Prelude to Universal Soldier

Brought to you by Universally Older - the one stop pharmaceutical line of products for the aging badass. JCVD approved!

This week Jackie pulls the metaphorical trigger on Roland Emmerich and Jean Claude Van Damme's first appearance on Stinker Madness. Plus Dolph Lundgren shows up for the fourth time in Universal Soldier. Can this be a good movie? Probably not....

Also this week we release a new segment that we hope you enjoy. It's called Good Neighbor, Bad Neighbor and is a stalwart drinking game in our social network (the real life kind, sorry Tweeters). The rules are simple; pick someone famous and decide if they would make a good neighbor or a bad neighbor. It doesn't matter how much you like the person, even people you like may make bad neighbors (talking to you William Shatner) and people you dislike may make great neighbors (talking to you Kobe Bryant). Be sure to reach out to us with your thoughts on each weeks pick by hashtagging #GNBN.

Good Neighbor, Bad Neighbor Entries:

• Dominic Torreto (Fast & Furious Franchise)
• Maj. Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris) - Delta Force
• John Wick

Streaming Do's and Don'ts

• Blood Surf - Netflix
• Hercules vs Moloch (Conquest of Mycenae) - Netflix
• DNA - Netflix
• Curse 2, The Bite - Youtube
• Cruel Jaws (Jaws 5) - Youtube

About Universal Soldier - Movie Information

Sam's Boring Bullshit

Directed by Roland Emmerich. His films, most of which are English-language, Hollywood productions, have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide. His films have grossed just over $1 billion in the United States, making him the country's 14th-highest grossing director of all time. He began his work in the film industry by directing the film The Noah's Ark Principle (1984) as part of his university thesis and also co-founded Centropolis Entertainment in 1985 with his sister. He is a collector of art and an active campaigner for the LGBT community, and is openly gay. He is also a campaigner for awareness of global warming and equal rights.

After his thesis project, The Noah’s Ark Principal became a very unlikely success, it was released in 20 countries.  He would produce, direct and help write Moon 44 with Micheal Pare. This film, beyond garnering attention, would also introduce him to Dean Devlin, who he would later collaborate with on Stargate and many other projects they would work exclusively together until 2000.  The Patriot with Mel Gibson was their last collaboration and they are back together for the planned 2016 expected blockbuster ID4 2 Part 1 Forever.

Devlin appears as an additional writer on this film. Stargate, was the first film to have a website. Devlin Ran the website himself. It was quite interactive for 1994. Editor's Note - Justin does not agree with this and says that Star Trek Generations was the first film to have a dedicated website. It was also built in 1994. It can still be seen here. It does, however, appear that Stargate may have also been the first.

Mario Kassar is the executive on this film.  You will know him as the co-founder of Carolco; Andrew G. Vajna being the other.

Somehow this is our first Van Damme film on Stinker Madness. Despite not having the track record of Dale Apollo Cook, he does have a win heavy kickboxing record. He is quoted as saying “If you can survive a ballet workout, you can survive a workout in any other sport”.  He made an uncredited apearence in Woman Between Wolf and Dog.  His first credit was as Gay Karate Man in Monaco Fever.  His first major role was in No Retreat No Surrender.  His next film was his first lead, the ever popular Bloodsport. 

This is most certainly not our first outing with Dolph Lundgren.  So I am not even going to talk about him.

The young couple that Luc reacts to at the Hoover Dam incident are actually the same young couple in the beginning in Vietnam

Though they're all supposed to be American, the Universal Soldiers are played by a Belgian (Van Damme) a Swede (Lundgren) and a German (Ralf Moeller).

The last film to be recorded in CDS, an early digital sound format. In the following year of the film's release, sound technicians had developed DTS. This sound format was apparently of higher audio quality than CDS and has been used in most movie theaters ever since.

The first screenplay was initially called "Crystal Knights".

The Grand Canyon bus chase has been used and edited as library footage into Fred Olen Ray's Critical Mass (2000) produced by Andrew Stevens' Phoenician Entertainment (a company that specialized in shooting low budget action films around stock footage).

The Vietnam scenes were filmed at the Kingman AZ Golf course with set dressings and fake foliage.  Good job, Art Department.

Luc Deveraux's codename in the UNISOL program is GR44

Keep an eye out for:

• Eric Norris as GR86
• Michael Jai White as Soldier
• Tommy "Tiny" Lister as GR55
• Jerry Orbach as Dr. Christopher Gregor
• Ralf Möller as GR74
• Kristopher Van Varenberg as Young Luc Deveraux (uncredited)