I was discussing Eighties family sci-fi movies - outside of latter Star Wars - with my son-in-law the other day. He'd seen Batteries Not Included with his son Moonbase Junior, which they all loved.
Its years since I've seen it but I do recall the basic story of a tenement under threat and the residents taking up ... robots. Not sure how the bots get involved but I remember a lovely film poster with small coloured lights flitting around an apartment.
Obviously we got to talking about ET, the grand-daddy of them all with more memorable lines in it than a Bay City Rollers single. If anything encapsulates what I think life was like in the US in the 80's its ET. The food, the homes, the constant activity, the low lights over the kitchen table, the clothes and the BMX bikes. It all seemed so perfect and yet ET fell terribly ill. Whether 80's America really was like it was in ET I will have to rely on our readers from the States to tell us.
Short Circuit was discussed a little too, the story of the gangly robot with a cute name that's gone AWOL. Other than that I just can't recall a thing about it.
I mentioned The Last Starfighter and said I'd never seen it although it has come up on the blog now and then. My son-in-law had never seen it either and given he's the right age to have caught up with it I wondered who actually saw this movie?
Have you? Have you seen the others mentioned here readers? Are there more family sci-fi flicks from the big hair decade?
Yes I saw it.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good movie, but was the first film to really try to replace model spaceships with CG ones and as such started the whole move from real to virtual.
They look video game like now, but were cutting edge then.
Wow! You've seen it Mish! Do you see it as part of the Tron school or Star Wars or both?
DeleteI think you would need someone from California to pass judgement on the accuracy of how society is pictured in ET. The modern suburbs pictured as Eliot's home were quite alien looking for me living in NYC. For reason's unknown to me ET is my wife's favourite SF movie possibly because she was born here and identifies to what I consider a situation comedy looking world.
ReplyDeleteFascinating Terran! Yes, those huge houses and slightly hilly open hedgeless roads looked alien to me but I must say they were very appealing when I lived in cramped Preston in the 1980's!
DeleteAren't they rebooting The Last Starfighter? Or a follow-up??
DeleteReally MJ?
DeleteI saw it after both Woodsy.
ReplyDeleteIt was after reading about it it in Cinefex, how it was done etc.
I went to see it and thought 'bloody hell' this looks 'real'.
But then nothing followed until Babylon 5 and Jurassic Park in the early 90s.
They were the real break for CGI.
Last Starfighter was the first film to really push the boundaries of CGI in film. Its a really good movie and the FX (although simple by comparison to todays and on a par with Playstation 2 cut scenes) are quite effective. The ship and alien design was done by Ron Cobb, who designed a lot of the Alien franchise hardware and some of the Cantina aliens. The zanDozan alien assassin is pretty cool in the live action sections and the characterisations are all excellent. Watch it with MB Junior and follow up with Flight of the Navigator!
ReplyDeleteShort Circuit is rubbish and so is the sequel. Batteries Not Included is a bit of an odd one, as its tempered with quite a sad, melodramatic backstory about dementia and loss. There are quite a number of great sci fi films which tend to be overlooked - 'Enemy Mine' with Dennis Quaid, 'SpaceHunter', 2010, Inner Space. There were also a hell of a lot of awful films attempting to cash in on the bigger films like Alien, Empire Strikes Back and Blade Runner.
ReplyDeleteIts worth browsing Ron Cobbs excellent website with examples of his beautiful production desin for the film and lots of other classics: http://www.roncobb.net/14-Last_Star_Fighter.html
ReplyDeleteThe Last Starfighter Gunstar is one of the coolest spaceships ever designed. There was talk of a sequel after Ready Player One came out in 2018 with all it's SF references and using vehicles and characters from SF pop culture. One of the characters even says a line from the Last Starfighter 'You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada'. Sadly it's gone quiet since.
ReplyDelete