Rewatchables Reference

• The Cyrus speech – 'Can you dig it!' Five minutes of pure charisma that still works 40 years later.
• The Baseball Furies chase through Central Park – they come out of the subway, Ajax says 'what the fuck is that,' and they're running for a mile before the fight.
• The bathroom battle with the roller skating Punks – took five days to film.
• The ending on Coney Island beach: 'This is what we fought all night to get back to?'

• The world-building – the elaborate gang network, the coded DJ communication, the rules and systems. A precursor to John Wick's Assassin Network.
• Cyrus's speech as a political allegory – works for Trump, works for Obama in 2008, works for any charismatic leader who rallies people with style over substance.
• 'You guys are real good. The best' – a precursor to intentionally hokey, melodramatic but iconic action movie moments like Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers flexing.
• The soundtrack and Barry De Vorzon's score – that weird guitar just feels very '79.

• Ajax's language and sexual assault – though Sean argues it makes sense for a gang member in 1979.
• Cleon's death and the firing of Thomas Waites – the whole sequence feels ham-strung together because they literally rewrote it on the fly.

• In the book, all characters were supposed to be Black but Paramount wouldn't allow it.
• Tony Danza was supposed to play Vermin but got cast in Taxi instead – he's now a news anchor in Wappingers Falls, New York.

• Cyrus plays eight minutes, hits seven threes, and then comes out – his stats in that speech scene are off the charts.
• Luther (David Patrick Kelly) is the other contender – the 'Warriors, come out to plaaay' scene was apparently ad-libbed.

Luther clearly wins – he's going for it in every scene. In the convenience store, the shooting, the bottle-clinking. Even his reaction to getting a knife in the hand is absurdly dramatic.

• Thomas Waites was fired mid-production for feuding with Walter Hill, who rewrote the last 45 minutes.
• Tony Danza was supposed to be Vermin.
• The street-wetting technique by cinematographer Andrew Laszlo became standard practice.
• Deborah Van Valkenburg broke her wrist, hence the jacket.

• The Baseball Furies – nine guys whose whole gimmick is baseball bats – lose to three tired Warriors. All gimmick, no substance.
• No police or ambulances after Fox dies at Union Station.
• There's no way everybody can hear what Cyrus is saying – 900 gang members in a park, no real amplification.
• The Lizzies fire 19 shots in a confined space and miss everybody.
• The Turnbull AC's drive their bus right past the Warriors running to another entrance instead of just running them over.
• Luther's reaction to a knife in the hand – he goes down like he might die.
• Why do the Warriors only have nine members? Where are the others? Why not call for backup from a pay phone?

• Probably everybody in the movie except James Remar (48 Hours or Sex and the City might be his).
• Lynne Thigpen – Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, or Sesame Street, or Lean on Me.
• Mercedes Ruehl – though The Fisher King is probably hers.

Michael K. Williams would have been incredible – as the new Messiah leading the Gramercy Riffs, or as Cyrus.

Yes – Hulu and Paramount Television started developing it but it stalled. Each episode focuses on a different gang. The cell phone problem is the biggest obstacle; might need to set it pre-internet or slightly post-apocalyptic.

• Would a radio station with a DJ communicating in codes to gangs really have worked when the police could just listen?
• How long did Swan and Mercy stay together? Maybe a week.
• Did the Gramercy Riffs kill Luther at the end? Bill thinks they killed him slowly over many days.
• Ajax is probably dead within three years of this movie.

• Bill says Walter Hill – he created a prototype for everything good about action movies to come.
• Sean says New York City – the movie makes the city look like a dingy Crystal Palace, beautiful and ugly at the same time.
• Shea says Swan – a sweetheart who takes care of his people, smart, and not afraid to turn it up.