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1985 Movie Reviews – Cocoon, A Flash of Green, Lifeforce, and Return to Oz

by Sean P. Aune | June 21, 2025June 21, 2025 10:30 am EDT

Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.

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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1985 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time around, it’s June 21, 1985, and we’re off to see Cocoon, A Flash of Green, Lifeforce, and Return to Oz.

1985 Movie Project - Cocoon - 01

Cocoon

The ending of this film hits very differently when you’re in your 50s compared to when you’re a teen.

A group of aliens comes to Earth to recover their 20 comrades they had left 10,000 years ago during the sinking of Atlantis. They hire a boat captain (Steve Guttenberg) to help them, although he is not in on the truth for some time. Meanwhile, three elderly gentlemen (Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, and Hume Cronyn) are sneaking into the pool where the cocoons are being kept and discover the energy in the pool is making them feel healthy once again.

This film was where Ron Howard really started to pick up momentum as a director, and it was well deserved. (Although he was brought in to replace Robert Zemeckis.) The film also went on to win two Academy Awards: One for Don Ameche for Best Supporting Actor and one for Best Visual Effects.

Sadly, the story doesn’t make a lick of sense. So many things are left unexplained such as why did they have to hire a boat? How did they even have money to do anything, they had just arrived on Earth. Why couldn’t the pool be recharged? And on and on and on. It feels as though there are a lot of cut out moments from this film, or perhaps they were simply never addressed. All that aside, it’s still a fun watch, even if its illogical.

I would recommend you watch the film, but oddly enough it’s been out of print for years and is not streaming as of the time of this anniversary.

1985 Movie Project - A Flash of Green - 01

A Flash of Green

If the 1980s taught us anything about small coastal towns, it was that someone was always threatening their way of life.

Jimmy Wing (Ed Harris) is a small town reporter who’s life is not going to plan. His wife is sick, his best friend dies leaving his wife as a widow, and now a small town politician wants to hire him to dig up dirt on his rivals. All set against the backdrop of a shady business deal that will change the ecology of the area for the worse.

Once again this is another fine example of a 1980s story – although this time based on a book – of truly unlikable protagonists. While Jimmy corrects his moral compass by the end of the story, he does some truly reprehensible things along the way.

The performances are all fine, but the story leaves you without much of a concern for what happens to anyone in this town. You reach a point of just not caring what happens to the majority of them.

1985 Movie Project - Lifeforce - 01

Lifeforce

Do you want some nudity? Boy, have I got a movie for you!

A space shuttle named Churchill goes to rendezvous with Halley’s Comet to gather data. Once there they encounter a 150-mile long ship that they feel the need to explore. What they find our three humanoid looking occupants – all naked – and they go to take them back to Earth. Once the shuttle gets back it is discovered everyone is dead, except for one person who got away an escape pod, and the three humanoids. From there it spirals into a new take on a vampire story where they suck out people’s lifeforce and send it to their giant starship to collect.

The new twist is fine, but it is nothing but a very minor twist. While I’m certainly not a prude, the non-stop nudity of Space Girl (Mathilda May) – whom they never even give a name – is just insanely distracting. She does finally put on a robe for about the last 15 minutes of the movie, but by then the damage is done.

It’s a silly little film that tried to make up for its lack of story with nudity, and it simply doesn’t work.

1985 Movie Project - Return to Oz - 01

Return to Oz

This movie is such a mixed bag.

Six months after the events of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale (Fairuza Balk) is sent to a sanatoriumfor electric shock treatment to help her stop the ‘hallucinations’ she has of her adventures. While there, she meets a young girl who sends her back to Oz during a storm and there she discovers things have not gone well since she was last there. She goes on a whole new adventures to stop Princess Mombi (Jean Marsh) and the Nome King.

Return to Oz sticks closer to L. Frank Baum’s books, but that doesn’t necessarily mean audiences were prepared for that. The Wizard of Oz version of the story was so engrained in people’s minds at this point that it was impossible for anyone to think of it in any other way. The other issue was that this film coming down to a guessing game at the end just feels half-hearted.

It was entertaining, and perhaps with more modern effects it also would be more effective, but just don’t go into the film thinking that you are getting anything close to the more famous film.

1985 Movie Reviews will return on June 28, 2025, with Pale Rider, Red Sonja, and St Elmo’s Fire.


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Sean P. Aune

Sean Aune has been a pop culture aficionado since before there was even a term for pop culture. From the time his father brought home Amazing