Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 240: The Running Man

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

Just as video game boss fights were becoming more sophisticated, Hollywood gave us 1987's The Running Man, a movie that—whether its writer knew it or not—exists as a 100-minute-long boss rush. Though other big, beefy action movies of the '80s inspired video games more directly, this lower-profile entry in the Schwarzenegger canon might have had an even bigger effect on the way we look at boss fights in general. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, and Henry Gilbert as the crew examines this cheesy chunk of social commentary, and the many games it would influence in its wake. It's showtime!

This week on Retronaut, it's a true battle of governors. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mac. in today's topic is the movie, the running man, the 1987 movie that influenced quite a few games. Before I continue, who is here with me in the same room today? Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, and I'm going to be sticking on my pinkies the entire podcast, just like Richard Dawson does.

And who is our special guest on the line? It's Jeremy Parrish, the jogging man. I'm not quite up, I don't have the stamina to run. I'm the elliptical man. I run in place and look ridiculous. Actually, that's what I do, yeah. It's a good workout. But yes, so Jeremy, you've done quite a few.

few of these movie-based episodes where you talk about the movie. It's influence on culture and the games that are based on it. And I'm going to try my hand at the very same thing. I can't believe you haven't done one yet. I can't believe it either. And I'm doing one on The Running Man, as I said up front. It's an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but I feel like it's his most overlooked of the Schwarzenegger canon of the 80s. It is still fairly popular in terms of movies. I mean, there's a Blu-ray release. You can watch it streaming on Amazon Prime. It's not an obscure movie, nothing with Schwarzenegger, and it is truly an obscure movie. But it's not one you hear talked about that often, but I think it had a pretty big influence on games. It hit the

right people at the right time, and they influenced game design. And that is my crazy hypothesis. It's less obscure than Hercules in New York. That is true. But yes, I think it's not on the level of a Terminator or even a Twins, I'd say, or Predator from the same year. Like this, it's It's slightly lesser known, but man, watching it today, I was struck once more of like how prescient Richard Bachman was. Yeah, the whole, like the politics in this and the social elements of it are like, wow, this movie could be describing 2019, although it's actually describing 2017. Actually, the opening crawl says 2017, but the movie actually takes place in 2019.

It's confusing. So that makes us very appropriate. I didn't realize that until I was like hours into my research. Like, oh, 2019. You're right. Because the opening is like a prolog and then he's in prison for two years. That's right. 15 months later is when the prison opens up.

So, yeah, it is 2019. We are in the same years running, man. We will talk. We don't want to bring anyone down. But it's very depressing about how the 1980s bad future just became our future. I mean, back to the future too is probably the ultimate example of that. Yeah. But also Robocop.

Yeah, I mean, this is the future we see in the Running Man and Robocop, like the crass capitalist future where life and death is a game show is kind of what we're living in now. And we're all just living satire and we love it. We love it, don't we? I tweet about it all the time. I mean, I tell you about 30 to 50 feral bores. Oh, God. We made another feral bore reference on a podcast we recorded today, Jeremy. Well, now people will know exactly the date that we recorded this because that has an expiration date of less than 24. This is a historical document now, but I feel like the bad future writers of the 80s did not go far enough with their imagination. They could not imagine the bad future we're currently living in, but hopefully we'll make your future better with good podcasts. But I was looking at the history of this movie. I've done a lot of research on this, and I was surprised like it wasn't like a mega hits.

It was kind of a flop for Schwarzenegger at the time. I mean, it made back its budget, but not by much. and obviously Predator was the bigger movie he was in at the time and this would soon be eclipsed by things like Terminator 2 and kindergarten cop and everything that would follow but this is like in the Schwarzenegger bubble where it was like the beefy sweaty, oily action stars that would be the heroes of our video games from the 80s

Yep the outsized personalities with giant impossible physiques which we're in again now like well films like the Fast and the Furious are kind of throwbacks in that style about like what yeah i would say like the the super beef chunk style of hot dudes is uh kind of out of date so yeah like fast and furious is very retro in that sense it's more like everyone now is very very lean muscle so they basically just have zero body fat and like you could squeeze them through the slats in a white picket fence because they're very thin it's the start they're all like

I think what ruined it was UFC that UFC taught you like, well, who's the best fighter in these shows? It's not guys who are bodybuilders. Bodybuilders are not the best fighters. They usually have more lean physiques for movement. They definitely strong for sure, but yeah. I mean, I was looking at that Hobson Shaw movie poster, I'm like, one of these guys has got to have hair. I'm sorry. They're just two

big pink, vainy guys. They're too similar. Yeah. it's that's the future chowiniki was predicting it's true that's the uh i guess i guess it's good if you're into that but uh look you can't expect with the amount of steroids that uh the rock takes you can't expect him to keep all his hair i know the the film jokes that steroids make you deaf but they actually make you lose your hair faster yes and many other problems but i want to ask you guys your history with this movie um i found it kind of late because of course i had seen the terminator movies and i had seen other things and i know like

games like smash tv we'll talk about that later references a lot and other games references but i never had really seen it until maybe like five or six years ago it was on netflix or something i was like i'll watch this and i walked away saying wow this is such a fun popcorn movie a very tightly paced movie and a very fun movie if you're into video games and it's it was fairly new to me and it still kind of is henry how about you uh you know i had kind of a long time to see it too i didn't see it in the 90s because it wasn't, you know, marketed to me the way other 80s Arnold classics were in the case of especially Predator and Terminator, like those I knew as important films to see then. And meanwhile, Running Man, like it wasn't really being aired for free on a channel and I

wasn't going to seek it out. It wasn't until like the late 2000s, I think, was when I finally saw it for the first time in a postmodern appreciation context. And now I do really, really love it as it gets more and more accurate. I mean, it scratches the same itch as legitimately my favorite movie of all time, Robocop, like very, very similar place in my heart. And so I love it now, and I especially love seeing, you know, how obviously video games took off from it, too. And, Jeremy, you were 12 when this movie came out,

so you would have been old enough to sneak in to the running man. When did you first encounter it in your life? about 22 hours ago Wow, wow So you were a Running Man Virgin then Yeah, I'm not really a Schwarzenegger fan And like, there are some movies he's been in That I really enjoy

But I'm not a fan of him specifically And I don't know, this one just never Called out to me So having watched it, I You know, like I can appreciate its entertainment value But I had a hard time getting into it Because every single character in this movie Except Yafat Koto is just completely unlikable

I feel like this is really the movie where Schwarzenegger's quip personality kind of took over and became more important than any actual character development or script development like every single person he murders he's got some sort of postline

before he kills him and then after he kills him it's like he's quippin his head off in this movie it is so quippy this is the stuff like McBain is making fun of on The Simpsons I feel like he had his personal Quip writer come in and give a pass on the script. He's like, we ought to light

in the mood here with some funny lines here. Nothing is more dovial than joking about a man you just murdered. Yeah, to split. Yeah, this movie, again, it's like not a fine work of art. It's just a goofy action movie. You have to kind of come into it with that mindset.

But if case you want to know what it's about, so it's about a wrongfully convicted man who is forced to take part in a boss rush-style reality show to serve his term. Also, it's 2019. This could sound familiar to some of you out there. Society has broken down. The government controls and centers all media and art and also has their own state-run TV station, et cetera.

Again, it's very much the same Robocop-style future that was predicted in the 80s. I think Robocop was slightly more commercial than this is, this veers more to totalitarianism. Yeah. It is officially state TV instead of like the government, what I love about Robocop is the government is so broke that they can just be bought by

a company. Like, OCP is like, we own the cops now. Yeah, they just kind of gave up the government in Robocop. In this case, the government is like, no, we are everything. We are television. They don't explore much of the lore of the running man world, but I do enjoy the things you hear like on the monitors in the background. You do also see

like there are slums where people live, but also Maria Cacito Alonso's character, she is like she's a sellout to the state, so she gets to live in a nice apartment. It's not super nice, but it's better than living in the slum. So you see, like, the different strata of people. Right, and apparently this

entire movie takes place either in Blade Runner's, Los Angeles, or maybe Megatokio from Bubblegum Crisis. It's got those kind of like megalithic structures. There's a giant, like, it's a much more monolithic

Los Angeles than actually exists with like kind of ziggarot-looking buildings in the background that just go, you know, a mile into the sky. When Ben Richards, as Arnold's character is ridiculously named, when he breaks out of prison and it's nighttime, you see that first Matt painting of

was it Los Angeles? Yeah, it's L.A. Yeah, it is beautiful. It's beautiful and it's just disgusting this, but I kind of miss Matt paintings. I love those map paintings. I mean, it's hilarious to see you can see where the line is. You know where it is. But I'd rather I just love the tactileness.

This sounds like an old man, but I love the tactileness of just knowing that you're looking at glass, painted glass in front of a camera instead of just something green screened in later, you know? Like, it's not... Yeah. It's not like when you see the behind-the-scenes stuff for an Avengers movie,

and it's just like, so here are the rocks and the green screen warehouse. Everyone's in that. Run there, and I'll run there. Everyone's wearing a green spandex. Here they're wearing yellow spandex. It's totally different. Wow. shaking things up. Yeah, they film every movie in the Green Factory now, but before you had to

paint things, damn it. So this movie, I want to talk about where it came from, it's based on the 1982 novel by Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King. And my explanation of this is Bachman was basically Stephen King's Ultra Games label in which he used it as a way to publish

more books under the same publisher, because they're like, we can only publish so many books you write because it's just flooding the market, people will get bored of you, was like, what if I'm Richard Bachman instead? And that is essentially what he did in the 80s. And he also... Yeah, that was kind of his label for sort of the substandard books.

Like the really big classics, like the stand, the shining, it, Carrie, Christine, those were all Stephen King. Whereas it was like thinner or The Running Man, like kind of minor works that weren't quite so memorable, weren't quite so well thought out. We're clearly written in like a week under a cocaine haze. Yes. That's Richard Bachman. These were Stephen King's drug days, of course. He has gotten over all that stuff. He survived being run over by a van.

He's doing great. He's funny on Twitter. But he normally had around three months to write a novel of this side. It's about 300 pages. He wrote it in a week. And you could only write a book in a week with drugs. I mean, it was the 80s. It was cocaine.

Like, it's installed. I mean, well, for a story about a desperate man worried he's being watched at every turn like that, that is some real cocaine energy to that story too. Yeah, and the 80s were, if you weren't alive, then they were huge for, I mean, Stephen King has been a huge since he started writing in the 70s, but the 80s were big. It was the biggest decade for Stephen King movies, period. Like, everything he did was mine for a movie. Like, all, like, every short story from, like, skeleton crew or graveyard shift or whatever, those all became movies. They let him direct his own movie.

That's how crazy things were. I think his best movie for decades was the 90s, though. He got Shawshank Redemption and a few others in there. Yeah, I think this was just like the glut, whereas in the 90s, they took a little time to step back and bring you some refinement. The quality movies that come in the 90s, of course, the shining, even though it deviated from the book immensely, is probably the best Stephen King adaptation,

even though it just swerves wildly from the source material. But, yeah, I mean, he also wasn't writing classier stuff in the 80s, like green mile can be made into more of an Oscar winning type and same with Shawshank not that I I don't particularly like the Green Mile movie I think it's bad yeah there's there's a lot of problems with that one but I love Shawshank Redemption I think it's a fantastic movie it's one that sticks with you for a while and that is just a short story

he wrote in one of those collections but yeah I want to talk I didn't read the book I kind of wanted to and I kind of want to now like what does a book written in a week read like but so the book is fairly different than the movie so King describes Ben Richards, who is Schwarzenegger in the movie, as scrawny and pre-tubercular. So way different than the

just cut from like Golden Flesh magazine, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in this movie. Well, and it's, I'm always impressed by how being in jail for 18 months he has lost no muscle mass or anything. No, they're feeding him lots of protein in that prison. But yeah,

this guy, well, the guy sounds like more of a regular Joe, which you then have to, and also, a guy who can lose, which in the 80s, it definitely sounded like if Schwarzenegger is going to stay yes to your movie, he's victorious in the end, it looks cool. Yeah, he has

to punch back everyone who punches him just like Hobbs and Shaw. That's the tagline they punch back. But yeah, I think the only reason King didn't make that character a writer is because people would know Stephen King was writing the book. That's the only reason

why Ben Richards couldn't be a writer in the running man. I hear they still go to Maine in the book, It all takes place in Maine. Actually, instead of take... So in the movie, The Running Man, it takes place...

It's a game show. It takes place on the ruins of the great earthquake of 1997. It basically turned that into a set. In The Running Man...

They said it was like 40 square blocks or something. Something like that in Southern California. They give it exact size, yeah. But it's just like one of the background things you kind of hear that builds the world. But in the book,

The Running Man, it takes place potentially across the entire world. And that you basically have to survive 30 days while you were being stalked by hitmen. So it takes place wherever you want it to take place. You're just constantly on the run.

Hence, the title of The Running Man makes more sense in that sense than as you are in this game show. Yeah, it actually sounded more like Amazing Race or something. Yeah, yeah, except that show needs more hitmen. Yeah, more hit. Well, I watched this really helpful video about this called What's a Difference? It's a really good video series they do about once a month. just comparing the book or comic book that a film is based on

and getting really granular into the differences between them and the one for this had a lot of interesting stuff in it, yeah. The ending of this is much different than the ending which Ben is victorious. Spoilers, the ending of the book is that he basically hijacks a plane and he crashes it into the TV network building which kills Damon Killian, who is the character in the book as well. the game show host character.

Yeah. Although apparently on the What's a Difference thing, they did say that Killian's not even the host. He's the executive producer, but not also the host. Yeah, that's right. He's just the leader of the games network or whatever runs the running man.

And that he, and that the hitman in it are just plain hitman. They are not crazy video game bosses. Yeah, which sounds like, it sounds worse to me. That's boring. Yeah. And we'll talk.

I can't believe that was written on cocaine. Not crazy enough. I feel like cocaine would have been just like wild. Maybe it wasn't good cocaine. Who knows. Oh, okay. He got a better. dealer when he wrote Kujo. The Coke

equivalent of skunkweed. Yes, exactly. And we'll talk more about the writer, but apparently the writer did play games, at least when he wrote Street Fighter, so maybe he was thinking of video games while writing this. Let's talk about the movie now. It released on November 13, 1987.

I was 5. I was probably more interested in watching, let's say, the Carebearers movie 2. Who knows what was out in 1987? Or real Ghostbusters, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Directed by Paul Michael Glazer, who was on the commentary of the Blu-ray. He is not a huge

film director, more of a TV guy who made a few movies, and he did lots of acting before he was a director. I believe one of his first roles was he was in the film adaptation of Fiddler on the roof. Oh, okay. He might be surprised to know that he is Jewish. Oh, wow. I know

it's shocking. I'm shocked. Yes, but he directed things like, he directed episodes of Starsky and Hutch and Miami Vice, and the other movies he directed are a few infamous ones, so we have things like the cutting edge, I forget what that is. The air up there with Kevin...

It's about ice skaters. It is. It is. It's a good name for an ice skater movie. Oh, the air up there. I remember that. That's the Kevin Bacon goes to Africa to get basketball players. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm sure... Yeah, it's kind of like in the same... I think the same little boxes, the gods must be crazy. Yeah. Kevin Bacon gets his foreskin cut off in that movie. Wow. Is that seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Well, that's so Kevin Bacon can join the tribe before he can get them to sign a for basketball. Is this like a, have you seen this? I saw this in theaters. I would remember that scene if I had seen it. Uh, I, it only hit me afterwards when I realized what, I didn't know what circumcision was. So, uh, then I found out. But anyway, that's what the movie was there for to teach you. Also, director of Kazam, the famous in bad movie. Of course, it's akeel O'Neill I know. And, uh, band of the hands. Uh, actually, Schwarzenegger did not like him because he came from TV. The movie he directed before this was Band of the Hand, not a big movie

and Schwarzenegger thought the director was going to be Andrew Davis who actually did some principal photography but the movie was running way over budget and way behind schedule and Andrew Davis was fired two weeks into production and this guy was put on as like the fifth choice.

So Andrew Davis would go on to direct the fugitive which everyone remembers that movie, the 1992 fugitive. Now that's a running man. Yeah, that's a That they could have called that movie The Running There I think back then

Especially the idea of being a TV director Was a lot more shame now Like the guys who directed the biggest The most money-making film of all time Were TV directors The Russo brothers Like I think there is a little less shame in it Also because big budget movies are TV now

So they don't want Fancy directors It's true and all the good directors Used to come from music videos But they don't make those anymore There's also that, yeah. No more McG's in this world. I mean, I think Schwarzenegger is probably upset as well because he's just like he's an alpha, you know,

and he doesn't want some beta TV director coming in and telling him what to do. Like he, it definitely, you know, Schwarzenegger even then in 87, like he's, if you watch his Mr. Olympia movie, it's a pumping iron, no wait, pumping iron, yeah, pumping iron. It's all about the head games he plays. Like, he is a, he's a master manipulator on top of being an incredible. fit man. I believe on the commentary, which I listened to this morning,

the director was talking about how Arnold was very bossy on the set, especially with him. And he kind of came up to Arnold. He's like, hey, Arnold, you're from Austria, right? I'm Jewish. How do you think I feel when he bossed me around? And I think he acted a little better after that.

Oh, damn. So, yeah, that is Paul Michael Glazer. He's still acting, no longer directing. I think he was recently in that Netflix show with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Oh, yeah. I know the show. Yeah, yeah. But it's on, you can watch it if you want.

But again, Fifth Director, sort of a last minute choice. He has a pretty good job. But the screenplay is by the King of the 80s. Stephen E. DeSouza. Once you hear what he makes, you'll know what this movie is. So he has written things like 48 hours and Jumpin' Jack Flash, Die Hard 1 and 2, Hudson Hawk.

And also he wrote and directed the Street Fighter movie. so he's done a lot but he is the master of the quippy action romp really from the 80s now he's uh he's a master of quippy dialogue just like uh i can think of a line from at least several of these not jumping jack flash but um but yeah even even street fighter i think a problem with the street fighter movie is that it came a decade too late because all the dumb crap jean claude van dam says in it would have been entirely acceptable in 1995 or 1985 but it was just hokey by the time it hit around then it has a lot of camp value now especially raw julia's stuff like all the stuff you remember i'm saying like for me it was

tuesday those are all stepheny to susa quips one steveny de suza learn from like um this movie die hard and uh and others that like you need a great actor who is not physically imposing to go as the villain to go against your meathead actor and that was the case with Rout Julia against Jean-Claude Van Dam. Same here with Richard Tusson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, it's not really a fair fight. Although the biggest surprise I have here is that Hudson Hawk had a script. Yep.

I thought it was just entirely off the cuff by Bruce Willis. I've never seen the movie. I just know it was touted like as one of the, it's going to be the biggest thing. Here's the NES game. You play the game in the movie, don't they? Do they? They might very well. You'll have to wait for our Hudson Hawk episode to find out.

mind out about that. But yeah, that's Steve D'Souza. This could just be good PR for the Street Fighter movie, but one of his credentials was when he was writing the movie, they were saying, well, he's actually, he loves the video game, so he's the best choice. I don't know if they're making that up, but possibly he was a gamer in the 80s, and he was thinking about video games when he was writing this movie in 1986, Henry. I want to believe that. I want to, I think, you know, that does sound like easy PR to just say that in interviews, but also, I don't think PR people in 95 were really thinking about courting the gamers and having the, you know, bullet point that they would totally have 10 years later in interviews of like, no, no, no, the director of Tomb Raider is a real

gamer. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the average gamer in 1987 was like 11 years old. So that wasn't really like a key market. It was, it was, you know, their parents. That's who they wanted to reach. But, I mean, this definitely has video game sensibilities to it that I would think maybe came from, maybe not in 1986 video games, maybe not as much, but I still feel a little Yeah, I really want to talk more about that later, just like how this and video games sort of like figured out bosses at the same time. But let's talk about the cast really quick before we go into just a general discussion of the movie. Of course, we all know on Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards. I love, I love movies with him in it where he's just like, I'm Steve Thompson.

It's like, let's not explain how you look. I'm Steve Thompson. Exactly. Let's not explain how you look or your accent or your background. You're Jim Richards. There's a woman and children down there. They're hungry. They just wants food. I'm going to try to avoid doing an Arnold accent. But one thing we forget about. So I totally forgot that Jesse Ventura, we'll talk about soon. He was governor of Minnesota. And then Arnold was governor of California.

So Arnold being governor of California overrorored. vote Jesse Ventura being government in Minnesota as the most ridiculous thing. And now that our president is the crazy game show host from this movie, we forget that he was governor of California for a year. Just kind of goes away. Yeah. It's like, yeah, that, you know, when you talk

about the path of reality in that direction, it makes you wonder in 2030 what we're going to say, like, can you believe we used to think it was crazy? Donald Trump was president? Like, what will we say then? What happens then? Where are we then? I'm scared. It's why I stopped writing satire a few months.

ago. It's like, I can't do this anymore. Reality is outpacing me. But, yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger, again, this was a huge, huge era for him. He would only start falling off in the 90s with stuff like Last Action Hero. And, you know, he was getting older, of course. Times changed, too.

Like, people, by them in 90s, like Schwarzenegger's stuff was old hat. And now, I mean, he is kind of progressive in some ways for being Republican. He's big on climate change and stuff like that, when a lot of people will not say anything about it. I mean, I don't know how much I can trust him.

He's had some scandals since in recent times, so his mighty heart is breaking. No, I mean, he's, you know, on the Republican end of things, he's, you know, more liberal, I suppose, than that he's a California Republican. In general, are, like, you can't, a Mississippi Republican does not get elected in California. So even if you're a Republican in California, the scale slides a little bit. He's also, you know, he takes shots at, or at least was, when he was hosting the fucking game show that our president started when he was the second host of it. I forgot about that. Yeah, see? And all, things happened too much.

It's true. It's true. I mean, I feel like a kind of progressive or kind of open-minded Republican governor in 2004 is the equivalent of a kind of moderate Democrat today, the way things are sliding. Right. We shall see. Politics, politics. Everyone loves them. I feel like Schwarzenegger's star began to tarnish in the 90s, in large part, because of a movie that we've already mentioned, which was released contemporaneously with the running man, which was diehard. Because, you know, Bruce Willis is kind of a meathead, sure, but he was a much more realistic meathead.

Like, he was kind of a normal guy in good shape, and he got the crap beaten out of him throughout that movie. and not in like a showy kind of way but in like a oh you can tell this guy is really hurting and by the end of it you know he's just he's holding on by pure grit and that was i think much more convincing so you ended up with action movies more along the lines of something like the fugitive where you know it's it's it's Harrison ford but he's not Indiana Jones he's just a doctor who is desperate to clear his own name and that was a very intense memorable movie it just you know this style of movie felt really dated and out of style by that point. And by the 90s, you had the Michael Bay films, which they, his main characters are usually like average Joe's. Yeah. Like they, Nick Cage in the Rock or Ben Affleck in Armageddon, like guys are like, hey, I'm just a guy who drills rocks. And I guess I got a going out of space of something here. I'm drilling here. Oh, wow. Yeah, so that's Schwarzenegger. Uh, again, uh, cool guy. Why not?

Sure. Yes. Yeah, okay. He made all of our 80s dreams come true. So up next we have Maria Kachita Alonso as Amber and as she came from Latin American telenovelas. Moved to America in 1984. It had her film debut in Robin Williams movie. I haven't seen Moscow on the Hudson.

Yeah, I kind of forget that. I mean, in that movie, he's just doing a Yakov-Smirnov impersonation. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he walks around various places saying, the country. And she never became a megastar. She was also in, I think, Predator 2? Yes. Yeah, Predator 2.

But if you look at her IMDB, she just has never stopped working, and she's gorgeous to this day. Yeah, no. She's a very pretty lady who, well, and Arnold is also gorgeous to this day. Yeah. But he's, I don't know about to this day, but in this movie, he's definitely kind of like

peak of good looks. Oh, yeah. Like, the very model of Teutonic handsomeness. He's doing fine at 30 I got to say. He's a very airy in handsomeness. I mean, oh, actually, I remember the last time I saw him in the news. So it went viral where he was at some school somewhere on Earth. And the kid, a kid tries to drop kick him, or a kid does drop kick him, but the kid just bounces off of him and falls down.

That was, yeah, I saw a video of that. It's just like, what would happen if, like, I don't know, like a leaf hits you from a tree? You're walking down the sidewalk. I mean, I have certain Arnold Schwarzenegger could murder me right now, like, very easily. With one finger. From Southern California. Yes, exactly.

So, yeah, that is Maria Cichita-Lonzo. But another superstar in this movie is Richard Dawson as Damon and Killing in the villain of this movie. Now, this was some real stunt casting because two years before this movie, he ended a nine-year run as the host of Family Feud.

So for us, this is like, wait, who hosts the game show today? It was Richard Karn. Is it still Karn? I don't know. I think it was either Richard Karn or Elaine's boss from Seinfeld. Let's say it's like this would be like having a movie like this today with like... Family theater is Steve Harvey, is it?

Steve Harvey. Yeah. It would be like Steve Harvey or Louis Anderson being in this role. Or like Alex Trebek being the leader of the sadistic game show. I'd love to see that. Yeah. But he is so good in this movie. He gets it.

He understands what he has to do. And he is a lot of fun to watch. so good everything he does is so good he's so i mean he's really playing himself there too he's great but he's i but he has his pinkies out every time he's drinking his thing he's yeah he's so fancy he's a fancy boy yeah and but also like he's i love him his two-facedness such a great introduction to his character where he slips on that stuff that guy's mopping he's like hey you're doing a great job what's your name get this guy out of yeah it's a good screenplay moment. It's like kind of the kick

the cat moment. Yeah, he rules in everything he does in this. He's the real draw of the film and that he just came straight from being on Family Feud, which I don't know if you've seen his family feuds. He's a very friendly host. Yeah, he's very handsy with the moms.

Yeah, I mean, the whole Family Feud thing is that you are like right there with a lot of very normal people or maybe subnormal even. And you have to kind of put on a game face and be like, wow, you just said something incredibly stupid, but let's look to the board.

So I feel like this is just kind of, you know, like a natural evolution of that. Just taking sort of the natural personality he had to display during Family Feud and putting a malicious twist on it. He has a very good and fun to watch in sincerity to what he does. Like when he's talking to people in the audience and like kissing the ladies, having his hand around people and stuff, it's very sleazy and insincere and it's just fun to watch.

So Richard Dawson, does so good in this movie. Also, other people in this movie, Yafat Koto, these other characters have names, apparently, but that are rarely ever uttered, but his name is William Loughlin. But he played Parker and Alien.

I believe he did an alien episode. Is that correct, Jeremy? Yes, absolutely. He's one of the space mechanics working in the bowels of the Nostromo. That's right. And he doesn't get a lot to do in this, but he's good at what he does. He's just a reliable, like, buddy.

There's a great little, character building line for him at the start where Arnold says to him like keep trying to teach children the Constitution is this like he's he's still a believer in the old American government that is long dead but that's uh but

that too I like that Ben Richards in this is so apolitical compared to what I heard he is in the book he's much more of a politically engaged guy. Yeah and like something that's lost in the script and I guess we could talk about it later is that Ben Richards has goes

through an arc, but the points are so far apart in time. You get one line, it's like, I only look up for myself. And then, like, at the end of the movie, he's like, oh, I can help lead people. I have a cause now. Now I'm, like, fighting for other people. But they're just so separate, and there's so much mayhem in between those two points that the character

doesn't really grow in this movie. And that's Yafat Koto. And then we have Jesse Ventura as Captain Freedom, who is so good in this movie. He rules, I love him strutting around the aerobics video. Oh, so good. He is so good.

We all know him today as a conspiracy kook. I barely knew him as a wrestler. By the time I knew of him, he was the governor of Minnesota. I know where the black boxes are, Bob. I am doing James Donis in person. I do not know he's a conspiracy cook. Oh, the Denver Airport, Jeremy. I host conspiracy theories on true TV.

I've been to the 9-11 site, and I know what happened there. It's a fun voice because you can do the Midwestern thing, but in a sinister way. Yeah, it's a really fun voice to do. Now, Jesse Ventura, I could talk for a long time about him, but the short version is that he was a giant wrestling superstar right before Hulk Hogan. Halk Hogan took a lot of his bits, honestly, but Jesse Ventura got a bad injury at about

1984, so he had to stop wrestling right as the Hulkomania-Ressomania boom began. and then by 86 he started to move over to film because it also was happening for Roddy Piper like the guys, they were trying to make a Hulk Hogan movies too but WWE or F then, WWF, wanted to be heavily involved in Hulk movies but Jesse and Roddy and guys on that level they could get cast in other films outside of the Vince McMahon machine. Jesse's lesson he learned after being in two Arnold movies back to back

was that wrestlers should really have a union and that they have bad, bad deals with Vince McMahon. And when he came back and said that, he, and tried to start a union, Hall Cogan snitch to Vince and Jesse got fired for that. And he's had an on again, off again relationship with the WWF since then. He also, thanks to a video game, was another thing Jesse sued Vince McMahon over because they used his voice clips in, I believe, a mega drive,

WWF video game. Oh, really? And he sued Vince for misusing his likeness, and it was one of an early likeness rights lawsuits in video game history, and Jesse won, and so they had to be a little more careful in the future. But yes, he then, he came back in and out of wrestling. There's also another person in this movie who was in the rip, sorry, no holds barred, the terrible He's the villain of No Holds Bar. That's right, yeah. So we also have Jim Brown as Fireblyb. I'm just noticing now, I'm realizing there's a common theme of this

movie is like non-traditional actors in this movie. So Arnold is a weightlifter. Richard Dawson's a game show host. He was an actor too. Justie Ventura, wrestler, Jim Brown, football player, Mick Fleetwood and Dweasel Zappa are musicians. Like, if you're not an actor,

come on out of the running man. We got plenty of jobs for you. I mean, Jim Brown have been in a lot of films by this point, though. Yeah, yeah, no, he's great, and he plays a fireball. He basically, he stopped playing football in the 60s and just became an actor, and he's great in this. He's really good in a Mars attacks, an okay movie. Yeah, he's great in that, yeah. Well, and, you know, given kind of the theme of this movie and kind of the roles some of these people are playing,

it makes sense to get people from outside of the traditional Hollywood world, because, you know, you have guys who worked on television or in pro sports. so they're comfortable in front of a camera, but they have kind of their own comfort zone that's outside of traditional acting. And they really bring that into the, you know, the scenarios, the, the action, like the characters they portray.

So I think it made a lot of sense. And Arnold is such a giant man that you need to find other huge men to be around him so he doesn't look ridiculous or also could ever be an underdog in his own film. That's why they need that Sven guy to, be constantly walking. Yeah. Yeah, that's Finn guy. I was impressive. They've actually found

someone who was bigger, like just a more enormous slab of human than Schwarzniker was. It's Sven Ole Thorsen. A pal of Jesse Ventura, he's in a lot of movies with him. I believe him and Arnold and Sven were all in Predator four or five months before that. In fact, this movie was going to release in the summer, but it was moved to November

because Predator was July of 87. Oh, well, and also, last thing about Jesse, I have a theory, that I couldn't find confirmation on but I think that Jesse Ventura refused to have his character

actually lose to Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in this film so that's why there's this weird sequence where he gets, it's robots and it's all fake because there's a funny story It's a deep fake. Another touch of 2019.

We're in the, I mean, we'll talk about deepfakes but we are in the area of deepfakes and seeing this on the screen. I didn't think the same way about it when I watched it for the last time like five years ago. But now, yeah. Oh, but sorry. Jesse Ventura there's a funny story behind the scenes at Predator that Jesse Ventura

went to the wardrobe department at the start of their shooting. He's like, how big measure my arms for my suit. My arms are bigger than Arnold's, aren't they? Aren't they? And he tries to put on the Arnold's jacket or some

outfit he wears in the movie. And he's like, my arms are bigger than Arnold. So he's telling that to the behind the scenes, like, you let him know that I've got bigger arms than Mr. Olympia. And then it cuts to Arnold, who's like, oh, I'm so glad you told me that story, because I told the wardrobe person to make my arms two inches shorter on the thing to trick Jesse into thinking his arms are bigger than mine.

These hunky pranksters, I swear. And so I think that Jesse had a real competition with Arnold. And actors do refuse to lose, movies just the way they do in wrestling things. That's so stupid. This just came out about the Fast and Furious movies, but this has been around for the longest time. Yeah, I guess it's nothing new. Yeah, so I

I've seen no confirmation for this. It's just my gut instinct that I think Jesse Ventura refused to be directly defeated by Arnold Schwarzenegger in this movie. And so they created this version, this fake version of it. That's true. I mean, back in... And it's a sequel

hook. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Captain Freedom will return in running Man, too. I mean, back in the 30s, actors and actresses would be like, this person does my close-ups, this person with this camera, they are hired to do my close-ups in this movie. So it's never been different, just like

these different stipulations. But other people in this movie, yeah, sorry. Mick Fleetwood, who is Mick, the leader of this people's movement resistance thing. Jeremy has a note about... I think he's Mike in this, isn't he? Like, microphone? Oh, oh, I thought they just called him Mick. Oh, maybe they did.

I thought it was Mike, but you, maybe you're right. But yes, I did put a note in there that he apparently had the acting bug around this time because he's also notably in an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, although you'd never know it because he is dressed as like a fish-headed alien. Like it is literally

just the head of a fish. And then he's wearing robes. I don't remember which episode it was, but he shows up in the opening credits and you're like, wow, Mick Fleetwood and you watch the whole episode and you're like, where the hell was Mick Fleetwood? Well, he was the fish guy.

That's like having Daniel Craig appear in Force of Lichen. Exactly. That is exactly the comparison. Was he like a Storm Trooper or something? I thought so. Yeah, I mean, I don't know from Fleetwood Mac, so I didn't know he was the guy from Fleetwood Mac. So good job, Mick Fleetwood. I mean, Stevie Nix is the real star.

Yeah. Dweezel Zappa, who is Frank Zappa's child, Dwezel and Ahmed Zappa. And Moon Unit. Moon Unit. Don't forget Moon Unit. That's true. And I know him most from being. Ajax on Duckman.

That was what he would say. Me too. I think he also appeared on a number of those I love the blanks shows of VH1 or some of those VH1 talking head things. And I think, I mean, he's in the opening credits, so for a long time I thought the third guy of the

group of three, the dorcas, the fish-looking guy. I thought he was Wiesel Zappa, but no, Zuzlzap has one line, I believe it's don't touch that dial. The red beret wearing young gentleman. Yeah. But also, Kurt Fuller, That's the guy I was talking about who was in No Holds Bar.

And he's the villain in Wayne's World too. That's right, yeah. He is, like, cast as the perfect like executive movie asshole, like business asshole character is Kurt Fuller. He's so good at it.

Yeah. And, I mean, there's lots of other people in this movie, but one of the person I want to note is the announcer of The Running Man Show. He does a lot of fun bits.

If you stay past the credits in the end or stay towards the end of the credits, rather, you hear some nice, like, funny little jokes. And throughout the movie, it's Roger Bumpus, as the voice of the announcer was also for 20 years

I've been the voice of Squidward on SpongeBob SquarePants. So just a weird pool for you guys. I am. I, you know, as long as Kurt Fuller is still with us, I can have my dream of interviewing him, but only about No Holt's Bard, because that seems like one of the most ridiculous things ever made.

Written by Vince McMahon in Hulk Hogan? Yes. They said they hated the script, and they went into a hotel room all weekend to rewrite it, using probably the same techniques as Stephen King, I would assume. A typewriter? Yes.

A very expensive typewriter. A very powdery typewriter. It's coated with a fine coating of dust. There's more creative powder over here. But Kurt Fuller, like, in that film, just plays Vince McMahon. Like, that's the character he plays in it, which to be directed by Vince McMahon

to play Vince McMahon in a script written by Vince McMahon sounds insane. But Hulk Hogan plays a guy named Rip. Yes, yeah. The Kurt Fuller also, he did a last Jesse Ventura story about Hogan. When that movie was coming out, Jesse was on the TV series. He was on WWF television still, and he was saying, like,

Hulk Hogan's trying to enter my world. You can't do it, Hulkster. He's not a governor yet. So we're going to take a brief break, and we'll come back with a discussion of the Running Man movie in the many, many games and influence. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be. And...

...andahe... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... Hey folks, this is Bob interrupting your Retronauts podcast for a special announcement.

Jeremy and I will be at this year's Pax West event for three separate panels. So if you've never seen us live before, now is your chance. So in chronological order, the first panel will be Saturday, August 31st, at 12.30 p.m. in the Sasquatch Theater, and that will be the cromulent world of fictional Simpsons games. That will be a Talking Simpsons panel all about all of the fake video games within the world of the Simpsons. Then on Monday, Retronauts will be closing out the show with two back-to-back panels, both in the Raven Theater. The first one will be at 3 o'clock p.m., and that will be Super Metroid versus Castlevania Symphony of the Night, which is pretty self-explanatory. The next one will be at 4.30 p.m. and it's titled the Dreamcast's 20th Anniversary Necrow

We'll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Dreamcast on this panel, and it's also the 10th anniversary of the Retronauts Pax panel from 2009. Again, that is Saturday, August 31st, at 1230 p.m. in the Sasquatch Theater that is the Talking Simpsons panel, and then on Monday, September 2nd, there'll be two back-to-back panels in the Raven Theater for Retronauts, starting at 3 o'clock p.m., and we hope to see you there. So we're back. to talk about the running man and just basically a general walkthrough of the movie touching on a few things of course we're not going to go as in depth as we do on

what a cartoon or whatever because otherwise this podcast would be four hours long but yeah so this movie starts off with there's quite a bit of material before the actual running man game that we see in it's like half an hour it's a lot of content it's a lot of world building if you will

to set up establish the world in which the running man takes place so the prologue after the nice video game font title is, you know, by 2017, the world economy has collapsed. America's now police state, et cetera, et cetera. And the running man is the most popular television show in history. And

basically, the government controls everything, but there's a small resistance movement. And then we see that Arnold Schwarzenegger is Ben Richards. And basically, Ben is, he's a cop. He's a cop. Is he named after the members of the Fantastic Four

Ben Grimm and Reed Richards, do you think? It could be. It wouldn't be surprised. He has the resourcefulness of Mr. Fantastic, yet the strength of the thing. And he also has a pilot like the thing is too. Oh, my God. How deep does this go? There's probably like a Fantastic Four Comics sitting on the desk.

Steve, like, need name. Okay, that's the name. Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, so Ben is basically told to, who knows what he did before this, but they're flying over Bakersfield, California.

and there's a food riot. No one is armed. They can tell her through their helicopters. But he's told to murder everybody, murder anything that moves. He refuses to. He tries to pull a mutiny. Not a great idea on a helicopter. He's easily overpowered by his cop buddies.

You know, actually, I was thinking about the whole Arnold trying to protect his image thing. Yeah. He's only defeated by a guy accidentally moving the helicopter wrong. He beats up all four guys in the helicopter, but him almost falling out accidentally is what stops it. That's right. Yeah, boy, what a strange fight to be in inside of a helicopter. Yep. So

because of this, he is totally screwed. He is in the Willshired attention zone, and it's a land of bomb callers, and I love any piece of media with a bomb collar in it. It's great. Is this a first bomb collar? I mean, it definitely predates even the Battle Royale manga.

Yeah. And same with Suicide Squad, the comic book. also is like late 80s like 89 and I think they I wouldn't be surprised if they got it from this too I'm I'm having trouble remembering in genre fiction any other exploding collars before this it's uh it's a nice touch and it sets up a nice set piece where they have to break out of prison uh they basically stage a prison riot uh but in order to get out of the prison they need to deactivate these sensors because if they walk past them their heads will explode and one guy's head actually explodes you got to explode one head just so I think I think by this point scanners had been out for quite a while quite the same as a bomb collar, but the idea of like an exploding head was

definitely there. Although it's funny because I watched this last night with my wife who is not nearly as familiar with genre fiction, at least in science fiction as I am. So I totally got what the the collars were about as soon as I saw them because it's such a cliche now,

but she had no idea. So when that dude's head popped, she was like, what just happened? Brain freeze. And then, you know, Suicide Squad had the exact same moment, though, came late in the movie, or midway through the movie, but you have to show the threat, so you introduce

a nobody character whose head is just there to explode, just so people know that they can't explode. The sacrificial skull. But yeah, I'm sure, like, in some sci-fi books, there were bomb-collers, or that would be something, but if you were, if you were watching this in 87,

this could have been new to you, the bomb-caller idea, but always fun to see bomb-collars. So, yeah, Ben breaks out of prison. Um, he first ends up in the slums and he's told about the movement and everything. And he's just like, no, I'm only looking up for myself. He also has to smoke his stolgi. Yeah, Stolgi. Oh, man, he look, I got to say, oh, sorry, Jeremy, go ahead.

No, I'm just laughing about the, the cigars. Because it's like everywhere he goes, no matter how horrible the future is. He's got a cigar. It's, you know what? Smoking looks cool. It does. He's chomping on that. I mean, I wouldn't look cool with the Stokey in my mouth.

Especially with his big manly cigar next to like Richard Dawson's, a feminine. fancy pants cigarette so yes we beat the resistance and then ben goes into the city i like the mickley would he uh rejects him at first like you're a cop you made this place shitty you suck but they do pry off his bomb collar but uh ben goes in the city like his plan is like no i'm going to get out of this i'm going to go my brother lives in the city he will you know protect me and stuff but when he shows up uh that his brother's apartment there's a real babe living in there real 80s babe yeah canchita lanzo is at her top 80s babeness, especially with very 80s lingerie and high hair.

The fact that she's exercising in lingerie, who does that? That stuff's not absorb it. You're not wicking sweat away. What are you doing? It's the future. They love working out there in lingerie. Women love it. I mean, I've been to gyms.

Women do work out on lingerie in 2019. Oh, yeah? No, that's a lie. Oh, I mean, I'd believe it. I don't know. After yoga pants, anything's possible. It's true. I love Jesse Ventura starring in.

Captain Freedom's workout tape a parody of the Jazzercise that was so hot in the 80s. Yeah, watching him strut around is hilarious. His little like kind of Superman pose and then he goes, ha! God, it's so funny. It's great.

And his wig is so fake too, which is also great. But basically, because of this, Ben meets Amber and kind of takes her hostage in a fun way, where Ben finds out that Amber has a travel pass. So, they're going to use it to escape the country, presumably.

It was so fun when he threatened to snap her neck like a chicken. Yeah, but I do love his Hawaiian dad outfit. With a cigar. With a cigar. She's right to be terrified of him, not just what the media tells her, but that he's a strange man who enters her house and then does literally hold her hostage. He does commit a crime, you know. So I guess the plan is to go to Maui or something like that because I guess it's inferred that

earlier in the movie, that's where the winners of the running man end up. The Hawaiian vacation is the dream for people in this reality. Yeah, I also like that they set up that she has a lot of contraband, and then she's like everyone does. Like, yeah, it's the future. The haves have different laws

than the have not. It just is. It does show Ben that she is sympathetic to the cause, or she would potentially be sympathetic. But they go to the airport, and I like how you point out, Henry, even in this dystopian future, the TSA is not as bad as it is in our world where basically there's one travel pass. So Arnold gives

the TSA guy his, which is hers. And then she pretends to not find hers and have a lot of stuff in her person because it's such a big sexist hassle. They let her through. Yeah, yeah. They just like, ah, just go through. Just go through. It's so silly. I mean, travel used to be a lot more relax. I remember when you could go past the very loose security gates to wait for someone arriving on a plane at the gate that they were arriving at

and sort of having to wait down by the luggage or whatever. It was a different time. But that's definitely something that stands out in the movie. Wow, so lax. In this totalitarian future they're like, well, it would just be one x-ray machine, though. You wouldn't have to take off your shoes and belt and scan

every single thing through something. You just walk through. It's crazy. Like, I had my wallet stolen last year, and because of that, I didn't have an ID, but I still needed to fly. So I brought my birth certificate, and, like, every other piece of ID with a picture on, I could find multiple credit cards and whatever. And I showed them to the TSA, and he was like, we'll see about this. And it's just like, okay, you're getting a full pat down in front of everybody. We're going to go through your luggage in front of everybody. You were being punished, sir, for being robbed.

Gosh, yeah. But, yes, because of this, Ben is eventually caught because Amber, of course, squeals on him, because why, wouldn't you? You're being held hostage by, as far as you know, a mass murderer. Yeah, yeah, you don't know what he's up to. And because of that, Ben is captured once again, and... They take him down like cattle. It's great. Yes,

it's very good. How do you take down a man that large? You use a cattle net. They use, like, a rope gun, yeah. Yeah, also, this militarized police can't even match the actual 2019 militarized police force. Like, they didn't have the budget to match

the insane budget for war and death that America has today. But yes, because of this... That would have been a Michael Day movie. That's true. Yeah. But because of this, Ben is recruited by the running man because Damon is looking for new people and they're all too scrawny

but they're like, oh, look at this guy. Look at this guy running from the cops. He's the perfect contestant for the running man. Yeah. Well, because he's like, oh, this guy's a murderer. Let's have him on. He's like, he's 120 pounds of anything. This guy's too scrawny. Nobody... Like, Dawson knows how to play both sides of Killian. The

lovable game show host and then like the cutthroat television producers just like what are you got for me? What are you got? Come on. Give me this. He's a guy who makes television but for a you know dystopian

authoritarian system. It's wild. He knew it like you said Bob. He knew exactly what movie was in and what he has played. He sunk his teeth into it. So we're going to cut ahead a little bit to the actual game show. So Arnold is, or sorry, Ben is put into the running man as a contestant because basically he's told like if you don't compete we're going to

you know make your two friends compete and they could never last like you could last in this game but it turns out a surprise you got double crossed by this toopian government and they're also going to compete with you in this in this competition yeah Arnold uh I mean I don't think Ben trusted Killian anyway but what choice did he have but uh I their outfits too I you know maybe this is why I didn't think this movie was as smart as it was because this is just American Gladiators. And so, well, actually, American Gladiators ripped it off. But I saw that first. And so when I saw Running Man, I was like, what is this? The American Gladiators movie? Stupid. Boo. Like, that's how I think like a lot of speculative fiction about dystopias, instead of

warning people, it often just gives people great ideas. That looks nice. Let's do that. So, yeah, Ben is now part of this game show. And we meet Damon Kill. in his true form. I love how sleazy is. Again, a sleazy game show host. He comes out saying, you know, who loves you and who do you love? They say, Damon! So he's their hero. And he has fans of, like, there are people that

show up to multiple shows. They're so excited to meet him. He gives them prizes. It's like a great send-up of, like, a super, like, crass capitalist society. I like how there's the home version of this. Yes, the home version of the game is great with the extremely primitive-looking packaging

that they clearly just printed out in like five minutes. It's very, it's very slapdash. And all the posters around the TV station are so great, confess. The hate boats? The hate boat. We see a clip of, again, a very robust cop style clip of climbing for dollars where a guy's climbing a rope and there are dogs trying to bite him. I want even more of that in the movie. Yeah. The, God, so good. Like this, the film had an angle to it. I don't feel like big budget action films have as much like satire and snark to them these days, you know? They really don't. I mean, they're not really about anything. this is kind of about something. Well, because it has

to play in every country in the world to everybody. We're trying to understand this? I don't know. But yeah, so the running man starts and basically they show the crowd a deep fake of Ben killing the people at the ride instead of protesting about their death. And while

all this is happening, Amber is starting to investigate this on her own, like because Ben is telling her they're lying to you, I'm not a criminal and eventually she discovers that the winners of the competition who supposedly went away to Hawaii are dead. Yes.

They're dead. She gets, and she gets her hands on much needed for later in the film, true footage as well. Yeah. And you can tell it's digital because it's labeled with an optical character recognition font. They make it very clear, like, this is not the videotape that you know.

It's the future video team. I like how they save their crime evidence. Like crime footage, crime footage cover-up evidence. Real version. Yeah. I love how we get an I'll be back. in this movie. I forgot that you get one. But we also get a response

he says only in a rerun, which is very clever. Love that. Love that. That's a real wink to the audience there. Also, a rare time somebody gets a one up on Arnold in one of these movies. It's true. That's okay because he dies in the end. That's what happens when you try to outsmart Arnold.

He's hoisted by his own future luge or whatever that is. So we don't have a ton of time to talk about the movie, but I do want to talk about, so this movie is essentially we got past the intro now it is a series of boss fights with a story running in the background where it's like we got to get to the uplink satellite and show people the truth. But the movie, the meat of the movie really is these like boss fights that all the men have to fight through. And the first

one is a professor sub-zero. Yeah, he has at least a master's degree. And he is a, uh, an ice skating ninja. Love that. Yeah, he's like a hockey player. He's got a bladed, he's got a bladed Hockey Blade. And he's played by Hawaiian though portraying Japanese professional wrestler from WWF

Tanaka, who was a tag teammate of Mr. Fuji, who was much more famous to 80s wrestling fans. And they call him Professor Sub-Zero. I fact reiterated like Sub-Zero, Professor Sub-Zero because it was Professor

Tanaka, right? Yeah, yeah. I think that's just him keeping his gimmick alive in the movie. And yeah, what a cool villain in the film too he's and a good one to start with of just this ridiculousness funnily enough arnold himself will play an ice skating supervillain in batman and robin oh my god you're right But a lot of these boss fights are very video games, they're using the environment, they're using the enemy's weapons against them.

have a big weak point, multiple stages to the fights. So in this one, it starts off with basically him trying to attack them with the hockey stick. Then he fires exploding pucks. These are just like phases of a boss fight. And then in order to subdue him, Ben basically rips down a piece of barbed wire and strings it up across the arena. So it wraps around his neck and then he sort of like lassoes him and chokes him to death with it. So that is the death of sub-zero. And that's a big shock to the running man audience who are not used to seeing the stalkers die.

Yep. Yeah, and I know we'll get into the Metal Gear thing later, but this really reminds me of two Metal Gear Battles, Metal Gear Solid's Vulcan Raven fight, and Metal Gear Solid 2's Fat Man Fight. Like, if you combine those, so you have a guy kind of like skating around with explosives, but also kind of like in a, you know, like a warehouse type space and in the cold, you pretty much get this fight. I didn't even think of that, yeah. We'll talk about how much Koja. I think this movie hit him greatly because he mined every part of it for content but yeah, Fat Man and what was the other one you said? Vulcan Raven. What does that fight like again? I totally forget. You're in like a warehouse

full of boxes and it's kind of like scenes from the top down view and he's stalking around with a Vulcan cannon and just like blasting you whenever he catches sight of you. But Sub Zero is not eaten by birds when he dies unfortunately. No mucktucketuck wrestling

or whatever. So we get I think it's like Tibetan sky burial is what it's called, right? When birds eat you? Something like that. I could be wrong. Correct me in the comments. But up next, so the device in this movie is they ask the audience members which stalker they want to see come out and this nerdy

guy can't decide. He loves he loves BuzzSar or Dynamo. I forget who does he love BuzzSar or Dynamo? He likes one of them but he can't decide. But one of them will be the clear winner. Damon Killian says, well, do you better here's Bussaw and Dynamo. So now it's like a double boss fight. So Bus is, as you would expect, he's a guy

with lots of chainsaws and a motorcycle that he can put his chainsaw on and then Dynamo is the more inventive character where he is an opera singing guy like covered in light bright. That guy's crazy. Who shoots electricity.

He's a really insane boss for this. At least the chainsaw guy is also like a big meat slab too. Yeah. Dynamo is a little heftier than the rest of the villains. they say he was an opera singer too

yes okay yeah that is like a perfect metal gear boss a electricity powered opera singer who also rides a fun doom buggy that's pretty much Vulcan isn't it or Vulgan vulgan yeah but I feel like

Buzzsaw is the more classic video game villain type because he's got two phases he's got the bike phase and actually that's got multiple phases it's got like the basically using his chainsaws a jousting lance

and then just trying to run over character like the protagonists and then he's got the second phase which is after he's been dismounted and you have to fight him that way.

It's true. Yeah, I can see like just the idea of video game boss phases coming out rather than just being one thing you hit a lot. There's like different attacks

and different ways to disable them and then we have so bus saw is killed in a not interesting way he's basically Ben pushes the saw back but he saw it up

through the crotch which is pretty nice and we get a nice like well he's a soprano now joke when he screams so yeah and that's what kills him and and then we see dynamo basically uh he overestimates his his buggy's abilities so uh Arnold or Ben rather runs up this hill of debris and Dynamo tries chasing him up the hill in his buggy but the buggy tumbles back down and he is incapacitated but Arnold will not kill an innocent man so that is sort of a save the giant light bright man moments yeah it lets you see that he's uh

not all bad. He's only going to kill in self-defense and he won't kill someone so weak, which is also, though, comes and bites him in the ass because Dynamo comes back in classic also video game villain form of reusing a boss fight for later in the game. It's cheap. This

game, this whole game is the boss rush. Who wants to play this? Yeah, so I mentioned the phases of buzzsaw's fight. It just occurred to me that the same year Zelda 2 came out in Japan and that has a boss fight where you have to knock a dude off his horse. And then fight him as a knight.

Interesting, yeah. Kind of something in the water, something in the air. I think all of these ideas were lateral, but definitely Kojima was borrowing heavily. So we're running out of time in terms of how long we can talk about the movie in general, but I do want to talk about some of the last bosses. So we have Fireball, who is Jim Brown, who is basically 100% the Fury from Metal Gear Solid 3. He is a flamethrower guy with a jet pack, and they're running around an industrial area in like a stealth battle almost. He's really cool.

There's like a fire boss, a Metal Gear Solid 1, but this is definitely like when you see Fireball using his jetpack, that is 100% the Fury for BetterGosol 3, except you can't chase him like I did and hide in the corner and snipe him. I mean, flame throwing villains also need to have jet packs. That just feels, you know, obvious now, just that I played so many video games. This also, I mean, this Bosch Rush definitely reminds me of most Goichi Suda games because they also are like big satirical boss rushes too. I think he, yeah, yeah.

I think C-2-51 had a big influence from this. There is one more boss fight in this movie, but this is where the deep fakes come in, where Ben Richards is too popular. Someone in the crowd has asked to bet who will win, and the woman says, Ben, I choose Ben, instead of choosing a stalker. So they get really mad, and they basically deep fake the deaths of Ben and Amber

by getting stunt doubles, who are people. I don't think they're robots. I think they're people, yes. Yeah, because I think they even tell Captain Freedom, you didn't have to kill the guy. So they basically fake footage of them being killed in like this wrestling. It's a wrestling ring. Yeah.

They texture map Schwarzenegger's image onto this guy and then kill him. And Captain Freedom is also very much the villain. The villain who has a good guy turn in films or in the video games too, like the rival of yours who becomes your ally, but you also have to fight him at the end. The only thing missing here is that he never actually fights Ventura. and he just kind of leaves the film. Yeah, Ventura just disappears after this. Yeah, again, my theory, I think, is true.

I think you could be right about that. But, I mean, there are no more boss fights. A few things I want to point out about this movie before you move on to the Weight Influence Games is that I did notice one definite, like, metal gear pull. Is that when Amber meets up with them after getting separated, she has the Bakersfield video, the dialogue is Ben saying, where did you hide that?

She says, it's none of your business. And that was the same thing with Merrill, where she's like, women have more hiding places than men. Oh, wow. Wow. I forgot that. Damn. I mean, Marilyn and Maria Conchita-Lonzo have a little in common. Sure. Sure. When it's time to kill someone, she knows how to do it. She eventually does it. So we're almost at a time for the movie discussion. Is there anything else you want to touch upon? I mainly want to touch upon this movie is fun and it's cool, but it's all about boss fights.

And once you get to the boss fights, it's a lot of fun and you're just constantly thinking of like, what games have I played where I see all the same stuff in? Yeah, just action, action, action. that he's uh his striking outfit is almost like it part of the joke is how he's dressed like well not joke but satire is that he's in this bright yellow costume that it's not how a regular super uh main character in an action film dresses but it is the kind of like bright colors that would be the star of a video game at the time to make him boldly stand out from the background as you're controlling him so yeah i mean he looks like uh the outfit he's wearing pretty much looks like the

guy from Metro Cross by Namco which is a game about a running man like it's one of the first infinite runner type games where you're just like automatically running you have to jump over obstacles and stuff and you're wearing this bright yellow spandex outfit man i didn't i did not know that's uh it's and it was outfits perfect for being the main character of a video game uh let's so for like looking cool compared to other arnold's lead characters Thank you. The game, there was a game. The game, there was a game, 1989, it came out for MSX, ZX Spectrum,

Commodore 64, Amstrad, Amiga, and Atari ST, developed by the Irish developer Emerald Software, and published by Grand Slam Interactive. What I have to tell you about this game, folks, is that it's in a licensed European microcomputer action game, so no. I'm just going to say no. If you're a fan of this game, let me know it looked like a lot of those very awkward but pretty Amiga games, and that it's fun to watch. Sort of a shadow of the bees kind of thing. Exactly. So doing this show for so long, I've looked at a lot of these games, and they all seem to be the same way in that they're all. like 12 minutes long and beautiful but impossibly hard well because there's so little content they

got to at least keep you from finishing it as best they can yeah it's like you have to draw out those beautiful 12 minutes and i think on the amiga version there are two discs the first disc is just the intro to the game like the animated intro to the game yeah i mean honestly it's not super impressive i've seen a better amiga stuff but still amiga was all about showing off the hardware. But Bob, it's the ZX. Oh, I'm sorry. You know, Canadians say Z, too, and it just sounds like a hillbilly's name for me. Z is a

letter. But again, this is the only game. It's crazy. There was not even an NES game. This is the perfect format for a game adaptation. And you might be saying, well, Bob, this is an R-rated movie, and it's kind of violent. Well, on the NES, we had things like Predator and Platoon and Robocop and Total Recall and Friday the 13th, all these R-rated

movies that became NES games inexplicably got the Nintendo seal of quality. A-O-K. I, you know, the 90s was about, the late 80s and early 90s was selling R-rated things to children in, like, the weirdest winky way possible. Yeah. I was like, hey, kids, you can't see this movie, but you can buy the toys. Robocop is made to be a toy sold to children. That's the joke in the world of the movie.

But then, of course, they have to, they made a cartoon of it so then they could sell cartoon toys to kids. What if that joke was real and gave us money? Yeah. This commentary is just smart enough to work and make us money. I want to see Climbing for Dollars on Netflix. So I want to talk about the influence on games to close out the show. So The Running Man is a movie was never huge, but the right people watched it at the right time. So, of course, Smash TV, the 1990 arcade game.

Hell, yeah. It is just The Running Man. In fact, it's so The Running Man, they accidentally stole from Robocop, too. I'll buy that for a dollar, or I'd buy that for a dollar joke. Eventually, you hit a wall of things to take Running Man from. You got a pill for a little from Robocop as well. Yeah. Yeah, but yes, they're in bright costumes playing a televised murder game in the future for dollars.

Like that it's bonkers how similar it is. Maybe that's another reason I didn't pay as much attention to Running Man because I was like, I took Smash TV as a straight thing as in not, I mean, it is a very heterosexual game. But what I mean is that I didn't see it as trying to be ironic. when I played it as an eight-year-old. I just took it as fun violence game. Like, that's what I liked about it. Well, actually, the fun violence game is Manhunt,

which is the early odds edge lord version of the running man. I mean, they're not that similar, but it is a death game. But I think by that time, we're getting to the point where the death game is such a broad concept that you really can't point back to the running man directly. But I feel like there's enough of a connection there to make a small connection. But my big theory is that this is one of the 80s movies. that influenced Kojima, Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear, the most.

About a movie buff. He watches every bad movie. If you look at his Twitter, you see him buying every bad Blu-ray. So things like Blade Runner, Terminator, lethal weapon, all these movies were big for him, and he basically copied them directly in his video games,

especially in Metal Gear. So the Running Man released in Japan after the first Metal Gear, which is why Metal Gear 2 has a boss called Running Man. And now he's finally making that diehard man. He's always been dreaming. Who, is there going to be a diehard man? One of the villains in Death Stranding,

his name is Die Hardman. Excellent, excellent. God, I thought you were kidding, but you're not. Nope. So according to... So where did Hot Coleman come from? Oh, icy hot. His back was hurting one day. So Metal Gear 2 has a boss called Running Man, and according to an article

that is from 2012, it's his favorite boss in the series. Wow. I'm shocked to hear that out of all his amazing bosses, that it's the one in gear two, like that no American played until 2003 or

whatever, like I put out in a special edition box set. So yeah, that is a running man for Metal Gear Solid 2. Sorry, Metal Gear 2, and he is essentially literally a running man. He's a man who runs around an arena and you have to lay down mines in his path. But it's definitely a nod

to a movie he thought was cool. And unfortunately, because there's an enemy called Running Man in the game, it's impossible to Google Hideo Kojima interview Running Man to find out if he names Running Man ever because it just brings up Wiki articles and game facts and stuff about how to beat Running Man or who is Running Man and stuff like that.

Yeah, he's, I mean, we talked a little bit about this on our What a Cartoon about Bubblegum Crisis, but it was so influential to so many, you know, otakus of the early 80s to late 80s who would make video games and anime and manga which would then into the 90s influence us. Like, it's, all these films were huge in Japan. Like, it's something people didn't get at first in America

when they saw Dragon Ball as well, that they're like, these are all by people who watched. Like, this is the Terminator storyline, it coming in here. Same deal. I was trying to look through Kajima's feed to see if he ever tweeted about, like, I bought a copy of Running Man today on Blu-ray,

but no luck. He did just buy the Japanese Blu-ray release of Army of Darkness, I saw. Oh, that's good, that's good. My theory is this movie planted seeds in the brains of game designers to make these very themed, specific boss fights featuring eccentric characters,

his abilities are often used against them, which is always happening in Metal Gear. But I also think, at the same time, as the Running Man is released into the wild, technology for games is changing to the point where we can make more sophisticated games or more complex boss fights. Where boss fights previous to this were just like,

here's a big enemy with bigger attacks, not like here are phases, here's a new arena, here's a big enemy waiting for you. And like 1987 was also Mega Man 1. So the idea of bosses was changing a lot for game designers. Yeah, and you know, you look at this movie and you can see

just so many elements that have become just like standard fixtures of video games. I mean, you have elemental bosses here. You have fire, ice, and electric. Yeah. So like that's kind of your, your basic magic triad of spells right there. You've got the, you know, like the chainsaw guy.

How many chainsaw bosses have there been? And I feel like this was a huge influence on Squarespaceoft. I see a lot of ideas from this movie. Are these the four scenes? Square games from the early 90s. Like Secret of Mana, you know, you have, you fight a guy who like rides around on a motorcycle, basically, like a flying motorcycle and tries to a tag.

hack you. And then you also, you know, come across this underground resistance and it kind of doesn't really have any purpose whatsoever, but they're just like this underground resistance there. And for some reason, it really reminds me of the way it's kind of presented here.

There's a hacking mini game, like memorize these numbers. Oh, yeah, that's true. There is hacking, yeah. Yeah, you even have the final boss being betrayed by his henchmen. I mean, it's not like in Final Fantasy 6 where he gets chucked off the side of a floating island. But it's still

you know, like Richard Dawson is expecting Sven to save his ass and Sven is like you're kind of an asshole and I hate you so whatever, you're on your own. Yeah. Similar character beats for sure. And the also like all the sexy

dames in this all the choreograph dancing by Paula. Oh yeah. Yeah. The amazing aerobosized dancing. I like the mournful funeral dancing. Yeah, but yeah, Paula Abdul. They still have their spandex on, but they also have, like, like, negligee-laced funeral shrouds. Yeah, yeah.

It's a very fun movie, but, yeah, I went into this thinking, like, I definitely want to underline all of the games that's influence, and there are a lot, but I think that it influenced so many things because it influenced specific creators who would then influence other people that it's too difficult to trace, and this is not me just giving up. I feel like the people were viewing this movie and watching it in 87 were not like, oh, these are video game boss fights, but if you watch it today, you can't not see that these are just, this is just a video game.

Yeah, I think it put it, I think it put the drive into the, into the consciousness, and a lot of more people were doing it, or even if it just taught, like, three game developers how to do human-sized enemies who face you at the next level, like, and pace levels to that way,

I think that that is, that just continued on from there. And it also, it's all rolled up into, one big ball of influences too because I I talked a lot about Streets of Fire has that kind of thing too. It had a lot of like bosses that kind of or boss tile scenarios with a few characters, not as explicitly as Running Man does it. And I really think, you know, just in Goichi Suda's work like Killer 7, No More Heroes, Killer is Dead, the Lollipop Chainsaw.

those are all very much built in like a scenario that puts you in a straight line through a bunch of character bosses that are very driven by characters that set the tone for their scenes and once they're gone then it resets

to a new style for the next boss just as Arnold goes through in this film as well. I was not even thinking of Suda 51 but yeah no more heroes definitely I can see the direct influence. I mean Suda I've never I got to interview him a few times he never explicitly talks about Running Man,

but he is heavily influenced by Western media, like in in so many ways. And I believe in Japan's movie's called Battle Runner, which is... That's even cooler. Yeah, yeah, it is cool. But yes, this has been a Running Man podcast. If you can think of any other direct references

games are making to this movie, let me know, because again, it just feels like these boss fights have been the modern boss fights we've been living through for the past, I don't know, 25 years. So it feels like it might be a little too broad, but I want to know if you guys have found anything out there

that could directly apply to this movie which is a fun movie again it's on Amazon Prime there's a Blu-ray it is an actual movie length movie it's an hour and 40 minutes for Christ's sake you can watch it and be like oh that was a movie it's fun instead of like God it's over I got a piece so bad what I saw it was an hour 40

my initial thought was like what a short film and like no that is not a short film yeah it's a standard movie length movie but please watch it it's a fun movie and you'll see all kinds of video game stuff in it and it is just a very snappy well-paced movie Lots of fun quips, lots of awkwardly placed quips that don't really make a lot of sense given who the character is, but they're there, and you can use them in your daily life to zing people. I want a copy, Bob. I'll say that when I stab you with a pen.

Yes, you have to kill them first. Only then can you quip, but we do not condone violence on retronauts, but you can stab an entertainment agent in the back if you have a good enough quip. I love that you have a court-appointed agent. That is such a funny line. They're so, oh, God, this. Yeah. Yeah. And the social, I mean, just watch it. Even if you don't care about how it influence video games, watch it for the social commentary that is more real than ever. Yeah, it's a lesser Robocop in terms of what it's trying to do. Robocop's still the king, baby. Any final thoughts, Jeremy, before we give you a chance to give your plugs? No, just that I think, you know, a video game adaptation of this could be interesting in 2019, 2020, 2025, however long it takes to make a AAA game now. you know I think kind of just taking maybe some notes from the book and making it more of an open world kind of thing where it's about a like environmental survival while you're being stalked you know I think like Metroid Fusion did that really well it wasn't super open world it was you know kind of nonlinear and you had these kind of set points where the the SAX virus would show up and hunt you and chase you I think like turning that into. to something more fleshed out, more of a proper adventure could be really interesting.

And, you know, depending on the route you take through the world, you encounter different stalkers and have to come up with different tactics. So maybe something kind of in the lines of, you know, PubG or Rust, but more focused, more polished, more finite. I can see that. Well, we are stuck in the 80s nostalgia zone. I don't think we'll over-leave it. No, thank God for that. I'm going to invoking rust.

No, no, that's fine. But, yeah, I can see that happening. I mean, it's never too late to remake this into a game or something. But, Jeremy, thanks for joining us for this movie episode. I think I'll do more of these. Lots of fun, especially returning to a movie that I recently discovered and one of my recent favorites. But please let us know, Jeremy, what you're working on.

You've got books. You've got videos. You also have this. And your main gig, too. What's going on with you, Jeremy? Let's just talk about the videos that I do besides Retronauts. I also have the Retronauts Video Works Project. where I've been traveling chronologically through the catalogs of many video game systems.

Currently, I'm working on Game Boy Color, which I just got up and running for high-quality video capture, and just recently covered WarioLand 2, which is amazing. And coming up in about a month or so to time with the release of its second remake. There's The Legend of Zelda, Link's Awakening Deluxe, which, I have written and recorded footage for and can't wait to put together as a video, because I love that game. I believe I saw you hooked up your Game Boy printer for that, didn't you? I did, and I got a kind of decent printout of it after fussing with it for a while.

I'm hungry for that really little link photos that are about an inch square. I'm really hungry for the remake, and Jeremy will be at Pax for retroknops. Absolutely. So come see both of us there. So thanks again to Jeremy. Check out all of his videos on YouTube. Luke Henry, you're our other special guest for this episode. Where can we find you and

me? All these guests have something in common and it's me. Yes, yeah. So if you enjoy this deconstruction of a film in its cultural touchstones, you'd probably enjoy hearing me and Bob do that about both the Simpsons and a different animated series each week. That's what we do

on our two weekly podcast Talking Simpsons and what a cartoon. Talking Simpsons, we go through every episode of The Simpsons. In chronological order, we're deep in the season 10, and we're having lots of fun. And What a Cartoon, a different animated series each week. And we spotlight a specific episode.

If I could show you a recent one, maybe listen to the one we did on Bubblegum Crisis with Jeremy Parrish, the co-host of Retronauts. Yes, and Jeremy was also on the episodes of What a Cartoon featuring The Max and G.I. Joe. Yes, yeah, man, good times. Yeah. And that show is supported by Patreon, just like Retronauts is. Be sure to check out all the cool many, many extras, too many,

to the list. You can find them all at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. So as for us, this has been Retronauts and if you want to help support the show and get all the episodes one week ahead of time and at free and at a higher bitch rates, go to Patreon.com slash Retronauts

and support the show. That will get you what I just mentioned and also will support everything that we do here, including renting studio space and, you know, airfare for Jeremy, airfare for us when we travel to packs and things like that. Lodging, of course. for our guests and so much more hosting and things like that.

So if you want to support the show and get a little something in return, please go to patreon.com slash retronauts. As for me, I've been the host of this one, Bob Mackey. Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo, and we will see you next time for a brand new episode of Retronauts. Have a good one. Thank you.