Fugitive Alien (1987)

Perfect cast and a good story

As Good As It Gets

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This unbearable, campy sci-fi action film was seemingly created by editing together several episodes from a Japanese TV series. The result is a very bad film. Its story thrusts you into things with little in the way of explanation. Some aliens called the Wolf Raiders wage war on humanity and attack the Earth. One of the Raiders called Ken refuses to kill an Earth child called Ken, and in doing so angers his people, hence making him...the fugitive alien! It's a nonsense plot but I've encountered way worse. The problem was it made me feel so bored. On paper, quite a lot actually happens in this film but in practice, it's never very interesting.Matters aren't really helped by the dubbing, which is carried out by a group of extremely terrible voice actors. The voices in this film are heavy going on the ears and really try your patience. What doesn't exactly improve matters is the fact that the running time is 102 minutes, which is just way too long for something this crappy. The special effects and costumes are all bargain basement too. But the most disappointing thing about the entire film was the fact that the Wolf Raiders did not sport poodle perm hairdos. Bizarrely, and nonsensically, they seem to merely have wigs attached to their combat helmets. Why this should be is simply one of the mysteries of Fugitive Alien. A mystery I will never solve as I have no intention of revisiting this dreck ever again.

In an alternate future universe where everyone is Japanese no matter what world they come from, Earth is under attack from hostile planet Valnastar whose marauding 'wolf-raiders' are sent to wipe out humanity; but when one of the alien attackers, a curly-blonde-wig-wearing wolf-raider by the name of Ken (Tatsuya Azuma), is ordered to kill a defenceless woman and her young son (also named Ken—must be a popular name throughout the universe of the future) he resists, accidentally killing a comrade in the process.Branded a traitor by his own race, Ken (the alien, not the boy) flees for his life, but must abandon his craft in space when it is damaged in a fire-fight. Luckily for Ken, he is soon picked up by a passing Earth ship, the Bacchus 3, whose happy-go-lucky crew have no idea that he is a wolf-raider; they patch him up and make him welcome. Eventually, Ken comes clean to Captain Joe (Jô Shishido), who decides to keep schtum just so long as the fugitive alien joins his crew. Ken agrees, to the chagrin of moody pilot Rocky but much to the delight of cute computer boffin Tammy (Miyuki Tanigawa).Ken's first mission with the Bacchus crew is to rescue a captive Colonel from a high-security alien prison, a task that takes every ounce of his incredible strength and all of his amazing fighting skills to overcome all obstacles (plus a few handy gadgets hidden on his fetching, red PVC, all-in-one space jumpsuit), including Ken's girlfriend Rita (was the writer of this nonsense a fan of UK soap Coronation Street, perchance?) who just happens to be the sister of the guy Ken accidentally killed and who is now gunning for revenge.Cobbled together from a short-lived Japanese TV series, Fugitive Alien is hard to endure despite plenty of ridiculously bad action and lots of unintentional humour. The embarrassingly inept space dog-fights (clearly inspired by Star Wars, but severely lacking their technical excellence) and unexciting shoot-outs are extremely repetitive, the editing is random, the pacing stodgy, and the dubbing awful. Some of the model shots of the Bacchus are pretty cool but the ship's interior could have done with a little more attention to detail (the dashboard boasts dials that read 'Space Speed' and 'Cabin Air Presser'). After 100 or so excruciating minutes of incomprehensible rubbish, viewers are presented with the words 'To Be Continued' and the horrible realisation that this is only half of the story.I've never seen an MST3K episode—I believe that all films, no matter how bad, deserve more a bit more respect than that—but I can understand how this sort of thing would prove irresistible to such a show. Fortunately, for movie purists like myself, Fugitive Alien is available minus comedic robot commentary as part of a 50 film sci-fi DVD box set, meaning it can be enjoyed exactly as enterprising American film distributor Sandy Frank originally intended when he snapped up the rights for a song.

This film is not a pure movie, but rather a collection of episodes from a Japanese science fiction television show. Basically like that Time of the Apes and Mighty Jack which were also lampooned as this one was on MST3K. This one though, like those, jumps here and there and you at times cannot tell where the film is going or where it has come from. It has some elements of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica in it and is basically about a ship captained by a man who has lost his wife and child to alien invaders.The story is about one particular alien invader that goes against orders and accidentally kills one of his fellow troops. For reasons unknown, when you are a member of this ferocious team, you must where a blond wig and jump and roll every where even when it is completely pointless. Well he joins the ship, albeit begrudgingly, captained by the man who lost his wife and child and is now prone to mood swings. On the former bad guy's trail is his very own love from the invading planet because it was her brother that he killed. He seems to love her, but during the last portion of the film he kind of kills her. This movie is also a two parter and at the end we get a ...to be continued.This one just is not very entertaining. About the best thing are the cute girls, but two cute girls is not enough to save this mess from being as bad as it is. During this movie there is virtually no action aside from the invading scene other than the fugitive alien running here and there and then getting beat up by a human after he stopped a forklift with his hands! If he could stop it with his hands I would think a human would be relatively easy.So what you get to see here is another in a long line of smooshed together television shows into what sort of qualifies as a movie. Once again, it has lots of flashbacks and quick edits. Not a movie one should really strive to find suffice to say.

Hey Network TV: Instead of beating the venerable "Fugitive" premise to death (a tv show based on a movie based on a tv show?), why not seek out a tv series that was flawed when originally produced but still features enough good stuff to salvage into a new, better series? Here's a good example- "Fugitive Alien" and it's sequel, "Star Force: Fugitive Alien 2" are goofy, sometimes-incomprehensible "features" made from re-edited episodes of a Japanese TV show. They're hard to watch in their current incarnation, but have interesting premises and fun plots.The story is this: Our hero Ken is a Wolf Raider. Wolf Raiders are super-strong humanoid aliens who like to invade other planets and run around smashing things. For some reason they wear curly red wigs when they do this, which is pretty bizarre. Anyhoo, during a routine invasion Ken is ordered to shoot a little boy named Ken, and he refuses. In the resulting scuffle Ken accidentally shoots his best friend and flees the evil Wolf Raiders, ending up floating through space in his spacesuit, waiting to die (already this is hilarious!).Luckily, Ken is discovered by the Bacchus 3, a Star Force spaceship commanded by the jowl-sporting, hard-drinkin' Captain Joe (possible come-back role for Ernest Borgnine here!). Ken is almost immediately adopted by Captain Joe, who hides Ken's Wolf Raider past from the rest of the crew and offers him a job. This delights Tammy, the navigator, and dismays Rocky, Captain Joe's first mate, who tries to run Ken over with a forklift. There are two other guys on the ship, I think one was called Dan or something. They don't do much. Anyway, the crew of the Bacchus 3 goes on one crazy adventure after another while Ken is pursued by Rita (who is Ken's ex-girlfriend and the sister of the guy Ken killed). They visit a lot of different planets, Ken saves everyone over and over again, and eventually he and Rocky get past the whole "forklift incident".If this isn't a set up for a hit TV series or even a feature film, I don't know what is. It's certainly a more plausible premise a series than "Cleopatra 2525", that's for damn sure. So please, consider "Fugitive Alien". Maybe you could get Timothy Daly to star in the series version.