The Vine: June 20, 2008
This is seriously hampering my productivity at work.
The Cartoon Network used to show anime movies on Saturday morning (not sure if they still do this, since I don’t watch cartoons on Saturday mornings anymore), and I caught one once, about this girl (there might have been a love-interest boy involved near the end) living in a futuristic industrialized society that had completely polluted the planet they lived on, so that she lived in a city under a dome, and hi jinx ensue and the world basically explodes, or implodes, but either way the spirits (?) or whatever leave that planet and travel to another planet where there are Cro-Magnons pfaffing about — it’s implied that this is earth and that this is how we evolved into what humans are now…it sounds like cult propaganda the more I read this, but either way, I remember it being very preachy about the environment, and I’ve scoured Netflix and have yet to find anything like it (I thought it might have been Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but there aren’t any big gross insects that I remember).
If you or your readers have any info on this, I would be so grateful, because I’ve become obsessed with tracking this movie down.
Thanks either way,
Kristina
Dear Kristina,
I would remember pfaffing Cro-Magnons had I ever seen or heard about this movie, but I have not.Readers?
Hi Sars!
My husband is making me watch The Great Escape for what feels like the 14-billionth time.There’s a scene after all the non-redshirts escape that takes place on a train.In one of the seats is a Hitler Youth and I swear it’s Richard Gere.However, IMDB is giving me no love, since his IMDB listing only goes to 1973.This further confuses me, because I could swear that Richard Gere is also in M*A*S*H, in a very brief scene in which he has no lines.
The internet, which has settled MANY a bet of this type for me, is coming up empty on both counts.Perhaps the readers know the identity of the Hitler Youth kid and also if Richard Gere was in M*A*S*H?
Signed,
I’m Sure There Are Better Ways To Fill The Empty Spaces In My Head
Dear At Least You Don’t Know Trivia About Double Trouble,
The IMDb does say in the “trivia” tab for The Great Escape that they filmed on location in Europe, which I think means they would have used European extras/non-speaking roles.It’s not impossible, but his birth year is 1949, so it depends on if the kid looks really young, or more like a teenager, or what.If he seems to be in his early teens, I guess it’s not impossible, but I feel like Gere himself would have said something about it, and about M*A*S*H.
The IMDb entry for M*A*S*H also has a long list of uncredited players (mostly football players from the Trapper/ringer sequence); Gere isn’t on it.He doesn’t show up in the movie’s IMDb trivia listing, either, and on balance it seems like, in the age we live in, if he’d had anything to do with either of these movies, it wouldn’t still be secret.
Any reader wisdom to the contrary is of course welcome.
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
The ohmu are big, but they aren’t GROSS. They are AWESOME. (At least, they are in the book; I haven’t seen the film.)
Richard Gere WAS supposedly on M*A*S*H, according to this site:
http://tiny.cc/x6FcH
but no mention of him in The Great Escape.
My understaning is that Richard Gere had an uncredited bit part in M*A*S*H the t.v. series, but not in the Robert Altman movie.
You’re right, it does SOUND like Nausicaa (which is very preachy, in an Al Gore sort of way, but since it’s Miyazaki I forgive it a lot). But, the spirits going to another planet part (as well as the Cro-Magnons) are problematic.
The IMDb descriptions for Nausicaa reads “In the far future, a thousand years after a nuclear war left the Earth as a nuclear holocaust. The Valley of the Wind, a small kingdom ruled by King Jil struggles for survival as the community tries to defend the Valley from gigantic Ohm creatures and toxic plants that live beyond the Valley in the Sea of Decay, whilst Jil’s daughter and heiress to the throne, Princess Nausicaa tries to understand and feels it is wrong to destroy the toxic jungle. The Valley is attacked by the Tolmekian people who plan to destroy the Sea of Decay by using the greatest warriors that started the holocaust. After Nausicaa is taken prisoner, Nausicca escapes and goes beneath the Sea of Decay where she discovers the toxic plants are not poisoning the air and are purifying the world by draining the air of radiation and toxins. With everything at stake, Nausicaa unites with the Ohms and set out to the Valley and foil the Tolmekians plan of unleashing the Great Warrior which will start another holocaust. ”
And that’s just different enough for me to think it isn’t Nausicaa. The girl doesn’t travel about on a hang-glider, though, does she? Cause if so, it’s gotta be Nausicaa:
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/pix/n/nausicaa_p.jpg
It’s definitely not Nausicaa – most of the movie took place in this underground Bladerunner-esque world…I swear there was a guy involved too, trying to help this girl, and it was a beat-the-clock sort of thing, and then they DID beat the clock, but the whole point in the end was for everyone to die and end up on Earth….and there might have been allusions (heavy handed or no) to the whole Platonic idea of the Philosopher Kings…
It’s seriously driving me crazy.
The anime you describe is called “Please Save My Earth”.
With the powers of google! It sounds like the movie might be Metropolis though not all the details match.
The following is a list of shows that were on anime on cartoon network. You could try some of the titles and youtube to see which show it might be.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/company.php?id=704
Was there a garden, and the boy breaks into the garden and that’s where he meets the girl? I’m pretty sure I saw that on the SciFi channel many years ago… Great. Now it’s going to drive me crazy too.
Kristina: Was it a series or self-contained movie? Your description reminds me of Blue Gender:
http://www.absoluteanime.com/blue_gender/index.htm
Found it!
E.Y.E.S. of Mars
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I think Kristina might be looking for the Final Fantasy spin-off movie. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within came out in 2001 according to IMDB. A lot of the elements are there:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173840/plotsummary
Not that I remember pfaffing Cro-Magnons….
Re: Anime that’s driving you crazy.
Maybe it’s Final Fantasy The Spirit Within?
The description is kind of reminding me of Ergo Proxy, though that’s a tv series and not a movie, and I don’t think it ever aired on CN. So, uh, not very helpful.
Some poking around came up with “Twilight of the Dark Master” – does that sound familiar?
And what did the show look like? Older, like 80s-style stuff, or some of the newer slick-looking animation?
It sounds a tiny bit like the Ergo Proxy, what with the polluted world living-in-domes bit, but I don’t really think that’s it. It’s a series, not a movie, for one, and as far as I recall it’s not especially preachy about the environment. Much more of a “Our characters’ extraordinarily frakked-up issues, let us show you them” kind of show.
Nausicaa sounds pretty awesome; all I knew before was that it is Miyazaki.
OT – a link for Sars: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10758289
darkBlue: I think the E.Y.E.S. have it!
@Donna: Hee.
It’s definitely E.Y.E.S. of Mars! Wow! Apparently it’s horrible. Darn it. Even though, according to the Amazon review, it sounds a lot like Atwood’s “The Blind Assasin,” or at least the sci-fi part of that. And I guess it wasn’t the Cartoon Network that aired those anime movies. I’m going to watch that Final Fantasy one too, though. Thanks!
Most of the actual M*A*S*H fan sites say Gere never appeared on the series and that this is a myth that just won’t die.
All of the sites I looked at that DO say Gere was on an episode conveniently fail to cite WHICH episode. Which definitely suggests to me it’s not true.
I’ve seen “The Great Escape” about 99,948 times. Never spotted Gere in it, so I’m guessing that wasn’t him either.
This Richard Gere thing is kind of like how Renee Zellweger told James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio that the first time she sang onscreen was in Chicago. Um, hello, we all saw your big rock number in Empire Records, sweetheart. (Okay, so maybe not the exact same thing.)
Aw, I love Empire Records!
For the record, I am most interested in M*A*S*H* the movie – there’s the scene when Hawkeye and Trapper John are in Japan and are about to be brought into the general’s office (or whomever) and the guy I think is Richard Gere is one of the MPs. He’s chewing gum (?).
I could get so much more useful information in my head if all the space wasn’t taken up with this sort of thing.