A Look Back: Star Trek – The Motion Picture
Before looking back at Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), I have to go back even further for context. The original pilot for Star Trek: The Original Series (1966 – 69), “The Cage” didn’t sell because it was considered too cerebral. Out went Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) as the commanding officer of the USS Enterprise 1701, and in came Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) for the new pilot as the series became a little more action-oriented. The struggles of The Original Series – including the letter-writing campaign that resurrected it after it had been axed following season two – have been well documented. But it lasted only one…
A Look Back: Raiders of the Lost Ark
I’ve been going through a lot of movies in lockdown – a sprinkling of newer movies, some older ones I’ve never seen or saw so long ago I can hardly remember them, as well as movies I love which I thought it would be time to re-watch. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is one of the re-watches. I first saw this in 1982 as part of a high school class trip to the city – this is when the city had an almost-exclusive monopoly on cinemas, whereas now you find them in every shopping plaza. The teacher had been looking for a movie based around some topic or other…