My family has a love affair with the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Every family has its own unique traditions, and one of ours is to settle down for a viewing of Fiddler every Thanksgiving after we have gorged ourselves on turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and my mom’s famous blackberry pie.

Thus I was somewhat surprised to find that Topol, the actor who plays the lead character Tevye the milkman in Fiddler, also has a prominent role in Flash Gordon. Topol plays Dr. Hans Zarkov, an eccentric scientist who is ridiculed for his theories about the destruction of the Earth by an unkown entity. As I watched the film I kept expecting Zarkov to break into a jig and belt out an invigorating rendition of “If I Were a Rich Man” or “To life! To life! L’chai-im!”. So it was a little difficult for me to take Zarkov’s character seriously in Flash Gordon.

Actually it was hard for me to take anything seriously in Flash Gordon. And that is the beauty of the movie - it is an unabashedly campy, over-the-top film. Starring Sam J. Jones as New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon, Melody Anderson as Dale Arden and Max von Sydow as the evil Emperor Ming the Merciless, Flash Gordon is the lastest movie that I am happy to add to my “So Bad It’s Good” collection.

Flash Gordon begins with Ming the Merciless, Emporer of the kingdom of Mongo, who decides to wreak havoc on the utterly unimportant planet Earth out of boredom. The Earth is beseiged by a series of natural disasters, including huricanes, typhoons, meteor storms, tornadoes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions… not to mention the deadly hot hail and the dastardly strange craters in the wilderness. This turn of events forces a small airplane carrying Dale and Flash to make an emergency landing, and they manage to land safely in Dr. Zarkov’s laboratory. Zarkov tricks them into launching into outerspace in his rocket so that they can confront the evil entity that is convinced must be attacking the Earth.

The trio lands on the planet of Mongo, ruled by the evil Emperor Ming the Merciless. Ming rules with an iron fist, and by encouraging feuds between the rival kingdoms in his domain. Ming puts Flash to death, but he is promptly resurrected by Ming’s spoiled daughter Princess Aura (Ornella Muti) who smuggles him out of Mongo and tries to seduce him.

Flash and Aura travel to the Kingdom of Arboria, where Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) imprisons Flash in a cage lowered into a foul swamp. Flash relies upon his wits and manages to escape from Arboria, only to end up in the Kingdom of Prince Vultan (Brian Blessed) and his flying hawkmen. Eventually Flash manages to get the feuding princes Vultan and Barin to work together to overthrow Ming. They all travel back to Mongo, where they interrupt Ming’s wedding to the reluctant Dale and save the day. Oh, happy day! Cue - Flash Gordon theme song!

And what a theme song it is. One of my favorite aspects to Flash Gordon is the soundtrack, entirely composed by Queen. The iconic theme song is the anthem for the entire fim - “Flash! ah-ahh! Savior of the Universe! He’ll save everyone of us! Flash! ah-ahh! He’s a miracle! King of the impossible! He’s for everyone of us!” After watching the movie now I’m just itching to get my hands on the Flash Gordon album.

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would’ve hidden from it in terror. ~Ming the Merciless

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Some movies from the 1980s stand the test of time, and some, sadly, do not.

The other day, for lack of anything better to do, the RollerBlog family took a chance and settled in for a viewing of the movie Short Circuit (1986). The movie was free on cable, featured a robot in a prominent role, and starred Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club. Sounded like a safe bet.

Wrong! The Robot is entertaining enough, and even occasionally endearing (Number 5 is alive!), but that’s about all the movie has going for it. The acting in the movie is terrible, and Ally Sheedy’s performance is downright cringe-worthy. Short Circuit is definitely a movie that has not stood the test of time.

Having grown up during the eighties, though, I can’t always trust my own judgment on such matters. So, I turned to my son (who just turned 12 last week) for a truly unbiased opinion.

RollerKaty: So… what did you think of Short Circuit?

RollerBoy: Wow, Mom. That was a really bad movie.

RollerKaty: Yeah, it was pretty bad wasn’t it? Sorry about that.

RollerBoy: I don’t see how you could have thought that was a good movie when you were a kid. Even I know that was a bad movie.

RollerKaty: …. (embarrassed silence)

So it was with some trepidation that we introduced RollerBoy to another Sci-Fi classic: Tron.

Tron stars Jeff Bridges as Flynn, a genius computer programmer who gets sucked inside the computer system of his former employer ENCOM. He must traverse an alternate electronic universe populated by computer programs and defeat the villainous Master Control Program before he can return to his own reality.

Mr. Rollerblog and I both have fond memories of watching this movie many years ago. I remember thinking that this was possibly one of the coolest movies *ever* in the eighties. Who couldn’t love a movie about video games?

But there was the matter of the special effects to consider. The computer-animated graphics, although groundbreaking at the time, are positively primitive now. I wasn’t exactly sure how well the special effects would hold up 25 years later - especially to someone who was born 14 years after the movie came out.

So we watched the movie. Then came the moment of truth.

RollerKaty: So… what did you think of Tron?

RollerBoy: I thought it was pretty cool.

’nuff said.

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Those of you growing up in the Bay Area during the late 1970s may remember this gem: Captain Cosmic!

Hosted by Bob Wilkins in a dashing super-hero outfit along with his trusty sidekick Wonder Robot 2T2, Captain Cosmic aired every weekday on Channel 2 out of San Francisco. The show introduced young audiences to sci-fi television episodes such as Ultraman, Godzilla, Thunderbirds, and most notabley, Star Blazers. Real fans could join the Captain Cosmic Fan Club, complete with a membership card and the Captain Cosmic Secret Crypto Code.

Thanks to wngl for suggesting that I introduce this long-lost seventies television show to RollerBlog readers everywhere. If you have a seventies gem to suggest, feel free to drop me a line at rollerblog at gmail dot com (or, if you are member of Entrecard, feel free to message me using the Entrecard messaging feature).

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I have discovered the worst seventies movie of all time. This one makes The Star Wars Holiday Special and Xanadu look like Academy Award material.

Horrible special effects? Check.
Picture toy spaceships floating across a black backdrop with Christmas lights poked through a few holes and you have the general idea. Then repeat.

Atrocious dialog? Check.
“Fourth dimensional attack!” “Go now, quickly. The survival of the galaxy is in your hands!” And this is only a taste of the brilliantly bad movie quotes from this film.

Unfortunate B-Movie Sci-Fi Fashion? Check.
Our heroine spends half of the movie running around in a bikini that seems to be made out of electrical tape. And she still manages to sport a jaunty turned-up collar. Not to mention the prevalent use of capes and codpieces. I didn’t know women could even wear codpieces.

David Hasselhoff? Check.
Need I say more?

Put it all together and what do you have? Starcrash, a 1979 Italian film that is the new crown jewel in my “So Bad It’s Good” movie collection.

The movie begins with Anton (Marjoe Gortner) and Stella Star (Caroline Munro) as they pilot their ship through space. They are smugglers on the run and, unfortunately for them, they are caught and thrown into prison. But their luck is about to change. The Emperor himself frees our adventurous heroes from a lifetime behind bars and sends them on a dangerous mission to destroy the evil Count Zar Tharn, and also to rescue the Prince of the Galaxy.

So Anton and Stella set off on their adventure with their erstwhile captors, Thor (a hulking bald green man) and Elle (a neurotic robot with a Southern accent). Their first stop is a planet inhabited by Amazon-like women who are loyal to the evil Count Zar Tharn. Stella and Elle escape the clutches of the Amazon queen only to be pursued by an enormous female giant that is brought to life by the magic of … claymation! (The best part? The Amazon Queen commands the giant by shooting lasers out of her eyes, a la laser cats).

In the next part of their mission, Elle and Stella find themselves stranded on a desolate, frozen planet. Thor has defected in order to “join Count Zar Tharn as the Prince of the League of Darkness.” In a touching scene, Elle and Stella confess their robot-human love for one another:

Stella: Elle, as an opponent I always knew you were programmed to never give up which was infuriating. But now that quality must be (sic) best. You’re the most faithful companion a woman ever had.

Elle: And I too respect you, Stella. You’re the nicest human being I’ve known. Now maybe is a good time to use your ancient system of prayer, and hope it works for robots as well.

Stella: Good-bye, my friend.

I hate to break it to you, but that is not the end of the movie. Our heroes escape to yet another planet, where they are set upon by viscous club-wielding cavemen. Stella is rescued by a mysterious man who shoots lasers out of his eyes. The man turns out to be none other than the Emperor’s long lost son Simon, played by a fresh-faced David Hasselhoff. After a journey to the planet’s core, our heroes meet the evil Count Zar Tharn himself and must battle with his claymation robot henchmen. Zar Tharn escapes, and by a miraculous turn of events, the Emperor shows up and commands his Imperial Battleship to halt the flow of time so that they can flee the planet before it explodes.

At this point in the movie I couldn’t help but remarking that if the Emperor can halt the flow of time, why didn’t he freeze time earlier in the movie and prevent Count Zar Tharn from committing such dastardly deeds? To which Mr. Rollerblog suggested that the Emperor would have been better off halting the flow of time before the movie began so we wouldn’t have had to watch it in the first place. (Ha! We jest. We love this movie. Really).

But I digress. After escaping from the exploding planet, the Emperor and Count Zar Thorn engage in an epic space battle. The Emperor shoots torpedoes into the Emperor’s starship - not filled with explosives or bombs, but with guys who jump out and fire laser guns! Not surprisingly, this tactic is not a success.

The Emperor and Simon are then faced with no other choice; they must use their secret weapon. Star Crash! The fourth dimension! To pull this off, Stella must pilot a floating city on a collision course with Count Zar Tharn’s ship. Now, I’m not really sure what this has to do with the fourth dimension, but who am I to question the wisdom of The Hoff?

So, there you have it. My new favorite terrible, horrible, awful, and therefore, AWESOME, seventies movie of all time. Intrigued? Check out the movie trailer:

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2.5

Image from the SciFiPedia

I admit it. I’ve never watched Battlestar Galactica.

I know. It is somewhat shocking, being that I am a bit of a Sci-Fi nut.

So I decided it was time to remedy this lapse. I’ve never watched the version currently airing on the Sci-Fi channel or the original 1978-1979 Battlestar Galactica series, so we are beginning with the original series.

So far we have watched the pilot, Saga of a Star World. What have I learned? Cylons are bad. People are good. Well, most people (Count Baltar, who betrays the human colonies to the Cylons, and Sire Uri from the Council of Twelve aren’t very good people). I also learned that the pilot episode is extremely long. I wasn’t prepared for a 148-minute episode that was really more like a movie. By the time we were 60 minutes in, however, we were hopelessly sucked into the show and none of us went to bed on time.

I am looking forward to the rest of the season. The next episode in the queue is entitled Lost Planet of the Gods. Should be a good time.

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2.5

And now it’s time for your weekly dose of sci-fi goodness, straight from the seventies to you.

Dark Star, directed by John Carpenter in 1974, takes place in the 22nd century. The movie tells the story of four men who are traveling through outer space on a brave and fearless mission to make the galaxy safe for colonization. Their objective? To identify unstable planets and blow them to bits with bombs.

After three years of spaceflight (the equivalent of 20 years back on planet earth), the crew members on board Dark Star are cranky, stir-crazy, and getting on each other’s nerves. The ship’s commander was recently killed in an accident and has been placed in a cryogenic deep freeze. In the wake of his departure, the remaining members of the ship’s crew squabble and make poor decisions which eventually lead to … <warning spoiler alert!>

…Ha! joking. We’ll you’ll have to see the movie to discover what eventually happens. But suffice it to say it is a very slow-paced film with seemingly random plot twists thrown in that just seem a little… weird. This is probably due to the fact that Dark Star originated as a 45-minute film school project by John Carpenter, and was later turned into a feature-length film by adding additional footage.

It is precisely the low-budget, bizarre aspects to Dark Star, however, that make it a fun movie. In one excruciatingly long scene, an unruly pet alien escapes from his cage and wreaks havoc on the ship. The alien is obviously nothing more than a large beach ball with feet stuck on the bottom. In another scene, one of the ship’s crew members dons a spacesuit in preparation for a spacewalk on the ship’s exterior. Upon close inspection, the suit’s breastplate looks suspiciously like… a muffin pan spray-painted with silver paint.

So sit back, grab a muffin, and enjoy a low-budget seventies sci-fi flick that definitely qualifies for the “So Bad It’s Good” award.

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2.5

This weekend we packed the family in the car and headed to the Experience Music Project (EMP). We saw some some cool guitars (including two that belonged to Jimi Hendrix) and a hands-on musical lab where we got to learn how to harmonize with Heart.

Good times.

But the best part about the EMP is its sister museum which is located right next door: the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Needless to say I came home with a poster of Chewbacca, a button with a picture of Darth Vader that says “who’s your daddy”, a Star Wars logo air freshener and an old-school Star Wars patch featuring Luke, Han, and Leia.

Not to mention a postcard of the Governator in full Terminator regalia (complete with black leather jacket and ammo!), a plastic bendable alien, and most importantly, loads of happy memories.

I am officially the biggest nerd of all time.

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2.5

It’s no secret that I’m somewhat intrigued with the science fiction genre. SciFi movies, books, television shows, action figures, the occasional wall calendar… you get the picture.

(This is actually a new obsession for me - five years ago I devoured mystery novels like they were made out of dark chocolate. Maybe in a few years from now I’ll be on to bodice-ripping romance novels - who knows?).

Thus it was with great interest that I read a recent article in Entertainment Weekly by Mark Harris entitled “Is Sci-Fi Out of Ideas?”

In the article, Harris worries that science fiction is in trouble, because none of the ideas are getting any newer. In fact, the fans of SciFi are so caught up in nostalgia over the past that they are in effect causing the demise of the genre. Harris states:

It’s one thing to revere and refresh a genre’s history; it’s another to live obsessively in the past, especially if science fiction’s whole purpose is to extrapolate elements from today’s world to create a future we’ve never imagined…Perhaps science fiction needs to be saved from the very people who love it the most. Nostalgia for a form can be annihilating to creativity, so while its devotees are swamped in their own canon, trying to mine now-sacred texts for any new material, I wish a great writer or director with no particular affection for the genre would let his imagination loose and see what it yields.

That gave me pause, as I suppose I could be considered a culprit of perpetuating the cult of nostalgia. I don’t disagree that it would be cool to see some brand-spanking new ideas in the genre. But in the meantime I’m going to go on ahead and obsess about the utterly silly, ridiculously tacky, and outrageously weird SciFi from the past.

Because, really, how can we truly appreciate the future until we are fully acquainted with our past? Especially when the past is so much fun?

Tags Science Fiction . Entertainment Weekly

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When I announced to my husband Adam that I was going to only watch movies from the seventies for the rest of the summer, Adam did not weep, gnash his teeth, or immediately enter his name into one of those wife-swap reality TV shows. Rather, the first thing out of his mouth was: “We have to get the movie THX 1138! I totally remember watching that movie when I was a kid - it is sooo cheesy!”

So, I put my name on the waiting list at the library, and oh joy!, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy after only 3 days of waiting. (Not so with Abba’s greatest hits. The waiting list on that one is so long that I’m afraid I won’t be listening to that one until next spring). Originally released in 1970, we got a copy of the director’s cut version which was re-released in 2004. This is George Lucas’s first movie and it is based on a school project that he completed while in film school.

I didn’t know anything about the movie before we started watching it, and as we progressed into the movie I kept experiencing flashbacks to the subject of my last blog post, Half Past Human. Futuristic dystopian societies, group think, robots, big brother watching your every move… apparently I am on a roll here.

THX 1138 Directed by George Lucas

In the futuristic society depicted in THX 1138, humans are required to take drugs in order to suppress any undesired emotions. As the film begins, humans are reminded “If you feel you are not properly sedated, call 348 844 immediately. Failure to do so my result in prosecution for criminal drug evasion.” It is a bland, emotionless world, where everyone is bald and herded from home to work and back again. Consumerism is a major part of this society and everyone is encouraged to buy, buy, buy. There is no privacy; all activity is closely monitored by robots and humans alike. (Incidentally, the robots are AWESOME. They look like metallic cops. I think that I have to be one next Halloween.)

Enter our reluctant hero, THX 1138 (played by Robert Duvall). His roommate, LUH 3417, is an attractive female who falls in love with THX after she resists taking the emotion-suppressing drugs. So she swaps out his drugs behind his back, and, after a period of disorienting drug withdrawal, THX falls in love with her. To further complicate matters, SEN 5241 (played by Donald Pleasence) decides that he wants THX for his own roommate so he hacks into the computer to get rid of LUH. This puts SEN and THX at odds, and soon all three of them are in prison for their misdeeds. The rest of the movie documents their time in prison, and their attempts to escape (with the help of a hungry hologram and an exciting car chase at the end of the movie).

THX 1138 is a very stylized film; the visuals and sounds are stark and discordant in order to bring you directly into THX’s futuristic world. Hardly any dialog is used in the movie. George Lucas explains in the film’s commentary that the movie is not meant to be a film about the future, but rather a film from the future. Each scene has a distinct pacing so as to bring the viewer into the same frame of mind as the characters - sometimes jarring and frenetic and at other times hazy and disorienting, and yet at other times cold and emotionless.

My favorite scene of the movie takes place after THX is imprisoned and put through a battery of medical tests. Sensors are implanted onto his body and he is placed in a white, seemingly endless void. The scene then cuts to the perspective of two technicians as they perform tests on THX and carry on a conversation with one another. We do not see the technicians, but we do see THX through the monitors. The technicians dispassionately converse with one another as THX writhes and contorts on the screen. The whole scene underscores the inhumanity of the society, and THX’s powerlessness in the face of such a dystopia.

So, not nearly as cheesy as I had expected. I think I need to watch it again. In fact, I think we need to own this movie.

Tags THX 1138 . George Lucas

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I picked up the book Half Past Human for free a few weeks ago at a bookstore. That’s right; they were giving the book away. I couldn’t resist the tagline on the front “Awakening to manhood is deadly when your whole world is watching,” or the back cover which read:

Get Yourself a Female! It was a direct order. Tinker was a Good Citizen of the hive, he had no choice. The time had come to give up his neuter status and become polarized. The Big Earth Society wanted Tinker to mate. But no one had prepared Tinker for sexual activation, nor for a woman like Mu Ren. From that moment on, Tinker was no longer a Good Citizen of the hive. Suddenly Tinker knew he wanted more. He wanted out. Tinker had become a man…

Wow. This book promised to be the cheesiest book ever. I couldn’t wait to get it home and start reading.

Half Past Human by T.J. Bass, c. 1971

The year is 2349. The Earth’s citizens have evolved into a species with four toes called the Nebish. Over three trillion Nebish live underground in crowded shaft cities, subsisting on tasteless protein bars and the occasional flavored food. Few Nebish will risk going aboveground to be baked alive by the sun’s rays. The Hunters, armed with protective gear and drugged into a blood-thirsty frenzy, are the only ones who travel Outside to hunt the five-toeds and to protect the crops tended by machines.

Buckeyes, coweyes, and jungle bunnies are the hunted. This species has five toes on each foot and ekes out an existence on the Earth’s surface. These aborigines live primitively and use stone tools to avoid the metal detectors of the Huntercraft. There are only one million five-toeds left on Earth, and their numbers are slowly being depleted by the Hunters who bring their lifeless bodies back to the shaft cities as trophies.

To control the population and to suppress the bad five-toed gene, the Nebish are not allowed to mate without authorization. When Tinker, a mechanic who maintains the Huntercraft, and his wife have a son with five toes, they decide to flee Outside rather than face the anguish of losing their son to the garbage chute. Once Outside, they join a band of buckeyes who are determined to flee from the Hunters and to journey to the paradise promised by Olga, a mysterious deity. Unbeknownst to Tinker and the members of his new tribe, buckeyes around the world and even some Nebishes are rallying as if an unseen force is guiding their actions…

—

So… my take on this book is that it is not nearly as terrible as I first thought it would be. It was actually fairly engaging… once I got past the first 100 pages or so. As noted in this review in the SF Signal, the book’s writing style is extremely difficult to follow. Between the obscure medical terminology (T.J. Bass is a physician) and the terms invented by Bass to describe aspects of life in the future, I had a difficult time following the narrative in the beginning. Even more frustrating is Bass’s penchant for frequently switching perspectives between characters and even inanimate objects without adequate warning - especially with the introduction of new characters. I kept finding myself re-reading pages, trying to determine who was doing what.

However, once I got into the rhythm of the book, I was interested enough in the plot to keep reading. The book raises some intriguing themes - population control, ecology, intervention of technology in the gene pool, artificial intelligence, and utopian/dystopian societies to name a few. I am interested enough that I will probably read the book’s sequel The Godwhale. As attested to by this blog post and this review on the Strange Words web site, Half Past Human certainly has a rabid fan base, and the book even was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1971.

So, go figure. Although I still think that no book should take 100 pages to get into, in this case I’m not sorry that I read it. I guess in this case the lesson is “don’t judge a book by its cover,” as the cover really has nothing to do with the actual book. But the cover does take the cake for being one of the cheesiest covers of all time…

Tags Half Past Human . T. J. Bass

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