30 Years Ago: Independence Day (1996)

"In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day! "

- President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) delivers an historic address in Independence Day (1996).

Independence Day (1996) remains one of the big “event” movies of the 1990s, a sci-fi blockbuster of monumental, almost unimaginable proportions.  The crowd-pleasing film successfully tapped into the decade’s unending fascination with aliens and UFOs (The X-Files, for example) and significantly augmented that interest too, resulting in a slew of further alien films and TV programs from Dark Skies (1996) to Men in Black (1997).

As an inside-the-industry cautionary tale, Independence Day also represented the (unfortunate) cementing of the Emmerich/Devlin blockbuster “formula” -- a revival of 1970s disaster film tropes.  This format would meet its Waterloo in 1998’s Godzilla, but nonetheless continues right into this decade with films such as the dreadful 2012 (2010).

Of all the Emmerich genre fare, I’m most fond of 1994’s Stargate, as it seems to strike the right balance between spectacle and intelligence.  After that film’s release, the scales in further efforts kept tipping towards spectacle and away from brains, and so the ensuing films suffer mightily for the imbalance. 

That established, I was certainly part of the enthusiastic audience for Independence Day upon its summer release, and I still remember how great the film looked on the big screen.  A recent re-watch confirms how terrific the miniature effects remain.  The scenes of awesome alien saucers lumbering to position over major world cities -- though obviously reminiscent of Kenneth Johnson’s V (1984) -- remain downright staggering.

What ages Independence Day most significantly, instead, is the pervasive shtick and the schmaltzy, sentimentality-drenched characters. At every step of the way during its narrative, Independence Day punctures its end-of-the-world majesty and gravitas with low humor and over-the-top sentimentality, qualities which today render the whole affair close to camp. 

Science fiction fans, of course, experienced conniption fits over Independence Day’s unlikely finale: a third act which sees an Earth-produced computer virus successfully uploaded to an alien computer aboard a mother-ship, thus giving humans the opportunity to strike back…on July 4^th, no less. 

The movie doesn’t pay even lip service to the idea that aliens from another solar system might have developed anti-virus software (!), let alone computer systems totally incompatible with our 20th century Earth technology. 

Given how badly things go for Earth in the first hour of Independence Day, it’s difficult to countenance the film’s final veer into outright fantasy as every heroic campaign – with split-second timing – comes together perfectly.

Despite my misgivings about the film’s humor, sentimentality, and narrative resolution, however, I still find the grave, apocalyptic, anxiety-provoking tone of Independence Day’s first hour worthwhile, especially the President’s grim choice to deploy nuclear weapons in an American city to drive off the aliens.   

It would be absolutely foolish to deny, too, that some of Independence Day’s imagery has become iconic in the annals of cinema history.  We all remember that portentous shot of hovering saucer pulping the White House for instance.  Thus -- even while criticizing this over-sized beast -- I've got to give the Devil his due for getting matters right on a visual terms

In terms of theme, Independence Day works overtime to remind all of us that although we are separated by oceans and other Earthly partitions, we are all nonetheless citizens of the same planet. It’s a laudable message in an age of hyper-partisanship to be certain, even if delivered with little nuance or subtlety.  This through-line in the film is consistently and well-conveyed, both in terms of incident and in the make-up of the diverse dramatis personae.  Who would have imagined our precious Earth could be saved by a war veteran, a drunk crop-duster, a Jewish cable repairman and an African-American fighter pilot?

Movie critics were understandably divided on Independence Day.  At The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote: “Guess what: "Independence Day" lives up to expectations in a rush of gleeful, audience-friendly exhilaration, with inspiring notions of bravery that depart nicely from the macho cynicism of this movie season. Its innocence and enthusiasm are so welcome that this new spin on "Star Wars" is likely to wreak worldwide box-office havoc, the kind that will make the space aliens' onscreen antics look like small change.”

Writing for The Washington Post, Rita Kempley opined: “"Independence Day" is primarily a $70 million kid's toy, a star-spangled excess of Roman candles and commando games designed to draw repeat business from 9- to 12-year-old boys. Little girls won't find any role models among the barnstormers, though a plucky exotic dancer is featured among the heroines. Even with the end of the world in sight, she shakes her booty. It's for her kid. No, really.  Maybe the moviemakers' mission was to boldly go where everyone in Hollywood has gone before: the bank.”

Honestly, I can see both sides of the critical equation in this case. Independence Day is such dumb fun, and yet fun nonetheless.

“A toast...to the end of the world.”

The people of planet Earth watch with anxiety and wonder as three-dozen alien saucers descend from orbital space to take up positions over cities around the globe.  President Whitmore (Bill Pullman), a former jet pilot in Desert Storm, advises calm, but new information from genius cable repair man David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) suggests the alien ships have initiated a countdown and are preparing a coordinated attack.

As the countdown ends, Levinson’s suspicions are confirmed, and the alien ships destroy Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York and other population hubs. President Whitmore survives the attack on the Oval Office and escapes by Air Force One.  He promptly orders a retaliatory strike.  Pilot, top-gun, and would-be astronaut Steven Hiller (Will Smith) downs an alien ship during battle, and captures one of the fearsome aliens for study.  The rest of the fight, however, is a rout, and the U.S. jets are unable to penetrate alien shields.  Humanity stands upon the edge of extinction.

The President visits the secret military base at Area 51, and learns there that scientists there have been experimenting with an alien ship for close to fifty years.  When Hiller arrives, the President attempts to communicate with Hiller's captured alien, but finds the being implacably hostile.  The aliens, he soon learns, are like locusts.  They travel from solar system to solar system using up planetary systems and then moving on…leaving only carnage and waste in their wake.

After nuclear weapons prove ineffective against the aliens, President Whitmore is at a loss how to save the planet, or the human race.  But David comes through again.  He believes he can take the captured alien ship at Area 51 to the mother-ship and upload a computer virus there, thus bringing down alien shields…at least for a few minutes.  When Steven volunteers to fly that risky mission, it’s up to the President himself to coordinate and lead a huge aerial attack against the alien saucers, both in America, and world-wide…

“It's a fine line between standing behind a principle and hiding behind one. You can tolerate a little compromise, if you're actually managing to get something accomplished.”

For a film about such a terrifying topic – an alien invasion – Independence Day frequently plays thing...light.  At least a half-dozen major supporting characters in the film are defined by their shtick. Judd Hirsch plays a nagging Jewish Dad, Julius Levinson, and his lines and delivery are pure Borscht Belt ham-bone.   Harvey Fierstein plays another kitschy character, Marty, who hams it up and makes jokes about his therapist and his (presumably overbearing...) mother.  Harry Connick Jr. portrays a cocksure pilot who provides the film at least one dopey gay joke.

But the worst character is likely Randy Quaid’s Russell Casse, a drunken crop-duster (and alien abductee) who joins the air battle against the aliens during the film's denouement.  Quaid’s dialogue is so incredibly dreadful that it has become the stuff of legend and MST3K fodder.  “I picked the wrong day to stop drinking,” springs immediately to mind. 

Among all these actors hamming it up and stealing time, Brent Spiner likely fares the best as aging ex-hippie and scientist Dr. Okun. Spiner comes off as weird and eccentric, but not so dreadfully hammy that you want to turn away from the screen in shame for watching.  His last scene -- played with alien tentacles pressing against his larynx -- is also genuinely unsettling.

Why do I have a problem with the film's pervasive moments of low humor?  Well, Independence Day already boasts Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith continually cracking wise in leading roles.  Their dialogue is dreadful too, from "Welcome to Earth" to "Now that's what I call a close encounter!"  Given all this material from our leads, do we really need Judd Hirsch, Harvey Fierstein, Harry Connick Jr., Randy Quaid and even Brent Spiner dishing out lame one liners too?  The ubiquitous nature of these characters makes Independence Day, at times, resemble an overblown sitcom.  Maybe if the material were stronger, these characters would not seem so objectionable. I guess what I'm saying, is that these moments are rarely actually funny.

Another weak character is Secretary of Defense Nimzicki (James Rebhorn), a man who in one scene advises the full scale nuking of many American cities, but in a later scene argues against a “risky” maneuver to attack the alien mother-ship and upload the virus.  His objections to the (ultimately) successful plan make no sense, and aren’t consistent with the “war hawk” image he projects in the film all along; a guy who advises going to Def-Con 2 before the President has made his final decision.  Instead, Nimzicki is contradictory simply so the audience can boo at him, and the President can dress him down…thus appearing tough and resolute. 

While I have real disdain for much of the writing and characterization in Independence Day, I do feel that the film's visuals often still shock, and often still carry real emotional resonance.  One shot, set on July 3^rd, reveals the Statue of Liberty toppled, face down in the harbor...a massive saucer hovering low in the sky.  Colored in autumnal browns,  this is a terrifying composition of American culture annihilated.  

It’s tough indeed to compete with the amazing Statue of Liberty imagery of Planet of the Apes, yet this moment in Independence Day remains quite upsetting.    The film is also anxiety-provoking in the way it reveals American military might crushed before a more technologically-advanced enemy.  The battle sequences, the nuclear option, and other heavy moments are all deeply scary because one realizes that if America can’t save the world…the world ain’t getting saved.  Indeed, Independence Day plays up the alien threat so successfully in terms of spectacular visuals and special effects that there’s almost no way the scripted, climactic victory can ring true.  It’s like we’ve slipped into an alternate movie or something.

The first half of Independence Day is undeniably the strongest, as alien saucers push through storm and cloud fronts, and emerge over our cities, casting dark shadows upon bewildered and amazed populations.  These moments continue to impress, and pack an almost visceral gut punch.  We’ve all wondered if, one day, we’ll wake up to something like this imagery…a new dawn in which we learn definitively we are no longer alone.   As much as I deride Independence Day’s silly humor and bad dialogue, I have no quibbles whatsoever with the way that these scenes of “arrival” are vetted.  As I said in my introduction, many of these scenes still carry a staggering punch.

From its first shots to its final ones, Independence Day also makes an interesting point about mankind being unified by a threat from the outside.  The film opens with imagery of a plaque on the moon which reads “We came in peace for all mankind.” That’s a wonderful thought, the movie seems to suggest, but then the filmmakers set up a paradigm by which that hopeful expression of common cause is tested.  Suddenly, all mankind must work together to defeat the alien threat, putting competition and petty differences aside.  This idea is expressed through scenes set in Iraq, the location of America’s most recent war (Gulf War I).  There, in the desert, British and Iraqi soldiers join the battle against the mother ships.  The implication of such scenes is that mankind is indeed capable of working together.

The same idea is presented in the film in the (positive) character of President Whitmore.  Before the alien crisis, he is viewed not as a warrior, but as a “wimp.”  He can’t even get his Crime Bill passed by a hostile Congress. Whitmore laments that “it’s just not simple, anymore” and that people don’t seem to understand that compromise is the only path towards moving everyone ahead, together.  He then works with the nations of the world to defeat the aliens, and in the process transforms an American holiday into an Earth holiday.  Again, the message implicit in Independence Day is that we can apply ourselves to solve big problems, not just alien invasions. Why can’t we all band together to keep our neighbors and our neighbors' children from starving? Or to eliminate poverty? Once we acknowledge our common humanity, petty partisan differences shouldn’t really matter, should they?

In this sense, Independence Day -- set in part on July 4^th -- acknowledges a new, evolved brand of patriotism.  It is a patriotism not merely to party or to one nation, but to all of humanity. As a fan of Star Trek and a person who believes we can achieve great things if we sometimes accept compromise, I appreciate the film’s ultimate message of hope about human nature. This consistently-applied theme almost mollifies my concerns about the film’s ridiculous and ill-conceived conclusion, and the surfeit of characters who spew cliché after cliché, bad joke after bad joke. Almost, but not quite.  Still, I know I'm spitting in the wind against an 800 million dollar blockbuster, a veritable entertainment machine.

So am I a hopeless sentimental for recognizing Independence Day’s entertainment and social value, even amidst so many stupid groaners and moments of cynical, calculated humor?  

Or, like Randy Quaid's character...did I just pick the wrong day to stop drinking?

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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