In 1978, the world was priveleged to witness Kinji's own hommage a starwars, Message from Space. I'm sure production began in the days that followed the initial theatrical release of Star Wars in 1977, in order to cash in on the goldmine that George Lucas had unearthed. Much to its merit, Message from Space included Sonny Chiba, right off the set of Son of Street Fighter or whatever crap he was producing that year...
The plot starts with a vague resemblance of a certain jedi movie, but has several subtle differences before veering off into the canyon of no return. Initially, the planet of Jillucia is under attack by the evil Gavanas, an army of storm troopers with masks and capes and "laser swords", and as a last resort, King Kaiba sends out eight Liabe holy seeds to find willing warriors to liberate the Jillucian people. I remember dubbing these "space nuts" as characters started recovering these glowing walnuts everywhere.
Now, granted the "messages" weren't stored in the memory banks of a droid, but his daughter is princess Meia. Also, Sonny Chiba plays "Hans" and the leader of the Garvanas is the unrelenting General Garuda, who chases the Jillucians off in their tall ships that fly through space.
However, "Hans" is the "jedi" in this tale, the only warrior capable of facing off with General Garuda. The rogue ex-military type in this movie is played by Vic Morrow, who is followed around by his droid, one that resembles Expo Ernie (8 years later). The best scene is where Vic has completely given up all hope of ever stopping the galactic empire of the Garvanas and retreats to the cantina where Expo Ernie flails his arms around screaming "No more booze! No more booze!"...then...lo and behold...Vic finds a space nut in his ale!
Here's Vic and his little buddy.
How it is that Joel Hodgson and the gang missed this classic in the 10 seasons of MST3K, I'll never know. It's a genuinely easy target...maybe they felt it was too easy...but that would rule out "This island earth".
-Duke
No comments:
Post a Comment