Child Of The 1980’s

For a film aimed at kids, An American Tail is surprisingly full of historical references, human prejudices and the pain and suffering of those less fortunate. Released in 1986 it was produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Don Bluth, the well known animator who outside of the efforts of the Walt Disney company is probably the most successful name in traditional animation alive today.

The film tells the story of young Jewish mouse Fievel Mousekewitz, whose family have fled their home town after it was invaded by Cossack soliders during the Serbo-Bulgarian war in 1885, which leaves them easy prey for the cats in the area. They board a ship headed for America, which at that time was seen as a place of great hope to the poor people of Eastern Europe and Russia. The mice wrongly believe that America is free of cats, and that the streets are paved with cheese, which isn’t far from what humans in a similar predicament thought at the time - just substitute cheese for gold and your probably a bit closer.

All seems good until the ship is approaching America, when a storm causes Fievel to be separated from the rest of his family. Fievel finally arrives in New York City lost and confused, and is taken in by a rat named Warren, who says he will help him out. Warren’s help is anything but, and Fievel ends up working in a sweatshop. Eventually, accompanied by his new friends Tony and Bridget he manages to escape, but things aren’t much better with his new found freedom.

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Looking back at the films I remember from the 1980’s I’m always amazed by the number of films that Steven Spielberg has had a hand in. The guy is some kind of film making dynamo, yet most of what he does is also pretty darn good too. Anyway, Spielberg was executive producer on the excellent Gremlins, which was released in 1984. The film was directed by Joe Dante, who along with Spielberg was also behind another favourite film of mine, Innerspace.

Gremlins is a black comedy horror film which revolves around an attack on a small American town carried out by the titular creatures. Things start out innocently enough when Billy Peltzer receives a strange creature as a Christmas gift from his inventor father, who picked it up in a funny little shop deep in New York’s China Town. The creature is called a Mogwai, and is a cute little fella, covered in white and brown fur with huge bush baby like eyes and funny pointy ears. Naming the creature Gizmo, Billy is warned of the three rules of looking after a Mogwai, which are:

1. Keep it away from bright light.
2. Don’t get it wet.
3. Don’t feed it after midnight.

Of course, the three rules all end up getting broken in due course. The first rule doesn’t cause too much trouble, with Gizmo just complaining about the light being too bright, so Billy just dims it for him. No harm done. Unfortunately the second rule gets accidentally broken when a pot of water is knock over and some of it gets on to Gizmo. Poor little Gizmo kicks and screams in agony, his skin pulsing. Eventually, a number of small furry balls pop off of Gizmo, and slowly grow and unfurl to reveal a whole group of new Mogwai.

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Indiana Jones is obviously making big news at the moment with the imminent release of the long awaited fourth movie in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (what a mouthful that is). Whether the new film turns out to be great or not, we can at least console ourselves in the fact that the first film in the series, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is an exciting slice of adventurous fun that is the reason why we’ve had so many “big boulders rolling at the hero” sequences in films and TV shows over the years.

The film opens with our hero Indiana Jones, an archaeologist and sometimes treasure hunter, deep in a jungle looking for an ancient artifact. After entering the cave containing the artifact and avoiding the various traps set up to protect it, Indy finds his treasure but sets off one final trap, the afore mentioned giant boulder. Escaping the cave Indy is forced to hand over the gold idol to rival archaeologist Rene Belloq who is waiting for him outside the cave with a group of local natives.

Back at the university where Indy is a professor he is visited by two army agents who enroll him into the search for his old mentor Abner Ravenwood who is an expert on ancient Egyptian history. The Nazis are also trying to track down this man in an attempt to track down the Ark of the Covenant, which they believe has huge magical power. Indy is sent to track his mentor down before the Nazis can.

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Funny, it was just a couple of weeks ago that I wrote about Fraggle Rock, and what should I spy today in the paper but news that there’s a Fraggle Rock movie in production!

There wasn’t much revealed about the film but it sounds as if the Fraggles may be leaving the safety of their caves to follow Uncle Travelling Matt into the world of the Silly Creatures of Outer Space, or our normal everyday world as we know it.

I’m not sure what to make of this really.  It’s not like today’s kids will probably have much of a clue as to what a Fraggle is, and if the above plot is true then I have some concerns.  What about the Gorgs, the Doozers and the Trash Heap?  Will they come along for the ride too?  I hope so because I always liked those characters more than the Fraggles themselves.  My other fear is that the Fraggles end up befriending some annoying bowl cutted child actor who explains the world of the humans to them.  Please God!  Anything but that.

One thing that will be interesting to see is if they bother to film different bits for different countries, given that the caves connected to a lighthouse in the UK version, but an inventors workshop in the US version of the series, for example.  My money is on it being none of these, with the Fraggles finding a new entrance to our world.

Superman II was released in 1980, so just manages to fly its way into the films of our favourite decade. The first Superman film (full title Superman: The Movie) was a blockbuster success, making the now late Christopher Reeve a household name, and still the actor most people with associate the role with. So much so in fact that it seems the makers of the recent Superman Returns film chose actor Brandon Routh because of his similarities to Christopher Reeve.

In this film Superman has to face not only his usual foe Lex Luthor, but also three villains from his home planet, who of course also have the same super abilities that Superman has, being orginally residents of Superman’s home planet Krypton. These bad guys are General Zod (played by Terence Stamp), Ursa and Non, who were foiled in their plot to take over Krypton. As punishment they were imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, which was represented as a flat spinning rectangle in space in which they were somehow trapped - I guess it must have been some kind of weird dimension changing thingy!

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The third film in the Back to the Future trilogy was actually released in 1990, but seeing as how I’ve already covered Part 1 and Part 2 before, I thought it was worth being complete!

Personally, Back to the Future 3 is my least favourite film in the series. Whilst the first two parts slot together in clever and interesting ways, the final film is much more of a self contained episode and as such feels a little unnecessary. I think the makers were more interested in making a comedy western and this was the ideal opportunity to do so. That’s not to say there isn’t some form of continuity in the films, a good example being Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen (Biff’s great-great(?) grandfather) ending up in a manure cart, recreating the scene from the first film quite nicely where Biff’s car gets a load of the brown stuff dumped on it.

So to the plot. At the end of Part 2 Marty McFly has been left stranded in 1955 when Doc Brown is whisked back in time when the Delorean time machine is struck by lightning. Whilst stood in the rain wondering what to do, a man approaches Marty and hands him an envelope. He is with a messenger firm, and this envelope was left with the company in 1885 under strict instructions to be delivered at a precise time and date in 1955. The envelope is of course from Doc Brown, and it tells Marty where to find the Delorean, which has been hidden for all those years.

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Released in 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was an immediate box office success due to it’s appeal to all ages. Kids loved it for featuring all their favourite cartoon characters whilst grown ups enjoyed it for the smattering of more adult humour it contained. It went on to win 4 Oscars, including ones for it’s sound effects and visual effects, that latter of which still look believable today (well, as believable as cartoon characters mingling with humans can).

The film is based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit, the story revolving around the titular Roger Rabbit and is set in 1947 Los Angeles. The premise is that cartoon characters (collectively known as Toons) are actually alive, and cartoons are filmed on sets in exactly the same way a film starring humans would be. Roger Rabbit is a slapstick comedy Toon star who ends up being framed for the murder of Marvin Acme, owner of the Acme company (presumably the place where Wile E. Coyote always got his gadgets from). The planted evidence against Roger shows his wife Jessica Rabbit (a beautiful human Toon) playing pattycake with Marvin, which to a Toon is considered as having an affair.

Roger ends up recruiting Eddie Valiant, a human detective played by Bob Hoskins, to help clear his name. Eddie is a bit of a drunk and doesn’t much care for Toons after his brother was killed by an unknown Toon who dropped a piano on his head, but he ends up helping Roger out after he hides away in Eddie’s home.

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Flash Gordon has just reappeared on our screens with a new series on the Sci-Fi channel, which reminded me of all the fun to be had from a viewing of the 1980’s Flash Gordon film.

Flash Gordon was originally created way back in 1934 by Alex Raymond, and in it’s first form was as a comic strip syndicated in newspapers. He was created in answer to another famous Sci-Fi character, that of Buck Rogers, and over the years has been immortalised in both print, film and cartoon. Aside from the 1980’s film probably the best known version of Flash Gordon is that of the old serialised versions originally shown in cinemas, with Flash portrayed by swimmer turned actor Buster Crabbe (who interestingly also played Buck Rogers in another serialisation).

Anyway, back to the film version. Here, Flash Gordon was played by Sam J. Jones (an ex-US Marine). The film didn’t do well at release, but is now looked back on fondly as being cheesey no-nonsense fun. In the film Flash is an American Football player who ends up accompanying mad scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol), who has detected a strange planet having entered the solar system and believes it spells the end of life on Earth. Luckily Dr. Zarkov just so happens to have his own space ship, so takes Flash, and Flash’s love interest Dale Arden, off into space to investigate.

The planet turns out to be called Mongo, and is ruled over by the crazily named (and even more crazy looking) Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow). Ming is hell bent on destroying the Earth by causing “natural disasters” such as earthquakes and storms of fire. Flash goes about putting an end to Ming’s plan, and does so by enlisting the help of the leaders of the various other civilisations that also live on Mongo, getting Prince Barin (Timother Dalton) and Prince Vultan (Brian Blessed) on his side.

Barin is the leader of a people who live in treehouses and have something of the Robin Hood air about them. One particularly memorable scene involves Flash proving his bravery by putting his hand in a giant nest belonging to a weird beetley thing. This creature has a deadly sting, and indeed Barin’s own son is used to demonstrate this (Barin’s son was played by Blue Peter’s Peter Duncan, in one of his few acting roles!).

Vultan is leaded of the Hawkmen, who are a viking like race who just so happen to have wings and can fly about. Brian Blessed was born to play this role, as he hams it up bashing people over the head with his club and uttering his two most famous lines, which can only be said by shouting at the top of your voice. The first is “Gordon’s Allliiiivveee!”, and the other is the repeatedly issued command to his fellow Hawkmen to “Diiiiiiiivvvvvveeeeee!”.

The film was also accompanied by an impressive soundtrack provided by no less than Queen. Whenever you hear the distinctive “dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum” beat of the title song you can’t help joining in by shouting “Flash! Aaaaa-aaahh! He’ll save every one of us”. Certain quotes from the film are dropped in here and there, including “Flash, I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the Earth” and “Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to bring back his body”. Check it out below and I defy you not to get your foot tapping…