Soldier - Caravan Of Garbage

The Weekly Planet

The hosts review the 1998 sci-fi action film Soldier, examining its tenuous connections to the Blade Runner universe and its troubled production history. They

Key takeaways

• Kurt Russell earned $20 million for Soldier but officially broke his ankle during filming after stumbling over an ornamental cabbage, contradicting studio stunt injury reports.
• Writer David Webb Peoples originally envisioned an 18-month-old toddler in a key zoo scene, which was changed to a 7-year-old actor due to production constraints and legal concerns.

Main topics

• Soldier (1998) film review
• Blade Runner universe connections and Easter eggs

Notable quotes

"It's a hack movie by a hack guy."

Conclusion

The episode delivers a humorous but sharply critical breakdown of a flawed sci-fi action film,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Let's recapture the magic, James. A great easy. Time to do it. Speaker 2 (0:03) Now you might be like, why are we even looking at this movie? This movie isn't called Blade Runner in between the two good Blade Runner movies. And yet it is. It's not called that. It's Speaker 1 (0:12) called Soldier, the movie Soldier. And it's also not set. Oh, it is. Time-wise, but not continuity-wise. But it's not set on Earth. Speaker 2 (0:20) I think you could say it's set continuity-wise in between Blade Runner movies, Mason. It slots in beautifully. I mean, it is mostly set in the year 2036. Sure. Ish. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this was actually, the idea for this came all the way back in the early 80s. That's the beginning of time. That's right. When David Webb Peoples... Yes. Go on. Who co-wrote Blade Runner, had the idea for... And Speaker 1 (0:44) directed a Spider-Man movie? Speaker 2 (0:46) And no, Mason, you're thinking of another Speaker 1 (0:47) guy with a webbish name. Okay, because Spider-Man's always webbing people. All I'm saying is that that is true and also, you know, that's how they hire people in Hollywood. It's true. And we're disgusted by it. We are. That's Speaker 2 (0:59) nepotism. That's webitism? It's webitism! Thank you. So the original concept for this was going to be something that was included in the original Blade Runner where a group of replicants were dumped and left for dead on an off-world colony. Speaker 1 (1:12) Okay, sure. And Speaker 2 (1:13) then this time around in the movie Speaker 1 (1:14) Soldier, that's sort of what we sort of get, sort of. Except it's one guy and then a bunch of other guys, and one guy's sort of a replicant soul, but he's a regular guy. He's regular. But the replicants are after him. But they're not replicants. They're different guys. They're Speaker 2 (1:31) different men. So yeah, the idea for this came way back, please let it be like, way back in the early 80s. Okay. And it struggled for a decade and a bit to get off the ground. Because it Speaker 1 (1:42) wasn't a full script. It was just a fragment. It was just an idea. No, Speaker 2 (1:45) no, it was a script floating around Hollywood that people thought were good, including Sylvester Stallone. Speaker 1 (1:50) Just floating around in the air. Ew, what's that? Ugh. It's an incredible movie. It's not incredible. It's boring. It's not a great movie. Would you say it is boring? I'm not Speaker 2 (1:59) going to say it's boring, Mason. You were Speaker 1 (2:00) nearly going to say it was boring before I cut you off asking you whether or not it was boring. Well, I Speaker 2 (2:05) don't want to say if it was boring. If you said it was boring, I want a different opinion because us having the same opinion is boring. So Speaker 1 (2:10) I'm going to say... We've become like the director Paul W.S. Anderson. We've made a thing that's boring. Why Speaker 2 (2:16) are you bringing up Paul W.S. Anderson? Because we Speaker 1 (2:18) had to suffer through, if I recall, infinite... works from his oeuvre of the last preceding weeks and then this is another one of his. And look, I know he did make a good movie or maybe several good movies. He made Event Horizon. He made Speaker 2 (2:35) Event Horizon. It's Speaker 1 (2:36) a good Speaker 2 (2:36) movie. He made Event Horizon while Kurt Russell was doing 18 months of getting buff for this. Oh. Yeah, Speaker 1 (2:43) because everybody thought this was Speaker 2 (2:45) a good script including Sylvester Stallone who was going to do it after First Blood but he dropped out. Schwarzenegger was going to do it. after he did Commando, but he dropped out. Speaker 1 (2:52) And of course, you can't, you know, you can't go from being Commando to being a soldier. No, Speaker 2 (2:57) you definitely can't. That's a Speaker 1 (2:58) demotion of anything. Embarrassing. Speaker 2 (3:00) Embarrassing. Clint Eastwood liked this so much that he was going to both star and direct a version of this. That's fascinating. It's fascinating because David Webb Peoples, director of Spider-Man, he also wrote Unforgiven. Because Clint Eastwood loves an old soldier who's got to learn to have a human heart. He's Speaker 1 (3:20) gravelly and he's, what's the word I'm looking for? He's old man Logan. He's old man Logan. And he's unforgiven, as you said. Speaker 2 (3:26) He Speaker 1 (3:26) cannot Speaker 2 (3:27) be forgiven. I Speaker 1 (3:28) won't forgive him for that time. You don't have Speaker 2 (3:29) to forgive him, Mason. James, Speaker 1 (3:31) I won't forgive him for that time that he walked around that chair and he accused the chair of a lot of war crimes or whatever he did. Remember he did that? I remember that. He should have accused the real man of the Speaker 2 (3:39) war Speaker 1 (3:40) crimes that he Speaker 2 (3:40) actually did. Speaker 1 (3:41) Correct. Speaker 2 (3:42) Yeah. Oh, man. This, though, initially at least, it has the aesthetic of a Paul W.S. Anderson movie. Steel rooms, dogs, Savage Garden vibes, all of those things. This movie, though. It does not have anything even close to the cinematic scope of Blade Runner. Just people Speaker 1 (3:59) running Speaker 2 (3:59) around. The Speaker 1 (4:01) main character, they're supposed to be an elite soldier. He's been trained from birth to be the galaxy's greatest elite soldier. He's Speaker 2 (4:07) a Speaker 1 (4:07) little boy. You know what he does? He runs from left to right just shooting a gun. Just straight ahead. No cover, no nothing. Speaker 2 (4:12) Don't need to do nothing if you look like Kurt Russell and you're Kurt Russell. And also you're Kurt Russell's son. Wyatt Russell at one point. That's right. In a montage, Mason. So yeah, the story of this is in 1996, a bunch of special Speaker 1 (4:25) babies were born. All they were regular babies. Which is interesting because in a lot of movies like this, they start in the future. Yeah. But this movie starts, it presupposes that this secret... Project for creating these super soldiers from birth happened before the movie started. Yeah, absolutely. These kids were being raised on the Spice Girls. Yep. Wait, when did the Spice Girls come out? Speaker 2 (4:47) About now, Mason. About now. Not now, about then, I should say. Yeah, Speaker 1 (4:50) about Speaker 2 (4:50) then, Speaker 1 (4:51) sure. Yeah. They were founded in 1994. I knew it. Yeah. We both Speaker 2 (4:55) knew it. We knew it. Yeah. But there is a reason why it looks this way, and we'll get into that. But do you know what this lacks that Blade Runner has? Speaker 1 (5:02) Heart. The answer's everything. A script that's interesting. Speaker 2 (5:06) Everything. Just say everything. It's Speaker 1 (5:08) got a lot of things in it, though. Like, it's reminiscent of things, which is a nice way of saying it's derivative of a lot of things. It's a hack movie by a hack guy. Whoa, he made several good movies, maybe. That's ripping off a bunch of stuff, because it's like Universal Soldier. It's like Terminator 2, because it's about a stoic robot-like man who sort of learns the value of... Guns. Guns. I was going to say community and humanity, but guns is correct. He doesn't save the day at the end with community and humanity, does he? No. He doesn't go back Speaker 2 (5:40) to his vegetable garden to save humanity. It's Speaker 1 (5:43) a little Speaker 2 (5:43) bit Speaker 1 (5:43) like Speaker 2 (5:44) Starship Troopers, I guess. Yeah. You know, just stuff like that. Which also came out before this and looks better. But there is, it feels like, even though there were... many setbacks during the making of this. There's a lack of care, I feel, in this. There's a moment at the start where you see a group of young soldiers watching a boar get mauled by dogs. Yes. It's locked onto the kids and then it dollies out. And several of the kids just fucking clock the camera. Yeah, right. And Ridley Scott would never have let that slide. Speaker 1 (6:16) I mean... Old Ridley. Current David Ridley Scott. Original Ridley Scott would have never let that slide. Original Speaker 2 (6:22) recipe Ridley Scott would never have let that slide. David Speaker 1 (6:25) Fincher would never have let that slide. Director of one of the Alien movies. He Speaker 2 (6:29) would have killed every one Speaker 1 (6:30) of those kids. Get me a fresh batch of kids, he would have said. David Fincher would have raised actual child soldiers. Speaker 1 (6:38) But they were actors from birth to be in that movie. Speaker 2 (6:41) Absolutely. Speaker 1 (6:42) So Speaker 2 (6:43) anyway, the main character of this, Todd, he's a... Come on. Speaker 1 (6:47) Todd, that's not one of the acceptable names for an action hero character in the movies. It's John, Jack, it's Mr. The Terminator. It's something Spartan. That'll do. Speaker 2 (6:58) Yeah, that'll work. Speaker 1 (6:59) Todd's the name of... Like a high school bully. Speaker 2 (7:02) Yeah. So anyway, he's on screen for 85 % of the movie, but he says 104 words and got a payday of... We'll talk about it, but quite a lot. Speaker 1 (7:11) Initially, I thought this was going to be one of those characters that never speaks. Oh, okay. Yeah,