as a kid but missed the opportunity. Should I check it out?
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Remo Williams was a staple on HBO when I was a kid so I saw it dozens of times.

I saw some of it not that long ago, and I found it entertaining. It’s dated as hell, and of course the stuntwork and so forth is really basic by today’s standards… but I’d say it’s still worth a watch.

Just expect something that’s like a mix between The Last Dragon and Commando.
 
TristramEvans said:
There was a lot of those types of paperback series in the 70s-eatly 80s with hundreds of volumes, all with mostly the same plots

One of them, Mack Bolan I think, was the inspiration for The Punisher
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Hundreds of volumes with the same character:shock:?!?
 
I think many of these series date to a period when TV (and later the internet) wasn't so all-consuming of people's spare time. I remember my dad read westerns at a rapid pace - he said you could pretty much guess what was going to happen after a couple of pages but he still read more than watched TV. Especially prior to WWII, fiction magazines, like the pulps were big, too. People from all sections of society often read a ton. These series are the equivalent of comfort food long-running TV series. Often, multiple ghost writers were employed - people who could work fast.

Occasionally at used book stores and thrift stores, you'll see where someone's collection was turned in and there will be ~40 books from the same series.
 
Stan said:
I think many of these series date to a period when TV (and later the internet) wasn't so all-consuming of people's spare time. I remember my dad read westerns at a rapid pace - he said you could pretty much guess what was going to happen after a couple of pages but he still read more than watched TV. Especially prior to WWII, fiction magazines, like the pulps were big, too. People from all sections of society often read a ton.

Occasionally at used book stores and thrift stores, you'll see where someone's collection was turned it and there will be ~40 books from the same series.
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Oh yeah, TV started out with only 3 channels until cable came along, and that didn't become ubiquitous until the late 80s from what I saw.

Not to mention, TV was mostly shit back then (I can say that now that Dumarest isn't around to argue with me).

But these are just the "Manly Men" series - I can think of others targetted at teens and adolescents lasting into the 90s - Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, The Babysitter's Club, Goosebumps, etc.
 
Yea, long series for every taste.

Star Trek also had a ton of books, though it openly used multiple authors. Dr. Who was pretty big, too. That was before IPs cared so much about canon and had to comb over every book for consistency.
 
sharps54 said:
Supposedly they were developed independently but the similarities make that unlikely.
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lol, that's prolly Marvel suits trying to cover thier asses. John Romita stated it pretty blatantly back in the day. I mean, not that it matters, The Executioner was pretty much a Death Wish rip-off etc and there were dozens of characters like that at the time.
 
Dyrnwyn said:
I liked when the ninjas show up at the shipyard, and Caan and company are more exasperated than intimidated, like they're just sort of tired of dealing with them.
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Yeah, they have had a couple long days by that point. I saw this film early enough that it was pretty impressionable on me. I have since read the Locken novels by Robert Rostand. Interestingly enough while the movie is set in San Francisco the book it’s based on is set in England.
 
TristramEvans said:
Remo, yeah, I hade an uncle that had like a hundred of those books
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Oh, right, his name was Remo. Though "Reno Williams" isn't such a bad name in that <NAME OF CITY OR STATE> + <LAST NAME> pulp hero format either I guess :hehe:


Anyway, only reason he came to mind earlier was because he was sort of like cross between a hardboiled detective and a ninja.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
Oh, right, his name was Remo. Though "Reno Williams" isn't such a bad name in that <NAME OF CITY OR STATE> + <LAST NAME> pulp hero format either I guess :hehe:


Anyway, only reason he came to mind earlier was because he was sort of like cross between a hardboiled detective and a ninja.
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But when I hear it, I always wondered "why did they name it on a French carmaker":devil:.

I mean, I know it's Renault, but phonetic translations...aren't exactly unknown in American English:shade:.
 
Necrozius said:
Best ninja scenes in cinema

Lots of ninja magic!!


Ninja kites!


(The last 30 seconds of this one in particular)


From Duel to the Death
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This movie is so great. Five Elements Ninjas is pretty good too (but much more 70s in feel). Heroes of the East is also pretty cool (kind of a war of the roses but with kung fu, karate and ninjutsu).
 
sharps54 said:
Commando is still the quintessential ‘80’s action movie for me
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I think it is one of the best. This is probably the Arnold movie I saw the most as a kid. And I actually wouldn't change Bennet. It would be a different movie without that character (its antagonists are all kind of quirky in some way).
 
BedrockBrendan said:
Bennet always seemed like an unusual foil for Arnold in that film
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He did. I mean, considering that John Matrix mowed through about two hundred people to get to that point, I certainly wouldn’t look at Bennett and think “okay, this is the guy that’ll get him”.

Not that I’d change the movie in any way, though!
 
'You have to stick the knife in and turn it'

Seen Commando once, was fun but no desire to revisit. I would say Predator is the best movie with Arnie as hero, and Conan the Barbarian next best. T2 is also very good and difficult to conceptualise now how revolutionary its CGI was at the time. Terminator is his best movie IMO. There is a lot of Arnie drek of course. Pumping Iron is worth seeing for Arnie at his most natural - he is very good at psyching out the opposition.

On Ninjas , the Eric van Lustbader book did the rounds at my school in the 80's, in no small part because of a couple of sexy scenes, but I think Shogun (the book) and Bushido (the game) had already set my opinion of them as badasses
 
zanshin said:
'You have to stick the knife in and turn it'

Seen Commando once, was fun but no desire to revisit. I would say Predator is the best movie with Arnie as hero, and Conan the Barbarian next best. T2 is also very good and difficult to conceptualise now how revolutionary its CGI was at the time. Terminator is his best movie IMO. There is a lot of Arnie drek of course. Pumping Iron is worth seeing for Arnie at his most natural - he is very good at psyching out the opposition.

On Ninjas , the Eric van Lustbader book did the rounds at my school in the 80's, in no small part because of a couple of sexy scenes, but I think Shogun (the book) and Bushido (the game) had already set my opinion of them as badasses
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For me the top Arnold movie is T1, followed closely by Conan; it is a little hard to grade after that because the top 'arnold' movie isn't necessarily the top movie. He is an actor who can make a mundane film entertaining. I would just say my favorites are Commando, Predator, Total Recall, True Lies and Running Man. Just in terms of sitting down to enjoy myself for a fun Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. But I think that list is also a reflection of what VHS's I happened to have growing up and what movies I was able to record off HBO. So if you actually had the movie physically you would end up watching it a million times. In an alternate universe maybe Red Heat or Raw Deal would be on that list (those were movies I had to go to a friends house to see).
 
hawkeyefan said:
He did. I mean, considering that John Matrix mowed through about two hundred people to get to that point, I certainly wouldn’t look at Bennett and think “okay, this is the guy that’ll get him”.

Not that I’d change the movie in any way, though!
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I think I just didn't understand the character when I first saw him as a kid, and that impression has kind of stuck, despite hearing alternate explanations. Some of the theories I've heard do make him more interesting (but as a kid I never would have pieced all the details together that I can appreciate now). At the time though he just felt a little physically underwhelming to be the big antagonist in the final fight. To me he just looked very average, like somebody's dad. But he had a chainmail shirt on, which seemed to be the only interesting thing about him in terms of his look.

But he definitely still left an impression on me. In a way, him not being physically imposing enough almost made you more angry when he did start getting the upper hand in the final fight (a sort of "hey that guy shouldn't be able to beat up Arnold" reaction I had as a young fan). So I think it worked. But it was an odd choice for sure.
 
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