Fantasy, Superhero, and Sci Fi Films - (1980-1982)!

1980 was a slow start with Superman II (1980) which was finished by Richard Lester with a Richard Donner cut in 2006.  The super kiss is silly as is much of Zod’s walking tour of America until the Metropolis battle.   The year picked up with the second Star Wars movie, Empire Strikes Back, a dramatic expansion of the Star Wars world! It was a slightly darker film, but still had the Star Wars action. We found out that Star Wars was a trilogy and that Darth Vader was more than just your ordinary villain. The early script was developed by author Leigh Brackett who also adapted The Big Sleep (1946), but also brought on Laurence Kasdan to the writing team. The film only won the Oscar for best sound! Next was Roger Corman’s Star Wars knock-off with Battle Beyond the Stars. It is a fun, kitschy romp with a Seven Samurai style adventure. The year finished with the sci fi Flash Gordon which was a bizarre venture into visual design with corny acting except Max Von Sydow as Ming and Topol as Dr. Zarkov who really got into their parts. It was known for it’s Queen score more than the Alex Raymond comic strip designs.  

Now we have one of the best years for fantasy, 1981!  Harryhausen’s last film was Clash of the Titans which is incomparable to the recent CG fest. There is some incredible scenes with Medusa and beautiful shots of the Pegasus, a great finish for the master. Sadly, it was snubbed at the Oscars. We also had Dragonslayer which still has the best dragon on film, Vermithrax, even Peter Jackson couldn’t match the perfection ILM created with this go motion beast. The story and the characters are ok, slightly above b-films, but it is the dragon that makes the movie. There was also John Boorman’s Arthurian vision in Excalibur. This has many moments that ring true for me, Nicol Williamson’s Merlin, I really like the leads, Nigel Terry as Arthur and Cherie Lunghi as Guinevere. Terry Gilliam also directed Time Bandits, a fun romp through time meeting Robin Hood, a minotaur, giant, and all sorts of strange characters. John Carpenter’s dystopian action film, Escape from New York with Snake Plissken, had a latter sequel. Also in the post-Apocalypse was The Road Warrior, the first Mad Max film, but there was more of the apocalyptic world in the sequels.

Sci Fi also has Steven Spielberg’s classic, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial which charmed audiences with the Carlo Rambaldi designed E.T. and broke movie goer’s hearts. Ridley Scott offered another dark future with Blade Runner based on the Philip K. Dick novel. It was a true dystopia mixed with a noir detective story. The brilliant sequel came 35 years later! Blade Runner had two Oscar noms, but no wins. The film that captured my imagination was Tron. Disney was trying to break in experimenting at the time, so somehow director Steven Lisberger, who only directed commercial shorts was allowed to make this ground breaking movie. It was far ahead of it’s time treading the cyberpunk genre, the greatest cyberpunk novel Neuromancer was two years later, the Academy was so backwards they thought the computer effects were animated! I saw the director and met some of the actors and this was the film for me as a kid and now.

1982 was also the year of sword and sorcery. We had The Beastmaster which was a b-movie, but still rich with detailed world that spun off to a tv show in the early 2000s. John Milius directed Conan the Barbarian, a key to sword and sorcery films, lifting them out of b-movies and Schwarzenegger into fame. It was based on the Robert E. Howard pulp novels, but somehow pegged as a comic book hero. Trapped in the b-movie fantasy is The Sword and the Sorcerer, Albert Pyun’s film, that had a goofy Tri-Bladed Sword that shoots a blade like a harpoon. There was also redemption for Star Trek with Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. The original crew facing a foe from the past, new designs, the submarine-like combat, brilliant! The fantasy film of the year was Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, this is a full created fantasy world created by Brian Froud beyond anything attempted to this day. Henson was ahead of his time with more acceptance of big screen fantasies now. We are just beginning to enter the 80’s with the explosion of fantasy and sci fi!

#EmpireStrikesBack, #RayHarryhausen, #ClashoftheTitans, #Tron, #DarkCrystal