Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. My name
Speaker 1: is Joe McCormick. Today we are bringing you an older
Speaker 1: episode of Weird House Cinema. This one originally published on
Speaker 1: August eighteenth, twenty twenty three, and it was Oh it
Speaker 1: was on The Green Slime. Oh boy, what a fun
Speaker 1: theme song. This one had a film from nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: a Japanese American co production science fiction. Rubber Monster is
Speaker 1: a tentacle, arms waving. It's going to be a blast.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 1: And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about the nineteen sixty eight Would people call
Speaker 1: this a Tokusatsu.
Speaker 3: Movie, Yes, but with some caveats that we'll get into.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, whatever it is, it's a sci fi monster
Speaker 1: adventure of the Tokusatsu flavor or not, whether depending on
Speaker 1: your taste, it is the nineteen sixty eight film The
Speaker 1: Green Slime. This is one of those movies that I
Speaker 1: had seen before, but not really I'd like. I used
Speaker 1: to put this on sometimes with no sound on, so
Speaker 1: I be hanging out with people and just look up
Speaker 1: and see the monsters of this film wiggling their wonderful
Speaker 1: arms in space, with sparks shooting out in darkened hallways,
Speaker 1: and see kind of you know, square jawed spacemen running
Speaker 1: around looking grim at each other while the the monsters
Speaker 1: close in. And it was a great vibe. But I'd
Speaker 1: never actually heard anything heard any of the dialogue before,
Speaker 1: so I didn't really know what the story was. And
Speaker 1: now here we are, I'm coming home to the green slime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the viewing experience that we put ourselves through for
Speaker 3: weird how cinema is often rather different from what we've
Speaker 3: gone through in the past. And I've there have been
Speaker 3: times where we've covered a film that I've seen before
Speaker 3: and my wife will ask me, do you really need
Speaker 3: to watch it again because you've seen it multiple times,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yes, I have to. For this to
Speaker 3: be academically pure and nay, spiritually pure, I need to
Speaker 3: approach it with, you know, a fresh mindset and give
Speaker 3: everything the benefit of a doubt and you know, have
Speaker 3: my complete attention on it.
Speaker 1: Well, I never knew before how much of this movie
Speaker 1: was a space marine Love Triangle.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is. This is a It is a space
Speaker 3: marine love Triangle. If you like love triangles and you
Speaker 3: like lots of like militaristic running around, well then this
Speaker 3: is the movie for you. It's also kind of fitting
Speaker 3: that this week is green slime when last week was
Speaker 3: an orange slime movie. So we've gone from orange to green.
Speaker 3: We're probably not going to keep up the chromatic responsibility here, though.
Speaker 1: That's right. I would say the slime has a different consistency.
Speaker 1: You know, the slime that you're referring to from last week,
Speaker 1: I assume you mean what was inside the black obelisk
Speaker 1: from the viewing, that was a very waxy slime. The
Speaker 1: green slime, I would say, is a much more gelatinous
Speaker 1: type of substance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now you may if you've seen the trailer for
Speaker 3: this before, certainly have you've seen it before, you know
Speaker 3: that it has a very groovy theme song. It's prominently
Speaker 3: featured in the trailer that we're going to listen to
Speaker 3: in just a little bit. But don't let that groovy
Speaker 3: theme song fool you, because they're parts of this movie
Speaker 3: that I think hit pretty hard. And it's also you know,
Speaker 3: really it's a really fun film, but it's more procedural
Speaker 3: and significantly less groovy, at least compared to that just
Speaker 3: awesome US poster art and that US theme song.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're talking trash on the theme song.
Speaker 1: The theme song is great. It's like a late sixties
Speaker 1: garage jam. We were trying to think what to compare
Speaker 1: it to before we started.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit.
Speaker 1: Kind of vanilla fudgie almost.
Speaker 3: I think the thing about the theme song is that,
Speaker 3: for the longest and I'd never seen this movie until
Speaker 3: I watched it for today's episode, it always gave me
Speaker 3: the vibe that this was a bikini movie, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Even though I'd never seen any stills
Speaker 3: of bikinis. It made me think that it was going
Speaker 3: to be kind of like that silly, groovy movie for
Speaker 3: the kids, Daddy O, kind of a flavor that you
Speaker 3: see in various films from this time period. But it's
Speaker 3: actually not the case. As we'll discuss, the grooviness was
Speaker 3: kind of added in post for the American audience.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly right. Well, the theme song suggests that
Speaker 1: this is a switched on, far out ride the human
Speaker 1: element is surprisingly square like it's about these people who
Speaker 1: are part of Space Command, and the human themes are
Speaker 1: apart from a love triangle. It's very much about like
Speaker 1: what it means to follow orders and do your duty exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now, real quick. If you have seen that movie poster,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm talking about it. If not, go
Speaker 3: look it up. It's beautiful to behold. I believe this
Speaker 3: was a painting done by vic Avadi, who did a
Speaker 3: lot of great paper back novels. I found a blog
Speaker 3: post featuring some of his work from back in the day,
Speaker 3: and there's some very stunning stuff. I'm not one hundred
Speaker 3: percent certain, but I think he also did the classic
Speaker 3: poster art for nineteen sixty nine's The Italian Job. This
Speaker 3: is the one where the poster art shows Michael Kane's
Speaker 3: character and then there's a woman with like a map
Speaker 3: drawn on her back.
Speaker 4: Mm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, And we can say I think that this
Speaker 1: poster continues the fifties and sixties sci fi horror trend
Speaker 1: of I don't know, there's a motif of questionable sexual politics,
Speaker 1: where there's almost always a woman shown either unconscious or
Speaker 1: horizontal in some way, usually being carried by a monster,
Speaker 1: or sort of horizontal and screaming while the monster looms
Speaker 1: over her. This is a variation on that where she's
Speaker 1: not exactly horizontal, she's diagonal and the green Slime monster
Speaker 1: is appearing from behind her with one of its tentacles
Speaker 1: wrapped suggestively around her thigh.
Speaker 3: Yes, and the green Slime Monster looks great tentacle swhirling.
Speaker 3: It's like stone dope eyeball, like burning bloodshot against the
Speaker 3: against deep space, great poster.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to read emotions onto the faces
Speaker 1: of the green Slime monsters because they are each a cyclops.
Speaker 1: They only have one eye. But if you were to
Speaker 1: try to imagine two eyes like this next to each
Speaker 1: other and say what facial expression of emotion it would indicate,
Speaker 1: I would say, actually, this eye is almost kind of
Speaker 1: a weary eye. It's kind of like, oh.
Speaker 3: This world. That's a good point. Good point, you see
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, it looks.
Speaker 1: Like you've seen it all. He's tired of it. It's
Speaker 1: like another space station to conquer.
Speaker 3: And the way that it says that out loud is
Speaker 3: by going like that, you'll hear the sound effect in
Speaker 3: the trailer. But they have this very distinct really I
Speaker 3: think fitting sound that they make. It's just completely alien.
Speaker 1: It's somewhere between quacking and squealing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe a little bit of dolphin thrown in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this, like I said, this is a fun movie.
Speaker 3: I enjoyed it. I think one of the problems though,
Speaker 3: that it encountered is that it had the misfortune to
Speaker 3: come out late in nineteen sixty eight, several months after
Speaker 3: Stanley Kubrick's two thousand and one A Space Odyssey, a
Speaker 3: film that is ultimately setting out to achieve drastically different things,
Speaker 3: but a film that still involves shots of space stations
Speaker 3: and rockets, shots of people in spacesuits, visiting planets, and
Speaker 3: ultimately some sort of encounter with an alien intelligence of
Speaker 3: one sort or another.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is an almost perfect example of
Speaker 1: something that sometimes happens in film criticism and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess in broader audience appreciation, which has really forced
Speaker 1: comparisons between films that there's no reason to compare them
Speaker 1: except maybe that one is on your mind when you
Speaker 1: happened to see the other.
Speaker 3: So like.
Speaker 1: Calling this movie, you know, like not as good as
Speaker 1: two thousand and one A Space Odyssey, or like, I
Speaker 1: think you're about to read a quote that makes a
Speaker 1: comparison saying it's like a poor Man's two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: That is such a forced and absurd comparison to make.
Speaker 1: It's like saying that this beagle is not as good
Speaker 1: as this alligator. It's just like, I don't even understand
Speaker 1: what kind of scale you're using to compare these completely
Speaker 1: different objects.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, because at the time there were a
Speaker 3: lot of comparisons made to a Space Odyssey, a two
Speaker 3: thousand and one of Space Odyssey, and the reviewers were
Speaker 3: rough on it. I'm gonna read, Yeah, this part of
Speaker 3: this review from Variety magazine. This one is attributed to
Speaker 3: brad Oh.
Speaker 1: They just had first names back.
Speaker 3: Then, apparently, And I'm not super well versed with Variety,
Speaker 3: but I was looking. I looked at a few different
Speaker 3: reviews from back in the day, and yeah, they're attributed
Speaker 3: to a first name. I don't know. The last name
Speaker 3: is given elsewhere publication. And also this is very much
Speaker 3: like an industry or certainly at the time, was an
Speaker 3: industry focused publication. So you'll hear some some little tidbits
Speaker 3: and some lingo here and there, that's clearly you know
Speaker 3: ultimately about the bottom line in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Okay, but what does Brad say about the green slime?
Speaker 3: Quote? Science fiction devotees who can take the subject tongue
Speaker 3: in cheek may find a few humorous moments in this pick,
Speaker 3: which at times resembles a poor man's version of two
Speaker 3: thousand and one. The special effects are amateurish, the story
Speaker 3: and script in the same category. Box office potential is limited,
Speaker 3: with exploitation possibilities focusing on what title refers to as
Speaker 3: quote unquote the green slime, a substance which adheres to
Speaker 3: uniforms of men back from space exploration. The cells of
Speaker 3: the slime multiply at an incomprehensible rate, allowing the development
Speaker 3: of a serpent like monster.
Speaker 1: Did Brad watch the movie? Is this a serpent like monster?
Speaker 3: Brad might have been working on the copy a little
Speaker 3: bit during some of the action sequences, it is my bet.
Speaker 3: Now Brad goes on to outline the plot further and
Speaker 3: describe the performances as routine. So but this again, I'm
Speaker 3: not super famiar with Variety magazine, especially of that day.
Speaker 3: So this led me down a brief rabbit hole. I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, well, what did they say about two
Speaker 3: thousand and one? And what did they say about another movie?
Speaker 3: I can help but compare it to Planet of the Vampires,
Speaker 3: which came out earlier, which is another space film with
Speaker 3: space ships encountering strange life forms, but one that's very stylish.
Speaker 3: We of course, talked about Mario Baba's Planet of the
Speaker 3: Vampires on Weird House Cinema previously.
Speaker 1: What The Green Slime and the Planet of the Vampires
Speaker 1: have in common is they are both movies that I
Speaker 1: used to always put on without sound when I was
Speaker 1: hanging out with people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, well this is what variety said. I look
Speaker 3: back and one Dual dool praise Planet of the Vampire
Speaker 3: for its quote, color, camera work, and production value, said
Speaker 3: that they are first class and mentions nice suspense but
Speaker 3: nots its ending as being not to be believed. And
Speaker 3: there are also some expected criticisms of plot and pacing,
Speaker 3: but Dual interestingly says that it all should quote keep
Speaker 3: the young on the edge of their seats and the
Speaker 3: older set from falling asleep. Okay, now I have fallen
Speaker 3: asleep in Planet of the Vampires, so I don't think
Speaker 3: that's a knock. It's a very hypnotic movie.
Speaker 1: I recommend falling asleep during Planet of the Vampires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all right, and as far as two thousand
Speaker 3: and one goes Rogue robe is the accredited reviewer. Rogue
Speaker 3: spends about a half a page talking about two thousand
Speaker 3: and one. It describes it as a quote big, beautiful,
Speaker 3: but plotting sci fi epic superb photography is a major
Speaker 3: asset to confusing long unfolding plot. But should but should
Speaker 3: do biz an initial release and it older. It also
Speaker 3: contains plenty of comments like quote, the plot so called,
Speaker 3: and then there's this chunk here. Quote. But two thousand
Speaker 3: and one is not a cinematic landmark. It compares with,
Speaker 3: but does not best previous efforts at film science fiction,
Speaker 3: lacking the humanity of Forbidden Planet, the imagination of things
Speaker 3: to come, and the simplicity of stars and men. It
Speaker 3: actually belongs to the technically slit group previously dominated by
Speaker 3: George Powell and the Japanese.
Speaker 1: What a weird series of comments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, George Powell are the way. This was the producer
Speaker 3: of nineteen fifty three's The War of the Worlds, and
Speaker 3: he directed nineteen sixties The Time Machine so, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean I'm being a little unfair here because reviews
Speaker 3: always are a little different at the time when groundbreaking
Speaker 3: films come out. So you know, I don't mean too
Speaker 3: belittle Variety Magazine or the people writing for it back
Speaker 3: in the day, but it is interesting how decades later
Speaker 3: the way we think about these films and what would
Speaker 3: happen if we then compared two thousand and one to
Speaker 3: War the Worlds of the Time Machine. These are all
Speaker 3: great films, these are all classic sci fi pictures, but
Speaker 3: you know, they're all setting out to achieve different things,
Speaker 3: like we've been saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not that I would suggest one
Speaker 1: never compare one film to another. I mean we do
Speaker 1: that all the time, but there is something that seems
Speaker 1: a little confused when you just, like take two films
Speaker 1: that are very different in tone and type of story
Speaker 1: and all those things, and then just rank them in
Speaker 1: terms of quality, like one is better than the other. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, looking back at this film, I'm not sure that
Speaker 3: I don't think critics liked it. I'm not sure that
Speaker 3: audiences really loved it. However, did it possibly inspire Dan
Speaker 3: O'Bannon to write Alien? Sure?
Speaker 1: Why not This is the fourteenth movie we've covered that
Speaker 1: has been alleged to inspire the Alien Script.
Speaker 3: In this case alleged by us, though I don't actually
Speaker 3: didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but it's exactly the sort
Speaker 3: of film I would believe that that comment regarding, because yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of it does match up with stuff that
Speaker 3: would come in Alien.
Speaker 1: I think we should start a rumor right here and
Speaker 1: right now, and hopefully listeners will just go and spread
Speaker 1: this without attribution that Dan O'Bannon's Alien Script was inspired
Speaker 1: by Track of the Moonbeast.
Speaker 3: Oh, welcome back to the Track of the Moonbeast in
Speaker 3: a minute. So my elevator pitch for this movie is
Speaker 3: from the creator of Batman. To save the Earth, they
Speaker 3: must risk exposure to the green slime.
Speaker 1: I think that's right on the money. So I think
Speaker 1: we need to hear some trailer audio and folks at home,
Speaker 1: prepare yourselves to be groovified.
Speaker 5: The distant stars, the lonely, helpless Earth, the twenty first
Speaker 5: century world of the future.
Speaker 4: And lurking beyond the cold, strange immensity of conquered space,
Speaker 4: growing and spreading beyond the warped imagination of the greatest
Speaker 4: human intellect exploding in unspeakable horror, The Green.
Speaker 5: Slime, the civilized world at war with alien form who
Speaker 5: slimy touch means instant horrible death. Invaders from beyond the stars.
Speaker 3: What breeds slide?
Speaker 5: Robert Horton, Luciana Paluzzi, Richard Jacob.
Speaker 4: You make too many mistakes. You're not right for command.
Speaker 5: This is my command, and I'll manage it.
Speaker 4: Two men struggle for.
Speaker 5: Survival in the infected remains of a diseased universe. One
Speaker 5: of them searches for the last chance to save the
Speaker 5: human race from the desperate hundred of the Green Slides.
Speaker 5: A battle in space against faceless speeds, A cosmic nightmare
Speaker 5: that sends you into the incredible the shirt world of.
Speaker 3: Bruzeze Breees. All right, that's a full body trailer right there.
Speaker 3: We got lots of action, we got those weird alien
Speaker 3: noises I was talking about, and we got a taste
Speaker 3: of that groovy theme song.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of the song plays in
Speaker 1: the trailer, if you get like both verses or just
Speaker 1: one of them. But I actually transcribe to the lyrics
Speaker 1: because I was trying to understand what hidden messages are
Speaker 1: in the songs. So here's what I came up with.
Speaker 1: The lyrics are open the door, You'll find the secret
Speaker 1: to find, the answer is to keep it. You'll believe
Speaker 1: it when you find something screaming across your mind Green Slime.
Speaker 1: And then the second verse is the one where it
Speaker 1: gets kind of strange. It says, what can it be?
Speaker 1: What is the reason? Is this the end?
Speaker 3: And then I think.
Speaker 1: It either says to all that breathes in or maybe
Speaker 1: to all the seasons, is it something in your head?
Speaker 1: Will you believe it when you're dead? Green Slime? This
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the movie. There is no
Speaker 1: suggestion anywhere in the film that the Green Slime is
Speaker 1: a figment of anyone's imagination or a hallucination. So what's
Speaker 1: the stuff about it being in your head?
Speaker 3: I think it's just groovy. Man. We were talking off
Speaker 3: Mike beforehanders like, well, what does this song remind us of?
Speaker 3: And it just dawned on me that what the song
Speaker 3: reminds me of is the work of Kenny Rogers in
Speaker 3: the first edition.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yes, yes, yes, it sounds like I
Speaker 1: just dropped in to see what condition my condition is in?
Speaker 1: Was in okay? Well, now woe to you who have
Speaker 1: slandered this song. It's it's right up there with Kenny Rogers.
Speaker 3: Well, since we're talking about the music, I'm gonna break
Speaker 3: the tradition and we're gonna skip right to the people
Speaker 3: involved in the music for this film, and then we'll
Speaker 3: come back to the director and talk about some members
Speaker 3: of the cast. So we've talked about this being a
Speaker 3: Japanese US CO production. It was filmed in Japan, Japanese director,
Speaker 3: Western writers, Western cast, but then the Japanese crew the music,
Speaker 3: the original musical score, and this is what you will
Speaker 3: find as the complete score for the Japanese release is
Speaker 3: by Toshiaki Tushima who lived nineteen thirty six through twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: So I'm to understand most of his original score, which
Speaker 3: is more of a traditional tokusatsu score, is missing from
Speaker 3: the version we watched. I watched a few scenes from
Speaker 3: the Japanese version of it just to compare, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it does feel like much more traditional the kind of
Speaker 3: thing you'd expect to find in some of these sci
Speaker 3: fi action films of the day. But Tshima scored a
Speaker 3: lot of Japanese action in crime films, including nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: three's Battle Without Honor and Humanity, but he also scored
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven's The War in Space and a nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy four TV series titled Saararu no Gundan, which MST
Speaker 3: three k fans know as the Sandy Frank movie length
Speaker 3: cut of the TV series retitled Time of the Apes.
Speaker 3: I don't think Time of the Apes has ever had
Speaker 3: a proper Western release, you know, on disc or as digital.
Speaker 1: Don't know if I've ever actually seen that MST, though
Speaker 1: I've seen the I've seen the title many times and
Speaker 1: it always makes me picture like a sort of a
Speaker 1: Chimpanzee themed wall clock, like the chimpanzee arms pointing at
Speaker 1: the numbers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would actually love to see it, especially I'd
Speaker 3: love to either see the Sandy Frank cut in better
Speaker 3: quality or just the full series. But like I said,
Speaker 3: it hasn't been released over here for some reason anyway.
Speaker 3: So that's the original Japanese score. But then a different
Speaker 3: musician is brought in to contribute to and build up
Speaker 3: the American release score and to provide that groovy theme song.
Speaker 3: This is Charles Fox born nineteen forty so, and I
Speaker 3: want to say that it's not just a groovy theme song. Also,
Speaker 3: some of the eerier sci fi sounds that we hear
Speaker 3: in the movie are also the work of Charles Fox.
Speaker 3: Fox is a TV and film composer whose most famous composition,
Speaker 3: I think without a Doubt, is the nineteen seventy nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two single Killing Me Softly with his song with
Speaker 3: lyrics by Norman Gimble in original performance by Lorie Lieberman.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows that one, yeah, I mean if you don't
Speaker 3: know the original, you know, like the the Fuji's did
Speaker 3: version of it, right, So any great song, classic song.
Speaker 3: The duo also wrote I've Got a Name or I
Speaker 3: Got a Name, sung by Jim Crochy. I was familiar
Speaker 3: with this song, but I wasn't familiar with the fact
Speaker 3: that it was originally the theme song for The Last
Speaker 3: American Hero.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I know this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one that they put on all the Croachy
Speaker 3: Greatest Hits albums. I remember it from back in the day.
Speaker 3: But they also did the Wonder Woman theme song like
Speaker 3: the old like seventies Wonder Woman theme song. His scores
Speaker 3: include nineteen sixty eight's Barbarella, seventy five's Bug eighty three
Speaker 3: Strange Brew and nineteen eighty five's National Lampoon's European Vacation.
Speaker 3: He also did the theme for ABC's Wild World of Sports,
Speaker 3: Love American Style and the Love Boat that was a
Speaker 3: collaboration with Paul Williams.
Speaker 1: Oh say Hello to Beef Love American Style? Was that
Speaker 1: the name of the precursor to Happy Days that was
Speaker 1: like the early version of Happy Days.
Speaker 3: I think you're right on that. I'm not familiar with
Speaker 3: this TV show other than the title and yeah, so
Speaker 3: I take your word from that on that matter.
Speaker 1: I just looked it up and whatever I just said
Speaker 1: does not seem correct. It says this is an anthology
Speaker 1: comedy TV series from on ABC.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I'm still going to go with what
Speaker 3: you said, just because it's easier to remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, Wow, So, I mean I feel like I've seen
Speaker 1: a Love American Style that was basically Happy Days before
Speaker 1: Happy Days. Maybe that was one of the anthology segment.
Speaker 3: There you go. Maybe that was the spinoff that it
Speaker 3: was like one of the anthology episodes was Happy Days
Speaker 3: and then they're like, let's do a whole series of this.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, back to Green Slime coming back to
Speaker 3: the top. The director is a director we've covered before.
Speaker 3: This is Kinji Fukusaku, who lived nineteen thirty through two
Speaker 3: thousand and three. The director of nineteen seventy eight's Message
Speaker 3: from Space, which we covered in the fourth episode of
Speaker 3: Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That was ten years after The Green Slime and Message
Speaker 1: from Space. That must be his masterpiece. What a beautiful film.
Speaker 3: Well. He has sixty eight directorial credits on IMDb, and
Speaker 3: probably the big one, probably the career defining one for
Speaker 3: a lot of listeners, occurred very late in his career,
Speaker 3: two thousand's Battle Royale, which was a huge hit for him.
Speaker 3: This is like a darker, kind of surreal kind of
Speaker 3: a murder.
Speaker 1: Movie, right, Yeah, I saw this in high school. I
Speaker 1: did we talk in the Message from Space episode about
Speaker 1: how he did this. I did not remember that connection
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 3: I think it came up. Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 3: in the original notes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well I guess it just left my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Battle Royal's the movie about like it's a dystopian future
Speaker 1: movie where like a middle school class of juvenile delinquents
Speaker 1: are sent to an eye and told that they must
Speaker 1: all kill each other. And only one can survive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's like a little bit of Lord of
Speaker 3: the Flies, a little bit like I don't know, high
Speaker 3: school drama.
Speaker 1: It's like the Lord of the Flies meets The Running Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But these are just two films that he did
Speaker 3: a lot of other stuff. He did nineteen seventies Tora
Speaker 3: Tora Torah, nineteen seventy three's Battle Without Honor and Humanity.
Speaker 3: He also did I always love looking at back at
Speaker 3: some of these robust filmographies because there's always something I
Speaker 3: hadn't really noticed before. He did a film in sixty
Speaker 3: eight titled Black Lizard, and it looks like something I
Speaker 3: might want to check out at some point. It looks
Speaker 3: like a fun, weird movie. Potentially, I don't know. It
Speaker 3: looks very interesting. But he also he directed a number
Speaker 3: of action, crime and samurai movies. All right now getting
Speaker 3: into the story in the screenplay story credit and one
Speaker 3: of the producers. This is Ivan Reiner, who lived nineteen
Speaker 3: eleven through nineteen ninety seven, America writer and producer of
Speaker 3: a handful of sci fi films, beginning with nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: six's Terror Beneath the Sea starring Sony Chiba, and ending
Speaker 3: with this film. Sandwiched in between these two films are
Speaker 3: the Italian Antonio Margaretti sci fi space Station Gamma one series,
Speaker 3: consisting of Wild Wild Planet, War of the Planets, War
Speaker 3: Between the Planets, all three of those in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 3: and Snow Devils from sixty seven, which is also a
Speaker 3: space station movie.
Speaker 1: Wait, space Station Gamma one isn't the space station in
Speaker 1: this movie space Station Gamma three? Am I wrong?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah. This film was originally conceived as being a continuation
Speaker 3: of this series, and then it kind of became its
Speaker 3: own thing, so they just slightly changed the name of
Speaker 3: the space station.
Speaker 1: What happened to Gamma two?
Speaker 3: We don't talk about that. I haven't seen the Margaretti movies,
Speaker 3: but they look interesting. I would check one out at
Speaker 3: some point, all right. The screenplay. One of the screenplay
Speaker 3: credits goes to Charles Sinclair, who lived nineteen twenty four
Speaker 3: through twenty seventeen, American screenwriter an occasional actor who wrote
Speaker 3: two episodes of the nineteen sixties Batman series and also
Speaker 3: co wrote nineteen seventy six's Track of the Moonbeast with
Speaker 3: Bill Finger.
Speaker 1: This is the New Mexico episode of Mystery Science Theater
Speaker 1: three thousand, and I wonder if Charles Sinclair wrote the
Speaker 1: line about chicken corn onnons. This is a famous episode
Speaker 1: of Mystery Science Theater three thousand. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: elements is they go to a concert in the movie
Speaker 1: and there's a band playing a song called California Lady,
Speaker 1: which the bots transform into California Gravy adds flavor.
Speaker 3: To my meat. Oh yeah, yeah, we may have to
Speaker 3: come back to the Moonbeast at some point. Rick Baker
Speaker 3: did the monster effects on that one. All right, now,
Speaker 3: I mentioned Bill Finger. Bill Finger also has screenplay credit.
Speaker 3: Lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen seventy four, American comic strip,
Speaker 3: comic book, film, and television writer who co created Batman
Speaker 3: with Bob Kine in the late nineteen thirties. As such,
Speaker 3: you'll find him credited on all the Batman movies if
Speaker 3: it has Batman in it, Bill Finger's name is going
Speaker 3: to be in the credit somewhere. I think this and
Speaker 3: Moonbeast are his only screenplay credits that don't involve Batman,
Speaker 3: and the vast majority of those her character creation credits.
Speaker 1: That is interesting. I did not know about that connection
Speaker 1: when I picked this film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then another screenplay credit goes to Tom Rowe,
Speaker 3: who lived nineteen twenty one through two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: This was only a second screenplay credit, following nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: five's Paris Secret. He went on to work on the
Speaker 3: screenplays for nineteen seventy ones The Light at the Edge
Speaker 3: of the World, nineteen eighty one's Tarzan the ape Man.
Speaker 3: This is the one with Bo Derek Richard Harris, Miles
Speaker 3: O'Keefe and John Philip Law in it. And he also
Speaker 3: did three episodes of Fantasy Island.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we've got at least three to four writing credits.
Speaker 1: Here's that's letting you know you're definitely in good territory.
Speaker 3: Yes. Now, the flip side is, there are a lot
Speaker 3: of bodies on the screen in this movie, but there
Speaker 3: are really only three characters that matter. Maybe a fourth,
Speaker 3: but basically three characters that matter, So we're going to
Speaker 3: discuss them real quick. We have leading the whole enterprise,
Speaker 3: Commander Jack Rankin, played by Robert Horton who lived nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four through twenty sixteen. He's our rugged, humorless space commander.
Speaker 3: Very much seems like a tobacco scented cowboy who's been
Speaker 3: transplanted out of westerns into a sci fi movie, because
Speaker 3: that's pretty much exactly what is happening with Robert Horton here.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. He has cured, rugged
Speaker 1: and all business.
Speaker 3: Horton was a stage actor turned MGM contracted talent who
Speaker 3: worked a good six decades, mostly on television, appearing on
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty nine episodes of the late nineteen
Speaker 3: fifties and early sixties western Wagon Train, twenty eight episodes
Speaker 3: of the mid sixties western series of Man called I
Speaker 3: Think he was the lead on that, and seven episodes
Speaker 3: of As the World Turns. In the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: mostly known for westerns, this was his only sci fi
Speaker 3: or horror credit.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've seen him in anything else.
Speaker 3: I don't think i'd seen him in anything before either.
Speaker 3: And when I first saw him, I was a little
Speaker 3: bit hesitant. I was like, who is this? Who's this guy?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Is he about to sell me a life insurance policy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I was kind of expecting him to like kind
Speaker 3: of phone it in, but I don't know. He has
Speaker 3: a real sternness and it plays well into the performance
Speaker 3: in a way. That makes the character personally unlikable in
Speaker 3: a way, but in a different way, like lawful good
Speaker 3: to a fault, but also somehow very believable, and you're
Speaker 3: still pulling for him against the slimes. But he doesn't
Speaker 3: seem like someone you would want to be around in
Speaker 3: real life.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, he's kind of interesting. So we've watched a
Speaker 1: lot of fifties and sixties sci fi movies that have
Speaker 1: these kind of military squares as the leading man. He is,
Speaker 1: but in a kind of interesting way in that it
Speaker 1: is recognized and portrayed somewhat as a character fault. So
Speaker 1: I think the movie is a little bit more complex
Speaker 1: in terms of character than most of the movies with
Speaker 1: this type of leading character are. That's my take, at
Speaker 1: least as far as the actors vibe. He's sort of
Speaker 1: he's a little bit Peter Graves, he's a little bit
Speaker 1: Roger Moore, and he's a little bit Phil Hartman. There
Speaker 1: there's a slickness to him that could quite easily slip
Speaker 1: over the edge into smarty. But he's also the party's paladin,
Speaker 1: and paladin in the sense of like often doing quote
Speaker 1: the right thing, even if it is not very nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, paladin for sure ready to fight and obey
Speaker 3: orders for the greater good, but could also potentially carry
Speaker 3: out a massacre as well in pursuit of that greater good.
Speaker 3: I also think it's notable that he's always ready to
Speaker 3: respond to a punch up like is if he goes
Speaker 3: through life and it's like sometimes I'm just telling it
Speaker 3: like it is, and some people try and punch me
Speaker 3: because of it, So I'm all always ready to duck
Speaker 3: that first punch and come in with the second one.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is a guy who everywhere he goes people
Speaker 1: are starting fights with him, and it's definitely not his fault,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 3: So that's our That's one of our two main male characters.
Speaker 3: The other is Commander Vince Elliott. Commander Elliott played by
Speaker 3: Richard Jacob who lived nineteen twenty six through nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: This is our steely eyed Academy Award nominated character actor.
Speaker 3: He did a lot of action westerns and war movies,
Speaker 3: including nineteen fifty seven's three Ten to Yuma, sixty seven
Speaker 3: is The Dirty Dozen, sixty Let's See what Else, seventy
Speaker 3: one's The Deadly Dream, seventy four's Chosen Survivors, seventy six
Speaker 3: is Grizzly and also The Jaws of Death as well
Speaker 3: that year nineteen seventy seven's Day of the Animals. That's
Speaker 3: an all animals attack movie. I think, seventy nine is
Speaker 3: the Dark and eighty two's Blood Song. Other credits of
Speaker 3: note least to us include eighty four Starman from John
Speaker 3: Carpenter in nineteen eighty six is Black Moon Rising. He
Speaker 3: was also in nineteen eighties Herbie Goes Bananas. Oh. He
Speaker 3: was nominated for an oscar for his supporting role in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy twos Sometimes a Great Notion. This was an
Speaker 3: adaptation of Ken Cassi's novel, starring and directed by Paul Newman.
Speaker 1: Now, the presence of Richard Jacob in this movie and
Speaker 1: his character is I think one of the other things
Speaker 1: that makes Robert Horton's character more interesting than he might
Speaker 1: be otherwise, because again he sort of forces us to
Speaker 1: process Horton's character as possibly an order obsessed to a fault.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, because Jacob's character here is I mean, he's
Speaker 3: ready to initiate punch ups, he's ready to break rules
Speaker 3: in the name of basic human decency, and he's got
Speaker 3: that katch good character vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, and well, I don't think many Peo
Speaker 1: people would pick The Green Slime as a real acting showcase.
Speaker 1: I think Jacob is probably the most interesting actor in this,
Speaker 1: and he has some moments where I was pretty impressed.
Speaker 1: Like this might be a weird comparison, but there were
Speaker 1: parts of the movie where he really reminded me of
Speaker 1: Tom Behringer, Like certain shots where he says nothing and
Speaker 1: just kind of gazes intensely over the barrel of the camera.
Speaker 1: There is a fire burning inside, but he's not going
Speaker 1: to say a thing, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, I think it's a strong comparison. And yeah,
Speaker 3: this is something I always enjoy about. I enjoy looking
Speaker 3: for and I appreciate finding in films like this performances
Speaker 3: that bring so much energy and talent in places where
Speaker 3: you don't necessarily expect to find it, where something lesser
Speaker 3: could you know, certainly have been tolerated, especially looking back
Speaker 3: on it, but yeah, you find these little diamonds in
Speaker 3: the rough and think, I think he's great in this.
Speaker 3: I think his energy elevates a film that otherwise could
Speaker 3: maybe be more dismissed. Is just pure, pure, slimy nonsense.
Speaker 1: However, let us not deny that there is lots of
Speaker 1: slimy nonsense.
Speaker 3: To go around, yes, and helping to clean up some
Speaker 3: of that that slimy nonsense, or certainly to deal with
Speaker 3: the the causalities caused by it, and to treat wounds
Speaker 3: caused by it, is doctor Lisa Benson. This is our
Speaker 3: third character of note. Really well, this is the third
Speaker 3: of only three characters that really matter in the film,
Speaker 3: and she is played by Luciana Paloozi.
Speaker 1: I'd say maybe four characters we got. We got a
Speaker 1: kind of a sniveling scientist.
Speaker 3: As well, Yeah, we do. We'll get to him in
Speaker 3: a second.
Speaker 1: We will. Doctor Benson is I'm not gonna say there
Speaker 1: isn't something kind of funny about a lot of her,
Speaker 1: like romantic dialogue scenes, but I was happy every time
Speaker 1: we got a scene with her. She's great.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. So she's her character is Elliott's current
Speaker 3: flame and Rankin's former flame. So she's the center of
Speaker 3: the personal drama and while at the same time being
Speaker 3: front and center to deal with green slime related injuries
Speaker 3: and so forth.
Speaker 1: Right, So she's sort of the bones, you know, the
Speaker 1: McCoy of the ship she is the chief medical officer,
Speaker 1: and she's like treating all of these people who have
Speaker 1: been burned and electrocuted by green slime monsters. And meanwhile
Speaker 1: these two different like space marine squares are like do
Speaker 1: you love him or do you love me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know she's got to be tired of this.
Speaker 3: It's like, come on, guys, we got multiple injuries on Dexy. So.
Speaker 3: Peloozy is probably best known for her role as Fiona,
Speaker 3: a Specter assassin in nineteen sixty five's Thunderball.
Speaker 1: Thunderball the James Bond movie that I think actually is
Speaker 1: one of the better ones. It has a lot of
Speaker 1: classic Bond stuff in it is very fun. But also
Speaker 1: when you say that, one has one major drawback, which
Speaker 1: is okay, yes, I think we have gotten enough underwater
Speaker 1: scenes now. That has been enough scuba for now, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. By the third act, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of underwater footage in the movie and it gets
Speaker 1: incredibly tiresome.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it since I was a kid, but
Speaker 3: I loved it as a kid, and I loved the
Speaker 3: theme song. As a kid, I had a cassette tape
Speaker 3: featuring all the James Bond theme songs up to that point.
Speaker 3: They were all covers. What kind of production this was?
Speaker 3: But but yeah, I was a Thunderball fan at the time.
Speaker 1: The bad guy in that one fills his swimming pool
Speaker 1: with sharks.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a goodness. Yes, So Pelusi was an Italian actor.
Speaker 3: Her other big films include nineteen fifty fours Three Coins
Speaker 3: in a Fountain, also a couple of Fritz Lang films,
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty nine's The Tiger of Eshkapur and fifty nine's
Speaker 3: The Indian Tomb. She was also in seventy two's The
Speaker 3: Italian Connection, seventy four's The Klansman, and some of her
Speaker 3: more b movie terrific credits include a fifty eight Hercules
Speaker 3: movie starring Steve Reeves and Jess Franco's ninety nine Women,
Speaker 3: a women in prison movie in which Herbert Lohm played
Speaker 3: the evil Warden character. Oh. Also of note that usually
Speaker 3: don't include you know much in the way of like,
Speaker 3: like you know, personal trivia, but she was Tony Anthony's
Speaker 3: partner for many years.
Speaker 1: Wait Tony Tony from Treasurer of the Four Crowns.
Speaker 3: Yep, the very one.
Speaker 1: Well, I would have been very upset if I found
Speaker 1: out you didn't mention a connection to Tony Tony, can
Speaker 1: you imagine if he had been in this movie?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm so glad he was not. All Right, Okay,
Speaker 3: we mentioned our sniveling scientist. This is doctor Hans Halverson
Speaker 3: played by Ted Gunther. So much of the cast in
Speaker 3: this movie consisted of American actors and non actors that
Speaker 3: were working in Japan at the time, Like just a
Speaker 3: full call was apparently thrown out, like if you were
Speaker 3: an American in Japan, report to the set, or we're
Speaker 3: gonna evoke your visa.
Speaker 1: This makes so much sense that, apart from like the
Speaker 1: main few actors, one gets the sense of a lot
Speaker 1: of non actors saying little incidental lines in this film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so Gunther seems to be more or less
Speaker 3: of this in this categorization, but he probably has the
Speaker 3: best lines. He has the biggest role of the three
Speaker 3: main cast members. We'll get into. It's a pretty fun
Speaker 3: little role, the stimbling scientist who thinks we should not
Speaker 3: kill all the aliens, we should collect some samples, we
Speaker 3: should bring something back to Earth. And yeah, this is
Speaker 3: probably his best known role. His other credits include nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty eight's Cop Hater, a police procedural starring Robert Loggia
Speaker 3: and Jerry Orbach in a small role. I think he
Speaker 3: plays like a gang member or something. But Gunther was
Speaker 3: also in various Japanese productions of this time period. He's
Speaker 3: a real Burk in this one.
Speaker 1: Well, I see what you're saying about him being a Burke,
Speaker 1: because he's the one who puts people in danger by
Speaker 1: collecting the samples. But on the other hand, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's quite a Burke. He might be more
Speaker 1: in the Ash category, because Burke's just like a company
Speaker 1: man who's trying to get He's trying to get a commission.
Speaker 1: He's trying to get, you know, a percentage. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's Ash actually either, because Ash is
Speaker 1: also following company orders. Doctor Halverson here seems to be
Speaker 1: more genuinely interested in the science of understanding this creature,
Speaker 1: again in a villainous way, like to the to the
Speaker 1: extent of endangering other people's lives. But he doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to me to be in it for like money or
Speaker 1: personal interest rights.
Speaker 3: He is in no way. His scientific curiosity is pure, but
Speaker 3: it's too pure. Science is not in charge here military
Speaker 3: is in charge.
Speaker 1: Right, He seeks dangerous slime knowledge that could put lives
Speaker 1: at risk and does yes.
Speaker 3: So there again. There are about one hundred other humans
Speaker 3: on the screen during some of these scenes, and then
Speaker 3: there are the people in the Green Slime costume. But
Speaker 3: that's it for the cast. It's time to get into
Speaker 3: the plot of the Green Slime.
Speaker 1: Well, we begin in space, as we must, but not
Speaker 1: with the starfield this time with a Actually I think
Speaker 1: maybe there are a little few faint suggestions of stars around,
Speaker 1: but mainly what we can see at the beginning is
Speaker 1: a frosty white image of a planet in the distance,
Speaker 1: surrounded by a hazy disk like Saturn's rings. And that
Speaker 1: got me wondering, is this supposed to be our own
Speaker 1: solar system? I think it is, because I think the
Speaker 1: home planet is Earth and there's an asteroid belt like
Speaker 1: our solar system, So I guess maybe that's supposed to
Speaker 1: be Saturn. But I don't know why it's this big,
Speaker 1: hazy white mass like that with the rings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess. I like that They weren't too clear
Speaker 3: on it, so you can sort of suspend disbelief. Maybe
Speaker 3: they're in another solar system. And we just assume that
Speaker 3: propulsion works. Well En, Well, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: the plot concerned something coming at the Earth, So yeah,
Speaker 3: would kind of have to be our solar system.
Speaker 1: I think. So, I think it's got to be Earth,
Speaker 1: unless they like moved Earth to another solar system or
Speaker 1: we just got some new planets in the meantime.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I will say that in these early segments, it's
Speaker 3: it's hard to suspend disbelief with some of the models.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's why I hadn't really put these thoughts
Speaker 3: together yet.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to talk about the effects. I'll
Speaker 1: save that for a minute later. Yes, the models, they
Speaker 1: don't suggest realism, and they're also it's not some of
Speaker 1: the most beautiful miniature model work I've ever seen, but
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it, so I'm gonna comback.
Speaker 3: They're nice. It's nice model work. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we see the Earth. We see Earth, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a blue ball that comes into the frame. And
Speaker 1: then around the Earth we see orbiting a space station
Speaker 1: which is wheel shaped with a central spike at the hub,
Speaker 1: and this is labeled UNSC Gamma three. And then we
Speaker 1: see a command center with a bunch of technicians all
Speaker 1: hustling around manning stations with screens and radar displays, and
Speaker 1: then one of the technicians starts getting a weird signal,
Speaker 1: some kind of unusual innerance. What could it be?
Speaker 3: Done?
Speaker 1: Done?
Speaker 5: Done?
Speaker 1: It is an asteroid. They pull it up on the viewscreen,
Speaker 1: and the interesting thing is that this asteroid is not jagged,
Speaker 1: but pretty much perfectly spherical, but with kind of rough
Speaker 1: surface like a carpet, mostly red in color, with a
Speaker 1: few little black continents in that ocean of red. It
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a char grilled red meatball.
Speaker 3: It does. It does look like a meatball. Speaking of
Speaker 3: this planet looking like a meatball, I do want to
Speaker 3: throw out here that this movie was riffed, and I
Speaker 3: believe the one of the very, if not the very
Speaker 3: first KTMA episodes of Mystery Side Theater three thousand, Off
Speaker 3: the top of my head, I can't remember if this
Speaker 3: is one where the footage survives or not, but a
Speaker 3: lot of those KTMA episodes are are that they're kind
Speaker 3: of rough to watch, you know. MST three K was
Speaker 3: just getting started, was the prototype.
Speaker 1: They hadn't figured out the formula yet. Yeah, well, if
Speaker 1: this one is available, I've never seen.
Speaker 3: It same, but they had to have said that looks
Speaker 3: like a meatball, yeah, because it does.
Speaker 1: It looks like a meatball with grill marks. But then
Speaker 1: the boss at this command center gets some kind of
Speaker 1: print out and looks at it and says, oh, it's
Speaker 1: on a collision course with Earth. And then we cut
Speaker 1: straight to the theme song Kenny Rogers in the new
Speaker 1: edition and yeah, so it's a is it just something
Speaker 1: in your head? Will you believe it when you're dead?
Speaker 1: Green slime? And oh and there's there's a really good
Speaker 1: title title lettering, which you know, I love it, but
Speaker 1: it has the classic English lettering problem of the l
Speaker 1: I sequence, so it quite clearly reads the green soom.
Speaker 3: Oh it does, yeah, the green soom. Yeah, if you
Speaker 3: don't know the if you're not aware of the title already,
Speaker 3: it could throw you off. But it is very bright.
Speaker 3: It is very green.
Speaker 1: So the action resumes at Space Command headquarters and oh
Speaker 1: my god, this is just two who many dudes in uniforms?
Speaker 3: Yeah again, this is like I think every Western dude
Speaker 3: they could they could lure into the studio for this film.
Speaker 1: At first, I was deeply afraid that it was going
Speaker 1: to be like these eight similar looking, similarly dressed military
Speaker 1: white guys would be our main ensemble for the film,
Speaker 1: and it would be one of those one of those
Speaker 1: mid century movies where you are just constantly asking weight
Speaker 1: which character is this? But fortunately that was not the case.
Speaker 1: As we've said that the main cast for the movie
Speaker 1: is a smaller number of actors that look more distinctive
Speaker 1: from each other.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely so that that was a relief for me
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: But this is basically due set up what must be
Speaker 1: done about the asteroid. The only way to save Earth
Speaker 1: got to blow it up. So the General of Space
Speaker 1: Command has summoned a man named Commander Jack Ranken to
Speaker 1: his office, and then the general's aides all start to protest.
Speaker 1: They say, sir, you can't bring him on to this mission.
Speaker 1: He's tendered his resignation, he's off the Also, you can't
Speaker 1: send him on a mission like this where the chances
Speaker 1: of survival are next to zero. And then I double
Speaker 1: checked this next line to make sure I was hearing
Speaker 1: it right. The general says, he's still the top officer
Speaker 1: of my command. I'd have absolute confidence in him no
Speaker 1: matter what we're faced with, and I'll be go to
Speaker 1: hell if I know what we're faced with. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've ever heard that before, but I looked
Speaker 1: it up this I found documentation that this is an
Speaker 1: expression some people say, I'll be go to hell.
Speaker 3: Really because that sounds like a flug to me.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a yeah, like a typo in the
Speaker 1: script that he just read verbatim. But it's a real expression,
Speaker 1: according to the Internet at least.
Speaker 3: Well that's it's kind of like that whole saying, like
Speaker 3: if one were to say, like go to hell, you
Speaker 3: don't know from go to hell. Like, I've never heard
Speaker 3: someone say that out loud. I've only ever read it,
Speaker 3: and it always feels unreal to me. But I trust
Speaker 3: that it is something people actually say.
Speaker 1: I guess so. So the general he'll be go to
Speaker 1: hell and next we go to his office. First he'll
Speaker 1: be go to Hell, and then he'll be go to
Speaker 1: his office. And here's where we meet Commander Jack and man.
Speaker 1: Commander Jack is a smooth space commander if I ever
Speaker 1: saw one. His hair is like one perfect solid mass.
Speaker 1: I don't think you ever see any of his hairs
Speaker 1: move individually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's quite ahead of hair. There's some scenes where
Speaker 3: he's wearing a helmet and it throws you off because
Speaker 3: you don't recognize in it first. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So they start off by reminiscing. They're looking at a
Speaker 1: picture on the wall, and the General says, Rankin and
Speaker 1: Elliott best space team we ever had, and Jack says, yeah,
Speaker 1: Vince and I were a pretty good team till I
Speaker 1: ruined it. Anyway, they get down to business. General says, Jack,
Speaker 1: you're the only man who can save planet Earth. I
Speaker 1: need you to do an armageddon. I need you to
Speaker 1: plant explosives on the surface of this killer asteroid and
Speaker 1: blow it up as well. In that case, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm on board, And the General says, oh, also, the
Speaker 1: current commander of the space station you're going to go
Speaker 1: to to do this mission. The man you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to work with to save the planet is your old partner,
Speaker 1: Vince Elliott, who we just referred to like two sentences ago.
Speaker 1: And this is such a cop show set up, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like that was a long time ago. General, Meet
Speaker 1: your new partner. It's your old partner.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but you know it's an oldie, but it's
Speaker 3: a goodie. You know, you're gonna get some fireworks out of.
Speaker 1: That, Oh yeah, And then so the commander Jack is
Speaker 1: going to travel to the space station, and we see
Speaker 1: a lot of model effects along the way. We see
Speaker 1: like model effects on Earth of buildings and cars moving around,
Speaker 1: and then model effects of a rocket traveling to the
Speaker 1: space station. And you know, there's a mix of quality
Speaker 1: in some shots in this movie, the miniature models are
Speaker 1: surprisingly good. Other times they are pretty flimsy, most often
Speaker 1: somewhere in between. In terms of the flimsy ones, some
Speaker 1: are quite funny, like there's one where there's an airlock
Speaker 1: to space where a shuttle's going out to go to
Speaker 1: the asteroid, and the airlock doors are basically like the
Speaker 1: swinging doors on a saloon in a Western Yeah. But
Speaker 1: even though this is not the most gorgeous mini model
Speaker 1: work I've ever seen in a sci fi movie, and
Speaker 1: neither is it usually bad enough to be funny. I
Speaker 1: just found it such a cozy place to hang out,
Speaker 1: very pleasing to the eye. I just love this stuff, Like,
Speaker 1: model based effects like this are so nice, and they
Speaker 1: make me want to change the culture of Hollywood that
Speaker 1: feels like to be irrespectable, a movie's effects need to
Speaker 1: look quote realistic, mid tier CGI effects of today probably
Speaker 1: are more passibly realistic. I'd agree, like they look probably
Speaker 1: more convincingly like the thing you're trying to depict, but
Speaker 1: they're so often just boring and kind of inherently unpleasant
Speaker 1: in a way that's hard to explain. Miniature model based effects,
Speaker 1: even when they are not an outie standing example of
Speaker 1: their kind, just feel so so nice. And I was
Speaker 1: trying to think of what to compare this difference to,
Speaker 1: and here's what I came up with. The difference between
Speaker 1: passable mid tier CGI and passable mid tier model effects
Speaker 1: is the difference between looking at a freeway overpass and
Speaker 1: looking at a lake. Even if it's not the most
Speaker 1: beautiful lake in the world, even if it's a kind
Speaker 1: of crummy lake, the lake is just always going to
Speaker 1: feel a lot nicer.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a fair comparison. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to dismiss the work that goes into CGI,
Speaker 3: but when you're looking at a physical scale model, I mean,
Speaker 3: you are looking at something that someone physically built with
Speaker 3: their hands, and there's something about that that's undeniable.
Speaker 1: Well, you raise a good point. I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not like slamming the work of digital animators. You know,
Speaker 1: their work should also be appreciated. I'm just saying, man,
Speaker 1: I love I love the models. The models are so nice,
Speaker 1: they feel so good. I just wish there were more
Speaker 1: of them these days.
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm still with you on this. And yeah,
Speaker 3: there's just something about like the physical model, you know,
Speaker 3: it just feels more real, even if at the same times,
Speaker 3: even at this if at the same time it looks
Speaker 3: kind of flimsy in the film, it's like you could
Speaker 3: still touch it.
Speaker 1: It just feels nice. It's like walking barefoot on a
Speaker 1: nice fluffy carpet, you know. But anyway, So up on
Speaker 1: the space station, oh boy, it's Commander Love Triangle reporting
Speaker 1: for duty. This This is Vince Elliott. He is preparing
Speaker 1: for the arrival of his old partner who's about to
Speaker 1: become his new partner again, and he has a conversation
Speaker 1: with doctor Lisa Benson. Further complicating their personal history is
Speaker 1: that doctor Benson used to be in love with Commander Jack.
Speaker 1: Now she is in love with Commander Vince, and she
Speaker 1: knows Jack is coming to the space station and this
Speaker 1: has the potential to inflame old tensions. And it's funny
Speaker 1: given the similarities of the first third of this movie
Speaker 1: to the Michael Bay film Armageddon, because I also recall
Speaker 1: critics making fun of those nineties asteroid thrillers like Armageddon,
Speaker 1: and I think it was Deep Impact was the other one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was another related film.
Speaker 1: And there might have been some other ones too, But
Speaker 1: these asteroid movies where the earth is in danger. I
Speaker 1: recall a line of the day being like, it's funny
Speaker 1: that these movies have a love triangle in them, and
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be concerned about the love triangle when
Speaker 1: the main plot is whether or not life on the
Speaker 1: Earth will be destroyed.
Speaker 3: You know, you got to you gotta keep it relatable, right,
Speaker 3: I guess then, now, this is a fun fact about
Speaker 3: this film. The US release is what ninety minutes long.
Speaker 3: The Japanese cut was seventy seven minutes long, and amidst
Speaker 3: the love triangle angle in favor of tighter procedural militaristic action.
Speaker 3: So normally I'd say I'd be kind of on board
Speaker 3: with that sort of thing. I don't think love triangles
Speaker 3: and films are just intrinsically interesting. I think sometimes that,
Speaker 3: you know, they can be, but oftentimes, like you're saying
Speaker 3: they're just kind of thrown in there because like, hey,
Speaker 3: people like this, right, this will get the fireworks going.
Speaker 3: But in this case, again, I haven't seen the Japanese
Speaker 3: cut in its entirety, but the US cut is already
Speaker 3: a pretty lean movie as far as intercharacter relationships go.
Speaker 3: So it feels like you'd be really cutting close to
Speaker 3: the bone if you took out all of the love
Speaker 3: triangle stuff here.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I ended up liking the love triangle.
Speaker 1: I think it's part I it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was, you know, it's ultimately doesn't
Speaker 3: it feels it doesn't feel like this extra thing that
Speaker 3: was put on for one audience and taken out for another.
Speaker 3: It feels like intrinsically part of the plot and works.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's hard for being to imagine this film
Speaker 3: without it, because I feel like you'd take a little
Speaker 3: bit of it's heart out.
Speaker 1: I agree. And speaking of heart, this scene gives some
Speaker 1: more character background about the difference of the soul in
Speaker 1: Vince's soul versus Jack soul. Vince says, you know, he's
Speaker 1: sure that Jack will get the job done in spite
Speaker 1: of anything, and doctor Benson says or any body. So okay,
Speaker 1: we're starting to get the picture. They think of Commander
Speaker 1: Jack as competent, dependable, but heartless, and I like how
Speaker 1: at the end of this conversation, doctor Benson is like,
Speaker 1: by the way, Vince Darling, you don't have the slightest
Speaker 1: reason to be jealous of him. He doesn't mean anything
Speaker 1: to me anymore, which is one of those reassuring statements
Speaker 1: that achieves the opposite of its effect. But all right,
Speaker 1: I guess we need to get into the asteroid sequence.
Speaker 1: So Commander Jack arrives on the ship, he assembles the team.
Speaker 1: Space Command has at the last minute added doctor Halverson
Speaker 1: to the team. Who is doctor Halverson? I think he's
Speaker 1: the Do they even say what his job is? He's
Speaker 1: there to do science.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just the He represents science on this mission.
Speaker 3: It's his job to be like, hey, can I get
Speaker 3: a sample of that? Oh wait, hold on one second,
Speaker 3: we'll get a sample of that as well. Hold up,
Speaker 3: I'm coming through with my samples.
Speaker 1: That's right. So they fly to the asteroid and the
Speaker 1: Space Marines start planting bombs. They're like driving around looking
Speaker 1: for places to plant the bombs, and they're driving dune
Speaker 1: buggies through like red puddles of mud around all these rocks.
Speaker 1: And again, speaking of great models and sets, I just
Speaker 1: love this whole sequence.
Speaker 3: It's great. This is one of those. There are several sequences,
Speaker 3: especially the ones with various carts in them, which I
Speaker 3: feel like lesser films would might have felt very meandering,
Speaker 3: but this film feels very intentional. Like you get the
Speaker 3: I said procedural earlier, because you do get the feeling
Speaker 3: in any given sequence where bunches of people were doing
Speaker 3: stuff that there's a plan, there is a protocol, and
Speaker 3: that plan and protocol are being followed.
Speaker 1: That's right, except there are little moments that I see
Speaker 1: exactly what you're saying, and I agree with it, But
Speaker 1: there are moments that kind of undercut that, like when
Speaker 1: they get to the place where they're gonna put one
Speaker 1: of the bombs down, and I think Commander Jack is
Speaker 1: the one who says this place looks good as any
Speaker 1: Like why'd you drive all the way over here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: But okay, so doctor Halverson's team has just taking samples
Speaker 1: that they are like doing readings and samples and stuff
Speaker 1: while the other guys are trying to save the world,
Speaker 1: and while they're doing that, they start noticing that, oh,
Speaker 1: the surface of this asteroid is not only rocks and
Speaker 1: red dust and big puddles of mud, you know, pink ponds,
Speaker 1: there are also pulsating piles of green jello. And the
Speaker 1: green jello actually starts creating problems, like it forms a
Speaker 1: crust over their buggy tires and ends up disabling some
Speaker 1: equipment while they're trying to place the bombs. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the time to detonation keeps getting moved up, like the
Speaker 1: Space Command is calling in and saying, actually, you've got
Speaker 1: to detonate sooner, and Commander Jack's like, we won't be
Speaker 1: able to get out in time, and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you got to do it. But they still make time
Speaker 1: for an argument about whether doctor Halverson can bring samples
Speaker 1: of the green slime he has collected along with them
Speaker 1: when they go back to the ship, and this leads
Speaker 1: to conflict. It's Commander Jack versus Halverson. And I think
Speaker 1: he just like grabs his glass vial and smashes it
Speaker 1: on the ground, didn't he.
Speaker 3: Yeah, inn't this when some get splattered onto somebody's pants as.
Speaker 1: Well, that's right, And that's how we get a little rider,
Speaker 1: we get a little stowaway biocontamination. There is another conflict
Speaker 1: that derises here, which is Commander Jack versus Commander Vince.
Speaker 1: The conflict is about whether they should leave people behind
Speaker 1: in order to take off in time. Jack says, we
Speaker 1: gotta go to you know, they're not back here in time.
Speaker 1: We got to leave them, and Vince says, no, we
Speaker 1: got to wait for them. This will become a recurring theme.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, they get back on the ship and
Speaker 1: then they're gonna the bombs are going to detonate soon,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to fly away at top speed so
Speaker 1: that they can escape the blast radius. And there's a
Speaker 1: part where Commander Jack has to like he orders the
Speaker 1: pilot to go faster, and the pilot's like, she won't
Speaker 1: take it. She's gonna break apart, and Commander Jack just
Speaker 1: sort of like steps past him and you know, push
Speaker 1: is the lever into the top position, and it does work.
Speaker 1: They managed to escape the blast, but they are they're
Speaker 1: like they're kind of melting in the process.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, they're like thrown back in their seats and
Speaker 3: against the wall, just going like oh yeah, but they
Speaker 3: make they make it out. They may save the world.
Speaker 1: That's right, they blew up the asteroid, saved the world.
Speaker 1: They make it back to the space station where they
Speaker 1: get a hero's welcome. There is applause, there is cheering. Uh,
Speaker 1: And then they have to go through decontamination. So Commander
Speaker 1: Jack is like, we must go through decontamination three times.
Speaker 1: And now, surely if you go through decontamination three times,
Speaker 1: you could not miss anything. But wait, what is that
Speaker 1: we see on that one astronaut's leg?
Speaker 3: Uh? Oh?
Speaker 1: Is that a little green bit of jelly there? Also,
Speaker 1: after they do this, Commander Jack's just standing around with
Speaker 1: blood all over his arm. So they're like, a time
Speaker 1: to go see a doctor. And then he visits the
Speaker 1: medical clinic, which is the groovous looking medical clinic I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. There's one place in it with it's got
Speaker 1: designs on the walls, and there's a glass partition where
Speaker 1: doctor Benson comes in to treat his bloody arm, and
Speaker 1: I guess also give him a vaccine against love triangles.
Speaker 1: But the glass partition depicts I think talismans to repel
Speaker 1: the evil eye.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I don't remember this particular detail, but in
Speaker 3: general I love the sets, the space station sets all
Speaker 3: look really good. I mean again, it would be unfair
Speaker 3: to compare them to the sets in two thousand and
Speaker 3: one A Space Odyssey, which are phenomenal, which that's a
Speaker 3: high standard that it's unfair to compare movies today to
Speaker 3: that standard. But I still think the space station sets
Speaker 3: look pretty darn good.
Speaker 1: And then there's a party. This actually was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite scenes. I'm not quite sure why we don't
Speaker 1: even have monsters yet, but I just enjoyed this party.
Speaker 1: So they break out the champagne, and I'm quite impressed.
Speaker 1: This space station has champagne glass, champagne coops, all tons
Speaker 1: of booze in stock, and ice buckets for the bottles.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so everybody's dancing. It's a swinging, far out dance
Speaker 1: party set to some kind of nothing as heavy as
Speaker 1: the groove of the main theme. It's more of a
Speaker 1: kind of Herb Alpert style horn music, and everybody's getting down.
Speaker 1: The men are all in space command uniforms and the
Speaker 1: women are all in hip sixties mini dresses. So that's
Speaker 1: an odd mix. And honestly, I was thinking it looks
Speaker 1: like one of the dance party scenes in Austin Powers,
Speaker 1: except all of the dudes at the pad work for
Speaker 1: Hugo Drax, the villain from Moonraker, Yeah, who has all
Speaker 1: the space uniforms. But also there's a lot of awkward dancing.
Speaker 1: Did you notice the same thing, Like some of these
Speaker 1: astronaut party go do not seem to have danced before.
Speaker 1: They dance like I did in middle school. Just never
Speaker 1: tried this before, gonna wing it?
Speaker 3: Well, you know that that reminds us of where most
Speaker 3: of these extras are coming from. They're just who was available. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I guess it makes sense. Maybe they're not all
Speaker 3: of them were dancers.
Speaker 1: But one of the tables at this party, it is
Speaker 1: doctor Vince or not doctor Vince, sorry, doctor Benson, Commander
Speaker 1: Vince and Commander Jack. And they're all sitting around and
Speaker 1: Vince says to Jack, hey, Lisa and I were getting
Speaker 1: married next week. And Jack looks, you know, he kind
Speaker 1: of he works over this in his brain, and then
Speaker 1: he says, Lisa, I wish you every happiness, and then
Speaker 1: Lisa just looks at the floor and says nothing. So
Speaker 1: that's a good sign for Vince there, he's getting all
Speaker 1: of the signals are positive.
Speaker 3: Why are these three still hanging out?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I also I've noticing in this
Speaker 1: scene the extremely shiny, brightly colored food that's sitting uneaten
Speaker 1: on the table in front of them. I always love
Speaker 1: to examine a spread of food in a movie set.
Speaker 1: So this looks like we've got an oiled up raw
Speaker 1: tomato unsliced something that looks like a piece of toast
Speaker 1: with like a cold pad of butter and a dollup
Speaker 1: of ketchup on it, and then everybody's favorite jumbo medallions
Speaker 1: of iceberg lettuce with brown sauce.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is all grown on the station, one assumes,
Speaker 3: and it looks suitably kind of fake, like, you know,
Speaker 3: it was grown in like a dirt free environment, some
Speaker 3: sort of like zero G hydroponic situation going on. I guess.
Speaker 1: So, so Commander Jack, he wants one last dance with
Speaker 1: doctor Benson before she marries Vince, And meanwhile we see, well,
Speaker 1: so they go get up to dance. But meanwhile in
Speaker 1: the decontamination room, I guess the biosecurity officer is not
Speaker 1: getting to attend the celebration of a far outness because
Speaker 1: he is busy processing the EVA suits from the surface
Speaker 1: of the asteroid and the machine is whirring, and we
Speaker 1: see something beginning to happen. From underneath the folds of
Speaker 1: one of the spacesuits. There is a substance beginning to expand.
Speaker 1: It is a yellow green foam like detergent overflowing from
Speaker 1: a washing machine. And then it transforms from a foam
Speaker 1: into a sticky, solid mass that's kind of brown on
Speaker 1: the outside but throbbing green from within. And this might
Speaker 1: be gross, but I was trying to think of the
Speaker 1: best way to describe it, and here's what I came
Speaker 1: up with. It looks like if you got a chunk
Speaker 1: of really gelatinous homemade beef stock, like maybe a beef
Speaker 1: fu broth, and you chilled that to fridge temperature so
Speaker 1: it's a solid jelly instead of a liquid, and then
Speaker 1: you put a green light bulb inside it and set
Speaker 1: it a pulsing. That's what it looked like. And I
Speaker 1: love the effect.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, if that's exactly how they did it,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be the grossest effect that filmmakers have made
Speaker 3: using like actual meat products and so forth.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, where the face hugger guts like a bunch
Speaker 1: of raw oysters, And.
Speaker 3: I think so, I think that's a story, yeah, and
Speaker 3: there are various other productions where they've done something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, back at the dance party, Commander Jack and doctor
Speaker 1: Benson are dancing, and then we get more backstory about
Speaker 1: how drama emerged between all of them. Jack says that
Speaker 1: Vince is too nice to be a commanding officer, and
Speaker 1: we learned that a while back, Vince had to face
Speaker 1: a board of inquiry because Jack reported something he did wrong.
Speaker 1: Jack told on him when Vince violated regulations in order
Speaker 1: to save someone's life, and doctor Benson says, you would
Speaker 1: have done the same in his position, and Jack says, no,
Speaker 1: he would not have. Vince's supposedly compassionate act breaking the
Speaker 1: rules to save one life ended up getting ten other
Speaker 1: men killed. So it was a stupid, impulsive decision and
Speaker 1: it cost me in their lives. And then doctor Benson says,
Speaker 1: do you think that doesn't tear him up inside? He's
Speaker 1: distraught about it. But then Commander Jack, he gets kind
Speaker 1: of cold. He thinks doctor Benson is making a mistake.
Speaker 1: He says to her, you don't love Vince, you pity him,
Speaker 1: You love me, and whoa, that is a bold move,
Speaker 1: and Lisa gets very.
Speaker 3: Mad and leaves Commander Jack is just wired differently. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like I said, not not a I don't find it,
Speaker 3: never found him to be a very likable character, though
Speaker 3: at the same time a capable character that you're still
Speaker 3: absolutely rooting for against the well, the brewing alien menace.
Speaker 1: That's what I was saying earlier. He's kind of he's
Speaker 1: kind of complex in a in a way that is
Speaker 1: different for this sort of lawful good square military square.
Speaker 1: Absolutely or I don't know, should we say we've been
Speaker 1: saying lawful good. I guess he's lawful good, but maybe
Speaker 1: somewhere between lawful good and lawful neutral. He's definitely lawful,
Speaker 1: he's mostly good, though he I means, he's not nice
Speaker 1: at all, but he I don't know, it's it's he's
Speaker 1: kind of difficult to pin down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he's a complex guy.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back at the decontamination chamber, we got a lab
Speaker 1: technician who sees something is going wrong in the room
Speaker 1: where the EVA suits are stored. He opens the door,
Speaker 1: there's a bright shock of light. He screams, and then
Speaker 1: Jack and Vince are called to the lab to find
Speaker 1: the technician's body still smoking on the floor. And the
Speaker 1: scientists say he was electrocuted, so this starts a frantic
Speaker 1: investigation sequence. Everybody starts running around trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what happened. And I think we've already alluded to the
Speaker 1: fact that this movie hits on some very different levels
Speaker 1: in terms of style and tone as far as monster
Speaker 1: movies go, because it has a reputation for having goofy,
Speaker 1: fun funny, campy monsters, which in some shots they absolutely are,
Speaker 1: and if you see still screenshots from the movie, yes
Speaker 1: they often do look rather funny, but there are also
Speaker 1: parts where they're pretty scary, especially for the time. And
Speaker 1: I think the sequence where an astronaut here goes like
Speaker 1: searching in a darkened utility shaft for the for whatever
Speaker 1: it is that did this to the guy in the lab,
Speaker 1: this is one that's actually a little bit scary. I
Speaker 1: think this scene's potential to be scary is somewhat undercut
Speaker 1: by whimsical sounding music. I think the score does not
Speaker 1: serve this sequence well, but I don't know what. I
Speaker 1: almost think it could have inspired Dallas in the Air Shaft.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it did, but there are some similarities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 3: tight scene. There are some scenes where the rubber monsters
Speaker 3: are just kind of rampaging and you know it can
Speaker 3: look a little goof here, But other scenes the lighting
Speaker 3: is just right, the situation is just right where they
Speaker 3: do feel like a significant threat. I'll also say that
Speaker 3: in general, the monster design hides the human actor pretty well,
Speaker 3: you know inside, like it doesn't able to sort of
Speaker 3: cover up the fact that it's human shaped at the
Speaker 3: heart of the scenario. Also, they're weird sound effect and
Speaker 3: the way they're sort of rampaging around. They add to
Speaker 3: this feeling that, yeah, you're not dealing with something that
Speaker 3: is like we must destroy all humans. It's just life
Speaker 3: doing its thing. But it is a life form from
Speaker 3: a different environment that we were never meant to be
Speaker 3: exposed to. And that's where the threat comes in.
Speaker 1: Quote the seventy eight invasion of the Body Snatchers. We
Speaker 1: don't hate you, they don't hate us, they don't hate
Speaker 1: the astronauts in the space station. They're just going about
Speaker 1: their life cycle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have certain wants and needs and those are
Speaker 3: will learn our energy related and if anything gets in
Speaker 3: the way, well they're going to get the power tentacle.
Speaker 3: It's not personal, it's just business, that's right.
Speaker 1: But then there are more investigations and eventually they find
Speaker 1: some kind of writhing, screeching organism in the power plant.
Speaker 1: It's on like a catwalk around one of the power
Speaker 1: generation I don't know exactly what. It's supposed to be,
Speaker 1: reactor or something, and it's this creature lying there. It
Speaker 1: has these electric tentacles and they're all gathering around it
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to do about it. And
Speaker 1: this is when doctor Halverson shows up again to say,
Speaker 1: don't kill it, capture it. It's a priceless discovery. And
Speaker 1: Commander Jack disagrees. He's like, we must kill and Vince
Speaker 1: sides with Halverson, and of course he's still the commander
Speaker 1: of the space station. If he was, he wasn't of
Speaker 1: the asteroid mission. But he's still the boss of this facility.
Speaker 1: So they go with his plan, the capture plan, and
Speaker 1: they try to paralyze it with gas and shoot it
Speaker 1: with net guns, but this does not work. It starts
Speaker 1: unleashing its writhing, wiggling power cable arms that electrocute whatever
Speaker 1: it touches. It's all going wrong, yeah, and it becomes
Speaker 1: a mess.
Speaker 3: Oh, and there are some moments of like shocking violence.
Speaker 3: I think this is one where one of the tentacles
Speaker 3: hit somebody shocks him. They fall off off of one
Speaker 3: of the catwalks and you see like their face splat
Speaker 3: red blood when they hit the bottom. So, like, this
Speaker 3: film hits a lot harder than you might expect, especially
Speaker 3: given it as like a g rating.
Speaker 1: Oh does it.
Speaker 3: Let's think it technically is g rated. Yeah. I could
Speaker 3: be wrong in that though, but yeah, it's not one
Speaker 3: that has a reputation for its violence.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should stop and describe what the monsters look
Speaker 1: like exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're obviously very situated in the tokusatsu and
Speaker 3: kaiju tradition. You know, these are big rubber suits and
Speaker 3: or foam. I'm not sure exactly what the material is,
Speaker 3: but you know, we think of them as the rubber
Speaker 3: monster suit. And while they sometimes benefit from low creepy lighting,
Speaker 3: they also get to rampage down well that hallways the
Speaker 3: basic form of the monster costume. Again, there's a human
Speaker 3: at the center, but it ends up taking on You
Speaker 3: don't really get a sense of the legs so much.
Speaker 3: You get the waving tentacles. It's kind of got a
Speaker 3: big central head with that big eyeball that kind of
Speaker 3: like red glowy eyeball, and I feel like it is
Speaker 3: ultimately a monster design. It's easy to lampoon it in
Speaker 3: stills and out of context does shots. But yeah, they
Speaker 3: often oftentimes they do feel significantly lethal. And then also
Speaker 3: they tend to look good as a in mass, you know,
Speaker 3: they look good as a pod. You often see like
Speaker 3: I don't know how many we see at once in
Speaker 3: a single shot, but I know we'll frequently see like
Speaker 3: at least five of them at once, and I feel
Speaker 3: like some of the sequences have even more running around.
Speaker 1: But the essential form is sort of like a human
Speaker 1: sized maybe sort of a mushroom shape but green and
Speaker 1: more like a plant, with some bulbs all over the top,
Speaker 1: and then one big central eye that's horizontally elongated, and
Speaker 1: then wiggling tentacles for arms, basically where a human's arms
Speaker 1: would be sort of at the top and on the
Speaker 1: two sides. Those arms have little shock tips at the
Speaker 1: end that are kind of red and can emit sparks
Speaker 1: and electricity, and then they've got like leaves. Plant is
Speaker 1: essentially plant branches hanging out of their armpits.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, so. I guess one of the obvious things
Speaker 3: that stayed here though, is they do not look slimy
Speaker 3: per se. They do not look like slime monsters. So
Speaker 3: if you come into the Green Slime expecting a green blob,
Speaker 3: you're going to be disappointed. And I wonder if that
Speaker 3: might have had an impact as well. I don't think
Speaker 3: the film is called Green Slime, and the Japanese release
Speaker 3: it as another title.
Speaker 1: The green Slime creates these monsters, it is not.
Speaker 3: Them born of the green slime. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So again, in this scene of the power plant, the
Speaker 1: green Slime monster, it resists capture. It starts going nuts,
Speaker 1: whipping its arms everywhere. It kills some people, It injures
Speaker 1: some others. It injures Vince, who gets like wounded in
Speaker 1: the shoulder. Jack ends up shooting it with a laser gun,
Speaker 1: which doesn't kill it but drives it off I think,
Speaker 1: down some kind of pit, and then Jack says, Okay, Vince,
Speaker 1: you've made too many mistakes. I'm in charge now, power
Speaker 1: Struggle and let's see. Oh there's a part later where
Speaker 1: doctor Benson is like, this is the first time anything
Speaker 1: living has been found in space. Do you understand how
Speaker 1: important that is. And Jack says, tell that to the
Speaker 1: wives of the men in the morgue. So Jack is
Speaker 1: not very interested in scientific discovery. He's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: how we're gonna how am how am I going to
Speaker 1: keep my team alive? But when Jack shot it earlier
Speaker 1: with the laser weapon, it drops some green blood on
Speaker 1: the ground, some goo, and doctor Halverson collected a sample
Speaker 1: of that goo, and he has been doing some analysis,
Speaker 1: so he calls them to his lab to report. He says,
Speaker 1: the cells of this creature duplicate faster than anything known
Speaker 1: to man. He says, in fact, their growth rate is incredible.
Speaker 1: It's frightening. And he demonstrates by like running some current
Speaker 1: through the blood, I think, and that makes it just
Speaker 1: sort of like bubble and foam and overflow and duplicate.
Speaker 1: M So, he says, the animal feeds on energy and
Speaker 1: discharges energy, and as they try to destroy it in
Speaker 1: the and apparently what happened is as they tried to
Speaker 1: destroy it in the decontamination chamber, the energy they used
Speaker 1: to cook it actually fed it and made it larger,
Speaker 1: and then it could discharge that energy as electricity with
Speaker 1: its tentacle. Arms, so it grew larger by feeding off
Speaker 1: of energy and then eventually by feeding off of the
Speaker 1: power plant. So you shouldn't use energy weapons to attack
Speaker 1: it because you can wound it with them, but ultimately
Speaker 1: those will just make it grow larger and more powerful.
Speaker 1: Here begins several attacks. There is an attack on doctor
Speaker 1: Benson's med bay. She's treating patients there from the first
Speaker 1: big scuffle with the monster, and then one of the
Speaker 1: monsters runs into the clinic and starts freaking out, and
Speaker 1: so the doctors are wheeling bandage patients out while the
Speaker 1: alien attacks. I did notice in the scene there were
Speaker 1: some more funny doors on the set, like you can
Speaker 1: see the two planks kind of wobbling as they slam shut.
Speaker 1: And they can't kill the monster, but they do manage
Speaker 1: to seal it inside the clinic for the moment, and
Speaker 1: then they discover something else about it, which is that
Speaker 1: when it bleeds, its blood becomes a seed that spawns
Speaker 1: whole new monsters. So it's blood doesn't just like grow more,
Speaker 1: its blood actually becomes one of the new creatures.
Speaker 3: So it has this kind of hydra like quality to it.
Speaker 1: That's right, And when you shoot it, it so you
Speaker 1: can shoot it. The blood comes out, that becomes new monsters.
Speaker 1: That does wound it, but then it can heal itself,
Speaker 1: essentially by using its tentacle arms to weld its wounds shut.
Speaker 1: So then Space Command imposes a quarantine. They're like, nothing
Speaker 1: is leaving this station. If one drop of that blood
Speaker 1: reaches Earth, it could spell disasters. So y'all are stuck
Speaker 1: there for now. So Vince and Jack form a plan.
Speaker 1: And this is one of those I think things you
Speaker 1: were referring to when you say the movie is very procedural.
Speaker 1: It's like they form a plan and they enact that
Speaker 1: plan to try to trap the monsters.
Speaker 3: They want to use a.
Speaker 1: Generator in a storage room as bait energy bait, and
Speaker 1: they're going to turn off all the lights and power
Speaker 1: and the rest of the station and then use like
Speaker 1: big flashlights and spotlights to attract the monster to the
Speaker 1: storage room and trap it there.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty good plan. I know, you love a
Speaker 3: good monster plan, especially a good monster trap plan.
Speaker 1: I do love that. And I liked this sequence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is fun. And again it you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of balanced on the edge. It waffles between campy
Speaker 1: and funny and then surprisingly hard edged sometimes from moment
Speaker 1: to moment, but a lot of the sequence does kind
Speaker 1: of work. It's not just silly fun like, it works
Speaker 1: pretty good as a creature thriller, agreed, So they set
Speaker 1: this up. The lead up to the sequence is kind
Speaker 1: of tense, and then the monster has come creeping down
Speaker 1: the hall. They're quacking out their weird screeches, and the
Speaker 1: plan is working at first, but then oh, they sort
Speaker 1: of go the wrong way, I think, and end up
Speaker 1: creeping into the room with all the hospital patients who
Speaker 1: have been driven out of the clinic, and so they
Speaker 1: have to lure them back out of there, which Jack
Speaker 1: does very heroically, self sacrificially with a flashlight, and then
Speaker 1: they get the monsters back on track with this array
Speaker 1: of spotlights that are mounted on a cart and they're
Speaker 1: like moving it down the hallways to attract them to
Speaker 1: the trap. There's a bunch of monster chase action here,
Speaker 1: but eventually they managed to isolate the monsters behind one
Speaker 1: of the airlocked doors. But there's a problem. Doctor Halverson
Speaker 1: has become trapped with the monsters in there, and are
Speaker 1: they going to open the doors to rescue him. Jack
Speaker 1: says no, going back for him would put everyone at risk.
Speaker 1: Vince says yes, and they have a standoff where Jack
Speaker 1: aims a gun at Vince. He's like, better not do it.
Speaker 1: Vince says, your move, and he opens the door, only
Speaker 1: to find Halverson already burned to a crisp. And then
Speaker 1: the monsters do get back through.
Speaker 3: This is a pretty scary scene too, by the way,
Speaker 3: like it's a nice sort of jump scare.
Speaker 1: So here's one where Vince was just wrong. He should
Speaker 1: have listened to Jack. Jack might not have a heart,
Speaker 1: but he was right, and now the the threat is revived.
Speaker 1: Now they end up, I think, trying to close another
Speaker 1: door to lock them behind, but the monsters are freaking
Speaker 1: out and wiggling their arms all over the mounted lights
Speaker 1: on a cart, and they end up wiggling their electric
Speaker 1: arms over some explosives, and then that's not good at all.
Speaker 1: There's a big explosion. Part of the space station is
Speaker 1: destroyed and monsters get vented out into space. I think
Speaker 1: some are burned and killed in this explosion. Others end
Speaker 1: up on the outside of the ship, and then the
Speaker 1: light from the sun is healing them and making them grow.
Speaker 3: I have to admit when The explosion happened with the
Speaker 3: end of the model. The exterior shot of the model
Speaker 3: partially exploding. The explosion was so big. For like a long,
Speaker 3: pregnant second there, I thought the whole station had blown up,
Speaker 3: and I was like, whoa, this is an abrupt ending
Speaker 3: to that is a movie.
Speaker 1: That is what it looks like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is just part of it, or most,
Speaker 3: just most of the ship blew out. The rest is fine.
Speaker 1: That would be a great ending. Actually, if the end
Speaker 1: just the general and all those people. We couldn't tell
Speaker 1: a part earlier talking about how Vince should have listened
Speaker 1: to Jack and he went back to save the scientists.
Speaker 1: That just got them all killed. All our characters are dead.
Speaker 3: Turns out it was just a workplace safety video for
Speaker 3: space marines.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So there's another conflict. Jack wants to evacuate the survivors
Speaker 1: and then have the station completely destroyed so that the
Speaker 1: monsters will be eliminated. Vince disagrees, he does not want
Speaker 1: the station destroyed. There's another struggle for power. They start
Speaker 1: punching each other. I don't even remember how this moment ends.
Speaker 1: I think Jack sort of gets the upper hand in
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 3: I think so yeah, yeah, because again Jack is always
Speaker 3: ready for people to try and punch him for all
Speaker 3: of his truth talking.
Speaker 1: Then, as they are preparing for evacuation, Vince gets really
Speaker 1: bitter like doctor Benson comes to talk to him. She's
Speaker 1: getting her patients ready to get out of there. She
Speaker 1: tells him to evacuate as well, and he tells doctor Benson,
Speaker 1: I'm tired of people telling me what to do. Go
Speaker 1: back to your voice. I know it's never been over
Speaker 1: between you two hikes. Yeah, that's rough. And then Vince
Speaker 1: leads a team of Spacewalker commandos to go out of
Speaker 1: the airlock in suits and blast the slime creatures on
Speaker 1: the outside of the station's hull. And there's one scene
Speaker 1: where we get a classic movie moment where he's like
Speaker 1: shooting his laser gun and I guess he runs out
Speaker 1: of laser rounds. I don't know, his battery dies or something,
Speaker 1: and he throws the ray gun at the aliens through space.
Speaker 3: There's some good gun throwing in this movie. There is
Speaker 3: I think another sequence where someone throws a gun this
Speaker 3: or is this scene where the gun doesn't just bounce
Speaker 3: off the monster's head but in beds in the monster's chest.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, they get it. They're doing that, they're
Speaker 3: trained to do that, because it works.
Speaker 1: It's like a spear.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But here another problem arises. The station needs to be
Speaker 1: destroyed by being set to burn up in Earth's atmosphere,
Speaker 1: but autopilot has failed, so they can't just set it
Speaker 1: and forget it. Jack volunteers to stay behind and sacrifice
Speaker 1: himself to pilot the station to destruction while everybody else evacuates.
Speaker 1: And so Vince finds out about this plan, and you know,
Speaker 1: Lisa tells him, she's like, Jack went back inside alone,
Speaker 1: and you know what, Vince isn't going to stand for
Speaker 1: that one last time. He goes back to save the
Speaker 1: one man. So it's kind of a yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a tight theme. It completes the arc. He even
Speaker 1: this guy he's been having the conflict with the whole time.
Speaker 1: So he leaves the evacuation shuttle, goes back to fight
Speaker 1: alongside Jack, but oh no. In doing so, Vince is killed.
Speaker 1: He gets fatally bear hugged by one of the green
Speaker 1: slime monsters. By the tentacle arms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which again are not just grotesque arms that crunch,
Speaker 3: they also shock.
Speaker 1: And As the space station is set to burn up
Speaker 1: on re entry, Jack decides no. To quote robot jocks,
Speaker 1: he says, we can live. He jumps out of the
Speaker 1: space station that is going into the atmosphere with Vince's
Speaker 1: body in tow, and he space walks back to the
Speaker 1: evacuation ship. Man, he must be a fast moving spacewalker.
Speaker 1: We get a dramatic final shot of the monsters squealing
Speaker 1: and throwing their arms all over the place inside the
Speaker 1: burning space station as it goes down. The model explodes
Speaker 1: as it re enters the atmosphere. Jack back on the ship.
Speaker 1: He's talking to mission control. He says, I recommend the
Speaker 1: highest citations for Commander Elliott posthumously. So he's recommending decorations
Speaker 1: for Vince who died coming back to save him. And
Speaker 1: then says, all right, lieutenant, take her down. And then
Speaker 1: I'm hilarious mood transition. The Green Slime song comes right
Speaker 1: back in. Ell Vince is dead. We're gonna have decorations
Speaker 1: for this heroic warrior Green Slime. Oh man.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had to check out the ending in the Japanese
Speaker 3: version to see how it differed. And while there's no
Speaker 3: group music because again the Japanese cut doesn't have the
Speaker 3: theme song. The music is still upbeat, and so the
Speaker 3: energy is not drastically different, I would say, but I
Speaker 3: agree in either case, it seems like a strange mood transition,
Speaker 3: like we got to send him home happy, we got
Speaker 3: to send him home up beat, even if the ending
Speaker 3: is really kind of downbeat. I mean, we lost one
Speaker 3: of our three main characters, and you know, the resolution
Speaker 3: for the other two characters is not guaranteed. It's still
Speaker 3: a complex, dramatic situation that they're having to deal with.
Speaker 1: But I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high,
Speaker 1: tore my mind. I'm the jagget Skuy.
Speaker 3: The lyrics to that song could be about this movie.
Speaker 3: Those lyrics make just as much sense in context with
Speaker 3: the Green Slime as anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's all I got on the Green Slime.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, this was a fun one. I enjoyed
Speaker 3: watching and discussing. The Green Slime. Just reminded everyone out
Speaker 3: there that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a
Speaker 3: science podcast with core episodes and the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: Your Mind podcast feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Listener Mail
Speaker 3: on Mondays, a short form Monster Factor artifact on Wednesdays,
Speaker 3: and then on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns
Speaker 3: to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: If you want to keep up with the movies that
Speaker 3: we have covered over the years here for Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: you can go to a couple of places. I blog
Speaker 3: about them at simmutomusic dot com, and also you can
Speaker 3: go to letterbox dot com. That's L E T E
Speaker 3: R B O x D dot com. Our username is
Speaker 3: weird House and you can pull up a nice visual
Speaker 3: listing of all the movies we've covered over the years.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you
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Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
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