Today, December 15th, 2019, marks 30 years since the film “The Wizard” premiered in theaters. This film is famous among gamers of a certain age for the fact that it heavily features video games — not just any games, mind you, but the Nintendo Entertainment System. For those of us in the late 80’s and early 90’s here in the U.S., that one little gray machine was our world, and to see a feature film that heavily featured it? That was just the best.
This, of course, was 1989, and I was 4 years old, soon to turn 5. I don’t recall the film at all, or much of anything else from that time. My memories of The Wizard come in about 1992, after we had moved and I was browsing through our collection of VHS tapes which lived in the front closet of the house — these tapes were rarely viewed but for whatever reason I was digging through them and I saw a tape with side art that looked kind of computer or game-ish.
“The Wizard? What’s this?” I must have though to myself. That’s when I took the tape and looked at the front of the box and was amazed. “What? Mario? The Power Glove? Video games? That kid from The Wonder Years? What is this?!?!”
I just had to know what this movie actually was. I didn’t quite know why my family had it. Maybe it was because of Fred Savage, or maybe it was an honest purchase with me in mind — who knows, my mom always bought things on a whim. In any case, I quickly popped the tape in the VCR and began to watch.
I can’t recall what I initially thought — best I could think I probably was watching waiting for the Nintendo stuff to actually show up which takes a little while – about 16 minutes in, in fact. During that build up to discovering one of the characters is a “wizard” at NES games, you get plot establishment which, honestly, I think I actually liked as a kid.
For those who don’t know, The Wizard is, in a sense, Rainman but with video games. The plot, in simplest form, goes like this: Jimmy Woods is a troubled child. He keeps running away from home, wanting to go to California. Eventually he gets put in a home for troubled children. His older brother, Corey, is sick of the situation in his own life and decides he might as well go with his brother to California. During this trip, they discover Jimmy’s skill with games, meet up with a young girl who comes up with the idea of them entering an upcoming video game contest.
The rest of the film follows them on their adventure west, avoiding trouble as best they can, as well as their own parents and a hired hand hunting for them. It ends with an almost terrifying final chase by the ever-pursuing creepy guy and what amounts to a legendary showdown at the tournament between Jimmy and his recent rival, Lucas followed by an answer to the question of why Jimmy wants to go to California so badly. Honestly the end is quite touching, and while as kid I obviously didn’t care past the tournament, as an adult I can feel an empathy for Jimmy.
Okay, so that was a really basic, kind of bad plot summary, but it gets the idea across.
The film isn’t all that great, let’s be clear – it’s a cheesy family film that doesn’t quite know if it wants to be serious or if it wants to be a joke. Hell, the idea of kids traveling across the American West alone these days seems like insanity, but this was a simpler time, and the film has a very lighthearted approach to most everything, give or take.
Needless to say though, as a kid, all I cared about were the times an NES was shown and games were being played. Sometimes I knew what game was what, and other times it was a chance to learn something new. Many were games I actually owned, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The film wasn’t just a random fluke either — not inherently. Apparently the idea for the film was, at least in part, Nintendo’s. They wanted to fill a gap between the release of some upcoming games, and show off Super Mario Bros. 3 before it’s release in the US, and a film at the time seemed like the right idea. Filming took place in the Summer of 1989 and the film, as mentioned above, released to theaters on December 15th of that year.
Anyway, getting back to my personal interest in the film, I’d keep watching it as the years went on. I damn near wore out the VHS tape, which oddly already had a damaged area when I first watched it — don’t know what that was about. Whatever, the film was watchable and that was the important thing, and I enjoyed every time I put it in the VCR, always noticing new things about it and, as time passed, finding it growing more “historic” in look and feel as gaming, film, and styles progressed.
I’ve watched it so much, in fact, I became able to quote it pretty much perfectly. It’s one of few movies I can truly do that with — I’ve probably watched it 100 times, if I had to guess, and I always enjoy it. It’s certainly a nostalgia trip — almost like time travel, really, as it takes me right back to when I was a young kid, Nintendo was everything, and the 80’s were still a very recent point in time — the music, the style of the cars and clothing, everything just takes me right back.
The film certainly had an impact on me, in some subtle ways. For example, I’ve always wanted to live in the desert regions of the United States, and honestly seeing as this film is set there I think that may be the reason.
Of course, the film is well known in the gaming community, and memes from it, mainly the character “Lucas” and his power glove are a infamous, but beyond points like that, the film is mostly low key and, depending on who you ask, either a cult classic or a piece of marketing garbage from the early days of gaming.
I find it a film that, quite simply, is what it is; cheesey late 80’s fun with a heart and a heavy splash of Nintendo. It’s certainly a piece of gaming history in its own right, and I love it. I’m always going to love this film for exactly what it is, and that’s the greatest thing about it — I wouldn’t change anything… well, maybe just allow the “full” original cut to be released; as the film was supposed to be 2.5 hours long in its original form.
More on that in the future, I think.