A Fistful of 80s Trash Sci-Fi!

    After watching a bunch of wonderful 80s trash this past week, and owing to a particularly strong resurgence in my thinking about science fiction in general, I thought I’d tackle a subject near and dear to me; the wonderful worlds of trash sci-fi.  This is the stuff one used to discover and cherish in the stacks of local video shops; something that younger folk will likely never experience again.  To that end, here are some of my favorites.  You’ll notice I don’t have Battle Beyond the Stars, or Enemy Mine, or The Last Star Fighter.  First, I couldn’t include everything.  And second, those all seemed a bit too mainstream…?

5. Gandahar (aka, Light Years) (1988):  I think I first picked this up because of its connection to Isaac Asimov.  But I loved it for two reasons.  One, it’s chock full of animated boobs, and adolescent Matt was quite taken with that.  And two, it’s a totally weird, alien world with lots of strange creatures and cultures.  Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s a wicked mindf%#k.  I’ve never seen the French version, only the English language one, with lots of famous folks lending their voice talents.  This is one I really, really want to add to my collection.

4. Beyond the Rising Moon (aka, Outerworld) (1987):  I stumbled across this in my early days of using NetFlix’s Instant service.  Right away, I was baffled by how I’d never heard of the film.  Absolutely, it’s a low budget thing, but it’s pretty darned good.  A pretty good story and some cool miniature effects.  Seek it out.

3. The Ice Pirates (1984):  Before there were The Guardians of the Galaxy, there were the Ice Pirates.  A goofy, fun, exciting and wacky film that dropped in the wake of Star Wars and has that film’s marks all over it.  But so what?  It’s a blast.

2. Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983):  A Han Solo type gets sent out so a backwater planet to rescue some damsels.  OK.  Whatever.  While not an amazing film, to be sure, I enjoy the heck out of this Peter Strauss vehicle (yeah, there was a Peter Strauss vehicle).  This feels like one of those space adventure novels you’d find in a used book store and knock out in an afternoon.  It definitely felt like there should have been more films.  I’d love to see the further adventures of Wolff.  Alas.

1. Cyborg (1989): This movie is the phoenix that rose from the ashes of Cannon’s collapse.  It was also their last theatrically released movie.  Masters of the Universe II and an attempt at doing a live action Spider-Man movie had to die so that Cyborg might live.  You can point to all the various technical issues the film has, to the bad acting and the weird pacing.  You’re not wrong.  But this is one of my all time favorites.  I love it.  And not with a single ounce of irony.  This is the movie I’ll often point to when talking about the difference between movies that are ‘good’ and movies that I love.  And there is a difference.  Citizen Kane is a ‘good’ movie (well, it’s actually a great movie).  Commando is a movie I love.  Those two labels are neither mutually exclusive, nor mutually assured.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Comic Review: Star Wars At War With the Empire

    The time leading up to and during the original Star Wars trilogy remains the most interesting explored in comic, book, and film.  The Tales of the Jedi comics were pretty cool, though.  Anyway, this volume starts just before the Battle of Yavin, which ended the first film, and goes up to about eight months after.  The stories are by various writers and artists, some better than others.  The later stories are the best in the collection, though the one that starts things out is pretty good.

    Though still featuring a good deal of characters we’re all familiar with, it does what I want to see from this sort of material, expands the universe.  The creators take us to several cool worlds, introduce us to several interesting characters, and splash the pages with some daring adventure.  I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail on each story, but mention the highlights.  The art in Betrayal is interesting.  I can’t say I really like it, but it has a kind of Moebius thing going on that works.  The Short, Happy Life of Roons Sewell is probably the most adult, or ‘deep’ story in the book, dealing with the difference between appearances and truth when it comes to heroes.  What Sin Loyalty? should have been a longer story, with more adventures of TK-622 and Akobi, leading up to this as a finale.  It’s OK, but doesn’t have the proper emotional resonance because we haven’t lived with the characters long enough.  Target: Vader isn’t all that great, but features some very cool panels, especially when it comes to Vader fighting.  I liked Alone Together quite a bit, in spite of its vaguely ‘Mary-Sue’ vibe.  The art is interesting.  Sometimes it’s a bit ugly, but I like it.  Many of the other stories have worthy aspects and cool bits, but aren’t as memorable.

    The stories are chronological, but mostly unconnected.  Even the ones that go back to Leia, Han, and friends, while they’re usually about tracking down new places to set up rebel bases, rarely play into the next or reference the previous.  I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, but I think a slightly more unified vision would have been cool.  Even if each were written and illustrated by different people, a single editor pushing a theme or what have you might have worked a bit better.

    If you’re a Star Wars fan, and have enjoyed previous comic work from Dark Horse, this is a worthy read.  I don’t think it’s good enough to draw in a first time reader or make a new fan.  It’s not bad.  But it’s not great, either.

Star Wars Omnibus: At War With the Empire Volume 1
Author: Scott Allie, etc.
Artist: Ryan Benjamin, etc
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
ISBN: 978-1-59582-699-2

-Matt