REEL RETRO CINEMA | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Dec07

Re-Evaluating the Troubled STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE — 40 Years Later

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 7, 2019

Re-Evaluating the Troubled STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE — 40 Years Later

REEL RETRO CINEMA: And its Marvel Comics adaptation… — Star Trek: The Motion Picture was officially released in theaters Dec. 7, 1979. Some snarkier folks might joke that it would be a day that would live in Star Trek infamy. I’m not among those. TMP has its sometimes considerable flaws but it holds up better than you might expect. (My almost 21-year-old son considers it his favorite Trek film. Click here to check out his 13 QUICK THOUGHTS on why the film is an underrated masterpiece.) In any event, its release was a watershed moment — and without it, we’d never get the brilliant follow-up Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the greatest of all Star Trek stories. So with the 40th anniversary upon us, I’ve invited our resident film critic Rob Kelly to take another look at this oft-maligned project and, as he does in these REEL RETRO CINEMA columns, compare it to its comic-book adaptation. (By the way, Rob has devoted several RRC columns to Trek in the past. Click here for Star Trek II; click here for Star Trek III; and click here for Star Trek IV.) Live long and prosper. — Dan — By ROB KELLY I pitched 13th Dimension majordomo Dan Greenfield a number of ideas for a new REEL RETRO CINEMA column, but when he informed me that the 40th anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was coming, I agreed that it was a worth a re-evaluation. After all, while I long considered Star Trek: The Motionless Picture to be by far the worst of the six original cast films, I love Trek in most of its forms so much I am almost always willing to give it another chance to impress me. (Just don’t ask me to do this for Nemesis, ok?) At this point, almost anyone who cares knows the sordid tale: Originally conceived as a new TV series, the story that would form the basis of Star Trek: TMP would go through a torturous, absurdly extended birthing process. Literally years in the making, Paramount Pictures kept hitting creative brick walls during the development process but would never quite give up because they saw how much bank sci-fi adventures like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were making. Backstage squabbles between the Great Bird of the...

Nov01

The Oddball World of 1949’s BATMAN AND ROBIN

Posted by 13th Dimension on Nov 1, 2019

The Oddball World of 1949’s BATMAN AND ROBIN

REEL RETRO CINEMA: New looks at old flicks — and their comic-book roots! — UPDATED 11/1/19: I’ve been watching the 1949 Batman and Robin serial with my 20-year-old son Sam, and I was reminded of this fun piece from 2016. So it’s a great time to present it again! Dig it. — Dan — Hey, it’s a special REEL RETRO CINEMA two-fer! We’re gearing up BATMAN/SUPERMAN WEEK, so it only figured to have Rob Kelly take a look at our heroes’ filmic roots — namely, two of their serials! For 1950’s Atom Man vs. Superman, click here! For the complete BATMAN/SUPERMAN WEEK Index, click here! — By ROB KELLY Did you know there was a film titled Batman and Robin that doesn’t make the average Bat-Fan want to throw themselves in front of the nearest train? It’s true! It’s a 1949 movie serial starring the Darknight Detective and the Boy Wonder squaring off against the mysterious hooded bad guy known as the Wizard! Batman and Robin was Columbia’s second Batman serial, but featuring an entirely different cast. Robert Lowery plays Batman/Bruce Wayne, Johnny Duncan (who died just last month, at age 92) is Robin/Dick Grayson, Jane Adams is Vicki Vale, and Lyle Talbot plays Commissioner Gordon. The Wizard is uncredited until the final chapter, since part of the “cliffhanger” aspect to this story is the Dynamic Duo trying to figure out who he really is. The initial suspect seems to be the uber-crotchety Professor Hammil (William Fawcett), who has invented a device that allows the user to remote control any vehicle in Gotham City. Not too long after confronting Hammil for the first time, the wheelchair-bound inventor calls our heroes “A pack of careless idiots.” See? Crotchety! The Wizard steals the device, and starts using it in ever-larger doses to show Batman and the GCPD that he means business. The machine runs on diamonds, so that means he has to steal a lot of them to keep it running. He spends a lot — a lot — of time in his secret cave base flipping switches and turning dials, while letting his fedora-d henchmen do the heavy lifting. As you can see from the first chapter, where poor Bats has to tilt his head up so he can see through the eye-slits of his dime-store cowl, Batman and...

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