Raiders of the Lost Franchise | Karavansara

The year 1986 was clearly a good one for Indiana Jones wannabes and unlikely first chapters of franchises that never went beyond the first chapter. In the first episode of this series, we’ve seen how in 1986 good old stalwart British pulp hero Biggles was let down by a confused execution and a misguided “update”. This time, we get a movie that features…

ancient astronauts
Easter Island
Stonehenge
the Sea of Lost Ships
the Philadelphia Experiment
space-time distortions
conspiracy theories
Melbourne (for that little extra exoticism)
World War Two (but just a hint of it)
and a lead called Dakota Harris

It was shot in Australia, and it is, of course, the 1986 adventure … ehm, classic, Sky Pirates (aka Dakota Harris).

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So, the idea was proposed to do a few posts about movie franchises that never started. Movies, mostly shot in the 1980s, that were all set up to be the Next Star Wars, the Next Conan or the Next Indiana Jones, but for some reason (usually a mix of ineptitude, lack of funds and madness) went nowhere, and sometimes entered the legend.

And I like very much the idea, and I think I’ll start with a movie that believed so much in its First in a Series status, that it proclaimed it in the title itself – well, at least in some countries. Today it is considered a cult movie by some, and one of the most ludicrous movies ever by others. The fact that it came with a very well established pulp cred, and it featured Peter Cushing in his last big screen role, only make the whole a lot more painful.