Demolition Man
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2020
⏱️ 108 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When we revisited Judge Dredd for the podcast, we couldn't help but notice how much of it seemed like a less successful version of Demolition Man. Since then, we've been anxious to rewatch this one to see how accurate that assessment was.
"Prescient" is not a word you'd expect to use when describing one of Stallone's overblown early 90s blockbusters, but it turns out Demolition Man is full of surprises.
Topics include: the film's origins as a fairly straightforward sci-fi movie and how it evolved into a more satirical (and action-heavy) look at the future, a key subplot that was removed from the final cut, the unintended confusion caused by its absence, why the final act doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first 2/3, some unusual alternate casting choices, Stallone's intentions to develop a sequel, and more!
Check it out! You can now get HDYR merch exclusively through TeePublic!
Patreon / iTunes / Stitcher / RSS / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember Demolition Man? |
| 0:07.0 | Hello and welcome, Hey, You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up. |
| 0:31.6 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:32.4 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.3 | And I'm Carlos. |
| 0:34.4 | And today we're revisiting Demolition Man. |
| 0:52.4 | Music And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Demolition Man. You guys, the list of things Demolition Man accurately predicted about the future should not be as long as it is. |
| 1:01.5 | It's crazy. |
| 1:04.0 | And that's one of the best things about the movie, that satirical bite, the sense of humor, that's definitely one of the big reasons that this has endured as long as it has. |
| 1:13.0 | So it's pretty crazy that most of that stuff was a fairly late in the game development. |
| 1:19.7 | Originally, this was a much more straightforward action movie. |
| 1:24.0 | Actually, I think to begin with, it may have been more of a straightforward sci-fi movie, |
| 1:28.2 | not even so heavy on the action, because the original writer, he said he was envisioning someone |
| 1:33.2 | more like Mickey Rourke in the lead role, and that the ending was John Spartan getting back |
| 1:40.4 | together with his wife, even though she was now much older than him, which obviously is not |
| 1:46.0 | going to fly in the Stallone starring Joel Silver produced version. It cycled through a bunch |
| 1:54.0 | of other writers, and I mean a bunch. It sounds like the arbitration process to determine who would |
| 1:59.2 | receive writing credit on this was a total |
| 2:02.2 | nightmare. So in the middle of all that, Sylvester Stallone gets attached at a certain point. So now |
| 2:07.5 | he's also making suggestions and demands about the story and the character. And like I said, |
| 2:13.1 | they're already pretty far along when Daniel Waters comes on board to knock out yet another draft. |
| 2:20.1 | And maybe that name rings a bell because he is also the writer of Heather's and Batman Returns. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Christopher Schrader, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Christopher Schrader and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.