1982: Greatest Geek Year Ever!

E-F-P.

That is incorrect.

The correct spelling of "nuisance" is N-U...

soon to compete are some very dazzling science fiction films.

If you, like millions of Trekkies, across the galaxy,

then you're waiting for "Star Trek II," the movie.

"Blade Runner" is a detective thriller

set in a very crowded Los Angeles in the year 2019.

In a bold move to get the kids out of video arcades

and back into the theaters,

Disney Studios is offering "Tron."

The Columbia is back after spending seven days in space.

The movie has plenty of ice, blood.

And things that go bump in the night.

We'll also be reviewing two eagerly awaited films

from producer Steven Spielberg.

Americans popped in

between $5 and $9 billion worth of quarters.

"E.T." is heavy in visual effects.

It's set for release on June 4th.

I can't think of a year during my life

that the lineup was equivalent as far as depth of storytelling,

epicness, significant storytelling.

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe.

They liked to think back in the '80s.

All those... moments will be lost... in time.

There's still a little hangover from the '70s,

And the '70s was, I think, a golden age.

That was a time that just blew everything up,

and so we were kind of reaping the rewards.

Coming out of the '70s, there was more of a sense

of character, the antihero and the everyman.

Then all of a sudden we're going to take that language

and put it into genre.

In the '70s, you had "Jaws."

Biggest summer blockbuster ever.

Why, you son of a...

Followed up two years later by "Star Wars,"

which changed the world.

That was, I think, where so many of us got hooked on movies,

when Spielberg and Lucas changed everything.

After 1977, it was game over.

"Star Wars"... It is more

than just a successful movie.

It is a box office phenomenon.

The film is breaking attendance records all over the country.

Not since "Jaws" have so many people

stood in line to see a movie.

"Star Wars" was a gateway. We were hooked on sci-fi.

That's what we talked about when we went to school.

Box office was very much dominated

by high concept ideas.

Then in the wake of "Star Wars," you had "Superman," the movie.

You had "Alien." You had other indie films

like "Dawn of the Dead" and "Phantasm, "Halloween,"

and all of the studios are trying to figure out

how can we duplicate both the indie success

and the studio success of these one-off movies?

We were doing very well in the '60s and '70s.

But when "Star Wars" came out,

I thought, the major studios

have figured out what we've been doing

on a low budget, and they're taking these ideas,

and we are going to be in trouble.

'Cause they saw that stories of the fantastic

had a really wide appeal

and not just for a teenage audience.

So they started making studio-level genre films.

People were starting to feel

they could do something interesting

in a blockbuster template.

The idea that you could make movies as varied

as "Poltergeist," "E.T.," and Blade Runner,

it's kind of a maturing of the summer blockbuster...

It's too bad she won't live.

But then again, who does?

A lot of which is science fiction.

People want to see science fiction,

and so we gotta give that to them, and I think '82 is

the year mass market science fiction blockbusters...

That's the year their voice broke, if you will.

You could certainly argue there were better years

for cinema than 1982,

but there's no greater geek year than 1982.

There are a lot of great years for movies.

You could look at 1939 with "Wizard of Oz"

and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

So many people look at 1977 as the greatest geek year ever.

But really, when it comes down to it,

1982 is the greatest year ever for movies, period.

Week after week, you have one classic movie after another

that holds up 40 years later.

The reason 1982 was such a unique year,

it was a turning point in a lot of ways.

It was this great moment where, for whatever reason,

nerds accidentally won.

It was just a great time to be a kid growing up.

I think our imaginations were running wild.

We loved these adventures.

They were all pretty hopeful, too.

You know, the feeling of the films was something optimistic.

As your teacher, Mr. Spock, is fond of saying,

I like to think that there always are possibilities.

They weren't cynical. Somehow that really affect us.

There's a feeling to those movies...

Aloha, Spicoli.

a sense of wonder that is just in all of them,

and that's something that to this day I chase

and try to capture,

'cause you really wanna pass it on to people.

So, when you're a kid, kid experiences,

it's about people, scenery, books, movies...

That's what imprints on you.

The works of art, for example, that you fall in love with,

that are most lasting.

You see "Star Trek" at age 12.

You know, if it's any good, it's going to be major.

Or maybe even if it's not any good,

it's gonna be major.

That's when you're really consuming

art, movies, and music

that shape and mold you to who you become later on as an adult.

You can't separate people my age from the movies

of the early '80s because they're so part

of who we were growing up.

We were free-range kids.

We got to go out. Our parents were like, "Hey, man,

come home when the sun goes down. Be home for dinner."

My parents didn't know what I did.

They just knew you had gone off for the day,

and you'd be home for dinner, maybe.

Ride our bike somewhere.

Nobody cared. We had our secret lives.

Even if "E.T." wasn't about an alien,

kids today would think it was a science fiction movie

because the kids leave in the morning on bicycles.

Their parents don't know where they are.

They show back up at dinner.

Parents don't ask where they were.

They're not calling 'em on cellphones.

That was the life we had.

I'm a proud geek, was one before it became fashionable.

Yeah, which I'm a little bitter about...

because I feel like I had to choose

between cultivating being attractive

or reading comic books.

Look, an authentic voodoo doll.

And now you can technically do both,

and that's a little frustrating.

Everything felt awesome,

and the movies really reflected that.

When you get to '82, we're coming out of Watergate,

we're coming out of Vietnam era. Everyone's having a good time.

Yeah. Britain went to war with Argentina

over the Falkland Islands,

but it wasn't any kind of huge wars.

It coincided with a time in America

where everything seemed possible.

Reagan was in power. People were more optimistic,

The economy was better, and the movies sort of reflect

a sunnier, more fairy tale time.

Who would have ever thought that Ronald Reagan,

the former movie star,

that he would be the President of the United States?

- Bonzo! - Mr. Boyd!

Bonzo, that wasn't a nice thing to do.

The oldest President of the United States at the time.

You don't really become president.

The presidency is an institution,

and you have temporary custody of it.

That was all part of it.

It was all part of the fantasy landscape that we lived in.

It was morning in America. I wasn't politically aware.

I didn't know about

Ronald Reagan's sort of politics.

I mean, I didn't know that I didn't agree with the politics.

You just felt good to be American.

The groundwork has been laid,

and now we will move forward to capitalize

on the tremendous potential

offered by the ultimate frontier of space.

The '80s became about Reaganomics and making money.

People were feeling good, so they wanted to play.

But I feel like it was more of a social-physical interaction

with the entertainment that we had back then.

When I think of 1982, I think of the arcade

as being the clubhouse of the teenage people.

The joke is that teenagers have to find

their own place because they're not civil yet.

That's why I loved being a young teenager in 1982,

because part of going to the movies is you had

to go to the movies to see the movie.

We didn't have the internet at our fingertips.

We didn't have the opportunity to have everything on demand.

You couldn't press a button and suddenly

have these things appear. You had to work for it.

You had to take a chance. Sometimes you'd ask the guy

who sold you the ticket, "What's good?"

Our idea of social media was standing on line

waiting three hours to get into a film