Launching my #monsterdon thread for #TheManFromPlanetX, a movie from 1951 that I think takes place in Scotland and has aliens in it. Presumably a man from beyond Pluto or somewhere.
Anyway, Monsterdon is a thing where we watch an old monster movie every week and make fun of it. So, if you don't want to see lots of posts tonight about an old monster movie, you may want to mute the monsterdon tag. If that instead sounds fun to you, then feel free to join along!
Okay, so this movie starts with a flash forward, presumably the main character, a leather jacket wearing journalist is hiding out in an observatory or something and writing a secret last report... he says he met a man from Planet X and is going to die tonight probably, presumably killed by an alien. Anyway, he says the thing he's writing is very important to all of humanity but we don't exactly find out why.
We do a flashback and the journalist is interviewing an astronomer who tells him that Planet X is about to fly really close to Earth.
Its going to fly closest to one island so naturally the journalist decides that he has to visit that island because we have no idea how far away planets are and think that the part of an island that is closest to another planet is somehow significantly closer.
The journalist goes to visit the island, and meets a girl who he remembers as being awkward in school. She is nice but since this is a 1950s movie she's probably going to be involved in an Uninteresting Romance Plot.
She drives him to the Dark Tower, an old castle which is headquarters for our Planet X watch party, and we learn about the local architecture and establish that this is Scotland because Moors.
Back at the castle, the one girl serves the journalist tea and we meet the other scientists assembled for our space-themed watch party. We learn the castle has the observatory in it, and we look through a telescope and see a planet in it getting bigger... this must be the famous approaching "X" planet.
Next, the journalist and the one girl go for a walk in the moors and find an alien space probe lying around, as you do.
Okay, so our space probe from planet X or somewhere looks kind of like a missile, and I guess its just lying there in the moor. My hope is that its part of a grappling hook that Planet X will use to real the Earth in to board it.
We take the probe back to the science masters and they are like "Incredible! This is made of magical metal! We would be rich if we could figure out the formula to make the material this thing is made of! But alas, it is from outer space!"
Then we get tired and the girl drives the journalist to the local Inn (I think, I missed part of the Gripping Events), but then on her way back she gets a flat tire and wanders off into a field.
While searching for random encounters in the field to grind her XP, the Girl Character encounters a Surprise Spaceship, that looks a little like the probe from before, but bigger and is sort of sitting in the moor like a leaning tower of pisa.
Naturally she walks right up to it and touches it. From inside a window she sees a space-suited guy that looks sort of like a budget Cyberman cosplay, then screams and runs away.
The One Girl goes back to the castle and reports her sighting to one of the scientists, who is wearing glasses and an improvised poncho over his Very British Clothing.
Because this was 1951 and "believe women" had not yet been invented, the science master thinks she's being hysterical and her story sounds impossible. This might be a fair conclusion to draw if he hadn't literally been fondling a probe from outer space a couple scenes ago.
The science master discards his poncho and follows the One Girl into the moor; the american journalist overhears them and secretly follows it. The audience says "Do you believe the nice girl now, do you, mister scientist, huh, huh?"
Naturally they both walk up to it and look into the window, to see some weird glowing shit inside, while the journalist watches. Then then light goes off and the spaceship starts screaming and pointing a flash light at them.
Oh wait I missed an Important Character relation - the science master is the girl character's father. And now he's acting all zombie like because he was hit with a flash light, but she's following him and trying to lead him back to the castle.
He just kind of romps around then stops and stares blankly at her, while a bunch of frogs croak.
Back at the castle, the Girl Character and Science Dad explain what happened to the journalist who was watching anyway. Science Dad explains that, after he was zapped with a flash light, he was compelled to stand around blankly but also obey any command, which is how she dragged him back to the castle.
The Girl Character suspects this spaceship business has something to do with the approaching Planet X.
We learn that Planet X will get closest to Earth in 60 hours. The journalist suggests that maybe they should call the cops, making me wonder who I would call if I saw an alien spaceship in a field. Probably not the cops, but telling someone would be a good idea.
I'd probably post about it on mastodon; follow me if you think I'm ever likely to find an alien spaceship in a field.
Anyway, Science Dad doesn't want to call the cops because he wants to keep their secret science secret or something, so they don't do that. Instead, the boys decide to go walk out to the spaceship again. We keep describing the spaceship as a "ball" but it's mostly not a ball.
After we fondle the spaceship for a little bit, dramatic music appears,a and then the alien astronaut walks out and points a ray gun at them.
The earth men try to surrender by raising their arms but then the alien falls down, they deduce because the air hose on his space suit is not aligned and so he ran out of air. Helpfully, they reattach his air hose and he stands back up.
We have a brief discussion about how to communicate with the alien, which is a realistic touch for a movie where you meet aliens, and then they just decide to back up and run away.
Characters in this #monsterdon so far, with their special powers:
Team Earthlings:
Girl Character (being nice, having reasonable suggestions)
Leather Jacket Journalist (wearing a cool jacket)
Science Dad (science powers)
Greedy Scientist (science powers)
Team Planet X:
Alien Space Suit Guy (humming weirdly)
The alien follows us back to the castle, and just kind of hangs out in their dungeon or something. The earthlings debate how to talk to the alien, who is mostly just standing there and humming incomprehensibly.
The greedy scientist decides to try to cut a secret deal with the alien for his space knowledge or something, this is probably bad but no one is sure exactly how that's supposed to work. Maybe he can understand the humming.
Okay, I'm gonna test my alt text skills by describing the alien in this movie.
From afar, he looks like a cyberman, but up close he looks like a guy with a bubble helmet and sort of armored vest and also a box on his chest. His face is like a caricature of an expressionless theater mask and is just frozen there constantly.
So Science Dad has the flu now; I have to wonder if its actually the space flu and he got it from touching the spaceship like a moron, so the journalist goes to the pharmacist (which this movie informs me is called a chemist on terf island).
Meanwhile, the greedy scientist decided to torture the alien for information, and knocks the alien over, planning on rationing his air until he learns his space secrets. But his plan is interrupted by a human summons and he walks away.
Afterward, the nice girl walks into the dungeon and screams. The journalist comes back, and is surprised to find neither a girl nor an alien in the dungeon. Unaware of the greedy scientist's schemes, the journalist thinks the alien has kidnapped the girl and taken him to his spaceship, so they go there to gawk at the spaceship for a little bit, then go back.
I do kind of like the occasional telescope views of planet X we get in this movie. It looks like an interesting place... sort of Mars like with visible clouds above it.
Science Dad continues to be sick with space flu and worries about his daughter. Then a couple village cops appear and speak in Scottish accents that I am told is extremely bad. He shows one of them where the spaceship is, but its no longer there. Maybe it flew away because it was a spaceship.
We did however, find a flat place and some binoculars that we used to gawk at the spaceship earlier. The cops conclude the journalist was probably drunk on scotch.
Anyway, even though we didn't find a spaceship, we're still missing one girl, and she's the most likable person in this movie, so the police decide to organize a search party. Unfortunately one guy is like "I saw a thing out there! It wasn't quite human!" and then everyone decides to panic. I would like to see more meeting descend into uniformed panic.
Okay, so the journalist decided that the alien is using his mind control flashlight to take over everyone in the village. I'm not sure what the evidence was... whatever it was if you blink enough you'll miss it.
My guess is that the greedy scientist has gotten a hold of the space flashlight and is using it for evil (mind control and greed).
I'm extremely confused at what's going on. The spaceship landed and some villagers are digging a ditch around it. Maybe a fortification, but probably a shrubbery as has been previously noted.
Also, Scotland Yard is here and sends an inspector. The journalist has a mustache, and the Inspector also has a mustache, so I think the "mustache" in this movie implies "Man Of Action!"
Okay, so Inspector Mustache's plan is to like... get the army to surround the spaceship and shoot it before Planet X gets too close because if the planet gets too close some vague spooky thing might happen, based on zero evidence.
This concerns the journalist because he's trying to find a peaceful solution and rescue the girl and its hard to rescue someone in a spaceship that is being shot at by artillery.
As first contact situations go, I'm giving the people in this film a failing grade. They get some credit for trying, but spent most of the time just fucking up and futzing about.
We catch up to the beginning of the movie and the journalist is writing a report to hand to Inspector Mustache before he goes to try to rescue the girl from the spaceship.
He finds Science Dad digging the ditch and orders him to walk straight away so he's no longer by the enslavement ray. He talks to the greedy scientist, also enslaved, somehow figured out that the bad guy could talk to the aliens, and asks him about the aliens secrets.
So Planet X is dying because its getting too cold, but the aliens moved their planet using gravitons or something. When their planet gets close the aliens plans to signal their planet to tell his people to invade earth so they don't die. Also, the alien is enslaving them by periodically using the flashlight ray on them.
The journalist tells the greedy scientist and the other workers to stop working on leave, which was so easy I wonder why no one else tried it yet. Perhaps no one had a sufficient mustache to try that yet.
Afterward, the alien comes out and starts punching the journalist, but the journalist subdues him by turning off his air and then runs away, the girl with him.
The alien fixes his air and gets up, then tries turning on his space radio. Then the army starts shooting the spaceship and it explodes. By "explode" I mean "it disappears completely when a bazooka shoots it".
Then, Out of Fucking Nowhere, Planet X flies overhead like a seagull and they're all like "OMG the Planet!" and then it flies away.
Afterward, the journalist and the girl character are standing by the sea and the girl is like "hmm I think the alien was friendly, I wonder what would have happened if we weren't dicks to him!?" and the journalist is like "perhaps the greatest curse, perhaps the greatest blessing!" and then the movie stops.
I guess instead of fucking off into the sea, we had a planet fuck off into the sky this movie.
I'm bummed out all the plaster-faced aliens on Planet X are gonna freeze to death, but I'm not sure why they can't just use their planet orbit changing powers to just move their world to a nicer orbit. Maybe it takes a lot of energy or something.
I give the Man From Planet X 3 out of 5 Zooming Seagul Planets. It made no sense, but it made no sense in a fun way.
PROs
Characters I could tell apart
Pacing made it actually Watchable
Planet go Zooooom
cheap alien costume
CONs
Script needed an astronomy consultant
No event in this movie made any sense
cheap alien costume
Anyway, this concludes my #monsterdon thread for the Man From Planet X!
If you are interested in future monsterdon adventures, be sure to follow @Taweret , the host and keeper of the Monsterdon poll!
And stay tuned to #monsterdonalert where we discuss and vote on the next movie and the access/download info is posted. 🙂
@floatybirb they can only make it go faster now slow it down they don't know how it works
@floatybirb it's like tau zero only waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
worse
@moira @floatybirb I got that reference, I've read (wikipedia pages of) books
Floaty Birb
athena_rising
Solarbird 
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈
Scarab (Sarah)