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In the year 1999, we all wondered what life would be like in the distant future. This movie treated us to a prediction of what wild and wonderful things would await us in the far-off 21st century. Would we all live aboard space-stations? Of course. Would we wear pink and purple spandex bodysuits? Without a doubt.
Needless to say, all of this movie's predictions have come true. But let's take a moment to remember how exciting it was to catch this glimpse into the world of tomorrow.
Zenon (named after the popular noble gas) is a girl of the 21st century who has a perfect life: She lives aboard a crowded space-station where everything is neon pink and purple, you can never set foot outside, and the air supply has to be recycled in perpetuity because there's no oxygen in space. Who wouldn't love it? Best of all, the world's greatest rock band, Microbe, is about to come aboard to play a big concert.
Then things take a turn for the worse when Zenon's teenage hi-jinks anger the station commander (the eternally underrated Stuart Pankin), and Zenon is banished to earth to live with her aunt. She can't cope with such things as fresh air, living things, colors other than pink and purple, and the Fahrenheit temperature system. On the other hand, she makes friends with some of the earth people and discovers that there may be more to life than living inside a cramped box in the vast darkness of space.
She also learns that the plutocrat who owns the space station is planning some sort of dastardly scheme to jeopardize the station inhabitants' lives for some reason or other. Unfortunately, the commander won't let Zenon return to space to stop him, believing that her story is just a pretext to get her aboard the station in time for the concert.
Luckily, the lead singer of Microbe has more faith in our young heroine. He smuggles her aboard his shuttle, and once on the space station she is able to thwart the evil plot.
This movie was such a hit that it spawned a Zequel in 2001, and yet a third film in 2004. The first sequel involves aliens, and the second one has to do with a moon base and a "Moonstock" rock festival. By the time the third Zenon came out, we were well out of the "Zoog Movie" era, and a new generation of Disney Channel viewers had come of age. The industrial machine of original movie production that had cranked out a new movie for every single month of the year 2000 had slowed its pace quite a bit by 2004.
The 21st century is upon us now, and it's good to know that even today we can relax in our bright fluorescent spandex costumes and remember this piece of history. Thankfully it is
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