Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Japanese monster flicks, Jun Awazu's Negadon: The Monster from Mars bills itself as “the world's first completely computer generated monster movie,” a somewhat inaccurate claim given the 28-minute running time. Still, this loving homage to the Tokyo monster mashes of the 1950s and 1960s (Godzilla, etc.) follows the formula and captures the feel of those mid-20th-century drive-in classics. Set in the year 2025, Negadon kicks into action when a returning spaceship from a Mars terraforming project crash lands in Tokyo with a stowaway: the titular laser-ray-firing flying monster, who proceeds to indiscriminately lay waste to the environs. After traditional weaponry proves useless, the conflicted scientist Dr. Narasaki reluctantly fires up his long abandoned robot project—the MI-6—and faces off against Negadon in a climactic showdown. Granted, the story is shopworn and the dialogue in this dual-language edition is occasionally laughable (sample: “It's a space monster, for goodness sake!”), but the detailed animation is often wondrous to behold. Rated 13-up, DVD extras include a subtitled interview with the filmmaker, a non-narrated “making-of” breaking down various shots from the modeling through final cut stages, a pair of the filmmaker's short clips featuring a monster called Magara, and excellent subtitled “digital liner notes”—combining production details and trivia—that effectively serve as a commentary on the film. Recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)
Negadon: The Monster from Mars
(2005) 28 min. DVD: $19.95. Central Park Media (avail. from most distributors). Color cover. ISBN: 1-58664-512-9. Volume 21, Issue 5
Negadon: The Monster from Mars
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
Order From Your Favorite Distributor Today: