Saturday, October 04, 2014

Revisiting The X from Outer Space

One evening sometime in the late 80s to early 90s, I sat down with Jeff and Susan and possibly Ron and Tony and maybe Steven to watch The X from Outer Space on VHS cassette. I don't remember much about that night other than Jeff's mocking chant: "AAB Gamma! AAB Gamma! Come in, AAB Gamma! Oh no, AAB Gamma!"

I found it pretty funny, because of course that phrase or ones much like it were repeated ad nauseum throughout this curious little Japanese space thriller. In short, a crew of Japanese astronauts (very multicultural, some ethnic Japanese, some caucasian), embark on a rocket flight to Mars, but due to asteroids and UFOs they give up, land on the moon, switch out a crew member, and inadvertently bring the egg of a monster back to Earth. The monster destroys Tokyo, the scientists synthesize a substance to defeat it, and star-crossed lovers gaze at Mount Fuji.

I remember the plot because Sylvia and I just watched it again. Her judgement of the film surprised me.

"Well, what did you think?" I asked.

"Oh, it was good," she said.

"Really?!"

"It wasn't as annoying as some of your other weird crap."

She had me there.


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