Greats vids. Re: the original movie break. It’s definitely on the DVD version. It’s the theatrical version of the movie, with the VHS break on there as a hidden bonus feature if I recall (I still have it. I’d have to check on whether it was hidden or not but both are definitely on there).
The Vector Scope labs sign scene also features a sign for Dr. Quatermass's office. I love this movie better than the first (though that was no slouch itself). I'm not a big Spielberg fan, (1941 was the last good movie he made), so this movie is way better. My personal best scene is the one where the emergency message comes on "Fire! The untamed element! Oldest of man's mysteries! Giver of warmth, destroyer of forests! Right now this building is ON FIRE".
Warner Bros. marketing department should be epic face-palmed for not insisting on that ending scene with Billy's dad be kept in - raincoat Gizmos would be a big seller to this day!
Great video again. I follow a few content creators who do movie retrospectives like this but I think you are the first to go deeply into the Gremlins series. It's also great to bring in novelisations, while some differ greatly from the movie, especially if they have been created from the script and not the finished product. The outtakes and behind-the-scenes are a really great part of your videos, they make them more tangible and remind people that the actors act. It sounds like an obvious thing to say but sometimes it's good to be reminded. I can understand why actors want to stand on their own merits but I didn't know that Sean Astin's father had been a popular actor too. The blink and you'll miss it or unrecognisable cameos add so much rewatchability. What I mean by unrecognisable are ones by writers, producers or individuals like Jerry Goldsmith. People whose names are well known but their faces aren't as well known if you are not close to the industry or an aficionado. It's also a lot of fun to retrospectively spot actors who became famous much later. Dean Norris being in Total Recall was a big 'wow' moment. It would have been easier to figure out if he hadn't been in prosthetics... but when you see the profile and hear the voice, it's instant. Talking about Total Recall allumni, Robert Picardo. I'm a big fan of Star Trek and when you go back and see him in Gremlins 2, Innerspace and in Total Recall it's a big dopamine rush for something so small. (Addition) I posted my comment just seconds before you said that you were reviewing Predator. I love you.
Working on Predator, part 2 video now and it looks like it will be three parts. I'm also two books deep in my study of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hopefully we can meet a Predator part 3/Close Encounters part 1 release day but that seems a tall order for the moment. As you can tell as a repeat viewer and commentor I'm real big into the nuts and bolts of what make movies what they are, and I think the deleted scenes and outtakes give you a real insight into the film's mood and details. The scripts are great as well and novelizations are key because the authors talked with the screenwriters and often the directors to understand their vision before writing in most cases. I do realize novels are considered taboo in critic circles, but it was still part of the movie making process back in the day and I never understood why critics couldn't at least talk about outside material to dive deeper into a film. For this channel film novels and scripts are pretty much required reading for any video and I don't see that ever changing.
20:57 - 21:04 The "Is it safe" scene is an homage of the scene between Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman from the 1976 movie "Marathon Man." I was the only one in the theater that laughed out loud during that scene.
A 'blink and you'll miss it' moment (your timestamp 21:07) above the Vectorscope Labs sign is a small plaque with the name 'Dr. Quatermass'. That's a fictional sci-fi character very famous in the UK for radio, TV and film dramas. My personal experience was, as a kid, being allowed to stay up late to watch the Friday night movie, which oft times was an old Universal B/W horror (Frankenstein, The Mummy etc.) or Hammer (Dracula, Curse of The Werewolf etc.), but one night came on 'Quatermass and The Pit' - and it scared the pants off me worse than any other. Though it's very dated now, I introduced it to my kids (when they were old enough to cope) and they to found it a memorably scary film. Now they're adults, but still will sit through it on a family movie night. I have to watch it at least twice a year.
@@RepresentThis I'm very much anticipating your analysis of 'Predator' - it's in my all time top 5 and I've lost count of how many times I've watched it.
I thought I'd only seen the movie but I do now remember reading the novelisation of this as a kid, but only because of a line about clamp pressing a button which *badly* colorized the black and white movie, perhaps because I was so used to sci-fi novels where all the tech is amazing and perfect and so on it must have seemed more memorable - first time I read something (apart from perhaps Dune) where the technology wasn't all its cracked up to be. Huge fan of 'The Burbs' I sincerely hope you cover that one in future, my only problem with it is because Tom Hanks is in it and he really does give me the creeps these days.
My headcanon on the Gremlins rules is largely based on the snow in the first movie not triggering more Gremlins to spawn when they touch it. My theory goes that they're actually a magical curse, they're not organically born creatures but magical ones, and the curse requires a human to interact with them for it to work. This carries over in many ways into the rules of the second film, and it's not Billy or Gizmo's fault, but rather the guy working on the water fountain that sprays him. The human does not have to be aware of the interaction to trigger the curse, but there's no point to them manifesting if humans aren't around to bother. They could never live on their own, finding a food source and breeding like other creatures, I suspect they would all simply turn to goo eventually no mater what. Also them eating or getting wet or what have you on their own doesn't have to trigger infinite gremlins, as if the building were too filled with them it would hinder their ability to move, and thus cause chaos, which is their only true purpose. Just as if they had not cushioned Phoebe Cates' elevator, her plotline would have ended there, and since they're aware they're in a movie they know how the plot has to go. Yes, I am saying those were plot armor gremlins sacrificing themselves for the greater bad. The upside is that them being magical means everything they do makes a kind of sense within the world of the movie, since magic is pretty open to interpretation. If there is a moral lesson to them, it might be something like be careful what you bring home, looks can be deceiving, or troubles have a way of spreading faster than we can anticipate.
Also, I love that Mr. Futterman is alive in this movie, even though they died in the original and there's just no acknowledgement of this. They don't address it, don't try to retcon in, he's just there. It's such a great way to signal how seriously Dante is taking this movie and also is a great jab at sequels that make these mistakes because they just don't care. He went to so much effort to make a movie that looks like he didn't think about it that much.
Gremlins 2 is essentially a very, very broad satire . It should be seen really on a double bill with Small Soldiers, Dante's biting film about toys and action figures.
Your analysis that this is a live action Looney Toons is 100% as Joe Dante the director has said so himself. If you watch any other of his films you'll understand more if his odd ball sense of humor.
"If you remember Jolt Cola, that says something about your age." I was 13 when this movie came out and *I* don't remember Jolt Cola, so it probably also says something about how much you were paying attention to things in the broader cultural landscape.
I lived near a theater, so I'd often walk down to see a movie when I was a kid. I was 12 when this movie hit the big screen, and I made sure that I went to see it because I just had to see that bat gremlin! I had a wonderful time, and yep! When the film suddenly burned apart, everyone in the room turned to look up at the projection box! 😂 I liked how they changed it for the VHS copy and even the book had a part where the Brain Gremlin ties up the author and takes over. I absolutely love the goofiness of the entire story!
29:02, remember that movie mannequin, remember the stylish african American gentleman, in that movie i think hes even wearin the glasses in this skit, whatever happened to that guy from mannequin,
The character name in that movie was the wonderful: Hollywood Montrose played by Meshach Taylor. He would stay active in more on television till 2014 when he passed away.
Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith were in the Blue Thunder series with Dana Carvey in 1984. When I saw them in Gremlins 2, thats what I immediately thought of. Dick Miller was also in both, which might be why they were there.
I can believe that any MOGWAI CREATED FROM GIZMO WHO DONT FORGET SAW EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE KITCHEN IN THE FIRST ONE, WOULD BRING HIS MEMORIES WITH THEM THEY ARE LITERALLY FROM HIS FLESH yes the GREMLINS HAVE NO SELF PRESERVATION, BUT WHEN IN CUTE MOGWAI FORM THEY DO,its like one of those friends that turns into wildman when drinking but when not drinking they are a great and carring person, and yes i think g2 is even better than the og
31:35 - this is the first I've heard of the Gremlins cartoon. What an absolute failure in marketing. I'm pretty much the exact age of people who are aware of and would be interested in it. I watch a mixture of live action and animated media. As with most everyone from my generation I am a sucker for 80's nostalgia, be it movies, clothes and even nerdy old toys etc. Yet besides all that, with all the bombarding of adverts - this show never came across a screen near me, not even once! I get scam adverts on UA-cam constantly though (and none of them have a fact check or content warning attached to them!)... bizarre.
The show was interesting and there was some for very intelligent concepts in it though I'm not much of a cartoon person unless it's like loony tunes or 80's GI Joe. I was always focused on film, so I don't feel confident in recommending it to anyone but fans of Gremlins.
@@RepresentThis, I like quite a lot of Anime. (I loved GI Joe as a kid though and Transformers - I've still got both the movies on dvd) I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, Cowboy Bebop, the original series, in the English dub - it's one of the greatest pieces of media I've ever experienced. The movie is great also but I think you should watch the show first.
You missed a Sci Fi reference here to the name plate of Dr Quatermass from Nigel Kneale's series The Quatermass experiment a n d the Quatermass films. But hell I'm an ex- film critic and reviewer so what do you expect?
Glad you pointed something out again as we want this to be a confab rather than just what I see so I'm glad you added more to our stuff. Thanks, Writeralbert.
The Phoebe Cates interrupted backstory gag might be one of my favourite moments in all of cinema lol. It's just 😘👌🏼
@@doovstoover9703 "Please! Don't mention Lincoln! Something terrible happened to me near Lincoln's birthday." :D
"Sound alarm!" is one of my favorite bits ever in a film.
Saw this film in the cinema and loved it. Great video!
Greats vids.
Re: the original movie break. It’s definitely on the DVD version. It’s the theatrical version of the movie, with the VHS break on there as a hidden bonus feature if I recall (I still have it. I’d have to check on whether it was hidden or not but both are definitely on there).
Thanks for commenting Sweet, appreciate the insights.
The Vector Scope labs sign scene also features a sign for Dr. Quatermass's office. I love this movie better than the first (though that was no slouch itself).
I'm not a big Spielberg fan, (1941 was the last good movie he made), so this movie is way better. My personal best scene is the one where the emergency message comes on "Fire! The untamed element! Oldest of man's mysteries! Giver of warmth, destroyer of forests! Right now this building is ON FIRE".
Run, don't walk. Love it. It's a real fun film.
Fabtastic content dude, love how informed you are and the nostalgia trip is wepl earned
Warner Bros. marketing department should be epic face-palmed for not insisting on that ending scene with Billy's dad be kept in - raincoat Gizmos would be a big seller to this day!
In my DVD the Hulk Hogan part is there.
VHS copies had the John Wayne sequence in the film. Later versions would have the John Wayne skit as deleted or alternate footage.
Great video again. I follow a few content creators who do movie retrospectives like this but I think you are the first to go deeply into the Gremlins series. It's also great to bring in novelisations, while some differ greatly from the movie, especially if they have been created from the script and not the finished product. The outtakes and behind-the-scenes are a really great part of your videos, they make them more tangible and remind people that the actors act. It sounds like an obvious thing to say but sometimes it's good to be reminded.
I can understand why actors want to stand on their own merits but I didn't know that Sean Astin's father had been a popular actor too. The blink and you'll miss it or unrecognisable cameos add so much rewatchability. What I mean by unrecognisable are ones by writers, producers or individuals like Jerry Goldsmith. People whose names are well known but their faces aren't as well known if you are not close to the industry or an aficionado.
It's also a lot of fun to retrospectively spot actors who became famous much later. Dean Norris being in Total Recall was a big 'wow' moment. It would have been easier to figure out if he hadn't been in prosthetics... but when you see the profile and hear the voice, it's instant.
Talking about Total Recall allumni, Robert Picardo. I'm a big fan of Star Trek and when you go back and see him in Gremlins 2, Innerspace and in Total Recall it's a big dopamine rush for something so small.
(Addition) I posted my comment just seconds before you said that you were reviewing Predator. I love you.
Working on Predator, part 2 video now and it looks like it will be three parts. I'm also two books deep in my study of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hopefully we can meet a Predator part 3/Close Encounters part 1 release day but that seems a tall order for the moment.
As you can tell as a repeat viewer and commentor I'm real big into the nuts and bolts of what make movies what they are, and I think the deleted scenes and outtakes give you a real insight into the film's mood and details. The scripts are great as well and novelizations are key because the authors talked with the screenwriters and often the directors to understand their vision before writing in most cases. I do realize novels are considered taboo in critic circles, but it was still part of the movie making process back in the day and I never understood why critics couldn't at least talk about outside material to dive deeper into a film.
For this channel film novels and scripts are pretty much required reading for any video and I don't see that ever changing.
Great insight into Gremlins 2
Nice. Looking forward to Predator next week.
20:57 - 21:04 The "Is it safe" scene is an homage of the scene between Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman from the 1976 movie "Marathon Man." I was the only one in the theater that laughed out loud during that scene.
A 'blink and you'll miss it' moment (your timestamp 21:07) above the Vectorscope Labs sign is a small plaque with the name 'Dr. Quatermass'. That's a fictional sci-fi character very famous in the UK for radio, TV and film dramas. My personal experience was, as a kid, being allowed to stay up late to watch the Friday night movie, which oft times was an old Universal B/W horror (Frankenstein, The Mummy etc.) or Hammer (Dracula, Curse of The Werewolf etc.), but one night came on 'Quatermass and The Pit' - and it scared the pants off me worse than any other. Though it's very dated now, I introduced it to my kids (when they were old enough to cope) and they to found it a memorably scary film. Now they're adults, but still will sit through it on a family movie night. I have to watch it at least twice a year.
Love the insight of your horror history. I was always creeped out by the creature from the Black Lagoon.
@@RepresentThis I'm very much anticipating your analysis of 'Predator' - it's in my all time top 5 and I've lost count of how many times I've watched it.
At 21:32 you can see Zach trying not to laugh
Great video as always. Thanks sharing. 👍
Let's stay on Phoebe Cates movies. Do Drop Dead Fred soon :)
Still amazed how thorough the bluray is.
I thought I'd only seen the movie but I do now remember reading the novelisation of this as a kid, but only because of a line about clamp pressing a button which *badly* colorized the black and white movie, perhaps because I was so used to sci-fi novels where all the tech is amazing and perfect and so on it must have seemed more memorable - first time I read something (apart from perhaps Dune) where the technology wasn't all its cracked up to be.
Huge fan of 'The Burbs' I sincerely hope you cover that one in future, my only problem with it is because Tom Hanks is in it and he really does give me the creeps these days.
I will do Burbs some day, no doubt about it.
@@RepresentThis take your time, you're running at quite a pace with all these uploads!
The first one is good, the sequel is Great!
My headcanon on the Gremlins rules is largely based on the snow in the first movie not triggering more Gremlins to spawn when they touch it. My theory goes that they're actually a magical curse, they're not organically born creatures but magical ones, and the curse requires a human to interact with them for it to work. This carries over in many ways into the rules of the second film, and it's not Billy or Gizmo's fault, but rather the guy working on the water fountain that sprays him. The human does not have to be aware of the interaction to trigger the curse, but there's no point to them manifesting if humans aren't around to bother. They could never live on their own, finding a food source and breeding like other creatures, I suspect they would all simply turn to goo eventually no mater what. Also them eating or getting wet or what have you on their own doesn't have to trigger infinite gremlins, as if the building were too filled with them it would hinder their ability to move, and thus cause chaos, which is their only true purpose. Just as if they had not cushioned Phoebe Cates' elevator, her plotline would have ended there, and since they're aware they're in a movie they know how the plot has to go. Yes, I am saying those were plot armor gremlins sacrificing themselves for the greater bad. The upside is that them being magical means everything they do makes a kind of sense within the world of the movie, since magic is pretty open to interpretation. If there is a moral lesson to them, it might be something like be careful what you bring home, looks can be deceiving, or troubles have a way of spreading faster than we can anticipate.
That's an interesting take Fusion. Glad you chimed in, thanks.
🎉
Excellent show
Also, I love that Mr. Futterman is alive in this movie, even though they died in the original and there's just no acknowledgement of this. They don't address it, don't try to retcon in, he's just there. It's such a great way to signal how seriously Dante is taking this movie and also is a great jab at sequels that make these mistakes because they just don't care. He went to so much effort to make a movie that looks like he didn't think about it that much.
The film is the definition of loony in my book, and I think that's why I love it so much.
Gremlins 2 is essentially a very, very broad satire .
It should be seen really on a double bill with Small Soldiers, Dante's biting film about toys and action figures.
I'm sure the bugs bunny skit in the movie break scene came out over here in the UK on some VHS versions as I remember it from childhood viewings.
Your analysis that this is a live action Looney Toons is 100% as Joe Dante the director has said so himself. If you watch any other of his films you'll understand more if his odd ball sense of humor.
Excellent ❤
Hoyt Axton - I miss him. Some great albums and hit tunes.
Look forward to your videos
"If you remember Jolt Cola, that says something about your age."
I was 13 when this movie came out and *I* don't remember Jolt Cola, so it probably also says something about how much you were paying attention to things in the broader cultural landscape.
I lived near a theater, so I'd often walk down to see a movie when I was a kid. I was 12 when this movie hit the big screen, and I made sure that I went to see it because I just had to see that bat gremlin!
I had a wonderful time, and yep! When the film suddenly burned apart, everyone in the room turned to look up at the projection box! 😂 I liked how they changed it for the VHS copy and even the book had a part where the Brain Gremlin ties up the author and takes over. I absolutely love the goofiness of the entire story!
It's a great parody and I also loved that they tied it into the other mediums like books and VHS.
29:02, remember that movie mannequin, remember the stylish african American gentleman, in that movie i think hes even wearin the glasses in this skit, whatever happened to that guy from mannequin,
The character name in that movie was the wonderful: Hollywood Montrose played by Meshach Taylor. He would stay active in more on television till 2014 when he passed away.
Robert Picardo…
Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith were in the Blue Thunder series with Dana Carvey in 1984. When I saw them in Gremlins 2, thats what I immediately thought of. Dick Miller was also in both, which might be why they were there.
I can believe that any MOGWAI CREATED FROM GIZMO WHO DONT FORGET SAW EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE KITCHEN IN THE FIRST ONE, WOULD BRING HIS MEMORIES WITH THEM THEY ARE LITERALLY FROM HIS FLESH yes the GREMLINS HAVE NO SELF PRESERVATION, BUT WHEN IN CUTE MOGWAI FORM THEY DO,its like one of those friends that turns into wildman when drinking but when not drinking they are a great and carring person, and yes i think g2 is even better than the og
I used to get maltin and Landis confused
Um did you say THERES A NOVEL
yes
Asantis twins were the security guard/T1000 in Terminator 2.
If the genius’s put the energy they put into these dopey theories into something intelligent we’d have a cure for cancer by now.
What the Hell, there’s a Gremlins cartoon?!?!?!
Weird, all the outtakes you mentioned, I’ve seen, maybe they were put back in Tv versions?
Well not all, but most
Robert Forester? I think you mean Picardo
No i took a bus from Cincinnati to Louisville ky,(1hr and 15 mins away) and IT TOOK 15HOURS the cheaper the rate the longer the ride
31:35 - this is the first I've heard of the Gremlins cartoon.
What an absolute failure in marketing.
I'm pretty much the exact age of people who are aware of and would be interested in it.
I watch a mixture of live action and animated media.
As with most everyone from my generation I am a sucker for 80's nostalgia, be it movies, clothes and even nerdy old toys etc.
Yet besides all that, with all the bombarding of adverts - this show never came across a screen near me, not even once!
I get scam adverts on UA-cam constantly though (and none of them have a fact check or content warning attached to them!)... bizarre.
The show was interesting and there was some for very intelligent concepts in it though I'm not much of a cartoon person unless it's like loony tunes or 80's GI Joe. I was always focused on film, so I don't feel confident in recommending it to anyone but fans of Gremlins.
@@RepresentThis, I like quite a lot of Anime. (I loved GI Joe as a kid though and Transformers - I've still got both the movies on dvd)
I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, Cowboy Bebop, the original series, in the English dub - it's one of the greatest pieces of media I've ever experienced. The movie is great also but I think you should watch the show first.
You missed a Sci Fi reference here to the name plate of Dr Quatermass from Nigel Kneale's series The Quatermass experiment a n d the Quatermass films.
But hell I'm an ex- film critic and reviewer so what do you expect?
Glad you pointed something out again as we want this to be a confab rather than just what I see so I'm glad you added more to our stuff. Thanks, Writeralbert.
@RepresentThis
Oh that's nice of you to say.
Thank you.
If I was billy, I'd be stoked on Marla