THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME (1979)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

For my one or two previous viewings of THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, I took the same sardonic view of the movie as most critics-- that it was just a dumb STAR WARS rip. And I'm not going to argue that it's any sort of neglected masterpiece. But for all its missteps-- some of which do relate to emulating George Lucas-- it's not nearly as bad as most penny-ante space operas of the seventies. If anything it hearkens back to the wide-eyed, gosh-wow SF-serials, such as BUCK ROGERS. SHAPE has nearly nothing to do with H.G. Wells' Pollyanna-paean to socialism, though there's one element of SHAPE that slightly resembles the battle of scientific adventurism vs. cultural conservatism in Alexander Korda's 1936 THINGS TO COME.

It's the far future, and a "robot war" has somehow resulted in most of the Earth being polluted by radiation. Though most of humanity has escaped to build an advanced civilization on the moon, the script loosely implies that all humans on Earth or on Luna need continual treatments for radiation sickness by a drug called Raddic-Q2. Almost none of the film's action takes place on Earth aside from a very brief side-trip, so humanity is entirely represented by the colony on the moon and a colony on a distant planet, Delta 3. Said planet is the sole source of Raddic-Q2, which may indicate that one or more of the writers did a little reading into DUNE, a science-fiction novel rumored to have inspired George Lucas.

The representative of lunar conservatism is the unenviably-named Senator Smedley (John Ireland), who wants to shut down a new moon-defense vessel, Starstreak. The voice of adventurism stems from John Caball (Barry Morse, whose character-name was borrowed from the Wells book), who argues that the ship is necessary. And with remarkable alacrity, Caball is proven right. The reigning governor of Delta-3 (Carol Lynley, also given an unimpressive name, that of "Nikki") has been forced into exile by a new tyrant in town. This is Omus (Jack Palance), and he presents two threats: cutting off Luna from its supply of the anti-radiation drug and attacking with a small coterie of robots.

Exposition-pause: I fully admit that these are very dumb-looking robots, once described as "oversized popcorn poppers," But to the extent that the flick brings up memories of cheesy serials, this is no worse a failing than a certain 1940s mechanical man Firesign Theater once described as "an enraged water heater." I could have lived without the film's comic-relief robot "Sparks," who falls in love with the leading lady and calls her his "dark lady of the sonnets."

When cautious Smedley won't take immediate action, Caball launches the Starstreak, crewed only by his son Jason (Nicholas Campbell), his maybe-girlfriend Kim (Anne-Marie Martin of SLEDGE HAMMER fame), and the silly robot. There's a short sojourn to Earth, apparently just to establish that there are radiation victims still there, though said victims don't look any more disease-wracked than the lunar denizens. For the most part the last half of the film drops the radiation angle and concentrates on humans fighting robots. Caball enjoys a heroic death, but Barry Morse gets a nice scene talking about how he was influenced by the "imagination" of the Greek philosophers. Then Jason has to take the fight to Omus for a distinctly underwhelming conclusion.

One thing the writers definitely did not take from Lucas is the colorlessness of its younger actors. Campbell and Martin have nothing interesting to do, and the script even gives Carol Lynley better scenes, to say nothing of placing so much emphasis on Morse and Ireland. Palance chews the scenery nicely, but he's just another routine tyrant. I can't say that the direction is anything special, but maybe SHAPE just hit a rare soft spot I occasionally have for cheap, clunky space operas.