{"id":14932,"date":"2015-11-30T05:47:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T11:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=14932"},"modified":"2015-11-30T05:47:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T11:47:30","slug":"in-1997-they-saw-me-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/in-1997-they-saw-me-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1997, They Saw Me Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Friends of the Christian County Library book sale this fall<\/a>, I bought this family looking film:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dan Haggerty! A bear! Grizzly<\/strong> Mountain<\/em>. It’s a Grizzly Adams movie.<\/p>\n

Ha ha, sucker! It is not<\/em> a Grizzly Adams movie.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Man, I’m the target audience for this film: parents who were, a long time ago, sort of fans of the Grizzly Adams television show because it was syndicated and played a couple times a week on the local stations before cable.<\/p>\n

Instead, this a a fin-de-si\u00e8cle<\/em> environmental pageant about how developing natural areas is de rigueur<\/em>. The plot features a family camping in an undeveloped Oregon forest whose 125 year lease to an Indian tribe is about to expire. The father is a state functionary of some sort, looking over the land as he plans to approve development of the land. So two of his children enter a cave on the land and are transported back to 1870, when a greedy railroad executive also plans to develop the land, and his cold, distant beau uses a fake gold scheme to swindle the townsfolk. So it’s up to Grizzly Adams<\/strike> Jeremiah, Gentle Ben<\/strike> Jack, some Indians, the children, and hijinks to stop the bad guys.<\/p>\n

There’s definitely some fun in the naming. Haggerty’s character is Jeremiah; is this a nod to Jeremiah Johnson, a film about another mountain man that preceded the Grizzly Adams television series (which itself might have tried to capitalize on the success of that film)? The bear is named Jack; as you know, Jack was the name of another character in the television show. And the show unreservedly calls the natives “Indians,” which was already a no-no in 1997.<\/p>\n

At any rate, it’s a low budget little affair; there are about five sets (six if you count “the woods”). Haggerty is older and suffers from breathing difficulties throughout. So it’s a direct-to-video style thing, and as I mentioned, it’s a parable about the evils of development. But it’s not that I wish I’d spent the time watching something else.<\/p>\n

I did have a bit of a talk with my children after it though, as I so often do. This is a message movie, I remind them. It simplifies the lives of Indians, it softens the real nature of wildlife, and it takes out all possibility that development can also be a good and man can manage development in rural and natural areas without the default despoilment depicted by Hollywood.<\/p>\n

In researching the film post-viewing, I found there’s actually a 2000 sequel, Escape to Grizzly Mountain<\/em>, a fin-de-si\u00e8cle<\/em> animal rights pageant that also stars Jan-Michael Vincent of Airwolf<\/em>. I almost want to see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Friends of the Christian County Library book sale this fall, I bought this family looking film: Dan Haggerty! A bear! Grizzly Mountain. It’s a Grizzly Adams movie. Ha ha, sucker! It is not a Grizzly Adams movie. Man, I’m the target audience for this film: parents who were, a long time ago, sort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14932"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14936,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14932\/revisions\/14936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}