Rubik's: The movie

So I took the family to see “Shrek the Third” this weekend. Really enjoyed it. If you have a daughter who is into princesses, you absolutely must see this movie, as it will provide an entirely different take on Disney’s fairest. Also, from here on out, when you see Snow White, you will hear a VERY different version of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”
(Quick side note: Again, sincerest apologies go out to the poor souls working the concession at the movie theater, as I managed to dump my ginormous drink over on the counter twice. I still maintain the cup was faulty.)
That said, the true highlight of the movie was the movie trailer previews. I love the previews, especially with big movies such as Shrek, because you know you’re getting the first peak at something good.
But these trailers were extra special, as they were clearly geared to trigger blasts of youthful nostalgia for people like my wife and me. First came a trailer for “Transformers.” Based on the blank stares that greeted me when I bellowed “OPTIMUS PRIME!!!” there were not a lot of fellow Autobot fans in the audience. For those of you who were not young boys in 1984, the Transformers are “More than meets the eye. Robots in the disguise,” according to their mid-1980s commercial which is stuck in my head to this day. The basis of Transformers is that there are two kinds: Autobots (good) and Decepticons (bad). They switch from giant robots into regular objects (planes, trucks, lamps). In the movie, they come to planet earth to fight it out. But the bottom line is one of the main characters is a truck that turns into a robot and then back into a truck, which goes from cool to cooler to unbelievably awesome.
For my wife, the trip down memory lane was a preview for the Nancy Drew movie, which pits the teen girl detective against someone who wants to kill her for some reason. (I didn’t pay much attention, as I was more of an Encyclopedia Brown fan.)
But the previews had both of us taking mental trips back to when we were kids and got me to thinking of some other iconic pop culture things that Hollywood has yet to fully recognize. I’m not talking about movies and TV shows, either, because I think once Johnny Knoxville takes on the role of a Duke brother, we’ve scraped the bottom. I think it’s time they start looking into some other parts of the ’80s that hold potential silver screen gems:
Rubik’s Cube: It can be a story of the underdog. Let’s say, just for the sake of movie magic, there is a kid who can solve only one side of the puzzle at a time (occasionally he gets lucky and solves two sides by accident). The antagonist can be the show-off kid who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in about 11 seconds. Blindfolded. In the climactic scene, our underdog hero, who was unfortunately much shorter than EVERYONE until he was about a senior in college, produces Rubik’s Triangle, which he can solve in a matter of minutes. (Here we will use some poetic license and have everyone be very impressed with solving Rubik’s Triangle.)
Parachute pants: The wildly popular multi-zippered baggy pants were all the rage, and there was one sad little boy who never got to feel the electric boogaloo magic of said pants. It can be the sad tale of the young boy walking through the Memphis airport, seeing the pants in a store and trying to boondoggle his grandmother – a grandmother who was cursed with the grandparents’ affliction of buying ANYTHING kids seemed to want, especially if it was something the parents had already said no to – who looked back at him and said something to the effect of, “Are you nuts?” Imagine the tearjerking epiphany years down the road when the young man realizes his grandmother was merely trying to keep him from looking like a shrunken, white version of MC Hammer.
Space invaders: You kids today with your fancy video games with more than one button. Let’s go old school with a from-the-sky, row-by-row Atari 2600 invasion. The movie trailer has written itself: “Six rows of aliens. One red button. The fate of the universe rests on your thumb.” If we play our cards right, Yars can make a cameo and Journey will do the soundtrack.
Capsela: Everyone laughs at the kid who spends all of his time piecing together the plastic, motorized capsules, creating very cool cars, boats and the like. And the teasing continues. And the kid buys some more Capsela parts. And some more. And some more. And Gigantor the Capsela Monster is constructed, and through, say, a lightning strike, it comes to laugh, with a mission of vengeance. Make fun of Capsela kid, will they...
Those are just a few of the awesome things from my youth they can easily strike cinematic gold. And we have just scratched the surface, having not even considered the nearly endless possibilities that include Swatches, Jams, that a-ha video and I’m Not Herb. Wow, I can’t wait for the next time I got to a movie theater and see what Hollywood has in store for me next. The blank stares alone will be worth the price of admission.