Still Watching the Skies: Summer 2026 Bonus Episode “The Wrong Stuff”

It’s time once again for our annual summer special, and this year we have The Wrong Stuff. In 1983, Philip Kaufman assembled Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward and others to portray the men with THE RIGHT STUFF. But what happened when Hollywood tried to turn some of those guys into science-fiction and fantasy stars?

The answer, apparently, was Nazis fighting demons, the ancient Korean art of dodging bullets, and interspecies alien childbirth.

For THE WRONG STUFF, Cody, Robert, and Nat take a look at three adaptations starring alumni of THE RIGHT STUFF⁠ — each of which arrived with at least some hope of bigger things to come.

First up is Michael Mann’s THE KEEP, adapted from the novel by F. Paul Wilson. A group of German soldiers occupying a mysterious fortress in Romania during World War II inadvertently releases something very old and very unpleasant, eventually necessitating the arrival of Scott Glenn as the mysterious Glaeken. Along the way we get Ian McKellen, Gabriel Byrne, Jürgen Prochnow, Alberta Watson, an enormous stone fortress, and a Tangerine Dream score.

It sounds like a can’t-miss proposition. Instead, THE KEEP became one of the strangest entries in Mann’s filmography: an ambitious mixture of war movie, Gothic horror, fantasy, romance and metaphysics compressed into a famously troubled finished film. We discuss what survives of Mann’s original vision, the extraordinary atmosphere and production design, and whether a movie this obviously compromised can nevertheless succeed on the strength of its images and ideas.

Next, Fred Ward gets his chance at movie stardom in REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, an adaptation of Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s long-running Destroyer novels. A New York cop has his death faked, receives a new face and identity, and is recruited into a secret organization where the elderly martial-arts master Chiun teaches him the impossible art of Sinanju. Soon Remo is running across wet cement, dodging bullets and climbing around the Statue of Liberty while trying to uncover a defense-contractor conspiracy.

And that title wasn’t shy about the plan. THE ADVENTURE BEGINS was intended to launch a Bond-like franchise, with Bond veteran Guy Hamilton directing and Bond screenwriter Christopher Wood writing the screenplay. Instead, Remo’s big-screen adventure began and ended in 1985. We consider Ward’s wonderfully rumpled approach to an action hero, Joel Grey’s Oscar-nominated makeup and extremely questionable casting as Chiun, the movie’s spectacular Statue of Liberty set piece, and the strange appeal of watching a film spend two hours confidently setting up sequels that never arrived.

Finally, Dennis Quaid goes to space for Wolfgang Petersen’s ENEMY MINE, adapted from Barry B. Longyear’s Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella. Quaid is Willis Davidge, a human fighter pilot at war with the alien Dracs who crashes on a hostile planet alongside his enemy, Jeriba “Jerry” Shigan, played by Louis Gossett Jr. Hatred gradually gives way to cooperation, cooperation to friendship, and from there things get considerably stranger.

ENEMY MINE had franchise material available to it as well — Longyear eventually wrote additional stories in the same universe — but the expensive production became another one-and-done. We talk about Quaid and Gossett exploring a potential romance that was woefully missing from JAWS III, its obvious debt to HELL IN THE PACIFIC, and the surprising places the story goes once it moves beyond its initial “enemies forced to survive together” premise.

Did Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, and Dennis Quaid have THE WRONG STUFF for ’80s genre stardom? Or did Hollywood simply give them the wrong movies?

Summer’s not over; give us a play below or download the episode. Also, feel free to let us know what you think by commenting on our page at Facebook or you can Email Us at skiespocast@gmail.com as we appreciate feedback.