Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy (2018) and How the Symbolism of Frankenstein is Tarnished

Symbolism was something that was touched upon back when Death Race, Death Race 2, and Death Race: Inferno were covered in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  It wasn’t symbolism in the sense of something used in a movie to signify an emotional beat.  That’s a completely different beast.  It was an in-universe symbolism that was being written about.

Frankenstein was a character within the world of the Death Race movies who meant more to people than the person under the mask.  Frankenstein was a symbol of hope.  He was a driver in a deadly game who was always one step away from freedom.  Though the violent race where drivers would kill other drivers for sport was not the most morally friendly game to exist, it meant something to the viewers.  They could sympathize with Frankenstein as he worked his way to freedom.  His bad deeds were forgotten as people wanted to see him fight his way out of the prison system.

This idea was solidified by the various characters who became Frankenstein throughout the movies.  None of the viewers of the death race would know who Frankenstein was.  They knew the mask.  They didn’t know who was behind it.  Carl Lucas was Frankenstein before passing the mantle to Niles York.  When that version of Frankenstein was killed in the first Death Race, Jensen Ames took on the character.  It didn’t matter who was under the mask.  Viewers would still tune in to see Frankenstein race.

In 2018, Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy was released.  It told the story of Connor Gibson (Zach McGowan), a new inmate in The Sprawl, a city turned into a prison.  He fought in a giant brawl where only one person could survive, in order to work his way into the death race.  All that Connor wanted was to kill Frankenstein (Velislav Pavlov with the voice of Nolan North) for what the racer had done.   He got the help of Baltimore Bob (Danny Glover) and became one of the best racers in The Sprawl.

As that description stated, Frankenstein was a villain in the fourth film of the rebooted franchise.  That was one of many issues, but it was the issue most associated with the idea of Frankenstein’s symbolism.  Once again, the character could have been played by any of the characters in the movie.  He was a man under a mask.  The dark web audiences of the sequel didn’t know who Frankenstein was, outside of a masked racer who liked to kill people.

The problem with the portrayal was that Frankenstein was no longer a symbol of hope.  He was now a symbol of excess.  He was now a symbol of a system gone wrong.  The world of Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy was a world built upon the foundation of a warlord reigning supreme over a world of chaos.  There were no guards.  There was nobody to interfere with how things were run.  The prisoners of The Sprawl were in charge of everything that was going on in The Sprawl.  They controlled the land and the activities within it.  At the top of the chain of command was Frankenstein.

Instead of focusing on a seemingly good person placed into a bad situation as Frankenstein, Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy had no qualms about making the person playing Frankenstein into a blood-thirsty, sex-craving maniac.  The audience never got to connect with the person behind the mask.  They never got to see who was behind it.  It was all about taking down the person behind the mask.  Who they were didn’t matter to the story.  It was what they stood for, which wasn’t what they had stood for in the movies prior.

The flip of Frankenstein from good to evil was a strange thing to come to terms with after seeing three films where he was the hero.  It was as though the people behind Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy wanted to add a twist to the movie and couldn’t figure out the right one.  That was kind of weird, considering they had the whole Mad Max style world going on within the walls of The Sprawl.  The twist could have just been seeing how the death race had evolved after the warden was taken out in the first film.  Connor Gibson could have taken on the role of Frankenstein to take down the evil warlord.  But they made Frankenstein the warlord.  It was an out-of-place beat in a movie full of out-of-place beats.

What had kept the first three films a consistent story was the fact that the people behind the Frankenstein mask represented a sliver of hope in a corrupt, money-hungry prison system.  In the original, Jensen Ames was a wrongly convicted prisoner.  He was the one shining light of good within the prison.  In the prequels, Carl Lucas was a getaway driver caught and forced to participate.  He wasn’t necessarily a bad person, but he was placed in one of the worst possible situations and spent two movies trying to escape.  As Frankenstein, they each drove to the best of their abilities, defeating their competitors and gaining the audience’s support.  Frankenstein represented the good.  Having him go bad was a terrible decision.

Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy took everything that the previous three movies had build up and tore it down.  It did everything differently while trying to be more of the same.  It mostly didn’t work and a lot of that came down to the representation of Frankenstein.  Changing what the character stood for completely changed the dynamic of the film in a way that took away the power.  For a series that was always a dumb, fun car fighting romp, it was always also about the symbolism of Frankenstein.  With that symbolism gone, there was a large missing chunk that the movie couldn’t overcome.

Here are some notes that this post might overcome:

• The first three Death Race movies were originally covered for week 9 of the blog series.
• Danny Trejo returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies, as he frequently does, with Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy.  He was previously a part of Death Race 2 (week 9), Death Race: Inferno (week 9), Rise of the Zombies (week 16), Anaconda (week 80), and 3-Headed Shark Attack (week 165).  Wow.  It has actually been a while since he popped up.
• Frederick Koehler was in Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy, reprising his role from Death Race (week 9), Death Race 2 (week 9), and Death Race: Inferno (week 9).
• One of the actors in Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy was Velislav Pavlov, who was also in The Legend of Hercules (week 77) and Getaway (week 135).
• Elitsa Razheva was another actor from The Legend of Hercules (week 77) who made an appearance in Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy.
• Two more actors from Getaway (week 135) showed up in Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy.  They were Georgi Dimitrov and Velizar Peev.
• Terence Maynard was in Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy.  One of his other movie roles was in Chasing Liberty (week 155).
• Finally, three actors from In the Name of the King: The Last Mission (week 220) were in Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy.  They were Tsvetolyub Iliev, Daria Simeonova, and Marian Valev.
• Have you seen Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy?  Probably not.  It just came out.  Have you seen the other Death Race movies?  What did you think of them?  Let me know in the comments.
• Twitter or the comments are a good place to let me know what movies I should be checking out for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I’m always trying to find movies I might not know about that could fit into the blog.  Let me know what you have.
• Sometimes I’ll watch bad movies and share bits and pieces of them on Snapchat.  I haven’t been doing that as much lately, but my Snapchat (jurassicgriffin) is still there for you to add if you want to see my stuff.
• You might be wondering what’s coming up next week.  Let me tell you.  Next week will be a movie called The Final Sacrifice.  I don’t know much about it.  I’ve never seen it.  I haven’t watched the MST3K episode covering it.  I’m going in knowing almost nothing.  It’ll be interesting to see how I react to it.  I’ll let you guys know next Sunday.  See you then.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and a Brief, Very Brief History of the Franchise

Nostalgia plays a large part in modern filmmaking.  Many of the properties that find success on both the big screen and the small are properties that remake or reimagine something that already exists.  The concept would be something from a person’s childhood, something that they love, being brought about again in order to fulfill that nostalgia within them.  Few properties come with as many reboots, remakes, and reimaginings as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a comic book in the early 1980s.  Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird came up with the idea and published the comics through Mirage Studios.  The series was originally meant to be a parody of popular comics from the time, including Daredevil.  Soon, it would be a multi-platform franchise comparable to almost no other property.

1986 and early 1987 saw the release of different lines of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys.  If the comic books weren’t getting the money that the creators wanted, merchandising and licensing would.  They would make their money through the children who wanted to fight with their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures.  And things would only go up from there.

The first animated series to come from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters would happen in 1987.  It began with a five-part mini-series at the end of 1987 before continuing as a full series in late 1988.  The combination of the cartoon and the action figures would push the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property from a niche comic book series into a full-blown mainstream success.  It was so mainstream, in fact, that the characters couldn’t be kept from the stage or the big screen.

A movie series based on the characters began in 1990.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saw the four brothers teaming up with April O’Neil, Splinter, and Casey Jones to take down Shredder as his foot clan was taking over their city and causing kids to go bad.  It was followed by two sequels, one with a great Vanilla Ice song and the other with a time travel aspect, before the film series went dormant.  The live action film series did inspire a Saban-produced television show that introduced a new, female Ninja Turtle and a travelling stage show musical for kids.

Three more animated television series would come out after the live action series came to a conclusion.  The most successful was a series that lasted from 2003 to 2009 on FOX.  It had more edge than the previous animated series, though it was still light enough for children.  Once the series ended, there were a few years before a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles CGI animated series began in 2012.  That series lasted until 2017, and now, in 2018, a new 2-D animated series has begun.

During the second animated series, the one from 2003 to 2009, a CGI animated movie came out, simply called TMNT.  It wasn’t a huge success, though it has since garnered a strong fanbase.  It was released in 2007 to mixed reviews, but it turned a profit, showing that the fandom would always be there for the franchise.

After all that, though, the nostalgia truly crept into the franchise.  Another reboot was announced for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, from Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company.  They’re the same company that made many of the big horror remakes of the 2000s.  And reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles they did.  It was the Michael Bay version of the characters, though the movies weren’t directed (at least in credit) by Michael Bay.  His influence was still all over them.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out in 2014.  The turtles were large, muscular, CGI creations that flipped through the city streets while trying to take down Shredder and the foot clan.  They teamed up with April O’Neil and Vern to stop Shredder and Eric Sacks from infecting the world with a virus that would wipe out a large portion of the population.  The chemical that made the turtles into their large, mutant selves was a large part of the story, as it was involved in the virus contamination plotline.

The writing was the downfall of the reboot.  It was all in the tonal shifts that never quite worked.  Particularly, in the comedic side of the movie, it felt like two separate writers with completely different sensibilities instead of one consistent style.  There was slapstick, in both the visual and aural sides of things, that worked for what it was.  Then there was the “this is what teenagers are like” style of comedy that felt like a 50 something writer going into the script with stereotypes.  The four turtles were caricatures of teenagers.  It felt like what adults thought teenagers were like, instead of what teenagers were really like.  It was the most irritating aspects without any of the good.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, the 2016 sequel, did even worse with the writing.  It wasn’t just the comedy that felt tonally off, but the actual story as well.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their human friends, now including Casey Jones, were in a grounded cartoon world.  Sure, they were giant, talking, martial arts using turtles, but there was a reality to it.  There was a seriousness to the characters, outside of them being teenagers.  That wasn’t the case for the rest of the movie.

The new villain was Krang, an alien that looked like a brain, that lived in the chest of a giant robot.  They were using Shredder to get three mechanical devices that would allow them to bring a giant space war machine to Earth.  Shredder enlisted two criminals, and turned them into giant, bipedal animals.  These criminals were Bebop and Rocksteady.  The man who would put the devices together was Baxter Stockman.  Together, these three provided much of the over-the-top comedic relief that would plague the film.  In a cartoony movie that still grounded itself in a reality, these three performances were so off the charts that they took down what could have been a mildly amusing reboot series.

Though the movies have gone dormant for the time being, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles empire remains strong.  The television series have helped that.  The merchandising has helped that.  The nostalgia people have for the movies, series, and toys of their past have helped.  This nostalgia fueled Michael Bay to produce two movies about the superhero turtles, and it will likely inspire many more people to bring their own spin to the material that they love.  That’s how nostalgia works in movies.

Nostalgia is something that has helped bring a new version of old characters and stories to modern audiences.  It has also helped to shine a spotlight on old tales, bringing new eyes to the properties that past generations loved.  That’s why so many remakes, reboots, and reimaginings exist.  People love things and want to see more of them.  They want to share them with everyone else.  Nostalgia drives things forward while keeping them in the past, and that’s where movies are now.

The notes for this post will go up later this week.  I haven’t had time to properly compile them.  It's been a long week of making a short film.  Thank you for understanding.