Child Of The 1980’s

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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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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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…

Released in 1989, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure follows the adventures of two school friends from San Dimas, California, who travel through time in a phone booth. They are Bill S. Preston Esq. (played by Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan, (Keanu Reeves).

The pair are not the brightest academically, spending most of their time practising for their rock band Wyld Stallyns, despite neither of them being particularly great musicians either. Unfortunately, their lack of book smarts means that unless they get an A+ in their history exam they will be forced to drop out of high school. If this were to happen, the pair would be split up as Ted’s father has threatened to send Ted to military school if he fails.

One evening, whilst sat outside a Circle K convenience store bemoaning their situation, a solution arrives in the form of Rufus, a man from the future who appears in a phone booth fitted with a time machine. He explains that the Wyld Stallyns must not be split up, as in the future they are the saviours of the Earth (though it is never really properly explained why, other than the fact that their motto “Be Excellent To Each Other” is actually a nice sentiment). Rufus lends them the time machine so they can go and research history in person, but whilst sceptical at first they are convinced when the future versions of themselves appear and are able to guess the number they are thinking of!

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Five years after the first Ghostbusters film, in 1989, the sequel was released. Reuniting us with all the characters from the first film, it was a good film, though as with many sequels, not as good as the original, or at least I didn’t think so. This film fell into the trap of trying to reproduce too much of the first film, a good example of this being when the Ghostbusters mobilise the Statue of Liberty by spraying it with feel good goo. I can imagine some Hollywood executive saying, hey, we need to have the Marshmallow Man back, and since this would have been a ridiculous idea given how the Marshmallow Man came into being, the Statue of Liberty was suggested instead.

This film opens with us seeing major changes to the make up of the Ghostbusters. Egon now works at a research lab for child studies, while Pete Venkman now has is own TV talk show about weird stuff. Ray owns an occult book shop, and he and Winston are the only two who remain as Ghostbusters, but as little more than childrens party entertainers now.

Of course, things don’t stay this way for long, and the Ghostbusters are soon back in action when they discover a large underground river of pink goo flowing under the streets of Manhatten. It seems this river is the outcome of New Yorkers bad feelings towards each other manifesting as some kind of ectoplasmic residue, and it is being tapped into by long dead evil dude Vigo the Carpathian, who is imprisoned in a photograph that is being renovated in a museum where Dana Barrett has been volunteering. Vigo has his eye on Dana’s baby son Oscar (and no, Venkman is not the father!) as a means of re-entering our world. He intends to use Oscars body to bring his own soul back from wherever it is currently trapped.

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Picking up where the first part left off, Back To The Future Part II was released in 1989, four years after the first film. Both this film and Part III were filmed back to back as there were concerns that Michael J. Fox might start to look too old to play Marty McFly.

Part II is my personal favourite, although it is probably also the most confusing of the trilogy since it involves the most actual time travel of the three films. At the start of the film, Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer are whisked into the future by Doc Brown to “do something about their kids”, Marty Jr. and Marlene (both played by Michael J. Fox). Marlene isn’t in any real trouble but Marty Jr. falls foul of Griff Tannen (Biff’s son) who is going to involve him in a robbery, which leads on to the break up of the McFly family. Doc Brown wants to prevent this, so brings Marty to the year 2015 to pretend to be his son.

Marty angers Griff, which leads on to the well loved hoverboard seen, a recreation of the skateboarding scene from the first film. This alters the future, saving the good name of the McFly party, as Griff smashes into the town hall and the robbery never takes place. Unfortunately, Marty gets a little greedy, and buys a sports almanac from a shop that contains the results of sporting events from the last thirty years. Doc Brown discovers this, and throws the book in a rubbish bin. Trouble is, the elderly Biff Tannen overhears Marty and Doc Brown talking and claims the book for himself, stealing the DeLorean time machine and travelling back to 1955 to give the almanac to his younger self.

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