Danny Stewart's Saluting the Blood of Heroes: Behind the Apocalyptic Film

Cody takes a look at a new book about The Blood of Heroes and the apocalypse.

Last year, I read Danny Stewart’s book Soldier: From Script to Screen, a book that did exactly what the title promised, diving into the making of the 1998 sci-fi film Soldier through interviews with screenwriter David Webb Peoples and several crew members. Once the making of the film was thoroughly covered, the book examined the finished product with a story, theme, and character analysis, as well as a few reviews. So when I heard that Stewart had turned his focus to the 1989 dystopian sports movie The Blood of Heroes (a.k.a. The Salute of the Jugger), which was written and directed by Peoples, for a new book titled Saluting the Blood of Heroes: Behind the Apocalyptic Film, I expected this book to take the same approach as the Soldier book and be a deep dive into every aspect of The Blood of Heroes... but this turned out to be a book where I had to reset my expectations more than once.

Despite the title, Saluting the Blood of Heroes isn’t as focused on The Blood of Heroes as I thought it would be. Rather, it puts The Blood of Heroes at the center of an examination of the overall dystopian film genre. As Stewart says in his author introduction, “With this book, I wanted to explore the history and popularity of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in literature and media.” The Blood of Heroes is just one of many movies and books that are covered in this book’s 240 pages – but still, due to the title, I thought there would be a lot more The Blood of Heroes content in there.

Things get started with a 60 page overview of the dystopian genre, covering decades of works that told end-of-the-world type stories. Once that wraps up, I thought we’d be in for all Blood of Heroes content from then on, and for several pages that is the primary topic, with Stewart discussing the film, going over the “Jugging” game that’s played by its characters, and paying tribute to several cast members, as well as interviewing David Webb Peoples again. If you opened this book looking for behind-the-scenes information on The Blood of Heroes, the Peoples interview is the highlight, as Peoples reveals that Tony Scott was once in the running to direct the film. But it ended up in his hands, and it didn’t turn out the way he intended it to.

That section of the book wraps up at about the halfway point, and from there it’s back to looking at other dystopian projects. Reviews by John Kenneth Muir cover the films Rollerball, Quintet, Mad Max, The Terminator, The Running Man, and yes, The Blood of Heroes. Then we get a Blood of Heroes write-up from Eion Friel and dual examinations of The Blood of Heroes and Quintet and The Blood of Heroes and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, with a nod to the title film’s “commonality with the genre.” Since we were back in The Blood of Heroes territory, it was then jarring when a John Hansen review of the Philip K. Dick novel Vulcan’s Hammer was dropped in, followed by a Hansen review of 12 Monkeys. The book then switches over to a look at the film The Postman, with an interview with first assistant director Dennis Maguire. Then it’s back to 12 Monkeys with a look at the career of Terry Gilliam and a study of 12 Monkeys – and then that allows the book to wrap up with another interview with Peoples, accompanied by his wife Janet Peoples, who wrote 12 Monkeys with him.

The last several pages are taken up by The Blood of Heroes’ cast list, a list of dystopian films,  and the endnotes and index.

While Saluting the Blood of Heroes: Behind the Apocalyptic Film wasn’t the book I expected it to be, as I thought there would be a lot more pages dedicated specifically to The Blood of Heroes and that there would be interviews with more people who were involved with the film, it did have its interesting passages and it's a solid look at the genre of dystopian films rather than at just The Blood of Heroes. It felt a bit scattered at times and would have been structured better if all of the chapters covering certain subjects were together (for example, group all of the Blood of Heroes chapters together, let the Hansen review of 12 Monkeys lead into the 12 Monkeys content instead of putting the talk of The Postman in between), but it lives up to what Stewart says in the introduction. The book just might not have the most accurate title.