The Best 3D Movie Ever Made!
April 6, 2013 11:46 AM Subscribe
Starchaser: The Legend Of Orin (trailer) is an animated SF film released in 1985. Presented here in 11 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. Or perhaps you prefer the original 3D, in 13 parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13.
If you don't want to actually watch the movie, Nostalgia Critic will summarize and dissect it for you in 1/3 the time.
In more recent news, the impending live-action remake of Starchaser got a boost this past November, when it was announced that writer/producer Harry Werksman was joining the production.
If you don't want to actually watch the movie, Nostalgia Critic will summarize and dissect it for you in 1/3 the time.
In more recent news, the impending live-action remake of Starchaser got a boost this past November, when it was announced that writer/producer Harry Werksman was joining the production.
I watched this endlessly on VHS as a youth. Its Han Solo named Dagg Dibrimi (!) is as gross as a name like Dagg could suggest, reprogramming an inadvertantly kidnapped, not-putting-up-with-his-shit female robot to fawn over him in cooing sexual idolatry.
Recommendation: goes great sandwiched between Fire & Ice and Time Masters.
posted by dougmoon at 12:41 PM on April 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
Recommendation: goes great sandwiched between Fire & Ice and Time Masters.
posted by dougmoon at 12:41 PM on April 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
Robert Rodriguez is directing the Fire and Ice live-action remake.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:51 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:51 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Woah woah woah! Time Masters is a Laloux film, and is actually GOOD. Laloux also did Fantastic Planet and Gandahar and both are also great. This and Wizards would be a good combo.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:00 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by P.o.B. at 1:00 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
cooing sexual idolatry
Although this is a slightly nauseating concept, it would make an excellent user name.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:08 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Although this is a slightly nauseating concept, it would make an excellent user name.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:08 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
I really can't fathom the gesture behind remaking Starchaser and Fire & Ice since they are essentially non-properties without any audience box office draw that I can imagine beyond 80s flashback voyeurism and nostalgia for a cult few. But I'd see someone like Andrew Garfield with feathered blond wig held on with red sweatband and shirtless in a blue puffer vest if they went the really faithful to the material route.
If they really wanna borrow something from the era of the arcades, how about the concept of the arcade clone? Why not just say, well, we're making another Star Wars clone and a Frazetta clone. Everything is a property! Blech.
Woah woah woah! Time Masters is a Laloux film, and is actually GOOD. Laloux also did Fantastic Planet yt and Gandahar yt and both are also great. This and Wizards yt would be a good combo.
More of an aesthetic triptych I was suggesting. The three would be like leafing through an issue of Heavy Metal magazine in my mind. C'mon, Moebius! But I like all these movies mentioned for reasons I guess, though some have far better reasons (Laloux).
posted by dougmoon at 1:20 PM on April 6, 2013
If they really wanna borrow something from the era of the arcades, how about the concept of the arcade clone? Why not just say, well, we're making another Star Wars clone and a Frazetta clone. Everything is a property! Blech.
Woah woah woah! Time Masters is a Laloux film, and is actually GOOD. Laloux also did Fantastic Planet yt and Gandahar yt and both are also great. This and Wizards yt would be a good combo.
More of an aesthetic triptych I was suggesting. The three would be like leafing through an issue of Heavy Metal magazine in my mind. C'mon, Moebius! But I like all these movies mentioned for reasons I guess, though some have far better reasons (Laloux).
posted by dougmoon at 1:20 PM on April 6, 2013
For those interested in the thing about the kidnapped fembot, it's around the 6 minute mark in the first link 4 above, and it is indeed creepy as all fuck. First he uses her body as a shield from laser blasts, then once onboard he happily discovers her personality circuits are in her ass.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 1:22 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 1:22 PM on April 6, 2013
I remember seeing this in the theater when it came out. I was 8, my sister was 11, and we looked at the movie listings in the paper and saw that there was a cartoon playing in 3D. We knew nothing about it going in other than that.
At one point early on, someone gets killed by an invisible sword. You could tell it was a sword because of the blood dripping down around the invisible blade. Blood. In a cartoon. To 8 year old me this was the Coolest Thing Ever. And it was in 3D! And had a spaceship that could turn around by rotating its engines (Crazy Ivan before Crazy Ivan was cool)! And Robots!
And nobody else I knew had ever heard of it.
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:41 PM on April 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
At one point early on, someone gets killed by an invisible sword. You could tell it was a sword because of the blood dripping down around the invisible blade. Blood. In a cartoon. To 8 year old me this was the Coolest Thing Ever. And it was in 3D! And had a spaceship that could turn around by rotating its engines (Crazy Ivan before Crazy Ivan was cool)! And Robots!
And nobody else I knew had ever heard of it.
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:41 PM on April 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
Wow came here with just about the same story as Uncle Ira...my dad took me to see it pretty much just because it was in 3D...though I could only of been 5 or 6 which, yeah I am pretty sure was too young for this one.
posted by Captain_Science at 2:52 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by Captain_Science at 2:52 PM on April 6, 2013
It would be nice if all the multipart videos on Youtube were magically concatenated.
posted by pashdown at 3:09 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by pashdown at 3:09 PM on April 6, 2013
whoah I love the way all the spaceships in the trailer look like low-poly 3D models out of Elite. In fact given that it's from 1985 I would bet they were modeled on super-expensive state-of-the-art machines, printed out, then sent through the standard ink-n-paint process.
I do not love the way it seems to be anti-machine propaganda, but maybe that's just me - I'm always on the side of the non-biologicals by default.
posted by egypturnash at 4:13 PM on April 6, 2013
I do not love the way it seems to be anti-machine propaganda, but maybe that's just me - I'm always on the side of the non-biologicals by default.
posted by egypturnash at 4:13 PM on April 6, 2013
Oh god the dickwad Han Solo swipe just put his fawning robot girlfriend up for auction.
posted by egypturnash at 4:28 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by egypturnash at 4:28 PM on April 6, 2013
This was on TV a bunch when I was 11 or 12. I was definitely obsessed with this film for a few weeks, and recently searched it out based on fragmentary memories.
posted by migurski at 4:37 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by migurski at 4:37 PM on April 6, 2013
Pish-tosh. The best 3D movie is, of course, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:38 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:38 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
The bad 3d in this is almost as great as the last starfighter.
Which is also somewhat thematically similar, and from the same era.
posted by emptythought at 5:29 PM on April 6, 2013
Which is also somewhat thematically similar, and from the same era.
posted by emptythought at 5:29 PM on April 6, 2013
The bad 3d in this is almost as great as the last starfighter.
The Death Blossom!
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 5:37 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
The Death Blossom!
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 5:37 PM on April 6, 2013 [2 favorites]
Always explain your entire plan and just ASSUME the slave is dead.
posted by mfu at 6:20 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by mfu at 6:20 PM on April 6, 2013
Ok, I am going to need R/G 3d googles before I even attempt to view that. Otherwise I am going to have a headache to end all headaches.
posted by Canageek at 11:11 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by Canageek at 11:11 PM on April 6, 2013
I grew up in Costa Mesa, back when Orange County still had acres and acres of actual orange groves. Every movie theater in town was, as far as I can remember, an Edwards Cinema. I think there were seven, most of them with four or five screens. Once, my mom went to a movie that was out of focus, complained to the company, and Old Man Edwards himself sent Mom and apology and a bunch of free passes.
I guess they were the original anchors to shopping centers, the things that drove business. Two of them were within biking distance, but the one playing Starchaser was just out of range, so Mom drove me and some of the neighborhood kids (and maybe my brother. He would have been five or six). I grew up on Star Wars, like everyone else (saw Empire and Return of the Jedi in, of course, Edwards Cinemas), so I'm pretty sure I got the ripoff aspect. I also didn't really care, because I was eleven and we didn't have cable and I had a backyard full of half-buried Kenner action figures and I ate up this stuff.
I haven't watched these videos yet, and I'm not sure if I want to, because I know they'll kill that nostalgic glow I'm getting just thinking about that dark, cramped theater in the shopping center on Harbor, the one squeezed between the Hallmark Store and the Buster Brown store with all the Nike posters of basketball players I didn't know but, damn I can still remember them (George Gervin on a throne of ice, Moses Malone holding a crook in the shape of a giant swoosh). I remember the worn-down carpet in the theater lobby, the pall of butter and popcorn, the scary hall that lead to the theaters and emptied out onto the parking lot in the back that we never used because...well, why? Why did we always park in front? Who parked in the back?
Those theaters are gone now, torn down for redevelopment, one turned into a Paul Mitchell school, one that's still a giant vacant lot because of collapsed financing. All the kids would show up at these places, pack them, all up until I went away to college in '92, and then they got turned into Home Depots or Rite-Aids or whatever. I know the entertainment dollar shifted to games and the web, but, goddamn, I miss those theaters. I miss what they represented: freedom. My mom could drop the lot of us off for two hours and we would be fine, drinking Dr. Pepper and munching popcorn while Orin had that look of rage while he made an energy sword out of thin air in the closing scenes. I have no idea if I'd let my daughter do that when she turns ten, not even if it meant going to a Miyazaki flick at the art house just a few blocks away.
I don't mind getting older. I think I just mind thinking that some parts of my youth really were better than the way things are now, 'cause I want those good things for my kid.
posted by RakDaddy at 11:22 PM on April 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
I guess they were the original anchors to shopping centers, the things that drove business. Two of them were within biking distance, but the one playing Starchaser was just out of range, so Mom drove me and some of the neighborhood kids (and maybe my brother. He would have been five or six). I grew up on Star Wars, like everyone else (saw Empire and Return of the Jedi in, of course, Edwards Cinemas), so I'm pretty sure I got the ripoff aspect. I also didn't really care, because I was eleven and we didn't have cable and I had a backyard full of half-buried Kenner action figures and I ate up this stuff.
I haven't watched these videos yet, and I'm not sure if I want to, because I know they'll kill that nostalgic glow I'm getting just thinking about that dark, cramped theater in the shopping center on Harbor, the one squeezed between the Hallmark Store and the Buster Brown store with all the Nike posters of basketball players I didn't know but, damn I can still remember them (George Gervin on a throne of ice, Moses Malone holding a crook in the shape of a giant swoosh). I remember the worn-down carpet in the theater lobby, the pall of butter and popcorn, the scary hall that lead to the theaters and emptied out onto the parking lot in the back that we never used because...well, why? Why did we always park in front? Who parked in the back?
Those theaters are gone now, torn down for redevelopment, one turned into a Paul Mitchell school, one that's still a giant vacant lot because of collapsed financing. All the kids would show up at these places, pack them, all up until I went away to college in '92, and then they got turned into Home Depots or Rite-Aids or whatever. I know the entertainment dollar shifted to games and the web, but, goddamn, I miss those theaters. I miss what they represented: freedom. My mom could drop the lot of us off for two hours and we would be fine, drinking Dr. Pepper and munching popcorn while Orin had that look of rage while he made an energy sword out of thin air in the closing scenes. I have no idea if I'd let my daughter do that when she turns ten, not even if it meant going to a Miyazaki flick at the art house just a few blocks away.
I don't mind getting older. I think I just mind thinking that some parts of my youth really were better than the way things are now, 'cause I want those good things for my kid.
posted by RakDaddy at 11:22 PM on April 6, 2013 [4 favorites]
The bad 3d in this...
Actually I think the CGI in this is quite good, since it fits in well with the cell animation.
Thanks for this post! I was thinking of trying to find this movie based on fragmentary memory, like migurski, but the only memories I actually have were of the theme song.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 11:36 PM on April 6, 2013
Actually I think the CGI in this is quite good, since it fits in well with the cell animation.
Thanks for this post! I was thinking of trying to find this movie based on fragmentary memory, like migurski, but the only memories I actually have were of the theme song.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 11:36 PM on April 6, 2013
Odd, I always thought Orson Scott Card was involved in this film. I can see his name nowhere attached, anywhere I look, to any animated SF cartoon film. I have no idea what the hell I am thinking.
I haven't seen this since home video in the 1980s.
Time to make some popcorn.
posted by Mezentian at 12:08 AM on April 7, 2013
I haven't seen this since home video in the 1980s.
Time to make some popcorn.
posted by Mezentian at 12:08 AM on April 7, 2013
Not entirely unrelated, but of the same epoch, but the Japanese are about to release a CGI animated film for Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
posted by Mezentian at 12:20 AM on April 7, 2013
posted by Mezentian at 12:20 AM on April 7, 2013
Alright, hippybear, I'm about 15 min into your FPP and there isn't the huge amount of rotoscoping that I was expecting from reading this thread. ok, no judgements, back to starchaser then...
posted by coolxcool=rad at 1:48 AM on April 7, 2013
posted by coolxcool=rad at 1:48 AM on April 7, 2013
At part 10 it's gorgeous. I need to see this narrative through.
posted by coolxcool=rad at 3:55 AM on April 7, 2013
posted by coolxcool=rad at 3:55 AM on April 7, 2013
I watched the everliving hell out of this on VHS when I was a wee sprog, along with the weirdly unsettling Rainbow Brite movie (entirely on youtube here), and 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' ('Wizards' got in the mix eventually). I'd like to think it was formative to my tastes, and still get mildly creeped out thinking about the scavenger cyborg things.. altho I definitely have some trepidation about seeing it again and having my hazy half-fictional memories shattered.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:36 AM on April 8, 2013
posted by FatherDagon at 11:36 AM on April 8, 2013
I saw this movie three times in a single week in 3D in the theater when it was released.
I was astounded by the blatant ripoffs happening all through the movie. From the characters to the situations to the shots to the score, there is hardly a single original thing in it.
And yet, somehow, it all added up to a perfectly acceptable SF adventure to 16 year old me. Heck, each time I went to see it, I took new people with me.
I don't know why, but it felt like something which people needed to see.
Having rewatched it now after all these years, I think it's still a derivative piece of crap, but it was still entirely entertaining.
I actually think it's a property which could be improved with a well-done live action remake. The question is, will it actually be well done? Since the only progress on that project in the past year has been to get a producer/writer attached to it, I don't think we need to hold our breath in the hopes of it actually being made any time soon.
posted by hippybear at 5:47 PM on April 8, 2013
I was astounded by the blatant ripoffs happening all through the movie. From the characters to the situations to the shots to the score, there is hardly a single original thing in it.
And yet, somehow, it all added up to a perfectly acceptable SF adventure to 16 year old me. Heck, each time I went to see it, I took new people with me.
I don't know why, but it felt like something which people needed to see.
Having rewatched it now after all these years, I think it's still a derivative piece of crap, but it was still entirely entertaining.
I actually think it's a property which could be improved with a well-done live action remake. The question is, will it actually be well done? Since the only progress on that project in the past year has been to get a producer/writer attached to it, I don't think we need to hold our breath in the hopes of it actually being made any time soon.
posted by hippybear at 5:47 PM on April 8, 2013
Personally, I wake up blind as a fucking bat before I put my glasses on in the morning.
I refuse to put on a SECOND pait of glasses just to watch a 3d movie. Fuck that shit.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:30 AM on April 9, 2013
I refuse to put on a SECOND pait of glasses just to watch a 3d movie. Fuck that shit.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:30 AM on April 9, 2013
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Pornos like Edward Penishands and Bonan the Barbarian seem less deriviative.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:04 PM on April 6, 2013 [1 favorite]