2010-03-05

Cheese and Crackers... oh, and Time Travel...

So I’m walking through Costco the other day and day-dreaming as I am wont to do about some of the shit that I dug as a youth back in the Eighties™ when I happen upon the Blu-ray for Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. At $9.99 I cannot resist, as the only other copy in my possession is a battered old VHS tape of the flick recorded off LaserDisc™. I snatched it up and threw it into the cart which gained me a raised eyebrow from the Grrl, but narry a comment.

For the three people out there who don’t know, the film takes place in our soon to be dystopian future (a few years from now) where the milk of human kindness has long since passed it’s sell-by date, and humankind has been reduced to vicious bands of scavengers and raiders, all obsessed with the acquisition of gasoline. Post nuclear horror was BIG in the 1980’s what with the Cold War with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (that’s right, SOCIALIST! I’m not afraid to speak the truth that the enemy was, and still is SOCIALISM!) and the threat of annihilation seemingly only a turn of the key away, and The Road Warrior is certainly a product of it’s time.

Watching the flick again I realised that it not only holds up, but even surpasses many of the contemporary post-apocalyptic tales spewing from the syphilitic anus of Hollywood today, and is without a doubt the strongest film in the “Mad Max Trilogy.” What was old, is new again as post nuclear flicks and zombie apocalypse pictures are enjoying a renaissance here in the twenty-first century, once again proving that there are no more original ideas left in Hollywood.

Anyway, the point is I still like Mad Max 2, even after twenty-eight years which I think points to how strong, and lasting the film is, to spite what Julian’s film Professor might try to tell you. The third act is especially satisfying, and I defy anyone to find a better chase sequence even with today’s CG laden virtual stunt-work.

Some other things from the eighties have not aged so well however. In 1983 in order to compete with Doctor Who (which was being shown for the first time in North America that year), NBC began broadcasting their own time travel series; a little program called Voyagers! This was the story of time traveller Phineas Bogg (the late Jon-Eric Hexum) and his bratty side kick Jeff Jones (Meeno Peluce) and their adventures through time and space, nudging as they did, history in the “right” direction. Recently this series became available in an inexpensive DVD box-set so, of course being the sucker I am, I picked it up letting my nostalgia get the best of me, my fond memories of the series slicing through my common sense.

Yeah… sometimes nostalgia can get the best of you. The show, while not completely terrible is certainly mediocre at best, and contains more plot holes and inconsistencies than I have room to name here (ancient Egyptians speaking ENGLISH anyone????). Okay, inconsistencies aside, the performances by the lead actors (and many of the so-called “guest stars”) were below average at best, and at worst, utterly unwatchable, and the writing was completely mediocre and amaturish. I am glad I only paid $12.99 for the series, anything more and I would have felt ripped off.

It’s funny how memories work, when I was twelve, I really enjoyed this program and was genuinely upset at it’s cancellation. I even went so far as to construct my own “omni” time and space travel device out of cardboard, plastic, and tin tape, complete with a money-clip on back to carry it on my belt.

Ah, well… even cheese has a shelf life, and apparently Voyagers! Had a shorter one than most others…

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