{"id":14882,"date":"2011-04-06T10:25:49","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=14882"},"modified":"2011-04-06T10:43:49","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:43:49","slug":"voyage-into-space-minoru-yamada-1970-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=14882","title":{"rendered":"Voyage Into Space (Minoru Yamada, 1970): Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a><\/em>Voyage Into Space<\/a> is a full length\u00a0film, compiled from four episodes of the Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot <\/em> television series, also\u00a0known as Giant Robo<\/em> (Giant Robot), the Japanese serial.<\/p>\n

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\"\" Ten year old Johnny Sokko (Mitsunobu Kaneko)\u00a0and his friend Jerry Mano (Akio Ito)\u00a0work as secret agents for a peace-keeping organization known as Unicorn.\u00a0 The two\u00a0are cornered by\u00a0a gang of thugs, when they stumble upon an invention created to destroy mankind, by abducted scientist Dr. Guardian.<\/p>\n

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\"\" Giant Robot runs on atomic energy, has finger missiles, laser-beam eyes, a flame-thrower mouth, and flies with a jet-pack on his back.\u00a0 He operates by voice command through a very cool transmitter watch, which fortunately\u00a0for planet Earth, Johnny acquired first.<\/p>\n

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\"\" <\/em>Emperor Guillotine, with his dreadlocked tentacles and crossed-eyes, issues commands from his spaceship at the bottom of the ocean.\u00a0 He uses the dreadful, platinum head Dr. Botanus to do his bidding, and to supervise the bumbling beatnik, Gargoyle Gang,\u00a0that are outfitted in quasi-nazi uniforms and salute with a heil.<\/p>\n

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\"\" <\/em>The fluoride-intolerant Dr. Botanus issues orders and dispatches a variety of alien creatures, in an attempt to bring down Giant Robot.\u00a0 Striking helpless women and threatening young children with guns, there\u00a0seems to be\u00a0no gutter low enough to which his gang will stoop, in order to succeed.<\/p>\n

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A fun (and funny) made for television film, Giant Robot <\/em>is from\u00a0a 1970’s Japanese\u00a0tokusatsu serial.\u00a0 A genre which consists of live action, superheroes, sci-fi special effects, and an economical\u00a0technical wonder known as suitmation, or in other words –\u00a0an actor in a monster suit.\u00a0 American kid show creators Sid and Marty Krofft, used this same suitmation gimmick in their shows such as H.R. Pufnstuf<\/em> (1969), Lidsville<\/em> (1971), and Sigmund and the Sea Monster<\/em>(1973) with great success.\u00a0 A more recent equivalent would be Saban’s highly popular Mighty Morphin Power Rangers<\/em> from the 1990’s.<\/p>\n

Shot with an\u00a0upward camera\u00a0angle\u00a0at Giant Robot, and reverse shot with a\u00a0downward angle at Johnny and Jerry, the film contains themes of loyalty, friendship, and fearlessness.\u00a0 A vanguard for television, pistol carrying Johnny Sokko, shoots at bad guys, and uses his wit to out-manuever the Gang.\u00a0 There are also\u00a0female agents who actually\u00a0pilot the high-speed aircraft.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0high-action series for kids was created by manga artist\u00a0Mitsuteru Yokoyama,\u00a0and was dubbed in English and broadcast in the early 1970’s by American International Television, the same producers of the Roger Corman horror flicks which starred Vincent Price.<\/p>\n

Okay, so the lips aren’t completely in sync with the dialogue, who cares?\u00a0 When Johnny gives the command “Giant Robot, attack!”\u00a0 one can almost detect a slight smile emerging from Giant Robot’s mouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. Voyage Into Space is a full length\u00a0film, compiled from four episodes of the Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot television series, also\u00a0known as Giant Robo (Giant Robot), the Japanese serial.       Ten year old Johnny Sokko (Mitsunobu Kaneko)\u00a0and his friend Jerry Mano (Akio Ito)\u00a0work as secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}