The Importance of Inline Skating in Airborne (1993)

Every generation has their interests, fads, and entertainment.  These big moments in culture sometimes bleed over into pop culture, influencing what people read, watch, and listen to.  Something new will become popular and producers, writers, and musicians will pick up on it.  They’ll use it as an inspiration for their work.  Eventually, the popularity of that something fades, and people are left with the art that resulted from it.  The popular thing could be anything.  It could be a person, a place, a sport, or a toy.  No matter what it is, people use it to make their stuff popular.

In the 1980s and 1990s, there were many extreme sports that rose in popularity.  The most apparent were snowboarding, surfing, and skateboarding.  Though they had some popularity before, particularly surfing with the beach music and beach movies of the 1960s, these three sports went full mainstream in the latter two decades of the 20^th century.  Another sport that rose in popularity was inline skating, which sometimes went to the same dangerous extremes as the three board sports.

Inline skating was featured in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, when the main characters were introduced.  They did some skydiving and immediately went into an inline skating scene where they skated through Angel Grove.  It was a way to introduce the audience to the characters, the feel, and the setting of the movie.  It was also a little bit of fun, which is what Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is supposed to be.  That was only one scene, though.  Inline skating wasn’t the whole movie.

A movie that did use inline skating as a major plot point was 1993’s Airborne.  Mitchell Goosen (Shane McDermott) was a California surfer sent to Cincinnati after his parents got a job in Australia.  He moved in with his aunt Irene (Edie McClurg), uncle Louis (Patrick Thomas O’Brien), and cousin Wiley (Seth Green).  He didn’t fit in at school, becoming the target of aggression for tough guy Jack (Chris Conrad).  Eventually, he would come to Jack’s aid in a inline skating race against the preppy rivals of their school, while also trying to impress Jack’s sister Nikki (Brittney Powell).

Much like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, Airborne began with the main character going on an inline skating trip through his city.  He went up and down hills, through a skatepark, and to the beach.  He and his friend went through the streets from one place to another, setting up their normal life before he was transplanted to a city he didn’t want to be in.  Inline skating came into the movie early, and would become a major theme as it went forward.

Cincinnati was not a town known for its surfing culture.  It took a while for Mitchell to grow accustomed to the ways of the people there.  He never wanted to be there, because all he wanted to do was surf.  If he could have gone to Australia with his parents, he could have been surfing on the beaches instead of being stuck in a school with the lower-class students of Cincinnati.  This desire to not be there got him into trouble with the other teens at the school.  They disrespected his ways, and he did nothing to help them out and let them see that he was a good person.  They didn’t want him there and he didn’t want to be there.  It caused conflict between them.

That conflict would come to a head during a hockey game against the preppy rival teenagers.  The school that Mitchell and Wiley were attending was short a player and they subbed Wiley into the game.  He didn’t fare too well, getting injured early on, causing Mitchell to then be added to the team.  Mitchell scored a goal on his own net, losing the game for his team.  The teens at his school then spent a week or two harassing him and Wiley.  Eventually he would earn their respect in a ball hockey game when he scored a goal without any help, and also pranked one of the rival preps.  His classmates would later tap him in for an inline skating race that would once and for all prove their worth to the preps.

Between the hockey, ball hockey, introductory scene, and final race, Airborne was very deeply steeped in inline skating.  The teens of Cincinnati were all about skating.  If they weren’t using blades on ice, they were using wheels on the roads.  Mitchell preferred surfing, but learned along the way that you sometimes need to put the things you love aside for the people you love.  He gained friendships in Cincinnati and would lose them if he kept pursuing a sport that couldn’t be had in the city.  He fell in love with Nikki, and was going to lose her because he thought surfing was everything.  When he turned to inline skating, another sport that he was good at, it showed that he was a team player with the students at his school.  It proved that he could set aside his differences and work with others.

The conflict in Airborne all came down to the race at the end, which was well put together.  The action cut from one group, to another, to the next, letting the audience know what was happening at all times.  It wasn’t choreographed to a pop song.  There was some guitar and drums to build the tension, but the majority of the sounds were the sounds of the inline skates rolling across the pavement.  People falling and crashing were accentuated by the real sound.  There were jokes in the crashes, such as a character getting a nutshot from a tree, but the danger of it all felt real.  As the characters were skating through busy intersections or under trucks, the tension built.  It was a masterful final section of the movie that resolved the conflict in a satisfyingly entertaining fashion.

Not a whole lot of the skating involved being airborne, though.  For a movie called Airborne, there was a lack of airtime.  Yes, there was an important moment where a character took to the air on their inline skates, but for the most part, the skates stayed on the ground.  Considering the poster had multiple taglines that all revolved around flying while using inline skates, it seemed like misleading marketing.  “Mitchell became the most popular guy on Earth once he took to the sky.”  No.  He became popular when he learned how to open himself up to new opportunities and be a team player.  “Man wasn’t made to fly.  Kids were.”  That’s not even a thing.  Nobody flew in the movie.  “Heroes aren’t made.  They’re Airborne.”  That one actually fit with what happened in the movie.

Inline skating was a huge part of Airborne.  It was what pushed the story forward.  Mitchell needed to use his skills as an inline skater to earn the respect of his peers and get the girl he wanted to date, as though she were property.  It was how he connected with people and made friendships that would hopefully last.  It was how their school showed up their preppy rivals.  Without inline skating, Airborne would have been a completely different movie.

Inline skating, as well as extreme sports, rose to prominence throughout the 1980s and 1990s.  Though they had been known before, they broke into the mainstream, causing studios and producers to put movies into production that would hit on those sports.  Point Break, Airborne, and Surf Ninjas were only a few of the early 1990s movies to use these sports as important story elements.  And they haven’t left us.  Movies, games, television shows, and books still come out that utilize the sports.  The sports are out there, so why not use them?

Let’s get to the notes, while we’re at it:

• Airborne was suggested for the Sunday “Bad” Movies by @DerfelBarada, who also suggested Son in Law (week 251).
• Airborne was also suggested by @badmoviesunday1.
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (week 226) was mentioned in this post.
• Airborne featured Edie McClurg, who had already been in two Sunday “Bad” Movies.  They were Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever (week 108) and Foodfight! (week 143).
• Jacob Vargas popped up in Airborne as one of the classmates.  He was in Death Race (week 9).
• Airborne was the second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Jack Black, who appeared in Bio-Dome (week 124).
• Alanna Ubach made her second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Airborne, after appearing in A Haunted House (week 34).
• Finally, Airborne was the second appearance of Chris Conrad, who was also in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (week 140).
• Have you seen Airborne?  Did you find it entertaining?  What do you think about these kinds of sports being in movies?  Feel free to use the comments to share your thoughts.
• You can share your suggestions for future movies for me to cover in the comments as well.  Leave a comment or let me know on Twitter if there’s anything you want me to watch and write something about.
• When I watch bad movies I sometimes share clips of them on Snapchat.  You can add me (jurassicgriffin) if you want to see that.
• With those notes, this week’s post comes to a close, and we look toward the next one.  There’s a movie coming up that continues a franchise I’ve been watching since the second year of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  The Gingerdead Man is back, this time in a 1970s setting.  Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver will be the feature next week.  Come back for that.  I’ll be waiting.