Moonwalker
Encyclopedia
Moonwalker, also known as Michael Jackson: Moonwalker, is an American anthology film
released in 1988 by singer Michael Jackson
.
Rather than featuring one continuous narrative, the film is a collection of short films about Jackson, several of which are long-form music video
s from Jackson's Bad
album
. The film is named after the dance technique known as the moonwalk
, which was one of his trademark moves. The name of the dance move was dubbed by the media, not by Jackson himself; however, he did choose the title of the film himself. The film is rated PG
outside of the United States.
. During the theatrical
release of Moonwalker, Jackson was also embarking on the Bad World Tour
, his first tour as a solo performer. The film was released theatrically in Europe and South America, but Warner Bros.
canceled plans for a Christmas 1988 theatrical release in the U.S. Moonwalker was released on home video in the United States and Canada on January 10, 1989, just as the Bad World Tour finished. (His tour was supposed to finish sooner, but had been postponed due to some vocal strain, so it went on until the last week of January 1989.) The video had sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S by April 17, 1989.
"Man in the Mirror
The first segment of Moonwalker is a live performance of "Man in the Mirror". It also features a montage of clips of children in Africa
, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa
, Mahatma Gandhi
, John Lennon
, and other historical figures.
film about Jackson, covering the early years from the Jackson 5 until the Bad World Tour
. Excerpts of the following songs are played:
The video stars Brandon Quintin Adams
, who would later star in The Mighty Ducks
, as the young Michael Jackson. It also featured Jermaine La Jaune Jackson, Jr. (Michael's nephew) and a young Nikki Cox
, who later starred in Unhappily Ever After
and Las Vegas
. The singing group The Boys
appeared as background dancers. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
co-writer Maurissa Tancharoen
, as well as future R&B star Bilal Oliver, are also featured in this segment.
. A portion of the clip is set to Jackson's song "Speed Demon".
After filming "Badder", Little Michael and his bodyguards (also young kids) are leaving the set and walk through a cloud of smoke and come out as their regular age. A boy and his grandmother spot Michael and prompts the other tourists to get off the bus and chase him for an autograph. In an attempt to avoid the overzealous fans (even The Noid) and some gunslingers (after stumbling upon the filming of a Western directed by Steven Spielberg), Jackson soon disguises himself as a rabbit named Spike, but ends up taunting the fans into chasing him once they realize it's him. During the chase, he morphs into other celebrities, namely Sylvester Stallone
, Tina Turner
and Pee-Wee Herman
. After a long chase, the fans are finally pulled over by a cop and are arrested. After finally losing the fans, he pulls over in a canyon and removes the costume, which comes to life
and challenges him to a dance-off.
In the end, a traffic cop tells him he is in a "No Dancing Zone", and when Michael turns to point to the rabbit, he sees that the rabbit has disappeared. The cop then sarcastically asks for Michael's autograph (as opposed to "signature") on the ticket. Just as Michael is preparing to leave, the rabbit's head materializes in a nearby rocky crag, who then nods to him and smiles.
"Leave Me Alone
The fifth segment of the film is the animated music video for the song "Leave Me Alone
", focusing on media interest in Jackson's personal life
, because he had felt that people wouldn't leave him alone. It compares Michael Jackson's life to an amusement park. His beloved then-pet chimp
Bubbles makes a cameo appearance as Jackson is seen picking him up and riding with him in his roller coaster car.
"Smooth Criminal
The segment begins with three homeless children sneaking through a big city to see their friend Michael walk out of his apartment. As Michael stands in front of the door, he gazes at the night sky before he is attacked by mobsters with machine guns. The film then backtracks to show Michael and the children playing in a meadow in happier times. Their dog Skipper runs away, and as Michael and Katie look for him, they uncover the cottage of Dr. Big. Dr. Big is a drug-dealing warlock with a disciplined private army of soldiers at his command, he wants to get the entire population of Earth addicted to drugs, starting with children. He likes to eat nuts and leaves nutshells wherever he goes, He is obsessed with spiders, as displayed by their abundance at the entrance to his lair, and by the way he called his operation "bugs and drugs". He also has them engulfing a model globe when making a speech about his burgeoning drug empire. They signify the spread of his proposed control of the world via drug dealing. Further, all his henchmen sport a spider crest on their uniforms. Katie screams when she sees a spider, and Mr. Big discovers them spying on his operation.
The story returns to the shooting in front of Michael's store. Unknown to the gangsters, Michael has a "lucky star", and using it, he escaped the gunfire. Upon realizing that Michael has escaped again, Mr. Big orders his henchmen to track him down with dogs. He is eventually cornered in an alley, where he uses his lucky star again to turn into a sportscar (the 1970 Lancia Stratos
HF Zero prototype) that mows down several of Mr. Big's henchmen. Michael is pursued through the city streets until he loses the henchmen. Meanwhile, the children scout out Club 30's, where Michael had told them to meet him, and find only an abandoned and haunted nightclub. As Michael arrives, Katie sees a silhouette of him turning back from a car into himself. The door of the club opens with a gust of wind, and Michael walks in to find it filled with zoot suit
ers and swing dancers. The children gather outside a window of the club and watch Michael dance to "Smooth Criminal
".
The song used in the film is much longer than the album release, with several lyrics that clarify the story. There is also an interlude wherein Jackson joins the other dancers in a modern interpretive dance. At the climax of the song, Mr. Big lays siege to the club and kidnaps Katie. Michael follows them back to Big's lair and ends up surrounded by his henchmen. Mr. Big appears and taunts Michael by threatening to inject Katie with highly addictive narcotics. Katie breaks free for a moment, but Mr. Big grabs her again and starts kicking Michael. As Mr. Big stands over Michael and orders his henchmen to kill him and Katie, Michael looks up and sees his lucky star. He transforms into a giant robot and kills all of Mr. Big's soldiers, then turns into a spaceship. Mr. Big gets into a large hillside-mounted energy cannon, firing on the spaceship into a nearby ravine. The children are his next target, but the spaceship returns from the ravine just in time to fire a beam in the cannon with Mr. Big inside, killing him. The children watch the ship fly into the night sky with shower of light.
Note: A 4:36 suite of Bruce Broughton
's score for this segment (Broughton also wrote the underscore for "Speed Demon") was recorded by Erich Kunzel
and the Cincinnati Pops for the album Fantastic Journey, representing the only (officially) released music from this film by an artist other than Michael Jackson, although bootlegs are available of the score.
"Come Together
In the conclusion to "Smooth Criminal", Sean, Katie and Zeke return to the city, believing that Michael is gone forever. As the boys talk about Michael, Katie walks away crying and clutching a paper star. As she sits in a corner wishing for him to come back, the paper star flies out of her hand and Michael walks out of the night fog. He takes them to Club 30's, where they find that the club has turned into the backstage area of a concert. Michael's stage crew return the children's missing dog and then escort Michael onto the stage where he performs a cover of The Beatles
song "Come Together
" with the children watching and cheering him on from backstage. Jackson's version of the song wasn't officially released until 1995 when it appeared on the album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.
performing "The Moon is Walking" in Club 30's amidst behind-the-scenes clips. The second is the four-minute version of the "Smooth Criminal
" music video.
reported that Moonwalker "seems unsure of what it was supposed to be. At the center of the pic is the "Smooth Criminal" segment, a musical/dramatic piece full of dancing, schmaltzy kids, sci-fi effects and blazing machine guns [directed by Colin Chilvers, based on a story by Jackson]. Around it are really just numerous Jackson music videos with little or no linkage. Although quite enjoyable the whole affair does not make for a structured or professional movie."
The "Leave Me Alone" video aired as a separate entity and won a Grammy in 1989 for Breakthrough Animated Video, which is the only Grammy Award Michael received for the album Bad.
, Speed Demon, Leave Me Alone and Smooth Criminal
appeared in a DVD box set of Michael Jackson videos titled Michael Jackson's Vision
. The set only featured the sequences from Smooth Criminal, Speed Demon, Come Together and Leave Me Alone as opposed to the entire short film.
Moonwalker was released on a Region Free Blu-ray in the UK in June of 2010 by Warner Brothers. This Blu-ray version contained a new remastered transfer, and a DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The release is however censored, and is missing the final "Pow!" during the end of the Smooth Criminal
dance number (this appears to be a technical error not a matter of censorship). It is also cropped to 16:9 from 4:3.
Currently, the film can be rented through Netflix
or region free third-party DVDs can be bought on eBay
. However, some of the DVDs found on eBay contain several typos and errors on the DVD cover.
Moonwalker was first adapted in game form to home various computers by British developer U.S. Gold
. This top-down action game followed the segments of the film, and bore little resemblance to the later, more popular games developed by Sega
with Michael Jackson's cooperation.
Moonwalker was developed into an arcade
video game by Sega
with the help of Jackson, which was released on the Sega System 18 hardware. A distinct adaptation was also developed for Sega's Genesis/Mega Drive and Master System home video game systems. The console versions of the game were actually based on an evolved version of the side-scrolling Sega Mega Drive Shinobi series engine, while the arcade version was a three-quarters beat 'em up
.
Both the console and arcade versions are based on the "Smooth Criminal" segment of the film, following Michael in suit and fedora through stages based on his different music videos as he rescues children from the drug dealer Mr. Big. In the three player simultaneous arcade game, contact with Bubbles, Michael's chimp, transformed him into a robot warrior, replacing Michael's "star magic" and melee dance attacks with missiles and laser beams. In the console versions on certain levels, rescuing a certain child first would trigger a comet to fall from the sky that could be grabbed transforming Michael into the robot (which could fly with a rocket pack as well as use lasers and a missile special attack). Michael automatically changes into a robot for the final showdown with Mr. Big's henchmen and finally into a space ship for the last battle, in a sort of flight-sim shooter in the Genesis/Mega Drive version. All incarnations of the game featured the ability of Michael to use some form of "Dance Magic" which would force his enemies to dance to the music of various tunes from "Bad" or "Thriller" and be destroyed as a result.
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
released in 1988 by singer Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
.
Rather than featuring one continuous narrative, the film is a collection of short films about Jackson, several of which are long-form music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s from Jackson's Bad
Bad (album)
Bad is the seventh studio album by American songwriter and recording artist Michael Jackson. The album was released on August 31, 1987 by Epic/CBS Records, nearly five years after Jackson's previous studio album, Thriller, which went on to become the world's best-selling album...
album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
. The film is named after the dance technique known as the moonwalk
Moonwalk (dance)
The moonwalk or backslide is a dance technique that presents the illusion of the dancer being pulled backwards while attempting to walk forward. A popping move, it became most popular around the world after Michael Jackson executed the dance move during a performance of "Billie Jean" on Motown 25:...
, which was one of his trademark moves. The name of the dance move was dubbed by the media, not by Jackson himself; however, he did choose the title of the film himself. The film is rated PG
Motion picture rating system
A motion picture rating system is designated to classify films with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content...
outside of the United States.
Release
The release of Moonwalker was originally scheduled to coincide with Jackson's 1987 album, BadBad (album)
Bad is the seventh studio album by American songwriter and recording artist Michael Jackson. The album was released on August 31, 1987 by Epic/CBS Records, nearly five years after Jackson's previous studio album, Thriller, which went on to become the world's best-selling album...
. During the theatrical
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
release of Moonwalker, Jackson was also embarking on the Bad World Tour
Bad World Tour
The Bad World Tour was the first solo concert tour by American megasuperstar Michael Jackson that visited Japan, Australia, the United States and Europe. Sponsored by Pepsi and spanning 16 months, the tour included 123 concerts to 4.4 million fans across 15 countries...
, his first tour as a solo performer. The film was released theatrically in Europe and South America, but Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
canceled plans for a Christmas 1988 theatrical release in the U.S. Moonwalker was released on home video in the United States and Canada on January 10, 1989, just as the Bad World Tour finished. (His tour was supposed to finish sooner, but had been postponed due to some vocal strain, so it went on until the last week of January 1989.) The video had sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S by April 17, 1989.
"Man in the MirrorMan in the Mirror"Man in the Mirror" is a song recorded by Michael Jackson and written and composed by Glen Ballard and Siedah Garrett. It peaked at number one in the United States when released as a single in January 1988 off his seventh solo album, Bad. It is one of Jackson's most critically acclaimed songs and...
"
The first segment of Moonwalker is a live performance of "Man in the Mirror". It also features a montage of clips of children in AfricaAfrica
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...
, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, and other historical figures.
"Retrospective"
A short biographicalBiography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
film about Jackson, covering the early years from the Jackson 5 until the Bad World Tour
Bad World Tour
The Bad World Tour was the first solo concert tour by American megasuperstar Michael Jackson that visited Japan, Australia, the United States and Europe. Sponsored by Pepsi and spanning 16 months, the tour included 123 concerts to 4.4 million fans across 15 countries...
. Excerpts of the following songs are played:
"Badder"
A parody of the music video for Bads title song, featuring children filling the roles of various people from the original clip.The video stars Brandon Quintin Adams
Brandon Quintin Adams
Brandon Quintin Adams is an American actor known for his playing Jesse Hall in the first two Mighty Ducks movies and Kenny DeNunez in The Sandlot....
, who would later star in The Mighty Ducks
The Mighty Ducks
The Mighty Ducks is the first film in The Mighty Ducks trilogy, produced by Avnet–Kerner Productions and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and originally released on October 2, 1992. In the UK and Australia, the film was titled Champions...
, as the young Michael Jackson. It also featured Jermaine La Jaune Jackson, Jr. (Michael's nephew) and a young Nikki Cox
Nikki Cox
Nicole Avery "Nikki" Cox is an American actress known mostly for her roles on the television series Unhappily Ever After, Las Vegas, and Nikki.-Early life:...
, who later starred in Unhappily Ever After
Unhappily Ever After
Unhappily Ever After is an American sitcom that aired for 100 episodes on The WB network from January 11, 1995, to May 23, 1999, for a total of four and a half seasons...
and Las Vegas
Las Vegas (TV series)
Las Vegas was an American television series broadcast by NBC from September 22, 2003 to February 15, 2008. The show focuses on a team of people working at the ficticional Montecito Resort & Casino dealing with issues that arise within the working environment, ranging from valet parking and...
. The singing group The Boys
The Boys (band)
The Boys is an American R&B quartet composed of the four Abdulsamad brothers, Khiry , Hakeem , Tajh , and Bilal . The group started out singing in Carson, California. The group had three #1 singles on the R&B charts but never had a mainstream pop #1.-Early years:The Boys were encouraged by their...
appeared as background dancers. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a 2008 musical tragicomedy miniseries in three acts, produced exclusively for Internet distribution. Filmed and set in Los Angeles, the show tells the story of Dr...
co-writer Maurissa Tancharoen
Maurissa Tancharoen
Maurissa Tancharoen Whedon is an American actress, singer, dancer, television writer and lyricist.She co-wrote Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and appeared onscreen as Groupie #1, as well as on the DVD audio track "Commentary! The Musical," in which she sings about the scarcity of non-stereotyped...
, as well as future R&B star Bilal Oliver, are also featured in this segment.
"Speed Demon"
The fourth segment begins with the "Badder" short film transitioning into the second short film, "Speed Demon", directed by Claymation innovator Will VintonWill Vinton
Will Vinton is an American director and producer of animated films. He was born in McMinnville, Oregon, near Portland. He has won an Oscar for his work, and several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for the work of his studio.- Education :...
. A portion of the clip is set to Jackson's song "Speed Demon".
After filming "Badder", Little Michael and his bodyguards (also young kids) are leaving the set and walk through a cloud of smoke and come out as their regular age. A boy and his grandmother spot Michael and prompts the other tourists to get off the bus and chase him for an autograph. In an attempt to avoid the overzealous fans (even The Noid) and some gunslingers (after stumbling upon the filming of a Western directed by Steven Spielberg), Jackson soon disguises himself as a rabbit named Spike, but ends up taunting the fans into chasing him once they realize it's him. During the chase, he morphs into other celebrities, namely Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
, Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
and Pee-Wee Herman
Pee-wee Herman
Pee-wee Herman is a comic fictional character created and portrayed by American comedian Paul Reubens. He is best known for his two television series and film series during the 1980s. The childlike Pee-wee Herman character developed as a stage act that quickly led to an HBO special in 1981...
. After a long chase, the fans are finally pulled over by a cop and are arrested. After finally losing the fans, he pulls over in a canyon and removes the costume, which comes to life
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
and challenges him to a dance-off.
In the end, a traffic cop tells him he is in a "No Dancing Zone", and when Michael turns to point to the rabbit, he sees that the rabbit has disappeared. The cop then sarcastically asks for Michael's autograph (as opposed to "signature") on the ticket. Just as Michael is preparing to leave, the rabbit's head materializes in a nearby rocky crag, who then nods to him and smiles.
"Leave Me AloneLeave Me Alone (song)"Leave Me Alone" is a single by American songwriter and recording artist Michael Jackson. The song was featured on Jackson's seventh studio album, Bad in 1987, and was as the eighth single from the album in February 1989, but was released outside of the United States and Canada...
"
The fifth segment of the film is the animated music video for the song "Leave Me AloneLeave Me Alone (song)
"Leave Me Alone" is a single by American songwriter and recording artist Michael Jackson. The song was featured on Jackson's seventh studio album, Bad in 1987, and was as the eighth single from the album in February 1989, but was released outside of the United States and Canada...
", focusing on media interest in Jackson's personal life
Personal life
Personal life is the course of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity. It is a common notion in modern existence—although more so in more prosperous parts of the world such as Western Europe and North America...
, because he had felt that people wouldn't leave him alone. It compares Michael Jackson's life to an amusement park. His beloved then-pet chimp
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
Bubbles makes a cameo appearance as Jackson is seen picking him up and riding with him in his roller coaster car.
"Smooth CriminalSmooth Criminal"Smooth Criminal" is the seventh single from Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad album. The song contains a fast-paced beat intertwined with Jackson's lyrics about a woman named Annie, who has been attacked in her apartment by a "smooth" assailant. It was released as a single on October 24, 1988 and peaked...
"
The segment begins with three homeless children sneaking through a big city to see their friend Michael walk out of his apartment. As Michael stands in front of the door, he gazes at the night sky before he is attacked by mobsters with machine guns. The film then backtracks to show Michael and the children playing in a meadow in happier times. Their dog Skipper runs away, and as Michael and Katie look for him, they uncover the cottage of Dr. Big. Dr. Big is a drug-dealing warlock with a disciplined private army of soldiers at his command, he wants to get the entire population of Earth addicted to drugs, starting with children. He likes to eat nuts and leaves nutshells wherever he goes, He is obsessed with spiders, as displayed by their abundance at the entrance to his lair, and by the way he called his operation "bugs and drugs". He also has them engulfing a model globe when making a speech about his burgeoning drug empire. They signify the spread of his proposed control of the world via drug dealing. Further, all his henchmen sport a spider crest on their uniforms. Katie screams when she sees a spider, and Mr. Big discovers them spying on his operation.The story returns to the shooting in front of Michael's store. Unknown to the gangsters, Michael has a "lucky star", and using it, he escaped the gunfire. Upon realizing that Michael has escaped again, Mr. Big orders his henchmen to track him down with dogs. He is eventually cornered in an alley, where he uses his lucky star again to turn into a sportscar (the 1970 Lancia Stratos
Lancia Stratos
The Lancia Stratos HF, widely and more simply known as Lancia Stratos, is a car made by Italian car manufacturer Lancia. The HF stands for High Fidelity...
HF Zero prototype) that mows down several of Mr. Big's henchmen. Michael is pursued through the city streets until he loses the henchmen. Meanwhile, the children scout out Club 30's, where Michael had told them to meet him, and find only an abandoned and haunted nightclub. As Michael arrives, Katie sees a silhouette of him turning back from a car into himself. The door of the club opens with a gust of wind, and Michael walks in to find it filled with zoot suit
Zoot suit
A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...
ers and swing dancers. The children gather outside a window of the club and watch Michael dance to "Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
"Smooth Criminal" is the seventh single from Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad album. The song contains a fast-paced beat intertwined with Jackson's lyrics about a woman named Annie, who has been attacked in her apartment by a "smooth" assailant. It was released as a single on October 24, 1988 and peaked...
".
The song used in the film is much longer than the album release, with several lyrics that clarify the story. There is also an interlude wherein Jackson joins the other dancers in a modern interpretive dance. At the climax of the song, Mr. Big lays siege to the club and kidnaps Katie. Michael follows them back to Big's lair and ends up surrounded by his henchmen. Mr. Big appears and taunts Michael by threatening to inject Katie with highly addictive narcotics. Katie breaks free for a moment, but Mr. Big grabs her again and starts kicking Michael. As Mr. Big stands over Michael and orders his henchmen to kill him and Katie, Michael looks up and sees his lucky star. He transforms into a giant robot and kills all of Mr. Big's soldiers, then turns into a spaceship. Mr. Big gets into a large hillside-mounted energy cannon, firing on the spaceship into a nearby ravine. The children are his next target, but the spaceship returns from the ravine just in time to fire a beam in the cannon with Mr. Big inside, killing him. The children watch the ship fly into the night sky with shower of light.
Note: A 4:36 suite of Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton is a film, video game, and television soundtrack composer who has composed several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, including American music classics such as "Homeward Bound," "Silverado", "Tombstone," and wonderfully lyric music for "Miracle on 34th...
's score for this segment (Broughton also wrote the underscore for "Speed Demon") was recorded by Erich Kunzel
Erich Kunzel
Erich Kunzel, Jr. was an American orchestra conductor. Called the "Prince of Pops" by the Chicago Tribune, he performed with a number of leading pops and symphony orchestras, especially the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra , which he led for over 44 years.-Early life and career:Kunzel was born to...
and the Cincinnati Pops for the album Fantastic Journey, representing the only (officially) released music from this film by an artist other than Michael Jackson, although bootlegs are available of the score.
"Come TogetherCome Together"Come Together" is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on The Beatles' September 1969 album Abbey Road....
"
In the conclusion to "Smooth Criminal", Sean, Katie and Zeke return to the city, believing that Michael is gone forever. As the boys talk about Michael, Katie walks away crying and clutching a paper star. As she sits in a corner wishing for him to come back, the paper star flies out of her hand and Michael walks out of the night fog. He takes them to Club 30's, where they find that the club has turned into the backstage area of a concert. Michael's stage crew return the children's missing dog and then escort Michael onto the stage where he performs a cover of The BeatlesThe Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
song "Come Together
Come Together
"Come Together" is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on The Beatles' September 1969 album Abbey Road....
" with the children watching and cheering him on from backstage. Jackson's version of the song wasn't officially released until 1995 when it appeared on the album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.
"Closing credits"
During the closing credits, two more segments are shown. The first has Ladysmith Black MambazoLadysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards...
performing "The Moon is Walking" in Club 30's amidst behind-the-scenes clips. The second is the four-minute version of the "Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
"Smooth Criminal" is the seventh single from Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad album. The song contains a fast-paced beat intertwined with Jackson's lyrics about a woman named Annie, who has been attacked in her apartment by a "smooth" assailant. It was released as a single on October 24, 1988 and peaked...
" music video.
Select Cast
- Michael JacksonMichael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
- Joe PesciJoe PesciJoseph Frank "Joe" Pesci is an American actor, comedian, and musician.He is known for playing a variety of different roles, from violent mobsters to comedic leads to quirky sidekicks...
- Frankie "Mr. Big" LiDeo - Kellie Parker - Katie
- Sean LennonSean Lennonis an American singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist and actor. He is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His godfather is Sir Elton John.-Early life and education:...
- Sean - Brandon Quintin AdamsBrandon Quintin AdamsBrandon Quintin Adams is an American actor known for his playing Jesse Hall in the first two Mighty Ducks movies and Kenny DeNunez in The Sandlot....
- Zeke "Baby Bad" Michael (Smooth Criminal)/Kid MJ (Badder)
Reception
The movie received mixed reviews. Critics praised the music but complained that there was no plot, and that it seemed like a series of music videos poorly tied together. VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reported that Moonwalker "seems unsure of what it was supposed to be. At the center of the pic is the "Smooth Criminal" segment, a musical/dramatic piece full of dancing, schmaltzy kids, sci-fi effects and blazing machine guns [directed by Colin Chilvers, based on a story by Jackson]. Around it are really just numerous Jackson music videos with little or no linkage. Although quite enjoyable the whole affair does not make for a structured or professional movie."
The "Leave Me Alone" video aired as a separate entity and won a Grammy in 1989 for Breakthrough Animated Video, which is the only Grammy Award Michael received for the album Bad.
Current availability
There are currently no plans for an official North American re-release. However, the short films Come TogetherCome Together
"Come Together" is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on The Beatles' September 1969 album Abbey Road....
, Speed Demon, Leave Me Alone and Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
"Smooth Criminal" is the seventh single from Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad album. The song contains a fast-paced beat intertwined with Jackson's lyrics about a woman named Annie, who has been attacked in her apartment by a "smooth" assailant. It was released as a single on October 24, 1988 and peaked...
appeared in a DVD box set of Michael Jackson videos titled Michael Jackson's Vision
Michael Jackson's Vision
Michael Jackson's Vision is a deluxe DVD box set released on November 22, 2010. It includes three DVDs, featuring 4.5 hours of content of 42 music videos by Michael Jackson, with newly restored color and remastered audio. Michael referred to each of these productions as a "short film" and not a...
. The set only featured the sequences from Smooth Criminal, Speed Demon, Come Together and Leave Me Alone as opposed to the entire short film.
Moonwalker was released on a Region Free Blu-ray in the UK in June of 2010 by Warner Brothers. This Blu-ray version contained a new remastered transfer, and a DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The release is however censored, and is missing the final "Pow!" during the end of the Smooth Criminal
Smooth Criminal
"Smooth Criminal" is the seventh single from Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad album. The song contains a fast-paced beat intertwined with Jackson's lyrics about a woman named Annie, who has been attacked in her apartment by a "smooth" assailant. It was released as a single on October 24, 1988 and peaked...
dance number (this appears to be a technical error not a matter of censorship). It is also cropped to 16:9 from 4:3.
Currently, the film can be rented through Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
or region free third-party DVDs can be bought on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
. However, some of the DVDs found on eBay contain several typos and errors on the DVD cover.
Video game
U.S. Gold
U.S. Gold was a British video game publisher and developer from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s, producing numerous titles on a variety of 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit platforms.-History:...
. This top-down action game followed the segments of the film, and bore little resemblance to the later, more popular games developed by Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
with Michael Jackson's cooperation.
Moonwalker was developed into an arcade
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
video game by Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
with the help of Jackson, which was released on the Sega System 18 hardware. A distinct adaptation was also developed for Sega's Genesis/Mega Drive and Master System home video game systems. The console versions of the game were actually based on an evolved version of the side-scrolling Sega Mega Drive Shinobi series engine, while the arcade version was a three-quarters beat 'em up
Beat 'em up
Beat 'em up is a video game genre featuring melee combat between the protagonist and a large number of underpowered antagonists. These games typically take place in urban settings and feature crime-fighting and revenge-based plots, though some games may employ historical or fantasy themes...
.
Both the console and arcade versions are based on the "Smooth Criminal" segment of the film, following Michael in suit and fedora through stages based on his different music videos as he rescues children from the drug dealer Mr. Big. In the three player simultaneous arcade game, contact with Bubbles, Michael's chimp, transformed him into a robot warrior, replacing Michael's "star magic" and melee dance attacks with missiles and laser beams. In the console versions on certain levels, rescuing a certain child first would trigger a comet to fall from the sky that could be grabbed transforming Michael into the robot (which could fly with a rocket pack as well as use lasers and a missile special attack). Michael automatically changes into a robot for the final showdown with Mr. Big's henchmen and finally into a space ship for the last battle, in a sort of flight-sim shooter in the Genesis/Mega Drive version. All incarnations of the game featured the ability of Michael to use some form of "Dance Magic" which would force his enemies to dance to the music of various tunes from "Bad" or "Thriller" and be destroyed as a result.
Certification
| Country | Certification | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | 4x Platinum | 50,000 |
| USA | 8x Platinum | 800,000 |
External links
- Search for 'Moonwalker' on Games-db.com.
- Search for 'Moonwalker' on MobyGames videogame database.
- Moonwalker information and screenshots
- Michael Jackson lunar crater ("Moonwalker")