Demolition Man Information

Demolition Man is a 1993 American science fiction action film directed by Marco Brambilla, and starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne, and Denis Leary co-star.

The film tells the story of two men"?one, an evil crime lord; the other, a risk-taking police officer"?who are cryogenically frozen in the year 1996 and reawakened in 2032. Following a massive earthquake in 2010 that destroyed much of Los Angeles, it merged with San Diego to form a planned city called San Angeles in which all crime has seemingly been eliminated from mainstream society.

Some aspects of the film allude to Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World.

Plot

In 1996, LAPD Sgt. John Spartan leads a raid to rescue hostages taken by the psychopathic criminal Simon Phoenix. After an initial scan reveals no sign of the hostages, Spartan enters Phoenix's stronghold and captures him. However, before he is captured, Phoenix detonates several barrels of C4, which destroys the building. The hostages' bodies are found in the rubble, and Spartan is blamed for their deaths. Both men are sentenced to "CryoPrison," where they are kept in cryogenic storage and exposed to subconscious rehabilitation techniques.

In 2032, Phoenix escapes from CryoPrison during a parole hearing and begins a crime spree. By now the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara have merged into the utopian San Angeles, under the pacifist guidance of Dr. Raymond Cocteau. All vices have been outlawed, and the San Angeles Police (SAPD) are now incapable of dealing with criminals like Phoenix. However, veteran officer Zachary Lamb suggests that Spartan be revived and reinstated to the force to help them recapture Phoenix. Lieutenant Lenina Huxley is assigned to assist Spartan.

The revived Spartan has trouble adapting to life in the future. Most of Huxley's fellow officers, especially Chief George Earle, find him brutish and uncivilized. After Phoenix breaks into a museum's weapon exhibition to arm himself, he runs into Cocteau and tries to shoot him, but can not. Cocteau calmly reminds him of why he was revived: to kill Edgar Friendly, the leader of the Scraps resistance fighters, who live in underground ruins beneath San Angeles. After seeing the exchange on security cameras, Spartan and Huxley check prison records and determine that Cocteau programmed Phoenix to make him an even more dangerous criminal and assassin, with the goal of eliminating Friendly. While Spartan and Huxley enter the underground to warn Friendly, Phoenix confronts Cocteau and demands that he release other prisoners to assist him.

At Friendly's underground base, Phoenix and his gang of Cryo-Cons attempt to kill both Spartan and Friendly, but the two of them and Huxley repel the attack. During a subsequent car chase through San Angeles, Phoenix admits that the hostages that Spartan tried to save in 1996 were already dead before the building exploded, so Spartan spent 36 years in prison unnecessarily. Though Phoenix escapes, the Scraps emerge from the underground to join the SAPD against Phoenix and his new criminal gang.

Opposed to Cocteau's plans for San Angeles, and realizing that he cannot kill Cocteau himself because of his programming, Phoenix has one of his men kill Cocteau. Spartan and Huxley arrive at Cocteau's headquarters to capture Phoenix and what remains of his gang, but Phoenix escapes to the CryoPrison to revive the most dangerous convicts. After knocking out Huxley to protect her, Spartan raids the CryoPrison and, after an intense battle with Phoenix, freezes him solid. Spartan escapes just before the cryo-machinery overloads, destroying the prison. With Cocteau dead and the prison destroyed, the police and Scraps find themselves at odds over how to run their society. Spartan suggests that they find a way to compromise between order and personal freedom, then kisses Huxley and departs with her.

Cast

• Sylvester Stallone as Detective Sergeant John Spartan
• Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix
• Sandra Bullock as Lieutenant Lenina Huxley
• Nigel Hawthorne as Doctor Raymond Cocteau
• Benjamin Bratt as Officer Alfredo Garcia
• Denis Leary as Edgar Friendly
• Rob Schneider as Erwin (uncredited)
• Jack Black as Wasteland Scrap
• Bill Cobbs as Zachary Lamb (old)
• Bob Gunton as Chief George Earle
• Paul Perri as Squad Leader
• Pat Skipper as Helicopter Pilot
• Glenn Shadix as Associate Bob
• Trent Walker as Boggle Guard
• Troy Evans as Tough Cop
• Grand L. Bush as Zachary Lamb (young)
• Steve Kahan as Captain Healy
• Andre Gregory as Warden William Smithers
• Jesse Ventura as Adam, Cryocon Ally
• Brandy Ledford as "wrong number" video phone girl

Jack Black played one of the "Wasteland Scraps" in the underground scene, who flinches when Spartan shoves the gun out of his face and says "And Cocteau's an asshole!" Rob Schneider played Erwin, one of the operators in the San Angeles Police control room; he would also play opposite Stallone in the 1995 movie Judge Dredd.

Sandra Bullock replaced original actress Lori Petty in the role of Lenina Huxley after a few days filming. Her character's name is a reference to Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, and Lenina Crowne, a character in Brave New World.

Originally Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were offered lead roles in the movie. The role of Simon Phoenix was also offered to Jackie Chan.

Production

General Motors provided the production team with 18 concept vehicles, including the Ultralite concept vehicle. More than 20 fiberglass replicas of the Ultralite were produced to portray civilian and SAPD patrol vehicles in the film. After filming had completed, the remaining Ultralites were returned to Michigan as part of GM's concept vehicle fleet. The movie also features a 1970 Oldsmobile 442 in its chase scene. The Oldsmobile brand is featured prominently in the film (including a scene involving an Oldsmobile dealership), becoming an unintentional anachronism due to the Oldsmobile brand's discontinuation in 2004.

For some non-American releases, references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut. This includes dubbing, plus changing the logos during post-production. Taco Bell remains in the closing credits. In the Swedish release the subtitles still use Taco Bell while the sound and picture has been altered as above. The original version released in Australia (on VHS) contained Taco Bell, yet the newer version on DVD was changed both in logo and dubbing to Pizza Hut. (In the scene where the restaurant patrons are looking through the glass windows to the fight scene outside, "Taco Bell" can be seen etched into the glass, even in the modified version.)

In one scene, Phoenix makes a comment about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer being one of the cryo-inmates. Since this movie was made before his death in prison in 1994, in this alternate time period, he had been frozen with all the other criminals that were deemed too dangerous. Later versions of the film have this comment deleted.

Hungarian science fiction writer István Nemere claims that most of Demolition Man is based on his novel Holtak harca (Fight of the Dead), published in 1986. In the novel, a terrorist and his enemy, a counter-terrorism soldier are cryogenically frozen and awakened in the 22nd century, when violence was purged from society. Nemere claimed that a committee proved that 75% of the film is identical to the book. However, Nemere chose not to initiate a lawsuit, as it would have been too expensive for him to hire a lawyer and fight against major Hollywood forces in the United States. The author claims that Hollywood had ripped-off works of many Eastern European writers after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and that he knows the person he claims to be responsible for illegally selling his idea to the filmmakers.

Soundtrack

The theme song to the film, "Demolition Man", is played over the end credits. It is a remix (heavier version) of the song originally recorded by Grace Jones and written by Sting during his time as frontman for The Police. The song was first released in March 1981, as an advance single from Jones's fifth album, Nightclubbing. Sting released an EP featuring this song and other live tracks, entitled Demolition Man.

Acclaimed composer Elliot Goldenthal composed the score for the film. It was his second big Hollywood project after the Alien³ score.

Setting

By 2032, toilet paper has fallen out of use; a set of three seashells is provided in every toilet stall. Though their method of use is left unexplained in the movie and is instead left to the viewer's imagination, Stallone later suggested a possible method in an interview as told to him by one of the film's writers involving extraction with two and scraping with one.

Reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews, maintaining a 63% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews. However, the film scored a 34/100 on Metacritic, based on 9 reviews.

On Siskel & Ebert, Gene Siskel gave the movie thumbs down, criticizing its violence, but did praise its "funny offbeat script." Roger Ebert praised the movie: "Unlike so many other movies of its genre, it really does have a satiric angle to it."

The film debuted at No. 1 at the box office. Demolition Man grossed $58,055,768 by the end of its box office run in North America and $159,055,768 worldwide. The movie was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Sandra Bullock)

Adaptations

Games

Acclaim Entertainment and Virgin Interactive released Demolition Man on various home video game systems. The 16-bit versions were shooting games distributed by Acclaim. The 3DO version is a multi-genre game that incorporates Full Motion Video scenes, with both Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes reprising their roles as their characters in scenes that were filmed exclusively for the game.

In April 1994, Williams released a widebody pinball game, Demolition Man based on the movie. It is designed by Dennis Nordman. This game features sound clips from the movie, as well as original speech by Stallone and Snipes. This game was part of WMS' SuperPin series (Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, etc.).

See also

• List of films featuring surveillance