If it seems like Kiyo Sumi Fukazawa and Atsuo Okunaka's Time of the Apes is a rushed, confusing, fragmented, cockamamie excuse for a film, that's because it is. Let me explain: Time of the Apes was originally a 26-episode Japanese television series entitled Army of Apes. Like many other Japanese properties of this time period, the series was purchased by American producer Sandy Frank. Frank then cobbled together different parts of the 26 episodes into a single, barely coherent film. Considering the fact that Frank's other imports that originated as actual films, like Gamera (1965), suffered terrible edits and dubs, Time of the Apes seemed destined for bad movie infamy. Here's what you need to know: a boy, a girl, and a young woman get trapped in cryogenic pods (à la Fry from Futurama) and awaken in the far future where apes are in charge and humans are hunted! So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Time of the Apes is a poorly constructed, migraine-inducing Japanese rip-off of Planet of the Apes (1968). Although that's not entirely true, I guess. There's an alien spaceship that pops up every now and then to do...stuff...I'm actually curious to see the original Japanese television series. I'm baffled by the idea that there was 26 episodes of this stuff. The plot in Time of the Apes is thin and flimsy enough...how could it be expanded upon? Whatever the case, I'm putting too much thought into this...
4/10
I recently watched and wrote about Fugitive Alien on my blog. I had a similar Sandy Frank experience as like this movie it was just a cut up TV show with really bad dubbing. But I love it when MST3K would do several films from one producer or director, like Sandy Frank or Coleman Francis, just for the constant jokes about them!
ReplyDeleteBert I. Gordon was another great director who was constantly featured on MST3K. In fact, I think he has the record for the most films featured on their program!
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