NEWS: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s

GEEK: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s

The eighties were an interesting decade at the movies for science fiction fans. After Star Wars pretty much created the science fiction blockbuster movie event, studios scrambled to feed a newly-discovered audience that hungered for more. Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, and Troy Mcclure’s unforgettable The President’s Neck is Missing! all came out before 1982, and it looked like we were in for a sci-fi renaissance at the movie house.

For the most part, Hollywood delivered films as diverse as Back to the Future and Aliens, satisfying mainstream audiences and geeks alike, but some studio executives, their faces buried in a star destroyer-sized pile of blow, filled future car wash bargain bins with craptacular derivative hybrids, like sci-fi/comedy, sci-fi/horror, and the most enduring offender, sci-fi/action.

After exhaustive research (read: a week spent watching a big pile of movies so I can convince my wife that I’m “working”), I’ve realized that most films of the eighties which claim to be science fiction are equal parts awesomely awful and awesomely awesome, and none of them are purely sci-fi; they’re all some sort of hybrid.

If you’re of a certain age, and you spent any time at all browsing the science fiction/horror section of the video store on Friday nights in high school, you may recognize some of these Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s. They are presented in order of release, and are unranked.


Scanners (1980)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Horror
The Pitch: Creepy looking Canadians can read your mind . . . and blow it up, eh?

The Plot: Two years before he did Videodrome and five years before he did The Fly David Cronenberg gave us Scanners, a film about telepathic telekinetics and the obligatory scary corporation which seeks to control or destroy them. Michael Ironside, Stephen Lack, and Patrick McGoohan (that’s right, Number Six is alive and well in 1980) all turn in great performances in a movie that isn’t nearly as gory as we all remember it.

Awesomely Awful Because: We know what’s going to happen before the characters do, an annoying problem which is exacerbated by the painfully slow pacing of the film. Also, someone in the prop department must have had access to a bunch of shotguns, because everyone in the film uses them, to an extent that quickly becomes ridiculous.

Awesomely Awesome Because: Though the science fiction elements are outrageously dated (listen for the whirring data tapes whenever a ConSec computer is accessed) it actually lends the film an awesome surreal quality. Michael Ironside is fantastic as the maniacal Darryl Revok, and the prosthetic make-up effects, which are a little too obvious in this era of giant CGI robots, were groundbreaking - and totally gross - at the time.

Drinking Game: Whenever a scanner “scans” someone, take a drink. If it has really gruesome results, chug.


Escape from New York (1981)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Action
The Pitch: New York City is a police state, filled with criminals and weirdos. No, it’s not a documentary about the 2004 Republican Convention.

The Plot: Written during the Watergate era, but unmade until the Reagan era, John Carpenter’s Escape from New York -- set in the far-off future of 1997 -- is one of many cult favorites to emerge from the eighties. The story is pretty simple: crime is so bad, the island of Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison, where everyone convicted of a serious crime in America is sent to rot. Everything’s working out just fine until the president’s plane crashes in midtown, dropping him off in a Mork-like egg that protects him from the crash, but not from the marauding band of criminals - lead by a pre-Super Adventurer’s Club Isaac Hayes - who take him hostage.

Enter world famous war hero-cum-felon Snake Plissken, who is given a chance to earn his freedom by finding and rescuing the president. It seems fairly easy, but he only has twenty-two hours to . . . Escape from New York!

Awesomely Awful Because: It’s all a little too easy. Out of thousands of prisoners, Snake instantly finds a guy who not only know who Snake is, but knows a guy who knows a guy who knows where the president is. And if the government was really serious about cutting Manhattan off , wouldn’t they blow up the bridges and tunnels instead of just (rather ineffectively) mining them?

Awesomely Awesome Because: Dude, Issac Hayes drives a car with fucking Tiffany lamps on the hood. And how can you not love Borgnine? Silly retrofutrakitsch aside, the soundtrack is fantastic, it’s a really dark film (visually and thematically) and it has some classic SF themes about authoritarianism and totalitarianism in it that are as relevant ever. And let’s be honest, okay? Snake Plissken is a badass.

Drinking Game: Whenever someone tells Snake that they’ve heard of him, take a drink. If they follow up with “I thought you were dead” before you finish your drink, you have to chug.


Night of the Comet (1984)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Comedy
The Pitch: A deadly comet turns everyone on Earth to dust, except for a couple of valley girls. Also, there’s, like, zombies.

The Plot: Take three parts Valley Girl, one part Fast Times, mix with some truly awful pseudoscience, add a dash of Miracle Mile, garnish with Dawn of the Dead, and you’ve got Night of the Comet. Release it just before Halley’s Comet makes its first return to Earth in a century, and you’ve got a cult classic.

When Earth passes through the tail of a comet, just about everyone in Los Angeles stands outside to witness the pseudoscientific event. Unfortunately for them, the comet turns them all into little piles of dust. The few who aren’t instantly turned into dust are turned into zombies, who eventually turn into dust. The only true survivors are three teenagers who were protected from the comet’s deadly dust-creating wrath by the shielding power of metal, and a few insane survivalists who built an underground lair, stocked it with medicine, weapons, and computers, and are slowly turning into zombies because some genius left a window open.

Our heroes deal with the challenge of being the only survivors in the world in true teenage fashion: they go shopping. But Zombielarity ensues, and the survivalists chase them down to harvest their blood. Jesus Christ, guys, as if being a teenager isn’t hard enough already!

Awesomely Awful Because: For a film that advertises a bunch of comet-created zombies, you’d expect to see more than seven of them in the entire picture.

Awesomely Awesome Because: It’s actually a hell of a lot of fun, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and has a good heart. Atlantic Records had a big (heavy) hand in releasing this film, so 80s pop music (by artists who weren’t heard from before or since) plays pretty much non-stop throughout the entire film. I thought about making the drinking game relate to 80s references, but they are so prevalent in this film, you’d be passed out before the comet even shows up.

Drinking Game: Whenever younger sister Samantha complains about not “making it” with a dude, take a drink. Whenever you want to punch a survivalist in the neck for being so goddamn annoying, take a drink. Whenever a zombie appears, chug.


They Live (1988)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Action
The Pitch Rowdy Roddy Piper chews bubblegum and kicks alien ass.

The Plot:1980s wrestling icon Rowdy Roddy Piper is a homeless construction worker looking to make a dollar out of fifteen cents in Los Angeles. He ends up living in a shanty town just outside downtown that doesn’t have sanitation, but does have lots of television.

Through a series of events that’s not nearly as convoluted as you’d think, he discovers that thousands of hideous ghouls are living side by side with normal humans and are slowly taking over the planet. No, it’s not Dick Cheney and the neocons, it’s alien invaders from outer space. They keep humans “asleep” by overwhelming them with subliminal messages like OBEY, MARRY AND REPRODUCE, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY and CONSUME. The messages are embedded in everything from billboards to magazines to money (which carries the message THIS IS YOUR GOD).

Rowdy Roddy Piper can see all this, including the actual ghoulish appearance of the invaders, by wearing some nifty (for values of “nifty” do “totally fucking lame”) sunglasses that let him see things as they really are. This leads him to go on an action movie style rampage of extraordinary magnitude, joining the underground resistance, and eventually infiltrating the alien invaders’ underground lair.

Awesomely Awful Because: John Carpenter took twenty minutes of story and added in seventy minutes of filler, including a five minute-long back alley wrestling match that doesn’t involve a single folding metal chair. What could be a brilliant commentary on the excesses of the eighties tries way too hard to be funny. When you find yourself laughing at the satire instead of with the satire, something isn’t quite right.

Awesomely Awesome Because: If you set aside the filler, and just focus on the story, They Live is so prophetic, it’s kind of disturbing. It’s sort of like Ishmael for popular consumption. On a less deep note, the outrageous fights and snappy one-liners that are so annoying to sci-fi purist geeks also make this movie absurdly entertaining.

Drinking Game: Whenever Rowdy Roddy Piper delivers a witty action hero one-liner, take a drink. If it’s particularly cringe-worthy, chug. When it’s the line (you know the one if you’ve seen the movie) you can play a mini-game: shotgun a beer, and the loser has to draw alien ghoul makeup on their face. No, I will not play this game with you.


Honorable Mentions: The Last Starfighter, The Philadelphia Experiment, Life Force, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, The incredible Shrinking Woman, Innerspace.

Wil Wheaton blew it all up, you maniacs.

they live is one of my favorite cheesy movies ever. i still use "the line" to get a laugh out of friends.

im going to have to play these drinking games now

I would have so loved to read your synopsis of Lifeforce. That movie positively cries out for it.

I first saw it on Singapore television, with all of the gratuitous nudity cut out. It was the most bizarrely disjointed thirty minutes of my entire movie-watching life.

Great round up! I saw 'night of the comet' once but never knew what it was called, now the age old mystery has been solved!

I still haven't seen Night of the Comet. My brother tells me it was one of the most craptacular films he has ever seen. Now I have to watch it.

I love Night of the Comet , but it has aged maybe worse then any of the others mentioned . They Live is ok , but is remembered more I think for The Line & the really long fight scene then for being a good movie . Not really up there with Halloween or The Thing ( you really could write a whole article about The Thing all by it's lonesome if you wanted too ) as far as Carpenter flicks go . Escape has a few things in it's favor , mainly the casting is great . I had totally forgotten the car with the lamps on it , that is some great shit .

Escape From New York is my favorite of the bunch. I've loved it since I was a kid. It's kind of funny that this story went up when it did, because I just read Mike McQuay's novelization for the first time two nights ago. It's actually even more dystopian than the film.

All I have to say is: Col. Wilma Deering

I think all reviews of cheesy movies should come with a drinking game.

I loved all of these movies..but I would have added Buckaroo Banzi, which is still an all time favorite of mine.

I have seen all of these...and I don't regret a thing...well, maybe Night of the Comet...

The Keith David/Rowdy Roddy Piper alley brawl from They Live! is the single greatest fight scene in cinema history, bar none. Eat shit, Matrix.

I look forward to your list of sci-fi guilty pleasures from the 1950s, as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is, and always will be, the greatest film ever made.

Life Force should have a write-up if for no other reason than that Patrick Stewart was in it.

You had me a Blade Runner because nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch!

I have no guilt about Escape from New York.

"Who am I? I AM THE DUKE!!"

Man, no one quoted the best line from 'They Live'....

"I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass; and I am all out of bubble gum."

Actually, WilWheaton kind of did:

Also, when he said ...

... which line did you think he was referring to?

No honorable mentions for Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (starry Molly Ringwald . . . how could you gte more 1980s) or Enemy Mine? Pffffft.

glad to see NOTC get mentioned. i saw this in high school and had such a crush on the little sister. THE LAST STARFIGHTER was a big one from my youth as well. Both of those had such killer concepts - even if their execution was less than timeless...

I love you Wil.

Scanners, Night of the Comet (good pick!), They Live, and even Life Force!

You forgot Dune.

I still love you though.

Don't forget Battle Beyond the Stars, perhaps the first 1980s dose of sci-fi cheese. George Peppard, Sybil Danning, John Saxon, and -- recreating his most memorable role -- Robert Vaughn. What could possibly go wrong with a cast like that?

-TTm

Last Starfighter, Enemy Mine, & Escape from New York...

Increment 3.

I had to keep the list short, man.

I see a future with Ice Pirates, Spacehunter, Enemy Mine, and . . . well, I'll have to save some so you'll be surprised.

the last starfighter is one of my favorite movies, if for no other reason than they gave the Cray credit at the end