History Film / Xanadu

The roller disco (and film's) title comes from the poem "Kubla Khan" and refers to a province where Khan establishes his pleasure garden.

** The Broadway version was a cheerfully absurd [[RuleOfFunny Refuge In Funny]][=/=][[RefugeInCool Refuge In Cool Music]] laugh-fest with a load of {{Take That}}s at the movie.
* NeverTrustATrailer: Sort of; in the opening title, there's a slight implication of aliens in the form of a ufo flying across a picture of Earth, which is further helped along by a robot-like thing showing up in a musical number. However, unless you're TheNostalgiaChick, you may not have noticed.

What has Olivia Newton-John, GeneKelly, that guy from ''TheWarriors'', roller skates, lots of glowing blue people, quasi-disco music, and is nothing but a string of {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s?

The 1980 movie musical ''Xanadu'' is a ''[[SarcasmMode timeless]]'' story about a frustrated artist named Sonny Malone (the guy from ''TheWarriors'') who paints album covers for a living and is unhappy about it. By tossing some of his drawings into the wind, he somehow brings [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYWA2c5w5bw a painting on a wall of nine girls to life]] and one of them -- Kira -- finds and kisses him. Shortly after, he meets Danny [=McGuire=], a former big band leader. The two strike up a friendship and, with encouragement from Kira, make plans to convert an abandoned building (The Pan Pacific Auditorium) into a roller disco. Sonny and Kira meanwhile fall in love, with there being the slight complication that she's actually the Muse of Dance and Choral Singing (yes, really) and was only sent to bring Xanadu into creation. Soon, she will have to return home, just as Xanadu will be opening.

* BreakawayPopHit: "Magic", "Suddenly", and the title song.
** "Magic" was a hit to the point where most people who have heard it have no idea it was originally from a motion picture soundtrack.

* HoYay
-->'''Danny''': Kid, you're going to be my partner!
-->'''Sonny''': I don't know the first thing about being a partner!
-->'''Danny''': It's easy!

* JeannieCut

What has Olivia Newton-John, GeneKelly, that guy from ''TheWarriors''[[strike: aliens]], roller skates, lots of glowing blue people, quasi-disco music, and is nothing but a string of {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s?

* DonBluth: He directed the animated "Don't Walk Away" segment.

What has Olivia Newton-John, GeneKelly, that guy from ''TheWarriors'',[[strike: aliens]], roller skates, lots of glowing blue people, quasi-disco music, and is nothing but a string of {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s?

What has Olivia Newton-John, GeneKelly, that guy from ''TheWarriors'', [[strike: aliens]], roller skates, lots of glowing blue people, quasi-disco music, and is nothing but a string of {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s?

* IntergenerationalFriendship
* InterspeciesRomance: Danny and Sonny.

* AdaptationDistillation: The film was nominated for the Razzie's "Worst Picture" category while the stage adaptation was nominated for the Tony's "Best Musical" award.
* BadWriting: Not only did the script keep having revisions as filming went on, filming had already started ''before the script was even finished''.

What has Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, that guy from ''TheWarriors'', [[strike: aliens]], roller skates, lots of glowing blue people, quasi-disco music, and is nothing but a string of {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s?

* [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thedudette/nostalgia-chick/8240-xanadu And here's the Nostalgia Chick taking it apart.]]

'''For the trope previously called Xanadu, [[BuildingOfAdventure see here.]]'''

-->Where time stops and the magic never ends.
-->'''-- the ''Xanadu'' tagline'''

-->A Place Where Nobody Dared To Go...
-->-- '''The [[strike: description for a theater that was playing this movie]] opening lyric to the title song.'''

* TheEighties: The movies stands at the nexus between '70s cheese and '80s cheese.

* CultClassic: This had the bad fortune to be made while disco was dying, and flopped as a result. These days it's a cult film with women [[VindicatedByCable who watched it on cable as young girls]] and gay men who liked the massive amount of camp, music, and the hopeful message in the movie.

* ExcusePlot: This is a movie about Olivia Newton-John singing, Gene Kelly dancing, guys and gals rollerskating, and outlandish musical numbers. The rest is unimportant.

* PeripheryDemographic

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1UWSD-FaA Here's the title song]] (Note the [[{{Narm}} "BlaydeZ"]] [[XtremeKoolLetterz watermark]])

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Oddly averted. Since the film itself is by-and-large incoherent, no single moment can count as a BLAM (though the suddenly animated portion stands out somewhat).
** Hell, the NostalgiaChick review is why we have the BLAMEpisode trope.

*** This troper is enraged that the title track constantly beats {{Rush}}'s Xanadu whenever he searches for it on [[http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=xanadu&search_type=&aq=f youtube.]]

* CriticalResearchFailure: Zeus and Hera claim not to know about human emotions. Y'know, the poster gods for AnythingThatMoves and ClingyJealousGirl.
** That and the mother of the Muses wasn't Hera. It was Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory.
*** I believe it was implied that that was Mnemosyne and not Hera (or at least according to TheOtherWiki.)
** They ''claim'', but Hera calls Zeus "darling" after Kira's plea-in-song...
** Weirdly, the two are only credited as "Heavenly voice/male" and "Heavenly voice/female", even though Kira and Sonny both refer to the man as Zeus. So make of all this what you will.

* EarWorm: Horrifyingly.

* FanYay
* GuiltyPleasures: Most people who are not women or gay men have a hard time admitting they like the movie.

* {{Narm}}: About every third line.
** In the NostalgiaChick review, the lead actor's "performance" gets compared to ''that'' line from ''{{Troll 2}}''.

* SoBadItsGood: Despite the film's many flaws, it manages to be entertaining. As a double-bill alongside ''Can't Stop the Music'' (another disco musical that toplined the VillagePeople), it inspired John Wilson to create the Golden Raspberry Awards. Perhaps a telling sign of the film's quality is the fact that he admits to re-watching it once in a while.
* SpecialEffectsFailure

* VindicatedByCable: The movie was trashed by critics but it picked up its core audience on pay cable channels.
** Especially in the early 80s era, when HBO (which until 1981 didn't even operate on a 24-hour schedule) had a very small library of movies to air.

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** Hell, the Nostalgia Chick review is probably why we have the BLAMEpisode trope.

** In the Nostalgia Chick review, the lead actor's "performance" gets compared to ''that'' line from ''{{Troll 2}}''.

* AdaptationDecay: Shockingly enough, the positive version of this trope. The film was nominated for the Razzie's "Worst Picture" category while the stage adaptation was nominated for the Tony's "Best Musical" award.

* ExcusePlot: This is a movie about Olivia Newton-John singing, guys and gals rollerskating, and outlandish musical numbers. The rest is unimportant.

* InterspeciesRomance

** The Broadway version was a cheerfully absurd [[RuleOfFunny Refuge In Funny]] / [[RefugeInCool Refuge In Cool Music]] laugh-fest with a load of {{Take That}}s at the movie.

* SharedUniverse: Implied. Prior to this film, Gene Kelly also played a character named "Danny McGuire" in the film Cover Girl (no relation to the consmetics company). This film is later referenced in "Down To Earth" (sequel to Here Comes Mr. Jordan), which features Rita Hayworth (who was also in Cover Girl) as "Terpsichore", but uses the name "Kitty" in her Earth form. It should be mentioned that all three of the films in question were released by Columbia, while this movie was released by Universal.

** They ''claim'', but Hera calls Zeus "darling" after Kira's plea-in-song...

* AdaptationDecay: Shockingly enough, the positive version of this trope. The film was nominated for the Razzie's "Worst Picture" award while the musical was nominated for the Tony's "Best Musical" award.

* NeverTrustATrailer: Sort of; in the opening title, there's a slight implication of aliens in the form of a ufo flying across a picture of Earth, which is further helped along by a robot-like thing showing up in a musical number. However, unless you're the [[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Nostalgia Chick]], you may not have noticed.