This movie is just a goof. With its Star Trek (TV version) aesthetic and I-can-solve-any-problem plot, there’s little here that would fail to appeal to a 10-year-old boy….which I was when it came out in 1964. Yes, it’s colonialist (how does Friday feel about their rescue to earth?), sexist (why no women? Would that HAVE to move the film in a sexual direction?), and ethnocentric (Commander Kit has the techno goodies and can explain them in English), but when I was a kid, I loved imagining being in circumstances like these and solving all the problems around me at great risk to myself. And I’d be a big, handsome, muscular guy, too. And a monkey for a pet…that would have been icing on the cake.
This is a fun movie that can still make me smile with its story of good people doing good things. (And I thought I heard correctly, so I checked: Friday DOES call Mars "Huehuetenango." I’ve been there! …though in Guatemala, near the border with Mexico...not Mars.)
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