Talking Pictures TV does it again! My next favourite movie looks like it's going to be the bonkers 1965 film Attack From Space, which is a compilation of two episodes of the 1950's Japanese series Super Giant.
The plot, according to Wikipedia, is as follows:
The superhero Starman, a human-like being created from the strongest steel by the Peace Council of the Emerald Planet, is sent by the leaders of that planet to protect Earth from belligerent aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy.
After avoiding the Sapphireans during his flight to Earth, Starman discovers their plot to destroy Earth, after they blow up a part of the Himalayas.
The Sapphireans (or "Spherions") kidnap Dr. Yamanaka and his family and force him to use his spaceship against the Earth.
It's up to Starman to save Dr. Yamanaka, his family and the Earth.
Attack From Space will air on October 28 at 12pm in the regular Space Invaders slot.
Can't say I've ever watched them all the way through, but I've definitely enjoyed having a couple of the Starman/Super Giant films on in the background at times. I've always kind of wondered why more hasn't been done with the character as a pretty wacky entry in the public domain...but I also don't think he's actually PD everywhere. Maybe the USA only, in fact...I dunno, copyright laws are weird...
ReplyDeleteOur telly is sometimes so insular compared to yours ;) I don't recall Starman ever being a "thing" over here in our benighted isles, so this trailer was my first exposure to this delightful franchise.
DeleteAnd, yes, my immediate thought was: I need to find out everything about the character so I can stat him up for my game universe.
I don't really plan on using existing characters from other media in my game... but there's something wonderfully retro and innocent about Starman that appealed to me.
Ha! That's pretty cool that he stands out like that.
DeleteAnd while I don't doubt Starman has made some late night TV appearances here, my exposure to him was only from perusing the SF PD corpus and doing what I had to do when I found something this cool. :) (I think multiple Super Giant films are on YouTube, FWIW....!)
Yes, I've now discovered Starman's presence on YouTube, but have also ordered myself a DVD box set of all the movies... as I can't wait for his debut on UK TV at the end of the month :)
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