Crash of Moons

I do like watching the classic serials of the 1940s and '50s what with their constant two-fisted action scenes and cliffhangers, although I'd never experienced the delights of ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER previously. CRASH OF MOONS is an example of three episodes of the popular TV series being stitched together to make a single movie.

And boy, is it a dog. It's a drawn out sci-fi movie that drags along in the doldrums for the entire running time, featuring a plot so slight that it barely holds the viewer's attention. The tale is about the titular pair of moons that have been sent out of orbit and are on a collision course with an inhabited planet. Rocky and his team (including a woman, a kid, and a bizarre old professor guy who might as well sit around smoking a pipe) go to help them evacuate, but the planet's stupid queen wants nothing to do with it.

I associate these kinds of serial and TV shows with plenty of action and excitement, but CRASH OF MOONS is sorely lacking in that department. There are lots and lots of shots of spaceships landing and docking in which the ships look like they've been drawn on the screen or perhaps animated with a piece of cardboard. Even worse, there are only a couple of fight scenes, and attempts to generate any kind of suspense fall flat. The queen and her people are so unlikeable and stupid in behaviour that you wish the moons would crash on to them and kill them all. Add in a stolid hero and cheap production values and you have CRASH OF MOONS, an entirely dated sci-fi outing.

Excellent entertainment value when viewed as the MST3K version! Everyone is a hoot, and John Banner appears in a rare serious role as the ruler of one of the doomed planets. Don't forget to send a Bannergram. Oh, and don't forget to watch Manhunt in Space, as well.

Crash of Moons isn't half bad. Considering that it was an MST experiment, you're tendency is to brace for the worst, especially considering it falls into that dreaded 50s-era space movie.

The plot is quite evident and the characters are engaging. Rocky Jones is a take-charge, aggressive, and well-meaning character who made James T. Kirk possible a generation later. Miss Ray, whose mini-skirted character is constrained by 1950s perception of women, comes off well. Despite her character being rather hamstrung, she manages to breathe life into the role and lessens the effect. "Winky", on the other hand, is an annoying character who would have been the first to die had he been in either a 80s slasher flick or the original Star Trek series.

Be willing to suspend your disbelieve with respect to the scientific end of the story. But don't let that get in the way of enjoying a good rainy Saturday afternoon movie.

Sterno says sign up for a mission with Rocky Jones.

Had this been a 1940s Sci-Fi serial, there would be no question about its place in sci-fi cinematic history. Instead, Crash of Moons - an assemblage of episodes from the 1954 Rocky Jones TV series - sits firmly in the 1950s sci-fi schlock category. Crash of Moons, and the rest of the Rocky Jones adventures, has a very strong serial feel to it, and is enjoyable for many of the same reasons the 1940s serials are still entertaining. For info on the original 1954 series from which this comes, see http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0046639/

Jones (Richard Crane) is a space-ship captain who flies around the solar system with his improbably named navigator "Winky" (played by the ill-fated child prodigy Scotty Beckett) representing the United Worlds - an interplanetary political entity which has a very strong resemblance to Star Trek's federation. In Crash of Moons, Jones and Winky find themselves trying to deal with a pair of "gypsy moons" whose eccentric orbit is going to collapse, destroying them both. Of course, both moons are inhabited (I assume, by people who do not require consistent sunlight, food, energy sources, and an atmosphere), and one is presided over by dictator Cleolanta (Patty Parsons). Jones has a number of support personnel - an elderly science professor, The United Worlds' Secretary of Space, a lovely and smart young woman, and a child prodigy. They all pool their resources to avert the crisis, but Cleolanta has other plans.

Star Trek fans will find more than the United Worlds concept interesting - the Rocky Jones series also consistently cast women in positions of considerable power and responsibility - a bold move for 1950s TV.

The special effects are not at all bad for their time. Mostly, the effects involve miniatures and some creative imagery which merely suggest what they are meant to represent, but the effects scenes are all sewn and filmed together in a surprisingly classy way. The cinematography and directing are quite good for early TV.

The script is predictably silly, very inventively deploys technobabble, and has nothing whatsoever to do with science, or even real technology. It is therefore what one might expect had Star Trek Voyager been produced in the 1950s by the same writing team which created it in the 1990s.

The acting is serviceable for its intent - family TV viewing. Characterization is a bit light - even for heroes Jones and Winky - but this is not surprising since the film is really just an excerpt from a TV series.

I heartily recommend Crash of Moons for those interested in Sci-Fi TV history and B film addicts. Keep what this is intended to be in mind and keep your expectations low, and you just might have a good time with it!

Being familiar with Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, I was confused as to what this was exactly. It seems like back in the early 1950's, there were several films released that were just compilations of TV episodes. Was this the first ever TV movie? I can't find any earlier ones! Anyway, I'm glad I didn't need to be familiar with the show to understand this. Then again, I mostly didn't care. I honestly didn't think Bobby was that annoying. It's still a bad movie, mostly because of how boring it is.

The basic plot is that two moons are about to collide and the people on them must be evacuated. Like most cheesy B-movies of this time, its main fault is that it's just too boring. The action scenes look as fake as ever. I guess I like the idea of an ongoing story, but it amounts to very little in the end. This was certainly an old shame for the first days of TV. Even back then, we had our fair share of bad shows. *1/2