One Movie Survives
There’s a version of this question for everything: If you were stuck on a deserted island, what movie would you want with you? Or another, more extreme version of the question: If you had to choose one movie to keep, and destroy all others in the universe, which movie would you keep as The Only Surviving Movie for all time? There’s usually an unspoken follow-up question: and why do you choose that movie?
This question popped into my head recently, along with an immediate answer. I can think of one movie I would be okay with as my only movie to watch, ever. The rest of Hollywood can disappear, but this one movie can stay. But then another movie popped into my head, and another. I have good reasons for all of them. So of course, I cheated with my answer.
Return of the Jedi
This is definitely not the popular vote for people’s favourite Star Wars movie, and it’s certainly not the best Star Wars movie. I fully admit that — but it is well-crafted, and delivers on the promise of being a fun science fiction/space opera film. It also has what I consider to be THE BEST space battle of all the Star Wars movies — perhaps even of all films that come to mind. The closest a Star Wars film has come, at least, is the opening rescue of Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. But you’re not going to convince me that the full fleet-on-fleet battle over Endor can be topped.
Growing up this was probably my favourite Star Wars movie too. Not only did it have all the cool action, but it looked good visually — I could tell A New Hope was an old movie, and Empire Strikes Back was better, but still looked dated. Plus, if I remember right, I probably only really loved the AT-ATs on Hoth.
The final battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader was great to watch, but I think the lightsaber duel in ROTJ is much better. It’s punctuated well with the ground battle on Endor and the space battle going on outside the Death Star. Oh, and about that Death Star? It looks cool, even though it’s got a quarter left to go. Let’s not worry about why the Empire thought it was a good idea to build another one.
But then, I think about another movie.
Back to the Future
This is a movie I watch almost every year on Christmas Eve. I know I can’t be the only person with a “Christmas” movie — a movie that they watch every year. I’ve heard of at least one person who chooses The Wrath of Khan, and another The Undiscovered Country.
Fine choices, but they’re a little too cerebral for Christmas Eve. For a few misguided years in the mid-to-late 2000’s I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin but I eventually came to my senses and returned to BTTF.
It’s a near-perfect movie. It has comedy, drama, and action — more comedy than any of those Star Wars movies. It has time travel! Well-defined time travel (until it gets muddied in parts II and III, at least), with hard and fast rules.
We get to see a teenager see what his parents were really like when they were teenagers — surely, they didn’t have to deal with the same problems you do. It’s different now. Except it’s not! The teenagers act pretty much the same in the 50s as they did in the 80s, just with different fashion styles and pop culture touchpoints.
It gets even better when you realize 30 years is NOT that long a time difference. It only seems that way when you’re a kid. For instance — forgive me while I bring up Star Wars again — when the Star Wars Special Editions came out in 1997, it had only been 20 years since the release of the original Star Wars. To me, it really felt like 1977 was ages ago. I also can’t help bringing up all of the movies in the 90s based on TV shows from the 60s — hey, that’s a 30-year difference too…
At the end of the day, if I’m willing to watch this movie every year at Christmas, despite knowing all of the ins and outs of the movie (including all the easter eggs and trivia notes — trust me, I’ve read about all of them) — then surely, I could watch this movie and this movie alone for the rest of time.
But then…
The Great Muppet Caper
This generally unheralded Muppet movie from 1981 is one of my favourite comedies, ever. That’s no exaggeration. This movie is tonally different than the other two I mentioned, with only two things possibly linking them together: all three films are from the 80s, and they contain some sort of action sequence. Calling the action sequence in TGMC might be a bit of a stretch, but I’ll count it.
One of the great things that this movie does is have the human actors play everything straight against the Muppets. At the beginning of the film, Kermit and Fozzie introduce themselves as brothers to a newspaper editor, and it’s totally accepted.
Miss Piggy tries to become a model, and eventually, Charles Grodin falls in love with her. It’s interactions like these that make you forget you’re watching a bunch of strange puppets parade around the screen (which, I guess, is also what makes Yoda work so well in ESB/ROTJ).
I can hear almost every musical number in my head, with the opening “Hey a Movie!” being the one that is the clearest. It has what is probably my favourite joke and one I try to re-use in as many places appropriately as possible: “Boy if that’s the Happiness Hotel I’d hate to see what the sad one looks like.” A close second might be “Is that a bear?” “No, that’s a frog. Bears wear hats.” But that doesn’t come up very often.
To top it off the film is filled with all sorts of cameos: Peter Ustinov, John Cleese, and even Oscar the Grouch! There are probably others, but being 1981, I probably do not recognize many of them. Just one more cameo: did you know Columbo is in this movie?
Coming into writing this piece I was expecting to remain undecided between the three films, but I think I’ve argued my way into selecting The Great Muppet Caper.
So, what is your choice? What movie do you keep while sacrificing all others?
