Bad Movie Logo
"A website to the detriment of good film"
Custom Search
HOMEB-MOVIE REVIEWSREADER REVIEWSFORUMINTERVIEWSUPDATESABOUT
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 06:03:49 PM
713369 Posts in 53058 Topics by 7725 Members
Latest Member: wibwao
Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  Would Logan's Run qualify as a bad movie? « previous next »
Pages: [1] 2
Author Topic: Would Logan's Run qualify as a bad movie?  (Read 4883 times)
Alan Smithee
Guest
« on: March 20, 2005, 12:26:53 AM »

Saw parts of this movie on t.v. in the lates 70's when I was a real little kid. I was so fond of it, that early 90's showings on cable t.v. jogged pleasant memories of my childhood.

I read the books, collected the comics, have it on dvd, and have the "bootlegged" tv show on dvd.

The movie is different from Nolan's book(s). And it doesn't age well. It had that clean, 1970's, utopian look, right down to the pajama costumes. I guess the movie was more less tailor made to fit into the 1970's sci-fi "overpopulation" phase.

I love this movie dearly and I can probably see why some people might think it's a "bad movie".

My favorite part will always be the one with the shiny, washing machine/robot Box.
It's hard to believe that just a year later another robot appeared that was much more mobile and authentic and realistic and gold-plated.

Allegedly, there is a remake in the works that'll be more true to the book. But I'll always have a soft spot for the Farrah Fawcett Logan's Run.

Viva 1976.
Logged
The Burgomaster
Aggravating People Worldwide Since 1964
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 773
Posts: 9036



« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2005, 09:45:45 AM »

I remember seeing LOGAN'S RUN durin its original theatrical release.  Back then, people seemed to be pretty fascinated by the special effects.  Today, they just look cheap and dated.

I WOULD NOT consider LOGAN'S RUN to be a bad movie (although, I wouldn't consider it to be a GOOD movie, either), but it is definitely a B-movie!

Logged

"Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone."
trekgeezer
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 0
Posts: 4973


We're all just victims of circumstance


« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2005, 10:55:18 AM »

Logans Run would not be classified even as a B movie, it was actually a  big budget film for it's time . The effects look cheesy, but even the effects in StarWars  which only came out a year later look cheesy compared to what they can do today.

If you want a cheesy looking space B movie from the same general time period, check out Saturn 3. Now  that's a bad B movie with only one redeeming point . You get to see Farrah Fawcett;s boobies.

Logged




And you thought Trek isn't cool.
Menard
Guest
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2005, 01:51:54 PM »

trek_geezer wrote:
 
> If you want a cheesy looking space B movie from the same
> general time period, check out Saturn 3. Now  that's a bad B
> movie with only one redeeming point . You get to see Farrah
> Fawcett;s boobies.

Her Playboy video gives you the chance to see a lot more, and you don't have to sit through SATURN 3 to catch a 1 second flash. And that is a tedious movie.

Logged
Fearless Freep
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 15
Posts: 2328


« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2005, 02:09:09 PM »

Logan's Run was not a bad movie or either a b-movie.  It has some interesting ideas and explored them well.  It came from a time when Sci-Fi movies were more intelligent than today in that they actually tried to explore some interesting or challenging ideas using a futuristic setting.  It was a smart and well-executed movie.  Sure the effects and props and clothing are very dated, but that's to be expected when looking back 30 years.  The story and plot underneath are still strong.

Logged

=======================
Going places unmapped, to do things unplanned, to people unsuspecting
Ed
Guest
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2005, 02:15:16 PM »

I think the idea is strong, and as well exceuted as was possible.  I don't think it is a B movie.  It sets out to do a job and does it well.  Age alone can't make it a B film.  70's style was just bad all over.  
-Ed
Logged
BoyScoutKevin
Guest
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2005, 04:00:28 PM »

Indeed, theoriginal may not be much like the book. The robot Box, especially comes off better in the book, then he does in the movie. But even if the remake,  directed by Bryan Singer, comes closer to the book in its gritty appearance and lowering the age of termination from the original's 30 to the book's 21, I think the original will still be my favorite. If only because the original was so fun to watch. And I don't think the remake can top the original's cast of Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Farrah Fawcett, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Peter Ustinov.

Logged
dean
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 267
Posts: 3635



« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2005, 09:21:39 PM »


I have always wanted to see this movie but never get around to it.  Logans Run and Soylent Green are two older Sci Fi films that I have been interested in seeing.

Also, I liked the mention of Logans Run in Family guy, where the Dog Brian is talking to a psychiatrist about his dream in which he is in the world of Logan's Run and is getting chased until he eventually gets cornered and he points at Snoopy and says 'what about that guy, he must be like 50 years old'.

It was just so absurdly funny that I just have to track down a copy and watch the movie.

70's and 80's sci fi films are extremely funny and entertaining to watch.  I just saw Barbarella for the first time a few months ago, and couldn't stop giggling like a little girl at the mention of Duran Duran.

Logged

------------The password will be: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Eirik
Guest
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2005, 09:38:32 PM »

Logan's Run was a Bad Movie in my opinion (big B, big M) as opposed to something like Van Helsing, which is just a bad movie.  I define Bad Movies as movies I can sit through and laugh and crack jokes pretty much the whole time, and yet still enjoy - to some extent - on the level they were intended.  

Now, I recall watching it as a kid (movie and show) and pretty much having my world rocked by the amazing effects, fantastic science and timely message... but now, 25 years later, it is definitely a Bad Movie.  Is it fair to look at something that was top of the line a quarter century ago and judge it through the lens of what's out there today?  Maybe not, but I'm doing it anyway.
Logged
Susan
Guest
« Reply #9 on: March 22, 2005, 06:46:16 PM »

my light turned red this year,  SANCTUARY!

I own it, I like the concept and it's entertaining

Logged
Chris
Guest
« Reply #10 on: March 22, 2005, 07:02:23 PM »

Very gloomy seventies sci-fi that must have dated the instant Star Wars opened, and not nearly as intelligent as Soylent Green.  On the plus side, Michael York fleshed out his rather robotic assassin-turned-hero, Jenny Agutter got to wear a revealing outfit and it moved a good lick for films of that vintage.
Logged
AndyC
Global Moderator
B-Movie Kraken
****

Karma: 1402
Posts: 11156



« Reply #11 on: March 22, 2005, 10:40:28 PM »

dean wrote:
> to watch.  I just saw Barbarella for the first time a few
> months ago, and couldn't stop giggling like a little girl at
> the mention of Duran Duran.

The group took their name from the movie.

Logged

---------------------
"Join me in the abyss of savings."
DaveMunger
Bad Movie Lover
***

Karma: 1
Posts: 176


« Reply #12 on: March 22, 2005, 10:47:33 PM »

I love how that chick always looks like she's about to sneeze, there's something very hot about that.
Logged
AndyC
Global Moderator
B-Movie Kraken
****

Karma: 1402
Posts: 11156



« Reply #13 on: March 22, 2005, 10:48:35 PM »

I loved Logan's Run. I remembered it being a very cheesy movie, and expected a bit of a laugh when I bought the bargain DVD last year, but it was actually much better than I remembered. The story is intelligent and presented very well. The look of the movie, I think, is classic 70s dystopia, right down to the future being made of malls and boiler rooms. I don't think it's fair to call it dated. Even Box, although simple, achieves a certain effect that's hard to describe.

The only thing that bothered me was that it became dead slow once they'd escaped. I could have done with a little less of Ustinov mumbling bits of T.S. Elliot.

Logged

---------------------
"Join me in the abyss of savings."
Writer
Guest
« Reply #14 on: March 23, 2005, 02:14:55 AM »

I don't think I'd say Logan's run is a bad movie, but I would say that it was rather untimely: if this film had come out at the beginning of the 1970s instead of the end, I think it would have done a whole lot better critically and financially. In many ways, I do think of this as rather the last gasp of the 1970s style of science fiction film-making, just as I think of Star Wars as the very first film made in the new style that was to become very popular in the 1980s.

Mind, I'm not just talking about the look of the film, although I do generally think the 1970s "futuristic" clothing and decoration was atrocious. What I'm referring to is the story's themes. Compare Logan's Run with Star Wars, and these differences just leap right out at you:

--In Star Wars, technology is treated as a rather fun and friendly thing. In Logan's Run, technology is generally pandering and mind-numbing at best, menacing and murderous at worst.

--In Star Wars, civilization is thriving in every conceivable way, even out on the desert planet Tatooine. In Logan's Run, civilization has become a gilded cage that's stifling all human creativity and innovation.

--In spite of its happy ending, Logan's Run takes a rather depressing view of humanity and its probable future. Star Wars, though it's supposedly set "a long time ago in a place far, far away," really is a more cheerful portrayal of a futuristic world in which, though there'll be just as much trouble from human nature as there is today, there'll be plenty of fun stuff to do, too.

--Nearly everything in Logan's Run is sparkling, clean, and sterile. In Star Wars, everything is dirty, dusty, encrusted with mold, or generally falling apart; the only really clean and sterile setting in that film is the interior of the Death Star, and only some of it at that. In other words, the one film is clean and orderly almost to a fault, while the other is every bit as messy and disorderly as the real world.

--Logan's Run has a lot of gratuitous sex and nudity. In Star Wars, there's a fair bit of flirting and romance, but it never really takes center stage and certainly never gets hot-and-heavy. (Carrie Fisher even had her breasts taped down under that long gown in some scenes just to keep her from looking as voluptuous and well-built as she really was. As she said in an interview later, "No jiggling in the Empire.")

--Logan is generally the conformist organization man who has to be jogged out of his complacency, while Luke Skywalker is a rebellious youngster who's itching for adventure from the get-go.

In other words, these films are practically opposites of each other. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Logan's Run would certainly have fit the increasingly suspicious and dreary mood of the time, but by the late 1970s, people were getting rather sick of hearing about how miserable everything was, and began wanting to have something cheerful and inspiring again. Though Star Wars doesn't seem so impressive now as it did back when it came out, it's worth remembering that it gave the movie industry and a lot of the rest of the entertainment industry a much-needed shot in the arm. (It also gave the merchandise clauses in movie contracts more value: up to then, they had been known as "junk clauses" because practically no one expected to make much money off of commercial tie-ins.)

These things go in cycles, as one can see with The Matrix, which works from many of the same themes as Logan's Run, albeit in a much more timely and well-constructed fashion. A film that wasn't nearly as timely, though I still think it was an entertaining film, was 6th Day starring  Schwartzenegger. If it had come out some years earlier, I think it would have gotten much better press. As it was, 6th Day did ultimately make a tidy little profit, but most critics yawned at it and it wasn't really a big hit.

In short, timing makes a big difference. If Logan's Run had been a late 1960s film, I'll bet a lot more people would have taken it more seriously, and it would be considered more of a classic today. As it is, it was "dated" back when it first came out.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2
Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  Would Logan's Run qualify as a bad movie? « previous next »
    Jump to:  


    RSS Feed Subscribe Subscribe by RSS
    Email Subscribe Subscribe by Email


    Popular Articles
    How To Find A Bad Movie

    The Champions of Justice

    Plan 9 from Outer Space

    Manos, The Hands of Fate

    Podcast: Todd the Convenience Store Clerk

    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

    Dragonball: The Magic Begins

    Cool As Ice

    The Educational Archives: Driver's Ed

    Godzilla vs. Monster Zero

    Do you have a zombie plan?

    FROM THE BADMOVIES.ORG ARCHIVES
    ImageThe Giant Claw - Slime drop

    Earth is visited by a GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE BUZZARD! Gawk at the amazingly bad bird puppet, or chuckle over the silly dialog. This is one of the greatest b-movies ever made.

    Lesson Learned:
    • Osmosis: os·mo·sis (oz-mo'sis, os-) n., 1. When a bird eats something.

    Subscribe to Badmovies.org and get updates by email:

    HOME B-Movie Reviews Reader Reviews Forum Interviews TV Shows Advertising Information Sideshows Links Contact

    Badmovies.org is owned and operated by Andrew Borntreger. All original content is © 1998 - 2014 by its respective author(s). Image, video, and audio files are used in accordance with the Fair Use Law, and are property of the film copyright holders. You may freely link to any page (.html or .php) on this website, but reproduction in any other form must be authorized by the copyright holder.