40 Years Ago: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

I still vividly recall the summer of 1984, and the reviews and chatter about Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. In particular, there was much talk about how on earth George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could possibly “one-up” their previous cinematic blockbusters.

This was actually a popular parlor game of the age.  First came Jaws (1975), then Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters (1977), then Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. (1982) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Between them, Spielberg and Lucas were responsible for the most successful and beloved genre pictures of the age, and they seemed to keep upping the ante in terms of action, special-effects, and sheer spectacle each time at bat.

Next out of the gate came….Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)....

To this day, both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas relentlessly talk the picture down.  

It was “too dark,” they insist. 

Or it was a silver-screen reflection of their personal troubles and bad mood at the time.  Lucas was undergoing a bitter divorce, for example. 

Spielberg even calls Temple of Doom his “least favorite” Indiana Jones film.

However, Spielberg and Lucas aren’t alone in their condemnation of the film.  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has also been termed racist, culturally inaccurate, a wrong-headed defense of colonialism, anti-woman, and even compared to “child abuse” in term of its impact on young eyes.  It is one of the films, along with Gremlins (1984) that caused the M.P.A.A. to develop the PG-13 rating, after all. 

And one mustn’t forget, either, that some movie reviewers were certainly out there looking for Lucas or Spielberg -- or two for the price of one -- to stumble and fall from their perch as princes of Hollywood.  

Too dark?!

All the critical arguments against Temple of Doom are debatable, of course, but all the intense and varied criticism of the film tends to obscure the fact that this 1984 film stands as the finest and most creative of the Raiders of the Lost Ark follow-ups.  Temple of Doom is a film that thrives on its own unique (sinister…) energy without feeling the need to re-hash familiar scenes or re-introduce “repertory” characters for reasons of nostalgia or sentimentality.  Instead, the movie is lean and mean, relentless and driving.  Delightfully, it also picks-up on Raiders' leitmotif of Indiana Jones as a man conflicted over his path or destiny.  Should he pursue "fortune and glory" or do what is right?

In fact, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom remains defiantly and audaciously a picture in which -- as the title sequence explicitly warns audiences -- “anything goes.”

Not many sequels or prequels can live up to that billing, but Temple of Doom is a thrill-a-minute, non-stop action masterpiece, that -- like its predecessor -- pays homage to Hollywood tradition and history while simultaneously blazing a new path.  Buoyed by both outrageous humor and Hellish visions straight out of a nightmare, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a screwball comedy/horror/fantasy/adventure film, and one finely tuned to produce audience gasps and guffaws in equal measure.

“Fortune and Glory”

In Shanghai in the year 1935, a business transaction between American adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and the local gangster Lao Che (Roy Chaio) goes awry at the Club Obi Wan.  Indy escapes with his life, but also with a ditzy nightclub singer, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), and his eleven-year old Chinese side-kick, Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) in tow.

The trio escapes from China aboard a small cargo plane, only to learn that it is the property of Lao Che.  When the pilots bail out of the low-in-fuel plane over the Himalayas with the only parachutes, Indy, Willie, and Short Round evacuate the craft in an inflatable raft. 

After a harrowing landing on a mountainside and a race through choppy river waters, Indy and his friends realize that they have arrived in India.  An old man leads them to Mayapore, a village where the sacred Sankara or Sivalinga Stone has been stolen by a “re-awakening Evil.” The stone’s absence at its shrine has caused the river bed to dry up, and crops to wither on the vine.   

The same evil -- which makes its home at distant Pankot Palace -- is also responsible for abducting the village’s children and making them slaves.

At the request of the villagers, Indy, Willie, and Short Round make the long and dangerous trek to Pankot Palace, and soon realize that the Maharajah is the puppet of a sinister Thuggee leader, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri).   

This menacing individual has acquired several Sankara Stones, and is seeking the last one, which he knows is buried deep within the surrounding mountains.  When he possesses all the stones, this Thuggee believes he and the Goddess Kali will dominate the world.  Mola Ram also controls his minions through pure terror, ripping out the hearts of human sacrifices with his bare hands.

When Indy and his friends are captured, Jones is forced to drink the “Blood of Kali,” a potion which apparently turns him evil.  Short Round is able to save his friend from this “Black Sleep,” and a re-awakened Indy commits himself to freeing the slaves, recovering the Sankara Stone, and destroying Mola Ram…

“Anything Goes”

George Lucas receives a great deal of criticism because he often attempts to recreate or pay homage to Hollywood and movie history, even when that Hollywood and movie history happens to be controversial.  

For instance, Lucas was widely panned for featuring aliens that speak “Pidgeon English” in The Phantom Menace (1999).  In some sense, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom showcases the same brand of political incorrectness (or perhaps, more accurately, tunnel vision).  Specifically, much of Temple of Doom is modeled directly on the popular 1939 Hollywood effort, Gunga Din. That film from director George Stevens is revered by many, but also derided by others as being insensitive to Indian culture and history.  

Gunga Din depicts the story of an Indian camp worker, Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe) in 1880.  He aspires to serve in the British Army, and along with three British officers, he investigates a British outpost at Tantrapur that has mysteriously fallen silent.  It turns out the facility has been attacked by the Thuggee, and late in the film, the Thuggee leader orchestrates a trap for Gunga Din and his friends at a temple of gold. Gunga Din dies in the battle, but is remembered, finally, as being worthy of a British uniform.

To put a fine point on the matter Gunga Din depicts the British Army in India as heroic and righteous, Indian culture as savage or heathen, and suggests that the highest aspiration of the Indians should be to serve the Queen.   

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom purposefully apes this world view.  It features a “cavalry comes over the hill” moment in which the heroic British soldiers -- occupiers? -- dispatch the Thuggee.  Similarly, the depiction of Kali as Evil in the film does not square with Hindu beliefs regarding the God as a deity of empowerment.  And the much criticized-dinner scene at Pankot Palace does not accurately reflect Indian cuisine, to say the least.  

On one hand, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom could be said to trade in stereotypes, but on the other hand, the film is set in 1935 and, to a great extent, it makes that date feel absolutely “real” by mirroring the Hollywood world view of that age.  

It would be weird, to say the least, to see Indiana Jones -- a man of the 1930s -- evidencing 1980s beliefs and opinions, and that simple fact seems to be lost in the complaints over the film’s Western-centric approach to a non-Western culture.  Who can argue truthfully that a 1930s serial on the same topic wouldn't take the same approach as this film?  So if we stop to view Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a time-specific “fantasy,” there’s no reason to be offended by the specifics its “imaginary” world.  In other words, the film doesn’t take place in real India, in 1980.  It takes place in 1930s Hollywood-ized India. That's a crucial distinction.

One can even state for a fact that Lucas and Spielberg were influenced by Gunga Din because of similar visual flourishes. Most notably, both films open with a similar shot...of an over-sized gong.  Thus, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom's game is not to offend, but to pay tribute, as noted above, to movie history.

Another example of 1930s films providing an influence on the aesthetic of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom also occurs in the opening sequence.  Here, Willie Scott sings Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," and wanders off-stage (through a dragon's head stage prop...) into an "alternate world" of chorus-line dancers. 

Notably, this kind of  fantasy setting was featured all the time in the films of Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), such as Gold Diggers of 1937.  There, for instance, a tune called "All's Fair in Love and War" segued into a bizarre musical "number" outside of the film's traditional back-stage narrative.  Overall, the film was grounded in reality, but then it veered suddenly into a weird, expressionist dance number that didn't preserve the realism of the stage itself. The audience was carried into an abstract world beyond the confines of normal narrative structure.

The same approach is mirrored here.  We leave "the real world" of the Shanghai Club, and travel into a Busby Berkeley dance number of dancers, glitter, and music. Then we slip back into the real world, and the filmmakers offer no commentary about the detour.

My point here is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom deliberately evokes again the voice, feel and world-view of the 1930s in terms of presentation and structure. The over-arching idea here, as it is in terms of Gunga Din, is to re-create a "lost world" for audiences: a world of Hollywood movies circa 1935 - 1940.  It is wrong to perceive the film as taking place in the "real" world.  It takes place, instead, in the world of Hollywood; of movie serials and musicals.

Gold Diggers of 1937: "All's Fair in Love and War."

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: "Anything Goes."

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has also been criticized frequently as being anti-woman in nature because Willie Scott screams in the movie…a lot.  There is a simple and clear response to this argument.  

Raiders of the Lost Ark featured a brilliant, capable female lead in Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Marion could out-drink, out-fight, and out-think many an opponent. The makers of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom thus found themselves in the position of either presenting a female character that would be dismissed by critics as a “pale copy” of Marion, or going in a new and original direction.  They chose the latter approach, but were clearly in a can't-win situation.  If they re-did Marion, they'd be criticized.  And we know they were also criticized for choosing a different path. 

But once more, it is fruitful to examine Willie Scott and her role. If one looks at the details of the story, Willie’s aversion to danger isn’t representative of any anti-woman stance, but reflective again of the time period, movie history, and even the character's situation.  She’s a pampered American singer who, after living the good life in Shanghai, suddenly finds herself riding elephants, handling snakes, and crawling through bug-infested caves. 

 Hell, I might find myself screaming in the same situation…

Another way to put this:  Is the depiction of Marcus Brody as a hapless ninny in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade also sexist because it portrays a man as incompetent and incapable?   If the answer is simply that Marcus functions within that story as comic relief, then we must, in good conscience, apply the same answer to Willie Scott in Temple of Doom. 

Similarly, it's easy to see that Willie Scott in Temple of Doom screams approximately as much as Fay Wray did in King Kong (1933).  Once more, we must accept the premise, then, that this Lucas film is deliberately evoking a time, a place, and a world-view; that of the silver screen in the 1930s.

Two movies, two different women: Marion Ravenwood is capable and tough.

Two movies, two different women: Willie Scott...not capable or tough. At all...

I don’t intend this review to be a point-by-point rebuke of critics of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but some of the criticisms do seem truly absurd. Those who claim that the film is equivalent to “child abuse” because of the scene of Mola Ram ripping out a victim’s heart seem to have forgotten the conclusion of Raiders of the Lost Ark, wherein a man’s head explodes on screen, and two other men are melted alive on camera, their flesh transforming into bloody puddles.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a darker film than Raiders, but one can’t really argue in good faith that there is actually more on-screen gore in the 1984 film than its predecessor. The heart scene, actually, is fairly bloodless, despite the action that occurs there.  

And the point must be: is the darkness justified?  

I would argue that it is.  That the sheer darkness of Mola Ram's world view is the very thing that turns Indy from mercenary to savior, that turns him away from fortune and glory so he can reunite grieving families. Jones experiences the darkness of the Thuggee world view in himself when he drinks the black sleep potion, and so realizes how horrible Mola Ram's reign could be.  

From a certain point of view, Temple of Doom actively concerns the idea that you can't run away from the darkness; that you must stay and fight it where it lives.  The film features very little in terms of globe-hopping, and thus Indy must face the consequences of all his actions.

Isn't this actually gorier..

...than this?

My affirmative case for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom involves the fact that the film knowingly and meaningfully attempts to separate itself from Raiders of the Lost Ark in virtually every way.  It doesn’t return to Africa and the Middle East, but spends its time in the Far East and South-East Asia.  As I wrote above, it doesn’t “globe-hop” to the extent that Raiders did either, instead settling in one major location after the first action scene or set-piece.  Similarly, the characters are not reruns, but new people with individual voices.

In virtually every way imaginable, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom thus escapes Raiders of the Lost Ark’s gravity well, and thrives as its own unique story. 

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is also the last Indy picture that features Jones as an occasionally mercenary, occasionally narcissistic individual.  As this film opens, he bargains with Lao Che for a relic he has successfully recovered.  Significantly, Indy doesn’t even discuss putting that relic in a museum.  No, this is a transaction: the relic for payment, for a diamond, specifically.  The details of Indy’s deal with Lao Che suggest that the original vision of the character -- as a man fallen from faith -- stands.  He’s a hero, but he’s also a man with foibles.

In fact, it is this film that originates the phrase “fortune and glory” in the saga, and it is clear that Jones has competing interests in taking down Mola Ram.  He wants to free the children, and defeat the Thuggee “evil,” but Indy is also in search of the “fortune and glory” that comes with the recovery of the Sankara Stones.  It’s clear that he is in this quest, at least partially, for himself…out of avarice.  This Indiana Jones is more Fred Dobbs (from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre [1948]) than in later installments, and this is the mode that I, personally, prefer.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, while staking out original characters, new locations, and a new “grounded” structure in one main locations, nonetheless adds meaningfully to Raider’s leitmotif about the Third World providing the First World with a new sense of spirituality and belief.  Here, Indy learns for himself the power of the Sankara Stones, and once more finds that “magic” can exist in the technological, on-the-verge of war world of the 1930s.  

What this means is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom tells a new story in a way that one can nonetheless recognize as being “of a piece” with Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Perhaps the simplest reason to laud Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is that it remains one of the most exciting action pictures ever made.  In terms of the one-upmanship I discussed in my introduction, Temple of Doom actually one-ups itself, moment after moment, scene after scene, throughout its entire running time.  The opening set-piece in the Club Obi Wan is a perfectly-balanced presentation, one that escalates into a bizarre musical number, one ingredient at-a-time.  

The escape from the plane in an inflatable raft, the mine-car chase, and the final battle on a suspension bridge are similarly unimpeachable in terms of imagination, choreography, and execution.  These set-pieces are sustained ones -- lasting for several minutes each -- and just when you think they can’t get any more frenetic, brawny, or exhilarating, Spielberg cranks everything up another notch.  

In these moments, "anything goes," and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom's creators do the seemingly impossible.  They one-up their already impressive blockbuster history.

60 Years Ago: The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Shot in Italy on a shoe-string budget and released by American International Pictures, this nihilistic and impressive black-and-white adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1956 novel, I am Legend turns 60 years old today!  It has long been a favorite of cultists and genre scholars -- and for good reasons. Although Matheson removed his name from the completed film (writing here as "Logan Swanson" instead), this horror piece from the sixties remains my favorite interpretation of the material; though I also like The Omega Man (1971) quite a bit.

The Last Man on Earth opens with stark black-and-white images of urban desolation and emptiness. Scattered corpses lay strewn across lonely streets and byways, and the placard of a Community Church reads "The End Has Come." 

It is three years post-apocalypse as we pick up the tale of Robert Morgan (Vincent Price), the titular last man on Earth. We learn (in relatively lengthy...) flashback that a plague of vampirism began in Europe, carried "on the wind" and then arrived in the United States, precipitating a national disaster and the declaration of martial law. 

But that's all the past. Robert, a scientist working at the Mercer Institute of Chemical Research has lost his young daughter and loving wife to the plague and now lives a solitary, pleasure-less existence. We can tell immediately from Robert's posture and demeanor that he is a beaten man, one who does not want to make eye contact with the terrifying and gloomy world around him. Yet still he forces himself to adhere to the daily "routine" that keeps him alive in the face of the vampire menace.

In his own words, Robert lives merely "a heartbeat from Hell," and survives each long night as roaming vampires lay siege to his home, calling out his name and entreating him to come out and fight. The leader of the vampires is a former friend, now a monster. Robert protects his cluttered, disordered house with garlic, defends himself from the vampires with mirrors, and by sun-lit day goes out in methodical search of vampire nests...where he stakes sleeping vampires in the heart. We watch a montage of overlapping, superimposed images of many a death blow, as Robert hammers his rage into the fiendish, monstrous descendants of humanity.

The early (and most remarkable and affecting...) portions of The Last Man on Earth play out as a grotesque commentary on the modern "rat race," as we follow Price in the "day of the life" of the last man on Earth. He lives a very regimented life and one can practically see him mentally ticking off his "to-do" list. After the initial views of a ruined, (mostly) unpopulated metropolis, the film targets in on Price's character, his dilemma and his m.o.

As the film proper starts, the camera glides through a suburban house's bedroom window as Robert sleeps fitfully...and then his alarm clock goes off. He rouses himself and walks past a wall of hand-drawn calendars (years and years of calendars, we see...), and then gets down to grim business. Robert sharpens his stakes, replaces the garlic on the front door of his home, cleans up the corpses sprawled in his front yard and then realizes he needs supplies (gasoline and fresh garlic). Robert sits down and tallies up the stops he'll need to make that day on "the job" before the sun sets - from shopping at an eerily lifeless grocery store to going about the ghoulish business of disposing of vampire bodies in a huge, fiery pit.

These moments in the film expose how deeply human beings cling to the idea of routine, especially in times of stress, to impose a sense of control, order and comfort over our chaotic lives. Robert - a man who states he has no time for "the luxury of anger" - busies himself with the hunting/gathering of daily survival but seems to do so on almost automatic pilot. The film has no huge signature moments during this portion of its running time; it merely charts the almost boring routine of the last man alive. The result is an oddly intimate and small film that captures the horror of the apocalypse more successfully than many a special effects extravaganza because we feel connected to the man and his situation.

As The Last Man on Earth continues, the film is practically littered with images and sounds of time passing by, from the tic-tock of clocks on the soundtrack, to images of those calendars dotting his walls or views of alarm clocks. "Another day to start all over again," Robert laments, and the viewer comes to understand that the routine of this miserable existence is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it busies Robert; a curse because it feels never ending and there is no joy - or love - in any of it.

Basically, this is a one man show, Price's show, and The Last Man on Earth is as much character piece as action film. Action scenes arise because of character, in fact. When Robert succumbs to self-pity and sentimentality by visiting his old church, for instance, he falls asleep and stays out after sundown...meaning he'll have to engage the vampires on their terms. This is splendid storytelling because he pays a price (the loss of his automobile) and then must account for that surprise by car shopping on another day. Every action and mistake on Robert's part spurs an interesting effect, and that's how the film generates suspense.

Later, Robert's desire to connect with another human being, an infected survivor named Ruth, leads to his downfall. Price is terrific in the film, but this isn't the larger-than-life Price of the Dr Phibes films or Theater of Blood (1973). On the contrary, this is a more naturalistic Price. He is a huge man physically (and one can see why the vampires are afraid of him...), but Price gives a convincing performance. He has a terrific scene as Robert Morgan in which he watches old home movies and laughs at them, absent-mindedly. Then, the laughing turns into a mental breakdown, a crying jag, as the full impact of Robert's loss settles in. This isn't campy, but very, very human, and Price refrains from taking it over the top. He anchors the film in reality, and The Last Man on Earth benefits enormously from both his physical presence and his erudite voice-over narration.

In regards to cinematic aesthetics, this film is legend. 

The Last Man on Earth heralds the future of horror cinema (brutal, gritty and realistic, sans iconic monsters like Dracula and the Wolf Man) and though produced by an American, appears ripped from the Italian school of neo-realism, post-World War II. The film is lensed in bracing, grainy black-and-white, and like the neo-realist films of the 1940s and 1950s, is shot mostly outdoors, on the streets (an easily available location).

Thematically, the Price film actually shares something in common with the neo-realist movement as well. The cinema of that period in Italy's history portrayed post-war economic and social changes in a mostly negative manner (I'm thinking The Bicycle Thief here...), and the very subject of this film, (life in a post-apocalyptic world as a new society arises) hits some of the same philosophies, only in genre-specific terms.

Price is a man alone representing "the old system" while black-uniformed, heavily armed men form the gestalt of the new order. They hunt down and rub out remnants of the old order. The cruel nature of life you'll see captured so well (and so poetically) in the cinema of Vittorio De Sica is present here too, only made "fantastic" by the imaginative storyline and presence of vampires. Though today we hardly blanch at such things, this film includes the startling images of corpses being burned in a pit by the U.S. Army (including Robert's daughter) and the unlikely sight of a vampire dog staked through the heart (though covered by a blanket). It is blunt and graphic, but not overdone. It all feels alarmingly really and - unlike most Hollywood cinema - not exaggerated for effect. Romero and Cronenberg later went in the very direction spearheaded by this film in efforts as diverse as The Crazies and Rabid.

This film is cheap, no doubt, but gloriously cheap. It makes the best out of a limited set of resources, focusing on the nature of one man (Robert), rather than hordes of rampaging monsters. Frankly, you don't need state-of-the-art CGI to dramatize the story of the last man on Earth, you just need a good actor, some fine character moments, a few convincing views of an abandoned city and a believable threat. 

In fact, having an abundance of special effects would only take away from the very individual story vetted here, the story of a man who did not see the end coming ("I'm a scientist, not an alarmist," he insists...) and paid the price for his blinders by losing his wife, his family, his society and ultimately his life. I don't really need jumping and drooling monsters when I have a strong narrative about a person I care about, living through a frightening situation.

Not just in terms of dialogue, but in terms of presentation, The Last Man on Earth certainly points the way to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Here, Robert notes of the vampires that "individually they are weak, mentally incompetent" but in groups dangerous...which is a perfect way to describe Romero's ghouls. Similarly, the vampires are rather zombie-like, lurching towards Robert's home and trying to break in. Watching the vampire/zombie scenes of Last Man on Earth I was reminded, as well, why I've always preferred slow-moving zombies to their new, blazingly-fast brethren.

Fast-moving zombies offer shock and surprise: boom! Something attacks from out of the shadows! But slow-motion zombies offer something better in my mind: suspense. A few slow-moving zombies (or vampires, here) can be warded off with a little physical strength and peripheral vision (which characters in horror movies always lack). Ten zombies can be dealt with. But fifteen? 

Twenty? 

When protagonists like Robert in The Last Man on Earth or Ben in Night of the Living Dead step out into the darkness, suspense builds because they usually dispatch the first several zombies they encounter with relative ease. But then something hangs up our heroes (a locked door; a friend who has fallen and twisted an ankle; whatever...) and then the zombies keep coming in greater numbers. One by one. And it is there - in that moment - that the zombie horror is inescapable, as heroes become buried in sheer numbers, and it no longer possible to simply duck and weave. Let alone shoot or lob grenades. The Last Man on Earth plays with that suspense here and does so surprisingly well. Who needs the shock and awe of digital effects when suspense will do the trick?

True to the spirit of its Matheson source material if not all the details, The Last Man on Earth ultimately concerns the changing-of-the-guard, of one society in rapid descent as another ascends. About the old guard falling while the new guard rises. This version of the material offers less hope than The Omega Man, which is more a polemic about race relations in post-sixties America (and offers the possibility that Charlton Heston's messianic blood could save the human race). In the end, the armies of the new order hunt down Vincent Price and destroy him without remorse (and without even hearing his case). He dies in a church, of all places, telling his murderers that they are "freaks." However, the truth is not so simple. Throughout the film, the vampire plague is regarded not merely as a disease, but something more. It is suggested, actually that the plague is "a strange evolutionary process," a natural development of the human animal. Would we - as man - allow the last dinosaur to survive and rampage (killing our citizens by night?) in our cities, or would we stamp out the old to make room for the new? In the perspective of the new order, this film ends with the monster destroyed. We just have sympathy for that monster, because he's...us.

"Your new society sounds charming," Robert quips to Ruth at one point during The Last Man on Earth, and that comment gets to the heart of the film. Robert's people - mankind - had their turn in the sun and waged war, killed one another by the million, developed weapons to destroy the world and used up the resources of the planet without looking back. His society wasn't so charming either. 

Yet as bad as those things are, our species also boasts love, decency, kindness, individuality and family...and none of us wants to see the human race go the way of the dodo. In charting this incredible change on the Earth, and the passing of the torch for planetary supremacy, one can see how - in the age of global warming, suitcase nukes and COVID- The Last Man on Earth remains eerily relevant. The apocalypse mentality is apparently here to stay, and though we don't face an impending threat from vampires (that I know of...), why is it that this "last man on earth" scenario still holds so much power for us? And why can we, in 2024, think of so many ways that such a disaster could befall us? Will it be an environmental crisis? A terror attack? A nuclear explosion? A meteor strike? A virus? Right-wing coup? What? Why are we obsessed with doomsday (and what comes after?)

The Last Man on Earth is basic and blunt. It is so effectively shot and mounted that it features a timeless quality which grants it tremendous currency today.  Happy Anniversary, to the last man standing (or falling apart, as the case may be).

40 Years Ago: V: The Final Battle (1984)

V: The Final Battle (1984) is the second production in the V saga, and it originally ran for a whopping six hours over three nights, May 6 – 8, 1984. 

If you’re keeping count, V: The Final Battle aired forty years ago, which is impossible for me to believe.

I vividly remember watching this sequel mini-series on network TV with my parents and sister, and all of us being glued to the set. The second mini-series also had its own water-cooler moment with the birth of the "Star Child" and her ill-fated sibling.  At my school, everyone was talking about this sequence non-stop during lunch.

In terms of quality, however, V: The Final Battle breaks down like this:

The first night -- which re-establishes the Kenneth Johnson characters and diagrams the Resistance plot to expose Supreme Leader John (Richard Herd) on live television -- is uniformly superb.  

The second night -- which introduces Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) and culminates with the birth of Robin’s (Blair Tefkin) otherworldly twins -- is pretty good.

And the last segment of the mini-series -- featuring the defeat of the Visitors -- grows worse and less-satisfactory every minute it runs, culminating with a seriously wrong-headed and poorly-conceived climactic scene.

The second V mini-series’ disappointing denouement may be the result of a few crucial factors.  

First, V’s creator, writer-director Kenneth Johnson, had departed the franchise over disputes about its direction. 

Secondly, there was no doubt pressure on the new writers to deliver a happy ending for a scenario in which such a happy ending was extremely unlikely. Even It Can’t Happen Here didn’t have a happy ending. It ended with underground groups still attempting to take back a fascist America.

And third, resolutions of big, epic sagas like V are notoriously hard-to-nail down, anyway. V: The Final Battle’s wrap-up is unsatisfactory in much as the same way as Return of the Jedi’s (1983) wrap-up is unsatisfactory.  

You reach the end credits and you just can’t quite believe that’s all there is.  

A battle of galactic proportions is over, and here we are…with Ewoks banging stormtrooper helmets like drums…

So overall, V: The Final Battle is mostly pretty good -- if not always inspired -- work. 

The mini-series succeeds admirably when it introduces Ham Tyler, a necessary counter-balance to the “do-gooders” in the Resistance. The mini-series also features a few unforgettable set-pieces such as John’s unmasking, and finally, it delivers juicy, unforgettable fates to the characters we all love to hate, namely Daniel (David Packer), Eleanor (Neva Patterson) and Steven (Andrew Prine).

In terms of theme, V: The Final Battle all but abandons the discussion of fascism that informed V and instead -- at least momentarily -- tackles a different controversial subject: abortion.

In the sequel’s unexpectedly most passionate and cerebral scene, all sides of the issue are raised, vis-à-vis Robin and her pregnancy, and the subject is discussed with remarkable verve, clarity and detail, and with precious little judgment or preaching.

But the problem overall with V: The Final Battle is that the focus of the drama has undeniably changed. V was It Can’t Happen Here meets “To Serve Man,” and a brilliantly forged meditation on the multitudinous ways that man might contend with a shift in the existing social power structure.

By contrast, V: The Final Battle takes the whole enterprise to a more mundane, soap-opera-like level where the focus is not on collaborators or deniers, but on personal issues like….will Juliet and Mike hook-up? Or, will Diana wrest control of the Visitor fleet away from Squad Commander Pamela (Sarah Douglas)?

It’s a very different brand of storytelling; less allegorical, and consequently less cerebral. In terms of my biases as a viewer and a reviewer, I prefer the original V's approach to drama.

For all its abundant excitement and other virtues (and there are many…), V: The Final Battle just seems less realistic and three-dimensional than its classic predecessor. 

“We’re a Unit...We’ve made more noise than you have.”

In occupied Los Angeles, The Resistance launches a raid against a Visitor food-processing plant, only to lose the day because the Visitors have improved their body armor.

Re-grouping, the Resistance determines that it must undertake a big, bold mission, lest sympathy turn away from it and towards Earth's occupiers.

To that end, Mike (Marc Singer), Julie (Faye Grant) and the other fighters plan to reveal the Visitors’ true reptilian nature on live television during a benefit at a Los Angeles hospital.  John (Herd) is unmasked, and the mission is successful, but Julie is captured afterwards. She is taken to Diana’s (Jane Badler) mothership for the harrowing and painful conversion process.

Soon, a professional soldier, Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) joins the L.A. Resistance, and informs the group of a world-wide organization of fighters. He also supplies the team with new armor-piercing bullets.

After Donovan and Martin (Frank Ashmore) arrange to free Julie from captivity, the Resistance must launch another daring raid, this one to prevent the Visitors from “sucking dry” all of the water in California within 30 days.  The mission is a success, though -- as always – there are casualties.

While Julie grapples with her conversion experience, Robin Maxwell gives birth to twins.The first appears human, save for a forked-tongue. The other is reptilian, and dies shortly after birth. Its death gives Resistance scientists the clue they need to develop a toxin fatal to the Visitors, the Red Dust.

While the Resistance plots a delivery system for the Red Dust, Diana “retires” her new superior, Pamela (Douglas), and assumes control of the fleet.  When Diana realizes that she has been outmaneuvered by the human resistance, she activates a Doomsday Weapon to destroy the Earth…

  

“Enjoy your reign…Queen of the Poison Realm.”

V: The Final Battle starts off very strongly, with a raid on a food processing center that goes awry for the Resistance. The Visitors have developed new bullet-resistant armor, and are ready for the attack. The humans are beaten back...defeated.

This is a frighteningly good sequence and note to commence on because it re-establishes the desperation of the Resistance. In short, embedded power accrues and consolidates more power. Since the Visitors have now been in power longer, they are growing much stronger, while the Resistance struggles just to keep up.  The Visitors have more resources at their disposal, and are developing new technologies to control Earth and its resources more effectively.

The elements of V: The Final Battle which function best tend to be on this front. After a major loss, the Resistance realizes it needs to do something “big” to capture the hearts and minds of the Earthlings, and so it has to take a risk to unmask John on live-TV.This brazen gambit involves underworld contacts, a break-in, and other interfaces with the criminal world, and so an important point about "resistance" is made: it has strange bedfellows.

Another commentary on the danger of life in the Resistance involves the mini-series' setting. V: The Final Battle features the Resistance almost constantly on the move. The L.A. organization has no less than three separate HQs during the run of the mini-series, and that constant changing of venue similarly suggests desperation.  Being a "freedom fighter" in occupied territory means living life on the run.

To some extent, the introduction of Ham Tyler fits in with this notion of desperation as well. A man of few words -- and who cuts right through B.S. -- Ham Tyler is not a nice guy. He is not an idealist, and he is not polite. Instead, he is a professional, covert soldier that deploys the techniques that work, not the techniques that are moral. 

If we are to believe fully in the V universe, it is necessary to feature a character like Ham Tyler. One who relies on expedience, and has almost no self-doubt, or recriminations about his approach.  He is a needed contrast to Julie and Mike, who are still fighting a war based on issues of “what’s right” and “what’s human.”  

Ham fights on the basis of how to quickly, brutally, and efficiently destroy the enemy.

Ham is a great character, and Michael Ironside is terrific in the role. There’s a great battle in Part Two of V: The Final Battle, in which Ham alone takes down dozens of Visitors while they invade the Resistance Base. 

We hardly know Ham at this point, and yet he commands attention, and the screen -- often the only human in frame -- and we are drawn to him. We may not like his philosophy of life, or arrogance, but he's courageous.  And most importantly...he's on our side.

V: The Final Battle is also enjoyable, frankly, because it so damned cut-throat. The characters whom we have grown to despise over ten hours get their comeuppance in the final act, and, I must confess, there's something very rewarding about seeing Daniel, Eleanor, Brian and Steven punished for their moral trespasses. 

Daniel -- the most loathsome of all, in my opinion -- is framed...and served up on a platter. Eleanor gets shot in the back (after metaphorically stabbing Steven in the back).  And Steven and Brian meet terrible ends due to exposure to the red dust.

Steven's death is the best filmed. We pull back to a high angle, and see that he has expired on a huge Visitor insignia, a metaphor for the approaching death of the occupation, perhaps.

The biggest problem with V: The Final Battle is its conclusion. Julie, Mike, Lorraine (a member of the Fifth Column) and Martin storm the control room of the Mothership to confront Diana.  

Elizabeth, “the Star Child” is there, and has watched Diana murder John.

Diana has also set the mothership to explode using a doomsday machine. The entire Earth is imperiled. But Lorraine can’t stop the program.

Meanwhile, Diana suddenly acquires powers of telepathy (!), and convinces the “converted” Julie to let her steal away when no one is paying attention. Diana then pulls a Darth Vader, and escapes in her personal sky-fighter to return another day.

Back on the mothership, Elizabeth grips the controls of the doomsday machine and de-activates it using some mystical power that manifests itself as a glowing halo around her body.

After watching Elizabeth save the Earth, Mike and Julie share a passionate kiss...

Besides the obvious problem of Diana developing telepathy with a human -- a power her species doesn’t even use when with one another -- the big concern here is the nature of Elizabeth’s sudden powers.  

The writers of V: The Final Battle have seen fit to give the saga a mystical, irrational conclusion, when mysticism has not at all been part of the V “universe” up to this point.  We have not been prepared for its sudden appearance (at…just…the…right…moment) in the drama and thus the resolution falls flat, and worse, feels insulting.

In the introduction to this review, I called the conclusion “wrong-headed,” and that’s for one crucial reason. 

Many fascist regimes incorporate myths of the supernatural or mystical into their ideologies. Aryan blood isn’t just blood…it’s special, privileged, elite blood, and so forth.  

So for a franchise that concerns the rise of a fascist state to resolve in a fashion that creates a mystical “super being” like Elizabeth is not just weak storytelling, but the precise opposite of what should occur. Taking down “fascism” should be the purview of humanity, having learned its lesson that “it can happen here.”  

Instead, we get a god-like figure of magical powers to lead us out of the darkness. We are asked, essentially, to follow a magical superman figure rather than realize that if we want freedom...we make it for ourselves.

The instinct to seek such a super power is exactly what leads to the creation of a fascist state in the first place. So not only has V: The Final Battle picked a very bad way to end, it has picked the one way that actually undercuts the very theme or message of the franchise the most.

The final images of Mike and Julie smooching in the control room don’t really help to forge a satisfying ending, either.  So…they’re in love.  Is that Earth-shattering news, considering the Visitors have been driven from the planet, and millions of people are now taking their first breath of freedom?  

The point is this: before V: The Final Battle, this franchise wasn’t really a love story. Or at least the love story was so far back among the list of dramatic priorities that it didn’t seem particularly important in the grand scheme of things.

But V: The Final Battle ends with the (horrid) moment of misplaced mysticism, and the spotlighted punctuation of the unimportant love story. It’s just a very disappointing turn for the V saga, if you ask me.  

Yet, in fairness to V: The Final Battle, there might be a sub-textual motivation, at least, for the prominent Donovan-Julie kiss. 

The entire V saga has been parsed as an allegory for Nazi Germany. The Visitor insignia is a symbol not unlike the swastika, and so forth.  If this is indeed the case, then the Donovan-Julie kiss at the end of V: The Final Battle could be interpreted as a direct surrogate for the famous sailor/woman kiss celebrating the end of World War II in Times Square.  

If so, the kiss may be more appropriate an “end” for the saga than it appears at first blush.  

I wish I could find a similar validity for the presence of the mysticism.

I like V: The Final Battle. 

There's no doubt that it starts off strong, ad makes some good points about the desperation of Resistance.

I should also add that V: The Final Battle features a classic performance by Jane Badler as the scheming, selfish, power-hungry Diana. She is just a joy to watch.

There's so much that's good in the mini-series, and yet the ill-conceived end leaves a bad taste, and undercuts many of The Final Battle's most dramatic accomplishments. 

In the rush to give us the happy ending it thinks we desire, the V saga loses a lot of the franchise's realistic luster, and we're left with what seems like a superficial blockbuster movie, instead of a dedicated, thoughtful science fiction vision about the rise (and fall) of a fascist state.

Perhaps they needed eight hours? Or, more aptly, a guy named Kenneth Johnson at the helm.