Doctor Strange
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,253
- Location
- Hudson Valley, NY
I think Jason is just as good as I remember... but allowances have to be made for its low budget and (primarily) sixties 10-year-old boy's adventure flick approach.
The hardest thing for younger folks (that is, people who weren't already out of college like me in 1977 when Star Wars changed the filmic landscape) to realize is that before that, with very rare exceptions, nearly all fantasy, science fiction, and comics derived films were LOW BUDGET JUNK. I know that for anybody under 40, this seems downright incredible, having grown up in an entertainment industry where fantasy/SF/comics properties always = hugely budgeted megafilms.
Anyway, Harryhausen's work largely overcame the low budgets and kiddie-film conventions of the films featuring his creations. They nearly always stood out from the vast array of schlock that constituted the fantasy/SF/comics ghetto. And one more thing, particular to Jason: it remains the smartest film ever made from Greek mythology. Harryhausen's later Clash of the Titans may have had a vastly larger budget and A-list movie stars... but it's actually a far more juvenile film than Jason. For example, the writing for Zeus and the Olympians is so much more mature and clever in Jason than Clash.
Anyway, along with arguably Harryhausen's greatest work and Bernard Herrmann's music, Jason benefits enormously from Beverly Cross's suprisingly literate script, which balances its juvenile adventure flick aspect with a smart meditation on the coming obsolence of the gods. If only today's films of that ilk (the Clash remake, Wrath of the Titans, Immortals, etc.) would put as much effort into their stories as their production design and effects, we might have a new winner. But for now, I'll stick with the old Jason!
The hardest thing for younger folks (that is, people who weren't already out of college like me in 1977 when Star Wars changed the filmic landscape) to realize is that before that, with very rare exceptions, nearly all fantasy, science fiction, and comics derived films were LOW BUDGET JUNK. I know that for anybody under 40, this seems downright incredible, having grown up in an entertainment industry where fantasy/SF/comics properties always = hugely budgeted megafilms.
Anyway, Harryhausen's work largely overcame the low budgets and kiddie-film conventions of the films featuring his creations. They nearly always stood out from the vast array of schlock that constituted the fantasy/SF/comics ghetto. And one more thing, particular to Jason: it remains the smartest film ever made from Greek mythology. Harryhausen's later Clash of the Titans may have had a vastly larger budget and A-list movie stars... but it's actually a far more juvenile film than Jason. For example, the writing for Zeus and the Olympians is so much more mature and clever in Jason than Clash.
Anyway, along with arguably Harryhausen's greatest work and Bernard Herrmann's music, Jason benefits enormously from Beverly Cross's suprisingly literate script, which balances its juvenile adventure flick aspect with a smart meditation on the coming obsolence of the gods. If only today's films of that ilk (the Clash remake, Wrath of the Titans, Immortals, etc.) would put as much effort into their stories as their production design and effects, we might have a new winner. But for now, I'll stick with the old Jason!
