The Jupiter Menace

this was quite a movie. I was glued to my television from start to finish. I don't think my eyes left the set. I have always been a George Kennedy fan and this film confirmed that love. The director was at the top of his game, and the script was flawless, it never slows. It is a rollercoaster of conspiracy and intrigue that even those that do not belive that there will one day be an apocalypse will walk away wondering. "Are we alone?", "Is there alien intteligence?", " is the bible right in its predictions?" all these questions and more will be answered once you've seen this film. I recommend this film to everyone and urge you to go rent it today, you won't be disappointed!

And it just gets better with age, The Music is so bad it's good, the acting is so bad it's good and the plot....well. it seems that it was put together by a random plot generator, or rather a random conspiracy generator. The start is promising enough, some nice model work, a cool synthesizer re-working of Holst's Mars the bringer of war, a pre-credit sequence where some guy gets his heart cut out. Then George Kennedy pops up in a safari suit and it all goes to pot. The Bible prophecies? Emerging science? Psychics the world over? What does it all mean and what does it have to do with Jupiter and why is it so menacing? I don't think it's a spoiler to say, you never find out. A quasi biblical scene seems to arrive from another movie, not actually an account from any part of the bible but an amalgam of a few with a nameless prophet and a craven idol, it seems to be making a point….but you never find out what that might be. Then George comes back to tell us about more biblical prophecy that probably won't come true…..then oh then….The guy who programmed the bible into this Micro-bee and then the computer told him that the world would end, by an earthquake, so cool. I must say that the planet fly-bys are very good especially for the time. Worth watching if just for the Psychic's moustache and the amazing prediction and simulation of an earthquake in a computer….before that was possible.

One hopes that George Kennedy was either well paid or was unaware of the full intent of those behind "The Jupiter Menace." In his defense, Kennedy appears only a few times throughout this "documentary" and doesn't embarrass himself to any great extent. Among the crop of Bigfoot, Bermuda Triangle, and UFO "documentaries" made in the 1970s and into the '80s, "Jupiter Menace" is a real gem. The film reveals its dire message that an alignment of planets in the, then near future, 1982 will start a period of turmoil on Earth that will reach its peak in 2000 causing a basic end of the world as we know it. The film is a prime example of this silly scare genre and includes goofy re-enactments and interviews with "experts" that are taking facts from Bible prophecy and/or psychic visions. Certainly more amusing today, now that we've passed all the dates foretold in the movies as being doomsday, this movie will entertain those curious. Particularly fun is the near-guarantee given by nearly everyone interviewed in the film that May 5th, 2000 is the certain end of the happy existence we've enjoyed on planet Earth. Also fun and equally frightening are the interviews with survivalists in the Ozarks and Illinois that are preparing to survive the deadly days ahead of us all in the 1980s. One must wonder, where are those folks now??? Sadly, they're likely still packed away in a bunker somewhere! :)

My review was written in June 1984 after watching the film on Thorn EMI video cassette.

Made in 1981, "The Jupiter Menace" is a gee-whiz, scare documentary elaborating on the basic premise that our world will come to an end in December 1982 when the planetary alignment fulfills various prophecy by psychics, prophets and scientists foretelling doom. Since things still are running smoothly, theatrically unreleased docu is vaguely reassuring to watch on video cassette, though it promises another truly devastating cataclysm by the year 2000.

Boasting top-notch special effects, model work and computer animation by experts such as an underground filmmaker Scott Bartlett (who previously contributed to "American Graffiti" and "Altered States"), "Menace basically resembles the numerous goofball docus cranked out a decade ago by Sunn Classics and others to intrigue credulous audiences lured by hardsell ads and booked on a four-wall basis. Actor George Kennedy walks the viewer through an assortment of theories that forecast cataclysmic upheavals on Earth in the near future. Filmmakers chea by interchangeably mixing real scientists and psychics with actors pretending to be "real' in their equally unconvincing explanations of why (and how) the Earth's poles are suddenly going to shift, plunging us into an instant ice age, or some such other quack notion.

An interesting segment midway spotlights on various groups of "survivalists", those friendly folks (spoofed i the 1983 Robin Williams flo film "The Survivors" who seem to have memorized Ray Milland's 1962 film "Panic in Year Zero" and are busily arming themselves in the belief that protection against one's fellow man is the best way to handle an impending natural disaster. The Stelle Community near Chicago, repped on screen by technical expert Tim Wilhelm, are the type of people who would heartily endorse Dr. Strangelove's plans enumerated in the 1963 Stanley Kubrick film of that name, rather than recognize them as satire or a cautionary message. Lest one conclude that they are on the right track, please note these folks are planning to build 2-3,000 airships (for completion by the year 1999) in which to hover above the Earth until it is safe to land again, at which future time they will form a new post-Apocalyptic community called "Philadelphia".

A bit more frightening are the people of Zarephath Hoeb community in the Ozarks, who believe they're on a mission from God and stress war games and violent self-defense training. They mirror the existence of thousands of "normal' people who attend weekly military exercises, probably having overdosed on too many World War III movies which inevitably feature that cliched scene of looters and nasty neighbors who will invade your hard-earned bomb shelter if you aren't ready to shoot them down.

Since the film's exec producers, Peter Davis and William Panzer, made the film "St. Helens" in 1980, there is footage of the volcano erupting and mucho boring predictions of super-earthquakes worldwide. A computer simulation of a 12-point (Richter scale) earthquake is thoroughly unconvincing, as is a cheapo look at a video display purportedly showing us a flat topped sunken pyramid 40 miles off the Florida coast.

For those who desperately want to believe in his nonsense, the next super conjunction of planets is due to occur May 5, 2000. If you thought the world ended in 1982, wait till you see what happens to it 16 years from now.

If you like watching UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, IN SEARCH OF series with Leonard Nimoy, or these kind of shows seen on TLC, you'll probably like THE JUPITER MENACE. The events they say will occur never happened in real life but that doesn't mean the film doesn't contain some interesting bits of information or ideas, most of which have been widely copied ever since. Because of the overall familiarity of the subject, I'd say that TJM is probably the most ripped-off movies of all time. And yet, few people know about it. It is very obscure.

Best-selling author Graham Hancock and his books about ancient civilizations predicting the end of the world, world wide cataclysmic events, the poles shifting, Antarctica, etc, basically took his ideas from this pseudo-documentary. Seriously, Hancock became a millionaire by little or no research. He just watched THE JUPITER MENACE.

Anyway, I love watching obscure movies and this one is really obscure. I only heard about this 20 year old movie in the past couple of weeks. I always keep an open mind with these kind of pseudo-scientific films. It's always easy for me to overlook the silly stuff and simply keep the really interesting ideas. And THE JUPITER MENACE does have a lot of interesting things about it amidst the goofier stuff. Also, on a sociological level, it's an interesting time capsule. I didn't regret buying the video on eBay.