Theo Cinema: ATLANTIS - THE LOST EMPIRE (WOEFULLY Bad)

[AndyDursin]

I also have to add from my perspective as a parent, how much I appreciate that these movies exist.

I can't show most PG-13 rated movies to a kindergartener. The comic book stuff from today is much too violent for young kids.

It doesn't have to be that way and didn't use to be that way. I am happy these films are there -- not just for my own entertainment, but that I don't have to expose Theo to MAN OF STEEL and its violence.

[mkaroly]

Always had a soft spot in my heart for the theatrical cut of SUPERMAN II - when it was originally released I absolutely loved how Superman defeated the villains as well as Clark's moment to show off his strength at the end. Still enjoy it though I don't watch it often.

[AndyDursin]

THE LOST WORLD (1960)

I must've been 6 ish when I saw this on TV -- Theo is the same age so this was a good choice. He managed to make it through the talky first half hour of this Irwin Allen Saturday matinee affair fine, then enjoyed the silly shenanigans once the group hits The Lost World itself. He realized the dinosaurs were "less than special" effects -- "that just looks like a lizard!" -- but after a little while, he thought they were still cool and very much enjoyed it. "It's OK Dad, the action is still good!"

Watched it on the German Blu-Ray I bought, the transfer is average. I wonder if Nick was waiting for a 4K remaster and Twilight Time never got to it. Either way, curious it's never surfaced on BD in the US.

[Eric Paddon]

Both that and "Five Weeks In A Balloon" should have made it to Blu-Ray ahead of a lot of other Fox titles that did.

Someday, you should show him the S1 episode of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea "Turn Back The Clock" and see if Theo asks, "Didn't we see this already?" (Allen cannibalized tons of footage from that, including making David Hedison implausibly dress up like he did in Lost World, bringing back Vitina Marcus and having Yvonne Craig outfitted to match Jill St. John!)

[Paul MacLean]

Allen cannibalized tons of footage from that, including making David Hedison implausibly dress up like he did in Lost World, bringing back Vitina Marcus and having Yvonne Craig outfitted to match Jill St. John!

Speaking of cannibalizing, I remember seeing this episode when younger -- and being rather surprised to hear the sound of a TIE fighter coming out the mouth of a dinosaur!

I guess Ben Burtt wasn't quite original as we supposed!

[AndyDursin]

I noticed the exact same thing! After a couple of roars I'm like, that sounds like a TIE fighter . Burtt only removed the last second of it!!

[Monterey Jack]

I noticed the exact same thing! After a couple of roars I'm like, that sounds like a TIE fighter . Burtt only removed the last second of it!!

Watch the 50's John Huston movie The Roots Of Heaven, and you'll discover that Burtt swiped his TIE Fighter sound effect from the elephants in that film

[AndyDursin]

Must've been a Fox library effect. But still have to give him credit for mixing them up in a fresh manner!

[Monterey Jack]

19:15

[AndyDursin]

Guess this was chronicled pretty heavily in THE SOUNDS OF STAR WARS book.

Originally, George Lucas had seen a British documentary on PBS about the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II and had noted that the firing sound of some strange Nazi rockets was quite weird and interesting. Lucas mentioned that it might make a great sound for the laser gun and Burtt managed to find a copy of the documentary. He then set about finding sources that could emulate that sound. Luckily, at Twentieth Century Fox Studios, Don Hall let Burtt go through the Fox sound library, where he found recordings of some elephants that had been done for an Errol Flynn movie The Roots of Heaven [1958]. In that film, elephants stampeded and bellowed. with an almost shrieking sound (the same sounds were used for the dinosaurs in Journey to the Center of the Earth).

After making a copy of that recording, Burtt realized that when he slowed it down and stretched it out, he ended up with a sound similar to the rocket one in the PBS documentary.

But it wasn't quite right, so Burtt took the sound of the elephant and mixed it with pass-bys he'd recorded of cars during a rainstorm as they sped through puddles in front of a motel where he was staying (a pass-by is when a vehicle comes toward the viewer, passes by, and then speeds away).

"Swoosh, the car would come by, and you heard this car plowing through the water," he says. "I took that sound still thinking that I was making a laser of some kind." The key "a-ha" moment occurred during temp track auditions, as shots started coming in from ILM of the gunport sequence.

"When we did temp mixes and played it back for the crew at Park Way, I would take advantage of the fresh audience, because the editors hadn't heard anything with sound," Burtt explains.

"The gunport sequence came along with the first trial shots of actual TIEs in motion. There was pressure to just get some temporary sound in for a screening, so I grabbed a random set of sounds I liked and cut in a different one each time a TIE fighter zoomed by," continues Burtt. "One sound was the elephant shriek, the next one was a slowed-down World War II warbird, the next a processed jet or rocket."

After the screening was over, the only talk in the room was about that elephant swoosh sound. "That was the greatest sound for those ships you could have possibly picked!" Of course, I was saying, "Oh yeah, of course". I’d really put it in because I had no other altemative, but it got great reviews, so naturally it became the sound ofthe TIE fighters."

"ln World War II, the super dive bombers had an artificially created siren wail created by air ducts," explains Joe Johnston, visual effects art director. "They didn't serve any purpose except to create this noise, which would terrify people. It was intended that the TIE should achieve the same effect."

[AndyDursin]

Snow day -- decided to nix the usual Godzilla/Gamera stuff and do something a little different.




THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD

Truth be told I may have seen this when I was a kid -- but I couldn't quite recall. I bought it on Blu-Ray along with a bunch of other Disney comedies years ago from the Disney Movie Club and figured it couldn't be worse than THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE. However, I didn't realize this was the third part of a trilogy and, as such, failed to realize that I skipped the proper series continuity...okay, whatever, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter a whole lot in this case!

This was one of Kurt Russell's last Disney comedies (or maybe it WAS his last up until the pathetic "Captain Ron" two decades later) and it's an agreeable if average (by Disney '70s standards) comedy with Kurt returning one last time as Dexter Riley -- the Medfield college student who gets wrapped up in a series of improbable events. Here, he develops super strength, leading to rival cereal producers attempting to market his accidental serum as part of their ingredients. The cast includes familiar faces and some returning players from the two previous movies, most of whom were Disney rep players during the decade -- Joe Flynn (his last movie), Dick Van Patten, Phil Silvers, William Schallert, Cesar Romero, etc.

The movie is standard-issue but it's not bad, and I enjoyed most of Robert F. Brunner's Disney scores like this and SNOWBALL EXPRESS. He had a way with big-band styled riffs and some truly melodic hooks, and it's a shame nobody ever produced a compilation album of his Disney scores because they're some of the only "holy grails" left I'd like to see on CD.

What's most curious about STRONGEST MAN is how Russell's involvement has to constitute maybe a third of the running time. He shows up in the first 15 minutes, then appears in just one other brief scene before returning for the climactic final 15 minutes. Kurt must've had other things to do because the movie sags for a long time before he reappears, just in time for a slapstick finish that Theo very much enjoyed and laughed outloud several times at.

Watching even a dumb Disney comedy like this, it's a reminder that it's the silliest portions that appeal to young kids, and why they would be shoehorned into family comedies all the time (and still are). The problem with this particular movie is that it forgets its target audience for too long, and really struggles when Kurt was out, doing whatever else he was tied up with at the time of its production.

[Eric Paddon]

I remember seeing this once on TV in the late 70s. Eventually I saw the other Kurt Russell "Dexter Riley" films but this one I know I haven't seen since that one viewing only.

Flynn had died before the film's release. I read where he drowned in his swimming pool after a heart attack.

[AndyDursin]

We've had a good run over February vacation and the last month.

THE SECRET OF NIMH
Obviously this is one of Don Bluth's best movies, even if the screenplay could've been better streamlined (comes off as a little cluttered with too many characters for an 80 minute movie, leading some character relationships to go undernourished, and what you'd imagine to be important narrative moments to happen either off-screen or be mentioned in a passing line of dialogue...like the last scene).

But there's still plenty to enjoy in terms of the character animation and, of course, Jerry's wonderful score. I hadn't sat through this movie in a while so it's remarkable to hear fragments of, say, THE FINAL CONFLICT and LEGEND kind of dancing about in the score. "Flying Dreams" is also a pretty song and the moment when Mrs. Brisby levitates the box out of the muck lead Theo to spontaneously applaud -- that was the best moment!

STAR WARS (1977)
Theo was much more engaged this time around with the 1977 original and asked to watch it (we watched it before but he wasn't that "into it"). Like I've written before, the "4K77 Cut" looks fantastic and enables you to watch the movie as it stood in 1977 and not 1997 -- and Theo really enjoyed the movie. Last week we took a trip over to my parents where my Star Wars Kenner figures and playsets are stored -- he was fascinated by the remote-controlled Sandcrawler and the trash compactor set. Later on I looked up what a sealed Boba Fett figure goes for on Ebay and realized I could've paid his entire school year tuition (or close to it lol) had I only kept it "in the box" As it is we could make a few bucks selling even my loose figures from back in the day, but what's the fun in that?

THE NEVERENDING STORY
Watched the short cut. Visually dazzling and also very strange. Even after all these years I'm still unsure what to make of it. Some brilliant moments, but disconnected and odd at the same time. Theo loved the flying dragon (unsurprisingly), was a little scared in other moments.

JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
After being scared off by "Clash of the Titans," I tried this comparatively gentler Harryhausen fantasy. We watched it in an afternoon and he was into it -- I'm not sure he loved it, but he wasn't bored and didn't become restless even with the movie dragging at times. The ending is fantastic.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
I don't know why it surprises me how perfect this movie is, every time I go to watch it. There isn't a moment that's out of place or a scene that doesn't work -- Theo was a little scared by the intensity (I was the same 1st grade age when my parents took me to see it), but when I went to resume the movie's 2nd hour (we broke it into two parts), he wanted me to replay the truck chase sequence because he thought it was so cool.

It's also fun seeing him engaged in the music. At some point a few days later, he took the Temple of Doom soundtrack CD that was near my CD player and threw it in, then spent a minute or two trying to find the Raiders march -- "it's on Track 22" he exclaimed lol. I may wait a little bit before showing him that one though, I think it might freak him out.

[BobaMike]

Yeah, I haven't shown Temple of Doom to my 8 year old...we saw Raiders and Last Crusade in the theater, but Doom is a bit much. Not in a hurry to watch Crystal Skull with him for other reasons (i.e. it's not very good!)

We watched Neverending Story a few months ago. Blah. Didn't like it as a kid, even less now. Story is a mess.

Can I recommend the Sinbad movies as well? My son got a kick out of them.

[AndyDursin]

Yeah absolutely, I showed him 7TH VOYAGE a while back, he enjoyed that one also! I should try some of the others, I was worried a few of them like MYSTERIOUS ISLAND would be too slow.

TEMPLE OF DOOM is downright nightmarish. I was kind of freaked out when I saw it when it opened back in 4th grade!