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.

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50 Years Ago: Grizzly (1976)

The first shot of William Girdler’s Grizzly (1976) is actually a really good one. The film opens with a lovely, wide-angle establishing shot of the natural forest. 

The shot is well-composed, with an imposing mountain in the distance, slightly off-center. Just as you settle in for a viewing -- pondering the natural beauty of the environment -- the unexpected buzz of a helicopter in flight suddenly and loudly interrupts the tranquility, and the craft jets into the frame. 

The pastoral setting is thus shattered by the presence of the helicopter, and this transgression is followed up by the dire warning of its pilot -- played by Andrew Prine -- that if man keeps encroaching on the wild, he will “destroy the natural beauty” of forests just like this one.  

Girdler’s inaugural shot cannily demonstrates that this brand of destruction is already occurring, and that’s the perfect note on which to commence a revenge of nature film. Especially one about a killer grizzly bear coming down the side of a mountain even as vacationing hitchhikers and campers insist on encroaching from the other end, probing ever higher up the same mountain.  

Bear and man will meet in the middle…for terror!

The best-looking of Girdler’s films so far – and by far -- Grizzly (1976) proved a huge box-office hit in the year of America’s bicentennial, in part because it was the first “when animals attack” movie to arrive after Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jaws (1975).  The movie was not a critical success, however, and reviewers such as the one at Time Magazine dubbed the Girdler film “an idea-for-idea, character-for-character, and sometimes even shot-for-shot knock-off of Jaws.”  

That assertion, alas, is accurate.  

Last week in the Girdler Guide, I noted that Girdler is often remembered as the king of the rip-offs for his cinematic variations on Psycho (Three on a Meathook), The Exorcist (The Manitou) and, yes, Jaws (Grizzly), but really, Grizzly is the most on-the-nose and derivative knock-off of that bunch.  You can go up and down the line in the film -- from narrative, to characters, to compositions -- and see how Spielberg’s great white shark film casts a heavy shadow over virtually every aspect of this work.

“You know…bears got patterns.”

In an American national park, Ranger Kelly (Christopher George) and his men and women are concerned about the number of campers and back-packers visiting during the season.  

When two female campers are found ripped apart and mauled to death by a grizzly bear, Kelly realizes that the tourists are in terrible danger. The administrator at the park, however, refuses to close the forest to visitors. After more attacks, Kelly prevails and plots a strategy to hunt the grizzly, which has demonstrated murderous and even cannibalistic tendencies.

With the help of a pilot, Don (Prine) and a naturalist, Scotty (Richard Jaekel) Kelly heads out into the deep woods by helicopter to face the monsters on its home territory

“That’s all we need: a killer bear on the loose.”

The DVD version of Grizzly I watched for this review came complete with a good, informative documentary about the making of the film. In the doc, the project’s writers good-naturedly noted that they had not intended the film to be a Jaws rip-off, and that, if you pay attention to the script, Grizzly is not really a Jaws knock-off at all.  They are so charming and informative that you really want to believe that assertion.

But allow me to tally, just briefly, the various points in common shared by Jaws and Grizzly.

The heroic triumvirate: Both films feature three male heroes who “bond” over the hunting of a wild, dangerous animal.  In Jaws, the triumvirate consists of the law-enforcement official, Brody (Roy Scheider), the man of science, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and the local man, Quint (Robert Shaw) who captains a boat and is a veteran of World War II.  In Grizzly, we have the ranger, Kelly, the naturalist, Scotty, and Don, who captains a helicopter and is a veteran of Vietnam. Also note that both Quint and Don stand-out by virtue of their local accents, New England/Southern, respectively.

The over-sized nemesis is more than mere animal: In Jaws, we meet a giant great white shark who is almost supernaturally clever, and efficient, out-smarting its human hunters at every turn, and evading both capture and death.  

In Grizzly, we likewise get a very large, very intelligent bear instead. And as one character notes, this giant man-eater “seems to know what we’re thinking,” meaning that it is not, as Yogi might say, your average bear.  There is the implicit suggestion that the bear here, like the shark in Jaws, may actually be a supernatural monster.

Economic/professional interests are imperiled by the presence of the intruder:  In Jaws, the beach town of Amity thrives on summer business, and so the Mayor (Murray Hamilton) argues that “the beaches stay open.” He even covers up a coroner report to assure that the beaches stay open.

In Grizzly, the park administrator similarly refuses to act responsibly in order to save people. “There’s no need to close the park,” he insists, despite the presence of the vicious predator. When bear attacks keep occurring, however, and bad press threatens to overwhelm the park, he is forced to change his mind.

Local yokels: Sheriff Brody almost has a conniption fit in Jaws when amateur local fisher-men take to their boats, go out to sea, and start hunting the great white shark.  They get drunk, dynamite fish in the sea, and cause all sorts of problems for law enforcement 

In Grizzly, rednecks put on their camo vests, grab their rifles and head into the woods to hunt the grizzly bear, threatening everybody in the process.  “Those clowns are going to shoot everything in sight,” Kelly complains, echoing Brody.

Naked or half-naked girls are delicious: In the first scene in Jaws, Chrissy’s midnight skinny-dip turns sour when the great white shark attacks and kills her. Early in Grizzly, a half-naked camper, also a young woman, frolics in a waterfall until a grizzly attack turns the mountain waters blood-red.

Children also make good lunches: In Jaws, little Alex Kitner gets killed by the great white, and his mother slaps Brody for allowing the beaches to stay open when he knew better. 

In Grizzly, a little boy gets attacked by a bear (though “part” of him survives, according to Kelly), and the attack is proof that the park’s approach to the problem is not working. 

In both cases, the attack on the child stiffens the spine of the law-enforcement official, either Brody or Kelly. They commit themselves to the hunt, lest any other innocent (like a child) suffer.

Animal P.O.V.: Several shots in Jaws represent the subjective perspective of the great white shark as it hunts and stalks it unwitting victims.  

Likewise, Grizzly features a number of bear-attack style P.O.V. shots.

On the monster’s turf: Jaws culminates with a splendid third act in which the heroic triumvirate takes to the sea aboard Quint’s boat, the Orca, to hunt the monster.  The Orca is pulped in the ensuing clash, and Quint is killed. The law enforcement official, Brody, blows up the shark with a well-timed shot to a flammable gas tank. 

In Grizzly, the heroic triumvirate takes to the wooded mountain aboard Don’s helicopter.  The helicopter is pulped by the bear in the ensuing clash, and Don is killed. The law enforcement official, 

Kelly, blows up the Grizzly with a bazooka.''

Despite these many similarities, I must establish one fact: Grizzly looks absolutely great.  Frankly, I don’t remember the film looking so damn good when I watched it on VHS for a review in Horror Films of the 1970s.  

On this viewing, however, I was struck several times by the lovely photography, and the utter bluntness of the editing style. Several attacks are editing with lightning-fast “shock” cuts so that severed limbs, decapitated heads and other extremities fly across the frame.  

They may not be scary, but these moments are certainly…bracing.  In fact, I’ll go further.  I believe that Girdler did the best work anyone could reasonably expect on Grizzly with the script he had in hand, which -- clearly -- was highly derivative. Girdler actually executes the film well in terms of its exploitative content, but it’s difficult to leave behind, even for a moment, the fact that the film seems to ape Jaws with a near-religious fervor.

One other big difference between Jaws and Grizzly bears a mention. Sharks are inherently scary on screen.  Bears…not so much. Sharks have soulless-seeming black eyes, razor-sharp fangs, and exposed, meaty gums. They hide beneath the roiling ocean surface, with only a jutting fin signifying their presence. They can break the ocean surface and then retreat beneath it suddenly, and seemingly anywhere at any time.  

But Teddy in Grizzly is a big, roly-poly, fuzzy animal with sleepy eyes. His stomach rolls jollily from side to side when he runs. And when he rears up on his hind legs, he looks like he wants to give you a hug, not rip you apart. 

I’m not saying that I’d like to encounter a grizzly in the woods, or that it wouldn’t be terrifying to do so.  I’m talking about visual representations here. The bear just doesn’t transmit as some kind of hideous monster on screen and is thus a markedly less-effective “monster” than the shark in Jaws is.

Screening Grizzly this time, I also had more respect for the performances, especially those of Prine and George.  They are thoroughly professional here, and try to do more with their thin characters than merely ape the performances in Jaws.  Between Girdler’s occasionally tactless but fun visualizations and Prine’s good ole boy drawl, I must confess I felt more positively about Grizzly than I did when I last watched it in 2000. 

It’s still a rip-off of Jaws, through and through, but Grizzly has its moments. It may be a bad movie, but the film is an entertaining bad movie, and a good time-capsule of the Jaws craze that struck the nation in the mid-1970s. 

30 Years Ago: Doctor Who (Fox TV, May 14, 1996)

While transporting the remains of his dead rival, The Master, from Skaro to Gallifrey, the Seventh Doctor’s (Sylvester McCoy) TARDIS experiences a “timing malfunction” and lands on Earth in the “Humanian Era,” on the eve of the new millennium, December 30, 1999

Unfortunately, the malfunction has been caused by the Master himself, who in a strange, slimy reptilian form, escapes from captivity and moves into the body of an unsuspecting American paramedic (Eric Roberts). 

Upon venturing out of the TARDIS, the Doctor is almost immediately injured in urban San Francisco’s gang violence.  He is rushed to a hospital, where a cardiac surgeon Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook) operates on him.  Unfortunately, he appears to die on the table, though he actually regenerates that night, in the morgue.

The new Doctor (Paul McGann) -- suffering from amnesia -- befriends Dr. Holloway, and together the duo must prevent the Master from opening The Eye of Harmony inside the TARDIS for the express purpose of stealing all the Doctor’s future lives…

Worse, the Master’s plan will destroy Earth’s future, meaning that the world will stop, permanently, when New Year’s Day, 2000, happens.

An American co-production with the BBC, the 1996 Doctor Who movie stars Paul McGann as the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, and also features a good-sized role for Sylvester McCoy, the seventh Doctor, who hands off the role to his successor with style and grace.

Like many Doctor Who serials of the classic series, the Doctor Who TV movie functions primarily in “pastiche” mode.  This means, essentially, that it skillfully pulls ideas from popular productions in the culture, and then blends them together in a new and frequently amusing fashion.  

The Paul McGann movie, directed by Geoffrey Sax pulls ideas from The Terminator movie franchise (right down to visual framing, at one point), the pre-eminent genre franchise of the day, The X-Files (in terms of an Earth-based mystery involving aliens), and also the increasingly popular post-modernism of horror genre films such as Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) and Scream (1996)

In terms of The Terminator (1984), the Doctor Who features two time travelers from another culture (otherworldly, rather than the future…) duking it out on modern-day Earth, while a human bystander is pulled into the action.  The Terminator and the Master both wear sun-glasses and leather, and both cause much destruction.  Both are also endeavoring to re-shape the future.

The X-Files, meanwhile, famously gave 1990s audiences “the black oil,” a kind of sentient ooze that would crawl up inside of human beings and take them over.  Those possessed by the evil of the black ooze on the Chris Carter would then also boast black eyeballs.  In The Doctor Who movie, the Master is seen as a kind of reptilian ooze, sliming to the TARDIS console, and down the throat of an unwitting EMT.  Similarly, those possessed by the Master (in this case, Grace), showcase the telltale black eyes of the oil.

Finally, the eighth doctor movie explicitly compares the Doctor’s regeneration to the famous “It’s Alive” moment of revival of the monster in James Whales’ Frankenstein (1932), which happens to be playing on television during the Time Lord’s regeneration process.  

At one point the film explicitly cross-cuts from the Monster’s hand twitching to the Doctor’s hand undertaking the very same motion.  The allusion is intriguing, but it ultimately doesn’t serve as anything beyond a recognition of the fact that the makers of the movie are aware of pop culture. Is the Doctor being compared to a monster? Is his regeneration, monstrous?  It’s a nice allusion a beloved old film, but nothing more.  The moment would have worked better if the Master’s resurrection had been intercut with footage from Frankenstein.

Although Paul McGann is splendid in the role of the Eighth Doctor and certainly deserved his own long run in the role, his TV Movie isn’t especially good.  It looks like what it is: a cheap TV production circa the mid-1990s.  The special effects haven’t aged particularly well, the acting is generally pretty bad, and there doesn’t seem to be much by way of budget which could show audiences anything special.  Most of the action is very tame, and the details surrounding the Eye of Harmony are quite confusing.  

Alas, the 1996 Doctor Who movie also adds some baffling new ideas to the long-standing canon.  

First among those is the Doctor’s surprising revelation that he is half-human (on his mother’s side).  This is a shock to say the least, and may not be accepted as canon by fans.  I suspect this was a bone thrown to American producers so the character would seem “relatable,” or some other such nonsense.

Secondly, the Master -- though described as a rival Time Lord -- is depicted in his natural form as a kind of snake or reptile.  We see his reptilian eyes, and his coiled, snake-like body, at points.  What’s this about?  If he is a Time Lord, are all Time Lords reptilian?  If the Doctor and The Master are both Time Lords, why are they physiologically so different from one another? There are no doubt fan ret-cons for this mystery, but no explanation appears in the movie.

Finally, since when is the TARDIS’s chameleon circuit known as a “cloaking device?”

Despite such stumbles, this Doctor Who TV-movie makes an honorable attempt to continue faithfully the ideas and characters of the franchise as seen on the BBC series, circa 1963-1989.  The Doctor’s old sonic screwdriver makes an appearance, for instance, and the series even resurrects an old logo from Jon Pertwee’s era. 

Similarly, the film went to the trouble of casting Sylvester McCoy for the pre-regeneration scenes, thus establishing a direct link between seventh and eighth Doctors.  Had the filmmakers not taken this step, the TV movie today would likely be remembered as completely apocryphal (like the Cushing films of the 1960s).

It’s also fair to state that this Doctor Who movie pointed the way towards the re-invention in several regards. 

For one thing, we get a very attractive, young, leading man-type Doctor in Paul McGann’s incarnation, as we later get with Eccleston, Tennant, and Smith.  No grandfatherly or father types, as was the case with Hartnell and Pertwee.

Also, the interior of the TARDIS is redesigned here and for the first time actually looks gigantic, much as it would in the modern era.  But the central column is clearly recognizable, as it remains to this day.

Last but not least -- and this is probably the most controversial touch -- there’s a hint of romance here between the Doctor and his companion, Grace.  On more than one occasion, the duo locks lips, and, well, you can pretty easily sense the desire. 

Once more, the new series has picked up on this dimension, with the Doctor and Rose falling in love, and Martha Jones also falling hard for the Time Lord.  

In the original series, the Doctor never made eyes at any of his beautiful male or female companions…and there were many, to be certain.  In the new show, there seems to be a hint of romance or attraction between the Doctor and virtually every companion (well, not Rory…).    

Today, contextualize the McGann movie as a not entirely-effective missing link between the original series and the new series.  In many ways, it is more nimble and fun than the last seasons on BBC were, but some aspects -- like the acknowledgment of the Doctor’s human half -- seem way off.  The film’s plot-line is also muddled, and the Doctor’s solution to the closing of the Eye of Harmony doesn’t seem to make sense in light of what we know about time travel.

Doctor Who would not reach its full potential, again, until 2005, and yet I’m still grateful to have this 1996 movie in the catalog.

Finally, there is one visual composition in this TV movie that I absolutely love.  An amnesiac doctor wanders through an abandoned wing of a San Francisco hospital, and sees his reflection for the first time…in eight mirrors.  We get eight views of him with his new face, because, of course, this is his eighth incarnation.  I love that moment.  It’s as if the mirror is explicitly reminding him of his long and noble history…