You’ll hear a lot of talk over the next few days about Michael Jackson’s contributions to music, his problems as a human being. What you probably won’t hear a lot of people talking about is his place in Science Fiction.
But in 1986 Captain EO debuted at the then still new Epcot Center at Disney World. It was, for its time, a groundbreaking adventure film in breathtaking 3D. The kind of 3D you could only get at a theme par back then, the kind of 3D that’s now almost commonplace in movie theaters. It starred Michael Jackson as a daring space Captain who in the end, defeats an evil Supreme leader played by Anjelica Huston, by singing.
Maybe it wasn’t the greatest of sci-fi conceits but the 3D sold it and the Captain EO adventure played iat Disney for more than a decade until it was removed in 1998. Now it lives on only in YouTube. Watch:
And for me, a flaming science fiction geek, that’s how I’ll remember the King of Pop. Every time I hear Billie Jean I’ll think of that time back in 1992 when I walked out of Captain EO and remarked: “That would have been a lot better without all the singing.
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