C/D: Howard the Duck (the movie)

yeah I too saw this in the theaters as a kid, solely on the strength of it being a) an adaptation of a comic book and b) the involvement of George Lucas. My dad, already confused by his sons' interests, must have been totally baffled. Even as a kid I knew it was bad - the duck-suit really is distracting - and it hits so many false notes. Unfortunately, the child molestor is probably the best thing about it.

The film was optioned by Universal Studios after a partnership with Marvel Entertainment. According to Marvin Antonowsky, "Sidney Sheinberg lobbied very hard for Howard the Duck", because the studio had passed on previous projects that Lucas was involved in, which had been very successful. Sheinberg denied any involvement in Howard the Duck, claiming that he never read the screenplay. Huyck and Katz strongly felt that the film should be animated. Because Universal needed a film for a summer release, Lucas suggested that the film could be produced in live action, with special effects created by Industrial Light & Magic.

animated inter-dimensional underground comic duck weirdness

there's certainly precedent for this kind of thing succeeding since - live action/cartoon pop culture satire with a talking animal is hardly a tough sell, I would think

I just rediscovered the theme song recently. It kicks ass.

I also discovered recently that this was Marvel's first feature-length theatrical film. Which is just fucking weird.

soundtrack is pretty great. John Barry of James Bond fame wrote some great tunes as well. the love theme is heart-tugging in particular.

For those who didn't see Guardians of the Galaxy or its post-credits scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-O3lPJCjMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acUcjv40Jno

In the comics, H the D can be a jerk, sure, but he also has courage, integrity, empathy, and is funny, too - obviously he's an author substitute/mouthpiece, but when written by Gerber he's also one of mainstream comics few 'fully-rounded characters'. He's an everyduck. The movie doesn't indulge in any of the kind of satire/topical humour that's all over the Gerber comics, which was prob for the best given the filmmakers involved, but leaves the movie feeling pointless and empty.

yeah even being largely unfamiliar with the Gerber comics I was expecting some kind of satire/engagement with present day culture and the movie doesn't do that at all

he does go to the unemployment office to get a job. that's some social commentary.

of course the job is ..... working in a brothel.

I remember seeing it in theaters and my only problem with it at the time was that the guy-in-a-suitness of Howard was distractingly obviousy; if they'd animated in a duck that looked exactly the way he looked in the comics, I'd have been able to roll with it. (This was released post-Roger Rabbit, so there was a precedent for the mix of live and cartoon.)

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, November 19, 2015 8:00 PM (3 hours ago)

unfortunately marvel can never use the original design of howard the duck again because disney threatened them with legal action back in the 70s on the grounds that howard allegedly looked too much like donald. marvel unwisely resolved this issue by allowing disney to redesign the character; unsurprisingly, they came up with the ugliest and most unappealing design imaginable, which is why the character looks so horrible in the movie and in every other post-70s incarnation. when steve gerber finally did another howard comic in the 2000s, he resolved the issue by depicting howard as a mouse.

whaaat never heard of that! That's crazy. I thought the lack of resemblance between the film and comic book versions was strictly a problem with the suit/shitty designers.

yeah, gerber talks about it in this interview (skip to about halfway down the page):

http://web.archive.org/web/20020815054620/http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/features/99564488180361.htm

This was released post-Roger Rabbit

no, roger rabbit was a couple of years after this.

The recent Howard comics written by Chip Zdarsky are great.

Never having read anything else about it beyond casual snipes, I imagine that Bill Chambers' take is still the best thing that has ever been written on the film.

That has got to be the most positive review that has ever been written about this film.

And it's still 2/5 or whatever.

I'm assuming I'm one of the few people here who went to the cinema to see this when it came out,

I had a friend in elementary school who already had a file cabinet full of comic books. In maybe '79 or '80, during less eventful school recesses, he'd recite the events of the Howard the Duck saga. I never handled his comics, they were all sealed in these plastic sleeves, and I just wasn't interested in characters in tights at the time.

I recall seeing this during its theatrical release, at an age of surging hormones, it gave me a life long crush on Leah Thompson. Otherwise, I don't recall any surprises, its seemed faithful to my second hand recollection.

This is a lot less fun than most of the other great bad movies... especially if you think the Spielberg-or-Lucas-produced-but-didn't-direct template isn't really that fantastic to start out with.

I just don't trust my younger self anymore.

Always worth remembering that this was the first movie based on a Marvel character. This.

Still stand by my post from thirteen years ago and am content to never revisit this movie again.

I'm assuming I'm one of the few people here who went to the cinema to see this when it came out

Before HTD opened in America, Marvel Comics UK booked the biggest screen at the Plaza cinema off Piccadilly Circus for a special preview for comics pros and people in the industry, to which I somehow blagged an invite. By the time the preview actually rolled round, the film had opened and stiffed in the US - Marvel UK still had to go ahead with the preview, but the whole atmosphere was like a wake as everyone soon realised the film really was as terrible as its American reception had suggested.

So it was Fowler than expected, is what you're saying.

I taped this off the TV when I was a kid and watched it a lot, so when I grew up I was very surprised to hear all the criticism, but I haven't gone back to see it with adult eyes.

For some reason I downloaded the soundtrack about 10 years ago though, and Hunger City has been an all-time jam for me since then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLMUTqlGNZ4

watched messiah of evil for the first time last week (recommended) and was amused to learn it was written by the HTD writing team of willard huyck and gloria katz.

huyck in duck-hyuck flop shock

the leading "plot keywords" for HTD on imdb are hilarious:

red panties | woman wearing panties | mini skirt | microskirt | nubile woman | See all (132)

I think you may find that you accidentally used the index rather than the middle finger of your left hand when typing in your search terms. Common mistake.

That’s a top track.

Always worth remembering that this was the first movie based on a Marvel character. This.

tbf it's been almost all downhill ever since

Glad someone else said it.

Ain't no kneejerk like an ILXor kneejerk cuz an ILXor kneejerk (makes jerkoff motion)

and you were so close to coining KNEEJERKOFF

in 2019 i'd rather have a conversation about this movie than another goddamn conversation about any other marvel movie

Hey did you know there's a new Marvel movie coming out next week.

(makes jerkoff motion)

is howard the duck in it?

post-credits cameo, portrayed by the unemployed-prankshow Stranger Things kid

If y'all are looking for something to direct your Hate Rays at for reasons other than 'it's popular and people like it and I'm literally nineteen years old and wearing a ripped Crass shirt rn' might I draw your attention to Kevin Smith's upcoming Howard the Duck cartoon series (yes, really).

*sound of steve gerber’s corpse hitting 10,000 rpm in the distance*

Lol @ ripped Crass shirt

if we're going to make completely inaccurate strawman caricatures of each other, I believe this is an actual photo of the time OL met Stan Lee
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdailyfunfactsblog.weebly.com%2Fuploads%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F2%2F31026779%2F9444000.jpg%3F1433592217&f=1

Doodle a week-old mac & cheese stain on the shirt and basically yeah.

Rewatched this today for the first time since I was, what, maybe nine?

If you haven't seen it before, you might be inclined to think that it garnered such awful reviews partly because making a movie about a talking duck was an ill-advised decision. But the fact that it's utterly terrible and almost completely without merit has basically nothing to do with its status as a movie about a talking duck. It's just...a total piece of shit. Like it's so completely shitty that you could almost believe that shittiness was the goal from the start. And it's not even enjoyably shitty. I'm the world's biggest sucker for enjoyable shittiness and can find the silver lining in most shitty movie clouds. But watching this will just make you feel bad. There is no fun to be had here except for Howard rocking out to the theme song as the end credits start to roll, a mere two hours after you made the stupid choice to press 'play'.

I think I figured out my least favorite 'joke' construction thanks to this movie. It's the one where somebody in a heightened and comically exasperated tone says 'Talk about your ___!' Aw, man, I got caught in the rain! Talk about a cold shower! What does that even mean? Are you supposed to laugh when that happens? I don't know, but it happened kind of a lot in this movie. Towards the end, Jeffrey Jones is like...blowing this powerful wind at Howard? I guess? I don't even know what the fuck was happening or why. And I look at the screen and say 'talk about your halitosis!' And then 2.5 seconds later, Howard, in the midst of a fight for his life, says 'talk about your bad breath!' And then my jaw dropped and I said '...fucking really? I hate you, movie.'

And I did. I really hated it so much.

almost completely without merit

https://img3.looper.com/img/gallery/the-real-reason-howard-the-duck-was-a-total-flop/whos-this-for-1519823787.jpg

I mention above how Hunger City, from the soundtrack, is a favorite song of mine. In the past year, somebody has uploaded the actual clip from the movie with the song in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOUei2sYKms

Lo and behold, "talk about a rotten day!" after he ends up getting thrown into a barrel.

https://i.redd.it/eyyk538qkx711.jpg

Those head massagers! Back in the mid-2000s, a teenage mall kiosk clerk used one of those on me in a shopping mall without my consent. Came up behind me and surprised me with it! It was not a good feeling and I think it precipitated a cold that I had been fighting off to kick in to high gear.

"Hostility is like a psychic boomerang."

I don't hate this movie.

Worth a read? Why yes!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/howard-the-duck-turns-35-lea-thompson-chip-zien-seth-green-reexamine-notorious-marvel-universal-bomb-1234977028/