L'astronave fantasma

Gather round the campfire, children, and listen to the story of the great Space Chief!! Who sucked. He rode around in a bumpy car that, when lit on fire, sent him into space. But enough about me, let's talk about the children!! They were the real heroes here and the next time some crazy dj-aliens with records stuck to their heads come through the electro-barrier, I'm hoping those kids'll be around to get into level 5 security areas and figure that baby out all on their own. Cause goshdarnit, they've done it before.

The best way to see this movie is on Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you have ever watched MST 3000, you know that the MST crew take some of the worst movies ever made and make them fun. Along with the movie you get a running commentary of smart remarks, and references, that you would make if you had to see the movie and you couldn't get your money back! If you have not seen MST 3000, I think it is still on the Sci Fi channel. If not watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie. If bad movies are one of your guilty pleasures you will enjoy the movie MST style.

Remember "Prince of Space"? MST3K # 816? Okay. This is basically a remake of that. Instead of Prince of Space, though, we get Space Chief, another effeminent, hopping hero. Instead of the chicken-men of Krankor, we get mute, bullet-headed robots who have trouble walking and fall down at the tiniest hint of danger. And instead of two annoying, gravely voiced, tiny-shorts-wearing kids we get SIX annoying, gravely voiced, tiny-shorts-wearing kids. Slow the whole thing down, add lots of scenes of Japanese people talking in poorly lit rooms, and actual war footage instead of special effects, and you've got one of the worse movies ever made. I know that phrase is over-used and has little or no impact anymore, but this movie really is almost unbearable. It's amazing! It's joyless, depressing, AND technically inept!

Enjoy the Hitler building.

I had the rare privilege of seeing this movie in three of its incarnations: the first being on MST3k, the second being a dubbed US version on tape, and the third being a very rare uncut laserdisk version of the film in the original Japanese. And after seeing this film in all three of its mediums, I must say that it still sucks no matter how you look at it. Everything in this film is just....wrong. The acting, the directing, the kids in little shorts, and of course let us not forget the stock footage featuring the famous "Hitler Building". But if you thought that the US dubbed version was bad (which is what most people have probably seen), well then you'll probably go blind watching the original uncut Japanese version. At least whichever American company that bought the rights from TOEI to feature this film in America had the good sense to cut out the little sing-a-long Mr. Tabana and his children do at the end of the film, praising the bravery of Iron Sharp (a.k.a. Space Chief, or Chef, or whatever) in bad harmony. Too bad they didnt show that on MST3K.

All in all, the movie does have a good point, that being its so bad, its almost funny. Other than that, if your looking for a more serious Japanese Sci-Fi film, then Prince of Space might be a better choice.

Where to begin? The soap-bubble thin plot? The lame "hero"? The annoying little kids? The repetitive and strafing footage filled battles? I honestly don't know. This film fails on so many levels, you can't really pinpoint what makes it the horror that it is. I don't think Mike and the Bots were even able to cover half the bad points that occured in the movie. The plot in the movie seems to continuosly go around in circles, with the evil bulletheaded aliens appearing, the scientists trying to look worried, the children in hot pants running, and Space Chief coming to the rescue. Sometimes we can't be sure exactly what is going on; all we know is that it's bad. So it comes to the final "climactic" battle, blah blah, the bad guys are defeated after a lengthy missile sequence, yadda yadda, and you're just glad it's over.