Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure
Director: Kiyosumi Kukazawa, Minoru Kanaya
Starring: Jou Shishido, Tatsuya Azuma, Miyuki Tanigawa, Choei Takahashi, Tsutomu Yukawa, Hiro Tateyama
MST Season: 3
The Movie
Fugitive Alien is actually a cobbled together movie from episodes of a Japanese television series called Star Wolf. Interestingly enough, the series is actually based on a trio of American novels from the 1960’s: The Weapon from Beyond, The Closed Worlds, and World of the Starwolves. I’m not sure how faithful this series is and would be curious to know just what was taken from these books.
The series was created by Eiji Tsuburaya, the man responsible for the special effects in the original Godzilla films as well as the Ultraman franchise (he was also responsible for the series that was turned into Time of the Apes and Mighty Jack). As a film, Fugitive Alien is jumbled up and all over the place. The primary storyline is of Ken, an alien raider called a Star Wolf who refuses to kill a child during an invasion of Earth and is deemed a traitor. Ken takes refuge on a spaceship commanded by Earthling Captain Joe and his crew, consisting of pilot Rocky and professional love interest Tammy. The crew begins to suspect Ken’s true nature but slowly learn to trust each other. And all of this is told in random episodic form.
Considering how incoherent Time of the Apes and Mighty Jack become in this edited for direct to video form, I think Fugitive Alien comes off pretty well. There is at the very least an arc through the episodes that can be followed and makes a tiny bit of sense. Whether or not you can make heads or tails of the mythology of Star Wolf is probably the deciding factor on whether or not you enjoy this movie, but to me it’s no more silly than the likes of Battlestar Galactica so I don’t mind it (and I assure you that I like Galactica).
For me the Japanese special effects, while done on time constraints and low budget, always add charm to projects like this. Fugitive Alien’s do admittedly look fake for the most part, but I really dig the aesthetic style Japanese genre program in offers. Whether that makes me impartial enough to judge Fugitive Alien is anybody’s guess, but I dig it.
The Episode
The movie is a wild ride of Japanese children’s programming, so keeping up with it is half the fun of the Mystery Science Theater episode. The riffing finds a running gag early on in which a scene features two characters named Ken, which gives Joel and the Bots enough ammunition to do a play on every character being named Ken. I might be easily amused but I love gags like these, though I feel they really mastered it later on in Night of the Blood Beast. Of course they do acknowledge other character names, such as Rocky, which sparks Crow into a Rocket J. Squirrel imitation of “Again?” every time his name is mentioned. And of course like all Japanese features the special effects, dubbing, and exaggerated body movements all come under fire to delightful results.
The host segments continue to play with the movie, with Joel doing an impression of Commander Joe and the crew trying to make sense of the story being the delights of the bunch. Meanwhile Mike brings his Jack Perkins impression to the series for the first time, who we would later see in the Turkey Day segments of Night of the Blood Beast and as the host of the Mystery Science Theater Hour. Incidentally an MST Hour of Fugitive Alien was made and Perkins even comments upon his own appearance! The Invention Exchange hardly registers, with a musical chair and an eye-ear-nose-and-throat dropper.
It might be needless to say that Fugitive Alien is a favorite episode of mine, but I give positive rating to just about every Japanese feature episode. I love these things just too much, though Fugitive Alien may be close to the top of the heap. I think I like the sequel episode just a bit more, but we’ll get to that episode eventually.
Classic
The DVD
This classic episode was brought to us by Shout Factory in their Volume XXIV collection. Picture and audio both shined, while the extras are highlighted by an introduction by Japanese pop culture historian August Ragone. August is apologetic about the Star Wolf series but defends its virtues, claiming that the show used minimal recycled effects in an age where that was used to keep costs down. Also featured are wraps from the Mystery Science Theater Hour.
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