I admit to fond memories of the CPR scene. And the head on legs.

PS: did The Thing really come out within weeks of E.T.? Now there’s a litmus test, the real Two Americas.

I have to say that D’arcy has hit upon all the stuff I was thinking about. Also, I totally agree with the Star Wars compared to Alien points.

Ridley Scott’s creation and exploration of a space (as in a space and not Space) is masterful (in that movie). I said before that it’s the same quality I like about early Carpenter. Look at Assualt, The Thing and Escape.

Andy

I admit to fond memories of the CPR scene. And the head on legs.

PS: did The Thing really come out within weeks of E.T.? Now there’s a litmus test, the real Two Americas.

I suppose it’s the hindsight that makes the effects so laughable. I remember walking out of the theater after watching Star Wars for the first time, as an 8 year old kid, gleefully telling anyone who’d listen that the effects were AWESOME! IT WAS REAL, MAN! WOW!

And then, when rewatching the original version, being so disappointed because my visual literacy had advanced while the printed film had not. I had learned to spot shadows, wobbles, scale differentials. All things I had no awareness of in 1977, but after going through the SFX arms race, we’re now able to spot most of the tricks subconsciously.

Scott’s Alien, only 2 years later (! it seems SO much more recent than Star Wars, but was released only 2 years after it!!!) seems so much more sophisticated, in that most of the time the alien is completely unseen, or is seen but only partially. Storytelling through imagination… Powerful stuff.

Interestingly enough, Rob Bottin’s FX were considered the absolute cutting edge at that time. In fact, one suggestion that the documentary makes is that Carpenter let the special fx people do their thing almost separately from his story, and I think his story is so solid that it may not have needed the their craziness, but the combination makes it one of the greatest films for the rare combination of gore-inspired shock value and an awesome plot line. For the film as event and spectacle is monolithic, both of which I don’t think are necessarily bad things if the story is solid and the message is complex as it is in The Thing.

In retrospect the special effects may look cheesy to some degree, but the are very much a product of their time and day–just consider the graphics on Atari 2600 game at the time. They seemed truly remarkable to me at the time, although 2001: A Space Odyssey was made in 1968–but that’s Kubrick so it doesn’t really count.

Speaking of which, Quest for Fire is definitely a film that burn in image on my brain, and it still may be the only feature length movie not from the silent age that had no dialogue but I watched through to the end, transfixed. Also, I never saw Clan of the Cave Bear, it is a film of my moment in many ways, I just never had the occasion to watch it for some reason, I’ll change that shortly.

All I could find for clips of Clan of the Cave Bear was a Spanish-language clip on YouTube

I did find the official trailer for Quest for Fire – from 1981!

For me, Clan of the Cave Bear was important. Another low budget, low SFX movie, with little dialogue, and an amazing, rich, deep story.