Hacker Cinema
Damnation Alley
1977 · Film · 91 min
Directed by Jack Smight
AdventureScience FictionThriller
Following World War III, four survivors at a desert military installation attempt to drive across the desolate wasteland of America to Albany, where they hope more survivors are living, using a specially built vehicles to protect themselves against the freakish weather, mutated plant and animal life, and other dangers encountered along the way.
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8 comments on Hacker News
A shout to Damnation Alley (1997) with George Peppard. The missile launch sequence is first rate IMO and creeped me out something fierce, for its oddly realistic banter and simple but vivid displays. From first (Soviet) launch indication to the sequence of nuclear detonations, ~10 minutes of horror that was more intense for its lack of background music and the chatter of tense men doing their job.
Bizarre at times and cheesy scorpion aside, the dialogue was well written and Jerry Goldsmith's electronically augmented score gave it a vibe that recalled the wonder of watching Logan's Run for the first time. Its simple quest led to a series of episodes in a long journey that were each good cinema. The cockroaches! My favorite film of 1977 besting Star Wars.
Since we're talking about cool toys from back in the day, let me ask if anybody can help me with something. I had a cool toy back in the late 70's, early 80's, and I'd occasionally like to mention it or refer to it (or maybe even indulge nostalgia and try to find one on ebay to buy) but I can't remember what it was called.
Does anybody remember something like this: a wheeled toy that I vaguely recall had stylings something like a tank or an APC or something - or maybe one of those weird vehicles from Damnation Alley[1] - but with a bunch of buttons on top with numbers and directional arrows. You could "program" the thing to roam around on its own by pushing a sequence of directional arrows and numbers. It was something like "Go forward 5 units, turn left, go 4 units", etc. I don't even know now what distance units it used, or if the speed was programmable. Once you programmed it there was a "Go" button that would send it off on its little adventure crawling around the living room (and promptly getting stuck under the TV stand or something, but that's neither here nor there).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnation_Alley_(film)
I've been a huge Zelazny fan since the mid-80s, and it's a bit of a shame that his catalog hasn't caught the imagination of showrunners and moviemakers. Because while his style is somewhat literary, it is so largely in the service of creating an atmosphere -- and one that I think could translate well visually. Maybe the film of Damnation Alley is still being held against him?
Sort of reminds me of Damnation Alley: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075909/
A movie so bad, that recalling it triggers PTSD.
Made me think of a long forgotten 70's movie - Damnation Alley.
Very interesting, as a motorcycle rider I am familiar with both two and three wheeled machines. Having two in the front for a three wheeler is much more stable and Can-Am produced by BRP in Canada is an example that is more more like a motorcycle while the Slingshot produced by Polaris is more like a car. The distinction I use is seating position and how you steer them. Both are a hoot to drive but I give the nod to the Can-Am for utility
There have been some one wheel motorcycles and even two wheeled motorcycles have been computerized to be self driving and self balancing, Honda made one that is stable even while not moving
Still my favorite eight, or is that twelve, wheeled vehicle is the Landmaster [1] which was produced for the movie Damnation Alley in the seventies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster
Reminds me very much of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-star_(wheel_arrangement) which was used in the movie Damnation Alley for their Landmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster which was quite functional considering it was custom built for the movie. While long,
This video https://youtu.be/ZZYT2nYd46o shows the gang rotate near 40 seconds and at end you can see it used in water (6:33)
Being the scenes on its construction https://youtu.be/26n3RsXNyKE and it still exists as of 2016
We had the same thing being reported in the late 70's.
There was a travelling exhibit that visited my high school which was an analog computer - you could set your energy sources (coal, hydro, nuclear, solar) and see how long society could run before we re-entered the Dark Ages (literally - no more electric lights!). Thinking about it - the consumption side was likely a rising wave function which predicted steadily-increasing use of electricity.
This was around the time when the EPA's Energy Star program got started, and I suspect it did a lot to counter the increase in demand.
You can also look at the films of the 70's to get some of the zeitgeist of the era - "Soylent Green", "Silent Running", "No Blade of Grass", "Damnation Alley", and so on, all with the theme that the Earth no longer nourishes life.