Ultimate Dolph

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Roland Emmerich (with DP Karl Walter Lindenlaub I guess)

Review of the original UNISOL on the "Jean-Pod Van Damme" podcast over at Crushed Celluloid. The podcast's host was joined by yours truly to discuss and analyze the film.

http://crushedcelluloid.com/podcasts/jp ... al-soldier

I tried my best to stay on point and give the credit to the film that is definitely due. First time ever doing a podcast; hopefully it plays well.

Great job, thankfully I wasn't there to stop you every minute for context trivia...

Talking about UNISOL as an EXPENDABLES movie before its time is absolutely right and it felt like it back then. And I think the idea of pairing Dolph and JCVD came from Carolco/Mario Kassar who at the time had also tried their luck with a Sly/Arnold team up (although what they had in mind for that was not an a pure action flick but more of a John Hugues comedy actually).

When UNISOL was officially announced in early 1990, it felt like huge news, Dolph was actually considered the bigger name (VD didn't have the LIONHEART, DOUBLE IMPACT successes yet) and something that was to be anticipated for the next two and half years until it finally got made and released. But the project/original script itself goes back to the mid-80's and had another another star attached early on (not meant for a star pair-up though).

The project sounded more like typical/cheesy sci-fi action back then, like CAPTAIN POWER meets CYBORG, but I wish we could have seen that as well in a way, it could have been fun, at least to have it set in a farther future rather than 1994...


P.S.:
Regarding the subject of punchlines, I agree we don't have them anymore, but I remember the mentalities of the audiences and filmmakers back then soon moved on from that type of humour, which was overlooked and considered cheesy of bad writing (whereas anyone today can agree it's much better than what is written now). Then the 90's and 2000's integrated more 3rd degree and cynical humour while bad politically correct humour also spread... You mentioned the Emmerich and Devlin commentaries, in both tracks they recorded 10-13 years after making the movie, they even couldn't keep from mocking the punchlines and "typical 90's" stuff...

Enjoyed listening to that podcast. So often when I try to listen to ones about films like this it just turns into everyone doing a bad standup routine. Each person trying to one-up each other with the worst jokes they can come up with. With this one there is levity but it doesn't get in the way of discussing the film.

Great point on there about Carolco being a huge reason why the second film didn't have really any of the qualities of the first film. Even though UNISOL didn't have the budget of TOTAL RECALL or T2 it still had that similar Carolco edge to it. That vibe that even though there are dashes of humor there is also a lot of danger that can arise at any moment. That feeling is completely gone in THE RETURN.

THE RETURN is abysmal and I'm sure there had been many scripts for it over the years. JCVD had refused to do a UNISOL sequel for years, and finally gave in because he needed a hit (which this was not).

Again the two TV movie /DTV sequels are with Matt Bataglia / Gary Busey / Burt Reynolds are not to be considered as "official", a Canadian company had licensed spin-off rights to spawn a TV series and made these two pilots (before THE RETURN was green lit).

That's a rare still, I've only seen it for sale once before.

By the way we're celebrating UNIVERSAL SOLDIER's 25th Anniversary this July.
Here at the late Karashi's landmark theatre Nishat (destroyed during violent protests in 2012):
https://images.dawn.com/news/1173889

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER opened on this day 25 years ago in the U.S.!

This teaser poster mock up was never used
(but it's in the Japanese soundtrack CD booklet)


As 'Felix' of the CHUD B Action Movie Thread points out, "Who would've guessed it would spawn one of the worst action sequels and two of the best action sequels ever made"?

Happy Anniversary! Thats the first theatrical feel
Movie for Van Damme. Also, i was 11 years odo and i steel remember ive seen Unisold for the first time on a bootleg vhs. It was one of the first movies ever pirated with a camera from a theater screen.

Newspaper ad with Los Angeles theatre listing
https://twitter.com/OldMovieAds/status/ ... 4029705216

AN ORAL HISTORY OF 'UNIVERSAL SOLDIER' - Muscle & Fitness
http://www.muscleandfitness.com/athlete ... al-soldier

Every 'Universal Soldier' Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best
https://www.moviefone.com/photos/every- ... t-to-best/


Universal Soldier 25th Anniversary: Franchise Origins
http://weliveentertainment.com/welivefi ... e-origins/

Jox wrote:AN ORAL HISTORY OF 'UNIVERSAL SOLDIER' - Muscle & Fitness
http://www.muscleandfitness.com/athlete ... al-soldier

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