Small Soldiers (1998) on Netflix
PG-1319981h 50mActionAdventureComedy
A defense contractor fits two lines of action figures with missile-guidance microchips. Teenager Alan Abernathy unboxes their leaders, and the Commando Elite makes war on the Gorgonites.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.3/10111,482 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes48%
Trailer
Plot summary
GloboTech Industries, a defense contractor, buys the Heartland Toy Company. Its chief executive, Gil Mars, wants the toy developers Larry Benson and Irwin Wayfair to rebuild two existing lines so the figures can move and talk. Pushed to meet a deadline, Larry skips the safety tests and bases the programming on the X1000, a GloboTech microprocessor built for steering missiles that can learn as it goes. Alan Abernathy, whose family owns a toy store, opens a shipment and takes out the two leaders: Chip Hazard, who heads the Commando Elite, and Archer, who leads the Gorgonites. Archer rides home in Alan's backpack, and Alan discovers the toy is aware. The Commandos attack the Gorgonites and wreck the store.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Small Soldiers (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Joe Dante said he was originally told to make an edgy film for teenagers, but once toy-company sponsor tie-ins came in he was told to soften it into a kids' movie, so the film was stripped of much of its action and explosions right before release.
- In 2000, filmmaker Gregory P. Grant sued Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks Pictures and Universal Pictures, claiming Small Soldiers infringed his 1990 short film Ode to GI Joe. Grant had met Amblin Entertainment in 1991 about expanding it, but said Amblin dropped his project, then put another film, at the time titled Toy Soldiers, into development a month later.
- Burger King's line of Small Soldiers kids' meal toys met controversy when the film was given a PG-13 rating; executives said they had been led to believe it would be no higher than PG. Joe Dante put the rating down to the scene in which the Commandos put drugs in Phil and Marion's drink.
- The original idea was to use mostly puppets provided by Stan Winston, but Dante found while shooting that it was much simpler and cheaper to use computer-generated imagery after the scenes had been shot, so the finished film is one-third puppetry and the rest CGI.
- The Commando Elite toy soldiers are voiced almost entirely by cast members of the 1967 film The Dirty Dozen, with Dern stepping in for Dirty Dozen actor Richard Jaeckel, who died before shooting began; the Gorgonites are voiced almost entirely by the cast of 1984's This Is Spinal Tap.
- Small Soldiers marks the last on-screen film role of Phil Hartman, who died two months before the film's American premiere, and is dedicated to his memory; it was also the final film role of Clint Walker before his retirement.
- The 2020 shooter game Hypercharge: Unboxed, developed by Digital Cybercherries, drew its inspiration from Small Soldiers; the development team conceived the idea for the game while watching the movie on television.
