The title says it all! This movie/ character is a big part of my childhood and is called one of the worst comic adaptions of all time..but is it really?
Let’s talk about it… in this episode I discuss the cast, special effects, story and I give you my reasons on why it may or may not be that bad.
I’d like to hear your opinions about this movie good or bad, my contact info is below.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slash_vision_/?hl=en
Email: Slashvisionpodcast@yahoo.com
The title says it all! This movie/ character is a big part of my childhood and is called one of the worst comic adaptions of all time..but is it really?
Let’s talk about it… in this episode I discuss the cast, special effects, story and I give you my reasons on why it may or may not be that bad.
I’d like to hear your opinions about this movie good or bad, my contact info is below.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slash_vision_/?hl=en
Email: Slashvisionpodcast@yahoo.com
What is going on, everyone? So today's gonna be a little bit different because we're gonna go through this whole movie, and at the end I'm gonna ask you that one eternal question. So let's get onto this. With 1990 sevens spawn
Speaker 2:His face, a mask of courage. Who are you? His armor. Awesome Hardware, A living weapon. His mission, a fight for justice. His name Spawn. Let's get it over with. You've been fired. Spawn rated PG 13 starts Friday. Special advanced screening Thursday. Check newspapers for listing.
Speaker 1:I remember first hearing about this Spawn movie, you know, in Wizard World Magazine. I used to live for those things. Back when we had Kmarts here in Texas, e e, every month I would go straight to the magazine section and there would be Wizard World. And on one of the covers with Spawn blew my mind on what this was, because growing up, you know, I was so used to normal comic book character, Superman, Batman, spider-Man, you know, so on and so forth. But to see something really different blew my mind. To see blood, to see all the cursing, to see the Half Naked women. I, I, my mind was blown and granted, I was in like, what? Middle school? Maybe elementary. So, you know, naturally, I, I I gravitated towards it. It was something different, you know? So when this movie was actually announced, I was extremely hyped because I used to live for live action adaptations. I don't care who you are when you're a kid and all your know, all your, like, your mind is conditioned to is the cartoon versions or maybe the video game versions. And then when some movie studio comes around and says, Hey, we're making this live, I don't give a what it is. You know, it, it doesn't matter to me what it is. Ninja Turtles, obviously, super Mario Brothers Spawn, you know, things, the, the, the list can keep going on. Street Fighter, immoral Combat, I don't care. I used to live for live action adaptations. I, I don't know what my mind was and I didn't care if they sucked or not. It was just, that's what I wanted to see. I've always wanted to see things be brought to life like that. So when Spawn first came out, I begged my parents, please take me to the movies, please. Just, heck, you know, just take me over there. So we ended up going to a local drive-in, uh, San Antonio here. We had actually had a place called the Mission Drive-in, and every screen was a double feature. Now, not all the time we're both movies on that one screen. Something that just came out that day. So Spawn was actually paired with Water World. Yeah, you didn't hear that incorrectly. The Water World Movie with Kevin Costner, uh, which came out a few years before Spawn. So I have no idea who, who put those two together. But I got to see something, my parents got to see something, and in the end I was happy. And they were forced to sit through two movies that they completely did not like.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Speaker 1:So the Spawn movie is, how do I say it, storyline wise, it's a little complicated, but yet it's so simple at the exact same time. So simple as is. If I can give you the simpler aversion, you know, Al Simmons is a contracted killer who is double crossed by his boss, gets sent to hell, makes a deal with a devil named Mal Boha to come back to, you know, in the name of love and exact his revenge, and do exactly what Mal Boha says and be part of one of his, it would be part of his army. So the difficult version of this is Al Simmons goes to hell because Jason Wynn double crossed him in some sort of trade. So if Al goes to hell and becomes part of, you know, uh, mal Bo's army, Jason Wynn gets a hold of a whole bunch of nuclear weapons, the Jumpstart Armageddon. But this whole time the Clown has play has played both of them because now they have the, so the super soldiers that they wanted, sorry. And now that Soldier, they're trying to brainwash him to go after Jason Wynn so that they can start Armageddon themselves. Yeah, I'm just gonna go with the simpler version of this whole thing. Uh, the, the movie and the comic, the stories are somewhat similar and very different at the same time, but we're gonna stick with the movie version and the simpler version. So Jason Wynn has a device in his heart that will jumpstart all the nuclear weapons. And like I said, Armageddon will start. So this whole time Spawn is going after him. And honestly, there's a lot of comparisons. When I was rewatching this, now I love this movie Growing up I remember, like I said, I've watched at the Drive-in, I remember it was one of the first, actually the first D V D that I've ever purchased in my life. I'll never forget it. And it was one of those, it wasn't the DVDs with the clam cases, you know, where they closed shut. It had that little flip on the side where you got to unhook it and then open it up. That type that, that old of a dvd. So I've always had that in my possession. And as I got older, I've always bought different versions of it. The Blu-ray, you know, and obviously the, uh, digital version, which are all director's cuts. That's the only way to watch this. And I don't know why, because there isn't too much of a big difference. So after rewatching this the other day, I noticed that there were way too many comparisons and maybe I got lucky at the same time, but I kind of compared Al Simmons story to Alex Murphy's from Robocop. Now hear me out before you start rolling your eyes. I had watched Robocop literally a little bit before. I was trying to show my son some cool movies cuz I got tired of watching Bluey. So after watching Robocop, we, I was like, you know what I'm gonna put on Spawn. And then watching those, you kind of, you kind of see the similarities between both of them. Um, they both die in really horrible ways. One gets burned alive, the other one gets shot by some shot off shotguns and, uh, pretty much obliterated. They both are brought back to life without any memory. They have now lost their wives. They have lost their, they have lost what little bit of memory they had. They're trying to adapt to this new life that they have with the new suit. I knew everything. They both kind of were part of a, a, a force. You know, Alex Murphy had the police force Spawn was supposed to be part of this, this hell Spawn group. And then they kind of both went rogue and went against the grain spawn, went against Maja. Uh, robo Cop found out that Dick Jones was the, the, the man who ran O C P was the guy who was supplying all the bad guys with the weapons. So you kind of, I I started seeing the similarities. I don't know about you guys, but to me, robo Cop and Spawn are kind of similar story wise.
Speaker 4:I'd buy that for a dollar.
Speaker 5:<laugh>.
Speaker 1:It's funny, when I watch this movie, I, I look at Martin Sheen and I try to wonder which one of his sons that he looks like in certain areas of the movie or certain scenes, he looks like Emmi Lou Estevez, but when it's a dead pan, you know, straight face type of thing, he looks identical to Charlie Sheen. Like I said, it's not too far fetch that the children looks like their father, but it's a, it's a little uncanny on both of them. He kinda looks like a, like, like, just like a mixture. I don't know. It's just their dad, right? I shouldn't even have looked too far into that. But anyways, he plays Jason Wyn in this movie, and apparently he went the Raul Julia route because one of his grandchildren, you know, like Spawn. So he said, ah, screwed, I'm just gonna be part of Spawn. And then we get John Leguizamo, who to me was this the, the show Steeler in this entire movie. Now, if there was a remake of this, please bring him back. I know that no powers that be are gonna be listening to this episode, but come on, John Leguizamo is a clown, the best part of the movie, the absolute best. Now legend has it that he on himself while he was in costume because it would've taken them five hours to remove it and he really had to go pretty bad. So after, and it kind of sucks too, because he is short, but the clown is a lot shorter. So he's actually crouching the entire time in that costume. That's gotta weigh heavily on the ba on the bladder. But, you know, le that's, that's just the legend and rumor that I have read a little more on the cast. We do have Miko Hughes, who is from Pet Cemetery, kindergarten Cop, and also his little annoying character. Aaron on Full House. He is spawns little homeless friend. Next up we have Theresa Rando who plays Wanda Spawns Eternal Love. Uh, I don't know how far into this I should go storyline wise, but she banks spawns best friend Terry, who's played by DB Sweeney and, and they have a kid together. Could you imagine the, the disappointment and the hurt in Spawn when he comes back and he wants to see her because that's a deal that he made with the devil. He wants Wanda back. So they give him that chance. Then he goes to his old house and finds out that, oh wow, my best friend is sleeping with my wife. They're married and now they have a kid. This is a little bit addressed in the movie, but come on, geez, I, I would've been like, you know what, I'm gonna go do my own thing. Obviously God that just got us, that, that has that, that, that, that's gotta suck. That really does. That just tells you that maybe there was something going on between them before you died. Jesus Christ,
Speaker 6:You are not.
Speaker 1:Anyways, a woman who ends up killing Spawn herself or actually Al Simmons is Jessica Priest. She's played by Melinda Clark. Now this whole character right here was mostly created because they couldn't get the rights to chapel. The original person who killed Spawn in the comic books, apparently Rob Layfield had the rights to it and didn't wanna let them go. Now Chapel is part of the Young Bloods, which is a, a group in Image comics, which they were okay. Honestly, if I was to pick any group from that whole label, it would have to be the Wildcats. Now, I think that's the most popular answer when you start talking to other people. Cuz it's like Wildcats have their own cartoon. Uh, they had way better characters. You know, I, I don't know, I, I'll let you guys be the judge of that one. Now on to Al Simmons, who I'm leaving him for the last part of this little casting bit that I'm doing, because he could have been played by quite frankly, a bigger name than Martin Sheen. Now I'm gonna rattle off a few of them. And you be the judge of which one could have been a better spawn, maybe a better Al Simmons. So Wesley Snipes, who opted to do Blade instead, which kind of worked out in his favor. Tony Todd Candyman, really, I don't see him being spawn. He, I don't think he had to build for it. Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson, Tupac for some odd reason, LL Cool J and Will Smith. Now Will Smith was almost casted as Spawn, but he dropped out because it, it wouldn't have been good for his squeaky clean image. And he went ahead and did Men in Black, which I don't blame him because that was a pretty big deal for Will Smith back in the early back what, in the mid nineties. Geez. So they went ahead with Michael Jai White, who to me will always be Spawn. I don't care who plays him after him, if they do a remake like they've been talking about for years, and it's supposed to be Jamie Fox, but Michael Jai White is spawn. He will always be spawn live action wise because he, he's a legit badass. The dude can he, he's a legit fighter. He sounds the part, he looks the part I if they were gonna do a remake, do some fan service here, I, I know nobody who is the powers that Bees is gonna listen to this episode. But come on, can we not have Michael Jai White back and let's all be honest with ourselves here. I couldn't have been the only person that was hyped when he had his line in the dark night. You all know exactly what line I'm talking about. Cuz the moment he said it, I immediately thought of Spawn, uh,
Speaker 7:Gamble here won't be able to get it a nickel for his grandma
Speaker 1:Enough from the
Speaker 7:Clown.
Speaker 1:So visually spawn looked awesome. I I think that it was way ahead of its time. And granted that special effects were not as good as they are now since it was 1997. It it, it was miles better than a lot of other things that were on movies at that time. Um, uh, let's talk about, uh, well with the violator, there we are, the clown turns into this big demonic creature named the Violator and he looked legit. The whole transformation scene, the scene on the rooftop, the scene in, in Terry's house when he comes out of the wall. Great. And this is the only time I'm really ever gonna say this cuz I'm an avid practical effects person. The CGI looked better for violator than the practical effects did for him. Yep. You can go ahead and crucify me now. But honestly, the practical effects of the big yeah, animatronic version of Violator did not nearly look as good as it's cgi. But some c g i in this movie just looked completely horrible, which was about, uh, about 50% of it. Spawns cape looks like a fruit rollup. I don't know why they didn't even try to match the, the color of the Cape to like the scenery, but it, it looked very sticky and like, like candy, I, I don't, don't even ask me why. And then we get to the hell scenes where Ma Bja is and Ma Bja doesn't even, like his mouth doesn't even open and close, but yet you can hear him talking and then he is got a million of other spawns who, they aren't Claymation. I don't know what they were doing, but the effects are so bad. It reminded me of the girls. And you know, the ones that dance for you at the finish lines on Cru and u s a, you know exactly which ones I'm talking about. But the, the Maja thing really bothered me because he's speaking and he's voiced by the legendary Frank Wilker. It is just the, how do I say this? His mouth is open like the scream mask and he's speaking, they could have gotten a little bit more effects on the voice, maybe some sort of echo or something. But he really sounded like any generic villain that you would see on cartoons or TV shows. But every time that I heard him speak, he reminded me of that pig from Big top Peewee. If you haven't seen Big Top Peewee, please go out and do yourself a favor. It's on H B O max, but there's a pig and they sounded a little too identical.
Speaker 8:Splendid. I'm very satisfied with these results. Pee
Speaker 9:Me too Vance. If we keep going at this rate, people will only have to buy one tomato a
Speaker 8:Year. We do not want to end up at a low potassium level,
Speaker 10:Duh Vance, you think I never went to agricultural junior college.
Speaker 1:Now we do get a couple cameo scenes from Angela, who is a huge name in Image Comics. She was Spawns friend. She's in some sort of dinner scene that they're having. You can tell it's her cuz she's got the, the Spawn logo earrings. And then you get Sam and Twitch who are detectives and they're pretty big names in the Spawn cartoon and in the comic books. But their cameos are at the end and it's a blink if you or you'll miss it moment. They're escorting Martin Sheen out of Terry's house and that you'll see them for like, whatever milliseconds that they are. But this whole thing about Martin Sheen having this device trigger in his heart, really, it, it really didn't sit well with me even as a kid. They, they explained that this device that he's got connected to his heart, that if he dies, Armageddon starts and it just start, you know, everything just goes to hell literally. But right before the ending, spawn magically takes it out of his body and destroys it. Now, I'm probably completely wrong. I'm probably a hundred percent wrong, but even as a kid I thought, well if that device is tampered with, don't the bombs start Anyway, yeah, you guys can get back at me after you rewatch this movie cuz I'm kind of, I was a little lost. I was a little outta the crossroads here cuz I was like, ah, you know, maybe since it's destroyed, everything's fine. But I thought that anything that messed with it that, well guess what? It's gonna jumpstart the end of the world. I'm probably just being dumb here. I know I spoke a little earlier about the comparisons to Robocop, but there are also a couple scenes in this movie where when you go back and rewatch this, tell me if I'm wrong now, there's a part on here where Spawns riding a motorcycle and he walks out of a fiery wreckage from a, some sort of chemical truck. And when he walks out, that looks a lot like, uh, the scene with the T 1000 on Terminator two, where he walks out of the wreckage, they, they're walking almost the same. And then there's a scene with the clown who his eyes bug out. He's making all kinds of weird noises. Reminds me of Jim Carey's the Mask. And when I did a little bit more research, I found out that the guy who produced the Mask had a hand in this movie as well. So maybe that's a little nod to him. So back in the day after this movie was done, they came out with Spawn the animated series. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about this show because it was one of the greatest cartoon adaptations I have ever seen in my entire life. I remember staying up late just, just to like watch it because it had everything I should not have been watching Rolled up into a cartoon series about a character that I was a huge fan of. Way too much Gore, way too much cussing, way too much cartoon, boobs, you name it. I, I just had to watch this animated series and it had Todd McFarland right at the beginning with his little intros. Now we all remember those intros. I'm about to play you one right now, and here it is.
Speaker 11:What would you do if at the moment of death a voice from the darkness offered you the chance to live again? Have your answer. There's no time to think about it. Your heartbeat away from Flatlining. Quick, what's the answer? I'm Todd McFarland and I created Spawn. I hope you'll consider the question I've just posed because a man named Al Simmons didn't, when the question got popped on him, he signed like some stupid rookie in blood. See, Al had qualities he didn't even know. He had a special kind of wiring that Mel Boza the devil looks for. And when he said yes to that voice signed on for a whole lot more than he ever bargained for. So before you find yourself in a similar situation and a voice calls to you in the darkness, think of Al or as you may see, you'll have all eternity. Think about your mistake too and now spawn. So turn off your lights.
Speaker 1:It really reminded me of that time that they were gonna do that. Uh, the Goosebumps, the haunted Mask Halloween special and r l Stein came out right at the beginning of that. If you guys don't remember, those were almost the same. And they were the creators of this cool universe. They had something to say right at the beginning and it, it just to me, were two different spectrums in the same genre.
Speaker 12:Hello, I'm ar Stein. I write the Goosebumps books. In a few minutes, you're going to see one of my favorite stories come alive. The Haunted Mask is a frightening Halloween story about a girl named Carly Beth. The horror begins when Carly Beth puts on the evil haunted mask and it ends when she discovers there is nothing more powerful than the love of her family and friends. What's so scary about that? You'll see viewers beware you are in for a scare.
Speaker 1:Spawn was a humongous deal back then. Such a big deal that no toy companies wouldn't touch him because of the graphic nature of this whole cartoon series and comic books. They just weren't gonna go near him. So Todd McFarland made his own toy company, which we all know as a McFarland toys. And honestly, that's one of the best things I've ever seen. The figures that come out of the McFarland toy lines have amazing detail. There's no, I cannot say a bad thing about any one of those. And I do remember Toys of Russ, not ho not like selling them, but KB Toys had them. And then a few years later, you know, the, the movie Maniacs Line started to show up at Toys R Us and you know, that brought on the, the more Spawn toys and that was kind of cool.
Speaker 11:America's number one comic book, thanks to you. So I started this company and make the toys that you asked for
Speaker 2:Spawn violator.
Speaker 11:I hear the competition competition's flying around, they could be any place.
Speaker 2:They're cool, awesome tremor, overkill, medieval Spawn clown. We coat comics,
Speaker 11:Nice toys, kids, nice try guys
Speaker 2:Spawn from Todd Toys. We are out to plaster the competition.
Speaker 1:Then there was Spawn Armageddon for the PlayStation two, and I believe, I don't wanna say it was on Nintendo 64 as well, I can't remember which system I played it on, but that game reminded me of Legacy a Kane Soul River. And it just, the way that it moved and the way that it looked and, and the, everything just reminded me of that. And I feel like, uh, this whole episode has been nothing but me comparing things about spawn to other things that I liked For many, many years now, there have been talks on and off about a spawn of remake. You know, Todd McFarland has talked about this well over a decade, and he wants complete creative control over this. I do know that at one point he did get Jamie Fox on board and they were gonna get this whole thing rolling because Marvel was making superheroes, you know, a household thing. So why not cash in on Spawn? Well, on and off, like I said, that the talks keep happening and I don't see anything, you know, materializing out of any of these rumors. Now, Todd McFarland has, has himself, came out and said that Blumhouse was gonna do it for him, the the film company. And that never happened. Jamie Fox is either in or he is out. Like I said before, Michael Jai White, please bring that man back. Even bring back John Lake Zamo was the clown. Let's give some fan service here. But according to Todd McFarland the creator, it, it just, he wants spawn to be more of a background character, more like a ghost. While Sam and Twitch there, it was supposed to be a movie centered around them, would spawn as this dude in the background. No, no, I'm not even gonna accept that. Nor will I even try to watch that. I don't wanna see a movie about salmon twitch. I want to, and especially if it's titled Spawn, come on. That's just, that's his blasphemous. If that's gonna be the case, and don't even make it. I I I, I'm well happy with the animated series or if anything, just make some more cartoons. Jesus. Like, you don't have to make live action. You know, Todd McFarland is pretty, pretty much the Stan Lee of Image comics. He was, he even had his little cameo where he gave Spawn the Gun. And you can tell back then that he wanted to be, you know, displayed in this movie. And it's kind of cool watching the creation that you had come to life right before your eyes, because he plays a homeless man who gives spawn his gun back. And then the scene goes back to me, he's just there staring at Spawn like some sort of creeper. And then three more seconds later, he's still there. It's like, all right, dude, we saw your cameo, like, give it up. Not even Stan Lee stays that long. And like I said at the beginning, I'm gonna leave this up to you guys. This is my question to you all. Does Spawn deserve the hate that it gets? Does it go back? Go back and look whether you're looking at the PG 13 or the rated art director's cut, go back. This movie deserves a rewatch because in my honest opinion, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. It really isn't. This is one of those, I'm gonna turn my brain off and I'm just gonna have fun action style movie. It really is. It's not as graphic as the cartoon, nor does it have the great storytelling that the cartoon or the comic books have. But it's a fun passable movie if you like, you know, special effects and, and obviously some of these are dated, you can honestly look at a lot of this and cringe a little bit, but it's all still passable. The movie is quite enjoyable. Uh, if you would tell me, which is one, some of my favorite nighty superhero movies, I'm seriously gonna put Spawn in that category because this movie has that effect. I can take off nostalgia goggles and sit and say, wow, this movie still isn't that bad after showing it to my kids and seeing their faces light up. No, you know, it's kind of bad that you, you're showing your own kids this, uh, dark character. Now, we haven't gone to the cartoon, but after showing'em this movie, they were both enamored spawn. They were like, wow, I wanna watch this again. Now think about that. Think about these kids who don't know a lick about the comic books or anything that went on with this movie. They were just so infatuated with the fact that this dude, to what they called him a zombie superhero, they were just amazed by something different. Spawn is that something different? Spawn is that superhero that stands apart from the rest of this Marvel and DC universe. And yeah, you can make some arguments on other characters that are very similar to Spawn style, but it is this character here, this whole movie does not deserve the hate. It won't, it shouldn't. And like I said, go back. Rewatch it. Yeah, sure, you can nitpick on some things. Oh, well Mabo just mouth doesn't, doesn't close. Oh, the CGI from hell just looks completely horrendous. Like Nintendo 64 style quality. Or is it maybe the, uh, the makeup effects? Maybe you do not like those, but guess what? Those look freaking awesome. Spawn looked identical to the comic. Yeah, sure, you can nitpick that. You can see that his breathing holes are in front of his mask. Or how about the clown? He looked to the t like the original artwork. Maybe you probably didn't like the crust of the clown haircut that he had.
Speaker 13:Anybody here have herpes? Huh? Huh? You people are the worst audience I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:When you go to links like that, that's just nitpicking. You're not doing anything crazy. You're not forming a real thought on why you disliked this movie. Now let's take out the comic books out of this, because I'm sure everybody's gonna compare this to whatever comic books came before it. Oh, well this isn't the correct thing. This isn't the right thing. And, and you know what? It's 1997. They didn't know what to do with superheroes at that time. Superheroes, movies were just, they were just there. A lot of the core elements were still intact, but then a lot of it, they just went out and tried to do something different for the sake of putting a film together. Now, I know I'm gonna be letting everybody down by saying this, but there is no link at the bottom of the show's description to watch this movie. I I can't sit here and try to find you a free one because I don't know how<laugh>, that's kind of sad, right? This day and age, I don't know how to find a free movie. But if you do want to go out and purchase this somewhere, it's probably about$10 or less. It's not a bad deal. It is actually worth the money. And as I said at the beginning and some more towards the end of this, this question is for you all, is spawn as bad as they say they is? Does this movie deserve the hate that it gets? And when you, you figure out what, which, the answer that is, and I'll take either one, whether you still dislike this movie or whether you actually in love with this movie or whether you're just right in the middle, let me know, let me know. We can have some fun, we can have a fun discussion about it. I'm not here to to argue with anyone. I would just like to hear the differences from a community that actually might be a little more open-minded than the critics out there. And all my contact information is going to be linked here at the bottom of the show's description. It's a guy on my social medias an an email. And as usual, I will see you guys next time.
Speaker 14:So scared. I wanna live.