Kyle and Drew dive headfirst into their obsession with Arnold and Sly movies. This is no surprise to long-term MWP fans. We discuss whether or not it's possible for the environment and circumstances to create a similar era of dominance for action stars. Arnold and Sly's multi-decade runs, muscles, and over-the-top action were ushered in by the 80s, and elongated throughout the 90's(and a little 2000s in there too). Was this a case of the perfect stars for the perfect time, or could we see another star take the mantle of dominance?

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MWP Minis Arny and Sly

[00:00:18] Drew: Kyle. Uh, is this what we're calling it? Tweeners? I don't know. We

[00:00:35] Some skirmishes. Some skirmishes, scrimmages. Skirmishes. It's no mystery to our listeners where we stand on Arnold Sly. It's pretty obvious that we have a love, a love, love relationship. Arnold who? Uh, Arnold Palmer and Sly. Sly the cat. Sly the cat, the Looney Tune. I was going to say there was a cat named Sly.

[00:01:18] I'll go to you. Is it possible? I mean, what was it about the, the environment that created Arnold and Sly and let them have, you know, decades of success, still having success, but obviously not the [00:01:30] same thing, but what, what created that and is it more difficult now?

[00:01:41] The economy was booming. It was Reaganomics. It was, you know, American exceptionalism. Yes, it was. Everything was big and bad and muscly and You know, I think it just that kind of the, the blockbuster movie, I don't think it was necessarily invented in the eighties. I think it probably started in the seventies with jaws or [00:02:00] something like that, but I think it was kind of perfected in the eighties and that's really when things started to pop and something about just big guns and big muscles really appealed to Americans at the time and worldwide audiences.

[00:02:37] And skill to win over an audience and be a, a movie star. And

[00:02:55] It was built into movies kind of as a, you know, as like an asset. Mm-Hmm. . And then [00:03:00] when they come on, it's like. The action is the thing, the guns are the thing, the muscles, the oil, the blood, the fighting, like those became the thing. And I think you're right. I think something about kind of the, the movement of, uh, you know, American exceptionalism, uh, Reaganomics, kind of the, the thriving of the, you know, of the eighties, there was a time.

[00:04:02] They got bigger and bigger, more muscles, like his

[00:04:07] Kyle: they did. I love looking at the pictures from each one. It's like, he was obviously on gear on the juice. Is there a flaw in my thinking? Do we have anything close now? Who's close to this?

[00:04:24] We don't have a tandem, but I would say the closest to that type would be The Rock. [00:04:30] Mm hmm. The Rock, it kind of scratches that, I mean, he's obviously very muscly, has like that mix, the mixed bag of action and comedy. Now, The Rock leans a little more comedy films. And family film, stuff like that. Then Sly and Sylvester or Sly and Arnold did, but I think he's probably the closest we have to that.

[00:04:54] Kyle: I think I was having a hard time, like for a second, like, like I was, I think I almost thought Gosling first thing, but you know, [00:05:00] they do one action movie now, like, you know, like Arnold and Sly made a career out of it, you know, but anymore, it's like they dip into it, you know, they,

[00:05:11] What do you

[00:05:14] Drew: Well, I mean, anymore, it's, and this is a whole different conversation, but if it's not Star Wars, Marvel, you know, or an animated movie, Disney, basically, if it's not Disney, then it's straight to streaming. I mean, that's kind of how most. [00:05:30] What, how Hollywood sees it.

[00:05:46] Just the, the genres that used to draw audiences to the theaters, romantic comedies, comedies in general, action movies that aren't sci fi or fantasy, um, those have kind of gone away. You know, and

[00:06:14] There is large scale action, but one, it's heavily CGI, so it's not necessarily, it's also not the, it's not always guns, you know, space lasers or maybe, you know, iron man's whatever, you know, weaponry built into a suit, but it's not. M 16s. It's not, you [00:06:30] know, uh, what is the, uh, the spinning machine gun called the, uh, minigun.

[00:06:45] Drew: machine. And I think another thing that kind of changed as Arnold and Sly's run sort of started to fade was technology evolved to a state where.

[00:07:19] And so that's and then that I'm kind of It, uh, transitioned into like what we saw with Iron Man, you know, like we're looking at a super rich, smart guy. He's charming. He's shmarmy, whatever, but it's all about [00:07:30] the cool crap that he's got in his

[00:07:43] Fuckin run the world. I would've been like you're crazy Arnold is gonna run the world He can lift the world But one thing you said really blew my mind about the technological piece because it also reminded me something else We've hit on this podcast there were other action stars after you know And I think I'm [00:08:00] gonna name a bunch that just comes straight to my mind.

[00:08:23] Like you probably haven't even heard of that one. Steven Seagal was close, but Seagal was not like muscle guy. In fact, [00:08:30] I don't think you, I can't even remember watching any of his movies. If you even saw his arms, like he was always wearing a black suit. He was really good with, uh, I think I've heard this.

[00:09:03] Yeah, the everyman still awesome, still can create a lot of havoc and carry the load, but they're not giant muscle. I mean, Bruce Willis was toned, Keanu slightly toned, I guess, but not like anything to look at, but tough enough, tough enough. Right. But then you're right. Like you, I think, I think you may have nailed it.

[00:09:36] Right. Don't you think? I mean, you're more into the superhero. We're better. Don't some of the superhero villains, kind of the minor villains are a little more, we got like right. Is Rhino in any of the movies?

[00:09:53] Well, he did, but I mean, he never got like his own trilogy, like, you know, Captain America. There were three of those movies [00:10:00] and Iron Man. There were three of those movies and Hulk is like the Thor. There's been what? Four, five of those. No, there's been four so far. Um, but Hulk was like after the debacle before Ruffalo, you know, with Edward Norton, the

[00:10:12] But well, what's funny about that is, you know, you look at the Lou Ferrigno sci fi Or it was on the TV series Hulk, which was extremely popular, but Mm-Hmm. Freno was a friend of Arnold's was a bodybuilder originally. He wasn't portrayed with CGI. They had a really massive bodybuilder. Mm-Hmm. painted freaking green.

[00:10:28] Drew: know what? Now that I'm [00:10:30] thinking about it, uh, Hemsworth might be up there. Mm-Hmm. in the conversation with the rock in terms of just star power muscles. Um, he's not doing like the theatrical. Smashes in that genre, but like I'm thinking of like his extraction movies are very loved on Netflix I don't know.

[00:10:50] Kyle: about the dialogue if you think about one liners? Yeah, like the one liners we love them In fact in our everyday life in our when we're hanging out and just chilling smoking cigars Well, how [00:11:00] many times did we just randomly? Drop a Arnold one liner just because it's in our brains, but is there is there room for that now?

[00:11:33] Anyway, especially early on.

[00:11:48] Kyle: that. Is the violence. This is something that crossed my mind.

[00:12:17] Cause it's a future world. The commando, you know, I mean, Rambo, you know, the later Rambos, very real, bloody, especially when they, and they also came out around wars, like real war. They were [00:12:30] playing on the fact that we were in real wars engaged around the world. Um, and, and they were like caricatures of that.

[00:12:41] Drew: appetites for that? This might be a reach, but I think some of the kind of lighthearted, uh, violence, if you will, that used to be in films has kind of translated over to video games. And I think that scratches an itch for a lot of people so that when we go to movies, we want realism when we want the playful, just like, let's just [00:13:00] blow crap up and have fun.

[00:13:16] Kyle: in cheek. Damn, you were just full of good points.

[00:13:32] I freakin love the video game. Um, and I remember the first time I played the re the remake, not the remaster of one, but they actually, like, remade it for PS5. The first time I shot someone's head with a shotgun in the game, their head exploded and brains dri dripped slowly down the wall behind them. And I stopped playing and a zombie was like chasing me, but I just stopped and stared.

[00:14:11] Like I've never said I'm a film guy across all of them. Like when I care about it, when I care about Arnold or Martin Scorsese, I know everything, but I don't know everything about every movie ever made, and that's, I put that out there. But, I do associate violence now with high art films. When I think of modern violence in films, it really is [00:14:30] predicated upon independent, uh, a lot of the independent directors I love, like Nicholas Winding Refn, who did Drive.

[00:14:59] [00:15:00] I could

[00:15:18] So

[00:15:21] Drew: that one to get, but I see what you're saying. It does feel like gratuitous violence. And maybe it's because of the gun issues in America and the school [00:15:30] shootings and all those things, like maybe it has like really gratuitous violence has kind of found its place in, I don't know, used as needed to make, to tell a story.

[00:15:46] Kyle: Well, what you just said reminded me too, remember what John McTiernan said about, uh, when he directed Predator, like, he did not like guns, but, and I think we talked about this maybe on the Predator podcast, but Arnold, it was, it wasn't that Arnold had to go look for [00:16:00] roles, at a certain point it was like, directors and producers and studios wanted to be in the Arnold business, they wanted to be in the Sly business, we'll talk about the script later, we'll talk about the idea later, we just want you on the payroll, you know, we want you on our film.

[00:16:30] But, I mean, Who the hell cares? It was a movie about shooting an alien that hunts people on planets, right? So anyway, you'd have to really read into the subtext, but that's a great, the point I'm making there is that McTiernan didn't love guns, but what choice did he had? He had the biggest movie star who's known for the big guns and the big muscles.

[00:16:59] Drew: did. Yeah, he [00:17:00] probably did. I bet he

[00:17:02] Drew: it to PETA.

[00:17:17] Kyle: again? Going into this conversation, I didn't know and after this conversation, I really do think it's, it's not, um, for a lot of the reasons.

[00:17:38] Right. That and we're seeing unprecedented because this is the first time we've had wars during the social media age And now you go to Twitter and you can see corpses exploding from Ukraine. We're so neat We're just so exposed to violence now that I think I just don't think it's it's seen as entertainment anymore in that capacity Even though I don't think Arnold or Sly would ever say we wanted to [00:18:00] promote violence.

[00:18:22] You know, Ryan Gosling, very attractive man, great actor, not a big dude. You know, I think about a lot of the new great actors besides the rock. [00:18:30] Yeah, there's a few exceptions. Hemworth, you know, Hemsworth and a few other dudes, but it's just not what moves the needle anymore. So go ahead. I was

[00:18:39] I mean, then this is not intended at all to be a political statement and I hate that I even have to Say that, but the culturally to your point, the machismo is not celebrated like it was the idea of a big, muscly, strong man coming in and saving the day and, you know, rescuing the damsel in distress. Like that kind of that mode of storytelling is kind of been [00:19:00] frowned upon for better or worse or neither.

[00:19:33] And everybody kind of lives in their own little bubble of content and their algorithms feeding them what the algorithm knows they like. And so there's more celebrities, there's more people with millions of followers than there ever were. So, you know, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, they were one of, you know, a handful of people at that level at that time, whereas today, I mean, you know, there's, there will be the Taylor Swift's of the world and, you know, but even her, [00:20:00] I would argue she was born into all this before social media really has become what it is.

[00:20:21] Kyle: there's only so many opportunities to make crazy money right now. Whereas, you know, when Arnold and Sly were doing it big time, like, there was a lot of money to be made.[00:20:30]

[00:20:30] Drew: we even name one? Celebrity, one actor, actress that has become a massive star from the

[00:20:46] Drew: I'm saying like who, who is an example of an actor, actress who is kind of become a household name who started and has stayed in streaming.

[00:20:57] Kyle: I know they kind of like stay like the first thought I [00:21:00] had was a guy from Stranger Things. What's the older guy's name? Oh, okay. That's a good example, but he didn't stay in it. He went on to do he went on to do You

[00:21:16] Kyle: Remember his name to go to go on a multi decade run Yeah, Arnold Sly will add Keanu and Bruce Willis to that two of those of that type of star strung together decades Yeah.

[00:21:27] Drew: throw Tom Cruise. Mm [00:21:30] hmm. I mean, really just actors. You could do, you could throw Tom Hanks and Denzel and like those, those guys that have run the gamut. And then when we're getting out to the action genre, but yeah, those type of actors, I think, I don't know. I just don't see that being a thing

[00:21:42] You know, I also just had another crazy thought. Let's not just think about Arnold and Sly, but who created the worlds that they played around in. I mean, obviously Sly directed a lot of his own movies, but let's look at James Cameron. Who's, who's, besides John McTiernan, who do we really owe more gratitude to for our favorite action movies than James Cameron?

[00:22:18] Drew: Yeah, and those guys are, I mean, no disrespect there, but they're old. I mean, they're, they're not, they don't have the youth to continue to do that. Yeah, at least in a new

[00:22:35] It was the bad boys and, and things in the rock and things like that. Those were different. Those were Nicholas cages, not Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are, were almost comedians at the time. Like Will Smith hadn't yet ascended. Martin Lawrence was a comedian. So like they were making action movies with non action people.

[00:23:07] Drew: I don't either.

[00:23:12] Kyle: thing. No, it's not, because, um, we obviously, it doesn't matter if they do, because we're just going to keep watching Arnold movies and Sly movies over and over again. You know? Once they start stamping 4Ks of all my favorites, I will just re watch them all for the hundredth time.

[00:23:38] Make your case. Let us know. We would love to read your comments on the next podcast. Um, but, uh, thanks for flexing with us today. This is Kyle. This is Drew. Bye. Movie Wars.