Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (Classic)

In this chaotic and self-aware episode of How Did This Get Made?, hosts Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas, and June Diane Rayfield dive into the bewildering sequel Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (a.k.a. Job's War), a 1996 film that defies coherence with its jarring tonal shifts, recycled visuals, and nonsensical plot. The trio dissects the film’s bizarre choices: replacing Jeff Fahey’s character with Matt Frewer (who plays Max Headroom), an inexplicable shift from a small New England town to a dystopian LA, and a confusing narrative where cyberspace is both a literal digital world and a physical realm. They highlight the film’s heavy borrowing from Indiana Jones, Ready Player One, and The Goonies, while mocking its outdated CGI, illogical logic (like TVs being used as surveillance tools), and the absurdity of a dog manipulating floppy disks. Despite the film’s failure on every level, the hosts find dark humor in its sheer audacity and embrace it as a cult artifact of 90s tech-fueled delirium. The episode itself becomes a meta-commentary on the podcast’s own struggles, with technical glitches, emotional exhaustion, and a shared sense of existential dread mirroring the film’s dystopian tone.