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Reviews
Star Trek: Miri (1966)
An interesting 'Lord of the Flies' theme but bad sci-fi writing
**************Spoiler Alert******************************** Miri takes a few common sci-fi themes a world of children surviving after all the adults are wiped out, the race against time to defeat a medical enemy, having to befriend the wild children to solve the problem and the Frankenstein theme of biogenetic engineering gone wrong.
This really could have been a great episode, the drama was there and all the elements to pull it off but the writing fails to deliver. You can tell the writing is bad at the very start of the episode when they run across an 'exact' copy of Earth. The likelihood of running across and exact duplicate of Earth right down to the continents is just astronomical and stretches the imagination beyond the willful suspension. And it is so unnecessary, the author's intent is obvious, this is a moral story and he wants to set the here is our future if we don't pay attention setting for the story. But he could just as easily have done it on an 'Earth-like' planet and make it much more believable. The series abounds with parallel human planets, so an exact copy of Earth not only is not necessary but now begs for an explanation that we don't get.
The other issue is the age of the children, one would think that after 300 years they would have developed a little mentally even if their physical age was retarded. But that at least is something we could overlook as its not beyond imagining that the disease slowed mental progression as well.
The story overall is good ideas and the moral comes across well enough but it could have been done so much better with a little imagination towards just what a society of children would really be like after 300 years.
Peril from the Planet Mongo (1966)
Dueling Soundtracks?
Like any film compiled out of a serial, the action and pacing is very jerky and jumpy but overall its quite enjoyable. Unlike many compilations I've seen the overall story line flows well enough that you aren't left lost. This is a good enough for a taste of the old space opera serial but if you are a fan of old serials I'd recommend seeing the complete serial if you can find it.
I found the background music very distracting, it didn't seem to mate with the action on the screen well which is probably a result from an attempt to reedit to match the edited footage. However, it winds up dominating the sound track often overpowering the dialog. I also seemed to catch other music in the background probably from the original soundtrack that wasn't edited out.
Godzilla (1998)
Fantastic movie but not Godzilla
Probably one of the best films in the giant monster genre. The special effects are fantastic and the monster if highly believable. I fully agree with everyone here praising the movie. But I felt I needed to explain to those folks who don't understand why so many of the original fans don't like the film.
By any monster movie fans standards this would be an utterly loved classic if you had given the monster any other name. Many of the fans name this monster GINO (Godzilla in Name Only) and that about sums up the real reason they hate the film. Through all the iterations and different directors in the Toho films, cheesy as they can be, Godzilla (Gojira) developed and maintained a very distinct character. He is an unstoppable force of nature to which humanity is a mere annoyance that at times he deems to help but mostly puts us in our place for overstepping our bounds.
Its fairly obvious early on that the writers and director of this movie made no effort to understand or capture that character in their creation. Perhaps that can be forgiven since their stated goal was to try and create a Godzilla that moved and acted like a real giant lizard would act and they largely succeeded but in the process they totally lost the 'soul' of the original character. Their creation has a soul and personality to be sure but its just not Gojira's.
I remember watching the movie in the theater for the first time with my wife during the scene with the helicopters chasing the Godzilla through the maze of buildings. I leaned over to her and said the first thing that came to my mind, "Godzilla doesn't run from helicopters" He just doesn't. He might change direction out of annoyance but not run away.
I think most hard core fans will admit in private that this is a good film but publicly they just can't get over what they see is a completely wrong portrayal of a beloved character.
TOHO even played off on the comparisons between this Godzilla and the original by pitting her(?)against the original in Godzilla: Final Wars in one of the most one sided, quickest defeats in the film.