Captain EO 40th anniversary

by Zimmermann 054: Michael Jackson

Forty years of Captain EO, and the numbers behind it still surprise me. That $23 million budget put it among the priciest short films anyone had made at the time, and this was a 3D short that ran under 17 minutes. It premiered at Disney theme parks in 1986, with Michael Jackson starring, Francis Ford Coppola directing, and George Lucas producing. What gets me is what happens inside those minutes. MJ steps onto something like a Star Wars set, stares down an antagonist who resembles the Supreme Leader, and then the beat drops. That dance sequence turns a planet around. Evil becomes a dance break and the whole galaxy flips on the music. The cosmic classic tag fits, man.