Nostalgia – Looking through Rose-Colored Glasses

I originally titled this “Nostalgia, rose-colored glasses that makes shit not stink”, but then I realized that the title ends up as the title bar in Firefox, or IE (if you’re a noob), or Safari (if you’re a douche/mac-user), so as a service to the ones of you that may peruse this, I changed it for you.

Recently there was an announcement that all six Star Wars movies will be released on Blu-Ray. Along with any Star Wars related news there is always much gnashing of teeth regarding how much the Prequel trilogy sucks, how George Lucas raped your childhood, etc. I could write a lengthy blog regarding why the Prequel trilogy stands up fairly well with the original trilogy, placing two of the three in the top four spots. I’ll give you a hint, the worst is Episode II, and the second worst (blasphemy approaching) is Episode IV. But I’m not going to rehash the Star Wars argument, because nobody will win the argument, it will just back and forth (Jar Jar sucks, Ewoks suck, etc.)

The thing is special effects are so different from era to era, and frankly are even quite different three years down the road, so at the end of the day it is the story that defines a work as good or not. This is why TOS of Star Trek holds up today. The special effects are pretty much anything but, but the stories hold up. The Wrath of Khan has some spectacular effects, but some terrible ones also, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is light years beyond any other Trek movie.

This isn’t about Star Wars or Star Trek though; this is about something that stretches back much further (sort of, but not exactly). This is about Buck Rogers, specifically Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

I remember seeing the Buck Rogers reboot (it was a reboot with source material going far back into the early 20th century) in a theater. Star Wars was still a hot property, and was just Star Wars, and wasn’t yet Episode IV. Action figures were flying off the shelves and movie and television companies were scrambling to pick up some of the scraps from the Star Wars table, which had hungry fans that couldn’t wait for Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (the thought to be title of the second Star Wars film, based on a novel by Alan Dean Foster). It was different than Star Wars; even my six year old brain knew it at the time. Kind of like how my Kmart shoes with a similar swoosh were not Nikes, this was not the same thing.

It wasn’t terrible to my mind, but that is probably because I was distracted. I was distracted by the wealth of flesh on display. Unlike Star Wars, which wouldn’t go into fetish territory until slave Leia entered the masturbatory fantasies of many men (young and old) in 1983, Buck Rogers had somewhat clad women front and center. Erin Gray became a pin-up model, which makes me think of Twiki uttering “Bidi-bidi-bidi, shave that bush, Wilma” as Doctor Theopolis winces unapprovingly.

The movie did well enough to garner a television series. The difference between movie and television is, in hind-sight, staggering. There is one shot of a Earth Defense Directorate ship firing directly towards the viewer which has appeared no less than two dozen times in the eight episodes I have managed to get through. There are also some really obvious continuity problems. These are not Trek geek continuity problems like “Transwarp drive wasn’t invented until the Excelsior was completed.” No, these are continuity problems where they are on a different planet, but use an establishing shot that has been used many, many times as New Chicago. In one scene two fighters (which were cool as hell by the way) and a freighter take off. The next shot shows four fighters, the next a fighter and a freighter. Who was editing this? Helen Kellar?

What does this have to do with nostalgia? I fondly remember watching Buck Rogers on television. Perhaps this was due to the complete lack of Sci-Fi back during my formative years, or perhaps I was just a stupid kid. The show isn’t bad, it’s horrible. Really, really bad. It’s not the special effects that make it bad, it’s not the costumes that make it bad (hell the flesh on display is one of the redeeming items), it is just so poorly done. Plus it is a who’s who of oldey time actors. I don’t mean, old now, I mean old then. Buster Crabbe pops up in an early episode as does Peter Graves. It was odd hearing him talk about Gladiator movies in the 25th century. Still waiting for Gary Coleman to show up and talk about his new kidney.

What does all this mean? It means that television, movies, etc. are really no better nor any worse than any other time in history. Each era has it’s crap. Just because something is old doesn’t make it good. Just because something is new doesn’t make it bad. It just is.