Attack of the Galactic Monsters (Review)
Attack of the Galactic Monsters
1983 (Yeah, whatever!)
Directed by Godzilla, probably. Maybe. Just an educated guess!
Attack of the Galactic Monsters is one of two (so far) movies that have popped up recently purporting to be edited for American TV movies (usually attributed to Hawaiian TV if a location is mentioned), the other being Monster King Godzilla. This one popped up on the Archive.org website (!) and is largely a paste job set around the 1977 Toho movie War in Space. UPDATE: It looks like the Archive.org link is now dead. Be sad=( If you though War in Space was too boring and far too long, and had far too much characterization of the cast, this this is the movie for you! It chops out over 2/3rds of War in Space, and inserts footage of Godzilla kicking various monster butts from the TV series Zone Fighter, a tokusatsu series that guest starred Godzilla occasionally.
Both Attack of the Galactic Monsters and Monster King Godzilla have little real information about them. People theorize that they are legit, or they are a hoax, or mention that they may have seen the tapes at bootleg stands at cons. No one has any real proof in any way. If these are a big hoax, someone spent a lot of time on them, including transferring everything to a VHS tape before digitally saving it for the masses on the internet. One thing that is suspicious is there is no obvious gaps for commercials. I had lots of experience taping things off TV as a lad and know what a tape looks like when it’s paused to cut out commercials, and there are none of those artifacts that I can see. It is possible it was taped with commercials intact, but then they were digitally edited out before the upload. It is also possible that this is the master tape so of course there are no commercials. But neither explains the odd running time, 55 minutes is not really a good running time for a tv show with commercials. So who knows? What I know is I got some extra Godzilla flicks to review on here, and that is totally jawesome.
As so much is cut out from the War in Space film to shorten it and add in Godzilla fights, the movie makes little sense. They barely explain any of the characters’ names, and instead rely on you just going with it. So just go with it! I haven’t seen War in Space in like 20 years, so I needed a cheat sheet, but there should be enough info below to let you know what is going on if you have seen the film or not. Basically, in War in Space, aliens invade the Earth and blow the crap out of it. so Captain Takegawa and the flying drill ship the Gotem (design based on Atragon‘s Gotengo ship) goes to the alien planet to blow up some alien jerks. And there is a horned Wookiee with an axe. Go team Let the Wookiee Win!
The other stuff you need to know is about Zone Fighter, Toho’s best known tokusatsu series from the 1970s, where the Zone Family fought the evil Garogas, who attempted to conquer Earth via sending giant monsters. Zone Fighter and sometimes Godzilla would then horribly murder the monsters, until everyone was defeated by being canceled in the middle of the series. This movie uses up most of the Godzilla appearances and barely uses Zone Fighter at all, except for one sequence where he fights Godzilla. Will there be more info on Zone Fighter episodes shortly? Maybe….
People Roll Call!
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Monster Roll Call!
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: fan films, Garaborg, Gigan, Godzilla, Jellar, Jikiro, Kastom Jellar, Ryo Ikebe, Spideros, tokusatsu, Wargilgar, Zandora, Zone Fighter
Monster King Godzilla (Review)
Monster King Godzilla
1980 (yeah, right!)
Directed by Who the Frak Knows!
It’s March of Godzilla 2011, so let’s get right into it with some weirdo Godzilla flicks you probably haven’t heard of!
Monster King Godzilla is a Godzilla movie mashup that is a very truncated version of the movie ESPy mixed with fight scenes of Godzilla from a bunch G flicks randomly inserted. Part of a couple of films (2, really) supposedly from a Hawaiian TV station that edited them for broadcast. Whether or not that is true, I am not convinced at all (this is discussed more in the upcoming Attack of the Galactic Monsters review) but it is probably just a clever fake. Good job trying to make this look like it came from a VHS tape, it might even have been copied onto one. FYI, the title Monster King Godzilla comes from the Japanese name for the 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters recut when it was released in Japan in 1957.
The best piece of research I have found on this is a blog entitled Monster King Godzilla that has one post, entitled Monster King Godzilla, that is just a scan of the supposed VHS jacket the bootleg is from with the same text you see everywhere. Huzzah!
Here is the text that accompanied this film:
“Very rare Godzilla film made for Hawaiin TV in 1980 by Filmways TV USA, 99% stock footage and a bizare wrap around plot involving physic powers make this a very strange film. AVI is from a VHS purchased at the Chiller Theatre convention in the mid 90s. I have never found any record of this film anywhere else.”
Ignoring all the misspellings, either this guy purchased what is probably a hoax and released it himself, or he just made up this story after creating the hoax and is feigning ignorance about the film ESPy.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter, as this is a frakked up Godzilla film so we’re gonna review it for March of Godzilla 2011!
First of all, since ESPy is used as a template for all the Godzilla mashup footage, let’s take a brief look at the 1975 Toho ESP/spy flick. It was part of their “mutants” series of films, back when Toho was making wacked out 1970s films that are rather freaky to watch today. The UN sets up an organization called Espy filled with psychics and ESP people, to stop a group called Counter Espy, who are evil psychics and ESP people. Why Counter Espy is named first I have no idea, having not seen the film, but I am guessing because they are psychic! Being psychic probably explains all sorts of plot problems with ESPy. How convenient! Counter Espy tries to kill the Prime Minster of Baltonia:
Prime Minster of Baltonia
Espy stops them, and newbie Espy agent Jiro Miki (Masao Kusakari), his dog Cheetah, veteran Espy agent Yoshio Tamura (Hiroshi Fujioka), and girl Espy agent Maria Harada (Kaoru Yumi) must do battle with the evil Counter Espy leader Ulrov/Wolf (Tomisaburo Wakayama) to save the world from evil people who have special powers. No heads explode, which is a failing of the ESPy series, all one entries in it. Jun Fukuda directed this film along with War in Space, the other source film used in a Godzilla Mashup.
Godzilla flicks used in this film include
Godzilla vs. Megalon
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Revenge of Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs. Gigan
There are lots of quick edits and huge portions of ESPy is skipped as the film moves in in order to throw in all the Godzilla footage. So there will probably be some vary confusing things mentioned in the plot section, but it is accurate. Having not seen ESPy, I was at an even worse advantage, but I persevered because I’m awesome. You can be awesome too, all you need to do is read this review!
Who cares about the crappy humans, it’s Monster Roll Call!
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Anguirus, fan films, Gigan, Godzilla, Hedorah, King Caesar, King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Megalon, Titanosaurus
Incognito Cinema Warriors XP – Episode 1 – Bride of the Gorilla (Review)
Incognito Cinema Warriors XP – Episode 1 – Bride of the Gorilla
2008Official Site
Directed by Brandon Scott, Ryan P. Davis, and Rikk Wolf
Created by Rikk Wolf, Rob Atwell, and Kyle Chestnut
A dual review! Yes, TarsTarkas.NET attempts to get creative and review both a fantastic fan-series episode of Incognito cinema Warriors XP and the movie they riff on, Bride of the Gorilla! Will we succeed? Or will we just alienate our audience because there are no boobs in this movie? And what role will former President Taft serve? Find out all of this in the Dual Review, starting……NOW!
Incognito Cinema Warriors XP is a fan series produced in Kansas City, Missouri, that launched in 2008. For the two of you who read bad movie websites and have no idea, there was a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 that riffed on bad movies, thus Incognito Cinema Warriors XP tries to follow in the footsteps of the greatest show that was ever made. No, not Salute Your Shorts! MST3K! Why else would I bring it up? Geez… So we have the same formula (one dude, two bots, evil scientist, awful movies, zombies) Okay, the zombies are different, because the plot is slightly altered. ICWXP has produced several episodes (three have been released as of this writing, with a few shorts and two more episodes in various stages of productions.) The production values are top notch, the kinds of things you want to see from a fan film. Their official site has downloads and wallpapers and images and stuff. There is also a secret section that will mail you 50 pounds of gold if you find it! Except that secret section probably doesn’t exist.
So the basic run-down of the show’s plot is: In an undisclosed Midwestern city (Kansas City), CORPS (Command of Re-Animate Processing and Suppression) fights zombies, but they all die except Commander Rikk Wolf, who ducks into the Cine-A-Sorrow Theater to hide out. There, he encounters two wise-cracking worker droids – Topsy-Bot 5000 and Johnny Cylon – and the trio is soon being threatened by the theater’s mad scientist owner Dr. Harrison Blackwood, who traps them in Theater 6 and forces them to watch his crappy movies. Because otherwise, Dr. Blackwood will open the doors and in come the zombies! So the riffing begins as the movies roll, mixed in with the required host segments. ICWXP promises that there will be a larger post-apocalyptic plot as the series continues, but as this is a fan series it can go in any direction. Looking ahead, they already have cast changes like most fan productions.
But first the Roll Call!
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Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 209 – Worst Fears Part I
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 209 – Worst Fears Part I
2001 Official Site
Directed by Risha Denney
Not a cliffhanger! I don’t think I can wait another year to… Oh, wait, I don’t have to since the entire show is finished. That’s the power of procrastination! Laziness wins again. You can’t fight the lazy, because it won’t bother to show up to the boxing ring.
This is the end of Season 2, and what a magical ride it’s been. We had characters leave, die, and disappear. We’ve had new characters show up. We have the Grey invading multiple times. We got people with big ears. We got improved makeup effects. We got alternate universes and flashbacks. We even have Chimp Guy! Thus, it is the best season yet. But let’s get this episode out of the way!
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Guest Star Roll Call
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: fan films, Star Trek, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 208 – Cowards Death
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 208 – Cowards Death
2001 Official Site
Directed by Jennifer Cole
How dare you call me a coward??? I’ll kick your butt all the way to imploded Vulcan!
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Guest Star Roll Call
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: fan films, Star Trek, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 207 – Fire in the Heart
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 207 – Fire in the Heart
2001 Official Site
Directed by Dave Mason
Forget your Faith of the Heart, I got Fire in the Heart! Fire! Fire! That’s cool!. We have secret kids and things borrowed from a Next Generation episode. Plus a character’s hair is still obviously dyed. Which one? Well, figure it out! Do I have to do all the work for you? Pretend it’s a Slylock Fox or something. TarsTarkas.NET is promoting personal responsibility.
Speaking of personal responsibility, also guess which major character wasn’t being very responsible as to where he was sticking his p-due without a rubber raincoat! I hope he doesn’t get Space AIDS, which is like regular AIDS except aliens burst from your chest.
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Guest Star Roll Call
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Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: fan films, mad monkey time, Star Trek, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
