Iron Eagle: I-would you believe- IV

Last night, I caught a bit of Iron Eagle IV on cable. Have any of you guys followed what's happened in this franchise? I'm a fan of the original. Have it on DVD. It's a rousing, gung-ho 8O's rescue flick with Louis Gossett Jr. and Jason Gedrick.

In the beginning of the second film, Gedrick's Doug Masters is killed off as he's blown out of the sky by Russians. A real bummer. It seems, after the huge success of Top Gun, the producers of Iron Eagle 2 unwisely decided they wanted a more Tom Cruise looking lead, and went with some horrible actor who I've never seen in a film since. Anyway, Chappy leads a mission with this new guy and a team of Americans and Russians. I hesitate to say this flick sucked, but it's pretty bad. Has a few cool aerial moments.

I could never get through Aces: Iron Eagle III. Once again, Louis Gossett Jr.'s Chappy Sinclair is back, but this time, leading some mission with old-timers in old planes. What I've seen of it, it definately was the least of the 3 films.

Then, years later, along comes a straight-to-video Iron Eagle IV. How they got Louis back for this one, I don't know. Didn't see it all, but enough to see this is, by far, the worst of the series. Get this, they've written back to life, Doug Masters, only they couldn't get back Jason Gedrick, so they hired Jason Cadieux. With similar looks and a similar name, but not half the talent of Gedrick. So, Masters was shot down, but ejected in time and was held hostage for a number of years by the Russians. I didn't see the beginning, so I don't know how he got home. But he's all pissed off at Chappy for not attempting to rescue him. Chappy explains that they all thought he was dead. Anyway, cut to the end, there's some kind of flight school that Chappy teaches and Doug ends up in the air to stop a bad guy's jet from something. Some of the other kids get up in a pair of yellow planes. The aerial footage looks to be all stock footage from the previous films, except for the yellow planes. There's a scene where Doug listens to another tape from Chappy, but it's all executed awfully. Just horrible, but almost fascinating to see what a low this series of films has reached.

Are you a fan of the original? Or even some of the sequels? Which ones have you seen? Your thoughts?

 

I liked the original; it was on HBO a lot when I was a kid. I saw the Iron Eagle II and thought it was such a piece of **** that I didn't watch the subsequent episodes.

 

I saw the original film in theaters! But, I never thought it was any good at all.

 

It was one of my favorite films as a kid! I thought it would be so cool to live on a military base. I also liked the scene where they have a light plane race a motorcycle with that song playing "I'm old enough to Rock and Roll."

 

Never say die....IRON EAGLE
Never say never...Now or never
Never say die...Iron Eagle
Never look back...NEVER SAY DIE!

I loved that movie when I was a kid. Now....ehhhh....velveeta?

Here's a question.

Doug Masters in his General Dynamics F-16 Eagle
VS.
Pete Mitchell A.K.A. "Maverick", in his F-14 Tomcat.

Which of these pilots would be forced to hit eject?

"Talk to me, Goose."

"Chappeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!"

 

i liked the original. the sequels were watchable but not as good as the first. i even saw a movie that used stock footage from the original Iron Eagle and i luaghed my ass off when i saw it.

 

Glad to see the original has a few fans here. Definately a childhood favorite. Part of what makes the original work so well is the soundtrack. Like the song waheennay mentioned as well as "One Vision" by Queen, "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister, "The Road of the Gypsy" by Adrenalin and "Gimme Some Lovin" by the Spencer Davis Group. But not just the songs, but the great score by Basil Poledouris. Much like his music for Red Dawn, very effective score.

Right on, waheennay. That race through the Snake is a great scene to a cool song. "Keep jammin to the tunes cause you're zoomin."

Nice, Devilanse. A group called King Kobra did that rockin 80's end credits tune. As for who would eject fist, depends, does Doug get to have his trusty tape player?

Z-95, you're right. I think there's a couple of movies out there that use stock footage from Iron Eagle. A couple of low-budget Michael Dudikoff films, Black Thunder and Freedom Strike, use aerial footage from Iron Eagle and Top Gun, I believe.

 

Doug Masters in his General Dynamics F-16 Eagle

I believe you mean the F-16 Falcon. The Eagle, which wasn't used in the Iron Eagle movies, is the F-15.

The first is the best. One of my favorite movies as a child. The second is okay, and the third is kind of blah. I saw the fourth one in a movie rental store and was like, "Wait a minute, isn't he supposed to be dead?" Never picked it up, though.

 

The first is one of the quentessential 80's movies for me, featuring as it did, "Stiles" from Teen Wolf and "Lamarr" from Revenge of the Nerds!

 

Iron Eagle II.

 

I didn't see it. It would have been like in Karate Kid Part II, if Daniel-san had been killed off in the beginning.

 

Exactly. Doug Masters is the "Iron Eagle". It's ridiculous that they killed off the hero of the original within the first five minutes of Iron Eagle II.

 

I need some advice. My store is selling the original Iron Eagle. Only one copy. And it's going for about $7.50.

However, it's VHS, and I've practically forgotten how to use the VCR.

Should I get it?

 

For a $1.50 more, you can get it on DVD, jadesaber2. That way, you've got the better picture quality, the sound, and widescreen. It's $9.99 at most places that have it.