The Humanoid (1979)

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nThe Humanoid (1979)

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nDirector: Aldo Lado

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nCast: Richard Kiel, Barbara Bach

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nI’ve spoken a lot on this blog about Italian rip-offsnbecause they are just so damn entertaining. More so if you’ve seen the filmsnthey are shamelessly copying from. Usually Italian rip offs don’t just copynfrom one film, sometimes, like in the case of 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982)nthey copy from various films at the same time. In the case of The Humanoid,nthey were ripping off only one film in particular and that was George Lucas’ StarnWars (1977). Now, ripping off a film like Star Wars isn’t easy because itnimmediately involves a higher budget due to the fact that it’s a sciencenfiction film. Problem is that Italian Cinema isn’t exactly known for bignHollywood sized budgets, in fact they are known for the complete opposite. Butnthe prospect of making some money off of Star Wars was too great to pass up andnso the Italians did not one, but many Star Wars rip offs! The first one is onenof my favorite Italian rip offs ever, the inimitable Starcrash (1978). A filmnthat was meant to be a Star Wars rip-off, but ended up being a homage to Barbarellan(1968) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Now if you haven’t seen Starcrashnand love b-movies, do yourselves a favor and check it out. I promise you’llnlaugh your ass off while being completely entertained at the same time. FollowingnStarcrash was The Humanoid (1979) which by the way had a slightly higher budgetnthan Starcrash. Did more money translate into a decent film? For the longestntime I’d been dying to see this Star Wars rip off, so, how was it?

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nThe story goes something like this. A villain known as ‘LordnGraal’ enlists in the help of an evil scientist to create a chemical that cannturn everyone it comes in contact with into a brainless zombie willing to obey hisnevery whim. Lord Graal intends to release this chemical on the population of Planet  Metropolis, hoping in this way to create annunbeatable automaton army, you know, kind of like the clone army from the StarnWars films. But first they try the toxic on a random individual which ends upnbeing a pilot named Golob. Golob ends up becoming the titular Humanoid. At thensame time, the people of Metropolis have become aware of Lord Graals plans, sonthey send a soldier to stop Lord Graal. Will they succeed? Or will Lord Graalnturn everyone into a mindless automaton?
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nStarcrash is a cool movie in my book because while most ofnits posters and publicity materials screamed Star Wars (just take a look atnsome of its posters) the film itself wasn’t such a Star Wars rip off. To me itnturned into its own twisted, hilarious thing. I’m thinking producers wantednStar Wars, but Luigi Cozzi -the director- gave them a loving homage to oldnsci-fi/fantasy films. But The Humanoid? Here’s a real, true blue, Star Wars ripnoff! Oh my god! This one is Star Wars through and through! The sets, thenspaceships, the situations are all Star Wars inspired, only cheaper andnconsequently funnier. The Humanoid cost about 7 million (3 million more thatnStarcrash) and you can tell because it looks slightly better produced innsomeways. The sets and spaceships look slightly more expensive, but never as polished as anything you’d see on Star Wars. Producersnobviously spent their cash on making this one look exactly like Star Wars, but at the end of the day couldn’t really match it. So what we get is a goofy version of Star Wars.

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nBut just how Star Wars is The Humanoid? Well, let’s see…thenfilm starts off with a scrolling text introduction, we get giant triangular spaceshipsnflying through space. The main villain in the film is this guy who is dressednall in black. He is obviously this films Darth Vader, only he reminded me morenof Dark Helmet from Spaceballs (1986), but with a Samurai Helmet? They filmed anlot of the film in a dessert that resembles Tattoine, they even have this craftnthat hovers a few inches off the ground just like in Star Wars. Okay, checknthis out, how low is this? The film’s director is a guy called Aldo Lado, butnin order to make his name sound like George Lucas, they billed him as GeorgenLewis! I mean, that’s just sleazy marketing techniques. This films version of R2-D2nis a little robotic dog called ‘Robo-Dog’ who by the ways pees yellow liquid onnwhich the storm trooper types slip on, then he laughs at them when they fall.nHe also wags his antenna tail from time to time when excited! The film has somensleazy sexy stuff you’d never see in a Star Wars film, for example, thisnvillainess has these huge breasts…and the camera stays on them for a fewnseconds too long, I was just cracking up. Lord Graal has a girlfriend on thisnone whom he wants to share the universe with, and sex as well, there’snsomething Darth Vader never did. They even have a Princess Leia type characternentering data into a robot while saying the words “It’s our only hope”.   

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nThe one element of originality the film has is The Humanoidnitself, played by Richard Keil. When he is under the control of Lord Graal, henscreams like The Hulk, breaks down doors and throws bad guys up in the air! He looks like thenJames Bond villain in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), because he is! This filmngets really weird when it deviates from the Star Wars and goes into its ownncrazy territory, like this little Asian kid named Tom Tom, who has thesenamazing powers? He is basically like Jesus. He is also protected by these ghostnlike warriors, who by the way shoot glowing blue arrows! This magical kid keptnreminding me of The Golden Child (1986). At one point, when he completes hisnmission a ghost ship comes flying and picks him up to go to who the hell knowsnwhere, because who or what this magical kid is, is never truly explained. Hendoes say that he is “going back to Tibet”, laugh out freaking loud. But thennagain, many things are never explained, like the villain who sucks the lifenout of beautiful girls to get younger. This sub-plot goes nowhere! Why does shenhave to suck the life out of girls, if it has absolutely nothing to do with thenrest of the film? Whatever, who cares! Ultimately, it’s crazy elements likenthese that make these movies so entertaining. 

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nOther Italian Star Wars rip offs include: Space Odysseyn(1979), War in Space (1978), Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977) and War of thenRobots (1978), but I have a feeling none of them are as entertaining as eithernStarcrash (1978) or The Humanoid (1979), so watch those at your own risk. ThenHumanoid is the most blatant of all these rip offs. It has to be. I mean, youncan’t get more Star Wars than this! No way! You remember that scene in StarnWars where Han Solo and Luke are on board the Millennium Falcon and they startnshooting all those Tie Fighters? There’s a copy paste of those scenes on thisnone! It even looks like they used the same explosions! That whole scene wherenLeia is captured and tortured? Same thing here. n But then just when you think it’sna copy paste of Star Wars, Lord Graals hands light up and he begins to shootnblue laser beams out of them! So it’ll feel like a Star Wars rip off, but thenntotally not! It’s entertaining that way. Ultimately, I enjoyed Starcrash more (becausenits even crazier than this one) but The Humanoid is actually not that bad asnfar as bad movies go. It’s actually quite fun and recommend it if you ever wantnto turn your frown upside down.

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nRating: 3 out of 5   

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