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00:00Science fiction storytelling exists from the beginning of filmmaking and persists through
00:09two centuries. In the early 80s there was this wonderful explosion of highly imaginative,
00:15highly ambitious science fiction. Suddenly all sorts of stories that were prohibitive
00:21because technologically they weren't possible were suddenly possible now. When I think of science
00:25fiction I think of stories in any medium that tell us what we could be and warn us about where we're
00:36going. Escaping when you're a little kid or a teenager into the world of science fiction is a
00:43great way to start to come to terms with your own personality, who you are, where you fit in the
00:49world and they become really important benchmarks in how you remember your youth. For the next decade
00:57or so across the 80s that amalgamation of science fiction and fantasy seemed to be the driving force.
01:06Science fiction became direct, straightforward, provocative, clear.
01:11Any idea that anybody had, if you set it on another planet or set it in the future or set it in
01:19dystopia, you could get the money to do it. Art shows us what can be and what ought to be. That is what
01:27science fiction at its best is all about, is showing us the world of tomorrow and how human life can be
01:38better in the future than it is right now. That's the magic of sci-fi now.
02:08George Lucas was a gift. He changed the whole world of cinema. He introduced all of these new ideas.
02:15How do you explain that experience? It was meant to be. It changed everything.
02:27The whole Star Wars experience is a phenomenon. It opened up horizons in a way that nobody ever
02:37imagined. I'm going in. I loved it. I always felt that George Lucas was a very unique individual
02:47with a unique point of view. I often wondered if he knew what he was really introducing.
02:54The empire strikes back.
02:59Coming to your galaxy next summer. With Lando, I didn't want to make a black character, a white
03:05character. Lando is Lando. It's like Billy Dee to me is Billy Dee. I want to show you my own personal uniqueness.
03:17How you doing, you old pirate? So good to see you.
03:20I wanted to talk about that swashbuckling kind of individual. Welcome, Leia.
03:25I was an honor to work with Kirshner. He was a real actor's director for one thing. So he really
03:34understood the human behavior. Well, your highness, guess this is it.
03:39That's right. Don't get all mushy on me so long, princess. It wasn't just purely based on
03:46this kind of a journey into space. Punch it.
03:54One of the great things about playing a kind of a dubious character, they're not bad people.
04:00They're just caught up in situations. I remember picking my daughter from school
04:05and the kids would accuse me of betraying my soul. And I'm right in the middle of the schoolyard,
04:14having this debate with these kids. I had no choice. They ride right before you did.
04:19I'm sorry. If you express those characters through a kind of vulnerability,
04:26then I think it makes it more palatable and much more interesting. I am your father.
04:32George wanted to keep everything secret. He wanted everything to be a surprise in the movie.
04:38Unlike Carrie and Mark, who signed contracts for multiple movies, Harrison only signed for one movie.
04:46And each movie was a separate contract with him. George wasn't sure he would come back for Jedi.
04:55So that's why at the end of Empire, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite.
05:03I love you. I know.
05:06They needed a way, if Harrison didn't come back for the third movie, how do you explain what happened?
05:15But if he does come back, you defrost him and we're all happy.
05:18George is more of an idea person that has these great, fantastic visions.
05:29And I was a little bit surprised because he was talking about the budget for Empire Strikes Back.
05:36And he was trying to figure out how not to spend more money than he spent on the first Star Wars movie.
05:42I'm thinking this guy is just monolith as far as creativity is concerned.
05:48But here's a guy thinking about how much money am I spending to put an idea together?
05:52You know, it's show business.
05:55Part of the pressure that George was feeling was because
05:58he had financed Empire himself as opposed to having a studio do it.
06:04And when the movie ran over time and budget, he had to put up more collateral.
06:10And so there was a lot of pressure that had the movie not been successful,
06:15he could have ended up back at the start.
06:18What Star Wars did, both in terms of the visual effects,
06:21but also George's approach to the storytelling aspect of it,
06:25was it opened up the door for genre films that people had been afraid to make before.
06:34It's driven by the story.
06:42Star Wars had this wonderful level of authenticity.
06:47Just required a lot less of that suspension of disbelief.
06:50It was a real revolution in storytelling.
06:52What cinema could do and storytelling could do and a connection with the audience can do,
06:58was absolutely at its height.
07:00I think that even for Lucas, the expectation became unattainably high.
07:04The saga lives on.
07:07Return of the Jedi.
07:08There's stuff in Jedi that is absolutely masterful,
07:11that I have really fond memories of.
07:17Get alongside that one.
07:18The chase through the forest, which is like an epic piece of cinema.
07:22I love that sequence so much.
07:31I did go see Return of the Jedi 23 times in the theater.
07:36The Sarlacc pit and Jabba's going to throw them all in there,
07:40but Luke's got the plan with R2.
07:42You'd think that there would have been this big battle with Boba Fett and someone and Han, right?
07:55He just gets like accidentally rocket packed into the side of Jabba's big space cruiser.
08:02And becomes a burp joke.
08:07Boba Fett first showed up in the Star Wars holiday special in the animated sequence.
08:12He was supposed to be the main villain in the movie that turned out to be called Return of the Jedi.
08:24It was all going to be about chasing Boba, rescuing Han Solo.
08:29But during the making of Empire, George decided he did not want to make more Star Wars movies.
08:37I was sitting with him in a sound mixing room and he told me that he had made this decision and was going to end.
08:44And that's why he was going to condense the third trilogy and the redemption of Darth Vader into Return of the Jedi.
08:54And then Boba, he went from going to be a big star to an afterthought.
09:00When we came onto the set, they had these shirts that said Blue Harvest.
09:08Sort of like just a distraction for the local people that they wouldn't find out that we were doing a Star Wars movie.
09:15The first time we go out to dinner and Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, my father, you know, Harrison Ford are having dinner together.
09:21They're going to figure it out real quick.
09:24Cory and I have always been very, very close.
09:27He traveled a lot with me whenever I did movies, stood in for me.
09:33The opportunity to be a part of the Star Wars franchise was, couldn't overlook that.
09:41When he fell into the pit, Han is trying to shoot the tentacle off of his leg.
09:46An explosive charge went off and went into his foot and burned his foot.
09:52So they put me in Lando's gift card outfit. They hung me over the side.
09:56They didn't tell me all these explosions were going to happen.
09:59I guess they got a genuine reaction out of me.
10:01And then they needed someone to put on Klaatu's mask.
10:06He was just a random creature.
10:07He was going to run towards Skywalker, get into a quick skirmish, and I couldn't see a thing.
10:12It was sort of like a random last minute thing. And here I am, an action figure.
10:22The big battle at the end, the Death Star and then everyone on Endor and waiting for,
10:27you know, Han will get that shield down. We've got to give him more time. Go Billy Dee.
10:32We've got to give him more time. I did seven stunts for seven different Ewoks. Every time Dave Tomlin,
10:42who was the first assistant director comes, he'd get into the suit. I said, but I just got killed.
10:47He said, got to do another one. When I watched Jedi, I was like this, just leaning forward.
10:55The true moviegoers posture, right like that. So what we have here is a linking of almost a
10:59child's imagination with all the technology at the command of the movie maker.
11:02These movies take us from childhood into an era where we're growing up, we're changing.
11:08They're indelibly connected. It was this huge part of my life.
11:13We certainly never thought we were going to get any more of these movies.
11:19What I think George Lucas did amazingly was to show that it was possible to execute these grand
11:26visions with a level of believability that was something we hadn't really seen before.
11:34There were a lot of filmmakers that were really inspired and freed by what George had done on
11:40Star Wars. You got immersed into it and you believed it and that was really wonderful.
11:56Spaceballs, the movie. The very first joke of Spaceballs is its title. And everything after
12:06that is just one joke after another. May the Schwartz be with you.
12:13Adorable. All of this stuff kicked off with Star Wars, obviously, in the very first shot of Star Wars.
12:17You see the spaceship and it just goes on and on and on. So many movies like just
12:24absolutely copied Star Wars and said, we need the giant biggest spaceship ever.
12:34When you think it's over,
12:36it's not over. And then when you think it's over, it's still not over.
12:50Mel Brooks was able to take satire and make it into a blockbuster.
12:55He honored the genre, whether it was History of the World Part One, Blazing Saddles. He was able to
13:10truly understand the genre he was trying to make fun of.
13:14Dear me, what are those things coming out of her nose?
13:19Highbrow jokes that really invited you in to intellectually make fun of the world we were
13:28currently living in. Spaceballs!
13:32Breaking that fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh wall.
13:35He did it. He's making fun of the commercials that we're watching on TV. He's making fun of what
13:47happens when we eat that must fast food and we become what we eat.
13:51The notorious gangster became locked in his car and ate himself to death.
13:56You satirize what it means to be a completely vain society that wastes all of its natural resources
14:04and then goes and tries to take those resources from another planet.
14:14In Spaceballs, they talked about the hilariousness of merchandising. I mean,
14:19that was how George Lucas made all his money. How did he know?
14:22What is it that you do here? Merchandising.
14:25Merchandising. Where the real money from the movie is made.
14:29Spaceballs the lunchbox. Spaceballs the breakfast cereal.
14:33Spaceballs the flamethrower.
14:36The kids love this one. Mel's just nuts.
14:42Dinks. My first speaking role, by the way. Dink, dink.
14:48To this day, I don't know what the dinks really did. I don't care. I was working with John Candy.
14:54I'm my own best friend.
14:56Give me Pa!
14:57Bill Pullman. Daphne Zuniga.
15:00He's showing my hair!
15:03Son of a bitch!
15:08Shields and Yarnell. Maureen Yarnell was the gold robot that Joan Rivers voiced.
15:13Will you turn that thing off?
15:15What? What is it?
15:21We were in on the joke. And it was peak Rick Moranis.
15:25Oh, your helmet is so big.
15:29All right, helmet!
15:30What?
15:30Michael Winslow has this unique talent.
15:43And the creeps.
15:45I'm sure there's more on the cutting room floor. There's no way there's not.
15:48It shows how diverse the cast was in their skills.
15:57It feels like all the worlds are just colliding in this one little mini comedic universe
16:03that we're all waiting for Spaceballs 2 to come out for.
16:06God willing, we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2 to search for more money.
16:11Still waiting.
16:14Hello, my baby. Hello, my honey. Hello, my rag.
16:17Hello, my baby.
16:23The whole tone of science fiction and films really changes with Lucas and Spielberg in the 70s and 80s.
16:30And it starts showing us the positive possibilities in our world,
16:34as opposed to constantly warning us about all the ways we're messing up.
16:41Spielberg said, can't we go back to what I grew up with, which is the beauty of sci-fi and imagination?
16:45There was a very personal, intimate nature to a lot of the very grandiose storytelling in the 80s.
16:53And it was that contrast that often made them work. A lot of that can be attributed to Spielberg.
17:00Steven Spielberg's E.T.
17:03E.T., the extraterrestrial.
17:05E.T., especially when you're a child, is such a roller coaster because you go through so many different emotions.
17:14Can you say E.T.? E.T.?
17:16E.T. E.T.
17:18E.T.
17:18E.T.
17:19E.T.
17:19E.T.
17:20Definitely a tearjerker.
17:21E.T.
17:22E.T.
17:24E.T.
17:26When he's hugging him and saying goodbye, I'm crying, I'm crying.
17:32E.T.
17:33E.T.
17:33I cry every time I see it, every time.
17:37this was supposed to be steven's little film in between all his big blockbusters all his films
17:45are actually intensely personal films he grew up in a broken home his father left his parents got
17:50divorced it had a very traumatic effect on him he's making personal films about his own life
17:56just that the kind of canvas is a bigger one
17:59everything was changing at that time within our society around the family
18:09i'm proud that i was able to portray one of those first strong mothers mommy he can talk
18:18of course he can talk i'll be right back in 10 minutes stay there i felt like i was honoring my
18:25own mom steven in a lot of ways is a child that's why i think he responds and understands the kids
18:39so well only little kids can see give me a break there are certain movies that are just so raw
18:48and honest in their interpretation of youth and the kid ensemble in et is one of those
18:56my god he's talking we used reese's pieces instead of m m's because m m's turned us down
19:04and said oh we don't think we want to be involved with an alien oh my god would you want it to be the
19:11guy at m m's had turned down et back in the 80s there were these latchkey kids where you were allowed
19:20to go out and run through the forest back by sunset darling definitely a different time suburbia your
19:29parents were not around you involved in your world the adults are these just these things out there
19:35outside of the frame no tv the scene where henry walks down and is showing et all the toys stephen said
19:46bring all your toys so those were all henry's real toys i think jaws was probably placed in there the
19:55shark eats the fish but nobody eats a shark i distinctly remember the first day i walked onto the sound
20:05stage there was a connection stephen did the voice when we shot drew was very young she really couldn't
20:16distinguish the difference between reality and fantasy we would put et in a corner when he wasn't
20:22working well she would be over talking to him so stephen had two guys whose job it was to at all times
20:31be on et patrol so that he could come alive and gertie would still not have to suspend that that belief
20:42we have to shoot his death scene i stooped down and i said all right drew we're gonna go shoot the
20:50scene where et's dying but et's just acting like we're acting right he's not really dying she has
20:59i know d do you think i'm stupid so i picked her up and we walked in she took one look at et and went
21:09he's dying and stephen's going roll it roll
21:18the message of the film itself was all about love and friendship and connection
21:24it surpasses our brains and goes straight to our heart the audience was ready for it the world was
21:32ready for it and literally it's our generation's wizard of oz
21:38i'll be right here
21:49now sci-fi was viable box office and now the studios are throwing money at this genre
21:57and you're getting the best filmmakers and the best actors and they have the funds to take you to other
22:02places geeks grew not out of necessarily wanting to be luke skywalker but because they wanted to be
22:08george lucas they wanted to become filmmakers and they wanted to understand film as much about the
22:15story it told but the story that went on behind the scenes as well and this expanded across the 1980s
22:23i told george lucas when i met him your movie made my magazine a success because when it came out
22:29suddenly the whole audience for science fiction came alive
22:34they want to know facts information knowledge that's what we were giving them
22:42the starlog cine fantastique cinefx was very much hardcore making of premiere
22:49and then in 1989 in britain empire was born which i went on to work for
22:54one of the things i did at lucasfilm was i started and oversaw the first few years of the official
23:03star wars fan club and for far less money than it cost us to operate you could join and we sent out a
23:10membership kit with an exclusive poster and photographs and stuff and a quarterly newsletter
23:18called bantha tracks we wanted to keep fans interested and happy
23:23fandom developed around these magazines we created a place for the reader to come
23:29and pour out their geekdom and be amongst like-minded people i remember that first great
23:36image from star wars luke holding the lightsaber it's evocative it's like something medieval
23:40where it's the tom young version or the hildebrand brothers version it was such a powerful image
23:46it still is back in those days movie posters were legitimate works of art
23:53now we know them you know it's this kind of great range of of artists
24:02there was a point in the 80s when the marketing and the product placement and the sort of eye towards
24:10what these films were going to do beyond when you left the theater would sometimes overtake the movie
24:16themselves
24:22hi kids it's me ronald mcdonald and i'm on the set of my very first motion picture ever
24:28it's a movie called mac and me the producer this man that worked for mcdonald's who was this big main
24:33supplier a multi-millionaire he was probably you know polishing his own look by making a film and giving all the
24:43money to this company everything is a deal behind films because films just cost way too much money to
24:51make well the ronald mcdonald actor in the film was the one that was actually on tv in all the commercials
24:58it was a crossover of perfection mac and me is the kirkland et there is an entire generation of people
25:07who only know mac and me because paul rudge shows a scene from mac and me on conan o'brien every time
25:15he goes there to promote a movie i get a phone call and it's a guy that never met and he said
25:23i have a film that i want you to direct and write it's a lot like et but i want to do it with a family
25:30with an actual person that had a spinal obifida condition we didn't steal anything from me it was
25:39just a concept to have an alien creature so i need the prototype aliens big big eyes nothing like et
25:47and animated and cute it's the kids can we get down and watch no way the lead boy jade caligary he
25:56was exactly what we wanted he could he could act and he was wonderful in the movie please i won't let
26:02anybody hurt you it was fun to make the film but it was extremely limiting because the creature is really
26:13a puppet on cables everything was time consuming but it worked
26:19it's so wholesome in its elements they were both very cute together but it's all done on the level
26:31of children it's a whole different world when you're writing for kids
26:38it was a charitable endeavor
26:40we have this building that they're giving us we have as many dances as we can put in there that's
26:50how it was created
26:54one of the dancers in that background which we shot was jennifer aniston can you believe that
27:00nobody paid tribute to this producer that made a whole movie to help people that were handicapped
27:11have more presence in the film business and it destroyed the kid he did it because he wanted to
27:16show that people that couldn't move except in a wheelchair could do all this stuff so then paul rudd
27:23comes along and he sticks up this whole scene with jade losing control of his wheelchair and flying off a cliff
27:37he did it year after year after year he has single-handedly kept that movie alive
27:44i would love to sit down with him and write a sequel to that movie with him starring in it with this
27:52creature my wife's always saying we should call paul rudd
28:01the movie going experience became something that started way before you could actually go see the
28:08movie a movie is a product just like coca-cola is a product catch it if you can can catch the wave coke
28:15it's putting the name in your head so that you will think about it and feel interested in it
28:22you have to remember if it's at all possible that in the 1980s there was no such thing as the internet
28:28what we knew of future films was given to us by the lobby of the cinema where we were currently going
28:33to see a film
28:39and it was a thrilling thing there was that little moment where you looked at a poster and you started
28:44to make the film in your head as you you looked at it all we had to go on was the title the tagline
28:50and the imagery bob peaker did all the star trek posters drew struzan who's now a legend and robert
28:56mcginnis and john berkey and others it's a great range of artists who've become cult figures and the
29:03whole idea of science fiction poster art has become a collectible and desirable in its own right
29:09brilliant marketing the michelangelo picture has so much meaning to us i thought it was a brilliant
29:19representation of that tron was a poster that was very important to me great visual idea the thing
29:27had a fabulous poster for me really the next level in terms of poster art is the vhs box
29:35because when you went into into video stores that's what you were using to make your choices
29:42the movie that had been playing to crickets in theaters was now a movie that people thought oh
29:47this must have been a big hit i think partly because of the appeal of what was on the box that
29:51transformed what people remember about the success of these pictures if you weren't alive in the 80s you
29:58will never know the unbelievable high stakes selection process at the video store you kind of flipped it
30:08around and looked at some of the words in the background and read maybe a few of them and looked
30:12at some of the quotes and two thumbs up roger ebert you know but it was the image on the front that made
30:18you excited and our hunger not only to know about the worlds of the film but also to know about how
30:25they made the worlds of the film began to grow the audience was very intelligent and i said i think
30:32we can do a magazine that will target people like me that have been a science fiction fan since i was
30:39a kid that really covered all the stuff that i love you've got songs from movies that are on billboard
30:45charts ray parker jr from ghostbusters that was so fantastic mtv they would take a song from the
30:55movie and make a video and it made it really fun you associated all those things together and then
31:03you wanted to see the movie it was kind of incredible marketing look at the stereo no no no that's not a
31:10stereo and this is how films grew in our heads it was a way of enticing you in these days they're
31:18much more of like an accompaniment of the whole hype machine i mean we didn't know what hype was
31:24i mean we experienced it without putting a name on it back in the 80s so that's all part of our
31:30advertising and publicity it just makes sense who's going to want to go see this movie let's let them know
31:37about who are you flash gordon quarterback new york jet flash gordon was true to the buster crab
32:01serials and alex raymond comic books i think if nick rogue had done a flash gordon as the original
32:10plan was it would have been a completely different movie than the one that mike hot just did
32:15i can hear dino now saying no it's crazy don't do this like this it's too much dreamlike yeah we want
32:21uh with guns shoot and girls with big tits you know dino de laurenis he was like a spengali he had
32:30this big vision that the movie mattered above all else michael hodges came in three weeks before
32:39filming strange object imaged in the imperial vortex we ended up basically improvising quite a bit
32:47yeah when you improvise sometimes you get gold
32:53the sets were amazing the costume was outrageously great
33:04what was flash gordon wearing during the execution scene hot pants okay green leather hot pants
33:14tip of the hat to danilo donati who was the set and costume designer he should have been nominated at
33:20least for an academy award pathetic earthlings hurling your bodies out into the void max von cito his
33:28costume was so heavy and difficult he couldn't sit down they had to lean him on a backboard
33:36gordon's alive brian blessed they broke the mold when he came to this planet
33:42to the death in the scene with the moving disc with sam and timothy dalton brian blessed is just
33:51making one crack after another i was laughing so hard i have prisoners and the scene where i'm on the
33:57table and he pinches my bottom was not in the script it was a brian blessed special i have laid his
34:03suspicions one of the amazing things about flash gordon it was the sweetness of it the innocence oh it's so
34:11crazy and that sweetness allows for the room to have all these double entendres some adult content uh
34:19subtle and not so subtle ming has his magic ring that causes me to have a lot of pleasure but it works
34:27because i'm this innocent who just doesn't quite know what's going on did you ever see such response
34:34no truly she even rivals your daughter look at ornella that seduction scene where she's sitting
34:41on my lap i kept telling the director i'm not really getting this i need another take okay oh my god
34:47this girl's really turning me on i i didn't quite get that think it again whoo yeah that took it to a
34:53whole nother level i was told in the beginning dino did not want queen he was quoted of saying ah
35:02that's enough for my movie queen not only complimented flash gordon it brought tremendous value
35:14it was rock and roll it was festive it was lyrical and that's what the movie is this is not a dark movie
35:21it's a cartoon strip so it was supposed to be energetic and fun it is what it is just sit back
35:30and enjoy being transported with your face with any storm in your life you just call upon flash
35:39the superman movies are absolutely special to me christopher reeve was so phenomenal in the part
35:59every time a franchise tries to carry the story on it's fraught with difficulty you and i know that
36:06when anybody says which is the best superman they say two you haven't seen the best part
36:13superman 2 the adventure continues superman 2 remains about truth justice and the american way
36:22there is no doubt about that it is also about the villains coming back and maybe getting superman and
36:28that's the best part there is no question about the fact that christopher reeve embodied superman i
36:40just think he was extraordinary i believe this is your floor he was a little dorky he was more like
36:48clark kent and superman
36:54terran the stamp remains the sexiest man on earth neil before i saw it jack looked like jack all the time
37:03i hasten to add we moved a certain way and we moved with a fluidity three villains flying along they'd got
37:14the tracks up in the roof like railway tracks up there somebody hadn't quite worked out that when
37:19you go around a corner the momentum swings you out so the three of us start off very well then we go
37:25around the corner and then we all get tangled up together and there we hang
37:31stepping on the moon it was the most extraordinary set what kind of a creature are you
37:38just a man a man do you know that scene where i kicked the astronaut in the groin when i went to
37:44japan to promote the film they cut that scene because it was too violent a woman kicking a man like
37:49that just doesn't do does it margot kidder absolutely made contact when she had to clip me because we
38:00tried it a few times and it just didn't look too real you're a real pain in the neck
38:05she got me so much that i went over the edge it was like got the shot moving on thank you very much
38:13we weren't killed off we just disappeared if you like to to be able to come back there was definitely
38:20speculation about that superman one and two we shot them back to back with richard donna who we all
38:30adored we took a break because at a certain point we'd shot so much of superman two they needed to
38:37concentrate on superman one of course they did i literally got back on the set and it was richard
38:43lester to reshoot the same sequence with two incredibly different directors was the best
38:50experience of my life eradicate the only man on earth with kill him eradicate the only man on earth
38:57with let me kill him consequently when it came to selling superman 2 it was me warner brothers put me
39:05through my paces to see if i could talk about the film without spilling the beans the fact that they
39:12changed directors was just something we never talked about in the marketing of the film that was a
39:19more naive period where people weren't so into all the nuances of filmmaking at the beginning it was
39:27marvelous and glorious and we all loved each other by the end it was just we'd all had enough i think
39:33i often think of the enormity of certainly the impact of superman everybody has seen superman
39:41round the world whether it be on television whatever it is it's a love fest
39:48this time is going to be the best time of all
40:01superman 3 encapsulates so many different genres in one film
40:06oh i'm sorry it was a comedy vehicle for richard pryor it was an action-adventure superman
40:13film it touched upon contemporary technology of computers getting down to business
40:22richard had been in some kind of hero with margot kidder richard got a chance to do some drama
40:28playing a returned vietnam vet and he really was hoping that he would get a chance to do something
40:33like that in superman 3. but that's not what they had in mind for him
40:42robert brawn plays the villain in the film uh and puts richard pryor's character to work for him
40:48i asked you to kill superman and you're telling me you couldn't even do that one simple thing
40:54a nettle tool playing lana lang sort of replacing lois lane as the superman clarks anyway love interest
41:01in the film lois say hello to lana lang smallville's newest gift to metropolis they were really
41:06trying to experiment and dig deeper into who superman was the part of the movie of going yeah man
41:14that's heavy i don't i don't know how you hold the weight of the entire world and everyone's fate
41:20in your hands is one being i don't care how much super strength you get from the sun like there's
41:25got to be a point where you break right literally breaking two we see superman chris reeve clark kent
41:34battling his darker self dealing with his demons dealing with who he is dealing with the weight
41:41of being superman it was a very interesting infusion of a different kind of sci-fi
41:48into a superhero movie
41:55a massive supercomputer at the end that produces a cyborg which is absolutely terrifying
42:04the computer digging into her arms basically taking over and turning her into a sort of robot
42:09android it's a very very scary moment if you're young enough that could be pretty damn traumatizing
42:18a lot of folks felt that the real problem of the third superman film is that it did not live inside
42:24the superman universe at all richard donner had wanted to and worked on a script that involved
42:30a brainiac and mixoplex and all sorts of other characters from the superman universe including
42:36an introduction of supergirl they came around to making richard and superman buds they kind of give
42:42each other five at the end of the movie which was very very cool of superman back in the day but the
42:48movie itself just it really didn't come together
42:56superman 3 not the best of the superman films but it's better than superman 4
43:02a universe of magic heavy metal heavy metal the movie was a very interesting experience for young
43:2114 year old me yeah my world view shifted after watching that film
43:30i was a fan of the magazine a fan of the art fan of the storytelling
43:36it played into my interests in a very natural way
43:40i said it would be great as an animated film my powers continue
43:44it showed you the possibility of animation and sci-fi and more sophisticated ideas
43:54beautiful but it's also really subversive and counter-cultural
43:59i tell you i'm an american citizen i just lost my paper to something god damn legal aliens the source
44:05material the heavy metal stories really in themselves had a kind of level of explicitness
44:10that was freeing i think for the artist i saw that as something that was quite fun and delicious
44:17i'm afraid that i'll come home one day and find you screwing the toaster
44:22you'll just have to trust me jerry potterton was a really fine animation director in canada
44:28i sort of enlisted him as a kind of a central filmmaking group to tell the story
44:34uh len bloom and dan goldberg who i'd worked with on meatballs they came up with that sort of magical
44:44sort of deadly green ball from outer space as a way of sort of linking the stories together someone
44:50always finds me
44:56my favorite sequence in heavy metal is den
44:58can i destroy your majesty yes i like the heavy metal magazine it's an actually an adept recreation
45:10of that vibe and if i refuse if you refuse you die she dies everybody dies sounded reasonable to me
45:18the b-17 bomber that crashes on the island with the zombies that's probably my favorite individual
45:23vignette from the film no time the two space pilots that get high on the space cocaine is also a funny one
45:37tarn up as a huge mobius fan and wanted to sort of give him all due respect
45:47maybe she wants to fight
45:48what i remember about heavy metal is the music in that film all of the bands that have a song in
46:01that film i have cranked that soundtrack so many times over the years i wore out so many cassette tapes
46:10yeah the future is now is pretty well illustrated by musk sticking a tesla into space
46:15like the opening of the heavy metal movie i wish we could have finished it in a slightly more
46:21complete way i mean we were working under the gun in terms of timetable in terms of budget
46:26but i'm still quite taken by how still effective it was
46:36i think we were just really ahead of the curve in all sorts of ways okay sucker hand over your cash now
46:45we all know that the hero's journey is fundamentally a part of many stories in science fiction
46:55usually a single character who is initiating some adventure some call to action and that there
47:03is this tremendous transformation father the sleeper has awakened where do i come from why do i
47:14matter what can i do to contribute to the universe in a real meaningful way when we connect to heroes
47:22those are our ideal selves flash gordon he's just a guy he doesn't have any superpowers relies solely
47:32on his wit and his athleticism they carry attributes and features that we want to see in ourselves
47:41grave courageous taking risks being compassionate being vulnerable intelligent when we're in these
47:49moments with these characters feeling the fear the phobia the desperation sometimes even grief
47:59why not make me an offer we all need to see the hero have those things to relate to them
48:06alex is essentially a very reluctant hero i mean i would say a coward really there's been a big
48:13mistake and i do understand you're actually declining the honor of becoming a star fighter you got it what
48:20are you a coward are you a coward which i found very believable we also come to learn that heroic actions
48:26do not have to be huge extraordinary broad things they can be small very meaningful actions it is
48:35illogical for you to perform this energy pack transplant i like unsung heroes i like the people who nobody ever
48:44talks about hold them in the security tower and keep it quiet move if you boil down the classics as we
48:54know them empire strikes back et the terminator what unites them all is humanity and is the way that the
49:03directors and the writers create character that's accessible when you've gotten past the energy shield
49:10proceed directly to the rendezvous point women like princess leia like vasquez like sarah connor
49:19they're empowered they make decisions that other people don't like they take initiative they take
49:24control you're a terminated fucker we needed to have that as young women
49:32louis received so much mail from young girls that just loved this character made them feel powerful
49:49just stay away from me bishop you got that straight these are characters that the audience can relate to
49:58it was very encouraging for young girls that they could accomplish these things that may traditionally
50:06have been left to the guys to do
50:11we connect to so many villains they're fascinating they're alluring they're different i'm supposed to
50:19hate or despise the villain but i actually feel connected to them why
50:24if only you could see what i've seen with your eyes i had no idea of the power of ursa i have powers
50:34beyond reason here there's a real outlet for bad behavior in these villains there's a vicarious indulgence
50:46in rooting for the villain oh guns guns guns and i think that's a safe way to be close to evil
50:54destruction bad behavior and know that's ultimately not what i'm about at the end of the day to be a
51:01good villain you had to believe you were the good guy once you believe you're the villain then suddenly
51:06you become stereotypical of everything that everybody wants a villain to be take that program to the
51:12holding pit part of humanity is acknowledging that we're not all good and all perfect that we have
51:18elements of destruction we make mistakes that's human psychology well there'll come a day when i'll
51:25show all of you don't you forget it seeing these characters overcome adversity gives us really
51:34important suggestions for our own lives and our own behaviors no biff you leave her alone the 80s
51:41represents an era of a lot of bravery the filmmakers were pushing new techniques trying new things some
51:49of them worked great and some of them didn't some of them really show their age today but there's
51:55something kind of wonderful about that that they were fearless about the things that they would try
52:04so there's something i think that's universal about that in terms of age
52:09a lot of these movies cater to a young audience that perhaps was in a real transition in their lives
52:18and these are times in your lives that you never forget as simple as these movies appear to be
52:26especially by today's standards there's a magic to them because of their relatability and their intimacy
52:48so
52:58you
53:00you
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