Folks, I've always -- always -- been picked on for my tastes in movies. And I do mean always.
Those of you amongst the readership who are a bit older -- a bit long-in-the-tooth, as they say -- will probably understand what I mean; whilst those of you of the modern generation might be a bit confused. The sad, sad truth is that those of us who've spent the better part of our lives loving the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror are the subject of ridicule and/or scorn from -- ahem -- the cultural betters who think their taste in movies and television shows is -- ahem -- any better. Fortunately, I realized a decade or two ago that I am old enough to truly not give a damn what others think of my choices; and I suspect a lot of my contemporaries feel the same. You young Turks will come to grips with it as well; don't think that you've escaped the embarassment of falling head over heels for something a bit goofy or a bit campy because you will, and you'll hear about it constantly from friends and family. That's just life. It'll likely never change.
Chiefly, I bring this up because motion pictures like 1955's This Island Earth -- the kind of thing that tickles my fancy albeit lightly -- is precisely what I'm talking about. It premiered on this day all the way back in 1955 (no, I wasn't there to see it live, you knuckleheads), and through the passage of time it became the kind of flick that inspired a good many of us to seek out and explore more of any like-minded features we could find. It wasn't -- on any level -- a great film (yes, that's my opinion); and yet it had the look and feel of something beyond anything else that Hollywood was turning out. Opening up as it did on Earth, it wasn't all that long into the picture that we were transported miles and miles and miles away from our Big Blue Marble, crashing down on the surface of Metaluna where a fateful space war was destroying an entire species.
You see, way back in those days mankind was just starting to tinker with the mechanics of space travel but these visual storytellers had already provided fuel to our collective imagination about what life elsewhere in the universe might look like. This Island Earth introduced us to not one to two curiously looking lifeforms, and it even presented a bit of movie science that made us think about what requirements space travel might possibly have once we broke the veil of our world and blasted into the Heavens. Of course, it got a lot of stuff wrong; but the audience -- the true fans that endure even to this day -- don't mind those errors so much. They're quaint and more than mildly entertaining, which is likely why those lovable knuckleheads at Mystery Science Theater 3000 wanted to lampoon this modest, oddest classic when they did on the silver screen. Who knows? Their laughs likely brought a whole new cadre of fans to the project, and that's saying something.
In any event ...
Happy 70th birthday to This Island Earth! You've come a long way, baby!
-- EZ
Those of you amongst the readership who are a bit older -- a bit long-in-the-tooth, as they say -- will probably understand what I mean; whilst those of you of the modern generation might be a bit confused. The sad, sad truth is that those of us who've spent the better part of our lives loving the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror are the subject of ridicule and/or scorn from -- ahem -- the cultural betters who think their taste in movies and television shows is -- ahem -- any better. Fortunately, I realized a decade or two ago that I am old enough to truly not give a damn what others think of my choices; and I suspect a lot of my contemporaries feel the same. You young Turks will come to grips with it as well; don't think that you've escaped the embarassment of falling head over heels for something a bit goofy or a bit campy because you will, and you'll hear about it constantly from friends and family. That's just life. It'll likely never change.
Chiefly, I bring this up because motion pictures like 1955's This Island Earth -- the kind of thing that tickles my fancy albeit lightly -- is precisely what I'm talking about. It premiered on this day all the way back in 1955 (no, I wasn't there to see it live, you knuckleheads), and through the passage of time it became the kind of flick that inspired a good many of us to seek out and explore more of any like-minded features we could find. It wasn't -- on any level -- a great film (yes, that's my opinion); and yet it had the look and feel of something beyond anything else that Hollywood was turning out. Opening up as it did on Earth, it wasn't all that long into the picture that we were transported miles and miles and miles away from our Big Blue Marble, crashing down on the surface of Metaluna where a fateful space war was destroying an entire species.
You see, way back in those days mankind was just starting to tinker with the mechanics of space travel but these visual storytellers had already provided fuel to our collective imagination about what life elsewhere in the universe might look like. This Island Earth introduced us to not one to two curiously looking lifeforms, and it even presented a bit of movie science that made us think about what requirements space travel might possibly have once we broke the veil of our world and blasted into the Heavens. Of course, it got a lot of stuff wrong; but the audience -- the true fans that endure even to this day -- don't mind those errors so much. They're quaint and more than mildly entertaining, which is likely why those lovable knuckleheads at Mystery Science Theater 3000 wanted to lampoon this modest, oddest classic when they did on the silver screen. Who knows? Their laughs likely brought a whole new cadre of fans to the project, and that's saying something.
In any event ...
Happy 70th birthday to This Island Earth! You've come a long way, baby!
-- EZ
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