Word: eo
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What does Captain Eo, a.k.a. Michael Jackson, do to relax after a hard day of defending the galaxy? Why, he just pops into his custom-made $125,000 hyperbaric chamber, of course. Jackson's spaced-out method of getting his beauty rest came to light in a photograph of the Gloved One looking like the star of a B-grade sci-fi flick. Jackson got interested in the idea after he was hospitalized for burns two years ago and learned that hyperbaric chambers could speed up the healing of damaged tissue by enabling a patient to breathe oxygen...
Last week's long-awaited "galaxy premiere" of Captain EO was kicked off with typical Disney glitz. Skyrockets and a thousand Mylar balloons crowded the air. A dozen chorus boys and girls in spandex and spangles boogied decorously. Mickey and Minnie Mouse arrived in matching silver-and-rainbow Captain EO garb. The film's opening will also be celebrated in a one-hour NBC special this Saturday. All the hoopla underscored the magnitude of the gamble by Disney and Eastman Kodak, which split the movie's costs. At $20 million or so for the film and its laser effects, Captain...
Lucas learned most of what he knows about merchandising from the example of Walt Disney, and Epcot's emporiums are already filled with replicas of such cuddly EO creatures as Hooter (an oboe-nosed elephant), Fuzzball (a scarlet monkey butterfly) and the Geex, Idy and Ody (sort of Siamese-twin Wookies). Nor is the film a reckless investment for Kodak. The previous attraction in the company's Magic Eye Theater, a 3-D film called Magic Journeys, was seen by 19 million people in less than four years. Asked how long EO will run, a Disney spokesman replies, "EOns." Walt...
...entertaining is Captain EO? Pretty entertaining, actually. The first half of the film is an energetic rehash of the Star Wars space battle. The second half is an elaborate Michael Jackson video, in which the star emerges from his rickety spaceship to do battle with the Evil Empress, played with magisterial malevolence by Oscar Winner Anjelica Huston (Prizzi's Honor). Jackson, who by now could double for his own Tussaud waxwork, is an improbable Han Solo, but he still dances like a jive Astaire and earned audible swoons from teenage girls at the premiere. The film's 3-D effects...
...dessert is not very nourishing. Captain EO is sugar but no spice, coating an audio-animatronic gridwork. What can be exhilarating and depressing about Walt Disney World is true of Captain EO: it is a triumph of the artificial, of high-tech wizardry and secondhand emotions. All of which makes EO just fine as a "total three-dimensional experience" but only the fourthbest film at Epcot. In the travelogues of China and France, and in Emil Radok's enthralling documentary about, yes, energy, the imagination is served, not dominated, by the special effects. These films evoke intense feelings for people...