The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

[greg]

I take is Turner Classic Movies is not run in Japan?
...
I should see if there is a streaming site you can get the channel from...

I don't even get regular TV here. I've never bothered to buy the coax cable to run from the wall to my TV. The NHK guy came by about a month ago, and I could honestly tell him that there is no way I can watch TV. We just use the TV for DVDs and game consoles.

So I watched Logan's Run last Sunday. If there is a movie in need of a remake, then it is this one. The premise is real cool, but it is weighed down with '70s cheese. The models used looked more akin to a tokusatsu show. This movie came out the year I was born, in 1976. Star Wars came out a year later and the difference in production between these two SF films are night and day. Can you imagine what Star Wars would be like if it had unconvincing models, cheesy sound effects, and '70s style disco synthesizer music? It would have been more like Buck Rogers or Star Crash. Since the ridiculous phonies in Hollywood are so excited about remaking movies, then this one has the potential of actually being improved upon.

[davemerrill]

I know Logan's Run is seen as pretty campy these days (and it is!), but there's something really effective in the way it slaps the sleazy 1970s hedonism of anonymous sex, recreational drugs, gauzy tights for everybody up against sudden, violent, societally-approved death. I first saw it as a kid on TV (and even then I thought the model work was abysmal) but Carousel, the death-masks, the blinking life-clocks, the eerie plastic smiles; it all works to unsettle. The practical effect of the Sandman pistols still holds up really well, too. After Logan and Jessica get out of the city, the movie doesn't work nearly as well.

Logan's Run, Battlestar Galactica, and Buck Rogers all share the same producer, Glen A. Larson.

The original novel is a lot more science-fictiony; In the book there are transport tubes that link every city on Earth and Logan and, uh, whatsisname, the Sandman chasing him, spend a lot of time zipping from city to city.

[SteveH]

I know Logan's Run is seen as pretty campy these days (and it is!), but there's something really effective in the way it slaps the sleazy 1970s hedonism of anonymous sex, recreational drugs, gauzy tights for everybody up against sudden, violent, societally-approved death. I first saw it as a kid on TV (and even then I thought the model work was abysmal) but Carousel, the death-masks, the blinking life-clocks, the eerie plastic smiles; it all works to unsettle. The practical effect of the Sandman pistols still holds up really well, too. After Logan and Jessica get out of the city, the movie doesn't work nearly as well.

Logan's Run, Battlestar Galactica, and Buck Rogers all share the same producer, Glen A. Larson.

The original novel is a lot more science-fictiony; In the book there are transport tubes that link every city on Earth and Logan and, uh, whatsisname, the Sandman chasing him, spend a lot of time zipping from city to city.

I think you have Saul David confused with Glen Larson. Logan's Run was a MGM production, not Universal.

Logan's Run is fascinating to me for a different reason. It's pretty much the 'last gasp' of what was then the current Hollywood image of SF- the Dystopian Future.

Hollywood SF all thru the '70s was pretty much universally concerned with the world going to hell (as time went on it was less 'Nuclear War' and more 'Man f**ks up the Ecology') and overall cranked out one depressing movie after another. The last couple of Apes movies, Soylent Green, The Omega Man, Silent Running, The Ultimate Warrior, Zardoz, Rollerball, ZPG and a number of others. MGM's Logan's Run and 20th Fox's Damnation Alley were both supposed to be the 'big budget' hits of '76 and '77 but of the two only Logan's Run did decent box office. Then there was that other SF movie Fox was releasing in '77 called The Star Wars. *Pfft* lame.

I really don't know why the model shots in Logan's Run are so...juvenile. It wasn't for lack of money, I don't think it was for lack of time, all I can figure is they must have seriously low-balled the bidding, thinking they could get away with 'Things to Come' level detail (which looked MUCH better than what we got in Logan's Run) without the actual skill level of how to shoot it.

OTOH, it sort of fits the antiseptic look of living under the Domes. I don't think I'd like someone going in and replacing all the shots with CGI.

[davemerrill]

You're right, Larson didn't work on "Logan's Run". I must have gotten it mixed up with "The Misadventures Of Sheriff Lobo."

[SteveH]

You're right, Larson didn't work on "Logan's Run". I must have gotten it mixed up with "The Misadventures Of Sheriff Lobo."

Well, I wondered if Larson had any work on the TV series and nope, not even there. OTOH there's a bunch of Star Trek Alumni cranking out the crap. I guess it paid the bills.

[greg]

You're right about Logan's Run being a critique on '70s culture, although the random sex and drug use is still a huge burden on society these days. The outfits I thought were actually pretty cool. The sandman uniforms were pretty cool, and the braless ladies prancing around in skimpy, silky outfits did match the "oh tee hee hee, we are so young and beautiful" whimsical atmosphere. The sandman pistols could've been better. For one thing there seems to be a delay in firing, and they seem to be waaaay off the mark. At least in Star Wars, the reason the stormtroopers kept missing was because Vader had ordered them to allow the heroes to escape so that he could track them to the Rebel base. But when they were chasing the first runner in Logan's Run, I was wondering if it was the result of bad editing or if they were intentionally missing because they were sadistic or wanted him to surrender.

I actually liked the part after they escape from the city. The shiny "box" robot was fairly dumb and was another example of cheesy effects, but the ruins of Washington DC was pretty cool. The matte paintings used were pretty cool, although the colors didn't match quite right.

I don't mean to be negative towards obviously dated stuff. I enjoy watching Ultraman as well as Buck Rogers and such. Plus I'm a big MST3K fan, so I appreciate cheese.

I really enjoy dystopian future movies. Blade Runner is my all-time favorite movie, and other stuff like the Mad Max movies are real fun. The whole setup of Logan's Run is brilliant. I could see a remake done that would do justice to the original, yet have better imagery of the tube transports and the city and such. However the typical morons in Hollywood these days would likely ruin it, by making the character motivations all screwed up, creating huge plot holes, and adding crap like huge explosions and car chases and such.

[davemerrill]

I think it's made pretty clear the Sandmen are sadistically toying with their victims. There's nowhere for them to run, after all, no urgency in taking them down right away, might as well have some fun with the runner. His life clock's run out, anyway.

[SteveH]

I think it's made pretty clear the Sandmen are sadistically toying with their victims. There's nowhere for them to run, after all, no urgency in taking them down right away, might as well have some fun with the runner. His life clock's run out, anyway.

But don't forget that a runner MUST be killed, and pretty publicly when possible, lest the lie come undone. Just because the Life Clock is blinking doesn't mean that person is going to keel over and die all on his own.

All true. One may also suspect the Sandman gun (aka 'DS' pistol from the books, which were much more akin to the 'Lawgiver' in the Judge Dredd comics, I digress) is just a tad awkward, clumsy and slightly inaccurate ON PURPOSE, to give the Sandman a greater challenge and hence a greater sense of satisfaction.

Which... is troublesome. I mean, one shouldn't look TOO closely at the movie because there's some strange logic going on there. Is a Sandman born or 'made'? Is there choice in what jobs anyone does? I know it's a glasshouse orchid butterfly life going on there but there are shops, right? there's the Nu You bodymod shop, there are clearly other shops, so SOMEBODY does some kind of work...

And, you know? Why don't people just, I dunno, burst into flame or melt all by themselves when the time is up? One could speculate that's a 'failsafe' built into the program just in case.

Had a bit of a crush on Jenny Agutter after that movie. Ah, the '70s.

[davemerrill]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Dredd's Lawgiver came from the novel's DS pistol. The early Judge Dredd stories are as dystopian as anything, though with an air of "the future is absolutely bonkers" that gives them their delightful atmosphere.

[llj]

Night of the Comet. Fun low-budget 80s cotton candy. A lot of things go unexplained--is the whole world dead, or is it just a certain radius around L.A.? How is the power still running throughout the city? But it isn't meant to be taken too seriously. It is, after all, about a bunch of Valley Girls goofing around a post-apocalyptic L.A.