21 replies to this topic

[Phuyuck '74]

After DAF, Connery did a sci-fi film with John Boorman called Zardoz. I watched this film last night and I'm still hurting from laughing so hard! Connery spends most of the film running around in nothing but a red diaper! We even get to see him in a wedding dress! Anyone else seen this epic?

[ChandlerBing]

I've never seen it, but I understand it has a cult following. I've seen a lot of pics and read a lot about it. Don't know if I'd be willing to give up the time to watch it or not.

[Phuyuck '74]

Zardoz is quite simply the weirdest film I've ever seen. Connery stars as Zed, one of a breed of half-naked "Exterminators" who hunt down "brutals" to keep them from breeding. They worship a god named Zardoz; he appears in the form of a flying stone head! In the opening scene, the head appears, preaches that "the gun is good, the penis is evil," and then spews guns and ammunition through it's mouth! As you might imagine, I was speechless.

[Jim]

Wizard of Oz - Zardoz

Not that this makes it any clearer, mind

[Phuyuck '74]

That was the one part of the film I actually found interesting; the tie in with the Wizard of Oz.
Well, that and the gratuitous nudity.

[Turn]

I have Zardoz on tape. A weird film to say the least.

Here's how I interpret it. I lent it to a friend-of-a-friend once who called it one of the greatest things he'd ever seen. This guy is supposedly a borderline genius who never did anything with his life, held various jobs at pallet companies and pizza delivery places, did little else but take drugs and drink and is near death from it last I heard.

Maybe it was the diaper thing or he had the right mindset at the time.

[Jaelle]

Yes, I saw ZARDOZ a few times in the 70s or 80s on TV, tho it was probably a censored version. I actually thought it was very cool precisely because it was so bizarre. I loved that big weird rock-head in the sky! When I was in college, it was always talked about by fellow film and science fiction student friends. The general consensus was *positive* because it was so strange, and everybody loved Sean. Of course, each time I saw it I never understod what the hell was going on. Didn't matter, tho. I just thought it was so mesmerizing in its weirdness.

[Phuyuck '74]

Mesmerizing is the word. I know it's a cliche to say this, but the film was like a train wreck - I simply couldn't look away. Same mechanism that draws me to some of Moore's Bond films

[Blofeld's Cat]

I'm a John Boorman fan, but this would have to be one of the least favourites of his.

If ever there was a movie for Connery to break out of his Bond image, this was certainly the one. Burt Reynolds was apparently the first choice for the role.

[Phuyuck '74]

Hmmmm. I'm trying to picture Zed driving a Trans Am through Texarkana...

[Triton]

It certainly is a very strange film. Funny how the dystopia theme was quite fashionable in science fiction films during the early 1970s. About the time that Zardoz was released, we got Gene Roddenberry's pilots for Planet Earth and Genesis II on television, which introduced a character named Dylan Hunt, and in the cinema there were films like Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth), Silent Running, and Soylent Green. I guess that in the early 1970s some people expected that society and its institutions would collapse and future generations would live in a future where buildings and technology were decaying and knowledge was lost.

Film producers and studio big wigs probably liked the theme because science fiction films could be made cheaply using existing costumes and sets with several layers of dirt and grime.

It's interesting to think that Sean Connery passed on doing Live and Let Die to make this film.

Could you imagine what John Boorman's pitch was to Sean Connery to get him to play Zed. You will have long hair and a beard and run around in a red loin cloth with bandoliero weapon slings across your chest running around killing people with a revolver.

Talk about shattering the James Bond image.

[ChandlerBing]

Originally posted by Phuyuck '74
Hmmmm.  I'm trying to picture Zed driving a Trans Am through Texarkana...

Now I'd pay to see that movie, damn it!

[Roebuck]

Zardoz is another of my guilty pleasures. It's a nice piece of inventive film-making and there's some terrific visuals. Sadly, maybe because of the shoestring budget, it never completely gels together.

BTW, Boorman originally wrote the role of Zed for Burt Reynolds but his career had taken off after the success of Deliverance and he wasn't available.Connery on the other hand was having a tough time finding post-Bond work.

[ChandlerBing]

Actually, Burt ended up in the hospital with appendicitis and was not available for that reason.

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by Triton
It certainly is a very strange film. Funny how the dystopia theme was quite fashionable in science fiction films during the early 1970s.  About the time that Zardoz was released, we got Gene Roddenberry's pilots for Planet Earth and Genesis II on television, which introduced a character named Dylan Hunt,  and in the cinema there were films like Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth), Silent Running, and Soylent Green. I guess that in the early 1970s some people expected that society and its institutions would collapse and future generations would live in a future where buildings and technology were decaying and knowledge was lost.
Film producers and studio big wigs probably liked the theme because science fiction films could be made cheaply using existing costumes and sets with several layers of dirt and grime.
It's interesting to think that Sean Connery passed on doing Live and Let Die to make this film.
Could you imagine what John Boorman's pitch was to Sean Connery to get him to play Zed. You will have long hair and a beard and run around in a red loin cloth with bandoliero weapon slings across your chest running around killing people with a revolver.
Talk about shattering the James Bond image.

Wow, someone on this board remembers Genesis II and Planet Earth, two of my guilty old pleasures!! All right, Triton!

Loved your whole post on 70s SF films. In the 80s when SF films became hot again it became a cliche among SF film fans to say that the 70s had been a dry spell, but there was more in that decade than people realized. You named a few. Of course there was also a lot of drek. But I loved Silent Running, Soylent Green, all the Planet of the Apes films (even the awful sequels), Gene Roddenberry's TV films The Questor Tapes and Spectre (horror, not SF). SF films in the 70s also tended to be message movies, unlike the ones in the 80s. Hence the dystopia themes.

[Turn]

Originally posted by Jaelle
In the 80s when SF films became hot again it became a cliche among SF film fans to say that the 70s had been a dry spell, but there was more in that decade than people realized.  You named a few.  Of course there was also a lot of drek.  But I loved Silent Running, Soylent Green, all the Planet of the Apes films (even the awful sequels), Gene Roddenberry's TV films The Questor Tapes and Spectre (horror, not SF).  SF films in the 70s also tended to be message movies, unlike the ones in the 80s.  Hence the dystopia themes.

I agree. It is a huge understatment to say sci-fi suffered in the '70s. Some of my fondest movie memories growing up came from those films. I think the lines get blurred because people think of the big-budget sci-fi films that came in the wake of Star Wars.

But I'd rather watch Zardoz, Westworld, a Planet of the Apes sequel or Logan's Run than some cheesy '80s thing like Spacehunter, Brainstorm, Battle Beyond the Stars or some of the other big-budget sci-fi clunkers that were part of that time.

[Triton]

Also don't forget some of my other favorites: Westworld (1973), Futureworld (1976) with Blythe Danner, the mother of Gwenyth Paltrow for you out there who don't know, and Logan's Run (1976).

Oh, and I forgot The Andromeda Strain (1971).

What dry spell? It seems that certain themes and ideas become fashionable during a particular decade, and the films reflect this fashion.

Ideas change, and then people begin to forget about the films.

[Jaelle]

Oh! You guys reminded me of Logan's Run (I still have the original poster to that film, I was such a huge fan), Westworld, Futureworld and the fantastic Andromeda Strain! I wish they'd come out with decent dvd editions of these films.

[PrinceKamalKhan]

There is a good DVD edition of Logan's Run. It has a feature-length audio commentary with Michael York, the director, and costume designer as well as some other standard inclusions for DVDs of older films, i.e. the original trailer and a "making of" featurette.

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by PrinceKamalKhan
There is a good DVD edition of Logan's Run. It has a feature-length audio commentary with Michael York, the director, and costume designer as well as some other standard inclusions for DVDs of older films, i.e. the original trailer and a "making of" featurette.

There is? Boy, I've been out of the loop! Thanks, that's the next thing on my shopping list!

[ChandlerBing]

TCM recently ran a widescreen, uncut copy of The Andromeda Strain, which incidentally was directed by Robert Wise. I recently saw the first Planet of the Apes sequel for the first time and was totally thrown off guard by the idiot ending--or brave, depending on your perspective. Oh, well, it had be better than the Marky Mark remake.

[Triton]

Originally posted by ChandlerBing
I recently saw the first Planet of the Apes sequel for the first time and was totally thrown off guard by the idiot ending--or brave, depending on your perspective. Oh, well, it had be better than the Marky Mark remake.

Well Dr. Zaius did warn Taylor about going through the Forbidden Zone!

I guess I would have to say that it's a draw between Tim Burton's remake, or re-imagining, of Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is almost surreal in its strangeness. In the remake, it appears that Rick Baker has perfected his ape make up.

I was looking at IMDb and realized that Paul Dehn, who co-wrote Goldfinger with Richard Maibaum, also has screenplay credit for Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Wow, I did not know that.