Infinite Schwarzenegger "Gear Up" scene

Fond as all civilized people are of 1980s action movie "gear up" scenes, it is often noted that Mark Lester's Commando contains the genre's highest point of achievement. In the 1985 classic, Arnold Schwarzenegger's protagonist conducts an amphibious landing on a tropical beach. Unbundling his cargo, it is revealed to be an astounding collection of weapons, all of which he attaches to his person in a perfectly edited montage of exaggerated gestures and sound effects. So excellent is it that its influence was felt immediately from B-movies to arcade games — and yet it lasts but 30 seconds.

Thanks to the magic of modern technology, this shortcoming may now be rectified. The above video offers a 12-minute remix of Lester's finest hour; courtesy of Infinite Looper, it may last forever.

• [Kyle Kilzer]

  Seriously… Double knot those laces.  They won’t stay tied otherwise

  • [malindrome]

    This is a funny post, Kyle, I like it.  That’s why I’m going to delete it last!

    • [Andrew Singleton]

      There’s just one thing.

      You Lied.

  • [Dan Hibiki]

     this is Arny we’re talking about, he tied those boots so hard the lases have fused at the molecular level.

• [Nadya Boone]

  Oh thank you for this.  Commando is my favorite bad movie of all time. 

  • [slone13]

     If you think Commando is a bad movie, you haven’t seen enough bad movies. 

    • [theviceprovost]

       You can NEVER see enough bad movies!  Ever seen, oh,… “Fiend Without a Face?”

                                                   Hail “Bob,” TVP

      • [Xfm]

         Fiend Without A Face is now a “bad” movie? It’s excellent, with one of the greatest SFX climaxes ever!

      • [Nathan Hornby]

        Satans Dog is my personal favourite bad movie.

        I watched one with a shark in some swamp recently (American, at a guess late 90s, had crocodiles and oddly undramatic scenes and amateur CG). It was easily as bad as Shark Attack 3.

• [Russell Letson]

  Had to do a bit of Googling to nail down the memory, but arming scenes go back at least to the Iliad and Odyssey. Google Books even kicked up a nifty chart of the Homeric sequences from David C. Rubin’s Memory in Oral Tradition. Everything new is old again.

  • [Ito Kagehisa]

     It’s usually called “the arming of the warrior scene”.  In Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth (I think?  Maybe one of his other turgid tomes) he traces this back to Gilgamesh and our earliest written history.

• [PhosPhorious]

  He could use a little more coal black on his face.

  And maybe another knife or two.

• [Felton / Moderator]

  You can never have enough.

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    You can have too much.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4xg9lyEhP8 

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    too much…
    http://youtu.be/HbfvfzpOP3k

    • [Quiche de Resistance]

      way way way too much!
      http://youtu.be/KHy7DGLTt8g
      keep fuckin that chicken!

      • [Felton / Moderator]

         I stand corrected.

• [MarcVader]

  If this isn’t art, I don’t know what is!

  Btw, I love it.

• [Flashman]

  Commando is a brilliant bad movie, and it also has that fantastic James Horner soundtrack

  • [slone13]

     Screw all this “bad movie” talk.  Commando’s a GREAT movie.  I ain’t afraid to say it, either. 

    • [Nathan Hornby]

      I often reach this conclusion with Nicholas Cage movies. Sometimes a good bad movie is just good.

• [theviceprovost]

  Dullsville, man.  I identify w/ the leisure suit dude checking his watch.  I dunno, maybe I just don’t find the nipples of a fallen CA governor exciting enough.

                                                Curmudgeony yrs, I am,

                                                 TVP

  P.S.  sometime check out the first flick (he admits to):  The Villain,”, w/ Kirk Douglas and Ann-Margaret:   serious “ROFL.”

  • [malindrome]

    “… the leisure suit dude checking his watch.”

    Uh, Arnold?  Dan Hedaya has somewhere to be after this, so if you could just hurry up and start the action sequence that would be super.

    • [Rob O’Daniel]

      Malindrom, I can SO tell that you said that in your very best Lumbergh voice. Great.

• [Joseph Francis]

  I don’t want to give away the ending, but you NAILED the dismount!!!

  • [theviceprovost]

     Well, as Chief Nerrrrvous Elk, wisely pointed out, Whiskey is the real star of the flick.

                                                  23, TVP

• [theviceprovost]

  Maybe this isn’t on topic to wherever this began, but I have to say Ahhnohld’s acting technique is fully developed in his first (acknowledged) flick.   From “The Villain” through “Conan’”, “Running Man,” “Total Recall,” und so weiter, he shows a consistency of … whatever it is he does… that is refreshing in a time when actors can be so perplexingly versatile.

                                                       Slack to y’all,  TVP

  • [Felton / Moderator]

    What, no love for Hercules in New York?

    • [theviceprovost]

       How could I forget… Arron Burr in the truly original Godzilla (Gojira)?

      • [Ernest Valdemar]

         No, no, that wasn’t Aaron Burr, it was the guy who played Perry Mason. What was his name? Oh, right: Alexander Hamilton.

• [Guest]

  deleted

• [theviceprovost]

  One more infamous “first?” S. Stallone in (yum) “Death Race 2000.” 

                                                   Later, TVP

• [rocobo9]

  12 minutes? seriously? has anyone sat through all 12 minutes?

  • [Strange Quark Star]

     I just did.

    • [Rob Beschizza]

      Christ, really?

• [hymenopterid]

  Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLix4QPL3tY
  That kid nailed the gear up scene.

• [Strange Quark Star]

  There isn’t anything like these old Schwarzenegger movies today.
  Why is that?

  • [jimh]

    Because first person shooters.

  • [devophill]

     Because Jeph Loeb mostly writes for TV and comics these days.

• [Dr. Laserfalcon]

  This is one of the seminal movie-watching scenes of my childhood.  I remember re-enacting it with a water-gun arsenal and an NES Power Glove-inspired cyber suit. 

  Re-Frequenced for you: http://www.frequency.com/video/infinite-schwarzenegger/51741175

• [Scratcheee]

  Is that Freddy Mercury in the living room with the chain mail vest?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    When did they release that version of Clue?

    • [Felton / Moderator]

      It must be from one of the alternate endings I never got around to watching.

      • [awjt]

         ”I’m going to go have sex with my wife!”

  • [RyanMFB]

     I refer to him as Bizarro Freddie Mercury, yeah

• [allium]

  FER CRISSAKES WILL YOU BLOW SOMETHING UP ALREADY?!

  • [Rich Keller]

    He’d blow himself up if he tied real grenades by the pins to his gear like that.

    • [Dan Hibiki]

       he’s magnetic like most FPS characters these days and can just stick guns, ammo or grenades to his body without the use of straps.

  • [malindrome]

    When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?

• [Frank Diekman]

  Gotta love the steel pans in the musical score.

• [Petzl]

  It’s a good first attempt.  But it ends too abruptly.

• [Andrew Singleton]

  Now make an infinite loop of the ridiculous over the top fight after this.

• [zarray]

  The grenade chimes were Pavlov-ian to me.

  • [Rob Beschizza]

    The sound effects in the original scene (linked in the post) are much better. They have some dark foley magic going on — ultra maximized and compressed, and sounding nothing whatsoever like the thing they’re supposed to represent.

• [Jonathan Donald]

  Just think what Jim Henson would have done with this footage!!!!

  http://boingboing.net/2012/05/29/jim-hensons-time-piece.html

• [RyanMFB]

  I love commando!

  totally gonna put my 15 minute version of the classic “Critters 2″ into these comments.

  • [Donald Petersen]

    Heh.  Critters 2.  Your Humble Narrator actually appears in Critters 2.  First shot on my reel.

    “They’re better than chocolate.  They’re carob!“

    • [RyanMFB]

      Ha no way! what was your role? if you don’t mind me asking

      • [Donald Petersen]

        Wasn’t really a role.  My dad and I show up as extras in the first wide establishing shot of Grover’s Bend.  We’re the ones tying up the banner for the easter egg hunt.  I’m the skinny one.

• [RyanMFB]

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3R5oyoqNLc

• [Jason’s Robot]

  I wish someone would collect all the ‘suit up’ sequences in “Dexter’s Laboratory” and put them end to end and/or re-mix them into a long view.