Michael Jackson, my Captain EO

MANILA, Philippines - Michael Joseph Jackson — singer, songwriter, record producer, composer, dancer, choreographer, actor, author, businessman — the one-gloved King of Pop had burned both ends of his candle with such prodigious flame that a year after his death shortly before his 51st birthday, the world still cannot countenance his confusing legacy. Hero or heel? Philanthropist or pedophile? Peter Pan or Phantom of the Opera? For me, he will always be Captain EO.

Jackson collaborated with Francis Ford Copola on the 17-minute film Captain EO, which debuted in September 1986 at both the original Disneyland and at EPCOT in Florida, and in March 1987 at Tokyo Disneyland. It was later featured at Euro Disneyland after it opened in 1992. All four theme parks’ Captain EO installations awed the public well into the 1990s with Tokyo’s closing last in 1998 after allegations of child molestation hounded the eccentric superstar. The attraction would later return to all four venues after Jackson’s death last June 25, 2009.

For several years, a group of MJ fanatics had petitioned Disney to bring back the attraction, with his death bringing the campaign to a frenzy. Soon afterward, Disney officials relented. Thus, on Dec. 18, 2009, it was announced that Captain EO would return to Tomorrowland at Disneyland beginning in February 2010. Social and print media manager Heather Hust Rivera from Disneyland Resorts confirmed this on the Disney Parks Blog and stated that Honey, I Shrunk the Audience would be closing to make way for the Michael Jackson film’s return.

Thus, in 2010, the attraction, now titled Captain EO Tribute, re-opened at Disneyland Park on Feb. 23; at Discoveryland, Disneyland Park (Paris) on June 12; at Epcot, Walt Disney World on July 2; and at Tokyo Disneyland on July 1. The attraction in fact returned to Epcot for a “soft opening” (actual opening to the public prior to the official opening) on June 30, 2010, two days prior to its official re-opening. As Summer Nightastic! began last June 11 at Disneyland Resort, it offered a longer Captain EO Tribute to the impatient public.

Produced at a staggering $30,000,000 (at the time, it was the most expensive film ever produced on a per-minute basis, averaging out at $1.76M per minute), Captain EO is regarded as the first “4-D” film (a 3-D film which incorporates in-theater effects, such as lasers, smoke, etc., frame synced to the film narrative), an innovation suggested by producer-writer Rusty Lemorande.

I have kept in our family scrapbook the brochure from Tomorrow Land’s Magic Eye Theatre when we first visited Disneyland in 1990, toting our youngest son Tim (deep in neonate slumber in his basket), on which is printed the synopsis of the MTV/movie/space opera:

Captain EO and the ragtag crew of his spaceship on a mission to deliver a gift to “The Supreme Leader” (Anjelica Houston), of a world of rotting, twisted metal and steaming vents. Captain EO’s alien crew consists of his small flying sidekick Fuzzball, the double-headed navigator and pilot Idey (Debbie Lee Carrington) and Ody (Cindy Sorenson), robotic security officer Major Domo (Gary Depew), a small robot Minor Domo (who fits like a module into Major Domo), and the clumsy elephant-like shipmate Hooter (Tony Cox), who always manages to upset the crew’s missions. Dick Shawn plays Captain EO’s boss, Commander Bog.

It seemed that Copola came up with the name Captain EO from Greek mythology, from the mesmerizing legend surrounding Eos, the Titan goddess of the Dawn, who mated with the star god Aestraeus and gave birth to Eosphoros, the god of the dawn star. Seeing Jackson decimate his foes with his fancy footwork and flashy  costume (his trademark military suit) surrounded by star field effects as the theater seats tilted (with the aid of hydraulics), one can appreciate the metaphor. With LED floodlighting, Jackson lights up the firmament like the star of dawn as he sang, Another Part of Me, and We are Here to Change the World, which he composed for the movie, and which, like earlier songs in his career such as Can You Feel It  and  We are the World,  had lyrics calling for global unity, love, and compassion. A snippet of the song was used for the Jam segment of the cancelled This is It concerts, intended as his comeback bid after his recluse years.

Jackson, despite his battle with personal demons that were rooted deeply in his lost childhood, was a genius.  One reason for his phenomenal fame, says University of Rochester music professor John Covach, was because of his ability to overcome genre boundaries. When he was the child prodigy top billing for The Jackson 5, his songs appealed to teenyboppers and Motown enthusiasts. Who would forget the early ’70s’ Got to be there and Ben, which he sang with a hauntingly lyrical soprano, and a remake of Bobby Day’s Rockin Robin which he straddled with hyperactive gusto?

Later, in his solo work as concert king of the ’80s, particularly on the albums Off the Wall and Thriller, he ran the gamut of R&B, rock, hip-hop.  In 1982, Jackson contributed the song Someone In the Dark to the storybook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1984. In the same year, he won another seven Grammys and eight American Music Awards (including the Award of Merit, the youngest artist to win it), taking home the most awards in one night for both award shows. These awards were thanks to the Thriller album, which became 1983’s best-selling album worldwide, as well as the best-selling album of all time worldwide, selling an estimated 110 million copies so far. The album topped the Billboard 200 chart for 37 weeks, maintaining the Top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. It was the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles, including Billie Jean and Beat it.

“Jackson used his success to really raise the whole level, not only of music videos, but of concert productions — almost like taking a Broadway show on the road,” Covach opines.

But fame is a cruel mistress, leading Jackson to a spiraling fixation with his looks. Botched up plastic surgeries followed one after the other, precipitated by the burning accident while shooting his Pepsi commercial.  With the soda company settling out of court, Jackson underwent treatment to hide the scars on his scalp, but his injuries aggravated his lifelong psychological scars from a lonely childhood. Jackson donated his $1.5M settlement to the Brotman Medical Center in Culver City,  California, which now has a “Michael Jackson Burn Center” as legacy of his endowment.

Fatherhood and costly litigations marked his career in the ‘90s, with his vitiligo and  bizarre behavior  alienating him from the rest of the world. In the feature My trip to Neverland, and the call from Michael Jackson I’ll never forget, by Paul Theroux, Jackson confides:

“It makes people do strange things. A lot of our famous luminaries become intoxicated because of it — they can’t handle it. And your adrenaline is at the zenith of the universe after a concert — you can’t sleep. It’s maybe two in the morning and you’re wide awake. After coming off stage, you’re floating.”

The boy, who created his own Neverland where he can live in perpetual childhood, turned to cartoons, video games and contemporary literary classics by Maugham, Twain and Hemingway for solace.

Alas, like the latter American novelist of the Lost Generation, who paraphrased the prophet of Ecclesiastes in his first major novel “The Sun also Rises,” Jackson learned too late that All is vanity and vexation of spirit.  While the world mourned his untimely passing, it also scrambled over 200 pieces of Jackson memorabilia — stage wear, posters, signed albums and awards, and of course the Swarovski-crystal-studded glove he wore on his 1984 Victory Tour, which was auctioned for $190,000.

This summer, our three grown sons came to know Captain EO at Disney, the happiest place on earth, where they saw the reborn film courtesy of cousin Michelle. When another cousin, Nurse Joan took them to the Hollywood Walk of Fame to press their hands over Jackson’s granite star, the homage was complete to the gone-too-soon icon who was born the same year their mother was. They have celebrated the troubled spirit, who in his death, as in his life, was the god of the dawn star, Eosphoros, on a mission/in the everlasting light that shines/a revelation of the truth in chapters of our minds… (from We are Here to Change the World).

Our sons, who only knew him as a troubled artist refusing to grow up, have paid obeisance to my Captain EO, superstar Extra Ordinary.