Semiquincentennial Movie Project #29: Cloak & Dagger

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

Week #29: Texas -

 

 

 

The state of Texas was established on Dec. 29, 1845 

Details about Texas:

State bird: mockingbird

State flower: bluebonnet

State tree: pecan

Additional historical trivia:

There is a radio station in Waco who's call letters are WACO. Only one other city in the U.S. has that distinction: WARE in Ware, PA.

The first ever rodeo was hosted in Pecos in 1883.

Texas has the largest and longest-running State Fair in the US.

Maybe not the longest running college rivalry, but the Texas - Oklahoma Red River Rivalry is (probably) the most watched annual football game.  

Dr Pepper was invented in Waco.

The first Six Flags amusement park opened in Texas, so named because at one time or another Texas has been a country under six nations (Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Conferderate States of America and the USA).

Austin is home to the largest urban bat colony in the US.  

Texas has the largest state capitol building ("Everything is bigger in Texas" is not just hubris).

The King Ranch in Kingsville is larger than the state of Rhode Island. (Again...)

The world's largest set of cowboy boots, 35 ft. tall, stands outside North Star Mall in San Antonio (ditto)

There are 15 states combined that could fit inside Texas' borders (Maybe I'm overdoing it here...) 

The Alamo in San Antonio does NOT have a basement (PeeWee Herman made me add that one...) 

Famous people born in Texas: Willie Nelson (of course), Gene Autry, Beyonce, George Strait, Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin, Lance Armstrong, Nolan Ryan, Rogers Hornsby, Brittney Griner, Drew Brees, Earl Campbell, Vince Young, Larry McMurtry, Steve Martin, Woody Harrelson, Matthew McConaughey, Carol Burnett, Tommy Lee Jones, Sissy Spacek, Dabney Coleman (see movie below), Henry Thomas (again, see movie below) and US Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson 

Note: You can say I'm overdoing it this time on trivia, but Texas IS my home state, so...

 

 

Cloak & Dagger (1984): 

Growing up is tough. It can be especially tough, as a kid, when your mother is dead and your father is somewhat distracted by being a single parent trying to raise a kid on his own while trying to work a job.

There is a tendency, at least as far as films go, for the kid to dive deep into a fantasy world, with the requisite imaginary friend. At this point in my life I really can't remember if I had any imaginary friends. But then, I had both of my parents still around until I was well into my 50's, and a sister who is still with me. I had a stable childhood, and although I did not have very many real friends that I palled around with, I don't think I would have had to create an imaginary friend to accompany me on my "adventures". And even if I did, I seriously doubt that imaginary friend would have gotten me into the kind of trouble that Jack Flack gets young Davey (Henry Thomas) into.

 

Davey is a typical kid on most levels. He is heavily into video games, and even into role-playing games. I should point out here at this point that I was a product of an era that preceded Dungeons and Dragons and the rest of the RPG games that flooded the childhood experience in the late 70's and early 80's (and even to this day). I might have been attracted to it had I had a different upbringing. Note: In my experience I was well into my 20's before I was ever introduced to actually playing Dungeons and Dragons. Being raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church household, even the mention of the game brought up serious religious problems, because D&D and the like were considered doorways into Satanism. I've since become more enlightened. D&D and the like are just harmless fun. 

I imagine Davey plays D&D, but his primary interest is in spy role-playing. As such, his hero is Jack Flack (Dabney Coleman), a dime store knockoff of a James Bond type spy. Jack is a dead ringer for Davey's father, Hal (also played by Coleman). It seems to me that Jack is the character that Davey wishes his father really was, thus emphasizing the fact that Jack and Hal are played by Coleman. 

 

 

But Davey's obsession with spy games takes a dark turn when his friend, Morris (William Forsythe), sends Davey on a "mission" to the local tech lab, (ostensibly to get him out of Morris hair, I think). 

 

Davey takes his friend, Kim (Christina Negri) with him on this mission, still trying to play out this spy game for what it's worth. Except that Davey runs into a real spy game. Three guys kill off a laboratory worker who, before he dies, passes off a video game cartridge called Cloak & Dagger to Davey, with the mission now being that Davey get the game to the FBI.

 

It turns out that the game cartridge is disguised as a regular copy of a video game, but has some hidden data that the bad guys are looking to get their hands on. Remember this is 1984, so even though they never come right out at say it, the implication is that the hidden data is going to be handed of to enemies of the US (probably the Russians, who were in the middle of the Cold War with the US).

 

The bad guys, who are played by Michael Murphy, Eloy Casados and Tim Rossovich, are unscrupulous, to say the least. They have no intention of letting even a little kid stand in the way of the big payday they are expecting. Much of the film involves these three trying to retrieve the game cartridge and kill off (yes, I said "kill off") Davey. These unscrupulous characters even are trying to take out young Kim. (Ye gods!)

 

Over the course of the film Davey's imaginary friend keeps helping young Davey with "advice" better suited for a real adult spy rather than a youthful wannabee. It's hard to actually like Jack, since his main goal seems to be to stay the course of the spy he is supposed to be without any care or remorse for his young companion. Often he puts young Davey in extreme danger. But his goal of getting the game cartridge away from the bad guys takes precedence over any such trivialities as "child endangerment".

 

But since Jack is a product of Davey's imagination, perhaps all the blame can't be put on Jack. More fault could be handed of to Hal who seems a bit clueless how to raise a kid on his own. And then, since Jack is a carbon copy of Hal in Davey's mind, perhaps Davey is just trying to create his own father figure who is much more adventurous than the dull air traffic controller Hal is.

To his credit, Davey gradually matures on his own, realizing that Jack is not the sort of friend that he really needs.  But, since he does still have to do something about the un-American forces that are determined to win at all costs, he does have to grow up pretty fast. He has to. At one point he is faced with a situation where he has to either kill or be killed.

 

There are a couple of twists that I found extremely interesting in this film. For one thing, the three hoodlums have a backing that was almost unexpected. At least, at the beginning. It may be obvious to you before very long into the film that not everybody in this film is exactly who they seem to be. The surprise may be, however, the actors who played the parts. I bet my sister, who is a fan of old movies, would be shocked that a couple of "good guys" could play evil characters.

Cloak & Dagger was released in the summer of 1984. It was, in fact, released on the same day as Red Dawn, and with competition from such blockbusters as Purple Rain and The Karate Kid, as well as Star Trek III and Revenge of the Nerds, which were (probably) still in the theaters, it probably wasn't going to have much of an impact in the first place. The main reason, it seems, for it's August release, was that the big event was the Summer Olympics, and since most kids would have not been very interested in that event, it was thought that the theater would be pulling a larger crowd of kids.

Unfortunately that didn't happen. It only pulled in about $10 million in box office receipts. And the expected tie-in with the video game fell through when it was only released as an arcade game and was not immediately put out for home use. This despite the fact that the movie hinges on this Atari Cloak & Dagger video game that was supposed to be a release for the home video game market.

 

Henry Thomas, the star of Cloak & Dagger, was just coming off a star making role as the best friend of a creature from another world (E.T.: The Extraterrestrial). His career as a child actor was fairly limited, only appearing in a handful of films, but unlike other child actors of the day, he was able to transition to adult roles later in life. Recently he has appeared in no less than three movies based on stories by Stephen King (Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep and Pet Semetary: Bloodlines).

Dabney Coleman, who passed away in 2024, had a prolific career. You may remember him as the sexist boss Franklin Hart in 9 to 5, or as the soap opera director in Tootsie. He was the murderer in one of my favorite Columbo movies in 1991 (Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star). 

Michael Murphy is a familiar face, having appeared in such films as the big screen version of M*A*S*H*, Nashville and Batman Returns, but possibly may be more familiar as a voice. He was the narrator of the PBS series of "American Experience". Tim Rossovich, who started out as a professional athlete in the NFL, often cropped up in film and TV in the late 70's and 80's. 

Christina Nigra may look vaguely familiar. If you saw Twilight Zone: The Movie you may remember her as the annoying little brat who keeps pestering John Lithgow in the "Nightmare  at 20,000 Feet" segment, or possibly as Evie Garland's best friend in the TV series Out of This World.

The cast is rounded out with the appearance of a couple of classic movie and TV stars, John McIntyre and Jeanette Nolan, as an elderly couple who may or may not be on Davey's side in his adventure.  

For pure entertainment, I think Cloak & Dagger is a decent movie, It somehow is able to appeal to both the kid and the "kid at heart" and genuinely holds the viewer's interest, despite a few flaws. 

The MacGuffin of the film seems to be a little flimsy to me; how the video game could hold such detailed information that could only be accessed if you got to a specific level of playing it seems to be a little contrived, at least as far as 1984 technology is concerned. Nowadays it would be child's play to hide info this way, and even the youngest wannabe computer kid could crack it with no effort...

The other thing, although obligatory in a kid-friendly movie, is that the three main bad guys are pretty much incompetent. Any real professional criminals could have pulled off eliminating an 8 year old kid without much problem, but these guys probably couldn't eliminate a snail trapped in a 4" x 4" box... 

The highlight for me is the setting of the film. It takes place in San Antonio, and even though I never visited San Antonio until about 8 years later, it still looked familiar to me. The obligatory scene at the iconic Alamo (you CAN'T set a movie in San Antonio without featuring a scene with the Alamo..) is one of the highlights. (Of course, that HAS to be the place where the hoodlums drop off their illicit contraband).

Give this film a try, if for nothing else to see how Henry Thomas was not just a "flash in the pan" with his star making role in E.T. 

Well, that's it for this time. Drive safely, folks. And leave your imaginary friends behind. They are only going to cause you trouble.

Quiggy

 

 

 

The "Blame" Game

 

 

 

 

This is my entry in the Luso World Cinema Blogathon hosted by Crítica Retrô and Spellbound with Beth Ann.

 

 

 

Earlier this month I had a celebration of the drive-in movie. During my altogether too brief experience of actually getting to go to drive-ins (they disappeared, at least in Texas, beginning about the late 80's to early 90's), I got to see some movies that usually never made it to the local multiplex. One of those was Blame It On Rio. Why didn't it get a spot at the indoor theater? I'm not sure. But a check of the movies that were playing at the time include Footloose, Yentl (with Barbara Streisand), Terms of Endearment and Two of a Kind (with John Travolta). I guess teen movies and movies starring Streisand or Travolta probably trumped any movie that had a "yesterday's news" star like Michael Caine.

Then again, maybe it was not meant to play at family theaters anyway... Read on.

In the category of "ooooh... what he said...":  Roger Ebert gave this film only one star, and said that it was a film "clearly intended to appeal to the prurient interests of dirty old men of all ages." At age 22 when this movie came out, I was still a young man, maybe with the makings of a future dirty old man, but definitely not at an age where this kind of movie would have seemed inappropriate to me. 

What a difference getting older makes. Admittedly I never married or fathered any daughters, so I can't connect with either of the older men in this film, Michael Caine and Joseph Bologna, but still, the film comes off just a bit too risque in it's concept. 

What we have at the outset is the last film by a great director, Stanley Donen. The man who brought the public such classics as Royal Wedding, Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Grass is Greener and Charade, all of which you could watch with the kids, must've gone through some kind of mid-life crisis along about the time he turned 50. 

Of the last movies he made, this one really seemed to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The film has problems on more levels than one. Aside from the fact that the main attraction is a middle-aged man having some sort of an affair with the underage daughter of his business partner, the actress playing her is also underage. She was only 17 at the time of the filming. Which means that the topless scenes have basically the tinges of being child pornography. (Her co-star, Demi Moore, was 19 or 20, so she gets a pass, even if she is playing a girl the same age as Johnson's character...)

The music (which is great by the way) and the scenery of Rio are the better parts of the film, but the plot is something straight out of a middle-age fantasy.  

 

 

Blame it On Rio (1984): 

Pre-review note: Blame it on Rio was actually based on a French film from 1977, Un moment d'égarement. I have no idea what that film entails. The French version was remade in 2015 as One Wild Moment. So don't blame it on Rio... blame it on France.

The set up of this movie is that two older men are going through what we would call a "mid-life crisis". Victor  (Joseph Bologna) has just gotten divorced from his wife. He and his friend, Matthew (Michael Caine) are going to go to Rio de Janeiro for a vacation. 

 

Victor is taking his daughter, Jennifer (Michelle Johnson). Matthew is supposed to be going with his wife, Karen (Valerie Harper) and his daughter, Nikki (Demi Moore), but his wife decides she is going to go somewhere else, alone. She is apparently having her own mid-life crisis.

 

That leaves the two men and their daughters on the Rio vacation. Rio is one of those places where it's legal for the women as well as the men to go topless on the beach. Which is OK with the older men. At least until they see their daughters trying to blend in with the crowd.  

 

Jennifer has long had a crush on her "Uncle" Matthew. (He's not really her uncle, BTW. That would make this plot even more cringe-y, if that were the case). When Matthew leaves Victor in a bar where Victor is trying to hook up with a bar patron, he follows the two girls to a wedding party. They are just wedding crashers since they don't know any of the participants. Eventually Matthew and Jennifer end up on an isolated portion of the beach where Jennifer reveals her attraction to Matthew and the two do what comes naturally.

 

Matthew, for his part, does feel some guilt over his encounter, but Jennifer is basically of the mind to continue their illicit affair. Nikki knows about what is going on and even though she professes that she will keep the affair a secret, she isn't exactly happy with it. But as she tells Jennifer, she is not mad at Jennifer; she is mad at her father.

 

When Jennifer tells her dad about having a sexual encounter. she only reveals that the partner was an older married man, not that it was Matthew. This leads to some fairly comic interludes as the angry dad tries to figure out who the guy was. And there are the several instances where he starts fights with other men that he is convinced is the one who violated his daughter.

 

Eventually Nikki's disgust with her father causes her to call her mother who shows up and other secrets get revealed, specifically an extramarital affair that Karen has been having without Matthew's knowledge.

 

OK, I have to be honest. If this was an 18 or 19 year old girl hooking up with a 43 year old (or even older) man, I'd probably have no problem with it. Change just the age to a legal age and  it changes the dynamic for me. So does that mean I'm at heart a dirty old man? Maybe, but I don't think so. After all, the concept has been filmed that way several times with older characters. Take, for instance, Sabrina, with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn or Charade, with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Both involve romances between two characters with a significant age gap, and both were tastefully approached.

Think of all the June-December romances in today's age. Al Pacino, Patrick Stewart, Dennis Quaid and even Dick Van Dyke have had relations with women young enough to be their daughters or even grand-daughters. (Of course, they're all rich... but surely there's something more than just money involved there...)  

Michelle Johnson, the female star here, was once considered a rising new star. Quick. Name one other movie she was in. Bet you can't. She had a minor role in Gung Ho, but that's the only other movie I ever saw her in. Her biggest claim to fame was she came in as an also ran for a Razzie for Worst New Star (she lost to Olivia D'Abo).  She only has 42 credits to her name on IMDb.

The shame of this film belongs to director Donen, but also to Michael Caine. Most of the other actors were probably just looking for a paycheck, but Caine must have been really hard up to agree to this role. Considering that the same year he also did Educating Rita, for which he garnered BAFTA and Oscar nominations, and winning the BAFTA, its not like the roles had dried up completely. But then, during the 80's his successes were hit or miss. He also did Dressed to Kill, The Island and Jaws: The Revenge during that decade, all three getting him Razzie nominations. 

Rotten Tomatoes only gives this movie a 11% rating. As stated earlier in this review it did not get very many good reviews by the critics. Aside from a few lines from Caine, this movie doesn't even float as a comedy. (I have to admit that I got a laugh from an early scene where a "talking head scene" occurs as Caine is talking to the audience): 

"One time, the company I work for transferred me to an island in the Pacific. Fantastic place. I invited my girl to visit me. I sent her a postcard every day with a single word on each card. I wrote... 'Found a virgin paradise... it's yours-Matthew.' Naturally, they were delivered in the wrong order. The message she got was... 'Found a virgin. It's paradise. Yours, Matthew.' I never heard from her again."

To be honest, that's really the only part of the movie I found funny.

Unless you qualify as a "dirty old man" (and why would you even admit it?), I don't recommend this film. Go watch Sabrina instead. Even the Harrison Ford - Julia Ormand remake from 1995 is much better.

Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

Strange Dreams

This is my entry in the Secret Places and Trippy Houses Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room

 

 

 

Alone at night in the shadows of my room,

I drift inside of a magical view.

Strange dreams invade my sleep at night! 

 

"Strange Dreams" by Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush 

 

Your dreams are the realm of fantasy. In your dreams you can be an amazing superhero, saving the world just by wagging your pinky finger. Or you can be the cock of the walk, getting the best looking girl (or guy, as the case may be...) in town. Those are what we might call "good" dreams.

 

On the other side of the coin you could be haunted by some pretty bizarre circumstances. Who among us hasn't had a dream where you were caught at school in your pajamas, or underwear, or even naked in front of your classmates? That is just a mild nightmare, as far as nightmares go. A few years ago I related a story about dreaming that flying monkeys were out to get me after watching The Wizard of Oz on TV. (A Nightmare in Oz) 

 

But the nightmares that  haunt some people are even more devastating. Again, on a personal note, I have dreamed, on several occasions of being in a terrible accident, usually while driving. To have nightmares where your actions within the dream sequence not only affect you, but also affect others, can be a cause of distress.  

 

Take for instance the dream of a world leader. God only knows what kind of sick dreams a wacko like Adolph Hitler or Kim Jong Un had or has.  But even world leaders who have some semblance of rationality, such as the President of the United States, can be a bit off kilter.  In this movie the President, played by Eddie Albert, is still holding on to a tenuous hold on rationality, but is still plagued by a recurring nightmare.

Dreamscape is a film that sometimes seems to be unsure of what it wants to be.  Is it a horror movie? (Some scenes may just scare the pants off of you).  Is it a science-fiction movie? (The idea of being able to enter the dreams of another person and interact with them is the stuff of geek sci-fi fantasy). Is it a political thriller? (The main baddie has some ulterior motives for his trying to get the President some help with his nightmares). There is even a not-so-subtle romance going on in the movie, so a case could be made for a romance movie. To top it off, the movie poster (see below) clearly tried to make a connection to the adventure film, a la Indiana Jones, although there is not much in it that could remind you of that adventure type of movie...

Besides the focal "star" of the film, (and, at this point, Dennis Quaid was just getting started, since he had only a few big roles under his belt by this time, Tough Enough, Jaws 3D and The Right Stuff, and had still not achieved the "familiar face" status he would later get), you also got some superstar talent in the form of Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer, as well as Kate Capshaw, who had just earlier this year gained some recognition for her role in the second Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The highlight of the film, for me, though, was David Patrick Kelly, who had a few years prior made his film debut in what will probably end up being his most memorable role, as Luther in The Warriors.  

Additionally, there was also George Wendt ("Norm" from Cheers), who throughout the 80's got parts as subsidiary characters in films, and Peter Jason, whose name may not be familiar, but his face surely will be if you watched many 80's movies (in particular, he was the leader of the resistance movement in They Live and was also the bartender who was the recipient of the classic line delivered by Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs... ""There's a new sheriff in town.. and his name is Reggie Hammond!") .  

Dreamscape came out in 1984 and faced the daunting competition of  such blockbusters as Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Fortunately the studios didn't actually try to pit it against those monster moneymakers:  The early summer gave the public the big guys, and let Dreamscape have the luxury of coming to the big screen in late August. It still had the opportunity to have a semi-decent draw, garnering $12 million against a (astoundingly) low budget of $6 million. (The movie LOOKS like it costs more than that, since the special effects are pretty decent...) Note: Elsewhere I have read that the producer claims ticket sales reached upwards of $25 million, take that as you will.

 

 

 

 

Dreamscape (1984):

A key recurring theme in the 80's (and beyond) is that anytime there are potential psychics involved in the story, there is ALWAYS some secret government group seeking to have control over these talented individuals. It was true in Firestarter, and it is true here also. At the beginning of the movie, Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer) is discussing with Dr. Paul Novotny (Max von Sydow), pointing out that a former associate of Novotny's, Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid), is just the sort of man that Blair is looking for for his project.  The project at hand is a program that purports to use psychics to enter the dreams/nightmares of patients at the institute to help them overcome the nightmares that plague them.

 

Blair wants a good talented psychic to help relieve the President of the United States (Edward Albert) deal with a recurring nightmare he has been having about causing the coming of World War III.  But Blair's motives are not altruistic. See the President (whose name is never given, but at one point he is called "John") is determined to go to a Geneva Peace Conference and try to negotiate a disarmament or at least a reduction in the available nuclear weapons stash of the country. See, the President is not only haunted by thoughts of an imminent nuclear war, but he is still dealing with the trauma of his recently deceased wife. (Thus his wife plays a prominent role in his nightmare as she is frantically running from the blast of an exploded nuclear weapon).

 

Blair, the essence of a "hawk" thinks this is a bad idea. And, as it turns out later, his plan is to kill the President in his dreams. This would have the effect of killing the President in real life, because it is established that if you die in your dreams, you die in real life, too.

But Alex has skipped out of the limelight, living basically in the shadows, using his psychic abilities to win at gambling.  When bookies show up to wrangle him into helping them Alex is not very receptive. But when some guys from his former boss's institute show up Alex uses the opportunity to escape from the bookie and his henchmen. But, when it turns out that Alex finds out his newly acquired saviors intend to basically "kidnap" him for Novotny's program, he is not entirely all that gung ho about it. Even when he finds out they intend to try to use him in the dream scheme. 

That is, until he meets Dr. Novotny's colleague, Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw). Alex is, among other things, a womanizer (and with Capshaw as his new potential conquest, who could blame him...?) So he agrees to hang on for just a little bit longer. At least until he can get Jane to agree to a romantic interlude...

 

Blair's prize psychic is Tommy Ray Glatman (David Patrick Kelly). Tommy Ray is the ultimate in "I'm just in this for myself" kind of thinking. It turns out that Tommy Ray is not entirely as innocent as anyone may think. Alex eventually finds a file in the offices of Blair that reveal that Tommy Ray had killed his own father.

   

As usual, when the government has it's hand in the pie, it turns out that not all is what it seems, even though Blair manages to put up a front to keep the secret agenda hidden away from Alex as well as Novotny and Jane. Before we get to that final combat in the nightmare of the President, however, we get to see Alex work his magic at helping a young boy overcome is nightmare of a boogeyman, Or, in this instance, a snake man... (By the way, the kid is played by Cory Yothers, whose sister had a bit more success in Hollywood, mainly by playing the younger sister of Alex Keaton in Family Ties).

There is also a pretty funny sequence where Alex helps out a man who is having trouble with his sex life with his wife. It turns out that he is haunted by his own "nightmare". I won't give this part away because a: it's well worth seeing on screen and b: it's just too funny to describe anyway.

Alex and Jane end up together in a dream she is having, but since Alex entered the dream without her knowing about it first, or even her acquiescence, she is understandably a bit annoyed with Alex. But she had an attraction to Alex in the first place, so she is not all that incensed by his intrusion. (Unlike other bloggers I am not going to address the non-PC issue that this scene might be looked at in today's world. I try to look at movies in the context of the time they were made, not whether they would fly today).

Alex meets up with a writer of potboilers, Charlie Prince (George Wendt), who is investigating the mysterious goings on at the institute, and eventually turns Alex on to the fact that Blair may not be all the altruistic figure he seems to be trying to promote himself as.

 

Most of the dream sequences are a bit on the low budget side (that snake man, for instance, is not really all that scary, just made more so by the music accompanying the scenes). But, considering, the time, they are pretty decent. I found out in doing research that the low quality of the dream sequences was due to the fact that the producers underestimated the time they would need. Apparently, they thought 2 months would be plenty of time. Imagine what they could have accomplished if they had given themselves at least double that... 

Ultimately, the best sequence is the final scene in which Alex and The President have to fend off Tommy Ray, who as I mentioned earlier is Blair's number one boy for dispatching the President. 

The post holocaust scenes in the President's nightmare, although not much different from any other post-nuclear war scenes depicted in movies and TV shows down through the ages, can be pretty nerve-wracking, and were probably even more so during the mid-80's when the threat of nuclear war with the Russians still loomed on the horizon. And here that filter that the camera man uses to give it an odd unworldly feel of the dream world makes the scene work all that much better.

A note here about the content: Red Dawn, which had been released earlier in 1984, was the first movie to ever receive the newly created PG13 rating, movies that weren't too graphic in other areas, but might be to violent for a standard PG rating. Dreamscape became the second. You parents with small children might keep that in consideration...  

If you decide to take the leap in to the dream world of this movie, I don't think you'll be disappointed. When I originally saw it in the theater back in 1984, I think I would have given the film an 8 rating. Here, in the retrospect of the past, and having seen many more films with an apocalyptic scene or two, made much better due to a bigger budget, I would be remiss to say it didn't drop a peg or two, but I think I could still rate it a 7.

Well, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head back home. Drive safely.

Quiggy

 

 

 

 

A Time to Die... or Maybe Not

 

 

 

 The future is uncertain... or is it?  What if we could know what the future holds? 

The trope of time travel in science fiction has at least two well-known themes.  One is that of the narrator who actually does the time traveling himself and relates his or her experiences for the audience.  Think  The Time Machine in which the protagonist has journeyed (in this case the future) and returned to let his friends (and us) know what the future holds. 

Another is that in which a mysterious stranger appears on the scene and claims to be from some distant future. In this case, most often anyway, this stranger is considered to be crazy, because, after all, time travel is not really possible, therefore the stranger must be delusional. Think 12 Monkeys as a good example of this theme.

Of course, as we know it now, time travel, at least in terms of the way it is accomplished in the science fiction trope, is impossible. We have the story of John Titor, a man who appeared on the scene in the late 90's, who claimed to be from the future, but whether or not he really was is debatable. Reading the link above will be more instructive, but in essence, his pronunciations of future events were not entirely accurate. He claimed that there would be a civil war in the U.S. in 2015, for example.

Of course, even he himself gave himself an out in case his predictions were proved untrue.  He said that we could change the future by changing whatever actions we took to another track. But did he really come from the future and we created an alternate timeline by our actions or was he just full of so much malarkey?

Time travel theory has so many rabbit holes one could go down.  The classic grandfather paradox, for example. If you could go back in time and somehow accidentally kill your own grandfather before he ever met your grandmother, you obviously would not have been born.  Therefore how could you have gone back in time to commit the act?  Theoretically any action you took on your travel back in time could seriously affect your present.  

But time travel theorists get around that by claiming your actions created an alternate timeline. One in which you actually did commit the act.  But the world you came back to would be altered, maybe for the better, but also maybe for he worst.  Ray Bradbury once wrote an excellent short story in which a character went back to the prehistoric era and accidentally killed a butterfly.  The world he came back to in the present was so seriously altered that it was unrecognizable.

I don't really want to get in to the possibilities of time travel here. I just wanted to prepare you for some musings that will happen in this blog entry as I discuss the story lines of the entries.

To get down to the meat of this entry, in 1984 we were treated to one of the best time travel movies ever made, The Terminator.. The story arc involves more than just the first movie (there have been as of this date 5 movies involving the story arc, of varying degrees of quality).  But the first one, which I saw in the theater, was my favorite. Note: Many lists say Terminator 2 is a better movie. But this is my blog, and therefore my opinion... 

After it came out, an author named Harlan Ellison claimed that the movie was WAY similar to two stories he had written, both of which became episodes of the classic TV series from the 60's, The Outer Limits. He sued. (He was a very litigious man., by all accounts.  He would apparently sue people at the drop of a hat).

The ultimate outcome was that James Cameron had to add a reference to Ellison in the credits when it was released on video.  But was his claim valid?  I wondered.  So I found both episodes and watched them to see how much similarity there was in the movie to his original stories.  Below are the two episodes, followed by a detailed review of the movie.  You can decide for yourself.

The Outer Limits "Soldier" (Broadcast date: Sept. 19, 1964):

In the far distant future two soldiers battle.  They are given instructions through their headsets to kill "The Enemy". They come to a final clash on a barren landscape.  

During the battle they are hit with what appears to be bolts of lightning and sent into a vortex.  One of the soldiers, Qarlo (Michael Ansara) ends up in modern day (1964) United States.

Because he is dressed oddly and because he seems to have a violent demeanor, he is immediately captured and confined to a prison / mental institution.  Since his language is unfamiliar, an expert in languages is brought in to try to figure out who he is and what he is saying. Eventually the expert (Lloyd Nolan) figures out that what he is speaking is a form of English, and that he is from the future.  He tries his best to "civilize" the man, since basically all he knows is his mission: to kill the Enemy.

In the end the expert removes Qarlo from his captivity and brings him into the normal world.

Meanwhile, Qarlo's "Enemy" finally escapes the vortex and finds his own way into the present, and he, too, is programmed to kill the Enemy, in this case Qarlo. The ultimate end is the two battle.  And destroy each other. 

The only real connection between this episode and The Terminator, as far as I can tell, is that the soldiers are from the future.  If that is the only connection, Ellison was full of shit.  I mean there must be dozens of stories about soldiers from the future traveling back in time, some that even predate his story.

 The Outer Limits "Demon with a Glass Hand" (Broadcast date:  Oct. 17, 1964):

In this episode we have yet another soldier. This one, Tent (played by Robert Culp), is one who awakes with no memory of who he was past "10 days ago". He only knows that someone (or some people are trying to kill him, and his only "friend" is a glass hand.  His hand, which has apparently replaced his real hand is only a partial one. It is missing fingers. He can communicate with the hand and asks it questions constantly.

When he asks it, at the beginning, who these people are and what to do, the hand tells him that the only way to defeat his pursuers is to remove a gold medallion that each carries. And that, to stay alive, his destiny is in his "whole hand".  Cryptic to say the least at this point. And staying alive is :easier said than done."

Immediately Trent captures one of the people and interrogates him.  Thus he discovers that his potential assassins are the Kyba and they come from the future. They are after him to get his hand, which supposedly holds all knowledge. And that he, Trent, is the last man on Earth. Well, obviously he is not the "last man" since this is taking place in the present. So maybe Trent isn't actually from the present time.

The captive reveals that the gold medallion is a device that keeps each assassin in the present, and when it is removed, that person actually doesn't die; he just returns to the future.  And Trent also wears a medallion, so Trent also comes from the future.  As the hand explains this to him, it reveals that the Kyba invaded Earth and had plans to annihilate the human race, but inexplicably, the entire human race vanished.

The secret is that the hand does have all the answers, but it can only function when it is entirely complete.  And the Kyben have the three missing appendages.  They in turn want the rest of his hand because, after all, it holds the key to finding those millions of future humans that disappeared. And to help them get to Trent they have put up a force field around the building from which there is no escape.  So he is all alone.

Well, not quite.  He finds a woman, Consuelo (Arlene Martel),  a human from the present in one of the offices.  So now he has an ally (or at the very least a hostage) to help him defeat the Kyba in the building. 

 

But he has to find and destroy the machine, called a "time mirror" that is a gateway for the Kyba to send back more assassins from the future. (Just a thought, though.  If these Kyba can send back soldiers to hunt Trent, and they have sealed off that one building so there is no escape, why couldn't they just send back 100, or even 1000 soldiers and just have done with it?)

The aliens kill Trent and capture him and Consuelo, and attach one of the fingers.  Thinking there is no threat they leave him and Consuelo alone, and go to await aliens who are coming through the time machine with the other two fingers.  Meanwhile the computer in Trent's hand tells Consuelo how to revive him.  You just THOUGHT he was dead.  As he gradually gets more of the missing appendages the computer in his hand becomes more able to help him find out exactly what he is doing here.  Which turns out to be finding a cure for a plague, one of the reasons the aliens need his hand. 

You see, the humans had created a plague that would destroy all life. Then they transcribed the human race into electronic circuits and put themselves on a thin wire.  Which is how they escaped the plague that is killing off the Kyba in the future.  And ultimately, Trent finds out that he is not a man, but a robot, with that wire imbedded in his body.

OK, at least this episode has some elements that are somewhat similar to the film.  But instead of a robot sent back to eliminate the leader of the rebellion, this robot was sent back to keep the strand of human life alive until that future date when the plague will have dissipated. The only question not really answered is why 1000 years in the past.  Why not just a 100 or so. Trent will have to live through not only the 1000 years, but another 200 beyond that before the Earth will be safe for the return of the humans.

And now we have the plagiarizing culprit...

The Terminator (1984):

The story begins in the future. A vast landscape in the middle of an ongoing battle.  In a brief prologue, before the title and credits run, we find out that, circa 2029 (that's only 4 years from this writing...), "the machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind has raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight..."  With just that brief synopsis to introduce to the concept, and the credits and title we segue to present day.

You probably know the drill already. A terminator, an indestructible android (played by the indestructible Arnold Schwarzenegger), appears in a flash of lightning. Nude. 

If you thought I was going to post the nude Arnie, sorry...

Apparently even androids can't use the time machine with clothes, since a little later a human comes through the same type of time transport and he too is nude.

The human is on the run from the cops from the get go.  He and the terminator are both seeking one Sarah Connor.  The terminator is systematically looking for Sarah, but apparently does not know the exact Sarah it is seeking, since it dispatches two of the three listed in the phone book. Luckily for her, (and us as the viewers of the film), the Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) whom it is seeking are listed third of the three people named "Sarah Connor" in the phone book.

Apparently the human, whose name is Reese (Michael Biehn), knows which one is the real target since he tracks her down without bothering to look for the other two. Meanwhile, back at Sarah's apartment, the terminator busts in and wastes Sarah's roommate and her boyfriend.  Mission accomplished as far as the terminator is concerned... right?

Wrong.  At that moment Sarah, panicked because of the two dead Sarah Connors and believing some nutcase is whacking off anyone named Sarah Connor, calls her roommate and leaves a message on the answering machine.  Now the terminator is not only aware that there is still one Sarah to deal with, and by virtue of Sarah telling the roommate where she is, it has it's next destination.  Meanwhile, at the club where Sarah is hiding, she is staying because a Lt. Traxler (Paul Winfield) has told her to stay put, because after all, she is in a public place and no one is going to try anything in a public place. (Yeah, right.)

Both of the future boys end up at the club where Sarah Connor is and Reese blows away the terminator and tells her "come with me if you want to live". 

While on the run Reese tells Sarah what the situation is. Both he and the terminator are from the future.  He was sent back to protect her from the terminator, which is a cybernetic organism (cyborg) which had been sent back to kill her.  Eventually Reese will tell her why. Her unborn son, John Connor, is the leader of the resistance movement against the machines that are trying to take over in the future.  The machines figure if they can eliminate her before she has the son the resistance will be eliminated.

But not only does Reese have to deal with the terminator, he also has to deal with the present day cops, who eventually capture him and Sarah.  Of course, no one ca really be from the future so Kyle must be mentally deranged.  But the terminator (who probably would be also considered mentally deranged, if they could talk to him) stages a raid on the police headquarters, still trying to complete his mission.  Reese manages to use the chaotic distraction to free himself from his handcuffs and escape with Sarah.

While in hiding Reese tells Sarah a little about the future.  Although it is pretty bleak, there is still some hope, and most of it relies on the  tenacity of their leader, her as yet unborn son.  (I should point out that at this point she isn't even pregnant.  Remember that...)  The two hide out a a motel, and Reese leaves, instructing Sarah to let "no one know" where she is.  But she calls her mom and tells her.  Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, her mom is no longer in the picture.  She just told the terminator who, since he is all machine, has the ability to mimic her voice.

Meanwhile things develop back at the motel and Sarah and Reese develop a relationship that gets a bit intimate.  And thus, guess who the father of John is.  You get three guesses, but the first two don't count... So, ultimately we find out why John picked Reese as the man to go back in time to protect her.  (Ignore that time paradox that just came in to your head or the rest of the movie and the rest of the franchise will have no point.

No nude pictures here, either...

The terminator shows up at the motel and. of course, there is an obligatory car chase. The explosives that Reese rigged up have no affect on the pursuing terminator.  But just when things start to look bleak, Reese sets off a bomb that explodes the gas truck that the terminator was using to chase them and he and it go up in flames.

Movie over?  Yeah, right.  Keep thinking optimistically...

The terminator rises from the ashes.  (And this being before CGI, that skeleton of it's makeup is pretty impressive...)

The terminator follows Reese and Sarah into an automated factory where all that machinery is somewhat distracting to the terminator, but it is relentless. And once again Reese is able to seemingly defeat it.  But that's just an illusion... Reese unfortunately dies, but not that relentless S.O.B. 

Of course, Sarah finally finds that drive she needs and lures the terminator into a hydraulic press. And finally! Success!

OK, so the verdict is... The Terminator does have some parts of it that could be construed as somewhat inspiring of the story, but not much.  And yet, the director, rather than have a long drawn out legal battle, chose to capitulate.  I must admit it hurts some to watch this film and see that tag at the end "Acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison".  If it had been me, being the combative personality that I am, I would have told Ellison "Go ahead.  Make my day." (Another movie that has no relationship to Ellison's work, but I bet if he could have found a sliver of opportunity, he wouldn't have hesitated...).

Note: I like Ellison as an author.  He wrote some fantastic stories.  But if he was as much an a-hole as history has made him out to be, I wouldn't have sat down and had a drink with him.

Well, time to fire up the old Plymouth and see if I can dodge those AI robots and make it home.  Drive safely.

Quiggy