What is better: Gremlins, or Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Not my first time dumping into a thread willy-nilly! My head has been buzzing with these thoughts since I rewatched Gremlins last month. It's such a palette-cleanser during the holidays.

Just want to mention one last thing, the most hilarious scene of The New Batch: when they are in the lab, the gremlin who grabs the beaker labeled, "ACID - DO NOT THROW IN FACE" which he immediately throws in the face of the gremlin standing next to him, who briefly reacts in pain, then holds up a Phantom of the Opera-type face mask on a stick. I absolutely fucking lost it. The comedic timing is unexpected and brilliant.

 

Oh yeah, that scene was amazing!!

 

I've seen the original twice. Didn't do anything for me. G2 is so much better. I can't walk past 101 Park Avenue without thinking about that movie.

 

I bought the toy of the "Phantom" Gremlin and he comes with the acid beaker and everything. Glorious.

 

It gets even more meta when Leonard Maltin shows up as himself giving a bad review to the VHS release of the first Gremlins. Apparently, Maltin actually didn't like the first movie very much, so the filmmakers cast him as himself in the 2nd movie, where he gets to slag off on the first for a while until the Gremlins kill him. I love how everyone was such a good sport about it!

The 2nd movie is unquestionably the superior film. It's funnier. It's more manic. It's got Robert Picardo AND Christopher Lee AND John Glover! "There are some things man was not meant to splice!"

I also don't much care for the first movie because it seems to feature a lot of set-ups that don't really get a payoff. The main guy doesn't have an arc. There's this big conspiracy about the mean lady at the bank evicting people as part of a larger real estate scam but that never goes anywhere.

On the plus side, it uses the same town square set from Back to the Future.

 

Maybe I missed something obvious, but as I see it Mrs. Deagle is just a mean old crone who screws everyone over and the the Gremlins kill her. She's unsubtly the Wicked Witch of the West, the audience hates her and we're happy that she gets what she deserves.

 

I get that part. But that's established early on in the film and doesn't need any further justification. If she was just a greedy bitch who got a well-deserved death, I would understand that. But then there's that part later in the film where the 2 main characters go to the bank and find paperwork indicating that the land where all of the foreclosed houses are is going to be developed into a shopping mall or something. (IIRC, this is around the same time that Phoebe Cates tells her story about why she hates Christmas.) It's treated like a big revelation but it's never mentioned again.

Minor observation I've made about the 2nd movie: On the DVD blooper reel, there are a lot of flubs where Zach Galligan, John Glover, & Robert Picardo are doing a scene together and one of them (usually Galligan) blows the take by laughing. In each of those bloopers, and there are many, Picardo is always the last one to break character and usually does so only long after everyone else has. I've always admired him for that.

 

There is no dialogue related to Mrs Deagle when Billy and Kate shelter in the bank. She tells her Santa story as soon as they get in there, and when she's done the scene cuts to Rand at a roadside gas station, then when it cuts back to Billy/Kate they are leaving the bank.

 

Hmmmmm... Maybe I'm thinking of the deleted scene where they also find Judge Reinhold in the bank vault after he's had a nervous breakdown. But I could have sworn that there was some dialogue in that bank scene where they find paperwork relating to the real estate scheme.

 

Just checked the deleted scene now, and couldn't find anything there either. Billy/Kate find Mr. Corben dead, then talk to Gerald in the vault, then they leave.

...Maybe another scene? (Or I've just somehow missed the bit you're thinking of.)

Edit: Sorry if this is a stupid question, but you're not actually thinking of the bit from Gremlins 2 are you? Clamp wants Mr Wing to sell his shop so that they can build "The Clamp Chinatown Centre"?

 

No, not a stupid question. I remember the bit from the 2nd movie. That actually did have some payoff, IIRC.

Man, now I wish I hadn't traded in my copy of the first movie! This is really going to bug me. (Double checks Mandela Effect to make sure I haven't skipped universes again.)

 

I'm honestly not sure I've seen the first one (though I did read the novelization, which I guess makes me curious as to the differences) in part because it sounded more like a jump-scare horror'ish film, whereas the second one is a bit of a thriller as well but also much more of a semi-dark comedy film, and I found that one to be a hoot. Giving many of the gremlins their own distinct traits was, for my money, definitely a step in the right direction.

I dunno, is the first one actually a lot less horrorific/more comedic than I'm making it sound? I just remember a significant number of deaths in that film.

 

Maybe have a skim through the transcript (I think it's actually just a rip of the subtitle track), you might find the bit you're thinking of...
https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=gremlins

 

And a far, far better one than the actual Looney Tunes movie he made.

 

Oh, yes, that's right, I remember now. The scene in which a pair of Gremlins met rather graphic fates in kitchen appliances was pretty controversial at the time.

Gremlins 2 is better, yes, but I actually liked Looney Tunes: Back in Action. If nothing else, it's immensely better than Space Jam, and actually bothers to get the characterizations right.

Of course, one of the funniest bits in Back in Action is when Brendan Fraser and Daffy Duck get into Fraser's antique Ford Gremlin -- and Jerry Goldsmith quotes his Gremlins theme in the score. It's a classic Carl Stalling-style song-reference gag, but also Dante and Goldsmith referencing themselves, which is wonderfully meta.

 

OK, I bought a used copy of the DVD of the first movie for $6 and just rewatched it. Turns out that the scene I was thinking of was a deleted scene but it was an earlier one. There's a scene where Billy & Kate are working in the bank and Kate finds blueprints in Mr. Corben's office for all of the foreclosed houses to be sold to the Hitox Chemical Company. I suppose I can't really critique that element of the movie since it was deleted from the main body of the film. (Although, if you listen really close to the news broadcast at the end of the movie, they mention that the death of Mrs. Deagle has led to the cancellation of a land deal with the Hitox Chemical Company, so I guess that plot point does get some resolution, even if most of the set-up was cut from the film.)

I'm just glad to know that I didn't totally imagine that scene and that my memory is at least somewhat reliable.

I had a similar close call yesterday when I was showing the 2nd movie to some friends of mine for the first time and I was trying to find the alternate VHS version of the scene where the Gremlins take over the TV until John Wayne shoots them. I couldn't for the life of me find the scene until I realized it was an Easter Egg.

 

Gremlins, but the second one is underrated. It's good fun.

 

I'm sorry you had to go through all that to find it, but I totally get that "old memory tickling the brain" thing, so glad it all fell into place.

 

Wow, now I definitely need to check it out.

I feel the same way, I watched Back in Action a while back and I really enjoyed it.
According to Wikipedia, Joe Dante had no creative freedom on it and has called it "the longest year and a half of my life". Makes me wonder what he would have done if he was able to do what he wanted.