Friday, March 6, 2015

The Twin Nutts Planets

There's a little known Ultra show called Andros Melos.  Well, perhaps lesser known is a better title for it.  It ran in five minute increments and was shot on video in 1981 (at least according to Wiki).  It tied in a bit with The Ultraman Story, but you wouldn't know at first look they were Ultra Warriors due to the armor that's being worn.  Seems like Tsuburaya was ahead of that particular curve by about 15 years.  I really dislike over-armored superheroes these days.  It's a fun little series, full of action and monsters and I would watch it if the whole thing was subtitled (I have the first two episodes fansubbed).

Anyway, some of the names used are a bit funny, as the screen capture here can attest to, since the Andros warriors are going to the Twin Nutts planets to find out who attacked one of their party in the first episode.    Seems like one of the Nutts is bigger than the other one, and definitely hangs to the left.

For such an early shot on video series, the effects are very well done, with sets and chroma-key.  There are also practical effects such as explosions when the animated rays are used (sparingly).  With a small budget, that leaves more room for physical fight scenes, which may be why the Magma Seijin are used as villains, since they are very humanoid like the Ultras.

Good stuff here.

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