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Storyline
In a future in which most water has disappeared from the Earth, we find a group of children, mostly teenagers, who are living at an orphanage, run by the despotic rulers of the new Earth. The group in question plays a hockey based game on roller skates and is quite good. It has given them a unity that transcends the attempts to bring them to heel by the government. Finding an orb of special power, they find it has unusual effects on them. They escape from the orphanage (on skates) and try to cross the wasteland looking for a place they can live free as the stormtroopers search for them and the orb. Written by
John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Summary
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Taglines:
Who will rule the future?
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Did You Know?
Trivia
The key speechless character, named "Bodhi", is also referred to in the film as the "Sphere of Longinus".
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Goofs
Metron's skates disappear as he pole-vaults over the fence to get into the Aqua Bunker, then they re-appear as he lands
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Quotes
Tutor Nover:
[
commenting on a propaganda-film in the Orphanage-classroom]
They called themselves Eco-warriors, "Eco" being taken from... what? Rabbit?
Rabbit:
Hey, if they took it, they should give it back.
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Connections
References
Dune (1984)
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Soundtracks
"Love Will Set You Free"
Written by
Smokey Robinson and Ivory Stone
Performed by
Smokey Robinson
Courtesy of Motown Records/Taj Mahal Music
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This film is a riot. It's badness is epic. It is hard to know where to begin in terms of describing the experience of Solarbabies, but one could start by saying that a central episode involves a chase scene of children dramatically escaping from a futuristic special-forces police force by ROLLER SKATING through the DESERT. I am not making this up.
The completely random plot and incredulously goofy bonding/friendship scenes between the child-prisoners and their glowing-ball alien friend could only have been the product of coked-out brainstorming sessions of Hollywood types in the 80s.
Are children lovable prisoners of a Nazi-Fetish, post-apocalyptic corporation/government agency that inexplicably decides to profit by running a child-labor camp in the desert? Check. Are the children also forced to play an arena sport involving roller skates? Check. Does a glowing alien ball appear randomly and befriend the children, with no apparent connection to anything else in the film? Check. Do the children breakdance with the glowing alien ball-friend? Check. Does the glowing alien ball require the children to escape the prison and go on a quest? Yep. Do the children "escape" simply by roller-skating away from the "prison" (through a desert)? Um, yes. Does the glowing alien ball-friend require the children to join hands in a ritualized new-age circle of friendship/love in order to achieve its full glowing alien ball powers? You betcha.
If this movie were any better, I would give it one star. But it charges so far past the normal constraints of the badness boundaries that it comes out on the other side and emerges as something that is actually pretty entertaining and fairly compelling. The bar starts out low, but the filmmakers just keep on lowering it, going way past the zero point, and actually discovering new ways to make a bad movie worse. It is like art in reverse.