General Film News

[Alan]

I kind of love it. John L’s best role!

[Stormbringer]

Honestly, the CGI never bothered me. The facial prosthetics did, way more, when I watched it back in 2001 or something. Spawn looked short and stocky instead of lean and tall like in the comic books.

[Lenny Solidus]

I'm a little surprised they haven't made it a life-long ambition to destroy every copy of that ever produced. It represented everything wrong with the push towards extensive use of CGI in films before the technology was remotely ready, and it's one of the worst looking films I've ever seen. I'm surprised there were enough polygons in the original CG to even warrant a 4K release, and I'm not sure why anyone would want to see them if there were.

Alright. I was very much expecting the odd pushback with some calling it utter crap and totally unworthy of requiring a 4K transfer etc etc, what I wasn't expecting was most of the above almost likening a very budgetary restrained somewhat serious tone/somewhat tongue in cheek superhero movie to be described as if it were Cannibal Holocaust or something of the sort that should be outright eradicated from view and public memory. Come on now. I feel that's a bit much regardless of how you position it.

The CGI heavy use was felt the only way to really push the more supernatural elements of the movie, the cape alone took up a huge slice of the movies budget to create. Keep in mind Jurassic Park had come out some four years prior though with a CGI based budget somewhere in the region of $70 Million, ironically one of the visual artists on that movie was Spawn director himself - Mark A.Z. Dippé who later went on to deliver such classics as (checks notes) Garfield Gets Real. The whole CGI argument is really neither here nor there tbh if Spawn didn't do it something else would have, in the exact same year we had Batman & Robin - Steel - Orgazmo and Turbo A Power Rangers movie...all movies I would deem as considerably worse than Spawn itself. At the very least Spawn was attempting while not entirely successfully to bring the genre back to a place where it felt more fitting once more - 1989 Batman style albeit with a much less well known character that had a record selling book out at the time that is still going strong today in varying formats.

Spawn came about from a very green first time director who had only previously worked in visual fx, yes it shows, yes it's horribly jarring leaning on pure distraction in places, but again it was made on a $20-30 Million budget and is rather extensively made up of what was at the time an ever inflated amount of more and more CGI shots, once it dawned on them that bringing something like it from page to screen was going to be an incredibly arduous task that they would only be able to pull off in part. The editing, a lot of the acting and writing all follow suit to a degree as disjointed and ever so campy in places. Yet, I still find it an enjoyable watch. John Leguizamo's Go Spawny has me dancing every...single...time.

The movie was backed largely by the original comic creator who invested $20 million of his own personal wealth to get the movie made (and is in the process of doing the same once again you'll be ecstatic to know) while the iron was still hot so to speak, he even makes a tiny blink and you'll miss it cameo in the movie as a homeless man. If it ever gets made, that is.

Spawn released an entire year before Blade, and Blade is often widely touted as birthing the MCU once again with a black main protagonist and taking a much more serious tone to a comic centric offering while then complete unknown Michael Jai White went on to make something of a name for himself with films such as the widely popular Black Dynamite.

The success of the movie helped directly to bring about Spawn: The Animated Series, which even today is fondly remembered as one of the best, more adult orientated works of animation for its time.

Even the SPAWN Soundtrack made its very own mark, one where a very distinct collaboration between bands you'd never in your wildest dreams contemplate would work together produced some amazing tracks. Marilyn Manson & Sneaker Pimps, The Prodigy & Tom Morello, Mansun & 808 State, Henry Rollins & Goldie - to name but a few.

Take any of the above points as you will, but do note that I'm in no way arguing against the film being a very divisive one for endless reasons - it's agreeably also heavily flawed for reasons I'm sure another $50 Million on top perhaps could have helped with somewhat and yet some even now push for it to be considered a cult classic. I know, utter madness.

The movie and especially the animated series has a pretty long-standing following, Spawn is a unique character and at the very least I applaud them at least attempting what they tried to do in 1997 in such a limited fashion and I doubt there would even be a 4K transfer at all if there was indeed no audience for it whatsoever.

"You can take this army of yours and shove it!"

"Ooh, sounds like a country song. Take this army of yours and shove it, take this...Uh oh".

[Raid]

Sure. Counterpoint:



I haven't seen the film in 25+ years, but my only memory of it was of how ugly it was. I don't remember any of the story, the characters, I have absolutely no idea what the soundtrack was. That's not the impression a film should leave. I don't think bringing up Jurassic Park will do your argument many favours, being a film where the CGI still actually looks pretty decent 33 years later (yes I know, it had the bigger budget for it, but perhaps that's indicative of CGI only being a good idea if you could afford it back in the early 90s), but where it notably used practical effects for scenes where CGI wouldn't have been good enough. I know Spawn isn't a property that's going to work easily with practical effects, but making it with some of the ugliest CG animation did it no favours either.

I know Spawn's pretty important to you Dave, and when I saw you linking a trailer I was hoping that it was a new attempt at bringing it to the big screen (or at least a partial remake with entirely new CG shots) because I wouldn't mind seeing what you see in it.

[Lenny Solidus]

I don't mind you cherry-picking the above shot whatsoever as being absolutely awful because in that we are in full agreement...it is. The entire scene set in Malebolgia's lair is well known for being terrible and the sad truth of it is that it's everything that it looks like, a hastily constructed we are out of cash CGI shit show when they had the exact same scene planned using full animatronics instead but opted for the former due to time and money constraints. The Violator is a mix of both practical and CGI and honestly looks infinitely better on screen when directly compared. Keep in mind, there were also shots like this in the exact same movie...



And to add some much needed context...

Mark Dippe, one of the primary players of the CGI revolution at ILM, makes his directorial debut in SPAWN, based on the popular comic book title. Visual effects were helmed by Dippe's longtime CG partner, Steve "Spaz" Williams, and the wonderful makeup and animatronic creatures were created by KNB EFX Group.

SPAWN's visual effects range from the wildly original to the mundane and cliche--from the highly photorealistic to the almost laughably fake. There are many issues to be explored with SPAWN's visual effects, especially since the core group of filmmakers have extensive visual effects experience. It has been widely publicized that the visual effects shot count exploded from 77 shots to over 400, while the film was already in production. Many new shots were ordered because of the positive response the film received from preview screenings, as well.

The result of all of this tinkering and late additions is a film that contains some brilliant visual effects, alongside shots that make audiences cringe, almost forcing audience members to yell at the theatre screen, "Fake!"

Industrial Light & Magic handled the lion's share of the visual effects for SPAWN, tackling many of the film's most difficult sequences. Spawn's red, flowing cape was handled by ILM in many shots, as well as all of Violator's sequences and some of Spawn's transformations, as well.

Once again, I'm in full agreement. If you know the problematic history of the movies production and exactly how we ended up with such a scene containing Malebolgia that went down in the movie archives as one of the worst looking ever. Because it was. It's still to me a fun somewhat throwaway action movie that was attempting something extremely difficult to commit to screen, far more than they could handle even once the CGI inclusions pretty much tripled. You could say well hey Starship Troopers was too, but ST had a $100 million budget, more than twice that of Spawn one year earlier and advancements had already been made and partially mastered by that time.

I know Spawn's pretty important to you Dave, and when I saw you linking a trailer I was hoping that it was a new attempt at bringing it to the big screen (or at least a partial remake with entirely new CG shots) because I wouldn't mind seeing what you see in it.

And of course you are right you can quite easily call me a Spawn super fan, but I'm not out here simply outright defending it - there are plenty of scenes that stood out for both the right and wrong reasons and plenty of other aspects of the movie that are undeniably terrible. What I'm trying to get at is that it was a very let's just say "experimental" movie for the time, and even with some of the people involved making a movie based on something as visually depictive as Spawn they were in way over their heads the very moment more CGI shots were approved to the absolute detriment of the final release. And that very same quite maddening visual inconsistency that plagues the movie is quite oddly both what it is remembered for in both a positive and negative way. Far too much time and effort was spent on FX and not everything else, but saying that the fact that its creator ever managed to get the movie made and distributed based upon a comic character made in the early 90's, I find wildly impressive all the same. Here's hoping he does get the new one made and can at long last give us the depiction that the character so much deserves.

Spawn is no classic movie, it can easily be torn apart - but I will always say that it was a valiantish enough effort at the time it was made I'm still glad was at the very least attempted given the extremely difficult vision against what else was around at the time, with some questionable decisions made that hindered it more than they served to help it.

[Wrathbone]

Never seen Spawn (or Species, which is the film I thought was being discussed until I clocked they’re entirely different things), but I admire the fact that it’s got a 4k release. On the one hand it’s great that it has enough of a cult following to warrant it, and on the other hand it’s funny to me because so many 4k advocates whinge about films that are not ‘true’ 4k because they had to be finished in a 2k digital intermediate (due to the CGI not being 4k), and here we are with PS1 graphics being put on 4k.

It obviously seems like a case of ambition over capability with the budget they had (half of Independence Day’s), but hey, they gave it a shot. It was perhaps ill-advised considering Lucas was making Phantom Menace at the time, had a far bigger budget and ILM at his disposal and still struggled to produce CGI that satisfied audiences.

The demon thing though… good god. I reckon I could have cobbled something better together in Corel Draw back in 1997.

[Alan]

Thinking you’re going to see Spawn and seeing Species or vice versa would be something… “don’t remember the Violator doing that but it fits the name I guess”

[Lenny Solidus]

[Raid]

I'm really looking forward to that. I don't exactly go looking for comments on official Star Wars content because, well, *gestures broadly at The Rest Of The Internet*. However, the podcasts I listen to for the Star Wars miniatures game I play brought it up recently, and the suggestion was that the most recent series of The Mandalorian didn't go down well, which I thought was nonsense. They were clearly trying to form a background for the idiotic "Somehow Palpatine has returned" development in the last of the main films, and honestly I think they've done as good a job with that stupid plot as they could have, and we got to see some jetpacks and a baby Yoda on the way.

With the exception of maybe Andor, Star Wars is about as pulpy as science fiction gets, and I think people have sky high estimations which Disney consistently fail to meet. Should it be better with the budget of one of the world's richest companies behind it? Of course it should, but it isn't, and I've made my peace with that.

[Hatredsheart]

[Lenny Solidus]

Ridley Scott on the 2025 film industry claims it's filled with mediocre film making...the same year movies such as Sinners, Weapons, Demon Hunters, F1 and One Battle After Another all released alongside many more.

"Right now I'm finding mediocrity, we're drowning in mediocrity," he said (via Yahoo UK). "So what I do, and it's a horrible thing, but I've started to watch my own movies, and actually they're really good! And also, they don't age."

https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainmen ... -dont-age/

I feel that he hasn't really directed a truly stellar movie since 2002's Black Hawk Down, though some will shout aloud it's actually The Last Duel. House of Gucci? Napoleon? Gladiator 2 (which I'm still yet to see because the 2000 masterpiece exists) and I do think he's at the age to ceremoniously retire, especially given the fact he's so openly stating the only good movies worth watching currently - are all his own.

[Alan]

He peaked with Black Rain, it’s been downhill since.

[Wrathbone]

I realised he’d lost the plot when he blamed audiences for not going to see The Last Duel at cinemas - a film that had basically no marketing, with very grim subject matter, that came out when the pandemic was in full swing. Totally our fault, Ridley, you fart-sniffing loon.

[Raid]

I realised he’d lost the plot when he blamed audiences for not going to see The Last Duel at cinemas - a film that had basically no marketing, with very grim subject matter, that came out when the pandemic was in full swing. Totally our fault, Ridley, you fart-sniffing loon.

Yep, I didn't realise it at the time, but that's when I lost a huge amount of respect for him. This latest comment just reinforces it. I'm not put off watching his films entirely, but he sounds like a bit of an arse.

[Lenny Solidus]