Tweet
Released by: Warner Archive
Released on: 5/18/2010
Director: Robert Butler
Cast: Ford Rainey, James Olson, John Saxon, Kathleen Miller, Keene Curtis, Martine Beswick, Reb Brown
Year: 1975
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
It's not really all that surprising that Strange New World is eerily similar to Genesis II (or, if you prefer, Planet Earth) when you consider that both of these made for TV movies, patched together from television episodes that never really made it to air in series form, are culled from the work of Star Trek guru Gene Roddenberry. That said, where Genesis II and Planet Earth featured Roddenberry's guiding hand, this take on the source material does not. Instead, we get John Saxon in a red toga and Catharine Bach (wasted in an early supporting role with very little to do), among a few other interesting cast members (Martine Beswick being one.
Saxon plays an astronaut named Captain Tony Vico who, along with compatriots Dr. Allison Crowley (Kathleen Miller) and Dr. William Scott (Keene Curtis), is put into suspended animation and sent into space for a long journey. While the three are frozen, the Earth is beat to crap by an asteroid storm. Mission Control, not wanting their ship to get pummeled by giant space rocks, reroutes it and a hundred and eighty years later the three travelers awake to find instructions from the organization they were employed by to thaw out some other people who were secretly put into suspended animation as well, which basically becomes their mission for a while.
Once they drive their space car around and find the hidden, frozen folk they find a signal that somehow knocks them out, only for them to once again awaken in a bizarre marbled palace where everyone is dressed in togas. It turns out they've been captured by The Surgeon (James Olson) and his cult of nut jobs who are bent on rewriting medical science as we know it. Thanks to their incessant efforts to clone things, the citizens of the world are now susceptible to any and every virus out there and so they've built a decontamination shield to keep them safe. As luck would have it, what they need to set things right are blood samples from three healthy unfrozen astronauts, and wouldn't you know it, Vico and his pals just happen to fit the bill.
From there the movie moves into 'second episode' territory as our heroes drive the space car through the desert only to run into a trap filled with weird animals and cavemen and nutty wildlife preserve owners. Allison gets kidnapped and it's up to the men folk to save her sweet ass before it's too late.
Choppy, goofy and not very well made at all, Strange New World isn't very good, but it is pretty watchable, particularly if you have a soft spot for the dopey side of seventies science fiction. It's all very dated and not very well thought out or particularly logical, but hey, you get space buggies, girls in skimpy outfits, and papier-mí¢ché looking sets. That counts for something. Saxon is good in the lead, he's charismatic and enthusiastic enough in the role that even when the script is scraping the bottom of the barrel it's always watchable enough. This may be the very epitome of mindless, dumb, science fiction but it's a reasonably amusing time killer and an interesting relic of the era in which it was made. By the time the movie over with, it hasn't really gone anywhere or done anything all that interesting (a problem that likely stems from its origins as it had to have been written or at least developed for an episodic format rather than a feature length one) but it won't make you want to kick your DVD player.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Strange New World is presented in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio demonstrating very nice color in a decent progressive scan transfer. There's some mild print damage but given the film's age that's understandable. The contrast levels look good, detail is stronger than you'd probably expect, and while there's a little bit of shimmer, this is otherwise a decent looking effort. The film has not been given any sort of restoration according to the Warner Archives website, but at least the elements used for this transfer appear to have been in pretty nice shape and this is definitely one of the better looking WB Archive releases this reviewer has seen so far.
The English language Dolby Digital Mono track is obviously limited in range but the dialogue is easy to understand and the levels are properly balanced. There aren't any recurring problems with hiss to complain and generally the movie sounds alright.
There's a static menu and some chapter stops, but aside from that, this is an entirely barebones affair.
The Final Word:
Strange New World isn't technically very good but it's entertaining enough thanks to a fun cast, some quirky costume design, and that skewed seventies version of what people back then thought the future would look like. The Warner Archive release is devoid of any extras but it looks and sounds alright.