Watched the Captain EO Tribute: Presented in 3-D today at Disneyland. Even when I saw in in the late-ish 80s (’86? ’87?) it was slapdash, disjointed, nonsensical, and dorky on at least three different levels. Weak-ass songs, shoddy choreography mimicking more inspired videos by MJ, here performed by people in pajamas. Theater was only 1/3 full, but even at the Kremlin there were slow days of visiting the waxen corpse in Lenin’s Tomb.

But, hoo-boy.

George Lucas directed, Francis Ford Coppola produced (or was it the other way around?) and the signs were all there that the Star Wars prequels were going to suck 13 years ahead of time. Incoherent script. Things like “Hey, here’s X, doing that thing X does all the time.” [X does that thing]. Everyone: “Oh, X…”

Accountants cackling at the thoughts of how much merchandise with X people will have to buy because it’s 3-D! Michael Jackson! George Lucas! That guy who did The Godfather! We put some outerspace stuff in there with peew-peew-peew laser beams ‘n’ shit! And it’s got elements of Aliens and Tron but with mediocre-Broadway musical design, airbrush makeup, & songs! Something for everyone! And Michael Jackson can shoot blue and orange bolts easier than making a fart, just by feeling!

Mercifully, some people in the audience laughed when the Borg-ish bad guys were converted by the power of Michael Jackson b-sides to become highly-moussed pop-lock dancers. Many (me fo’ sho’) recalled when pop-lock/break dancers were dropped into entertainments, and it was exciting – because OMFG some spinning on the ground and walking like robots was ABOUT TO GET DONE! Remember that guy at the end of Footloose? Many of us were parsing his moves and imitating him in school hallways back in the day. Then talked defensively about how we were so much better.

Then the movie was over, some applauded. Not presumably because the movie was any good, maybe out of politeness, as if a member of the Jackson family was in the theater. I didn’t applaud. It was around Captain EO and Bad that Michael Jackson lost his way. Mimicking the heat and energy that once moved him, enough to fool many he was still digging it, though his flame was dimming.

I’d rather have spent the whole 10 minutes or whatever looking at Anjelica Huston in that electric blue dress billowing in the dawn. Pleasing, camp, stirring all at once. A vision all too brief. Alas.