Retrobots Revisited: Changeables Gen 2!

 

It's my day off on the last week of an "off" month, and I've been trying to work ahead a bit. For the post today, I have another bot lineup, following up on what seems to have been my last installment of this feature, the McDonalds Changeables. Since that post, I made a couple orders adding to my collection, from later releases I consciously declined to pick up back when. Here's the first pic of the lineup including one we met last time, all based on vintage packaging that's probably being collected on some far-off planet (all that just to reference my review of The Hidden).

Of this lot, the one featured before is the first-wave McNuggets bot. The others are supposed to be a very similar sandwich box marked Quarter Pounder, and a pancake box that obviously isn't disguised from all angles. It's noteworthy that, where both Transformers and its rivals and competitors often took these shortcuts, this is the only Changeable to do so, thus one more reason they're awesome. Here's the group transformed. The McNuggets is cool as always, the flapjack box is silly, but the Quarter Pounder is just... not... right.

Needless to say, it was the sandwich-box bot that got me interested in expanding my collection. What makes him and other "G2" bots different is that there's a lot more detail painted on, which in turn makes it more difficult to find them in good condition. The Quarter Pounder in particular is prone to wear on the outer box detail and the face; the one I finally got is in moderately good condition. On close examination, I found some streaks on the inside that must have worn off during "transformations", and quickly concluded the only good option is to leave him in bot mode. And that face... dear Logos, the face... You can only appreciate it in closeup.

"Have I told you how I got these scars?"

Something I realized as I did further research was that two of my figures, the Fries and the Big Mac, were G2 figures, released with different colors. This incidentally explained why the Fry bot's fists are visible when he's not transformed; originally it was all red anyway. It also accounted for a vague memory of what I took as the original Quarter Pounder on the Happy Meal boxes, as it turned out both originally had the same yellow/ blue colors. Since many of the online offers included duplicates, I looked into getting a G1 figure for comparison. I didn't care for the prices, but I did end up with an extra Big Mac in better condition. I noticed after posting this, there's a further, minor difference in the molding of the lettuce, which is completely gratuitous compared to the expense of multiple molds. Here they are with the G1 Quarter Pounder; even in the pic, I can tell the one on the right is the one I already had.

Something else I confirmed in my research is that I had already sort of had a G2 bot, in the form of a 3rd wave of transforming toys that became dinos instead of bots. Here's a lineup of that one with the Fry and Shake bots. You can see the extra detail on the Fry bot's face, which is solid, deep blue in G1. I also determined that the Shake bot's red/ blue detail is painted on, something I initially thought was unique but then confirmed on the McNuggets bot.

And here's a closeup of the dino.

And last and probably least, here's a couple burger-based Transformers. The first is one I'm sure I held in my hand in the second-hand stores back in the day, which the extra Big Mac bot came with. The other is another dino, clearly based on the Big Mac bot but definitely of separate origin. The Cheeseburger bot has a kind of charm, but definitely doesn't measure up to G1. The dino is just weird.

"I have no mouth, and I must siiiiiing..."

And for something different, here's one that got away. Something I had already confirmed is that the Shake bot was replaced by a completely different design in G2, which was wonky even compared to the flapjack bot. But then I found a listing for this, by a seller in Australia. It looks like a repaint/ upgrade of the G1 bot, except this time, there's clearly a new faceplate. I didn't get it because of the price, including a big hit on shipping, and I haven't seen any independent confirmation of its provenance. For now, it must remain a mystery. And wow, that face...

And to wind things up, a couple reference model pics. First, Connie and Cassie, back on the stand. I got out the purse from the box the Trailer Park Princess came in, and Cass has been rocking it.

"I don't know, maybe I should give King Kong another chance. But what would we have for dinner?..."

And as an extra project I might get back to, I've been testing out the articulation on the Lanard large Alien figures to see if I can get a pose that's actually threatening. This is the best so far...

"Wait a minute, we're robots... but we're disguised as something it can eat???"

That's all for now, more to come!

Retrobots Revisited: McDonald's Transformers!!!

 

In planning out what I wanted to do this month, my big decision was that it was time to do some robot posts. That left me with a pretty short list of new and old material I hadn't gotten to before. The one that came to the top was old friends from way back. Here are the Changeables, possibly the most awesome Happy Meal toys and among the greatest Transformers knockoffs ever. To get this going, here's a lineup of the ones I actually had back when.

The start of all this is back in 1987, when McDonald's released a series of 6 transforming-robot toys called Changeables. As seen above, they were simple, robust, and boldly simple design. Between my brother and I, we got one or two each of the ones shown here, the McNuggets, the Egg McMuffin and the Quarter Pounder bot. They very quickly became among my favorite bots, often mixed in with other Happy Meal toys. For one reason or another, we missed out on the rest of the original set, though I had looked enviously at the artwork and advertisements for them. (See BattleGrip, previously my best source for Tonka Play People, for a look at the original Happy Meal box art.) What surprises me more is that I didn't get any of the 2nd series in 1988, which featured 6 new bots plus reissues of 2 of the originals (which I will get to in a moment). I did sight these later bots in the second-hand stores, eventually mixed in with the dino-themed Series 3, but I never bought any for reasons I didn't quite analyze. In hindsight, they simply weren't the same. I did remain interested, however, in getting the ones I missed the first time around. Eventually, many years later but still a long time ago, I found all the ones I didn't have all together. Here's the lineup of the rest.

As seen here, the rest of the set were a Big Mac, Fries and a Shake, the first 2 of which were revived with Series 2. What interested me was that, while the Big Mac had pretty much the same "plan" as the ones I had all along, the Fries and the Shake were quite different. The fry bot is just kind of odd, almost troll-like, while the drink bot is downright towering, to the point that it looks even taller than it actually is in a lineup. (What I really can't account for is that the McNuggets bot is taller than all the rest except this one.) I was happy to pick them up, and have continued to revisit them regularly. Here's a lineup of the set in alt mode.

Of course, in rational hindsight, this doesn't really make much sense, if any. They could kind of blend in, if they were full-sized, which is more than can be said for a lot of alt modes. On the other hand, they would still be small. Then the big problem is, they look like things that are edible, which isn't much of a survival trait. That wouldn't be too much of a problem if their adventures were inside a McDonald's; after all, most people who saw unattended food on a table or counter wouldn't just grab a bite. (Clearly, the best disguise of all would be a burger with one bite taken out of it...) Sooner or later, however, either someone is going to try to eat them or just throw them in the trash, though that would certainly make for an adventure in itself.

Meanwhile, there's the further question of how these things age. For the most part, they hold up very well. The arm joints are solid to this day, while the "waist" articulation has gotten a little creaky on the McNuggets. The only one to have trouble from an early date is the McMuffin. For some reason, his design has the body raise only halfway, which looked vaguely cool on the original. On the one I could find, however, it has long since worn out to the point that it simply won't stay up at all. Here's a closeup of how he would have looked in his prime.

And here's a rear view of four of them. It shows certain problematic aspects of the designs, but also just how well-constructed they are.

And why not one more pic with the Truckstop Queen and Ken R. Wampa? As I was saying, looking delicious isn't a survival trait...

With that, I'm ready to bring another meandering memory to an end. As a bonus, here's links for a Toy Galaxy video and a commercial for Series 1. That's all for now, more to come!

Rogues' Roundup: Sidekick Carl and friends (and enemies)

 

Over the last few months, I've been doing a lot more with the action figures I actually played with the toys I actually played with as a kid. As previously seen, the stars of my playtimes were Husky and Sidekick Carl, first seen in the original Roundup. We've also met some of the the rogues' gallery that built up in their adventures, like generic Godzilla, the big red Robotech guy, the mystery Cylon wrestler and the Toxo Warriors. This time, I'm going to give a more comprehensive lineup of my toy shared universe and just how wonky it was. To start with, here's their arch enemy, played by Bossk, with some of his minions.

Per my mythos, the character Bossk represented was the Master Mutant. As far as I can recall, he was created in the same top secret project or toxic waste spill that gave Husky his super powers. He could create other mutants at will, and also had the ability to turn into a puddle of ooze when defeated. Of course, his goons were other Star Wars aliens that I cycled through. I'm sure the group shown here were the ones I used most frequently. One extra memory is that the Hammerhead (second from left) was the last original Star Wars figure I got on card, as a prize in school in either 1986 or 1987. Of course, I didn't quite understand at that point that the Kenner line had ended in the first place, so I didn't see it as a big deal, particularly since this wasn't even the last time I saw a packaged figure in the wild.

Because economy was always a driving factor, the next most featured villain was a super villain named Dr. Hydro, who actually created Carl. The figure I used for him was a mixed and matched GI Joe figure long since lost, made mainly from the second incarnation of Deep Six and the Toxo Viper. In practice, he was the same as the Master Mutant, except his deal was to make robots instead of monsters. I did get some variety with those. The Star Wars stormtroopers turned up regularly, and I'm sure I used Transformers and other bots. But most of his minions were various Cobra Vipers, as I had decided that anyone with a mask could be a robot in a pinch. Alas, most of the ones I still have around have long since succumbed to rubber band rot. Here's a lineup of the ones that are relatively intact, including a very late Flak Viper.

Then there were the Playmobil figures, already represented by the Toxo Warriors and in the girl action figure special. They typically showed up as bystanders and generic goons, but several developed into  leading villains. The one that hit the big time was a character called the Black Raven, I think the third most frequently featured villain. What stands out in hindsight was that I only used a Playmobil figure because I had nothing like what he was supposed to be, a sort of human/ bird hybrid monster. Despite that either lazy or breathtakingly imaginative measure, I still customized a figure to represent him by putting a black hair piece on a black body. Here he is, along with a pair of evil clowns who appeared once or twice.

As mentioned in the girls' special, the Playmobil figures weren't all bad guys. They were my go-to for any female character, which came to include a daughter who tagged along with Husky once in a while. Then there was a time-travelling knight who was kind of neutral, plus a motorcycle cop and a Wild West sheriff I had too long not to have appeared. I recall there was also a recurring character who was a kind of rebel or secret agent in a dictatorship that I think one of the mutants had set up. It's one of a number of things I now find amazing. Here's a lineup of the good guys.

Inevitably, there were times when I used a lot less imposing toys. Here's a lineup of probably the lamest toys I used for "lead" villains that I can still find.

For what I can remember of the back stories, the guy on the right (a Panosh Place Combat Commando last seen on Mystery Monday) was supposed to be a renegade military officer, which at least fit what he looks like. The one on the left is a Lego Fabuland figure, which I probably still have more of in one place or another. To my recollection, she was supposed to be a mutant minion who set out on her own. I called her Audrey, and I liked her well enough that I'm pretty sure I brought her back a few times. The middle one, I can't quite explain. Yes, that's Donald Duck, riding what I understand is supposed to be a float. To me, however, he was an alien with a machine that could control gravity. (I know I did read an old Avengers comic with Graviton.) As you are probably deducing, such transformations were fairly typical for me. My pick for weirdest of all was an ancient Fisher Price Big Bird figure I couldn't find on short notice, which I turned into an interdimensional god-powered entity. In my defense, the thing was so worn out that the eyes turned red, which genuinely freaked kid me out. I had no trouble finding pictures of the same figure, but still none that looked the same way.

Finally, here's a lineup with the big red guy, now with a weapon I rediscovered that I modified for his hand. How could swords and giant robots ever go out of style?

That's all for now, more to come!

Space 1979: The one that was stomped by its sequels

 

Title: Star Trek The Motion Picture

What Year?: 1979

Classification: Runnerup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (2/5)

 

When I came up with this feature, some of the first decisions I has to make were how to deal with “franchise” movies. For the most part, this really didn’t pose any significant difficulties; if a movie was enduringly influential and popular in its own right, especially when Star Wars was already on the board, it wasn’t within the scope of this feature. I quickly decided on the further policy that sequels were fair game, which allowed me to cover the franchise trends. Still, there was one movie where no decision has ever felt quite right, and once I decided to keep this feature going, I knew I was going to have to get to it. Here is Star Trek The Motion Picture, the oddest, most mistreated and most unclassifiable movie that ever happened to spawn a franchise.

Our story begins with a tense confrontation between the Klingons and a mysterious object that promptly wipes the floor with their fleet. We then catch up with Spock, who has completed his training in the quasireligious discipline of Kohlinar, Kirk, a now-Earthbound admiral, and the Enterprise itself, now refitted and under a new captain named Decker. When word arrives that the object which destroyed the Klingons is headed for Earth, Kirk pulls rank to retake command of the Enterprise, leading to tensions with the new commander. Along the way, they pick up a new crew member named Ilia, who makes a point of informing Kirk of her vow of celibacy. The crew manage to intercept the object, which proves to be a vast automated world-ship that dwarfs even the Enterprise. After a further attempt at contact goes awry, Ilia is seemingly disintegrated but then reborn as an avatar of the world-ship’s intelligence, which identifies itself as Veeger. The world-ship mind further reveals that it believes Earth holds the secret to its own origins, but views humans as “infesting” vermin. It’s a race against time to find the true nature of Veeger, before its search destroys Earth.

Star Trek The Motion Picture was the product of Gene Rodenberry’s efforts to revive the franchise. While preproduction for a Star Trek film existed as early as 1975, the project did not advance until 1978, following the success of Star Wars and also Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The movie was directed by Robert Wise, a “mainstream” director who had broken into science fiction with The Andromeda Strain. The effects were provided by John Dykstra and Douglas Trumbull (see Silent Running), with much of the work being completed entirely in postproduction. The score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, including a main theme that was directly reused for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Reports would emerge of delays caused by problems with the effects as well as significant pressure to meet a late 1979 release date. The movie was finally completed for an estimated $44 million, and earned $139M at the US box office. A tie-in action figure line was released by Mego, who had previously produced toys based on the original series. Other merchandise included McDonald’s Happy Meals and a novelization by Gene Rodenberry.

Looking back on my own experiences, what Star Trek The Motion Picture makes me think of is the Street Fighter video game series. Back when I was transitioning from elementary to middle school, everybody was playing Streetfighter 2, and it was obvious from the name that something had come before it. However, even when I asked around, I only ever met one or two people who said they had seen or played the original game (or knew someone who had), and most people really didn’t seem to care. “Trek 1” may never have quite sunk to that level of obscurity, but it’s well within the ballpark, especially for anyone born in the 1980s. We talked about Wrath of Kahn, we talked about Search For Spock, we talked about Next Gen, we talked about Final Frontier, but nobody was talking about The Motion Picture.

I finally did see “Trek 1” in college, and then probably only about two-thirds of it. It still stands out to me as a strange and disorienting experience. It was especially odd hearing what I knew and grew up with as the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme accompanying a big-budget movie with the original-series cast. I recall the music and effects kept the movie tolerable and even interesting for quite a while. What starts to feel uncanny is how many other movies it anticipates, especially once we see the world-ship up close: The alien city of The Abyss, the mothership interior of Independence Day, even the Death Star chase in Return of the Jedi, which was still a few years ahead. What I find myself hard-pressed to convey is that it just keeps going, and that has remained my exact reaction every time I have watched this movie since then. Of course there are good scenes, but it is a case of the whole fundamentally changing the parts. It’s good fun watching the crew get back together, for the first hour, but this movie goes on for 132 minutes. It doesn’t help that the ending still feels completely tacked on, lending credence to the darkest rumors that the studio simply sent out prints of the film “as is”.

What stands out all the more, and represents a major reason for this review, is that the film feels like it was made for the 1960s rather than the ‘80s, and that can be laid squarely at the feet of the crew involved. Trumbull (who is still alive!) stands out as the big target, especially based on Silent Running. His literally ponderous effects shots are certainly a big part of the problem here, but there is a certain chicken/ egg problem in blaming him; his most problematic tendencies were all ones that a tighter script and better direction should have kept in line. That brings us to Wise, a veteran director who was arguably struggling with the pacing of modern sci-fi action/ adventure even back in The Andromeda Strain. But the one who stands out to me is Gene Rodenberry himself. There were simply too many areas where he had carte blanche, at least for a while, including the first known drafts of the script. Looking at things from this angle cements a further feeling I have already had, that the story feels like an original-series episode drawn out to feature length. A final irony is that I have gotten the same sense from Final Frontier/ Trek 5, the one “odd” franchise movie to get somewhat more favorable appraisals over time.

Now it’s already time for the “one scene”, and there is indeed just one that has stuck in my memory all along, possibly the franchise’s first transporter accident. It all starts partway through the first act, when the Enterprise is beaming crew aboard, and suddenly we’re reminded that this is after all equivalent to going from LA to New York by fax machine. An alarm suddenly sounds, and Mr. Scott immediately warns not to send anyone else, but we learn that two more crew are already on the way. Scott and Kirk rush to the transporter room in time to see two figures begin to materialize. At first, it looks like Scotty might save the day, until the outlines start to change. For a moment, we see human flesh, clearly distorted, and then there’s a scream. Abruptly, both figures disappear, and Kirk calls to figure out what has happened. Someone answers succinctly, “What we got back didn’t live long… fortunately.” It’s a remarkably dark scene that doesn’t really fit with any other part of the movie. More’s the pity, because this is exactly the kind of subversive tweaking that could have brought Trek into the era of Alien.

What I still find myself at a loss to do is rate this movie. I seriously debated leaving this one unrated (see House), but that was too much like a punt. I felt strong enough in my criticisms that I would have been happy to give it the lowest rating, but that too felt like a copout. The rating I have given is the one that felt appropriate all along, though I still don’t count it quite as bad as sequels like Futureworld and Superman 3. One may still argue whether it is “worse” than Final Frontier or even Search For Spock, but to me, it certainly remains the most disappointing entry in the franchise. With that, I move on.

Image credit taintthemeat.com.

Space 1979: The one the producers of Superman made about Santa Claus

 

Title: Santa Claus The Movie

What Year?: 1985

Classification: Unnatural Experiment

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (2/5)

 

Something I’ve commented on frequently in the course of this feature is that I spent the 1980s without a TV. As a result, there have been very few movies featured here that I saw or otherwise noticed at the time (Innerspace being a conspicuous exception). As I have cataloged ‘80s movies, I have more gradually recognized that many of the strongest recollections I do have aren’t about the movies themselves, but the pop culture detritus around them: The toys, the books, the ads in newspapers and comic books, and so forth. In this territory, with my usual world’s-worst-superpower memory, there can still be greatly varying levels of impact. Sometimes, I can recall what I saw or actually had as clearly as the movies I actually watched, but in other cases, even I could easily believe I have simply cobbled together various things into a whole that never existed. This review will be the tale of one of those things. Without further ado, I present Santa Claus… The Movie.

Our story begins with a man with a familiar name trekking through the snow with his wife to deliver hand-carved wooden toys to the children of a pseudo-Medieval town. As he tries to reach the next destination, they get lost, and just when it looks like it’s all over, a glowing magical tree appears. The vision materializes into a compound full of elves, who welcome Santa Claus as their Chosen One. We see the jolly old man and his happy, dancing elves deliver toys to children through the centuries (apparently including the Crusades, the Black Death, both World Wars, etc.), right up to the very hip and modern middling 1980s. Things are changing, and Santa’s top elf wants to introduce modern mass-production methods for their brightly painted wooden toys. Meanwhile, Santa befriends a homeless preteen and a rich girl who has been helping him. Just when it looks like this movie might get hardcore, we then get introduced to an evil toymaker the progressive elf turns to for help, but really hopes to steal Santa’s magic and put the workshop out of business. Hilarious hijinks and heartwarming bonding ensues, and of course the boy comes to live with Santa. Also, the evil toymaker is hurled into space by a miscalculation with a magic candy cane, and that is literally the end of the movie.

Santa Claus The Movie was a production by Alexander and Ilya Salkind, a father-son team who had risen to fame with the Superman franchise (at least until Superman III). The film was directed by Jeannot Szwarc, who directed Supergirl the previous year. David Huddleston was cast as Santa Claus and Dudley Moore as his top elf Patch, with John Lithgow as the evil toymaker B.Z. and Burgess Meredith in a cameo as a being referred to as The Ancient One. The soundtrack was provided by veteran Henry Mancini, who also scored Lifeforce the same year. The theme song and four additional songs were composed by Leslie Bricusse and performed by Sheena Easton, after Paul McCartney and Queen were reportedly approached.  The film’s extensive marketing campaign included tie-in storybooks and a stuffed reindeer toy distributed with McDonald’s Happy Meals. The movie made a $23.7 million U.S. box office, against an estimated budget of up to $50M.

My one clear recollection of this movie was a story book from McDonalds, as well as the reindeer, which I still have. Because such things always crop up around Christmas time, that wasn’t enough to establish the reality of the movie in my mind. In hindsight, this was probably a major reason both for its contemporary failure and its relative obscurity today. Many, many years later, I read about it in a book about movies, but still never read or thought about it again. I suppose it was watching the Superman movies that finally put me in mind to look this one up.

After watching this movie, my foremost reaction was thinking of far better movies, just to get a frame of reference for what this one did wrong. There’s It’s A Wonderful Life, a classic Christmas fantasy that didn’t feature Santa at all. There’s A Miracle On 34^th Street, a comedy that got in some good jabs at commercialism. There’s the excellent George C. Scott version of Christmas Carol, made for TV just a year earlier. There’s The Santa Clause almost 10 years later, which tweaked the mythology to appeal to older kids and adults while getting in some serious moments. Hell, if you want  an absolutely “straight” take on Santa, you can look back to the episode “Night of the Meek” of the original Twilight Zone series, which gave a searing vision of a clash between magic and urban poverty in a 30-minute TV time slot.

In this august company, Santa Claus The Movie wavers between tolerable schmaltz and grating cluelessness. The reasonable good moments, mainly in the first hour, are played with nearly humorless sincerity, which judging from the Superman franchise was always the Salkinds’ comparative strengths. Things keep going wrong as soon as they start trying to be “current”, let alone funny. Worse, the story runs away from its most powerful moments when Santa has to face the realities of a homeless child. What gets absolutely insulting is that the posited conflict between Santa and the toymaker which the movie turns to instead depends on ignorance from both sides. Santa is still giving out Victorian-era wooden toys at the peak of GI Joe and He Man (alas, Star Wars was already on the way out), while the toymaker has somehow failed to notice antiquated but still potentially competitive products being given away for free. The one genuinely clever moment is when Lithgow rapturously announces a plan for “Christmas 2”, which would still only make sense if he had no prior frame of reference for how buying patterns work.

So, was there anything that could have been done to save this mess? The best shot was to make it a historical piece; put it in the 1800s, when the transition from craftsmanship to mass production was taking place, or in the 1950s, when modern marketing was still emerging. Failing that, make it a satire of commercialism and go after the real biggest targets, especially the cartoon/ toy positive feedback loop, and show what it was like for the kids who were poor, without a TV or just didn’t like the shows. Then, for a little depth, show Santa having to deal with a wish/ request that goes beyond one gift: A job for a parent, a reunited family, a steady supply of food or a home to come back to. It would have been deeper than the crew’s previous escapist fare, but not totally out of their depth. Even if it wasn’t good, it would have been something more than a mythical elf bringing toys.

For the “one scene”, I’m going to go with one of the briefer moments in the movie, but one of the few within the toymaker’s story arc I found entertaining.  In B.Z.’s very first scene, he is in a congressional hearing investigating his product. He tries to act unconcerned when a doll ignites merrily, forcing an official to beat out the blaze in haste. Then he is confronted with a stuffed panda that seems to tear open of its own accord. The contents are revealed to be literally glass, nails and what looks like sawdust. While the magnate tries to sputter in protest, a congressman declares that anyone buying his products should have their heads examined. And this is where we could have had a discussion. It’s all well and good to say that handmade toys were better and safer than mass-produced toys, when done right. But there were still issues like lead paint, not to mention the fundamental fact that wood is flammable. Then there is also the issue of proportionate risk; He Man’s head might come off more easily that a rocking horse’s, but there wouldn’t be splinters and nails sticking out of the break. Per the movie, however, all modern toys are junk, and we are clearly supposed to take the word of filmmakers and writers who would still have grown up well after companies like Marx and Mattel started churning out factory-made toys by the ton.

With all that said, I was still very conflicted about rating this movie. I came very, very close to giving it the lowest rating, to the point that I revised it in the course of finishing the review. My final decision was that there was just enough good in the movie to bring it up a notch. More importantly, I just can’t bring myself to hate this movie, if only because that would be like kicking a blind man in the shins. Maybe, just maybe, this movie stirs up the Christmas spirit of charity and generosity after all. At least it can be said the people who made it did something nobody had done before and nobody really tried again since. It’s certainly not hard to see why.

Space 1979: The one where an alien goes to McDonald's

 

Title: Mac And Me

What Year?: 1988

Classification: Ripoff

Rating: Dear God WHY??? (1/5)

 

Something I’ve been talking about nearly from the beginning of this feature is my fairly uncanny ability to remember movies (also books, TV, toys, etc.) and just how much pure Hell I have gone through just to figure out what I saw (see Krull). The paradox is that there’s plenty of things I’ve seen that seemed unremarkable at the time that have long since dropped into the realm of old tapes, bootleg disks, sketchy internet videos or quite possibly the circle of Dante’s Hell that literally froze over. It's like the difference between catching Bigfoot after a lifetime of searching and finding out he was living in your garden shed. I watched the Battletoads pilot when it aired. I saw Meteor Man in a theater. I still have an authorized VHS tape of one of the Ewoks movie. This review is for a movie that was like that, at least for quite a while, and I would have rather gone ice skating in Cocytus than look it up again.

Our story begins with a space probe landing on an alien planet that’s never identified. When family of strange-looking humanoids investigate, the probe’s vacuum sucks them all up. Then the probe returns to what proves to be present-day Earth (which would be a trip of several thousand years if it’s not one of our solar system’s rocky planets). The aliens escape, but are separated from one of their children, who stows away with the family of Eric, a supposedly sympathetic kid in a wheelchair. The kid notices little things that lead him to suspect the family is no longer alone, especially missing soda (and also a misadventure when the alien discovers power tools). The pair soon make contact, and a supposedly heartwarming friendship blossoms between them. But the young alien’s parents are still lost, and government agents out to find them are closing in. To keep the aliens free, the kid must go on the run, but not before stopping at McDonald’s.

Mac and Me was a 1988 Orion Pictures release co-produced by R.J. Louis and funded in part by Golden State Foods, a distributor for the McDonald’s restaurant chain. This and Louis’s previous associations with Ronald McDonald house contributed to the perception that it was either paid for by McDonald’s or deliberately used as product placement, as well as criticism for similarities to E.T The Extra-Terrestrial. The leading role of Eric was given to Jade Calegory, who was in fact wheelchair-bound due to spina bifida. The score was written by Alan Silvestri, whose previous work included Back to the Future and Predator. A scene where Eric is wounded by gunfire was partially censored from the theatrical release. The film cost an estimated $13 million dollars and made an estimated $6M US box office. After initial VHS releases, it remained generally unavailable on disk or digital distribution until as recently as 2019, when a Blu Ray was released by Shout. Like Terrorvision, it has 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.

My own experience with this one has to be from the middling 1990s, when I was in high school, and it’s one of my more specific recollections. I was spending a night with family friends I sometimes stayed with, and they had their young granddaughter over. We went to a video store, and someone thought it was a good idea to pick up one about a kid and an alien. I followed it well enough to remember the bare outline of the movie, including the McDonald’s scene and the finale. As far as I remember, I thought it was terrible and had little doubt the one or two other adults felt the same way, but the girl loved it. Moving forward, this was the one I knew I had to do for this feature, and there was at least once I was prepared to review it but did something else. I continued putting this off even after I watched it, long enough to cover Duel first, because it really is that bad.

Something else I must say up front is that I never got into E.T. It came out when I was very young, but my first definite memory of seeing it was when I was at least 8 and maybe 10 or more, and I think I only ever watched it one or twice after that. That limited exposure was enough to leave me unimpressed. In the end, E.T. was more naïve than wise, with little sign of either physical or moral strength to back a pacifist philosophy; in that respect, the aliens of The Abyss or The Day The Earth Stood Still were far more interesting. With that already in mind, I take no offense at Mac And Me for following E.T.’s lead, especially with the earlier film already 6 years past. If anything, it came out at just the right time for a knockoff to give a fresh or even improved take on the source material.

That, of course, is the rub. The chief distinction Mac And Me offers is a family of aliens rather than only one, but all that leads to for most of its length is to focus on a literal child. Even so, there are good moments, especially when we see the rest of the family. Scenes of the group wandering in the desert are well-shot and utterly forlorn. At the same time, we get a sense of spirituality and moral values that is refreshing for a genre more typically influenced by secular materialism. It builds up to a genuine payoff when they try to help Eric in the finale, even if it is predictable. The one drawback with the aliens is the uneven effects. The creature design is strange if not unpleasant, while the execution is clearly inferior even to movies with far lower budgets (notably Killer Klowns FromOuter Space the same year). What really pushes things off the rails are multiple scenes when “Mac” and the others are stretched or even flattened with no further effect. It is these literally cartoonish sequences that push things into the realm of “cute” for its own sake, without actually achieving a genuine sense of slapstick.

All the real problems come from everything else in the movie. This is where the perception of the movie as an E.T. knockoff is misleading, but the truth is even bleaker: This movie is not just trying to imitate one movie, but virtually every ‘80s movie. Cute kids, check. Soft-rock music, check. Dancing, check. A building that goes up like an oil rig blown with several tons of thermite, check. It is this that spoils any chance this movie has of being “so bad it’s good” in my book; apart from the aliens, nothing about this is even unintentionally funny. In fact, the movie drags this out so long that even its most infamous scene at the McDonald’s is a comparatively brief diversion, started at the hour mark and finished well within 5 minutes. What it really makes me think of is the work of a forger, perfect in technique but lacking any sense of originality or spirit.

For the “one scene”, there’s just one choice that offers something to work with, and it is the sequence that leads up to the finale. The reunited alien family wander into a grocery store, in full view of the staff and patrons. The bystanders stare, but none of them are disgusted or terrified. A more poignant moment when a toddler makes eye contact with Mac’s younger sibling. One can argue the realism of the scene, but there is at least a sense of understatement. Then the manager confronts the adults and calls for security. When the guard arrives, the father alien is merely curious, finally grabbing for the gun. The rest is far more predictable, but still effective, which is far more than can be said for almost anything that has come before.

This movie is another knockoff/ ripoff that I judge more harshly by comparison than on its own merits. There’s nothing innately “wrong” about copying a more successful movie, but it’s quite another thing to do it badly, and far worse to offer it with the promise of something it could never be. With that, I wash my hands of this one. Take it or leave it, I’m not going back.