Our Friend, Martin (1999) – The Martin Luther King MLK animated time travel adventure – Movie Review

Here is the transcript of Peter’s review of the 1999 direct-to-video animated movie Our Friend, Martin animated movie.

00:00:01
Quiet on the set. >> Speed down production stage one. Action. >> AKAPaders. Let me reach out and say thank you. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the AKA Pad Film Buff podcast. And let me let me tell you a little bit of why I feel like today’s episode is part of the the definition of the film buff. It’s an endless curiosity where you don’t want nothing or anything to to slip through your fingers. It’s it’s absolute fear of missing out. The kids like to call it FOMO. I like to

00:00:42
call it being clear and complete. It’s Martin Luther King Day. and earlier and AKAPADder just personal note I have been uh just dealing with a couple issues with my father-in-law and you know it’s just the process of individuals uh getting better healing uh going through the the medical system and sometimes that requires everyone’s help and and that’s that’s where we are with Uh I got no fear. Uh I think he will power right through this. Uh brighter days are coming. But until then, you

00:01:26
know, it’s it’s darkest before the dawn. So earlier today, right, like I am sitting down building out my list, sipping my coffee. Uh normally my mornings is uh list building, documentation, admin work, drinking coffee and and building some initial notes on on research. I take a lot of notes on uh paths I have to go, things I I have to know. But it is MLK day, Martin Luther King Day, and I realized uh you know like maybe I haven’t paid enough attention to to this holiday recently and I feel and

00:02:11
part of it after watching our friend Martin 1999 1 hour one minute long from DIC Entertainment or DIC programming. Dick is is the uh name of the production company. I So I Googled I I Googled Martin Luther King like movies, biography uh you know biographical movies. I I had a couple searches combined and and this came like right up and then I I realized two things outside of Selma. Yeah. the Academy Award nominated movie. There’s [laughter] Why is there not a lot of Martin Luther King movies? Just I’m not saying there

00:03:00
has to be thousands of them or hundreds of them. But I would think by now in American history and American culture, uh his image, his ideals would have been uh you know like fictionalized for entertainment. I’m not saying they’re fictionalizing who he is. I’m just saying that’s the the avenue of the the content, but there’s not. There’s literally Selma and this. Now, there’s documentaries, which are f, you know, we love documentaries. So, I sit down to watch our friend Martin. Uh, it’s got voices

00:03:40
by Lucas Black, our dude from Fast and Furious, Tokyo Drift, Angela Bassid, Whoopy Goldberg, Lavar Burton, Star Trek Next Generation, Samuel Jackson, but it’s the DIC connection to this because DIC is one of my favorite production companies uh, of this era. I love their the the illustration style. I love the look of their animations. Uh like the history of them deserves an episode on uh by itself. But I mean they even go back to the 85 Care Bears. And you guys have to remember too the Care Bears were

00:04:23
dominating Disney even theatrically for uh quite some time. But even things like Dino Squad, Trolls with a Z, uh, Stargate Infinity, Speed Racer X, uh, Alienators, Evolution Continues, man, that’s been Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, that’s been on my list, Extreme Dinosaurs, Inspector Gadget, Field Trip, Sailor Moon, Action Man, Ultra Force, Street Sharks, Double Dragon, Sonic the Hedgehog, and I’m I’m just like hitting the surface, but their style, it’s one of my favorite

00:05:01
of this generation and it is very clear from the beginning. I think this is some of their their overall strongest character design. The design of the bully in this the it’s a fat white kid bully. He is his facial expressions and the way how they designed his face, it’s so easily animated. So even when again like production methods and budgeting and and and deadlines uh and the intent in nature because this was a a VHS release, I believe it might have aired a couple times. I I would air this once a

00:05:41
year. I really would I I would have this in schools still. That’s how important I think of a piece this is. But the bully is so welld designed that they can even make errors and it looks good. With all of that, we enter into this uh paradox and and this this story as we’re going and it is time travel. We go back in time and we see Martin Luther King while he’s he’s younger. Uh our main character, I I forget Martin I believe is his name. Martin has a [laughter] Martin has a a project. He’s got a paper

00:06:22
to write. He’s he’s got to write about Martin Luther King. He’s African-American. Uh he spews out some of the the the surface level talking points to his teacher. His teacher’s like, “You got we’re going to even more from you.” So they do like a Bill and Teds thing. He he’s got to go back in time. uh he goes back in time with one of his friends who’s white boy by the way that I absolutely love. I love that there’s, you know, kind of like the the two races like again like Bill and Ted

00:06:50
kind of going on this adventure and they’re similar but a little bit opposite just like Bill and Ted where the areas that they’re congruent are these like weird intangible ways but uh Bill and Ted we we we can argue are are as opposite as they are alike. But we get this moment here where the Bill and Ted adventure becomes this uh Charles Dickens Christmas Carol paradox where they get they learn and they’re there of the MLK assassination. They go back in time and they pull [laughter]

00:07:32
because they have the gadgets for it, you know, the the the the uh the McGuffin, if you will, but they pull a young MLK into the future to show him the world that he helped create. And along the way, we get some of these speeches, which are fantastic, by the way. It’s it’s it’s great. I mean, I think part of the coursework for this would be to watch this and then like the second day absorb one of his speeches, absorb another speech uh speech and and be able to like speak on it and and frame it uh

00:08:09
within the historical context of uh what the people were at the time, not not the future stuff, but just uh the frame would be in the present. With all of that, they bring the young MLK into the present day and it is a dystopian backwards like Back to the Future 2 future. And I’m watching this and I’m almost like did they lose the audience? Like they kind of lost me with this. I I was I was perfectly fine with the kid trying to complete uh a paper going back in time and seeing MLK in in his

00:08:49
different forms and experiencing it like one to one and then it’s like his mother doesn’t work for a company. Uh his his mother’s an entrepreneur for lack of a better term. uh she is uh I think like a house she’s like a janitor for this company and and his school teacher doesn’t recognize him and and again like his world’s upside down and we learn and it’s so simple. I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming but again this shows you how how much this again hourlong VHS DIC produced feature pulled

00:09:29
me in like by no purpose should I get pulled into this but again I preach about this. You have to be a good audience member. You have to be willing to get pulled in. The hook here is that the future that they pull MLK out of is this. So, they get to see a future without MLK’s influence. And the point of that hits home perfectly to where I’m watching this, I’m just saying like, you know, like maybe maybe I’m not quite there. Maybe I don’t understand enough about who this man was. uh who what his impact

00:10:10
was and and exactly who he influenced of the day. Uh you know like we know him like I I only the here’s the facts that I knew and I know a little bit more now but what I knew of MLK is you know of course the I have a dream speech which everybody knows. I knew his final interview was with Playboy magazine. Uh, I knew he potentially, right, uh, cheated on his wife. Uh, and I know him for the Nobel Peace Prize and and like that’s about it. So, this one-hour long cartoon showed me like Peter Film Buff Boy, uh,

00:10:55
you you really should know more. You should just know more about this guy. And that’s what I plan to do moving forward. And I’m hoping you are. Now, if you’re looking for this, our friend Martin is available right now on YouTube. Uh, a couple different accounts have it. It’s fr. Go check it out. Go watch it. Uh, if you’re a fan of animation, uh, I think the character design and I think the look of this, uh, is is of note. And I I enjoyed it visually because, you guys know, like I’m a little bit of a of of a

00:11:30
visual thinker myself. Uh, everyone involved full credit, writing full credit, storyboards full credit. Uh, everyone fired on all cylinders. And they might have been sitting down thinking they’re going to make something important, something that’s something that’s going to endure endure. Uh, meaning it’s going to become a perennial play in classrooms around the globe. Uh, you know, around America at least. I think they achieved that. And I think this should be more regular viewing. I

00:12:01
really do. All right, AKA Pers. I love you guys. Rock and roll. Okay, that’s a wrap. [applause]

The credits

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.