Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and my name is Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today's movie is a nine Japanese film called za Ram
Speaker 1: or maybe better to say zer Um because the za
Speaker 1: Ram really sounds like the Tennessee take on the name
Speaker 1: of the alien in this film. Yeah, but hey, what
Speaker 1: do you know? This is our very first space bounty
Speaker 1: Hunter movie, and I think I'll have to be honest
Speaker 1: and say that za Ram is not the most scintillating
Speaker 1: movie I have ever seen, but it has a really
Speaker 1: great central monster as it is has a fun bounty
Speaker 1: Hunter and it is light years beyond the quality of
Speaker 1: the other main Space bounty Hunter title in my mental database,
Speaker 1: which is also from nine and is called a Braxis
Speaker 1: Guardian of the Universe. Rob, have you seen this one
Speaker 1: with Jesse the Body Ventura? I have. I believe I
Speaker 1: watched the Riff Tracks version of it, uh, and I
Speaker 1: remember it being bad, and I definitely remember the two
Speaker 1: principal cast members. Bractis goes way like when I very
Speaker 1: first started getting into b movies in like high school,
Speaker 1: you know, and my friends and I were going to
Speaker 1: the uh to like the used book and and DVD
Speaker 1: store and digging through their like trash pile to see
Speaker 1: what we could find. This is one of the ones
Speaker 1: we dug up. So it's got Jesse the Body Ventura
Speaker 1: as the space bounty hunter, and it's got Sven ole
Speaker 1: A Thorson, who you might know from Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: He was in Conan, I think, uh, and they're running
Speaker 1: around some Yeah, yeah, they're they're running around some town
Speaker 1: in Ontario, and uh, Spin is the is the fugitive,
Speaker 1: and I recall he keeps grabbing people and asking them
Speaker 1: if they know how to compute the anti life equation.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, uh yeah. Spin shows up in a number
Speaker 1: of different Arnold movies. He was kind of like part
Speaker 1: of the the ensemble, I believe, um, but then eventually
Speaker 1: starts showing up by, you know, doing solo projects as well.
Speaker 1: Do you think they originally wanted Arnold for a Praxis
Speaker 1: but he, I don't know, went on to Determinator two
Speaker 1: or something. I can't imagine Arnold was ever in talks
Speaker 1: for a Practis. I think I think this this project
Speaker 1: was in a different orbit entirely. But hey, a space
Speaker 1: bounty hunter can be a lot of fun because Okay,
Speaker 1: so you know, you have like two parties arrived from
Speaker 1: other worlds. Now they're here on Earth, and there's already
Speaker 1: a chase going on, so like, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like you have to get to that part once they're here.
Speaker 1: One is already in pursuit of the other, and that's
Speaker 1: a good setup. Yeah, absolutely. Um. You know, in general,
Speaker 1: the bounty hunter uh scenario makes for good fiction, especially
Speaker 1: when you know, because you can do the same thing,
Speaker 1: like who's this mysterious individual chasing this other mysterious individual.
Speaker 1: Well you're gonna have to explain it to the bystanders
Speaker 1: and they become part of the whole plot. But yeah,
Speaker 1: throw in space and alien ends, and you've you've got
Speaker 1: yourself a winning formula. Um. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I like about Za Ram is
Speaker 1: that it's a pretty simple formula. They don't they get
Speaker 1: into a fair amount of complexity with the monster itself,
Speaker 1: but in terms of the basic plotting, uh, into a
Speaker 1: certain extent, the world building, they keep it simple. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a movie where the title is the name
Speaker 1: of the monster. Uh. So you know it's going to
Speaker 1: be monster centric. There's extremely little plot in this movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what what it lacks in, uh, in story complexity,
Speaker 1: I would say it's somewhat makes up for in the
Speaker 1: form of the far more interesting than spin only Thorsen Fugitive,
Speaker 1: which is an elegantly haberdash to bipedal star beast who
Speaker 1: has so many now I reveal my true form moments.
Speaker 1: I lost count of them, like every time it now
Speaker 1: I reveal my true forms. There's another one coming, that's right.
Speaker 1: Um My son walked in and watched part of this
Speaker 1: with me because because this is ultimately a pretty pretty
Speaker 1: harmless movie. It's got a little bit of a little
Speaker 1: bit of a monster blood and monster grossness in it,
Speaker 1: and some sci fi weapon fire, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: pretty wholesome. Uh. So he was watching part of this
Speaker 1: and he was he was at least acting a little exasperated.
Speaker 1: He was into the monster designs. But he's like, haven't
Speaker 1: they almost killed this thing like six times? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that they have. Uh. Luckily it finally sticks. But I'll
Speaker 1: tell you something else. It sticks. Yeah, this monster's design
Speaker 1: sticks with you. Because I had never seen this film
Speaker 1: and its entirety, but I caught I think I caught
Speaker 1: part of it back in the nineties on the Sci
Speaker 1: Fi Channel. They had a dub version I think they
Speaker 1: showed and it was one of those where you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what else was going on, But I only
Speaker 1: caught just a glimpse of it, just enough to watch
Speaker 1: like one or two scenes with the title creature, this hulking,
Speaker 1: relentless alien bioweapon that you know, it seems like this
Speaker 1: thoroughly unique amalgam of alarm features, you know, which is
Speaker 1: is good in any monster, because monsters are are often
Speaker 1: this sort of a Malcolm, but it's a monster where
Speaker 1: it's primary form, the one that gets the most screen time.
Speaker 1: It's suggests elements of Samurai and one mushrooms and sting rays.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously there's a little bit of Xeno morph
Speaker 1: sprinkled in there. There's also a sense of the Cyclops
Speaker 1: and just much much more like it seems like they've
Speaker 1: they've added enough elements that it just becomes uh, you know,
Speaker 1: unique feeling. And it also made an impression on me
Speaker 1: because at the time I have not seen much in
Speaker 1: the way of Japanese cinema, especially you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of the bio horror realm of Japanese cinema, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking of classics like Akira or Tetsuo the Iron Man.
Speaker 1: But again, I didn't see the whole film. I forgot
Speaker 1: about this creature for the most part, but occasionally I
Speaker 1: would be reminded of him. And maybe it's because I've
Speaker 1: been watching the Boba Fete series with with alien bounty hunters.
Speaker 1: Maybe that that made me think of him again. Um,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I need to look this film up.
Speaker 1: I need to see who this mysterious uh um creature
Speaker 1: was and what this film consisted of and give it
Speaker 1: a proper viewing. And and I would argue, maybe you
Speaker 1: still don't know who this alien creature was, because I
Speaker 1: don't think the movie really addresses that question much. No,
Speaker 1: we don't know really where he's from or what he
Speaker 1: did do have a bounty hunter chasing after him. I mean,
Speaker 1: he could be a good guy for all we know,
Speaker 1: though probably not. Um, his his backstory is not really
Speaker 1: fleshed out. All we're really told is that he's he's
Speaker 1: essentially some sort of bioweapon. I'm gonna buck expectations and
Speaker 1: argue that when it really comes down to it. Much
Speaker 1: like the original Alien Za Ram is a movie about
Speaker 1: work in the workplace, you know, because it's about a
Speaker 1: It's not really about human relationships. It's not really about
Speaker 1: good versus evil. It's really about people trying to do
Speaker 1: their jobs. So you have a couple of power company
Speaker 1: eyes who have a job to do. There are main
Speaker 1: human characters, and then you have your Xeno Legal bounty
Speaker 1: hunter who has a job to do and she's our
Speaker 1: main sort of you know, superhuman hero. And the movie
Speaker 1: is essentially what happens when those two groups trying to
Speaker 1: do their jobs jam into each other a cross purposes.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, when you see a road partially
Speaker 1: blocked for digging on a pipe or something, and then
Speaker 1: there's a delivery driver who has to get through but
Speaker 1: their truck won't fit the gap, and they start arguing.
Speaker 1: Except add in space tentacles. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: you're essentially right here. Um. I wonder what we're to
Speaker 1: make of the fact that zyr In itself is essentially
Speaker 1: a product in in a humanoid form. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe there's nothing to be to be made
Speaker 1: with that, But across across my mind, oh, no, I
Speaker 1: can see it if he's a bioeapon. I mean, like
Speaker 1: much like you know when when I watch Alien. Uh.
Speaker 1: The movie raises lots of great questions and I love it.
Speaker 1: But one of one of the ones I think people
Speaker 1: don't think about very often is I'm like, man, if
Speaker 1: like the Whaland Utahny Corporation had better workplace protections, Like
Speaker 1: if they they had better like union regulations in place
Speaker 1: or something, a lot of this could have been avoided. Um,
Speaker 1: but probably all of it. But no, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just like, it's a movie about work problems and this
Speaker 1: is kind of the same. It's like, why did these
Speaker 1: two electricians have to go into the warehouse to investigate
Speaker 1: the alien technology themselves? Couldn't they have called a supervisor
Speaker 1: to to deal with this? Yeah? Yeah, it seems like
Speaker 1: there should be more of a system in place. Shouldn't
Speaker 1: the police maybe get involved? I don't know, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: would think so. All right, So the elevator pitch for
Speaker 1: z Ram, I feel like we've basically done it already.
Speaker 1: It's an alien bounty hunter alien bounty taking place on Earth,
Speaker 1: drawing earthlands into the wild cosmic scenario. Did you did
Speaker 1: you say Earthlands, did I I don't know Earthlands, earth Links,
Speaker 1: maybe Earths. I like in this universe. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: expanding on the Z A Ram universe here already, all right, okay,
Speaker 1: so who meets a Ram? Oh no, we gotta have
Speaker 1: some trailer first. Oh oh sorry, okay, let's hear some trailer.
Speaker 1: The people of Earth are about to be visited by
Speaker 1: some guests. While they're here, try and make them the
Speaker 1: feel welcome. If you can't take the heat, get out
Speaker 1: of the galaxy. Yeah. Not not a great trailer, my fad.
Speaker 1: But that's the that's the English language shoil or the
Speaker 1: voiceover is a bit a bit much. But we wanted
Speaker 1: to have something for you that wasn't just explosion sounds.
Speaker 1: I mean a big part of this movie is explosion sounds. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so who made this thing? All right? So the director,
Speaker 1: one of the writers, and the character designer. His Kita
Speaker 1: am Amia Ammama has an illustration background born nineteen nine.
Speaker 1: And I think the illustration background makes sense given just
Speaker 1: how visual this movie is, Like, this is a movie
Speaker 1: that's very much about look at this look at this monster.
Speaker 1: Look what happens when he has a costume change? Um,
Speaker 1: you know that the character design elements are very strong
Speaker 1: in this I agree so much so that there are
Speaker 1: even uh moments of this movie that look like hand
Speaker 1: drawn illustrations. Like there is an opening scene. Actually, it's
Speaker 1: it might be my favorite part of the whole movie
Speaker 1: is the black and white silhouette opening sequence. Um. And
Speaker 1: when the the outline of za Ram is first revealed,
Speaker 1: before we see any of the you know, the surface detail,
Speaker 1: Zerram kind of looks like an illustration. He looks like
Speaker 1: a hand drawn animation until it's revealed like, oh no,
Speaker 1: this is somebody in a costume lit from behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's yeah, it's a pretty great costume. It's one
Speaker 1: of these where za Ram generally feels warmoss but has
Speaker 1: very a very humanoid gait about him, very humanoid dimensions. Uh.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was very effectively done. Heavy footfalls.
Speaker 1: Z Ram likes to kind of clump around on the floor. Now.
Speaker 1: Emmamia has done a lot of work in design and effects,
Speaker 1: including uh, this is interesting. He was an effects animator
Speaker 1: on nine gun Head, which we covered on Weird House
Speaker 1: in the Beast. Oh yeah, that's right. He's also worked
Speaker 1: as a character designer for video games such as clock
Speaker 1: Tower three, which I believe I played that one back
Speaker 1: in the day, and like PS two UM. He was
Speaker 1: also involved in some only Musha titles and az a
Speaker 1: Ram is very much his sort of his follow up
Speaker 1: to his first full length film, Cyber Ninja, from which
Speaker 1: I have not seen, but I looked at some stills
Speaker 1: from it. Looked at at least one clip. It looks
Speaker 1: like a lot of fun and there are also some
Speaker 1: really out there monster designs in it. I have not
Speaker 1: seen it, but I will watch based on the title alone.
Speaker 1: So he would go on to direct a sequelsz A
Speaker 1: Ram two, and there's also a spinoff animated series that
Speaker 1: seemed to have quite a following, aria Zeri Um The
Speaker 1: Bounty Hunter. He's worked a lot over the years, though,
Speaker 1: and his filmography includes some common writer films and what
Speaker 1: seems like dozens of titles in the film TV franchise Garo,
Speaker 1: which like these other titles, is a toku satsu or
Speaker 1: live action special effects drama UH, this time about a
Speaker 1: man in magical armor who has to protect humanity against
Speaker 1: the horrors, which I believe are some sort of demons. Now.
Speaker 1: Garo I've seen is is sometimes described as a midnight
Speaker 1: uh Toko Satsu series as it yes contains like people
Speaker 1: and you know heroes and fancy armor suits battling monsters,
Speaker 1: but it apparently has darker elements for grown ups and
Speaker 1: its and it's such as is shown on TV like
Speaker 1: Late at Night Zairam. However, is not midnight Toko Satsu.
Speaker 1: This is Toko Satsu for the whole family. Again, my
Speaker 1: nine year olds and walked in and seemed to enjoy
Speaker 1: it and critiqued it a little bit. Yeah, I'd say
Speaker 1: that probably the scariest thing in here is well, I
Speaker 1: mean some shots of Zerram the monster have like that
Speaker 1: that scary face thing that comes out of it, which
Speaker 1: we can talk about more. But uh, probably the worst
Speaker 1: thing is that it like really bites the electricians arm
Speaker 1: bad and leaves a big bloody welt. If you can
Speaker 1: deal with that, I think the movie's cool. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: now with the neck, I want to hit the other
Speaker 1: writing credit on this, who is also the visual effects coordinator,
Speaker 1: and I think it becomes pretty obviously we're kind of
Speaker 1: in pumpkinhead territory with this film. Uh. This is this
Speaker 1: is a film you know by special effects people with
Speaker 1: very much a special effects design mentality that goes into it.
Speaker 1: So it's it's monster first, it's visuals first, and maybe
Speaker 1: the actual plotting and acting and so forth takes a
Speaker 1: backseat to all of that. Now, your Pumpkinhead comparison, that
Speaker 1: was directed by Stan Winston, right, Am I right about that?
Speaker 1: I believe? So? Yes, Uh that Isten of course, a
Speaker 1: legend of special effects. Uh not so much, you know,
Speaker 1: a legendary director. Um, but but he did get in there.
Speaker 1: He got in there with Pumpkinhead in and he I
Speaker 1: think he did. He directed mostly some other short stuff.
Speaker 1: He directed a film titled A nome Name norm from
Speaker 1: that I've never heard of, so just now, and he
Speaker 1: did some video shorts. But yeah, Pumpkinhead was his chance
Speaker 1: to really get in there and show what he could do.
Speaker 1: And it's mostly about a really cool monster. But because
Speaker 1: you've got some Lance Henrickson in there too, I guess yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's an okay horror movie. It's it's a
Speaker 1: great looking horror movie. Also featuring Dick Warlock. Oh yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So anyway back to back to za Ram writing credit
Speaker 1: and visual effects coordinator goes to Hajimi Matsumoto as a writer.
Speaker 1: They only worked on the Xerrium movies and three other titles,
Speaker 1: but Matsumoto has primarily worked in special effects, including some
Speaker 1: Godzilla movies, GAMMERA Guardian of the Universe, which I which
Speaker 1: I love. It's a really fun one with a lot
Speaker 1: of like cute Gamera when he's little and then he
Speaker 1: becomes your expected Gamera. Is this the second movie we've
Speaker 1: mentioned in this episode called Guardian of the Universe with
Speaker 1: the subtitle Guardian the Universe? Oh? Man, that sets up
Speaker 1: a perfect sequel idea Gammera versus Abraxas. They gotta duke
Speaker 1: it out and figure out which one is the real Guardian.
Speaker 1: Oh it's gotta be Gamera. I'm gonna I vote Gammera
Speaker 1: every time, especially over over Ventura. But let's see. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: But Matsumoto was also also involved in the special effects
Speaker 1: on Ring uh, the the original Japanese ring upon which
Speaker 1: the American film The Ring was based. He also worked
Speaker 1: on some of the Ring sequels. He worked on Spiral,
Speaker 1: and he worked on The Grudge, both the Japanese version
Speaker 1: and the American remake. All right, but we would not
Speaker 1: have a space bounty Hunter movie without our Space Bounty Hunter.
Speaker 1: So who who plays this all important character. It is
Speaker 1: Yuko Mariyama, playing Area of the bounty hunt her. She
Speaker 1: was born in ninety eight, Japanese actor. This was her
Speaker 1: first role apparently, and she went on to do the
Speaker 1: sequel some TV. She was in Reborn from Hell too,
Speaker 1: and it looks like she retired from acting between two
Speaker 1: thousand and two thousand four and possibly went into some
Speaker 1: sort of education field for some reason. I usually just
Speaker 1: like to see that. I mean, assuming it wasn't caused
Speaker 1: by some bad experience or something. When somebody's just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I was acting for a while. Now I'm career change,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do something else. Yeah. Based on the limited
Speaker 1: English information I could find about it, it it sounds like
Speaker 1: she just like she she eventually found her calling somewhere else.
Speaker 1: So yeah, more power to her now. As we talked about,
Speaker 1: this movie doesn't place a lot of dramatic demands on
Speaker 1: its actors, but I'd say she's good. She she she
Speaker 1: feels this role quite well. She she wears the power armor,
Speaker 1: she does a good fight scenes. She has a good
Speaker 1: determined stare when facing down the monster. Thumbs up. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so solid action performance. Uh you know, she comes off
Speaker 1: as a badass and and uh and and unlike her
Speaker 1: her AI help her, Bob, she's she's she's kind of reckless,
Speaker 1: she's relentless. She's like she's got to get her bounty,
Speaker 1: while while Bob the AI is more concerned about, you know,
Speaker 1: how this is going to affect their license. Do they
Speaker 1: do they have the actual permit to use this particular
Speaker 1: super weapon against the alien and stuff like that. Oh my,
Speaker 1: got that interminable argument at the beginning about the zone
Speaker 1: and whether you're using a zone will cause them to
Speaker 1: forfeit some percent of the bounty. And we should have
Speaker 1: had more of that. It could have been the shin
Speaker 1: Godzilla of Alien Bounty hunter films. Oh that would be
Speaker 1: a good idea. Alright, so too, Earthlings or earth Linds,
Speaker 1: if you will get get sucked into this, uh, this
Speaker 1: whole situation. And the first of them we'll start with
Speaker 1: is uh I believe with His name is tep tepe I.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Tepe tepe A tepe the handsome electrician unknown age.
Speaker 1: This characters played Kuni, hero Ida and um very limited
Speaker 1: credits on this guy who was in both the zraz
Speaker 1: Aram movies. Doesn't seem to have been active in a
Speaker 1: in a long time. But then the other electrician who's
Speaker 1: our funny electrician, are kind of obnoxious electrician because you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of how you know your duo should go
Speaker 1: in a film like this. Uh, this is coma and
Speaker 1: he is played by Yuki hero Hotaru. Born in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one. Hotaru is very active still today, mostly on
Speaker 1: Japanese television. He made a career for himself initially playing detectives,
Speaker 1: usually in Japanese pink films. This is a broad category
Speaker 1: of erotic films in Japanese cinema, with some particularly sleazy titles.
Speaker 1: But he seems to have gradually crossed over into mainstream
Speaker 1: sci fi and horror as well, uh, ultimately starring at
Speaker 1: or at least acting in a number of TV shows,
Speaker 1: even kids films. He worked in that Garo series that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. Um so yeah, and you can see
Speaker 1: you can ultimately see why because he has a he
Speaker 1: has a very charismatic face. He's pulled constantly pulling funny
Speaker 1: weird faces in this film, So you can see why
Speaker 1: an actor like this would be sort of your go
Speaker 1: to for sort of uh, you know, a wonky character roles. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's certainly in recent decades. Yeah, he's doing
Speaker 1: a zany Jim Carey kind of thing. Yeah, And we
Speaker 1: we usually mentioned the music, so I'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: say that hirokazu Ota is credited with the music. The
Speaker 1: score is a bit much in places for my taste,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty effective in other places. Um. This individual
Speaker 1: also scored the film Roboman ha Kader, from which I
Speaker 1: haven't seen, but I've I've noticed on shells many times.
Speaker 1: It's another one of these sort of hero in armor
Speaker 1: or robot gear battles evil. All right, Well, you might
Speaker 1: have already guessed from the way we've been talking about
Speaker 1: it so far. This is not really one of those
Speaker 1: movies where it will make much sense to go scene
Speaker 1: by scene, since there really is very little plot. It
Speaker 1: is mostly a showcase for for visual spectacles, you know,
Speaker 1: sci fi tech battles, tentacle attacks, monster transformations, and and
Speaker 1: so forth. But we can give you a general picture
Speaker 1: of the shape of the plot and then talk about
Speaker 1: some highlights that we really enjoyed. And Uh, the first
Speaker 1: highlight I would say is actually the very first thing
Speaker 1: in the movie Strong. Strong opening sequence might have been
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the entire thing. And interesting connections
Speaker 1: throughout this opening sequence to the Suta car because you
Speaker 1: have this background of deep chance, as if you know,
Speaker 1: the moon monks are doing matins. But then also you
Speaker 1: have space marines and these egg shaped e v A
Speaker 1: helmets much like the uh like the they're shown in
Speaker 1: the most recent Dune movie. Yeah, yeah, so they're they're
Speaker 1: they're clearly here or I don't know that they're here.
Speaker 1: They're there, They're somewhere, presumably in space, maybe on a
Speaker 1: spaceship or something space station. Yeah, to stop ze Ram
Speaker 1: and who they don't stand a chance. No, So what
Speaker 1: we see is a black and white silhouette of a
Speaker 1: creature who looks like a person wearing a wide brimmed hat,
Speaker 1: or perhaps somebody who has a large mushroom cap for
Speaker 1: a head. And it's hard to tell more than that
Speaker 1: because the persons in silhouette except when it pauses to
Speaker 1: suddenly reveal a face, but not with the correct proportions
Speaker 1: for like a human face, So it's not a face
Speaker 1: that would fill what is presumably this creature's head. It's
Speaker 1: like a little tiny face, and it's in this pale
Speaker 1: makeup that looks kind of like a mask from no Theater,
Speaker 1: but with supernasty black teeth, like very scarified. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: it and when we zoom in on it, it often
Speaker 1: makes little noises kind of like yeah, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: which adds to the creepiness. But then, okay, so when
Speaker 1: we see the face, the face is not proportional to
Speaker 1: the size of the head. It's much smaller. It's like
Speaker 1: a little cameo, you know, a little little tiny face
Speaker 1: on this big head with the with the wide brimmed hat.
Speaker 1: And then it is the body of this creature looks
Speaker 1: like it is wearing some kind of fibery cloak. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's got a big kind of ragged cape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's been it's been tromping through humanoid realms, and
Speaker 1: so it is taken on the guise of human clothing. Um.
Speaker 1: And and I think it adds to sort of the
Speaker 1: category confusion of this monster, Like what is it is?
Speaker 1: Is the thing and it's the little face on its hat?
Speaker 1: Is that is there like some sort of a hybrid
Speaker 1: or I mean, or at least a symbiotic relationship going
Speaker 1: on here? Or is that the face of the thing?
Speaker 1: Uh is you know it's wearing clothes, so does it?
Speaker 1: Is it cultured? Is it? Or is it just a
Speaker 1: brute beast? There's so many questions that rise to the surface. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the Space Marines unload their pulse rifles on on
Speaker 1: the monster, but to no avail. The Sombrero creature slaughters
Speaker 1: them all and escapes whatever wherever it is this opening
Speaker 1: takes place. I imagine it's supposed to be some kind
Speaker 1: of exo prison, and we see in the very opening
Speaker 1: scene that it has a kind of xenomorph like stabbing
Speaker 1: jaw to face attack that I think is done by
Speaker 1: that little tiny face on its hat. But a lot
Speaker 1: of this action is taking place and like kind of
Speaker 1: extreme close up. This is a film that likes close
Speaker 1: ups at times that feel like a little bit too much.
Speaker 1: Like I felt like you could you could pan out
Speaker 1: on that row of weapons and I would I would
Speaker 1: maybe get more out of the theme, but fair enough. Okay.
Speaker 1: But next thing, after the intro, we go to meet
Speaker 1: our main characters, who are all going about their business
Speaker 1: somewhere in modern day Japan. So we meet our bounty hunter.
Speaker 1: This is Aria, and she is very on target. She's
Speaker 1: very on task. She will stop at nothing to capture
Speaker 1: or kill the hat beast. And I couldn't remember if
Speaker 1: they explain this anywhere in the movie. But she looks human,
Speaker 1: but I think she's supposed to be from another planet, right,
Speaker 1: She's not like a human who secretly went to space
Speaker 1: and became a bounty hunter, because this is not understood,
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, to take place in
Speaker 1: the future or anything when humans have gone into space
Speaker 1: and some of them might be space bounty hunters. Right,
Speaker 1: she is, I guess what we might loosely think of
Speaker 1: as a space human, which, which to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: is kind of a the legacy of a budget constraints
Speaker 1: on sci fi various cultures and film cultures, and you know,
Speaker 1: in various decades where yeah, you just can't have a
Speaker 1: crazy looking alien for everybody, some of them got to
Speaker 1: be human. And uh, I don't know, maybe it's something
Speaker 1: that's fleshed out more in the sequel or the TV series,
Speaker 1: but she is. And we're never given any glimpse that like, oh,
Speaker 1: she may look human, but her blood is blue or purple.
Speaker 1: Now she's she just seems to be uh a human
Speaker 1: who happens to have this job and maybe don't know.
Speaker 1: It's one of these things we're not supposed to think
Speaker 1: about too much. I guess it's planned nine for matter
Speaker 1: space that the aliens just look human except they're wearing
Speaker 1: a shiny shirt. Yeah. But well, but the other possibility
Speaker 1: I was considering. Again, I don't think they ever said this,
Speaker 1: but I was like, well, I wonder if she's like
Speaker 1: doing I don't know, assuming the appearance of the dominant
Speaker 1: life form on this planet. Oh yeah, it wasn't that
Speaker 1: one of the elements and critters where we had we
Speaker 1: had alien bounty hunters in that, but they ended up
Speaker 1: looking like people, but they weren't people that could be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my critter's knowledge is abysmally low. So as we've we've
Speaker 1: threatened a few times we may have to to break
Speaker 1: the critter seal on the show. It's just hard to choose.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've we've we've talked about it. I
Speaker 1: think off Mike before. But each Critter's movie offers its
Speaker 1: own alluring choices. I mean, do you go with Critters one?
Speaker 1: I think what that's is that the one? Uh, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's a sequel that Leoto Leonardo DiCaprio is in it,
Speaker 1: but then one is that the third one? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, two or three perhaps, But then you
Speaker 1: have a pretty good cast in the first one, and
Speaker 1: then by part four you have Brad Dorriff showing up.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, there's so many directions to go.
Speaker 1: And then of course they're roly poly alien create creatures
Speaker 1: in all four of them. Uh some some wonderful Gromlin action. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got Aria, she's the main hero. She's she's
Speaker 1: the bounty hunter. But then you've got Erie has got
Speaker 1: of a sidekick, right, sort of the nerd who does
Speaker 1: her her computing for her. And in the case of
Speaker 1: this movie, you know they're not gonna just go another
Speaker 1: humanoid who act kind of nerdy and does computing. They
Speaker 1: actually have a talking computer. It's just an AI sidekick
Speaker 1: who constantly explains to the viewer what is happening, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bob the AI. Which I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I like this is this this this alone. And I'm
Speaker 1: not comparing this movie to Ian em Banks culture series,
Speaker 1: but in those in those novels, you'll frequently have a
Speaker 1: have an individual who's often a member of the culture
Speaker 1: and they have they have an AI that they're talking
Speaker 1: to all the time and they're having little conversations and
Speaker 1: disagreements and so forth. So this felt, you know, not
Speaker 1: not to say that this was even you know, remotely
Speaker 1: inspired by it. It's a pretty you know, I think,
Speaker 1: common idea regarding science fiction, but it it made me
Speaker 1: think of that a little bit. The Bob's got a
Speaker 1: little bit of personality. Bob is not just a you know,
Speaker 1: purely giving the answers to you know, he's not like
Speaker 1: a Google search result, like, He's got some some thoughts
Speaker 1: of his own. Yeah. Yeah, again, he's he's very into
Speaker 1: making sure that they get to keep their license, that
Speaker 1: that any weaponry or tactics that they employ, that these
Speaker 1: are that they have the correct certifications, that they're they're
Speaker 1: not going to get in trouble. So he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's very much, um, very lawful mindset, and Aria has
Speaker 1: more of a chaotic mindset. I'd say, that's right. Yes,
Speaker 1: So Bob is sort of lawful, neutral and arias kind
Speaker 1: of chaotic. Good. Yeah, okay, But then the other two
Speaker 1: main character are our power company guys, and we mentioned
Speaker 1: them already, but you have tepe who is he's handsome, sweet, shy.
Speaker 1: Earnest don't have a lot of notes on tepe A.
Speaker 1: He's just kind of like, oh, he's a nice guy.
Speaker 1: But then the other one, you've got his Camilla, who
Speaker 1: seems a little bit older, um, and he is our
Speaker 1: fidgety clown, but he ends up really coming through in
Speaker 1: a pinch at the end of the movie. Uh. And
Speaker 1: early on, Kamia has a near meat cute with Iria
Speaker 1: the bounty hunter because she seems to be buying hundreds
Speaker 1: of apples and she drops one in the street and
Speaker 1: then Camia picks it up out of the gutter and
Speaker 1: tries to run after her. But I don't think they
Speaker 1: ever come face to face, not at that point, but
Speaker 1: of course later on they meet and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the woman from the street. Though I don't know
Speaker 1: what the purpose of that is, like that that opening sequence,
Speaker 1: because it's like, oh, yeah, I saw you before. Anyway.
Speaker 1: So this movie, especially early on, is very heavy on
Speaker 1: techno babble. There is a long scene with Aria and
Speaker 1: Bob just discussing regulations on the technology they use. Like
Speaker 1: the main thing I think you need to understand is
Speaker 1: the concept of a zone. And so there's a long
Speaker 1: scene where Erie and Bob are talking about the idea
Speaker 1: of a zone. Here's my best interpretation of how it works. So,
Speaker 1: Iria and Bob know that the monster Zairam is headed
Speaker 1: towards Earth, and they know that it will crash land
Speaker 1: at roughly a given place at a given time, and
Speaker 1: they get there before it. So in order to capture
Speaker 1: Zayram with as little risk as possible, Iria and Bob
Speaker 1: make an alternate dimension copy of the city district where
Speaker 1: Ziram is going to land, and then somehow get him
Speaker 1: to land there instead of in the regular dimensional place.
Speaker 1: And this alternate dimension city district is known as a zone.
Speaker 1: It's like surrounded by invisible walls, and it's just like
Speaker 1: a regular city, except it has no people in it
Speaker 1: except whoever teleports into that using Arius transporter. And apparently
Speaker 1: you collect a reduced bounty if you quote use a zone,
Speaker 1: but you gotta do what you gotta do. Ultimately, I
Speaker 1: liked this aspect of the movie, like it adds an
Speaker 1: extra little wrinkle to it um and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how much of it is them wanting to do something
Speaker 1: cool with kind of like, oh, they're not battling the
Speaker 1: alien just on the streets, they're battling it in this
Speaker 1: strange shadow zone, or if it's kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: if they're battling in the zone, we don't have to
Speaker 1: have any extras or worry about why the police aren't
Speaker 1: showing up, right, So most of this movie just takes
Speaker 1: place in the zone. So, like you say, there's no
Speaker 1: need for extrasm. There was one scene where they cut
Speaker 1: back to the regular world and they show like the
Speaker 1: people that the electricians were supposed to be partying with
Speaker 1: later that night, hanging out and like they're not there,
Speaker 1: but they're like, oh, I don't miss them. I don't
Speaker 1: care that they're not here. Yeah, that was strange. But
Speaker 1: by the way, I should ask at this point, did
Speaker 1: you watch that we both used the same Blu ray
Speaker 1: copy on this. Did you do dubbed or subtitled subtitles?
Speaker 1: You did subtitles, okay, because so I did the thing
Speaker 1: where I wasn't sure because sometimes there's a drastic difference
Speaker 1: between subtitles and uh and and the dub on films
Speaker 1: like this. So I did the thing at first where
Speaker 1: I had both going on and I was, you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of like trying to split my head um
Speaker 1: by following both and seeing like which one was the
Speaker 1: way to go. And I quickly decided, Okay, that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be a tremendous difference. Maybe the subtitles are
Speaker 1: a little tighter, but I don't think I'm missing out
Speaker 1: on a lot of plot if I just go ahead
Speaker 1: and uh and and employ the dub instead. I mean,
Speaker 1: it always varies by case, but I think in general
Speaker 1: dubs are a great option for like silly movies, b
Speaker 1: movies and stuff like that. I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: gravitate more towards subtitles if it's like they're they're real
Speaker 1: strong dramatic performances by the original actors, and you kind
Speaker 1: of want to hear their original tone and things, even
Speaker 1: if you don't understand in the language. Uh and and
Speaker 1: just rely on the subtitles for the for the semantic uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean in a monster movie, I think
Speaker 1: doubs are great. Okay, Well, we'll come back to this
Speaker 1: because there'll be two points where I want to know
Speaker 1: if you have a different understanding of what was occurring
Speaker 1: based on the subtitles versus my understanding via the doubs.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, but we didn't finish talking about the zones
Speaker 1: because the other back. Okay, right, so the one last
Speaker 1: thing with the zone is like, you can't just walk
Speaker 1: into or out of a zone like a zone. Again,
Speaker 1: it's an alternate dimension. It's surrounded by invisible walls, and
Speaker 1: you have to have some kind of teleporter device that
Speaker 1: Aria has set up in her command center in an
Speaker 1: empty warehouse in order to teleport in and teleport out.
Speaker 1: And multiple times in the movie, these teleporting devices get
Speaker 1: broken and that prevents somebody from going one way or
Speaker 1: the other. But okay, Iria and Bob are discussing zones,
Speaker 1: discussing bounties, discussing regulations and technology. Meanwhile, Tepe and Kamia
Speaker 1: are our power company guys are trying to finish all
Speaker 1: the jobs they've got left on their list for the
Speaker 1: day because at least one of them has a date
Speaker 1: that they need to get to. I don't remember what.
Speaker 1: I think it's Camia. Um, well, maybe both of them
Speaker 1: do anyway, but I think Cape has an actual date date.
Speaker 1: And Kenya is just like hanging out at the box. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Kemya needs to go hang out with people who don't
Speaker 1: actually like him. Um. So, one job that they have
Speaker 1: to deal with before they can finish up for the
Speaker 1: day is that somebody is stealing electricity, so they are
Speaker 1: called to the location where this is this is allegedly happening.
Speaker 1: They arrive at a warehouse where somebody has rigged up
Speaker 1: a bootleg power line coming off of the pole, and
Speaker 1: instead of just cutting the line, they have to go
Speaker 1: into the warehouse to investigate, and lo and behold it's
Speaker 1: it's the command center. It's full of weird, blinking, beeping gizmos.
Speaker 1: Time to start touching stuff, right, Yeah, also, just put
Speaker 1: our hands all over this long story short, the two
Speaker 1: electricians accidentally get teleported into the zone along with aria Za.
Speaker 1: Ram arrives and this leads into the rest of the movie,
Speaker 1: which is just one long chain of fights, chases, monster attacks,
Speaker 1: and monster transformations. Yeah, all in kind of dreary, mostly
Speaker 1: dreary looking industrial locations that you know, fit the zone
Speaker 1: and and fit this style of movie. Though. There is
Speaker 1: also a wonderful looking I think it's a playground, like
Speaker 1: a really modern um like early nineties Japanese playground. I
Speaker 1: didn't look this up to try and figure out where
Speaker 1: this was. But it looks really cool. I look at
Speaker 1: this and I'm like, yeah, I wanna I wanna head.
Speaker 1: I want to play on that. And so from here
Speaker 1: on out, I think, because it's just sort of fights
Speaker 1: and chases and transformations, uh, maybe we can just focus
Speaker 1: on highlights. Uh. The first big fight between za Ram
Speaker 1: and Aria is great. It involves energy weapons, ballistic weapons,
Speaker 1: strange traps, like uh, area has all these different kinds
Speaker 1: of traps. One shoots out all these tethers that wrap
Speaker 1: up the monster. One is like, it shoots up these
Speaker 1: spikes that surround the monster and us. They're like metal spikes,
Speaker 1: and I think it has to like bend them down.
Speaker 1: But then the it also has hand to hand fighting.
Speaker 1: Iria has the full gamut of bounty hunter skills, so
Speaker 1: it seems like she is a trapper first and foremost,
Speaker 1: and she likes using this device that encases someone within
Speaker 1: like a giant crystal. But then when a fight breaks
Speaker 1: out she throws down. Yeah. She she does have a
Speaker 1: wonderful array of sort of Mandalorian esque or predator esque weaponry,
Speaker 1: you know, all the all the various bells and whistles.
Speaker 1: But of course za Ram has his own tricks, and
Speaker 1: one of them, one of the weirdest ones I thought,
Speaker 1: was that he throws out these bio prisms that like
Speaker 1: hatch open and then release these creatures, these weird google
Speaker 1: eyed critters that look like a cross between Final Stage
Speaker 1: Bundle fly E t and the baby from the nineties
Speaker 1: puppet sitcom Dinosaurs. Yeah. Yeah, and there's one he he
Speaker 1: patches multiple of these things. Again, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: a little s organic seed pod looking thing, and when
Speaker 1: it breaks open, it kind of like like whatever is
Speaker 1: inside rapidly grows and mutates into this kind of squat
Speaker 1: goblinoid creature then runs around and squeeze and stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's one that pops up later on that has three
Speaker 1: faces and not just one, and the faces kind of
Speaker 1: her mind one of the baby masks from Brazil. And
Speaker 1: they make a kind of noise too, don't they Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are squee noise. Yeah yeah, yeah, these are not uh,
Speaker 1: they're not doing you know, heavy heavy booted martial arts
Speaker 1: like Za ram Is. They're just sort of going like
Speaker 1: and like running at the heroes. Yeah, it's almost like
Speaker 1: he's he's weaponizing some other technology, Like like these things
Speaker 1: are mostly just distraction. They're not They're not going to
Speaker 1: really make a huge tactical difference. He's not hatching like
Speaker 1: elite hunter killers there. These are not his hunting dogs.
Speaker 1: These are just like blithering clone goblins that you know,
Speaker 1: are just there to cause a distraction. Agreed, Yes, but
Speaker 1: I love Yeah, I like them too, And there's a
Speaker 1: number of them throughout the movie. There was one part, though,
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny where the Electricians are figuring
Speaker 1: out what's going on, and um, I think Erie says
Speaker 1: to them. At least this was how it was in
Speaker 1: the subtitles. She goes, don't you get it now, we're
Speaker 1: in an alternate dimension, and then one of the electricians goes,
Speaker 1: you're right now. One of my favorite sequences in this
Speaker 1: um occurs. I want to say, you know, more or
Speaker 1: less halfway through the film, uh, you know, we've are
Speaker 1: he had the initial battle was za Ram. Then we
Speaker 1: get this scene where where's you know? Za Ram has
Speaker 1: a run in with our two humanoid characters. And I
Speaker 1: think at this point it's been established that the humans
Speaker 1: are on their own in the zone and Area has
Speaker 1: been like ejected from the zone and can't get back
Speaker 1: in due to like gadget reasons, right, yeah, the transporter
Speaker 1: brakes or something. Yeah, so this is where he gets
Speaker 1: fun because we know she can hold her own against
Speaker 1: a Ram and and and effectively captures a Ram, but
Speaker 1: then she gets booted. Are too human characters mess things up,
Speaker 1: accidentally freeze a Ram, and z Aram has to figure
Speaker 1: out what he's gonna do. And so we have z
Speaker 1: a Ram still in this this form of this hulking bioweapon,
Speaker 1: you know, clothed in this shroud and having this a
Speaker 1: large hat like head. Um. We already know that he
Speaker 1: can rapidly grow grotesque goblinoids to do his bid bidding.
Speaker 1: And in a previous scene he used that the mouth
Speaker 1: or the face on the on the hat, it kind
Speaker 1: of came out like a tentacle and it bit one
Speaker 1: of the humans arms. Yeah, yeah, like tore off a
Speaker 1: bit of skin. So h it has a tissue sample.
Speaker 1: So we go to this scene where it's just as
Speaker 1: a Ram alone in this um this in you know,
Speaker 1: open industrial space, and he removes the cloth from his
Speaker 1: mouth region and he spits up one of these He
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, flexes his muscles, uh strains,
Speaker 1: spits up one of these seed pods. But instead of
Speaker 1: throwing it and letting it hatch, he crushes it in
Speaker 1: his big muscular hand, and some sort of clone slime
Speaker 1: drips out of it, pools up on the ground, begins
Speaker 1: to bubble and rapidly grows into a kind of half
Speaker 1: formed clone of of Cama, or at least the head,
Speaker 1: uh one arm and part of the torso just laying
Speaker 1: there in a pile. And it's really grotesque and wonderful.
Speaker 1: It mostly just spits up clone goop. But he but
Speaker 1: but then Zerrium seems to word sort of wordlessly question
Speaker 1: this thing, and then the goblin clon clone responds with
Speaker 1: kind of alien gibbering and also a little more oozing
Speaker 1: of clone goof from the mouth, and then, satisfied with
Speaker 1: all this, Zerrium then crushes the goblin clone underfoot. I
Speaker 1: absolutely love just the alien weirdness of this whole scene.
Speaker 1: Um one of these scenes where there are no humans
Speaker 1: at all. It's just monsters doing monster things and having
Speaker 1: some sort of conversation that we can scarcely understand. Now,
Speaker 1: this is one of the one scenes I would say
Speaker 1: if somebody was thinking about showing this movie to a
Speaker 1: very little kid, I don't know. This one's pretty grotesque
Speaker 1: and kind of and it's kind of pathetic the way
Speaker 1: the creature is like no, and Zayram is just like
Speaker 1: done with you and then squashes him. Now did this
Speaker 1: have subtitles in your version? No? It didn't. Okay, excellent,
Speaker 1: that's good. I would be disappointed, Uh, first of all
Speaker 1: if I missed out on this the details of this conversation,
Speaker 1: but I ultimately like not knowing, Like as of human viewer,
Speaker 1: we're just completely cut out on the details here, Like
Speaker 1: what is he just saying? Hey, where did that guy go?
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, he's over there. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, good squash. But maybe he's getting more information
Speaker 1: about the planet. I'm not sure. It's just it's a
Speaker 1: lovely scene. This, I believe is the scene that I
Speaker 1: saw on television and it just stuck with me because
Speaker 1: it was just so strange. Yeah, this is a great
Speaker 1: one that they pushed the weirdness past eleven. It's it's
Speaker 1: off the charts here. Another thing that stuck with me
Speaker 1: was I think I wonder if you agree there's a
Speaker 1: part in this movie that I think is a direct
Speaker 1: homage to Aliens, because there is a scene where they're
Speaker 1: they're fighting with za Ram and then suddenly it pans
Speaker 1: over to reveal somebody coming in to say that I
Speaker 1: think tape A is being threatened. But then it pans
Speaker 1: over and here's camera driving an excavator he's working in
Speaker 1: heavy machinery with. And I think it's like framed in
Speaker 1: stage with the same kind of lighting and stuff as
Speaker 1: when Ripley comes out in the power loader fight at
Speaker 1: the end of Aliens. Would you agree? Yeah? Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: it seems like that's where they're gonna go, oh, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna have kind of a rip off of
Speaker 1: that scene where it's gonna be Bulldozer versus ari Um,
Speaker 1: but then it ultimately ends up being for comedic payoff,
Speaker 1: right because doesn't Zerium just sort of like swap the
Speaker 1: bulldozer and turns yeah and uh and then and then
Speaker 1: Cammia just runs for it. So I I like that
Speaker 1: ultimately a successful scene if they'd gone if they'd actually
Speaker 1: had it be kind of this fight, which I think
Speaker 1: they've done. Didn't they do that in Carnissaur. Doesn't a
Speaker 1: bulldoz or fight a dinosaur in Carnossaur? Oh? Yeah, somebody
Speaker 1: gets into like a Bobcat or some one of those
Speaker 1: smaller one of those a little I don't know what
Speaker 1: you call the smaller bulldozer, little mandozer. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: see that. I mean, Ripley did it best using a
Speaker 1: space bulldozer suit. I don't want to see just a
Speaker 1: normal bulldozer fight a dinosaur. Now. I have another question
Speaker 1: for you, Joe, regarding um dubs and subtitles. Uh. Okay,
Speaker 1: So a large part of this film is that the
Speaker 1: humans are trapped in the zone with za Ram and
Speaker 1: then in area is stuck on the outside. Okay, but
Speaker 1: then the human is get in trouble with a Ram
Speaker 1: and then Iria jumps in and saves them, saves the day.
Speaker 1: And I don't if it was established how she was
Speaker 1: able to do that. I missed it. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I don't I know what you're talking about. And I
Speaker 1: don't remember. I think they must have fixed it somehow.
Speaker 1: And then they just like don't show her teleporting or something.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, here she is, you know, Bob got
Speaker 1: Bob got it all put together, Okay, but she's ultifinitely
Speaker 1: not that important. But no, no, no, but yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some gaps like that, and uh, A lot of the
Speaker 1: a lot of what Aria and Bob are doing later
Speaker 1: on is they're like trying to put together like the
Speaker 1: supercannon or something, or trying to get permission to use
Speaker 1: it or something. Yeah, there's some question from Bob, especially
Speaker 1: if they have authorization to use the super weapon. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they have to get it there, and then
Speaker 1: once it's there, it has to be assemboled, and clearly
Speaker 1: our electricians are not quite up up to the task,
Speaker 1: so Aria has to has to slap it together and
Speaker 1: it's a pretty cool weapon when she fires it off.
Speaker 1: Though I like some of the more low tech fighting
Speaker 1: you see that the you see the electricians doing because
Speaker 1: and I think we're going to talk about the monster
Speaker 1: transforming into different stages in a minute, but one of
Speaker 1: its stages, it's attacking the two electricians and they just
Speaker 1: start piling furniture on top of it, which I thought
Speaker 1: was very funny. Yeah. Yeah, there's another scene where I
Speaker 1: want to say that the monster is either thrown into
Speaker 1: or throw somebody else into one of you know, you're
Speaker 1: just go to set pieces in a film like this,
Speaker 1: A wall of cardboard boxes clearly empty. Alright, So yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the this is a film about the monsters,
Speaker 1: about the monster itself here, and one of the great
Speaker 1: things about it is that it goes through multiple stages again,
Speaker 1: like you said, this is a film where Behold my
Speaker 1: true form happens again and again. So we have stage
Speaker 1: one zeri Um, which we've largely described clothed, hulking humanoid warrior.
Speaker 1: And in my opinion, this is uh z Ram, it
Speaker 1: is best uh. And I'm realizing here I may be
Speaker 1: saying zerri Um at times Rams. Okay, who knows, but
Speaker 1: I think I think za Ram the Tennessee and version
Speaker 1: is correct. Um. Anyway, this this primary look primary z
Speaker 1: a Ram, tremendous clothing, accessory options, numerous bioweapons, really comes
Speaker 1: off well. But then eventually z Aram gets blasted and
Speaker 1: we get stage Tuesday Ram, which is a skeletal, multi
Speaker 1: limbed walker. And this one's a lot of fun because
Speaker 1: it's a stop motion effect, which obviously has limitations in
Speaker 1: a film like this. It even has limitations when he's
Speaker 1: done especially well, like in a Ray Harry House in
Speaker 1: or like RoboCop two. But you know, generally examples of
Speaker 1: really well done integration of live action and stop motion.
Speaker 1: But still the monster looks great in this Yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: it does. It's it's sort of a mix of an
Speaker 1: insect and like a mammal skeleton. Yeah, multi limbs lashing
Speaker 1: around pretty fun. But eventually that gets blasted too, and
Speaker 1: we're off to stage three za Ram which it had
Speaker 1: been established earlier that only the head is important. I
Speaker 1: think they literally say hat, just the hat, So just
Speaker 1: at this point, z a Ram is reduced to just
Speaker 1: that hat, shroom cap, stingray thingy, and it flies around,
Speaker 1: floats around, you know, kind of looking like a rubber
Speaker 1: bat on a string. Uh. There. It reminds me a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of various flying Kaiju monsters, so
Speaker 1: maybe less compelling, but very much expected. I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe a Kaiju movie that we watched for this show
Speaker 1: had a monster that could transform into something that looked
Speaker 1: like this flying mushroom cap or stingray thing. Was it
Speaker 1: the Godzilla movie? Was it? Did the pollution monster have
Speaker 1: a flying stingray form? It might have? Remember Anyway, they
Speaker 1: eventually capture the stingray hat thing. They get it sealed
Speaker 1: up in its crystal, but of course it gets out
Speaker 1: of that as as well. Um and uh. And then
Speaker 1: we get one last pretty great transformation where the hat
Speaker 1: is like upside down and a whole bunch of like
Speaker 1: mutation stuff starts boiling out of it, a very um
Speaker 1: John Carpenter's the thing asque transformation, and then it transforms
Speaker 1: into this the Thing esque abomination, which, uh, this was
Speaker 1: I guess the logical place to go. Like at this point,
Speaker 1: za Ram is back in the corner. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: mutate a bunch and just lash at you with a
Speaker 1: bunch of tentacles and teeth and mouths and so forth.
Speaker 1: I feel like this incarnation of za Ram was maybe
Speaker 1: a bit ambitious, and the full monster comes off a
Speaker 1: little stiff here, but it's still it's still pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Well it has at this point though, it is also
Speaker 1: because it has incorporated some human DNA from CAMA. I
Speaker 1: think it has like a little human body parts coming
Speaker 1: out of it, like nipples and stuff. Yeah, there's it
Speaker 1: looks like there there might be a boob on it,
Speaker 1: but not in a way that like is distressing, I guess,
Speaker 1: just kind of like, oh, I guess that's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a human breast. Oh yeah, Okay, Now that would
Speaker 1: have been an interesting way to go if it had
Speaker 1: taken um came As form that's the final form. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Oh yeah, yeah, Like if it had gone faull,
Speaker 1: like they just made a clone of him, but a
Speaker 1: defective one. Oh you know, it would have been another
Speaker 1: great ending. They should have done this. I know we
Speaker 1: we squashed the came a half clone earlier, but wouldn't
Speaker 1: it have been great for like a post credit sequence
Speaker 1: where it's came As friends at the bar, but the
Speaker 1: clone has shown up to hang out with them, and
Speaker 1: it's like having out at the bar and has a drink,
Speaker 1: but it's still like spitting up Clone Goog. So they're
Speaker 1: in the middle of talking about how they don't miss
Speaker 1: Camea and they don't mind that he couldn't make it.
Speaker 1: But then he does show up and he's just bleeding
Speaker 1: goo everywhere, and they're like, oh, hey, we were just
Speaker 1: talking about you Titters in an alien voice, and they
Speaker 1: just notice a couple more things that I thought were
Speaker 1: interesting about the ending. One is that in in the
Speaker 1: end camera has to come through and save the day
Speaker 1: by using electrician knowledge. He has to repair the wiring.
Speaker 1: I think multiple times in order to I don't know,
Speaker 1: power up the device they're using to defeat the monster
Speaker 1: in the end. Yeah, this is really great and it
Speaker 1: made me wonder, not enough to actually watch it. But
Speaker 1: in the Super Mario Brothers movie, did the Super Mario
Speaker 1: Brothers end up using their plumbing skills to save the
Speaker 1: day against That would be a good twist. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been and I don't remember that movie is weird. That's
Speaker 1: a contender for the show. That is a strange film.
Speaker 1: I I cannot imagine that the Chris Pratt Mario Brothers
Speaker 1: Dream make is going to really equal or or you know,
Speaker 1: excel in creating the same kind of weird cinematic experience. Wait,
Speaker 1: does Chris Pratt playing Mark Mario super Mario? That is
Speaker 1: what Seth I believe was telling us. Okay, so they
Speaker 1: went from Bob Hoskins to Chris Pratt. Yeah, well it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a different, different take on the on
Speaker 1: on the source material. Okay. Oh oh, no, one last thing,
Speaker 1: final comment about the movie. I like how it ends
Speaker 1: with a graduation photo. Yes, why, I don't know. All
Speaker 1: the humanoids so after the monsters defeated uria camera tape,
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, let's all pose for a photo and
Speaker 1: Bob just like that. They stand together and pose and
Speaker 1: Bob takes their picture and then it's like best friends,
Speaker 1: friends forever. It's so wholesome. I love it. Yeah, So yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not This is not a film that is
Speaker 1: going to really hit you with a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: of mysteries and intrigue and double crosses and so forth.
Speaker 1: The plots pretty simple, the payoffs are pretty much everything
Speaker 1: you'd expect, but wonderful, weird monster. And I think this
Speaker 1: is one of those films that kind of like Pumpkinhead
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, is you see action figures and
Speaker 1: costumes and fan art depicting the monster, like the monster
Speaker 1: has really sort of is really kind of more popular
Speaker 1: than the film itself, or it seems to be the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would make sense. Now, Uh a little credit? Where
Speaker 1: credits do here? When I first started poking around for
Speaker 1: places to watch this film, I could not find zay
Speaker 1: Ram anywhere. I think za Ram two was available as
Speaker 1: a streaming option or you know, or at least a
Speaker 1: digital purchase option, and the anime spin off TV series
Speaker 1: was also available that way. But it looked like I
Speaker 1: was going to have to obtain a physical copy for sure.
Speaker 1: So I inquired with the good people at Atlanta's own
Speaker 1: Video Drome video rental store about it, and they said, sorry,
Speaker 1: we don't have a copy. But then they wrote me
Speaker 1: back and said, actually, we just ordered a copy of it.
Speaker 1: We've ordered the thirtieth anniversary Blu Ray and so that
Speaker 1: came in and that's how we got to watch it.
Speaker 1: It's a it's I think a solid Blu ray release
Speaker 1: from Media Blasters. It includes a couple of trailers and
Speaker 1: also a making of feature that I believe popped up
Speaker 1: on a previous laser disc edition. Oh oh man, can
Speaker 1: you imagine the experience of watching this on laser disc? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I watched part of the making of video um but
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty bad. Like they're talking to the director
Speaker 1: in the star and the directors like, I wanted to
Speaker 1: make a film that was fun. So making a fun
Speaker 1: film was my primary my primary goal here. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it was you know that sort of thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's some more depth, in depth stuff about
Speaker 1: the effects later on. But anyway, if you live in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: you can certainly go to Video Drome and rent the
Speaker 1: same blue ray disc that we watched it on. You
Speaker 1: can also check out video Drome at video Drome a
Speaker 1: t l dot com. And if you want to get
Speaker 1: some of their merch, and they have a lot of
Speaker 1: cool merch, you can go to video drome dot tv.
Speaker 1: So thanks again to the guys at video Drome for
Speaker 1: hooking us up with our z A ram. All right,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more weird house cinema,
Speaker 1: it happens every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast. Feed were primarily you know, science and sometimes
Speaker 1: culture or sometimes philosophy podcast. Primarily science though, but on
Speaker 1: Friday's we set both of most of that aside and
Speaker 1: we enter the zone where there's nothing to worry about
Speaker 1: except for maybe a strange monster and some you know,
Speaker 1: questionable acting performances that sort of thing, huge things. As
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.