Ah, Howard the Duck. The first Marvel feature film. Perhaps only George Lucas’ third most-hated product (after The Phantom Menace and The Star Wars Holiday Special), and having been massively outstripped in the “loss of money” camp by more recent high-profile bombs like The Lone Ranger and John Carter, 1986’s Howard the Duck is still referred to as one of the most notable turkeys of all time, having made, to date, only $16 million on a production budget of about $37 million; after 28 years, it still hasn’t recouped its losses.
More than that, Howard the Duck is a film that has become a touchstone of bad filmmaking, often referred to in the same breath as Ishtar or Battlefield Earth as one of the worst studio films of all time. It was so notorious that the film’s director, Willard Huyck, has not directed a film since, having only occasionally returned to writing here and there (he co-wrote the underseen The Radioland Murders in 1994, and a 2008 TV movie called Secrets of a Hollywood Nurse). Huyck had previously penned Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and American Graffiti, so it may be safe to say that Howard the Duck ruined his career.
But here at Trolling, it’s our job – indeed our moral imperative – to rush to the rescue of the indefensible. Let us cut through the hatred, the prejudice, the clouds of vitriol, and take a good look at Howard the Duck again. Let us deliberately reconsider it, analyze it, and try to come up with new conclusions. Indeed, let us consider, after some thought, that Howard the Duck is actually a pretty damn good movie. Indeed, let is postulate: Howard the Duck RULES! Here is why:
Is the film sloppy and dumb? Yes. But is it’s spoofy dumbness a misguided attempt as cross-genre pollination, or is it in fact the cleverest satire of all, having arrived a mere 25-30 years too early? I see a film that was creative, fresh, funny, and, most importantly of all, weird. A film that showed that producer George Lucas had more of a sense of humor than people give him credit for, and that the studio system was ready to back a comic book spoof. That audiences rejected it only proved that they weren’t ready for Howard the Duck.
Until next week, let the hate mail flow.
Witney Seibold is the head film critic for Nerdist, and a contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
7 Reasons Why Howard the Duck RULES!
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Anarchy
The most notable thing about Howard the Duck is its anarchic tone. This is a film, after all, about a sarcastic, horny duck man from another dimension who must eventually do battle with dark slimy lobster monsters. It features a topless duck woman, issues of “Playduck” magazine, and all manner of cartoon debauch in a universe that exists somewhere between reality and an Art of Noise music video. This sort of swirling creative chaos is great to look at, takes a lot of thought and design, and is sadly underused in today's ultra-clean digital modern idiom. The spirit of the thing is infectious and, dare I say, wicked fun.
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Some of the Spirit of the Comic is Alive
The 1970s Howard the Duck comic books on which this film is based were always a spoof of rather usual (and, even then, extremely tired) superhero tropes – it took a usual superhero origin story, but applied it to, essentially, Daffy Duck. But then it made Daffy Duck into an alcoholic jerk. And while there wasn't yet an established cinematic canon of Marvel superheroes (that wouldn't begin until 2008), the tropes were still lingering in the public unconscious, waiting to be spoofed. Some of the dark humor is absent from the film, but the spoofy silliness of the comics does occasionally poke its head through.
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How Far Are We from Howard Now?
And, if you think about it, how close are we to something like Howard the Duck in 2014? The recent wave of Marvel superhero films has been quickly growing sillier and sillier, and we've reached the point where audiences are legitimately excited about ultra-obscure characters like Batroc the Leaper and Rocket Raccoon. Indeed, with Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy in the pipeline, it seems that Marvel is slowly spoofing itself anyway. Howard the Duck was already around in 1986, and it seems like we might be pointed that way again. It wasn't bad or misguided. In a way, Howard was merely ahead of its time.
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The Special Effects are Awesome
Seriously awesome. Watch the film again, and fast-forward to the climax at the end, wherein the slimy lobster monster does battle with our heroes. That monster looks amazing by any standards, employing stop-motion animation, cel animation, puppets, miniatures, and blue-screen effects to really bring it to life. The design of the duck world is great, and the sci-fi stuff is unique. I admit that Howard himself doesn't look that great, but the rest of the movie does.
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Fun Soundtrack
Thomas Dolby produced the Howard the Duck soundtrack record, and Dolby co-wrote some of the songs with legendary film music mogul George Clinton. It is a wonder of New Wave rock, full of era-appropriate synth-heavy songs and fun pop tunes. Lea Thompson's character belongs to an awesome-looking band called Cherry Bomb, which you know you would pay good money to see in concert. And dig this: Carl Stalling (the composer behind the bulk of the Looney Tunes cartoons) is a credited musician. You can't really beat that.
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Jeffrey Jones is Great
Jeffrey Jones – his criminal record notwithstanding – was one of the great delights of cinema growing up. I liked seeing him in most anything, as he was a funny, energetic, crazy supporting actor who gave his all in bonkers movies, most of them directed by Tim Burton. And he was legitimately great in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In Howard the Duck, Jones plays a scientist who is possessed by an evil dark overlord from beyond the stars, and he slowly mutates into a creature over the course of the film. He gives one of the greatest unhinged performances of his career.
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Lea Thompson is Hot
Lea Thomson is one of the better-known sex symbols of my generation, and she has never been hotter than in Howard the Duck. She plays a spunky rocker chick who traipses around in some alluring and sexy '80s-era underpants to the extreme delight of audiences everywhere. Sure, it's a little gross that she wants to put the moves on a duck man, but you have to admit that Thompson makes the scene work.
