35 years ago the musical fantasy Xanadu arrived in theaters. The film failed to perform well at the box office, suffering for a number of troubles, mostly in the script, but survived by finding a dedicated fan base turning into a cult film and eventually into campy Broadway musical.
I saw the film in its initial release and it became my favorite film. It is the comfort movie I go to when I am down and the 
dark walls of depression are closing in from all sides. That said this is not a well made, and particularly, it is not a well-written film. If you graph artistic quality on an axis, it is a mistake to lay emotional reaction on that same axis. It is possible to love a piece of art that is flawed. There will be spoilers in my essay.
As a writer, the script stands out to me as the most glaring failure of the production. The character Sonny has no strong arc through the plot and too many critical events — such as both instanced where he runs into Danny and forms a friendship — are the product of coincidences. Coincidences are to be banished from your plot, everything should proceed from the characters and the choices that they make.
In the film, Sonny works as an artist duplicating album covers into giant posters for promotional purposes. When we meet him he is returning to Airflow records because his attempt to go pure artist has failed and he is again broke. Kira comes into his life, she is a Greek goddess, a Muse, (remember this is a musical fantasy) and her job is to inspire him. However the backstory is that he always had trouble with his bosses, adding more the pictures he’s supposed to be duplicating because as he says ‘he sees more than what’s there.’ Sounds to me like he already has inspiration. The writerly fix would be to make him the cynic at Airflow records, deriding others who want to chase ‘art’ but secretly it is his heart’s desire. Kira can then arrive and cause the hidden artist to flourish. There, no you have an arc. I could go on, there are lots of troubles in the script. Too many scenes lack conflict. People just show up and do things. That’s not a script, that’s boredom. (Bonus points for anyone who sees what I did there.) I am not going to go over all the flaws, the static camera, the choices in casting, because I am already conceding the filmmaking to be bad.
So why do I love it?
Two reasons dominate that landscape. The first is the theme. Like another cult film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Xanadu is a deeply anti-cynical film. Both movies are about dreams and dreamers. RHPS could be boiled down to the line ‘Don’t dream it, be it.’ and Xanadu’s theme can be distilled down to the lines ‘<Sonny>Dreams die. <Danny> No, no, No, Not by themselves. We, we kill them.’ Your dreams end when you give up on them. it is not surprising I am a fan of both movies. I am a dreamer. I am trying to be it, and I will not kill my dreams. It helps I love the music – I had been a fan of Olivia Newton-John’s singing for years before this film arrived, but for me the theme seals the deal.
The second reason is who I discovered the film with. It was a special time and special woman. The years have passed on, but happiness can live forever in memory. Like dreams, remembered happiness only dies if we kill it.
The Kira/Danny thing always seemed simply to me. She remembered, she just lied to him that they didn’t know each other. When we get into the third act and he says ‘I don’t have to pretend. It is 1945 all over again.” Its his recognition of the truth and he’s letting go of the past.
I recently learn that there was an abandoned plotline where we learnt hat Sonny painted the mural. That makes sense in drawing the connection between the Kira and Sonny and it also explains why he skated to mural and that he didn’t just accidentally find it.
I like your thoughts on the script and casting choices. I was 12 when this film was released and I fell in love with it wholeheartedly. I was too young then to see it’s flaws, but when I developed my love of writing, it became harder for me to watch. I always wondered why when Kira meets Danny she has no idea who he is though she inspired him back in the 40’s. I once read that this is because that was supposed to be her sister Krista, but that plot line was written out. Apparently, we were just supposed to accept that a Greek Muse has a really bad memory. Michael Beck was awful in this film. He spends most of the movie sounding like he’s reading from cue cards somewhere off camera. I love the chemistry Olivia and Gene have when on camera together, however she has zero chemistry with Michael. And I agree that him meeting Danny should have been more deliberate. Honestly, as an adult when they meet it looks like Danny is trying to pick up a hot young guy. Hahahaha! The music from this film is phenomenal. For me, the movie has become a 90 minute set of great music videos stitched together by weak dialogue. On the first DVD of this I purchased a long time ago, if you hit the forward to next scene button, it took you to the next musical number. I’ve never seen the Broadway show and really have no interest, but I will always love the movie. I’d love an HD version of it to come out and maybe a re-edit to fix some of the flaws. One of my biggest pet peeves with the film is the finale and the really hard/rough cuts between the numbers. The music cuts from the 40’s to rock to country to Xanadu are just as rough. Which is probably why the full number never made it onto the soundtrack. There was obviously somewhat of a budget that the edits could have been done better, but maybe it’s more a reflection of film making at the time. I spent many hours back in 1980 roller skating to this soundtrack in the parking lot of my dad’s A&W Rootbeer Stand in Parker Arizona. After closing of course. I can only wonder what people thought as they drove by and saw this kid in his tennis shoe skates frolicking around this big parking lot to Xanadu! It was probably a pretty awesome sight to behold! Cheers and have a great day!