The A.V. Club has unearthed this summer movie preview piece from Entertainment Tonight. In addition to containing some fairly absurd descriptions of classics, it also makes a pretty strong case for 1982 being the best year for science fiction film.
Blade Runner, Poltergeist (be prepared to have the heck scared out of you!), E.T., The Thing (featuring an all-male cast!), Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (fans have been waiting lightyears for it!), and Tron — it’s kind of amazing that every single film mentioned in this piece went on to lodge itself indelibly into pop culture.
Also of note: host Ron Hendren saying that “little is known about” E.T. That was probably of minor note then, but now it’s practically dark magic to have anyone say they don’t know much about a movie. On the other end is Hendren casually announcing that Spock dies at the end of Wrath of Khan. He even guesses that he’ll come back! See, this is why we’ve had to invent “spoiler alerts” since then. Although, if some Entertainment Tonight reporter had just said “with Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan,” that might have actually improved things.
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