Megaforce
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the record label, see Megaforce Records.
| Megaforce | |
|---|---|
 Megaforce movie poster |
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| Directed by | Hal Needham |
| Produced by | Andre Morgan Albert S. Ruddy |
| Written by | Phil Feldman, André Morgan, Hal Needham, Albert S. Ruddy, James Whittaker |
| Starring | Barry Bostwick, Michael Beck, Persis Khambatta, Edward Mulhare |
| Music by | Jerrold Immel |
| Cinematography | Michael C. Butler |
| Editing by | Patrick Roark Skip Schoolnic |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | June 25, 1982 |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Country | United States Hong Kong |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million (est.) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Megaforce is the name of an action film made in 1982 directed by former stuntman Hal Needham. The film starred Barry Bostwick, Persis Khambatta, Michael Beck, Edward Mulhare, Evan C. Kim, and Henry Silva.
The film featured a "phantom Army of super elite fighting men whose weapons are the most powerful science can devise", including realistic 3-D holograms and combat vehicles such as a motorcycle called the "Delta MK 4 Megafighter" equipped with missile launchers. The movie included extremely unrealistic scenarios such as motorcycles (and dune buggies) launching missiles which proved lethal for main battle tanks. The dune buggies, "megadestroyers" or "megacruisers", also had lasers that could destroy a tank in a single shot. In the film finale, the main character's motorcycle activates small (~2 ft or 0.6 m) fold-out wings and flies.
It was also made into a computer game most notably for the Atari 2600. It is being re-released on the Xbox 360 via its Xbox Live Arcade download services sometime in 2007.
A sequel titled Deeds not Words was considered, but it was scrapped due to poor performance of the original film.
[edit] In popular culture
In the DVD introduction to the season two South Park episode, "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka", Trey Parker graphically describes Megaforce as if it were the plot for what the viewer is about to see. Matt Stone stops Parker mid-sentence and reminds him that he is describing the movie Megaforce and not their episode. A disappointed Parker remembers and says, "We should have done Megaforce, that was a sweet movie, we should have done that." Their film Team America: World Police includes a number of apparent references to the film, including similar scenes of a flying motorcycle and an underground base where the hero meets various specialists.
