Savage Titles: Savage Planet

Day 4 of Savage Titles bring us off to Science Fiction and thank God for that. Half expecting raper aliens and a women in prison in space. Fortunately, it is none of the above as we approach a distant planet for its riches of mineral,plant and oxygen atmosphere. The planet is being surveyed by humans in the hopes of finding a safe, new world to probably colonize, but they what the get is a mediocre plot device instead. This is Savage Planet.

Sure hope I don't get an off-screen death!

With Earth choking on its own pollution, and expedition was take under way in the search for (No, not Spock) oxygen. Presumably they have a giant vacuum attachment with them. Hey here is a nutty idea. MORE TREES!!!! Our team led by jump cuts and film sped up armed with hi-tech machetes as one of the crew gets his hand lopped off by a machete, falls down a hole, yellow goop completely regenerates that hand and then he is attacked by a poorly Blue screen matted film stock space bear. So to recap, no text scroll of titles, no real introduction to our team and space bears... all in 2 minutes. Yeah I can hardly what to see what happens next. 

Boom Mic guy has been working out, fellas.

Sean Patrick Flannery leads the new expedition as Randall Cain, a charismatic leader that thinks things belong in a museum. Lifted footage from Sanctuary showing you a home of the future and desperate times. Tired cliché of news offering exposition blurted on Flannery's tinfoil covered home as he preps his morning coffee and dear God it is depressing how in shape this man is. Sorry, bitter writer moment. His vacation canceled, he is off to go on to a foreign planet dubbed “Planet Oxygen”. Yeah it lacks punch. Their mission is to acquire an vast oxygen producing plant that will make the rain forest seem redundant by comparison. And they will be teleported on the planet with a long range teleporter. The survey bot that sent a recording was shown to the team via a MS DJ machine...OF THE FUTURE!!! Cain and his team assemble gear and supplies, transform and roll out!!! Okay, fine they just grabbed their gear and went to the teleportation ring.

20,000 light years away seems like quite a distance as they go through what looks like a Stargate prototype and the team scientist arrived safely as he preps the way for the others to come through and he must be deaf as a post as stock sound effect of bear growls and grunts are happening right behind him. The space bears draw near. Our team are going through one at a time to ratchet up tension or they think it is a nifty effect to keep showing and pad the film. Teleporter mishap of folding a guy bones the wrong way but no real worry the character was hastily put together and looked like a prison yard scumbag.

Will the space bears slay them all? Will the team find the needed planet? Can they get back home?

With a thrown together plot from a cheesy dimestore novel we have the characters fighting off space bears. The mildly cool predator POV shots almost made me expect something even more menacing than that but no. Funny thing is, I was just talking to my mom about this flick and she pointed out it was going to hurt. Death by stock footage is nothing new to me in this racket but dammit all, this was a stinker. Earth in turmoil because of humanity, last minute rescue for the planet and next to no budget for practical effects so we get CGI blood splatter, stock footage of brown bears to grizzlies. Yeah they changed species and the faces of distraught actually looked like they were constipated. To take care when viewing this film, because the Space Bears are very cross on the negative stereotypes that were portrayed here. They are all around us.

Fear the awesome power that is...SPACE BEAR!!!!