Book Review: The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982 by Chris Nashawaty

The Future Was Now takes a nostalgic look back at eight-week period over the summer of 1982 when eight classic Sci-Fi and fantasy films were released: Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, E.T. the Extraterrestrial., The Thing, Blade Runner, and Tron. Author Chris Nashawaty argues all these films marked high points for the genre and remain influential, charting a course ahead for the future of popular cinema.

Science Fiction movies of the 1970s rarely broke through to become blockbusters, at best they could hope to become a cult film and find a small, but passionate, audience. A counterculture sensibility defined the genre whether it was head trips, dystopias, or midnight movie staples like Eraserhead. The year 1977 was a gamechanger when George Lucas's Star Wars and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind proved Sci-Fi movies carried a wider appeal. 

Every studio tried to duplicate the success of Star Wars. In 1979, 20th Century Fox scored another Sci-Fi hit with Alien, while Paramount rebooted the '60s TV series Star Trek. Disney even got in the game with The Black Hole. But it was in 1982 when Sci-Fi films would explode into the mainstream. 

The year marked a big one for Spielberg. While Jaws and Close Encounters were blockbusters, they also went way overbudget. His follow up, the wartime comedy 1941, also went deep into the red but flopped with audiences. To recoup his reputation, he teamed up with friend and sometime rival George Lucas on Raiders of the Lost Ark, which came in under budget and ruled the summer of 1981. For the summer of 1982, Spielberg released his most personal film to date E.T. and "produced" the suburban horror Poltergeist, enshrining his place at the top of 1980s pop culture.

While Spielberg's brand of fantasy was mostly family friendly, other visions explored darker themes. Conan the Barbarian, the 1930s sword and sorcery warrior created by Robert Howard, finally made it to the big screen. With a fever dream script by Oliver Stone and the muscular direction of John Milius, the film made Arnold Schwarzenegger into a household name. Its celebration of Nietzschean violence proved a perfect vehicle for the Austrian.

Australian filmmaker George Miller's follow up to Mad Max entitled The Road Warrior was both visceral and dystopian with its outlandish car chases.  Ridley Scott's Blade Runner proved another dark vision of a bleak futuristic Los Angeles with renegade "replicates" causing havoc. But the darkest of all was John Carpenter's The Thing, an update of the 1950s classic, assaulting audiences with gore and paranoia.

On the lighter side, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan finally lived up to the promise of the TV series, offering fans a great adventure with a compelling villain. Disney's cyberpunk Tron offered a unique vision with its innovative use of digital effects. 

Nashawaty crafts an engaging narrative centered around the making of these films. While all these all have been written about at length in other books, crafting them all into a singular narrative sheds light on the personalities and the state of Hollywood at the time. Studios were willing to take chances on bold new material, partly based on the trust they developed with directors. The days of Francis Ford Coppola or Michael Cimino going off into expensive and ego driven productions were over.

Yet a little bit of madness went into all these films. Scott drove his cast and crew on Blade Runner so hard they almost revolted. Many accidents occurred on the Road Warrior set; Miller used his skills as a doctor to treat injuries. Milius also put his star through the ringer, Schwarzenegger took hard falls and was attacked by actual wolves at one point. Carpenter forced his cast and crew to work under extreme cold on The Thing to set the right mood. When The Twilight Zone tragedy occurred later in the year when a helicopter mishap killed three actors, it finally forced a reckoning through the industry about safety on the set.

Technological innovation was also changing how movies were consumed. The home video revolution was in its opening stages, giving movies a life beyond their initial theatrical runs. It was on VHS rentals where The Thing and Blade Runner found their audiences. Premium Cable channels like HBO were providing an alternative to the theatrical experience. As for moviegoing itself, the ritual was becoming further intertwined with consumerism with the rise of the multiplex. 

The Future Was Now juxtaposes the original visions of 1982 to today when everything is tied to a franchise or IP. Without a famous director attached like Christopher Nolan, it's difficult for original films to get made. As has been the case through much of film history, money takes precedence over art, most of the time anyway.

The persistence of '80s nostalgia rolls on. Nashawaty keeps the narrative flowing along well, at its best when capturing these creators at the peak of their powers striving for bold visions. The 2023 documentary 1982: Greatest Geek Year Ever that aired on The CW also covered some of the same ground, but also looked at the entire year, serving as a companion piece to The Future Was Now. Yet every summer of the 1980s offered something special in terms of movies, enough for more volumes to be written.