Marvel has owned the summer for the last several years, and it’s no wonder. We’ve come to expect quality superhero fare with our popcorn and we don’t mind having a little bit of food for thought or Shakespearian undertones thrown in for good measure.
August saw the debut of Guardians of the Galaxy and some fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were doing some head scratching. It seemed an awful lot like the movie equivalent of throwing a one-shot or, even more odd, an ashcan when there’s a major story arc going on. With an (arguably) sentient (okay, it’s at least independently mobile and can take direction) tree creature and a wise cracking raccoon who insists that he isn’t, along with a green female assassin and juggernaut with no sense of humor, and a human with delusions of grandeur, the characters in “Guardians” made more sense as an opening gambit much earlier in Marvel’s plans than the next step in Phase 2.
Here’s the great news, I don’t know anything about making movies. I love to watch movies. I enjoy movies. I own a lot of movies. I’m perfectly happy to sit back, watch the fun, and tell other people what I thought. As much as I love action movies, I’ll be one of the first to admit that I will watch Vin Diesel in movies but won’t go out of my way to do so. Still, I had every confidence that he’d do just fine with Groot’s lines. Why? Because I knew that the only thing Groot was ever going to say was “I am Groot.” There would be variations in tone and inflection, but never in the actual words being said.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” is a fantastic superhero romp in space. There are explosions thrown into a little bit of mystery, a prison break, and a whole lot of catchy one liners. Did I mention the soundtrack? Starlord’s “Awesome Mix” is a hodge-podge of pop from the seventies that’s bouncy and fun, making for even more comedy against the hilarity of this crew of total misfits trying to save the universe.
Chris Pratt can be imposing on-screen when he wants to be, but most of the time, he doesn’t. He’s an everyman who’s found himself so far away from where he thought he would be in his life that he’s struggling to do the best he can. Sometimes, that’s not well at all. Still, he muddles through. Inherently, he’s not that bad of a guy, he’s just had some really lousy role models.
Lee Pace is terrifying as the Big Bad this go around. His voice is as deep as ever, but his delivery is almost entirely stripped of emotion. He’s fanatical about his cause without being insane. He moves deliberately and with grace and that makes him all the more sinister. You can understand how his character would attract followers.
One of those followers is played by Zoe Saldana. The more that I see her kicking butt as an action star, the happier that I am. She’s just so incredibly good at it. When they give that woman some fight choreography, she nails it and, honestly, there are some guys coming up in the action world who I’d really like her to give some lessons to. She looks like she’s hitting people. She looks like she’s taking punches. Then, she gets up, gets on with the smackdown, and goes on with the business she needs to get done. Her character has no tolerance and no time for anything getting in her way.
But what if you’ve already seen Guardians of the Galaxy a couple of times and you’re still hankering for some more sci-fi to get you through the tail-end of summer? Or, what if “Guardians” isn’t really within the ratings limit of the crew you want to watch some sci-fi with? Let’s see if we can dig out some recommendations for you. This may not be an epic level sci-fi marathon, but this will at least allow you to have a mini popcorn fest that will take care of your buttery topping and starships cravings for a while.
First off, one of my favorites, The Last Starfighter. Alex is a kid who’s kind of hopeless. He lives in a trailer park with his little brother and his mom. His chief form of escape and entertainment is playing a video game called The Last Starfighter. When Alex beats the game, he soon discovers that the game isn’t a game at all, it’s a recruitment tool.
Yes, kids, this one goes right into that age-old sci-fi/fantasy trope of It’s All Real. Just because tropes are involved, though, don’t discount this one just yet. Summer movies ought to be fun. This is that magical time of year when we want to be entertained, however we can be, so long as it involves air conditioning and, ideally, popcorn.
The Last Starfighter was made in 1984 and, honestly, I’ve been through 2 VHS copies of it in the time that I’ve owned it. The DVD is holding up much better, I’m happy to say. Yes, the effects are a little bit dated. Okay, the effects are a lot dated, but you have to bear in mind that they were breaking some major special effects ground back in those days. They tried, they really did.
This is one of those movies where the sheer love of “we’re making a sci-fi movie” shows through. They have aliens, they have starships, they have space fights, all for the sheer joy of having a movie where all of those things are relevant to this movie by virtue of what it is. It’s a little bit silly, but it never devolves into trite. It’s a little tiny bit “Star Wars Lite”, basically taking all of the best battle stuff from “Empire Strikes Back” without worrying about all of that super pesky political background stuff we all had to deal with from “A New Hope” and, best of all, an ewok free environment. There are good guys and bad guys and we know who they are and, look, battles in space, isn’t that awesome?
Another solidly fun sci-fi movie that I love adding to my summer sci-fi rotation is “Explorers”. This one comes from 1985 It stars Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as Ben and Wolfgang. If ever the name Wolfgang was going to be cool, it was going to be in this movie.
Ben has a dream one night that he’s flying over a giant circuit board. After he tells his friend Wolfgang about it, they build it and discover that they have created a mechanism that will allow them to travel in space at phenomenal speeds. Since they’re teenaged kids who don’t have drivers’ licenses yet, they promptly decide that building this space ship is the best idea ever. Naturally, they manage to not only build, but pilot their craft, and they manage to discover an answer to an age-old question that’s been plaguing man since he first looked up at the stars, “Are We Alone?”
The biggest disappointment, for me, with this movie was always the fact that I did not know anyone with a workshop as cool as the one that those guys had. Admittedly, the tools they had should have required a lot more supervision, but then we all would have ended up with a lot less movie, so there are trade-offs to every situation. Again, you’re going to have some dated effects, but the story is still decently good. The aliens aren’t exactly everything you might have expected, but then again, the kids aren’t either. There’s also some not so subtle, but still slightly gentle commentary about how the things that we put out into the world can most certainly affect the way we’re perceived by people who don’t know us.
I will offer a small word of caution on this one, just because the first couple of times when I saw it, I was a starry-eyed little sprocket with not much experience in the scary/thriller type movie genres. The Explorers isn’t either of them, but the very first encounter with the alien was a pretty intense scene for me. I’ll admit it, it scared me. There may have been a few popcorn casualties in the first viewing or two of this movie. It wasn’t enough to scare me away and it certainly didn’t keep me away.
My final recommendation for the summer sci-fi mini movie fest is Flight of the Navigator. This one was a Disney sci-fi movie that makes me wish (along with The Black Hole, The Cat from Outer Space, and Chicken Little) that Disney would do more sci-fi. In 1978 David Freeman disappeared. In 1986, he returned, in exactly the same shape he left. He hasn’t aged. He hasn’t grown. He still thinks it’s 1978. David’s little brother is now sixteen. David’s parents have aged. They’ve moved. The world is nothing like what David expected.
A mysterious silver craft has appeared in conjunction with David’s return. When that craft experiences a malfunction, it’s taken in by the government for study. Upon finding out David has returned, they decide to study David, too.
David just wants to go home, of course, he wants it to be 1978 again when he does. In that Disney tradition of kids trying to fix their own problems, David hatches a plot and frees not only himself, but the spaceship. He finds out that the ship is run by an intelligence that he names Max. They have to try to work together to get David back to where he belongs and send Max on his way.
The spacecraft design on this one is shiny, futuristic, and very, very pretty. This one, like all of the others on this list, has elements of humor. There are some truly stellar and incredibly quotable lines from Flight of the Navigator, and they’re things my family still lobs into conversations on a regular basis. Of course, it’s Disney, so it’s all about home and family and people (and spaceships) learning to care about and take care of each other, but that doesn’t make Flight of the Navigator and less fun to watch. Also, as an added bonus, Howard Hesseman plays a scientist, which is fun to watch for an entirely different reason.
Summer, especially the end of summer, is a fantastic time to break out some sci-fi and some popcorn and just sit and have a veg-fest, until the temperature gets reasonable enough to go outside and do something. The Last Starfighter, Explorers, and Flight of the Navigator are all available for streaming on multiple platforms, including Amazon and Netflix.
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