Time of the Apes

For about the last week, I've been watching the KTMA episodes of MST3K. tonights episode was this, er, masterpiece. Let see what we have so far-- Humans in nothing but ape heads that aren't even finished around the neck. Then we have the apes driving 1970 era pontiacs, jeeps and toyotas. They also use weapons. but with all of the cars, guns and other technology they show no evidence of any industrial production capabilities.

It is clear that this piece of junk was edited from more then several episodes of a series. The editing is so abrupt that it startled me at one point. I can only assume that the series is equally confusing and poorly produced. This movie was done twice by MST3K. First on KTMA and again in (I think) season 3. Both versions are unreleased but are available from mst3kvideos.com.

A Japanese tv series is cut apart and put together to form this semblance of a movie. Obviously a "Planet of the Apes" rip-off, the movie seems the end about 3 different times, Each more dragged out than the last. The apes are also dressed in bizarre Colonel Sanders-style clothing. As a dubbed movie it's hard to comment on the acting, but the "film" is edited so poorly that the plot is nearly incomprehensible to follow. More of an oddity than a purely terrible movie.

TIME OF THE APES (known as "Sara no gundan" in its native Japan) is a shoddily-produced sci-fi/fantasy yarn apparently edited from an unaired television series. I would say that it's trying to cash in on the success of PLANET OF THE APES, except that it was made about twenty years too late.

The pretentiously overcomplicated storyline involves a woman and two children who accidentally freeze themselves in cryogenic chambers (that's right-- they *ACCIDENTALLY* freeze themselves!) and are transported to an unknown period of time where hostile apes rule. Several ludicrous, time-wasting subplots seem to pop up out of nowhere, mostly involving imprisonment, booby traps, and flying saucers. Trying to actually make sense of the onscreen bedlam is a useless and unrewarding task, so just sitting back and enjoying the silly costumes and awful dubbing is highly recommend.

Fortunately, TIME OF THE APES is extremely difficult to come across (only bootlegs and out-of-print VHS transfers exist in the US), but if you ever get the chance to see it featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, you're in for a real treat. It has got to be one of the funniest episodes ever.

This film is very boring and somewhat confusing. It centers around a woman, a kid, and an "Indiana Jones" type character named Johnny. They are cryogenically frozen and awaken in a land of where apes rule the world. (Sound familiar?) Well of course they are captured by the apes and Johnny (who acts like a complete jerk) tries to free them, etc... The movies only interesting character is a young monkey who helps the humans, and even the monkey is annoying. The only way this movie should be seen is along with the *Mystery Science Theater 3000* gang. The episode, number 306, appeared in their third season and was hilarious.

This was appalling. My neighbour made me watch it and believe me I begged him to turn it off!

What have we got here? A totally disjointed Japanese-made film poorly dubbed into English.

Nothing really made sense and to be honest I have no idea what the thing was about, except to say a woman and some annoying kids get trapped in an alternate reality where apes rule the planet. (No, I didn't seen Charlton Heston ride past crying, "You maniacs, you blew it up!")

It's so bad, I recommend you get a copy for when unwanted visitors drop by. "Yeah, sure you can come in. I'm watching Time of The Apes. Take a seat!" Guaranteed they will leave within 15 minutes!

As a matter of fact, I'm looking for a copy of this film myself.