Monday, October 31, 2016

BSA 106: 1980s Film History (Week 25)

Hollywood Blockbuster

- 1980s introduced "High Concept" films.
- Easily Categorized characters
- Familiar plots that could be described briefly
- High on stylish and slick production qualities
- Aimed for broad mass appeal
- Film / Soundtrack / Video / Television /Fast Food Promotional
- Prototypes from the 1970s were Jaws, Star Wars, Alien

Creators


- Producer Don Simpson, with partner Jerry Bruckheimer, are credited with the creation of the High Concept film. For Example: Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop & Top Gun

Teenage Comedy

- Many films were aimed at pre-teen / teenaged.

Examples:
Porkys

Revenge of The Nerds

John Hughes

- Made teen orientated "coming of age" films

Examples:


The Breakfast Club



The Weird Science

Sequels Everywhere

- Before 1980s there were very few sequels
- Many sequels were made which were usually the same story.

Examples:
Revenge of The Nerds, Revenge of The Nerds II, Revenge of The Nerds III, Revenge of The Nerds IV


Horror
- John Carpenters highly successful Halloween (1978) caused a revival of horror films in the 1980s


Action Sequels

- Rocky (6 films)
- Terminator (5 Films)
- Indiana Jones (4 films)
- Die Hard (5 films)
- The Karate Kid (4 Films)

 Spoof Films

- Airplane

- Naked Gun

- This is Spinal Tap

Animation
-Tron 1982 (Used computer graphics combined with live action)

- Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988 (Most expensive film of the 1980s costing 70 million to make



Science Fiction Films

- Blade Runner, 1982 (Directed by Ridley Scott Based on the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick)

- The Thing, 1982 (Directed by John Carpenter)

- Robocop, 1987 (Directed by Paul Verhoeven)

- E.T., 1982 (Directed by Steven Spielberg)

- Back to the Future Series

Drama

- Field of Dreams
- Cocoon
- Dead Poets Society

War Films

- Gallipoli (1981)

- Platoon

- Full Metal Jacket (1987)

- Born on The Fourth of July

Dance Films

- Flashdance

- Footloose

- Dirty

Adventure

- The Never Ending Story (1984)


- Labyrinth (1986)

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Howard The Duck

- Marvel comic strip character appearing in 1977
- Disney threatens to sue Marvel over the resemblance of Howard the Duck to Donald Duck.
- Marvel made changes to Howard by giving him pants
- 1986 Howard the Duck film was made by Universal and directed by Williard Huyck and produced by George Lucas.
- Regarded as one of the worst and least successful big-budget films ever made.






Batman 1989

- Directed by Tim Burton
- While the Superman Films initiated the trend towards superheroes on the big screen, it's 3 sequels in the 80s remained campy-comical like the 1966 Batman film.
-Burtons Batman (1989) opened the door for the current super-heroes movie boom. The film was notable for the dramatic shift in tone and aligned more with the comic book character.
- Film was a huge success - made 411 million in 1989 and the merchandise (t-shirts, toys, soundtrack album, plus other tie-ins) made 750 million.
- Film budget was approximately 35 million.








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Blog Homework

Provide your own opinions and reasons for the following questions...

1. In your own experience, has there been a sequel that is worse than the original film?

2. In your own experience, has there been a sequel that is better than the original film?

Provide name, year and Director of films above.

Consider what made the film better / worse? Was there a different Director or actors? Was the story stronger / weaker / the same?

- Then research and provide a summary of the influence of MTV on film making.

1. A sequel that I found worse than the original film was Transformers 3. Transformers 1 & 2 was great but in the second one, it slowly started to degrade a little bit. In the 3rd one it did not really capture and live up to it's standard in my opinion. I think it was because the same director was used constantly and it slowly became a same repetition of explosion which eventually made it meh. 

Transformers (2007) directed by Michael Bay
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) directed by Michael Bay
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) directed by Michael Bay
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) directed by Michael Bay

2. Another sequel that I found that is better than the original film was Taken. I like the story lines across all three movie. It was probably because there was a different director involved in the second film compared to the first film which gave it a fresh concept and a different look in terms of cinematography direction. 

Taken (2008) directed by Pierre Morel
Taken 2 (2012) directed by Olivier Megaton
Taken 3 (2014) directed by Olivier Megaton

Since MTV was first introduced in 1980, it has had a significant impact on advertising. Not only are commercials aired during its programing, but the videos themselves can be viewed as spots for CDs and other music-related products.

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