The Weekly Planet - Swamp Thing 2019 & 1982 - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: August 1, 2019

Swamp Thing 2019 follows Abby Arcane as she investigates what seems to be a deadly swamp-born virus in a small town in Louisiana and it's probably cancelled forever. Swamp Thing 1982 is considered a cult classic but also it's bad. Let's review, compare and contrast shall we?Video Version ► http://bit.ly/2YrmekVJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2opjOmL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit heartandstroke.ca. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. Swamp Thing on the DC streaming service has been cancelled. That was quick. Yeah, one episode in they went, you know what? Nah, we're not doing this. And there's a lot of reasons.

There's a lot of mysterious reasons. It's taxation. It's streaming services. It's a real murky situation like a swamp. Like a swamp thing. Yeah. Like a gas leak. That's right. It's still unfolding at the time of recording this swamp like a swamp thing yeah like a gas leak that's right it's still unfolding at the time of recording like a swamp thing like a piece of origami that you got bored

with you unfolded it and you're like i'll fold it back but you can't do a different different thing but you can't no that's true too many weird creases in there yeah you can't do it so look let's talk a little bit about this tv series let's do it uh specifically the first few and if people could leave a like on this video, this really helps. We'd really appreciate it. Please do. We've been trialling it and it works good golly it does.

Good golly. Miss Molly, you know it works like the Dickens. Correct. This works very well as a TV series. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. It's intriguing. And that's what you want out of a Swamp Thing. Absolutely.

We're going to talk about another thing later that there's no intrigue. It tells a very similar tale. Oh, yes. And it's just like, ugh. But yeah, from the opening of this, I know a little bit about Swamp Thing. I've read a bit of it. I've read some Alan Moore stuff. I've read some more recent stuff and his interactions with Animal Man and whatever.

You've mentioned this before. He's a barely works character, right? Look, I mean, any character can work. Yeah. But I feel like he is, from the outside, I would assume that a character who is a horrific monster from the swamp wouldn't play well necessarily with mainstream audiences. Sure.

Kind of thing. People want a good-looking hero. They don't want a disgusting, slimy monster, do they? You thought, like like a warrior was about that he just he'd just have abs and yeah for sure he could just transform back and forth at will well that i mean you know the the one of the issues apparently maybe with this series and why it was cancelled is because executives wanted a more cw kind of character like like an arrow or a flash or a supergirl where it's just like they have to shoehorn in a very handsome man with abs

into the episode and then maybe the last five minutes he turns into the Swamp Thing every episode, you know? Absolutely. And the thing is, the lead character from this Alec Holland before he becomes Swamp Thing, spoiler alert, you should watch this though, I think. He's not like CW handsome. He's not ripped. He's not.

He's not not handsome. No, I know, but he's not blonde. Like, he's like regular guy handsome. Sure, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, like us. Just a couple of handsome regular guys. Just like us.

Mm-hmm, correct. See, I've found your limit there. You're like, he's not super handsome. I'm like, yeah, he's like us. And you're like, no, he's a bit more handsome than that. You know what surprised me about this as well? The pilot episode was directed by Len Wiseman, who you may know from the Total Recall reboot.

And from the, wait, I can get this. Here we go. He's from, who you may know from the Total Recall reboot. And from the... Wait, I can get this. Here we go. He's from the movies with the vampires and the werewolves, Underworld. Some of them. Some of them. Yeah, that's right. The good ones?

Yeah, I think... That was a trap. There are no good ones. You fell right into it. Yeah. Like a swamp. Like you falling into a swamp. Like me falling into a swamp.

Correct. Yeah, of course. His directorial style outside of a weird blue tint is unrecognisizable to me but i think he does a really good job and i think this pilot is great yeah so yeah i like the new alec holland i like abby arcane who comes to the swamp to see what's going on with the swamp they hinted the interesting backstory they tell you a lot about it early on so you're not there's not just like a mystery for many episodes like they give you enough threads there's a moment where she's telling a story and then something finishes on the computer about her backstory and instead of just going to like oh no i'll tell you the story later she like finishes the story yeah

right i'm like just tell the story and then she turns back and she's like i killed someone i think maybe this is this is probably the strength of this series is that it is a show with horrific goings-on and supernatural things and and and science gone awry yeah but it's surrounding normal people yes who might have a normal conversation and who won't leave things hanging absolutely because you wouldn't you'd be like hang on yeah what i mean there's some things in this that are kind of like a bit silly because it is about a swamp thing first of all before i get to that though the body horror you kind of did because you said swamp thing that's the silliest that, though, the body horror... You kind of did because you said swamp thing. That's the silliest.

You're right. The body horror, though, is incredible. There's a moment in a morgue where a guy splits apart and all the swamp's climbing out of him. A dead guy, specifically, not the morgue attendant. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it looks amazing and it's spooky and creepy.

There's a bit later where they go back into the swamp and there's a boat in the tree and she's like, how is that even possible? You're in the lab. You saw that dude split apart and all the swamp and there's like a boat in the tree and she's like, how is that even possible? You're in the lab. You saw that dude split apart and all the swamp came out of him, but it's not the here nor there. But the moment where Alec Holland is born, he becomes the swamp thing.

Oh yes. He's trying to figure out what he is and he's tearing out chunks of his own head and that and it's just But haven't we all done that after a big night out, you know what I mean? Who even am I at this point? What's this growth on my head? Oh, it's just a leftover kebab.

You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. I can understand that. Yeah. And also, Swamp Thing's like a... He's an anti-hero because he's like a massive murderer. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, he'll tear you in half.

There's a moment in episode two where he just pulls the limbs off a guy completely using the swamp. I think they've done a really good job of... I mean, it's more manslaughter then, isn't it? No. It's more... He's controlling the swamp. He knows what he's doing. He controls the green, if you remember the comics.

That's right, yes. So yeah, he's not a great bloke. I'm sure we've all commanded the green after a bloody big night out. I don't know. You get it. Yeah, you get it. Kebab in the hair. Kebab in the hair, exactly.

That's right. But yeah, look, the future of this is not looking good it was supposed to be 13 and while they were filming they went 10 we'll do 10 okay probably went way over budget for what the streaming service was currently doing numbers was or whatever so it may just disappear and i'm sure a lot of the budget went into the terrific looking swamp thing suit the mossicity on it it's so good yeah the detail that finer detail on a suit like that it's kind of you don't see stuff like that on television you don't even see it in movies well that's what i'm talking about

movies from 1982 oh is that is that your segue it's fine we'll come back to it well i was gonna say like the the what i like about this current crop of dc sort of you know titans doom patrol etc is it's kind of a premium television yeah it's not... I was going to say it's not Monster of the Week. I mean, Swamp Thing himself is the Monster of the Week. He's the Monster of every week. But it's not, you know, villain shows up and then they fight for a bit and then it's the end. It's kind of like there's an ongoing narrative throughout many episodes. It's an epic kind of tale over an entire season,

which is sort of the antithesis of a lot of comic book superhero kind of TV shows. And I'm enjoying that a lot. Yeah. And I would like to see these be way more successful so we get more of them. We're definitely going to get Now and Again to the end. I refer to that because that's the only series that I knew was cancelled and I watched through the TV series Now and Again.

Yeah, right. John Goodman gets put into the body of another guy. We all know the plot of Now and Again. No. People do not know the plot of Now and Again. Do not presume that. Right. And if all know the plot of Now and Again. No, people do not know the plot of Now and Again. Do not presume that. Right, and if you know the plot of Now and Again. That aired in Australia after.

Oh, it had already been cancelled. Yeah, it had already been cancelled. But yeah, anyway, regardless. Is this video going to segue into your sadness over the cancellation of Now and Again? No, they should have cancelled it. It wasn't a great show. But you watched it all.

It was one of those proto-superhero shows because we didn't really have anything else in 99 or whatever when it came out for sure anyway the movie is terrible the movie from 1982 look it's a hard segue immediately i should you know i should have watched the movie first because watching two episodes of the tv series leading into this good lord it is brutal and they tell the same narrative about a man who falls into a swamp and he gets swamp powers and whatever. I mean, strictly speaking, this man doesn't fall into a swamp. He has a glowing green beaker of something,

and he gets pushed over and he drops it and he explodes, and then later he emerges as something. I have never seen a man more on fire in anything, though. That's true. That dude is like 1,000% on fire. He absolutely is, yeah. That's really good. That was the in anything, though. That's true. That dude is like a thousand percent on fire. He absolutely is, yeah. That's really good. That was the 80s, man.

That man being Ray Wise. Yes. Who people probably know, he's a kind of a character. Yeah, he's the devil in Reaper. He's kind of a famous that guy. He's famously tan. Yeah, well, he's Leon Nash in Robocop. He's in Twin Peaks.

If you don't know him from any of his work, you probably know him as a guy who seemingly gets more handsome as he gets older. Absolutely. I think at some point he might reach peak handsome and, like, collapse in on himself. But I didn't know, like, he's a character actor, but I didn't know that he, I guess he took a shot

at being kind of like a genre film leading man because he's in this, He's Alec Holland. He doesn't pull on the Swamp Thing suit, which appears to be made from rubber gloves maybe. No, that's a different guy. Different guy, yeah. So this movie is quite serious in tone. There's a sequel, I believe, that came out a few years later.

And then a series. That's a different guy. But yeah, the series went for like 70 episodes. Where did it go? First of all, how did they get to 70 episodes how come why have we never seen it because it's terrible probably no i don't i watched this movie and it was enough this is a wes craven movie somehow yeah and it's not like wes craven before he'd done anything interesting yeah this is this is was apparently his sort of his cv to show

movie production houses that he could be an action movie guy. This is the CV that you'd put in the bin. You wouldn't even look at it. Because the opening shot, it's panning over a swamp. Where's Craven R.I.P.? Yeah, oh yeah. He's done good work.

I agree. But this is not good. No, this looks like a not very good fan film. Yes, absolutely. Made in the 90s. Yeah, agreed. So not even 90s. Yeah, agreed. So not even of now. Because even the opening of the film.

It's made of $2.5 million shows. Yeah, it's a weird white text at the bottom of the film that looks like it was maybe put in at the very last minute. Maybe. And I thought, is this some kind of weird version that I have? But I think it's just the general version. There's two versions. Did you know that? Yeah, I do.

We'll get to that. And there's a jump cut. Yeah. When they're just looking at the swamp, they're just panning over the swamp. And there's like a short little jump cut. But it's to the same shot. So it's like, did you not film enough continuous footage of the swamp? Yeah, right.

You could have done a fade. But no, it's all jump cuts. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret.

The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil starring Elizabeth Moss is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada

will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone help cam h build a future where no one is left behind so who will you rise for register today at sunrise challenge.ca that's sunrise challenge.ca a weird what i was gonna say transitions like i think it might be it's supposed to be a comic book thing at one point there's a there's like a curtain that goes up and down yeah there's a there's an explosion or a star there's i don't know i think maybe maybe this was like the era when they're like we can do all these so we should definitely should to prove our versatility there's a lot of like just wide shots of people like running through marshland in real time yeah just like sploosh sploosh sploosh sploosh sploosh and then and then like the bad guys run after him like sploosh sploosh sploosh well that's all it is it's people running around a swamp being captured and then escaping and then fanboating

around a swamp and being captured and escaping there's some great individual moments i feel in this there's a bit where swamp thing flips a boat yep that's not that's oh yeah actually there's a actually there's a bit where there's actually a not bad action sequence you're right when they the the guys in the boat sort of attempt to kill swamp thing and they sort of hit him with the side of the boat and they flip in the air that's actually not bad there's a bit where two boats slowly collide and then inexplicably explode yeah there's a bit where Swamp Thing comes in. I think he rips the roof off a Jeep, I think, maybe? Or is it a boat?

I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. It looks like it gets taken by the wind. Oh, I do remember that. Is it a boat? It's a boat. Or a Jeep. It's a vehicle.

And it just sort of floats away. And I'm like, was that on a cable? Or was that just a moment in there like, oh my, that's going to hit somebody. Look out. There's a moment. So we got Alec Holland. We got his sidekick of sorts is Alice Cable

as played by Adrienne Barbeau. By the way, her introduction with her action sequence is incredible. She takes out a bunch of army dudes. She's grabbing guns. And then for a bunch of army dudes yeah she's grabbing guns and then for the rest of the movie she's just screaming and running you know what it is what it is is because she does that she machine guns a bunch of she goes ripley in like a second immediately and then forgets yeah she even has a she has her look is ripley combined with weird

al yankovic from the back initially i saw her and she had she was all like big curly hair and hawaiian shirts and i'm like split al Yankovic in this movie? This is going to be incredible. But what I think does it, and there's a bit which you can't really do in movies anymore. She machine guns a bunch of dudes. Then they grab her. And then they need access to the secret lab kind of thing. And she won't give it to him, obviously.

So one of the army dudes just gives her a straight up karate chop to the shoulder and knocks her down like a sack of potatoes. It was so good. The first punch thrown in this movie is that scientist being chased through the swamp. And it's just the saddest thing I've ever seen. And then the dude's like, just has a snake on him. There's a snake in his pocket that he pulls out. He's going to knife the dude.

And then he's like, the knife's not going to be enough. I better snake this dude, actually. He must have a pouch for a snake, right? Like, so the snake won't bite him like a kevlar it kind of looked like he just came out of his pants it did look a lot like that didn't it yeah also there's a mission impossible mask one of the head scientists just goes you know i'm not who you think i am takes off his mask and he's just some other guy that's right that's my favorite i'm like who are either of these two guys because

the initial guy it's like a guy we've seen in maybe two scenes we learned nothing about him and then he's like surprise i'm the villain he pulls his mask off and then he needs to be like yeah i'm the bad guy that people were talking about earlier but never seen that's that's uh louis jordan great who was in and he's been in a hitch He was in a Hitchcock movie. Yep. He's been in Dracula, I believe. Oh, good. Excellent.

And he was also in Octopussy. So that's a wide-ranging kind of... That really is. That's quite a career. That's quite a career, yeah. And of course, he was in Swamp Thing. Of course. At 40 minutes and 30 seconds, there's a dummy throw.

I wrote that down. I think that's important. Very good. Did you think the boat flip was the truck flip of its day? You know, the big comic book trope of like the early 2000s to like 2009. Where somebody would punch the front of a car and it would flip over their head. Yeah, maybe it was. Like a corkscrew boat situation.

Yeah. They did it in one of the Bond movies as well, didn't they? The corkscrew. I mean, it wasn't a boat. It's true. But they did corkscrew a boat. It doesn't matter. It's not important.

They capture the Swamp Thing. They just throw a net on him. And I know he's got like one arm or whatever. They just pin him down and they've got him. Can we go back one? We need to talk about the Swamp Thing costume. I want to jump forward to how a man turns into a goblin. No, let's go back.

I was going to say, you know, we spoke about the incredible mossosity of the modern day, the TV version. This one looks okay when it's wet and you can maybe only see like his head. From a distance. From a distance and it's dark. Yeah. But outside of that, it's just a dude in a rubber suit. Yeah. And it's so rubbery.

You can see the seams. It looks like it's made for rubber gloves. You can see his real body moving underneath it and look i know it's low budget at the 80s but just put some more moss on it put exactly get a whole bunch of moss men from the he-man action figure line yeah put them on a cheese grater grate the moss off use that and then stick it on with some crazy glue exactly so when swamp things captured they realize that the formula that he's made they want to find out what it does Use that And then stick it on with some crazy glue Exactly So when Swamp Thing's captured They realise that the formula that he's made

They want to find out what it does So they give it to one of the henchmen I mean it explodes firstly Firstly it explodes But you can drink it Yeah I feel also that is very like We need him to transform

And everybody thinks he's dead How do we do that If he's just drinking the formula Let's just say it explodes as well Yeah absolutely The first guy who takes it turns into a like a little goblin yes and they're like well it turns you into the person that you are deep down so best case scenario you're a horrible swamp monster yeah and then the villain thinks yeah i'll take this and see what happens to me i'll risk this and he turns into a weird pig werewolf man. Why would you chance that? You're the villain in the movie.

What are you doing? Ah, because you become a weird wolf pig man. But... That's pretty sick, you must admit. No, it's not. Surely, like, you live a life being a rich, successful businessman. You like the finer things in life

with your fancy cutlery and your and your cognacs yep and now you're a weird pig werewolf man running through the swamp with a sword think about your actions one of the worst costumes i've ever seen in a movie ever yeah it this looks like this looks like the show that matthew holness created for garth moringi's dark this is this looks sorry i'll start again this looks like the show that garth moringi created in dark garth moringi's dark place yeah if you haven't seen that show you should watch it there's only like six but it's incredible it's intended to be this deliberately it's it's it's an incredibly awful kind of steven king style hospital show haunted hospital that hospital that everybody involved in the creation of thinks is genius.

It looks very similar. Yeah, right? You're not wrong. Well, this is supposed to be an intentional throwback to like the B-monster movies of the 50s. But it's just that. Like it's not a throwback. It's just one of those crap movies from the 50s in color. Yeah.

That's all it is. There's nothing new or exciting or innovative here. It's a real swamp. Kudos. The man was... But that's 100% because it's cheaper to do that than make a swamp on a soundstage, am I right? And there was a man who was 1,000% on fire,

and I respect that. That's true. But again... He's dead. He's definitely dead. They just covered him in kerosene and he breathed it all in and he probably died a decade later. Yeah, see, all the things you're enjoying about this

are things that they only did because occupational health and safety laws were not as stringent as they are now. Yeah. They're like, hey, we'll give you an extra 50 bucks if you really set yourself on fire. And he's like, let's do this. Let's do this. Anyway, you made a piece of trivia about the two releases.

Oh, so there's two versions of this. I think one goes maybe two minutes longer. Yeah. And that's because it's got nudity in it. Yes. And if I remember correctly, when they released it on home video, the box claimed that it was the 91-minute edited version. Yeah.

But in real life, the version that released uh to video was the 93 minute version with nudity in it and kids watched it kids watched it they should yeah yeah nice nice nice anyway it's bad i wouldn't even say watch it as a gag it's a brisk 90 minutes no but it's not right don't listen to him it's not okay just fast forward to 21 minutes because that's the karate chop to the neck okay yeah yeah a point to make a note because that's the karate chop to the neck. Okay, sure. A point to make a note of that. You probably want to see the pig monster, I guess, as well. Yeah, so scrub to like 70 minutes, maybe? Yeah, something like that.

Something like that, yeah. At first he looked like, because he's cocooned, he just looks like a big poo. And I'm like, is that what this is? Yep. I don't know, he's a pig monster. That'd be terrifying. Is that better or worse? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Anyway, this has been Caravan of Garbage. We do this every Tuesday, but there's also videos here on Sunday and Thursday. If you've got a suggestion for something to look at, it could be a comic book, a TV show, a movie, whatever. We'll take a look. What if it's 72 episodes of the Swamp Thing TV series? We'll watch every episode. No, we absolutely will.

Look, I tell you what. If Swamp Thing comes back, we'll dabble. How about this? If Swamp Thing comes back, yeah, no, we'll do that. I think that the second one is quite campy and funny, so maybe we skip that one. Okay. Then we go straight to the series.

Great, I can't wait. I really can't. We go to the series finale of the TV show. Also, we have a podcast called The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows. That comes out every Monday. Swing by if you want. We do the news of the week.

We do a topic. It all happens there. You know it. I do know it. I'm at MrSundayMovies on Twitter. I'm at WikipediaBrown on Twitter.

We'll see you guys next time. On the videos that James does. Watch Swamp Thing but not the other thing. Grab that gem, you guys. We will see you next week. The series I meant.

You know what I meant. Yeah. Watch the TV show. Yeah. Goodbye. Bye-bye. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

I mean, if you want. It's up to you. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX is the veil starring Elizabeth Moss is now streaming on Disney Plus.