I love the Power Glove(tm). It's so bad!—Lucas
For the homonym TV Series, see The Wizard.
The Wizard is a 1989 film starring
Fred Savage,
Jenny Lewis, Christian Slater, and Beau Bridges. It is about Jimmy, a young boy who suffers from a serious mental disorder reminiscent of
Hollywood Autism after a traumatic incident. After being put in an institution, Corey (Savage), one of his older brothers, breaks him out. They decide to run away to
California Cawwwifffohneeeyaaaa together, as Jimmy is for some reason fixated on the place.
Along the way, they meet with some other kids that eerily seem to
lack parental supervision. They also learn that Jimmy is a
godlike entity around video games. Meanwhile, the concerned mother of the runaway kids hires a sleazy private detective named Putnam to track them down. This causes a rivalry between him and Sam, the father (Bridges) and Nick, the eldest brother (Slater) that are also trying to get to them.
But none of this is what the movie is well-known for. The film is a fairly blatant
Merchandise Driven affair, made to sell Nintendo products and the Universal Studios tour. In fact,
much of the film's
initial appeal was that it had a sneak peek of
Super Mario Bros 3 (for North America; it had been available in Japan for more than a year).
The film maintains a cult following within the video game culture based on its
Snark Bait potential. Analyzing the film is a senior thesis of its own, but some of the major issues include the following:
- It's not a good sign when even Roger Ebert
is able to notice the inaccuracies. - Most (though not all) of the arcade machines are Playchoice 10 units, which were little more than NES games in an arcade cabinet. People still come across these units in stores today. It's unlikely that grown men gambled money on them, though. *
This ain't pachinko.
- Lucas and his infamous line, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad". Anybody who has ever used one of those will tell you that there is no way you can utilize it with that level of skill. Not to mention that "bad" has taken on a different connotation with regards to the Power Glove.
- During the tournament, Jimmy inexplicably uncovers the World 1 Warp Zone Whistle in Super Mario Bros 3, one of the least intuitive shortcuts in any game, on his very first try. How is this kid supposed to figure out that you're supposed to fly over the top of the ceiling and then go into a door that you can't even see? And why would he even risk it, given that he's in a competition?
- Or, for that matter, why do all the kids — even the ones cheering the competitors on — know so much about this game if this was a surprise showcase?
Still, it's a fairly popular Sunday afternoon TV recycle amongst younger kids who aren't familiar with Nintendo's heyday. Or who don't know any better. Given the utter glee that we still put into referencing/mocking it more than two decades later, it was worth every dime Nintendo put into it.
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