Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: we are going to be talking about the nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: six Japanese sci fi adventure Evil Brain from Outer Space,
Speaker 3: starring Kin Utsui as the intergalactic superhero Starman, or at
Speaker 3: least that's what he's called in the English dub. In
Speaker 3: the original, his name translates to super Giant, So Evil
Speaker 3: Brain from Outer Space is a type of movie that
Speaker 3: I thought would be interesting to talk about because I'm
Speaker 3: not sure we have done one like this on Weird
Speaker 3: House Cinema before. It is a movie that was made
Speaker 3: almost entirely out of repurposed footage, which originally belonged to
Speaker 3: several different episodes of a nine part Japanese serial called
Speaker 3: Super Giant, which ran from nineteen fifty six to nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty nine. I was trying to think if we'd done
Speaker 3: another movie like this, and I don't think we have.
Speaker 3: We well, the idea of some repurposed footage came up
Speaker 3: in a few episodes, like when we covered Queen of Blood,
Speaker 3: which was a nineteen sixty six AIP sci fi horror
Speaker 3: production directed by Curtis Harrington. That was the one that
Speaker 3: had John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, and Dennis Hopper, and it
Speaker 3: was like where the plot was like astronauts go to
Speaker 3: pick up a green vampire woman alien. I think she
Speaker 3: was supposed to be like an ambassador from another alien species.
Speaker 3: But they pick her up and bring her aboard the
Speaker 3: ship and she just starts drinking their blood, you know,
Speaker 3: blood of the crew, one by one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fun flick. I enjoyed that one.
Speaker 3: So Queen of Blood did have its own original story,
Speaker 3: and the majority of the movie was new footage based
Speaker 3: on the original script, but efigant chunks of the film,
Speaker 3: primarily special effects shots, were just lifted wholesale from two
Speaker 3: pre existing Soviet sci fi movies. One was called mechde
Speaker 3: NEVSTRETCHU from nineteen sixty three and another was called Battle
Speaker 3: Beyond the Sun from fifty nine. So Queen of Blood
Speaker 3: was an original story, but they cut costs and padded
Speaker 3: the movie out with special effects from other movies. And
Speaker 3: I was thinking about it, I wonder if it's notable
Speaker 3: that they selected these things from foreign movies, which American
Speaker 3: audiences would be less likely to have seen before anyway,
Speaker 3: So that was Queen of Blood. Evil Brain from Outer
Speaker 3: Space is not like that. It's not like an original
Speaker 3: story that just lifts a few special effects shots. Instead
Speaker 3: as a movie as a single narrative, it is a
Speaker 3: holy synthetic product made by editing together scenes from three
Speaker 3: different episodes of the Super Giant TV serial, using voiceover
Speaker 3: narration as a kind of duct tape that holds everything
Speaker 3: together and tries to make sense of the narrative to
Speaker 3: varying degrees of success.
Speaker 2: It's like if you were to take the first three
Speaker 2: iron Man movies and then, in order to introduce iron
Speaker 2: Man to a market that for some reason had not
Speaker 2: experienced iron Man yet, you just take first three movies
Speaker 2: and cut them into a single picture.
Speaker 3: Right, and you try to make it feel like it's
Speaker 3: all the same story by having a narrator come in
Speaker 3: every now and then and like, explain why the villain
Speaker 3: you're looking at now looks nothing like the villain from
Speaker 3: the previous scene, and they're like, right, they can disguise
Speaker 3: themselves in any form, so now they look like this
Speaker 3: you know now it's sky Pierce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but instead of just I guess the idea here
Speaker 2: would be too. It's like, imagine this Iron Man scenario,
Speaker 2: but you still work things out so that Jeff Bridges
Speaker 2: is the villain that he fights at the end of
Speaker 2: the overall picture. So it's not just like sequential, like
Speaker 2: let's speed it up and do part one, part two
Speaker 2: and part three. No, we're gonna mix and match, yeah,
Speaker 2: and create this broad sort of a plot that ties
Speaker 2: everything together.
Speaker 3: And you know, as a result, I will say that
Speaker 3: this movie is a really mixed bag in terms of
Speaker 3: quality and how entertaining it is, even within the same
Speaker 3: production elements. I don't know if you felt the same way, Rob,
Speaker 3: but I felt like some of the sets and costumes
Speaker 3: are ten out of ten, like the robot elders of
Speaker 3: the Emerald Planet, some of the space monsters, especially the
Speaker 3: bat mutant that we'll talk about later, those are awesome.
Speaker 3: Other sets in costumes quite terrible. In fact, I'm not
Speaker 3: even a big fan of Starman's costume. I could use
Speaker 3: some work. It doesn't look the coolest. Same thing with
Speaker 3: like some of the fight choreography, like some is incredibly fun. Again,
Speaker 3: I think the best stuff is the bat mutant, like
Speaker 3: very acrobatic fight scenes that are fun to watch, whereas
Speaker 3: in other scenes the fights aren't. Some of the worst
Speaker 3: I have seen on film, like the one where Starman
Speaker 3: is punching the bandits in the woods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's essential to note that this movie
Speaker 2: has very strong vibes of American nineteen thirties and nineteen
Speaker 2: forties action serials like the really old Batman, the really
Speaker 2: old Superman shorts. These were you know, these have been
Speaker 2: riffed by the riff Tracks crew, for example, and they
Speaker 2: are a lot of fun, but they are they're slow,
Speaker 2: they're terrible there, and they were not intended to be
Speaker 2: viewed you know, episode episode like one after another. This
Speaker 2: was something you would go and go into the theater
Speaker 2: every week. You'd watch a bunch of stuff and you
Speaker 2: would watch, Hey, what's happening this week on Batman, what's
Speaker 2: happening this week on the Phantom Creeps, that sort.
Speaker 3: Of thing, And so it produces also a sort of
Speaker 3: rhythm of plot developments in this movie that's very repetitive. Like,
Speaker 3: so some of the best in the movie is just
Speaker 3: texture based. It's like, I love this costume. I love
Speaker 3: this set. You know, the robot Elders again, the bat mutant.
Speaker 3: That's all great stuff. But essentially the movie is just
Speaker 3: a long series of seemingly unrelated but thematically repetitive sequences
Speaker 3: where like, someone gets in peril, starman appears, starman beats
Speaker 3: up the bad guys, bad guy runs away, the person
Speaker 3: is saved, and then repeat again and again, with different
Speaker 3: types of bad guys and people in peril.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not significantly different types of bad guys in
Speaker 2: some cases, because it's like, again, it's like the serial energy.
Speaker 2: You have your mad scientist, you have your villains and hoods.
Speaker 2: You know, these are just like staples of the genre
Speaker 2: at that time, and these were, for the most part,
Speaker 2: effects that were pretty easy to pull off.
Speaker 3: So I was trying to learn more about exactly how
Speaker 3: this movie came together, and I was reading about it
Speaker 3: in a book called Outer Limits, The Filmgoer's Guide to
Speaker 3: the Great Science Fiction Film by a British film critic
Speaker 3: named Howard Hughes. He seems to have written a lot
Speaker 3: about spaghetti westerns, but this is a book about sci fi,
Speaker 3: and I don't know if he's holding this up as
Speaker 3: like the titular great science fiction films. It's more sort
Speaker 3: of in the context of like great Japanese movies and
Speaker 3: Godzilla Toho movies and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not understanding super Giant is a key figure
Speaker 2: and understanding like the evolution of superhero and superhero type
Speaker 2: figures in Japanese culture.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this book is from twenty fourteen, and according
Speaker 3: to Hughes, it goes like this. So, the original Super
Speaker 3: Giant serial had nine chapters. It ran from fifty six
Speaker 3: to fifty nine, and it was co directed by taruo Ishi,
Speaker 3: Akira Mitsua, and kore Yoshi Akasaka. This was all at
Speaker 3: the Shintoho studio. This was a studio that worked mid
Speaker 3: century in Japan. It produced a number of things you
Speaker 3: might have heard of. It made the famous Japanese he
Speaker 3: old movie Jigoku in nineteen sixty one, just before it
Speaker 3: went bankrupt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen Shintoho described as like the non union
Speaker 2: offshoot of Tote.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So super Giant or Starman in the English version
Speaker 3: is kind of like Superman. He wears tights And I
Speaker 3: said it originally a cape in the notes here, but
Speaker 3: it's not really a cape. He's got like these kind
Speaker 3: of flaring things that come off of his sleeves and shoulders.
Speaker 3: He has various superpowers. He has bulletproof, he can fly,
Speaker 3: and so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has kind of like underarm wings to a
Speaker 2: certain extent. Yes, Yeah, but he's also a robot, right,
Speaker 2: so this kind of makes him really more like Marvel's
Speaker 2: vision who wouldn't come along till nineteen sixty eight. And incidentally,
Speaker 2: there's also a Marvel super villain named super Giant, but
Speaker 2: this one is a female character and it's like a
Speaker 2: telepathic parasite who serves Thanos.
Speaker 3: Okay, so no relation, unrelated. Yeah, that is a weird
Speaker 3: thing that he is a robot, and will come back
Speaker 3: to that later. So, this nine episode serial was apparently
Speaker 3: purchased for syndication by Walter Manley Enterprises. I think we'll
Speaker 3: get into Walter Manley in a bit when we do
Speaker 3: the connections where it was re edited into four English
Speaker 3: dubbed feature films that were meant to run on US
Speaker 3: TV in the mid sixties, and Hughes writes that all
Speaker 3: four movies begin the exact same way. We always see
Speaker 3: these sort of starfish robots and the High Council of
Speaker 3: robot elders of the Emerald Planet deciding that Earth is
Speaker 3: in peril, and then they send Starman to Earth to
Speaker 3: save it, and according to Hughes, in each case they
Speaker 3: specify it's also to quote save Earth from contaminating the
Speaker 3: universe with nuclear fallout. Each time we get introduced to
Speaker 3: Starman and then we learn about his special gadget that
Speaker 3: gives him his powers. It's called the globe Meter, which
Speaker 3: it looks like a wristwatch, except instead of a clock
Speaker 3: face on it, it has a an image of the Earth.
Speaker 3: It's got a globe with the continents, and it gives
Speaker 3: him three special powers, the ability to fly, the ability
Speaker 3: to detect radiation, and the ability to speak any language.
Speaker 3: Interesting selection of three things. But I guess he already
Speaker 3: has some intrinsic powers like the wristwatch. He doesn't need
Speaker 3: to make him bullet proof. He's intrinsically bulletproof.
Speaker 2: Right, and he's already an excellent hand to hand combatant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So the four films cobbled together out
Speaker 3: of the original nine episodes of the series go like this.
Speaker 3: Hughes says, One is Atomic Rulers. This is a spy thriller,
Speaker 3: in which Starman has to track down a secret nuclear device.
Speaker 3: Hughes in the book says that some of the sets
Speaker 3: and props in this movie actually anticipate villain layers that
Speaker 3: would appear in later James Bond films, so that's kind
Speaker 3: of interesting. One is called Invaders from Space. This is
Speaker 3: where Starman fights the Salomon men of Koulaman, who exhale
Speaker 3: radioactive gas and attack Earth with engineered viruses and sonic weapons.
Speaker 3: Hughes mentions about this one that there is one villain
Speaker 3: with a horrifying grin that resembles some depictions of the Joker,
Speaker 3: and he also mentions there is a scene probably much
Speaker 3: too scary for younger viewers, where children are menaced by
Speaker 3: a witch from outer space. And he also mentions that
Speaker 3: basically all of the Starman stories have children in the plots.
Speaker 3: Maybe this is to make the stories more appealing to kids.
Speaker 3: I do think about like the later Godzilla or basically
Speaker 3: later Kaiju movies of all kinds that are often working
Speaker 3: in kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, gotta get some kids in the
Speaker 2: adventure and make you feel like kids are interacting with
Speaker 2: this wild sci fi world. By the way, I've looked
Speaker 2: up Invaders from Space. I had to see what these
Speaker 2: creatures look like. And these creatures look pretty awesome as well.
Speaker 2: They are. They're hard to describe, a little bit like
Speaker 2: an insect, a little bit like a a brain monster.
Speaker 2: Ye know, it's a little different from anything I've seen before.
Speaker 3: It's an if they made it of the brain mutant
Speaker 3: from This Island Earth and butterball cinobite. Do you see
Speaker 3: it the glasses, Yeah, they're exactly the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man, and I looked up the witch. The
Speaker 2: witch from this movie is also indeed quite terrifying and
Speaker 2: has the kind of like the weird nose that we'll
Speaker 2: get back to, like where it's a very like angular
Speaker 2: artificial nose.
Speaker 3: Is it the same witch as the witch in Evil
Speaker 3: Brain from Outer Space? Because Evil Brain also has a witch.
Speaker 2: I think they may have repurposed the nose, but otherwise different, different,
Speaker 2: different colorization. All right, I just sent you an image
Speaker 2: of this shoe. Yeah, different witch, possibly, same nose.
Speaker 3: Interesting, different witch. More, this witch looks like they put
Speaker 3: more work into this witch than the witch in Evil Brain.
Speaker 2: I would say kappa esque in many respects.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little turtally Yeah, Okay, so that's first two movies.
Speaker 3: Third movie is called Attack from Space. This is where
Speaker 3: some aliens called the Saphurians engage in further menacing of Earth.
Speaker 3: You know, this time they're menacing Earth with a big
Speaker 3: missile that is going to be launched from a space
Speaker 3: station and Starman has to go up to their space
Speaker 3: station and beat them all up. And then that gets
Speaker 3: us to Evil Brain. So each of the previous three
Speaker 3: films was made out of two episodes of Super Giant
Speaker 3: edited together. The fourth movie, the one we're talking about today,
Speaker 3: Evil Brain from Outer Space, was made from three episodes
Speaker 3: of Super Giant, and Hughes says that this is easily
Speaker 3: the wackiest of the series.
Speaker 2: This is the.
Speaker 3: One where Earth is menaced yet again, this time by
Speaker 3: a brain in a suitcase. As well as radioactive Batman
Speaker 3: who attack with weaponized germs. There are these aliens who
Speaker 3: use throwing what he was called throwing weapons that resemble
Speaker 3: cocktail sticks. They are kind of like toothpick darts. And
Speaker 3: Hughes really calls out the overflowing abundance of weird villains
Speaker 3: in this one as a special selling point. So I
Speaker 3: don't think anybody out there really thinks that the the
Speaker 3: Starman movies edited out of the Super Giant cereal are
Speaker 3: like some are like the best movies ever made, but
Speaker 3: they did kind of lay some groundwork and they they
Speaker 3: provide a kind of inspiration for things to come. So
Speaker 3: Hughes writes, quote Starman was dubbed in English by Bernard Gordon,
Speaker 3: and at the end of Evil Brain, he returns to
Speaker 3: the Emerald Planet. The seeds of many cinematropes, from Jharr
Speaker 3: to Japanese gangster movies to star Wars can be found
Speaker 3: in these refreshingly inventive yarns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, I think I read that Super
Speaker 2: Giant was the first theatrical Japanese superhero. I think there's
Speaker 2: some other caveats. There's another Golden Bat may have been
Speaker 2: the first, and then there was another air that may
Speaker 2: have been on TV but not in cinemas any way
Speaker 2: you cut it though, like this is this is an
Speaker 2: important figure in Japanese sci fi superhero pop culture, and
Speaker 2: a lot of what comes after and is still emerging
Speaker 2: ultimately has its roots in this picture, in this era.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have not seen the other three movies
Speaker 3: cut together from Super Giant, but I will say that
Speaker 3: Evil Brain is as wacky as advertised. Overall, it does
Speaker 3: not disappoint, but it succeeds largely because of the wackiness
Speaker 3: and strength of its best elements. There are parts of
Speaker 3: this movie that drag. There are parts that just kind
Speaker 3: of get confusing, where they're introducing more and more characters
Speaker 3: and situations that don't really go anywhere, and it does
Speaker 3: have a kind of repetitive structure of just like Peril
Speaker 3: Starman Saves People repeat. And also, as I said earlier,
Speaker 3: the element the individual film elements are of I think
Speaker 3: widely varying quality, but overall it's a pretty fun ride.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do want to add a caveat here that
Speaker 2: I found it increasingly difficult to try and piece together
Speaker 2: what was sourced from which film and which director. And
Speaker 2: one of the challenges here is that the original movies,
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, have never been released
Speaker 2: at least outside of Japan in their original formats, and
Speaker 2: other streaming possibilities were not forthcoming either, So it's hard
Speaker 2: to really go back and like sort of cross check
Speaker 2: what we have in Evil Brain from outer Space with
Speaker 2: actual super giant pictures. But I get the strong sense
Speaker 2: that everything they really wanted to put out there for
Speaker 2: this movie was in and I believe the seventh Super Giant,
Speaker 2: the one with the awesome bat creatures, because these, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, are the best parts of Evil Brain from
Speaker 2: outer Space. Some of the other inserts really bogged things
Speaker 2: down or confused matters. But I also noticed that Super
Speaker 2: Giant Part seven only has a forty five minute run time,
Speaker 2: And now that run time is certainly aokay with me.
Speaker 2: I think we need more forty five minutes. I five films,
Speaker 2: But I can see where distributors wanted more for a
Speaker 2: you know, full blown theatrical presentation for the US market.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I as we've said on the show many times,
Speaker 3: I embraced the ethic of the drive in movie. You know,
Speaker 3: you can make a sixty three minute movie that's okay,
Speaker 3: that counts as a movie to me.
Speaker 2: Again, I feel like there's there's a strong feeling of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties and forties action serials to this particular picture.
Speaker 2: You know, in the combat and the costumes and even
Speaker 2: in the pacings. You can you can play a game
Speaker 2: of bingo with it, you know, hooded criminals, mad scientists,
Speaker 2: punch ups. I was reminded a lot in a few
Speaker 2: different ways. Of the nineteen thirty nine serial The Phantom
Speaker 2: Creep starring Bella Lugosi, which is a wonderfully bonker's tale
Speaker 2: of a mad scientist with like an invisibility device a big,
Speaker 2: weird looking robot that is unfortunately four point five hours long,
Speaker 2: spread across twelve chapters. So I've never made it through
Speaker 2: all of that, and it's again simply not intended for
Speaker 2: viewing outside of a weekly movie theater setting. However, in
Speaker 2: a similar exercise to what we're talking about here, it
Speaker 2: was later cut into a seventy eight minute film that
Speaker 2: was released in nineteen forty nine. So that's one we
Speaker 2: may come back to. But it's another case of taking
Speaker 2: pre existing releases and then re editing it into a
Speaker 2: different cinematic product.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so if we cover that on the show,
Speaker 3: would be interesting to compare it to Evil Brain here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, it may be silly, but it's also not
Speaker 2: going to be four and a half hours long and
Speaker 2: kind of drag in these in certain ways, and you know,
Speaker 2: always lead up to some sort of cliffhanger, sometimes a
Speaker 2: literal cliffhanger. Of course, that in the original format was
Speaker 2: supposed to be consumed the next week and not immediately.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that this Phantom Creep said it is seventy
Speaker 3: eight minutes, because Evil Brain is also seventy eight minutes.
Speaker 3: I wonder if that's a coincidence and may yeah, may
Speaker 3: have just been more or less the standard of the day.
Speaker 3: I also want to say that it reminds me of
Speaker 3: the Phantom Creeps because more than one character in this
Speaker 3: film has strong Bello Legosi vibes, including our hero, like
Speaker 3: I would see him walking the screen like, oh man,
Speaker 3: he's really got He's got like this Bella look going on.
Speaker 3: I've got a couple of screenshots in our outline where
Speaker 3: he looks a lot like Bela Lagosi, certainly when he
Speaker 3: wears like the suit and tie and the bowler hat. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: and oh here's another selling point of this movie. I
Speaker 3: hope you like hearing the word brain because they say
Speaker 3: it approximately five to six times per minute of runtime.
Speaker 3: There is so much talking about brains.
Speaker 2: I love it all right, Joe, what's your elevator pitch
Speaker 2: for Evil Brain? From outer space?
Speaker 3: A brain inside a briefcase threatens Earth. Our only hope
Speaker 3: is a man with the wristwatch that allows him to fly,
Speaker 3: detect radiation, and speak any language.
Speaker 2: All right, Now, as far as I could tell, I
Speaker 2: could not find a trailer for Evil Brain from outer space,
Speaker 2: or any kind of a trailer for the super giant
Speaker 2: films that are utilized to make it. So I think
Speaker 2: instead we're just going to maybe have a little bit
Speaker 2: of that opening narration from Evil Brain from outer space.
Speaker 4: All the planet seemar far within the moving galaxy, a
Speaker 4: decontrolled robot assassinated the omnipotent Balasar was known to possess
Speaker 4: the most brilliant mind in the universe. So powerful was
Speaker 4: Balasa's genius that as he lay dying, his brain or
Speaker 4: it built a mechanism which would keep it alive even
Speaker 4: though his body was destroyed. And now Balazar's brain seeks
Speaker 4: universal conquest. But here on the Emerald Planet, the highest
Speaker 4: council in the market galaxy considers the terrible immediate menace
Speaker 4: to the Solar System of Earth and to the planet Earth.
Speaker 4: That'sa Blazar's brain leads the infiltration of Earth, preparing it
Speaker 4: for the attack forces which will follow. That attack will
Speaker 4: be with nuclear weapons, the flood of radioactivity which inevitably
Speaker 4: will spill out into space is what primarily concerns these
Speaker 4: Emerald planet creatures. High radioactivity. The Emerald creatures realize we're
Speaker 4: poisoning even the distant breaches of outer space. As a result,
Speaker 4: it is possible that in time other planets such as
Speaker 4: this will become uninhabitable. The Council now is deciding what
Speaker 4: must be done.
Speaker 2: Now, if you want to go out and watch Evil
Speaker 2: Brain from Outer Space before proceeding with this episode, Luckily
Speaker 2: for you, this one is widely available. You can rent
Speaker 2: it or buy it on digital platforms. I think I
Speaker 2: watched it on Prime. It has come out on disc
Speaker 2: a number of times, including as part of Something Weird
Speaker 2: videos Starman Volume one, Attack from Space, Evil Brain from
Speaker 2: Outer Space, and Allied Vonn's Japanese Superheroes Starman three Pack again.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, though, the films, the source films,
Speaker 2: the original Super Giant films have never been released in
Speaker 2: their original forms outside of Japan. And even then I
Speaker 2: did a little bit of looking on Sometimes you can
Speaker 2: find evidence of, like, you know, cool Japanese disc releases,
Speaker 2: and I nothing was turning up there. So I would
Speaker 2: love to hear from anyone out there who's more like
Speaker 2: embedded in like the Japanese media world or films from
Speaker 2: this era. If you have any additional insight on ways
Speaker 2: to enjoy super Giant right.
Speaker 3: In, maybe it's like those Highlander two cuts you can
Speaker 3: only get on laser disc.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get into some of the people
Speaker 2: behind this one. This is gonna be a little different
Speaker 2: compared to other connections that we've looked at, because, on
Speaker 2: one hand, a lot of the actors don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: a lot of like deep connections that are really going
Speaker 2: to tie into films that we've talked about, or the
Speaker 2: vast majority of listeners would would be familiar with. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna but we're gonna cover at least one of the
Speaker 2: core actors, and I do want to mention like the
Speaker 2: main directors, writer, and so forth. Again with the understanding
Speaker 2: that this is a film cobbled together from pre existing films,
Speaker 2: so we have like three directors to note here. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, First up, kore Yoshi Akasaka dates unknown, one
Speaker 2: of the directors here, Japanese director with limited credits. It
Speaker 2: seemed to exclusively work on Super Giant films. According to IMDb,
Speaker 2: while TMDb this is the movie database another movie database
Speaker 2: that we sometimes cite here. That one includes a TV
Speaker 2: series and a couple of other late fifties film credits
Speaker 2: he directed. My understanding is he directed Super Giant eight
Speaker 2: from nineteen fifty nine. That's about a disfigured mad scientist
Speaker 2: who turns his daughter into a witch. And then he
Speaker 2: also directed Super Giant nine. This one concerns a Middle
Speaker 2: Eastern prince and some sort of a plot regarding this
Speaker 2: Middle Eastern prints.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I recognize both of these plots from elements
Speaker 3: within Evil Brain, but they're both sort of secondary elements.
Speaker 2: Next up, director Daruo Ishi born nineteen twenty four died
Speaker 2: two thousand and five. Ishi is definitely the better known
Speaker 2: of the directors credited here. He directed several Super Giant
Speaker 2: films and shorts, and I think he did if I'm
Speaker 2: correct on this one. Two three, three seems to have
Speaker 2: potentially had bat like aliens in it as well. I
Speaker 2: could be wrong on that, and then five and six.
Speaker 2: So as for why he's credited here, I'm not entirely certain.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not completely sure he directed one of the
Speaker 2: core Super Giant films that is listed as being part
Speaker 2: of this film.
Speaker 3: Well, wait, have we established which Super Giant films were
Speaker 3: made into Evil Brain? Was it seven eight to nine?
Speaker 2: I thought it was seven eight to nine, But then
Speaker 2: I'm not sure Ishi is credited on seven eight or nine,
Speaker 2: So I'm confused. I will admit to my confusion on this, okay.
Speaker 2: But Ishi definitely was involved, heavily involved in the Super
Speaker 2: Giant franchise. And he's an interesting character to point out
Speaker 2: because he went on to have a long career in
Speaker 2: Japanese cinema credits, running from nineteen fifty seven through two
Speaker 2: thousand and one, and these include a number of notable
Speaker 2: Japanese exploitation films. In fact, he is sometimes known as
Speaker 2: the godfather of jay'sploitation. His films include nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 2: Showgun's Joy of Torture, sixty nine's Orgies of Edo and
Speaker 2: Inferno of Torture, nineteen sixty nine's Horrors of Malformed Men,
Speaker 2: and nineteen seventy three's Female Yakuza Tale. Now, not everything
Speaker 2: he did seems to have been the kind of thing
Speaker 2: you would classify as Jay's floitation, but he certainly made
Speaker 2: a name for himself with it.
Speaker 3: Bite that I would be very clear that there's like
Speaker 3: nothing in Evil Brain from Outer Space that feels especially
Speaker 3: like adult or edgy. This feels like it is a
Speaker 3: superhero adventure that is aimed towards like children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely right. There's nothing exploitive going on in
Speaker 2: Super Giant, but that is where this director's career would
Speaker 2: ultimately take him, at least on a number of his pictures.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it does have some kind of
Speaker 3: scary themes, a lot of stuff about like germ warfare
Speaker 3: and nuclear devices and stuff, but the tone of it
Speaker 3: is very much aimed at kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think some I've seen some commentators onlines, you know,
Speaker 2: drawing connections saying like, Okay, you can look at it
Speaker 2: later Ichi films, and maybe you can look back at
Speaker 2: some of these super Giants and see some threads of like,
Speaker 2: you know, some of his choices and stylistic choices, you know,
Speaker 2: showing up to these earlier pictures. But yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: so that's another director. And then we also have Akira Mitsua.
Speaker 2: I don't have dates on this guy either, and he
Speaker 2: is credited again as Akira Mitsuwa on this film, but
Speaker 2: I've also seen him credited as Akira Miwa director of
Speaker 2: Super Giant seven, I believe, which is the one with
Speaker 2: the bat creatures.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we think maybe super Giant seven were not positive,
Speaker 3: but that one is sort of the core of the
Speaker 3: evil Brain from outer Space.
Speaker 2: Narrative, I think. So it's only forty five minutes long,
Speaker 2: so it's patted out with other stuff. Yeah, definitely patted
Speaker 2: out with the Middle Eastern plot. Definitely padded out with
Speaker 2: the disfigured mad scientist and witch daughter plot. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: this particular director, he seems to have only had a
Speaker 2: handful of writing and directing credits from this time period,
Speaker 2: but also was involved in some other genres aside from
Speaker 2: just superhero fair Okay, okay. Then the writer is Kiro Miyagawa.
Speaker 2: Birthdate apparently not public record, but died in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, Japanese writer best known for krim in Bat,
Speaker 2: the Blind Swordswoman from sixty nine, Super Giant fifty seven,
Speaker 2: and Odoshi from nineteen sixty six, as well as nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties Jigoku The Centers of Hell, which we referenced earlier,
Speaker 2: which is probably their best known work internationally. All right, now,
Speaker 2: dipping into the cast here, we do have to talk
Speaker 2: about our star Ken Utsui playing Starman or super Giant,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call him. He is here to
Speaker 2: save the day.
Speaker 3: Now, on one hand, I would say he is not
Speaker 3: as expressive as some of the other members of the cast.
Speaker 3: He's a little bit stiff. But also I wonder if
Speaker 3: that's a deliberate choice. He's like, he's very handsome, and
Speaker 3: you know, he looks very heroic in the scenes where
Speaker 3: he's supposed to look heroic, but his line deliveries are
Speaker 3: almost kind of robotic. But then again, he is a
Speaker 3: robot from another alanet, so I guess that's what he's
Speaker 3: going for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not supposed to behave like a human being.
Speaker 2: He's very stoic and also, as we've been referencing, he
Speaker 2: gives strong, long Bell Lugosi vibes. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I can completely explain it, but I look at him,
Speaker 2: especially when he's in like full human costume with a suit,
Speaker 2: and all I'm like, oh, it's Bell Agosi, Japanese Bell
Speaker 2: Lagosi is here at save us. So Utsui was an
Speaker 2: actor of stage, treen and TV who worked from the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties through the twenty tens. If I didn't throw
Speaker 2: out his dates already. Sorry, I just blanked on this.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen thirty one through twenty fourteen. His first
Speaker 2: credits go back to fifty three, and he actually has
Speaker 2: a very small uncredited role in Akira kurosaw was seven
Speaker 2: Samurai from nineteen fifty four. He's like apparently like a
Speaker 2: samurai wandering through town and like the background in one scene.
Speaker 2: He followed all this up with a supporting role in
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties Japanese pro wrestling movie. It would seem
Speaker 2: I couldn't find out much about this, but it looked
Speaker 2: like a like it's not like a high fantasy sort
Speaker 2: of fair it's some sort of like a I guess,
Speaker 2: a realistic pro wrestling film in the same way that
Speaker 2: you had a lot of, you know, pro wrestling films
Speaker 2: in the thirties forties in the US and so forth.
Speaker 2: But the Super Giant film seemed to have been an
Speaker 2: early big break for him with Shintoho before moving to
Speaker 2: another studio and getting into more TV drama work, and
Speaker 2: that apparently included a lot of detective genre work, which
Speaker 2: makes sense. He looks very sharp in a suit, and
Speaker 2: he started in the nineteen sixty three crime drama film
Speaker 2: Black Report, and starred in the nineteen seventy five film
Speaker 2: The Bullet Train alongside Ken Takakura and Sunny Chiva.
Speaker 3: I can see why they cast him as the bulletproof hero.
Speaker 3: He looks like bullets would bounce right off of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Now I would just say, yeah, I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed the rest of the cast as well. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to go into detail about everybody, but just real quick,
Speaker 2: I want to call out hiroshiy Asami, who plays Kuwata.
Speaker 2: This is a character we encounter early on who's on
Speaker 2: the run with a mysterious briefcase. I also liked all
Speaker 2: the scientists mad or otherwise that we encounter, including Akira
Speaker 2: Nakamura is doctor Sakurai, and then we also have doctor
Speaker 2: Okawa played by Tomohiko Otani. But I'm gonna skim over
Speaker 2: the rest of them. A lot of them have sort
Speaker 2: of like you know, interlocking interconnected credits. Some of the
Speaker 2: movies we've already referenced, But for the most part, we're
Speaker 2: just gonna move on. I am gonna briefly cover a
Speaker 2: couple other folks so we go. We mentioned Walter Manley.
Speaker 2: Walter Manley was the Purdue is a producer on this.
Speaker 2: He is the one who brought these films to America
Speaker 2: and had them cobbled into this current form as Evil
Speaker 2: Brain from Outer Space. He lived nineteen eighteen through nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six, and he did a lot of this sort
Speaker 2: of thing, beginning with the US release of nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: nine's Prince of Space. Ah, this one, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think we've watched it together for the show,
Speaker 2: but this is a super fun slice of Japanese sci
Speaker 2: fi serial goodness with a like evil, laughing Birdman as
Speaker 2: the villain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love Prince of Space.
Speaker 2: Then came the Super Giant Trilogy, if you want to
Speaker 2: call it that, as well as a production credit on
Speaker 2: the Italian nineteen sixty five film The Embalmer. I believe
Speaker 2: this is another case of him involved in international releases
Speaker 2: of various pictures. He was then involved in the US
Speaker 2: release of Terror Beneath the Sea. He was involved in
Speaker 2: the Antonio Margaretti space station films. These were the films
Speaker 2: that led up to Kinji Fukusaku's The Green Slime in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, which we have discussed on the show.
Speaker 2: We did a whole episode about Green Slime.
Speaker 3: But the Green Slime of course, so that was a
Speaker 3: Japanese production, but it was like an English film starring
Speaker 3: English speaking actors.
Speaker 2: Right right. And then his last production credit was an
Speaker 2: Italian war film, The War Devils in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: And I couldn't find out any real information about what
Speaker 2: happened to him after this, But this was this period
Speaker 2: of activity in cinema. But it is an interesting scenario
Speaker 2: to try and imagine. You know, nowadays, we're sort of
Speaker 2: just so accustomed to various international pictures that are picked
Speaker 2: up and distributed here in the States or in other
Speaker 2: markets with a little or no changes, and we just
Speaker 2: accept them for what they are. You know, we enjoy engage,
Speaker 2: engaging with international cinema, and there may be some preferences
Speaker 2: for you know, for for dub or subtitles and so forth,
Speaker 2: but you know, we're all about it. But it's it's
Speaker 2: interesting to imagine a time where someone's like, well, well,
Speaker 2: we have a Japanese picture, how are we going to
Speaker 2: release this to an American audience? Like at this point,
Speaker 2: like there is so much loved, enthusiasm and appreciation for
Speaker 2: for for Japanese cinema that you know, it's it's its
Speaker 2: own product. You know, it's like we mean, it's a
Speaker 2: known quantity and we know it's going to be successful.
Speaker 2: But imagining a time where it's like, well, how do
Speaker 2: we release this? I guess we've got to get an
Speaker 2: American actor in there, we need to make King Kong win,
Speaker 2: we have to make changes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting that they thought that these couldn't just
Speaker 3: be released as in their original serial form with like
Speaker 3: an English dub. They needed to be edited into synthetic,
Speaker 3: composite narratives with a longer run time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Wonder if do you I wonder if that's like you
Speaker 3: can imagine a lot of different reasonings behind that. And
Speaker 3: I don't know what was operative here. Maybe it was
Speaker 3: a question of like just pure business considerations about run
Speaker 3: time or something. It's like, oh, we've got slots of
Speaker 3: this time that we want to fill in TV programming
Speaker 3: or something, So it could be something like that, or
Speaker 3: or I wonder if it's just beliefs about cultural expectations,
Speaker 3: like what kinds of run time and narrative structure and
Speaker 3: length audiences would want to see. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does really feel like Green Slime is then
Speaker 2: kind of a culmination of this where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we love so many of these elements in these Japanese films.
Speaker 2: What if one of these Japanese film studios just made
Speaker 2: a film for an international audience in an international market
Speaker 2: using Western actors, you know. And then eventually, I guess
Speaker 2: we get to the place where we realize, oh, you
Speaker 2: don't even need that. You can just you can basically
Speaker 2: just dub or subtitle the original product and audiences will
Speaker 2: want it. Yeah, all right, And then finally I will
Speaker 2: mention the music here, though I've also read that much
Speaker 2: of the music from the original Super Giant films was
Speaker 2: replaced with stock music here, so I'm not sure how
Speaker 2: all this pans out. But Chume Watanabi, who lived nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty five through two twenty twenty two, is credited. He
Speaker 2: had a very long composing career, with such credits as
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight's Black Cat Mansion, nineteen sixties Jigoku, and
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine Yokai Monsters Colon along with ghosts. Oh.
Speaker 3: I just had to do a Google search to check
Speaker 3: and see if that Yokai Monsters movie is one i'd
Speaker 3: seen screenshots before, and I think it is that one
Speaker 3: looks worth a look.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have never seen any of these various older
Speaker 2: Yokai film I have. I've seen Takashi Mike's like Later Day,
Speaker 2: the Great Yokai War film, which is a reference to
Speaker 2: all of those and is also not connected to some
Speaker 2: of his more notorious works. So this is like a
Speaker 2: family film that he did.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're ready to get into the plot.
Speaker 2: The plot or plots, everyone to look at it. Let's
Speaker 2: dive into Evil Brain from outer Space Save Us super Giant.
Speaker 3: I see plots within plots, so the title in opening
Speaker 3: credits run over what else shots about her space? And
Speaker 3: even though this is probably unrealistic, I do like that
Speaker 3: as we travel through space we see nearer stars moving
Speaker 3: in the foreground at a different rate than the galaxies
Speaker 3: in the background. Actually I say unrealistic, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe that maybe it would work like that if you're
Speaker 3: traveling really really fat. So there is a neat three
Speaker 3: D effect to the outer space environment. Not always the case, obviously,
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just a two D static image. And I
Speaker 3: like the three dnus here. So we see some different
Speaker 3: spaceships flying around. I think It's funny that it's never
Speaker 3: made clear that these spaceships have any connection to the plot.
Speaker 3: But you know, one is like a classic mid century
Speaker 3: sci fi rocket with the torpedo shape the aerodynamic fins
Speaker 3: on the back end. Another one looks like an attachment
Speaker 3: for a garden hose. And then the voice overstarts, and
Speaker 3: we better make friends with this voiceover narrator because they're
Speaker 3: going to be coming in a lot. In fact, I
Speaker 3: will say, once the plot really gets going, you can
Speaker 3: know in advance that things are about to like shift
Speaker 3: to different subject matter from a different original serial that
Speaker 3: is not connected to what you were just looking at.
Speaker 3: Whenever the narrator starts talking, because the narration is used
Speaker 3: to like patch the apps and say, now the aliens
Speaker 3: could look like anyone and began robbing banks in order
Speaker 3: to finance their evil. But anyway, here at the beginning,
Speaker 3: the narrator is going to set things up for us,
Speaker 3: So the narrator says, on the planet Zmar far within
Speaker 3: the moving galaxy, a decontrolled robot assassinated the omnipotent Balazar,
Speaker 3: who was known to possess the most brilliant mind in
Speaker 3: the universe. So powerful was Balasar's genius that as he
Speaker 3: lay dying, his brain ordered built a mechanism which would
Speaker 3: keep it alive even though his body was destroyed, And
Speaker 3: now Balazar's brain seeks universal conquest.
Speaker 2: I love this.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: Balasar's brain sounds like it could be a philosophical thought experiment. Ye,
Speaker 2: but I did have Looking back on the plot now,
Speaker 2: I am curious, like, why didn't Balisar have like a
Speaker 2: robot body built for himself if he's so powerful, we
Speaker 2: never see him use something like that. Instead, it's a suitcase.
Speaker 3: That is a good question. I wonder if it is
Speaker 3: a suitcase to because they're repurposing shots from the Super
Speaker 3: Giant show that were just about a suitcase that originally
Speaker 3: had something else in it, or if it actually is
Speaker 3: a brain in the suitcase in the original Cereal.
Speaker 2: That's a great point, yeah, because on the other hand,
Speaker 2: I guess you could make an argument that, well, he's
Speaker 2: trying to work secretly here on Earth, so he just
Speaker 2: can't walk around in a giant robot body. He needs
Speaker 2: to be inside of a suitcase, which everyone will mostly ignore.
Speaker 3: But they don't ignore it the only times we see
Speaker 3: the suitcase in the movie. If people like chasing around
Speaker 3: trying to get the suitcase.
Speaker 2: Right right, but it draws less attention compared to like
Speaker 2: giant robot body.
Speaker 3: You're right about that, But I love how dentse The
Speaker 3: details in this opening narration are we got the moving galaxy,
Speaker 3: decontrolled robot assassination of omnipotent ballas, are as he lays
Speaker 3: dying brain, genius brain ordered, built a mechanism keeps it
Speaker 3: alive even though the body destroyed now wants to conquer
Speaker 3: the universe. That's a lot.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Then things get really good. We dissolve to the surface
Speaker 3: of a planet which is studded with jagged triangular rocks,
Speaker 3: and we zoom in on a meeting of beings, and
Speaker 3: I love these beings so much. It sounds kind of
Speaker 3: like a let down to say. My favorite part of
Speaker 3: the movie is the introduction right here at the beginning,
Speaker 3: but it is this is the best part of the
Speaker 3: film to me. So it starts with these swaying bipedal
Speaker 3: robots starfish in black, but then you also see robots
Speaker 3: that look like Lord Bucket heead, but with like giant
Speaker 3: light up eyeballs on the outside of their cranial cylinders.
Speaker 3: There are some basic humanoid robots with other head shapes.
Speaker 3: There's like a spike head, a dome head, a globe
Speaker 3: lamp head, a miniature sombrero head, an insect obelisk with
Speaker 3: a beak head, and others in similar variations. There's one
Speaker 3: robot I really liked that it's in the back that
Speaker 3: has like a charcoal starter chimney for a head, but
Speaker 3: is wearing a bikini bottom on its body. It's like
Speaker 3: its whole body is covered in what looked like striped
Speaker 3: tights and then it's just got like a white bikini
Speaker 3: bottom on. But also it has silver shoulder pads.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love this sequence because despite obvious, you know, limitations,
Speaker 2: they do create something that feels wonderfully and charmingly sci
Speaker 2: fi Like. It has all the energy and charm of
Speaker 2: like nineteen oh two is a trip to the moon,
Speaker 2: but also it's kind of like that Star Wars Cantena
Speaker 2: feel to everything. You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the variety of the forms.
Speaker 2: And I distinctly remember shots from this sequence in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two film. It came from Hollywood, which, if
Speaker 2: you're not familiar with it, came from Hollywood. This was
Speaker 2: made almost completely of old film clips, classic Hollywood and
Speaker 2: also you know films like this that that were international.
Speaker 2: We have narration skits and riffing, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: like pre Mst three K movie riffing by Dan Aykroyd,
Speaker 2: John Candy, Gilda Radner and Cheech and Chong, And it's
Speaker 2: generally hard to find a physical release of it. Came
Speaker 2: from Hollywood due to various licensing issues with the clip,
Speaker 2: because sometimes it's trailer stuff, but other times it's clips.
Speaker 2: I think the version I watched as a kid had
Speaker 2: been taped off of an NBC broadcast, but it definitely
Speaker 2: had multiple clips from Evil Brain from Outer Space.
Speaker 3: I think it came from Hollywood. As the source of
Speaker 3: the joke about another brain movie, we watched the uh oh,
Speaker 3: what's it called? The ones with the invisible brains attacking people,
Speaker 3: and there's a scene where they become visible and one
Speaker 3: out a face fiend without a face, yes, and one
Speaker 3: of them says, we just sprayed for brains last week. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, so it's funny. We didn't even think about
Speaker 3: Evil Brain from Outer Space as being also another brain movie.
Speaker 3: We've covered several brain movies, including the Canadian I Think
Speaker 3: movie the Brain, in which a giant alien brain like
Speaker 3: captures people like it brainwashes people through a TV program.
Speaker 3: Then there was a Fiend Without a Face where just
Speaker 3: like disembodied invisible brains attack a military installation. And yeah,
Speaker 3: here's another one. This time it's a brain in a suitcase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, once again the brain is the threat, and this film,
Speaker 2: the brain is like the ultimate organic enemy.
Speaker 3: So the narration continues. But here on the Emerald Planet,
Speaker 3: the Highest Council in the Marquette Galaxy considers the terrible
Speaker 3: immediate menace to the Solar System of Earth and to
Speaker 3: the planet Earth itself. And we pan over and see
Speaker 3: all of these beings the High Council, and then they're
Speaker 3: sort of flanked by just other similar robots standing around.
Speaker 3: And there's something I really want to convey about the
Speaker 3: movement in this scene. Rob I think you'll know what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about. There is this general pattern of slow,
Speaker 3: rhythmic churning movements shared by most of the robots in
Speaker 3: the High Council. So some of the elder robots at
Speaker 3: the table are just pumping their arms alternately up and
Speaker 3: down in this gentle, slow pattern, like they're being operated
Speaker 3: by a common gear. You know, they're just going up
Speaker 3: and down and up and down. And some of the robots,
Speaker 3: like the the bipedal starfish robots, but the cone heads
Speaker 3: are just swaying or softly twisting their bodies back and
Speaker 3: forth like they are very very kind of softly dancing
Speaker 3: along with a rhythm. And it creates this almost undersea
Speaker 3: feeling to the scene, you know, like it's like you're
Speaker 3: watching under sea footage of a fish just slowly moving
Speaker 3: their pectoral fins or slowly flaring their gills in a rhythm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of some of these Silent era
Speaker 2: pictures where we journey to the bottom of the ocean
Speaker 2: and we see this kind of movement going on.
Speaker 3: So the narrator continues. Balazar's brain leads the infiltration of Earth,
Speaker 3: preparing it for the attack forces which will follow, and
Speaker 3: that attack will be with nuclear weapons. The flood of
Speaker 3: radioactivity which inevi will spill out into space is what
Speaker 3: primarily concerns these Emerald planet creatures. High radioactivity, the Emerald
Speaker 3: creatures realize will soon poison even the distant reaches of
Speaker 3: outer space. I think they're probably bigger radiation concerns when
Speaker 3: it comes to space. You know, I think like stars
Speaker 3: probably release more radiation than a planet that's contaminated would,
Speaker 3: but I don't know.
Speaker 2: Still, the idea is there is already this feeling that
Speaker 2: it's like flesh is the enemy. Yeah, flesh leads to warfare,
Speaker 2: leads to radiation in nuclear war, and the answer is robots.
Speaker 2: The answer is machines. We need like the emotionless serenity
Speaker 2: and calm of machines to save us from ourselves.
Speaker 3: I want to come back to that in a minute.
Speaker 3: So the narrator goes on to tell us that basically
Speaker 3: they're running out of time and the High Council of
Speaker 3: Elder Robots here is going to decide what must be done.
Speaker 3: So they've learned that Balazar's brain is already on Earth
Speaker 3: in secret, and it's commanding the Zimarian spies and saboteurs,
Speaker 3: and the universe will not be safe unless they stop it.
Speaker 3: So they agree on that there's only one way that
Speaker 3: they can stop the brain, and the robots when they agree,
Speaker 3: they all start raising their arms up in unison. So
Speaker 3: instead of the swimming and alternate pumping of their arms
Speaker 3: and swaying like before, now they're all like raising the roof,
Speaker 3: and the narrator tells us the scientists of the Emerald
Speaker 3: planet have invented one of the most ingenious mechanisms our
Speaker 3: universe has ever seen, called a globe meter. It is
Speaker 3: carried on the wrist. It enables the wearer to do
Speaker 3: three things. To fly through space, to detect radioactivity, and
Speaker 3: to speak and understand every language on planet Earth. And
Speaker 3: then we get a real good shot of sort of
Speaker 3: the chairperson or the chair Bot of the Council of
Speaker 3: Robot Elders, who has this conical hit with scary looking
Speaker 3: like eye holes in the head, almost like it's a helmet.
Speaker 3: But I think this is supposed to be a robot
Speaker 3: of some sort, I think. And then it's got a
Speaker 3: crown on top with a globe light inside, and the
Speaker 3: narrator says, finally, the Great Forum of the Emerald Hierarchy
Speaker 3: reaches a decision. In order to save Earth from the
Speaker 3: mass attack by the Zumerians, the Emerald men must once
Speaker 3: more present their globe meter to one of their fellow
Speaker 3: creatures and send him to Earth. And here we get
Speaker 3: our first shot of Starman, standing posed ready among the
Speaker 3: spires of rock. He's almost in one of those t
Speaker 3: poses you see when like a video game character has
Speaker 3: not started their animation yet. He's just standing there like
Speaker 3: he's yet to be activated, and I guess that is
Speaker 3: what's going on, So they activate him. We're told that
Speaker 3: Starman is made of the strongest steel in the galaxy,
Speaker 3: but he has the ability to disguise himself as an Earthling.
Speaker 3: And then we see him like leap up into space
Speaker 3: and to Earth like Superman body horizontal arms out ahead.
Speaker 3: And here I want to come back to that theme
Speaker 3: that we brought up about the Savior being machines. So
Speaker 3: the Earth is threatened by an evil organic brain, literally
Speaker 3: a disembodied mass of fatty neural tissue in a suitcase.
Speaker 3: It wants to destroy the Earth and contaminate the universe
Speaker 3: with radiation. And our only hope lies with this council
Speaker 3: of benevolent swaying fish like robots who live on another
Speaker 3: planet far away, and they must send us a defender.
Speaker 3: But this defender is also a robot made out of steel,
Speaker 3: which must hide its true steel form behind an organic
Speaker 3: meat mask in order to be accepted as our defender.
Speaker 2: There's probably something to be said for the idea of
Speaker 2: like salvation through industry here, but it does seem to
Speaker 2: be the subtext here to the extent that Super Giant
Speaker 2: has a subtext.
Speaker 3: So next we cut to Earth into the street of
Speaker 3: a modern city in Japan, and we see a man
Speaker 3: running for his life, clutching a suitcase, pursued by police.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if this is even intentional, but
Speaker 3: there is this kind of dystopian film noir energy to
Speaker 3: the very first sets we see. This character running through
Speaker 3: the city is dark and filled with shadows and crevices,
Speaker 3: and they're interesting plays on like levels under levels, like
Speaker 3: there are these pedestrian tunnels with shafts of light bisecting them,
Speaker 3: elevated walkways over train tracks, you get canals of rushing
Speaker 3: water cutting through the city in the dark. I would
Speaker 3: not say in general that this movie it has very
Speaker 3: like emotionally expressive sets, but these very first shots we
Speaker 3: get of Earth kind of are that way. Interestingly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there are strong noir vibes to the scene,
Speaker 2: And honestly, this is one of the best sequences in
Speaker 2: the film that doesn't have some sort of crazy sci
Speaker 2: fi action going on.
Speaker 3: I agree because the actor who plays Kawada, the character
Speaker 3: we see running here is quite good, like he's you know,
Speaker 3: he really conveys the desperation of trying to save the
Speaker 3: earth from the brain. So he's on the run from police,
Speaker 3: and we're told by the narrator that the police believe
Speaker 3: he is a bank robber, but in reality, what is
Speaker 3: within the suitcase is the living brain of Balazar. And
Speaker 3: the chase takes several minutes. He keeps like cleverly evading
Speaker 3: the cops, but eventually he is cornered on some kind
Speaker 3: of platform underneath a bridge and the police they go
Speaker 3: to arrest him, and as they're arresting him, he drops
Speaker 3: the suitcase into the river below and he's screaming, the brain.
Speaker 3: If we don't catch it, we will all die. And
Speaker 3: so the police haul him back to the station. They
Speaker 3: discover he is not the bank robber, because the actual
Speaker 3: bank robber was caught somewhere else with the money he stole.
Speaker 3: But they can't let this guy go because, you know,
Speaker 3: he ran from the police, so he must have done
Speaker 3: something wrong. And he continues to insist that what was
Speaker 3: in the suitcase was not stolen jewels, but a brain,
Speaker 3: and they must go get the brain. At once. They
Speaker 3: all perish and he insists it is not an animal brain.
Speaker 3: It is a brain of a creature from outer space,
Speaker 3: a creature that will rule the universe. And he tells
Speaker 3: the whole story. He says, you know, I was working
Speaker 3: as an assistant to doctor Kura Kawa, and the brain
Speaker 3: appeared one day, brought from the planet Zemar. I don't
Speaker 3: know exactly, like if it appeared in the mail or what.
Speaker 3: But somehow doctor Kura Kawa received this brain. And he
Speaker 3: says that doctor Courrikawa has been working under the brain's
Speaker 3: evil power. So Kawa to here, just decided one day
Speaker 3: to grab the brain and run and that's how we
Speaker 3: got here. So he, you know, he's ranting about how
Speaker 3: the brain must be destroyed or the earth is doomed.
Speaker 3: But then the detective here at the police station gets
Speaker 3: a phone call from doctor Courrikawa and he's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 3: is my assistant ranting about brains again. Don't listen to anything,
Speaker 3: he says, he's always making up things about brains. Please
Speaker 3: just release him to me. And then we see on
Speaker 3: the other side of the phone doctor Courakawa, who looks
Speaker 3: pretty cool. He's an evil looking scientist with with like
Speaker 3: a goateee and or I guess just the beard part
Speaker 3: of a goateee. Uh, and and glasses and he uses
Speaker 3: a wheelchair, and he has a giant bird of prey
Speaker 3: that sits on his shoulder. Looks like a cross between
Speaker 3: a hawk and an owl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, also kind of a cross between Dracula and Colonel Sanders.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because he's wearing this white suit. So it's
Speaker 2: it's it's interating you instantly see this guy. You know
Speaker 2: this is a villain. There's no question about this anyway.
Speaker 3: The police let Kaweda, the assistant, go free, and he
Speaker 3: starts running around looking for the brain in a suitcase,
Speaker 3: but he is quickly ambushed by brain goons and uh
Speaker 3: so the narrator tells us as Kawalaa searches for the
Speaker 3: precious suitcase and Balazar's brain orders his men to kill
Speaker 3: the youth. Uh and these guys come out. You know,
Speaker 3: they're menacing him again. There's so much menacing in this movie.
Speaker 3: They menace him, and they're all wearing bandanas over the
Speaker 3: lower half of their face like a you know, like
Speaker 3: a cowboy, like a train robber, and they're coming at him.
Speaker 3: But I was also thinking, wait, the brain can give
Speaker 3: orders from the confines of a lost suitcase.
Speaker 2: The brain is super powerful. I mean we're gonna learn
Speaker 2: in a bit the brain's like basically indestructible, right, So
Speaker 2: it's like it's indestructible, it could command wherever it is.
Speaker 2: So I guess that's why when we just saw the
Speaker 2: suitcase fall in the river, it wasn't like, yes, maybe
Speaker 2: the brain will die in the river. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: the brain is free.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the brain henchman. They attack Kwada. They drag
Speaker 3: him out to the forest and then they start kicking
Speaker 3: him on the ground, but like very listlessly. This is
Speaker 3: not great fight choreography. It's almost like they're just nudging
Speaker 3: him with their feet.
Speaker 2: It's gonna take a while, but yeah, but Kalada is
Speaker 2: saved because here comes our heroes.
Speaker 3: Starman. Now, when he first shows up, he is not
Speaker 3: in his Starman outfit. He just walks out of the
Speaker 3: woods in a suit and tie and a bowler hat
Speaker 3: looking yes you said this earlier, Rob but yes, he
Speaker 3: looks like Bela Lugosi. Yeah, he's doing that kind of
Speaker 3: intense face that like Legosi does when he's like, you know,
Speaker 3: the do as I command you mode, and so Starman
Speaker 3: starts beating up the bad guys and then at one
Speaker 3: point does a little trick that will happen several times
Speaker 3: in the movie where he ducks out of frame and
Speaker 3: then immediately stands back up again into frame, and he
Speaker 3: is suddenly in his Starman outfit. The bad guys shoot
Speaker 3: him with guns, but the bullets bounce right off, and
Speaker 3: then he beats them up and they run away into
Speaker 3: the woods.
Speaker 2: Now, in general, throughout the film, and which is to say,
Speaker 2: across at least three pictures, Starman's offense tends to include
Speaker 2: a lot of chops, some hip tosses, a little sort
Speaker 2: of Judo esque action there. Sometimes they'll do some backflips.
Speaker 2: But I loved it because, as we've discussed before, you
Speaker 2: can really date a film based on the contents of
Speaker 2: the fight choreography. And while there's a broad evolution in
Speaker 2: this area of filmmaking, it's often refreshing to go back
Speaker 2: and experience the old trends and standards. So I love
Speaker 2: a good karate chop, I love a good punch onto
Speaker 2: a collapsing table and a bar. I'm a little tired
Speaker 2: of NNA style takedowns and arm bars. So I'm all
Speaker 2: for let's let's bring back more karate chops. Oh.
Speaker 3: Also we see another guy looking on, like we get
Speaker 3: a view of him even though the characters don't see him.
Speaker 3: There's some kind of hinchmen for the evil doctor Kurakawa
Speaker 3: who's walking around on crutches, but we see later that
Speaker 3: he also hits people with his crutches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a credited at least in Evil Brain
Speaker 2: from Outer Space as one legged man played by Shuji Kuwabi.
Speaker 3: For some reason, both of our main human villains here
Speaker 3: are depicted with physical disabilities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they won't be the last. Just kind of
Speaker 2: standard for the day.
Speaker 3: So Starman goes to help Kawada, and Kawada is like
Speaker 3: the brain it will destroy earth unless we can use
Speaker 3: science to stop it. And this is a theme that
Speaker 3: you know, Starman can. He can do a beat down,
Speaker 3: he can defend us from the bad guy's hinchman, but
Speaker 3: our Man himself cannot defeat the brain. Only science can
Speaker 3: defeat it.
Speaker 2: Hm.
Speaker 3: And after this there's some sort of debrief scene involving
Speaker 3: characters who must pre exist from other Starman adventures or something.
Speaker 3: It's like we're already supposed to know them. So Starman
Speaker 3: is hanging out with Kawada, who seems to maybe be
Speaker 3: new but also a kindly wise old scientist and named Sakarai.
Speaker 3: And also a family. There's like a mother and a
Speaker 3: couple of children, and again it's like it's like, we're
Speaker 3: supposed to know who these people are. Did you get
Speaker 3: that same feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really kind of felt like, Oh, we're going
Speaker 2: to have a debriefing about a secret, deadly alien plot.
Speaker 2: Let's let the kids set in. They need to hear this.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of just kids being in places in
Speaker 3: this movie. Ye, there's a scene later where it's like
Speaker 3: spy kids, like the kids infiltrate the bat the evil
Speaker 3: bat Dude's base, not the bat mutants, but the guys
Speaker 3: in the Batman suits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like bat cultists that serve the aliens. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in the scene, we learned that it was trying
Speaker 3: to bring the brain to doctor Soakarai, and we learn
Speaker 3: that it is indestructible and impervious to all poisons, and
Speaker 3: if you blow it up, its cells will regenerate and
Speaker 3: the brain will survive.
Speaker 2: So again, this is why you can't just let the
Speaker 2: brain fall into the river, and your problems are going
Speaker 2: to be sold.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So doctor Soakarai is the only man
Speaker 3: who can save the earth. Kawada says, only you can
Speaker 3: kill the brain, and then one of the children says,
Speaker 3: that's right.
Speaker 2: It's like, doctor, you're always talking about your various ideas
Speaker 2: for killing indestructible alien brains. We know you can do it.
Speaker 3: Also in the scene, we learn that mutations created by
Speaker 3: the evil scientists of Ziemar have been attacking Earth. It's
Speaker 3: already happening, and sometimes they can be disguised to look
Speaker 3: exactly like humans. That's quite convenient, especially if you're editing
Speaker 3: in episodes of a show where just humans are doing things.
Speaker 3: But Starman explains that mutations can dig other forms. He says,
Speaker 3: quote a lot of them can be invisible and take
Speaker 3: forms we can't even imagine. They await orders from the brain.
Speaker 3: By the way, Starman is back in suit and time mode.
Speaker 3: Now he's just sitting with the family here in their
Speaker 3: living room wearing a suit and tie, and before Starman leaves,
Speaker 3: he gives the two children his signaler and says that
Speaker 3: if they throw it, he will appear to help them,
Speaker 3: and then he says, well, children, now I'll try to
Speaker 3: stop the brain. So we're off to the races. This
Speaker 3: is sort of the setup of the movie. Starman has
Speaker 3: promised to stop the brain. Sakarai and his lab will
Speaker 3: be hard at work studying ways to destroy the brain
Speaker 3: with science, and the Xi Mariyans will be trying out
Speaker 3: various ways to attack Earth with mutations. Now I figure
Speaker 3: at this point I'm going to stop doing a scene
Speaker 3: by scene recap because some parts of this movie, as
Speaker 3: we've said, just really get They really become water logged
Speaker 3: with new characters and locations and premises that don't always
Speaker 3: really go anywhere. So from here I think maybe we
Speaker 3: should just focus on some of the highlights. And for me,
Speaker 3: one of the main highlights of the movie is the
Speaker 3: bat Mutants. The bat mutant attacks.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, these this guy or these guys are amazing.
Speaker 3: Yes, it starts, I think as one guy or I
Speaker 3: don't know, it's unclear how many of them there are
Speaker 3: at first, I guess, but we get that classic editing
Speaker 3: style of like showing a disaster that's just like cutting
Speaker 3: together different images, so we see like a train chugging
Speaker 3: along the tracks, and then a flash of some kind
Speaker 3: of monster mask we will see in more detail later,
Speaker 3: and then a human face going like ah, And then
Speaker 3: we see a model train derailing, and then repeat this
Speaker 3: with other boats and vehicles and infrastructure, and then we
Speaker 3: see like people in hospital beds saying like the mutant,
Speaker 3: the monster somewhere. Also in this section with the bat
Speaker 3: mutant attacks, Kawaeda tracks down the bad scientists Cora Kawa
Speaker 3: and his Hinchman, and they go into a secret base
Speaker 3: full of zee maarians. Except this is where they're all
Speaker 3: dres like Batman. You know, they don't have like the
Speaker 3: bat ears on their hoods, but otherwise they're pretty close.
Speaker 3: They've got black tights, hoods, utility belts, and a light
Speaker 3: colored symbol on their chest that does look vaguely bat like.
Speaker 3: It's basically like a bat wing shape with a skull
Speaker 3: on top.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they definitely have cowls going on here. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Anyway, later we're with Sakarai. He's working late at
Speaker 3: night in his office on the formula to kill the brain,
Speaker 3: when suddenly he senses a being, a presence, and there's
Speaker 3: actually a shot here that's kind of spooky. It's like
Speaker 3: you see darkness and then suddenly just eyes appear. To
Speaker 3: quote Rocky ericson eyes stare through the darkness with no form,
Speaker 3: and then the form materializes, and here it is, in
Speaker 3: its full glory, the bat mutation. And I love this creature.
Speaker 3: So it's a bipedal figure with its skin covered in
Speaker 3: branching exposed veins and arteries, with three large clawed fingers
Speaker 3: on each hand breathing out visible clouds of radioactive gas.
Speaker 3: The crown of its skull is just a wrinkly exposed cerebrum,
Speaker 3: so it's just brain head. And then behind the cerebrum
Speaker 3: it has kind of a halo, like a golden halo
Speaker 3: in the shape of bat ears pasted to its head.
Speaker 3: It has a bat like face, pointed ears and huge fangs.
Speaker 3: And then also it has a giant eyeball covering its
Speaker 3: lower stomach. I love this mutation. My heart beats for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Words cannot express how wonderful every detail of this
Speaker 2: creature is. So it's it's like a cross between slim
Speaker 2: good body and a Buddhist grimlin, you know, like there's
Speaker 2: like it has this kind of crown that looks like
Speaker 2: you see in Buddhist iconography. Yeah, but Yeah, I love
Speaker 2: everything about this costume, right down to the tights. The
Speaker 2: radioactive gas is amazing. The creature also moves in a
Speaker 2: fashion that feels very fluid and dance like, which can
Speaker 2: certainly generate laughs. But also it does give the Bat
Speaker 2: Mutant a distinct physical language in and out of these
Speaker 2: fight sequences. The encounter with this creature was prominently featured
Speaker 2: in it came from Hollywood.
Speaker 3: I yeah, and I can see why I love this creature.
Speaker 3: It looks great. It's I mean, it looks funny, but
Speaker 3: it also is just an impressive costume. It's so good,
Speaker 3: and it tries to attack Saker. I of course, you know,
Speaker 3: it's got to stop him from creating the formula to
Speaker 3: kill the brain. But what happens. Of course Starman intervenes
Speaker 3: to save the scientist, and this leads to a big
Speaker 3: fight slash chase sequence where Starman and the Bat Mutant
Speaker 3: are running all over the place fighting. They eventually end
Speaker 3: up on a bridge at a seaport, and at the
Speaker 3: end of this whole fight, the mutation seemingly like grows
Speaker 3: larger and then divides in half into two mutations and
Speaker 3: flies away.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the part where they both dive out
Speaker 2: the window. Especially the whole sequence here is just evil
Speaker 2: brain from outer space that it's absolute best know if
Speaker 2: you're watching it for yourself and at least pressed through
Speaker 2: this sequence because it's worth it.
Speaker 3: There's one part in here where they tell us that
Speaker 3: one slash of the mutant's solid cobalt nails could be
Speaker 3: the end of Starman, which is funny because it's that's
Speaker 3: really the only time I recall, we get an indication
Speaker 3: that Starman is in danger, and it still doesn't feel
Speaker 3: like he's in danger. I would offer this as a
Speaker 3: major criticism of the Starman stories. Here, it never feels
Speaker 3: like Starman is in danger. There's never any moment where
Speaker 3: you're like, oh no, will he win. It's just like
Speaker 3: his he is indestructible, and his victory feels absolutely inevitable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I guess we have to remind ourselves that again,
Speaker 2: this is for kids. You know, this is maybe a
Speaker 2: film where you don't want it to seem like your
Speaker 2: hero is in doubt because that's not what the kids want.
Speaker 2: And I guess so, you know, I mean, when my
Speaker 2: son was younger, I remember that was a real challenge
Speaker 2: to getting him into films and TV shows that were
Speaker 2: very much age appropriate but had that kind of risk
Speaker 2: involved in them, like, oh no, something bad might happen,
Speaker 2: And he wasn't at the point yet where he understood
Speaker 2: that those kind of things are not going to happen
Speaker 2: in a children's movie. You know that it's gonna be okay,
Speaker 2: because that's how stories like this work. So yeah, that
Speaker 2: might have been part of the design of it. But
Speaker 2: I also really like the idea that these are cobalt
Speaker 2: nails and that's what makes them dead.
Speaker 3: Let's see, now, there's another sequence that spans a while
Speaker 3: in the middle of the movie that are like the
Speaker 3: cocktail stick murders as Hughes was talking about, or I
Speaker 3: was thinking of them as like thinking of them as
Speaker 3: toothpick darts. So the narrator tells us that the multiplying
Speaker 3: zi Marian mutations come in from all parts of the world,
Speaker 3: and doctor Sakarai and his assistants are there's still work
Speaker 3: round the clock to find the formula that can destroy
Speaker 3: the brain. We see them doing science, fiddling with tubes
Speaker 3: and all that. But then the narrator says, already many
Speaker 3: of the mutants disguised as human beings walk the streets
Speaker 3: of earth cities to pay for their food and clothing.
Speaker 3: They frequently conduct daring robberies, such as the one now
Speaker 3: being carried out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I legit, laughed out loud at this, imagining these
Speaker 2: naked alien mutants whose first order of business is just
Speaker 2: to steal food and clothing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like they're walking into business and saying, I need
Speaker 2: you close your boots and your bentle box.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we see them robbing a jewelry store and
Speaker 3: there are kids in the jewelry store for some reason.
Speaker 2: Why are they there? I get for mom? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but these like shady looking guys in trench coats
Speaker 3: come in, so I guess they've already acquired clothing. They're
Speaker 3: just like, yeah, they're kind of creepy looking. They got
Speaker 3: the trench coats and the hats, and they throw some
Speaker 3: kind of dart at the shopkeeper and she collapses on
Speaker 3: the floor, and then the creeps run out with a
Speaker 3: bunch of jewels and so the there's Oh and I
Speaker 3: also laughed out loud at the police meeting after this,
Speaker 3: where they discuss how the thieves cannot be stopped with weapons,
Speaker 3: so they need to capture one and study it. And
Speaker 3: they say, so, let's watch all the big jewelry stores.
Speaker 3: And so later we see more of the aliens with
Speaker 3: the darts doing things like they throw a dart at
Speaker 3: an Earth scientist who's carrying defense plans and they use
Speaker 3: that to steal the defense plans. And then the children
Speaker 3: are in peril for some reason, Like we see children
Speaker 3: coming home from a neighbor's birthday party. The narrator tells
Speaker 3: us and they cross paths with the trench coat mutants
Speaker 3: in disguise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they have their papers in order. Though. The
Speaker 2: children are like, we don't trust you, your sus and
Speaker 2: they're like, but look at our documentation and they're like, oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: And then the detective at this there's this whole weird
Speaker 3: subplot with like a fake hospital that is actually run
Speaker 3: by a aliens and like humans get sent to the
Speaker 3: fake hospital and then they disappear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the whole section that I struggled to
Speaker 2: pay attention to, Like where are the bat mutants? Where
Speaker 2: you just had this awesome sequence and now we're just
Speaker 2: robbing jewelry stores.
Speaker 3: Yeah, robbing jewelry stores, going to a fake alien hospital.
Speaker 3: I mean that sounds like actually, now that I say it,
Speaker 3: like that, the fake alien.
Speaker 2: Hospital, it sounds neat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like it could be cool. But I
Speaker 3: thought this part was fairly boring. But it does involve
Speaker 3: a kid, Like a kid going to the hospital and
Speaker 3: then infiltrating a secret mutant bass Like, the kid sneaks
Speaker 3: in and starts like looking at the guys. I've got
Speaker 3: a screenshot actually for you here Rob where he's like
Speaker 3: looking in on this meeting of all the guys in
Speaker 3: the Batman suits. And then the kid is caught. They're like, look,
Speaker 3: it's an Earthling and the z Marians threaten him. But
Speaker 3: then of course Starman comes to the rescue. The narrator
Speaker 3: kind of has to tell us what's going on here
Speaker 3: because it's like, what is this base again? But Starman
Speaker 3: saves the day, drives away all the Batman Again. These
Speaker 3: are different from the Batan mutants. These are just the
Speaker 3: dudes in the suits.
Speaker 2: Right, These are just henchmen. So a big old battle
Speaker 2: with henchmen, lots of chops, lots of hyptos, is that
Speaker 2: sort of thing.
Speaker 3: There's a whole other plot in the middle where the
Speaker 3: Zi Mariians want to kill Earth leaders, so they stage
Speaker 3: an attack on a prince who's getting off a plane.
Speaker 3: But then the attack is foiled because the prince is
Speaker 3: not the prince. It's actually it's actually Starman in disguise,
Speaker 3: and he takes off his disguise and he's like haha,
Speaker 3: and then the bad guys are like, if you stop me,
Speaker 3: I will throw this nuclear grenade, and then he does,
Speaker 3: but then Starman just beats up the bad guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think all of this is from that Super
Speaker 2: Giant film with the Middle Eastern prince plot, and it
Speaker 2: does not seem at all interesting.
Speaker 3: Then there's the thing about how the z Mariians attack
Speaker 3: people indiscriminately. There's a scene where we see kids at
Speaker 3: a carnival with a witch and the kids are well,
Speaker 3: not the kids, actually the like kid's mother I think,
Speaker 3: is threatened by the witch. And then the witch like
Speaker 3: the witch goes around appearing randomly in places and scaring people,
Speaker 3: like ladies look at her and they faint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is another witch character with that nice prominent
Speaker 2: like Japanese witch nose or Kappa nose. She's very suspicious looking,
Speaker 2: but is also also feels like a step down from
Speaker 2: awesome bat mutants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we so then we go to another
Speaker 3: plot where there's like an Earth scientist who is betraying
Speaker 3: our planet, who is delivering secrets to doctor Kurakawa, and
Speaker 3: we learn he is creating germs to attack Earth with.
Speaker 3: And he like goes and looks at this glass, you know,
Speaker 3: bell jar thing, and inside it is this throbbing mass
Speaker 3: of tissue, and he says, you are the original germ.
Speaker 3: All the others are from you. You are the one
Speaker 3: that made them. It's kind of cool, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: that also doesn't really go anywhere.
Speaker 2: I think it would make a great Valentine's Stay card though,
Speaker 2: even the original germ, all the others made are made
Speaker 2: from you. You are the one that made them.
Speaker 3: So Starman's got to find and destroy the laboratories that
Speaker 3: make the mutants and the evil germs. You know, he does.
Speaker 3: At some point somehow the germ turns into the Witch.
Speaker 3: Wasn't sure exactly what was going on there, but like
Speaker 3: the evil scientist stares at this throbbing mass of the
Speaker 3: original germ in the jar, and then it turns into
Speaker 3: the witch we saw from earlier. And then the scientist
Speaker 3: sends the Witch to kill Starman, and she like tries
Speaker 3: to scratch him with her nails and they have a
Speaker 3: fight scene, but Starman is stronger. Starman does a chop
Speaker 3: on the Witch and like hits her in the back
Speaker 3: with his chop and then she explodes, and then the
Speaker 3: original germ evaporates from its jar, and then we come
Speaker 3: to sort of the final showdown part. There's the return
Speaker 3: of the Bat Mutant where world leaders are attacked yet again.
Speaker 3: They're like just gathered in a kind of living room
Speaker 3: somewhere and the Bat Mutant shows up and starts attacking them,
Speaker 3: slashing at cops with his cobalt cobalt nails, and then
Speaker 3: Starman shows up to save the day. There is another
Speaker 3: fight scene. Starman follows the mutant to the headquarters of
Speaker 3: the zie Maarians on the Earth and beats all those
Speaker 3: guys up, fights the bat Mutant once again, and oh no,
Speaker 3: our beloved Bat Mutant is defeated. It lies down on
Speaker 3: the ground and then melts and what's left behind is
Speaker 3: some kind of like slime mold looking massive tissue.
Speaker 2: It's a solid I would say Grimlins esque melt scene,
Speaker 2: you know that kind of like everything's reduced to kind
Speaker 2: of a slightly like pulpating mass of slimy tissue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I have a laugh out loud moment
Speaker 3: here where after the villain is defeated, all of the
Speaker 3: heroes and the good characters like run into the room
Speaker 3: at the same time, and they find Balazar's brain. It
Speaker 3: is a brain and a jar. In fact, it looks
Speaker 3: a lot like the massive tissue that we were told
Speaker 3: earlier was the original germ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, confusingly so.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But they go up to it and I guess
Speaker 3: this is supposed to be the evil brain from outer space.
Speaker 3: And doctor Soakarai has figured out the formula to kill
Speaker 3: the brain, so he goes up and he pours acid
Speaker 3: over Balazar's brain and they're like, uh, it's dead. Success.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the poor red bull on the brain destroy
Speaker 2: it and save the.
Speaker 3: World, and Starman says, you'll be safe, children z Marians
Speaker 3: will never come here again, and then he flies back
Speaker 3: to the Emerald planet and that's just the end.
Speaker 2: There you go, World saved. Thank you, super Giant aka Starman,
Speaker 2: thank you for saving our world again.
Speaker 3: It's interesting to imagine, like the the editing and adaptation process,
Speaker 3: like when you look at the final product here, Why
Speaker 3: did people think that this would be a better thing
Speaker 3: to release than just like Super Giant episode seven with
Speaker 3: English stubbing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the whole the whole mission is weird here, right, Like,
Speaker 2: or if you were gonna there are other ways you
Speaker 2: could have potentially paded out the bat Mutant episode, you know,
Speaker 2: get it up to a solid hour, But I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe those weren't cheap enough, and they're like, well, we
Speaker 2: have the rights to all of them, let's you use them.
Speaker 2: But then you also have this weird scenario, and I
Speaker 2: guess you see this like literally all the time in film,
Speaker 2: where on one hand, there is a business decision that
Speaker 2: has been made, all right, cobble these together into one film,
Speaker 2: But then that leaves you with the creative mission make
Speaker 2: something watchable by combining three different films together. And they
Speaker 2: clearly put some work into it. It's not, you know,
Speaker 2: completely sloppy. Somebody had to figure out how to piece
Speaker 2: these together, what kind of narration to stitch everything together with,
Speaker 2: And it's admirable that it makes as much sense as
Speaker 2: it does. Again, coming back imagining ourselves having to potentially
Speaker 2: carry out the same exercise using like the first three
Speaker 2: Iron Man films, or the first three Alien movies or something.
Speaker 3: I can just imagine. Whoever it was, came up with
Speaker 3: the idea that the narrator should say, now, remember, the
Speaker 3: aliens can look like anything and anyone. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 3: not a problem that these are just earthlings doing these crimes. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: does that wrap it up for Evil Brain from Outer Space?
Speaker 2: I think it does. Yeah. Like I say, I part
Speaker 2: of me would really love to see that at least
Speaker 2: one of these super giant films in its original format.
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe I'm i'm my eyes are bigger
Speaker 2: than my stomach on this this uh this request, but
Speaker 2: I would I would be interested to see one in
Speaker 2: its original format.
Speaker 3: Definitely, the Bat Mutant. I would also be interested to
Speaker 3: see the original arc of the Witch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what's she up to? Or well, you know
Speaker 2: some of these other ones that weren't directly covered in
Speaker 2: Evil Brain from Outer Space that also had some neat creatures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, less so the tooth pick guys and the.
Speaker 2: The nudging in the woods Yeah yeah, and all that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's a lot of great creativity thrown into this.
Speaker 2: It's it's worth it's worth checking out. This is one
Speaker 2: that you can set down and pay those attention to,
Speaker 2: or just have on in the background. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of cool stuff. Throw some music on top of it
Speaker 2: and have a good time.
Speaker 3: Agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, we're going to close the book
Speaker 2: here on Evil Brain from Outer Space. But we'd love
Speaker 2: to hear from you if you have thoughts on this
Speaker 2: particular film, other exercises in editing and stitching together pre
Speaker 2: existing cinematic properties. If you can think of other great examples,
Speaker 2: write in. We would love to hear from you. We'd
Speaker 2: love to discuss these and we may end up discussing
Speaker 2: them on future episodes of Listener Mail, which airs on Mondays.
Speaker 2: Our core science and culture episodes of Stuff to Blow
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Speaker 2: short form episode, and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film. If you want to
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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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