It’s kind of a terrible title, isn’t it? It sounds like something from a bad Ramada Inn Lounge cover band. “I am Percy Jackson, and these are The Olympians! Goodnight, Lompoc, we love you! Be sure to check out our debut album, ‘The Lightning Thief’ at our van in the parking lot after the show!” Of course this is a Fantasy film, and not in the SF genre, but since it’s a slow Sunday and there’s not much else going on, I figured ‘what the hell.’

Last week you may recall that I mentioned Disney’s 1954 film “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” began a subgenre of Victorian SF. Well, if that film was the first of a generation, then today’s movie is more or less the ragged end of that generation, gasping for breath in the moments before extinction.

PLAY BY PLAY

Hola!! This week on the Republibot Weekend Movie Preview we have some possibly interesting genre offerings at the old movie house. But before we jump in, let’s just get our standard reminder out of the way as quickly as possible so that we are all on the same page: I have not seen any of these movies, nor have I gone out of my way to do any research on any of them. The interesting part for me (and really, it is all about me…) is passing judgment on these films, sight unseen and completely by osmosis. All of the film information in these previews, including the plot summary, has been pulled from the Opening This Week page of IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/nowplaying/). This week we are previewing The Wolfman, Valentine’s Day, Percy Jackson, and My Name Is Khan…

And there we go, and here we go…

When Disney’s “20,000 Leagues Beneath The Sea” came out in 1954, it was something of a watershed, if you’ll pardon the unavoidable pun. It was a huge hit for the studio, it was arguably the first genre effects picture to be an unquestioned success with mass audiences, and of course it whetted people’s appetites for Victorian SF on the big screen, and SF in general. Had “Leagues” not been made and successfully marketed, you would not have had a zillion other Verne stories made in to lesser films like this one. Nor would you have had things by HG Wells and others from the era up on the big screen.

This movie sets the bar high. With a comparatively big budget, a good enough cast, and the rights to the sequel to a story that had already been a hit movie, they aimed to re-capture the magic of the flick that started it all.

 And they miss by a mile, sadly. 

Last time out we reviewed “Destination Moon,” the seminal George Pal SF film from 1950, the one that really *started* the Science Fiction boom in film sixty years ago. It was a surprise hit that didn’t talk down to it’s audience, and took the “Science” part of Science Fiction seriously. It was co-written by Robert Heinlein, and based on his “Rocket Ship Galileo” novel. Of course George Pal used his unexpected hit as leverage to tell more really ambitious films, many of which we’ll eventually get to here.

But what about Heinlein? What did he parley all the good will from “Destination” in to? Well, later that same year he went on to work for “Tom Corbet, Space Cadet” as a technical advisor, and then wrote a couple episodes of an SF Anthology show, and then he got involved in a new “Hard Science” SF pilot called “Ring Around The Moon” in 1953.

Last time out we reviewed “Destination Moon,” the seminal George Pal SF film from 1950, the one that really *started* the Science Fiction boom in film sixty years ago. It was a surprise hit that didn’t talk down to it’s audience, and took the “Science” part of Science Fiction seriously. It was co-written by Robert Heinlein, and based on his “Rocket Ship Galileo” novel. Of course George Pal used his unexpected hit as leverage to tell more really ambitious films, many of which we’ll eventually get to here.

But what about Heinlein? What did he parley all the good will from “Destination” in to? Well, later that same year he went on to work for “Tom Corbet, Space Cadet” as a technical advisor, and then wrote a couple episodes of an SF Anthology show, and then he got involved in a new “Hard Science” SF pilot called “Ring Around The Moon” in 1953.