Savior of the Earth (1983) Poster

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4/10
Korean Tron
BandSAboutMovies5 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Also known as Savior of the Earth or its Western remix Space Thunder Kids - which also has parts of The Cosmos Conqueror (which takes from Giant Robo), Raiders of Galaxy, Protectors of Universe, Savior of the Earth, Solar Adventure, Space Transformer, Cheolin samchongsa and Defenders of Space - this movie may claim that it's about Dr. Kim, Sheila and Keith saving the world from Dr. Butler, but a casual watch will tell you that this is Tron.

The English dub of this is incredible, because it feels like it was made by two guys in a tunnel, as it's somehow too loud and too quiet all at the same time.

Keith is kind of the hero, despite being very annoying, and spends much of the movie playing a version of Galaxian before being blasted into the video game grid and being beat on by Joe, who is probably the most characterized black man that's been in a cartoon since the 1930s. Joe whips everyone around him and forces them to play Go, Asteroids, Pac-Man and other video games but just like the world of Bridges and Boxleitner, these games are real.

Keith - or Ki, I mean, who knows with this dub - escapes into the desert as he battles Joe in a racing game, which ends up with them drinking in an oasis together, captured by the tiny and annoying Bbik Soo-ni or Princess Sandy who falls for our protagonist and wants to keep him all for himself, but then he explains that he has to save the world, so she introduces him to her eyepatch-wearing pirate sister Odin who for some reason has a submarine that would not look out of place on Space Battleship Yamato and at the very same time, it looks like Nintendo's Radar Scope, a game that failed in the U. S. and was replaced with the reason we probably still know Nintendo thanks to its success, Donkey Kong.

Maybe they've also ripped off Captain Harlock's Arcadia. Who knows. Because Odin, beyond being the sister of the miniature princess, could also be the twin sister of Space Adventure Cobra's Sandra. The movie does get the Japanese influence right, because characters either look realistic or absolutely cartoony beyond belief and the two animation styles, when mixed, are very jarring. Oh yeah - the Saviors costumes also look like they come from Lensman.

At the end, as Keith leaves, he's given a computer disk or frisbee - or come on, it's an identity disk - by Bbik Soo-ni and that's what destroys Sark - or you know, Dr. Butler - and that's how we get through this 70 minutes of Korean animation.

Director Su-yong Jeong also worked on Transformer The Movie and the TV series. He also directed a Bible-based TV series, Jesus: A Kingdom Without Frontiers and the movie Yesu, which one imagines comes from that show. IMDB lists Roy Thomas as the other director and that's linked to the comic book writer and I call IMDB kayfabe on that.

This is definitely something, I'll tell you that much.
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1/10
Among the worst things I have ever seen
finnfriends5 May 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Ah, Asian cartoons. So many people think they are the best thing ever, and so many others despise them. Of course, like western animation, there are both good and bad productions. This is possibly the worst.

STORY: Hero Guy, Bland Girl, and Professor Science all get sucked into a video game. Inside, they encounter the Villain (Vampire?) Guy, who plans to take over the world. At first, our heroes are trapped in the villains' base, being forced to compete with each other. After escaping, they wander around for a while, and Hero Guy meets a 2 foot tall robot chick who has a crush on him. She's supposedly a bad guy but ends up on the good side. Anyway, they all destroy the Big Bad and return to the normal world. Oh, and there's a black guy named, uh... Black John. Who has giant lips. I guess there aren't enough black people in Korea for them to care. Overall, it's an OK plot for a sci-fi fantasy. However, it is definitely a ripoff of "Tron." (8/20)

CHARACTERS: Nothing further to say after that. They have no personality, so this section stays mostly empty. I'm not exaggerating either, they could swap the lines of two characters regularly, and I'd never know. (0/20)

ANIMATION: The art is OK, if a bit bland (and ripping off Tron's visual style). The frame rate is average for a Japanese or Korean cartoon, that is, somewhat lower than in America. Voices don't match lip sync at all, but it's a dub so I won't fault it for that. Action is all right, though the animators don't like drawing it, and like to avoid doing so. Not too much to complain about here, but nothing really good.. (10/20)

SOUND: All the voices seem to be done by the same two people, one male, and one female. They don't vary their voices at all, they use crappy recording equipment, and they know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about acting. Not any emotion either. I don't think they even read the script before recording. This is possibly the worst aspect of the whole thing. Again, it's a dub, but this is just pathetic! Imagine a third grade play where no one knows their lines and they don't act at all. Fortunately, you can rage at this without any hurt feelings. Also, the opening titles literally steal a few bars of Star Wars music. (0/20)

ENTERTAINMENT: Not quite entertaining, even from badness. The film moves very slowly, has lots of segues from the story that we don't care about, no characterization, and the worst audio ever. Luckily, there is a MST-style version available ("It Came From Public Domain"), which makes it watchable. (0/20)

EXTRA (added or subtracted from final score): Black John: -5 Voice Acting: -10 Pac-Man as one game the slaves have to play: +5

OVERALL: 1/10
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