Fantasy, Superhero, and Sci Films - The Mid-80’s (1983-1986)!

We are only scratching the onslaught of genre films up to 1982, so let’s continue the decade! 1983 brought us the last film of the Original Trilogy of Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, with loathsome Jabba the Hutt introduced, Leia in a Dejah Thoris-type bikini, and a plushie toy section of Ewoks, nub yub!  The next month was Superman sequel, Superman III, with a supercomputer and Richard Pryor.  The year also had Krull that blended a fantasy world with sci fi Slayers in a teleporting mountain fought by our hero with a spinning Glaive, actually the name of a spear-like weapon. 1984 featured nine genre films! It started with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, directed by Leonard Nimoy, we had another adventure to get Spock back in the movies. We also had Ghostbusters which perfectly blended comedy, ghosts, and a touch of sci fi with the proton packs and traps. There was of course a sequel and a remake in 2016. It was nommed for best song and effects at the Oscars, but lost.

The summer brought us The Last Starfighter, the premise is great about a guy who plays video games recruited to fight galactic aliens, but the story and characters were weak. Still, we had one of the best fantasy movies, The Neverending Story, based on the book by Michael Ende. This had a young boy on an epic quest to save his world from the Nothing with the help of his luck dragon, Falkor. It lead to some sequels and a tv series, but couldn’t capture the first film’s magic. Next we had one of the quirkiest sci fi films with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Buckaroo is a hero who is a surgeon, scientist, test pilot, and rock star fighting against the evil Dr. Emilio Lizardo, fun all the way! The standout genre film was James Cameron’s The Terminator propelling Schwarzenegger to iconic status. It featured an incredible robot design by Stan Winston and his studio with the skeleton-like cyborg. There was some controversy with Cameron admitting to some inspirations from author Harlan Ellison and his 1964 Outer Limits episodes “Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand” that he adapted from his own stories.

In November, Helen Slater starred as Supergirl.  It was 31 years when the Supergirl series debuted with Helen Slater as Eliza Danvers.  We have a few more sci fi films to wrap up the year starting with a sequel to 2001, 2010: The Year We Make Contact based on Arthur C. Clarke’s follow-up 2010: Odyssey Two (1982). It is about a joint US/Russia mission to investigate Discovery and a transformation that changes our solar system. The film itself is dull, Kubrick was masterful with the pacing and material, writer/director Peter Hyams here is just weak. David Lynch’s Dune based on the Frank Herbert novel. I finished Herbert’s book before I saw the movie so I knew all of the houses and world of Arrakis. Lynch was tackling one of the most complex stories, added his strange touches, but it was ultimately confusing to audiences. Denis Villeneuve has plans to make new Dune films. Also released at that time was Starman. This was a sci fi romance directed by John Carpenter. Jeff Bridges plays the Starman taking the form of Jenny Hayden’s deceased husband when he started as a ball of light. Kinda nice and spun of into a tv series in 1986.

1985 started off with the fantasy romance, Ladyhawke, directed by Richard Donner it centered around the curse that separated Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer with beautiful visuals by Vittorio Storaro. In June, we had Ron Howard’s Cocoon which had an alien cocoon giving Fountain of Youth powers to a retirement home, it won the Academy Award for visual effects which will be stunning when we get to the next film. We went Back to the Future with Robert Zemeckis’ sci fi comedy action movie. Michael J. Fox’s Marty and Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown are iconic as with the time traveling DeLorean. It won the Oscar for best sound editing, ok. We had the third Mad Max film with Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, an even more in-depth look into the sci fi wasteland. The year finished with Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine which really explored a human and alien at war who have to survive together and a little more. Louis Gossett Jr. really gave Drac an otherworldly, but very real dimension. Lastly, was Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, another kaleidoscope of weirdness in a 1984 dystopia, it was up for original screenplay and set direction Oscars, but lost.

1986, we had in March, Russell Mulcahy’s Highlander created by Gregory Widen. It had Christopher Lambert as the immortal Connor MacLeod crossing swords with Clancy Brown’s Kurgan. It had a number of sequels and spun off to Highlander: The Series, “There can only be one.”  In April, Ridley Scott was another sci fi director entering fantasy territory with Legend. It had Tom Cruise as Jack fighting Tim Curry’s Darkness in an atmospheric fairy tale world. Next, we had more of a comedy, but the sci fi did have an artificial intelligence with lightning bringing awareness to the robot, Johnny 5 in Short Circuit. Another fantasy classic from Jim Henson, Labyrinth, had the underlying girl, Jennifer Connelly’s Sarah, growing up with her childhood fantasies and into adulthood seduced by David Bowie’s Jareth the Goblin King. Dark and twisted like a labyrinth, the Brian Froud designed world is fun to watch again and again. In July, James Cameron crafted the sequel Aliens which he transformed into a military sci fi with Marines taking on the aliens.

We also had released that month another John Carpenter cult classic, Big Trouble in Little China, witty characters with Kurt Russell’s truck driver, Jack Burton, taking on James Hong’s David Lo Pan emerging from a curse with martial arts action, sorcerous special effects, and a little horror, this film has everything. In July, Disney again ventured into sci fi with an interesting kid flying and time traveling in an alien ship in Flight of the Navigator. This is a quirky, but fun movie. Also, that month was the last Superman film with Christopher Reeve, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, silly with Lex Luthor creating the Nuclear Man, but I actually like enough of the film to not write it off. August, Howard the Duck, based on the Steve Gerber comic book, let’s duck past this one, but he did cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). Lastly, the year wrapped with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the crew time traveled to the far off world of Earth in 1986 to find the last humpback whale kept in what is now the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was a fun romp with the original crew that was the most crowd pleasing Trek film.  There are some unique fantasy films, sci fi movies that are quirky and also franchises, with some superhero films peeking out. 

#ReturnoftheJedi, #TheTerminator, #Ladyhawke, #Labyrinth