Every time Disney made a “Little Mermaid”, “Hunchback of Notre Dame” or similar animated movie, there was a whole industry standing by to make low quality knock-offs marketed to unsuspecting grandparents to give as gifts to their grandchildren. I’m wondering if Disney/Pixar’s switch to ripping off Japanese animation instead, plus actual original stories now, was done to combat this.
These things often come in groups: The high-concept film, the competing studios’ knock-offs, and the awful made-for-TV version rushed into production to air first:
The comet impact films Deep Impact and Armageddon were released within a couple months of each other in 1998. A putrid little TV rip-off made it to air first. A made-for-TV Titanic rip-off made it to air just before the movie.
The Dudley Moore age-changing comedy Like Father, Like Son led to Judge Reinhold’s Vice Versa, Tom Hank’s Big and George Burns’s 18 Again! and others within a few months.
Red Planet and Mission to Mars came out the same summer, with John Carpenter’s embarrassment Ghosts of Mars the following year.
And of course one summer there was an infestation of animated movies about ants.
I’m sure it was a total coincidence that when the chairman of Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, left to start DreamWorks, they immediately launched into production on movies like Antz (cough, Bug’s Life), Shark Tale (cough, Finding Nemo), and Madagascar (a shameless ripoff of the then-in-preproduction Wild Life).
Robot monster is quite watchable, well at least with 80s synth pop over the sound system and you have excellent cocktails and tasty plates of appetizers.
Oh wait you mean like when sober? Oh hell no.
Wrong thread. We’re not talking The Best Movie You’ve Ever Seen.
Actually, yeah, it’s kinda terrible, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. First time I ever heard of it was a short article in the big Star Wars double issue of Cinefantastique that my brother had when I was a kid.
This was a few months after CFQ founder Frederick S. Clarke gave a stuffily poor review to Star Wars:
The big news as we go to press is the opening of Star Wars to what appears to be broad acceptance and popularity. The film is a unique achievement in special effects, but beyond that there’s not much more to add. If you ever wondered what Flash Gordon would be like with decent special effects, you now have the answer: Just about the same. I had hoped director George Lucas would add some dimension to the film’s bald adventure storyline, but what you see is all you get. Most viewers seems too in awe of the amount and scope of the visual effects to realize that behind the pretty pictures and slap 'em, zap 'em action there is nothing, no theme, no intellect, not even an idea.
Lucas has wisely avoided calling his film science fiction, and as a hedge against criticism admits it’s just juvenile fantasy, nothing more. But juvenile fantasy can be great stuff, though not in Lucas’ hands. For a film that takes place in a “galaxy, far, far away,” there is a sad lack of that sense of wonder and mystery that comes from penetrating the unknown, that supreme prickly tension that makes young eyes and minds open wide in good juvenile fantasy films like Journey to the enter of the Earth and The Time Machine. This lack in Star Wars results from Lucas using all the props and window dressing of the genre without capturing its essence.
In Star Wars, a laser sword might just as well be a broad-sword and the outer space battles merely the World War II dog fights they are patterned after, because all this film amounts to are bits and pieces of westerns, swashbucklers, and sundry adventure genres that Lucas has traced over into the costuming of space opera. What a disappointment.
On the other hand, we still have Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind to look forward to, in the hope that its popularity will prevent the science fiction film boom from heading off in the pointless direction of Star Wars.
Anyway. Can’t remember whether CFQ liked Laser Blast. I gotta dig up the magazine and find the article, which doesn’t seem to be online.
I always thought Gone in 60 Seconds was kind of a terrible title for a fast-paced car-heist movie. I can pile all my kids into my Toyota Sienna minivan along with six bags of groceries, and be gone in under 60 seconds.
I came here to say Goldmember. I left halfway through. I got the tickets for free, but I’d like to think I would have said to hell with the sunk cost, and got out of there anyway.
Those are called “Mockbusters”. When I lived in London, I bumped into a guy who had just returned from shooting a knock off Sherlock Holmes in Wales. He told me a tale of a Sherlock having to shoot some kind of mythical beast that rose from a questionable pond on a farm…
As a pre-teen I saw the first Star Wars movie on opening day. As a teenager I saw Return of the Jedi on opening day.
When my wife and I saw Revenge of the Sith on opening day, some 20yo little shit asked us why old people like us were interested in the movie, let alone seeing it on opening day.
Star Wars Holiday Special doesn’t count as a movie, right?
Did anyone else see Starcrash in the theater without realizing what they were in for? It’s not the worst movie I’ve seen in a theater, but wow it was memorably horrible to sit through.
My younger brother saw that one in a theater… I sadly missed out…till I found it on YouTube a while ago and bad it may be but it has Caroline Munro in a space bikini… just sayin.
