Tobor Pilot

 

 (wikipedia)

TOBOR AND THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE-1957- Professor Adams (Arthur Space), Steve (Bruce Cowling) and Talbot (Allen Reynolds) search for clues of a missing submarine. Also present are Adams' young nephew Tommy (Tommy Terrell) and the robot Tobor who Tommy can control by ESP. The adults send Tobor on a mission to the sub after they locate it. Unfortunately Tommy gets locked in the rocket they're using to send Tobor there. After some control trouble Tobor finds a bomb and throws it overboard. Later the sub is picked up by a pirate named Morgan (Gavin Gordon) and his war criminal scientist buddy Ohm (Franz Roehn). Tobor dispatches the whole crew and saves the day. 

Kind of juvenile little science fiction TV pilot for "Here Comes Tobor", a failed spin-off of the 1956 movie. It seems like it could have influenced future anime series. Director Duke Goldstone had once been an associate of George Pal, working on the "Puppetoons" series and DESTINATION MOON.

They should have made a horror movie where the robot meets Dracula. They could have called it "Tobor vs. Alucard.

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Ape Time!

 

 (imdb)

TIME OF THE APES-1987-Scientist Catherine (Reiko Tukunaga) and 2 children Johnny (Masaaki Kaji) and Caroline (Hiroko Saito) are transported to a future where apes rule the world. "I don't want to be killed by a monkey!", screams one kid.They are chased by some militaristic apes but with the help of a little monkey kid Pepe (Kasue Takita) they escape into the mysterious Green Mountain. Later they meet Godo (Tetsuya Usiho), a surviving human. It turns out the ape leader is really a nice guy and they were only treated badly by a militaristic uprising. 

This was actually a 26 episode Japanese TV (1974-75) series edited into one film by Sandy Frank. Despite the sub-par make-up, bad dubbing and low budget the ending is rather poignant (not unusual actually for a movie from Japan). Oddly, it was the last work by the two credited directors Kiyosumi Fukasawa and Atsushi Okunaka.

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Kiddie Stuff

CODY THE ROBOSAPIEN-A nerdy scientist (David Eigenberg) creates a kid like robot for search and rescue missions but his evil partner (Kim Coates) wants to sell it as a weapon to a foreign power. After the bot is injured escaping, a genius kid named Henry (Bobby Coleman) who has a mean older sister (Holliston Coleman) and an uncaring mother (Penelope Ann Miller) kind of fixes Cody up. Henry takes him to school where Cody break dances, plays basketball and helps Henry woo a girl he likes. Cody flies too and he and Henry have several dangerous adventures in his ET/Disney inspired children's story filmed in New Orleans. I guess kids might like it....

Apparently the main character is based on “biomorphic robot” created by the Hong Kong based company WowWee. It was written and co-produced by Avi Arad who co-produced many of the early Marvel Comics movie adaptations including the first Spider-Man trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. Another producer Steven Paul had directed stuff like ENTERNITY (1990) and SLAPSTICK (1982). Director Sean McNamara directed a lot of kids TV shows.

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