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 Me vs the Gremlins 2 haters. Gremlins 2: The New Batch, in case you've never heard anyone complain about movie sequels before, is infamous for being a very bad one. And I'm SICK OF IT. I've searched and searched for defenders of this movie, but they are shockingly few. It's unfortunate that I have to be the one to say this, but The New Batch deserves more. No, it deserves way, way more. The New Batch isn't just an okay film. It's a great film. Don't get me wrong, I adore Gremlins 1984. It's probably my favorite holiday film, and I'm awful close to calling it a "perfect" movie wrt execution (note: this is different from enjoyment). However, this thread title isn't clickbait either. I don't just think The New Batch stands up to its predecessor, I think it surpasses it. The overarching reason for that is simple: The New Batch has valuable things to say about film. It's a movie about film, it's a sequel about sequels, and I absolutely have a poo poo-ton of things to say about it. It's actually quite late at night for me currently, but I just had to squeeze this OP out immediately upon discovering this subforum because these are important things that need to be said!! I'm going to use the rest of this space to provide much needed background details about the production of the film, and then commence my deep dive into the film tomorrow. I'm excited to rewatch it again. Something that slips past many modern viewers' radars, and is actually pretty essential to understanding the film, is the amount of time between the first film and the sequel. 6 years doesn't seem like too long of a time (I mean Wreck It Ralph was six years ago), but in the 80s and early 90s that was FOREVER. I wasn't alive back then but I'm pretty sure everybody had all but forgotten Gremlins by the time the sequel rolled out. In other words, Hollywood's demand for a sequel was truly of the "nobody asked for it" variety. Granted, part of the reason the sequel took so long was because Joe Dante, the director of the first film and eventual director of the second, vehemently refused to work on a sequel when approached. And Hollywood had a difficult time finding a replacement director. Eventually, Dante was convinced through a weirdly huge budget and the super rare promise of having complete creative control over the final product. Luckily for everybody, Dante used this newfound freedom to absolutely roast Hollywood for the entire runtime of his film. On the DVD commentary, Dante referred to the film as "one of the more unconventional studio pictures ever" due to the fact that Warner Bros wanted the sequel so bad they were willing to let Dante get away with a lot of crap that he otherwise wouldn't. He also said that it was the film into which he put most of his personal flair. Joe Dante made a sequel to his own film which he didn't want to make in the first place and already knew the property would be bastardized to hell and back when he accepted. And the result is a wholly unique experience that will probably never happen again. Scene by scene analysis starts tomorrow. Feel free to debate me cuz I'm fuckin' passionate about this topic. Mr. Steak fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Dec 20, 2018 |
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Dec 20, 2018 11:47
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| # ? May 6, 2024 18:18 |
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Gremlins and Gremlins 2 are both equally awesome. Gremlins 2 is the cartoon adaptation of Gremlins which is already a live action cartoon. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Dec 20, 2018 |
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Dec 20, 2018 14:37
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Wait wait wait... There are people out there that hate Gremlins 2? I simply cannot imagine being that wrong about movies in the current year! It's so weird and hilarious. I particularly like the girl's random story about Lincoln (which of course parodies that weird out-of-place story in the first film, but it might be even more hilarious if you don't know that; if you, like me, didn't see Gremlins until decades after Gremlins 2).
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Dec 20, 2018 15:17
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To be honest, I don't think you need to do a scene by scene analysis to explain why Gremlins 2 is the best when you already prove it in the first post: But then, I'm always down with people talking about Gremlins 2, so I'll be following this thread with bated breath.
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Dec 20, 2018 18:03
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Gremlins 2 is brilliant, and I agree, is equal to the first - but depends on the first to properly satire it. TLW tried to do the exact same thing to Jurassic Park, but didn't go quite far enough with it.
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Dec 20, 2018 22:59
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The first sentence in your post is patently false. Since when is Gremlins 2 infamous for being a bad sequel? If anything it's the opposite.
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Dec 20, 2018 23:56
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I actually saw 2 before 1
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Dec 21, 2018 00:04
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Gremlins 2 was smart enough to realize what the first movie couldnt. That the gremlin creatures arent really scary enough on their own to work as straight horror so just embrace the goofiness of it all.
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Dec 21, 2018 00:11
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HP Hovercraft posted:The first sentence in your post is patently false. Actually, that is a true representation of me vs the Gremlins 2 haters.
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Dec 21, 2018 00:45
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Chalk me up as another person who had no clue anyone hated Gremlins 2. I thought it was an Alien/Aliens situation where everyone has their preference but also everyone pretty much likes both.
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Dec 21, 2018 02:18
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Agreeing with everyone else, I've never really seen anyone hate Gremlins 2.
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Dec 21, 2018 03:25
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Gremlins 2 had a somewhat mixed reception when it was first released and lost money. The intervening years have been kind to it though, and I think today most people have come around on it.
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Dec 21, 2018 03:27
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I'm always surprised we never got a Gremlins cartoon show. It seems like every other horror-comedy movie of the late 80's- early 90's got a series. Beetlejuice, Ghostbusters, Tales from the Crypt, Littleshop of Horrors, Toxic Crusader, even goddamn Attack of the Killer Tomatoes got a cartoon, but not Gremlins.
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Dec 21, 2018 04:14
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Gremlins 2 rules because even trying to imagine the pitch meeting for it will never not be hilarious.
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Dec 21, 2018 04:23
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I loving love Gremlins 2. It also inspired a pretty awesome Key and Peele sketch https://youtu.be/x01l_jMhjVM
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Dec 21, 2018 04:46
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I always thought gremlins 2 was great
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Dec 21, 2018 07:51
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I feel like the OP may have been confusing Gremlins 2 with Troll 2.
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Dec 21, 2018 08:05
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I've always loved Gremlins 2, OP. I also follow this amazing Gremlins 2 twitter account; Institute of Gremlins 2 Studies. https://twitter.com/G2Institute Fun, but in no way civilised...
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Dec 21, 2018 12:02
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I've never seen this movie but this scene means it must be a good movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxGgx3YCCAA
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Dec 21, 2018 13:29
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For a sequel people are correct to hate I nominate Boondock Saints 2
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Dec 21, 2018 21:27
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Uncle Wemus posted:For a sequel people are correct to hate I nominate Boondock Saints 2 I submit that Boondock Saints 2 is better than Boondock Saints, by virtue of it being so astoundingly bad that it shames people out of liking the first retroactively.
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Dec 21, 2018 21:39
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ALFbrot posted:I submit that Boondock Saints 2 is better than Boondock Saints, by virtue of it being so astoundingly bad that it shames people out of liking the first retroactively. it actually got made? I'm not doing this as one of those silly "What do you mean there were 3 Matrix movies? Only one exists, it wouldn't need sequels!" gag. Like I remember a documentary all about how the rear end in a top hat auteur behind the first movie pissed away all good will and burned every bridge attempting to get it made practically guaranteeing he'd never work in the industry again and no one would ever work for him.
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Dec 21, 2018 22:02
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This scene is a crime https://youtu.be/K8pJBCCrZl8
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Dec 21, 2018 23:16
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Despite all it's fault BS2 is the only performance of Julie Benz's that I was able to tolerate.
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Dec 21, 2018 23:27
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Uncle Wemus posted:This scene is a crime Uh... Is it supposed to look that bad?
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Dec 22, 2018 00:03
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Uncle Wemus posted:This scene is a crime I would have loved to have been in the room when they shot the scene on the ice rink. It’s like they just had the camera constantly orbiting the actors and just started takes whenever they felt like it, then edited together the best takes willy nilly with no regard for how it cut.
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Dec 22, 2018 00:13
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Mooey Cow posted:Uh... That blur isn't due to a lovely upload, it looks like it had a bad oversaturated filter for 'artistic reasons.' Looking it up, the movie had an 8 million dollar budget. Why does it have sub-Troma level production quality?
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Dec 22, 2018 01:18
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I have no idea why some people dislike Gremlins 2. Both 1 and 2 are great movies but for different reasons. 1 actually tries to be a bit serious and has a cool warrior mom who murders Gremlins by the half-dozen, 2 just goes full on cartoon comedy and it's loving great.
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Dec 22, 2018 07:57
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Gremlins 2 is one of my all-time favourite movies, I can put it on at any time and never fail to be entertained it’s just so anarchic. Also the elevator alarm gag kills me, and I desperately want all public toilets to have a recorded greeting like in the clamp building “MR .....WELCOME TO THE MENS ROOM”
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Dec 22, 2018 11:33
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Gremlins 2 has an amazing secret weapon in John Glover. He is absolutely delightful in all things, but especially in that particular flick.
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Dec 22, 2018 18:49
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Fart City posted:Gremlins 2 has an amazing secret weapon in John Glover. He is absolutely delightful in all things, but especially in that particular flick. Clamp would also make a much better president than the guy he's partially based off of.
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Dec 22, 2018 19:00
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There's actually a deleted scene where a character says that Clamp should be president.
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Dec 22, 2018 19:13
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Fart City posted:Gremlins 2 rules because even trying to imagine the pitch meeting for it will never not be hilarious. The pitch meeting was Warner Bros. constantly pestering Dante to make the movie for six years after the first one - probably because Spielberg said he wouldn’t put his name on it if it wasn’t Joe behind the camera - and him saying no until they finally said “please just make the movie, you can do whatever you want with it as long as it doesn’t piss off the MPAA ratings board” and he said “really?” And they repeated “ANYTHING” and so we got what we got, which somehow is Jacque Tati’s Playtime as shot through the subconscious of Chuck Jones. I’m amazed Warners actually kept up their end of the bargain (then again, it’s not like the movie was a mess, and given that the same people were starting up a channel to broadcast Looney Tunes in the near future, they probably got what he was doing), although that might have just been as much them wanting to remain on Spielberg’s good side more than anything else.
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Dec 23, 2018 01:06
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The Cameo posted:which somehow is Jacque Tati’s Playtime as shot through the subconscious of Chuck Jones. I'm going to steal that phrase because it's perfect.
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Dec 23, 2018 04:11
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The Cameo posted:The pitch meeting was Warner Bros. constantly pestering Dante to make the movie for six years after the first one - probably because Spielberg said he wouldn’t put his name on it if it wasn’t Joe behind the camera - and him saying no until they finally said “please just make the movie, you can do whatever you want with it as long as it doesn’t piss off the MPAA ratings board” and he said “really?” And they repeated “ANYTHING” and so we got what we got, which somehow is Jacque Tati’s Playtime as shot through the subconscious of Chuck Jones. I’m amazed Warners actually kept up their end of the bargain (then again, it’s not like the movie was a mess, and given that the same people were starting up a channel to broadcast Looney Tunes in the near future, they probably got what he was doing), although that might have just been as much them wanting to remain on Spielberg’s good side more than anything else. I guess I can look it up when I get home, but I'll ask here. As a kid, I remember trailers for the movie more than a year before the movie came out, like there was a gigantic delay or something. Anyone know the reason for that?
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Dec 23, 2018 05:20
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I think WB was just trying to push it as a big thing and made a trailer to underline that right as production started, since production actually went a lot smoother than the first one (which was rife with issues with the animatronic Gremlins, giving Joe his own “the shark doesn’t work” nightmares), and they shot through ‘89 and released it in 1990.
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Dec 23, 2018 05:58
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Whether or not The New Batch is actually infamous, which I guess I'm not sure of anymore, there's still a ton of gems to dig up on a deep dive into it. I never intended this thread as an argumentative analysis anyway. It's mostly to show off all the little things that make this film a masterpiece. And as I realized while writing this first post up, I have a hecking lot to say about it every frickin' 10 seconds. Part 1: 00:00:00 -00:06:00  The first frame immediately introduces "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" as a cartoon. It's overwhelmingly obvious why that's appropriate, but this reminds me of a pet peeve I have about many recent films. (What's that? A tangent in the beginning of your first post?) Shut up. So you know how there's this trend where films will open with the corporate-approved stock logo of the film producers, but then immediately afterwards the film will open by listing those same producers with its own preferred font and aesthetic? So you have to wait like ten seconds after you press play before you're actually seeing the director's vision? It's better when the film starts its music during the logos and then doesn't bother repeating the info in the film proper, but I still see the weird redundancy sometimes, and it annoys me. Bugs Bunny appears riding the WB cartoon logo, then Daffy Duck comes in and they do a skit. The Loony Tunes skit was definitely included to cement the anarchic tone that the film unapologetically embraces, but there's another purpose it serves as well. To introduce the themes of creative control and corporate meddling. Daffy takes the role of director and leading role of the intro skit, and starts directing. However, the unseen cartoon operator represented by the WB logo pulls the corporate symbol way too close to the camera, pushing Daffy and everything else out of frame. (In the extended skit, there's also a bit where Bugs edits Daffy's naming choices for the film).  Title card! God, I love title cards. I like to go to websites like this and look at em all. This title card is really pleasant looking and surprisingly calming. But why is "Gremlins 2" written in that color? It kind of hurts my eyes looking at it too long.    We're then treated to sweeping shots of the city, in contrast to the previous film, it taking place in a modest suburb and all. In a producer's eyes, New York City is like a huge moneybag. People want to see films shot there. It was huge and it's still huge today. This is a deliberately transparent grab for attention, as barely any of the rest of the movie involves the city setting at all. The plot would be basically the same if it took place in the building from The Belko Experiment, for example.    We then enter the familiar Chinatown area, which makes me interested now that I think about it, how far did Billy's dad drive to reach this place? It doesn't look like they lived too close to this city. I'm also interested in the fact that that first film didn't establish the city at ALL, just plopped us into (a way more dark and mystical) Chinatown. Thats kind of why I'm so confidant that I'm not ovethinking the addition of the city shots. We can see there's construction in that last shot, which I'm pointing out only to show how smoothly details are established through editing. The Chinatown shots have been following a single car, leading us all the way to the construction site.   The first character of the film is introduced, in an editing technique we all know and love, as a foot stepping out of a car. Oh, and speaking of the text that is coincidentally overlayed on that screenshot, Jerry Goldsmith also composed the music for the first film and his scores are excellent. If there's one thing I love irrationally more than I should, it's good character-establishing moments, so I highly appreciate that from the very first moment he steps out of that fancy car, which already has the characteristic of sticking out in Chinatown, Mr Forster is pretty strongly established with his foot acting alone, as he carefully avoids stepping in the garbage, presumably to keep his shined shoes looking squeaky clean. He adjusts his lapel and stands up to retrieve his sales materials, which look entirely like luggage.  Here we are, in the oh so familiar setting of Wing's curiosity shop, hammering home the familiarity by playing Gizmo's theme in the background as soon as we enter. I'm going to argue a little later that the shop represents the first film, so this is important to point out. "Mr Wing." Frank says as he enters, followed by what the credits refer to as his "associates" and without another word of greeting, starts moving poo poo and setting stuff up. It's really hard to see because a bunch of credits blocks it, but as he walks in Mr. Forster picks up an antique hat from the table they're about to put the display screen on, and then fuckin' drops it on the floor basically as a "gently caress you" to Mr. Wing. The next character identified by name is interestingly Mr Clamp, not Frank Forster, the other main character in this scene, which I mention only to point out that this script understands conservation of detail, and which information is most valuable to the viewer. It's WAY more useful to understand the name and identity of Mr Clamp early on than Forster who won't even be properly introduced in this scene.   Mr Clamp doesn't appear outside of a screen until Billy meets him for the first time. After greeting Wing, the first thing Mr. Clamp says is "I'm prepared to increase my offer substantially," and then volunteers "you're very attached to your business" all while the camera focuses in on Wing's stubborn expression. This takes approximately three to four seconds, but establishes not only Clamp's relationship to Wing (not friendly/persistently making an offer), but also what's as stake (Wing's business), the reason for the conflict (Wing's attachments), Wing's character (stubborn), and Clamp's character (determined to get his way). Amazingly time-effective writing. Mwah. Immediately after that, we get a lot of quick exposition made entertaining mostly by the amazing John Glover: he makes big buildings, the hugest buildings, and he's got a brand new special Strangely, we get a big closeup of Clamp for the line "I believe there is always an area of agreement that two people can reach." I'll leave it up to you to interpret why Dante chose to emphasize that so much.  Mr Wing calls television "an invention for fools," but Gizmo isn't watching a television program, he's watching the film Rambo. So is film also an invention for fools? This movie gives that question a resounding yes. Mr. Steak fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2018 06:11
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Gremlins 2 is amazing, this thread is amazing. Lady Gremlina was my first childhood crush.
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Dec 23, 2018 23:54
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Yeah man! You show all those 1 haters that Gremlins 2 is awesome and a one of a kind movie that will never be done again.  
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Dec 24, 2018 09:30
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It's actually pretty easy to find dummies who don't like Gremlins 2, though the opinion has become a bit less fashionable over time. It's included in a few "worst sequels of all time" lists and its Rotten Tomatoes audience score is currently at only 56%, making it a rare case of a horror movie the critics liked more than the audience.
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Dec 24, 2018 13:31
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