1982 Greatest Geek Year Ever! — 1982 Greatest Geek Year Ever!( Blu Ray)

Originally released as a four-part TV series in July 2023, 1982 Greatest Geek Year Ever! has found its way to Blu-ray as a nearly 3-hour documentary film. Directed by experienced documentary film-maker Roger Lay Jr (The Twilight Zone 60th: Remembering Rod Serling, Star Trek: The Journey to the Silver Screen and Toy Masters) the film takes a look back at one of the key years in the development of geek culture. It was the year that brought us ET, Blade Runner, The Thing, Tron, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, Firefox, First Blood and a host of other risky titles that could make or break a director or a studio. Steven Spielberg was king to the point that he released two films within a week of each other (ET and Poltergeist), albeit one was as a director and the other as a producer.

After a short introduction to the year in question, we settle into what would have been the first episode proper, which was originally titled “The Summer of Spielberg”. It’s great to hear the likes of Mick Garris reminiscing about the relationship between Spielberg and Tobe Hooper and how they created Poltergeist together, and how the pair were able to use their own skills to enhance one another’s perspective on the film. On top of that, the story about Spielberg refusing to helm a sequel to Close Encounters and his writing a horror movie about aliens invading a farm that would eventually morph into the script for ET adds further interest. It was also lovely to see Dee Wallace reliving moments from the filming of ET with such passion and joy. You get the feeling that Spielberg ensured the set was such a happy place to work.  It’s also great to hear so many other filmmakers and actors reliving their experiences of being a child at the time of the release of ET and what it was like to experience it first-hand. I was ten at the time and they genuinely managed to capture how I felt about the film and all of the associated merch that came with it.

Episode two is entitled “Science Fiction” and looks primarily at Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and John Carpenter’s The Thing. It’s great to hear William Shatner talking about his portrayal of Captain Kirk as an older man and how the movie was brought into existence. I was also really pleased to hear Ron Howard talking about how he was originally considered as director for the film and I’m intrigued to think what the film might have been like with him in the director’s chair.  It’s also fascinating to hear talk of how the sets were destroyed as they anticipated ending the series with Wrath of Khan. It’s also always a pleasure to listen to a documentary about one of my favourite films, The Thing. I love the fact it was a film that was initially overlooked and misunderstood by the masses and the fact it has been embraced with so much love and respect in the years since its release just highlights how it was so far ahead of its time. It’s also always a pleasure to hear the likes of Keith David and David Clennon reliving their time in the movie. Blade Runner was another classic that was released at the time and didn’t initially achieve the success that the studio had hoped for. Ridley Scott’s masterpiece was tampered with by studio execs and suffered because of it. We can look back on it now and see why the studio should have left Scott to release his director’s cut but it’s interesting to hear a lot of the people involved talk about how tough life was on the set and how the cast and crew had a lot of issues with one another.  There is also some talk of a film called Megaforce, which was new to me and how it was an even bigger box office disaster than Blade Runner and The Thing. It was a big dumb epic sci-fi action film with tons of explosions and starring Barry Bostwick (he of Rocky Horror fame). Sadly for Megaforce, it wasn’t as lucky as those other two movies which have gone on to become Bonafide cinematic classics, and it remains a misfire. The final film that is mentioned in this section is Disney’s Tron, the film that helped revolutionize computerized special effects, and acted as the genesis for the links between video games and cinema. 

The third episode was entitled “Fantasy and Action” and looks at the boom in sword and sorcery movies in 1982, which were largely based on the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons, which had become a huge success around that time. Conan the Barbarian, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Jim Henson’s masterpiece The Dark Crystal and Don Coscarelli’s Beastmaster are among the successful fantasy titles released in that year. It’s particularly great to hear the likes of Marc Singer and Coscarelli talk about Beastmaster and Lisa Henson talk about her father and his incredibly ambitious, epic, dream project, The Dark Crystal. This episode also looks at action movies, particularly Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky III and First Blood and George Miller’s excellent Road Warrior aka Mad Max 2.

The final section or episode concentrates on “Comedy and Horror”. 1982 was the year that John Carpenter unleashed another classic entry in the Halloween franchise, albeit one without Michael Myers and much like The Thing it has grown to be far more loved than it was at the time. It was also the year that gave us Creepshow, Friday 13th Pt. 3, Swamp Thing and Slumber Party Massacre and it’s always a pleasure to listen to the likes of Roger Corman talk about the movies he has produced over the years. The second part of the episode looks at some of the classic comedy films from that year. It’s really interesting to hear Ron Howard, talk in some depth about his switch from being little Ritchie Cunningham to being a big-name director with the release of Night Shift. The doc also touches on teen comedies like Porkies and Cameron Crowe’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High, as well as the buddy cop comedy 48 Hours starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, who formed one of the great on-screen comic partnerships, and  The Toy starring Richard Pryor which see’s a black man being bought as a toy for a rich white kid. Finally, it looks at Dustin Hoffman and his powerful performance as a man who dresses as a woman to get a TV role in the excellent, Tootsie.

Overall, the near 3 hour runtime flies by quickly as the topic is so interesting and it’s great to see celebrated luminaries like Roger Corman, Ron Howard, William Shatner, Adrienne Barbeau, Bruce Campbell, Barry Bostwick, Keith David and Mick Garris involved in such a project. A lot of documentaries of this sort, tend to be lacking interviews with those who were involved in the movies they talk about, but we don’t miss that here. We are given an informative but speedy blast through some of the most iconic movies and stories about them from 1982. On top of the feature itself, the disc from MVD features some bonus material including deleted and extended scenes, a featurette about fan favourite movies, and the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con panel with producers Scott Mantz, Mark Altman and Thomas Vitale and trailers for a bunch of other MVD titles. If you were young in 1982 and remember the films mentioned fondly, there is lots for you to enjoy in this release and even if you weren’t around at the time, there’s a lot of interesting information presented here about a bunch of films that have gone down in history as some of the best ever made. I would recommend this to anyone who loves cinema, and especially to those who geek out over it, you won’t be disappointed.