1982

"It's all downhill after this, you know.  The '90s are going to SUCK."

I just stumbled across a random article about the poor initial reception that John Carpenter's The Thing received before its eventual critical reappraisal.  The most shocking fact in the article is that The Thing, E.T., Blade Runner, The Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, The Secret of NIMH, and Tron all came out around the same time.  The Thing didn't make much money because it was competing against goddamn E.T. and the Wrath of Freaking Khan?  Yeah, that's some stiff competition.

And of course, this was the year between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and all of that.  Holy fuck, the early eighties are a gold mine.  THE gold mine.  I'm pissed off that i was so young back then and couldn't appreciate a bit of it, especially since my family never went to the movies.  I wonder if kids today will look back in 25 years and marvel that a single year could contain the infinite glory of Thor II, The Man of Steel, Hobbit II, and Iron Man III?  See, we kind of scoff at that, but we absolutely cannot put ourselves into the mindset of of an 8-year old kid and how their movies are affecting them.  Their imaginations could be profoundly influenced by what we geezers view as simple blockbusters, which are enjoyable but forgettable, and certainly NOT on the same level as the eternal masterwork that is Tron.

Chronorin on DeviantArt.
Behance Gallery. 
Twitter. 
Pinterest. 
Quora. 
LinkedIn. 
CGTalk. 
Tumblr.