Captain EO

1986 / Director. Francis Ford Coppola. 

Michael Jackson was a master showman and he loved expanding his music into films. Thriller was his most famous and he continued the concepts with Moonwalker, Bad and Ghosts (amongst others). They were high concept, choreographed, genre-based stories and the most spectacular of them all was also the rarest... Captain EO! For 20 years the only way to see this musical sci-fi adventure was at Disneyland. It was presented in 4D with the cinema being overcome and dazzled with smoke & lasers. I was lucky enough to see it many years ago and it was a fantastic experience. All of these gargantuan music videos he made were directed by big time Hollywood directors like John Landis (Thriller) and Martin Scorsese (Bad). Captain EO was written and produced by George Lucas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. They don't get much bigger than that but when you consider their calibre, Captain EO is kind of disappointing. The film itself is a bit of fun with cute (annoying) fuzzball puppets and Star Wars style FX. Angelica Houston's "Supreme Leader" character is actually ingenious... but with a flaccid storyline, terrible dialogue and a lacklustre dance sequence (basically the Thriller choreography recycled) the movie's appeal doesn't stretch beyond a kid's audience and die-hard MJ fans. Even the feature song is far below the Jackson standard we know and love. Having said that I would still love to see it receive a proper 3D blu-ray release with additional features and a commentary. Surely its legacy is deserving enough of that!? So anyway if you've never seen it before I have posted the full length version of it here for you to enjoy (or cringe at). 

---