50 Years Ago: Logan's Run (1976)

In the 23^rd century, the survivors of a nuclear war live inside The City of Domes, a paradise of plenty. The world is a hedonist’s delight with the Love Shop and other pleasures, but the metropolis is not without a downside. 

Every citizen must die at age 30, and hope for “renewal” in a state-sponsored ritual called Carousel that keeps the civilization perfectly balanced.  Policing this edict are a cadre of armed law enforcement officials, the Sandmen.  

One such Sandman, Logan 5 (Michael York) is tasked by the city’s controlling Computer with determining if the destination of refugees, called Sanctuary, is real.  Logan enlists the help of a young woman, Jessica (Jenny Agutter) in escaping the city, but is tagged as a “runner” and hunted by his former partner, Francis.  

When Logan and Jessica manage to escape the city, first they find a malevolent robot, Box, and later see the outside world for the first time.  

In the ruins of Washington D.C., they meet an Old Man (Peter Ustinov) who proves that the edict of “death at 30” is not natural.

Logan's Run serves as a critical "bridge" production of the 1970s. It blends the dystopian qualities of such film predecessors as Soylent Green (1973) and Planet of the Apes (1968), with the elaborate, expensive visual effects and action-adventure qualities of the Star Wars (1977) age.

Logan's Run is based on the William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson novel of the same name, which was first published in 1967. The novel depicted a bizarre world set post-"Little War," in which the ascendant youth society of the turbulent late 1960s (think student demonstrations and sit-ins) had grown to become the globe's dominant social force. In an attempt to stave off overpopulation, starvation, and poverty, a new society of the young was forged in which the mandatory age of death was 21 years of age. It was "never trust anyone over thirty" (or 21 here...), but as a governing philosophy.

Citizens of this New World Order had "palm flowers" embedded in their hands which displayed their age and their chronological proximity to "Last Day."  On said "Last Day" (their 21st birthday...) they would willingly report for mandatory termination at a local Sleep Shop. Those who didn't choose death would illicitly "run" instead, seeking escape through an underground railroad, in search of a place called "Sanctuary." Policing the populace and destroying these rebellious runners is the bailiwick of a young, fascist military force called "Sandmen."

In the book, a dedicated Sandman named Logan 3 teamed with a female runner named Jessica to locate Sanctuary, but he was secretly a double-agent for the government, tasked with the destruction of Sanctuary. Logan was pursued on his "run" by a Sandman friend named Francis, who also boasted a secret identity...as Ballard, an ally of runners and the man who knew where Sanctuary was actually located. In the book, Sanctuary was but a rocket trip away, on Mars...

Many aspects of Nolan and Johnson's brilliant novel were significantly altered for the blockbuster film, which earned over 50 million dollars on a cost of less than 10 million.  

Specifically, Michael York's Logan 5 (not Logan 3) was the hero of the silver screen version, and his Sandman comrade, Francis (Richard Jordan), became a dogged enemy and Agent of the State instead of a secret aide to the Runners. 

Also, the Sleep Shops (actually seen in Soylent Green....) were replaced with the bizarre but impressive public spectacle of Carousel, a festival in which those aged thirty (not twenty-one) would be blown up before the eyes of excited crowds who believed that the doomed were actually being "renewed," miraculously reincarnated.

The general setting was altered for the film too. In Logan's Run the movie a nuclear war rather than a "Little War" precipitated the creation of the City of Domes, meaning that the world outside the City was almost entirely destroyed....post-apocalyptic rather than merely futuristic. Perhaps the most significant change in the movie was that there was no real Sanctuary...no place of safety and peace for the runners. Instead, Sanctuary was a myth, a fairy tale.

Despite such radical changes from the source material, Logan's Run thrives as a worthwhile, exciting, and intriguing science-fiction artifact of the 1970s for quite a few reasons. The one-of-a-kind disco-era visualizations and tenor of Logan's Run -- the aura of “anything goes” hedonism -- continue to ably support the film’s didactic narrative. The glittering, sexy-but-shallow production design, abundantly rich in neon and mini-skirts, suggests youth and sexuality, even forty years later.

But perhaps the finest aspect of Logan's Run is indeed the film's capacity to build in the viewer's imagination a believable and frightening future dystopia. The City of Domes and its byzantine laws and practices fit the very definition of an authoritarian or totalitarian state.

Let's gaze a little at what the pieces of that definition are, and how Logan's Run successfully conforms to them.

First, according to one definition, a totalitarian state "creates myths, catechisms, cults, festivities and rituals" designed to "commemorate" the State. The central myth of the City of Domes, of course, is "Renewal," the State-supported lie which promises immortality. Upon death, the souls of the fallen (those who attend Carousel) will transmigrate to new, young bodies. 

This lie is reinforced by the numbering system employed to "name" individual citizens (Logan 5, Jessica 6, Francis 7, etc.) These numbers, which replace last names in this future society, explicitly indicate the march of generations; that a new baby is actually a "new" version of a person who has already existed, "died" and "renewed." The numbers are also totally de-humanizing. Humans become one in a vast indistinguishable line.

The Carousel "festival" -- a state-sponsored celebration of "Last Day" -- is attended by all citizens of the City of Domes, and is essentially the equivalent of, for example, a contemporary NASCAR race, only govt. run. The people down on the track or field (those who are ostensibly to be renewed...) circle around and around, and many of them "wreck" before our eyes, blown apart by a ceiling-mounted laser device that resembles a crystal. Spectators watch and cheer for Carousel participants to "renew," but what they are really cheering for is the violent, explosive deaths of friends and fellow citizens.

The State has thus transformed a mandatory death sentence into the very "ritual" or "festival" inherent in the tradition of totalitarianism, one that actually reinforces (or "commemorates" as the definition goes), the Law of the State: mandatory death at 30. 

Economically, this ritual of Carousel combines the "bread and circuses" aspect of Rome's gladiator games -- satisfying the blood lust of the crowd -- with a "spiritual" or "religious" church function: the honoring of the dead (or dying); the belief in transmigration or reincarnation.

This ritual of Carousel is also supported by a State-created and encouraged catechism, an education in the faith meant to indoctrinate the people, here termed in short-hand, "One for One." 

In the film, we witness Logan and Francis debate the dogma/doctrine of "One for One." Francis accepts it blindly (by simply repeating it mindlessly) while Logan questions it...the first sign of his independent streak. 

This easy-to-remember phrase means -- in simple terms -- that one person dies/one person renews. It's the seamless, simple transmigration of the soul or spirit from the dead to the living. From Logan 4 to Logan 5. From Francis 5 to Francis 6. It's so simple that there can be no denying it. 

It's essentially programming through mnemonics and repetition, a phrase/teaching/sound-byte repeated so often and so widely that it is accepted blindly for "truth." The idea of "One for One" (and catechism) is part and parcel of entrenched absolutism (or totalitarianism) because it is representative of a "cliche-ridden language whose formulaic utterances are designed to impede ambivalence, nuance and complexity."

People don't die in the City of Domes, they "renew" (as if they are just TV programs, not living human beings.) The light on your palm which signals your death is not a "death clock" but, tellingly, a "life-clock." Sandmen don't kill. No, they never kill, according to Logan. They simply "terminate" Runners. And Runners are like "Terrorists" aren't they? Just a faceless boogeyman...not real flesh and blood people. Additionally, the day of a citizen’s death isn't called "Death Day or "Execution Day," but known by the pleasant euphemism Last Day.

This is precisely how Orwell's double-speak, jargon and euphemisms work. These phrases are widely-disseminated simplifications designed to impede questioning; to preserve and nurture an authoritarian regime and its agenda.

A totalitarian state is also defined as one with a "culture of military solidarity" in which "the pursuit and elimination" of Enemies of the State has become a primary purpose. 

Again, it's easy to detect how Logan's Run fits this aspect of the definition of totalitarianism. In general, the Sandmen lord it over the non-military personnel of the City of Domes, as Francis specifically does when an innocent civilian bumps into him at Arcade. Furthermore, according to City of Domes-style catechism, the Sandmen (the military of this State) are elevated above other citizens in matters of transmigration too. 

"Sandmen Always Renew," the catechism goes.

The enemies of the state are termed "Runners," but they are those, simply, who question the status quo and consequently opt out of Carousel, attempting to live longer than their allotted thirty years. The Sandmen are in place to destroy the Runners and prevent all knowledge of "Sanctuary" from the distracted populace. Runners can't be imprisoned (that would imbalance the population control system); they have to be "terminated" on sight. And again, the State employs euphemisms like terminate (instead of "kill") to make the act more palatable. When a runner dies, the corpse is melted down by strange hovering, futuristic machines, but this gory act is euphemistically termed "cleaning up." If people were to see the destroyed human body and count it as such they might begin to question the government's simplifications and slogans, not to mention the status quo.

Logan's Run succeeds as a film in no small part because of the carefully designed and constructed totalitarian state that our protagonists, Logan and Jessica flee. 

This world -- run by an unfeeling computer -- is so inhuman, so callous, that it does not even permit mothers and fathers to raise children. No, families create a sense of personal loyalty outside of loyalty to government, and that cannot be tolerated in a totalitarian state. 

A good villain goes a long way towards making an effective movie, and in Logan's Run there is a great one: a 23rd century Big Brother ordering mandatory executions and destroying humanity's spirit.

Note too, that like many real life dictatorships, the City of Domes is carefully erected on lies and deceit. Inherent in the system of the City is the belief that one does not need to work or produce.  Its people are occupied entirely with leisure. 

This lie is laid bare when Logan visits the outer workings of the city and finds that a mad robot called "Box" has frozen the 1,056 unaccounted for runners to be used as food for the city goers. Box ran out of plankton and animals some time ago, and now has resorted to capturing and storing unlucky humans in stasis. So the City of Domes is actually feeding on itself to survive. The self-sufficient system (which demands death at 30) is not so self-sufficient after all. 

Rather, it is cannibalizing itself.

Yet if the City of Domes is a cage for its people, it's rather definitively a gilded cage. The people who dwell there, according to the film's opening card "live only for pleasure." And that's another core aspect of the Totalitarian/Absolute State: distraction. 

The government wants your mind on "other things," not the government, not the way things are.  One way to avoid politics and matters of national import is to focus on materialism, on owning things, or in the vernacular: shopping.  Well, the people of the City of Domes have been told to go shopping in perpetuity. 

Their beautiful City is actually a colossal shopping mall, and the film was, in fact, shot in a shopping mall in Texas. This Arcade offers every manner of distraction and entertainment imaginable. 

So if you're feeling vain, why not head over to the New You Shop, where you can get a quickie face lift (or tummy tuck) and come out looking absolutely fabulous? If you hurry, you can make your work-out at the gym this afternoon too (as Logan and Francis do during one critical scene...). If you seek companionship, head over to another part of the mall: the Love Shop -- the 23rd Century equivalent of Studio 54. There you can take legal (and safe!) mood-altering drugs called "lifts" (think Prozac or Xanax). 

Then, you can have casual sex with gorgeous strangers (all under 30!). If you want to stay in your deluxe Sandman apartment tonight instead (conveniently located right off the mall's promenade...), Logan's Run even offers the 23rd century corollary to our Internet Porn: the so called computer "circuit" which materializes sexual partners (male or female), right at your doorstep.

What does all this mean? Well, clearly the City of Domes is consumed with youth, beauty, sex, and hedonism. Again, this is a pointed reflection of our culture in the 1970s, and even more so today. Who cares if the world is burning? We want our MTV!  

Logan's Run's antidote to dystopia may be naive, however, especially in 2026

The film espouses, among other things a renewal of the natural order: a return to the re-born outside world, and a prescribed departure from computers, climate-controlled shopping-malls and 24-hour-a-day leisure. 

Alas, that's a genie you can put back in the bottle easily. 

Although Logan literally sees the "light of day" when he leaves the City of Domes -- his first vision of the natural world is an apricot-colored sun rise -- it is not until he encounters The Old Man (Peter Ustinov) that the pieces of a re-born future start to come together. In the end, the message of Logan's Run is that with age comes wisdom, but -- heck! -- "older" leaders were the ones the original youngsters of the City of Domes inherited the messed-up Earth from in the first place.

One thing is for certain: Logan's Run favors humanity over machines. When faced with the reality that Sanctuary is but a fairy tale, Logan and the humans go on to (hopefully) construct a better society, a new "Sanctuary" where death is not mandatory at 30. 

By contrast, the Computer that runs the City of Domes is not able to conceive of such a silly idea -- a fantasy utopia and paradise -- and it goes haywire in response; short-circuited. Once again, we see imagination as a critical human quality; but it is a heritage that Logan's people have largely neglected for hedonism. It takes the odyssey outside by Logan and the return visit to the City by the Old Man to rekindle it. 

Those who watch Logan's Run and deride it as cheesy or outdated may have missed the point. Perhaps they have not gazed deeply enough at the world it so confidently creates. The film -- for all its silliness and outdated special effects -- reveals what might happen to a society that finally turns irrevocably inward; becoming obsessed with youth and beauty at the expense of wisdom. If we let that future become reality, then Washington D.C. and all the beautiful national landmarks there will end up but monuments to irrelevancy; artifacts of an age when liberty and intellect actually meant something. Indeed, they have become in Logan's Run: meaningless, empty ruins from another epoch.

In the final analysis, Logan's Run is a good cautionary science fiction film, one that reminds us to hold Big Brother accountable. And to -- at least every now and then -- peer out of our happy little gilded cages and ask, precisely, what is happening in all our names.

Totalitarian States believe you are either with them (and Carousel) or against them (Runners), but Logan and Jessica find that a rich life exists beyond dogma, sound-bytes, catechism, and jargon. After their visit to the ruins of Washington D.C., they find that, at the very least, life possesses nuances. And that also -- with human experience and age -- should follow...wisdom.

50 Years Ago: The Food of the Gods (1976)

A pro-football player, Morgan (Marjoe Gortner) and two friends spend a weekend in the country and unexpectedly meet up giant animals in the woods.  After one of his friends his killed, Morgan investigates and find that a strange substance bubbling out of the ground on the Skinner farm is causing animals such as rats and wasps to grow to dangerous proportions.  A selfish businessman, Bensington (Ralph Meeker) and his assistant, Lorna (Pamela Franklin) also arrive on the farm, and Bensington plans to exploit this “food of the gods” for all its worth.  But very soon, the farmhouse comes under siege from a pack of hungry, giant rats.

In 1904, the novel The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth by H.G. Wells was published.  The book was structured in three parts, but the first part involved a scientist who engineered a special food supplement that could cause those who ate it to grow to colossal size. This first section explored how the food substance accidentally got to wildlife on the Skinner farm, and thus began to imperil normal society. Also, in the book, some human children received the food of the gods, and became forty-foot-tall giants, but ones derided by society. The novel was intended as a social critique, as well as a science fiction story.

Bert I. Gordon’s The Food of the Gods differs dramatically in tone and intent from its source material.  In the case of the film, the food is a naturally occurring substance and it appears to have bubbled up from the Earth’s interior in response to man’s mismanagement of the environment.  Gortner’s opening narration puts a fine point on the matter: “This is mother nature’s revenge,” he declares.  Gortner’s Morgan also celebrates the “open spaces man hasn’t ruined with his technology,” further painting a picture of man’s misdeeds. Mrs. Skinner’s interpretation of the food is not all that different from Morgan’s. She believes the growth-substance comes not from Mother Nature, but “the Lord.” Representing the other side of the question is Ralph Meeker’s character, a rampaging businessman who can see only dollar signs when he looks at the food of the gods, not its impact on the world at large.  

In ways entertaining, though not particularly nuanced, The Food of the Gods diagrams these different opinions about the “miraculous” food by having this small group of characters, along with a few others, countenance a siege situation.  They become trapped in a farmhouse as rats swarm around everywhere, outside.  The film’s social critique doesn’t fully emerge until the coda, which sees the food of the god survive Morgan’s attempts to destroy it, seep into the water, and then get packaged into milk cartons in school cafeterias. The idea there is simply that when we pollute the Earth, we are ultimately polluting our children, and ourselves.   All life on the planet is connected, and if treat Mother Nature poorly, we’ll reap the whirlwind.  This wicked climax -- featuring innocent little kids slurping down contaminated milk -- is so much nastyfun that it almost redeems the rest of the movie, and earns it a positive review.  

The Food of the Gods’ falters almost entirely on the basis of its own story logistics.  Characters die on the island, and there is no real response from authorities.  Morgan leaves the island after some of the animal attacks, and comes back.  He brings a football buddy, but no the police.  On the same front, no one in the film suggests calling animal control.  It’s a little weird, but I suppose this approach saves money on cast members.

Surprisingly, the special effects in the film are often impressive, and hold-up remarkably well. Although some of the giant animals look ridiculous (namely the wasps), the giant rats and giant worms appear in convincing dimensions and shapes.  The moment when Mrs. Skinner is attacked by blood-sucking worms is genuinely disturbing.  And some of the film’s climactic moment, with rats swarming over the farmhouse in large number, are impressive too.  What also works in the film’s favor is its violence. The animal attacks are so gruesome and bloody and that they galvanize the attention, especially when the (potential) victims include a very pregnant woman. 

The Food of the Gods has long been considered schlocky, and probably rightly so, but the film features that droll finale, some sharply visualized attacks, and another 1970s message about being good to the Earth. I confess, this film was in regular rotation in TV syndication when I was a kid, and I must have watched it ten times. I have great affection for it, low-budget roots, acting, effects and all.

 

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40 Years Ago: SpaceCamp (1986)

If ever a movie was the victim of unfortunate timing, it was SpaceCamp (1986), a summer genre film released forty years ago. 

Specifically, the Harry Winer film premiered just five short months after the space shuttle Challenger disaster occurred. 

As you may recall, Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into its flight on January 28, 1986 because of a problem with a solid rocket booster. All seven of the crew members died, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe.

Since SpaceCamp involves another space shuttle mission, and another accident at NASA to boot (also featuring a booster, strangely enough…), the movie highlighted unintended and unfortunate connections to the national tragedy. 

Many film critics, including Roger Ebert, reviewed the film on the basis of the Challenger trauma.  In his review, Ebert wrote: “The great looming presence all through this movie is the memory of the Challenger destroying itself in a clear, blue sky.”

The association with real-life horror pretty-much killed SpaceCamp in the crib. 

It was intended as a light, bubbly, uplifting film of no more seriousness or gravitas than any other disposable, would-be summer blockbuster. And suddenly, it was saddled with comparisons to one of the worst days of the decade, and in space program history.

In concept and casting, SpaceCamp was a “teenager” movie in the age of such teenage science fiction films as Back to the Future (1985), My Science Project (1985), Explorers (1985) and Weird Science (1985). This was an era when Hollywood films were capitalizing on the youth market, and its interest in the genre.

But SpaceCamp wasn’t just a love letter to American youth, but to the space program itself, and even -- somewhat awkwardly -- Star Wars (1977).

A box office bomb in its day, SpaceCamp is remembered, if not wholly beloved, by a generation of fans who discovered it on VHS and found it, at least, inoffensive. There, on the secondary market, the film cemented a reputation as a cult film, if not, necessarily, a cult classic.

Today, SpaceCamp seems somewhat hokey and far-fetched. The constant references to Star Wars grow irritating quickly, and don’t naturally fit with the space program setting. 

Actually, Star Trek jokes would have worked better. Star Trek is about building a better tomorrow, the study of science, and the conquest of space. Star Wars is more of a fairy tale (not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

The teen drama in SpaceCamp also seems forced at times, and even the technology seems unreal, since the film posits space stations and smart robots operating under NASA auspices in the mid-1980s.

In short, SpaceCamp shouldn’t shoulder the blame because real-life tragedy pre-empted it. 

But outside its unfortunate context, the film still isn’t particularly well-made, or even all that memorable.

“With space, anything is possible.”

A group of teens at NASA’s space camp in Huntsville train for three weeks to become astronauts, under the tutelage of astronaut Andie Bergstrom (Kate Capshaw) and ground control operator Zach Bergstrom (Tom Skerritt).

One student, Kathryn (Lea Thompson) dreams of being a shuttle commander, but is made the shuttle pilot instead, while the happy-go-lucky Kevin (Tate Donovan) takes the command post.  

Other students on the team include Tish (Kelly Preston), Rudy (Larry B. Scott), and Max (Joaquin Phoenix). Max befriends a robot named Jinx.

Jinx is responsible for the unusual set of circumstances which sees the teenagers, aboard the shuttle Atlantis, launched into space without preparation…or enough air.

Now the teens must work together to get home, and Andie must coordinate and aid their efforts, making her first voyage into space to do so.

“You’re all dead because you didn’t work together as a team.”

I’ve been to the location of Space Camp -- the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama -- on two unforgettable occasions. 

I went as a twelve year-old in 1982, and I took my six year old son there for a return journey in 2012. 

It’s a great place, and a destination I was so glad I shared with Joel. I hope I have opportunity to return with my granddaughter or grandson, many years from now.

The movie version of Space Camp is not such a wholly delightful experience. Variety’s reviewer opined that the movie “never successfully integrates summer camp hijinks with outer space idealism to come up with a dramatically compelling story.”

I don’t know that I feel that way, exactly. Certainly, the story of argumentative teens launched into space and having to take part in their own survival can be described as compelling.  

My issue with the film is slightly different. 

SpaceCamp takes too many liberties with the real life space program to really fulfill its premise that contemporary (and dedicated) 1980s teens could pilot a space shuttle, and get home safely. 

In other words, the film suffers from a different form of schizophrenia than the one tagged by Variety. 

SpaceCamp aims to be contemporary and real, but then, willy-nilly, throws in technology and details that are, simply, pure fantasy.

To wit, the teens rendezvous with a space station under construction that, conveniently, already has the extra oxygen supplies Atlantis requires.  

Here the space station is called Daedalus, but no such space station existed in the mid-1980s. A much more primitive station, Skylab had re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in 1979.  And the ISS (International Space Station) was still more than a decade off.  In fact, the only space station in Earth orbit in 1986 was the Russian Mir. 

And secondly, and perhaps much more to its detriment, SpaceCamp gives us the comic-relief robot Jinx.

Simply put, there was no robot capable of such complex thought-processes, speech-patterns, and emotional reactions (“Friends Forever!”) in 1986.  

And if there were, its presence at Space Camp would have been a gross misuse of such advanced technology.   

I know that Jinx is cute, and I have nothing at all against cute robots in SF films.  He just seems oddly out-of-place in a film that is supposed to be about a real, not futuristic NASA. 

Also, I’ll admit that I dislike then near-constant Star Wars references in SpaceCamp. “What are you an Imperial Guard?” asks one camper. “I’m not Han Solo…there’s no Force…there’s no dark side,” Kevin notes at another point.  “I’ll arm the laser guns. May the Force be with You!" .

On and on it goes, but Star Wars isn’t really the right production to name-check in this particular context. All the talk of the George Lucas movie feels a little off.  Why? Well, Star Wars isn’t really about training to be an astronaut, or learning to drive a spaceship. It isn’t, even, really, about a team of diverse people learning to work together.

Indeed, one great thing about Star Wars was it took all those concepts for granted, and went off, lasers blazing, to tell a story in a “lived in” universe. That story had mythic underpinnings, and fairy tale qualities. It was a space fantasy, where there was no talk of how the hyper-drive, tractor beams or light sabers actually worked. 

SpaceCamp seems to owe much more to the concept of Star Trek; to the idea of becoming the best that you can be so you can conquer space; to the idea that by working side-by-side with someone of different qualities, you can grow to become more than the sum of your parts.

But, belying the film’s superficial writing, SpaceCamp loads up on the Star Wars call-outs, and they never quite feel right.

I know a lot of people boast nostalgia for SpaceCamp, and I understand and respect that. I remember watching the film on VHS in the mid-1980s, and being absolutely in love with Lea Thompson, and enjoying the (then) state-of-the-art special effects in the movie.

I am also in love with any movie that involves the space shuttle. I love that ship, and I love the films -- like Moonraker (1979), Hangar 18 (1980), and Lifeforce (1985) -- that feature it prominently.

On a re-watch, I found SpaceCamp occasionally diverting, but pretty inconsequential. At one point, Kevin notes, cynically, that astronaut training isn’t valuable because “we’re all going to get nuked anyway.” 

SpaceCamp might have felt more real, and more uplifting, actually, if it had made a bigger deal of such Cold War frissons, and the way that the conquest of space can bring all the people of Earth together as one.

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30 Years Ago: Mission: Impossible (1996)

Created by the late Bruce Geller, the TV series Mission: Impossible ran for seven high-rated seasons -- from 1966 - 1973 -- and was followed by a sequel series of the same title that ran for two years, beginning in 1988. 

Each TV iteration of the espionage series depicted the top-secret and dangerous activities of the American IMF (Impossible Missions Force) Team as it brought low bad guys foreign and domestic utilizing a combination of high-tech and low-tech trickery. 

Gun play was rarely involved in the series, and instead the IMF agents often waged a kind of psychological warfare against enemies in order to make the evil doers bring themselves to ruin. All told, star Peter Graves played IMF team leader Jim Phelps in a whopping 178 hour-long episodes (accounting for both series).

Director Brian De Palma came to the Mission: Impossible franchise in the 1990s after he had successfully revived another classic TV series at the box office, 1987's The Untouchables.

In many ways, the Geller 1960s creation was a perfect property for a director who believes that "the camera lies 24 times a second," since that axiom is the underlying essence of Mission: Impossible: the "lie" committed against the villain that makes him believe something false. That lie may involve a prosthetic mask that cloaks the identity of an IMF agent, or that lie may involve a camera broadcasting images that are believed to be real (like the death of an operative...), but which, are, in fact, lies. Our perception of reality -- according to De Palma and the IMF force -- can be manipulated by the dedicated (and cunning) use of technical inventions.

And for the tech-obsessed De Palma -- who in his youth had won a science fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations" -- the focus in Mission: Impossible on gimmicks, devices and high-tech toys (like cameras embedded in eye glasses and TV screens on wristwatches...) also appeared a perfect fit.

"My Team is Gone!" -- TV Series vs. Film Series

Where the new Mission: Impossible film of the Clinton Era diverges most dramatically from the 1960s TV series heritage is in the nature of the protagonists. The series universally featured a team of IMF operatives, each one flawlessly and emotionlessly fulfilling a designated role in a large, complex plot. 

But because box office sensation Tom Cruise was attached to star in the new movie, the updated Brian De Palma Mission: Impossible was designed instead as a star vehicle. That means one man at the forefront of the action...not an ensemble piece, like the original. Cruise's new character, Ethan Hunt, survives the massacre of the team in the film's dynamic first act and then spends the bulk of the narrative working on an unofficial mission to clear his name from the "disavowed" list.

This deliberate change in focus riled some long-time fans of the classic series (as well as the former stars...) because Mission: Impossible had always concerned cooperation and team work; the sublimation of the personal for the greater cause or mission. Indeed, on the TV series, audiences knew virtually nothing of the characters' lives outside of the job. Emotions, personal connections, even humanity itself were downplayed and the "con" was everything. As producer Herb Solow described Mission: Impossible in Patrick J. White's excellent The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier (Avon, 1991 pages 10 and 11): "The story was always what pushed the program forward, not the characters." 

When I interviewed original series star Martin Landau (Rollin Hand) for Cinescape in 2000 (November/December, Volume 6, Number 8, page 79, ) he was not particularly enamored with the re-direction of the continuing film series (particular after John Woo's MI:2). "The TV show was about a team getting in and out and no one ever knowing it was there," he reminds us. "They've turned it into an action-adventure with fireballs and chases...It's Mission: Impossible in name only."

Another reason the new film adaptation angered some longtime fans of the popular series: Jim Phelps (here played by Jon Voight) is actually the film's villain, not the hero. Original star Peter Graves had been offered the opportunity to resurrect the beloved character, but turned it down rather than participate in a film that would see the character transformed into a disloyal mercenary and, ultimately, killed while conducting an illicit, personal mission. 

The other original team members, including Landau, were offered a chance to participate in the film too, and -- down to the very last actor (Emmy winner Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, and Peter Lupus) -- they all turned it down. "They wanted the old team in the first movie..to kill 'em off," Oscar-winner Landau reported, and he was all too-glad not to accept that particular mission. "I said, 'no way.' Rollin Hand will live on in reruns."

Despite this controversy, the 1996 Mission: Impossible film remains one of De Palma's mainstream blockbuster masterpieces. It was the third-highest grossing film of 1996, and the highest-grossing film of De Palma's career. It is true that the thrust of the movie version of Mission: Impossible is quite different from the predecessor series (featuring an individual James Bond-style hero rather than a team effort...), and it is also true that Jim Phelps is featured as a double-agent/villain. And yet -- to some extent -- that latter development serves its purpose well in De Palma's snake-like narrative: proving itself the king of all surprise twists.

I submit that this climactic twist would have worked even better had Graves returned to the TV role he originated...because then nobody at all would have seen the villainous turn coming. I am sympathetic to the fans who decry the transformation of the property into a Tom Cruise vehicle, but in the case of the first Mission: Impossible, it is difficult to deny that the film is a thrilling, kinetic, invigorating experience, regardless of the perceived fidelity to the TV source material.

And -- after 178 "missions" in two TV series -- you might even wish to commend De Palma (and his writers, Steve Zaillian, Robert Towne and David Koepp) for featuring something the audience had never seen before: "IMF blow back." Here -- for the first time -- we see a mission go disastrously, catastrophically, irrevocably off-track and desperate agents forced to improvise on the spot, under fire and in constant life-threatening dangers. Perhaps that's not the core principle of the long-standing Mission: Impossible franchise, but as a one-off adventure, it's an intriguing tale. I can defend the artistic integrity of M:I as a film -- and as a De Palma film -- till the cows come home. I just don't know if I can do the same for MI:2 or MI:3 which have -- essentially -- become James Bond films on (Tom) Cruise control.

Homage, McGuffins and Lies: Avowing The De Palma Touches

One of the qualities I most admire in Brian De Palma is his unswerving ability to enliven material not his own (such as The Untouchables or Mission: Impossible) with his unique and individual film sensibilities. 

In Mission: Impossible, we get another classic, familiar De Palma touch: the tribute or homage. 

First off, Mission: Impossible pays tribute to one of De Palma's enduring inspirations: Alfred Hitchcock. Much of the hullabaloo in the film involves something called "The NOC List." In short, this list of clandestine American operatives -- which seems to change hands frequently -- serves as a modern variation on Hitchcock's favorite thriller device, the McGuffin (a plot element that drives a narrative in terms of structure, and is generic enough for easy, quick comprehension). In Mission: Impossible, everybody wants the NOC List, everybody is obsessed with the NOC List, and it is the raison d'etre for each character's behavior and misbehavior. 

Another object of homage here is clearly the film canon and stylistic conceits of filmmaker Jules Dassin, who directed two of the all-time great heist films, Rififi (1955) and Topkapi (1964). Indeed, the trademark "black vault" heist in Mission: Impossible has been described as a direct updating of the scene in Topkapi involving the theft of an emerald dagger in a glass case. And the exquisite, meticulous attention to detail during the course of the central crime in Rififi (a film that eschewed sound, music and dialogue for a focus on the details of a jewel heist) is also mirrored in De Palma's exhaustive direction of the film's three impossible missions (in Kiev, in Langley, and in London, respectively). Ironically, it was these two films (Topkapi and Rififi) that reputedly inspired Bruce Geller to create Mission: Impossible in the first place.

More important than either of these two tributes, however, is De Palma's return to his common thesis that the camera lies 24 times a second. In Mission: Impossible, the duplicitous Jim Phelps secretly runs a mission op within a mission op, so-to-speak, in Kiev. His operatives are running one mission; and Phelps is actually working against them, right under their noses. But the camera lies about this fact: we don't see Phelps' hands in-frame as he operates the computer that sends IMF agent Jack (Emilio Estevez) to his death in an elevator shaft. We don't see Phelps douse himself in stage blood before his eye-glass-mounted camera registers a shot of his bloody hands, fumbling at an apparent gunshot wound near his abdomen. Instead, we see Phelps apparently get shot by an independent assailant (on Ethan's wristwatch screen...) and then -- in master shot -- he fall offs a bridge into a river (a death that forecasts a similar scene in De Palma's Femme Fatale).

Next, during a splendid, third-act sequence involving Hunt and Phelps, we get the truth for the first time, or at least one possible version of the truth. We see the images of Phelp's nefarious activities -- depicted as Hunt's thoughts; his unvoiced suspicions. On this pass of the events, we see Phelps operating the computer to murderous effect. This time, we see him "act out" his own death for the glasses-camera (and Ethan's benefit). Meanwhile, in the dialogue itself, Phelps lies to us again about what actually occurred and who might be behind it. He fingers IMF supervisor, Kittredge (Henry Czerny)

In another brilliantly vetted moment, Hunt even "re-thinks" the moment that one agent's car was destroyed, first imagining Claire (Phelp's wife) detonating the bomb; and then -- in more palatablefashion -- imagining Phelps doing the deed himself. In this case, we never know the exact truth. This is in keeping with the ambiguous characterization of Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), who is either -- in another typical De Palma move -- a Madonna or a whore.

The Mount Everest of Hacks, (Or a Simple Game For Four Players...): The Black Vault Sequence

The Langley interlude in Mission: Impossible, or the so-called "Black Vault Sequence," remains so accomplished, so tense, so remembered that it has emerged, perhaps, as the most parodied scene in mainstream movies over the last decade.

Basically, this harrowing scene involves four operatives breaking into CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia. Their mission: to download the NOC List from a small chamber called The Black Vault.

First, De Palma lays out the specifics of the difficult operation, showing the audience all the relevant information while Hunt describes it in voice over. For instance, we learn that the console is a standalone mainframe...which means that the expert hacker Luther (Ving Rhames) can't access it from outside. Furthermore, the security checks (voice-print ID, 6-digit access code, retinal scan, and intrusion counter-measure key cards...) prevent conventional access.

Therefore, Hunt, "our point man," must enter the vault through the ceiling, positioned some 30-feet above the console. But the vault itself is wired with counter-measures to prevent just such an invasion. The room is sound sensitive, meaning that if the sound goes up even a few decibels, an alarm will be tripped. A sensor also registers body heat, meaning that if heat rises in the room just a single degree -- again -- the alarm is tripped. And finally, the floors are pressure sensitive, and if they are tripped by any additional weight at all, an "automatic lock down" is initiated.

That's the mountain to climb, and in the film's second act, subtitled "Langley," Hunt and his team broach the impossible mission of accessing the Black Vault console. Hunt is lowered via harness, upside down, through a ceiling vent (initially protected by lasers...), wearing his camera/eye-glasses.

And then, once he's inside, De Palma puts the screws to him and to us. The console operator, William Donloe, for instance, interrupts Hunt in the vault, and the agent is forced to dangle just feet over his head. Donloe need to glance upwards but once, and the mission fails. Importantly, De Palma positions Hunt and Donloe in the same shot to cycle up the anxiety factor: the close-proximity between men becomes plain (and terrifying) as they share space within the same frame.

Secondly, a rat (first viewed in a rack focus, distracting our attention), enters the vent shaft and causes Jean Reno's character to lose a grip on Hunt's harness. Accordingly, Hunt plummets downward and nearly smashes into the pressure-sensitive floor. Hunt then swings uselessly and impotently, trying to maintain equilibrium (an act revealed in long shot, so we can note his spatial relationship to the dangerous floor). And then, in close-up, we see a single, glistening drop of sweat fall down across Hunt's harried face. We trace it down his eye glasses, and down towards the floor....

At the last second, Hunt catches the drop in his open palm...

The punch-line is a humdinger. As a successful Hunt climbs out of the vault, with Reno's help...a knife falls down (in agonizing slow-motion) towards the pressure-sensitive floor below. Miraculously (and humorously) it lands on the console, point down...avoiding immediate detection. At least until Donloe re-enters the room. This is a perfect example of De Palma's wicked sense of humor, the knife functioning as a kind of unintentional "flag" planting by Hunt and his team in the conquered territory.

All throughout this sequence, De Palma utilizes the Dassin motif as seen in Rififi, minimizing dialogue, music and sound effects to great impact. The idea is that the movie -- like the audience itself - is virtually holding its breath throughout the Black Vault Sequence, focusing on the details of the operations with a singular sense of focus, and nail-biting.

The Black Vault Sequence is superlative film style, the trademark De Palma set-piece we have come to expect and cherish in his films (and the climactic equivalent, essentially, to the Odessa Steps scene in The Untouchables). Every shot, every camera move -- every technical parry and every thrust -- is perfectly calibrated to play the audience like a piano.

I had not seen Mission: Impossible in thirteen years before screening it again last night, and I must admit, it was a much stronger, cleverer, and witty film than I recalled from my single theatrical viewing in 1996. De Palma gives us three distinctive impossible missions here, makes clever use of technology and gadgets, and admirable downplays conventional violence (such as gun battles) in the same fashion as the classic series did. Indeed, watching De Palma's tale of a rogue, "disavowed" agent trying to clear his name and outwit his own intelligence superiors reminded me a great deal of the popular Bourne films. It makes you wonder if this movie was somehow a template or inspiration for those (great) movies.

Although fans may certainly feel justified in quibbling over the fact that their beloved series was handed over lock-stock-and-barrel to action-star Cruise, for Brian De Palma Mission: Impossible is Mission Accomplished. No need to disavow the film -- or the director for that matter -- for a job capably and stylishly done.