Status Report & When We Were Kids II

by Lukas Kendall

I'm healthy again. What a relief. Let's hear it for... antibiotics! Quick status update:

The message board was messed up over the weekend. Now it's fixed. Some people may be under the mistaken impression that when the message board goes haywire, it is some deliberate stunt on our part. Um, no. It's a programming complexity that has to do with the month changeover, file size, and a certain amount of magic.

Evidently the advance Star Wars teaser poster at starwars.com was quickly removed (we had plugged it last Friday). Nobody has given an explanation yet as to why. It was a parody of the Godzilla poster, reading: PLOT DOES MATTER. Episode 1, May 1999. That rocks.

The Silver Age CDs are shipping now! Thanks for your patience.

Here are some more comments responding to the column last week, about whether today's juvenilia is really that much worse than the movies and scores of the past. (You may not be able to access this column today; we're doing a month changeover for the articles. Thanks for your impatience and frustration. Check fsd.html)

From: Karl Dworak <karl.dworak@twcable.com>

As a grumpy old man (I was born in 1964), I've worried at times that I might have aged beyond the ability to feel the sense of exuberance I felt watching the movies of my youth, Fantastic Voyage, Star Wars, Raiders, yadda, yadda, yadda. Thankfully, the dreadful Godzilla affirmed that I have retained a discriminating taste in junky cinema.

I read an interview with Dean Devlin several years ago, around the time Star Gate came out, in which he professed that Star Wars had inspired him to become a film maker, and hoped to produce movies that captured that same kind of magic for future generations. Conversely, I read a recent interview where the same Mr. Devlin said he removed any nostalgia from his new monstrous, I mean, monster movie. Big mistake, Dino! Devlin, an apparent devotee of deus ex machina situations, has managed to write a movie that, astoundingly, may be the most insipid of all Godzilla movies.

I believe the priority of mass-merchandising over story and character development is the greatest threat to the genre, and may actually prevent children from forming any long-term associations with recent films. The kids of today who see Godzilla will be able to buy any number of Godzilla-related toys, comic books, tacos, etc. The kids of my generation were left to assemble a rag-tag fleet of GI Joes or Aurora models to recreate what we had seen on the screen. We had to use our imagination to pit Joe against sword-wielding skeletons, or to put him into cardboard cladded submarines (man, now I'm really sounding like a grumpy old man!). Of course, we used cassette tapes of Star Trek episodes recorded in front of 3" cone speakers to provide the soundtrack for our battles.

Similarly, today's film makers aren't required to use cardboard anymore. They use 1's and 0's to produce their films. While technically breathtaking, digits are completely lacking in heart and soul.

From: "Josh \"SBuckler\" Gizelt" <Josh.Gizelt@gte.net>

It is interesting that you brought this subject up because of the fact that I myself have been ruminating over the same factors for some time now.

It seems that films nowadays are nothing more than spectacles- one idea wonders. They make for great trailers but little else. If the films had more involved, they would possibly produce a more lasting impression.

As far as the big ones are concerned, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones pictures all had some sort of mythical or cultural history to them that they pay homage to. The newest spate of films try to pay homage, but end up hollowly referencing instead. None of this newer batch of blockbusters has the resonance that the efforts discussed have.

What I find interesting is that even the most lame of the sci-fi/fantasy epics of the late 70's and early 80's have something going on. Tron, for example, touched on the idea of man as god to the computer world, The Black Hole's central "zinger" was the horror of having one's individuality stolen (anyone remember that Max Cherry was in that?). Perhaps it is no coincidence that these two films are Disney efforts, as the studio consistently jumps on bandwagons without looking at what they are doing, but notice that both these films do have some sophisticated concepts floating around even if they don't do much with them.

From: joe sikoryak <joesik@dnai.com>

You pushed my button with the "When We Were Kids" piece as well. I believe we develop an irrational love for stuff that we discover and enjoy when we're about ten years old. It probably has to do with the magic of pre-pubescence--that sweet spot between the ignorant bliss of childhood and the total hormonal confusion of teenage.

I know better now, but it doesn't mean that I don't still get a rise from certain people (Julie Newmar as Catwoman!), places (The New York Worlds Fair!) and things (_Jonny Quest_and Ring Dings!) of that vintage. And of course, I have conveniently blotted out all the other crap that failed to intrigue.

Even though _Godzilla_ sucks, it's probably going to "do it" for some percentage of the poulation. We all have a piece of pop junk with our name on it...and if anything, some folks critical sensibilities are underdeveloped/eroded/or non-existant...not that there's anything _wrong_with that.

From: Chris Kinsinger <76263.2355@compuserve.com>

Most of the letters in today's article have pointed out that fact that so many films today are built around the latest computer generated imagery, instead of genuinely interesting ideas and characters. The very same thing happened 70 years ago in the late 1920's, when sound films were brand new, and everyone in the industry was eager to experiment with the new technology. Add to this the fact that audiences all over the world were enthralled with ANY film that featured sound, so even the worst piece of trash with a soundtrack would earn a nice profit.

I learned this by watching the dozens of films featured in the multi-boxed LaserDisc series THE DAWN OF SOUND. All of these films are forgotten today. Some are quite good, some are even way ahead of their time cinematically, but most of them are trash. Really funny trash, though. . .it's almost like being in a time machine to watch these films. And they all have one thing in common: the ONLY reason they were produced was to make money with sound! Times change. . .people don't.

And to conclude, the correct answer is: yes, today's kid-aimed movies are nowhere near as imaginative or charismatic as those from yesteryear. Thank you and good day.

Tomorrow we'll have a review of the new X-Files feature film score CD by Mark Snow!

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