Final Reflection

 

Final Reflection

       As we've discussed, movies are engrained in our society.  I grew up watching sci-fi, action, and horror movies with my family.  Films series like James Bond and Jurassic Park lined my parents bookshelves, which gave me an appreciation for some of the corny aspects of older films and the absolute dread you can feel watching a movie about your favorite dinosaurs.  My most memorable early childhood film was George Lucas's 1977 film Star Wars.  My dad was so excited to show me his VHS tape copy of the original release when the animated film and series Star Wars: The Clone Wars was releasing in theaters and on Cartoon Network in 2008.  Seeing the opening crawl was awe inspiring for my 6 year old brain and I immediately wanted to see more of the star ships and Lightsaber battles.  The original trilogy is a great example of unlikely leaders in a high stress scenario, with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo going from intergalactic nobodies to legends over the course of only four years.
       

One movie that really stood out to me was Nick Castle's 1983 film The Last Starfighter.  The sci-fi film sees Lance Guest's Alex Rogen experience the chance of a lifetime when he wins an arcade game that happens to be recruitment software for an intergalactic war.  With many similar themes to Star Wars, I was drawn to the movie soon after watching the original three Star Wars films.  Alex has many great leadership characters throughout this film, including Grig.  Seeing Grig sacrifice himself in order for Alex to save the galaxy was incredibly inspiring, and Centauri stepping into a greater leadership role was very nice to see as well.

One character whose leadership has stuck with me even through today is MacReady from John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing.  Kurt Russell plays the pilot MacReady, who gets stuck in an Antarctic research base with his crew and another mysterious guest.  The group starts experiencing weird happenings like their dogs dying and members of their crew either going missing or turning into grotesque monsters, and by the end of the film it is left up to one's interpretation over whether MacReady was able to truly kill the creature or not.  The immediacy with which MacReady is able to rally the remaining humans together to test one-another is admirable, and his intellect allows him to figure out the shapeshifting nature of the creature.

One movie I go back to fairly often is Shane Black's 2016 film The Nice Guys.  Seeing the begrudging cooperation between Ryan Gosling's Holland March and Russel Crowe's Jackson Healy turn from a hatred to an eventual friendship is very impactful and the way they bounce off each other sheds a light on how two people can lead each other.  When Holland March is going through constant hard times, Healy's rough intuition and insights push him to be better for his daughter and himself.  While it can't really be said that March had a lot to teach Healy, they both became more aware of each other's personal issues and grew as individuals because of it.