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The Butterfly
Tornado Alley
This review may contain spoilers
Puk! Puk! Puk! Puk! Super Chicken!
Before men landed on the moon in real life, people were headed to Mars in The X from Outer Space. The previous missions to Mars had ended in disaster when UFOs from Mars or Venus diverted or destroyed the Earth ships. AAB Gamma aka Astro Boat had strapping Capt. Sano at the helm which meant the aliens didn't know what they were in for or maybe being constantly distracted by two women, he didn't.
Capt. Sano, Lisa, Miyamoto, and Dr. Shioda begin their mission successfully until the apple pie shaped UFO appears and AAB Gamma barely makes it to the moon base intact. Michiko works at the moon base and is in love with Sano as is the buxom blonde bio scientist, Lisa. Shioda is suffering from space sickness and is replaced by a continually complaining Dr. Stein. Back into space the intrepid team goes but are stalled when strange luminescent pods become attached to the ship. Lisa and Sano collect a sample and dislodge the rest. Back at home the sample appears to have been stolen from the lab. The crew finds chicken-like prints leading to a hole in the floor. Before the team can have a nightcap, a giant monster appears crushing buildings and blowing things up. The chicken-like monster is named Guilala. They need a secret weapon to destroy it---Guilalanium! Guilalanium will prevent the monster from absorbing energy. But first the team has to return to the moon base, make more guilalanium, avoid the UFO and arrive back at the Astro Development Center before Guilala destroys Japan. No problem for this super crew if they can get everyone to stop lusting after Sano.
The miniatures and space craft were comparable to movies of this genre during the 1960's. The buildings were better than some of Godzilla's cardboard downtowns. Where the movie failed was the monster, it didn't hold up against Toho's guys in rubber suits productions. The acting was average but not the worst for a monster movie. Lisa and Michiko spent a lot of time mooning over Sano. The space jaunts eventually amounted to nothing, they never reached Mars nor made actual contact with the aliens. All they managed to do was bring back the lethal Guilala spore and set it loose. It took an hour before the monster showed up to relieve us of the lackluster love triangle and useless space trips.
This was not a classic Kaiju film though it does have a cult following. You could put it in the so bad it's fun category if you don't look too closely at it, especially the hilariously bad alien chicken. Although I'd take the super chicken over the tepid love triangle any day.
10/3/23
Capt. Sano, Lisa, Miyamoto, and Dr. Shioda begin their mission successfully until the apple pie shaped UFO appears and AAB Gamma barely makes it to the moon base intact. Michiko works at the moon base and is in love with Sano as is the buxom blonde bio scientist, Lisa. Shioda is suffering from space sickness and is replaced by a continually complaining Dr. Stein. Back into space the intrepid team goes but are stalled when strange luminescent pods become attached to the ship. Lisa and Sano collect a sample and dislodge the rest. Back at home the sample appears to have been stolen from the lab. The crew finds chicken-like prints leading to a hole in the floor. Before the team can have a nightcap, a giant monster appears crushing buildings and blowing things up. The chicken-like monster is named Guilala. They need a secret weapon to destroy it---Guilalanium! Guilalanium will prevent the monster from absorbing energy. But first the team has to return to the moon base, make more guilalanium, avoid the UFO and arrive back at the Astro Development Center before Guilala destroys Japan. No problem for this super crew if they can get everyone to stop lusting after Sano.
The miniatures and space craft were comparable to movies of this genre during the 1960's. The buildings were better than some of Godzilla's cardboard downtowns. Where the movie failed was the monster, it didn't hold up against Toho's guys in rubber suits productions. The acting was average but not the worst for a monster movie. Lisa and Michiko spent a lot of time mooning over Sano. The space jaunts eventually amounted to nothing, they never reached Mars nor made actual contact with the aliens. All they managed to do was bring back the lethal Guilala spore and set it loose. It took an hour before the monster showed up to relieve us of the lackluster love triangle and useless space trips.
This was not a classic Kaiju film though it does have a cult following. You could put it in the so bad it's fun category if you don't look too closely at it, especially the hilariously bad alien chicken. Although I'd take the super chicken over the tepid love triangle any day.
10/3/23
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