History That Wasn't!

By: Andrew Hershberger
Date: Wednesday, January 01, 2003

While basking in the sun here in glorious Mexico, I received an e-mail from my editor asking me for a little New Year's something. Now, I was feeling a bit under the weather, pretty much dead weight mentally, after hitting the tequila bong heavy the night before, so I really didn't think I was up to it - just like I wasn't up to it with that "escort" (and we ain't talking 'bout no Ford! Nuck, nuck, nuck). So I sauntered over to the computer to put in a negative on that order when something caught my eye. There in the corner of the room was DEEP SPACE NINE in all its Spanish language version, black and white glory. "Wormholes," I thought, "links to different times and places, alternate dimensions that are just as valid as our own, yet separate from our own back-of-the-bus dimension."

It was all building to something, but what? Then it hit me, like a brick hits a truck driver in a Los Angles riot: films with dates that have passed! Films that got it wrong! History that wasn't! What a great idea, what a brilliant idea, what a "me" idea! "Gosh darn it," I said to the toilet, "I give you the kiss of life!" God bless STAR TREK and all its offshoots! Before sobriety hits like a sledgehammer, let's look back at the cinematic years that weren't. Now if only I can "force" myself, like Luke, to "stay on target."

ONE MILLION

YEARS B.C. (Don Chaffey, 1966)

As the tagline says: "This is the way it was." The only question the paleontologist might have is, "where?" Personally, I'd love to believe that back in the dinosaur days (is this the Harryhausen Period?) busty goddesses like Raquel Welch and Martine Beswick were the norm - rather than those topless, hairy ugmo's they've got de-eroticizing the local natural history museums - but sadly that's just not true. Fossil records show, rather conclusively, that dinosaurs and super sexy model type females did not exist in the same time period - provided that the dinosaurs were real and not stop motion. What this means is that one must ignore history and go with the fantasy! Naturally the event's depicted in this rather ludicrous offering are pure fabrication, but Raquel Welch in a fur bikini is real, and that's real enough for me. This is an excellent film for both the junior through advanced pervert (and Anne Heche), plus it's all true - at least where it counts. Available on VHS, the format used by Fred Flintstone.

THE SPIRIT

OF '76 (Lucas Reiner, 1991)

If ever there was a case for animals eating their young it's THE SPIRIT OF '76. Director and classic comedian Carl Reiner should have barbecued little Lucas way before he grew up to direct this David Cassidy comeback film. Three time travelers from the future intend to go back to 1776 to get a copy of the Constitution, but things get screwed up with "hilarious" consequences. Instead of going back to 1776 they go back to 1976 and, after wacky shenanigans, get a copy of the Constitution via a Constitution shirt. Features key members of Red Kross, Jeffrey and Steve McDonald, who were nowhere near as old in 1976 as they appear in this film, making this movie the sort of inaccurate garbage that people like myself hate. Currently unavailable for purchase, but possibly still available in the "too drunk to care" section of the local video store.

1984 (Michael Anderson, 1956)

George Orwell's

classic novel about a future totalitarian society is given a way off base treatment in this 1956 film staring Edmond O'Brien and Donald Pleasence. (Sadly, Pleasence doesn't play love interest Julia, which would have given it a good 1979 feel.) While Edmond O'Brien is far too much the geezer to be playing lead protagonist Winston Smith, that's not the big problem! No, 1984 fails because in the real 1984 things were in color, not black and white. How could those who made this film have possibly not foreseen color? I mean it was right there then, why not later!? Bunch of stuffy daydreaming Brits, always getting too fancy for their own good - well bollocks to crumpets and tea! Not available on VHS or DVD, possibly available on cable. (Note: There are apparently two endings to this film, a U.K. version and a U.S. Neither, I hear, is in color.)

CLASS OF

1984 (Mark L. Lester, 1982)

Bunch of punks decide to recreate THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE for future RIPTIDE loser, Perry King. This results in Mr. King showing the punks his recreation of Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH. The audience responds by hooting and hollering and saying, "Man, that was just as screwed up as I remember it being back in 1984 when I used to cringe in the back of the classroom in my Izod shirt and my Vans hoping the teacher wouldn't call on me, bringing attention to my hideous acne... Yep, that's the way it was, except for the psychotic punks and Roddy McDowall threatening to kill the students... Oh, and Michael J. Fox being so geeky. Back in 1984 Michael J. Fox was all man." Lots of derivative storytelling matched with shameless violence make this an essential time killer. Available on VHS.

CLASS OF

1999 (Mark L. Lester, 1990)

CLASS OF 1984 director Mark L. Lester returned to the classroom with this sequel of sorts and boy is this guy a modern day Nostradamus! Who would have thought back in 1990 that in 1999 classrooms would get so violent that teachers would be replaced by cyborgs?! Well, Mark L. Lester did, and thanks to CLASS OF 1999, when it happened we were prepared. Using the film to create a series of theoretical situations in which these cyborg professors could become destructive, the United States government was able to create the kinder, gentler, less prone to kill Malcolm McDowell, robotic instructors for teaching, and occasionally killing, our nation's greatest treasure, the children. Available on VHS because it's just too damn good for DVD.

CLASS OF

1999 II: THE SUBSTITUTE (Spiro Razatos, 1994)

If one film was not crying out for a sequel, it was CLASS OF 1999. After all, in the original all the cyborg teachers were put out of commission, or so we thought. In this follow up there's a droid on the loose cutting up class in the bad, death-resulting way. As entertainment it's complete trash, however as a training film on how to seek out and destroy the occasional rogue cyborg that happens from time to time in our nations automated schools, this is second to none. Just the other day, I was confronted by a person with the sort of stilted delivery common to cyborgs and discovered through a series of questions that they were a teacher. I realized instantaneously that he was the killer robot type so I pushed him in front of a bus. The story would be a lot cooler if he was a cyborg. Available on VHS, unfortunately.

SPACE: 1999 (various, 1975-1977)

As I [IMG8R]type this e-mail from Moonbase Alpha - featuring a Mexico-themed area - it seems funny that back in the '70s people laughed about this show, calling the idea of the moon leaving the earth's orbit ludicrous. They pointed out that the various scenarios the base encountered could only occur if the moon was traveling at a rate far exceeding the speed of light. I don't need to point out how wrong those skeptics were. Funny, here Barbara Bain and Martin Landau are still on speaking terms, even if they insist on using their characters' names. While things are pretty dull, even if the Eagle ships and the base theme song are cool, I bear with it all in the hopes that next year that Catherine Schell look-alike Maya will show up. That's one sexy, shape-shifting, intergalactic vixen. Available on DVD and VHS from A&E, if only Earth was close enough for me to rent them.

2001: A [IMG9R]SPACE ODYSSEY (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

How much of a prophet was the beloved director of so many slow, boring films? By these hazy eyes, not much! Didn't you love the crazy circular space station with all its '60s go-go minimalist style that we launched, oh, way back never, that this film predicted? Then what about those fugly designs the stewardesses were wearing?! Stella McCartney didn't introduce them in her line last year! What about the monolith that the government discovered on the moon and then hushed up? Well, that didn't happen, otherwise Scully and friends would have checked it out! Then there's HAL, a super computer that cannot only take input vocally but also develops conscious thought! My computer can't even download the simplest porn jpeg without taking ten minutes and calling up five different adult sites a second! So no luck with that one. The biggest downer for me though is that in spite of all our groundbreaking work with genetics and plastic surgery, we've yet to create a Dr. Heywood R. Floyd that will look like William Sylvester today and then Roy Scheider nine years later. Available in numerous DVD and VHS packages, bleeding the pockets of compulsive collectors everywhere now, and certainly well into the next century.