The Unidentified Flying Oddball
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Features
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 01 January, 1979
DVD Release : 03 August, 2004 |
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The Unidentified Flying Oddball Customer Reviews
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A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court
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Unidentified Flying Oddball is short for U.F.O. of course. This live action film from the Walt Disney studio is the story of Tom Trimble the astronaut (Dennis Dugan) and his robot Hermes who's newly designed faster than the speed of light spaceship the Stardust is hit by a lightening bolt and knocked back in time to the days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Thinking he has traveled to another world, Tom leaves the craft in his spacesuit, but the citizens think he is a monster or dragon. After being imprisoned, Tom learns of a threat from the nefarious Sir Mordred (Jim Dale) who wants to take the King's throne at Camelot for himself. Merlin (Ron Moody) is aiding him and is envious of Tom's abilities, as he sees his own power based on illusion diminishing, and worse yet the King (Kenneth More) likes Tom. Tom is sentenced to be burned at the stake, but uses technology to save his life. His suit keeps him from burning up for one thing. He convinces the King he can't die and wants to help him, and he is released. After Tom is released he begins to help improve the kingdom, and along the way develops a love interest with Alisande (Sheila White), but Merlin and Sir Mordred join forces to take over the kingdom, and Tom must help the Knights defend the King in a big battle. There is some light romance, some action, and plenty of comedy. The promotional movie poster that Walt Disney studios released at the time had the tagline of "Chaos in the cosmos". Note: For those people that like the typical kind but powerful Merlin character, be forewarned, this is an evil Merlin whose power is mostly just illusion.
If the acting and productions seems at times like a 1970's TV sitcom, that may be the result of director Russ Mayberry, who worked on shows such as I Dream of Jeannie, and Bewitched. Don Tate wrote the screenplay as a loose re-interpretation of the Mark Twain story, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Shooting occurred on location, and a team was formed to film exteriors at the real 11th century castle Alnwick, and interiors at Pinewood Studios. At the castle's village, the producers hired 1,000 extras to be used in the film. The special effects crew was responsible for creating a space shuttle with a working ramp and carries a moon buggy that expands to double its size, and a robot arm. Additionally they had to come up with a flying jetpack, spacesuits, magnetized sword, and space guns.
The movie went through some inexplicable name changes during production and subsequent release. The working title during production was "A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court", and it was released in England first under that title on July 10, 1979. Weeks later it hit U.S. theatres on July 26, 1979 as "Unidentified Flying Oddball", yet having a subtitle of "The Spaceman and King Arthur". When it aired on "The Wonderful World of Disney", on February 27 and March 6 1982 as a two part episode, it was re-titled again as "A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court". When it was released on video for the first time in 1986, it was changed back again to "Unidentified Flying Oddball". Running time is not long at 93 minutes. All in all, good clean family fun.
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The Unidentified Flying Oddball dvd movie.