Gotdammerung! Scooped on a review! That’s what I get for being too busy working to check the boards.
Anywho, I saw this splendid production on Tuesday, dragging my beloved MrsB to the show. And we both enjoyed it greatly!
I loved the movie as a kid-- even had the novelization by Alan Dean Foster-- and remembered the whole damn plot, while my wife knew bupkis about what was going on.
Before I went, I was worried about three main aspects: how will they make a videogame exciting, what will the aliens look like, and how do you stage a climactic space battle.
Well, the set-up was pretty damn good-- decent songs, watchable dancing, the mournfulness of being stuck in a trailer park forever because you can’t get a student loan-- it all came across. Having everyone in the cast watching Alex hit 1,000,000 pts on the video game really worked well, surprisingly so.
The creativity of a low-budget show also worked, because the cast knew when they couldn’t take themselves seriously. Yup, you can turn a picnic table into not one, but TWO space vehicles, and keep the disbelief suspended. But when the fuzzy, felt-endowed aliens showed up, it’s impossible to keep a straight face.
Felt tentactles on people? They’re not muppets, they’re actors! So laugh, grin, and then get on with the story. They’re silly-looking, but you’re not getting a Star-anything budget on 19 bucks.
As for the final space battle, that was a little weak. They could have jazzed that up a little, but instead they focused on the real heart of the story, which is the romance between Alex and Maggie. I’d still rather have seen at least a few attempts at showing the Starfighter actually fighting other ships.
But what really makes this show shine is the sheer brilliance of portraying the Zandozan assassin’s attempt to kill Alex. The assassin himself is a red-coverall-wearing bucktoothed guy lurching around, and it turns into a peppy song and dance number involving everyone in town, weird green lighting, gunplay, and Miss July. Totally rocks!