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