Hellboy 2: The Golden Army [2] Hellboy 2: The Golden Army [2]
Oct
09
2007

Twitch-O-Meter: Return of the Top Loading VCR Part 2!  The Heady Days of Adolescent Sci-Fi …

Posted by Todd Brown at 9:16am.

Posted in Twitch-O-Meter .

Yeah, I know, I already did my ode to the top loading VCR but I’m doing it again, this time with a slightly different focus.  A few weeks back I had the chance to catch Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps projected here in Toronto with Dekker in attendence and the opening sequence - the film starts with a space sequence before shifting focus - immediately threw me back to the early eighties and the days when teen and tween oriented science fiction was a genre unto itself.  Sure, Star Wars paved the way for a lot of more serious science fiction but it also opened the door to an enormous wave of sci-fi aimed squarely at kids aged ten to thirteen, the bracket I just happened to be in at the time.  And these films were just huge influences at the time, a major part of why I fixated on sci-fi and speculative fiction throughout my teen years and into adulthood.  Here are five of my favorites.

5.  The Black Hole.  No surprise here, given that the poster is front and center.  This one actually released in 79, when I was only six, and is the youngest skewing of the lot as a result but whether brought home from the video store, at a friend’s birthday party or playing on Sunday night’s Magical World of Disney, I must have seen this thing ten or fifteen times by the time I was twelve.  It was everywhere and I loved it.  I haven’t seen it in years and can only imagine what it would look like to current eyes but at the time I was blown away by the special effects, loved the robot and hey!  It even had Ernest Borgnine!

4.  Innerspace.  Dennis Quaid in his pre-drug induced meltdown prime and Martin Short teamed up for this, a late entry in the genre but one I thought was hilarious.  Quaid gets shrunk and travels through Short’ body, a scenario that’s been played out a few times since but for me this will always be the best of that particular lot.

3.  Rock and Rule.  It went on to become a sought after cult item in the US - and just recently got a primo DVD release - but at the time of its creation this animated heavy metal sci-fi picture got regular play on Canadian television thanks to the dominantly Canadian funding and I had images from it playing in my head for years before I figured out what it actually was.  See, it played a lot but it always played at odd times and so I ended up watching it in fragments and don’t think I ever saw it from start to finish until the DVD release.  I came to appreciate the soundtrack in later years.

2.  Starman.  A surprisingly gentle and shamefully overlooked entry in the John Carpenter canon, Starman was probably the first Carpenter film I ever saw and I’m fairly certain I caught in in the theater on its first run.  It’s probably the most mature of all the films on the list, certainly the best acted thanks to Jeff Bridges, and is just a case of a simple premise very well executed.  The subsequent TV spinoff was a pale imitation ...

1.  The Last Starfighter.  I wouldn’t actually see this film until years after its release - no particular reason, there was always just something that kept me from getting out whenever it was local - but for a few years there I swear I wanted to be Alex Rogan.  The trailer park dwelling Alex Rogan, not so much but the video game ace, star fighter flying Alex Rogan?  Damn straight.  I had the trailer memorized, I bought the novelization as soon as it released and wore the thing out in weeks and just generally lusted after the movie.  Which, thankfully, actually turned out to be pretty good when I finally did see it.

  • Digg This
  • Stumble It!
  • Reddit
 

Reader Comments

  1. Collin Armstrong 10/09/2007 @ 10:33am

    I know it’s terrible but I used to love SHORT CIRCUIT.  Couldn’t get enough of that movie.  Big seconds for THE LAST STARFIGHTER and INNERSPACE.

  2. Ard Vijn 10/09/2007 @ 10:37am

    What: no TRON? Although Last Starfighter more or less rectifies that.

    As for “The Black Hole”, that was an odd bag at the time and even more so now. The effects run the whole quality range from awful to stunning. Some things (like the fireball) still look amazing and are hard to imagine how they did that without computers.
    Definitely a movie which cripples its own awesomeness by going over the top, so it’s part serious SF, part pretentious semi-religion (is that an angel at the end?), part silly matinee fare, and a whole lot of stupid thrown together.

    Loved it as a kid and it scared me shitless as well.
    Loathed it later, but now I can look back on it with a certain fondness…

  3. Ard Vijn 10/09/2007 @ 10:39am

    And I really like Short Circuit as well upon release!

  4. Airchinapilot 10/09/2007 @ 10:53am

    Great list and more big ups for Tron and Short Circuit. Your a bit younger than me because I seem to remember around that time also Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2010: Space Odyssey Two and the ultimate nerd favourite of that era .. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

    Also a small correction. Martin Short was not the Keymaster. That was Rick Moranis.

  5. Collin Armstrong 10/09/2007 @ 11:08am

    KKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNN!

    Sorry.  Man, I love that movie.  Just re-watched it the other weekend!

  6. yipyop 10/09/2007 @ 11:30am

    Nice list, agree with them all. Gotta add Explorers, a personal fave despite the ill-advised direction it takes when the kids reach outer space.

  7. Airchinapilot 10/09/2007 @ 11:33am

    Did you have to bring up Explorers? I’m still disappointed decades later.

  8. Kurt Halfyard 10/09/2007 @ 12:25pm

    Have to mention “V” the TV mini, as it formed an important part of my child-hood sci-fi experience and made me a worshipper at the altar of MICHAEL IRONSIDE to this day - his character appropriately named “Ham” .  Loads of fun.

  9. Todd Brown 10/09/2007 @ 3:54pm

    HOLY CRAP!  How did I say Martin Short ... of course I meant Rick Moranis ... Owie ...

    And do I completely ruin my credibility if I confess that I have not, to this day, ever seen TRON?

  10. Todd Brown 10/09/2007 @ 3:55pm

    Oh, and Bladerunner is a total classic in my books and one of my top five or so all time films, as is Brazil, which also came out in this time period but I consider those much more serious ‘adult’ works and so excluded them from the list.  Nearly included My Science Project, though.

  11. jessekale 10/09/2007 @ 4:17pm

    Rick Moranis was no where near innerspace. Your confused innerspace stared Martin Short.

  12. Airchinapilot 10/09/2007 @ 5:11pm

    Then again Rick Moranis was in Honey I Shrunk the Kids which would be a good movie to include in this list.

  13. Todd Brown 10/09/2007 @ 7:36pm

    Holy crap.  SCTV has melted my brain.

  14. jessekale 10/09/2007 @ 8:25pm

    Looks like ya need to re-read your articles next time. But hey simple mistake.
    Now you know and knowings have the battle.

  15. Airchinapilot 10/10/2007 @ 12:22am

    Yo fucking joe

  16. Cinema-Suicide 10/10/2007 @ 9:53am

    I hate all of you people local to those Rue Morgue screenings.  I would kill a man to be able to go to those movies.  Just point someone out and I’ll make it happen.

  17. Rhythm-X 10/10/2007 @ 10:36am

    FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR.  One of the very best Disney live-action films of the 80s, right up there with NEVER CRY WOLF.  Some fairly early CGI effects may not hold up that well - it’s been ages since I’ve seen this.

    TRON - It’s far from perfect, but it was still way, way ahead of its time.  Eerily so.

    WRATH OF KHAN - made up for a drastically reduced budget with alarming levels of violence (for STAR TREK in 1982, anyway), intensity, and series-best performances from everyone involved.  This is absolutely not just for STAR TREK nerds, it’s the sort of meditation on the inescapable nature of aging and death that is completely universal… and would never make it into production today.  Too downbeat… under-40s won’t “get it"… that ending simply has to go… no, you couldn’t make this film at any Hollywood studio today.  More’s the pity.

    BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS - SEVEN SAMURAI in space, produced by Roger Corman, written by John Sayles with special effects by a young James Cameron.  This movie’s lots and lots of fun, and was always the best thing on whenever it happened to be on, which was all the freaking time.  James Horner’s score became the template for all James Horner scores to follow.  Corman still uses this score today in new productions - after all, if Horner can recycle it endlessly, so can Corman.

    Nice to see Canadians can be relied upon to give ROCK AND RULE the deserved love.  It was a regular on HBO back in the day in the US.

    WARRIORS OF THE WIND - Even butchered, loosely dubbed Miyazaki is still excellent stuff, as was demonstrated by this bastardization of NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND.  Not as bad as its rep by any means, it definitely ranked as a must-see whenever it’d come on HBO and Cinemax in the afternoon - for a while, this film was in pretty heavy rotation.  The first animated film to make me cry - that ending still gets me to this day.  NAUSICAA is just about perfect.  WARRIORS OF THE WIND is totally inferior, by which I mean it’s merely really, really good.

    Wasn’t wild about THE BLACK HOLE, but I was rather surprised that Disney - immaculately family-friendly Disney - let the filmmakers get away with what ultimately happens to Anthony Perkins.  Pretty raw for Disney at that time.  That’s actually the only thing I remember about it, other than not being particularly impressed.

    Feel like I’m forgetting lots of stuff, but oh well.

  18. Rhythm-X 10/10/2007 @ 10:39am

    Can’t believe I forgot FLASH GORDON.  Totally not suitable for all the kids who loved it which is part of its charm.

  19. Airchinapilot 10/10/2007 @ 1:57pm

    The only film I can add to the list at this point is Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine (1985)—a real old school story in which Dennis Quaid plays a human spacefighter pilot who crashlands on a planet along with the alien fighter pilot played by Lou Gossett Junior he must decide to fight or coexist with. Yes, this is really Hell in the Pacific but set in space (based upon the Hugo-winning story by Barry Longyear) but still is a fond memory from the all-to-brief space battle at the beginning to the gorgeous sound-stage set. There’s even a birth scene.

Post Your Comments

You must be a registered member to post comments.

If you have a Twitch account, click here to sign in.

If you don't have a Twitch account, click here to register. Don't worry, it's free!

Launch The Twitch Video Player

Stuff We Like

Shop at our affiliated sites and support Twitch while feeding your pop-culture addiction.

Our Latest Film & DVD Reviews

More Film & DVD Reviews...

Our Latest Interviews

More Interviews...

Recent Contests & Featured Content

Recent Comments