Disney, like every profitable studio, is known for being violently litigious. The company will destroy Etsy sellers for using their IP in handmade gifts. Their stranglehold on Mickey Mouse has pushed back the power of the public domain for decades, robbing creators of the concepts that inspire them. Disney is awful enough that any negative story surrounding them could be plausible. Full Moon's 1993 film Arcade might have fallen apart after a Disney lawsuit.
Albert Pyun was one of the most fascinating filmmakers of the 80s and 90s. He was a B-movie legend, cranking out schlocky, low-budget sci-fi and action projects with absurd moments. Any of his films are perfect for a group of friends seeking something hilarious for a drunken viewing. Though most of his outings were bad by traditional standards, Pyun occupied a necessary place in the media ecosystem. His power increased dramatically when he worked with Full Moon and its iconic founder, Charles Band.
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What is Arcade about?
Director | Albert Pyun |
|---|---|
Writer | David S. Goyer |
Story By | Charles Band |
Starring | Megan Ward, Peter Billingsley, John de Lancie |
Runtime | 85 Minutes |
Release Date | March 30, 1994 |
Arcade follows Alex, a teenager sent reeling after her mother commits suicide. Her friends, boyfriend, and guidance counselor watch her struggle without the means to help. Alex joins her loved ones on a day at the local arcade, Dante's Inferno. They discover Difford, the CEO of a computer company, marketing a test build of a new VR game called Arcade. Difford hands out home versions of his creation. Alex's boyfriend tries out the new title and disappears mysteriously. As her friends vanish, Alex and her friend Nick track down the developer, Albert. He explains that the game traps the souls of those who lose and that the only way to save Alex's friends is to defeat the sinister spirit residing within the cartridge. Only Alex and Nick can defeat Arcade before the game releases worldwide, imposing its brutal "Game Over" screen upon millions.
Arcade dropped into the weirdly prolific VR movie craze of the early 90s. It joined Brett Leonard's Lawnmower Man, Robert Longo's Johnny Mnemonic, and, of course, Steven Lisberger's Tron. Albert Pyun's filmography is overwhelmed with high-concept science fiction projects, many sharing elements with Arcade. It appeared to be his passion, but in a 2012 interview, he explained that he favored post-apocalyptic settings and cyborgs as necessities in his low-budget circles. David S. Goyer wrote Arcade, his second collaboration with Pyun. Goyer is a controversial legend, ranking among the most influential voices in the superhero genre. He wrote the Blade trilogy, co-wrote Christopher Nolan's Batman films, and provided much of the early DCEU. Only the great Charles Band could bring talent like that together. His Full Moon Features brand contributed endless low-budget schlock for the enjoyment of several generations. The collaboration makes Arcade a fascinating, unexplored artifact for specific film historians.
The Disney lawsuit against Arcade explained
The trailers for Arcade depicted different special effects than the finished product. The first drafts of those CGI designs also appeared in Full Moon's VideoZone video magazine, which outlined upcoming and recent projects. In 2014, Ryan W. Featherson posted a retrospective piece about Arcade for his blog, Houston on the Half Shell. He speculated that director Albert Pyun and producer Charles Band were unhappy with the CGI, prompting a second pass. In 2016, a user going by laseractive left a comment claiming that Band changed the CGI because Disney threatened Full Moon with legal action. Laseractive offered no supporting evidence. Wikipedia reports the legal action with the Blogspot post as its only citation. IMDb and several other forums list the Disney suit as fact, but there is no verifiable evidence available online to suggest any truth to the story. If Disney threatened to sue Full Moon over similarities to their film Tron, they did so without making headlines. The making-of featurette after Arcade does depict the original special effects, including an artist openly referring to the film's bikes as "light-cycles," but the Disney lawsuit story remains in limbo.
Where to watch Arcade
Arcade is available to stream free with ads on The Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, and Freevee. It's available for free without ads to any Amazon Prime Video subscribers who have the Full Moon Channel.
Arcade harkens back to a simpler time. The effects are cheesy, the acting is silly, the premise is absurd, and the action is almost universally terrible, but those failures lend the project a specific niche charm. Albert Pyun tragically passed in 2022, but his legacy will live on forever. Charles Band and Full Moon are still with us, cranking out silly schlock every so often. Track down Arcade. It won't suck viewers into the game, but it will let them experience an earlier era of genre filmmaking.
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