Episode 328: DEMOLITION MAN (1993) with Dan Nagan

2025-04-29

With Dan Nagan (@aDapperDanMan)! Mellow greetings! DEMOLITION MAN, Marco Brambilla’s only major motion picture credit is a bit of a chimera, both a fun action movie and a sort of sardonic parody of the genre. Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes are literal relics in a world gone soft: Snipes is there to terrorize it with old-fashioned chaos, and Stallone is there to rein him in with… old-fashioned machismo. It’s kind of Verhoeven-lite (or maybe even post-Verhoeven) in its jeering disdain for politics, its attempt at centrist polem...

With Dan Nagan (@aDapperDanMan)!

Mellow greetings! DEMOLITION MAN, Marco Brambilla’s only major motion picture credit is a bit of a chimera, both a fun action movie and a sort of sardonic parody of the genre. Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes are literal relics in a world gone soft: Snipes is there to terrorize it with old-fashioned chaos, and Stallone is there to rein him in with… old-fashioned machismo. It’s kind of Verhoeven-lite (or maybe even post-Verhoeven) in its jeering disdain for politics, its attempt at centrist polemics, and who it blames for the decline of American civilization.

On this episode, we talk about the soupy politics of DEMOLITION MAN, Snipes’s progression from unwitting hero to one of the better The Jokers out there, the woke mind virus, and who actually made this movie. Then, Dan takes us through almost an entire Jeopardy board of Trylove-related trivia. (Seriously, what’s his boggle?)

References:

“Demolishing Technocratic Fascism” by Lucas Vonasek for Perisphere, the Trylon blog
“In Praise of Demolition Man’s Wackadoo Libertarianism” by Abraham Josephine Riesman for Vulture
Demolition Man (1993) and Hundreds Of Beavers (2022) on Film Stories by Simon Brew
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Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro: “Museum Dis Duel” by Elliot Goldenthal from the DEMOLITION MAN soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 328: DEMOLITION MAN (1993) with Dan Nagan

05:57 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

07:59 - Dan’s thoughts

12:01 - The camp and political nose-thumbing of DEMOLITION MAN

22:30 - The signifiers of this future

33:29 - Stallone, Spartan, and self-awareness

41:56 - The world building

45:21 - Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix

58:24 - Favorite writing and bits

1:03:19 - The Junk Drawer

1:11:24 - Dan’s Detour: Trypardy (Trylove-themed Jeopardy)