Crash by The Primitives echoed out of the school space-gym.
Pokey looked nervously at the beautiful space-teenagers wearing their best anti-gravity suits and laughing as they use their personal propulsion units to enter the space-prom they will remember for the rest of their lives.
He’s on his own. He has no date. He knows they will laugh at him, at his space-clothes, at the battered space-launcher his mom had used to transport him through the inky blackness of space.
He doesn’t care. It’s his space-prom too, and as the music changes to Simple Minds’ Waterfront, he smiles. They’re playing his mixtape.
This was going to be his night.
Dancing on The Rings of Saturn was John Hughes’ only High School movie set in outer space. It came out in summer of 1986 and was reasonably well-received both critically and commercially. So why is it largely forgotten nowadays?
“I was really proud of the work we did on Rings,” said star Megan Walsh.
“I really don’t get why people don’t look back on it as fondly as they do Pretty in Pink and Ferris Beuller.”
Set on a typical suburban space colony, Dancing on The Rings of Saturn tells the story of Pokey, an unconventional space-high school student who wears make-up and listens to weird underground music like Wang Chung and Then Jericho.
He lives with his tough single mum who works long hours to keep Pokey in space-eye liner and New Order LPs.
“Pokey’s mom was a great character, she was a tough, complex woman and that was a hard thing to find in the 80s,” remembered Walsh.
“Particularly in space.”
Pokey is mocked and bullied by his space-high schoolmates but spends his time making space-mixtapes and leaving them anonymously around the colony where they soon pick up a cult following.
“Each of those tapes was compiled by John and, at the wrap he gave them out to the cast, which was really sweet.
“My one’s got some Mission, Gene Loves Jezebel, and Mighty Lemon Drops on. It was a great souvenir of a lovely time.”
Faron Leboir, the leader of the cool gang of space-jocks takes credit for the space-mixtapes and passes them of as his own.
At first Pokey is distraught, but his mum finds out and, after working a night shift at the space-diner, gives Pokey a tough, inspirational talk and takes him to the space-prom to confront the evil Leboir.
“Great speech. Really moving,” said Walsh of her character’s big moment.
“Those tears when I produce Pokey’s dead father’s best space-clothes for him to wear to the space-prom are genuine.
“It was simply beautiful writing. Which was just John all over.”
The final confrontation between Pokey and Leboir is the equal of the party scene at the end of Some Kind of Wonderful and is as heart-warming as anything Hughes made.
Dancing on the Rings of Saturn is classic Hughes from start to finish, only in space, and surely, if it weren’t completely fictional and made-up, a bluray release could see it finally finding the cult classic status it deserves.
We can only hope.
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