Captain EO

Holy Cow! This Thursday I went to Disneyland with Sig and my little sister Holly (of the photo, incidentally). Sig and I are *very* into Disney - we have season passes, and know most of the lyrics to most of the songs in most of the movies - this in spite of the fact that many of our friends/fellow students view our obsession with confusion and perhaps disdain. Whatever man. I can't let their judgement hold back the love.

We saw a 3-D show in Tomorrowland that apparently originally played from 1986-1996 and is now showing as a tribute to Micheal Jackson. The name - Captain EO.

Those of us who remember the 80s, or who have subsequently watched, say, The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth, know that it was a crazy time, a time of weird talking puppets and men who wear sparkle make-up. But seeing talking puppets and men in sparkle make-up in 2010 in full 3-D in the middle of the day at Disneyland was a bit of a shocker.

To give a little background, Captain EO was actually directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by George Lucas (!) and at the time it was the most expensive movie made on a per-minute basis, 30 million dollars for ~ 17 minutes of film. You'd think with the credentials and the expense you'd get something not crazy...right?

The film begins with Captain EO and his ragtag muppet crew. They avoid some nasty space scouts and land their ship on a planet covered in robot-machinery. (Meanwhile the face of their commander keeps popping up on a hologram and scolding them, 'CAPtain eO! You ALways FAIL!) Once landed the crew sets off to find the planet's 'Supreme Leader' (!) and deliver a 'gift'. It takes them about 30 seconds, luckily, to be captured by robot-soldiers and end up in the Supreme Leader's robot-y lair. She's your typical freaky, evil robot-lady with 5 inch claws who descends from the belly of an enormous tentaculed machine to greet her visitors.

Then comes the good part, Jacko informs her that she can't see the gift he has brought, she can only hear it. His crew busts out a bunch of keyboards and synthesizers and as soon as the music starts, Captain EO suddenly has supernatural powers! He shoots these, uh, laser beam things (?) from his hands and starts turning the evil robot army into a scantily clad 80's dance troupe! They all dance, the S.L. sends more bad guys who become more dancers, and finally, after about 5 minutes of this, Micheal Jackson flies into the air and shoots her with his laser hands and she becomes ANJELICA HOUSTON in a FAIRY OUTFIT!!! And the weirdest thing is that she looks exactly the same as she does now.