My love of all things Sleestak got a mild boost today when USA Today published this shot from the upcoming Land of the Lost movie. Now I've been wary of this film since it was announced, and I've still got massive reservations about it. The article that accompanied the shot did little to ease the discomfort. As expected, the film's going to be played for laughs, and since it stars none other than WF, it was always likely that was the way it was going to go. Unlike most of the other Sid & Marty Krofft shows, there's nothing intrinsically funny about the concept. It was often well written sci-fi given its targeted Saturday morning kid audience, and the David Gerrold-helmed first season in particular is worth trying to take seriously if you can get past the often hokey acting and cheesey effects. (I've often said that my interest in the show at age five paved the way to Doctor Who when I became a teenager.) Interestingly, by the third season, both Wesley Eure (Will) and Kathy Coleman (Holly) had matured into pretty good actors...but unfortunately by that time the show's scripts had also devolved into utter nonsense. In a perfect universe, Land of the Lost would be reimagined as a serious sci-fi TV series with good actors and big budget effects. If Battlestar Galactica can get a new lease on life, then with the right visionary at the helm, anything's possible.Yet in all fairness to a film that I've yet to see, some of director Brad Silberling's words give me a vague hope that the finished movie might at least be something that Land of the Lost fans can laugh along with, rather than feeling as though the concept is being laughed at. One thing's for sure - those Sleestak look incredible!
Don't forget to check out the previous Morgue entry, Sleestak: An Appreciation, if you missed it when it was published last year.
