Why scoff at a film's limitations? Personally, I prefer to see through to its heart. And at the heart of Green Slime is one of the truly great sci-fi space operas.
The storyline distills so much of the best B-grade sci-fi: The plummeting asteroid. The mission to save the planet. The creeping menace, overwhelming the space station, killing everything in its path. The tight-lipped hero, his jealous buddy, and the sexy (but brilliant) babe. The Great Sacrifice at the end... (And don't forget that rousing rock-n-roll theme song!) This is the stuff of great sci-fi. In fact, aside from the Japanese-style production, Green Slime isn't all that different from an episode of Star Trek... except maybe that the science is way more credible.
It all seems like cliché, but if you think about it, cliché is something that's been done to death... and with Space Opera, we've never actually had that much of it. (Commander Cody; Rocky Jones... all much worse films than this.) So when a film like Green Slime dares to dish up a huge helping, all I can say is: bring it on!
Is it hammy? Are the special effects cheap? Sure. So what? The actors are all third-raters, but they do their best. Are their tongues in their cheeks? I don't know, but if they are, it's done with amazing subtlety. They all LOOK terrifically serious, and that's how they deserve to be taken. If there's a self-parody here, it's a very crafty one. (But somehow I don't think so.) If anything, the tone reminds me of the wide-eyed early sci-fi of Amazing and the other pulps... it takes us back back to a time when adventure was accepted uncritically, before bone-headed cynicism somehow became "cool."
Perhaps if the cast WERE Japanese, this film would have a cult attached to it. Maybe we shrewd Occidentals are just too clever to accept the wildness of a Godzilla movie transplanted into our own cultural context. If so, too bad for us.
The storyline distills so much of the best B-grade sci-fi: The plummeting asteroid. The mission to save the planet. The creeping menace, overwhelming the space station, killing everything in its path. The tight-lipped hero, his jealous buddy, and the sexy (but brilliant) babe. The Great Sacrifice at the end... (And don't forget that rousing rock-n-roll theme song!) This is the stuff of great sci-fi. In fact, aside from the Japanese-style production, Green Slime isn't all that different from an episode of Star Trek... except maybe that the science is way more credible.
It all seems like cliché, but if you think about it, cliché is something that's been done to death... and with Space Opera, we've never actually had that much of it. (Commander Cody; Rocky Jones... all much worse films than this.) So when a film like Green Slime dares to dish up a huge helping, all I can say is: bring it on!
Is it hammy? Are the special effects cheap? Sure. So what? The actors are all third-raters, but they do their best. Are their tongues in their cheeks? I don't know, but if they are, it's done with amazing subtlety. They all LOOK terrifically serious, and that's how they deserve to be taken. If there's a self-parody here, it's a very crafty one. (But somehow I don't think so.) If anything, the tone reminds me of the wide-eyed early sci-fi of Amazing and the other pulps... it takes us back back to a time when adventure was accepted uncritically, before bone-headed cynicism somehow became "cool."
Perhaps if the cast WERE Japanese, this film would have a cult attached to it. Maybe we shrewd Occidentals are just too clever to accept the wildness of a Godzilla movie transplanted into our own cultural context. If so, too bad for us.