We all have a film that we have really fond memories of from when we were a kid. If you are like me you have several. Perhaps it will come up in a conversation with friends and then you get the bright idea to located the film and re-watch it 30 years later. Sometimes, this is a bad idea

This movie is from 1984 when sci-fi was all the rage. We have Star Wars to thank for this. It seems like everyone was trying to get some sort of space movie out to market and this was actually one of the winners.

The story follows Alex Rogan, a teenager who lives in a trailer park and was recently turned down for a scholarship. He is frustrated at his mundane existence and the education denial was kind of the nail in the coffin for his boring life. At the social area in his housing estate there is a video game that he obtains the highest score ever in, one day.

As it turns out the game was actually a simulation and the conflict the game describes is actually a real thing in a distant galaxy. The game was designed as a test to find people who have what is described as "the gift" and Alex is whisked away (basically kidnapped) in order to help in the conflict. The aliens leave an android in his place that looks like him so that the people back home will not worry.

Next thing you know Alex is being outfitted with his own starship and is now a major player in the battle between Rylan Star League and the Ko-Dan Empire. The one with the word "Empire" in it, is of course, the bad guys who are lead by someone named Xur .

there he is, being all evil and Xur-ish

As I kid, this movie represented everything a kid at that time dreamed of. That excelling at a video game lead to being selected for an awesome job somewhere as a hero. In that regard the movie was pretty inventive and I am sure the premise has been copied many times over.

However, here is the problem: I should have left it in my mind because the film hasn't aged well. Due to no fault of their own because they did have a massive budget for the time period and they used it well, the technology used for the movie has been surpassed immensely over the years. Now the movie just seems dull.

I went through a similar phenomenon when i went back to watch all the Quantum Leap episodes and became incredibly bored after just a few episodes. Magnum P.I. and The A Team elicited a similar response. Some things are better left in your fond memories. This is why I just talk about how great NES games were rather than actually emulating them and playing them again because I don't want to destroy my childhood memories.

I'm gonna double rate this because it seems unfair to dock points because of time