Destination Planet Negro

Silly but warm story about sometimes chilling subject matter. Historical figures from the history of black people in the US, from the time of emancipation until the time of President Obama, time-travel to historical periods other than the periods they actually lived in. Makes for humorous confusion and an enjoyable movie. If you name is O'Bama you are probably Irish, no? There is a name for the story-telling technique of putting a person from one place or time in the environment of another place or time. Whatever the technique is called - that's the technique that was used here.

This is a silly movie that has a few interesting ideas behind it. It is performed by B actors with B production values, but the funny concept holds it together despite these two big drawbacks. The writing and dialogue are far better than the action and direction. This is sort of a black version of Monty Python, where reality has very little to do with what you are watching, but the reality of underlying themes are extremely realistic and meaningful. The only difference between the two approaches is the acting and comedic ability of the cast; and obviously this cast, while giving it the old college try, can not match up against Monty Python.

DPN is a well directed and acted allegory of Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa movement. Filmed in color over black & white, it is full of fantastic culture shifts and pay-back allusions, Planet Negro is a very inspired and well thought out contribution to the genre. I took a star off for some slight continuity problems.

Enjoyable satire of race in America, told as a spoof of 1950's science fiction B-movies.

I saw this twice in the studio in Kansas where a lot of the filming was done. I liked it. Laughed numerous times. Learned stuff.

No budget, but good script, good story, decent to good acting, and pleasant low-budge rockets and special effects.

The story is of W. E. B. DuBois and other prominent African-Americans deciding in 1939 that the only way to solve the race problem in America is for black people to colonize Mars. They plan to make it the Negro Planet. Scouts are sent on a rocket (with radioactive peanut fuel designed by George Washington Carver) to explore, but they fall into a time warp and end up in our contemporary America.

The explorers have various off-beat adventures showing how race relations have improved in some ways but remained toxic in other ways.

Some of the scenes should have been cut to serve the story, but evidently director/writer/actor Willmott decided to place commentary over story at times.

One of my favorite lines was a little throw-away remark when one of the explorers was told that the N-word has been taken out of Huckleberry Finn, because the N-word is so offensive.

The pilot says something to effect that he finds slavery more offensive, and yet you left that part in.

A lot of scenes in the movie show the weird relationship between the way we talk about race and the realities of race.

Other parables and allegories like that throughout. Definitely worth an hour and a half of your time. Reminded me a little of The Brother from Another Planet. It's funny and a think-piece.