Cosmic Princess (TV Movie 1982) Poster

(1982 TV Movie)

User Reviews

Review this title
6 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
3/10
MST3K K10 - Schmucks in space, and no one cares...
squeaks-224 May 2005
Far in the future (1999!) humanity (i.e., Western non-Communist nations) has colonized the Moon on Moonbase Alpha, using the far side of it as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Then calamity strikes! The nuclear waste on the far side spontaneously explodes (don't you hate it when that happens!) and the Moon is sent hurtling (intact) out of Earth's orbit at millions of miles an hour! If you can believe that, then you might find a modicum of enjoyment from this "movie".

"Cosmic Princess" is basically two non-sequential episodes of "Space 1999" spliced together, which explains the lack of continuity in the middle of the film. The first part involves our heroes being held hostage by an Orson Wells impersonator with dyed hair who controls the whole of the planet through a computer made out of bubbling beaker fluids. The crew of Moonbase Alpha (I can't remember any of their names) eventually escape with the mad scientists's shape shifting daughter, Maya, the so-called Cosmic Princess. Maya is able to take on such princessly forms as: a lion, a dove, man in a gorilla suit, man in an anthropomorphic insect suit, and her father (hair, clothes and all).

In the second half, two crew members are stranded in space and struggle to catch up to the Moon (it fell into a time warp) as Maya loses control of her shape shifting abilities and runs amok on Moonbase Alpha. Checking around on the internet, the two episodes spliced together (The Metamorph and Space Warp) are actually the 1st and 14th episodes of the 2nd season of Space 1999. I bring this up because in the 2nd half of the movie it is difficult to understand why Maya isn't just blasted away after she kills some people and starts wrecking the base.

As a MST3K episode, the riffing is OK; much better in the 2nd half, especially during the intense 5mph moon buggy chase scene near the end. It originally aired during the Super Bowl in 1989 so there are a lot of football references in the breaks during the movie.
13 out of 19 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
3/10
I've never been a fan of Space: 1999 - and this changes nothing
bensonmum212 February 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I grew up during 1960s and 1970s and there's still a lot of television from this period that I enjoy – The Avengers, Rat Patrol, Hogan's Heroes, Charlie's Angels, and Mission: Impossible just to name a few examples. I bring this up because Cosmic Princess is essentially two episodes of Space: 1999, a syndicated sci-fi television program produced from 1975 to 1977. I was never a fan so cobbling two episodes together and calling it a movie has very little appeal to me. In a word, it's as dull as dishwater. Things take forever to happen. It's tedious to the nth degree. The sets and scripts make the original Star Trek (another show I'm not a big fan of) look like they spent a fortune. Maybe someone who actually enjoyed Space: 1999 would find something to like about Cosmic Princess (and I know the show has fans), but I'm not that person.

Because Cosmic Princess is two episodes of Space: 1999, there are two distinct plots. The first (originally called The Metamorph) finds the crew of Moonbase Alpha in the clutches of Mentor (Brian Blessed) who wants to drain their souls to power a machine he hopes to use to restore his planet to its former glory. I'll admit, Blessed's performance is a treat. The man is an awesome actor. The crew escapes with Mentor's daughter, Maya, just before the planet blows up. In the second half of Cosmic Princess (originally titled Space Warp), Maya transforms herself into a hideous being and goes on a rampage attempting to escape and return to her home planet. The highlight of this segment is an unintentionally hilarious moon buggy chase.

Like many people who have seen Cosmic Princess in the past few years, I did so via a low quality DVD-R of an old Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. This particular episode of MST3K was part of the Minneapolis public-access run before the show hit the "big time". Some of the jokes work, but like a lot of the KTMA shows, the riffs are far too inconsistent to call it good. I'll give it a 2/5 on my MST3K rating scale.
4 out of 10 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
1/10
Roddenberry's twisted future on acid
InzyWimzy22 September 2000
Ah, I was so fortunate enough to see this on a KTMA MST episode. I can see why it is a made for TV movie which really should have been a made for compost heap. Really cheesy special effects, groovy 70's space clothing, mindless action which gradually distracts the viewer from realizing the mind numbingly stupid plot can all be found in this crossbreed of Star Trek and c**p.

Even a less wrinkly Martin Landau couldn't produce any enjoyment from this. The first half deals with some alien with a really bad hairstylist kidnapping Landau and crew while planning for ruling the universe. Here, we meet Maya (also has bad tastes in salons) who has the ability to change forms through crappy 70's style scene cutting. In the second half of this torture, Landau is separated from the moon base and must figure out how to get back there. Also, to figure out if anyone has been following the storyline. A real hilarious part is when Maya starts tripping out and tearing up the moon base after changing into what looks like a giant mop monster. Lots of bodies flying, slow motion body slams, and crappy studio space sets still cannot save this film. But, to cope with these types of movies, MST3K always helps the easen the pain. Best watched with chips and booze.
13 out of 32 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
5/10
They blew up the moon!
BandSAboutMovies14 May 2021
Warning: Spoilers
British science fiction force Gerry Anderson is probably best known in the U. S. for his series Thunderbirds, which used Supermarionation to tell the stories of the team known as International Rescue. By the 70's, he and his wife Sylvia were working together on shows like UFO and The Protectors, while being courted by Cubby Broccoli to write a treatment for Moonraker that was never used.

As part of the Andersons long and successful association with media impresario Lew Grade and his company ITC, Space 1999 was, at the time it was made, the most expensive British series ever made. Airing from 1075 to 1977 - man, they just missed the chance to be part of the Star Wars boom - the series is all about Moonbase: Alpha, staffed by 311 humans who are suddenly launched into deep space when nuclear waste stored on the moon explodes and sends them through the galaxy, in effect turning our moon into a spaceship. One imagines that the Earth itself did not survive, so everyone involved in this show really are the last human beings in the galaxy.

This all came about because the show UFO did better ratings when it was set on the moon. Anderson had been working on a show called UFO: 1999, but when the original show was canceled, he couldn't get Grade interested in a follow-up. When he pitched this show, the producer demanded that there not be any Earth-bound settings. Anderson responded by blowing up the planet real good in the very first episode.

The issues on this show started when Grade demanded American leads and Sylvia, who usually handled the casts, wanted British actors. She would later say that she could have seen Robert Culp and Katharine Ross in the show, but the main characters of John Koenig and Helena Russell went to real-life couple Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who had appeared on Misson: Impossible together and who were thought to have been a ratings draw for American audiences.

The show seemingly was always a battle, with writers leaving, budgets being overspent and ITC worried that the show would only run on American syndication and not a network, despite being sold to nearly every nation around the world. It also didn't help that the Andersons split up between the first and second seasons.

All of this brings us to Cosmic Princess, which is basically two episodes from season 2 - "The Metamorph" and "Space Ward" - edited together. These stories introduce Maya (Catherina Von Schell, On Her Majesty's Secret Service), an alien who would take up the "Spock" role that some felt would propel the show into being must see TV.

By the time of this story, Moonbase:Alpha had already made its way through two space warps and entered the orbit of Psychon, which just so happened to have the minerals that the crew needed to survive. There's a theory throughout the show that the leaps that the planet made were predestined and guided by outside forces - like the writing team, maybe? - but that may also be to covered narrative lapses in logic.

That said, it's all a trap by the planet's leader Mentor (Brian Blessed!) who is using a machine to drain their souls and make his planet less like hell and more like heaven. His daughter Maya helps the crew escape and joins them. The second episode in here has an alien ship to be explored as Maya deals with a virus that makes her transform into all sorts of monsters.

Speaking of Star Wars, one of the aliens in the second part is named Vader, which is done in voiceover and certainly seems like a complete cash-in.

This movie aired in syndication and all over the world, including KTLA, where it was one of the original movies that Mystery Science Theater 3000 made fun of.

So yeah. I kind of loved Space: 1999 as a kid. I had the Mattel Eagle 1, the Power Records book and record sets and the Charlton comics. If you watch this today and think, "Man, this is really wooden and slow and somewhat boring," I'll just say that pre-Star Wars, science fiction fans did not have many choices other than watching Star Trek again and again.
1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Less than adequate compilation of two more than adequate episodes
teeveeke26 May 1999
Space: 1999's unfairly maligned second season opened with "The Metamorph", wherein the personnel of Moonbase Alpha are threatened by an obsessive alien scientist on an awesomely realized planet of volcanoes, a scientist intent upon transforming his boiling planet back to the temperate, Earth-like habitat that it once had. Technically, the production of "The Metamorph" is admirable by any standards, culminating in a spectacular planetary explosion, and "The Metamorph" is also the vehicle for the introduction of Maya, biologically transforming daughter of the obsessive scientist on Moonbase Alpha. "Space Warp" is a later second season episode of Space: 1999 wherein Maya is stricken with fever and visions of her home planet's extinction and molecular-transforms into rampaging beasts in a vain effort to return to her planet of origin, an exciting premise that most viewers fail to appreciate because Space: 1999 is not allowed the same licence to use monsters of the kind that made Doctor Who so very popular. Cosmic Princess is an editing together of "The Metamorph" and "Space Warp" with bulk scene deletion and a blending of drastically different musical scores from Space: 1999's two seasons, and as such it is not the ideal way to watch Space: 1999's second season.
13 out of 18 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
An OK movie produced by editing 2 episodes of Space: 1999
peter-faizey6 October 2005
In 1982 ITC New York Offices decided to edit together 4 episodes of Space: 1999 to create 2 more Gerry Anderson movies to rap up their 'Super Space Theatre' series which would be broadcast on American television. This was their first Space: 1999 movie made by editing together two episodes of Space: 1999 from Season 2 'Metamorph' and 'Space Warp'. 5 minutes was cut from each episode to bring the total length to 95 minutes (the maximum for a 2 hour television slot on American television). In addition annoying video animated opening and ending titles were added and music from the first series of Space: 1999 which is a contrast to the Season 2 music. They even added music from two other Gerry Anderson series 'Joe 90' and 'UFO'.For some reason the producer's also decided to change the dialogue of the Grasshopper alien in the 'Space Warp' section, in favour of an irritating Star Wars joke, as the Grasshopper is now called 'Vader, Commander of the Wileys Interplanetary Star Fleet'. Having said this the episodes do blend together well and the added music isn't too bad, even if sometimes it overlap's with the original soundtrack! It does however deserve some amount of respect, because it was one of the first glimpses British fans had of the series on video in the mid 80's when Channel 5 video released it. Anyone who likes Space: 1999 should enjoy this movie, but it is not always faithful to the original material and the ITC London made 'Destination Moonbase Alpha' and 'Alien Attack' are much more faithful to the show.
10 out of 12 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed