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Featured CED VideoDisc No. 16 - Spring 2000

Megaforce

This is my favorite "bad" movie on CED, falling into the "so bad, it's good" category. Looking over the comments in the Internet Movie Database, it appears that some people agree with me, while others consider Megaforce to be just plain bad.

The IMDb has a Bottom 100 listing for the worst 100 movies of all time, and as of April 2000, Megaforce just barely makes the list at #98. It's telling that only three CED titles are in the Bottom 100, the other two being Yor, the Hunter from the Future and The Lonely Lady. By comparison, the Top 100 (part of the Top 250 listing) still contains 49 CED titles nearly fourteen years after the last CED's were pressed. RCA did a good job of securing film rights, and the quality of CED title material was often a factor in choosing it over LaserDisc back in the early 1980's. I remember a posting on Usenet a number of years ago where the author stated he immediately choose CED over LaserDisc upon walking into a store to purchase a VideoDisc system. He said the choice was simple because the featured new release on CED was Citizen Kane while on LaserDisc it was Coast to Coast.

The plot of this CED revolves around Megaforce- "A phantom army of super elite fighting men whose weapons are the most powerful science can devise." Megaforce is led by the aptly named Ace Hunter, played by Barry Bostwick (currently on Spin City). In many respects this is the quintessential action flick circa 1982 (RCA released their first stereo players about the time this came out), as Ace sports the "Eighties Afro" popular at the time and the Megaforce team are attired in skin-tight uniforms reminiscent of ABBA in the early 80's. If you can't stand watching the whole movie, at least check out a couple of the cheesiest scenes. My favorites are the "sensual" skydiving scene 32:56 into Side 1 of the disc, and the flying motorcycle scene 32:05 into Side 2. This begins right after Ace says "Oh listen, I just wanted to say goodbye and remind you that the good guys always win, even in the eighties"; one of the more memorable quotes from the movie.

A couple of stars from past Featured CED's also appear in Megaforce. Michael Beck was the gang leader in The Warriors, and the late Persis Khambatta played the bald navigator in Star Trek: TMP.

Megaforce was an early example of the Introvision film process where live actors are integrated with miniatures using a front projection technique. Introvision was used much more effectively for the train wreck scene in the remake of The Fugitive, and it has since been supplanted by CGI.

The reminder of this CED feature contains two tables that show the IMDb Top and Bottom 100 movies as of April 2000. The titles of movies available on CED have their rank numbers in bold. Titles that could not exist on CED, based on their release date, have their rank numbers in red.

• Megaforce in the Internet Movie Database

• Megaforce Extended Review at the Jabootu Site

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• Main Featured CED's Page

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