Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Attack of the Galactic Monsters

I would have loved this as a kid, I can tell you what!  spaceships, Godzilla, aliens, you name it, it's in here and all at 55 minutes.

I had heard of it before, but having watched it now I am really kind of enjoying it.  it's a mishmash of "Zone Fighter" episodes and the Toho movie "War In Space (1977)" (which improves "War" but doesn't help Zone Fighter).

the quality isn't very good, which makes me wonder when it was made.  obviously in the time of VHS only copies, and a few generations down as well.  pretty sure it's a fan edited movie, though the music has been redone.  pretty sure the dubbing is from the international version of "War".

I had never seen the Garoga Terro-beasts being encapsulated before. how did I miss that in Zone Fighter?  I've watched that show more than once.  it doesn't appear as if Zone Fighter shows up in the "movie", just Godzilla fighting the Terro Beasts.

now we just need some enterprising fan with the skill and knowledge to re-do this with higher quality materials.  it would be a fun little project.

I like it.  it's kind of like getting a new original series Godzilla movie. and that is way better than anything we've gotten in the last 25 years. ps. oh come on, making Zone a badguy?  missing the boat here! not a real surprise, so all the people that hate the fact Godzilla appeared on tv can rejoice now!

5 comments:

C. Elam said...

My feeling is that it was intentionally made to look poor quality. If you're trying to simulate a "TV movie" (as someone was trying to do), you'd try to get something like this. The WAR segments look like they come from a broadcast airing, while the ZONE parts are surely from the bootleg tape market. Though yes, I am sure they are both multi-gen.

My instincts say this is recent, though I don't think it was impossible to pull off in the 1990s. The intercutting of the ZONE footage into the mix makes it look like it would have been a challenge until you get to the film editing software available today.

I was wondering if they were going to incorporate Fighter into their little madness any, so I can't say I was surprised when I saw what they did. I still think editing those episodes together into a "movie" would be better (and make slightly more sense).

THE WAR IN SPACE is definitely a movie that could be improved (and I say this as someone who *likes* it), but I'd hope they would try to do something a little more coherent and linear than this. Like, I used to own a TV copy that only ran about 70 minutes, and the pacing was much improved!

This was OK fun, but I felt that sometimes the anonymous film doctors were just getting too fancy for their own good.

X7 said...

I do like War In Space as well. it's not great, but not nearly as awful as some make it out to be.

I think you are correct about the whole thing. I really would have loved this as a kid.

C. Elam said...

The problem with leaving long comments is that I often visit the Department of Redundancies Department. ;)

I concur that it's really interesting. I just hope this business about it being genuine doesn't get very far. If it does, I might just go ahead and make up a fake review of NESSIE to keep people on their toes. Christopher Lee and Kumi Mizuno in the same movie? Hey, why not?

Danny Coffin said...

I'd always felt that editing the Godzilla(&King Ghidorah)episodes of ''ZONE FIGHTER'' into a movie would've made sense(would've fit right in ,released in between ''G VS MEGALON''&''G VS MECHAGODZILLA''!)So reading about what WAS done is interesting indeed.

X7 said...

would you like a copy Danny? I'll be making some up soon.