Rodd_Munchright Reviews

V.R. Troopers: Kaitlin's Front Page (1994) Season 1, Episode 17

A good episode marred by wasted potential

[7/10 · 23 March 2022]

So this episode has an okay plot. Some guy tells Kaitlin that there's a secret weapons plant so instead of waiting until Ryan and JB are done doing stuff to help her she runs off, and the whole thing was a trap by Grimlord to kidnap her, and user her as bait to destroy the Troopers.

There's some good fights between the male Troopers and Grimlord's monsters, and we get to see Kaitlin in the Battle Grid by herself.

My only problems are that the monster Ryan fights later shows up in another episode which makes me think they could have used Ryan's fight for that episode, and the monster JB fights was from the same story arc as the Red Python in Spielban which made me wish that VR Troopers used it as a monster form for Red Python

That and we don't actually see Kaitlin getting defeated in the Battle Grid, and this is the only time Kaitlin goes to the Battle Grid by herself so we don't see her solo return to reality clip.

On the plus side I noticed this episode is popular with the damsel in distress/bound and gagged fandom which I'm honestly glad because it means some people like it, and it reminds me of wanting to see a similar thing happen to the Battle Grid fight.

So yeah a lot of great fights but I still wish they had happened in other episodes.

Ultraman (1966– )

A Sci Fi Superhero Classic

[9/10 · 18 August 2013]

Created by Eiji Tsuburaya in the 60's, and brought over to the states in the 70's Ultraman is a show that's like a PG rated prehistoric version of The X Files with Godzilla monsters, A giant super hero who saves the day every episode, and all the craziness cranked to 11.

To be more precise in the then not too distant future of the early 90's an international police group called The Science Patrol investigates strange phenomena like aliens, and cryptids.

One night two lights one red, the other blue arrive on Earth the red light accidentally crashes into the jet of Science Patrolman Shin Hayata killing him.

The red light reveals that he is Ultraman an alien from the Land of Light, in Nebula M78, beyond the 40th Galaxy and the blue light is an evil space monster called Bemular.

Feeling regretful for Hayata's death, and unable to survive Earth's atmosphere for more than three minutes at a time Ultraman fuses his life with Hayata's, and together along with Hyata's fellow Science Patrol members defeat Bemular, and then go on to face more aliens, and monsters with Hayata becoming whenever all hope seems lost.

Ultraman is classic 60's and 70's era sci fi goodness.

Every episode is like a 30 minute Godzilla movie with paranormal stuff like Aliens, and The Loch Ness monster being the explanation for the monster.

It's hard to pick just one monster or episode I like because the show has a lot of good ones one way or another.

From the first episode which sets up the show and gives us a cool monsters with Bemular to the very second with Ultraman's most iconic enemies the Baltan aliens.

Ithe favorites of mine are the episode with Jirass because it captures the show in a nutshell with the Science Patrol, and Ultraman fighting the Loch Ness monster who turns out to be Godzilla with a frill As well, as the episode with Red King that's like a 30 minute version of The Lost World with Godzilla monsters.

And the episode with Jamilla the mutant astronaut monster which I watched because I like monster movies about mutant astronauts, and I liked the tragic elements of the story.

The characters are all cool tough favorites would be both Hayata himself, and Ito the comic relief science expert.

Plus there's just something fun about watching guys in rubber alien, and monster suits beat each other up for three minutes every episode.

And Ultraman himself has some cool powers like his signature Specium Beam, and his shredding Ultra Slicer.

All in all Ultraman is good show if you like Godzilla movies, weird stuff shows like The X Files, The Outer Limits, and Superheroes.

I highly recommend it.

Seedpeople (1992)

A guilty pleasure from my childhood

[6/10 · 19 May 2013]

You ever have that one horror movie when you were a kid that you thought was the scariest thing ever even when everyone thought it was dumb, and it probably wasn't until your teens that you realized why it was dumb? Well for me Seedpeople is that movie.

The movie itself despite claiming to be "based on an original idea" seems to copy from pretty much every evil plant from space movie from the 50's and 60's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Day of The Triffids, and It Counqured The World, as well as every "guy goes back to his old home town finds out ancient evil alien force landed there, and he has to stop it from taking over world" story, and just a dash of John Carpenter's The Thing.

Long story short a state geologist named Tom Baines goes to his old home town of Comet Valley so named because legend has it a comet landed there to do a study on how he believes the comet was actually a meteor, and it's still there with many of townsfolk believing they found pieces of the meteor.

Tom also stays at his ex girlfriend Heidi's bed and breakfast where he has to deal with her new boyfriend who's also the town sheriff, as well as Heidi's niece who's paranoid about the housekeeper, and later her father not being who or what they appear to be, and a crazy scientist named Doc Roller who's paranoid about everyone in town.

Little does Tom or anyone else know that the meteorites aren't meteorites but seeds to an evil alien plant that grows into these weird dandelion/tree hybrids that spray people with pollen causing them to come out as the film's titular multi eyed fanged plant creatures.

Not only that but humans who have been turned into alien plant creatures are digging up the rest of the alien seeds so that the alien plants can grow all over the world.

The thing about Seedpeople is that it has some interesting ideas, and the monsters themselves look pretty creepy, and it tries to take it's story seriously but at the same time the story moves at the pace of it's monsters which is slow, most of it's scariest moments happen early in the movie not to mention a gazillion plot holes.

For instance it's explained that the monster's weakness is UV radiation yet they move around in daytime even in monster form just fine, and it seems kind of strange for plant creatures to be hurt by sunlight since most plants need it to survive.

Also what happens to the extra mass of the people when they become Seedpeople since some are relatively thin people, and relatively fat as plant monsters but one of them is pretty fat as a human, and quite small as a plant monster.

Not to mention one of them has the ability to give people wet willies, and make them work for the aliens but it never explains if it turns them into plant monsters as well, and we just don't see their plant monster forms or if it just controls them.

It also get's to the point where the movie resorts to giving us these facts about plants to explain why evil plants from space would be scary.

I suspect that a lot of the film's problems stem (pardon the pun) from it's idea was bigger than it's budget, and that a similar movie or even a straight sequel or remake with a bigger budget might do better.

All in all if you'll pardon the pun there's the seed of good idea here but it never grows beyond other cheesy late 80's early 90's DTV horror movies.

Til then don't poke any strange plants you see.