In response to a question I had about lasers and their importance to the late 80's and early 90's, Brandon J. Conaway responded with this brilliant letter:
At it's height, a laser was an extremely effective and scary weapon. Jonny 5
had a laser mounted on his shoulder and the Predator wiped out all of
Arnold's guerilla warfare unit by primarily using his laser. I don't know
what started the fall of the laser but it has gone from the penthouse to the
outhouse. The lasers demise has been historical.
As far as I'm concerned, the laser started losing momentum with me when they
opened Lazer Star in Oxnard. I realized then that to be good at lasers, you
don't need to be cooler or faster than the next guy, you just have to be a
massive dork. Lasers started becoming associated with dorks and started
becoming a lot more harmless.
From that point on, lasers lost a lot of steam, I think it's like, lasers
had a really bad Publicist, probably the same chick that Tom Cruise had.
Let's review:
Lasers were cooler when they were spelled like Lazers. Lasers' publicist
made an error here to go with the s over the z. It made the word laser sound
less powerful and more Euro. After lasers became ineffective in the weapon
and destruction market, they became laser pointers. This was a big blow for
lasers ego. These were pretty cool at first but lasers' publicist was
worried that it made the laser look too wussy. They had to say that even
though the laser is small and hand held, the laser would blind you if shined
directly in your eye. This theory became disastrous for laser when everyone
realized this to be false. The straw that broke lasers back was when the
only relevance laser had was for laser eye surgery. At this point, laser was
an alcoholic and very depressed and didn't even take the initiative to take
the name for it. It became Lasik eye surgery.
I don't see any way for laser to make a comeback at this point and regain
its once ferocious reputation. Put it this way, I don't think we will see
any more soccer teams called "The Lazers". Unless it's in a gay men's soccer
league.
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Key points to add in terms of defending the lazer's dominance in the 80's/early 90's.
ReplyDeleteNot only was a lazer the weapon of choice for Johnny 5 and the Predator, but it also showed it's versatility as the single greatest addition to a live concert performance ever in Revenge of The Nerds. Would Lamda Lamda Lamda have won the talent competition without Wormser's spectacular lazer show, I think
not. The amazing stage presence of the lazer still lives on today at Metallica concerts.
Metallica made a decision long ago to embrace the lazer technology of the 80's and
stick by it through all of it's bad publicity.