The Mysterians are here for our land and women
Who are the Mysterians? Why they’re our helmeted and becaped alien neighbours from the 5th planet Mysteroid itself obliterated in a nuclear war hundreds of thousands of years ago. They’re also the villains of the cult sci-fi flick The Mysterians (1957) and they look really silly.
The Mysterians is a vibrant full-colour hybrid of a Godzilla-style giant monster movie and an alien invasion film. The giant monster in question a wacky-looking spike-nosed robot named Moguera (or Mogera depending on your source) was a last-minute addition to the script but we get to see it first. I love this contraption — it looks like a retro 1950s toaster with a buzz saw on its back. The TV antenna atop its head twirls amusingly and it shoots heat rays from its eyes blasting all the ineffectual tanks and rocket launchers that always show up in movies like this. The Japanese military evacuates the civilians and line up their troops to fire harmless bullets rockets and flamethrowers at the metal beast. At one point the firefighters even turn their hoses on it. Hilarious.
After a really good giant-robot rampage Moguera falls off a bridge and breaks.
Huh? The monster’s defeated already? I was watching that you jerks. Bring Moguera back!
But instead the alien Mysterians show up. Wearing kitchen gloves rubber cummerbunds sunglasses Power Rangers helmets and opera capes these guys don’t look quite as mysterious as their names would have us believe. Having destroyed an entire town wiped out legions of infantry and unleashed their pet robot in our midst the Mysterians contact humankind with a plea for peace. Guh? Yes these maniacs profess to be pacifists stating that their violent acts were just to get our attention and to demonstrate the futility of resistance. I think they need to look up “pacifism” in the dictionary.
During the peace negotiations the Mysterians make only two hilariously modest requests. Number 1 they want a three-kilometre patch of land to establish a base. (Wha? You guys destroy a really large chunk of land but when you just want to move in to a smaller area you ask nicely?) Number 2 they want permission to marry Earth women. They want like five Earth women to mate with. Got ’em picked out and everything. They’ve already kidnapped three of ’em so I’m not too sure why they want permission. Maybe they’re old-fashioned.
If those aliens invaded today surely we’d be able to hook them up with five willing women. According to the popularity of the Twilight series a substantial portion of our population already want to fuck vampires. Why not just get these dudes a profile on eHarmony and let the denizens of the Internet decide for themselves if they want to breed the next generation of Strontium-90-infected space babies? I’m pretty sure they’ll get more than five responses but I’m not guaranteeing that all of them will be actual women.
In any case this movie came out before women were allowed to decide things for themselves so a roomful of military men agree to immediately bomb the shit out of the Mysterians. Most of the rest of the film can be described by the sound effect “pew pew pew!” A big alien dome rises from the ground and shoots lightning. Tanks melt. Jets explode. None of the Earth Defense Force’s vehicles can do anything against the invaders because that’s the way these movies work. You have to suddenly invent a new device that looks nothing like an ordinary tank in order to defeat aliens — everybody knows that. Sure enough excited men show up with blueprints for two new weapons: an electron ray that isn’t ready yet and a big parabolic disc that the subtitles hilariously call the “Marcalite Farp.” The good guys quickly build two Farps (Farps! Hahaha!) and airlift them into the conflict area where they reflect the aliens’ death rays back at them. Another Moguera unit tunnels through the ground to take out one of the discs (hooray!) before being crushed from the falling debris of its defeated target. (Boo! That one only lasted 20 seconds! Don’t you guys get that we like watching giant robots?)
Attention Hollywood: stop remaking RoboCop (1987) a film that is already perfect. Remake The Mysterians an insane badly dated movie that you can really have fun with. Please?
