3-D Thursday: It Came From Outer Space (1953)

Fueled by the terrors of Godless Communism, Nuclear War, and the mysterious happenings at Roswell, the 1950s were a Golden Age of Science Fiction movies like no other decade before or since. One of the best of the decade, 1953's It Came From Outer Space is making a long awaited 3D Blu Ray debut courtesy of Universal Studios and the 3-D Film Archive.

The film opens memorably with a meteor crashing into a mine in the desert outside a sleepy town in Arizona. Amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) and girlfriend Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush) witness the crash and go to investigate. Putnam gets a good enough look at the meteor to realize it's actually a spaceship with something alive roaming around inside. The problem arises when the ship is covered over by an avalanche. Putnam tries enlisting help digging the ship out, but the town mocks him. Then weird things start happening and certain members of town begin to wonder if there's something to Putnam's story after all.

Incidentally, Carlson isn't the only cult figure in the movie. Playing the part of George is none other than The Professor himself, Russell Johnson. No, he doesn't get billed as "And the rest". But he does get one of the movie's creepiest scenes, staring blankly into the sun without blinking as one of the Xenomorphs. Joe Sawyer is Johnson's partner. Fans of the Marx Brothers will recognize Charles Drake (A Night in Casablanca) as the sheriff. On the feminine side, we have Barbara Rush in the first of her two 3-D movies and 50s starlet Kathleen Hughes as George's girlfriend. Hughes made a big enough impression that she got a larger role in Arnold's next 3-D movie, The Glass Web. She also amusingly gets a title card at the end despite having less than five minutes of screen time!

One of the best things about 50s sci-fi movies is how intelligent they often are. It Came From Outer Space stands alongside The Day the Earth Stood Still (the 1951 version) as being one of the most intelligent of the lot. Part of that comes from Ray Bradbury. A lot of the dialogue in the movie is his and it absolutely sings in that way that only Bradbury could. It touches on themes common to movies of the era--the unending terror of the Red Under The Bed in particular. The fact that the Xenomorphs could look like and therefore be anyone in town was somewhat unsettling. And yet, there is a special irony in the fact that the aliens actually do come in peace. But as the movie itself points out, we tend to destroy that which we fear and don't understand.

It Came From Outer Space was Universal's first 3-D film. It was also the first of four 3-D movies made by Jack Arnold. Originally projected in dual strip polarized 3-D, the movie was converted to a single strip anaglyphic form in 1972 for re-issue. Since then, that's the way most people have seen the film if they've seen it in 3-D. While I won't go so far as to say that the anaglyphic version is purely awful, it's not as good as the original dual strip version. And surprisingly, the original dual strip version isn't as good as this 3-D Blu Ray.

That's largely due to the efforts of the 3-D Film Archive. Universal gave them access to the materials to do a full scale restoration of the movie. While they didn't have to quite jump through the hoops they did on Gog earlier this year, they still pulled off a mini-miracle. All dirt, scratches, and splices have been fixed along with all alignment issues. All reverse 3-D shots have been fixed. In short, the movie looks better now than any other time in it's history. And yet even that is only the tip of the laser. The soundtrack is where the movie really pops to life.

It Came From Outer Space was one of the early stereophonic releases, shown in a 3 track stereo sound in 1953.That soundtrack has not been heard since then. That's right. Not one single prior home video release of the movie--not the anaglyphic VHS released in 1980 nor the 2D version put out by Goodtimes in the late 1980s nor the DVD from 2003--has had the stereo soundtrack. And guess what? That anaglyphic 35mm and 16mm re-issue from 1972 didn't have it either. In short, not only have people been watching the movie in a fairly sub-par manner for the past nearly 45 years, they've been hearing it in a sub-par manner! This soundtrack rocks.The explosions are Loud. It's a soundtrack as 3-Dimensional as the movie is.

As a postscript, it's worth noting that in 1996, the Sci-Fi channel released a "sequel" called It Came From Outer Space II. Don't feel sad if you've never seen it. It wasn't so much a sequel as a really poor remake that replaced the astronomer with a photographer (why?) and made the aliens a little more malevolent, thereby completely missing the point of the original movie. You can, of course, seek it out if you're in a sadomasochistic mood, but I wouldn't recommend it.

If you've never seen It Came From Outer Space in 3-D, then you've never properly seen the movie. Like so many of the 50s 3-D films, the added dimension adds layers to the story the 2-D version never could. This is one of those 3-D movies that takes place in the desert, and boy does that desert go on forever. The vastness of the desert only adds to the menace.

This new Blu Ray is really the only way to see It Came From Outer Space. And considering the price (under $10!), it's a better bargain than most new 3-D movies.  If you're a 3-D fan, consider this one a must-own release.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

There's an odd thing about The Phantom Menace. During the actual act of watching it, it doesn't really come off as being a bad movie. For the most part the actors range from competent to great, the plot line is intriguing, the pace is good, and there's plenty going on. But, once you stop and think really hard about it, the vitriol comes out and people curse the day they heard the name George Lucas.

Mind you, I can easily name a dozen or more Sci-Fi films that are way, way worse than this. The worst Star Trek movie, Star Trek V, makes this look like Casablanca. And this isn't even the worst Star Wars film ever (hello, Star Wars Holiday Special). For that matter, it's not even the worst of the theatrical Star Wars movies (hello, Clone Wars). But undoubtedly, it is the single most hated film in the franchise.

That's a tragedy since it's actually not a bad movie at all.

Of course much of the hate, besides being directed at Lucas, is directed at Jar Jar Binks, the eponymous comic relief. But as I pointed out previously, Jar Jar isn't even the film's biggest problem. He may be it's most obvious, but not it's biggest.

The biggest issue with the movie is  the same problem that some of the newer James Bond movies have had: it's too much of a cut and paste job. We're not only getting the same basic story, we're getting too many of the same exact scenes. This is most obvious during the film's big finale. It's a mash-up of the finales of the previous three films: the big space battle to destroy the evil Space Base (Star Wars), the light saber duel to the death (Empire Strikes Back), and the primitive planet natives rising up against the evil technologically advanced empire (Return of the Jedi). Mind you, almost all of the sequels and prequels repeat elements. It just comes off as slightly more pronounced here due to the long wait between Jedi and this.

I suspect that the long wait between films is also what doomed it to be a let down. After all, a generation of fans had a decade and a half to wonder what things were like prior to the events of the first movie. How did the Empire rise? What was Darth Vader like when he was Anakin Skywalker? What were the Clone Wars anyhow? Kids played with the toys and imagined their own adventures and had in their minds eye exactly what the prequels would be like.

So naturally when this movie came out and we find out the Emperor rose to power by manipulating a war caused by taxation and Anakin Skywalker was a ten year old who said "Yippee!", a bunch of adults threw a galaxy sized hissy fit. And that hissy fit has only grown in the 18 years since the film first debuted. Screams of Lucas ruining people's childhood have resounded to Dantooine and back by now. Which, of course, is just plain silly. Especially since this film--as almost all of the Star Wars films are--is really a children's film. It wasn't made for 40 year old men wearing Princess Leia costumes and play with action figures. It was made, as the original film was, for ten year old kids who play with action figures and who are far more likely to dress like a Jedi.

But then again, wars have been fought and dictators placed in power over more ridiculous things than taxes. And what exactly did people think a ten year old Anakin would be like? Did they expect him to run around chopping people down with a light saber?

If I sound snobbish and dismissive of the fans, understand that I myself am a Star Wars fan. I'm old enough to have seen the first film on it's original release in the theaters. I played with the toys. I've read some of the books and comic books. I played Star Wars video games on the Atari 2600. I was a member of the fan club and read the fan club newsletter (Bantha Tracks!) back in the day. I even cherished the disco version of the theme song put out by Meco!

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the films had actually been made in episodic order. If this had actually been the first film in the series, would it still be as hated? I tend to doubt it. The action sequences are first rate.
Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman, and Ewan McGregor all do first rate jobs. Darth Maul is a menacing enough villain, even if--like Bobba Fett before him--he doesn't quite live up to his potential. Yeah, Jar Jar is a bit annoying, but no more so than any other comic relief character before him.

Am I saying this is a perfect Star Wars film? Of course not. It has it's issues. All movies do. But the grown men in the Princess Leia costumes screaming that this was a rape of their childhood and the worst thing that ever happened to them need to get a bit of a grip. If this is the worst movie you've ever seen, I'm guessing you haven't seen that many movies. And if this film destroyed all happy memories of your childhood, then maybe your childhood wasn't as happy as you remember it being. And if this was the worst thing to happen to you ever, I'm guessing nobody you know ever died.

At the end of the day, we're talking about something that's just a movie. It's not the worst movie of all time or even the worst sequel of all time. Sure, it's the worst of the episodic Star Wars movies, but--like the worst James Bond movie--it's still better than most other series films out there. It's still entertaining. It had one job to do--to set up the other prequels and make you want to see those prequels. It succeeded in that. It actually did make me curious to see where the story would go. There's a lot of serials I can't say that about. You really want to see a sequel that systematically sets out to destroy everything you liked about the original film? Try Jaws: The Revenge or the Smokey and the Bandit sequels. This film looks like the greatest film of all time compared to them!