Future Project - The 4th Dimension

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Movie
German title Future Project - The 4th Dimension
Original title My Science Project
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1985
length 84 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jonathan R. Betuel
script Jonathan R. Betuel
production Jonathan T. Taplin
music Peter Bernstein
camera David M. Walsh
cut Carroll Timothy O'Meara
occupation

Future Project - The 4th Dimension is an American science fiction film from 1985 . The film is also known under the titles The Future Project and Future Project - The Secret Project .

action

A UFO crashed in the desert near Dawson Air Force Base in 1957 . It was quickly brought to safety, taken apart and explored.

In 1985 Michael Harlan had to finish his science project with a good grade in order to even get his school leaving certificate. He only has cars in his head and can only think of tinkering with his Pontiac GTO . He doesn't care about anything else, which is why his girlfriend Crystal dumps him. Ellie Sawyer notices this and asks him out on a date. To make Crystal jealous, he says yes. But the date is more like he breaks into the rundown and abandoned Dawson Air Force Base with her to look for any junk that he could use for his science project. He falls into a hatch that leads to a secret room. There he finds a strange machine that can suck up electricity and any form of electrical energy. He takes it with him and shows it to both Ellie and his best friend Vince Latello.

After Michael has cleaned the device, they experience how it works together. It sucks up energy to create a wormhole in spacetime . This allows it to materialize living and dead objects from other times in the present. After Sherman explains this to you, wait a propitious moment to show your teacher, Mr. Roberts. He is absolutely enthusiastic about it and recognizes the potential of the machine, so that he sets everything in motion to provide even more power for the machine, and he connects it to the municipal power supply with the help of a socket. As a result, it sucks in more and more energy. Roberts suddenly begins to play with it, apparently loses his mind and disappears without a trace. To prevent the machine from sucking more electricity and getting out of control, Michael, Ellie and Vince set out to get explosives to blow up the lines to the city's power grid. It succeeds. They think they stopped it.

Detective Isadore Nulty appears and shortly afterwards asks Michael if he knows anything about the disappearance of Mr. Roberts and the missing explosives. Since he doesn't answer, he takes him to the police station at short notice. Meanwhile Ellie tries to turn off the machine. In doing so, she catches Sherman discovering it and now, also mad with power, reconnects the machine to the power supply. This sucks in the city's electricity, so the lights go out in the police station and Vince and Michael can escape. They run straight to school, where they can see the disaster. A huge wormhole has opened over their school. You enter the school and suddenly you are faced with several people from different times, including Nazis , Egyptians, gladiators, prehistoric and post-apocalyptic people. There are several fights, all of which end victorious for them. After a tyrannosaurus is also fought and killed, they find the unconscious Ellie lying next to the machine. Michael cuts the power supply to the machine and collapses the wormhole so that everything is sent back in time. This also reappears Mr. Roberts, who was at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 .

criticism

“ My Science Project is a happy teenage adventure film that, in its brisk moments, is reminiscent of a less intelligent and expensive version of Back to the Future . Despite a story that has only a few interesting twists and even though it was shot on a minimal budget, the film shines with funny moments. "

- Stephen Holden in the New York Times

“A variation on the story of the sorcerer's apprentice ; Initially staged sensitively, the film turns more and more into a special effects spectacle, so that the initiation story and technology criticism are drowned out in the din. "

- Lexicon of international film

background

The film contains several allusions to other films. With several of his quotes, Vinnie hints at different films such as Dirty Harry , Blob, Horror Without a Name , The Wizard of Oz and The Guns of Navarone . He also sings the theme songs for Speed ​​Racer and Kobra, take over . When Mr. Roberts returns from 1969, he wears exactly the same clothes as Dennis Hopper wore in his role as Billy in Easy Rider .

Director and screenwriter Jonathan R. Betuel said that the idea for this film came up in his childhood. As a little boy he often played in a dump, hoping that someone would have left something important there.

The film opened on August 9, 1985 in the American cinema and was able to just over 4 million US dollars to import at the box office again. In Germany it was released directly on VHS on December 15, 1986 and ran for the first time on October 17, 1993 on RTL Television .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Holden : My Science Project (1985) on nytimes.com, August 10, 1985, accessed April 21, 2012
  2. ^ Future Project - The 4th Dimension in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used , accessed on April 21, 2012
  3. ↑ Pat H. Broeske: Science Fiction Comes Back To Earth on latimes.com, January 13, 1985 (English), accessed April 21, 2012
  4. ^ My Science Project (1985) at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed April 21, 2012