The Past is Prologue to the Future.....

I am a big fan of South Park and by extension Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Some years ago they made a movie called Team America World Police which I have read was partially inspired by the 1982 movie Megaforce. I was 9 years old when that movie came out, and I think Matt and Trey were approximately the same age or slightly older. Megaforce was heavily marketed to the kids of my generation and we all rushed out to see it once it hit theatres. Unfortunately it was not exactly a blockbuster and soon made a quick exit from the local cineplex. Nevertheless, I think it inspired many kids to dream of riding their own rocket propelled motorcycles to hero status. Sadly, it does not enjoy widespread appeal beyond a tiny subset of the population who were say, boys 8-12 years old in 1982. Yeah, you kind of had to be there to get it.

I have also heard that Matt and Trey like to watch the movie several times a month for inspiration working on South Park and one episode even references the movie explicitly. Early in the Bush Administration there was a movement to downsize troop levels per Rumsfeld and the theory behind the move was that technology would allow us to do the same job with fewer troops. I heard one reporter say it sounded like someone at the Pentagon had based the plan on watching Megaforce which I had to laugh at, but admittedly was a truly insightful comment. The plot line of the movie involves a small rapid reaction military force made up of members from numerous nations who use light and fast vehicles like motorcycles and jeeps outfitted with lasers and advanced rockets to outmaneuver and outflank slow and cumbersome tanks and standard military weapon systems of the time period and would be sent in where conventional forces doing the job might be impossible or imprudent for some political reason. Does that sound familiar?

Though they lacked the flying motorcycles in the movie, the special forces in Task Force Dagger that helped overthrow the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan could in some ways be the modern equivalent of the Megaforce idea of using a handful of highly trained troops with technology backing them up to achieve amazing tactical victories. In the Afghanistan case the military had a few elite spotters on the ground who were sending in targeted coordinates to planes circling above them and were able to defeat huge massed forces with local assistance from anti Taliban locals who performed essentially mop up operations after the bombs from fighter planes and the C-130 gunships did their work. However, once the war shifted from just defeating a military force to actually trying to mold the people of Afghanistan into a cohesive and fully functional government the handful of special forces were too few in number to effect profound change in winning the peace. As the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has continued and the need for additional troops became obvious I think the Pentagon plans to create a permanent smaller military force ala Megaforce all but died in the planning stages. However, Megaforce itself shall live on in infamy among the thirty somethings who walked out of megaplexes dreaming of flying motorcycles with rockets.

In locating clips to post to my blog I came across this quote which I thought did a brilliant job of summarizing the movie, "This is one of those rare movies that punched right through the bottom of bad, and came out at the top of awesome. " I could not put it any better. This movie is so cheesy bad that it became great for its unabashed flag waving cheese factor....and that is a hard task to accomplish. The mystery science theatre boys did a ten minute commentary on the flick which was kinda funny: If you have some time check it out:




My only complaint about the mystery science theatre clip is that it does not include enough of the action of the movie which is really what appealed to me in the first place. So, check out this clip starting from 1:24 into the thing to see what appealed to any neoconservative hawks who favored a smaller rapid reaction type of military similar to the Megaforce team:



I will leave you with this vintage Hunter quote which he delivered to the bad guy right before he flies off on his motorcycle after hopping up onto the guy's tank and knocking on the hatch, "The good guys always win, even in the 80's." As Charlie Munger might say, "I have nothing to add."