Launching my #monsterdon thread for "Invasion UFO", which I think is based on the 60s scifi series with the fancy miniatures that I started watching and then couldn't decide if it was good or not.
My favorite part of the 60s UFO show was that it was set in the 80s, but their version of the 80s looked even more like the 60s than the 60s did.
Anyway, I think this is a movie in the same setting, maybe?
also, #monsterdon is the thing where we watch an old monster movie every week and then make fun of it. If you do not want to see thousands of posts by me and everyone else, then please mute the hash tag.
If you do want to do a monsterdon, then follow the void chicken @Taweret for the weekly poll where we decide the next film to subject ourselves to.
After an opening that shows us space and a psychedelic typeface, we see some people filming stuff in the woods and then they get machinegunned, I think by aliens.
We then meet some army dudes zooming along in a bus escorted by motorcycles that gets attacked by aliens. I think. Maybe it's land mines, but I think it's aliens.
Oh wait, there's a UFO shooting them, it's definitely aliens. Then the car crashes and explodes, burning a secret file.
The sole survivor of the UFO car crash is Colonel Strayker, whose name I probably spelled wrong, but I think he was the main character of the UFO show that I kind of remember.
Anyway, Strayker is off visiting the UN about the alien attack I guess. The UN has a swanky secret meeting room , which matches the kaiju movie trend of having swanky meeting rooms to discuss the kaiju defense plans. Only this time they're discussing alien defense plans.
The topic of this meeting is "appropriations to create a multinational force to fight aliens, which needs a moon base for some reason." reminding some of the audience that UFO was the inspiration for the video game X-COM.
Anyway Strayker is like "give us money we need to fight aliens" and the UN guys are like "WTF y u need moon base" which is probably a good question to ask. But then they seem to be leaning toward "okay" when Strayker leaves.
In the next scene, Strayker is meeting with General Henderson, who wears sunglasses in a wheelchair, I guess because the aliens attacked him and he's hurt. Strayker told the UN to put Henderson to command the anti-alien force, but Henderson tells him that they put Strayker in command instead because he's younger and hotter.
Speaking of hotness, it is 10 years in the future and we now have our secret underground anti-alien base, staffed at least 50% by women with the tight butts and the tight jumpsuits. They also have a silly little car to drive through the corridors.
The anti-alien force is called "SHADO" (pronounced "SHADO").
Its headquarters is underneath a film studio, which I sign explains to us, but really I only remember from the TV show. I thought that was a fun premise that they didn't quite do enough with (at least in the episode I saw.
After landing a super-sonic transport to do something, we get to see the moon base, which is staffed by ladies in jumpsuits but also purple wigs. I kind of like how they decided purple wigs would be the futuristic fashion thin for astronauts, just because its strange.
Because we're doing a tour of all the cool miniatures we have, we then see the secret SHADO submarine, where the crew all wears fishnet shirts. Some of them are boys because the directors decided we needed another gender of eye candy.
Anyway, the submarine people haven't done anything yet, we were just establishing that it exists, I guess. Chekhov's submarine I guess.
FYI most of this thread is just gonna be me rambling about the uniforms, sets and miniatures in this show, because they're all great.
I also extremely like the set design for Shado headquarters, which has all the power of the 60s flowing through it.
So Shado has a computer sidekick who lives in an absurdly spacious satellite and tracks the aliens when they arrive. He radios the moon base and tells them that a UFO is incoming headed toward the Atlantic.
The wig ladies then order their moonbase fighter pilots to scramble, so they don their motorcycle space helicopters and take the slides to their space fighters.
So what is happening now is an extended interception scene, where the interceptors (which look like shoes with toe-mounted missiles) take off and launch missiles at the approaching alien ship (which looks like a spinning cone), and most of the dialog is instructions passed between the wig ladies and the fighter boys (set to extremely funky music).
Anyway, I think the shoe-fighters failed to destroy the aliens with their toe missiles, so its up to the submarine, which also launches a jet from its nose, because why the fuck not.
The aliens seem to be going after our super-sonic transport, for reasons, I don't remember what, maybe there's candy inside.
Anyway, the submarine jet captain shoots some rockets at the UFO but it escapes into the clouds. Funky music intensifies.
pretty sure this is just a few episodes of the UFO TV show snipped together somehow, because I vaguely remember seeing all this before.
So the UFO shoots its laser at the supersonic transport, but then the submarine fighter guy shoots it down with rockets. We discover a body and do an alien autopsy.
The alien looks just like a human but is green, the doctor says that the alien is green because he was submerged in green liquid. After all the wacky sets and miniatures it seems kind of weird that they just went with a green human for the alien.
The doctor says that the alien has had a lot of organ transplants and also that mutilated bodies were found near the sites of UFO attacks, so the aliens are stealing our organs I guess, which is rude.
The alien UFO pilot wakes up and starts panting and hallucinating and then dies. RIP.
Alien backstory: the aliens learned how to stop aging but doing so made them sterile and a dying race, so they need to harvest our organs to stay alive.
The aliens must have had a meeting we didn't see where their boss said "We must steal organs from people on other planets to survive!". Shout out to the one alien in that meeting who was like "what, this plan is dumb and bad!" but was overruled.
While I was shitposting, more shit happened. A UFO hid under the ocean and then surfaced, to show the audience how skilled the special effects team was.
Most of this show is dedicated to showing the audience how skilled the special effects team is.
Characters in this #monsterdon, so far...
aliens (green)
Colonel Strayker (bossman)
"Alec" (Strayker's conversational foil)
Peter (submarine-jet hunk)
Moonbase ladies (enwiggened)
Other SHADO people (generally not enwiggened)
I am both enraged and overjoyed at the amount of practical effects that went into this #monsterdon (or rather, the show it was based on).
60s Star Trek or Doctor Who would have to reach deep into the money barrel to get a monster costume or a space ship. Meanwhile, SHADO is out here throwing egregious models at the audience in every scene.
inventory of SHADO hardware in this #monsterdon
supersonic transport plane
silly corridor car
tracked APC
computer satellite
moonbase fighter
moonbase shuttle
moonbase shuttle launcher airplane
submarine
jet launched from submarine
...probably other things I forgot about.
you've been hired by a secret anti-alien organization. pick your workplace.
Okay, so in the stuff happening department, submarine guy shot another UFO down, it crashes in canada, we deploy our tracked boxes to capture it. After a goofy submarchinegun fight in the woods, we capture the pilot, but the UFO explodes because the pilot left the coffee machine on.
After capturing the alien, Strayker asks him questions but he just blinks back, which is kind of what I'd expect an alien from another planet to do in that situation, because why the fuck would he understand English?
Because our decisions don't make sense, we to use drugs to "break down his resistance", which is probably a crime, but the UFO pilot didn't think to call a lawyer. Instead, he starts screaming and dies. RIP.
Oh fuck yeah this movie has a toy boat in it! Besides the submarine-jet, we get a normal cargo boat too.
I mean, I'm not all that surprised we have a toy boat, because this movie has all the other toys in already, but still boats are cool.
Because the aliens hate it when we have nice things they attack our toy boat.
For some reason they decided the most logical way to do that was to launch a missile from their underwater space ship and have that missile shoot lasers at the boat.
The crew of the boat is like "oh fuck we're under attack aaaah!" and then their boat sinks. RIP.
Oh wait we get another space ship, because the model budget for this thing was basically infinity. It looks like a flying toilet plunger with some satellite dishes. It spots some aliens and then the aliens laser it so it explodes. RIP.
Today's #monsterdon is very strange because the plot and characterization is extremely skeletal, but the special effects sequences are constant and all-consuming.
Most of the dialogue is professional chatter, which is realistic for the characters in their situations but also very different from the kind of decision-focused dialog you'd expect from a normal film.
To avenge our dead toy boat, we send the nipple submarine to chase down the UFO that shot it. They spot it, then avoid it, then use their periscope, and then decide that the UFO is tapping some underwater volcano to do something.
Also the aliens built a bubble house under the ocean for probably nefarious reasons.
We send Strayker to the submarine via a seaplane, because more models, why not, so he can go swim up to the orb that the aliens built underwater. Why that's his job, I'm not sure, but oh well.
Anyway, we get an underwater scene where him and another diver are using little bullet-shaped propeller things to slowly amble around the alien orb. It's odd how slow this scene moves since the rest of the movie was filled with stuff happening every five seconds.
Eventually we break into the alien orb and discover its top is mostly empty inside, like a big circus tent. Which seems odd for an underwater base.
I think the earthlings descend offscreen, because now we see them in a hallway where the walls are made of glowing and the doors are dagger operated. And then we find... um... a copy of the SHADO base headquarters inside because... what?
We go hide, only to watch SHADO crew and a clone of Strayker step into the room.
@floatybirb I didn't even know it was based on a tv show.
@floatybirb Ohhhh...maybe that explains why they didn't bother to explain the plot because the audience already knows?
@jsadow They kind of explained the plot in the movie, but I think they cut out more parts from the show that provided additional context.
@floatybirb I mean it is sort of explained but also it seems to be a lot of wandering around and making preparations and dramatic statements with music that goes "duh, duh-duh DUH" without much happening?
@floatybirb Also is the TV show better than the movie or the other way around?
TV show allows you to see the repeated footage of all of the vehicles, and the girls taking their pants off and putting on silver miniskirts.
It's more spread out, getting your purple hair and jumpsuit fix every week.
#monsterdon
@Rozzychan @floatybirb Is the purple hair explained in the TV show? Or at least what the purple hair organization does?
@jsadow @Rozzychan I don't remember the purple hair ever being directly addressed, but it was pretty clear that it was just part of the moon base uniform. For the girls, at least.
@floatybirb @jsadow @Rozzychan
Yup. Part of their uniform.
When on earthy they sport their natural hair color.
@rebeld @floatybirb @Rozzychan Wait but like why does the uniform include a wig
Rule of Cool!
@rebeld Still wigs though, they just tone-match their natural colours. The mid-forehead spike is mission critical no matter which planet
Yes,
In an interview they said that back then people had uniforms for everything. Airline stewardesses had strict costumes.
It was perfectly predictable to think that someone might include wigs in their uniform code.
#monsterdon
@jsadow @Rozzychan The purple hair organization crews the moon base and directs the fighters that shoot down the incoming aliens.
They are like relays between the long range detector on the robot satellite and the individual shoe-shaped fighters.
@jsadow
Hmm. The TV show is longer, with more plot. Some episodes have themes. Some of the scenes are extremely silly and dated. Some are just psychedellically weird. More model effects. Mostly, it's "more".
@floatybirb
Yes, I think this is a fix up from the TV series.
Floaty Birb
Jonathan Sadow
Rozzychan
rebeld 🇨🇦
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OldRustBucket
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