PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 73

A bit ago Sperhauk mentioned a science fiction show I didn't remember ever hearing about. He'd read that there were some stop motion animation critters in Jason of Star Command and knew that there were copies of the series at Half Price books for cheap. I went over to take a look and found that there were three series in the set. I had no sense, and a coupon, and got 15% off the ten buck price. $9.15 (icluding tax) for three tv series. That's a reasonable price, maybe. Jason of Star Command is a 1978 Filmation series that was spun out of the previous years Space Academy. Those two are packed in the box set along with ARK II. All those shows appeared in saturday morning time slots which here in the USA are mostly aimed at the younger crowd. Jason of Star Command was released in it own set in 2007 for $29.95. It was repackaged with the other previous two Filmation series just over a year later for the same price. It this sort of thing that is making me wait on so many video's. Mind you I wouldn't have picked these up for their original price in the first place but for $3.05 a show it's not like wasting more than a bag of candy.

    
 
That's the first season cast in the picture on the right. James Doohan, you know that guy from old Star Trek, played The Commander in the first season then left to film the first ST movie. John Russell played the role in the second season. The tall guy next to James is Jason and he's played by Craig Littler. The space gal in the orange suit is Susan Pratt who was only on the series for the first season. Charlie Dell played Professor Parsafoot, who looks rather like a Centari from Babylon 5. He's the human comic relief machine. There are two robot comic relief machines, one of which gets reprogrammed for EVIL! That little guy there is W1K1, pronounced Wiki. He sounds remarkably like R2D2 with all his beeps and boops. He gained an english speaking voice and a new body in the second season. He can fly and seems to have the only portable laser. Mostly Star Command types use a freeze ray to immobilize the criminals. They are rather non-violent.

 

It was the most expensive children's show of the time and it still looks cheezy. It was shot fast and a lot of the people on it were new at their craft. There isn't much acting going on and some of the dialog is amazingly lame. There isn't much to the two season story ark, it's really a long drawn out battle between the main villian Dragos, played by cult film icon Sid Haig, and all the folk at Star Command. Sid is pretty entertaining, yelling and grinning all the time. Their epic battle starts in the first season when the show was a series of short 15 minute episodes that ran on the Tarzan and the Super 7 program. There were 16 cliffhanger style episodes. The second season the show got it's own half hour time slot. They did 12 episodes and folded up. It scores a 7.2 on the IMDb but there are only 84 votes. I wouldn't give it a score that high. It mostly entertaining in a goofy kid friendly way.  

 
There are three commentaries on the show, and a nice interview featurette, I enjoyed those as much or more than the series. The cast and crew seemed to have enjoyed making the series and they had fond memories of the people they worked with. There are a few stills and production photos. It's not the sort of thing that I would buy after I have seen it but that's the chance you take. I'll check out Space Academy next week.

7569 Desert Attack

 

I waited to pick up the Prince of Persia sets until they arrived at the LEGO Imagination Center in the Mall of America so I could take advantage of my VIP card. It's not much of a return but it's something. I was interested in the POP sets. They have some neat minifig costumes and accessories. The horse is nicely printed and the saddle is sand blue. I like that color. Dastan has a new twin sword scabbard on his back. People are gonna love that and the hand claws that the other guys sportin'.

   

There's a nice spikey bush in dark tan. Another part people will appreciate. There will be more of them in the Harry Potter set The Burrow coming out in the fall. The skeleton is the old style with the floppy arms. I always liked those guys. There's a new sword, the Shamshir with a square guard. It looks a lot like the Katana. There's a new hair for the hero. Most of the rest of the set is pretty useful, some tan pieces, dark brown spears, a couple of jewels, that Keffiyeh headpiece, all will come in handy, as do these nice pictures from Bricklink.

 

Friday Night Movies 266

Joe brought Bitch Slap; a 2009 movie directed by Rory Jacobson who co-wrote the movie with Eric Gruendemann. Both of those guys worked on the Hercules and Xena tv series of several years ago. Not too surprizingly the stars of the tv shows have cameos in the movie. Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Conner appear briefly as nuns and Kevin Sorbo appears in 3 or 4 scenes before and after he's found dead in a remote desert location. Michael Hurst, who has a real part with a title credit and everything, plays a criminal in a glittery jockstrap and a robe that won't stay closed. He also winds up dead in a remote desert location which is where most of the movie is filmed. It's one of the only real locations in the film, most everything else is a CGI set, some of which look pretty fakey. Some gals are riding out to that same remote desert location to get some diamonds from Michael. He's safely trussed up in the trunk of their car. They pop the lid, let him out, and start kickin' his near bare ass. Soon he's dead by the hand of a pill poppin', temper flarin', not thinkin' bit of trouble and they don't know where the diamonds are. That won't keep Michael out of the film as the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks. There are a lot of them and a lot of that jock strap. There's double cross after double cross and most of the characters come to a bad end. At it's heart it's just a simple story but there are so many flashbacks and film tricks getting in the way of the telling. The film makers spend too much time in slow motion, alternating with some fast motion, and lots of jump cuts to fill in the gaps. At 108 minutes it's just too long, it might work better if it was about 90 minutes long and really worked the core of the movie. Robbery and revenge are enough. It's supposed to be an homage to the exploitation films of the 60's and 70's but it's just not that entertaining with it's knowing winks. It was certainly losing our interest and there isn't even any nudity. Not that any of us were voting to see those fake booby havin' bimbos of out their kit. Luckily Michael keeps his jock strap on. Another one bites the dust.

Sperhauk picked up a Sonny Chiba three movie dvd set that had Golgol 13: Assignment Kowloon as one of it's selections. We hope to check out the others before too long. Golgo 13 or Duke Togo is a Japanese Manga character who's an assassin. Golgo 13: Kûron no kubi is a 1977 Japanese movie adaptaion with Sonny Chiba. He plays Golgo 13 with his stone face stare turned on full blast. He's got some great eyebrows. He likes killing guys, from a long distance away, with a really high powered rifle. There's a new assignment, kill some business man with crime connections. The cops want the crooked business man too but he's to well connected. Some lady pops the guy before Sonny has a chance to finish work. He takes up her trail and kills her when she attacks him. Sonny gets another assignment. Kill some diplo guy. The cops, sure that Sonny killed the business guy, chase after him. He kicks their asses. He kicks the asses of some criminals and saves the life of a hooker who lives on a boat. Now there are more people chasing after him. There's a lot of running around, often in cars, and some fights. None of which really stand out. Between the faster bits there are some slower bits which aren't as interesting. I did like seeing all the different Asian locations and buildings from back in the 70's. Mike said he's going to be staying at a hotel across the street from a temple we were seeing in the movie. The film makers make some interesting choices for scenes and shots. That's code for WTF were they thinking. The production value is low, the acting mostly poor and the script weak at best. It wasn't so awful that I had to run screaming from the room and I'm glad I've seen it. I've seen the like from Asia many times and there are better hitman movies both from Asia and the rest of the world. Try The Killer, or Leon, or Collateral Damage, or The Big Hit. I could go on. Hopefully the other two Sonny movies in the set are more entertaining.

Fireball XL5

 
Sperhauk sent me a link to a video over on YouTube. It's by some computer guy who's taken the ships and sets from the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson TV show Fireball XL5, created CGI models of them, and then added some music to create a tribute to the original show. The video is in color and it's rather cool. Fun to watch. I like the headquarter building, all tall with wings, like a totem pole.

 
The 1962 show was in black and white and puppets were the actors. Not an attractive bunch let me tell you. And the eyebrows, man, they are something. I used to watch this show. I can't remember a thing about it. There were 39 episodes and you can buy them on dvd. The series was about a ship, the Fireball XL5, which was commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of World Space Patrol. That's their head quarters below with the XL5 ready to blast off to some adventure on a different planet each week.

 
The Anderson's did a lot of that sort of show under the Supermarionation brand. Thunderbirds, SuperCar, Joe 90 and later UFO with real people. I watched most of them when they were new to the world and haven't really wanted to go back and see them again even though I have become somewhat nostalgic about TV from the 50's and 60's.