User Reviews

I stumbled across this while streaming from Amazon. The story line is a pretty clear rip off of the old sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet. The crew of the Andromeda, equipped with a new Einstein-Rosenberg drive, travels to a distant world were they encounter the lone survivor of a previous space voyage, a mad scientist who conducts research on the technology of the planet's long dead previous occupants. If you're familiar with the aforementioned Forbidden Planet, you can already guess much of the plot. The mad scientist is obsessed by the advanced technology of the earlier alien civilization and succumbs to the vices that led to that civilization's demise. Seriously, some of the dialogue and scenes are virtually identical to the 1956 film (though the 1956 film was far superior in its graphics). Like the original, the mad scientist killed off the other survivors from his ship. There is a robot (though not nearly as charming as the older Robbie) and the female commander's name, Jane Altaire, is an obvious reference to Altaira from Forbidden Planet. In one scene that stood out, the crew is walking deep in the planet's artificial core and there are cheaply animated replicas of devices that are identical to those from the original 1956 film. Alas, looking out for those film references was one of the only genuine joys of watching this. Unlike its inspiration, however, On the Shoulders of Giants lacks much of the humor and excitement from the earlier film. How I longed for an Earl Holliman-esque character getting drunk with the robot. And where was the wonderful invisible "monster from the Id"? Of all the things to leave out! I suspect the odd characters who looked like cybermen from Dr. Who were supposed to fill that role, but they were a pathetic replacement. One thing, unfortunately, that On the Shoulders of Giants did attempt to "preserve" was an awkward reference to sexism. In the 1956 classic, the weirdly juvenile romance between the strong, manly captain (played by Leslie Nielson) and the very feminine Altaira (played by then 26-year-old Anne Francis) was campy but tolerable and even a little charming. Unless you're the most rigid of social justice warriors, one can forgive the portrayal of women in a film that is now over 60 years old. On the Shoulders of Giants, however, set up one of its crew member as some woman-hating throwback. Now the setting is supposed to be in the 24th century, and women are referred to several times as having prominent careers in space exploration. So the likelihood that misogynistic attitudes would be so prevalent and openly expressed to women commanders 300 or so years from now seems a bit preposterous. This seemed to be a rather gratuitous bit of virtue signaling on the part of the film. Based on the look of the film, my first guess while viewing was that, based on the costumes and graphics, it was some bit of cheap British sci-fi flotsam from around 1990. So I was genuinely shocked to learn that the film had been made nearly a quarter century later than I had suspected. The crew uniforms were baggy grey jumpsuits with completely functionless yellow triangles and patches velcroed on in various spots. The CGI made Tron look advanced in comparison, with the characters awkwardly moving about in a poorly synchronized green screen Chroma key world. My favorite bit was when they were working some presumed alien interface and the "language" consisted of characters from Microsoft's wingdings font. So what do we have so far: a movie that is a rather substandard rip off of an earlier classic sci-fi film and that uses graphics and effects that were amateurish even two decades prior to this film. Still I had to give it a 3 and was tempted to go as high as a 4. The one sustaining element was that the actors kept in character. Regardless of how cheap and fake everything was, they managed against all odds to maintain some level of conviction. Maybe it was the fact that they didn't look like the polished young and attractive 20-somethings what Hollywood usually uses in such roles, but the actors somehow made me believe them and tolerate the abysmal graphics and clunky story line enough to watch the film to completion.