back when we learned about relationships from star wars

Sharing this link to a hilarious post I found on Death Star PR:

10 Rules We Can Learn About Dating From Star Wars

friday flick fix:walt disney's flight of the navigator (1986)

Walt Disney's

Flight of the Navigator ( 1986)
Directed by Randal Kleiser

For quite some time now, the blogosphere has been abuzz about a remake of the 1986 Disney Classic Flight of the Navigator, slated to be released this year. Flight of the Navigator happens to be one of my favorite childhood flicks. Though I've forgotten most of the details, the main storyline remained in my memory. To fuel the nostalgia, I decided to give it a re-watch.

I'm not so proud of this, but I viewed an illegally-acquired copy. You can't really blame me, alright? It's one of those hard-to-find old titles which are probably available only in video tape format. Besides, the world has had a shortage of VHS players.

So - I saw it again for the first time in more than two decades. It felt like being reunited with a friend from elementary school. After viewing, I concluded that the exact same movie that my seven-year-old mind classified as slightly dark and fast-paced actually wasn't. ^_^ The reason why I couldn't remember a lot of detail is because there actually wasn't much to it. It's a movie for kids after all. Synopsis here.

I also realized that the lab assistant of sorts - the older girl with the fluffy neon thing in her puffy, brown hair - was a young Sarah Jessica Parker:



Why I loved that flick then, and still remember it fondly:

• Well, for one thing, it was Disney. All children loved Disney.
  
  
• There was a kid in there.

• There was a sleek spacecraft, an alien robot that served as an AM/FM radio, and gross little extraterrestrial lifeforms.
  

• The CGI was phenomenal (for its time).
  
  One of the things I remembered the most was the metallic outer membrane of the craft. I thought it was pretty enough to wear around my neck, and I imagined it would be cold to touch.
  
  My favorite part has always been the appearance of the steps. I couldn't get over the fact that they looked solid and liquid at the same time. It was amazing too that they were suspended, with no obvious marks of what I called "camera trickery":
  
  

• Little me found the concept of time travel eerie, but intriguing.
• It had a sweet ending.

The moral lesson:
Don't go exploring into a dark wooded area alone, and especially do not go playing around with an alien spacecraft that might not take you back to the proper year.
And be nice to your annoying younger sibling because he might be your guiding light / saving grace in the future when he becomes older than you.


I've read some sentiments by Gen-X-ers over the rumored upcoming remake, and most of them think it'll unnecessary ruin their happy childhood mementoes, like many of the remade movies already have. I personally don't mind seeing a Flight of the Navigator 2011 with better graphics and a slightly more complicated plot involving Mulder and Scully types. But no thanks to a love interest for the 12-year old protagonist, if ever.

friday flick fix back to the future

Images from here.

The Hubby and I marathoned the Back To the Future movies a couple of weeks ago when we were experiencing jet lag. We agreed that an 80's sci-fi comedy with the likes of Michael J. Fox makes for good late-night company. ^_^ The last (and first time) we watched the three movies straight was around this time last year; I was supposed to write an entry in time for the 25th anniversary of Back To The Future (1985) in 2010 but some things came up and I hardly had any time for blogging.

So, anyway.

Robert Zemeckis' Back To the Future (starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd) was another one of our Betamax frequents when I was a school-age child. I think it was everybody's go-to Beta tape - can't imagine any '80s kid who never watched it at least once. Personally I'd memorized the details and bits of dialogue from watching it again and again and again.

Love the soundtrack too; Huey Lewis and the News were very hip in those days.

BTF was so flipping cool, with the cute guy dressed in a life-vest and sneakers; the cute girl in grandma's clothes, and the time machine dressed in a luxury car, and all the space-time jargon around the Flux Capacitor. There was an incestuous love-triangle-turned-love-square, but things ended happier ever after for the McFlys.

The DeLorean was a hot piece of automobile in the mid-'80s. It was streamlined (yeah, compared to the staple box-types) and supposedly ultra-modern. Its doors flipped upward like wings instead of opening the usual way, and that was ostentatiously, outrageously wyckid.


Logically, an amped-up DeLorean in a hip movie about time travel raised its popularity.

But it took only a few years for people to realize that those unconventional doors were massively inconvenient, not to mention unnecessary, so it isn't a wonder that we don't see cars like that anymore.


Michael J. Fox was like one of the hugest teen idols outside of the Brat Pack. Though at that time I think he was around a decade to old to be considered a teen, but he looked young and starred in a couple of youth-oriented flicks.

He was the original Teen Wolf (1985), a well-loved '80s classic that has now become another unfortunate victim of re-imagining (The original Teen Wolf was a wholesome comedy, by the way, for you kiddies who think everything you watch nowadays is original).

Something as big and as top-grossing as Back To the Future was sure to have a sequel, specifically since the last shot in the movie was superimposed with a huge TO BE CONTINUED. Back to The Future II (1989) thus came four years after.


Four years felt like a lifetime for a kid like me, but pleased as I was, I was half-surprised producers even bothered to grind out the sequel.

But -- Great Scott! What happened to Jennifer!?

Image from RetroJunk.com

Part II pulled a switcheroo, subtly slipping in a new actress for the same character. The whole last scene of the first movie was the first scene of the second, re-shot exactly as it was but with a different Jennifer. The new blonde who played Marty McFly's old girlfriend was Elizabeth Shue, who was later in Melrose Place, The Saint and Hollow Man.

I don't even remember who the original Jennifer was.

Something I do remember about this second movie was that it was nominated for (or did it actually win?) best visual effects. The particularly impressive scene was the one where Michael J. Fox played an aged Marty McFly, Marty junior and Marty junior's sister, all in one shot. Back then, that was an incredible feat of manual film editing.

Another bit that was so amusing about the second movie were the references to the first. Like for example that part where Marty McFly lies semi-conscious on a bed in the dark, being nursed by his mother. And all the 1955 scenes that make it into the timeline. I'd hate to retell everything here, but if you've seen both movies, you'd know what I mean.

A whole chunk of movie II was set in 2015. Seeing the flick for the first time in the cinema, we all probably thought the moviemakers did an amazing job of extrapolating what would happen thirty years into the future. Well I certainly did, and I even hoped hoverboards, smart homes and self-adjusting clothing really would come around soon.

Watching it again in 2011 - which really isn't that far from 2015 - all the "futurism" seems so ludicrous (but not in a bad way, mind you; it's still a comedy after all). For one thing, today's graphics are no longer so angular. Hover technology is still lightyears from becoming mainstream, and not even NASA's astronauts wear intelligent clothing.

On the plus side, the concept of video-communication is more or less consistent with today's goings on, except that we use the internet now instead of phone lines and Fax machines.

That Retro Cafe scene where Marty taught a couple of kids how to play a video game from the '80s - that's hilarious because it's quite spot-on that the little kids of 2015 would call it a baby's game. Video games today are a far cry from Marty's Lone Gunman, which was already quite advanced in 1985.

One of those kid actors was the young Elijah Wood in his first screen appearance (left) :

From RetroJunk.com

Other notable appearances: Before he was known as the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist, Flea was in the second and third movie as Needles.

Image from RetroJunk.com

Billy Zane of Titanic fame, also then a nobody but already cute, was one of Biff / Griff's henchmen (right, back):



Just as the first installment closed with TO BE CONTINUED, Part II finished with TO BE CONCLUDED, immediately followed by a teaser trailer of the third movie.


Part III came a year after II. For Marty McFly though, all these things took place within the span of a few days.

Marty and Doc continue their adventure in 1885. The DeLorean gets smashed after Marty gets home, Doc constructs a steampunk time machine with a train as a base. Marty develops character and therefore saves his future, and everything ends with a high note.

In my opinion, this is the least spectacular of the trilogy, but it does give some sort of conclusion.

------------------------

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned the Hubby and I had a bit of jet lag. Early June this year, we spent a week in California and one of the places we visited was Universal Studios, where much of Back To The Future was filmed.



On the studio tour, we were shown the set that was once used for the Hill Valley clock tower:

Photo mine

(which was also the courthouse for Liar, Liar and the town square for this period movie)

... and one of the prop DeLoreans:


And that concludes today's trip back to my childhood years. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

friday flick fix: labyrinth

It was 1986. My brother and I were so fond of this cool, new piece of electronic equipment, the Betamax. We had exhausted the collection of safe-for-children movies in the video rental store our dad usually brought us to, so we set out to conquer a new one. I had prevously noticed that just outside our village (behind the old Shakey's where Katipunan Avenue, White Plains Drive and Santolan Boulevard converged), was a small strip of business establishments. I had reason to believe there was a Betamax tape rental shop in there.

Ziba Miras the shop was called, I still remember. I later noticed that it was primarily a gift shop and the video rental just a sideline. The lady managing the shop wore a cloth over her hair; I thought at first she was a nun but realized she was Muslim. She welcomed us with warmly and accommodated our request for membership. She was quick to give us recommendations, and at the top of her list was Labyrinth.

The title neither attracted nor intrigued me; I dismissed it as something I probably didn't want to watch. But then the lady narrated a quick synopsis to my brother, who was more patient than I was. I managed to catch "... princess ... baby brother was captured by the Goblin-King ... Jim Henson's Muppets ... she had to solve the Labyrinth to save ... "

Solve the labyrinth? I was eight years old. What the heck was a labyrinth? I had this mental image of a girl hurriedly turning a huge 3-d puzzle piece.

But at hearing the words princess and muppets, I didn't mind renting it. After watching, I was not disappointed. I not only learned a new vocabulary word, but I entered into a magical world.

Movie Poster from here

Labyrinth (1986)
Starring David Bowie | Jennifer Connely
Directed by Jim Henson
Produced by George Lucas
Synopsis here.

I don't remember it ever making it to Philippine cinemas, but Labyrinth was my first-ever favorite fantasy movie.

Jim Henson was a genius. It was unbelievable. I don't think there was any fantasy world like it before. The story was like an Alice in Wonderland of sorts, but edgy.



In those days, computer animation was extremely difficult to execute, and I'm guessing quite expensive to produce, so this movie had none. They employed the old-fashioned way to do fantasy scenery - the same thing Lucas used for Star Wars: hand-paint a trompe l'oeil on a humongous panel of glass, place it in the background and light it from behind.

The only animated part was the opening billboard, which showed a graceful white owl gliding in the dark.

From here.

Of course that owl would now look jerky and angular, but in 1986, that animation was considered fluid and absolutely breathtaking.

The puppets and animatronics in there were phenomenal. To an eight-year-old, they looked almost real, except that that their faces were too gross.

I became an instant Jennifer Connely fan, though she didn't have many other movies at that time.


The pop-rock soundtrack was written and performed by David Bowie. Jump macic jump ... dance magic dance ...

And speaking of - David Bowie as Jared the Goblin King was legendary. It wasn't breakthrough acting, but he really sold the image. I'm pretty sure that a host of Gen-Xers still have this image of him cemented in their minds.

From here.

Okay. This look was utterly eighties. Long hair that was spiky on top, angular shoulders, ruffles, rhinestones and sparkly eye make-up. And don't forget the crotch-gripping tights (not shown here).

It may seem ludicrous now, but that glam-rockstar-crossed-with-a-drag-queen look was real hot back then. A lot of girls (even those my age) fell in crush with David Bowie because of his Goblin King role.

A bit of trivia: Bowie's look as Jared inspired the look of Dream /Morpheus in Neil Gaiman's Sandman.


Though Labyrinth never received much acclaim and was quickly forgotten, it remains one of my favorites. I've recommended it to some of our friends from the younger generation, and despite the lack of CGI and complex action sequences, they loved it.

Through today's swarm of '80s remakes, I have not heard about any hint of a Labyrinth rehash. Most of me just hopes filmmakers would just leave this revered classic alone, but a part of me is curious about how an amped-up, CGI-loaded, nu-metal sountracked version would look.

.

back when 'tron' was cutting-edge sci-fi

I've heard some rumors about it since last year, but I wasn't really sure until today when I finally saw the preview. Tron Legacy, the sequel to the 1982 Disney cult classic Tron, will be coming in December 2010 (So that means it'll show in Manila sometime January due to the annual Film Fest. Arrrgh).



Interesting that this sequel maintains not just the original characters but much of the original cast.

Seeing the Legacy trailer stoked my childhood memories. I told my brother that Legacy was coming in December, and he likewise got excited. I suggested that he torrent the original Tron so we could revisit it before Legacy comes out. Naturally he found comments from several gen-X geeks who were downloading Tron and were pretty much thinking the same thing.

Tron was all the rage for a while. I recall being in kindergarten when it came out. There was so much noise about it because it was so high-tech and was the first ever of its kind. I never saw it on the big screen, but I watched it with my brother several times on Betamax.

Tron '82 poster

It had quite an amazing story: a computer hacker got transmitted into an electronic world threatened to be ruled by a Master Control Program gone wrong. In his quest to defeat the MCP and save his own skin, he interacted with personified programs and took part in digital gladiator games. Back then, that was unique and edgy, served in what was considered to be a fast pace.

The predominantly electric blue animation was considered top-grade, visually stunning effects; the most unforgettable scene must have been the lightcycle battle. The innovative, cutting-edge graphics laid foundations for visual effects in movies and video games to come.

Trivia: Wiki says that Tron was denied an Oscar for visual effects, because it "cut corners" by using computers. Imagine that. That of course sounds ludicrous now since any and every movie with a hint of fantasy these days is expected to use CGI. I mean, there just isn't any other way to do it anymore.

For some reason, Tron was forgotten and buried within a few years. Possibly because computer-generated visual effects rapidly developed, leaving Tron far behind in such a short time. Still the film was held valuable by fans and geeks and movie lovers.

Almost thirty years later, the lightcycle race doesn't seem too impressive anymore - it's essentially a basic 2-d game with 4 directions and 90-degree turns, pretty much like a two-player game of Snake. The pace previously perceived as fast is now considered leisurely - even boring - in comparison to what crowds are used to these days. I won't even have to get into how primitive the animation already is.

1982 lightcycles (top) and a 2010 one (bottom)

In the Legacy trailer, I see that lightcycles and the light walls are still around - but with a wyckid, multilayered, 3-dimensional twist.

It's apparently an altogether different game by now. And oh - it seems darker, more sinister and not-so Disney pixie-dust family-fare.

I'm still curious though how the conflict would work, I mean without seeming too simple. It may not even be helped for viewers to identify its concepts with those in The Matrix (e.g., users getting sucked in and out, the personified programs, the quest to destroy a megalomanic electronic entity, and so on). I wonder of course how it would turn out - what's new, what's different, how would Disney repackage a very dated classic, what would be the kickarse gladiator game this time. I guess I'll have to wait until December to evaluate it for myself. The geek in me is pretty excited. I hope the movie won't disappoint.

Just another bit of trivia: The animators of the original Tron snuck a hidden Mickey in the background terrain. It wasn't that obvious since it went on for only a fraction of a second. Image from here.

back when tom cruise was a pretty pixie

photo from imdb

I just recently re-watched Legend (1985) a Riddley Scott fantasy starring a very young Tom Cruise, Mia Sara and an already-typecast Tim Curry. I must have been in fifth grade when I first watched it with my brother on Betamax. We rented it from the corner store managed by this real nice English-speaking Muslim lady. We were drawn by the way she described it - it seemed to my brother a fantasy-adventure movie (a hero + a lord of darkness + creatures + a quest), while it seemed to me like a little-girl flick disguised as a fantasy-adventure movie (a princess + a lover + a rescue, unicorns + fairies + sparkly things).

It's got this cute early electronica soundtrack featuring Tangerine Dream; it just fits well with the pixie dust and good intentions flying around.

Watching it again as an adult, I still find it to be kinda nice. I'll leave it on my list of favorite '80s flicks. I've got to admit it's way corny though. And a bit gay.

So it's not the best of its genre - not even close - though it would be redeeming to think of it as a kids' movie. It would be easier to forgive for its all dorkiness and cheesiness that way.

Then again if you think about it, it's somewhere up there among the most well-loved geek fantasy movies of the eighties, with Labyrinth, Willow, Neverending Story, The Princess Bride, Flight of the Navigator et al. Legend must be so likeable because it's so simple, so safe and predictable and um, so decent.

I recall telling a classmate about Legend after I first watched it back then. "What?," she exclaimed, "A Tom Cruise movie without any sex?" (Yes, ten year-olds can make that observation and actually know what they're talking about). I didn't know any other Tom Cruise movies then aside from Top Gun, and i wasn't even allowed to watch that.

Twenty years since, I've seen different versions of Mr.Cruise - including couch-bouncing Tom, the hardly-palatable drug-dissing one and the meltdown variety. It's kinda refreshing to see again a young Tom as the naive, everpure Jack. A romantic role that doesn't have a single hint of sex. This was small-time, pre-Top Gun, pre-stardom, pre-crazy Tom, of course. He must have been in his early twenties then; he wasn't so hot yet, but already cute. This Jack persona is the oh-so-pleasant antihero lover-boy, a breath of fresh air from the hunky, husky hero types of that day - the kind of main character that convinces me that this is indeed a little-girl flick disguised as a fantasy-adventure movie.

How cliche can you get with "kind, beautiful princess who likes loverly things"? But hey, they formula still works. I remember thinking as a kid that Mia Sara was so pretty. I sort of became a little fan but I didn't see her again until Ferris Bueller, and never again.

Tim Curry totally rocked as the lord of darkness. It would be considered a dorky role today, but what the hey, he did it justice. There wasn't much depth to it but he managed to play up an image that would conjure nightmares in little kiddies' heads at bedtime. Some geek movie buffs would say that it was his character that made the movie so memorable. I've come across some articles that say Curry in Legend was one of film's best Satans ever.

The themes of the story? True love prevails. The stuff of dreams can be real. And well, yes, good triumphs over evil, sparkly things over darkness. Stupid as it may seem now to my cluttered, discriminate, critical adult mind, I still think it's something a child can appreciate, and the child in me still thinks highly of it.