The Fandom Portals Podcast
"Welcome to Fandom Portals—the show that explores how your favourite fandoms can help you learn and grow!" 🎙️✨
Each episode, we explore TV, movies, comics, and games to reveal how these worlds and the characters in them help us learn about resilience, courage, friendship, and more.
The Fandom Portals Podcast is hosted by Aaron Davies and Adam Brasher, two friends who are obsessed with fandoms, storytelling, and building a community where passion and positivity come first. From Marvel to Middle-earth, Star Wars to indie comics, we dive deep into the stories you love — and how they help us learn and grow. ✨
The Fandom Portals Podcast
The Crow (1994) – The Best Soundtrack of the 90s, How Eric needed Sarah and Albercht & Cultural Impact
Episode Summary:
In this Portaleers Pick episode of The Fandom Portals Podcast, Aaron and Brash dive into the deeper themes of The Crow (1994). They explore character arcs, emotional depth, and what makes this film a lasting cult classic. They discuss standout moments, analyse its storytelling and cinematography, and debate whether The Crow deserves its legendary status on the Fandom Portals Honour Board.
Aaron and Brash also share fan reactions from Threads, Instagram, and Reddit, breaking down what makes The Crow so impactful decades later.
⏳ Timestamps & Topics:
01:23 - Recap of Part One & Community Engagement
02:29 - Sarah’s Role & Impact on the Story
09:33 - Why Albrecht is a Vital Character
18:43 - Most Valuable Takeaway: Lessons from The Crow
19:28 - The Crow is a Love Story, Not Just Vengeance
22:27 - Redemption Over Revenge
26:35 - Reel Deal: Breaking Down Cinematic Strengths
48:46 - Fandom Portals Honour Board: Where Does The Crow Rank?**
49:35 - Aaron & Brash Rate The Crow Out of 5
50:33 - Will The Crow Overtake Phantom of the Opera?
51:00 - Sign-Off & Community Voting for the Next Episode
🌟 Key Takeaways:
- Sarah’s role provides emotional depth but could have been more impactful.
- Albrecht is a grounding presence and one of the few symbols of justice in the film.
- The Crow is more of a love story than a revenge tale, with themes of grief and redemption.
- The film’s visual style, music, and gothic aesthetic shaped alternative culture and film storytelling.
- Despite The Crow’s legendary cult status, fan reactions to the 2024 remake remain divided.
🗣️ Memorable Quotes (Direct from the Episode):
"Sarah is the bright spark in this utterly putrid world, the one connection to humanity Eric has left." – Aaron【6:07】
"Before filming, Brandon Lee drove around in his hearse, visited famous graves, and blasted The Doors." – Brash【16:43】
"This isn’t just about revenge. It’s about leaving the world better than you found it." – Aaron【26:05】
"The Crow walked so Blade, The Dark Knight, and Logan could run." – Aaron【27:18】
📢 Apple Podcast tags: The Crow, Brandon Lee, cult classics, gothic films, Alex Proyas, 90s movies, comic book movies, action films, film history, movie trivia, Hollywood, tragic deaths, film safety, alternative culture, Geek Freaks Network
Contact Us:
Website: https://www.fandomportalspodcast.com/
Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals
Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, the podcast that explores how fandoms can help you learn and grow. This week we have been looking at the movie the Crow, made in 1994, that stars Brandon Lee and Michael Wincott and Rochelle Davis. It was directed by Alex Proyas and written by James O'Barr. Now we've already recorded part one of this particular topic, so if you're interested in that, go and check out our catalog. It should be the one directly underneath this episode that you found yourself on. We usually split our episodes into two parts. With the first part, we talk about all the different things about the production of the film, any interesting facts, brash and I really dive into the community's feelings and our feelings about the film. And then part two is where we go into our popcorn perspectives, our MVTs and our real deals, where we analyze the film and really talk about its impact on us and the community and what we have learned and grown from the film about. So we want to thank Semeliso for suggesting this one. They're from our Threads community and, yeah, they suggested this and it was on our community watch list and then it was voted for by over 125 participants. So we really want to thank you guys for doing that as well.
Speaker 1:If you haven't already found out, the Crow is a vengeance slash love story that sees a protagonist where, the night before his wedding, musician Eric Draven and his fiancee are brutally murdered by members of a violent gang. On the anniversary of their death, eric raises from the grave and assumes the mantle of the Crow, a supernatural avenger. Now Brash is here with me today. How are you going, brash? How are you, zulf? Very, very good. Thank you Very, very good. We're going to dive into our Popcorn Perspectives, which is a newer segment, and this is one where we take a character, we look at how they have moved through the movie and we analyze their development and growth and we express to our co-host how this character should be viewed in your opinion and any meaningful connections that your character has or can make in the movie. So what character did you choose for today's Popcorn Perspectives, brash? I chose Sarah, very good, and I chose Albrecht, the detective of the movie. So I think you can go first with our analysis on the popcorn perspectives, brash, let's learn all about Sarah.
Speaker 2:Sarah. So in the comics, if you read the comics, she is actually not a big character at all. She's actually a minor character. Still the daughter of Darla. Darla's a drug addict sleeping with a fun boy. Still the same. Eric actually meets her outside of Bum Boy's apartment and they don't actually previously know each other. They don't hang out, but in the movie, I think, to sort of build some sort of connection, they've given her a bigger role. Um, saying that she used to hang out with, uh, uh, shelly, shelly and Eric. Um, shelly, shelly and Eric, big friend of Shelly and Eric, obviously, and they used to hang out because she didn't want to be around her drugged up mother or her annoying boyfriend. They kept a lot of the same. Well, the character is very much similar to the comic book out, which was good. He's actually listed as a do-gooder, sarah a do-gooder, sarah A do-gooder.
Speaker 1:As a lot of 12-year-old children are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to say, usually I hate kids in movies.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's been documented here on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yep, most of the time. Sometimes they're really good. Most of the time I find them to be annoying and, yeah, annoying.
Speaker 1:For context, if this is your first listen. There has been one incident where there is a child in a movie that Brash thought was relevant and important for the plot, so this is good to hear. A second, yes, a second.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not going to have us up.
Speaker 1:Okay, she's good.
Speaker 2:However, like I still find I wish they had done more with her because used her more efficiently, because they have her in, like you see sort of a little bit of backstory from the flashbacks flashbacks, oh right, the word I'm thinking of but you see her a bit in the flashbacks, like hanging out with them and everything like that. But realistically, she, you see her all throughout the movie, just like somehow, and I don't even know, I honestly can't remember how but all of a sudden the bad guy's like ooh, you're still that girl, because that girl's close to him yeah because they've seen them together, like once, and it's like she should have been more of like a one that had more of a presence, or maybe like they were together at some of the like.
Speaker 2:Maybe she ran into Tintin and Eric was able to jump in and help her before and tell her Ryan or something before, just like used her more with Eric as the crow Yep To give them that connection away from the past. Yeah, yeah. It's just not. It just didn't really sit with me just at the end when, like, she gets kidnapped and Eric has to go to Sarah.
Speaker 1:So it was kind of a bit too convenient for you.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like Sarah was there, used as a plot device to make Eric go and have that final confrontation with Top Dollar, who really didn't have anything to do with Shirley's murder but as, as a result of him controlling the gang, it kind of also tied to the fact that Eric Eric was involved with with Sarah as a fatherly figure and Top Dollar took her, so he then had to then go and do the right thing, which sort of played into his humanity and like, yeah, and realistically she didn't really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's they, they just they did bump her up and make her a bit more of a prominent character, which I thought was good, and I had her narrate, which I thought was good, but they bumped her up to use her as a hostage. But you didn't, god, you didn't. I don't think you got enough emotional tie for that to be overly meaningful. Yeah, so you have their, their path where they were close, and Eric's just a good guy, so he wants to save kids. So they could have really used any kid and it probably would have been the same thing.
Speaker 1:I think for me she's a really important character for me. I think so because she like without her, she's like the bright spark in this utterly putrid world which is just, you know, the arsehole of Detroit.
Speaker 1:City on fire yeah, city on fire and she's just this, this sort of hopeful, bright light. Um, who's who's kind? Uh, she represents, like the, the innocence and love and connection that eric has to his past life, because he and shelly obviously took kindness on this orphaned child, indicating to audiences that there is some good in this world. However, the bad is really overcoming the good, because Eric and Shelley have now died. However, that still lives on through Sarah, who, you know, grieves for these two individuals and is really the only one in the movie that does and is grieving for Eric and Sarah, and she also kind of starts to remind eric of who he was before death, as he's kind of seeing her because he's still like, kind and loving and protective of her.
Speaker 1:To the, to the scene where we're talking about when she she goes in front of traffic and then eric rescues her and he says that famous line after she says that it's always raining, he says, obviously it can't rain all the time.
Speaker 1:So she does have a few of those awesome moments that really build Eric's character, but I think I agree that she doesn't really have much character growth of her own. Yeah, she's more there to serve Eric's character and be a representation of his humanity and connection to planet Earth. Because if you look at Eric the crow, he is doing exactly what the bad guys are doing in this movie. He is going around killing people just like the bad guys are doing Blowing shit up, yep, violently, creating chaos and crime. The only thing that really makes the audiences relate to Eric more so than they do the gang members, is his connections to the human characters and his showings of kindness. There's also the scene where he gives the engagement ring to her. Yeah, and in that scene, you know, he says I think she would have loved for you to have it, showing that you know, he's keeping the memory of both of them alive and Sarah is also responsible for keeping the memory of him alive as well.
Speaker 2:Giving back her mother.
Speaker 1:Yep Sarah is also responsible for keeping the memory of him alive as well, giving back her mother, yep exactly.
Speaker 2:Extracting the heroin out of her arm.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that isn't even related to his path of vengeance at all. That's just him being protective of Sarah. And yeah, some criticisms of the film say that that detracts from the mission of the crow. But some other people say that's what really sort of grounds the character of Eric and makes him really likeable, is because that character of Sarah exists. But I can see what you're saying because she can't, she doesn't really do a lot on her own kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and on that fact, the crow for me is more of an avenger, more than someone who's just out for revenge. It's more avenging Yep, that's true as well and like a part of avenging is also helping the people that have been hurt by that and impacted on it. Yeah, great, and so Sarah being impacted on it, helping her mother, giving Sarah back her mother and giving her someone to love again because she's lost two people that she loved, is sort of helping out Sarah and they're getting sort of giving something back to Sarah to hold on to that being said as well.
Speaker 1:I think um Rochelle Davis played the character really well, because I know in the 90s a lot of children actors were just really cringy. But she, she really they still are.
Speaker 2:I think they still are I think less so.
Speaker 1:I think rochelle davis did a great job. Like, for me, the scene where she's in the the room with her mom and she's cooking her eggs and it's the first nice thing she's done in ages and she's obviously skeptical of that. Yeah, that's, I love that, yeah. And then when she goes to tip the eggs in and she says I never like this motherly shit anyway, and then she's's like Whoa whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2:No, you're doing good.
Speaker 1:But I really liked how whoever it was, either the person in the script or the director actually made it. So she was that little bit skeptical because it gave a little bit more realism to her character, Cause, even though she's getting everything that she hoped for in the form of a mother who's actually there and wants to be there for her she you've stuffed me around here for a long time. There's almost like a realistic interaction. But then eventually, obviously, diving into that and seeing that scene, you know that eric did a good job in in making, uh, that connection happen, so leaving some goodness in this world instead of just leaving a path of death and destruction and exploded cars and multiply stabbed bodies in his wake, um, which I think was was good. So so if you were to do you think the movie would better without the character of Sarah, or do you think she deserves a spot in the movie?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, it was a lot better with her in it. I just wish she they gave her a little bit more yep. So maybe instead of because she does ground him, but I think maybe it was sort of like one big grounding I reckon it should have been eventual, like he was slowly event like so falling down that path of just destruction and killing, she should have been slowly also just trying to build him back up to that climax of going hey man, remember who you used to be?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I think event um, the way that it was supposed to be in the movie initially was that every time eric or the crow did something that wasn't related to his acts of vengeance, to to be vengeful or to uh pay back the act, the terrible act that was done, to shelly. Anytime he deviated from that path he was supposed to get more mortal and weaker, where in this version of the movie they kind of made it that his spirit guide of the crow when that got hurt he lost his powers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was almost like a and I heard this from the director's commentary as well it was almost like a subplot that was eventually discarded. But they kept the parts in the film where Eric was doing good for others as well, because they felt like it added depth to his character. But I definitely see what you mean about Sarah. She's not really deep in that regard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's useful for the movie. She's good for the movie, but Iris doesn't think she was given enough in the movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that she does also fall into that trap that we see a lot of female and children characters fall into, where they end up being the thing that needs to be rescued by the it's still good, but it's still fine.
Speaker 2:But I don't think there was enough reason for them to even go after her as a like the crow would have came for you anyway, you didn't need it. He would have said come get me bitch, and then he would have for you anyway, you didn't need a hostage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said come give me a bitch and then he would have exactly. I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just even finding out that he was the leader of those individuals and the fact that he's the one that told them to go to that added stakes and emotional ties into the climax for the audience there.
Speaker 1:all right, let's move on to my dude. My guy is called daryl albrack. He's played by ernie hudson and he and he's also one of the most honest figures in this corrupt city. He's weary and he's been demoted more times than you could imagine and we enter on him being the one that investigates the scene of Eric and Shelley's brutal murder. And you know he was unable to stop it, just like he's unable to stop a lot of the crime in the city. But for some reason he holds this guilt, uh, with him and that guilt sort of drives his interactions with eric as it goes through.
Speaker 1:He's really the only character that doesn't fear eric either. When he first meets him, like he doesn't recognize him at first, but he suspects and he doesn't seem as like a mindless ghost, but he sees him as somebody who's got a mission that needs to be completed because he knows the individuals that he's offing killing are bad people. Um, so he can see that these are tied to some sort of vengeful act, and the manner in which they're being killed as well is not just like a stab and run murder where somebody's trying to steal your wallet. It's not a mugging. These are like vengeful killings which usually you know would set somebody off. But not old, not old Albrecht, not this decent cop from Detroit. So he's not one of the cops that kind of ignore the crime. He is deeply affected by Eric and Shelley's deaths, which in turn allows our audience to also see that there's somebody in the city that cares for that kind of thing and wants to fix it. So his arc really comes about when he sort of doesn't become an enemy of Eric and the Crow, but he comes as someone who cares when nobody else did.
Speaker 1:And he has heaps of pivotal scenes with Eric, the most poignant of which is where Eric places his hands on Albrecht's forehead and he's able to then relive Shelley's suffering, which kind of doubles Eric down on his mission. But also he's able to see that Albrecht stayed with her the whole time so she wasn't alone when she eventually passed, which Eric was extremely thankful for and it really strengthened their bond and he was really sort of bonded over the fact that somebody else understands Eric's pain. So that was his role. It was almost like the confidant or the respected ally and you know it transformed their relationship from that of skepticism like do I really believe that this is what you're doing to that mutual respect. And another one of my favorite scenes is when you know he meets him in his apartment and he's singlet and he's dropped and he's still wearing his hat. He's completely vulnerable in that moment. He's still got his hat on. Yeah, he literally just takes it off and just puts it down. He's like, oh, he's playing dress up here.
Speaker 1:But Ernie Hudson just brings this genuine approachability to the character as well. And I think his previous roles he was in Ghostbusters and he was the likable one in that too and I think he was just to be that character that everybody can sort of latch onto, eric included where there is some goodness in this city, similar to Sarah. So he's like the symbol of justice. He's that grounding presence as well.
Speaker 1:He helps Eric maintain his humanity amidst his superhuman or supernatural rage in this incident as well. And you know he's probably one of the only people to look at Eric and Shelley and see their love story as well behind it. You know he's like a witness to not just the tragedy of them, but he saw how much they loved each other and he knew that that was something that really kind of needed to be protected in this world. So that's why he harbored that guilt, and I love that he came in the end and helped defeat the bad guys to his own detriment as well, obviously being shot in that moment and did he quit smoking in the end of that?
Speaker 2:Is that how that yeah, I think I would go. Eric goes give him a smoke. He's like I think I'm going to quit, yeah, yeah. So he, or every single character in that movie, or even, maybe even over Eric. He has to have the best lines in the entire. Like every single one of his dialogue is just gold, like one of my favorite ones is when he's talking to Torres, the other detective, and he's like what the hell do you call that? He's like I call it blood detective. I suppose you'll write it up as graffiti.
Speaker 1:The sassy has that scene too. He's just like graffiti and he waves his cigarette in the air too. He knows the system he works in and that was really, really playful. The way that he played that off too. Like the system he works in is corrupt as all heck.
Speaker 2:And him and Eric like their first interaction. When he's like please don't move. He's like, um, I thought police always said freeze. He's like, well, I'm the police and I say don't move.
Speaker 1:So I, yeah, that's so good and he was like well, I'm dead and I do move. I'm dead and I move. Yeah, that was. That was one of the other things about this movie. They kind of trod the line between a really gruesome, dark film, but then it had moments like this that sort of brought you out of it. Another one I'm thinking of is when Eric sort of frozen for the cops after he goes and takes out all the gangsters in the mob area there and then he just does this little jig off scene and he just fires at him.
Speaker 1:That kind of thing really harkens back to the fact that Eric was a showman and he was like a rock star performer in his life and that's sort of still coming back into his dead character as well, which I like. It would have been a completely different movie if they just zombified him up and he was just straight eyed, straight edged killer. But yeah, I think both of these relationships, these ones between albrecht and sarah, played a part on the main character. Uh, I definitely think that albrecht's character was pivotal in in the movie, in developing eric as well. So two great character arcs for us to dive into. That was awesome.
Speaker 1:All right, let's go to our mvts is where we discuss the most important thing we learned from the media that we have watched. It could be something that extends our knowledge or something that we can apply to our daily lives. It might be something as simple as a piece of dialogue that stuck with us, a thematic moment or a moral lesson. I'm gonna go first, if that's all right with you. Brach, respond by me. My mvt for this one is that love is an eternal force and it grows beyond death. A lot of people think that this movie of the crow is a avenging story, but I think it's a love story. I think it's a romantic and spiritual story about the unbreakable force that transcends death and that is eric and shelly's love. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:you said. You said it was corny, and I agree that it's corny, but I like it. I do like it, hmm, hmm.
Speaker 1:Okay. So the reason I believe this is because Eric's journey throughout this whole film is fueled by love. I think it's not fueled by revenge at all, because you know, there was that piece of narration at the start that said when bad things happen, or when people die, a crow takes them to the afterlife, but if their spirit is too heavy and burdened by something that is left behind, then they return to complete that act. And I think the thing that Eric was brought back to do was not to avenge his own death, it was to avenge what happened to Shelley, the one that he loved, because if it was, shelley obviously had some misgivings as well, so she also could have been brought back in this instance if that was the way that the crow worked. But Eric was the vanguard for protecting the love that both of them had and therefore he came back, brought back by the crow, in order to fight for that love. And the reason I say this as well is because when he pushes himself out of the grave, the very first thing that he does unlike the Terminator who comes in James Cameron's movie and just literally goes and tries to find Sarah Connor and kill her and exact his mission the first thing that Eric does in this movie is he mourns the loss of Shelley. So you can see him writhing in pain in that graveyard. He knows that something has happened that's very supernatural. And then he goes back to try and relive and find out where he once lived, where Shelly was. He wants to re-experience the moments he had with her. He's grieving the loss of that love so he's still feeling it even through that. You know it's guiding him beyond death and guiding him beyond the grave. To do that, and you know, I think throughout the story, at the very end of this, eric's revenge really doesn't free him at all. I think the thing that frees him is the peace that comes from reuniting with Shelley. At the end and you can see it's the first time that there's a vibrant and bright color in the entire movie is when he's, you know, know, about to go back into his own grave and he sees Shelly walking towards him, backed by golden light, looking beautiful in a white gown, and they embrace and they kiss. And that is when he finds his ultimate peace. Not through the killing of everybody, because you know he was happy and joyful there, but he was really at peace when he reunited with Shelley in that moment, before he collapses in that grave, and Shelley's spirit really does sort of appear.
Speaker 1:So I think that my most valuable takeaway for this one is that love defies a lot of things and that the crow is really not just a story about vengeance and revenge, but it's a story about love, and love defying death as well. You know, I I think Sarah says it best when she says buildings burn, people die, but love real love lasts forever. And yes, it's corny, but I love it and that's why I really like this movie, because I think it's more than just that dark gothic undertone of vengeance. There's a love story behind it too. Bruh Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see that. I see that. Well, there's a love story behind it too, bro. Yeah, yeah, I see that. I see that. Well, my MBT is that it's okay to kill anyone and get revenge on them.
Speaker 1:Deleting, deleting, deleting.
Speaker 2:No, I'm keeping that in. No, my MBT I think is more of mine is of that redemption, sort of part of it, the revenge that turns into redemption. So at the start it's all murder, mayhem, stab that guy, blot that shop, cut off that dude. What does he cut off? He cuts off his finger, Finger, finger.
Speaker 1:That's off the shop owner's finger, as opposed to the eyes that you know Bailing cuts off all the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, micah, yeah yeah, scoops out the eyes, yeah, it's all killing, mayhem, and then slowly it's oh shit, I don't always have to do something bad, I can help other people out. Like he literally has a power to take away the, the drug, like to expel the drugs from Darla. Like he has that power, he can help a lot of people and I think him doing so and with Sarah's help, it goes from just being a full-on revenge tour to it being a okay, I can stop these guys and help out people as I go, still kill the guys. He still wants to get that revenge.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, especially after seeing the vision through Albrecht's mind when he has a look at Sari in the hospital, what happened to her, and after actually hearing all the things that happened to her, because, realistically, last time he saw her she was still alive. In the waft when you got shot out the window she was still alive barely very damaged, but alive. Um, so then having to come in terms of that, like he'd be angry after all the things he'd been at and after all they, the bad guys, kept taunting him with about what they did to her, and, yeah, and that was a bad idea to do that, I think, to any normal person. Supernatural or not, would you know it?
Speaker 1:would send you violently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would send you on a path that not necessarily would be good, but I think, yeah, going through it all, latching onto that humanity and that redemption to okay to stop the bad guys, redemption to okay to stop the bad guys, but to make sure that I do it and help the people, or help as many people as I can, so saving Sarah, like, realistically, he was just Dark Avenger coming out of the graveyard, he could just not give a shit about Sarah yeah a relationship wouldn't exist at all yeah
Speaker 2:it would just be, and those movies sell as well, by the way like, as you said, like you get up, his main purpose of being revived was to kill these people. Then he would just go do that. There wouldn't be any of this.
Speaker 2:Going back to the life they humanized him, yeah, yeah there would be helping out Dyla and getting sure Sarah has a mother. Again, helping out the police officer, showing like, showing him like his gratitude and saying you're a good guy, you're a good cop, when he's constantly demoted and put down by the other like that douchebag detective, and I think it's just yeah. So not so much. You're all about love, which is nice, and iT is, in a vain way, sort of the same, but I think it's more of him still killing everyone because they deserve it, but not losing himself in the process, yeah, and not condemning the people around him in doing so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like that. Yeah, it almost goes back as well to he's almost trying to leave this world Better than he left it. Better than he left it, yeah, and, you know, getting rid of a little bit of that evil, so the people that he loves that are still there can experience something better than he did, which I think is good too. Yeah, I like that. Ebt, that's really good. All right, let's move on to our real deal segment. We move on to our real deal segment.
Speaker 1:We randomly select criteria to view our movie through and we discuss elements with the intention of finding out whether it can be rated as positively or negatively. Each week, the names of these positive and negative criteria will reflect the fun element of the focus movie, and the topics can range from anything from cinematography to character development or even villains and themes. So today, br Brash, if you think something is good, you're going to say it can't rain all the time. That's how you're going to rate it, and if it is bad, you're going to rate it as is that gasoline I smell Because it's a dumpster fire. But you know, this movie is so great I don't think there'll be any of those aces here. Everybody All right, so I might go first with Our Generation, and this one has come up as the cultural impact of the Crow.
Speaker 1:So I think this is really important and poignant because it actually did become a cultural phenomenon. Alex Proyas actually said in the director's commentary that the Gothic style was kind of really prominent in the mid sort of 80s or the early 80s and he always thought that look was really cool. So he incorporated into the the movie and it kind of served as a resurgence of this alt uh sort of dark aesthetic, a subculture, the gothic subculture in in the early 90s as well. Um, so I think that's one thing that it did. It definitely defines sort of gothic fashion and alternative culture. It's an iconic look. You know the black trench coat, the leather and the white face paint. We discussed earlier as well that it's very reminiscent of Nolan's Joker. Even some scenes that I've talked about off mic with you, especially the gangster scene where Eric Draven moves in to confront the gangsters, is the same as Heath Ledger's Joker moves in to confront the gangsters.
Speaker 1:It's a very impactful film in terms of its cultural representation and even that Dark Avenger trope, because I think before this movie a lot of superhero movies that were coming out were kind of like campy and positive and colorful, and this one really kind of subverted all those expectations. And you know, I think this, this movie, here the crow walked. So movies like blade in 1998 and the dark knight trilogy and logan, and even logan in 2017, could run this really sort of looked at reinventing comic book adaptations to being something a lot more mature and darker than anything that had come before. Because if you think about the superman movies brash, like the yeah, the colorful sort of christopher reeve superman movies, I think that they're definitely a very different tone to this one and I think it really just sort of defined that that sort of space in terms of reinventing the comic book adaptation space in terms of culture. What do you think about the cultural impact of this movie Brash?
Speaker 2:This has had a huge impact on anything. As I was saying, I think, before the podcast, how, oh, actually so the part one of the podcast where I was talking about, when I first saw it, how I thought it was really cool because it looked like Sting. Yeah, well, sting actually. Well, scott Hall actually said to Sting before he had his titular look, have you ever seen the Crow? And then Sting went and watched the movie and was like holy shit, I love this.
Speaker 2:And that's how he got that persona, like how he made the Sting persona in I think it was 1996. So a year, so two years, after the movie came out and a year before I actually watched it when he first brought out his Sting persona in WWE. So I think in a lot of way, and I think even other I think there's a I don't remember his name, I'm pretty sure he was in TNA Wrestling. Current he's had the trademark is face paint. But also he also another one, another wrestler, who sort of got their look or the style look from the crow. So I think culturally the cries are like impact hugely back on many people who watched it, especially those who were big fans of it back in the day when it first came out. But um, for me, like I mean, it's wrestling, the wrestling, the wrestling impact, yeah, impact like it.
Speaker 1:It was so culturally impactful that they even tried to make a bunch of sequels. And we talked earlier as well, you know, the crow city of angels in 1994, the critical and commercial failure that one was. And they even remade one in in 2024 uh, starring bill skarsgård, I believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I haven't seen it yet. You haven't seen it yet. I want to watch it because I heard it was bad and I've heard from someone like a friend of mine who really loves the Crow that it was a horrible, horrible movie and that it should be a shame to yourself for even attempting to have the same name as the Crow. I want to watch it myself because I like Bill Skarsgård as an actor.
Speaker 2:I think he's good at everything he touches, really More so just to see if it was actually acting that was bad, or if it was actually just the way the show, the movie was written or what sort of directed path it took, I fallacy that Bill would do a really bad performance. One of the things that.
Speaker 1:I got complaints on Reddit. Was that what made it bad? Because I fallacy that Bill would do a really bad performance. Yeah, one of the things that I got complaints on Reddit was that they used the names Eric and Shelley, which they thought was disrespectful, and even remaking it. After Brandon Lee's, this is considered his legacy film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remaking it and actually titling the characters as Eric and Shelley Because if you think about it, the crow is a spirit that rises, somebody from the grave to perform a final act. Really, that can be anything. But the fact that they chose to reboot it and put, you know, eric and Shelley's name on it was, in some people's eyes, disrespectful. So I think a lot of people boycotted it for that, according to the people that commented on our Rebits and Thread and threads pages at least. But I think you know, for me I I do want to check it out just to see what all the commotion is is about, and I think maybe it's a movie that kind of would stand up on its own if it had a different name and the title characters were different. It might have been, it might have been good, we don't know. But um, we'll have to leave the verdict open for that it would fall into that whole sequel pit the same.
Speaker 2:That angel, the city of angels landed and then it fall into like the same. I think that's why they I think they chose to do it an actual remake of the original rather than a sequel or anything like that, because it's just trying to make a sequel, especially to and this is the same issue I have with, like the e-adjournments having sequels so long into the future that you have to use all new people and no people are recognizable. You have no tiebacks to the original. It's just a sequel for sequel's sake. Yeah, and I think that that would have ruined it for other people as well, because no one, there'll be no ties to it, there'll be no emotional ties to a drink like that. But I do understand. I do understand using the same names and everything like that would rub a lot of people the wrong way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and I also think, like the original Crow, even though, as we discussed in part one, the production of it was an absolute nightmare. It was kind of lightning in a bottle in that way, because it was so slapped together and rushed together and done by burning midnight oil fuel and everybody was so passionate about the project as well, that it kind of just worked. And sometimes that happens in Hollywood and with movies you just slap things together and they end up being just incredibly good, um, and sometimes they can't be repeated. So I think perhaps this is probably an incidence of that. Uh, the other thing about this movie is it's really simple in terms of its plot line and its protagonists. Um, it's not a very complex movie. This guy comes out from the grave, wants to get revenge for a crime that is done to him. The character isn't so deep and the plot isn't so deep that you can really like try to add lots of things to it and it messes it up. It's beautiful in its simplicity, I believe, and the things that add to it really just compliment its simplicity. And, yeah, I think it's a hard one to remake because of all the things surrounding it. So it'll be interesting to see how the 2024.
Speaker 1:One sits all right, brash. So what do you rate the cultural impact of the crow? Is it going to be good, as it can't rain all the time, or is it going to be bad, as is that gasoline I smell because it can't rain all the time? Same as me, I think it can't rain all the time. As much as I want to say is that gasoline I smell because it's a killer line? It is indeed, um, can't rain all the time. All right, let's move on to our next randomly generated real deal. All right, and this one coming up was the visual style. Brash, do you want to jump into this one for us?
Speaker 2:Yes, I absolutely love the visual style of this movie. I can't tell you, I think it's any sort of movie that has this sort of grungy dark. It reminds me of um uh, the original batman yeah, burton's gotham burton's gotham. It reminds me of um spawn, it reminds me of gabriel. Like there's so many movies that let's just like you. Just look at you like damn, this is a dirty, dark place. It's full of crime. I'm just looking up at the skyline waiting to see the Batman season, or see Spawn, yeah, I see Spawn flying across rooftops with his fucking cape.
Speaker 2:It's just cause like, it's just that feeling of just like it's always like that. It's like being tense all the time hopelessness too.
Speaker 1:For me, when I see things like that, it's like hopelessness is abound. So when you get a character in there that is fighting against the hopelessness, you really want them to win straight away. So it dives you straight into being on the character's side. Which I think you know is one of the really powerful things of setting um in terms of movies is because you can use it as a tool to do exactly that. Because the surrounds are so oppressive, you want your protagonist to be the thing that rises through the oppression, and that's just something that's really great to see. But for me, the visual style of black, white and red really reminded me of Sin City, that kind of vibe before Sin City.
Speaker 2:Well see, they wanted to do it in black and white originally, but they were like nah, you can't do that.
Speaker 1:I think the red really made it yeah fine, I'll go black, white and red. I'll show you, I'll add a color yeah, no, I think that worked, especially in the flashback scenes, because you know there was the black and white low color desaturated, of Eric in the loft when he was like moving around and doing that interpretive dance scene, and then the flashbacks were all in color coded red, like you could really tell that visual shift again.
Speaker 2:That's originally. It was meant to be the movies shot in black and white and all the flashbacks were meant to color because they were going back to color. It was meant to be a back when he was alive it was live and it was. Everything was happy and bright and colourful. And then go back to the present. It's all about gloomy, everyone's dead dying on a vegetable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but yeah, I adore the dark kind of grungy book, alright.
Speaker 1:So what are we rating? It is that gasoline can't rain this one's rain.
Speaker 2:It can't rain all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm the same. I think can't rain all the time is definitely what it gets. And you know what? It also reminds me of An Evanescence film clip.
Speaker 2:Oh, Bring it On or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it does remind me of that, even the use of miniatures throughout this. Because of the budget obviously being only $15 million, they used miniatures for all of the set design and for a lot of the car chase scenes they used miniature cars as well, just to cut costs, which is very similar to what they did in the league of extraordinary gentlemen. But I think you can, you can really tell in this movie, as you're going through you, just like that's not a real city. It's definitely a built set, but I think it works for this, this vibe, um, and it definitely sort of. I love that initial shot where you see it panning into the circular window of the crime scene with Ernie Hudson just sitting there smoking his cigarette. It's just like that's everything I need to know about where I am right now.
Speaker 2:That noir sort of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with the fires blazing as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so I'm definitely giving this a can't rain all the time. This is two for two. So far, brash, let's see how we go Next one coming up All right and randomly generated. We have the soundtrack. As I've said before our Reddit community and our threads community, 85% of the comments we got about this movie were them praising the soundtrack and you know, I think I can really agree. I think that the soundtrack really represents and is representative of Eric Draven's journey. There are a lot of musical elements in this that really signify grief, vengeance and love, obviously featuring songs from Nine Inch Nails, the Cure, jane Seabury as well, and Pantera. Lots of different sort of 90s grunge. Apparently, seattle don't like you saying grunge, so you have to say, like Seattle, metal or something. But sorry, seattle, we're going to say grunge.
Speaker 1:That's always been grunge for me, yeah, that sort of grungy like like vibe, and, and you know, the Cure even wrote the song Burn, which has become one of the most famous songs of this, this soundtrack for the movie, and it really sort of signifies Eric's transformation and that's the song that's playing when he's putting on his makeup and going through that sort of change. And the way that the soundtrack hits on these beats I think is really great and amazing. And I think that this really sort of paved the way for alternative rock in cinema. The Wachowski brothers, for example, used this kind of music and very similar sort of music in the Matrix a couple of years later for their cyberpunk atmosphere. Underworld as well embraced that gothic rock kind kind of vibe, and then also Queen of the Damned, which is another. Yeah, we gotta do that one.
Speaker 1:I reckon I love that movie so much. Yeah, I think that it really sort of influenced those sort of assets because it worked so well for the Crow and, as you know, it became a standalone success on its own, like it was on the Billboard 200, I believe. And you know it shows that music can carry the spirit of a film beyond the screen as well. So I think that the soundtrack is still revered today by a lot of different people, obviously from our threads, and it's very replayable. So I think for me this is going to be. It Can't Rain All the Time. What about you, brash?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love all the music. Like I said, as you brought up Green and the Damned, I love the soundtrack to Green and the Damned Papa Roach, david Draymond's Forsaken still one of my favorite sort of dark songs but yeah, I love the soundtrack. Now, this is where people are probably going to hate, but they fell into the same thing that a lot of movies do, especially older movies and even some of the newer movies now as well, where they make the music so loud that you can't hear the people talking and that shits me to tears Because the music is great. But all they need to do is maybe, you know, start the music I don't know 10 seconds later, after the people have finished talking but no, I'll level it.
Speaker 1:So it gradually fades in. He's fucking Eric walking out of the guitar while fucking.
Speaker 2:Sarah and the police officer are trying to have a discussion at a hot dog stand. Well, fake.
Speaker 1:There's no need for him to start that music while they're having a discussion at a hot dog stand can I say this though, going back to style those scenes where he's playing the guitar, like that's what every man wants. He just wants to sit there in the rain with an electric guitar rocking out in black, white and red and just like have that look, it was just 100% awesome it was.
Speaker 2:It was 100% awesome. But I couldn't get past the fact that I was listening intently to what Sarah and the detective was talking. Albert, is this the first name that I'm going to say? Daryl, that's so. Say Daryl, daryl, that's so much fucking easier. Daryl and Daryl are talking. I think I was like just like, hey, listen to him. And then all of a sudden I was like found myself actually moving closer to the TV because the sound of the listening to music loud. I do it all the time at work. I'll be listening to music really loud. I won't even notice that people are talking about my accent. Yeah, I hate in movies, tv shows, whatever, because I like dialogue. Do you want?
Speaker 1:to hear the story. That's fair.
Speaker 2:That's fair. I love story. I love lore. I love story. I like hearing all that kind of stuff. Music's great Music. If we had music movies and TV shows and shit, we'd be bled but gotta know where the piece is in. Like when they watched that back, were they also not going wait, what the fuck do you say? Like it probably wasn't like anything meaningful or impactful for the movie movie, but still I missed it because I couldn't hear it. I think the only reason why I caught it was I think I had subtitles on and I was reading the sub top I always wear subtitles because I chew when I watch movies and I can't hear it over these out of my own chewing.
Speaker 1:But I digress. What are you rating this brash this is? This is gonna be hard for you because you love the soundtrack, but you thought it was just like an old man. You thought it was too loud but it was too loud.
Speaker 2:They just put the music over the people talking.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:They didn't do it enough for it to make it bad, so it's still going to be. It can't always rain. Can't rain all the time. Can't rain all the time. It can't rain all the time. With a hint of gasoline there's a bit of gasoline on the wind.
Speaker 1:There we go. I've got some gasoline to throw into the rain, all right, so let's get our last one. This one's currently gone. Three for three, all right. Here we go, all right, and this one that has been generated is costume and makeup Brash. You touched on this a little bit earlier. Did you want to start with this one?
Speaker 2:Yes, when I rewatched it, yeah, like it's just such an iconic look and they've never been done before either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it didn't really hit as hard for me because I'd obviously seen heat ledger's joker previously, but I can imagine at the time when it came out it was iconic and it was also very different and new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. The only other person I could probably in the same sort of not in a year this came out even a lot longer after that was B Spawn, and that's because of the John Leguizamo character, who's a little fat clown, demon clown, and that's the closest thing I can and like all ends. Obviously, spawn's face facial is like black mask with white that's the closest thing I can think of to this and Sting, of course, the wrestler. Yeah, no, 100% like. And then when he like goes through and he pulls out his old trunk it's his old, like rocker gear and he tucks on the ski and I wish he did more with the guitar, though you know he, yeah, he had that guitar and he played it a lot.
Speaker 1:I wish he he beat some people with it a little more. I reckon I would love to see that use his axe to axe people. Yeah, I think I think for me. I'll touch on costume a little bit. I think that that look in 1994, when halloween came around, that was what everybody would have been dressing up as I'm 100 sure of it and even now it's a very iconic look for halloween and even just you know, it's, as we said, it's influenced a lot of um goth fashion and and that sort of alternative subcultures.
Speaker 1:But I really want to touch on michael wincott, who plays top dollar. The hair that he has in this movie, the the long wig, goes halfway down his back. He obviously does a lot of dialogue scenes in this movie, but he also has a big action sequence at the end which is in the rain. He fights with a rapier and a sword against Eric who fights with a church steeple Badass. But Michael Wincott, apparently he requested that wig and that hair and that look. He wanted that look, which was just so awesome as well. And can I just also say voice of Michael Wincott. That pretty, that is just the voice of a villain right there.
Speaker 2:I've got to say, out of all the villains in the movie, he was my favourite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love his scene where he is trying to get information out of the pawn shop owner and he eventually puts the rapier through his throat and he's just like, oh, come on, just die.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's got to shoot him as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's just so like you can tell why he is the top of that mob boss chain. But I just love his entire look, his aesthetic there. He definitely fits in the top of the space there as the mob villain, just in the way that he looks as the mob villain, just in the way that he looks.
Speaker 2:So, talking on the costume, so the villains as well, like all that you can. Like all of the um, tintin and T-Bird, like all his crew, um, they're all. Um, yeah, skank, uh, skank, and fun boy, and they're all like rugged. And yeah, they look all different too. Yeah, they're all. They all get their own different looks um, like Tintin was my favorite.
Speaker 2:Look out of all of them that knife-losing psychopath and then, um, but yeah, they all have their own different looks. Then they sort of needed it to and they all had their own thing which set them apart, which I think not enough movies do like. Yeah, you have like a group of bad guys and they're all pretty much just generic bad guys, whereas these guys were very distinct in what they did doing one, two and three, as opposed to these ones had names, personalities, different sort of like.
Speaker 2:T-Bird was all about his like explosives cars going explosives um Tinsim was all about throwing knives throwing knives.
Speaker 1:Funboy was all about drugs and sex.
Speaker 2:Drugs and sex yeah, and then Skank was sort of like the T-Bird wannabe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was like a little bit of a ratty sort of character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like that sort of the weaselly little character that followed the master around and did whatever he said. Well, actually I'm pretty sure he gets called a rat or a weasel or something by Top Dollar at some point when he's sitting in a big meeting. But yeah, they all had their iconic looks and then you could tell the difference between them and the upper echelon of the organization when you get to Top Dollar and Grange. And who's his Micah? Micah, yeah. The sister, yeah. Played by Violink.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in a world like this there are weirder. Who's his? Micah Micah, yeah, the sister. Yeah, played by Bai Ling. Yeah, you know, in a world like this there are weirder things going on, and that just added another layer of it.
Speaker 2:Weird she was so weird, I loved it. I loved the weird craziness.
Speaker 1:Bai Ling. Yeah, just added to the whole villain sort of character aesthetic, didn't it that whole sort of just that whole villainous vibe?
Speaker 2:but like you see, top Dog, dressed in nines, he had like the nice, like he had a vest on underneath the suits, yeah, but yeah, just you see how fancy and fast those guys looked compared to the underlings that did all the mayhem on the streets and it sort of gave and it gives you that sort of alright. These guys are just the shit kickers that could do all the shit kicker work. And then he uses the guys up here who are the real deal and the fact he uses a rapier. I love the rapier as well.
Speaker 1:That's the gentleman's weapon isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like one of my D&D characters have, like I like to use rapiers for my D&D character.
Speaker 1:So what are you giving this one, do you think? What do you think is the verdict?
Speaker 2:Can't rain all the time.
Speaker 1:Same as me, I think, I'm giving this a can't rain all the time as well. So it's got a clean sweep from a splash, which leads us into our next segment, which is the Phantom Portals on a Board. All right, so the Phantom Portals on a Board is where we rate all the movies that we have looked at for our podcast so far, and you can find that on our letterbox, which will be in our show notes below. So far, the top-running movie, and the one that's been sitting there for a very long time, is the Phantom of the Opera. So what we're going to be doing now is we'll rate this one out of five and we'll see where it sits. All right, so the average for Phantom of the Opera is 4.25. That's what it's got to be. We discussed with the. You know, with this movie just having such a cult status and Brandon Lee's amazing performance, I'm probably going to give this one a 4.5 out of 5. What about you, brash?
Speaker 2:I'm giving it a 4. Okay, mainly because I love Brandon, I love Sarah, I love Daryl, I love Top Dollar. I didn't like, I didn't mind Tim Tim, tim, tim, tintin, but I hated the rest of them. They just annoyed the shit out of me. More lucky, they all died. Yeah, what was it they said light it up, light it up.
Speaker 1:Fire it up, yeah.
Speaker 2:Fire it up. Fire it up. I'm like shut the fuck.
Speaker 1:That was the main problem with why I didn't rate this a five. Because I think some of the 80s, Because if you think about it, like the Ninja Turtles set in the 1990s, they kind of had a very similar kind of dialogue. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think it kind of sets that off, but it just hasn't aged well. So for me 4.5, which means that the average for this movie is going to be 4.25, for Phantom of the Opera. So we might send it to our community to see what they think. We might put Phantom of the Opera and the Crow side by side and see what they vote.
Speaker 2:I have a feeling goodbye. Phantom of the Opera.
Speaker 1:Well, it's had its run. It's sat there for a number of weeks now. It's been heaps of episodes, but, yeah, I was really surprised by the Phantom of the Opera, so I'm glad it got its day. That the crow is going to top it, but if it does, I'm glad it had its day, so that might be good. It's either going to be first or it's going to be second. We might have a new leader on our random portals on a board.
Speaker 1:Okay, so with that episode in the bag, we want to encourage you guys to join our community here at the Fandom Portals Podcast If you want to do that.
Speaker 1:We are here on instagram and threads and letterboxd as well, and we've recently signed up to reddit, so come and join us on those places. You will find the poll for our fandom portals on a board on those spaces, so make sure you come and vote to see if you want to place the crow in first place or second place behind the phantom of the opera. We also are going to run very, very shortly a March edition of the Portal is Pick. So we take a community watch list and we put it out to you guys and you guys pick the movie that we are going to do, and every single time for a Portal is Pick episode. We release it on the very last day of the month. So you will get five different sort of movies from us here at the Fandom Portals team, with the last one being a community selection by you guys, our community. Now, before we move on, brash, we're going to tell everybody what we have in store for the month of March, because this, indeed, will be the last episode everybody hears for February.
Speaker 1:So, in March our episodes look like this Brash, take it away.
Speaker 2:For the month of March. We have 500 Days of Summer, we have Spider-Man, no Way Home, we have Dragonheart and we have Gabriel, and then, after that, we have our picks from the audience, which is to be determined, Indeed, but just saying TNT has been there for a while.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think Brash is very keen to do that Behind the scenes. Look guys. Brash tried to do that about five times. The one you heard is the one that he got it correct. We've been here for 10 minutes trying to listen to it it was rough. I think that he did an amazing job.
Speaker 2:I think every time I did, I forgot one.
Speaker 1:It was a different one each time.
Speaker 1:Because I was so busy trying to think of remember the one I forgot. That's okay. Look, we've had a big day of podcasting, guys, so thank you, as always, for joining us. We appreciate it and we also appreciate Samila. So one more time for suggesting this movie for us and also for our amazing audience that contribute to our social medias all the time. You make this awesome for us and we love doing it, so keep it all coming in. Any last words from me brash do your memory problems, guys?
Speaker 2:it helps your memory and later on in life you'll be less likely to forget shit do some sudokus brash and just remember as well, it can't rain all the time.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
