Every single crewmember is incredibly mean and rude to the reporter. It's like the writer personally hated journalists or something. Maybe his intent was to paint the crew as "strictly business" type military guys, or it was his way of making the story gritty and tough? Whatever... I don't expect the crew to be a sunshine and happy hippies, but what the hell?
shareExcept for the black guy with white hair! Maybe this was actually supposed to be Spider-Man in Space!
Hey, did you step in a pig?
Well, the reporter wasn't exactly a saint himself (going outside without permission for one). But I guess the crew could've been a little nicer to him or at least could've not called hime "Parasite" or "Leech". Why do reporters always have a bad reputation anyway?
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They were thinking about having to clean all his hair gunk out of that helmet? They considered him an outsider because he didn't have a very high forehead?
shareI got the impression of a highly regimented system. Likely needed to maintain safe life on stations and bases where a single slip-up could be disasterous. It has been used before in stories.
Also, as a reporter, maybee they all thought he was just around waiting for some acceident to cover. And as an untrained individual, he was likely seen as a potential hazard. Specially when he bucks rules or regulations.
I found this movie on the "50 Sci-Fi classics" box set. Most of them are "50 WORST sci-Fi" movies ever made, but a few are really outstanding, even one Russian made one that was dubbedd into English.
About Assignment: Outer Space, I do believe that the Sci-Fi channel did a remake of it in the late nineties with a reporter on the first manned trip to Mars where the reporter's laptop sabotages the ship and it almost crashes into Mars. I actually think that the original was better.
When I first started watching the movie I thought that it was another Russian movie especially when I heard Van Netters character use the word "Cosmonaut", what reall gets me is why the writers used the term "electronic brain" instead of Computer seeing as this movie was made in 1960.
With all of the regimented structure of the caractures I thought that the film was set in a military/fascist dictatorship. Quite possibly the writer was a former member of Mussilini's brownshirts.
As for the black guy with white hair, I personally know a good many blacks with pale gray hair, most of them in their late 60's and 70's, but I've been told that they've been like that since their early 30's.
If you get a chance watch:
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
And
Voyage to the planet of prehistoric women
Despite the atrocious titles they are really good low budget movies that you wont want to gouge out your eyes for watching.
And there is a bonus...NO KEVIN COSTNER!!!!
As for the black guy with white hair, I personally know a good many blacks with pale gray hair, most of them in their late 60's and 70's, but I've been told that they've been like that since their early 30's
The difference is, this guy looks like he's got about a quart of white house paint on his head.
http://www.bumscorner.com
http://www.myspace.com/porfle
The actors are ugly-looking. The dialogue is tortuous. If that weren't enough, the special effects consisted of perhaps a couple of Estes "c"-sized model rocket motors. I have always loved the Italian Spaghetti Westerns. However, if this movie is an indicator of their sci-fi ability....count me out. As an aside, I found this movie on iTunes under a podcast called "Cult of UHF". It was a free download, so I'm thinking this movie must be in the public domain.
shareMostly they saw the journalist there as useless. He was there to report on what was going on but helped in no other ways being there. That said they were unnecessarily rude to him.
sharethey don't send reporters up to the international space station, and probably with very good reason. if they sent them up there, they might be treated even WORSE than "ray" from "assignment outer space."
Jonathan Becker
I'm not surprised, the bloke acted like a total dick.
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